Israel | ukwatch.net

Not free speech martyrs

Alex Doherty — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:39:53 +0000

Those who keep themselves mercifully removed from the murky world of blogging narcissism will not be aware that for a brief period today, Harry’s Place had their free speech violated. Their service provider removed their blog on the grounds that it violated the user agreement. The cry went up that censorship was afoot, and several blogs – several left-wing ones at that – protested in the name of free speech. It transpired that there had been a complaint. Someone had complained that a post on Harry’s Place concerning one Jenna Delich, a Sheffield-based academic, was slanderous. Allegedly, the complaint was from Jenna Delich herself. The service provider apparently agreed with the complaint at any rate and, referring to their terms of use, pulled the blog for several hours before restoring it.

The post concerning Jenna Delich was actually one of a series of perfectly frantic and childish provocations about her – and, beyond her, about the true bête noire of Harry’s Place, the Left. Delich was and is the subject of Harry’s Place scrutiny for several reasons. The first is that she is an academic, and therefore is someone whose ideas can get her fired, particularly in light of well-known precedents. The second is that she contributes to the UCU mailing list, excerpts from which are regularly ‘leaked’ to Harry’s Place, and the UCU is a regular target of HP saucery because a significant number of its members are prepared to support the Palestinian campaign to boycott Israeli institutions. (See this for a past example of HP’s attempts to intimidate UCU academics). The third is that, in an absolute gift to Harry’s Place and its miniature deep throat, she chose to support an argument about Israel by linking to a story on the website of David Duke, the white supremacist and antisemite. In and of itself the story does not appear to be explicitly antisemitic or fascist – although its author, who is not David Duke, may well be. It was reproduced from another website, which is apparently devoted to ‘alternative’ theories about 9/11 and other major events (both paranormal and parapolitical). It may be objectionable for other reasons, or it may contain alarming formulations, but a casual reader might easily read it and mistake it for a useful summary of facts.

In due course – or rather with indecent haste – Harry’s Place posted the comment that she had made, along with a crudely subtitled photograph of her with her name featured in white-on-black lettering. In the photograph’s subtitle, a deliberately ambiguous wording is deployed: “Sheffield-based academic, Jenna Delich – links to far right websites associated with the Ku Klux Klan”. This could be read as meaning that she has links to far right websites associated with the Ku Klux Klan, rather than that she has ‘linked’, once, to said websites. The ambiguity was, in all probability, intentional. They headed their post ‘UCU and the David Duke Fan’. Thus, Harry’s Place asserted, based on this single incident, that Jenna Delich was a ‘fan’ of a Nazi ideologist. Further to this, the post accused her of “viciousness against Jews”, which it said the UCU union had refused to act against (ie, it had refused to suppress her speech).

None of this is subtle. It is not a dog-whistle, even if it did set off a round of ferocious barking. It is a quite explicit campaign of vilification and demonisation, fucking someone over before the full facts are known, while distorting such facts as are known. The effects of falsely identifying someone as a Nazi sympathiser and an antisemite, particularly if they work in an educational institution, can be terrifying for the person thus calumnied. Universities are charged by the government with combatting ‘extremism’, monitoring both staff and students as part of the UK’s ‘war on terror’. Academics can be dismissed if they are explicit racists or Nazis. Reading about herself online, the academic would have realised that being identified in this way could mean her being fired. She would have known that it could mean her not being able to work in education any more. At the very least it would draw opprobium from colleagues and students alike. Personally, unless someone was an explicit or obvious member of a Nazi organisation, I would not like to be the one to expose them to that risk. I am not an investigator, nor a jury of her peers, nor a judge unto myself. And I do not carry out God’s will, as far as I know (He is not as talkative as He once was). But Harry’s Place, which is no better qualified than I am, had no hesitation in putting Jenna Delich through all that, without knowing what the situation was. It could be that Ms Delich was or is an antisemite, but it could just as well not be the case. She may have made a mistake; she may have been careless; she may have posted in haste having followed a chain of links from other less toxic websites; she may not know a great deal about the American far right. When Harry’s Place decided to launch their attack on Jenna Delich, they did not know what the case was.

Or did they? They may at least have had good reason to think that she goofed up and was not being deliberately malicious. Their secret informer will surely have told them that, contrary to their insistence that UCU is filled with antisemites, the posting by Ms Delich was met with immediate criticism. That person would not have ommitted to mention, either, that Ms Delich acknowledged her mistake and apologised. If Harry’s Place has been made aware of either fact at any point, it has ommitted to mention them. Instead, it has persisted with the insinuation that it is exposing a Nazi sympathiser and antisemite. Jenna Delich listened the advice of a Jewish socialist academic named Mike Cushman at the LSE, who was participating in the UCU forum. He advised her that she had a legitimate grievance, that she had been potentially libelled by Harry’s Place, and that the proper procedure was to complain to the internet service provider. Whatever one thinks of the libel laws, this does not seem to me to be an unreasonable response. Harry’s Place was quite vindictively sabotaging her career, and she had a right to seek accountability somewhere. However. Because the service provider in question warned the blog proprietors that they were in breach of their terms of use, and that as such it would be removed, Harry’s Place was able to reinterpret its attack on free speech as the defense of free speech. They have behaved unconscionably, thuggishly, in a manner that befits far right websites such as Redwatch (to my knowledge, one of the few other websites that posts photographs, personal information and inflammatory material about private individuals). Because their behaviour resulted in their being pulled, if only for a few hours, bloggers who had utterly ignored the campaign against Jenna Delich decided that Harry’s Place were free speech martyrs. It was a natural, but regrettable, instinct. They saw their own toys being taken away from them by moaning minnies, and their hearts went out to their fallen comrades. They extended ‘solidarity’ to the tormenters of Jenna Delich, but none to her. Even the Index on Censorship published a brief article about it, quoting David T, the blog’s proprietor.

Jenna Delich has now been removed from the UCU discussion forum. In a message from the moderator, Matthew Waddup, it was averred that “having reviewed this and previous conduct; I have now suspended their list membership indefinitely”. Waddup implied that he had acted on the basis of information that he had not previously considered. My own provisional conclusion, (you may draw a different one at liberty), is that he is caving in under a virulently nasty campaign of vilification. According to one of her colleagues, Jenna is now receiving hate mail and death threats. Her sole crime, so far as I am aware, is to have posted a link to a far right website featuring an article that in itself made no explicitly antisemitic or Nazi-like claims. If this was malicious, intending to cause hurt and offense, I would believe that further action would need to be taken both within the union and her educational institution. But as she apologised and accepted her mistake, it ought to have gone no further than that. Those who decided to take it further, and to distort the evidence to fit a prefabricated template for discussing such matters, are bullies, not defenders of free speech.

One last thing. It is important to at least take note of the broader political argument within which this preposterous, ugly saga has unfolded. David Hirsh of Goldsmiths College, and the website Engage, makes the argument explicit in his contribution:

Antisemitism within the UCU started to become a serious problem when people in the union began to support the campaign to exclude Israelis from British universities as a protest against Israeli human rights abuses. This campaign has dominated academic union Congresses in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

It is an antisemitic campaign. There is no proposal to boycott any academics from any country other than Israel. It seeks to exclude a significant proportion of the world’s Jewish academics. It treats Israel as though it was a unique evil in the world and as though it was an illegitimate state.

Predictably the campaign for this antisemitic exclusion creates an antisemitic atmosphere within the union.

The argument that a boycott campaign against Israel is ‘antisemitic’ is unsustainable and invidious. States have been singled out in the past and will be in the future. It is in the nature of politics that such ‘singling out’ will happen. Some states have been treated as illegitimate in the past (South Africa and Rhodesia, for example), and it is unsurprising that a minority of supporters of the Palestinians (myself included) don’t accept Israel’s inherent ‘right to exist’ as a state based on Zionist organising principles. Particularly since such an assumed ‘right’ seems to militate against the demands of justice for millions of refugees. What is distinctive about Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, however, is how little attention has been paid to it in the past, and how much effort went into explaining and justifying its actions. That this is no longer the case, and that a growing minority of people are deciding to take action in solidarity with the Palestinians – in this case, at the specific request of Palestinian trade unionists who are bearing the brunt of Israeli oppression – is not something to be angry about. Historically, the British Left has been complicit with the dispossession of the Palestinians, and a particular responsibility therefore falls on the British Left to help undo the effects of this (just as it once bore a particular responsibility for helping to combat colonialism and apartheid). In truth, there is something shameful and a little sordid about those whose response to this is to classify the whole enterprise antisemitic. Yet, without so branding it, and without therefore slandering thousands of well-meaning left-wing activists as antisemitic in toto, this cruel and idiotic spectacle would have been impossible.

