YEAR IN REVIEW: Goldstone: My mission – and motivation
By Richard Goldstone, Jerusalem Post, October 18, 2009

Israel and its courts have always recognized that they are bound by norms of international law that it has formally ratified or that have become binding as customary international law upon all nations. The fact that the United Nations and too many members of the international community have unfairly singled out Israel for condemnation and failed to investigate horrible human rights violations in other countries cannot make Israel immune from the very standards it has accepted as binding upon it.

Israel has a strong history of investigating allegations made against its own officials reaching to the highest levels of government: the inquiries into the Yom Kippur War, Sabra and Shatila, Bus 300 and the Second Lebanon War.

Israel has an internationally renowned and respected judiciary that should be envy of many other countries in the region. It has the means and ability to investigate itself. Has it the will? [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — The Netanyahu government’s stonewalling of the Goldstone inquiry does not appear to have purely been an act of self-protection; it also seems to reflect a national spirit of impunity rooted in the conviction: “We had no choice.”

Having turned this declaration into a battle cry, violence was cleansed of doubt as Israel embarked on its own jihad. “We went into Gaza and God went into Gaza with us,” was how one Israeli Special Forces soldier put it.

When the enemy’s homes have been flattened, their bodies incinerated, their land defiled and their water poisoned and all of this is being done under God’s watchful eye and under His protection, the killers return to their homes expecting glorification, not to become the targets of an international inquiry.

YEAR IN REVIEW: Israel’s never-ending war
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, September 22, 2009

As Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, meet at the United Nations today, “both sides have made clear that they’ll essentially be humoring Obama, showing up because the President of the United States expects it of them and not to relaunch long-stalled ‘final status’ peace negotiations, as the administration had hoped,” writes Tony Karon at Time magazine.

The conventional wisdom among most seasoned observers of the conflict is that the status quo is untenable — that at some point both sides will have to arrive at a mutually acceptable way of implementing a two-state solution.

The process that might lead to that point is as murky as ever.

The possibility that receives less consideration is that Israelis, living in a country forged through war — a country that has never really known peace — having become resigned to the apparent necessity of remaining on a perpetual war footing, have now reached a point where war is more than tolerable: it is acceptable.

War is what created Israel, has allowed it to exist and will guarantee its perpetuation. Many Israelis may pay lip-service to the notion that peace is desirable, yet it is their willingness to engage in war that makes them feel safe.

For Ariel Siegelman, an Israeli soldier who fought in Gaza in a special forces unit of the IDF, the key lesson from the 2006 war in Lebanon was this: “We learned that we had been living in an imaginary world and that the most dangerous type of war is the one that you call peace. We learned that we are not in fact in a ‘peace process’ at all. We are at war.”

In the Washington Post just this week, Jackson Diehl pointed out that even as the UN’s damning report on the war on Gaza brought renewed critical attention to the most recent conflict, “Operation Cast Lead, as the three-week operation is known in Israel, is generally regarded by the country’s military and political elite as a success.” (Diehl, with apparent satisfaction, predicted: “As for the Goldstone report [PDF], the heat it briefly produced last week will quickly dissipate”.)

Claiming that the wars in Lebanon and Gaza had for Israel both been qualified successes, Diehl suggested that Israel is far less fearful than are most of its allies about picking a fight with Iran.

… as with Gaza, even a partial and short-term reversal of the Iranian nuclear program may look to Israelis like a reasonable benefit — and the potential blowback overblown.

Americans who do not share Diehl’s neoconservative perspective, don’t need to ask themselves whether they share Israel’s view of itself; they simply need to decide whether the United States has a responsibility (or any legitimate excuse) for sustaining Israel’s war machine.

Without American arms, the Jewish state will not be starved of materiel — there are plenty of non-US arms manufacturers who would happily pick up the new demand.

The only issue is whether we should regard Israel’s wars as ours.

