PA to follow up on organ harvesting allegations: Ma’an News Agency
December 22, 2009 – 12:00am
Israeli organ harvesting, settlements, climate change and Christmas topped the agenda of the Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet meeting on Monday, in which ministers joined together in calling the Bethlehem Christmas tree a symbol of Palestinian unity and peace.
On the recent reports in the Israeli media allegedly confirming the theft of Palestinian organs in the 1990s, the PLO Central Council delegated Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe to launch an investigation into the issue and follow up with the government. The appointment was followed by a unanimous condemnation of the reported acts, and a call on the international community to help protect the rights and dignity of Palestinian prisoners.
The cabinet sent thanks to the EU for their firm statements against the continued construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and requested that the union take practical steps to see the construction halted. Ministers reiterated their position that the 10-month partial moratorium on settlement construction on only settlements in the West Bank not including East Jerusalem was a false promise and a tactical claim. They cited Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s statements earlier in the week saying settlers could begin building in full force after the 10-month period.
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad debriefed the ministers on his recent visit to Copenhagen where he spoke at the UN conference on climate change. He gave a summary of his speech, including notes on the effects of climate change in the Middle East, as well as the international responsibility to ensure Israel abides by its Road Map obligations so Palestinians can take control over their own environment. Fayyad explained the Israeli expropriation of Palestine’s natural resources, the deprivation of water faced in the West Bank and the lack of materials for containing sewage in Gaza, leading to seepage into the Mediterranean.
Fayyad called for the creation of a fund for countries who face obstacles in protecting their natural resources and limiting their environmental impact, saying Palestine would be a prime candidate for projects.
Some Israelis are getting het up about the ‘ideology’ now introduced by the new Education Minister, Gideon Sa’ar. This is quite bizarre – there was nevera time that education in Israel was less ideological than that in the Third Reich, or Stalinist USSR. Did it take all this time for some people to notice this?
New study unit on pre-state fighters proves controversial: Ha’aretz
The Education Ministry is introducing a study unit on the 12 underground fighters who were hanged or committed suicide in prison during the British Mandate in Palestine.
The 12, known as “Olei Hagardom” (“those hanged on the gallows”), belonged to the pre-state militias Etzel and Lehi.
The program, intended for eighth and ninth grades, will include lessons plus a national competition for essays, poems and drawings on subjects such as “an imaginary conversation I had with one of Olei Hagardom in his last moments in prison” or “the last letter of a condemned man to his family.”
The new unit is already proving controversial.
“Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar is advancing ideological matters close to his heart in the education system,” a ministry official charged. “His ideology is entering the curriculum.”
“It’s worrying that the Education Ministry is conveying a message sanctifying death and portraying it as sublime,” added a senior university historian.
Until now, details of the 12 Olei Hagardom – nine Etzel combatants and three Lehi fighters – were taught as part of history lessons, ministry sources said.
In a letter announcing the new program, Sa’ar wrote, “I hope the program, recounting Olei Hagardom’s devotion to the struggle for Israel’s independence, will bolster the students’ ties with their people and heritage … and that their devotion will serve as an ideological model for our youth.”
The ministry also instructed teachers to “encourage students to take part in the competition and guide them in presenting their projects.”
The essays, poems and drawings entered in the competition will be evaluated by a committee comprised of Education Ministry officials and staffers from the Uri Zvi Greenberg Heritage Center and the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.
“It’s important to learn about the ideology of Zionist leaders, like [Theodor] Herzl and [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky,” said a veteran high school history teacher from Tel Aviv. “But in this program, the justification is the underground fighters’ actions, and especially their end … There are moral and philosophical questions that should be addressed when you teach 14-year-olds about people who chose to die rather than accept a pardon or negotiate with the British authorities.”
“The new program embraces martyrdom and worships the victim for being a victim,” added the senior university historian. “If they want to teach this subject, it must be in the context of the fight against the British. You can’t start out by asserting that because they were hanged, they’re martyrs. Their being victims does not justify turning them into a subject for study.”
The education system intends to mark Jabotinsky Day next week, as required by a law enacted in 2005, the Education Ministry said Monday. Schools were instructed earlier this month to prepare ceremonies and special activities, including lessons about Jabotinsky’s character and work. Sa’ar himself will give a civics lesson on Jabotinsky in a high school in the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.
