By Abukar Arman

Indonesian Muslims take part in an anti U.S.-Israel-Egypt protest in front of the Egyptian embassy in Jakarta on Jan. 17, demonstrating against an underground wall being built to block a network of tunnels crossing Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Bay Ismoyo/ AFP-Getty Images)

The recent Egyptian government’s decision to seal the few “tunnels of life” that allowed people of Gaza to bypass the ongoing inhumane economic strangulation—along with its harassment and cruel treatment of the participants of Gaza Freedom March and the Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy—earned it a prominent position in history’s page of shame. A page crowded by wealthy Arab nations who failed the Palestinian people and abandoned them at their most vulnerable time.

However, by no means should that sideline drama veil or in any way divert attention away from the root cause of the problem—the over six decades of oppression imposed upon the Palestinian people.

In that period, the state of Israel has occupied Palestine with an iron fist, denying Palestinians the right to self-determination and coercing part of their “elite” to surrender to what seems like a condition of eternal subjugation. However, the gravest of the Palestinian sufferings is embodied in the suffering of the people of Gaza as they endure a vicious economic strangulation unilaterally imposed by Israel. And despite worldwide condemnation of that egregious draconian policy, Israel continues to operate with impunity, devoid of conscience.

In their 575-page report released last September, the fact-finding mission on Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Commission has confirmed the ugly truth that most of the Western media were inoculated to under-report or outright ignore. The mission was led by Judge Richard Goldstone, former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. While the report also blamed Hamas, it highlighted that “there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza. … Actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force.”

According to Article 39 of the report, the Israeli forces intentionally targeted and attacked Al Quds Hospital in the adjacent ambulance depot in Gaza with white phosphorous shells, an internationally banned chemical substance that, among other things, instantaneously burns the human being into skeleton.

Although the key recommendation of Goldstone was for the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution mandating a credible investigation into the war-crimes allegations by the International Criminal Court, no such action has been taken.

In reaction to the report, the U.S. Congress—while succumbing to the “Israel Lobby”—has passed a non-binding resolution condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution was intended to express unequivocal blind loyalty to Israel, and to pressure the Obama administration to use its veto power (as a permanent member of the Security Council) against any resolution that might expose Israel. Apparently, the strategy worked; the report is now piling dust in the oblivion.

For whatever it’s worth, it is this kind of culture of impunity that, according to Goldstone, “emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable.” This concern was immediately dismissed as anti-Semitic by loyalists and supporters of oppressive Zionism. Never mind that Judge Goldstone is Jewish and is a supporter of Israel’s right to exist.

Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a real racist phenomenon; however, the politically motivated excessive use of the term to character-assassinate and silence legitimate critics and peace and justice advocates, such as former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, simply defeats the purpose.

Meanwhile, though the Obama administration is showing signs of discomfort with the current Israeli government, the U.S. foreign policy toward Middle East is still driven by unconditional loyalty.

As the Obama administration tries to reduce the post-9/11tension between the United States and the Islamic world and rein in the rapid growth of extremism, the Palestine issue remains an open sore that is festering in America’s foreign policy. While the current administration has attempted to demonstrate its intention of becoming an honest broker by appointing a credible diplomat—former Senator George Mitchell—as the Middle East envoy, Israel continues its belligerent oppression and expansionist policy by defiantly building new settlements.

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel is adamant to continue the ever-expanding land grab driven by illegal home demolitions and confiscations, daily dreadful human rights abuses at check points, random imprisonment and assassinations, suppression of independent media, and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This, needless to say, has frustrated the Obama administration, whose out-of-the-ordinary reaction to Netanyahu’s visit to the United States has caused Israel a big embarrassment.

In an article intended to rally the troops against Obama, Jerusalem Post’s hawkish columnist, Caroline Glick, wrote, “It isn’t every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital U.S. ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the president; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit.”

Though this was not a decision to stop or even suspend the roughly $3 billion of unrestricted aid given to Israel every year, it still turned many heads and galvanized the usual suspects to come after Obama with all sorts of accusations.

Not since 1990 when then Secretary of State James Baker sent a blunt public message to then Israeli Prime Minister Ytsakh Shamir, telling him “call us when you are serious about peace … the telephone number is 1-202-546-1414,’ has U.S. leadership sent Israel a stern message that its actions are unacceptable.

