Israeli firms on Palestinian building project sign anti-settlement clause
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- Written by Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
- Published: 13 January 2011 13 January 2011
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Israeli firms on Palestinian building project sign anti-settlement clause
Agreements involving companies building new West Bank city spark call
for counter-boycott from Jewish settler groups
Rawabi An artist's impression of the new city of Rawabi. Photograph:
Guardian
A dozen Israeli companies working on a Palestinian construction project
have signed contracts stipulating they must not use Israeli products
originating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.
The move has sparked calls from Jewish settler groups and their
supporters for a counter-boycott.
The lucrative contracts are conditional on the firms agreeing to eschew
"products of the territories" in line with the Palestinian Authority's
boycott of goods and services from settlements.
The companies have signed agreements with Bayti, a Palestinian-Qatari
group building a new city in the West Bank intended to become a hub for
the technology industry and house 40,000 people.
The £850m Rawabi project is a sign of the West Bank's flourishing economy.
Israeli politicians and settlement supporters have condemned the
contracts. Dozens of members of the Knesset (parliament) have called for
the government to boycott Israeli companies that have signed the Rawabi
deals, a demand backed by the Knesset's economics committee.
"Anyone building Rawabi should know that they won't build Tel Aviv," the
rightwing pro-settler Knesset member Aryeh Eldad said.
The Land of Israel Lobby, headed by Eldad, said in a statement: "This is
shameful and shocking collaboration with Palestinian economic
terrorism." The companies had "sold their Zionist souls for a deal with
the enemy".
Bashar Masri, Bayti's managing director, said the clause was not new,
adding: "I have been insisting on this for three years at least. I
always put this in as a condition up front. Someone has decided to make
an issue of this now.
"It's the norm that we don't support the aggressor, those who take our
land and make our lives miserable."
He said he expected "a whole lot more" Israeli companies to agree to the
clause in order to win contracts with Bayti. "None of the people who
have already signed have backed out, despite the threats of the
radicals," he said.
The Samaria Settlers' Committee this week offered a 500 shekel (£90)
reward to anyone disclosing the identity of companies involved. Two
companies have been named in the Israeli media.
One, Ytong, which makes concrete blocks, denied it had agreed to boycott
settlement products. "Ytong is not a partner to this boycott or any
other," the firm said in a statement.
Another, Teldor Cables, has a factory in the occupied Golan Heights,
according to a report in Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has vigorously promoted a
boycott of settlement produce in the West Bank, with shops ordered not
to stock such goods.
The implementation of a law banning Palestinians from working in
settlements has been delayed as alternative employment has not yet been
found. An estimated 21,000 Palestinians work in construction,
agriculture or industry in Jewish settlements.
The boycott movement has attracted support in other countries. Israel
accuses its backers of trying to delegitimise the Jewish state.
An attempt by Masri to buy land from an Israeli company in East
Jerusalem to build housing for Palestinians foundered this week after a
campaign to block it.
The Jewish settlement of Nof Zion has been in financial difficulty for
some time. "It's in the heart of East Jerusalem, surrounded by thousands
of Palestinian homes," Masri said.
"But [the campaigners] wanted to block land going from a Jewish owner to
a Palestinian owner. It's a racist issue – they made this very clear."
US must rejoin international community by recognizing the state of Palestine
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- Written by John V. Whitbeck John V. Whitbeck
- Published: 13 January 2011 13 January 2011
- Hits: 2772 2772
The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
US must rejoin international community by recognizing the state of Palestine
More than 100 nations around the world have recognized the state of Palestine. Why won't the United States? President Obama can redeem America's 'rogue' status by supporting Palestine's effort to join the United Nations later this year.
By John V. Whitbeck
posted January 12, 2011 at 12:55 pm EST
Paris —
On Jan. 7, Chile extended diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine as a free, independent, and sovereign state. This comes soon after the recent recognitions by Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador. (In each of those cases, the state of Palestine was recognized explicitly within the full pre-1967 borders, encompassing all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.) Chile’s recognition brought to 109 the number of UN member states recognizing the state of Palestine, whose independence was proclaimed on Nov. 15, 1988.
