Olmert INDICTED on three corruption charges

Former PM of Israel, Ehud Olmert, INDICTED in three corruption affairs (haaretz.com)

Tutu to Haaretz: Arabs paying the price of the Holocaust

By Akiva Eldar
Haaretz Correspondent

August 28, 2009 "Haaretz" -- "The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns," Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday.

Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."

The Nobel Prize laureate spoke to Haaretz in Jerusalem as the organization The Elders concluded its tour of Israel and the West Bank. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of the Holocaust, "as it should be."

"But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians. I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians."

He also slammed Jewish organizations in the United States, saying they intimidate anyone who criticizes the occupation and rush to accuse these critics of anti-Semitism. Tutu recalled how such organizations pressured U.S. universities to cancel his appearances on their campuses.

"That is unfortunate, because my own positions are actually derived from the Torah. You know God created you in God's image. And we have a God who is always biased in favor of the oppressed."

Tutu also commented on the call by Ben-Gurion University professor Neve Gordon to apply selective sanctions on Israel.

"I always say to people that sanctions were important in the South African case for several reasons. We had a sports boycott, and since we are a sports-mad country, it hit ordinary people. It was one of the most psychologically powerful instruments.

"Secondly, it actually did hit the pocket of the South African government. I mean, when we had the arms embargo and the economic boycott."

He said that when F.W. de Klerk became president he telephoned congratulations. "The very first thing he said to me was 'well now will you call off sanctions?' Although they kept saying, oh well, these things don't affect us at all. That was not true.

"And another important reason was that it gave hope to our people that the world cared. You know. That this was a form of identification."

Earlier in the day, Tutu and the rest of the delegation visited the village of Bil'in, where protests against the separation fence, built in part on the village's land, take place every week.

"We used to take our children in Swaziland and had to go through border checkpoints in South Africa and face almost the same conduct, where you're at the mercy of a police officer. They can decide when they're going to process you and they can turn you back for something inconsequential. But on the other hand, we didn't have collective punishment. We didn't have the demolition of homes because of the suspicion that one of the members of the household might or might not be a terrorist."

He said the activists in Bil'in reminded him of Ghandi, who managed to overthrow British rule in India by nonviolent means, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who took up the struggle of a black woman who was too tired to go to the back of a segregated bus.

He stressed his belief that no situation was hopeless, praising the success of the Northern Irish peace process. The process was mediated by Senator George Mitchell, who now serves as the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East.

Asked about the controversy in Petah Tikva, where several elementary schools have refused to receive Ethiopian school children, Tutu said that "I hope that your society will evolve."

Click here to read article comments at the Haaretz website http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110762.html

BBC: It's an error and we've published a correction

The Radio Ties had an article recently featuring items on the West Bank and Gaza which were all marked or alluded to as Israeli territory. Their reply to us today -

"It is an error and we have published a correction in the edition of Radio Times out today on our Feedback pages."

ACTION ALERT: Tell Gordon Brown...

ACTION ALERT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in London and Berlin on a four-day visit, and is meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Please take two minutes to contact Gordon Brown urgently, asking him to convoy these issues in his meetings with Netanyahu:

• Israeli settlements block peace – they must be dismantled, not just frozen
• End Israel ’s siege on Gaza
• End Israel ’s ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem

And remind Gordon Brown that real peace means delivering justice for Palestinians. The British government must act to ensure Israel ends its violations of international law – this includes an immediate end to Israel ’s illegal occupation and respect for the right of return of refugees. The government must also act to uphold the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people.

You can:

• Fax your letter to 10 Downing Street : 020 7925 0918.
• Twitter Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street
• Email David Miliband at the Foreign Office and ask them to convey your message to the Prime Minister: msu.correspondence@fco.gov.uk

Please circulate this call widely.

Israel says shooting of unarmed American activist a justifiable act of war (youtube.com)

British firefighters call for boycott of Israel. (greenleft.org.au)

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Boycott Israel

Boycott Israel: An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it's the only way to save his country. [LA Times op-ed] (latimes.com)

Israel's Responsibility for Brain-Damaged American Peace Activist

Israel Absolves Itself of Responsibility for Brain-Damaged American Peace Activist - Activist shot in the head,near point blank by high velocity tear gas round, designed to be fired from 300 meters. (richardsilverstein.com)

Israel started selling.