* * *

Israel’s military might and its fighting forces have been celebrated by Israelis and Israel’s supporters through numerous songs and videos. Here are a few:

YEAR IN REVIEW: UN: Evidence Israeli ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ a ‘result of deliberate planning and policy decisions’
By Sharon Otterman, New York Times, September 15, 2009

A United Nations fact-finding mission investigating the three-week war in Gaza issued a lengthy, scathing report [PDF] on Tuesday that concluded that both the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups “committed actions amounting to war crimes,” and possibly crimes against humanity.

The four-member mission, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, a widely respected South African judge, also concluded that neither Israel nor the Palestinian groups had carried out any “credible investigations” into the alleged violations. If that did not change within six months, the United Nations Security Council should refer the situation to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for possible prosecution, the panel concluded.

“The prolonged situation of impunity has created a justice crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that warrants action,” the members said in their 574-page report on the war, during which some 1,200 Palestinians were killed, including at least several hundred civilians, and 13 Israelis died, 10 soldiers and 3 civilians. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Perhaps the report’s most disturbing finding says less about the past than it portends for Gaza and Israel’s future:

Some 30 per cent of children screened at UNRWA schools had mental health problems, while some 10 per cent of children had lost relatives or friends or lost their homes and possessions. WHO estimated that some 30,000 children would need continued psychological support and warned of the potential for many to grow up with aggressive attitudes and hatred.

Judge Goldstone and the pollution of argument
By Antony Lerman, The Guardian, September 15, 2009

The despicable attacks on human rights organisations investigating Israel’s Gaza offensive in January confirm Churchill’s observation: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” The mission led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone to investigate international human rights and international humanitarian law violations during Israel’s offensive, established by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), is the latest victim. His findings are about to be made public. The knives have been out for the mission for months. Now they are being plunged into him and his colleagues. Until the report is out Goldstone can’t defend it. So the smears and misrepresentation are left free to pollute public discourse.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has assiduously responded to a deluge of scurrilous attacks on its credibility and staff, yet totally unfounded allegations – for example, about accepting Saudi government funding and failing to give a critical report to the Israel Defence Forces before releasing it to the public – are constantly being recycled. HRW messed up by failing to see that the nerdy and, to most people, disturbing hobby of its weapons expert Marc Garlasco (he collects German and American second world war memorabilia) could be used to discredit his role as author of highly critical reports of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza. But when this story broke last week, the equation implied in some allegations – “Nazi” object-collector plus “Israel-basher” equals “antisemite” – was baseless and defamatory. That he also worked on reports critical of Hamas and Hezbollah was ignored. As another excuse to attack HRW, and deflect attention from its reports’ findings, the Garlasco affair was a gift.

The human rights world is not beyond reproach. UNHRC has hardly been impartial on Israel. Goldstone accepted his role only after the council president agreed to the alteration of the mission’s mandate to cover all parties to the conflict, not just Israel. But mistrust alone does not explain the extraordinary scale of the attacks on human rights organisations, including all Israeli ones, for their reports on Israel. [continued…]

YEAR IN REVIEW: September 9: The shot that was not heard round the world
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, September 9, 2009

As the war in Afghanistan enters its ninth year, in the minds of most Americans the attacks of September 11, 2001 remain the signal event that shaped everything that has followed. Yet had we been paying more attention, we would have known that September 9, 2001, the day that Ahmed Shah Massoud was assassinated, was no less significant.

On that day, Afghanistan lost a leader of global stature — a man who truly was irreplaceable. Now, as much as ever, as the Taliban is resurgent and American and its allies attempt to prop up a deeply corrupt government in Kabul, the memory of Massoud is a symbol of the Afghan people’s so many shattered hopes.

A year after Massoud’s death, John Burns wrote in the New York Times:

As Americans prepare to mark the Sept. 11 anniversary, with many still struggling to come to terms with the cataclysm of that day, Afghans are passing through their own harrowing remembrance, of an attack that was overshadowed for the rest of the world by what happened two days later in the United States. Only four men died on Sept. 9 — the 49-year-old Mr. Massoud, an aide and the assassins — but there has been little healing of the wounds the killers inflicted on the hearts and the hopes of millions of his countrymen.

