EDITOR: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black…
The report below speaks of the amazing pervasiveness of abuse of Israeli soldiers by their officers. I tend to believe this report, and one can only wonder how much more pervasive is the abuse and torture of the Palestinian population, who do not have an Ombudsman to go to, and whose complaints are, as a matter of course, always dismissed. An army, a country, a culture based on abuse, torture, theft and barbarity.
IDF report reveals serious abuse of soldiers by commanding officers: Haaretz
Annual report of the IDF Ombudsman reveals the army received 6,100 complaints from soldiers, 60% of which were justified.
The annual report of the IDF Ombudsman, which was served to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, has revealed serious cases of mistreatment of soldiers inside the Israel Defense Forces.
The report included cases of abuse and humiliation of IDF soldiers by their commanders and inadequate medical treatment in IDF medical clinics.
The Ombudsman report revealed that 6,100 complaints were lodged by soldiers against their commanders in 2009, a decrease of 400 complaints from 2008. Of the 6,100 complaints lodged, 60 percent of the complaints were found to have merit by the IDF Ombudsman
In one incident cited in the report, a commander in one of the IDF’s combat units attacked a soldier who wasn’t feeling well by forcefully kicking him in the chest. The IDF Ombudsman found that the battalion commander knew of the incident but responded apathetically and only chose to investigate the incident two months after the fact, following inquiries by the IDF Ombudsman.
“Unfortunately, the regiment commander did not take any steps to correct the situation until the office of the Ombudsman intervened. This type of response shows his soldiers weakness and disinterest, and surely isn’t conducive to trusting relations between soldiers and their commanders,” the report read.
Another case revealed a suicidal soldier who told the deputy commander of his company that he was having a hard time in his post, and threatened to harm himself if he wasn’t transferred to a different post. The deputy commander then handed him a knife and said: “Come on, let’s see if you are able to hurt yourself.” The soldier then proceeded to cut his hand with the knife. The Ombudsman condemned the mistreatment of the soldier and said that several other similar incidents occurred.
The report also revealed defective medical services offered to soldiers. “Unfortunately, the reality on the ground shows that soldiers are made to wait for lengthy periods of time for general and expert doctor appointments,” the report read.
The report found that soldiers typically waited between two to three weeks for a routine checkup, and in cases of emergency, soldiers would wait for many hours.
One combat soldier with a viral infection had to wait three months to see a doctor and four months to receive medication for his infection.
In another incident, a soldier was brought to the military clinic after getting bitten by a yellow scorpion. Even though orders obligate the doctor to refer the patient to the nearest hospital, the doctor instructed the paramedic to give the soldier an infusion and painkillers because the doctor was sleeping and didn’t want to get out of bed.
An IDF spokesperson said in a response that the IDF had received the report and is committed to studying its contents carefully, learning the necessary lessons and to making up for wrongdoings.
Closed Zone: New Animation film
Despite declarations that it has “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, Israel maintains control of the Strip’s overland border crossings, territorial waters, and air space. This includes substantial, albeit indirect, control of the Rafah Crossing.
During the past 18 months, Israel tightened its closure of Gaza, almost completely restricting the passage of goods and people both to and from the Strip.
These policies punish innocent civilians with the goal of exerting pressure on the Hamas government, violating the rights of 1.5 million people who seek only to live ordinary lives – to be reunited with family, to pursue higher education, to receive quality medical treatment, and to earn a living.
The effects of the closure were particularly harsh during the military operation of Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009. For three weeks, Gaza residents had nowhere to flee to escape the bombing.
Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement calls on the State of Israel to fully open Gaza’s crossings and to allow the real victims of the closure – 1.5 million human beings – the freedom of movement necessary to realize their dreams and aspirations.
EDITOR: Haaretz and JCall
I have reported few days ago here about JCall, and it is interesting to read Haaretz enthusiastic reception of their call. This is even more interesting in the light of the unstinting support many of those signatories have given Israel over many decades… that many now relaise that the Occupation game is up, and that it is their civic duty to say so, is a measure of the crisis Israel is finding itself in, though it hardly seems to realise this fully.
A welcome Jewish voice: Haaretz Editorial
Like the members of the American Jewish lobby J Street, the people behind JCall don’t believe that automatic support of Israeli policy serves Israel’s true interests.
JCall, a new leftist European Jewish group, released over the weekend a petition signed by more than 3,000 Jews calling for an end to the occupation and Israeli expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The signatories, including important French philosophers Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, say the settlement policy undermines prospects for peace with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution. They express fear for the future of Israel as a Jewish, democratic and ethical state and are concerned by the global delegitimization campaign against Israel.
Like the members of the American Jewish lobby J Street, the people behind JCall don’t believe that automatic support of Israeli policy – which advocates, for instance, Jewish construction in East Jerusalem – serves Israel’s true interests.
Just as there was criticism of J Street in the United States, the veteran Jewish organizations in Europe have borne down on the new initiative, arguing that the petition will serve Israel’s enemies. And just as Israel’s Information and Diaspora Ministry expects Israeli tourists to defend the government’s settlement policy on their trips abroad, the critics are demanding that intellectuals and ethical people in the Diaspora should be disingenuous.
It is to be hoped that the Israeli government does not join the attack on JCall. During the latest crisis with the U.S. administration, Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu spared no effort in getting Jewish public figures like Elie Wiesel to join the battle against pressure for a construction freeze in East Jerusalem.
Those who recruit Jews from the right to support their policies must honor the right of the Jewish left to express its views. The contribution of Jewish peace activists in Europe is a suitable response to the damage that members of the Netanyahu government, mainly Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, are doing to Israel’s interests there.
The violent conflict between Israel and its neighbors and the suspension of peace talks have contributed to Diaspora Jewish communities’ increasing alienation from Israel. That trend is particularly noticeable among the youth.
The fact that thousands of Jews around the world, including prominent intellectuals, are advocating an end to nearly 43 years of malignant occupation is welcome news. Let’s hope that the voices of Israel’s friends in Paris, London and Brussels will be heard in Jerusalem.
Strenger than Fiction / Jewish liberals from all nations, unite: Haaretz
Diaspora Jews around the world are realizing the time has come to reject the right’s dictate that being pro-Israel means that you need to support the policies of Israeli governments, no matter what they do.
By Carlo Strenger
The failure of the Camp David summit in 2000 and the onset of the Second Intifada have in stages swung the pendulum of Israeli politics to the right to the current government that includes Avigdor Lieberman – one of the most anti-democratic ministers Israel has ever had, who is moving Israel ever closer to the brink of total international isolation – and the Shas Party whose main impact is to push construction in East Jerusalem and the settlements.
