American Collusion with Israeli War Crimes Unabated

Peace activist Rachel Corrie being interviewed by a TV crew in the Rafah refugee camp in 2003, two days before being killed by an Israeli bulldozer. Photograph: Getty.
US Collusion in the Gaza Blockade is an Affront to Human Rights
By Cindy Corrie / July 8, 2011

My daughter's death shows the cruelty of an America that won't protect its own and is complicit in harming Palestinian civilians

When Greek authorities prevented the US ship the Audacity of Hope leaving its port in Athens this week, they dealt a blow to a group of brave and principled Americans who were trying to carry thousands of letters from US citizens to those who wait on Gaza's shores.

I know many of the people who were on this boat, and my family's letter was part of their cargo. In 2003 my daughter Rachel Corrie made her journey to Gaza and was run down and killed by a US-made Israeli military Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer. She was trying to protect a Gazan family and their home, one of thousands illegally destroyed in Israeli military clearing operations.

Now my family is on a parallel journey with those activists as we return this week to Israeli court to confront Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz, the commanding officer of the Gaza Division's Southern Brigade in 2003. His testimony should shed light not only on actions of troops responsible for Rachel's killing but also on the Israeli military's broad failures as an occupying power to protect civilian life and property.

This week's flotilla was travelling to Gaza, as Rachel did, to stand with Palestinians against oppression and illegal occupation and for a just, enduring peace.

Some liken the action to those of "freedom riders" who 50 years ago journeyed bravely to the American south to oppose racist laws that kept blacks and whites from sitting together on buses. The flotilla participants are pursuing Israeli and US policy that provides access and egress for Gazans commensurate with what other peoples enjoy in their homelands. They demand freedoms for Gazans that we in the US celebrate for ourselves but are complicit in denying to Palestinians.

A senior administration official in 2010 told our family that the blockade of Gaza was a "failed policy". He emphasised that the attack on the first flotilla that claimed nine lives (including a US citizen) was tragic, but had created movement for lessening restrictions for Gaza.

Some members of Congress have declared the "imprisonment" of Gazans a greater threat to Israeli security than rockets from Gaza. Nevertheless, a year after the Israeli commando attack on the Mavi Marmara, the US has been unwilling or unable to influence Israel to make many of the changes still needed.

In 2003 Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon promised President Bush a "thorough, credible, and transparent" investigation into my daughter's killing. The US government's position continues to be that the promise has gone unfulfilled. In 2008 the Department of State wrote: "We have consistently requested that the government of Israel conduct a full and transparent investigation into Rachel's death. Our requests have gone unanswered or ignored."

After eight years, our family remains engaged in prolonged court proceedings seeking accountability that the US government has been unable to secure – though it has no difficulty sending Israel $3bn annually in weapons that do the damage.

The US government has failed repeatedly to obtain accountability for its own citizens and Palestinian civilians harmed by Israel. Now, it is an accomplice in manipulating policing of the Mediterranean and maintaining Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. It has thwarted and threatened citizens acting in the nonviolent tradition of our most revered champions of human rights. Much of the world is watching, disgusted with US abandonment of its own and with its collusion in the imprisonment of the people of Gaza.

Gaza flotillas reflect the world's embrace of the Palestinian cry for freedom – and most immediately their cry for an end to the blockade and siege of Gaza. Israel and the US may slow or stop the boats, but in doing so, will only find themselves increasingly isolated. Civil society is acting and will continue to until the US government and others catch up. Only when we apply to Israel/Palestine a framework of international law, human rights, and a belief in freedom and equality for every human being, is there realistic hope for a sustainable resolution and peace.

During the course of our lawsuit those not on the witness stand often figure most in my thinking. Palestinian and Jewish Israelis have supported our family's needs for legal assistance, housing, translation, medical care and companionship. I treasure memorable conversations over meals in homes and Haifa neighbourhood cafes, and the friends who come to be with us at court. Whatever the eventual judgment from the legal system, Israeli supporters have made clear that what happened to Rachel, and to many others in this poisonous conflict, should not have occurred and should not continue.

Rachel did the right thing going to Gaza – taking all of us with her. Her example is best served by supporting those who journey there in the same brave spirit, acting upon values articulated in our own Declaration of Independence, rather than circumventing them as our government seems bound to do.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited
Cindy Corrie

[Cindy Corrie is the mother of Rachel Corrie (1979–2003), who was was a US member of the International Solidarity Movement. She was killed in Gaza by an Israel Defence Forces bulldozer when she was standing in front of a Palestinian's home, attempting to prevent IDF forces demolishing the home.]

Source / Guardian/UK

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Nima Shirazi: How Far Have We Come? Boston in 1774 and Gaza in 2011

The "Deplorable" Acts: The ‘Quartet’ Comments on Gaza
By Nima Shirazi / July 2, 2011

Provided always, That if any goods, wares or merchandise, shall be laden or put off from, or discharged or landed upon, any other place than the quays, wharfs, or places, so to be appointed, the same, together with the ships, boats, and other vessels employed therein, and the horses, or other cattle and carriages used to convey the same, and the person or persons concerned or assisting therein, or to whose hands the same shall knowingly come, shall suffer all the forfeitures and penalties imposed by this or any other Act on the illegal shipping or landing of goods. - Boston Port Act of 1774 (14 Geo. III. c. 19)

On March 30, 1774, in response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament enacted the Boston Port Act, effectively shutting down all commerce and travel in and out of Massachusetts colony. The law, known as one of the Intolerable Acts, was enforced by a British naval blockade of Boston harbor. These punitive acts, which collectively punished an entire colony for the acts of resistance and frustration of a few, served to unite the disparate colonies in their fight for self-determination, sovereignty, and natural and constitutional rights. Colonies as far away as South Carolina sent relief supplies to their compatriots in Massachusetts. As a result of British imperial overreach, the First Continental Congress was convened on September 5, 1774. The Congress, in turn, established the Continental Association, a solidarity pact among the colonies to boycott all British goods and, in the event of continued British aggression, to stand as one in their fight for independence.

237 years later...



The so-called "Middle East Quartet" - that is, the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia - has issued a "Statement on the Situation in Gaza" today.

