My Affidavit to The Hague
By Yossi Sarid, Miftah 1/21/2004
Lately, I've been wondering what I would do if the International Court in The Hague, on its own initiative, asked for my opinion on the separation fence. I find these thoughts oppressive. On the one hand, every human being with a conscience has to do everything he can to topple this bad fence. On the other hand, even those who, like me, feel the Sharon government is an Israeli tragedy, are usually also infected with the patriotic germ, which dissuades them from collaborating with outside parties in the struggle against the evils committed by the government of Israel.
The International Court does not have any authority to subpoena me against my will, of course. Nor is its moral jurisdiction on especially solid footing. However, our silence would not be considered moral, either - not in our own eyes, and not in those of others. What should I do?
When the idea of the fence was first raised, I hesitated about taking a stand, in either direction. For a while, I "fence straddled." The idea in itself is correct and effective, and no one is entitled to deny the citizens of Israel protection from terrorists. But I took into account the gloomy fact that it was not me who was going to build the fence and determine its route, but Ariel Sharon. And as I know him, his character and his plans, I presumed that this essential fence would come out crooked. If Sharon is able to take something straight and twist it out of shape, he will unquestionably do so. At the time, I even warned Haim Ramon and the other fence advocates that, when it was built, they would have a hard time recognizing their original intent, and that we would come to regret our support for it, just as many people have come to regret their support for various Sharon initiatives over the years, having always come out on the short end of the stick.
Running out of steam: Israel’s empty objections to the International Criminal Court
By Jeff Handmaker, Electronic Intifada 1/20/2004
The Ambassador of Israel in The Netherlands, Eitan Margalit spoke to an audience of mainly international lawyers on 20 November 2003 in The Hague, followed by an outpouring of criticism. Even a sympathetic observer present at the lecture would not fail to have noticed how thin the Israeli government’s arguments have become in objecting to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Israeli government’s insistence upon the “rule of law” yet refusal to submit to a supranational court is blatantly hypocritical.
Circular Nature of Israel’s Arguments: The arguments raised by the Israeli Ambassador in his lecture, the latest in a series of lectures organised by the Grotius Centre of the University of Leiden, T.M.C. Asser Institute and Coalition for the International Criminal Court, were nothing new to those who have followed the government’s position on this issue. Many are familiar with the circular nature of their arguments, namely: what is not politically comfortable should not be legally provided for, and what is legally provided for should not be prosecuted if it is politically uncomfortable.
But even for those unfamiliar with the Israeli government’s position on this issue, the main legal arguments that have been raised by Israel in their objection to the ICC were striking in their simplicity. The Israeli government’s substantive objections essentially cover two areas, namely: the selection of certain offences and impartiality of the ICC.
Spring in Palestine
By Mazin Qumsiyeh, CounterPunch 1/20/2004
The Death of Tom Hurndall -- Tom Hurndall, the British peace activist shot by the Israeli army, died after 9 months in coma. Meanwhile here in New England, temperature hover around zero Fahrenheit and we are told to stay warm and go about our lives. Yet we work and pay taxes that fund the ongoing violence claiming thousands of lives and keeping hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in cold tents or shacks with no heating.
The reason there are Palestinian refugees is rather quite simple: a Zionist movement supported by our government wanted to transform a multicultural, multireligious Palestine into a Jewish state. The Zionist movement responsible for this project proudly proclaims it is a movement to ingather Jews around the world to a land intended to have a Jewish majority state. The Zionist project and its outcome state (Israel) were intended to be run by and for "Jewish people everywhere." Hence there are basic laws (Israel has no constitution) to ensure land is transferred from non-Jewish to Jewish hands and that any person who is defined as Jewish would be considered a national of this state (part of the "People of Israel"). All this person has to do (whether he is Jewish American or Jewish Russian) is show up to claim automatic citizenship. Meanwhile, other basic laws deny 5-6 million Palestinians the right to return to their homes and lands.
Palestinians remaining inside the land coveted by the Zionist movement pay a heavy price. Some 3 million of them suffer poverty, unemployment, and hunger as they are herded into smaller and smaller enclaves (reservations, ghettos). Now, and using our tax money, Israel is building a segregation/apartheid wall around these large open-air prison (see http://www.stopthewall.org/).
Israel orders land seizures in Gaza
By Laila El-Haddad, Miftah/Al-Jazeera 1/21/2004
Israeli occupation forces have issued land confiscation orders to 28 families in the town of Dair al-Balah.
Located near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the Central Gaza strip, the total area subject to confiscation and eventual “fencing in” is approximately 1000 dunums – the equivalent of one square kilometre - according to the Central Area Governorate.