Israel shuts down BBC in Hebron

tim — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:38:36 +0000

The IDF shut down BBC radio transmitters in Hebron on Wednesday, acting on orders of the Communications Ministry and citing interference with communications at Ben-Gurion International Airport.

The IDF Spokesman said the transmitters were illegal, adding that the Communications Ministry had found them to be jeopardizing contact between Ben-Gurion’s control tower and passenger aircraft.

BBC employees had raised the issue during a press conference held by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Wednesday. A government official said in response that in addition to the BBC’s transmitters, a number of additional transmitters had been shut down, including some inside Israel, as they were “endangering civilian aviation, a problem we have been suffering from for a long time.”

The official added that the BBC was broadcasting on a wavelength allocated to it by the Palestinian Authority without prior coordination with the Communications Ministry. “We are now trying to solve the problem,” the official said.

In a statement, the BBC confirmed that its “FM broadcasts in the city of Hebron ceased late yesterday morning. The BBC understands that the Israeli Ministry of Communication instructed contractors, accompanied by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), to visit the transmission site and confiscate a transmitter and other equipment. We understand there were similar visits to two other private stations in the vicinity.”

The BBC added that it had had “no contact from the Israeli authorities relating to aircraft interference resulting from our FM broadcasts since broadcasts started in Hebron in March this year. The BBC has implemented technical protocols to prevent interference from its broadcasts, however there are any number of factors that could produce interference.

“We have requested that our equipment be returned immediately. We are now in discussion with the Israeli authorities and are aiming to resolve this matter as soon as possible.”

Supporting occupation - Gordon Brown in Israel

JamieSW — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:43:49 +0000

Whoever scheduled Gordon Brown’s recent visit to Israel is surely out of a job. Brown’s dreary, etiolated performance – appropriate for a political corpse – was rendered even flatter by its proximity to Barack Obama’s headline-hogging whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East. Despite the differences in style, however, both politicians took to the podium in Israel with a similar message: one of support for the latter’s rejectionist expansionism.

The political background to Brown’s trip was almost without exception one of misery and despair. The Israeli government, despite its flowery rhetoric, has continued to pursue long-held policies designed to fragment the West Bank and prevent the emergence of anything resembling a coherent Palestinian state. The West Bank today consists of a series of isolated cantons, surrounded on all sides by Israeli infrastructure and security forces, between which movement and economic activity is extremely difficult. The UN last year estimated that Israeli military and settlement infrastructure together make nearly 40% of the West Bank inaccessible to Palestinians. Freedom of movement is drastically curtailed through a vast network of checkpoints, roadblocks and Israeli-only roads that serve, to quote the World Bank, “to expand and protect settlement activity and the relatively unhindered movement of settlers and other Israelis in and out of the West Bank”[1] The humanitarian, social and economic consequences of this enforced cantonisation (.pdf), “intimately linked to maintaining settler access and … quality of life”, are “profound” – indeed, it is “at the root of the West Bank’s declining economy.” Unemployment in the West Bank between July and December 2007 reached 25%, double the average regional rate. Overall, levels of employment in the occupied territories were "amongst the highest in the world", with refugees being hit even harder. The Palestinians "continued to have the worst performing economy in the Middle East-North Africa sub-region" – a state of affairs that, as discussed below, has been engineered deliberately by Israel and its international backers, including Britain.

Gaza, meanwhile, is undergoing a humanitarian crisis of “unprecedented” (.pdf) proportions. The Gazan economy has “collapsed”, its population intentionally reduced to a state of “abject destitution” through sustained economic and military siege. Although the Israeli blockade has eased somewhat since the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, conditions in Gaza remain grim (.pdf). 45% of the population is unemployed, 95% of factories have shut down and entire industries have been decimated (.pdf). Over half of Gazan households now subsist below the poverty line, while 35% of Gazans are surviving below the ‘deep poverty’ line of $457 a month for a family of six.[2] In December 2007 the World Bank warned of an “irreversible” economic collapse in Gaza, outlining a worst-case scenario of 44% unemployment – a scenario that, as noted, has already been exceeded.

Given the gravity of this situation, one might have expected Gordon Brown to confront the Israeli government with some harsh truths. If he did so, he certainly didn’t do it in public. His “historic” speech before the Knesset made no mention of the occupation, or indeed of Palestinian suffering at all. Instead Brown produced an unqualified paean to Israel’s magnificence, lauding it as the very embodiment of “democracy”, “liberty”, “justice”, “idealism”, “bravery” and “perseverance”. At times he reached for New-Age mysticism in the struggle to fully evoke his passion for the Israeli state, babbling to a no-doubt baffled Knesset of “liberty's torch”, “justice’s mighty stream” and “tolerance's foundation of equality”, before proceeding to outline a vast “conflict of ideas” in which Britain and Israel “stand together” on “the side of openness”. Brown referred to “the achievement of 1948: the centuries of exile ended”, failing to mention that the same year saw the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who, along with their descendants, continue to live in exile today. He spoke of “the age-long dream realised, the ancient promise redeemed - the promise that even amidst suffering, you will find your way home to the fields and shorelines where your ancestors walked”, apparently unaware of same yearning possessed by Palestinians living in squalid refugee camps just a few hours away.

Brown pledged to Israel Britain’s “true friend[ship]”, the two states sharing “an unbreakable partnership based on shared values of liberty, democracy and justice”. Leaving aside the absurdity of attributing these “values” to either the British or Israeli state, it is unclear who exactly Brown was speaking for. Surely not the 65% of Britons who view Israel’s influence in the world as “mainly negative”, or the 79% who want the UK to avoid taking sides in the conflict. Whereas Brown has praised Israel for bearing “burdens for peace in every generation”, 57% of the British public think that Israel is failing to do its part to resolve the conflict, thereby placing Britain’s population – though not its leadership – in line with world public opinion, the UN, the International Court of Justice and numerous independent, respected human rights organisations.

Virtually the only allusion Brown made throughout his whole trip to the horrific injustices being inflicted on the Palestinians was a reference to the wall following his meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, describing it as “graphic evidence” of the need for justice for the Palestinians, a “secure” Israel and a viable Palestinian state. In fact the wall, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, is “graphic evidence” principally of Israel’s intention to annex a large portion of the West Bank, making a “viable and economically sustainable Palestinian state” an impossibility. Its route, which “cuts deep into the West Bank” (.pdf) to encircle the major settlement blocs, “was not based on security considerations, but to perpetuate and expand the settlements”.[3] It is difficult to see how Brown can reconcile this clear rejection of a two-state settlement with his praise for the Israeli government’s “vision of peace and reconciliation”.

'Economic roadmap'

But enough with the fluff. What actual, concrete policy proposals did Brown suggest? Apart from repeating Britain’s official position on a final settlement, which is in accord with the international consensus[4], and making a vanishingly brief pro forma request for Israel to freeze construction in and begin withdrawing from the settlements, Brown’s main theme was his “economic roadmap”, which looks to be nearly as redundant as its political counterpart. The plan essentially appears to be to throw lots of money at the Palestinian Authority, encourage the reforms being carried out by Fayyad and stimulate investment in the West Bank by organising conferences, constructing business parks, and so forth. This is all fine as far as it goes. Improving the economic situation in the West Bank is both a humanitarian imperative and a necessary measure to increase the stability and effectiveness of Palestinian institutions. However, as the International Crisis Group points out (.pdf), there is “a natural ceiling” to potential economic and security development while the territory remains under occupation. Indeed, Fayyad may “already be bumping” against this ceiling, since the “political context” has failed to keep up with his economic reforms. Despite the large amount of donor aid and other measures that have been pursued in the past year to stimulate the Palestinian economy, the World Bank reports that economic indicators “have not changed considerably”, failing to reverse “the impacts of the aid boycott in 2006 and 2007”. “The contributing effects of the closures and movement restrictions” to the stifling of the Palestinian economy “cannot be overestimated”, with the result that PA reforms and international aid “remain necessary but insufficient preconditions for economic recovery”. This analysis is shared by the House of Commons International Development Committee, which concludes (.pdf) that,

