The authorities in Sri Lanka are under mounting pressure to agree to an independent inquiry into a military operation against Tamil rebels, after a UN panel found “credible allegations” that the government committed war crimes and offences against humanity.
A leaked report by a team established by UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, suggests government troops systematically shelled civilians it had encouraged to gather in so-called “no-fire zones”, at hospitals, at the UN’s hub, and even close to an area where aid workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were coming to collect wounded people from the beach. It says the government allowed this even though it knew from its own intelligence the impact of the repeated bombardment.
The panel, which calls for an independent international inquiry, concludes that “tens of thousands” of civilians lost their lives, and that most casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling. It says the government sought to intimidate and silence the media and its critics, and even resorted to abduction, using “white vans” to make people disappear. The report says there is evidence that Tamil rebels also committed war crimes and that they used civilians as human shields, shot dead those who tried to flee the war zone, and forcibly recruited teenagers to become fighters.
The damning report, parts of which have been leaked to media in Sri Lanka, is likely to be the most comprehensive insight yet into the bloody final stages of the 2009 offensive that crushed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, known as the Tamil Tigers) and brought an end to a decades-long civil war that had taken more than 70,000 lives. At the time, there was widespread international criticism of the way the government had failed to protect Tamil civilians caught in the war zone. But the authorities dismissed this and President Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected the following year on the back of his victory over the rebels.
The UN has yet to make public the report or comment on the recommendations of the three-member panel. However, Gordon Weiss, a former spokesman for the UN in Sri Lanka who served in the capital, Colombo, during the offensive against the LTTE, said the report “damns the government of Sri Lanka’s so-called war on terror, which incidentally killed many thousands of civilians. The Tamil Tigers were equally rotten in their disdain for life.”
What a shock to actually read something on this issue that discusses the reality for Palestinians under Zionist occupation:
Letter to Marrickville Council from concerned citizens of Israel urging you to stand firm in your support of BDS
We are Israeli citizens who witness first-hand the brutality of our government’s policies towards the Palestinian people. We stand firm in our support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) initiatives against Israel until it meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and fully complies with the precepts of international law.
We reject the notion promoted by demagogues, that the 2005 BDS call from Palestine, and the BDS campaigns the world over which it has inspired, are rooted in anti-Jewish sentiment. On the contrary, BDS is an anti-racist movement against the daily, brutal occupation of Palestine and the virulently racist policies towards Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
We also reject the assertion that cultural and academic boycotts of Israel defy the democratic principle of free speech. Research and development in academic institutions play a central role in designing and defending Israel’s military and intelligence machinery. Prominent state-sponsored cultural institutions perpetuate the deception of Israeli democracy, and serve as propaganda tools. Moreover, the BDS campaign targets Israeli institutions, and does not bar Israeli individuals from conducting research with partners abroad or Israeli artists from performing abroad.
BDS was a key strategy in ending the white South African system of apartheid by applying international pressure.
We warmly commend the groundbreaking stand taken by the Marrickville Council in support of the Council in support of the democratic and non-violent BDS campaign for justice and human rights and urge the council to stand firm in the face of attempted intimidation and manipulation.
Sincerely,
Steve Amsel Ronnen Ben-Arie Matan Cohen Adi Dagan Prof. Rachel Giora Rosamine Hayeem Iris Hefets Shir Hever Yael Kahn Dr. Anat Matar Rela Mazali Professor (emeritus) Moshé Machover Dr. Dorothy Naor Ofer Neiman Amit Perelson Itai Ryb Herzl Schubert Yonatan Shapira Jonatan Stanczak Ruth Tenne Yana Ziferblat
On behalf of Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from within http://boycottisrael.info/
Murdoch columnist Miranda Devine enjoys Israel courtesy of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (2009 and 2010). She obviously saw the real Israel and occupied Palestine. Oh wait, her hand was held and she only saw what her Zionist guests allowed (and she clearly wasn’t curious to look at anywhere else herself).
Jake, a 55-year-old Jewish health professional with friends in Marrickville, was so incensed by the council’s Israel boycott that he took three weeks off work to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Greens, plastering the suburb with posters late at night, accusing them of homophobia for boycotting gay-friendly Israel.
“I felt so angry,” says Jake, who wants to remain anonymous. “I couldn’t sleep at night, so I organised the posters, hired some utes and ladders” and enlisted the help of his son and his friends. Greens supporters harassed them, ripped down the posters, called police, and tried to intimidate Jake’s young helpers, posting footage of them on YouTube.
Two nights before the election, a “black sports car with neon high beams and a pseudo photographer kept flashing his camera right up on our eyes . . . It slowed us right down.”
Another night “cowboy” greenies in a Toyota Camry started following them home, until Jake confronted the driver at a roundabout. “It was like something out of a movie”.
On election day, Jake and his son organised 10 friends wearing T-shirts with “Boycott the Greens” logos to visit polling booths, prompting “Zionist pigs” abuse from greenies.
“The Greens knew we were the enemy, but the Labor people all nodded and smiled and gave us the thumbs up. Anthony Albanese [whose wife Carmel Tebbutt was ALP candidate] shook my hand and thanked me. We must have had quite an effect.
