In 2005, more than 170 organisations endorsed a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BIDS) against Israel. These organisations represent Palestinian refugees in exile, Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and the subjugated Palestinian citizens of the Israeli state.

6.30pm Tuesday 6 July

(cheap meal from 6pm) Resistance Centre, Druids House, Level 5/ 407 Swanston St, Melbourne city (opposite RMIT)

For more info Ph: 9639 8622 or 0413 377 978

A Socialist Alliance monthly meeting. www.socialist-alliance.org

CANBERRA

PERTH
Wednesday 23 June 2010, 6.30pm: Friends of Palestine, WA will host a public meeting with Diana Buttu as guest speaker at the University of Western Australia, Ross Lecture Theatre, Physics Building. Entry by donation.

Thursday 24 June 2010, 2.00pm: Diana Buttu to meet CFMEU officials. 
For more information, contact Alex Whisson 0407 850 962

BRISBANE
Friday 25 June 2010, 11.00am: Diana Buttu will meet with Labor lawyers at lunch.  5.30pm:  LHMU hosted forum & BBQ, Ground Floor LHMU, Peel Street. Gold coin donation towards APHEDA  work. 
RSVP Scotty 3291 4600 scott.zackeresen@lhmu.org.au

Saturday 26 June 2010, 10.00am – 12 noon: Diana Buttu will speak at the Amnesty Forum, Wesley House, 140 Ann St, Brisbane.
RSVP Tracey Foley on 3136 6404 tracey.foley@amnesty.org.au
For more information, contact David Forde 0413 874 008

MELBOURNE
Tuesday 22 June 2010, 11.00am: Diana Buttu to speak to AMWU Council meeting.

Monday 28 June 2010, 8.30am: Diana Buttu to meet with ACTU President-elect Ged Kearney. 12.00 noon: Lunch time reception at Geelong Trades Hall. 2.00pm: Factory visits. 7.30pm: Trades Hall dinner.

Tuesday 29 June 2010, 8.30am: Diana Buttu to meet with senior CFMEU officials.  10.00am: Meeting with Director, Social Justice & International Mission, Synod of Tasman and Victorian Uniting Church.  Noon: Lunch at Parliament House with parliamentarians and union officials. 6.00pm Australian Nursing Federation Reception.

Wednesday 30 June 2010, 6.30pm: Australians for Palestine will host a Public Forum at the State Library Conference Centre, Entry 3 LaTrobe St, City on “Apartheid & Boycotts” with Diana Buttu, UCLA Prof Saree Makdisi, Dr Ned Curthoys (ANU) & Prof Emeritus Stuart Rees (Syd).
For more information contact Sonja Karkar 0401 100 147 or Moammar Mashni, info@australiansforpalestine.com

SYDNEY
Thursday 01 July 2010, 5.00pm: Labour Council Unions, NSW Meeting with Diana Buttu

Friday 02 July 2010, 9.00-Noon: work site visits and meeting with union reps. Noon: Meeting with MPs at NSW Parliament House. 6.00pm: Diana Buttu will be guest speaker at the Politics in the Pub event “Palestine: Prospects, Priorities & Responsibilities”, Gaelic Club, Level 1, 64 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills convened by Prof Emeritus Stuart Rees.

Monday 05 July 2010, 6.00pm: Diana Buttu will speak at the “Palestine to the Pacific – Women speak out for Freedom” event at the Trades Hall Auditorium, 377 Sussex St, Sydney with Chamoru activist Dr Lisa Natividad & Larissa Behrendt, Prof of Law and Indigenous Studies, UTS

Tuesday 06 July 2010, 9.45am: Diana Buttu will speak at the annual NSW Teachers’ Conference.
For more information about these events, contact Sean Marshall 0407 785 843 or Jennifer Killen 0422 520 935

Bodyguards subdued a Palestinian man as he approached Middle East envoy Tony Blair, shouting, ‘You are a terrorist.’ The former British prime minister was verbally assailed while visiting the ancient Ibraheemi Mosque, a location sacred to both Muslims and Jews, during an official trip to the West Bank city of Hebron

Once again Blair spouts about a two state solution but does nothing to stop the building and expansion of the settlement program. He is well aware of the fact that a Palestinian state is impossible under the current Israeli administrations plans for the region. You may also want to read how he is profiting from his position as Middle East Envoy.

By Barak Ravid and Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday warned against further harming Israel’s relations with Turkey, after Turkey excluded Israel from a joint military exercise because of its criticism of Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

“The relations between Israel and Turkey are strategic and have been maintained for dozens of years,” Barak said in a closed meeting, according to a statement his press officer released.

