Shame and Woe to the UN for producing an Immoral, Dubious and Unscrupulous Report

As expected of the UN, it appoints severely biased panellists, in turn vindicates and exonerates the bigger issue of criminality on the high seas and tries to justify the inhumane and barbaric blockade of 1.5 million people of deprived and stricken Gaza. This two man panel Palmer and Uribe (oh! so few choices amongst honourable men, none a Goldstone among them) themselves should be indicted for supporting crime against humanity as well as the UN secretary general for the idiosyncrasy or malicious expediency to appoint them.

   

The 105 page report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla Incident is a non event, based on fallacies, a whitewash, a shame on the UN and if it is left standing is an indictment of the apathy of all of its pliant members, Arab, Muslim and democratic countries alike and are all to be held accountable.

Everyone knows that Palmer, the head of this panel, is very close to Israel, while Uribe was a prime buyer of Israeli-made weapons during his time in office as Colombian president and was awarded the “Light unto the Nations” prize by the American Jewish Committee and the “Presidential Gold Medallion for Humanitarianism” from B’nai Brith.  Uribe undertakes his role of impartial investigator weighed down by his Zionist partiality and connections.

The appointments despite such a great conflict of interest, is of course a sign of either ineptitude or bad intentions on the part of the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon.

The panel exerted great efforts to justify Israel’s brutal Gaza blockade, which the UN Human Rights Council and the International Red Crescent Committee found illegal and illegitimate. The two men panel shamelessly declared the Israel’s Gaza blockade to be legitimate, thereby contradicting its own propositions. In this legally and morally problematic report, the Palmer panel devoted its energy and efforts to justifying the naval blockade Israel is illegally imposing on another country, instead of reporting the act of banditry and massacre Israel had committed in international waters 72 miles off its coast.

The passengers were unarmed. But still the Israeli soldiers chose to shoot them “multiple times, including in the back or at close range”. This act of aggression resulting in the loss of innocent lives on the Mavi Marmara had not, according to the report, been “adequately accounted for” by Israel.

It is not a report intended to investigate the Israeli army’s piracy and the Mavi Marmara bloodbath, but a piece of immoral, unscrupulous and extremely biased material for propagandizing the legitimacy of the Gaza blockade. For this reason, as accurately noted by Turkish President Abdullah Gül, this report is legally void and invalid for Turkey. Turkey’s UN envoy rejected the report’s claim that the blockade was justified, pointing out that freedom of navigation on the high seas was part of international law, and a blockade required a broader convergence of views.

In the final analysis, this report prepared by a panel set up by the UN, an international organization which was originally established to support international peace and stability and protect the validity of international legal norms, fails to improve bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel or reinforce regional peace and stability, but has triggered a serious process of crisis and tension. Turkey has made its clearest stand and action on the principle of justice and humanity. Will Egypt which also recently suffered deaths inside its own borders from the hands of the Israeli killing machine follow suit to uphold it dignity?

 

All I want is to be treated as a human being with dignity

After 4 years of pain and hardship, Egypt reopens its border with Gaza

All they ever wanted was to be set free. It took the downfall of Mubarak and his dictatorship in Egypt before Gaza could get closer to be free once again. Gaza had to go through 4 years of siege and blockade. If that was not enough Israel bombarded its dense population and showered them with white phosphorus rain. As recorded in a song, Israel went manic and cast their mission in molten lead to be poured mercilessly onto helpless Palestinians as they have done often and ever again. Israel destroyed mosques, universities, schools and homes but to no avail. Palestinians are forever defiant.

It has been reported Egypt lifted a 4-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, greatly easing travel restrictions on the 1.5 million residents of the Palestinian territory . There maybe many various reasons for this but when the UN's Ban Ki Moon went on record to discourage and speak against international aid flotillas intended to break the Gaza siege, it shows that the powers that be are feeling the pressure of conspiring and colluding in the most inhumane act in the history of he modern world. May they be condemned forever for their crimes against humanity!

"I was so happy to hear that the Egyptian border is opening so I can finally travel for treatment," said Mohammad Zoarob, a 66-year-old suffering from chronic kidney disease.

The blockade, which has fueled a prolonged economic crisis in Gaza, is deeply unpopular among Arabs and the free world, and Egypt's caretaker leaders had promised to end it since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after the Islamic militant Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007.

"All we need is to travel like humans, be treated with dignity and feel like any other citizens of the world who can travel in and out freely," said Rami Arafat, 52, who hoped to catch a flight out of Cairo on Sunday to attend his daughter's wedding in Algeria.

Nearby, 28-year-old Khaled Halaweh said he was headed to Egypt to study for a master's degree in engineering at Alexandria University.

"The closure did not affect only the travel of passengers or the flowing of goods. Our brains and our thoughts were under blockade," said Halaweh, who said he hadn't been out of Gaza for seven years.

(partly sourced from AP)

The Palestine Papers 8: British Intelligence spooking and haunting Palestinians

Extraordinary Rendition British Style: MI6 offered to detain Hamas figures

The Palestine Papers reveal that the British government played a significant role in equipping and funding the Palestinian security forces, several of which have been linked to torture and other abuses. British government provided financial support for two Fatah security forces linked to torture.

More unbelievably, the UK’s MI-6 intelligence service proposed detaining members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an extraordinary –and illegal – scheme in which the European Union would have paid for their detention.

