New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully's meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the planned series of top-level visits, described by Israel's Foreign Ministry as "New Zealand Month", are an opportunity for this country to show the world where it stands in relation to human rights and international law.
Recent questions posed by the New Zealand Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) in a recent Open Letter to Murray McCully (see below) raise urgent and long-neglected issues. While our Foreign Minister wholeheartedly supports Israel's membership of the OECD, Israel is encouraged to continue stifling the Palestinian economy through belligerent military occupation. The Palestinian people have no control over their borders, air space, sea or access to the wider global economy. Israel severely restricts access by Palestinian fishing boats to essential fishing grounds, often at the expense of fishermen’s livelihoods, vessels and even life and limb. In addition, Israel uses its military might to take a grossly disproportionate amount of Palestine's water, to the detriment of Palestinian agriculture and health. For 44 years now the US and the UK, and, by association, New Zealand, have stood by Israel and allowed this exploitation to continue while pressuring the victims to negotiate with their oppressor.
Although the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are recognised under international law as a single territorial unit, Israel continues to prevent the movement of Palestinians between the two areas. As the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports, Israel maintains an average of 520 permanent checkpoints, road obstacles and other restrictions besides imposing hundreds of mobile checkpoints, all inside Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Israel’s illegal settlements and annexation Wall, with its ethnically discriminatory Israeli-only roads, place intolerable costs upon the movement of Palestinian goods, workers and students.
Our Foreign Affairs Minister is unable to show any softening of Israel's relentless suppression of Palestinian human rights, and aspirations through decades of what he likes to call "dialogue" with Israel. The PHRC invites Mr McCully, once again, to answer the questions posed in our Open Letter to him dated 30 April 2012. Consideration of these questions might help him concentrate his mind on the vital issues that confront, not only the Palestinian people but also the wider world community. "New Zealand Month" should be used to demonstrate to Israel that dialogue no longer means cosy chats and complicity but plain speaking and the demand that Israel end its gross violations of international law.
Leslie Bravery – 11 May 2012
Open Letter to Murray McCully: Invitation to support international law regarding Israel's trading practices
30 April 2012
Dear Mr McCully,
The fifth-biggest UK food retailer and biggest Co-operative Group in Europe has ceased trading with suppliers that are linked to Israeli settlements. The Co-op’s decision will immediately hit four suppliers, Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company. The reason for the Society's action is that Mehadrin sells its produce from illegal settlements, including Beqa’ot in the Occupied Jordan Valley. Furthermore, grapes and dates packaged in the settlement are illegally labelled ‘Produce of Israel’. In addition, Mehadrin’s role in providing water to settlement farms (illegal under international law) and its relationship with the Israeli state water company, Mekorot, makes the company complicit in Israel’s ethnically discriminatory allocation of water. This discrimination inflicts much hardship on the Palestinian people.
In your statement supporting Israel's application for admission to the OECD you claimed that it was important to the process of what you called “dialogue” with the Zionist state. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) would like to offer you the opportunity to demonstrate how such dialogue has so far succeeded in persuading Israel to adhere to the norms of civilised trading, OECD rules and international law. In other words, are you able to show that Israel's admission to the OECD has in anyway modified its behaviour?
An International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) base in Deir Istiya has informed us that the West Bank village recently received notice from the Israeli Army that it will be uprooting 1400 village trees on May 1. IWPS has drafted an online petition concerning this that is addressed to the Israeli PM and the Israeli Ministries of Defence and the Environment. Uprooting trees is one of the many strategies the Israeli government uses in its attempts to suppress the spirit of Palestinians trying to continue to live in their homeland. Is there any reason why the New Zealand Government should not also bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government to observe international standards of decency?
We ask you to state (with your reasons) whether or not you agree or disagree with the following statement:
The Israeli government's vindictive and unnecessary acts of economic and agricultural sabotage in belligerently occupied territories are crimes against humanity. They demonstrate clearly the Zionist state's present unsuitability for membership of the OECD. Such acts are certain to strengthen support for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and it would be in Israel's own best interests to reform its behaviour. There is never any excuse for failing to abide by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Visitors to our website, both at home and internationally, will be very interested to read your response to this Open Letter.
Yours sincerely, Leslie Bravery, Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Aotearoa/New Zealand www.palestine.org
Futile posturing at the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit
29 March 2012
US President Barack Obama says he is pushing for "a world without nuclear weapons." Disingenuously lumping together the nuclear-armed state of North Korea and nuclear weapon-free Iran Mr. Obama claimed that a "new international norm" was emerging to deal with their “intransigence”. Perversely turning a blind eye towards the West’s double standards and special allowances for close friends, the US head of state asserted, as if it were an accomplished fact "Treaties are binding. Rules will be enforced. And violations will have consequences," President Obama did not make clear though, that the US and its allies exempt close friends from any enforcement of international law and protects them militarily and diplomatically from the consequences that should be due for gross human rights violations.
Iran has been overrun and occupied frequently and its territory has been altered throughout the centuries by Greeks, Arabs, Turks and Mongols. In modern times the West overthrew the legitimate Mossadeq government and imposed the corrupt regime of the puppet Shah. It was the West, of course, that armed and supported Iraq in its war against Iran. But since the end of the Persian Empire the land of Iran has not invaded its neighbours' territory for well over 1400 years.
Israel, on the other hand, continues to occupy its neighbours' land and frequently violates Lebanese air space, from time to time destroying lives, property and infrastructure. The destruction of life, livelihood, property and infrastructure by Israel is an almost daily occurrence in Occupied Palestine. All this, in defiance of international law.
Which Middle East Power, therefore, is the greater threat to global peace and stability? Is it Israel, the only country to have introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East and that refuses to respect the borders of its neighbours? Or is it Iran, which, unlike Israel, respects its neighbours' borders and has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty? Is it Israel that refuses to co-operate with the International Atomic Energy Agency? Or is it Iran, that does co-operate with the IAEA?
Leslie Bravery
Justice and accountability after the Holocaust
“Justice and accountability after the Holocaust” was New Zealand's theme for its observance of United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2012. Whatever else Holocaust remembrance signifies, it should be supported by a determination to learn the lessons of history and uncompromising opposition to the commission of further ideologically-driven crimes of inhumanity – whoever the perpetrators may be. The death on 22 January of a young girl from the effects of white phosphorus, illegally used by Israel in its murderous Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza Strip three years ago, is a stark reminder that, for Palestinians, justice is totally denied while an indulgent world continues to protect Israel from all accountability.
January also saw the publication, by the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian territory, of its report: “Demolitions and forced displacement in the Occupied West Bank”. The report on conditions for Palestinians under belligerent Israeli military occupation reminds us, for instance, that “almost 1100 Palestinians”, over half of them children, “were displaced due to home demolitions by Israeli forces in 2011, over 80% more than in 2010.”New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key has declared that he believes New Zealand could “learn a lot from Israel” and our Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has enthusiastically supported the occupying power's application for membership of the OECD. John Key perhaps admires Israel's capacity to garner foreign aid for its economy, especially from the US.
Israel's behaviour is determined by its founding ideology of Zionism. The Zionist state claims to represent all Jews and thereby attempts to implicate all Jews in its justification of its war crimes. Many Jewish people strongly resent this, including those who adhere to pre-Zionist Judaism. The US-based organisation Jewish Voice for Peace, for instance, reminds us in a statement (http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/content/us-military-aid-and-israel) that a large part of US military aid to Israel goes to purchase tanks, helicopter gunships, machine-guns and bullets that are used against Palestinian civilians. “Our tax dollars have been used to destroy homes; uproot trees and crops; seize land from its lawful owners; close all access to food, medicine, and the outside world for small towns in the West Bank and Gaza; staff checkpoints that cut off ambulances and other civilian traffic; and carry out assassinations that kill children in addition to summarily executing political leaders . . .” Israel continues to demolish Palestinian family homes and destroy agriculture and industry throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Earlier this month, Israel's Supreme Court upheld a law passed in 2003 that denies Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip who are the spouses of Israeli citizens any right to citizenship or residency. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who form 20% of the population, have citizenship but do not enjoy Israeli nationality. Israel's 1950 Law of Return welcomes any Jew immigrating to Israel. But Palestinian refugees are denied their right of return to homes from which they were driven. That right of Palestinian return is enshrined in UN Resolution 194. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948, states: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, and (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Israel denies these rights to Palestinians.
