Open letter sent by email to Murray McCully, NZ Foreign Affairs Minister, 25 July 2010:
Dear Mr McCully,
The hospitalisation on 23 July of three-year-old Bassam Shafee’ Sa’adeh after Israeli checkpoint troops beat up a bus-load of women and children at the As Sawahira ash Sharqiya checkpoint near Bethlehem is shocking enough but the action should raise alarm and serious misgivings, particularly among OECD members. The violence, after all, was perpetrated by a newly admitted member of the organisation that had already carried out a fatal assault on passengers aboard a Gaza aid flotilla vessel in international waters.
The weekend also saw Israeli population transfer orders (ethnic cleansing) against the villages of Arab ar Ramadin and Arab Abu Farda, near Qalqilya in the West Bank. The villagers have been trapped by Israel's annexation Wall near the Occupation settlement of Alfei Menashe, south of the city. These communities have suffered confinement since what Israel calls a 'separation barrier', which went up in 2004, separated and isolated the villagers from the West Bank. Israel's Wall has caused daily life in Arab ar-Ramadin to become a constant struggle and there have been many house demolitions. Villagers suffer constant harassment and much village land has been lost to the Wall, illegal settlements, settler-only segregated roads, checkpoints and a complex of military orders.
As you have previously said that actions such as admitting Israel to membership of the OECD lead to useful dialogue in engaging Israel regarding its failure to abide by its international obligations, we ask you to tell us about the dialogue you have had with Israel and what successes you believe have resulted from such contact.
It would seem from Israel's behaviour that admission to membership of the OECD has given Israel a heightened sense of impunity. If you disagree with that assessment please let us know why.
We would like to know your opinion concerning the checkpoint assault on the women and children aboard the bus and what representations the New Zealand Government has made concerning the action.
What is your government's position regarding the plight of the villagers separated from their fellow Palestinians, their land and the outside world by a Wall that has been condemned by the International World Court?
Open letter sent by email to Murray McCully, NZ Foreign Affairs Minister, 14 July 2010:
Dialogue and restraint?
Dear Mr McCully,
We have received no reply to our last two letters to you requesting answers to questions concerning New Zealand's apparent support for Israel and your own declared belief in the efficacy of dialogue with Israel regarding its failure to abide by its international obligations. Since its admission to the OECD, Israel has made an armed assault on civilian aid ships, killing nine civilians. Attacks on defenceless Palestinians continue on a daily basis and we draw your attention (below) to the latest news headlines from what are called the 'occupied territories' and the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Has the New Zealand Government expressed its condemnation of these attacks on the flotilla and on Palestinian agriculture in its dialogue with Israel? Or have you, as Foreign Affairs Minister, remained silent and had no dialogue at all? Perhaps you condone or even approve of Israel's conduct. Please let us know because your reticence invites speculation which might not do you justice.
A Jerusalem Post article dated Wednesday 14 July 2010, referring to Tuesday's White House meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama, noted that, “Obama praised the Israeli government for 'working through layers of various governmental entities and jurisdiction' showing 'restraint over the last several months'." Do you agree with President Obama's reported belief that Israel is showing restraint? Or does the New Zealand Government have an independent view? Either way, the public needs clear answers.
Headlines from today's daily Palestine Human Rights Campaign newsletter:
In Occupied Palestine
24 hours to 8am14 July 2010
Main source of statistics: Palestinian Monitoring Group (PMG).
Woman killed and 5 people injured in Israeli attack on Central Gaza farms
Woman injured defending her home from Israeli Army bulldozers
13-year-old boy wounded in Israeli Army fire from Green Line
Israeli Army demolishes 7 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem
Israeli Army bulldozers destroy crops near Khan Yunis
Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in 11 towns and villages
3 attacks – 22 raids including home invasions – 1 dead – 7 injured
8 taken prisoner – 13 detained – 79 restrictions of movement
Home invasions:00:45-04:30, the town of Az-Zababida - 02:10, the town of Qabatiya - 01:30, the village of Jit - 15:30, the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan - 00:45, the town of Deir Istiya - 13:50, Hebron.