Ask Afghans who knew Mr. Massoud what it was about him that inspires such grief, and they struggle. Like [Fahim] Dashti [who was with Massoud at the time of his assassination], they talk of his skills as the guerrilla commander who astonished Soviet generals he outfought during the occupation of the 1980’s, or of his years holding out against the Taliban, when almost all other guerrilla leaders had joined the Taliban or fled abroad.

They speak of Mr. Massoud’s directness, his lack of pretense or false piety, his modesty, the look of somber intensity that rarely left his face. But usually, they give up, as people do when they try to define charisma. Mr. Dashti, the editor, resorted, in the end, to the simplest words. “We loved him,” he said. “We loved him more than we loved our own mothers and fathers. He embodied everything we loved about Afghanistan.”

In 1998, in a letter to the American people, Massoud wrote:

Let me correct a few fallacies that are propagated by Taliban backers and their lobbies around the world. This situation over the short and long-run, even in case of total control by the Taliban, will not be to anyone’s interest. It will not result in stability, peace and prosperity in the region. The people of Afghanistan will not accept such a repressive regime. Regional countries will never feel secure and safe. Resistance will not end in Afghanistan, but will take on a new national dimension, encompassing all Afghan ethnic and social strata.

The goal is clear. Afghans want to regain their right to self-determination through a democratic or traditional mechanism acceptable to our people. No one group, faction or individual has the right to dictate or impose its will by force or proxy on others. But first, the obstacles have to be overcome, the war has to end, just peace established and a transitional administration set up to move us toward a representative government.

We are willing to move toward this noble goal. We consider this as part of our duty to defend humanity against the scourge of intolerance, violence and fanaticism. But the international community and the democracies of the world should not waste any valuable time, and instead play their critical role to assist in any way possible the valiant people of Afghanistan overcome the obstacles that exist on the path to freedom, peace, stability and prosperity.

Pepe Escobar recounts:

During the 1990s, and especially during the time of the Taliban rule, which began in 1996, Washington never knew exactly how to deal with Massoud. But after the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents sought a meeting with Massoud in Dushanbe. The CIA wanted information on how to get to bin Laden. Massoud carefully considered all the angles, but ultimately he could not but criticize American shortsightedness. For the Bill Clinton administration, the ultimate aim was to get bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. For Massoud, the main point was to destroy the Taliban. He repeatedly stressed at the time that “without the Taliban, Osama can’t do anything”.

Massoud, indeed, had agents and intelligence in the heart of Taliban country. The best example is how his Panjshiris planted a powerful truck bomb just outside Mullah Omar’s compound in central Kandahar, in 1999. The explosion left a huge crater and killed 10 people, including three of Mullah Omar’s bodyguards. Omar escaped, almost by a miracle, but if the Northern Alliance could get close to the Taliban, they could not penetrate al-Qaeda’s ultra-hardcore security to try to find and menace bin Laden. And as much as the Northern Alliance could penetrate the Taliban, security chief Arif – now head of intelligence of Hamid Karzai’s government – says that “Osama was actively trying to recruit spies inside the Panjshir Valley”. But once again, no one investigated the “Moroccans”.

In his interview with Asia Times Online, the second-to-last in his lifetime, Massoud repeatedly portrayed al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistan as a sort of “triangle of evil”. He criticized the US for basically following a Pakistani plan: try to “reform” the Taliban and concentrate on seducing Taliban “moderates” (a contradiction in terms). There were never any moderates within the Taliban. Mullah Omar was totally under the spell of bin Laden. American diplomats with knowledge of Central Asia were warning about the “Arabization” of Afghanistan. But no one in Washington was listening. The US only got the message after September 11 – and after Massoud’s death.

In the first months of 2001, Massoud calculated that he had to involve himself in a complex gamble: change his image from warrior to statesman. He addressed the European parliament in Strasbourg, France, in April 2001. This was his first official trip to the West. He tried hard to attract Western support for the resistance against the Taliban. But still no one was listening. In Strasbourg, Massoud delivered a stunning message that nobody took seriously at the time: “If President Bush doesn’t help us, then these terrorists will damage the United States and Europe very soon – and it will be too late.”

