Dagelijks archief: 5 juli 2012

Leger Israël rekruteert virtuele soldaten

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Archieffoto van Israëlische soldaten

Via een blog op de website van het Israëlische leger kunnen vrijwilligers zich aanmelden als ‘virtuele soldaat’. De bedoeling is dat zij zoveel mogelijk positieve informatie over het leger op sociale netwerksites plaatsen: hoe meer van dat soort berichten iemand plaatst of ‘liket’, hoe hoger zijn virtuele rang wordt.

‘Heb jij je ooit bij het leger aan willen sluiten om Israël te verdedigen?’, zo beginthet blog, ‘wel, nu kan dat! Met IDF Ranks.’

Als mensen zichzelf aanmelden, krijgen ze de rang van ‘Green Private’. Daarna begint het punten verdienen – en daarmee het stijgen in rang en het behalen van allerlei badges. Eerst wordt de vrijwilliger gepromoveerd tot ‘skilled private’ en daarna tot ‘veteran private’ om vervolgens, 48 niveaus verder, misschien ooit chef defensiestaf te worden.

De badges verdient de vrijwilliger door bijvoorbeeld op het blog zelf rond te neuzen. Als hij bijvoorbeeld een paar keer een zoekopdracht invoert, krijgt hij de badge voor ‘research officer’.

(www.trouw.nl / 05.07.2012)

Palestinian Hunger Striker in Critical Condition

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A Palestinian prisoner convicted of transporting suicide bombers is in critical condition after a nearly three-month hunger strike, a rights group said Thursday.

Akram Rikhawi started fasting on April 12, just before 1,200 other prisoners began refusing food to demand better conditions.

Israeli authorities reached a deal with participants in the wider strike by mid-May, easing some restrictions. Rikhawi has continued to protest his detention by refusing to eat.

According to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the 39-year-old Rikhawi seeks early release from his nine-year sentence because of his ailments, which include diabetes and asthma.

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said Rikhawi was sentenced to nine years in prison for smuggling suicide bombers for the Islamic militant Hamas, planting explosives for another Palestinian group, the Popular Resistance Committees, and attempting to bomb Israeli soldiers.

“He is in a very fragile condition,” said Anat Litvin of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. “He doesn’t have much time,” she said.

Litvin said a doctor visited Rikhawi a day earlier and reported he was suffering from severe dizziness and could barely stand.

Israeli Prison Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Rikhawi was not in immediate danger, and the prison service would do all it can to keep him alive.

Other Palestinian prisoners who went on hunger strike this year ended their protests before anyone died.

Prisoners who went on strike in April were mainly protesting the practice of “administrative detention,” imprisonment without trial, which Israel says is crucial to prevent attacks without revealing sources of information.

Two other Palestinian prisoners, Hassan Safadi and Samer Al Barq, are also currently on hunger strikes.

The prisoner issue is emotional for Palestinians, many of whom have had a loved one behind bars at some point during decades of conflict. Palestinians generally view them as heroes, regardless of the reason for their imprisonment.

(abcnews.go.com / 05.07.2012)

Benjamin Netanyahu involved in smuggling nuclear triggers: Report

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Smyth and [Netanyahu] would meet in restaurants in Tel Aviv and in [Netanyahu’s] home and/or business.”

Section of an FBI investigative report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was involved in smuggling nuclear triggers out of the United States carried out by a network of front companies, a report says.

According to a Wednesday article posted on antiwar.com, the FBI partially declassified and released additional pages from a 1985-2002 investigation into how a network of front companies connected to the Israeli Ministry for Military Affairs illegally smuggled triggers used for nuclear weapons (krytrons) out of the United States.

The FBI investigation reveals that Netanyahu worked at Heli Trading Company, the Israeli node of the network during the smuggling operations.

The Israeli premier was in contact with Richard Kelly Smyth, who at the time was president of the MILCO International Inc., a front company for the Israel-based Heli Trading Company, then owned by Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan.

In April 2002, Smyth was sentenced to 40 months in prison and fined 20,000 dollars for trafficking krytrons, tiny electronic devices that are used in high-speed photography, strobe lighting and photocopying machines, but can also be used in nuclear triggers.

Smyth was also indicted for selling about 800 krytrons to Heli Trading Company (also known as Milchan Limited).

“Smyth and [Netanyahu] would meet in restaurants in Tel Aviv and in [Netanyahu’s] home and/or business,” the FBI report said.

In March, the co-authors of the book Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan issued a statement saying, “Hollywood mega-producer and former secret agent Arnon Milchan has been asked directly by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres to avoid any public discussion of the book Confidential, asserting that the matter is too sensitive at this time.”

