Several hundred thousand ultra-orthodox Jews do not have to work as they get money from the state to study the Torah, the holy book of Judaism.
But now, experts warn it is costing too much and Israeli taxpayers will not be able to carry the burden much longer.
Al Jazeera’s Nisreen el-Shamayleh reports.
14 mai 2010 — The weeky protests in Nabi Saleh have quickly gained a reputation as the most violent of the West Bank demonstrations, yesterdays proved true to the norm where an arrested Israeli woman was repeatedly kicked and savaged on the ground by a Border Police thug and the villagers were subjected to blizzards of tear gas and live fire. According to the ISM : The hilltop village of An Nabi Saleh has a population of approximately 500 residents and is located 30 kilometers northeast of Ramallah along highway 465. The demonstrations protest the illegal seizure of valuable agricultural land and the uprooting in January 2010 of hundreds of the village residents olive trees by the Halamish (Neve Zuf) settlement located opposite An Nabi Saleh. Conflict between the settlement and villagers reawakened in January 2010 due to the settlers attempt to re-annex An Nabi Saleh land despite an Israeli court decision in December 2009 that awarded the property rights of the land to the An Nabi Saleh residents. The confiscated land of An Nabi Saleh is located on the Halamish side of Highway 465 and is just one of many expansions of the illegal settlement since its establishment in 1977 http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11907 Near the village is a natural spring named Ein Al Kus (“the Bow Spring”). In 2009 settlers from the nearby settlement of Halamish took control over the spring and it’s surroundings while preventing Palestinian access to it. Subsequently, people of Nabi Salih and the nearby village of Dir Nizam began regular friday protests for the spring which they claim as their own, and against the Israeli occupation in general http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabi_Salih
There are six parts to this talk; absolutely brilliant. PLus a Q and A session. Go to Youtube by clicking in the screen.
Assembled, translated & edited by Shimon Tzabar
The political and Military Background in Palestine in 1948:
The British left Palestine on the 15th of May 1948. Until that time there was no Israeli government, and no Israeli Army. Until that time, the Jewish military force consisted of three independent groups: The larger one was the Hagana. Within the Hagana there was a strike force known as the Palmah. Outside Hagana there were two more independent smaller forces. The biggest of the two was Etzel, which was the underground terrorist organisation of the opposition party led by Menahem Begin, and the smaller one was Lehi, known also as the Stern Gang, a splinter group which separated from the Etzel a few years previously.
There are many versions of what happened in Deir Yassin on the 9th of April 1948. Some of these versions are propaganda pieces, some of which will be dealt with later on. I wanted to find an Israeli version from a reliable eye-witness, if something like that existed. I sifted through the Israeli Hebrew press for many years until I found something that sounded more or less reliable. I say more or less, because this account is also biased (as we shall see). The account I found was a report done by Dr. Me’ir Pa’ill who is today a member of the Knesset representing the Meretz party. Fifty three years ago however, in April 1948, he was known as Colonel Me’ir Pilavski, a liaison officer representing the Palmah in the headquarters of the Hagana in Jerusalem.
The story of Colonel Me’ir Pilavski appeared in an interview which he gave to Ron Maiberg. The interview was published in the magazine Monitin, no. 32, April 1981, page 36.
mardi 11 mai 2010, par La Rédaction
Biopsies from 32 victims conducted at three universities : Rome (Italy), Chalmer (Sweden) and Beirut (Lebanon)
Toxic and carcinogenic metals, able to produce genetic mutations, have been found in the tissues of people wounded in Gaza during Israeli military operations of 2006 and 2009.
The research has been carried out on biopsies from wounds provoked by weapons that do not leave fragments, a peculiarity of weapons utilized in Gaza that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors and that shows that weapons whose long term effects are still to be assessed were used.
The researchers compared the quantity in 32 elements present in the tissues through ICP/MS (a type of highly sensitive mass spectrometry). The job, carried out by laboratories in the Universities La Sapienza of Rome (Italy), Chalmer (Sweden) and Beirut (Lebanon), was coordinated by New Weapons Research Group (Nwrg), an independent committee of scientists and experts based in Italy, who is studying the use of unconventional weapons and their mid-term effects on the population of after-war areas.
