EDITOR: The lies and the imaginative Journalism at the JC Few days ago you may have read here that Mira Awad has given up on the concert in London after death threats were made against her. Well, it seems the death threats were only known to the Jewish Chronicle journalist, but Mira Awad never heard of those. Could it be the threats were made by someone connected to the JC, and that is why they knew about them?… It seems that the only threat which we should consider here is a threat against the truth and professional journalism. It may of course be that the JC journalist is a graduate of a Creative Writing programme?…
We can’t work it out: why Israel’s Arab pop idol isn’t coming to Britain: The independent
Claims of death threats and accusations of lies surround rift that put paid to Eurovision star’s visit. By Mark Hughes
When she became the first Arab to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest last year, it was inevitable that Mira Awad would stir controversy. Her duet with a Jewish singer was held up by many as a symbol of hope between the rival communities embroiled in the Middle Eastern conflict.
But her selection was angrily opposed by extremist Arabs and Jews who demanded, unsuccessfully, that she withdraw. Now Ms Awad has found herself once again involved in a political tug of war – this time involving death threats, accusations of lies, and a controversial concert in London. It began on Friday when it was reported Ms Awad had been forced to pull out of a London concert celebrating Israeli independence after receiving death threats.
The claims were made in a press release by the Zionist Federation, the group organising the concert at which Ms Awad was due to perform with her Jewish Eurovision partner Achinoam Nini, known as Noa. Ironically, the duo’s first-ever collaboration was a cover of the Beatles classic, “We Can Work It Out”. The release said that while Noa would still perform, Ms Awad would not participate “due to death threats made against her and her family”.
The story was picked up by the media, including the Jewish Chronicle and Israeli radio. Given the strength of feeling surrounding her previous performances under the Israeli banner, it seemed entirely plausible – until Ms Awad herself said it was not true. Ms Awad – who unlike most Arab-Israelis is Christian rather than Muslim – later posted a message on her Facebook page denying that her reason for pulling out of the concert had anything to do with death threats. Rather, she said, she considered the commemoration of Israeli Independence Day an inappropriate occasion on which to perform, because of her mixed heritage. Israeli Independence Day celebrates the 1948 creation of the state of Israel.
But Palestinian Arabs in Israel and the occupied territories commemorate 1948 as the year of the Nakba – literally “catastrophe” – because of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were forced to leave their homes in what is now Israel. Ms Awad’s message, published in the Jerusalem Post, read: “Today, on Israeli radio, they said that due to threats on my life I cancelled a show in London I was supposed to appear in. I think it’s time to tell the whole story: My manager Ofer Pesenzon was approached with a request for a concert of Noa in London, with me as a special guest.
Ofer agreed, thinking it would be a good opportunity for me to expose my music, and more importantly, spread the more-than-ever relevant message that Noa and I try to convey. Later on, the date of the show was set for Israel’s Independence Day. “The minute I heard about this concert, I asked Ofer to cancel my participation, out of consideration for the complexity of this date for me.” But Ms Awad’s comments appear at odds with those of her manager, Mr Pesenzon.
Explaining his client’s removal from the London line-up, he told Israeli Army Radio: “Mira is in an impossible position. I’ve received phone calls from Jews saying there’s no way an Arab should be performing for Israel’s Independence Day, and Arabs have called saying the same.”
Medvedev: Israeli strike on Iran could cause a global catastrophe: Haaretz
An Israeli strike of Iran’s nuclear facilities could spark a nuclear conflict, which could spiral into a global catastrophe, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told ABC on Monday, adding that he supported what he called “smart” sanctions on Tehran as part of attempt to make it abandon its nuclear program.
The Russian president is in the United States for a 47-nation nuclear summit convened by U.S. President Barack Obama aimed at thwarting nuclear terrorism, and which may also center on a U.S.-back attempt to hit Iran with new nuclear sanctions.
Russia and China remain two important missing links in Obama’s drive to sanction Iran over its nuclear program.
Referring to the possibility that Israel may attack Iran if negotiations over its contentious nuclear programs fail, Medvedev told Good Morning America that “it would be the worst possible scenario,” adding that “war means lives lost.”
The Russian president also tried to estimate the meaning of what he sees as a war in the Middle East erupting as a result of such a move on Israel’s side, saying “everyone is so close over there that nobody would be unaffected. And if conflict of that kind happens, and a strike is performed, then you can expect anything, including use of nuclear weapons.”
“And nuclear strikes in the Middle East, this means a global catastrophe. Many deaths,” Medvedev said.
On the subject of imitating new sanctions against Iran geared at forcing it to abandon its nuclear program, the Russian president said that “it’s not whether it’s a good thought or bad thought, I’m talking about something else.”
“The sanctions is a tricky thing which works seldomly. You yourself were busy with politics, and you know that sanctions is not without conditions,” Medvedev said, adding but sometimes you have to do that.”
“What kind of sanctions? We have spoken about that with President Obama yesterday. Sanctions should be effective and they should be smart,” the Russian President said.
“They should not lead to humanitarian catastrophe, and the whole Iranian community would start to hate the whole world. And we’re worried that there are a significant number of people which have radical opinions. Do we want that radical thought to be sent to the whole world?,” Medvedev said.
However, the Russian president did not rule sanctions altogether, saying that they “should be smart.”
“They should force or obligate the Iranian leadership to think about what’s next. What could sanctions be? It could be trade, arms trade. It could be other sanctions,” Medvedev said, adding that “sanctions should let the country understand that all who impose sanctions have the same opinion.”
