Two good interviews have been made recently. Check them out:
Rosie O'Donnell interviews William Rodriguez (the "last man out")
Radio Truth in Australia interviews Richard Gage (Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
President Zelaya makes an important statement on DemocracyNow
I have just listened to President Zelaya talking to Amy Goodman on Democray Now. Here is the exchange which concluded the interview:
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds. What would bring you, your side, back to the negotiating table?
PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] After four months, I cannot go back to negotiation with the coup regime at all.
AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds. Translate?
PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] This is now in the hands of the OAS (...)
That is a very encouraging sign that President Zelaya now fully understands the nature of "trap" of negotiating with the putchistas, in particular under the "auspices" of the USA. There is, of course, absolutely nothing to negotiate about, and the coup regime and their CIA masters never had any intentions to find a compromise. In fact, a compromise - any compromise - would be detrimental to Honduras and the cause of democracy in Latin America. The only acceptable outcome in a comprehensive defeat of the coup leaders and their US supporters.
What Zelaya did not say is that besides the OAS, it will be for the people of Honduras to free their country. All the OAS can do is back them, but they need to go out an openly confront the coup regime.
AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds. What would bring you, your side, back to the negotiating table?
PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] After four months, I cannot go back to negotiation with the coup regime at all.
AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds. Translate?
PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] This is now in the hands of the OAS (...)
That is a very encouraging sign that President Zelaya now fully understands the nature of "trap" of negotiating with the putchistas, in particular under the "auspices" of the USA. There is, of course, absolutely nothing to negotiate about, and the coup regime and their CIA masters never had any intentions to find a compromise. In fact, a compromise - any compromise - would be detrimental to Honduras and the cause of democracy in Latin America. The only acceptable outcome in a comprehensive defeat of the coup leaders and their US supporters.
What Zelaya did not say is that besides the OAS, it will be for the people of Honduras to free their country. All the OAS can do is back them, but they need to go out an openly confront the coup regime.
US Generals Flood Israel for Exercise against ‘Specific Threats'
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for IsraelNN via Information Clearing House
An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at “specific threats.” Public affairs officials interrupted the naval commander in order to divert the conversation from the scenario of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and defending itself from a counter-attack.
One senior IDF source told BBC magazine, “I've never seen so many American generals.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, along with the commander of the U.S. force in Europe and U.S. ambassador to Israel James Cunningham attended the three-week exercise on Tuesday. It is one of the largest-ever joint training drills and is fueling speculation that the United States is preparing for the worst while hoping for the best concerning Iran’s nuclear program.
Former IDF General Yitzchak Ben-Israel told BBC, “[On] one thing we are serious: We will not let Iran have a nuclear bomb." He said that the joint drill, which is held annually, "is not a bluff’ but is aimed at pressuring Iran to back down from its refusal to cooperate with international authorities on its program to enrich uranium, a key element for a nuclear weapon."
"But if Iran will not be pressed, if Iran continues to insist that it has the right to go and enrich uranium as much as it wants, then someone will have to use force.” he added.
“Overall, the goal is to ensure peace in the region, and maybe even farther from this region,” said Prime Minister Netanyahu. “I think the IDF and the U.S. Armed Forces are creating a new path, and the goal is to defend Israel. This exercise, unique and large in scale, is an expression of the meaningful relations between Israel and the United States"
The exercise included a live-fire component and a multi-layered active defense system.
As the joint drill was taking place, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the U.S. Congress, "Whoever threatens Israel also threatens us."
An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at “specific threats.” Public affairs officials interrupted the naval commander in order to divert the conversation from the scenario of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and defending itself from a counter-attack.
One senior IDF source told BBC magazine, “I've never seen so many American generals.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, along with the commander of the U.S. force in Europe and U.S. ambassador to Israel James Cunningham attended the three-week exercise on Tuesday. It is one of the largest-ever joint training drills and is fueling speculation that the United States is preparing for the worst while hoping for the best concerning Iran’s nuclear program.
Former IDF General Yitzchak Ben-Israel told BBC, “[On] one thing we are serious: We will not let Iran have a nuclear bomb." He said that the joint drill, which is held annually, "is not a bluff’ but is aimed at pressuring Iran to back down from its refusal to cooperate with international authorities on its program to enrich uranium, a key element for a nuclear weapon."
"But if Iran will not be pressed, if Iran continues to insist that it has the right to go and enrich uranium as much as it wants, then someone will have to use force.” he added.
“Overall, the goal is to ensure peace in the region, and maybe even farther from this region,” said Prime Minister Netanyahu. “I think the IDF and the U.S. Armed Forces are creating a new path, and the goal is to defend Israel. This exercise, unique and large in scale, is an expression of the meaningful relations between Israel and the United States"
The exercise included a live-fire component and a multi-layered active defense system.
As the joint drill was taking place, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the U.S. Congress, "Whoever threatens Israel also threatens us."
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Dennis Kucinich: Almost As Serious As Committing War Crimes Is Covering Up War Crimes!
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Dennis Kucinich is, along with Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney and a few others, one of the very rare US politicians which is not owned by the Israel Lobby. The rest of them are indeed criminals guilty of apology of war crimes.
The Saker
Friday, November 6, 2009
UN vote shows weakening of USraelian Empire
The United Nations General Assembly voted yesterday overwhelmingly in favour of endorsing the Goldstone Report. In total, 114 states voted to adopt the report and 18 objected. It is interesting to look at the list of countries who actually voted against it. We can split them into the following groups:
A) Core members of the USraelian Empire:
Israel, the United States, Canada
B) Core members of NATO and the Echelon alliance:
Australia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands (France and the UK are missing!)
C) Core members of the NATO colonies in the "New Europe":
Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Macedonia, the Ukraine
D) The usual "South Pacific powerhouses":
Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau
E) Panama (uh?!)
All in all, this is pretty embarrassing for the USraelians: they could not even get all NATO or Echelon countries to oppose this resolution. After all, the 44 countries which abstain did not have the courage to face their own public opinion's outrage at such a stance.
Considering the desperate efforts of the US Congress and the Obama Administration to oppose this resolution by all means, this outcome is yet another proof of the fact that the Israelian Empire is far weaker today than it used to be.
A) Core members of the USraelian Empire:
Israel, the United States, Canada
B) Core members of NATO and the Echelon alliance:
Australia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands (France and the UK are missing!)
C) Core members of the NATO colonies in the "New Europe":
Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Macedonia, the Ukraine
D) The usual "South Pacific powerhouses":
Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau
E) Panama (uh?!)
All in all, this is pretty embarrassing for the USraelians: they could not even get all NATO or Echelon countries to oppose this resolution. After all, the 44 countries which abstain did not have the courage to face their own public opinion's outrage at such a stance.
Considering the desperate efforts of the US Congress and the Obama Administration to oppose this resolution by all means, this outcome is yet another proof of the fact that the Israelian Empire is far weaker today than it used to be.
US backed putchistas renege on power-sharing deal
Looks like Honduras is back to square one. Even though the agreement specified that Congress should meet to restore Zelaya to power for the interim period until the next elections in November, the putchistas declared that they "did not consider the Congressional vote demanded by Mr Zelaya to be an essential part of the agreement". According to AP President Zelaya has now officially announced that "The accord is dead (...) there is no sense in deceiving Hondurans". As for Micheletti and his thugs, they have announced that they have formed a "national unity government" without any representatives from the Zelaya camp. Some national unity that will be...
None of this is surprising, really. The next phase is also easy to predict: no country in the Americas will recognize the predictable results of the inevitably rigged elections in November except for, of course, the USA and Colombia. Honduras will become totally isolated from the rest of Latin America and the coup regime will have to resort to more and more violence to keep control of the country. Unless, of course, the people of Honduras refuse this outcome and the country erupts into a wave of civil disobedience and protests.
Yes, it is time for elections in Honduras. But not by means of the electoral farce the putchistas are organizing, but in the streets.
In the meantime - for those of you who understand Spanish - here is an interview of President Zelaya by the TV station Telesur made just a few hours before the negotations collapesed:
and the declaration of the representative of President Zelaya following the breakdown of the negotiations:
None of this is surprising, really. The next phase is also easy to predict: no country in the Americas will recognize the predictable results of the inevitably rigged elections in November except for, of course, the USA and Colombia. Honduras will become totally isolated from the rest of Latin America and the coup regime will have to resort to more and more violence to keep control of the country. Unless, of course, the people of Honduras refuse this outcome and the country erupts into a wave of civil disobedience and protests.
Yes, it is time for elections in Honduras. But not by means of the electoral farce the putchistas are organizing, but in the streets.
In the meantime - for those of you who understand Spanish - here is an interview of President Zelaya by the TV station Telesur made just a few hours before the negotations collapesed:
and the declaration of the representative of President Zelaya following the breakdown of the negotiations:
Israel's illicit organ trade back under spotlight following Swedish journalist's report.
Middle-East online reports:
Two Israelis have been arrested for running an illegal human organ transplant ring, police said Thursday.
The two men were accused of mediating between people willing to sell organs and those awaiting transplants, and of arranging to have the operations done abroad, police superintendent Gilad Bahat told public radio.
Two other people have been detained on suspicion they were trying to sell kidneys, he said.
Any trade in organs or payment for donations is illegal in Israel.
Illicit organ trade has become a sensitive subject in Israel since a Swedish journalist alleged in August that Israel was stealing organs from killed Palestinians, a charge Israel vehemently denied.
Bahat said the two main suspects placed advertisements in newspapers to attract people willing to sell organs.
"We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars for each incident, with the seller getting tens of thousands of dollars and the rest going to the agents and to cover medical costs," Bahat said.
Police believe 10 operations organised by the suspects were carried out in South America and China.
Two Israelis have been arrested for running an illegal human organ transplant ring, police said Thursday.
The two men were accused of mediating between people willing to sell organs and those awaiting transplants, and of arranging to have the operations done abroad, police superintendent Gilad Bahat told public radio.
Two other people have been detained on suspicion they were trying to sell kidneys, he said.
Any trade in organs or payment for donations is illegal in Israel.
Illicit organ trade has become a sensitive subject in Israel since a Swedish journalist alleged in August that Israel was stealing organs from killed Palestinians, a charge Israel vehemently denied.
Bahat said the two main suspects placed advertisements in newspapers to attract people willing to sell organs.
"We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars for each incident, with the seller getting tens of thousands of dollars and the rest going to the agents and to cover medical costs," Bahat said.
Police believe 10 operations organised by the suspects were carried out in South America and China.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
One more proof that the Israel Lobby controls Congress
Democracy Now! reports:
The House has approved a non-binding measure denouncing a UN inquiry for accusing Israel of committing war crimes in its assault on the Gaza Strip. The inquiry, headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, also accused Hamas of war crimes and urged both sides to investigate the charges or face international prosecution. But the House measure dismissed the Goldstone report as “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” It also calls on the Obama administration to “strongly and unequivocally oppose” discussion of the report’s findings in any international setting. The resolution passed by a margin of 344-to-46
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Comment: "The land of the free and the home of the brave"? Definitely not in Congress... The Saker
The House has approved a non-binding measure denouncing a UN inquiry for accusing Israel of committing war crimes in its assault on the Gaza Strip. The inquiry, headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, also accused Hamas of war crimes and urged both sides to investigate the charges or face international prosecution. But the House measure dismissed the Goldstone report as “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” It also calls on the Obama administration to “strongly and unequivocally oppose” discussion of the report’s findings in any international setting. The resolution passed by a margin of 344-to-46
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Comment: "The land of the free and the home of the brave"? Definitely not in Congress... The Saker
Israel's Right To Exist?
By Alan Hart via "Information Clearing House"
On Monday 12 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset’s winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the “Palestinian leadership”, presumably the leadership of “President” Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.
Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.
“For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying ‘No’ to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours – say ‘Yes’ to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace… Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth – that without this recognition there can be no peace… There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace.”
As Ha’aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu’s demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him “a way on ensuring recognition of Israel’s right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel” (my emphasis). This, as Ha’aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the name of pragmatism, willingness to “merely to recognise” Israel – meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June ‘67 borders – has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognising Israel’s “right to exist”, and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognise this right?
The answer is in the following.
According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.
No wonder Prime Minister Netanyahu is more than a little concerned on this account.
Israel’s leaders have always known the truth summarised above. It’s time for the rest of the world to know it.
Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net
On Monday 12 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset’s winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the “Palestinian leadership”, presumably the leadership of “President” Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.
Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.
“For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying ‘No’ to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours – say ‘Yes’ to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace… Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth – that without this recognition there can be no peace… There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace.”
As Ha’aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu’s demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him “a way on ensuring recognition of Israel’s right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel” (my emphasis). This, as Ha’aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the name of pragmatism, willingness to “merely to recognise” Israel – meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June ‘67 borders – has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognising Israel’s “right to exist”, and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognise this right?
The answer is in the following.
According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.
- In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
- Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
- The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.
- So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.
No wonder Prime Minister Netanyahu is more than a little concerned on this account.
Israel’s leaders have always known the truth summarised above. It’s time for the rest of the world to know it.
Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Study: Half of All US Children Will Get Food Stamps
Democracy Now! reports:
A new study has concluded that nearly half of all US children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. Researchers say the fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher. The lead author of the study, Mark Rank, said, “This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children.” Children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty. In 2008, over 28 million Americans received food stamps in an average month. About half of the recipients were under the age of sixteen.
A new study has concluded that nearly half of all US children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. Researchers say the fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher. The lead author of the study, Mark Rank, said, “This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children.” Children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty. In 2008, over 28 million Americans received food stamps in an average month. About half of the recipients were under the age of sixteen.
Netanyahu uses his pals Sarkozy and Miliband to bury Goldstone report
al-Manar reports:
“A joint French-British UN initiative would call on Israel and the Palestinians to hold immediate, independent investigations into war crimes allegations stemming from the war in Gaza, as part of a bid to send the Goldstone report back to Geneva and out of the hands of the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague,” Haaretz reported Tuesday.
The proposal comes before the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled Wednesday to deliberate on the Goldstone report on the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. A source at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in occupied Jerusalem said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the details of the initiative during a telephone conversation.
Netanyahu asked the French President to take action among European Union partners in an effort to form collective opposition to any resolution at the UN on the Goldstone report.
The initiative is a list of "red lines" which was adopted by the 27 members of the European Union. Its main points:
1. A resolution brought for the approval of the General Assembly will not include operational steps, like taking the matter to the Security Council or the International Court of Justice.
2. The resolution would call on Israel and the Palestinians to embark on an independent investigation into the events of Operation Cast Lead, and the allegations of war crimes.
3. The handling of the Goldstone report will return to the Human Rights Council, the UN body in Geneva. The parties will have to report to the council on the findings of their investigations in a few months.
According to the Foreign Ministry source, the document was delivered yesterday by the British and French permanent representatives at the UN to the Palestinian Authority delegation at the international body, as well as the representatives of Arab states, and the members of the Security Council.
Arab representatives at the UN are expected to complete Tuesday the first draft of a resolution that will be brought to the General Assembly for a vote. That report accused Israel of war crimes and was prepared by a UN fact-finding commission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
The French and British has emphasized in their exchanges with the Arab representatives that if the "red lines" are not part of the resolution being prepared, the European Union will abstain, and may even vote against it - and expects that much of the international community will too.
"If you agree to go for a simple resolution which calls on Israel to carry out an investigation you will receive full support," a source familiar with the proposal said. "However, if you attempt to go further there will be at least 60 abstentions and only 120 votes in support."
Any resolution the Palestinians put forth will receive a large majority, but there is great importance to the weight of EU votes, and other countries who will vote in line with the EU.
Assessments in Israel hold that there is little chance the Palestinians will agree to the Franco-British proposal and Tel Aviv wants any resolution torpedoed.
Meanwhile, the Arab draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, says the assembly "requests the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to transmit the report ... to the Security Council." It also urges Israel and the Palestinians to comply with the report's recommendations for launching investigations into allegations of war crimes.
The draft also tells Ban to report back to the assembly within three months on implementation of the resolution. Arab and Western diplomats told Reuters there was little doubt a majority of the General Assembly would vote in favor of the Arab draft. But negotiations were underway as Arab delegates sought to persuade Western powers to back the text.
Western diplomats said the United States would most likely vote against the resolution. Unless it is revised, they said, most European delegations would join Washington and reject it.
Resolutions of the General Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, are nonbinding. But UN diplomats say such a resolution would intensify pressure on Israel to launch a full investigation into the actions of its army during the war. The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, but was harsher toward Israel.
The Arab draft resolution does not explicitly endorse a Human Rights Council resolution from last month that censured Israel for its actions in the Gaza war without referring to any “wrongdoing” by Hamas. The United States voted against that resolution while France and Britain abstained from the vote.
