IRAQ & PALESTINE UNDER OCCUPATION
The siege on Gaza is a violation of norms of international humanitarian law. No state can justify the use of force to perpetuate an illegal situation, writes Curtis Doebbler
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Dr Curtis F J Doebbler is an
international human rights lawyer known
for his outspoken opposition to human
rights violations by the US government
and his support of individuals in
countries that have been subject to
armed attacks by the United States.
He is professor of law at An-Najah
National University in Nablus,
Palestine, and representative of Nord
Sud XXI to the United Nations in New
York and Geneva. He is a member of the BRussells
Tribunal Advisory Committee. |
International law is important to states because
it reflects agreed upon rules. In fact, the
rules of international law are some of the only
things that have been widely agreed upon among
states.
In
most cases states obey international law. If
they did not we would likely have much more
violence and injustice in the international
community. It is for this reason that it is so
important for states to ensure respect for the
rule of international law.
In
the last century the most significant failure to
ensure respect for the rule of international law
has arguably been in regards to Israel. No state
has violated so many rules of international law
so often and with such impunity as has Israel.
Its violations have created a situation whereby
it is considered a threat to international peace
and security by the overwhelming majority of
states in the international community, and its
very existence as a state in the international
community is being challenged.
Despite the serious effects of Israel’s failure
to respect international law, the international
community has been unwilling or unable to
enforce international law. In part this is due
to an effective Israeli lobby, but in part it is
also due to the failure of those states and
individuals who support the rule of
international law to effectively ensure their
words and intentions are realised through the
actions of states.
Still, the rules of international law applying
to Israel and Palestine are not too difficult to
understand. It is hoped this short summary of
some of the most important rules below will help
those who support the rule of international law
to muster the courage to implement this law.
The starting point for any consideration of
international law in relation to “the question
of Palestine” — as the UN neutrally refers to it
— is the right to self-determination. No right
has been more important to so many peoples and
states in the international community. Although
we have a tendency to devote more attention to
the international law of self-determination as
it developed since the creation of the United
Nations, the right to self-determination in the
form that it is more relevant to “the question
of Palestine” existed much earlier. In fact,
this right can be traced back to the very
existence of the nation-state, when it was
decided that people living together in a
particular territory have the right to form
themselves into a sovereign state.
In
other words, when there is no existing state,
the right of self-determination gives the people
concerned the right to form their own state.
Applied to Palestine this means that after World
War I when the Ottoman Empire was forced to
relinquish sovereign over Palestine and when the
British conquerors expressly denounced any
interest in ruling Palestine, since that time
the people living in Palestine have had the
right to decide their own future.
As
we know, this right was never recognised.
Instead, first Britain and the international
community acting through the United Nations
denied the Palestinian people this right. This
violated international law, as there is nothing
in the UN Charter that allows the organisation
the right to violate the right to
self-determination. In fact, Article 1 of the UN
Charter makes the right to self-determination
one of the purposes for which the United Nations
exists.
According to international law existing at time,
the creation of the State of Israel was illegal.
Moreover, we know that once an illegal act has
been committed by states, the consequences of
that act remain illegal and may not be
recognised as legal by other states. Thus even
today it is correct to say that Israel is an
illegal state and has been since its creation,
no matter what its de facto position might be.
Even if one were to acknowledge the creation of
Israel by the UN General Assembly’s adoption of
resolution 181 on 29 November 1947, that
resolution itself states, in Part 1, Subsection
A, Paragraph 3, that “independent Arab and
Jewish States and the Special International
Regime for the City of Jerusalem … shall come
into existence in Palestine.” In other words, in
the very same paragraph as the State of Israel
is created, so is the state of Palestine and the
“international” city of Jerusalem.
Neither Israel nor the international community
have respected the terms of this resolution.
Instead, not only has Palestine been denied
statehood, but also Palestinians are being
offered about 3.5 per cent of the territory to
which they had — and have — a right under the
“roadmap” that the Quartet stresses as the basis
for negotiations. Instead of a solution, this
looks more like the theft of the right of
self-determination from the Palestinian people.
