Palestine – Breaking News

By Frank Barat and Michael Mansfield QC

(source: middleeastmonitor.org.uk)

Countless United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions have been passed and violated; The Goldstone Report has been attacked and dismissed and the recent UNHRC fact finding Mission on the Freedom Flotilla incident, condemning Israel’s actions in the strongest possible terms, has been rejected as biased by Israel and was hardly mentioned in the higher spheres of the UN. The reason most often given to explain this lack of political action being that ‘it will harm the peace process.’

We are made to believe that the Israel/Palestine conflict is a never ending one and that, when it comes to this issue, International Law is irrelevant.

But civil society knows better. This conflict is about International Law and nothing else. Not harming the peace process means not harming more than 17 years (from the Oslo agreement in 1993 until now) of settlement building, bombing, murder and assassination, Israeli army aggression, land grab, US vetoes, dispossessions and humiliation of the Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Civil society also knows that under a facade of bland statements ‘condemning’ Israel’s actions, the EU, the USA and the whole international community are in fact actively complicit in those crimes.

That’s where the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) comes in.

Read More »No peace without justice the london session of the russell tribunal on Palestine

(source: Middle East Monitor.org.uk)

Israel’s Foreign Minister has hinted that his country pressurised Richard Goldstone to recant the findings of the UN Report he wrote following the 2008-2009 Israeli attack on Gaza. The Goldstone Report included accusations that the Israel Defence Forces committed “war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity” against the Palestinians.

Avigdor Lieberman made his comments to Israel’s Channel 2 TV news. Goldstone’s latest implied regret of the accusations he made against Israel, he said, was no surprise: “I want to congratulate Goldstone’s new conclusions, but I am not surprised by them… We knew the truth and we had no doubt that it would come out eventually.”

Lieberman added that following the release of the Goldstone Report, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Judiciary and Military exerted huge efforts behind the scenes toward achieving that end; the public were left unawares of the campaign.

Read More »Lieberman hints that Isarael exerted pressure on goldstone to recan’t his un reports findings

By Slavoj Zizek

(source:The Guardian)

On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved into the emptied houses. Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s supreme court, the evicted Arab families had been living there for more than 50 years. The event – which, rather exceptionally, did attract the attention of the world media – is part of a much larger and mostly ignored ongoing process.

Five months earlier, on 1 March, it had been reported that the Israeli government had drafted plans to build more than 70,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank; if implemented, the plans could increase the number of settlers in the Palestinian territories by about 300,000 Such a move would not only severely undermine the chances of a viable Palestinian state, but also hamper the everyday life of Palestinians.

Read More »Quiet slicing of the west bank makes abstract prayers for peace obscene

By M. SHAHID ALAM

It is perhaps a bit late in the day, nearly two weeks after November 4, to be writing about Barack Obama’s electoral victory. This want of alacrity, however, is intentional.I thought it would be cruel to write any sooner, when whites and blacks alike were so effusively celebrating Obama’s victory. It would be unseemly to strike a discordant note when a clear majority of Americans was savoring this putative post-racial moment in their history.Did this victory signal a shift in America’s racial tectonic plates?

Read More »Obama and the politics of race and religion in america