Medvedev said that any new sanctions “should not be paralyzing. They should not cause suffering. Aren’t we in the 21st century? That’s why if we’re going to develop our cooperation in this direction we have a chance to succeed. Better would be to go without sanctions and achieve things politically.
Earlier Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned Obama’s nuclear summit, calling it humiliating to humanity.
U.S. President Barack Obama is hosting the summit, which is focused on preventing nuclear terrorism but where world leaders are also set to discuss his push for new sanctions against Iran’s atomic program.
“World summits being organized these days are intended to humiliate human beings,” Ahmadinejad told delegates at a domestic tourism industry event, according to IRNA news agency.
Iran was not invited to the summit, which is being attended by leaders of China and Russia whose consent will be required to impose new sanctions which Obama wants agreed in the coming weeks.
Ahmadinejad had harsh words for politicians who claimed to represent the international community: “These foolish people who are in charge are like stupid, retarded people who brandish their swords whenever they face shortcomings, without realizing that the time for this type of thing is over.”
Iran has said it will complain to the United Nations about what it sees as Obama’s implied threat to attack it with nuclear weapons. Addressing the United States, Ahmadinejad said: “Your gift to the world is a nuclear bomb while Iran presents … humanity.”
Iran says sanctions will not force it to stop its pursuit of nuclear technology which it says is entirely peaceful. The West fears it is seeking to gain nuclear weapons.
Human Rights Groups Warn of New Powers for Israel: NY Times
By ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — A recently amended military order that allows Israel to remove people from the West Bank if it does not recognize their legal status could lead to the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli human rights groups warned Sunday.
The amendment — to a 1969 order on dealings with those judged to be infiltrators of the West Bank — was signed by military officials last October and is due to take effect on Tuesday.
In the original document, issued two years after Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war, “infiltrator” was defined as a person who entered the area illegally from a neighboring Arab country. The amendment redefined the term to refer broadly to anyone who entered the West Bank “unlawfully” or who “does not lawfully hold a permit.” The permit required is not specified.
“The wide definitions are the problem,” said Elad Cahana, a lawyer for HaMoked: The Center for the Defense of the Individual, one of 10 groups appealing for a delay on the change in the order. The group estimated that tens of thousands of Palestinians could theoretically be at risk.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, denounced the change. “These military orders belong in an apartheid state,” he said. “Extensive in scope, they make it infinitely easier for Israel to imprison and expel Palestinians from the West Bank.”
But Capt. Barak Raz, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said that there had been no change in policy regarding the extradition of illegal residents from the West Bank, and that “anyone who has the right paperwork” allowing residency “has nothing to worry about.”
Mr. Cahana said the concern was less of a mass expulsion than of the military deporting those officially registered as residents of Gaza, as well as Palestinians or their spouses who moved to the West Bank from abroad.
When the military currently tries to remove such individuals from the West Bank, it often faces difficulties in arguing the cases before Israel’s Supreme Court. The amended order could help the military overcome those difficulties, Mr. Cahana said.
Under the revised order, a deportation cannot be carried out until 72 hours after legal papers have been issued, and until the person served has had a chance to appeal in a military court.
Those convicted under the order could now face up to seven years in jail.
In the past, deportation orders could be carried out the same day they were served, with no appeal, so Captain Raz, of the Israeli military, said the amendment could actually help those without legal residency.
“It makes it easier for people without the right paperwork to appeal,” he said.
EDITOR: The Voice of conscience – Anat Kam speaks
Like Vanunu before her, Anat Kam,a young, courageous and principled woman, is not afraid to say that war crimes must be exposed and punished! And so they shall be, no doubt, due to people like herself and her colleague, Blau.
I stole IDF documents to expose West Bank war crimes, Anat Kam says: Haaretz
Classified documents reveal that the Israel Defense Forces had committed war crimes in the West Bank, Anat Kam, the former soldier indicted for espionage over an alleged theft of top secret material, told the court earlier in the year, according to police documents released allowed for publication Monday at the request of Haaretz.
In the newly released material documenting court hearings surrounding Kam’s arrest, the journalist and former IDF soldier said that the motivation behind her removal of sensitive military material was to expose “certain aspects of the IDF’s conduct in the West Bank that I thought were of interest to the public.”
Kam added that her thinking behind taking the top secret papers was to ensure that “if and when the war crime the IDF was and is committing in the West Bank would be investigated, then I would have evidence to present.”
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Kam said that she didn?t think that transferring the documents would endanger the country, as she did not think “the journalist would focus on the details of the military actions, but rather on the principles and the policies that were behind the the top officers’ decisions.”
Kam also explained that she turned to Israeli journalists because she assumed that “the censorship would not allow the publication of information classified as top secret or that is dangerous for publication.”
Referring to the possibility that she would be penalized for the theft, Kam said that when she “burned the material [onto a CD] I thought that in the test of history, people who warned of war crimes were forgiven.”
“I didn’t have the chance to change some of the things that I found it important to change during my military service, and I thought that by exposing these [materials] I would make a change,” the former soldier said, adding that it was for those reasons that “it was important for me to bring the IDF’s policy to public knowledge.”
The state has decided to prosecute Kam for the most serious crimes of espionage: passing on classified information with the intent of harming state security, charges which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Kam faces other charges, including gathering and possessing classified materials with intent to harm state security, which carries a maximum 15-year prison sentence.
Presiding Judge Ze’ev Hammer wrote that “in order to inform the public of several aspects of IDF action in the West Bank, or to investigate war crimes in the West Bank, there is no need to gather and steal thousands of classified documents from the IDF which deal with the various military planning and action.”
