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Errors of Omission and Commission of the Goldstone UN Gaza Mission.

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

In early July, Professor Elihu D Richter, head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Jerusalem, submitted a brief to Judge Richard Goldstone, chairman of the UN Human Rights Council Fact Finding Mission, which was then holding its hearings in Geneva. The Mission was investigating “ all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.” For those who have forgotten, 27 December is when Israel attacked Gaza by air and land to put a stop to some 8,000 rocket attacks against civilians in Shderot and Ashkelon over a period of many years. The term-“whether before, during or after” represented a grudging concession to those demanding context to the images of death and destruction in Gaza -many authentic, others staged-during the three weeks of the war.

At the time, Dr. Richter wrote a parallel op-ed for a newspaper in Geneva, Tachlis, in which I said “The smart money is on the bet that the Mission will be a kangaroo court, given the dismal record of the UN Human Rights Council, which until now has been something of haven for perpetrators of Human Wrongs. The Council is notorious as a platform for engaging in obsessive demonizing and delegitimizating of Israel”

Dr. Richter’s brief to Judge Goldstone and his colleagues on the Mission contained several simple messages.

*Hold Hamas accountable for incarcerating soldier Gilad Schalit incommunicado for 3 years, a violation of his human rights. International Human rights groups have been castigated by Elena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, for their relative silence concerning Schalit, who has been held incommunicado for 3 years. Where are those who have fought to close down Guantanamo? There, alleged terrorists are given the rights of prisoners, with access to lawyers, visits by the International Red Cross, and basically decent living conditions? It is only recently that the International Red Cross has publicly declared that Schalit’s basic human rights are being violated

*Initiate steps to prosecute the leaders of Hamas and other terror groups for human and social costs of firing some 10000 rockets, missiles and mortars into southern Israel directed at its civilian populations, over the past 8 years. Because the intent of the perpetrators of these attacks has been to kill or injure a group defined by its national identity, they are committing crimes against humanity. Such crimes are in violation the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

*Don’t forget Iran’s accountability as a provider, protector, enabler, supplier, and instructor of Hamas.

Dr. Richter noted that in 2007, Nick Kaufman, an international lawyer, filed a petition to the International Criminal Court on behalf of the City of Sderot, calling for arrest of Khaled Ma’ashal, the leader of Hamas, for his inciting to these terror attacks. Had the ICC moved on this petition, it would have put this arch terrorist-and all the others-on notice that leaders of terror organizations, —not mere “armed organizations–like leaders of states, are prosecutable for their roles in promoting genocidal terror directed against civilian populations.

* Endorse the petition drafted by Professor Irwin Cotler of the Canadian Parliament to indict “re-elected” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his leading role in state sanctioned incitement of Hamas to genocide. In the pre-war period, Ahmadinejad referred to Israel as a “terrorist and criminal state”, and called for “annihilate[ing] this false regime”, (June 14), and used the language of Mein Kampf to engage in dehumanization, (“stinking corpse”” June 13), “ germ of corruption”, (Sept 23), and to demonize “Zionists [as ] few in number but dominating financial and monetary positions”, “caught in the clutches of Jewish power, “inquisitive and invasive people” and that “Zionism is root cause of insecurity and wars”. “”Iran will support Hamas until the destruction of Israel[1]. ( Nov 26 2008) This repeated incitement to genocide with its use of crude anti-Semitic motifs of dehumanization, delegitimization and demonization represents a continuation of trends going back to 1979, which sharply escalated in 2005, when Ahmadinejad was elected.

The Cotler petition has been signed by some 50 of the world’s ranking jurists, genocide scholars, and human rights leaders and heroes in the world, notably Louise Arbour, Gregory Stanton, Gregory Gordon, and Said Ibrahim. Judge Goldstone was active in the International Court Tribunal Rwanda, which convicted journalists and educators for inciting to Genocide. He knows that words kill. But I personally verified that Judge Goldstone did not sign the Cotler petition..

Here were the punch lines of Dr. Richter’s brief:

So far UN’s executive organs, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council remained silent in the face of…. [Hamas’ and Iran’s] incitement,[to genocide], ignoring their responsibilities under the UN Genocide Convention. This silence persisted despite the precedents from previous genocides, notably Rwanda, that such hate language is a warning sign, predictor, and catalyst of genocide….

…If the Commission fails to call for criminal prosecution of the known facts concerning the cruel and inhuman mis-treatment of Gilad Schalit, the Hamas rocket and terror attacks directed against civilians, and the incitement and hate language, by Hamas and Iran, it will recycle the culture of impunity for such violations of human rights to life, respect for life and human dignity. By failing to pursue these actions, it will itself have become a complicit bystander to these crimes…

Could the war in Gaza have been prevented had the world community exercised its responsibilities to prevent and protect? Incitement to Genocide-and genocidal terror– results from human choice by perpetrators and indifference by bystanders.

Judge Goldstone and his colleagues on the Gaza Commission have been bystanders to such incitement by Hamas’ leaders and their backers in Tehran?

Dr. Richter’s money was on the right bet. Others have documented the numerous errors of omission and commission of the Mission. It appears the Mission opted to ignore these points or air brush them away.

Judge Goldstone, on Israeli TV last night, lectured Israelis on establishing judicial procedures in keeping with international standards of fairness, openness, equity and transparency. But the evidence of preformed opinions of one of the members of the Mission-Christine Chinkin, and Goldstone’s being on the Board of Human Rights Watch-he abruptly resigned-one of the major accusers, and the rigged mandate of the Mission are themselves flagrant -indeed obscene -violation of these standards. These violations of elementary professional norms, I submit, underlie the double standards-(e.g. incitement to genocide is a crime against humanity in Rwanda, but ignored in Gaza), and the flawed inferences concerning Israeli state intent to commit crimes humanity are examples of the pernicious influence of these prior biases. If Israel was dropping leaflets to advance warning to Gazans to flee areas it bombed, then how can those whom Israel was warning be considered to be victims of intent to harm?

Dr. Richter asks: Should professional societies for international law and parliamentary committees for human rights in free countries with democratically elected governments investigate whether there has been professional misconduct, or just plain ineptitude, negligence and incompetence -willful or otherwise — by the Goldstone Mission? The consequences of not investigating the errors of omission and commission are staggeringly ominous for free democratic societies who strive to protect the right to life and security, the most elementary human right, from those, who, in the name of human rights, promote cults of death.

