from..http://irish4palestine.blogspot.com/

23 September 2010
ISRAEL RESPONDS TO THE UN's 'GUILTY VERDICT'

Murder apparently is not an act of extremism, neither is piracy….. but condemning them is…..

Cutting off an entire area from the outside world and denying the residents basic human needs is not an act of extremism ….. but attempting to end this blockade is…..

The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded late Wednesday by saying the Human Rights Council had a biased, politicized and extremist approach.

Israel has maintained that its soldiers acted in self-defense when they shot and killed eight Turkish activists and one Turkish-American aboard the Mavi Marmara on May 31. Israel Defense Forces released footage showing its troops coming under attack as they tried to board the boat.

Did anyone expect a different reaction to the Human Rights Council’s report on the Flottila raid?

Israel refused to cooperate with the panel, preferring instead to work with a separate UN group under New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe that is also examining the incident but has yet to publish its findings

“Israel is a democratic and law abiding country that carefully observes international law and, when need be, knows how to investigate itself,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.

“That is how Israel has always acted, and that is the way in which investigations were conducted following Operation Cast Lead, launched to protect the inhabitants of southern Israel from rockets and terror attacks carried out by Hamas from Gaza,” said the statement.

Full text (unedited) of the UN Report can be found HERE


The paragraphs in parenthesis were taken from THIS AP Report



Posted by DesertPeace
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Posted by Desert Peace at 1:57 PM
ISRAEL RESPONDS TO THE UN's 'GUILTY VERDICT'
2010-09-23T13:57:00+01:00
Desert Peace
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07 September 2010
Ireland's Dirty Deal with Israel
This is a disgrace, the Irish Government should be disbanded

Israeli firm in second Irish army contract

John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent
A controversial Israeli defence company which was awarded a multimillion-euro contract by the Irish government before last May's attack on the Gaza aid flotilla received another lucrative contract from Ireland in the past three years.

A spokesman for the Department of Defence confirmed that the company, Elbit Systems, supplied an artillery fire control system to the defence forces for €3.2m between 2007 and 2009.

The contract to supply the system was in addition to a €2.37m contract to provide surveillance and target acquisition equipment to four light tactical armoured vehicles.

Defence minister Tony Killeen recently confirmed that this more recent contract will not be subject to any sanctions in light of the Israeli attack on the aid flotilla.

Elbit was dropped from Norway's pension fund last year over ethical concerns, after it emerged that it was involved in work on the separation wall between Israel and the West Bank. The company supplies surveillance equipment to monitor the barrier.

Norway's then finance minister Kristin Halvorsen said it did not wish "to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law".

However, a spokesman for the Department of Defence said Killeen does not intend to review his decision to award the contract.

Last week the government persuaded the EU Commission to withdraw a plan to allow Israel access to private information on European citizens in protest at the misuse of Irish passports by suspected Israeli agents.
September 5, 2010

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Posted by I4P Writers Group at 2:50 PM
Ireland's Dirty Deal with Israel
2010-09-07T14:50:00+01:00
I4P Writers Group
BDS campaign hurts israel|boycott israel apartheid state|ireland palestine|
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Labels: BDS campaign hurts israel, boycott israel apartheid state, ireland palestine
06 September 2010
IDF document: "Separating Gaza from West Bank”
This is a MUST read:

source An IDF Powerpoint slideshow, presented before the Turkel committee for the investigation of the Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla, reveals the official goals of the Israeli policy regarding the Gaza strip.

The slideshow, prepared by The Administration for the Coordination of Government Policy in the Territories – the IDF body in charge of carrying out Israeli government policies regarding the civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza – deals with the humanitarian conditions in the strip; with food, water, fuel and electricity supply and with the condition of medical facilities in Gaza.

download the IDF slideshow [Hebrew] here

The first set of slides details the background for the current activities of The Administration for the Coordination of Government Policy in the Territories. Slide number 15 details the principles of Israeli policy:

Responding to the humanitarian needs of the population.
- Upholding civilian and economic limitations on the [Gaza] strip.
- Separating [or differentiating, בידול] Judea and Samaria [i.e. West Bank] from Gaza – a security and diplomatic objective.
- Preserving the Quartet’s conditions on Hamas (Hamas as a terrorist entity).

Slide 20 deals with freedom of movement from and to the Gaza strip. Policy objectives are:

- Limiting people from entering or exiting the strip, in accordance with the government’s decision.
- Separating [differentiating] Judea and Samaria from Gaza.
- Dealing with humanitarian needs.
- Preserving the activity of humanitarian organizations in the strip.
- Keeping a coordinating mechanism with the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli policy regarding Gaza could be seen as violation of official and unofficial principles of previous agreements and negotiations with the Palestinians and other parties. Gaza and the West Bank were regarded as “one entity” – though not officially declared as such – already in the 1978 peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Oslo Declaration of Principles, signed in September 1993 and still an abiding document, specifically states that:

The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved during the interim period.

