'War is peace'

Orwellian theories are being acted out in Israel - as persecution against Palestinians begins to echo 1984.

May 8, 2007 5:00 PM

Nimer Sultany

It is one thing to read George Orwell and Franz Kafka, it is quite another to live their texts. For us - Palestinians - Orwell and Kafka are not works of fiction but concrete reality.

Israel's persecution of Azmi Bishara, the prominent Palestinian scholar, head of the National Democratic Assembly and - until recently - member of the Israeli Knesset, is only the recent articulation of this reality. After all, this is not the first Israeli attempt to criminalise Bishara or other Palestinian political leaders. The state hopes that by reframing his political agenda as treason, incitement to violence and support of terrorism, his ideas will lose legitimacy, his community will be intimidated and the establishment will not need to deal with the challenge that the Palestinian citizens of Israel present to the ideology of the state through their demands for equality.

Bishara rightly claims that he will not have a fair trial. Indeed, we know from the history of the General Security Service (GSS) of a culture of lies and fabricated files (even against their own men as in the Bus 300 affair, which was hijacked by Palestinian militants in 1984). We also know that even in cases unrelated to "security", the Arab citizen is twice as likely to be indicted, convicted and imprisoned compared to his fellow Jewish citizen. Professors Aryeh Rattner and Gideon Fishman of Haifa University write: "Being an Arab may lead to a presumption of guilt without facts and the rules of evidence."

We also know that security is the sacred cow to which Israeli judges bow. Security has always been an important tool for the maintenance of the Jewish and Zionist character of the Israeli state. It was a major pretext for the confiscation of Palestinian citizens' lands. Israel's persecution of Bishara is part and parcel of this security mindset of the Israeli state vis-á-vis its Palestinian citizens. Those citizens were denied their basic rights and were subjected to a military administration for 18 years (1948-1966). Since then, the GSS has been the main state organ in charge of viewing us as a "fifth column." Bishara has already had his trial(s) without knowing. The justices of the Israeli Supreme Court have authorised more than once the wiretapping of his private conversations. "parliamentary immunity", "freedom of expression" and "democracy" are all tricks through which Big Brother comes to haunt you in the end.

Not only does the GSS closely monitor and control the Arab education system inside Israel, but it has publicly declared that the Palestinian citizens of Israel are a "strategic and demographic threat" to the state. In fact, it can be said that Big Brother is not only patrolling "thoughtcrimes" but has "telescreens" in the bedrooms of the Palestinian citizens, penetrating our private realms and controlling some of the most intimate aspects of our family and love lives. The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law forbids family unification and effectively prohibits Arab citizens from marrying citizens of more than half of the countries in the Middle East. In this dehumanising context, the law declares that marriage and children are not humanitarian affairs.

Had Israel been a democratic state, one would have expected the legal apparatus to criminalise and outlaw anti-democratic movements. Israel, however, persecutes Bishara for his democratic agenda. "State of all its citizens" and "universal equality" would be considered a trivial and possibly conservative agenda in any normal democratic state. Strangely, in Israel, such an agenda has been labelled as dangerous, subversive and extremist. The Knesset rejected several times an "equal protection" clause that Bishara had proposed. Equality remains outside Israeli legislation.

After all, these are unorthodox ideas in Israel. The Zionist "Newspeak" is supposed to turn them into unthinkable ideas. The fact that three groups of Palestinian elites inside Israel - National Committee of the Heads of the Arab Local Municipalities, Adalah and Mada al-Carmel - have recently issued "vision documents" articulating our demands for equality, expressing our grievances and presenting an alternative historical narrative meant that Bishara had risen in prominence and influence.

On the other hand, anti-democrats and racists who openly propagate violence against as well as the expulsion of Palestinians (including those who are citizens) serve in the Knesset and the government, and cabinet ministers who routinely issue racist statements against the Palestinian citizens are not held accountable. In fact, they become more popular in the Jewish community after such statements.

It is thus hard to escape understanding the Israeli irony without the Orwellian backdrop. Bishara, vocal in his opposition to Israel's brutal assault on Lebanon last summer, is accused by the Thought Police (the GSS) of helping the enemy in times of war through contact with a foreign agent. The "enemy" here stands for the Arab world to which the Palestinian citizens belong and the "foreign agent" is defined retroactively as such by the Thought Police. These alleged crimes are punishable according to Israeli law by life imprisonment or death penalty. "Thoughtcrime is death."

On the contrary, cabinet ministers who urged the Israeli military - still ironically called the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - to wipe out dozens of Lebanese villages and not feel morally restricted during the war were heralded as patriots. Those who perpetrate war crimes are considered "men of peace". The Big Brother is persecuting Bishara because "war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength."

What might be bewildering in recent developments is Israel's disregard for the impact that these policies might have on its future. Israel has always discriminated against the Palestinian minority, isolated it from its larger Arab milieu and employed a multi-layered control system. Since October 2000, however, Israel has been moving rapidly towards a collision by continuously pushing this minority further into the corner. Most of the minority's leaders were incessantly interrogated and at times physically assaulted by the police; Ra'ed Salah, a prominent religious and political leader, was imprisoned; several laws further restricted political speech and participation; Bishara faced two political trials; and more Arab houses have been demolished. More persecution of Bishara and his party will take Israel one step closer toward collision with its Palestinian citizens.

Israel is in effect presenting Azmi Bishara with two similar "options": to end up as either a Kafkaesque or an Orwellian protagonist. The former was executed, the latter was brainwashed and forced to betray his world waiting for an impending execution.

Meanwhile Bishara, as a genuine civil rights leader, is resisting the attempt to drag him into Kafka's Trial by Big Brother and his Thought Police. He courageously holds his ground: "We will not be intimidated. We will not bow to permanent servitude in the land of our ancestors or to being severed from our natural connections to the Arab world."

Nimer Sultany is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School.

He has worked as a human rights lawyer in the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and as the head of the political monitoring project
at Mada al-Carmel (the Arab centre for applied social research).

30 structures in unrecognized Bedouin village in Negev demolished

Just another day of ethnic cleansing...
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Last update - 20:00 08/05/2007

30 structures in unrecognized Bedouin village in Negev demolished

By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent

30 structures, among them shacks and tents, were demolished on Tuesday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Al-Twayil in the Negev.

The Council of Unrecognized Villages said the demolitions left 100 people with no roof over their heads.

The village, north of Be'er Sheva, has been in a struggle with the authorities for many years.

After the establishment of the State of Israel, when Israel's Arabs were subject to martial law, the families of the village were moved to the nearby areas of Lahura and Lakiya, but they were unable to remain due to claims on the land by other families, leading many of them to return to their original land over the past 20 years.

Following the demolitions, the Israel Lands Authority said it evacuated 24 "invasions" in the area and that "these invasions have taken place for the seventh time this year, to the same place."

"The invaders have homes in Lakiya," the authority said, and added that they had "evacuated tents, livestock shelters, and sheds."

Honoring Israel's apologists

Sonja Karkar, The Electronic Intifada, 7 May 2007

Greg Sheridan

Every now and then, journalists who have shown excellence in their work are rewarded. A prize that recognises their investigative skills and critical thinking is a worthy achievement; a prize that rewards them for using their profession to "conspicuously" support a foreign state in conflict, is not. Rather, it raises questions about their impartiality, good judgment and integrity. Their professionalism can no longer be trusted.

It happened in Australia this past week. Greg Sheridan, billed as "the most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism" by his newspaper The Australian was awarded the annual Jerusalem Prize by the State Zionist Council of NSW. According to its president Frank Levy, "The prize is awarded to someone who fosters and supports the state of Israel and its ideologies, the concept of the Jewish homeland and the Jewish community, particularly in Australia."

Sheridan saw nothing wrong in accepting the prize, but many Australians did. In fact, Sheridan wrote a loose article "Rare support for democracy in a sea of misunderstanding" (The Australian, 3 May 2007) in response to the mail he received urging him not to accept the prize and was at great pains to explain that he had not compromised his independence as a commentator because he believed Israel -- quoting the former pro-Israel president of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid -- "is a democracy in a sea of misunderstanding."

Anxious to justify his position, Sheridan referred to the illustrious recipients of the prize worldwide including our own Liberal Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and a former Labor lord mayor of Sydney and current NSW minister, Frank Sartor. Sheridan wanted to make sure that bipartisan support for Israel in Australia was really understood and he pointed to both Liberal Prime Minister Howard and Labor Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd as avid supporters of Israel's democracy.

After all the names Sheridan dropped to validate his own selection for the prize, Israel's democracy emerged as the prime reason for Sheridan's unquestioning support, not because it is perfect, but because being anti-Israel is "fundamentally irrational and evidence of psychological and ideological dysfunction rather than genuine analysis."

There is no room in Sheridan's argument for an irrational and dysfunctional Israel and the ideology in which it is rooted. If any of its actions are mistakes that should be understood because "any democratic nation makes plenty of mistakes and sometimes it makes moral mistakes." But, he does not allow for other forms of government and leaders to make mistakes. Sheridan raises Saddam's responsibility for the killing of 300,000 to 400,000 of his own citizens: he does not mention that Israel slipped through the legal and moral net without condemnation when it deliberately killed hundreds of Palestinians and terrorised some 750,000 others to flee their homes and homeland in 1948.

