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May 7, 2010
Israel is one of the world's most militarised societies, routinely recruiting children as young as 13 to perform military service in defiance of international law, writes Stephen Lendman*
The modern roots of Zionism go back to its founding at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, in 1897, its programme being the "establishing for the Jewish people of a publicly and legally assured home in Eretz Yisrael". Five decades later, this was accomplished by dispossessing indigenous Palestinians, denying them the right to their land, creating a new Jewish identity, legitimising Jews as rightful owners, and using superior military force to support the state against defenceless civilians who were no match against their powerful adversary.
Leading up to and after its war of independence, Israel stayed politically and militarily hard line, negotiating from strength, choosing confrontation over diplomacy, and naked aggression as a form of self- defence and occupation in order to seize as much of historic Palestine as possible and secure an ethnically pure Jewish state. These policies were called "Israelification [and] De-Arabisation" to preserve a "Jewish character".
In his book, The Making of Israeli Militarism, author Uri Ben-Eliezer says writing about Israeli militarism involves "ventur(ing) into an intellectual minefield", given Jewish history under the Nazis and the perception of Israel as a safe haven. Yet, decades of Arab- Israeli conflict have produced seven full-scale wars, two Intifadas, and many hundreds of violent incidents.
Ben-Eliezer believes that, beginning in the 1930s, militarism "was gradually legitimized within the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, then within the new state [it was] crystallized into a value, a formula, and an ideology." Over time, it acquired a dynamic of its own, and then, during the 1948 war, it "acquired full legitimacy" and became decisive in setting policy.
Politics and militarism were wedded to create a militaristic view of reality. Thereafter, it was institutionalised to the point that "the idea of implementing a military solution to [political problems] was not only enshrined as a value in its own right, but was also considered legitimate, desirable, and indeed the best option."
Today, militarism is a "cardinal aspect of Israeli society", its quintessential element under the 1986 National Defence Service Law that requires all Jewish Israeli citizens and permanent residents to serve. The law covers both men and women, with exemptions only for Orthodox Jews, educational inadequacy, health, family considerations, married or pregnant women or those with children, criminals, and other considerations at the Defence Ministry's discretion. In addition, most Israeli leaders are former high-ranking Israel Defence Force (IDF) officers, politics and the military being inextricably connected.
Little wonder, then, that Israel is a modern-day Sparta, a nation of about 5.6 million Jews and another 500,000 settlers that is able to mobilise over 600,000 combatants in 72 hours, equipped with state-of-the art weapons and the backing of the world's only superpower for whatever it wants to do.
Yet on 2 March 2008, the US McClatchy Newspapers writer Dion Nissenbaum headlined that, "Israelis show declining zest for military service," saying that "....under the surface, something has been slowly shifting in Israel as the nation prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary on May 14. More and more Israelis are avoiding mandatory military service -- something" earlier considered unthinkable.
According to author and former chief Israeli military psychologist, Rueven Gal, "in the past, it is true that not serving in the military was considered the exception. In more recent times, it became more tolerable and more acceptable to people."
According to 1997 IDF statistics, fewer than one in 10 Israeli men avoided service. Now it's nearly triple that number, or, according to some, even higher, given the resonance of conscientious objectors, refusniks, students unwilling to serve in the occupied territories, and "Breaking the Silence" reservists speaking out about IDF atrocities over the past decade, especially during the Gaza war.
Women are also opting out, around 44 per cent compared to 37 per cent a decade earlier. As a result, Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau has called the IDF no longer a "people's army [but rather] half the people's army." Given Israel's hardline militarism requiring mandatory service, officials are seeking new ways to deter avoidance.
One way of doing this is by indoctrinating Israeli young people to accept the militarism of Israeli society, particularly since various organisations in Israeli, such as the pressure group New Profile, are promoting themselves as being a "Movement for the Civilisation of Israeli Society" away from militarism and a culture of violence. Israeli "feminist women and men.... are convinced that we need not live in a soldiers' state" and should no longer tolerate one.
In July 2004, a New Profile report entitled Child Recruitment in Israel examined how Israeli armed forces and Jewish militias indoctrinate young children to be warriors, a practice it believes is essential to stop.
Child recruitment involves more than having weapons and using them, there being no front lines in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Israel and the occupied territories, IDF soldiers are everywhere. "Many military bases are located inside population centres, and few Israelis ever spend a day without meeting soldiers on duty," the report says.