The1995 European Union-Israel Association Agreement declares as its purpose the promotion of (1) peace and security, (2) shared prosperity through, for example, economic co-operation, free trade and free movement of capital, and (3) cross-cultural rapprochement. That agreement also applied to Israel's relations with the EU’s other Mediterranean partners – including the Palestinian National Authority. Israel continues to enjoy “favoured nation” trading terms with the EU. The failure by the European Union-Israel Association and the OECD to suspend association and membership until Israel complies with international humanitarian law amounts to complicity in the Zionist State's violations. The US also could bring enormous pressure to bear upon Israel by denying aid. And so, with impunity, Israel continues its population transfers, territorial aggrandisement and ethnically discriminatory legislation both within Israel and in territories it occupies.
Progress towards ending state-sponsored human rights violations depends partly upon restraining the perpetrators and an uncompromising requirement upon them to observe tragically hard-won international laws. The world community's failure to render Israel accountable to justice in this regard is an affront to both United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Leslie Bravery – 28 January 2012
An open letter to New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully:
Why not peace and security for Palestinians, Mr McCully?
Dear Mr McCully,
The Palestine Human Rights Campaign has seen a copy of your letter of reply to an email sent to you from Sue Berman dated 14 November. You say in your reply: “We support the Palestinians' right to self-determination, and equally Israel's right to exist in peace and security.” The National Government's earlier claims of “even-handedness” in its approach to Palestine/Israel seem to have been lost in the sentence quoted above, which avoids mentioning the Palestinian right to live “in peace and security”. It is incontrovertible to state that, after decades of 'direct talks', Israel continues to defy international law, both in its illegal Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and in the criminal actions it takes in order to enforce its unwelcome rule. The requirement that the defenceless Palestinian people engage in direct talks with a nuclear-armed, occupying power that benefits from US$3 billion of US tax-payer funded annual aid, most of it earmarked for military purposes, is surely little more than naked coercion.
Nowhere to be found in National Government pronouncements regarding this conflict are the terms: international law, sanctions, justice, human rights or the Fourth Geneva Convention. Yet the road to a just peace must lie in recourse to these hard-won arenas of conflict resolution. Talk of 'direct negotiations' between such unequal parties, over what are referred to as “all final status issues”, can be seen only as an attempt to render as 'negotiable' and therefore to legitimise, Israel's gross breaches of international law. Your government appears ignorant of the facts that Israel forthrightly asserts that its illegal settlements are “here to stay” and that East Jerusalem is part of the “eternal and indivisible capital of Israel”. What is there to negotiate?
Where is the New Zealand Government's humanity, Mr McCully? Does the National Government not understand or care what daily life is like for Palestinians living under belligerent military occupation? Before the Occupation, Palestinian drinking water came from wells, cisterns and the Jordan River but now Palestinians must pay Israel for their water. You can find out more about this from the Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH), a coalition of almost 30 UN and associated NGOs working in the water and sanitation sector in Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel doesn't just profit from Palestinian suffering, it aggravates it. For example, Israel uses its troops to destroy the water storage infrastructure of villages in southern Palestine that are already struggling for water. Children are the most vulnerable. In communities such as Hadharin, the growth of 28.5 per cent of the children is stunted and nearly six per cent have malnutrition related to long-term thirst. Diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases disproportionately affect the young. According to a 2009 World Bank report, water takes up twice the “globally accepted standard” of the average West Bank Palestinian person’s budget.
Provided annually with 31 million cubic metres (mcm) from Israel and another 44 mcm from within the West Bank, the illegal Israeli Occupation settlements show off their water wealth with their swimming pools, verdant gardens and flourishing farmland. The cost to Palestinians of this military occupation is not confined to water shortages. House demolitions and the threat of displacement are also ruining people’s lives. Whole communities suffer the daily anxiety of losing their homes and livelihoods in the 60 per cent of the West Bank that includes East Jerusalem. More than 800 people have been displaced in the first nine months of this year alone, surpassing the entire number displaced in 2010 (594 people). There are 3000 outstanding demolition orders on homes and infrastructure in the rural West Bank that affect tens of thousands of people. In East Jerusalem, at least 28 per cent of the houses, home to 60,000 Palestinians, are at risk of demolition. The effects on children are devastating, with many showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Their academic progress also suffers impairment through oppression and uncertainty.
As though all this suffering were not sufficient, Israel continues its blockade of Gaza – fishing boats are pursued and shot at, sometimes with fatal results, and Gaza crops are bulldozed by the Israeli Army. Palestinians also suffer agricultural sabotage in the West Bank, perpetrated by both illegal settler fanatics and Israeli troops. The Christian Science Monitor (15 November 2011) reminds us of the racism practiced by Israel which has prompted Palestinian Freedom Riders to risk violent arrest by boarding segregated Israeli buses in protests that are reminiscent of the earlier freedom riders in the southern United States. One Freedom Rider, a 27-year-old pharmacist, Bassal Araj, whose family is originally from a small village near Jerusalem, says: “Under Israeli law we are forbidden to visit Jerusalem. It’s a racist law like the Jim Crow laws and the apartheid laws in South Africa.”
The purpose of such uncompromising and wanton cruelty is understood by most people around the world who see the territorial gains for Israel resulting from decades of 'direct negotiations'. And yet, Mr McCully, you feel able to say that “ . . New Zealand's support for any resolution on Palestinian statehood will be considered . . . in the context of progress in direct negotiations between the parties.” In other words, you seem prepared to distance New Zealand from the majority of the world community by continuing to demand that Palestinians be part of a process that allows Israel to ignore its obligations under international law.
The attack on a United Nations Compound during Israel's notorious Cast Lead onslaught on the Gaza Strip caused a huge explosion, set fire to fuel in the Compound, destroyed tons of humanitarian supplies and forced hundreds of refugees to flee. UN spokesman, Chris Gunness, described how the fire resulting from the white phosphorus shelling was impossible to extinguish by conventional means. The atrocious nature of such acts prompted a Jewish UK MP, Sir Gerald Kaufman, to comment in the House of Commons that the Israeli Government 'ruthlessly and cynically' exploited guilt over the Holocaust as justification for the assault on Gaza. He said, “my grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town . . . a German soldier shot her dead in her bed.” He went on to say, “My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”
The Palestinian people have had this tragedy imposed upon them through no fault of their own. The Security Council decision to establish the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) paid scant regard to the wishes of the native Palestinian people with most of the 11 committee members having little knowledge of the Middle East, let alone of Palestine. In May 1947 The Jewish Agency provided UNSCOP with a map of Palestine which showed a future Jewish state in over 80 per cent of Palestine – the equivalent area claimed so far by Israel today. Zionist ideology spurs Israel on to the unilateral planting of illegal occupation settlements, the building of its wall of annexation through the West Bank and the blockade of the Gaza Strip. None of these actions have had the slightest element of 'negotiation' about them, indeed the very founding of Israel was a unilateral act, carried out as a pre-emptive measure while the issue was still before the United Nations.
