zaterdag 30 januari 2010

Rafah bloeit op de door netwerk van smokkeltunnels


One of the characteristics of Rafah's economic "prosperity" is the market less than a kilometer from the border, where goods that have come through the tunnels are on sale: refrigerators, motorcycles, clothing and even food. At another location in Rafah, the merchandise is loaded onto trucks, which then carry it to other parts of the Strip. There it is possible to find rolled-up carpets and boxes of fish, and of course Gaza's new fuel depot, where large quantities of fuel arrive from Egypt, are loaded onto trucks and transported onward. The Israeli blockade seems more ridiculous than ever.
 
Toch blijven mensen spreken van het 'concentratiekamp Gaza' en vergelijken het met het getto van Warschau. Of Egyptes muur deze smokkel kan tegenhouden, is zeer de vraag. Veel tunnels gaan zo diep dat ze er makkelijk onder door kunnen. Overigens kijken de Egyptische veiligheidsdiensten volgens onderstaand verslag met belangstelling toe en gebeurt een en ander in volledige openheid.
 
RP
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Subterranean bonanza
By Avi Issacharoff / Haaretz
 
This week in Cairo Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sounded determined in the speech he made marking Police Day. He made it clear that he intends to continue building the "iron wall" - the barrier made of slabs of iron reaching deep underground, which the Egyptians are erecting along the Sinai border with the Gaza Strip to block the smuggling tunnels, the lifeline of the territory Hamas controls.

At present Egypt sees stopping the smuggling as an essential step, which will prevent spillover of Islamic militants from Gaza into Sinai, and from there to the heart of the country. Egyptian intelligence is following with concern the increasingly close ties between Hamas (and Hezbollah) and Iran, and Cairo believes the militants' activities reflect an attempt by Tehran to undermine the stability of its government.

Hamas, for its part, is furious at Cairo and perceives the construction of the barrier as a strategic threat to its rule in Gaza. Ironically, the Egyptian decision to act so decisively can apparently be "credited" to Hamas' ally: Hezbollah. The arrest of about 50 members of that Shi'ite organization on Egyptian soil on suspicions of planning a terror attack in Egyptian territory - together with American pressure - spurred the current effort to block the Philadelphi strip.

However, parallel to the construction work, the tunnel industry is flourishing along the border in the Rafah area, under the auspices of the Hamas government. Twenty-four hours a day, Palestinian laborers continue to excavate new tunnels and renovate existing ones. This constitutes one of the largest branches of Gaza's economy, if not the largest. Each tunnel requires operating licenses from the Rafah municipality and from the Hamas government. Most of them are being dug openly.

Along a 10-kilometer stretch of the Sinai-Gaza border - for example, in the Al-Salam neighborhood of Rafah - one finds sheeting, protecting the tunnels' openings from damage by the weather. There is no real difficulty entailed in getting there. At almost any time of day, it is possible to find truck drivers, laborers and merchants at work. On either side of the border there are people from the security forces on duty. On the Gaza side, Hamas police observe the goings-on from guard posts. On the Egyptian side of Rafah border police are occupied less with keeping an eye on the digging of the tunnels and more with securing the construction of the new barrier aimed at blocking them.

Careful construction

"In order to observe what is happening, from above, I asked three border police at an observation post for permission to climb on the structure," relates Laura Weisman, an American news photographer who lives in Israel, who visited the area on January 12.

"I climbed up on one of the buildings adjacent to the border with Egypt," she relates, "surprising even myself with my climbing ability. The Egyptian side was in front of me; behind me was dirt road with 100 or more white plastic sheets on it. From there it was possible to see the Egyptian forces observing what was happening on the Palestinian side with great interest. From there I went down with A., my escort, who also served as an interpreter, to the opening of one of the tunnels. A young fellow stood there, in his early 20s. I peeked down into the hole. It was far from being just another cistern: It was an entrance designed by engineers, and it was clear it had been carefully planned. The tunnel was even impressive in its beauty and design - stone laid on stone, everything in its place, almost a mosaic. The young fellow invited me to go on down to have a peek into the tunnel."

Weisman felt there would be no real danger entering a tunnel that had been designed and constructed so meticulously, and therefore did not hesitate: She climbed into a contraption that serves as a kind of elevator - a carrier attached to pulley with an iron cable.

Presumably this device is able to transport not only journalists but also materiel, wanted men, Hamas people who go in and out of the Gaza Strip via the tunnels on their way to Sinai, or even to Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards training camps.

"The two workers at the opening of the tunnel held walkie-talkies in their hands," Weisman continues, "and spoke with two other workers down below. One of the ones on top announced, 'We're coming down to you,' and then he let the carrier go down.

"I reached the bottom. A young Palestinian was sitting there on a bench, with the walkie-talkie he had used to speak with us when we were at the opening. Next to him was electrical equipment for maintenance of the lighting along the length of the tunnel. Along the whole length of it, one could see a cable by means of which goods are transported in a small trolley, and also electrical wiring attached to the wall, which is used to power the lights. The tunnel is not particularly narrow or small: You can stand upright in it and it's about a meter and half wide.

"I started walking in the direction of Egypt without being worried about a collapse and without any feeling of discomfort or pressure. I did not have to crawl, maybe just lower my head a bit in certain places. But the walls were of rock, not sand. I was amazed to see that; it was hard to understand how they had dug the tunnel into rock. Had they used explosives? We walked for a little while until a certain point, where the escorts told me that we were now beneath Egyptian soil, and then we turned back. At that time no goods were going through because the tunnel was undergoing repairs. However, in normal times, goods pass straight to the special market in the center of Palestinian Rafah."

Rafah's 'prosperity'

The Al-Salam refugee camp, like others in Rafah - including Shabura, Tel al-Sultan and Brazil - experienced harsh battles during the years the Israel Defense Forces manned the Philadelphi strip. This is very evident in the destroyed buildings, poverty and neglect in the camp. In the past, the Rafah area was considered the poorest in all the Gaza Strip. However, the tunnels industry has actually improved its economic situation, and so the poverty has "migrated" north, to the towns close to the border with Israel.

One of the characteristics of Rafah's economic "prosperity" is the market less than a kilometer from the border, where goods that have come through the tunnels are on sale: refrigerators, motorcycles, clothing and even food. At another location in Rafah, the merchandise is loaded onto trucks, which then carry it to other parts of the Strip. There it is possible to find rolled-up carpets and boxes of fish, and of course Gaza's new fuel depot, where large quantities of fuel arrive from Egypt, are loaded onto trucks and transported onward. The Israeli blockade seems more ridiculous than ever.

Photographer Weisman continued her tour among the abandoned houses of Rafah in the Brazil refugee camp, another area close to the border. There she encountered a phenomenon that is viewed less kindly by the Hamas regime: the "illegal" tunnels, which serve for smuggling goods and people - like narcotics and painkillers, which are widely used in Gaza, or activists of Islamic organizations like the International Jihad.

Faiz, a friend of Weisman's escort, A., is in charge of operating one of these tunnels, from a ruined building near the border with Egypt. This tunnel is not visible from the outside, and is less impressive than the first one they encountered.

"This time too, the diggers urged us to go down, but I felt unsafe there and refused to," reports Weisman. "Apparently many other hidden tunnels are operating in Rafah far from the Hamas authorities' eyes. In the past Faiz owned a clothing factory in the Erez industrial zone, which operated under an Israeli permit and sold products to Israel. However, ever since the factory shut down, he has been trying to make a living some other way. When I asked him about his new work and how many hours he spends at it, he explained: 'We work as much as necessary. This is our life. We do anything in order to survive.'"

Israel eindelijk toegelaten in onderdeel VN Mensenrechtenraad


Dit is goed nieuws, maar van het niveau als dat de rechtbank ophoudt om zwarten te discrimineren of een getuigenis van een vrouw maar voor half te tellen. Je vraagt je af waarom dit in hemelsnaam nu pas gebeurt en er niet veel langer geleden een einde aan deze grove discriminatie is gekomen. Er is overigens nog geen einde gekomen aan de discriminatie van Israel in de VN:
 
"The diplomatic victory followed years of diplomatic efforts, which were supported by UN Watch as a necessary implementation of the UN Charter's equality guarantee for all nations, large and small. The United States is one of several countries that deserve particular credit for finally making it happen."
The change does not apply to JUSCANZ consultations in New York, nor to the Asian regional group's continued exclusion of Israel. UN Watch called on the United Nations to remove remaining discriminatory barriers to Israel's full and equal participation within UN voting and consultation blocs.
"We also urge the Human Rights Council in particular to remove its permanent agenda item targeting Israel; to eliminate its post of a permanent investigator on alleged Israeli violations, where guilt is presumed in advance; and to end the policy whereby three-quarters of all council resolutions have been devoted to the one-sided censure of Israel, and Israel made the object of more special sessions than the total for the rest of the world combined." 
 