“Kam admitted during her investigation that her computer is not guarded and that she did not take interest into where the Haaretz reporter Uri Blau would store the documents or who would have access to them,” Hammer added.
“She disrespected their [the document’s] safekeeping and the importance and secrecy of the information,” Hammer added.
Attorneys for Blau, Mibi Moser and Tal Leiblich said in response that “we consider this to be a positive development. Blau’s attorney’s will meet with Kam’s attorneys in the coming days in order to evaluate the offer and take a stance following consultations with Blau.”
On Sunday, Kam’s defense attorney Avigdor Feldman told Haaretz that his client would relinquish her journalistic immunity as the source of Haaretz reporter Uri Blau and that she was calling on him to return to Israel from London with all the documents she has given him.
Feldman said that “the message we relayed to him is for the sake of Anat he should come back to Israel.”
“We are working hard to convince Uri Blau through indirect ways to return to the country with the documents. I did not speak with him directly but we relayed a message to him. I think that he did not reveal the documents because he wants to protect her. Now she gave up her immunity as a source, and I am asking that he return, and his return, as far as I understand, will minimize the affair,” Feldman said.
“I do not think he will be tricked,” Feldman said. “I believe he will bring back the documents, he will not be harmed and the affair with Anat will also come to an end, I hope, quickly.”
Israel impasse gives US much to ponder: The Guardian CiF
Pressure on Obama to act is mounting, but a fractured US-Israel relationship could make the settlement row look like a minor spat
Hillary Clinton was conciliatory over the Israel issue at the weekend, extolling the virtues of ‘strategic patience’. Photograph: GPO/Getty Images
Soothing words from Washington at the weekend, aimed at placating Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai after last week’s public falling out, follow a familiar pattern. The White House was livid with Gordon Brown over last year’s release to Libya of the Lockerbie bomber. But things were patched up once tempers cooled.
Now James Jones, Barack Obama’s national security adviser, is claiming US relations with Israel are “fine” despite the furious row over prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s refusal to halt Jewish settlement expansion in east Jerusalem, as demanded by Obama. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton was similarly conciliatory at the weekend, extolling the virtues of “strategic patience”.
But relations are anything but fine, if the truth were told. The Obama team knows it cannot allow the present impasse to persist indefinitely, with Israel and the Palestinians declining even to begin the “proximity talks” to which both are committed. Jordan’s King Abdullah sounded a grim warning last week about growing hostility towards Israel among so-called moderate Arabs. His message to Obama: do something, and do it soon, or you will regret it.
Obama may hear similar calls from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other regional countries attending this week’s nuclear summit in Washington (which Netanyahu has boycotted). Meanwhile, the imposition by the Israeli army of tougher residency rules in the occupied West Bank that rights groups say could allow the deportation of thousands of Palestinians represents another nasty surprise for Washington from Netanyahu’s recalcitrant government.
Does Obama have a plan? Not yet, but one appears to be in the works. Reports speak of a possible new US demarche in which Obama would table a grand peace initiative, multilateral in approach and embracing all the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict, not just Palestinians and Jews. The proposal would be a composite of the 2000 Camp David blueprint, which so nearly took hold, and the 2002 Arab peace plan, plus various subsequent refinements.
Such an initiative was discussed by Obama, Jones and six former national security advisers at a recent White House meeting. According to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, Brent Scowcroft, who advised George Bush Snr, led the charge for a bold new opening, backed by Colin Powell, Frank Carlucci and Sandy Berger. Their argument was that the “incrementalist”, step-by-step approach favoured by Obama’s chief envoy, George Mitchell, has failed. Even if proximity talks got off the ground, they would quickly stall, they said. Thus a sort of grand-slam deal, before the end of Obama’s first term, was the way to go.
The basics are already in place (though far from agreed): compensation for displaced Palestinians instead of a right of return; the sharing of Jerusalem, with a special dispensation for the Old City’s holy sites; Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, with some territorial adjustment and swaps; international security guarantees encompassing in particular the Jordan valley; and Arab recognition of Israel.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, has since stepped up the pace, urging Obama to make an Anwar Sadat-style “journey for peace” by conducting Arab and peace-process leaders in joint appearances at the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) and the Palestinian legislature in Ramallah. “Only a bold and dramatic gesture in a historically significant setting can generate the political and psychological momentum needed for a major breakthrough,” he said.
Although Jones emphasises that nothing is yet decided, pressure on Obama to make a move is mounting. The Palestinians would applaud more direct US “ownership” of a rebooted peace process; the Arabs might see it as an endorsement of their position; and as Seth Freedman argues on Cif today, Israelis would welcome the economic boom that would follow a settlement.
And then, conversely, there’s the certainty that if the peace process definitively dies, extremists on both sides will try to fill the vacuum. Recent clashes in Gaza should be seen as a red alarm: renewed fighting suits those who oppose a compromise peace.
White House officials see another big upside: ending the Arab-Israeli standoff would make it much easier to present a united front to Iran. It might also reduce anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world and thus assist US policy aims in Afghanistan, Iraq and in the “war on terror” – although foreign policy specialists such as Ray Takeyh are sceptical that Arab governments will ever agree to confront Tehran, even if peace reigns throughout the region.
As Obama ponders his next move, the big question is how Israel’s rightwing leadership, and its American supporters, would react to any US effort to prescribe or impose the broad terms of a settlement – and what to do if Netanyahu refused to go along. Such a collision, potentially fracturing the US-Israel relationship, could make the row over east Jerusalem look like a minor spat. And the biggest beneficiary would be both countries’ biggest antagonist – Iran.
