Maria Aman, a Disabled Palestinian Infant versus the State of Israel
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- Written by Gush Shalom Gush Shalom
- Published: 05 July 2008 05 July 2008
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Maria Aman, a Disabled Palestinian Infant versus the State of Israel
On July 7 2008, at 9 a.m., a High Court hearing will be held to look into the expulsion of Palestinian infant Maria Aman who was severely injured during a targeted attack in Gaza. Her doctors are concerned her life may be endangered if she is forced to transfer to a hospital in Ramallah.
In May 2006, infant Maria Aman was severely injured during a targeted attack in Gaza. Her mother, older brother, grandmother and aunt were killed in the attack.
Maria, now seven years old, is completely paralyzed, will have to be connected to an artificial respiration machine for the rest of her life, and is still hospitalized in the Alyn Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Hospital in Jerusalem.
The Ministry of Defense is seeking to expel the infant to a rehabilitation institution in Ramallah.
According to the doctors who are treating Maria, a transfer to Ramallah will endanger her life.
Maria Aman, who has severe spinal injuries, and sustained severe damage to her respiratory tract, has to stay within a reasonable distance of a hospital that specializes in these areas. Her life depends on special and expensive apparatus, a skilled staff that is available 24 hours a day, and ongoing maintenance of the artificial respiration machine. None of these are available in Ramallah or Gaza, or anywhere else in the Palestinian Autonomy.
Maria Aman’s legal representation, attorneys Adi Lustigman and Tamir Blank, are seeking through the High Court appeal to prevent her expulsion, to ensure her rehabilitation in the community with her father and five year old brother, and to attain permanent residency status for them in Israel.
For further information, contact:
Adv. Adi Lustigman
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052-2907805
Dalia Beker
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050-5408547
Leah Lior
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054-4419584
Manael Amuri
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052-4492303
Sanah Moussa
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050-8215530
Big Oil's Iraq deals are the greatest stick-up in history
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- Written by Naomi Klein Naomi Klein
- Published: 04 July 2008 04 July 2008
- Hits: 3562 3562
The country's invaders should be paying billions in reparations not using the war as a reason to pillage its richest resource
Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly rightwing media hosts had to prove their populist credibility by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." It usually goes well - until it doesn't.
For instance, "independent conservative" radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: "I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down," Doyle announced. "We've invested $650bn to liberate a nation of 25 million people, shouldn't we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the stinkin' Lincoln, at rush-hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government ... Why don't we just take the oil? We've invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in 10 days, not 10 years."
There were a couple of problems with Doyle's plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stick-up in world history. The second that he was too late. "We" are already heisting Iraq's oil, or at least are on the brink of doing so.
It started with no-bid service contracts announced for Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (they have yet to be signed but are still on course). Paying multinationals for their technical expertise is not unusual in itself. What is odd is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil service companies - not to the oil majors, whose work is exploring, producing and owning carbon wealth. The contracts only make sense in the context of reports that the oil majors have insisted on the right of first refusal on subsequent contracts handed out to manage and produce Iraq's oilfields. In other words, other companies will be free to bid on those future contracts, but these companies will win.
One week after the no-bid service deals were announced, the world caught its first glimpse of the real prize. After years of backroom arm-twisting, Iraq is officially flinging open six of its major oilfields, accounting for half of its known reserves, to foreign investors. According to Iraq's oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under the control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign corporations will keep 75% of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25% for their Iraqi partners.
That kind of ratio is unheard of in oil-rich Arab and Persian states, where achieving majority national control over oil was the defining victory of anti-colonial struggles. According to Greg Muttitt, a London-based oil expert, the assumption up until now was that foreign multinationals would be brought in to develop new fields in Iraq - not to take over those which are already in production and therefore require minimal technical support. "The policy was always to allocate these fields to the Iraq National Oil Company," he told me. "This is a total reversal of that policy, giving the Iraq National Oil Company a mere 25% instead of the planned 100%."
So what makes such lousy deals possible in Iraq, which has already suffered so much? Paradoxically, it is Iraq's suffering - its never-ending crisis - that is the rationale for an arrangement that threatens to drain Iraq's treasury of its main revenue source. The logic goes like this: Iraq's oil industry needs foreign expertise because years of punishing sanctions starved it of new technology, while the invasion and continuing violence degraded it further. And Iraq needs to start producing more oil urgently. Why? Also because of the war. The country is shattered and the billions handed out in no-bid contracts to western firms have failed to rebuild it.
And that's where the new contracts come in: they will raise more money, but Iraq has become such a treacherous place that the oil majors must be induced to take the risk of investing. Thus the invasion of Iraq neatly creates the argument for its subsequent pillage.
