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Ireland recognizes Palestine as a state as EU vote looms

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A Palestinian protester holding her national flag faces Israeli soldiers during a demonstration on the highway between Jerusalem and Jericho on November 28, 2014, against the construction of Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley and against the plan to relocate Bedoiuns from the central West Bank area. AFP / Abbas Momani

A Palestinian protester holding her national flag faces Israeli soldiers during a demonstration on the highway between Jerusalem and Jericho on November 28, 2014, against the construction of Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley and against the plan to relocate Bedoiuns from the central West Bank area. AFP / Abbas Momani

by Al Akhbar

Irish lawmakers urged their government Wednesday to recognize Palestine as a state in a symbolic motion that sailed through parliament unopposed, the latest in a series of similar measures across Europe as the EU parliament holds a crucial vote on Palestine next week.

The Irish move came a day before the Danish parliament gears up to vote on Thursday to recognize Palestine as well.

The non-binding motion agreed by lawmakers in Dublin called on the government to “officially recognize the State of Palestine, on the basis of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital, as established in UN resolutions.”

This would be “a further positive contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it added.

The government is not bound to follow the motion but Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said Ireland supported early recognition of a Palestinian state “in principle.”

“We have always supported a viable two-state solution and will continue to support that in any manner and by any means,” Flanagan told parliament.

Despite being proposed by the opposition Sinn Fein party, the motion had cross-party support, dispensing the need for a vote. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who was refused entry to Gaza by Israel during a visit to the region last week, said the motion was about inspiring hope.

“We must stand with the Palestinian and Israeli citizens who want peace – who are taking risks for peace. The passing of this motion is an important contribution to this,” Adams said.

The motion also called on the Irish government to do everything it could internationally to secure “an inclusive and viable peace process.”

European politicians have become more active in pushing for a sovereign Palestine since the collapse of US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in April, and ensuing conflict in Gaza, where more than 2,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and on the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed this summer.

“It’s been suggested that recognition now might help jump-start a stalemate process. This was the judgement made by Sweden and indeed it is the spirit of this evening’s motion,” Flanagan said.

The chairperson of the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Martin O’Quigley, welcomed the move.

“It’s very important, but just as important is for the Irish government to make Israel accountable for what has happened and what is happening in Palestine,” he told AFP.

The Israeli embassy in Dublin said however the motion was premature.

“A vote in favor of this motion, therefore, is a vote for Ireland, a neutral country, to intervene in a foreign conflict in favour of one national movement at the expense of another,” the Embassy said in a statement.

“That is not how peace is brought about.”

Denmark to debate Palestine recognition

Meanwhile, the Danish parliament will debate a motion calling for the recognition of Palestine as a state on Thursday.

Danish MP Holger K. Nielsen, one of the main drivers behind the initiative in Denmark, told Ma’an news agency that the first reading will take place Thursday before a potential vote in the second reading, which could take place in early 2015.

The motion was introduced by the Red-Green Alliance, the Socialist People’s Party (SPP), and Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit, three small left-wing parties. It calls on the government to recognize Palestine as a state within the 1967 borders

“I think there is strength now among European countries tired of Israel’s attitude to negotiations and it is therefore more important now to put pressure on Israel,” Nielsen, a member of the SPP, said.

Nielsen says it will be “difficult” to get a majority in the Danish parliament, which may even vote against it. But he thinks debates like these aim to raise public awareness and have notably changed national attitudes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Public opinion has changed (in Denmark) today compared to 10 years ago. Our aim is to change the situation so the Danish public understands the conflict.”

A former Danish adviser at the EU parliament told Ma’an that while the vote in Denmark won’t change the realities on the ground, it is a step in the right direction.

“The Danish vote is part of larger picture where a lot of Europeans are getting fed up with Israel’s rejectionism and continued settlement building. Parliaments in a lot of EU countries are reacting to this and putting Palestinian statehood to a vote out of concern for the two-state solution.”

According to PA estimations, around 135 countries have so far recognized the State of Palestine, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

Ireland’s parliament is the fourth European assembly to call for the recognition of Palestinian statehood since October.

Sweden, who initiated the vote, has gone even further, officially recognizing Palestine as a state in a move that prompted Israel to recall its ambassador.

