Dispossession in Jaffa

The Shaya family in their Jaffa home

Coteret - November 23, 2009

[T]his post is on something you can read about in Haaretz. I do add some analysis and access to additional materials, but the primary reason for the divergence is emotional. Not only is this a story of extraordinary injustice, it is also about the family of a friend and colleague, Mary Koussa.

You can read the entire saga of the Shaya family in this Haaretz article, but the gist is fairly simple. In the 1920’s, Salim Khoury Shaya, head of Jaffa’s once prosperous Greek Orthodox Palestinian community, built a house for his family. He had seven children. In 1948, a census was taken of the remnants of Jaffa’s Palestinian community. Empty houses were taken over by the State of Israel, according to the Absentee Property Law (more about that at the bottom of this post). The Shaya house was a unique case. Three of the siblings were absent (in Lebanon), but four were present. So the State proclaimed itself “partner” and legally took over 40% of the house.

Decades passed and, except for a number of failed attempts in the 50’s and 60’s, to sue for full property rights, the Shaya family didn’t hear much from the government. Their area of Jaffa (near Ajami) was a slum no one was really interested in. That all changed about four years ago. The Jaffa coast went through accelerated gentrification and property prices skyrocketed. Amidar, the government owned housing company that administrates most Absentee Properties, saw an opportunity for a windfall. Contrary to popular perception, most of the Palestinians living in the area are not descendants of the pre-1948 residents, but descendants of refugees displaced during the war from other parts of the country, and are now tenants of Amidar. Therefore, their eviction, on a variety of pretexts, was relatively simple. In 2007-2008 alone, Amidar issued at least 400 eviction notices in the Ajami neighborhood.

The few Palestinian owners were more of a problem. But in 2007, some bureaucrat looking through old case files discovered the Shaya family’s vulnerability and hatched a plan — slap them with an exorbitant demand for years of back rent for the 40% of the house “owned” by the government and then demand that the “partnership” be dissolved through sale of the house to a third party. The Shayas don’t want to leave their ancestral home, but their attempts to buy out the State were rebuffed, and now Amidar and the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) have taken them to court. They want them out.

Even from the perspective of Lieberman’s Jewish-Nationalist school of thought there is much that is wrong with this story. As a devil’s advocate, I would ask his disciples in the government, why persecute “good Arabs?” The Shaya’s are fully integrated in Israeli society. One of the second generation siblings worked at the Tel-Aviv municipality for his entire life. An uncle was the first Palestinian policeman recruited in Jaffa by the Israeli government in 1949. A visitor at the Sunday family gatherings hears a mix of Arabic and Hebrew. Why is Israel taking them back to the Nakba that it wants to force them to forget through legislation?

For Israelis who still believe in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and for genuinely “pro-Israel” Jews abroad, this kind of reopening of 1948, which is also happening in Jerusalem and Haifa, is no less than suicidal. It severely undermines the premise of 1967 as the starting point for a diplomatic solution, with its implications regarding the 1948 refugees.

For all Jews, or at least those that see Judaism as a culture and a moral code, rather than an ethnic filter, the story of the persecution of the Shaya family presents a grave injustice for which we, as a collective, are responsible. It often seems to me that the apparatus of our government has lost any sense of justice and morality.

Full article

Palestinian trade unions unanimously support boycott movement

Press release, BDS National Committee, 25 November 2009

In reaction to reports alleging that a Palestinian trade union official has stated his reservations about the Palestinian civil society campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the full spectrum of the Palestinian trade union movement has expressed solid support for the BDS National Committee (BNC) and for the global BDS campaign against Israel as an effective form of resisting its military occupation, war crimes and apartheid policies.

On 12 November, The Jewish Chronicle, a staunchly Zionist paper published in the United Kingdom, reported that the Secretary General of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), Shaher Sa'ad, had told a small delegation of British trade unionists that PGFTU "had so little interest in the subject [of boycotting Israel] it had never discussed boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS)." The head of the delegation, Steve Scott, who is the director of Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI), a well-oiled lobbying front for Israel in the trade union movement, is quoted in the same article as saying, "the only area where the PGFTU did have a boycott policy was with regard to produce from West Bank settlements. Even then, there was concern about whether that boycott could do more harm than good for the 30,000 Palestinians employed there."

On 14 November, Shaher Sa'ad categorically denied the above report in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, reiterating his support for the boycott against Israel. The following day, in an official speech before thousands of Palestinian workers at a political rally in Nablus, he called again for "boycotting [all] Israeli goods" and "supporting local [Palestinian] products" as an effective "form of resistance against the Israeli occupation."

