Wikileaks: Ban Ki-Moon Worked with Israel to Undermine UN Report

Source

The General Secretary of United Nations (UN) Ban Ki-Moon collaborated in secret with Israel and the United States to weaken the effects of a Board of Inquiry's report accusing Israel of human rights violations in Gaza in Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009.

Wikileaks released documents on Friday that revealed that Ban wrote a letter to the UN Security Council asking its members not to take recommendations by the UN Board of Inquiry about Israeli bombings in Gaza into account. The report demonstrated that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) had a direct role in seven of the nine attacks against buildings of the UN in Gaza strip, and accused Israel of having breached the inviolability and immunity of UN
premises.
 

 According to Wikileaks, Susan Rice, White House National Security Advisor, spoke at least four times with Ban Ki Moon “to discuss concerns over the Board of Inquiry's report on incidents at UN sites in December 2008 and January 2009". The report's recommendations included the need for a deeper and impartial investigation into the recent “incidents”, and into the bombings of UN facilities.

 

 According to Wikileaks, Rice first asked Ban not to include the recommendations in the final report's summary, supposed to be transmitted to the UN Security Council on May 5. Ban responded that “he was constrained in what he could do since the Board of Inquiry is independent; it was their report and recommendations and he could not alter them”. In the second conversation, “Rice urged the Secretary-General to make clear in his cover letter when he transmits the summary to the Security Council that those recommendations exceeded the scope of the terms of reference and no further action is needed." Ban then replied that "his staff was working with an Israeli delegation on the text of the cover letter”.

He confirmed in the last phone call that “a satisfactory cover letter” had been completed. In the letter,

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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Israel says NO to UNHRC settlements probe

Posted on July 10, 2012 |

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has set up a panel of three internationally renowned femal lawyers and human-rights experts to probe illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, a move further irked the Zionist entity which said it will bar its access to the sites of inquiry.

In March 2012, the Zionist entity severed contacts with the UNHRC when the 47-member body announced it would investigate the Jewish settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. As result, Netanyahu declared UNHRC anti-Israel.

Israel’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying the panel “will find no cooperation in Israel and its members will not be allowed to enter Israel and the Palestinian territories“.

Abraham Foxman, Jewish supremacist head of Israel lobby group, Anti-Defamation League, has slammed the UNHRC for appointing Justice Christine Chanet of France (Chairperson) and Asma Jahangir from Pakistan (member). According to Abe Foxman these two have been biased toward Israel in the past. The third member of the panel, Unity Dow, is from Botswana.

The Jewish group, UN Watch, has also denounced UNHRC for its “unbalanced probe” of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

According to the special UN rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories, Richard Falk (with Jewish family roots), at least 3,500 building were under construction in the West Bank in 2011, not including Jewish settlements in the annexed Arab East Jerusalem.

Richard Falk said on Monday that such buildings on Palestinian land “more or less closes the book on the reality and feasibility” of a two-state solution to the conflict.

“The Palestinian position gets weaker and weaker through time and the Israelis get more and more of a fait accompli through their unlawful activities. Is it just a delaying tactic that allows the Israelis to expand the settlements, expand the settled population, demolish more and more Palestinian homes and structures and engage in a program that has assumed such proportions that the language of ethnic cleansing is the only way to describe the demographic changes in East Jerusalem?,”said Richard Falk.

The all-female panel is assigned the task of fact-finding mission to “investigate the implications of the illegal Jewish settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the native Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the occupied territory and East Jerusalem,” says UNHRC president Laura Dupuy Lasserre.

According to Israeli propagandists the three females are “unfit” to judge Israel’s treatment of native population in the occupied territories – because Justice Christine Chanet, based on her personal experience in the past, said that “it’s very difficult to have real dialogue” with the Zionist entity. Asma Jahangir , a former President of Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association – is sister of Hina Jilani who was on the UN’s Goldstone Commission in 2009. The commission was chaired by Justice Richard Goldstone, a Zionist Jew from South Africa. Justice Unity Dow, is the first female Justice of Botswana High Court. She is also an author and human rights activist.

It’s funny how the Zionist regime and its drum-beating idiots shamelessly accuse Sudan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Libya and other Muslim countries for gross human rights abuses – but are affraid to let the world body to investigate Israel’s human rights abuses. American writer and blogger, John Kaminsky summed up Israel’s problem in the following statement:

“When you read the history of Israel from objective sources, you discover that it’s an outlaw state, created by the powers that be by stealing the land from its original inhabitants, and systematically exterminating them ever since“.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Kristoffer Larsson: Disengaging from Zionism

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 8:42PM Gilad Atzmon

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/12/disengaging-from-zionism/

In 2009 the UN Human Rights Council appointed the South African Judge Richard Goldstone to head the fact-finding mission investigating possible Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Aside from being a well-respected judge, Richard Goldstone could not easily be dismissed as anti-Semitic given his Jewish origin.

Goldstone probably had no idea what awaited him. After the Mission published its findings and conclusions, the judge quickly became the victim of a vicious slander campaign. Israel’s Information Minister said that the Goldstone Report was “anti-Semitic.” Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz informed the listeners of Israel Army Radio that Goldstone was “an evil, evil man” and “an absolute traitor,” a “man who uses his language and words against the Jewish people.” Dershowitz later apologised for calling Goldstone a traitor, saying he thought the term moser (Hebrew for informer, delator) meant “monster” (as if that was any less harsh).

“I wrote to the broadcaster, retracting my word ‘traitor,’” Dershowitz told the Forward. “But if you’re asking me deep in my heart and soul do I believe that the word fairly characterizes him, in light of the way he’s used his Jewishness, both as a shield and a sword? You know, if the shoe fits.”

In the end, it all became too much for the South African judge. He’s tried to retract parts of the report he co-authored, along with publicly defending Israel against ‘the Apartheid Slander’. And if the truth be told it seems that has never disengaged himself from Zionism. However, the damage has already been done and the greater part of the Jewish community simply has no trust in him anymore.

I came to think of Goldstone’s destiny as I was reading Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists.The book is an anthology with contributions from 25 Jewish activists living in different parts of the world who have come to see the conflict from the Palestinian point of view. For most Jews, criticising Israel comes at a price – relatives and Jewish friends regard it as treason, they are accused of being self-hating, and in some cases even of paving the way for another Holocaust. But these stories are not mainly about the price they have to pay for their activism; it’s about their personal journeys that led them from being (in many cases) completely uncritical supporters of Israel and Zionism into defenders of Palestinian rights.

The book is edited by Avigail Abarbanel, a psychotherapist residing in the United Kingdom. Born in Israel in 1964, Abarbanel grew up in an abusive family and was—just like most other Israelis—completely blind to Palestinians and their suffering. Instead, Jewish suffering was the ubiquitous issue. During her school years the fear of another Holocaust was “repeatedly raised and debated” and she “was taught that everyone in the world, including Arabs, hated us just because we were Jews.” Even though Palestinians make up a fifth of Israel’s population she never understood who they were. She recalls:

‌“I resented the Arab countries around us and our “enemy from within”—or the “fifth column” as the Palestinian citizens of Israel were sometimes called—that I thought wanted to “throw us into the sea”. I resented the world that didn’t seem to understand us and was against us all the time, for what I thought was no reason except our Jewishness. I didn’t understand why “they” couldn’t just leave us in peace. I thought the reason for our suffering, anxiety and insecurity was out there. Together with everyone else I felt hard done by, hassled and unsafe.”

Abarbanel later left Israel for Australia, where she earned a degree in psychotherapy. As a student she was forced to scrutinise her past. This, along with reading The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim, led her to renounce her Israeli citizenship and eventually reject Zionism altogether.

Ronit Yarosky was also unaware of who the Palestinians were. Her family left Montreal for Israel when she was 14 years old. She did her military service and was stationed in the West Bank. The Palestinian residents served as background actor – they were there, yet unimportant. West Bank cities and towns she stayed in as a soldier “were nameless to me because they were “only” Arab towns, and therefore of no significance in my life,” she remembers. Yarosky’s conversion began as she was working on her MA thesis back in Canada. It wasn’t until she read Benny Morris’s The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem that she realised that Jewish settlements were established on the ruins of Arab villages, and that her uncle was even living in a Palestinian house. When she brought this up with her mother, the latter replied: “Well, obviously.” But to Ronit the newly discovered facts was life-changing, and after she could no longer turn a blind eye to what is happening to the Palestinians.

For others like Peter Slezak, Zionism as such doesn’t appear to have been important in his childhood. As a Jew in Australia he felt as an outsider already in primary school. And with most of his relatives being Holocaust survivors, the Haggadah’s warning that “in every generation they [i.e. non-Jews] rise against us to destroy us….” can easily feel validated. Slezak, like many other Jews, used to worry that all non-Jews inevitably harbored anti-Semitic feelings, a worry that took many years to finally overcome. Instead of regarding the Holocaust as a crime against Jews and a proof of why a Jewish state is needed, he sees a universalistic message in Never again. Some Jewish friends have even cut all ties with Selzak, and he has in his own words ended up “becoming a pariah in my own community” because of his pro-Palestinian activism.

