U.N. Assembly, in Blow to U.S., Elevates Status of Palestine

More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke to the United States and Israel.

But the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the Palestinians or the Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two states living side by side, or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and the militant group Hamas both responded critically to the day’s events, though for different reasons.

The new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel in international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West Bank, including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority, weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.

But even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central Ramallah in the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an underlying sense of concerned resignation.

“I hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was there. “But how are we going to benefit?”

Still, the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.

The past two years of Arab uprisings have marginalized the Palestinian cause to some extent as nations that focused their political aspirations on the Palestinian struggle have turned inward. The vote on Thursday, coming so soon after the Gaza fighting, put the Palestinians again — if briefly, perhaps — at the center of international discussion.

“The question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the vote, said in an interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can subside and the more this is viewed as a logical consequence of many years of failure to move the process forward, the better.” He said nothing would change without deep American involvement.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the assembly’s member nations, said, “The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine,” and he condemned what he called Israeli racism and colonialism. His remarks seemed aimed in part at Israel and in part at Hamas. But both quickly attacked him for the parts they found offensive.

“The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the Israel Defense Forces and the citizens of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded. “Someone who wants peace does not talk in such a manner.”

While Hamas had officially backed the United Nations bid of Mr. Abbas, it quickly criticized his speech because the group does not recognize Israel.

“There are controversial issues in the points that Abbas raised, and Hamas has the right to preserve its position over them,” said Salah al-Bardaweel, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, on Thursday.

“We do not recognize Israel, nor the partition of Palestine, and Israel has no right in Palestine,” he added. “Getting our membership in the U.N. bodies is our natural right, but without giving up any inch of Palestine’s soil.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, spoke after Mr. Abbas and said he was concerned that the Palestinian Authority failed to recognize Israel for what it is.

“Three months ago, Israel’s prime minister stood in this very hall and extended his hand in peace to President Abbas,” Mr. Prosor said. “He reiterated that his goal was to create a solution of two states for two peoples, where a demilitarized Palestinian state will recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“That’s right. Two states for two peoples. In fact, President Abbas, I did not hear you use the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ this afternoon. In fact, I have never heard you say the phrase ‘two states for two peoples’ because the Palestinian leadership has never recognized that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

The Israelis also say that the fact that Mr. Abbas is not welcome in Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave run by Hamas, from which he was ejected five years ago, shows that there is no viable Palestinian leadership living up to its obligations now.

As expected, the vote won backing from a number of European countries, and was a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland all voted yes. Britain and Germany abstained. Apart from Canada, no major country joined the United States and Israel in voting no. The other opponents included Palau, Panama and Micronesia.

Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was dismissive of the entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”

A major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians may use their new status to try to join the International Criminal Court. That prospect particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the Palestinians may press for an investigation of their practices in the occupied territories widely viewed as violations of international law.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that after the vote “life will not be the same” because “Palestine will become a country under occupation.”

“The terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal,” Mr. Erekat said.

Another worry is that the Palestinians may use the vote to seek membership in specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that could have consequences for the financing of the international organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority itself. Congress cut off financing to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as Unesco, in 2011 after it accepted Palestine as a member. The United States is a major contributor to many of these agencies and is active on their governing boards.

In response to the Palestinian bid, a bipartisan group of senators said Thursday that they would introduce legislation that would cut off foreign aid to the authority if it tried to use the International Criminal Court against Israel, and close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington if Palestinians refused to negotiate with Israel.

Calling the Palestinian bid “an unhealthy step that could undermine the peace process,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that he and the other senators, including Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, would be closely monitoring the situation.

The vote came shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at reducing the arsenal of Hamas in Gaza, part of the territory that the United Nations resolution expects to make up a future state of Palestine.

The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, was politically weakened by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that some Western countries gave for backing the United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.

