Washington, D.C. | March 27, 2009 | www.adc.org | Today, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed multiple administrative complaints with the US Department of the Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), requesting investigations into the activities of organizations claiming tax-exempt status under section 501(C)3 of the US Tax Code yet allegedly raising funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Among other allegations, the ADC complaints allege that these organizations are using assets and income in direct violation of their addressed purpose, and to support illegal and terrorist activities abroad.
The construction of settlements in occupied territory is illegal under international humanitarian law. The use of tax-exempt status to raise funds for these types of activities is also illegal under US law. Further, it is a central part of stated US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict that settlement expansion and construction must stop. In filing its complaints, ADC seeks to ensure that US tax laws are not being exploited, and violated, by certain organizations which are allegedly using their tax-exempt status contradictory to stated US policies on this issue.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including the system of segregation roads, walls and checkpoints which surround them, continue to debilitate life for Palestinians in the occupied territory. Every American administration since the Carter Administration has been critical of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Most recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized Israeli government initiatives to expand these settlements. More information on the challenges associated with Israeli settlement construction and detailed information on the settlement enterprise can be read in the recently-released ADC-Research Institute’s issue paper on this subject.
This looks like just another case of zionists playing the antisemitism card. Here’s Electronic Intifada:
Hermann Dierkes is a respected politician with an honorable record of campaigning for social and political justice in the German Rhineland city of Duisburg. He represented his party Die Linke (The Left Party) on Duisburg City Council, campaigning tirelessly on anti-racist and anti-fascist issues. Most recently, he was his party’s candidate for the post of Lord Mayor.
On 18 February 2009 Dierkes addressed a public meeting on the question of Palestine. To the question of how to take action against the injustice being suffered by Palestinians, he responded that the recent World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil had proposed an arms embargo, sanctions and the boycott of Israeli exports. He added: “We should no longer accept that in the name of the Holocaust and with the support of the government of the Federal Republic [of Germany] such grave violations of human rights can be perpetrated and tolerated … Everyone can help strengthen pressure for a different politics, for example by boycotting Israeli products.”
A few days later, Dierkes gave an interview to the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), a conservative paper based in the nearby city of Essen. He explained the demands of the World Social Forum, and requested that the published interview should stress that this had nothing to do with anti-Semitism — a qualification that invariably needs to be made in Germany, except when there is suspicion of Islamophobia. Predictably, his precautions were in vain; scenting a political coup, the reporter published his article without including the qualification.
Two-year-old Rafiq lays his head peacefully on his mother’s shoulder, sticks a thumb in his mouth and buries his face in her black veil. Up until a short while ago Rafiq, whose family lives in Gaza, was at death’s door with a deadly kidney condition. But last September he was given a new lease of life when he was admitted to Barzilai hospital in Israel and nursed back to health.
“When I went back to Gaza everyone asked me how it went,” his mother tells The Media Line. “I told them the staff at the hospital treated him well. They could see for themselves how his condition improved dramatically.” On the face of it, Rafiq is a success story. Where the health facilities in the Gaza Strip were incapable of helping the now perky toddler, Israeli doctors were able to save his life. For Israel, Rafiq provides an opportunity to show the world a humanitarian face, and counter the warmongering image it often gets in the international media. But ideally, Palestinian health officials would have preferred Rafiq not have to go to Israel at all. They would rather he be treated in a Palestinian hospital without being dependent on their Jewish neighbors. This is one of the reasons the Palestinians are currently initiating sweeping reforms in the health sector, in an effort to make the industry a stable pillar in the future Palestinian state. Plenty needs to be done, and the political divisions between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, coupled with the ongoing conflict and unsteady peace talks with Israel, do not make this an easy task.
Israel’s use of white phosphorus artillery shells led to the deaths of at least 12 Palestinian civilians and destroyed millions of dollars in property during the recent three-week war in the Gaza Strip, the organization Human Rights Watch says in a report released Wednesday.
