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Tag Archive for 'human rights'
Two stories today that highlight the pernicious effect of British multinational Serco in Australia.
One from today’s Australian (to its credit, the only serious newspaper tackling this question regularly):
The company running Australia’s immigration detention centres has acknowledged the work is traumatic for staff following the death of a young guard troubled by the hanging of a teenage asylum-seeker.
Kieran Webb died while holidaying with his family last Wednesday after working for six months as a security officer at the Curtin immigration detention centre in Western Australia’s far north, according to a memo to all staff from government contractor Serco last Friday.
There were no suspicious circumstances, Serco Immigration Services managing director Chris Manning wrote in the memo.
“If you feel the need for emotional support arising from the work you do, please consider speaking to someone,” he said.
“It is important we acknowledge that our line of work can at times place us in difficult and traumatic situations as we manage vulnerable people in our care.”
Five detainees have killed themselves in immigration detention centres since last September. Self-harm and threats of self-harm occur daily, and a psychologist is employed full-time by Serco to help guards deal with the fallout of acts such as lip-sewing, slashing and attempted hangings.The Australian has been told detainees are taking increasingly dramatic steps to draw attention to their grievances. On Christmas Island last Thursday, a detainee sewed his lips together and had a friend tie him to the compound fence in a crucifix position.
On March 28, Mr Webb was among guards who cut down a 19-year-old Afghan detainee who hanged himself in his room.
Mr Webb was deeply affected by the death and by the unrest that followed, according to guards who worked alongside him at the time.
Two from United Voice, a union that represents workers:
A month after Villawood Detention Centre was burned to the ground, Serco was pushing to reduce staffing on key shifts.
The company wants to cut numbers on some shifts by as much as 50 percent.
United Voice members say the move would wreck their family lives, and reduce their ability to build relationships with detainees that could head off future trouble.
More than 120 Villawood members responded to a Union survey, panning proposed changes as family unfriendly, impractical and a health and safety risk.
Officers, predominantly working 12-hour shifts, currently get seven days off every 21 days. Under the revamp, they would have to wait 35 or 42 days for their long breaks.
United Voice assistant secretary, Peter Campise, says extending the qualifying period would be a blow to morale.
“Anything that hurts morale at the centre is a problem for our members and the whole immigration detention regime,” he said.
“United Voice rejects any changes that expose our members to increased risk.”
Meanwhile, Villawood officers are buoyed by Serco’s retreat from attempts to slash overtime rates for people required to work more than 14 hours.
Serco reduced double time payments to time and a half early in the New Year but agreed to “revert to the previous interpretation of the clause” after it became apparent member would pursue the issue..
Peter says securing back pay is now the issue.
As Western countries increasingly outsource many aspects of life to unaccountable corporations desperate to make money from misery, resistance is both necessary and moral. Bravo Amnesty UK:
The UK Government must conduct a complete and radical overhaul of the current system of enforced removals from the UK, according to a new briefing and campaign launched today (7 July) by Amnesty International UK.
Private security companies, contracted by the UK Government, have reportedly used dangerous and improper control and restraint techniques. In the 2010 case of Jimmy Mubenga at least, these appear to have resulted in someone’s death. One such technique was nick-named by contractors “Carpet Karaoke”, as it involved forcing an individual’s face down towards the carpet with such force that they were only able to scream inarticulately ‘like a bad karaoke singer’. It involves the seated detainee being handcuffed, with a tight seatbelt through the cuffs and their head pushed down between their legs. There is a serious risk of death by positional asphyxia when this technique is used.
Other cases featured in the Amnesty briefing include a Moroccan national who claims his arm was broken when he was restrained by his arms and legs and was dropped down the stairs of the airplane; and a refused asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who said he struggled to breathe and feared he was going to die when security staff put a knee on his chest and sat on him, after he resisted his removal at Heathrow.