Source: New York Times

Land of Israel

The notion of the "Land of Israel", known in Hebrew as Eretz Yisrael (or Eretz Yisroel), has been important and sacred to the Jewish people since Biblical times. According to the Torah, God promised the land to the three Patriarchs of the Jewish people.^[33][34] On the basis of scripture, the period of the three Patriarchs has been placed somewhere in the early 2nd millennium BCE,^[35] and the first Kingdom of Israel was established around the 11th century BCE. Subsequent Israelite kingdoms and states ruled intermittently over the next four hundred years, and are known from various extra-biblical sources.^{[36][37][38][39]}

In 635 CE, the region, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the Arabs and was to remain under Muslim control for the next 1300 years.^[44] Control of the region transferred between the Umayyads,^[44] Abbasids,^[44] and Crusaders throughout the next six centuries,^[44] before being conquered by the Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260.^[45] In 1516, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, and remained under Turkish rule until the 20th century.^[45]

The State of Israel, is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.^[1][6] Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.^[7]
 
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947, recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations partition plan of Mandatory Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization^[8] and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent upon the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, 15th May, 1948.^[9][10][11] Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states,^[12] in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula (between 1967-1982), Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.^{[neutrality is disputed][13][14][15][16][17]} Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.

Israel's financial centre is Tel Aviv,^[18] while Jerusalem is the country's most populous city and its capital (although not recognized internationally as such). The population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2012 to be 7,900,600 people, of whom 5,955,200 are Jewish. Arabs form the country's second-largest ethnic group with 1,627,900 people.^[3] The great majority of Israeli Arabs are settled-Muslims, with smaller but significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins and Arab Christians. Other minorities include various ethnic and ethno-religious denominations such as Druze, Circassians, Black Hebrew Israelites,^[19] Samaritans, Maronites and others.

Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage.^[20][21] The Prime Minister serves as head of government and the Knesset serves as Israel's unicameral legislative body. Israel has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.^[22] It is a developed country, an OECD member,^[23] and its economy, based on the nominal gross domestic product, was the 40th-largest in the world in 2011.^[24] Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East.^[25]

Upon independence in 1948, the new Jewish state was formally named Medinat Yisrael, or the State of Israel, after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel ("the Land of Israel"), Zion, and Judea, were considered and rejected.^[26] In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett.^[27]

The name Israel has historically been used, in common and religious usage, to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel or the entire Jewish nation.^[28] According to the Hebrew Bible the name "Israel" was given to the patriarch Jacob (Standard Yisraʾel, Isrāʾīl; Septuagint Greek: Ἰσραήλ Israēl; "struggle with God"^[29]) after he successfully wrestled with the angel of the Lord.^[30] Jacob's twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. Jacob and his sons had lived in Canaan but were forced by famine to go into Egypt for four generations until Moses, a great-great grandson of Jacob,^[31] led the Israelites back into Canaan in the "Exodus". The earliest archaeological artifact to mention the word "Israel" is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt (dated to the late 13th century BCE).^[32]

The area is also known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith. Prior to the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence, the whole region was known by various other names including Southern Syria, Syria Palestina, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Iudaea Province, Coele-Syria, Retjenu, Canaan and, particularly, Palestine.

The Bank of Israel was ranked first among central banks for its efficient functioning, up from the 8th place in 2009. Israel was also ranked as the worldwide leader in its supply of skilled manpower.^[278] The Bank of Israel holds $78 billion of foreign-exchange reserves.^[279]

Source: Wikipedia

SA recalls ambassador to Israel

South Africa will recall its ambassador to Israel following a deadly attack on a vessel attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, Deputy International Relations Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim said on Thursday.

However, the government had no intention of expelling the Israeli ambassador to South Africa or of cutting diplomatic ties with that community. "The recall of ambassador Ishmael Coovadia for consultations is a way of protesting and a way of showing our strongest condemnation of the attack. This recent Israel aggression of attacking the aid flotilla severely impacts on finding a lasting solution to the problems of the region," Ebrahim told journalists in Pretoria. He could not say when Coovadia would return to Israel.

Nine people were killed during Monday's raid in international waters, an act which Ebrahim called "unacceptable". The vessel involved in the incident was part of a flotilla trying to break Israel's blockade on Gaza and deliver aid to the area.