Under the heading “degrading the capabilities of the rejectionist groups,” the MI-6 document suggests:

"... the disruption of their leaderships' communications and command and control capabilities; the detention of key middle-ranking officers; and the confiscation of their arsenals and financial resources held within the Occupied Territories. US and - informally - UK monitors would report both to Israel and to the Quartet. We could also explore the temporary internment of leading Hamas and PIJ figures, making sure they are "welltreated", with EU funding."

An appendix to the document outlines how the British government helps the Palestinian Authority. It includes British plans to seize firearms and rockets from the West Bank and Gaza; to cut off funding to “rejectionist groups” like Hamas; and to reduce weapons smuggling through tunnels into Gaza.

(excerpts from Al Jazeera)

The Palestine Papers 7: PA nullifying Israeli war crimes in Gaza: PA defers Goldstone's Report

PA complicitly attempts to defer release of Goldstone's Report of Israel's assault on Gaza

Palestinian Authority leaders co-operated with US officials in a bid to postpone the reference of the Goldstone report into war crimes in Gaza to the UN security council, leaked papers reveal. The PA, who have denied they made the decision under US pressure, later reversed their decision.

The postponement of the report into Israel's 2008 assault on Gaza triggered heavy criticism of the PA leadership, at one time threatening Abbas's position. But at a meeting on 21 October 2009, three weeks after the Goldstone scandal erupted, US national security adviser Jim Jones told the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat: "Thank you for what you did a couple of weeks ago [on Goldstone]; it was very courageous".

On the day the reference of the report was delayed, US officials presented Palestinian negotiators with a "non paper" [a proposal that is off the record in diplomatic terms] committing the PA to "help promote a positive atmosphere conducive to negotiations ... [and] refrain from pursuing or supporting any initiative directly or indirectly in international legal forums that would undermine that atmosphere".

Erekat's response was to tell Mitchell: "On going to the UN we will always co-ordinate with you."

The papers also reveal new evidence of contact between Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, the Palestinian president, and Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defence ministry official and senior negotiator, before the the launch of Israel's assault in late 2008.

Abbas issued a forceful denial late last year when US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks were quoted as reporting that in June 2009 Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, told a US congressional delegation that Israel "had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to Operation Cast Lead, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas." Barak continued: "Not surprisingly...Israel received negative answers from both."

The Palestine Papers also record how Gilad and Tzipi Livni, then Israeli foreign minister, had spoken to Palestinian negotiators of the likelihood of a fullscale confrontation over Gaza. "We are on a collision course with Hamas," Gilad warned them. "You need to be prepared.. Sooner or later they [Hamas] will be taken care of."

At a meeting, Senator Mitchell presented Erekat with a document containing language that, if agreed to, would nullify one of the PA’s few weapons – the chance to prosecute Israeli officials for war crimes in Gaza at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The U.S. language stated:

“The PA will help to promote a positive atmosphere conducive to negotiations; in particular during negotiations it will refrain from pursuing or supporting any initiative directly or indirectly in international legal forums that would undermine that atmosphere.”

Erekat, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority accepted the language and simultaneously agreed to call for a deferral of the UNHRC vote. Unsurprisingly, this decision was met by outrage, as Palestinians and Arab nations condemned the PA leadership for kowtowing yet again to American and Israeli pressure.

Israel leaked the PA’s support for the resolution deferral on the day before the UNHRC vote was to take place. Erekat, undoubtedly caught off-guard, was outspoken in his complaints weeks later to the U.S. on what he perceived as unfair Israeli tactics. In a meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones on October 21, 2009, Erekat revealed:

“Then came Goldstone and all hell broke loose. You know the first public response to the Goldstone thing came from Lieberman, who said Abu Mazen agreed to postpone the vote because the Israelis threatened to release the “tapes” showing him coordinating the attack on Gaza with Israel. Then there was the report that he did it for Wataniya, which they said is owned by his two sons.”

Jones, however, was quick to assure Erekat that the PA’s efforts would not go unnoticed. “And thank you for what you did a couple weeks ago,” Jones told Erekat. “It was very courageous.”

That same day, Erekat also met with Mitchell, and wasted no time in asking for the U.S. to deliver on its previous promises.

Erekat: When can you give me something, a document or a package, so I can take it to [Abu Mazen], so we can study it in good faith?

Mitchell: Much of what I read is not controversial...

For the United States, and unfortunately for the PA, it was simply business as usual.

The Palestine Papers 3: PA Colluding to Strangle Gaza

Qurei to Israel: "Occupy the crossing"

On January 23, 2008, masked gunmen demolished the steel wall alongside the Philadelphi route in Rafah and hundreds of thousands Gazans entered Egypt to buy food and supplies. Less than two weeks later, in a meeting in West Jerusalem, Ahmed Qurei, the former Palestinian Authority prime minister, asked Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister, if Israel could re-occupy the Philadephi corridor to seal the border and cut off supplies to Hamas.

Livni: We’ll not give legitimacy to Hamas and we’ll stop the smuggling of money and arms from Egypt. Did the opening of the borders appear to be a victory of Hamas?”

Qurei: Yes, they appeared to have ended the siege.

Livni: The Egyptians don’t do enough, and we’re sure they can do much more.

Qurei: What can you do about the Philadelphi Crossing?

Livni: We’re not there.

Qurei: You’ve re-occupied the West Bank, and you can occupy the crossing if you want.

Livni: We can re-occupy the Gaza Strip. What is your position?

