Abdullah advocates attack on foreign navies if they halt arms smuggling
One of the UK’s most influential Islamic leaders, who has helped counter extremism in the country’s mosques, is accused of advocating attacks on the Royal Navy if it tries to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.
Dr Daud Abdullah, deputy director-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, is facing calls for his resignation, after it emerged that he is one of 90 Muslim leaders from around the world who have signed a public declaration in support of Hamas and military action.
Abdullah, who led the MCB’s boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day, was a member of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, the body endorsed by the government that trains imams and was set up to curtail the activities of extremist clerics. In January, he briefed the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and communities secretary Hazel Blears on the situation in Gaza and its likely impact on social cohesion in the UK.
An Israeli air raid targeted Islamic Jihad members in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday [AFP ]
At least three Palestinians have been killed after Israel conducted an air raid on the Gaza Strip. Medical workers said two people were killed at the scene of the attack on Thursday near the Israel-Gaza border and a third died later in hospital. An Israeli army spokesman said the raid targeted a group of fighters who had fired an anti-tank missile at troops across the border. Shortly after the attack, three rockets fired from the territory landed in southern Israel, the military said. There were no reports of casualties.
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility and vowed to continue its attacks against Israel. “Our rockets and our resistance will not stop,” Abu Ahmed, an official of the armed Palestinian group, said.
Protesters in New York were set on Thursday evening to demonstrate against an upcoming performance by the Israeli Bat Sheva dance company with a dance of their own.
The dance protest, titled Freedom Dabke vs. Batsheva Dance Company (after the traditional Eastern Mediterranean folk dance), will also feature anti-Apartheid songs, and a performance by the hip-hop artist Invincible. It was to be staged as part of a bid by pro-Palestinian groups to rally support for a boycott of the Israeli dance troupe’s show at Brooklyn’s Howard Gilman Opera House. Far-left organizations this week plan to mark the “Israeli Apartheid Week” in 42 cities worldwide, and some groups have called for the protest against the performance, despite artistic director Ohad Naharin’s identification with Israel’s left and criticism of Israeli policy regarding Palestinians. Protest organizers explained that Bat Sheva is highly regarded in Israel and receives state funding, serving as an ambassador of goodwill for Israel abroad, and some dancers even serve in reserve military duty. “New York residents should know the money they pay for tickets will go indirectly to support war crimes and to whitewash Israel’s image,” one organizer said.
Palestinian militants on Thursday evening fired a Grad rocket that struck a synagogue in the southern town of Netivot, causing light damage to the building. The Israel Air Force retaliated shortly after the attack, striking four smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip, the army said.
No one was wounded in the rocket attack on Netivot. Earlier Thursday, an Israel Air Force strike on the Gaza Strip killed three members of the militant Islamic Jihad, according to medical sources. In a statement issued after the strike on the tunnels, the Israel Defense Forces said: “As the sole authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas bears full responsibility for all terror originating within its area of control. The IDF will continue to respond to any attempts to destabilize Israel’s South.”
Palestinian militants also launched a barrage of Qassam rockets and mortar rounds into Israel on Thursday.
WASHINGTON – A new initiative by members of the United States Congress seeks to condition the transfer of the $900 million for the Palestinians on an end to rocket fire on Israel from Gaza, and the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged the $900 million during a conference in Egypt this week to raise money for Gaza reconstruction, in the wake of Israel’s three-week offensive aimed at halting rocket fire on its southern communities. Shalit has been held captive in Gaza since June 2006, when he was snatched from his army base in a cross-border raid from Gaza.The proposal followed a meeting on Capitol Hill between Noam Badin, the director of the communications center in Qassam-battered Sderot and several members of Congress and their advisors. After the meeting, Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada drafted a petition to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which demanded that the financial aid be delayed for as long as the rocket fire continues and Shalit remains in captivity.
Hamas on Thursday praised a bulldozer attack in Jerusalem earlier in the day, calling it the “natural response” to Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in Arab East Jerusalem and to Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip.
“The operation in Jerusalem was a natural response to aggression against our people. The Zionist enemy should realize that they alone bear the responsibility for displacing our people in Jerusalem and for the killings in Gaza and the West Bank,” said Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas official. Riyad al-Malki, information minister for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Western-backed government, described the attack as a “traffic accident”, and called for an investigation into why the driver had been shot.