The relevant presence of toxic and carcinogenic metals founds in the wound tissues points to direct risks for survivors, but also to the possibility of environmental contamination.
Biopsies of tissues were performed by doctors of Shifa hospital, in Gaza city, who selected and classified the type of wounds. Research was conducted on 16 tissue samples belonging to 13 victims. 4 biopsies were taken in june 2006, during operation “Summer Rains”, while the others were taken in the first week of january 2009, during operation “Cast Lead”. All tissues were appropriately preserved and then examined by each of the three universities.
Tissues belong to four types of wound : amputation (marked with “A” in the study), charred (C), burns (B), multiple piercing wounds by white phosphorus (M). The following elements were found in quantities well beyond normal :
. Alluminium, titanium, copper, strontium, barium, cobalt, mercury, vanadium, cesium and tin in samples of A and C wounds ;
. Alluminium, titanium, copper, strontium, barium, cobalt and mercury in M wounds ;
. Cobalt, mercury, cesium and tin in B wounds ;
. Lead and uranium in all wound types ;
. Barium, arsenic, manganese, rubidium, cadmium, chromium and zinc in all, but M, wounds ;
. Nickel in A wounds.
Some of these elements are carcinogenic (mercury, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel and uranium), others are potentially carcinogenic (cobalt and vanadium), others are also fetotoxic (alluminium, mercury, copper, barium, lead and manganese).
The first ones can produce genetic mutations ; the second ones can have the same effect on animals, but they are not proven to do the same on people ; the third ones have toxic effects for people ad can affect either the embryo or the foetus in pregnant women.
All metals found in amounts over the controls have pathogenic effects in human respiratory organs, kidney and skin and affect sexual and neurological development and functions.
“Nobody – says professor Paola Manduca, spokesperson of the New Weapons Research Group, genetics teacher and researcher at the University of Genoa – had never conducted bioptic analysis on tissue samples from wounds.
We concentrate the attention on wounds made by weapons that do not leave fragments, as these were pointed out several times by the doctors in Gaza, and because weapons which do not leave fragments were developed in recent years. We wanted to verify if metals were present which remained in the wound skin and derma.
The use of metals in the weapons utilized in Gaza had been hypothesized, but never demonstrated before. To our surprise, beside finding the metal components of amputating weapons, even the burns provoked by white phosporus contain high amount of metals.
Moreover, the presence of these metals in the weapons implies that they have been dispersed in the environment, in unknown amounts and range. ; they have been inhaled by the victim and by bystanders, thus constituting a risk for survivors and for people that were not directly hit by the bombing.”
This research was preceded by two other studies conducted by Nwrg. The former was published on December 17th 2009 and reported the presence of toxic metals in areas of craters provoked by the Israeli bombing on the Gaza Strip. The second was published on March 17th 2010 and reported the presence of toxic metals in hair samples of Palestinian children of Gaza Strip area hit by Israeli bombings.
Both point to the presence of environmental contamination, aggravated by the living conditions on the ground and often in shelters exposed to wind and dust, due to the impossibility to rebuild housing imposed by the Israeli blockade to the entrance of needed building materials and tools.
May 11th 2010
Herbs inside the Halpert Moshe Packing House
Despite increased publicity regarding the labelling of Israeli settlement produce, and the recent DEFRA guidance on the matter which states that produce from the settlements should be labelled as such, it only took us a few minutes inside the illegal Jordan Valley settlement of Mehola to find herbs bound for a British company being mislabelled. Herbs bearing the logo of Fresh Direct, who have their head office in Oxfordshire, were spotted inside the Halpert Moshe ‘fresh herbs’ packing house which operates under the Carmel Agrexco banner.
At this location herbs being prepared came with a joint Fresh Direct/Carmel Agrexco label which clearly states the product as being “Produce of Israel”, despite being packaged in an organic farm on an illegal settlement in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
The label we collected was for 70 grams of sage with the text written in English, indicating that the contents were intended for export to Britain. There were
also herbs labelled in German (without the Fresh Direct logo) inside the packing house.