(www.presstv.ir / 05.07.2012)

Ditching the Status Quo in Palestine

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A recent protest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Three cornerstones of the current status quo – negotiations, the PA, and the two-state solution – can no longer be allowed to limit the imagination, argues White, they need to go.

It has been a bad week at the office for the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership. Last weekend, protests on successive days against the proposed meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Kadima Party head Shaul Mofaz were met with violent attacks by PA forces.

The harassment and baton swings (including the targeting of the media) provoked yet anotherdemonstration on Tuesday, where there were chants against Oslo, the PA, and the repression of dissent. Groups like Amnesty International have also spoken out.

By coincidence, two other stories were reported at the same time: first, the detention of around 200 people in recent weeks by the PA, particularly in the northern West Bank; and second, the request by Israel on behalf of Salam Fayyad for an IMF loan to help prevent a PA financial collapse.

This is shaping up to be a time of clarity, and the issues go much deeper than heavy-handedEU-trained police. It is a moment to acknowledge that three cornerstones of the status quo – the official peace process, the PA structure, and the two-state framework – are not just flawed or in trouble, but are thwarting the realisation of Palestinian rights by their very nature.

With negotiations long since suspended, it is commonplace for politicians to talk of the peace process as being in dire straits. But it is time for a more damning verdict on the Quartet-led negotiations than is typically offered in the mainstream.

Imagine a country that has occupied substantial territory outside its borders for decades, while creating colonies of its own population in defiance of international law. Imagine if that same country had nuclear weapons, had illegally annexed the territory of another sovereign state, and routinely committed acts denounced by the UN, Amnesty and other human rights groups as war crimes, gross abuses of human rights and breaches of prohibitions on discrimination.

This is Israel, yet instead of sanctions or uproar, there are “negotiations” between the colonising occupier and the colonised – supervised by international powers like the US and EU who provide Israel with varying degrees of military, trade, and diplomatic support.

… to insist on “two states for two peoples” is to be complicit with those who seek to frustrate Palestinians from achieving all of their rights.

Simply put, the “peace process” is used as a substitute for international law, rather than as a means to secure its implementation. Thusaccountability for war crimes in Gaza is seen as a threat to the peace process, while for the Palestinians to go to the UN (putting aside that initiative’s flaws) is critiqued as a substitute for face-to-face, US/Quartet-mediated talks.

This diplomatic game has been going on for 20 years, during which time Israel’s apartheid regime has developed and expanded. As Akiva Eldar put it in Ha’aretz, “the ‘peace process’ has served as a cover for the settlement process”, with the West Bank settler population having “risen from 110,000 to 320,000″ and “60 per cent of the area [Area C]… de facto annexed”.

Yet during two decades of continued colonisation, Israel has been able to maintain the illusion of “talks” with the “other side” – and that is where the second obstacle to Palestinian rights comes in: the Palestinian Authority itself.

As was clear to some even at the time, the establishment of the PA enabled Israel to delegate numerous responsibilities of an occupier to an “autonomous” entity that Israel always intended, in the words of Rabin, to be “less than a state”. Years on, there are now layers of vested interests in the maintenance of the status quo, from the “VIP” economic-political elite, to those dependent on a PA (read Western-funded) salary.

Articles on growing public dissent towards the PA have highlighted another of its key roles – that of security sub-contractor for the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus. While Amira Hass wrote recently of “the transformation of the PA into the subcontractor of the IDF, the Civil Administration and Shin Bet security service”, this is in fact what it was always meant to be.

“We give them the names and they arrest them,” said an Israeli officer quoted in piece in The Economist this last week – and there’s no shortage of evidence. According to the Israeli military, in 2009, there were 1,297 PA-IDF “coordinated operations”. In January 2010, a Wikileaks cable notes that “Fayyad and his senior security officials were clear on the need for increased PA-GOI security coordination”. In another cable, the PA’s Minister of Interiortold US officials how “publicity about Israeli-Palestinian security coordination threatens the sustainability of the PA’s security campaign”, and thus it was “essential” to keep it “out of the public eye”.

As well as the official peace process and the PA, the decolonisation of Palestine is blocked by a third core element of the status quo: the two-state solution framework. After Sharon, Bush and Blair, it is clear that the only “Palestinian state” that will be allowed to emerge is a stunted reservation, the final confirmation of the permanency of ethno-religious Jewish privilege in the majority of Palestine/Israel. No rights for the refugees. Second-class citizenship inside the ethnocracy. The best those inside the wall can hope for is a work permit for the “industrial zone” that will mark the pinnacle of Jewish-Palestinian “co-existence”.

