End Gaza blockade, UNHRC tells Israel

Palestinians scuffle with Israeli soldiers in the
West Bank village of Lubban al-Gharbi



Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136823§ionid=351020202


The United Nations Human Rights Committee has told Israel to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip and to take action about its human rights violations.

On Friday, the committee also told Israel to end extra-judicial executions of terrorist suspects, make torture illegal, end construction of settlements in the occupied territories, stop building a wall cutting off some of the territories from other regions, and stop destroying homes as a collective punishment, Reuters reported.

The 18 experts of the UN Human Rights Committee said they are also worried about Israeli restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The panel of experts stated that since 2003, the Israeli armed forces have targeted and executed 184 individuals in the Gaza Strip, despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2006 imposing safeguards.

The UNHRC also told Israel to ensure that Palestinians in the occupied territories can enjoy the fundamental civil and political freedoms that are enumerated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Israel is a signatory to the international human rights treaty but maintains that the covenant does not apply to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, although it says that the treaty does apply to Jewish settlers there, committee member Christine Chanet said.

The panel dismissed Israeli assertions that the covenant — a multilateral treaty ratified by 166 nations in force since 1976 — did not apply in areas under occupation or during armed conflict, saying its government must ensure "full application."

The committee also called for a halt to restrictions on Palestinians and raised concerns about discrimination.

"The State party should ensure that all alleged cases of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and disproportionate use of force by law enforcement officials, including the police, the personnel of the security service and the armed forces, are thoroughly and promptly investigated by an authority, independent of any of these organs," the committee said.

The panel also questioned the fact that Tel Aviv is conducting its own inquiry into a commando attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship that killed nine Turkish activists and injured about 50 people on May 31.

They say that all decision makers responsible for the attack — whether military or civilian officials — should be prosecuted.

'Israel needs war to exist'

Israeli soldiers, file photo


Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=135839§ionid=351020202


A former Israeli lecturer has said the entity depends on wars for its existence, warning that the hostility only invites disaster for Tel Aviv.

It is only constant confrontations and standoffs which keep the Israeli society from falling apart, said Ilan Pappe, who used to work as a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa in northern Israel.

He also said that the current Israeli government is the result of a colonialist movement. Colonialists, who did not have a country anywhere across the world, were obliged to remain here.

The Israeli regime, therefore, is constantly seeking to ignite new wars; against Lebanon and maybe soon against Iran, but future wars would not succeed and would instead lead the entity into disaster, he added, speaking to the German daily Junge Welt last month.

Israel waged two wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, with the second round of offensives killing about 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians. The forces, however, withdrew on both occasions without having achieved any of their objectives.

Tel Aviv, meanwhile, has variously threatened to target Iran, accusing Tehran of leading nuclear activities for military purposes.

An outspoken anti-Zionist, Pappe taught at the university from 1984 to 2007, when he was effectively fired from the university after his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine hit the shelves. The publication states that Israel's formation was pre-planned and based on rendering Palestinians homeless.

Pappe says he was dismissed from the scene of post-graduate education in Israel following practical obstructions put in the way of his educational activities.

Israel was formed in 1948, when it militarily invaded vast expanses of the Arab territories. It was subsequently forced to return much of what was captured, but went on to occupy and later annex more portions of land in 1967.

My social studies led to me adopting my anti-Zionist positions, Pappe told the daily, saying that the challenges he was faced with mounted to a point when he could not hold any seminars.

He also favored a one-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which he said, would actually equal the end of Zionism.

The Israeli society is by no means a uniform one, Pappe said. He also that Jews who have come from Arab lands live in far worse conditions than the European migrants, Pappe said.