21 July 2011 Gisha גישה http://www.gisha.org (Israel)
A whole year has passed since the Israeli government decided to "expand the civilian policy toward the Strip" and "ease" the closure. Perhaps the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories was (rightly) concerned that on the first anniversary of the decision, the results weren't obvious enough; and so, in honor of the occasion, COGAT published a report on the implementation of measures intended to ease the closure.
As usual, we hardly have any reservations about the numbers published by COGAT. However, we continue to recommend that the data be examined in a wider context. In a broader context, the report's self-congratulatory nature is a little less persuasive. The security context provided by the report – it opens with statistics on rocket fire on Israel during the past year – is important, but needs to be examined alongside Israel's obligations under international law, the government's promises and the real needs of the residents of Gaza. What would the numbers look like then?
(COGAT report)For instance, the report states: "Israel is working with the international community and the Palestinian Authority to advance and streamline procedures for the approval of internationally-funded projects. To this end a coordination and monitoring mechanism has been set up for the implementation of internationally funded projects in accordance with security considerations. So far 163 internationally funded projects were approved for implementation".
And in the broader context? The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), whose projects account for half of those approved by Israel last year, reports that this still only represents 27% of the projects they wish to implement in their recovery and reconstruction plan. For example, of 100 schools the agency seeks to build, only 42 were approved, and as getting clearance for materials still involves cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, actual construction has begun on only half of the schools. "Advancing and streamlining", indeed.
The report continues: "In the past year, 29,715 Palestinians entered Israel from the Gaza Strip. Additionally, Israel decided to increase the quota of traders entering Israel to 70 per day. In the past year 7,282 traders entered from the Gaza Strip for business reasons in Israel, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], and abroad as part of the ongoing economic activities in the Gaza Strip".
And back to the broader context. It is interesting to compare those numbers to the average of half a million workers who left Gaza every month on the eve of the Second Intifada. Furthermore, permits issued today are only for "senior businesspeople", defined as those whose exit would contribute to improving the Gaza economy. The few women traders in Gaza, as well as young merchants, who want to build commercial ties with Israel and the West Bank, generally do not receive permits. Israel is thereby ignoring the common wisdom that small businesses are a driver of economic development.
From the report: "In the framework of the Cabinet's decision on agricultural exports, the export project, in cooperation with the Netherlands to export strawberries and carnations continued. In addition it had been decided to export bell-peppers, but the exports stopped due to low quality of the produce that did not meet European standards. As an alternative the export of cherry tomatoes to European markets was approved".
Here too, the context puts a damper on the good news. In the first five months of 2011, Israel may have allowed export of agricultural produce to Europe at the economically negligible volume of around two truckloads per day, but it has now been more than two months since a single truckload of goods left Gaza. Besides, as opposed to the government's December decision and repeated promises made to international actors, the export of textile and furniture from the Gaza Strip has still not been approved.
(Furniture manufactured in Gaza. Photo: Mohammed Azaiza)
Certain measures have indeed been taken over the past year to "ease" the closure, and we welcome those. But when seen in the broader context of the needs of Gaza residents and promises made to them, it's clear that overall, progress has come too little and too late.
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quinta-feira, 21 de julho de 2011
quarta-feira, 20 de julho de 2011
YES MR. LIEBERMAN, I'M A PROUD JEWISH TERRORIST
19 July 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
The foreign minister says Yesh Din, the organization of whose public council I am a member, is a terrorist organization - 69 years after the British Mandatory government defined me as a terrorist.
By Shlomo Gazit*
In 1942, as a young boy, a high school student in Tel Aviv, I joined the Haganah (the main pre-state underground Jewish militia ). The British Mandatory government considered me, and others who did as I did, to be members of an illegal organization. Two years later I enlisted in the Palmach, the elite strike force of the Haganah, and during my period of activity in the framework of the Jewish resistance movement the British government considered me a "terrorist." Afterwards I fought in the War of Independence and spent another 32 years in the Israel Defense Forces as a career soldier.
Today I consider the continuation of our occupation rule in Judea and Samaria an existential danger. As I see it, this situation is threatening the main achievement to which I contributed 70 years ago: the establishment of a sovereign and democratic Jewish state. If we don't separate as soon as possible from the Palestinian population on the ground, Jewish and democratic Israel will be unable to survive.
A few years ago I became a member of the public council of Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights. I can't influence Israel's diplomatic decisions, but I saw it as my duty to contribute to upholding the law in the occupied under our control. I believe that the Israeli government, the Knesset and the vast majority of the people want the law to be enforced in the area east of the Green Line, just as they want it to be enforced to the west of it. But in the present situation, unfortunately, there is no equal treatment for Jews and Arabs when it comes to law enforcement. The legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime. And I wanted to prevent that with my activity and contribution as a member of the council of Yesh Din.
The Palestinian resident in the occupied territory is unable in most cases to stand up for his rights and to find his way in the State of Israel's civil and military bureaucratic maze. The group of researchers and volunteers (mainly female ) of Yesh Din serve as his mouthpiece. We do not presume to decide who is right in each and every instance. Our job is only to learn about all the details of the complaint and to bring it to the authorities.
The Israeli administration in the area, the IDF and the Israel Police, don't like our activity. They feel uncomfortable dealing with the complaints that we place before them. But none of them claims that our activity is unnecessary, unacceptable or subversive.
Yesterday something shocking happened. A respectable minister in the Israeli government, the foreign minister, the man who heads the Yisrael Beitenu party, called the organization of whose public council I am a member, Yesh Din, a terrorist organization - 69 years after the British Mandatory government defined me as a terrorist.
At the time I considered the epithet attached to me by the Mandatory government a badge of honor. Today I see the same title, which this time was attached to me by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as a new badge of honor. I believe that the activity of Yesh Din deserves a medal. I see our activity as a crucial attempt to save the State of Israel from becoming an apartheid regime.
The foreign minister should have been the first to understand that. Doesn't he understand that a person who condemns the activity of Yesh Din is in effect announcing a deliberate intention to maintain a miscarriage of justice, a deliberate intention to maintain separate systems of law and justice for Jews and Arabs? Under these circumstances, Mr. Lieberman, I'm proud to be called a "terrorist" by you.
--------------
Shalom 1492 (From Wikipedia, 20 July 2011): *Shlomo Gazit (born Shlomo Weinstein, in 1926) is a retired Major General in the Israel Defense Forces and was in the past head of the intelligence service of the Israeli army, 1974–1978.
Gazit was born in 1926 in Istanbul, Turkey, to a family of Ukrainian Jews. He served as the head of the assessment department in IDF intelligence before the Six Day War, but then took leave to study for a Master degree in history. Gazit's studies were interrupted in the summer of 1967, when he was appointed by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to be in charge of a committee tasked with running the political, security, and later economic affairs in the newly captured territories. This group would later be renamed "The Unit for the Coordination of Operations in the Territories".
After seven years, Gazit was promoted to head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, a position he held from 1974 to 1978.
Upon his retirement from the IDF, he served as President of the Ben Gurion University in Beersheba for two four-year terms. Since 1988 he is a member of the staff of Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at the Tel Aviv University.
[edit] Books authored
• The Middle East Military Balance, 1988-1989: A Comprehensive Data Base & In-Depth Analysis of Regional Strategic Issues, Westview Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8133-0961-1
• The Middle East Military Balance, 1990-91, Westview Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8133-1413-5
• The Middle East Military Balance 1992-1993, Westview Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8133-2218-9
• The Middle East Military Balance 1993-1994, Westview Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8133-2658-3
• The Palestinian refugee problem, Tel Aviv University, 1995. ISBN 965-459-016-6
• The Carrot and the Stick: Israel's Policy in Judaea and Samaria, 1967-68 , B'nai B'rith Book Service, 1995. ISBN 0-910250-29-4
• Trapped Fools; Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories, Frank Cass, 2003. ISBN 0-7146-8390-6
• The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East, Vintage, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-7963-2
The foreign minister says Yesh Din, the organization of whose public council I am a member, is a terrorist organization - 69 years after the British Mandatory government defined me as a terrorist.
By Shlomo Gazit*
In 1942, as a young boy, a high school student in Tel Aviv, I joined the Haganah (the main pre-state underground Jewish militia ). The British Mandatory government considered me, and others who did as I did, to be members of an illegal organization. Two years later I enlisted in the Palmach, the elite strike force of the Haganah, and during my period of activity in the framework of the Jewish resistance movement the British government considered me a "terrorist." Afterwards I fought in the War of Independence and spent another 32 years in the Israel Defense Forces as a career soldier.
Today I consider the continuation of our occupation rule in Judea and Samaria an existential danger. As I see it, this situation is threatening the main achievement to which I contributed 70 years ago: the establishment of a sovereign and democratic Jewish state. If we don't separate as soon as possible from the Palestinian population on the ground, Jewish and democratic Israel will be unable to survive.
A few years ago I became a member of the public council of Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights. I can't influence Israel's diplomatic decisions, but I saw it as my duty to contribute to upholding the law in the occupied under our control. I believe that the Israeli government, the Knesset and the vast majority of the people want the law to be enforced in the area east of the Green Line, just as they want it to be enforced to the west of it. But in the present situation, unfortunately, there is no equal treatment for Jews and Arabs when it comes to law enforcement. The legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime. And I wanted to prevent that with my activity and contribution as a member of the council of Yesh Din.
The Palestinian resident in the occupied territory is unable in most cases to stand up for his rights and to find his way in the State of Israel's civil and military bureaucratic maze. The group of researchers and volunteers (mainly female ) of Yesh Din serve as his mouthpiece. We do not presume to decide who is right in each and every instance. Our job is only to learn about all the details of the complaint and to bring it to the authorities.
The Israeli administration in the area, the IDF and the Israel Police, don't like our activity. They feel uncomfortable dealing with the complaints that we place before them. But none of them claims that our activity is unnecessary, unacceptable or subversive.
Yesterday something shocking happened. A respectable minister in the Israeli government, the foreign minister, the man who heads the Yisrael Beitenu party, called the organization of whose public council I am a member, Yesh Din, a terrorist organization - 69 years after the British Mandatory government defined me as a terrorist.
At the time I considered the epithet attached to me by the Mandatory government a badge of honor. Today I see the same title, which this time was attached to me by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as a new badge of honor. I believe that the activity of Yesh Din deserves a medal. I see our activity as a crucial attempt to save the State of Israel from becoming an apartheid regime.
The foreign minister should have been the first to understand that. Doesn't he understand that a person who condemns the activity of Yesh Din is in effect announcing a deliberate intention to maintain a miscarriage of justice, a deliberate intention to maintain separate systems of law and justice for Jews and Arabs? Under these circumstances, Mr. Lieberman, I'm proud to be called a "terrorist" by you.
--------------
Shalom 1492 (From Wikipedia, 20 July 2011): *Shlomo Gazit (born Shlomo Weinstein, in 1926) is a retired Major General in the Israel Defense Forces and was in the past head of the intelligence service of the Israeli army, 1974–1978.
Gazit was born in 1926 in Istanbul, Turkey, to a family of Ukrainian Jews. He served as the head of the assessment department in IDF intelligence before the Six Day War, but then took leave to study for a Master degree in history. Gazit's studies were interrupted in the summer of 1967, when he was appointed by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to be in charge of a committee tasked with running the political, security, and later economic affairs in the newly captured territories. This group would later be renamed "The Unit for the Coordination of Operations in the Territories".
After seven years, Gazit was promoted to head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, a position he held from 1974 to 1978.
Upon his retirement from the IDF, he served as President of the Ben Gurion University in Beersheba for two four-year terms. Since 1988 he is a member of the staff of Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at the Tel Aviv University.
[edit] Books authored
• The Middle East Military Balance, 1988-1989: A Comprehensive Data Base & In-Depth Analysis of Regional Strategic Issues, Westview Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8133-0961-1
• The Middle East Military Balance, 1990-91, Westview Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8133-1413-5
• The Middle East Military Balance 1992-1993, Westview Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8133-2218-9
• The Middle East Military Balance 1993-1994, Westview Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8133-2658-3
• The Palestinian refugee problem, Tel Aviv University, 1995. ISBN 965-459-016-6
• The Carrot and the Stick: Israel's Policy in Judaea and Samaria, 1967-68 , B'nai B'rith Book Service, 1995. ISBN 0-910250-29-4
• Trapped Fools; Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories, Frank Cass, 2003. ISBN 0-7146-8390-6
• The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East, Vintage, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-7963-2
segunda-feira, 18 de julho de 2011
Israel convicts most stone-throwing Palestinian children, right group says
18 July 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
B’Tselem says nearly 100% of Palestinian children charged with rock-throwing are convicted, because of overwhelming pressure to plea bargain.
By Anshel Pfeffer
Only one Palestinian minor of 853 charged with rock-throwing between 2005-2010 was acquitted, according to a new report by the human rights group B’Tselem.
B’Tselem based its report, which is being released Monday, on data it obtained from the Israel Defense Forces spokesman about minors who were arrested during those six years and charged solely with rock-throwing; it does not relate to those charged with other crimes.
The nearly 100-percent conviction rate stems from, among other things, the willingness of the detainees to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement, the report says. The pressure to plead guilty is great, because generally minors charged with throwing rocks are held in custody until the end of legal proceedings; a regular trial could keep them detained for longer than the sentence they receive after pleading guilty, which is usually no more than a few months.
Of the 853 arrested, 18 were aged 12-13 and 255 were 14-15.
Sixty percent of the 12-13 year-olds received prison terms ranging from a few days to up to two months.
Fifteen percent of all the minors served terms of more than six months and 1 percent served longer than a year.
Because of the frequency of these incidents, B’Tselem was not able to get an exact tally of how many had actually occurred in the West Bank during those years. The Judea and Samaria police reported 2,100 to 3,000 incidents annually during those years, while the IDF Spokesman reported 3,600 to 4,300 incidents each year.
Nor could B’Tselem ascertain how many minors had been detained by the security forces for stone-throwing but were let go without being charged.
Because military law does not afford minors the same rights that they have under Israeli law, in many of the cases B’Tselem investigated, the minors were arrested at night, were not allowed to be accompanied by a parent or other adult when arrested, and were brought before a judge only eight days after being taken into custody.
“In terms of numbers, the [B’Tselem] report is not accurate, because during this period, I personally acquitted a number of minors,” said one judge in the army reserves, who dealt with many cases of stone-throwing minors.
“But there’s no doubt that it reflects a very problematic situation. Nearly all minors are convicted of stone-throwing because they have no choice but to sign a plea agreement, for which the punishment is usually between one to three months, and if they go to evidence they’ll sit longer. The High Court has ruled that anyone throwing stones at a person or vehicle can be remanded until the end of legal proceedings.
“Of course, it’s terrible that they arrest them in the middle of the night and question them without lawyers,” the judge said. “Sometimes this provides an impetus to release them. But there should be a legal mechanism under which a minor who throws stones for the first time and doesn’t hurt anyone can be released, and for the responsibility of probation to be imposed on the father, who will have to keep an eye on him.”
The IDF Spokesman, in a detailed response to B’Tselem, wrote: “Although legal systems that are established under military law do not include special arrangements for judging minors, over the past year a youth court has been established that improves the defense of minors’ rights.