Why has a trip to Salam Fayyad’s office – stopping by Rawabi – become a must-do item on the itinerary of Israel lobby group tours? Why do the Israeli government and the state’s apologists in the West constantly urge a return to “negotiations”? As signs abound that we are in a transition time, to insist on “two states for two peoples” is to be complicit with those who seek to frustrate Palestinians from achieving all of their rights.

These three cornerstones – “negotiations”, the PA, and the two-state solution – can no longer be allowed to limit the imagination; they need to go. The obvious next questions are how does that happen, and what comes next? Mapping a way forward (if you excuse the pun) is tricky, but there are signs that things are on the move: different sorts of examples include the PNCvoter registration drive, youth movements, the BDS campaign, and efforts to conceptualise arefugees’ return.

Rather than using the question of “if not this, then what?” as a way of denying or dismissing the inevitable, a clearheaded assessment of what is preventing Palestinians obtaining their rights can be the foundation for thinking beyond the limitations set by Oslo and the world of the Ramallah “Green Zone”.

(www.commondreams.org / 05.07.2012)

Guest commentary: In Muslim nations, democracy will eventually prevail

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Muslim-world-democracy From Tunisia to Pakistan, the Muslim world is in turmoil, as each country struggles to find its own path to an Arab Spring.

Pessimists say that, in the end, all of these countries will end up with some form of authoritarian regime either because Islamic parties cannot accept democracy or out of a fear that these regimes will keep a nation out of the modern world.

But I am an optimist. I believe that eventually the democratic ferment in the Arab world will bring an era of relative democracy, religious tolerance and good governance. And I believe guiding Islamic principles will lead the way.

Without a doubt, revolutions are messy.

When revolutions occur after decades of authoritarian rule, the next stage is often chaotic and sometimes violent. In this region, there are many examples of long-simmering distrust between ethnic and sectarian groups that go back centuries that had been held in check by despotic rule. Now, suddenly, the grip that had stifled these competing groups has been released.

But I believe after an initial flailing about, conflicts between sectarian groups will slowly abate. Most Muslims want to join the modern world. They want to be part of the international community, not held in suspicion. They want governments that serve them. They do not want to serve the government. They want the freedom to develop their own ideas and live their own lives in harmony with their neighbors.

In short, they want a government that is as responsive to their needs as a Western democracy.

Many people, both in the West and the Middle East, believe that a Western-style democratic government would preclude including Islamic principles. That’s because in the past 40 years, throughout the Muslim world, Islamic law has become dominated by narrow and literalist interpretation that has many Westerners and Muslims believing it is all about regulations on what people can wear and archaic ways that people are punished.

I view this transition as a native Egyptian knowing Egypt as a center of Islamic learning with universities dating back 1,200 years. I have a hard time with how Islam is being used by political groups and governments.

But to think a democratically elected government in a Muslim-majority country will not have some kind of Islamic influence is naïve. The question is what form of Islamic law will have the most influence.

Islamic law is based on six objectives. The law must protect and promote life, human dignity, property, religion, family and intellect. The law is about enhancing the human experience, not restricting it. The Quran contains specific demands from God about justice, about feeding and helping the poor, about taking care of orphans, about the rights of women, about religious freedom and tolerance and about human rights.

In order to be truly an Islamic state, a country needs to pay close attention to these principles. Yet if one were to look closely at the six objectives, one can almost hear Thomas Jefferson talking about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Once a country has embraced democracy, then radical Muslims no longer have a home. Whoever is elected to leadership must then join the political world that requires compromise and coalition building. Radical Islamic regimes can only be imposed by countries ruled by tyrants or ayatollahs who have rejected democracy.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may want to impose more Islamic values in the government as a result of their election to power. But if the Muslim Brotherhood governs by a strict, literalist interpretation of Islam, they will see the backlash.

Women in Egypt are highly educated. They are not going to acquiesce to losing their rights. The people of Egypt want to be part of the modern world. They will have to insist, as should we, that what the Muslim Brotherhood enacts is, in fact, Islamic law that promotes social justice by protecting the people from tyranny.

This transition period provides a great opportunity for American diplomacy. Instead of fighting the influence of Islam in government, U.S. diplomats should explore with their counterparts in the Middle East the positive aspects of it and how it can be implemented to create a form of government that expands human rights, religious freedom and dignity for all.

If they succeed, both the U.S. and Muslim countries will recognize that they have more in common than they ever thought.

(Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf / www.freep.com / 05.07.2012)

Israel orders destruction of entire West Bank village

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Hundreds protested demolition orders in Susya village on 22 June.

