"Þetta eru spennandi tímar fyrir sjálfstæðisflokkinn."

Hvað er svona mikilvægt við valið á þessum landsfundarfulltrúum?  Þjóðinni finnst mun mikilvægara að koma ríkisstjórninni frá!  Það er mikilvægt!  Ekki landsfundur Sjálfgræðisflokksins!

Bölvuð sé minning nýfrjálshyggjunnar, og allt sem henni tengist!

Björn: Mikilvægt að búið sé að velja landsfundarfulltrúa

Merkileg skrif! Ætli manninum leiðist heima hjá sér?

Ætli geti verið að þingmönnunum hafi þótt lögreglumennirnir ganga of langt í tuddaskapnum.  Annars er vert að velta fyrir sér hvaða illkvittna tilgang BB hefur með þessum skrifum sínum.  Svo er það náttúrulega þannig að fleiri er BB mega hafa skoðun á störfum lögreglunnar og framgöngu. 

Ef lögreglusambandinu hans BB líkar ekki í BSRB eiga þeir að ganga úr því.  Ætli þeirra verði sárt saknað?  Átti að koma höggi á Ögmund með svona bulli?

BB finnst sjálfsagt allt í lagi, að lögreglumennirnir hans hræði börn, handleggsbrjóti miðaldra mann, velti um koll konum á sjötugsaldri, hindri fjölmiðlamenn að störfum, sprauti heilsuspillandi úða framan í asmasjúklinga o.s.frv. En þingmenn mega ekki skamma strákana hans BB.  Skárri er það nú viðkvæmnin.  Ég hefði haldið að jafn illa innrættur einstaklingur hefði harðari skráp!

Segir þingmenn VG hafa veist að lögreglu

Nýfrjálshyggjusinna í formannsstólinn. Kutarnir brýndir.

Mikið líst mér vel á þennan lista nýfrjálshyggjusinna:

Bjarni Benediktsson.  Aðaleigandi okursjobbunnar N1.

Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson.     Ráðherrann sem berst fyrir einkavæðingu heilbrigðiskerfisins.  Wessmann sagði, nei takk!

Þorgerður Katrín  Gunnarsdóttir.  Hluthafi í Kaupþingi og lánþegi sama banka.  Segi ekki meir!

Hanna Birna borgarstýra.     Reyndi að einkavinavæða REI og OR.  Einkavinirnir voru Hannes Smárason og Bjarni beibí Ármannnsson.  Hóf einkavinavæðingu heilbrigðisþjónustunnar í Reykjavík.  Einkavinirnir Í Heilsuverndarstöðinni ehf. fóru rakleiðis á hausinn.

Illugi Gunnarsson, þingmaður.  Stjórnarmaður í peningabrallsjóði í Glitni.

Má ég stinga uppá Valla Bíó, Árna johnsen og Lalla Jones?

Það er vel við hæfi á þessum myrku dögum nýfrjálshyggjunnar, að þessir fulltrúar einkaframtaksins og hamfarakapítalismans, séu tilnefndir.

 

 

 

Fjórir þingmenn aðallega nefndir

Eru kosningar í vor glapræði eða ekki? Hverju á að trúa? Eitt í dag og annað á morgun. Glundroði? Miðvikudagur: Geir segir glapræði að kjósa í vor! Föstudagur: Geir segir: Þið fáið að kjósa 9. maí! Mikill höfðingi ertu nú Geir!

 

Fréttablaðið, 22. jan. 2009 05:00

Geir segir glapræði að kjósa í vor

Það væri „mikið glapræði" að efna til kosninga nú, að mati Geirs H. Haarde forsætisráðherra. Þingflokkur Sjálfstæðisflokksins fundaði í Valhöll í gær. Að sögn Geirs var um hefðbundinn þingflokksfund að ræða en ekki viðbrögð við atburðum síðustu daga. „Við erum að vinna okkar störf eins og gert er ráð fyrir."
Spurður hvort ríkisstjórnarsamstarfið væri í hættu sagði Geir svo ekki vera, það hefðu þau Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, formaður Samfylkingarinnar, staðfest í samtali fyrr um daginn.
Geir telur það ábyrgðarleysi að boða til kosninga eins og sakir standa. „Það væri gríðarlegt ólán fyrir allan almenning í landinu, fyrir þá sem hugsanlega eru að missa vinnuna, fyrirtækin sem eru að berjast í bökkum, því það væri ekki hægt að klára stóru málin sem snúa að bönkunum, erlendum lánardrottnum og öllum þeim verkefnum sem fram undan eru. Að hlaupa frá því núna til að kalla á kosningar í vor væri mikið glapræði."
Um mótmælin í gær og í fyrradag sagði Geir að hann teldi ekki ástæðu til að grípa til sérstakra aðgerða til að koma á ró; fólk hafi fullan rétt á að mótmæla, en brjóti fólk af sér sjái lögreglan um það. „Lögreglan hefur staðið sig afar vel í þessum erfiðu aðstæðum, sýnt mikla þolinmæði og stjórnvisku, finnst mér, og við vonum að hún haldi áfram að ráða við sín verkefni."
Geir gerir lítið úr áhrifum mótmælanna á störf Alþingis; þingið hafi haldið sínu striki á þriðjudag og fundað meðan ástæða þótti til. Fundi hafi hins vegar verið frestað í gær til þess að geta betur undirbúið umræðu um efnahagsmál í dag. Landsfundur Sjálfstæðisflokksins verður haldinn um aðra helgi. Geir segir það óbreytt að hann ætli að gefa kost á sér í formannsembætti. Hann hefur ekki áhyggjur af því að mótmælendur setji strik í reikninginn. „Við vitum ekkert hvernig það verður. Ég held að það þurfi allir að reyna að róa sig niður í þessum efnum. Þó að fólk hafi fullan rétt á því að mótmæla þá er það ekki við hæfi að gera aðsúg að valdastofnunum samfélagsins eins og gert hefur verið."[e-mail]

Ekki sama hver spurður er!

Fjölmargir hafa bent á að tiltekt í stjórnkerfinu og  ríkisstjórn skipti miklu í að breyta áliti Íslands út á við.  Hverjum á að taka mark á?  Jú,væntanlega þeim sem hafa kynnt sér ástandið.  Fjármálasérfræðingar eru meðal þeirra sem bera einna mesta ábyrgð á heimskreppunni.  Á að taka mark á þeim núna?  Er ekki tími fjármálasérfræðinga liðinn!

Hið  sama má segja um umsókn  í ESB.  Umsókn breytir í sjálfu sér ekki ástandinu hér og nú, en hún myndi bæta það álit, sem umheimurinn hefur á Íslandi.  Og ekki veitir af!  Hún myndi líka veita stjórnmálamönnum aðhald og markmið.  Þessu neita auðvitað þeir, sem vilja koma hér á einhverskonar sjálfþurftarbúskap að hætti 19. aldar.  En ESB snýst um fleira en beljubúskap og þorskhausa.  Sjálfsþurftarbúskapurinn er í boði framsóknarmanna í ýmsum flokkum, hagsmunagæslusamtaka sægreifa og búkarla.  Og svo náttúrulega sjálfbirgingslegra þjóðrembusinna, sem steita hnefann framan í heiminn og telja best að rífa kjaft, dæmið DO er svoleiðis eintak.

Stjórnarskipti breyta engu

Athugasemd við athugasemdir við ummæli Harðar.

Þeir, sem eru að fetta fingur útí ummæli Harðar Torfasonar og reyna að gera þau að einhverskonar aðalatriði og stórmáli, athugi:

Fyrir það fyrsta:  Það er ekki til siðs á Íslandi að skammast sín!