Afghanistan Revealed a documentary broadcast by National Geographic in October 2001, presents a portrait of Massoud and his struggle to save Afghanistan.

YEAR IN REVIEW: Obama’s America is not delivering the goods
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, August 14, 2009

With great sorrow and deep consternation, we hereby declare the death of the latest hope. Perhaps rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase the famous quote by Mark Twain, but the fears are being validated day after day. Barack Obama’s America is not delivering the goods. Sharing a glass of beer with a racist cop and a pat on the back of Hugo Chavez are not what we hoped for; wholesale negotiations on freezing settlement construction are also not what we expected. Just over six months after the most promising president of all began his term, perhaps hope has a last breath left, but it is on its deathbed.

He came into office amid much hoopla. The Cairo speech ignited half the globe. Making settlements the top priority gave rise to the hope that, finally, a statesman is sitting in the White House who understands that the root of all evil is the occupation, and that the root of the occupation’s evil is the settlements. From Cairo, it seemed possible to take off. The sky was the limit.

Then the administration fell into the trap set by Israel and is showing no signs of recovery.

A settlement freeze, something that should have been understood by a prime minister who speaks with such bluster about two states – a peripheral matter that Israel committed to in the road map – has suddenly turned into a central issue. Special envoy George Mitchell is wasting his time and prestige with petty haggling. A half-year freeze or a full year? What about the 2,500 apartment units already under construction? And what about natural growth? And kindergartens?

Perhaps they will reach a compromise and agree on nine months, not including natural growth though allowing completion of apartments already under construction. A grand accomplishment.

Jerusalem has imposed its will on Washington. Once again we are at the starting point – dealing with trifles from which it is impossible to make the big leap over the great divide.

We expected more from Obama. Menachem Begin promised less, and he made peace within the same amount of time after he took office. When the main issue is dismantling the settlements, the pulsating momentum that came with Obama is petering out. Instead, we are paddling in shallow water. Mitchell Schmitchel. What’s in it for peace? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will once again meet him in London at the end of the month. A “magic formula” for a settlement freeze may be found there, but the momentum is gone.

Not in Israel, though. Here people quickly sensed that there is nothing to fear from Obama, and the fetters were taken off. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quick to declare that there is no Palestinian partner, even after the Fatah conference elected the most moderate leadership that has ever been assembled in Palestine. Afterward, in a blatant act of provocation, he brought a Torah scroll into the heart of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, in full view of television cameras, just so America can see who’s boss around here.

Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, another two politicians who smell American weakness, were quick to declare during a visit to Ma’aleh Adumim that Israel will not freeze any construction. To hell with Obama. The settlers continue to move into more homes in East Jerusalem, Netanyahu is silent and Israelis sense that the “danger” has passed. Israel is once again permitted to do as it pleases. The landlord has once again gone insane. Except that the landlord has gone insane because the real landlord is showing signs of weakness, signs of folding, signs of losing interest in events in the region that most endangers world peace.

Nothing remains from the speeches in Cairo and Bar-Ilan University. Obama is silent, and Yishai speaks. Even “Israel’s friends” in Washington, friends of the occupation, are once again rearing their heads.

One source familiar with Obama’s inner circle likened him this week to a man who inflates a number of balloons every day in the hope that one of them will rise. He will reach his goal. The source compared him to Shimon Peres, an analogy that should insult Obama. The trial balloons the U.S. president sends our way have yet to take off. One can, of course, wait for the next balloon, the Obama peace plan, but time is running out. And Israel is not sitting idly by.

The minute Jerusalem detected a lack of American determination, it returned to its evil ways and excuses. “There is no partner,” “Abu Mazen is weak,” “Hamas is strong.” And there are demands to recognize a Jewish state and for the right to fly over Saudi Arabia – anything in order to do nothing.

An America that will not pressure Israel is an America that will not bring peace. True, one cannot expect the U.S. president to want to make peace more than the Palestinians and Israelis, but he is the world’s responsible adult, its great hope. Those of us who are here, Mr. President, are sinking in the wretched mud, in “injury time.”