On 22 June, more than 500 Palestinian, Israeli and international activists came together in the Palestinian herding community of Susya, in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills, to protest a recent Israeli high court ruling for the demolition of the village and the ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinian land rights in the West Bank.

The activists, arriving by organized buses from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and independently from all over the region, met with the residents of Susya and attempted to march towards the location of the original Susya, which was demolished in 1986 and is now an archaeological park.

They were confronted by Israeli soldiers, who fired stun grenades into and around the crowds of people, while several rounds of tear gas were simultaneously released.

On 6 June, Israel’s high court issued a decision that prohibits Susya residents from building any new structures near the surrounding Israeli settlements.

Six days later, Israeli officials — accompanied by soldiers — handed out demolition orders to the entire West Bank village. These orders referred to demolition decisions stretching back to 1995.

Settlers petition high court to wipe out village

The decision by the high court was in response to a petition filed by the Zionist organization Regavim, which called on the Israeli Civil Administration — the body overseeing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank — to accelerate the demolition process for Susya and other Palestinian villages. The residents of Susya are being represented in the case by lawyers from Rabbis for Human Rights.

Regavim was founded in 2006 and describes itself as a social movement working “to promote a Jewish Zionist agenda for the state of Israel … [and] to prevent foreign elements from taking over the Jewish People’s territorial resources.” To that end, they have participated in more than twenty legal cases targeting Palestinian building rights in the occupied West Bank, the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and the Naqab (Negev) desert.

The Regavim website invites English-speaking visitors to watch a video whose narrator warns viewers, in a voice similar to one in a Hollywood film trailer, that “a non-Jewish territorial contiguity is being created, endangering Israel’s future and very existence.” This is accompanied by a visual backdrop of Israel, with the splintered areas of Palestinian population centers — in Gaza, the West Bank, the Naqab and the Galilee — represented in blood red.

Racist planning

Yariv Mohar, a representative of Rabbis for Human Rights, explained to The Electronic Intifada that the group approaches the case with appreciation to the larger, comprehensive discrimination faced by the Palestinian residents of Susya and elsewhere in Area C (an area comprising 60 percent of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control).

“We try to stress that the military rule of the Israeli Civil [Administration] in Area C is fundamentally discriminatory to Palestinians, and that this extreme case stems from the foundation of racist planning policies enforced by Israel,” Mohar said.

It’s immediately apparent that the arguments of the petition submitted by Regavim take not only a different tone than that of Rabbis for Human Rights, but a distorted understanding of Israeli settlements and native Palestinians in the West Bank. Regavim’s petition to the high court also represents a growing strategy among Zionist organizations to influence the judicial process.

In an argument explaining the demolition tactics of the Civil Administration that effectively illuminates Regavim’s philosophy, Article 47 of Regavim’s petition complained that “despite clear instructions from the government to focus on security-related demolitions, the Civil Administration avoids destroying such structures, and instead focuses on destroying cisterns, sheds, chicken coops, livestock pens and agricultural fields — in order to present a statistical balance with destruction in the Jewish [settler] sector” (“Settler front-group presses government to accelerate demolition frenzy, tripping itself up in the process,” The Villagers Group, 17 March 2012).

While the petition treats the Palestinian residents of Susya as illegal infiltrators of settler land, it does not acknowledge that Susya existed prior to the founding of Israel in 1948. Nor that many of the residents arrived as refugees who were expelled from an area in modern-day Israel — now called Arad — during the Nakba, the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the late 1940s.

Article 48 of Regavim’s petition explicitly outlines the discrimination faced by Palestinian’s applying for building permits, in an attempt to urge the Civil Administration to destroy Palestinian structures at a faster rate:

“It should be noted that from a separate FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request by the plaintiff about construction permits awarded in the Palestinian sector it turned out that in 2008, 74 such permits were issued, in 2009 six permits, and in 2010 only 7 permits were approved for the entire Palestinian sector of ‘Area C.’ It is well-known that every year, thousands of structures are built in that sector … the message internalized by the Palestinian public is that there is no need to apply for permits.”

Precedent for Palestinian communities in Area C

The oucome of the legal case will reverberate far beyond Susya village.

“At first blush, it may seem that this is ‘only’ about the threat to demolish the entire village of Susya, the homes of these simple cave dwellers of the South Hebron Hills,” wrote Arik Ascherman, who is leading the Rabbis for Human Rights legal team, in an online public appeal. “However, the truth is that the results will affect the fate of hundreds of Palestinian homes throughout the occupied territories, perhaps thousands. The outcome may well have an effect on our major appeal to return planning authority for Palestinian communities in Area C to Palestinian hands.

