Terrible news below: Israeli soldiers are portrayed as killing children! Why would anyone want to do such a vile thing? When did Israeli soldiers ever kill anyone, let alone children?…
Turkish TV series angers Israel: BBC
Israel’s foreign minister has ordered Turkey’s ambassador to be summoned over a Turkish TV series that portrays Israeli soldiers killing children.
Avigdor Lieberman said the programme, whose first episode was broadcast on Tuesday, incited hatred against Israel.
In one clip screened on Israeli news channels, an Israeli soldier takes aim at a smiling young girl and kills her.
The complaint is the latest to strain the relationship between Turkey and Israel.
Strategic ties
In a statement, Mr Lieberman said the series, which “presents Israeli soldiers as the murderers of innocent children, would not be appropriate for broadcast even in an enemy country and certainly not in a state which maintains diplomatic relations with Israel”.
Another clip from the series – which tells the story of a Palestinian family – reportedly shows a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier travelling in slow motion towards a Palestinian child.
The programme was broadcast on Turkey’s TRT One Channel.
Turkey is one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, but these have suffered since Israel’s offensive in Gaza in January.
Last week, Ankara cancelled an international military exercise in which Israeli pilots were due to participate.
Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak sought to play down the rift, stressing that the two states shared “longstanding, important and strategic” ties.
UN backs Gaza ‘war crimes’ report: BBC
The UN Human Rights Council has backed a report into the Israeli offensive in Gaza that accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.
The report by Richard Goldstone calls for credible investigations by Israel and Hamas, and suggests international war crimes prosecutions if they do not.
Twenty-five countries voted for the resolution, while six were against.
Both Israel and the US opposed official endorsement of the report, saying it would set back Middle East peace hopes.
The Palestinian Authority initially backed deferring a vote, but changed its position after domestic criticism.
Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed in the 22-day conflict that ended in January, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166.
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.
‘Culture of impunity’
Before the vote in Geneva – in which 11 countries abstained and five others, including the UK and France, chose not to vote – the Palestinian Authority’s representative argued that the matter was simply about respect for the rule of law.
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, meanwhile insisted that now was the time to end the “culture of impunity” which continues to prevail in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Israelis flatten Palestinian home: BBC
Israeli authorities have demolished two Palestinian-owned structures in East Jerusalem, in defiance of international calls to stop such actions.
Palestinian reports say a family of five was forcibly evicted from their home in the Beit Hanina district before the building was demolished. Israeli bulldozers then destroyed the foundations of another building nearby. UN officials say such demolitions violate international law and raise serious humanitarian concerns.
Israel says buildings subject to demolition orders have been built without permits. Palestinians say it is virtually impossible to obtain the necessary approval from Israel’s municipal authorities in Jerusalem. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem , says the authorities have demolished about 420 Palestinian-owned houses in East Jerusalem since 2004 saying they were built without permits. Israel occupied the territory in the 1967 war and annexed it soon afterwards in a move that has not been recognised internationally.
EI exclusive video: Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago: The Electronic Intifada
Article by Maureen Clare Murphy, video by The Electronic Intifada team
The Electronic Intifada, 16 October 2009
Approximately 30 activists — mainly students from area universities — disrupted a lecture given in Chicago by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday which was hosted by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. While Olmert’s speech was disrupted inside the lecture hall, approximately 150 activists protested outside the hall in the freezing rain.
Israel rejects ‘unjust’ UN council Goldstone endorsement: Ha’aretz
Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected on Friday the United Nations Human Rights Council decision to endorse a Gaza report that accused Israel of committing war crimes, calling the decision “unjust.”
During the UN Human Rights Council session Friday, several countries condemned Israel over the findings stated in the 575-page long report on the conduct of Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas during Israel’s offensive in Gaza last winter.
The Palestinian UN delegate said during the session that “Israel denies Palestinians basic human rights and this issue cannot be compromised.”
Turkey: We won’t cancel TV show depicting Israelis as killers: Ha’aretz
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday that a controversial television drama which shows actors dressed as Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children will not be taken off the air. The TV program Ayirlik (“separation”) shows Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children in Gaza. In one of the scenes, an Israeli soldier shoots an unarmed little girl at point-blank range. Davutoglu withdrew responsibility from his government regarding this issue, saying the matter is up to the Turkish Radio and Television Corp., the state-run broadcaster which is airing the show.
“This is a matter to be evaluated entirely as part of their broadcast policies. Turkey does not have censorship,” he said, while speaking to reporters in Ankara.
Turkish State Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said earlier Friday that his country’s ties with Israel have always been strong and will surely remain that way in the future, according to Anotolia news agency.
“Any stance of Turkey against Israel is out of the question,” Arinc was quoted as saying.
Arinc is responsible for the state-run broadcaster TRT on which a controversial series is aired.
REPORT: ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE ILLEGALLY PROFILING TRAVELERS IN SOUTH AFRICA: The Electronic Intifada,
By Sayed Dhansay, 16 October 2009
Last month South Africa’s premier investigative journalism TV show, Carte Blanche, aired an investigation of allegations that security personnel from Israel’s national carrier, El Al Airlines, were acting dubiously at Johannesburg’s airport. Carte Blanche conducted an experiment, sending an undercover reporter into the airport, expecting him to be targeted simply because he
was Muslim. Sayed Dhansay comments for The Electronic Intifada.
SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE: The Electronic Intifada
By Eman Mohammed, Live from Palestine, 16 October 2009
Touching the old scar on her forehead, 14-year-old Samah Owda fought back tears while telling her story. For the past four years she has carried on, proving that internal wounds are sometimes more difficult to heal than external ones. As a 10-year-old girl she was given a “new life” and a chance that at the time no one thought would be possible. Eman Mohammed reports from the occupied Gaza Strip.
GAZA FARMERS STRUGGLE WITH DAMAGED AGRICULTURAL LAND: The Electronic Intifada,
Report, 16 October 2009
GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) – Thousands of Gazan farmers may be unable to replant their crops during the region’s main planting season in October due to agricultural land still damaged by the Israeli offensive at the start of the year, and a lack of agricultural materials like seeds and fertilizers, according to officials.
BOOK REVIEW: ORIENTALISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE AMERICAN LEFT: The Electronic Intifada,
By Joseph Shahadi, 15 October 2009
Steven Salaita’s new collection of political essays, The Uncultured Wars, Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought exposes orientalism and Islamophobia on the American left. Joseph Shahadi reviews for The Electronic Intifada.