Israel had since started releasing and deporting the activists arrested during the military attack, including a Cape Town-based journalist, Gadija Davids. Davids was flown out of Israel with others on Wednesday night by the Turkish government. She was currently in Istanbul with South Africa's ambassador and was expected to arrive home on Friday, said Ebrahim. South Africa had already added its voice to the increasing international condemnation of Israel's actions and had summoned the Israeli ambassador to a meeting.

This was the second time in 15 years that South Africa had recalled an ambassador from a foreign country. In 1995, former president Nelson Mandela recalled then high commissioner George Nene from Nigeria when the country executed the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight others. The execution was carried out despite appeals for clemency by various governments, including South Africa.

Ebrahim said there had been no discussion about closing down South Africa's two embassies in Israel as these were important for monitoring purposes. "It could contribute to resolving some problems in the region," he said. The government had also joined the international community in its call for the siege of Gaza to be immediately lifted. "This siege, which has brought untold hardships to the ordinary people of Gaza and made their lives nightmarish, is unconscionable and unsustainable," said Ebrahim.

Ebrahim also spoke of the government's commitment to contributing towards finding peace in the region and ensuring an independent and viable Palestinian state. "A long-term solution to the region can only be achieved through negotiation. What is needed is the creation of a climate of mutual trust and peace." Ebrahim welcomed the decision by Egypt to open the border crossing between it and Palestinian-controlled Rafah.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Zuma strongly condemns Israeli attack

President Jacob Zuma has strongly condemned the Israeli naval raid on the humanitarian vessels destined for Gaza. On Monday Israeli troops stormed the aid flotilla in an attack that left nine people dead.

The aid convoy was seeking to overcome the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip which has been imposed almost continuously since Hamas took control there three years ago. The incident forced the South African government to summon the Israeli Ambassador in South Africa Segev Steinberg to explain the raid incident.

Pretoria has described the Israeli government's action an unjustified military action, with Zuma expressing outrage at the incident. Zuma says from time to time the Middle-East issue exposes itself as one of the most serious issues. He says even the condemnations are subdued from other quarters and it reflects the kind of double standards.

In the absence of International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who is on an official visit to France, Deputy Minister Sue van der Merwe summoned Steinberg to issue a Démarche, registering Government’s strongest possible protest to the Israeli government for its unjustified military action and resultant loss of life.

Van der Merwe stated that such a military attack was an aberration from acceptable behaviour on the part of a State party in dealing with civilians and that Israel must be held accountable for its actions under international law.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Gaza flotilla attack sparks outcry

On Monday 31 May 2010, Israel attacked a flotilla of ships trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip. The botched raid, which killed nine activists, sparked a diplomatic crisis and set off protests around the world.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Israeli-commander: We rewrote the rules-of-war for Gaza

An Israeli commander admits to war crimes and the deliberate targeting of civilians in the War against Gaza. This reinforces Judge Richard Goldstone’s call for an independent investigation into Israeli war crimes. This story was published in the UK because the Israeli government prevented its publication in Israel. Anything written on Israeli armed forces must be submitted to the military censor. This is reminiscent of our own apartheid state.

The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as “means and intentions” – whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy – devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war – as one of “literally zero risk to the soldiers”.

The officers’ revelations will pile more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set up an independent inquiry into the war, as demanded in the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, which harshly criticised the conduct of both Israel and Hamas. One of Israel’s most prominent human rights lawyers, Michael Sfard, said last night that the senior commander’s acknowledgement – if accurate – was “a smoking gun”

Until now, the testimony has been kept out of the public domain. The senior commander told a journalist compiling a lengthy report for Yedhiot Ahronot, Israel’s biggest daily newspaper, about the rules of engagement in the three-week military offensive in Gaza. But although the article was completed and ready for publication five months ago, it has still not appeared. The senior commander told Yedhiot: “Means and intentions is a definition that suits an arrest operation in the Judaea and Samaria [West Bank] area… We need to be very careful because the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] was already burnt in the second Lebanon war from the wrong terminology. The concept of means and intentions is taken from different circumstances. Here [in Cast Lead] we were not talking about another regular counter-terrorist operation. There is a clear difference.”

