“Flatten” Gaza like Hiroshima
“Flatten” Gaza like Hiroshima and “mow” the population, Israeli public figures urge By Ali Abunimah on Sun, 11/18/2012 Among the… Read More »“Flatten” Gaza like Hiroshima
Gaza War
President elect Obama and the prospects for Isaraeli palestinian peace
United States President-elect Barack Obama’s election victory has revived hopes that stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations could finally lead to a two-state solution. Few new presidents have been greeted with such optimism and associated high expectations.
However, the chances for progress depend on more than a new American president. There are several interrelated factors: US engagement, the availability of a viable peace agreement, Israeli and Palestinian internal politics and the broader international situation.
An examination of these factors indicates that the optimism is unjustified and that President Obama will not be more successful in bringing about a two-state solution to the conflict. This does not however mean that the situation will remain static or that those pursuing a just peace have no recourse for action.
Read More »President elect Obama and the prospects for Isaraeli palestinian peace
Is anyone speechless?
IS ANYONE SPEECHLESS?
By Iqbal Jassat
Hopeful but not audacious enough!
This seems to sum up US President Barack Obama’s much vaunted speech to the Muslim world.
Comments and analysis from the Arab street as reflected on the screens of al-Jazeera, CNN and BBC suggest that while Obama’s message is generally welcome, skepticism abounds.
This is mainly due to a bitter price paid by many in the Muslim world by trusting American governments more than necessary. The other is as a result of knowing that actions speak louder than words – and that as yet Obama’s speech contained no more than articulate sounds.
What is intriguing though, is that while global anticipation of ground-breaking decisions to “mend Muslim fences” heightened expectations; it’s the re-affirmation of neoconservative rationale that seemed at odds with his “re-imagination”.
As much as he sounded like a Sunday school preacher or to be closer to his global Muslim audience, like an Imam, Obama retained a military quality.
From women’s rights to democracy; from human rights to economic development and from decrying regime change to practicing it, his range covered the entire gambit of life on earth in idealistic rhetoric.
Yet it was incomplete!
Despite galloping through a lengthy oration in a historic setting within Islam’s oldest citadel, the custodian of the free world’s most powerful state must have pondered long and hard about his moment of détente with the Muslim world.
In his circuitous route, from 9/11 to rockets and back to Afghanistan, the first Afro-American president of the United States crafted his talk with a degree of circumspect. Mindful that pro-Israeli lobbies back home would be hard at work analyzing every syllable, Obama invoked the Jewish Holocaust.
After softening feelings in Israel, he donned the mantle of a philosopher by confirming an oft-repeated claim by Muslims across the world: “The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable”. This cold brutal fact alongside his equally harsh admonishment of Israel’s need to acknowledge Palestinian suffering and Palestine’s “right to exist”, is the closest any US president has ventured to unsettle Zionist colonialism.
Robert Fisk attests to this. “Not for a generation has Israel had to take this kind of criticism from a US President. It sounded like the end of the Zionist dream”.
Yet the fact is that for the Muslim world, Obama did not go far enough. Palestinians languishing in refugee camps or in the Occupied Territories are distinctly aware that despite his harsh criticism of settlements, their quest for freedom is consistently squashed by American-sponsored weapons.
They are aware that the defunct Abbas-led Palestinian Authority is legitimized by American support. They know too that the movement of their choice, Hamas, is marginalized and subject to clandestine regime-change operations at the behest of America
Peace and prosperity while papering over injustices whether in Palestine, Iraq or elsewhere cannot be attained. Neither can words alone heal the wounds of centuries.
Iqbal Jassat
Chairman: Media Review Network
Tutu calls for accountability over Isaraeli war crime shelling
By Laura MacInnis
Geneva – Israel’s deadly shelling in the Gaza Strip in November 2006 may constitute a war crime, Desmond Tutu has said in a report to the United Nations.
Tutu, who serves as an independent UN human rights envoy, said Israel must be held accountable for its strike that hit two homes in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, killing 18 people.
"In the absence of a well-founded explanation from the Israeli military – which is in sole possession of the relevant facts – the mission must conclude that there is a possibility that the shelling of Beit Hanoun constituted a war crime," he said in the report released yesterday to the UN Human Rights Council.
Tutu said his mission had also made clear to leaders of the Palestinian faction Hamas that "the firing of rockets on the civilian population in Israel must stop".
The Israeli military has said it decided to fire artillery against launching sites in the Beit Hanoun area on November 8 2006 on the basis of intelligence information that Gaza militants were planning rocket attacks on Israel.
An Israeli military committee that investigated the shelling decided in February that "the injury of the Palestinian civilians was not intentional and was directly due to a rare and severe failure in the artillery fire control system".
Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for his non-violent struggle against apartheid, expressed regret that Israel did not co-operate with his investigation because it alleged it was biased.
He visited the occupied Palestinian territory in May, travelling through Egypt, after three requests to travel through Israel and interview Israeli officials and those living near the Gaza border were refused.
"The effective ban on visiting Israel and meeting with Israeli actors – including victims of Kassam rocket attacks in southern Israel – has itself been an obstacle to the balance that Israel seeks," the report said.
Tutu said there should be an "independent, impartial and transparent investigation" of the shelling of Beit Hanoun, a town of 35 000 inhabitants, of whom about 70% are registered refugees.
"Regardless of whether the casualties at Beit Hanoun were caused by a mistake, recklessness, criminal negligence or wilful conduct, those responsible must be held accountable," he said.
Israel and the West tightened restrictions last year on the Gaza Strip, attempting to isolate Hamas after the group’s fighters seized the territory. The Islamist group opposes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s peace talks with Israel.
Israel and Hamas entered an Egyptian-brokered truce in June. The lull has held despite occasional violations on both sides. – Reuters
Published on the web by Star on September 15, 2008.
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