“Increased donor assistance, while welcome, will not be sufficient to turn around the economic downturn which has pervaded the Palestinian economy since 2000 without significant and long-term removal of such restrictions.”[5]

In this light, it is noteworthy that Brown’s economic proposals were not accompanied by anything similar on the political front. He had nothing to say, for example, about the disastrous political division between Hamas, the de facto authority in Gaza, and Fatah, the de facto authority in the West Bank.[6] This apparent oversight can be understood in the context of Britain’s far from insignificant role in engineering the internal Palestinian conflict. After Hamas was elected in January 2006, Britain, along with the U.S. and the rest of the EU, subjected Palestinians to what the UN special rapporteur for human rights described as “possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times” – the “first time”, he noted, “that an occupied people has been so treated.”[7] This “collective punishment”, a clear attempt to “compel Hamas to change its ideological stance, or to bring about regime change”, had catastrophic social and economic consequences. The number of Palestinians living in ‘deep poverty’ soared by 64% in the first half of 2006, while by early 2007 nearly half of Palestinian households were malnourished, to give just two representative examples of the shocking suffering the British government helped to inflict on an occupied, civilian population.[8] The blockade helped drive (.pdf) the PA to “the edge of collapse”, reducing it to “an utterly broken pseudo-government” that had “virtually ceased to function”. This was all carried out with the expectation that it would increase the risk of internal Palestinian violence. When, despite the international sanctions and a brutal Israeli military assault,[9] Abbas formed a government of national unity with Hamas in a desperate attempt to end the slaughter, the Quartet, including Britain, moved quickly to avert the threat. The diplomatic and economic boycott was maintained and, inevitably, the government collapsed.[10] In parallel the U.S., and to a lesser extent Britain, were busy arming, financing and training an elite Fatah militia[11] with the goal of destroying Hamas. This attempted coup against the elected Hamas government was a principal cause of the internecine Palestinian violence that ultimately led to the forcible takeover of Gaza by Hamas in June 2007, in what the International Institute for Strategic Studies describes as “a pre-emptive coup”.[12]

Today, the British government continues to insist that Hamas be isolated until it satisfies the specious Quartet “principles”[13], accurately described by a former chief of Israeli military intelligence as “ridiculous, or an excuse not to negotiate”, despite the fact that “a new Fatah-Hamas power-sharing arrangement is a prerequisite for a sustainable” attempt at peace. The International Crisis Group expresses a near consensus among serious analysts of the conflict when it concludes that the “imperative of Palestinian national reconciliation remains as urgent as ever.”[14] British parliamentarians appear to agree, with the relevant select committees repeatedly urging the government to engage with Hamas and encourage Palestinian reconciliation. The Foreign Affairs Committee argues (.pdf) that “the decision not to speak to Hamas in 2007 following the Mecca agreement has been counterproductive”, recommending that the government “urgently consider ways of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas” and promoting efforts to reach “a negotiated settlement with Hamas with a view to re-establishing a national unity Government”. The International Development Committee similarly concludes that “it remains important to bring Hamas into dialogue and into the peace process”, since “without some kind of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and without international engagement of all stakeholders, the peace process will not succeed.” The Committee makes the obvious point that while Hamas’ acceptance of the Quartet conditions will plainly have to be part of any final settlement, to insist that they be met as preconditions to negotiations simply presents “an unnecessary obstacle to practical progress”.

Rather than promote Palestinian unity and engage constructively with the Palestinian leadership, the British government has, quoting Human Rights Watch, remained “tacitly or openly” complicit in “a policy of protracted collective punishment” instituted in response to Hamas’ electoral victory in early 2006 and intensified following the movement’s takeover of Gaza in June 2007. The siege of Gaza, officially condemned by the British government as a violation of international law, has caused “a marked and clear deterioration” (Amnesty International) in an already disastrous humanitarian situation, to the point where “life … is a daily struggle, even to get enough to eat.” To give just one illustration of the effects of the blockade, “[t]he proportion of deaths among hospitalised neonates at Gaza's pediatric hospitals … increased from 5.6% during the period January-October 2006 to 6.9% during the corresponding period in 2007.” Interestingly, both the Department for International Development and the British government itself are of the view (.pdf) that the blockade, recognized by the International Development Committee as “amounting to collective punishment”, is “part of a political strategy to get Hamas to sign up to the Quartet principles”, with the border closures intended to further the “political objective” of “isolating Hamas”. That is, the British government freely acknowledges that Israel is guilty of deliberately targeting the civilian population of Gaza in the service of political goals, otherwise known as terrorism.[15] Such is the alliance of “liberty, democracy and justice”.

The Annapolis process

Presumably to justify his failure to propose any significant steps to advance the political process, Brown pointed to the “Annapolis process” as “a real opportunity” to progress towards a two-state settlement. The Secretary of State for International Development has similarly described Annapolis as “the only show in town”. In reality, Annapolis represents a continuation of a long-held strategy, described above, to weaken and isolate Hamas.[16] Israel’s view of Annapolis is made clear by its behaviour following the conference last November. This year has seen “an unprecedented escalation in human rights violations in the Gaza Strip” (.pdf). In the first quarter of 2008 more Palestinians were killed in Gaza than in the corresponding periods in the three previous years combined and then doubled. More Palestinians have been killed since the conference than were killed throughout the whole of 2007. Restrictions on movement in the West Bank have continued to increase, in violation of numerous promises and in the context of a more than 60% increase (.pdf) in checkpoints and closures since August 2005. Settlement activity, described by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as “the single biggest impediment to realising a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity”, has increased dramatically, in violation of the Roadmap, the Annapolis declaration and international law. In the 11 months prior to the Annapolis summit, Israel published tenders for 100 housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Since Annapolis it has sought bids for more than 1,700 homes, an increase of more than 1,600%. Last week an Israeli ministerial committee approved plans for the construction of 20 homes in the settlement of Maskiot, east of the annexation wall, while earlier this month the settlement of Ariel received final approval for the construction of 27 factories, a move that will triple the size of its industrial park. This is the reality of the “process” Brown hails as offering “a real opportunity to move forward”.

As noted, Brown did briefly condemn the settlements and urge Israel to begin withdrawing from them. However, when pressed to outline any concrete steps he would take to exert pressure on Israel to freeze its settlement activities, Brown refused to answer. The International Development Committee notes in this regard that the Quartet has not “exert[ed] sufficient pressure on Israel to open the crossings”, while the British government “often stops short of explicit condemnation of the closures and the restrictions.” Oxfam similarly condemns the international community’s response to the crisis in the West Bank and Gaza as “wholly inadequate”, adding that “the UK government should have acted more robustly, undertaking practical steps, to secure the opening of the Gaza crossing points and address settlement expansion in the West Bank.”

Were the British government genuinely interested in advancing prospects for a two-state settlement, there are clear steps it could take. It could use its position within the EU and its “considerable” influence over Fatah to promote Palestinian national reconciliation and initiate diplomatic engagement with Hamas. It could ban the import and export of settlement produce from the UK. Arms sales to Israel, totalling £14 million last year alone, could be conditioned on respect for international law.[17] Concrete measures could be taken to oppose Israel’s continuing construction of the annexation wall, in accordance with Britain’s legal obligations[18]. The EU-Israel Association Agreement, which gives preferential access to Israeli exports, could be suspended in the light of Israel’s gross human rights violations. Instead the EU recently upgraded its bilateral ties with Israel, a move supported by the British government despite Fayyad’s pleas to condition the upgrade on a freeze in settlement construction.[19]

As it is, the UK has not only failed to adequately oppose Israeli crimes in the West Bank and Gaza, but has actively taken part in and facilitated them. This represents a complete abdication of our legal and moral obligations, particularly disgraceful given Britain’s clear historical responsibility for the Palestinians’ plight, and amounts to complicity in the systematic destruction of any basis for a viable two-state settlement of the kind the British government affects to support.

[1] The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem similarly concludes that “a substantial proportion” of the restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank serve interests other than security, for example “to create a rapid and convenient road network for the settlers”. B’Tselem’s “inescapable” conclusion is that the restrictions constitute “collective punishment”, a violation of international law.

[2] This sharp increase in poverty, for those who care about such matters, appears to be having the entirely predictable effect of driving Palestinians towards Hamas.

