Gaza // Current

Israel defies US demands to stop building in Jerusalem

By Ben Hubbard in Jerusalem

Thursday November 19 2009

Israel pressed ahead with work on a new housing complex for Jews in east Jerusalem yesterday, brushing off President Barack Obama's criticism that construction in the disputed part of the holy city undermines efforts to relaunch Middle East peace talks.

Israel defied American, European and Palestinian demands to stop settlement activity by announcing it will press forward with construction of 900 apartments in another Jewish area in east Jerusalem.

Speaking in Beijing yesterday, Mr Obama criticised the plan to build hundreds of homes in Jerusalem's Gilo neighbourhood, saying such moves make it harder to achieve peace in the region and embitter the Palestinians in a way he said could be dangerous.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war -- for their hoped-for state and have refused negotiations until Israel stops settlement construction in these areas. The Palestinians say the continued growth of settlements on land they claim will make it impossible for them to establish a viable country.

The Israeli government declined to respond to Mr Obama's comments. But earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel had no intention of stopping the Gilo construction.

The future of east Jerusalem is the most intractable issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The area includes Jerusalem's walled Old City -- home to Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites. Israel annexed east Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 war and claims the city as its eternal capital. The annexation was never recognised by other countries.

Tensions

Speaking in parliament yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not address the tensions with the US. Instead, Mr Netanyahu reiterated his call for an immediate resumption of peace talks and criticised the Palestinians for refusing to return to the table.

As he spoke, however, Israel faced a growing torrent of international criticism. The EU expressed "dismay" over the Gilo project. It said that settlement activity, demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and evictions of Palestinian families from contested properties, undermined negotiations and "threatened the viability of a two-state solution".

In the West Bank, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the international criticism. He said the Gilo project "provides 900 more reasons why hopes for salvaging the two-state solution and restarting genuine negotiations are rapidly fading, and why Israel is not a partner for peace".By Ben Hubbard in Jerusalem Thursday November 19 2009 Israel pressed ahead... more

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Israel Destroys More Palestinian Homes To Expand Illegal Settlements

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Jewish Settlers cut olive trees south of Nablus

group of 25 settlers from Yitzhar settlement, south of Nablus, cut down 97 olive trees in the village of Burin this morning. The attack comes on the heels of a similar attack made 5 weeks ago, and a continued campaign of intimidation and harrassment of Burin’s residents from nearby settlements Yitzhar and Bracha.

Approximately 25 settlers began hacking the trees to pieces at 3am this morning. Although cutting manually, the noise awoke a Palestinian resident, whose house is located close to the scene on the Yitzhar ’side’ of Burin. After alerting the village, the Palestinians arrived in the olive grove as it became light to survey the damage, amongst them the owner of the land, Burin farmer Akram Brahim Embran. They counted 97 trees destroyed.

It is not the first time this year that Burin’s olive trees have been caught in the middle of territorial violence, for which Yitzhar settlers are notorious. On 4 October, a neighbouring grove was wiped out when 25 settlers took to the trees with axes in the early hours of the morning, just one day before the village’s olive harvest was due to commence. Previous years have seen fields burnt and crops stolen, in addition to continual settler harrassment and intimidation. The havoc it wreaks on Burin’s economy is obvious, agriculture its main source of income – and identity.

The village of Burin and its surrounding neighbours have been subject to numerous violent attacks from the two illegal settlements of Bracha and Yitzhar that sandwich the local Palestinian villages. Burin village as also lost thousands of dunams of land from annexation by settler construction or proximity, in addition to the repeated attacks on its remaining farmland. In 2006 settlers from the settlement of Bracha fired homemade rockets on the village, burning a house down.

Settlements are illegal under international law and both settlements have numerous outposts that continue to annex further Palestinian land in violation of both Israeli and international law.group of 25 settlers from Yitzhar settlement, south of Nablus, cut down 97 olive trees... more

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Founder of Human Rights Watch on Israel

In a nutshell, Human Rights Watch's founder says they have lost touch, are out of balance, ignore arab massacres and abuses, and is in serious need to a reality check...

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In a New York Times opinion piece, Robert L. Bernstein, who served as Human Rights Watch chairman from 1978 to 1998 and is now its founding chairman emeritus, wrote that with increasing frequency, the watchdog casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

"Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East," he said. "The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region."

He said Israel was home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world.

On the other hand, he said, the Iranian regime, and most Arab regimes, remained "brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent."

He said Human Rights Watch's Middle East division could be greatly beneficial to citizens of those countries, but they were instead being ignored as "report after report on Israel" was compiled.

He said the group had "lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hizbullah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields."

Bernstein stressed that those terror groups were backed by Iran, which has called for the annihilation of Israel and the Jews, and said such incitement to genocide was a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

"Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hizbullah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields," he wrote. "They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch's criticism."

Published days after the Human Rights Council endorsed the Goldstone Commission report that accused Israel of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during last winter's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, the opinion piece notably points out that there was a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those carried out intentionally.

"In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes," Bernstein went on to say. "Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers.

"Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished."In a nutshell, Human Rights Watch's founder says they have lost touch, are out of... more