Sheridan's snapshot look at history gives an out-of-context account of Israel's birth, ignoring the well-documented massacres and complete razing of Palestinian villages and towns that Israel executed to gain a permanent foothold in all of Palestine. None of that is in the least justified by Sheridan's statement that "there have always been Jews in Palestine." Indeed, it would have been helpful for him to point out that most of those Jews who lived in Palestine over the centuries were in fact Palestinians. Just like there are Palestinians who are Christians, and of course, Muslims. The European Jews filtered in when they fled persecution in Christian Spain in the Middle Ages, but it was not until modern times that the European Jewish population in Palestine swelled in number after Zionists forced their mass exodus to Palestine in the aftermath of the European holocaust. This was the realisation of the great Zionist colonialist experiment that had no predilection for democracy.

There was nothing fair about the partition that created Israel, giving the minority European Jewish population a greater portion of the land belonging to the majority Palestinian population. And there has been no fairness for the Palestinians since, despite Sheridan raising the old canard of Barak's "generous" offer. The 95 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza that Sheridan says was offered to the Palestinians was once again not put in context.

For years, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) had called for a two-state solution agreeing to Israel keeping 78 per cent of the former British-mandated Palestine while the Palestinians would form their state on the remaining 22 per cent that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war. At Camp David 2000, Barak's offer actually amounted to only a bare 8.3 per cent of the original Palestinian homeland from which they had been driven in 1948. In exchange for withdrawing completely from Gaza as well as the offer of a small piece of land in the Negev Desert that Israel had used as a toxic waste dump, Israel would annex the most fertile and strategically important areas of the West Bank while maintaining control over the Palestinian state's borders, air space and the land's scarce water resources -- and with Israel's military free to intervene at any time. Effectively, what was offered were four non-contiguous parcels of land which would force Palestinians to cross Israeli territory every time they travelled or shipped their goods between each other and with no free access to their own international borders with Jordan and Egypt. Had Arafat agreed to this, he would have effectively waived any further Palestinian claims against Israel. That would have been political suicide for the Palestinians already being subjected to these Orwellian restrictions.

Moving on, Sheridan says that Israel made this "generous" offer in exchange for a peace that would accept Israel's legitimacy. Because Arafat refused, Sheridan then makes the quantum leap to deduce that Arafat "had never accepted that Israel had a right to exist at all." Nowhere does Sheridan explain that all the while these negotiations were taking place, Israel's illegal settlement expansionism was still going on. In fact, the Israeli bureau of statistics reported that settlement building had increased 81 percent in the first quarter of 2000. (Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, 11-12/00) Nowhere does Sheridan describe the nightly military raids into Palestinian cities, towns and villages, the killings, home demolitions, arrests, humiliations and indignities suffered by the Palestinian population. Nowhere does he mention the frenzied attacks by the Israeli settlers, who have no moral qualms about allowing their children to hurl stones and abuse at Palestinian women and children as they try to make their way to school or home. Instead, he asks the reader to empathise with the Israelis who he says are forced to defend themselves from the constant threats and attacks driven by "hate-filled and anti-Semitic propaganda designed to make schoolchildren despise the Jews." Israel's democracy, therefore, has an excuse for war; Palestinians under occupation have none.

For an experienced foreign affairs journalist, Sheridan shows an amazing reluctance to examine the realities of Israel's "democracy" at work. His article relies on the same old and now-debunked myths and arguments that no self-respecting journalist ought to employ. Even if Sheridan is convinced that "Israel is a democracy in good standing" he ought to be asking for whom? Israel has made no secret of its intention to be a Jewish state only, so it is no wonder that Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens -- the survivors and descendants of the 1948 Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine -- see themselves increasingly isolated and alienated from Israeli society. It won't be long before Israel will have to declare its hand: is it "a state of the Jewish people throughout the world" as it defines itself, or a state of all its citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish? Perhaps Sheridan sees this as yet another issue that must be left for Israel's "vibrant, genuine problem-solving democracy" to solve. In the meantime, Sheridan should indeed congratulate himself on the "great honour" of being awarded the Jerusalem Prize for no other reason than having supported Israel so "conspicuously".

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia.

Hunger in Eden

May 2, 2007 5:44

Posted by Andrew Lee Butters

Rashid, a West Bank villager, explains that an Israeli settler took over his olive grove. "I said to him, 'This tree is fifty years old. Did your grandfather plant it, or did mine?'"

The most surprising part of the West Bank -- to me anyway -- is how beautiful it is. For some reason I though the whole place would be as dry and bleak as the Judean desert between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. But the suburbs north of the capital quickly give way to panoramic countryside that seems southern Italian, with terraced olive groves, red hills, and flowering fruit trees.

Of course, not all is idyllic in this rural idyll. The first clue that something was amiss in Yanoun -- a Palestinian farming village near Nablus that I visited yesterday with an official from the World Food Program -- was the skittish behavior of the local children. They ran and hid from us, or cried when we tired to say hello. The watchtower on the ridge overlooking the village was another giveaway that this place is a conflict zone. Yanoun is surrounded by three Israeli settlements, the inhabitants of which which have made clear that they want their Palestinian neighbors to clear out. The settlers make armed patrols through Yanoun -- by car or horseback -- destroy farming equipment, and last month they kidnapped, tortured and killed a local shepherd, according to residents. The scared children thought we were settlers.

But that's not all that's happening. Though it's hard to believe that food could be scarce in this land of milk and honey, the 24 families who live in Yanoun are being slowly starved. The settlements now control access to about 96 percent of the village's land making commercial agriculture nearly impossible. And though Yanoun could possibly support itself with some kind of highly cultivated garden in the bowl shaped valley beneath, they don't have enough water to do so because the settlements have taken over their rain catching ground cisterns. And even if they could grow produce, the villagers would have trouble getting it to market. The reliable roads to the region are for Israelis only. The rest are clogged with checkpoints. So the people of Yanoun -- like some 400,000 other people in the West Bank -- scrape by with the help from the WFP.

The WFP brought me here to see an example of what they called "food insecurity" -- a condition not of outright starvation but of scarcity that occurs when people don't have reliable access to enough food to have productive lives. At first I was suspicious of the term -- sounds like a way of justifying NGO operations in places where there isn't famine. And in fact, the inhabitants of Yanoun don't look hungry. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has so dislocated the rural West Bank's population that they have become dependent on foreign aid. And several years of living on the five basic food stuffs given by aid organizations -- wheat, salt, sugar, chickpeas and oil -- has taken a toll on public health, which you can see by the rotting teeth on the kids of Yanoun. Of course, international donors could end this culture of dependence in a second by cutting aid. In which case, Israeli settlers could have these pretty hills pretty much to themselves.

Kirstie Campbell of WFP comforts a scared village girl.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Jerusalem

THE COLOR OF OLIVES

From Mexican director Carolina Rivas and cinematographer Daoud Sarhandi comes this elegant and visually breathtaking new film about the Palestinian experience. The Amer family lives surrounded by the infamous West Bank Wall, where their daily lives are dominated by electrified fences, locked gates and a constant swarm of armed soldiers.This unique and intimate documentary shares their private world, allowing a glimpse of the constant struggles and the small, endearing details that sustain them. THE COLOR OF OLIVES is an artistic and beautifully affecting reflection on the effects of racial segregation, the meaning of borders and the absurdity of war.

Israel's violations of the right to life

Source: Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS)

Date: 01 May 2007

Israel's violations of the right to life: Palestinian child fatalities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory during 2006

Introduction

Throughout the second Intifada, beginning in September 2000, Israel has engaged in gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Israeli military activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT ) has been excessive and disproportionate. Routinely employing sophisticated military weaponry, including missiles and F16 war planes, Israeli forces have acted with insufficient, or no, regard for the lives of civilian residents of the OPT resulting in particularl y high numbers of civilian casualties.

During this period Palestinian children have suffered countless violations of their rights, including violations of the right to life. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2006 there were an estimated 2.1 million children living in the OPT. These children constitute over half (52.3%) of the Palestinian population in the OPT.(1) Their right to life, survival and development is the most fundamental of all human rights of the child.(2) In spite of this, Israel has repeatedly and arbitrarily deprived Palestinian children of the right to life, in violation of article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which it is a State Party.

In 2006, the Israeli military's lack of respect for Palestinian human rights and for the guidelines that seek to protect civilians in periods of armed conflict (as embodied in international humanitarian law) continued. Throughout the year, the Israeli military employed violent, excessive and disproporti onate force against Palestinian civilians. This was evident in the bombardment of civilian houses and infrastructure; the extrajudicial killing of Palestinian activists resulting in the killing of civilian by-standers; and the opening of random gunfire leading to the deaths of children either whilst inside their homes or playing near them. Despite Israel's withdrawal of troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the territory remains occupied. As a result Palestinian civilians, including children, were exposed to numerous violations of international humanitarian law in 2006. Two massive Israeli military offensives in the Gaza Strip during 2006 resulted in high civilian casualties and wide-scale targeting of civilian infrastructure.

In total, Israeli military forces killed 124 Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during 2006. This figure brings the number of child deaths caused by military or settler violence during the second Intifada to 852. The number of Palestinian children killed in 2006 is more than double those killed in 2005, when a total of 52 children were killed. Eighty-five percent (85%) of child fatalities in 2006 occurred in the Gaza Strip.