Í annan stað:  Það hefur ekki tíðkast að biðjast afsökunar á Íslandi uppá síðkastið. 

Ég man ekki til þess að nokkur maður, stjórnmálamaður eða embættismaður, hafi beðst afsökunar á ástandinu á Íslandi í dag.  Að aðeins einum undanskildum.  Herra forseti vor á Bessastöðum baðst einskonar afsökunar.  Ekki Davíð, ekki Ingibjörg, ekki Geir, ekki Jónas, ekki bankastjórarnir eða bankaráðin, síst allra Kjartan varaformaður bankaráðs Landsbankans (bankastjórar Landsbankans og bankaráðið bera ábyrgð á Icesave).  Jú, annars.  Hann bað Davið afsökunar.  Allt þetta lið hefur ekki beðist afsökunar!  Hvað þá að gefa til kynna að það kunni að skammast sín, þó ekki sé nema pínulítið!

Blessuð sé minning frjálshyggjunnar, eða bölvuð!

Sextándi mótmælafundurinn á morgun

Ofbeldi.

Ég held, að allir sem hafa tjáð sig um meint ofbeldi mótmælenda, ættu að lesa viðtal við Hlédísi Guðmundsdóttur lækni.  Þar má lesa lýsingu Hlédísar af því ofbeldi, sem hún sætti af hálfu lögreglunnar.  Það kannski sljákkar eitthvað móðursýki í þessum sem virðast halda að lögreglan hafi ekki átt hlut að máli, og jafnvel stuðlað að því ofbeldi(?) sem beinst hefur að henni.  Og þá er ég ekki að tala um tilburði undirheimadrengjanna, sem nýttu sér "tækifærið" til ofbeldisverka.  www.smugan.is/skyringar/vidtol/nr/710

Skýring.  Lögreglan gaf upp að hún kannaðist við verstu óeirðaseggina, undirheimadrengina, sem væru góðkunningjar lögreglunnar úr undirheimum Reykjavíkur.  Til gamans má geta þess, að  í morgun kom fram í fréttum að óvenjulítið hefði verið um innbrot í borginni síðustu sólarhringa.  Sem sagt, undirheimadrengirnir skrópuðu í "vinnunni" til að geta atast í lögreglunni.

Sjálfstæðisflokkur harmar ofbeldi í mótmælum

"Vilja sýna sig sem stjórntækan kost."

Ég geri ráð fyrir að þessi fyrirsögn sé höfð eftir Stefaníu Óskarsdóttur stjórnmálafræðingi og Sjálfstæðiskonu, og að hún sé að vísa til orða Steingríms J..  Nú er spurningin, hvort það hafi verið stjórnmálafræðingurinn eða sjálfstæðiskonan sem talaði, nema hvorttveggja sé.  Það er nefnilega furðuleg lenska hjá ýmsum hægriöfgamönnum að reyna að halda VinstriGrænum á hliðarlínu stjórnmálanna með þeirri fullyrðingu sinni og rógi, að Vg sé ekki stjórntækur stjórnmálaflokkur.  Sjálfir væla þeir undan því að Sjálfgræðisflokknum hafi verið haldið á hliðarlínunni á seinni hluta6. áratugar síðustu aldar vegna stefnu sinnar.  Nú er það spurningin, hvort Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn er nokkuð stjórntækur eftir hinar hryllilegu afleiðingar frjálshyggjutrúarinnar fyrir alla heimsbygggðina, ekki bara okkur Islendinga.  Sjálfgræðisflokkurinn byggir nefnilega alla stefnu sína á þessum skelfilegu trúarbrögðum, frjálshyggjunni.

Að síðustu vil ég óska Geir H. Haarde alls góðs í framtíðinni og vona að hann nái bata af þessu meini sínu.  Vont að missa ærlegan og góðan dreng útúr baráttu þjóðarinnar.  Segja má, að óhamingju Íslands verði allt að vopni þessa dagana.

„Vilja sýna sig sem stjórntækan kost"

Óskað eftir rannsókn á mannréttindabrotum Ísraelshers á Gaza.

 

8 Human Rights NGOs sent a letter to the Attorny General Dmending the establishment of an independent investigation mechanism

 

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22.01.2009

On January 20, 2009, eight human rights NGOs - the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Bimkom, B'Tselem, Gisha, Hamoked Center for Defense of the Individual, the Public Committee Against Torture in Isael, Yesh Din, and Physicians for Human Rights, sent a letter to the Attorney General demanding the establishment of an independent mechanism to investigate the killing and injuring of civilians during the fighting in Gaza, in cases in which there is a strong suspicion that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) committed serious breaches of the humanitarian law.

ACRI Attorney Limor Yehuda states in the intervention that based on events already published and on other information being gathered on a daily basis, as well as the alarming number of women and children among the dead, there is sufficient reason to believe that the IDF was in breach of the rules of war. This suspicion obliges Israel to initiate comprehensive and effective investigations by an independent body.
The letter states that according to a report by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 1,300 people, of whom 410 were children and 104 were women, were killed in IDF attacks up until January 19, 2009. 13 medical staff were among the dead. From the beginning of the ground incursion, at least 845 people were killed, more than half of them women and children. Moreover, 5,300, of whom 795 were women and 1,855 were children, were injured in the attacks. More than 300 of them were seriously injured. Other reports indicate that buildings in which there were civilians, including women and children, were attacked by the IDF, and there were cases of attacks on buildings in which dozens of civilians were killed. It was emphasized in the intervention that although the information received is still partial, it is sufficient to warrant an independent and exhaustive inquiry.
Attorney Yehuda notes in the letter that two of the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law are the principle of distinguishing between combatants and civilians and the principle of proportionality, which are intended to serve the greater purpose of humanitarian law: the minimization of suffering caused to the civilian population during an armed conflict.
International law prohibits the carrying out of indiscriminate attacks. It is prohibited to use military means that cannot be directed against a specific military target or when injury to the civilian population cannot be limited.
The letter states that an attack on civilian buildings cannot be carried out based on a general suspicion but only on well-founded information and with due consideration of the risk of civilian casualties. If it transpires that the target selected is not a military one or there is reason to expect that there will be excessive injury to civilians or damage to civilian property - the attack must be aborted.
The organizations stated in the letter that the firing of missiles by Hamas against Israel with the intention of injuring civilians is a serious breach of international law, as is the use of the civilian population as "human shields" or the launching of attacks from deep inside civilian populations; however, this does not permit Israel to break the provisions of international law or release it from the prohibitions of that law.
The human rights organizations stress that the State of Israel is obliged to initiate and conduct independent and effective inquiries into every incident in which it is suspected that its officers or other ranks may be responsible for breaches of international law. It is also emphasized that the investigations that should be conducted must also relate to the legality of the orders and instructions given to the forces in the field, both during their preparation and training for the action and during the action itself.

To read the letter click here or see the attached file. 

to read a list of Sample Incidents which warrant investigation click here or see the attached file

Attachment	Size
list of sample incidents	28.5 KB
letter to Attorney General	58 KB

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Public committee against TortureP.O.B. 4634 Jerusalem 91046 Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

 

Bréf 8 ísraelskra mannréttindasamtaka til ríkissaknara Ísraels með ósk um rannsókn á mannréttindabrotum IDF á Gaza.

