Council Awards Deferral For First Time Ever
By JOHN HEILPRIN 01/29/13 11:31 AM ET EST AP
GENEVA -- Israel became the first nation to skip a U.N. review of its human rights record without giving a reason – and then won a precedent-setting deferral Tuesday.
The president of the U.N.'s top rights body, Polish diplomat Remigiusz Henczel, declared Israel a no-show at a meeting in Geneva and then reconvened the 47-nation Human Rights Council to decide what to do.
Israel had asked Henczel in January to postpone the review but did not provide a public explanation.
"This is a rather unique step which has never happened in the past," said German U.N. Ambassador Hanns Heinrich Schumacher.
But after a debate, the council unanimously agreed to defer the review until its next session in October and November at the latest. It took also take it up earlier.
Henczel said the compromise would set a precedent for "how to deal with all cases of non-cooperation" in the future.
All U.N. nations are required to submit to Human Rights Council review every four years. The council's spokesman, Rolando Gomez, said once previously Haiti did not appear for its review but provided a reason.
Israel's absence comes as it is forming a new governing coalition following last week's parliamentary election.
U.S. diplomats have said the council is too focused on Israel. Israel, meanwhile, said last year that it would stop cooperating with the council because of its plans for a fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Diplomats from nations such as Egypt and Pakistan quickly pounced on the Israeli absence, and the opening it could provide for other countries that might want to bow out of a rights review.
The European Union called on Israel to "respond positively" by submitting to the review later this year.
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the U.S. ambassador to the council, urged the body to agree to the unprecedented deferral in an effort to "find common ground and to protect" the review process.
Israel has gone through one review before in 2008, when many delegations demanded it recognize and respect Palestinians' right to self-determination and a homeland.
The Geneva-based council was set up in 2006 to replace a 60-year-old commission that was widely discredited as a forum dominated by nations with poor human rights records.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
UN probe says Israel must remove settlers
January 31, 2013 11:23 am
GENEVA – UN human rights investigators called on Israel on Thursday to halt settlement expansion and withdraw all Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank, saying that its practices violated international law.
“Israel must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions. It must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT (occupied Palestinian territories),” said a report by the inquiry led by French judge Christine Chanet.
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It said the settlements contravene the 1949 Geneva Conventions forbidding the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory, which could amount to war crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
In December, the Palestinians accused Israel in a letter to the UN of planning to commit further “war crimes” by expanding Jewish settlements after the Palestinians won de facto UN recognition of statehood and warned that Jerusalem must be held accountable.
Israel has not co-operated with the probe set up by the Human Rights Council last March to examine the impact of settlements in the territory, including East Jerusalem. Israel says the forum has an inherent bias against it and defends its settlement policy by citing historical and biblical links to the West Bank.
The independent UN investigators interviewed more than 50 people who came to Jordan in November to testify about confiscated land, damage to their livelihoods including olive trees, and violence by Jewish settlers, according to the report.
“The mission believes that the motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians as well as their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand,” it said.
About 250 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been established since 1967 and they hold an estimated 520,000 settlers, according to the UN report. The settlements impede Palestinian access to water resources and agricultural lands, it said.
The settlements were “leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”, it said.
After the General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians status at the world body, Israel said it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – areas Palestinians wanted for a future state, along with the Gaza Strip.
The UN human rights inquiry said the ICC had jurisdiction over the deportation or transfer by the occupying power of its own population into the territory.
“Ratification of the (Rome) Statute by Palestine may lead to accountability for gross violations of human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law and justice for victims,” the UN report said, referring to the treaty setting up The Hague-based UN tribunal which prosecutes people for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Financial Times Limited 2013.
GENEVA – UN human rights investigators called on Israel on Thursday to halt settlement expansion and withdraw all Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank, saying that its practices violated international law.
“Israel must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions. It must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT (occupied Palestinian territories),” said a report by the inquiry led by French judge Christine Chanet.
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It said the settlements contravene the 1949 Geneva Conventions forbidding the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory, which could amount to war crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
In December, the Palestinians accused Israel in a letter to the UN of planning to commit further “war crimes” by expanding Jewish settlements after the Palestinians won de facto UN recognition of statehood and warned that Jerusalem must be held accountable.
