Amnesty International Annual Report on Israel and the Occupied Territories 2009
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Israeli forces launched a military offensive on an unprecedented scale – code-named “Operation Cast Lead” – on 27 December in the Gaza Strip, killing many civilians and destroying homes and other civilian property. Earlier in the year there had been a marked upsurge in killings of civilians and others by both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) before a ceas efire was agreed in June (see Palestinian Authority entry). Some 70 children were among the 425 Palestinians killed in the first half of the year. In addition to the large-scale destruction of homes and property in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces also destroyed scores of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and in Bedouin villages in the south of Israel. Throughout the year, the Israeli army maintained stringent restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the OPT, including a blockade on the Gaza Strip, which caused an unprecedented level of humanitarian hardship and virtually imprisoned the entire population of 1.5 million. This was further exacerbated by the Israeli offensive launched on 27 December. Hundreds of patients with serious medical conditions requiring treatment not available in local hospitals were refused passage out of Gaza; several died…
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Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
PSCABI-Gaza, Occupied Palestine
The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI) calls upon freedom-loving students all over the world to stand in solidarity with us by boycotting Israeli academic institutions for their complicity in perpetuating Israel’s illegal military occupation and apartheid system. We note the historic action taken by thousands of courageous students of British and American universities in occupy ing their campuses in a show of solidarity with the brutally oppressed Palestinian people in Gaza. We also deeply appreciate the decision by Hampshire College to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation. Such pressure on Israel is the most likely to contribute to ending its denial of our rights, including the right to education…
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Barghouthi: IOA is misleading the world on settlements
Palestinian Information Center
Palestinian legislator MP Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi has accused Thursday the Israeli occupation government of misleading the world on the construction of more Israeli settlement in the West Bank. In press release he made in Ramallah city, the Palestinian lawmaker explained that the Israeli Knesset’s (parliament) endorsement of bills confirming the Jewish identity of the Hebrew state, and of punishing anyone who denies it confirm racism a nd the apartheid system of the Israeli occupation authority…
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Fatah at fault
Khaled Amayreh
…Meanwhile, it is increasingly obvious the internal Fatah crisis is deepening and exacerbating over the convening of the movement’s Sixth Congress. Fatah leaders, both inside and outside the occupied territories, have been attacking Abbas and his allies, accusing them of “pushing Fatah to the abyss”. Last week, Fatah leader Qaddura Fares, an ally and confidante of imprisoned Fatah Secretary- General Marwan Barghouti, was quoted as asking, “What sort of democratic movement is that which does n’t hold election for 20 years?” Barghouti is widely viewed as a chief rival of Abbas and some circles have suggested that the PA leader actually dreads an Israeli decision to free Barghouti, possibly in the context of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas…
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I was right to torture terror suspects – it saved lives, claims unrepentant George Bush
David Gardner
George W. Bush has defended the use of torture on terror suspects in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The former U.S. president broke his silence over the controversial issue to insist that interrogation methods such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation helped save lives by gaining valuable intelligence…
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Flashback: Torture photos depict ‘rape and murder,’ Sen. Graham said in 2004
Stephen C. Webster
In spite of the White House and Pentagon’s synchronized rebuttal to an explosive story by the Daily Telegraph alleging the White House is suppressing images of prisoners’ sexual abuse, almost nothing about the paper’s Thursday morning report was new, least of all the charges of rape. “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), telling reporters in 2004 wh y the Abu Ghraib photos should not be released as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld faced calls for his resignation. “We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.”…
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The Main Result of the “War on Terror”
The Destabilization of Pakistan
GARY LEUPP
So far the principle result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the events of 9-11 has been the destabilization of Pakistan. That breakdown is peaking with the events in what AP calls the “Swat town” of Mingora—actually a city of 375,000 from which all but 20,000 have fled as government forces moved in, strafing it with gunships. We’re talking urban guerrilla warfare, house-to-house fighting, not on the Afghan border but 50 miles away in the Swat Valley. We’re talking about Pakistani troops fighting to reclaim the nearby Malam Jabba ski resort from the Tehreek-e-Taliban, who since last year have been using it as a training center and logistics base. We’re talking about two million people fleeing the fighting in the valley and 160,000 in government refugee camps. And of course, “collateral damage”…
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Reduced to mud
While testament to famed Palestinian ingenuity, the sight of Gazans making houses out of mud is a visual condemnation of Israel’s siege on the Strip
Saleh Al-Naami
Despite the cold, the driver’s face poured sweat as he drove his truck through the mounds of mud scattered along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. His mission was to transport as many truckloads of mud as possible to Rafah City for use in the production of bricks that Palestinians are now using in the construction of mud hou ses. This driver, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Al-Ahram Weekly that people have discovered a new and important benefit to the border tunnels. When tunnels are dug, mounds of mud are created, and this mud is considered prime for the production of mud bricks. Under the siege, and due to Gazans’ loss of hope that reconstruction projects will rebuild the thousands of houses and institutions destroyed by the Israeli occupation, particularly during its New Year offensive, many homeowners have begun to explore the mud alternative…
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Put the foot down
Galal Nassar
It has been said a major use of force — or at least a threat thereof — is needed for any political breakthrough. I am beginning to think that this is the case with the Egyptian-sponsored Palestinian dialogue. Nearly two years ago, Hamas took over power in Gaza, saying that it had no other choice since Fatah was blocking it from exercising the legitimate power it had won in free elections. Since then, Egypt has been trying to make the two sides find their way back to national unity. Five ro unds of talks have been held over the past three months, with little or no progress. The time spent in talks was enough for Fatah and Hamas to explore their common ground and sort out their differences. But as it turned out, time was wasted. The fourth and fifth rounds were particularly disappointing, so much so that one is tempted to say that the dialogue reached an impasse. At present, inter-Palestinian talks resemble to an alarming extent Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Much time and effort is spent and no progress is made….
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Obama: halt to new Israeli settlements is in America’s security interests
Chris McGreal and Rory McCarthy i
Increasingly fractious relations between the US and Israel hit a low unseen in nearly two decades yesterday after the Jewish state rejected President Obama’s demand for an end to settlement construction in the West Bank, and the president responded by suggesting that Israeli intransigence endangers America’s security. The dispute, which blew in during the open hours before Obama met the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, reflects the depth of the shift in US policy away from accommodating Israel, and towards pressuring it to end years of stalling negotiations over the creation of a Palestinian state as it continues to grab land in the occupied territories…
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Syrian leader meets US politicians
Aljaeera.net
Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has held talks with two US Democratic legislators to discuss means of improving relations between the two countries and achieve peace in the Middle East. The meeting, with Tim Waltz, a House member, and Edward Kaufman, a senator, on Thursday were reported by Sana, the Syrian state news agency. Al-Assad was said to have praised President Barack Obama’s approach to relations between the countries, but also asserted that there was still wo rk to do to ease tensions…
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FRANCE: ‘Defying Rules on Arms Sales to Israel’
By David Cronin
French arms sales to Israel are “in total contradiction” of European Union rules on the defence industry, the author of a new study has said. Between 2003 and 2007 France issued licences worth more than 446 million euros (623 million dollars) for arms exports to Israel. This made France by far the largest supplier of weapons to Israel in the EU. Patrice Bouveret from the French Centre for Research on Peace and Conflicts (CRDPC) in Lyon says that these sales are at variance with the Union’s decade-old code of conduct on weapons exports. Formally declared legally binding by EU governments last year, the code forbids weapons sales in cases where they may exacerbate regional tensions or where there is a strong likelihood they will be used in violation of human rights…
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