A week after Sweden’s decision, MPs in Britain voted 274 to 12 for a non-binding motion to “recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”

On November 18, Spanish MPs backed a motion to recognize Palestine as a state following a final-status agreement, while on December 2, French MPs voted 339 to 151 in favor of a motion that invites Paris to recognize the state of Palestine “as an instrument to gain a definitive resolution of the conflict.”

Spain notably changed its wording on the day of the motion following an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue — from recognition as a way to encourage a “negotiated settlement” to recognition following an agreement.

Intense lobbying around EU vote

The Danish debate comes a week before the EU parliament is due to vote on recognizing Palestine as a state on December 17, a motion postponed on November4 27 following reportedly intense pressure by Israeli diplomats.

Spain’s significant rewording of its motion reflects the core split within the EU parliament: using unconditional recognition as a means to address the imbalance between both sides in the peace process, or recognition as a condition of the outcome of talks.

A staffer in the European parliament told Ma’an that the vote was extremely tight at the moment, with signs that there could be no majority for any text at all, a potentially damaging blow for the EU’s role as a serious global actor.

The PA has also notably been absent from lobbying parliament members on the vote, the staffer said, with Israeli civil society actors lobbying passionately in favor of recognition and Israeli diplomats and other actors lobbying intensely against parliamentarians recognizing Palestine.

Whatever the outcome of the vote next week, debate in the EU parliament has been extensive, the staffer added.

EU recognition of Palestine would do little to change the realities of occupation, the former Danish adviser told Ma’an, but it could be taken as a sign of future EU action if Israel continues to maintain the status quo.

New EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who took office in early November, has been extremely vocal on Palestine and made it a point of calling for a Palestinian state during a visit to Gaza, the first visit in her new position.

Mogherini’s statements together with real measures such as getting tougher on settlements, denying violent settlers access to the EU, and reviewing the extensive trade agreements with Israel could signal meaningful change if the EU recognition vote falls flat, the former adviser added.

Holger Nielsen, the Danish MP, agrees that the EU must use economic means and be stricter on trade policy to really influence the Israeli government’s position.

“It’s difficult, but you have to continue the discussion. Change is coming all the time. Maybe not tomorrow, but I’m sure the only way you can make things change is to maintain this kind of pressure.”

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In November 1988, Palestinian leaders led by Yasser Arafat declared the existence of a state of Palestine inside the 1967 borders and the state’s belief “in the settlement of international and regional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the charter and resolutions of the United Nations.”

Heralded as a “historic compromise,” the move implied that Palestinians would agree to accept only 22 percent of historic Palestine, in exchange for peace with Israel. It is now believed that only 17 percent of historic Palestine is under Palestinian control following the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) this year set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.

It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists support a one-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians would be treated equally, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

(AFP, Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

Palestinian minister dies after being assaulted by Israeli soldier

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Ziad Abu Ein

Ramallah/Ma’an: The head of the Palestinian Authority committee against the separation wall and settlements died Wednesday after Israeli soldiers assaulted him in a village near Ramallah, committee sources said.

Ziad Abu Ein, 55, died after an Israeli soldier beat him on the chest with his helmet in the village of Turmsayya in the Ramallah district, the director of the committee’s information center, Jamil al-Barghouthi, told Ma’an.

Abu Ein also suffered severe tear gas inhalation as Israeli soldiers fired canisters in the area.

A Palestinian security source told AFP that Israeli forces beat Abu Ein with the butts of their rifles and their helmets during a protest march.

He lost consciousness and was taken to Ramallah Public Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Medical sources told Ma’an that Abu Ein lost consciousness and that his heart stopped after being beaten by Israeli soldiers and inhaling tear gas.

The Israeli army said in a statement that “approximately 200 rioters gathered in Turmus Ayya, near Ramallah. Forces halted the progress of the rioters into the civilian (Israeli settler outpost) community of Adei-Ad using riot dispersal means.”

It said it was “reviewing the circumstances of the participation of Ziad Abu Ein, and his later death.”

“The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav (Poli) Mordechai, and his Palestinian counterpart, Hussein Al-Sheikh, have agreed that an Israeli pathologist will join a delegation of pathologists from Jordan, for a joint examination of the circumstances of Ziad Abu Ein’s death.

“Additionally, a proposal has been made to the Palestinians to establish a joint investigation team to review the incident.”