It is a brief and unsurprising document. No mention of a "siege" or "blockade," of course. While it states that the "conditions facing the civilian population in Gaza" are "unsustainable," it provides absolutely no indication of the extent of the humanitarian crisis (i.e. 80% aid dependency, 95% of water is undrinkable, a mere 20% is food secure, 36% unemployment - 47% among Gaza's youth - and 38% living below the poverty line).

The statement ignores all of this. Instead, it "notes that efforts have improved conditions over the last year, including a marked increase in the range and scope of goods and materials moving into Gaza, an increase in international project activity, and the facilitation of some exports."

Yet, these "improved conditions" are illusory. For instance, a recent report found that while, since June 2010, there has been "improved access to formerly restricted goods, including some raw materials, the increased imports of construction materials (cement, gravel and steel bar) through the tunnels from Egypt, and the improved volume of imports of construction materials for PA-approved projects implemented by international and UN organizations helped reactivate the local economy in Gaza," this "[e]conomic growth has not translated into poverty reduction."

More importantly, "Israeli restrictions on access to markets (imports on a range of raw materials and exports) and access to natural resources (land and water), as well as the increasing transport costs due the closure of Karni crossing" make it virtually impossible for real economic sustainability - through private sector growth - to occur. Furthermore,

The recent decrease in unemployment in the Gaza Strip is mainly linked to the construction and agricultural sectors which have some of the lowest wages and employ mainly unskilled/casual laborers. The new access regime allowed for an increasing number of construction projects under the UN or international umbrella, but failed to trickle down the benefits to the private sector. The latter is still relying on tunnels for the supply of construction materials. The agricultural sector is seasonal and more than half of the labor force is composed of unpaid family members.

[...]

Ongoing restrictions on the movement of goods and artificially-inflated food prices and transport costs continue to impact the economy even after the new access regime, and thereby the June 2010 decision failed to impact the viability of the tunnel economy.

[...]

The new access regime did not translate into a tangible relaxation of exports despite the 8 December 2010 cabinet decision by the GoI [Government of Israel], and the consecutive agreement with the Quartet Representative in February 2011. The blockade is still in place. Apart from a very low rate of cash crops exported, no other goods have been exported out of the Gaza Strip under the new access regime. The unpredictability of the crossing, frequent power cuts, as well as increased transportation costs do not ensure sustained exports of agricultural goods. Moreover, the exports are cut from their market of origin.

Nevertheless, the Quartet Statement commends Israel for the recent approval of $100 million in construction material to be allowed into Gaza and used to build 18 schools and 1,200 houses. Distraction accomplished.

But then things get even more ridiculous.

The statement reads:

The Quartet recognizes that Israel has legitimate security concerns that must continue to be safeguarded. Members of the Quartet are committed to working with Israel, Egypt and the international community to prevent the illicit trafficking of arms and ammunition into Gaza and believe efforts to maintain security while enabling movement and access for Palestinian people and goods are critical.

Naturally, Palestinians in Gaza - y'know, the ones who keep getting murdered by Israeli bullets, tank shells, mortars, missiles, cluster bombs and flechettes - are not entitled to the same kind of security guarantees. While the U.S. continues to supply the occupying power with the latest killing machines and heavy-duty artillery, the occupied are denied their own right to resist brutality and slaughter. One wonders, if "illicit trafficking of arms and ammunition into Gaza" is to be avoided, what channels are available for the legal transfer of weaponry and mechanisms for self-defense? Oh right, there are none. Something about barrels, fish, and white phosphorous comes to mind.

The Quartet Statement then goes on to voice its opposition to the 2011 Flotilla - without mentioning its stance on international law and whether or not the blockade is legal (hint: it's not) and blah blah blah "established channels" blah blah "established land crossings."

The disconnect is staggering. While the Quartet condemns the Flotilla, it has already acknowledged the slight benefits of Israel's "new access regime" implemented in June 2010 as a direct consequence of the 2010 Flotilla. So, while calling for an end to that tactic, they already understand full well that it is the only thing that has worked so far to bring attention to the blockade and to force Israel to act (even meagerly) on its obligations.

And then the kicker:

The Quartet regrets the injury and deaths caused by the 2010 flotilla, urges restraint and calls on all Governments concerned to use their influence to discourage additional flotillas, which risk the safety of their participants and carry the potential for escalation.

Read that again. "Injury and death caused by the 2010 flotilla." Not by the heavily-armed and armored Israeli commandos who illegally stormed the ships in international waters and shot nine innocent people to death. No no, the "flotilla" is to blame. Just for the record, here's what the United Nations - a member of the Quartet! - had to say about last year's Mavi Marmara massacre:

The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law.

It also found "clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health," and stated that Israel had seriously violated its obligations under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the "right to life...torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment...right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention...right of detainees to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person...[and] freedom of expression."

Based upon "forensic and firearm evidence," the UN fact-finding panel concluded that, of the nine murders, the killing of Turkish-American citizen Furkan Dogan and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions."

Also, from whom is the Quartet "urg[ing] restraint"? They never say. Clearly not Israel! That would be anti-Semitic. Maybe they're wishing 86-year-old Hedy Epstein should calm the hell down. Maybe Alice Walker should chill out. But Israeli soldiers executing civilians on the high seas? Whatever.

The statement concludes with a single sentence: "The Quartet also calls for an end to the deplorable five-year detention of Gilad Shalit." Deplorable. The capture and detention of a single Israeli Occupation soldier receives the deepest condemnation of the entire document. But what were the "conditions facing the civilian population in Gaza" - 1.6 million people - again? Oh right, "unsustainable." Obviously, were the siege simply more sustainable and less of a burden, it wouldn't be an issue. But since it's "unsustainable," it should probably be addressed somehow since the Quartet is "concerned."

But does the Quartet call for an end to the four-year naval blockade or the five-year siege or the 44-year occupation or the airstrikes or kidnappings or buffer zone sniper shootings or drone attacks or collective punishment? Nope. But they sure do "call for an end to the deplorable five-year detention of Gilad Shalit."

Because, after all, it's clear that the life of one Israeli soldier is more important than a million and a half Palestinians any day of the week...and especially over July 4th weekend?
*****
UPDATE:

July 3, 2011 - Even the New York Times' usual Netanyahu mouth-piece Ethan Bronner was forced to admit the inconvenient truth about the necessity and effectiveness of the flotilla tactic:

The Israeli position defies a brutal truth: last year’s flotilla made a big difference for the people of Gaza — at a terrible cost in lives — by refocusing international attention on their plight and forcing a change in Israeli policy. Today, twice as many goods enter from Israel as before. Nonetheless, Gaza remains a deeply sad and deprived place.

