Newly released today, Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI) has produced this short film about Israel’s ill-treatment of Palestinian children during their arrest, transfer and detention. Alone: Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System contains images of children who found the courage to talk about the appalling treatment.

For example, 14-year-old Ala tells how he was handcuffed and blindfolded during his arrest. “They [Israeli soldiers] put me in the jeep and transferred me to Etzion interrogation center. The interrogator told me to say goodbye to my friend Muhannad, because he was going to throw me from the third floor. No one was there to protect me. No one was with me. I was alone.”
Since 2000, around 7,500 Palestinian children from the occupied Palestinian territories have been detained, interrogated and imprisoned within the Israeli military law system. The film also presents basic information and the impact of their arrest and detention on families.

When 13-year-old Muhannad talks about his arrest, the look in his eyes is heart breaking. His father saw how Israeli soldiers treated his son, “It was as if they were coming to arrest a combatant or an armed fugitive.”

Interrogations are set up to terrorize
In 75 precent of the cases documented by DCI, child detainees suffered some form of physical violence during arrest, transfer and interrogation.

The suffering starts the moment a child is arrested and continues throughout interrogation and court sessions, explains DCI lawyer Iyad Misk. Children are often physically, verbally abused, insulted by soldiers during transport in the jeep. The abuse continues during the interrogation.

Children are also often enticed with offers of immediate release in exchange for confessions. However, what normally happens is just the opposite. Once a child confesses, he is sent to prison and his file is sent to the court. Interrogations are set up to terrorize, says Misk.

Nader Abu Amsha of the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Programme says that the purpose of the raids, arrests and interrogations is more than getting information. It is to break the will and spirit of a generation. The purpose is to break the children and make them live in fear and confusion so they become an inactive, unproductive generation.

DCI’s latest film is an excellent tool to inform a wide audience about the ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system. The film can watched on YouTube, or copies of the DVD can be ordered from DCI-Palestine.

First published in the Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

“In a few months, the tenure of the most stable government in decades will come to an end,” Netanyahu said. “This stability has helped us achieve the two main objectives we promised the citizens of Israel – to strengthen security at a time when a dangerous upheaval is gripping the Middle East, and [to fortify] the economy during … a financial turmoil.”

“We must maintain a responsible economic and defense policy,” Netanyahu added, “to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear bomb.” He said that early elections are a “national interest,” and thanked the citizens of Israel for the privilege they have granted him.

The prospect of early elections arose after minister Yishai (Interior) said his party, Shas, would not support wide-ranging budget cuts, particularly cuts to benefits for the elderly, single-parent families and the poor.

Observers agree that it is unlikely that Israel will attack Iran in the meantime. In fact Netayahu indicated already that much in his recent speech or the United Nations, when he positioned his ‘red line’ in the spring of just before the beginning of the summer.

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans [at] planet.nl

Masoud Rajavi

The U.S. State Department on Friday formally removed the Iranian dissident group Mujahadin-e Khalq from its official list of terrorist organizations in a move which, according to political analysts is bound to deteriorate the relations with Iran even further. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the decision, as the State Department stated, in view of the MEK’s public renunciation of violence, the absence of confirmed acts of terrorism by the MEK for more than a decade, and their cooperation in the peaceful closure of their paramilitary base in Iraq, where several thousand members of the MEK got stranded in 2003 after their former mentor, Saddam Hussein, disappeared from the political stage. It seems the remaining MEK-members have agreed to be move to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base under UN-supervision in Baghdad, from where they are expected to be resettled overseas.

Clinton’s decision, which was expected for some time, was sharply criticized. “For my money, the chances of war with Iran only get a boost insofar as Iranians didn’t already assume the worst of U.S. intentions,” wrote Ali Gharib at the Daily Beast already before the Sate Department made its announcement. Others pointed out that the decision to take the MEK from the list of terrorist groups could be used by the Iranian regime as a pretext to renew its crackdown on the opposition in general in Iran, by accusing them of having ties with the MEK. This the more so, since the group was reported to have been involved – in cooperation with Israel – in a recent string of sabotage acts against military objects and assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran.