As a result, a functional definition of child recruitment is as follows, with a child being anyone under 18 recruited by one or more of the following methods: by wearing an official uniform, having an official document, or in other ways identified as an IDF or related group member, even if not formally; by promoting or supporting IDF actions, actively or through other services; and/or by undergoing practical or theoretical training to perform or assist IDF activities, formally or otherwise.
Armed forces and security groups include Israel's military, its police (including conscripted border police), General Security Services (GSS), and Jewish militias, mostly based in settlements.
The relevant international laws governing the military use of children include Article 38 (2) and (3) of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which state: (2) "State Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities; [and] (3) State Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of 15 into the armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of 15 years but who have not attained the age of 18 years, State Parties shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest."
Article 77 (2) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (1977) contains similar language, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) criminalises the recruiting of children under 15 for military purposes.
The 1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child recognised 18 as the minimum recruitment age. Then, in 2000, the International Labour Organisation's Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention No. 182 condemned "all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery... including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict." The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000) also prohibited forced recruiting and raised the minimum age to 16.
Yet, contrary to international law, Israeli legislation takes precedence over these accepted norms and standards. Conscription at 18 is mandatory, at times includes those six months younger, and children under 18 may enlist voluntarily, but aren't used as combatants until coming of age.
Child recruitment is also done informally, the idea being to prepare underage youths for future mandatory service. Ben-Eliezer has written how early Zionist settlers established militant organisations, notably the Bar Giora (named for Simon Bar Giora in ancient Roman times), Hashomer (The Guard), and the Haganah (Defence), which were small in scale but profound in influencing younger minds.
Ben-Eliezer explained these organisations by writing that "the formative years of the younger generation produced an ethos created by local experience: guarding fields and crops, fighting with Arab children, being given a weapon at the age of bar mitzvah [a boy's 13th birthday]. This was the childhood experience of prominent members of the young generation [tempering their outlook] with suspicion, which frequently became hostility, and they reached maturity feeling that a confrontation between [Arabs and Jews] was inevitable."
Before 1948, very young children engaged in military activities, doing so eagerly as a sort of game. As a result, a militaristic worldview developed, especially among youths later becoming leaders. Militant groups formed at this time include Fosh (a Hebrew acronym for Field Units), the Palmach (Striking Force), Stern Gang (Israeli Freedom Fighters, Lehi in Hebrew) and Irgun (the National Military Organisation -- Etzel in Hebrew).
Before Israel's war of independence, recruitment came through a "duty to volunteer". Then it became mandatory after the IDF's establishment on 26 May 1948, replacing the paramilitary Haganah. Today, such recruitment is still called a privilege in Israel, a "noble and worthy action", moulding young minds to be eager when called upon and encouraging them to participate earlier as well. In the 1948 battle for Jerusalem, Israeli Youth Battalion trainees, aged 16 and 17, were combatants. So were women.
DEFINING ISRAELI MILITARISM: New Profile calls Israeli militarism "a way of thinking, which promotes forceful solutions, usually military ones, as preferable and even desirable ways of solving problems." As a result, security forces are Israeli society's most valued and revered members, "whose needs and opinions come second to none". Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, called "the whole nation... an army and the whole land [a] front".
Today's IDF is the world's fourth most powerful military, nuclear-armed with state-of-the-art weapons and technology, an active space and satellite programme, biological and chemical capabilities, and a large per capita military budget, financed generously by Washington.
The military also controls 48 per cent of public land, and recycles its commanders into high government positions, including municipality and regional council heads, mayors, ministers and heads of state. Others get top public administration positions or serve as business executives or directors.
"The unquestioned prestige enjoyed by top military officers emanates downwards, and some of it can still be enjoyed by" common soldiers, the report states. Children see and feel it everywhere in Israel, including from adult family members, from religious leaders, and in school. In addition, imagery and weapons are ubiquitous, including old tanks, guns and fighter jets visible in public places.
Militarised education starts in kindergarten, at home, and on the streets. "The military is physically present in schools and school activities", with many uniformed soldiers teaching classes to programme young minds. Further, teachers, especially principals, are often retired career officers, and school walls are adorned with names and photographs of fallen heroes among their graduates.