Israeli military officials called the claim “baseless” and said the shells, designed to produce a smoke screen, were used in accordance with accepted rules. New York-based Human Rights Watch, a frequent critic of Israeli military practices, says its review of the Gaza fighting found instances in which white phosphorus rounds were used in urban areas under circumstances that had no clear military rationale. The group calls it a violation of the international laws of warfare. White phosphorus shells are used as an “obscurant” to hide troop movements or block an enemy’s vision by distributing more than 100 burning, phosphorus-soaked pieces of felt across an area of perhaps 150 yards. Although widely employed by modern armies, their use has been criticized because the pieces of felt fall randomly and can set fires or cause deep and sometimes fatal burns if they land on a person. The risk of such damage rises in urban settings, and the Human Rights Watch report concludes that the Israeli army did not follow proper precautions for the shells’ use. “The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions in the air over populated areas, killing and injuring civilians, and damaging civilian structures,” the organization says. That use “violated international humanitarian law, which requires taking all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and prohibits indiscriminate attacks.”
An IDF spokesman said in a written statement that the use of white phosphorus during the Gaza conflict is being investigated, along with several other aspects of the operation.
Reporting from Khartoum, Sudan, and Jerusalem — A Sudanese official said Thursday that hundreds of people were killed early this year when foreign warplanes bombed three convoys smuggling African migrants through Sudan along with weapons that apparently were destined for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hinted at his air force’s possible involvement in the attacks. They came after Israel ended a 22-day assault on Gaza without fully achieving one of its aims: to choke off Hamas’ weapons supply. Israeli officials have said that the militant Islamic group is seeking more powerful weapons than the crude Kassam rockets and Grad missiles it fires at Israeli towns. An Israeli role in the bombings, if confirmed, would underscore the Jewish state’s determination to strike far beyond its borders to protect its security. It also would be seen as a warning to Hamas’ most powerful patron, Iran, which Israel alleges is developing a nuclear weapon. The bombings brought a new layer of tragedy to Sudan, a country in the grip of an armed insurgency. The victims were migrants from Sudan, Ethiopia and other African countries seeking a better life in Israel or Europe, and young men and boys working as porters and drivers for the smugglers. Fatih Mahmoud Awad, a spokesman for Sudan’s Transport Ministry, said as many as 800 people died in the attacks in January and early February. He said each convoy had more than a dozen vehicles.
When Israel Defense Forces soldiers expelled Abir Hijeh, her five children and their neighbors from homes in a Gaza war zone, she said they warned her in broken Arabic: Go south or you might get shot. The group went the wrong way and came under fire from Israeli soldiers. Hijeh was wounded and her 2-year-old daughter was killed. Hijeh’s account of a sniper firing on civilians, along with soldiers’ graffiti and destruction seen by The Associated Press in homes they commandeered, lend support to allegations of IDF misconduct during the onslaught in Gaza.
In recent testimony, Israeli soldiers told of vandalizing homes they seized to use as army posts, as well as relaxed rules of engagement, including hasty shooting at civilians. The soldiers, who spoke to a military prep school in a closed-door session, described an incident with similarities to the shooting of the Hijeh family. The accounts, exposed in Haaretz last week, further fueled international outrage over the Gaza offensive. Israel, which invaded Gaza to end years of rocket attacks by Hamas militants on Israeli towns, is already under international scrutiny about whether it used disproportionate force and failed to protect civilians. Gaza’s Hamas rulers have been criticized for targeting civilian areas and using Palestinians as human shields.Senior military officials have acknowledged using massive firepower in Gaza to deter Hamas gunmen and prevent casualties among Israeli forces. The offensive was unprecedented in its deadliness, and contrasted with the smaller, pinpoint operations of the past in Gaza. However, an IDF spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovich, said the military “took every measure of prevention possible in order to save the lives of Palestinian civilians,” including phone calls and leaflets warning residents to evacuate. The Associated Press quoted a Sudanese Foreign Ministry official, Ali Youssef, as saying there were conflicting reports of the number of casualties. Transport Minister Mubarak Mabrook Saleem discussed the attacks at a news conference this week in Khartoum. The attacks were not reported in the country’s newspapers, suggesting that the government was embarrassed to acknowledge that its sovereignty and air space could be violated so easily. Saleem told the Associated Press that he believed the planes were American, but other officials said they were not identifiable. The U.S. military Thursday denied having made any recent airstrikes on Sudan.