This culture of intolerance is well captured by American musician Rich Siegel when he describes himself as “a cult survivor.” There is something “very seriously wrong with Israel, and with the culture that supports it,” he writes. Siegel should know. He was an ardent Zionist as a teenager, even to the degree that he was out in the streets protesting Arafat’s appearance at the UN in 1974, this while singing along to lyrics such as “We’ll kill those Syrians.” For Siegel, the image of an innocent Israel threatened by Jew-hating Arabs first started to crack while waiting for his wife outside a train station in Rhode Island in 2004. A few activists had a book stand outside the train station and he perused Phyllis Bennis’s Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. He was left shocked after reading about Jews massacring Arabs at Deir Yassin, something he had never heard of. He kept on reading books about the conflict and came to understood what Zionism represented. Some of his friends and relatives are no longer part of his life, but he has no regrets.

I have here only presented glimpses from some of the 25 contributions, but they all deserve to be read in full. As a non-Jew it is difficult too fully relate to the sacredness of the Jewish state. However, all people and cultures have their taboos that cannot be disrespected without running the risk of being questioned, persecuted or excommunicated. On a personal level, we all have inner demons holding us back until we have the courage to face them.

Hardly surprising, fear is a reoccurring theme in the stories. Zionism thrives on fears – fear of the Arabs who want to kill the Jews just because of who they are; fear of the non-Jewish world that doesn’t understand Jews because there’s an anti-Semite living in every Gentile. It is only by challenging and facing their fears that Jews can detach themselves from Zionism.

In the afterword Abarbanel writes that she struggled with finding a common denominator for all 25 contributors. But eventually she did find one thing they all share, which she terms “emotional resilience.” She defines it as “the ability to tolerate uncomfortable feelings without avoiding them or trying to make them go away,” and adds that it includes “the ability to tolerate the experience of being disapproved of, disliked and rejected by others, sometimes even by relatives and close friends.” In plain English: to have the courage to stand up for what you believe in no matter the cost.

This is what makes the book so inspiring. 25 stories written by people who struggle because they feel what they are not supposed to feel, because they do things they are not supposed to do. They have the emotional resilience and sense of justice that Richard Goldstone lacks.

Kristoffer Larsson studies Economics at a Swedish university. He holds a BA in Theology and is on the Board of Directors of Deir Yassin Remembered. He can be reached at: krislarsson@comhem.se. Read other articles by Kristoffer.

O’Keefe and survivors of Cast Lead "massacre" join forces in safe-trade project to rebuild Gaza

By Stuart Littlewood
9 May 2011


Stuart Littlewood describes how Palestinian rights activist Ken O’Keefe and survivors of Gaza’s Samouni family, may of whom were murdered by Israeli troops in 2008-09, have pooled their efforts to launch a project designed to promote self-reliance among Gazans through trade.

No fewer that 29 members of the Samouni family, including many of the women and children, were callously slaughtered by Israeli troops during their assault on the Gaza Strip, known as Operation Cast Lead, some two years ago.

For the benefit of those who have not seen the  Goldstone Report, extracts describing events in considerable detail are included in an appendix below. After reading the report it is no surprise that the Israeli regime has pulled out all the stops to discredit Judge Goldstone and his colleagues for daring to reveal the true behaviour of “the most moral army in the world”.

The dispassionate way Goldstone tells it is horrific enough. Other sources say the killing spree was actually much, much worse – nothing less than a cold-blooded massacre.

Having assured us at the time that he “took every precaution to check and double-check” the facts, Goldstone has been under intense pressure to retract. In a bombshell article in the Washington Post last month he writes: "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”

So what does he know now that he didn’t know then? Referring to the mass killing of members of the Samouni family, it seems the shelling “was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation”.

And what are we supposed to draw from this? That it was all a pure accident, no war crime intended, just bad luck on the Samounis?

Yes. Bin the report, the pro-Israel lobby tells the United Nations.

How does that slap in the face play with the family? Showing typical Palestinian resilience, the traumatized survivors are picking themselves up by their own bootstraps. Helped by their friend Ken O'Keefe, they are busy gearing up for the switch Gaza must soon make from aid dependency to paying its way through trade.

While the Gaza government announces that funds are at last available or pledged to commence public works projects such as housing, infrastructure and sanitation, the Samounis’ private venture – if successful – might provide a helpful blueprint for others in rebuilding trade links as the prison door to the outside world is gradually forced open.

”Social enterprise” is one way to go

O’Keefe served as a US marine. Now a peace activist, he is remembered especially for his part in resisting the Israelis' murderous assault in international waters on the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel in the Free Gaza flotilla last year.

The economic strangulation of the tiny coastal enclave by Israel's five-year blockade and the devastation to homes, factories, infrastructure and livelihoods caused by the blitzkrieg of 2008-09 (Operation Cast Lead) and the daily air-strikes ever since, not to mention US and EU sanctions, have caused chronic suffering and despair.

As O'Keefe puts it:

Parents are not only unable to protect their children from Israeli aggression but also incapable of providing even the bare essentials without the aid. Children become both witness and victim of this reality. Many begin to lose respect for their parents, and that in turn causes parents to suffer from diminishing self-respect and depression.

Aid has become institutionalized, he says, and people in Gaza see it as their only means to live. Their dignity has been stolen. Long-term aid is an insidiously destructive weapon, destroying society from within.

At the root of all this is the blockade and the inability to conduct trade.

In an effort to make a worthwhile contribution, O'Keefe and the family have launched a joint “social enterprise” initiative comprising Aloha Palestine CIC (Community Interest Company) and the Samouni Project. Both are EU-registered non-profit companies.

Aloha Palestine is a community interest trading company, while the Samouni Project Mission plans to provide long-term quality education along with community services to over 200 members of the Samouni family as well as residents of surrounding Zeitoun in Gaza. To date the Samouni Project has planted an olive tree orchard, built a playground, procured a classroom/community centre and recruited teaching staff who are now developing the curriculum. Textbooks, computers, art and craft materials, school supplies, science equipment, teaching aids and musical instruments have been collected and are waiting in London. The next task is to deliver all this to Gaza then provide for the running costs of teaching staff and administration amounting to around GBP 2,400 a month.

Aloha Palestine's function is to transport and deliver these items so that the classroom can be completed and classes begin.

“Doctors and engineers are picking up trash in Gaza today because it is the only job they can find”

Aloha Palestine is assembling an international trade convoy which plans to leave London early in July arriving Gaza three weeks later. Among the drivers are members of the Samouni family. Any attempt to block it, says O'Keefe, will be seen as denying the Samouni community and its children the education they are entitled to.

Besides school equipment, I’m told the cargo will include textiles and building materials, industrial machinery and equipment geared towards economic development and the rebuilding of Gaza. After offloading in Gaza the vehicles will be reloaded with made-in-Palestine products for export.

"Palestinians are more than capable of standing on their own two feet," says O'Keefe, "but our collective failure to direct our energy at the root of the problem has relegated them to the status of beggars. Doctors and engineers are picking up trash in Gaza today because it is the only job they can find. And they are the lucky ones who at least have a job.

Samouni InterTrade Palestine (SIP) intends to confront the problem head-on and eliminate this injustice by proactive, as opposed to reactive, means. It is a social enterprise collaboration. The nature of a social enterprise is to tackle social problems within business models. Between us we have the wisdom of Palestinian culture, the understanding of the Western market and mindset, we are young and old, we are internet and social media savvy, and we have significant backing from around the globe. Success will create jobs in Egypt, Europe and Palestine.

On 28 April Egypt announced an end to the Egyptian blockade. "We shall cooperate with the post-Mubarak government so as to ensure the economic and human rights of the people of Palestine are finally respected.” Their objective, O’Keefe explains, is to transport people and cargo through the Rafah Crossing to Egypt continuously and without obstruction, as viable trade requires.

They aim to play their part in the rebuilding of Gaza and to see an egalitarian economy develop, turning despair eventually into prosperity. “The stage is set for SIP’s historic mission. The timing couldn't be better.”

O'Keefe intends to take full advantage of the EU's 44-member Euro-Mediterranean Partnership which is heavily committed – so it says – to peace, stability and shared prosperity. Israel has benefited handsomely by being rewarded with around 25bn euros of trade a year while maintaining its brutal blockade on Gaza and keeping its occupation jackboot on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestine has barely had a look-in. "As an EU-based company, Aloha Palestine will demand the right to trade with Palestine just as EU companies trade with Israel... We'll have top attorneys on retainer, prepared to take legal action if necessary," says O’Keefe.

He is at pains to stress that his venture is all about “Safe Trade”, defined as the commercial exchange of non-hazardous items – in other words, trade that’s transparent and stimulates economic growth while posing no danger to society. "Unlike the free trade that is conducted between Israel, the EU and the United States, there will be no trading of weapons," he says emphatically.

---

Appendix

Noting that there was almost no indication of armed resistance by Palestinians in the area at the time, the Goldstone Report observes: "Among the issues of particular concern to the Mission in Zeytoun are the killings of the Samouni family, the mass destruction in the area..."