He added: “Despite all the ups and downs, Turkey continues to be a central figure in our region; it is unsuitable to be drawn into criticizing it.”

The international aerial exercise, which was to include the IAF as well as aircraft and pilots from NATO, was due to be based at an air base in the central Anatolian city of Konya.

On Sunday, Turkey’s foreign minister publicly acknowledged for the first time that criticism of the Gaza campaign was the reason for his country’s exclusion of Israel from the drill.

“We hope that the situation in Gaza will be improved, that the situation will be back to the diplomatic track,” the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, told CNN in response to a question on why Turkey excluded Israel from the drill.

“And that will create a new atmosphere in Turkish-Israeli relations as well,” he added. “But in the existing situation, of course, we are criticizing this approach, [the] Israeli approach.”

Earlier, the Turkish foreign ministry said “a technical matter,” not politics, prompted the delay of the drill, CNN reported.

Foreign Ministry calls emergency meeting to discuss crisis

Officials at the Foreign Ministry called an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the crisis between Israel and Turkey, marked by the cancellation.

A senior source at the ministry told Haaretz about concerns that strategic ties with Turkey are in jeopardy after Operation Lead Cast in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Foreign Ministry sources confirmed that the meeting had taken place following instructions by ministry director general Yossi Gal, but they declined to give details.

Officials are debating the depth of the crisis. One view holds that “strategic ties” has become a unilateral description of the situation and that Turkey’s government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not interested in such links.

“It may be that the reality has changed and the strategic ties that we thought existed have simply ended,” said a senior Israeli official. “Maybe we need to be the ones who initiate renewed thinking regarding our ties and must adopt response measures.”

Supporters of this approach point out that of the countries with diplomatic ties with Israel, Turkey might be the most hostile.

But other officials argue that the situation can be saved. “There is a serious crisis and we need to address it quickly,” said a senior official who has experience with the Turkish file.

The exercise was scheduled to include crews from Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and other NATO countries. But unlike the preparations with other participants, the Turks stalled on beginning talks with their Israeli counterparts.

Last week, Turkish military officials surprised the Israel Defense Forces with news that they were canceling Israel’s participation in the exercise because of the country’s activities in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s efforts to gain an answer from the Turkish Foreign Ministry was met with evasive responses. Israel then contacted the United States, Italy and the Netherlands on the issue; these countries announced that they would not take part in the exercise.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials say this is an unusual move by the Turks because, despite the tension and Erdogan’s anti-Israeli rhetoric, it’s the first real step that violates the tripartite agreement between Israel, the United States and Turkey.

Israeli officials say that as far as they know, the move by the Turkish military stemmed from direct orders by Erdogan, who has been piling on anti-Israeli rhetoric since the Gaza offensive, which also led to a freeze in the negotiations Turkey was mediating between Syria and Israel.

Analysts say the key change in Turkey’s attitude is that the military has acquiesced to the prime minister’s political directives on an issue of defense strategy.

Erdogan has blamed Israel for committing what it calls genocide in the Gaza Strip and says then prime minister Ehud Olmert betrayed him. Erdogan also confronted President Shimon Peres at Davos in January and has insisted that Israel must be tried for war crimes.

The Turkish leader has also called for sanctions against Iran to be lifted, and has called on the international community to focus on Israel’s nuclear capabilities instead

STOCKHOLM (AFP) ? The European Union backed on Thursday a contentious UN report blasting Israel‘s military offensive in Gaza, praising its chief author and saying the document is “worthy of consideration.”

Israel immediately expressed disappointment at the support from Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt — whose country holds the EU presidency — and said it showed that Bildt had either not read the report or misunderstood it.

“It is worthy of consideration needless to say, I think Mr Goldstone is a person of high credibility and high integrity and accordingly his report carries weight,” Bildt told reporters in Stockholm.

The report by a fact-finding mission led by former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone accused both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes in the three-week Gaza war that erupted on 27 December, 2008.

“It is now in the Human Rights Council (based in Geneva) and that’s where we think it should be deliberated, it is an independent report,” Bildt added.

In Israel, foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: “Anyone who had bothered reading the report and not just the headlines in the press would realise this is not an independent or professional investigation but a collection of claims brought forward by Hamas to the members of the panel.

“The Swedish foreign minister‘s words are very disappointing because they show that either he did not read the text or that he really did not understand what was written in it,” he told AFP.

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s land, sea and air assault, Operation Cast Lead, launched in the impoverished coastal strip to stop Hamas militants firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

Some 5,300 people were wounded, with 4,100 homes destroyed and 17,000 damaged. Israel lost 10 soldiers and three civilians.