Whether Mr. Sa'ad made the statement attributed to him by the Zionist media outlets in the UK or not, the fact remains that PGFTU has officially endorsed the Palestinian civil society campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, since it was launched on 9 July 2005, and has been a member in the BDS National Committee (BNC), the coalition of Palestinian unions, political parties, NGOs and networks that leads the global BDS campaign, ever since its inception.

If The Jewish Chronicle's report is accurate, something that cannot be taken for granted, given the paper's notorious record, Mr. Sa'ad will have isolated himself completely from the absolute majority of the Palestinian trade union movement, including a solid majority within PGFTU itself. Since the above report, the BNC has officially asked PGFTU for clarifications and for a public, written position confirming its support for the boycott and calling on international trade unions to support BDS. Within hours of our letter, PGFTU-Gaza (which forms a sizable part of the whole Federation) issued an official statement confirming its support for BDS and condemning any alleged violation of it by Sa'ad. Six trade union factions within PGFTU immediately followed suit, endorsing the BNC position and confirming their unambiguous support for BDS. Union leaders affiliated to all political parties represented in the PGFTU have insisted on the need to combat any attempts to undermine the BDS movement.

Furthermore, the largest, most representative Palestinian trade union federation, the General Union of Palestinian Workers (one of the constituent mass organizations of the Palestine Liberation Organization), reiterated its steady support of BDS and denounced Sa'ad's reported statements as falling completely outside the Palestinian trade union consensus behind the boycott of Israel. The Palestinian Federation of Independent Trade Unions also issued a similar position. It is worth noting that all three federations are part of the BNC.

The Israel lobby groups in the UK and elsewhere have felt quite desperate lately in their abortive attempts to stop the spectacular growth of the BDS movement, particularly among major international trade unions. In South Africa, Great Britain, Ireland, Brazil, Canada and France trade union federations representing tens of millions of workers have endorsed -- partially or fully -- the BDS campaign against Israel. Many trade unions in Europe, Latin America and Canada have also announced their support for the Israel boycott, underlining the dramatic shift in international public opinion against Israel, especially in the aftermath of its war crimes against the Palestinian people in the occupied Gaza Strip, which were squarely condemned by the UN Fact Finding Mission led by South African Judge, Richard Goldstone.

The BNC, including all three federations representing the Palestinian trade union movement, warmly salute all international trade unions who have endorsed BDS, confirming that this is the most effective and needed form of solidarity with the Palestinian people and the strongest challenge to Israel's criminal impunity and exceptionalism. As in the struggle against South African apartheid, Israel's occupation, colonialism and apartheid will only come to an end when international civil society shoulders the moral responsibility by holding Israel to account before international law and universal principles of human rights, and by treating it as a pariah state, as apartheid South Africa was, deserving comprehensive and sustained BDS campaigns.

Any isolated and dissonant statements attributed to any Palestinian trade union official can never be regarded as remotely representing the Palestinian trade union movement, as it would be in direct conflict with the consensus in this movement behind BDS. We urge all international trade unions to heed the call of Palestinian civil society, including the trade union movement, by endorsing BDS. We further urge all trade unions and trade union federations to sever their links with the Histadrut, a Zionist organization that has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel's occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination, and that has justified and applauded Israel's war crimes in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

The Histadrut and Israel apologists within the international trade union movement have continuously tried to use partial comments and innuendo by this or that Palestinian trade union official to create a deceptive impression of an imagined "split" in the Palestinian trade union movement on BDS. Today, we reconfirm to the TU movement worldwide that the Palestinian trade union movement stands united in support of BDS and calls on every TU to endorse BDS. This is our best hope to end Israel's grave violations of international law and to attain our inalienable, UN-sanctioned rights, especially our right to self determination.

Source

Climate cash is 'unaccounted for'

BBC
November 25, 2009

Large sums promised to developing countries to help them tackle climate change cannot be accounted for, a BBC investigation has found.

Rich countries pledged $410m (£247m) a year in a 2001 declaration - but it is now unclear whether the money was paid.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accused industrialised countries of failing to keep their promise.

The EU says the money was paid out in bilateral deals, but admits it cannot provide data to prove it.

The money was pledged in the 2001 Bonn Declaration, signed by 20 industrialised nations - the 15 countries that then made up the European Union, plus Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

They said they would pay $410m per year until 2008. The date the payments were meant to start is unclear, but the total should be between $1.6bn and $2.87bn.

The declaration said: "We are prepared to contribute $410m, which is 450 million euro, per year by 2005 with this level to be reviewed in 2008."

But only $260m has ever been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose, the BBC World Service investigation has found.

"There have been promises which have not been fully materialised. There is an issue of trust," says Ban Ki-moon.

