Today, after days of silence regarding the toll on Palestinian life and limb being taken by Israel in Gaza, Radio New Zealand's Morning Report carried the news of Israel's killing of a Hamas military leader. Up until then, in one 72-hour period alone, seven Palestinians, including three children, were killed and 52 others, including six women and 12 children, were wounded. Four of these deaths and 38 of the injuries resulted from Israeli Army shelling, in which two children playing football in a playground were killed. Why is it that the deaths of Palestinian children seldom rate reporting but the killing of a Hamas military figure does?

The nearest thing to balance in this morning's report came when it was acknowledged that civilians were also killed in the Israeli air strike and that a seven-year-old child was among those “reportedly” killed. We did not hear from the people of Gaza but did hear a lot from the Israeli side and from foreign reporters that formulated their commentaries with the usual assumptions.

For instance, we were told that Hamas (the elected representatives of the Palestinian people) rules in Gaza and the “moderate Palestinian Authority (PA) rules in the West Bank.” In fact the PA has condemned the Israeli atrocities with the following statement by Dr Saeb Erekat on 14 November, speaking while on an official visit to Switzerland: “We hold Israel fully responsible for the consequences of this new act of aggression”, going on to say, “We condemn in the strongest terms this new Israeli assassination which aims to initiate a bloody escalation. We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the consequences that this new act of aggression would bring to the region” and “This exposes that Israel has an agenda for war but not for peace.”

To get things further into perspective Radio New Zealand could visit the Israeli Foreign Ministry's website and see for itself the statistics of death, injury and damage caused by those missiles launched from Gaza that actually hit southern Israel and compare them with the results of the violence meted out daily by Israel in the Gaza Strip. Relentless shelling from Israeli tanks recently forced the closure of an UNWRA school in the Gaza Strip, Gaza homes and farms are under constant attack and the Israeli Army bulldozes crops on Palestinian farms during frequent incursions. The Israeli Navy enforces an over-fished three-nautical-mile fishing zone upon the Gaza fishing industry with sometimes deadly violence. The children of Gaza are regularly terrorised by sonic booms from over-flying Israeli F-16 fighter jets.

The news is easy to come by and people on the ground in the Gaza Strip; residents, journalists (including New Zealand's own journalist, Scoop's Julie Webb-Pullman This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and foreign aid workers, are happy to give interviews. The years go by and the daily suffering is routinely ignored by the Western news media. Until, that is, when Israel takes action that the West considers newsworthy and which at the same time provides a platform for Israeli propaganda. This morning, Morning Report uncritically reported the view that Israel had generously “given” Gaza to the Palestinians! Truth and justice are inseparable and news reporting should serve both.

Leslie Bravery – 15 November 2012

Sound and fury

Addressing the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on 29 September 2012, New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully drew attention to the use of the veto by some members of the Security Council. Mr McCully said in his General Debate Statement that it was “. . . difficult to overstate the extent to which the Security Council is at risk of losing its credibility in the eyes of reasonable and fair minded people through its inability to act.”

At a time when yet another Palestinian fisherman has been killed and another seriously wounded while illegal enforcement by the Israeli Navy of crippling fishing restrictions upon the Gaza fishing industry continues, it is certainly timely to reflect on the failure of the United Nations to uphold international law. In that regard it would also be timely to consider the negative influence of the frequent use by the United States of its veto to frustrate the will of the world community regarding Israel's non-compliance with international humanitarian law.

The US has, through its veto, supported Israeli colonialism in the West Bank and Israeli aggression against its neighbours, effectively preventing any solution based on either international law or UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. The US has used its veto on scores of occasions to prevent sanctions from being imposed upon Israel, a UN member state that thumbs its nose at international humanitarian law, belligerently occupying and ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people and brutally denying them their UN-sanctioned right of return. Israel's illegal settlements continue to grow in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 446, which defines the presence of Israel's settlement colonies as a “serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister, however, has declared his faith in rewarding Israel, as exemplified through his fervent support for Israel's application for OECD membership, effectively encouraging Israel's Prime Minister in his repeated assertions that East Jerusalem belongs to an "eternal and indivisible" capital of Israel. While McCully claims that rewarding Israel is in the interest of what he calls 'dialogue', Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to lay down unacceptable pre-conditions. So long as Israel does not have to pay a price for continuing the military occupation of Palestinian territory it is hardly likely that it will abandon its present course.

United States use of the veto

The US has used its Security Council veto:

In 1982, to avoid sanctions against Israel for occupying Syria’s Golan Heights. Also in 1982, to save Israel (3 vetoes) from condemnation over its invasion of Lebanon. In 1983, to avoid condemning Israel over the slaughter of civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. In 1986, to prevent the passing of a resolution criticising Israel’s hijacking of a Libyan civilian aircraft. In 1989, to stop the United Nations Security Council passing a declaration condemning Israeli violence in the Palestinian occupied territories and demanding compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the human rights of populations living under belligerent military occupation. In 1997, to prevent the passing of a resolution denouncing the construction by Israel of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem's Mount Abu Ghuneim area. In 2001, fearing the monstrous nature of the Israeli Occupation would become more apparent, to obstruct the UN Security Council in accepting a resolution that would permit the creation of an international observer group to act to protect Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2002, to prevent the passing of a resolution condemning Israel for killing several UN workers. In 2003, to ensure the continued growth of Israel's annexation Wall, the illegality of which has been pronounced by the World Court.