His remarks reinforce testimonies from soldiers who served in the Gaza operation, made to the veterans’ group Breaking the Silence and reported exclusively by this newspaper last July. They also appear to cut across the military doctrine – enunciated most recently in public by one of the authors of the IDF’s own code of ethics – that it is the duty of soldiers to run risks to themselves in order to preserve civilian lives.

Explaining what he saw as the dilemma for forces operating in areas that were supposedly cleared of civilians, the senior commander said: “Whoever is left in the neighbourhood and wants to action an IED [improvised explosive device] against the soldiers doesn’t have to walk with a Kalashnikov or a weapon. A person like that can walk around like any other civilian; he sees the IDF forces, calls someone who would operate the terrible death explosive and five of our soldiers explode in the air. We could not wait until this IED is activated against us.”

Another soldier who worked in one of the brigade’s war-room headquarters told The Independent that conduct in Gaza – particularly by aerial forces and in areas where civilians had been urged to leave by leaflets – had “taken the targeted killing idea and turned it on its head”. Instead of using intelligence to identify a terrorist, he said, “here you do the opposite: first you take him down, then you look into it.”

The Yedhiot newspaper also spoke to a series of soldiers who had served in Operation Cast Lead in sensitive positions. While the soldiers rejected the main finding of the Goldstone Report – that the Israeli military had deliberately “targeted” the civilian population – most asserted that the rules were flexible enough to allow a policy under which, in the words of one soldier “any movement must entail gunfire. No one’s supposed to be there.” He added that at a meeting with his brigade commander and others it was made clear that “if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot. This is essentially the rules of engagement.”

The other soldier in the war-room explained: “This doesn’t mean that you need to disrespect the lives of Palestinians but our first priority is the lives of our soldiers. That’s not something you’re going to compromise on. In all my years in the military, I never heard that.”

He added that the majority of casualties were caused in his brigade area by aerial firing, including from unmanned drones. “Most of the guys taken down were taken down by order of headquarters. The number of enemy killed by HQ-operated remote … compared to enemy killed by soldiers on the ground had absolutely inverted,” he said.

Rules of engagement issued to soldiers serving in the West Bank as recently as July 2006 make it clear that shooting towards even an armed person will take place only if there is intelligence that he intends to act against Israeli forces or if he poses an immediate threat to soldiers or others.

Source: Writing Right: Centre for Law and Social Justice

Bin Laden warns US of more attacks

Osama bin Laden has warned Barack Obama, the US president, that there will be further attacks on the United States unless he takes steps to resolve the Palestinian situation.



In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera on Sunday, the al-Qaeda chief, praised the Nigerian accused of a failed attempt to blow up an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day. "The message I want to convey to you through the plane of the hero Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, reaffirms a previous message that the heroes of 9/11 conveyed to you," Bin Laden said. "America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in Palestine. It is unfair that you enjoy a safe life while our brothers in Gaza suffer greatly. "Therefore, with God's will, our attacks on you will continue as long as you continue to support Israel," bin Laden said. "If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn't have carried them to you by planes."

The Obama administration said intelligence analysts had not confirmed that the al-Qaeda leader's voice was on the tape. But it quickly dismissed its significance. David Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, told CNN's State of the Union programme that "assuming that it is him, his message contains the same hollow justifications for the mass slaughters of innocents that we've heard before". "And the irony is that he's killed more Muslims than people from any other religion - he's a murderer," Axelrod added.

Phil Rees, the author of Dining with Terrorists, told Al Jazeera: "Bin Laden has a great sense of timing; it's a complete poke in the eye to President Obama at a time when Obama is domestically suffering. "The reference to Palestine is possibly the most interesting part of this because he almost now becomes the al-Qaeda leader that speaks about Palestine."What you've now got in Gaza is bin Laden looking at the situation where there's a peace process which is going nowhere, and in an ironic way, Hamas is at the frontline of the battle with al-Qaeda there."

