Israelis carry out West Bank ‘execution’

Israelis carry out West Bank ‘execution’

By Harvey Morris in Ramallah
Published: May 30 2007 20:32 | Last updated: May 30 2007 20:32

An Israeli undercover squad shot dead an off-duty Palestinian security man at point-blank range during a daylight raid on Ramallah in what Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian information minister present at the scene, on Wednesday described as an extrajudicial execution.

• Uniformed soldiers then fired into the body of Mohamed Abdul-Halim, 24, and kicked him to make sure he was dead, according to witnesses who have given statements to a local human rights organisation.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli military, which did not circulate its customary written statement on the incident, said in answer to questions that the Israeli squad

“identified an armed man who was posing a threat to the force and fired at him”.

The spokeswoman would not say whether the dead man was a specific Israeli target.

Lieutenant Halim belonged to Force-17, an official security unit loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah president. A spokesman for the presidency said he was on leave at the time.

The witnesses said Lt. Halim was in civilian clothes, wore a holstered service weapon and was carrying an AK-47 as he left the Nazareth restaurant in the West Bank city’s main shopping street at around 5.45pm on Tuesday afternoon.

Samer Burnat, a taxi driver, said his vehicle was forced to a halt by a white van with Palestinian plates.

“The rear doors burst open. There were uniformed Israeli soldiers in the back. They shouted at the man to stop but instantly opened fire as he turned away from them. They hit him once in the back of the head and once in the neck.”

• He insisted Lt. Halim made no attempt to use his weapons and had his back to the Israelis when they opened fire.
• Lt. Halim’s body displayed two bullet wounds to the back of the head and others to his back and rear left leg.
  
• Doctors determined he had been shot 24 times.
  
• Mr Burnat has signed an affidavit with the al-Haq human rights organisation whose Ramallah offices overlook the scene of the shooting.

Israel has resumed airborne targeted assassinations against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks. It has also stepped up operations in the West Bank in which suspects alleged to be members of the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades have been killed.

The Ramallah operation was unusual in that it took place in broad daylight in a busy street within yards of high-profile eyewitnesses.

Dr Barghouti, an independent member of the Palestinian Authority coalition cabinet and head of a medical charity, was in nearby offices when shooting broke out.

“What happened is very contradictory with the Israeli story,” he told the FT. “He was trying to get away. There was no exchange of fire.”

The information minister, whose car was hit by Israeli fire, added:

“The Israeli army decided this person must die and acted as judge and executioner.”

Hassan Fattouh, employee of the Nazareth restaurant, said Mr Halim was a regular customer.

• The undercover squad’s van was parked outside the premises as he left with a companion.
• Israeli undercover personnel in civilian clothes put on police baseball caps as they left their vehicles and covered their faces.
• Bystanders were bundled into nearby premises, or handcuffed in the street.
  
• The Israelis left with backup from military vehicles and under cover of gunfire and smoke grenades. Seven bystanders suffered injuries.

Al-Haq, supported by European funding, is collecting evidence in the case. Frank Wall, its legal researcher, said that in five fatal shootings since the start of the year, al-Haq had yet to receive a response from the Israeli military to its calls for inquiries.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Mairead Corrigan Maguire’s Address to EU Parliament

PeoplesGeography

Mairead Corrigan Maguire’s Address to EU Parliament

May 29th, 2007
peoplesgeography

NEW! Transcript appended, with great thanks to Dean.

An inspirational short address by Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire to the EU Parliament’s

“50 years of the EU: Nobel Prize winners celebrate at the European Parliament”

event earlier this month.

Having just returned from Palestine after participating in peaceful civil protest, the co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize speaks on her role in non-violent activism in Palestine with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, Europe’s responsibility to promote peace by recognising the Palestinian government; and supporting Gorbachev’s Charter for a World Without Violence.

She takes the EU to task directly for not recognising the democratically elected choice of Hamas.

Thanks to righthand for the links. RT: 5:34. This audio snippet is also available at the original url via the EU Parliament site here. The transcript follows after the ‘More’ break.

TRANSCRIPT:

Mr. President and my dear friends, it’s a great honour to be speaking to you this afternoon. I want to thank the European Parliament and many of the parliamentarians here for your tremendous solidarity with the people of Northern Ireland in their struggle to solve their problem non-violently. I think we can say that this is surely the day for celebration and to give thanks, because we are on our way to peace. Whilst it would be very arrogant of us if we would say that we have all answers to deep ethnic political conflicts around the world, I think we can rightly say that we have some of the answers, and that we want to learn from others around the world as we struggle to build really genuine vibrant democracy in our country.