While cruising in South America last month, I happened to pick on board the ship’s minuscule edition of The New York Times and, much to my surprise, it had the news about the ordeal of Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., who felt duty bound to withdraw his nomination as chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the wake of a brutal and unjustified attack by the pro-Israel lobby. The news coincided with my reading of Aaron David Miller’s wonderful book, “The Much Too Promised Land”, detailing his years at the State Department where he was one of the so-called “Jewish lawyers” – Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Dan Kurtzer and Richard Haass – handling the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations undertaken by several US administrations. The Freeman debacle reminded me of my experience at a major US newspaper where I worked for nearly two years thanks to the effort of a Jewish colleague who was aware of my journalistic background in Beirut, Lebanon and the US at another paper in Chicago. After working there for a few weeks, I asked my friend whether I could move to the opinion section, where he served as deputy editor, from the foreign desk. He looked at me quizzically, but sheepishly, and said that it would be difficult since I was Palestinian. There were two other incidents where my heritage seemingly posed a problem. Shortly thereafter I left the paper, fearing that my days there would be numbered. “Concern for Israel’s well being had become part of me,” wrote Miller in his book, “like some sort of ethnic DNA.”
He also noted that “far too often the small group with whom I had worked in the Clinton administration, myself included, had acted as a lawyer for only one side, Israel”. Well, if that is the case, why can’t someone like Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and China who in fact is Jewish, serve his country as he did for three decades and help provide intelligence briefings to President Obama?
One Last Chance for Peace in the Middle East: Middle East Times
ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND -- Palestinian children play on March 25 among the rubble of buildings destroyed in the town of Rafah by Israel’s 23-day war on the Gaza Strip. (Newscom)
By CLAUDE SALHANI (Editor, Middle East Times)
Here we go. This is the last chance for a peaceful resolution of the Middle East crisis before the region takes a turn for disaster. All the ingredients for peace as well as for greater conflict are in place. How it all turns out is now up to the players on the ground. At this point it’s a 50-50 gamble.
Examining the peace dividends, they are many. First, regarding the Palestinian issue, everyone knows the final outcome. There are no surprises; the issues have been addressed ad nauseam:
1. The final borders: Give or take 5 percent here or 10 percent there, there is only so much re-drawing to maps that can be done with such restricted real estate.
2. Jerusalem: The two parties will either have to agree to live together in a unified greater Jerusalem, or continue fighting over it for generations to come. There are a very limited number of solutions to the question of Jerusalem, one of which would be to extend the city limits to include certain areas of East Jerusalem’s suburbs and have both Palestinians and Israelis call the city their capital. This is far from a perfect solution, but until someone can come up with something better, both sides may have to just live with it.
3. The right of return of Palestinian refugees: Everybody knows that only a very limited number of Palestinians refugees living in the surrounding countries will be allowed to settle in Israel — probably less than hundreds. To place the problem in perspective there are about 1,930,000 refugees in Jordan; 456,000 in Syria; 416,000 in Lebanon; 754,000 in the West Bank; and 1 million plus in the Gaza Strip. And those are just the official figures supplied by the United Nations.
Most everybody, except for the Palestinians concerned, accept the reality that it is highly unlikely 4.6 million people will be returning to their homes in the area that was pre-1948 Palestine.
The question of course now is, what to do with the displaced Palestinians? For the most part those in Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, and even those in Syria, may well end up staying where they have been living now for nearly three generations. The tricky question is what to do with those 400,000 plus refugees currently living in 10 camps strewn across Lebanon.
The 30th anniversary of the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel proves that peace is always possible, US President Barack Obama said Thursday. “As we commemorate this historic event, we recall that peace is always possible even in the face of seemingly intractable conflicts,” Obama said. “The success of Prime Minister (Menachem) Begin, President (Anwar) Sadat, and President Jimmy Carter, begun at Camp David, demonstrated that progress results from sustained efforts at communication and cooperation,” the American leader said.
“While much work remains, we honor the courage and foresight of these leaders, who stood together in unity to change the course of our shared history. Today, as we seek to expand the circle of peace among Arabs and Israelis, we take inspiration from what Israel and Egypt achieved three decades ago, knowing that the destination is worthy of the struggle.” Earlier Thursday, President Shimon Peres spoke to his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak and commended him for “working toward peace and stability in the Middle East. Mubarak responded by saying that he does not plan on changing his policy vis-à-vis the peace with Israel, adding that “those who seek war know not what true war is.” The Egyptian leader added that Cairo was making every effort to advance the negotiations on an official ceasefire and a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.
