Jerusalem city hall refuses services to area beyond separation fence
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- Written by Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
- Published: 19 June 2008 19 June 2008
- Hits: 3964 3964
Municipal officials told residents of the Arab neighborhood, located on the Palestinian side of the separation barrier, that they should bring the dogs to the Shuafat checkpoint, from where the city's veterinary services would take the dogs.
"A pack of stray dogs entered the neighborhood yesterday," said Jamal Sanduka, one of the residents. "Two [of the dogs] entered the yard of a house and killed almost 20 ducks there. They also chased children in the neighborhood," he explained.
According to Sanduka, a number of neighbors managed to capture and cage two of the dogs, but despite repeated calls to Jerusalem's municipal hotline, the city refused to send its workers to Ras Hamis.
"We are residents of Jerusalem. We pay all the taxes, but since they surrounded us with a fence, no one is willing to come here any more. There are 40,000 people living here, and they do not receive any services - not from the city and not from the Palestinian Authority. When a house here caught fire a few days ago, we called the East Jerusalem fire department but they told us that for security reasons they cannot enter the neighborhood. If municipal employees are not willing to come the city must hire a private contractor to do the work, but no one is doing even that," Sanduka said yesterday.
Jerusalem municipal spokesman Gidi Shmerling confirmed the report. "The Ras Hamis neighborhood is on the other side of the separation fence. According to instructions from the security authorities, it is not allowed to enter neighborhoods on the other side of the separation fence except when accompanied by security forces," responded Shmerling.
"In this case," he added, "since the complainant stated that the dogs had be captured and were in his hands, then in order to save the time required to coordinate with the security forces - which could possibly take days - he was offered to bring the dogs to the checkpoint so that the veterinary team could collect them."
City officials claimed yesterday that the last time a veterinary team entered the neighborhood accompanied by security forces, they were forced to retreat after an "extremely violent" attack by local residents.
Five for Palestine
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- Written by AAPER AAPER
- Published: 19 June 2008 19 June 2008
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The Five for Palestine Campaign asks you to support an equitable U.S. policy toward Palestine by doing five simple things.
The eventual goal is to build a well funded lobby organization that promotes equal rights for Palestinians as a counter to the right wing and vicious Israel lobby groups like AIPAC.
Chomsky and Pappe: On the Future of Israel and Palestine
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- Written by Frank Barat interviews Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe Frank Barat interviews Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe
- Published: 18 June 2008 18 June 2008
- Hits: 4295 4295
Veteran activists Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky recently responded to a set of questions about the state of the anti-occupation movement and the prospects for peace, and their answers are below. What comes across most clearly in these interviews is a shared assessment of the current situation (both persistently reject the interviewer’s attempts at any great optimism) but divergent opinions about appropriate strategies for the anti-occupation movement.
One point they agree on is that the climate for raising criticisms of Israel has improved considerably, although both ideological and practical obstacles remain when it comes to translating this criticism into action. Pappe believes that a general boycott is the best way to overcome this, and Chomsky outlines some of his objections to such a strategy (although he is supportive of limited and targeted boycotts, of Caterpillar, Inc. for instance).
Read more: Chomsky and Pappe: On the Future of Israel and Palestine
Israel calls for Lebanon peace talks
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- Written by Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
- Published: 18 June 2008 18 June 2008
- Hits: 4044 4044
Israel said today it wanted to open "direct, bilateral" peace talks
with Lebanon, as officials confirmed they have agreed a ceasefire with
the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas due to begin in the Gaza Strip
from dawn tomorrow.
The talks with Lebanon would include
discussions over the Shebaa Farms, an area of land held by Israel and
claimed by the Lebanese.
The overture appears to have been encouraged by the US administration and comes after indirect talks between Israel and Syria were re-started for the first time in eight years.
The approach to Lebanon may indicate that an agreement is close at hand with the Lebanese group Hizbullah over the return of two Israeli soldiers captured at the start of the 2006 Lebanon war and who are now feared dead. Israel is reportedly ready to release some Lebanese prisoners in return.
Today Israeli officials were cautious about how long the Gaza ceasefire might last, warning that the agreement was fragile and a military invasion still an option.
Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defence official who was the envoy on the ceasefire negotiations, said: "This is not a peace agreement."
"A calm means that there is no type of terror, there is no difference if it comes from 'a' or 'b,"' he told Israel's Army Radio. "It's clear that if there won't be attacks on us, the army activity will be in accordance."
Palestinian militants fired rockets and mortars into southern Israel today and there was gunfire towards Israeli communities, but there were no reports of injuries.
Islamic Jihad said it carried out the attacks in response to the killing of 10 militants in Gaza this week.
"Thursday will be the beginning we hope of a new reality where Israeli citizens in the south will no longer be on the receiving end of continuous rocket attacks," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister. "Israel is giving a serious chance to this Egyptian initiative and we want it to succeed."
