http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=17811
International Solidarity Movement lambasts Human Rights Watch for its condemnation of Palestinian 'human shields
Date: 04 / 12 / 2006 Time: 19:21

Ma'an - Following the statements by Human Rights Watch condemning the Palestinians' use of 'human shields' to ward off demolition attacks by Israeli warplanes on their homes, the Palestinian activist movement, International Solidarity Movement, issued a detailed press release on 1 December, condemning HRW's words.

ISM calls the HRW statement "factually, legally, and morally flawed".

ISM reminds readers that "On Sunday, Nov. 19, hundreds of Palestinian civilians crowded into the building where the family of Mohammed Baroud and a number of other families live in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces had warned that the building would be attacked. The planned Israeli attack was deterred by this action. Two hours later, the scene was replicated at the family home of Mohammed Nawajeh, with the same results."

These 'human shields' brought praise and condemnation. Two international Christian activists, Father Peter Dougherty and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck of the Michigan Peace Team, joined the barricaded protesters on Baroud's roof.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) responded to the action by calling it a "war crime." In a November 22, 2006 press release entitled, "OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks", HRW Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said, "There is no excuse for calling civilians to the scene of a planned attack. Whether or not the home is a legitimate military target, knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful."

ISM states that "HRW based its statement on contested factual information. HRW claimed that "Palestinian armed groups" and Mohammed Baroud encouraged civilians to gather around the homes. However, while some press accounts mention Baroud's role, numerous other press and participant accounts from Gaza suggest that the mobilizations resulted from calls by civilian leaders and a groundswell of popular anger against Israeli home demolitions.

"As just one example, Eyad Bayary, a head nurse at Jabalya Hospital who went to Baroud's home with another twenty of his neighbors, told ISM that he did not hear a call from Baroud asking people to protect his home. He and his neighbors went to support Baroud and his family and to protest the shelling out of their own volition. "I live next to Mr. Baroud's family home. If his home is shelled at best my home would be damaged. My wife is in the six month of her pregnancy. God forbid, a shelling of the house next door could endanger her and the child she is carrying. All our children would be affected. We went to the Baroud family house because we were scared and angry. No one asked us to come.""

ISM also questions HRW's interpretation and application of international humanitarian law (IHL). ISM states:

"(1) HRW's position explicitly rejects considering the legitimacy of the target as relevant to the legal analysis; and (2) HRW's position erroneously places the burden of protecting civilian lives on the population being attacked instead of on the belligerents carrying out the attack."

ISM's interprets IHL and the Geneva Conventions to mean that, "Even if Mohammed Baroud and Mohammed Nawajeh are military commanders, their families, their family homes and the homes of other families in the same buildings are not military objectives."

ISM continues: "Therefore, the Geneva Convention's prohibition on the use of civilians to shield military objectives does not apply to the voluntary gathering of Palestinian civilians to protect civilian objects like the homes of Baroud and Nawajeh from a pending Israeli attack. Rather, Israel's targeting of these homes constitutes a violation of numerous provisions of IHL that proscribe attacks on civilian property, and of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, strictly prohibiting the destruction of property for the purpose of collective punishment."

ISM also accuses HRW's of a "failure of moral judgment" when it condemned the Palestinian civilians' non-violent efforts to prevent the destruction of civilian homes. ISM says, "To condemn nonviolent actions in this way is to confuse civil resistance with the forcible use of "human shields" by military combatants, such as those documented by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem in its November, 2002 report "Human Shield". "

ISM adds in conclusion, "By condemning nonviolent civilian resistance in this way, HRW endangers those practicing it, and undermines the work of other human rights groups and the credibility of HRW itself. ISM calls upon HRW to retract its November 22 press release and to recognize the courage and the legitimacy of the actions of the Palestinian community in Jabalya."

The full press release can be read at: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/12/01/hrw-response/

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=17835
Coalition for Jerusalem urges EU to publish its findings on East Jerusalem, show European support for international law
Date: 05 / 12 / 2006 Time: 13:08

Ma'an - A coalition of over 40 non-governmental organizations, private institutions, religious dignitaries and professional unions from Palestinian East Jerusalem have sent a letter to the president of the European Union urging him to ensure that a report by the EU on east Jerusalem is published this year, and not suppressed like in 2005.