Report Ignored By Goldstone UN Commission:

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Crimes against Humanity:

Hamas’ Abuse of Gilad Schalit’s Human Rights,

Its Rocket and Mortar Attacks on Israeli Populations

And

Hamas’ and Iran’s Incitement to Genocide

During June 2008 through January 2009

A Brief Submitted to:

Professor Richard Goldstone

Fact Finding Mission c/o OHCHR

G Motta 48 Geneva SWITZERLAND

factfindinggaza@ohchr.org

:

….Between June 1 2008 and Jan 29 2009 the UN’s executive organs, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council remained silent in the face of…. [Hamas’ and Iran’s] incitement,[to genocide], ignoring their responsibilities under the UN Genocide Convention. This silence persisted despite the precedents from previous genocides, notably Rwanda, that such hate language is a warning sign, predictor, and catalyst of genocide….

…If the Commission fails to call for criminal prosecution of the known facts concerning the cruel and inhuman mis-treatment of Gilad Schalit, the Hamas rocket and terror attacks directed against civilians, and the incitement and hate language, by Hamas and Iran, it will recycle the culture of impunity for such violations of human rights to life, respect for life and human dignity. By failing to pursue these actions, it will itself have become a complicit bystander to these crimes….

Excerpts from Brief

Genocide Prevention Program

And Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide

GENOCIDE PREVENTION NOW (GPN) worldwide Web site

Jerusalem

June 30 2009

Professor Richard Goldstone

Fact Finding Mission c/o OHCHR

G Motta 48 Geneva factfindinggaza@ohchr.org

Subject: Brief on Need for Criminal Indictments for Crimes against Humanity of Hamas for its abuse of Gilad Schalit’s human rights, its rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli populations and its and Iran’s incitement to Genocide

I am writing to submit an evidence-based brief to the Fact Finding Commission on the war in Gaza and human rights abuses during the war and the six month period preceding it, starting from June 2008 through the end of January 2009. I address in particular the roles of Hamas and Iran, its enabler and its instructor as perpetrators of crimes against humanity and the role of outside actors, notably certain UN agencies, as bystanders during the six month run-up to the war. I take exception to what appears to be a cynical choice of the time frame, which excludes the months and years prior to June 2008, during which Hamas sent thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel directed at civilian populations and increased its smuggling of weapons after Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Personal Background: I am a medical doctor with specialty certification in public health and Preventive Medicine, and served as the head of Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Hebrew University-Hadassah for some 15 years.

Over the past 30 years, I have participated in investigations by human rights groups of charges concerning the use of tear gas during the first Intimidate, the health conditions of Palestinian prisoner detainees, and supervising and participated in joint Israeli-Palestinian projects to investigate and prevent epidemics of lead poisoning, asthma in refugee camps, and to assess the distribution and determinants of lead exposures in children in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. I am currently supervising a joint project funded by USAID to investigate intrauterine exposures to phthalates and pesticides in Israeli and Palestinian infants. In past years, I was the Chairman of the Committee on Ethics and Philosophy of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, and have published in the professional literature on environmental ethics and human rights, conflict and human rights, and unethical human experimentation.

I am now working in the field of prediction and prevention of genocide and genocidal terror, with a specific interest in state sanctioned and sponsored hate language and incitement, a crime against humanity which is a measurable and prosecutable predictor, promoter and catalyst of genocide. I am currently a member of the Advisory Board of Genocide Watch and Direction of the Genocide Situation Room of Genocide Prevention Now, of the International Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, In the course of this work I have been involved in activities to promote the indictment and prosecution of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his colleagues for their incitement of destruction of the State of Israel and support, backing, and equipping of terror proxies to achieve this genocidal objective.

The Ethical Perspective on Gaza: The right to life, and respect for life and human dignity are the most basic of all human rights, and that the first responsibility of all governments is to protect this most basic of all human rights in the populations they govern and to respect these rights in other populations. Regimes or organizations which promote or advance the attack on these rights in their own and other populations forfeit their legitimacy.

The conflicts in the Mideast are not between “Israelis and Palestinians” or “Jews and Arabs”, but between those who stand for life and respect for life and human dignity against the cults of death, hate, and terror which are now convulsing so much of the Muslim world. The death toll in Gaza -estimated to be 1166– is dwarfed by the toll of 12 million humans have been killed since 1948 in internecine wars, genocides, genocidal terror, mass expulsions, and mass atrocities. When Hamas destroyed greenhouses to turn them into factories making rockets and missiles i.e. breaking ploughshares to make swords-this was the sentinel event signaling that this organization stood for death, not life. (See Attachment-Ben-Dror Yemini-Maariv)

An examination of the conflict in Gaza requires full investigation of the rocket and terror attacks and the incitement by Hamas and Iran which led to it, and, first and foremost, of course, the kidnapping and disgraceful conditions of incarceration of Gilad Schalit. The lessons of this examination are applicable to the prevention of further atrocities not only between Israel and the PA, but the entire world.

As a human being, Jew and Zionist, I cannot be happy about the loss of life and reported wanton destruction of life preceding and during the war in Gaza. But I am sickened by the indifference of bystanders which led Israel to fight a war of no choice after 8 years, during which 5107 mortar attacks and 4322 Kassam and rocket attacks fell on the Western Negev.
(sderotmedia.org.il/Kassam-eng.pdf).But even those compelled to carry out a war of no choice can carry out actions causing bad things.

The State of Israel attacked Gaza to remove the threat of genocidal terror-more than 8000 rocket, mortar and missile attacks over a period of 8 years-at first against Shderot-a city of 20,000, and then, directed against 1 million of its inhabitants. In doing so, Israel was exercising the first responsibility of every sovereign state: to protect the health and safety of its citizens, the most basic of human rights. Without life, there are no other human rights. I have no doubt that its actions caused loss of life and damage to property.

During the war, many of those killed were caught in the chaotic conditions of asymmetrical warfare, where Hamas used “shielding”, the use of civilian centers and hospital as places of concealment-which is considered a war crime, and seized shipments of food supplies intended for the civilian populations. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/06/gaza-un-aid-hamas) According to the Israel Defence Forces, of the 1166 killed, 709 of them were “identified as Hamas terror operatives, among them several from various other terror organizations, and there were 162 names who “have not yet been attributed to any organization.” 295 uninvolved Palestinians were killed during the operation, 89 of them under the age of 16, and 49 of them were women.” [1] http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/26/israel.gaza.death.toll/index.html. (1) 1/3 of the 13 IDF fatal casualties were victims of friendly fire. At this time, data are not available to me on the precise age-gender distribution of those defined as under age 16, but there were several horrible tragedies in which families with large numbers of children who were killed. In striking contrast to Hams, during the war, the IDF dropped leaflets and indeed sent telephone messages to warn Gaza civilians of the location and timing of impending attacks against combatants, a fact which refutes intent to kill or destroy a population or aims to harm civilians. Contrary to bizarre claims published in the Lancet and the British Medical Journal during the war, Israel ensured that adequate food and medical supplies reached Gaza. I have seen schools and nurseries in Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba badly damaged by Hamas’ indiscriminate attacks.