Having fretted his hour upon the stage it is certain that when next the United States misuses its veto, New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister will be heard no more upon this theme – and McCully's sound and fury will be shown to have signified nothing.

Leslie Bravery – 3 October 2012

Compounding the Nazi Holocaust

Political support for Israel makes use of ideologically sponsored myths and unjustifiable assumptions. The constant repetition of these assumptions by politicians and news media precludes debate and effectively exempts Israel from its obligations under international humanitarian law. The Zionist state's use of the Holocaust to justify itself betrays both the memory of those who suffered and humanity's hope that the necessary lessons will ever be learned.

The pervasive propaganda of powerful interests has infiltrated the thinking of Western Society to the extent that well-meaning people feel compelled to adopt a contorted form of even-handedness regarding the questions of Israel and political Zionism. Even-handedness can never be appropriate in the context of ethnic segregation and other gross violations of the Fourth Geneva convention. Use of the term anti-Semitism, often to silence Israel's critics, refers solely to anti-Jewish bias and that in itself is anti-Semitic because such use deliberately excludes the majority of Semitic peoples. Semitic languages are spoken in much of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. The most widely spoken of the Semitic languages today is Arabic; ancient Arabic and Hebrew were dialects of Canaanite Aramaic. Anti-Semitism is a European sickness and has long been directed against both Jews and Arabs. European colonialism fuelled contempt for Arabs and political Zionism proceeds from the same assumptions of Arab inferiority. An examination of the assumptions that lie behind the West's attitude to Israel follows:

Assumption 1 – forced exodus: Following a Parliamentary trip to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank this year former New Zealand Prime Minister, Phil Goff, now Labour spokesperson on foreign affairs and trade, wrote an article entitled Chance for peace in Palestine should be grasped. At the start of his article Goff wrote “After centuries of persecution of Jews in the diaspora, culminating in the Nazi murder of six million Jews during the Second World War, their desire for a state of their own was understandable.” No reputable historian has found evidence to support the myth that the Romans forced the Jewish people into exile (the diaspora) from what is now known as the Middle East. The colonising of the indigenous Palestinian's land, the destruction of villages and the removal of the inhabitants into refugee camps and exile upon the pretext of a supposed 2000-year-old historical event is unjustifiable and irrational. The Zionist plan to colonise other people's lands came long before the Holocaust of course and the racist European colonial mentality, taken up by Zionism, in effect transferred the onus for the crimes of Nazism onto the Palestinian people.

Assumption 2 – The Six Day War; that the existence of Israel was at stake: The article stated “When Israel launched the six-day war in 1967 it did so in the belief that its existence was threatened by universally hostile neighbours whose aim was to destroy the state of Israel.” As with the so-called forced exodus, the historical assumption is not supported by the facts. First of all the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin actually admitted in a speech to the National Defence College in 1982 that Israel's war on Egypt in 1956 was a matter of choice. Begin said “In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack . . . We did not do this for lack of an alternative. We could have gone on waiting. We could have sent the army home. Who knows if there would have been an attack against us? There is no proof of it.”

The Israeli people may have been told, as was indeed the rest of the world, that the Zionist State's existence was threatened by Egypt, but the Israeli government knew better. So did the CIA. A CIA assessment on 23 May 1967 was presented to President Lyndon Johnson stating that Israel could “defend successfully against simultaneous Arab attacks on all fronts … or hold on any three fronts while mounting successfully a major offensive on the fourth.” A future Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, told Le Monde on 28 February 1968, “I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it.” http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/07/04/israels-attack-on-egypt-in-june-67-was-not-preemptive/ In the aftermath of Israel's Six Day War and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ten additional UNWRA refugee camps were established to accommodate a new wave of displaced persons, both refugees and non-refugees. The Zionist project had completed one more stage.

Assumption 3 – Israel must be an ethnically pure state: The Chance for peace article repeated the ethnic balance arguments that are commonly expressed in support of Israel: “If Israel annexed the West Bank the Arab population in the wider Israel would soon approach that of the Jewish population with the Palestinian population growing faster.” The United Nations partition plan proposed an Israeli state on 55% of Mandate Palestine but Israel continues to expand (the Zionist State refuses to declare its borders) and Israeli control of 61% of the West Bank (Area 'C') enables settlements to continue to expand and build ethnically segregated Jewish-only roads to divide Palestinian land. Israel has illegally settled more than 500,000 Jewish Israelis in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory. Such actions have no moral or legal justification. Similarly Israel's annexation Wall (ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice) that Israel calls a 'separation barrier' continues to divide Palestinian communities from each other and from their agriculture.

The article continues “The very essence of Israel is that it is a Jewish state. It could not remain so if it absorbed the Arab population, according them equal rights.” When it comes to discussing the nature and purpose of Israel, Goff echoes the Western practice of referring to the indigenous people as Arabs rather than Palestinians. But where in international law is it acceptable for any state to define itself as the state of one ethnic group above all others? He goes on to say, “Expelling non-Jews or creating an apartheid state where some citizens had lesser rights would be utterly unacceptable.” It certainly is unacceptable to most people but the West has stood by while Palestinian villages have been obliterated and millions of Palestinians have been consigned to refugee camps. A large number of United Nations reports reveal the ethnic discrimination that prevails in Israel, especially in annexed East Jerusalem.

