Blackwater training anti-Assad terrorists in Turkey: Report

A handout picture shows foreign-backed militants in the western Syrian city of Qusayr on July 11, 2012.

The notorious US security firm Blackwater has set up military camps in Turkey’s border region with Syria to train armed groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A report published by the Turkish newspaper Idinik said Blackwater agents have been operating at the border area and that the firm’s mercenaries are being deployed to Syria via the Turkish province of Hatay.

Syrian security forces in the western city of Homs have also said that the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Blackwater are involved in the country’s unrest.

The idea of Blackwater’s role in the Syrian unrest developed after Egyptian writer Mohammad Husayn Haykal said that the firm has more than 6,000 mercenaries operating against Damascus inside and outside the country.

Haykal described Blackwater’s activity inside Syria and along the country’s borders as a bid to buy time for Israel and to turn the Arab-Israeli conflict into a sectarian conflict between the Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Syrian expert in strategic affairs Salim Harba has also said that an anti-Damascus center has been established in Qatar to bring together US, French, Qatari, Saudi, and Israeli intelligence agents as well as members of Blackwater, and the Syrian opposition.

The advanced weaponry used by the armed gangs in Syria, the presence of foreign mercenaries among the rebels, and documents leaked on the involvement of Blackwater in the crisis in Syria indicate that the so-called security firm is after fueling violence in the Arab nation to help the US topple the Assad government and thus more efficiently protect its interests and those of Tel Aviv in the region.

(www.presstv.ir / 01.08.2012)

A Lesson in Patience and Compassion from the Story of At-Ta’if

By Sheikh Salman Al-Oadah at IslamToday.net

It had been a year of sorrow and misfortune for Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. First, his beloved wife Khadijah died. She was, from all people, the best supporter he had. Soon afterwards, his uncle Abu Talib died. As the head of the Prophet’s clan, he was the only person who was able to give him protection from the rest of the tribe of Quraish. Abu Talib loved his nephew Muhammad intensely, and it pained Prophet Muhammad all the more that his uncle died a disbeliever.

The death, in the same year, of the Prophet’s wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib magnified the Prophet’s sorrows and doubled his feelings of estrangement and alienation and filled his heart with pain. Moreover, it left him and his followers politically isolated in Mecca, without support.

The tribe of Quraish seized this opportunity to increase their abuses and tighten their grips on the Muslims. Abu Lahab succeeded Abu Talib as the leader of the Prophet’s clan Banu Hashim, and he harbored the bitterest hatred for Islam and the Prophet, peace be upon him. He used to go up to the Prophet during the pilgrimage and in the marketplace and throw dirt and stones upon him, calling him a Sabian and a liar and warning people against following him.

Mecca became unbearable. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had to seek support from outside of Mecca. He first headed for the neighboring town of Ta’if, looking for this support. But what did he meet with there?

The people of Ta’’if ordered their children to throw rocks and stones at Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to drive them out of the city. The rocks that were thrown at him by the children caused him to bleed seriously, so much that his feet became stuck to his shoes by the drying blood.

When Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was outside the city walls, he almost collapsed. They went a short distance outside of the town and stopped in a vineyard that belonged to two Meccans who were there at the time.

The owners of the vineyard had seen how he had been persecuted in Mecca and on this occasion they felt some sympathy toward their fellow citizen. They had his wounds dressed, and let him rest and recuperate until he felt strong enough to resume his journey across the rough terrain between Ta’if and Mecca. It was there that he had the famous encounter with the angel of the mountains.