Source / Wide Asleep in America

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Nima Shirazi: When Will US Hypocrisy Stop?

Israeli soldiers stand near armored military vehicles at a staging area just outside the northern Gaza Strip on December 29, 2008. Photo: Baz Ratner / Reuters.
International Flaw: With New Iran Sanctions, POTUS Calls Tehran's Kettle Black
By Nima Shirazi / September 29, 2010

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington

"By alleging Iran has some problems, America’s problems aren’t resolved. Just alleging that Iran has a problem is not going to resolve Mrs. Clinton’s problems for her." - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking with Charlie Rose, May 3, 2010

On Wednesday afternoon, in a joint press conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner announced that the United States had imposed a new set of unilateral sanctions, including a travel ban and freezing of assets, against a number of top-ranking Iranian officials whom it accused of "serious and sustained human rights abuses" since the presidential election last year. The measure, which comes less than four months after the UN Security Council's latest illegal resolution and the Obama administration's last round of economic sanctions, was enacted via an Executive Order signed into effect last night by the President.

This marked, as Clinton pointed out, "the first time the United States has imposed sanctions against Iran based on human rights abuses." Every US administration since Carter's has issued unilateral sanctions against Iran due to its continued opposition to US imperialism and insufficient deference to American diktat. However, the sanctions have previously been justified using the pretense of Iran's alleged "active support of terrorism," its totally legal and fully monitored nuclear energy program, as well as the wholly fabricated notion that "the actions and policies of the Government of Iran constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States" and required "the declar[ation of] a national emergency to deal with that threat." This last hysterical claim was introduced by the Secretary of State's Presidential husband back in 1995.

This time around, Hillary Clinton stated, with regard to the eight government officials specifically targeted by the new order, "on [their] watch or under their command, Iranian citizens have been arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, raped, blackmailed, and killed. Yet the Iranian Government has ignored repeated calls from the international community to end these abuses, to hold to account those responsible and respect the rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens. And Iran has failed to meet its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

Apparently, the United States' own recent history regarding the invasion and occupation of two foreign countries, the kidnapping, indefinite detention without charge, and the physical and psychological torture of thousands of people, including at places like Guantanamo, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib (where prisoners were raped by their American captors) is irrelevant to the administration's finger-pointing charade and ongoing demonization campaign against Iran. Prisoners held by the United States in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, in addition to being "chained to the ceiling, shackled so tightly that the blood flow stops, kept naked and hooded and kicked to keep them awake for days on end," have also been beaten to death by their interrogators. Of the fifteen soldiers charged with detainee abuse ranging from "dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter," all but three have been acquitted. Those three received written reprimands and served, at most, 75 days in prison for their crimes.

In contrast, after reports of torture at Iran's Kahrizak prison surfaced, the Iranian government moved swiftly to close the facility because it "lacked the standards" to maintain "rights of detainees" and launched an investigation into the allegations. Around the same time, 140 detainees were released from Tehran's Evin Prison at the urging of the head of the Judiciary and Majlis ministers.

Additionally, according to a Financial Times report from June 25, 2009 and featured only as an insert in the print edition, several students who had been arrested during the post-election protests, rallies, and riots, were freed in order to join 1.3 million other young Iranians in taking the national university entrance exam.

In December 2009, Iranian authorities announced that twelve prison officials from Kahrizak had been arrested and charged with murder and other crimes, including abuse, negligence and deprivation of prisoners' legal rights. This past June, courts passed down prison sentences and other punishment to those accused and two prison guards were convicted of murder and "intentional assault and battery" and were sentenced to death. It was reported this week that the death sentences have been rescinded at the request of the families of the victims.

Of course, human rights abuses in Iran are indeed serious and deserve condemnation. Most recently, Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan, Iran's so-called "blogfather," has been convicted of "collaborating with hostile governments, committing blasphemy and propaganda against the Islamic Republic, and managing an obscene website" and sentenced to 19.5 years in prison.

Meanwhile, the United States continues firmly protecting its own war criminals, maintains a two-tiered justice system, routinely criminalizes dissent and whistleblowing, and breeds soldiers who kill civilians for sport and dismember corpses for fun.

"The steady deterioration in human rights conditions in Iran has obliged the United States to speak out time and time again. And today, we are announcing specific actions that correspond to our deep concern. The mounting evidence of repression against anyone who questions Iranian Government decisions or advocates for transparency or even attempts to defend political prisoners is very troubling," Clinton continued, at the press conference. The Secretary of State also noted the distressing treatment of Iranian "human rights lawyers, bloggers, journalists and activists for women’s rights."

This heartfelt announcement came just five days after the FBI launched its latest surreal assault in the US government's "war on dissent" (as termed by former FBI agent and courageous whistleblower Coleen Rowley) by kicking down doors, raiding homes at gunpoint, issuing grand jury subpoenas, and seizing the personal property, including "documents, files, books, photographs, videos, souvenirs, war relics, notebooks, address books, diaries, journals, maps, or other evidence," such as computers, cell phones, and emails of several American peace and justice activists in the Midwest. The raids were conducted under the guise of determining whether the targeted peace organizers and human rights advocates were actually devious supporters of "foreign terrorist organizations."

Elderly anti-war protesters, graduate students, neuroscientists, and civil rights attorneys have all been held for years by the US government and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences on bogus charges.

Furthermore, the claim that the US government supports "transparency" is deeply ironic, considering Obama's obsession with invoking "state secrets" and "sovereign impunity" in order to shield illegal programs like warrantless wiretapping and spying, extraordinary rendition, torture, drone warfare, and the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens from proper scrutiny and prosecution.

Whereas American officials are quick to declare their unqualified promotion of "new tools of communication" and support for "a free and open Internet," as President Obama did last week at the United Nations General Assembly, the US is itself a surveillance state, which relentlessly monitors its own citizens. The CIA and other intelligence agencies have invested in technology and companies that specialize in monitoring social media and, this past summer, a Senate committee approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that may grant the US president the authority to unilaterally shut down parts of the Internet during a "national cyber-emergency." Just this week, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration will propose new legislation to mandate US government access to all forms of electronic communications, "including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype."