The question of finance for developing countries to tackle climate change is one of the keys to a deal at the Copenhagen summit next month.

Poor countries may not sign up to a new agreement unless they trust rich countries to keep their promises, and are satisfied with the mechanisms put in place to handle the flow of funds.

Unequal sums

The industrialised governments which drew up the Bonn Declaration say they never intended to put the money just into the UN funds.

The Declaration allowed them to spend it in "bilateral and multilateral" ways, they say.

Artur Runge-Metzger, the senior climate change negotiator for the European Union, maintains the EU has lived up to its end of the bargain.

"We can say we met the promise, climate finance has really been stepped up," he argues.

However he admits the EU cannot provide data to show it did pay the money through these bilateral and multilateral means.

"It's sometimes very hard to say what is the climate bit of this financing," he says.

Richard Myungi, a climate change negotiator for the Least Developing Countries says: "We feel frustrated, we feel betrayed."

Boni Biagini, who runs the UN funds, also believes much more money should have been paid in.

"These numbers don't match the $410m per year. Otherwise, we'd be handling billions of dollars by now," he says.

Confusion

Dr Marc Pallemaerts, who drafted the Bonn Declaration in 2001 when he was the deputy chief of staff for the European Union's Belgian Presidency, admits some developing countries may have been led to believe the promised money would go solely into the UN funds.

"Some countries may have been genuinely misled - others knew it was deliberate ambiguity," he maintains.

The Bonn Declaration is surrounded by confusion and has led to mistrust between developed and developing countries.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says any new financing agreement signed at Copenhagen must be clear.

"This whole agreement and negotiation should be based on trust and confidence," he says.

He adds that any new financing deal must be "measurable, reportable and verifiable".

© BBC MMIX

"We will have to kill them all": Effie Eitam, thug messiah

Jim Holstun and Irene Morrison, The Electronic Intifada, 25 November 2009

Efraim Eitam

Colonel Efraim (Fein) Eitam was only following orders when he told his troops to beat Ayyad Aqel in 1988. They beat him to death.

Eitam, who since then has held several senior posts in the Israeli government, has recently toured the US as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "Special Emissary" to the "Caravan for Democracy" program of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). This is a marriage made in heaven. Since Israel was founded, the JNF has organized the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the settlement of Jews on their expropriated land; Eitam sees himself as the messianic soldier-prophet directing future expulsions of Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Hillel of Buffalo, New York, invited Eitam to speak at our campus, the University at Buffalo (UB), on the recommendation of UB Professor Ernest Sternberg, a board member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and a founder of its local campus chapter.

In February 1988, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin discreetly told the Israeli army to break the bones of Palestinians rising up during the first Palestinian intifada. According to the testimony of Israeli soldiers, Colonel Eitam relayed the message to his Givati Brigade, then occupying Gaza. On 7 February, he ordered four of them to break the bones of two brothers from al-Bureij refugee camp. They cuffed and blindfolded them, beat them for a while in their own home, then took them to a secluded olive grove, where they kicked and beat them for 20 minutes. Khalid Aqel survived; his 21-year-old brother Ayyad died. In 1990, an Israeli court martial convicted these soldiers of assault, reduced their ranks, gave suspended sentences to three, and sentenced the fourth to two months ("Soldier jailed for intifada killing will sue Rabin," Guardian, 2 November 1990).

Eitam's soldiers testified he had ordered and participated in the Givati beatings. He admitted driving around Gaza with four batons in his jeep, including a shatter-proof, non-regulation knout made of thick rope. The army judges found that Eitam's "violent behavior became the norm, and was taken as an example by those under his command" ("Soldier Sentenced for Palestinian Beatings," Associated Press, 31 October 1990; "Givati Commander Denies Telling Men to 'Break Bones'", The Jerusalem Post, 23 February 1990; "Givati 4 Are Convicted", The Jerusalem Post, 2 October 1990). Still, he received no judgment for almost two years. Then, on 13 July 1992, Rabin became prime minister, and three days later, Eitam got off with a reprimand and a recommendation against promotion. The Jerusalem Post quotes sources suggesting that his likely appeal to Israel's high court of any conviction might have implicated his higher-ups, including Rabin, in the beatings and murders ("Effi Fein Reprimanded to Prevent Him Appealing to Supreme Court", 19 July 1992).