Sources with direct working experience of enforced removals have told Amnesty about serious failings in the training of private contractors conducting forced removals. Staff are trained in control and restraint techniques that are unsuitable for use on aircraft; there is no mandatory training in the safe use of handcuffs and restraints; and there is no watertight system in place to ensure that those accredited to conduct removals have received the required level of training. The reportedly widespread use of sub-contractors to fill staff shortages also raises further serious concerns about training and accountability.
Julian Assange says it played a factor in the US being less able to back dictators in the region:
So, Cablegate as a whole caused these elites that prop each other up into region within the Arab speaking countries, and, within, between Europe and these countries and between the United States and these countries, to have to deal with their own political crises, and not spend time giving intelligence briefings on activists, or sending in, um, the SAS, or other support, and activists within Tunisia saw this, very quickly, I think they started to see an opportunity, and that information, uh, our site, a number of Wikileaks sites, were then immedietly, um, banned by the Tunisian government, Al Akbar was banned by the Tunisian government, a hacker attack was launched on Al Akbar, many had been launched at us but we had come to defend against them. Al Akbar was taken down, their whole newspaper was redirected to a Saudi sex site, believe it or not, there is such a thing as a Saudi sex site, and they rested it back through involvement to the foreign, the foreign ministry back in Lebanon, and then, what I believe to be state-based computer hackers, cause of the degree, the sophistication of the attack, came in and wiped out all of Al Akbar’s cable publishing efforts.
Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA does wonderful work in many corners of the globe. But its focus in Palestine has caused the local Israel lobby to pressure the Australian government to sever ties to the group. This isn’t likely but once again highlights the toxic nature of the Zionist mainstream on decency and morality.
During a recent parliamentary committee in Canberra, Liberal Senator Eric Abetz – who sees to love Israel more than his own children – asked AusAID what exactly it is backing in the Middle East. There’s no problem with such questions in theory but the aim is to a) do the Zionist lobby’s bidding and attempt to demonise any kind of support for Palestinians and b) frame Israel as a benevolent power in Palestine. Here’s the lobby’s AIJAC report:
At the October 2010 Estimates hearings, Senator Eric Abetz (Tas. Lib) questioned AusAID on elements of its funding dispensed to APHEDA. Senator Abetz asked AusAID whether it funded organisations associated with BDS or the APHEDA ‘study tours’ to the Middle East. AusAID responded that “no AusAID or other Australian Development Assistance funds are provided to any groups for the BDS campaign” and that “AusAID does not provide any funding for the [APHEDA] study trips.” However, regarding Ma’an Development Centre AusAID conceded that while “AusAID does not directly fund Ma’an Development Centre… under the Australian Middle East NGO Cooperation Agreement (AMENCA) AusAID provides funding to Union Aid Abroad APHEDA.”
Senator Abetz returned to these issues at the 2 June 2011 Estimates hearings, eliciting yet more revelations. Abetz asked AusAID: “What are the safeguards in place that prevent AusAID funding being used by APHEDA or any of the other in a manner that contravenes Australian government policy on Israel? Let us just pluck an example out of the air like BDS?” AusAID replied simply: “We have no information that any of the NGOs we are supporting…are involved with that program.”
But Senator Abetz then pointed out to AusAID that “According to APHEDA’s annual reports all of APHEDA’s funds for Middle East projects originate from AusAID,” which would seem to imply that it must be AusAID’s tax dollars being given to the Ma’an Development Centre by APHEDA. In response, AusAID did not contest this claim, merely re-stating its position that no AusAID funds are contributed towards organisations that support BDS. The AusAID representative offered no concrete assurances that the Australian taxpayer money apparently being given to the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA is not being used for BDS activities.
As a result of Senator Abetz’s efforts, it now seems established as fact that AusAID is indirectly supporting the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA. Further, AusAID is apparently unable, to date, to provide concrete assurances that these monies are not going to fund the Ma’an Development Centre’s efforts to promote BDS.
