By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
09/07/06 The measure of a human rights organisation is to be found not just in the strides it takes to seek justice for the oppressed and victimised but also in the compromises it makes to keep itself out of trouble. Because of the business that human rights defenders are in, they must be held to a standard higher than we demand of others.
Unfortunately, one of the best -- Human Rights Watch -- has failed that test during the war in Lebanon this summer. To its credit, HRW has risked much opprobrium for taking Israel to task for systematically breaking international law during its assault on Lebanon. That has culminated in a predictable campaign of harassment by pro-Israel organisations in the US -- as well as by the usual suspects like Alan Dershowitz -- that have accused its researchers of libelling Israel and being anti-Semitic. |
Susannah Tarbush
Al-Hayat 07/09/06// The 10th International Architecture Biennale in Venice - There is a growing international and Palestinian campaign for the organisers of the 10th International Architecture Biennale in Venice to cancel the exhibition in the Israeli pavilion. The Israeli exhibition is entitled "Life Saver: Typology of Commemoration in Israel."
Fifty countries are participating in the Biennale, which runs from September 10 to November 19 and is one of the most important events on the international architectural calendar. Egypt is the only Arab country taking part in the Biennale, whose title is "Cities, architecture and society". |
Elodie Guego
Forced Migration Review Electronic Intifada 6 September 2006 Israel is close to implementing a long-term plan to transform the demographic structure of annexed East Jerusalem. Policies to revoke the residency permits of Palestinian Jerusalemites and to Judaise the city have been described as ethnic cleansing.
After victory in the 1967 Six Day war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem - that part of the city that had been under Jordanian rule since the end of the British Mandate in 1948 - together with an additional 64 square kilometres which had been part of the West Bank. Jerusalem thus became Israel's largest city and was declared to be its 'united and eternal capital'. The international community, led by the UN, has continuously denounced this act of unilateral annexation, arguing it is a violation of the fundamental principle in international law prohibiting the forcible acquisition of territory. The international community has consistently considered East Jerusalem to be an occupied territory, thus akin to the West Bank and Gaza. |
BBC News
06/09/2006 Urgent action to tackle a rise in anti-Semitism in the UK is being called for by a cross-party group of MPs.
The panel of 14 MPs said the "disturbing" rise had been exacerbated by the situation in the Middle East. They concluded that a minority of Islamist extremists in the UK had incited hatred against Jews. The panel's report has been welcomed by Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, who said the Jewish community would "fight prejudice in whatever form it takes". Insider Comment: "British politicians from different political parties has called for "urgent action" to stop "anti-Semitism".
A group of 14 MPs known as the "All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism" has announced that "Islamist extremists in the UK had incited hatred against Jews" and the story has been reported by the mass media in news headlines throughout the UK. Fortunately, "the number of incidents have fallen" since 2004 "according to figures from the Jewish-led Community". But the "All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism" has published a 60 page report about a "disturbing rise" in anti-Semitism. The "urgent" measures demanded by the report include special programmes to educate the police and school-children about Jewish concerns and sensitivities, and new powers for the authorities to control what is said and written about Jewish people on the Internet and in Universities. There are still far fewer incidents of racism against Jews compared to other groups, especially Arabs and Muslims who are currently experiencing more racism and prejudice than ever before. At present there is no "All Party Parliamentary Inquiry" or any other special group of MPs set-up to stop racism against other groups. Arabs are also a "Semitic" race (descendents of Shem), but the term "anti-Semitic" has been used so extensively and repeatedly to exclusively describe racism against Jews that the meaning of "Semitic" in this context has effectively changed in common parlance, although the dictionary definition has not yet been updated." |
Uk Indepdendent
08/09/2006 Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets. Many people are being killed by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total of 262 people have been killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This bloody conflict in Gaza has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international media to the war in Lebanon. It was on 25 June that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive and two other soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants who used a tunnel to get out of the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of this, writes Gideon Levy in the daily Haaretz, the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately". Gaza has essentially been reoccupied since Israeli troops and tanks come and go at will. In the northern district of Shajhayeh they took over several houses last week and stayed five days. By the time they withdrew, 22 Palestinians had been killed, three houses were destroyed and groves of olive, citrus and almond trees had been bulldozed. |
The Associated Press
07/09/2006 The United States Senate on Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules.