Nevertheless, when Ehud Barak became Rabin's general staff chief, he promoted Eitam to brigadier general. In December 2000, after Rabin's death, Barak's successor Shaul Mofaz refused to promote Eitam to the general staff. Chafing at the slight, Eitam gave an incendiary anti-Oslo lecture at Bar-Ilan University. He called Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat "a miserable murderer," attacked the government for sharing control of Jerusalem, and proposed a new Nakba, or dispossession: the Israeli army "can tomorrow ... conquer Judea, Samaria [the West Bank], and the Gaza Strip and expel the population there overnight. It's not a problem to do this. We have a problem of having the will to do this. As a nation we are inhibited" ("Eitam quits IDF", The Jerusalem Post, 27 December 2000).

Shortly thereafter, Eitam resigned from the army, but his career flourished. Elected to the Knesset in February 2003, he helped form the National Religious Party and the Renewed Religious National Zionist Party. In 2002-04 he held several cabinet-level portfolios in the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, including minister of housing and construction, a post he used to accelerate settlement in the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In a long interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz, Eitam called Palestinian citizens of Israel a "ticking bomb" and a "cancer" ("Dear God, this is Effi", 20 March 2002). Nations other than Israel are a "world of robots without souls." In classic fascist fashion, he stated that in war the most "sublime things in man appear." He seems to believe that he is the Messiah, saying his mission is "to save the people of Israel and the State of Israel." Such a leader, Eitam said, "also leads the Jewish people. He stands in the place where not only Ben-Gurion stood, but where Moses, too, stood. Where King David stood. So how does one do that, yet remain modest? How does one not get lost between coalition agreements and political intrigues, and a process that involves the very order of nature and the order of the heavens and the earth?" ("Continuation of Dear God, this is Effi", Haaretz, 20 March 2002).

But this modest Messiah isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. Unchastened by the killing of Aqel, Eitam has continued his racist and violent incitement. At a 2002 address in a Tel Aviv synagogue, Eitam called for the murder of then Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat, along with the rest of his colleagues: "If I [could] give the order now, he would be dead in 15 minutes, together with his whole gang." Of former Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader Marwan Barghouti, then being investigated by Israel in preparation for trial, Eitam suggested Israel should just "Take him out to an orchard and shoot him in the head" ("NRP leader Eitam: Arafat, Barghouti should be killed", The Jerusalem Post, 5 July 2002).

In typical colonial fashion he has called Palestinians "creatures who came out of the depths of darkness" who were "collectively guilty" and who could be indiscriminately killed not only if they had "blood on their hands" but because of "the evil in their heads." "We will have to kill them all," he said ("A Reporter at Large: Among the Settlers", The New Yorker, 31 May 2004).

Eitam has repeatedly called for the wholesale expulsion of Palestinians, seeing a 2002 Israeli assault on the West Bank as an opportunity to force them into Jordan, leaving "our Jewish conscience ... clean" ("Israeli nationalist hopes to persuade the country to expel Palestinians, Associated Press, 7 April 2002). In 2006, he stated: "We will have to expel the great majority of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]" ("Leftist MKs blast Eitam's statements on Arabs", Haaretz, 11 September 2006).

Addressing Arab Knesset members in 2008, he said, "the day will come when we will banish you from this house ... and from the national home. ... You ... should be expelled to Gaza, where your people, who are fighting us, dwell; that is where you belong" ("Security around MK Eitam boosted after anti-Arab speech", Ynet, 15 April 2008). During Israel's attacks on Gaza last winter, Eitam advocated mass transfer of Gaza civilians and turning the Strip into a "free hunting zone" ("Audio Exclusive: One Jerusalem Interview with Israeli General Effie Eitam (Res)", One Jerusalem, 7 January 2009).

The Israeli press has documented other staggering statements by Eitam: on the Israeli army's "very moral" but also fatal use of Jenin teenager Nidal Abu Muhsein as a human shield; his demand that Israel "declare war" on Palestinian citizens of Israel living in the Negev; and his calls for outlawing commemoration of the Nakba; executing Israeli politicians who favor returning occupied territories to Palestinians; and "decapitating" Hamas leaders.

Eitam's visit protested

When University at Buffalo community members asked Hillel to cancel Eitam's meeting because of his previous violence and hate speech and the damage his visit would do to local interfaith efforts, it refused. Hillel and other Eitam supporters responded that the scrupulously-documented charges made against him were a "medieval blood libel"; that Eitam never said or did these things; that he was misquoted (he seems to be misquoted a lot) or quoted out of context; that the leading Israeli newspapers reporting his words and deeds were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy; and that even if Eitam did say and do these things, he represents an important sector of Israeli opinion that should be heard.