Today, apartheid is considered a crime and it is to be hoped that no New Zealand government would condone it. A veteran of the South African anti-apartheid struggle and former president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Reverend Allan Aubrey Boesak said in a recent interview referring to the Israeli Occupation that, “. . . we had the Bantustans and we had the Group Areas Act and we had the separate schools and all of that but I don't think it ever even entered the mind of any apartheid planner to design a town in such a way that there is a physical wall that separates people and that that wall denotes your freedom of movement, your freedom of economic gain, of employment, and at the same time is a tool of intimidation and dehumanisation.” The Reverend Boesak also pointed out that they did not go so far as to have two separate justice systems. Palestinians are tried in Israeli military courts and Israelis are tried in the civil courts. He went on to say, “we could in the end muster and mobilise international solidarity on a scale that enabled us to be more successful in our struggle. The Palestinians cannot do that. The whole international community almost conspires against them.” The insistence on 'direct talks' by powerful members of the world community is certainly a key factor in encouraging Israel to continue on its present course.
In the 1950s and 1960s the civil rights struggle in the United States, and then more recently the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, became the moral standard by which the world judged governments and societies and the positions they took regarding humanity's demand for justice and the restoration of dignity. Today, an imaginative, humane and independent foreign policy in support of international law and human rights would earn New Zealand the gratitude of most of the world's people.
Yours sincerely
Leslie Bravery 20 November 2011
New Zealand's abstention at UNESCO
Commenting on New Zealand's abstention from voting on the Palestinian application for membership of UNESCO, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said he would have preferred the United Nations to “make a decision on Palestine before any of its other agencies”. Once again, our Foreign Affairs Minister has distanced New Zealand from the majority of the world community in failing to support the Palestinian people. The vote for Palestinian membership of the international cultural organisation was carried by a majority of 62%. New Zealand joined the 30% of member states that abstained from voting. The United States and Israel could only persuade 14% to vote against the Palestinians.
Why would our Foreign Affairs Ministry include New Zealand among those states that would not support a people suffering under decades of belligerent military Occupation? Murray McCully's claim that New Zealand is 'even-handed' in its approach to Israel and Palestine seems at odds with reality. The United Nations Palestine partition plan that New Zealand voted for provided for an Israeli State and a Palestinian State, yet New Zealand will not even support the relatively modest Palestinian application for UNESCO membership. It should be obvious by now that a world in turmoil, and on the threshold of unprecedented economic and political upheavals, needs more than ever the restoration of respect for the provisions of international law. Most of the world community has grown tired of pandering to injustice.
The World Court has ruled on the illegality of Israel's annexation Wall while Israel continues to refuse to recognise the Palestinian right of return (supported by UN Resolutions) to land and homes from which they were ethnically cleansed. Decades of direct peace talks between the occupying power and an occupied people have achieved only territorial gains for Israel and impunity for Israeli aggression both within and beyond Palestine. What is the point of 'direct talks' when Israel has already defiantly laid down uncompromising pre-conditions? On the illegal settlements, Netanyahu triumphantly proclaimed in front of US President Obama:“We're here to stay”.
Mr McCully should know that world-wide and in Israel many Jews, both religious and secular, appalled by Israel's war crimes, are joining the majority of world opinion in trying to bring those cruelties to an end. Now, an Israeli NGO, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), has presented the United Nations with yet more findings concerning Israel's abuses in occupied East Jerusalem. They reveal the extent of the continuing demolition of Palestinian homes, revocation of residencies and a decline in quality of life for Palestinians. “We are witnessing a process of ethnic displacement,” says Michael Sfard, the lawyer who helped draw up the 73-page report. “Israel is manifestly and seriously violating international law ... and the motivation is demographic.” Israel has annexed East Jerusalem, including the Old City and surrounding West Bank villages, forming a Jerusalem municipality that it declares part of the “united and eternal capital of Israel.” No country recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital, so how can McCully justify clinging to the US/Israeli pretence that no agreement can be reached without direct 'peace talks'?
What do Israel and the United States really expect to be the result of brow-beating the Palestinians into further 'direct talks'? Perhaps it is hoped that, under intolerable pressure, the Palestinians will eventually cave in. The fact that Israel has forthrightly declared that talks cannot include the inalienable rights of Palestinians it appears the time is overdue for the enforcement of international law, especially UN Security Council Resolutions and the requirements of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel and the US are terrified by the success of the Palestinian bid for membership of UNESCO because it means the game is up. Full membership of UNESCO means that Palestine can apply for the listing of sites for World Heritage Status, such as in Bethlehem and Jericho and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. The location of such sites on Palestinian territory and Palestinian sovereignty over the land will, inevitably, come to be formally recognised internationally. Israel will no longer be able to sustain the myth that these national monuments are not located in Palestine and will find itself facing the International Court of Justice, an avenue for redress previously beyond the reach of the Palestinian people.
Even-handedness is no excuse for turning a blind eye to injustice.
Leslie Bravery – 2 November 2011
Palmer proves need for appeal to the World Court
Leslie Bravery, 5 September 2011
The UN Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident, known as the The Palmer Report (described by award-winning US journalist Max Blumenthal as “factually challenged”) attempted to justify the blockade of Gaza, in contradiction of a UN Human Rights Council official fact-finding mission last September that found the blockade to be illegal. Turkey certainly rejects the Palmer Report finding and intends to challenge the Israeli siege of Gaza before the International Court of Justice at the Hague. The Palmer Report found that Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip was lawful, taking on trust Israel's claims that its blockade was necessary for security. The Commission failed to take into account evidence that showed Israel's true motive for the blockade was not security but collective punishment. In April 2006, the Guardian newspaper reported Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, giving the game away when he summed up Israel’s policy of blockading Gaza thus: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”
Of the four-member Palmer Report commission besides Chairman Geoffrey Palmer, one member, Süleyman Özdem Sanberk, was chosen by Turkey. Another member, representing Israel, was Joseph Ciechanover Itzhar and tipping the balance in favour of Israel was the invitation to serve as Vice Chairman on the commission extended to the former President of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe. Uribe's loyalty to Israel was warmly recognised in May 2007 when the American Jewish Committee awarded him its "Light Unto The Nations" award, describing him as a good friend of Israel. Uribe has shown no respect for international law; his government used the International Red Cross emblem in a hostage rescue mission in July 2008 in contravention of Geneva Conventions that prohibit improper use of the Red Cross symbol. Uribe's support for paramilitary forces, illegal under Colombian law, further undermines his suitability to serve on the commission, as does his overseeing of the wire-tapping of Supreme Court Justices and opposition leaders.
The Palmer report was certainly no fact-finding mission and it sought no evidence from civilian victims and eyewitnesses on board the Mavi Marmara at the time of the Israeli assault upon an unarmed vessel on the high seas. The Report therefore did not concern itself with the circumstances that led to the aid flotilla's presence and the manifestly illegal collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Without genuine fact-finding, any suggestion of impartiality is both an illusion and an affront to the families of the nine dead civilians (most of those killed had been shot several times, some either in the back or at close range), the injured and the 1.5 million people suffering under belligerent Israeli blockade.
Partiality towards Israel can be the only explanation for the apparent lack of interest by our leaders in the evidence and facts contained in the UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission report (published last September) of interviews with more than 100 eyewitnesses in Geneva, London, Istanbul and Amman. Besides information provided by governments, the Human Rights Council relied on forensic reports and interviews with medical experts in Turkey, as well as written statements, video film footage and other photographic material relating to the incident. Israel refused to co-operate with the Human Rights Council fact-finding mission. The Palmer panel report claims that the Israeli military that boarded the Mavi Marmara “faced significant, organised and violent resistance from a group of passengers”, forcing the commandos “to use force for their own protection”. The problem is that the Palmer panel did not gather any evidence of its own and simply accepted Israel's version of events. Israel never actually produced independent evidence to support its assertions but, on the other hand, in spite of Israel's best efforts, some video footage escaped that contradicts the Israeli version. The surviving video footage shows indiscriminate live-fire by the Israeli attackers, the apparent execution of a journalist and the targeted assassination of at least one other passenger. The hyperlinks to these videos are available.
