DCI/Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement (dedicated) to promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children," according to international law principles.

On December 28, it submitted a complaint [PDF] to several UN authorities titled, "The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention." It's specifically for five children held at Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centers in Israel.

Their cases follow 29 others since February 2008. At both facilities, "solitary confinement is routinely used."

Though no universally agreed on definition exists, the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement defines it as physically isolating prisoners in cells for 22 to 24 hours daily. Human contact is minimized, including quantitative and qualitative stimuli.

The harmful psychological and physical effects are well documented. They include:

• severe anxiety;
• panic attacks;
• lethargy;
• insomnia;
• nightmares;
• dizziness;
• irrational anger, at time uncontrollable;
• confusion;
• social withdrawal;
• memory loss;
• appetite loss;
• delusions and hallucinations;
• mutilations;
• profound despair and hopelessness;
• suicidal thoughts;
• paranoia; and
• for many, a totally dysfunctional state and inability ever to live normally outside of confinement.

As a result, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez called for totally banning it for children. Calling it "torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," he stopped short of demanding its prohibition against everyone.

In 2007, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the practice be "strictly forbidden."

Israel Spurns All International Laws with Impunity

Israel frequently isolates adults and children, notably Palestinians. Facilities most commonly used include Al Mascobiyya interrogation center in Jerusalem, Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv, and Al Jalame near Haifa.

Israel's Prison Service (IPS), Israel Security Agency (ISA), and Israeli police administer these facilities.

From February 2008 through November 2011, DCI/Palestine documented 34 child abuse cases. They endured "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and in some cases, torture, in violation of the" Torture Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Fourth Geneva.

Israel spurns all international laws with impunity, including those pertaining to war, occupation, and fundamental humanitarian and human rights.

At Al Jalame, children are held in 2 x 3 meter cells. In 2009, one child endured 65 days of punishment. All of them sleep on concrete beds, or on the floor on thin, dirty, foul-smelling mattresses. Meals pass through door flaps, depriving them of human contact.

Al Jalame's "Cell No. 36 (like all isolation ones) has "sharp protrusions preventing the children from leaning against them for support." It's windowless with artificial light only coming from dim internal lighting kept on 24 hours a day.

As a result, "(s)ome children report suffering pain behind their eyes and adverse psychological effects."

Harsh treatment, including prolonged isolation, painful shackling, physical violence and torture are used to extract confessions.

Children at Al Jalame and other interrogation facilities are generally denied access to lawyers and family visits in violation of Fourth Geneva and other international laws.

DCI/Palestine submitted complaints for five Palestinian children. They were identified only by initials, age, gender, ID No., and place of origin.

On October 15, 2011, Israeli soldiers arrested OA at 2AM from home. He was blindfolded, painfully shackled, placed in a military vehicle, taken to Huwwara interrogation center in Palestine, forced to sit on the ground until dawn, and refused permission to use a toilet.

Later that morning he was taken to Petah Tikva interrogation center in Israel in violation of Fourth Geneva. He was stripped searched, and denied legal counsel. With his hands tied to a chair, he was interrogated by a man called "Morris."

Accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli jeep, he denied it. After two hours of interrogation, he was placed in isolation he described as follows:

"It was a very small cell with a mattress on the floor, a toilet and two concrete seats. It did not have any windows, just a vent for air conditioning. It was very cold because of the air conditioning. I could not sleep because there was a yellow light on 24 hours a day. I was detained in the cell for two days, before being transferred to Al Jalame."

There, he was isolated for five days. His detention was extended. He wasn't in court and doesn't know if counsel represented him. He was then sent back to Petah Tikva, held another nine days under identical conditions, and interrogated twice before confessing, saying:

"I was in a very bad psychological state, so I decided to confess. I confessed to throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at army jeeps," even though he was innocent.

Isolated for 16 days, he's now at Megiddo prison in Israel.

Others DCI/Palestine represented told similar stories. They were falsely charged, arrested, interrogated, isolated and harshly treated overall. Israel treats children like adults, some young as 10.

International laws were grievously violated, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It's Article 37(b) states:

"The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child...shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."

In fact, Palestinian children are routinely arrested at checkpoints, on streets, going to or coming from school, tending olive groves, at play, and (most commonly) at home in the middle of the night.

Usually it's from midnight to 4AM. Family members are threatened not to intervene. If they try, they're assaulted and forced onto streets in their nightclothes, regardless of weather, and given no explanation.

Typically, arrests are lawless and violent. Homes are broken into unannounced. Property is damaged or stolen. Children are blindfolded, shackled, often beaten, then thrust into jeeps, sometimes face down.

In interrogation centers, inhumane treatment continues, including beatings, verbal abuse and intimidation. Most often, lawyers aren't present until questioning ends with a signed Hebrew confession children can't read or understand. Once gotten, they're used to convict even though torture extracted evidence is inadmissible under international law.

Article 15 of the UN Convention Against Torture states:

"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

In custody, children endure:

• blindfolding and painful shackling;
• beatings;
• violent shaking;
• sleep deprivation;
• solitary confinement;
• other forms of sensory deprivation;
• no food and water for extended periods;
• poor quality or inedible food when gotten;
• no access to toilets, showers and clean clothes;
• exposure to extreme heat or cold;
• painful stress positions for extended periods;
• sexual abuse;
• threats, insults and cursing; and
• extremely loud noises.

Often parents and siblings are also arrested, beaten, detained, and their homes sometimes demolished.

Under Military Order 132, children aged 12 - 13 receive maximum six month sentences. Those aged 14 - 15 usually face 12 months, but can receive up to five years.

More serious offenders face no limits. Military Order 378 permits up to 20 years for stone-throwing (the most common offense charged). Moreover, children 16 or older are considered adults and treated no differently. Under international law, adulthood begins at age 18.

Under military occupation, Israel's system is rigged to convict and brutalize before and after incarceration, despite Fourth Geneva's Article 147 requiring fair trials, and holding those responsible for denying them criminally liable.

International law also forbids torture, other abuse and inhumane treatment at all times, under all conditions with no allowed exceptions. Israel ignores all international laws. It does what it please, including against children young as 10 no matter their innocence.

DCI/Palestine and other human rights organizations demand these crimes against humanity end and those responsible held accountable. So far it hasn't happened.

The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

Democracy Now! - Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and frozen military cooperation ahead of a long-awaited United Nations report on Israel's deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship in 2010. The report accuses Israel of "excessive and unreasonable" force in its attack—which killed nine people—on the Mavi Marmara ship, and says Israel should issue a statement of regret and compensate the families of the dead as well as wounded passengers. But it also chides passengers aboard the Marmara and the other flotilla ships for what it calls a "reckless" attempt to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. In a major development with broader implications, the U.N. report concludes that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal under international law. We speak with Norman Finkelstein, author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including "'This Time We Went Too Far': Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion." We are also joined by Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement. Both Arraf and Finkelstein blast the U.N. report, calling it a "whitewash" and "morally debased."

Norman Finkelstein, author of several books on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including "This Time We Went Too Far": Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.

Interview Part 1/2:

Video link Part 1/2: http://youtu.be/XlLm1Ym3Pbc

Interview Part 2/2:

Part 2/2: http://youtu.be/ZwRHJBAr0q8
Interview transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and frozen military cooperation ahead of a long-awaited United Nations report on Israel's deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship in 2010. According to leaked excerpts, the report accuses Israel of, quote, "excessive and unreasonable force" in its attacks on the Mavi Marmara which killed nine people. The report says Israel should issue a statement of regret and compensate the families of the dead as well as wounded passengers. But the report also criticizes passengers aboard the Marmara and the other flotilla ships for what it calls a, quote, "reckless" attempt to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. And in a major development with broader implications, the United Nations report also concludes that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal under international law.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. investigation was overseen by Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand. Turkey says it will expel the Israeli ambassador and downgrade diplomatic ties to their lowest level until Israel drops its refusal to apologize for the raid and provides compensation.

For more, we're going to go to Ramallah, where we're joined by Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers of the Free Gaza flotilla movement. She's on one of—she was on one of the six ships that were in the Gaza flotilla when the Mavi Marmara was attacked. She's joining us by Democracy Now! audio stream. And here in New York, we're joined by Norman Finkelstein, author of a number of books on Israel-Palestine conflict, including "This Time We Went Too Far": Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion.

In Ramallah, Huwaida Arraf, your response to the leaked report—the New York Times posted it online—of the U.N.?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Hi, Amy, Juan, Norman.

Sadly, it's a completely expected whitewash of Israeli crimes. This panel's composition—not only its composition, but its mandate—was problematic in so many ways. And it wasn't designed to get at the truth of what happened or to achieve—to get at justice for the victims of Israel's attack, but rather to arrive at political compromise between Israel and Turkey. And that's what we have. It's an attempt to whitewash the crimes, set them aside, and in addition, it came up with some outrageous claims that completely contradict the findings of numerous human rights organizations and international law authorities, including various bodies of the U.N. itself, about the legality of the Israeli blockade. So, very problematic.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the report's criticism or faulting of one organization, in particular, a Turkish organization, that had some members—helped organize the flotilla. Could you talk about what it said and your response to that?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Sure. It did say—you did quote that we were "reckless," but it also said that Israeli soldiers faced organized violence when they tried to board the Mavi Marmara, which is completely untrue. We spent a long time preparing for this flotilla. And our—everything that we prepared, the passengers and our—the foundations of our movement and what we do is based on nonviolent direct action resistance.

This is not to deny that Israeli soldiers did face some attacks when they boarded, but you can't say that these attacks were anything more than self-defense, because of the obnoxious way in which Israeli soldiers—and very violent way in which they took over the ships, in the way that was intended to cause tremendous fear and commotion. They boarded the ships firing, even on our very small boat. The boat that I was on was traveling right next to the Mavi Marmara, and we only had about 17 people on that boat. They boarded, beating down people, using tasers, firing stun grenades and paintball pellet at people's faces. It was completely uncalled-for violence, so that some people, a handful out of 700 volunteers, reacted in what can be called a violent way. It was self-defense, so it was in no way organized. And this is—I'm saying this, being part of the central organizing committee of the flotilla.

AMY GOODMAN: The U.N.'s report notes that, quote, "On the basis of public statements by the flotilla organizers and their own internal documentation, the Panel is satisfied that as much as their expressed purpose of providing humanitarian aid, one of the primary objectives of the flotilla organizers was to generate publicity about the situation in Gaza by attempting to breach Israel's naval blockade. The purposes of the flotilla were clearly expressed in a document prepared by IHH and signed by all flotilla participants," unquote.

The report then cites the document's statement of purpose, which reads, quote, "Purposes of this journey are to create an awareness amongst world public and international organizations on the inhumane and unjust embargo on Palestine and to contribute to end this embargo which clearly violates human rights and delivering humanitarian relief to the Palestinians."

Norm Finkelstein, your response?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I noticed that Juan was looking perplexed at that statement. I have to say, last night, when I was reading the report, I was completely dumbfounded, and I had to keep repeating—rereading these passages over and over again. What the report stated—and all of your listeners should hear closely, because it was so shocking, so morally debased—the report said that we doubt, or we question, the true motives of the organizers of the flotilla. They said, we have evidence that their real motive was not humanitarian. And the statement that you just quoted was the evidence that their real motive was not humanitarian, that they had this really sinister, nefarious motive. Their real motive was not humanitarian; the real motive was, they said, the report said, to cast publicity on Israel's illegal and immoral blockade of Gaza.

Now I have to say, that is—and I'm meaning this literally—it is a new low. I read all the Israeli reports, in particular the Turkel report, the one put out by the former Supreme Court justice. It's about 300 pages. They never stooped to that level. They claimed that this handful of what they call jihadists, that they were looking for a confrontation with Israelis or the Israeli soldiers, and they brought on weapons for a confrontation. This report does not claim that they were looking for a confrontation. It holds them morally culpable for trying to cast publicity on an illegal and inhumane blockade. With the Israelis, at least we're in the same moral universe, and it's a question of fact. What was the intent of these commandos—excuse me, what was the intent of the activists? Was it to get a confrontation, or was it to cast humanitarian—cast light on what's happening? But with this report, we've entered a new moral universe. They are actually saying that to cast light on an illegal and inhumane blockade is a morally sinister act.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask, there were four members on this committee: one from Turkey, one from Israel, then there were two supposedly independent ones, the former prime minister of New Zealand and Álvaro Uribe, the former president of Colombia, who himself presided over a period of the most—the highest level of extrajudicial killings and assassinations in his own country. It seems amazingly strange to have someone like Álvaro Uribe on this panel as an objective member of the committee.

AMY GOODMAN: The Colombian president.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, it was clear from the moment that Ban Ki-moon, the alleged secretary-general of the United Nations—it was clear from the moment he appointed Uribe on the panel that it was going to be a farce. Beyond all the crimes for which Mr. Uribe has been accused and also have been documented, he was also known as being very close to Israel and advocating closer military relations with Israel. So, from the get-go, from the moment the members were named, it was clear which way the report was going to go.