Here is a flavour of the  Goldstone Mission's findings:

To investigate the attacks on the houses of Ateya and Wa’el al-Samouni, which killed 23 members of the extended al-Samouni family, the Mission visited the site of the incidents. It interviewed five members of the al-Samouni family and several of their neighbours on site. Two members of the extended al-Samouni family, who were eyewitnesses to the incident, Messrs. Wa’el and Saleh al-Samouni, testified at the public hearing in Gaza. The Mission also interviewed PRCS [Palestinian Red Crescent Society] ambulance drivers who went to the area on 4, 7 and 18 January 2009, and obtained copies of PRCS records. The Mission finally reviewed material on this incident submitted to it by TAWTHEQ [Central Commission for Documentation and Pursuit of Israeli War Criminals] as well as by NGOs.

The so-called al-Samouni area is part of Zeytoun, south of Gaza City... It is inhabited by members of the extended al-Samouni family, which gives its name to the area...

Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers in the house of Talal al-Samouni, which were photographed by the Mission, included (a) in Hebrew, under the Star of David: “The Jewish people are alive” and, above a capital “T” [referring to
the army (Tsahal)], “This [the letter T] was written with blood”; (b) on a drawing of a grave, in English and Arabic,
“Arabs 1948-2008 ”; and (c) in English: “You can run but you can not hide”, “Die you all”, “ 1 is down, 999,999 to go”, “Arabs need to die” and “Make war not peace”.

During the morning of 4 January 2009, Israeli soldiers entered many of the houses in
al-Samouni area. One of the first, around 5 a.m., was the house of Ateya Helmi al-Samouni, a 45-year-old man... The soldiers entered Ateya al-Samouni’s house by force, throwing some explosive device, possibly a grenade. In the midst of the smoke, fire and loud noise, Ateya al-Samouni stepped forward, his arms raised, and declared that he was the owner of the house. The soldiers shot him while he was still holding his ID and an Israeli driving licence in his hands. The soldiers then opened gunfire inside the room in which all the approximately 20 family members were gathered. Several were injured, Ahmad, a boy of four, particularly seriously. Soldiers with night vision equipment entered the room and closely inspected each of those present. The soldiers then moved to the next room and set fire to it. The smoke from that room soon started to suffocate the family...

At about 6.30 a.m. the soldiers ordered the family to leave the house. They had to leave Ateya’s body behind but were carrying Ahmad, who was still breathing. The family tried to enter the house of an uncle next door, but were not allowed to do so by the soldiers. The soldiers told them to take the road and leave the area, but a few metres further a different group of soldiers stopped them and ordered the men to undress completely. Faraj al-Samouni, who was carrying the severely injured Ahmad, pleaded with them to be allowed to take the injured to Gaza. The soldiers allegedly replied using abusive language.

[Four year-old Ahmad had been shot twice in the chest.]

At the house of Saleh al-Samouni, the Israeli soldiers knocked on the door and ordered those inside to open it. All the persons inside the house stepped out one by one and Saleh’s father identified each of the family members in Hebrew for the soldiers. According to Saleh al-Samouni, they asked to be allowed to go to Gaza City, but the soldiers refused and instead ordered them to go to Wa’el al-Samouni’s house across the street. The Israeli soldiers also ordered those in other houses to move to Wa’el al-Samouni’s house. As a result, around 100 members of the extended al-Samouni family, the majority women and children, were assembled in that house by noon on 4 January. There was hardly any water and no milk for the babies. Around 5 p.m. on 4 January, one of the women went outside to fetch firewood. There was some flour in the house and she made bread, one piece for each of those present.

In the morning of 5 January, around 6.30 – 7 a.m., Wa’el al-Samouni, Saleh al-Samouni, Hamdi Maher al-Samouni, Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni and Iyad al-Samouni, stepped outside the house to collect firewood. Rashad Helmi al-Samouni remained standing next to the door of the house. Saleh al-Samouni has pointed out to the Mission that from where the Israeli soldiers were positioned on the roofs of the houses they could see the men clearly. Suddenly, a projectile struck next to the five men, close to the door of Wa’el’s house and killed Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni and, probably, Hamdi Maher al-Samouni. The other men managed to retreat to the house. Within about five minutes, two or three more projectiles had struck the house directly. Saleh and Wa’el al-Samouni stated at the public hearing that these were missiles launched from Apache helicopters... Saleh al-Samouni stated that overall 21 family members were killed and 19 injured in the attack on Wa’el al-Samouni’s house. The dead include Saleh al-Samouni’s father, Talal Helmi al-Samouni, his mother, Rahma Muhammad al-Samouni, and his two-year-old daughter Azza. Three of his sons, aged five, three and less than one year (Mahmoud, Omar and Ahmad), were injured, but survived. Of Wa’el’s immediate family, a daughter and a son (Rezqa, 14, and Fares, 12) were killed, while two smaller children (Abdullah and Muhammad) were injured. The photographs of all the dead victims were shown to the Mission... and displayed at the public hearing in Gaza.

After the shelling of Wa’el al-Samouni’s house, most of those inside decided to leave immediately and walk to Gaza City, leaving behind the dead and some of the wounded. The women waved their scarves. Soldiers, however, ordered the al-Samounis to return to the house. When family members replied that there were many injured among them, the soldiers’ reaction was, according to Saleh al-Samouni, “go back to death”. They decided not to follow this injunction and walked in the direction of Gaza City.

PRCS had made its first attempt to evacuate the injured from the al-Samouni area on 4 January around 4 p.m. after receiving a call from the family of Ateya al-Samouni. PRCS had called ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], asking it to coordinate its entry into the area with the Israeli armed forces. A PRCS ambulance from al-Quds hospital managed to reach the al-Samouni area... Israeli soldiers on the ground and on the roof of one of the houses directed their guns at it and ordered it to stop. The driver and the nurse were ordered to get out of the vehicle, raise their hands, take off their clothes and lie on the ground. Israeli soldiers then searched them and the vehicle for 5 to 10 minutes. Having found nothing, the soldiers ordered the ambulance team to return to Gaza City, in spite of their pleas to be allowed to pick up some wounded. In his statement to the Mission, the ambulance driver recalled seeing women and children huddling under the staircase in a house, but not being allowed to take them with him

On 7 January, the Israeli armed forces finally authorized ICRC and PRCS to go to the al-Samouni area during the “temporary ceasefire” declared from 1 to 4 p.m. on that day. Three PRCS ambulances, an ICRC car and another car used to transport bodies drove down Salah ad-Din Street from Gaza City until, 1.5 km north of the al-Samouni area, they found it closed by sand mounds. ICRC tried to coordinate with the Israeli armed forces to have the road opened, but they refused and asked the ambulance staff to walk the remaining 1.5 km. Once in the al-Samouni neighbourhood, PRCS looked for survivors in the houses.. in Wa’el al-Samouni’s house they found 15 dead bodies and two seriously injured children. One of the children had a deep wound in the shoulder, which was infected and giving off a foul odour. The children were dehydrated and scared of the PRCS staff member. In a house close by, they found 11 persons in one room, including a dead woman.

The rescue teams had only three hours for the entire operation and the evacuees were physically weak and emotionally very unstable... The rescuers put all the elderly on a cart and pulled it themselves for 1.5 kilometres to the place where they had been forced to leave the ambulances. The dead bodies lying in the street or under the rubble, among them women and children, as well as the dead they had found in the houses had to be left behind. On the way back to the cars, PRCS staff entered one house where they found a man with two broken legs. While they were carrying the man out of the house, the Israeli armed forces started firing at the house... PRCS was not able to return to the area until 18 January.

On 18 January 2009, members of the al-Samouni family were finally able to return to their neighbourhood. They found that Wa’el al-Samouni’s house, as most other houses in the neighbourhood and the small mosque, had been demolished. The Israeli armed forces had destroyed the building on top of the bodies of those who died in the attack. Pictures taken on 18 January show feet and legs sticking out from under the rubble and sand, and rescuers pulling out the bodies of women, men and children. A witness described to the Mission family members taking away the corpses on horse carts, a young man sitting in shock beside the ruins of his house and, above all, the extremely strong smell of death.

The Mission found the foregoing witnesses to be credible and reliable. It has no reason to doubt their testimony.

The Mission received testimony on the death of Iyad al-Samouni from Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni and Fawzi Arafat, as well as from a PRCS staff member. In the night of 3 to 4 January, Iyad al-Samouni, his wife and five children were, together with about 40 other members of their extended family in Asaad al-Samouni’s house, very close to the houses of Wa’el al-Samouni and Ateya al-Samouni (the scenes of the incidents described above). At 1 a.m. on 4 January 2009 they heard noise on the roof. At around 5 a.m. Israeli soldiers walked down the stairs from the roof, knocked on the door and entered the house. They asked for Hamas fighters. The residents replied that there were none. The soldiers then separated women, children and the elderly from the men. The men were forced into a separate room, blindfolded and handcuffed with plastic handcuffs. They were allowed to go to the toilet only after one of the men urinated on himself. The soldiers stationed themselves in the house.

