World Briefing | UNITED NATIONS
Gaza War Inquiries Demanded
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
NY Times: February 26, 2010
The General Assembly renewed its demand on Friday that Israel and the
Palestinians conduct credible, independent investigations into possible war
crimes during the Gaza war, to be completed within five months. The
Goldstone report, issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council last
fall, said there was evidence that both sides, but Israel in particular,
committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the three-week war
in the winter of 2008-09. The resolution, which passed 98 to 7 with 31
abstentions, echoed a similar demand passed last November. Riyad Mansour,
the ambassador representing the Palestinian Authority, which sponsored the
resolution, said the vote indicated that "the great majority of humanity is
asking for the Goldstone report to be implemented."
***
From: <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Dispatches From The Edge
Israeli Crackdown
'"But there are internal tensions behind the crackdown as well. The long
occupation of the West Bank has begun to fray the Israeli military.
According to the head of the Israeli military's Personnel Directorate, Maj.
Gen. Avi Zamir, increasing numbers of Israelis are refusing to
serve in the Occupied Territories. Three years of military service is
compulsory for men, 21 months for women.
"Taking into consideration Israeli Arab youth, we're facing a situation in
which 70 percent of youths will not enlist in the military," the general
told UPI.'"
By Conn Hallinan
Portside: February 27, 2010
A heavy-handed crack down on Israeli dissidents is drawing sharp criticism
by human rights organizations and at least a mild judicial slap on the wrist
for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The authorities are targeting such
groups as B'Tselem, New Israel Fund (NIF), the Association for Civil Rights
in Israel (ACRI), as well as foreign activists in the occupied West Bank.
"There is an attempt to silence and crack down on dissent," B'Tselem
spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli told the Tobias Buck of the Financial Times.
"Since [the Gaza war], the political climate in Israel has become extremely
polarized. And this polarization has reached a level where anyone who is
critical is presented as a traitor."
The Netanyanu government has endorsed a bill that, if passed, will apply
onerous registration conditions on NGOs and subject violators to up to a
year in prison.
"These are classic McCarthy techniques, portraying our organizations as
enemies of the state and suggesting we are aiding Hamas and terror groups,"
ACRI head Hagai Elad told the Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook.
On Jan. 15, police broke up a peaceful ARCI demonstration in East Jerusalem,
arresting 16 people. The rally was protesting the eviction of Palestinians
from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and their replacement with settlers.
Demonstrators were held for 36 hours until a judge from the Jerusalem
Magistrates Court released them without charge. The judge also
refused a police request to ban the demonstrators from the Sheikh Jarrah
neighborhood.
Armored personnel carriers and a squad of heavily armed soldiers surrounded
the West Bank Ramallah apartment of Czech national Eva Novakova, forced her
to dress at gunpoint, and deported her to Prague for overstaying her visa.
Soldiers also seized an Australian and a Spanish member of the International
Solidarity Movement in Ramallah, but the Israeli Supreme Court ordered their
release.
Jared Malsin, a Jewish-American English language editor at the Palestinian
news agency was arrested at Ben Gurion airport and detained by Israeli
authorities for deportation. The arrest and deportation order were blasted
by the International Federation of Journalists as an "intolerable violation
of press freedom."
Israeli human rights lawyer Omar Schatz says the arrests are, "all about
fixing the mirror, not fixing the reflection Israelis see in the mirror."
The crackdown has even fallen on a group of women fighting ultra-orthodox
Jews for the right to pray at the Jerusalem's Western Wall. In November,
Nofrat Frenkel of Women of the Wall (WW) was arrested for carrying a Torah
and wearing a tallit at the site.
A week before the Sheikh Jarrah arrests, Anat Hoffman, director of the
Israel Religious Action Center, was detained, fingerprinted, and questioned
about the organization's support for WW protests.
Naomi Chazan, the Israeli president of the U.S.-based organization NIF, has
been subjected to a campaign of vilification, including posters depicting
her with horns. A government press agency distributed an article to the
foreign press accusing her of "Serving the agenda of Iran and
Hamas." She also lost her job as a columnist at the Jerusalem Post.
The attempt to smother any challenge to the Netanyahu government is a
reaction to the worldwide criticism Israel is harvesting in the aftermath of
the Gaza War. Tel Aviv's continued refusal to allow any reconstruction of
the more than 3500 homes destroyed in the Israeli invasion drew a letter
signed by 53 U.S. Congress members calling for an end to the "de facto
collective punishment of the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip."
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wa) suggested taking forceful action to end the
Gaza blockade. "We ought to bring roll-on, roll-off ships and roll them
right to the beach and bring the relief supplies in, in our version of the
Berlin airlift."
But there are internal tensions behind the crackdown as well. The long
occupation of the West Bank has begun to fray the Israeli military.
According to the head of the Israeli military's Personnel Directorate, Maj.
Gen. Avi Zamir, increasing numbers of Israelis are refusing to
serve in the Occupied Territories. Three years of military service is
compulsory for men, 21 months for women.
"Taking into consideration Israeli Arab youth, we're facing a situation in
which 70 percent of youths will not enlist in the military," the general
told UPI.
The "Courage to Refuse" movement has long supported soldiers who won't serve
in the Occupied Territories, and now there is an organization-Shministim-
that advises young people on how to become a conscientious objector and
supports "refuseniks" as well. Police have also detained several activists
for New Profile, a group dedicated to demilitarizing Israeli society.
A new law makes it a crime for Palestinians to observe "Nakba," or
"Catastrophe," Day commemorating the loss of their land when Israel was
created in 1948.
According to human rights groups, the polarization is a serious threat to
freedom of speech. A recent poll found that 57 percent of Israelis think
"national security" is more important than human rights. The country, says
Tel Aviv University politics professor and author Amal Jamal, is headed
toward what he calls a "totalitarian democracy."
These courageous organizations need help. Contact them
at; www.newprofile. Org
www.acri.or;
www.womenofthewall.blogspot.com
www.shministim.org
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