Not only does the illegal blockade of Gaza continued with the quiet assent of the west, but hardlya day passes without Israel bombing and killing more civilians in Gaza. Why is the world not reacting to this endless atrocity?
‘Four injured’ by Israeli air strike in Gaza: BBC
The Israeli military has carried out an air strike on the Gaza Strip, targeting what it said were Palestinian militants preparing to fire rockets into Israel.
Palestinian medical sources said four civilians were injured, one of them critically. Hamas officials said the attack had occurred near a cemetery.
But Israel said a member of a Salafist militant group, Jaljalat, was killed.
On Thursday, two Palestinians were injured in an air strike on smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt.
The strike reportedly came in response to to rocket fire the previous day by Palestinian militants.
Incidents of rocket fire from Gaza have decreased since Israeli forces launched a large-scale offensive last December and January, but there have been sporadic attacks.
In a statement issued on Friday morning, the Israeli military said its air force had attacked a group of militants “on their way to fire rockets from the northern Gaza Strip”.
“Accurate hits, including the rocket launching pad, were identified,” it added.
But the Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, said civilians who had been on their way to visit the graves of relatives were hit.
According to reports from Gaza, a group called Jaish al-Umma (Army of the Nation), an Islamist militant group affiliated with al-Qaeda, has said it fired several mortars into Israel overnight.
However, the Israeli army has said it was only aware of two mortars fired on Thursday, and that they did not reach Israel.
What a nice game this is – they announce a ‘freeze’ on the same day that they announce this, blow. Is Obama stupid? I doubt it; in which case, he is culpable and isa party to the continued Nakba:
Israel approves 28 schools for West Bank settlements: BBC
Israel’s government has approved 28 new schools for settlements in the West Bank, a day after it announced a 10-month halt to new residential building.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak said construction would completed before the beginning of the 2010-11 school year.
Settlers have been angered by the decision to limit building, although the Palestinians say it is not enough.
They refuse to restart peace talks without a total freeze and are angry the policy does not include Jerusalem.
Under the Israeli new policy, backed by the security cabinet on Wednesday, permits for new homes in the West Bank will not be approved for 10 months. But municipal buildings and hundreds of houses already under construction will still be allowed to go ahead.
The Palestinian Authority and some members of the international community, including Russia and the UK, want Israel to go further and include East Jerusalem. However, Israel does not consider Jerusalem occupied territory.
Nevertheless, right-wing Israeli leaders have been angered by what they see as capitulation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, and vowed to keep building.
The chairman of the settler group, the Yesha Council, Danny Dayan said on Wednesday that Mr Netanyahu had “betrayed the very principles for which he stood for all his life”.
‘Real test’
After approving the 28 educational institutions, Mr Barak said: “Alongside our duty to be open and attentive to the settler public we must not confuse ourselves, the state means what it says.”
“Everybody who asks whether the political echelon intends to fulfil its decision, I say, the answer is positive. This is a real test for the Israeli democracy,” he added.
The row over settlements has dogged US President Barack Obama’s attempts to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians since he took office.
Israel previously pledged to freeze all settlement activity under the 2003 Middle East peace plan known as the Roadmap, which also called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle militant groups.
However, the administration of former US President George W Bush did not pressure it to curtail building in the settlement blocs which it was widely expected to keep in any eventual deal.
Mr Obama’s administration began by pressing for a total freeze, but softened its language in the face of refusals from Mr Netanyahu and his right-leaning government.
Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law – although Israel disputes this.
Israel settlers obstruct building curbs inspectors: BBC
Jewish settlers have sought to prevent building inspectors from enforcing recently announced limits on construction in the occupied West Bank.
Groups of settlers, who have vowed to ignore the curbs, gathered at the entrance to one settlement and said they had forced inspectors to leave.
A government official said there had been some “low level friction”.
The Palestinians say Israel’s 10-month building pause is not enough and are refusing to restart peace talks.
The building restrictions do not apply to East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want to locate the capital of their future state.
‘Without violence’
Settler groups have reacted angrily to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of the new policy last week.