A Ma’an reporter said Abu Ein was taking part in a tree-planting project in an area of the village threatened with confiscation.

Dozens of other activists were also taking part in the project.

President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that the attack on Abu Ein was a “barbaric action that cannot be ignored or accepted,” adding that actions would be taken to hold Israel accountable.

Abbas condemned all Israeli assaults on Palestinians.

Ziad Abu Ein was a member of the Fatah movement’s Revolutionary Council, and served as undersecretary to the minister of prisoner affairs before Abbas appointed him head of the committee against the separation wall and settlements.

UK and Israel supported Kenyan program of extrajudicial killings

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Kenyan officers suggest program in which terrorism suspects were killed without trial on basis of Western intelligence

Kenya extrajudicial killings

by Al Jazeera

Kenyan police have assassinated nearly 500 terrorism suspects as part of an extrajudicial killing program supported by intelligence provided by Israel and the United Kingdom, an Al Jazeera investigation has revealed.

Officers from four units of Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) said that police assassinated terrorist suspects on government orders.

The police killings, according to an ATPU officer, were ordered by Kenya’s National Security Council and run into the hundreds every year. “Day in, day out, you hear of eliminating suspects,” the officer said.

“Since I was employed, I’ve killed over 50. Definitely, I do become proud because I’ve eliminated some problems,” said another officer.

The ATPU officers contend that Kenya’s weak judicial system forced them to resort to assassinations, as police have failed to produce strong enough evidence to prosecute terrorism suspects.

“If the law cannot work, there’s another option … eliminate him,” an officer explained.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and National Security Council members — including the deputy president, defense secretary and policy chief — denied the allegations.

In April, Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, an armed fighter known as Makaburi, was gunned down outside a Mombasa court after being charged under Kenya’s terrorism laws. Human rights groups allege police killed him.

ATPU officers confirmed the allegations. “Makaburi was killed by the police,” said one officer. “That execution was planned in Nairobi by very top, high-ranking police officers and government officials.”

Confidential police reports obtained by Al Jazeera allegedly show Makaburi had extensive links to Somali armed group Al-Shabab and planned and financed bombings in Kenya.

According to the ATPU officers, the intelligence that drives Nairobi’s “elimination program,” is supplied by Western intelligence agencies.

“Once they give us the information, they know what they have told us. It is ABCD — ‘Mr. Jack’ is involved in such and such a kind of activity. Tomorrow he’s no longer there. We have worked. Definitely the report that you gave us has been worked on,” the officer said.

A Kenyan National Police spokesman refused to comment on the allegations.

According to the officers, Israel and the U.K. provide training, equipment and intelligence to Kenyan officers on how to “eliminate” suspects targeted by Kenyan security forces.

Israel and the U.K. denied involvement. The U.K. Foreign Office added that it had “raised concerns” with Kenya over the “serious allegations.”

Mark Ellis, head of the International Bar Association, a leading organization of legal practitioners, said the alleged complicity of these countries could violate international law.

“It’s clear, based on these interviews, that there’s at least prima facie evidence to suggest that these third-party countries are involved, and therefore they all have responsibility to investigate,” Ellis said. “We should stop providing any type of assistance or training to police units in Kenya until there is a clear change … in how the Kenyan authorities deal with suspects.”

UN Reveals Israeli Links With Syrian Rebels

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Reports by UN observers in the Golan submitted to 15 members of Security Council detail regular contact between IDF officers and armed Syrian opposition figures at the border.

Israeli soldiers stand near the border with Syria in the occupied Golan Heights as they prepare to evacuate a wounded Syrian let in for medical treatment, September 23, 2014. Photo by Reuters

Israeli soldiers stand near the border with Syria in the occupied Golan Heights as they prepare to evacuate a wounded Syrian let in for medical treatment, September 23, 2014. Photo by Reuters

by Barak Ravid, Haaretz

Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures. The reports, submitted to the 15 members of the UN Security Council and available on the UN’s website, detail regular contacts held on the border between IDF officers and soldiers and Syrian rebels.

The observer force, UNDOF, was established in 1974 as part of the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria. The agreement set up a buffer zone several kilometers wide. About 1,000 UN observers supervised the implementation of the agreement until 2013, when the Syrian civil war severely reduced the force’s ability to function.