We have the following account from Aisha, the wife of the Prophet, peace be upon him, when she asked him, “Was there ever a day that was worse for you than the Battle of Uhud?” The Prophet replied:

لَقَدْ لَقِيتُ مِنْ قَوْمِكِ مَا لَقِيتُ، وَكَانَ أَشَدُّ مَا لَقِيتُ مِنْهُمْ يَوْمَ الْعَقَبَةِ، إِذْ عَرَضْتُ نَفْسِي عَلَى ابْنِ عَبْدِ يَالِيلَ بْنِ عَبْدِ كُلاَلٍ، فَلَمْ يُجِبْنِي إِلَى مَا أَرَدْتُ، فَانْطَلَقْتُ وَأَنَا مَهْمُومٌ عَلَى وَجْهِي، فَلَمْ أَسْتَفِقْ إِلاَّ وَأَنَا بِقَرْنِ الثَّعَالِبِ، فَرَفَعْتُ رَأْسِي، فَإِذَا أَنَا بِسَحَابَةٍ قَدْ أَظَلَّتْنِي، فَنَظَرْتُ فَإِذَا فِيهَا جِبْرِيلُ فَنَادَانِي فَقَالَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ سَمِعَ قَوْلَ قَوْمِكَ لَكَ وَمَا رَدُّوا عَلَيْكَ، وَقَدْ بَعَثَ إِلَيْكَ مَلَكَ الْجِبَالِ لِتَأْمُرَهُ بِمَا شِئْتَ فِيهِمْ، فَنَادَانِي مَلَكُ الْجِبَالِ، فَسَلَّمَ عَلَىَّ ثُمَّ قَالَ يَا مُحَمَّدُ، فَقَالَ ذَلِكَ فِيمَا شِئْتَ، إِنْ شِئْتَ أَنْ أُطْبِقَ عَلَيْهِمِ الأَخْشَبَيْنِ، فَقَالَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم بَلْ أَرْجُو أَنْ يُخْرِجَ اللَّهُ مِنْ أَصْلاَبِهِمْ مَنْ يَعْبُدُ اللَّهَ وَحْدَهُ لاَ يُشْرِكُ بِهِ شَيْئًا

Your tribes have troubled very much, and the worst was the day of ‘Aqaba when I presented myself to Ibn Abd-Yalail ibn Abd-Kulal and he did not respond to what I intended. So I departed, overwhelmed with excessive sorrow, and I could not relax until I found myself at Qarnath-Tha-alib where I lifted my head towards the sky to see a cloud shading me. I looked up and saw Gabriel in it. He called me saying, “Allah has heard your people’s saying to you and how they have replied. Allah has sent the Angel of the Mountains to you that you may order him to do whatever you wish to these people.” The Angel of the Mountains greeted me, and said, “O Muhammad, order what you wish. If you like, I will let the mountains fall on them.” The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “No, I hope that Allah will bring from their descendants people who will worship Allah alone without associating partners with Him.”

[Sahih Bukhari, Book 54, Number 454]

The people of Ta’if rejected the Prophet, peace be upon him, and what he came with most harshly. He departed from them in sadness and returned to Mecca only to find that its people had become even more enraged and infuriated with him. He was not even able to enter the city until he received the protection of al-Mut’im ibn Udayy. He had first sought the protection of al-Akhnas ibn Shurayq and Suhayl ibn Amr, but they had refused.

Presenting the Message to the Tribes

But he persisted in calling to Allah. After returning from al-Ta’if, he began to approach the tribes during the festivals and explain to them Islam. He would ask them for protection and support so he could convey the word of Allah.

Salim ibn Abu Al-Ja’d relates the following from Jabir: The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, used to approach the people at the ground where they would settle, saying:

هَلْ مِنْ رَجُلٍ يَحْمِلُنِي إِلَى قَوْمِهِ فَإِنَّ قُرَيْشًا قَدْ مَنَعُونِي أَنْ أُبَلِّغَ كَلَامَ رَبِّي عَزَّ وَجَلَّ

Is there any man who will take me to his people? Indeed, the Quraish have prevented me from preaching the word of my Lord, the Exalted.

[Sunan Abu Dawud, Book of Sunnah, Number 4734]

Jabir continued: A man from Hamdan approached him. The Prophet, peace be upon him, asked him:

مِمَّنْ أَنْتَ

From whom are you?