[3] This obvious point was acknowledged by the then-leader of the Labor Party and current Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2003, when he noted that the route of the wall “is following a certain vision of the future”, constituting a “political fence” as opposed to a “security” one. The House of Commons International Development Committee similarly concludes (.pdf) that the wall’s “route into the West Bank appears to protect the presence of major settlement blocs in the West Bank rather than the security of Israel.” The UN OCHA has described the wall as a “de facto border” (.pdf), while Amnesty International views it as an “unlawful land grab” aimed at “facilitating the expansion and consolidation of unlawful Israeli settlements”.

[4] In Brown’s words, “an agreement based on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem a capital for both states, and for fair and agreed arrangements with refugees”.

[5] The International Development Committee notes further that, “the economic forecasts remain poor without a fundamental change in the current restrictions on movement and access”. The Gazan economy has “collapsed since the June 2007 closures”, while the economic situation in the West Bank has improved “only marginally”. The World Bank similarly emphasises that “Palestinian economic revival is predicated on an integrated economic entity with freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza and within the West Bank”.

[6] Although Western politicians and media prefer to focus on the dubious legal legitimacy of the Hamas government in Gaza, the fact is that neither administration is ruling in accordance with Palestinian law – see, for example, the ICG report cited above p.1; footnotes 1-3.

[7] Recall that this vicious punishment was meted out to a population already suffering sub-Saharan levels of malnutrition and undergoing “the worst economic depression in modern history”.

[8] For more, see (for example) Oxfam International, which in February 2007 warned that “conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories [are] close to melt-down”. It continued:

“Since 2006 poverty has shot up … Two thirds of Palestinians now live in poverty, a rise of 30 per cent last year. The number of families unable to get enough food has risen by 14 per cent. More than half of all Palestinians are now are ‘food insecure’, unable to meet their families’ daily requirements without assistance. The health system is disintegrating.”

This horrific human suffering was, to repeat, a direct and predictable consequence of international actors, including Britain, using “international aid as a battering ram to force through political change” (Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam).

[9] In 2006 Israeli actions left 660 Palestinians dead, 141 of whom were children and at least 322 of whom were civilians uninvolved in the hostilities. Most of the civilian deaths were “the result of deliberate and reckless shooting and artillery shelling or air strikes by Israeli forces carried out in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip.” The military assault, focused primarily on Gaza, was intended to weaken or topple the Hamas government by collectively punishing the Palestinian population. The UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories wrote at the time that, “[r]egime change, rather than security, probably explains Israel’s punishment of Gaza”.

[10] As the International Crisis Group reported last year,

“it would be disingenuous in the extreme to minimise the role of outside players [in the collapse of the national unity government], the U.S. and the European Union in particular.

By refusing to deal with the national unity government and only selectively engaging some of its non-Hamas members, by maintaining economic sanctions and providing security assistance to one of the parties in order to outmanoeuvre the other, they contributed mightily to the outcome they now publicly lament.”

The International Development Committee similarly reports that “the international community withheld support for the National Unity Government—itself an attempt to establish a stable and functioning government in the territories—and bolstered one side against the other which increased tension between Hamas and Fatah”, adding that, “if this National Unity Government had been given greater international support it could have provided a gateway for greater dialogue and negotiation and at the very least kept the Palestinians united”. Countering this diabolical threat of Palestinian unity was precisely the objective driving U.S./Israeli policy, supported fully by Britain and the rest of the EU. See footnote 12.

[11] Of note in this regard is Brown’s statement following his meeting with Fayyad that the British government is “expanding the offer that we have already made of training for Palestinian police and security forces”.

[12] The IISS explains the “debacle in Gaza” as a “direct result of the policies advocated by Fatah’s ‘old guard’ … [and] US officials in charge of Palestine policy”. The International Development Committee, noting “reports of a controversial US sponsored plot to oust Hamas from power”, likewise concludes that “the building-up of Fatah security forces with the assistance of donors led Hamas to take control of Gaza in June 2007”. See “The Gaza Bombshell”, David Rose, Vanity Fair, for the definitive account of the U.S./Israeli plans to topple Hamas. For further discussion see: “Document details ‘US’ plan to sink Hamas”, Mark Perry and Paul Woodward, Asia Times; “UN was pummelled into submission, says outgoing Middle East special envoy”, Rory McCarthy, The Guardian; “Our Second Biggest Mistake in the Middle East”, Alastair Crooke, London Review of Books; and my article, “Engineering a coup in Gaza”.

[13] The “principles” demand that Hamas 1) renounce violence, 2) recognise Israel’s “right to exist”, and 3) respect previous agreements. Illegitimate in themselves, these conditions can in any event be immediately dismissed on the grounds that Israel violates all three on a scale that dwarfs anything attributable to Hamas.

[14] This view is shared by, for example, Ephraim Halevy, former chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency; Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell; Palestine scholar and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment Nathan J. Brown (.pdf); veteran diplomats and political analysts Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Lee Hamilton and other mainstream, respected foreign policy analyists; and the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (.pdf).

[15] It is no accident that the Fourth Geneva Convention groups “collective penalties” together with “measures of intimidation or terrorism” – the two are largely the same thing. The Israeli government is fairly open about its terrorist policy in Gaza, with Ehud Olmert stating:

“As far as I am concerned, all of Gaza's resident can walk and have no fuel for their cars, as they live under a murderous regime … We won’t allow a situation in which people in Sderot walk around in fear day and night, while Gazans lead a completely normal life … We won't allow for a humanitarian crisis, but have no intention of making their lives easier. And the harder their lives, excluding humanitarian damage, we will not allow them to lead a pleasant life. [my emph.]

Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to Ariel Sharon, summarised Israeli policy in late 2006: “We have to make them [the Palestinian people] much thinner, but not enough to die”. One Israeli border officer defined his mission in similar terms: “no development, no prosperity, only humanitarian dependency” (.pdf).

[16] Middle East expert Henry Siegman, describing the “peace process” as possibly “the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history”, notes that what became known as the ‘Annapolis peace process’ is in fact motivated by a U.S./Israeli “determination to bring down Hamas rather than to build up a Palestinian state”. See also “Gaza’s Future”, Henry Siegman, London Review of Books.

[17] The Campaign Against the Arms Trade reports:

“Israel has used F-16 fighter aircraft and Apache combat helicopters to bomb Lebanese and Palestinian towns and villages. These contain significant UK components including missile triggering systems for Apaches and Head-Up Displays for F-16s.”

For more information, see Stop Arming Israel.

[18] The ICJ ruled that every party to the Fourth Geneva Convention - including Britain – is legally obliged to “see to it that any impediment, resulting from the construction of the wall, to the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self determination is brought to an end” and to “ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law”.

[19] The International Development Committee, which has repeatedly called for the Agreement to be suspended, expressed “surprise” that “the EU has decided to upgrade its relationship with Israel while it continues to flout international law”.

Just when you thought it was safe

Ellie Keen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Iran, the world's apparent resident evil, according to the axis theme brigade at least, is at it again: 'Iran test-fires long-range missile capable of hitting Israel' was the headlines in the British Daily Telegraph (Wednesday, July 9 th 2008) but no mention of Israel's estimated 150-200 nuclear warheads in the text; no mention of Israel being the nuclear power in the middle-eastern region; no mention either of superior British or US nuclear capability. Images of nine medium and long-range missiles without nuclear capability were screened globally courtesy of Iranian television ... oh dear the secret is out! The headline capture for most media was a deliberately placed quote from Hossein Salami the Air Force Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard: 'Our hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for launch' ... chill winds are apparently blowing across the middle-eastern sands, as if they weren't already.

Whatever we may think about the US and European approach to Iran, particularly the British and French wing of Europe at least, it's always worth bearing in mind that the incumbent Iranian leadership use Israel and the US as justification for its continuation in power not so different, tactically at least, from the way Mugabe uses the British as justification for his repugnant reign to continue also. It's often the case that many on the Left jump to the wrong conclusions once Israel and the US are mentioned in the same sentence, often forgetting that the Iranian leadership, and Hizbollah whom they support, aren't what we would call enthusiastic advocates of democracy even in a socialist sense. However, despite the fact that Iran has a pretty deplorable human rights record and is continuing to harass women activists fighting to defend the rights of women detailed by Amnesty International (see link below), nevertheless it's not entirely unreasonable for Iran to indicate to the world, as it is so obviously and publicly doing currently, that it has a right to defend itself from both Israel and the US, who both have far superior weaponry power.