Notes:

(1) Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (20 November 2006): "On the Occasion of 'International Child Day"

(2) In accordance with definition set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a "child" is anyone under 18 years of age.


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What Are the Prospects for Peace in the Middle East?

Commentary

By Matthew Taylor


With President Jimmy Carter coming to town Wednesday to speak to UC Berkeley students about his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, it’s an appropriate time for us to reflect on the current prospects for justice and peace in the Middle East.

As Carter accurately states in his book, a system of enforced apartheid reigns in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. It is systemic Israeli policy and practice to demolish Palestinian homes, uproot millions of olive trees, build roads that only Israeli colonizers are allowed to access, implant Israeli colonies on Palestinian soil in violation of international law, use an illegal wall to steal Palestinian land, and enforce two entirely different sets of legal standards for Israeli colonizers and the indigenous Palestinian population. Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians is both apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and is the further enactment of a long-standing desire for territorial expansion that has permeated Zionist politics since before the 1948 war.

At this past weekend’s Jewish Voice for Peace conference in Oakland, several speakers demonstrated that the situation is getting worse all the time. According to Nobel Peace Prize nominee Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (www.icahd.org), Israel has managed to confine Palestinians who live inside the illegally-occupied West Bank to 72 disconnected ghettoes within only 42 percent of the West Bank area, leaving the rest to Israel’s illegal colonization as well as military installations and hundreds of movement barriers—a “matrix of control.” When Israel’s current colonies and land grabs are taken into account, the future contours of the so-called Palestinian “state” does not look like the map of a country, but a piece of Swiss cheese.

Readers of Carter’s book are largely aware of the above challenges. However, what Carter’s book never reveals is that Apartheid can be said to prevail even inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel. Professor George Bisharat of the Hastings College of Law reports that over 100,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel live inside villages that are officially ‘unrecognized,’ appear on no maps, and are denied basic services such as electricity and garbage collection (www.assoc40.org). Israel has demolished the homes of tens of thousands of Bedouin Arabs in order to create Jewish-exclusive housing. Israel insists that its Palestinian citizens relate to Israel as a “Jewish state”—in other words, an ethnocracy that privileges one ethnic group over another in both blatant and subtle ways.

And then, there’s the elephant in the room: the refugees. Millions of would-be citizens of the state of Israel—the Palestinians who were forcefully exiled in 1948, as well as their children—are denied the ability to return to their homes in peace, despite international guarantees and repeated U.N. resolutions affirming their right to do so. (Meanwhile, as an upper-class American Jew in Berkeley I have the unrestricted right not only to move to Israel, but to purchase a home that once belonged to a refugee.) Apartheid, at its core, is about “apartness” or “separation,” as well as the domination of one group by another. What could be a more extreme act of separation and oppression than forceful expulsion coupled with the denial of a people’s right to return to their homes?

The formula for a resolution to this disaster can take many different directions. Some advocate for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to be reconstituted as a ‘single state’ between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River with equal rights for all its citizens. However, this is a non-starter for most Israelis who insist on a Jewish-majority state. Other proposals include a EU-style regional confederation.

The international community is in near unanimous agreement that the only proposal with a modicum of justice and equity that is practically possible is a ‘two state solution’ (official U.S. policy), where Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 borders (possibly with agreed upon, equitable, minor border adjustments) and a viable, demilitarized, sovereign Palestinian state is created in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip—the territories occupied in the 1967 war. In fact, last month the entire Arab world re-affirmed its commitment to establish normal relations with Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders and a just, ‘mutually agreed’ resolution to the Palestinian refugee crisis. Israel rejected the Arab Peace Plan without consideration in 2002, and has shown few signs of taking it more seriously now. It is a tragedy of unspeakable dimensions that the Israeli political elite has for decades preferred colonization to peace. What future are we all doomed to when greed and ambition outweigh coexistence?

According to Halper, the intensity of Israel’s colonization of the occupied territories has de facto eliminated even the possibility of a “viable Palestinian state”—one with territorial contiguity and control over its water, economy, resources, and borders. If so, then Israel’s colonization project may backfire and create a chorus of voices demanding a ‘single state’ solution in the face of ever-worsening Apartheid.

Perhaps Halper is right, perhaps not. Either way, if the international community does not want to let go of the two-state plan, it must act quickly and decisively to explain to Israel in no uncertain terms that its colonization of the West Bank must be fully reversed. It is at least theoretically and logistically possible—France withdrew far more than 500,000 colonizers from Algeria.

So long as U.S. taxpayer dollars fund Israel’s continued colonization and occupation of the West Bank, the United States will continue to exacerbate the conflict rather than resolve it. How can we help? Perhaps it’s time for U.S. taxpayers to demand that the United States cease financial aid to Israel that pays for its occupation and colonization and instead channel funds into activities that would create a viable two-state solution. The United States could fund the resettlement of Israeli settlers back into the pre-1967 borders, and pay to rebuild Palestinian homes demolished by Israel (both in the West Bank and within Israel proper).

As for Carter, his book may well play a significant role in shifting the U.S. discourse and international consciousness. However, Professor Bisharat’s comments show an important place where Carter’s book is silent. Someday, equal rights for all the peoples of the holy land must prevail, no matter whether they reside in a state known as Israel or Palestine.

Matthew Taylor is a fifth-year peace and conflict studies major at UC Berkeley, co-editor of PeacePower magazine (www.calpeacepower.org), and Jewish.

Overcoming Zionism

Book Review by Beccy Reese, May 2007

Joel Kovel, Pluto Press, £15.99

Kovel's book is not the first of recent times to argue that the current situation of Bantustans, security walls and Jewish-only roads has no possibility of laying the basis for an autonomous Palestine.

He argues that Zionism has created an Israeli state that is prone to racism, a lack of democracy and ecological disaster. The only hope for a peaceful outcome is to create a single democratic state in the whole of what is currently Palestine, Israel and its occupied territories.

In the first section a concise overview shows how Zionism emerged and took on a direction that focused on taking hold of a land whose native population would pose a constant problem for the establishment of a state with a democratic and Jewish character.

The idea that creating a national identity for Jews would solve anti-Semitism drove Zionism to the conclusion that it had to manufacture "a land without a people for a people without a land". This led to the ethnic cleansing so clearly described in Ilan Pappé's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, and the terrorist endeavours of groups like the Stern Gang, who wiped out a good proportion of the British high command in the 1946 King David Hotel bombing.

Most of this is not particularly new ground, having been covered in many excellent critiques of Zionism. A closer examination of how the Jewish state behaves is given in the second part and more eye-opening section of the book.

The balance sheet of what Israel has achieved sits firmly in the negative. Kovel starts by picking apart the often repeated idea that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. While accepting that many states which proclaim to be democratic are a pale reflection of true democracy, the lack of a constitution and the fact that there isn't full equality for all Israeli citizens mean that there is a legitimate questioning of Israeli democratic claims.

Zionists also claim that they have made the desert bloom, while in fact Israel's ecological record is disastrous. Nearly all of Israel's rivers are polluted to lethal levels while asthma rates among children stood at 17 percent in 2002, and a quadrupling of nitrous oxide emissions has been observed since 1980.

Overall the arguments put across are compelling and some of the insights are indeed shocking. In some places there is a tendency for the author to move away from historical and factual analysis towards a more psychological approach, making the book a more complex read at times.

The conclusions are that a society that rests on expropriation and occupation on racist grounds does not benefit either the occupiers or the occupied. To go beyond this is to overcome the ideology and myths of Zionism and imagine what a single secular state would look like.

In arguing to struggle for such a state Kovel is keenly aware of the role that Israel plays within a wider capitalist sphere in terms of its relation to the US, and that there is an invisible hand shaping history that needs to be dislocated.

This detailed description of what a single secular state could look like is fascinatingly useful.

Comments? Email letters@socialistreview.org.uk

"Worthy and Unworthy Victims"

Related
What If?
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007

by Stephen Lendman

Economist and media critic Edward S. Herman and social and political critic Noam Chomsky note two kinds of victims in their classic 1988 book "Manufacturing Consent." So does journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger in his writings. "Unworthy" ones are the many unmentioned tens of thousands killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all other places by US, Israeli and other rapacious imperial waring and occupying forces. "Worthy" ones, however, are those prominently mentioned who died or were hurt on September 11, 2001 in the US, on July 7, 2005 in a dubious London "terrorist" bombing, on March 11, 2004 in the Madrid train bombings, and the Israeli corporal practically the whole free world still knows about since he was taken captive in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) last summer and is still being held. More recent "worthy" victims are the 15 British Royal Navy seamen arrested by Iranian armed forces, now released, and BBC journalist Alan Johnston, also apparently abducted and held captive in the OPT since March 12 when his employer reported he was forcibly seized from his car by gunpoint driving home from work in Gaza City.

The Royal Navy and Johnston instances particularly stand out with the kind of steady BBC and western media reporting on the incidents usually reserved for figures of note but common as well for ordinary types when it serves a propaganda purpose.

First the Persian Gulf incident involving the British seamen. Iran claims geographical coordinates showed they were 0.5 km inside Iranian waters while the Brits claimed otherwise, but it hardly matters in waters where it's hard to tell. More important are CIA, Defense Department and former US and other officials admitting to years of covert and other incursions into Iranian territory on land, sea and by air. Iran is aware they're still ongoing and justifiably views them as hostile acts likely committed as prelude to planned future greater provocations or military action.