At least the Palmer Report admitted that the loss of life and injuries resulting from the Israeli assault was unacceptable but it did accept Israel's propaganda claim that its soldiers were mistreated, even though photographs show passengers giving aid and protection to those Israeli troops who had been disarmed. These photos are also available online. It would be surprising if some passengers had not attempted to defend themselves against a terrifying assault in the dead of night by elite commandos equipped with modern weapons and assault helicopters. Video footage reveals frightened passengers in a companion way stained with blood, attempting to hide or cowering away from Israeli gunfire.
The Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday that Turkey would be applying, as early as next week, for an investigation by the International Court of Justice into the legality of Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. The futile and ineffectual Palmer Report proves that The World Court is the best place for matters of international law and war crimes to be considered. The Court's ruling on the illegality of Israel's annexation Wall, which to hide the facts Israel calls a separation barrier, is encouraging. Turkey will also pursue criminal cases against Israeli officials responsible for the killings of nine Turkish citizens in international waters.
Who is willing to take up the cause of Israel's chief victims, the Palestinian people, whose decades-long daily losses of life, limb, liberty and land are so egregiously overlooked by the world community?
McCully's 'Arab Spring' delusion
Leslie Bravery / 4 August 2011
The Hon. Murray McCully, New Zealand Government Minister of Foreign Affairs, gave a speech on Tuesday, 2 August 2011, addressed to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA) Conference at Turnbull House, Wellington, New Zealand. In his speech, McCully made one valuable observation: “a key part of this equation of regional security is how the international community deals with the Middle East Peace Process.” One of the key failings of the so-called Middle East Peace Process has been an almost total disregard for international law. Mr McCully called instead for what he termed the voices of “constructive Palestinian moderation” to prevail, going on to say, “it is my firm view that resolving a basis for a two-state solution can only be achieved by getting the two parties into direct talks.” In all the pro-Israeli rhetoric that masquerades as even-handed diplomacy, a certain bias emerges. The call for 'moderation' is made only upon the Palestinian victims of belligerent Israeli foreign occupation and illegal settlement building. No such call is made upon Israel. To say that direct talks are the only way for the Palestinians to receive justice is tantamount to saying that the victim of foreign military occupation must be pressured to negotiate terms that allow the occupier to keep much of the conquered land and natural resources.
Thus, according to Mr McCully, the World Community should view the “key part of this equation of regional security” to mean dispensing with the Fourth Geneva Convention and somewhat legitimising Israeli occupation as a matter to be negotiated between unequal parties. He couldn't even bring himself to mention the settlements. What voice of Israeli “moderation” is being called upon here?
McCully no doubt avoided the question of settlements in his address because their growing presence betrays the futility of the so-called peace talks and the true intentions of the Israeli state that forces them upon the Palestinian people. It is sheer hypocrisy to demand that the Palestinian people negotiate away their human rights under duress. The UN Relief and Works Agency said in a report on 2 August 2011 that settlement development had resulted in the demolition of 356 Palestinian and other structures in the first six months of this year, compared with 431 for the whole of 2010. The agency reported 700 people displaced in the first six months of 2011, compared with 594 in the whole of 2010. In June and July, around 605 Palestinians, many of whom were children, were displaced or affected by these demolitions. According to UNRWA: “Many displacements are taking place where settlements are expanding and with it we are seeing an upturn in vicious attacks by Jewish settlers.” As the report reveals, Israel's purpose is to create a change in the ethnic make-up of the West Bank.
The Palestinian people have been placed in this position by decisions made over their heads by the very international community that McCully acknowledges is a key player in the facilitating of regional security. The Palestinian people are therefore the responsibility of the world community – they have a right to internationally guaranteed security – and yet spokesmen such as Mr McCully concern themselves solely with Israel's uniquely perceived “need for security”.
In his speech, McCully said that Israel knows “that we understand their need for a guarantee of security as part of any settlement. And they know that we understand the need for a firm international position on Iran's nuclear ambitions as part of that improved regional security environment.” Focusing on Iran while choosing to ignore Israel's glaringly obvious nuclear arms stockpile and Israeli refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is further confirmation of McCully's pro-Israel leanings. McCully's claim that “we pride ourselves on being fair minded and even handed” is so manifestly absurd it is either delusional or downright dishonest. His apparent lack of concern for international law and natural justice enabled him to say “during my visits to the oPt and Israel, the various actors were talking in almost identical terms, about settling on the 1967 borders, plus or minus land swaps of 4-5 or 6%, with appropriate buffer zones.” If McCully does not know, somebody should tell him that Israel has no right to 'swap' land that does not belong to it. There can be no just solution until Israel dismantles its annexation Wall, as required by the World Court, and removes its Jewish-only segregated colonies in the West Bank, as required by UN Resolutions and other international law. Israel's implacable refusal to abide by the provisions of international law demonstrates not only a lack of goodwill but also a determination to achieve its territorial ambitions with the same preconditions that have made an utter mockery of the so-called peace process.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem go on suffering under foreign occupation and the Gaza Strip remains illegally blockaded. Within Israel, discriminatory laws abound, the latest being the recently passed anti-boycott legislation that targets individuals or organisations that publicly call for a boycott against Israel or any area under its control. Mr McCully should visit Occupied Palestine for a while and experience for himself the relentless nightmare of night home invasions, see for himself the beatings of children in their homes and the crass vandalism that accompanies such raids. He should see for himself the demolition of homes and the bulldozing of crops. McCully should also witness the heartbreaking destruction of ancient olive trees perpetrated by Israeli settlers and troops alike. Perhaps then he will stop deluding himself and be honest with his audience. We leave the final words to Israeli peace activist, Miko Peled, who served in Israel’s Special Forces Commando unit. His grandfather was a signatory to Israel’s unilateral Declaration of Independence and his father was one of Israel’s most famous generals. These words of warning form a conclusion to his soon-to-be-published book The General's Son. They could very well have been addressed to Murray McCully:
".. . those people who want to associate themselves with Israel . . . need to know this: that when the trials begin and the tribunals take their place, and when the truth and reconciliation commission begins its work and they are finally shamed into admitting they were wrong, they need to remember to go down on their knees and beg forgiveness from the people they so greatly wronged."
PHRC deplores US Senate threat to Palestinian bid for UN recognition
The passing by the United States Senate of Resolution 185, calling on Palestinians to halt their bid for recognition of statehood at the United Nations, reveals once again the extent of unreasoning bias in favour of Israel. The Senate also called on Obama to use the US veto in the forthcoming September vote. There is a cruel cynicism in the threat to withdraw the $550 million that the United States provides to the Palestinians annually, bearing in mind that Obama's 2012 budget proposes $3.075 billion in US military aid for Israel. That is $75 million more than in 2011 and US military aid is expected to increase by a further $25 million to $3.1 billion in 2013. The Occupying power's belligerence is further encouraged with the joint US-Israel missile defence programmes, including the 'Arrow' and 'David's Sling', which are expected to receive $106.1 million in 2012.
US objections to the Palestinians turning to the United Nations or other international bodies are a panic reaction because direct negotiations – the so-called peace process – have proved to be nothing but a cover for Israeli territorial gains. According to the terms of the Oslo agreement of 1993 (the mutual recognition agreement signed by Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin), the Palestinians were promised self-determination by 2000 at the latest. In the past 18 years, Israel has tightened its grip on Palestine, including blockade and absolute control of Gaza's air, land and sea entry points. Israel's blockade of Gaza is a clear violation of international humanitarian law, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says Israel is punishing the whole civilian population of Gaza describing conditions in Gaza that include hospitals short of equipment, power cuts lasting hours each day and drinking water unfit for consumption. "The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. A Red Cross statement said the closure therefore ". . . constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law."
