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mike Nasra
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mike commented on the article |this link tell the true story
http://alfrankenweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=42760 -
mike commented on the article |The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Friday for an independent war crimes investigation in Gaza after reports that Israeli forces shelled a house full of Palestinian civilians, killing 30 people.
Navi Pillay told an emergency meeting of the UN Human Rights Council that the harm to Israeli civilians caused by Hamas rockets was unacceptable, but did not excuse any abuses carried out by Israeli forces in response. Pillay went further in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., saying an incident in Gaza City this week "appears to have all the elements of war crimes." The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood on Jan. 4, then shelled the building 24 hours later. The UN agency said 110 people were in the house, according to testimony from four witnesses. On Thursday, the international Red Cross said the Israeli army refused rescuers permission to reach wounded people in the neighborhood for four days. Israel said the delay was caused by fighting in the area. Pillay told the Geneva-based rights council that all parties to the conflict had a duty to care for the wounded and avoid targeting health workers, hospitals and ambulances. Violations of international humanitarian law may amount to war crimes for which individuals should be held accountable, she said. -
mike commented on the article |
No such thing as United Nations
Medeshi Jan 6, 2009
No such thing as United Nations
By Linda Heard
I NEVER imagined I would one day agree with that bizarre neoconservative warmonger John Bolton, who was briefly the US ambassador to the United Nations. In 1994, Bolton was quoted as saying "There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference". I differ from Bolton only on one point. The entire expensive and useless organization founded in 1945 to prevent wars and pursue human rights should be demolished because it has failed to live up to its charter over and over again.
On Saturday night, the UN Security Council met in a closed-door emergency session so as to agree a resolution on Gaza, where more than 520 Palestinians have been murdered and over 3,000 wounded. But due to American pro-Israel bias, hypocrisy and double standards its members couldn't even come up with a joint statement calling for an immediate cease-fire.
For once, Britain broke with its joined-at-the-hip US ally and demanded an end to the aggression whereas only last week it, too, had blocked UN calls for a cease-fire. It seems that Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decided he is no longer willing to provide Washington with moral cover but unfortunately this is too little, too late.
Saturday's stalemate is a repeat of attempts in the summer of 2006 to end Israel's war on Gaza that robbed the lives of 1,200 civilians. Then, the US and Britain, both veto-holders, stood together against the rest of the world and allowed the carnage to go on until it looked like Israel was receiving an unexpected bloody nose.
The council's current inaction was too much for the president of the UN General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, who termed it "a monstrosity". "Once again, the world is watching in dismay the dysfunction of the Security Council," he said, while blaming certain countries for playing politics.
Article 1 of the UN Charter headed "Purposes of the United Nations" calls for the body "to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: To take collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace; and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes..."
Article 73 states members of the UN which have responsibilities for the administration of territories whose people have not attained a full measure of self-government must recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount and must ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples concerned, their political, economic, social and educational advancement, their just treatment and their protection against abuses".
The UN has failed on all the above points and more. It does not maintain international peace and security. It does not suppress acts of aggression or settle international disputes and it does not censure Israel's willful failure to hold the interests of the occupied Palestinians paramount and protect them against abuses.
The charter is further based on the sovereign equality of all its members. This fine sentiment has turned out to be a huge joke. There is no equality amongst members and there cannot be as long as the five permanent members of the Security Council have veto power - a power, by the way that cannot be withdrawn unless the five veto-holders agree.
In reality, the 192 member states are under the boot of the five veto-holders. This situation makes a mockery of the term United Nations. There are the five bosses and then there are the others.
To be precise, there are six bosses, one unofficial. Israel and the US are practically one when it comes to foreign policy and, thus, Israel receives carte blanche to produce undeclared nuclear weapons, carry out a policy of extrajudicial assassinations as well as bomb and invade neighboring countries at will. The US vetoes most resolutions critical of Israel and blocks all resolutions binding under Chapter 7.