Several of the architects of the Iraq war no longer even bother to deny that oil was a major motivator for the invasion. On US National Public Radio's To the Point, Fadhil Chalabi, one of the primary Iraqi advisers to the Bush administration in the lead-up to the invasion, recently described the war as "a strategic move on the part of the United States of America and the UK to have a military presence in the Gulf in order to secure [oil] supplies in the future". Chalabi, who served as Iraq's oil undersecretary of state and met with the oil majors before the invasion, described this as "a primary objective".
Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva conventions. That means the huge task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure - including its oil infrastructure - is the financial responsibility of Iraq's invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations, just as Saddam Hussein's regime paid $9bn to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion. Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75% of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation.
Israel to destroy attacker's home in act of collective punishment
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- Written by BBC News BBC News
- Published: 04 July 2008 04 July 2008
- Hits: 3924 3924
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the army to prepare to demolish the home of the Palestinian who killed three Israelis in Jerusalem.
The order follows advice by Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz that the proposed demolition could create legal difficulties, but would not be illegal.
An Israeli rights group has said such a move would be collective punishment.
B'tselem says it has written to Mr Mazuz demanding that he prevent the attacker's home from being demolished.
The group argues that the demolition would, as collective punishment, be illegal under international humanitarian law.
Hussam Dwayat went on the rampage at the wheel of a front-loader vehicle, or bulldozer, killing three people and wounding dozens before security personnel shot him dead.
Demolitions abandoned
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel should destroy the homes of "every terrorist from Jerusalem".
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The demolition of houses is a clear case of collective punishment, which violates the principle that a person is not to be punished for the acts of another B'tselem |
Mr Mazuz said in his legal opinion: "In light of repeated rulings over the years by the Supreme Court, it cannot be said that there is a legal objection… to the demolition of houses in Jerusalem, but the move would create considerable legal difficulties."
Mr Mazuz warned that apart from legal challenges in Israeli courts, a resumption of the practice of house demolitions could draw international condemnation.
He called for a detailed consideration of the circumstances surrounding each case by the internal security service, Shin Bet, the army and the justice ministry.
In February 2005, Israel abandoned the demolitions of homes of Palestinians involved in attacks against its citizens after human rights groups challenged the practice in Israel's Supreme Court.
Reports say about 20 people live in the home of the attacker Hussam Dwayat in the Sur Bahir area of East Jerusalem. They all insist that they had no prior knowledge of his intentions.
The Israeli authorities have said that Dwayat acted alone and was not connected to any Palestinian militant group.
In a statement about the anticipated demolition, rights group B'tselm said: "The declared objective of this policy is to harm innocent persons - relatives of suspected perpetrators, who are not accused of any criminal wrongdoing themselves.
"The demolition of houses is a clear case of collective punishment, which violates the principle that a person is not to be punished for the acts of another. Collective punishment is therefore illegal regardless of its effectiveness."
The group pointed to the findings of a committee appointed by a former chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, as finding house demolitions did more harm than good to Israel's security.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7490212.stm
Published: 2008/07/04 15:41:17 GMT
© BBC MMVIII
From triumph to torture
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- Written by John Pilger, The Guardian John Pilger, The Guardian
- Published: 03 July 2008 03 July 2008
- Hits: 3932 3932
Israel's treatment of an award-winning young Palestinian journalist is part of a terrible pattern
{josquote} "This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life ... I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future."{/josquote}Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or "official drivel", as Gellhorn called it. Mohammed shares the prize of £5,000 with Dahr Jamail. At 24, he is the youngest winner. His citation reads: "Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless." The eldest of eight, Mohammed has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed. An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home while the family were inside, seriously injuring his mother. And yet, says a former Dutch ambassador, Jan Wijenberg, "he is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel".
Call to sever Jerusalem Arab area
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- Written by BBC News BBC News
- Published: 03 July 2008 03 July 2008
- Hits: 3564 3564
Israel's vice premier has said the home district of the Palestinian who carried out Wednesday's bulldozer attack should be cut off from the rest of Jerusalem.
Haim Ramon said residents of Sur Bahir in east Jerusalem should also be stripped of their Israeli ID cards.
Mr Ramon proposed changing the route of the barrier which separates Jerusalem from the West Bank.
About a third of Jerusalem's population is Palestinian, living in an area occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
Mr Ramon said he disagreed with those who argued that demolishing the home of the bulldozer attacker would help prevent future attacks, but he said the house should be demolished regardless, if it was legally possible.
The barrier has already cut off several neighbourhoods housing tens of thousands of Palestinian holders of Israeli Jerusalem IDs.
He said the Jabal al-Mukabir area, home of a Palestinian who killed eight Jewish students in March, should be given the same treatment.