Assumption 4 – What Israel requires is paramount: Phil Goff comments “A unified and secular state might in principle be a proper solution to this problem but Israel will not allow that to happen." Israel will not allow that to happen! End of argument apparently. This is the ultimate give away of Western assumptions and thinking. The only sane solution is dismissed because Zionism objects. The fact that accommodating Israeli intransigence for over 60 years has been counter-productive is apparently not even worth debate. All hope therefore of an end to ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, their imprisonment without charge or trial, the destruction of their homes, night home invasions and abductions of children, the cessation of the deliberate uprooting of olive trees and attacks on fishing boats must be abandoned apparently because Israel will not allow that to happen! It is easy to understand why negotiations have been fruitless. Just as Israel's continual settlement expansion represents bad faith in negotiating a peaceful outcome, so does unconditional Western support for Israel. This colossal injustice fuels instability. But Western politicians and the corporate news media seem addicted to the process. In a world with sane, intelligent leadership it would be unacceptable and the fact that it has been with us for over half a century is an indictment of generations of political leaders.

Assumption 5 – Israel and Zionism speak for all Jews: Phil Goff tells us “As I went through Yad Vashem, the Israeli holocaust museum, I shed a tear for the brutal inhumanity towards and suffering of the Jewish people.” How many visitors shed a tear for the ethnically cleansed Palestinian village of Deir Yassin? A group calling itself Righteous Jews (http://righteousjews.org/) that established itself in 2003 felt that it was a way for its members “to commemorate the memory of those Palestinians who have been, and continue to be depopulated, dispossessed, humiliated, tortured, and murdered in the name of political Zionism and its quest to create a Jewish state in the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.” Righteous Jews tells us that its founding was inspired by the website of the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem, located on Mount Herzl on the land of the Palestinian village of Ein Karem, 1400 metres south of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. Yad Vashem lists the names of non-Jews who risked their lives, freedom, and safety in order to rescue one or several Jews from the threat of death or deportation to death camps. For many years this list was referred to as the list of 'Righteous Gentiles' the list is now called “Righteous Among the Nations'. According to Righteous Jews “Deir Yassin is as important a part of Jewish, as it is of Palestinian, history. Deir Yassin, coming in April 1948, just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945, marks a Jewish transition from enslavement to empowerment and from abused to abuser. Can there ever have been such a remarkable shift, over such a short period, in the history of a people?”

“Deir Yassin signalled the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians leading to their eventual dispossession and exile and was just one example of a conscious and premeditated plan to destroy the Palestinians as a people in their own homeland. “ . . . since the establishment of the state of Israel, successive Israeli governments whether Labour or Likud, and whether by force as at Deir Yassin, or by chicanery as at Oslo and Camp David, have followed the same policy of oppressing and dispossessing Palestinians to make way for an exclusively Jewish state. Even now, when Israel could have peace and security for the asking, Israeli governments persist in their original intention of conquering the whole of Palestine for the use of the Jewish people alone. And all this was done, and is still being done, by Jews, for Jews and in the name of Jews.” http://www.righteousjews.org/article23.html The group lists, among the many people it calls 'Our Initial List of Righteous Jews', Albert Einstein, Amira Hass, Anna Baltzer, Antony Loewenstein, Gideon Levy, Hedy Epstein, Ilan Pappe, Jeff Halper, Jennifer Lowenstein, Lenni Brenner, Miko Peled, Norman Finkelstein, Richard Falk, Tanya Reinhart and Yehudi Menuhin. All have worked to expose the evils of the practise and ideology of political Zionism.

More than half the global Jewish population chooses not to live in Israel and at present many young Israelis consider Berlin to be a fashionable and cool place to hang out. The Zionist claim that only in an exclusively Jewish state could Jews live free from persecution is manifestly disproved – but at a terrible cost to both Jews and non-Jews.

Assumption 6 – It is only Palestinians that are violent: In any discussion of violence in the context of Israel and Palestine it is only ever Palestinian violence that is condemned. The term violence is used five times in Goff's article but never with reference to Israel. Many people, in spite of the goodwill and humanity in their souls simply cannot see how far Zionist propaganda has entered their psyche. The final reference to violence in the article reads, “If the threat of violence against Jewish people is removed, Israel has little justification to continue its hard line against the Palestinians” is a good example of the thinking. There are two elements in this statement. The first is 'violence' and the second is 'Jewish people'.

Taking the term 'violence' first, the Israeli Occupation, blockade, land theft, sabotage of the Gaza fishing industry, bulldozing of crops, imposition of ethnically segregated roads, relentless home invasions (often in the middle of the night – with the abductions of minors as young as 11 this year) is somewhat more than what one could call 'hard line'. If the Palestinians were to inflict a fraction of such suffering upon Israel it would be reported in our news media with outrage and banner headlines and it would certainly be referred to as violence. But Israel has no intention of fostering non-violence. Most non-violent Palestinian protests are met with Israeli violence, usually in the form of rubber-coated bullets, tear gas and stun grenades and clubs and rifle butts. Sometime the Israeli Army uses live fire against protesters. But Western news media and politicians never refer to Israeli 'violence' even in the context of air raids in which homes are destroyed and children killed and maimed. The term violence is censored whenever the perpetrator is Israel.