Direct personal evidence. I have direct personal evidence which can be corroborated by external actors proving that the IDF at the command level was doing everything it could to protect civilians in a chaotic situation. Towards the end of the war, USAID Tel Aviv contacted me about a scientific colleague from Gaza and his family were at risk in a battle situation, and I put them in touch with the IDF Spokesman for Coordinating Aid to the Territories, who in turn passed orders to soldiers to ensure his safety and kept in close contact, to the degree that it was possible, over an entire weekend with rescuers from the IRC. The colleague and his family, with the help of the IRC, reached safety. Thereafter, according to the family, the soldiers destroyed the family’s car and shot out parts of the front wall of the family’s large house after they left. I do not know if this damage was wanton, or a result of some military indication to ensure that the house would not be used by terrorists as a hiding place. At the suggestion of the IDF Spokesperson, I told the family to file a complaint. USAID-MERC in the US Embassy and in Washington DC can verify the truth of the above statements. I will not disclose the name of the colleague to the Commission lest his identity place him at risk of retaliation.

Hamas’ Crimes against Humanity

1. The continued incarceration of Gilad Schalit

First and foremost, I call upon this Commission to investigate the circumstances

of Gilad Schalit’s incarceration, to verify his health status and conditions by visiting him,

and ensure visitation rights for him by IRC representatives. During the period June 2008 through Jan 2009, and thereafter, his isolation states the case for initiating legal actions against Hamas for its continued violation of the Geneva Commission, with regard to its disgraceful treatment of GIlad Schalit during the period of June 2008 to now.

I refer the Commission to the words of Elena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, which I incorporate by reference in full as part of my submission.

“……AND ANOTHER question that has been a thorn for me for a long time. It’s a question for my human rights colleagues. Why doesn’t the fate of the Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit trouble you in the same way as does the fate of the Guantanamo prisoners?

You fought for and won the opportunity for the International Committee of the Red Cross, journalists and lawyers to visit Guantanamo. You know prison conditions, the prisoners’ everyday routine, their food. You have met with prisoners subjected to torture. The result of your efforts has been a ban on torture and a law to close this prison. President Obama signed it in the first days of his coming to the White House. And although he, just like president Bush before him, does not know what to do with the Guantanamo prisoners, there is hope that the new administration will think up something.

But during the two years Schalit has been held by terrorists, the world human rights community has done nothing for his release. Why? He is a wounded soldier, and fully falls under the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The conventions say clearly that hostage-taking is prohibited, that representatives of the Red Cross must be allowed to see prisoners of war, especially wounded prisoners, and there is much else written in the Geneva Conventions about Schalit’s rights. (italics mine) The fact that representatives of the Quartet conduct negotiations with the people who are holding Schalit in an unknown location, in unknown conditions, vividly demonstrates their scorn of international rights documents and their total legal nihilism. Do human rights activists also fail to recall the fundamental international rights documents?

And yet I still think (and some will find this naïve) that the first tiny, but real step toward peace must become the release of Schalit. Release, and not his exchange for 1,000 or 1,500 prisoners who are in Israeli prisons serving court sentences for real crimes.

Returning to my question of why human rights activists are silent, I can find no answer except that Schalit is an Israeli soldier, Schalit is a Jew. So again, it is conscious or unconscious anti-Semitism. Again, it is fascism.

THIRTY-FOUR YEARS have passed since the day when I came to this city to represent my husband, Andrei Sakharov, at the 1975 Nobel Prize ceremony. I was in love with Norway then. The reception I received filled me with joy. Today, I feel Alarm and Hope (the title Sakharov used for his 1977 essay written at the request of the Nobel Committee).

Alarm because of the anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment growing throughout Europe and even further afield. And yet, I hope that countries, their leaders and people everywhere will recall and adopt Sakharov’s ethical credo: “In the end, the moral choice turns out to be also the most pragmatic choice.”

Source:http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212450779&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

One should add that terrorists in Israeli prisons are entitled to IRC visits, family visits, television and right to study in courses at Israeli institutions of higher learning, as compared with the inhuman conditions applying to Gilad Schalit. Violations of human rights and UNGC and Rome Statute. See the IRC statement, which speaks for itself. http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/israel-interview-111208

2. Between June 2008 and Jan 2009, Hamas carried out Rocket attacks directed at civilian populations.

Between June 2008 and Jan 28 2009, Hamas continued to carry rocket attacks directed specifically at civilian targets with intent to kill, injure, intimidate and cause flight. All totaled there were 1750 rocket attacks and 1528 mortar attacks, totaling 3278 in all of 2008, or on average 9.0 attacks per day, mostly directed at Shderot, a town of some 20,000, but also at cities totaling a population of 1,000,000 or some 14% of Israel’s population. After a lull –during July, there was 1 attack, in August 8, in Sept 1, in October 1—, in November 125 rocket attacks and 68 mortar attacks, and in December there were 361 rocket and 24 mortarl attacks. All totaled, 10 were killed and 433 were wounded. During the “lull”, between 4 November and 19 December 2008, 223 rockets and 139 mortars were fired.

Additional information on the statistics of such attacks comes from:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Hamas+war+against+Israel/Missile+fire+from+Gaza+on+Israeli+civilian+targets+Aug+2007.htm

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/Hebrew/heb_n/pdf/ipc_007.pdf

b. These rocket attacks and were a continuation of previous trends. Prior to June 2008, such attacks, and collateral terror attacks directed at checkpoints processing the permits, increased during a period when Israel granted an increasing numbers of medical permits to Gazans seeking medical care in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. The figure below presents the time line showing these parallel trends. http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=283&PID=0&IID=2649

Source: No. 567 1 October 2008Israeli Approvals for Medical Entryin the Shadow of Terror Attacks at the Erez Crossing Elihu D. Richter MD, MPH http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=283&PID=0&IID=2649

Such rocket attacks before and during the Israeli Operation represent what the Genocide Scholar Professor Gregory Stanton calls “genocidal terror”-in which acts of violence are directed against an entire population defined by its national, religious,racial or ethnic origin with the intention to kill destroy, expel and intimidate. Dan Izenberg, Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206632348924&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)

I refer the Commission to the petition from Nick Kaufman to The International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for prosecution of Khaled Ma’ashal, the leader of Hamas,for crimes against humanity, for his inciting, directing, instructing and ordering rocket attacks against civilian populations with the direct intention of killing and harming these populations. The ICC has acknowledged receipt of this petition. (See attached file: Ma’ashal)

The fact that there were few injuries and deaths in Shderot and environs was most fundamentally a result of the fact that Israel built shelters to protect its population. By contrast, Hamas used members of the civilian population, as well as hospital and m mosques, to shield its fighters. (http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSLB732861 ). There are similar reports of the use of shielding by Taliban terrorists in the Swat valley Pakistan. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521557,00.html ). The past failure to condemn and prosecute such shielding as a crime against humanity in Gaza— opens the door to the spread of this practice to other theaters of warfare.