One of the lessons that we can share with yas is that para-militarism and militarism, armed struggles, terrorism do not solve deep ethnic political problems. And that message applies for people in Northern Ireland, people in the Middle East, people in the Asian countries. It applies everywhere around our world today as we more and more are challenged with deep ethnic political problems and the weapons that we have developed are no longer any use to us.

After all, the London, Dublin and Washington governments did not drop a bomb on West Belfast when we were struggling with terrorists, thank God. Why should they drop a bomb in Afghanistan and Iraq when they are struggling with the same problems.

There are double standards going on here and I think we need to be very honest. I have just come back with my colleague Ann Patterson from Palestine. We joined with the nonviolent resistance movement of the Palestinian people and the Israeli activists in order to do a nonviolent protest to ask that international law be upheld and that the apartheid wall…. And let’s face it, what the Israelis are doing in Palestine is building an apartheid system. And the world remains silent. Did the world remained silent when there was apartheid built in South Africa? No it did not.

The European Parliament has a responsibility to do more than just pay lip service and rhetoric. It needs to act. It should immediately lift the economic and political restrictions put on against the Palestinian elected authority. The Palestinians themselves elected - eighty percent, - their democratic right - to vote to elect Hamas. And what did you do? You collectively punished the whole Palestinian people who are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty.

This will not answer the Israeli Palestinian problem. I have been working for many years with the Israeli and the Palestinian activists who want a solution to the problem, and you have an ability to help that as the European Parliament. Recognize the Palestinian Authority. Call that the occupation of Palestine - it’s the fortieth anniversary on the 8th of June - call that the occupation of Palestine be ended. And demand that the Israeli government move into genuine dialogue with the duly elected Palestinians and get this problem solved.

We have great hope, and I place great hope in you as elected politicians. Your, Israeli, and Palestinian friends need you because they’re caught in a cycle they cannot break, but you can help them. The Arab world can help. The American and British administration could help them. You can help them if you do one thing - if you recognize the truth that only where there is justice can there be genuine peace.

I would like to share a brief bit of hope with you. President Gorbachev started a few years ago putting together a draft of a charter for a World without Violence. And he believes that and he brought 15 Nobel laureates on board to sign this charter and it will be launched in Rome. But we’re also trying to launch it everywhere we can.

What does this charter for a world without violence say? It says that violence is a preventable disease. That’s your challenge. To build a non-killing, non-violent Europe. To demand an end to nuclear weapons. To demand an end to war. To stop the militarization of Europe and enter in building a nonviolent Europe and a nonviolent world.

Will 50 years now be ahead of us to do it? I don’t know I’ll make it that long. Well I hope so. That’s your challenge for the future. To stand for values, for ethical values. To stand for the fact that every human life is sacred and we do not need to kill each other.

Thank you.

Posted in
Peace and Justice Movement, Empire, War and Terror, Hegemon-watch,
Peace education, Speeches and addresses, Militarism general, Israel Watch,
Palestine Peace, Ireland, People, Europe, Israel, Palestine, Audio.

Jordan: Israel must stop excavations in Old City

Jordan: Israel must stop excavations in Old City
May. 30, 2007 20:15
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Jordanian official called on Israel Wednesday to stop archaeological excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, the official Petra news agency reported.

Israel has been carrying out excavations on a ramp leading up to a disputed holy site. The digging has sparked clashes between police and Muslims in Jerusalem and touched off fierce criticism throughout the Muslim world.

"Israel must stop its continuos practices and measures to Judaize the city and change its Arab and Islamic characteristics,"

said Abdullah Kanaan, the head of Jordan's Royal Committee for Jerusalem's Affairs.

Muslims fear the work will harm Islamic shrines on the hilltop compound, which is known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, and whose fate is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

_____________

Al-Aqsa Mosque (English: The Farthest mosque) is the general and oldest name for the compound of Islamic religious buildings in Jerusalem that includes al-Aqsa congregation mosque and the Dome of the Rock. It is almost universally considered the third holiest site in Islam. The term Al-Aqsa Mosque was coined in the Quran:

Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock is an Islamic shrine in what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary or the Temple Mount — it remains one of the best known landmarks of Jerusalem. It was built between 687 and 691 by the 9^th Caliph, Abd al-Malik. For centuries, European travellers have called it the Mosque of Umar.