In the letter, which Ma'an received a copy of, the Coalition for Jerusalem reminds the EU president, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, that in 2005 a report compiled by EU representatives in Jerusalem and Ramallah was not published as the EU believed at the time that it would be ""counterproductive" in light of political considerations".

In an accompanying statement, the Coalition says that, "This veto enhanced Israeli’s ability to blank out the realities of Israeli policies in East Jerusalem–its total disregard of International and Humanitarian law, its relentless effort to seize Palestinian land by force and to replace the Palestinians of East Jerusalem by illegal Jewish settlers through myriad inhuman and illegal tools. The veto also helped Israel to blank out its policies to change the landscape of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, through issuing a City Master plan, which includes the occupied and illegally annexed East Jerusalem, as part of the eternal capital of the “Jewish” state."

The Coalition says in its letter that it believes that now, in 2006, the region is "on the eve of another possible defining moment" and the publication of this report , or of a new report being prepared this year 2006, could encourage important discussion on the issue of Jerusalem, which the Coalition says "remains an issue for the international community and not for Israel alone".

The Coalition also praises the original report for being "clearly anchored in international humanitarian law".

The letter continues: "None of us doubt the fact that the increasing isolation of east Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied territories and the impoverishment and disenfranchisement of its Palestinian population are contrary to the EU’s strategic and humanitarian interests, as well as it values. Enabling the GoI [Government of Israel] to conduct its external relations with little or no consequence resulting from its ongoing violations of international humanitarian law, including violations of erga omnes obligations, is not in the interest of the Community of states. Avoiding public discussion of such obligations does not build confidence in the prospects for a peaceful political solution."

A copy of the letter has also been sent to Javier Solana, the EU's chief representative for foreign and security policy.

The members of the Coalition can be found at http://coalitionforjerusalem.blogspot.com/

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23074/1/
Army hands out demolishing orders to several residents in Hebron
IMEMC & Agencies - Tuesday, 05 December 2006, 15:40


Tuesday afternoon, Israeli troops handed out 11 military demolishing orders to Bedouin huts, east of Yatta village in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Army claimed that the huts are too close to a settlers road known as Road 60.

40 families will be homeless in the military order was implemented, local sources reported.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23075/1/
Lebanese Man killed by cluster bomb in southern Lebanon
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Tuesday, 05 December 2006, 17:47

Lebanese security sources reported on Tuesday that a Lebanese construction worker, was killed and his relative was injured when an Israeli cluster bomb exploded as they were working at a construction site in Kafir Tibneet, near Al Nabatiyya city.

The officials were speaking on condition of anonymity since they were not allowed to talk to the press.

The man Hassan Mohammad Shihadeh, 40, was killed; his nephew Ahmad Shihadeh, 21, was injured and was rushed by medics to a local hospital.

So far, it is not clear weather the two stepped on the bomb or what caused it to explode.

During the July-August war between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah party, Israel dropped 4 million cluster bombs on Lebanon.

According to United Nations ordnance clearing experts, 1 million cluster bombs continue to threaten the Lebanese civilians since they failed to explode after launch.

Lebanese sources reported that at least 25 residents were killed by cluster bombs since the war ended on August 14.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23069/1/
Israeli Education Minister: “Text books should show the 1967 border”
Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies - Tuesday, 05 December 2006, 14:37

In a move that stirred up political storms in Israel on Tuesday, Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir said that maps in all new textbooks should show the borders of 1967. Her statements garnered widespread criticism in Israel, the Israeli Jerusalem Post reported.

In an interview with the Israeli Radio, Tamir said that children in Israel should be given popper understanding of the history and accurate historical information, including the borders that were set after the 1967 war in which Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the East of Jerusalem.

She also said that the the Israeli children should also know the Green Line than separates the borders of Israel from the occupied West Bank, and stated that “deleting this line from text books is considered a political move”.

Former Israeli Education Ministry director-general, Ronit Tirsoh, from the Kadima Party, said that the decision of Tamir is a political move, and that she used her authority as an education minister, in passing this decision.

Tirosh called on Tamir to revoke the decision, and said she should have consulted other Knesset members before making such a decision.

Talking to the Israeli Radio, Tirosh said that “Tamir wanted to publish borders that have not been set yet”.