Jerusalem’s new mayor said Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was ill-informed when she criticized the demolition of Arab houses in this hotly disputed city, insisting the practice was about law and order, not politics. In a visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, Clinton called Israel’s demolition of the illegally built Palestinian homes unhelpful and in violation of a U.S.-backed peace plan. Nir Barkat countered that Jerusalem was a victim of a double standard and a campaign of Palestinian disinformation.
Israeli Day of Science events taking place at museums in London and Manchester have been hit by protests.
More than 400 people have signed a British Committee for the Universities of Palestine letter attacking the Zionist Federation event.
Universities whose academics are attending were “complicit” in the policies and weaponry used during the Gaza offensive, the letter claimed.
Organisers insist the events, aimed at secondary schools, are non-political. They say the events are aimed at igniting young people’s interest in science. Senior Israeli academics are lecturing on topics from medical research to energy and water technologies. However, the letter’s author, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, said: “This is a dubious venture at the best of times but at this particular moment, after the offensive in Gaza, it’s particularly insensitive.” It is estimated that 1,300 people were killed, including more than 400 children, during an Israeli offensive in December and January.
RAMALLAH, Mar 3 (IPS) – “Standing United with the People of Gaza” is the theme of this week’s Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), which kicked off in Toronto and another 39 cities across the globe Sunday.
A movement to boycott Israeli goods, culture and academic institutions is gaining momentum as Geneva prepares to host the UN’s Anti-Racism Conference, Durban 2 next month amidst swirling controversy. Both Canada and the U.S. are boycotting the Durban 2 conference in protest over what they perceive as a strongly anti-Israel agenda. The first UN Anti-Racism conference, held in the South African city Durban in 2001, saw the Israeli and U.S. delegates storm out of the conference, accusing other delegates of focusing too strongly on Israel. U.S. and Canadian support might have offered some comfort for Israel. However, international criticism of Israel’s three-week bloody offensive into Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and thousands more wounded, most of them civilian, has breathed fresh life into a Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The BDS campaign followed a 2005 appeal from over 170 Palestinian civil society groups to launch a divestment campaign “as a way of bringing non- violent pressure to bear on the state of Israel to end its violations of international law.” In the wake of the BDS campaign, critics of Israel have lashed out at what they see as parallels between South Africa’s former apartheid system and Israeli racism. They point to Israel’s discriminatory treatment of ethnic Palestinians within Israel who hold Israeli passports, and the extensive human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territories by Israeli security forces. During the apartheid era, ties between Israel and South Africa were extremely strong, with the Jewish state helping to train South Africa’s security forces as well as supplying the regime in Pretoria with weapons.
Meanwhile, Toronto, where the Israel Apartheid Week movement was born, will hold forums, film shows, cultural events and street protests to mark IAW week. One of the guest speakers is former South African intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils.
The extent of the funding pledged to the Palestinian Authority by donor countries reflects the extent of their support for Israel and its policies. The American taxpayers’ contribution to the Ramallah government’s bank account is dwarfed by the large sums the U.S. government donates to Israel every year. It’s impossible to get excited over the American pledge of $900 million (two-thirds of it for strengthening Salam Fayyad’s government and the rest for Gaza’s recovery) and forget the $30 billion the United States has promised Israel in defense aid by the end of 2017, as last week’s Amnesty International report noted. The $900 million pledged to the Palestinians in Sharm el-Sheikh should be seen as part of the regular American aid to Israel. As an occupying power, Israel is obligated to assure the well-being of the population under its control. But Israel is harming it instead, after which the United States (like other countries) rushes to compensate for the damage. The Clinton and Bush administrations – and Barack Obama appears to be following in their footsteps – erased the phrase “Israeli occupation” from their dictionaries and collaborated with Israel in ignoring its commitments as enshrined in international law. The billions of dollars that Israel receives from the United States for weapons and defense development – which played a significant role in the destruction in the Gaza Strip – are part of Israel’s successful propaganda, which presents the Rafah tunnels and Grad rockets as a strategic threat and part of the Islamic terror offensive against enlightened countries. The West has blown the Hamas movement out of proportion, exaggerating its military might to the point of mendacity; this allowed for an extended siege and three weeks of Israeli military intractability. In the Palestinian and larger Arab world, this embellishment helps Hamas depict itself as the real patriotic force.