Editor’s Comment — When an 11 year-old gets the privilege of going to The White House to interview the president and the kid respectfully observes, “I notice as president you get bullied a lot,” it’s time to sit up straight.

Obama’s lack of backbone is apparent to a child and his method for handling getting bullied — “if I’m doing a good job, I’m doing my best, and I’m trying to always help people, then that keeps me going” — might make him feel better but it does little to push back those who are emboldened by his weakness.

Is Obama capable of imposing his will? After six months we should know the answer to that question. The fact that we don’t is a problem.

“Neda wanted freedom and freedom for all”
BBC Persia, June 22, 2009

(Translation provided by Huffington Post readers.)

Caspian Makan, Neda Agha-Setan‘s fiancee, was interviewed by BBC Persia, noting that Neda would have turned 27 this year. “Neda’s goal was not Mousavi or Ahmadinejad, it was her country and was important for her to fight for this goal. She had said many times that if she had lost her life or been shot in the heart, which indeed what happened, it was important for her to continue in this path,” he said.

Considering her young age she has taught a lesson to us all.

About the day of the incident, Mr. Makan said: “When the clashes were occurring, Neda was far away from the demonstrations, she was in one of the side alleys near Amir Abad. Thirsty and tired or being cooped up for about an hour in the car in heavy traffic with her music instructor, she finally gets out of the car and, based on the pictures sent in by the people, armed forces in civilian clothes and the Basiji targeted and shot her in the heart.”

“It was over in a matter of minutes, the Shariati Hospital was nearby, the people around her tried to bring her to the emergency room by car, but before that could even happen she died in her instructor’s arms.”

Mr. Makan added: “We got her body back finally yesterday with some diffculties. Of course, her body was not at the Tehran Coroner but at a one outside of Tehran. The medical examiners
wanted parts of her body, including a portion of her femoral bone but the chief medical examiner would not say why and no explanations were ever given.”

“Finally the family consented just so they could get her body back as soon as possible, since just this issue could have resulted in delaying the reception of the body. We buried the body in a small area in the Zahra Cemetery in the late afternoon of 31 Khordad [June 21]. Also, they had brought in other people who had been killed in the protests so it seemed that the whole event was scheduled to be such.”

About payment for releasing the remains, Mr. Makan had this to say: “No specific amount has been paid at this time, although hospitals, clinics, surgeons and medical examiners have been ordered by the Iranian security services, based on various orders, not to list ‘bullet wound’ as the cause of death on the death certificate in order to prevent the families from filing international complaints in the future. I haven’t seen the release notice of Neda’s remains yet, but I will obtain it from her father in the coming days.”

Mr. Makan regarding government ban of memorial service for Neda Agha Setan said: “We were going to hold her memorial Monday 1st of Tir [June 22] at 2:30 PM at a mosque at Sharyati street north of Seyed Khandan. But Basijis and mosque officials refused our request for her memorial service so to avoid further public confrontation and instability. They knew that Neda was an died innocently, and people in Iran and the international community are informed of that fact. So they decided to avoid a situation where a mass rally would take place. In any way, we do not have permission for a memorial service for now.”

However, many eye witnesses told BBC Persia that a large gathering took place with the intention of performing a memorial service at Al Reza Mosque at Nilofar square in Tehran. But the security forces intervened by throwing people out of the mosque and intervening with the service.

Mr. Makan also commented on fake pictures of videos claiming to be Neda at various sites:”I was looking at some sites including ‘iReport’. There was a picture of a young woman with green signs from previous calm demonstrations and had claimed it was Neda before being shot. These pictures have no relation to the event. It seems that Mr. Mousavi’s supporters are trying to portray Neda as one of his supporters. This is not so. Neda was incredibly close to me and she was never supportive of either two groups. Neda wanted freedom and freedom for all.”

BBC Farsi tried to contact Neda Agha-Sultan’s other family members but was told by a close relative of hers that, for reasons of their own, the Agha Sultan family could grant an interview.

YEAR IN REVIEW: The Pope in the Palestinian prison camp
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 15, 2009

Has this image appeared widely in the media? I don’t honestly know, but I’ll assume it hasn’t. So the next question would be: why not?