Peace disruption raids: 08:30, the village of Al Isawiya - 12:00, the town of Beit Hanina - 01:30, the village of Mikhmas - 14:00, the town of Meithalun - 11:10, the village of Al Funduq - 16:00, the town of Habla - 16:15, Qalqilya - 00:30 , the town of Azzun - 10:15, the town of Beita - 01:30, the village of Marda - 02:05, the village of Fasayil - 10:30, the town of Halhul - 14:10, Hebron - 00:50, Hebron - 01:15, the town of Yatta - 02:45, the town of Surif.
Palestinian attacks: none
Israeli attack – injury: Northern Gaza – morning, a 13-year-old youngster, Ehmaid Ahmad Obaid, was wounded when an Israeli Army position on the Green Line opened fire on pedestrians near the Beit Hanun (Erez) Crossing.
Israeli attack – death – injury – damage – agricultural sabotage: Central Gaza – evening, a woman, Ni’mah Yousef Abu Es’aid, was killed, five other persons were wounded and a house was damaged when Israeli armoured vehicles and bulldozers, covered by reconnaissance aircraft, invaded farms near the Al Bureij refugee camp, opening intense fire. The deaths and injuries occurred amid shelling by Israeli tanks.
Israeli attack – agricultural sabotage: Khan Yunis – morning, Israeli armoured vehicles and bulldozers, covered by reconnaissance aircraft, raided Palestinian territory east of the town of Al Qarara and opened fire on agricultural areas and houses while bulldozing crops.
Home invasions: Jenin – 00:45-04:30, the Israeli Army raided the town of Az-Zababida, searched a dormitory building belonging to the Arab-American University, and detained and interrogated a number of students.
Raid – house demolitions – injury: Jerusalem – 08:30, the Israeli Army raided the village of Al Isawiya and demolished three houses, injuring a woman, Sabah Abu Rmaileh, when she tried to defend her home by confronting the bulldozers.
Raid – house demolition: Jerusalem – 12:00, Israeli troops raided the town of Beit Hanina and demolished a house.
House demolition: Jerusalem – 16:00, the Israeli Army demolished two houses in the occupied area of As Sal’a, between the districts of Silwan and Jabal Al Mukhabber.
House demolition: Jerusalem – Israeli troops demolished three houses in the village of Al Isawiya.
House demolition: Jerusalem – The Israeli Army demolished a house in Beit Hanina.
Open letter to New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully 25 June 2010:
Dear Mr McCully,
In your recent reply to the Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC) you defended your position in not opposing Israel's application to join the OECD on the grounds that dialogue was the best way to encourage Israel to meet its international obligations.
Since Israel's admission to membership of the OECD, another opportunity for you to have dialogue with Israel presents itself. International law recognises the right of occupied people to resist military occupation – Palestinians who have chosen to do this non-violently show wisdom and restraint, therefore making unacceptable any violent suppression of their legitimate activities. Today in Palestine, such resistance is manifesting itself in both Christian and Muslim areas in towns, villages and Bedouin encampments. People are marching, singing, carrying signs and using very appealing street theatre to draw attention to their plight, joined by both international and Israeli volunteers in friendship and brotherhood that offers hope for the future. Israel is responding to this by inflicting death, serious and crippling injuries, arrests and the destruction of agriculture and property.
A symbol of this conflict is a resident of the West Bank town of Bil'in, Adeeb Abu Rahma. Adeeb has been convicted of 'crimes' which the Israeli occupation describes as “incitement” but which in reality consist merely of urging the villagers to come out on Fridays to join the weekly protests – and for his belonging to the Bil’in Popular Committee. All the leaders and most of the participants of all the non-violent movements in all the towns and villages of Palestine are accused by Israel, the occupying power, of 'incitement”.
Adeeb, a charismatic, courageous, creative and humorous activist, is due to be sentenced in a few days. We ask you for your help in persuading Israel to recognise legitimate resistance and protest, which will help the search for peace and a way for everyone in the region to live together in peace. Such resistance is clearly defined in international law as being a legal right for anyone under occupation (1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, Article 1, Paragraph 4).
