Richard Falk: United Nations
Investigator to Israel

THIS FROM THE BBC IN APRIL:
UN Expert Stands by Nazi Comments
by Tim Franks, BBC Middle East Correspondent
The next UN investigator into Israeli conduct in the occupied territories has stood by comments comparing Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis.
Speaking to the BBC, Professor Richard Falk said he believed that up to now Israel had been successful [...]

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Yizhar Be’er & Keshev

The Center for the Protection
of Democracy in Israel

 

Listen to an Introduction from Citizen Paul

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Yizhar Be’er worked as a journalist for Israel’s leading newspaper, Haaretz, during the years of the first Palestinian Intifada. He then was Director of the leading Human Rights organization B’Tselem, describes itself as “The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.” Today, Be’er is the Executive Director of Keshev, a civic association known as “The Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel.” 

Keshev gathers information and speaks out about threats to democracy in Israel, as well as ideologically based incitement and violence and how the media often misrepresent and distort important developments which the public needs to understand better. 

Keshev researches and systematically gathers information on efforts to delegitimize democratic institutions; on organizations with antidemocratic ideologies and practices; and on the conduct of the media in Israel. The information gathered is analyzed and disseminated in public reports and information sheets that endeavor to reveal the actual Truth.

At the beginning of 2005, Keshev launched a long-term media-monitoring project called “Words Can Kill, Too.” The project is carried out in cooperation with the Palestinian organization Miftah, and its goal is to change patterns of media coverage in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority that gives expression to prejudice, incitement and defamation, misrepresentation, delegitimization, and dehumanization of the other side. 

Obviously, there is much to do with Israeli media that is influenced strongly by the “government” (K.A.S.M.)*

 

*which is purely selfish –– with no concern for “the others”

Palestinian Family Fights Settlers

Jonathan Cook

Foreign Correspondent, The National Newspaper

Listen to an Introduction from Citizen Paul

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Jerusalem – It must be the smallest Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories: just half a house.

But Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights groups are concerned that it represents the first stage of a plan to eradicate the historical neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, cutting off one of the main routes by which Palestinians reach the Old City and its holy sites. 

The home of Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd has been split in two since 1999 when Israeli courts evicted their grown-up son Raed from a wing of the property.
The elderly couple has been trying to regain possession, but was stymied last week when an Israeli high court backed the petition of a group of settlers and ordered the immediate eviction of the Khurds. The decision paves the way for the takeover of 26 multi-story houses in the neighborhood, threatening to make some 500 Palestinians homeless. 

The verdict has been denounced by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and in the past few days the Khurds have been visited by foreign diplomats, including from the United States. In a letter to consulates in Jerusalem, including the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, Rafiq Husseini, Mr. Abbas’s aide, warned that the takeover of the Khurds’ home was part of a wider drive to change the geography of Jerusalem by forcing out Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli settlers. Such a development would deal a death blow to already-strained peace negotiations, he wrote. 

Today there are 250,000 Israeli Jews living illegally in East Jerusalem, and the Israeli government has announced that thousands more apartments are to be built – despite promises to the US government to freeze settlement growth. 

The Khurds say they have faced constant pressure since settlers moved in next door. “At first we were offered a lot of money to leave,” said Mrs. Khurd, 62. ”When we refused, the settlers started making our lives a hell. The family next door changes every few months to make it difficult for us to start legal proceedings. 

“Armed Israeli guards have been posted on the path to our house and there is a network of surveillance cameras to watch our every move. Armed settlers have broken into the house, pointing their guns at us.”

Read Jonathan’s book, “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations.” It tells it all!

ISRAEL’S INHUMANITY TO GAZA’S PEOPLE!

Israel’s government, the K.A.S.M., has kept the Gaza Strip under siege for years, limiting the movement of desperately needed food, fuel, medicine, and supplies to the Palestinians.
With the retaliation of Hamas rockets, the Israeli government has forced the Palestinians to make the move that “justified” the Israeli full assault on Gaza.
Livni, Olmert, and Defense Minister Ehud [...]

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