Azzam Tamimi, a political analyst and the author of Hamas the Unwritten Chapters, said that bin Laden was simply using the Palestinian issue in an attempt to mobilise Muslims against the US. "I would say that al-Qaeda has not been able to set foot in many places in the Muslim world despite its rhetoric," he told Al Jazeera. "In Palestine they failed miserably and that is why I understand this message as a return to the older strategy of waging war against America and the world order in the skies. "It is very difficult to compete with an organisation like Hamas in Palestine."

Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for the Hamas movement, told Al Jazeera that the Palestinians were focused on ending the Israeli occupation. "All Arabs and Muslims support our cause. [But] the Palestinian position is clear, the resistance is against the occupation, the Israeli army who is occupying and killing our people," he said. "Everyone knows that the policies of the US have created huge problems in the region. At this moment, we know who our enemy is - the Israeli occupation."Imtiaz Gul, the chairman of the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, questioned whether the tape was genuine."I think the validity of this tape should be subjected to scrutiny because we haven't heard from Mr Bin Laden for quite some time."

In the attempted attack on Christmas Day, Abdulmutallab, who is now in US police custody, allegedly tried to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 made its final descent to Detroit. He had boarded the flight in Amsterdam, but purchased his tickets in Ghana on December 16. Passengers on the flight were able to overpower the would-be bomber as he attempted to ignite the explosive's fuse. After being taken into custody, Abdulmutallab told police he had been directed by al-Qaeda and had obtained his explosive device in Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the organisation's affiliate in Yemen, has said it armed Abdulmutallab, describing the attempted attack as revenge for the US role in a Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda. Obama has criticised his own intelligence agencies for failing to piece together information about the suspect which should have stopped him boarding the flight.

Source: Al Jazeera

Deadly Gunfire at Gaza Protest on Egypt Border

An anti-Egypt rally in southern Gaza turned deadly on Wednesday when demonstrators rushed the border fence and stoned Egyptian troops on the other side, leading to an exchange of gunfire and the death of an Egyptian soldier. Nine Egyptian soldiers and a dozen Palestinians were wounded from stones and gunfire, witnesses and medics said.

It was the most serious Palestinian-Egyptian violence along the closed Gaza border since Israel’s short-lived invasion more than a year ago, and reflected rising tensions between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and the Egyptian government, which, like Israel, appears determined to keep Gaza isolated. The demonstration, organized by Hamas, protested Egypt’s refusal to allow international aid and solidarity missions into Gaza as well as Egypt’s construction of an underground barrier to obstruct smuggler tunnels. Those tunnels supply both goods and arms to Hamas and Gaza. As Hamas leaders gave speeches, young men climbed the border fence and threw rocks at the Egyptians, witnesses and police reported, and Palestinian police officers shot in the air to control the crowd, though to little avail. Egyptian troops then shot from their side. “Two Palestinians were instantly wounded from five bullets,” a witness said.

The Egyptian forces also tear-gassed demonstrators who waved Hamas and Turkish flags, witnesses said. A Palestinian aid convoy was stopped by Egypt in the northern Sinai city of El Arish and included Turkish activists. The group, called Viva Palestina, consisted of 500 people, including Americans, British and Jordanians. It had scuffled earlier with Egyptian security officials in El Arish. Dozens were hurt. A compromise was reached and part of the convoy was en route into Gaza by nightfall. “The area is calm now and the situation on the border is stable,” said Ihab al-Ghussein, spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, at a news conference in Gaza City.

The Egyptian soldier who was killed was in an observation tower 100 yards from the demonstration’s stage, witnesses said. Dr. Ahmed Shehada of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, said it had taken in 12 wounded Palestinians, “most of them hit by gunshots.”

Source: New York Times

Israel kills six Palestinians in West Bank, Gaza

Israeli soldiers shot and killed six Palestinians in two separate incidents on Saturday in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence in months. Three of those who were killed belonged to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, and his top aide accused Israel of inflaming tensions and seeking to torpedo US-backed efforts to renew stalled peace talks.