When Senator Abetz asked: “if it established that APHEDA’s official position is to support the BDS campaign, would AusAID reconsider its funding of APHEDA?” AusAID replied “it would be the decision of the Minister to make if there were information that caused us to question the way in which Australian aid funds are being used.”
Given the information revealed in these hearings, there now seems ample reason to raise such questions about the AusAID funding to APHEDA. Given AusAID’s inability to provide adequate answers to Senator Abetz’s questions, the ball must now move to the court of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, as AusAID implied. There is now a good basis for expecting a review of his department’s funding of APHEDA in light of these revelations and the fact that on 1 April 2011, Mr. Rudd assured Australians that his government “did not condone nor support any boycotts or sanctions against the Jewish state.”
Where to begin? It is interesting how the other three Australian NGOs (CARE, World Vision and Actionaid) did not get questioned and odd also how their Palestinian partner NGOs – like just about every Palestinian NGO – have equally signed up to the 2005 BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] call, yet it is the APHEDA partner that gets singled out.
I’ve been told for years by APHEDA staff that the Australian Workers Union’s Paul Howes and his Zionist lieutenants are upset that any major union would seriously challenge Israel and they work continuously to bully both APHEDA and its Labor Party-aligned backers to stop campaigning so strongly for Palestine. In this they have failed. But it won’t stop them trying. It is ironic in the extreme that a union that claims to care for workers and human rights spends time defending Israel, a nation that actively oppresses Palestinian workers under occupation. Principle has nothing to do with this position.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is always quoting the fact that Australia has “greatly” increased aid to the Palestinians to $56m in 2011-12 and the important activities the aid is doing. However, he uses this “fact” to erroneously answer questions about Australia’s support of Palestinian aspirations (statehood, refugee right of return, end the occupation, human rights etc) for peace. In a political conflict such as this, providing aid is only half the answer; it must also be coupled with the insistence that Israel comply with relevant international, humanitarian law. The Australian government is silent on law enforcement against its great friend and ally.
Following the ripple effect of the Marrickville BDS campaign and the success of APHEDA study tours (which take unionists and others across the West Bank and Gaza and not just hear Zionist talking points), there is growing scrutiny in Parliament on AusAID’s Palestine program. It’s tragic that Palestine, with the least resources available to it and under siege, has to answer for the world’s ills and people’s petty prejudices.
APHEDA’s Middle East project officer Lisa Arnold tells me: “Gaza is a man-made disaster of more than five times the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami; it’s just that the deaths and destruction occur over the course of decades, not minutes.”
The reality remains that APHEDA operates vitally important programs across Palestine – a few years ago I visited one of its programs at Gaza’s only rehabilitation hospital – and the Zionist lobby with its corporate and media mates should not be allowed to threaten this life-line to a people under occupation.
According to new evidence, clearly deeply. Of course, we’ve seen countless examples in the US of senior government officials escaping any kind of punishment; it’s all about targeting individuals low down the food chain. When a so-called democracy refuses to take responsibility for illegal actions in war, little stops future leaders doing exactly the same thing. Besides, there are masses of evidence of occupation forces serially abusing prisoners in the “war on terror”:
Australia went to war in Afghanistan without a clear policy on how to deal with enemy detainees, secret papers reveal.
When a policy was adopted, the then chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie, expressed reservations about the legality of the agreed approach.
The documents also show another former Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove, informed the Howard government of the death of an Iranian man captured by Australian troops in 2003, but the Australian public was never told.
The papers, obtained under freedom of information laws by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and made available to the ABC, reveal utter confusion at the highest levels of the Howard government and the Department of Defence over how to deal with enemy detainees.
On February 25, 2002, as Australian troops fought in Afghanistan, Admiral Barrie wrote to then defence minister Robert Hill complaining his commanders were being put at risk.
“There is currently no clear government policy on the handling of personnel who may be captured by the ADF … Defence and in particular ADF commanders are currently accepting the risk flowing from the lack of government policy,” he wrote.