Others, even in the Israeli cabinet, spoke out against the decision to accept the ceasefire, which has been arranged after weeks of mediation by the Egyptians.
"A calm brings a great accomplishment for Hamas," Meir Sheetrit, an Israeli cabinet minister, told Army Radio. "They prove that their determination and the war and the continued attacks on Israel help them achieve what they want."
The ceasefire will develop in stages, with Israel gradually easing its economic blockade of Gaza if the ceasefire holds.
Funerals were held in Gaza today for militants killed in an Israeli air strike yesterday, among them Moataz Dogmush, a senior leader in the Army of Islam.
The small but extreme militant group was responsible last year for kidnapping the British BBC reporter Alan Johnston and also played a role in the capture in June 2006 of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who remains in captivity in Gaza.
Amnesty about Iraq: World governments misleading and failing Iraqi refugees
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- Written by Amnesty International Amnesty International
- Published: 17 June 2008 17 June 2008
- Hits: 3592 3592
The international community is evading its responsibility towards refugees from Iraq by promoting a false picture of the security situation in Iraq when the country is neither safe nor suitable for return, Amnesty International said today.
In its new report, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, which is based on recent research and interviews with Iraqi refugees, the organization said that the world's richest states are failing to provide the necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, most of whom are plunged in despair and hurtling towards destitution.
"Governments have done little or nothing to help Iraqi refugees, failing in their moral, political and legal duty to share responsibility for them," said Amnesty International. "Instead, apathy and rhetoric have been the overwhelming response to one of the worst refugee crises in the world."
Amnesty International said that the Government of Iraq and states involved in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in particular the USA and the UK, highlight "improved" security or "voluntary" returns to Iraq out of political expedience, to demonstrate that their military involvement has been a success.
"Rhetoric cannot hide the reality that the wider human rights situation in Iraq remains dire," said Amnesty International.
"People are being killed every month by armed groups, the Multinational Force, Iraqi security forces and private military and security guards. Kidnappings, torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention pervade the daily lives of Iraqis. People continue to attempt to flee, something that is now very difficult with the recent imposition of visa restrictions on Iraqis by Jordan and Syria."
According to the latest estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has now reached 4.7 million, the highest since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent internal armed conflict.
While Syria and Jordan have shouldered most of the refugee influx, they have now resorted to drastic measures such as restricting entry and deporting people who may be at risk of persecution, partly due to the lack of support from the international community.
Having exhausted savings, many refugees are now living in complete destitution and facing new dangers, such as being forced into so-called "voluntary" return to Iraq and child labour -- many families have been forced to send their children to work in the streets in a desperate bid to help them survive.
For some refugees, the difficulties they are facing in the host country are prompting them to make the difficult and dangerous decision to return to Iraq, either temporarily to collect a pension or food ration or for other such reasons, or more permanently because of their desperate situation, not because they feel they are no longer at risk of human rights abuses in Iraq.
They are making this decision as they feel they have no other option.
A 62-year-old retired Shi’a army officer, Majid, a widower with seven adult children all living in Baghdad, told Amnesty International in February that after attempting to find protection in Syria, with only the 50 lira (US$1) in his pocket, he had to return to Iraq. Even though he was extremely scared, he had lost hope, saying "If I die, I die." Majid fled Iraq in February 2008 after two of his nephews, Mansour and Sami, aged 17 and 19, were beheaded by members of an armed group north of Baghdad. He exhausted his savings in Syria and was soon left with nothing. Weeping, he explained to Amnesty International that he had no alternative but to return to Iraq.
Many European countries are now attempting to deport Iraqis, sometimes to some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq such as the south and central regions. In addition to taking direct actions forcing Iraqis to return, they are using indirect methods such as cutting off basic assistance and services to rejected asylum-seekers in order to force them to “voluntarily” return to Iraq.
Sweden, which is host to the largest number of Iraqi refugees in Europe and once a positive example to its neighbours, has now changed its approach and is denying the vast majority of Iraqis protection and forcibly returning some to very dangerous areas.
Amnesty International is greatly concerned that the failure to
respond to this crisis will worsen an already dire situation. Amongst
other things, it is calling on the international community to:
• urgently and substantially raise sustainable financial assistance;
• end practices such as forcible returns that put lives at further risk;
• cease practices that result in coerced “voluntary” returns;
• allow individuals to seek paid employment; and
• extensively increase resettlement places for the most vulnerable refugees to start a new life in a third country.
Amnesty International is also calling on the governments of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, as well as those of other countries in the region, to allow unrestricted access to people fleeing Iraq, cease all deportations to Iraq, and grant refugees access to the labour market.
"The international community must make a true commitment to assist Iraq's displaced people by substantially boosting sustainable financial assistance, ending forcible returns, stopping practices that result in coerced voluntary returns and offering increased numbers of resettlement places," said Amnesty International.