Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU

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Written by Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

Published: 08 March 2009 08 March 2009

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• Confidential report attacks 'illegal' house demolitions
• Government accused of damaging peace prospects

    
[Photo: House Demolitions in East Jerusalem]

40-year-old Palestinian Mahmoud al-Abbasi stands amid the rubble of his home after it was demolished by the Jerusalem municipality in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Photograph: Gali Tibbon

A confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of "actively pursuing the illegal annexation" of East Jerusalem.

The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority's credibility and weakening support for peace talks. "Israel's actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making," says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem.

The report, obtained by the Guardian, is dated 15 December 2008. It acknowledges Israel's legitimate security concerns in Jerusalem, but adds: "Many of its current illegal actions in and around the city have limited security justifications."

"Israeli 'facts on the ground' - including new settlements, construction of the barrier, discriminatory housing policies, house demolitions, restrictive permit regime and continued closure of Palestinian institutions - increase Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, weaken the Palestinian community in the city, impede Palestinian urban development and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank," the report says.

The document has emerged at a time of mounting concern over Israeli policies in East Jerusalem. Two houses were demolished on Monday just before the arrival of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and a further 88 are scheduled for demolition, all for lack of permits. Clinton described the demolitions as "unhelpful", noting that they violated Israel's obligations under the US "road map" for peace.

The EU report goes further, saying that the demolitions are "illegal under international law, serve no obvious purpose, have severe humanitarian effects, and fuel bitterness and extremism." The EU raised its concern in a formal diplomatic representation on December 1, it says.

It notes that although Palestinians in the east represent 34% of the city's residents, only 5%-10% of the municipal budget is spent in their areas, leaving them with poor services and infrastructure.

Israel issues fewer than 200 permits a year for Palestinian homes and leaves only 12% of East Jerusalem available for Palestinian residential use. As a result many homes are built without Israeli permits. About 400 houses have been demolished since 2004 and a further 1,000 demolition orders have yet to be carried out, it said.

City officials dismissed criticisms of its housing policy as "a disinformation campaign". "Mayor Nir Barkat continues to promote investments in infrastructure, construction and education in East Jerusalem, while at the same time upholding the law throughout West and East Jerusalem equally without bias," the mayor's office said after Clinton's visit.

However, the EU says the fourth Geneva convention prevents an occupying power extending its jurisdiction to occupied territory. Israel occupied the east of the city in the 1967 six day war and later annexed it. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The EU says settlement are being built in the east of the city at a "rapid pace". Since the Annapolis peace talks began in late 2007, nearly 5,500 new settlement housing units have been submitted for public review, with 3,000 so far approved, the report says. There are now about 470,000 settlers in the occupied territories, including 190,000 in East Jerusalem.

The EU is particularly concerned about settlements inside the Old City, where there were plans to build a Jewish settlement of 35 housing units in the Muslim quarter, as well as expansion plans for Silwan, just outside the Old City walls.

The goal, it says, is to "create territorial contiguity" between East Jerusalem settlements and the Old City and to "sever" East Jerusalem and its settlement blocks from the West Bank.

There are plans for 3,500 housing units, an industrial park, two police stations and other infrastructure in a controversial area known as E1, between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, home to 31,000 settlers. Israeli measures in E1 were "one of the most significant challenges to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process", the report says.

Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said conditions for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were better than in the West Bank. "East Jerusalem residents are under Israeli law and they were offered full Israeli citizenship after that law was passed in 1967," he said. "We are committed to the continued development of the city for the benefit of all its population."

Gaza homes destruction 'wanton'

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Written by BBC News BBC News

Published: 06 March 2009 06 March 2009

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Gaza homes destruction 'wanton'
BBC News

Human rights investigators say Israeli forces engaged in "wanton destruction" of Palestinian homes during the recent conflict in Gaza.

Amnesty International has told the BBC News website the methods used raised concerns about war crimes.

Israel's military said buildings were destroyed because of military "operational needs".

The Israeli Defense Forces said they operated in accordance with international law during the conflict.

However, the use of mines to destroy homes contradicted this claim, the head of the Amnesty International fact-finding mission to southern Israel and Gaza, Donatella Rovera, has argued.

“ The IDF emphasises that the terrorist organisation, Hamas, and its infrastructure were the target of Operation Cast Lead, and not the civilian population in Gaza ”
Israeli military statement

Israeli troops had to leave their vehicles to plant the mines, indicating that they faced no danger and that there was no military or operational justification, she said.

Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group that gathers and circulates the testimonies of Israeli soldiers, has also told the BBC News website that its findings from the Gaza war suggested many demolitions had been carried out when there was no immediate threat.

"From the testimonies that we've gathered, lots of demolitions - buildings demolished either by bulldozers or explosives - were done after the area was under Israeli control," said Yehuda Shaul, one of the group's members.

Destruction of civilian property is not illegal in itself under international law, but it must be justifiable on military grounds - for example if the building was booby trapped or being used as cover for enemy fighters.

Thousands of buildings were destroyed in the 22-day Israeli operation.

Some of them were police stations, mosques and government premises attacked in targeted airstrikes, in many cases with surrounding buildings left in tact.

Reduced to rubble

There were also whole neighbourhoods reduced to rubble in areas where the Israeli ground forces were present.