3. Between June 2008 and January 28 2009, the Hamas regime repeatedly propagated hate language to incite to genocide. The evidence for this statement includes videos showing the background of Hamas incitement and hatred. http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=584 and bulletins from the period of the Gaza War, including video clips. http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=582

The Hamas Charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. (http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP109206Hamas charter, ref_) It offers stereotype images, perpetuated in a Culture of Hate. …
www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/…/$File/G0214418.doc?… –

The language of demonization, dehumanization, and delegitimization appears in media, texts, mosques and political interviews, in violation of Statutes in the UN Convention on Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and the International Criminal Court. The content of this hate language is the evidence making the case for the evidence of the nature of intent -to destroy a population, in whole or in part—driving Hamas’s rocket, mortar and terror attacks on Israeli populations.

4, Between June 2008 and January 28 2009, Iran continued to supply, support, instruct, direct, enable, protect, and promote Hamas‘genocidal platform and the terror it deploys to advance this platform.

The evidence for this statement comes from the US State Department Report on Terror, References on Iranian support for Hamas terror activities.

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/122599.pdf State Sponsors of Terrorism, This document singles out Iran and details its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. I enclose further documents summarizing this information in the following sources.

amasH

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/iran_e007.pdf

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/iran_e004.htm

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_160308e.htm

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ismail_haniya.htm

5. Between June 2008 and January 2009, Iran continued to Incite to Genocide to mobilize support for Hamas.

During the period June 2008 to Jan 28, President (now re-“elected”) Mahmoud Ahmadninejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran referred to Israel using the following terms: “terrorist and criminal state”,and called for “annihilate[ing] this false regime” to delegitimize, (June 14), and used the language of Mein Kampf to engage in dehumanization, (“stinking corpse”” June 13), “ germ of corruption”, (Sept 23), demonization, (“Zionists few in number but dominating financial and monetary positions”, “caught in the clutches of Jewish power, “inquisitive and invasive people” “Zionism is root cause of insecurity and wars” and finally “”Iran will support Hamas until the destruction of Israel[a]. ( Nov 26 2008) This repeated incitement to genocide with its use of crude anti-Semitic motifs of dehumanization, delegitimization and demonization represents a continuation of trends going back to 1979, which sharply escalated in 2005, when Ahmadinejad was elected.

The time line of Iranian incitement to genocide, using such language specifically for the period June 1 2008 to January 28 2009 is presented below.

Jun. 13, 2008

Press conference

Ahmadinejad

“global arrogance established Zionist regime”

“[which is] a stinking corpse”[b]

Jun. 14, 2008

Ahmadinejad

“terrorist and criminal state..backed by foreign powers…regime to be swept away by Palestinians”[100]

Jul. 2, 2008

21st TV public address,

Ahmadinejad

“Israel’s days are numbered…peoples of region not is narrowest opportunity to annihilate this false regime[d]

Sep. 23, 2008

Ahmadinejad’s 3rd visit to UN[e]

“Thanks to God, your wish will soon be realized, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off the face of the world”[f]

Sep. 23, 2008

“The Zionists are the eternal enemy of ‘the dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people” “Although they are few in number, the Zionists have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the United States in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.”

“Even some presidential or premier nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.” even “the great people of America and various nations of Europe” are caught in the clutches of Jewish power: They “need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.” “Today,”….the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse. There is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters.”

Sep. 25, 2008

Interview with NY Times

“Zionism…is the root cause of insecurity and wars…. What commitment forces the U.S. government to victimize itself in support of a regime that is basically a criminal one?”[g]

Nov. 26, 2008

Ahmadinejad

“Iran will support Hamas until the destruction of Israel[h]

Jan. 12 2009

Hassan Rowhani

Israel is “cancerous tumor”

This timeline is extracted from the paper on Iran’s genocidal Incitement by Richter and Barnea (Tehran’s Genocidal Incitement Against Israel. `http://www.meforum.org/2167/iran-genocidal-incitement-israel)

Thereafter, in March 2009, Ayatolloh Khamenei repeated that “Israel is a cancer” and the Holocaust is a lie”. |http://www.foxnews.com/story/02933,504365,00.html

[1] Donatela Rovera of Amnesty International, (AI) reported that 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the fighting, which lasted from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. Of these, 300 were children, more than 115 were women and about 85 were men over the age of 50. Another 200 of the men who were under 50 were unarmed civilians who were not combatants. Some 5,000 Palestinians were wounded during the fighting. AI said that 3,000 Palestinian homes and hundreds of other properties were destroyed during the fighting and more than 20,000 structures were damaged and that the IDF destroyed factories, workshops, animal farms, orchards, government buildings, police stations and prisons. (‘Israel recklessly used arms in Gaza’ DAN IZENBERG AND YAAKOV KATZ, July 2 2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443696703&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FS

[a] Ha’aretz Newspaper (Israel’s daily) “Ahmadinejad; Iran will support Hamas until Collapse of Israel” 26/11/08 www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020630.html

[b] Teitlebaum, J., Op cit, www.jcpa.org/text/Ahmadinejad2-words.pdf p.9, ref 15. see also www.rightsidenews.com/global-terrorism-archives/Ahmadinejadisrael-is-a-dead-fish-and-a-stinking-corpse.html

[100] Teitlebaum,J., Op cit www.jcpa.org/text/Ahmadinejad2-words.pdf p.10, ref 19

[d] Teitlebaum,J., Op cit http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA44708#_edn8.

[e] Philip, C., Ahmadinejad Blames George Bush and Zionists for Financial Woe, 24th September 2008 www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4811646.ece

[f] Sternberg, E., Iranian State Sanctioned Incitement to Genocide: Report on a Symposium, October 20th 2008 www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=4523

[g] New York Times, 26th November 2008, An Interview with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/world/middleeast/26iran-transcript.html?pagewanted=3

[h] Ha’aretz Newspaper (Israel’s daily) “Ahmadinelad; Iran will support Hamas until Collapse of Israel” 26/11/08 www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1020630.html

Bystander Indifference between June 1 2008 and Jan 28 2009: Could the War in Gaza have been prevented had International Bystanders not been complicit, passive, and supportive to Hamas’ Terror Activities and Incitement and Iranian support for this Terror and Incitement?