Field trips for all ages are to military memorials on former battlegrounds. Curricula and textbooks reflect militarism, from kindergarten through secondary schools that have mandatory programmes called "preparation for the IDF" that include training. Glorifying military heroes and conquests while vilifying Palestinians are featured.
Symbolic recruitment also precedes conscription. This consists of indoctrinating youths to feel part of the military, mobilised for war, ready for combat, and eager to participate. It also consists of kindergarten and elementary school children sending gift packages to soldiers, especially on holidays, expressing their "gratitude" in personal letters.
A 1974 Israeli teachers' guide entitled "When a Nation Reports for Duty" promotes enlistment by saying that the people as a whole carry the burden of the war effort, and it is divided between those who wear the IDF uniform and civilians who are not directly recruited by the IDF. "Therefore, it should be understood that [every] civilian carries the burden of the war effort," the guide says.
Children learn such values early, and they stick, preparing them for later conscription and a lifetime of military support. At school, children are exposed to ceremonies, commemorations, speeches, field trips to military bases, and holiday celebrations of battles between "us" (Jews) and "the bad guys", earlier Nazis, Egyptians, Persians, and Arabs, and now Palestinians. As a result, children are imbued "to accept military force and war as a natural state and a natural response to conflict situations".
Soldiers in Israeli schools are both former IDF teachers and administrators as well as "uniformed soldiers on duty, stationed in schools as part of the school staff... The presence of former soldiers, especially retired high-ranking officers, in the education system is considered by many in Israeli society, including government, to be a positive influence on children," reports say, especially since preparing youths for military service is a core educational goal.
In collaboration with the ministries of education and defence, the IDF operates two large-scale youth programmes, the Teacher-Soldier programme that trains soldiers to become teachers and to complement civilian staff despite their poor qualifications, and the Youth-Guide programme that works with underprivileged children, in some cases for Youth Battalions and in others as preparation for military service coordinators.
Soldiers working in Israeli schools are nearly always in uniform, report to civilian and military superiors, promote militarism and wars for defence, and children acclimatise themselves to viewing them as an integral part of their education and a future obligation.
Indoctrinating youths early on blurs the line between Israeli military and civil society, promotes militarism, and makes conscription seem inevitable, necessary and desirable.
PREPARING FOR MILITARY SERVICE: For most male and female Israeli young people, military service is a rite of passage and a natural step in the preparation for adulthood, something that policymakers have been cognizant of for decades.
After the 1973 War, the above-mentioned "When a Nation Reports for Duty" guide explained the role of all Israelis during emergencies and helped children understand it clearly. In 1984, actively preparing youths for military service began when the IDF and Israeli Ministry of Defence published a guide called "Towards Service in the IDF", which explained the privilege of serving in the Israeli armed services, adapting to military and basic training, developing fitness in preparation, the IDF as a positive force in society, and preparing parents to accept their children's role as future soldiers.
Since the run-up to the 1948 War, training for military service was common in Israel, especially through the Youth Battalions, but the 1984 programme included school indoctrination "as part of the ordinary curriculum".
Today's school programme is called "Willingness to Serve and Readiness for the IDF", which is mandatory for three years in Israeli secondary schools, the programme's goal being "preparing the entire youth population to service in the IDF, while strengthening their readiness and willingness to perform a substantial and contributing service, each to his abilities, and emphasising the importance of serving in combat units".
Content includes combat legacy stories on field trips, the ethics of war, familiarisation with different IDF units, physical education and Arabic studies to enlist Israelis for intelligence. The format is regimented, emphasising discipline, and the "Soldier for a Day" programme takes children to a military base for descriptive presentations, especially about elite combat units.
Several civilian programmes also prepare children for future service, including "Preparation for Combat Fitness" courses, "Youth Battalions Special Forces Induction" and "Follow Me". It is common in Israel "to see large groups of young men run about on public beaches, in preparation for military service".
The Naale Programme (a Hebrew acronym for "Youth Immigrating Before Parents") also promotes immigration for foreign Jewish children, encouraging them to come to Israel, attend school and become citizens. It presents military service as a major socialising force, stressing benefits such as acceptance in Israeli society.
Moreover, Article 44 of Israel's 1986 National Defence Service Law authorises the IDF to obtain information about everyone eligible for service. Educators, employers and others asked to help must cooperate. Under Article 43, persons "Intended for Security Service" cannot travel abroad without Defense Ministry permission, although exemptions are granted with restrictions, such as time limits.