While Croatia and Austria pulled out and Ireland, Fiji and India agreed to send troops, the increase of attacks on UN forces in recent months caused the force to abandon many of its positions along the front and to transfer its command to the Israeli side of the border.

The observers have continued to file reports to New York, which were relatively mundane; but their content changed in March 2013, when Israel started admitting injured Syrians for medical treatment in Safed and Nahariya hospitals. The Syrian ambassador to the UN complained of widespread cooperation between Israel and Syrian rebels, not only treatment of the wounded but also other aid.

Israel at first asserted the injured were civilians reaching the border of their own initiative and without prior coordination because they could not obtain suitable treatment in Syria. Later, as the numbers increased, Israel said it was coordinating with civilians but not opposition groups. However, the reports reveal direct contact between the IDF and armed opposition members.

According to a report from December 3, 2013, a person wounded on September 15 “was taken by armed members of the opposition across the ceasefire line, where he was transferred to a civilian ambulance escorted by an IDF vehicle.” Moreover, from November 9 to 19 the “UNDOF observed at least 10 wounded persons being transferred by armed members of the opposition from the Bravo side across the ceasefire line to IDF.”

Further reports indicated similar incidents. However, cooperation between the IDF and Syrian rebels that was revealed in UN observer reports does not just include transferring the wounded. Observers remarked in the report distributed on June 10 that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.

The last report distributed to Security Council members, on December 1, described another meeting between IDF soldiers and Syrian opposition members that two UN representatives witnessed on October 27 some three kilometers east of Moshav Yonatan. The observers said they saw two IDF soldiers on the eastern side of the border fence opening the gate and letting two people enter Israel. The report, contrary to previous ones, did not note that the two exiting Syria were injured or why they entered Israel.

This specific event is of particular interest in light of what happened on the Syrian side of the border in the exact same region. According to the report, UN observers stated that tents were set up about 300 meters from the Israeli position for some 70 families of Syrian deserters. The Syrian army sent a letter of complaint to UNDOF in September, claiming this tent camp was a base for “armed terrorists” crossing the border into Israel. The Syrians also warned that if the UN would not evacuate the tent camp, the Syrian army would view it as a legitimate target.

As oil prices dive, Saudi Arabia looks to Israel for new market

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Minister of Petroleum says Saudi Arabia ‘does not hold grudge against any nation,’ including ‘Jewish state’

saudi-arabia-oil

by i24 News

Saudi Arabia is looking to expand its oil sales and would be willing to sell oil to any country that wants to buy it, including Israel, the country’s Minister of Petroleum Ali Al-Naimi told reporters at an OPEC summit in Vienna on Sunday.

“We do not hold a grudge against any nation and our leaders promote peace, religious tolerance and co-existence,” Al-Naimi was quoted as saying by the Kuwaita news agency KUNA. “His Majesty King Abdullah has always been a model for good relations between Saudi Arabia and other states – and the Jewish state is no exception.”

Saudi Arabia is also prepared to further reduce oil prices worldwide, but only if Germany agrees to remove an existing embargo on the sale of combat tanks to the country.

The statement came as oil tumbled to new multi-year lows in Asia on Monday, extending a sharp sell-off last week in response to OPEC’s decision to maintain output despite a supply glut and plunging prices.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for January delivery dipped $1.65 in afternoon Asian trading to $64.50, its lowest intraday level since July 2009.

Brent crude for January sank $1.76 to $68.39, to stay below the psychologically important $70 level. It had touched $67.90 earlier Monday, its lowest since February 2010.

“Negative actions in the oil market are continuing today. Investors see crude as remaining vulnerable after last week’s OPEC announcement,” Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, told AFP.

“We have not yet seen any piece of news or development that could trigger a bottoming-out phase in oil prices,” he added.

(with AFP)

Belgium may unilaterally recognize Palestine – report

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Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

by RT

Four political parties that form Belgium’s government have reportedly agreed to recognize the Palestinian state, despite diplomatic pressure from Israel and its allies. The recognition will happen “at a moment deemed appropriate.”

Belgium could become the second European Union member to officially recognize the Palestinian state, reported Le Soir, French language daily Belgian newspaper.

Sweden was the first country to recognize the occupied state of Palestine this year.