But, you know, you always wonder, what are they going to come up with? How could they possibly justify certain things? They said that the blockade of Gaza—now, we have to be clear. They said the naval blockade was legal. They separated it from the land blockade, for technical reasons, which it's no point in going into here. But they said the naval blockade was legal. And the grounds they gave were this: that Israel clearly faces security problems from Gaza, the rocket and mortar fire. OK. And they say, to document this security problem, since 2001, some 25 Israelis have been killed by these rocket and mortar attacks. Fair enough. And then they say that many people have suffered psychologically, psychological trauma from these attacks. Fair enough.

Then there's the other side of the equation. There is not one word, one syllable, on how many Gazans have perished as a result of Israeli attacks. It's not 25. It's not 250. It's at least at an order of magnitude of 2,500. We're not just talking about the 1,400 Palestinians who were killed in Operation Cast Lead. Israel always has operations in Gaza, has very fancy names—Operation Summer Rains, Operation Autumn Clouds, Operation Hot Winter, Operation Rainbow. All of it vanishes from this report. The only people who have suffered deaths in Gaza due to armed hostilities are Israelis.

Now, let's say it's true. Fair enough. They have a right to impose a naval blockade to prevent weapons from going to Gaza, for security reasons. Don't the people of Gaza have the right to impose a military blockade on Israel, to prevent weapons from going to Israel? You can't even raise that question. It's beyond their comprehension. In fact, the irony is, that's the law. The law is, as Amnesty International pointed out in its report "Fueling Conflict," under international law and domestic American law, it's illegal to transfer weapons to any country or—any state or non-state party which is a consistent violator of human rights. So, if that commission, the Palmer Commission, named after, you know, the former New Zealand president, if they had any integrity, they would have said, OK, Israel has the right to impose a blockade on Gaza, and the international community" — because this is what Amnesty said. Amnesty says the international community has an obligation—that's what they said—to impose an arms embargo on Israel, as well, because it's a consistent violator of human rights.

AMY GOODMAN: I want—I wanted to bring Huwaida Arraf back into the discussion, who's in Ramallah, chair of the Free Gaza Movement, was part of the aid flotilla last year that the Mavi Marmara was a part of. The U.N. investigation did accuse Israel of excessive and unreasonable force. Now Turkey has announced the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, the suspension of military cooperation, hours before the report was published. But also, in the last attempts of the Gaza flotilla, just in the last months, they themselves stopped a ship from going forward. Can you talk about all of this, Huwaida?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Sure. Really quickly, I'd like to just touch on a couple of important points that Norman made, the first one being about the legality of the blockade. And Norman did say that they considered it very separate from the rest of the closure, which has been declared completely illegal and a violation of Israel's obligations, so there's no way that this maritime blockade can be legal, no matter what way you look at it. It's a violation of Israel's obligations under international law as an occupying power.

Also, in regards to Uribe and the problems that Norman mentioned, the other thing is that he is known to have a complete disdain for human rights defenders. And you can look at complaints from human rights organizations within Colombia. Also, an organization called Human Rights First called this out, that him referring to human rights defenders as "terrorist sympathizers" endangers human rights defenders. So, from the start, he had a disdain for people like us who like to call attention to and take action, nonviolent action, against these human rights abuses.

And the last really important thing before I get to your question is this report and the attention that it's supposed to get, when we already had an independent U.N. fact-finding mission that released a report almost one year ago, comprehensive, interviewed over a hundred victims and participants, and that was put together by scholars in international law and known judges on international tribunals. This should be the authority on what actually happened, not this farce of a report.

But in terms of what you said about Turkey stopping—about being part of stopping the last flotilla, known as Freedom Flotilla 2, which was supposed to launch last summer, or this past summer, not exactly. It was Israel placed a lot of pressure on a lot of countries, the European countries, to stop their citizens from participating. Not many—you know, some leaders of these countries made statements that the flotilla is not helpful and that they warn their citizens not to take part. But the country that was—that really cooperated with Israel—and it was a shock and quite sad—was Greece. And it did—we did learn that it came under a lot of political and economic pressure also because of the economic situation that they're in. But they did impose restrictions and did not let our boats leave. So it really became complicit in Israel's blockade. And we are challenging that on different levels.

Turkey itself didn't really. It did communicate to us and to our Turkish partners that it might not be helpful at this time, but what happened—but the Turkish organization IHH remained fully a part of the flotilla. The Mavi Marmara was not able to go, because it was not physically, mechanically ready to go. In fact, up until the date that we were supposed to launch, they still had people working to meet all of the guidelines for being certified to go into international waters on the kind of mission that we wanted it to. So we knew—at a point, we realized it wasn't going to be ready, and we took that boat out of the equation. But the Turks remained fully a part of the organizing. And in fact, we were going to launch one boat from Turkey. One of the boats—it was the Irish ship—was located in Turkey, but it was sabotaged by, we believe, Israeli agents and was not able to launch. So, they didn't really place any barriers, certainly not like Greece did.

AMY GOODMAN: But the fact that this report did find that Israel's use of force was excessive and unreasonable, and the significance of Turkey expelling the Israeli ambassador?

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Definitely. Well, it's kind of funny that Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador today after the release of this report, because the whole point of this report was to reach a political compromise and to repair the relation between Israel and Turkey. And we're glad that Turkey has taken the position that it has taken. And in fact, Turkey's foreign minister has said that it's time that Israel paid a price. And it's true, because Israel does not pay a price for any of its human rights violations. It continues to act with impunity. And even the fact that this report did say Israel acted using excessive force, it doesn't—it doesn't go enough to—money or paying compensation is not—is no kind of justice for the families or for the people that—for the victims of Israel's actions. And that's what we want to see. We want to see some kind of accountability. And that's different from the U.N. report that was issued last September by the independent fact-finding mission, which recommended that human rights abusers be held accountable. And that's what we're waiting to see. So, this report, the Uribe-Palmer report, pays some lip service to the victims, but its main—again, its main goal, to repair relations, and we're glad to see that Turkey is not falling for that.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I'd like to say—

JUAN GONZALEZ: Norman, if we can, we just have a little bit of time.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Sure.

JUAN GONZALEZ: If you could just briefly talk about the implications of this report coming out now and the continuing schism between Turkey and Israel, as we head into the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, actually, many Israelis worried that this would be Pyrrhic victory for the Israeli government, because being so stubborn about refusing to make an apology—there are two of consecutive words that just don't translate into Hebrew. The two words, consecutive words, are "excuse me." They can't comprehend that. And the Israeli—many Israeli officials were saying, "Make the apology, because we need Turkey. Turkey is our—has historically been our strongest ally in the Muslim world. Things are now turbulent with our other main ally in the Arab world, Egypt. Make the apology, and move on." But there were members of the Netanyahu government—in particular, Mr. Lieberman, the foreign minister, and his party—who refused, because they said if they made the apology, Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, would run with it and would embarrass the Israelis, and Israelis would be humiliated. But they didn't think it was a wise move. And actually, I don't think it is, either. Losing the military relationship with Turkey, suspension of diplomatic relations, and now you know Turkey, when the state issue—statehood issue comes up in September, they are going to be in the forefront now, because Erdogan has been humiliated by this report. It was a complete spit in the face of the Turks, what this report said.

So I think, from a moral point of view, it was a disgrace. But from a political point of view, it will probably end up helping the Palestinians. You have to remember the whole point of the report. It described the killing of the nine members of the—on the—passengers on the Mavi Marmara. You know the phrase they used? It was a "major irritant" to diplomatic relations. Killing nine people is an "irritant." And they said, "We have to get over this irritant, so that Israel and Turkey can restore diplomatic relations." That's their moral level.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to leave it there. Norman Finkelstein, we thank you for being with us, author of, among other books, "This Time We Went Too Far": Truth & Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, and Huwaida Arraf, chair of the Free Gaza Movement, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, was on one of the six ships that were in the Gaza flotilla when the Mavi Marmara was attacked. She was joining us from Ramallah, on the West Bank.

"International law is not an empty promise" - except for Palestinians

By Phyllis Bennis* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Copyright © Steve Bell

Obama did say that Israel's partial settlement moratorium "should" be extended, but carefully went on to urge that the talks "press on until completed" with no linkage between the two goals. Not to mention that what he calls a "moratorium" has consistently allowed continued building throughout Arab East Jerusalem, continued construction on homes already approved or begun, and work on huge infrastructure projects throughout the settlements.

Obama pretty much ignored any substantive role for the United Nations in the "peace process," but he lectured the General Assembly, noting that "many in this hall count themselves as friends of the Palestinians." (He didn't, apparently, include himself in that category.) From those friends, he demanded "tangible steps towards normalization" with Israel, ignoring the fundamental basis of the Arab Peace Initiative that makes clear normalization comes after, not before, an end to Israel's occupation.

And he condemned the "slaughter of innocent Israelis," but said not one word about Israel's 2008-09 assault, which used U.S. arms to kill 1,400 Gazans--more than 900 of them civilians and more than 300 of them children. Let alone any mention of the nine killed (including a U.S. citizen) and 50+ injured in the Israeli assault on the Turkish ship in the international humanitarian flotilla a few months ago.

The speech made clear that support for the moment, the endless "peace process" is, for Washington, a perfectly appropriate alternative to holding Israel accountable for any violations of human rights or international law. The Goldstone Report, UN and other efforts to hold Israel accountable for the illegalities inherent in its occupation and apartheid policies, or even the extreme violations like the Gaza war or the flotilla assault, must be sidelined or squashed entirely - because they could undermine the peace talks, whether or not those peace talks have any hope of succeeding. It is the exact opposite position as that taken by Obama's UN Ambassador Susan Rice regarding Darfur. Rice was one of the strongest voices insisting on full implementation of the International Criminal Court indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir regardless of the dangers it posed to the fragile Sudanese ceasefire because accountability must come first, insisting that justice comes before peace.

But not, apparently, when it comes to Israel-Palestine.

Obama made a vitally important point when he said that "international law is not an empty promise." Unfortunately he said that only in regard to imposing sanctions on Iran. After that, when he began to speak of Palestine and Israel, the phrase "international law" was never seen again.

In all his discussions of the peace talks and their importance, and even in his description of the arguments of "the cynics," Obama never acknowledged the most important reason why this round of talks will almost certainly fail to bring about a just, comprehensive and lasting peace: because they are not based on international law and the UN Charter and resolutions. The president said that the cynics' view is that Israelis and Palestinians don't trust each other, that both parties are divided internally, that "the gaps between the parties are too great." But he never acknowledged that "the parties" do not come to the table as equals, that this is not a border dispute between Peru and Ecuador. These are talks between an Occupying Power, which happens to be the 23rd wealthiest country in the world and by far the strongest military and nuclear weapons power in the region, backed by the strongest and most powerful country on the globe, facing an impoverished and dispossessed occupied population. When talks are based on accepting that inequality as a given, when the arbiter of the talks is the main backer of the stronger party, and when international law is ignored, the talks cannot succeed.

So far, the Obama administration seems to be saying that "no change" is the only change we can believe in when it comes to U.S. policy on Israel-Palestine.

* Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She is the author of "Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power"

(Huffington Post)

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Palestinians carry the body of fisherman Mohammed Baker during his funeral in Gaza September 24, 2010. The Israeli terrorist navy fired on Baker killed him while he was fishing off the northern Gaza Strip shore. (Photo: REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)

With peace talks underway in Washington; Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt; Jerusalem; then New York, Israel, almost daily, commits crimes of war and against humanity. Some of the latest include:

• air strikes against Gaza, killing two Palestinian civilians in another one;
• peaceful protesters attacked in Gaza and the West Bank;
• live rounds and shells fired against farmers and workers in the Strip's border areas, killing an old man, his grandchild, another boy, and 30 sheep;
• over 100 live rounds fired at an Erez Crossing peaceful demonstration near Beit Hanoun;
• its medieval siege maintained, suffocating 1.5 million people and preventing 40,000 students from attending UN schools;
• violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons escalated; most are political prisoners;
• 16 new Jordan Valley demolition orders for Palestinian barns and greenhouses issued plus others to bulldoze their homes;
• 87 incursions into West Bank communities and three in Gaza in the first half of September, arresting 43 civilians, including nine children; and
• unabated illegal settlement construction.

Israeli does what it pleases, defiling the rule of law, including letting its security forces kill with impunity, a new B'Tselem report confirming it. Titled "Void of Responsibility: Israeli Military Policy not to investigate Killings of Palestinians by Soldiers," it provides plenty of evidence.

Protests throughout the Territories occur regularly, in Bil'in village every Friday against the Separation Wall. April 17 was typical. Soldiers attacked demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets, at times live fire, and extended-range gas canisters. Used against Bassem Abu Rahmeh, it killed him from massive internal injuries, a case of cold-blooded murder.

B'Tselem and the family's attorney, Michael Sfard, wrote the Judge Advocate General's Office, demanding an investigation. After nearly a year's wait, the reply said:

"No support has been found for your claim that firing was executed directly at Abu Rahmeh" or that soldiers violated instructions."