“I have wanted to explode on the occasions that I have sat in the courtroom and heard Regavim pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes with misleading statistics and claims of reverse discrimination against settlers,” Ascherman added (“Please support Palestinian residents of Susya vs. Regavim and the Israeli government,” 4 June 2012).

Constant danger of demolition

The threat of property destruction is not one experienced by Susya village alone.

Fareed Aamar works as an administrator in Yatta, an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers at the very south of the West Bank where Susya is located. From his office in local government under the Palestinian Authority, he is placed in a difficult position of oversight in an area that largely falls under Area C.

“Whenever we try to apply for a permit to build a school or a clinic, it is rejected,” said Aamar. “Whenever we try to build one, it is destroyed by Israel.”

Bimkom, an Israeli organization working on planning issues in the West Bank, reported that, from 2000-2008, about 95 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits in Area C were rejected (“The Prohibited Zone: Israeli planning policy in the Palestinian villages in Area C,” 2008 [PDF]).

If the several previous Israeli demolitions in Susya were not enough reminder of what little authority he has to protect his community, the lack of respect he is paid by Israeli forces is a violent and frequent lesson in who exercises control of Palestinian life in Area C.

“It doesn’t matter who you are — farmer, mayor, activist, or a child in school,” Aamar added. “The soldiers come with their guns, and they tell you what will be. I work in government, but at the point of a gun, what can anyone do?”

“You cannot plan for tomorrow”

While the residents of Susya were handed the demolition orders last month, Aamar explained how the sense of unknown contributes to the already constant lack of security and normalcy for Palestinians in Susya.

“You can never know when they will come, only that they eventually will,” he said. “You cannot plan for tomorrow, or the next day, when Israeli forces could destroy your family’s home at any time. Every day now is like this.”

The immediate threat of demolition is only a part of the insecurity and racial inequality that are a constant reality for residents of Susya. Susya is located near the Israeli settlements of Carmel, Maon, Beit Yatir and a settlement also called Susya. Acts of violence and destruction from settlers against Palestinians are a frequent part of life.

“When settlers attack Palestinians here, there are often [Israeli] soldiers there watching,” Aamar added. “And when the settlers have roads and areas that only Jews can travel, it’s impossible to know when or where this will happen.”

He described the destruction of Palestinian crops and olive trees, and settlers routinely throwing rocks at Palestinian children walking to school. He said that many residents believe settlers are poisoning their water sources, killing animals and sickening local residents. This belief is made only more threatening by the utter lack of public services and basic facilities available to many residents of the village.

“The water pipes of Israel’s Mekorot water company pass several meters away from our village — they bring water to illegal outposts around us but we can’t get water from them,” Susya resident Nasser Nawajah wrote last month (“Palestinian from Area C on a life in constant need of rebuilding,” +972, 14 June 2012).

“We don’t have access to the water that flows in those pipes, even though this is our water, water that Israel pumps from the West Bank,” he added.

Not only are Palestinians denied access to the infrastructure enjoyed by Israeli settlements, whatever they build themselves is subject to demolition.

Last year set a new record of displacement as a total of 622 Palestinian structures were demolished by Israel, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. Of these, 222 — or 36 percent — were family homes, while the remainder were livelihood-related (including water storage and agricultural facilities), resulting in the displacement of 1,094 people, almost double the number for 2010.

Since 1967, ICAHD reports, Israel has demolished more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza (“The Judaization of Palestine: 2011 displacement trends,” 12 January 2012).

Who is violent?

After the protests on 22 June, Yariv Mohar of Rabbis for Human Rights told The Electronic Intifada that “it was really powerful to see such a variety of people out with us. It was a huge success, not just in terms of the great turnout, but also that it was entirely peaceful in the face of the typical [Israeli army] stun grenades and tear gas. It made it very clear-cut — who is violent and who is not.”

The case of Susya highlights the ways awareness and resistance campaigns operate, particularly in light of the complex relationship between Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations and solidarity groups working to protect Palestinian land rights. “It’s really important to focus on coordination. That means communication and cooperation at all times,” said Mohar.

He described how, as a Jewish-Israeli organization, Rabbis for Human Rights comes under particular pressure from Israel’s far-right for drawing a connection between the Israeli policies and the spiritual and moral lessons of Judaism. “We talk about the Bible, and the connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. But we do not see this as an excuse for domination. That really seems to get some people mad.”

Hearing date in four months

Meanwhile, the residents of Susya will continue to be at the mercy of the high court’s decisions as the judicial process winds on.

In a decision described by Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights as “unexpected,” the high court judges ruled on 12 June to merge the different cases pertaining to Susya, and to set a further hearing date in four months.

