(source: Washington Post) Myth: “From 1948 to 1967 Jordan denied Israelis access to their holy sites in East Jerusalem, including… Read More »Myth vs facts Isarael restricts freedom of worship in jerusalem
Goldstone Report finds Israel guilty of War Crimes
By Dr Firoz Osman
The MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK notes with interest media reports on the Goldstone Report, which found Israel guilty of war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity for its invasion of Gaza in December and January 2008/9.
This investigation of Israeli war crimes corroborates the findings of many other organisations such as Amnesty International, the International Committee for the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and others.
Israel, not surprisingly, arrogantly rejected the findings, dismissing it as biased and one-sided. Israel refused to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission, denying it permission to enter its territory. The Hamas government ruling Gaza fully cooperated with the Goldstone investigation, allowing it free access throughout the territory.
One thousand four hundred Palestinians were brutally killed, five hundred of them women and children. In contrast, only thirteen Israelis were killed during the conflict. Whilst the Goldstone Commission also accuses Palestinian militants of war crimes, Hamas cites International Law that permits it the right of self defence.
The overwhelming criticism of the 574 page report condemns the Israeli Defence Force for failing to avoid civilian deaths and injury; for the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas; firing high-explosive artillery shells on hospitals; using Palestinian civilians as human shields; and deliberately attacking food supplies.
Israel has violated International Law with impunity for the last sixty years. The MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK awaits with interest the action, if any, will be taken by the United Nations Security Council against Israel.
Press Conference on Report of United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Gaza Conflict
(source:United Nations Website)
There was evidence indicating Israel had committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law during the Gaza conflict and actions amounting to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity, it was reported today by the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict, upon the release of the mission’s official report and recommendations.
The 575-page report, which was forwarded to the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority this morning and posted on the website of the Human Rights Council, also concluded that evidence exists that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes, as well as possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated launching of rockets and mortars into southern Israel.
By Bill Van Auken
(source:World Socialist Website)
As the Obama administration prepares a major escalation of the so-called AfPak war, reports from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, near Afghanistan’s eastern border, provide a gruesome indication of the kind of war that the Pentagon and its local allies are waging.
While touted by Obama and his supporters as the “good war,” there is mounting evidence that the Pentagon and the CIA are engaged in a war against the population of the region involving death squads, disappearances and torture.
The Pakistani army sent 20,000 troops into Swat, part of the country’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), last April to wage war against ethnic Pashtun Islamist movements (routinely described as the Pakistani Taliban) that have supported fellow Pashtuns across the border who are resisting the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan.
Read More »Death squads disappearances and torture in pakistan