 

20 January 2009

 

Mr. Meni Mazuz

Attorney General

 

                      Re:  Mechanism to Investigate Harm to Gaza Civilians:

                              Suspicion of Grave Violations of the Laws of War

 

Dear Mr. Mazuz,

• 1. We write to you in your capacity as head of law enforcement in the State of Israel, requesting that you establish a mechanism to conduct independent and effective investigation of acts carried out by Israeli security forces which are suspected of violating humanitarian law and that resulted in the killing or harming of civilians in the Gaza Strip.
• 2. This request is submitted in the name of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Bimkom, B'Tselem, Gisha, Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel, Yesh Din, and Physicians for Human Rights - Israel.
• 3. Since 27 December 2008, when the IDF began a military operation in the Gaza Strip referred to as "Cast Lead", we have witnessed severe and extensive harm to and casualties among the civilian population. According to reports from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, by 19 January 2009, at least 1,300 people were killed in Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks, of whom 410 were children and 104, women. Thirteen medical personnel were among those killed. Since ground troops entered Gaza, at least 845 people were killed, more than half of them women and children. Wounded during these attacks were 5,300 people, of whom 1,855 were children and 795, women. More than 300 of these were seriously injured.
• 4. From information received to date from a number of sources, it appears that buildings in which many civilians were located, including women and children, were attacked and bombed by the IDF. In some attacks, dozens of civilians were killed in a single location. It is important to emphasize that the information that currently exists is only partial. However, even this partial information is sufficient to justify the need for an investigation. This investigation must be independent and exhaustive.
• 5. Events already known, for which information is accumulating daily, as well as the proportion of children and women killed, raise serious concerns that Israel did not conduct itself in accordance with its declarations and violated fundamental principles of international law.
• 6. The two basic precepts of humanitarian law are the principle of discriminating between combatants and civilians and the principle of proportionality. These principles are intended to serve the overarching goal of humanitarian law: minimizing the suffering of civilians during armed conflict.
• 7. Accordingly, international law prohibits attack on civilian targets and stipulates that attacks be strictly limited to military targets, meaning "objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage" (Article 52 (2) of the First Protocol).
• 8. It is the obligation of a warring party to distinguish between military and civilian targets. "In case of doubt," notes the law, "whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used," hence, attacking it is prohibited (Article 52 (3) of the First Protocol).
• 9. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited by international law. Indiscriminate attacks are defined as those which, inter alia, "employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol" (Article 51(4)(b-c) to the First Protocol). Even for military targets, the risk to civilians and civilian facilities must be taken into account during planning and execution. An attack that "may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated" is considered indiscriminate and hence prohibited (Article 51(5)(b) of the Protocol).
• 10. International law also stipulates that "In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects" (Article 57(1) of the First Protocol). Indeed, "an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one...or may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated" (Article 57(2)(b) of the First Protocol).
• 11. The shooting of rockets by Hamas into Israel that is not directed against a military target, but intended to harm civilians, is a serious violation of international law. Prohibited too is the use of civilians as "human shields" or the carrying out of attacks from within populated areas. As is known, however, these do not entitle Israel to violate international law and they do not exempt it from the law's prohibitions. As made clear in Article 51(8) of the First Protocol, which deals with the protection of a civilian population:

Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures provided for in Article 57.

• 12. The Gaza Strip is known to be one of the most densely populated regions of the world. A significant portion of the IDF bombardment of Gaza included air strikes at targets in the midst of or in close proximity to a civilian population. Some of these attacks are intended to damage or destroy structures that ordinarily serve civilian needs.[1] These protected sites cannot be attacked on the basis of a general suspicion, but only on well-founded information, and even then, the risk to civilians must be taken into account both during the planning and execution of the action. It must be emphasized that the presence of armed individuals among a civilian population does not negate its civilian character, nor does it justify an attack on it (Article 50(3) of the First Protocol).
• 13. Moreover, those who take decisions about attacking targets in or near densely populated areas know that they are placing many civilians in mortal danger. Warning people before an attack does not exempt them from responsibility. This is particularly the case in the special circumstances of the Gaza Strip, in which the population is trapped in a small area, its exit blocked by Israel. As we have seen in incidents about which details have already been made public, the IDF did not refrain from attacking even locations where people gathered who had fled their homes to seek shelter from the shelling and warfare. Thus, this was not a theoretical danger, but a danger expected and known to the decision-makers. Such patterns of activity, as noted, led to the killing and wounding of many civilians.
• 14. Carrying out attacks in the midst of or in close proximity to an area densely populated with civilians using arms or methods of warfare that do not distinguish between military and civilian targets, together with accumulating data about the significant number of children and women among those killed and wounded and the damage to civilian infrastructure, raise serious suspicions about grave violations by Israel of international humanitarian law.
• 15. Official declarations as well as accumulating data indicate that, in general, the harm to civilians and civilian structures is not the product of any one on-site decision, but of decisions and directives issued at the highest levels of government and the IDF, and with the approval of the Judge Advocate General (JAG).[2] Among the practices that contravene the laws of war, and for which information is accumulating of their perpetration by Israel during the Gaza Strip fighting, are the following:
• a. Permitting the use of non-discriminating weapons in densely populated areas;
• b. Failing to take precautionary measures to prevent harm to civilians and civilian buildings;
• c. Executing attacks that could be expected to cause harm to civilians that is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected;
• d. Attack of protected civilian structures;
• e. Widespread destruction of private property not necessary for mandatory military needs;
• f. Attack of medical personnel; and
• g. Preventing the removal and evacuation of the injured.
• 16. It is incumbent upon the law enforcement authorities of the State of Israel to initiate an independent and effective investigation into cases in which there are suspected violations of humanitarian law by its officers and soldiers, for which they are criminally liable. The obligation to conduct an investigation is drawn from international humanitarian law that obligates the investigation of claims concerning the execution of war crimes, international human rights law, and Israeli law.
• 17. In light of previous experience in which the obligation to conduct an investigation was not realized,[3] we are submitting our request to you at an early stage so that you can establish a mechanism for investigating suspected cases of humanitarian law violations by IDF officers and soldiers. These investigations must also address the legality of the actual orders and directives given to forces in the field, both during their training and during the action itself. It is essential that neutral parties be appointed to this investigating body, including those whose expertise and independence is beyond doubt.
• 18. We are submitting this request to the office of the Attorney General and not the JAG because, inter alia, the involvement of JAG personnel and the JAG himself during stages of decision-making does not allow for the JAG's appointment as an investigating figure.[4] Appointment of the JAG would conflict with the need for independence and neutrality, criteria that a proper investigation must meet. Furthermore, investigations previously conducted by Israel in cases of suspected grave violations of international humanitarian law were seriously flawed.[5]
• 19. We would appreciate your expeditious response to this request.

 

Yours very truly,

Limor Yehuda, Atty.

 

CC:              Mr. Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister

                    Mr. Ehud Barak, Defense Minister

                    Ms. Tzipi Livni, Foreign Minister

                    Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, Military Advocate General,

[1] See the intervention submitted to you on 4 January 2009 concerning the bombardment of government buildings in the Gaza Strip that was sent by Adalah, along with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and other human rights organizations.

[2] Paragraph 3 of the letter (18 January 2009) from Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, the Judge Advocate General, to Attorney Fatmeh El-‘Ajou notes that IDF actions were accompanied by legal counsel from the JAG and that the general principles of this counsel were even approved by you.

[3] See the claims and data brought by the petitioners in HCJ 9594/03 B'Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel v. Judge Advocate General, a case that is still pending.

[4] See the Report of the (Winograd) Commission of Inquiry into the Lebanon Campaign of 2006, Final Report  (January, 2008), Chapter 14, p. 492.

