My following article appears in today’s Crikey: On Tuesday lunchtime the Australian Human Rights Centre and the UNSW International Law and Policy Group (with assistance from the Israeli embassy) hosted a seminar on “The Fight against Terror: Practical Dilemmas in applying the Laws of War.” The two speakers were Professor Abraham Bell of Israel’s Bar-Ilan…
Showing all posts tagged human rights
Israel makes it clear that Palestinians are not fully welcome
An Haaretz editorial on something that should outrage Jews the world over and yet elicits little more than silence: Dr. Immad Hammada and Dr. Murad Abu-Khalaf are both lecturers in electrical engineering born in East Jerusalem. Their families have lived in the city for generations. They both left years ago, each one separately, to study…
Seeing refugees as the threat
The era of arrogance and intolerance in the West is growing. A desire to ignore the world’s problems and punish those simply wanting a better life: Only two years after its last revision, the Swiss Asylum Act is about to be ‘reformed’ again. The changes include a gag order on political activism for asylum-seekers and…
Don’t show them anything their government does
Most Israelis have no idea about life in the West Bank; the casual brutality and the grinding occupation. The point is that most don’t want to know. Do they care about this? On Monday, June 21, I am to appear before the Knesset Education Committee and the Minister of Education, Mr. Gideon Saar, following my…
Racial profiling is normal
Daily discrimination against Arabs in Israel is so normal it’s barely noticed by anybody and rarely criticised. The price of maintaining a Jewish majority state, of course: Here is a story known to only some of the citizens of Israel. A few weeks ago a 43-year-old lecturer in sociology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,…
Cairo hearts Washington and murders its own citizens
What America gets with a few billion dollars of aid every year: Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the death of Khaled Mohammed Said, a 28-year-old human rights activist who is widely alleged to have been beaten to death by police in Alexandria on 6 June, and calls for an independent and transparent enquiry. The…
The “war on terror” debases us all
Guess which war criminal said this? It is understood by all that we carried out this great humanitarian operation only to eliminate terrorism. We left no room for even one bullet to be fired against ordinary citizens. Our armed forces comprise those who went into battle carrying a gun in one hand, the declaration of…
The power of endurance in Burma
We will not forget: As Aung San Suu Kyi prepares to celebrate her 65th birthday tomorrow, confined in the house in which she has spent most of the past two decades, a confidante of the Burmese opposition leader has made a simple but passionate appeal to those in the West to use their freedom to…
Lebanon may soon treat Palestinians with respect
The Arab world has tolerated Palestinian refugees for decades but often treated them with contempt; this must change and soon. Here’s a possible shift: Despite some contentious rhetoric in Parliament on Tuesday, a turning point appears to have arrived in a decades-long battle to secure sufficient political backing to approve key civil rights for Palestinians…
Australian “green” company linked to Israel’s occupation in Palestine
My following article appears today on ABC Unleashed/The Drum: My investigation has found a leading Australian electric car company is linked to an Israeli firm that operates in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories. Better Place, advertised as “dedicated to zero emissions driving”, is part of a global venture capital firm based in California that has…