Ms Rovera said Amnesty International was concerned about "large scale destruction of homes and other civilian properties" during the conflict.

"The destruction was, in our view, and according to our findings, wanton destruction - it could not be justified on military grounds," she said.

Ms Rovera said her team found fragments of anti-tank mines in and around destroyed properties.

Their use was also consistent with remains of houses, collapsed in on themselves as if blown up from below, rather than destroyed from above as in an airstrike, she said.

Troops would have had to leave their armoured vehicles to plant them and rig up the detonators, she said.

"Unless those operating on the ground felt not just 100% but 200% secure - that the places were not booby trapped, that they wouldn't come under fire - they could not have got out of the vehicles," she said. "They would not have used that method."

"The use of the method tells us even more that there wasn't the kind of danger that might have made it lawful to destroy some of those properties," Ms Rovera said.

GAZA DESTRUCTION
# 14,000 homes
# 219 factories
# 240 schools UNDP estimates
"Wanton destruction on a large scale would qualify as a war crime," she said, adding that the practice was among several used in the conflict by both sides that Amnesty is concerned may constitute war crimes.

In one case visited by the BBC, six homes belonging to the extended family of Raed al-Atamna in the Izbit Abed Rabbo area, near the border with Israel, were destroyed.

Mr Atamna said a UN ordnance clearance team had found several mines in and around the remains of one of the homes.

He said he and his family had fled the area during the Israeli military operation, and returned to find their homes demolished.

'Substantial operational needs'

The IDF said buildings in the Gaza Strip were destroyed during Operation Cast Lead due to "substantial operational needs".

In a written statement, it said: "For example, buildings were either booby-trapped, located over tunnels, or fire was opened from within them in the direction of IDF soldiers.

"The terrorist organisations operated from within the civilian population, using them as a cover and made cynical use of the IDF's strict rules of engagement, opening fire from within civilian population centres, mosques, schools, hospitals and even private residences of citizens in the Gaza Strip.

"The troops were briefed and trained to avoid harming uninvolved civilians and did all they could to give warning in advance so that civilians could distance themselves from combat zones.

"The IDF emphasises that the terrorist organisation, Hamas, and its infrastructure were the target of Operation Cast Lead, and not the civilian population in Gaza."

A military source said the mines used do not detonate automatically and therefore do not represent a danger when left unexploded in the field.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7926413.stm

Published: 2009/03/06 10:55:07 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Save the date: Sunday, March 15, 2009!

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Written by PJW, PPRC and many others PJW, PPRC and many others

Published: 06 March 2009 06 March 2009

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March and Rally in Salem, Oregon, on the 6th anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq:

"Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad: Keep Oregon's Guard Home from Iraq and Afghanistan!"

1:00 PM on the Capitol Steps

Mark your calendars for Sunday, March 15th, 2009, and prepare for the short journey down I-5 to the state capital! Salem, we're comin' down for a visit!

Flyer / Leaflet: Print this out and help us spread the word for the big action in Salem!

http://www.pprc-news.org/press/march1509flyerb.pdf

Federal judge says Sami Al-Arian plea deal does matter

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Written by Meg Laughlin, Times Staff Writer Meg Laughlin, Times Staff Writer

Published: 06 March 2009 06 March 2009

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For the first time, federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., have acknowledged that when Sami Al-Arian took a plea deal in early 2006, federal prosecutors in Tampa believed — as did Al-Arian — that it exempted him from testifying in other cases.

But with this surprising admission, which begins a 24-page document filed in Virginia federal court Wednesday night, comes a provocative argument: It doesn't matter.

"The understandings of the prosecutors who negotiated that agreement … are irrelevant to (Al-Arian's) guilt or innocence" for criminal contempt, wrote the Alexandria federal prosecutors, who maintain they are not bound by an agreement made in another district.

Despite what prosecutors in Tampa agreed to, the Virginia prosecutors argue they had a right to move Al-Arian to Virginia to testify. They also say that when Al-Arian repeatedly refused, citing a good-faith belief his plea agreement protected him, he was guilty of criminal contempt. He "willfully disobeyed," they say.

But U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema has said it does matter what he and the Tampa federal prosecutors agreed to. A criminal conviction could mean more prison time and she would need to see "a completely full record" to determine the length of his sentence.

Furthermore, Brinkema has said, she doesn't think "the Department of Justice can compartmentalize itself."

"This is not one U.S. Attorney's Office vs. another. … You have the United States Department of Justice … involved at both ends," she said.

Al-Arian took a plea deal in February 2006, in Tampa after a jury acquitted him on eight counts of aiding terrorists and deadlocked on nine counts. He pleaded guilty to aiding associates of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad with nonviolent immigration needs.

Tampa prosecutors agreed with his defense attorneys that he would be deported within a few months of signing the plea agreement. But, instead, a Tampa federal judge sentenced him to 11 more months in prison.

Virginia prosecutors called that extra time "the window of opportunity" they needed to move Al-Arian to Virginia and force him to testify before a grand jury investigating an Islamic think tank.

Al-Arian's criminal contempt trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but Brinkema postponed it. A new date will be set Monday.

Contact Meg Laughlin at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..