West. Bank gunmen move from petty crime to organized extortion

West. Bank gunmen move from petty crime to organized extortion
May. 30, 2007 5:18 | Updated May. 30, 2007 5:20
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

One Palestinian merchant sold his shops and is preparing to emigrate after gunmen tried to extort 50,000 shekels ($12,500) from him. Another entrepreneur ended up in the hospital with severe beating injuries after refusing to pay up.

Blackmail of wealthy business people is the latest tactic of some Palestinian armed groups, who have increasingly turned to crime to fund their armed groups, terrorizing entire cities as intimidated police stand by.

The extortionists often have ties to the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of moderate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, or even serve in the security forces.

• Al Aksa was formed in 2000, at the start of the second intifada, and its hundreds of members were involved in shooting attacks against Israel. However, with the uprising fading and lawlessness spreading, some of the gunmen have resorted to crime. They have progressed from petty theft and robberies to more sophisticated blackmail.

• In contrast, Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives are generally not involved in criminal activity, both because of religious constraints and because of generous funding by their groups.

Blackmail is widespread in the West Bank city of Nablus, an Al Aksa stronghold, said human rights researcher Ziad Othman.

"Most of the business people are complaining that they are being blackmailed," Othman said. "For example, a guy would come to a factory or company in Nablus, meet the manager and ask him for money to buy a rifle."

One Nablus merchant, who would only give a first name, Omar, for fear of retribution, said three men carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles knocked on the door of his house recently, bundled him into a stolen BMW and forced him to sign a note saying he owed them 50,000 shekels. He said the extortionists had done their research, targeting him after learning he had just completed a profitable deal.

Omar said his complaint to the authorities, including the district governor and the police chief, proved fruitless, and he's decided to leave the West Bank for good. He declined to say where he was heading.

"I've started cashing in my assets," he said. "This is no place for me to live and work."

Bassem Khoury, the head of the Palestinian Federation of Industries, said extortion has become commonplace. A member of the federation was ordered by gunmen to pay them $30,000 (€22,000), Khoury said.

The Nablus district governor, Kamal Alsheikh, said most victims are afraid to come forward, making it difficult for authorities to crack down.

A Nablus businessman who refused to pay 10,000 Jordanian dinars ($14,000 or €10,350) to blackmailers was beaten and ended up in the hospital.

"I visited him in the hospital and begged him to say who was behind it, but he refused," Alsheikh said.

Rising unemployment is pushing more and more young people into the ranks of armed gangs.

Fatah lawmaker Ahmed Shraim said that if the security forces don't stop the extortionists,

"the Palestinian economy will collapse because all businessmen will leave."

At least 30,000 Palestinians applied for immigration papers at foreign representative offices in Ramallah in the past year, Khoury said. Canada, Egypt, and Arab Gulf countries are popular destinations.

Zakariya Zubeidi, a leading Al Aksa gunman in the West Bank town of Jenin, acknowledged that some Fatah fighters are involved in crime. However, he tried to shift blame, saying members of the security forces were behind much of the extortion.

Some Al Aksa groups have given themselves new names to distinguish themselves from the criminal gangs. Local leader Bassem Abu Sariyeh calls his group of three dozen gunmen in Nablus's old city the "Knights of the Night" to set it apart.

Abu Sariyeh said he fears for the future of "because many ... cause shame to the name of the brigade.

______________

The Democrats and the "Human Shields" Myth

The Democrats and the "Human Shields" Myth
Stephen Zunes
May 15, 2007
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco, IPS

Israelis from across the political spectrum, emboldened by the interim report from the government’s Winograd Commission, which investigated Israel’s ill-fated assault on Lebanon, are expressing regrets over last summer’s conflict with their northern neighbor. Uproar over the way a relatively minor border incident managed to escalate into a full-scale war is leading to demands for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation and other top government officials are under pressure or stepping down.

Investigations by independent human rights groups during last summer’s fighting did not find clear evidence that Hezbollah deliberately used civilians to shield their personnel or equipment from Israeli strikes. For example, a detailed study published at the end of the fighting in August by Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that they had found

“no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.”

Similarly, Amnesty International, in a well-documented report published in November observed,

“While the presence of Hizbullah’s fighters and short-range weapons within civilian areas is not contested, this in itself is not conclusive evidence of intent to use civilians as ‘human shields’, any more than the presence of Israeli soldiers in a kibbutz is in itself evidence of the same war crime.”

Meanwhile, in the United States Congress, leaders of both parties are not only still defending Israel’s decision to go to war, but its conduct of the war as well.

