Posts tagged UN

UN documents, Passover, Peace

April 8, 2009 · Filed under History · Tagged , , ,

I havn’t written here in awhile. I have been caught up with school and life and the likes….BUT, in doing some research I found a website that has access to documents and correspodance dealing with Palestine since the British Mandate period after WWI.

Here is the UN page dealing with Palestine

and here is the page with documents predating the state of Israel (pre 1948)

If you are interested in the peace process (and you shoudl be) I encourage you to thumb through these websites. I am definitly sick of relying on news media sources, even progressive ones. I think they are good in exposing stories and circulating them, but the people really involved in creating a peace in Palestine are working through governmental agencies and not just news outlets.

Here is an exerpt from a PLO official letter dated from Febuary of this year:

In this regard, in follow-up to my previous letters to you regarding Israel’s illegal colonization activities, I regret to inform you of the demolition and eviction orders recently issued by Israel, the occupying Power, in Palestinian neighbourhoods of Occupied East Jerusalem. In the past week, the occupying Power ordered the eviction of dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in the centre of East Jerusalem by ordering the evacuation of 27 homes there. This was followed by a decision during the current week to order the eviction of 1,500 Palestinians from their homes in the Al-Bustan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.

Contrary to the false, empty pretext given by Israel, the orders clearly aim at the illegal confiscation of Palestinian property and land and the forced displacement of more Palestinian civilians from East Jerusalem. These unlawful and provocative orders by the occupying Power have stoked already heightened tensions, threatening to further destabilize the fragile situation on the ground and, moreover, have been thoroughly rejected by the Palestinian people and their leadership.

As we have repeatedly warned, the direct and deliberate intent of all of these illegal colonization measures is to entrench Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to facilitate its attempts to illegally acquire and de facto annex even more Palestinian land. Such destructive, racist and colonial policies and measures constitute grave violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, and the Security Council has, in numerous resolutions, clearly declared the illegality and invalidity of such measures by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

These unlawful measures are seriously undermining the contiguity, integrity, viability and unity of the Palestinian Territory. Moreover, as has been widely recognized, this relentless land grab is gravely jeopardizing — if not completely destroying — the prospect for physically realizing the two-State solution for peace, on which there exists an international consensus.

The international community, including the Security Council, must act to address these dangerous developments. Israel, the occupying Power, cannot be permitted to continue to so flagrantly and grossly breach international law without consequence. The international community must demand Israel’s compliance with all of its obligations under international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, by which it is bound as the occupying Power, and demand the cessation of all of its illegal policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Hope and belief in the potential for making peace a reality are rapidly diminishing in the face of such incessant Israeli breaches of international law and violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people under its occupation since 1967. Peace and security in the Middle East can never be achieved by colonization, displacement, disenfranchisement, collective punishment and oppression; it can only be achieved by respect for international law, human rights and United Nations resolutions. Urgent action is thus required by the international community, including all relevant United Nations bodies, to stop this illegal behaviour by Israel, which runs totally contrary to and is destroying the purpose, spirit and goals of the peace process, to the irreversibility of which the Security Council declared its commitment in resolution 1850 (2008).

 

This was written by the permanent observer  to Palestine, Riyad Mansour. He is right, peace and security cannot and will never come from colonization, collective punishment, and displacement. Which is exactly the policy of Israel towards Palestine. The settlements in Palestine and the demolition of Palesitinian homes is the current day colonization.  When Jews all over the world celebrate Passover tonight and the important fight against oppression, I hope they remember who are the oppressors now.  Israel, the Jewish Nationalist State has taken the star of David and made it into a flag of oppression and war. I hope Jews who are global citizens and care about all human beings will sit down to the cedar tonight and vow to fight Israel and its present administration. They have almost irrevovably hurt Judaism and it is up to us to reclaim Judaism to stand for a peaceful philosophy, not a nationalist and militarist state.

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Just a quickie… What is Zionism?

February 4, 2009 · Filed under History · Tagged , , , ,

My answer when asked that question the other day was simple at first: Jewish Nationalism.

The problematic part of this definition is the Nationalism part. 

Inherent in all nationalisms is a sense of shared history, claim to a land, and a call for unification and defense against aggressive ‘others.’ 

I learned more about the rise of Nazism today. Some of the basic reasons were the punitive nature of the Versailles Treaty put Germans in an economic and political situation and the anti-semitism that blamed Jews for Socialism. If Nazism was Nationalist Socialism, Zionism in many ways is also. The first blueprints for Israel was to make it a Nationalist Socialist society.

And now the parallels with expelling populations and committing humanitarian crimes in order to achieve political and military agendas make the comparisons even more plenty.

I know how terrible it is for Jews to be compared to Nazis. Nazis were part of one of the worst ethnic cleansing plots in World History. But the collaborators and appeasements of the 1930s by other European nations bare some of the responsibility for the magnitude of the Holocaust. Likewise, nations that do not speak out against both Palestinian and Israeli atrocities and do what they can to stop the crisis in Israel and Palestine also bare some of the responsibility. 

Here is my point: Zionism does share historical similarities to Nazism. 

And another point is this: the death and destruction of World War II goes far beyond the 6 million Jews killed by Nazis. Estimations are that the lowest that probably perished in just the Soviet Union is 50 million, and that is just one country. Everybody suffered during the war, not just Jews. If we are to avoid the total war of last century, we need to thwart the power and rise of extreme nationalist movements, of which Zionism is one. Militant and Pan-Islam is another. I do not suggest we do this with war or violence, but with open and honest negotiations and diplomacy that I think can arise out of nations such as Israel and America becoming right sized and humble in the UN and become willing to give up their monopoly on International “moral” superiority, and listen to the UN when they say for instance, don’t invade Iraq or lets try in court countries who commit war crimes, even if those countries are Israel and America.

But here is a question for you…what does zionism mean to you?

I’m tired…just some thoughts for today 🙂

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