‘The Palestine Cables’: Obama administration killed off independent U.N. investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza

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Written by Alex Kane Alex Kane

Published: 22 April 2011 22 April 2011

‘The Palestine Cables’: Obama administration killed off independent U.N. investigation into Israeli war crimes in Gaza

by Alex Kane on April 22, 2011
It was a shocking event in a twenty-two day assault filled with them:  the Israeli military shelled a United Nations compound in Gaza City January 15, where humanitarian aid like fuel and water pumping stations were stationed as well as hundreds of Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment.  John Ging, the Gaza Director of Operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) described the scene on Democracy Now!

This morning, there were three rounds of white phosphorus which landed in our compound in Gaza. That set ablaze the main warehouse and the big workshop we have there for vehicles. At the time, there were 700, also, people displaced from the fighting. There were full fuel tankers there. The Israeli army have been given all the coordinates of all our facilities, including this one. They also knew that there were fuel tankers laden with fuel in the compound, and they would have known that there were hundreds of people who had taken refuge.

It was one of a number of incidents during "Operation Cast Lead" where the Israeli military attacked United Nations facilities.  But the possibility of an further inquiry that would investigate violations of international law during these attacks was killed following intense U.S. lobbying, according to newly published State Department cables released by WikiLeaks and reported on by Foreign Policy's Colum Lynch. The efforts by the Obama administration to scuttle any investigation is similar to their efforts on the Goldstone report, and shows in detail how the U.S. uses its muscle in international forums to protect Israel.

Read the full article on MondoWeiss

New database reveals weapons to Israel, impact on Palestinians

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Written by Josh Ruebner, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation Josh Ruebner, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Published: 20 April 2011 20 April 2011

Last week, Congress finally got around to finalizing the 2011 budget, which included a record-breaking appropriation of $3 billion in military aid to Israel (not including an additional $415 million in Pentagon funding for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense projects).This money was the third installment of a ten-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Israel to provide Israel with $30 billion in U.S. military aid from 2009-2018, an annual average increase of 25% over previous levels. 

It is well-known that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid and that U.S. weapons provided to Israel make the United States intricately, deeply, and comprehensively complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians. However, until now, the extent of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel and the direct relationship between these weapons and Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians has been difficult to detail.  

Not any longer. To coincide with Tax Day, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation launched a new website: How Many Weapons to Israel? to catalogue and quantify the types, values, and quantities of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel between 2000-2009. Even for someone like myself who works everyday to challenge U.S. military aid to Israel and follows the issue closely, the results of our research are eye-popping. The sheer magnitude of weapons given to Israel is staggering; the devastation caused to Palestinians by these weapons is heart-breaking. Our research shows that during the past decade, the United States provided Israel with more than 670 million weapons and related equipment, valued at nearly $19 billion, through three major weapons transfer programs.  In our database, we detail more than 500 different weapons categories, along with the value and quantity of each type of weapon transferred to Israel.

How Many Weapons to Israel? paints a disturbing picture of the extent to which the United States is saturating Israel with weapons.  Take just one example: in the last three years alone, the United States has provided Israel with enough ammunition (47 million pieces) to kill every Palestinian in the Occupied Territories more than ten times over!  What a truly frightening thought.

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Land Day Remembered

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Written by MIFTAH MIFTAH

Published: 31 March 2011 31 March 2011

Thirty-five years ago, six Palestinians from the Galilee in what is now northern Israel lost their lives in a bid to protect their land from confiscation. Today, Palestinians everywhere commemorate what has come to be known as Land Day.

Since that day, March 30, 1976, thousands of other Palestinians have lost their lives defending the same cause. At the time, Israeli authorities seized and expropriated 5,500 acres of land from Palestinian villages in the Galilee to expand Jewish settlements in the area. Residents of the villages organized a general strike and peaceful demonstrations in protest of the expropriations and the ongoing confiscation and settlement of Palestinian land.

Israeli authorities, wanting to quell any sign of nationalism and resistance, cracked down hard on the protesters, shooting and killing six men. Nearly 100 others were injured and over 300 people arrested that day.

Land Day has since been marked as a day of remembrance for those who were killed and also a day of protest against Israel’s ongoing policy of Palestinian land expropriation. Land Day also marks the first time Palestinians who remained inside the Green Line after Israel was established rose up in unison against Israel’s expansionist policies.

Today, Palestinians continue to fight for their land despite international calls for a settlement to the conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state. With the separation wall in the West Bank continuing to grow and taking huge chunks of occupied Palestinian land with it, Palestinians everywhere are acutely aware that the events which set Land Day into motion are still in play today. Still, we remember the fallen and all those before and after them who vowed to defend Palestine and we renew that vow with each anniversary.

Response to the Jewish Review on Oregon-Israel business ties

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 24 March 2011 24 March 2011

Response to the Jewish Review.

AUPHR had a protest of the recent inauguration of the Oregon Israel Business Assocation.  Former Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski has found his new career calling promoting Oregon business ties to Israel and was the keynote speaker at the event.

In a Jewish Review article entitled "Group backs Oregon-Israel business ties", reporter Paul Haist wrote:

During a question-and-answer period that followed Kulongoski’s formal remarks, two members of the audience asked political questions in which they vilified Israel as an “apartheid state,” in the words of one of the two, and accused Israel of human rights violations in regard to the Palestinians.

Political questions had been ruled out at the beginning of the program.

When the two individuals—including Peter Miller, the president of the Portland-based American United for Palestinain Rights—refused requests to decist, four uniformed security personnel ushered them from the room.

http://www.jewishreview.org/local/Group-backs-Oregon-Israel-business-ties

This is my response to that article:

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