Er is dus nog een lange weg te gaan.
 
RP
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U.N. Rights Group Ends Israel Exclusion
UN Watch Lauds U.S. Role, Calls on U.N. to Lift Remaining Barriers
 
 
Geneva, Jan. 27, 2010 – After decades of exclusion, Israel was granted membership in a United Nations caucus in Geneva.

Israel's admission to the Human Rights Council's JUSCANZ group -- an acronym for the non-EU democracies of Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- was approved last Friday by consensus, and signifies they regard the Jewish state as "like-minded." The group has expanded over time to include Norway, Switzerland and other Western countries.

"For this to happen in Geneva, and especially at the Arab-dominated Human Rights Council, is an historic accomplishment for Israel and for the principle of equality," said Alfred Moses, Chair of the Geneva-based UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights organization.

"It's a significant achievement in an arena where regression is the norm, one that will allow Israel for the first time to participate in a UN consultative group on human rights issues," said Moses.

"This is particularly important during a time when countries are planning for the 2011 reform of the council, a body that has repeatedly turned a blind eye to the world's victims of human rights violations."

"The diplomatic victory followed years of diplomatic efforts, which were supported by UN Watch as a necessary implementation of the UN Charter's equality guarantee for all nations, large and small. The United States is one of several countries that deserve particular credit for finally making it happen."

The change does not apply to JUSCANZ consultations in New York, nor to the Asian regional group's continued exclusion of Israel. UN Watch called on the United Nations to remove remaining discriminatory barriers to Israel's full and equal participation within UN voting and consultation blocs.

"We also urge the Human Rights Council in particular to remove its permanent agenda item targeting Israel; to eliminate its post of a permanent investigator on alleged Israeli violations, where guilt is presumed in advance; and to end the policy whereby three-quarters of all council resolutions have been devoted to the one-sided censure of Israel, and Israel made the object of more special sessions than the total for the rest of the world combined."
 
=============
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.

Vanwege corruptie Fatah zal Hamas de Westoever kunnen overnemen

 
Volgens velen is de corruptie in de Palestijnse Autoriteit iets uit het verleden, toen Arafat nog de grote leider was, maar dat blijkt te vroeg gejuicht. Een PA functionaris die door Abbas was benoemd om de corruptie te bestrijden, doet een boekje open.
 
Shabaneh, a resident of east Jerusalem who worked as a lawyer before joining the GIS as its legal adviser after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, said he was forced to quit his anti-corruption job several months ago after exposing a sex scandal involving one of Abbas's top aides in Ramallah in 2009.
Video footage and other documents presented to the Post by Shabaneh show the aide lying naked in bed after being lured to an apartment in Ramallah by an east Jerusalem woman.
The footage shows Shabaneh and other armed security agents storming the bedroom, much to the surprise of the Abbas aide who is heard uttering: "Thank God it's you and not the Israelis."
 
Shabaneh weigerde 100.000 Euro zwijggeld om dit sex schandaal niet openbaar te maken.
 
RP
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'Corruption will let Hamas take W. Bank'

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
29/01/2010 03:25
Dramatic warning delivered by Abbas's former corruption-buster Fahmi Shabaneh.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that's why Hamas will one day take control of the West Bank, Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by Abbas four years ago to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Shabaneh, who until recently was in charge of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA's General Intelligence Service (GIS), warned that what happened in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, when Hamas managed to overthrow the Fatah-controlled regime, is likely to recur in the West Bank.

"Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip," Shabaneh told the Post. "It's hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority."

Shabaneh said that many Palestinians in the West Bank have lost hope that the PA would one day be reformed. "The Palestinian Authority is very corrupt and needs to be overhauled," he said.

Shabaneh cited several specific cases of alleged corruption within Fatah and the PA in the course of the interview, including asserting that Fatah personnel stole much of a $3.2 million donation given by the US to Fatah ahead of the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, won by Hamas, which had been intended to improve Fatah's image and boost its chances of winning.

Shabaneh, a resident of east Jerusalem who worked as a lawyer before joining the GIS as its legal adviser after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, said he was forced to quit his anti-corruption job several months ago after exposing a sex scandal involving one of Abbas's top aides in Ramallah in 2009.

Video footage and other documents presented to the Post by Shabaneh show the aide lying naked in bed after being lured to an apartment in Ramallah by an east Jerusalem woman.

The footage shows Shabaneh and other armed security agents storming the bedroom, much to the surprise of the Abbas aide who is heard uttering: "Thank God it's you and not the Israelis."

Shabaneh said in the interview, the first of its kind with a high-ranking PA security official, that he and his men had been operating on instructions from their boss, Gen. Tawfik Tirawi, the former head of the GIS. Tirwai, for his part, denied that he had authorized Shabaneh to spy on the Abbas aide.

The top aide, who is one of the closest advisers to Abbas, was caught on tape making derogatory remarks against Abbas and Arafat. "President Abbas has no charisma" and is "not in control," he was quoted as saying. The aide was also caught on tape denouncing Arafat as one of the biggest dajjals (swindlers).

After the revelations, which were brought to Abbas's attention and were embarrassing for the PA president, Shabaneh was removed from his anti-corruption post and reassigned as head of the GIS's internal security force. More recently, he was promoted to overall commander of the GIS in the area.

Shortly afterwards, however, Shabaneh was arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of recruiting east Jerusalem residents to the GIS, spying on Israel, chasing suspected "collaborators" and Arabs involved in real estate deals with Jews, and threatening and blackmailing the senior Abbas aide.

Shabaneh has since been released from prison and most of the charges against him dropped. Today he remains under house arrest and is banned from entering the West Bank. The only charge he faces today is membership in a Palestinian military organization – a charge he claims is absurd given the fact that about 1,200 residents of east Jerusalem serve in the various security branches of the PA.

Shabaneh said that he had no doubt that his arrest by Israel was carried out at the request of "someone high in Abbas's office to punish me for fighting corruption and exposing sex scandals involving not only the senior aide, but many other officials as well."

He said that the decision to arrest him and prosecute him was also absurd because was always aware of his work and status in the PA security forces and never did anything to him.

"For many years I worked as legal adviser to the General Intelligence Apparatus and no one ever asked me anything," Shabaneh noted. "When I was commander of the force in the area the Israelis even used to coordinate a lot with us."

Shabaneh insisted that the decision to pursue corrupt officials in Abbas's inner circle was part of the PA president's declared policy to combat financial corruption. "In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn't done much since then," he said. "Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption."

Shabaneh said that as head of the anti-corruption unit he and his men succeeded in exposing dozens of cases involving senior officials who had stolen public funds but were never held accountable.

"Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn't have even $3,000 in their pocket when they arrived [after the signing of the Oslo Accords]," Shabaneh said. "Yet we discovered that some of them had tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in their bank accounts.

Until today we didn't hear about one official who was brought to trial for stealing money from the PA, although we had transferred many of the cases to the Palestinian prosecutor-general."

Questioned as to why he had decided to go public now, Shabaneh said: "I'm not criticizing the Palestinian Authority simply because I like to criticize, but because I want to see a state of law, one with no room for corruption. I was offered $100,000 not to expose the last sex scandal, but I chose not to accept the bribe. I'm the one who resigned after my arrest, because after all that I've seen I no longer believe that Abbas's authority can be reformed.

Asked whether PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is working to establish good government, Shabaneh said: "Salam Fayyad is a good man and I have a lot of respect for him. He's really working to build professional institutions and good government, but the corrupt Fatah people around Abbas are doing their utmost to thwart his efforts."

He added: "Even Abbas tried in the beginning, but the corrupt officials working with him didn't allow him to make progress."

Shabaneh also said he had managed to track down some of the financial aid that went missing during and after the period of Arafat's death.

"I discovered, for example, that several senior officials had taken millions of dollars from the Palestinian leadership under the pretext that they wanted to purchase land that would otherwise be confiscated by Israel," he said.

"Our investigations revealed that many of the purported land deals were fictitious transactions and we even forced one official to return more than $800,000. We had another case where a senior Fatah official and his brother pocketed about $2.5m. which they took from Arafat under the pretext that they wanted to purchase land in the West Bank before Israel lays its hand on it.