The group, which was founded in 1963 as an armed Marxist-Leninist opposition group to the shah, was already terrorist in the 70-ties, with assassinations of American diplomats and personnel, among other things. After the 1979 revolution in which it took an active part, it fell out with the Khomeini-regime and thereafter it became extremely violent. It committed bomb attacks against the Islamic leadership in which hundreds were killed. According to IPS in a thoroughly written profile of the group, this went on in the eighties at a rate of three killings per day. The leaders, the couple Massoud and Maryam Rajavi,  moved to Paris in 1981, but after France recognized the Islamic Republic, they went to Iraq, where the movement got tanks and heavy weapons from Saddam Hussein with which it made frequent incursions into the eastern Kurdish areas of Iran and caused havoc and destruction. Since that time the group is generally perceived by Iranians as a bunch of traitors and quislings.

The internal relations within the group deserve a special mention. I myself interviewed Massoud Rajavi in 1984 in Paris for the Dutch daily ‘de Volkskrant’ and was struck by the cult like way his followers talked  about the fact that his wife Maryam, shortly beforehand, had left her husband in order to marry Rajavi ‘for the sake of the movement’. In later years I heard many stories about the way people were deceived or even duped in becoming members of the MEK. In the 7 June issue of the London Review of Books, Owen Bennet-Jones painted a detailed picture of the movement, including the incredible ways in which it deals with its members.

The lifting of the terrorist status by Hillary Clinton came after several years of lobbying by the MEK itself and a number of influential supporters. Among them, are according to the IPS, which published a profile of the MEK, two former CIA. directors, R. Jame Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh; a former attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey; President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, Tom Ridge; President Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones; big-name Republicans like the former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Democrats like the former Vermont governor Howard Dean; and even the former top counterterrorism official of the State Department, Dell L. Dailey.” Mitchell Reiss, a top foreign policy advisor to Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan presidential campaign, also spoke on behalf of the group.

IPS notes: One potential explanation for this diverse list of supporters are the large speaking fees the MEK network has offered to big-name public figures. “Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes,” said a State Department official quoted by the Christian Science Monitor. “They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.”[16] Pro-MEK individuals and organizations also reportedly donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of several sitting members of Congress, including Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Bob Filner, Ted Poe, Mike Rogers, and Dana Rohrabacher.[17]

The American State Department did keep some distance from the MEK when it took the group from the terrorism list. For instance it commented that  “with today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992.” Also it implicitly recognized the sectarian traits of the MEK and the internal terror it exercizes in order to keep the group together when it said that ”the Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members.” 

Also a State department official stated in a briefing that “We have no evidence and we have no confidence that the MEK is an organization that can promote democratic values that we would like to see in Iran.They are not part of our picture in terms of the future of Iran.” This, however, does not neutralize the fact that the rehabilitation of the MEK is a new dangerous step in the ongoing confrontation between the West ad Iran.

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans [at] planet.nl

After pressure from BDS activists, several Danish clients have terminated contracts with British-Danish security company G4S for the company’s role in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Meanwhile, the UK Home Affairs Committee last week published a damning report about the failure of G4S to deliver on a contract to secure the London Olympics. The committee recommends the government “establish a register of high-risk companies that have failed in the delivery of public services.”

Such blacklisting will have serious consequences for G4S, a major service provider to British government bodies.

Danish G4S clients end contracts for role in Israeli occupation

After sustained media attention on G4S’s role in the Israeli occupation, several Danish charities and a bank have decided to end security service contracts with the company.

The latest such BDS success dates from two months ago, when Danish Merkur Bank decided to terminate its contract with G4S. Spokesperson Karl Johnsen told me that the bank had canceled the contract “because of G4S’s involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Merkur Bank is an ethical bank committed to social justice.

On 18 July, Henrik Stubkjær, general director of Danish Church Aid (DCA) told Danish newspaper Berlingske Business that his organization had not renewed its contract with G4S. DCA had engaged with G4S in a dialogue about its activities in the West Bank. But DCA was unhappy at G4S for its continuing activity in Israeli settlements there.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International Denmark terminated its contract with G4S, after initially trying to influence their policies. “We do not want to work with G4S because the company’s global activities do not live up to Amnesty International’s requirements for corporate action in relation to human rights,” commented Amnesty secretary Lars Normann Jørgensen to Berlingske Business (translated from Danish).

