Category: News

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (JTA) — The FBI is looking into allegations that Jewish donors to the Democratic Party unduly influenced Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee.

The investigation was first revealed by Time Magazine last Friday. Several Jewish and congressional officials familiar with the inquiry told JTA that the case, while still technically open, has been abandoned in its earliest stages because it went nowhere.
(more…)

An Israeli human rights group accused Israel of violating international law in its handling of Palestinian security prisoners.

In a report issued Thursday, B’Tselem said Israeli security forces have arrested some 9,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, incarcerating many of them within the Jewish state.

This, it said, constitutes a breach of international laws against civilians from an occupied territory being forcibly transferred to the territory of the occupying power. B’Tselem further alleged that prison arrangements make it hard for inmates’ families to visit.
(more…)

[Are Palestinians a captive population providing experimental subjects for American and Israeli military research? – AUPHR]

By now there are countless reports, from hospitals, witnesses, armament experts and journalists that strongly suggest that in the present offensive of Israeli forces against Lebanon and Gaza ‘new weapons’ are being used.

New and strange symptoms are reported amongst the wounded and the dead.

Bodies with dead tissues and no apparent wounds; ‘shrunken’ corpses; civilians with heavy damage to lower limbs that require amputation, which is nevertheless followed by unstoppable necrosis and death; descriptions of extensive internal wounds with no trace of shrapnel, corpses blackened but not burnt, and others heavily wounded that did not bleed.

Many of these descriptions suggest the possibility that the new weapons used include ‘direct energy’ weapons, and chemical and/or biological agents, in a sort of macabre experiment of future warfare, where there is no respect for anything: International rules (from the Geneva Convention to the treaties on biological and chemical weapons), refugees, hospitals and the Red Cross, not to mention the people, their future, their children, the environment, which is poisoned through dissemination of Depleted Uranium and toxic substances released after oil and chemical depots are bombed.

Right now, the Lebanese and Palestinian people have many urgent and impellent problems, yet many people believe that these episodes cannot and must not pass ignored. In fact several appeals have been launched to scientists and experts with a view to investigating the issue.
(more…)

The Democratic Party could have seized upon these tragic miscalculations by the Bush administration to enhance its political standing and help steer America’s foreign policy in a more rational and ethical direction. Sadly, the Democrats instead once again overwhelmingly threw their support behind President George W. Bush.

Soon after Israel began its offensive on July 12, House Republican leader John Boehner, along with House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, introduced a resolution unconditionally supporting Israel’s military actions and commending President Bush for fully supporting the Israeli assault. Despite reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. High Commissioner from Human Rights that Israel was committing war crimes in attacking civilians, the resolution praised Israel for its “longstanding commitment to minimize civilian loss” and even welcomed “Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” The resolution also claimed that Israel’s actions were “in accordance with international law,” though they flew in the face of longstanding, universally recognized legal standards regarding the use of force and the treatment of noncombatants in wartime.

Despite such a brazen attack against the credibility of reputable human rights groups and the U.N. Charter that limits military action to legitimate self defense, Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the International Relations Committee and likely next committee chairman should the Democrats win back the majority in November, signed on as a full cosponsor.

Even more alarmingly, all but 15 of the 201 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted in favor of the resolution.
(more…)

A secret, two year investigation by the defense establishment shows that there has been rampant illegal construction in dozens of settlements and in many cases involving privately owned Palestinian properties.

The information in the study was presented to two defense ministers, Amir Peretz and his predecessor Shaul Mofaz, but was not released in public and a number of people participating in the investigations were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements.

According to security sources familiar with the study, the material is “political and diplomatic dynamite.”
(more…)

Cabinet minister Jacob Edery confirmed the bombs were dropped “against military targets in open ground”.

Israel had previously said the weapons were used only to mark targets.

Phosphorus weapons cause chemical burns and the Red Cross and human rights groups say they should be treated as chemical weapons.

The Geneva Conventions ban the use of white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.
(more…)

“We are in a tribal society in Basra and we [the British army] are in effect one of these tribes,” said Lt Col Simon Brown, commander of the 2nd Battalion. “As long as we are here the others will attack us because we are the most influential tribe. We cramp their style.”

He can see the general’s point. “There is so much poverty and frustration in the streets of Basra, as long as you are in the street, someone will shoot at you. We complicate the situation. We give the disaffected and frustrated a chance to empty their frustrations by shooting at us.”
(more…)

Every night off Gaza beach you can see the lights of fishing boats rising and falling in the swell.

But they are defying an Israeli ban on all Palestinian fishing, and Rami al-Habeel knows how dangerous that can be.

Last week, he saw his friend, Hani al-Najaar, shot dead on the deck of their trawler.

For more than three months the Israelis have ordered all fishing craft to stay in port.

They say this is to prevent militants who have captured an Israeli soldier in Gaza, smuggling him out by sea.
(more…)

Up to 1.6 million Iraqis have left their homes for other countries in “a steady, silent exodus” as a result of the war and sectarian violence, forcing the U.N. refugee agency to announce a shift in priorities.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said it plans to focus on the deteriorating humanitarian situation facing people who are fleeing, as opposed to those returning home.

“The enormous scale of the needs, the ongoing violence and the difficulties in reaching the displaced make it a problem that is practically beyond the capacity of humanitarian agencies, including UNHCR,” it said.
(more…)

The government will do all it can to discredit the latest estimate of civilian casualties since the invasion: 650,000

And finally, we can truthfully say that our foreign policy – based as it is on 19th-century notions of the nation-state – is long past its sell-by date. We need a new set of principles to govern our diplomacy and military strategy – principles that are based on the idea of human security and not national security, health and wellbeing and not economic self-interest and territorial ambition.

The best hope we can have from our terrible misadventure in Iraq is that a new political and social movement will grow to overturn this politics of humiliation. We are one human family. Let’s act like it.
(more…)