Between June 1 2008 and Jan 29 2009 the UN’s executive organs, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council remained silent in the face of such state sanctioned incitement, ignoring their responsibilities under the UN Genocide Convention. This silence persisted despite the precedents from previous genocides, notably Rwanda, that such hate language is a warning sign, predictor, and catalyst of genocide.

Conclusion:

The Commission has a responsibility to investigate all charges against all actors and bystanders, including UN agencies and officials tasked with investigating early warning signs of genocide. In July 2007, the US House of Representatives passed HCON21, (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.CON.RES.21: ) which called upon the Security Council to initiate proceedings against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his incitement to genocide and support of terror.

If the Commission fails to call for criminal prosecution of the known facts concerning the cruel and inhuman mis-treatment of Gilad Schalit, the Hamas rocket and terror attacks directed against civilians, and the incitement and hate language, by Hamas and Iran, it will recycle the culture of impunity for such violations of human rights to life, respect for llife and human dignity. By failing to pursue these actions, it will itself have become a complicit bystander to these crimes.

I call upon the Commission to endorse the Responsibility to Prevent Petition (the R2P

petition) prepared by the Honorable Irwin Cotler, Member of the Canadian Parliament, and formerly Attorney General of the Government of Canada. This petition (see the R2P attachment) calls upon the international community to use the legal tools for prosecuting and punishing incitement to genocide, and to call for indicting and prosecuting President Ahmadinejad and his colleagues for incitement to genocide and support, aid, equipping and training Hamas, and his brutal suppression of human rights in his own Iran, in violation of UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. (This petition was prepared months before the election in Iran and the brutal suppression of peaceful protests by the regime after the election).

The petition draws upon the legal precedents of the indictments and convictions for incitement to genocide from the Nuremberg Trials for Perpetrators of the Holocaust and the International Criminal Trials -Rwanda (ICT-R). The petition has been endorsed by a world-wide coalition of international jurists, human rights activists and distinguished genocide scholars, including Elie Wiesel, Louise Arbour, Said Ibrahim, Gregory Stanton, Samuel Pisar and some 50 others. In parallel, I call upon the Commission to initiate proceedings based on the petition already submitted by Dr Nick Kaufman to bring Khaled Ma’ashal to justice for his responsibility in ordering rocket attacks against a civilian population with intention to kill and destroy. (see attachment Ma’ashal RTF)

Finally, I call upon the Commission to promote the recognition of genocidal terror as a crime against humanity. It is the opinion of this author that such terror, when directed against populations with intent to kill or destroy, is merely genocide carried out by an NGO -any of those groups or organizations which carry out mass atrocities against non-combatant populations in which the intention is to kill, destroy, intimidate or expel populations in whole or in part. (See Dan Izenberg, Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206632348924&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)

Submitted by:

Professor Elihu D Richter MD MPH*

Head, Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Injury Prevention Center

Genocide Prevention Program

Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine

Associate Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem

Head of World Genocide Situation Room in GENOCIDE PREVENTION NOW (GPN) Worldwide Web Site

Trial and Power

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

I shall spare you the ordeal of playing the broken record on what was wrong with the Oslo accords. Still: we’re in between September 13 (the date on which the Israeli Government and the PLO signed a Declaration of Principles 16 years ago) and Rosh Hashanah, and there is something to be learned about the Oslo legacy.

Oslo has been debated ad nauseam, and this debate is as tiresome as it is irrelevant. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a Catch-22 situation. It is both unsustainable and unsolvable. Most people, by now, realize that. This conflict, however, is manageable -provided Israel completes its physical separation from the Palestinians, outsmarts them on the diplomatic chessboard, and neutralizes their regional troublemaking backers.

Peace, of course, would be preferable. But saying this is like saying that it is preferable to be handsome, wealthy and bright than ugly, poor, and dumb. Saying it does not make it happen. Moreover, it is a fact that Israel has managed to thrive and be a success story despite the lack of true peace.

Shimon Peres made the bizarre claim in this book The New Middle East (published in the wake of the 1993 Oslo agreement) that “true power -even military power- is no longer anchored in the boot camp, but on the university campuses.” Though clumsily stated (I happen to doubt the ability of our academic nerds to protect us from an Iranian nuclear bomb), Peres’ idea contains an element of truth. What is anchored on Israeli university campuses, however, is not true power, but true weakness.

I have had the privilege of teaching in Israeli universities for the past eight years, and have always been struck by the fact that my students are confused when I ask them to think. This confusion confirms what I experienced as a graduate student in Israel. We were asked to learn, but not to think. To repeat, not to be critical. All the professors were on the same political wavelength (guess which one), and they did manage to produce formatted and dogmatic students that knew their field but had no culture and critical mind. Israeli campuses introduced me to something new: intellectually boring Jews.

Faced with uncritical and ignorant 20-somethings who just finished the army and only care about getting a degree and a job, Israel’s most radical professors have it easy. And what they have to say hardly makes our universities a source of national strength: Young Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria are like the Hitlerjungen (Moshe Zimmerman, Hebrew University); Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians is one of politicide (Baruch Kimmerling, Hebrew University) and ethnic cleansing (Ilan Pappé, formerly from Haifa University); the very existence of a Jewish people is a “myth” invented by Zionism (Shlomo Sand, Tel-Aviv University); there never was a unified Israelite monarchy in biblical times (Israel Finkelstein, Tel-Aviv University); Israel is an apartheid state that should be boycotted by the world community (Neve Gordon, Ben-Gurion University), etc.

In a way, Peres was right: Israel’s future depends not only on the vitality of our economy and on the strength of our army but also, indeed mostly, on what young Israelis know about their past and think of their country -in other words on the ideas they encounter on campuses. This is where Israelis and Diaspora Jews must concentrate their efforts in the coming years. The Shalem Center’s initiative to set-up an alternative, College-type institution in Israel is a good start in order for our country to survive its academic nuts.

Ideas, values and faith transcend physical death. The fate of the Ramon family is here to prove it. Ilan Ramon’s mother was a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Although he was a secular Jew, Ilan sought to follow Jewish observances while in orbit (he requested kosher food and observed Shabbat in space). Ilan also took parts of Jewish history and faith with him in space: A pencil sketch, “Moon Landscape”, drawn by 14-year-old Petr Ginz, who died in Auschwitz; a microfiche copy of a Torah Scroll saved from the Holocaust; a barbed wire Mezuzah designed by Aimee Golant; and a landmark dollar of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. “I feel I am representing all Jews and all Israelis” he said.

Both Ilan and his son Assaf tragically died while heroically serving their country, but they are survived by the values and ideas they believed in and fought for.