Qoute:
We would like them to disappear to where they came from
Malachi Levinger
Kiryat Arba
Obstacles to peace: Borders and settlements
He had been under heavy pressure from the US, with the settlements issue becoming a major sticking point in attempts to resume peace negotiations.
On Monday, the Yesha Council settler group dubbed the new policy, “illegitimate, immoral, anti-Zionist and inhuman”, and said the settlers would “continue building the country with the government or without it”.
On Tuesday it said it had called on all residents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to try to “prevent, without violence” the entry of the inspectors.
An Israeli government official said that teams from the civil administration in the West Bank, which is tasked with enforcing the restrictions, had inspected 80 settlements in the past two days.
‘Resistance’
He said the teams, which are operating with police escorts, had served at least 60 notices demanding that construction work be halted, and seized five heavy construction vehicles.
The official said residents and local council leaders had “showed some resistance” but “most cases were resolved peacefully”.
In the settlement of Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank, the head of the regional council, Malachi Levinger, told the Israeli media residents had forced a team of inspectors to “retrace their steps” by using “passive resistance”.
“We would like them to disappear to where they came from,” Mr Levinger said.
Under the Israeli new policy, backed by the security cabinet on Wednesday, permits for new homes in the West Bank will not be approved for 10 months.
In an effort to ease the fears of the settlers, many of whom are political allies of his right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu told an audience in Tel Aviv the moratorium was “a one-time decision and it is temporary”.
“We shall resume building once the moratorium is over,” and the future of the settlements in occupied land “shall be determined only through peace negotiations and not a single day beforehand”, Netanyahu said.
Israeli courts
But municipal buildings and about 3,000 homes already under construction will still be allowed to go ahead.
Last week the Defence Ministry approved the construction of 28 educational establishments.
Separately on Tuesday, scuffles broke out at a disputed house in East Jerusalem, which a Jewish family has been attempting to take over.
Television footage showed a Palestinian hitting one of the settlers on the head with a stick.
The house is one of a group of properties which both Palestinian and Jewish families claim to own. Israeli courts have recently ruled in favour of the Jewish claims in some of the cases.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his “dismay” at the “continuation of demolitions, evictions and the instalment of Israeli settlers in Palestinian neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem”.
Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law – although Israel disputes this.
The Palestinians have refused to return to peace negotiations unless Israel completely ends all settlement activity.
Australia hosts war criminal Ehud Olmert: The Electronic Intifada
Sonja Karkar, 1 December 2009
The news that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in Australia and was welcomed by the honorable members of our parliament came as somewhat of a shock. It is one thing to have allowed a man charged with corruption and suspected of war crimes into Australia at all; it is another thing that he was listed as a distinguished guest in Hansard — the official record of parliamentary proceedings — and received a resounding “hear, hear” from our elected representatives.
As a High Contracting Party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, Australia has a duty to bring before its courts those responsible for alleged violations amounting to grave breaches of the convention. The UN-commissioned Goldstone report and other investigations into Israel’s conduct during its attack on Gaza last winter by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross and others, make for chilling reading of what the Palestinians in Gaza are made to endure for Israel’s “security.” Our government has shown a callous disregard for Palestinian human rights and no amount of aid can compensate for its cavalier decisions to back Israel regardless.
Only last month, the UK’s Guardian reported that a UK lawyer “is working to expand the application of ‘universal jurisdiction’ for offenses involving serious human rights abuses committed anywhere in the world.” A number of Israeli politicians and military leaders have already come close to being arrested in some European countries and Olmert would most likely face arrest if he visited Britain. It is only a matter of time before those wanted for war crimes will find themselves subjected to universal jurisdiction wherever they go, not least because of Israel’s failure to undertake a genuine independent investigation into alleged war crimes as urged by the Goldstone report.
Australia’s politicians on both sides of the spectrum are sending the wrong message when they open their arms to every visiting Israeli official. Not only are they condoning violations of international law, but they leave themselves open to charges of hypocrisy and racism. To wit, Australia’s smearing of Dr. Mohamed Haneef for allegedly supporting terrorist attacks on no more evidence than innuendo and suspicion, which at the time then Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd backed without a whimper; and similarly, the government’s ugly fear-mongering about asylum seekers, conflating them with terrorists.