Obama, Jordan’s King Abdullah press for Mideast talks: YNet
Meeting held on sidelines on nuclear security summit in Washington focuses on Iranian nuclear standoff and how to get indirect Israel-PA talks going. Abdullah raises concerns about ‘Israeli unilateral actions in Jerusalem’
US President Barack Obama and Jordan’s King Abdullah on Monday urged Israel and the Palestinians to launch indirect peace talks soon, and Obama called for further pressure on Iran, including sanctions, over its nuclear program.
The White House said Obama and the Jordanian monarch discussed stalled Middle East peace efforts and the Iranian nuclear standoff in talks on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in Washington.
Islamic Republic
Ahmadinejad says nuclear summit ‘humiliating’ / Yitzhak Benhorin, agencies
‘Your gift to the world is a nuclear bomb while Iran presents humanity,’ Iranian leader says of US ahead of nuclear security summit. Russia’s Medvedev warns that energy sanctions on Tehran could lead to ‘humanitarian catastrophe’
The Obama administration is seeking to get Israel and the Palestinians to sit down for US-sponsored “proximity” talks aimed at jumpstarting the faltering peace process, but has made little headway.
Jordan, which is the only Arab state besides Egypt to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, is seen as a potential key player in any broader regional peace deal.
“During these discussions, both agreed that Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks should begin as soon as possible, and transition quickly to direct negotiations,” the White House said. “They also agreed that both sides should refrain from actions that undermine trust during these talks.”
The Jordanian embassy issued a statement that mostly matched the US comments but added that Abdullah also “raised Jordan’s concerns about Israeli unilateral actions in Jerusalem, stressing on the necessity of stopping all such Israeli actions that seek to change facts on the ground.”
Ties between Washington and its close ally Israel have been strained in recent months over Israeli settlement construction policy in and around Jerusalem.
Iran was also on the agenda. “President Obama stressed the importance of international efforts to pressure Iran to ensure that it upholds its international obligations, including through the imposition of sanctions,” the White House said.
Adding a new wrinkle, the Jordanian embassy said Abdullah called for resolving the Iran dispute by “diplomatic means.”
Jordan and other Arab countries are worried about the potential Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and trigger a Middle East arms race. Israel is widely believed to be the region’s only nuclear weapons power.
On the sidelines of the summit, Obama is using a series of meetings with world leaders to seek momentum for new UN sanctions on Iran. Tehran denies Western accusations it seeks nuclear weapons and says it has only peaceful intentions.
IDF bid to expel West Bank Palestinians is a step too far: Haaretz Editorial
A new military order will take effect this week, enabling the army to deport tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and prosecute them on infiltration charges, which carry long prison terms. The order, uncovered by Amira Hass in Haaretz yesterday, bears the signature of Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni in his previous capacity as commander of the Israel Defense Forces in Judea and Samaria.
The order’s vague language will allow army officers to exploit it arbitrarily to carry out mass expulsions, in accordance with military orders which were issued under unclear circumstances. The first candidates for expulsion will be people whose ID cards bear addresses in the Gaza Strip, including children born in the West Bank and Palestinians living in the West Bank who have lost their residency status for various reasons.
This would be a grave and dangerous move, unprecedented during the Israeli occupation. For years, Israel has used a heavy hand against the Palestinian population registry, trampling basic human rights such as the freedom to move one’s residence within the occupied territories. Many Palestinians’ lives have thus been made very difficult because they have been cut off from their previous places of residence without being able to return or legally register their new addresses.
The right of all Palestinians to choose where to live in the West Bank or Gaza marks a very low threshold for defining their human rights. Israel, which justifiably prevents Palestinians from returning to where they lived before 1948 and does not offer them fair compensation for their property (while enabling Jews to recover property from the same period, as has happened in Sheikh Jarrah), cannot expel Palestinians from the occupied territories on the basis of dubious bureaucratic claims.
Implementing this new military order is not only likely to spark a new conflagration in the territories, it is liable to give the world clear-cut proof that Israel’s aim is a mass deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank. While all Jews can settle wherever they wish, in Israel or in the territories, Israel is trying to deprive the Palestinians of even the minimal right to choose where to live in the West Bank or Gaza. The prime minister and defense minister should immediately shelve this military order before the IDF feels free to begin carrying out expulsions.
Erekat: World must compel Israel to revoke military order: Ma’an News
Jericho – Ma’an – Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat called on US Mideast envoy George Mitchell, among others, to immediately intervene and pressure Israel to revoking a military order mandating the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank defined as “infiltrators.”
Erekat further issued the same communique to EU Mideast representative Marc Otte, the UN’s special coordinator for the peace process, Robert Serry, Russia’s special envoy to the region, Alexander Saltanov, and Quartet envoy, Tony Blair.
The PLO official described the orders “racist” and a “flagrant violation of all past agreements, international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention,” in particular article 49, which prohibits any kind of forcible transfer as well as the deportation of protected persons and civilians from the occupied territory.
According to the Israeli human rights group Hamoked, the two orders allow for a broad definition of an infiltrator and suggests they apply to every person present in the West Bank, regardless of his status, identity or nationality.
Erekat added that the Israeli army would be permitted to deport any person living in areas under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank. “This decision targets Palestinians in the West Bank who have come from Gaza,” he added.
The letter was further delivered to all ambassadors, consulates and representatives in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel.