Qurei to Israel: "Occupy the crossing"

Later that month, during another meeting on the issue of security, Livni seemed willing to retake control of the corridor after Israel and the PA would reach a peace agreement.

Livni: Regarding Philadelphi, whether or not it was a mistake to leave it. If indeed it was a mistake, since Egypt is not effective like Jordan, can our agreement provide for Israeli presence in Philadelphi?

Qurei: Palestine will be independent but can co-ordinate. Agreement should reflect that with a commitment to security. Therefore regarding parameters I believe security is part of regional vision. Other neighbours don't have a problem -- regional security is interconnected.

Even before the takeover in 2007, the PA was desperately trying to keep control over the Gaza Strip by pleading for more weapons from the US, as is reflected in a meeting between Saeb Erekat, the chief PA negotiator, and Keith Dayton, the then-US security co-ordinator for Israel and the PA in May 2006:

Erekat: The PG [Presidential Guard] is in dire need of guns and ammunition. Particularly with the situation in Gaza, this issue is critical. [Keith Dayton replied that he will raise this point with Israelis particularly in meeting with Ephraim, (Israeli deputy defence minister) tomorrow]. "We need to re-establish security liaison with Israel. This is the best way to maintain security."

After the Hamas takeover in 2007, the fighting capabilities of Hamas and other resistance forces in the West Bank were crushed. The PA then started to crack down on the civilian infrastructure of the movement, as is shown in a meeting between Yoav Mordechai, the the head of the Civil Administration in the Occupied Territories, and Hazem Atallah, the PA police chief in the West Bank, in May 2008 in Tel Aviv.

In one of the most candid examples of the PA’s bid to tighten the noose around the Gaza Strip in order to punish Hamas, Erekat shows his disagreements with Israel and Egypt on their Gaza policy. In a meeting with George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy in October 2009, Erekat appears frustrated that not enough was being done to maintain the siege on Gaza:

Erekat: Senator, I am just briefing you on my meetings with the Israelis. I am not giving you a message. They were good meetings. I told Amos Gilad [Israel’s chief negotiator]: you are Egypt’s man. You know the Egyptians. 11km! [Referring to the length of the border with Gaza]. What’s going on with you and the US, the $23 million [given by the US Agency for International Development to prevent tunnels] and ditches - its business as usual in the tunnels - the Hamas economy...Amos Gilad started laughing!

Mitchell: What did he say?

Erekat: They don’t want to say anything negative about Egypt. It’s their strategic relation with them. But they make me pay the price. I am no longer there. I am not alone responsible for the coup d’etat in Gaza

(al Jazeera & Guardian sources)

The Palestine Papers 2: PA surrendering everything and getting nothing

The papers reveal the extreme extent of what Palestinian Authority leadership was willing to surrender in order to please ever intransigent, overbearing, domineering and confident Isreali negotiators. They capitulated, gave up on everything, selling out the whole of Jerusalem (biggest Yerushalayim for Israel), relinquishing Palestinian right of return in accepting only a small token number of refugee return, recognising Israel as a fully Jewish State implying Zionism and accepting unconditionally a future state predetermined derisively (in future) by Israel itself. In typical sardonic Israeli response, these were deemed not enough, rejected disdainfully and the PA was left at a lurch, bargaining away all its chips dirt cheap.

Among the shameful episodes:- when PA purposely delayed release of Goldstone Report of Israeli atrocities in its Gaza onslaught as urged by the Israelis and the US citing not to hamper negotiations. PA also knew in advance of Israeli plans to attack Gaza. The excerpts:-

The papers indicate that the PA was warned in advance of and complicit in the 2008-2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza that claimed the lives of over 1,400 Palestinians. In addition, transcripts recount several discussions in which PA negotiators urged the Israelis to tighten their siege of the Gaza strip that has subjected a million-and-a-half Palestinians to hunger and misery. (WSWS)

By offering or at least indicating that it was prepared to offer such huge concessions, the PA leadership encouraged Israel’s political and military leaders in their belief that if only they are intransigent, repressive and brutal enough for long enough, they can break the will of the Palestinians to continue their struggle and force them to accept a handful of crumbs from Zionism’s table. (Alan Hart, ICH)

The documents – many of which will be published by the Guardian and Al Jazeera – also reveal:

They outline major concessions Palestinians offered during talks, which were rejected by Israel. They include:

• · a formal offer to allow Israel to annex all but one of the Jewish settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem
• 
  
• · an international committee to take over Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which houses the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque - Islam's third holiest site
• 
  
• · limiting the number of Palestinian refugees returning to 100,000 over a span of 10 years

• The scale of confidential concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators, including on the highly sensitive issue of the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

• How Israeli leaders privately asked for some Arab citizens to be transferred to a new Palestinian state.

• The intimate level of covert co-operation between Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority.

• The central role of British intelligence in drawing up a secret plan to crush Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

• How Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders were privately tipped off about Israel's 2008-9 war in Gaza.

The Aid Flotilla

The Incident

Israeli commandos conduct a bloody raid on a humanitarian flotilla in international waters seizing crew, passengers and ships. Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine. The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back.

Turkish Response

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed it most forcefully in a televised speech last week: "You [Israel] killed 19-year-old Furkan Dogan brutally. Which faith, which holy book can be an excuse for killing him? I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. Did you not understand? I'll say again. I say in English, 'You shall not kill'. Did you still not understand? So I'll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew, 'Lo Tirtzakh'."