Israel has not co-operated with the probe set up by the Human Rights Council last March to examine the impact of settlements in the territory, including East Jerusalem. Israel says the forum has an inherent bias against it and defends its settlement policy by citing historical and biblical links to the West Bank.
The independent UN investigators interviewed more than 50 people who came to Jordan in November to testify about confiscated land, damage to their livelihoods including olive trees, and violence by Jewish settlers, according to the report.
“The mission believes that the motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians as well as their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand,” it said.
About 250 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been established since 1967 and they hold an estimated 520,000 settlers, according to the UN report. The settlements impede Palestinian access to water resources and agricultural lands, it said.
The settlements were “leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”, it said.
After the General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians status at the world body, Israel said it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – areas Palestinians wanted for a future state, along with the Gaza Strip.
The UN human rights inquiry said the ICC had jurisdiction over the deportation or transfer by the occupying power of its own population into the territory.
“Ratification of the (Rome) Statute by Palestine may lead to accountability for gross violations of human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law and justice for victims,” the UN report said, referring to the treaty setting up The Hague-based UN tribunal which prosecutes people for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Financial Times Limited 2013.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Who owns the world?
Preview: who owns the world?
Today we have two kinds of feudal state.
By Jon Bernstein Published 10 March 2011 13:42
Cahill casts his net wider this time. From the Queen of England to the Kidmans of Australia, from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to the media tycoon Ted Turner, the piece reveals the globe's biggest landowners.
As this extract from the piece explains:
Today we have two kinds of feudal state: the inherited state, usually with a monarch at its head, such as the UK; and the state that claims ownership of all land and is feudal in its conception and often totalitarian, such as China. But the core surviving feudal structure in the modern world is inherited, transnational and covers many countries. It has no formal name. It is, in fact, the British crown and its wearer, Elizabeth II. Her legal title runs thus: "by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".
This constitutional statement includes some vast territories where the Queen is quite separately the sovereign head of state and legal owner. First among these is Australia, which, if its Antarctic territories are included, is the second-largest country on earth. And the Queen, in effect, owns it. She also owns the third-largest country, Canada.
When the Queen's territories are added together, the Russian Federation ceases to be the largest single political entity on earth. Like the Queen's realms, the Russian Federation is dramatically underpopulated and immensely rich in mineral wealth of all kinds.
Boycott apparently kills Israel rock festival
January 18, 2013
Israel’s Ynet reported in Hebrew that:
As had already been reported in December, many difficulties cropped up over the last few months in recruiting the famous artists to take part in the festival, and the production had also run into logistical and financial difficulties in its attempt to produce three consecutive days of performances at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv’s “HaYarkon Park,” notably, is built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Jarisha. Ynet said that the Israeli promoters, Plug Productions, posted a message on their Facebook page:
Dear friends, we really don’t like to discuss gossip, but we will do it this time: you don’t have to take seriously everything that’s written on Ynet. If you haven’t heard it from us, you haven’t heard it at all.
The screenshot right at the top of this post shows last month. Note “Lollapalooza Israel” in the top left corner, and the big announcement at bottom right.
The screenshot [on the official Lollapalooza website] shows the “Lollapalooza Israel” removed, but festivals in Chile and Brazil still apparently going ahead.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Oxfam seeks 'new deal' on inequality from world leaders
BBC News
18 January 2013
Last updated at 19:12 ET
The 100 richest people in the world earned enough last year to end extreme poverty suffered by the poorest on the planet four times over, Oxfam has said.
Ahead of next week's World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the charity urged world leaders to tackle inequality.
Extreme wealth was "economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive", the report said.
The global economic system required reform so that it worked "in the interests of the whole of humanity".
A four-day summit involving political and economic leaders runs in Davos from next Wednesday.
In its report entitled The Cost Of Inequality: How Wealth And Income Extremes Hurt Us All, the UK charity said that efforts to tackle poverty were being hindered by an "explosion in extreme wealth".