[5] Based on investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch, Israeli investigations of the shelling of Qana on 29 July 2007 during the Second Lebanon War, and the IDF invasion of the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002 were both marked by serious distortions.

Fáranleg beiting ofbeldis!

Ég skil ekki hvert þessir sem að þessu standa þykjast stefna.  Þó mótmælendur geti látið "ófriðlega" með því að berja bumbur og öðru slagverki, þeyti lúðra o.s.frv., þá er beiting ofbeldis gersamlega óþörf.  Og að hóta lögreglumönnum ónæði og jafnvel ofbeldi á heimilum þeirra tekur út  yfir allan þjófabálk.  Slíkur barnaskapur og annar, einsog að kast saur og hlandi að lögreglunni, er ólíðandi.  Grjótkast og flugeldakast að lögreglumönnum er hreinn óþarfi og barnaskapur.  Látum ekki mótmæli okkar ekki beinast að lögreglumönnum eða húseignum þjóðarinnar.  Og berum virðingu fyrir lífi og heilsu okkar allra.  Og að þessu tilefni:  Virðum friðhelgi einkalífs lögreglumanna!

Skemmum  nú ekki þessa ágætu lýðræðislegu mótmælahreyfingu okkar fólksins með óþörfum ofbeldisverkum!  Mótmælum fyrir nýtt Ísland!

Nafnbirtingin grafalvarlegt mál

Bréf mannréttindasamtaka í Ísrael til stjórnar Ísrael.

 

A Clear and Present Danger

An Israeli Call for Urgent Humanitarian Action in Gaza

 

 

January 14, 2009

 

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Defense Minister Ehud Barak

Chief of Staff Lieut. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi

OC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant

Atty. Gen. Menachem Mazuz

 

RE: Warning of a clear and present danger to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of civilians

 

Since the beginning of the campaign in Gaza on December 27, a heavy suspicion has arisen of grave violations of international humanitarian law by military forces. After the end of the hostilities, the time will come for the investigation of this matter, and accountability will be demanded of those responsible for the violations. At this point we call your attention to the clear and present danger to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of civilians.

 

The level of harm to the civilian population is unprecedented. According to the testimony of residents of the Gaza Strip and media reports, military forces are making wanton use of lethal force which has to date caused the deaths of hundreds of uninvolved civilians and destroyed infrastructure and property on an enormous scale. In addition, Israel is also hitting civilian objects, having defined them as "legitimate military targets" solely by virtue of their being "symbols of government."

 

Caught in the middle are 1.5 million civilians in extreme humanitarian distress, whose needs are not being adequately met by the limited measures taken by the army. That distress is detailed in the Appendix to this letter. Its main points are as follows:

 

1. The fighting is taking place throughout the Gaza Strip, whose border crossings are closed, so that residents have nowhere to flee, neither inside the Gaza Strip nor by leaving it. Many are unable to escape from the battle zone to protect themselves. They are forced to live in fear and terror. The army's demand that they evacuate their homes so as to avoid injury has no basis. Some people who did escape are living as refugees, stripped of all resources.
2. The health system has collapsed. Hospitals are unable to provide adequate treatment to the injured, nor can patients be evacuated to medical centers outside of the Gaza Strip. This state of affairs is causing the death of injured persons who could have been saved. Nor are chronic patients receiving the treatment they need. Their health is deteriorating, and some have already died.
3. Areas that were subject to intensive attacks are completely isolated. It is impossible to know the condition of the people who are there, whether they are injured and need treatment and whether they have food, water and medicine. The army is preventing local and international rescue teams from accessing those places and is also refraining from helping them itself, even though it is required to do so by law.
4. Many of the residents do not have access to electricity or running water, and in many populated areas sewage water is running in the streets. That combination creates severe sanitation problems and increases the risk of an outbreak of epidemics.

 

This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes.

 

The responsibility of the State of Israel in this matter is clear and beyond doubt. The army's complete control of the battle zones and the access roads to them does not allow Israel to transfer that responsibility to other countries. Therefore we call on you to act immediately as follows:

 

1. Stop the disproportionate harm to civilians, and stop targeting civilian objects that do not serve any military purpose, even if they meet the definition of "symbols of government."
2. Open a route for civilians to escape the battle zone, while guaranteeing their ability to return home at the end of the fighting.
3. Provide appropriate and immediate medical care to all of the injured and ill of the Gaza Strip, either by evacuating them to medical centers outside of the Gaza Strip or by reaching another solution inside the Gaza Strip.
4. Allow rescue and medical teams to reach battle-torn zones to evacuate the injured and bring supplies to those who remain there. Alternatively, the army must carry out those activities itself.
5. Secure the proper operation of the electricity, water and sewage systems so that they meet the needs of the population.

 

Sincerely,

 

Atty. Fatmeh El-Ajou

Adalah -- The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel

 

Vered Cohen Barzilay

Amnesty International Israel Section

 

Dr. Haim Yaakoby

Bimkom -- Planners for Planning Rights

 

Jessica Montell

B'tselem -- The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

 

Atty. Sari Bashi

Gisha -- Legal Center for Freedom of Movement

 

Dalia Kerstein

Hamoked -- Center for Defence of the Individual

 

Prof. Zvi Bentwich

Physicians for Human Rights -- Israel

 

Dr. Ishai Menuchin

Public Committee Against Torture in Israel

 

Atty. Michael Sfard

Yesh Din -- Volunteers for Human Rights

Appendix: The humanitarian collapse in the Gaza Strip

Situation Report, January 14, 2009, [Day 19 of Fighting]

 

Overview

 

As of Wednesday, January 14, 2009, the 19th day of the military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the dimensions of the humanitarian collapse in the Gaza Strip are growing: many injured people are not receiving medical treatment at all, the evacuation of the injured to hospitals is not being permitted, medical teams are being attacked on their way to render aid and the health system in Gaza, especially hospitals, is collapsing. Gaza's electricity, water and sewage systems are in a state of partial collapse, preventing Gaza residents from accessing clean water and exposing them to the risk of infectious disease and lethal sewage flooding in populated areas.

 

***

 

Damage to the health system and prevention of evacuation of casualties

 

• Six cases of army shooting at medical teams have been documented by human rights organizations. 12 medical personnel have been killed, and 17 were injured.
• We know so far of 15 cases of attacks on medical facilities, including a medical supply warehouse, three mobile clinics, a mental health center, the walls and windows of three government hospitals and a number of rescue vehicles. Direct attacks were recorded in the European hospital and the Dura hospital, an UNRWA facility and the Safha Al-Harazin clinic in Shuja'iya.
• There are delays of an average of between 2 and 10 hours in coordination between the army and the medical teams for evacuation or transfer of casualties. In most cases, the army does not respond at all to the requests made to it. The human rights organizations know of more than 100 civilians who were trapped for more than 24 hours, including dozens of injured, without any medical care, sometimes without water or food either. In one case a family of 21 (including six injured) waited seven days until the army allowed Red Cross representatives to evacuate them. In two other cases families waited more than 36 hours for evacuation. The organizations believe there are other similar cases that have not yet been documented.
• The Gaza health system is in a state of total collapse after more than a year and a half of continuous closure: a severe shortage of medical equipment and medications, a shortage of skilled personnel, the absence of knowledge and experts to treat complex injuries and more. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, only 30% of the medical equipment and medications permitted to be transferred to the Gaza Strip meet the needs and of its hospitals and are responsive to their shortages.
• There are 2050 hospital beds in the Gaza Strip (1500 in government hospitals and 550 in private clinics). The intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital was reinforced from 12 beds to 30. Since January 1, 2009 the unit has been at full capacity, even though since January 6, 2009, each day an average of five patients are sent from it to Egypt. The health system is maintaining a 75% capacity at Shifa while at other hospitals, the capacity is 95%. The treatment of chronic patients, including cancer patients, liver patients, dialysis patients and others, has stopped almost completely due to a shortage of hospital beds in the departments and of available doctors.
• 850 chronic patients and hundreds of injured from the Israeli assaults need to be referred to medical treatment outside of Gaza since December 27, 2008. Of them, just three wounded and a few dozen ill patients have been evacuated to Israel while 250 injured were evacuated to Egypt through the Rafah Crossing. Since January 6, 2009 no additional patients have been transferred to Israel for medical care.
• Shifa Hospital and the other government hospitals in Gaza city operated without electricity supply using generators for a week between January 3-10. Since January 10, 2009 the hospital has been receiving electricity for 8-12 hours a day. Throughout the month of January the other hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been receiving electricity for an average of 4-8 hours a day. The rest of the time the hospitals rely on generators. In at least one case when a generator broke down at the Al-Quds hospital it remains without any electricity supply and life-saving medical equipment stopped working.
• Patients who are at home are exposed to heightened risk because of the shortage of electricity, which prevents the regular use of household medical equipment operated by electricity as well as heating devices.