While still under foreign belligerent occupation, the state of Palestine possesses all the customary international law criteria for sovereign statehood. No portion of its territory is recognized by any other country (other than Israel) as any other country’s sovereign territory, and, indeed, Israel has only asserted sovereignty over a small portion of its territory – expanded East Jerusalem – leaving sovereignty over the rest both literally and legally uncontested.
In this context, it is enlightening to consider the quality as well as the quantity of the states extending diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine.
IN PICTURES: Israel's separation barrier: A West Bank wall
Of the world’s nine most populous states, eight (all except the United States) recognize the state of Palestine. Of the world’s 20 most populous states, 15 (all except the United States, Japan, Mexico, Germany, and Thailand) recognize the state of Palestine. Even eight EU member states recognize the state of Palestine.
The contrast with Kosovo
By contrast, the 73 UN member states that currently recognize the Republic of Kosovo as an independent state include only one of the nine most populous states (the United States) and only four of the 20 most populous states (the United States, Japan, Germany, and Turkey).
In July 2010, the International Court of Justice held that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence did not violate international law because international law is silent on the subject of the legality of declarations of independence. (This means that no declarations of independence violate international law and all are “legal," albeit subject to the political decisions of sovereign states to recognize or not the independence declared.) The United States responded by calling on all countries that had not already recognized Kosovo to do so promptly. Six months later, only four more have seen fit to do so – Honduras, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Qatar.
If the Arab League were now to call on the minority of UN member states that have not already recognized Palestine to do so promptly, it is certain that the response would be far superior (both in quantity and in quality) to the response to the recent American appeal on behalf of Kosovo. The Arab League should issue such a call for recognition.
States encompassing between 80 percent and 90 percent of the world’s population recognize the state of Palestine, while states encompassing only between 10 percent and 20 percent of the world’s population recognize the Republic of Kosovo. Notwithstanding this, the Western media (and, indeed, much of the non-Western media as well) act as though Kosovo’s independence were an accomplished fact, while Palestine’s independence is treated as an aspiration that can never be realized without Israeli-American consent. Furthermore, much of international public opinion (including, apparently, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah) has, at least until recently, permitted itself to be brainwashed into thinking and acting accordingly.
As in most aspects of international relations, it is not the nature of the act (or crime) that matters, but, rather, who is doing it to whom. Palestine was conquered and is still occupied, 43 years later, by the military forces of Israel. What most of the world (including the UN and even five EU member states) still regards as the Serbian province of Kosovo was conquered and is still occupied, 11 years later, by the military forces of NATO. The American flag is flown there at least as widely as the Kosovo flag, and the capital, Pristina, boasts a Bill Clinton Boulevard and a larger-than-life-size statue of the former American president.
Might makes right, at least in the hearts and minds of the mighty, including most Western decision-makers and opinion-formers.
Meanwhile, as a perpetual “peace process” in the Middle East appears suddenly threatened by peaceful recourse to international law and international organizations, the US House of Representatives has adopted by a unanimous voice vote a resolution drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) calling on President Obama not to recognize the state of Palestine and to veto any effort by Palestine to obtain UN membership.
Western politicians and the Western media customarily apply the term “international community” to the United States and whatever countries are willing to publicly support it on a given issue. They also apply the term “rogue state” to any country that actively resists Israeli-American global domination.
Slavish subservience to Israel
The United States has demonstrated a slavish subservience to Israel, as reflected yet again both in the absence of a single brave voice raised against this new House resolution and in the Obama administration’s recently rejected offer of a huge military and diplomatic bribe to Israel in reward for a mere 90-day suspension of its illegal settlement program. In so doing, the United States has effectively excluded itself from the true international community (properly redefined to refer to the great majority of mankind) and become a true rogue state, properly defined as one acting in consistent and flagrant contempt of both international law and fundamental human rights.
One must hope that the United States can still pull back from the abyss and recover its own independence, even if all signs currently point in the opposite direction. In fact, it may soon reach its moment of truth and have the opportunity to do so.