The richest one per cent of the world's population had increased its income by 60% in the last 20 years, Oxfam said.
It reported that while the world's 100 richest people enjoyed a net income of $240bn (£150bn) last year, people in "extreme poverty" lived on less than $1.25 (78p) a day.
"We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many - too often the reverse is true," said Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking.
"Concentration of resources in the hands of the top 1% depresses economic activity and makes life harder for everyone else - particularly those at the bottom of the economic ladder."
The charity called for a "global new deal to reverse decades of increasing inequality".
Its suggestions for leaders due at the Davos summit include:
Closure of tax havens around the world
A reversal of "the trend towards more regressive forms of taxation"
A global minimum corporation tax rate
Increased investment in free public services and safety nets for people out of work or ill
"As a first step world leaders should formally commit themselves to reducing inequality to the levels seen in 1990," Ms Stocking said.
"From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favour.
"It is time our leaders reformed the system so that it works in the interests of the whole of humanity rather than a global elite."
I wrote this in 1998 and as the above Oxfam article shows, it's still appropriate economic change policy:
Tax the Super Rich
End Poverty, hunger and despair for millions of human beings in America and throughout the World
Tax the Super Rich and create an Economic Boom in the process
The Super Rich are an abomination before God. They are an abomination to any decent society. They are a serious threat to the Nation's international trade relationships. And they are supreme evidence of a dysfunctional social system guaranteeing social destabilization caused by enormous disparities in the distribution of socially produced goods and services. The Super Rich get that way by unconscionable conduct. By using unfair economic advantages over less economically fortunate or less aggressive individuals, the Super Rich are those individuals and families who run monopoly empires, ruling like kings over mass distribution systems such as energy, computers, drugs, weapons, sports, entertainment, communications, any systems or products that have gigantic mass markets. Once an enterprise or an individual reaches the multi-million dollar bracket, further gains become almost automatic. Bank interest payments alone will continually add gigantic amounts of new wealth to these few individuals and families.
Our current legal and business system favors Big Money enterprise over smaller enterprises. Competition gets reduced and eliminated as corporate monopoly players team together to force out competition from smaller enterprises. It's time to put a stop to the social irresponsibility of letting the Super Rich system continue. Putting enormous fortunes into the hands of a privileged few who earn as much as the combined earnings of 90% of American citizens cannot be tolerated. Putting enormous fortunes in the hands of these few Super Rich while millions upon millions of people live in constant threat of starvation is barbaric behavior and totally unconscionable in any civilized society worthy of the name. We must end the Super Rich socially criminal behavior like we ended Al Capone's criminal career. We tax them out of existence. We regain our economic strength by having Congress legislate either an Act of Congress or an Amendment to the Constitution that simply states:
1) All U.S. citizen will be taxed at a rate of 100% for any income exceeding one million dollars per year, with no exceptions, no loopholes, no way for any individual to acquire over one million dollars per year.
2) No individual or corporation can hold assets exceeding one million dollars per year or transfer assets exceeding a million dollars per year into foreign bank accounts without the same tax law applying.
3) All taxed income over one million dollars per year is to distributed to Social Security programs, Medicare programs, educational grants, low interest home and business loans to low and moderate income families and individuals, and environmental protection projects.
4) A fund will be established for United Nations and various church and charitable organizations' for bringing food, clothing, shelter, and cooperative community self-sufficiency programs and advisers to the world's desperately poor.
Taking this action will only effect the illegitimate prosperity of a very few number of individuals while it will bring the middle-class back into its rightful prominence as the stable economic and social backbone of America. This action will also begin an Economic Boom era for America's economy as the Super Rich are forced to divest their holdings and companies. With divestment mandatory, re-investment will occur and hundreds, if not thousands of new businesses and jobs will be opened up. This action will rightfully gain America new productive members of society as well as opening up huge new markets both within the U.S. and throughout the world. This action will start a worldwide precedent for all nations laboring under the thumbs of about 250 Super Rich individuals who's combined yearly incomes could feed and house the majority of the world's people and allow them the opportunity to rise out of unnecessary poverty and hopelessness. And this action won't stop the benefits of entrepreneurism. There's still plenty of room left for enterprising individuals to prosper with every year with the opportunity to become multi-millionaires.