Residents told Aljazeera.net they were handed the land confiscation papers late on Tuesday and were given just seven days to appeal the order.
They were also asked to sign a paper stating they formally relinquished their claims to their own land in return for financial compensation.
“They came last night and handed me papers to sign saying I give up claims to my land, and at the same time handed me another paper saying they are confiscating my land whether I like it or not” exclaimed one distraught resident.
“They are trying to coerce me into signing this document. But I’m not doing it. No one is - we refuse to sign these papers or be forced out of our homes.”
As Scandals Swirl Around Sharon, Pundits Predict He Won’t Last a Year
By Leslie Susser, Miftah 1/21/2004
As with President Nixon in the Watergate affair, tapes and an attempted coverup could be the undoing of Israel’s scandal-haunted leader. After audiotapes and videotapes that aired on prime-time television last week suggested Ariel Sharon knew more than he has admitted about illegal fund raising during his 1999 bid for Likud Party leader, pundits and politicians say the prime minister won’t see out the year in office.
Sharon says he isn’t worried and has no intention of resigning. But the race for succession is gathering pace in the Likud, with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister, well in the lead.
The tapes released by David Spector, a political consultant who worked for Sharon for about a year before and after the 1999 campaign, show Sharon’s close advisers unabashedly contemplating illegal campaign funding.
In one tape, Uri Shani, then the Likud’s director general, tells Sharon’s son Omri that he could transfer Likud funds to the campaign coffers in a way that would be untraceable.
In a taped telephone conversation with Spector, Ariel Sharon asks about U.S. and European donations to what is believed to be an election fund, suggesting that he followed the wider illegal donation process in great detail.
Studying Lebanese society and thinking beyond politics
By Daryl Champion, Daily Star 1/20/2004
They say the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001. Suddenly, the Middle East is a hot topic among people in the Western world who had not previously cared enough about the region to take the trouble to become familiar with its affairs and its people. Now, enrolment in Middle East studies courses at institutions of higher learning are booming.
Suddenly, everyone, it seems, is a political scientist, a theoretician, a foreign policy expert, a military strategist. Everyone has an opinion. But how are these opinions formed?
Perhaps in a few years’ time when a crop or three of recently enrolled students emerge from their courses after serious study, there will be a greater body of more informed opinion on the Middle East.
Don’t hold your breath. The bulk of popular opinion, even amongst the well-educated, is molded and manipulated by the mainstream media.
The record isn’t a good one. I know. I’ve worked in the mainstream media and in alternative media, and my involvement in Middle Eastern affairs is now entering its 20th year an involvement which saw informal study merge with formal study, culminating in a doctorate in Middle East politics and a book on Saudi Arabia published by Columbia University Press. The way the mainstream Western media deals with Islam and Middle Eastern issues was a hobby interest. As I said, the record isn’t a good one.
Israel Tackles the World Court
Editorial, Miftah 1/20/2004
As the International Court of Justice in The Hague prepares to hear arguments regarding the legality of Israel’s Separation Wall, it is difficult to discern just how annoyed and concerned Israel is about having to defend its indefensible fence. While Israel has miraculously refrained from boycotting the International Court of Justice, it has already decided to submit arguments both in writing and orally that undermine the legitimacy of the World Court to hold hearings on the Separation Wall.
Typically, Israel tends to arrogantly challenge the authority of any international body that seeks to probe its actions. For example, Israel challenged the right of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in July, 2003, to investigate Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking in closed cabinet meeting on Sunday, said that if the route of the Wall was changes it will not be in response to demands by the Palestinians, the United Nations or the International Court of Justice.
Yet, despite the norm of defying the international community, Israel seems to be feeling the pressure the fence has brought to bear. According to the Sharon government’s prepared submission to the Israeli High Court of Justice, which is currently also preparing to respond to several petitions against the Wall, Israel will examine already constructed portions of the Separation Wall and is willing to consider changing the route of portions that have not yet been built.
Binational Solution as a Weapon Is Counterproductive
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 1/18/2004
A Reuters’ commentator recently presented a bleak analysis, charging that the Palestinian leadership lacks a cohesive strategy “to foil Sharon’s designs”. Almost simultaneously, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei warned that Ariel Sharon’s unilateral policies might oblige Palestinians “to come back to the option of a single, binational democratic state.”
Reuters’ Mark Heinrich was downright precise in his assessment. The Palestinian Authority is in fact at a “standstill” and is “simply frozen”. Palestinian leaders “lacked an alternative strategy to the road map and refuse to enter talks with Sharon while he holds the whip hand,” Heinrich wrote.