The second element in the statement 'Jewish people' prompts the question why not use the name of the Occupying power, Israel? It is the belligerent Occupation perpetrated by the Israeli state that prompts armed Palestinian resistance. Undeniably, Zionism implicates Jewish people in Israeli violence because the ideology arrogantly claims to speak for all Jews. That is why so many Jewish people refute Zionist ideology, oppose Israeli violence and risk abuse and physical danger through their steadfast support for Palestinian human rights.

Assumption 7: That 'negotiations' and the Oslo Accords are the path to peace. Phil Goff wrote in his article that "The parameters of the solution have already been set out in the numerous initiatives taken over the last twenty years, including the Oslo Accords, the Arab Initiative and the renewal of the peace process at Annapolis in 2007. In return for a guarantee of peace and secure borders for Israel, the Palestinians must have a state which is economically and politically viable.” Note the omission – “In return for a guarantee of peace and secure borders for Israel” yet no mention of secure borders for Palestine! Indeed, one of Israel's pre-conditions in the so-called negotiations with the Palestinians is that Palestine must remain defenceless (Israel terms it 'demilitarised') and with no Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian air space or coastal waters. Which brings us to the nonsensical Oslo Accords that have served no purpose other than to enable Israel to buy time to annex more Palestinian land and resources. From 1916 to 1948 the Jewish National Fund (JNF) purchased 6% of Palestinian land near Jerusalem and from 1929 to 1947 30% of Palestine was lost due to registration regulations imposed by Britain and Zionist organisations. In 1947 the UN Partition plan cost the Palestinian people a further 55% of their land. In 1948 the Palestinian loss of homeland amounted to 70%. The Six Day War and interminable and fruitless so called negotiations have resulted in a total loss of at least 85% of Palestinian land. Palestinians have to live with the consequences of Israeli-imposed restrictions of access to land, annexation and settlement expansion. Over the past three years or so, that is since Prime Minister Netanyahu was elected, the Israeli population in the West Bank has grown by 18%.

Assumption 8 – 'Final status issues' take precedence over observance of international law and UN Resolutions. Reflecting orthodox Western attitudes towards Israel and the Palestinians, the article states simply, “Israeli justification of their harsh treatment of Palestinians and disproportionate reaction to Hamas missile strikes in the Gaza is that Palestinian militants pose a threat to the security of their people. Any form of terrorist action against civilians such as suicide bombers and rocket attacks deserves condemnation. There is no justification for the taking of innocent lives. Hamas must change its position and Iran must stop its support for violence by Hamas and the Hizbollah. Israel is right to condemn terrorism”. Note the language employed here: “harsh” treatment by Israel but “terrorist action against civilians” by Palestinians. The death toll of Palestinians compared with Israelis is about a hundred to one. Is it not state terrorism when children are killed in their homes by the Israeli air force? Harsh treatment?! Goff is absolutely right when he writes “There is no justification for the taking of innocent lives.” The article echoes the West's view that “Hamas must change its position and Iran must stop its support for violence by Hamas and the Hizbollah”. Does that mean that Hamas was wrong in declaring its recognition of Israel's 1967 frontier, basing proposals for open ended cease-fires based upon such recognition? “Iran must stop its support for violence”, says the article while there is no suggestion that the US must stop the arms supplies and diplomatic support that make Israeli violence so unstoppable. But then of course, Western politicians and news media never acknowledge that Israel is violent. For them, Israel only ever responds to violence. What initiated the violence? Was it Palestine that colonised Israel? Of course not.

Establishing peace with justice

To his credit, Phil Goff acknowledged in his article that Israeli settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. He also writes, “The final status issues such as the status of East Jerusalem, right of return for refugees and water won’t be easy to resolve.” Zionism dictates that Jews born anywhere in the world may 'return to Israel' but rejects the UN sponsored right of ethnically-cleansed Palestinians to return to their homes and villages. The demand that a defenceless, belligerently occupied population (recognised as such in international law) must negotiate under duress with its oppressor is unprecedented. The outrage is even more egregious when the elected representatives of the victims are not even allowed to be party to such 'negotiations'. As we have seen, the so-called peace process is in thrall to Israel's ideological pre-conditions. Zionism is the last to survive of the 20^th century state-sponsored ideologies of ethnic separation – it took a world war and the anti-apartheid movement to get rid of the others. The lessons of the Nazi Holocaust teach us that theories of ethnic 'apartness' lead to cruel acts of inhumanity, and pandering to Zionist demands can only compound that suffering and betray its victims. A rational solution, therefore, must be sought elsewhere.

Reference to the Fourth Geneva Convention points the way to one of two complementary pathways to a sustainable and harmonious solution. The first is the application of international law. The international community must require of Israel that it respect and abide by hard-won, established, international law, under threat of sanctions for non-compliance. The second, most essential element, referred to by Phil Goff, is what he called "People to people relationships”. Disappointingly, he also declared that these relationships “scarcely exist”. That is a measure of the influence of the assumptions that dominate the debate. Like so many other well-meaning people, many of our Parliamentarians seems to be unaware of the powerful grass roots relations that have formed both between Palestinians and Israelis and the wider Jewish and non-Jewish communities. It would come as a surprise therefore for many people to learn, for example, that there are courageous Israeli women who risk their liberty when they smuggle Palestinian women into Israel to enjoy a day at the seaside.

http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2010/09/18/palestinian-women-smuggled-into-israel-again/

Both within Israel and beyond, organisations and individuals opposed to racial discrimination are working for change. Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, who never saw her family again after they had managed to find a way out for her on a children's transport to Britain. Actors, such as Miriam Margolyes and Warren Mitchell, comedian Alexei Sayle, Israeli Jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, are just a very few of large numbers of prominent individuals whose voices should be listened to.