In direct contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel has trebled the rate of transfer of its citizens into occupied territory from 100,000 to over 300,000. Turning a blind eye to Israeli-state terrorism, US Senate Resolution 185 calls for the Palestinian unity government to "publicly and formally forswear terrorism, accept Israel's right to exist, and reaffirm previous agreements made with the Government of Israel." The US has never demanded that Israel forswear its militarism against the Palestinian people. As for Israel's so-called US/Israeli defined 'right to exist', the Zionist state's ideologically racist policies of Occupation settlement in the West Bank and discrimination within its borders are indefensible. Formal recognition of such a state of affairs would not only be offensive but also contrary to international law.
The crime of apartheid
Israel defines itself as a state of the Jewish people. Discrimination, such as the revocation of Israeli Arab citizenship, the absentee property law, the theft of land and occupation settlement are all directed at non-Jews. Consequently, many Jewish people are offended when the Israeli state claims that it speaks for them. The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."
The path to peace lies in respect for, and observance of, international law. Ideologies that, by harming others, seek to accord a privileged status for any racial or ethnic group should be outlawed. Failure to uphold justice plays into the hands of extremists and is destabilising. If humanitarianism doesn't have sufficient appeal, our elected leaders might at least consider enlightened self-interest because the path they have followed has failed, totally. If acceded to, the demand for recognition of the discriminatory Zionist state demanded of Israel's victims would be tantamount both to surrendering to the crime of apartheid as well as acquiescence in it. Discouraging the Palestinians from seeking a state could end with the demise of Zionism sooner than anyone might expect. A single state solution is looking ever more likely.
Leslie Bravery – 4 July 2011, Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand
Kairos Palestine response to Archbishop His Grace Dr Rowan Williams
May is the month in which Israel celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the Israeli state – that Zionists call the Declaration of Independence; celebration for Israel, catastrophe for the native Palestinians. Read more . . .
By Ilan Pappe – 4 April 2011 The Electronic Intifada
"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document." Thus opens Judge Richard Goldstone's much-discussed op-ed in The Washington Post. I have a strong feeling that the editor might have tampered with the text and that the original sentence ought to have read something like: "If I had known then that the report would turn me into a self-hating Jew in the eyes of my beloved Israel and my own Jewish community in South Africa, the Goldstone report would never have been written at all." And if that wasn't the original sentence, it is certainly the subtext of Goldstone's article.
This shameful U-turn did not happen this week. It comes after more than a year and a half of a sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassination against the judge, a campaign whose like in the past destroyed mighty people such as US Senator William Fulbright who was shot down politically for his brave attempt to disclose AIPAC's illegal dealings with the State of Israel. Already In October 2009, Goldstone told CNN, "I've got a great love for Israel" and "I've worked for many Israeli causes and continue to do so" (Video: Fareed Zakaria GPS, 4 October 2009).
Given the fact that at the time he made this declaration of love he did not have any new evidence, as he claims now, one may wonder how could this love not be at least weakened by what he discovered when writing, along with other members of the UN commission, his original report. But worse was to come and exactly a year ago, in April 2010, the campaign against him reached new heights, or rather, lows. It was led by the chairman of the South African Zionist Federation, Avrom Krengel, who tried to prevent Goldstone from participating in his grandson's bar mitzvah in Johannesburg since "Goldstone caused irreparable damage to the Jewish people as a whole." The South African Zionist Federation threatened to picket outside the synagogue during the ceremony. Worse was the interference of South Africa's Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, who chastised Goldstone for "doing greater damage to the State of Israel." Last February, Goldstone said that "Hamas perpetrated war crimes, but Israel did not," in an interview that was not broadcast, according to a 3 April report on the website of Israel's Channel 2. It was not enough: the Israelis demanded much more.
Readers might ask "so what?" and "why could Goldstone not withstand the heat?" Good questions, but alas the Zionisation of Jewish communities and the false identification of Jewishness with Zionism is still a powerful disincentive that prevents liberal Jews from boldly facing Israel and its crimes. Every now and again many liberal Jews seem to liberate themselves and allow their conscience, rather than their fear, to lead them. However, many seem unable to stick to their more universalist inclinations for too long where Israel is concerned. The risk of being defined as a "self-hating Jew" with all the ramifications of such an accusation is a real and frightening prospect for them. You have to be in this position to understand the power of this terror.
Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it had created a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down, individuals and bodies suspected of "delegitimising" Israel abroad. In light of this, perhaps quite a few of the faint-hearted felt standing up to Israel was not worth it. We should have recognised that Goldstone was one of them when he stated that, despite his report, he remains a Zionist. This adjective, "Zionist," is far more meaningful and charged than is usually assumed. You cannot claim to be one if you oppose the ideology of the apartheid State of Israel. You can remain one if you just rebuke the state for a certain criminal policy and fail to see the connection between the ideology and that policy. "I am a Zionist" is a declaration of loyalty to a frame of mind that cannot accept the 2009 Goldstone Report. You can either be a Zionist or blame Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity -- if you do both, you will crack sooner rather than later. That this mea culpa has nothing to do with new facts is clear when one examines the "evidence" brought by Goldstone to explain his retraction. To be honest, one should say that one did not have to be the world expert on international law to know that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza in 2009. The reports of bodies such as Breaking the Silence and the UN representatives on the ground attested to it, before and after the Goldstone report. It was also not the only evidence.
The pictures and images we saw on our screens and those we saw on the ground told only one story of a criminal policy intending to kill, wound and maim as a collective punishment. "The Palestinians are going to bring upon themselves a Holocaust," promised Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy minister of Defence to the people of Gaza on 29 February 2008. There is only one new piece of evidence Goldstone brings and this is an internal Israeli Army investigation that explains that one of the cases suspected as a war crime was due to a mistake by the Israeli Army that is still being investigated. This must be a winning card: a claim by the Israeli army that massive killings by Palestinians were a "mistake."
Ever since the creation of the State of Israel, the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel were either terrorists or killed by "mistake." So 29 out of 1400 deaths were killed by an unfortunate mistake? Only ideological commitment could base a revision of the report on an internal inquiry of the Israeli Army focusing only on one of dozens of instances of unlawful killing and massacring. So it cannot be new evidence that caused Goldstone to write this article. Rather, it is his wish to return to the Zionist comfort zone that propelled this bizarre and faulty article.
This is also clear from the way he escalates his language against Hamas in the article and de-escalates his words toward Israel. And he hopes that this would absolve him of Israel's righteous fury. But he is wrong, very wrong. Only a few hours passed from the publication of the article until Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and of course the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate President Shimon Peres commissioned Goldstone with a new role in life: he is expected to move from one campus to the other and hop from one public venue to the next in the service of a new and pious Israel. He may choose not to do it; but then again he might not be allowed to attend his grandson's bar mitzvah as a retaliation.
Goldstone and his colleagues wrote a very detailed report, but they were quite reserved in their conclusions. The picture unfolding from Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations was far more horrendous and was described less in the clinical and legal language that quite often fails to convey the magnitude of the horror. It was first western public opinion that understood better than Goldstone the implications of his report. Israel's international legitimacy has suffered an unprecedented blow. He was genuinely shocked to learn that this was the result. We have been there before. In the late 1980s, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote a similar, sterile, account of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Palestinian academics such as Edward Said, Nur Masalha and Walid Khalidi were the ones who pointed to the significant implications for Israel's identity and self-image, and nature of the archival material he unearthed. Morris too cowered under pressure and asked to be re-admitted to the tribe. He went very far with his mea culpa and re-emerged as an extreme anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist: suggesting putting the Arabs in cages and promoting the idea of another ethnic cleansing. Goldstone can go in that direction too; or at least this is what the Israelis expect him to do now.
