To add to my earlier comments about Jonathan Cook, here is a video interview in which he discusses his book Blood and Religion: Unmasking the Jewish and Democratic State. His focus is on those Palestinians who hold Israeli nationality. Their plight illustrates problems at the heart of Zionism which the two-state solution can do nothing to solve. A good source of video interviews, documentaries and reportage from Palestine can be found at Palestine Video.
Category: Israel
Divestment campaign gains momentum in Europe
Once again, the Swedes lead the way – the latest news from the BDS front in Europe:
The Swedish national pension fund AP7 is the latest institution to follow the socially responsible investment example of Dutch ASN Bank by excluding the French transportation giant Alstom from its portfolio. Alstom was excluded because of the company’s involvement in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.
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HRW: Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza
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”.
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The Rise of the Machine
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”.
Palestinian Israelis
We tend to focus on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza and to forget about their relatives in the refugee camps of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and especially those inside the 1948 borders of Israel. It is becoming increasingly urgent to learn about the so-called ‘Arab-Israelis’, for two reasons. First, because their plight illustrates that Zionism, even without an occupation, requires some form of apartheid. Second, because as Israel’s Palestinian community grows to more than 20% of the total, and as fascist movements flourish, this community is increasingly at risk of another large-scale ethnic cleansing. Adalah is a good place to start researching the legal, political and economic discrimination against Arabs in Israel. Jonathan Cook’s website and his book, Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, are excellent resources. Here is a recent article by Cook on Israel’s denial of basic services to the Bedouin population.
Bedouin Baby’s Power Struggle with Israel
Little Ashimah Abu Sbieh’s life hangs by a thread — or more specifically, an electricity cable that runs from a noisy diesel-powered generator in the family’s backyard. Should the generator’s engine fail, she could die within minutes. Continue reading “Palestinian Israelis”
Israeli authorities ban Palestinian Cultural Festival
An Al-Haq press release reports on one of the many Zionist attempts to eliminate Palestinian cultural identity:
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| A ceremony celebrating Jerusaelm as the Capital of Arab Culture 2009 in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 22 March 2009. (Mouid Ashqar/MaanImages) |
As an organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq condemns the repressive actions taken today [Saturday 21 March 2009] by the Israeli authorities in banning peaceful cultural activities organized as part of the Palestinian Cultural Festival marking the declaration of Jerusalem as the “Capital of Arab Culture 2009.”
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Gaza war crimes investigation: Israeli drones
Clancy Chassay asks why Israeli drones with optics capable of seeing the colour of a target’s clothes killed so many Palestinian civilians during the recent Gaza invasion. Part Three of Three. Watch Part One and Part Two.
Mounir al-Jarah slowly takes down the bricks he used to wall up the entrance to his sister’s courtyard. Inside, flesh still clings to the walls; blood-soaked furniture and family items lie broken and mangled.
Mounir’s eyes search around the old house as he recounts the events of 16 January, when a rocket fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle killed his sister, her husband and four of her children.
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Gaza war crimes investigation: Attacks on medics
Clancy Chassay asks why 16 medical workers were killed and more than half of Gaza’s hospitals were hit during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Part Two of Three. Watch Part One and Part Three.
Medical staff and ambulance drivers who attempted to assist casualties of the Israeli invasion of Gaza have told the Guardian that they were attacked by Israeli forces while trying to carry out their job.
The offensive left 16 medics dead. Nearly all of them were killed by Israeli fire while trying to save lives, and many more were wounded. According to the World Health Organisation, more than half of Gaza’s 27 hospitals were damaged by Israeli bombs. Two clinics were completely destroyed and 44 others received damage.
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Gaza war crimes investigation: human shields
Clancy Chassay investigates claims from three brothers that the Israeli military used them as human shields during the invasion of Gaza. Part One of Three. Watch Part Two and Part Three.
Israel has been accused of using Palestinian human shields during its invasion of Gaza, a breach of the Geneva conventions that prohibit intentionally putting civilian lives at risk.The Guardian has interviewed three Gazan brothers who described how they were taken from their home at gunpoint, made to kneel in front of tanks to deter Hamas fighters from firing and sent by Israeli soldiers into Palestinian houses to clear them.
“They would make us go first, so if any fighters shot at them the bullets would hit us, not them,” said 14-year-old Al’a al-Attar.
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Focus on Gaza – Faction Fighting
In this week’s Focus On Gaza we look at two blows suffered by the Israeli army. Firstly a UN report which brands the recent Israeli war on Gaza as illegal.
Secondly the chilling accounts of a disregard for civilian safety from its own soldiers involved in the operation, published this week in a leading Israeli newspaper.
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