On Sunday, 4 October 2009, it was reported in the media that a Palestinian child had been shot on his family’s farm in the north of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Israel. It is reported that the child was shot in the spine and is now recovering in hospital, having first been denied access to medical care.

Israel has established a so called ‘buffer zone’ inside Gaza, a closed military zone which runs the entire length of the border. Since the end of the Israeli offensive in January 2009, this ‘no go’ area has been extended 300 metres into Gaza, although the killing of civilians has been reported up to one kilometer from the border.

The UN estimates that the buffer zone consumes approximately 30 percent of Gaza’s arable farmland, at a time when there is a near-total Israeli blockade of the territory. With limited options, farmers and their families are compelled to risk their lives in order to gather food from their lands in and around this killing zone.

The event on Sunday is by no means an isolated incident. On 4 September 2009, 12 year-old Ghazi al-Za’aneen was killed on his family’s land near the border in Beit Hanoun. According to first information gathered by DCI-Palestine, Ghazi was with his family and friends, including eight other children, collecting figs about 700 metres away from the border, when they were fired upon by Israeli soldiers.

Since the end of Operation Cast Lead in January 2009, DCI-Palestine can confirm that at least seven Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli Military, inside Gaza.

DCI-Palestine expresses grave concern that Palestinian men, women and children will continue to be killed in the buffer zone unless:

• Israel amends its rules of engagement relating to the buffer zone; and
• Israel ends the blockade of the Gaza Strip and allows unrestricted humanitarian access.

If you would like to take action, please consider lobbying your elected representatives and urge that pressure be applied on the Israeli authorities to cease the practice of firing upon civilians in the Gaza buffer zone and to end the blockade.

For further information about Operation Cast Lead, please see DCI-Palestine’s latest report – Bearing the Brunt Again: Child Rights Violations during Operation Cast Lead (September 2009).

As it turns out, the same phrase plays quite a different role in the Middle East, where Obama seems to have no intention of changing it at all. Successive administrations have adhered to a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to Israel’s sizeable arsenal of nuclear weapons. That country has never acknowledged their existence, adhering instead to another arcane formula: “We will not introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.” Jonathan Schell has described this strange situation: “Evidently, in some abstruse way, possessing [nuclear weapons] is not introducing them. You’d have to do something more to introduce them. You’d have to brandish one or make a threat with one, or maybe just acknowledge that you had them. As long as they keep them in the basement and don’t make any introductions, then it’s alright.”

In May, the Obama administration evidently agreed not to break step with the fictions of previous administrations by acknowledging, or attempting to force Israel to publicly acknowledge, its estimated 100-200 nuclear weapons, including city-busters and cruise missiles adapted to be nuclear-armed and put on subs in the Mediterranean. His administration seems also to have agreed not to pressure the Israelis to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under which nuclear arms are theoretically managed on our planet.

This, of course, leads to bizarre Middle Eastern policy anomalies rarely acknowledged in this country. In the midst of all the screaming headlines about an Iranian bomb which does not yet (and may never) exist, none of the acts the administration is demanding of the Iranians (and around which it is threatening to impose even stronger sanctions), including allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into its nuclear sites and providing greater transparency about the state of its nuclear program, have been put into practice by Israel, despite its perfectly real — in fact, staggeringly large — program. And no penalties have been imposed.

When Israel was in Iran’s present situation back in the 1950s and early 1960s, and secretly developing a nuclear weapons program, U.S. administrations simply looked the other way. Ever since, presidents have preferred not to look at all, not publicly anyway. According to Eli Lake of the Washington Times, despite President Obama’s stated policy of wanting to strengthen the NPT and lead the world toward nuclear disarmament, he recently “reaffirmed” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections.”

One irony of the Obama push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, even while working to bring Iran to heel, has been this: despite all efforts in Israel and here, the Israeli nuclear arsenal has begun creeping towards the light of day. Soon enough, to everyone’s surprise, it may become part of the conversation even in the United States. So here’s a final irony: it’s just possible that “don’t ask, don’t tell” will lose its meaning in the Middle East before it does in the U.S. military. In the meantime, as TomDispatch regular Ira Chernus points out, the Obama administration’s focus on Iran continually creates unexpected problems elsewhere.

Source: Tomdispatch.com

Palestinian schoolchildren should learn about the Nazis? slaughter of Europe?s Jewish population during the Second World War aspart of a curriculum component based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNRWA says

Palestinian schoolchildren should learn about the Nazis’ slaughter of Europe’s Jewish population during the Second World War as part of a curriculum component based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNRWA says

The United Nations’ refugee agency is planning to include the Holocaust in a new human-rights curriculum for pupils in its Gaza secondary schools despite strident opposition to the idea from within Hamas.

