Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Israel still in control of Gaza, says envoy: "Chris McGreal in Jerusalem | Tuesday October 25, 2005 | The Guardian

The international Middle East envoy, James Wolfensohn, has accused Israel of behaving as if it has not withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, by blocking its borders and failing to fulfil commitments to allow the movement of Palestinians and goods.

Mr Wolfensohn, the special envoy of the 'Quartet' of the US, UN, EU and Russia overseeing the 'road map' peace plan, said Israel continued to block the free movement of Palestinians between the strip and Egypt, even though they do not enter Israel. 'The government of Israel, with its important security concerns, is loath to relinquish control, almost acting as though there has been no withdrawal, delaying making difficult decisions and preferring to take difficult matters back into slow-moving subcommittees,' he wrote in a letter earlier this month to Quartet members."
- posted by Editor @ 9:20 PM

BREITBART.COM - Just The News: "Israel plans separate roads for West Bank Palestinians | Oct 19 10:31 AM US/Eastern

Israel was considering the imposition of a permanent ban on Palestinians using major highways in the West Bank in a bid to improve security for settlers living in the occupied territory.

Members of the army's central command were expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss the plan which has been denounced by the Palestinian Authority as tantamount to a form of apartheid.
...
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said that the plan had ominous echoes of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

"These Israeli procedures forbidding Palestinian cars from the roads are a humanitarian crime which will put us back 70 years and punish all the Palestinian people," he told AFP.

"If it continues so that Palestinians can only use the small roads, there will be in effect two classes for the Palestinians and Israelis -- exactly like the apartheid system in South Africa." ...
- posted by Editor @ 4:57 PM

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Chinese workers in Israel sign no-sex contract: "Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv | Wednesday December 24, 2003 | The Guardian

Chinese workers at a company in Israel have been forced to agree not to have sex with or marry Israelis as a condition of getting a job.

According to a contact they are required to sign, male workers may not have any contact with Israeli women - including prostitutes, a police spokesman, Rafi Yaffe, said.
...
The labourers are also forbidden from engaging in any religious or political activity. The contract states that offenders will be sent back to China at their own expense. ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:12 PM

Israel citing 'security' to limit Palestinian rights: UN - Yahoo! News: "Tue Oct 11, 2:26 PM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A top United Nations official accused Israel of depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the name of security.

Hina Jilani, special representative of UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan on Human Rights Defenders, said that Israel was blocking lawyers, journalists and rights activists from monitoring potential rights abuses.

"'Security imperatives' have been allowed to deprive a vast population of their very basic rights and these measures need deeper scrutiny by all concerned if any respect for norms of international human rights and humanitarian law is to be preserved," Jilani told reporters in Jerusalem.

"I would remind the government of Israel that ... the absence of peace and security does not excuse non-compliance with international human rights norms and international humanitarian law."

The envoy accused Israel of presiding over an "environment that is totally non-conducive for human rights defenders to conduct their work with facility or safety" by hampering access of lawyers, journalists and health professionals.

She also accused the
Palestinian Authority of hampering the work of human rights monitors in areas under its control. ...

- posted by Editor @ 7:17 PM

Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Seeking justice abroad: "Seeking justice abroad

Domestic remedies exhausted, Palestinians are seeking redress in foreign courts, much to the chagrin of Israel, reports Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

Having lost faith in the Israeli justice system, Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories are contemplating seeking redress for their numerous grievances against the State of Israel in international courts, especially in Europe.

Palestinian and foreign human rights activists have long complained that the Israeli justice system doesn't give equal and real justice to non-Jews, particularly if they are Arabs. One Arab Knesset member last week described the Israeli justice system as "designed to be accommodative for Jews and punitive for non-Jews". "The plain truth," said Ahmed Teibi, "is that Palestinians can't find justice in Israel, neither here, nor in the occupied territories." He cited a study by a Haifa University professor, Arieh Ruttner, showing that Israeli courts systematically discriminate against Arabs, whether as defendants or as plaintiffs.

Teibi's remarks came in reaction to the acquittal last week by an Israeli Justice Ministry inquiry commission of the police killers of 12 Israeli Arab protesters in October 2000. Paramilitary police had then opened fire on thousands of "48ers" -- Palestinians displaced from their original homes since the 1948 War which ethnically cleansed three quarters of the Palestinian population from what was thereafter declared as Israel -- protesting against the bloody repression of Palestinians in the West Bank. The commission ruled that there was no way to determine the identity of the killers, saying it had no choice but to close the cases of all police officers involved in the killings.
...
On Sunday, 25 September, hundreds of Israel's Palestinian citizens demonstrated in Jerusalem against what one demonstrator described as "the inherent racism of the Israeli justice system towards non-Jews". Protesters shouted slogans and carried signs reading "Barak, fear not. We are waiting for you in The Hague," referring to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and "With Peres, Ezra and Sharon, fascism rules."

If the "justice" meted out to Israel's Arab citizens is bad, Israel's judicial treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territory is far worse, beyond scandalous, as the Israeli occupation army often behaves and acts as investigator, judge and executioner, not to mention murderer. Last week, the Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz decided not to pursue any disciplinary measures against soldiers who, on 24 August, killed in cold blood five Palestinians, including three teenagers (Halutz himself is widely viewed, even by some Israelis, as a war criminal for ordering a one-tonne bomb dropped on an apartment building in Gaza in 2002, killing 14 people, including 11 children). ....
...
It is a fact that Israel continues to fly in the face of international law and particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the protection of civilians during armed hostilities. On Saturday night, 24 September, for example, the Israeli Air Force attacked and destroyed a school in downtown Gaza, injuring more than 15 civilians, including a 40-day- old baby. The Israeli army admitted targeting the school, saying that the late Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, whom Israel assassinated more than two years ago, established it.
...
The Israeli government has reacted angrily to the trend of suing alleged Israeli war criminals in foreign courts. Earlier this week, while in New York, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon protested to his British counterpart Tony Blair, telling him half-jokingly that he was reluctant to visit London for fear of getting arrested by the British police for war crimes. Blair reportedly apologised for the Almog affair, but told Sharon that he could do nothing, given the absolute independence of the British justice system. ...
- posted by Editor @ 5:13 PM