International donors’ approach to the Palestinian people lacks consistency, courage, and plain common sense
Ben White
Ever since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, there has been a familiar pattern in the Occupied Territories: Israel destroys Palestinian civilian infrastructure, and the international community foots the bill. This has been reproduced once more, on a grand scale, as billions of dollars were promised this week at the Egypt-hosted donor conference for devastated Gaza, far exceeding the Palestinian Authority’s initial target.
It remains to be seen how much of this aid will actually get through to the Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza, who continue to live in the rubble of thousands of homes, and hundreds of businesses, factories and schools. Two-thirds of the US contribution of $900 million, for example, is not even earmarked for Gaza. There is also the question of how the aid will make a practical difference on the ground, given that Israel refuses to let in even tomato paste and paper – not to mention construction materials, generators (or “an entire water purification system”). Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth observed: “Israel’s blockade policy can be summed up in one word and it is punishment, not security.”
Protesters claim it is promoting universities that aided recent military assault on Gaza
The Science Museum, one of Britain’s most prestigious public institutions, was embroiled in a row last night after being accused of promoting Israeli universities whose research was used in the country’s military campaign in Gaza.
More than 400 academics, a Nobel laureate and the former chair of the Science Select Committee called on the museum to cancel workshops due to be held this week that promote Israeli scientific achievements to schoolchildren. The critics plan to picket the event and accused the museum of promoting scientists and universities who are “complicit in the Israeli occupation and in the policies and weaponry recently deployed to such disastrous effect in Gaza”.
Many of the critics were behind a campaign in 2002 to impose an academic boycott on Israel. That campaign failed but it provoked debate worldwide over whether Israeli academics should be penalised for the actions of their government. Forty professors are among the signatories who want the workshops cancelled. They include Jonathan Rosenhead from the London School of Economics, who is leading the protest, Steven Rose from the Open University and the architect and historian Charles Jencks. The Zionist Federation is running the “educational seminars” at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry today and at the Science Museum on Thursday. The federation’s chair, Andrew Balcombe, said that they were purely educational and non-political. “We are proud to be running an event like this. It’s an educational event, not a political one in any way, shape or form. It’s merely to inform people of the contribution that Israel has made to science and technology … I’m not aware of any connection between defence and university research, and none that is stronger than in any other countries.”
Ian Gibson MP, the former chairman of the House of Commons Science Select Committee, the Booker-shortlisted writer Ahdaf Soueif, the architect Walter Hain, and the Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire also signed a petition against the workshops. The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine organised the petition.
That another victory for the BRICUP campaign! To read all about it, see the item below:
BRICUP says: this is not a cause for celebration! Israel Day of Science
WHAT YOU WON’T SEE INSIDE THIS MUSEUM
You won’t see: The details of the literally hundreds of R&D contracts that these same universities hold with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Tel Aviv University says it is “playing a major role in enhancing Israel’s security capabilities and military edge”, according to its Annual Report.
The University buildings constructed on land stolen from Palestinians
The names of the university staff called up without protest to serve during the Gaza attack. (Most university teachers serve in the Reserve forces.)
The smiles on the faces of the many University staff who provide policy advice on how to maintain and extend the illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories. For example
The Haifa geography professor who devised the idea and the line of the Apartheid Wall that steals Palestinian land and livelihoods.
The Tel Aviv philosophy professor who developed the military doctrines of targeted assassinations and of ‘disproportionate reprisal’
The bodies of the innocent Gaza civilians wrecked by the onslaught of the 5th strongest army in the world This event is sponsored and paid for by the Zionist Federation of Great Britain. It is not a Science exhibition mounted by the Museum. It is a PR exercise for Israel, the state that has just carried out a brutal aggression against an imprisoned and virtually defenceless population. For more information contact: BRICUP: info@bricup.org.uk
Israel Day of Science WHAT YOU WON’T SEE INSIDE THIS MUSEUM
You won’t see:
The details of the literally hundreds of R&D contracts that these same universities hold with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Tel Aviv University says it is “playing a major role in enhancing Israel’s security capabilities and military edge”, according to its Annual Report.
The University buildings constructed on land stolen from Palestinians
The names of the university staff called up without protest to serve during the Gaza attack. (Most university teachers serve in the Reserve forces.)
The smiles on the faces of the many University staff who provide policy advice on how to maintain and extend the illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories. For example
The Haifa geography professor who devised the idea and the line of the Apartheid Wall that steals Palestinian land and livelihoods.