On 2 November, Hillel held a noon meeting with Eitam for University at Buffalo students. Before the talk, one Eitam supporter talked with another about killing a protestor, while third called out to a student wearing a headscarf, "Why don't you go blow yourself up?" Eitam's speech consisted of a tirade about Iran, Hamas and Hizballah, and how efforts to make peace with them all failed, and "withdrawal" from Gaza was also a failure. Eitam compared Israel's actions to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, explaining that [US President] Truman had to "incinerate 200,000 people in a second" to protect American troops. When challenged repeatedly by one of us why he has made racist statements such as calling Palestinian citizens of Israel a "cancer," Eitam simply denied ever having said them and insisted his words had been taken "far out of context" ("Hillel Student to Arab Student: "Why don't you go blow yourself up?", The Buffalo Activist, 2 November 2009).

Eitam also spoke at a packed evening lecture. Hillel President Dan Lenard began by denouncing the "fascists" who had presented critical information about Eitam. Consistent with his earlier performance, Eitam's speech was a mish-mash of Arab-hating, Israel-boosting, and bare-faced lies. He insisted that Iran constitutes an unprecedented existential threat, and indeed, he has been calling for an attack on Iran since at least 2006 ("MK Eitam: Strike Iran now", Ynet, 18 May 2006). Astonishingly, he said Iran sponsored al-Qaeda's attacks. And again he compared the course taken by the US with Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the course the US and Israel should take with Iran.

But Eitam couldn't completely forget his favorite enemies. He claimed that Palestinians fled Palestine in 1947-48 on the broadcast orders of Arab leaders -- a claim long discredited. He said that a steady barrage of Hamas-fired Qassam rockets prompted the Gaza massacre, though Israeli sources, including Ehud Olmert's press spokesman, demonstrate that Hamas ceased all rocket fire between 19 June and 4 November 2008, when Israelis infiltrated Gaza and killed six Hamas activists. Palestinians on the West Bank, he says, are desperate for Israel to maintain the occupation and protect them from Hamas.

It was not a memorable performance. Eitam left the hall with a posse of three armed guards (or so a supporter reports) and a few diehard supporters. Outside the event, 40 students and community members protested Eitam's presence on campus; they had been alerted by UB Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine-Israel Committee of the Western New York Peace Center. A few Eitam supporters spat at protesters or yelled "terrorists!" but more passers-by joined in with the protest.

Eitam's policies may not ultimately be much different from those of, say, former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. But there is an air of desperation in organizing a US tour by such an unmanicured monster. On the other hand, the quickly-organized protest was one of the most spirited in recent UB memory. As the recent actions against former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in New Orleans, the University of Kentucky, the University of Arkansas, the University of Chicago and in San Francisco suggests, Israeli war criminals can no longer count on respectful US campus forums for state-funded propaganda tours. There's something in the air.

Jim Holstun teaches world literature at SUNY Buffalo and has published several articles for The Electronic Intifada. He can be reached at jamesholstun A T hotmail D O T com. Irene Morrison is Assistant to the Director of the Western New York Peace Center. She can be reached at Irene A T wnypeace D O T org. Both are members of the WNYPC Palestine-Israel Committee.

Landmine compensation sought

By David Stanford in Matrouh - Al-Jazeera - November 24, 2009

Bedouin farmer Abdelaziz Hamed's daughter lost her foot in a landmine blast [STANFORD]

A group of Egyptian Bedouins is threatening to sue the British government over the rising toll of deaths and injuries caused by British landmines and unexploded ordnance left in the Egyptian desert after the Second World War.

The Organisation of Landmine Victims for Economic Development is seeking cash settlements for the victims of explosions caused by British landmines, bombs, mortars and artillery shells still buried beneath the sand on Egypt's north-west coast.

There are said to be some 17 million such explosive remnants of war remaining today, testimony to the fierce fighting between Allied and Axis forces in the battle for North Africa.

The group threatening the action represents some 660 registered survivors located along the Mediterranean coast from El-Alamein to the border with Libya, many of whom have lost limbs or been blinded.

Due to chronic under-reporting of incidents, the true number of injured persons may be in the thousands. In addition, several thousand Bedouins are likely to have been killed in explosions over the past six decades, according to the Egyptian government.

Friendly approach

The survivors' group says it is planning a "friendly" approach to the British government in the first instance, in the hope of reaching an agreement in principle and opening negotiations on compensation levels.

If this initial approach fails, the group says it will seek to prosecute the British government for damages under international law, although it has yet to formulate a detailed legal strategy or indeed confirm which court it might approach with its grievance. It seems likely that they will have to prove their case in the Egyptian courts before taking their claim further afield.

The first volley in the group's campaign takes the form of a letter sent to Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, during his visit to Egypt last month.