(Source: The New York Times)

The New York Times ran an article with the headline: “In Bethlehem, Pope laments Israeli wall“. The perfect place to use the image above — the one their own photographer had provided. Right?

Wrong. Instead, they went with a poetic Getty image: little children peaking over a little wall. How enchanting!

YEAR IN REVIEW: Gaza probe shows IDF among world’s most moral armies
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, April 23, 2009

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Wednesday that an internal investigation has determined that no civilians were purposefully harmed by IDF troops during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

Following the release of the investigation results, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the army’s willingness to probe itself “once again proves that the IDF is one of the most moral armies in the world.

“The IDF is not afraid to investigate itself and in that, proves that its operations are ethical,” said Barak. The defense minister added that he has “complete faith in the IDF, from the chief of staff to the last of the combat soldiers.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Oh my! And to think that cynics like me could have judged the IDF so harshly. What better time could there be to watch again this rousing anthem and wonderful tribute to the most moral army in the world: Don’t mess with the IDF.

YEAR IN REVIEW: Uzi Arad: “It is territory we want to preserve, but populations we want to rid ourselves of”
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, March 18, 2009

When Hillary Clinton met Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem during her recent visit to Israel, her party was dismayed to see Uzi Arad at the next Israeli prime minister’s side. Arad’s involvement in the “AIPAC case” has resulted in him being barred from entry into the US. Joseph Fitsanakis continues the story:

As soon as Secretary Clinton and her advisers realized Arad was standing next to Netanyahu in the meeting room, they tried to discreetly avoid diplomatic complications by requesting that “only three participants from each side stay in the meeting”. It was an indirect way of requesting that Mr Arad leave the room. But the US delegation was stunned when Israel’s Prime Minister-Designate kept the former Mosad agent present, choosing instead to kick out Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor. Clinton’s delegation did not say a word about the Netanyahu’s diplomatic slap-in-the-face, hoping the incident would not make headlines. Ambassador Meridor was not so sensitive about the affair. He was so put off that he announced his resignation soon afterwards.

Netanyahu’s office later explained that Arad’s presence was required in the meeting “because of the Iranian issue.”

Arad is an advocate of “maximum deterrence” towards Iran and has said Israel should threaten to strike ‘everything and anything of value.’ He has said Israel should threaten to hit the Iranian leadership and their holiest sites and that they should hit everything together. This comes from the man tipped to become Netanyahu’s national security adviser.

Arad also recently made the following remarks about the Palestinians. During an interview on Israel National News TV (Arutz Sheva is a media network based in the West Bank and is seen as the voice of the Jewish settler movement), Arad was asked whether the time has come to abandon the two-state solution. This is how he responded:

I don’t think that one has to go that far because at the end of the day, I don’t think the majority of Israelis want to see themselves responsible for the Palestinians. We do not want to control the Palestinian population. It’s unnecessary. What we do want is to care for our borders, for the Jewish settlements and for areas which are unpopulated and to have our security interests served well. But also to take under our responsibility these populations which, believe me, are not the most productive on earth, would become a burden. We want to relieve ourselves of the burden of the Palestinian populations – not territories. It is territory we want to preserve, but populations we want to rid ourselves of.

YEAR IN REVIEW: Fictions on the ground
By Tony Judt, New York Times, June 22, 2009

Israel needs “settlements.” They are intrinsic to the image it has long sought to convey to overseas admirers and fund-raisers: a struggling little country securing its rightful place in a hostile environment by the hard moral work of land clearance, irrigation, agrarian self-sufficiency, industrious productivity, legitimate self-defense and the building of Jewish communities. But this neo-collectivist frontier narrative rings false in modern, high-tech Israel. And so the settler myth has been transposed somewhere else — to the Palestinian lands seized in war in 1967 and occupied illegally ever since.

It is thus not by chance that the international press is encouraged to speak and write of Jewish “settlers” and “settlements” in the West Bank. But this image is profoundly misleading. The largest of these controversial communities in geographic terms is Maale Adumim. It has a population in excess of 35,000, demographically comparable to Montclair, N.J., or Winchester, England. What is most striking, however, about Maale Adumim is its territorial extent. This “settlement” comprises more than 30 square miles — making it one and a half times the size of Manhattan and nearly half as big as the borough and city of Manchester, England. Some “settlement.”