Moreover, Israel has continued from 1947 to date to violate UN resolutions with impunity.
The occupation and international law
Just a day before the UN actually created the
State of Israel, Israel proclaimed its own
independence. Again this was done in violation
of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination
and in violation of the League of Nations
Mandate to the British, which was still in
effect.
When the Arab states took up arms to defend the
Palestinians’ right to self-determination,
Western states — as they had done regularly for
centuries — supported the colonisation of
Palestine by Zionists claiming to have a right
to create the State of Israel. Whatever
religious, historical or political basis the
Zionists had, they did not have any grounds
under international law and in fact violated
this law.
Rather than reacting to a violation of
international law, the international community
allowed Israel to act unlawfully and even
ratified the de facto outcome of the occupation
of Palestine. Even territories that the
international community agreed did not come
under any Israeli claim were allowed to be
annexed. The process of annexation continues to
this day.
According to the United Nations, parts of the
territory over which the Palestinians were
denied their right to self-determination became
Israel. About 45 per cent of the original
mandate territory was considered by the UN as
occupied.
Putting aside disagreement about Israel’s
illegitimacy, according to Article 47 of the
Hague Regulations annexed to the Fourth Hague
Convention from 1907, an act of occupation
become de jure when the occupying power de facto
exercises jurisdiction over a territory. By the
1970s, Israel had de facto jurisdiction over all
of the mandate territory, including the Gaza
Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and
parts of Southern Lebanon. As such Israel became
an occupying power over these territories and
people within in them.
Somewhat like a mandate holder under the League
of Nations system, Israel was therefore required
by the rules of international humanitarian law
to provide for the occupied population under its
control. This means ensuring proper
administration, judicial facilities, educational
facilities, and healthcare facilities. Instead,
Israel has increasing denied Palestinians these
services. This has been most notably the case in
Gaza.
While claiming to be acting in the name of
national security, Israeli soldiers have shot
and killed infants, children, women and men.
Israel has repeatedly denied Palestinians the
right to reach school and hospitals. And Israel
regularly imposes it own administrative system
of checkpoints and other forms of harassment,
including its own courts, on Palestinians. All
of these actions violate the international legal
duties of an occupying power.
Israel’s actions denying the people of Gaza the
basic necessities of life are a particularly
onerous form of oppression that violates norms
of international humanitarian law including the
prohibition against collective punishment that
is found in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention.
The right of self-defence
Israel has repeatedly invoked its right of
self-defence to fight back against the
Palestinians. While it is true that Israel may
have a right to use force to protect itself from
attack, it cannot justify the use of force to
perpetuate an illegal situation. Thus, if one
views the creation of Israel to be illegal, then
so is any force used to maintain this illegal
situation.
Even states entitled to use force in
self-defence must satisfy several criteria.
There must first be an armed attack against the
state by another state, and any force used must
be proportionate and necessary to achieve a
lawful objective.
As
indicated above, even if Israel had been
entitled to use force against the Gaza Freedom
Flotilla — which it was argued it was not — it
would have only been able to use proportionate
and necessary force.
A
more interesting question is what type of force
might be used against Israel, as it is the
entity that has and continues to violate
international law.
First, the UN Security Council could authorise
the use of force against Israel, but this is a
political decision that Israeli friends with
veto power on the Security Council are likely to
prevent.
Second, the UN General Assembly could authorise
the use of force against Israel. This could be
done by a simple majority of the assembly with
no state having veto power. The action of the
General Assembly is limited while the Security
Council is seized of a matter, and arguably,
acting on it, but it is the General Assembly
that has the power to decide this question.
Third, Palestinians have a legitimate right of
self-determination that entitles them to use
force against Israel. Such use of force,
although prima facie legal under international
law, must conform to the rules of international
humanitarian law. These rules include
prohibition of attacks against civilians, either
by design or because they are indiscriminate.