The same article mentions that  the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) also ended its contract with G4S. Pat Nissen, RCT’s project manager for the Middle East said in November 2010 that “G4S as a company is helping to facilitate torture.”

Danish activists and trade unionists turn G4S headquarters into a prison to protest the security company’s role in the Israeli occupation. (Boykot G4S Denmark)

Boycot G4S Denmark intensifies campaign

Earlier this month, Palestine solidarity activists in Denmark took to the streets to campaign against G4S for its role in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. As seen in this video, Boykot G4S Denmark, a network of solidarity groups and individuals, distributed stickers and pamphlets with information about G4S activities in the West Bank and ideas to take action.

In a creative action, trade unionists from the scaffolding industry joined activists to transform G4S headquarters into a prison, locking up the staff in their offices. Two activists portraying Palestinian political prisoners under administrative detention were on the scene and banners read “G4S protects Israeli prisons of torture.”

In an open letter that was sent to all 100 municipalities in Denmark, Boykot G4S Denmark calls on local authorities to do no business with G4S.

G4S solely responsible for London Olympics fiasco

Meanwhile, the UK parliament’s Home Affairs Committee investigated Olympics security and concludes in its damning report: “The blame for G4S’s failure to deliver on its contract rests firmly and solely with the company. All our witnesses, including those from G4S, were in agreement on this point,” concludes the committee.

The committee is tasked to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office, a ministerial department of the government.

In a press release, committee chair Keith Vaz calls G4S’s performance “a fiasco.”

The data the company provided to the Olympic Security Board was at best unreliable, at worst downright misleading. 24 hours before they admitted their failure, [G4S chief executive] Nick Buckles met with the Home Secretary and did not bother to inform her that they were unable to deliver on their contract, even though he knew about the shortfall a week before.”

The committee recommends the government establish a register of high-risk providers, who have a track-record of failure in the delivery of public services.

The government should not be in the business of rewarding failure with taxpayers’ money. As private sector providers play an increasingly important role in the delivery of police and criminal justice services, it is vital that those commissioning services look at the track-records of prospective providers.

G4S’s London Olympics fiasco comes on top of severe criticism for the company’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territories and in prisons and detention centers in Israel. It should be sufficient to convince governments, local authorities, state institutions and other public contractors not to do business with G4S.

First published at The Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

The BDS movement is overpowering the pro-Israel lobby in South Africa, Howard Sackstein said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz yesterday. Sackstein has worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel lobby organization in the US.

South African BDS activists are “professionals”
In the interview, Sackstein warned the pro-Israel groups in South Africa that they’re up against “professionals.” He also claimed the the BDS campaign is “spearheaded”  by Muhammed Desai of BDS South Africa and Zackie Achmat of Open Shuhada Street:

According to Howard Sackstein, whether pro-Israel groups can get back up on their feet depends on how rapidly they realize that they’re up against “professionals”…

“One point I would make finally is that the BDS campaign, spearheaded by Muhammed Desai and Zachie Achmat, is very well run and seems to be well-funded.”

The above comments have since been removed by Haaretz from the online version of the article, with no editorial note or correction issued.

In an email to me, Desai responded to Sackstein’s observation: “It is ridiculous (or deliberately deceptive) to claim that the boycott of Israel movement in South Africa is spearheaded by two individuals. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) with over two million workers, the South African Communist Party with more than 150,000 members, the South African Students Congress – South Africa’s largest student formation, the South African Council of Churches and others are actually at the forefront.”

He continued: “In fact, this very week COSATU, an official alliance partner of the ANC, reaffirmed its commitment to the BDS campaign at its national congress and has undertaken to ensure that this is advanced at the upcoming ANC National Conference in Mangaung. The ANC National Conference is the supreme ruling and controlling body of the ANC that determines ANC policy and ultimately the government policy for the next five years.”

Ministers have backing of the ruling ANC
In comments also removed from the online version, Sackstein criticized the actions of two South African government ministers in relation to correct labeling of Israeli settlement products and advice against travelling to Israel:

Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies announced that he was to issue an official notice “to require traders in South Africa not to incorrectly label products that originate from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) as products of Israel”.