Up to now, Iran showed great restraint and patience, but had every right to defend its territory by seizing the intruders March 23. They were held for interrogation until ceremonially released April 5 following their 15 day captivity during which time it appeared they were well treated even though Britain's Ministry of Defense instructed them to say otherwise once they were back home.

Compare that to how British and US forces treat their captives in torture-prisons. Sent there are innocent men, women and children, held in most cases on administrative charges indefinitely, and subjected to harsh punitive treatment only revealed later by the few lucky enough to get out and go home to talk about their ordeals. Try hearing about them in the dominant western media deafeningly silent.

Economist, activist and web editor Michel Chossudovsky is never silent and reported more information on the British seamen April 6 on his Global Research web site. He wrote that British "Royal Marine Captain Chris Air told (British) Sky News TV that the object of their mission (in the Persian Gulf) was to 'gather intelligence' on Iran" in a pre-recorded interview done prior to his capture, but aired only after his release. Chossudovsky reprinted the interview on his web site and included a video link to Sky News TV so readers could watch and listen to it ending any doubt what British forces are up to repeatedly in the Gulf and Iranian waters. Chossudovsky also included a BBC TV video link and reprinted a transcript of BBC's interview with Captain Air and Lt. Felix Carman during which Carman admitted this operation "followed approximately 66 similar (ones) over the previous four weeks" done to conduct boardings of ships stopped to be inspected or crews interrogated in an intrusive (and likely illegal) operation called IPAT - Interaction patrol.

In spite of this, the 15 Royal Navy personnel got impressive and disingenuous headline coverage throughout their captivity during which time UK officials and Prime Minister Blair denied what Air and Carman admitted on British television so we all now know what only could be previously surmised. They're now released, back home unharmed, regarded as heros, at first allowed by Britain's Ministry of Defense to sell their stories (as obvious propaganda) to the media for profit until public outrage got the Ministry to change its mind meaning the seamen can still do it but only for free.

Now the case of BBC Gaza reporter Alan Johnston. Dozens of foreigners have been abducted in Gaza in the past, but none held as long as Johnston or given the kind of publicity he gets daily in the UK. Why? Because he's from the West and works for BBC that reports it has no knowledge where he is or who may be responsible for his apparent abduction. BBC also notes 6500 people worldwide have signed a petition calling for (in fact, demanding) his release. On April 9, rallies were held in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and London on his behalf. Prayer vigils as well since. BBC reports Palestinian officials insist they're doing all they can to locate and free him, and have ordered their security services and interior ministry to take "all necessary measures" on his behalf. BBC further notes, with irony, Johnston's Gaza posting was to have ended in March, but, of course, has now been involuntarily extended indefinitely.

There's more. In a show of solidarity, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ - representing over 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries) called for Johnston's immediate release, and Palestinian journalists held a three day strike protesting what happened. IFJ General Secretary Aidan White noted that "Every day that passes jeopardises Alan's safety even further and we support our Palestinian colleagues (working for Johnston's release) quickly and unharmed." And he added "It is unconscionable that the Palestinian government has not done more to secure Alan's release." Try imagining that kind of statement if Johnston were Muslim and worked for an Arab publication or news service, especially one "unfriendly" to western imperial interests. Can readers name any Arab journalists targeted, abducted or willfully murdered in Iraq by US military forces since March, 2003?

The IFJ affiliate Palestinian Journalist Syndicate (PJS) can and shows as much concern for Johnston's safety. It already held numerous demonstrations on his behalf and set up a protest tent in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) demanding the government do more to free him quickly.

There's more still. The IFJ, PJS, and British affiliate National Union of Journalists of the UK and Ireland combined to publicly call for Johnston's immediate release unharmed. IFJ pressed its demands in writing to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh asking them to intervene personally on Johnston's behalf. The Arab Media Forum and International Association of Press Clubs have also publicly called for Johnston's release, and BBC's web site petition has registered 50,000 names supporting Johnston's release with more added each day.

And there's still more as astonishingly the European Parliament in Strasbourg passed an "emergency resolution" April 26 calling for the immediate release of Johnston with an accompanying statement that MEPs of all political stripes back it. Try imagining a whiff of sympathetic parliamentary support (let alone congressional) for the many thousands of illegally held and tortured Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan and all other political prisoners held anywhere unless they're "worthy" ones from the West.

There's no end to this as even noted British journalist Robert Fisk now is "demanding the release of Alan Johnston" in his April 28 London Independent column adding "as long as he is held, how can we (other journalists) cover the atrocities of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Gaza?" Simple, as Fisk surely knows - do your job. If not you and other independent journalists, then who? However, Fisk's concern is understandable as he, as much as anyone, puts himself in the eyes of the Middle East storms he covers. He has good reason to be concerned and in the past had a few close calls.

Nonetheless, all this support just cited was for "one" journalist (likely unharmed), now almost as well known in the UK as the organization he works for. For many weeks last summer, the same was true in Israel and the West for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) corporal (left unnamed here) who also had, and may still have, strong name recognition on every continent. This is how he, Johnston, the 15 UK seamen, and other "worthy" victims are treated - elevated to celebrity status, pleas made on their behalf through the media, welcomed home on release ceremonially on national television and treated like heros because they're from the West and can be exploited for maximum propaganda value.

Another "worthy" victims example also deserves mention - the ones attacked, killed and injured by one or more apparent suicide bombers April 12 inside Baghdad's heavily fortified, fortress-like, four square mile Green Zone on the left bank of the Tigris River surrounded by thick blast-proof concrete wall protection against such attacks or other type bombing attempts to penetrate inside it. To enter what's called the "ultimate gated community," visitors must pass through up to eight checkpoints depending on where they're heading, and once inside security is intense including full body searches, dogs sniffing for explosives, electronic scanners and every other human and high-tech measure imaginable to guarantee safety inside no longer guaranteed.

The April 12 attack was "Tet"-like in impact in a country where every day is like "Tet" proving war there is unwinnable to everyone but Bush hard-liners yet to come around as well as being blind to see nowhere and no one in Iraq is safe. One thing, however is - the hero status of the attack's dead (eight apparently, including three lawmakers) and injured. They got instant media-manipulated elevation to "worthy" victim status with the number eligible changing daily then as the count did depending on what side of their mouth US military spokesmen spoke from in an effort to turn a calamity into what Condoleezza Rice brushed off as just a "bad day." In Iraq, every day is bad, and no amount of manufactured heroics or "worthy" victims will change things.

The most recent instance of "worthy" victim "made-for-TV" coverage happened April 16 in Blacksburg, VA, southwest of Roanoke, on Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's campus. It was falsely reported to be the deadliest shooting incident in modern US history conveniently ignoring state-sponsored ones and others of greater magnitude only one of which was the 1923 Rosewood, Florida massacre of up to 150 "unworthy" innocent black people.

Add bombings to shootings, and there was the May 18, 1927 dynamiting of a school in Bath, MI killing 45, mostly children; the Oklahoma City April 19,1995 bombing killing 168; the 51 day state-sponsored (US Army Delta force-FBI Hostage Rescue Team) terror siege and immolation of the Branch Davidian's Mount Carmel Waco ranch compound killing 84 innocent men, women and children; not to mention the 9/11 attacks killing several thousand or more cited above. And these attacks pale in significance to 500 years of state-sponsored genocidal terror attacks still ongoing against Native Indian peoples in all the Americas killing an estimated 100 million plus as many as 50 million black African captives perishing during a Middle Passage voyage never reaching shore for them. And this leaves out many millions more murdered by American imperial marauding on six continents with US presidents trying to best the appalling records of their predecessors and George Bush racing to the top of the charts.

Still, the Virginia Tech attack was horrific leaving 33 dead including five professors and the apparent shooter who reportedly shot himself in the head. For several days, this story preempted all others. It got round-the-clock blitzkrieg coverage (and is still considered newsworthy) for maximum effect highlighting "worthy" victims politically important enough for George Bush to deliver a pathetic grandstanding address in their honor to an April 17 convocation at the school's Cassel Coliseum.

This incident especially stands out as a prominent instance of anointing victims "worthy" hero status just because they died. It's also a setup for a criminal administration to gain maximum political advantage from a tragedy that should highlight the need to curb our out-of-control gun-crazed culture in which getting even violently today with lethal weapons is as common as ordinary fisticuffs once were decades back. But bloody noses don't make headline news in an age of mass communication when, more than ever, "worthy" victims are needed to do it. It lets a mass-murderer like George Bush honor the dead for maximum political gain and gives him cover to deflect attention away from his far greater crimes of war and against humanity. "God bless America('s) worthy victims" deserving better than to be defiled by George Bush's presence at a solemn occasion in their honor.