Belgium’s coalition government allegedly drafted a motion regarding recognition of the Palestinian state earlier this week. The document that will be submitted to nation’s parliament for implementation bears no set date of recognition, though.

In late November Prime Minister Charles Michel favored Palestine recognition. “But the question is when is the right moment,” he added.

There should be a common position elaborated within the EU regarding the Palestinian state recognition, Michel stressed. Yet there is at least one European state – Germany – that has spoken against recognition of Palestine.

“From our point of view, a unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state would not move us forward on the way to a two-state solution,” Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said in November after meeting with Michel.

In October the British parliament voted in favor of a symbolic move to recognize Palestine as an official state, answering impassioned pleas by pro-Palestinian ministers and activists.

Irish lawmakers joined the initiative in November.

Spanish MPs have watered down outright calls for a Palestinian state after the ruling Socialist party passed a non-binding symbolic motion, though initial version urged the Madrid government to recognize Palestine.

The French parliament passed a symbolic motion on Palestine recognition on Tuesday, while the senate will vote on a similar non-binding motion on December 11. At the same time Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stressed that the government would only recognize Palestinian statehood after Palestine and Israel come to a solution in peace talks.

Israeli authorities have been warning other nations to withstand from recognizing Palestinian statehood in any way.

“Recognition of a Palestinian state by France would be a grave mistake,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem ahead of the French vote.

Simultaneously with the symbolic recognitions of the Palestinian state, Netanyahu’s cabinet voted in favor of anchoring in law the status of Israel as “the national homeland of the Jewish people,” which critics fear would discriminate the Arab population.

French MPs recognize Palestine as a state in non-binding vote

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A Palestinian man holds a poster as he calls for France to vote for the recognition of a Palestinian State outside a French and German language training center in the West Bank city of Ramallah on December 2, 2014. AFP / Abbas Momani

A Palestinian man holds a poster as he calls for France to vote for the recognition of a Palestinian State outside a French and German language training center in the West Bank city of Ramallah on December 2, 2014. AFP / Abbas Momani

by Al Akhbar

French lawmakers voted on Tuesday in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state, a symbolic move that will not immediately affect France’s diplomatic stance but demonstrates growing European impatience with a stalled peace process.

The motion, which echoes similar votes in Britain, Spain and Ireland, received the backing of 339 lawmakers with 151 voting against.

While most developing countries recognize Palestine as a state, many Western European countries do not due to their ties with Israel and its main ally, the US.

But European countries have grown frustrated with Israel, which since the collapse of the latest US-sponsored talks in April has pressed on with building illegal settlements in annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territory that is being considered for a Palestinian state under a two-state solution.

The seven-week Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip over the summer also elicited serious criticisms regarding the Zionist state’s use of force. More than 2,160 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, at least 70 percent of them civilians.

Palestinian leaders say negotiations have failed and they have no choice but to pursue independence unilaterally.

In October, Sweden became the biggest Western European country to recognize Palestine, and parliaments in Spain, Britain and Ireland have since held votes in which they backed non-binding resolutions in favor of recognition.

In an interview in Les Echos daily on Tuesday, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven defended the move.

“What is working so well in the current plan?” Lofven asked. “It’s time to do something different. We wanted to make the balance less uneven between the two parties.”

Israel has strongly opposed all such moves and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the French vote a “grave mistake.”

The motion, proposed by the ruling Socialists and backed by left-wing parties and some conservatives, asked the government to “use the recognition of a Palestinian state with the aim of resolving the conflict definitively.”

Speaking to parliament ahead of the vote, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the government would not be bound by the vote. However, he said the status quo was unacceptable and France would recognize an independent Palestine without a negotiated settlement if a final diplomatic push failed.

He backed a two-year timeframe to relaunch and conclude negotiations. Paris is working with Britain and Germany on a text that could be accelerated if a separate resolution drafted by Palestinians is put forward.

“If this final effort to reach a negotiated solution fails, then France will have to do what it takes by recognizing without delay the Palestinian state,” Fabius said.

The vote in Paris has raised domestic political pressure on the French government to be more active on the issue. A recent poll showed more than 60 percent of French people supported a Palestinian state.

France has the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in Europe and flare-ups in the Middle East aggravate tensions between the two communities.

