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)

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

Gaza: UN Official Reports Horrific Hospital Scenes of Casualties

UN News Centre

January 12, 2009 1 – Appalled that fighting was still continuing in Gaza despite the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, senior United Nations officials said today they were horrified at the human costs amid reports that over 40 per cent of the nearly 900 Palestinians killed in the Israeli offensive, and almost half of the 3,860 wounded, were women and children.

“Behind those statistics that we read out every day is really profound human suffering and grave tragedy for all involved and not just for those who are killed and injured but for their families as well,” UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Director of Operations John Ging told a news conference in New York, speaking by video link from Gaza, where he had just visited the main Al Shifa hospital.

“(It) is the place of course where you see the most horrific human consequences of this conflict. Among the tragic cases that I saw were a child, six years of age, little or no brain activity, people don’t have much hope for her survival; multiple amputee – another little girl; and a pregnant woman who’d lost a leg,” he said, as the Israeli offensive went into its 17th day with the stated aim of ending Hamas rocket attacks into Israel.

“The hospital is really full of patients whose lives have been in many instances really destroyed, and they’re alive.”

Mr. Ging paid tribute to “the heroes,” the Palestinian hospital staff who have been working round the clock and have lost track of time, and the 40 expatriate medical staff who have joined them from Norway, the Netherlands, Egypt and Jordan, among other places.

He said the sense of fear in Gaza was all pervasive among a battle-hardened population of 1.5 million that had already seen many years of conflict. “In my three years here I have never witnessed anything like the scale of fear that is there,” he stressed. “We have to recognize that there’s no safe place in Gaza and that continues to be the case and the casualty figures speak to that.”

Speaking in New York, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told the news conference the UN had been unable to independently verify the casualty figures given by the Palestinians but they seemed plausible. As of today, there were 884 dead, 275 of them children and 93 women (42 per cent), and 3,860 wounded, 1,333 of them children and 587 women (49 per cent).

“I am appalled that violence on this scale is still continuing in Gaza and horrified at the human cost of all this,” he said. “What continues to be worrying is that the Palestinian civilian casualty rate appears to be still increasing.”

On a more positive note, the two officials reported that UN food delivery and other operations, suspended after a fatal attack on an UNRWA driver last week, have resumed following Israeli reassurances and aid is now moving around Gaza as much as possible. Mr. Ging said he was very satisfied with the more effective system put in place in high-level talks with the Israelis.

Mr. Holmes said more food supplies were getting through and power supply had improved because of infrastructure repairs and some fuel getting through, but the situation was still not satisfactory even if better than before. Some 500,000 people still lack water as Israel’s daily three-hour lull in fighting was insufficient for carrying out repairs and other UN operations, he added, urging Israel to extend the time period.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed for $16 million to provide families and children with emergency supplies. “We desperately need more resources,” Director of Emergency Operations Louis-George Arsenault said, calling on Israel to increase the daily three-hour window for deliveries.

Asked what would happen if Israel escalated its operations deeper into Gaza’s cities, Mr. Holmes said UNRWA, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and others would want to continue their activities insofar as they can. “The fear is that any escalated operations would produce even more casualties, especially when operating in these densely populated urban areas and this would compound what is already a very dramatic humanitarian crisis,” he added.

Mr. Ging said 35,000 Gazans had now fled their homes for shelter in 38 UNRWA locations, and many more had sought refuge with relatives in other parts of the Gaza Strip. In answer to questions, he said he had no evidence that Shifa hospital was being used for Hamas military purposes and reiterated his call for an independent investigation amid conflicting reports on deadly Israeli shellings near an UNRWA school and a housing complex in Zaitoun last week.

“I hope that those who are dealing with this issue [the conflict] at the political level will have the same courage and humanity as I’ve witnessed here at Shifa hospital with the doctors who have come from abroad to help. They can only deal with the consequences in the terms of the injuries,” he concluded. “The solution here is to stop the fighting, stop creating the casualties, that’s what we want.”

Israeli envoy to Caracas expelled

Venezuela has ordered the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Caracas in protest at Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

A number of diplomatic staff have been expelled along with Shlomo Cohen.

President Hugo Chavez has strongly condemned Israel for its actions and called on Israelis to stand up against their government.

Venezuela is the first country to take such a diplomatic step in protest at the violence in Gaza.

"The Israeli army is cowardly attacking worn-out, innocent people, while they claim that they are defending their people," Mr Chavez said during a visit to a children's hospital in Caracas.

"I call on the people of Israel to stand up against that government, to demand, to put a hand on their hearts and look at their children, and I call on the world to stop this madness."

Shortly after, the foreign ministry released a statement ordering the expulsion of Mr Cohen and some of his staff, in what they said was a show of solidarity with the Palestinians.

The BBC's Will Grant in Caracas says Mr Chavez often uses strong language to criticise Israel and is a close ally of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of Israel's main enemies.

Venezuela also has a large Arab community who have welcomed the government's move, our correspondent adds.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7814857.stm
Published: 2009/01/07 01:19:04 GMT
© BBC MMIX