An Associate Press (AP) report (Thursday, July 10 th , 2008) created their own version of events quoting 'official analysts' who claimed that the show of strength wasn't just about 'retaliation', as the Iranian's have constantly claimed, but also about going on the 'offensive', which the Iranian's have claimed would be nothing short of a farce, not to mention suicidal. AP wheeled out Suzanne Maloney from the so-called 'independent' Brookings Institution based in Washington D.C., who spoke of the danger posed to Israel by Iran. But it's always worth remembering that one Haim Saban donates generously to the Brookings Institution, funding the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Saban and Director of the Center Martyn Indyk, described by ABC News 'On the Issues' as a 'Brookings Expert' are fervent pro-Israeli supporters, with Saban also a major financial backer of the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign, who spent many hours of the campaign lecturing on pro-Israeli issues. Maloney is also a Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy... it's making a lot more sense now! And the right wing in the US are also at it again; yes it is time to think about how fear can be generated amongst the public once again. Here's a clip from an interview with Ivo Daalder conducted by Diane Rehm that demonstrates this point clearly (Thursday July 10 th 2008):

Rehm: Ivo, if I could start with you, talk about these missile tests. What's going on, are there new capabilities about which you believe the U.S. needs to be concerned?

Daalder: Well anytime someone shoots a missile off we have to be concerned. These are systems that, if deployed with weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical or biological), could do a lot of damage -- and they could do a lot of damage over significant ranges.

Ah yes, it's the old 'weapons of mass destruction' routine happening all over again. If at once you don't succeed, try and try again!

But perhaps the real player who may just have most to lose is Russia, because for all the blustering of Iran many in the US are using the Iranian 'threat' as justification for the missile defence system they wish to strategically place in Europe. According to Seymour Hersh on BBC's Newsnight (Wednesday, July 9 th 2008, 10.30pm) whilst power shifts between Cheney and Rice on a casual basis, he believes that Cheney has the upper hand recently. Russia will therefore only be too aware that Iran, whom they support, may have handed Cheney and Co., the ideal excuse they were so desperately looking for. And perhaps we now know why Russia refused to back the US and Britain on new sanctions against the Mugabe led regime in Zimbabwe.

But perhaps the 'show of strength' has been exaggerated as Mark Fitzpatrick of the Institute of Strategic Studies has claimed in an interview with the BBC: 'It very much does appear that Iran doctored the photo to cover up what apparently was a misfiring of one of the missiles' claims Fitzpatrick ... but will anybody be listening?

Links

The Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2273986/Iran-tests-fires-long-...

Amnesty International Report Women act against repression and intimidation in Iran
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/women-act-against-repr...

ABC News 'On The Issues' Martha Raddatz interview with Martin Indyk
http://www.brookings.edu/multimedia/video/2008/0506_issues_indyk.aspx

SourceWatch on Haim Saban
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Haim_Saban

Rehm-Daalder Interview under 'Iran and U.S. Missile Defense'
http://www.brookings.edu/interviews/2008/0710_iran_daalder.aspx

Mark Fitzpatrick interview on the BBC under 'Iran faked missile test image'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7500917.stm

Israel's Amber Light

Tim Holmes — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:34:31 +0000

ISRAELI STRIKE ON IRAN NOT IMMEDIATE: BUSH TRIES DIPLOMACY HALF-HEARTEDLY
JNV Anti-War Briefing 115 (17 July 2008)

BUSH SENDS DIPLOMAT TO MEET IRANIANS

On 16 July, US President George W. Bush stunned observers by agreeing to send a high-level US diplomat to Geneva to meet Iranian negotiators face-to-face as part of the EU-led talks to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis. As the Independent pointed out, State Dept. spokesperson Sean McCormack had said just the month before that the US would boycott such meetings unless 'Iran suddenly has a change of tune'. (17 July, p.23; http://tinyurl.com/633cn3)

In the event, it was the US that 'changed its tune'. Analyst Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation said: 'I think it's clear that Bush has pushed Cheney back twice now' (referring to the recent decision to remove North Korea from the US 'terrorist' list). (FT, 17 July, p.5; http://tinyurl.com/6jwgmj)

The Bush U-turn on Iraq had two features. First, he dropped the demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment before being allowed face-to-face meetings on the subject (US officials have met Iranian diplomats, but only to discuss security in Iraq). Secondly, he accepted the EU 'freeze-for-freeze' proposal, whereby the West holds off on further sanctions for a set period while Iran holds off on escalating uranium enrichment. 'Previously, Washington had stated that if Iran continued enriching uranium, the international pressure would only increase.' (Telegraph, 17 July, p.15; http://tinyurl.com/5emnvj)

The Bush diplomatic opening is very limited, however. William Burns, the third most senior State Department official, an undersecretary of state, is indeed being sent to Geneva to sit in the same room as Iranian negotiators, but his role is officially to do no more than reiterate the US line - on this one occasion.

THE OTHER PROPOSALS

The coverage of these recent developments has conformed to the Chomsky-Herman propaganda model of the mass media, demonstrating once again the key role of media self-censorship in maintaining what they call 'brainwashing under freedom'.

In the current reporting, the starting point of discussion is invariably the EU-led proposals put to Iran on 14 June, and the question is whether Tehran will accept this framework for negotiations. What is almost totally absent is any awareness that Iran had made its own highly significant proposals on 13 May this year.

One rare recognition of this simple reality came in an important commentary by Sir John Thomson. Thomson, a former UK Permanent Representative at the UN, was told by Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, in early July that EU negotiator Javier Solana 'had assured him the Iranian package could be part of the agenda for substantive negotiations between Iran and the 5-plus-1' (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany). (Independent on Sunday, 13 July, p.56; http://tinyurl.com/59jth3)

So the negotiations are proceeding because Iran's negotiating proposals (which have been almost entirely erased from history by the Western media) have been admitted to the negotiating chamber.

RED LINES

Ali-Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, on foreign affairs, made a critical point on 1 July. Apart from saying it was 'expedient' for Iran to resume nuclear negotiations on the 5-plus-1 offer, Velayati said: 'They say Iran should not make an atomic bomb and we say Iran needs nuclear energy. These two principles are your and our red lines which should be the basis for negotiations and [can be] agreed on'. (FT, 2 July; http://tinyurl.com/5ejuqk)

But how can these two 'red lines' both be agreed as a basis for negotiation? By going back to Iran's 13 May proposal for uranium enrichment to continue on Iranian soil—but under international control.

On the basis of his discussions with Foreign Minister Mottaki, Thomson believes that Iran is 'ready to make some compromise agreements (as yet unspecified) on Middle Eastern issues that worry the west'. And on the nuclear issue 'it is ready to compromise to the extent of putting its enrichment-related facilities under the control of an international consortium—including, for example, France, Germany and the UK—which would then operate a modern, commercially oriented business producing nuclear fuel in Iran for sale globally. This is not what the 5-plus-1 are asking for, but in my view it is the best that is obtainable, and so long as it remains in force it precludes Iran from making a nuclear weapon.' (IOS, 13 July, as above. See also http://mit.edu/stgs/irancrisis.html.)

WHAT OF THE ISRAELI THREATS?

So while Ayatollah Khamanei gives the 'green light' for negotiations on the basis of rather vague 5-plus-1 proposals, President Bush is reported to have given the 'amber light' for an Israeli airstrike on Iran. Despite this, an Israeli strike looks unlikely, for the next few months at least.

The Sunday Times reported: ' "Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you're ready," the official said. But the Israelis have also been told that they can expect no help from American forces and will not be able to use US military bases in Iraq for logistical support.'

This is not a formality: 'Nor is it certain that Bush's amber light would ever turn to green without irrefutable evidence of lethal Iranian hostility. Tehran's test launches of medium-range ballistic missiles last week were seen in Washington as provocative and poorly judged, but both the Pentagon and the CIA concluded that they did not represent an immediate threat of attack against Israeli or US targets. "It's really all down to the Israelis," the Pentagon official added. "This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been decided. But the president is really preoccupied with the nuclear threat against Israel and I know he doesn't believe that anything but force will deter Iran." The official added that Israel had not so far presented Bush with a convincing military proposal. "If there is no solid plan, the amber will never turn to green," he said.' (Sunday Times, 13 July; http://tinyurl.com/6gppuc)

Retired US Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, concluded from the Israeli aerial exercises in June that 'Israel does not have the capability to effectively attack Iran's nuclear facilities.' Interviewed by Robert Naiman of the Huffington Post website, Gardiner pointed to a 2006 MIT paper by Whitney Raas and Austin Long, assessing Israeli military planners' think ing. Raas and Long believe Israel would want to attack the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan and the heavy water plant at Arak—with a combined total of 36 aircraft. (With supporting aircraft, this would match up with the reports of a 100-aircraft exercise in June.)