Israel now has a choice over the sentencing of Adeeb. It can send a signal that it wants to crush non-violent resistance or it can show itself open to finding more creative and hopeful ways to move towards justice and peace. Adeeb has already served over a year in prison with constantly varying charges.
Mr McCully, are you prepared to bring your good offices to bear and engage in the dialogue with Israel that you so clearly believe in, to support Adeeb's democratic right to protest? Are you prepared to declare that you support the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, Article 1, Paragraph 4? If not, why not?
Yours sincerely,
Leslie Bravery
Letter to New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully 1 June 2010:
State piracy: it's not “dialogue” Mr McCully, it's collusion!
Dear Mr McCully,
The Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC) welcomes your condemnation of Israel's attack on ships and passengers of the international aid convoy in the Mediterranean. It must be said that firm and more timely measures against Israeli lawlessness could well have helped to circumvent this tragedy.
In your letter to the Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC) dated 18 May 2010, in which you acknowledged that Israel fails to meet its obligations under international law, you wrote in defence of your position that Israel should be welcomed as a member of the OECD and that “A lack of dialogue does not advance solutions to these failings.” You also said that “The OECD is a valuable forum for advancing trade and economic issues and for the development of many countries.” Does this forum include accommodation for state piracy and murder in international waters?
In our reply to your letter we stated that following its admission to OECD membership we expected to see a marked improvement in Israel's conduct. Where unacceptable acts of aggression occurred you should be assured that we would be enquiring into the nature of the dialogue that both preceded and followed them.
So, Mr McCully what was the nature of the dialogue with Israel that preceded the grievous crime committed against the Turkish aid relief ship and passengers? It took no time at all for Israel, once it had got its way and achieved membership of the OECD, to demonstrate its contempt for the OECD member states that voted in its favour. What dialogue do you now intend to have with Israel in the wake of this event? We ask you to recognise the historic fact that Israel has always pushed its lawlessness to the extreme in order to accustom the world to the parameters within which it considers it is entitled free rein.
May we remind you once again that in the “Road Map for the accession of Israel to the OECD Convention” adopted in November 2007, the Council noted that Israel must demonstrate its commitment to “fundamental values” shared by all OECD members and meet related benchmarks.
The sad irony is, that if Israel had failed to gain membership of the OECD because its lawlessness was seen to be unacceptable to the existing membership, lives might have been saved. Pressure of the sort that would bring home to Israel what is expected of it should at least be considered. What has the world got to lose? Appeasement has failed, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.
Yours sincerely,
Leslie Bravery
Palestine Human Rights Campaign - Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC)
PO Box PO Box 56150 Mt Eden Auckland
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NEWWEAPONS COMMITTEE understanding effects of new war technologies
New weapons experimented in Gaza: population risks genetic mutations
Biopsies from 32 victims conducted at three universities: Rome (Italy), Chalmer (Sweden) and Beirut (Lebanon)
“As Uri Avnery observes, however much Israel may attack the commission report as one-sided and unfair, the only plausible explanation of its refusal to co-operate with fact-finding and taking the opportunity to tell its side of the story was that it had nothing to tell that could hope to overcome the overwhelming evidence of the Israeli failure to carry out its attacks on Gaza last winter in accordance with the international law of war.” - Richard A. Falk
“A 60-year history of dispossession, massacres, home demolition, extra-judicial killing of leaders, imprisonment, land grabs, and invasions keeps repeating itself. Generations of Palestinian emergency staff have been responding to these invasions and attacks by putting out the fires that Israeli bombs have ignited, picking up the pieces of broken bodies that often break families and communities, and saving the lives that Israel wants to kill – civilian or combatant. Referred to in the Palestinian community as "unknown soldiers," these courageous men and women are front line witnesses to the effects that white phosphorous, flechette shells, missiles, sniper fire and bulldozers have on the human body. As such, their witness to Israeli attacks is up close and personal and hard to refute.”