According to international law, Israel holds the property of more than 4 million Palestinian refugees in custodianship, until a final peace deal determines whether some or all of them will be allowed back to their 400+ destroyed villages or compensated for their loss. Well, Israel started selling. (dissidentvoice.org)

Banning roads depending on your ancestry

A 'democratic' country is now banning people from using the road based on their ancestry. Which one is it? Yep, Israel. (btselem.org)

Israel Planned to Attack Iran during the Riots

Israel Planned to Attack Iran during the Riots...But the White House Ignored their Request (ynetnews.com)

According to the sources, after the opposition riots broke out in Iran following June's presidential election results, Israel asked the US government for a green light to strike the country's nuclear facilities, along with other vital facilities in Iran.


US agrees to resettle 1350 Palestinians from Iraq

Last month the U.S. agreed to resettle 1,350 Palestinians displaced by fighting in Iraq, marking the largest resettlement ever of Palestinian refugees into America.

Thousands of Palestinians moved to Iraq after the wars of 1948 and 1967, and the Gulf War in 1991. Prior to the 2003 invasion, the community had grown to a population of some 35,000 people.

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Palestinians suffered from the same insecurities affecting the entire Iraqi population. They were, however, also specifically targeted for serious discriminatory treatment and acts of violence as a minority group without a militia to protect them. At least 186 Palestinians were murdered in Baghdad between April 2004 and January 2007.

more > MAP-UK

Palestine Timeline by John Rees

Israeli government trying to censor IDF soldiers

Israeli government trying to censor IDF soldiers who are contradicting the governments official story of the Gaza Massacre (btselem.org)

Israeli troops routinely 'ill-treat kids' (news.bbc.co.uk)

Barak: Israel should accept U.S. peace plan: Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that the United States would present a Middle East peace plan within weeks and that Israel should accept it.

Israel Seeks Ways to Silence Human Rights Groups

First goal is to stop Gaza war crimes revelations

By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

Groups reported to be in the foreign ministry’s sights are: B’Tselem, whose activities include providing Palestinians with cameras to record abuses by settlers and the army; Peace Now, which monitors settlement building; Machsom Watch, whose activists observe soldiers at the checkpoints; and Physicians for Human Rights, which has recently examined doctors’ complicity in torture. Continue

Hamas Again Accepts a Palestinian State on the 1967 Lines

Hamas Again Accepts a Palestinian State on the 1967 Lines (thewashingtonnote.com)

Israel Evicts Two Palestinian Families

Al Jazeera English Video Report
The families have lived in Sheikh Jarrah since 1956 but an Israeli court ruled that the homes belonged to Jewish families. Continue

Lieberman to be indicted for corruption

Far-right Israeli minister Avigdor Lieberman to be indicted for corruption (haaretz.com)

This morning, Israeli bulldozers removing electrical poles from small Palestinian village; electricity from project supported by Quartet envoy Tony Blair (imemc.org)

Eric Cantor (R-VA) sounds more like a PR man for Israel than an American congressman (haaretz.com)

Israel Evicts 50 Palestinians from Homes, so Israeli Settlers Could Move in. (cbsnews.com)

Former Irish president Mary Robinson 'bullied' by pro-Israel lobbyists: "There's a lot of bullying by certain elements of the Jewish community. They bully people who try to address the severe situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gets the same criticism." (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)

Promising? Or more of the same...?

After a joint American-Israeli exercise which included training on the in-flight refueling of Israeli F-16i attack jets by American airplanes, the US tells Israel that Iran has 8 weeks left (thenation.com)

Israel evicts Palestinian families who've been living in their East Jerusalem home since 1956 to build a hotel. (english.aljazeera.net)

IDF Soldiers Admit To Israeli War Crimes (revolutionarypolitics.com)

Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians nearly 94% of the West Bank as the basis of their would-be state - plus Israeli territory to make up the remaining 6% - plus a safe-passage road-corridor to link Gaza with the West Bank and to internationalise the sovereignty of Jerusalem (economist.com)