May we be up to the task of preserving and perpetuating those values and ideas. And may the Year 5770 give us the opportunity to do so without the trials of the Year 5769.

Shana Tova.

Israeli Academic Think Tank Appeals to UN to declare Palestinian state

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Gershon Baskin, CEO of the Israel-Palestine Centre For Research and Information (IPCRI) – a joint Israeli-Palestinian think-tank in Jerusalem – believes the only way to achieve Mideast peace is by having the international community impose a Palestinian state on Israel.

In fact, Baskin declared last month that he was the one who gave the idea to European Union Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana, who said earlier this year that United Nations Security Council should recognize a Palestinian state even if there is no deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

“[Solana] heard it first from me, but it’s fine, let Solana get the credit,” Baskin said Aug. 8 in Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem, at an IPCRI conference titled “Education for Peace.”

Baskin said that under his proposed plan, the United States wouldn’t use its United Nations veto power to prevent the UN Security Council from recognizing a Palestinian state within provisional borders.

He told the conference – attended by Israelis and Palestinians – that two weeks before the conference, he met for “secret talks in the U.S.” with five Palestinians, five Americans and five Israelis about his plan.

According to Baskin’s proposal, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would submit a request to the Security Council asking for a state of Palestine to be granted full membership in the UN.

Without a U.S. veto, the request would likely receive the necessary nine or 15 votes within the council that it would need in order to pass.

At that point, “the state of Palestine will become a full member state obligate by the UN Charter,” Baskin said.

“At that moment, the Israeli occupation of one member state of another will require a new Security Council resolution that will supersede [Security Council resolution] resolution 242 and all other resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The proposal also says that the “main elements of the new… resolution would be the re-confirmation under international law of the ‘two states for two peoples’ solution.”

Baskin added that once this occurred, the UN could deploy international forces to implement a two-state solution, with Jerusalem as a capital for both states.

Baskin’s proposal states: “The implementation process would have to include several elements – the resolution would state the principal that the international community is prepared to use… the [UN] Charter and to deploy international forces (military, police, and civilian) to supervise the Israeli withdrawal from Palestine.”

In addition to putting forth this proposal to Solana, Baskin told the conference that he has presented his plan to the Americans.

When asked specifically whom the plan was sent to, Baskin said it was presented to two deputy secretaries of state and the office of the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell.

He said that in the first week of August, he also met Rafik Husseini, Abbas’ chief of staff, and gave him the plan to present to the PA president, adding that he expected it to have been given to Abbas after Fatah’s recent convention in Bethlehem.

A June 13 article in Ha’aretz reported that while in London, Solana said that “after a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution.”

Solana also reportedly said that the UN “would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN and set a calendar for implementation.”

Baskin told the conference that Solana made his comments without first notifying Mitchell, suggesting that they were intended as “a trial balloon.”

Baskin’s plan can be viewed on IPCRI’s website at www.ipcri.org/files/ending.pdf.

In an abstract of his talk, Baskin said that, in his view, “there will not be any successful bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at any time in the near future.”

He argued that once the United States and the UN take steps to recognize a Palestinian state, the peace camp in Israel will be able to rally around it and be revived.

Asked whether the Canadian government funds IPCRI, Rodney Moore, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Trade in Ottawa responded by e-mail that the “the government of Canada supports IPCRI discussions through funding with the Network for Peace Fund of the Canadian International Development Agency. This is the one current project that Canada is supporting with the IPCRI. The government… is not affiliated with the selection of discussion topics, but supports the overall objective of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, including through IPCRI.”

Contacted for further comment, a PMO spokesperson gave the same response.

In an interview with The CJN, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon called Baskin’s proposal “nonsense” adding that “the United States will not impose a solution on Israel, let alone the United Nations.”

Benny Begin, a Likud MK and minister without portfolio in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, called Baskin’s plan “strange and queer.”

“If Canada is funding Baskin, I imagine that they don’t realize what he has been proposing [or doing]. I can hardly imagine that the Canadian government, a country that is friendly to Israel, would be supporting this, if they knew.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Belies Moderate Image With Working Policy Paper About Future Palestinian State

By
David Bedein
-

Throughout the month of August, 2009, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad met with more than fifty members of the US Senate and US House of Representatives.

In press conferences held by almost all American elected officials after meeting the American educated Fayad, the consistent impression that they conveyed was that Mr. Fayad represented a “moderate voice of leadership” for a future Palestinian state that could live alongside the state of Israel.

However, a group of Israeli peace groups received and distributed an English version of a position paper for a future Palestinian state that Mr. Fayad submitted at the end of August to the Middle Quartet Negotiations Task Force, which includes The UN, The EU, The American government and the Russian government

Fayad’s paper “Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State:Program of the Thirteenth Government – August 2009”

Available on the net at:

http://www.geneva-accord.org/images/Offical%20Paper%20-%20Program%20of%20the%20Thirteenth%20Government,%20August%202009.pdf

or

http://tinyurl.com/

would seem to belie Fayad’s image as a “moderate voice of leadership”

The preface to Fayad’s paper introduces a Palestinian state that will strive for “peace, security and stability in our region on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

However, Fayad’s 38 page position paper reads like a declaration of war, not of peace.

Fayad asserts that “Jerusalem” will be the Palestinian capital of the Palestinian state – not East Jerusalem.

In case anyone was wondering if Fayad had made a typographical error by not mentioning “east” Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, Fayad repeats – ten times – that he means Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem. Fayad leaves nothing to the imagination, and writes that the Palstininian stat will “ Protect Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Palestinian state”, because Fayad asserts that “Jerusalem is our people’s religious, cultural, economic and political center. It is the Flower of Cities and Capital of Capitals. It cannot be anything but the eternal capital of the future Palestinian state. Jerusalem”

Fayad goes on to claim that Jerusalem “is under threat” and that “ the occupying authority is implementing a systematic plan to alter the city’s landmarks and its geographical and demographic character in order to forcibly create facts on the ground, ultimately separating it from its Palestinian surroundings and eradicating its Arab Palestinian heritage”.

Fayad further claims that “Palestinian life in Jerusalem is under daily attack through systematic violations perpetrated by the occupation regime” and that “It is the right and the duty of all Palestinians to protect their land, reject the occupation and defy its measures”, adding that the Palestinian state “bears special responsibility for nurturing our people’s ability to persevere and protect their homeland”.

Fayad ads that the Palstinian government will maintain its “unreserved commitment to defending the Arab character and status of Jerusalem…. The Government will continue to do all that is possible to achieve this goal. The Government will work with all organizations to preserve the landmarks of Jerusalem and its Arab Palestinian heritage, develop the city, and secure its contiguity with its Palestinian surroundings”.