Om Da Rahouma directs the victims' group [DIFFIDENTI]

The Prince lay a wreath at the Commonwealth cemetery outside El-Alamein on October 24, before moving on to Cairo where he met with Ahmed Nazif, the Egyptian prime minister, various government ministers and a number of British investors in Egypt.

As the Prince prepared to lay his wreath, the survivors' group sent him a letter outlining their stance and detailing the plight of those victims who have lost their livelihoods and "need assistance to perform very simple functions required for survival, such as eating, walking or even using the bathroom".

The group is banking on the Prince's influence as the UK's special representative for international trade and investment.

However, they have not yet received a reply to their letter.

Leading the campaign is Om Da Rahouma, the director of the victims' organisation, which is based in the seaside holiday town of Marsa Matrouh.

"In the letter, I introduce the problem of the victims and ask for appropriate compensation that would provide a comfortable life for them," Rahouma said.

"This is a friendly request. If there is no response, we will go to the international courts, and we will file a case to obtain the rights of our people."

Consulting lawyers

Rahouma says that his group is in the process of consulting lawyers from Cairo on legal strategy, and has yet to come up with even a ballpark figure for the proposed settlements.

"First of all, the British government should approve and admit the general principal of our claim, which is compensation. Then we will negotiate details," he said.

Typical of the landmine victims is Jacob Mohammed Jali, a Bedouin farmer from the village of Negeila. He lost a leg in 1988 while out grazing his sheep in the desert.

He says he stepped on an object beneath the sand, which exploded. The prosthetic leg provided by the authorities is uncomfortable, he says, so he would rather not wear it.

What he needs more than a leg is money to re-start his business. Now unable to take his sheep out grazing, he wants the cash to purchase 50 sheep and enough dry feed to fatten them up in his garden.

He estimates that it would cost around $8,000 to get him going. Such an investment would enable him and his five children to escape poverty for good, he says.

One potential complication for any legal claim is the fact that landmines and unexploded ordnance were also left behind in large numbers by the Axis powers, Italy and Germany.

The mine that removed Jacob Mohammed Jali's leg may well have been of Italian or German origin. The same applies to the large majority of victims, who are rarely able to identify the nature of the device that caused their injuries.

The Egyptian government has long sought compensation from all three nations, as well as New Zealand and Australia, which had troops under British command during the fighting.

Since the 1990s all five nations have responded with a range of individual donations, typically in the form of landmine detection equipment and technical training.

Huge sums

However, the total offered has been small in comparison to the cost of clearing the bombs and mines entirely, estimated by the Egyptian army to be around $250mn, not to mention the potentially huge sums that might be required to compensate the thousands of victims.

Jacob Mohammed Jali lost his leg to a landmine [STANFORD]

The British government has perhaps been singled out as the primary target for legal action because it is the only nation to have ruled out any further funding to the Egyptian government, either for landmine clearance or the compensation or rehabilitation of victims.

In 2007, Britain's Department for International Development made a donation of £250,000 accompanied by a letter stating that due to Egypt's status as a middle-income nation, no further contributions would be made.

Egyptian officials are said to have found the British government's stance unreasonable and the letter itself "offending".

Egypt may well be a middle-income nation, they say, but it is one struggling with a plethora of other social and economic issues. The issue of landmine survivors ranks low in the hierarchy of concerns for the ministries responsible for health and welfare.

The British Embassy in Cairo points out that the UK spends approximately $17mn annually on clearing landmines and other explosive remnants of war worldwide, and has a policy of focusing efforts on poorer nations.

For both the Egyptian government and the victims' organisation, this is not the point. For them, it is a matter of the former combatants taking responsibility for the harm they have inflicted.

No precedent

The decision to present the case to Prince Andrew during his recent visit appears to have been made after discussions between the victims' organisation and Egyptian government officials.

Both parties will no doubt be aware of Prince Andrew's role in promoting British business interests abroad, and the issue of compensation might well form part of wider discussions on the nature of British investment in Egypt.

They will also be aware of reparations made by Italy to Libya last year for 30 years of colonial rule. The compensation took the form of a $5bn investment package, including the provision of pensions to those injured by landmines laid by the Italian army during the Second World War.

Om Da Rahouma, says he knows of no case in which landmine victims have sued a foreign nation for damages. However, he says he is not daunted by the challenge facing him.

"I am obliged to do this because it is my duty," he says.

"We received millions of promises and supposed solutions, but nothing has happened. I will go to court anyway, regardless of the consequences. At least our voices will be heard all over the world."

Israel police arrest Mossad agent planting car bomb in Tel Aviv

BBC News
November 24, 2009 23:29 CST

A trainee spy for Israel's secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.

The young trainee was spotted by a female passer-by as he planted a fake bomb under a vehicle in the city.