At the end of the day, convincing Israel to do the right thing and stop establishing new facts on the ground to further complicate an already complex political issue will require more than symbolism. And nothing substantive is likely to happen until the United States modifies its one-sided Middle East policy. Meanwhile, Israel will continue business as usual. It might invade Gaza again. Some opinion makers in Israel are already boasting about what “Operation Cast Lead 2″ would look like with the use of “advanced Israeli-made Marakava 4 tanks.”

Nothing equates to oppression more than the inaction of an apathetic witness.

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Muffled Screams of Gaza

The criticism of Israel’s response to the Goldstone report continued yesterday, as the UN said findings collected by them contradict Israeli claims that the Gaza flour mill was not hit by an aerial bombardment.

The Goldstone report contained claims that Israel intentionally bombed civilian installations and Palestinian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip during Operation.

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Israel tried to refute these charges by disproving specific accusations in the report about such attacks.

One of the accusations in the Goldstone report stated that Israel bombed the flour mill in the Shati refugee camp. Israel responded by saying the mill was damaged only by tank shells fired during a battle with Hamas units operating in the area, and there was no aerial bombardment of the mill or attempt to deliberately damage it.

As a result of the Israel Defense Forces’ findings, the Military Advocate General decided not to open a Military Police investigation into the matter.

But a United Nations expert told Haaretz yesterday that one of its bomb disposal teams reached the flour mill three weeks after the end of the operation and discovered the front part of an MK-82 500-pound bomb of the type used by the Israeli Air Force. The bomb disposal team neutralized the bomb’s detonator and removed the bomb.

An IDF source denied the UN claims yesterday saying a thorough investigation by the air force found that no bombs were dropped on the mill and reconnaissance photos of the building do not show damage stemming from an air attack.

Senior reserve officers criticized the IDF yesterday for not revealing it had reprimanded two senior officers for exceeding their authority in using artillery during the operation.

The news of the disciplinary action against Gaza Division commander Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade commander Col. Ilan Malka only came out last week as part of Israel’s response to the Goldstone report.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Yom-Tov Samia, who served as the head of the Southern command at the start of the second intifada, surprised senior officers when he told Army Radio he blamed the tension between the regional commanders and the General Staff for the information on the matter not being released.

“Power struggles between Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Be’er Sheva, Safed and I don’t know where in the end harm the organization,” Samia said. “It is clear, to my regret, that sometimes it is a battle for prestige.”

Samia serves in the reserves as the deputy of Southern Command commander Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, who tried Eisenberg and Malka.

A senior officer said on Monday that the disciplinary action was an internal matter within Galant’s office, and even the IDF Spokesman did not know about it.

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UN insists Israel bombed Gaza’s flour mill during Cast Lead

After a year of relative quiet in the south following the cease-fire that ended Operation Cast Lead, there has been a marked escalation in violence along the Israel-Gaza border. Qassam rockets and mortars are being fired from Gaza, and the Israel Air Force retaliated by attacking targets in the Strip, killing several Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas that Israel would “respond forcefully” to any fire on its territory.

Incidents involving live fire have aggravated relations between Hamas and Egypt, which is tightening the siege on Gaza. The Egyptians are building an underground steel wall to thwart smuggling through tunnels into Sinai, and are prohibiting supply convoys from entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Foreign peace activists who wanted to show support for Gaza were stopped in Cairo.

Article from Haaretz.com
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he official list published Saturday of winners in elections to the Revolutionary Council of the Palestinian Fatah movement included 67-year-old Dr. Uri Davis, a Jerusalem-born Jew.

He was the first Jew to become a member of the Revolutionary Council since it was established in 1958.

Davis, who in the 1980s abandoned his Israeli citizenship in protest over Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and later received Palestinian citizenship, was the only non-Arab to run for a seat in the Revolutionary Council, Fatah’s legislative body.
When his name was announced as number 31 on the list of winners, members in the auditorium of the Bethlehem school where the conference held its meetings applauded long and loud.

Davis, who considers himself anti-Zionist and who after renouncing his Israeli citizenship joined Fatah because he says he saw it as a socialist movement, was among more than 600 Fatah activists who competed for 80 seats of the council.

Author of the books “Israel: An Apartheid State,” published in 1987 and “Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within,” published in 2004, Davis prefers to identify himself as a Palestinian Hebrew.