Encountering Peace: Change in Gaza is possible: The Jerusalem Post
Gershon Baskin, December 22, 2009 – 12:00am
Thirty-nine young people from Gaza applied to attend a peace education workshop sponsored by the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information that was held this past weekend in a school in Beit Jala. Thirty-five of them were denied entry by the IDF and did not have the opportunity to join the 70 other Israelis and Palestinians who spent the weekend in dialogue, debate, disagreement and agreement, rejoicing in the mutual recognition that we all want peace and that peace is possible.
Actually all 39 Gazans were denied entry, but we managed to get agreement to allow four people to come. The refusal of the army to allow their entry had nothing to do with security. The army officer in charge even told me so. This is the policy and the army is implementing that policy.
What exactly is the policy and why was it designed, you ask? The policy is to completely isolate Gaza from the rest of the world and the reason is to convince the people of Gaza that they should take action against the ruling Hamas government. The policy is that no one leaves Gaza. Period.
Of course there are the exceptions – those with immediate humanitarian needs. There also some other exceptions – judgment calls made by the commander of the Erez crossing – that is how we managed to get four young people from Gaza to attend our peace education workshop and that is how about five businessmen get out of Gaza every day as well. But with all of the exceptions, more than 1.5 million Gazans are trapped inside this tiny and crowded piece of land, with no right of movement into and through Israel or into and through Egypt.
This policy is actually supposed to convince the people of Gaza that Hamas is their enemy and that they should rise up against them. Analysts in the army and in the security forces claim that the policy is working because public opinion research shows that there is a decline of public support for Hamas in Gaza. This might be true – there is no way we can really know what has brought about a decline in public support for Hamas, but it is very unlikely that the economic siege is the reason.
GAZANS ARE really suffering. This is what we heard from the four who joined us for the workshop. This is what I continue to hear from dozens of other friends that I speak with regularly all over the Gaza Strip. They all report the same thing. While most of the average Gazans – the secular and non-fundamentalist people – are paying the price of the siege, Hamas activists and Hamas-connected entrepreneurs have become the nouveau riche.
The underground economy has created the need to establish a Ministry of Tunnels with a full policy of tax collection for goods coming into Gaza, as well as for the time used for their transport. At the same time, the factory owners, the farmers and shopkeepers who were dependent on trade with Israel have gone bankrupt. What was once the mainstream of Gazan society, a kind of middle class, has been decimated by the policies aimed at making them turn on Hamas. This will not happen.
The majority of Gazans are broken. They have lost hope. They have no strength for a long, drawn out struggle. They feel detached from the world, an abandoned people – “even God has forgotten us,” one of them said. The four people who left to meet Israelis took a big personal risk. They were stopped by Hamas on the way out and they were stopped and questioned upon their return. The other 35 who couldn’t get out were willing to demonstrate the same courage.
We told the army: Check all of them; if there are any who are a security risk, don’t let them out. But the policy is not about security, so they were not even checked by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). I cannot find the logic in prohibiting young people from Gaza from meeting with Israelis. Is the government implementing an anti-normalization campaign?
IRONICALLY I find myself often encountering Palestinians in the West Bank who refuse to meet Israelis because they see it as “normalization” with the enemy while the occupation continues. To them I always say, “Please explain to me how you not meeting with Israelis is advancing your struggle? How will you liberate Palestine and end the occupation by not talking to Israelis?”
I don’t get it. I say to them, if you want to end the occupation and liberate your land and create your state next to Israel, go and meet with Israelis from the Likud and from Israel Beiteinu, don’t boycott them – that has no logic to it at all. So I say to the government, if we want to change the regime in Gaza without reoccupying it, we must change the hearts and the minds of the Gazan people.
One of the young participants from Gaza said, “My father who used to work in Israel told me that he knew many Israelis who wanted peace with us, but I never believed him. After being here this weekend I now know that there are Israelis who want peace as much as we do, and some even more than us!”
Israel’s current policy is not only not working, it is counterproductive and it is morally wrong. Collective punishment against a civilian population will never create future partners for peace. If we want to weaken Hamas, end the economic siege. If we want to bankrupt Hamas economically, open the passages for trade – it will put the tunnels out of business. If we want to build partners for peace, enable thousands of Gazans to come out to meet with Israelis. If we want change in Gaza, we have to change the way we treat Gaza. Hamas is the enemy; the people of Gaza are not.
The writer is co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (www.ipcri.org) and an elected member of the leadership of the Green Movement political party.