During the five weeks of fighting, 119 Israeli soldiers and 43 Israeli civilians were killed. It was the Lebanese who suffered the most, however. Massive Israeli bombardments took the lives of more than 1,100 people, the vast majority of whom were innocent civilians, and caused more than $3.5 billion in damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure and widespread environmental damage.

Moral and Legal Responsibility

Yet Congress continues to justify last summer’s widespread attacks on civilian targets by the U.S.-supplied Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) by claiming that Hezbollah used the Lebanese civilian population as “human shields,” thereby seeking to protect America’s closest Middle East ally from its moral and legal responsibility for its war crimes.

For example, on April 25, the House of Representatives passed by a near-unanimous voice vote a resolution (H. Res. 125) claiming that

“throughout the summer of 2006 conflict with the State of Israel, Hezbollah forces utilized human shields to protect themselves from counterattacks by Israeli forces.”

In defense of the Bush administration’s controversial backing of Israel’s 35-day assault on Lebanon, the Democratic-led House cited President George W. Bush’s claim that

“Hezbollah terrorists used Lebanese civilians as human shields, sacrificing the innocent in an effort to protect themselves from Israeli response”

and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s assertion that

“Hezbollah and its sponsors have brought devastation upon the people of Lebanon, … exploiting them as human shields.”

In an effort to make the case that it was Lebanese, not the Israeli armed forces, who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese civilians, the resolution goes as far as claiming that

“the majority of civilian casualties of that conflict might have been avoided and civilian lives saved had Hezbollah not employed this tactic.”

Similarly, as Israeli peace activists began protests against their country’s attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon last summer, the House of Representatives passed a resolution (H. Res. 921) defending the Israeli government’s controversial policies, praising

“Israel's longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss” and welcoming “Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.”

The resolution, co-sponsored by Tom Lantos (D-CA) – whom the Democrats have subsequently elected to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee – passed by a 410-8 vote with four abstentions, also condemned Hezbollah for

“cynically exploiting civilian populations as shields, locating their equipment and bases of operation, including their rockets and other armaments, amidst civilian populations, including in homes and mosques.”

The problem is that it appears that none of these claims appear to be true.

No Evidence Found

Investigations by independent human rights groups during last summer’s fighting did not find clear evidence that Hezbollah deliberately used civilians to shield their personnel or equipment from Israeli strikes. For example, a detailed study published at the end of the fighting in August by Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that they had found

“no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.”

Similarly, Amnesty International, in a well-documented report published in November observed,

“While the presence of Hizbullah’s fighters and short-range weapons within civilian areas is not contested, this in itself is not conclusive evidence of intent to use civilians as ‘human shields’, any more than the presence of Israeli soldiers in a kibbutz is in itself evidence of the same war crime.”

Human rights groups noted that the Hezbollah militia–which, like most militias, is a volunteer force whose members lived with their families – did store weapons in or near homes and some of the militia’s hundreds of rocket launchers were found within populated areas, which are indeed violations of international humanitarian law since such practices put civilians at risk. However, Amnesty reported that while

“The available evidence suggests that in at least some cases Katyushas were stored within villages and fired from civilian areas,” it was only long after most of the civilian population had been evacuated and that it was “not apparent that civilians were present and used as ‘human shields’.”

As Human Rights Watch noted, even the presence of armed personnel and weapons near civilian areas

“does not release Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian property during military operations.”

Similarly, Amnesty International noted how Protocol I of the Fourth Geneva Convention also makes it clear that even if one side is shielding itself behind civilians, such a violation

“shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians.”

Wanton Attacks on Civilian Areas

In any case, the vast majority of Israeli strikes in civilian areas were nowhere near Hezbollah military activity. As Human Rights Watch noted,

“In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians.”

Similarly, Amnesty International reported that Israeli forces

“carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on a large scale,” including “those on civilian infrastructure” and “direct attacks on civilian objects.”

Furthermore, they reported that

“These attacks seem to have been aimed at inflicting a form of collective punishment on Lebanon’s people” and that “based on the available evidence and the absence of an adequate or any explanation from the Israeli authorities for so many attacks by their forces causing civilian deaths and destruction, when no evidence of Hizbullah military activities was apparent, it seems clear that Israeli forces consistently failed to adopt necessary precautionary measures.”