He was only able to persuade police he was a spy after being taken in by an officer for questioning on Monday.

The authorities have refused to comment on the story although Israeli media outlets have expressed their surprise.

'Just a drill'

Mossad does not tell local uniformed police about its training exercises.

The country's commercial Channel 10 said it hoped the agency's operatives were "more effective abroad", AFP news agency reported.

Niva Ben-Harush, the woman who reported the novice's suspicious behaviour to police, told Ynet News that 15 minutes after she made the call, Tel Aviv's port was closed and people evacuated.

She said police initially asked her to come with them and identify the suspect.

"But after a few minutes, they told me it was just a drill," she said..

Up to three agency employees were believed to have been suspended following the incident, Ynet reported.

It quoted the prime minister's office as saying it did "not respond to information about such activities undertaken by security agencies or attributed to them".

Source

Rights group: 69 cases of Palestinian olive trees destroyed, but no prosecutions

By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz
November 25, 2009

The human rights organization Yesh Din says not one of the 69 complaints filed during the past four years on damage to Palestinians' trees in the West Bank has resulted in an indictment. The organization released a report on the matter Tuesday and makes specific reference to damage caused to olive groves, central to the livelihood of Palestinian villagers.

The olive harvest season is coming to an end in most parts of the West Bank this week, with the exception of those areas at higher elevations. Attacks targeting trees harvested by Palestinians - olive trees in particular, but also almond, fig, lemon and others - has been on the rise in recent years.

During the past four years, Yesh Din filed 69 complaints which are under investigation by police in the West Bank. The toll involves many thousands of trees in numerous areas, from Susya in the southern Hebron Hills to Salem in northern Samaria.

According to the report, 27 cases (40 percent of the cases for which complaints were filed) were documented between January and October of this year. Notwithstanding Israel Defense Forces reports that the olive harvest passed "quietly" during the months of September and October, the human rights group reported dozens of incidents in which hundreds of Palestinian trees were damaged.

Full article

Israel Plans To Deport More Than 20,000 Palestinians From Jerusalem

politicaltheatrics - November 24, 2009

The Jerusalem center for social and economic rights (JCSER) warned of Israeli intentions to deport more than 20,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who married from Jerusalemite women at the pretext that their residence in the holy city is illegal.

The center said that many of those Palestinian citizens have temporary residence permits issued by the Israeli ministry of interior and until now they have not been given a right to stay permanently with their wives in Jerusalem according to the procedures of reunion.

Ziyad Al-Hammouri, the director of the center, explained in this regard that the Israeli interior ministry published last year in a local newspaper a notice ordering what it called “the inhabitants of Judea and Samaria living in Jerusalem illegally”, in reference to the West Bank citizens who live with Jerusalemite wives in the holy city, to apply for temporary residence permits.

Hammouri added that the center at the time had warned of the motives and aims behind this aforementioned Israeli announcement in the newspaper, which enabled the Israeli interior ministry later to collect detailed information on a large number of West Bank citizens who live in the neighborhoods and towns within the Israeli municipal boundaries in Jerusalem.

The director noted that the Israeli interior ministry could not have obtained such information on West Bank citizens living in Jerusalem through its investigation crews and the national insurance company, so it resorted to this trick.

He elaborated that afterwards, many of those Palestinian citizens hastened to give detailed information about themselves in application forms thinking that the interior ministry would give them a temporary or permanent residence permits, but now this personal information can be used as evidence against them to expel them from the city.

The center director affirmed that the Israeli occupation authority had started to implement its plan and expelled all members of the Palestinian family of martyr Mari Radayda from their homes in Al-Ashqarya neighborhood of Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem, at the pretext of their illegal residence in the city.

Notes/Sources:
1.The Palestinian Information Center

16 ships are worse polluters than all the world's cars

Press TV - November 25, 2009 01:08:40 GMT

An award-winning science writer says just 16 of the world's largest ships can produce as much lung-clogging sulfur pollution as all the world's cars.

Fred Pearce, environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions of an Eco Sinner, has revealed that super-ships pump out killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use.

Super-vessels use as much power as small power stations because they have colossal engines that are as big as a small ship, Pearce wrote in a report published in the Mail Online on November 21.

He also noted that super-ships can burn the cheapest, filthiest, high-sulfur fuel that is in fact residues left behind in refineries after lighter liquids are taken and pointed out that there are laws prohibiting the use of such fuel on land.

Thanks to the International Maritime Organization rules, the largest ships can each emit as much as 5,000 tons of sulfur in a year -- the same as 50 million typical cars, each emitting an average of 100 grams of sulfur a year, he added.