This has been reflected in an amazing distortion in the Jewish voice from the Diaspora, primarily the U.S., in the last decade. Judging from the media presence, you might think that most Jews are right-leaning and support Israel’s settlement policy and foot-dragging over ending the occupation. But this has never been true: most Diaspora Jews, including most of American Jewry, is committed to liberalism.
Now the pendulum is swinging back. Diaspora Jews around the world are beginning to realize that the time has come to reject the right’s dictate that being pro-Israel means that you need to support the policies of Israeli governments, no matter what they do; that the Jewish right represents a small minority of the Jewish people. Caring about friends and family doesn’t mean that we do not criticize them, when we believe that they are harming themselves. In caring for somebody’s wellbeing, we are often required to make clear that they are going the wrong way. Hence Liberal Jews in the Diaspora firmly stand by Israel while trenchantly criticizing the occupation and settlements.
This week a delegation of J Street representatives visited Israel. They were hosted by President Shimon Peres, and they heard from central Israeli politicians like Labor MK Matan Vilnai and from opposition leader Tzipi Livni that ending the occupation is Israel’s most urgent task to safeguard it as the democratic state of the Jewish people. The Netanyahu government’s attempt to brand J Street as outside the legitimate Jewish discourse has failed, and finally, after refusing to attend J Street’s first convention, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren met them a few weeks ago.
The movement initiated by J Street is now joined by the European JCall, which includes leading Jewish intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, and which will present its message to the European Parliament today. Their name is short for the Jewish European Call to Reason. This development is doubly important: first, because it gives a voice to the majority of European Jews, who, while caring for Israel, are liberal in orientation. Second: because its leaders are severely critical of Europe’s anti-Israeli left, as shown in Bernard-Henri Levy’s Left in Dark Times and Alain Finkielkraut’s The Defeat of Reason.
There are those on the European (and sometimes on the American) left that have moved into a simplistic, black-and-white worldview governed by what I call SLES, short for “Standard Left Explanatory System.” SLES is a remainder of the guilt that many Europeans feel about their colonial past. Its algorithm is very simple: always support the underdog, particularly if non-Western. If the underdog behaves immorally (9/11; 7/7; Hamas hiding weaponry and fighters in civilian buildings), always accuse the West, and preferably Jews, for having pushed them to do this. Never demand non-Western groups to take responsibility for their actions, but instead masochistically look for ways to make the West responsible.
The new Jewish Liberal voice refuses to give in to the pressures of the Jewish right to support Israel’s actions when if they are wrong-headed, immoral and destructive. It is critical of Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinians territories after 43 years, and condemns the ongoing settlement construction.
At the same time it refuses, adamantly, to cave in to the masochistic tendency of SLES to look for Western culprits only, and systematically exposes anti-Semitic undercurrents in some of the anti-Israeli rhetoric. It strongly supports Palestinians’ right to a state of their own in which they can live in dignity and freedom, but it doesn’t let them off the hook for their dreadful mistakes, starting with the rejection of the UN partition agreement in 1947 and ending with electing the explicitly anti-Semitic Hamas into power in 2005.
It firmly believes that respecting Palestinians means to hold them responsible for their actions and consistently unmasks the tendency of the Arab world to accuse Israel of its own shortcomings and backwardness; and it never loses sight of the dangers in radical Islam, while seeking cooperation with moderate and progressive Arabs and Muslims.
The new Jewish Liberals are characterized by what philosopher Susan Neiman, in a wonderful book has called Moral Clarity: a combination of moral principles that are not to be compromised combined with insistence that reason rather than religious belief or dogmatic ideology must be the guide in making up our minds on questions of fact.
I predict the new Jewish liberal voice will become the predominant presence in Jewish discourse and politics of the Diaspora. Having suffered from irrational and evil persecution, prejudice and hatred, we Jews know how important the principles of Liberalism are, and it is time for us to apply them everywhere, and of course, first and foremost, in Israel.
It is now time for Israel’s liberals, who all but disappeared politically and have left public space except for a few enclaves to the right, to pick up the lead of the Diaspora, to make our voices forcefully heard. While being intransigent in opposing Israel’s occupation, the expansion of settlement and the disenfranchisement of Israeli Arabs, we must not fall into the trap of SLES. We must make clear to the electorate, that we do not just see Palestinians as victims, but as partners to be held responsible for their actions.
We must no longer let the likes of Avigdor Lieberman, whose worldview is illiberal, be the face of our country to the world. While holding the memory of the Holocaust sacred, we must refuse its politicization by Lieberman and Benjamin Netanyahu. While not blinding ourselves to the dangers of Islamic radicalism and Iran’s striving for hegemony, we must reject the fear-mongering of the right that has no positive message and no vision for Israel’s future.
Netanyahu has said to his Likud Party that they are supposed to be liberal and democratic. We must hold him to his word and demand that he drop his illiberal coalition partners, and form a government truly committed to liberal principles, with Kadima and Labor as his main partners. And we must demand of the Labor party to finally live up to its values, and pressure Netanyahu to move Israel towards moral clarity that is at the core of the Jewish Liberal vision.
Netanyahu meets Mubarak ahead of new Mid East talks: BBC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met Egypt’s president before the expected launch of indirect Middle East peace negotiations.
Mr Netanyahu spoke with Hosni Mubarak for 90 minutes in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
An Israeli statement said the talks were “constructive” and “took place in a good atmosphere”.
Arab League foreign ministers on Sunday backed the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian so-called proximity talks.
Fresh talks
The two leaders “reviewed Egyptian and international efforts to prepare the ground for the indirect talks aimed at a two-state solution,” Egypt’s official news agency MENA said.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said they discussed “renewing the peace process and other regional and bilateral issues”.
Plans to launch the negotiations failed last month over a row about Israeli plans to build 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Israeli news website Ynet reported that the indirect talks, which are expected to involve the US envoy George Mitchell shuttling between the two sides, would start on Wednesday.
But Palestinian leaders require the backing of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to join the talks, and officials said the body would not meet until Saturday.
Mr Mitchell was due to arrive in the region later on Monday.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been stalled since 2008.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
The Palestinians refused to enter direct talks unless Israel completely halted building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel imposed 10-month limits on new residential construction in the West Bank, but vowed to continue work in East Jerusalem.
But reports suggest an unofficial slowdown of approvals for major projects in the east of the city may be under way.