Fayad frames Jerusalem as an illegal settlement, postulating that “the occupying authority is pursuing its intensive settlement policy in and around Jerusalem…The occupation regime has shut down our national institutions, neglected the development of Palestinian life, continued to demolish and evacuate Palestinian homes, and restricted access to sacred Christian and Islamic sites”

Fayad goes so far as to present a practical plan to Arabize Jerusalem:

Maintaining Jerusalem as a top priority on the Government’s agenda and·“ highlighting its predicament in the media. Launching a programs to promote the steadfastness of Jerusalemites, including: Strengthen Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, providing financial support to help them deliver services to citizens”.

Fayad reassures his readers that a future Palestinian state would not be satisfied with Jerusalem, the west bank and Gaza as the national home for Palestinians, and says that the Palestinian government will continue to advocate for “Palestinian refugees in accordance with relevant international resolutions, and UN General Assembly Resolution 194 in particular”, which mandates that Palestinian refugees and their descendents have a right to return to the homes and villages that Palestinians left during the 1948 war and its aftermath.

Fayad reminds Palestinians that “the refugee issue will remain under the jurisdiction of the PLO, through its Department of Refugees’ Affairs…in a manner that does not exempt the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from its responsibilities”

In the view of Fayad, UNRWA will therefore continue to confine Palestinian refugees a their descendents to the indignity of refugee camps, under the premise and promise of the “right of return”.

Meanwhile, Fayad expresses full support for Palestinians who have been convicted of murder and attempted murder, saying that “the state also has an enduring obligation to care and provide for the martyrs, prisoners, orphans and all those harmed in the Palestinian struggle for independence”.

Fayad simply cannot understand why Palestinians convicted of capital crimes should be jailed.

Fayad proclaims that “the continued detention of thousands of Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention camps in violation of international law and basic human rights, is of great concern to all Palestinians” and declares that “Securing the freedom of all these heroic prisoners is an utmost Palestinian priority and it is a fundamental duty all Palestinians feel to honor their great sacrifices and end their suffering” and demands the “freedom of all Palestinian detainees and prisoners and will continue to strive to secure their liberty”.

Fayad also asserts that the PLO and have signed “all provisions of agreements signed with Israel”, yet forgets to mention that the PLO never ratified the signed agreements with Israel.

On October 6, 1993, PLO chairman Arafat could not get a quorum for the PLO executive to ratify the Oslo accords that Arafat had signed with Rabin on the White House lawn.

On April 24, 1996, the Palestinian National Council would not cancel the PLO covenant and has never ratified the PLO covenant, despite the PLO commitment to do so as an integral part of the Oslo accord. The PLO Covenant has yet to be cancelled.

Fayad’s view of justice is well articulated in this piece when he states that “All Palestinians are equal before the law”.

Anyone who is not a Palestinian is therefore not equal.

Fayad declares that the Palestinian State will be an Islamic state and “Promote awareness and understanding of the Islamic religion and culture and disseminate the concept of tolerance in the religion through developing and implementing programs of Shari’a education as derived from the science of the Holy Qur’an and Prophet’s heritage”.

In sum, Fayad concludes with a demand for a Palestinian state in the next two years, along the parameters that he has outlined, with an Palestinian state that will have all of Jerusalem as its capital, in an Islamic Sharia state that will campaign for all convicts to be freed, for all refugees to return to the homes and villages that they left in 1948.

A voice of moderation?

It would be interesting to know if the peace groups that distributed Fayad’s working paper ever bothered to read it.

Comments on B’Tselem’s Civilian Casualty Estimates in Operation Cast Lead

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

…. Israel has very little choice other than to carry on with its military operations until it reaches the conclusion it needs which is to stop Hamas from firing rockets at its people in its territory….I don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza…. Hamas, the enemy they have been fighting, has been trained extensively by Iran and by Hezbollah, to fight among the people, to use the civilian population in Gaza as a human shield….

Saudis Said To Increase Help To al-Qaida

By
David Bedein
-

In this photo released by Saudi Press Agency, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, left, meets Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, at the Red Sea city of Jiddah, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 28. A recent report by the institute for Gulf Affairs shows that the Saudi royal family may be increasing its aid to the terrorist organization al-Qaida. (Associated Press)

Jerusalem – Exactly eight years after al-Qaida terrorists dispatched 18 Saudis to crash American commercial airlines into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the The Institute for Gulf Affairs has published a study that accuses the Saudi royal family of increasing aid to al-Qaida terror

The study asserts that the Saudi royal family has encouraged young Saudis to fight Islamic wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. “The Saudi government has been contributing to the increase in terrorist activities in the years since 9/11 [Sept. 11, 2001],” the report, titled “The Saudi Terror Problem on the Rise Since September 11,” said. The report, citing open sources, said that up to 60 percent of foreign Islamist fighters in Iraq were Saudi nationals. The percentage was said to reflect Saudi policy to destabilize Iraq, dominated by the Shi’ite community.

“The main reason for the high number of Saudi suicide bombers and terrorists in Iraq is the Saudi official policy that supports instability in Iraq,” the report said. “In addition to Saudi officials, major Saudi clerics are part of the recruitment and funding of the insurgency in Iraq. Wahabi clerics, both working for the government or those with close ties with the Saudi ruling family, play a leading role in sustaining the flow of hundreds of Saudi suicide bombers to Iraq and in sending millions of dollars to support them.”

The report also says that Saudi Arabia has dispatched fighters to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the war against NATO. The report cited support by leading Saudi clerics for Taliban as well as fundraising for the Afghan rebel movement in Saudi Arabia.

“Privately obtained reports by the Gulf Institute confirm that members of the Afghan and Pakistani expatriate community in Saudi Arabia are raising funds for the Taliban inside the kingdom,” the report said. “Meetings frequently take place in the central and western regions of Saudi Arabia on farms outside Riyad and other cities. Al Qaida and Taliban recruitment networks in Saudi Arabia remain intact, as indicated by the arrival of dozens of new Saudi fighters who join the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“In addition to receiving fresh supplies of Saudi fighters, al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan receive millions of dollars in funds from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar,” the report added. “Saudi Arabia has not merely contributed fighters, it has also contributed financing to the Taliban.”

The institute study concludes that Saudi Arabia has failed to crack down on al-Qaida and Taliban recruitment and fundraising networks despite Riyad’s alliance with the United States. Washington, which approved more than $10 billion in arms deals with Riyad in 2008, has been the leading weapons supplier to Saudi Arabia.