“On Sunday I took the boys out to dinner. It’s not often in life a private citizen can make a difference.”
…
After all, as Jake points out, if they actually cared about the environment or human rights they would realise Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and the only country in the region where people can be openly and proudly gay. Israel’s neighbours, meantime, routinely stone homosexuals to death.
Israel is also the Middle East’s Eden, having greened the desert with millions of trees, eco friendly exports, and superior water conservation.
A few thoughts. Devine’s points on Israeli “democracy” are the perfect talking points given to her on numerous trips to the Zionist state. Standard propaganda. But “Jake” and his admissions are released at a curious time when it still remains unknown who daubed swastikas on Greens election posters.
Whatever it takes to “defend” Israel. And the Zionist community remain silent, more than happy for anonymous people to launch undemocratic attacks against a political party. The Murdoch press march proudly behind them.
Ali Abunimah writes that it’s all an elaborate scam and the PA has nothing legitimate to declare. Let the farce continue:
The PA’s push for recognition of a Palestinian state is the diplomatic counterpart to its much-touted “institution-building” and “economic development” efforts which are supposed to create the infrastructure for a future state.
But the institution-building program is nothing more than a mirage, boosted by public relations tricks and good press.
In fact, the main “institutions” the PA has built are the police-state and militia apparatuses used to repress political opposition to the PA and any form of resistance to Israeli occupation. Meanwhile the economy of the West Bank, and the PA itself, remain completely dependent on foreign aid.
UN recognition of a Palestinian make-believe state would be no more meaningful than this fantasy “institution-building”, and could push Palestinians even further away from real liberation and self-determination.
Figures from the Ramallah-based PA have justified their UN recognition strategy as a way to bring international pressure to bear on Israel.
“Such recognition would create political and legal pressure on Israel to withdraw its forces from the land of another state that is recognised with the [1967] borders,” Ramallah ‘foreign minister’ Riyad al-Malki told reporters in January.
Similarly, Nabil Shaath, a top Fatah official, explained to the New York Times that if a Palestinian state were recognised by the UN: “Israel would then be in daily violation of the rights of a fellow member state and diplomatic and legal consequences could follow, all of which would be painful for Israel.”
But can anyone who has seen how the “international community” functions when it comes to Israel believe such delusional expectations?
The largest single customer for computing goods and services, the United States government, endorsed the cloud model this year. Vivek Kundra, the White House chief information officer, wrote a “Federal Cloud Computing Strategy” report, and identified $20 billion, or one quarter of the government’s total spending on information technology, as “a potential target” for migration to the cloud.
That document has certainly caught the attention of the government’s technology suppliers, like Lockheed Martin, the largest. “We’re keenly focused on cloud computing,” said Melvin Greer, a senior fellow at Lockheed Martin.
The International mission in Libya appeared to be running out of momentum yesterday as Barack Obama admitted the situation on the ground had reached a military “stalemate” and France conceded a new UN resolution might be necessary to oust Muammar Gaddafi from power.
As the regime’s rockets continued to hit the beleaguered rebel town of Misrata and Nato forces struck Colonel Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, France and Britain were still struggling to persuade other members of the organisation to provide additional warplanes. A meeting of member countries in Berlin yesterday broke up without any guarantee that military leaders would get the new resources they have asked for.
Mr Obama insisted that Colonel Gaddafi would ultimately be forced from power. But France’s call for attacks to begin on strategic logistical targets that have previously been off-limits emphasised that parts of the coalition have become resigned to the idea that the status quo offers no prospect of the rapid victory that had been hoped for.
It’s a sorry sight to watch the established Jewish community discuss which views are acceptable to be heard over Israel/Palestine. US Jewish publication Forward this week explains how Jewish Voice for Peace, who back BDS, believe they deserve to be heard in the wider debate.
From the Forward, a vile statement by a “liberal” equating the struggle for equal rights for a minority with “genocide.” It’s a piece on the group Jewish Voice for Peace, headed by Rebecca Vilkomerson.
“It is troubling that Judaism and support for Israel have become so inextricably linked,” Vilkomerson said at the New York event. “We are trying to create a space in the Jewish world where we can express our criticism as Jews without needing to apologize for ourselves.”
“That is a distinction that even many liberals do not embrace….Ben Cohen, a writer who has focused on American Jewish responses to Israel, [says], “But it is clear that many of their members dream about one state, and for those of us under the communal tent, one state is a code word for genocide.”
Who is Ben Cohen? It says here he is the Associate Director of Communications for the American Jewish Committee. Why is Adam Horowitz not quoted in that article? Or Max Blumenthal? Or Antony Loewenstein? Or Naomi Klein? Or Norman Finkelstein? Or Donna Nevel? Or Jane Hirshmann? Or Lillian Rosengarten? Or Gail Miller? Or Anna Baltzer?
Do you understand what the Forward is doing here? Do you see whom they have granted a platform? Newspapers make choices all the time. I challenge the Forward not to grant such a platform to fear and hatred, I challenge it to make room for non-Zionist voices, and to have a forum to debate whether even notioning one-state is genocide.