"In signing this Executive Order," Clinton declared on Wednesday, "the President sends the message that the United States stands up for the universal rights of all people" and serves "as a voice for the voiceless."

Obviously, she didn't mean the universal right of self-determination for or the cries for human dignity of the Palestinian people, who have been ethnically cleansed from their homeland to make room for US-backed and nuclear-armed colonial settlers and serial human rights abusers who systematically, and with total impunity, continue to dispossess, disenfranchise, displace, demolish, and destroy the indigenous population of the stolen land they occupy and control.

This should hardly be surprising due to the fact that during the "carefully choreographed" meeting between the American President and Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in July 2010, described as "empty theater" by Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jay Booker, Obama pointed out that his administration is "unwavering in our commitment to Israel's security," while making sure to specifically not affirm the safety, human rights, or self-determination of Palestinians.

Last week, at the UN, Obama went even further in demonstrating the blatant hypocrisy entrenched in the United States doctrine of defending Zionist war crimes while condemning human rights abuses elsewhere around the world. The President stated, as he has so many times before, that any "efforts to chip away at Israel's legitimacy [sic] will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States," continuing that "efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. The slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance - it's injustice."

No mention was made of the constant Israeli murder - with US weaponry - of Palestinian civilians, despite the fact that, in the past decade alone, Israeli security forces have killed 6,371 Palestinians, of whom 1317 were minors, about 250 were police officers bombed to death during the 2008-9 Gaza massacre, and 240 were targets of assassinations. Apparently, this is not "injustice," according to the President, it's just a necessary side-effect of Zionism that didn't warrant a mention.

Hillary Clinton, after announcing the new Iran sanctions, claimed that "[the US] will hold abuse of governments and individuals accountable for their actions." The simplicity of this statement is profound considering it is a complete and provable lie.

Last year, when the United Nations released the Goldstone Report, which found overwhelming and irrefutable evidence that Israel had committed gross "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" during its 2008-9 Gaza assault, the US government roundly condemned the findings and refused to hold Israel accountable for anything.

Last week, the day before Obama addressed the General Assembly, the UN itself released its findings with regard to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre. The report stated, not only that the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law and constitutes collective punishment (which is a war crime), but also:

"The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law."

The UN report also found "clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health," and stated that Israel had seriously violated its obligations under the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the "right to life...torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment...right to liberty and security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention...right of detainees to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person...[and] freedom of expression."

Additionally, in July 2010, domestic Israeli policy and its occupation conduct had been found to violate these very same statutes (among others) by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that the killing of American citizen Furkan Dogan and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions."

It has also been reported that Israel is not only proud of its actions, but actually awarded the Israeli commando who single-handedly shot most of those killed on the Mavi Marmara with a medal of valor, despite the fact that the government refuses to publicly release the soldier's name. What a hero.

In response, the United States voiced its objections to what it termed the UN report's "unbalanced language, tone and conclusions." It seems that the US government won't hold Israel accountable for the intentional murder of its own citizens, just as it has looked the other way when Israel has killed American sailors, severely injured American peace activists, and blinded American art students.

The same day the US dismissed the UN Flotilla report, President Obama signed his Executive Order sanctioning Iranian officials for human rights violations.

Despite Israel's constant ignoring of international law, UN Security Council resolutions, and blatant disregard for human rights, including brutal torture, beating and raping Palestinian children in prison, rampant police brutality and the aggressive stifling of peaceful dissent and demonstrations in East Jerusalem, the deliberate killing of protesters, the raiding of peace and justice organizations, the restriction of press freedom and enforcing media blackouts, the kidnapping and torture of democracy advocates, the destruction of Bedouin villages in the Negev, and the arresting of Torah-carrying women who dare approach the male side of the Western Wall to pray, the US government continues to provide political cover, financial assistance, and tremendous military aid without reservation.

The US Congress endorses each and every illegal act of Israeli aggression, defends West Bank colonization, praises the flotilla massacre.

In his much-lauded June 2009 speech in Cairo, President Obama declared, "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop."

But the illegal colonization of the occupied West Bank didn't stop. Not only that, massive US aid to Israel was completely unaffected by Israel's refusal to abide by international law and weapons trade between the countries actually increased. Eventually, the US just dropped any demand for a settlement freeze of any kind.

Between last year's UN General Assembly address and the one delivered last Thursday, it appears that Obama has also dropped any real demands regarding permanent borders, Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem.

During Wednesday's press conference, Clinton, on behalf of the American government, declared "solidarity with their victims and with all Iranians who wish for a government that respects their human rights and their dignity and their freedom" and "convey[ed] our strong support for the rule of law." Whose rules and which law she was referring to is unclear.

Among the latest stipulations of the new UNSC sanctions, bullied into approval this past June, is the insistence that "States will be required to block Iranian investments outside the Islamic Republic in uranium mining or the production of nuclear materials and technology" and that "States will be barred from supplying Iran with specified categories of heavy weaponry that could potentially be used in offensive military operations," due to Iran's perceived violations of international law.

Nevertheless, the US government has continued to violate international and domestic laws regarding Israel's undeclared nuclear program and the constant shipment of American-made weaponry to the so-called Jewish State.

Recently, the United States has "sold" Israel, among other armaments, AH-64 and AH-64D Apache Longbow fighter helicopters, F-16 and F-15 Eagle fighter planes, F-16 Peace Marble II and III Aircraft, F-35 fighter jets, Boeing 777s, Hercules C-130J airplanes, Arrow missiles, Arrow II interceptors, AGM-114 D Longbow Hellfire missiles, GBU-9 small diameter bombs, bunker buster bombs, Tomahawk missiles, Patriot and Hellfire precision-guided missile systems, D9 Caterpillar military bulldozers, specifically designed for Israel's use in invasions of built-up areas.

Such sales are governed by the US Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of US military aid to "internal security" and "legitimate self defense" and prohibits its use against civilians along with the Foreign Assistance Act which explicitly prohibits US assistance "to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of person, unless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people in such country."

A more appropriate and accurate description of the State of Israel can not be found.

And yet, the United States shipped 3,000 tons of "ammunition" to Israel in the middle of the 2008-9 Gaza massacre. US weaponry was undoubtedly used in the assault, during which gross violations of international law, abrogation of human rights, and crimes against humanity were committed.

