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THE HANDSTAND |
AUGUST 2002 |
lET US ENQUIRE ABOUT THE rED cROSS.
Who other than political meddlers benefit from this? It seems to me that because of the medical situation in Palestine, the health of the people - the military attacks causing massive numbers of wounded people, and the endemic sickness caused in middle age and elderly people by lack of food and clean water - we can justifiably enquire : Why are the health authorities, the Red Cross for instance, not informing the outside world ?? In opposition to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the French set up their organisation Doctors without Borders. The Red Cross is secretive, undemocratic and unwilling to be accountable.Did it cut a deal with the Germans in World War2 which prevented the concentration camp conditions getting out - and has it cut one with other nations since? Insofar as it has admitted it made a mistake during that war - could it be that they cannot "cut a deal" with the Israelies and is now not allowed in the West Bank and Gaza? It appears that most medical services there, if not all, at this point in time, are provided by the Palestinian Red Crescent medical authorities. When the
towers and the victims of the World Trade Centre fell,
one extraordinary follow-up was that many large
advertisers gave over their vast advertising space to the
Red Cross. I do not know for how long this prevailed, and
as there was not the expected thousands of victims under
hospital care, I imagine that the Red Cross did not avail
of this offer. Why have
the Red Cross not become more involved in Palestine? Is
it this reminder of the fact that during World War 2 the
Red Cross, who knew about the concentration camps and
failed to alert the public, that is the cause of their
absence in Israel? Is this some kind of political bargain
or pay-back? Also there has been the frightening lack of respect by world governments, who have failed to assert or insist that the Geneva Conventions or the Declaration of Human Rights must be adhered to, or that Legal Cases should be embarked on. There are only three reports of countries trying to bring that about, one already prevented from Belgium, another in process in Norway and the third is the effort of an American group, Jews and Palestinians. Now we have the additional information that George Bush and his crew on the Ship of Fools is interfering in the establishment of a Treaty to provide an Inspectorate to prevent Torture. There
does not seem to be any understanding among
politicians that either the EU or individual governments
world-wide should be moving towards reforms in
International Law. The International Court in the
Hague is under suspicion because of the way they are
handling the case against Miloslevic, dragging out the
indictments with hundreds of “witnesses” which
Milosevic technically adept in Law himself has been able
largely to reveal as ill-chosen 2nd or 3rd
–hand informants, or people whose testimonies are
irrelevant to the political charge. It
appears that Human Rights and all the statements therein
are merely a set of ideas to “keep the public
happy” and will not be implemented or underscored
for attention in the foreseeable future. Of impressive courage are those very people who hold the ideas of Human Rights as a course of action; those members of the various groups, people from all over the world, travelling month after month to Palestine as a shield against the depredations of the Israel Defense Forces. In a typical example Palestinians who went out to mend a water pump destroyed by the troops were fired on – so another attempt was made and this time the International Solidarity members went out with them and entirely surrounded the work which was then achieved successfully. It is not always information that the world needs, but the character and resolution to carry out the Humanitarian Ideas AND LEGAL TRANSITIONS that appear to be the only opposition to the continuing history of mankind’s horrific “political” cruelty. AND LET US ENQUIRE ABOUT THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
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Why
is it that there is negligible report getting through to
populations of either the tragic day-to -day life of the
Palestinian or of the rising crescendo of riots in
Northern Ireland? In the latter there has been seen
Israeli flags on Protestant property and one night
recently an ambulance was attacked and the driver and
another parmedical seriously injured.
One Legal curiousity is that in 1917 the
British undertook to put the Balfour Declaration for a
Zionist Homeland into action. However at that time they
had only a foothold in the Middle East, Palestine,
because of the current of war. Not having the Legal
position to establish that undertaking in Palestine they
waited while Smuts persuaded Woodrow Wilson, President of
the USA, and the Allies, to apply Mandates of occupation
in the Middle East within the Peace Treaties made in
1919. Fait accompli ?? or a Legal contract that can be
challenged ??And doesn’t that word
“Homeland” reek of the German Reich’s
"Haemlich " now in the past of Europe's
history?