No wonder Israel feels free to publicly confront the veracity of UN representatives who say there is a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza and expel those it doesn't like such as UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk, who says he was treated like some sort of security threat locked in "a tiny room that smelled of urine and filth". Falk received such appealing treatment all because he had spoken out against Israel's violations of international humanitarian law.
A fair and just world formed by the true will of all the international community requires a nonelitist body where all nations are empowered with a vote that counts. Moreover, such an organization should not be headquartered in the US where delegates are vulnerable to being browbeaten, threatened, bribed and monitored as occurred in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Instead, a neutral home such as Switzerland or even Dubai should be considered.
In the meantime, Israel continues its bloodletting in Gaza unimpeded while the United Nations will continue to be nothing more than an empty debating society, to borrow an expression from George W. Bush. It needs either a shake-up or a demolition squad. As it stands it shames us all. -
mike commented on the article |
Norwegian doctor's SMS alerts from Gaza spread in Europe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA
Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert arrived one week ago in the Gaza Strip to assist Palestinian healthcare providers as the Israeli offensive drags on. With information limited in the Strip due to an Israeli ban on reporters in the territory, Gilbert has been sending SMS messages that are being forwarded to cell-phones throughout Europe. His messages have become an invaluable accounting of the dire medical situation in the Strip. By ALEXANDRA SANDELS
Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert on a local TV program. Gilbert told reporters in Gaza has no plans on leaving even if he is risking his own life. R.R.
STOCKHOLM, January 6, 2008 (MENASSAT) – As the eleventh day of the Israeli military offensive comes to an end, accurate medical reports of the situation inside the Gaza Strip have become invaluable after Israel banned reporters from entering the Gaza Strip on December 27. Enter 61-year old Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, whose SMS phone messages from a Gaza hospital are increasingly being cited in news reports throughout Europe.
A triage specialist, Gilbert has had extensive experience working in conflict zones such as Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and more recently Afghanistan. He says the situation in Gaza is the worst he’s ever seen.
'Closest you come to a massacre'
Gilbert and another Norwegian doctor, Erik Fosse, are part of a volunteer medical aid organization NORWAC – Norwegian Aid Committee. They arrived in Gaza on December 30, 3 days after Israel began its assault on the Strip to help Palestinian doctors at the overcrowded Al-Shifa hospital.
According to Gilbert, the Israeli offensive in such a densely populated place has created “massacres” because civilians stand “no chance of getting out of the line of fire.”
“The intensive care unit here is full of children with serious injuries. Twenty-five percent of the victims are women and children and forty-five percent of the injured are women and children. This is the closest you come to a massacre,” Gilbert told Swedish Radio.
Both Fosse and Gilbert are reportedly working around the clock to help the victims, which are increasing in numbers since Saturday’s ground invasion began. He says the two of them live in a room at the hospital and that Israel is pounding the area and “shooting at everyone and everything.”
“It's very cold and the Israelis are bombing the area all the time. Yesterday, three ambulance workers were killed when they were out picking up injured people,” Gilbert said.
SMS-ing the horrors
Israel has banned reporters from entering Gaza despite a December Israeli high court ruling that states eight journalists at a time be allowed to go in to the Strip – even as the Israeli military escalates its offensive.
Free press advocates claim that without the watchful eyes of outside reporters, the facts on-the-ground in Gaza are being sacrificed to remote wire reports and biased accounts.
But on Monday, Scandinavian countries began receiving SMS alerts on their mobile phones giving eyewitness accounts from Gilbert telling of the situation from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
His original text messages to a colleague eventually made headlines in northern Europe.
One message read obtained by MENASSAT read: “We are swimming in death, blood, and amputated victims. Many children. Pregnant women. I've never experienced anything so awful.”
In the sms, Gilbert also claimed that Gaza's main vegetable market had been bombed on Monday morning, killing 20 people and injured 80.
Gilbert’s messages eventually became a doctor’s cry for people to take action to pressure European governments to pressure their leaders into brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
'Send it (the SMS) along, call it out. DO SOMETHING! DO MORE!,' Gilbert pleads in one SMS, adding, “We shouldn't call ourselves decent Europeans if we don't act to stop this.”