Asked whether he believed outside donors should stop channeling funds to Abbas, he said his advice to the donor countries "is to follow up on their donations to examine how and where the money is being spent. We caught some officials who stole about $700,000 from the donors to study the atmosphere in . Why do we need to spend such a huge amount of money on something trivial like this when many people are suffering and have nothing to eat or feed their children?"

Was he serious about Hamas taking over the ? "Yes, no question about that," he said. "It will happen one day if the state of corruption and anarchy continue in the West Bank .

"Why do you think Hamas kicked us out of the Gaza Strip? Because the people there were fed up with the corruption and bad government of Fatah. What do you think the people in the Gaza Strip used to think when they saw a colonel in the Palestinian Authority driving in a big motorcade and surrounded by dozens of bodyguards and assistants?"

Did he see no chance that Fatah would reform? "As long as the same corrupt guys are running the show we shouldn't expect real changes," said Shabaneh.

"Before the 2006 parliamentary election, the Americans gave Fatah $3.2m. to improve the party's image and boost its chances of winning. But the Fatah people even stole most of the money that was intended to help them improve their image and reputation. These corrupt officials know no limits. They even used to forge Arafat's signature to obtain money by fraud," he said.
 

Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades vuurden raketten af op burgers

 
Hamas beweert dat het tijdens de Gaza Oorlog slechts per ongeluk burgers trof en haar doel Israelische soldaten waren.
Hieronder enkele voorbeelden van Hamas statements op haar eigen website over het bewust doden van burgers of aanvallen op burgerdoelen. In het verleden, toen het nog lukte om aanslagen te plegen in Israel, was men in jubelstemming na iedere aanslag, ook als daarbij alleen burgers omkwamen (wat meestal ook het doel was). Het was groot feest, er werden snoepjes uitgedeeld en Hamas aanhangers gingen de straat op om elkaar te feliciteren. Een beetje zoals hier na een gewonnen voetbalwedstrijd.
 
RP
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Document:  Collection of Hamas statements taking credit for targeting Israeli civilians
Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA
29 January 2010

 
According to reports, Hamas plan to claim to the UN next week that they never targeted Israeli civilians.

The following is a collection of statements on the official Website of Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades - the armed branch of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in which they take credit for intentionally attacking Israeli civilian targets.

They are still available on the website as of this moment:
 
qassam.ps/news-216-Al_Qassam_fired_two_Qassams_at_Sderot_from_the_city_causing_one_dead_and_six_injured.html
 
The latest fired rockets which concentrated on Sderot caused A 57-year-old woman dead and a 24-year-old man was seriously wounded. The wounded man was identified as a bodyguard of the Zionist defense Minister Amir Peretz.

Six rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip at the Western Negev on Wednesday morning, and two of them landed in the center of the Zionist settlement of Sderot. Al-Qassam Brigades declared the responsibility for firing two Qassam rockets on Sderot settlement and other Palestinian fighters declared for the other rockets. One of the rockets hit a busy street in the settlement, killing a 57 year old woman and seriously wounding a 24 year old man.
 
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qassam.ps/news-640-EQB_fired_15_Qassams_at_Sderot_after_Z_War_planes_had_assassinated_5_police_men.html

EQB fired 15 Qassams at Sderot after Z. War planes had assassinated 5 police men
10-05-2008,00:00

As response to the Zionist aggression against Gaza strip and the West Bank, Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades said that the mujahedeen fired in an hour since the morning at Sderot more 15 Qassam rockets, the Zionist sources admitted that the some Zionist settlers suffered from shock.
 
Also yesterday, Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades fired two mortars at the Zionist site "Kibbutz Kfar Aza" Friday evening. The Zionist [reported] that a Zionist man was killed in the operation, and three others were injured. The Brigades said in a statement that "These operations are  part of the response campaign against the occupation assault on the Gaza Strip, and the continued targeting of innocent Palestinian civilians and their installations in the West Bank".

Waarom Hamas ontkent op burgers in Israel te mikken


Hamas denkt hiermee wel weg te kunnen komen, omdat toch alle focus op Israel ligt, aldus sommige analisten, en dat zou zomaar kunnen kloppen. Ondertussen is dit natuurlijk te zot voor woorden. Hamas heeft zich altijd primar op burgers gericht, en ook altijd gezegd dat het haar om burgers te doen is, burgers die immers onderdeel zijn de zionistische entiteit en die mede in stand houden. Het feit dat zelfs Human Rights Watch, dat je niet kunt beschuldigen van zionistische sympathieën, Hamas beschuldigt van het bewust treffen van burgerdoelen zegt veel.
 
Onderstaand artikel geeft overigens, net als veel andere media, alleen de cijfers van de doden tijdens de Gaza Oorlog volgens Palestijnse bronnen. Niet alleen is volgens Israel een lager aantal Palestijnen omgekomen, Elder of Ziyon heeft aangetoond dat 350 van de omgekomen burgers ook op de dodenlijsten van Hamas en andere gewapende groeperingen staan.
 
RP
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Ahead of a Feb. 5 deadline to respond to war crimes charges in the UN-sponsored Goldstone report, Hamas said it had meant to hit military targets last winter. Human Rights Watch disagrees.
 
By Erin Cunningham Correspondent / January 28, 2010
Gaza City, Gaza
 
 
Ahead of a looming deadline for Israel and Hamas to respond to war crimes charges in the UN-sponsored Goldstone report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) hit back today at a claim made by Hamas earlier this week that its fighters did not commit war crimes in its three-week war with Israel last winter. Instead, said Hamas, its fighters struck civilian areas in Israel "by mistake" when launching rockets at the country's military installations.
 
"Hamas's claim that rockets were intended to hit Israeli military targets and only accidentally harmed civilians is belied by the facts," the HRW statement said. "Civilians were the target," the statement continued, "and deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime."
 
The Hamas claim was revealed in an internal document obtained by the Associated Press. Local media say it is part of a larger report Hamas plans to send to the United Nations (UN) later this week, ahead of a Feb. 5 deadline imposed by the UN on both Israel and Hamas to provide evidence they are carrying out independent investigations into allegations of war crimes.
 
Failure to comply may result in the UN taking up war crimes proceedings against the two at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Hamas hasn't launched serious inquiry
 
But rights groups here say despite announcements that it plans to launch an investigation, Hamas has so far fallen short of a serious inquiry into the conduct of its own fighters
 
"I am not confident they are carrying out a serious investigation," says Khalil Abu Shammala, director of the Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights – one of the 11 Palestinian rights groups that called on Palestinian leaders to investigate war crimes last week. "But the problem is this: while they want international recognition, they also don't understand international criteria for such procedures."
 
"They think the international community will adopt their story, that they didn't mean to target civilians, and that will be it," Mr. Shammala continues. "But this is not a joke. If they continue like this, they should be very afraid, just as the Israelis should, of criminal prosecution."
 
The move may be just a public relations stunt meant to boost its international image, local analysts say. Others say the movement assumes the international community is more focused on Israel, also accused of war crimes and which rebuffed this week UN calls for an independent inquiry into its own army's actions.
 
"This apparent revelation by Hamas that it hit civilian targets during the war is nothing new, but I think they are looking for legitimacy from the international community, to present themselves as cooperative and open to criticism," says Gaza-based political analyst, Talal Okal.
 
"They know that Israeli actions during the war are seen as being far worse," Mr. Okal continues. "So I don't think they are taking the whole process very seriously in this respect."
Goldstone report
 
Rockets fired by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups from the Gaza Strip during the war killed 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, and injured more than 800. More than 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, were killed by the Israeli offensive, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups.
 
In a 575-page report published by a fact-finding mission commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council and headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, the team accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes for targeting and failing to protect civilians. The report calls Palestinian rocket-fire "indiscriminate," and therefore a violation of international law.
 
Hamas government spokesmen were unavailable for comment, but the Islamist movement has so far been very vocal in its support for the UN war crimes investigation, allowing the mission to conduct its work in Gaza last summer and even criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for dropping his endorsement of the mission's findings in October.
 

vrijdag 29 januari 2010

Wilders geen bondgenoot Joodse gemeenschap

 
De PVV onder leiding van Wilders zou het misschien graag anders zien binnen Joods Nederland. Maar velen van ons zijn van zijn visie niet gediend. Velen van ons hechten gelukkig heel sterk aan de democratische waarden en burgerrechten die Nederland rijk is. Daarbij hoort het onvervreemdbare recht van godsdienstvrijheid en de absolute aversie tegen iedere vorm van discriminatie en het stigmatiseren van groeperingen en individuen. Als gevolg hiervan werpen wij de gedachten en de uitlatingen van de PVV verre van ons.
 