The Palestine Center for Human Rights strongly condemned the orders and called on Israel not to implement them. “These orders form part of the criminal policy that Israel has developed over the years against the Palestinian people; this policy combine occupation, apartheid, colonization and forced displacement of the population,” a statement read.
The Palestinian human rights group added that the orders represent a means for Israel to “control and alter the demographic composition of the occupied Palestinian territories, and ultimately impose a Jewish majority in Israel and the occupied territory.”
These new orders, PCHR wrote, ostensibly enacted as ‘security measures’ – are, in fact, aimed at legitimizing the forcible transfer and deportation of the civilian population, and further called on the international community to take action and put an end to “illegal population transfer, segregation and displacement that is taking place.”
“PCHR reminds that States Parties to the Geneva Convention have the duty to ensure respect for the conventions in all circumstance.”
On Sunday, the Israeli rights group HaMoked sounded the alert over two signed military orders awaiting implementation give military officials broad and almost total control over the deportation of Palestinians whose residency status in the West Bank is called into question.
Hamoked alleged that the order will be used to deport residents of Gaza from the West Bank, and will likely also target foreign passport holders and non-Palestinian spouses of West Bank residents.
The center said tens of thousands of Palestinians and West Bank residents could be caught in the net of the orders, which Israeli journalist Amira Hass said in a Sunday report were “expected to clamp down on protests in the West Bank.”
The new orders, by substantively changing the definition of an “infiltrator,” HaMoked said in a statement “effectively apply [the term] to anyone who is present in the West Bank without an Israeli permit,” noting “the orders do not define what Israel considers a valid permit,” and that “the vast majority of people now living in the West Bank have never been required to hold any sort of permit to be present therein.”
Fears military order may allow West Bank deportations: BBC
Israeli troops would have the power to deport people within 72 hours
Israel is set to impose a military order which rights groups say could see tens of thousands of Palestinians deported from the occupied West Bank.
The order, which comes into force on Tuesday, could have “severe ramifications” for people in the West Bank, human rights groups say.
It classifies people without the right Israeli paperwork as “infiltrators”.
Many people in the West Bank have ID cards from neighbouring countries, or papers that list Gaza as their home.
Many others are married to other Palestinians who at one time lived in refugee camps in neighbouring Jordan, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon, and may not have Israeli-approved ID cards.
The Israeli military says that existing orders already allow for the deportation of West Bank Palestinians deemed by Israel to be there illegally, and the new order adds a layer of judicial oversight over deportation procedures.
‘Permit’
The wording of the order, known as the Order Regarding Prevention of Infiltration, has been amended from when it was originally drawn up in 1969.
The definition of “infiltrator” was then: “A person who entered the area knowingly and unlawfully after having been present in the east bank of the Jordan, Syria, Egypt or Lebanon following the effective date (of the order being given).”
These military orders belong in an apartheid state. Extensive in scope, they make it infinitely easier for Israel to imprison and expel Palestinians from the West Bank
Saeb Erekat
Chief Palestinian negotiator
Under the new order this would be changed to: “Infiltrator – a person who entered the area unlawfully following the effective date, or a person who is present in the area and does not lawfully hold a permit”.
“The orders are worded so broadly such as theoretically allowing the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants,” a letter written by human rights organisation HaMoked and signed by 10 other groups to Defence Minister Ehud Barak said.
72 Hours
But the IDF said Israel was within its rights to restrict people entering the West Bank illegally, and the order was being amended to allow what it called “judicial oversight” in cases of accused “illegal sojourners”.
Under the military order, deportations from the West Bank can be carried out within 72 hours.
Suspected “infiltrators” could also be jailed for up to seven years under the new orders. Anyone being removed might also have to pay for the cost of their own deportation, the order says.
This is a pre-existing order which was corrected to assure judicial oversight of the extradition process
IDF statement
The group of 10 Human rights groups in Israel who condemned the new orders included HaMoked – who uncovered the amendments to the order – Betselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Rabbis for Human rights.
Many Palestinians in the West Bank hold ID cards from neighbouring countries that Israel classifies as its enemies, because they have returned from refugee camps there over the last few years. Some have no identity cards and are technically “stateless persons”.
The order could also apply to people from foreign countries friendly to Israel, like the US, UK and Europe.
Sarit Michaeli, director of Betselem, says the order would also undermine the Palestinian Authority, led by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
“That such a sweeping order, such a draconian order, was allowed to pass without any amount of public debate or proper advertisement, an order which could effect every Palestinian, we intend to fight it in the courts,” she told the BBC.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the new measures “belong in an apartheid state”.
“Extensive in scope, they make it infinitely easier for Israel to imprison and expel Palestinians from the West Bank,” he said in a statement.
‘Pre-existing order’
The IDF said said in a statement that all the requisite notices of the change to the orders had been given.
“The IDF is ready to implement the order, which is not intended to apply to Israelis, but to illegal sojourners in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]. This is a pre-existing order which was corrected to assure judicial oversight of the extradition process,” a statement from the IDF said.
Correspondents say there is great uncertainty among Palestinians about what the new military order means and to what extent it will be enforced.
Confusion about what is meant by a “permit” has lead human rights groups to fear the order could leave many more people vulnerable to deportation than in the past, but it seems their main concern is over two groups who were already at risk.
The first are those whose identity cards show them as Gazans, but who have been living in the West Bank, and children they have had while living there. Israel does not allow them to change their status from Gaza to the West Bank, despite the fact that under the Oslo Accords, Gaza and the West Bank were to be considered a single entity.
The second group are spouses of Palestinians, who entered on limited-time visas and have stayed, but not been granted official status.