Egypt’s opposition demands arresting Netanyahu for ‘war crimes’: IOA
Cairo – Egyptian opposition groups on Sunday called for arresting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on “war crimes” when he visits Egypt this week.
Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Kifaya (Enough) coalition, along with a number of independent politicians filed a report to state prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud demanding the immediate arrest of Netanyahu when he arrives in Egypt Monday for talks with President Hosny Mubarak.
The Brotherhood and Kifaya are considered Egypt’s largest opposition groups. In 2005 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the popular vote.
“Our demand is based on a number of international reports about the Israeli offensive on Gaza, including the Goldstone report,” said opposition journalist Abdel-Halim Qandil, the current head of the Kifaya coalition.
The fact-finding mission of Justice Richard Goldstone last year charged that war crimes may have taken place during the 2008-2009 three-week-long Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, which left some 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.
At the time, Netanyahu was not prime minister.
“We also filed a separate legal memorandum reviewing evidence of Netanyahu’s war crimes in Gaza based on international laws,” Qandil added.
Meeting at the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, Netanyahu and Mubarak are expected to discuss Palestinian-Israeli “proximity” talks, which Washington said will resume next week.
On Saturday, the Arab League gave its blessing to the indirect talks. Egypt has been a key player in the negotiations, which were suspended in late 2008.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed al-Beltagi said that the report is a “a political message to emphasize that receiving Netanyahu in Sharm al-Sheikh is rejected by the people.”
The independent-daily al-Masry al-Youm on Saturday quoted Egypt’s ambassador to Israel, Yasser Reda, as saying that “the Egyptian opposition isn’t opposed to the peace treaty or Israel.”
“Those people don’t want war. Most of the world wants peace,” he said at a Tel Aviv University after expressing his hopes of seeing a football match played between the Egyptian and Israeli national teams in the near future.
Despite being the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the question of normalizing relations remains a hot topic of debate in Egypt, where many reject the idea of direct relations with Israel.
A struggle to change public opinion: Haaretz
Prime Minister Netanyahu has to work hard to change public opinion, where the concept ‘there is no partner’ is thoroughly assimilated.
By Shaul Arieli
How serious Benjamin Netanyahu really is about resuming talks with the Palestinians will be reflected in the extent of his effort to reshape Israeli public opinion, where the concept “there is no partner” has been thoroughly assimilated, partly because of the prime minister’s own utterances.
First, Netanyahu will have to cope with the Israeli presumption that the status of the territories is, at best, “disputed,” though they are usually perceived as “liberated” or “promised,” either by the Balfour Declaration or God himself. United Nations resolutions stating that they are “occupied territories” where a Palestinian state is destined to rise have been disregarded. Accordingly, every inch of the West Bank from which Israel withdraws is perceived as a concession, of both historical rights and real estate.
A second problem is that Israelis perceive their country’s control of the West Bank as the starting point for “mutual concessions.” The Palestinian concession in 1988 of 78 percent of “historical Palestine” is considered irrelevant. From the premiership of Ehud Barak to that of Netanyahu, Israel has eschewed territorial exchanges on a one-to-one basis, whose ultimate meaning is carving up the “poor man’s lamb,” to use the biblical metaphor.
Third, Netanyahu will have to confront the public’s impression that Ehud Olmert, like Barak before him, “gave up everything” but was turned down by the Palestinians. In the Israeli consciousness, “everything” refers to the territorial issue and leaves out Jerusalem, the refugees and security. In fact, the Palestinians stretched the interpretation of the UN’s resolutions in order to accede to Israeli demands in at least the four following ways.
Although the international community denies the legality of the settlements, the Palestinians proposed a territorial exchange that allows 75 percent of the settlements to remain under our sovereignty. Although the international community has determined that East Jerusalem’s status is the same as the West Bank’s, the Palestinians agreed to leave the neighborhoods Israel established after 1967 in Israel’s hands. Despite the centrality of the refugee issue, the Palestinians agreed that the practical solution would be financial compensation and to settle the refugees in Palestine. And although every country has a natural right to things like air space, coastal waters and an army, the Palestinians agreed to Israeli demands that take bites out of their sovereignty.
Fourth, Netanyahu will have to face up to the Israeli predilection for creating realities by force of arms rather than seeking international legitimization – as expressed in David Ben-Gurion’s dictum, “It’s not important what the goyim say, it’s important what the Jews do.” The source of this concept lays in Israel’s success in winning the world’s recognition for its conquests in the War of Independence, a war that was fought under different circumstances than exist today. The tripling of the settlements since the Oslo Accords reflects the prevalence of the illusion that we will be able to annex them simply because we built them.
Both Netanyahu and the Israeli public will have to get used to the fact that by reaching an agreement, we won’t be bestowing a state on the Palestinians. We will be getting the Jewish state back from an Arab world ready to accept it, not out of love but because it has no alternative.
Israel has indulged in a great deal of foreplay in these negotiations, mostly with itself. Barak and Olmert got closer than Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu, but not one prime minister has mustered the courage to reach the point where an agreement actually has a chance to be conceived. Until we get to that point of our own free will, the Palestinians will prefer to remain in the cozy embrace of the international resolutions, in the hope that they will be implemented, against Israeli interests.
EDITOR: The Daily Effects of Apartheid
The use of the word apartheid has now been normalised in Israel like never before – another proof of the efficacy of the BDS campaign. Children are always the first victims of racism and apartheid, as this report reveals:
Discrimination is flourishing in East Jerusalem: Haaretz
While children in West Jerusalem schools are celebrating ‘Jerusalem Day,’ thousands of children in East Jerusalem will stay home or crowd into rickety schoolrooms.
By Akiva Eldar
If everything goes as expected next week, with the beginning of proximity talks, thousands of Jews will be marking 43 years since the “unification of Jerusalem.” The politicians will certainly not miss the festive opportunity to express their great love for “our united capital for all eternity.”
At that same hour, the police will continue to question municipal leaders who, while singing songs of praise to Jerusalem, lent a hand to the construction of the monstrous Holyland complex. You don’t need judges in Jerusalem to know that a serious crime was committed against the city with the Holyland. But corruption on the hill in West Jerusalem is nothing compared to the theft of land, identity rape, and the body of lies and criminal discrimination against 270,000 residents of the eastern part of the city.