US Response

"We communicated with Israel through multiple channels many times regarding the flotilla. We emphasised caution and restraint, given the anticipated presence of civilians, including American citizens," a State Department spokesman said in a statement.

Israeli Response

The usual claim that Israel offers time and again in order to justify its vicious repression of the Palestinian people is that it has the right to defend itself. Few would argue that it doesn't. But it can only do it legally. For decades now Israel has been engaged in provocative actions on Palestinian territory - appropriating land that belongs to Palestinians, destroying century-old olive groves, diverting water to Jewish settlements, leaving an inadequate supply for Palestinian farmers, and on and on.. When people object, Israel goes into its "we are victims mode." Like the schoolyard bully who runs crying to the teacher when a classmate finally fights back.

From Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz: "Recently an intelligence official actually called the absence of Palestinian terror a 'propaganda problem.'"

Israeli Contempt

British consulate officials were treated contemptuously. One example: the British consulate official from Jerusalem tried to have a private conversation through a prison cell door--we weren't allowed to meet face to face--with two British citizens. The junior prison guard refused to move. When he was asked to move, he brought two other prison guards. When the diplomat explained that under all international treaties, protocol and the law, he's entitled to speak to his nationals privately, the junior guard said, "Go to your international tribunals, go to your law, we don't care."

In another incident, Ann Wright, ex US diplomat had been seen in a videotape of detainees being brought into Ashdod, an Israeli port. In an interview, she said she was held at a "brand new Israeli prison" in Barsheba, where she was treated well. But she said that law enforcement officials upon her departure, airport law enforcement officials were "laughing, giggling, commenting on (the) wounded and dead. It was a very pitiful, pitiful performance by law enforcement people."

Israeli Sarcasm

A video mocking the humanitarian activists was distributed officially by the Israeli government before being pulled back due to vehement protests of its blatant insensivity. Mark Regev, Israeli government spokesman, defends the attack which killed nine passengers on the Freedom Flotilla and commented on the video. "I called my kids in to watch it because I thought it was funny, it's how Israelis feel" he said.

Prior to the storming of the Turkish ship, the Israeli GPO (Government Press Office) sent an e-mail to journalists sarcastically recommending that while covering "alleged humanitarian difficulties," journalists should dine at one of Gaza's few restaurants. "We have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended," the e-mail said.

Humour or black comedy does not always side with Israel or its supporters. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show said Charles Krauthammer, columnist and fervent Israel supporter, made the stupidest @#$& thing anyone ever said about the Middle East. Krauthammer said that there was no need for the flotilla since there was no humanitarian crisis and no one was starving in Gaza. Stewart smirked and paused and said that whatever anyone thinks of the Israeli leadership or Hamas, or religious beliefs, if someone fails to see the suffering in Gaza that needs to be alleviated, then his heart is so dead that "tourists flock there to float their backs in it".

Obama's Meek Response

Here’s what we’ve got. You’ve got a situation in which Israel has legitimate security concerns when they’ve got missiles raining down on cities along the Israel-Gaza border. I’ve been to those towns and seen the holes that were made by missiles coming through people’s bedrooms. So Israel has a legitimate concern there. On the other hand, you’ve got a blockade up that is preventing people in Palestinian Gaza from having job opportunities and being able to create businesses and engage in trade and have opportunity for the future.

Robert Fisk's Observation

I wasn't personally at all surprised at the killings on the Turkish ship. In Lebanon, I've seen this indisciplined rabble of an army – as "elite" as the average rabble of Arab armies – shooting at civilians. I saw them watching the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians on the morning of 18 September (the last day of the slaughter) by their vicious Lebanese militia allies. I was present at the Qana massacre by Israeli gunners in 1996 – "Arabushim" (the equivalent of the abusive term "Ayrab" in English), one of the gunners called the 106 dead civilians, more than half of them children, in the Israeli press. Then the Israeli government of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres said there were terrorists among the dead civilians – totally untrue, but who cares? – and then came the second Qana massacre in 2006 and then the 2008-09 Gaza slaughter of 1,300 Palestinians, most of them children, and then..

Apartheid 2010

The most likely outcome is that Greater Israel will become a full-fledged apartheid state. There are already separate laws, separate roads and separate housing in the occupied territories, and the Palestinians are essentially confined to impoverished enclaves. Indeed, two former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak and Olmert — have made just this point. Olmert said that if the two-state solution collapses, Israel will face a "South African-style struggle." He went so far as to argue, "as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."

It is already there. It is apartheid in its lowest and banal form.

(various news and media sources)

Gaza and the West Bank

The Goldstone report cited Eli Yishai, Israeli interior minister, as saying, “We should bombard thousands of houses in Gaza, destroy Gaza. As simple as that.”

Noam Chomsky says that in the case of Gaza, it's just savage torture. They are keeping the population barely alive because they don't want to be accused of genocide, but that's it. It's limited to survival. It's not the worst atrocity in the world, but it is one of the most savage. Egypt is cooperating fully by building a wall and refusing to allow concrete to go in and things like that, so it's an Israeli-Egyptian operation that is literally torturing the people of Gaza in a way that one can't think of a precedent, and it's getting worse.