 

***

 

Attacks on electricity, water and sewage infrastructures

 

Electricity lines, water and sewage pumps and waste collection and treatment facilities have been damaged by the bombardments. The battles taking place in the Gaza Strip prevent most repair work in the absence of security coordination with the army. The same is true of transporting fuel and equipment inside the Gaza Strip. Without electricity, it is impossible to pump water and treat sewage.

 

In the 14 months before the military campaign Israel prevented the supply of vital products to the Gaza Strip and thereby emptied it of the fuel, food, medicine and spare parts needed to cope with the severe results of the fighting. There is a severe shortage of fuel needed to operate the power plant in the Gaza Strip as well as the generators that back up the electricity system. There is a shortage of spare parts and equipment needed to perform repairs and maintenance.

 

Water and sewage systems

• More than half a million people are completely cut off from access to clean water, mostly in Gaza City and the northern area. Some of those people have been without access to water for more than 10 days. Many water pipes have been damaged. Without electricity in the homes it is impossible to pump water to the high stories and the water reservoirs on the roofs of the high houses.
• Sewage is flowing in the streets because of the shortage of electricity for sewage pumps and treatment facilities, due to the damage caused by the bombardments and because of breakdowns that could not be fixed in the absence of security coordination with the army and without the necessary spare parts. In Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Jabaliya and parts of Gaza City the sewage pumps are not working at all. Since January 3, 2009 it has been impossible to access a sewage pipe in Beit Hanoun that was bombed. Since then sewage has been flowing to the area.
• Israel is preventing Water Authority technicians from accessing the Gaza City waste treatment facility. Since January 3, 2009 sewage has been flowing to the facility but it is not emptying because there is no one to operate the pumps. In addition on January 10, 2009 one of the sewage reservoirs there was bombed. It is believed that the sewage from the treatment facility and the sewage reservoir has begun to flood the area, but the damage cannot be assessed in the absence of security coordination.
• Israel is prohibiting access to the Beit Lahiya sewage reservoirs, where the waste level rises every day in the central reservoir and the waste water threatens to flood the area. The reason is destruction of the generator on January 3, 2009 that is supposed to pump the waste into overflow lagoons. Despite requests from international organizations to avoid striking that sensitive area, the area was bombarded again on January 10, 2009 and damage was caused to buildings next to the reservoir. Floods in that area would risk the welfare and lives of some 10,000 residents living nearby.
• The Gaza Strip water company needs many items that are in short supply including chlorine, pipes, valves and other items. Most of the equipment was ordered months ago but no permission was given to let it in.

 

Electricity system

• At least a quarter of a million residents of Gaza have been living without electricity for 18 days. At any given moment, up to one million people are disconnected from the electricity supply, which makes it difficult to access water, use medical equipment, preserves and refrigerate food and heat homes.
• Six of 12 high-voltage lines supplying electricity from Israel and from Egypt are not working because of damage caused by the bombardments. The Gaza power plant has been working since January 10, 2009 very partially (at 38% capacity) and manufacturing only 30 MW a day. As a result, the Gaza Strip is receiving a supply of only 48% of the required amount of electricity, at most. It is estimated that because of local breakdowns of lines, the amount of electricity reaching consumers is much smaller.
• The amount of industrial diesel available at the power plant is 500,000 liters, the amount needed for one single day to operate the three turbines. Another 369,000 liters were transferred to the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz terminal but cannot be shipped to the power plant because of the absence of security coordination.
• On the night before Tuesday, January 13, 2009, Israel bombed the electric company's warehouse in Gaza, causing tremendous damage including damage to transformers, cables, low voltage disconnect pillars and additional equipment. Israel had allowed the entrance of this equipment and spare parts into Gaza only four days earlier, after delaying the approval of its entry for months. The stores of the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company were empty before the military campaign since Israel has for months prevented the transfer of spare parts that were ordered and paid for.

 

***

 

A predictable humanitarian collapse

 

• For the last 14 months Israel has deliberately and consistently restricted the transfer of fuel into the Gaza Strip as part of the Cabinet decision from September 19, 2007 authorizing punitive measures against the residents of Gaza. Instead of fulfilling its duty to provide the civil population with the necessary humanitarian products before launching the military campaign, the Israel drained the Gaza Strip of the fuel, food and equipment needed to cope with the severe results of the fighting.
• In the two months preceding the military campaign Israel tightened the closure and deliberately drained the Gaza Strip of the industrial diesel needed to manufacture electricity, by preventing its transfer through the Nahal Oz terminal. During those two months Israel allowed the transfer of only 18% of the amount of industrial diesel needed to operate the Gaza power plant, which is only 28% of the amount of industrial diesel the Supreme Court ordered it to provide.
• For more than three months Israel has been preventing the transfer of the spare parts needed by the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCo) for its current operations. Even at this very moment spare parts are waiting at the Karni Crossing and the Ashdod port.

 

***

Hörðustu árásir á Gasaborg til þessa

Skoðanakúgun trúarofstækismanna og yfirvalda?

Þeir sem hafa orðið uppvísir að því að hafa aðrar skoðanir en yfirvöld og rétttrúnaðargyðinga hafa sætt líflátshótunum og atvinnumissi.  Jafnvel er þeim hótunum hrint í framkvæmd.  Þetta gildir einnig um þá sem skrifað hafa og sent fréttir, sem ekki hafa verið þessum aðilum þóknanlegar.  Lítið hefur farið fyrir fréttum af Ísraelsmönnum, sem kosið hafa að yfirgefa landið af þessum ástæðum.  Það er þó nokkuð stór hópur manna.  Má nefna sagnfræðinginn Ilan Pappé,  www.ilanpappe.com .  Á þessari síðu Ilan Pappé eru skrifa hans og viðtöl, sem hafa verið tekin við hann.

Mannréttindasamtök í Ísrael hafa gagnrýnt framgöngu yfirvalda í landinu, á herteknu svæðinum og á Gaza og Vestirbakkanum.  Lítið hefur sést af þessari gagnrýni í fjölmiðlum hér á landi.  Meðal þess sem samtök þessi hafa gagnrýnt eru ofsóknir á hendir trúarhópa, sem ekki eru rétttrúnaðar Gyðingum þóknanlegar, fjölmörg tilvik þar sem fólk er hindrað í að leita sér lækninsþjónustu, skoðanakúgun, hrikalegar tilraunir í nafni vísinda á hermönnum og minnihlutahópum.  Listarnir eru nánast endalausir.  Síður þessara samtaka má finna á Google:  human rights  israel.  T.d.  www.btselem.org .  www.phr.org.il/phr/ .