The Tel Aviv philosophy professor who developed the military doctrines of targeted assassinations and of ‘disproportionate reprisal’
The bodies of the innocent Gaza civilians wrecked by the onslaught of the 5th strongest army in the world
This event is sponsored and paid for by the Zionist Federation of Great Britain. It is not a Science exhibition mounted by the Museum. It is a
PR exercise for Israel, the state that has just carried out a brutal aggression against an imprisoned and virtually defenceless population.
For more information contact:
BRICUP: info@bricup.org.uk
Help to stop the next war! Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of the Israeli regime
Support Palestinian universities – spread the BDS campaign – it is what people under the Israeli jackboot ask you to do!
Israeli War Criminals – to the International Criminal Court, NOW!
Three generations of the Siam family become homeless in Silwan. Between 1994-2006, 678 houses were demolished in East Jerusalem alone. (ActiveStills.org)
The lines above are not mere slogans. Read the item below to realise how deep the changes are which have been brought about by the Gaza carnage. Israel may well have succeeded in doing something it never before managed – alienating and infuriating huge numbers of people across the world; this, to a point where many are ready to confront the monster built by the west, and to pose it some searching questions and demands. While we do not yet know if this action will succeed where all others faile before, the feeling of a sea change is not misplaced.
• Court looks at whether Palestinians can bring case
• International pressure grows over conflict
The international criminal court is considering whether the Palestinian Authority is “enough like a state” for it to bring a case alleging that Israeli troops committed war crimes in the recent assault on Gaza. The deliberations would potentially open the way to putting Israeli military commanders in the dock at The Hague over the campaign, which claimed more than 1,300 lives, and set an important precedent for the court over what cases it can hear.
As part of the process the court’s head of jurisdictions, part of the office of the prosecutor, is examining every international agreement signed by the PA to decide whether it behaves – and is regarded by others – as operating like a state. Following talks with the Arab League’s head, Amr Moussa, and senior PA officials, moves have accelerated inside the court to deliver a ruling on whether it may be able to insist on jurisdiction over alleged war crimes perpetrated in Gaza, with a decision from the prosecutor’s office expected within “months, not years”. The issue arises because although the ICC potentially has “global jurisdiction” to investigate crimes which fall into its remit no matter where they were committed, Israel – despite having signed the Rome statute that founded the court and having expressed “deep sympathy” with the court’s goals – is not a party.
The ICC, which has 108 member states, has not so far recognised Palestine as a sovereign state or as a member.
One thing is clear – if Tony Blair is asking for Israeli cessation of the Blockade, after he spent years working for Israel in Jeruslaem, and getting $1Million from Tel Aviv university for doing exactly nothing, then thinga must be hotting up for Israel… maybe Tel Aviv should rethink that million bucks… just joking… obviously Tony remains Israel’s best loved poodle, and should be paid accordingly. If bankers are paid huge sums for bringing capitalism down, why should Tony not be paid for doind bugger all in his bizarre role as the envoy of a body which does not exist? Give him some more millions, I say! He has managed to never visit Gaza ever since he became the envoy of God in Palestine, isn;t this wortha million? He has also managed to not saya word while the killing was going on in Gaza – surely this is wortha few bob? After all, he has learnt how not to react in 2006, when Israel was out on a destructive spree in Lebanon. Our Tony is really good in clamming up when the boss says so! More millions to Timorous Tony, please!
Tony Blair made his first visit to Gaza yesterday as international Middle East envoy, and called for a new approach to resolving the Gaza crisis, ahead of a key reconstruction conference. Blair, the latest high-level diplomat to visit Gaza in the wake of the devastating three-week conflict, said Israel should immediately lift its economic blockade of the strip, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians and under the control of the Hamas Islamist movement. “I think there is a recognition that we have got to change our strategy towards Gaza,” he said.
The visit, his first since he went there as prime minister in November 2001, preceded a conference to be held today in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at which the Palestinian Authority is expected to ask for $2.8bn for the reconstruction of Gaza. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will be present for the conference before visiting Ramallah and Israel in the following days, in her first trip to the Middle East as secretary of state.
Former Prime Minister makes first visit to territory since becoming envoy
Tony Blair has called for Gaza’s crossings to be opened for basic building and other commercial goods, adding to international pressure on Israel likely to be exerted at today’s Egypt-hosted post-war reconstruction summit. On his long-awaited first visit to the Palestinian territory as Middle East envoy from the international quartet – the UN, US, EU and Russia – Mr Blair said that the 20-month blockade inflicted on the territory’s 1.5 million inhabitants “does not work”. He made the comments while calling for an end to violence, including rockets fired by Gazan militants into Israel.