This case is one of hundreds in which nonviolent Palestinian civilians were killed by IDF gunfire.

Soldiers indeed follow "instructions." They're told to open fire freely and kill with impunity.

Since September 29, 2000, the start of the second Intifada, 2,016 Palestinian civilians were killed, besides over 1,400 others during Cast Lead. "The vast majority of these cases have never been investigated." Most that are end up whitewashed, absolving guilty soldiers of culpability.

In October 2000, the Judge Advocate General's Office (JAGO) called the Intifada "armed conflict short of war," saying investigations wouldn't automatically be conducted when security forces killed Palestinians.

JAGO bogusly argued that under international law, "the fact that a civilian is killed during hostilities does not constitute even prima facie proof that a war crime has been committed or that the soldiers who were involved acted in a criminal manner."

In fact, Military Police Investigation Unit (MPIU) inquiries should follow all civilian killings, holding those responsible culpable, and learning ways to avoid future incidents.

Currently, investigations open only in exceptional cases, decisions taking months or years, "thus preventing effective handling of suspected criminal acts within a reasonable time from the day" they occurred. Establishing the Office of the Judge Advocate for Operational Matters to improve complaint handling brought no significant change.

From 2006 - 2009, B'Tselem demanded 148 cases be investigated. Only 22 were ordered, and 36.3% of them took a year or more to begin. Two resulted in no prosecution. The others still await resolution. Delay or inaction for the vast majority of them "makes it impossible to determine the considerations the Judge Advocate General's Office takes into account in deciding whether to order an MPIU investigation or to close the file."

B'Teslem examined cases not investigated and others involving a "serious suspicion of clear breach of international humanitarian law." Further, MPIU inquiries undertaken relied solely on soldier testimonies, not eyewitnesses providing conflicting accounts. As a result, IDF officials let soldiers and officers violate the law with impunity. They also encourage "a trigger-happy attitude, and show gross disregard for human life."

On June 2, 2007, Nablus resident Rami Samir Na'if Shana'ah was killed, his case like hundreds of others. Eyewitnesses said civilian clothed Israelis opened fire into a shop hitting him and another man. Local residents took them to the hospital where Shana'ah was pronounced dead. On August 1, 2007, B'Tselem demanded an investigation. Reminders sent to the Judge Advocate General's Office followed. As of February 4, 2010 (the latest information received), the case was still being processed.

Official MPIU investigations don't distinguish between Palestinians killed by live fire; others causing injury, not death; or if no one was harmed. What's needed are hard Israeli statistics on attacks resulting in death exclusive of others. They're the most serious, but all instances of soldiers attacking civilians warrant concern. Israel offers Palestinians nothing but violence, more of it, and no accountability for culpable soldiers.

According to B'Tselem figures, deaths numbered 1,510 from 2006 - 2009, exclusive of Cast Lead ones. Of these, at least 617 were confirmed noncombatants, mostly in Gaza, but they occur regularly throughout Palestine. Most are witnessed by bystanders whose testimonies are crucial to achieve justice. Yet Israel won't use them, clearly hiding the truth and obstructing justice.

Further, since September 2000, B'Tselem received no response from the Judge Advocate General's Office for "the vast majority" of cases warranting investigation, civilians killed in cold blood, responsible soldiers unpunished.

On April 7, 2008, B'Tselem got this reply (like other similar ones) from Major Yehoshua Gortler, the Judge Advocate General's legal assistant:

"Having examined the inquiry of the incident (in question) and its findings, along with other relevant material (including from B'Tselem and other human rights groups), the Judge Advocate General concluded that it was not proper to order an MPIU investigation in the matter."

The incident in question involved cold-blooded murder as well as breaches of discrimination and proportionality principles in international law. More about them below.

IDF undercover units were dressed as civilians, violating the laws of armed conflict against "perfidy." As a result, four civilians were killed, those responsible unpunished.

Nearly all these atrocities are whitewashed. Soldiers involved are absolved of murder, and get a green light to keep killing. Accountability is so rare, even for the most egregious incidents, that soldiers are almost entirely unrestrained. As a result, they show flagrant disregard for human life in violation of fundamental international law.

According to Jessica Montell, B'Tselem's Executive Director:

"Since the beginning of the Intifada, we have opposed the sweeping decision not to investigate the killing of Palestinians. This is even truer now, when it is impossible to view the situation in the West Bank as armed conflict. The legal status must reflect the reality in the field, as well as express the value given to human life and the obligation to protect civilians."

All cases involving noncombatant killings warrant investigations. Soldiers claiming they acted in self-defense or to save lives is contemptuously false. Saying unarmed civilians attacked or otherwise threatened them makes a mockery of truth. It's why legitimate investigations are crucial to prove it.

B'Tselem stresses that "Armed conflict does not exist in the Occupied Territories," as Israel contends. Yet each case involves "combat incidents....in which Palestinian bystanders are (killed) or injured by soldiers' gunfire....exchanges of gunfire while making arrests in the middle of the night, and (claiming they shot) Palestinians in good faith," saying they posed a threat.

Israel's High Court distinguishes between "operational" and "criminal" actions, ruling that:

"the point of departure regarding an operational incident is that it does not involve a criminal incident....The cases in which an investigation will be carried out by an investigative body regarding an operational incident are the exception. Operational activity has a unique character and objectives that clearly distinguish it from criminal actions."

"An attitude that views the actions of security forces as being close to criminal actions strikes at the ethical basis of actions of the security forces and is liable to impair their motivation in carrying out their functions faithfully. The readiness of soldiers, commanders, and defense personnel in carrying out their functions, in taking risks and in acting on behalf of national interests, at times endangering their lives, when they are acting under pressure and uncertainty, is liable to be significantly impaired if they know that the actions are liable to result in their being prosecuted as criminal suspects."

As a result, the Judge Advocate General relies on the "operational actions" defense to justify clear criminal acts, and by failing to investigate incidents and whitewashing ones undertaken grants culpable soldiers impunity.

"The argument that prosecuting soldiers on criminal charges will impair their functioning is....insufficient to negate the need for a criminal investigation." Ignoring accountability when someone dies can never be justified, a position taken by Tel Aviv District Court Judge Oded Mudrik, saying:

"I do not accept the basic assumption behind the military's argument that certain kinds of conduct by commanders should be made nonjusticiable." It disagrees with the definition of "negligence" in Penal Law....There is no legal system anywhere in the enlightened world that grants immunity to the command echelon of its army and places them above the law."

Under international law, the principles of distinction and proportionality are binding:

• distinction between combatants and military targets v. civilians and non-military ones; attacking the latter ones are war crimes except when civilians take direct part in hostilities; and
• proportionality prohibitions against disproportionate, indiscriminate force likely to cause damage to or loss of lives and objects.

In addition, parties to a conflict must take all precautions to avoid and minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to non-military sites.

Fourth Geneva also prohibits collective punishment "for an offence he or she has not personally committed." Measures must be taken to assure civilians are kept out of harm's way. Willfully attacking them is a crime of war or against humanity. Impunity is never justified.

Fourth Geneva's Article 146 prescribes that states must investigate grave breaches and prosecute persons who committed or ordered them. It further requires that measures be taken to assure "the suppression of all acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention," even when they don't rise to the level of war crimes.

In addition, domestic legislation must prohibit all acts violating international law, and require offenders be punished. Investigations are thus vital to assure it. A Judge Advocate General's "operational inquiry" is no way to determine truth. Yet it's used to decide if investigations are necessary. At all times, they're essential when incidents cause civilian deaths.

A Final Comment

B'Tselem's report shows that the Judge Advocate General's Office hasn't processed the vast majority of lawless civilian killings. Isolated cases only were opened. Most still await resolution, suggesting whitewash when, or if it comes.

Unless independent investigations are undertaken, "it is impossible to know whether soldiers violated orders or acted improperly." That's why they're vital.

"The killing of civilians who did not take part in hostilities requires an effective, unbiased investigation, carried out within a reasonable time after the incident." Not doing so "grants soldiers and commanders de facto immunity: a soldier who kills a Palestinian not taking part in hostilities is almost never brought to justice for his act. At the most, they are required to explain their actions in the framework of the operational inquiry," conducted to absolve, not implicate them.

Justice denied grants legitimacy to lawless killings, making a mockery of fundamental international law, an Israeli specialty.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid, a festival that brings families together.

However, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails find it very difficult to receive visits from their families and relatives.

Human rights organizations say that while Israeli convicts are allowed family and home visits, Palestinians are denied even a phone call .

Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh reports from the West Bank in the Palestinian Territories.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bH105wyONA

By Lawrence Davidson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

I. The Usual Suspects

Back on August 23, 2010 Israel's most prestigious human rights organization, B'Tselem released a short report on the condition of water supplies in the Gaza Strip. Referencing the United Nations Environment Program as well as the Palestine Water Authority, B'Tselem reported that the Strip's underground water system is in such bad repair that, even if rehabilitation was begun immediately, it would take twenty years for it to be restructured as a modern system. This is compounded by the dilapidated state of the Gaza wastewater-system which is also antiquated. As a result it is estimated that "40% of the incidence of disease in Gaza is related to polluted drinking water." B'Tselem blames this shocking situation on the Israeli government. "Since it began its siege on the Gaza Strip, in June 2007, Israel has forbidden the entry of equipment and materials needed to rehabilitate the water and wastewater-treatment systems there." The blockade of these materials remains in place to this day. Finally, during its "Operation Cast Lead" invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israel targeted the water networks, treatment plants, wells, and even home water tanks.

Israel's great power patron is the United States. This arrangement entails American protection of the Zionist state from the legal consequences that should result due to its purposeful harming of civilians. The United States, sitting as a permanent member of the UN Security Council has, in recent years, cast some forty vetoes so as to shield its ally from accusations of violations of international law. Actually this action by the United States is entirely logical. Why so? Because both the U.S. and Israel are practicing the exact same tactics against civilian populations.

Back in September 2001 George Washington University professor Thomas Nagy revealed the existence of Defense Intelligence Agency documents" proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway." On May 12, 1996 some of the horrible consequences of this policy were revealed when the CBS news program 60 Minutes reported that roughly half million Iraqi children had died as a consequence of U.S. imposed sanctions. This led to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's infamous answer to the question, "is the price worth it?" Her reply was yes "we think the price is worth it." Albright later apologized, not for the murderous policy for which she was partially responsible, but rather for the fact that her answer to the above question had "aggravated our public relations problems" in the Middle East. As to domestic reaction, her comment "went unremarked in the U.S." Subsequently, in 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq using the strategy of "rapid dominance" (more popularly known as "shock and awe"). The object of this strategy was to "paralyze" the enemy's "will to carry on" through the disruption of "means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure." One of the targets of the bombing campaign that led off the invasion was Iraq's electrical grid. That directly impacted the country's ability to process clean water.

II. Resulting Criminal Status

Neither American nor Israeli behavior is legal under international law. It is all a violation of Article 54 of Protocol I, Part IV, of the Geneva Conventions (1977). The law reads, "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as ...drinking water installations and supplies...whatever the motive whether in order to starve out the civilian population, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive." What this means is that the political leaders of the United States and Israel (among other countries) who have devised and implemented this, and similar strategies, are indictable as war criminals. Further, they almost certainly know this to be so. That is why they must dismiss international law as "obsolete" as did Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his minions in 2004.

As to "motives" for purposely destroying the civilian infrastructures of whole nations, it would seem that in both cases, that of the United States in Iraq and Israel in Gaza, the aggressors sought to induce the civilian population to either just give up out of exhaustion or turn against the regimes ruling over them. The assumption that such a strategy will achieve such results is remarkably naive. Historically, it has almost never happened. For instance, despite the massive conventional bombing of British, Japanese and German cities during World War II, the populations rallied around their flags! And so, one can conclude that our present leaders and strategists who pursue such an end through these means simply know no history. This is a good example of a case where ignorance, here leading to massive death and destruction, is a de facto criminal state of mind.

III. The Issue of Double Standards

This state of affairs raises the seminal question of what will be the fate of international law as it applies to the protection of civilian populations? Today, the most we can say is that enforcement is selective and, in a certain odd way, "class based." In other words if you are the leader of a small state lacking a great power patron you are indeed subject to this sort of international law. For example, if you are the leader of Serbia, Sudan, Chile, Rwanda, Congo, etc. and persecute civilian populations you have a rather good chance of being brought before a tribunal such as the International Criminal Court. If, however, you are an American, Israeli, Russian, Chinese or British leader, etc. you have almost zero risk. You know the statue of Justice standing blindfolded holding up a scale? Well, she is peeking.

However, there is an interesting loop hole that can lead us around the problem of double standards. Since the 1990s the concept of universal jurisdiction has gained popularity. This is the legal notion that ordinary people in one country can seek to bring to trial those who allegedly violated public international law in an altogether different country. It is under this law that General Ernesto Pinochet of Chile was detained in England in 1998. Of course, the aged general, who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of his countrymen, was relatively "lower class." That is, he was the ex-dictator of a country that has no real influence in the international arena and no great power patron. So, he was vulnerable.