And fourth, every state in the international
community has the right to assist the
Palestinians in their struggle, including their
armed struggle, to achieve their right to
self-determination. Again, of course, such
assistance must conform to the rules of
international humanitarian law.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla is an example of such
assistance.
Gaza and the Freedom Flotilla
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla is a general phrase
that can be used to describe the boats
attempting to bring humanitarian assistance to
the people of Gaza. Even the Israelis do not
deny that the boats are bringing humanitarian
assistance. Nevertheless, Israel sees itself as
entitled to stop the boats based on its
suspicion that they will assist the
self-determination struggle of the Gaza people,
particularly their use of force against Israel.
The problematic nature of this argument is
readily apparent. How can a state that is
violating international law by subjecting an
occupied people to inhuman and collective
punishment justify actions to maintain its
illegal ways? The simple answer is that it
cannot. It is violating international law merely
by maintaining an illegal regime, and just about
everything it does that serves that end is
illegal. This was the case with South Africa as
it struggled to maintain its illegal apartheid
regime. It increasingly exercised police powers
to maintain its illegal hold over black South
Africans. Sometimes the police acted less
forcefully, and sometimes, black South Africans
were subjected to court proceedings, but
irrespective of the standards of these
“concessions”, the South African government was
acting illegally. Two UN Special Rapporteurs on
human rights in Palestine — one a South African
anti-apartheid campaigner and one a Jewish
American professor — have criticised Israel for
its illegal actions that they refer to as
similar to, or worse than, the South African
apartheid government’s actions.
The Israel argument is sometimes expressed in a
more nuanced form concerning its embargo on
Gaza. It claims that it no longer occupies Gaza
and is therefore entitled to act against it in
self-defence, through an embargo and the
interdiction of ships bringing humanitarian
assistance. The legal errors in this argument
are many.
First, Israel interdicted the Gaza ships on the
high seas. No state is allowed to stop and board
ships on the high seas without the permission of
the ship, unless the ships have been involved in
international piracy. In fact, to act in
violation of this fundamental rule of
international law is itself piracy. Moreover,
the crew of a ship under attack by pirates or
unauthorised persons attempting to enter their
ship by force are entitled to use necessary and
proportionate force to repel the illegal
invaders. In this case, this would mean that the
ships crew would be entitled to use force that
is equivalent to that of as highly qualified and
heavily armed invader as the Israeli military.
Second, according to Article 23 of the Fourth
Geneva Convention and the International Court of
Justice in the Nicaragua Case, the provision of
humanitarian assistance to people in need,
especially under occupation, is always allowed
and never an unfriendly act.
Third, the preventing of humanitarian assistance
to a people in need is itself an illegal act.
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Citizen voicces |
Impotent unless applied
Despite the importance of international law,
this law is impotent unless it is applied, and
Israel and its allies have proven themselves to
be quite intransigent in their failure to
respect international law. The law,
nevertheless, is a powerful tool in the hands of
those who seek to promote the rule of law.
Thus even if pariah states like Israel do not
respect the law, the law continues to exist as a
minimum common denominator that has been agreed
upon by states in the international community.
It continues to serve as the best chance we have
to live together, not even as friends, but
merely without annihilating each other.
When we remove this lowest level of protection
we fall into a lacuna where even the lowest form
of respect for each other is no longer
recognised. What fate could be worse for
mankind?
SHOW YOUR SOLIDARITY WITH
GAZA FLOTILLA VICTIMS AND PALESTINE
Israel’s killing of 19 innocents with 60 more injured must have maximal consequences
Israel impunity is a threat to all
sign the petition here
The Mavi Marmara, carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, was flying a white flag: a universal symbol of non-violence. It was also flying the Turkish flag, in international waters, giving it status as a sovereign extension of Turkey. Regardless, Israel attacked. For what does Israel fight? Its existence, or the continuance of a regime of collective punishment calculated to destroy the Palestinians? Or are these the same thing? Dead: 19. Injured: 60. Who gave the order? Will NATO react to an attack on one of its members?
