 |
||
THE HANDSTAND |
JUNE 2003 |
|
 stop pressLatest victim of Israeli soldiers preventing access to medical treatment June 15, 2003 Muhammad Hassan Abu Qibeta, aged 65, died at the Yatta/Hebron checkpoint yesterday (June 14) after Israeli soldiers prevented him from travelling to Hebron. Muhammad, from Yatta, a diabetic, suffered a heart attack; unable to provide him with the necessary treatment, the local doctor sent him to the nearest local hospital, which is in Hebron. However, when the ambulance arrived at the Israeli military checkpoint, the soldiers prevented Muhammad and the ambulance from crossing. After an hour spent with the ambulance driver and doctor trying to negotiate entry, Muhammad died. In a related incident a small girl was prevented, by Israeli soldiers at the same checkpoint, from reaching Hebron hospital. Doctors in Yatta were eventually able to save the child, who was suffering an acute asthma attack. According to data from The Palestine Monitor, Muhammad is the 80th Palestinian to die from prevention of access to medical treatment. These victims include newborn babies whose mothers gave birth at the checkpoint, kidney patients unable to reach hospital for life saving dialysis treatment, and other victims of heart attacks, strokes and various ailments. Dr. Osman Fateh said, "The death of this patient could have been avoided, had he been allowed to reach hospital. But he, and many of others like him, died because of this suffocating closure imposed on Palestinian towns and cities, enforced with hundreds of checkpoints, soldiers and barriers on the roads. The tragedy is that he did not have to die." For more information contact: The Palestine Monitor +972 (0)2 298 5372 or (0)59 254 218 and see http://www.palestinemonitor.org France wants EU peacekeepers in Middle East - 16.06.2003 - 09:50 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Following the call of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week, French Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique de Villepin has expressed his support for EU involvement in a peacekeeping force in the Middle East. The peacekeeping force is expected to be on the agenda of the EU foreign affairs ministers meeting in Luxembourg today (16 June). Link to article >> http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?aid=11730 Irish farmers to loose from CAP reforms - 16.06.2003 - 09:50 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Irish economy could loose up to 460 million Euro if the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, is reformed, according to the Irish Department of Agriculture. Leaving last weeks' meetings in Luxembourg without reaching a compromise, EU farm ministers will resume negotiations on the reforms tomorrow (17 June). Link to article >> http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?aid=11728 Film Showing 23rd June 7.00pm Monday Harrie Massey
Lecture Theatre UCL Student Union 25 Gordon Street Winner of first prize at Ismailia
Film Festival DREAMS and FEARS,
by Mai Masri Offering a rare glimpse into one side of the Middle East conflict, FRONTIERS OF DREAMS AND FEARS explores the lives of a group of Palestinian children growing up in refugee camps. Nearest Tube Euston or Euston Sq US raid on Palestinian embassy in Baghdad: an act of political gangsterism By Jean Shaoul 5 June 2003 US troops raided and ransacked the Palestinian embassy in Baghdad at the end of May. They arrested 11 members of its staff, including its top diplomat, and nothing has been heard of the Palestinians since then. The raid is an act of political gangsterism carried out by US armed forces that have occupied Iraq on the basis of an illegal war. It was instigated at the direct request of Israel's finance secretary and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. An AP report cites Mohammad Abdul Wahab, a member of staff at the embassy, as saying, "They even took all our water bottles and food cans. They behaved like common thieves." According to Wahab, on May 28 dozens of US troops escorted by several armoured vehicles entered the embassy. After the guards opened the gate, they were immediately arrested and handcuffed by the soldiers who burst into the building and held up officials, drivers and gardeners, including Charge d'Affaires Najah Abdul Rahman who was running the legation in the ambassador's absence. Wahab said that they were taken to a US base in the centre of the city and are still in custody. The soldiers kicked and smashed their way in-many of the doors in the building had the marks of combat boots-and used shotguns to blast open office doors, although they were all either unlocked or had keys in them. Filing cabinets were ransacked and their contents removed. Troops broke off the hinges of an embassy safe and cleaned it out. They smashed an official photo of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, and threw it on the ground. Wahab said that the soldiers had taken away two embassy flags and seized three AK-47 automatic rifles and a hand gun that the sentries had used to guard the building during the looting that destroyed much of the city after the US seized Baghdad. "To attack a foreign embassy is a criminal act and a breach of diplomatic immunity," Wahab said. The US troops had told the embassy staff that the mission did not have "authorisation" to possess automatic weapons, claiming this as proof of the embassy staff's involvement in terrorism. But Wahab explained that they had had a licence from the Saddam Hussein government. "Every embassy has guns. We used them to ward off looters," he said. Many foreign organisations and rich Iraqis have hired armed guards since the collapse of law and order after the US overthrew the Hussein regime. Following the raid, the troops