Third, Deputy International Relations Minister Ebrahim “Ibie” Ebrahim said that Pretoria discouraged all South Africans from visiting Israel. He said: “Because of the treatment and policies of Israel towards the Palestinian people, we strongly discourage South Africans from going there.”

Sackstein is convinced that the most influential body in the ANC, the national executive council:

“…discussed Israel, Palestine etc. and decided that they would have a common front on the issue and that certain steps needed to be taken.”

In other words, said Sackstein, Davies and Ebrahim were not acting of their own accord, but effectively carrying out ANC policy.

These comments too were censored by Haaretz.

Sackstein claims that “much of the ANC’s latest emphasis on anti-Israel action is the result of trying to win Muslim votes in the Western Cape.” However, Desai refutes this claim in his email: “Its not the ANC pandering to the Western Cape. But the Western Cape together with other stakeholders such as the churches, unions, students and others that are insisting that our ruling party (and indeed our government) take the side of the oppressed, of the Palestinians by supporting the BDS campaign. Its merely the ANC listening and adhering to a position that the vast majority of its constituencies hold.”

Indeed, Palestine solidarity activists in South Africa have mobilized substantial support for the oppressed Palestinian people.
BDS South Africa books impressive results
At the end of Augst, the student council of the prestigious University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg unanimously adopted a full acadmic and cultural boycott of Israel. Tebogo Thotela, president of the Wits Student Representative Council, explains the reasons for the decision in a video published by BDS South Africa (seen at the top of this post).

In 2011, the University of Johannesburg severed its ties with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University, following a campaign backed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and over 400 South African academics. In a recent BDS news roundup, EI’s Nora Barrows-Friedman summed up the recent BDS victories in South Africa:

The Student Representative Council at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa unanimously adopted a full academic and cultural boycott of Israel on 29 August.

This comes on the heels of increasing support of the Palestinian-led BDS movement in South Africa, including the recent moves by government officials to have Israeli settlement products correctly labeled to let consumers know they originate from settlement colonies in the occupied West Bank; and a proclamation by a government minister to discourage South Africans from traveling to Israel because of its human rights record.

Posted on the website for BDS South Africa, the Wits’ student council’s resolution says that it will “not participate in any form of cultural or academic collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions and will not provide support to Israeli cultural or academic institutions.”

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

Peres stated that Iran “really wants” to dominant the region and is using its global to achieve that goal.

“They have already established bases through Hezbollah and Hamas, they are involved in Syria and Iraq and want to shake up the entire Middle East,” Peres said in a statement issued by his office.

The president stated he does not believe the United States and the Western world will ignore Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.

“I can’t imagine that the United States and Europe will allow the Middle East to fall into Iranian hands. Maybe there is a limit to time, but right now we have to do whatever we can to deepen the non-military pressures while making clear that other options remain,” Peres said, referring to a host of sanctions that so far failed to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Senior Hamas leaders recently used various opportunities and forums to restate the movement’s rigid, extremist fundamental position regarding the conflict with Israel, according to an Israeli police official.

For example, Ismail Haniya, head of the de-facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, welcoming a delegation from Malaysia, emphasized Hamas’ adherence to its principles, especially its refusal to cede one inch of the territory of “Palestine” and its insistence on the “right of return” of six million Palestinian refugees from outside Palestine.

Designated by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997, Hamas carries out attacks — such as suicide bombings, rocket launches, improvised explosive device attacks, and shootings — against civilian targets inside Israel.

Meanwhile, the top leader of the Iranian-supported terrorist group Hezbollah warned the United States and Israeli governments that interference in the internal affairs of Iran or any military attack would result in violence throughout the Middle East.

Israelis blast Obama over lack of Iran nuclear deadline

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau on Monday blasted the Obama administration’s refusal to give the Iranian government a deadline for dropping the Islamist country’s nuclear weapons program, an Israeli national police counterterrorism expert told the Law Enforcement Examiner.

The Israelis believe the Obama administration is giving Iran more time to develop a nuclear bomb by its inaction, the Israeli source said.

The officials commented on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statements on Iran, in which Clinton said the United States does not want to set “a red line” to Iran’s nuclear program, the Haaretz daily reported.