Simple public murder
The right to exist cannot be asserted through murder. The very acceptance of Israel into the United Nations System was — in 1948 — conditioned on the former recognising the equal rights of Arabs, in particular the right of return of Palestinians. Not only has Israel prevented the return of refugees, it took over by force and occupied in 1967 the rest of historic Palestine. From founding until now we have witnessed an unending catalogue of Israeli atrocities. By these countless atrocities, Israel has forfeited any claim to legality — it is moreover a state that refuses to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or consider giving up its nuclear weapons.
Gaza is both the world’s largest open-air prison and the 21st century’s undeclared concentration camp. Everybody knows it. The UN knows it. The US president knows it. Tens of thousands of civil servants in countries across the world know it. The siege is a way of sealing the exits, and of slow killing. It is an atrocity on the same level as genocide. Here every man and woman has a moral duty: inaction is complicity and a betrayal of humanity. All legal rights are with those who attempt to end this situation by whatever means.
The Freedom Flotilla is such an attempt: it is a refusal of inhuman suffering. Its symbolism is more powerful than any navy. As such, it remains what it was as it embarked on its journey: a signal of the collapse of the blockade. Where earlier lone vessels tried to reach Gaza, now they go in groups. More will follow. When a thousand ships set sail, what would Israel do?
Israel on trial
Israel lost the battle for international public opinion a long time ago. None can forget the relentless strafing of a captive civilian population in Israel’s last war on Gaza. Who can Israel hope to persuade now?
■ We condemn the illegal, immoral and inhuman blockade on Gaza, and all who uphold it
■ We condemn Israel
■ We condemn Israel’s brutal attack on peace activists in international waters. We declare that 700 brave souls, from 50 nations, represent something real that Israeli propaganda cannot erase
■ We mourn the 19 murdered and express hope and solidarity with the 60 injured. We demand of Israel the release of all activists detained
■ We call on all international institutions — including the UN, the EU and human rights agencies and organisations — to declare themselves unequivocally on this latest Israeli atrocity and to work towards ending Israeli impunity
■ We demand an international tribunal to judge all Israeli crimes, past and present. We call on the UN General Assembly to request of the International Court of Justice an advisory opinion on the legality of Israel within the United Nations System given its systematic and gross disrespect of international law and moral authority
■ We support all efforts by all means to free the people of Gaza from their prison and their suffering, including sanctions and divestment against Israel, a general boycott, and the boycott — by workers federations — of all ships going to and from Israel
■ We call upon people everywhere to express their solidarity with the dead and injured, and with Palestinians under occupation, in local expressions of outrage wherever it is deemed useful.
■ We call on all associations, unions, parliaments, professionals and others to endorse this appeal and its demands. Please distribute and act upon it.
The BRussells Tribunal Committee top of page sign the petition here
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Interview with Dr Ian Douglas, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
by Victor Thorn of the America Free Press
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The
humanitarian aid ship recently attacked
by the Israeli Defense Forces flew a
white flag and was sailing in
international waters. How can anyone say
it was a threat to “Israel’s right to
exist”?
No one can, and it wasn’t. The real
existential threat to Israel is the
violence upon which it was founded and
that
it
continues to impose on the
Palestinians. If the Palestinians are a
threat to Israel’s existence, it is not
because tomorrow militarily they can
defeat the Israeli army, corner the
government and dissolve the state. It is
because their cause is just, and that
cause is what Israel has been trying to
bury since 1948. The more it tries, the
more it finds it cannot do it. And the
more it cannot do it, the more it tries.
So we witness the horror of what
happened on the Mavi Marmara. Israel is
seemingly unconcerned about committing
murder in front of the eyes of the
world.
But even it was more than murder. Five
of the victims were shot in the back, or
in the back of the head. One victim was
shot five times from 45 centimetres.
This is not murder; it is destruction.
There is a level of violence here that
is sadistic and vengeful. In reality,
this is what Gazans and Palestinians
face every day. And it is becoming more
and more clear to the world — that is to
say, to the world’s people, because
governments know very well how brutal
and ruthless Israel is, whatever they
pretend otherwise.