Admiral Barrie proposed a set of interim arrangements, such as asking for American help to move captives from where the Australians were in Kandahar to a US detention facility, where an ADF team could supervise any prisoners captured by Australians.
Robert Hill gave permission for Admiral Barrie to negotiate with the United States and added a series of handwritten comments at the end of Admiral Barrie’s missive.
“I don’t understand why I didn’t get this brief before the Afghanistan operation,” he wrote. “We clearly should have sorted out this issue with the US as leader of the coalition months ago.”
What emerged from the negotiations became Australia’s detention policy in Afghanistan and Iraq: that if even a single American soldier was present when Australian forces captured enemy fighters, the US and not Australia would be recognised as the “detaining power”.
In a paragraph with words redacted, Admiral Barrie expressed reservations about the legality of this approach.
“Such an arrangement may not fully satisfy Australia’s legal obligations and in any event will not be viewed as promoting a respect for the rule of law,” he concluded.
John Pilger on acknowledging an historical reality:
The City of Sydney has voted to replace the words “European arrival” in the official record with “invasion”. The deputy lord mayor, Marcelle Hoff, says it is intellectually dishonest to use any other word in describing how Aboriginal Australia was dispossessed by the British. “We were invaded,” said Paul Morris, an Aboriginal adviser to the council. “It is the truth and it shouldn’t be watered down. We wouldn’t expect Jewish people to accept a watered-down version of the Holocaust, so why should we?”
In 2008, the then prime minister Kevin Rudd formally apologised to Aborigines wrenched from their families as children under a policy inspired by the crypto-fascist theories of eugenics. White Australia was said to be coming to terms with its rapacious past, and present. Was it? The Rudd government, noted a Sydney Morning Herald editorial, “has moved quickly to clear away this piece of political wreckage in a way that responds to some of its supporters’ emotional needs, yet it changes nothing. It is a shrewd manoeuvre.”
The City of Sydney ruling is a very different gesture, and admirable; for it reflects not a liberal and limited “sorry campaign”, seeking feel-good “reconciliation” rather than justice, but counters a cowardly movement of historical revision in which a collection of far-right politicians, journalists and minor academics claimed there was no invasion, no genocide, no Stolen Generation, no racism.
The platform for these holocaust deniers is the Murdoch press, which has long run its own insidious campaign against the indigenous population, presenting them as victims of each other or as noble savages requiring firm direction: the eugenicists’ view. Favoured black “leaders” who tell the white elite what it wants to hear while blaming their own people for their poverty, provide a PC cover for a racism that often shocks foreign visitors. Today, the first Australians have one of the shortest life expectancies in the world and are incarcerated at five times the rate of blacks in apartheid South Africa. Go to the outback and see the children blinded by trachoma, a biblical disease, entirely preventable, eradicated in third world countries but not in rich Australia. The Aboriginal people are both Australia’s secret and this otherwise derivative society’s most amazing distinction: the world’s oldest society.
The first rule of liberal Zionism is never talk about what liberal Zionism means. The second rule of liberal Zionism is never acknowledge the inherent blindspots within liberal Zionism.
Hence an essay in this month’s Monthly magazine by Australian academic Nick Dyrenfurth – yes, the man does spend an amazing amount of time policing the “left” and telling us what views are acceptable towards Israel, terrorism, bananas and coconuts – attacks the awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to Noam Chomsky this year. Chomsky is too extreme. He doesn’t love Israel enough. He blames many Jews for backing apartheid-policies in Palestine.
This is clearly too much for Dyrenfurth who informs us that everybody knows what must happen in the Middle East:
Leaving aside his myopic, conspiratorial views on American foreign policy (the United States is “a leading terrorist state”), it is difficult to reconcile Chomsky’s peacemaking efforts with this laudatory description, in particular those pertaining to Israel–Palestine.