The violence came a day before the anniversary of a three-week Gaza war that killed about 1 400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Peace talks have been frozen since. An Israeli military spokesperson said soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians suspected of trying to infiltrate from Hamas-ruled coastal Gaza, and three West Bank militants accused of killing a Jewish settler in a roadside shooting on Thursday. A Hamas security source said the three shot in Gaza at daybreak were apparently civilians collecting scrap metal in an industrial zone near the Israeli border.

In the West Bank, Palestinian medics and witnesses said soldiers surrounded the homes of three members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group of Abbas's Fatah group, and then killed all three. The shootings infuriated Palestinian leaders
"This grave Israeli escalation shows Israel is not interested in peace and is trying to explode the situation," Nabil Abu Rdainah, a top aide to Abbas, told Reuters. "Israel is torpedoing international and American efforts to restart peace talks," Rdainah said. An Israeli military spokesperson said troops had launched a "pinpointed raid to capture the perpetrators of the shooting attack and during the operation three who were involved in carrying out that attack were killed".

At least one of the militants was armed during the raid and four rifles and ammunition were found at the scene, the spokesperson said. The settler had been the first Israeli killed in a Palestinian attack in about eight months in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek for a state. Sources in Fatah said those who were killed in the West Bank raid belonged to their group. At least one had been on an Israeli wanted list, the sources said.

Abbas has demanded a halt to Jewish settlement building before peace talks delayed since a Gaza war in January may resume, and has rejected a temporary building freeze announced last month by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as insufficient.

Source: Mail & Guardian

UN condemns 'war crimes' in Gaza

There is evidence that both Israeli and Palestinian forces committed war crimes in the recent conflict in Gaza, a long-awaited official UN report says. It accuses Israel of deliberately using "disproportionate force" in the three-week operation in December and January. The report also condemned rocket attacks by Palestinian groups which Israel says sparked its offensive.

Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, but Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.

Israel, which had refused to co-operate with the UN fact-finding team, said the report was "clearly one-sided". The investigation, led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, found evidence "indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict", a UN statement said. Israel also "committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity". The Israeli operations, the document states, "were carefully planned in all their phases as a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population". The report accuses Israel of imposing "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment" in the lead-up to the conflict. It says "the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole". The report says Israel must be held accountable for its actions during the war, a process which could lead to the conflict being referred to the International Criminal Court. The report found there was also evidence that Palestinian groups had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated rocket and mortars attacks on Israel. It says the launching of rockets which "cannot be aimed with precision at military targets" breaches the fundamental principle of sparing civilian lives. "Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population," it said. It also calls for the immediate release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier seized in a Palestinian raid in 2006 and taken to Gaza.

Both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities are criticised for the treatment of their own civilians during the conflict. Israel's interrogation of political activists and repression of criticism of its activities had "contributed significantly to a political climate in which dissent was not tolerated", it said. Meanwhile, the alleged "arbitrary arrests" and "extra-judicial executions" of Palestinians by the authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank were also criticised. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC the report had been "born in sin" and had no mandate for its investigation.

The authorities in Gaza and the West Bank did co-operate with the UN mission, but Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also dismissed the report as "political, unbalanced and dishonest". Ismael Radwan, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying it "puts on the same level those who perpetrate crimes and those who resist". Mr Goldstone rejected such allegations, and told the BBC that "fair minded people" should read the report and "at the end of it, point out where it failed to be objective or even-handed". The 574-page document recommends that authorities in both Israel and Gaza be required to investigate the allegations and report to the UN Security Council within six months.

The Israeli military insists troops acted lawfully during the conflict. The government says it has carried out more than 100 investigations into allegations of abuses by its forces - most were dismissed as "baseless" but 23 criminal investigations are still pending. It reiterated that it was "committed to acting fully in accordance with international law and to examining any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces".

The full report - which is based on 188 interviews, more than 10,000 pages of documentation and 1,200 photographs and other material - will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council at the end of this month. Eight months after the conflict, very little reconstruction has taken place in Gaza because of the strict Israeli-imposed blockade which bans all but essential supplies from entering the enclave. The stated aim of the blockade is to weaken Hamas's leadership but aid agencies say it serves only to punish the civilian population.