What happens when such a law is applied to Americans or Israelis? Well, in 2003 U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in what can only be described as an act of imperial blackmail, threatened to remove NATO's headquarters from the city of Brussels unless "Belgium revoked legislation giving its courts the power to prosecute foreigners for alleged war crimes committed anywhere in the world." Rumsfeld was reacting against a move by Belgian human rights lawyers seeking the indictment of General Tommy Franks, then commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, for the illegal use of cluster bombs against civilian populations. The Belgian government quickly amended their universal jurisdiction law to meet American demands. Then in May 2010 Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni found that it was inadvisable to visit England because there was an arrest warrant waiting for her. The charge was war crimes associated with the Israeli invasion of Gaza. This attack took place while she was Foreign Minister. Livni was not Pinochet. For one thing she had a great power patron in Washington, and secondly the U.K. itself has a powerful Zionist lobby. The British government quickly announced that it would seek to rewrite the country's law on universal jurisdiction.

IV. Conclusion

The rules produced by our legislatures, by the United Nations Charter and by our ratified treaties are not supra-human. We make them for our own benefit so that we may live in communities with congenial standards of behavior and thus pass our days productively and in relative security. And, since we make them we can unmake them. That is exactly what too many of our leaders are now trying to do in terms of public international law. They have contrived such double standards that the laws against the wanton slaughter of civilians simply do not apply if committed by the strong. It is only the weak who are to be held accountable for their crimes.

If those in civil society do not like this arrangement they will have to fight hard against it. And here in the West it is our own state institutions and their leaders that we must fight against, for it is they who are the most ardent hypocrites when it comes to international law. It is they who demand immunity for the slaying of the innocent (who they conveniently dehumanize as "collateral damage"). They refuse to go after their criminal predecessors lest they too be held responsible for similar crimes (as in the case of President Obama). Where necessary they bully others into turning a blind eye to their crimes (as with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld). And, if we in civil society, press them hard they will simply seek to change the law to suit their dehumanizing policies. We might here repeat a question once asked, some 94 years ago by a Russian legislator who stood appalled by the bloody slaughter brought on by his government's strategy during World War I. He asked, "is this stupidity or is it treason?" I will leave the reader to seek his own answer.

There are so many battles to be fought that one can easily get frustrated and discouraged. In truth, however, they are really all just parts of a larger struggle. They add up to the struggle for humane rules, their universal application, and no double standards. The law must cease to be "class based." Only then can one approach a less unjust society than our present one. It is really a battle for the type of world we want to live in - our world or theirs.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

A human rights group is accusing Israel of mistreating Palestinian child detainees. CNN's Paula Hancocks reports.

For more reports on Israeli abuse of Palestinian kids:
Defence for Children International - Palestine Section
ADDAMEER Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

By Lawrence Davidson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

It is true that in any given population there will always be a range of decency. Some might use the term morality instead of decency, but morality is loaded with too many disputed meanings. The term decency, hopefully, has a broader recognizable footprint. At the lowest end of any range of decency are those who are so egocentric or perverted that they not only act in ways that are harmful to others, but they do so as a form of enjoyment.

In extreme cases, such people usually end up in prison, or even asylums for the criminally insane. They have committed serial murders or some other form of horrible physical abuse. They have robbed their elderly neighbours for the fun of it or set fire to the local hospital or what have you.

Yet, it is a strange quirk of our way of doing things that such degenerates can actually find a place in society were there is an accepted scope for their particular attitudes and actions. That place would have to bring them into contact with people outside the community and toward whom their society is hostile, a place where the "rules of engagement", as the phrase goes, is much more flexible and fuzzy than back home. That place is the military in times of war. This is not to say that every soldier is suffering from a severe case of "decency deficit". However, if one has been in the military, particularly in a combat environment, one will most likely recognize the type. While everyone else is scared and counting the days until they can get out of an essentially inhuman environment, these people are enjoying themselves.

There has been a recent case of moderate decency deficiency involving a 20-year-old female Israeli soldier by the name of Eden Abargil. Ms Abargil had her picture taken as she "guarded" Palestinian prisoners who were bound and blindfolded. She stands there with her rifle and smiles at the camera. She is not the only one who comes away from serving in Israel's occupation army with such photographic trophies. What makes her special is that she posted this and other pictures on Facebook, under the title "The army, the best time of my life".

According to the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence, these sort of trophy pictures are such a "widespread phenomenon" that taking them constitutes "a norm". Why so? Because it is the "necessary result of a long term military control of a civilian population". No doubt this is true, though if you are sufficiently decency deficient your exposure does not have to be "long term" at all.

Ms Abargil gave an interview on Israeli Army Radio on 17 August. She proclaimed herself "mystified" by those who were upset at the postings. She asked the audience: "What is wrong with that [putting the pictures on Facebook]?" After all, she continued, "there was no violence in the pictures" and "they reflect the military experience". Abargil seems to have decency deficit problems. If nothing else she cannot see that there is in fact violence in her photos. The Palestinian men whom she is so gleefully guarding have obviously suffered violence simply by being bound and blindfolded for resisting illegal occupation. In fact, these scenes scream violence to anyone who can see them within a context of an occupation which itself is violent on a daily basis - anyone who is aware of the Geneva conventions, UN resolutions, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, plain human decency. Yet, that is the rub. Eden Abargil cannot see it. Why not?

Well, her problem might be a personal one. That is, she may be one of those small number of people found worldwide who are incapable of recognizing the difference between right and wrong. If so we can compare her to another young lady whose psyche might qualify for this condition. This woman was also in the military, but she is a 28 year old American. Her name is Lynndie England. She was one of 11 soldiers court marshalled in 2005 for the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Here too it was trophy pictures that exposed the smiling England romping among horribly abused captives. Ms England said that she was just following orders.

In the case of Eden Abargil there is yet another possibility. How can you tell if you have a behaviour problem or are simply misunderstood by outsiders, when you live in a community were decency deficiency is normal? After all, if Breaking the Silence, and other Israeli human rights organizations (whose memberships are quite small but collectively an important humane voice) are right, the taking of trophy pictures is "a widespread phenomenon, not an aberration caused by a single soldier". In this regard it should be noted that the Israeli army appears upset with Abargil, whose action it has labeled "crude", not because she had "the best time of my life" posing for such pictures, but because she was indiscrete enough to display them to the world via the web.

To clarify the above question, consider the environment in which Eden Abargil was born and raised. It is an environment in which most Israelis are taught from childhood that the world is against them. When informed that her Facebook postings might "injure Israel's image in the international arena", Abargil responded: "We shall always be attacked. Whatever we do, we shall always be attacked." Many Israelis are convinced that the Palestinians are barbarians, "beasts walking on two legs", who want to "push the Jews into the sea".

The answer to this alleged threat is to convince the Palestinians that they are "a defeated people". Yet they never seem to get this message and so Israel's destructive power never gives its citizens the security they crave. On the other hand, many Israelis believe that to compromise with the enemy is to encourage them to keep trying to "push the Jews into the sea". So they just continue on an illogical path of trying to humiliate the Palestinians into total surrender.

The majority of Israelis have this problematic worldview reinforced throughout their lives by their parents, their schoolmates and teachers, their friends and co-workers, and their compatriots in the military. They even get it from their rabbis. Under the circumstances it is very difficult to avoid the taint of racism. So, is Eden Abargil's decency deficiency a personal problem, or is she simply an acculturated, "normal" member of a society that is collectively deficient of decency?

If it is the former, the answer might be therapy, parole of one year to live in an Arab-Israeli town, or just keeping Ms Abargil indefinitely away from guns and cameras. If it is the latter, the first step to a cure is the isolation of the entire Israeli society on the model used against apartheid South Africa.

Personally, I agree with Breaking the Silence. The problem goes beyond Eden Abargil. In fact she is only the latest public symptom of an indecent state and ideology (Zionism). For a long time both have done nothing but harm to the Jewish people and religion. It is for their sake, as well as for the long-suffering Palestinians, that the treatment of isolation must be attempted.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By George Bisharat And Nimer Sultany* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Donna Edna Shalala, served for eight years as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton

Israel's systematic discrimination against Arabs was highlighted recently when Donna Shalala, University of Miami president and former Health and Human Services secretary, was detained for three hours, grilled and subjected to an extended luggage search upon her departure from Israel.

Shalala, of Lebanese Arab descent and a long-time supporter of Israel, had visited the country with other university leaders at the invitation of the American Jewish Congress, but had stayed beyond the planned itinerary for several days. It seems evident that, despite her stature, she was a victim of profiling.

But the indignities that Shalala suffered pale in comparison to those faced by the 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of Israel on a daily basis, and not just at the airport.

Adalah, the Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel, counts more than 35 Israeli laws explicitly privileging Jews over non-Jews. Other Israeli laws appear neutral, but are applied in discriminatory fashion. For example, laws facilitating government land seizures make no reference to Palestinians, but nonetheless have been used almost exclusively to expropriate their properties for Jewish settlements.

Consider what it would be like if:

• Our Constitution defined the union as a "white Christian democratic state?''

• Our laws still barred marriage across ethnic-religious lines?

• Our government appointed a Chief Priest, empowered to define membership criteria for the white Christian nation?

• Our government legally enabled immigration by white Christians while barring it for others?

• Our government funded a Center for Demography that worked to increase the birth rates of white Christians to ensure their majority status?

These examples all have parallels in Israeli practices.

While Israel's Palestinian citizens have rights to vote, run for office, form political parties and to speak relatively freely, they remain politically marginalized. No Palestinian party has ever been invited to join a ruling coalition. In recent years, Palestinian politicians and community leaders have been criminally prosecuted or hounded into exile.

Nadim Rouhana, social psychologist and director of Mada al-Carmel (a center studying Palestinian citizens of Israel) reports: "Our empirical research reveals that many Palestinian citizens are alienated from the Israeli state. At a deep psychological level, the daily message conveyed in Israeli public discourse is: 'You are not one of us. You don't belong here. You are permanent outsiders.' Imagine: we, whose families have lived here for centuries, hear this even from recently immigrated Jewish Israeli politicians.''

Palestinian rights are not respected in the Israeli legal system. Israel has no written constitution, only "Basic Laws'' that were enacted piecemeal over time. None enshrines equality, and efforts by Palestinian lawmakers in Israel's Knesset to add an explicit guarantee of equal rights have been rebuffed.

The 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence promised equal rights to all citizens in a Jewish state, and has occasionally been cited by the Israeli High Court. But a declaration of independence does not play the same legal role as a constitution or basic law. As students of American history know, the U.S. Declaration of Independence held that "all men are created equal'' but failed to provide legal leverage to dismantle slavery, or to empower women to vote. Equal rights were only installed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and women's suffrage only by the 19th Amendment. Lacking the necessary tools, the Israeli High Court has failed to consistently protect equal rights for Palestinian citizens.

Shalala's treatment in Israel was, no doubt, demeaning. The incident's effect nonetheless will be constructive if it serves to alert more Americans to Israel's discrimination against its Palestinian citizens -- and creates pressure on Israel to adopt equal rights for all. Only then will durable peace prevail in the Middle East.

* George Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Nimer Sultany is a civil rights attorney in Israel and doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School.

Source: Miami Herald

March for Palestinians civil rights in Lebanon, 27-6-2010, by Farfahinne

By Franklin Lamb* (Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut) | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"These are humanitarian, social and ethical duties, and the Lebanese state must assume the responsibility of providing them to our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Lebanon will not dodge these duties, which must be crystal-clear, and not be subject to any misinterpretation. The international community has to bear also the responsibility that our Palestinian guests will have the right to go back to their homeland: Palestine, with Jerusalem as their capital."
-- Prime Minister Saad Hariri during the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC) meeting at the Grand Serail, June 29, 2010

UPDATE:

Handicapping the Parliamentary Vote to grant Civil Rights to Palestinian Refugees

Votes needed to Pass: 65 MP votes in favor out of 128. As of July 2, 2010:

Firmly in favor: 13
Firmly opposed: 16
Leaning towards voting in favor: 41
Leaning towardsvoting against: 58

Ed: Currently the vote to grant the right to work for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is too close to call as the most serious debate ever in Lebanon on this subject builds momentum. If last week's refugee camps hero was the Druze MP Walid Jumblatt (please see Part V of this series) this week's much admired za'im is the Sunni Muslim Prime Minister, Saad Hariri. The political sands in Parliament and the Cabinet continue to shift as regional powers weigh in and current vote pledges may not be reliable.

A main argument that continues to be made by Members of Parliament who oppose granting civil rights to Lebanon's Palestinians is that allowing them "privileges" (Ed: quotes mine) would lead to their naturalization and settlement (Tawtin). By this is meant that the refugees might get too comfortable in Lebanon and not want to return to Palestine. It's a false but potent shibboleth as many academic and NGO studies and surveys have shown. Unfortunately it continues to resonate given Lebanon's current political atmosphere, particularly in the more right wing Christian villages allied with the Lebanese Forces, the Kataab (Lebanese Social Democratic Party), Phalange movement and the National Liberal Party and their political allies including the Maronite Patriarchy and the American Embassy.