This declaration was ratified in following agreements from 1994 and 1995.

The recent IDF slideshow is the first time an Israeli official document publicly declares that the current policy objective is to create two separate political entities in the Palestinian territories.

Nirit Ben-Ari, spokeswoman for Gisha, an Israeli NGO dealing with the freedom of movement, export and import to and from the Palestinian territories, said that “while in Washington a Palestinian state is being negotiated and people are already discussing ‘a train line between Gaza and Ramallah‘, in reality Israel is working to separate Gaza from the West bank even further than the separation already caused by the split in the Palestinian leadership.

“This policy is aimed against civilian population and against people who have nothing to do with Israel’s security concerns. It hurts family ties, and harms any future possibility to develop commerce, education and economical life in the Palestinian society. Those policies should raise concerns regarding the intentions of the Israeli government in Gaza.”

Other slides in the IDF slideshow deals with the ways the IDF gather information on the humanitarian situation in the strip (mainly through NGO’s and media reports), how food and fuel supply is evaluated, and how the needs of the local population are calculated. According to the IDF assumptions, there are 1,600,000 people living in Gaza. The army does not occupy itself with the distribution of supply, so there is no way of knowing if the population’s needs are actually met – only that according to the IDF, enough food and water is entering Gaza.

The slideshow doesn’t deal with the export of goods from the strip, nor does it explains the mechanism that is used to determine which civilian goods could be brought in.

Slide 50 details the goods found on the Gaza-bound flotilla: medical supply, toys, school gear, construction materials and powered wheelchairs.
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Posted by I4P Writers Group at 7:47 AM
IDF document: "Separating Gaza from West Bank”
2010-09-06T07:47:00+01:00
I4P Writers Group
apartheid israel|free gaza|IDF kill children|israel is a rogue state|STOP Israel|zionism is evil|zionists are not human|
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Labels: apartheid israel, free gaza, IDF kill children, israel is a rogue state, STOP Israel, zionism is evil, zionists are not human
05 September 2010
Almost Killed by Israel, Tristan finally Goes Home



Tristan is Back!

source Berkeley-After more than a year in a Tel Aviv hospital, Bay Area activist and photo-journalist Tristan Anderson has returned home to California. Tristan was critically injured when he was shot in the head at close range with a metal high-velocity tear gas canister at the Israeli Separation Wall on March 13, 2009, while taking photos following a demonstration against the apartheid wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. The shooting caused severe traumatic brain injury and blindness in his right eye. Tristan, 39 years old, has not yet regained the use of the left side of his body and faces a long period of cognitive and physical rehabilitation and remains in a wheelchair. However, in the last several months he has made significant strides forward, including regaining his ability to speak. He is currently staying at his family’s home in the Sierra foothills, and looking forward to reuniting with his extensive community in the Bay Area.

Tristan’s partner Gabrielle Silverman said, “After a very long period of hospitalization, Tristan is ready to finally re-enter the world. His injury has profoundly affected our community and changed our lives. In the winter of 2009, Tristan and I traveled to the Occupied Territories because we had an understanding of the role the U.S. government plays in the Israel/Palestine conflict and power dynamics there. We both support a free Palestine and a just peace and stability in the Middle East and see it as a defining struggle of our generation.

Just prior to the one-year mark of the shooting, Israel released its official report of the incident, calling it “an act of war”, with no concomitant liability, bringing no charges, and then closed the case. An appeal to reopen the investigation has been filed, since the report was inconsistent with the injuries Tristan sustained and with eyewitness testimony. In addition, his parents have brought a civil case against the Israeli military, in part to deal with the lifetime of medical expenses, lost wages and continuing care that Tristan will need as a result of the military action.

On May 31, 21-year-old New York art student Emily Henochowicz lost an eye in a similar act of aggression by Israeli military when she was shot in the face with a tear gas canister at a demonstration in the West Bank. She was protesting the Israeli commando raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla during which nine Flotilla human rights activists were killed.

Tristan Anderson has participated as a photo-journalist and as a dedicated activist in a variety of local and international campaigns over the years, including Latin American solidarity work, anti-war activism, involvement in forest campaigns including Headwaters Forest and the 2-year long Save the Oaks tree-sit campaign on UC Berkeley campus, as well as serving food to the homeless with Food Not Bombs for years, and riding with Critical Mass bicycle activists.
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Posted by I4P Writers Group at 10:08 PM
Almost Killed by Israel, Tristan finally Goes Home
2010-09-05T22:08:00+01:00
I4P Writers Group
IDF killers|israel is a terrorist state|tristan anderson|
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Labels: IDF killers, israel is a terrorist state, tristan anderson
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