Professionally, both Morris and Goldstone tried to retreat to a position that claimed, as Goldstone does in The Washington Post article, that Israel can only be judged by its intentions not the consequences of its deeds. Therefore only the Israeli Army, in both cases, can be a reliable source for knowing what these intentions were. Very few decent and intelligent people in the world would accept such a bizarre analysis and explanation.
Goldstone has not entered as yet the lunatic fringe of ultra-Zionism as Morris did. But if he is not careful the future promises to be a pleasant journey with the likes of Morris, Alan Dershowitz (who already said that Goldstone is a "repentant Jew") between annual meetings of the AIPAC rottweilers and the wacky conventions of the Christian Zionists. He would soon find out that once you cower in the face of Zionism -- you are expected to go all the way or be at the very same spot you thought you had successfully left behind you. Winning Zionist love in the short-term is far less important than losing the world's respect in the long-run. Palestine should choose its friends with care: they cannot be faint-hearted nor can they claim to be Zionists as well as champions of peace, justice and human rights in Palestine. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is 'Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel' (Pluto Press, 2010).
In the 24 hours to 8am, 22 March 2011, Israeli soldiers beat up and hospitalised a 12-year-old Palestinian boy and injured a total of eight children in air strikes and other violence. New Zealand Television News channels ignored these horrors and Radio New Zealand News briefly announced that Israel was making air strikes on Gaza and made no further mention of them.
During those 24 hours Israeli soldiers also abducted two 16-year-old Palestinian boys. In addition, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats, Gaza homes came under fire as Israeli forces invaded and bulldozed crops. Meanwhile, settler terrorists set fire to a house, damaged Palestinian fruit trees and opened fire on a funeral procession. Palestinians endured raids and/or home invasions in a refugee camp and 11 towns and villages. There were 9 air strikes, 5 attacks, 23 raids including home invasions, 25 Palestinians injured, 5 Palestinians taken prisoner, 13 detained and 83 restrictions of movement forced on Palestinians in their own land.
On March 20, New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs the Rt. Hon. Murray McCully gave New Zealand's support for military strikes against the Libyan regime because, as he said in a New Zealand Government Press Release: "Gaddafi has been responsible for brutal acts of violence against the Libyan people." Mr McCully went on to say, "The message behind the Security Council was clear; accept a ceasefire and desist from acts of brutality against the Libyan people or there would be international intervention." Why has Mr McCully not condemned Israel's “brutal acts of violence” against its own Palestinian citizens, captive Palestinians in the illegally Occupied West Bank and the people of the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip?
UK MP Jeremy Corbyn, http://www.jeremycorbyn.org.uk/ speaking on 17 March in the House of Commons in the General Debate: North Africa and the Middle East, reminded the House that:
"Since 1967, Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 800,000 Palestinians, and at present there are thought to be 6600 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including children, elected members of the Palestinian Authority, a number of prisoners who are in isolation and at least 1000 who are deprived of any kind of family visit. Those are abuses of the human rights of those individuals. Add that to the construction of the wall, add that to the settlement policy, add that to the checkpoints, add that to the imprisonment of the people of Gaza, add that to the huge levels of unemployment resulting in Gaza, add that to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians living in the Negev Desert, add that to the removal of Israeli-Palestinian homes in Haifa and Jaffa - add all that up and what we clearly get is a constant harassment of all the Palestinian people.
" . . . Israel has been building the wall and continuing the settlements in defiance of all international law and all pressures to the contrary. Where are the condemnations and the sanctions? Where is the public discussion in the west of Israel’s behaviour and policy? . . . there is no condemnation of what is being done, which is so damaging to the Palestinian people.”
A first non-violent step towards curbing Israel's appetite for grievous harm to Occupied Palestinians and the Zionist State's own Palestinian citizens would be for the US to make its military aid and diplomatic assistance to Israel conditional upon respect for the norms of international law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention. Instead of rewarding Israel by welcoming it into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD could have made qualification for admission dependent upon an end to Israel's illegal Occupation settlements and the dismantling of its annexation Wall. Such manifest disapproval would have had a sobering effect upon the Zionist State, enjoying as it does at present, uncritical Western support and indulgent impunity for its war crimes.
Mr McCully applauded Israel's admission to OECD membership because it encouraged what he called “dialogue”. Plainly, Israel sees that sort of dialogue as approval, and in practical terms that it is exactly what it is. It's time for New Zealand's voice to be heard in support of genuine human rights, natural justice and support for international law. New Zealand's endorsement of yet another Western military intervention in an oil producing nation places our country in league with the very forces that for the past almost one hundred years have sought to control strategic resources by denying the human rights of the peoples of a vast region. New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister should demonstrate this country's even-handed commitment to human rights everywhere. The present selective concern for human liberty will be seen by the majority of global civil society as self-serving and hypocritical.
Thank you for your reply to my emails of 25 June, 26 July and 25 August 2010. In your reply you express concern over continuing reports of violence against Palestinians at checkpoints and the forced removal of people from their homes.
With regard to the imprisonment of Abdallah Abu Rahmah for organising weekly demonstrations against Israel's annexation Wall in the West Bank, you comment that “Israel's reaction appears to have been disproportionate” but preface that by saying “there are reports of violence on both sides in the protests in Bil'in . . .” Your letter acknowledges that Israel practices violence against Palestinians at checkpoints and forcibly removes people from their homes and so the question must be asked: what does “violence on both sides” mean in the context of belligerent foreign military occupation? Is it that in Bil'in some individuals, among an otherwise defenceless population, may resort to throwing stones at the armoured vehicles and troops of the occupying power? People who read the “violence on both sides” comment will judge for themselves how appropriate it is and may wonder also about the thinking that lies behind it. Your letter refers to Israel's “disproportionate” violence in Bil'in as a “reaction”. Would it not be more accurate to describe Palestinian protest as a reaction to foreign occupation?
Abu Rahmah was scheduled to be released on November 25, but an Israeli military court has extended his sentence. Former US President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, members of a group of world leaders called The Elders, have released a statement this week condemning Abu Rahmah's continued imprisonment. They say: "Israeli military prosecutors want to extend Abdallah Abu Rahmah's sentence as a deterrent to others who may follow his example.” Jimmy Carter said in a statement: “The Elders believe that his example of non-violent resistance against the occupation is a model that others should follow.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former South African archbishop, said Abu Rahmah should never have been convicted and called for his “immediate and unconditional release.” Does the New Zealand Government agree with these statements?
Your letter refers to the reaching of “a just and sustainable agreement with the Palestinians” and admits that “Israel's settlement building is unhelpful” for what is described as “the peace process.” But while you say that the New Zealand Government does not agree with Israel's “natural growth” argument and calls for a freeze on all settlement building in the occupied territories, it fails either to demand the removal of all illegal settlements or to acknowledge that all the settlements are illegal. The transfer of a nation's population to a foreign territory that it militarily occupies is a war crime and our failure to require Israel to abide by international law is a betrayal of the victims.
Yours sincerely,
Leslie Bravery
For Palestine Human Rights Campaign - Aotearoa/New Zealand
Open Letter (dated 14 November 2010) to Hon. Murray McCully, NZ Foreign Affairs Minister
Dear Mr McCully,
Thank you for your reply to my email of 15 July 2010 and subsequent open letter of 19 September. Israel stands in violation of 65 United Nations Resolutions relating to the Palestinian right of return of refugees, the status of Jerusalem, Israel's borders and assaults on Israel's neighbours. Israel continues to build (so-called negotiations notwithstanding) a wall that annexes ever more Palestinian land and it has never stopped the expansion and population growth of its illegal colonies. All this contravenes the UN Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Israel refuses to recognise the right of return of Palestinian refugees solely upon the grounds that these refugees are not Jewish.
UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, passed on 22 November 1974, declares the right of return to be "inalienable”. Please allow me to ask you straightforward questions: Does the New Zealand Government recognise the Palestinian people's right of return to be inalienable? If it does recognise that right, then clearly the right of return cannot be negotiated away. If, on the other hand, the New Zealand Government does not recognise the Palestinian right of return, how many other human rights does the New Zealand Government consider to be negotiable?
In your reply you state that the “New Zealand Government maintains a balanced, constructive and even-handed approach to [what you describe as] the Arab-Israeli conflict”. 'Balance' and 'even-handedness' may be appropriate in such matters as minor border disputes between equals. But even-handedness where a population lies defenceless under what is recognised in international law as 'belligerent occupation' is worse than inappropriate; it amounts to collusion with the actions of the vastly more powerful occupying power. One small step could be taken by the New Zealand Government to show its impartiality and that would be to allow Palestinians the visa-free visiting rights that are accorded Israeli citizens. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign renews its invitation to you to do just that.
The reference to Israel's boarding of a civilian ship in international waters merely as an “incident” is a surprising understatement, especially as your letter recognises that the killing of nine civilians was “tragic”. Has the New Zealand Government ever referred to rocket attacks from Gaza as 'incidents'?
You say in your reply that, “The recent resumption of direct peace talks is an important step” towards finding “a solution to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” It is a gross injustice to demand that Israel's defenceless victims negotiate with their oppressor, nuclear-armed Israel, while still under military occupation and on such unequal terms. At the very least, if there were any justice, Israel should be required to end the occupation before any prospect of negotiations could be considered.
In any case, it seems that the terms of reference for “negotiations” are set by Israel. Regarding the illegal settlements, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is on record as saying “we're here to stay”. On East Jerusalem, Israel asserts that the whole city is Israel's eternal and indivisible capital. The so-called peace talks are left, therefore, it seems with no other purpose in Israel's eyes, than for the Palestinians under duress to negotiate away their remaining human rights.
It is incumbent upon Israel to abide by international law and it is the duty of the international community to enforce that law in the interests of humanity, stability and peace. Affording Israel diplomatic immunity at the UN and granting favourable economic associations, such as the recent admission of Israel to membership of the OECD, have served only to send signals of approval to the occupying power. The present course is destabilising and plays into the hands of extremists. The growing Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) has emerged as civil society's non-violent response to the failure of politicians and governments to stand unequivocally in defence of the rule of law. New Zealand could gain much respect – and make an invaluable contribution towards stable international relations – by proposing the imposition of United Nations sanctions designed to provide the incentives necessary for Israel to end its intransigence.
Without pressure, Israel will feel that it can continue to extend its territorial gains and resulting economic advantages with impunity. The proof of this assertion lies in the decades of fruitless negotiations that have done nothing better than to buy time for Israel to continue making territorial gains while imposing grievous suffering upon the Palestinian people. The world community has a duty of care towards the Palestinian people who are being denied, through no fault of their own, the basic norms of life that most of us take for granted.
Your sincerely,
Leslie Bravery
Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand
14 November 2010
For the full text of the letter from Mr McCully, to which the above is a reply, click Read newsletter
Open Letter (17/10/10) from PHRC to NZ Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully
“It is time for the world to reject Zionism and Jewish privilege in Palestine/Israel. It is time for all the people in Palestine/Israel to live as equals. It worked in South Africa, and it has to work there. I will never affirm the right of a Jewish person to purge my grandparents from their lands for being the wrong race. But I will work with that Jewish person's grandchild to create a non-racist, egalitarian future for all of us. What I'm talking about is the one-state solution, where all the people of Palestine/Israel live as equals under the law. Is that really so controversial?”
Open letter dated 25 August 2010 to NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully:
Dear Mr McCully,
Mindful of your expressed opinion on the usefulness of dialogue in bringing influence to bear upon Israel regarding its failure to abide by its international obligations, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign requests that you approach the Israeli Ambassador in Wellington over the case of Palestinian West Bank resident Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Rahmah is one of the leaders of the West Bank village of Bil'in and has just been convicted by an Israeli military Occupation court. He has already been in gaol for more than eight months, despite the fact that even the military court has acknowledged that he has never committed any act of violence.
Abdallah's conviction is based only upon the forced testimony of minors who were taken from their beds in the middle of the night. Not a single piece of material evidence was presented during the entire trial and he is now awaiting sentence. The circumstances of his arrest are disturbing. On Thursday, 10 December 2009, at 2am, seven military occupation Jeeps surrounded his house while Israeli soldiers broke down the front door, took Abdallah from his bed and, in the presence of his wife, Majida, and their three young children, blindfolded him and took him away.
This man has been engaged in a five-year unarmed struggle to save his village land from both Israel's illegal Wall and its growing (also illegal) settlements. Abdallah has represented the village of Bil'in around the world and, in June 2009, attended the precedent-setting legal case in Montreal against two Canadian companies illegally building settlements on Bil'in village land. Last summer Abdallah was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Nobel Peace laureates (and internationally-renowned human rights activists, discussing Bil'in's grass-roots campaign for justice. An independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, fully supports the struggle of the villagers of Bil'in.(www.theelders.org/)
Israel says it is facing Palestinian violence yet it continues to suppress every expression of non-violent local Palestinian protest. While Israel continues to violate international law in territories it belligerently occupies, it behoves the representatives of governments such as New Zealand's to express their condemnation and make clear their commitment to the United Nations Charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention and hard-fought-for human rights. Please seize this opportunity.
Leslie Bravery,
for Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC)
25 August 2010
The Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC) has received a copy of a letter from the Israeli Ambassador to New Zealand, Shemi Tzur, that was sent to the Kia Ora Gaza group referring to the organisation's 10 August 2010 news media release. The letter sought to dissuade Kia Ora Gaza from bringing aid to Gaza independently of Israel's military blockade of the territory. PHRC makes the following comments:
The letter referred to what the Ambassador described as “Israel’s lawful maritime blockade”. The blockade most certainly is not lawful and is being exercised with deadly force against the entire people of Gaza and, recently, also against civilian shipping in international waters. In defending itself against criticism Israel faces a huge credibility gap. For instance, Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said that Israel had nothing to apologise for over its recent attack on the Mavi Marmara and, using the language of the bully when things are not going his way, offered the excuse that the Israeli military were “defending” themselves. Israel chose to intercept and board the flotilla, fully armed and knowing in advance from the manifests the nature of the cargo. Israel's other justification for its deadly violence – the grotesque claim that it was “at war” – illustrates just how ideologically isolated Israel is because international law obliges the military to protect civilians.
The Ambassador stated that “humanitarian aid is unnecessary”, which flies in the face of all the reports by United Nations rapporteurs and human rights groups. At present, Gaza is still unable to export anything and its people have no freedom of movement, not even in their own coastal waters, let alone the high seas. Israel, the letter claimed, had lifted most of its restrictions on the passage of goods to the Gaza Strip. It may possibly suit Israel to ease the restrictions while the heat is on but, without an end to the blockade, things could very quickly go back to how they were. Again, the question of credibility arises. History has taught us that Israel is a master of expediency and that its intentions as well as its behaviour require close scrutiny. The world has not forgotten that, contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel exported its citizens into a belligerently occupied Gaza Strip and set up segregated colonies at the cost of the lives, economy and freedom of movement of the people of Gaza. When it suited Israel, it unilaterally departed and dismantled the settlements. In the years leading up to that, anyone who might have suggested that the settlements must go would no doubt have been labelled a terrorist sympathiser. The fact that the settlements no longer exist shows how unnecessary all the pain and suffering had been in the first place. The settlements in the West Bank (referred to in Israel as Judea and Samaria) should also go because they are also established in defiance of international law.