In the morning of 5 January, after the shelling of Wa’el al-Samouni’s house, two of the survivors took refuge in Asaad al-Samouni’s house... The persons assembled in Asaad al-Samouni’s house walked out of the house and down al-Samouni Street to take Salah ad-Din Street in the direction of Gaza City. They had been instructed by the soldiers to walk directly to Gaza City without stopping or diverting from the direct route. The men were still handcuffed and the soldiers had told them that they would be shot if they attempted to remove the handcuffs. On Salah ad-Din Street, just a few metres north of al-Samouni Street and in front of the Juha family house, a single or several of the Israeli soldiers positioned on the roofs of the houses opened fire. Iyad was struck in the leg and fell to the ground. Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni, who was walking immediately behind him, moved to help him, but an Israeli soldier on a rooftop ordered him to walk on. When he saw the red point of a laser beam on his body and understood that an Israeli soldier had taken aim at him, he desisted.

The Israeli soldiers also fired warning shots at Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni’s father to prevent him from assisting Iyad to get back on his feet. Iyad al-Samouni’s wife and children were prevented from helping him by further warning shots. Fawzi Arafat, who was part of another group walking from the al-Samouni neighbourhood to Gaza, told the Mission that he saw Iyad al-Samouni lying on the ground, his hands shackled with white plastic handcuffs, blood pouring from the wounds in his legs, begging for help. Fawzi Arafat stated that he yelled at an Israeli soldier “we want to evacuate the wounded man”. The soldier, however, pointed his gun at Iyad’s wife and children and ordered them to move on without him. Iyad al-Samouni’s family and relatives were forced to abandon him and continue to walk towards Gaza City. At al-Shifa hospital they reported his case and those of the other dead and wounded left behind. Representatives of PRCS told them that the Israeli armed forces were not permitting them to access the area.

PRCS staff member told the Mission that three days later, on 8 January, PRCS was granted permission by the Israeli armed forces through ICRC to evacuate Iyad al-Samouni. The PRCS staff member found him on the ground in Salah ad-Din Street in the place described by his relatives. He was still handcuffed. He had been shot in both legs and had bled to death.

The particular manner in which the conflict affected women was dramatically illustrated for the Mission by the testimony of a woman of the al-Samouni family (see chap. XI). She had three children and was pregnant when her family and her house came under attack. She commented on how the children were scared and crying. She was distressed when recounting how her 10-month-old baby, whom she was carrying in her arms, was hungry but she did not have anything to give him to eat, and how she tried to feed him by chewing on a piece of bread, the only food available, and giving it to him. She also managed to get half a cup of water from an ill functioning tap. There were other babies and older children. She and her sister exposed themselves to danger by going out to search for food for them. Her husband, mother and sister were killed but she managed to survive. Her other son was wounded in the back, and she carried both out of the house.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

‘Israel acting like mad dog cornered’

Posted: April 22, 2011 by crescentandcross

No mercy on the civilian population of Gaza where entire families have been annihilated by Israeli bombardments on civilian homes.

As Israel tries to cripple the Goldstone report in an attempt to avoid war crime accountability, air attacks on the Gaza Strip have increased dramatically.

Ken O’Keefe, a human rights activist in Gaza, talks with Press TV about the possibility of Palestine receiving assistance from its Arab and Muslim neighbors. Ken also weighs in on the US and Israeli agenda to have the Goldstone Report ‘disappear’ and expresses his views regarding the humanity of the Palestinian people while living under occupation.

Press TV: We know that military attacks by Israel against Gazans have been on the increase and Hamas has said that it is now waiting to see what the Arab regimes are going to do in reaction to the situation that is taking place, as more and more attacks take place on the innocent Palestinian people. How likely is that to happen? We saw in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza (2009) that the Arab regimes basically met the situation with silence. Do you think it’s going to be different this time around?

Ken O’Keefe: It’s a dangerous tactic to take. I have not put a lot of stock in Egypt coming to the rescue; they’ve got their own battles going on internally. And there are still $1.3 billion in bribes being given to the Egyptian military.

We cannot ignore the root of the problem. Whatever Hamas is doing right now — whoever is firing the rockets — this is not the problem; that is a result of the problem. The problem is that we are 40 year plus into this blockade collective punishment policy of which Egypt was collaborating and which still hasn’t completely ended it.

Effectively, when you do that to people, they are going to bite back in the only way they can and in this case it’s the rockets.

I don’t agree with anyone who thinks that the Arab governments at this stage are going to come to the rescue of the Palestinians. I would say, to the contrary, that they are going to be sorely disappointed if they’re waiting for them right now.

Press TV: There would be some that would say basically it’s what came first, the chicken or the egg – who’s attacking whom – How would you answer that?

Ken O’Keefe: To me, there has been a tremendous amount of effort trying to confuse people on this issue; but it’s really quite simple. The beginning of the problem was the dispossession of the land from its people. And from then, it has spiraled and escalated in which the Palestinians have affectively been dealing with an occupier and invader who did not come with goodwill or neighborly respect; who has come and violated the Palestinian people from previous to 1948.

If you do that to any people….If the situation were changed, and it was an invading occupying entity that invaded Sweden, the Swedish people would fight back. If it was done to the American people, there would be blood spilling in the streets — Americans killing Americans in the most brutal ways if those Americans were collaborating with the invader and occupier. So it is obvious to those of us who have paid any attention.

It’s not as if no wrongs have been done on the Palestinian side – there are. However, the victim is not to be blamed for the circumstances to which he is resisting. If I was born and raised in Palestine — if I witnessed family members being murdered on a regular basis — I have no doubt whatsoever that I would be involved in resisting. Only because I’ve come from America am I not engaged in violent resistance. Ultimately though, resistance for the sake of resistance is not the answer – resistance must be for the sake of justice.

Press TV: Today, Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said that she wanted a war crimes report in the 2008-2009 Gaza offensive to disappear. In light of everything that’s taking place right now in Gaza, how do you find these comments in general?

Ken O’Keefe: I’ve long since reached the point where any US official of any stature is just not even worth listening to. If anyone takes these people seriously as if they have any agenda other than to serve tyranny then they are living in la la land.

This Susan Rice is a traitor as far as I’m concerned. They all are – Barack Obama and all of the top level Senators. To even deny that a massive war crime was committed in Zeitoon where friends of mine, the Sulooni family lives, is beyond debate – a massive war crime was committed there. We could talk about the Araja family that had a white phosphorus bomb explode into their home; six family members killed – one of them, a baby, was burnt to a crisp instantly. That is a massive war crime.

To even entertain the idea, that because Goldstone is threatened or bribed or simply doesn’t have the backbone to stand by his words – to entertain the idea that Susan Rice has any legitimacy — is ridiculous. She has none, absolutely none.

Ultimately, I don’t blame governments anymore; I blame us as people that we allow this type of thing to continue. We are allowing the Susan Rices and the Barak Obamas and the Tony Blairs and the David Camerons and all of these jokers to actually say this stuff as if there’s any truth to it. It’s really quite disgusting and it says a lot about us that we even tolerate it.

You’re saying that the people are allowing it, but for example, the family that you talked about saying that their baby was burnt to a crisp – the average American person when they turn on their TV are not seeing these images. Can you understand that a lot of them really don’t have any idea of what is actually taking place in Gaza?

Yes I know this very well because I was a brainwashed indoctrinated American, as well, and I used to say the pledge of allegiance, which ends with ‘liberty and justice for all’. You say that sort of stuff every day and it becomes true even though it has nothing to do with reality.

So I do understand and appreciate the fact that American people are generally good people; however, if you were taken to court for an alleged crime and you said in court that you didn’t know it was a crime, that would be no defense.

And from the American people not knowing that their government is using their tax dollars to commit mass murder — to commit crimes against humanity, to use depleted uranium, cluster bombs and other things — to kill people in extrajudicial assassination and then to claim well I didn’t know, is no defense.

You are guilty. You are paying for the mass murder whether you like it or not and it doesn’t matter whether you didn’t vote for that person or this person; it doesn’t matter.

Before I forget, there is a no fly zone over Libya. Why don’t we have a no fly zone over Palestine? Why not? Because our world is inherently corrupt ad because those that are in charge have no respect, at all, for human life on any level. There must be a no fly zone over Palestine now. All the jets and helicopter gunships flying over Palestine right now should be shot out of the sky. That is where the world should go and I’m sure we can make it so if we really decide to do something.

Press TV: How likely is it that Israel will once again invade Gaza in a full-fledged war? At the start of these Middle East revolutions and uprisings, political experts were warning to keep your eyes on what Israel is doing because as the international community’s attention is looking at these other ME countries, that it is likely that events will take place in Israel.

Ken O’Keefe: We have known about the ‘Samson’ option for some time now. For those not familiar – Israel has made it clear on more than one occasion that it is willing to use the Samson option i.e. to use its nuclear weapons; to target places in Europe and other parts of the world – this has always been a potential threat from Israel.

That must be our motivation to confront Israel because no nation — whether it is Israel or the US or any other nation — can be allowed to try and intimidate the rest of us by fear of them using their weapons.

Israel is like a mad dog being driven into a corner because it is losing. The Zionist project has peaked just like the American empire and it is heading down fast; there is no question of it. All the lies that it was getting away with for decades — incredible lies, perpetuating the notion that it was the victim and the Palestinians were the criminal…That day is now over.

