By Gideon Levy
There's a name on every bullet, and there's someone responsible for every crime. The Teflon cloak Israel has wrapped around itself since Operation Cast Lead has been ripped off, once and for all, and now the difficult questions must be faced. It has become superfluous to ask whether war crimes were committed in Gaza, because authoritative and clear-cut answers have already been given. So the follow-up question has to be addressed: Who's to blame? If war crimes were committed in Gaza, it follows that there are war criminals at large among us. They must be held accountable and punished. This is the harsh conclusion to be drawn from the detailed United Nations report.
For almost a year, Israel has been trying to argue that the blood spilled in Gaza was merely water. One report followed the other, with horrifyingly identical results: siege, white phosphorous, harm of innocent civilians, infrastructure destroyed - war crimes in each and every report. Now, after the publication of the most important and damning report of all, compiled by the commission led by Judge Richard Goldstone, Israel's attempts to discredit them look ludicrous, and the empty bluster of its spokespersons sound pathetic.
So far they have focused on the messengers, not their messages: the researcher for Human Rights Watch collects Nazi memorabilia, Breaking the Silence is a business and Amnesty International is anti-Semitic. All cheap propaganda. This time, though, the messenger is propaganda-proof. No one can seriously claim that Goldstone, an active and ardent Zionist, with deep links to Israel, is an anti-Semite. It would be ridiculous.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1115240.html
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Dutch to prosecute Arabs over Holocaust cartoon
Dutch to prosecute Arabs over Holocaust cartoon
Saturday, 12 September 2009 23:23 Toby Stergling, Associated Press
Dutch to prosecute Arabs over Holocaust cartoon
AMSTERDAM - Dutch prosecutors said Wednesday they will charge an Arab cultural group under hate speech laws for publishing a cartoon that suggests the death of 6 million Jews during World War II is a fabrication.
The public prosecutor's office in the city of Utrecht said the cartoon insults Jews as a group and is therefore an illegal form of discrimination.
Prosecutors plan to press charges for "insulting a group and distributing an insulting image."
Spokeswoman Mary Hallebeek said the maximum punishment is a year in jail, but a fine of up to euro4,700 ($6,700) is more likely, given that the charges are against the group.
The Dutch arm of the Arab European League said it doesn't deny the reality of the Holocaust, but published the cartoon on its Web site as an "act of civil disobedience" to highlight a double standard.
AEL chairman Abdoulmouthalib Bouzerda argued that prosecutors had not pressed charges against Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders for his film that included cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Charges against Wilders, who campaigns on an anti-Islam and anti-immigration platform, were dismissed after prosecutors said his insults were aimed at Muhammad, not all Muslims, and were not systematic.
The charges against the AEL "illustrates what Muslims have been saying for decades," Bouzerda said in a response published on the league's Web site. "Freedom of expression is only a pretext to make life bitter for Muslims ... and if (they) try to bring this hypocrisy to light, that right is denied them."
Bouzerda said anyone should be allowed to publish insulting material in the interest of public debate.
The cartoon shows two apparently Jewish men standing near a pile of skeletons with a sign that says "Auswitch," presumably representing the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.
One pokes a bone with a stick and says "I don't think they're Jews" and the other answers, "We have to get to the six million somehow."
Ronny Naftaniel of the Center for Documentation on Israel, which filed a complaint against the cartoon, said Jews had nothing to do with the Muhammad cartoons, so it didn't make sense for the league to retaliate in this way.
"Imagine if Dutch Jews insulted Muslims every time they heard an anti-Semitic remark. What kind of perverse world would we be living in?" he said.
After a strong immigration wave in the 1990s, Muslims make up around 6 percent of the 16.5 million Dutch population.
A popular backlash against immigration has dominated politics here since 2001, and it intensified in 2004, when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim radical over perceived religious insults.
That further fueled debate over immigrant crime and the need to preserve traditional Dutch values.
http://www.therebel.org/politics/europe/dutch_to_prosecute_arabs_over_holocaust_cartoon_2009091243854/
Saturday, 12 September 2009 23:23 Toby Stergling, Associated Press
Dutch to prosecute Arabs over Holocaust cartoon
AMSTERDAM - Dutch prosecutors said Wednesday they will charge an Arab cultural group under hate speech laws for publishing a cartoon that suggests the death of 6 million Jews during World War II is a fabrication.