'An Israeli strike would not be much of a strike,' Gardiner says. The US would probably think in terms of about 10 times more aim points for a similar strike, he observes. (Robert Naiman, 'Is Israel Really Preparing to Attack Iran? Col. Gardiner Says No', 20 June; http://tinyurl.com/4r5y43)

On this analysis, an Israeli strike could not destroy even the three best-known Iranian nuclear facilities, never mind facilities which might be hidden. The strike could not meet the minimum required by the US, which would want the assault to 'set back the Iranians by at least five years for an attack to be considered a success', according to the Pentagon source consulted by the Sunday Times. It appears, therefore, that there will never be a 'solid' Israeli plan to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, and so, if it acts rationally, the White House will never green light such an attack.

OBAMA MANIA

The danger, of course, is that the White House will not act rationally, particularly if it sees the Bush 'legacy' being lost to an incoming Obama administration. Hence, perhaps, the startling decision to mimic the Democratic presidential candidate in his popular decision to offer unconditional talks with official enemies. In Nov. 2007, before the publication of the NIE that Iran had no nuclear weapons programme, a poll found 73% of people in the US favouring nonviolent options in dealing with Iran; 45% opposed violence even if diplomacy and sanctions failed (only 46% favoured force in those circumstances). http://tinyurl.com/5no6ox

Victory for the Raytheon 9

Tim Holmes — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:26:05 +0000

On 11 June 2008, 6 people, who had occupied the offices of Raytheon in Derry and destroyed computers, were acquitted of criminal damage by a Belfast jury. Raytheon is a huge US arms manufacturer, with sales of $20 billion in 2006 and over 70,000 employees worldwide. It makes Patriot, Tomahawk, Cruise and Sidewinder missiles, and much more besides.

The action which gave rise to the criminal charges took place on 9 August 2006 during Israel’s war on Lebanon, in which well over 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed by Israeli bombing and shelling. On 30 July 2006, an Israeli aircraft targeted a residential building in Qana in southern Lebanon with a Raytheon-supplied “bunker buster” bomb. As a result, 28 civilians, from two extended families, the Hashems and the Shaloubs, were killed. The dead included 14 children.

This event led to 9 members of the Derry Anti War Coalition occupying Raytheon’s offices in Derry ten days later. They remained there until forcibly removed by police in riot gear about 8 hours later.

Substantial damage was done to Raytheon property:

“Documents found on the premises were thrown from the windows to supporters outside. After our supporters were moved away by the police, computers, already damaged, were hurled out. Our main target was the mainframe: we knew that putting this out of action would disrupt Raytheon’s ordering system and thus hamper production, including production of missiles. The mainframe was decommissioned with a fire-extinguisher.”

This account is taken from The Raytheon 9: Resisting war crimes is not a crime, an excellent pamphlet about the affair by Eamonn McCann, who took part in the occupation.

The action eventually led to 6 of the participants appearing before a judge and jury in Belfast in May 2008, charged with criminal damage and affray. On 4 June 2008, after the prosecution had put its case, the judge expressed the opinion that there was no case to answer on either charge. However, the prosecution appealed to a higher court and won with respect to the criminal damage charge, which then had to be put the jury. A few days later, the jury found all the accused not guilty on the criminal damage charge. The charge of affray was dismissed by the judge without it being put to the jury.

The trial went largely unreported in the local Northern Ireland media, and in the Dublin and London media. The same is true of the verdict, even though it has sensational implications. The defence argued that the accused had undertaken their action in order to prevent war crimes being perpetrated in Lebanon by Israel using Raytheon-supplied weapons. In the words of Eamonn McCann in a statement afterwards, by finding the accused not guilty:

“The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes.” [1]

In other words, in the opinion of the jury, having heard the evidence, it was reasonable of the defendants to believe that Raytheon was engaged in criminal activity by supplying Israel with armaments and that they were justified in perpetrating criminal damage on Raytheon property in order to hamper this criminal activity. In his statement, Eamonn McCann called

“on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of this verdict, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is, as we say it is, a criminal enterprise.”

Gagging order

The Raytheon trial would normally have taken place in Derry, where the offences alleged were committed. However, on 14 September 2007, the prosecution requested a change of venue, on the grounds that protests outside the court might intimidate jurors, and coverage in the local media might prejudice them.

At this time, the presiding judge, the Derry recorder, Corinne Philpott, banned publicity about the case, but in such general terms that journalists present didn’t know what they were allowed to report and what was banned. There was no reporting of the application for a change of venue. On 10 December 2007, Judge Philpott imposed a blanket ban on reporting in Northern Ireland of any matter relating to the trial, including anything at all relating to Raytheon. The objective seems to have been to prevent publicity in Northern Ireland about Raytheon’s arms business, which might make a jury incline to the view that damaging its computers was a good idea.

There was no attempt by mainstream media organisations in Northern Ireland or elsewhere to have this extraordinary gagging order lifted or modified, despite the fact that their work was being hampered by the ban. For example, the Village magazine reported on 29 February 2008:

“Suzanne Breen (formerly of Village, now writing for the Sunday Tribune) has been referred to the Attorney General for possible contempt in an article published on 18 November in the Sunday Tribune. She had mentioned possible witnesses from the USA and Lebanon, and that, if convicted, defendants could face lengthy jail sentences.

“Also RTE has ordered Belfast independent production company Below the Radar to delete sections on Raytheon from a film about Ireland and the arms trade transmitted on 14 January. The effect of the ban is that all discussion of Raytheon’s presence in Derry has been shut down.” [2]

However, a legal challenge to the order was launched by Shane O’Curry of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign. As a result, the Belfast recorder, Judge Burgess, modified the order in late February 2008 to limit the ban to the usual one on pre-trial reporting of material directly relevant to the trial. It could then be reported for the first time that the Derry recorder had acceded to the prosecution’s request to move the trial from Derry to Belfast.

Notes

[1] www.ukwatch.net/article/raytheon9_acquitted
[2] www.village.ie/Ireland/Northern_Ireland/Media_gag_over_Derry_arms_factory_occupation/

Letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso

JamieSW — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:27:38 +0000

Your Excellency Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso,

On the occasion of the meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council on 16 June 2008, the under-signed human rights and humanitarian organizations would like to bring to your attention a number of concerns regarding Israel's non-compliance with international human rights standards, international humanitarian law and therefore also the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

In its external actions, the EU must not breach the fundamental principles of the European Union, including human rights, as set out in the Treaty on European Union. The EU has committed itself to the highest possible respect for human rights, and concrete commitments in this area have been in a period of steady expansion for the past decade. Following the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Treaty on European Union was amended to include a new Article 6, setting out that the principles on which the Union is based include: "liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States". On 25 June 2001, the European Council, in its conclusions on the European Union's role in promoting human rights and democratisation in third countries stressed its strong commitment to "the mainstreaming of human rights and democratisation into EU policies and actions". It further stated that "human rights and democratisation should systematically and at different levels be included in all EU political dialogues and bilateral relations with third countries". Emphasising its commitment to human rights, the EU established a Fundamental Rights Agency in 2007.

We further note that Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement establishes that: "Relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on a respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement." In the Barcelona Declaration of 1995, the Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs undertook to "respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and guarantee the effective legitimate exercise of such rights and freedoms … without any discrimination on grounds of race, nationality, language, religion or sex." Finally, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice regarding Legal Consequences of Construction of a Wall in the occupied Palestinian territory establishes that all states and international actors are obliged not to recognise, aid or assist the illegal situation resulting from Israel's actions in the occupied Palestinian territory and all parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention are bound to ensure Israel's compliance with this Convention. These obligations relate both to EU member states as signatories to the Geneva Conventions, and to EU institutions charged to ensure that EU-Israel contractual relations are undertaken in respect of Community and international law.

