From: Palestine HR (palestinehr@globalexchange.org)
Date: Fri Mar 22 2002 - 18:57:25 EST
Dear Subscribers,
Please find below:
1.) An announcement of an upcoming talk by Tamir Sorek, a member of the
³Courage to Refuse Movement² who will appear in San Francisco Thursday,
April 4 to discuss why a growing number of Israeli soldiers are opposed to
the occupation. Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia (@ 16th Street), at 7:30
p.m. Donation at the door.
2.) Global Exchange¹s latest version of ³Reasons to Oppose US Military Aid
to Israel²
3.) A reminder from the A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
The new myth: Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories
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1.)
Today, even as violence and killings in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
reaches unprecedented levels, some Israeli soldiers are risking jail to call
for justice and an end to the occupation. A group of more than 350 Israeli
Army combatants have publicly refused to fight in the West Bank and Gaza in
support of what they call an illegal occupation. The occupation, these
soldiers say, has ³led to the corruption of the entire Israeli society.²
Tamir Sorek, an Israeli army intelligence reservist and a member of the
³Courage to Refuse Movement² will appear in San Francisco Thursday, April 4
to discuss why a growing number of Israelis are opposed to the occupation.
Sorek will speak in San Francisco at Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia (@ 16th
Street), at 7:30 p.m. on April 4. Donation at the door. For more information
call 415-255-7296
Sponsored by Global Exchange
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2.)
Reasons to Oppose US Aid To Israel
United States diplomats like to say that when it comes to the conflict
between Israel and Palestinians the US plays the role of ³an honest broker.²
But the US¹ massive financial and military support for Israel means that, in
fact, the US is taking sides. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign
aid, receiving more than $3 billion annually‹or about $8 million every day.
If a level diplomatic playing field is to be created, the US¹s unfair and
biased support of Israel must end. Until the US stops lending its weight to
Israel, a truly just peace will remain elusive.
Israel Is Illegally Occupying Palestine
After Israel invaded East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in June of 1967,
the United Nations Security Council (including the US) passed Resolution
242, which calls for ³withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories
occupied in the recent conflict² and emphasizes the ³inadmissibility of the
acquisition of territory by war.² In violation of UNSC 242, Israel¹s army
has never left and to this day remains an illegal and oppressive presence in
someone else¹s land.
Just weeks after the invasion, Israel began demolishing Arab homes in
illegally annexed East Jerusalem. By the end of the June 1967, 4000
families had lost their homes and land. This action should dispel the myth
that Israel¹s intentions in 1967 were defensive. Israel uses the
self-defense argument to cover up the expansion of its territories, to
justify human rights abuses since the occupation began, and to collect
massive aid from the US.
Israel Systematically Violates the Human Rights of Palestinians
Over three million Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza
live every day of their life under the domination of a hostile, foreign
occupying army. Countless international, Israeli and Palestinian human
rights organizations‹and even the US government‹have published reports
citing Israel¹s consistent human rights violations as defined by the 4th
Geneva Convention, which Israel itself has signed. This Convention applies
to Palestinian land occupied during time of war.
According to Amnesty International, Israel has ³committed grave breaches of
the Geneva Conventions . . . and consistently uses closures, curfews, and
demolitions of homes as a form of collective punishment.²
The Israeli human rights group B¹Tselem reports that Israel¹s occupation
army has ³fired at ambulances and prevented medical treatment to the sick
and wounded even leaving some of them in the field where they bled to
death.² US aid supports this kind of brutality.
US Aid to Israel Violates the US¹s Own Laws
The US Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) and the US Arms Export Control Act
(AECA) strictly forbid the government from giving military assistance to any
country that violates internationally recognized human rights. The State
Department¹s 2001 human rights report states:
³Israeli security units often used excessive force against Palestinian
demonstrators including live fireŠimpeded the provision of medical
assistance to Palestinian civilians by their strict enforcement of internal
closures, which reportedly contributed to at least 32 deaths. Israeli
security forces harassed and abused Palestinian pedestrians and drivers who
were attempting to pass through the more than 130 Israeli-controlled
checkpoints...²
Under the AECA, ³the President is required to report to Congress promptly
upon the receipt of information that a substantial violation of AECA may
have occurred.² The US government is fully aware of the Israeli army¹s
human rights violations, as the above quote from the State Department shows.
The US government has eroded its own credibility as an impartial mediator by
continuing to arm Israel without restriction and allowing these weapons to
be used against civilian populations in contravention of US law.