The number of cars driving around the planet is estimated at about 800 million, and this means that only 16 super-ships can emit as much sulfur as the world fleet of cars, he stated.

Palestinian Children Face Daily Settler Attacks Getting to School

By Mel Frykberg

AT TUWANI, Nov 23 (IPS) – Being able to travel to school in relative safety is something children all over the world take for granted. But, for Palestinian children living in the shadow of the ubiquitous and illegal Israeli settlements dotting the West Bank, simply walking to school can be a terrifying experience.

“It is really scary walking to school. We never know when the settlers will attack us and beat us,” says Rima Ali, 10, from the village of Tuba in the southern West Bank, about two hours drive south of Jerusalem.

“Every day we have to watch out that the settlers are not in the valley ahead of us and if we see them we run away,” Ali told IPS.

Ali still bears the scar from when a settler pushed her causing her to fall to the ground and cut herself below the eye.

Hundreds of Palestinian children in Tuba and the surrounding Palestinian villages face the same daily predicament as they try to reach school in the Bedouin village of At Tuwani.

Situated on a hilltop overlooking At Tuwani are the Israeli settlement of Ma’on and the extended settlement outpost of Havot Ma’on.

The only road which previously connected Palestinians to neighbouring villages and to the nearby Palestinian town of Yatta – a 10-minute drive away – has been appropriated for the exclusive use of settlers. Palestinians are banned from driving on it.

The villagers are now forced to take off-road dirt tracks, which circumvent the settlers-only bypass road and the settlements. If they walk the route it takes approximately an hour on foot – assuming they don’t have small children with them.

Settler attacks – including arson attacks on agricultural fields, chopping down olive trees, poisoning water wells, killing livestock and assaulting Palestinian villagers living near settlements – have become a way of life for Palestinians all over the West Bank as the Israeli authorities continue to turn a blind eye.

But the repeated attacks on schoolchildren forced a group of international Christian peace activists from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) to establish school escorts for the children in a bid to try and protect them.

Furthermore, the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, was forced to intervene several years ago after several foreign citizens escorting children were attacked by chain and baseball-wielding settlers.

Two CPT members were hospitalised after they suffered injuries including a punctured lung, a broken arm and a fractured skull.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) was ordered to provide daily military escorts for children from various towns and villages in the southern West Bank.

However, the children and the peace activists have complained that the military escorts are often unreliable and sometimes a source of hostility towards the children themselves, as many of the soldiers are sympathetic to the settlers.

And while the number and severity of attacks have dropped they have not stopped. Last week a young Palestinian couple, with three children under the age of three, was trying to make its way home to Tuba after visiting Yatta.

They family was warned by two members of the CPT that a group of settlers had been spotted on the ridge above earlier in the day and that it would be safer for them to take the longest route home to avoid a confrontation.

“We decided to accompany the family in case there was any trouble. Despite taking the longer route a group of five settler men rushed towards us from the valley above and attacked the father who had a toddler in his arms,” American CPT member Sarah MacDonald told IPS.

MacDonald and another CPT member, Laura Ciaghi from Italy, were videotaping events in case they needed to go to the police.

“I decided to try and engage the settlers to try and protect the family,” Ciaghi told IPS. Ciaghi was thrown to the ground and repeatedly kicked in the ribs and back as the men stole both video cameras from the women.

“Because the settlers focused their attention on us the Palestinian family was able to get home safely and so we feel we achieved some kind of victory,” added Ciaghi.

Ciaghi was badly bruised, required a stitch to her scalp and had contusions on her head.

The Israeli police and army were called to investigate but, with the exception of a couple of individuals, most of them appeared to be disinterested and no thorough investigation was carried out.

This does not surprise Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, which monitors human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank and acts as an intermediary between Palestinian victims and the Israeli security forces.

In order to file complaints Palestinians need to go to police stations which are located in the illegal Israeli settlements. However, the catch-22 is that they are not permitted to enter the settlements and this is where Yesh Din steps in.

“The police often ‘lose the paperwork’ or are ‘unable to identify perpetrators’ of attacks against Palestinians,” Yesh Din director Lior Yavne told IPS.

“And of the few cases opened, less than 10 percent result in any conviction,” Yavne added. “This situation is completely different from when Palestinian attacks on Israeli settlers are investigated.”

Meanwhile, despite the Israeli government calling for the demolition of Havot Ma’on over two years ago, on the grounds it was built illegally according to Israeli law, the outpost continues to expand and the settlers living there continue to attack Palestinians.

In the interim, Israel is carrying out a massive campaign of Palestinian home demolitions as settlements all over the West Bank expand at an unprecedented rate.