The action was launched in a letter sent to President Barroso and Javier Solana, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, spelling out the way in which the Treaty conditions are being breached and the way in which international law applies.  The case is being taken forward on behalf of the complainants by Public Interest Lawyers of 8 Hylton Street, Birmingham.

The Commission has been given 28 days to reply to the detailed case outlined in a 15 page letter which spells out the fact that under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU has clear obligations in the light of Israel’s violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  The case made is that the EU is failing to meet these obligations.

In the letter it is argued that  ‘Palestinian, Israeli and International Human Rights organizations have concluded in numerous reports and studies that Israel’s actions in Operation Cast Lead intentionally and systematically disregarded and violated both international humanitarian law and international human rights law’.

Furthermore ‘the combined reports delivered to the UN including that of Richard Falk, charged with investigating the human rights situation in Palestine found several breaches of law in Operation Cast Lead.  The Special Rapporteur on Poverty discussed reports that during the military intervention Israel deliberately obstructed the work of humanitarian personnel leaving the poor without basic medical, food and other services in violation of both international humanitarian law and human rights law’ Read More »Legal action to enforce human rights conditions in eu Isarael association agreement

BY AFP

WASHINGTON — Former US president Jimmy Carter said Sunday Palestinian leaders were "seriously considering" a one-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following a visit to the Middle East.

"A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea," Carter wrote in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post.

"By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbors and then demand equal rights within a democracy," he explained. "In this non-violent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela."

Carter noted that in doing so, Palestinian leaders were taking into consideration current demographic trends.

He said non-Jews were already a slight majority of total citizens in this area, "and within a few years Arabs will constitute a clear majority."

Carter added that a two-state solution for the conflict was "clearly preferable" and had been embraced at the grass root level but that a one-state solution was "a more likely alternative to the present debacle." Read More »Palestinians seriously considering one state

By Jonnathan Cook

(source:AntiWar.com)

The hyperventilating by Israel’s leaders over a story published in a Swedish newspaper last month suggesting that the Israeli army assisted in organ theft from Palestinians has distracted attention from the disturbing allegations made by Palestinian families that were the basis of the article’s central claim.  

The families’ fears that relatives, killed by the Israeli army, had body parts removed during unauthorized autopsies performed in Israel have been overshadowed by accusations of a "blood libel" directed against the reporter, Donald Bostrom, and the Aftonbladet newspaper, as well as the Swedish government and people.

I have no idea whether the story is true. Like most journalists working in Israel and Palestine, I have heard such rumors before. Until Bostrom wrote his piece, no Western journalist, as far as I know, had investigated them. After so many years, the assumption by journalists was that there was little hope of finding evidence – apart from literally by digging up the corpses. Doubtless, the inevitable charge of anti-semitism such reports attract acted as a powerful deterrent too.  

What is striking about this episode is that the families making the claims were not given a hearing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the first intifada, when most of the reports occurred, and are still being denied the right to voice their concerns today. 

Israel’s sensitivity to the allegation of organ theft – or "harvesting," as many observers coyly refer to the practice – appears to trump the genuine concerns of the families about possible abuse of their loved ones. 

Read More »The missing link in Palestinian organ theft