Although these despicable acts have been going on in broad daylight for years, the public and the media don’t find them interesting. After all, it’s about Arabs. If not for the “unfortunate timing” of the U.S. vice-presidential visit, who would have cared about 1,600 housing units at Ramat Shlomo? Did anyone investigate why, over the opposition of the Israel Lands Administration representative, the District Planning and Building Committee rezoned the land from open space to land for construction? Who knows how many apartments the Housing and Construction Ministry built for young couples from East Jerusalem, which, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is no different than North Tel Aviv?
A reminder: Since 1967, Israel has expropriated 35 percent of the area of East Jerusalem (around 24 square kilometers). New Jewish neighborhoods were built on those lands, with 50,000 housing units.
Hundreds of developers and contractors (and public employees?) continue to get rich from this construction. How many neighborhoods were built during that time for Arab-Israeli residents? Zero. When was the last time the government supported the construction of 600 apartments in an Arab neighborhood? Thirty years ago. Most of the lands left in the hands of Palestinians (about 45 square kilometers) have been declared “green areas.” Lacking a comprehensive master plan for Jerusalem because of intentional political foot-dragging, building permits cannot be issued for areas outside the densely built-up Palestinian neighborhoods.
And after all that, people on the right dare to complain that Arabs are building without permits, while attempts are being made to “expel” Jews from Beit Yonatan, a large building without a permit that their friends stuck like a bone in the throat of a Palestinian neighborhood. The prime minister is also peddling the line that “a Palestinian from East Jerusalem can build anywhere in the city.” It’s hard to believe that Netanyahu, who was born in Jerusalem, doesn’t know that only Israeli citizens or those entitled to Israeli citizenship through the Law of Return have access to ILA property (93 percent of the land in Israel).
Not only are Arabs from East Jerusalem not allowed to buy the homes in Talbiyeh (whose name has been officially changed to Komemiyut) where they were born 63 years ago; the law doesn’t permit them to build a home on one-third of the land of East Jerusalem – the area that was expropriated from Palestinians after 1967. In contrast, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, who demanded that U.S. President Barack Obama leave Jerusalem alone, is welcome to purchase a vacation apartment in the new Jewish housing project in Sheikh Jarrah.
While children in West Jerusalem schools are celebrating “Jerusalem Day,” thousands of children in East Jerusalem will stay home or crowd into rickety schoolrooms. The education minister and the mayor, who will praise the “unification of Jerusalem,” are among those continually defaulting on the pledge to the High Court of Justice to build some 250 of the more than 1,000 classrooms that are lacking in the city.
And people who disregard Israel’s High Court will have no trouble ignoring agreements with foreigners. Who remembers that according to phase one of the road map that the Israeli government was to reopen the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and other shuttered Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem, pledging that they would operate based on previous agreements?
“For Zion’s sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her triumph go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a torch that burneth, and the nations shall see thy triumph, and all kings thy glory,” wrote the prophet Isaiah. It’s hard to believe that proximity talks will bring peace into closer proximity between Israel and the Palestinians. But if they help replace baseless, sickly sweet declarations with just a little more justice and wisdom emanating from Jerusalem, as the prophet envisioned, that will be enough.
Anne Penketh: To bring Tehran and Tel Aviv on board would be giant step: The Independent
Analysis: In the interests of transparency, America may reveal the size of its own nuclear arsenal this week
Monday, 3 May 2010
Negotiations over the presumed nuclear arsenal of a single country will determine the success or failure of the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That country is not Iran. It is Israel, which is not even a member of the 189-state NPT.
Every five years, the nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” within the NPT meet at the UN for a game of nuclear brinkmanship. Often, it results in a dialogue of the deaf, with the non-nuclear states accusing the officially acknowledged nuclear powers – Britain, the US, Russia, France and China – of not doing enough to meet their treaty commitments to move towards “general and complete” disarmament. The nuclear weapons states try to turn the tables by focusing on the treaty’s non-proliferation pillar and on suspicions about Iran’s true intentions.
The Obama administration feels it is going into this year’s conference in a strong position. They have a President who stands for a world free of nuclear weapons, who has signed the first nuclear arms control agreement with Russia in a decade, and who has brought world leaders to Washington to agree on measures to curb nuclear terrorism.
President Barack Obama has also signalled that in addition to an early ratification of New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) by the US Senate, he intends to push for the long-overdue ratification of a global treaty banning all nuclear tests, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
In the interests of transparency, America may reveal the size of its own nuclear arsenal this week. But there is unfinished business that has haunted the halls of NPT Review Conferences for years.
The issue of Israel’s never- officially-acknowledged nuclear weapons is at the heart of a 1995 NPT resolution calling for the creation of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.
Egypt, which has long championed the cause of a nuclear-free region with the backing of the Non-Aligned Movement, extracted a promise from the US, UK and Russia to work towards this goal when they co-sponsored the resolution as the price for the indefinite extension of the NPT, the nuclear “grand bargain” of the last century. So this year’s game of chicken pits the US against Egypt.
Egyptian officials have raised the pressure on the co-sponsors with veiled threats to wreck the Review Conference unless Cairo’s demands are met. The Obama administration is listening, aware that the Non-Aligned Movement holds the majority at the month-long Review Conference and could block proposals from the nuclear weapons states. But it only recently launched intensive discussions on Egypt’s proposal for an international conference at which practical steps would address both Israel, the Arab states’ key concern, and Iran, that of the US.
Agreement on a Middle East conference that would include Israel and Iran would be a major breakthrough and a big step towards improving the security not only of the region, but of the world.
Anne Penketh is Washington Program Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC)
Journalist freed from Gaza jail vows to fight for imprisoned journalists: The Guardian
Paul Martin’s pledge comes as the media marks World Press Freedom Day
The guard at the entrance cocked his rifle with a click-click that echoed around the cell block. Then with his thumb he unlocked the safety catch, and begin swivelling the barrel of his Kalashnikov towards me. I was standing behind a metal grille in a dark cell and had nowhere to hide. He pointed the barrel towards my chest; then, instead of firing, he pulled his gun slowly upward, and laughed.
It was day one of my incarceration in Gaza, where I was held in solitary confinement, denied books to read and a pen and paper, at times placed within earshot of violent torture, and threatened with imminent death several times. It lasted less than a month in February and March this year – hardly comparable, I am aware, with, for example, the years of imprisonment and exile endured by Mónica González Mujica, the intrepid Chilean journalist who today (World Press Freedom Day) will receive a World Press Freedom award from Unesco. But for me those 26 days seemed endless. For most of that time I was convinced that death was the most likely outcome.