The connection of US outrage and sanctions to international human rights is, quite simply, absurd. One look at the recent $60 billion arms deal the US made with the human rights-challenged Kingdom of Saudi Arabia makes the American contention ridiculous and embarrassing.

The United States fetes European and Israeli war criminals, all of whom call for military aggression against the Islamic Republic, while imposing a travel ban on Iranian officials.

The double standards of the US government continue to betray its real intentions and motivations regarding the Middle East, namely the maintenance of military hegemony, allegiance to Zionist mythology, and the continued demonization and threatening of any country that dares question the moral superiority of the United States or opposes American and Israeli imperialism in the region. While Barack Obama continues to claim that he is "willing to reach out with an open hand to the Iranian government," it seems he's forgotten to first wash off all the blood.

Source / Wide Asleep in America

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One Man's Story of the Israeli Assault on the Flotilla

Kevin Neish, Canadian activist aboard the Mavi Marmara, witnessed the Israeli commando assault.
Eyewitness to the Israeli Assault on the Mavi Marmara
By Dave Lindorff / June 15, 2010

Kevin Neish of Victoria, British Columbia, didn’t know he was a celebrity until he was about to board a flight from Istanbul to Ottawa. “This Arab woman wearing a beautiful outfit suddenly ran up to me crying, ‘It’s you! From Arab TV! You’re famous!’” he recalls with a laugh. “I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she told me, ‘I saw you flipping through the Israeli commando’s book! It’s being aired over and over!’”

A soft-spoken teacher and former civilian engineer with the Canadian Department of Defense, Neish realized then that a video taken by an Arab TV cameraman in the midst of the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza of him flipping through a booklet had been transmitted before the Israelis blocked all electronic signals from the flotilla. The booklet had pictures and profiles of all the passengers, and he'd found it in the backpack of an Israeli Defense Force commando.

Neish, 53, was on the second deck of the flotilla’s lead ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara, with a good view of the stern, when the IDF, in the early morning darkness of May 31, began its assault with percussion grenades, tear gas and a hail of bullets. He then moved to the fourth deck in an enclosed stairwell, from which he watched and took photographs as casualties were carried down past him to a makeshift medical station. Several IDF commandos, captured by the passengers and crew, were also brought past him.

“I saw them carrying this one IDF guy down,” he recalls. “He looked terrified, like he thought he was going to be killed. But when a big Turkish guy, who had seen seriously injured passengers who had been shot by the IDF, charged over and tried to hit the commando, the Turkish aid workers pushed him off and pinned him to the wall. They protected this Israeli soldier.”

That was when he found the backpack which the soldier had dropped. “I figured I’d look inside and see what he was carrying,” Neish says. “And inside was this kind of flip-book. It was full of photos and names in English and Hebrew of who was on all the ships. The booklet also had a detailed diagram of the decks of the Mavi Marmara.”

Meanwhile, he says, more and more people were being carried down the stairs from the mayhem above—people who'd been shot, and people who were dying or people already dead. “I took detailed photos of the dead and wounded with my camera,” he says, adding, “There were several guys who had two neat bullet holes side by side on the side of their head--clearly they were executed.”

Neish smuggled his photos out of Israel to Turkey despite his arrest on the ship and imprisonment in Israel for several days. “I pulled out the memory card, tossed my camera and anything I had on me that had anything to do with electronics, and then kept moving the chip around so it wouldn’t be found,” he says. “The Israelis took all the cameras and computers. They were smashing some and keeping others. I put the chip in my mouth under my tongue, between my butt cheeks, in my sock, everywhere, to keep them from finding it,” he says. He finally handed it to a Turk who was leaving for a flight home on a Turkish airline. He says the card ended up in the hands of an organization called Free Gaza, and he has seen some of his pictures published, so he knows they made it out successfully.

Neish says that claims that the Israeli commandos were just armed with paint guns and 9 mm pistols are “Bullshit--at one point when I was in the stairwell, a commando opened a hatch above, stuck in a machine gun, and started firing. Bullets were bouncing all over the place. If the guy had gotten to look in and see where he was shooting, I’d have been dead, but two Turkish guys in the stairwell, who had short lengths of chain with them that they had taken from the access points to the lifeboats, stood to the side of the hatch and whipped them up at the barrell. I don’t know if they were trying to hit the commando or to use them to snatch away the gun, but the Israeli backed off, and they slammed and locked the hatch.”

“I never saw a single paint gun, or a sign of a fired paint ball!” he says.

He also didn't see any guns in the hands of people who were on the ship. “In the whole time I was there on the ship, I never saw a single weapon in the hands of the crew or the aid workers,” he says. Indeed, Neish, who originally had been on a smaller 70-foot yacht called the Challenger II, had transferred to the Mavi Marmara after a stop in Cyprus, because his boat had been sabatoged by Israeli agents (a claim verified by the Israeli government), making it impossible to steer. “When we came aboard the big boat, I was frisked and my bag was inspected for weapons,” he says. “Being an engineer, I of course had a pocket knife, but they took that and tossed it into the ocean. Nobody was allowed to have any weapons on this voyage. They were very careful about that.”

What he did see during the IDF assault was severe bullet wounds. “In addition to several people I saw who were killed, I saw several dozen wounded people. There was one older guy who was just propped up against the wall with a huge hole in his chest. He died as I was taking his picture.”

Neish says he saw many of the 9 who were known to have been killed, and of the 40 who were wounded, and adds, “There were many more who were wounded, too, but less seriously. In the Israeli prison, I saw people with knife wounds and broken bones. Some were hiding their injuries so they wouldn’t be taken away from the others.” He also says, “Initially there were reports that 16 on the boat had been killed. The medical station said 16. There was a suspicion that some bodies may have been thrown overboard. But what people think now is that the the other seven who are missing, since we’re not hearing from families, may have been Israeli spies.”

Once the Israeli commandos had secured control of the Mavi Marmara, Neish says the ship’s passengers and crew were rounded up, with the men put in one area on deck, and the women put below in another area. The men were told to squat, and had their hands bound with plastic cuffs, which Neish says were pulled so tight that his wrists were cut and his hands swelled up and turned purple (he is still suffering nerve damage from the experience, which his doctor in Canada says he hopes will gradually repair on its own).