In a letter to the Anglican Church Times welcoming a decision by the Church of England General Synod to support the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), the secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in Aberystwyth, Elizabeth Morley, wrote “I have friends both in the West Bank and in Israel who tell me how invaluable is the work they do. And I have friends in the UK who have been accompaniers. So you could say I am biased. I am also Jewish and if I wanted, I could make Aliyah. But I believe it would be wrong to do so because non-Jews have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine to make way for people like me who have no family connections on that land. My great-grandparents and other members of my family who did not survive the Holocaust would not want me to do that, I am sure.”

Then there are the countless organisations, among them:

Jewish Voice for Peace http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/

The International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) http://iwps.info/

Jews for Justice in the Middle East http://ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html

Rabbis for Palestine http://www.rabbisforpalestine.org/

Neturei Karta rabbis http://www.nkusa.org/

Tikkun http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/the-tikkun-israelpalestine-peace-plan-last-refined-may-22-2011

ICAHD The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions http://www.icahd.org/

Gush Shalom http://www.gush-shalom.org/

Other women's peace movements in Israel http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/peace-movements-in-israel

BDS – the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign http://www.bdsmovement.net/

Sharing the Land of Canaan

There are many views represented above but together they offer far greater hope for humanity than the sterile and meaningless so-called 'peace process' fostered by the great powers and Israel. Their voices cannot be ignored forever. The Palestinian author and activist, US citizen, Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh has written a book called Sharing the Land of Canaan http://www.qumsiyeh.org/sharingthelandofcanaan/. In the 1990s he worked for the rights of refugees and by 1999 had helped to collect 750,000 signatures for the Palestinian Right of Return. His experience and the positive results were an example to everyone of how action on the ground could change public perceptions. The book reminds us of how the people once coexisted with differing religious beliefs and how racism irrationally distorts our understanding. The question of Palestinian refugees makes notions of segregation/separation impossible. As Mazin points out “It is the basic and elemental right of Palestinians 11.5 million of us, 7 million of us are refugees or displaced people. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provides a base for a real road map to a durable peace”. The book deals with the future of the the environment, water, other natural resources and the tourism industry. The geographical and economical realities argue strongly against separation and segregation.

The dominance of power politics, allied with outdated ideology, at fearful cost, has betrayed us all. Therefore it is not unreasonable to ask that other, more representative voices be listened to and the debate widened to give sustainable peace a chance based on the rational observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international law.

Leslie Bravery – 16 July 2012

Murray McCully's Middle East dreams and dramas

In his 22 June 2012 speech to the Otago Foreign Policy School, The Middle East unfolding: dreams and dramas in the early 21st century, New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully spoke about what the New Zealand government sees as the strategic and economic significance of the Middle East to New Zealand.

Syria

Early in his speech McCully said, “Sadly, we are reminded by our television screens most evenings that the Middle East remains the world’s major source of potential and actual conflict. We now have, in effect, a civil war in Syria. The Assad regime is treating its own civilian population with almost unbelievable brutality. In doing so it is thumbing its nose at the international community.” Just who is thumbing their nose at the international community we shall examine below but the reference to “our television screens” and “most evenings” draws attention to the role of the corporate news media in promoting US, NATO and Israeli plans for the Middle East. A Jerusalem Post (http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/5/syriakurd499.htm) article of 16 May 2012 entitled: 'Veteran Kurdish politician calls on Israel to support the break-up of Syria' cites the objective of the US-sponsored armed insurgency, with the help of Israel, to "Break Syria into Pieces".

The power political manoeuvrings over Syria are being falsely promoted by the news media as a concern for human rights. The role of the US-NATO-Israel military alliance in triggering an armed insurrection is not mentioned and neither is the role of CIA-MI6-Mossad covert intelligence operations and acts of terrorism. The US State Department's involvement is on record (US admits funding Syrian opposition - World - CBC News 18 April 2011 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/04/18/syria-united-states-backing-wikileaks.html). No wonder the five permanent members of the Security Council are divided. The division reminds us that people have not forgotten the lies and deceit that were used to justify the criminal war of regime change in Iraq. That war destroyed the country's infrastructure and economy. It has also cost countless lives and sown a deadly cancer-inducing legacy of white-phosphorus and depleted uranium. Whatever else such wars are about, the welfare of ordinary people is not one of them and television screens are certainly no way to decipher the truth behind the propaganda.

Israel and Palestine

In a statement of the blindingly obvious, New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister observed, “Tragically, the Middle East is no stranger to conflict.” He went on to say, ”One of the world’s most enduring, complex and dangerous conflicts is between Israel and the Palestinians. The basic elements of this conflict are well known.” Well known? Not if the news media and politicians like McCully have anything to do with it. The Zionist ideology that drives Israel to thumb its nose at international law and the world community is never mentioned. One example of nose-thumbing is Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's boast to US President Obama regarding Israel's illegal settlements that “we're here to stay”. Another affront to the international community is the Israeli assertion that Jerusalem is the “eternal and undivided capital of Israel”.