Dat geldt ook voor vele niet-Joden die sympathie hebben voor Israel. Mensen met een pro-Israel visie worden vaak te gemakkelijk in de rechtse hoek geplaatst. Ondertussen is er zeker ook een groep die wel erg blij is met de steun van Wilders voor Israel, een steun die elders immers steeds meer aan het afkalven is.
 
Een ander probleem dat ik heb met de steun van Wilders voor Israel is dat hij dat doet vanuit een ander motief: omdat Israel tegen 'de islam' strijdt, en dat is in ieder geval niet mijn strijd. Het gaat mij om het recht van het Joodse volk op zelfbeschikking en een eigen veilige plek waar men niet meer afhankelijk is van de goedkeuring van een niet-Joodse meerderheid.
 
RP
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Wilders geen bondgenoot Joodse gemeenschap
27-01-2010 08:45
 
 
Kamerlid Wilders mag misschien een bondgenoot lijken van de Joodse gemeenschap in Nederland, maar volgens rabbijn Lody B. van de Kamp kunnen Joden zich beter verre houden van de denkbeelden van de PVV-leider.

Ook binnen dat deel van Joodse gemeenschap in Nederland dat zich politiek oriënteert zijn er aanhangers van de PVV. Oppervlakkig gezien lijkt daar ook wel een logische reden voor te bestaan. De PVV verzet zich tegen de macht van de islam en ziet deze als een bedreiging voor de westerse samenleving. Voeg daarbij dat door het conflict in het Midden-Oosten de islam een soort natuurlijke vijand is geworden van de staat Israël, dan is de gevolgtrekking compleet.

De feiten dat Wilders een Joodse vrouw zou hebben, contacten onderhoudt met extreem rechtse partijen in Israël en geld voor zich laat verzamelen bij zionistische organisaties in Amerika lijken dan alweer van ondergeschikt belang. En het gegeven dat PVV-Kamerlid Bosma een Israëlische vlag voor zijn raam heeft hangen en een T-shirt draagt met de tekst "Israel Defense Forces" is dan allang niet meer relevant.

Toch zijn er voldoende redenen om vast te stellen dat de Joodse gemeenschap niets zou moeten willen weten van de PVV en Wilders. En een belangrijk deel van die gemeenschap wil dat niet.

In de generaliserende manier waarop de PVV zich uitlaat over de islam en de moslimgemeenschap herkennen velen van de Joodse gemeenschap zich niet. Integendeel. De grootste vijanden van de Joodse gemeenschap zijn altijd die stromingen geweest die geen onderscheid wensten te maken tussen mogelijke misstanden die individuen veroorzaken, net zoals binnen iedere gemeenschap van mensen, en de grote groepering daarom heen. Het klassieke antisemitisme is daar een voorbeeld van. De Joodse gemeenschap weet maar al te goed waartoe dat kan leiden.

Dialoog

Daarnaast heeft de gevestigde gemeenschap hier in Nederland goede verstandhoudingen met talloze moslimorganisaties. Zowel de Joodse kerkgenootschappen als allerlei andere maatschappelijke verenigingen werken op organisatorisch en ideologisch gebied samen met moslimsorganisaties. Binnen de interreligieuze dialoog is er regelmatig sprake van uitwisselingen en samenwerking tussen moslims en Joden. Op geen enkele wijze kan de PVV hier enige invloed op hebben.

Zijn moslims de natuurlijke vijanden van Israël en de Joodse gemeenschap? Gezien de samenwerking en de voortgaande dialoog hier in Nederland in ieder geval niet. En in Israël, waar het conflict rond de Joodse staat zich afspeelt, evenmin. Ja, er is sprake van een conflict. Rechten en grondbezit worden betwist. De schuld van het maar niet op kunnen lossen van de geschillen en de eeuwigdurende strijd wordt door de partijen voortdurend naar elkaar toegeschoven. Maar is er sprake van een "natuurlijke vijand"? Niet binnen de Israëlische samenleving.

Ondanks de voortgang van het conflict leven, werken, wonen en functioneren moslims en Joden samen binnen de grenzen van Israël. In de ziekenhuizen werken islamitische en Joodse verpleegkundigen en artsen zij aan zij. Op de scholen volgen islamitische en Joodse kinderen samen de les. In het hoger beroepsonderwijs en binnen de universiteiten delen Arabische en Israëlische studenten samen de collegebanken. Waar het extremisme nog voldoende ruimte laat, en dat is gelukkig op heel veel terreinen, is er sprake van een leefsituatie waar hoofddoeken en keppeltjes gezamenlijk door het leven gaan.

Aversie

Ten slotte, en dat moeten we niet uit het oog verliezen, is het per definitie niet zo dat alles wat zich in Israël afspeelt onmiddellijk naar de Nederlands Joodse gemeenschap kan worden getransponeerd. Daar is daar en hier is hier. Ondanks de hechte band met Israël.

De PVV onder leiding van Wilders zou het misschien graag anders zien binnen Joods Nederland. Maar velen van ons zijn van zijn visie niet gediend. Velen van ons hechten gelukkig heel sterk aan de democratische waarden en burgerrechten die Nederland rijk is. Daarbij hoort het onvervreemdbare recht van godsdienstvrijheid en de absolute aversie tegen iedere vorm van discriminatie en het stigmatiseren van groeperingen en individuen. Als gevolg hiervan werpen wij de gedachten en de uitlatingen van de PVV verre van ons.

De auteur is orthodox-joods rabbijn en fractievoorzitter van het CDA in de stadsdeelraad Zuideramstel-Amsterdam.

 

Toespraak premier Netanjahoe bij Auschwitz herdenking

 
De lessen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn niet geheel onomstreden. Volgens diverse vredesbewegingen moeten we gewoon alle wapens en legers afschaffen, maar wat als anderen dat niet doen? Het heeft veel, heel veel militair geweld en doden gekost om ten minste West-Europa te bevrijden van de dictatuur en de wreedheden van het Nazi-regime. Nationalisme is voor velen eveneens taboe geworden, maar de natie-staat is tot nu toe de enige werkende drager voor een functionerende democratie en vrijheid, en die democratie en vrijheid moeten met allerlei middelen beschermd worden, desnoods ook militaire.

Israël heeft als voornaamste les uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog getrokken dat men weerbaar moet zijn en niet kan afwachten en er op hopen dat het wel mee zal vallen met dreigende vijanden:
 
The most important lesson of the Holocaust is that a murderous evil must be stopped early, when it is still in its infancy and before it can carry out its designs. The enlightened nations of the world must learn this lesson.
 
We, the Jewish nation, who lost a third of our people on Europe's blood-soaked soil, have learned that the only guarantee for defending our people is a strong State of Israel and the army of Israel. We have learned to warn the nations of the world of approaching danger but at the same time to prepare to defend ourselves.
 
Helaas heeft de geschiedenis de zionisten wat dit betreft gelijk gegeven, en het is niet aan ons om de Joden hun recht op zelfbeschikking te ontzeggen en toe te roepen dat ze toch heus ook wel zonder staat kunnen en heus op ons kunnen vertrouwen, en dat ze het toch allemaal zwaar overdrijven met al dat gezeur over veiligheid...
 
NB: Shimon Peres hield dezelfde dag een toespraak voor de Bundestag. De volledige tekst is online nog niet te vinden, maar een bericht staat o.a. hier en hier.
 
Wouter & Ratna
__________________________
 

Address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at ceremony marking 65 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp
27 January 2010
[MFA]

 
I want to thank the Government of Poland for the historic effort it is making to commemorate the greatest catastrophe that befell my people and the greatest crime committed against humanity.

We have gathered here, Poles and Jews, at the crossroads of tragedy. Our long shared history included tremendous cultural accomplishments and the lowest low humanity has experienced. We were here. We remember those who froze to death; if they did not freeze to death, they were executed by gas, burned in the ovens. We remember also that one-third of the Righteous Gentiles, those who risked their lives and their children's lives and those of their families in order to save others, were Poles. We remember all this.

As we stand here to commemorate the past, we are helping to build a future of decency, truth and hope for our two peoples and for all mankind.

Now I will speak in Hebrew, the reborn language of the people whom the Nazis sought to exterminate.