Speaking perfect Arabic, he teaches Jewish studies at the Palestinian al-Quds University in Abu Dis, located just outside an eight-meter high concrete wall Israel has built around occupied East Jerusalem to separate it from its West Bank environs.

Davis said in Bethlehem last week as he was campaigning for a seat in the Revolutionary Council that he wants to see more anti-Zionist Israelis and internationals take up leading posts in Fatah.

Fatah opened its sixth congress, the first in 20 years, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on August 4.

After a week of deliberations, over 2,000 delegates voted for 18 seats on the 23-seat Central Council, whose official results were announced on Wednesday, and for 81 seats of the 128-seat Revolutionary Council.

The results showed at least 70 new members entering the Revolutionary Council, with members from the Gaza Strip winning 20 seats and women winning 11.

The highest number of votes went to a woman who spent many years in Israeli jails for her role in the resistance. Christian members won four seats.

New members include a number of Fatah activists from the diaspora, including Samir Rifai, Fatah’s secretary in Syria, and Khaled Abu Usba, who participated in a terror attack in the 1980s in which at least 30 Israelis were killed.

They also include Fadwa Barghouti, wife of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in Israel for his role in the second Intifada, and who has been elected to the Fatah Central Committee.

Addressing the winners, Abbas declared Fatah’s sixth congress “a new launch for Fatah,” saying: “We have great work ahead of us.”
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Jerusalem-born Jew elected to Fatah Revolutionary Council

Clashes between Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip and supporters of an armed group whose leader had declared the Palestinian territory “an Islamic emirate”, have left at least 20 people dead.

The fighting errupted in the town of Rafah on Friday after Sheikh Abdel-Latif Moussa, the religious leader of the group and imam of the Ibn Taymiya mosque, called for Gaza to be ruled by sharia (Islamic law).

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza reported on Saturday that Moussa and several supporters – all members of Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Companions of God) – had been killed in the clashes.

Police in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, earlier investigated two battle sites, looking for bodies and trying to identify Moussa’s whereabouts, according to reports.

“The ministry of interior in Gaza has essentially declared that the operation has been completed,” Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin said.

Dr Moaiya Hassanain, of the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, said 22 people, including six Hamas police officers and an 11-year-old girl, were killed and another 150 were wounded.

Moussa was killed when fighting resumed after dawn on Saturday, Ihab Hussein, a Hamas interior ministry spokesman, told the Associated Press news agency.

“Abdel-Latif Moussa was killed in an explosion,” he said. “It’s not clear whether he was killed from an explosives belt he was wearing or from Hamas gunfire.”

Sharia demand

The fighting began at the Ibn Taymiya mosque after Moussa’s speech on Friday.

Hamas security forces seized control of the building after several hours of heavy clashes.

Some of the fighters holed up inside then managed to escape to Moussa’s home.

“We are today proclaiming the creation of an Islamist emirate in the Gaza Strip”

Sheikh Abdel-Latif Moussa, leader of Jund Ansar Allah

Scores of people were wounded in the fighting outside that building, several of them critically, medical officials said.

Taher Nunu, a Hamas government spokesman, said that the Hamas leadership was engaging in an operation against “outlaws” and called on Moussa’s followers to surrender to the authorities.

Jund Ansar Allah seeks a Palestinian legal system based purely on the sharia and has accused Hamas of being too liberal.

The group is said to have threatened to burn down internet cafes, and has called for people using Gaza’s beaches to dress more modestly.

“We are today proclaiming the creation of an Islamic emirate in the Gaza Strip,” Moussa had told worshippers at the mosque on Friday.

‘Support at mosque’

Moussa said that if Hamas were to implement sharia, he would immediately instruct his followers to comply with the group’s instructions.
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Several dead in Gaza mosque clash

There is significant evidence that Israeli forces violated international law and human rights in their invasion of Gaza between late December and mid-January, the United Nations human rights chief said on Friday.

A report by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay lambasted the “nearly total impunity” for the violations.

The already critical human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) deteriorated further during the war, she said in the report, the first of a series of periodic reports ordered by the UN Human Rights Council in January during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead.”

The 34-page report is one of two – together with a forthcoming one by South African jurist Richard Goldstone who has been conducting hearings in Gaza – that will be presented to the council next month.