This can only happen in the ‘only democracy’ in the Middle East – naturally the police are there to protect the criminals:
Police do nothing as armed men raid East Jerusalem school: Ha’aretz
A school for boys in the East Jerusalem village of Kfar Akab went on strike on Wednesday after Israeli police failed to intervene as armed men stormed the premises on Tuesday.
Early Tuesday, an angry father of one of the students and his friends raided the building, armed with knives and guns. They attacked the principal and more than 400 students and the entire teaching staff hostage for more than three hours.
The father staged the assault because he claimed his son had been injured at the school due to the principles’ negligence. The parents’ committee decided to close the school to protest the Israeli authorities’ powerlessness in the event. “This is the most natural thing a parent can do in this sort of situation,” a member of the committee said, and added that “we are scared for our children’s safety.”
It is interesting that the paper thought this was enough space allocated – imagine if it happened the other way, with Palestinians attacking a Jewish school – then we would be told that the Holocaust is around the corner.
British Muslims slam U.K. pledge to end arrest threats against Israelis: Ha’aretz
Britain’s flagship Muslim organization on Wednesday attacked a government pledge to reform a war crimes law used to try to arrest visiting Israeli dignitaries, saying the move could hurt Britain’s image in the Middle East.
The Muslim Council of Britain said it was deeply disappointed that foreign minister David Miliband promised to change the law so that judges could no longer issue secret arrest warrants against Israeli officials or military officers, saying the move was biased toward Israel.
You appear to be committing the government to the path of selective compliance with the enforcement of international law, the council’s Secretary General Muhammad Abdul Bari wrote in a letter to Miliband. This is surely not in the best interests of our country as it will add a further dimension to the double standards that our government is seen to have in relation to the politics of the Middle East.
Israelis were outraged and British government officials were embarrassed when it emerged last week that a London judge had issued an arrest warrant for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who had been due to visit Britain earlier this month.
The warrant was later withdrawn when it became clear Livni would not come to the country, but the matter badly strained relations between Britain and the Jewish state.
Last week Israeli President Shimon Peres demanded that Britain change the law. The British promised they would fix this and it is time that they do so, he said.
Miliband has said that the British government is determined to put an end the threat of arrest hanging over officials of Livni’s stature, explaining that Israeli leaders needed to be able to travel freely to Britain if U.K.-Israeli relations were to endure.
The Muslim Council urged Miliband to reconsider.
Justice and fairness is not served by being or by being seen to be partisan and compliant to demands made by one major player in the conflict, it said.
Calls seeking comment from Britain’s Foreign Office and its Ministry of Justice were not immediately returned.
Last week, The Guardian reported that Britain had begun to make good on Foreign Secretary
David Miliband’s pledgeto reform the law.
According to the paper, Britain’s attorney general will be asked to approve warrants before suspected war criminals can be arrested in future, under a plan being negotiated by the Foreign Office in response to the row over attempts to arrest Livni.
War Crimes by Jews are obviously not equal to war crimes by others. Is this not anti-semitic, separating Jews from others? Or is that war crimes against moslems do not count? If they did, then US and UK would not get away with their own war crimes in Moslem countries.
Islamic Movement head banned from entering Jerusalem: Ha’aretz
The GOC Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, on Monday banned the head of the northern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement from entering Jerusalem for three weeks.
The IDF Spokespersons’ Unit said Golan issued the order against Sheikh Ra’ad Salah “on the grounds of ensuring the security of the State of Israel and maintaining public peace and order.”
Salah was convicted in November of assaulting a police officer during a 2007 protest in Jerusalem. He was also arrested in October on suspicion of having incited to violence during a speech about clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police on the Temple Mount.
In a statement issued on Monday, the army said: “The order was issued based on information presented by security officials and with the authorization of the political echelon.”
The Islamic Movement head will be able to appeal the ban during its duration, the IDF said, adding that officials would consider extending the order for an additional six months.
The Egyptian regime is increasingly doing Israel’s bidding – from building the metal underground wall to cut Gaza off, blocking the crossings, and now not allowing this important Peace March into Gaza:
Why I want to march in Gaza: The Electronic Intifada
Pam Rasmussen,23 December 2009
On 29 December, I will attempt to cross into the Gaza Strip along with 1,300 other peace and justice activists from 43 countries. Some of us have traveled to Gaza previously. It will be my third visit since the Israeli invasion, which destroyed or damaged more than 50,000 homes and 90 percent of private industry.
