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

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.

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A pakistani on trial ” with no pakistani reporters

By Petra Bartosiewicz / New York

(source: Time -CNN)

aafia

Aafia Siddiqui may be a minor light in the constellation of alleged al-Qaeda operatives, but her New York City trial may be a test case for the way justice is meted out to one of the major figures accused of running the terror organization. Siddiqui is a U.S.-trained, Pakistani neuroscientist charged with attempted murder for allegedly firing an M-4 automatic rifle at a group of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan. Her case has been major news in much of the Muslim world — and a crush of journalists from Pakistan have been struggling to gain access to a trial hemmed in by security-conscious New York City officials. How the foreign press is able to follow the court proceedings — and thus perceive the fairness of the trial — will have an impact on upcoming high-profile terrorism trials like that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 plotters, likely to be held in the same courthouse as the Siddiqui case.

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Israel and nazi germany tweedldee and tweedldum

Israel and Nazi Germany, Tweedldee and Tweedldum


Khalid Amayreh

Liebermann
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.

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