McCully's speech continued, “For too long, the Palestinian issue has been the fuse that threatens to ignite wider conflict in the Middle East. Festering differences that find their origins in this conflict have done much to inspire extremist attitudes affecting the wider region and beyond.” The first of these sentences is revealing. McCully does not say “the Israeli issue” or even the “Israel/Palestine” issue. He chooses to say “the Palestinian issue”. It is a matter of historical fact that before the Zionist project and the unilateral founding of the Israeli State there was no “Palestinian issue”. Palestine was simply Palestine, a part of the Ottoman Empire and later ruled under the British Mandate. The 'issue' plainly began with Israel and the interests of the imperial European powers. But Western propaganda implies blame upon the Palestinian people for the consequences of foreign-sponsored colonisation of their land. The reference to “festering differences” and “extremist attitudes” ignores the extremism of Zionist ideology which is amply recorded in the statements and actions of Israel's leaders.

Iran

Not forgetting the dissembling that preceded the invasion of Iraq and following his “Palestinian issue” remarks, McCully went on to accuse Iran of threatening destabilisation in the Middle East through what he called “the Iranian nuclear programme”. Once again the speech revealed the Foreign Affairs Minister's main concerns when he went on to say “the Israelis see the question of Iran as inextricably linked to Palestine.” For McCully, Israel's interests are paramount and the blame placed upon the Palestinians is now linked to Iran. For good measure he added, “At the end of the day, to Israel, both are about security.” Not once in the speech did he mention the Palestinian people's need for security. In McCully's Middle East fantasy Iran, which has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and which co-operates with IAEA over its nuclear weapons programme, must suffer sanctions while Israel, the state that introduced modern terrorism and nuclear weapons to the Middle East, is treated favourably. The Zionist state refuses to sign the NPT and will not co-operate with the IAEA. Yet, for McCully, it is Iran that remains the threat and Israeli intransigence is excused on the grounds of 'security'. Security, that is, only for Israel to pursue its objectives with impunity.

Sanctions

While the New Zealand Government will not consider sanctions as a non-violent way to help persuade Israel to respect the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the speech reveals a willingness to use sanctions against Iran, astonishingly, as a means of “arriving at a sensible and durable settlement in relation to Palestine”. Indeed, McCully said in the speech that, “I am intent on promoting legislation similar to that enacted in Australia last year to provide the capacity to impose autonomous sanctions.” Bearing in mind that, regarding the “conflict in the Middle East”, McCully declared his belief that “we can make a difference”, what better demonstration of independence and leadership could New Zealand show than to autonomously impose sanctions upon Israel? Instead, Iran, which does not occupy its neighbours' territories, must suffer sanctions but Israel, which occupies and exploits neighbouring lands, must be allowed to do so with impunity. Israel is of course armed and equipped by the US in order to be able to maintain its regional hegemony.

Land Mines

In his speech, McCully made much of New Zealand's part in the removal of land mines from nearly 400 square kilometres of unusable land in the West Bank. Israel laid more than 1.5 million mines in the 1950s and 1960s, contaminating a combined area of 200 square kilometres in the Golan Heights, in the Arava Valley and along the Jordan River. This includes more than 300,000 that render 20 sq. km. of agricultural and residential land in the West Bank unusable. Unexploded Israeli ordnance causes further problems. http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/15.3/notes/or/or.htm

Another type of mine

In a 3 January 2012 report Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Israel's mining companies may exploit the occupied West Bank's natural resources for economic gain. http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=11410 The Supreme Court ruling is in favour of activity that is illegal under international law. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel's occupation of the West Bank territories illegal under international law.

The daily toll

Just this month alone, to 8am, 21 June, Israel carried out at least (figures for one of the days are unavailable) 141 night-time home invasions in the West Bank. In the same period, ten Palestinians died at the hands of Israeli Occupation forces and settlers, one of them a 14-year-old boy. This month Israeli forces and settlers committed 88 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage, including setting fire to olive trees and the destruction of 20 tons of wheat. There were 34 Israeli air strikes, in one of them a poultry farm was strafed and 69 Palestinians have been injured in Israeli violence so far this month. These statistics are only the tip of the iceberg. Underlying the violence is the constant daily harassment. For example, Israel blocks Palestinian roads at intervals so that farm produce has to be unloaded and reloaded onto another vehicle brought up to the obstacle from a point beyond it. This exercise may need to be repeated more than once. Israeli checkpoints force Palestinians to make journeys of several hours that could be accomplished in minutes. Ethnically segregated roads for Israeli use only dominate the Palestinian landscape. Palestinian families regularly endure the abductions of terrified young people from their homes at dead of night. Israeli abductions of minors from the West Bank under the age of 18 number at least 226 this year. The youngest so far is aged 11 and five children aged 12 have also been abducted. United Nations agencies have reported extensively the cruel treatment of Palestinian youngsters at the hands of Israel. The statistics come from the Palestine Monitoring Group (PMG) daily situation reports (http://www.nad-plo.org/dailyreports.php). Children and adults are often incarcerated by Israel without charge or trial by means of a process the Zionist regime calls 'administrative detention'. See also United Nations sources such as: http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/ba91e8d28cf53b44852579ea006e229d

Sadly, these crimes seldom, if ever, reach our newspapers or television screens. Likewise, radio does not seem interested either. One can be certain that if Israeli homes were to be invaded night after night or Israeli vessels fired upon and hijacked, our news media would report such violence with outrage and large headlines.