He replied, “I am from Hamdan.” He said:

فَهَلْ عِنْدَ قَوْمِكَ مِنْ مَنَعَةٍ

Do your people have power?

He said, “Yes.” Thereafter, the man began to fear that his people would scorn him. He went to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and said, “I will return to you and inform you.” The Prophet agreed. In the month of Rajab of the following year, a delegation came to him from Medina.” [Musnad Ahmad 14770]

One of the great achievements of calling the tribes to Islam was the meeting between the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and the delegation from Medina and the oath of allegiance they gave to him at Aqabah. This was followed by the emigration to Medina where the Muslims were finally able to practice Islam in peace and freedom.

This was the turning point for the Muslims. It was so significant that the emigration marks the first year of the Muslim calendar.

(www.faithinallah.org / 01.08.2012)

Egypte wordt meer en meer een democratie

Egyptische kinderen vieren de overwinning van Morsi.

OPINIE Het Westen wil de nieuwe realiteit niet begrijpen en reageert ten onrechte met ijzig pessimisme op de verkiezingsuitslag.

De commentaren in het Westen op de verkiezing van de moslimbroeder Morsi als president van Egypte gaan vergezeld van een ijzig pessimisme over de combinatie islam en democratie. Dat PVV-leider Geert Wilders de uitslag kwalificeert als een overwinning van het islamofascisme, viel te verwachten, hoe beledigend de opmerking ook is. Maar dat minister Rosenthal verklaart Morsi ‘op zijn daden te zullen beoordelen’, is misschien nog wel beledigender. Heeft hij dat ook gezegd toen François Hollande tot president van Frankrijk werd gekozen? Als immer meet het Westen met twee maten en wil het de nieuwe democratische realiteit van de Arabische Lente maar niet begrijpen.

In werkelijkheid voegt Egypte een ongekende bladzijde toe aan zijn geschiedenis. Het blijkt dat het volk van mening kan veranderen, wat onder de dictatuur ondenkbaar was. Want waarom daalde het percentage voor de Moslimbroederschap zo dramatisch van 37,5 procent in de recente parlementsverkiezingen naar 25,5 procent in de eerste ronde van de presidentsverkiezingen? Omdat, naar het oordeel van het volk, de moslimbroeders in het parlement veel te radicaal waren in hun islam-standpunten en met weinig respect voor anderen optraden. Ze verloren zo de gunst van een deel van hun electoraat.

Hier zag je dus echt democratie aan het werk. Dat verdient erkenning. Dat moslimbroeder Morsi uiteindelijk won, kwam met name omdat hij de stemmen kreeg van een andere islamitische kandidaat, Aboel-Fotoeh, die geen lid van de broederschap was en die in de eerste ronde 18 procent van de stemmen haalde.

Democratischer
Bij de eerste reacties op de verkiezing van Morsi waren ook de gematigde geluiden van de liberale 6 April-beweging en de Kifaya-beweging. Beide zijn van origine seculier en zijn in elk geval blij dat het oude systeem van Moebarak definitief vervangen is door een nieuw machtssyteem. Zij sluiten zich aan bij de nieuwe president, in de hoop en verwachting dat deze de immense druk en macht van de militairen kan weerstaan en zo kan realiseren dat Egypte nog democratischer wordt dan het nu is.

Grondwet herschrijven
De ontwikkelingen bewijzen inderdaad dat Egypte meer en meer een democratie wordt. Er is voortdurend sprake van een strijd om de macht, er zijn wisselende electorale voorkeuren, er is beweging. Dat verdient, met alle voorzichtigheid die geboden blijft, meer waardering dan uit de ijzige westerse reacties spreekt. Dictatuur is stilte en bewegingloosheid met eeuwig dezelfde patronen en machtsmachinaties. Democratie op zijn best is immer crisis en proberen oplossingen te vinden.