Ehud Olmert is wanted for war crimes. Those war crimes have been amply documented. As Israel’s prime minister at the time, there can be no doubt that Olmert knew the consequences of the military operations he approved and ordered. And he is by no means the only one.
Australia’s position on war crimes is very clear. A recent letter from the attorney-general in response to a request from a concerned citizen for more information about Australia’s handling of cases involving alleged war criminals states “the Federal Government takes the allegation of war crimes very seriously” regardless of where they are committed or by whom. The letter continues:
“Australia takes an active role in identifying and investigating anyone who may have had involvement in human rights abuses and war crimes, including those that have occurred overseas. If there is evidence on which to base a prosecution under Commonwealth law, the Australian Federal Police will give that evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public prosecutions (CDPP). It is then a matter for the CDPP to consider, in accordance with the Prosecution Policy of the Commonwealth, whether there is sufficient evidence, reasonable prospects of securing a conviction, and whether a prosecution is in the public interest.”
There is a danger that Australia could become a safe haven for Israeli war criminals if political pressure is allowed to interfere in the work of the judiciary, despite Australia’s obligations under international law and Division 268 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), which criminalizes genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The question for Australians will be whether justice and universal human rights is something they wish to champion over the political concerns and self-interests of whatever government is in power. The opportunity was missed with Olmert, but there will be no shortage of opportunities as long as our government continues to play host to war criminals whether from Israel or elsewhere.
Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-convener of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. She is also the editor of www.australiansforpalestine.com and contributes articles on Palestine regularly to various publications. She can be contacted at sonjakarkar A T womenforpalestine D O T org.
“We will have to kill them all”: Effie Eitam, thug messiah: The Electronic Intifada,
Jim Holstun and Irene Morrison, 25 November 2009
Colonel Efraim (Fein) Eitam was only following orders when he told his troops to beat Ayyad Aqel in 1988. They beat him to death.
Eitam, who since then has held several senior posts in the Israeli government, has recently toured the US as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “Special Emissary” to the “Caravan for Democracy” program of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). This is a marriage made in heaven. Since Israel was founded, the JNF has organized the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the settlement of Jews on their expropriated land; Eitam sees himself as the messianic soldier-prophet directing future expulsions of Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Hillel of Buffalo, New York, invited Eitam to speak at our campus, the University at Buffalo (UB), on the recommendation of UB Professor Ernest Sternberg, a board member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and a founder of its local campus chapter.
In February 1988, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin discreetly told the Israeli army to break the bones of Palestinians rising up during the first Palestinian intifada. According to the testimony of Israeli soldiers, Colonel Eitam relayed the message to his Givati Brigade, then occupying Gaza. On 7 February, he ordered four of them to break the bones of two brothers from al-Bureij refugee camp. They cuffed and blindfolded them, beat them for a while in their own home, then took them to a secluded olive grove, where they kicked and beat them for 20 minutes. Khalid Aqel survived; his 21-year-old brother Ayyad died. In 1990, an Israeli court martial convicted these soldiers of assault, reduced their ranks, gave suspended sentences to three, and sentenced the fourth to two months (“Soldier jailed for intifada killing will sue Rabin,” Guardian, 2 November 1990).
Eitam’s soldiers testified he had ordered and participated in the Givati beatings. He admitted driving around Gaza with four batons in his jeep, including a shatter-proof, non-regulation knout made of thick rope. The army judges found that Eitam’s “violent behavior became the norm, and was taken as an example by those under his command” (“Soldier Sentenced for Palestinian Beatings,” Associated Press, 31 October 1990; “Givati Commander Denies Telling Men to ‘Break Bones'”, The Jerusalem Post, 23 February 1990; “Givati 4 Are Convicted”, The Jerusalem Post, 2 October 1990). Still, he received no judgment for almost two years. Then, on 13 July 1992, Rabin became prime minister, and three days later, Eitam got off with a reprimand and a recommendation against promotion. The Jerusalem Post quotes sources suggesting that his likely appeal to Israel’s high court of any conviction might have implicated his higher-ups, including Rabin, in the beatings and murders (“Effi Fein Reprimanded to Prevent Him Appealing to Supreme Court”, 19 July 1992).