RELATED: What 'Isarel's right to exist' means to Palestinians
If Palestine, within its full pre-1967 borders, were a UN member state, not simply "the occupied territories," the end of the occupation and peace with some measure of justice, even if not imminent, would instantly become only a question of "when," no longer of "whether."
When, later this year, the state of Palestine applies for UN membership, Barack Obama must have the courage to assert his own country's independence and to permit it to rejoin the true international community by withholding the traditional American veto of any UN action opposed by Israel and by permitting the state of Palestine and the Palestinian people to assume their full and rightful places in the community of nations.
John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel, is author of “The World According to Whitbeck.” Versions of this essay have appeared elsewhere.
Chile Recognizes Palestinian State
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- Written by Common Dreams Common Dreams
- Published: 13 January 2011 13 January 2011
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Chile joins other South American nations to recognize Palestine as a "full, free and sovereign" state.
Chile has become the latest South American country to officially recognise Palestine as an independent state.
[Palestinian authorities have travelled extensively to convince nations to recognise it as a state (EPA)]Palestinian authorities have travelled extensively to convince nations to recognise it as a state (EPA)
"The government of Chile has adopted the resolution today recognising the existence of the state of Palestine as a free, independent and sovereign state," Alfredo Moreno, the foreign minister, said on Friday.
"Chile has permanently and consistently supported the right of the Palestinian people to constitute themselves as an independent state, in peaceful coexistence with the state of Israel," Moreno said.
Chile's decision follows a meeting in Brazil between Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador last month recognised Palestine within its borders prior to 1967, and Uruguay and Paraguay are expected to join them in the coming weeks.
Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Costa Rica also recognise the Palestinian state.
'Support for peace'
Moreno said that Pinera is to travel in March to the Middle East to express his support for peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel and to reinforce Chile's friendship and cooperation with both states.
The government's resolution also noted that both Jewish and Palestinian communities have been key to Chile's social, cultural, political and economic development for many years, working in harmony that should serve as a model for their both the Israeli and Palestinian states. It's a message that Pinera plans to make personally during a visit to the Middle East in March.
Chile has a community of more than 300,000 Palestinian immigrants and their descendants.
The borders of a final Palestinian state have been one of the thorniest issues in peace negotiations with Israel.
Direct talks between the two sides, the first for nearly two years, began on September 2 but stalled after a 10-month Israeli settlement-building freeze expired three weeks later.
In a New Year's Eve address, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas urged the international community to come up with a new peace plan after months of US diplomacy failed to secure a settlement freeze.
U.S. Needs to Match Words to Action on Palestinian Rights
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- Written by Josh Ruebner Josh Ruebner
- Published: 11 January 2011 11 January 2011
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Last month, the State Department held a town hall for Human Rights Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the event, Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs P.J. Crowley, Legal Adviser Harold Koh, and Assistant Secretary of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner took questions from the audience and shared their thoughts on the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy.
Given that the United States provides Israel with nearly unconditional diplomatic support and military aid to sustain its illegal 43-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip and to commit systematic human rights abuses while doing so, I asked the panelists if the State Department holds Israel to a lower standard of account on human rights than other countries, and if Palestinians were entitled to equal human rights.
Posner responded unambiguously that there is a "single universal standard that applies to every country, including our own. We apply it to Israelis." He also affirmed that the State Department views "Palestinians as being human beings under the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights] and entitled to these rights."
If the United States actually were to take these twin principles--Israel's accountability to universal human rights standards and Palestinian rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--as the basis for a revamped strategy to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, then it would face greater odds of success than its current strategy of sublimating Israeli accountability and Palestinian rights to the demands of a fruitless "peace process."
Unfortunately Posner's principled remarks bear no relation whatsoever toward actual U.S. policy on Israel/Palestine, which in numerous ways shields Israel from accountability for its human rights abuses and attempts to negate for Palestinians their universal human rights.
For example, when the UN General Assembly in 2003 requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the United States submitted a 112-page brief to the court arguing that an assessment of Israel's accountability to international legal standards "risks undermining the peace process and politicizing the Court." After the ICJ ruled Israel's wall to be illegal and that all countries had the obligation not to "render aid or assistance" to maintain the wall, in 2005 the United States gave $50 million earmarked for Palestinian economic aid to Israel to build high-tech, permanent terminals into this separation barrier to better crack down on Palestinians' freedom of movement.