The New Zealand Government's decision not to attend the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva has demonstrated to the world that this country has turned its back on the principles upon which the United Nations Organisation and the Fourth Geneva Conventions were founded. Our government's attempt to shield Israel from criticism amounts to a denial of Israel's gross acts of racism and violations of UN resolutions. It is disgraceful that Prime Minister John Key and Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully should have besmirched the name of our country in such an unprincipled way. New Zealand has been seen to abdicate its responsibilities to the world community and the Arab and Muslim worlds have taken note of that fact.
Israeli racism manifests itself in its flag, its national anthem, and an array of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965) and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories. Israel's belligerent Occupation collectively punishes Palestinians by various means, including blockade resulting in malnutrition, accompanied by regular bombardment, raids and home invasions. This conduct is aimed at forcing the people of the land to surrender their basic human rights and recognise Israel as a racist state.
While Israeli Zionism asserts the right of Jews born anywhere in the world to take up Israeli citizenship and even subsidises its own nationals to live in illegally occupied Palestinian territory, the Israeli State denies the UN-sanctioned right of return for Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes. How much more racist can you get?
The Israeli water authority steals West Bank water and supplies most of it, subsidised, to settlers while charging Palestinians five times as much for their restricted supply of water. Israel continues to build illegal (under international law) occupation settlements for Jews and continues to construct Jewish-only roads to connect them to each other and to Israel itself. Even the two-state solution, which would have seen Palestinians confined to a state under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders land, air and sea, has been rejected by the new Netanyahu regime. Israel bulldozed the whole Moroccan Quarter inside the Old City of Jerusalem soon after the 1967 war. It is now planning to lay waste to the Silwan Quarter outside the city wall. Since June 1967 Israel has destroyed 24,000 Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Arab Jerusalem. That's 180,000 Palestinians made homeless for not being Jewish and the Israeli State is defying the international community by annexing East Jerusalem. How much more racist can you get?
The former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, wrote a letter to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman in March 2001, setting him straight on certain facts regarding Israel. He noted:
“if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of 'I hate Arabs' and 'I wish Arabs would be dead'. If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally, there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognised as private property because it can be confiscated.”
As Mandela observed, “Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.” How much more racist can you get?
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has described Israeli Occupation as “worse than apartheid”.
The racist outbursts by prominent Zionists, including Israeli State leaders, are legion and with the presence of people like Avigdor Lieberman, who was recently voted in on his racist platform advocating the 'transfer' (ethnic cleansing) of Palestinian Israeli citizens out of the country, they are likely to increase. Consider past Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's remark to the UK Sunday Times 15 June 1969: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." How much more racist can you get?
The tragedy is that it doesn't have to be like that. Many anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews and Jewish people, both secular and religious, within Israel and around the world, say “not in our name.” Their distaste for Israel's lawless inhumanity is shared by people throughout the world. Instead of protecting Israel from criticism, world leaders should be listening to the voices of reason and supporting their demand that the Zionist state respect and observe international humanitarian law.
History will harshly judge those who were silent and who did nothing to defend the victims of ethnic cleansing and instead went so far as to defend Israel's behaviour.
Leslie Bravery – 22 April 2009
Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand
Letter to New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister
Moshe Ya’alon has been elected Deputy Prime Minister of Israel
SPEAKING OUT AGAINST ISRAELI FLOTILLA MASSCARE JUN 2010
Friday, 04 June 2010
D-Day Anniversary
Friday, 04 June 2010
Press Release Gaza Flotilla May 31st 2010
Monday, 31 May 2010
Government must condemn interception of Gaza flotilla. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign is calling upon the New Zealand Government to condemn Israel’s killing of civilian activists on board the peace flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip.
"The New Zealand government should call in its newly credentialed Israeli ambassador to lodge a protest. The government never tires of condemning the Palestinian militancy but accommodates blatant breaches of international laws and this act of deadly piracy in international waters is the latest example" says PHRC spokesperson Janfrie Wakim.
By failing to defend the high seas from Israeli government piracy, our government is acquiescing to degradation of international law regarding the freedom of navigation,' she adds.