Qorei’s concurrent avowal — envisaging a binational state — while it seemed an attempt to break out from the crippling impasse, has regrettably helped reinforce the notion that the PA is utterly out of ideas, or at least out of ideas that the Palestinian leadership is prepared to seriously pursue.
Qorei was clearly investing in the state of fright in which Israelis are engaged, a fear that only underpins the perception that the mere existence of the Palestinian people is problematic and a threat to Israel’s existence. Even the natural growth of the Palestinian population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is simulated to fit the conflict’s all but unfamiliar jargon: It’s a “demographic bomb.”
Putting Israel above the law and ruling by exception
By Hasan Abu Nimah, Jordan Times 1/21/2004
TALK OF ridding the Middle East of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) has been heard for years, but no efforts have been made to bring this closer. Whenever Arab states raised the issue, for example at the United Nations, instantly doubt would be cast on their motives, and their efforts would be perceived as a veiled attempt to point fingers at Israel, which is known to have huge arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The UN lacked credibility whenever it raised the issue, because of the careful avoidance of mentioning Israel in any serious way. The 1991 Security Council Resolution 687, which ended the first Iraq war, clearly called for all countries to work to rid the region, not just Iraq, of WMD. Yet, all the focus has been on Iraq, even though, it was clear as early as 1994, despite propaganda to the contrary, that it had been already effectively disarmed.
Iraq's recklessness has provided a convenient cover for the UN and its powerful states to hide their timidness when it comes to confronting Israel and its American sponsor. But the unwillingness to confront Israel has also meant that it has been too embarrassing to target other countries' WMDs on a purely subjective and selective basis. Hence, stalemate.
Palestinian Prisoner - No Formal Charge but Sentenced to between 50 Months and Seven Years- Flexible
By Elana Wesley, Islamic Association for Palestine 1/17/2004
Jayyous, West Bank Palestine - Interview with Saleh Kardoomi and Isha Kardoomi -- We conducted this interview in the home of Saleh Kardoomi, the younger brother of the prisoner, Salah Kardoomi.Present were his children and wife and the wife of the prisoner, Isha, and two of her children, Kifah and Maise, ages 10 and 5 respectively.
Salah Kardoomi, age 39, has been in prison since March 5, 2003. I began the interview by asking Salah's wife to tell me about the night of her husband's arrest.
It was 2:00 AM and suddenly, the door to the home was kicked open. At least 20 Israeli Occupation Force soldiers entered the home. Meanwhile, the entire outside area to the home was surrounded by more than 25 additional soldiers, on top of their roof, in the trees and bushes. Later, it was discovered that the military jeeps had been parked at a distance so as to be undetected when they made their approach to the home. Upon entering the home, the soldiers found Salah. His wife and kids were made to stay in one room while Salah was taken, handcuffed and placed in the jeep. At no time was there any explanation as to why he was being arrested. The IOF said only that "he was wanted and they needed to search the home." It is important to note that this is more than a statement; it appears to be a tactic used by the IOF. Entering homes without warrants, reason or explanation and taking someone away in handcuffs. At first, the soldiers told Salah that they would only hold him for two hours. Two hours then turned into a promise of his release in 10 months. Finally, he was sentenced to at least 50 months, but up to 7 years. He has not been formally charged with any crime.
Unbound Spirit
By Adam Shapiro, Palestine Chronicle 1/18/2004
Ayed Morar, or Abu Ahmed as he is known to all, sits in jail tonight and I wonder if he is thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike Dr. King, Abu Ahmed will not be leaving jail anytime soon, and is he unable to protest his imprisonment by exemplifying the moral injustice done to him and his people, for the world’s powers have maintained a deaf ear to the plight of the Palestinian people. Like Dr. King, however, Abu Ahmed is in jail for organizing and participating in nonviolent direct action against unjust, discriminatory and violent policies targeting his people on the basis of their ethnicity. Dr. King ultimately left his Birmingham jail cell, and went on to lead this country towards racial integration and healing. But Abu Ahmed, when he is released from prison – likely after at least ten days of “administrative detention”, or possibly as much as three months, without charge – will still be locked up.
Abu Ahmed is from Budrus, a village in the West Bank that sits relatively near the 1967 border with Israel. Budrus has long been a peaceful farming village, almost wholly dependent on the olive trees and other fruits and vegetables grown in its fertile fields. Late last year, however, the Israeli government interfered in the life of the village in an unprecedented way, with the initial work on construction of a wall blocking the villagers’ access to their fields, and cutting them off from any source of livelihood. In December 2003, Abu Ahmed and others in the village started to organize and called on the International Solidarity Movement – a grassroots Palestinian and international movement promoting nonviolent direct action methods of resistance (in the spirit of Dr. King) – to join them in protesting the wall.
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