Natuurlijk is the proof of the pudding in the eating: als de termijn van deze president voorbij is en er nieuwe verkiezingen komen, waarin hij zomaar afgelost zou kunnen worden. De vraag is dan of hij in dat geval ook opstapt.

Ook op korte termijn is er nog veel te doen. Zo moet het parlement, al dan niet om opportunistische redenen gedeeltelijk illegaal gekozen verklaard, worden herkozen. De grondwet moet worden ge- of herschreven. Er moet in Egypte nog veel gebeuren, maar er gebeurt ook veel – als je het wilt zien.

(www.trouw.nl / 01.08.2012)

90% of Gaza water “unsafe for drinking,” says UN

Ninety percent of Gaza’s water is not safe for drinking, says the UN.

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – After a fact-finding tour of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip — and following hearings in Jordan and Egypt — a three-member United Nations committee has lambasted Israel for the harsh treatment of Palestinian children held in custody.

The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories has described the continued denial of fundamental human rights of the Palestinians as totally “unacceptable.”

The chairman of the special committee, Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United Nations, has specifically blasted Israeli security forces for the rigorous crackdown on children, mostly accused of hurling rocks at a fully-armed military.

“Children’s homes are surrounded by Israeli soldiers late at night, sound grenades are fired into the houses, doors are broken down, live shots are often fired, and no warrant is presented,” he said.

Worse still, children are tightly bound, blindfolded and forced into the backs of military vehicles, he added.

In an interview with Thalif Deen, United Nations bureau chief with the Inter Press Service, Kohona said the situation in the West Bank and Gaza has not improved in any significant manner since his last three official visits to the region.

He said witnesses reported that children in detention are often denied family visits, denied access to legal representation, held in cells with adults, denied access to education, and even at the age of 12 tried in Israeli military courts.

The committee was informed by witnesses that there were 192 children in detention, and 39 were under the age of 16, said Kohona, a former chief of the UN Treaty Section. He also said Israel’s practice of demolishing Palestinian homes continues, and Israeli settler violence against Palestinians has increased.

The special committee which was created by the UN General Assembly back in December 1968 also includes Dato Hussein Haniff, ambassador of Malaysia to the United Nations; and Fod Seck, a Senegalese diplomat based in Geneva.

Thalif Deen: How best would you describe the harsh treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities?

Palitha Kohona: The committee took the view that the occupying authorities were not discharging their international legal obligations towards the people of the occupied territories. For example, the principal result of Israel’s blockade of Gaza has been to render 80 percent of Palestinians in Gaza dependent on international humanitarian aid.

The resilience of Gazans for being able to survive on so little, especially in the face of the inadequate health care, severe constraints on their normal occupations, frequent power outages, and not infrequent incidents of violence that mark their daily lives, is admirable. Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal.

Israel’s security needs can surely be met adequately without resort to some of these harsh policies. The blockade, in the view of many, amounts to the collective punishment of 1.6 million Palestinians. It has had a devastating impact on the lives of people.

Many witnesses asked whether some of these harsh policies were really necessary to maintain security or were they actually exacerbating feelings of hopelessness.

TD: Since these human rights violations are taking place in occupied territories, do they amount to a violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners in conflict situations?

PK: There have been many eminent persons who have taken this view, and the committee agrees with this assessment.

TD: Has Israel ever permitted the special committee to visit Israel and record its side of the story? If not, what is the excuse given by Israel for barring the special committee?

PK: The special committee has not been permitted to visit Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem or the occupied Golan. Israel has a policy of not cooperating with the committee.

TD: Since you have visited the region three times as chairman of the special committee, what is your assessment of the occupied territories?

PK: The situation has not improved in any significant manner. In Gaza, imports remain at less than 50 percent of pre-blockade levels. Eighty-five percent of schools in Gaza work on double shifts.

And Israel’s near total ban on exports from Gaza stifles economic growth and makes job opportunities scarce. Between 30 and 40 percent of Gazans are unemployed. Over 1.2 million Gazans received food aid from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

And 90 percent of the water in Gaza is unsafe for drinking. Business has ground to a standstill with little possibility of importing new equipment or exporting products.