Prior to their conscription, most Israeli young people receive a warrant at home, requiring them to report to a regional conscription bureau in a practice called "first call-up" for initial screening, data verification, medical and intelligence tests and a personal interview. If after three warrants young people do not comply, police intervention may follow.
In addition to regular Israeli secondary schools, there are military high schools that include Mevo'ot Yam, which has 500 students who wear uniforms, participate in parades and learn weapons use in preparation for future Navy service, Israeli Air Force technical schools for cadets preparing for future IAF service, and the Amal 1 network, one of the largest in Israel, which carries out joint military-civilian projects for future Air Force service.
Courses at such schools combine civilian and military studies, children being groomed to become soldiers. This is the case even though Article 77 (2) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (1977) prohibits recruiting children under the age of 15. In Israeli military schools, children are "regularly recruited" as young as 13 or 14, a practice that persists because of the pervasive influence of militarism in Israeli society and culture.
In all Israeli secondary schools, mandatory Youth Battalion Training Week simulates army life for those in 11th and 12th grade on military bases. With the children wearing uniforms, this training includes reception, processing, orientation and marches, night and day weapons and field training, and lessons about battle heritage, military ranks, discipline, adapting, service commitment, and the purity of arms.
During the entire training, Israeli children are surrounded by soldiers and treated like them in order to gain familiarity with military life. In groups of about 20, treatment and conditions are rigorous, obedience a must, and for those who disobey, punishments include extra calisthenics, running and chores like latrine duty.
In times of emergency, Israeli Youth Battalions may be recruited for active service as they were during the 1948 War. For boys aged 16 or older, elite combat unit try-outs are held, initially for two days, and for qualifiers of up to five, involving demanding and exhausting mental and physical fitness tests. The IDF's reference to "substantial service" strongly emphasises Elite Combat Unit enlistment, being the "cream of the crop" destined for the "most exciting fighting activities".
For the few selected, pressure to be accepted is intense because participation is considered a great honour.
Arranged through schools, children are also enlisted to support the IDF, especially during times of emergency or special needs. Besides training, they do laundry, sort uniforms, wash dishes, set dining room tables, clean vehicles, and do other chores, freeing soldiers for military duties.
To support a war effort, children as young as 15 and a half are enlisted for "labour service [to protect] the state or public security or for providing vital services to the population". In all cases, schools cooperate, and during extreme times children have no choice.
Another way in which children are used for military purposes in Israel is in the Israeli Civil Guard, a police- run community-based organisation founded in 1974 to mobilise civilians for protection against Arab militia attacks. Today, the Guard patrols community areas, challenges Palestinians, harasses them, at times shoots them, and performs other services like securing public transportation, educational institutions, open markets and parking lots, as well as helping out at checkpoints.
About 15 per cent of Guard volunteers are children, eligible at age 15 to join with a restricted status that is removed a year later. Parental consent is also required. The youths are armed, and some schools give extra credit for participating.
Members of Israeli Emergency Squads are mostly adults to be called on as needed, but since 2002 secondary school pupils have increasingly also been enlisted. Although part of Israel's police force, the Squads, set up under Section 8 of the 1971 Police Orders, allow the Israeli government "at times of war or emergency... to declare the Israeli Police Force, or a part of it, a military force which might be employed in military functions for the protection of the State."
In the West Bank, Israeli children as young as 15 guard settlements and do other security work, performing functions that include working in police headquarters and patrolling with arms they're trained to use.
Some of these children "grow up believing they must banish the Palestinians, and act" violently with impunity, including harassing them, beating them, breaking into their homes, destroying their property, and at times killing them.
There's little difference between "training and assigning a child to do work as an armed [settlement] guard [or] assigning [them as] soldier[s] at the front in wartime... The formalities of whether one officially belongs to the army or not are hardly relevant," reports say, given the pervasive militarisation of Israeli society.
Although civilian service is voluntary, children are raised "in a hostile and violent environment in the middle of a confrontation area". In the occupied territories, many believe the land is their land. They must protect it, and the Palestinians are enemies. Under intense social pressure, children are encouraged to perform at a very immature age when they're too young to know the consequences, yet they are conditioned to be militant and obedient.