But it does endorse an HRC report that included the resolution. Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said it amounted to a full endorsement of the HRC resolution. "It endorses the Human Rights Council resolution, that is the point," he told Reuters. "And it exposes the double standards that some permanent Security Council members have towards the occupying power (Israel) in Palestine."
Several Western diplomats told Reuters the Arab draft was "unacceptable" because of its endorsement of the HRC actions and for requesting Security Council intervention. Abdalhaleem said the Arabs had rejected an earlier European draft that said the General Assembly would merely "take note" of the Goldstone report and pass the issue back to the HRC.
“A joint French-British UN initiative would call on Israel and the Palestinians to hold immediate, independent investigations into war crimes allegations stemming from the war in Gaza, as part of a bid to send the Goldstone report back to Geneva and out of the hands of the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague,” Haaretz reported Tuesday.
The proposal comes before the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled Wednesday to deliberate on the Goldstone report on the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. A source at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in occupied Jerusalem said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the details of the initiative during a telephone conversation.
Netanyahu asked the French President to take action among European Union partners in an effort to form collective opposition to any resolution at the UN on the Goldstone report.
The initiative is a list of "red lines" which was adopted by the 27 members of the European Union. Its main points:
1. A resolution brought for the approval of the General Assembly will not include operational steps, like taking the matter to the Security Council or the International Court of Justice.2. The resolution would call on Israel and the Palestinians to embark on an independent investigation into the events of Operation Cast Lead, and the allegations of war crimes.
3. The handling of the Goldstone report will return to the Human Rights Council, the UN body in Geneva. The parties will have to report to the council on the findings of their investigations in a few months.
According to the Foreign Ministry source, the document was delivered yesterday by the British and French permanent representatives at the UN to the Palestinian Authority delegation at the international body, as well as the representatives of Arab states, and the members of the Security Council.
Arab representatives at the UN are expected to complete Tuesday the first draft of a resolution that will be brought to the General Assembly for a vote. That report accused Israel of war crimes and was prepared by a UN fact-finding commission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
The French and British has emphasized in their exchanges with the Arab representatives that if the "red lines" are not part of the resolution being prepared, the European Union will abstain, and may even vote against it - and expects that much of the international community will too.
"If you agree to go for a simple resolution which calls on Israel to carry out an investigation you will receive full support," a source familiar with the proposal said. "However, if you attempt to go further there will be at least 60 abstentions and only 120 votes in support."
Any resolution the Palestinians put forth will receive a large majority, but there is great importance to the weight of EU votes, and other countries who will vote in line with the EU.
Assessments in Israel hold that there is little chance the Palestinians will agree to the Franco-British proposal and Tel Aviv wants any resolution torpedoed.
Meanwhile, the Arab draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, says the assembly "requests the Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to transmit the report ... to the Security Council." It also urges Israel and the Palestinians to comply with the report's recommendations for launching investigations into allegations of war crimes.
The draft also tells Ban to report back to the assembly within three months on implementation of the resolution. Arab and Western diplomats told Reuters there was little doubt a majority of the General Assembly would vote in favor of the Arab draft. But negotiations were underway as Arab delegates sought to persuade Western powers to back the text.
Western diplomats said the United States would most likely vote against the resolution. Unless it is revised, they said, most European delegations would join Washington and reject it.
Resolutions of the General Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, are nonbinding. But UN diplomats say such a resolution would intensify pressure on Israel to launch a full investigation into the actions of its army during the war. The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, but was harsher toward Israel.
The Arab draft resolution does not explicitly endorse a Human Rights Council resolution from last month that censured Israel for its actions in the Gaza war without referring to any “wrongdoing” by Hamas. The United States voted against that resolution while France and Britain abstained from the vote.
But it does endorse an HRC report that included the resolution. Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said it amounted to a full endorsement of the HRC resolution. "It endorses the Human Rights Council resolution, that is the point," he told Reuters. "And it exposes the double standards that some permanent Security Council members have towards the occupying power (Israel) in Palestine."
Several Western diplomats told Reuters the Arab draft was "unacceptable" because of its endorsement of the HRC actions and for requesting Security Council intervention. Abdalhaleem said the Arabs had rejected an earlier European draft that said the General Assembly would merely "take note" of the Goldstone report and pass the issue back to the HRC.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Kosovo Albanians brown-nose US imperialism with statue
Comment: whatever comes their way in the future, the Kosovo Albanians will have deserved it. The Saker
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