“Not only do these comments fail to deter Iran, they only serve to calm them,” a an Israeli official told Haaretz newspaper.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government have stated that they are refusing to get involved in U.S. presidential politics, but Netanyahu is attempting to persuade President Obama to draw a “line in the sand” and to deter the Iranians from building a nuclear device.

Over the weekend, former special forces officer and popular political leader BiBi Netanyahu said that Israel and the United States were engaged in discussions regarding possible deadline dates.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking on behalf of Obama, told the Israelis that “the United States believes that the best option so far is to continue negotiating with Iran.”

“We’re watching very carefully about what they do, because it’s always been more about their actions than their words,” Clinton said on Monday in response to Netanyahu’s criticism.

“I do hope [Prime Minister] Netanyahu isn’t holding his breath for any action by Obama and his minions. This president is all about winning in November by any means necessary and while he attempts to portray himself as pro-Israel, his [Democrat] party displayed the opposition to Israeli issues when they booed the addition to the Democrat Platform that recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” noted former police commander Jacob Eisenberg.

“That is why the mental giants in the news media love Obama so much,” quipped Eisenberg, who is now a security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism.

Last week, the top leader of the Iranian-supported terrorist group Hezbollah warned the United States and Israeli governments that interference in the internal affairs of Iran or any military attack would result in violence throughout the Middle East.

AUTHOR: Jim Kouri
URL: http://www.renewamerica.com/
E-MAIL: COPmagazine [at] aol.com

Al Haq’s memorandum provides a solid legal framework for advocating Palestinian rights, based on the recommendations of the 2004 International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the wall Israel built on Palestinian land, and the internationally accepted 2001 general rules on legal obligations of states when international law is violated. International legal scholars have endorsed the memorandum including Professor John Dugard.

The report also gives legal backing to governments wishing to sanction Israel, stating that ‘it is lawful for any injured party, including any affected State, to take “countermeasures”’.

The document is in particular relevant for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement because it explicitly strengthens the legal basis for activism against Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. The document presents useful examples of public and corporate complicity. The following summary of the legal paper focuses on information which is particularly relevant for the BDS movement.

Israeli settlement development is a state enterprise

Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory violate Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Israeli governments, the Israeli military, the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization (WZO) played a crucial role in the strategic and operational planning at the early stages. More recently, settlement expansion has been driven by the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Ministry of Defense – including the Minister’s Assistant on Settlement Affairs – the Israeli military and its “Civil Administration” in the occupied territories, regional and local authorities, and the Settlement Division of the WZO, writes a 2005 official government report. These bodies have mapped Palestinian land allocated for confiscation, identified suitable locations for settlements, supported their construction, and facilitated populating them with Jewish Israeli settlers. Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are therefore the outcome of a state enterprise and not merely the work of the settlers.

Moreover, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and the courts, in particular the Israeli High Court, have passed over the years legislation and jurisprudence to “justify” the settlement enterprise.

Complicity of institutions and companies

Several public and private actors receive contracts or subsidies for their services to Israel’s settlement enterprise such as postal authorities, academic institutions, the Israeli labor union (Histadrut) and Israel’s national water company Mekorot, which plays a key role in the discriminatory water supply to Israeli settlements and Palestinian communities in the occupied territories.

Other players in the settlement enterprise are Israeli security, trade and export companies, such as Elbit, Agrexco and Mehadrin. Businesses and associations provide essential services for the maintenance and development of the settlements in the area of construction, transport, supply, and services in health, education, culture and sports.

Moreover, private Israeli security companies such as G4S Israel perform tasks in the occupied territories that were traditionally executed by the Israeli security forces. G4S provides equipment and services for the incarceration of Palestinians or the operation of checkpoints and the police headquarters in occupied Jerusalem.

IT companies like Hewlett-Packard subsidiary EDS Israel provide and maintain surveillance and other security-related technology for the Israeli army and settlements.

Israeli banks provide the financial infrastructure and services for all settlement activity including foreign companies.

States must ensure Israel’s respect for international law

During the 45-years settlement enterprise, Israel has realized dramatic changes of the status and demographic composition of the occupied territories. It violated the Fourth Geneva Convention and human rights treaties, as well as customary international law prohibitions on colonialism, racial discrimination and apartheid.