A last feature of the military use of children by Israel is its use of Palestinian children as collaborators. Israel recruits Palestinian informants, including children, as field agents to provide intelligence, asking them to work as collaborators that most Palestinians call traitors.
Tactics involve detaining Palestinian children, then pressuring and torturing them to comply, much like the tactics Israel used in recruiting for the South Lebanon Army (SLA) after the 1982 Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Under Israeli supervision, SLA Lebanese citizens, including children as young as 12, were used as collaborators for intelligence purposes.
During the second Intifada, Palestinians, including children, were also used as human shields by Israel, forced at gunpoint to comply.
Militarised education starts early in Israel in both overt and symbolic ways, the aim being to condition young minds to accept military service as natural, vital, and an honour for Israeli citizens. The "educational system is so committed to [promoting] military service that it [fails] to consider" the harm done to new youth generations, who grow up thinking wars and violence are natural, peace unattainable, Arabs inferior, and Palestinians enemies.
The militarisation of society is corrupting and self- destructive, and the recruiting of child soldiers is criminal and unconscionable. All forms of it must stop. The alternative is unacceptable, illegal and intolerable.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
Foreign Media In Brief 07 & 08 April, 2010
08/05/2010 The following are quotes and translated bits from foreign and Israeli reports and articles. They do not reflect the views of Al-Manar.com.lb.
Israeli Media: Hamas Urges PA Not to Approve ‘Absurd” Proximity Talks (08-05-10)
A Hamas movement statement, posted on the Ma’an News Website, urged the Palestinian Authority not to approve the resumption of talks with Israel, saying that such a move would only legitimize Israel's occupation.
The statement rejected continued talks with Israel, saying that, what it calls the "absurd proximity talks" would only "give the Israeli occupation an umbrella to commit more crimes against the Palestinians."
"Hamas calls on the PLO to stop selling illusions to the Palestinian people and announce the failure of their gambling on absurd talks," Hamas said.
Real Gazette: Canada Unveils Proposal to Resolve “Conflict over Jerusalem” (08-05-10)
Canada has formally unveiled a proposal to resolve the conflict over occupied Jerusalem, the Montreal Gazette reported on Saturday.
The proposal, which was released after seven years of research and planning, calls for a "special regime" comprising Israeli and Palestinian officials headed by "an effective and empowered third-party" commissioner to oversee a 0.9-square-kilometer district that contains the city's contested Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites. The Gazette goes on to say that the proposal emphasizes the need for an alternative to the geographic division of Jerusalem or exclusive control by either Israel or the Palestinians, or the creation of a separate international authority to oversee the Old City.
Haaretz: Israel Gov’t Tells High Court: We'll Authorize Illegal West Bank Outpost (08-05-10)
Following Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak's request to delay the demolition date of illegal structures in the West Bank, “the state on Friday announced to the High Court of Justice that it may legalize the Givat Hayovel outpost in the West Bank, if the outpost in question resides on state-owned land,” the Israeli media reported Saturday. According to Haaretz, “the state announced on Friday that it intends to conduct a thorough investigation into the status of the land on which the structures stand – whether they are privately owned, or are indeed state lands. If it turns out the lands are privately owned, the houses will be demolished. If they are state-owned lands, the state will work to legalize the structures .”
Yedioth Aharonoth: US Photo Exhibit Shows Israel Stealing Water From Syria (08-05-10)
Israel is stealing water from Syria and is blocking Palestinian access to water resources, according to a National Geographic photo exhibit in Los Angeles.
The caption under one of the photos reads, "Israelis relax by the Sea of Galilee, a lake near the Golan Heights that is fed by the Jordan River and that supplies a third of Israel’s fresh water. Since 1967, Israel has blocked Syria’s access to the shoreline." Israeli Consul General in Los Angeles Jacob Dayan sent a complaint letter to the owners of the Annenberg Space for Photography, saying “the venue is being used as a political tool to spread lies about Israel's part in the global effort to provide clean and fresh drinking water.”
Associated Press Report: IAEA Set to Focus on Israel (08-05-10)
Israel's secretive nuclear activities may undergo unprecedented scrutiny next month, with a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency tentatively set to focus on the topic for the first time, according to documents shared Friday with The Associated Press. A copy of the restricted provisional agenda of the IAEA's June 7 board meeting lists "Israeli nuclear capabilities" as the eighth item — the first time that that the agency's decision-making body is being asked to deal with the issue in its 52 years of existence. The 35-nation IAEA board is the agency's decision making body and can refer proliferation concerns to the UN Security Council.