Society should rightfully honor those individuals who organize economic enterprises that service and enhance our lives. But the economic rewards of entrepreneurial creation must not become ends in themselves or society suffers. A taxation system like this will return us pride in being Good Americans--giving as we receive--just as this taxation system will brings us new days when to be a "millionaire" will really mean something special once again.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Palestinians: Apartheid state if Netanyahu wins
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH,
Associated Press | January 18, 2013 |
Updated: January 18, 2013 4:11pm
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinians have long complained that Israel's right-wing government is killing peace prospects by settling the West Bank with Jews, but now there is something new. The Palestinian president is warning that Benjamin Netanyahu's expected victory in next week's election could lead to an Arab-majority country in the Holy Land that will eventually replace what is now Israel — unless he pursues a more moderate path of a two state solution to the conflict.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been careful not to intervene in Tuesday's Israeli election, but it is no secret that the Palestinians hope that Netanyahu will either be ousted or at least soften his position in a new term. He has shown no sign of doing so, and opinion polls showing hard-line, pro-settlement parties well ahead days ahead of the vote have led to a sense of despair among the Palestinians.
During Netanyahu's current term, the Israeli leader has pressed forward with construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which along with the Gaza Strip were captured by Israel in the 1967 war from Jordan. Abbas says he wants to set up a state in the territories that would exist peacefully next to Israel.
The international community considers settlement construction illegal or illegitimate. And the Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Netanyahu while he continues to allow settlements to be built, saying it is a sign of bad faith.
Israeli backers of creation of a Palestinian state say relinquishing control of the Palestinian territories and its residents is the only way to ensure Israel's future as a democracy with a Jewish majority.
Mohammed Ishtayeh, a top aide to Abbas, told The Associated Press on Friday that his boss has been warning that won't be possible if settlement building continues and Israel could end up with a Jewish minority ruling over an Arab majority.
He warned Israel could end up with "an apartheid style state, similar to the one of former South Africa."
"In the long run it will be against the Israeli interests because ... we Palestinians will be the majority and will struggle for equality," he said, adding that Abbas had met repeated this message in meetings with several Israeli leaders in the past year.
Abbas "told them frankly there are Palestinians who are now calling for the one-state solution, because they no longer see the two-state solution viable," Ishtayeh said.
Abbas's office said the Palestinian president spoke with multiple leaders in 2012 from Israel's centrist opposition, including lawmakers from the Labor, Kadima and Meretz parties, along with mayors, university professors and social activists. He said a mayor from Netanyahu's Likud Party was among them.
Labor parliamentarian Daniel Ben-Simon told the AP he met with Abbas in Ramallah recently and was warned that time is running out for a two-state solution.
"Abbas said the two state solution benefits both nations but he warned that if there is no two state solution within the next two or three years then it won't be practical anymore," Ben-Simon said. "Abbas told me explicitly ... the idea of a one state solution is escalating among Palestinians."
Palestinian officials have been closely following the Israeli election campaign, fearing Netanyahu's ambitious plans for settlement construction over the next four years could prove lethal to their dreams of a state, Ishtayeh said. More than 500,000 Israelis already live in settlements that dot the West Bank and ring east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital.
Some in Abbas' circle are holding out hope that President Barack Obama will re-engage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, freed from domestic electoral considerations in his second term, get tougher with Netanyahu on settlements. Another aide, Nabil Shaath, suggested Europe is ready to jump in with its own peace plan if Washington is not.
But short of trying to rally international opinion, it seems Abbas can do little if Netanyahu wins Tuesday.
Israeli polls indicate that a majority of seats in Israel's 120-member parliament will go to right-wing, pro-settler or Jewish ultra-Orthodox religious parties. Likud is the largest among them. Netanyahu could comfortably form a coalition government with these parties, seen as his natural ideological allies. Likud's new slate of candidates is headed by hard-line lawmakers who oppose territorial concessions to the Palestinians, and a likely coalition partner, the pro-settler Jewish Home, even advocates annexing large chunks of the West Bank. Even if Netanyahu adds a centrist party to the mix, he's unlikely to shift course from the pro-settler policies of his current government
Under Netanyahu, construction reportedly began on nearly 6,900 settlement homes in the West Bank.