Most fair-minded observers agree that a negotiated peace settlement based upon a two-state solution will only be attained by bringing together moderates on both sides of the equation and sidelining extremists, whether Greater Israel Zionists or Arab–Palestinian militants committed to a ‘one-state’ solution. Aside from practical steps such as ending the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinian leadership recognising Israel’s right to exist, in simple terms what is required is a rhetorical sea change. Ending the demonisation of the Palestinians by sections of the Jewish and Israeli community must be accompanied by ending the demonisation of Israel by much of the Arab world and, notably, sections of the western Left.
Few individuals have contributed more to the Left’s vilification of Israel than Chomsky, who adopts the central tropes of what left-leaning Jewish intellectual Philip Mendes terms “anti-Zionist fundamentalism”.
Nowhere in this piece is there any discussion about what Israel has become rather than some fantasy world imagined by liberal Zionists the world over. Religious fundamentalism is accepted and normalised. Occupation deepens every day. Mainstream Israel largely only knows violence and threats.
But not to worry, Dyrenfurth argues, Israel is a glorious nation that must be backed against critics of all sorts. It’s comical to read the academic arguing against the decision of Chomsky because he’s critical of the entire political and media elites. Dyrenfurth is part of that establishment and he knows the boundaries. He knows his role. Court academics like to enforce public debate and damn anybody who steps out of line (on Bin Laden’s death, Zionism, terrorism, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, monkeys etc).
Then this:
Why has the SPF [Sydney Peace Foundation] lent unwarranted credibility to Chomsky’s extremist politics? The SPF, and its academic arm, the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), shares Chomsky’s kneejerk anti-Americanism and anti-Israel worldview. Jake Lynch, the CPACS director and a former BBC journalist, is a leading Australian BDS campaigner and perpetuates a Chomskyite binary view of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The SPF – itself headed by Professor Stuart Rees, and whose executive officer is the current general secretary of the Communist Party of Australia, Hannah Middleton – clearly seeks to legitimate anti-Zionist fundamentalism as well as resuscitating a discredited brand of far-left politics by juxtaposing extremists such as Chomsky (and John Pilger, Israel critic and 2009 prizewinner) with respectable previous recipients such as Indigenous leader Patrick Dodson and former Governor-General Sir William Deane. The decision to decorate Chomsky also hallmarks another strategy deployed by anti-Israel activists, whereby the views of a tiny minority of far-left Jewish anti-Zionists – the journalist Antony Loewenstein being the most notorious local example – are promoted so as to avoid charges of anti-Semitism.
I’m notorious? I better tell my minders immediately. Liberal Zionism is in moral turmoil. Israel is a racist state that is not blindly backed by anybody these days except religious fundamentalists and hardline Zionists. People like Dyrenfurth have too much invested in an imaginary Israel, a nation that must remain Jewish no matter what. Human rights of Palestinians are violated on a daily basis? Would he like to write anything about that in depth? Of course not, it’s far easier (and intellectually lazy) to simply attack the messenger.
Finally, it should be noted that the Jewish publisher behind the Monthly, Morry Schwartz, never publishes anything on Israel/Palestine because he’s a big supporter of the Zionist state. Over many years across his various publications, Israel is barely discussed, a blindness that reveals a great deal about many Jewish progressives the world over; they can care about the human rights of East Timorese or Iraqis or Afghans, but when it comes to the Palestinians…
This story seems unbelievable. Leading Australian Zionist politician and occupation defender Michael Danby wanting to highlight Israel’s blatant racism? Mmm:
MK Danny Danon (Likud) requested from Australian MP Michael Danby on Wednesday to propose sending African migrants from Israel to Australia in parliament.
Danon and Danby discussed the issue during the Australian politician’s recent visit to Israel, as a part of the World Jewish Congress’s International Conference of Jewish Parliamentarians.