Inclusion of the item appeared to be the result of a push by the 18-nation Arab group of IAEA member nations, which last year successfully lobbied another agency meeting — its annual conference — to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program.
BBC: UK Parties to Consider Power Deals (08-05-10)
Libearal Democrats leader Nick Clegg said that "people deserve good, stable government. " He is meeting senior Lib. Dem. MPs to discuss a power-sharing offer from the Tories, after the UK election resulted in a hung parliament .
He said they would talk to other parties in a "constructive spirit" over the "coming hours and days ".
The Conservatives led by David Cameron won most seats but not enough to secure a majority and are looking to the third-biggest party for support to form a government .If it fails, Gordon Brown has invited the Lib Dems to talk to Labour .
Washington Post: Pentagon Asking Congress to Hold Back on Increases in Troop Pay (08-05-10)
The Pentagon, not usually known for its frugality, is pleading with Congress to stop spending so much money on the troops .
In the midst of two long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials are increasingly worried that the government's generosity is unsustainable and that it will leave them with less money to buy weapons and take care of equipment .
With Washington confronting record deficits, the Pentagon is bracing for an end to the huge increases in defense spending of the past decade.
But Congress -- including members opposed to the wars -- has made clear that it considers military pay and benefits sacrosanct, especially when service members and their families are struggling to cope with repeated deployments to faraway conflicts .
Christian Science Monitor: Hezbollah Says It's Ready for Fresh War with Israel – and Stronger Now (07-05-10)
Nicholas Blanford wrote that nearly four years after Hezbollah fought invading Israeli troops to a standstill in south Lebanon, the militant Shiite group says it's prepared for a fresh conflict and confident of victory . “We are ready for another war and we eagerly await it," says veteran Hezbollah fighter Abu Hadi on a drive through the Bekaa Valley. "We expect the next war to be short. The Israelis will not be able to endure what we will do to them ."
Hezbollah's leadership insists it does not seek a war and that its military preparations are a defense against potential Israeli aggression. Yet, the inconclusive outcome of the 2006 war has stoked a feeling here that another war is inevitable .
War drums have been beating faster in recent weeks amid allegations that Syria has supplied Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles.
Hezbollah's strongholds in the Bekaa Valley are likely to be one of several front lines during another war with Israel – a war that threatens to be far more destructive than the one in July 2006. Hezbollah says lessons learned from that conflict have been implemented, including new battlefield tactics and the acquisition of improved weapons systems, surface-to-surface rockets, and possibly advanced antiaircraft missiles .
Blanford suggests that the stakes for both sides are so great that the military preparations of Israel and Hezbollah to some extent serve as a mutual deterrent against rash action .
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
IAEA Chief Yukiva Amano
08/05/2010 Israel's secretive nuclear activities may undergo unprecedented scrutiny next month, with a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency tentatively set to focus on the topic for the first time, according to documents shared Friday with The Associated Press.
Following report on IAEA attempts to get Israel to sign NPT treaty, local official says even such signatories as Iraq tried to gain nuclear weapons in the past
A copy of the restricted provisional agenda of the IAEA's June 7 board meeting lists "Israeli nuclear capabilities" as the eighth item — the first time that that the agency's decision-making body is being asked to deal with the issue in its 52 years of existence.
The agenda can still undergo changes in the month before the start of the meeting and a senior diplomat from a board member nation said the item, included on Arab request, could be struck if the US and other Israeli allies mount strong opposition. He asked for anonymity for discussing a confidential matter, according to AP.
Even if dropped from the final agenda, however, its inclusion in the May 7 draft made available to The AP is significant, reflecting the success of Islamic nations in giving concerns about Israel's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal increased prominence.
The 35-nation IAEA board is the agency's decision making body and can refer proliferation concerns to the UN Security Council.
A decision to keep the item would be a slap in the face not only for Israel but also for Washington and its Western allies which have been turning a blind eye on Israel’s nuclear program and the stockpile of more than 200 nuclear warheads it is believed to possess.
Inclusion of the item appeared to be the result of a push by the 18-nation Arab group of IAEA member nations, which last year successfully lobbied another agency meeting — its annual conference — to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program.