We believe in the human rights of all. In matters both related to its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel, Israel is currently not acting in conformity with international human rights law and, in relation to the occupied Palestinian territory, with international humanitarian law. Recent examples of such violations include:

* The blockade on Gaza is leading to denial of economic, social and cultural rights for Gazans, in particular their human rights to food, water, sanitation and health, and which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as constituting collective punishment.
* Palestinian citizens of Israel and the occupied territories continue to be denied equal access to services such as water, education, housing and land.
* Israel continues to forcibly evict and displace Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including through the construction of the Separation Barrier, as well as in the Gaza 'buffer zone'.
* Israel continues to deny Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens, as well as spouses and family members from a number of other Arab states, from obtaining legal status in Israel.

The Annex to this letter lists reports on recent human rights violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by Israel.

Israel has failed to implement the observations of the UN human rights monitoring mechanisms, as well as human rights obligations established in the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice and several United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. Examples of these are contained in the Annex to this letter.

Israel faces real security threats and attacks that violate the human rights of its civilians. Its reactions to such threats and attacks must be proportionate and must not violate Israel's obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The undersigned organisations call upon the EU to require that, within the framework of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, specific conditionalities are established to ensure that without delay, Israel:

1. Ends the blockade on the Gaza Strip which is undermining the economic, social and cultural rights of Gazans.
2. Complies with all UN resolutions, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice and concluding observations of international human rights treaty bodies relating to the human rights of Palestinians, including the rights of Palestinian refugees.
3. Refrains from violations of the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories which necessitates a swift end to the occupation, a recognition of the right of Palestinians to self determination and the removal of the Separation Barrier from Palestinian land.
4. Ends discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, including in relation to access to land, housing and public services and enact a legally binding prohibition against discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion.

We look forward to your response and an opportunity to meaningfully engage with you on these issues.

Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Switzerland
Cordaid, The Netherlands
Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI/PS)
DIAKONIA, Sweden
Al-Haq, occupied Palestinian territory,
ICCO, interchurch organisation for development co-operation, Netherlands
Aljamaheer Association for development in the Arab & Jewish sectors, Israel
Medical Aid for Palestinians, United Kingdom
medico international e.V., Germany
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights-Gaza
Palestinian hydrology group for water and environmental resources development
Physicians for Human Rights- Israel (PHR-IL)
The Swedish Organization for Individual Relief (SOIR)
Trócaire, Ireland

UNISON passes boycott resolution

JamieSW — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:13:46 +0000

UNISON - 2008 National Delegate Conference - Composite : AgendaID D - Palestine:

Conference welcomes the fact that UNISON has adopted comprehensive policy on Palestine at successive national delegate conferences in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Conference notes that 2007 marked the fortieth anniversary of the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. 2008 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the "Nakba" which led to nearly 900,000 Palestinians refugees fleeing their homes. Many of them and their descendants still live in refugee camps and all are unable to return to their homes.

Conference condemns the current siege of Gaza which threatens a humanitarian catastrophe through the denial of food, water, power and medical supplies by the Israeli government in breach of international law which outlaws collective punishment of a civilian population

However, Conference is aware that there is a still a low-level of awareness about the fate of the Palestinian people amongst trade union members and the wider public. Conference is also aware that this is among factors that allow both the British government and the European Union to pursue a foreign policy that whilst formally supporting the creation of an independent, viable Palestinian state effectively tolerates the continuing Israeli occupation.

Conference notes that the Trades Union Congress in 2006 adopted a clear position in support of self-determination for the Palestinian people. Conference recognises the importance of the work in the trade unions to win support for the Palestinian people, to campaign for recognition of their rights and to bring pressure to bear on the British Government to end its complicity in denying the rights of the Palestinian people.

Conference notes that 18 national trade unions affiliate to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) representing over 80% of the organised trade union movement and recognises the potential that this represents for building a mass campaign of solidarity.

Conference recognises the importance of developing the work in the trade union movement at national, regional and local level and encourages all members and branches to affiliate to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and to seek to take initiatives that will strengthen this work in 2008.

Conference welcomes the work carried out by PSC's Trade Union Advisory Committee and in particular the production of the Education Pack, which can be a valuable resource for work in regions and branches, Trades Union Council and with PSC.

Conference welcomes the organisation of the PSC led Trade Union Delegation of representatives of PCS, UNISON, UCU, UNITE (TGWU section) and TSSA, which visited the West Bank in January 2008. Branches and regions are encouraged to make the maximum use of this opportunity to organise meetings with delegates reporting back.

Conference supports the calling of a trade union conference in the coming year and urges the National Executive Council to work closely with PSC on this initiative and give it maximum publicity and support.

Conference therefore instructs the National Executive Council to:

1) continue to promote awareness about Palestine amongst UNISON's members, branches and regions by:

a) acting in solidarity with the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, including;
b) projects to support the Palestinian trade union movement in the Occupied Territories;
c) working with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organisations and encourage regions and branches to affiliate to PSC and invite speakers to address branches;
d) examining the investments of their members' pension funds with a view to calling for disinvestment from companies such as Caterpillar, involved in the occupation;
e) using UNISON publications and other campaign materials
f) Act on some of the recommendations from the PSC trade union delegation to Palestine such as:
i) actions focused on the occupation;
ii) organising fact-finding solidarity delegations to the occupied Palestinian Territories;
iii) conveying solidarity messages to those inside Israel organising against the occupation, the Wall, the
checkpoints and the blockade.

2) work with the TUC and its affiliated trade unions to effectively implement the 2006 Congress resolution, especially through the TUC/Foreign Office and the TUC/Department for International Development forums;

3) raise the issue of Palestine with UNISON's sister unions abroad and especially the global and European trade union federations to which UNISON is affiliated;

4) work with anti-occupation forces in Israel, such as Gush Shalom and Machson Watch;

5) make links with and give support to PGFTU endorsed worker's advice centres across the region;

6) continue to work with both PGFTU and the Israeli Histradut to promote civil society dialogue and the peace process;

7) campaign to bring about a concrete change in the policies of the British government and the European Union. A first goal should be:

a) an end to the arms trade between Israel and Britain and EU Member States leading to a mandatory United Nations Arms Embargo;
b) suspension of the European Union/Israel Association Agreement until Israel is in full compliance of its human rights clauses;
c) a ban on imports of all goods, and especially agricultural produce, from the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories;
d) recognition of the outcome of the last elections to the Palestinian Authority which were certified as free and fair by international observers;

8) Ensure that the union divests itself of any holdings in companies responsible for maintaining the illegal Wall condemned by the International Court of Justice.

Israel has won the European cup: a special relationship

JamieSW — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:58:32 +0000

During her sixth visit to Israel since last November's Annapolis summit, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained that the thousands of new housing units, built in Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land were damaging the peace talks with Palestinians. Meanwhile, at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Luxembourg, the same day, Slovenia's Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, announced that the EU had decided to upgrade its political and economic relations with Israel. Rupel, who chaired the EU-Israel Association Council meeting, the body overseeing the relationship, stated that the EU and Israel are "elevating" their relations to a new level of "more intense, more fruitful, more influential cooperation." Israel has now been granted the highest level of relations available to a non-member state.

The cooperation is based on the European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan, an initiative launched under the Dutch EU Presidency in 2004, aimed at bringing the neighboring countries closer to the EU. This European move might seem surprising since a progress report on the implementation of the European Neighborhood Policy stated clearly that "little concrete progress" has been made on issues raised between Israel and the EU, such as restrictions on movement, the construction of the West Bank wall (its route ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice), administrative detentions, the dismantling of settler "outposts," and the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Over the weekend, before the Monday announcement, the EU governments were still split between countries that wanted to link the upgrade to improvements in the moribund peace process or no link at all. A number of non-governmental organizations tried to press for linkages to Israel's atrocious human rights record and the end to the siege of Gaza but Israeli diplomatic efforts and various national interests of member states proved to be stronger. A compromise was found in a softened link to progress in the peace process and the by now utopian two-state solution.

For years, Israel has ignored EU concerns about settlement construction on occupied territories, Israeli human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, house demolitions and other breaches of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and international law. As recently as January, top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner called Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip "collective punishment," defined as a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

Tzipi Livni said that the talks were a milestone in EU-Israel relations, even though the agreement did not completely satisfy the original wishes of Israel, which also sought the introduction of regular summits with the EU and meetings with EU ministers. Yet the upgrade includes enhanced cooperation in political, economic, scientific, legal, cultural, educational and counter-terrorism matters and, according to Rupel, is based on "a mutual commitment to important common values."

