Editors Note: In the light of Bartlett’s recent activities and reporting, we believe there is reason to be sceptical of her commitment to truth so we cannot vouch for any of her past claims.
Eva Bartlett’s latest report from Gaza, this time describing the struggles for survival of Palestinian farmers living in the ‘buffer zone’ border area with Israel.
“They’re always shooting at us. Every day they shoot at us,” says Alaa Samour (19), pulling aside his shirt to show a scar on his shoulder. Samour said he was shot on Dec. 28 last year by Israeli soldiers positioned along the border fence near New Abassan village, east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.
“We were cutting parsley like we do almost every day, and the soldiers began shooting. We started crawling away. When I got out of the line of fire I realised my shoulder was bleeding and that I had been shot.”
An excellent article by George Bisharat, Professor of Law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, on the possibly disastrous implications of Israel’s latest attack on Gaza for international law. Israel has long sought to frame its actions as falling under the legal doctrines of ‘armed conflict’ instead of ones governed by the laws of occupation – the former permitting far greater uses of force. Bisharat warns that “this shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel’s lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations.”
The extent of Israel’s brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: “That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn’t have to be with a weapon, you don’t have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him.”
What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.
In this week’s show we hear how Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crimes for it’s unlawful use of white phosphorous. Mike Kirsch a town in the US where white phosphorous is manufactured and shows locals the true human cost of the weapon.
Survivors of the war in Gaza take legal action and we meet a mother burnt by white phosphorous who tells her story.
The Guardian reports that “A fifth of Israeli exporters report drop in demand as footage of Gaza attacks changes behaviour of consumers and investors.”
Israeli companies are feeling the impact of boycott moves in Europe, according to surveys, amid growing concern within the Israeli business sector over organised campaigns following the recent attack on Gaza.
Edward S. Herman’s article published in Zmag on Israel-Palestine, the ‘right to self-defense’ and the double standards to which the crimes of official allies and enemies are held.
The U.S. political class and those of the EU and the new “hope” and “change” leader of the United States, Barack Obama, justify Israel’s attack on Gaza as based on its “right of self-defense.” There is, of course, the question of whether it is acceptable to defend yourself by a massive attack on a civilian population when this is not the only route to self defense—the Israelis could withdraw from an illegal occupation, they could stop starving the Gaza population, and they could abide by negotiated ceasefires (in this case, effectively and almost surely deliberately ended by their November 6 killing of six Gaza Palestinians). There is also the problem that the Israeli action violated the UN Charter. Article 51, the self-defense exception, requires immediate notification of the Security Council and, after any immediate attack is contained, giving over remedial action to the Security Council. There is also the problem that this “self-defense” operation was planned six months in advance and is widely believed in Israel to be linked to Israeli politics, with the two ruling parties seeking an improved standing—which they achieved—by military action.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso greets Tzipi Livni, former foreign minister of Israel
Despite being the PA’s largest donor and Israel’s biggest trading partner, the EU’s policies towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are rarely subjected to the kind of critical analysis that the US attracts. Scant attention has been paid to attempts by the EU Council of Ministers to push through an upgrade of the current relationship with the Israeli state since mid-2008 – an upgrade which would grant Israel access to the Single Market and deepen ‘cooperation’ on key strategic issues. Though a planned EU-Israel summit has been put on hold as a result of Israel’s most recent war on Gaza, it is likely the talks will be resumed once the outrage over Israel’s actions subsides, all the more so given that the presidency over the EU presently rests in the hands of the Czech Republic – one of Israel’s staunchest European supporters. Pepijn van Houwelingen’s excellent article exposes the EU’s supposedly ‘impartial’ approach for what it is: “Israel suffers no consequences for its actions and the Palestinians are generously granted the right to barely survive.”
The carnage of Israel’s recent invasion of Gaza spurred great numbers of dismayed Europeans to participate in demonstrations against the war. In major cities such as Madrid, Brussels, Rome, Berlin and London, tens of thousands took part in demonstrations to make clear to their governments that what was happening was unacceptable. Yet, their objections to Israel’s massive use of deadly force were not reflected in the declarations and actions of their countries, as represented by Europe’s most significant political body, the European Union, which did not alter its policy of status quo relations with Israel.
Voniati: The international public opinion and especially the Muslim world seem to have great expectations from the historic election of Obama. Can we, in your opinion, expect any real change regarding the US approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Tom Hurndall was murdered by the IDF in Gaza. Mr Hurndall’s father described a “culture of impunity” saying “they just lied continuously … it was a case of them shooting civilians and then making up a story. And they were not used to being challenged.” Now as Hurndall’s journals are to be published Robert Fisk writes “I wish I had met Tom Hurndall, a remarkable man of remarkable principle.”
I don’t know if I met Tom Hurndall. He was one of a bunch of “human shields” who turned up in Baghdad just before the Anglo-American invasion in 2003, the kind of folk we professional reporters make fun of. Tree huggers, that kind of thing. Now I wish I had met him because – looking back over the history of that terrible war – Hurndall’s journals (soon to be published) show a remarkable man of remarkable principle. “I may not be a human shield,” he wrote at 10.26 on 17 March from his Amman hotel. “And I may not adhere to the beliefs of those I have travelled with, but the way Britain and America plan to take Iraq is unnecessary and puts soldiers’ lives above those of civilians. For that I hope that Bush and Blair stand trial for war crimes.”
Palestinian civilians and medics run to safety during an Israeli strike using phosphorus shells at a UN school. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP
Human Rights Watch has released a new detailed report charging the Israeli government with committing numerous and repeated grave violations of the laws of war. The report entitled ‘Rain of Fire’ focuses on the illegal use of white phosphorus in Gaza and is only the latest in a growing series of evidence documenting Israeli war crimes. Additionaly, HRW “found no evidence that Hamas fighters used Palestinian civilians as human shields – a key Israeli claim – in the area at the time of the attacks it researched.” Here is the Guardian’s brief summary of HRW’s main findings:
Israel’s military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.
In a 71-page report, the rights group said the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells in populated areas of Gaza was not incidental or accidental, but revealed “a pattern or policy of conduct”.
An article in yesterday’s Financial Times reported some interesting (if characteristically deluded) perspectives from the Israeli right in its closing paragraphs. International condemnation of Israel’s latest atrocities has apparently been blamed on the ‘Palestinian PR Machine’. At first I thought this ‘machine’ was as subtle and obscure as other figments of the neocon/Likudnik imagination. However, readers should be aware that according to a security source of mine it is indeed as powerful and frightful as these bizarre statements suggest and furthermore it can be launched within 45 minutes. Its existence is also confirmed by Emanuele Ottolenghi of St Antony’s College, Oxford (oh yes and the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute).
So it’s no laughing matter. In fact it’s so powerful that it requires an even greater propaganda assault than Israel has already launched (in retaliation naturally). According to the Financial Times:
To counter these forces and repair Israel’s standing, one rightwing commentator this week went so far as to call for an Israeli ministry for PR. Adi Mintz said the ministry should be fitted out with “many dozens of video teams, editors and producers that would generate materials and immediately distribute them to all media outlets”. Israel’s message, he added, should be heard not just in America, but also “on television screens in Romania and China”.
Tom Hurndall was 
P U L S E 