In the absence of any evidence of Israeli goodwill, all protestations by Israel should be rigorously examined. In his letter the Ambassador stated, “Now restrictions will be placed only on weapons, war materiel and items that can be used for military purposes.” Israel, it needs to be remembered, is the state that introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East and that has neither signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty nor complied with the requirements of the IAEA. In spite of this there is no likelihood of restrictions being placed on the Zionist state's huge military establishment, so disproportionately underwritten by the US taxpayer.
Accusing Hamas of failing to “recognise Israel” is a diversion. States either exist or they do not. Hamas has offered to respect Israel's Green Line frontier and has offered an open-ended ceasefire. It has also agreed to respect whatever future agreement may be reached between the whole Palestinian people and Israel. Israel's breaking of the ceasefire paved the way for the gross, and disproportionate, operation 'Cast Lead' offensive in which some 1400 Gazans died. Again, Israel's credibility was sorely discredited when it tried to deny the use of white phosphorus munitions in populated areas. In the face of overwhelming evidence Israel now admits its action which, to most observers, would appear to be a war crime. Even now, Israeli F-16s fly, from time to time, simulated air raids over Gaza City, inflicting sonic booms on an already traumatised population. Imagine how the families of the 342 children killed in operation 'Cast Lead' would react to such a sound.
The Ambassador tried to make much of the case of captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, which only serves to draw attention to the disproportionality of Israel's holding of thousands of civilian Palestinian prisoners. In particular, this year alone (up to 8am, 10 August 2010) Israeli soldiers had already abducted 229 Palestinian youngsters between the ages of 9 and 17. The largest number taken in a given age group was that of the 17-year-olds: 109. Many were dragged from their homes in the small hours of the morning. The PHRC daily newsletters In Occupied Palestine www.palestine.org dating from January this year report the names of these young victims and the circumstances of their capture. If Israeli children and teenagers had been abducted from their homes the news would have been extensively reported.
The shocking behaviour of Israel's occupation forces includes house demolitions, home invasions in which the contents are often vandalised, and beatings at checkpoints, in the streets and in victims' homes. Israeli soldiers hospitalised a three-year-old girl on July 23 in an assault on a bus full of women and children. Beatings of youngsters by Israeli occupation troops are not uncommon. (See InOccupied Palestine July 23 & 24 at www.palestine.org).
Israel continues to defy international law with what it calls its ‘separation barrier’ (annexation Wall) in the West Bank that actually separates Palestinians, cutting off towns and villages from their farms and communities from each other and the outside world. A World Court ruling condemns the Wall as illegal and calls for its removal but the World Community makes no demand for Israel to comply.
Why should the world take Israel on trust while it enacts discriminatory laws such as the Law of Return (1950 and 1970) that grants the right of immigration only to Jews born anywhere in the world? Native-born Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugees, most of whom were driven out of their homes and land through the terrorism and massacres of 1947 and 1967, are denied their right of return (affirmed in Article 11 of UN Resolution 194) solely on the grounds that they are not Jewish. Israel's National Planning and Building Law (1965) creates a system of discriminatory zoning that freezes existing Arab villages while providing for the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements. There has recently been a spate of destruction of homes and entire villages. Discrimination is embodied in the Population Registry Law (1965) which requires all residents of Israel to classify their ethnic group and to carry an identity card with this information. Residents who do not have Jewish ID cards are subject to restrictions regarding driving, travel, marriage and even entry to cafés and bars.
Israel needs to change its behaviour and work hard to prove to the majority of international grass-roots opinion that it means what it says regarding human rights, the rule of law and democracy. So long as action belies protestation, Israel's motives will remain suspect.
Israel claims to speak for world Jewry to the distress of Jewish people who oppose what Israel does in their name. The world should listen to those voices, which include many Jewish celebrities who express their concern through a variety of actions. The organisation Jews Against Zionism states: “We believe that the conflict in Palestine cannot be resolved without a return of Palestinian refugees and the dismantling of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel; and that this is impossible in the context of 'two states' and a re-partition of Palestine. We advocate the only approach which can lead to peace with justice in the region; we call for a unitary, secular and democratic Palestine, the return of Palestinian refugees and full and equal rights for Palestinians, Israeli Jews and all other people living in the whole of Palestine.” www.inminds.co.uk/jews-against-zionism.html.
Everyone has a right to peace and security but Israel demands security for itself at whatever cost to its neighbours, while not even considering the Palestinian people's need for security. The Port of Gaza should be open and the people of Gaza liberated to enjoy the same freedoms as the rest of us. Israel could win both respect and security by accepting and abiding by all United Nations Resolutions, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the findings of the International Court of Justice.
Leslie Bravery
for Palestine Human Rights Campaign PO Box 56150 Dominion Road Auckland www.palestine.org.nz
15 August 2010
Press release 3 August 2010 Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (www.palestine.org.nz):
Sir Geoffrey Palmer to Chair UN enquiry into Gaza flotilla deaths
The Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) welcomes the appointment of Sir Geoffrey Palmer to chair the UN investigation into Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that resulted in the deaths of nine unarmed civilians.
Spokesperson Leslie Bravery says: "Israel's decision to join the enquiry after previously rejecting calls for an international independent investigation is possibly linked to the fact that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council investigation into the international law implications of the flotilla raid is due to report in September." It is significant that the review panel will not have the authority to subpoena witnesses, especially members of the Israeli military. Instead the committee will review the reports handed in by investigative panels in both Turkey and Israel who dealt with the flotilla incident.
This morning, NZ Foreign Affairs Minister, Murray McCully, said that he understood that the enquiry was not about apportioning blame for the attack but with finding ways of avoiding such incidents in future. The PHRC responds that the matter of blame for the attack is a matter of historical fact. It is not disputed that the Israeli military boarded civilian shipping in international waters and attacked unarmed civilians. Israel's claim that it is at war carries no weight because the rules of war and the Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on civilians and civilian shipping.
The best way to avoid such incidents in future is for the world community to require and constrain Israel to observe international humanitarian law.
PHRC calls for an immediate and complete end to Israel's punitive blockade of Gaza, the only territory in the world that does not have freedom of access to its own coastal waters. Israel's blockade of Gaza, now in its fourth year, is collective punishment against the civilian population. It is a man-made humanitarian crisis that the international community has the power and the moral obligation to alleviate immediately.
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
Donations urgently needed for "Freedom Flotilla Two" NZ volunteer!
Saturday, 11 June 2011
In May 2010, nine aid workers were killed by Israeli commandos when a humanitarian flotilla destined for Gaza was intercepted in international waters by the Israeli Navy. Israel’s naval forces continue to enforce an illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This coming June, Freedom Flotilla Two (FF2), a coalition of vessels from Canada, France, USA, UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey and other countries, is to set sail in the hope of breaking the blockade. Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand (PHRC) is raising money to enable a New Zealander, Harmeet Sooden, to join the upcoming flotilla. Harmeet has been offered a place on the boat Tahrir (Liberation in Arabic) alongside delegates from Australia, Belgium and Denmark.
PRESS RELEASE: New Zealanders to join second aid flotilla to Gaza
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND –
Towards the end of June 2011, a humanitarian flotilla will set sail to break the illegal and inhumane siege of Gaza. New Zealand has joined with initiatives from 14 national groups and international coalitions that have united to form the Freedom Flotilla II (FF2). FF2 will consist of at least 10 vessels carrying humanitarian aid and approximately 1000 passengers, including journalists, politicians, humanitarian aid workers, dignitaries, doctors, professors, artists and human rights activists.
In May 2010, nine aid workers were killed by Israeli commandos when a humanitarian flotilla destined for Gaza was intercepted in international waters by the Israeli Navy. Israel’s naval forces continue to enforce an illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip.