Was There a Deliberate Israeli Policy of Ethnic Cleansing in the War of Independence?
08/08/2008
The creation of the state of Israel – as is now being revealed by Israeli historians such as Benny Morris – required a deliberate strategy to rid the land of as many of its indigenous population as possible, through a process of violence and terror.
Benny Morris: "There was no Zionist "plan" or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of "ethnic cleansing". Plan Dalet (Plan D), of March 10th, 1948 (it is open and available for all to read in the IDF Archive and in various publications), was the master plan of the Haganah - the Jewish military force that became the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - to counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state. That's what it explicitly states and that's what it was."
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Palestinian Award-Winning Journalist Alleges Mistreatment by israeli Soldiers at Border Crossing
20/07/2008
Mr Omer emailed the BBC the following day, saying he had "difficulty in breathing and pain in my chest" because of the treatment he received. He is now back in Gaza, where hospital doctors have diagnosed several broken ribs.
Dr. Diaa Husseini, who examined Omer at the hospital, said the journalist had no signs of physical injury. He said Omer had suffered a nervous breakdown brought on by emotional stress and was given stomach medication and released after two hours.
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Illegal Building and House Demolitions in East Jerusalem
09/07/2008
Jerusalem's municipality rarely grants Palestinians permission to build on their land and frequently demolishes structures built without permits, all the while defying the international community by approving new Jewish housing on the eastern side of the city.
Many NGO publications depict atypical examples of demolitions, rather than presenting a systematic or representative overview of the overall planning process. Comparisons to other countries that use demolitions are avoided. The NGOs seem willing to include any incidents that might be viewed as outrageous behavior by the municipality of Jerusalem or the state of Israel. These misrepresentations are frequently based on unverified accusations of unnamed, politically-motivated sources. Palestinian and pro-Palestinian sources recite litanies of alarming accusations, many of them hearsay, that the NGOs rely on as fact. Even when particular facts they assert are correct, the NGOs do not adequately contextualize the environment in which the municipal planning mechanism and the Israeli judicial system function. They minimize the objective difficulties facing the municipality and the state of Israel while serving up inflammatory and misleading generalizations.
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Britain Acted Against the Arabs in Israel's War of Independence
18/06/2008
The Palestinians were the chief victims of British policy. After the UN announced the partition of Palestine in November 1947, Bevin ordered the army and the administration to remain strictly neutral. He had made it clear that the British would not enforce any solution, least of all one they thought was unfair to the Arabs. Unfortunately, this policy had the opposite effect to what was intended.
The British have embarked on an alliance with the Arab League, composed of the governments of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Transjordan, and Yemen. The Arab League, and not the Arab Higher Committee, controls the military and political developments among the Arabs of Palestine. Representatives of the British government were present at the meetings of the Arab League where the revolt was planned and organized and are in continuous connection with it. Within a month after the November 29th resolution, the Arabs were encouraged to believe partition would be substituted by a Federal State, and arms shipments continued to the Arab States despite their known use for Palestine warfare. On April 28 [1948] Foreign Minister Bevin was still refusing to halt them. By British admission, the Arab community has been armed by the British.
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The Hamas Al Qaeda Connection
08/06/2008
Al-Qaida terrorism is fundamentally different from Hamas. It is not rooted in political objectives capable of negotiation, but rather in a reactionary, totalitarian ideology completely opposed to democracy, freedom and human rights. Negotiation with al-Qaida and its foreign jihadists is (unlike Hamas), therefore, politically and morally out of the question.
Bin Laden sent emissaries to Hamas in September 2000 and January 2001; Israel arrested three Hamas militants in 2003 after they had returned from an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubaydah entered the world of terrorism through Hamas. And according to a 2004 FBI affidavit, al Qaeda recruited Hamas members to conduct surveillance against potential targets in the United States.
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Israel Recognising a Need for a Palestinian State
30/05/2008
To Palestinians, the true problem lies in Israel’s rejection of the Palestinian right to an independent state.
In June, 2003, Prime Minister Ariels Sharon, said: "It is up to the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state."
In January, 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: “We support the establishment of a modern, democratic Palestinian state.”
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The Separation Barrier
18/05/2008
The Wall, more properly known as the West Bank Barrier, which when complete will run eight metres high for 400 miles north to south.
Most of its 670-kilometre (420-mile) length is made up of a concrete base with a five-metre-high wire-and-mesh superstructure.
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What Is Behind the Fuel Shortages in Gaza?
28/04/2008
Israeli sanctions imposed in an attempt to curtail rocket fired by Palestinian group Hamas have caused shortages.
A statement issued by the EU on the fuel shortage in Gaza placed at least part of the blame on Hamas's shoulders. Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza have their share in aggravating the humanitarian situation, including through carrying out the attacks on the Nahal Oz and Kerem Shalom crossings," the statement read. "The [EU] president condemns such actions, which only lead to further suffering of the population."
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Is Hizbullah Abiding by UN Resolutions?
08/04/2008
There are no armed Hizbullah fighters in their area of operations – Nasrallah respects the UN resolution which placed the peacekeepers between the Israeli border and the Litani in 2006.
Israel says Hezbollah is rearming and has an arsenal including 10,000 long-range rockets and 20,000 short-range rockets in southern Lebanon, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council in a new report.
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Is Israel Legally Obliged to Supply Fuel to the Gaza Strip?
31/03/2008
Justified on the basis of intermittent rocket-fire on Israeli border towns, the declaration meant Israel would not be bound by international law enforcing the supply of energy to occupied territories.
Israel's imposition of economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip, such as withholding fuel supplies and electricity, does not involve the use of military force and is therefore a perfectly legal means of responding to Palestinian attacks, despite the effects on Palestinian citizens. The use of economic and other non-military sanctions as a means of "punishing" other international actors for their misbehavior is a practice known as "retorsion."
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Number of Hizbullah Dead Underestimated
23/03/2008
During the war in 2006, Lebanon counted 1190 dead, less than half of them Hizbullah fighters. The rest were civilians in southern towns and villages or Beirut's Shia suburbs.
Hizbullah suffered heavy losses in the fighting, perhaps as many as 1,000 killed out of its strength of up to 5,000 and it is only just now recovering.
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Reuters Ignores Hamas Charter
16/03/2008
“To Israel and its allies, Abu Mohammed and his comrades are Jew-hating terrorists.”
The article makes no mention of the clear Jew-hating texts in the Hamas Charter, which openly embraces the forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and talk of an ethnic Nazi gene amongst Jews “does not skip women and children.”
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"Independent" Verification of the Facts
Given that half the dead Palestinians were incontrovertibly civilians and included several children, and that of the other half only their age and sex even allows us to conveniently write them off as "militants", it might be thought Saturday's events in Gaza deserved to be termed a massacre.
IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and others said that of the 100 fatalities, 90 were armed militants.
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