Right-wing lawmakers have criticised the Socialist majority for backing Palestine recognition to win back support from Muslim voters after President Francois Hollande’s apparent support for Israel’s intervention in Gaza.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In November 1988, Palestinian leaders led by Yasser Arafat declared the existence of a state of Palestine inside the 1967 borders and the state’s belief “in the settlement of international and regional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the charter and resolutions of the United Nations.”

Heralded as a “historic compromise,” the move implied that Palestinians would agree to accept only 22 percent of historic Palestine, in exchange for peace with Israel. It is now believed that only 17 percent of historic Palestine is under Palestinian control following the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) this year set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.

According to PA estimations, 134 countries have so far recognized the State of Palestine, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists support a one-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians would be treated equally, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

US sends 3,000 'Smart Bombs' to Israel that killed thousands in Gaza Strip this Summer: Report

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A Palestinian child sits above the ruins of his ruined home, and looks at thousands of homes destroyed because of the war on Gaza. © 2014 Pacific Press

A Palestinian child sits above the ruins of his ruined home, and looks at thousands of homes destroyed because of the war on Gaza. © 2014 Pacific Press

by Gopi Chandra Kharel, IBT

The United States is arming Israel with 3,000 more of the similar ‘Smart bombs’ that killed more than 2,140 Palestinians and injured over 11,000 others this summer in one of the biggest Israeli onslaught at the Gaza Strip.

Although the Department of Defense website did not carry the news, the Press TV and a local news agency cited the department as announcing that it will supply the Israeli air force with those bombs, which are precision-guided munitions designed to achieve greater accuracy.

Since the exact date as well as the nature of the announcement remained unspecified, the news could not be independently verified.

However, the funding for the sale of those bombs will come from US military aid to Israel and will be paid until the end of November 2016, according to International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) which reported citing the US Department of Defence.

It can be noted that the United States provides Israel with about $8.5 million in military aid each day, while it gives nothing to the Palestinian side.

The cost of the latest deal is estimated to be around $82 million enabling the Israeli Air Force to receive thousands of G-DAM model bombs, news sources cited local Palestinian agency Al Ray as saying.

The United States support for Israel has largely been viewed as arbitrary and has prompted several demonstrations across the country. Obama administration has been accused of using US taxpaying money for more Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

The Israeli Air Force used similar smart bombs in the recent war against Hamas militants in Gaza Strip. While the casualties in the Palestinian sides were in thousands, the United States shrugged off the impact of the war as mere ‘colateral damage’ and said they had the right to protect the “Israeli’s right defend itself”.

While hundreds of innocent people including children lost their lives, the Israeli attacks destroyed thousands of buildings, including the only power plant of the territory and hit at least 223 schools in Gaza, including those run by the UN to protect the homeless.

UNGA urges India, Pakistan and Israel to give up nuclear weapons

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united nations

United Nations: India, backed by the United States, opposed a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution calling on New Delhi to voluntarily abandon its nuclear weapons. The resolution that also targeted Israel and Pakistan, however, passed overwhelmingly.

The US joined India to vote against a key part of the resolution on achieving a nuclear weapon-free world that called on India, Israel and Pakistan to immediately and unconditionally accede to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon states and put all their nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

In plain language, this clause would have the three countries it targeted to just give up their nuclear weapons and ability to manufacture them.

Israel and Pakistan also voted against the provision, while France, Britain and Bhutan abstained from voting. It passed with 165 votes in the 193-member UNGA, with 21 countries absent.

India and the US were joined by Britain, Russia, Israel and North Korea in voting against the overall resolution on working towards a nuclear-weapon-free world. But it passed with 169 votes, with China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Micronesia and Palau abstaining.

This resolution and similar ones are not binding under the UN Charter and are symbolic in nature.

India also voted against clauses in two other resolutions that, without naming any country, asked all countries to accede to the NPT while giving up their nuclear arsenals.

New Delhi has been firm in rejecting the NPT, which it considers discriminatory in trying to preserve the nuclear weapons monopoly of five nations — the US, Russia, China, France and Britain.

This stand was reiterated by Ambassador D. B. Venkatesh Varma in October at a meeting of the UNGA’s committee that deals with disarmament and crafted these resolutions. “There is no question of India joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state,” said Varma, who is India’s Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament. “In our view, nuclear disarmament can be achieved through a step-by-step process underwritten by a universal commitment and an agreed global and non-discriminatory multilateral framework.”