All of these lies that they have lived off for decades are now coming tumbling down and the world is seeing the truth and realizing that they have been duped and that in fact the Palestinian people are the most remarkable people because despite having been through hell for decades and having been abandoned by everyone, including their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters, they have not lost their humanity; they remain one of the most hospitable and beautiful people that you would ever want to meet. And they will not become the monster that is attacking them.

What is Israel going to do? It is impossible to predict, they could do anything. I do know that they have an incentive to try and create a conflict right now because we have the next freedom flotilla coming and they’re scared to death of that, and there are other things happening also, which aren’t good for Israel such as the possibility for real representative democracy in the Arab world.

This is a nightmare for Israel, so like a mad dog driven into a corner, it’s impossible to predict exactly what it’s going to do; but it will fight back in some way. Options might include exacting war on Gaza again or the Samson option of nuclear detonation in Europe or another part of the world. It’s time to deal with this mad dog and deal with it right now.

Interview with Ken O’Keefe, Human Rights Activist, Gaza. 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Sinning against Zionism: Traitor to Country

Dr. William A. Cook Salem-News.com

“Hell is where many false commitments must be unlearned.” Ricardo J. Quinones, Dante Alighieri

Courtesy: www.judeofascism.com/

(LAVERNE, Calif.) - Richard Goldstone’s journey from Justice to Sinner represents the spiritual act of dying in the Zionist world.
By recanting his own report he has attempted to break the bonds that cast him into the sufferings in Caina, Antenora, and Judecca where, in Dante’s Inferno, those treacherous to their own, are removed from the light and warmth of their kin, their country, and their masters and suffer eternal damnation in the remorseless dead center of the ice in the most bottomless circle of Hell. Fortunately, Goldstone like Dante can learn that he has, in his journey, aligned himself with many false gods and many false attachments ignoring on the way the elementary truths that bind humankind ineluctably in one race in a bond of human grace.

The Zionist world needs no Hell since it heeds no conscience. It exists on one foundation, a solid block of ice that freezes the soul of all who bear allegiance to its creed of absolute obedience, an ancient form of tribal slavery bound by fear that shackles the soul, by isolation that instills despair, by humiliation that corrodes self, and by victimhood that bonds the tribe in self-perpetuating agony. It is in this sense Medieval, a remnant of the inquisitorial mind that harbored no dissent, gave no credence to personal freedom, and obligated all to one monolithic understanding of commitment to the powers that control.

Goldstone, nearing the end of his life’s journey, vested in the mantle of Jewishness with all the warmth of family and community, surrounded by companions from adolescence to manhood, imbued with curiosity and fervor for the history of his people, and sustained over the years by his commitment to justice for his people found himself confronted by a state that would not cooperate in the pursuit of that justice when he and his commission found it to be wanting.

Thus did the Goldstone Report, executed on behalf of all nations united in pursuit of truth, become the lodestone that attracted the attention of the world and brought condemnation to the state of Israel. In retaliation for such an act, he suffered the consequences of those who act treacherously to their masters, the Zionist powers that used time-tested punishments of those who find fault with the tribe: damnation, isolation, coercion, rejection, humiliation, and expulsion from his own. Thus did the false gods expose themselves, forcing Richard Goldstone to retract his own words in a blind attempt to seek solace in the tribe that condemned him. But these false gods are “dead people” in Dante’s Inferno, they have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites for land and power through the use of violence, perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice.

Had Goldstone paid heed to his history, he would have realized that his retraction would illicit exactly this behavior. Forgiveness does not exist in the tribal culture; it is a sign of weakness. If history had recorded the truth of the Jewish war against Britain during the Mandate period, the means by which they operated in coordinated violence and terrorism against the very nation that made possible the existence of a Jewish homeland, would be known.

The existence of the Jewish Agency, formed initially in coordination with the British authorities, metamorphosed into a clandestine Jewish government that used that acceptance by the British to aid Jewish immigrants coming to Palestine, as a means of violating the civil rights of the very Jews they were purportedly aiding. The reality of this period, from 1939 to 1948 demonstrates conclusively that the Zionist rulers of the Jewish Agency, most especially the Consultancy as labeled by Dr. Ilan Pappe, declared a war against the Mandate Police and British forces operating in Palestine while they controlled the entering Jews with mandated taxes through a calculated process of extortion, coercion, and fear.

In Top Secret documents collected by the British Mandate Police, specifically Head Deputy of the Criminal Investigation Division Richard C. Catling, filed in the archives of the Rhodes House library in Oxford, in Appendices used as evidence for a 48 page report on six areas of violations against the Mandate Authority, are details of an Emergency Fund under the control of the Consultancy that stipulates procedures for forced collection of illegal taxes from Jews providing specific actions to be taken against those who do not pay.
Under item 4.a, page 3,

“Measures of pressure against the stubborn are executed under the direct supervision of the Central Office in conjunction with the Department of collection or by the management of the local committee. No incidental pressure or assault or causing excitement to the person refusing before he is warned and declared as stubborn.

A.b. In the second instance, it will be referred to the party or the organization, institute, economical society, manager of the synagogue, or friends of the person concerned so that they can influence him to pay.

A.c. In cases where all these measures prove ineffective a decision is passed against the person to inflict on him the following measures. (1) To publish his name and the fact of his refusal and post it in the corridor of the house where he lives. (2) These facts are also circulated amongst his comrades in the party to which he belongs. (3) A demand is made to the party, organization or synagogue etc. to discharge him from membership. (4) Circulation of his name is made in a special notice to be posted in the zone where he lives. (5) Circulation of his name in the press. (6) A request is made to his party and clients to influence him. (7) A demand to the Rabbinate to inflict on him a boycott in case he belongs to the Orthodox Society. (8) To post a permanent picket of protest to accompany him on roads, to stand at the door of his house, office, shop etc., until he fulfills his obligations.”

And indeed, the names are posted: “The following are the wealthy people of Tel Aviv who have not responded to the appeal of the Emergency Fund…Morris Gredinger, David Ilgovsky, Hillel Turkeldove, etc. etc….”(about 25 additional names followed by an amendment with more.)

The Tel Aviv Municipal Council makes the following declaration: “The Municipal Council denounces their behavior and has decided to adopt all means of public pressure at its disposal in order to force those who would evade payment to carry out their civic and national duties.” Other documents in Catling’s file, all seized from the Jewish Agency and its affiliated organizations, testify to individuals who challenged the Emergency tax and also described some “disappearances” of individuals that could have resulted from a refusal to pay.

It would appear that no Jew arrived in Palestine without having to commit himself/herself to the Zionist enterprise. Personal freedom appears to be non-existent. Those who arrived and had not yet reached the age of 18 would upon reaching that age be required to enter the Jewish military forces known then as gangs but which were in reality well trained troops. If they entered the Hagana forces they had to take the Hagana Oath which committed them for life to the wishes of the High Command even unto death. Commitment, obedience, total acquiescence to the Zionist Consultancy and its beliefs ruled in Mandate Palestine.

Today we may not expect that kind of coercion over individuals to be a practice in a purported Democracy. Yet with the passage of recent McCarthy-like oaths that force commitment by citizens to the democratic and Jewish State, where total allegiance is required not only of Jews but of Israeli Arabs, Israel has virtually branded itself a racist, apartheid state. Even more alarming is the Lieberman designed act that declares remembrance of the Nakba to be illegal and punishable by fine or imprisonment.

This is nothing short of a totalitarian imposed attempt to rob Israeli Palestinians of their memory of the catastrophe that left them aliens in their own land.

Gilad Atzmon, perhaps the most incisive intellect investigating the Zionist mind today, offered these observations recently about the treatment Goldstone has endured from Zionist intolerance to anti-Zionism:
“…for some time now, we have witnessed Goldstone being subjected to relentless measures of exclusion and abuse from his Zionist brethren. As a matter of fact, intolerance towards critical voices is inherent within Jewish culture, identity, and politics, for Zionism is clearly a demand for ideological collectivism.

But interestingly enough, Jewish anti Zionism is also no different in its modus operandi : all too often
we come across a Jewish ‘progressive’ poisonous smear campaign against one ‘Jewish self-hater’ or another.

As tragic as it may sound, Jewish identity politics is an exercise in some different variations of collective hatred; hatred towards the Goyim, but also towards Jewish dissidence.

The Goldstone saga is then, an opportunity to peep into contemporary Jewish political intolerance, and Goldstone emerges as a tragic figure: he sacrificed his professional name for the sake of just a little Jewish empathy.” (“On Jewish Intolerance”)
What more can be said? Richard Goldstone stands as a tragic figure, a man that stood against forces he could not defeat, aware of the righteousness of his acts as an observant Judge, resilient in his desire to act in total truthfulness, a figure due great respect given his heritage, a man of unquestioned faith in the potential of law to serve the greater good, yet a victim of his own nature that was nurtured by his Jewishness which always taught equity to all, compassion for all, justice for all only to find that Zionism had destroyed that heritage and those principles and had the power to turn his own against him.