Charles “Chas” Freeman, who until recently was set to assume the post of chairman of the National Intelligence Council, wants to make a few things emphatically clear. Freeman would like it to be known that he does not believe, as some have charged he does, that American support of Israel caused the September 11 terrorist attacks. “That’s obviously nonsense,” said Freeman, who withdrew his name for the post on March 10, just a month-and-a-half after agreeing to take up the job amid weeks of attacks on him by supporters of Israel and others. But Freeman also did not mince words about his view of American and Israeli interests. They are, he said, “divergent.”
“It’s a foreign country, and while maybe 40 years ago many of its values were convergent with ours, I think there’s been a divergence of values,” Freeman told the Forward in a phone interview. He argued that this trend is embodied most clearly in the rise of controversial right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman. “I think the values in Israel are deeply disturbing now to many in the Jewish community, as well,” he said.
But while Freeman has spoken at length and often about the causes and motivations for Arab, Palestinian and Muslim extremism — a function, he notes, that is central to the kind of analysis his job would have required — he was blunt about his lack of interest in expressing similar “analytic empathy,” at least in public, with regard to Israel. “I think I understand Israel’s view of itself and its neighbors,” he said. “Israel has multiple voices in the United States explaining it and its motivations. It doesn’t need me to do so. In fact, Israel’s viewpoints dominate our understanding of its dispute with the Palestinians and its consequent estrangement from its other Arab neighbors…. Frankly, I don’t see that need.” That may explain something about why Freeman’s appointment to the National Intelligence Council provoked such strong opposition. Some in Washington who venture criticism of Israel do so in a tone of critical sympathy that may at once blunt the criticism but also allow it to be heard. Freeman, a self-confessed “non-political” figure, does not choose to do so, and he makes no apologies for that. One example is the speech he gave at a policy conference in 2006, which some opponents cite as the basis for their saying he blames Israel for 9/11.
Nicola Nasser
In view of a world consensus on a two-state solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict most political analysts and commentators concluded that Israeli prime minister-designate Benyamin Netanyahu, who still refuses to affirm his commitment thereto, would face a “moment of truth” during his recent meetings with visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US presidential envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell. Yet the outcome of Clinton’s first regional tour as secretary of state and Mitchell’s second tour as envoy proved the opposite.
The new Democratic administration of Barack Obama seemed to fail its own moment of truth with regards to passing the only test that could make or break the two-state “vision” as a viable solution and render Obama’s “aggressive” approach credible enough to make a difference between US words and deeds: namely to remove the major obstacle of the Israeli colonial settlement enterprise that has brought US sponsored peacemaking to its current impasse since the internationally recognised “legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people” — the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) — adopted the two-state approach in 1988.
Ironically, but also instructively, the Israeli settlement watchdog “Peace Now” welcomed Clinton and Mitchell one day ahead of their visit with a startling report issued 2 March. The Israeli Ministry of Housing has finalised plans to “double” the number of the illegal Jewish colonial settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the two-state solution envisions the creation of a Palestinian state, to more than 600,000 by expanding more than 120 settler colonies with the construction of more than 73,302 housing units, of which 15,156 units have already been approved and 58,000 units are pending approval. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported in 2008 that approximately 290,000 settlers live in 120 colonies officially “authorised” and more than 100 outposts that were not authorised, in addition to 200,000 settlers living in 15 colonies in eastern Jerusalem over 41 years. Peace Now reported that settlement expansion in the West Bank increased by 60 per cent in 2008 compared to the previous year. Not a single outpost was evacuated in 2008, the organisation added; on the contrary, the settlers expanded construction in these outposts taking special advantage of the war Israel launched on the Gaza Strip on 27 December.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed to return 93 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians and to handle the Jerusalem question under an international framework as his “final offer,” local news service Ynet reported Thursday. Olmert made the promises to Palestinian National Authority (PNA)Chairman Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting in September, said the report, quoting senior officials as saying that the pledges marked Olmert’s “final offer to end the conflict.”
“There was one point when I put things on the table and offered Abbas something that had never been offered and dealt with the crux of the problem, with the most sensitive issues that touch the most exposed nerves and historical obstacles,” Olmert was quoted as telling a political conference held near Tel Aviv on Thursday. In the offer, Israel would return 93 percent of the West Bank and evict over 60,000 settlers, while retaining large settlements in the Palestinian territories, according to the report, which added that the deal would also see the Jewish state cede control over some peripheral neighborhoods and refugee camps on the outskirts of Jerusalem. As for the sovereignty of Jerusalem, which is regarded by Israel as its permanent and inalienable capital, and the east part of which is termed by Palestinians as the capital of their future state, Olmert proposed to tackle it under an international framework, revealed the report.