Instead, today we have a litany of articles that say nothing about the Middle East apart from craven white people desperate to pray at the altar of Zionist “democracy”.
Right-wing union boss Joe de Bruyn has joined a backlash of trade unionists angry at a decision by Greens councillors to impose a commercial boycott of Israel.
As NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell warned Sydney’s Marrickville Council of possible consequences if it did not rescind the ban, Mr de Bruyn said the proposal was further evidence the Greens were an “extremist party”.
The national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union said a boycott of Israel was not in the union’s interest.
“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,” Mr de Bruyn said. “To put a boycott on Israel sounds to me to be totally the wrong way around.”
The Sydney Morning Herald shows that even supposedly principled Greens can sometimes prefer rhetoric to action, especially when it comes to Palestine. Courage is sorely lacking:
Marrickville’s controversial boycott of Israel is on the verge of collapse after a Greens councillor withdrew his support yesterday. Any boycott will now rely on the support of Labor, which is in doubt.
As the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, joined a growing response of condemnation and the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, threatened to sack the council, the Greens councillor Max Phillips confirmed he would vote against putting the boycott into practice.
It also emerged that the Greens mayor, Fiona Byrne, had received death threats. The NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said Cr Byrne had received the threats and the council’s stance on Israel had shown courage.
Mr Phillips said that although he supported Palestinian human rights he did not think the boycott was the way to go. ”I had unease initially about the [boycott] when first moved in December, and this unease has grown in listening to the local community,” he said.
”I will not be voting for any kind of boycott at the meeting on Tuesday night. This issue must be put to rest.”
He expected at least one other Greens councillor to join him.
The policy was adopted in principle at a meeting in December with the support of five Greens, one independent and four Labor councillors. Two independents voted against it.
On Tuesday the council will vote on what practical form a boycott would take. Any motion supporting the boycott will now need Labor support to pass.
One Labor councillor, Emanuel Tsardoulias, has already confirmed he will not support it. Yesterday he said he expected his counterparts to join him at a weekend caucus meeting, though they could not be reached to confirm this.
Cr Phillips said local Greens groups had drafted a proposal to the NSW Greens calling for support for the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel to be rescinded, pending a review.
”With the benefit of hindsight there should have been a much more thorough debate on this issue before it was adopted by the NSW Greens and moved on Marrickville Council,” he said.
The Herald’s editorial is seemingly written by a five-year-old child. Advocating for Palestine is a joke, you see, and Zionist occupation will simply disappear by writing countless meaningless articles about a “peace process”:
Marrickville Council is being torn apart by Middle Eastern politics. Should Marrickville, or should it not, punish Israel with a boycott for its alleged human rights violations? The question is, of course, on everyone’s lips across the Middle East. The fate of nations hangs in the balance. Is a mere boycott enough? Should Marrickville send troops?
Other Sydney councils, strangely enough, have not followed Marrickville’s principled example, and its lone voice – although important and widely respected – may not be enough to persuade members of the Israeli government to stop whatever it is they have been doing. Marrickville boots on the ground would certainly show them that Sydney’s inner west is not to be trifled with. On balance, though, we think that in the first phase, diplomacy deserves a chance before Marrickville lives are put in harm’s way. As a back-up, the municipality might show a hint of steel by stationing a taskforce comprising the entire waste disposal department off the Israeli coast, ready to bang Israeli bins together at a moment’s notice. Services in Marrickville may be disrupted, but ratepayers can be confident they will be keeping the Israelis awake at night.
Instead of trawling the internet to find new ways to demonise Lee Rhiannon, would it not be more prudent to focus on the real issue?
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions call is a non-violent and moral way to advance peace and deliver justice and security.
Its tenets are simple: Recognise the inalienable rights of the Palestinian refugees; end the illegal military occupation; end discrimination of Palestinian citizens within Israel.
The longer Israel obfuscates its responsibilities vis-a-vis the question of Palestine, the longer it will have to defend the indefensible.
Moammar Mashni, Australians for Palestine, Melbourne, Vic
Real issues over Palestine? What a crazy idea. Read this latest Haaretz feature to see why BDS is so essential. Israel runs a racially discriminatory system of apartheid in the occupied territories. But I guess that makes me anti-Semitic.
This is both unsurprising and worrying. The idea that the US, which backs the vast majority of repressive states globally, is also supposedly helping a few dissidents to organise (and embrace market capitalism?) is the epitome of hypocrisy, also known as American foreign policy:
Even as the United States poured billions of dollars into foreign military programs and anti-terrorism campaigns, a small core of American government-financed organizations were promoting democracy in authoritarian Arab states.
The money spent on these programs was minute compared with efforts led by the Pentagon. But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
The work of these groups often provoked tensions between the United States and many Middle Eastern leaders, who frequently complained that their leadership was being undermined, according to the cables.
The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.
No one doubts that the Arab uprisings are home grown, rather than resulting from “foreign influence,” as alleged by some Middle Eastern leaders.
“We didn’t fund them to start protests, but we did help support their development of skills and networking,” said Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, a Washington-based advocacy and research group. “That training did play a role in what ultimately happened, but it was their revolution. We didn’t start it.”