Unemployment stands at around 31 percent and the poverty level at 39 percent, according to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

TD: What can the United Nations do to improve the situation of Palestinians in the occupied territories? Or do you think the UN remains helpless against Israeli intransigence?

PK: UN agencies are playing a major role in keeping the humanitarian situation from deteriorating further but they have also come under stress due to funding shortfalls caused by the global financial crisis. They need further funding from donors.

(electronicintifada.net / 01.08.2012)

Miljarden verspild bij hulp probleemgezinnen

Instanties werken vaak tegen elkaar op.

Van de tien miljard euro die jaarlijks wordt besteed aan gezinnen die kampen met meerdere soorten problemen gaat tweeënhalf miljard euro op aan bureaucratie en gebrekkige samenwerking tussen hulpverleners. Dat zou de conclusie zijn van een onderzoek in opdracht van het ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport, waarvan RTL Nieuws een concept in handen heeft. Nederland telt honderdduizend zogeheten multiprobleemgezinnen, die elk gemiddeld 104 duizend euro per jaar kosten.

De problemen van de gezinnen variëren van schulden tot psychische stoornissen, verslavingen en opvoedingsproblemen. Daardoor zijn vaak meerdere instanties bij de hulpverlening betrokken.Volgens de onderzoekers werken instanties als jeugdzorg, maatschappelijk werk, schuldhulpverlening en jeugdzorg elkaar tegen en zadelen ze de gezinnen met veel papierwerk op.

Het papierwerk kost al een derde van het budget, nog voordat de middelen via indicaties zijn toegewezen, zo haalt RTL onderzoeksleider Pieter Cuyvers aan. De helft van de gezinnen zou met minder hulpverlening beter af zijn.Het ministerie liet tegenover RTL weten te werken aan een nieuwe aanpak voor dergelijke probleemgezinnen.

De gemeenten moeten in de nieuwe opzet een regierol krijgen.

(nieuws.marokko.nl / 01.08.2012)

Hamas blasts Palestinian official’s Auschwitz trip

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s ruling Hamas has criticized a Palestinian official for visiting a memorial at the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and paying respects to its 1.5 million victims there, most of them Jews.

Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum, expressing the Islamic militant group’s position, claimed Wednesday that the Holocaust ‘‘is a big lie.’’ He said last week’s visit to the Auschwitz by Ziad al-Bandak, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, went against Palestinian public opinion. Abbas and Hamas are political rivals.

Some 6 million Jews were killed in the German Nazi genocide during World War II, including in Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Many Palestinians fear that if they acknowledge the Holocaust, they will diminish their own suffering, including their uprooting during Israel’s 1948 creation and decades under Israeli occupation.

(www.boston.com / 01.08.2012)

Veolia remains active in garbage dump for Israeli settlers

 

Veolia operates Tovlan Landfill located in the occupied Jordan Valley, January 2011 (Photographed by Who Profits)

(Who Profits)

The French corporation Veolia says it has sold the Tovlan garbage dump in the Jordan Valley to the nearby Israeli settlement of Masua. But the company is still involved in the dump as a supervisor and consultant. On its official website, Veolia Australia gives some details of the sale in a comment to the blog Illegal Dumping of Waste:

Veolia / TMM (a local subsidiary of Veolia Environmental Services) sold to Masua Village its entire rights in the Tovlan landfill on June 26, 2011. As a consequence, we are no longer the registered owner of the site. In order to comply with applicable laws as well as the sale agreement, TMM will act as an active supervisor and consultant for a transitory period to ensure the fulfillment of environmental protection standards and applicable law. These services will be provided until Masuaa is capable of independently undertaking all such obligations in full itself. At the end of this transitory period, TMM will be released from any obligations regarding the landfill operation and will no longer have any control whatsoever over the operation of the site.