“You are not a witness, you are an accused!” the military prosecutor had yelled at me when I was summoned into his office alongside the military court. I had come to give evidence in support of Mohamed, a young man who was the subject of one of my films. He had been part of a militant group that had fired numerous rockets into Israeli civilian areas. I discovered when I returned to Gaza in 2009 that he had left the group, ensuring immediate antagonism from all militants, and had begun to criticise the efficacy of these attacks and the justification for them. “Our rocket fire at their civilians only gives Israel the excuse and the justification to attack us,” he told me on camera.
Biggest risk
Was I right to film him? Did filming him put him in more danger than he already was? I would argue that it is the interviewee’s decision, not the journalist’s, provided he has had time to think about it and the risks have been made clear; and in this case being filmed was more of a protection than a threat – repressive regimes worldwide fear negative publicity, and the biggest risk to dissidents is to be “disappeared” without anyone outside their borders taking any notice of the (non-) event.
Not only is Mohamed convinced I was right to have filmed him, according to his lawyer, but so too is his older brother, who is fighting to save Mohamed from execution. Was I right to try to give evidence on his behalf, despite the risk of arrest? That is a dilemma that journalists occasionally face: should we try everything to protect the subjects of our films if they later get into deep trouble with the authorities? Of course we should. Journalists have a duty not just to tell the truth in their media outlets, I would argue, but also to defend those who have given them their stories.
I had written to the military prosecutors, to the court and to the Hamas leadership stating that I would give evidence. Banners around Gaza still proclaim: “We welcome foreigners and will keep them secure” – Hamas partly justifies its bloody overthrow of the rival Fatah forces in June 2007 on the basis of establishing law and order and security. And it did succeed in getting Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza correspondent who was held for four months by a militia not affiliated to Hamas, released. But since then Hamas has locked up scores of journalists or closed down their news operations, although the foreign media have been left alone.
My six interrogators argued that I was a spy for MI6, and possibly Mossad as well, and, as such, faced a mandatory death penalty. I was even told I had been inside a Gaza City hospital during the Gaza-Israel war of December 2008 to January 2009, seeking to discover if the Hamas leadership were hiding there. In fact, of course, no journalists could get inside Gaza City during the fighting, and I arrived back in Gaza several days after the ceasefire. My 21-year-old daughter’s Facebook entry showed her paragliding in Cape Town – this became military training in Haifa, according to my interrogators. I had filmed in the tunnels that link Gaza with Egypt, showing weapons smuggling. Yes of course – and so have most of the world’s news organisations.
The allegations may seem laughable, but the chilling truth is that it really doesn’t matter how ludicrous they are: if a regime is hellbent on turning a journalist into a spy, it can simply put him on trial in a closed court, announce a verdict, list the now “proven” allegations, and lock the journalist up – or worse. Who would know? My excellent Palestinian lawyer attended one seven-hour interrogation session, then was banned. So too was the British consul.
The guilt or innocence of the supposed spy was of course irrelevant to the political calculation being made. So was my past record of long-term support for the human rights of people across the Middle East and Africa. My exposure, for example, of the awful death of one 12-year-old boy in Gaza City during the recent war, shown on CNN, NBC News and Channel 4 News, ensures I still get hate mail from those who believe I have a sinister role as a producer of pro-Palestinian propaganda.
A key factor weighing against my release was the politics of opportunism. Coinciding with my arrest was the assassination of a top Hamas official in Dubai, in which 12 faked British passports had been used. The Hamas security services, internally accused of failing to protect their man, now had the chance to show strength – they could tell the locals, and their hardline Arab and Islamist backers, that they had now caught a “spy” and would execute him: scoreline Israel 1 Hamas 1.
After 21 days, I was therefore amazed when a top Hamas official turned up at my jail. He produced calling cards from Lord Steel and other British parliamentarians, who had come to Gaza against the advice of the British government; at their request, he had asked to see me and get me released. I was fortunate in having a long track record working for broadcasters such the BBC, Channel 4 News, al-Jazeera and Arte, and for newspapers such as the Times and the Guardian. My detention was always likely to create some sort of western backlash, though oddly politicians and figures such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu appeared to put more pressure on Hamas than most media organs.
It seems Hamas’s desire to appear reasonable and credible in western eyes won the day – but at a cost to me. The secret deal was to release me, but to warn me that personal details – my home address and the whereabouts of my children – would be released to “other agencies who might take a more aggressive view of things” if I revealed too much about my prison conditions or criticised Hamas. In return they would drop the absurd claims of spying.
Journalistic freedom
In the end they reneged on the deal, even as I was playing my part at the exit from Gaza – by refusing to answer questions on my prison conditions or my opinion of my Hamas jailers. I simply said my release was a “great victory” for the freedom of journalists to report fairly and accurately irrespective of the dangers. I called on governments and armed groups to release more than 100 journalists who are held in jails across the world or have disappeared. And for governments to take their duties seriously by making clear to such regimes or groups that there are consequences to this repression of journalistic freedom.
My contribution in future will be to fight for the rights of my colleagues still held in jail; to fight to free, or save the lives of, those dissidents who are locked up after speaking to us, or face death, as does the reformed rocket-firer Mohamed; and above all not to be cowed into silence. Hamas, and all regimes and groups who behave repressively, can expect much more exposure from my pen and my camera. And, I hope, from us all.
Shin Bet admits watching left-wing activist in West Bank: Haaretz on IOA
The Shin Bet security service has admitted in an affidavit to the High Court of Justice that has been conducting surveillance of a left-wing Australian activist living in Israel.
Bridgette Chappell, an activist with the International Solidarity Movement, arrived in Israel in August 2009 and went to live in Bir Zeit, near Ramallah. She took part in protests and was arrested in Bir Zeit at the beginning of February together with another activist, a Spanish citizen.
Chappell’s lawyer, Omer Shatz, petitioned the High Court, which had meanwhile issued a temporary order allowing Chappell to remain in Israeli territory. The petition argues that Israel has no jurisdiction in matters pertaining to population administration in Area A, which is under Palestinian civilian and military control, and therefore Chappell’s arrest was illegal.
The state responded Thursday that Chappell had contravened a 1970 order against unauthorized people remaining in the West Bank for more than 48 hours, and an Israel Defense Forces ban from November 2000 on entry into Area A. The state also declared it has the right to operate in Area A due to the security situation, as the High Court has recognized in past rulings, and that Chappell violated a temporary injunction not to go to the West Bank and is now in Nablus, from which she should be expelled.
