Norwegian lawyers to accuse Israeli leaders of war crimes

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

10 hours 14 mins ago

Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert and other top officials could face legal action in Norway over the Gaza offensive after six Norwegian lawyers said Tuesday they would accuse them of war crimes. Skip related content

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Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert Enlarge photo

The lawyers, who plan to file their complaint with Norway’s chief prosecutor on Wednesday, said they will call for the arrest and extradition of Olmert as well as former foreign affairs minister Tzipi Livni, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and seven senior Israeli army officers.

Under the Norwegian penal code, courts may hear cases involving war crimes and other major violations of human rights.

The lawyers released a statement accusing Israel of “massive terrorist attacks” in the Gaza Strip from December 27 last year to January 25, killing civilians, illegally using weapons against civilian targets and deliberately attacking hospitals and medical staff.

“There can be no doubt that these subjects knew about, ordered or approved the actions in Gaza and that they had considered the consequences of these actions,” the lawyers’ statement said.

Nobel laureate accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’

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In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

April 22, 2009 – 6:31AM

Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire on Tuesday accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” policies in annexed east Jerusalem, where the municipality plans to tear down almost 90 Arab homes.

“I believe the Israeli government is carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians here in east Jerusalem,” said Maguire, who won the 1976 Nobel prize for her efforts at reaching a peaceful solution to the violence in Northern Ireland.

“I believe the Israeli government policies are against international law, against human rights, against the dignity of the Palestinian people,” she said at a news conference.

It was held in a protest tent erected by residents of east Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood where 88 Arab homes are under demolition orders.

The Israeli authorities say the houses were built or extended without the necessary construction permits. Palestinians say the planned demolitions aim at forcing them out of east Jerusalem.

If the demolition orders are carried out 1,500 people would be left homeless in one of the largest forced evictions since Israel occupied mostly Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later annexed it.

Israel considers Jerusalem to be its eternal and undivided capital, while Palestinians want to make east Jerusalem the capital of their future state.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says that since 2004 the Israeli authorities have torn down more than 400 homes in east Jerusalem.

AFP

http://www.smh.com.au/world/nobel-laureate-accuses-israel-of-ethnic-cleansing-20090422-ae7x.html

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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

A Basic History of Zionism and its Relation to Judaism

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In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

A Basic History of Zionism and its Relation to Judaism

Hanna Braun, London

First Published: September 2001: In order to understand the circumstances that led to the birth of Zionism I shall sketch an outline of the history of Judaism and the Jews.

Since biblical times Jewish communities lived in Arab lands, in Persia, India, East and North Africa and indeed in Palestine. With the destruction of the Temple and the final fall of their state in 70 AD many Jews were taken out of Judea and hence to Rome and the Diaspora. Many poorer Judeans, however (such as subsistence farmers), were able to stay in Palestine. (Some of them had converted to Christianity and were one of the earliest Christian groups.) Modern research suggests that when Islam arrived in the area in 633 AD many of these Jews converted and that they form a considerable part of today’s Palestinians. These various communities were on the whole well integrated into their respective societies and did not experience the persecutions that later became so prevalent in Europe. In Palestine, for instance, Muslims repeatedly protected their Jewish neighbours from marauding crusaders; in one instance at least, Jews fought alongside Muslims to try and prevent crusaders from landing at Haifa’s port, and Salah al-Dinl-din, after re-conquering Jerusalem from the crusaders, invited the Jews back into the city.

Spanish judge keeps Guantanamo probe alive

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In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:30pm EDT

MADRID (Reuters) – A Spanish judge considering possible criminal action against six former Bush administration officials for torture at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay defied pressure to drop the case Friday.

But Judge Baltasar Garzon, internationally known for trying to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, accepted that he might not personally take charge of any eventual criminal investigation into officials including former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Thursday, Spain’s attorney general said Garzon should dismiss the complaint brought by human rights lawyers calling for the officials to be prosecuted.

Prominent Lawmaker Caught Up In AIPAC Scandal

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

By Daniel Luban

WASHINGTON, Apr 20, 2009 (IPS) – A U.S. government investigation of Israeli spying caught a prominent Democratic congresswoman discussing what is alleged to be a “quid pro quo” deal involving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Washington’s powerful hawkish pro-Israel lobby. Representative Jane Harman of California was recorded in 2005 on a National Security Administration (NSA) wiretap promising a suspected Israeli agent that she would intervene on behalf of two AIPAC staffers accused of passing classified information to the Israeli government, and her interlocutor responded by promising to help get Harman appointed to a top congressional intelligence post, according to an article published Sunday by Congressional Quarterly (CQ). Perhaps even more notably, then-attorney general Alberto Gonzales later halted an FBI investigation of Harman’s actions because of Harman’s political value as a defender of the George W. Bush administration’s much-criticised warrantless wiretapping programme, the CQ report states.

Connecting CIA Torture to Abu Ghraib

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In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Robert Parry

April 21, 2009 By blurring the lines between terrorism and combat – and by linking the 9/11 rationale to groups only tangentially connected to al-Qaeda – the Bush administration spread the policy of harsh interrogations far beyond terror suspects who worked directly for Osama bin Laden, newly released Justice Department memos reveal. Most significantly, the Bush administration let the interrogation policy spill over into U.S.-occupied Iraq, where ambushes of American and allied troops were regarded as the legal and moral equivalent of terrorist attacks against civilians on U.S. soil, one of the memos, dated May 30, 2005, makes clear. That belief, in turn, appears to have set the stage for the Abu Ghaib prison abuse scandal. The memo – written by Steven Bradbury, then acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel – describes the criteria for identifying a “high value” detainee who would be a candidate for “enhanced interrogation techniques.” While describing the supposedly restrictive nature of the criteria, Bradbury actually reveals how broad the category was.

Pakistan man says UK terrorist suspect son ‘has no terror links’

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In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

(Update: another 9 released, but will probably be deported anyway)

By: BBC/Guardian on: 21.04.2009 [23:17 ]

Armed officers took no chances when they arrested this suspect in Liverpool last week(pic) ‘If somebody has a religion, it does not mean he is an activist’ Nasrullah Ullah Khattak (father) Update: Nine of the students suspected of being terrorists are released, with no charges against them. However, it appears that they are to be deported anyway… Also read Craig Murray’s blog: “Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith Terror Lies Revealed” link

The father of one of the men arrested during a major anti-terrorism operation in north-west England has told the BBC his son has no links to extremism.

Nasrullah Jan Khattak told the BBC he was confident his 23-year-old son, Abid Naseer, would get justice from the British legal system.