The Tovlan landfill serves mainly the needs of the Israeli population in Israel and in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Moreover, three Veolia subsidiaries in Israel hold permits to transfer waste from Israel to the Tovlan landfill – including TMM – according to the occupation watchdog, Who Profits.

International law prohibits Israel from using occupied land for the sole benefit of its own civilian population. In Resolution 63/201 of 28 January 2009, the UN General Assembly called on Israel to cease the dumping of all kinds of waste materials on occupied Palestinian land.

Veolia’s business deal with illegal Israeli settlement

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. Numerous UN resolutions and the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on Israel’s wall in the West Bank have confirmed that settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

The Israeli settlement of Masua was founded two years after the June 1967 War in which Israeli military forces occupied all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan and Egyptian Sinai, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.  Some 145 settlers live in Masua.

By selling off the Tovlan landfill to Masua, Veolia has entered into a business deal with an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Veolia staff in Israel confirm the company’s involvement in Tovlan landfill

To get a full understanding of the connection between Veolia and Tovlan, Who Profits — a project of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Tel Aviv — contacted Veolia’s offices in Israel. Veolia staff were willing to provide some information.

Veolia Recycling Services secretary Aviva Pe’er, confirmed twice that the company still operates the site at Tovlan, in a telephone conversation on 22 July. In response to the request for a direct phone number at Tovlan landfill, Pe’er referred to a site manager there. The manager said that “Veolia supplies the operation, but the site belongs to Moshav Masua [Masua settlement].” The manager clarified that the company is responsible for the waste disposal in the site and that no date is foreseen in the near future in which its license from the Ministry of Environment will expire.

Activists of the Derail Veolia campaign should be aware that Veolia’s sale of the Tovlan landfill does not bring an end to the company’s involvement in that dump. Veolia continues not only to operate the landfill, but is also teaching illegal settlers how to do so.

(Adri Nieuwhof  / electronicintifada.net / 01.08.2012)

U.S. Trade Union Statement in Support of Palestinian Call for Full and Immediate Arms Embargo Against Apartheid Israel

July 13, 2011 

Whereas, on May 4, 2011, the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (PTUC-BDS)specifically called “on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by. . . . divesting from Israel Bonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid”; and

Whereas, on July 8, 2011, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) urgently called for “immediate international action towards a mandatory comprehensive military embargo against Israel similar to that imposed against apartheid South Africa in the past”; and

Whereas, since the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1947-1948, Israel has used at least $108 billion from the U.S. government to carry out ongoing war, ethnic cleansing, racism and apartheid against the Palestinians and many other Arab nations; and

Whereas, in the past ten years alone, the U.S. government — with overwhelming bipartisan support — has given Israel $17 billion in military aid; over the next decade, it will give another $30 billion; and

Whereas, as a result, Palestinian workers continue to be killed and maimed by U.S.-supplied naval vessels, jet fighters, Apache helicopters, white phosphorous and other weapons; and

Whereas, in 2008/2009 alone, Israel used these weapons to enforce the brutal and illegal siege by killing 1400 people in Gaza, most of them civilians — a massacre condemned by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations, including those that are Israeli; and

Whereas, U.S. supplied-weapons were similarly used in the deadly May 31, 2010 Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and to kill scores of unarmed Palestinian refugees exercising their right to return in 2011; and

Whereas, in 2006, Israel turned Lebanon into a killing ground, slaughtering and maiming thousands of people, destroying the civilian infrastructure, and turning a quarter of the population into refugees in their own land; and

Whereas, the U.S. and Israel provided similar support to the apartheid South Africa regime, just as they now arm and finance dictatorships to suppress the Arab Spring; and

Whereas, veteran South African freedom fighters have observed that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “worse than apartheid”; and

Whereas, amidst spiraling economic crisis, workers in this country pay a staggering human and financial price for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation from Palestine to Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan; and

Whereas, just as trade unionists fight “replacement” of striking workers, we stand against the dispossession, occupation and inequality inflicted on millions of Palestinian working people and their descendants for more than six decades; and