“They told us to be quiet,” he says. “But at one point this Turkish imam stood up and started singing a call to prayer. Everybody was dead quiet--even the Israelis. But after about ten seconds, this Israeli officer stomped over through the squatting people, pulled out his pistol and pointed at the guy’s head, yelling ‘Shut up!’ in English. The imam looked at him directly and just kept singing! I thought, Jesus Christ, he’s gonna kill him! Then I thought, well, this is what I’m here for, I guess, so I stood up. The officer wheeled around and pointed his gun at my head. The imam finished his song and sat down, and then I sat down.”

While the commandeered vessels were sailed to the Israeli port of Ashdot, the captives were left without food or water. “All we were given were some chocolate bars that the Israelis pilfered from the ship’s stores,” says Neish. “You had to grovel to get to go to the bathroom, and many people had to just go in their pants.”

Things didn’t get much better once the passengers were transferred to an Israeli prison. He and the other prisoners with him, who hadn’t eaten for more than half a day, were tossed a frozen block of bread and some cucumbers.

On the second day, someone from the Canadian embassy came around, calling out his name. “It turned out he’d been going to every cell looking for me,” says Neish. “My daughter had been frantically telling the Canadian government I was in the flotilla. Even though the Israelis had my name and knew where I was, they weren’t telling the Canadian embassy people. In fact the Canadians--and my daughter--thought I was dead, because people had said I’d been near the initial assault. The good thing is that as they went around calling out for me, they discovered two Arab-born Canadians that they hadn’t known were there.”

“Eventually they got to my cell and I answered them. The embassy official said, ‘You’re Kevin? You’re supposed to be dead.’”

After being held for a few days, there was a rush to move everyone to the Ben Gurion airport for a flight to Turkey. “It turned out that Israeli lawyers had brought our case to the Supreme Court, challenging the legality of our capture on international waters. There was a chance that the court would order the IDF to put us back on our ships and let us go, so the government wanted to get us out of Israel and moot the case. But two guys were hauled off, probably by Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency). So we all said, ‘No. We don’t go unless you bring them back.’”

The two men were returned and were allowed to leave with the rest of the group.

“I honestly never thought the Israelis would board the ship,” says Neish. “I thought we’d get into Gaza. I mean, I went as part of the Free Gaza Movement, and they had made prior attempts, with some getting in, and some getting boarded or rammed, but this time it was a big flotilla. I figured we’d be stopped, and maybe searched. My boat, the Challenger II, only had dignitaries on board including three German MPs, and then Lt. Col. Ann Wright and myself.

At one point in the Israeli prison, all the violence finally got to this man who had witnessed more death and mayhem than many active duty US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. “I broke down and started crying,” he admits. “This big Turkish guy came over and asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘Sixteen people died.’”

“He said to me, ‘No, they died for a wonderful cause. They’re happy. You just go out and tell your story.’”

Source / This Can't Be Happening

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / Fluxed Up World

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Treatment of the Palestinians Is America's Shame

And what is truly critical to understand is that the vast majority of the members of Congress (both houses) are consistent in their concurrence with Senator Schumer's perspective. In short, they are all sympathetic toward, if not directly condoning, crimes against humanity. Shame, shame.

Richard Jehn / Fluxed Up World

Schumer’s Sippenhaftung and the Children of Gaza
By Juan Cole / June 12, 2010

“Gaza” is an abstraction to most Israelis, including Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. A majority of the 1.5 million Gazans is not even from Gaza, but rather is from what is now Israel.

Americans do not know, and perhaps do not care, that 68% of Gazans are refugees living in 8 refugee camps, who were ethnically cleansed and violently expelled from their homes in 1947-48, in what is now Israel. And no, they were not combatants, just civilians caught up in a civil war of sorts. They lost massive amounts of property and their homes, which would now be worth billions, but have never received a dime from the Israelis in reparations or compensation. Then in winter of 2008-2009, the Israeli military destroyed one in every eight Palestinian homes, rendering even more people homeless.

Schumer accuses the Gazans of not ‘recognizing’ Israel, which is sort of like accusing the pelicans in the Gulf of Mexico of not ‘recognizing’ BP. If Schumer wants the recognition and good will of the Gazans, he should arrange for them to be paid for the homes and farms out of which they were chased by the Israelis, who made them homeless refugees in a kind of vast concentration camp in Gaza, and are now half-starving them.

Think Progress reveals that Schumer told an Orthodox audience:

SCHUMER: The Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution. More do than before, but a majority still do not. Their fundamental view is, the Europeans treated the Jews badly and gave them our land — this is Palestinian thinking [...] They don’t believe in the Torah, in David [...] You have to force them to say Israel is here to stay. The boycott of Gaza to me has another purpose — obviously the first purpose is to prevent Hamas from getting weapons by which they will use to hurt Israel — but the second is actually to show the Palestinians that when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement. When there’s total war against Israel, which Hamas wages, they’re going to get nowhere. And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.

So anything short of ‘starving to death’, i.e. mass extermination in the camps, is all right as long as it convinces the enemy?

How about something short of starving to death, such as 10% of children being stunted from malnutrition? Would that be worth it? Or a majority of Gazans being ‘food insecure’ according to the United Nations? [pdf]. Both are the current situation, which is supported by Schumer.



How about Gaza children Looking for food in garbage?

Some 56% of Gazans are children, who hardly voted for Hamas but whom Schumer wishes to punish economically.

Meanwhile, Schumer doesn’t recognize a Palestinian state, but he nevertheless gets three solid meals a day.

Sen. Charles Schumer at crumpets and tea.

As Think Progress explained, nothing Schumer said is true. A majority of Palestinians favors a two-state solution. Moreover, Palestinians are Christians and Muslims, who do in fact acknowledge the Torah (the Hebrew Bible, which the Qur’an praises as full of guidance and light) and David (whom the Qur’an calls “Da’ud.”) Schumer is shamelessly ignorant about Palestinian culture, but it is true that they do not draw from David’s existence or from the Qur’an’s praise of the Torah or Bible the same conclusion as contemporary political Zionists or Jewish nationalists, that Jews have a right to expel local people from Palestine and usurp their property without compensation. But then virtually no Jews drew such a conclusion in the United States until after World War II, and most diaspora Jews rejected such an idea until that era.

As for the idea that all Gazans, including children, should be economically punished until they agree with Schumer’s Zionism, there is only one way that makes sense. Since the children of Gaza did not vote for Hamas, if they are being punished for Hamas’s crimes, then it must be because they are related to Hamas members.

Punishing people because they are related to enemies of the state is called in German Sippenhaft or Sippenhaftung. Look it up. I don’t usually like such analogies from the 1930s and 1940s in Europe to contemporary Zionist thinking because they inevitably offend even a sympathetic Jewish audience. But it should be noted that Sippenhaftung was implemented against gentile German family members of dissidents such as those involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, and that Stalin also deployed the tactic of punishing relatives of perceived dissidents. And there is no other way to read Schumer’s prescription for putting Gazan children on a diet than as a contemporary form of Sippenhaftung.

And it is shameful, and he deserves the comparison for these inhumane sentiments.

Here is the video of Schumer saying what he said.

Source / Informed Comment

Fluxed Up World

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Israel, the US, and the Iranian "Bomb" : Hypocrisy Supreme

Israel offered Nukes to Racist South Africa for Use on Black Neighbors
By Juan Cole / May 24, 2010

A suppressed historical episode has emerged into the light of day in such a way as to deeply embarrass Israel and the United States in their campaign against Iran’s peaceful nuclear enrichment program at Natanz near Isfahan.

In a recent interview, Tzahi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Israel said, “We are frustrated with the fact that Iran does not feel the pressure of the world, does not care about the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.N., because we feel that time is running out.” On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, “The greatest danger mankind faces is a radical regime, without limits to its cruelty, obtaining nuclear capabilities.”

Such Israeli eruptions of outrage about Iran depend on a key bit of misdirection, including denial of Israel’s own small arsenal of nuclear warheads. But it used to be difficult to prove Israel’s arsenal exists. No longer.

Iran appears not to have a nuclear weapons program, according to US intelligence, and its civilian nuclear research program is permitted under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The UN Security Council, however keeps insisting that Iran cease enrichment, though it is unclear why that body thinks it has the authority to amend the NPT ex post facto in that way. It is true that Iran did not inform the UN as it was required to when it began trying to enrich uranium in the late 1990s. And it is also true that Iran is not today as transparent with the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors as that organization would like.

For their parts, Iranian political figures such as speaker of the house Larijani and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have threatened to withdraw from the agreement reached last week with Turkey and Brazil whereby it would send a substantial amount of its stock of low enriched uranium to Turkey to be held in escrow, in return for the international community providing fuel enriched to 19.75 percent for the reactor that produces medical isotopes.

Barry Posen has demolished the argument, sometimes trotted out by the ‘overthrow Tehran’ crowd, that Iran would give nukes to third parties, including terrorists, if it had them. But that argument is one among many deployed against Tehran on a somewhat fantastic basis (since Iran does not have a bomb in the first place and likely couldn’t have one for a decade or more even if it were trying, which as far as US intelligence can tell, it isn’t.)

The implication, that Iran must be stopped because it would proliferate to neighbors, may come back to haunt pro-Israeli propagandists, given Tel Aviv’s own secret role in attempting to proliferate nukes to South Africa.

Netanyahu instanced the peculiar danger of Iran, but surely few regimes were as brutal and cruel or as threatening to their neighbors as Apartheid South Africa, which demonstrably wanted nuclear weapons in a way that cannot be equally well proven regarding Iran.

The Guardian reports on findings of historian Sasha Polakow-Suransky in the South African archives demonstrating that Israel offered Praetoria nuclear weapons in 1975. The documents are detailed in Polakow-Suransky’s book, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. The relevant memos and minutes are reproduced by The Guardian here.

The White South African government appears to have wanted to buy Israeli nuclear-tipped missiles for potential use against Black African neighbors such as Angola, Botswana, Zambia and (at certain points) Mozambique– countries against which the rogue regime often launched cross-border raids.

It is worth remembering what kind of pariah, racist and repressive regime Apartheid South Africa really was. Non-binding UN Security Council resolutions starting in the 1960s discouraged conventional arms sales to the regime, much less nuclear weapons! (The UN-imposed arms sale ban became mandatory on member states in 1977, shortly after the Israeli offer had been made). The impact of officially imposed white supremacism on the wealth and health of the population was clear by 1978:



The Israel-South Africa partnership even extended to having the Anti-Defamation League, supposedly a civil rights organization fighting anti-Semitism, spy on and play dirty tricks on organizations and individuals in San Francisco who supported Palestinians or who opposed South African Apartheid.

The embarrassment is compounded by the increasing similarities between South African policies toward Black Africans and Israeli policies toward Palestinians. There is a sense in which Gaza and the West Bank have become much like the “homelands” created for denaturalized South Africans, making them foreigners in their own country and requiring that they carry papers at all times.

But it is not clear that even the South African Apartheid regime imposed anything as cruel as the Israeli siege and blockade of the Gaza Strip. That blockade is being challenged by a volunteer aid flotilla, which, however, risks being turned away before it can deliver humanitarian assistance to the half-starved Gazans, half of whom are children.

Whether it was intentional or not, the double standard in the UNSC concerning Israel’s nuclear weapons (including the recklessness with which its leaders have hinted they would use them, and the willingness to proliferate) and Iran’s civilian enrichment program, which may well never lead to a bomb has been underlined by Polakow-Suransky’s revelations. The research discoveries make it at least a little more difficult for the US and Israel to persuade other UNO states that Iran is a rogue and needs special intervention, while Israel is held harmless.

Source / Informed Comment

Fluxed Up World

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Rachel Corrie: There Has Never Been an "International Outcry"

And it's a human disgrace. There have been words, but little in the way of actions from the international community, with the exception of the Corrie Family. When will we finally shame Israel into taking responsibility for all the murder, and violations of human rights and international law?

Richard Jehn / Fluxed Up World

Rachel Corrie standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, on the day she was killed. Photo: AP.
General 'tried to cover up truth about death of Rachel Corrie'
By Ben Lynfield / 7 May 2010

Israeli war hero accused of suppressing testimony that could reveal what really happened to Gaza activist

Seven years after the American activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, evidence has emerged which appears to implicate Israel's Gaza commander at the time, in an attempt to obstruct the official investigation into her death.