The Unknown, Unseen, Nameless, Faceless "Unworthy Victims"

In a recent article, John Pilger quotes historian Mark Curtis' characterization of "unworthy victims" as "unpeople" while Herman and Chomsky explain the "propaganda system," played out in the dominant media, characterizes people abused and victimized by us or our client states as "unworthy." They're everywhere in numbers so huge choices to cite are limitless. None, however, stand out more prominently than those in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) where beleaguered Palestinians have endured six horrific decades under harsh Israeli rule and occupation. Their desperate state rarely gets media coverage, and when it does it's inadequate, demeaning, hostile and falsely reported turning victim into victimizer. Unmentioned is that Palestinians face daily constant Israeli-imposed assaults, restrictions and severe hardships creating nightmarish conditions for them living in virtual open air prisons enduring the cruelest kinds of endless collective punishments ignored in the West.

Consider the attention on a single captured Israeli corporal, BBC's Alan Johnston, 15 UK seamen, and the Virginia Tech dead. Compare it to the virtual media blackout on life in occupied Palestine overall and for 10,000 or more Palestinian prisoners. They were forcibly abducted by Israeli forces, are kept indefinitely under harsh conditions in prisons, held mostly on administrative charges as political hostages, and are routinely tortured according to Israeli human rights monitoring group B'Tselem in flagrant violation of international law banning the use of torture or degrading treatment under any circumstances.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The Fourth Geneva Convention then did it in 1949 banning any form of "physical or mental coercion" and affirming detainees must at all times be treated humanely. The European Convention followed in 1950. Then in 1984, the UN Convention Against Torture became the first binding international instrument dealing exclusively with the issue banning torture in any form for any reason. Israel ignores international laws and norms and gets away with it because the US and West do nothing to hold its governments accountable for their actions. Why should they? Israel is a valued ally, and its crimes are against "unworthy victims" allowed no rights in a state where only Jews get them. Further, the US notably does the same things to many thousands of unknown "unworthy" prisoners in its torture-prisons where those held have no rights either and are treated any way their captors wish out of sight and mind and virtually ignored in the West as "unpeople."

For long-suffering Palestinians, their struggle for recognition, freedom and justice has gone on for six decades with little interest, redress, or aid from the West or even much of it from Arab neighbors willing to sacrifice Palestinian rights for their greater political and economic interests building western political and economic alliances, particularly with the US. As a result, over 5.3 million Palestinians (including 1.4 million Arab Israeli citizens) are denied all rights Israeli Jews get, are subjected to constant abuse and neglect, 3.9 million of them are virtual prisoners in the open air camps, cities and villages of Gaza and the West Bank (OPT), and over 10,000 are held and brutalized inside Israeli prison hellholes. They're all nameless, faceless, and ignored in the West because they're "unworthy" Palestinian Arab Muslim victims, so who cares if they're forced to endure a hostile occupier's unrestrained harshness against them.

"Unworthy" Iraqis

In March, 2003, US forces came, saw and "liberated" 26 million Iraqis from their freedom in a war beginning in January, 1991. They destroyed a once prosperous nation, the most advanced in the Middle East, leaving in its wake a surreal lawless armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services like electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel or most everything else needed for sustenance and survival. They also burnt, looted or destroyed most of Iraq's institutions of higher learning; plundered the nation's archeological museums, historic sites, libraries and archives - all part of a barbaric planned effort to destroy the country's cultural identity, control its vast oil resources, eliminate all opposition through daily land and air rampages through cities and neighborhoods assassinating targeted victims and randomly killing anyone including women and children sometimes for sport or out of anger. It's called democracy, US-style, through the barrel of a gun, where the law is what the occupier says it is and "unworthy" victimized subjects have no say in their own country known as "the cradle of civilization" now disappearing at the dawn of the 21st century.

Then there are the prisons. An unknown number of US-run ones are in Iraq and Afghanistan plus other proxy ones throughout the greater Middle East, Eastern Europe, parts of Africa and wherever else Washington can bribe or coerce other nations to be our enforcers to treat prisoners sent there the way we do in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib hellholes and the lesser known but equally infamous one at Bagram airbase near Kabul, Afghanistan.

Two Iraq prisons (Camp Bucca in the south and Camp Cropper near Baghdad) alone reportedly hold 18,000 captives among an official 34,000 known held throughout the country with the true number likely much higher. It's called justice, US-style meaning none whatever for our targeted nameless, faceless, unknown "unworthy victims" the West ignores with rare exceptions like the case of Australian David Hicks.

Other "Unworthy" US Victims

Hicks was held over five years at Guantanamo where he was abused, tortured, and one of only four prisoners there ever charged with an offense (using a cooked up charge of "material support for a terrorist group") after he agreed to a (Republican party official's politically arranged) plea bargain, was tried in a military tribunal kangaroo court Stalinist-type show trial, convicted unjustly and will now return home to serve nine more months in an Australian prison. As an "unworthy" prisoner, western media coverage was pathetic and inadequate failing to explain what was most important. He was a terribly abused innocent young man whose ordeal continues.

He won't be treated with laurels and a hero's welcome back home if Australian Prime Minister and Bush lap dog John Howard's view prevails. After the verdict, he echoed Rupert Murdoch's "Australian" calling Hicks a "confessed terror trainee." Howard told reporters Hicks is a dangerous terrorist who "pleaded guilty to knowingly assisting a terrorist organization." In spite of it all, Hicks, his family, friends and supporters hope one day he'll be able to resume a normal life that never can be that way again for him, thanks to US "justice."

Nor will it be for countless numbers of Iraqis and Afghans whose lives we changed forever, many of whom now want redress and have filed legal claims to get it. On April 11, the ACLU released information on hundreds of them obtained from the Pentagon after filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get them in June, 2006. It's for 479 Iraq claims and 17 from Afghanistan that in total comprise a tiny fraction of the number of innocent civilians entitled to compensation for damages or loss of loved ones but who'll end up getting nothing.

So far, 198 claims have been summarily denied on grounds of "combat exclusion" meaning the incident cited was "from action by an enemy or resulted directly or indirectly from an act of the armed forces of the United States in combat." Other claims were rejected for "lack of evidence (or) lack of proof of US involvement." Another 10% were as well because incidents cited hadn't been reported in the US military's "SIGACT" (significant action) database.

Of the 496 claims ACLU knows of (there are likely others or will be), only 164 resulted in cash payment compensation to surviving family members in total amounting to $32 million that can't begin to make up for the human loss, immense suffering still ongoing, and permanent impairment to those on whom it was inflicted. Nor does it begin to address the pain, suffering and loss for millions of nameless, faceless "unworthy victims" of US aggression and occupation whose lives won't ever be the same again if they survive. How can they be as out-of-sight, out-of-mind demonized Muslims under US occupation in the age of George Bush's wars against them that "won't end in our lifetime."

Nor will Jose Padilla's life improve as a US citizen held as an "enemy combatant" in military confinement for nearly four years and since then by the Department of Justice (DOJ) even though no corroborating evidence justifies his guilt on anything, let alone his original charge of being part of a terrorist plot to detonate "dirty bombs" inside the country. Nonetheless, he's been kept in brutalizing solitary confinement and tortured there awaiting trial just begun April 16 on a lesser vague charge of "supporting terrorism (by being) part of a vast international movement of foot soldiers, recruiters and financiers who foment violent jihad around the globe" with no evidence to make this case or any other on an innocent man.

Occasionally a brief story pops up about him as it did when wire services like Reuters reported his trial began in Miami. It then quickly disappears as this "unworthy" abused, victimized and emotionally turned to mush young man is left to the whims of DOJ justice meaning he'll get none. Nor will the media explain he experienced some of the mind-altering treatment common at Guantanamo and Human Rights Watch says goes on at Kabul's US-run "prison of darkness" where detainees are so abused a lucky former one reported he "could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors (in a delusional state)." The Pentagon knows what it's doing and even puts it in writing. The current Army field manual states: "Sensory deprivation (or extremes) may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior (and) significant psychological distress."

John Walker Lindh got his share of it too. He's a US citizen former Attorney General John Ashcroft labelled an "American Taliban." He was captured, held and tortured in Afghanistan in 2001 based on false claims he was a Taliban terrorist fighting US forces. In fact, he only arrived in the country four weeks before 9/11 and went to help the Taliban fight the brutal Afghan warlords at a time Washington was still providing the Taliban financial aid. Under torture at Baghram Airbase, he confessed to crimes he never committed, for which there was no corroborating evidence, and while there was denied legal counsel. Lindh is an innocent man, should be freed, and likely is as bad off emotionally as Padilla.

Instead, he's been moved to the federal supermax prison in Colorado where he's held in brutalizing solitary confinement, forced to undergo sensory deprivation, other periods of extreme noise, routine beatings, mindless strip searches and more because that's what goes on in these hellholes designed to destroy human beings and doing a pretty good job of it. The public only got false and misleading reports and media images of Lindh portrayed as a "dangerous Taliban terrorist" now in custody and unable to commit further crimes. He never committed any. More injustice for another "unworthy victim" of it.

The Case of Lynne Stewart's Struggle for Justice As An "Unworthy Victim" Targeted by Bush's DOJ

Lynne Stewart's courageous struggle for justice is followed, discussed and will be remembered by growing legions of supporters everywhere in spite of the dominant media's blackout on almost all of it. DOJ indicted Stewart on four counts of aiding and abetting a terrorist organization April 9, 2002 under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). She was unjustly accused of providing material support for terrorism and violating Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) imposed by the US Bureau of Prisons including a gag order on Sheik Abdel Rahman whom she represented in his 1995 trial and who now is serving a life sentence for "Seditious Conspiracy" in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Because the so-called "radical" cleric was so radioactive, his case was high-profile enough to make Stewart herself a target that began with her arrest, indictment and trial using her case to threaten other lawyers not to represent unpopular clients in the age of George Bush's witch-hunt "war on terrorism" against them.

