Palestinian
political prisoners held in Israel’s Ramon Prison have launched a
hunger strike in protest against the latest assaults against them.Four units of the Israeli military have continued assaults against the prisoners for the third week in a row.
The soldiers, accompanied by military dogs, repeatedly break into the cells and violently search the detainees.
Prisoners have also discovered that there are hidden cameras in the walls of their rooms. They say the issue violates their rights.
Several inmates have been moved to solitary confinement in the Israeli prison.
Some 5,000 Palestinians are locked up in Israeli prisons. They are being kept in overcrowded poor conditions.
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have been subject to human rights violations such as the use of torture during interrogation by prison authorities.
Source/video
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US rabbi slams AIPAC for pushing Iran sanctions in Senate
Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council Jack Moline has strongly criticized the Israel lobby for pushing the US Senate to impose fresh sanctions on Iran.
Moline accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Committee of using “strong arm tactics” against US lawmakers.
He said the Israeli lobby is creating the feeling among US senators that voting against a new Iran sanctions bill would "make them anti-Israel or mean the abandonment of the Jewish community.”
“It isn’t the business of any organization to be setting up a litmus test on a piece of legislation,” he said.
A majority of US senators have supported the new Iran sanctions bill that was introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and Senator Mark Kirk last month.
The Senate bill initially had the backing of 26 senators, but now 59 members have publically announced support for the measure.
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that several important lobby groups, including the AIPAC, are working hard to build support for the measure.
The Senate bill proposes boycotting Iranian oil exports and the blacklisting of Iran's mining, engineering and construction industries. It also calls for "diplomatic, military and economic support" to Israel in case Tel Aviv decides to launch an attack against Iran’s nuclear energy program.
The White House has said President Barack Obama will veto the bill if it passes Congress.
It is still unclear whether supporters of the bill can put together the two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate needed to defeat a veto by Obama.
The White House suggested some American lawmakers want the United States to attack Iran as they are supporting the sanctions legislation.
“If certain members of Congress want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American public and say so,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said.
“Otherwise, it’s not clear why any member of Congress would support a bill that possibly closes the door on diplomacy and makes it more likely that the United States will have to choose between military options or allowing Iran’s nuclear program to proceed,” she added.
Iran has warned that fresh US sanctions against the Islamic Republic will end the nuclear talks.
Source/video
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Was Ariel Sharon The One Behind 911?
Morris: Israelis are incurable control freaks guided by followers of the Talmud
... The Talmud is not the bible, it is not the old testament, it is
called oral law, commentaries ....
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Israeli-Palestinian settlements deadlock: Echo of The Bulldozer's policies?
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RT: Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who died Saturday, was
viewed as the father of the Israeli settlement movement. The unresolved
issue remains a key obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
Sharon died aged 85, after spending eight years in a coma,
following a sudden stroke in 2006 – when he was at the height of
his popularity.
Nicknamed “The Bulldozer,” Sharon spent his long military and
political career fighting the Arabs to ensure Israeli security
and his hard-line, hawkish views attracted both praise and
loathing.
The former prime minister’s settlement-building policies in the
occupied Palestinian territories particularly divided Israelis,
with some seeing him as a traitor and others considering him a
peacemaker. The Jewish settlements in the West Bank remain one of
most contentious issues in today’s Middle East peace talks.
In late 1970s, after being appointed a Cabinet member by then-PM
Menachem Begin, Sharon began his push to build dozens of Jewish
settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which was captured
in the 1967 war. Despite the opposition from the Palestinians and
the international community, Sharon continued with these policies
later, in the 1990s, when he served as housing minister.
Yet in 2005 Sharon – by now prime minister - made a historic
pivot and withdrew all Israeli settlers from Gaza and parts of
the West Bank. The unilateral decision sparked fierce criticism
from many in his country, including top politicians.
Once a lifelong supporter of Sharon, Ezra Eldar had his own
business farming spices and flowers in one of the former Gaza
settlements. But eight and a half years ago Eldar was forced out
of his home with his wife and three children, along with 8,000
others.
“I feel betrayed like a husband who has walked into his home
to find his wife with his neighbor. Sharon will most likely be
praised as he should be. But, I would also like him to be
remembered for all the things that are not so pleasant and which
were critical to all of Israel,” Eldar told RT.
Former Knesset member Einat Wilf told RT that the former prime
minister used settlements as a tool to achieve his own political
goals.
“At the end of the day he looked at them as instrumental for
whatever needs he had at the moment. When he thought that the
settlers and the settlement movement were serving the needs of
the stronger Israel, he supported them. He supported them more
than anyone had, but when he felt that they were no longer
serving the needs of a strong Israel, he turned against
them,” she said.
“As one who fought in all of Israel's wars, and learned from
personal experience that without proper force, we do not have a
chance of surviving in this region ... I have also learned from
experience that the sword alone cannot decide this bitter dispute
in this land,” Sharon said in 2004.
Many experts and politicians believe that the withdrawal could
have secured peace with Palestinians in the end, had Sharon
remained in good health.
A decade on, Israeli settlement expansion continues under the
current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Over 500,000 Jewish
settlers live in the occupied territories, despite the majority
of the international community considering the settlements
illegal.
Gideon Levy, from Haaretz newspaper, believes that the
settlements were and will continue to be one of the main
obstacles to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
“[Sharon] was one of the founders of the settlements
projects. And the settlement project until today might be the
biggest obstacle to reach peace. This way he carries
responsibility. This cannot be forgotten,” Levy told RT.
“In the last years of his career, he in a way understood that
something went wrong and he decided to withdraw from Gaza. But
whether he would have continued to evacuate all of the
settlements is an open question,” he added.
Human Right Watch issued a statement on Saturday stressing that
Sharon “escaped accountability for other alleged abuses, such
as his role expanding settlements in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory, prosecutable as a war crime.”
Levy is pessimistic about whether a solution will be found to the
settlement issue. “I don’t see any leader being capable of
evacuating half a million settlers. The settlements which were
established to become the obstacle for peace will remain an
obstacle.”
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