What must be borne in mind is that decades of Israeli Occupation, land theft, settlement, Israel's annexation Wall and ethnic discrimination are all in gross violation of international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as scores of UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions. If ever a UN member state were a candidate for the imposition of sanctions it is the state of Israel.

The dreams in the title of McCully's speech are in reality nightmares and the dramas, nothing but Western play-acting. Does he really believe the Israeli/US propaganda line on the Middle East? Or, does his speech reflect New Zealand Government complicity in a policy that has created generations of ethnically-selected refugees? The public must be the judge of that. But the responsibility for the continued dispossession of the Palestinian people and the denial of truth and justice upon which it rests lies with us, the international community. We can make a difference.

Leslie Bravery – 25 June 2012

New Zealand Month – time for straight talking

New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully's meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the planned series of top-level visits, described by Israel's Foreign Ministry as "New Zealand Month", are an opportunity for this country to show the world where it stands in relation to human rights and international law.

Recent questions posed by the New Zealand Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) in a recent Open Letter to Murray McCully (see below) raise urgent and long-neglected issues. While our Foreign Minister wholeheartedly supports Israel's membership of the OECD, Israel is encouraged to continue stifling the Palestinian economy through belligerent military occupation. The Palestinian people have no control over their borders, air space, sea or access to the wider global economy. Israel severely restricts access by Palestinian fishing boats to essential fishing grounds, often at the expense of fishermen’s livelihoods, vessels and even life and limb. In addition, Israel uses its military might to take a grossly disproportionate amount of Palestine's water, to the detriment of Palestinian agriculture and health. For 44 years now the US and the UK, and, by association, New Zealand, have stood by Israel and allowed this exploitation to continue while pressuring the victims to negotiate with their oppressor.

Although the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are recognised under international law as a single territorial unit, Israel continues to prevent the movement of Palestinians between the two areas. As the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports, Israel maintains an average of 520 permanent checkpoints, road obstacles and other restrictions besides imposing hundreds of mobile checkpoints, all inside Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Israel’s illegal settlements and annexation Wall, with its ethnically discriminatory Israeli-only roads, place intolerable costs upon the movement of Palestinian goods, workers and students.

Our Foreign Affairs Minister is unable to show any softening of Israel's relentless suppression of Palestinian human rights, and aspirations through decades of what he likes to call "dialogue" with Israel. The PHRC invites Mr McCully, once again, to answer the questions posed in our Open Letter to him dated 30 April 2012. Consideration of these questions might help him concentrate his mind on the vital issues that confront, not only the Palestinian people but also the wider world community. "New Zealand Month" should be used to demonstrate to Israel that dialogue no longer means cosy chats and complicity but plain speaking and the demand that Israel end its gross violations of international law.

Leslie Bravery – 11 May 2012

Open Letter to Murray McCully: Invitation to support international law regarding Israel's trading practices

30 April 2012

Dear Mr McCully,

The fifth-biggest UK food retailer and biggest Co-operative Group in Europe has ceased trading with suppliers that are linked to Israeli settlements. The Co-op’s decision will immediately hit four suppliers, Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company. The reason for the Society's action is that Mehadrin sells its produce from illegal settlements, including Beqa’ot in the Occupied Jordan Valley. Furthermore, grapes and dates packaged in the settlement are illegally labelled ‘Produce of Israel’. In addition, Mehadrin’s role in providing water to settlement farms (illegal under international law) and its relationship with the Israeli state water company, Mekorot, makes the company complicit in Israel’s ethnically discriminatory allocation of water. This discrimination inflicts much hardship on the Palestinian people.

In your statement supporting Israel's application for admission to the OECD you claimed that it was important to the process of what you called “dialogue” with the Zionist state. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) would like to offer you the opportunity to demonstrate how such dialogue has so far succeeded in persuading Israel to adhere to the norms of civilised trading, OECD rules and international law. In other words, are you able to show that Israel's admission to the OECD has in anyway modified its behaviour?

An International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) base in Deir Istiya has informed us that the West Bank village recently received notice from the Israeli Army that it will be uprooting 1400 village trees on May 1. IWPS has drafted an online petition concerning this that is addressed to the Israeli PM and the Israeli Ministries of Defence and the Environment. Uprooting trees is one of the many strategies the Israeli government uses in its attempts to suppress the spirit of Palestinians trying to continue to live in their homeland. Is there any reason why the New Zealand Government should not also bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government to observe international standards of decency?

We ask you to state (with your reasons) whether or not you agree or disagree with the following statement:

The Israeli government's vindictive and unnecessary acts of economic and agricultural sabotage in belligerently occupied territories are crimes against humanity. They demonstrate clearly the Zionist state's present unsuitability for membership of the OECD. Such acts are certain to strengthen support for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and it would be in Israel's own best interests to reform its behaviour. There is never any excuse for failing to abide by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Visitors to our website, both at home and internationally, will be very interested to read your response to this Open Letter.