82% Ísraela styðja hernaðinn

Gísli Freyr Valdórsson og greiningardeildin.

Gísli  Freyr, sendisveinn á skrifstofu Ríkislögreglustjóra, upplýsir okkur, sauðsvartan almúgan og mótmælendur (nokkurn vegin sama mengið), um hvernig við erum skilgreind af greiningardeild yfirmanns hans, Rikislögreglustjóra!  Nú erum við ekki skríll!  Nú erum við skæruliðasveit VinstriGrænna í annarlegu ástandi.  Það er skemmtilegt, þegar skósveinar Náhirðar hins geðfatlaða  tjá sig um almenning í landinu.  Okkur þessa þjóð, sem erum ekki þjóðin, sem pólitíkusar vilja tala við!  Hvað er það næst?  Mun almenningur, þessi þjóð..., kannski verða skilgreindur sem hryðjuverkamenn og meðhöndlaður sem slíkur af hægribullum og frjálshyggjufacistum?

Þeir, sem efast um að mótmælendur og sauðsvartur almúginn sé nokkurnveginn sama mengi, geta kallað ekki-mótmælendur saman á útifund til stuðnings hinni þjóðarlausu ríkisstjórn og Náhirðinni.  Þanning gætu þeir sannað mál sitt.  Þar til það gerist tel ég ofangreinda fullyrðingu sanna!

Tveir mótmælendur handteknir

Barnamorð Ísraelsmanna...

...í yfirstandandi þjóðarmorði á Gaza jafngildir því að öll börnin í Háteigsskóla í Reykjavík væru myrt á hálfum mánuði!  Hvar endar þetta?  750.000 börn búa á Gaza og heimurinn lætur sem ekkert sé.  Menn tuða á  fundum og semja ályktanir, og hvað svo (einsog barnið á heimilinu segir)?  Hvað ætlar alþjóðasamfélagið að gera?  Ekki neitt?  Ætlar það að láta sem ekkert sé, eða einsog menntamálaráðherra íslensku þjóðarinnar sagði:  Ekki er tímabært að ....!  Ekki Ísrael einum að kenna, segir danskur stjórnmálamaður.  Hvað í dauðanum?  Er það aðalatriðið?  Hvort einhverjum aulum þykir eitthvað tímabært eða hafa einhverjar skoðanir á því hver aðalsökudólgurinn er?

Þjóðarmorð er þjóðarmorð!  Og barnamorð barnamorð!  Punktur!  Það er aðalatriðið!  Skoðanir aulanna í stjórnmálastétt aukaatriði! 

Ábyrgð eða ábyrgðarleysi?

Enn er Geir að syngja "Ekki benda á mig".  Hann segir, að bankarnir beri ábyrgð á því að hafa orðið svona stórir.  Það er rétt!  Það er líka það eina.  Stjórnvöld bera ábyrgð á því að bankarnir fengu að vera með mest allt sitt skráð á Íslandi.  Það er stóri "glæpurinn".  Þegar bankarnir uxu efnahag Íslands yfir höfuð hefðu þeir þyrft að flytja starfsemi sín til útlanda.  Að minnsta kosti að hluta.  En að álasa bönkunum fyrir stærð bankanna ber vott um fávisku, sem Geir hefur ekki til að bera.  Græðgin rekur kapítalistana áfram.  Þeim er slétt sama um allt nema gróða og aftur gróða.  Hlutverk stjórnenda fyrirtækja í kapítalisku hagkerfi er að tryggja hagsmuni eigenda sinna; að græða!  Að skamma kapítalistana fyrir að hafa byggt upp of stór fyrirtæki(?) og græða er á líka skynsamlegt og að skamma kött fyrir að veiða mús!

Kreppan getur dýpkað

Stjórnir og starfsmenn hundsi ákvörðun heilbrigðisráðherra!

Er ekki kominn tími til að gripið sé róttækra aðgerða gegn frjálshyggjuruglinu í Gölla þessum ráðherra.  Ég legg til, að stjórnir og starfsmenn heilbrigðisstofnana yfirtaki þessar stofnanir.  Í Hafnarfirði myndi slík aðgerð njóta stuðnings meirihluta bæjarbúa og stjórnarmeirihlutans í bæjarstjórn.  Þetta er leið sem gæti skilað árangri.  Og um leið stuðlað að falli ríkisstjórnarinnar.  Ef við þegnarnir neitum að beygja okkur undir ofríki ráðherraræðisins mun það falla!

Mótmæla einræðistilburðum

Ilan Pappe: Brottfluttur Ísraeli skrifar um tilurð Ísraels

 

Ilan Pappe on How Israel was Founded on Ethnic Cleansing

June 16th, 2008  |  Published in Articles by Ilan Pappé

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The present dismal reality unfolding in the Middle East has clear historical roots and a journey into the past may help to illuminate what lies behind the destructive policies of Israel in both Palestine and Lebanon.

Zionism arrived in Palestine in the late 19th as a colonialist movement motivated by national impulses.

The colonisation of Palestine fitted well the interests and policies of the British Empire on the eve of the First World War.

With the backing of Britain, the colonisation project expanded, and became a solid presence on the land after the war and with the establishment of the British mandate in Palestine (which lasted between 1918 and 1948).

While this consolidation took place, the indigenous society underwent, like other societies in the rest of the Arab world, a steady process of establishing a national identity.

But with one difference. While the rest of the Arab world was shaping its political identity through the struggle against European colonialism, in Palestine nationalism meant asserting your collective identity against both an exploitative British colonialism and expansionist Zionism.

Thus, the conflict with Zionism was an additional burden. The pro-Zionist policy of the British mandate there naturally strained the relationship between Britain and the local Palestinian society.

This climaxed in a revolt in 1936 against both London and the expanding Zionist colonisation project.

The revolt, which lasted for three years, failed to sway the British mandate from a policy it had already decided upon in 1917. The British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, had promised the Zionist leaders that Britain would help the movement to build a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The number of Jews coming into the country increased by the day - although even at that point, during the 1930s, the Jews were just a quarter of the population, possessing 4 percent of the land.

As resistance to colonialism strengthened, the Zionist leadership became convinced that only through a total expulsion of the Palestinians would they be able to create a state of their own.

From its early inception and up to the 1930s, Zionist thinkers propagated the need to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of Palestine if the dream of a Jewish state were to come true.

The preparation for implementing these two goals of statehood and ethnic supremacy accelerated after the Second World War.

For the British the country lost its strategic importance once they were evicted from India.

It was a tense place that required the presence of British forces in equal numbers to those kept by the empire in the Indian sub continent - without obvious imperial rewards.

While the Zionist leadership finalised a plan for taking over the land and expelling the people between 1946 and 1948, the Palestinian leadership hoped the British empire would transfer to them their country in which they were still the vast majority and the indigenous population.

But Britain decided to transfer the issue of Palestine to the United Nations (UN) in February 1947. Palestine was the first conflict in which it was asked to mediate in a significant way.

It offered a pro-Zionist solution, and a very unjust and impractical one at that.

The first obstacle was that since the Palestinians demanded to be treated as any other Arab national movement, they expected the international community to recognise, without any conditions, their natural right to the country.

They did not expect this right to be negotiated with a colonialist movement. They therefore boycotted the process.