To bolster its arguments, the security service produced an affidavit from an agent, from which it can be deduced that Chappell has been under surveillance. The declaration from him states that “the facts detailed are known to me due to my examination,” and that “from information in our possession, it appears that Ms. Chappell is at this time in Nablus.”
“We are pleased that the state has finally admitted that it is the authority in Area A, as if the Oslo Accords have disappeared, and that the ‘bantustan’ known as the Palestinian Authority has no significance. This straightforward position will certainly interest the U.S. secretary of state, in light of the start of proximity talks,” Shatz told Haaretz.
The Gaza list: Al Jazeera online
on May 3rd, 2010
Ever wonder what foods and supplies Israel allows into the Gaza Strip?
A new court case in Israel is challenging the military to reveal what items are allowed into Gaza, why it has prohibited certain items, and what the overall objective is of the siege that many have described as “collective punishment”.
Here is the list of basic items allowed into the Gaza Strip for 1.5 million people…
Could you live off the items on this list?
Settlers devise new strategy to scare away Palestinian neighbors: Haaretz
Dozens of settlers set up a ‘protest’ tent next to a tent belonging to Bedouin herdsmen on Palestinian land.
By Amira Hass
Some settlers are employing a new strategy to get Palestinians evicted from their land in the northern region of the Jordan Valley, Haaretz has learned. A number of settlers, some of whom are residents of the Maskiot settlement, set up a “protest” tent next to a tent belonging to Bedouin herdsmen near Wad el Maleh, on private Palestinian land. Last Thursday, after the Palestinians complained to the civil administration, both the Israelis and Palestinians there were handed decrees declaring the area a closed military zone, signed by brigade commander Yochai Ben-Yishai.
The Israelis left, but so did the Palestinians, who had lived on the site for over 40 years. Security forces told Haaretz that although the military decree was short-term and was meant to prevent friction between the Bedouin family and the settler group, the Palestinians have not yet returned to their land for fear the settlers will return as well. Members of a committee for popular struggle in the Jordan Valley fear settlers will use the same method elsewhere, acting on the assumption that the authorities would only chase them off the land if it meant local Palestinians would be forced to move as well.
The family told activists from the Machsom Watch human rights group, who visited the site Tuesday and Thursday, that the settlers stayed up late at night and played loud music, and that the settlers’ dog was harassing their herd. They went to the local IDF District Coordination Office to complain, they said, but both the DCO representatives and soldiers who eventually came to the site told them that the settlers could stay there as long as the Palestinians did.
Activists from Machsom Watch told Haaretz that the settlers themselves told them as much, claiming their move was a “protest” because the Bedouin “can pitch tents wherever they like.”
Last Thursday, a large military, police and civil administration force arrived to deliver the closed military zone decrees to both campsites. Some Palestinian residents and popular struggle committee members who were present protested the decrees; one was arrested, as police claimed he attacked a settler. The activist, who denies the charges, was released on bail and ordered to appear in court within a month. By noon, the Palestinians had disassembled their tent and left for their winter campsite.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office issued the following response: “The two tent encampments under discussion were erected last week. None of the parties involved had well-founded claims to the land. In order to separate the parties and out of concern that lives were in danger, the brigade commander issued a closed military area order – but only for a 50-meter radius surrounding the site and for a few hours. After the order was issued, they left the tents on their own, without the use of force.”
Mustafa Barghouti: Is there Room for Gandhi in Palestine?: Huffington Post
Ask Palestinians why there is no Gandhi in their movement, and often the answer comes: but there are several, and Mustafa Barghouti should be recognized more widely as one of them.
A medical doctor, born in Jerusalem in 1954, trained both in the old Soviet Union and in the US, he is the advocate of a strong, non-violent push to a two-state deal with Israel. He got his break in the show biz of American opinion last Fall on the Daily Show. His B. D. S. campaign this Spring in the world press and on American campuses stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to bring the pressure of international attention and law on the Israeli government.
Mustafa Barghouti has set his own course in the famous Barghouti family and in Palestinian politics. With Edward Said and others in 2002, Mustafa Barghouti helped found the Palestinian National Initiative. He was the Initiative’s candidate (and ran second to Mahmood Abbas) to succeed Yasir Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005. His Initiative banner waves for “a truly democratic and independent ‘third way’ for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas.” In a long conversation at Brown’s Watson Institute yesterday, Dr. Barghouti seemed a model of the old virtues: patience, long-suffering, gentleness and a certain deep enthusiasm.
There isn’t any place in the world where apartheid is so systematic as it is today in Palestine… You are talking about a situation where we the Palestinians are prevented from using all our main roads because they are exclusive for Israelis and Israeli Army and Israeli settlers. This did not happen even during the segregation time in the [United] States. People could not use the same bus or same restaurant. But here you can’t use the same road even. I am an elected Member of Parliament. I ran for president in Palestine; I was second in the presidential race. I was born in Jerusalem. I worked as medical doctor, as a cardiologist, in a very important hospital in Jerusalem for 15 years. And since five years I am prevented, like 98 percent of the Palestinians, from entering Jerusalem. If I am caught in Jerusalem, I could be sentenced to seven years in jail.
This is unbelievable. You have a situation where a husband and a wife cannot be together. If a husband is from Jerusalem and his wife is from the West Bank, or the opposite, they cannot live together. Because if the husband or the wife comes to the West Bank they lose their ID, they lose their residency. And the wife or the husband from the other side cannot be granted citizenship in Jerusalem. We have never seen a situation where a country occupies a city like East Jerusalem and then declares the citizens of the city — who have lived there for hundreds, and some of the families for thousands of years — “temporary residents.” And if one of them goes out to study at Brown for five years for instance, they would lose their residency. This is what you see are acts of ethnic cleansing.