Both groups could previously have been deported if discovered – for example while passing through a checkpoint in the West Bank – but the possible jail sentences are now tougher.
Human rights groups say Israel has frozen changes to ID cards for many people in both these groups since 2000, leading to the situation where tens of thousands of people are living in the West Bank without the necessary official permission to stay.
Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The settlements are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
There are around 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Kam: History forgives those who expose war crimes: YNet
New details from case against journalist accused of espionage reveal one of the CDs containing classified military documents is missing
The Tel Aviv District Court allowed several new details in the Anat Kam affair to be released Monday, among which is the disconcerting discovery that one of the CD’s burnt by the indicted journalist has gone missing.
The CD in question was complied by Kam, along with dozens of others, during her military service in the GOC Central Command chief’s office.
The former Walla website reporter faces espionage charges for copying thousands of classified military documents without authorization and giving them to Haaretz journalist Uri Blau.
Justice Zeev Hammer, presiding over the Kam hearings, defined the security failures at the GOC Central Command chief’s office as “astounding,” adding he was “shocked to learn of these incomprehensible failures and negligent data protection (protocols).”
Among the details cleared for publication Monday are two statements Kam made during her interrogations by the Shin Bet: “There were some aspects of the IDF’s operational procedures in the West Bank that I felt should be public knowledge,” said the first statement.
“I couldn’t make a big enough difference during my service. I thought exposing (procedures) would bring about a change… When I was burning the CDs I kept thinking that history tends to forgive people who expose war crimes.”
‘Complete disregard to protocol’
Kam, said Hammer, “saw no danger to national security in her actions, saying she assumed the reporter would not focus on the subtleties of military operations, but rather on the policies leading to them.
“(Kam) said she turned to reporters assuming that the Military Censor would disallow the publication of any classifieds or compromising material.”
In a second statement to investigators, Kam said she copied the documents thinking that “if and when the war crimes perpetrated by the IDF were investigated, I would have evidence to that effect.”
Hammer added in his summation that he found it astonishing that the young soldier was given any kind of access to both the sensitive computer and the classified material on it.
How is it, Hammer wondered, “That prior to Kam’s release from the IDF, she asked a fellow soldier to burn the information onto CDs and her request was carried out, no questions asked? No one even thought to ask why she needed copies of classified information before leaving the service.”
Hammer further described data protection protocols at the GCO Central Command chief’s office as “disgraceful.”
The judge also addressed the fact the Kam herself had complete disregard to security protocols, “As evident by the fact that she has apparently misplaced one of the CDs, and who knows where it is now. She also admitted to knowing that (Israeli) journalists often bypass the Censor’s orders by leaking stories to the foreign media.”
Infiltration by any other name
Hammer further wrote in his summation that he disagreed with the defense’s claims that Kam’s actions were, to quote another statement she made, “as easy as filing away a piece of paper.”
That statement, said the judge, “Illustrates (Kam’s) entire attitude towards her grave offenses. She may not have had to embark on a daring commando operation in order to infiltrate a secret military office – she was already there and she grossly breached the confidence her superiors had in her.”
Kam, continued the judge, failed to explain her sudden expertise in international law and the highly complex definition it gives for war crimes.
“There is no need to steal thousands of classified documents in order to bring ‘aspects of IDF operations to the public’s attention,’ or investigate ‘war crimes.’ Any independent body given those documents, even by someone like the defendant, has no (security) clearance to afford it the review of such military secrets.
“There was also no need to give a reporter thousands of sensitive documents without discretion,” he concluded.
Despite the criticism, Hammer did not remand Kam to police custody, citing that since she was cooperating with the investigation and was not deemed a security or a public risk, she can remain out NIS 250,000 (about $68,000) bail.
Israel’s military reporters deserted Uri Blau in the field: Haaretz
By Yuval Elbashan
They were supposed to be the vanguard that protects Haaretz reporter Uri Blau on his journalistic mission. They were supposed to be at the forefront of the army protecting the freedom of expression, which also includes the journalistic liberty to possess leaked documents, whatever their origin.
As such, they were supposed to be the first to condemn the heavy-handed behavior of the Israeli security services using all possible means – including illegal ones and those that may be legal but are not acceptable – to persecute a journalist solely because of his journalistic work. Their experience should have taught them that a journalist’s role is not only to file a certain number of words, but to protect the fundamental values of the journalistic method and process.
But the leading military “reporters” and “analysts” in Israel chose not to carry out their duty. Even worse, not only did they fail to defend Blau, they opted to side with the assault on their colleague, raising doubts about the way journalists work and think.
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An outsider scrutinizing their conduct in this affair will not be able to avoid feeling shame. Of all people, they are the ones who took on the role of spokesmen for the establishment, as if they were still conscripts. With enthusiasm they reiterated the claim that the material held by Blau has the potential to cause harm. They are the ones who disseminated the claim – without being able to check or verify it – that the case involves hundreds of documents that constitute state secrets. And they are the ones who volunteered the claim that the quantity of documents held by Blau is what makes him qualitatively different from them and their documents, and hence justifies his persecution.
A careful survey of the media over the past two days shows that the Israel Defense Forces spokesmen and the media advisers of the premier, ministers and senior military commanders have remained virtually silent, and justifiably so. The military “reporters” did the talking in their stead, as if they were trying to show their loyalty to the system as the lowliest of its servants.