The court is also scheduled to hear a petition from Rabbis for Human Rights later this month aimed at giving the Palestinian residents of Susya and Area C the authority to plan the development of their own communities. And activists are planning a follow-up protest in Susya this Friday, 6 July.

Yariv Mohar stressed that what’s at stake is worth the effort of legal battles, dangerous protests, the coordinating across different communities of activists.

“The civil resistance movement is the most inspiring force in the region right now,” he said. “It’s an incredible confluence of forces coming together for equal rights in a nonviolent way.

(Ryan Brownell / electronicintifada.net  / 05.07.2012)

Libya elections: Muslim Brotherhood set to lead government

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Libya’s top politicians have hatched a deal that would see the Muslim Brotherhood lead the government after the country’s first free elections in almost five decades takes place on Sunday.

Libya elections: Muslim Brotherhood set to lead government

Mohamed Morsy of the Muslim Brotherhood waves to a crowd outside a mosque after attending Friday Prayers in Cairo

While the elections for a 200-member National Congress is unlikely to grant a majority to any one faction, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies are confident they can join their counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt at the helm of leadership.

Negotiations between the Muslim Brotherhood and a secular-based political movement led by former interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril have focused on forming a post-election government as soon as the result is known.

An adviser to Mr Jibril said the former prime minister was likely to take the post of figurehead president with Mustafa Abu Shagour, currently interim deputy prime minister of the Muslim Brotherhood, taking the prime minister’s slot as head of government.

The Muslim Brotherhood would dominate the ministries.

In the run-up to the elections, Libya’s interim government has struggled to maintain law and order.

A threatened electoral boycott by federalists in Benghazi, the second city, has rattled Libya’s rebels turned leaders. Leading figures fear that large numbers in the city that triggered the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi may shun the polls, undermining the legitimacy of the election.

Recent attacks on foreign diplomats in Benghazi by Jihadists, a series of ugly micro-conflicts between militias in the Nafousa mountains leaving 105 dead and 300 wounded in the last fortnight and fierce clashes between Arabs, Tebu tribesmen and Tuaregs in the south have put the country on edge.

“We need to ensure stronger and more capable leadership soon after the elections,” said a senior official in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party. “That is what Libyans want – more security and stability and progress being made to improve their day-to-day lives. They don’t want deadlock.”

Any coalition government would grant a prominent place to the al-Watan party of Abdulhakim Belhaj, sources said. Mr Belhaj acknowledged that the talks were under way. He said: “I negotiate with anyone who cares about Libya and wants to unite it.”

The presence of Mr Belhaj in a Libyan government would complicate relations between Tripoli and London.

Mr Belhaj, the former commandant of the now dissolved terrorist outfit, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which had ties with al-Qaeda before disavowing violence, is suing the British government for approving his 2004 rendition to Gaddafi’s regime.

Libya is using a complicated electoral system designed to ensure that no party sweeps the board in the elections for the assembly, which will oversee the new government and draw up a constitution.

One hundred and twenty seats are reserved for individuals – 2,501 candidates are challenging for those – and 80 seats will be allotted according to party lists. There are 1,206 party candidates.

But Islamic parties are likely to predominate, experts believe.

“I’d be surprised if Islamists, from the Brotherhood and other parties, don’t secure most of the seats and a great chunk of the vote,” says Dartmouth University professor Dirk Vandewalle, who’s been advising the UN mission here.

The outgoing National Transitional Council, which has ruled Libya since Gaddafi’s fall, announced yesterday that Islamic Sharia law should be the “main” source of legislation and that this principle should not be subject to a referendum.

“The Libyan people are attached to Islam, as a religion and legislation … As such the National Transitional Council recommends that the (next) congress make Sharia the main source of legislation,” Saleh Daroub, NTC spokesman, said.

Some secular Libyans fear the Brotherhood rising influence, despite promises from the Justice and Construction Party that it won’t seek to impose religious views through control of the bureaucracy.

“If the Brotherhood gets in we will see a repeat of what’s happening in Tunisia with underhand pressure on women to cover up and raids on art galleries,” warns Majid Wanis-Gaddafi, the son of Libya’s last prime minister before Gaddafi seized power in 1968.

The main storage centre for election materials in the eastern Libyan town of Ajdabiya was set on fire late Thursday night. The ballot papers for the town were burnt. The election commission is trying to print replacements in time for the polls.

Hundreds of protesters stormed the election commission’s office in Benghazi, ransacking files and smashing computer equipment. If they had managed to destroy ballot papers or voter lists, they could have derailed the election.