Yours sincerely, Leslie Bravery, Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Aotearoa/New Zealand www.palestine.org

Futile posturing at the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit

 29 March 2012

US President Barack Obama says he is pushing for "a world without nuclear weapons." Disingenuously lumping together the nuclear-armed state of North Korea and nuclear weapon-free Iran Mr. Obama claimed that a "new international norm" was emerging to deal with their “intransigence”. Perversely turning a blind eye towards the West’s double standards and special allowances for close friends, the US head of state asserted, as if it were an accomplished fact "Treaties are binding. Rules will be enforced. And violations will have consequences," President Obama did not make clear though, that the US and its allies exempt close friends from any enforcement of international law and protects them militarily and diplomatically from the consequences that should be due for gross human rights violations.

Iran has been overrun and occupied frequently and its territory has been altered throughout the centuries by Greeks, Arabs, Turks and Mongols. In modern times the West overthrew the legitimate Mossadeq government and imposed the corrupt regime of the puppet Shah. It was the West, of course, that armed and supported Iraq in its war against Iran. But since the end of the Persian Empire the land of Iran has not invaded its neighbours' territory for well over 1400 years.

Israel, on the other hand, continues to occupy its neighbours' land and frequently violates Lebanese air space, from time to time destroying lives, property and infrastructure. The destruction of life, livelihood, property and infrastructure by Israel is an almost daily occurrence in Occupied Palestine. All this, in defiance of international law.

Which Middle East Power, therefore, is the greater threat to global peace and stability? Is it Israel, the only country to have introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East and that refuses to respect the borders of its neighbours? Or is it Iran, which, unlike Israel, respects its neighbours' borders and has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty? Is it Israel that refuses to co-operate with the International Atomic Energy Agency? Or is it Iran, that does co-operate with the IAEA?

Leslie Bravery

“Justice and accountability after the Holocaust” was New Zealand's theme for its observance of United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2012. Whatever else Holocaust remembrance signifies, it should be supported by a determination to learn the lessons of history and uncompromising opposition to the commission of further ideologically-driven crimes of inhumanity – whoever the perpetrators may be. The death on 22 January of a young girl from the effects of white phosphorus, illegally used by Israel in its murderous Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza Strip three years ago, is a stark reminder that, for Palestinians, justice is totally denied while an indulgent world continues to protect Israel from all accountability.

January also saw the publication, by the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian territory, of its report: “Demolitions and forced displacement in the Occupied West Bank”. The report on conditions for Palestinians under belligerent Israeli military occupation reminds us, for instance, that “almost 1100 Palestinians”, over half of them children, “were displaced due to home demolitions by Israeli forces in 2011, over 80% more than in 2010.” New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key has declared that he believes New Zealand could “learn a lot from Israel” and our Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has enthusiastically supported the occupying power's application for membership of the OECD. John Key perhaps admires Israel's capacity to garner foreign aid for its economy, especially from the US.

Israel's behaviour is determined by its founding ideology of Zionism. The Zionist state claims to represent all Jews and thereby attempts to implicate all Jews in its justification of its war crimes. Many Jewish people strongly resent this, including those who adhere to pre-Zionist Judaism. The US-based organisation Jewish Voice for Peace, for instance, reminds us in a statement (http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/content/us-military-aid-and-israel) that a large part of US military aid to Israel goes to purchase tanks, helicopter gunships, machine-guns and bullets that are used against Palestinian civilians. “Our tax dollars have been used to destroy homes; uproot trees and crops; seize land from its lawful owners; close all access to food, medicine, and the outside world for small towns in the West Bank and Gaza; staff checkpoints that cut off ambulances and other civilian traffic; and carry out assassinations that kill children in addition to summarily executing political leaders . . .” Israel continues to demolish Palestinian family homes and destroy agriculture and industry throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Earlier this month, Israel's Supreme Court upheld a law passed in 2003 that denies Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip who are the spouses of Israeli citizens any right to citizenship or residency. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who form 20% of the population, have citizenship but do not enjoy Israeli nationality. Israel's 1950 Law of Return welcomes any Jew immigrating to Israel. But Palestinian refugees are denied their right of return to homes from which they were driven. That right of Palestinian return is enshrined in UN Resolution 194. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948, states: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, and (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Israel denies these rights to Palestinians.

The 1995 European Union-Israel Association Agreement declares as its purpose the promotion of (1) peace and security, (2) shared prosperity through, for example, economic co-operation, free trade and free movement of capital, and (3) cross-cultural rapprochement. That agreement also applied to Israel's relations with the EU’s other Mediterranean partners – including the Palestinian National Authority. Israel continues to enjoy “favoured nation” trading terms with the EU. The failure by the European Union-Israel Association and the OECD to suspend association and membership until Israel complies with international humanitarian law amounts to complicity in the Zionist State's violations. The US also could bring enormous pressure to bear upon Israel by denying aid. And so, with impunity, Israel continues its population transfers, territorial aggrandisement and ethnically discriminatory legislation both within Israel and in territories it occupies.

Progress towards ending state-sponsored human rights violations depends partly upon restraining the perpetrators and an uncompromising requirement upon them to observe tragically hard-won international laws. The world community's failure to render Israel accountable to justice in this regard is an affront to both United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Leslie Bravery – 28 January 2012