He now wanders the stage a defeated man in the streets of Jerusalem where all turn from him regardless of his vain attempt to reconcile with his past. But his past is not the Zionists’ past; they have corrupted true Judaism. His future lies with those who seek truth, in the very garden that he so fruitfully watered with his report; it is the lesson of his journey through Hell, false gods have tried to kill his soul and, truth be told, he must abandon them. Those who know him well will come to him. He is like the protagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Proctor, but Richard Goldstone is his name, it is his identity in this life and forevermore; it alone will testify to the truth of his actions, not the veiled curse of those who would destroy his being and erase Richard Goldstone from memory.

__________________________________________________________________

William A. Cook is Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California where he served for 13 years as Vice President for Academic Affairs before assuming his faculty position in 2001. Prior to coming to California, he served as a Dean of Faculty, Chair of Department of English and faculty member at institutions large and small, public and private in four eastern states. He is an activist and a writer for numerous Internet publications including Counterpunch, Salem-News.com, Pacific Free Press in British Columbia, Dissident Voice and Information Clearing House, serving as senior editor for MWC News out of Canada, and contributing editor at the Palestine Chronicle, the Atlantic Free Press in the Netherlands, and the World Prout Assembly, his polemics against the Bush administration and the atrocities caused by Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert in Israel, now our 51st state, have been spread around the Internet world and translated into French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Italian. Cook also serves on the Board of the People’s Media Project, interviews on radio and TV in South Africa, Canada, Iran and the United States and contributed for five years yearly predictions to the Hong Kong Economic News. This volume follows his Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: The Rape of Palestine and continues his scourge against the hypocrisy, deceit, and destructive policies that have characterized American mid-east policy and its destructive alliance with the Zionist forces that have turned Israel into an apartheid state determined to destroy the Palestinian people.

In addition to his polemics, he writes plays (The Unreasoning Mask, co-authored with his wife, D’Arcy, and The Agony of Colin Powell), satires (see “Advancing the Civilized State: Inch by Bloody Inch” in The Rape), and poetry (Psalms for the 21st Century). His most recent fictional work creates a morality tale based upon real life figures that haunt our lives, The Chronicles of Nefaria He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu or www.drwilliamacook.com..

The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction is a collection of voices from around the world that establishes in both theoretical and graphic terms the slow, methodical genocide taking place in Palestine beginning in the 1940s, as revealed in the Introduction. From Dr. Francis A. Boyle’s detailed legal case against the state of Israel, to Uri Avnery’s “Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing,” to Richard Falk’s “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust,” to Ilan Pappe’s “Genocide in Gaza,” these voices decry in startling, vivid, and forceful language the calculated atrocities taking place, the inhumane conditions inflicted on the people, and the silence that exists despite the crimes, nothing short of state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Ministry of Justice: US Goldstone report decision designed to cover war crimes

[ 18/04/2011 - 12:36 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Ministry of Justice in Gaza has called the US Congress's appeal for the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report, which condemns Israel for war crimes in the 2008-9 aggression on the Gaza Strip ”an American cover to commit more war crimes against the Palestinians”.

”The decision confirms that the United States of America is still pursuing a policy of double standards, and it reveals the falsehood of US claims to democracy and defense of human rights. And it confirms that the values of justice and fairness advocated by the USA are only slogans hiding extremist, racist ideas of antagonism against the Arabs and Muslims,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement tags the move a ”desperate attempt” to sabotage the report before it reaches the International Criminal Court, alleging that the the US Congress has infringed on the powers and functions of the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

Israeli politicians have been pushing the UN to retract the facts found in a probe headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone and later passed on by the UNHRC to the General Assembly to put the report to the International Criminal Court.

Goldstone, who headed the fact-finding mission, gave statements that if he knew when he led the mission what he knew later, the report would have turned out differently; but the other members of the mission stood by the findings of the report.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Now Israel Is Free to Declare Its Innocence before the International Court of Justice

April 15, 2011 posted by Prof. William A. Cook

WHITE PHOSPHOROUS RAINS DOWN ON GAZA CITY

United States Congress has once again jumped to the fore as defender of the beleaguered state of Israel by writing a letter to the UNHRC

Let us present this case as objectively as we can… A few photos of Israeli use of white phosphorus will accompany this article if possible.

William A. Cook / STAFF WRITER

Thank God Judge Goldstone recanted his judgment on Israel and its IDF forces in the slaughter inflicted on Gaza during its Christmas invasion in 2008-2009; both are now innocent of wrongful intent to kill Palestinian civilians since the Israeli military courts investigated Goldstone’s allegations and determined he was wrong. Now the good Judge has found, with the military court, that the Israeli government, that refused to cooperate with the United Nations investigation, did not intentionally send its forces to kill and destroy but only to kill and destroy Gaza; that the civilians were killed is simply a sad consequence of war. How astute, how learned, how compassionate; how absurd, how facetious, how despicable.

Yet, good may come of this decision. Now Israel is free to declare its innocence before the International Court of Justice since it is Israel’s investigation that can be presented as its case, with the good Judge as co-defendant. After all, isn’t this exactly what the Israeli government has wanted from the start, a way to demonstrate to the world that its Army is the most moral on the planet, its government the most democratic, acting only to defend its people, its weaponry the most sophisticated state of the art precision ordinance available, and its actions always proportionate to the crimes it seeks to address? Knowing now what they did not know before Judge Goldstone recanted his report, the government of Israel has nothing to fear from the ICJ but the justice it so rightfully deserves. Certainly it makes no sense for Israel or the UN to do nothing now that the report has been brought into question. The world has castigated Israel because of the report, now it’s Israel’s turn to seek revenge and put before the world how righteous and how legal its actions have been. How fortunate this turn of events.

And how opportune a moment since our United States Congress has once again jumped to the fore as defender of the beleaguered state of Israel by writing a letter to the UNHRC that it should expunge the report from history since it is biased against the Jewish state and this would help make amends. (“Congressional initiatives targeting Goldstone report” April 11, 2011 JTA) But why expunge it? Israel, after all, knows it did no wrong; it has done its own investigation and declared its innocence. What an opportunity to show the world that it has been maligned, that it has obeyed all international laws relative to individual rights, that as an occupying force under Geneva Conventions and the Charter of the UN it has observed all requisite responsibilities toward the people of Gaza, and finally that it had rights to invade that the international community must recognize since it was only defending itself.

Let us present this case as objectively as we can by using the words in the Israeli Gaza Operation Investigations: the means used to investigate, the difficulties that impeded the investigation, their presentation of the investigation concerning white phosphorus, and the conclusions drawn by the Military Advocate General, oh, and the convictions leveled on those found guilty. We’ll follow that presentation with some eye witness accounts of the Gaza operation, the effect of white phosphorus and its legality, and the impact of DIME explosives on humans and the environment. A few photos of Israeli use of white phosphorus will accompany this article if possible.

Consider the facts as articulated by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as it labeled Cast Lead as Hamas war against Israel.

Israeli soldier looks impatient as he watches over a load of bombs destined to be fired at Gaza[My apologies; I’m interjecting a subjective comment on Israel’s calling Operation Cast Lead “Hamas’ war against Israel.” In the 8 years preceding Cast Lead, Hamas or other resistance groups in Gaza, fired 6000 home made rockets at Israel, roughly 750 a year, or 62.5 per month or 2 per day. Twenty three people were killed. In that same period Israel killed more than 1000 Palestinian children and in Cast Lead killed an additional 352. A total of 1084 Israelis were killed between 2000 and 2008, but 6430 Palestinians were killed. Yet it was Hamas’ war against Israel. One final observation: Israel’s launch of one of its American supplied missiles that cost $300,000, a fraction of the 8.2 million per day we supply to Israel’s military, a precision state of the art weapon that hit a home where the IDF ordered people to go, in less than one minute killed 21 members of the Samouni family, nine of them children.] (figures from ifamericansknew.org and see this author’s article “Consider the Realities of Gaza,” Counterpunch, Jan. 5, 2009). Back to our sources and let the reader be judge.

Gaza Operation Investigations: An Update Jan 2010.

Israeli Defence Forces fire massive weapons of destruction toward the population of Gaza

1. Israel’s investigative system has multiple layers of review to ensure impartiality and independence. These include the Military Advocate General’s Corps (MAG), which determines whether to initiate criminal investigations and file charges against IDF soldiers. The Military Advocate General is legally independent from the military chain of command. Israel’s Attorney General provides civilian oversight, as any decision of the Military Advocate General on whether or not to investigate or indict may be subject to his review.

2. The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects, which addressed a range of factual and legal issues related to the Gaza Operation. The Operation in Gaza also set out the legal framework governing the use of force and the principles – including the principles of distinction and proportionality – that apply in such a conflict. It also described the IDF’s efforts to ensure compliance with these principles during the Gaza Operation and the modus operandi of Hamas, in particular its abuses of civilian protections that created such acute operational dilemmas.

3. Describing the application of these mechanisms to the Gaza Operation, the Paper notes that the IDF to date has launched investigations of 150 separate incidents arising from the Gaza Operation. A number of these were opened at the IDF’s own initiative. Others were opened in response to complaints and reports from Palestinian civilians, local and international non-governmental organisations, and U.N. and media reports.