In the West Bank, first of all it's not Israel: it's the United States and Israel. The United States sets the bounds of what they can do and cooperates with them. It's a joint operation, just as the attack on Gaza was. But they're continuing to impose their stranglehold, and they're taking what they want. The land inside the separation wall, which is in fact an annexation wall, they'll take that. They'll take the Jordan Valley, and they'll take what's called Jerusalem, which is far larger than Jerusalem ever was, as it's a huge area expanding into the West Bank.

In the West Bank they moved, in their phrase, from 'colonialism' to 'neo- colonialism'. They construct neo-colonial structures on the West Bank. Typically, they have a sector of extreme wealth and privilege that collaborates with the former colonial power, and then a mass of misery and horror surrounding it. That's what's being done. So if you go to Ramallah, it's kind of like Paris, you live a nice life, there are elegant restaurants, and so on, but of course if you go into the countryside, it's quite different, and there are checkpoints and life's impossible. There's only totally dependent development, and they will not allow independent development, and they're trying to impose a permanent arrangement of this kind.

An advocate of economic peace, Salam Fayyad is trying to arrange for Palestinians to have forms of employment other than working in the settlements and doing whatever construction they can manage to do within the Israeli framework, maybe even in Area C, the Israeli- controlled area, and just taking small steps towards trying to lay the basis for a future independent Palestinian entity. Israel might very well accept it. The Israeli deputy prime, Silvan Shalom said it's fine, if they want to call the cantons they'll leave to them a state, then that's fine, but it'll be a state without borders.

There's another element to it, which is the military force. There is an army run by an American general, Keith Dayton, which is trained by Jordan with Canadian and Israeli cooperation, and has caused a lot of enthusiasm in the United States. John Kerry, who is head of the Senate foreign relations committee, said that for the first time Israel has a legitimate negotiating partner because during the Gaza attack or Operation Cast Lead, the Dayton army was able to prevent any protests. They were so effective during the Gaza attack that Israel was able to shift forces from the West Bank to Gaza to extend the attack with para-military forces controlled by the colonial power that keep the population under control.

The largely docile Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is known for its corruption, passivity and its ridiculed belated campaign to boycott the settlements and their products. PA officials are virtual hostages albeit quite appreciative and cooperative collaborators. The resistance has apparently been crushed by General Dayton's army. All the militias and fighters in the West Bank have been effectively subdued especially Hamas.

The Fatah-heavy West Bank government headed by president Mahmoud Abbas receives considerable support, financial and otherwise, from the United States and Europe, so Hamas is persona non grata in this part of the Palestinian territories. Palestinian soldiers say the drop in terror attacks across the West Bank have little to do with Israeli actions - like checkpoints and the "security barrier" - and much to do with the National Security Force. Now, Palestinian and Israeli military commanders sometimes share information with each other have "some small degree of co-operation," . Also the degree of collaboration is such Israel insists the National Security Force not patrol between midnight and 6am, to not interfere with Israeli night raids in the West Bank villages.

In early 2006, immediately following the election of Hamas, Canada was the first country in the world to boycott the new government, ahead even of Israel. "Not a red cent to Hamas," said Peter MacKay, the then Canadian foreign minister, setting the tone for a crippling blockade that the United Nations has called "possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times". In 2005, immediately following Israel's 'disengagement' from Gaza, Canada dispatched a top official from the Canada Border Services Agency, Denis Lefebvre, to advise Israel and the Palestinian Authority during the earlier stages of the blockade of Gaza.

It was at this juncture that Canada began funding and training Palestinian forces to monitor the sealed borders of the Gaza Strip, under the auspices of General Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator. Known at the time as the Karni Project, named after the principle commercial crossing into Gaza, the initiative was a covert - though not clandestine - effort to train a pliable security force to work with Israel.

A Jerusalem Post analysis tabbed the project as "a prototype for the running of Palestine". Provocations by Dahlan's security forces were seen by Hamas and many others as precipitating the Hamas takeover in Gaza. The Karni project saw the US and its Canadian allies "engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt PA dictatorship with victory".

On the heels of the Hamas takeover, Canada re-instituted its funding for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and redoubled its efforts to back Dayton's security forces training initiative to back appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and to prevent the Hamas government from taking power in the West Bank. In many crucial ways, Canada is the heart of the Dayton project - 18 of the training officers are Canadian and 10 are American.

Fayyad lauded US and Canada's efforts in not only the security sector but also governance and working to create legitimacy for Fayyad's impending unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Canada recently removed longstanding funding for UNRWA, the agency responsible for Palestinian refugee affairs, and reallocated it to Fayyad's security project. "Our paramount concern is the security of Israel," said Canada's minister of public safety.

General Dayton is in charge of equipping and training the new Fatah-allied Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces in the West Bank. While the PA says its forces are trained to impose law and order, they have also clamped down on political opposition, including Hamas. Under the Oslo peace agreements the West bank is divided into three zones, Area A - full PA control, Area B - Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control, and Area C - complete Israeli military control. However, Israeli forces have freedom to operate wherever they choose in the West Bank.

Israeli security officials said despite recent U.S. training, they were also concerned Abbas is not strong enough in the West Bank to impose law and order without the help of the Israeli army. According to the officials, Fatah's intelligence apparatus routinely hands the Israel Defense Forces lists of Hamas militants that threaten Fatah rule, requesting that Israel make arrests.