There isn’t a place in the world where officially the policy is, if I have a person with a heart attack and I need to get him to a hospital in Jerusalem or in Israel, I have to get a military permit from a coordinator in the military headquarters. And this can take hours or days, or it can not be granted at all. I’ve had patients die in front of my eyes because I could not get them through the checkpoints. We had 80 women who had to give birth at checkpoints, and 30 of them lost their babies. And to me, the fact that a woman cannot give birth in a dignified manner, and having to give birth in front of foreign soldiers out in the street, is equal to the utmost injustice. Tell me, where does that happen anywhere in the world? And this is happening by a country that is claiming that it is a democracy and that it is civilized. And by people that have had suffering in the past. I mean, that’s what amazes me, you know. People who understand how terrible it is to be discriminated against…
So we ask ourselves: how do we make the Israelis change their minds? How do we convince them to stop the oppressive system which is hurting our future and their future? …We have to make their system of occupation painful; and we have to make their system of occupation costly. This can be done through only two ways: either you turn to violence, which I totally disagree with, I don’t believe in and I think is counterproductive; or you turn to non-violence and mobilizing international pressures on Israel, as people did in the case of the apartheid system in South Africa. If it wasn’t for the divestment sanctions campaign in the 80s and 90s we would never have seen the apartheid system fall apart in South Africa, simply because the balance of forces between the regime and the people is so big in the interest of the regime. We have the same situation in Palestine. That’s why I speak about divestment and sanctions to encourage non-violence. This is the only way we make non-violent resistance succeed, by having an international component, especially in the United States. We are not talking about boycotting Israel, or Israeli people. We are talking about boycotting occupation and about divestment from occupation and military industry that is exploiting people, that is destroying people’s lives and that is consolidating an apartheid system. So we are calling for divestment from occupation and apartheid and injustice…
Let’s say we have a Palestinian state and an Israel state. This will make many Israelis calmer because they will not be afraid about the Jewish nature of Israel as a state, although 20 percent of its citizens are Palestinian today. Eventually there will be cooperation between the Palestinian state and the Israeli state, economically, say. I don’t see a problem with us and Israel joining the European Union together, for instance. But Israel has to answer a bigger question.
I mean, Israel is not an island in the ocean. Israel is an island in the Middle East. What we have so far is an Israeli government that is always in conflict with others. They seek conflict, in my opinion, and they use this conflict to justify oppression of Palestinians, and to justify a lack of solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. First it was the Soviet Union: they could not make a solution because a Palestinian state would be closer to the Soviet Union, for instance – or with Egypt which was at that time closer to the Soviet Union. Then it was the problem of Egypt and Syria, and then they had peace with Egypt and ceasefire with Syria. They had a problem with Iraq. Today they speak about Iran. Tomorrow if Iran is no problem they probably will start speaking about Azerbaijan. They keep looking for an external justification for a problem that’s internal.
Many Israelis speak of this. And they ask: in a globalized world when you have economic cooperation, why does Israel want us not to be a democracy? Why did they kill twice already our best experiences developing a democratic system – once in 1976 when we had the first municipatlity elections, and they didn’t like the results. At the time there was no Hamas; at that time Israel was cooperating with Islamic parties against the secular national democratic groups like us. And they killed the results of the 2006 elections which were praised by the United States and the world community as the best democratic elections in the Middle East. You see, I see racism here. Why are Israelis entitled to democracy and Palestinians are not? The question is why are they afraid of us being a democracy? Because we will have a government that cannot be manipulated?
Obama, Netanyahu: Direct Mideast talks needed as soon as possible: Haaretz
Obama calls PM just hours after U.S. envoy George Mitchell arrives in Israel; Netanyahu briefs Egyptian president on plans for negotiations, which are expected to begin on Wednesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss making “full use” of the upcoming indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and moving to direct negotiations as soon as possible, the White House said.
Obama spoke with Netanyahu by telephone for about 20 minutes, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, as U.S. envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel for the start of U.S.-mediated negotiations, the first Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in more than a year.
“The president spoke late this morning with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Gibbs said at his daily news briefing.
“They discussed how best to work together to achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East, in particular by making full use of substantive proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians and transitioning to direct negotiations as soon as possible.”
Gibbs said the two leaders also discussed regional challenges, and that Obama “reaffirmed his unshakable commitment” to the security of Israel.
Obama’s peace efforts received a boost on Saturday when Arab states approved four months of “proximity talks”, which were expected to begin in March but suffered a delay due to Israel’s announcement of a settlement project in East Jerusalem.
Defense Ministry strategist Amos Gilad said that the indirect negotiations would begin on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when the envoy would hold talks with the Palestinian side.
Also Monday, Netanyahu and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak conferred in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about the upcoming U.S.-mediated negotiations.
Netanyahu briefed Mubarak during their talks in Sharm on plans for the indirect talks. He later described their meeting as “constructive and took place in a good atmosphere.”
A senior official told Haaretz earlier Monday that Netanyahu intended to open the indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority with a discussion of the security arrangements in the West Bank and of water resources.
The official added that Netanyahu had recently asked the defense establishment and the National Security Council to elaborate on the so-called eight-points brief, which lists Israel’s security demands in terms of a permanent status agreement.
Also Monday, Channel 10 reported that Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who had accompanied Netanyahu on his Sharm el-Sheikh visit, said Egypt was committed to the peace process and doing everything it can to aid in restarting it.
Despite the preparations, some Israeli officials have voiced doubt about any breakthrough without direct negotiations.
Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor described indirect talks as “a strange affair” after face-to-face peace negotiations stretching back 16 years.
There have been no direct talks for the past 18 months, a period that has included Israel’s Gaza war, election of a right-wing Israeli government and entrenched rule in the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists opposed to the U.S. peace efforts.
“I think it is clear to everyone that real talks are direct talks, and I don’t think there is a chance of a significant breakthrough until the direct talks begin,” Meridor said.
“The talks will be held. The envoy, Mitchell, will talk to us, to them. But the more we hasten to arrive at direct talks, the more we will be able to address the heart of the matter.”
Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Abbas, said the negotiations would show whether the Israeli government was serious about peace and “test the sincerity” of the Obama
administration in pursuing Palestinian statehood.
“The truth is we are not in need of negotiations. We are in need of decisions by the Israeli government. This is the time for decisions more than it is the time for negotiations,” Abu Rdainah said.
U.S. President Barack Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss making “full use” of the upcoming indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and moving to direct negotiations as soon as possible, the White House said.
Obama spoke with Netanyahu by telephone for about 20 minutes, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, as U.S. envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel for the start of U.S.-mediated negotiations, the first Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in more than a year.
“The president spoke late this morning with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Gibbs said at his daily news briefing.
“They discussed how best to work together to achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East, in particular by making full use of substantive proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians and transitioning to direct negotiations as soon as possible.”
Gibbs said the two leaders also discussed regional challenges, and that Obama “reaffirmed his unshakable commitment” to the security of Israel.
Obama’s peace efforts received a boost on Saturday when Arab states approved four months of “proximity talks”, which were expected to begin in March but suffered a delay due to Israel’s announcement of a settlement project in East Jerusalem.
Defense Ministry strategist Amos Gilad said that the indirect negotiations would begin on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when the envoy would hold talks with the Palestinian side.