A letter to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano by the Arab group that was also shared with the AP urged Amano to report to the board what was known about Israel's nuclear program "by including a list of the information available to the Agency and the information which it can gather from open sources."
The April 23 Arab letter urged Amano to enforce the conference resolution calling on Israel to allow IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
[ 08/05/2010 - 09:04 AM ]
GAZA, (
PIC)-- The higher national committee supporting prisoners has announced that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) had offered two prisoners from the Gaza Strip to set them free if they accepted exile.
Riyadh Al-Ashqar, the committee's spokesman, said in a press release on Friday that the IOA was offering prisoners their freedom coupled with exile or else they would be held indefinitely in administrative custody.
He said that the IOA offered Mohammed Mustafa his freedom in return for exile outside Palestine for medical treatment. Mustafa was sentenced for 12 years in 2000 and was paralyzed due to torture during interrogation followed by medical neglect.
Ashqar said that another prisoner Munir Abu Diba, who had completed his 11-year sentence, was offered deportation or detention for a long period. The IOA refused to release Abu Diba at the pretext that he did not carry a Palestinian ID and tried to deport him to Egypt and Jordan but both refused to receive him.
The spokesman recalled that three other prisoners from the West Bank were recently offered release along with banishment but they turned down the offer.
The committee, meanwhile, said that it had asked the union of parliaments of member countries in the organization of Islamic conference (OIC) scheduled to hold a meeting in Istanbul within two days to support the cause of Palestinian prisoners.
Mohammed Radwan, an official with the committee, said in a press release that his committee asked the union to establish an Islamic committee to activate the issue of those prisoners who are in danger of death in IOA jails.
Radwan asked professor Irfan Gündüz, a Turkish MP and head of the union's relations with Islamic countries, in a telephone conversation for an Islamic role against the IOA violations of the prisoners' rights.
Gündüz said that the issue would be prioritized at the meeting, which would adopt a practical position toward this humanitarian question.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
Contributed By
Titania (Thanks)
Please read "Mornings in Jenin" by
Susan Abulhawa.
February 21, 2010 05:07 PM EST
Mornings in Jenin
Susan Adulhawa
ISBN: 978-1-60819-046-1
Bloomsbury
What is life like as a perpetual refugee? Most in the West can’t even conceive of living in a stateless society, where two peoples are constantly at war, both having been wronged by society and history. This is Palestine in the modern world. It’s about as foreign an environment as most readers could imagine.Before reading
Mornings in Jenin, my only real insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had come from dry news reports of atrocities on both sides over the years. This book is a life changing force. It won’t necessarily change your political leanings, but it will take you far into the Palestinian mindset and make apparent just how impossible this conflict is for any side to “win.”
There is no common ground, and yet these two groups are exactly in the same spot, each seeking the security of being able to live in peace on a land they can call their own.
Although it is a fictional account,
there are plenty of real news events included in the book, including the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps and the bombing of Beirut. The story told here is that of one Palestinian family, whose roots are in the olive groves of Palestine before the 1948 creation of the state of Israel. In particular, the novel is told from the point of view of the youngest daughter, Amal, who was born after the family had been exiled to the refugee camp of Jenin.
As one would expect, this novel is one of heartbreak and loss, of coping with unimaginable tragedy and hope for a restoration of what was taken. An interesting component in the story is the circumstance in which one brother of the family (presumed dead) is raised as an Israeli Jew. More than anything, this duality and tenuousness of life is what sets this book apart from merely being a diatribe about Palestinian loss. It is so easy to see how both sides feel and why they take the actions they do to defend what each considers to be “their” exclusive homeland.
As if all this weren’t reason enough to read Mornings in Jenin, author Susan Abulhawa has written one of the most lyrical and prosaic books I‘ve ever read. There are passages that will cause a reader to stop mid-story in awe, so beautifully written are they. It is this beauty that helps carry the heavy meaning of loss. Understanding what land means to a landless people is made more bittersweet by this compelling writing, of her beautiful descriptions of the land, the family‘s love for one another, and the stoic endurance that is adopted when one suffers a fatal loss.
This is the story of loss that no political solution can solve. Yet despite the tragedies heaped on one family, there is still reason for hope and humanity, to carry on, to love again. It’s a powerful book, beautifully written.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
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