But this time is different. The date of our arrival marks one year since the attack, and little has changed. Due to the ongoing blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, with the acquiescence of the United States and the European Union, few homes have been rebuilt, unemployment is nearing 50 percent, children at two-thirds of the schools are studying without notebooks and pencils, and babies are suffering from nitrate poisoning due to contaminated water. Enough is enough. It’s time to do something dramatic: It’s time for the Gaza Freedom March.
The idea for the march grew out of a CODEPINK: Women for Peace delegation to Gaza in June. Norman Finkelstein — the Jewish scholar and critic of Zionist racism — envisioned a global convergence of justice activists, arriving the week of the one-year mark to protest the ongoing siege. That “convergence” will soon become a reality — if, that is, Egypt doesn’t stand in the way by refusing to open the Rafah crossing as it is threatening to do. The 1,300 internationals will be joined by an estimated 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza, when we march on 31 December from Abed Rabbo (a community in which nearly every building was destroyed during the invasion) to the Erez crossing into Israel. Likewise, on the other side of the crossing in Israel, peace activists will stage their own, companion march.
But why march in Gaza? As so many people have asked me, why not help the millions of needy people here at home, instead of a people thousands of miles away who seem destined to be embroiled in a never-ending conflict? There is indeed a multitude of worthy causes — both domestic and international. In 2007, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), John Dugard, issued a harshly critical report on Israel’s human rights record. He addressed this question by explaining: “[T]here is no other case of a Western-affiliated regime that denies self-determination and human rights to a developing people and that has done so for so long. This explains why the OPT has become a test for the West, a test by which its commitment to human rights is to be judged.” The “facts on the ground” in Palestine have only worsened in the three years since then, culminating with Israel’s disproportionate attack on Gaza.
In addition, Americans like me are partly responsible for the suffering of so many innocent people, since our government gives Israel $7 million per day in mostly military aid, with virtually no strings attached — far more than to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined. Americans are therefore considered by much of the world as responsible for Israeli violations of human rights. In addition, the US has blocked any UN Security Council censure of Israel 42 times.
But perhaps the most important reason I am going back to Gaza and on the Gaza Freedom March is that ever since I first set foot on Palestine’s blood- and tear-soaked land in 2007, I have felt embraced heart and soul by the people. The type of society I want to live in knows no borders between the privileged and everyone else. But if lines must be drawn — or, in this case, walls and barbed-wire fences built — then I will stand with the Palestinians.
Pam Rasmussen is a peace activist and communications professional from Maryland who recently received a Community Human Rights Award for her work on behalf of Palestinians from the UN Association of the National Capitol Area. She can be contacted at peacenut57 A T yahoo D O T com.
Grassroots activist and human rights defender Jamal Juma’ arrested: The Electronic Intifada
Press release, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, 21 December 2009
Jamal Juma’ (Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign) The following press release was issued by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign on 20 December upon the arrest of its coordinator, Jamal Juma’:
Israeli security first summoned Juma’ for interrogation at midnight on 15 December. Hours later, they brought him back to his home. Juma’ was handcuffed while soldiers searched his house for two hours as his wife and three young children looked on helplessly. The parting words of the soldiers were directed at his wife: she would only see her husband again through a prisoner exchange. Since then, Juma’ has been detained, and banned from speaking to a lawyer or his family, with no explanation for his arrest.
Juma’, 47 years old, was born in Jerusalem and has dedicated his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. The main focus of his work is on empowering local communities to defend their human rights in the face of violations brought about by the occupation. He is a founding member of a number of Palestinian nongovernmental organizations and civil society networks. Juma’ has been the coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign since 2002. He is widely respected for his work and has been invited to address numerous civil society and UN conferences. His articles and interviews are widely published and his work has been translated into several languages. As a highly visible figure, Juma’ has never attempted to hide or disguise his activities.
Jamal Juma’s is the most high profile arrest within an intensifying campaign of repression of grassroots mobilization against the wall and the settlements. Initially only arresting local activists from the villages affected by the wall, the Israeli authorities have recently begun to shift their attention to the detention of internationally-known human rights defenders such as Mohammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahmeh. Othman, another member of the Stop the Wall Campaign, was arrested nearly three months ago when returning from a speaking tour in Norway. After two months of interrogation, the Israeli authorities were still unable to find charges to level against Othman and therefore issued an administrative detention order so as to prevent his release. Abdallah Abu Rahmeh, a leading figure in the nonviolent struggle against the wall in Bilin, was taken from his home by masked soldiers in the middle of the night a week before Jamal was jailed.