It seems to me that it is not a sense of healthy competition that has led Blau’s colleagues to behave this way. It seems that the way he perceived his work as an investigative reporter, which included writing about the defense establishment, is what is threatening them. Unlike many of these people calling themselves military analysts or correspondents, Blau was never among those who read the official beeper messages the IDF sends out to reporters. The fact is that most of his colleagues get a beeper message, call up one or two officers – the source of the original message – to verify its accuracy, and immediately run off to report the message.
Moreover, part of the routine of that elite group of military correspondents includes coordinated visits to our forces – geared up in flak jackets, eyes bright. From what they describe as “the field,” they parrot what the establishment was all too glad to make known: a planned operation, an advanced weapons system, the way the forces are advancing. That kind of journalism is more like serving as a spokesman than working as a reporter.
Even from his days at Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha’ir (owned by the Haaretz Group), Blau was different. He attacked the defense establishment, didn’t get chummy with its leaders (despite the temptation to have the sort of leaks that no one would dare investigate), tried to pry into its every dark corner and accepted nothing as self-evident. That is how he made major discoveries, but that also appears to be how he became an enemy of the establishment. Not the defense establishment (which would be understandable and reasonable in a democratic system of checks and balances), but the journalistic establishment.
In this sense the Blau affair is indeed a “glaring warning sign,” as one of his colleagues put it. Not because of the work he did but because of the work that others didn’t do, the ones who still dare to call themselves journalists.
Gaza militant: Hamas stopping rocket fire into Israel: Haaretz
Hamas is forcing other Gaza Palestinian factions to guarantee they do not launch rockets or mortar bombs at Israel, a source told the French AFP news agency on Monday.
The source, a member of the Strip’s Islamic Jihad militant group, told AFP that members of Hamas’ security force arrested four Islamic Jihad militants, forcing them to sign a document stating that they pledged not to fire Qassam missiles or mortar bombs at Israel.
The official added that the Hamas men also confiscated the weapons found on the Islamic Jihad militants.
Last week, Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told the BBC that Hamas was working to curb rocket attacks against Israel by Gaza militants.
“The government in Gaza is in charge of the situation, and it does know clearly who launches rockets,” Taha told the BBC. “It is working hard to deter any faction from acting individually.
Also last week, the London-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat reported that armed Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip detained several Palestinians who had fired Qassam rockets at Israel.
The Hamas forces arrested several militants linked to a radical Islamist group in the northern Strip, the report said, an area in which the ruling movement has recently bolstered its security presence to prevent rocket fire.
The head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said his government is in contact with other Palestinian factions to reach an agreement over a rocket cease-fire – in order to, in his words, “protect our nation.”
Meanwhile, however, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal said in Damascus that all options for confronting Israel remain open, including war. “We will do everything to obtain the rights stolen from us, including confrontation with the enemy,” he told journalists, adding that in the event of war, Hamas militants would fight “like men.”
Lawsuit challenges Israel’s discriminatory citizenship definition: The Electronic Intifada,
Jonathan Cook, 6 April 2010
A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as “Israelis,” a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state.
Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country’s establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction between “citizenship” and “nationality.” Although all Israelis qualify as “citizens of Israel,” the state is defined as belonging to the “Jewish nation,” meaning not only the 5.6 million Israeli Jews but also more than seven million Jews in the diaspora.
Critics say the special status of Jewish nationality has been a way to undermine the citizenship rights of non-Jews in Israel, especially the fifth of the population who are Arab. Some 30 laws in Israel specifically privilege Jews, including in the areas of immigration rights, naturalization, access to land and employment.
Arab leaders have also long complained that indications of “Arab” nationality on ID cards make it easy for police and government officials to target Arab citizens for harsher treatment.
The interior ministry has adopted more than 130 possible nationalities for Israeli citizens, most of them defined in religious or ethnic terms, with “Jewish” and “Arab” being the main categories.
The group’s legal case is being heard by the high court after a district judge rejected their petition two years ago, backing the state’s position that there is no Israeli nation.
The head of the campaign for Israeli nationality, Uzi Ornan, a retired linguistics professor, said: “It is absurd that Israel, which recognizes dozens of different nationalities, refuses to recognize the one nationality it is supposed to represent.”
The government opposes the case, claiming that the campaign’s real goal is to “undermine the state’s infrastructure” — a presumed reference to laws and official institutions that ensure Jewish citizens enjoy a privileged status in Israel.
Ornan, 86, said that denying a common Israeli nationality was the linchpin of state-sanctioned discrimination against the Arab population.
“There are even two laws — the Law of Return for Jews and the Citizenship Law for Arabs — that determine how you belong to the state,” he said. “What kind of democracy divides its citizens into two kinds?”
Yoel Harshefi, a lawyer supporting Ornan, said the interior ministry had resorted to creating national groups with no legal recognition outside Israel, such as “Arab” or “unknown,” to avoid recognizing an Israeli nationality.
In official documents most Israelis are classified as “Jewish” or “Arab,” but immigrants whose status as Jews is questioned by the Israeli rabbinate, including more than 300,000 arrivals from the former Soviet Union, are typically registered according to their country of origin.
“Imagine the uproar in Jewish communities in the United States, Britain or France, if the authorities there tried to classify their citizens as ‘Jewish’ or ‘Christian,'” said Ornan.
The professor, who lives close to Haifa, launched his legal action after the interior ministry refused to change his nationality to “Israeli” in 2000. An online petition declaring “I am an Israeli” has attracted several thousand signatures.
Ornan has been joined in his action by 20 other public figures, including former government minister Shulamit Aloni. Several members have been registered with unusual nationalities such as “Russian,” “Buddhist,” “Georgian” and “Burmese.”