Discussing the claimed fear of Naturalization and its connection with employment of Palestinians, American University of Beirut Professor Sari Hanafi, a key organizer of the June 27, 2010 historic civil rights march here in Lebanon commented during an interview with Now Lebanon on 6/28/10:

"Poverty rates inside refugee camps (due to not being allowed to work) are estimated at about 40 percent of the population, in comparison with the 7 percent or 8 percent observed in the poorest Lebanese areas such as Akkar (Ed: North Lebanon near Tripoli). According to the Palestinian Najdeh Foundation, unemployment rates are at about 60 percent of the total population and only 7 percent of working Palestinians have fixed contracts, 90 percent of which are with UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency). The rest are essentially employed on the black market. These figures account for the exploitation of Palestinians across the board. I do not think that this has anything to do with the fear of naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon. Palestinians had originally two sources of employment: the PLO and UNRWA, and today only the latter remains. Unfortunately, even UNRWA is now increasingly using Palestinians on a temporary contract basis." (Ed: UNRWA recently announced that it has a 113 million dollar deficit. It is being forced to further curtail the shrinking health and education services in the camps).

Being allowed to work is a right not a privilege

The granting of the right to work must be decoupled from permanent settlement in Lebanon in the now active public debate. Unfortunately those in Parliament opposed to granting civil rights to Palestinians have increased the volume and shrillness of their claims that civil rights means naturalization and citizenship and will affect the domestic sectarian balance. Both claims are false, and Lebanon, as a signatory of all the major human rights treaties, and bound to implement others based on principles of customary international law, it has an obligation to respect the basic rights of all persons legally residing on its territory. This is purely a question of respect for human rights, ensuring that its refugees can live in dignity without discrimination. Granting Palestinian refugees these elementary rights is distinct from Lebanon's obligations vis-à-vis its own citizens. The granting of civil rights to Palestine refugees neither entitles them to citizenship, nor obliges the Lebanese state to grant citizenship and the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon do not and have never sought Lebanese citizenship.

Since mid-June 2010, another argument against granting the right to work has been surfacing and Phalange Party leader, former President Amin Gemayel and his allies and even some of his fellow Maronites who compete with him for support in the dwindling Christian community, are issuing warnings. They have been complaining as Gemayal told a Phalange Party gathering last week: "Lebanon's economy cannot sustain granting these "privileges" (Ed: Quotes mine) to Palestinians. It will damage Lebanon's economy. Lebanon does not have enough money. Instead, the international community must take over this file and find a solution. Anyhow the problem requires more study before we act hastily."

Opponents argue that allowing refugees to work will take jobs from Lebanese workers

Following the PLO departure from Lebanon in August of 1982,Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have been barred by law from 77 job categories. Five years ago (February of 2005) pro-Hezbollah Labor Minister Trad Hamadeh issued a decree that officially reduced the job restrictions imposed on Palestinian employment down to 25 jobs. However, this decision remains stillborn due to impossible to meet requirements of work permits (only 2% of Palestinians in Lebanon have ever been able to secure one-sometimes through bribery) reciprocity (which cannot be met since Lebanon does not recognize a state called Palestine) and other government imposed barriers designed specifically to keep Palestinians out of jobs. Since 2005, the number of work permits delivered to Palestinians (261 in 2009) has only varied, as Professor Hanifi has documented, by plus or minus 10 percent every year, proving that there has been no real change in terms of Palestinian employment.

Among those in Parliament and the public favoring granting Palestinian refugees the right to work and the right to purchase a home, the old bromides about Naturalization and Palestinian refugees taking Lebanese jobs are not convincing. Even some of Lebanon's intensely sectarian media is beginning to discount them. The documented history of Palestinian refugee fueled economic growth in countries, such as Syria and Jordan, who have met their international obligations to Palestinian refugees, make clear that Lebanon has much to gain from meeting her obligations and allowing Lebanon's Palestinian refugees their internationally guaranteed rights. In these countries, Palestinians enjoy full citizenship rights, in the French sense of the word. Without being granted nationality, they have the essential social, legal and political rights of any other citizen, including freedom of movement, the right to work and to own a home. This is what Lebanon's Palestinians are seeking and have a fundamental right to be granted without further delay.

As Salvatore Lombardo, the director of UNRWA told key Lebanese leaders on 6/30/10 during a Conference with the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC): "Let's not forget that this will have a huge impact on Lebanon's economy and stability. Lebanon will gain, it will have a workforce that will invest here."

Abdallah Abdallah, the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, has joined virtually all Palestinians in Lebanon in denying any intent to obtain naturalization or political rights. "All what the Palestinians want is the right to work like any other foreign nationals."

Palestinian refugees are not in Lebanon as tourists

Palestinians were terrorized by Zionist forces and gangs while being forced from their homeland and are so far unable to return. Consequently Palestinians have no choice but to live and stay in Lebanon, which distinguishes them from economic migrants and other foreigners. Yet, Lebanese law considers Palestine refugees as foreigners, disregarding the protection needs of long-term forced displaced persons guaranteed by international law.

As much as the well-being of the Palestinian community is dependent on the well-being of the Lebanese economy as a whole, the Lebanese economy itself is dependent on the work, capabilities and human resources of this skilful community. An increased participation of Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese economy, both in terms of quantity and quality, would therefore greatly benefit the economic life of the entire country.

Unlike other groups of refugees and foreigners, due both the long history of their presence in the country and the impossibility of return, Palestinians have no other "economic affiliation" but to the Lebanese economy. Palestinian refugees also contribute to Lebanon's high seasonal agricultural labor demands, as well as to the great need for construction workers. It is common to see Palestinians, sometimes risking arrest, among those congregated under Beirut overpasses seeking shade from the intense sun while waiting and hoping for day labor construction work when can bring their families $15-18 for a ten hour shift.

Their exclusion from being able to work legally is not only a violation of internationally guaranteed rights, it is bad economic policy for Lebanon.

What Lebanon's economy now enjoys from Palestinians will increase

The Washington DC and Beirut based Palestine Civil Rights Campaign and those in Lebanon and internationally who are working to secure civil rights for Palestinian refugees advocate a rights-based approach based on international legal norms and universal moral and religious teachings. While these arguments are sufficient, it is also worth emphasizing the benefits that the Lebanese economy will reap from access to the Palestinian refugee labor market.

At the time of their exodus, only four years after Lebanon's independence from the French in 1943, Palestinian assets brought into Lebanon were estimated at four times the value of the Lebanese economy. Ever since, periods of economic expansion have greatly benefited from Palestinian capital being invested in the country.

As it is now, Palestinian refugees contribute massively to the Lebanese economy, based on their numbers through active engagement in the black market or informal-illegal labor force and by daily economic consumption, as well as millions of dollars of financial contributions by International Organizations such as UN specialized agencies plus donor countries and NGOs, who are assisting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Various studies have concluded that Palestinians account for 10% of all consumption in Lebanon, with food, healthcare and rent being the main expenditures. More than 90% of Palestinian refugees spend all their income in Lebanon contributing directly to the Lebanese economy. Allowing them to work will, it is estimated by the International Labor Organization, double this figure and dramatically spur growth.

Current financial benefits to the Lebanon economy from her Palestinian guests include the following:

• The reception of Western Union type cash remittances by approximately 50% of the Palestinian households in the Camps from relatives living aboard. Foreign workers on the other hand send their earning out of Lebanon to their countries of origin in order to support their families.
• Supplying labor of varying skills for seasonal agricultural demands as well as for major reconstruction projects. This brings considerable profits for Lebanese companies, employers, and employment agencies and the workers' wages of roughly $ 18 per day are often spent immediately for food, healthcare and rent. Palestinian refugees often work in small businesses, generally considered as a foundation of economic growth in any economy and they contribute to "invigorating" the areas surrounding their camps by creating low-cost markets for low-income and other marginalized communities in Lebanon.

As a large percentage of Lebanese continue to leave the country for study and employment, this creates serious gaps in Lebanon's economy as well as a steady demand for skilled and unskilled labor in the Lebanese labor market. Palestinians refugees are willing and able to fill this chasm.

At the same time, Palestinians represent no deductions from the Lebanon's welfare system, as is sometimes claimed, and in fact they unjustly benefit the Lebanese economy by paying social security without receiving any services by law. Some Palestinians unable to work in Lebanon manage to leave and find employment elsewhere, depriving the Lebanese economy of a young, qualified and motivated workforce that could greatly contribute to its socio-economic development.

Yet the economic benefits of full and legal participation by Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese labor market have been willfully underestimated through political resistance to granting them basic rights.

Granting Palestinians the right to work will not take Lebanese jobs

In stark contrast to the non-Palestinian work force, Palestinians represent a numerically modest fraction and pose no threat to job opportunities for Lebanese employees. Indeed, granting the right to work which includes improving the work conditions and safeguards for the Palestinians currently working in the 'informal sector' (Ed: illegal employment or black market rendering them potentially liable for exploitation, dismissal, fines and/or jail) will also benefit Lebanese who are forced to compete against below minimum wages earners who are non-Lebanese .

Palestinian workers constitute only 3-5% of the total work force in Lebanon which is estimated at around 1.1 Million. The size of the foreign labor force, excluding Palestinians, is conservatively estimated at 600.000. Estimates for the number of Syrian laborers vary between 200'000 to one million more.

The Palestinian labor force is between 55.000 and 85.000 (based on estimates of the resident Palestinian refugee population of between 225,000 and 330,000 Palestinian refugees, of which 69% are of working age and of these approximately 37% are employed at least 5 hours per week.

Most of the Palestinians who find work do so in the 12 refugee camps or more than three dozen gatherings. Palestinians work mainly in services, instruction, industry, transport, and agriculture jobs not generally the ones most Lebanese are employed in or would accept to enter. For example, the construction sector employs 19% of all Palestinian workers, and only 0.8% of all Lebanese. Manufacturing employs 13% of the Palestinian workforce and only 8.5% of the Lebanese. Agriculture employs 11% of the Palestinian workers, and less than 2% of Lebanese.

In Lebanon, agricultural workers are excluded from the application of the Labor Law. Construction and agriculture, two of the main sectors in which Palestinians work, employ mostly daily paid workers. Legislation granting the right to work to Palestinians will not significantly affect this group of employees.

Despite the fact that Lebanon's severe restrictive policies were meant to exclude Palestinians from the labor market, they have had little effect on keeping the refugees completely idle. Most Palestinian households report at least one person per household works. The fact that Palestinians are already working, albeit informally and sometimes illegally, indicates that legalizing their status and providing them with the full right to work would not cause a loss of jobs available for Lebanese citizens but only the regularization of the current situation for the protection of both.

Palestinians provide a very positive but underutilized contribution to the Lebanese economy.

A win-win scenario-additional benefits for Lebanon

While the unemployment rate among Palestinians is around 15%, a far larger percentage of around 35% of the Palestinian workforce (60% of the men and 12% of the women) are underutilized workers. Apart from the unemployed, these consist of discouraged persons (wanting to work but believing there is none), visibly under-employed (time related, i.e. working less than 35 hrs a week) or invisibly under-employed (low-productivity jobs and/or over- qualification)

By granting the Right to Work which includes improving the work conditions and safeguards for the Palestinians currently working in the 'informal sector' (Ed: illegal employment rendering them potentially liable for dismissal, fines and/or jail) it will also benefit Lebanese who are forced to compete against below minimum wages earners who are non-Lebanese workers. Lebanese employers often prefer to engage foreign workers saving money by paying wages lower than legal minimum wage while avoiding registration in social security system. Such low cost Palestinians risk undermining Lebanese wage earners with similar qualifications

The most sought after jobs go to Lebanese

As noted, the educational level of Palestinian refugees remains relatively low and those without higher education do not compete with Lebanese with advanced schooling. Only 6% among Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon have completed secondary school for a current non enrollment or dropout rate of more than 90% from higher education. 70% have only a primary school education or less. 13% drop out of school at the elementary level. This education gap, plus widespread discrimination, keeps Palestinian refugees from competing with Lebanese for many jobs.

As Lebanon's Parliament deliberates this summer on how to met its international legal and moral obligations while benefiting its economy, at a minimum two severe impediments must be removed for either or both to be realized. These are the work permit and the application of the principle of reciprocity.

The work permit

In order to obtain a work permit, the employee must have a work contract. This poses a major challenge for Palestinians, especially for several occupations associated with a high turnover of employers. A work permit can be cancelled at any time in favor of a Lebanese worker. Another issue is the validity of the permit, lasting only two years. Because of these and numerous other administrative restrictions, only around 2% of all Palestinian workers hold work permits. As noted above, Lebanon granted 136,000 foreigners working permits in 2009, and only 261 of them are Palestinian. Only 11% of Palestine refugee workers have a written contract. Most do not have paid vacation or sick leave. Occupational injuries are not covered by UNRWA health services. Of the Palestinian male workers who stop working, 70% do so for health reasons.