Though subsequent investigations have only reconfirmed that the large numbers of civilian casualties in Lebanon were a result of actions by the government of Israel, not Hezbollah, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), in a debate on the House floor on April 25 insisted that

“The key reason that civilian areas were destroyed was the cynical strategy of Hezbollah guerrillas to stage their attacks from the middle of towns and residential areas” and that “the loss of civilian life in Lebanon was due solely to Hezbollah’s cruel and uncivilized use of civilian areas as military bases.”

Kucinich Raised Concerns

When Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) raised concerns about Israel’s use of cluster bombs in civilian areas which have led to the deaths of scores of Lebanese children both during and subsequent to last summer’s fighting, Rep. Ackerman responded by insisting that these dangerous anti-personnel weapons were “used in self-defense.”

Despite Ackerman’s eagerness to defend and cover-up for war crimes by this important Middle Eastern ally of the United States, the Democrats have elected him chairman of the important House Subcommittee on the Middle East, indicative that the new majority party shares their Republican counterparts’ lack of respect for international humanitarian law.

My efforts to ascertain where members of Congress get information to back up their defense of Israeli war crimes have revealed a rather startling inclination to rely on rather dubious right-wing sources for information. For example, following a speech in March, in which Senator Barack Obama repeated the myth that Hezbollah had used “innocent people as shields,” I contacted his spokesman as to what evidence the presidential hopeful had to make such charges. He referred me to a report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, a right-wing Israeli think tank headed by the former chief of the Mossad which maintains close ties to the Israeli government. Despite repeated requests, Obama’s office was unable to provide any other source supporting the senator’s charge. This underscores serious concerns among human rights activists that Obama and other leading Democrats, like President Bush, have the same propensity to believe the findings of ideologically-driven right-wing think tanks above those of objective scholarship, reputable journalists, or principled human rights groups and other nonpartisan organizations.

Israel’s Use of Human Shields

Ironically, while Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other reputable human rights organizations–including the Israeli group B'tselem–have demonstrated that, while there is little conclusive evidence that the Hezbollah militia used human shields as a calculated policy, the Israeli Defense Forces have used this illegal manoeuvre as a standard practice, particularly earlier this decade following a right-wing coalition coming to power in Israel in early 2001. A recent HRW report notes how

“Human Rights Watch and Israeli and Palestinian organizations documented numerous cases of Israeli forces using Palestinian civilians as human shields.”

Similarly, Amnesty International has reported how Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank

“have often used Palestinians effectively as human shields, endangering their lives in violation of international humanitarian law.

There have been no Congressional resolutions condemning Israel’s use of human shields, however. Congressional Democrats essentially share the Bush administration’s practice that if you are perceived as an adversary, your crimes will be exaggerated or even manufactured, while it you are perceived as an ally, your crimes will be covered up.

During the April 25 debate over the resolution condemning Hezbollah for its alleged use of human shields, Representative Dan Issa (R-CA)–a supporter of the measure–pointed out that

“The use of human shields in the Middle East is unfortunately widespread”

and showed a series of photographs of Israeli forces using Arab civilians as shields, including a 2004 photograph of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy tied to the hood of an Israeli police jeep in the West Bank. In response, Ackerman claimed that soldiers responsible

“were charged, and the court found them guilty, and the court banned it.”

In reality, however, while the Israeli Supreme Court did ban the use of human shields in 2005, no soldiers have been sentenced for engaging in this illegal practice. To the House Democrats’ chief spokesman on U.S. Middle East policy, however, the important distinction is that there is

“a difference in moral values” between the Arab “perpetrators” and the Israeli “victims” whose only fault is that they may occasionally “go too far . . . in the pursuit of terrorists and evildoers.”

From the perspective of Ackerman and most of his colleagues, despite the fact that the majority of Israelis killed in last summer’s fighting were soldiers and the vast majority of Lebanese killed were civilians, Hezbollah’s violence constitutes “terrorism” whereas the Israelis’ violence constitutes “self-defense.” In taking this position, these lawmakers are shielding the United States–which provided Israel with most of the ordinance and delivery systems responsible for the carnage and which for weeks blocked a cease fire from going into effect– rom its moral and legal responsibility as well. Indeed, according to this bipartisan viewpoint, neither the United States nor its ally bears any blame for the slaughter of hundreds of Lebanese civilians, since those deaths were actually the fault of their fellow Lebanese.

Discrediting the Human Rights Community

Now having the majority in Congress, the Democrats appear to have made it a priority to use their position to discredit reputable human rights groups in an effort to defend the policies of important U.S. allies. Indeed, some leading Democrats, in a desperate effort to defend human rights abuses by the U.S.-backed Israeli government, have attacked human rights groups directly. For example, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), a member of the Democratic Leadership Team, has said that

“a lot of those organizations, Amnesty International in particular, have always had bias against Israel.”