The plan was also presented to the United States, an influential player in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Olmert’s office said that the staunch ally of Israel supported it, added the report. “I told him (Abbas) ‘let’s sign.’ It was half a year ago and I’m still waiting,” said Olmert on Thursday, who is set to be replaced by hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu as early as next week.
Prevention of medical assistance from the trapped and the wounded, severe difficulties to emergency medical evacuation, attacks on medical personnel and medical facilities, and de facto prevention from the chronically ill and gravely wounded referral to medical care outside Gaza. “We call for an outside independent body to investigate the events” say representatives of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.
The new report, published today by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, gives room for concern that during the operation in Gaza, Israeli soldiers repeatedly acted in violation of the army’s code of ethics, the medical code of ethics, and basic human values. These actions suggest repeated violations of the International Law regarding the treatment of the ill and the wounded and the protection of medical personnel.
The report examines six topics: the situation of the Gaza health system on the eve of the military operation, the difficulties in evacuating the wounded to medical centers outside Gaza, attacks on medical personnel, difficulties in internal evacuation of the wounded, attacks on medical facilities and injury to chronic and acute patients.
Based on numerous first hand testimonies that were brought to the attention of PHR-Israel during the attack, the report depicts a grave picture of the realities in Gaza during those 22 days. In some of the cases revealed to PHR-Israel, the army did not allow for the evacuation of wounded and trapped civilians for days on, leaving them in isolated pockets with no access to food, water and medical treatment. The army did not assist these civilians but even more, it prevented the Palestinian emergency vehicles and staff from reaching these civilians. In other cases, the soldiers did not give medical assistance to wounded human beings that were within several feet from the soldiers. This, in serious violation of the army’s Ethical Code for the War on Terror of 2004 that states that “soldiers are obliged to provide adequate health services, as conditions allow, equally to themselves and to the enemy.”
PHR-Israel received reports of 16 medical personnel that were killed and 25 that were wounded from the Israeli army’s fire, all of them while performing their medical duties. Furthermore, 34 medical facilities were hit by the army, eight hospitals and 26 primary care clinics; this in severe violation of directives of international law that forbid attacks on medical personnel and medical facilities in times of fighting.
Israel says its calculation of the death toll from its assault on Gaza shows a much lower ratio of civilian deaths than other published figures.
Military researchers say 1,166 Palestinians were killed of whom 709 are described as “terror operatives” from the militant group Hamas.
The military adds it took “extensive measures” not to harm civilians.
New Palestinian research says the toll was 1,434, including 960 civilians, 235 fighters and 239 uniformed police.
Israel has been widely criticised for its operations in Gaza between 27 December and 18 January, especially over the high level of civilian casualties and the use of some weaponry in civilian areas. In two reports published this week, UN human rights investigators said there was evidence of Israeli war crimes during the offensive, although Israel dismissed this. Official Palestinian figures have put the final death toll at 1,475, including 943 civilians, including Palestinians who have died from their wounds in hospital.
So now they speak about the murdered, claiming they never were… this argument is as immoral as the killing itself.
An unauthorised settlement in the West Bank, illegal even under Israeli law, appears to be benefiting from state funding, the BBC has uncovered.
A road is being built from the established settlement of Eli, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, leading east to the illegal outpost at Hayovel.
Settlement expansion is a major barrier to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. The international community regards all settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law. Israel disputes this, but even under Israeli law, those newer, smaller settlements – known as outposts – which have not received authorisation from the government are deemed, by the Israeli government, to be illegal. Outpost promise
Drive up the twisting, landscaped roads of Eli, a mid-sized settlement in the heart of the West Bank, and you come across a scene of intense construction activity. Lorries, tractors, and graders are digging, laying and smoothing a new road, more than a kilometre long. The road leads east to the outpost of Hayovel.
What junk about ‘uauthorised settelement’ – all the uauthorised settelements end up fully authorised aftera while. After 42 years, they are still selling us this tosh, and the BBC laps it up…