The UN ignored this and the special committee it appointed for the question, Unscop (United Nations Special Committee for Palestine) conversed only with the Zionist leadership. It devised a solution that catered for the needs and aspirations of that side alone.

In any case, the Palestinians had a difficult time presenting the moral side of their demands due to the Holocaust.

The Western international community was only too happy to evade any discussions about the implications of the genocide in Europe and to drop the problem on Palestine's doorstep.

The inevitable result of this approach was accepting almost unconditionally the Zionist demands for a state in Palestine.

Territorial

At the end of November 1947, the UN offered to divide Palestine into two states almost equal in their territorial space. The Jews were only one third of the population by 1947 and most of them had arrived in Palestine only a few years earlier.

The categorical Palestinian refusal to go along with this deal, backed by the Arab League, allowed the Zionist leadership to plan carefully the next step. Between February 1947 and March 1948, a final plan for ethnic cleansing was prepared.

The Zionist leadership defined 80 percent of Palestine (Israel today without the West Bank) as the space for the future state.

This was an area in which one million Palestinians lived next to 600,000 Jews.

The idea was to uproot as many Palestinians as possible. From March 1948 until the end of that year the plan was implemented despite the attempt by some Arab states to oppose it, which failed. Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled, 531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighbourhoods demolished.

Half of Palestine's population was uprooted and half of its villages destroyed. The state of Israel was established in over 80 percent of Palestine, turning Palestinian villages into Jewish settlements and recreation parks, but allowing a small number of Palestinian to remain citizens in it.

The June 1967 war allowed Israel to take the remaining 20 percent of Palestine.

This seizure defeated in a way the ethnic ideology of the Zionist movement. Israel encompassed 100 percent of Palestine, but the state incorporated a large number of Palestinians, the people who Zionists made such an effort to expel in 1948.

The fact that Israel was let off easily in 1948, and not condemned for the ethnic cleansing it committed, encouraged it to ethnically cleanse a further 300,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

But the June 1967 war was too short - six days - and the international community more aware. Palestinian society was more experienced. Hence Israel was left with a large number of Palestinians under its control and could not complete "the job".

The Palestinian national movement rose again in the form of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and even if it did not liberate one square inch of Palestine, it did relocate the Palestinian issue and the 1948 Nakbah (catastrophe) in the centre of world public attention.

The ethnic cleansing operation was also defeated by the persistence and resilience of those Palestinians that were allowed to stay in Israel.

They became one quarter of the population.

Demography thus became the major issue in Israel's national security agenda. It overshadows any other concern, be it for social equality, democracy or human rights.

The educational system, the media and the politicians all stress the "danger" Palestinians constitute for the state's existence and the Jewish citizens' wellbeing.

In this situation the Israeli "left" urges downsizing the territory, the right calls for downsizing the Palestinians.

But the moral and ideological distance between the two poles of the political system is very short indeed.

After two uprisings in the occupied territories and a failed international diplomatic effort that totally ignored the root of the conflict as represented above, we are now back to the very basics of the conflict.

Impose

For the last six years, with the full backing of its Jewish electorate, successive Israeli governments have tried to impose by force what for them is the ideal solution.

It consists of imprisoning large numbers of Palestinians in enclaves in the West Bank and the Gaza strip, controlling thorough an apartheid system the Palestinian minority in Israel, and rejecting categorically any repatriation of the Palestinian refugees.

This plan is fully backed by the US.

Bush's neo-conservative presidency pursues its own unilateralism, trying to impose by military means and intimidation its economic and strategic values on the rest of the world.

Only two movements in the area resist Israel and the US.

Sadly for people of the left, like myself, they are not from "our school", but we should respect their steadfastness and will to resist occupation and colonisation. These are Hamas and Hizbollah.

Israel feels it has now a window of opportunity to eliminate these forces in Gaza and in Lebanon - and beyond in Syria and Iran.

The regional war that is developing may in the short run undermine these two forces, but in the long run it may mean Israeli confrontation not only with the Arab world but with the Muslim world as a whole.

At that point, the US might abandon it, and the Jewish state would end like the crusaders' kingdom of medieval times.

A disaster thus is looming for us all - Jews and Arabs - and it is only Europe that could avert it, if it would stop slaving its interests and ours, to the interests of the US and Zionism.

Taken from Socialist Worker Online, 29 July 2006

 

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Þjóðernishreinsanir á Gaza. Grein frá 2007 e. Ilan Pappe.

 

Palestine 2007: Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 11 January 2007

On this stage, not so long ago, I claimed that Israel is conducting genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip. I hesitated a lot before using this very charged term and yet decided to adopt it. Indeed, the responses I received, including from some leading human rights activists, indicated a certain unease over the usage of such a term. I was inclined to rethink the term for a while, but came back to employing it today with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip.

On 28 December 2006, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem published its annual report about the Israeli atrocities in the occupied territories. Israeli forces killed this last year six hundred and sixty citizens. The number of Palestinians killed by Israel last year tripled in comparison to the previous year (around two hundred). According to B'Tselem, the Israelis killed one hundred and forty one children in the last year. Most of the dead are from the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli forces demolished almost 300 houses and slew entire families. This means that since 2000, Israeli forces killed almost four thousand Palestinians, half of them children; more than twenty thousand were wounded.

B'Tselem is a conservative organization, and the numbers may be higher. But the point is not just about the escalating intentional killing, it is about the trend and the strategy. As 2007 commences, Israeli policymakers are facing two very different realities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the former, they are closer than ever to finishing the construction of their eastern border. Their internal ideological debate is over and their master plan for annexing half of the West Bank is being implemented at an ever-growing speed. The last phase was delayed due to the promises made by Israel, under the Road Map, not to build new settlements. Israel found two ways of circumventing this alleged prohibition. First, it defined a third of the West Bank as Greater Jerusalem, which allowed it to build within this new annexed area towns and community centers. Secondly, it expanded old settlements to such proportions so that there was no need to build new ones. This trend was given an additional push in 2006 (hundreds of caravans were installed to mark the border of the expansions, the planning schemes for the new towns and neighborhoods were finalized and the apartheid bypass roads and highway system completed). In all, the settlements, the army bases, the roads and the wall will allow Israel to annex almost half of the West Bank by 2010. Within these territories there will be a considerable number of Palestinians, against whom the Israeli authorities will continue to implement slow and creeping transfer policies -- too boring as a subject for the western media to bother with and too elusive for human rights organizations to make a general point about them. There is no rush; as far as the Israelis are concerned, they have the upper hand there: the daily abusive and dehumanizing mixed mechanisms of army and bureaucracy is as effective as ever in contributing its own share to the dispossession process.

The strategic thinking of Ariel Sharon that this policy is far better than the one offered by the blunt 'transferists' or ethnic cleansers, such as Avigdor Liberman's advocacy, is accepted by everyone in the government, from Labor to Kadima. The petit crimes of state terrorism are also effective as they enable liberal Zionists around the world to softly condemn Israel and yet categorize any genuine criticism on Israel's criminal policies as anti-Semitism.

On the other hand, there is no clear Israeli strategy as yet for the Gaza Strip; but there is a daily experiment with one. Gaza, in the eyes of the Israelis, is a very different geo-political entity from that of the West Bank. Hamas controls Gaza, while Abu Mazen seems to run the fragmented West Bank with Israeli and American blessing. There is no chunk of land in Gaza that Israel covets and there is no hinterland, like Jordan, to which the Palestinians of Gaza can be expelled. Ethnic cleansing is ineffective here.