Rupel added that "There are obvious reasons for which strengthened political cooperation between the EU and Israel should be understood as a cooperation which contributes to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." He did not address why Israel should be rewarded with unconditional ties, despite its violations, while Palestinians under Israeli military occupation should be subjected to harsh EU sanctions and a boycott that has intensified the suffering of the civilian population. Livni stated that "it is clear that Israel and Europe share the same values and the same interests."

Until now, under the EU's Neighborhood Policy Israel was the only country without a subcommittee on human rights.

Israel's diplomatic relations with most European states and EU institutions have improved significantly in recent years. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany have been the closest allies of Israel within the EU. Even before she became Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel told the Israeli daily Haaretz that "it is of the utmost importance that we preserve the vitality of relations and avoid turning them into something that is only formal and ceremonial."

On 19 May, at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen told Israel supporters at a symposium that he pressed the EU to intensify its relations with Israel and made good by inviting several Israeli government officials to The Hague. Earlier this year he told participants of the Herzilya conference in Israel that Israel's association with the European internal market could be deepened, as well as "its involvement in various European agencies, programs and working groups."

At that time, he said that "part and parcel of this process would be strengthening the human rights dialogue between Israel and the EU" but those familiar with past human rights dialogues in the context of the EU-Israel Association Agreement know that these are empty words as the Luxembourg announcement clearly demonstrates.

He also said that "halting the expansion of settlements and dismantling outposts would make a great difference in this respect" but the ongoing expansion of construction activities in a hundred settler colonies at this moment suggests that it didn't make any difference.

With East European newcomers, the EU has now a bigger share of friends of Israel. Notably the Czech Republic and Poland opposed any linking of the upgrade of relations with Israel to its behavior. With the return of right-wing governments in France and Italy, EU policy has tilted more towards the line of the Bush Administration. As France, led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, takes over the EU presidency on 1 July, it is expected that the tilt towards Israel will continue.

Till Death or Deportation

Ellie Keen — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In a London hospital Mahmoud Abu Rideh lies in a critical condition from a hunger strike against the Control Order conditions which he has lived under for more than three years. Following an attempt on his life more than a month ago, he has been refusing food, and much of the time even ice cubes or water for 31 days. Wheelchair-bound, he is now coughing and excreting blood. Disillusioned with the injustice he has encountered in Britain, all Mr Abu Rideh requests is allowance to leave the UK and be deported to Syria, or for his Control Order to be lifted.

Background

A veteran of Israeli gaols, Mahmoud Abu Rideh is a stateless Palestinian. He came to the United Kingdom as a refugee from Jordan and was granted indefinite leave to remain in November 1998. His family, including his six children, are British citizens.

The illusory promises of security expected from the self-proclaimed champion of human rights were shattered when police forced their way into Mr Abu Rideh’s home in December 2001. Offering nothing but allegations that he was a threat to national security, police immediately transported him to HMP Belmarsh. Due to the impact of his detention on his mental health, he was later transferred to HMP Broadmoor. Mr Abu Rideh was finally released in March 2005, following the House of Lords ruling against his detention, but his return to home was the beginning of a new kind of imprisonment- control orders, under which he was subjected to telephone reporting three times every 24 hours, day and night, daily reporting in person to a police station, electronic tagging [at the outset], a 12-hour daily curfew, meetings outside the house and visits to anyone in the house prohibited except of persons cleared by the Home Office. He has witnessed his children endure the resulting isolation, scrutiny and pressure.

Lord Carlile, the government's Independent Reviewer of anti-terrorist legislation has stated that Control Orders, which are reviewed on an annual basis, should not be used for longer than two years. Despite this, Mr Abu Rideh has been held under a Control Order for three years, and yet before the three years of Control Order existence he had already been interned for 3 and a half years indefinitely without trial. An emergency appeal against the Home Office's recent refusal to modify his conditions was held in the High Court a week ago but the result is still awaited.

Mr Abu Rideh has never been questioned by the authorities, charged with any offence, nor have his solicitors been shown any evidence of why he is considered a security risk.

Psychiatrists' reports over now seven years have shown Mr Abu Rideh to have become deeply paranoid, isolated and depressed. The Control Order regimes have driven several men beyond despair, to choose a return to a country where they are likely to be tortured, or to choose, like Mr Abu Rideh, to die. Appeals from his family, friends, religious authorities can no longer reach him. If his Control Order can be lifted as suddenly, and without explanation, as the one of Detainee ‘E’ was last week, his life would be saved.

TAKE ACTION FOR MAHMOUD ABU RIDEH NOW!

1. Write to the Home Office.
2. Write to Minister of Justice Jack Straw who promised to assist Mr Abu Rideh.
3. Sign our petition for Mr Abu Rideh at http://www.petitiononline.com/aburideh/petition.html
4. Send a message of support to Mahmoud and his family by emailing us at contact@cageprisoners.com or writing to: Cageprisoners, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3XX

See the Cage Prisoners site for sample letters

Eamonn McCann on the Raytheon Victory

Ellie Keen — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:33:58 +0000

On 9 August 2006, nine Northern Irish anti-war activists occupied the Derry offices of Raytheon, one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world, and destroyed its computers.

Their action was sparked by anger at Raytheon’s complicity in Israel’s bombing campaign against Lebanon.

The Raytheon 9 won a massive victory when they were acquitted of charges of criminal damage earlier this month.

Campaigning journalist Eamonn McCann was one of the nine protesters. He spoke to Socialist Worker about the case

There has been considerable controversy about Raytheon ever since the company announced that its factory was coming to Derry in 1999.

Raytheon specialises in producing hi-tech bombs, missiles and battlefield control systems.

It sells arms mainly to the US government. But it is also one of the largest suppliers of the Israeli army.

The immediate cause of our occupation of the Raytheon factory was the bombing of Qana in southern Lebanon on 30 July 2006.

This came at a time when the United Nations secretary general and even the archbishop of Canterbury were calling upon George Bush and Tony Blair to at least pose the idea of a ceasefire. But they adamantly refused.

They wanted Israel to finish crushing Hizbollah and the Lebanese resistance forces.

In the midst of this, a bomb was used to destroy an apartment building in Qana leading to the deaths of 28 people.

We were almost certain that this was a Raytheon bomb. In campaigning against Raytheon we’d acquired a great deal of knowledge about what it was producing and where it was selling it.

We held a meeting of the Derry anti-war coalition and decided to occupy the building. Our intention was not just to protest about what was happening in Lebanon – it was much more practical than that.

We believed that we could in effect decommission the factory, disrupt production and delay the ability of Israel to rain down further death on southern Lebanon.

We were aware that Israel was running short of some of the weapons that Raytheon was delivering and that encouraged us in our belief that we could have some effect on Israel’s ability to wage war.

We smashed Raytheon’s computers and used a fire extinguisher and other equipment to take out their communications hub.

The charges levelled against us were affray and criminal damage. The charge of affray was thrown out because key to the charge is that you severely frighten people by your behaviour.

We demonstrated in court that there was no evidence that we had frightened anybody.

Then we fought the criminal damage charge. Of course, we didn’t deny doing any of the things we were accused of.

In fact we said on the first day that we did all of the things we were accused of and that we would have done more if we could.

I stood up in the witness box and said that we regretted that we couldn’t have done more.

Our defence was not a moral defence – it was a political defence. We didn’t say that this was a protest because we were angry at Israel’s actions. We said that this was a genuine, serious effort to disrupt the supply of arms to Israel.

Our argument was that Israel was committing war crimes and that our action was intended to prevent this larger crime.

If you hear the sound of a child being brutalised in the house next door and you rush in to smash the door down and save the child, should you be charged with breaking and entering? Obviously not.

In the same way we were trying to save people in Lebanon who were being criminally attacked by Israel.

We presented lots of evidence. This included documents from the Norwegian government about why it had withdrawn investment from Raytheon, journalism by Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, and lots more to back up our argument.

We explained what Raytheon’s weapons were and what they were used for.

We were not required to establish as a certainty that these things were happening. We were required to show our belief that these things were happening.

And we showed that we had a genuine belief based on reasonable evidence.

The jury accepted that we believed that Israel was guilty of war crimes and that our action was intended to hamper this. We were vindicated.

I hope the case will lead to a wider campaign over Raytheon. In light of the court’s decision, there is now a case for Raytheon to be investigated to determine whether it is a criminal enterprise.’

For more information on the case go to www.raytheon9.org