(www.telegraph.co.uk / 05.07.2012)

Concern mounts for the life of Akram Rikhawi on his 85th day of hunger strike

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An independent doctor from PHR-IL visited Akram Rikhawi yesterday and an Addameer lawyer visited him today, along with Samer Al-Barq and Hassan Safadi. Samer and Hassan are still denied access to independent doctors.

Joint Press Release, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Ramallah-Jaffa, 5 July 2012—Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-IL) and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association are gravely concerned for the life of Akram Rikhawi, who is now on his 85th day of hunger strike. An independent doctor from PHR-IL visited Akram in Ramleh prison medical center yesterday, 4 July, which was made possible only after an appeal to the Israeli District Court, where the judge eventually ordered the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) to allow the entry of the independent doctor no later than 3 July.

Following the visit to Akram, the PHR-IL doctor reported the alarming deterioration of Akram’s asthma, which continues to be unstable. The doctor believes Akram has been given very high doses of steroids as treatment, which can cause severe long-term and irreversible damage. The doctor reiterated recommendation for immediate examination by a lung specialist, which was not performed as recommended after the last visit by an independent doctor on 6 June.

Akram also reported that he is experiencing severe dizziness, can no longer walk and is having difficulty standing. Even more troubling, Akram has not been given any assistance in these matters, leaving him vulnerable to the danger of falling, which could result in fatal injury due to his osteoperosis. The doctor further noted that Akram is experiencing tingling and numbness in his left thigh, which could indicate peripheral nerve damage, and recommended immediate examination in a public hospital, for fear of permanent neurological damage.

The IPS has continued to punish Akram for his hunger strike by confiscating his books and reading materials, isolating him from other prisoners and cancelling his daily break. He is also being held in a cell with no fan or air conditioning, despite the high humidity and how badly it affects his asthma.

Akram pointed out to the independent doctor and to Addameer lawyer Mona Neddaf in her visit today that he was recently hospitalized at Assaf Harofeh Hospital, but was shackled at all times to the hospital bed and felt his needs were mostly ignored by the medical staff. He emphasized to Ms. Neddaf his desire to have unrestricted access to the independent doctors from PHR-IL.

Ms. Neddaf also visited Samer Al-Barq, who is on his 45th day of renewed hunger strike in protest against the extension of his administrative detention. Ms. Neddaf noted that he seems significantly weaker than during her last visit on 25 June. He is consuming only water with glucose.

Samer’s family has reported that he suffers from kidney problems and high blood pressure and has lost more than 25% of his original weight. On 21 June, PHR-IL submitted a request to allow access for independent physicians. On 25 June the IPS denied this request without providing any reasons.

Hassan Safadi is on his 15th day of renewed hunger strike, after previously spending 71 days on prolonged hunger strike. His last administrative detention order was due to expire on 29 June and, according to the agreement ending Palestinian prisoners’ mass hunger strike, he was supposed to be released on that date. However, his lawyer was informed on 21 June of the renewal of his administrative detention order for a further six months, in violation of the agreement.

According to Ms. Neddaf after her visit with him today, Hassan’s lawyer submitted a request to the military judge that he review the agreement and consider his immediate release. The judge responded that he would give a decision on this matter in two weeks. Hassan stressed that he will not break his hunger strike until he is released to his home in Nablus.

Hassan was transferred to Ramleh prison medical center last week and is currently being held in an isolated cell. He is drinking water with salt and taking vitamins due to a low potassium level in his blood. He has lost approximately 8 kilos in weight since the beginning of his renewed strike. PHR-IL submitted a request to allow access for an independent doctor on 26 June and have not yet received a response from the IPS.

In light of the deterioration of the conditions of the remaining Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, PHR-IL and Addameer urge the international community to immediately intervene on their behalf and demand:
unrestricted access for independent physicians to all hunger strikers;
the immediate transfer of Akram Rikhawi and Samer Al-Barq to a public hospital, and the transfer of all prisoners on hunger strike for more than 40 days to public hospitals;
that no hunger striker be shackled while hospitalized;
that all hunger strikers—especially those in advanced stages of hunger strike—be allowed family visits, while they are still lucid;
that all information be given to families as to the medical condition of their loved ones, which is the responsibility of hospitals and medical staff in accordance with standards of medical ethics;
that Akram Rikhawi be granted release on humanitarian grounds;
that Hassan Safadi and Samer Al-Barq, along with all other administrative detainees, be immediately and unconditionally released.

(www.addameer.org / 05.07.2012)

Israeli troops filmed kicking Palestinian child (VIDEO)

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Still from B’Tselem video

An Israeli Border Police officer has been caught on video kicking a Palestinian child in the southern West Bank. The police have launched a probe into the incident, documented by an Israeli human rights organization.