The principle of reciprocity cannot be applied to Palestinian refugees who are stateless

Every country has a legitimate reason to protect the interests of its nationals. This can be done through conditioning the provision of rights to foreigners on the basis of a mutual enjoyment of these rights by its citizens in the country of origin of the foreigner. However, applying this principle of reciprocity to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who are stateless, means effectively denying them the right to work. This impossibility to comply is clearly against the logic and purpose of the legislation. Lebanon, which is a State party to the Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights must ensure the enumerated rights to all individuals within its territorial jurisdiction including non-nationals. Discrimination on the basis of a person being stateless is prohibited.

The right to work is essential for realizing other human rights and forms an inseparable and inherent part of human dignity. Every individual has the right to be able to work, allowing one to live in dignity. The right to work contributes at the same time to the survival of the individual and to that of her/his family, Moreover, insofar as work is freely chosen or accepted, it enhances the families development and recognition within the community. Granting the right to work to Palestinian refugees is part of Lebanon's obligations under international law and its enactment will benefit Lebanon's economy.

* Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and volunteers with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign. He can be reached at fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org.

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Each year, PCHR publishes its annual report on Occupied Palestine, this year's a detailed 250 page (PDF file) review of the past year, including the first days of Israel's war on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, "the major issue in the record of human rights and international humanitarian law violations in the Occupied Palestinian Terrority (OPT) in 2009," the bloodiest since the 1948 Nakba that stole a nation from its people.

Today, 1.5 million Gazans struggle to rebuild their lives, "in spite of sustaining permanent disabilities, losing loved ones or becoming homeless" after war under siege - collective punishment in violation of international law, and fundamental human rights, including free movement of persons and goods, proper shelter, adequate health care and education, and the right to rebuild homes and other structures destroyed by the war's onslaught.

Israel's settlement expansion, Separation Wall, and control matrix exacerbates West Bank conditions, "turning Palestinian communities into (isolated) Bantustans." In addition, efforts continue to consolidate and illegally annex East Jerusalem by dispossessing its residents, en route to making the entire city exclusively Jewish, unheard of in the modern era, especially by a so-called civilized state, in fact, barbarian and brutish while touting its democratic credentials and victimhood, more evidence of a scoundrel caught red-handed.

PCHR stresses the horrific human rights violations and deterioration throughout the year, intensified since Hamas' January 2006 election, including:

• willful killings and violations of the right to life;
• collective punishment policies represented by a tightened closure and severe restrictions on the right to freedom of movement;
• detention and torture of Palestinians (official Israeli policy);
• continued settlement activities and attacks by Israeli settlers; and
• continued construction of the Annexation Wall inside the West Bank territory," on 12% of stolen Palestinian land.

Nonetheless, the international community doesn't enforce their international law obligation to stop human rights violations and hold those responsible accountable. As such, they're complicit, guilty through silence and failure to act.

Worse still, the West and colluding Arab states participate in Gaza's isolation by financially boycotting, and bogusly criminalizing, its legitimate government, democratically elected, in support of Mahmoud Abbas' coup d'etat regime, Fatah in the West Bank, soundly defeated in the January 2006 election.

Innocent victims are punished, reeling under 43 years of occupation, an unprecedented international betrayal.

Occupation Force Crimes

Numerous ones occur daily, explained in weekly PCHR updates, like its June 17 - 23 one covering:

• peaceful Gaza and West Bank protestors attacked, injuring three civilians (including a child) in Bal'ein village, west of Ramallah;
• dozens more harmed by tear gas inhalation;
• three journalists assaulted in Beit Jala;
• 10 civilians, including three human rights workers, a journalist and five medical volunteers arrested;
• four Gazan farmers and workers, including two children, shot and wounded in their fields;
• 43 civilians, including five children, arrested in 16 West Bank incursions and three others in Gaza;
• the suffocating Gaza siege continues unabated;
• the West Bank and East Jerusalem remain locked down by a control matrix of about 630 checkpoints and 60 - 80 "flying" ones, including in and around Jerusalem, severely restricting access to and throughout the city; and
• ruthless ethnic cleansing continues, stealing land and bulldozing homes for settlement expansions and other Jews only projects.

When completed, the Separation Wall (half finished) will stretch 724 kilometers (on 12% of stolen Palestinian land), encircling the West Bank, further isolating the population. Civilians protesting against it nonviolently are systematically assaulted, tear gassed, fired on, injured and arrested.

In addition, two-thirds of the main roads are closed or controlled by security forces. Further, one-third of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is inaccessible to anyone without a (very hard to get) permit, that if obtained takes months and must be renewed - measures to make life in Occupied Palestine oppressive, punishing, and impossible, including random searches on streets and in private homes, some followed by arrests and imprisonment.

Numbers of Dead and Wounded in 2009

Forty-three years of occupation have taken an unprecedented toll. In 2009 alone, it included:

• 1,092 killed, including 831 civilians, the others resistance fighters;
• civilian victims included 305 children and 101 women, targeted the same as men; civilians attacked like freedom fighters;
• 1,066 were killed in Gaza, 97% of the total;
• the war's toll killed 1,419 Palestinians and wounded another 5,200, many severely from loss of limbs, brain damage, or other extreme injuries;
• from September 2000 (the start of the second Intifada) through December 2009, 6,520 Palestinians were killed, including 4,955 civilians, tens of thousands more wounded;
• after the January 18, 2010 ceasefire, the IDF killed 47 Palestinians, including 26 civilians, seven of them children; 12 civilians were killed by Israeli snipers in Gaza buffer zones, gunned down in cold blood; five others died when tunnels were bombed;
• in the West Bank, Israeli forces killed 18 Palestinians, including 15 civilians, six of them children; Israeli settlers killed three more, including two children;
• all of them posed no threat, including participants in nonviolent protests against the Separation Wall, land confiscations or home demolitions; nonetheless, Israeli forces murdered them in cold blood, claiming self-defense, the usual bogus pretext.

PCHR investigations confirmed that Israel "used excessive and disproportionate force against Palestinian civilians, who are recognized as protected persons under international humanitarian law" - what Israel doesn't acknowldege or the principles of distinction and proportionality.

Evidence clearly shows that Israeli forces repeatedly used (and continue to use) excessive and disproportionate force against nonviolent Palestinian civilians, in violation of international law.

They posed no threat, yet were killed when their homes, other buildings, factories, or vehicles were bombed. Some were extrajudicially executed, others when their communities were invaded - in all cases, crimes of war and against humanity.

Throughout 2009, Israel tightened closure on the West Bank, and imprisoned Gazans under siege, denying them enough food, medicines, fuel, electricity, and other common essentials - exacerbating a worsening humanitarian crisis, suffocating 1.5 million people, and paralyzing the economy.

"The members of the international community, especially the High Contracting Parties to (Fourth Geneva) have shamefully failed to take the action necessary to ensure" this stops and to hold Israel accountable. Instead, they've been complicit in the worst of its crimes, and share equal guilt, especially America, Israel's paymaster/partner.

Israeli forces also prevent Palestinian civilians from entering Israel or going abroad for medical care, other emergencies, education, or their right of free movement - denied throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians are imprisoned on their own land in their own country by a hostile occupier, there illegally.

Throughout 2009, the humanitarian crisis worsened, the result of:

• 40% unemployment, over 55% in Gaza where poverty exceeds 80%, affecting 1.2 million people;
• since September 2000, incomes have steadily decreased, down 45% at yearend 2009; and
• national output dropped sharply in all sectors, especially in Gaza.

Other Imposed Harshness

In December 2009, at least 9,381 Palestinians were imprisoned, including 310 children and 34 women, mostly inside Israel - a clear international law violation under Fourth Geneva's Article 76 stating:

"Protected persons accused of offences (sic) shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein."

They must also be afforded proper food, hygiene, medical, and other essentials, including spiritual assistance. In addition, minors must be given special care, and women must be confined in separate quarters under female supervision. Israel, however, has male guards in women's prisons and treats children the same as adults, besides violating other international laws regarding the treatment of prisoners.

Israeli forces disregard them as well commit regular assaults, other incursions, and arrests during house raids, especially in West Bank villages and refugee camps. Also at checkpoints, roadblocks and during nonviolent demonstrations.

Throughout 2009, security forces arrested about 5,000 Palestinians, including 1,000 in Gaza, mostly civilian men, women and children, all treated horrifically, included elected officials, imprisoned for belonging to the wrong parties and wanting Palestine to be free.

At yearend 2009, 26 PLC members were incarcerated, most from the Change and Reform bloc, affiliated with Hamas. Another was speaker Dr. 'Aziz al-Dweik, now released. However, civil activists are detained for defending human rights, they like others treated harshly, most of them tortured like other Palestinian prisoners. Others are kept in solitary confinement for prolonged periods.

Testimonies confirm prison horror stories, including physical and mental torture, exposure to extreme heat or cold, starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings, pressure to collaborate in exchange for release, (in some cases, threatened harm to family members if refuse), and/or forced confessions in Hebrew, not Arabic, for crimes they didn't commit.

During Cast Lead, Israel "wantonly and extensively destroyed Palestinian civilian property, including homes, agricultural lands, as well as health, educational, religious and economic facilities," all in violation of international law. As a result, about 450,000 Gazans evacuated their homes for safer locations, "causing many to recall scenes of the forced mass migration" during 1948, what those who endured it can't forget, nor their children who know the toll on their parents, why the event is called the Nakba, the catastrophe, affecting the entire population.

Cast Lead's toll was horrific by any standard, PCHR documenting:

• 2,116 totally destroyed homes, containing 2,881 housing units for 3,253 families and 18,750 individuals;
• another 3,277 houses with 4,925 housing units for 5,483 families and 32,703 individuals rendered uninhabitable, their damage so extensive;
• 16,000 others were partly damaged;
• in total, 51,453 civilians lost their homes, victimized by illegal bombings or shellings; and
• in the West Bank, Israel demolished 134 houses, including 83 in East Jerusalem; another 23 Palestinian civilians were forced to destroy their own homes and pay the cost.

Today under the extremist Netanyahu government, conditions are worse than ever. Besides daily repression, settlement construction continues, the Municipality of Jerusalem and Israeli ministries taking bids for 3,400 housing units on occupied Palestinian land, ordering homes demolished and thousands of donums of land confiscated for them.

Complicit with Israeli security forces, the judiciary legitimizes occupation policies, Israel's High Court, for example, rejecting Palestinian petitions against the expropriation of their land for settlement construction and the Separation Wall. Rarely ever does the court order its route changed. Even then, it seldom happens.

Illegal construction imposed new hardships, including farmers denied access to their land beyond the Wall without hard to obtain permits to reach it. Yet to get them, they must be registered owners, nearly impossible due to land registry complications because earlier ownership was under deceased persons' names. In addition, registries haven't been updated, and some heirs don't live in the West Bank.

Other hardships include:

• new movement restrictions for Palestinians living near the Wall's route, not just affecting farmers; and
• access to medical care, education, and relatives is impacted, plus restricted hours to move through gates at the Wall, "operated under a strict security system," often closing for no apparent reason, and even when open, onerous to pass through.

A Nation and Occupation Repressively Persecuting Non-Jews

For Palestinians, Israel's legal system is nightmarish, the chance for impartial investigations impossible, in violation of international standards. They require those responsible for crimes be punished, victims afforded redress, and justice to be blind to race, religion or ethnicity.

Under military occupation and for Israeli Arabs, the system is fundamentally flawed and unfair, under laws affording justice solely to Jews. As a result, PCHR and other human rights organizations pursue universal jurisdiction (UJ) remedies, a legal principle empowering courts in other countries to indict, prosecute and convict persons guilty of international crimes, no matter where they occurred.

Nonetheless, winning judgments against Israeli officials is daunting, not accomplished so far, politics and national alliances superseding the rule of law - what no longer can be tolerated at the expense of victims' rights.

The UN Fact Finding Mission conducted extensive investigations into Israel's Gaza war, as well as West Bank and East Jerusalem attacks, confirming gross international law violations - crimes of war and against humanity.

Yet over Q 4 2009, "persistent efforts were made to undermine" reports from the UN Human Rights Council, General Assembly and Security Council, again, Palestinians denied their rights.

As a result, on October 16, 2009, at the urging of the Palestinian leadership, the UN Human Rights Council (at its 12th Special Session) issued a Resolution condemning illegal Israeli acts, especially annexing East Jerusalem lands. It also endorsed the Goldstone Commission's conclusions and recommendations - a first step toward justice, so far not achieved.

Israel's harshness continues. A subservient Mahmound Abbas issues presidential decrees without presenting them to the PLC or involving the legitimate Hamas government.

Though released from detention in June 2009, PLC Speaker, Dr. 'Aziz al-Dwaik, is prevented from even entering his Ramallah office by presidential decree, an illegitimate act by a coup d'etat president.