That's a bit less than what was started by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert, but many of the new homes are deeper in the West Bank, the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said this week. Thousands more apartments are in various stages of planning, Peace Now said, predicting an "explosion" of settlement construction in coming years.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his position on settlements Friday in an interview with Channel 1 TV.
"I don't believe that settlements are the root of the conflict, I don't believe that territorial dimensions are the root of the conflict, the root of the conflict was and remains the refusal to recognize the Jewish state within any border, Netanyahu said. "I am not in favor of a binational state. We need to reach a solution. I don't want to rule the Palestinians and I don't want them to rule us and threaten our existence."
"We believe the two-state solution is still possible, but Netanyahu and his current and upcoming coalition are killing this solution, they...will be intensifying the buildings in the settlements, and they have no peace platform," Ishtayeh said.
The conflict with the Palestinians has largely been missing from Israeli political discourse this campaign season in Israel. The centrist Labor Party, which led peace talks with the Palestinians in the past, has shifted almost exclusively to domestic concerns, such as growing income gaps.
Just one party, The Movement led by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has focused on peace talks. Livni has warned that Israel's existence could be threatened without a peace accord, yet her message has not gained much traction.
Palestinians believe hopes for their state are slipping further away with each new settlement home, and that partition of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River may soon no longer be possible.
Settlements are at the core of the paralysis in peace efforts talks since late 2008. Netanyahu refuses to freeze construction, rebuffing Abbas who says there is no point in negotiating while settlements steadily gobble up more of the occupied lands.
The standoff is likely to continue, though the Palestinians believe their diplomatic leverage has improved.
In November, the U.N. General Assembly recognized a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The vote, while largely symbolic, affirmed the 1967 frontier which the Palestinians want to be the base line for future border talks. Netanyahu, while willing to negotiate, won't accept the 1967 lines as a point of reference and wants to keep all of Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.
Some Palestinian officials hope Obama will now be tougher with Netanyahu after what they considered a disappointing first term.
The Americans "keep talking about negotiations and the need to restart the negotiations," Shaath said. "But what is needed is for the U.S. to pressure Israel to stop settlement activities and to go to real negotiations, to reach an agreement within six months."
Associated Press | January 18, 2013 |
Updated: January 18, 2013 4:11pm
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinians have long complained that Israel's right-wing government is killing peace prospects by settling the West Bank with Jews, but now there is something new. The Palestinian president is warning that Benjamin Netanyahu's expected victory in next week's election could lead to an Arab-majority country in the Holy Land that will eventually replace what is now Israel — unless he pursues a more moderate path of a two state solution to the conflict.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been careful not to intervene in Tuesday's Israeli election, but it is no secret that the Palestinians hope that Netanyahu will either be ousted or at least soften his position in a new term. He has shown no sign of doing so, and opinion polls showing hard-line, pro-settlement parties well ahead days ahead of the vote have led to a sense of despair among the Palestinians.
During Netanyahu's current term, the Israeli leader has pressed forward with construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which along with the Gaza Strip were captured by Israel in the 1967 war from Jordan. Abbas says he wants to set up a state in the territories that would exist peacefully next to Israel.
The international community considers settlement construction illegal or illegitimate. And the Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Netanyahu while he continues to allow settlements to be built, saying it is a sign of bad faith.
Israeli backers of creation of a Palestinian state say relinquishing control of the Palestinian territories and its residents is the only way to ensure Israel's future as a democracy with a Jewish majority.
Mohammed Ishtayeh, a top aide to Abbas, told The Associated Press on Friday that his boss has been warning that won't be possible if settlement building continues and Israel could end up with a Jewish minority ruling over an Arab majority.
He warned Israel could end up with "an apartheid style state, similar to the one of former South Africa."