Conclusions:

183. The Gaza Operation presented complex challenges to Israel and the IDF. While the need and obligation to respond effectively to the thousands of Hamas rockets and mortars that had terrorized Israeli civilians for years was clear and acute, the strategies adopted by Hamas, and in particular its systematic entrenchment in the heart of civilian areas, created profound operational dilemmas. [A second interruption if I may: consider the reality of the Palestinians’ plight; they can go nowhere, they cannot escape through the Israeli gates, they can not flee by car, rail, air, boat or on foot, and they are caged in a steel enclosed land area blocked on the west by Israeli gunboats. They have no army, no air force, no navy; but they were training police to help provide order inside this cage of chaos, and Israel began its operation by killing 50 of the graduating class on December 27, 2008.]

Palestinian doctors carry the bodies of children killed by an Israeli tank shell, to the morgue at Shifa hospital in Gaza (images: documents.blogspot.com)

184. These challenges did not end with the close of operations. A key element of respecting the Law of Armed Conflict is a commitment genuinely to review military operations after the fact, and thoroughly investigate allegations of unlawful activity. Fulfilling this commitment in the context of Gaza is demanding, and requires serious efforts to obtain evidence from battleground situations and to make arrangements to enable residents of Gaza to give their accounts. It also requires an awareness that, in complex combat situations, errors of judgment, even with tragic results, do not necessarily mean that violations of the Law of Armed Conflict have occurred. [Note that Israel refused to cooperate with the UNHRC investigation that became the Goldstone Report.]

187. Israel recognizes the importance of engaging in dialogue and sharing best practices on theconduct of investigative proceedings with other democratic states facingsimilar challenges and committed to upholding the rule of law.

Obviously this article cannot provide a complete rendering of the Israeli investigation and its conclusions regarding proper conduct under international law. However, one of the more telling concerns raised about the IDF was its use of white phosphorus. Here is the comment from the Israeli operation cast lead investigation on that subject. Section IV contains others.

IV. COMPLAINTS ALLEGING VIOLATIONS OF THE LAW
OF ARMED CONFLICT DURING THE GAZA OPERATION

89. Israel is aware of concerns raised regarding the Gaza Operation. As discussed in detail in The Operation in Gaza, and as outlined above, the deliberate strategy of Hamas to blend in with the civilian population made it difficult for the IDF to achieve the objective of the Gaza Operation – reducing the threat of deliberate attacks against Israeli civilians – while also avoiding harm to Palestinian civilians. To be sure, the IDF undertook strenuous efforts to minimise such harm. It intensively trained its personnel on the requirements of the Law of Armed Conflict. It delayed, diverted, or refrained from attacks to spare civilian life. It provided numerous and varied types of concrete warnings before launching attacks.

88 Nevertheless, Israel’s efforts to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict do not lessen its regret for the loss of innocent lives and damage to civilian property.

93. The unique difficulties involved in the investigation of alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict in the battlefield should not be ignored. They include: the inability to secure the scene for forensic and physical evidence, either during a battle or after, when the territory is under enemy control; the possible destruction of evidence during fighting and the possible  manipulation of the scene by the enemy; the need to recall reserve soldiers back for questioning; the difficulty of accurately identifying the location of an incident, when it is described in local and unofficial terms and slang; and the need to locate the adversary’s civilians as witnesses and overcome their natural suspicion and fear of reprisals by their authorities.

90(v) The use of weaponry containing phosphorous

117. This investigation dealt with the use of weapons containing phosphorous by IDF forces during the Gaza Operation. The investigation focused on the different types and number of weapons containing phosphorous used during the Operation, the purposes for which they were used, the applicable professional instructions and rules of engagement, and the extent of compliance with those instructions and rules. Some of the findings of the special command investigation are detailed in The Operation in Gaza.107

118. The Military Advocate General reviewed the entire record of the special command investigation. With respect to exploding munitions containing white phosphorous, the Military Advocate General concluded that the use of this weapon in the operation was consistent with Israel’s obligations under international law.

119. With respect to smoke projectiles, the Military Advocate General found that international law does not prohibit use of smoke projectiles containing phosphorous. Specifically, such projectiles are not “incendiary weapons,” within the meaning of the Protocol on 106 Id. ¶¶ 436-45. Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons,108 because they are not primarily designed to set fire or to burn. The Military Advocate General further determined that during the Gaza Operation, the IDF used such smoke projectiles for military purposes only, for instance to camouflage IDF armor forces from Hamas’s antitank units by creating smoke screens.

120. The Military Advocate General found no grounds to take disciplinary or other measures for the IDF’s use of weapons containing phosphorous, which involved no violation of the Law of Armed Conflict. Nevertheless, the Military Advocate General’s opinion did not address a number of specific complaints that were received after the investigation concluded and which are being investigated separately.(vi)

Palestinians were burned alive with illegal weapons during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.

Based on information from B’Tselem and Euromedrights.org, the determinations by the Israeli investigation resulted in the following charges: “In the over two years since Operation Cast Lead, Israel and the Palestinian side have failed to conduct genuine investigations, and where appropriate, prosecutions. To-date one Israeli soldier has served 7.5 months in jail for the theft of a credit card and two others have received three month suspended sentences for using a Palestinian child as a human shield. These three convictions, and the ongoing trial of a fourth soldier, have been the only concrete judicial outcomes of Israeli Operation Cast Lead investigations. It is noted that neither these indictments nor the sentences handed down for the human shield conviction reflect the gravity of the actual crimes committed. It appears that the majority of other investigative procedures have been closed without charge. All alleged international crimes must be subject to genuine investigation, and, if appropriate, those responsible must be prosecuted in accordance with the requirements of international law. In light of the domestic authorities’ failure to conduct such investigation, the International Criminal Court now constitutes the most appropriate forum, as recommended by the Human Rights Council on 25 March.(Euromedrights.org)

To date, no independent investigation apparatus, empowered also to investigate the responsibility of the political and military decision-makers, has been established. According to the report that the Foreign Ministry provided to the UN in July 2010, the Judge Advocate General’s office ordered 47 Military Police investigations with respect to Operation Cast Lead. B’Tselem is aware of 20 Military Police investigations of incidents in which a suspicion arose that soldiers in the field violated army regulations. Four soldiers have been prosecuted for three incidents that occurred during the operation. In the first case, a soldier was convicted of stealing a credit card and sentenced to seven and a half months’ imprisonment, a conditional sentence of seven and a half months, and demotion from sergeant to private. In the second case, indictments were filed against two soldiers alleging they used a nine-year-old child as a human shield, ordering him to open suspected booby-trapped bags. The two soldiers were convicted and sentenced to a three-month suspended jail sentence and demotion in rank from staff sergeant to private. In the third case, an indictment was filed against a soldier for killing an anonymous person and conduct unbecoming a soldier. In three other cases, disciplinary proceedings were instituted against six officers. B’Tselem is aware of at least six cases in which the Attorney General decided not to indict the soldiers. (B’Tselem).

Now let us return to the arguments for a UN investigation that can provide the people of the world with deliberations that place the Israeli Operation Cast Lead before an International Court of Justice.

Phosphorous Bomb Rain Over Northern Gaza

Hiyam Noir, in Palestine Free Voice, January 13, 2009, reporting from Gaza observed “Blankets of white clouds covered the skies over Gaza, including the refuge camps in Khan Younis, Beit Lahia and Gaza City.  On Saturday Israeli F16 warplanes launched attacks using phosphorus bombs on the Block 2 section inside the densely populated Jabalya Refuge Camp. Many residents of Jabalya escaped the area covering their faces, searching for a safe shelter in the home of relatives and friends in the neighboring Beit Lahia from the Israelis “Cast Lead Operation”. Gaza has always been the Israelis “testing ground” – from nerve agents used in Khan Younis in 2003, to Sonic Boom “phantom air raids”, and the use of DIME in the Israelis massacre called ” Operation Summer Rain” over Gaza year 2006.”

In that same article, Noir notes, The Human Rights Watch senior analyst Marc Garlasco said in an interview on France Chanel 4 TV that ..”Israeli artillery bursted fire of white phosphorous shells over Gaza City.”Garlasco said ..”I have been standing at the border for the last few days ,watching Israeli artillery firing white phosphorus shells into refugee camps”.

Press TV on 4 March 2011 reported that cancer cases in Gaza had increased by 30 per cent, and that there was a link between the occurrence of the disease and residence in areas that had been badly hit by Israeli bombing. Zekra Ajour from the Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights told the channel that Gaza had been a testing ground for illegal weapons.

In a separate article, Richard Lightbown argues that Israel’s use of white phosphorus and other toxic metals, and its suspected use of depleted uranium, in the war against the people of the Gaza Strip has put the whole of the Strip’s population and its environment – air, soil, groundwater and possibly seawater – at risk of serious long-term injury and contamination. He also observes that The goldstone report mentions phosphorus in paragraph 896: Medical staff reported to the mission how even working in the areas where the phosphorus had been used made them feel sick, their lips would swell and they would become extremely thirsty and nauseous.