[Translation]

The voices of millions of my people gassed, burned and killed in a thousand different ways rise out of this cursed ground. In the final moment of their lives, many whispered or cried out the timeless words of our ancient people: "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." Perhaps a few used their final breath to chant another age-old prayer: "Remember what Amalek did to you. Never forget!"

To those who were murdered here, and to those who survived the destruction, I come from Jerusalem today with this promise: We will never forget! We will never permit those who desecrated this monument to death to distort or wipe away your memory. We will always remember what Amalek's Nazi heirs did to you. We will be prepared to defend ourselves when a new Amalek appears on the stage of history and threatens again to annihilate the Jews.

We will not delude ourselves into believing that the threats, vilifications and Holocaust denials are merely empty words. We will never forget. We will always be vigilant.

The Holocaust author, K. Zetnick, in his testimony at the Eichman trial, called the death camps "another planet". But the horrors of the Holocaust occurred not in a far away world but right here on earth. It was not the work of beastly animals but of beastly men, of loathsome and despicable murderers.

The most important lesson of the Holocaust is that a murderous evil must be stopped early, when it is still in its infancy and before it can carry out its designs. The enlightened nations of the world must learn this lesson.

We, the Jewish nation, who lost a third of our people on Europe's blood-soaked soil, have learned that the only guarantee for defending our people is a strong State of Israel and the army of Israel. We have learned to warn the nations of the world of approaching danger but at the same time to prepare to defend ourselves.

As the head of the Jewish state, I pledge to you today: We will never again permit evil to snuff out the life of our people and the life of our own country.

I came here today from Jerusalem to say to those who perished here: The people of Israel live! We have returned to our homeland, to the land of our fathers, to our capital Jerusalem. We have come from every corner of the earth - Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees from Arab lands, Jews from the Soviet Union and Ethiopia, Poland and Yemen, Romania and Iraq, France and Morocco, Jews from seventy lands and five continents.

Some who came almost didn't make it. Barracks #16 at the Birkenau death camp, a few meters from here, housed a17-year old Jewish youth who suffered from the 80 lashes he received in the Ghetto from his Nazi tormenters. No one believed the boy would live, but he survived and escaped from the camp. With the victory over the Nazis 65 years ago, he immigrated to Israel. Fifteen years later, he was the Israeli police officer guarding Adolph Eichmann when the Jewish state brought the Nazi henchmen to justice.

That young man is Michael Goldman. With his wife Eva, he raised a family in Israel, and they have five children and nine grandchildren. Michael is with us here today - a witness to the Holocaust, a witness to the redemption.

The Jewish people rose from ashes and destruction, from a terrible pain that can never be healed. Armed with the Jewish spirit, the justice of man, and the vision of the prophets, we sprouted new branches and grew deep roots. Dry bones became covered with flesh, a spirit filled them, and they lived and stood on their own feet.

As Ezekiel prophesized:

"Then He said unto me: These bones are the whole House of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone; we are doomed.' Prophecy, therefore, and say to them: Thus said the Lord God: I am going to open your graves and lift you out of your graves, O My people, and bring you to the land of Israel."

I stand here today on the ground where so many of my people perished - and I am not alone. The State of Israel and all the Jewish people stand with me. We bow our heads to honor your memory and lift our heads as we raise our flag, a flag of blue and white with a Star of David in its center.

And everyone sees. And everyone hears. And everyone knows - that our hope is not lost.

Hamas wil rechtszaak tegen Israel beginnen vanwege orgaandiefstal

 
Misschien kan Hamas Israel ook aanklagen voor het verwerven van wereldmacht door samenzwering met de illuminati en het veroorzaken van oorlogen wereldwijd, de tsunami en de aardbeving in Haiti voor persoonlijk gewin. En voor het illegaal opkopen van CNN, de BBC, de New York Times, Reuters en AP. En voor...... 
 
RP
----------------

RIA Novosti  - Agence russe
28 janvier 2010
Hamas to take Israel to court over alleged organ theft
http://en.rian.ru/world/20100128/157699975.html


Hamas has started gathering evidence that Israel harvested body parts from dead Palestinians to support its future legal claims against Tel Aviv in international courts.

The organ theft issue made headlines last summer, when the Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper published an article reporting that Israel had been stealing the organs of those Palestinians who were killed in fights with Israeli soldiers.

"We have started collecting documents and information which could prove that the Israeli occupants have stolen body parts of martyrs," Hamas' Minister of Justice Muhammad Faraj Al-Ghoul told reporters in Gaza on Wednesday.

"We plan to prepare a complete legal file to be used in lawsuits against the Israeli government in international courts," Al-Ghoul said, adding that Hamas officials had urged Palestinians in Gaza to provide them with any evidence of Israeli organ harvesting.

Hamas is in control of the Gaza Strip after kicking Abbas's Fatah party out of the enclave in the summer of 2007 following a series of armed clashes. Fatah now governs the West Bank.

Settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, has been the main obstacle to reviving peace talks between Israel the Palestinians, which were halted over a year ago.

Despite broad international efforts to bring Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table, Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and opposes Abbas's efforts to negotiate a permanent peace deal.

GAZA, January 28 (RIA Novosti)

Ayatollah Khamenei van Iran: islamitische landen zullen Zionistisch regime vernietigen


Iraans hoogste geestelijke leider had ook een boodschap voor het Joodse volk op de internationale herdenkingsdag van de Holocaust. Bedenk hierbij dat Iran hard werkt aan de wapens om dit zelf uit te kunnen voeren. Het Iraanse Farsnieuws maakte onlangs ook het volgende bekend:
 
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced that the country plans to unveil a home-made engine for satellite carrier rockets within the next few days.
http:// english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811071690
 
RP
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Supreme Leader: Region to Witness Annihilation of Zionist Regime
News number: 881107139915:41 | 2010-01-27Politics
http:// english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811071399

 
TEHRAN (FNA)- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said that the region would soon witness annihilation of the Zionist regime, stressing that Muslim countries can make such a happening even more imminent.

"Certainly, the regional countries will witness the annihilation of the Zionist regime one day and its proximity in terms of time depends on the function of the Islamic countries and Muslim nations," Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz on Wednesday.

He further stressed that Mauritanian government's severance of ties with Israel last year served a good model for certain Arab governments.

"The Zionist regime is a big danger to the Muslim world, which hatches plots every day to expand its infiltration and dominance in the region," Ayatollah Khamenei warned.

He pointed to the crimes committed by the Israelis in the Palestinian territories, specially against the people in Gaza, and said the Zionist regime strives to continue pressures, siege and genocide in Palestine to remove the country's Islamic identity.

"But it will surely fail to do so," the Leader added.

During the meeting, Abdel Aziz lauded the Islamic Republic of Iran's role in the region and the world and its efforts to establish peace and tranquility.

The Mauritanian president, heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, arrived in Iran on Monday for a two-day visit to confer with Iranian officials on bilateral ties and regional and international issues.

donderdag 28 januari 2010

Nieuwe aanwijzingen voor Irans atoomwapen programma

 
Terwijl Nederland zicht druk maakte over de kilometerheffing en de bankencrisis e.d., was onderstaande het belangrijkste nieuws in Israël. Er zijn aanwijzingen van geheime tests met ontstekingsmechanismen voor atoomwapens, al jaren geleden uitgevoerd, en van een geheime militaire commandostructuur verbonden aan het atoomprogramma, dat volgens Teheran louter civiele doelen zou dienen.
 
Wouter
_________________


The Secret Nuclear Dossier
Intelligence from Tehran Elevates Concern in the West
By Dieter Bednarz, Erich Follath and Holger Stark
SPIEGEL 25 January 2010


The West has long been suspicous of Iran's nuclear program. SPIEGEL has obtained new documents on secret tests and leadership structures that call into question Tehran's claims to be exclusively interested in the peaceful use of the technology.

It was probably the last attempt to defuse the nuclear dispute with Tehran without having to turn to dramatic new sanctions or military action. The plan, devised at the White House in October, had Russian and Chinese support and came with the seal of approval of the US president. It was clearly a Barack Obama operation.

Under the plan, Iran would send a large share of its low enriched uranium abroad, all at once, for a period of one year, receiving internationally monitored quantities of nuclear fuel elements in return. It was a deal that provided benefits for all sides. The Iranians would have enough material for what they claim is their civilian nuclear program, as well as for scientific experiments, and the world could be assured that Tehran would not be left with enough fissile material for its secret domestic uranium enrichment program -- and for what the West assumes is the building of a nuclear bomb.