In reality, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and similar groups with a universal human rights agenda, rather than demonstrating any bias against Israel or any other state, have been quite rigorous in their uniform standards of reporting human rights abuses. Not only has Amnesty International been outspoken against human rights abuses by Middle Eastern governments opposed by the United States and Israel–such as Syria and Iran–but Amnesty also correctly concluded that Hezbollah, in the fighting last summer, had also

“committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes.”

HRW demonstrated how

“the scale of Hizbullah’s rocket attacks on towns and villages in northern Israel, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, together with statements by Hizbullah’s leader, showed that Hizbullah carried out direct attacks on civilians as well as indiscriminate attacks and attacks on the civilian population as reprisal.”

Human rights groups are not the only target of Congress in its desperate effort to advance Bush’s Middle East policy agenda. Members also appear determined to attack the press for daring to report war crimes by America’s most important Middle East ally. For example, House Resolution 125 complains that

“the news media made constant mention of civilian casualties but rarely pointed to the culpability...of Hezbollah for their endangerment of such civilians.”

In reality, media watchdog groups noted that the American news media actually tended to underplay the civilian casualties in Lebanon and uncritically repeated Israeli claims that Hezbollah was to blame.

Why Democrats Defend War Crimes

Despite claims to the contrary by some Democratic members of Congress, it is not likely that their support for Israel’s war on Lebanon has been motivated by a sincere desire to show solidarity with Israel since–as the Winograd Commission’s report demonstrated–the war actually harmed Israel’s legitimate security interests. The popular reaction in Lebanon to the widespread killing of Lebanese civilians by U.S.-backed Israeli forces and the successes by the Hezbollah in resisting the IDF ground offensive has led to a dramatic increase in popular support with Lebanon and throughout the Middle East of the radical and fanatically anti-Israel Shiite group.

In defending Israel’s attacks against innocent Arab civilians, the Democrats and their Republican allies will only embolden hard-liners in Israel to use such immoral, illegal and counter-productive tactics in the future.

Nor do claims by apologists for Congressional supporters of such resolutions that to oppose Israel’s illegal and self-destructive assault on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure would endanger their chances of re-election. Polls showed that a majority of Americans found Israel’s assault on Lebanon last summer at best to have been excessive and every one of the 11 Democratic members of the House who refused to support H. Res. 921 in July 2006 supporting Israel’s attacks on Lebanon was re-elected in November by a bigger margin than they were two years earlier.

Perhaps the ultimate reason is that the Democrats’ agenda is essentially the same as the Republican administration and their Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill: to cover up for abuses of international humanitarian law by the United States and its allies and discredit human rights organizations that challenge these practices as a means of enhancing the hegemonic role of the United States in the Middle East and elsewhere.

In insisting that the large number of civilian casualties in Lebanon were a result of Hezbollah using the civilian population as human shields, Congress can try to make the case that–contrary to the findings of reputable human rights groups, United Nations agencies and others – Israel’s actions were not illegal. Otherwise, under U.S. arms control laws, the United States would be forced to restrict some of the lucrative arms exports to Israel by the politically powerful arms industry.

In addition, by challenging the credibility of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in their reports on Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, their reports on U.S. violations of international humanitarian law in Iraq and Afghanistan are less likely to be taken seriously by the American public. Similarly, by depicting Arab militias as sinister terrorists who use innocent civilians as shields, it makes it easier for the United States and its allies–which rely heavily on air power in their counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the heavy civilian casualties that result -- to deny any legal or moral responsibility, even though the death toll from such air strikes greatly surpasses the numbers of civilians killed by the so-called “terrorists.”

Just as the American and Israeli people are beginning to challenge the morality and utility of their respective governments’ heavy-handed use of military power to address complex political challenges, the Democrats have decided to join the Republicans in rushing to defend it. As a result, it is imperative for peace and human rights groups to challenge the Democrats in Congress who continue to defend Israeli war crimes as vigorously as we do the Bush administration and Republican members of Congress.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the Foreign Policy In Focus Middle East editor.

Former Kach members arrested for racist graffiti

'

Former Kach members arrested for racist graffiti

May. 29, 2007 9:12

By JPOST.COM STAFF

Two former members of the ultra-nationalist Kach party, who had allegedly sprayed graffiti that called for the expulsion of Arabs and the annihilation of a Gaza village, were arrested early Tuesday morning in Sderot, Israel Radio reported.