Nevertheless, when Ehud Barak became Rabin’s general staff chief, he promoted Eitam to brigadier general. In December 2000, after Rabin’s death, Barak’s successor Shaul Mofaz refused to promote Eitam to the general staff. Chafing at the slight, Eitam gave an incendiary anti-Oslo lecture at Bar-Ilan University. He called Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat “a miserable murderer,” attacked the government for sharing control of Jerusalem, and proposed a new Nakba, or dispossession: the Israeli army “can tomorrow … conquer Judea, Samaria [the West Bank], and the Gaza Strip and expel the population there overnight. It’s not a problem to do this. We have a problem of having the will to do this. As a nation we are inhibited” (“Eitam quits IDF”, The Jerusalem Post, 27 December 2000).
Shortly thereafter, Eitam resigned from the army, but his career flourished. Elected to the Knesset in February 2003, he helped form the National Religious Party and the Renewed Religious National Zionist Party. In 2002-04 he held several cabinet-level portfolios in the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, including minister of housing and construction, a post he used to accelerate settlement in the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In a long interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, Eitam called Palestinian citizens of Israel a “ticking bomb” and a “cancer” (“Dear God, this is Effi”, 20 March 2002). Nations other than Israel are a “world of robots without souls.” In classic fascist fashion, he stated that in war the most “sublime things in man appear.” He seems to believe that he is the Messiah, saying his mission is “to save the people of Israel and the State of Israel.” Such a leader, Eitam said, “also leads the Jewish people. He stands in the place where not only Ben-Gurion stood, but where Moses, too, stood. Where King David stood. So how does one do that, yet remain modest? How does one not get lost between coalition agreements and political intrigues, and a process that involves the very order of nature and the order of the heavens and the earth?” (“Continuation of Dear God, this is Effi”, Haaretz, 20 March 2002).
But this modest Messiah isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Unchastened by the killing of Aqel, Eitam has continued his racist and violent incitement. At a 2002 address in a Tel Aviv synagogue, Eitam called for the murder of then Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat, along with the rest of his colleagues: “If I [could] give the order now, he would be dead in 15 minutes, together with his whole gang.” Of former Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader Marwan Barghouti, then being investigated by Israel in preparation for trial, Eitam suggested Israel should just “Take him out to an orchard and shoot him in the head” (“NRP leader Eitam: Arafat, Barghouti should be killed”, The Jerusalem Post, 5 July 2002).
In typical colonial fashion he has called Palestinians “creatures who came out of the depths of darkness” who were “collectively guilty” and who could be indiscriminately killed not only if they had “blood on their hands” but because of “the evil in their heads.” “We will have to kill them all,” he said (“A Reporter at Large: Among the Settlers”, The New Yorker, 31 May 2004).
Eitam has repeatedly called for the wholesale expulsion of Palestinians, seeing a 2002 Israeli assault on the West Bank as an opportunity to force them into Jordan, leaving “our Jewish conscience … clean” (“Israeli nationalist hopes to persuade the country to expel Palestinians, Associated Press, 7 April 2002). In 2006, he stated: “We will have to expel the great majority of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]” (“Leftist MKs blast Eitam’s statements on Arabs”, Haaretz, 11 September 2006).
Addressing Arab Knesset members in 2008, he said, “the day will come when we will banish you from this house … and from the national home. … You … should be expelled to Gaza, where your people, who are fighting us, dwell; that is where you belong” (“Security around MK Eitam boosted after anti-Arab speech”, Ynet, 15 April 2008). During Israel’s attacks on Gaza last winter, Eitam advocated mass transfer of Gaza civilians and turning the Strip into a “free hunting zone” (“Audio Exclusive: One Jerusalem Interview with Israeli General Effie Eitam (Res)”, One Jerusalem, 7 January 2009).