“The arrival of thousands of Muslim infiltrators to Israeli territory is a clear threat to the state’s Jewish identity,” Danon told The Jerusalem Post. “The refugees’ place is not among us, and the initiative to transfer them to Australia is the right and just solution.
“On the one hand, it treats the refugees and migrants in a humane way. On the other hand, it does not threaten Israel’s future and our goal to maintain a clear and solid Jewish majority,” he explained.
Danon said Danby agreed to present the idea to the Australian parliament. Danby was not available for comment.
According to the Knesset’s Research and Information Center, there are 35,638 migrants in Israel, as of May 2011. Less than one percent of these migrants are recognized by the UN as refugees.
However, 61% of the migrants – 21,748 people – are Eritrean, and categorized as “temporary humanitarian protection group” by the UN, because they cannot be returned safely to their home country due to internal strife.
“Since Australia has a policy of accepting refugees and groups under protection, I would appreciate it if you could promote a solution in which Australia would accept those who seek refuge,” Danon wrote in a letter following his meeting with Danby.“This solution will make it easier for Israel to ensure its future as a Jewish state, because without a Jewish majority the State of Israel cannot survive,” the Likud MK wrote.
Janine di Giovanni is one of Europe’s leading war correspondents. Last night I read this moving extract from her memoir. Beautifully written, it examines the relationship between her and her partner Bruno and their child, Luca and how reporting in various horror zones eventually entered their hearts and minds and wouldn’t go away. War can be like a drug for some in the media. You’ll rarely hear the people living under the bullets and bombs thinking similarly:
I had been tested for post-traumatic stress disorder a few years previously by a Canadian psychiatrist writing a book about war reporters. He said I did not have it. Aside from one brutal flashback after the murder of two of my colleagues in Sierra Leone by rebel forces I thought I had managed, somehow, to escape a syndrome with which so many had been afflicted. At one point, a psychiatrist in Sarajevo told me that nearly the entire population of the besieged city probably suffered from it.
I never had nightmares in the years of moving from war to war – perhaps some inner survival mode would not allow me to be introspective enough – but they started now: vivid dreams of burning houses, of people without limbs, of children trapped inside shelters. I thought endlessly of the days in Chechnya when I listened to the helicopter gunships and put my hands over my ears, sure I would go mad from the sound of the bombs. Or the time that I rode on the back of a motorcycle in East Timor and smelled the burning of the houses, saw the terror in people’s faces.
While I was actually there, I felt nothing. I never talked about what happened in those places, but I wrote about them. I disagreed that reporters suffered from trauma; after all, I argued, we were the ones who got out. It was the people we left behind that suffered, that died. I did not suffer the syndromes, I did not have the shakes. I did not have psychotic tendencies. I was not an alcoholic or drug addict who needed to blot out memories. I was, I thought, perfectly fine and functioning.
Much later I met another trauma specialist in a cafe in London, who told me that PTSD can also appear later, long after the events. He asked me to describe all I had seen, in detail, but nothing was as painful as Luca’s birth: the helplessness, my inability to protect him, and the sense that anything could and would happen. He listened carefully and recorded my words, which he later sent to me in transcript form. “There are people who live in extremes,” he said, “and you are one of them. You cannot think that will not affect you in some way. It has. It always will.”
The birth awakened fears that had been buried. It started when I hoarded water in our kitchen: plastic packs of more than 50 bottles, which I calculated would last us 20 days. Every time I went to Monoprix to buy food, I bought more and had it delivered. I hoarded tinned food, rice, pasta – food that I remembered stored well in Sarajevo during the siege – and things that might be hard to get – medicine, vast supplies of Ciprofloxacin and codeine – which I got my confused doctor to give me prescriptions for. I hoarded bandages, gauzes, even the field dressings that I had saved from Chechnya which were meant to be pressed against bullet holes to staunch the blood, and I read first aid guides of how to remove bullets and shrapnel, set broken bones and survive chemical attacks. Bruno would watch, concerned but non-judgmental.