Not only does this kind of labelling go against the the call for a distinction to be made between settlement and Palestinian produce -it goes one step further by not even acknowledging that the product is grown in the West Bank. The DEFRA advice regarding labelling of settlement produce, published in December 2009, is clear about the illegality of this practice: “the Government considers that traders would be misleading consumers, and would therefore almost be certainly committing an offence, if they were to declare produce from the OPT (including from the West Bank) as ‘Produce of Israel’. This would apply irrespective of whether the produce was from a Palestinian producer or from an Israeli settlement in the OPT. This is because the area does not fall within the internationally recognised borders of the state of Israel” (to read the full advice from DEFRA see http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/pdf/labelling-palestine.pdf).
The particular label that we collected contains the “traceability” number 08209306 and the grower ID number 675256. If there are any organic farmers out there who know what this means and fancy helping us out, please send us an email on contact@corporatewatch.org
Fresh Direct have local branches all across Britain, as well as an office in the United Arab Emirates. Their head office address is Freshdirect (UK) Ltd, Bicester Distribution Park, Charbridge Way, Bicester, Oxfordshire OX26 4SW , phone 01869 365600. For local branches see http://www.freshdirect.co.uk/contact.aspx
You will have already seen that Haaretz has reported a unanimous vote for Israeli accession to the OECD this morning.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/after-unanimous-vote-israel-gets-accepted-into-oecd-1.289422
FYI, the Palestinians hope to achieve a small technical delay based on a legal argument (below) by getting the legal advisors of one of the MFAs of a member country to request a legal opinion on this issue from the OECD legal department, and asking that the accession process (due to be finalised May 27) be suspended until this legal question is answered.
The bottom line of this argument is that the OECD would itself be breaching the 4th Geneva convention if it admits Israel under current conditions (i.e with settlement data, but without data on Palestinians in the OPT). By including settlement data it has actually forced itself to apply the rules of occupation (Geneva 4) to Israel, which include responsibility of the Occupying Power for the welfare of the occupied population. The only way that accession would be legal is a) if settlement/OPT data is totally excluded [total disaggregation] or b) if data from both settlements and OPT Palestinians is included.
A brief based on this argument has been sent to all Ministries of foreign affairs of member countries.
The legal argument will now be important for press purposes. Please feel free to send it around as another point of messaging to your lists.
Here is the full text of the argument:
Israel has submitted economic statistics to the OECD which include data pertaining to its settlements in the OPT and has been unwilling/unable to disaggregate them. Due to this fact, the OECD cannot handle Israel’s application for OECD accession as if it were an application by the State of Israel in its pre-1967 borders; Israel’s application must be examined in light of its role as Occupying Power under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) and the law on state responsibility.
Under the terms of the GCIV, the Occupying Power is under a legal obligation to ensure the economic wellbeing of the protected Palestinian population; the transfer of the Occupying Power’s own civilian population into Occupied Territory constitutes a grave breach (war crime). High Contracting Parties (HCP) are under a legal obligation to ensure respect for the GCIV by the Occupying Power. The law on state responsibility, moreover, requires that no state render aid or assistance to unlawful acts committed by another state.
Accordingly, if member states and the OECD itself accept accession of Israel with any of the data including Israeli civilians living in the Occupied Territory (even provisionally, with the proviso that the data is disaggregated at a later stage, after accession), they are absolutely required to ensure that the protected Palestinian population is also included in this data.
The OECD and member states would be violating their legal obligations under both bodies of international law should Israel be accepted – even provisionally – into the OECD with the current statistical data, including Israeli civilians living in Occupied Territory, but arbitrarily excluding four million GCIV-protected Palestinian civilians living in the Occupied Territory from the data. OECD member states as HCP would be thereby endorsing and becoming complicit with Israel’s grave breach of population transfer. This creates another legal, technical and political issue of substantive and immediate concern for the OECD and its member states. If the statistics of four million Palestinian civilians who currently live under the martial law of the Occupying Power are included, consideration will need to be given to the separate legal, political, military and economic systems and policies Israel has been applying to its settler-citizens and the GC-IV-protected Palestinian population in the Occupied Territory since 1967.
Our request is for OECD and member states to delay Israel’s membership until these serious legal issues are addressed and clarified.
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