The Israeli press has documented other staggering statements by Eitam: on the Israeli army’s “very moral” but also fatal use of Jenin teenager Nidal Abu Muhsein as a human shield; his demand that Israel “declare war” on Palestinian citizens of Israel living in the Negev; and his calls for outlawing commemoration of the Nakba; executing Israeli politicians who favor returning occupied territories to Palestinians; and “decapitating” Hamas leaders.
Eitam’s visit protested
When University at Buffalo community members asked Hillel to cancel Eitam’s meeting because of his previous violence and hate speech and the damage his visit would do to local interfaith efforts, it refused. Hillel and other Eitam supporters responded that the scrupulously-documented charges made against him were a “medieval blood libel”; that Eitam never said or did these things; that he was misquoted (he seems to be misquoted a lot) or quoted out of context; that the leading Israeli newspapers reporting his words and deeds were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy; and that even if Eitam did say and do these things, he represents an important sector of Israeli opinion that should be heard.
On 2 November, Hillel held a noon meeting with Eitam for University at Buffalo students. Before the talk, one Eitam supporter talked with another about killing a protestor, while third called out to a student wearing a headscarf, “Why don’t you go blow yourself up?” Eitam’s speech consisted of a tirade about Iran, Hamas and Hizballah, and how efforts to make peace with them all failed, and “withdrawal” from Gaza was also a failure. Eitam compared Israel’s actions to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, explaining that [US President] Truman had to “incinerate 200,000 people in a second” to protect American troops. When challenged repeatedly by one of us why he has made racist statements such as calling Palestinian citizens of Israel a “cancer,” Eitam simply denied ever having said them and insisted his words had been taken “far out of context” (“Hillel Student to Arab Student: “Why don’t you go blow yourself up?”, The Buffalo Activist, 2 November 2009).
Eitam also spoke at a packed evening lecture. Hillel President Dan Lenard began by denouncing the “fascists” who had presented critical information about Eitam. Consistent with his earlier performance, Eitam’s speech was a mish-mash of Arab-hating, Israel-boosting, and bare-faced lies. He insisted that Iran constitutes an unprecedented existential threat, and indeed, he has been calling for an attack on Iran since at least 2006 (“MK Eitam: Strike Iran now”, Ynet, 18 May 2006). Astonishingly, he said Iran sponsored al-Qaeda’s attacks. And again he compared the course taken by the US with Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the course the US and Israel should take with Iran.
But Eitam couldn’t completely forget his favorite enemies. He claimed that Palestinians fled Palestine in 1947-48 on the broadcast orders of Arab leaders — a claim long discredited. He said that a steady barrage of Hamas-fired Qassam rockets prompted the Gaza massacre, though Israeli sources, including Ehud Olmert’s press spokesman, demonstrate that Hamas ceased all rocket fire between 19 June and 4 November 2008, when Israelis infiltrated Gaza and killed six Hamas activists. Palestinians on the West Bank, he says, are desperate for Israel to maintain the occupation and protect them from Hamas.
It was not a memorable performance. Eitam left the hall with a posse of three armed guards (or so a supporter reports) and a few diehard supporters. Outside the event, 40 students and community members protested Eitam’s presence on campus; they had been alerted by UB Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine-Israel Committee of the Western New York Peace Center. A few Eitam supporters spat at protesters or yelled “terrorists!” but more passers-by joined in with the protest.
Eitam’s policies may not ultimately be much different from those of, say, former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. But there is an air of desperation in organizing a US tour by such an unmanicured monster. On the other hand, the quickly-organized protest was one of the most spirited in recent UB memory. As the recent actions against former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in New Orleans, the University of Kentucky, the University of Arkansas, the University of Chicago and in San Francisco suggests, Israeli war criminals can no longer count on respectful US campus forums for state-funded propaganda tours. There’s something in the air.