John Ging, the UN Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) director of operations in Gaza, told The Independent that he was “confident and determined” that the Holocaust would feature for the first time in a wide-ranging curriculum that is being drafted.

Mr Ging, a passionate advocate for Palestinian civilians in Gaza who has recently faced increasingly personal criticism and even threats by elements in the Islamic faction, added: “No human-rights curriculum is complete without the inclusion of the facts of the Holocaust, and its lessons.”

The draft, to be completed within weeks and then put out for consultation with parents and the public, is built on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was agreed by the UN General Assembly in 1948 in the shadow of what it called the “barbarous acts” committed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The one-time Irish Army officer has long been an outspoken critic of Israeli policy towards Gaza, including the conduct of last winter’s lethal military offensive and what he described more than once in his interview as the “illegal siege”.

Mr Ging said the curriculum would explain the genesis, and “inculcate the values” of the Universal Declaration which stipulates that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. He pointed out that the UN General Assembly in 2005 unanimously urged “all countries to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to children so that we learn from history, so that we don’t repeat history”.

Although the UNRWA director strongly emphasised that the de facto Hamas government had not sought to interfere with the agency ? which is responsible for the welfare of some 1 million Gaza refugees ? other figures in the movement have angrily condemned the idea of including the Holocaust in any part of the curriculum. Yunis al Astal, a religious leader and a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said last month that it would be “marketing a lie” and a “war crime” to do so.

Mr Ging said the new curriculum would also include “tangible examples” of other “blights and stains in human history”. He added: “We want to succeed with the active support of the civilian population who want their children to be part of the civilised world and who have no interest in challenging globally accepted facts; no more than … they start challenging whether the earth goes round the sun, or Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans, or the genocide in Rwanda, or apartheid in South Africa; or, for that matter, the Nakba.” The last event on his list was the Palestinians’ “day of catastrophe”, the flight or forced expulsion of some 700,000 refugees in the 1948 war which saw the foundation of Israel.

He continued: “This is also part of the frustration here. There are so many global tragedies and travesties that are learned worldwide. Who learns about the Nakba? Again [that is] a very reasonable and legitimate demand but it’s not ‘either/or’; it’s both.”

Mr Ging added that UNRWA wanted to teach children that “those who fight for justice must fight with justice ? lawful actions are the only way to prevail”. “The children of Gaza need this more than children elsewhere, because their daily experience is not giving them the example they need to have,” he said. He cited the struggles led by such figures as Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela who “eventually prevailed”.

“We also want to teach them what he did when he prevailed,” he explained. “He didn’t seek retribution. He fought for human rights for all South Africans not just for black South Africans.”

He added that the curriculum would also seek to demonstrate that war crimes, such as those in Rwanda and in the Balkans, can be punished by international law. “We are not seeking to transform the value system of the people of Gaza. We’re seeking to protect the value system of the people of Gaza, and that’s why the community will support us.”

He argued that tackling the issue “would be so simple if we didn’t have the illegality of the [Israeli-imposed] siege … and the war and all the other illegalities that are the daily life of Palestinians here in Gaza”, such as, “the fishermen not being allowed out to fish, sanitation not working, water being undrinkable, the private sector having lost all of the jobs and the dignity of work, students not being able to travel out of Gaza, sick people being trapped in Gaza.

“[It] is a seemingly endless list of travesty and injustice but we can’t wait for those to be righted before we also do more to counter the effect of all that.” Mr Ging said that the human-rights component in the existing curriculum had not been adequate to tackle topics of concern in Gaza, including the illegality of firing rockets, the issue of what constituted lawful resistance, and the effect of propaganda and “anti-Semitic rhetoric”.

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan last night declined to comment.

Source: The Independent

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 October 2009 21.43 BST

Israel received a two-minute video of captured soldier, Gilad Shalit, after it asked Hamas for ‘proof of life’. Source: Reuters Link to this video

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured near Gaza more than three years ago, appeared unhurt and in good health in a video recording received by the Israeli government yesterday.

Shalit spoke, walked briefly towards the camera and held a newspaper that was less than three weeks old.

Although it was not the first proof that he is alive ? there have been audio recordings and letters in the past ? it was the first time he has been seen on video.

The film, obtained in return for the release by Israel of 20 female Palestinian prisoners, suggests that German intelligence officers, who joined mediation efforts this summer, are making progress in the case. However, Israeli officials said that there was still considerable negotiation to go before Shalit was freed.

