Join Scoop.it for Free
Share ideas that matter on the social web and experience
the benefits of curating the world's best content.
I don't have a Facebook, a Twitter or a LinkedIn account
Already have an account: Login
|
Scooped by Spencer Haskins onto Human Rights and the Will to be free |
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
 Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
A COLLECTION OF LINKS RESOURCES Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/anti-zionism-is-not-anti-semitism A 130 Year Record of Religious Jewish Oppositio... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
World Bulletin / News Desk The European Union on Saturday called on Israel to improve conditions for Palestinians in its jails, and a Palestinian minister said there would be rallies next week to support hunger striking prisoners. Nearly 5,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails. EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement that she is following with concern the deteriorating health of four Palestinian inmates who are staging long-term hunger strikes in protest of their detention. "The EU calls on the government of Israel to allow for the immediate restoration of their family visiting rights and calls for the full respect of international human rights obligations towards all Palestinian detainees and prisoners," she said. But, a spokeswoman for Israel's Prisons Service said the four prisoners were in "good condition". Issa Qaraqea, minister for prisoner affairs in the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, said public demonstrations to show solidarity with the group would be held all next week. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Palestine declared Wednesday that they will be left with ‘no choice’ but to take Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the Jewish state proceeds with plans to build settlements in occupied areas of East Jerusalem. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Tens of thousands of Palestinians from the Fatah faction held a mass rally in Gaza Friday for the first time since the rival Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in a brief civil war in 2007. The more moderate Fatah rules the West Bank, but as peace talks with Israel have deadlocked, it has sought reconciliation with Hamas. Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the rally via television from his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Abbas said Fatah and Hamas must work together for unity because it is the only way to achieve Palestinian national goals and victory. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri hailed the rally as a success for both Fatah and Hamas. He said the positive atmosphere is a step toward regaining national unity.... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that 14 fishermen from a single family, stationed just three nautical miles from the coast of the Gaza Strip, were all arrested on 1 December. Some fishermen were only two miles off Gaza’s coast when they were attacked with machine gun fire and arrested by the Israeli navy. Ranging from the ages of 14 to 52, the majority in their late teens and early twenties, these fishermen come from some of Gaza’s poorest families (“In new violation of ceasefire, Israeli forces arrest 14 fishermen and confiscate three fishing boats,” 2 December 2012). According to Mifleh Abu Riyala, a representative of the General Syndicate of Marine Fishermen, the ceasefire has made no difference to Palestinian fishermen. Palestinians are allowed, under the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire, “to fish six miles out,” he said, “but the Israeli gunboats still attack us, whether we are six or three miles out.” The Oslo accords granted Palestinian fishermen the right to fish twenty nautical miles out at sea — a right the Israeli navy has unilaterally vetoed, downsizing the fishing “limits” since the 1990s to a mere three miles until last month’s ceasefire allowed a slight increase to six nautical miles.... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
.... One of the most important instruments that have changed this equation is the fact that the status of Palestine as a state grants it the right to take legal action against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC), not only in relation to war crimes, but also over the various illegal practices against an existing state by another occupying one, for example as regards illegal settlements which Israel refuses to even put a moratorium on. These instruments, namely the right to file complaints and bring legal cases, can indeed improve the negotiating position of the Palestinian side, and force the Israelis to take a new approach towards the two-state solution. The only other option would be for Israel to cope with overwhelming international isolation, and face cases brought against Israel at the ICC for war crimes, which cover the construction of settlements in another occupied state as well as the forceful deportation of Palestinians – pursuant to the Rome Statute that established the ICC. In other words, the new element in the equation is that Palestine is now considered, legally speaking, a state under occupation, and this renders Israel an occupying power subject to prosecution. This, in fact, is precisely what has led Israel and the United States to make hysterical threats of punishment and revenge. The rules of the game have changed, and the Palestinians now hold instruments that can inflict serious damage to Israel, namely international law as both a reference point and an ally.... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Israel is to build 3,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, a day after the UN upgraded the Palestinians' status. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Overwhelming majority of states vote to give Palestinians non-member observer status, despite Israel and US criticism. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