India also voted against a resolution pushing for conventional arms control at the regional and sub-regional levels and abstained on another urging nations not to carry out nuclear tests. These resolutions passed by overwhelming majorities.

In another resolution, the UNGA asked all nations to take strong actions to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Yet other resolutions called for lessening international tension by reducing the operational readiness of the several thousand nuclear weapons that remained on high alert despite the end of the cold war, and requested the five nuclear-weapon States to review of nuclear doctrines and take steps to reduce the risks of the use of nuclear weapons.

Israeli driver hits, kills Palestinian as "price tag" attacks intensify

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Israeli Occupation Forces use pressurized water to disperse Palestinians protesting against illegal Israeli settlement plans in Nablus, West Bank on November 21, 2014. Anadolu / Nedal Eshtayah

Israeli Occupation Forces use pressurized water to disperse Palestinians protesting against illegal Israeli settlement plans in Nablus, West Bank on November 21, 2014. Anadolu / Nedal Eshtayah

by Al-Akhbar

An Israeli bus driver ran over two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, killing one and injuring the other, Palestinian security sources said Tuesday, as Israeli forces detain tens in overnight raids in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem.

Nour Hassan Naim Salim, 22, was killed and Alaa Kayid Salim, 20, was injured after being ran over by an Israeli settler driving a bus at the al-Jalama checkpoint in Jenin.

Israeli police and ambulances arrived at the scene and the bus driver was arrested.

Similarly on Monday, an Israeli settler ran over and injured a Palestinian teenager in the Romena neighborhood of West Jerusalem, and on Friday Palestinian woman Suzanne al-Kurd, 29, was also run over by an Israeli settler near the annexed East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shufat.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) monthly report stated that one Palestinian child was killed and six others Palestinians injured, four of them children, after being deliberately hit by Israeli settler vehicles in October.

Besides the hit-and-runs, Israeli settlers have also physically assaulted Palestinians across annexed Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, and in Occupied Palestine.

On Monday, five Israeli settlers assaulted 19-year-old Mahmoud Ubeid near the illegal Israeli settlement of French Hill, a day after a Palestinian taxi driver from Kafr Qasim in central Occupied Palestine said he was attacked by 17 Israelis in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Bnei Brak after two of them claimed he tried to run them over.

Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are endemic and Israeli authorities rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.

Unrest has gripped annexed East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and brutally killed 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir because of his ethnicity.

Israeli authorities have also allowed Zionist settlers to take over homes in Palestinian neighborhoods both in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and announced plans to build thousands of settlements strictly for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem while ignoring Palestinian residents.

Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.

More than 600,000 Israeli settlers, soaring from 189,000 in 1989, live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

Israeli forces injure Palestinians with “sponge rounds”

Meanwhile, a young Palestinian was hospitalized late Tuesday after an Israeli soldier shot him in the head with a sponge bullet in the al-Tur neighborhood of annexed East Jerusalem, witnesses said.

Medics told Ma’an news agency that the unidentified young man sustained a skull fracture, and was in moderate-to-serious condition.

In a separate incident, Jasir Abu al-Hawa, 55, and his 18-year-old son Ahmed were hit by sponge bullets after Israeli troops fired tear gas and sponge bullets at Palestinian mourners during a funeral in Tur.

According to Majdi al-Abbasi of the Silwan-based Wadi Hilweh Information Center, clashes broke out in al-Luzah and the Bir Ayyub areas of the Silwan neighborhood after Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and sponge bullets at the residents.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) repeatedly use excessive force against peaceful protests in the occupied West Bank and annexed Jerusalem.

Tens of Palestinians, including children, have been wounded in protests or during Israeli incursions in Jerusalem and West Bank so far this month.

Saleh Samer Attiyeh Mahmoud, 11, was shot in the face at close range by Israeli forces firing sponge bullets during an Israeli incursion into al-Eisawiya village, north of East Jerusalem. He was hit directly between the eyes, causing severe bleeding to his nose and the loss of sight in his left eye. The vision in his right eye is also severely damaged.

A day later, 10-year-old Mayar Amran Twafic al-Natsheh was left with a fractured skull after a sponge bullet, fired by Israeli forces near the Shufat refugee camp checkpoint, smashed through her grandfather’s car window and hit her in the face.