All 194 states who ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention are responsible to ensure Israel’s respect of the provisions of the Convention.

Under the International Convention against Torture, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, states have the obligation to ensure that persons responsible for serious breaches amounting to international crimes are brought to justice.

In addition, all states have the legal obligation to cooperate to bring Israel’s international crimes to an end. They should also not recognize the illegal situation created by Israel in its settlement enterprise, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation. Therefore, all states have to ensure that its organs, public and private entities, and persons whose activities are attributable to the state under international law, do not violate these obligations. This includes state-funded or otherwise-supported aid agencies and businesses performing certain official functions in the settlement enterprise.

Complicity of states in Israel’s international crimes in relation to settlements

Many states are complicit in Israel’s settlement enterprise by rendering unlawful aid or assistance via state organs, entities and individuals whose activities are attributable to the state. Grave examples are military aid or cooperation with Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Official aid or support for the construction and development of Israel’s wall, checkpoints, terminals, prisons and detention centers are other examples.

The same counts for aid or support the so-called joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial zones in the occupied territories, which benefit Israeli business, undermine Palestinian development and exploit Palestinian labor. States are also complicit by allowing direct, often tax-exempt, support of the illegal settlements by Jewish and Christian Zionist organizations registered in their country.

A grave act of complicity is the international protection the United States provide to Israel. Through diplomatic pressure on other states, in the full knowledge of the circumstances, it obstructs efforts of states – within and outside the United Nations – to counteract Israel’s serious breaches.

Furthermore, states who cooperate with or support settlement activities of Israeli state-organs or public and private entities violate the legal obligation not to provide aid or assistance in maintaining the unlawful situation. This happens in numerous cases of official cooperation in the area of trade and research, including the EU. State support to activities or projects of (transnational) business companies who contribute to Israel’s unlawful settlement enterprise in the occupied territories. Such aid or assistance amounts to recognition of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied territories.

The 2010 OECD decision to accept Israel as a member, with its settlements in the occupied territories but without the occupied Palestinian population, is mentioned as another grave example of complicity.

Complicity of donor governments and state funded aid agencies

Donor governments and state-funded aid agencies render aid or assistance to Israel’s settlement enterprise when they construct Palestinian infrastructure, in particular roads, which indirectly contributes to the maintenance of Israel’s regime of segregation and apartheid in the occupied territories and the expansion and entrenchment of Israel’s settlements in the occupied territories. The same counts for the procurement of materials or goods for humanitarian and development aid from Israeli suppliers implicated in violations linked to the settlement enterprise.

In addition, states or state-funded aid agencies provide recognition of the settlement enterprise when they abide by Israel’s illegal permit regime in the occupied territories, or when state representatives conduct relations with Israeli organs or entities endorsing the illegal settlement enterprise.

Moreover, donor governments and state-funded agencies provide recognition when they fail to hold Israel accountable for its serious breaches in public statements or UN resolutions, or tolerate destruction or damage of aid-infrastructure or aid-equipment by the Israeli army without military necessity, or by private settlers.

States can lawfully impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel

The serious breaches linked to Israel’s settlement enterprise in the occupied territories legally affect all states. Therefore, states are entitled to act individually or collectively on behalf of the Palestinian victims. They can lawfully take countermeasures such as reprisals or sanctions, because Israel has failed to comply with its obligation of cessation of the illegal settlement enterprise and reparation for Palestinian victims.

To bring down Israel’s settlement enterprise states can, for example, lawfully adopt measures to prohibit import of Israeli goods or export to Israel, suspend cooperation agreements with Israel, impose other forms of embargoes on trade and cooperation; freeze funds and assets of the Israeli state, entities and persons responsible for the serious breaches; bar Israeli banks from international financial transfers (SWIFT); and suspend agreements on landing rights of airplanes or impose flight bans.

However, states have failed to adopt appropriate countermeasures to end Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. That is why the BDS movement campaigns against governments, local authorities, companies or other actors who are involved in Israel’s breaches of international law against the Palestinians in the occupied territories. The BDS movement can build on the legal arguments presented in Al Haq’s paper to strengthen its strategy and actions.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

Hyundai equipment used in demolition of three homes in Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem, 24 November. Screenshot from video by Haitham Katib.