The split between West Bank and Gaza is untenable, the result of Israel targeting Hamas, bogusly calling it a terrorist organization, Abbas its servile tool obeying orders and being rewarded with White House visits and photo-ops, the benefits for betraying his people, including remaining president long after his term expired and not calling new elections.

Life in Occupied Palestine remains grim, Israeli imposed viciousness creating enormous hardships for millions of victimized Palestinians, ongoing for 62 years, 43 under occupation brutishness - illegal, unjustifiable, and unconscionable by a so-called civilized state, in fact, run by hooligans, war criminals, respecting might alone over right, what grassroots activism no longer can tolerate nor should anyone of conscience anywhere.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

Most of Gaza's factories have closed and its water is polluted as a result of Israel's siege policy, according to a new report being released today by the Israeli Human Rights group - B'tselem.

The siege policy has "led to economic collapse in Gaza," B'tselem noted in a 44-page report (PDF) that looked at Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the period from January 2009 to the end of April 2010.

Following is a summery of this report:

• The prohibition on bringing in raw materials and exports into Gaza, which has been in place since Hamas's takeover of the Strip in June 2007, forced 95 percent of the factories and workshops in the area to close.
• Before 2007, 4,000 types of goods were let into Gaza, compared with less than 150 that come in now. Among the restricted items are building materials such as iron and cement, which are needed to rebuild the 3,500 homes destroyed during last Israeli assault on Gaza - Operation Cast Lead.
• The quantity of goods that comes through the crossings is less than one-quarter of what entered prior to the siege.
• Before 2007, 70 trucks laden with export goods such as furniture, clothing and produce left Gaza daily for Israel. Now, only the export of strawberries and flowers to Europe is allowed in "certain instances". Goods are coming into Gaza through a system of tunnels set up under the border with Egypt, although the system is not enough to revive Gaza's economy.
• Electricity is a problem in Gaza. 98% of the residents suffer from blackouts ranging from eight to ten hours a day, while the remaining 2% do not receive any electricity at all.
• The power outages due to lack of fuel and spare parts have prevented the proper operation of wells and desalination plants.
• At the end of 2009, studies showed that 93% percent of the Gaza Strip's water was polluted, with high quantities of chloride and nitrates.
• "The water supply is defective and thousands of residents are not even connected to the water grid. Waste treatment has also been affected. Every day, some 100,000 cubic meters of untreated or partially untreated waste-water flow into the sea."
• A lack of pesticides and spare parts for irrigation systems makes it hard for farmers. Those with land near the border with Israel can no longer farm because access is forbidden or restricted, and those who violate these orders risk being shot.
• Fisherman cannot go out farther than three nautical miles, which limits the Strip's fish supply.
• The number of Palestinian fatalities at the hands of the IOF dropped from 456 in 2008 to 83 from January 21, 2009, through the end of April 2010. These numbers do not include Palestinian deaths that occurred during Operation Cast Lead.
• The report noted that Israel demolitions had continued in Area C of the West Bank, where from January 2009 to the end of April 2010, the occupation forces had destroyed 44 residential structures. The demolitions left 317 Palestinians homeless.
• In 2009, the Jerusalem Municipality demolished 48 buildings in east Jerusalem. The demolitions left 247 Palestinians homeless.
• The report notes that the IOF had not stop building settlements and no outposts been removed.
• According to the report, very few IOF or police investigations into allegations of wrongdoing against Palestinians had actually lead to convictions. From the start of the second intifada in September 2000 to the end of April 2010, B'tselem reported 255 cases of violence to the military advocate-general's office. Only 11 indictments were filed, and one of those was canceled.
• During that same period, B'tselem turned to the Justice Ministry's Police Investigation Department concerning 180 cases of violence, but only 12 indictments were filed.
• Since September 2000, B'tselem has submitted 220 complaints to the Israel Police, demanding investigations of cases where Israelis harmed Palestinians or damaged their property. Only nine of these complaints resulted in indictments.

B'tselem executive director Jessica Montell said that the report was being released to mark "the 43rd anniversary" of the end of the Six Day War, which marked "the beginning" of Israel's occupation.

"The ongoing occupation both violates" Palestinian rights and "poses clear dangers for Israel's democracy," Montell said. "For this reason we as Israelis must demand accountability for actions taken in our name in the occupied territories and work to change in policies that infringe human rights."

By Dr. Alan Sabrosky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

So the predictable dynamics are unfolding. Anywhere the US does not have a veto, Israel is being condemned for its latest atrocities and for its illegal blockade on Gaza. Israel as usual has its puppets in the US Congress and the US mainstream media coming to its defense. And Israel has rejected demands from the UN, plus all of the major powers (except, of course, the US) to lift the blockade and stand aside.

But this crisis does not seem to be going away. An awful lot of people are still mad, and more are becoming enraged as the days pass. Fraudulent videos from Israel may be treated as fact in the US media, but as far as I can tell, nowhere else. Israel stilll depends on the US to stop anything tangible from happening to it. The US government still depends on its weight to make that happen.

And Turkey, quite obviously, does not give a damn. I tell you, I wish I were younger and could immigrate to Turkey, it would be SO good to have a leader who did not check his every bowel movement with the domestic lobby of a foreign country. Perhaps Erdogan could ship Obama some left-handed suppositories? They might help him get through the day.

The practical matter is what to do in the next few days. The MV Rachel Corrie is coming into Israel's target zone soon, and at least one of the other sidelined vessels -- perhaps with an American flag? -- may be accompanying it. In fact, the organizers of the flotilla should do all in their power to ensure that the Irish-flagged ship is in tandem with a US-flagged ship as they head into the Israeli blockade.

The Israelis will undoubtedly intercept them, as they have said they would. They have no choice. Like thugs defending their ill-gotten gains, they have to do that, because once their illegal blockade is penetrated, it is gone for good. They are truly caught on a dilemma of their own making: if they let any ships through, the blockade ends, and if they attack another, the ability of the US to protect them from sanctions or worse becomes increasingly problematical.

A sensible state with sensible leaders would recognize the absurdity of persisting in a course of action that is tactically dubious and strategically self-destructive. But Israel is not a sensible country, and its leaders today are not at all rational -- indeed, not only Netanyahu and Lieberman, but their predecessors and cohorts such as Barak would be prime candidates for an institution for the criminally insane. Not, perhaps, in a clinical sense, as being deranged -- "just" monomaniacs and fanatics, and therefore doubly dangerous.

So my suggestion. Let the organizers of the flotilla wait until a Turkish-flagged ship can join the Rachel Corrie, and a US-flagged ship as well. If Erdogan is true to his word -- and unlike American politicians, I believe he will be -- there'll be at least one Turkish warship with them. Give the Israelis the choice of attacking a US-flagged ship among others, or letting all of them through.

Try hard to get another warship from anywhere, and at the very least, have the people on the US-flagged ship be in telephonic contact with the US 6th Fleet as they approach the point of Israeli interception. Forty-odd years ago, a US fleet stood aside at the orders of then-President Johnson as Israelis attacked a US Navy ship and killed or wounded over 200 US sailors and Marines.

Not even Obama can be sure the US Navy will stand aside again and let that happen to another US-flagged ship, especially an unarmed vessel carrying civilians and humanitarian aid. Unlike politicians -- and many admirals and generals -- most of the US Navy and Marine Corps have never been for sale. It would give the Israelis a much-needed and long-overdue lesson.

* Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

By Dr David Morrison* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

19/01/10 - OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría and Israeli President, Shimon Peres.

The Roadmap for the Accession of Israel to the OECD Convention, adopted by the OECD Council in November 2007, states:

"The Council reaffirms that OECD Membership is committed to fundamental values, which candidate countries are expected to share. These fundamental values serve as the foundation of the likemindedness of OECD Members and have been expressed in various OECD Ministerial Communiqués.

"Accepting these values, along with the established body of OECD instruments, standards and benchmarks, is a requirement for membership.

"These fundamental values include a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights, adherence to open and transparent market economy principles and a shared goal of sustainable development." ^[2]

Since the Government intends to support Israel's accession, we assume that the Government is of the opinion that Israel accepts the fundamental values that are a requirement for OECD membership, in particular, that it has "a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights".

Does Israel respect human rights?

In the light of Government statements over recent years, we find it difficult to understand how this could be. For example, following Minister Martin's recent visit to Gaza, he wrote in the New York Times on 5 March 2010:

"I view the current conditions prevailing for the ordinary population as inhumane and utterly unacceptable, in terms of accepted international standards of human rights. ... I genuinely believe that the medieval siege conditions being imposed on the people of Gaza are unacceptable." ^[3]

In December last year, Minister Martin described Gaza as "an open prison" ^[4]. A year earlier, on 5 November 2008, he told the Dáil:

"The Government agrees with those who state that the effective isolation of Gaza constitutes collective punishment and is illegal under international humanitarian law." ^[5]

In stating that view, he was reiterating the view expressed by his predecessor, Dermot Ahern, earlier in the year on 11 March 2008 ^[6]. Presumably, they had in mind Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention that forbids an Occupying Power from applying "collective penalties" to people under occupation ^[7].

Given that Israel has tightened its blockade of Gaza in the interim, the Government can hardly have modified its view that Israel is guilty of collective punishment in breach of international humanitarian law.

In the light of this, we are at a loss to understand how the Government can be of the opinion that Israel is committed to "the respect of human rights", which is a requirement for membership of the OECD.

Other human rights violations

It is not as if this is the only Israeli action that casts doubt on Israel's commitment to "the respect of human rights".

Its plantation of nearly half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is in breach of international humanitarian law, in this case, Article 49(6) of the 4th Geneva Convention – and there is no sign whatsoever that Israel intends to desist, despite continual demands from the international community, including Ireland, that it do so.

Its destruction of Arab property to make way for these settlements and the roads that service them (and the Wall) is in breach of Article 53 of the 4th Geneva Convention.

And on top of all this, which has been going on for more than 40 years, there is the myriad of human rights violations that took place in Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, as attested to by the UN Fact Finding Mission headed by Justice Goldstone ^[8].

Discrimination against Israeli Arabs

In addition, Arab citizens of Israel are systematically discriminated against in a variety of ways. A European Commission report on Israel dated May 2004 says so:

"The Arab minority, Muslim, Christian and Druze, makes up almost 20% of the Israeli population. Although the Declaration of Independence proclaims equality for citizens, Israeli legislation contains laws and regulations that favour the Jewish majority. ... As highlighted by an Israeli Commission report presented in 2003 ("Or Commission"), the Arab minority also suffers from discrimination in many areas including budget allocations, official planning, employment, education and health." ^[9]

Four years later, in April 2008, a Commission report on Israel's implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy noted little progress in this area, saying that "the promotion and protection of the Israeli Arab minority did not advance significantly during the reporting period" ^[10].

In education, for example, a recent OECD report Israeli Child Policy and Outcomes states:

"... government spending per child is much lower in the Arab sector than in the Jewish sector. This financial gap is reflected in different ways: First and most directly, average spending per child in the Arab localities is estimated to be 36.8% lower than in Jewish localities." ^[11]

In employment, former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert told a parliamentary commission of inquiry on 11 November 2008:

"We have not yet overcome the barrier of discrimination, which is a deliberate discrimination and the gap is insufferable". ^[12]

He continued:

"... there are government agencies who employ a miniscule number of Israeli Arabs, among them the Bank of Israel and Israel Electric Company. There is no argument that there were ministries and offices that did not accept Arabs. It's terrible that there is not even one Arab employee at the Bank of Israel and at the Electric Company Arab workers represent less than one percent of all employees."

The overwhelming evidence is that Israel has little respect for the human rights of Palestinians either in the Occupied Territories or in Israel itself, yet the Government is apparently satisfied that Israel has fulfilled the requirement for OECD membership that it is committed to respect human rights.

Israel a pluralist democracy?

The other requirement for OECD membership is that Israel be committed to a pluralist democracy. While it is often said that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, we do not believe that this proposition is sustainable. How can a state that has ruled over millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967, without according them any say in the institutions that govern them, be described as a democracy? Only Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories can vote in Knesset elections. Surely, that demonstrates a 40-year record of contempt for democracy rather than a commitment to it and is akin to the voting system that operated in apartheid South Africa.

No other OECD state rules over millions of people who are excluded from the franchise. Israel should not be admitted under these circumstances.

Israel's accounts cover more than Israel

Another point: Israel's accession is set to go ahead even though Israel is in breach of the rules that the OECD applies for the presentation of national statistics – since its statistics cover, not just the territory west of the Green Line that is internationally recognised as belonging to Israel, but also the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The OECD Committee on Statistics has acknowledged the breach, but is nevertheless recommending that Israel be admitted to membership.

This is revealed in a leaked OECD report, titled Accession of Israel to the Organisation: Draft formal opinion of the Committee on Statistics ^[13]. The OECD normally insists that members adhere to the UN-approved standard for the presentation of national accounts, 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA), but the leaked report states plainly that "to the extent that economic activity is measured according to a criterion of nationality, Israel's data is at variance with one of the basic concepts of the SNA" (paragraph 19).