It was the beginning of Stewart's long ordeal that included her battle with breast cancer, de facto court disbarment following her conviction February 10, 2005 on all four counts of her indictment - made official April 25, 2007 when she was formally (and unjustly) disbarred by the New York Bar Association. October 17, 2006 was her sentencing date that could have been for life for a 67 year old woman if presiding Judge John G. Koeltl handed down the 30 years DOJ prosecutors asked for. Judge Koeltl, however, had other ideas effectively vindicating Stewart in his 28 month sentence, allowing her to remain free pending her appeal to a higher court which he acknowledged might overturn the case that was clearly a gross miscarriage of justice for a woman whose her long career was dedicated to fighting for justice.

Stewart spent 30 years as a civil rights attorney representing the rights of those in society never afforded due process unless they're lucky enough to have an advocate like her. For that and representing Sheik Rahman, she became a targeted "unworthy victim" whose struggle for exoneration continues. Both she and DOJ are appealing Judge Koeltl's sentence with Stewart's fate hanging on the outcome that likely will be appealed to the Supreme Court whichever way it goes with final resolution on it still many months away.

And it may not end there. If the High Court rules for Stewart or affirms her maximum 28 month sentence, DOJ may decide to reindict her on new charges meaning a new ordeal would begin where the present one leaves off. In the age of George Bush, that's how things work for society's "unworthy" targeted victims including those representing due process rights of others when DOJ doesn't want them to have any.

For now, Stewart's appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and DOJ's will be heard and likely ruled on together by a three-judge panel at a date so far unannounced. Stewart's appeal challenges the validity of the charges, the application of statutes used, the constitutionality of pre-trial tactics plus the conduct of and various rulings made at trial. Her hope is for what she deserves - a verdict reversal and full exoneration, case closed at the appellate level.

Stewart also opposes DOJ's objections to her sentence and has a January 22, 2007 US Supreme Court decision in Cunningham v. California to bolster her case. In the 6 - 3 ruling, the High Court affirmed the district judge's exercise of discretion in imposing sentence. The Court struck down California's tiered sentencing system under which judicial findings of fact resulted in higher sentences. That, in turn, bolsters the notion that prosecution Sentencing Guidelines are only advisory and aren't to be used as a line in the sand benchmark basis for imposing sentence.

Two other cases before the High Court may also bear on Stewart's appeal. One is Claiborne v. United States on whether extraordinary circumstances are needed to justify a sentence substantially different from Guidelines. The other is Rita v. United States on a sentence within Guidelines. Here the issue is whether Guidelines sentencing is presumed reasonable, or whether a court must still examine other factors justifiable enough to warrant a lesser sentence. Lynne Stewart's fate hangs on all these issues along with whatever DOJ has in mind for her ahead - whether to let her case end in the courts or continue its witch-hunt persecution of her. It may be a good while yet before it's known.

Other Examples of "Unworthy" Victims

In the age of George Bush, all Muslims are "unworthy," and those singled out for targeting are its victims. Citing national security, thousands were and still are hunted down witch-hunt style, rounded up, held indefinitely on administrative charges or none at all, denied bail, restricted or denied their right to counsel, tried in secret courts with no right of appeal, and incarcerated or deported. They're invisible save for their broad brush demonization in the major media as "Islamofascists" to justify the "long war on terror" against them because of their faith and ethnicity. They're its innocent victims.

Along with them are "unworthy" Latino immigrants here in the US undocumented because NAFTA, CAFTA and other predatory trade agreements destroyed their ability to survive at home leaving them no other choice than to come north. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) feels otherwise targeting them as criminals and terrorist threats. Its agents seize them at the border or in workplace raids separating parents from children, holding thousands in detention where they're harshly treated and denied any rights. The rest are deported, but will just return to face ill-treatment as exploited workers or by ICE if caught because of their race and ethnicity. More "unworthy" nameless, faceless victims.

The US-based Gulag Prison System's "Unworthy Victims"

Few people in the country know anything about the US prison system and who's held there because almost nothing about it gets reported in the major media. Most in it are many tens of thousands of "unworthy victims" because of oppressive statutes on the books incarcerating huge numbers unjustly, many innocent of any crime, and most come from society's most vulnerable and unwanted so who'll care or notice. The result is the largest prison population in the world at over 2.2 million, growing by over 1000 new inmates a week. Half or more are black, about two-thirds including Latinos, over half are there for non-violent offenses, and half of those are drug related.

Then consider how they're treated. What goes on at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other overseas hellholes happens here at home as well in US-based ones at both federal and state levels. It includes constant harassment, savage beatings by prison guards; attacks by fierce dogs inflicting painful bites; severe shocking with cattle prods and 50,000 volt-emitting Taser electro-shock guns strong enough to kill and often used multiple times making victims (who survive) shake in pain for hours; assaults by toxic chemicals like pepper spray inflicting severe discomfort or pain; and for many 23 hour lockdowns in rat and roach-infested windowless cells under 24 hour artificial light with alternating periods of sensory deprivation and extreme noise and kept in painful hand and feet shackles whenever outside their cells.

There's more including denial of medical treatment or poor quality when received even though prisons are known hotbeds of diseases including contagious ones. In September, 2006, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) estimated over half the prison population suffers mental problems, mostly related to their incarceration and for many it's severe. It includes serious melancholia, mania and hallucinations. In addition, an astonishing 1.5 million inmates are released each year afflicted with threatening contagious diseases like TB and HIV/AIDS. In prison, these and other diseases cause 7000 mostly preventable reported deaths yearly plus a rising level of suicides and many more unsuccessful attempts.

In addition, prison sexual assaults are commonplace, and victims of it have virtually no effective defense against predators. The UN Committee Against Torture reported the numbers conservatively estimating in May, 2006 it happens to at least 13% of inmates with many more suffering frequent sexual abuse. The UN Committee believes around 200,000 current inmates were or will become sexual assault victims and that over the past 20 years the number exceeds a shocking one million.

Then there are the political prisoners in the many hundreds in a nation where the very notion of them is repugnant and appalling. The Prison Activist Resource Center web site lists over 100 names it focuses on
(mostly unknown to the public) including a few that are like framed American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, imprisoned 30 years unjustly, and internationally known journalist and former Black Panther activist Mumia Abu-Jamal on death row for 25 years for a crime he didn't commit. Most others there include former Black Panther members and other black activists; Native American activists; Puerto Rican freedom fighting activists; Muslims and undocumented immigrants because of their faith and ethnicity; and others (men and women) who dared fight for rights, principles and causes America rejects.

Palestinian refugee, scholar, academic, community leader, civic activist and freedom-fighting advocate Dr. Sami Al-Arian stands out as a dramatic example of injustice in post-9/11 America with its climate of state-induced fear and harsh repression targeting all Muslims, distinguished ones included. Following 11 years of investigations and harassment, he was arrested and imprisoned February 20, 2003 on trumped up charges, held in oppressive 23 hour lockdown solitary confinement in rat and roach-infested windowless cells under 24 hour artificial light even after being tried and acquitted December 6, 2005 on eight of 17 false charges with the jury deadlocked 10 - 2 in his favor on the other nine.

On March 2, 2006 he agreed to a plea agreement to bring closure to his case and end his long ordeal. Under its terms, the prosecution stipulated Al-Arian committed no violent acts or had knowledge of any; that he would not be required to "cooperate" further by providing prosecutors more information; and that he would be released for time served and be willing to be voluntarily deported.

It didn't happen because prosecutors subpoenaed Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury investigating an Islamic think tank violating his plea agreement that he no longer would have to cooperate in further goverment investigations. Al-Arian rightfully refused to testify knowing doing so might involuntarily entrap him in possible or interpreted perjury leaving him vulnerable to endless government opportunities to harass and reincarcerate him.

As a result Al-Arian's sentence was extended, and he remains imprisoned where, as a diabetic, he underwent a 60 day life-threatening hunger strike in protest requiring his transfer to the Butner, North Carolina medical facility where he remained until being transferred to the Alexandria Detention Center in northern Virginia. Before arriving, he endured a 30 hour stopover at the Federal Correctional Institution in Petersburg, Virginia where, still recovering from his hunger strike, he was placed in a tiny, freezing cold windowless cell with pools of water on the ground and extremely cold air fed in through a vent, given no additional clothing or cleaning supplies to clean his cell, and no clock or watch to tell time or ability to know the proper direction to perform his Muslim prayers. In addition, guards illegally seized his legal documents and then claimed they misplaced them. They've yet to be found or returned.

This is how extra harshly Muslim political prisoners are treated post-9/11 as Al-Arian's long ordeal for freedom, justice and full exoneration continues. He's well represented by William Mitchell College of Law professor and past President of the National Lawyers Guild Peter Erlinder as his lead attorney, but his struggle ahead is daunting. Al-Arian is up against a rogue administration determined to resist efforts to free him and is ready to file new charges to keep him imprisoned as long as DOJ wants him there. Today, that's the state of judicial fairness in America endangering anyone daring to speak out and dissent in an age of state-sponsored terrorism targeting innocent victims.