Source: BBC
A copy of the report can be found here.

Ban Ki Moon briefed by UN on Gaza conflict

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was briefed today by the head of the independent team of investigators tasked by the United Nations Human Rights Council with examining alleged rights abuses and violations of international law during the recent Gaza conflict.

Mr. Ban’s meeting with Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa took place in Geneva, where the Human Rights Council is based and where the Secretary-General today wrapped up a five-day trip that also took him to Bahrain.

During the meeting, which was also attended by members of Justice Goldstone’s team and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Mr. Ban reiterated his support to the work of the mission.

The Secretary-General said he hoped the mission’s work would proceed smoothly with cooperation by the concerned parties and send a positive message to the international community about accountability, according to his spokesperson.

Speaking to reporters today, Justice Goldstone said he was “disappointed” that he had not received any positive response from the Israeli Government.

Source: UN News Centre

Israeli military bombs Gaza smuggling tunnels

Israeli warplanes carried out a bombing raid in Gaza overnight, targeting smuggling tunnels leading from the Palestinian enclave to Egypt, and weapons-making facilities, the military said.

No fatalities have been reported, but Palestinian medics said a local woman was injured in one of the tunnel bombings. Israel says the tunnels are used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.

The Haaretz daily cited an Israel Defense Forces spokesman as saying four border tunnels were hit, along with two arms-producing facilities.

The attack came in response to rocket and mortar fire from Gaza militants. Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave, said one of its security positions had also been targeted.

On Tuesday, Palestinian militants fired a Qassam rocket into southern Israel, wounding a teenager in Sderot and damaging a building.

Source: RIA Novosti

Notes on the political and economic crisis of the world capitalist system

The conditions that prevail as humanity enters 2009 cruelly refute the illusions of a new epoch of peace and prosperity that thrived at the dawn of the new millennium. The entire world is engulfed in an economic crisis that is rapidly assuming the dimensions of a historic catastrophe.

Amidst the mounting economic disarray, the conduct of the imperialist powers assumes an openly criminal character. Israeli bombs and artillery rain down on the defenseless people of Gaza, recalling the fascist atrocities of Guernica and the Warsaw Ghetto. American imperialism, itself implicated in the slaughter of countless thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, gives its wholehearted approval to the crimes of the Israeli regime.

The poet Auden’s characterization of the 1930s as a “low and dishonest” decade applies no less aptly to the first decade of the 21st century. And yet, the loss of political illusions is an essential prerequisite for the acquisition of knowledge. The experience of the initial years of the new century refutes the fatuous claims that history (i.e., class struggle against capitalism and imperialism) has ended. Rather, it is becoming increasingly clear that the working class, in the United States and internationally, is entering a new epoch of revolutionary struggles.

Source: International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)

Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

June 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. During this entire period, Israel has denied millions of Palestinian residents their basic rights and has prevented them from taking part in decisions affecting their fate. The occupation permeates every aspect of Palestinians' daily lives, with violations of the right to life and bodily integrity, freedom of movement, employment, family life, housing, health, education, and human dignity forming an inescapable part of their reality.

In the field of human rights in the Occupied Territories, ACRI is a key player in the struggle to ensure the fundamental rights of the Palestinian population. ACRI's efforts are designed to redress the broad range of human rights violations while bringing pressure to bear on the Israeli government to fulfill its obligations under international law to ensure the protection and well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under occupation.

Source: Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Israel 'sorry' for killing boy

The Israeli army has admitted that it was probably responsible for killing a 12-year old-Palestinian boy on Saturday, and has expressed sorrow at his death. Muhammad al-Durrah was shot dead in the arms of his father who was trying to shield him after they became caught in Israeli-Palestinian cross-fire near Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. His terrifying last moments were captured by French television and shocked the world.

Israeli army chief of operations Giora Eiland said an internal investigation showed that "the shots were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers from the outpost at Netzarim". "This was a grave incident, an event we are all sorry about," he told Israeli radio. The deputy army chief of staff, Major-General Moshe Yaalon, called the boy's death "heartrending", but accused the Palestinians of making "cynical use" of children in clashes with Israeli troops.