Whereas, the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel has been endorsed by numerous labor bodies around the world, including the trade union congresses of South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland and the UK, and labor bodies in Australia, France, Canada, Norway, Catalunya, Italy, Spain and Turkey; and

Whereas, numerous U.S. labor bodies participated in similar divestment campaigns against apartheid South Africa; and

Whereas, following the May 31, 2010 Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, members of ILWU Local 10 in Oakland courageously followed the South African dockers’ example by refusing to handle Israeli cargo; and

Whereas, such solidarity stands in the proud tradition of West Coast dock-workers who refused to handle cargo for Nazi Germany (1934) and fascist Italy (1935); those in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay Area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused shipping for apartheid South Africa; those in Oakland who refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and those at all twenty-nine West Coast ports who held a May Day strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008).

Therefore, we join with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Brazilian CUT, and other labor bodies, in specifically reaffirming support for an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo; and

Whereas, Israel has now sought to repress the growing BDS campaign by banning recognition of the 1948 Nakba or advocacy of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions;

Therefore, we call on all labor bodies to divest from Israel Bonds; and

Therefore, we call on workers not to handle weapons and all other military cargo destined for Israel; and

Therefore, that these and other necessary measures be maintained until the Israeli apartheid regime recognizes Palestinian human rights and self-determination by immediately:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

(www.laborforpalestine.net / 01.08.2012)

Israeli hospitals refusing to treat African patients

Report: Jerusalem’s Bikur Holim Hospital refuses to treat a number of African asylum seekers under the premise that they don’t have health insurance.

In the past week, the Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem has turned away at least three Eritrean asylum seekers, according to a report in Maariv (Hebrew).

After experiencing severe stomach pains, Nestah Ibrahim, a 21-year-old Eritrean woman who arrived in Israeli legally, was transported to Jerusalem’s Bikur Holim by ambulance. There, hospital workers asked her if she had money to pay for the visit. When she told them she did not, they told her to go somewhere else.

Speaking to Maariv, Ibrahim says,

I tried to explain to them that I’m new here, that I don’t have status and rights but they weren’t convinced and they told me: “Go to a different hospital.” I asked them to at least give me pills to make the pain go away but they did not agree to give them to me.

Earlier this month, Ynet reported that a Tel Aviv hospital, Sourasky Medical Center, will limit admissions of and ban visits by African asylum seekers “out of concern for the spread of infectious diseases to other patients.”

While a number of African patients have been found to have tuberculosis, the plans put forth by Sourasky’s Director General, Gabi Barbash, will separate African and Israeli women in the maternity ward even if the former have been found to be free of infectious diseases. African and Israeli babies will also be separated.

Israeli doctors responded by condemning what they called “patient care apartheid.”

The Ministry of Health also slammed the move, calling it “racist.”

Following the outcry, Sourasky Medical Center eased the restrictions.

The phenomenon of refusing or limiting African patients is not new.  In early 2011, for example, an Eilat doctor refused to care for a pregnant African woman, telling her that he does not tend to Sudanese. In late 2010, an Eritrean man who had been attacked on the street by an Israeli man in Ashkelon was turned away from a local hospital even though he was bleeding.

(972mag.com / 01.08.2012)

Activists: 9 detained in UAE Islamist crackdown

DUBAI (Reuters) — The United Arab Emirates has detained nine Islamists in the past two days, local activists said on Wednesday, and human rights groups have urged condemnation of the Gulf Arab country’s “draconian” treatment of the opposition.

The arrests brought to at least 35 the number of activists, most of them Islamists, detained since July 15 when the UAE said it was investigating a foreign-linked group planning “crimes against the security of the state”.

Activists say around 50 have been arrested since last year. Many of them are UAE nationals, but an Omani citizen and a stateless resident also have been detained.

Interior Ministry officials were not available for comment.

(www.maannews.net / 01.08.2012)