Tehran's leaders initially agreed to the proposal "in principle." But for weeks they put off the international community with vague allusions to a "final response," and when that response finally materialized, it came in the form of a "counter-proposal." Under this proposal, Tehran insisted that the exchange could not take place all at once, but only in stages, and that the material would not be sent abroad. Instead, Tehran wanted the exchange to take place in Iran.

Once again, the Iranian leadership has rebuffed the West with phony promises of its willingness to compromise. The government in Tehran officially rejected the nuclear exchange plan last Tuesday. To make matters worse, after the West's discovery of a secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defiantly announced that he would never give in, and in fact would build 10 more enrichment plants instead.

Highly Volatile Material

But officials in Washington and European capitals are currently not as concerned about these cocky, unrealistic announcements as they are about intelligence reports based on sources within Iran and information from high-ranking defectors. The new information, say American experts, will likely prompt the US government to reassess the risks coming from the mullah-controlled country in the coming days and raise the alarm level from yellow to red. Skeptics who in the past, sometimes justifiably so, treated alarmist reports as Israeli propaganda, are also extremely worried. They include the experts from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose goal is prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

After an extensive internal investigation, IAEA officials concluded that a computer obtained from Iran years ago contains highly volatile material. The laptop reached the Americans through Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), and was then passed on to the IAEA in Vienna.

Reports by Ali Reza Asgari, Iran's former deputy defense minister who managed to defect to the United States, where he was given a new identity, proved to be just as informative. Nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who "disappeared" during a pilgrimage to Mecca in June 2009, is also believed to have particularly valuable information. The Iranian authorities accused Saudi Arabia and the United States of kidnapping the expert, but it is more likely that he defected.

Iran's government has come under pressure as a result of the new charges. They center on the question of who exactly is responsible for the country's nuclear program -- and what this says about its true nature. The government has consistently told the IAEA that the only agency involved in uranium enrichment is the National Energy Council, and that its work was exclusively dedicated to the peaceful use of the technology.

But if the claims are true that have been made in an intelligence dossier currently under review in diplomatic circles in Washington, Vienna, Tel Aviv and Berlin, portions of which SPIEGEL has obtained, this is a half-truth at best.

According to the classified document, there is a secret military branch of Iran's nuclear research program that answers to the Defense Ministry and has clandestine structures. The officials who have read the dossier conclude that the government in Tehran is serious about developing a bomb, and that its plans are well advanced. There are two names that appear again and again in the documents, particularly in connection with the secret weapons program: Kamran Daneshjoo and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Secret Heart of Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program

Daneshjoo, 52, Iran's new minister of science, research and technology, is also responsible for the country's nuclear energy agency, and he is seen as a close ally of Ahmadinejad. Opposition leaders say he is a hardliner who was partly responsible for the apparently rigged presidential election in June. Daneshjoo's biography includes only marginal references to his possible nuclear expertise. In describing himself, the man with the steely-gray beard writes that he studied engineering in the British city of Manchester, and then spent several years working at a Tehran "Center for Aviation Technology." Western experts believe that this center developed into a sub-organization of the Defense Ministry known as the FEDAT, an acronym for the "Department for Expanded High-Technology Applications" -- the secret heart of Iran's nuclear weapons program. The head of that organization is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 48, an officer in the Revolutionary Guard and a professor at Tehran's Imam Hossein University.

Western intelligence agencies believe that although the nuclear energy agency and the FEDAT compete in some areas, they have agreed to a division of labor on the central issue of nuclear weapons research, with the nuclear agency primarily supervising uranium enrichment while the FEDAT is involved in the construction of a nuclear warhead to be used in Iran's Shahab missiles. Experts believe that Iran's scientists could produce a primitive, truck-sized version of the bomb this year, but that it would have to be compressed to a size that would fit into a nuclear warhead to yield the strategic threat potential that has Israel and the West so alarmed -- and that they could reach that stage by sometime between 2012 and 2014.

The Iranians are believed to have conducted non-nuclear tests of a detonating mechanism for a nuclear bomb more than six years ago. The challenge in the technology is to uniformly ignite the conventional explosives surrounding the uranium core -- which is needed to produce the desired chain reaction. It is believed that the test series was conducted with a warhead encased in aluminum. In other words, everything but the core was "real." According to the reports, the Tehran engineers used thin fibers and a measuring circuit board in place of the fissile material. This enabled them to measure the shock waves and photograph flashes that simulate the detonation of a nuclear bomb with some degree of accuracy. The results were apparently so encouraging that the Iranian government has since classified the technology as "feasible."

SPIEGEL obtained access to a FEDAT organizational chart and a list of the names of scientists working for the agency. The Vienna-based IAEA also has these documents, but the Iranian president claims that they are forged and are being used to discredit his country. After reporting two years ago that the Iranians had frozen their nuclear weapons research in 2003, the CIA and other intelligence agencies will probably paint a significantly more sobering scenario just as the UN Security Council is considering tougher sanctions against Iran.

Mulling Sanctions

When France assumes the Council's rotating chairmanship in February, Washington could push for a showdown. While Moscow is not ruling out additional punitive measures, China, which has negotiated billions in energy deals with Iran, is more likely to block such measures.

China could, however, approve "smart" sanctions, such as travel restrictions for senior members of the Revolutionary Guard and nuclear scientists. Fakhrizadeh is already on a list of officials subject to such restrictions, and Daneshjoo could well be added in the future.

But the West would presumably be on its own when enforcing sanctions that would be truly harmful to Iran -- and to its own, profitable trade relations with Tehran.

The most effective trade weapon would be a fuel embargo. Because of a lack of refinery capacity Iran, which has the world's second-largest oil reserves, imports almost half of the gasoline it uses. Sanctions would trigger a sharp rise in the price of gasoline, inevitably leading to social unrest. Experts are divided over whether it would be directed against the unpopular regime or if the country's leaders could once again inflame the Iranian people against the "evil West."

This leaves the military option. Apart from the political consequences and the possibility of counter-attacks, bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would be extremely difficult. The nuclear experts have literally buried themselves and their facilities underground, in locations that would be virtually impossible to reach with conventional weapons.

While even Israeli experts are skeptical over how much damage bombing the facilities could do to the nuclear program, the normally levelheaded US General David Petraeus sounded downright belligerent when asked whether the Iranian nuclear facilities could be attacked militarily. "Well, they certainly can be bombed," he said just two weeks ago in Washington.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,673802,00.html

Geweld Israelische soldaten tegen Arabische vrouwen?

 
Elder of Ziyon heeft weer een ijzersterke blogpost waarin hij laat zien hoe foto's, door ze in een andere volgorde te zetten en van bepaalde bijschriften te voorzien, worden gebruikt om het tegendeel te bewijzen van wat ze in feite laten zien.
Palestine Today had een foto essay van een demonstratie van Arabische vrouwen, bedoeld om te laten zien hoe agressief de Israelische soldaten bij de demonstratie waren, maar ze lieten in feite het tegendeel zien. Als je goed kijkt, zie je dat de soldaten juist heel terughoudend reageren op de provocaties van de vrouwen en de stenengooiende jongeren, die beide niet bepaald bang zijn voor de soldaten. Zie bijvoorbeeld de foto's hieronder van een vrouw die een soldaat naar zijn gezicht grijpt en jongeren die stenen gooien naar de soldaten. Dit is wel een heel ander beeld dan wat we van de media krijgen. Zo anders blijkbaar, dat het de makers van Palestine Today, een Palestijnse krant die zeker niet Israels onschuld wou bewijzen, helemaal niet was opgevallen dat de foto's in feite exact het tegendeel lieten zien van wat men wilde laten zien.
 
RP
--------------
 

IDF violence against Arab women?

Palestine Today has a photo essay purporting to show how violently IDF soldiers handle Arab women protesters. The article itself says:

Clashes erupted on Monday between Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers in Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah in the West Bank, where there was a violent demonstration and youths pelted Israeli soldiers with stones, Israeli soldiers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The young Palestinians scuffled with Israeli soldiers, and were was violently assaulted by Israeli soldiers and who arrested some of them.

The following images show the brutality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian women:
Even the article admits that the violence was started by the protesters, not by the IDF. Even so, it claims that the soldiers were cruelly assaulting PalArab women.

Here are three of the supposedly damning pictures showing what appears to be an assault of an innocent, unarmed woman:
Look at the poor Arab woman , cowering as she is apparently about to be hit by the callous IDF soldier with his machine gun! Looks pretty bad, right?

And here she is seemingly being assaulted by the same soldier:

And again:
But if you look closely, things are not as they seem.