The footage shows a 9-year-old boy walking down the road when a uniformed police officer runs up to him and grabs him by the arm, causing the boy to fall on the ground. Another policeman then walks up to them and kicks the screaming child.

After that, the soldiers let the child run away, and leave the site.

In response to the incident, the Israeli Border Police issued a statement denouncing the policemen’s behavior, which it claims “contrasts the values of the force.” 

“The Border Police commander instructed on setting up a team to investigate the incident immediately and its conclusions are due in the coming days,” the statement said.

The boy, Abdul-Rahman Burqan, testified to the Israeli police that the soldiers chased him after he swore at one of the officers. He also claimed an Israeli soldier had stomped on his hand after he and his friend were stopped at a checkpoint in a separate incident a month ago.

The video was recorded by a volunteer of the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) on June 29 in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. The organization distributes cameras to Palestinians so that they can film possible instances of abuse carried out by Israeli security forces and settlers.

According to the cameraman, he began to shoot the video when he saw the officer ambushing the boy behind a wall.

Some reports suggest that the boy was throwing rocks at police officers before the camera started rolling.

(www.rt.com / 05.07.2012)

Looking into the cause of Arafat’s death eight years later; too late?

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After the recent investigations concerning the former Palestinian president’s death, the case has been reopened (not that it has ever been closed but maybe somewhat forgotten). Or maybe people have never forgotten, but have lost hope in the investigations that stated Arafat must have been poisoned and did not go any further. Suha Al-Tawil, Arafat’s wife, cooperated with the Qatar-based news corporation Al-Jazeera to look further into the case of her husband’s death.
 Al-Jazeera was given the personal possessions of Arafat that he used during his illness until his death these possessions included: the hat he wore when he left Ramallah, his toothbrush, the hat he wore in the hospital with a dried-up blood stain, his undergarments with a stain of urine, a hat which had some remnants of his hair, his koffiyye and other personal belongings. These possessions were in the same bag that Arafat used during his stay at the hospital and his wife had kept them since her husband’s death. Al-Jazeera sent these things to a laboratory in Switzerland and had forensic specialists on the investigation team.
During their investigation which they were also documenting, they also attempted to speak to the doctors that were part of medical teams called upon during Arafat’s sickness. Many of the doctors especially those from the Egyptian and Tunisian medical teams refused to talk about the case, and one of them admitted that the Egyptian authorities has asked him not to speak about the case. When they tried to contact Arafat’s doctor who had continuously been by his side in Ramallah, he said that the matter is not a medical issue rather it is a political one.
When Arafat passed away, nobody had asked for his body to undergo autopsy. The body was sent to Ramallah and buried where Arafat had lived under siege during the first Intifada. When Suha was asked why she had not asked for the body to be autopsied, she replied that she was in shock of her husband’s death and could not think reasonably. It seems now that after eight years she has finally come out of her shock and has restored her common sense. Suha, at the request of the investigators, asked the hospital for Arafat’s blood and urine samples, but they had already been disposed of. The hospital is supposed to keep the samples of all patients for at least ten years, but they said that nobody had asked for them during all these years so they got rid of them.
There was a high percentage of polonium found in the remnants of Arafat’s possessions. Polonium is a highly radioactive substance that if used on a person will kill them slowly. There are two types of polonium; one that is found in nature, the other which is formed in nuclear labs. Unsurprisingly, it was the second which was found to have poisoned Arafat.
 
At the end of the documentary film prepared by Al-Jazeera Suha Al-Tawil asks the Palestinian Authority to exhume her husband’s body (or what remains of it) from his grave in Ramallah. The forensic experts say that they can use what is left of the teeth and bones to justify if Arafat was truly poisoned.
After 8 years, why not before? Has Arafat’s wife no more money and needs to be given a financial compensation for the death of her husband so that she can reserve her platinum blonde hair color at the best hairdressers in town? She said that she was in too much shock to ask for an autopsy of her husband, but the body did not go straight to Ramallah until her financial matters were settled with the PA as many people believe. Or is this an attempt to blame the death of Arafat fully on Israel, when it is believed that a few members of the PA collaborated with Israel on the matter? And why is Al-Jazeera so concerned that it expensed itself with such an investigation? Is it not a news channel that is supposed to inform with news, or is it a channel that now makes news? And for all those who are going to say it is because of the Arab Spring that we can now look into Arafat’s death, I will say things did not change in Ramallah. The Arab Spring never penetrated Palestine.
(Lama Obeid  / lamaobeid.blogspot.nl / 05.07.2012)