"In the long run it will be against the Israeli interests because ... we Palestinians will be the majority and will struggle for equality," he said, adding that Abbas had met repeated this message in meetings with several Israeli leaders in the past year.
Abbas "told them frankly there are Palestinians who are now calling for the one-state solution, because they no longer see the two-state solution viable," Ishtayeh said.
Abbas's office said the Palestinian president spoke with multiple leaders in 2012 from Israel's centrist opposition, including lawmakers from the Labor, Kadima and Meretz parties, along with mayors, university professors and social activists. He said a mayor from Netanyahu's Likud Party was among them.
Labor parliamentarian Daniel Ben-Simon told the AP he met with Abbas in Ramallah recently and was warned that time is running out for a two-state solution.
"Abbas said the two state solution benefits both nations but he warned that if there is no two state solution within the next two or three years then it won't be practical anymore," Ben-Simon said. "Abbas told me explicitly ... the idea of a one state solution is escalating among Palestinians."
Palestinian officials have been closely following the Israeli election campaign, fearing Netanyahu's ambitious plans for settlement construction over the next four years could prove lethal to their dreams of a state, Ishtayeh said. More than 500,000 Israelis already live in settlements that dot the West Bank and ring east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital.
Some in Abbas' circle are holding out hope that President Barack Obama will re-engage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, freed from domestic electoral considerations in his second term, get tougher with Netanyahu on settlements. Another aide, Nabil Shaath, suggested Europe is ready to jump in with its own peace plan if Washington is not.
But short of trying to rally international opinion, it seems Abbas can do little if Netanyahu wins Tuesday.
Israeli polls indicate that a majority of seats in Israel's 120-member parliament will go to right-wing, pro-settler or Jewish ultra-Orthodox religious parties. Likud is the largest among them. Netanyahu could comfortably form a coalition government with these parties, seen as his natural ideological allies. Likud's new slate of candidates is headed by hard-line lawmakers who oppose territorial concessions to the Palestinians, and a likely coalition partner, the pro-settler Jewish Home, even advocates annexing large chunks of the West Bank. Even if Netanyahu adds a centrist party to the mix, he's unlikely to shift course from the pro-settler policies of his current government
Under Netanyahu, construction reportedly began on nearly 6,900 settlement homes in the West Bank.
That's a bit less than what was started by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert, but many of the new homes are deeper in the West Bank, the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said this week. Thousands more apartments are in various stages of planning, Peace Now said, predicting an "explosion" of settlement construction in coming years.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his position on settlements Friday in an interview with Channel 1 TV.
"I don't believe that settlements are the root of the conflict, I don't believe that territorial dimensions are the root of the conflict, the root of the conflict was and remains the refusal to recognize the Jewish state within any border, Netanyahu said. "I am not in favor of a binational state. We need to reach a solution. I don't want to rule the Palestinians and I don't want them to rule us and threaten our existence."
"We believe the two-state solution is still possible, but Netanyahu and his current and upcoming coalition are killing this solution, they...will be intensifying the buildings in the settlements, and they have no peace platform," Ishtayeh said.
The conflict with the Palestinians has largely been missing from Israeli political discourse this campaign season in Israel. The centrist Labor Party, which led peace talks with the Palestinians in the past, has shifted almost exclusively to domestic concerns, such as growing income gaps.
Just one party, The Movement led by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has focused on peace talks. Livni has warned that Israel's existence could be threatened without a peace accord, yet her message has not gained much traction.
Palestinians believe hopes for their state are slipping further away with each new settlement home, and that partition of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River may soon no longer be possible.
Settlements are at the core of the paralysis in peace efforts talks since late 2008. Netanyahu refuses to freeze construction, rebuffing Abbas who says there is no point in negotiating while settlements steadily gobble up more of the occupied lands.
The standoff is likely to continue, though the Palestinians believe their diplomatic leverage has improved.
In November, the U.N. General Assembly recognized a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The vote, while largely symbolic, affirmed the 1967 frontier which the Palestinians want to be the base line for future border talks. Netanyahu, while willing to negotiate, won't accept the 1967 lines as a point of reference and wants to keep all of Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.
