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28 June 2010 By Stephen Lendman
First the good.
On June 22, the International
Middle East Media Center reported that the UN Human
Rights Council (that established the Goldstone
Commission) approved "forming an international
committee to probe the deadly Israeli" Flotilla
attack, massacring and injuring dozens of nonviolent
activists on board. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud
Barak urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to shelve
it, saying:
"We expressed our view that for
the time being, as long as....new flotillas are in the
preparation, it's probably better to leave (an
investigation) on the shelf for a certain time" - in
other words, postpone it long enough to forget,
letting Israel's self-examination whitewash top
officials' culpability, a vain hope given world
outrage, mushrooming toward universally branding
Israel a pariah rogue state.
The Human Rights Council (HRC)
said committee officials will include lawyers and
international law and human rights experts, the body
to present its findings in September.
The European Campaign Against the
Siege said the International Committee will contact
Israel, Greece, Turkey, and the Freedom Flotilla
coalition. It will also visit Gaza and urge Tel
Aviv's cooperation, what wasn't given the Goldstone
Commission, nor will be this time. However, with or
without it, the investigation will proceed, exposing
Israel's culpability.
On June 1, the Russell Tribunal
on Palestine (RTP) responded to the Flotilla massacre
headlining, "All States and the international
community must urgently take measures against Israel's
violations of international law," explaining that:
Throughout its history, Israel
has willfully, arrogantly, and repeatedly violated
core international law principles without
accountability. "These violations....involve Israel's
international responsibility, its obligation to make
reparations for the damage resulting from these
violations and the obligation of all States to
prosecute and punish those responsible for these
violations when they concern crimes against
international law," especially ones against peace -
the supreme international crime.
RTP "insists" on the immediate
and unconditional:
-- "lifting of the blockade by
Israel of humanitarian aid," what Fourth Geneva and
other international laws prohibit;
-- ending the Gaza siege, also
lawless and prohibited;
-- "full and independent inquiry
into the" Flotilla attack;
-- "suspend(ing) of the EU/Israel
Association Agreement in accordance with" its
provisions; and
-- implementation of the
Goldstone Commission conclusions and recommendations.
Global human rights organizations
agree, including BRussells Tribunal Executive
Committee member, Dr. Ian Douglas, saying:
"Israel simply cannot face up to
its own bloody origin. It is a settler state, founded
in violence by individuals who came from outside Arab
countries," under rogue governments that support and
instigate "terrorism." The solution:
"The international community must
cut all economic ties, all defense coordination and
contracts, and all diplomatic, intellectual and
cultural links with Israel until Zionism is recognized
as racism. Until this happens, Israel continues to be
the single biggest threat to world peace. The
possibility of a better society will keep being
suffocated by the black hole of Israel's insistence on
perpetuating injustice against the Palestinians," -
partnered with Washington, "indistinguishable from Tel
Aviv, or vice versa. Obama is either unwilling (or)
unable....to break from that....Palestinians have no
hope in (him). He won't help them, and never intended
to."
More good news
- a first in America against Israel.
On June 20 in Oakland, CA, over
800 longshoremen pickets blocked the unloading of an
Israeli ship, the ZIM Shenhen, chanting:
"Free, free Palestine. Don't
cross the picket line. An injury to one is an injury
to all - the Israeli apartheid wall will fall."
An ad hoc Labor/Community
Committee in Solidarity with the People of Palestine
organized the action. Allied groups included the
Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, several
Palestinian solidarity groups, the Bay Area ANSWER
Coalition, and local labor activists.
Their boycott followed the
earlier June International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) Local 10 motion condemning the Flotilla
massacre, "call(ing) for unions to protest (by) any
action they choose to take."
Organizations supporting the
boycott included the Oakland Educational Association,
San Francisco Labor Council, Alameda County Labor
Council, Cuban Labor Federation, Labor for Palestine,
the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions,
and numerous other groups - in solidarity with
Occupied Palestinians.
Good news from
Sweden - another boycott
On June 23, the Swedish Dock
Workers Union announced a weeklong nationwide blockade
in all unionized ports, refusing to handle goods from
or to Israel until June 29, and demanding more,
including lifting the Gaza siege and allowing an
independent international investigation of the
Flotilla massacre.
Still more -
cancellation of Turkey's water sales to Israel.
On June 20, Israel National
News.com's Maayana Miskin reported that Turkey
"cancelled the planned sale of 1.75 billion cubic feet
of water per year to Israel," a 20-year agreement
abandoned over the Flotilla massacre, Turkish Energy
and Natural Resources Minister, Taner Yildiz, saying
sales have been halted unless Israel "apologizes and
expresses its regret."
Turkey also recalled its
ambassador and froze a plan to supply Israel with
Russian natural gas through an underwater pipeline.
Now the bad - a litany of Israeli
crimes, some recent ones explained below.
On June 10, Palestine Think
Tank.com contributor Kawther Salam headlined, "107
Israeli Crimes Against Palestinian Journalists,"
saying:
Since January 2010, Israeli
attacks included beatings, "breaking their cameras,
preventing them from covering events, shooting at them
deliberately, arresting and jailing them, fabricating
serious charges, fining them, imposing high financial
fines before releasing them from detention," denying
them access to East Jerusalem and other areas, and let
"dozens of armed extremist settlers assault them and
damage their cameras."