A supporter of economic peace says that If the Palestinians were to form a state while the people were poor, uneducated, unemployed, and angry — then that would be a recipe for further disaster and war. If they were to have stable lives, then they would be less likely to throw that away by pursuing further war and terrorism against Israel. After all, people in the comfortable middle-class — in any country — are the least likely to rock the boat. If given a choice, most people would prefer not to starve — even if it means accepting a political arrangement that they might not necessarily like.

In the meantime, for those who still resist this grand US-Israeli project on pliant Palestinian governance, there is Gaza as a living showcase as the most deplorable and miserable state whom any Palestinian would dread with the latest fear of forced deportation out of the West Bank.

(various news sources)

Support Viva Palestina

Yesterday, we pledged to sponsor a group on route to a gathering in KL in conjunction with the Malaysian convoy for Viva Palestina II, the second brave humanitarian wave to break the brutal siege of Gaza. Will they make it? Knowing the Egyptian authorities can be vindictive and treacherous, we can only pray. We shared our grim feelings and heard a brief tale of the harrowing and bewildering events of the first convoy. It was amazing that it got through even though the multinational team had to endure being pelted by stones and tear-gassed. Egyptian riot police even battled charged them. The activists and aid workers stood their ground and never relented nor did they fight back even under severe provocation. Many were bloodied even the old and the senior citizens among them. They did manage to get through to bring the aid into Gaza and they made their point although it came at a price. They had come from all walks of life to bring a ray of hope to the forgotten Palestinians. We salute them.

Many activists have tried to enter Gaza to bring help and aid but it is such an uphill struggle against unfriendly Egyptian bureaucrats and harsh border guards. If you brought a medical team, sometimes the medicine gets through but the medical doctors and personnel are turned away and vice versa. If you insist then you are threatened or even arrested. One unfortunate medical team leader was harshly treated.

When a friendly ambassador tried to intervene and help, the Interior Minister no less told him off simply that it was an Arab matter and the ambassador did not understand Arab issues. Actually, there is no humane reason to obstruct aid and aid workers from entering Gaza. But for some intriguing and ghastly purpose, Palestinians are being made to suffer openly in the eyes of the world. The Arab regimes are directly and categorically complicit and responsible, and in this case the Egyptian government is the key culprit by perpetuating and collaborating in the inhuman siege and the punishing sanctions imposed upon Gaza. That is as contemptuously Arabian as you can get!

Everyone knows about the steel walls being built sophisticatedly to block the smuggling tunnels, the lifeline of Gazan survival. Underground walls are funded and constructed with US assistance. How could such feats of engineering be so ruthless. Now, if the Egyptians do not want to help the Palestinians then they should not be in the way and be so cruel as to add to the suffering and persistently frustrate relief efforts. But that is the way it is when corruption has made its way into the deepest crevices of authorities and people in power. They only answer the master's call and we all know who their masters are in Tel Aviv and Washington. The latest fatal gassing of Gaza tunnel workers is an example of the extreme measures they take to prolong human suffering. Murder is just an option for corrupt people.

At the same time, the West Bank is being flooded with goods and amenities, semblance of relative peace and comfort. It is deliberately being spruced up to make clear who among the Palestinians are condemned. Those who do not conform shall be evicted and exiled to where else but Gaza, the biggest illegal prison on planet earth. If you are a Palestinian in the territories, you either be grateful for being in occupied West Bank or suffer in the slums of Gaza. In the meantime talk is being spun endlessly around "settlements freeze" as if it is the main issue. This blatant deception is simply an elaborate cover up and scheme to deprive and eliminate physically, economically and emotionally 1.5 million innocent Palestinians from the face of the earth. The real issue is the wanton injustice being perpetuated and perpetrated by Israel, funded and abetted by the USA, and collaborated by corrupt Arab regimes.

So back to the second Viva Palestina convoy, may your journey be safe and may you be successful. You carry the burden and the guilt of the world upon you. We know it ought to be our right and responsibility to wage war to free Gaza and save its inhabitants. It is our right since time immemorial and it is in the UN charter as the right of all nations and peoples to be free and be safe from imposed cruelty. But since everyone is powerless and paralysed by the sheer inhumanity of it all, we better do our bit to remind the world of its guilt in not freeing Gaza and to bring some relief to its people. We do this so that on the Day of Judgement, we can all be accounted with what we did to help. For the ones against us and stopping us, their accounts are not of our concern.

Let us all support Viva Palestina,

ma'a salama fi amanillah.

Rachel Corrie

Seven years ago today, an American civil rights worker, Rachel Corrie, was killed in Gaza, run over by a Caterpillar tractor driven by a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces. A civil suit against the Israeli defense ministry, by the parents of Rachel Corrie, was starting in a courtroom in Haifa during the recent visit of Vice President Biden. The event was barely noticed in the American press -- it got more attention in Israel -- but an AP video caught the statements made by Craig and Cindy Corrie on entering the court, statements remarkable for their dignity and candor.

Rachel Corrie wrote in an early letter from Gaza, addressed to "friends and family, and others" on February 7, 2003:

I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. . . . I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere.

She wrote in her last letter, to her father, on March 12:

I really don't want to move back to Olympia, but do need to go back there to clean my stuff out of the garage and talk about my experiences here. On the other hand, now that I've crossed the ocean I'm feeling a strong desire to try to stay across the ocean for some time. . . .I would like to leave Rafah with a viable plan to return, too. One of the core members of our group has to leave tomorrow--and watching her say goodbye to people is making me realize how difficult it will be. People here can't leave, so that complicates things. They also are pretty matter-of-fact about the fact that they don't know if they will be alive when we come back here.