“Significant prima facie evidence indicates that serious violations of international humanitarian law as well as gross human rights violations occurred during the military operations of 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, which were compounded by the blockade that the population of Gaza endured in the months prior to Operation Cast Lead and which continues,” Pillay said.

Pillay said rights violations included arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, extrajudicial execution, forced eviction and home demolition, settlement expansion and related violence and restrictions on freedom of movement and expression.

“While these violations are of deep concern in their own right, the nearly total impunity that persists for such violations (regardless of the responsible duty bearer) is of grave concern, and constitutes a root cause for their persistence,” the former South African high court judge said.

Pillay’s recommendations included the following:

* Israel should lift the blockade of Gaza and restrictions on movement in and out of the West Bank, which amount to illegal collective punishment.
* Allegations of violations of humanitarian law and human rights during the Gaza war should be investigated by independent bodies, and victims should have the right to reparations.

* Israel should tackle impunity for violations, and curb its use of the military justice system, which does not meet international standards.

* Israel should end the illegal expansion of settlements in the occupied territory, halt evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes, and end settler violence.

Unlike rulings of the UN Security Council, the findings and recommendations of the Human Rights Council are not binding.

Islamic and African countries, backed by Russia, China, Cuba and Nicaragua, currently have a majority on the 47-member council, which has spent more time on Israel/Palestine than on any other issue since being set up three years ago.
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Evidence that Israel abused rights in Gaza

Human Rights Watch called on Israel on Thursday to investigate seven incidents in which it said Israeli troops shot and killed Palestinian civilians who were flying white flags during the war in the Gaza Strip in January.

Expressing disappointment with Israel’s response so far to a range of allegations of war crimes made by international bodies, the New York-based lobby group said governments should press for prosecutions under international law if Israel and its enemies in Gaza’s Islamist authorities did not act themselves.

In a response to the report, the Israeli military said its soldiers were
obligated to avoid harming anyone waving a white flag but that in some cases Hamas militants had used civilians with white flags for cover.

“Any person who displays a white flag in this way acts illegally, does not enjoy protection from retaliatory action, and endangers nearby civilian populations,” the military said.

In correlation with the statement, the IDF uploaded a video to the internet depicting what it said was a Hamas gunman planting an explosive device and then attempting to take shelter in a home of uninvolved civilians waving white flags during fighting in Gaza.

In the latest report from various organizations to catalogue accusations of possible war crimes by both sides in three weeks of fighting, Human Rights Watch said it had statements and other evidence indicating 11 unarmed people including five women and four children were shot dead while in groups waving white flags.

“These casualties comprise a small fraction of the Palestinian civilians wounded and killed,” Human Rights Watch said. “But they stand out because, in each case, the victims were standing, walking or in slowly moving vehicles with other unarmed civilians, and were trying to convey their non-combatant status by waving a white flag.”

“All available evidence indicates that Israeli forces were in control of the areas in question, no fighting was taking place there at the time, and no Palestinian forces were hiding among the civilians or using them as human shields.”

A Gaza observer group put civilian deaths at more than 900 out of more than 1,400 Palestinians it said were killed, while Israel said just under 300 civilians and some 900 fighters were killed.

Thirteen Israelis, 10 soldiers and three civilians, died.

Israel has rejected international criticism of an offensive it said was launched to curb rocket attacks on its towns by Hamas in Gaza. It says it is investigating allegations but has not yet found cause to prosecute any of its soldiers.

Human Rights Watch, which said it had received no reply to detailed questions it sent the army, gave an account of an allegation that on Jan. 7 a soldier shot dead two children.

“Two women and three children … were standing in front of their home after an Israeli soldier ordered them outside — at least three of them holding pieces of white cloth — when a soldier near a tank opened fire, killing two girls, ages 2 and 7, and wounding the third girl and their grandmother,” it said.

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Unarmed Gazans waving ‘white flags’ Got Killed during War

“They say time heals, but each day is more difficult than the last,” says Ayelet Modoh, 37.

Ten Israeli soldiers died during the conflict, while between 1,100 and 1,400 Gazans are estimated killed, although views vary as to how many were civilians.

“The ceasefire is not indefinite. We are still afraid in our hearts.”

~BBC

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Uneasy recovery for Sderot and south Israel

Israel has authorised a one-off shipment of hundreds of tonnes of cement and building materials to the heavily embargoed Gaza Strip.

~ BBC

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Israel to allow cement into Gaza.