“We’re in Paris,” he would say, “not Grozny. Not Abidjan. We’re safe.”
“But how do you know? That’s what people said about Yugoslavia. One day they went to the cash machines and there was no money.”
Rami Khouri writes in Lebanon’s Daily Star:
While the Arab world is experiencing a historic series of citizen revolts against nondemocratic governments, something equally significant is happening among Palestinians in their struggle with Israel and Zionism. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, Palestinians seem to be making a strategic shift in their mode of confrontation with Israel, from occasional military attacks toward a more nonviolent and political confrontation.
This development seems to be driven by two factors: that various kinds of armed struggle against Israel, by Palestinians or Arab armies, have had little or no impact on changing Israeli policies; and, that nonviolent political protests are more in keeping with the spirit of the moment in the Arab world, where unarmed civilians openly confront their oppressors and in most cases seem to be making headway.
The signs of Palestinian political struggle, as opposed to militarism, are most visible in four dimensions or incidents these days. The first were the two days in May and June when symbolic numbers of Palestinian refugees marched to the borders of Israel to proclaim their right to return to their homes. Israeli as usual replied with gunfire, killing over a dozen Palestinians. The scene at the Qalandia checkpoint in the West Bank north of Jerusalem was especially poignant, as Palestinian young men used slingshots – that great Hebrew Bible symbol – to pester the Israeli soldiers in full battle gear on the rooftops raining tear gas down on them. I suspect this is not the last time we will see unarmed Palestinian civilians march en masse in affirmation of their rights, whether in Israel, in Israeli-occupied Palestinian lands, or around the world.
The second is the flotilla of ships that is expected to set sail this week from nearby Mediterranean ports to break the Israeli siege of Gaza, even though the siege has been eased somewhat in recent months, especially since the new Egyptian government opened the Rafah crossing to a nearly normal flow of trade. The flotilla follows half a dozen others that have made the journey in the last three years with the same purpose: to challenge the Israeli sea blockade and affirm the rights of Palestinians to have normal contacts with the rest of the world.
The third sign is the Palestinian insistence on asking the U.N. General Assembly to vote this September on recognizing a Palestinian state within the borders of the lands occupied by Israel in 1967 (West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem). This move has incensed the Israeli government and its many proxies in the U.S., where a vehement campaign is underway to stop the United Nations vote from taking place.
The intensity of the Israeli and American opposition to the vote strategy is hysterical to the point of irrationality, given that a U.N. General Assembly vote in itself has very little practical value or impact in political or legal terms. Yet the Israeli response is telling of a deeper fear. What frightens the Israelis is the determination of Palestinians to use all available political means to carry on the struggle against Zionism and Israel, until Palestinian rights are achieved and Israelis and Palestinians can live in adjacent states with fully equal rights. Israel has never developed a strategy for countering a serious Arab political offensive against it, and it shows.
The fourth sign is the continued development of the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it complies with its obligations under international law and conventions. Palestinian civil society launched BDS in 2005 as a strategy that allows people of conscience around the world to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for justice.
As the Gaza Flotilla 2 is soon to sail – despite attempts to sabotage the boats and other delays – what makes the attempt so moving are the personal stories of people who speak up for Palestine, despite the (almost) comical moves to smear them. Amira Hass profiles two Australians, both of whom I know and admire:
This is not the first time that Sylvia Hale, 69, has been asked why she is so active for the Palestinian cause. What about the discrimination against the Aborigines in her own country, Australia, for example?
Hale, a former Green Party parliamentarian who is still active in the party, immediately responded: “Undoubtedly, Australia has a very racist history. Aborigines were give the right to vote only in 1967. But whoever asks us ‘what about the Aborigines,’ are not the ones who are interested in their rights, and not the ones fighting for those rights. They are using this as a diversionary tactic for evading the debate over Israel’s policy, or to delegitimize criticism of Israel.”