The two were arrested under the suspicion of vandalizing property after they reportedly sprayed the words

"Kahane was right. There is a solution [and it is] to expel the Arab enemy," and "we must erase Beit Hanun."

The Kach movement - designated a terror organization and outlawed 18 years ago - revealed last week that it intends to petition the High Court of Justice to reinstate its legal status and allow its members to run for the Knesset.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, the movement's founder, was a militant proponent of forcing Israel's Arab population to leave the country.

Kach logo spraypainted on a cement block. Hebrew script reads, "Kahana Hai": "Kahane Lives"

The United States Department of State designates the group as a terrorist organization and says that it has engaged in terrorist activity by

• using explosives or fire arms with intent to endanger the safety of individuals or cause substantial damage to property

• threatening and conspiring to carry out assassinations

• soliciting funds and members for a terrorist organization

The State Department also says that the group is suspected of involvement in a number of low-level attacks since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence provides the following description of Kach and Kahane Chai:

Stated goal is to restore the biblical state of Israel. Kach (founded by radical Israeli- American rabbi Meir Kahane) and its offshoot Kahane Chai, which means “Kahane Lives,” (founded by Meir Kahane’s son Binyamin following his father’s assassination in the United States) were declared terrorist organizations in March 1994 by the Israeli Cabinet under the 1948 Terrorism Law.

This followed the groups’ statements in support of Dr. Baruch Goldstein’s attack in February 1994 on the al-Ibrahimi Mosque— Goldstein was affiliated with Kach—and their verbal attacks on the Israeli Government. Palestinian gunmen killed Binyamin Kahane and his wife in a drive-by shooting in December 2000 in the West Bank. The group has organized protests against the Israeli Government.

Kach has harassed and threatened Arabs, Palestinians, and Israeli Government officials, and has vowed revenge for the deaths of Binyamin Kahane and his wife. These organizations are suspected of involvement in a number of low-level attacks since the start of the al-Aqsa intifadah.

In April 2002, Israeli police arrested a former Kach spokesman in connection with an attempt to leave an explosive-packed trailer outside a Palestinian girls’ school and hospital in East Jerusalem. However, reports vary on Kach’s involvement with this plot. The planned July 20, 2005 Israeli withdrawal of settlers from the Gaza and parts of the West Bank has heightened concerns that ultranationalists may perpetrate attacks against Palestinians or attempt to assassinate Israeli leaders.

In the 2003 elections former Kach leader Baruch Marzel ran as number two on the Herut – The National Movement party list. The party narrowly missed obtaining a seat. In 2004 he founded the Jewish National Front, which gained 24,824 votes in the 2006 elections - about 0.7% of the populace, and about 40% of the minimal number of votes required for entry to the Knesset.

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Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks

Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks
Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
Tuesday October 17, 2006
The Guardian

Palestinian doctors wheel the body of a militant killed during an Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and deep internal wounds often resulting in amputations or death.

The injuries were first seen in July, when the Israeli military launched a series of operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries from shells or bullets, there were no large shrapnel pieces found in the patients' bodies and there appeared to be a "dusting" on severely damaged internal organs.

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at Shifa hospital, the main casualty hospital in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on the internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), a new experimental weapon that causes a powerful blast but in a localised area. The Dime, while causing severe injuries to its target, is intended to limit what the defence industry calls "collateral damage."

In Gaza, Dr Saqa'a said the small pieces of shrapnel found in patients' bodies did not show up under x-ray.

"We are used to seeing shrapnel penetrate the body making localised damage. Now we didn't see shrapnel, but we found the destruction,"

he said.

Most of the injuries were around the abdomen, nearly a metre up from the ground, he said. The doctors also found that an injured patient who had been stabilised after one or two days, might suddenly die.

"The patient dies without any apparent scientific cause," he said. "So far we don't know why."

At the Kamal Odwan Hospital, in Beit Lahiya, deputy director Saied Jouda, said he had found similar injuries.

"We don't know what it means - new weapons or something new added to a previous weapon," he said. "We had patients who died after stabilisation and that is very unusual."

He too found patients with severe internal injuries without signs of any large shrapnel pieces. Often there was severe burning.

"There was burning, big raw areas of charred flesh," he said. "This must be related to the type of explosive material."

Photographs of some of the dead from Shifa hospital showed bodies that had been melted and blackened beyond recognition. Others showed internal bleeding without signs of shrapnel wounds. In several cases doctors amputated badly burnt limbs.