Jim Holstun teaches world literature at SUNY Buffalo and has published several articles for The Electronic Intifada. He can be reached at jamesholstun A T hotmail D O T com. Irene Morrison is Assistant to the Director of the Western New York Peace Center. She can be reached at Irene A T wnypeace D O T org. Both are members of the WNYPC Palestine-Israel Committee.
Israeli authorities deport African American political activists: Al-Awda New York,
Press release, 1 December 2009
The following press release was issued by Al-Awda New York, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition on 25 November 2009:
Al-Awda New York, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, condemns the racist denial of entry to Palestine of African American political activists Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Naji Mujahid by the Israeli occupation.
The occupation of Palestine has always been based on the racist theory and practice of Zionism, including the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the denial of millions of Palestinian refugees’ right to return home as part of building a “pure Jewish state” through the dispossession and oppression of the indigenous Palestinian Arab people.
Zionism and racism have always gone hand in hand — the Israeli occupation regime was one of the greatest military sponsors of the South African apartheid state. US racism has sponsored and encouraged Zionist racism. This reality has made itself quite apparent in the denial of entry to Palestine, abuse and detention of Bin Wahad and Mujahid.
On 23 November 2009, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former US political prisoner and leader of the Black Panther Party, and Naji Mujahid, a student activist from Washington DC rode tourist bus en route from Amman, Jordan to the to the West Bank of occupied Palestine, where both had been invited to attend the International Conference on Palestinian Political Prisoners in Jericho that was sponsored by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Prisoners and ex-Prisoners Affairs.
As the bus crossed the bridge that connects Jordan with the West Bank of occupied Palestine, it stopped for a border inspection by Israeli occupation officers. Of the numerous individuals on the bus, only Dhoruba and Naji were ordered to disembark. Significantly, both were the only Black people on the bus.
The border officers searched Dhoruba’s name on the Internet after they had been pulled aside from the rest of the tourists, who passed without incident. They discovered that he is Muslim, a former Black Panther leader and someone who spent 19 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. (Dhoruba, a target of COINTELPRO, was arrested in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. His conviction was overturned in 1990.) Both Dhoruba and Naji were interrogated, strip searched and their property confiscated and searched. Despite their cooperation and offer to return into Jordan, their detention continued for over 12 hours. They were ultimately released but denied permission to enter occupied Palestine and returned to Jordan.
The treatment accorded to Dhoruba and Naji would be outrageous if it occurred to anyone, and echoes the ongoing abuse of Palestinians and Arabs seeking to enter Palestine and the drive to push Palestinians and Arabs to leave their homeland through settlement, land confiscation, checkpoints, the Israelization of Jerusalem, discrimination and laws targeting Palestinians in occupied Palestine ’48. As Naji Mujahid himself stated, “the humiliation and frustration that we endured was a small taste of what we can be sure the Palestinians go through on a daily basis.”
It is apparent that this incident occurred as a clear manifestation of Zionist racism. Dhoruba and Naji were ordered off the bus before Israeli border officials had any idea of their country of origin, personal histories, or plans to attend the conference on political prisoners. At the time they were targeted, the occupation officers knew only that they were Black.
The racist actions of the Israeli government prevented critical meetings between former US political prisoners and former Palestinian political prisoners from taking place. Furthermore, it was an attempt to deny the Black community in the US news about Palestine — both Dhoruba and Naji had arranged to do a series of reports for Black community news outlets about the conference, Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Al-Awda New York expresses its outrage over this latest incident of Zionist racism, we join in the demand of Dhoruba and Naji’s attorneys that the US State Department protest the treatment of Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Naji Mujahid. We salute these strong and determined freedom fighters in the Black community and pledge that we will only continue and intensify our collective struggle against racism and oppression, from the US to Palestine.
The Palestinian community and the Black community face common enemies in Zionism, racism and imperialism, and we stand together to demand freedom for all political prisoners from the US to Palestine, an end to Zionism and racism, and the full liberation of all of our communities and all of our people!
Livni to Sweden: Ditch EU plan on dividing Jerusalem: Ha’aretz
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni on Tuesday urged Sweden’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, to abandon an EU plan to issue an official call for the division of Jerusalem between Israel and the Palestinians.