The pictures are being shown out of sequence: the Arab woman, knowing that IDF soldiers aren't going to fire at her, tries to grab the machine gun out of the soldier's hands (picture 3, machine gun mostly obscured but you can see the strap), manages to turn the soldier around while holding on to the strap of the machine gun as he tries to pull it away (picture 2) and then the first picture shows him after he managed to wrest it away, while other soldiers come to help him out!

It turns out that these photos were snapped by Reuters, and the caption of photo #3 is "A Palestinian woman tries to grab the weapon of an Israeli soldier in the West Bank village of Nabi Salih, near Ramallah, January 22, 2010. " For some reason, they didn't caption photo #2 the same way, and they botch the caption of photo #1 as if the IDF soldier is about to assault her, even as they add "The woman ran away unhurt."

A woman violently tried to grab a soldier's machine gun and was not even arrested.

Rather than showing IDF cruelty, these pictures show almost superhuman restraint on the part of IDF forces as they are being physically assaulted by women who know very well that they are not going to be badly hurt. Like these:
This next picture, almost unbelievably, shows a woman grabbing at the face of an IDF soldier. There is nothing defensive about this at all, and it shows how little the protesters have to fear from the soldiers, knowing full well they will not be shot an unlikely to be hurt:
Similarly, this woman appears to be grabbing at the soldier, not holding him off defensively:
At the same time, the boys are hurling rocks at the soldiers:

The photos that are meant to show cruelty unintentionally show the opposite - that Palestinian Arab protesters intentionally try to provoke soldiers into losing their cool, especially when there are photographer around.

dinsdag 26 januari 2010

George Mitchell blijft aandringen in oud conflict Midden-Oosten

 
Alex Burghoorn is, net als  Guus Valk van NRC Handelsblad en Sander van Hoorn van de NOS, een meester in het weglaten van informatie die gunstig voor Israel en ongunstig voor de Palestijnen is. Zo wijst hij er in onderstaand artikel wel op dat Netanjahoe onlangs op de Israelische boomplantdag aankondigde dat Gush Etzion (dat al voor 1948 Joods was en waaruit de Joden in 1948 zijn verdreven door de Arabieren) voor altijd Israelisch zal blijven, maar niet dat Abbas steeds met meer en nieuwe voorwaarden komt voordat hij met Israel wil gaan onderhandelen. Voorwaarden die hij onder Olmert nooit stelde. Aanvankelijk eiste hij dat Israel zich voor een tweestatenoplossing en een Palestijnse staat zou uitspreken, wat ik overigens een reële eis vindt, en dat kreeg hij. Toen eiste hij een bouwstop en die kreeg hij gedeeltelijk, en toen eiste hij behalve dat Israel ook niet meer in de oude Joodse wijk van Jeruzalem en andere Joodse plaatsen mag bouwen, dat Israel op voorhand toezegt dat de groene lijn de basis van de onderhandelingen wordt. 
 
Ondertussen roept Israel al driekwart jaar lang op om zonder voorwaarden vooraf te gaan onderhandelen. In onderstaand artikel geen woord over dit recalcitrante gedrag van Abbas, en de veel flexibelere houding van Israel, en ook geen woord over de verheerlijking van zelfmoordterroristen door Abbas en de Palestijnse Autoriteit. Dat komt even niet uit. Zoals het ook niet uitkomt om in een stukje over de betrekkingen tussen Israel en Egypte het virulente antisemitisme in Egypte te benoemen, van soapseries op TV tot vileine stukjes in staatskranten en van haat vervulde toespraken van imams en wetenschappers die de Joden van alle mogelijke ellende in de wereld betichten.
 
RP
-----------------
 
Aandringen in oud conflict
ACHTERGROND,
Van onze correspondent Alex Burghoorn op 25 januari '10, 06:00, bijgewerkt 25 januari '10, 14:29
 
 
JERUZALEM - VS-gezant George Mitchell blijft pogen de partijen in het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict tot onderhandelen te bewegen.

Als gelauwerd veteraan van de Noord-Ierse vredesonderhandelingen is George Mitchell wel de ideale bemiddelaar voor het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict genoemd. Kort voor hij een jaar geleden werd benoemd tot Amerikaans gezant voor het Midden-Oosten, gaf Mitchell een lezing aan een Israëlische universiteit. Natuurlijk ging het over de lessen van Noord-Ierland: maar liefst 800 jaar na het begin van de Britse overheersing bracht hij daar het beroemde Goede Vrijdag-akkoord tot stand.

Na afloop van die lezing kwam een hardhorende Israëlische man naar hem toe, vertelde Mitchell onlangs in een tv-interview. 'Met luidde stem zei hij: zei u 800 jaar? Ik zei: ja, 800 jaar. Hij wuifde met zijn hand en zei: geen wonder dat u dat heeft opgelost, zo'n recente ruzie.'

De vergelijking tussen Noord-Ierland en het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict is vaak gemaakt. Toch wilde Mitchell maar zeggen dat het in het Heilige Land echt andere koek is. Zijn opdrachtgever, de Amerikaanse president Barack Obama, koos na zijn aantreden voor een voortvarende aanpak van het conflict, maar dat is hem niet goed bekomen. 'Beide partijen hebben ondervonden dat de politieke context – de aard van hun coalities of de verdeeldheid in hun samenlevingen – het hun moeilijk heeft gemaakt een betekenisvolle dialoog aan te gaan', zei Obama pas in het weekblad Time. 'En ik denk dat wij onze mogelijkheden hen daartoe over te halen, hebben overschat.'

Maar van opgeven wil Washington niet weten. Nog steeds geloven de Amerikanen dat als ze Israëli's en Palestijnen maar met elkaar aan tafel krijgen, er binnen twee jaar vrede is. Alle duizenden jaren oude landclaims ten spijt. 'Ik denk', zei Mitchell, 'dat beginnen met onderhandelen hier moeilijker is dan afronden.'

De 76-jarige Mitchell pendelde de afgelopen dagen weer tussen de Israëlische premier Benjamin Netanyahu en de Palestijnse president Mahmoud Abbas. Sinds de eerste bemiddelingsronde in november was stukgelopen, had hij zijn gezicht niet meer laten zien.

Naar zijn terugkeer was echter noch in Jeruzalem, noch in Ramallah halsreikend uitgekeken. De Israëli's meenden van het begin af aan dat Obama zich te activistisch opstelde door van hen een algehele bouwstop in Joodse nederzettingen te eisen. De Palestijnen waren daar juist mee ingenomen, tot Washington door de bocht ging en genoegen nam met een tijdelijke bevriezing van nieuwbouw op de bezette Westoever. Toen voelden de Palestijnen zich verraden en zaten de Amerikanen met lege handen. Op de teleurstelling van Obama is in Israël minzaam gereageerd. Zo van: we hadden het je toch van tevoren gezegd?

Het zit muurvast. Na zijn ontmoeting met Mitchell ging Netanyahu zondag een boom planten in het Etzion-nederzettingenblok. Hij greep Nationale Bomenplantdag aan om daar te verklaren dat 'deze plaats voor altijd een onafscheidelijk deel van Israël zal zijn'.

Het bezoekje 'vernietigt alle pogingen van Mitchell', zei de woordvoerder van Abbas meteen. De Palestijnen zien uit naar het vervolg van de behandeling van het Goldstone-rapport over de Gaza-oorlog, over tien dagen bij de VN in New York. Israël wordt daarin, net als Hamas, beschuldigd van oorlogsmisdaden. Met het internationaal recht hopen de Palestijnen Israël klem te zetten. Opdat het alsnog de concessies voor vrede zal doen, die de Amerikanen niet van Jeruzalem gedaan krijgen.

 

Israelisch voorstel voor onderzoek door juristenpanel naar Gaza Oorlog


Barak en Ashkenazi zijn voor een 'judicial investigative panel' om de aantijgingen van oorlogsmisdaden tijdens de Gaza Oorlog uit het Goldstone rapport te onderzoeken. Dit panel heeft niet de status en autoriteit van een 'independent investigative body' dat ook bijvoorbeeld officieren kan ondervragen. Goldstone had zo'n onafhankelijk onderzoek geëist in zijn rapport.
 
The hope is that the establishment of this panel would deflect the war criminal charges against Israel found in the Goldstone Commission Report and at the same time would fulfill Israel's part of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for "credible domestic investigations" by both Israel and Hamas.
"The idea is not to establish a committee like the Winograd Commission after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 but to have a panel of jurists review the internal IDF probes and to give their opinion on them," a senior defense official told the Post.
Both Barak and Ashkenazi are unequivocally opposed to officers being interrogated by an inquiry commission.
 
