Human Rights

NOVANEWS Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=US+vetoes+3+UN+resolutions&itemNo=1158708 By News Agencies The United Nations Human Rights Council passed three resolutions on Wednesday condemning Israel over its policies related to what it called Palestinian and Syrian territories, but the United States voted against them all. A further resolution, calling for a fund to compensate Palestinians who suffered losses during Israel's offensive in Gaza 14 months ago, is expected to be passed on Thursday. One resolution on "grave human rights violations" by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the Palestinian territories - which was passed by 31 votes to 9, with 7 abstentions in the 47-member Council - demanded that Israel end its occupation of Palestinian land occupied since 1...

NOVANEWS עברית אחרי האנגלית Conscientious Objector Shir Regev in Prison and Updates on Other Objectors - Please distribute widely - Dear Friends, CO Shir Regev CO Shir Regev, 20, from the village of Tuval in the North of Israel, an anarchist and anti-Occupation activist, has began serving his second prison term (10 days) on 24 Mar. Shir chose not to show up at the Induction Base on his intended enlistment date, and was later arrested and sentenced to 20 days in prison on 2 March (at that point he did not yet authorise publicising his case, which is why we are only reporting about it now). He is presently held in Military Prison no. 6 near Athlit. In a statement he has made before going to prison, Shir says: I believe it is my personal duty to refuse and defect from an army whose main purpo...

NOVANEWS And here is Tony Judt, interviewed in LRB by Kristina Bozic, bearing witness to historical truths. Notice his statement that modern European states don’t have political prisoners. AIPAC spent a lot of time talking about Gilad Shalit. Yes: one Israeli prisoner. And there are nearly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them children arrested for throwing stones against an illegal occupation. Is there anything Europe can do to exert pressure on Israel? Israel wants two things more than anything else in the world. The first is American aid. This it has. As long as it continues to get American aid without conditions it can do stupid things for a very long time, damaging Palestinians and damaging Israel without running any risk. However, the second thing Israel wants is an economic rel...

NOVANEWS The Knesset 'Zionist Parliament' voted yesterday in favor of Zionist Beitenu’s “Nakba Bill”, which authorizes the finance minister to hold funds from institutions or groups who question the nature of Zionist state of 'Israel' as a Jewish and democratic state, or who mark the Palestinian Nakba on Zionist’s 'Independence' Day. The goal of this bill – as stated by MK Alex Miller, who initiated it – is to prevent Palestinians from commemorating the national disaster they suffered in 1948, when most of the Arabs in (then) Palestine were expelled or fled from their homes. The original version of MK Miller’s bill made marking the Nakba a criminal offense, liable to up to three years in prison. Political pressure from Labor forced him to introduce the” softer” version, which was approved ...

NOVANEWS Yesterday, after 6 days of kidnapping and beating our friend Omar Mousa Ala'eddin from the village of Al-Ma'sara, the Israeli occupation authorities released him broken and battered. We spend much of the day with him. Omar is an English student at Hebron University and was returning with other students and two of his professors from a field trip to Ramallah where they watched a play. On the way back, a soldier at the checkpoint entered into a verbal exchange with Omar when Omar tried to explain to him about a fellow female student who did not have her ID card with her since Omar spoke Hebrew. The soldier ordered him out of the bus and the first blows were delivered to Omar in front of his friends and teachers. After they took him to a back room and have received information abou...

NOVANEWS By: Mary Pearson 'Always remember you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.' Harriet Tubman Belated International Women's Day Greetings! 'I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.' International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradit...

NOVANEWS Al-Akhbar newspaper devotes a special section (edited by young Lebanese feminist women) for International Women's Day. Posted by As'ad at 7:56 AM www.angryarab.blogspot.com