UK – Features

PRESS RELEASE: Rhodes Vice-Chancellor Adds Weight to Ending UJ-Israel link

Issued By Dasantha Pillay on Behalf of the UJ – Petition Coordination Committee

Disseminated By Media Review Network

Today, amidst growing international attention, the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University, Professor Saleem Badat, became signatory to the nationwide academic petition supported by more than 200 of South Africa’s most prominent academics, including Breyten Breytenbach, Antjie Krog and John Dugard (www.ujpetition.com).

Badat is the third Vice-Chancellor who has signed the petition, joining the VC of UNISA, Professor Barney Pityana, and the former Vice Chancellor of Durban University Technology, Prof Dan Ncayiyana, in calling for the termination of an agreement between Ben-Gurion University and the University of Johannesburg (on the grounds of BGU’s direct and indirect support for the Israeli military and occupation). Also announced this morning are two of the most recent significant signatories, Professor of Economics, Sampie Terblanche and Professor Rashida Manjoo, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.

In response to increasing pressure from the academic community and an open letter of support by Desmond Tutu (http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article675369.ece/Israeli-ties–a-chance-to-do-the-right-thing), it was reported in the Israeli press that BGU’s leadership have come out as “deeply disturbed” by recent developments in Johannesburg. 

Tomorrow, 29 September 2010, UJ’s Senate will meet at its Soweto campus, where one of the most pressing issues to be decided will be whether to terminate its partnership agreement with Israel’s Ben-Gurion University (BGU.

The outcome of UJ Senate’s decision will be announced tomorrow afternoon and representatives can be contacted on the day to give interviews and comment on the decision.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Professor Farid Esack: 083 459 9989; fesack@uj.ac.za

Natasha Vally:  082 660 0723; natasha.vally@gmail.com

Muhammed Desai: 084 211 9988; mdesai.work@gmail.com

www.ujpetition.com

Read More »Rhodes vice chancellor adds weight to ending uj Isarael link

Palestinian and Israeli Human Rights Organisations call for End to International Donor Complicity in Israeli Violations of International Law

JOINT PRESS RELEASE
REF.: 18.2009E
5 May 2009

On 2 March 2009, major international donors convened in Sharm al-Sheikh to collectively respond to the destruction caused by Israel ’s 23 day military offensive on the Gaza Strip (the offensive). During the conference, a total of $4.5 billion was pledged in reconstruction funds for Gaza . In light of the extensive destruction across the Gaza Strip, especially the destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure, reconstruction is urgent.

However, as Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, we must note that by agreeing to reconstruction without specific, binding assurances from the State of Israel, international donors are effectively underwriting Israel ’s illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). International law – including, international human rights law, international humanitarian law (IHL), and the law of state responsibility for wrongful acts – places specific, binding obligations on the State of Israel (based, inter alia, on its duties as an Occupying Power) with respect to the maintenance and development of normal life in occupied territory. By repeatedly restricting their action to providing aid, without holding Israel accountable for its specific obligations, international donors are relieving Israel of its legally binding responsibilities.

Aid must be accompanied by strict assurances that are effectively monitored: Israel must not be allowed to act with impunity. The State of Israel must accept responsibility for its actions, and fulfil all of its legal obligations. By repeatedly covering the cost of the occupation, without insisting that Israel comply with international law, the international community is implicitly encouraging violations of international law – including grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes – perpetrated by Israeli forces in the oPt. As High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, individual donor States may be in violation of their legally binding obligation “to ensure respect” for the Convention “in all circumstances.” While the international community turns a blind eye and pays the cost of the occupation, Israel is encouraged to continue acting outside the limits of international law.

Read More »Palestinian and Isaraeli human rights organisations call for end to international donor complicity in

By Yvonne Ridley

(source: the ugly truth.wordpress)

The Arab world’s sleeping giant has finally woken from its slumbers after years of being drugged and mugged by the West.  Having witnessed – and experienced – first hand the brutality of the Egyptian and Tunisian police and their undercover stooges, I can tell you that the uprisings of the masses took real courage.  Over the years, dictator Hosni Mubarak has traded on their fear using some of the foulest methods of intimidation imaginable. But like their counterparts in Tunisia, the Egyptian people are losing their fear and tearing away the chains of oppression. The Pharoah’s police state is now teetering as a second day of protests begin.

Whatever the outcome over the next few weeks, I think it is clear that America and Britain can no longer manipulate and control the politics – or lack of it – in the Middle East.

Washington’s silence over the weeks of civil unrest on the streets of Tunisiawas almost deafening, so when Barack Obama chose to congratulate the uprising only once Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s plane was in the air, his message of support rang hollow. Today he urged the Egyptian authorities to show restraint.

The world’s most powerful man’s weasel words tripped from his lips as blood was shed on the streets of Cairo, Assiut, Alexandria, Mansura, Tanta and Aswan as the people faced down 2.5 million uniformed and plain clothes thugs using water cannon and teargas.

Read More »Sleeping arab giant stirsUSfears

Israel and Nazi Germany, Tweedldee and Tweedldum

Khalid Amayreh

Adolf Lieberman. by Ben Heine

Avigdor Lieberman, the brashly-racist foreign minister of the apartheid Israeli state, reportedly recently ordered Zionist embassies around the world to circulate a 1941 photo showing the former Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Husseini meeting with German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Lieberman hopes that the picture would help counter growing international pressure on the Zionist regime to stop ethnic-cleansing measures against the Palestinians, especially in occupied Jerusalem .

The release of the picture is widely viewed as a desperate feat by the widely-reviled Lieberman to make a difference as a foreign minister.

Lieberman has been largely boycotted by the international community, mainly due to his radical and expressly racist views.

Given his pariah status around the world, the Israeli government went as far as asking other Israeli officials, such as Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to carry out the Foreign Minister’s functions, especially in talks with American and European officials.

Lieberman’s desperate act is likely to raise many eyebrows since it comes from a man whose mindset and ideological convictions differ little from those of Adolf Hitler.

Indeed, Lieberman’s infatuation with Jewish nationalism (the correct term is Jewish fascism) can be viewed as a virtual carbon copy of Hitler’s obsession with German nationalism.

Moreover, Lieberman’s brazenly racist discourse against non-Jews in general and Israel’s Palestinian population is nothing short of a later-day echo of the Aryan Nazi ideology.

Read More »Israel and nazi germany tweedldee and tweedldum