“I wish to convey my deep concern regarding what appears to be an attempt to prejudge the outcome of issues reserved for permanent status negotiations,” Livni, a former foreign minister, wrote to Bilt.
Livni sent the letter in response to Haaretz’s report that EU foreign ministers are expected to call next week for Jerusalem to be divided, in order to serve as the capitals of both Israel and a future Palestinian state.
A draft documentauthored by Sweden, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, implies that the EU would also recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood.
The opposition leader added: “Assuming the recent media reports are accurate, I want to urge you, in your capacity as EU President and as Swedish Foreign Minister, to refrain from adopting any position on Jerusalem.
“Whatever the intention of the Council’s conclusions, I believe that any attempt to dictate for either party the nature of the outcome on the status of Jerusalem, is not helpful and wrong.”
Earlier Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry lashed out at the plan, saying such a move would harm the chances of renewing Middle East peace negotiations.
“The process being led by Sweden harms the European Union’s ability to take part as a significant mediator in the political process between Israel and the Palestinians,” the ministry said in a statement.
“After the important steps taken by the government of Israel to enable the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, the European Union must now exert pressure on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. Steps like those being led by Sweden only contribute to the opposite effect,” said the statement.
Jerusalem is waging a diplomatic campaign to keep the EU from issuing such an endorsement, but diplomats close to the EU deliberations believe it is almost inevitable.
The EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet on December 7 for a two-day meeting in Brussels on the peace process, after which a statement outlining the body’s Mideast policy is expected.
The Swedish draft represents the first official EU articulation of a solution for one of the core issues of the final-status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians.
The document expressed the EU’s concern over the stalemate in the peace process and calls for the immediate renewal of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in accordance with a prescribed timetable. The goal, it states, is “an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine, comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The draft refers directly to the situation in East Jerusalem, calling on “all parties to refrain from provocative actions” and stating the EU Council “has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as capital of two states. The Council calls for the reopening of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem in accordance with the road map. It also calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.”
The document deals only briefly with Israel’s announcement of a 10-month moratorium on construction in settlements across the West Bank: “The Council takes note of the recent decision of the government of Israel on a partial and temporary permanent freeze and expresses the hope that it will become a step towards resuming meaningful negotiations.” Israel’s removal of checkpoints also receives only cursory mention: “Many checkpoints and roadblocks remain in place to protect settlements.”
On the issue of borders, the document states that the EU will not accept any changes made by Israel to the 1967 borders unless they have PA approval. The EU, it says, welcomes PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s proposal of a unilateral declaration of statehood and would “be able, at the appropriate time, to recognize a Palestinian state.”
Israeli diplomats have been following the Swedish initiative for several weeks. Israel’s Brussels-based ambassador to the EU, Ran Kuriel, sent several messages to Jerusalem last week accusing Sweden of leading the union on a “collision course” with Israel. Kuriel wrote that Britain and France support the Swedish position, while Germany, Spain and Italy are disinclined to side with Israel on the matter.
Senior Foreign Ministry officials said the belief is widespread across the foreign policy echelon that Sweden is advancing an explicitly “anti-Israel” line, rendering Europe “irrelevant” to the peace process.
European diplomats privy to the negotiations said that although changes favorable to Israel had been made to the draft, there is virtually no chance of preventing the EU from calling for the division of Jerusalem. They said they believe the EU statement will help Palestinians return to negotiations with Israel, as it gives them guarantees of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem even though Israel has not frozen construction there.
Haaretz Exclusive: EU draft document on division of Jerusalem: Ha’aretz
Current EU president Sweden has proposed that the body recognize East Jerusalem as Palestinian capital.
The current holder of the rotating European Union presidency, Sweden, has put together a draft document calling for the division of Jerusalem between Israel and a future Palestinian state and implying that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood.
Haaretz has obtained a copy of the document (below) that has sparked criticism by Israel, which claims that such a move would further harm the chances of renewing the Mideast peace process.