The public prosecutor's office in the city of Utrecht said the cartoon insults Jews as a group and is therefore an illegal form of discrimination.
Prosecutors plan to press charges for "insulting a group and distributing an insulting image."
Spokeswoman Mary Hallebeek said the maximum punishment is a year in jail, but a fine of up to euro4,700 ($6,700) is more likely, given that the charges are against the group.
The Dutch arm of the Arab European League said it doesn't deny the reality of the Holocaust, but published the cartoon on its Web site as an "act of civil disobedience" to highlight a double standard.
AEL chairman Abdoulmouthalib Bouzerda argued that prosecutors had not pressed charges against Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders for his film that included cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Charges against Wilders, who campaigns on an anti-Islam and anti-immigration platform, were dismissed after prosecutors said his insults were aimed at Muhammad, not all Muslims, and were not systematic.
The charges against the AEL "illustrates what Muslims have been saying for decades," Bouzerda said in a response published on the league's Web site. "Freedom of expression is only a pretext to make life bitter for Muslims ... and if (they) try to bring this hypocrisy to light, that right is denied them."
Bouzerda said anyone should be allowed to publish insulting material in the interest of public debate.
The cartoon shows two apparently Jewish men standing near a pile of skeletons with a sign that says "Auswitch," presumably representing the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.
One pokes a bone with a stick and says "I don't think they're Jews" and the other answers, "We have to get to the six million somehow."
Ronny Naftaniel of the Center for Documentation on Israel, which filed a complaint against the cartoon, said Jews had nothing to do with the Muhammad cartoons, so it didn't make sense for the league to retaliate in this way.
"Imagine if Dutch Jews insulted Muslims every time they heard an anti-Semitic remark. What kind of perverse world would we be living in?" he said.
After a strong immigration wave in the 1990s, Muslims make up around 6 percent of the 16.5 million Dutch population.
A popular backlash against immigration has dominated politics here since 2001, and it intensified in 2004, when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim radical over perceived religious insults.
That further fueled debate over immigrant crime and the need to preserve traditional Dutch values.
http://www.therebel.org/politics/europe/dutch_to_prosecute_arabs_over_holocaust_cartoon_2009091243854/
Friday, September 11, 2009
Clock is ticking for Iran as Israel appears ready for strike
ANALYSIS / Clock is ticking for Iran as Israel appears ready for strike
By Amos Harel
Tags: Iran, Nuclear Program
In the rare moments when it's not preoccupied with the decline of U.S. President Barack Obama in the polls and with the debate over its government's proposed health-care reforms, the American press continues to deal almost obsessively with another pressing issue: the deadlock in efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program and the growing likelihood that the endgame will be an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
In the past few weeks alone, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal warned the president that the United States must put a quick halt to the Iranian nuclear program, because otherwise Israel will bomb the facilities.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1113816.html
By Amos Harel
Tags: Iran, Nuclear Program
In the rare moments when it's not preoccupied with the decline of U.S. President Barack Obama in the polls and with the debate over its government's proposed health-care reforms, the American press continues to deal almost obsessively with another pressing issue: the deadlock in efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program and the growing likelihood that the endgame will be an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
In the past few weeks alone, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal warned the president that the United States must put a quick halt to the Iranian nuclear program, because otherwise Israel will bomb the facilities.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1113816.html
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Report: Ship 'hijacked' near U.K. carried Russian missiles for Iran
A ship that was reportedly hijacked in the English Channel was carrying advanced Russian anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, the Sunday Times quoted sources in Russia and Israel as saying.
The sources also said Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, tracked the vessel and later tipped off the Russian government that its cargo had been sold by former military officers linked to the underworld, according to the British paper.
The Arctic Sea, which left Finland on July 21 with 15 Russian crew members and a cargo of timber, failed to arrive in Algeria on Aug. 4 as scheduled. The ship's signal had disappeared in the Atlantic in late July.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112677.html
The sources also said Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, tracked the vessel and later tipped off the Russian government that its cargo had been sold by former military officers linked to the underworld, according to the British paper.
The Arctic Sea, which left Finland on July 21 with 15 Russian crew members and a cargo of timber, failed to arrive in Algeria on Aug. 4 as scheduled. The ship's signal had disappeared in the Atlantic in late July.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112677.html
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