He told Swedish Radio, “This is the Warzaw ghettos of 2009,” an allusion to the NAZI offensive on the Jewish section of the Polish capital in the Second World War.
Israel said it intends to press on with its ground offensive, and despite the fact that conditions are worsening in the Gaza Strip, Gilbert has no plans on leaving even if he is risking his own life.
'We are here to help people and we're staying here,' he said. -
mike commented on the article |
if the following not make you re-think about war crimes commited by IDF then i agree with shelly, it is like talking to brick wall
http://www.alquds.co.uk/today/06z49.jpg -
mike commented on the article |
The Jewish ethical tradition means embracing Palestinians, too. By Sara Roy Cambridge, Mass.
I hear the voices of my friends in Gaza as clearly as if we were still on the phone; their agony echoes inside me. They weep and moan over the death of their children, some, little girls like mine, taken, their bodies burned and destroyed so senselessly. One Palestinian friend asked me, "Why did Israel attack when the children were leaving school and the women were in the markets?" There are reports that some parents cannot find their dead children and are desperately roaming overflowing hospitals. As Jews celebrated the last night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights commemorating our resurgence as a people, I asked myself: How am I to celebrate my Jewishness while Palestinians are being killed? The religious scholar Marc Ellis challenges us further by asking whether the Jewish covenant with God is present or absent in the face of Jewish oppression of Palestinians? Is the Jewish ethical tradition still available to us? Is the promise of holiness – so central to our existence – now beyond our ability to reclaim? The lucky ones in Gaza are locked in their homes living lives that have long been suspended – hungry, thirsty, and without light but their children are alive. Since Nov. 4, when Israel effectively broke the truce with Hamas by attacking Gaza on a scale then unprecedented – a fact now buried with Gaza's dead – the violence has escalated as Hamas responded by sending hundreds of rockets into Israel to kill Israeli civilians. It is reported that Israel's strategy is to hit Hamas military targets, but explain that difference to my Palestinian friends who must bury their children. On Nov. 5, Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas, and parts for water and sanitation systems. A colleague of mine in Jerusalem said, "this siege is in a league of its own. The Israelis have not done something like this before." During November, an average of 4.6 trucks of food per day entered Gaza from Israel compared with an average of 123 trucks per day in October. Spare parts for the repair and maintenance of water-related equipment have been denied entry for over a year. The World Health Organization just reported that half of Gaza's ambulances are now out of order. According to the Associated Press, the three-day death toll rose to at least 370 by Tuesday morning, with some 1,400 wounded. The UN said at least 62 of the dead were civilians. A Palestinian health official said that at least 22 children under age 16 were killed and more than 235 children have been wounded. In nearly 25 years of involvement with Gaza and Palestinians, I have not had to confront the horrific image of burned children – until today. Yet for Palestinians it is more than an image, it is a reality, and because of that I fear something profound has changed that will not easily be undone. For how, in the context of Gaza today, does one speak of reconciliation as a path to liberation, of sympathy as a source of understanding? Where does one find or even begin to create a common field of human undertaking (to borrow from the late, acclaimed Palestinian scholar, Edward Said) so essential to coexistence? It is one thing to take an individual's land, his home, his livelihood, to denigrate his claims, or ignore his emotions. It is another to destroy his child. What happens to a society where renewal is denied and all possibility has ended? And what will happen to Jews as a people whether we live in Israel or not? Why have we been unable to accept the fundamental humanity of Palestinians and include them within our moral boundaries? Rather, we reject any human connection with the people we are oppressing. Ultimately, our goal is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone. Our rejection of "the other" will undo us. We must incorporate Palestinians and other Arab peoples into the Jewish understanding of history, because they are a part of that history. We must question our own narrative and the one we have given others, rather than continue to cherish beliefs and sentiments that betray the Jewish ethical tradition. Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice almost everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable – indeed, for some, it's an act of heresy – to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor. This double standard must end. Israel's victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers. Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the Holocaust? As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different, even if uncertain? The answers will determine who we are and what, in the end, we become.
Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of "Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict."
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