Also Monday, Netanyahu and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak conferred in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about the upcoming U.S.-mediated negotiations.
Netanyahu briefed Mubarak during their talks in Sharm on plans for the indirect talks. He later described their meeting as “constructive and took place in a good atmosphere.”
A senior official told Haaretz earlier Monday that Netanyahu intended to open the indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority with a discussion of the security arrangements in the West Bank and of water resources.
The official added that Netanyahu had recently asked the defense establishment and the National Security Council to elaborate on the so-called eight-points brief, which lists Israel’s security demands in terms of a permanent status agreement.
Also Monday, Channel 10 reported that Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who had accompanied Netanyahu on his Sharm el-Sheikh visit, said Egypt was committed to the peace process and doing everything it can to aid in restarting it.
Despite the preparations, some Israeli officials have voiced doubt about any breakthrough without direct negotiations.
Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor described indirect talks as “a strange affair” after face-to-face peace negotiations stretching back 16 years.
There have been no direct talks for the past 18 months, a period that has included Israel’s Gaza war, election of a right-wing Israeli government and entrenched rule in the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists opposed to the U.S. peace efforts.
“I think it is clear to everyone that real talks are direct talks, and I don’t think there is a chance of a significant breakthrough until the direct talks begin,” Meridor said.
“The talks will be held. The envoy, Mitchell, will talk to us, to them. But the more we hasten to arrive at direct talks, the more we will be able to address the heart of the matter.”
Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Abbas, said the negotiations would show whether the Israeli government was serious about peace and “test the sincerity” of the Obama administration in pursuing Palestinian statehood.
“The truth is we are not in need of negotiations. We are in need of decisions by the Israeli government. This is the time for decisions more than it is the time for negotiations,” Abu Rdainah said.
Haaretz lawyers give Anat Kamm documents to state: Haaretz
The lawyers hope that the return of the documents will help end the matter and allow Haaretz reporter Uri Blau to return to Israel.
Lawyers representing Haaretz on Monday passed on to the Tel Aviv district attorneys the classified documents journalist Uri Blau had been holding since he received them from military whistleblower, Anat Kamm.
Haaretz lawyers on Monday May 3, 2010 gave to the state secret documents allegedly stolen by Anat Kamm and leaked to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau.
Haaretz lawyers Mibi Mozer and Tali Lieblich met with Tel Aviv district attorneys Ruth David-Blum and Hadas Forer-Gafni to transfer the documents Anat Kamm allegedly stole when she was a soldier in the GOC Central Command and then leaked to Blau.
The parties involved are currently negotiating to resolve the matter and allow Blau, who has been in London since the affair first broke, to return to Israel.
Blau’s lawyers returned last week from London, where they met with their client and received information on the location of the classified documents still in his possession. Mozer and Lieblich said that Blau had not been holding any of the documents in London, and added that they hope that the return of the papers would bring about the end of the affair.
Kamm, 23, had previously urged Blau to return to Israel and give the documents to security services, saying she had given up her journalistic immunity as a source. Kamm has been indicted in Tel Aviv District Court for aggravated espionage.
Israel to open peace talks with demands on security, water: Haaretz
Diplomats believe the Palestinians will prefer to open negotiations with discussion of the borders.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to open the indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority this week with a discussion of the security arrangements in the West Bank and of water resources. A senior official told Haaretz that Netanyahu had recently asked the defense establishment and the National Security Council to elaborate on the so-called eight-points brief, which lists Israel’s security demands in terms of a permanent status agreement, as framed by Ehud Olmert’s government.
Israeli diplomats believe the Palestinians will prefer to open the negotiations with discussion of the borders – an issue on which the Palestinians think they have an advantage over the Israelis, since the United States position on this matter is close to their own.
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to the American demand to talk about the core issues of a permanent status agreement: borders, Jerusalem, security, water, settlements and refugees. However, each side has its own priorities which it will choose to focus on, and with which it will prefer to begin negotiations.
Netanyahu is due to leave for Sharm el-Sheikh this morning to confer with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the upcoming negotiations. He will be accompanied by Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer.
Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is expected to arrive to launch the negotiations today; he will meet with Netanyahu on Wednesday. Mitchell is expected to hold his first meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) later this week.
The envoy will spend the first phase of the proximity talks shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah. In Jerusalem, he will meet primarily with attorney Yitzhak Molcho, who was involved in negotiating with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister.
“The negotiations will be conducted in channels that are as discreet as possible and within a limited framework,” a senior government official said.
As part of his demand to expand the Olmert brief, Netanyhu has asked that it include detailed information concerning the demilitarization of any future Palestinian state and the deployment of Israeli forces on its eastern border to prevent weapons smuggling.
The original document was authored by then chief of planning department at the General Staff and today commander of the Israel Air Force, Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehoshtan. Its conditions already include Israeli monitoring of Palestinian border terminals, freedom of Israeli aviation in Palestinian airspace, Israeli control of the electromagnetic spectrum and early warning stations in the West Bank. Both the Bush administration and the PA voiced reservations on the brief at the time.
While Netanyahu, unlike his predecessors Ehud Barak and Olmert, did not set up a negotiating team to run the talks per se, the PA is well prepared: Top-ranking Palestinian officials including Yasser Abed Rabbo, Saeb Erekat and Mahmoud Abbas himself have years of experience in negotiating with Israel. The Palestinians also have what they call a “negotiation support unit,” which has been operating continuously for over a decade.
On the Israeli side, by contrast, Molcho is the only close Netanyhu adviser with any experience in negotiating with the Palestinians.
Observers explain that Netanyahu’s reluctance to set up a large negotiating team stems from a fear of leaks. A source in the Prime Minister’s Office told Haaretz, however, that there has been a tremendous amount of background work done ahead of the renewal of the talks.
It remains unclear which Israeli or other commitments have convinced the Palestinians to resume even indirect negotiations.
PA secretary Taib Abdel Rahim said yesterday that on his last visit to Ramallah, Mitchell brought a letter from U.S. President Barack Obama guaranteeing an American commitment to the two-state solution and an end to the occupation that began in 1967, and a binding statement declaring that the future Palestinian state will be independent and territorially contiguous.
Abdel Rahim noted Mitchell said the U.S. will take steps against any provocation and act against any side that brings down the talks – including altering American policy toward that party.
Abbas has informed the U.S. of his new proposals concerning construction and house demolition in Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as a provocation. The Palestinian president is set to meet with Obama in Washington later this month.