On a 70-30 vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill to block use of the deadly munitions near populated areas. The vote came after the State Department announced last month that it is investigating whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon. Unexploded cluster bombs - anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area - litter homes, gardens and highways in south Lebanon after Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah militants. |
IMEMC & Agencies
Thursday, 07 September 2006 Thursday morning, Israeli troops invaded the Khaza area, east of Khan Younis, and attacked homes belonging to Palestinian families. Eyewitnesses stated that troops, backed with tanks and bulldozers, stormed the area, then conducted a wide-scale search campaign and ransacked residents houses.
De'a Qadaih, a resident of the area, said that Israeli troops searched and ransacked his family's house for the second time since yesterday. He said they also attacked and hit his family members while searching the house; he added that troops came yesterday to his house and searched it, and took his father away without giving a reason. Local sources also reported on Thursday that army bulldozers uprooted more than 80 olive trees and destroyed the water pipe line and electricity network in the Khaza area leaving more than 50 families with no water and electricity. |
IMEMC
07/09/2006 On Saturday the 26th of August, Israeli military invaded the Jabal Shamali area of Nablus and destroyed 22 homes, according to an eyewitness report from the International Solidarity Movement. The next day, Israel's largest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the home demolition was "a mistake," and that the Israeli military failed to arrest two to three Fatah activists that were the target of the operation.
At the end of the incursion, five individual houses and one three-storey block of flats were destroyed. One of the six buildings demolished was a community meeting hall, the others were homes belonging to the Saedi, G'name, Sa'eah and Lubaddeh families. Eight cars were also totally wrecked, five of which were dumped onto a neighboring house, causing structural damage in the form of broken base-beams in the roof and the bending of walls. |
IMEMC & Agencies
Thursday, 07 September 2006 |
NZ Herald
Friday September 8, 2006 GAZA - Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, at least one of them a militant, during separate operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank yesterday, witnesses said.
They said two Israeli air strikes around the Gaza town of Khan Younis killed two men, while another died in a separate incident nearby. In the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, witnesses said undercover Israeli commandos killed a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad when he tried to evade arrest. Israel has been pressing an offensive in the Gaza Strip since the abduction of a soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25 by a group of militants, including members of the governing Islamic faction Hamas. During the offensive, at least 209 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians. |
By Nadim Ladki
Reuters September 8, 2006 BEIRUT - Lebanon waited on Friday for the lifting of
Israel's eight-week maritime blockade as the United Nations scrambled to sort out a naval force to deploy off the Lebanese coast. Israel ended an air embargo on Lebanon on Thursday but held back at the last minute from allowing free shipping movement, saying the naval blockade would be lifted only when ships of an international force were deployed. An Israeli official said coordination was continuing with the United Nations but that there was no clear timeframe for lifting the naval blockade. |
Israeli Information Center For Human Rights
06/09/2006 On 26 August 2006, soldiers detained Tha'ir Muhsen, 18, from a-Neqora, a village near Nablus , while he was on his way home after registering at a-Najah University , in Nablus . The soldiers sat him down next to another Palestinian who had been detained. The other fellow told Muhsen that the soldiers had beaten him. When one of the soldiers threw a stick to another soldier present, the other detainee fled. The soldiers chased him but returned empty- handed. They then began to abuse Muhsen. The maltreatment lasted for about two hours, during which time the soldiers beat him over his whole body with their hands, sticks, and stones, kicked him, pulled his hair, and threw him to the ground. Muhsen lost consciousness. When he regained consciousness, the abuse continued. Among other kinds of abuse, one of soldiers practiced karate kicks to Muhsen's head while the other soldier held Muhsen in place. |
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