More recently, the Obama Administration has worked actively to scuttle the international community from taking any action to hold Israel accountable for its human rights abuses, as documented by special missions established by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009 ("Operation Cast Lead") and its May 2010 attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
In response to the Goldstone Report, which meticulously documented in 575 pages violations of human rights and international law, war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity committed by both Israel and Palestinian militant groups before, during, and after "Cast Lead," Ambassador Susan Rice, Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations, characterized the report as "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable." Crowley urged that the "report should not be used as a mechanism to add impediments to getting back to the peace process," as if holding human rights abusers accountable and establishing peace are mutually exclusive affairs. A State Department cable released by WikiLeaks shows Israeli and U.S. officials colluding to "deflect any further damage from the report."
Similar responses characterized U.S. efforts to shield Israel from accountability for attacking a U.S.-flagged ship in international waters and killing a U.S. citizen, Furkan Dogan, during its assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The Human Rights Council fact-finding mission documented in chilling detail that "a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla," including extrajudicial assassinations and torture.
Nor has the United States actively supported Palestinian human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To the contrary, its diplomatic and military support-as well official U.S. policy statements-make the United States complicit in Israel's systematic human rights abuses of Palestinians.
For example, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem, Israel has killed more than 3,000 Palestinians-often with U.S. weapons-who took no part in hostilities over the past decade, thus violating Article 3, which states "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." Israel's hundreds of barriers, checkpoints, fences, and walls in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, patrolled by Israeli soldiers with U.S. rifles, ammunition, and vehicles, violate Article 13(1): "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement." Repeated statements by the United States supporting Israel's contention that Palestinian refugees will not be allowed to return to their homes violate Article 13(2), which establishes that "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Finally, the United States-despite Crowley being asked three times about the case at daily press briefings-has not issued one word of public condemnation of Israel's arrest of nonviolent Palestinian activist Abdallah Abu Rahmah, whose imprisonment for advocacy on behalf of Palestinian human rights violates Article 19, which holds that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression."
Indeed, it could be argued that Israel's apartheid rule over Palestinians-whether they live under Israeli military occupation, as second-class citizens of Israel, or as refugees-violates in some fashion each of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While Posner's remarks about Israeli accountability and Palestinian rights are welcome developments, much work remains to be done to align U.S. policy with the sentiments expressed on Human Rights Day.
*****
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. He is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service.
Israel kills Palestinian farmer near Gaza 'buffer zone'
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- Written by BBC News BBC News
- Published: 10 January 2011 10 January 2011
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A 65-year-old Palestinian farmer has been shot dead by the Israeli army near the border, doctors in Gaza say.
Israel regularly fires on Palestinians who approach within 330m (985ft) of the fence - its "buffer zone" aimed at stopping explosives from being planted.
Meanwhile, militants in Gaza fired three rockets into Ashkelon, the Israeli military says. No-one was hurt.
The violence comes a day after Gaza's Hamas rulers urged militant groups to stop rocket attacks on Israel.
The rockets hit an industrial area on the southern edge of Ashkelon, 10km (six miles) north of Gaza, the Israeli army said.
It said it was not aware of Monday's shooting of the farmer, but witnesses in Gaza said the elderly man was shot and killed by soldiers in an Israeli watchtower as he was working some 2km (one mile) from the border.
Hamas appeal
Violence on the Gaza-Israel border has escalated in recent weeks.
Overnight on Sunday, Israel again carried out air strikes in the north and south of the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Israel shot dead two Palestinians it said were trying to cross over the border from Gaza.
On Friday, an Israeli soldier was killed in a so-called friendly fire incident, when his colleagues inadvertently fired on him while fighting with Palestinian militants.
A spokesman for Hamas said the group had met other militant factions in Gaza over the weekend to try to bring "control of the situation on the ground".
Most of the rockets fired out of Gaza do not come from Hamas but from smaller militant groups. Israel says Hamas could stop this from happening if it wanted to.
Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005 but continues to control its borders as well as Gaza's airspace and access to the sea.