For the past forty-five years the state of Israel has been dispossessing millions of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, confiscating their lands, destroying homes, bulldozing orchards and setting-up ‘Jews-only’ colonial settlements serviced by highways, electrical systems and water works for the exclusive use of the settlers and occupying soldiers. The process of Israeli territorial expansion throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem has greatly accelerated in recent years, converting Palestinian-held territory into non-viable isolated enclaves – like South Africa’s Bantustans – surrounded by the Israeli soldiers who protect violent settler-vigilantes as they assault and harass Palestinian farmers at work in their fields, beat Arab children on their way to school , pelt Palestinian housewives as they hang their laundry and then invade and defecate in Palestinian mosques and churches. .... The current Israeli offensive began with the gruesome assassination of a prominent Hamas leader, Ahmed Jabari, and immediately escalated into an assault on the entire Palestinian population of Gaza . Secure in the knowledge that the Palestinians had no capacity to retaliate with similar weaponry, the Israeli High Command ordered the systematic destruction of civilian life, workplaces and densely populated neighborhoods. Over 75% of the casualties have been non-combatants; almost half are children, women and elders. The Israeli propaganda machine and its ‘Fifth Column’ in the US fabricated and repeated the Big Lie: that the Jewish state was ‘defending itself’… Right… with only six (mostly military) deaths and 280 wounded (the majority non-threatening) versus the nearly 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, slaughtered. The US Zionist power configuration (ZPC), embedded in the policy centers of the US Executive, the Congress and both political parties, parroted this line. All the major US TV networks and print media reproduced verbatim Israeli Foreign Office press handouts about Israel ’s ‘defensive’ … genocide … while entire Palestinian families were being buried under the rubble of their bombed apartments..... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Spoken word artist and third generation refugee Rafeef Ziadah speaks to Soffa.tv about Palestine, equality, justice and true democracy at the World Village festival. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
"Tears of Gaza" is a documentary that shows the suffering inflicted upon the people in Gaza during Cast Lead, an Israeli invasion that was one of the most horrific culmination of war crimes and massacres against a civilian population in history..... "Disturbing, powerful and emotionally devastating, Tears of Gaza is less a conventional documentary than a record–presented with minimal gloss – of the 2008 to 2009 bombing of Gaza by the Israeli military...... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
The budget deficit of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is $400 million (Dh1.47 billion), even if all contributing countries honour their pledges, concludes a financial report recently prepared by the World Bank which absolutely asserts that “Israel is stifling Palestinian economic growth in the ‘J’ Area, which is completely under Israeli control”. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
Scoop.it!
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinians on Sunday called for an international investigation of Israel's treatment of detained Palestinians, after a 30-year-old Palestinian died in custody and a hunger strike by four other inmates sparked a week of West Bank protests. The death of Arafat Jaradat on Saturday raised new questions about Israel's Shin Bet security service, which has been accused by rights groups of mistreating Palestinians during interrogation. Palestinian officials and the detainee's family alleged Jaradat was mistreated by the Shin Bet, saying he was healthy at the time of his arrest last week.... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
.. The Palestinians’ first attempt to join the I.C.C. was thwarted last April when the court’s chief prosecutor at the time, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, declined the request on the grounds that Palestine was not a state. That ambiguity has since diminished with the United Nations’ conferral of nonmember state status on Palestine in November. Israel’s frantic opposition to the elevation of Palestine’s status at the United Nations was motivated precisely by the fear that it would soon lead to I.C.C. jurisdiction over Palestinian claims of war crimes. Israeli leaders are unnerved for good reason. The I.C.C. could prosecute major international crimes committed on Palestinian soil anytime after the court’s founding on July 1, 2002. Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000, the Israel Defense Forces, guided by its military lawyers, have attempted to remake the laws of war by consciously violating them and then creating new legal concepts to provide juridical cover for their misdeeds. For example, in 2002, an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on an apartment building in a densely populated Gaza neighborhood, killing a Hamas military leader, Salah Shehadeh, and 14 others, including his wife and seven children under the age of 15. In 2009, Israeli artillery killed more than 20 members of the Samouni family, who had sought shelter in a structure in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City at the bidding of Israeli soldiers. Last year, Israeli missiles killed two Palestinian cameramen working for Al Aksa television. Each of these acts, and many more, could lead to I.C.C. investigations.... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
The Israeli Civil Administration has given Palestinian activists an ultimatum to quit a protest camp in part of the occupied West Bank where Israel has vowed to build new settler homes. As Palestinian politicians and others visited the site on Saturday in a show of support,.... More than 200 activists erected the 20-tent "outpost" on Friday in the sensitive West Bank corridor east of Jerusalem where Palestinians say Israeli settlement construction would make the creation of a viable Palestinian state highly problematic. The protesters modelled their action on the wildcat outposts set up by Israeli settler activists on Palestinian land in a bid to force the government's hand into authorising settlement activity. .... "We have no intention of leaving of our own accord," she said, adding that the Israeli authorities had declared the area a "closed military zone" and demanded that the activists leave, but had made no demand for the tents to be taken down. 'Highly creative' action The Israeli military administration had issued previous expulsion orders against the activists but late on Friday they successfully petitioned the Israeli supreme court for the orders to be frozen. Late on Saturday morning, Israeli security forces were deployed near the camp and a police helicopter hovered overhead. "The supreme court gave them six days as of yesterday," said Al Jazeera's Jane Ferguson, reporting from the outpost. "However, people say they're going to stay until the military forcibly moves them out," our correspondent said. "That could happen in the next few hours or over the next few days." More than 50 more activists managed to reach the camp from the West Bank city of Ramallah to join the activists and others were trying to do so from the city of Hebron, organisers said on Twitter. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