“The United States also failed to persuade or pressure the Saudi government to deal with the root causes of terrorism and extremism,” the report said. “Instead, the U.S. gave the Saudi ruling family unconditional support, including training hundreds of its security forces by U.S. trainers, and providing state-of-the-art technology, which is used to silence political and democratic opponents.”

Venezuela, Iran To Cooperate, Trade

By
David Bedein
-

Jerusalem – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced his country’s preparedness to export 20,000 barrels of gasoline to Iran as soon as October.

Speaking in a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad here in Tehran on Sunday, Chavez reiterated that the two countries have signed an agreement in this regard.

Chavez’s remarks came as the US tries to put energy sanctions on Iran and cut off the country’s fuel supplies in a bid to force Tehran to halt its peaceful nuclear program.

To force Tehran to halt its nuclear activities, the US Senate has approved a bill to put pressure on companies selling gasoline to Iran.

According to the bill, companies that continue to sell gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran will be banned from receiving US Energy Department contracts to deliver crude to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Despite lying on large oil reserves, Iran only produces 60 percent of its domestic gasoline demand and imports the remaining 40 percent.

Report: Baghdad Cannot Destroy Al Qaida

By
David Bedein
-
Jerusalem – A report submitted the week for the U.S. Defense Department has determined that Al Qaida in Iraq would resist any offensive by Baghdad over the next few years.

The report by the Rand Corp. asserted that Iraq, even with U.S. help, would fail to eliminate the Al Qaida (AQI) terror network.

“Eradicating AQI may exceed ISF capabilities, even with U.S. help, but the AQI threat is more likely to grow weaker rather than stronger,” the report said.

Titled, “Withdrawing from Iraq: Alternative Schedules, Associated Risks, and Mitigating Strategies,” the report provided a bleak picture of Iraq’s capability to destroy the Al Qaida terror network. Rand said Al Qaida would remain viable in Iraq despite a decline in financing and recruitment.

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“AQI is hampered by a lack of popular support, by restricted movement, and by a dearth of financing,” the report said. “It is now largely confined to Mosul, the Tigris River Valley, and Diyala province. One of its principal causes, and a source of recruiting and fund-raising — the U.S. occupation — is ending.”

The report was released in late July 2009 amid a resurgence of Al Qaida in Iraq’s largest province, Anbar. Al Qaida, after a lull of nearly two years, was said to have renewed operations in such Sunni cities as Faluja and Samara.

Rand said AQI has been hampered by the sharp drop in the flow of foreign volunteers to Iraq. As a result, the report said Al Qaida has been increasingly relying on Iraqi women for suicide and other operations.

Syria has been deemed as the way station for at least 90 percent of Al Qaida volunteers to Iraq. The report said Syria has hosted a range of Sunni insurgency groups exiled from Iraq and seeking to destabilize the Baghdad government.

A U.S. combat troop withdrawal was expected to renew the ethnic war in Iraq, another report said.

The Institute of National Security Studies asserted that the 130,000 American troops have largely succeeded in preventing civil war in Iraq. In a report by U.S. Air Force Maj. Clint ZumBrunnen, the institute warned that any reconciliation effort by Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds must be backed by American force.

“The correlation between fragile stability in Iraq and the presence of U.S. combat forces is difficult to ignore, even if it is true that US forces do not control the country,” said the report by ZumBrunnen, a U.S. Air Force scholar.

The report dismissed U.S. claims of a military victory in the insurgency war in Iraq. Instead, ZumBrunnen asserted that the Sunni insurgency in Iraq abated when the United States provided massive financing to Sunni tribes in central and western Iraq.

“Any precipitous withdrawal of US combat power will greatly reduce U.S. leverage in Iraq and risk a return to the sectarian strife of 2006 simply because few of Iraq’s serious internal conflicts have been resolved,” the report said.

President Obama has pledged to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, leaving an estimated 50,000 advisers and support personnel.

But the report warned that Sunnis and Kurds, the biggest supporters of a U.S. military presence, would harden their positions toward the dominate Shi’ite community once the Americans begin to withdraw. For its part, the Shi’ite community has been split by a power struggle led by the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army, commanded by Moqtada Sadr.

Meanwhile, ZumBrunnen said, the United States has been led into a potential war in northern Iraq regarding the authority and size of the autonomous Kurdish region. The focus of the confrontation has been the oil-rich area of Kirkuk.

“Both sides are now edgier because there is less certainty that the U.S. will intervene to prevent one side or the other from exploiting an advantage,” the report said. “And since any grand bargain between Arabs and Kurds mediated by the United Nations will likely require a powerful military force for enforcement, knowledge that U.S. forces will withdraw completely by 2011 lessens the chance for a nonviolent solution to the dispute.

Accordingly, both the [Kurdish] peshmerga and the ISF [Iraqi security forces] continue to prepare for eventual conflict.”

The report said the United States must now focus on helping determine control over Iraq’s crude oil reserves, deemed the most explosive of ethnic disputes. Since October 2008, no progress has been reported in talks between the government and major ethnic groups.

“This is where the additional role U.S. combat forces fill in Iraq comes into play,” the report said. “Not only are these forces the guardians of a tense peace; they are also the instrument of power that lends credibility to other U.S. levers at the negotiating table.

Degrading their capability before any long term agreement exists on an issue so vital to Iraq’s future weakens U.S. ability to shepherd all sides into a compromise, and more ominously, invites a return to the sectarianism of 2006 and 2007.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Calls At UN To Bring Israel To Trial

By
David Bedein
-
Jerusalem – Tension is mounting in Israel as it awaits the publication of the Goldstone

Commission’s report, which inquired into allegations directed against Israel relating to Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. The report is set to be published in the next few days.

The commission, headed by a South African judge, was established by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and is largely regarded as anti-Israel. Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission and argues that it has predicated much of its findings on false and biased information that it obtained from Hamas. There is concern that the findings will be quite harsh and serve as a basis for litigation against Israel for “war crimes”.

UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Navanethen Pillay, the South African judge, who hosted the anti-Israel Durban 2 conference last April, has already made clear her hope that the UN will ask The Hague to begin proceedings against Israel.

Pillay’s position is based on the Darfur precedent, since Israel has not ratified the international court’s charter and is not a member of it. The UN Security Council is authorized to order the start of litigation against countries that are not members of the court, and in the case of Darfur, the council did indeed instruct the court to start procedures against senior Sudanese officials for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. She said she hoped that the UN Security Council would respond in kind if the Goldstone Commission found possible war crimes.

Meanwhile the current president of the UN Human Rights Council rejected the demand of the “UN Watch” that British jurist Christine Chinkin be disqualified from the Goldstone Commission. The group argued that statements and articles by Chinkin in which she accused Israel of war crimes even before the commission had begun its work, which indicated that she held a predetermined bias.

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