Norman Finkelstein recently said that
Israel is now a lunatic state with 300
nuclear warheads. He is right and it is
time, before the unimaginable is what we
are obliged to live through, that the
world deals with this massive threat
that is Israel. Another analogy is
Macbeth. Israel has so much blood on its
hands that it sees phantoms everywhere,
and can only go forward by more killing.
It is not individual Palestinians that
haunt Israel. It is Israel’s injustice
to the Palestinians.
In a
speech last week, Binyamin Netanyahu
proclaimed that those aboard this ship
were “violent supporters of terrorism”.
What is your response to this statement?
Netanyahu is so cynical, and this
statement so outlandish, it is a
challenge to know how possibly to
respond.
First, this flotilla was bringing
wheelchairs, spare parts for
wheelchairs, paper, medical supplies,
basic goods. It seems for Netanyahu a
terrorist act to help the disabled.
Second, no one aboard was armed, but in
the attack it seems Israel expected
those onboard to be shot by its soldiers
without protest. Third, for Netanyahu,
anyone who supports the Palestinians in
Gaza in any capacity whatsoever is a
“supporter of terrorism”. Given that
Israel blocks all attempts to support
the Palestinians in Gaza, anyone who
insists on supporting them is deemed
“violent”. The same was true up until
only a few years ago of anyone who
supported Fatah in the West Bank. In
reality, Israel regards all Palestinians
as terrorists or potential terrorists.
This is all it sees. Around every
corner, at every window, for Israel, is
an existential crisis. What it refuses
to see, and what it cannot see, is that
it is an occupying power, not just of
the Arab lands seized in 1967, but the
Arab lands seized and expropriated by
force in 1948.
Again, Israel simply cannot face up to
its own bloody origin. It is a settler
state, founded in violence by
individuals who came from outside to an
Arab country. Given this reality,
international law affirms that the
Palestinians — and indeed anyone else
who wishes to assist them — have the
right to use any and all means
necessary, including use of armed force,
to end this colonial situation and
achieve self-determination in Palestine.
The law of self-determination is
unequivocal on this point.
Even if we ignore that Israel’s
admission to the United Nations System
was conditional and that it has failed
to meet the conditions set down, and
even if we pretend that its occupation
concerns only the land seized after
1967, we still cannot call resistance to
Israeli occupation terrorism. The
Palestinians constitute a national
liberation movement and this has legal
meaning under international law.
Moreover, other states are freely
permitted to support this movement, and
any component of it, if they wish.
Not that anyone is actually arming the
Palestinians, as we can see from the
homemade rockets they are occasionally
able to fire into Israel from Gaza. But
if states wanted to, they could arm the
Palestinians. And who — having seen the
horrid destruction and loss of life
Israel inflicted in but its latest
wholesale offensive on Gaza in December
2008-January 2009 (the latest in a very
long line of offensives) — could say
that the Palestinians in Gaza didn’t
have the right to defend themselves by
use of arms?
In short, Netanyahu is the violent
supporter of terrorism, and an
instigator of it: the terror of the
Israeli state against the Palestinians.
Gaza is
the world’s largest open-air prison: in
essence, a concentration camp. Why is
Israel permitted to perpetuate this
genocide against the Palestinian people?
There are a number of factors. In what
order they come is difficult to say.
There is Western racism against Arabs.
There is the entire Orientalist
attitude, which sees the Arabs as little
more than Bedouins, camel rangers, or
the nouveau riche. In a word, slaves or
former slaves. Then there is fear of
organised Jewish power, in the form of
the political lobby and financial and
media-based Jewish interests. Then there
are Western strategic interests in the
Arab world, based principally around
hydrocarbon resources, and which run
counter to Arab interests in autonomous
development. Then there was the
horse-trading that divided up the Arab
world in the time Sykes-Picot.