De kans dat de internationale gemeenschap met zo'n panel genoegen zal nemen lijkt me uiterst klein. Israel moet zich mijns inziens over haar verzet tegen zo'n echt onafhankelijk onderzoek heenzetten, en juist op die manier laten zien dat het zeker van zijn zaak is, en dat wanneer blijkt dat bepaalde fouten zijn gemaakt (waar ik overigens niet aan twijfel) dat ook goed wordt uitgezocht en herhaling wordt voorkomen. Tegelijkertijd kan men de aantijgingen dat Israel het bewust op de burgers van Gaza had gemunt en dergelijke zo overtuigend weerleggen.

RP
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The Jerusalem Post
Jan 25, 2010 0:13 | Updated Jan 25, 2010 17:01
Barak, Ashkenazi back panel to probe Cast Lead
By HERB KEINON AND YAAKOV KATZ
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147970035&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi are pushing for the establishment of a judicial investigative panel to review internal IDF investigations of alleged wrongdoing during Operation Cast Lead last winter and to determine whether those investigations were thorough, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Barak and Ashkenazi have expressed support for the establishment of such a panel, which they would like to be headed by internationally respected jurists such as former Supreme Court presidents Aharon Barak or Meir Shamgar, on condition that the panel does not have the authority to independently question soldiers or officers.

The idea of these panels is a compromise between those, like Barak and Ashkenazi, who argue that the IDF can be counted on to investigate itself effectively, and those who favor an independent investigative body to look into alleged wrongdoing during the Gaza operation, as demanded by Judge Richard Goldstone in his report on Cast Lead.

The hope is that the establishment of this panel would deflect the war criminal charges against Israel found in the Goldstone Commission Report and at the same time would fulfill Israel's part of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon's call for "credible domestic investigations" by both Israel and Hamas.

"The idea is not to establish a committee like the Winograd Commission after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 but to have a panel of jurists review the internal IDF probes and to give their opinion on them," a senior defense official told the Post.

Both Barak and Ashkenazi are unequivocally opposed to officers being interrogated by an inquiry commission.

"The political echelon gave the orders and the officers should not be held accountable," the official said.

Israel, meanwhile, is expected to present Ban with its written rebuttal to the Goldstone Commission report by Thursday, so he will have time to read it before February 5, when he must brief the General Assembly on developments since the issuing of the Goldstone Report and consider the next steps.

Ban will be presented with the document in an informal matter, since Israel's official position is that it is not cooperating at all with the Goldstone process. At the same time, the sources said, Jerusalem wanted its position to be known to Ban before he addressed the General Assembly.

Parallel with this process, another - far more in-depth investigation - is being carried out by the IDF's Military Advocate-General Maj.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit. While the report Ban will see on Thursday deals in general with the central claims of the Goldstone Report and attempts to refute many of them, the IDF report takes the report on "word for word" and refutes in detail the claims, while documenting the report's factual and interpretive errors.

This report, IDF sources said Sunday, would likely be completed within the next two weeks and will be released to the public.

The New York Times on Sunday revealed some of the IDF's detailed report, saying that Israel has photographic proof disputing Goldstone's assertion that Israel intentionally targeted Gaza's sole flour mill and that this "was carried out for the purpose of denying sustenance to the civilian population."

According to what will appear in the IDF report, the mill was accidentally hit by an errant artillery shell during a firefight with Hamas.

Government sources said it was not clear when, or in what forum, the IDF report would be released, although it was expected to be made public within the next two months.

The Prime Minister's Office in late October announced the establishment of a committee to consider various ways to deal with the allegations in the Goldstone Report, even while reiterating that IDF officers and soldiers would not be questioned.

The committee was made up of Mandelblit, Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz, the Foreign Ministry's legal adviser Ehud Kenan; the Defense Ministry's legal adviser Ahaz Ben- Ari; and Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser.

Palestijnen missen capiciteit voor bomaanslagen, geen zelfmoordaanslagen in 2009


Goed nieuws, maar de motivatie om aanslagen te plegen is er nog wel degelijk:
 
Speaking to The Media Line on the condition of anonymity, senior Israeli security sources said that despite the sever blow delivered to the Hamas military infrastructure last January, Hamas is still highly motivated to carry out attacks inside Israel. While Hamas terrorists have been trying to carry out attacks from the West Bank, the sources said, they have been foiled by Israeli security forces and the US-trained Palestinian police.
 
Ook vanuit Gaza heeft Hamas geprobeerd aanslagen te plegen en Israelische soldaten te ontvoeren. Overigens is Hamas niet het enige probleem:
 
However, security officials expressed some displeasure at what they see as a lack of determined action against terrorists aligned with the PLO's main Fatah faction. A recent fatal shooting of an Israeli settler led to a raid by troops into Nablus, the largest West Bank city, to capture the perpetrators who turned out to be members of Fatah.
 
Het grootste probleem is echter de buitenlandse, met name Iraanse inmenging in de Palestijnse gewapende groeperingen, door Hamas onlangs openlijk toegegeven. Met hulp van Hezbollah, Syrië en Iran wordt de Palestijnse 'strijd' levend gehouden. Hezbollah schijnt de aan Fatah geliëerde Al Aqsa Martelaren Brigades bijvoorbeeld per aanslag te betalen, om zo de afspraken tussen de PA, Israel en de VS te ondermijnen.

RP
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The Jerusalem Post
Jan 25, 2010 11:49 | Updated Jan 25, 2010 16:59
'Palestinians lacking bombing capacity'
By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN /THE MEDIA LINE
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147972747&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


For the first time in a decade there were no Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis in 2009.

After 36 Israelis were killed in terror attacks in 2008, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) recorded a major decline in the amount of attacks coming from the Palestinian territories.

Since the end of Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza last January, one Israeli civilian was killed inside Israel by Palestinians and four in the West Bank. Ten Israelis, including five civilians, were killed during the Gaza operation.

Israeli casualties were also down last year, with the Shin Bet recording 234 Israelis wounded by Palestinian attacks, 185 of which took place during Operation Cast Lead. In the previous year, Palestinian attacks wounded 679 Israelis.

Speaking to The Media Line on the condition of anonymity, senior Israeli security sources said that despite the sever blow delivered to the Hamas military infrastructure last January, Hamas is still highly motivated to carry out attacks inside Israel. While Hamas terrorists have been trying to carry out attacks from the West Bank, the sources said, they have been foiled by Israeli security forces and the US-trained Palestinian police.

A senior Israeli security source told The Media Line that Hamas has tried to organize bombing strikes on Israel from the West Bank instead of Gaza so as to avoid Israeli retaliation. These attacks have been thwarted by Israel's security barrier and close ties between the Israeli and Palestinian security apparatuses in the West Bank. By comparison, there were 53 successful suicide bombings launched by Palestinians from the West Bank in 2002.

"The Palestinian police have implemented a sustained iron-fisted fight against terror and the Israeli security forces see this as a very positive movement," said one senior Israeli security official.

US General Keith Dayton has been overseeing the building of the Palestinian police forces in the hope of establishing a security foundation for a would-be Palestinian state.
Israel recently allowed a fifth battalion of Palestinian police to deploy in the West Bank, and security officials refer to 2010 as "a year of force building."

The major decline in attacks against Israelis has occurred in the West Bank, where Israel maintains overall security control. But the US-trained Palestinian police forces have been allowed to exert larger autonomy in major Palestinian population centers under jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

Beyond instilling law and order, one of the main efforts of the Palestinian forces has been to crush the Islamist Hamas in towns and villages inside the West Bank. Hundreds of Hamas activists have been arrested and Hamas-linked social charities have been shut or turned into chapters of Fatah, the largest PLO faction.

The number of rocket and mortar attacks also sharply declined, from over two thousand in 2008 to just 566 in 2009 of which 406 were during the January operation. Security sources attribute this to Israel's strong hand reaction. By comparison, 2007 saw over 1,200 rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip and in 2006, there were 1,722 rocket strikes in Israel from the coastal strip.

Some 90 percent of attacks were petrol bombs, with the remainder shootings or bombings.

However, security officials expressed some displeasure at what they see as a lack of determined action against terrorists aligned with the PLO's main Fatah faction. A recent fatal shooting of an Israeli settler led to a raid by troops into Nablus, the largest West Bank city, to capture the perpetrators who turned out to be members of Fatah.