The alleged intervention of Major-General Doron Almog, then head of Israel's southern command, is documented in testimony taken by Israeli military police a day after Ms Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003. The hand written affidavit, seen by The Independent, was submitted as evidence during a civil law suit being pursued by the Corrie family against the state of Israel.

Ms Corrie, who was 23 when she died, was critically wounded when a bulldozer buried her with sandy soil near the border between Gaza and Egypt. The American, wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and carrying a megaphone, was among a group of volunteers from the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement who over a period of three hours on that day had sought to block the demolition by Israel of Palestinian homes.

The Israeli military has maintained that its troops were not to blame for the killing of Ms Corrie and that the driver of the bulldozer had not seen her. It accused Ms Corrie and the ISM of behaviour that was "illegal, irresponsible and dangerous". Three days after Ms Corrie's death, the US state department announced that the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had promised the US President George Bush that the Israeli government would undertake a "thorough, credible and transparent investigation".

But according to a military police investigator's report which has now emerged, the "commander" of the D-9 bulldozer was giving testimony when an army colonel dispatched by Major-General Almog interrupted proceedings and cut short his evidence. The military police investigator wrote: "At 18:12 reserve Colonel Baruch Kirhatu entered the room and informed the witness that he should not convey anything and should not write anything and this at the order of the general of southern command."

The commander was a reservist named Edward Valermov. He was in the bulldozer with its driver. In his testimony before he was ordered to stop, he told military police investigators that he had not seen Ms Corrie before she was wounded. Alice Coy, a former ISM volunteer activist who was near Ms Corrie during the incident said in an affidavit to the court that "to the best of my knowledge the bulldozer driver could see Rachel while pushing earth over her body."

Hussein Abu Hussein, a lawyer for the Corrie family, said Major-General Almog's alleged intervention blocked the possible emergence of evidence that could have determined whether Mr Valermov's assertion that he did not see Ms Corrie was reasonable. "Do I believe him? Of course not. There is no doubt this was manslaughter," Mr Abu Hussein said. "First of all we claim the state is responsible for the death of Rachel. And secondly we claim that the investigation was not professional."

"When you, the state of Israel, fail as an authority to perform your function of having a credible investigation, when your standard falls from reasonable, objective standards than you have caused evidentiary damage," Mr Abu Hussein said.

Contacted by The Independent, Major-General Almog, a hero in Israel for his role in the 1976 raid to rescue hostages in Entebbe, Uganda, denied ordering the bulldozer commander to desist from testifying. In 2005, the General narrowly escaped arrest in Britain on a war crimes charge for allegedly ordering the destruction in 2002 of 50 civilian homes in Rafah, where Ms Corrie was later killed. Major-General Almog was tipped off about the warrant and did not disembark at Heathrow, returning instead to Israel on the El Al flight.

Mr Valermov said in his testimony that the bulldozers, manned by two people, were ordered to continue their work despite the presence of the ISM protesters. He said that troops in an armoured personnel carrier threw stun grenades, used tear gas and fired shots towards the ground to scare the protesters away. "It didn't help and therefore we decided to continue the work with all possible delicateness on the orders of the company commander" he said.

The testimony was interrupted after Mr Valermov said the driver of the bulldozer, named only as Yevgeny, said he did not know if Ms Corrie had been harmed by the shovel of the D-9. "It was only when we moved the D-9 backwards that I saw her. The woman was lying in a place where the instrument had not reached. As soon as we saw the harmed woman we returned to the central corridor, stood and waited for orders." The soldier's last statement before the order to stop speaking was: "My job was to guide. The driver cannot guide himself because his field of vision is not large."

Another army document strongly suggests that Major-General Almog opposed the military police investigation. Dated 18 March 2003, a military police investigator petitioning a judge for permission to conduct an autopsy on Ms Corrie's body said that "we arrived only today because there was an argument between the general of southern command and the military advocate general about whether to open an investigation and under what circumstances." The judge granted the request provided the autopsy would be done in the presence of a US diplomat as the Corrie family requested. But the inquest was carried out by Israel's chief pathologist without any US official being there, in apparent violation of the judge's ruling.

Major-General Almog denied halting Mr Valermov's testimony. "I never gave such an order, I don't know such a document. I conducted my own investigation, I don't remember what I found. There were 12,000 terrorist incidents when I was general in charge of southern command. I finished seven years ago, if they want to invite me [to testify] they know the address. I certainly didn't disrupt an investigation, this is nonsense. In all of my service I never told anyone not to testify."

Asked if he gave an order to harm foreign activists interfering with the army's work, Major-General Almog responded: "What are you talking about? You don't know what a general in charge of command is. The general in charge of command has 100,000 soldiers. What are you talking about?''

Moshe Negbi, legal commentator for the state-run Voice of Israel radio, said of Major-General Almog's interdiction: "If a commander prevents a witness from testifying then it is disruption of an investigation, a criminal offence whose penalty is three years imprisonment."

Craig Corrie, Rachel Corrie's father, said the alleged intervention in Valermov's testimony was "outrageous."

"When you see someone in that position taking those steps you not only have to be outraged, you have to ask why is he covering up, what has he done that he needs to take these steps to cover it up?"

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said: "Any military police investigations are completely independent and cannot be influenced by outside sources." The Israeli state attorneys handling the case declined to be interviewed. The trial is due to resume in September.

Rachel's nightmare scenario

Before she became a political symbol, Rachel Corrie was an American student on a study-abroad programme. A member of a middle-class family from Olympia, Washington, she was attending college locally when she travelled to Gaza with the intention of initiating a twin-city project between Olympia and Rafah.

Arriving in Gaza in January 2003, she linked up with the International Solidarity Movement, and spent the next two months as an activist. In the weeks before her death she wrote a series of emails home to her friends and family that detailed her impressions of life in Gaza. "I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers," she told her mother. "I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared... This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop."

The emails, which later inspired a play that appeared in London but was cancelled in New York and Toronto, end with an exchange with her father. "I am afraid for you, and I think I have reason to be," he wrote. "But I'm also proud of you – very proud... But I'd just as soon be proud of somebody else's daughter."

Corrie died on 16 March 2003. Like the death of the British activist Tom Hurndall in similar circumstances a year later, it prompted an international outcry about Israel's deeds in the Palestinian territories.

Source / The Independent

Fluxed Up World

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