All these factors militate towards
Western tolerance of Zionist aggression
against the Palestinians, both over the
last 60 to 90 years and still today.
Gaza is but the highest expression of
this. And while the overwhelming
majority of state actors know the
reality of it, the international arena
is so filled with cynicism,
self-interest and continual threats from
imperial and colonial powers that
nothing seemingly can be done about it.
This is where ordinary people come in,
and this is where ordinary people are
changing the logic. For Israel is no
longer able to perpetuate this genocide
against the Palestinian people — at
least no longer without consequence.
Perhaps the greatest expression of this
popular power is the boycott, divestment
and sanctions movement, that every day
is gathering more and more momentum.
Meanwhile, brave souls like those aboard
the Mavi Marmara, at least nine of which
died doing so, will continue to attempt
to break Israel’s stranglehold over the
Palestinians and expose for lies Israeli
propaganda.
We in the BRussells
Tribunal said it and I am sure of it:
this is not the end, but only the
beginning. Whereas aid ships used to try
to get through alone, now they come in
groups. When a thousand ships set sail,
what will Israel do?
Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
denounced Israel’s murderous deeds with
these words: “It is no longer possible
to cover up or ignore Israel’s
lawlessness.” What are your thoughts?
He is right, but this realisation was a
long time coming. And many Palestinians
were killed in the meantime. Israel’s
crimes are practically numberless.
Decade upon decade, we see incident
after incident. But it is one thing to
recognise crimes and another to do
something to end them. Above all, the
Palestinians need not words but actions.
If they want words, they can turn to
Arab leaders. Israel’s victims in the
future — whether next week, tomorrow or
next year — need action now.
As for Turkey, it is not about starting
a war against Israel. We need Turkey to
use its influence and to build a
coalition first to break the siege on
Gaza, if necessary by threat of
deploying a multinational naval escort;
second, to demand that Israeli leaders
responsible of grave crimes (which means
all of Israel’s leaders) are brought to
justice. Third, the international
community must
cut all economic ties,
all defence coordination and contracts,
and all diplomatic, intellectual and
cultural links with Israel until Zionism
is recognised as racism, the right of
Palestinians to self-determination and
the right of return of Palestinian
refugees are realised, and equal rights
are guaranteed for all in historic
Palestine. Until this happens, Israel
will continue to be the single biggest
threat to world peace, and the
possibility of a better world will
continue to fall into and be suffocated
by the black hole of Israel’s insistence
on perpetuating injustice against the
Palestinians.
It has already happened. We wait for
events to catch up. The overwhelming
majority of the world’s population knows
the truth about Israel and its leaders.
They know that Israel is a lunatic state
that insists on racial and religious
purity; that it is at war with all of
its neighbours, and that it practices
brutality morning, noon and night. Who
really needs convincing who could be
convinced?
In your
opinion, why does America continue to
blindly follow (and enable) Israel’s
pathological bloodlust in light of so
much global condemnation?
Israel is a proxy of the United States
in the Arab world. Its function is to
divide Arab states internally and
against one another. Washington’s
greater aim is to block all sovereign
Arab development and dominate natural
energy production and consumption from
the region. When America spends $200,000
a minute on oil, you can guess at how
important it is to keep the Arabs from
realising their geo-economic potential.
This also suggests the unbreakable link
between resistance in Palestine and
resistance in Iraq — indeed resistance
anywhere to US geostrategic plans for
the region.
Ultimately it comes down to the internal
system of power in the United States. It
is one built on consumption of oil.
Practically nothing in the consumer
market doesn’t have an oil derivative in
it. It is about far more than gasoline.
If that system of consumption collapsed,
how would America’s elite keep 300
million people in line? Consumption in
the United States is a technology of
government, and its currency is oil, of
which the Arabs have a lot — enough to
keep the US order of things going for a
few decades yet.
Why seize that oil instead of buying it?