Another noted one is Dr. Rafil Dhafir, a Muslim American of Iraqi descent and practicing oncologist until his license was suspended following his politically motivated conviction in a DOJ-run "kangaroo court" trial. He was charged with violating the Iraqi Sanctions Regulations (IEEPA) using his own funds and what he could raise through his Help the Needy charity to bring desperately needed essential to life humanitarian aid to Iraqi people unable to get it because of US/UN-imposed punitive sanctions from 1990 - 2003.

For his "Crime of Compassion" (see dhafirtrial.net, Katherine Hughes), he was convicted of violating the sanctions and a total of 59 of 60 trumped up total charges including tax fraud, money laundering, and mail and wire fraud resulting in a 22 year prison sentence he's currently serving in Terre Haute's special illegal secret "Communications Management Unit" (CMU) targeting Muslims. Its existence was first revealed in a breaking news story February 16 by lawyer and legal analyst, academic, author and journalist Jennifer Van Bergen in an online article in The Raw Story. Van Bergen reported the CMU is for so-called "high-security risk" Muslim and Middle Eastern (Arab) prisoners to severely limit or cut them off entirely from contact and communication with the outside world violating federal law prohibiting such action.

Sami Al-Arian was exonerated by a jury and Rafil Dhafir is an innocent man never charged with or convicted of "terrorism" or any act of violence. Neither is a "high-security risk" but both are treated like them because they're high-profile Muslims in the witch-hunt "war on terror" targeting them unjustly. These distinguished men are also "trophy" prisoners for the Bush administration using them especially, but all demonized Muslims as well, as scapegoats because of their faith and ethnicity and are treating them with extreme harshness as a result.

These examples aren't happening at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, but right here at home in prisons everywhere where mostly non-violent human beings are locked in cages. It's often for offenses deserving little more than a reprimand or fine or that never should have been criminalized in the first place. Or in the case of Al-Arian, Dhafir and many others it represents a state crime against humanity, against innocent men, women and even children unjustly imprisoned for political reasons only. The result is victims of injustice are forced to serve hard time, and for repeat offenders or political targets it could be life without parole because society judges them "unworthy," punishing them in ways never done to the "worthy" afforded special treatment because of their privileged status. In the age of George Bush, we're all potential Sami Al-Arians and Rafil Dhafirs, and far too many targeted end up unjustly in the heart of prison darkness on death row as the "unworthiest" of this country's "unworthy victims."

Today, the US is the only western country still using the death penalty as a punitive measure. Since 1985, over 50 countries abolished it and of the approximate six dozen still using it just a small handful account for nearly all executions. Amnesty International 2005 data showed 94% of known ones were carried out in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US.

The US-based Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is a "chapter-based grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment in the United States (with) active chapters in cities and campuses across the country." It reports more than 3500 people now on death row in the country, the largest number ever and growing listing five reasons why it's wrong and must end. It's racist, punishes the poor, condemns the innocent, doesn't deter crime, and is "cruel and unusual punishment" nearly always targeting "unworthy victims" of our criminal justice system under which those on death row get the worst of it.

Since 1973, 123 or more US prisoners were released after evidence found them innocent. It concerned former Illinois Governor George Ryan enough in 2000 to declare a moratorium on all state executions after the 13th death row prisoner was found to have been wrongfully convicted since the nation's death penalty was reinstated in 1977. Ryan then pardoned four death row inmates and commuted 167 other sentences.

The ACLU reported the results of a disturbing study conducted by Columbia University professor James Liebman in which he examined thousands of US capital sentences reviewed by courts in 34 states from 1973 - 1995. His shocking conclusion was "An astonishing 82% of death row inmates did not deserve to receive the death penalty (and) One in 20 death row inmates is later found not guilty." Reasons why were that someone later confessed to the crime, key witness testimony was later found to be illegitimate, or new evidence supported innocence.

Investigations like this and others prove the death penalty is this country's ultimate punitive measure used almost exclusively against "unworthy, unpeople victims" to eliminate the unwanted, and those targeted are largely defenseless against it. Only the fortunate innocent few survive also proving our criminal justice system is irreparably broken and shamefully unjust in nominally democratic America for the "worthy" alone.

America the Beautiful - Only for the Privileged "Worthy"

"Worthy and unworthy victims" live in different Americas, highlighted in the age of George Bush in blazing starkness. Those anointed "worthy" are named, known, seen media-manipulated heros while the "unworthy" are mostly nameless, faceless unknown abused "unpeople" targets of the administration's "war on terror," the poor and anyone "in times of universal deceit" courageously daring to dissent. Above are case examples of injustice portraying America's dark side in contrast to those qualifying as special because Washington gets propaganda value from their misfortune. Add to them the privileged few, always special and "worthy" in a nation beholden to them at the expense of all others.

Boosted as well in the process is what Edward Herman calls our "indispensable state" image and essential goodness giving us special dispensation to wage perpetual wars for an elusive peace in the name of democracy, human rights and justice for all we preach but don't practice. They're easily justified by manipulating false notions of exceptionalism and moral superiority giving us special rights and obligations to spread our way of life to others hiding our darker imperial agenda to impose it on them through the barrel of a gun, like it or not.

This essay shows its effects on real people - those going along are "worthy" and those who don't or don't matter are "unworthy unpeople." Wellesley College English professor Katherine Lee Bates wrote the famous words to American the Beautiful on a trip west in 1893 but never could have imagined her "spacious skies...amber waves of grain...and purple mountain majesties" would become George Bush's ugly America for the "worthy" alone uncrowned by any of the "good" or "brotherhood" she wrote about "from sea to shining sea" everywhere.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com each Saturday at noon US central time.

Occupation 101

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Occupation 101

Supporters of Occupation 101

The long awaited U.S. release of 'Occupation 101' is finally here. The official DVD release date is set for May 15th 2007. You will be able to purchase the DVD online at www.occupation101.com (U.S only). In our last email we mentioned a tentative April 07 release -- that was our initial plan but we encountered some unforeseen delays and thus decided on May 15, 2007 as the release date (which is also the 59th Anniversary of the creation of Israel -- and the Palestinian 'Nakba')

This has been a long journey for us. We started working on the film in March of 2001 and we know that some of you must be frustrated that it has taken this long to release a DVD. What many of you don't know is that we are only two individuals who have produced this film and producing a film is a very (very)expensive process. Not only did financial constraints
delay our production -- but we also had to do everything from producing, interviewing, directing, videography, editing, website design and development, etc... basically every aspect of the filmmaking process (except for music composition and visual animation).

We have had many amazing experiences screening 'Occupation 101' in film festivals and colleges
throughout the United States -- it has been widely accepted by audiences -- the general public not only becomes informed about the facts, but always asks us about how they can personally take action and help end the occupation!

'Occupation 101' has also won several awards at film
festivals. Our most recent recognition came from the
2007 International Beverly Hills Film Festival -- We
won the 'Golden Palm Award' given to the best film in
all categories (the festival's most prestigious
honor), and we also picked up the award for 'Best
Editing."

We are very proud of this film and we feel that --
with the grace of God -- it will benefit everyone who
sees it. Your patience and support over the years has
been great. We appreciate all of you for hanging in
there with us. For those of you who live outside the
United States -- we are figuring out ways to make this
film available to you as soon as possible -- so please
be patient with us. We will continue to update you
with any information.

Again thank you all for your amazing support and kind
words of inspiration.

Take care and God bless you all.

PEACE,

Occupation 101 Team

This is Zionism

April 30, 2007

Very soon this elderly Palestinian won’t be alone in passing through a passage at the separation barrier, as Israel plans to seize 57 acres of Palestinian farmland in the occupied West Bank to continue building the separation barrier.

While the EU slams the Zionist regime, the Zionists can predict the unbridled support of the US. Aid to the Israeli occupation government must cease and Israel must be forced to stop limiting immigration rights to Jews only, which deprives Palestinian people (Christians and Muslims) the right to return to their homeland. Therefore, it is the responsibility of all relevant countries to stop aiding Israel until it ends its occupation of the Arab territories. We must defend the Palestinian causes, denounce the Israeli/Zionist crimes and criticise the disastrous Israeli policy of expansion and oppression in Palestine.

In order to pre-empt the expected comments of any Zionist supporters that may wish to respond to the above, please note that the Holocaust DOES NOT justify the occupation or genocide of Palestine.

Israel's pornographic lies

05/01/07

Khalid Amayreh

Israeli Knesset Speaker and Acting President Dalia Itzik (President Moshe Katsav has been suspended for allegedly committing sexual crimes) on Monday urged Palestinians to "trade your Qassams for computers."

"Our advice to you is replace your Katyoushas and Qassams with computers and loving education," Itzik said during a speech marking Israel's Independence Day.

"The citizens of Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Authority should think twice about why they are so thirsty for battles and blood. Isn't the blood that you have already spilled enough?" she added.

Well, it is manifestly clear that Itzik's remarks are void of even an iota of truth and honesty. Their mendacity and brazen hypocrisy cry out to the seventh heaven.

Indeed, urging Palestinians to trade their Qassams, the primitive, ineffectual home-made projectiles, for computers, and appealing to them to stop bloodshed would have made sense had it come from a decent and peaceable state that respects human rights and observes the rule of international law.