The earlier strategy in Gaza was ghettoizing the Palestinians there, but this is not working. The ghettoized community continues to express its will for life by firing primitive missiles into Israel. Ghettoizing or quarantining unwanted communities, even if they were regarded as sub-human or dangerous, never worked in history as a solution. The Jews know it best from their own history. The next stages against such communities in the past were even more horrific and barbaric. It is difficult to tell what the future holds for the Gaza population, ghettoized, quarantined, unwanted and demonized. Will it be a repeat of the ominous historical examples or is a better fate still possible?

Creating the prison and throwing the key to the sea, as UN Special Reporter John Dugard has put it, was an option the Palestinians in Gaza reacted against with force as soon as September 2005. They were determined to show at the very least that they were still part of the West Bank and Palestine. In that month, they launched the first significant, in number and not quality, barrage of missiles into the Western Negev. The shelling was a response to an Israeli campaign of mass arrests of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in the Tul Karem area. The Israelis responded with operation 'First Rain'. It is worth dwelling for a moment on the nature of that operation. It was inspired by the punitive measures inflicted first by colonialist powers, and then by dictatorships, against rebellious imprisoned or banished communities. A frightening show of the oppressor's power to intimidate preceded all kind of collective and brutal punishments, ending with a large number of dead and wounded among the victims. In 'First Rain', supersonic flights were flown over Gaza to terrorize the entire population, succeeded by the heavy bombardment of vast areas from the sea, sky and land. The logic, the Israeli army explained, was to create pressure so as to weaken the Gaza community's support for the rocket launchers. As was expected, by the Israelis as well, the operation only increased the support for the rocket launchers and gave impetus to their next attempt. The real purpose of that particular operation was experimental. The Israeli generals wished to know how such operations would be received at home, in the region and in the world. And it seems that instantly the answer was 'very well'; namely, no one took an interest in the scores of dead and hundreds of wounded Palestinians left behind after the 'First Rain' subsided.

And hence since 'First Rain' and until June 2006, all the following operations were similarly modeled. The difference was in their escalation: more firepower, more causalities and more collateral damage and, as to be expected, more Qassam missiles in response. Accompanying measures in 2006 were more sinister means of ensuring the full imprisonment of the people of Gaza through boycott and blockade, with which the EU is still shamefully collaborating.

The capture of Gilad Shalit in June 2006 was irrelevant in the general scheme of things, but nonetheless provided an opportunity for the Israelis to escalate even more the components of the tactical and allegedly punitive missions. After all, there was still no strategy that followed the tactical decision of Ariel Sharon to take out 8,000 settlers whose presence complicated 'punitive' missions and whose eviction made him almost a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, the 'punitive' actions continue and become themselves a strategy.

The Israeli army loves drama and therefore also escalated the language. 'First Rain' was replaced by 'Summer Rains', a general name that was given to the 'punitive' operations since June 2006 (in a country where there is no rain in the summer, the only precipitation that one can expect are showers of F-16 bombs and artillery shells hitting people of Gaza).

'Summer Rains' brought a novel component: the land invasion into parts of the Gaza Strip. This enabled the army to kill citizens even more effectively and to present it as a result of heavy fighting within dense populated areas, an inevitable result of the circumstances and not of Israeli policies. With the close of summer came operation 'Autumn Clouds' which was even more efficient: on 1 November 2006, in less than 48 hours, the Israelis killed seventy civilians; by the end of that month, with additional mini operations accompanying it, almost two hundred were killed, half of them children and women. As one can see from the dates, some of the activity was parallel to the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, making it easier to complete the operations without much external attention, let alone criticism.

From 'First Rain' to 'Autumn Clouds' one can see escalation in every parameter. The first is the disappearance of the distinction between civilian and non-civilian targets: the senseless killing has turned the population at large to the main target for the army's operation. The second one is the escalation in the means: employment of every possible killing machines the Israeli army possesses. Thirdly, the escalation is conspicuous in the number of casualties: with each operation, and each future operation, a much larger number of people are likely to be killed and wounded. Finally, and most importantly, the operations become a strategy -- the way Israel intends to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip.

A creeping transfer in the West Bank and a measured genocidal policy in the Gaza Strip are the two strategies Israel employs today. From an electoral point of view, the one in Gaza is problematic as it does not reap any tangible results; the West Bank under Abu Mazen is yielding to Israeli pressure and there is no significant force that arrests the Israeli strategy of annexation and dispossession. But Gaza continues to fire back. On the one hand, this would enable the Israeli army to initiate more massive genocidal operations in the future. But there is also the great danger, on the other, that as happened in 1948, the army would demand a more drastic and systematic 'punitive' and collateral action against the besieged people of the Gaza Strip.

Ironically, the Israeli killing machine has rested lately. Even relatively large number of Qassam missiles, including one or two quite deadly ones, did not stir the army to action. Though the army's spokesmen say it shows 'restraint', it never did in the past and is not likely to do so in the future. The army rests, as its generals are content with the internal killing that rages on in Gaza and does the job for them. They watch with satisfaction the emerging civil war in Gaza, which Israel foments and encourages. From Israel's point of view it does not really mater how Gaza would eventually be demographically downsized, be it by internal or Israeli slaying. The responsibility of ending the internal fighting lies of course with the Palestinian groups themselves, but the American and Israeli interference, the continued imprisonment, the starvation and strangulation of Gaza are all factors that make such an internal peace process very difficult. But it will take place soon and then with the first early sign that it subsided, the Israeli 'Summer Rains' will fall down again on the people of Gaza, wreaking havoc and death.

And one should never tire of stating the inevitable political conclusions from this dismal reality of the year we left behind and in the face of the one that awaits us. There is still no other way of stopping Israel than besides boycott, divestment and sanctions. We should all support it clearly, openly, unconditionally, regardless of what the gurus of our world tell us about the efficiency or raison d'etre of such actions. The UN would not intervene in Gaza as it does in Africa; the Nobel peace laureates would not enlist to its defense as they do for causes in Southeast Asia. The numbers of people killed there are not staggering as far as other calamities are concerned, and it is not a new story -- it is dangerously old and troubling. The only soft point of this killing machine is its oxygen lines to 'western' civilization and public opinion. It is still possible to puncture them and make it at least more difficult for the Israelis to implement their future strategy of eliminating the Palestinian people either by cleansing them in the West Bank or genociding them in the Gaza Strip.


Ilan Pappe is senior lecturer in the University of Haifa Department of political Science and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies in Haifa. His books include, among others, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London and New York 1992), The Israel/Palestine Question (London and New York 1999), A History of Modern Palestine (Cambridge 2003), The Modern Middle East (London and New York 2005) and his latest, Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006).


Related Links

• BY TOPIC: Israel attacks Gaza: "Operation Autumn Clouds" (1 Nov 2006- )
• BY TOPIC: Massacre in Beit Hanoun (8 November 2006)
• BY TOPIC: Israel invades Gaza: "Operation Summer Rain" (27 June 2006)

 

• BY TOPIC: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions
• A rare voice: An interview with author Ilan Pappe, Christopher Brown (11 December 2006)
  
  
  
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Jón Valur Jensson tekur sér fyrir hendur að níða niður Mats Gilbert lækni á Gaza, sem við könnumst við úr fréttum RÚV af níðingsverkum Ísraela á Gaza.  Og hvað hafði Mats Gilbert til saka unnið í huga Jóns Vals Jenssonar guðfræðings.  Jú,  hann var stuðningsmaður málstaðar Palestínumanna og harðvítugur andstæðingur Bandaríkjanna.  Mikið stórmenni Jón Valur!