“The Military Youth Court protects minors’ rights, allows the minors to be heard without adults present, gives more freedom of expression to the minors and allows for a broader discussion of parental responsibility as a substitute for punishment.”
The IDF Spokesman added that although it had asked B’Tselem to deal with the issue of judging minors in a fair and complete fashion, and had given B’Tselem information about 160 cases in which minors who were used by terror groups to carry out serious terror attacks, “the group chose not to deal with the issue of judging minors in a balanced manner and did not deal with the use of minors by terror groups in a fashion that violates human rights and contravenes international law.”
B’Tselem says nearly 100% of Palestinian children charged with rock-throwing are convicted, because of overwhelming pressure to plea bargain.
By Anshel Pfeffer
Only one Palestinian minor of 853 charged with rock-throwing between 2005-2010 was acquitted, according to a new report by the human rights group B’Tselem.
B’Tselem based its report, which is being released Monday, on data it obtained from the Israel Defense Forces spokesman about minors who were arrested during those six years and charged solely with rock-throwing; it does not relate to those charged with other crimes.
The nearly 100-percent conviction rate stems from, among other things, the willingness of the detainees to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement, the report says. The pressure to plead guilty is great, because generally minors charged with throwing rocks are held in custody until the end of legal proceedings; a regular trial could keep them detained for longer than the sentence they receive after pleading guilty, which is usually no more than a few months.
Of the 853 arrested, 18 were aged 12-13 and 255 were 14-15.
Sixty percent of the 12-13 year-olds received prison terms ranging from a few days to up to two months.
Fifteen percent of all the minors served terms of more than six months and 1 percent served longer than a year.
Because of the frequency of these incidents, B’Tselem was not able to get an exact tally of how many had actually occurred in the West Bank during those years. The Judea and Samaria police reported 2,100 to 3,000 incidents annually during those years, while the IDF Spokesman reported 3,600 to 4,300 incidents each year.
Nor could B’Tselem ascertain how many minors had been detained by the security forces for stone-throwing but were let go without being charged.
Because military law does not afford minors the same rights that they have under Israeli law, in many of the cases B’Tselem investigated, the minors were arrested at night, were not allowed to be accompanied by a parent or other adult when arrested, and were brought before a judge only eight days after being taken into custody.
“In terms of numbers, the [B’Tselem] report is not accurate, because during this period, I personally acquitted a number of minors,” said one judge in the army reserves, who dealt with many cases of stone-throwing minors.
“But there’s no doubt that it reflects a very problematic situation. Nearly all minors are convicted of stone-throwing because they have no choice but to sign a plea agreement, for which the punishment is usually between one to three months, and if they go to evidence they’ll sit longer. The High Court has ruled that anyone throwing stones at a person or vehicle can be remanded until the end of legal proceedings.
“Of course, it’s terrible that they arrest them in the middle of the night and question them without lawyers,” the judge said. “Sometimes this provides an impetus to release them. But there should be a legal mechanism under which a minor who throws stones for the first time and doesn’t hurt anyone can be released, and for the responsibility of probation to be imposed on the father, who will have to keep an eye on him.”
The IDF Spokesman, in a detailed response to B’Tselem, wrote: “Although legal systems that are established under military law do not include special arrangements for judging minors, over the past year a youth court has been established that improves the defense of minors’ rights.
“The Military Youth Court protects minors’ rights, allows the minors to be heard without adults present, gives more freedom of expression to the minors and allows for a broader discussion of parental responsibility as a substitute for punishment.”
The IDF Spokesman added that although it had asked B’Tselem to deal with the issue of judging minors in a fair and complete fashion, and had given B’Tselem information about 160 cases in which minors who were used by terror groups to carry out serious terror attacks, “the group chose not to deal with the issue of judging minors in a balanced manner and did not deal with the use of minors by terror groups in a fashion that violates human rights and contravenes international law.”
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