Two Arabs are party to the case, including Adel Kadaan, who courted controversy in the 1990s by waging a lengthy legal action to be allowed to live in one of several hundred communities in Israel open only to Jews.
Uri Avnery, a peace activist and former member of the parliament, said the current nationality system gave Jews living abroad a far greater stake in Israel than its 1.3 million Arab citizens.
“The State of Israel cannot recognize an ‘Israeli’ nation because it is the state of the ‘Jewish’ nation … it belongs to the Jews of Brooklyn, Budapest and Buenos Aires, even though these consider themselves as belonging to the American, Hungarian or Argentine nations.”
International Zionist organizations representing the diaspora, such as the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency, are given in Israeli law a special, quasi-governmental role, especially in relation to immigration and control over large areas of Israeli territory for the settlement of Jews only.
Ornan said the lack of a common nationality violated Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which says the state will “uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race or sex.”
Indications of nationality on ID cards carried by Israelis made it easy for officials to discriminate against Arab citizens, he added.
The government has countered that the nationality section on ID cards was phased out from 2000 — after the interior ministry, which was run by a religious party at the time, objected to a court order requiring it to identify non-Orthodox Jews as “Jewish” on the cards.
However, Ornan said any official could instantly tell if he was looking at the card of a Jew or Arab because the date of birth on the IDs of Jews was given according to the Hebrew calendar. In addition, the ID of an Arab, unlike a Jew, included the grandfather’s name.
“Flash your ID card and whatever government clerk is sitting across from you immediately knows which ‘clan’ you belong to, and can refer you to those best suited to ‘handle your kind,'” Ornan said.
The distinction between Jewish and Arab nationalities is also shown on interior ministry records used to make important decisions about personal status issues such as marriage, divorce and death, which are dealt with on entirely sectarian terms.
Only Israelis from the same religious group, for example, are allowed to marry inside Israel — otherwise they are forced to wed abroad — and cemeteries are separated according to religious belonging.
Some of those who have joined the campaign complain that it has damaged their business interests. One Druze member, Carmel Wahaba, said he had lost the chance to establish an import-export company in France because officials there refused to accept documents stating his nationality as “Druze” rather than “Israeli.”
The group also said it hoped to expose a verbal sleight of hand that intentionally mistranslates the Hebrew term “Israeli citizenship” on the country’s passports as “Israeli nationality” in English to avoid problems with foreign border officials.
B Michael, a commentator for Yedioth Aharonoth, Israel’s most popular newspaper, has observed: “We are all Israeli nationals — but only abroad.”
The campaign, however, is likely to face an uphill struggle in the courts.
A similar legal suit brought by a Tel Aviv psychologist, George Tamrin, failed in 1970. Shimon Agranat, head of the high court at the time, ruled: “There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people. … The Jewish people is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of diaspora Jewries.”
That view was echoed by the district court in 2008 when it heard Ornan’s case.
The judges in the high court, which held the first appeal hearing last month, indicated that they too were likely to be unsympathetic. Justice Uzi Fogelman said: “The question is whether or not the court is the right place to solve this problem.”
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
Israeli groups fight orders allowing army to jail West Bank residents: The Guardian
Israeli human rights campaigners claim Palestinians or foreigners could be labelled infiltrators
Israeli human rights groups say that Palestinians and any foreigners living in the West Bank could be deemed ‘infiltrators’ and deported within 72 hours or jailed for seven years if they are found without the correct permit under the new orders.
Israel’s leading human rights groups are trying to stop two new Israeli military orders which will make any resident of the occupied West Bank who does not have an Israeli-issued permit liable for deportation or jail.
The new Order Regarding Prevention of Infiltration and Order Regarding Security Provisions, which comes into force on Tuesday have “severe ramifications,” the rights groups say. Palestinians, and any foreigners living in the West Bank, could be labelled infiltrators and deported within 72 hours or jailed for seven years if they are found without the correct permit. It does not define what Israel considers a valid permit.
“The orders … are worded so broadly such as theoretically allowing the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants,” said the 10 rights groups, which include Ha-Moked, B’Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Rabbis for Human Rights. Until now the vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank have not been required to hold a permit just to be present in their homes, the groups say.
“The military will be able to prosecute and deport any Palestinian defined as an infiltrator in stark contradiction to the Geneva conventions,” they said. The law broadens the definition of an “infiltrator” and could allow Israel to transfer some Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza, or to deport foreign passport holders married to West Bank Palestinians, or to deport Israelis or foreigners living in the West Bank. The groups said tens of thousands of Palestinians were in those categories.
Israel effectively controls the Palestinian population register and since 2000, apart from once in 2007, the Israeli authorities have frozen applications for renewal of visitor permits for foreign nationals, or applications to grant permanent status in the occupied territories. As a result, many Palestinians live in the West Bank without formal status and are now vulnerable under the new orders. The human rights groups wrote to the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, today asking him to delay or revoke the orders, which they said were “unlawful and allow extreme and arbitrary injury to a vast number of people”.
The Israeli military said the purpose of the orders was “the extradition of those residing illegally in Judea and Samaria,” an Israeli term for the West Bank. The orders had been “corrected” in order to “assure judicial oversight of the extradition process,” it said.
However, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the orders would make it easy for Israel to imprison or expel Palestinians from the West Bank. “These military orders belong in an apartheid state,” he said. “They are an assault on ordinary Palestinians and an affront to the most fundamental principles of human rights. Israel’s endgame is not peace. It is the colonisation of the West Bank.”