South Africa – Breaking News

By Brian Cloughley

(source:intifada-palestine.com)

Israel’s war on the Palestinians will continue with the support of Washington. Obama is a good, decent man. But with enemies like AIPAC and its Congressional pawns, he hasn’t a hope of achieving justice for Palestinians in the occupied territories of their own country

President Obama is trying to find a way out of the Israel-Palestine predicament. He can’t resolve it, because that is beyond anyone except Israelis, and they are not going to permit the problem to be dealt with in accordance with international law and human decency. Such a course would mean that Israelis would have to evacuate the 121 settlements, housing over a quarter of a million people, and scores of “outposts” they have built illegally on Arab-owned land.

Aluf Benn, editor-at-large of Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, observed in a recent New York Times opinion piece that “as far as most Israelis are concerned, Mr Obama has made a mistake in focusing on a settlement freeze. For starters, mainstream Israelis rarely have anything to do with the settlements; many have no idea where they are, even when they’re a half-hour’s drive from Tel Aviv.”

The obvious riposte to this is that “mainstream Israelis” most certainly should know the locations of the illegal settlements. To Benn it seems that because “most Israelis” are ignorant of the whereabouts of stolen Palestinian lands, then President Obama “is mistaken” to propose a settlement freeze. What nonsense.

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International jurists bewail damage to law by U.S. war on terrorism

By Nick Cumming-Bruce

GENEVA: The U.S.56has done "immense damage" to international law, lacks a credible legal basis and should be repudiated by the administration of President Barack Obama, a panel of eminent judges and lawyers said Monday.

The panel, organized by the International Commission of Jurists, a nongovernmental human rights group, also criticized the culture of secrecy associated with the violation of international laws, which it said afforded impunity to those acting unlawfully.

The report also said abuses were becoming pervasive in democratic as well as repressive states.

The panel based its assessment on a three-year study of terrorism and counterterrorism practices on behalf of the commission that took evidence from hundreds of witnesses in 40 countries. The chairman, Arthur Chaskalson, a former chief justice of South Africa, described the report as "the most extensive study of these issues yet conducted."

Read More »International jurists bewail damage to law byUSwar on terrorism

Is Abbas destroying Fateh?

Mahmoud Abbas, the de-facto President of the nominally autonomous Palestinian Authority, is steadily and certainly corroding the Fateh movement.

For many years, Fateh was a conspicuous component of the progressive and anti-imperialistic Arab front.

Now, thanks to the Kafkaesque metamorphosis effected by Abbas and his Western-backed junta, Fateh has been transformed into a willing tool utilized by the U.S., Israel and tyrannical Arab regimes to undermine Palestinian national interests in ways unprecedented since the creation of the PLO more than 70 years ago.

Read More »Is abbas destroying fateh?