There are about 120 official Israeli settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank. In addition, there are “unofficial” settlements whose number is estimated variously from 80 to 100. Under international law, there is no difference between these two categories; both are contraventions of Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits the annexation of land consequent to the use of force, a principle re-stated in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. [continued…]

YEAR IN REVIEW: Viva Palestina shows the power of the people
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, March 9, 2009

While governments have repeatedly demonstrated their indifference, incompetence, and apparent impotence when it comes to responding to the plight of the population in Gaza, a bunch of ordinary folk under the banner “Viva Palestina” have shown what amazing things can be accomplished, when goodwill, imagination, daring and tenacity come together.

Viva Palestina — a lifeline from Britain to Gaza — shows the power of the people.

In Sharm el-Sheikh a week ago, world leaders delivered empty promises. Today, Viva Palestina delivered the goods!

Marwa Awad and Muhammed Eta from Al Arabiya tell the story:

Crossing continents, covering thousands of miles and opening borders long closed are just a few of the feats an emergency relief convoy trekking from London to Gaza made over the past three weeks before arriving at Egypt’s Rafah border Sunday to break a crippling siege and deliver much needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Viva Palestina, a British relief convoy headed by British Parliamentarian George Galloway and planned by hundreds of British volunteers, rolled into Rafah to deliver aid to thousands of destitute Palestinians in Gaza after crossing a 8000-kilometre route from London through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and finally entering Egypt through the Libyan Egyptian border on Thursday after which the convoy drove along the coast to reach the city of al-Arish, 40 km away from Rafah.

“A lifeline from Britain to Gaza,” is the motto of Viva Palestina, which started out with 110 trucks from London but was doubled in Libya after the Gaddafi Foundation for Charity and Development donated 100 trucks laden with aid.

The convoy, which was over 1.8 miles long when it rolled into Egypt through the Sallum border between Libya and Egypt Thursday, was camped at the city of al-Arish and will enter Gaza through the Rafah border Monday after several border negotiations between Galloway and the Egyptian authorities in Rafah on Sunday.

“It’s a caravan of 500 kind hearts,” Talat Ali Shah, convoy group leader told AlArabiya.net. “The convoy was received by a jubilant crowd, ready to help and encourage us on,” he added. The convoy set out on Feb. 14 from London.

The convoy included a British fire engine, 12 ambulances, and many trucks full of medicine, food, clothes and toys for children, given by the various communities in Britain and the Gaddafi Foundation.

“Gifts from all over the world”

George Galloway, who is a peace advocate and staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, organized the convoy in response to the humanitarian crisis Israel unleashed on Gaza for 22-days that left the impoverished Strip in ruins while killing 1300 and wounding 5000.

Galloway a “friend of the Arabs”

The Egyptian government’s ruling National Democratic Party in charge of the convoy’s passage through the Egyptian borders expressed gratitude for Galloway’s efforts.

“We know the value of Galloway as a peace advocate and we welcome him as a known friend of the Arabs,” Ali al-Din al-Hilal from the NDP told AlArabiya.net.

Likewise, Galloway thanked the Egyptian government for facilitating the convoy’s safe passage, acknowledging Egypt’s commitment to the Palestinian cause.

“The warm welcome of the people here and their concern for Palestine is overwhelming. Egypt has given so much for Palestine over the last 60 years. Many soldiers have died for Palestine and we acknowledge this commitment,” Galloway said at the press conference.

He added that Viva Palestina is a message to the world that Britain is “not the enemy of the Muslims,” and that while Tony Blair does not represent the people of Britain, Viva Palestina does.

“From Ireland to Gaza”

“In the past 35 years I have entered Palestine many times but I was never as happy as I am this time,” Galloway said in a press conference upon arrival.