Israel should not be admitted while it is unwilling to present statistics in respect of economic activity within the territory that is internationally recognised as belonging to Israel. To admit Israel while its national statistics include the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank would give an international seal of approval to Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and its colonisation of the West Bank. That should not be done.

(*)

For all of these reasons, and others, we believe the Government should reconsider its decision to support Israel's admission to the OECD.

References:
[1] http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20100421.XML&Page=1&Ex=2099#N2099
[2] http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2007doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00004872/$FILE/JT03237381.PDF
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05iht-edmartin.html
[4] http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1221/mideast.html
[5] http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20081105.xml&Page=1&Ex=738#N738
[6] http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20080311.xml&Page=1&Ex=147#N147
[7] http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5
[8] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf
[9] http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/country/israel_enp_country_report_2004_en.pdf
[10] http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/progress2008/sec08_394_en.pdf
[11] http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2010doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00000EBE/$FILE/JT03280340.PDF
[12] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1036798.html
[13] http://cryptome.org/israel-oecd.zip

* Dr David Morrison is is a writer on international affairs, specialising in Middle Eastern affairs. David is currently (2010) involved with Sadaka - Ireland Palestine Alliance (www.sadaka.ie). David is the former political officer of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

By Dr. Sami Alrabaa* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The Holocaust Hypocrisy

Undoubtedly, the "Holocaust" which was inflicted on the Jews before the II World War was a crime against humanity; it was an egregious genocide, like several other genocides inflicted on the Native Americans, African Americans, and the Armenians, for instance. But as far the Jews are concerned the Holocaust is a "unique" crime, incomparable with any other crime. Day in and day out, the Jews across the globe insist that comparing the Holocaust with other crimes is politically incorrect and impermissible.

You can question the severity of any crime, but not the Holocaust, otherwise you are branded as anti-Semitic and one of those right-wing populists.

This is reminiscent of the racial discrimination in the US until the 1960s. Racial discrimination was "politically correct" at least in the America. Critics of racial discrimination were portrayed as "anti-American" and "communists".

Every chapter in the human history was dominated by a certain mindset, regardless how irrational and inhumane it was. What was politically correct proved later to be incorrect. Over more than three centuries, racial discrimination against African Americans was politically correct, at least in America.

After the II World War, the Jews have set out to single out their "Holocaust" as the WORST atrocity ever inflicted on a religious minority. They have insisted that any description short of that is improper and anti-Semitic. This implies a perverse discrimination against victims of other genocides. This mindset dominates the media and political life at least in the West and handled as politically correct per excellence. But, like other mindsets, sooner or later, this prevailing mindset will disappear and the Holocaust will be treated as not superior to other crimes against humanity. Many field studies, which have not been published for fear of provoking the Jewish lobby, prove without any shred of doubt that ordinary people view the Holocaust as a crime like any other crime.

In Germany and in the West at large, you are not allowed to compare any crime to the Holocaust. For the German establishment (media and politics across the board), controlled by an influential Jewish lobby, the Holocaust is a "UNIQUE" crime in the history of mankind. If someone slips and compares the Holocaust, even metaphorically, to any crime anywhere in the world, they are immediately urged to withdraw their comparison. The Holocaust is more "sacred" than the Bible and the Koran. Most recently, the Pope's secretary compared the media campaign about child abuse in Catholic institutions to the hate campaign against Jews under the Nazis before the II World War. The Jewish lobby rushed to muzzle him and ordered him to apologize, which he did.

Discrimination of any kind is politically incorrect. But it seems that Jews insist that discrimination against other victims of atrocities is "legitimate". It also seems that Jewish blood is more precious than other bloods.

By the way, denying the "Holocaust" is illegal and punishable in Germany and Austria. Think of the British David Irving who was jailed in Austria for simply saying that the 6 million Jews who were burned to death by the Nazis is exaggerated. Recently, a German court ruled that the British bishop, Richard Williamson had to pay a fine of € 10 million for claiming that the Holocaust never took place.

Likewise, if the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad happens to visit Austria or Germany, he would be persecuted and jailed, although he never denied the Holocaust. He simply criticized the number of Jews killed by the Nazis; Ahmedinajad believes that the 6 million is an exaggerated figure.

However, when you talk in private to Germans, they tell you, this is absurd. Nobody dare to compare the Holocaust to other crimes and genocides in the history of mankind. If you criticize that then you are branded as "anti-Semitic"!

By the way, the political establishment in Germany avoids conducting surveys about sensitive issues like the Holocaust and Islamism, for example, constructing minarets. More often than not, the public thinks differently than the political establishment and main stream media preach.

Jewish history is omnipresent in contemporary Germany. No day passes by without a Jewish story. All kinds of stories are told in newspapers, radios, and TVs, short, long, true, and fictitious stories are told.

How about crimes committed against the Native Americans and African Americans, just to name a few? For the Jewish lobby and mainstream media, you are comparing apples to oranges.

According to the British Encyclopedia, the Belgium King Leopold II (1835-1909) ordered the killing of 12 million Africans in Congo. This is real Holocaust. But this fact is as dead as Leopold himself. African Americans, Congolese, and Native Americans never received any kind of compensation, but the Jews received huge sums of money.

Along their history until now, the Jews have always marketed themselves as victims in the Diaspora; in Spain, Europe, and the Middle East.

The Iranian nuclear program which Israel blasts, day in and day out, is a welcome opportunity to play the victim. But how about the Israeli nuclear arsenal? Neither the West nor the IAEA dare check out this arsenal.

Further, Israel in not interested in peace. Peace with its Arab neighbors would mean an end to the "victim theory".

The Media Hypocrisy

I have been living in Germany for the past 30 years working as a sociology and communication professor. Hence, I know what I am talking about. I could fill up volumes about the hypocrisy and contradictions reproduced by the German media and German politics.

The German mainstream media and political establishment divide the world into democratic countries and dictatorships. Countries of the so called Third World which hold elections and have a parliament are branded as democratic, provided of course they are friendly to the West. It does not matter whether these countries introduce political and socio-economic reforms or not. Despotic Arab regimes with dismal human rights records are rarely criticized. They are branded as "moderate" and allegedly play a "geo-strategic role in the Middle East".

The truth of the matter, the West benefits from the Saudi billions of petrodollars. These huge sums of money are largely invested in the West. In addition, introducing real democracy in the Arab world would leave the West without stooge allies.

Democratic countries, like Iran, Bolivia, and Venezuela, for instance, which have introduced huge economic reforms and narrowed the gap between the rich and poor, are arbitrarily depicted by the Western media and political establishment as "dictatorships".

Also, the West accuses Third World countries of being corrupt. But how about the West? Isn't it also corrupt and greedy? Siemens and Mercedes, for example, have spent and still spend billions of dollars in corrupt channels in countries of the Third World. They bribe officials in these countries to gain bids. Siemens spent in the 1990s one and a half billions of dollars in corrupt transactions in Saudi Arabia alone. This was confirmed to me by a Siemens manager. Most recently, Mercedes agreed to settle corruption charges in a US court by paying a fine of 200 million dollars. Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minster ordered British courts and legislation NOT to investigate corruption charges in an arms deal of $ 20 billion instigated by the Saudi Bandar Bin Sultan. Blair argued at the time, "an investigation into the corruption charges" is not in British national interests and would harm the deal and damage thousands of jobs in the British arms industry.

Having said that, you can see that the West freezes democracy and human rights principles when their interests are in jeopardy. They use these principles when they conveniently suit them.

In the 1990s I used to teach at King Saud University and once in a while I was asked by the German Embassy to translate for German politicians visiting Saudi Arabia. In one of those visits by Juergen Moellemann, former chairman of the German Free Democratic Party (FDP), he received a gift check of 40 million dollars from Prince Salman, the governor of Riyadh. What for is the money? Moellemann distributed part of the money among influential journalists in Germany so that they keep silent as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned.

When the money, which Moellemann deposited in a secret account in Switzerland, was discovered he committed suicide in 2003.

Germany is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin wall and the unification of east and west Germany. The German media brag: East Germany is now free. However, when you talk to people from East Germany, they tell you: "yes we are free now, we can travel wherever we want, but we do not have the money to do so. 40% of East Germans are jobless.

In contrast, it is big business in Germany which has benefited most from the unification. Whole state-owned industries and agricultural cooperatives were sold for peanuts.

Since the riots in Teheran after the latest presidential elections, the German correspondent of ARD TV, Peter Mezger has reported from Iran. He still reports from Teheran and concocts lies. He interviews "dissidents", but he never interviews supporters of the Iranian government.

If I were the Ambassador of Iran in Berlin, I would sue Mr. Mezger and his ilk for spreading lies. Certainly, the Ambassador would not win the case, where the German constitution, at least in theory, guarantees freedom of speech. But the case would instigate a debate on fair reporting.

In view of the fact that fewer people buy and subscribe daily papers and increasingly turn to the Internet for information, and in order to save costs and keep managing editors' salaries up, many of these German papers have withdrawn their correspondents from overseas. These journalists sit now in their cozy offices and concoct distorted reports about Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia, China, and Syria, for example. Insiders have confirmed this practice.

German TV stations, radio, and newspapers interview dissidents in Germany pretending that they were interviewed in their own home countries. People, who support their governments in the aforementioned countries and elsewhere, are sparsely interviewed. Their views seem not to be important for the German public.

I get sick when I see or read in German media that Mr./Ms. so and so is described as an expert in Iranian and Afghan affairs, for instance. When you check out their qualifications, you find out that they neither speak the language of these countries nor have studied their culture. Besides, they have never been to Iran or Afghanistan. They have read a couple of articles about these countries and hence have become "experts".

The German media condemn violence when Germany is not involved. As the American marines attacked an American ship, kidnapped by Somali pirates and freed the crew last year, the German media rushed to condemn the attack. When recently the Dutch marines attacked a German vessel and freed its crew from Somali pirates, the German media jubilated and approved of the attack.

Democracy and Human Rights Hypocrisy

How honest/dishonest is the West with regard to human rights?

The West claims that human rights are universal and must be respected everywhere in the world.

But does the West really support human rights activists equally across the world?

The answer is a big NO. The West supports human rights activists selectively as long as they suit them and serve their political and economic interests. The West blasts dismal human rights records in countries that are not friendly to the West and turns a blind eye to lack of these rights in "friendly" states.

While the West awards the Sacharov prize to Chinese dissidents, it ignores human rights activists in the Arab world.

Most recently, in his latest visit to Saudi Arabia, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle ignored addressing the dismal human rights record of the Al Saud. Later as he was visiting China, he loudly urged the Chinese government in a press conference to respect human rights.

As far as Westerwelle is concerned, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt play a "vital strategic economic and political role". China is an economic and political adversary.

Obviously, the Cold War is not completely dead. Western propaganda is still active towards those countries which do not submit to the will of Western establishments. Western media and political establishments operate according to the motto: If you are friendly to us, we let you do whatever you want. If you are not friendly to us, then you are our enemy, and we will do everything in our power to topple you.

In general, Western Europe has always looked down at East European countries and has never recognized Turkey as part of the European continent.

During the Cold War Turkey was a member of the NATO. After the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, Western Europe rushed to admit East European countries in the European Union (EU) and in the NATO. Turkey's wish to join the EU has so far been rejected, especially by Germany, Austria, and France. The EU argues Turkey is still backward and not European enough, although Turkey is not less developed than Bulgaria, Rumania, and Poland. All these countries, including Turkey have the same level of development in all walks of life. Why is this so?

Turkey has never been a "friend" of Russia (the core left of the Soviet Union) and would never ally itself with Russia. But East European countries could become allies of Russia if they were left outside the EU and NATO. Therefore, the EU was strategically more than happy to admit East European countries before they ally themselves with Russia, the old and new adversary of the West. Turkey was left out. It is politically insignificant in this equation.

The German media and the Western media at large come up with headlines like, "Tibet in Flames" and demand independence for this integral part of China. They allege that the natives of Tibet are oppressed and not allowed to practice their culture, language, and religion.

The truth of the matter is Tibet has been part of China for the past three centuries and its people are free to exercise their religion and culture. And Tibetans are not discriminated against as the Western media allege.

But how about Palestine and Kurdistan? For decades, the people of these countries have been fighting for independence. Until now, the West has ignored the basic rights of the Kurds for independence although they constitute an ethnic and cultural entity living in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Yet, until recently, the Kurds in Turkey have been forbidden to use their own language and practice their own culture. In Syria, the Kurds are not recognized as an ethnic minority.

Viva Western rationale of democracy and human rights!

* Dr.ٍ Sami Alrabaa is a 60-year old retired sociology professor. Among other universities, he taught at Michigan State University, King Saud University, Kuwait University. He also published extensively in academia and print media. His latest book is "Veiled Atrocities" published by Prometheus Books, New York, 2010.