Michael Riordon

the view from where I live

Tag Archives: Apartheid


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War crimes

Day 19 of the Israeli attack on Gaza. The toll until now:

  • 928 Palestinians killed, 764 of them civilians, including 215 children and 118 women
  • 4,663 Palestinians wounded, mostly civilians, including 1,358 children and 932 women
  • 561 houses destroyed and hundreds of others extensively
  • thousands of Palestinian civilians forcibly displaced
  • Source: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), a non-governmental organization based in Gaza City.

PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZAThe Israeli military assault also continues in the West Bank: Six Palestinians killed (on July 26) in West Bank protests against Gaza slaughter.

These war crimes could not continue without enablers, accomplices.

On July 23 the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) met in special session to consider the matter of war crimes, and decided “… to urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014, whether before, during or after….”

The 47-member council voted 29-1 in favor of the resolution. 17 members (11 of them European) abstained. Only one country voted to oppose the commission of inquiry: the United States. (Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are members of the council.) Despite the US, the commission of inquiry will proceed.

For people of conscience who feel helpless to stop these war crimes, the international boycott, investment & sanctions (BDS) movement offers these suggestions for action.

 


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How did all this happen?

In 1907 British civil servants prepared a report on the Middle East for the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. As the United States does now, the British imperial regime treated the rest of the world as its private estate.

A key paragraph of the Bannerman report lays out the foundation for all that followed, including the current assault on Gaza:

“There are people [MR: the inhabitants of the Middle East] who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions.  These people have one faith, one language, one history and the same aspirations.   No natural barriers can isolate these people from one another … if, per chance, this nation were to be unified into one state, it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and would separate Europe from the rest of the world.  Taking these considerations seriously, [bold added] a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a springboard for the West to gain its coveted objects.”

[Dan Bar-On & Sami Adwan, THE PRIME SHARED HISTORY PROJECT, in Educating Toward a Culture of Peace, pages 309–323, Information Age Publishing, 2006.]

Ten years later, in the now infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration, the British government prepared the ground for planting that “foreign body”. In a letter to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour declared:

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Just like that. So easy.  At the stroke of a pen.

Gaza City, ruinsGaza City, under Israeli bombs, July 2014.

 

 

 

 


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Stop arming Israel

TAKE ACTION NOW.

israeli attack jetIsraeli attack jet.

Israel has once again unleashed the full force of its military against the captive Palestinian population, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, in an inhumane and illegal act of military aggression.

Israel’s ability to launch such devastating attacks with impunity largely stems from the vast international military cooperation and arms trade that it maintains with complicit governments across the world.

Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Peres Esquivel, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchú and Betty Williams have published an open letter calling on the UN and governments around the world to impose a military embargo on Israel.

Add your voice to the call here.

Other signatories include Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, playwright Caryl Churchill, US rapper Boots Riley, João Antonio Felicio, the president of the International Trade Union Confederation, and Zwelinzima Vavi, the general secretary of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions [and many others].

By importing and exporting arms to Israel and facilitating the development of Israeli military technology, governments are effectively sending a clear message of approval for Israel’s military aggression, including its war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

Call for a military embargo here.

The international call will be presented to the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights when they take up their post in September 2014.

Please give this message wings, pass it on widely.

Fact sheet: The case for a military embargo on Israel.

Our Way to Fight: voices of resistance in Palestine and Israel.

 


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UPDATE – From inside Gaza

In case you joined this blog in the past few days, and have not received notice of the previous post (From inside Gaza…), here’s an update:

July 17, Day 10 of the Israeli military assault continues against Gaza, the world’s largest prison.

  • Palestinians killed: 211, including 179 civilians, 32 of them women, 45 of them children.
  • Palestinians wounded: 1458, mostly civilians, including 253 women, 432 children.
  • Source: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Gaza, which has a good reputation for accuracy.

Stop funding Israeli terrorPhoto: Ted Majdosz

Many of us feel enraged but helpless in the face of Israel’s war crimes, and the active complicity of elected governments across Europe and North America. The rage is justified,  but we are not helpless. There is something we can do.

Here is an urgent call to action from inside Gaza, via the international BDS Movement:

“We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murder…”

Read the full call from inside Gaza here.

Here are 9 ways to support Gaza.


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Stop Mekorot

March 22 (World Water Day) to March 30 (Palestinian Land Day) marks the first International Boycott Week Against Mekorot.

Israel controls Palestinian H20Israel’s national water company, Mekorot oversees the water apartheid policies of the Israeli state, stealing water from under Palestine to supply the needs of Israeli communities and illegal settlements, then selling the dregs at inflated rates to Palestinians.  Palestinians are forbidden to drill wells, and the Israeli army regularly destroys water tanks that gather rain-water.

Mekorot also profits from exporting its water privatization methods to other countries, turning water from a life-essential into a luxury commodity.

But recently, due to an escalating international boycott campaign, Mekorot has lost multi-million dollar contracts in Argentina and the Netherlands.

The Stop Mekorot campaign has just released a biting two-minute satirical video, Mekorot: An Apartheid Adventure.

More on the Palestine water story in Our Way to Fight: peace-work under siege in Israel-Palestine.