Politics of the convoy’s passage

After negotiations with the Egyptian border authorities, aid brought by the Viva Palestina convoy will be split into medical and non-medical category.
While trucks carrying medical aid are to enter through the Rafah border, the rest of the non-medical goods is to enter from Awja, a border crossing controlled by Israel and lies 43 miles away from Rafah.

“The convoy goods will split in order to allow medical aid through Rafah border and the rest will pass through Awja,” General Muhammed Shusha, governor of north Sinai, told AlArabiya.net.

However, all Viva Palestina convoy members including leaders Galloway and Sabbah al-Mokhtar will enter Gaza through the Egyptian border with Gaza.

“Under no circumstance will members of Viva Palestina convoy coordinate with Israel,” Mokhtar told AlArabiya.net. “We shall all gain safe passage into Gaza from the Egyptian/Gaza border tomorrow as agreed upon with the Egyptian border authorities,” he said.

The Egyptian Red Crescent and other U.N. relief organizations such as the World Health Organization and Oxfam will be responsible for transferring non-medical goods through Awja border.

Egyptian border designate the Rafah border for medical aid supplies while all other types of aid enter Gaza through the Awja broder which Israel overlooks.

Yvonne Ridley, award winning journalist who accompanied the convoy, reported that Israel pressured Egypt to divert the convoy to go through Israeli borders.

“Israel is putting huge pressure on Egypt to force the convoy which is now doubled in size, a British-Libyan venture, through Israeli territory,” she said at the conference.

Expectations that the massive Viva Palestina aid convoy will roll in full through the Rafah border continue despite Israel’s diplomatic pressure to force the non-medical part of the convoy to drive through the Israeli controlled Egyptian border of Awja, a route George Galloway and the convoy say is not an option.

Despite these challenges, the convoy has kept its spirits high in anticipation of relieving the hardships of thousands of Palestinians.

“Gaza has broken into many British homes and has touched many British hearts,” Hussein said. “Our experience in this journey of hope makes us feel that we are the luckiest people. Bur our happiness will be complete, when we cross into Gaza and console the children, men and women who have suffered for so long.”

A message of hope from the “streets of Britain”

Bringing together volunteers from different ethnicities and religions, Viva Palestina hopes to bring aid to 1.5 million residents in Gaza who still subsist under a 19-month crippling siege Israel refuses to ease almost one month after its all-out assault.

“The material we are carrying is only a drop in the ocean but the goodwill of volunteers and the people from the countries we have passed through is tremendous,” Mokhtar, one of the leading members of Viva Palestina involved in negotiations with border officials, told AlArabiya.net.

“This convoy is extremely diverse consisting of men, women, Muslims and non Muslims from across England,” he added.

“We truly care and we’ve driven across continents to prove it,” is the message 500 ordinary volunteers plan to deliver to Gazans, according to the Viva Palestina website.

“This is a movement of the streets,” Galloway told AlArabiya.net.

Such a movement wrought unexpected results as Algeria and Morocco opened the border between them for the first time in 15 years since 1994— something which Condoleezza Rice failed to do—to allow the convoy through in clear testament to people power outdoing politics.

“It surely signifies the goodness of human nature and the strength of the will of the people that can overtake any odds,” Iftikhar Hussein, 25-year-old high school teacher from Birmingham told AlArabiya.net.

Galloway added that the volunteers are self-funded. “Each person travelling on the convoy is a self-financed British volunteer. The vehicles will be left with the people of Gaza; volunteers will fly home to the U.K. Thousands of pounds cash has been fundraised [for the people of Gaza]”

“They come from different walks of life. With us are doctors, accountants, house wives, and students,” Mokhtar said.

Viva Palestina is supported by the Stop the War Coalition, the Respect the Anglo-Arab Organisation, several British trade unions and a large number of Muslim organisations.

The American media has completely ignored this story and the British press hasn’t done much better. The story only became “newsworthy” when some of the vehicles were pelted with stones and defaced in El-Arish which lies about 40km away from Rafah. Vehicles had also been daubed with anti-Hamas slogans. That’s a shame, but it’s really just a side note in an amazing story that shows the power of the human spirit.

Just a few hours ago, the goal was accomplished: the convoy crossed into Gaza!

Viva Palestina!