She would have returned if she could. And the cause that prompted her courage is a matter that the rest of us have barely begun to arrive at.

(David Bromwich, Professor of Literature at Yale, The Huffington Post, MARCH 18, 2010)

Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?

The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 30, 2008

By Neve Gordon and Jeff Halper

Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel’s bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week.

While the extent of the damage to the Islamic University, which was hit in six separate airstrikes, is still unknown, recent reports indicate that at least two major buildings were targeted, a science laboratory and the Ladies’ Building, where female students attended classes. There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday.

Virtually all the commentators agree that the Islamic University was attacked, in part, because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas, the ruling party in the elected Palestinian government, which Israel has targeted in its continuing attacks in Gaza. Mysteriously, hardly any of the news coverage has emphasized the educational significance of the university, which far exceeds its cultural or political symbolism.

Established in 1978 — the Islamic University is the first and most important institution of higher education in Gaza, serving more than 20,000 students, 60 percent of whom are women. It comprises 10 faculties — education, religion, art, commerce, Shariah law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing — and awards a variety of bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Taking into account that Palestinian universities have been regionalized because Palestinian students from Gaza are barred by Israel from studying either in the West Bank or abroad, the educational significance of the Islamic University becomes even more apparent.

Those restrictions became international news last summer when Israel refused to grant exit permits to seven carefully vetted students from Gaza who had been awarded Fulbright fellowships by the State Department to study in the United States. After top State Department officials intervened, the students’ scholarships were restored — though Israel allowed only four of the seven to leave, even after appeals by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “It is a welcome victory — for the students,” opined The New York Times, and “for Israel, which should want to see more of Gaza’s young people follow a path of hope and education rather than hopelessness and martyrdom; and for the United States, whose image in the Middle East badly needs burnishing.”

By launching an attack on Gaza, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones deployed by Hamas — only the Israeli tactics are much more lethal. How should academics respond to this assault on an institution of higher education? Regardless of one’s stand on the proposed boycott of Israeli universities, anyone so concerned about academic freedom as to put one’s name on a petition should be no less outraged when Israel bombs a Palestinian university. The question, then, is whether the university presidents and professors who signed the various petitions denouncing efforts to boycott Israel will speak out against the destruction of the Islamic University.

Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of Israel’s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008). Jeff Halper is director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. His latest book is An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel (Pluto Press, 2008).

Mosques destroyed by Israeli strikes, Gazans pray outdoors

Shashank Bengali and Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: January 23, 2009 06:10:46 PM

IZBIT ABED RABBO, Gaza Strip — It was just after noon on Friday and time for the weekly communal prayer on a day when many Gazans needed divine guidance, but there was no place to pray.

Where the three-story Salahadin mosque once stood in this northern Gaza village, there's only a mountain of rubble. Residents said that Israeli soldiers demolished the mosque, using dynamite and a bulldozer, two weeks ago during their war on the militant Islamic group Hamas.

So at prayer time in Izbit Abed Rabbo, the first Friday since both Israel and Hamas declared cease-fires, several dozen male worshippers gathered in a sandy clearing near the wreckage of the mosque. Some men laid down mats; others took off their jackets and spread them in the dirt. A few men sat with their knees in the sand and their heads bowed, listening to the sermon.

"My dears, we have to be patient. We have to have some faith in Allah," said the imam, Mohammed Hamad. "Our prophets before us faced many struggles, and they were patient. We will wait for the compensation from God."

Israel says its forces crippled Hamas militants and their infrastructure, but they also did staggering damage to places that mark the everyday lives of Gaza's 1.5 million people. More than 1,300 Gazans, as well as 13 Israelis, died in the conflict.

Salahadin, where Hamad has been the imam for about 15 years, was one of 23 mosques that Palestinian officials say were damaged or destroyed in the offensive, along with 25 schools and hospitals, 1,500 factories and commercial structures and several thousand homes and apartment buildings. On Friday, under threatening skies, many Gazans had no choice but to pray outdoors.

Much of Izbit Abed Rabbo, a quiet farming enclave north of Gaza City, was leveled when Israeli tanks and infantry forces rolled through about two weeks ago, residents said. Down the street from the mosque, multi-story homes are in ruins, vehicles crushed and stray possessions, such as shoes and clothing, lie half-trampled in the sand.

Hamad said that gathering for the Friday prayer showed that the village would recover.

"Our prophet Mohammed said that all the earth is for Muslims, so we pray even though the Israelis demolished our mosque," Hamad said after the sermon. "We are not praying for the mosque walls; we are praying for Allah."

Many worshippers were returning to the village for the first time since fleeing the Israeli invasion and confronting hard memories.

"They had a mission this time to destroy mosques, I think," Jalala said. "Even areas they didn't enter, they destroyed mosques."

"They didn't destroy Hamas; they destroyed the people," said Hussein al Hawajari, whose 57-year-old mother was killed on the first day of the war when shrapnel from an Israeli airstrike hit her as she walked to the market.

"The children are Hamas? The tree is Hamas? The mosques are Hamas? The animals are Hamas?"

memorable quotes

Even before Hamas came to power, the Israelis intended to create an open-air prison for the Palestinians in Gaza and inflict great pain on them until they complied with Israel's wishes. Dov Weisglass, Ariel Sharon's closest adviser at the time, candidly stated that the disengagement from Gaza was aimed at halting the peace process, not encouraging it. He described the disengagement as "formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians." Moreover, he emphasized that the withdrawal "places the Palestinians under tremendous pressure. It forces them into a corner where they hate to be."