With these arrests, Israel aims to weaken Palestinian civil society and its influence on political decision making at national and international levels. This process clearly criminalizes the work of Palestinian human rights defenders and Palestinian civil disobedience.
It is crucial that the international community combat Israeli attempts to criminalize human rights defenders struggling against the wall. The Israeli policy of targeting organizers calling for Israeli accountability is a direct challenge to the decisions of governments and global bodies such as the International Court of Justice to hold Israel to account for its violations of international law. This challenge shall not go unmet.
Addameer: No peace agreement until political prisoners released: The electronic Intifada
Report, Addameer, 22 December 2009
Palestinian political prisoners must be released, categories of “security detainees” must be cancelled and “political status” must be granted if peace between Israel and the Palestinians is to be achieved.
“Reaching the ‘No-Peace’ Agreement: The Role of Palestinian Prisoner Releases in Permanent Status Negotiations,” a briefing paper from Addameer, examines Israel’s failure to comply with the bilateral agreements regarding the release of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli detention for their involvement in activities related to the ongoing belligerent Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. It concludes that prisoner releases can be instrumental in achieving a lasting peace, but only if prisoners themselves are recognized as political partners in the process.
More than 16 years after the beginning of the “Oslo Peace Process,” Israel still holds 330 Palestinian political prisoners who were arrested before 13 September 1993, the cutoff date for arrests that determined which prisoners would be eligible for inclusion in subsequent releases. Approximately 95 of these political prisoners have spent more than 20 consecutive years in Israeli prisons.
Today, Israel holds a total of more than 7,120 Palestinian detainees. What’s more, large numbers of Palestinians are still arrested by Israel on a weekly basis. The Israeli military judicial system imposed on the occupied territory, criminalizes every aspect of Palestinian life and continues to de-politicize Palestinian national aspirations. In policy and in practice, Palestinian activities against the military occupation are never deemed “political” by Israel — and acts that would or could constitute “political offenses” have never been defined.
In a negotiated peace settlement, amnesties are often a necessary condition for putting an end to a conflict. Prisoners often play a central role in post-conflict politics and can be instrumental in addressing past grievances and in seeking justice and reconciliation. Israeli authorities however, have remained unwilling to explore a shift in discourse regarding the identification of “political offenses” or to even acknowledge Palestinian political motivations. To the contrary, those whom in any other post-conflict situation would become partners in peace are still considered “security,” rather than “political” detainees. Moreover, Israeli legislation and court decisions have long enabled the State to hold detainees as “bargaining chips,” held for their potential value in hostage or political negotiations, disregarding their status as political actors and denying them fundamental human rights protections.
Addameer contends that Israel has systematically failed to act in accordance with many of its obligations under the Oslo Accords and related Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, particularly in regards to prisoner releases. Instead, Israel treats the issue as a public relations opportunity and a means to achieve political gains. Working within such constraints, the Palestinian leadership has been forced to negotiate with the Israeli government over the numbers of prisoners included in releases, and has failed to develop a strategy to challenge the military courts system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) that defines all Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation as “security offenses.” Action is therefore needed at both domestic and international levels to ensure Israeli respect for its obligations towards Palestinian political prisoners under the agreements it has signed. Such pressure must also focus on compliance with requirements under international law with regards to the ongoing arrest, interrogation, trial and detention of thousands of Palestinian political actors in the OPT.
Should permanent status negotiations resume, Addameer calls on the international community, and all actors involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, to put all the necessary pressure on the government of Israel to:
Release all Palestinian and Arab political prisoners arrested before 13 September 1993, in accordance with previous agreements;
Release all Palestinian prisoners arrested by Israel in relation to their activities opposing the occupation without any pre-conditions, thus canceling previously defined categories of prisoners in Oslo II and effectively creating one category of “political prisoners”;
Create a joint committee to define “political offenses” and set a timeline for future prisoner releases; and,
Draft all necessary provisions to prevent future arbitrary arrests of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory and their unlawful transfer to prisons inside Israel.
Most importantly, Addameer calls on the Palestine Liberation Organization to ensure that resolving the issue of Palestinian prisoners is set as a condition precedent for the re-launch of permanent status negotiations and remains a top priority throughout any renewed peace process.