US Support for Israel¹s Military Threatens US Security and Global Stability
US funding of Israel¹s human rights abuses fuels resentment towards the US
throughout the world. The US sends massive military aid to Israel then
looks the other way. At the same time, the US bombs and denies humanitarian
aid to the Iraqi people for the actions of their un-elected dictator. Such
inconsistent policies are hypocritical and provoke anti-US sentiment,
ultimately jeopardizing the safety of people living in the US. Ending aid to
Israel will show the world that the US truly respects human rights. The US
can build its own security by gaining the trust and respect of the
international community.
US military aid to Israel also destabilizes the political climate in other
troubled areas of the world. In 2001, Israel made $2 billion dollars in arms
sales to India including Israeli missile systems that were developed with US
tax dollars. Tensions are as high as ever between Pakistan and India.
Contributing to an arms race between the two nations will only bring South
Asia closer to war.
Israeli Settlements Are Illegal and Provocative
One of Israel¹s most egregious violations of the 4th Geneva Convention is
the construction of massive settlements in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and
Gaza. The terms of the Convention couldn¹t be clearer: ³The Occupying Power
shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
territory it occupies² The Israeli government is essentially colonizing the
Occupied Territories.
More than 350,000 illegal settlers have built approximately 150 settlements
on confiscated Palestinian land. And the number is growing. The Israeli
peace organization Peace Now reports that since 2001 thirty-four new
settlements have been established. In addition, Jewish-only bypass roads
that connect settlements to each other and to Israel have carved up
Palestine into disconnected Palestinian islands, making establishment of a
viable Palestinian state impossible. The army and settlers also confiscate
scarce natural resources from the region. ³Israeli Jewish settlers are
allocated 4.5 times more water, per capita, for agricultural and personal
use,² than the occupied Palestinians themselves, according to Peace Now. Is
this self-defense or expansionism?
US Aid to Israel Does Not Make Israelis Safer
Billions of US taxpayer dollars are delivered to Israel each year,
ostensibly to make Israel secure. With these funds, Israel has built one of
the strongest military regimes in the world in order to maintain an illegal
military occupation and expand its borders. This brutal occupation is at the
root of the violence against the occupier¹s own civilian population. No
amount of US aid can stop this violence. In fact, supporting the collective
punishment and captivity of Palestinians will only lead to more bloodshed
for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Security and peace for Israelis depends
on Israel taking its troops and settlers back into its own country and out
of someone else¹s land.
Israel Is an Exclusionary State
The Israeli Law of Return allows Jews from all over the world to immigrate
to Israel and gain citizenship, but indigenous Palestinians who were forced
to flee in 1948 and 1967 are excluded from returning to their homes and
towns of origin. Many Palestinian refugees still hold the land deed and
even the key to their homes.
Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20 percent of the population,
suffer state-sanctioned discrimination. The US State Department reports:
³The [Israeli] government made little headway in reducing institutional,
legal, and societal discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens, [who] do
not share fully the rights provided to, and obligations imposed on, the
country's Jewish citizens.²
For example, according to the Nazareth-based Arab Association for Human
Rights, ³the National Planning and Building Law (1965) retroactively
re-zoned the lands on which many Arab villages sit as Œnon-residential.¹ . .
. The authorities use a combination of house demolitions, land confiscation,
denial of basic services, and restrictions on infrastructure development to
dislodge residents from these villages.²
Israel¹s official policy of discriminating against non-Jewish citizens makes
the country a kind of ³Jim Crow democracy,² and not one the US should be
supporting.
For more information about the Global Exchange¹s Palestine Human Rights
Campaign call 800-497-1994 or write to palestine@globalexchange.org.
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3.)
The Palestine Monitor,
A PNGO Information Clearinghouse
Information Update
The new myth: Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories
19 March 2002
The Israeli government announced yesterday that it was withdrawing its
forces from Bethlehem and Beit Jala, a move which was widely publicised as a
positive step towards a US brokered ceasefire.
While troops have withdrawn from those Palestinian towns and cities which
have been under severe attack over the last few weeks, Israeli military
forces continue to surround every Palestinian town, city and village
throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli military is therefore
not only positioned for reinvasion, but continues to stifle Palestinian life
with military checkpoints preventing free movement of people, goods and
medical supplies.
In addition, this Israeli withdrawal is only from town and cities most
recently invaded: the widely publicised withdrawal fails to make clear the
fact that Israel continues illegally to occupy the Palestinian territories,
and those areas under full control of the Palestinian Authority amount only
to 17.2% of the West Bank. In addition, the Israeli army continues to
forbid Palestinian cars to drive on any roads in the West Bank or Gaza
Strip.
For more information, contact The Palestine Monitor, +972 2 298 5372 or see
www.palestinemonitor.org http://www.palestinemonitor.org
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