Some Palestinian officials hope Obama will now be tougher with Netanyahu after what they considered a disappointing first term.
The Americans "keep talking about negotiations and the need to restart the negotiations," Shaath said. "But what is needed is for the U.S. to pressure Israel to stop settlement activities and to go to real negotiations, to reach an agreement within six months."
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The U.S.A., one of two of the world's most anti-Semitic nations on earth, say: Morsi's anti-Semitic slurs 'deeply offensive'
The US has strongly criticised Egypt's Mohammed Morsi for anti-Semitic remarks he apparently made before being elected president.
TV footage shows Mr Morsi in 2010 referring to Zionists as "bloodsuckers" and "descendants of apes and pigs".
US officials want the leader to clarify his "deeply offensive" comments, which they say run counter to Middle East peace efforts.
Egypt receives around $1.5bn (£900m) in annual US military and economic aid.
The financial support is linked to Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, which the US considers a cornerstone of regional stability.
'Occupiers of Palestine'
The controversy erupted after the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri) translated and released Arabic footage of interviews Mr Morsi gave in 2010, as a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the clip from Palestinian broadcaster Al-Quds TV, Mr Morsi referred to Jewish settlers as "occupiers of Palestine" and "warmongers".
He called for a "military resistance in Palestine against these Zionist criminals assaulting the land of Palestine and Palestinian".
Mr Morsi also denounced the Palestinian Authority, saying it was "created by the Zionists and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people."
In another interview, Mr Morsi urged Egyptians to "nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred".
The US State Department said the comments should be repudiated.
"We completely reject these statements, as we do with any language that espouses religious hatred," the department's spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
"This kind of rhetoric has been used in this region for far too long. It's counter to the goals of peace."
The White House called the rhetoric "unacceptable in a democratic Egypt".
"President Morsi should make clear that he respects people of all faiths," spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
However, both US officials also highlighted that Mr Morsi had shown his commitment to regional peace efforts since taking office in June last year.
The Egyptian leader helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas after violence flared up in Gaza in November.
And although he has been openly critical of Israel, Mr Morsi also pledged to abide by the peace treaty when he was voted into power.
"What he has been doing is supporting that peace treaty, continuing to work with us and with Israel on common goals, including in Gaza," Ms Nuland said. "But we'll also judge him by what he says."
Egypt has been a key US ally since it signed the 1979 peace deal as part of the Camp David Accords.
But observers say fears remain that the new leadership might try to renegotiate the treaty.
"As long as peace and justice are not fulfilled for the Palestinians, then the treaty remains unfulfilled," Mr Morsi told the New York Times shortly after winning the election last year.
Let's stop accepting Zionist Jewish 1984 Double Speak definitions of what constitutes an "anti-Semite". Real anti-Semites attack Semitic peoples and who are the Semitic peoples of Palestine and Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, Jordan, and Iraq? Jews from primarily Eastern Europe? Jews like us Ashkenazim who are descendants of Khazar kingdom Jewish converts? We are "Semitic" peoples while Arabs are somehow not?
No more "anti-semitic" smear campaign crapola from Zionist Jews or American Zionist wannabes
Please stop using Zionist terminology that is only there as a ruse to garner support for another European racist imperialist colony in a non-European land. Morsi just tells it like it is, actually pretty calm election times rhetoric for any Arab candidate facing any Middle East population that has had to deal with Israel's very real anti-Semitic aggression.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Palestinians evicted from E1, east of Jerusalem, less than 48 hours after beginning protest
Israeli border police remove a Palestinian activist from an outpost of tents in a disputed area known as E1.
Alistair Dawber
The Independent
Jerusalem
Sunday 13 January 2013
A group of Palestinian protesters who had built a tented village in a strategically important area of the West Bank have been evicted by Israeli police, less than 48 hours after beginning their action.
As many as 250 protesters were moved by the police and members of the Israeli Defence Force from the site in the area known as E1, east of Jerusalem, which has been earmarked for development by Israeli settlers.
The Palestinians, borrowing a tactic from settlers in the West Bank, moved into the area on Friday saying that they wanted to establish ‘facts of the ground,’ a phase often used during peace negotiations to recognise realities on the ground, rather than historic claims to ownership of land.