The toxicity of phosphorus is also recorded in a report by New York medical staff:⁴

‘Oral ingestion of white phosphorus in humans has been demonstrated to result in pathologic changes to the liver and kidneys. The ingestion of a small quantity of white phosphorus can cause gastrointestinal complaints such as nausea, abdominal cramps, and vomiting. Individuals with a history of oral ingestion have been noted to pass phosphorus-laden stool (“smoking stool syndrome”). The accepted lethal dose is 1 mg/kg, although the ingestion of as little as 15 mg has resulted in death.’

Although an Israeli army spokesman told CNN on 7 January 2009, “I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used.” the chemical had been used by Israeli forces since the beginning of the war.¹² The Goldstone Report stated that Israeli sources later claimed their forces had stopped using white phosphorous on 7 January 2009 because of international concerns. This was also untrue as there is evidence that it had been used after that date. Goldstone declared the Israeli armed forces to have been “systematically reckless” in using white phosphorous in built-up areas (paragraphs 884, 886 and 890).
Lightbown also discusses DIME: “Evidence of the use of depleted uranium against Gaza is tenuous and Goldstone merely recorded in paragraph 907 that it had received allegations which it had not further investigated. Much of this evidence came from Action des citoyens pour le désarmement nucléaire (ACDN: Citizens Action for Nuclear Disarmament). Their report of July 2009 hypothesizes that the GBU-39 bunker-buster bomb is packed with 75 kilogram of depleted uranium. (A UNEP report also ambiguously refers to bunker-buster bombs containing depleted uranium.) The US delivery of 1,000 of these bombs to Israel arrived in early December 2008 shortly before the start of the war. The GBU-39 is considered one of the world’s most precise bombs and Boeing, the manufacturer, claims that the bomb will penetrate three feet of steel-reinforced concrete. (UNEP suggests that it can penetrate reinforced concrete to depths ranging from 1.8 to over 6 metres.) Boeing’s patent on the weapon mentions depleted uranium.⁶

It is not known how many bunker-buster bombs were used against Gaza but it seems reasonable to assume that the number could run into hundreds. It is thought that they were used mostly in the Philadelphia corridor against the tunnels. Desmond Travers, the former Irish army officer who was a member of the Goldstone Commission, would only say that depleted uranium may have been used during the war, although he did agree that it would have been well suited for attacking the tunnels where maximum penetration would have been desired.⁷ He was also in agreement with ACDN that the use of below-ground targets would have considerably reduced the levels of aerosol uranium that was dispersed into the air.

In April 2009 Jean-François Fechino from ACDN was part of a four-person team which went to Gaza for the Arab Commission for Human Rights. Samples that the team brought back were analysed by a specialist laboratory which identified carcinogens: depleted uranium, caesium, asbestos dust, tungsten and aluminium oxide. Thorium oxide was also found, which is radioactive, as are depleted uranium and caesium. The analysis also identified phosphates and copper, along with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are a health hazard, especially to children, asthmatics and elders.⁹

Depleted uranium burns at almost 1200 degrees Celsius. (TNT by comparison burns at 576 degrees Celsius.) ¹⁰ At this temperature the fire vaporizes any metals in the target which in combination with uranium are released into the air in aerosol form. After deposition the aerosols have the potential to contaminate groundwater. (The Gaza aquifer, which is the Strip’s only water source, is also connected to ground water supplies in Egypt, although water only flows into Gaza from Israel.¹¹)

The Goldstone Commission was unable to confirm that DIME munitions were used by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead. Col Lane had told the commission in testimony that there was no actual proof. He then went on to testify that he had been given samples in Gaza which analysis in Dublin had shown to contain DIME materials consisting mostly of tungsten with traces of iron and sulphur. He was of the opinion that ordnance had been used that had some sort of DIME component. He also mentioned that he had read of unusual amputations, and that tungsten and cobalt would have this effect. Weaponry had been found with DIME components which was capable of amputation and there are Palestinian amputees, yet neither Col Lane nor the commission was prepared to say that DIME weapons had been used by Israeli forces.

DIME bombs cause a high proportion of amputations particularly of legs, while patients often suffered internal burns as well. The bombs consist of powdered tungsten alloy mixed with an explosive material inside a casing which disintegrates on explosion. The tungsten powder tears apart anything it hits including soft tissue and bone, causing very severe injuries. Tungsten alloy particles, described as “finely powdered micro-shrapnel”, are too small to be extracted from the victim’s body and are highly carcinogenic. (Goldstone, paragraphs 902-4)

The whole Gaza population and their environment, including generations yet to be conceived, have been put at risk of serious long-term injury from heavy metal pollution of the air, soil and groundwater (and possibly the seawater too), while the causal pollution is likely to cross state borders into Egypt and even into Israel. Reassurances of the legitimate and responsible use and the reduced lethality of weapons (an opinion in part shared by Col Lane) are callous and inadequate in the context of the dangerous reality that has resulted. Meanwhile, the impacts of Israel’s illegal assaults on Gaza remain ignored and its deeds uncensored by the wider international community.”

Certainly it makes good sense to have the Israeli investigation brought before the ICJ. What possible reason exists not to do this, from either the Israeli perspective or the UNHRC. The perspectives presented above demonstrate the necessity; truth requires it, justice demands it, and the dead cry out for it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Prof. William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of The Rape Of Palestine: Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied, Read Full Bio

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Related Video

PROFOUND INTERVIEW IDF ‘OPERATION CAST LEAD’

NOTE: The footnotes below are from Lightbown’s article which can be accessed at
www.redress.cc/palestine/lightbown200110314.

I would also note that the pictures that accompany or may accompany this article are from Dr. Arthur Billy’s Memorial to the People of Gaza available at You tube or as contained in an article titled “What does it profit a congressman to retain his office but suffer the loss of his soul?” A google search will give you access.

Notes

1. Kawther Salam, 29 December 2009; Abortions, Cancer, Diseases and… in Gaza; Intifada-Palestine. www.intifada-palestine.com/2009/12/abortions-cancer-diseases-and-in-gaza/
2. BBCNews, 4 March 2010; Falluja Doctors Report Rise in Birth Defects. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8548707.stm
3. Rita Hindin, Doug Brugge and Bindu Panikkar; Teratogenicity of depleted uranium aerosols: A review from an epidemiological perspective; Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2005, 4:17 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-4-17. www.ehjournal.net/content/4/1/17
4. Lisandro Irizarry, Mollie V Williams, Geri M Williams and José Eric Díaz-Alcalá, 21 October 2009; CBRNE – Incendiary Agents, White Phosphorus. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/833585-overview
5. UNEP, 2007; Lebanon Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, p 149.
6. ACDN, 4 July 2009; Report on the Use of Radioactive Weapons in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead.  www.newweapons.org/files/ACDN%20Gaza%20report%20updated%204Jul2009%201.pdf
7. Dr Hana Chehata, 9 March 2010; Disturbing Findings of Toxic Uranium Levels in Gaza; Middle East Monitor. http://preview.tinyurl.com/6cdf55k
8. Video accessed from http://blog.unwatch.org/?p=413
9. Palestinian Telegraph, 24 May 2009; Israel Used Depleted Uranium in Offensive on Gaza. www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/editorials/935-israel-used-depleted-uranium-in-offensive-on-gaza.html
10. Sister Rosalie Bertell; Depleted Uranium in the Human Body: Sr Rosalie Bertell, PhD.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgQ79-oDX2o
11.  www.standwithus.com/FLYERS/WaterFlyer.pdf
12. Human Rights Watch, 10 January 2009; Q & A on Israel’s Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza. www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/10/q-israel-s-use-white-phosphorus-gaza
13. http://tinyurl.com/287wxo9
14. Sobhi Skaik, Nafiz Abu-Shaban, Nasser Abu-Shaban, Mario Barbieri, Maurizio Barbieri, Umberto Giani, Paola Manduca, 31 July 2010; Metals Detected by ICP/MS in Wound Tissue of War Injuries Without Fragments in Gaza.  www.newweapons.org/files/1860524319368107_article.pdf
15. NWRC, 17 December 2009; Gaza Strip, soil has been contaminated due to bombings: population in danger.  www.newweapons.org/files/pressrelease_nwrc_20091216_eng.pdf
16. NWRC, 17 March 2010; Metals Detected in Palestinian Children’s Hair Suggest Environmental Contamination. http://www.newweapons.org/?q=node/112
17. James Brooks, 6 December 2006; US and Israel Targeting DNA in Gaza? The DIME Bomb: Yet Another Genotoxic Weapon, Part II. Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural Understanding. http://tinyurl.com/6kq6sd9
18. John F. Kalinich, et al, 15 February 2005; Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomysoarcomas in F344 Rats; ehponline.org  www.afrri.usuhs.mil/www/outreach/pdf/tungsten_cancer.pdf
19. James Brooks, 5 December 2006; The DIME Bomb: Yet Another Genotoxic weapon, Part 1; Al-Jazeera. www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27a/308.html
20. David Halpin, 14 August 2006; Are New weapons Being Used in Gaza and Lebanon; Electronic Intifada. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5528.shtml
21. James Brooks, 5 December 2006; The DIME Bomb: Yet Another Genotoxic weapon, Part III; Al-Jazeera. www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/oldsite/article.asp?ID=5648

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