The people of Palestine are not only being attacked with bombs and firearms but are also threatened with silent genocide by Israel, said Perdana Global Peace Foundation adviser Datuk Mukhriz Tun Mahathir. He said among the atrocities committed by Israel was throwing toxic wastes including from the sewage system into the sea which polluted the beaches of Gaza. "The beaches of Gaza are polluted with numerous toxic wastes. Fish, which is the main source of food for the residents in Gaza are suspected to be poisoned by toxic wastes," he told reporters after receiving a contribution from the SME Bank at his office, here, today. Mukhriz, who is also International Trade and Industry deputy minister, said the Israeli army also forced Palestinian fishermen to fish only up to six kilometres offshore. "The sewerage system is also destroyed causing the sources of water in Gaza to be polluted. This caused the people of Gaza to suffer from numerous ailments and many have died from allegedly unknown causes. "The deaths had to be reported as natural death cases and the number of such cases in Gaza is reported to be among the highest in the world," he said. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Available now from: http://tinyurl.com/5u3t227 - Just 79p! Itunes http://tinyurl.com/65ngad8 - Just 79p! Amazon http://tinyurl.com/6862xyq - Just 69p! "This ... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
On Thursday night, the world made much more than just a symbolic gesture. In recognizing Palestine as a nonmember observer state at the UN General Assembly — the same status as The Vatican — disregarding Israeli and American warnings that such a step was premature and would impede the resumption of peace talks, the overwhelming majority of nations sent an unambiguous message to Jerusalem: We want a Palestinian state and we’re tired of your obstinacy in preventing it. Sixty-five years after the United Nations decided to divide British Mandate Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, and nearly 20 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, even many of Israel’s friends and allies have grown tired of what they perceive as the government’s lack of initiative and good intentions when it comes to the future of this region. If you want us to say no to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s initiative, then offer us something that we can say yes to, Western diplomats are saying. .... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Hussein Ibish explains Israel's increasing isolation in world bodies. ... or the Palestinians, the next step should be a pivot toward seeking a rapprochement with Washington, because without American support they are unlikely to be able to make further progress on their goal of independent statehood. The Israelis, however, need to do some immediate soul-searching, for they seem to have convinced many of their former Western allies they are simply not interested in a genuine two-state solution. .... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
....As Michel Chossudovsky notes, the U.S. not only supported Israel, the attack on Gaza, from a Command and Control point of view, was a joint US-Israeli military operation: While reports acknowledge that president Obama, in the wake of the November 6 elections, had granted a “Green Light” to Tel Aviv, the central issue does not pertain to Washington’s support but rather to the direct involvement of the US government and military in the planning and implementation of the attack on Gaza. There is evidence that Operation “Pillar of Cloud” was implemented in close liaison with Washington in the context of the broader process of allied military planning. Senior US military officials were on location in Israel working with their IDF counterparts in the days leading up to the attack. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-us-israeli-attack-on-gaza/5312383.....
Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
... This is not to say that media coverage of the Israel Palestine issue has not improved. Now, perhaps for the first time, Palestinians appear on network talk programs (Chris Hayes) and major radio outlets (NPR). It is important that Yousef Munayyer can be heard telling Democracy Now radio host Amy Goodman that to claim Israel is not occupying Gaza is like saying your goldfish are not under your control if you are not actually in the tank swimming with them. The internet also has transformed the U.S. media landscape, on no issue more than Israel-Palestine. Nevertheless, most Americans do not seek news from specialized platforms. At a time when American politicians labor under all the constraints discussed above, the media’s omission of critical contextual information violates its mission to inform and educate. In the very recent past, Americans paid a heavy price for ignorance about the Arab world—many of its leaders having been led to believe that an Iraq invasion force would be welcomed with rose petals. There are now ample reasons to fear that they are being misled again. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Poem "Breath" from album "Hadeel" by Palestine poet and activist "Rafeef Ziadah" live from Helsinki - Finland 2012. Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
Hussein Ibish on Palestinian politics, the U.N. bid for statehood, and Hamas. ... Palestinians must choose. But any stateless people seeking freedom—and trapped in an apparent binary between going down in a “blaze of glory for God and country” or standing by impotently as occupying forces colonize their lands and punishes their diplomatic efforts—can be expected to eventually opt for the former. They must have a third option: success through negotiations and cooperation that yields short-term quality of life improvements on the ground and long-term prospects for peace and independence. It is therefore urgently important from a Palestinian point of view for Ramallah to repair its relations with the West immediately. But this rapprochement is also crucial for the West and anyone in Israel who doesn't want the Palestinian cause to be dominated by Hamas. Everyone will have to play their part to avoid this now very real possibility. The PLO, if it must go ahead with an initiative at the U.N. in the coming days, should make it as non-confrontational as possible. It should provide reassurances about not seeking, at this stage, to join additional U.N. agencies or the International Criminal Court. And it should seek as much European support as it can muster. ... Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
Scoop.it!
(Reuters) - Israel eased restrictions on Gaza fishermen on Saturday, further implementing a three-day-old truce brokered by Egypt after a week of fierce fighting, Palestinian officials said. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children headed back to school for the first time in 10 days, in another indication normal life was returning after cross-border violence in which 166 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed.
[Mutual trust is a good first step towards a better footing later on....} Delete the scoop?
Are you sure you want to delete this scoop?
Yes
|