And below you can read about the brand new machinery invented by Israel and the West to isolate Hamas, the elected government of Palestine. What the bombs and carnage failed to do, they are now planning to do with money mountains. It will change nothing, of course – all the infrastructure built with the last mountaing of bucks was destroyed by the bombing. And guess who will not paya penny? Only the murderers and destroyers of Palestine. We will be paying for their destruction, like we always do... And every penny will go through the unelected ‘president’ of Palestine, and his corrupt government. Excellent!
International donors have pledged almost $4.5bn (£3.2bn) in aid to the Palestinians, chiefly to rebuild Gaza after Israel’s recent offensive.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington would donate $900m, and vigorously seek to advance peace. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told a summit in Egypt cash was “insufficient” without a political solution. Israel, which has been fighting Gaza militants, refuses to allow building materials into Gaza for reconstruction. As well as the $900m promised by the US, Saudi Arabia pledged $1bn (£703m) for Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit says the total of $4.48m from about 70 countries was “beyond of our expectations”.
Help to stop the next war! Support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of the Israeli regime
Support Palestinian universities – spread the BDS campaign – it is what people under the Israeli jackboot ask you to do!
Israeli War Criminals – to the International Criminal Court, NOW!
Israel coninues the illegal and immoral blockading of Gaza, witha show of pig-headedness which defies reality. The rest of the world is not too excited either – there is no real pressure on Israel to stop this brutality, so why would they? Help to bring Israel to the international dock by Boycott, devestment and sanctions!
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have reportedly fired five rockets over the border into Israeli territory but there is no indication of casualties. One rocket damaged a school in the southern city of Ashkelon but the building was closed at the time, the Israeli military say.A second hit open ground outside the city and three fell just beyond Gaza without causing damage, they add. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks. Both Israel and the main Palestinian militant group in Gaza, Hamas, declared unilateral truces after Israel ended its three-week Gaza offensive on 17 January. Several rocket strikes and other attacks from Gaza have been reported since then, apparently involving smaller militant groups. Israel has responded with air strikes.
Olmert vows ‘painful’ response to Qassams: Ha’aretz
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday promised a ‘painful, uncompromising response’ to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, a day after Ten rockets were fired at Israel from the coastal territory. Speaking before the weekly cabinet meeting, Olmert accused Hamas of using Qassam rockets to make up for their losses suffered during the three-week Israel Defense Forces offensive in the Gaza Strip which ended in late January. “Hamas is trying to recover from the stiff blow they suffered during Operation Cast Lead through the use of terror,” Olmert said.
Olmert has only one button – ‘more force’. He is impervious to the fact no amount of murder will achieve his aims. He wiull cxertainly kill more people in Gaza before he vacates the stage in favour of the next brutalist.
Israel’s prime minister has promised an “uncompromising response” if rockets continue to be fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
Ehud Olmert said Israel’s retaliation would be painful, harsh and strong. His warning, at a cabinet meeting, came as international Middle East envoy Tony Blair visited Gaza to see the damage caused by Israel’s recent offensive. Meanwhile, Palestinian medics said five people had died when a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed. Both Israel and the main Palestinian militant group in Gaza, Hamas, declared unilateral truces following Israel’s three-week Gaza offensive on 17 January. But a number of rocket strikes and other attacks from Gaza have been reported since then, apparently involving smaller militant groups. Israel has responded with air strikes.
Leaders of the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have said they are entering a new era of reconciliation, after talks in Cairo.
Delegations from each side, and other Palestinian groups, have agreed to set up committees to look at forming a unity government and holding elections. The committees are to finish their work by the end of March, said senior Fatah official Ahmed Qurei. On Wednesday both groups agreed to release detainees from the other side. In another confidence-building measure, they pledged to stop attacking each other in the media to foster goodwill between the two sides.
The office of Tony Blair says the Mideast envoy is in the Gaza Strip to discuss reconstruction efforts. It is Blair’s first visit to Gaza since he was appointed to present the Mideast peacemaking quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations in 2007. “I wanted to come to hear for myself, first hand, from people in Gaza whose lives have been so badly impacted by the recent conflict,” Blair said in a statement.
One war criminal comes to appreciate the work of another one…