At least 250 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the latest military operations began and hundreds more have been injured. Neither of the doctors could give exact figures for the numbers of patients suffering the new injuries, although both said that most of those brought in during July showed signs of these injuries.

Dr Saqa'a of the Shifa hospital said the injuries occurred over a six-week period beginning in late June and running until early August, while Dr Jouda from Kamal Odwan hospital said he believed patients admitted even in recent days still showed signs of these unusual injuries.

The health ministry in Gaza has reported these injuries came from an "unprecedented type of projectile," and also noted severe burning and badly damaged internal organs, often around the abdomen. It called for an investigation into the cause of the wounds.

"You have complete burns that lead to amputation. You find shrapnel entering the body and leaving very, very small holes. We have never seen this before,"

said Khalid Radi, a spokesman at the health ministry.

Tissue samples from patients in Gaza were given to journalists from the Italian television channel RAI. In a documentary shown last week, the channel said the injuries appeared similar to the effects of the Dime. An Italian laboratory that analysed the samples reportedly said its results were "compatible with the hypothesis" that a Dime weapon was involved.

The weapon is new and in the US is still in the early stages of development. It has a carbon-fibre casing and contains fine tungsten particles rather than ordinary metal shrapnel. It causes a very powerful blast, but with a much more limited radius than other explosives.

However, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) denies the use of Dime weapons.

"The defence establishment is investing considerable effort to develop weaponry in order to minimise the risk of injury to innocent civilians. With regard to allegations of the use of Dime weaponry, the IDF denies the possession or use of such weapons,"

the military said in a statement.

"Due to operational reasons, the IDF cannot specify the types and use of weapons in its possession. In addition it should be emphasised that the IDF only uses weapons in accordance with the international law."

Some Israeli military experts have also dismissed the suggestion that a Dime weapon is involved. Isaac Ben-Israel, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a retired Israel air force general who was involved in weapons development, had seen some of the photographs of the dead and injured and said he believed the wounds came from ordinary explosives.

"I can tell you surely that no one in Israel ever developed such a Dime weapon. It doesn't exist at all,"

he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which monitors weapons used in conflicts, said it had heard reports of similar injuries from Gaza and was collecting information on the case.

"We haven't come to any sort of conclusion about what kind of weapon it was,"

said Bernard Barrett, an ICRC spokesman.

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Answers.com

Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) is an experimental type of explosive that has a relatively small but effective blast radius. It is intended to be used in urban areas. The phrase 'inert metal' refers to the metal's non-involvement in producing the blast (as opposed to, for example using, aluminium powder to increase blast strength), rather than the metal being chemically or biologically inert.

The explosive casing is made of carbon fibre which disintegrates upon detonation (vs. the shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal casing). The explosive fill is mixed with a very dense powder of a heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) such as cobalt and nickel or iron. The HMTA powder acts a micro-shrapnel which is very lethal at close range (~4 meters or 12 feet), but loses momentum very quickly due to air resistance. The downward-facing direction of the blast means that survivors close to the lethal zone may have their legs amputated (slicing through bone and soft tissue) and can subsequently contract cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma) from the HMTA micro-shrapnel embedded in their body tissue.

Although the relatively small radius of destruction reduces the area over which casualties may occur, the increased lethality close to the point of explosion and use in urban areas may actually increase the number of unintended casualties (so- called "collateral damage"). In addition to this the toxic/carcinogenic effects of the HMTA may cause increased deaths in those who survive the initial blast or in people who inhale the dust.

The carcinogenic effects of heavy metal tungsten alloys (HMTA) have been studied by the U.S. Armed Forces since at least 2000 (along with depleted uranium (DU)). These alloys were found to cause neoplastic transformations of human osteoblast cells:

Two common HMTA alloys

• rWNiCo: tungsten (91-93%), nickel (3-5%) and cobalt (2-4%)
• rWNiFe: tungsten (91-93%), nickel (3-5%) and iron (2-4%)

A more recent U.S. Department of Health study in 2005 found that HMTA shrapnel rapidly induces rhabdomyosarcoma cancers in rats.

As reported in French national newspaper Le Monde, according to a team of journalists from the Italian State radio-television RAI, DIME-type bombs were being used in the Gaza strip by the Israeli army, Tsahal, against Palestinians during July/August 2006. The investigation was performed by analysing samples of metals found in the victim's bodies and examining the unusual wounds. Israel denied possessing or using such weapons.

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