Because America has the military might
to do so, or to try to do so. And
military technology and equipment has
its own sequence of obsolescence. Hence
the unnecessary wars in which, also,
vast profits are made. Some think that
George W Bush was ignorant. On the
contrary, he knew what the United States
is. And during his time in office,
Washington became indistinguishable from
Tel Aviv, or vice versa.
Obama is either unwilling, unable or
doesn’t want to break from that. I feel
genuinely sorry for those who bought
into the lie that he would. He won’t and
he never intended to. To quote from
Borowski, “It is hope that compels man
to hold on to one more day of life,
because that day may be the day of
liberation.” Obama might be able to sell
hope to America, but the Palestinians
have no hope in Obama. Thus they will
continue — for they have nothing to lose
— to confront Israeli injustice, and so
should we. |
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| NAKBA DAY, 14 MAY 1948, THE DATE THE STATE OF ISRAEL WAS DECLARED | |
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Every year Palestinians
commemorate the Nakba ("the
catastrophe"): the expulsion and
dispossession of hundreds of
thousands Palestinians from their homes
and land in 1948. In 1948 more than 60 percent of the total Palestinian population was expelled. More than 530 Palestinian villages were depopulated and completely destroyed. To date, Israel has prevented the return of approximately six million Palestinian refugees, who have either been expelled or displaced. Approximately 250,000 internally displaced Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel are prevented from returning to their homes and villages. |
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A woman sits on the rubble of a house
hit by an Israeli warplane in Rafah
refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip,
14 October 2006. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)
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CALL FOR BOYCOT – DISVESTMENT –
SANCTIONS |
Palestinian families forced to
leave the village of Faluja in 1948. The
village was ethnically cleansed
by Jewish forces. On its looted
lands, Israeli settlers founded Qiryat
Gat in 1954. (UN
Photo) |
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You can read on the BDS-site the Palestinian Unified Call for BDS
against Israel:
“We call for boycott, disvestment
initiatives and embargoes and sanctions
against Israel” – July 9 2005.
You can endorse the BDS Call
here |
| top of page | |
LEAST LIVABLE CITY ON PLANET
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Thursday, May 27, 2010 - By: Derek Ford
The Iraq war is still being touted by
Washington and the Pentagon as a war for
progress and stability in the region. A
study released May 26, however, reveals
a radically different reality.
The Mercer Quality of Living survey
ranked Baghdad last in a list of "most
livable cities." The study took into
account political, economic, ecological,
social and cultural factors.
The result is not surprising considering
the devastation brought on by the
U.S.-led invasion. Sewage treatment
plants, factories, schools, hospitals,
and museums have been destroyed. As a
result, Iraqi citizens now have scarce
access to water and electricity.
The demolition of infrastructure is an
important tactic in imperialist war and
helps explain why the study found that,
"A lack of security and stability
continue to have a negative impact on
Baghdad’s quality of living."
The only benefactors from the occupation
have been big corporations like BP, who
got access to the giant Rumaila oil
field. The citizens of Iraq continue to
pay with their lives. |
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| Baghdad before the bombing of 1991 | |||
| Iraq after the bombing of 1991 | Reconstruction 1991-1993 | ||
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| (Free) Iraq - after the occupation (since 2003) | |||
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YOUR OPINION |
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top of page |
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Since Shock and
Awe, Seven Years ago until now, Iraqi
civilians did not stop suffering:
Military
operations, arrests, kidnappings,
assasinations, torture, sectarian
terror, depleted uranium, urbicides,
forced deportation and displacement,
laying offs, abuse, absence of drinkable
water, electricity and other services,
absence of law and justice, etc.
The US administration presented the
March 7th elections as a remedy to the
deterioration of the life of Iraqis.
Neither before the elections, nor
during, nor after them did the situation
of Iraqis change.
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ON THE WEBSITE |
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE IRAQI WOMEN |
DAILY NEWS FROM URUKNET AMSI GLOBALRESEARCH CLG, ICH here |
VIOLATIONS OF IRAQI CHILDREN Dr.Souad Al-Azzawi here |
AFGHANISTAN: THE LONGEST LOST WAR here |
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