The activists said that they wanted to build a village called Bab al-Shams, or Gateway to the Sun, at the site. The bid comes two weeks after Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said that Israel would press ahead with plans to build a settlement in the area, in response to the declaration at the United Nations of de facto Palestinian statehood in November.
The UN declaration attracted support from most nations, with Israel and the United States voting against the bid - the UK government abstained.
The commitment by the Israeli government to build settlements comes despite the area being internationally recognised as occupied Palestinian territory.
Palestinians say furthermore, that construction of a new settlement would seriously jeopardise the prospects of a future Palestinian state, as it would effectively cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which they have designated as their capital city. The site cleared lies between East Jerusalem and the existing Jewish settlement of Maale Adumin.
Palestinian activist, Abdullah Abu Rahma, said that the protesters hoped to continue their action, and would re-pitch their tents. “Today, we will see if we can return," he said. It is thought that the Palestinians could also repeat the move in other parts of the West Bank.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police evicted the protesters from the site after a court decision authorising their removal. According to the Associated Press, he did not know which court had allowed the eviction. Mr Rosenfled said that there had been no injuries, a point disputed by the Palestinians who said that six people had been lightly hurt.
In a statement, the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, a grass-roots Palestinian group, said: “Even though we were evicted, our strength was apparent since the police needed hundreds and hundreds of special unit police officers.”
Mr Netanyahu ordered that roads leading to the area be closed on Saturday evening and instructed the military to declare a closed military zone and shut off access. The prime minister’s office added that the state was petitioning Israel’s Supreme Court to rescind an earlier injunction blocking the evacuation. On Friday, the Supreme Court had given the protesters six days to dismantle their tents.
The issue of E1 settlement building has returned in recent weeks, although many doubt that the Israelis genuinely intend to build in the area, rather it is being used as a general election issue, with the polls now just over a week away.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Palestinian protest on land assigned for E1 settlement
The Palestinians say they plan to stay in the encampment for a long time
BBC News
11 January 2013
Last updated at 10:35 ET
Palestinians in the West Bank have pitched a protest camp where Israel plans to build new settlement homes.
Activists erected about 20 large tents on the patch of land known as E1, between Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim.
Israeli plans to build in the area drew sharp criticism by members of the international community in December.
Palestinians say that building in E1 would jeopardise the contiguity of a Palestinian state.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
"We have set up 20 tents, and have enough equipment to stay here for a long time," Abir Kopty, spokeswoman for the Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee, told AFP news agency.
"We are willing to stay here until we ensure the right of the [Palestinian] owners of the land to build on their lands," she said.
Hours after the group started setting up the camp, Israeli authorities issued an eviction order. However, Ms Kopty tweeted that the activists had obtained a High Court order suspending the eviction notice.
Israeli plans to develop the E1 area had been on hold for years until the Palestinians upgraded their status at the UN from an "entity" to that of a "non-member observer state", a move condemned by Israel and the US as a violation of peace accords.
The following day Israel approved "preliminary zoning and planning work" in E1, and plans for thousands of settler homes.
The US called this move counterproductive, while European governments summoned Israeli ambassadors in protest.
Friday's actions of the Palestinians in E1 mirrors tactics of Israeli settlers who stake their claim to parts of the West Bank by pitching mobile homes on hilltops, known as outposts, which are not officially sanctioned.
An unnamed spokesperson for the Israeli defence ministry said the creation of the Palestinian encampment, which they named Bab el Shams, "sounded like a provocation", AFP reported.
"If it indeed is a construction violation, we will deal with it," he said.
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- Steve Lewis
- Prophesy bearer for four religious traditions, revealer of Christ's Sword, revealer of Josephine bearing the Spirit of Christ, revealer of the identity of God, revealer of the Celestial Torah astro-theological code within the Bible. Celestial Torah Christian Theologian, Climax Civilization theorist and activist, Eco-Village Organizer, Master Psychedelic Artist, Inventor of the Next Big Thing in wearable tech, and always your Prophet-At-Large.