And yes, for anyone who is interested: She was and remains involved in other struggles. She has rallied against the initiative to limit the rights of the Aborigines, fought the discriminatory attitude toward refugees in Australia and opposed the policy of stopping boat refugees.
Prior to entering parliament, she hid two refugees in her home so that they would not be arrested.
This week Hale and three of her compatriots will climb on board the Tahrir, the Canadian ship that is participating in the flotilla to the Gaza Strip. She and her Australian colleagues traveled the greatest distance of all the participants. Their flight lasted 48 hours, including the stops in various airports.
Hale and her friend, Vivienne Porzsolt, also 69, give the impression of being typical Western tourists, middle class, middle aged, staying at the hotel where the passengers of the Tahrir have gathered.
…
But Porzsolt’s involvement also stems directly from being Jewish, she says. “My activism against the Israeli occupation is linked to my Jewish-secular background, the values of equality and morality in the home of my parents [who were] natives of Prague who managed to escape from it immediately following the Nazi occupation in March, 1939. During the 1990s the Jewish element in my life became stronger and I became more interested in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Because Israel considers itself the country that represents all the Jews of the world, my participation in this voyage is my way of declaring that Israel is not acting on my behalf.”
Last night I was on ABCTV News24′s The Drum (video here) talking climate change policy and the Gaza flotilla.
I argued that dwindling public support for real action on climate change was because too many of its backers refused to seriously engage with the general public and denigrated opponents. Labeling “deniers” akin to Holocaust deniers is not the way to win the argument. Besides, as somebody who recognises the damage caused by climate change, it’s heart-breaking to see the Australian government so utterly incapable of prosecuting an argument, speaking of “reform agendas” without being able to convince the public that lack of action is too dangerous for our future. Inner city folk spend too much time speaking to each other (and yes, I live in the inner city).
There’s a false discussion in Australia about which major political party is a better economic manager when in fact they both subscribe to the same neo-liberal policies that have only entrenched the divide between rich and poor. Little dissent from this line is ever heard, and the media perpetuates the lie.
The Gaza flotilla was discussed and I supported the right of global citizens to highlight Israel’s illegal blockade and occupation of Gaza. Thanks to Sydney reporter Kate Ausburn for transcribing some of my comments:
…there are profound restrictions on equipment getting in [to Gaza]. … the idea somehow that the Flotilla is designed to support Hamas, which is exactly what the Israeli government say, is nonsense. It is about highlighting to the world, in a way where governments have failed, that Israel occupies Gaza, and more importantly continues to persecute people collectively, which is illegal under international law for that very reason.
Speaking on Israel’s threat to journalists taking part in the Flotilla to cover the story that they could have their equipment seized and receive a ten year ban on entering Israel:
I think the issue of the journalists being threatened is very clear. It is because they are petrified of a different narrative emerging. Last year when there were countless activists who were filming what happened, all the equipment was taken and destroyed, or at least not given back, and the idea this time is they only want to have one narrative which is that Israel has the right to board the ships. You shouldn’t forget one final thing, Israel boarded the ships last year in international waters, so which is essentially an act of piracy.
Israel has reversed the ham-fisted policy of banning reporters but it’s the sign of a Zionist state that only knows how to threaten (here’s yet another recent example of an Israeli hoax, this time a gay man supposedly opposing the flotilla, that has turned into a complete Israeli PR debacle).
Yes:
There has been a sharp rise in the number of Palestinian structures razed by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank this year, with over 700 people left homeless, rights groups said on Wednesday.
So far, Israeli forces have demolished “103 residential structures … most of them tents, huts, and tin shacks, in which 706 persons lived,” Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a statement.
This was up from 86 structures in 2010 and 28 in 2009, B’Tselem said.
The Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank could not immediately be reached, but in the past Israel has said that it only demolishes structures built without permits.
B’Tselem said the Palestinians had no choice but to build illegally because Israel, which controls the occupied West Bank, rarely gives Palestinians permits to build.