On 24 November 2011, Israeli occupation forces destroyed three homes in the eastern occupied Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, leaving twenty people, including six children, homeless. A  video on the action by Haitham Khatib — a still from which is above — shows that Hyundai equipment was in the demolition as Israeli soldiers stood guard.The use of Hyundai equipment in the demolition of  Palestinian property is mentioned as an example in a new report on the Republic of Korea (South Korea’s) in Israel’s occupation, colonialism and apartheid. The publication detailing South Korea’s military, economic, academic and cultural ties with Israel was released last week by the Seoul-based Palestine Peace Solidarity @ Seoul(PPS).PPS calls on the South Korean government to enforce an immediate ban on all products or services related to the settlements, apartheid wall or occupation; to cease government trade, research or investment promotion activities with Israel; and to immediately freeze pending agreements, especially those related to trade, investment or military matters. In addition, PPS calls on the South Korean business and academic community to halt immediately any dealings with companies and institutions related to the settlements, apartheid wall or occupation.

In a 7 September press release, Palestine Peace Solidarity @ Seoul writes that the ties between South Korea and Israel have contributed to Israel’s impunity and lack of accountability:

“Treating Israel as a normal state, as opposed to one that oppresses and denies the right to self-determination of Palestinians, sends the signal that its appalling human rights record can be tolerated. Israel must be treated for what it is, a pariah state,” said YaPing an organizer with PPS.

Among the examples cited in the report are Korea Aerospace Industries’ business ties with Elbit Systems, an Israeli company widely denounced for its role in the construction of the apartheid wall in the West Bank, declared illegal in 2004 by the International Court of Justice; and the supply of bulldozers to the Israeli military by Hyundai Heavy Industries that are used in the demolition of Palestinian homes, an act that constitutes a war crime under the IV Geneva Convention. Daesung Industrial Corporation, Korea’s leading energy company, imports and distributes Ahava cosmetics to the Korean market. Ahava is an Israeli settlement company that was recently accused of pillaging natural resources of the West Bank in a report by Palestinian human rights group al-Haq.

Korea’s government is currently in negotiations with Israel for a Free Trade Agreement, although a deal seems frozen for now. “Koreans will continue to oppose the free trade agreement with Israel to avoid being complicit with human rights abuses and violations of international law,” added YaPing. “Koreans have a strong sense of solidarity with Palestinians and oppose their continued oppression.” The report found that Korea’s ties with Israel violates Korea’s own constitution and norms of international law.

Among the recommendations of the report, the Korean government and business community are urged to freeze immediately all ties with Israel, particularly those that directly aid and abet violations of international law related to Israel’s settlement enterprise and the Wall.

Korean activists plan to use the research to build strategic campaigns as part of the growing Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Download the full report.

First published at Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

Adri Nieuwhof: Have you read the Breaking the Silence report with testimonies about the abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers? What was your first impression when you read it?

Rifat Kassis: As an organization working in the field, and as one that works to monitor and document Israeli violations of Palestinian children’s rights, the information revealed by the Breaking the Silence report is not news to me. But my first impression was — as I often reflect during my work with DCI-Palestine — that these practises do not just affect Palestinian children. Rather, they also affect the Israeli soldiers themselves, as well as Israeli society at large: at the end of the day, these soldiers will return home and deal with their own children or their own siblings as changed men and women. They will invariably be affected by their roles in the occupation, and they may display their consequences in a number of ways: they may be more violent in dealing with their children, for example, or they may find themselves behaving in two distinct and contrary ways, which may affect their overall psychological wellbeing.



AN:  Are the practises described by Breaking the Silence in line with the data and observations of DCI-Palestine?

RK: Yes. At DCI-Palestine, we usually document and report the accounts of the children themselves, whether they were eyewitnesses or victims. The testimonies revealed by Breaking the Silence support the stories that children tell us.