But coming from Israel, the international pariah and perpetual violator of international law, Izik's homily can be compared to a veteran whore exhorting others to celebrate her chastity.

Well, who is occupying whose land? Who is murdering whose children? Who is demolishing whose homes? Who is narrowing whose horizons? Who is stealing whose land? And who is barring whom from accessing food and work?

More importantly, who has been committing a slow-motion genocide against whom? There are thousands of other questions that Itzik should have answered before indulging in this verbal fornication.

One doesn't need to be a great specialist in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict to detect the shocking mendacity of Itzik's remarks.

According to "The Middle East Military Balance," edited by Shai Feldman and Yiftah Shapir (2004), the Israeli army is composed of a total of 631,000 soldiers, has as many as 798 combat aircrafts and more than 3930 battle tanks and thousands of armored personnel carriers.

Moreover, it is believed that Israel has as many as 250 attack helicopters, 4500 artillery pieces as well as a huge arsenal of biological and chemical weapons.

This is, of course, in addition to Israel's nuclear arsenal of 280-320 nuclear bombs and warheads and their delivery systems, which are trained toward Major Muslim cities in the Middle East.

As to the Palestinians, let us examine their "armed forces" and see if an arms reduction on their part is warranted. Their army is made up of hundreds of thousands of impoverished and miserable souls struggling to make ends meet, especially after the criminal siege imposed by Israel and her western allies following the January, 2006 elections in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In addition, the Palestinians have striking special forces made up of thousands of orphans and maimed children and youths targeted by Israeli apache helicopters and F-16 fighters since 2000.

And, of course, there are tens of thousands of starving families whose children are made to starve and go hungry because Israel is withholding their salaries to punish the Palestinian people for electing the "wrong" people.

As to the bloodshed, nothing can be further from truth.

According to the Israeli National Insurance Institute, the number of Israeli civilians killed in hostile action since Israel's creation in 1948 is 1635. (see Ha'aretz, 22 April)

Well, compare this with the tens of thousands (or more) of Palestinians and Arabs murdered mercilessly by Zionism since Israel's misbegotten birth nearly sixty years ago.

Since the beginning of the Intifada in 2000, the Israeli army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists have killed more than 5140 Palestinians, one fourth of them children and minors.

In addition, it is believed that over 35,000 Palestinians have been injured or seriously maimed by an army that views its victims as children of a lesser God whose lives are expendable and whose blood is less red than the blood of Jews.

So, once again, who is shedding whose blood? Indeed, merely 48 hours before Itzik gave her mendacious and dishonest speech, Israeli death squads murdered 9 Palestinians, not in Tel Aviv or West Jerusalem, but in their own homes, streets and neighborhoods in the West Bank.

One of the victims of this latest outrage is Bushra Berjis, a 17-year-old student who was hit right in the head by a bullet fired by the indifferent hands of an Israeli soldier while sitting down in her room revising for her final school exams in her home in the Jenin refugee camp.

I don't want to make Zionist-Nazi analogies, but I do want to ask the following questions: Where are the conscientious Jews to protest this outrage? What happened to their honesty and rectitude? Has Zionism killed both their humanity and honesty?

It is indeed lamentable that instead of urging her people to walk in the path of peace and stop killing and oppressing the already thoroughly tormented Palestinians and stealing their land and narrowing their horizons, Itzik chose to indulge in wanton lies as if lies are Israel's oxygen.

It is also especially sad that Itzik's outrageous speech went unanswered and unchallenged, neither by Israeli officials, nor by the Israeli intellectual community, nor, indeed, by the Israeli media.

This shows that the Israeli society is still suffering from a collective psychosis, a serious moral morbidity that needs a long time to heal.

-###-

© 2007 Khalid Amayreh

Petition demands criminal investigation into Israeli war crimes

ADALAH'S NEWSLETTER
Volume 35, April 2007

Human Rights Organizations Petition Supreme Court: Order Criminal Investigations against Israeli Military Commanders and Government Officials Responsible for Killings and Extensive Home Demolitions in Rafah Gaza in 2004

On 15 April 2007, Adalah together with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (Gaza) and Al-Haq (West Bank) filed a petition to the Supreme Court of Israel demanding the opening of criminal investigations into the killing of civilians and extensive home demolitions which resulted from two military operations in Gaza – “Operation Rainbow” (18-24 May 2004) and “Operation Days of Penitence” (30 September-15 October 2004). The named respondents in the petition are: Attorney General Menachem Mazuz; Military Advocate General Avihai Mandelblit; Shmuel Zakai, Commander of the Israeli Military in the Gaza Strip at the time of the operations; then Head of the Southern Command Dan Harel; then Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon; then Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz; the Israeli army; and the Government of Israel, which was headed by Ariel Sharon at the time. The petition was filed by Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal.

The military operation, code-named “Operation Rainbow,” led to many civilian killings, including at least 17 children, and to the demolition of 167 homes, inhabited by 379 families, comprised of 2,066 individuals in densely-populated areas of Rafah, in the south of Gaza. The main purpose declared by the Israeli military and government for “Operation Rainbow” was to locate weapons-smuggling tunnels via the Philadelphi Route, which separates Rafah from Egyptian territory.

During “Operation Days of Penitence,” executed in areas of northern Gaza, primarily Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and the Jabalia refugee camp, many civilians were killed, including at least 27 children. In addition, 91 homes were demolished, inhabited by 143 families, comprised of 675 individuals, and serious damage was cased to an additional 101 homes, inhabited by 833 individuals. The declared purpose of “Operation Days of Penitence” was to stop the launching of Qassam rockets from northern Gaza into Israel.

The petition spans 135 pages and includes 89 appendices. It contains extensive domestic and international documentation, which clearly shows that the conduct of the Israeli military and the intentions behind the two military operations constitute criminal behavior mainly illegal reprisals and cleansing areas of civilian buildings. Among them are statements given by (Reserve) Brigadier General Shmuel Zakai, the direct military commander of both operations, to Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar, who documented them in his book “Eyeless in Gaza.” In the book, published in 2005, Eldar quotes Zakai regarding “Operation Rainbow”:

The purpose of the operation was not at all to find tunnels. Do you know how this idea came about? On Friday I gathered the units’ commanders for a briefing, and on the way I heard the IDF spokeswoman on the radio saying that the purpose is to locate tunnels. How come tunnels? Is this the way to conduct an operation to find tunnels?

As for “Operation Days of Penitence”, Eldar quotes from his conversation with Zakai:

We launched Operation “Days of Penitence” because demonstrations erupted against the IDF in Sderot. We did not do this operation thinking that we are dealing with the most serious threat to the State of Israel …

‘So many people were involved in producing the Qassams? All the workshops in Gaza produced Qassams?,’ I asked and knew the answer.

Zakai stretched in his seat and burst with laughter. ‘The Hamas produced the Qassams in workshops, but we did not know exactly where they were!!!'"

Articles from the Israeli press, which contain quotations from commanders and soldiers who took part in the two military operations, also reveal that the actual intention was to exact revenge and to clear certain areas by razing civilian buildings. The international documentation includes reports written by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Prof. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied by Israel in 1967, Amnesty International, The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and Human Rights Watch.

Also included in the petition is documentation of the extensive international criticism of the Israeli military and the government voiced shortly before and during the military operations. Among those individuals and organizations who condemned the military action were the UN Secretary General, the UN Security Council, the United States, the European Union, various UN envoys and Special Rapporteurs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and Amnesty International.

Attorney Dalal argued in the petition that the acts committed by Israeli military commanders and officers in both of these operations amount to criminal offenses under Israeli domestic and international law, and that those responsible must be prosecuted and held accountable. In both operations, the Israeli military carried out willful killings and the extensive and wanton destruction of civilian property, which are classified as grave breaches under the article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and are therefore considered war crimes.

As the petitioners contended, the Israeli military’s actions further constitute violations of international human rights law, specifically of the right to life as guaranteed by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 6 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); and the right to housing as guaranteed by Article 25 of the UDHR, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and Article 27 of the CRC.

The petitioners further argued that the military commanders and political leadership bear direct responsibility for ordering the two military operations and supervising the military’s conduct in executing them. In addition, as these individuals knew or should have known of these violations, due to the extensive international criticism voiced and the wide coverage by the local media of the ongoing violations, and because they could have but did not punish any individual responsible for committing them, they therefore also bear responsibility for these criminal offenses under the doctrine of command responsibility. The petitioners also argued that if the perpetrators of these war crimes and grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are not brought to justice in Israel, then any state that upholds the principle of universal jurisdiction may prosecute them. In a recent case from September 2005, for example, a British magistrate issued an arrest warrant against Major General Doron Almog upon his arrival at Heathrow airport for alleged crimes committed during his term as Head of the Israeli Military’s Southern Command. Similarly, in November 2006, an arrest warrant was filed against former Israeli Army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon in New Zealand for the killings and injury of civilians in Gaza in 2002. Civil lawsuits abroad are also possible, such as the class action case filed in December 2005 against Avi Dichter, the former director of the General Security Service (GSS), who was sued in New York for the death and injury of over 165 people, when the Israeli military dropped a one-ton bomb on al-Daraj, a residential neighborhood in Gaza City.

H.C. 3292/07, Adalah, et al. v. The Attorney General, et al. (case pending)

The Petition (H) - PDF