Sponge rounds are made from high-density plastic with a foam-rubber head, and are fired from grenade launchers. Israeli police have been using them in Occupied Palestine and annexed East Jerusalem since the use of rubber-coated metal bullets was prohibited there, but protocol explicitly prohibits firing them at the upper body.

Israeli forces also fired live ammunition at protesters.

Two seventeen-year-old boys were shot while throwing stones, one in the thigh and one in both the hand and foot, and 38-year-old Nariman Tamimi was shot in the thigh at close range in front of her children and family in the village of Nabi Saleh.

Moreover, two Palestinians, 17 and 19, were shot, one in the shoulder and waist and another in the lower jaw, during an Israeli incursion into Beitin village northeast of Ramallah.

Israeli forces detain physically disabled Palestinian woman

Israeli forces on Wednesday took a physically disabled Palestinian woman from the al-Tur neighborhood into custody during a court hearing for her daughter, family members told Ma’an.

Nadia al-Mughrabi, 54, was detained while attending a hearing at an Israeli magistrate court in Jerusalem for her daughter Amani, who was arrested for defending her mother during an Israeli raid on their home the day before.

According to Mohammed Mahmoud, a lawyer for the prisoner rights group Addamir, Nadia was accused of assaulting a police officer and was hence taken to the Russian Compound interrogation center in Jerusalem for questioning.

Meanwhile, the IOF arrested 13 Palestinians in overnight West Bank raids, sources told Ma’an Wednesday, a day after they arrested 11, including 10-year-old Rachid Abu Sarah, in overnight raids in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said 13 Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank overnight, one south of Nablus, five south of Ramallah, five near Bethlehem, and two south of Hebron.

Moreover, a former Palestinian prisoner in Hebron and two Palestinian women in annexed East Jerusalem were detained during the day Tuesday.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a statement that Israeli forces in Hebron detained former prisoner Akram al-Fseisi, who served two years without trial under the administrative detention policy and was released from Israeli custody two months ago after a 70-day hunger strike.

In Jerusalem, 20-year-old Amani Abed al-Mughrabi was detained at her al-Tur home while Latifa Abdul Latif was arrested while leaving the al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The arrests add to the estimated 6,500 Palestinians, including 300 minors, currently being held in Israeli prisons.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian human rights groups reported that a detained Palestinian child was seriously injured during interrogation on November 19 at an Israeli interrogation center in annexed Jerusalem.

The WAFA News Agency said 16-year-old Khader al-Ajlouni was pushed down a flight of stairs at the police station and suffered serious injuries to his neck, arms and back.

At least 600 Palestinian children have been arrested in annexed Jerusalem alone since last June.

According to a report published Friday by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC), nearly 40 percent of these children have been subjected to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities.

The PPC, an independent Palestinian organization set up in 1993, said the “daily arrest campaigns” inflicted on young Palestinians living in Jerusalem are a “collective punishment against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.”

PPC attorney Mufeed al-Haj said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including but not limited to night and predawn raids on family homes, physical and sexual abuse.

Around 95 percent of detained children were subject to beatings and torture by Israeli security personnel while in detention, while many were forced to make confessions under duress and undergo unfair trials, said Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) committee on detainees.

A report by Defense for Children International (DCI) published in May 2014 revealed that Israel jails 20 percent of Palestinian children it detains in solitary confinement.

DCI said that minors held in solitary confinement spent an average of 10 days in isolation. The longest period of confinement documented in a single case was 29 days in 2012, and 28 days in 2013.

A report by The Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, Israeli forces arrested nearly 3,000 Palestinian children from the beginning of 2010 to mid-2014, the majority of them between the ages of 12 and 15 years old.

The report also documented dozens of video recorded testimonies of children arrested during the first months of 2014, pointing out that 75 percent of the detained children are subjected to physical torture and 25 percent faced military trials.

In 2013, the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) reported that Israel was the only country in the world where children were “systematically tried” in military courts and gave evidence of practices it said were “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”

The Israeli cabinet approved early November a new legislation which will be added to the Israeli penal code and would allow the imposition of a prison sentence up to 20 years for those convicted of throwing stones or other objects at Israeli vehicles.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous Balfour Declaration, called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

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