Arnon Soffer, a prominent Israeli demographer who also advised Sharon, elaborated on what that pressure would look like. "When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day."

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority boycott Emergency Summit on Gaza in Qatar

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Mahmud Abbas boycott Doha Summit

VOA News Updated Jan.17,2009 08:57 KST

At Friday's Doha summit, Qatar and Mauritania announced they would cut political and economic ties with Israel to protest the fighting in Gaza.

The summit went ahead despite a boycott by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, which Hamas ousted from Gaza, highlighting fault lines in the Arab world over the conflict.

No Success in Doha Summit; President Saleh of Yemen Fails to Attend

Written By: Hakim almasmari ( YEMEN POST STAFF ) Article Date: January 19, 2009

With death toll rising to 1,200 Palestinian people killed and another 5,400 injured, and a ceasefire announced by Israel, Arab leaders have failed to act responsibly with events and failed to hold an exceptional summit for discussing the situation in Gaza.

Major Arab countries sought to foil the exceptional summit called for the Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The two countries were blamed for the non-participation of other countries like Yemen and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazan who openly stated that he had been pressurized by some parties not to attend the summit.

Justifying the absence of Yemen from Doha, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi pointed out that Yemen is keen about the unity of Arab countries at this critical moment of the Arab world’s history.

When the Qatari Emir called for holding a summit in Doha, Yemen was among the countries that expressed readiness to attend. However, this readiness did not last long as Yemen apologized later for being unable to attend the summit.

Attended by 13 leaders and representatives of Arab countries and four Islamic leaders, the Qatari Emir expressed sorrowfulness for absence of other Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt."I wish all our brothers were here today so that we can discuss the different issues on this table, irrespective of other viewpoints they might have," said Al-Thani adding, "We wish that Palestinian President was present so that he can discuss the sufferings of his people; however, he preferred not to attend."

Arab leaders meet in Doha despite boycott by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, PA

Ma’an News Date: 16 / 01 / 2009 Time: 14:50

An Arab League summit in Doha, Qatar, began Friday without representatives from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Hamas leadir Khaled Mash’al, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) leader Ahmad Jibril have all reportedly traveled to Doha from Damascus to attend the summit.

They will be joined by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, Sudanese President Umar Al-Bashir, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Algerian President Abdel Aziz Butefleika, Iraqi Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi, and high-level representatives from Mauritania, Libya, Yemen, Djibouti, the Comoros, and Somalia.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will not be attending the summit. Analysts speculated that Abbas’ refusal was related to invitations issued to leaders from rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Bodies in the rubble, Israel blocks aid

Gazans dig bodies from rubble as cease-fire begins


By Ibrahim Barzak And Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writers – Sun Jan 18, 3:19 pm ET

JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip – For Palestinians searching the rubble of this devastated refugee camp, the mounds of concrete and metal hid all they desperately wanted and needed: the bodies of dead relatives, belongings and — bitterly — scraps of bombs now valuable enough to sell as recycled aluminum.

Destruction was everywhere on Sunday, in churned up farmland, dangling electricity poles, charred bodies of cars abandoned on pulverized roads, and broken pipes overflowing with sewage. The stench of rotting corpses, both human and animal, hung in the air.

For three weeks, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hamas militants who have been firing missiles at Israel for the last eight years, smashing much of Gaza's already shabby infrastructure and turning neighborhoods into battle zones.

The fragile cease-fire and first troops withdrawals on Sunday allowed families and medics to intensify the search for bodies — with more than 100 dead recovered Sunday, according to Palestinian health officials. The number of Palestinian dead now stood at more than 1,250, half of those civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed in the fighting.

For two weeks, ground combat kept residents of Jebaliya like Zayed Hadar from their homes. On Sunday, Hadar searched through his family home with most of his 10 children. The three-story building had been flattened.

"We've pulled out my nephew, but I don't know how many are still under there," Hadar said, as several Israeli tanks rolled in the distance.


Israel kept out aid for Gaza


Jason Koutsoukis in Jerusalem
January 19, 2009
The Sydney Morning Herald

ISRAEL deliberately blocked the United Nations from building up vital food supplies in Gaza that feed a million people daily before the launch of its war against Hamas, according to a senior UN official in Jerusalem.

In a scathing critique of Israeli actions leading up to the conflict, the UN's chief humanitarian co-ordinator in Israel, the former Australian diplomat Maxwell Gaylard, accused Israel of failing to honour its commitments to open its border with Gaza during several months of truce from June 19 last year.

"The Israelis would not let us facilitate a regular and sufficient flow of supplies into the Strip," Mr Gaylard said.

The chief spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yigal Palmor, said the claims were "unqualified bullshit".

Mr Gaylard, who is the UN Special Co-ordinator's Office's most senior representative in Israel, told the Herald that when Israel launched its surprise attack on Gaza on December 27, the UN's warehouses in Gaza were nearly empty, with all food and equipment sitting in nearby port facilities. "The food was in Israel but we couldn't get it in. This is before. The blockade was very tight."

As the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, halted the attacks, declaring Israel had attained its goals in the lethal assault on Gaza that has killed more than 1240 Palestinians - a third of them children