This is how a police state
operates when not waging all out war.
More bad news.
On June 22, the Palestine Centre
for Human Rights (PCHR) headlined, "Continued Ethnic
Cleansing and Measures Aimed at Creating Jewish
Majority in Occupied Jerusalem," in fact, an agenda to
make all Jerusalem exclusively Jewish, dispossessing
all non-Jews living there.
PCHR responded saying:
It "strongly condemns aggressive
(Israeli) measures in East Jerusalem, which are part
of a series of (others) aimed at ethnic cleansing,"
and have included:
-- bulldozing Palestinian houses
on lands between Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Ya'kov
settlements to build 600 new units - approved a year
earlier to link the two communities;
-- the June 21 implemented
"Israeli Municipality in Jerusalem decision to
demolish 22 houses in al-Bustan neighborhood in Salwan
village (to) establish 'King David's Garden' " on
expropriated Palestinian land; on June 23, Haaretz
writer Nir Hassan reported that East Jerusalem
settlers "threatened to (hire private security firms
to) forcibly evict four Palestinian families they
claim are living on" Jewish Silwan property; East
Jerusalem, in fact, is Occupied Palestinian territory,
not belonging to invaders who have no business being
there or legal right to the land;
-- the June 20 Israeli High Court
ruling, affirming the deportation of PLC member,
Mohammed Abu Tir, a member of the Hamas-affiliated
Change and Reform Bloc;
-- the June 20 closing of the
Ilaf Association for Education Support in Jerusalem,
using falsified documents to claim Hamas held meetings
there; and
-- Israel's ongoing lawlessness
in violation of international law, including
expropriating Palestinian land, what, so far, the
international community won't stop.
More bad.
On June 20, the US State
Department Bureau of Consular Affairs warned Americans
against traveling to Gaza, stopping short of saying
those doing it will be prosecuted, but calling it
"infiltrating" by flotillas or other means.
The warning "applies to all US
citizens, including journalists and aid workers," with
no mention of the illegal siege, the Flotilla
massacre, or repeated attacks against defenseless
civilians. A week earlier, Britain issued a similar
alert, suggesting UK citizens doing it wouldn't be
welcomed back home. Israel endorsed both statements
from its closest allies, together comprising the real
axis of evil.
Still more.
On June 20, Haaretz writer Barak
Ravid exposed Netanyahu's bogus siege easing,
headlining "Netanyahu: Security blockade on Gaza will
get stronger," quoting him saying that despite letting
in more "civilian" goods:
The "security closure will be
tightened from now on (to) keep (weapons and "dual
use" goods) out of Gaza," claiming "Our friends around
the world are getting behind our decision and giving
international legitimacy to the security blockade on
Hamas."
So though designated foods,
housewares, writing implements, mattresses and toys
can enter, cement and shoes (among hundreds of other
non-military items) remain banned, Israel bogusly
calling them "dual use," meaning materials potentially
for violence and conflict.
On June 24, Gaza Gateway.org
reported "no significant change in the volume of
trucks entering Gaza," despite the supposed easing -
last week, 654, fewer than before the Flotilla
massacre when 662 entered; this week through four of
five allowed crossing days, 567, "consistent with the
(imposed) policy since June 2007."
Gaza Gateway said only one
crossing operates at near capacity of about 110 trucks
a day, five days a week permitted - Kerem Shalom (Kerem
Abu Salam). Karni Crossing, Gaza's commercial
lifeline, able to handle 1,000 trucks per day, remains
closed.
The Obama administration and
virtually all members of Congress support the most
lawless Israeli policies, including the siege,
subsidizing them with billions of dollars annually,
the latest weapons and technology, and virtually any
special requests - to wage war, commit violence,
maintain an illegal occupation against Palestinian
civilians and the legitimate Hamas government, bogusly
called terrorist.
Confirmation of
PA/Israeli/Washington Complicity
According to a June 22 Asa
Winstanley Electronic Intifada (EI) article headlined,
"Exclusive: Leaked documents show PA undermined
Turkey's push for UN flotilla probe:"
"A document sent to Ibrahim
Khraishi, (PA UN) representative in Geneva," shows its
officials tried but failed to "neutralize a (UN) Human
Rights Council (HRC) resolution condemning" the
Flotilla massacre, by preventing an independent
investigation and endorsing an Israeli one - a thinly
veiled scheme to whitewash premeditated murder and
absolve high-level culpability. Turkey rejected it out
of hand. HRC approved an independent committee proceed
and report back by September.
EI's article and one document can
be accessed through the following link:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11350.shtml
Last year, Fatah officials tried
to undermine the Goldstone Commission's findings,
proving they ally with Israel against their own
people.
Last October, however, when the
Commission's findings were adopted, Mahmound Abbas
"was forced into a humiliating U-turn after an
outpouring of disgust and protest from Palestinians
around the world," not diminishing his contempt for
his own people. Perhaps theirs now for him enough to
elect a new president serving them, not their
oppressive occupier in league with its Washington
paymaster/partner.
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 cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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