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On the 58th anniversary of Human Rights Day, Palestinian civilians suffer

12 December 2006


The 10th of December 2006 marks the 58th anniversary of International Human Rights Day, the date which was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights. This anniversary is being commemorated while the Palestinian people continue to live under Israeli belligerent occupation, which has continued for almost 40 years. Under this occupation, the Palestinian people are subject to many forms of human rights violations that contradict the basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the rights to life, liberty and security of person, through willful killings, extra-judicial executions, torture, collective punishment, and cruel and degrading treatment. 

Support for Israel in Congress is Based on Fear

James Abourezk 12 December 2006


I can tell you from personal experience that the support Israel has in the Congress is based completely on political fear — fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done. I can also tell you that very few members of Congress — at least when I served there — have any affection for Israel or for its Lobby. What they have is contempt, but it is silenced by fear of being found out exactly how they feel. I’ve heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they’re pushed around by the Lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the Lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the Lobby’s animosity by making their feelings public. 

Cancer didn't kill my mother, the occupation did

Raed M. Sharif Syracuse 11 December 2006


By the time my mother made it to Egypt, it was unfortunately a bit late because the cancer was rapidly growing in her body and at that stage, doctors didn’t have much to do but to try the chemotherapy to see if it could help. Unfortunately, this didn’t help much and she peacefully passed away last night. My mother is not the only case; she is just one the cases that someone could talk about. In addition to the tens of people being killed by the Israelis every day through the use of traditional weapons, tens, if not hundreds, of others die every day because of lack of access to health services, because of movement restrictions imposed by the Israelis and the restrictions on delivering medicine and health equipment to Gaza and other Palestinian cities. 

The cradle of revolution

Samia A. Halaby Beirut 11 December 2006


Cradled in the beautiful southern mountains of Lebanon, a revolutionary impulse born of desparation created by Israeli terror and American oppression has turned into feverish nationalism. Here in Beirut yesterday, 10 December 2006, over a million people, perhaps two million, gathered in a historic first for Lebanon and possibly a historic percentage of any nation any one time any where. It was a crowd in motion, literally. I watched the rivers of people weaving through the masses and the islands of those who stood still. Their shifting patterns, a natural motion, is a rare experience. 

Lack of Israeli cooperation prevents UN fact-finding mission to Beit Hanoun

11 December 2006


Israel’s lack of cooperation has prevented a fact-finding mission from the United Nations Human Rights Council from visiting Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, where an Israeli attack last month killed 19 Palestinian civilians, the head of the team, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, said today. “This is a time in our history that neither allows for indifference to the plight of those suffering, nor a refusal to search for a solution to the present crisis in the region,” Mr. Tutu told reporters in Geneva, describing Israel’s action as “very distressing.” 

Farmers seek government help to escape downward spiral of debt

11 December 2006


Desperate Lebanese farmers are urging their government to do more to help them recover from a war that the United Nations estimates has cost the vital agriculture industry some US $280 million and left them facing “a downward spiral of debt and poverty”. “I personally lost over 50 million Lebanese pounds [$35,000],” said Mohammed Mokahhal, a farmer from the eastern Bekaa Valley, describing his losses in the month-long summer war between Israel and militants from the Lebanese Hezbollah political party. 

Is every Palestinian in the Gaza Strip a terrorist?

11 December 2006


In his comments to the Editors Committee on 7 December 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that, “Since June, more than 400 members of terrorist organizations have been killed.” According to B’Tselem’s data, from the time of the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, on 26 June, to 15 November, the IDF has killed 387 Palestinians. More than half of the persons killed, 206, among them eighty-one minors and forty-five women, were not taking part in the hostilities when they were killed. Four of the remaining fatalities were the object of targeted killings, and 177 were killed while taking part in the hostilities. 

Vile Jibes At President Carter Ignored By Media

Michael F. Brown 11 December 2006


On Dec. 7, 2006, CNN journalist Glenn Beck savaged President Jimmy Carter’s important new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, despite clearly not having given it a close read. In the course of his diatribe he referred to President Carter as a “fathead.” Time was that an employee would be fired on the spot for such a transgression. Had my mother or father run CNN and been listening I am quite certain that Beck would have been pulled from the set and a sincere apology offered to viewers within minutes. Clearly, no real standards exist at CNN. 

A rare voice: An interview with author Ilan Pappe

Christopher Brown 11 December 2006


“The ideology that Avigdor Lieberman subscribes to that is an ethnic cleansing ideology. Someone who believes that the only way to solving the problems in Israel/Palestine is by expelling the Palestinians from Israel and any territory Israel covets. I think the problem with Avigdor Lieberman is not his own views but the fact that he reflects what most Israeli Jews think, and definitely what most of his colleagues in the Olmert government think but don’t dare to say, or don’t think is desirable to say for tactical reasons. But I do think that we should be worried about Lieberman, not as an extreme fascist but rather as a person who represents the mood of Israel in 2006.” 

Archive of displacement

Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST) 11 December 2006


We have started filming the stories of Atir and Um Al-Hiran’s villagers. “As if living beside desert highways in makeshift homes with no facilities was not enough, Palestinian Bedouin villagers in Um al-Hiran and Atir now face their second, unwanted, exodus in 50 years. Drive along the desert highways around Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva) in the south of Israel, and it does not take long to notice clusters of makeshift houses set in from the side of the road. These Bedouin villages are ‘unrecognised’ by the state of Israel, and consequently have no official status.