For 45 minutes, Muhammad and his father sought sanctuary in vain behind a small metal barrel as bullets rained around them. Eventually both were hit - Mummahad four times. Jamal al-Durrah survived but was also critically wounded. From his hospital bed in Jordan where he underwent surgery to remove bullets from his arm and pelvis, he gave his first reaction to the killing of his son. "I appeal to the entire world, to all those who have seen this crime to act and help me avenge my son's death and to put on trial Israel. I also plan to take Israel to the international courts and ask that the criminals responsible for the death of my son be punished," he said.

Recounting what he remembered of the incident, he said he had done all he could to protect his son. "It is the worst nightmare of my life... My son was terrified, he pleaded with me: 'For the love of God protect me, Baba (Dad). "I will never forget these words." Mr Durrah said the Israeli troops had fired relentlessly, even shooting at an ambulance that had tried to rescue him and his son. Its driver was also killed in the incident, and a second ambulance driver was wounded. Doctors say Mr Durrah will suffer permanent paralysis in his right hand.

Source: BBC

Israeli Soldiers Kill a Palestinian and Wound 15

Israeli troops shot and killed a West Bank resident and wounded at least 15 other Palestinians today as violent unrest continued for the second day and spread throughout the occupied territories. In the city of Gaza and in refugee districts throughout the Gaza Strip, where a 17-year-old youth was killed yesterday by troops, Palestinians gathered in throngs, burned tires, threw stones at vehicles and blocked roads, witnesses said. Army reports said 5 people were wounded by gunshots in the West Bank and 10 were wounded by gunfire in the Gaza Strip. In addition, a dozen people were hurt in scuffles between Palestinian students and the Israeli police outside a school north of Jerusalem, according to radio reports.

Soldiers fatally shot the 19-year-old Nablus man today when a group of Palestinian youths in the northern West Bank city surrounded a military patrol, pelting it with iron bars and rocks, an army spokesman said. ''The forces tried to disperse them with rubber bullets and tear gas,'' a spokesman said. ''But the force was endangered when its officer was wounded from an iron bar, and the soldiers had no choice but to shoot to get themselves out.''

A woman tried to stab a Border Police soldier in the nearby Balata refugee district but he managed to grab the knife from her hand just in time, an army spokesman said. In the Khan Yunis refugee district in the Gaza Strip, soldiers opened fire and wounded at least eight people after crowds threw gasoline bombs at a military patrol, an army spokesman said. At least two wounded people were brought into the Shifa hospital in Gaza, where merchants along the main street closed their shops and schools were disrupted by protesting students, an army spokesman said. Investigations by Army The army said it was investigating all of the shooting incidents. One unidentified soldier, serving in Gaza city, told Israel's Army Radio, ''We try to be restrained and not let things heat up to much, but when there's a situation that puts us in danger we have to act accordingly.''

By late afternoon, the riots and clashes that had continued throughout the day subsided, the army spokesman said. The Jabalya refugee district, where a resident was shot to death Wednesday after a teenager threw a firebomb at soldiers, remained sealed today.

In the West Bank areas north of Jerusalem, two gasoline bombs were thrown at vehicles today but did not explode. Six Israeli policemen and as many Palestinian teen-agers were injured when the police tried to control students who poured out of a high school at Kalandia, north of Jerusalem, and started stoning passing vehicles, radio reports said.

MOSHE DAYAN, 66, DIES IN ISRAEL; HERO OF WAR, ARCHITECT OF PEACE

Moshe Dayan, the Israeli soldier-statesman, died of a heart ailment today in Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Center. He was 66 years old.

Mr. Dayan was rushed to the medical center around midnight last night, complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. A former Chief of Staff, Defense Minister and Foreign Minister, he was an architect of Israel's victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars as well as the Camp David accords that led to the peace treaty with Egypt.

He resigned as Foreign Minister in October 1979, citing differences with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy toward the Palestinian Arabs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Source: New York Times