In the tape, which lasts around two and a half minutes, Shalit, 23, sits on a plastic chair against a plain wall indoors. “Hello. This is Gilad, son of Noam and Aviv Shalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, who live in Mitzpe Hila,” he says. He gives his Israeli identity card number and appears to be in good health, although he has a sallow complexion and dark rings under his eyes.

He wears a green military-style uniform and holds a copy of Falasteen, a Palestinian Arabic newspaper published in Gaza. “I read the newspaper in order to find information about myself, and in hopes of reading about information of my return home and my imminent release,” he says, reading from a text. “I hope the current government headed by Binyamin Netanyahu doesn’t waste this opportunity to reach an agreement and as a result, allow me to fulfil my dream and be released.”

Shalit sends his love to his family and says is hoping “for the day I’ll see them again”. He says he feels well and that the “mujahideen from the al-Qassam Brigades are treating me excellently”. Shalit is being held by Hamas, and the al-Qassam Brigades are the Hamas militant wing.

The tape was delivered by a German mediator to Israel early on Friday and was watched by security officials and the army chief, Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as Netanyahu. Then 19 female prisoners were released, driven by Red Cross vehicles into the occupied West Bank. A 20th prisoner will be released into Gaza tomorrow.

Israel has said the deal was suggested by mediators as a “confidence-building measure”, particularly given that Red Cross staff have not been allowed to visit Shalit. But Israeli officials have warned that there is still a long way to go. “Although the path to his release is still long and difficult, the knowledge that he is healthy encourages us all,” Netanyahu said.

Israel has launched a series of military raids in Gaza over the past three years that have left hundreds of Palestinians dead and has imposed a severe economic blockade, in part it says because Shalit is still being held. Hamas says it will release Shalit in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, but the two sides have so far failed to reach an agreement on a deal.

The female prisoners were all serving short sentences and were not directly involvement in the killing of Israelis. More than 7,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, nearly 400 without charge.

Yesterday, 2 October 2009, the Palestinian leadership, under heavy international pressure lead by the United States, deferred the draft proposal at the Human Rights Council endorsing all the recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission (the Goldstone Report). This deferral denies the Palestinian peoples? right to an effective judicial remedy and the equal protection of the law. It represents the triumph of politics over human rights. It is an insult to all victims and a rejection of their rights.

The crimes documented in the report of the UN Fact Finding Mission represent the most serious violations of international law; Justice Goldstone concluded that there was evidence to indicate that crimes against humanity may have been committed in the Gaza Strip. Violations of international law continue to this day, inter alia, through the continuing Israeli-imposed illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip. The findings of the Mission confirmed earlier investigations conducted by independent Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations.

The injustice that has now been brought upon Palestinians has been brought upon everyone on this globe. International human rights and humanitarian law are not subject to discrimination, they are not dependent on nationality, religion, or political affiliation. International human rights and humanitarian law apply universally to all human beings.

The rule of law is intended to protect individuals, to guarantee their fundamental rights. Yet, if the rule of law is to be respected it must be enforced. World history, and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has shown us that as long as impunity persists, the law will continue to be violated; innocent civilians will continue to suffer the horrific consequences.

Justice delayed is justice denied. All victims have a legitimate right to an effective judicial remedy, and the equal protection of the law. These rights are universal: they are not subject to political considerations. In the nine months since Operation Cast Lead, no effective judicial investigations have been conducted into the conflict. Impunity prevails. In such situations, international law demands recourse to international judicial mechanisms. Victims? rights must be upheld. Those responsible must be held to account.

The belief that accountability and the rule of law can be brushed aside in the pursuit of peace is misguided. History has taught us time and time again, that sustainable peace can only be built on human rights, on justice, and the rule of law. For many years in Palestine international law, and the rule of law, has been sacrificed in the name of politics, and cast aside in favour of the peace process. This approach has been tried, and it has failed: the occupation has been solidified, illegal settlements have continued to expand, the right to self determination has been denied; innocent civilians suffer the horrific consequences. It is now time to pursue justice, and a peace built on a foundation of human rights, dignity, and the rule of law. In Justice Goldstone?s words, there is no peace without justice.
As human rights organizations we strongly condemn the Palestinian leaderships? decision to defer the proposal endorsing all the recommendations of the Fact Finding Mission, and the pressure exerted by certain members of the international community. Such pressure is in conflict with States’ international obligations, and is an insult to the Palestinian people.
As human rights organizations concerned with rights and justice, we declare that we will double our efforts to seek justice for the victims of the violations of human rights and international law without delay.

Source: Palestine Think Tank