Almost all children inform DCI-Palestine that the Israeli soldiers try to terrify and intimidate Palestinian children in order to prevent them from participating in any activity against Israel, or in order to intimidate them during arrest and transfer to prepare them for the interrogation stage. Others have informed us that soldiers kick or otherwise mistreat them out of boredom, wanting to “have some fun.” I’m also thinking of one young boy’s account: upon being transported to a military camp, this boy was headbutted and punched by the soldier who received him; handcuffed, blindfolded, and put out in the yard, at which point other soldiers came to punch and spit at him; and intimidated him with a gun during his interrogation. “Can we shoot him?” one soldier asked another. “Yes, shoot him,” the other replied. “He’s an animal.” Then a third said, “Don’t. We’ll execute him in Ofer [a military prison].” According to our documentation, almost all children arrested by the Israeli army are exposed to at least one form of ill-treatment. 

Further, between 2004 and 2011, DCI-Palestine and other organisations documented the cases of 17 Palestinian children being used as human shields by Israeli forces.

To me, the Breaking the Silence report completes the reports we carry out by adding the stories of the perpetrators, which we usually can’t obtain. These accounts lend credibility to our reports, which represent the narrative of the victims.

AN: The report is based on testimonies of 30 soldiers. How do you assess the information they gave? Do you think the practises they report are common?

RK: I think that these practises are not simply the arbitrary acts of a few soldiers who don’t abide by the rules. They are part and parcel of the ideology of the state and the Israeli army. This argument is supported by the fact that the Israeli authorities rarely opened investigations on these allegations. And when cases do come to light, the state reaction is mild to the point of evasive, negligent. For example, when two Israeli soldiers were convicted for using a nine-year-old boy as a human shield during the offensive on Gaza — they forced him at gunpoint to search for explosives — the Israeli military court merely demoted their ranks and gave them three-month suspensions for “inappropriate conduct.” So, again, the abuse of Palestinian children’s rights is not only common, but also systemically carried out and institutionally protected. It is by no means incidental.


AN: How do you assess the impact of the abuse of children on families? What do you see in your day-to-day dealings with protecting the rights of Palestinian children?

RK: The impact of the abuse on children varies from child to child. It depends on the child’s age, on what exactly happened to him, and on the support that he received from his family. In general terms, though, almost all children experiencing these kinds of trauma are deeply affected. In the same way, families are affected, too. The absence of a child, the constant awareness that he is in prison and being subjected to ill-treatment there, puts an even heavier burden on families and how they try to cope with it. To summarize this burden, I will quote a mother of three children in or formerly in detention as interviewed in a report conducted by Save the Children Sweden and YMCA: “It’s epidemic; they come and take our children away in order to break us emotionally. And that affects a whole society, a whole people — I think none of us recovered from the trauma of our children being taken away from us.” 



AN: Is there anything you would like to say to the soldiers who testified?

RK: It is very important to speak up about these abusive practices and to reveal the truth about the occupation. What’s even more important, of course, is that soldiers refrain from abusing and mistreating children in the first place.

Sharing this information is important for the wellbeing of the soldiers themselves — including those who witnessed destructive practises and were unable to put an end to them. These accounts could be an important part of our future “truth and reconciliation” era, where the perpetrators reveal such information as a first step toward reparation and rehabilitation on the long road to justice.

The Israeli society and the international community should be aware of what the Israeli soldiers do in the OPT  [occupied Palestinian territory] and how the occupation destroys Palestinian lives — but it’s also crucial to remember, as Uri Avnery once said, how it corrupts the Israelis themselves. When it comes to occupation, no one emerges unharmed.


AN: What needs to be done to end the abuse?

RK: There must be accountability. The international community must work to stop Israel’s impunity. Israel must respect its obligations under international law. Both victims and perpetrators must speak about these abuses and make them known to the public — so that the public, then, can truly and effectively engage with putting pressure on Israel to abide by international law. BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] actions are one of the most direct and important measures the international community can take toward stopping these oppressive practices and bringing about a just peace in our region.


First published at Electronic Intifada.

AUTHOR: Adri Nieuwhof
URL: http://www.samora.org
E-MAIL: a.nieuwhof [at] samora.org

AUTHOR: Martin Hijmans
URL: http://the-pessoptimist.blogspot.com/
E-MAIL: m.hijmans [at] planet.nl