sealed off the embassy, putting up barbed wire around the building and locking the main gate. The next day, US General David McKiernan, commander of US ground forces in Iraq, confirmed the raid but claimed that only eight people were detained-seven Palestinians and one Syrian. McKiernan said that he did not know how many of them had diplomatic status. "This happened in a part of Baghdad where we lost a soldier," he said. He clearly meant to imply that the Palestinians were responsible and that the embassy was being used as a weapons store for terrorists. The following day, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced that all diplomats accredited under the Saddam Hussein regime could no longer expect diplomatic immunity or any of the rights accorded under accreditation to Saddam Hussein's government. The US was "discouraging" foreign diplomats from entering Iraq until a new government was in place as "at this point there is really no purpose" for them to be there. Even those who were there with the approval of the US forces did not have diplomatic immunity, he added. The raid follows the deliberate bombing of the embassy on April 7. The attack from an air-to-ground missile launched by US military aircraft in broad daylight severely damaged the building and its contents. The embassy is located in Baghdad's diplomatic quarter. A Palestinian Authority spokesman at the time said, "No other embassies were targeted for bombing, which proves that the targeting of the Palestinian embassy was premeditated and not an accident." He denounced it as a flagrant violation of all diplomatic norms and laws, which give foreign embassies immunity and safety and considers them outside the theatre of military operations. The attack followed the bombing the previous day of a civilian neighbourhood of Palestinian refugees, who have been in Iraq since the establishment of the Zionist state in 1948. The US has ripped up every international convention of wartime conduct. It is now open season. Anything goes. During its illegal war on Iraq, Washington has shot and killed journalists covering the war and bombed the Al-Jazeera TV station in Baghdad. It also bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the NATO-led war on Serbia in 1999, to name but a few of its most egregious acts. The recent attacks on the Palestinian embassy are important for what they reveal. Firstly, this is an undisguised attempt to link the Palestinians to Iraq and terrorism in an effort to intimidate the Palestinian Authority at Israel's behest. There is every indication that this attack was mounted at Israel's insistence. An article on Israel's finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu's website by Joseph Farah states: "As I report in the latest edition of G2 Bulletin, there is plenty of substantial evidence to suggest the Palestinian embassy in Iraq knows plenty about where Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were hidden. "Sources said the site's diplomatic immunity kept the documents beyond the reach of UN arms inspectors for years and may still present a hurdle for US-led forces. The documents relate to the purchase of raw materials required for Iraq's manufacture and deployment of weapons of mass destruction. The PA embassy is situated in Yasser Arafat's private residence in Baghdad, a heavily guarded palatial structure well inside a compound. "One of the Iraqi opposition groups' American sympathisers, who worked with them in London from 1991 to 1994 and resumed activity on their behalf in Washington, said that the hidden documents refer to Iraq's chemical weapons, VX nerve gas, "and possibly nuclear arms." Netanyahu is the political favourite of the far-right, Christian fundamentalist and extreme Zionist elements that exercise such political sway within the Bush administration. With this raid and arrests, the Bush administration is sending out a message writ large. It intends to impose its "road map" and the Palestinian Authority (PA) had better fall in line with the demands of the Zionist state, or face being linked directly to the so-called war against terrorism in line with the repeated demands of the Likud government. To avoid this fate, the PA must police and pin down their own people in fenced off reservations-cynically termed an "independent" state-in the interests of US imperialism and its local sheriff in the region, Ariel Sharon, in Israel. More generally, this action is aimed at intimidating everyone and anyone who steps out of line. Libya certainly got the message. Two days after Boucher's announcement, Libya announced that it was breaking off diplomatic relations with Iraq and closing its embassy in Baghdad. "Libya has decided to cut diplomatic relations with Iraq, to close its embassy in Baghdad and recall all its personnel," the Foreign Ministry said. It added that the decision was taken as a result of "the practices of the American and British occupation forces against diplomatic missions in Baghdad and the announcement that their diplomatic immunity had lapsed". It stressed that the US-led occupation was responsible for the safe return of the Libyan diplomats and the protection of their embassy. One of the most significant features of the raid is the lack of opposition to them from right across the official political spectrum. One has to ask: where is the outrage at such acts of US barbarism and lawlessness? Just what does the Bush administration have to do before suffering some form of censure? The United Nations and the European Union that have bankrolled the Palestinian Authority have kept silent, fearful of upsetting Washington and provoking a chain of social unrest that will threaten their own imperialist interests in the region. The craven Arab regimes have not uttered a word of condemnation. The Libyans pulled out of Baghdad without so much as criticising the US. Nor have there been any angry outcries from the world's press. Large sections of the nominally liberal press failed even to report the affair or dropped it like a hot potato after an initial cursory article. Such silence paves the way for similar bullying, intimidation and the tearing up of social norms and basic democratic rights all over the world including in the US and in the European metropolitan centres. ISRAELI MINISTRY MAKES FALSE ACCUSATIONS; ISM REFUTATION FOLLOWS The International Solidarity Movement demands a retraction of statements made by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a full apology. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website makes the following accusations against the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "ISM members take an active part in illegal and violent actions against IDF soldiers. At times, their activity in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip is under the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations". This is incorrect. The International Solidarity Movement does not and has never worked under the auspices of, or in cooperation with, any armed Palestinian resistance group. The ISM does not undertake any activity in the Occupied Territories this is violent or illegal. On the contrary ISM activists have been harmed by and threatened with harm by Israeli army personnel. In connection with the two British suicide bombers the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "The two terrorists were careful to establish their presence in Judea and Samaria by forging links with foreign left wing activists and members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)". This is incorrect. No ISM activist had contact with the two men in the West Bank. Their sole contact was a brief social encounter in Rafah in the Gaza Strip and no "links" were "forged" in short time. See attached press statement for full details. Immediately after the suicide attack on Mike's Place Israeli intelligence stated that the men had entered the Gaza Strip posing as international peace activists with the ISM. In their report of June 3 Israeli investigations now prove that "On April 24, 2003, the terrorists entered the Gaza Strip via the Erez checkpoint, along with the Italian woman journalist and additional Italian journalists, which greatly assisted them in avoiding suspicion at Erez". The ISM has been shown to be innocent of this false accusation by the Israeli government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "It has become clear from the investigation of the Italian journalist that the terrorists exploited foreign left wing activists in the Palestinian Authority (PA) areas for the purpose of covering their movements throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Even though the latter were unwitting, they in effect were accomplices to terrorist activity". This is incorrect. The Italian journalist was interrogated by the Israeli authorities and has subsequently been found to be unaware of their intentions and so is not guilty of being an accomplice. Similarly the ISM activists in Rafah were entirely unware of the men's intentions to commit an attack in Israel. Moreover ISM has not been approached for questioning by the Israeli authorities in connection with the contact they had with the suicide attackers. Further to this the only contact ISM had with these men was a brief social meeting in Rafah, not in the West Bank and it has been proved that the men used a journalist as a cover for their movements. It is important to state that since it's founding ISM activists have been denied entry to the country and many have been deported. Moving around the Occupied Territories is not made easier as a peace activist. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "None of the persons involved - neither Palestinian nor foreign - bothered to contact any official body, despite their familiarity with the terrorists, even after they understood that they were involved in the attack, until they came under ISA investigation." This is incorrect. ISM held an open press conference a few days after the attack on Mike's Place and explained the circumstances under which the activists in Rafah briefly met the British men. The ISM has never been approached by the Israeli authorities in connection with an investigation. Israeli Border Police entered Al-Quds University in Tulkarem at 11pm Tuesday night searching lecture rooms and scrawling racist messages on the blackboards, Student Resources reported. ISM volunteers viewed the racial epithets, which included "All Arabs are bastards" (translated from Hebrew) and "Israel Israel" surrounded by multiple images of the Star of David. University staff also reported that the Border Police tore up "martyr" posters of Tulkarem university students killed by Israeli Forces. BrigadierGeneral Moshe Kaplinsky's letter to his Russian mother: Dear Mother,Within my authority as commander of the IDF in the Judea and Samaria regions, and because I believe that the act is required for military purposes, and in view of the security conditions prevailing in this area, and the need to take necessary steps to prevent terrorist acts, I order I am Moshe Kaplinsky I hate the Turk And his brood of Arab I have come To place my rage On history's page This is now my land My signature, That cannot be writ In Arabic, is engraved With a flourish By my hand, Though this Law Made by little English men, Fools, whose plan I now usurp, As would any other man. Blessed by wisdom Of the wily, Kazars smirk For no Jew Will chance an arm Or gain a foothold Where I stand... Moshe Kaplinsky Called by Jews "Our son Isaac"... laughs! jbraddell©2003 |
||
