Human Rights Council holds general debates on situation in Palestine and occupied Arab territories, human rights bodies and Vienna Declaration

Islam and the West

Human Rights Council holds general debates on situation in Palestine and occupied Arab territories, human rights bodies and Vienna Declaration

Human Rights Council

MORNING

30 Sep 2009

In the general debate on the human rights situation in Palestine and other Occupied Arab Territories, speakers said that the report of the Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict provided evidence that serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, perhaps amounting to war crimes and even crimes against humanity, were committed by both sides during the conflict. This required a full and impartial investigation, and there had to be full accountability for any serious violations of international law. The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission had done its best to execute what was a biased mandate in an even-handed way, and the report held both sides responsible.

The Palestinian conflict was at the heart of the situation in the Middle East, and there had to be a Palestine State. A solution for the Palestinian refugees also had to be found. One speaker said the root cause of the Gaza tragedy was the 1988 Hamas Charter, which was a Charter that called for Jews to be killed and Israel to be eliminated. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Gaza Fact-Finding Mission, and the Human Rights Council were urged to unequivocally condemn the Genocidal Hamas Charter which was a defamation of religion as well as a blueprint for murder.

http://newageislam.com/human-rights-council-holds-general-debates-on-situation-in-palestine-and-occupied-arab-territories,-human-rights-bodies-and-vienna-declaration/islam-and-the-west/d/1870

Life in Gaza: 'Hungry, freezing, and terrifying', Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Life in Gaza: 'Hungry, freezing, and terrifying'

Ibrahim asked me: "How much does it cost to travel outside Gaza?" I was telling him we have to wait and see, when my phone rang. It was a recorded message from PalTel [the Palestinian phone company] saying it had nothing to do with the messages being left by the Israelis on people's phones telling them to leave houses with wanted men or weapons. My son Ismail, who is 11, always goes to buy bread but today he refused to go alone. So I drove him and on the way he said: "Baba, don't drive near any mosques." He was afraid we might be bombed because several mosques have been attacked. When he we got the bakery he had to wait for two and half hours to get the sack of loaves they are allowing each family. When we got home Ibrahim started asking me: "When the crossings open, is it easy for everyone to leave?" The weather is freezing and we have no power – except for two to three hours a day – and no cooking gas. We're put blankets round us to keep warm. I do have a generator but I've only got five or six litres of fuel and I have to conserve it. I use it just long enough to heat the water for my wife and the girls to have a shower and to charge my mobile, which is very important. As mosques with Hamas connections are getting attacked we're worried again they are going to bomb the one next door. So we went back to my in-laws' house in western Rimal, behind Shifa hospital.

http://newageislam.com/life-in-gaza---hungry,-freezing,-and-terrifying---/islam-and-the-west/d/1095

Israeli media prescribes a strict low-information, low-truth diet, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Israeli media prescribes a strict low-information, low-truth diet

History did not begin with the Qassams

By Amira Hass

Nevertheless, the "lesson" remains abstract for most Israelis. The Israeli media prescribes a strict low-information, low-truth diet for its consumers, one rich in generals and their ilk. It is modest, and does not boast of our achievements: the slain children and the bodies rotting under the ruins, the wounded who bleed to death because our soldiers shoot at the ambulance crews, the little girls whose legs were amputated due to horrible wounds caused by various types of weaponry, the devastated fathers shedding bitter tears, the residential neighbourhoods that have been obliterated, the terrible burns caused by white phosphorus, and the mini-transfer - the tens of thousands of people who have been expelled from their homes, and are still being expelled at this very minute, ordered to cram into a built-up area that is constantly growing smaller and is also under sentence of incessant bombing and shelling.

Ever since the Palestinian Authority was established, the Israeli public relations machinery has exaggerated the danger of the military threat that the Palestinians pose to us. When they moved from stones to rifles and from Molotov cocktails to suicide bombings, from roadside bombs to Qassams and from Qassams to Grads, and from the PLO to Hamas, we said with a whoop of victory, "We told you. They're anti-Semites." And therefore, we have the right to go on a rampage.

http://newageislam.com/israeli-media-prescribes-a-strict-low-information,-low-truth-diet---/islam-and-the-west/d/1121

Peaceful revolution beginnings across Muslim-Jewish divide by Haroon Siddiqui, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Peaceful revolution beginnings across Muslim-Jewish divide by Haroon Siddiqui

The twinning will "strengthen the moderates," and help combat anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism.

Jewish peace activists continue to work with Palestinians and Arab Canadians, including in Toronto.

The annual Voices Forward festival is finishing its third run. As reported by the Star's Nicholas Keung, movies, music, plays and lectures about the Israeli occupation have triggered a peaceful dialogue, according to artistic director Amit Breuer, who moved to Canada from Israel four years ago.

A photo exhibit about Hebron is at the XEXE Gallery, 624 Richmond St. W., until next Saturday.

Yet another photo exhibit about the West Bank is in Toronto. Bil'in – Village Against the Wall catalogues the weekly protests held by that village against the Israeli security fence. The show is at Tinto's Café, 89 Roncesvalles Ave. until Tuesday.

There are other instances of co-operation across the religious divide.

The Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian Somali Congress have started a mentorship program to match young Somalis with accountants, engineers, lawyers, etc.

Bernie Farber of the Jewish Congress was quoted as saying: "The stress here is on the `Canadian' part of our names. We are trying to forge a path and make a statement we haven't been able to make before."

He told me: "This is Canada."

http://newageislam.com/peaceful-revolution-beginnings-across-muslim-jewish-divide-by-haroon-siddiqui/islamic-world-news/d/1011

How many Muslims are Radical Islamists?, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

How many Muslims are Radical Islamists?

How much fervor: Gallup polled over 50,000 Muslims across 10 countries and found that, if one defines radicals as those who deemed the 9/11 attacks "completely justified," their number constitutes about 7 percent of the total population. But if one includes Muslims who considered the attacks "largely justified," their ranks jump to 13.5 percent. Adding those who deemed the attacks "somewhat justified" boosts the number of radicals to 36.6 percent. Which figure should one adopt?

Gauge voter intentions: Elections measure Islamist sentiment untidily, for Islamist parties erratically win support from non-Islamists. Thus, Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 47 percent in 2007 elections, 34 percent of the vote in 2002 elections, and its precursor, the Virtue Party, won just 15 percent in 1999. The Islamic Movement's northern faction won 75 percent of the vote in the Israeli Arab city of Umm el-Fahm in 2003 elections while Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, won 44 percent of the vote in the Palestinian Authority in 2006. Which number does one select?

http://newageislam.com/how-many-muslims-are-radical-islamists?--/islamic-world-news/d/928

Israel’s ‘no’ to Palestinians costing them a great deal, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Israel’s ‘no’ to Palestinians costing them a great deal

By S. Nihal Singh

Israelis are doing precisely that — expanding their illegal settlements on the West Bank and expropriating even more land on the fringes of the Wall that replicates the doomed apartheid experiment in South Africa. All that the energetic US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice can do in response is to murmur her displeasure in an undertone.

Palestinians themselves are hopelessly divided between the Fatah and Hamas factions, the latter controlling a Gaza Strip converted by Israel into a vast open-air prison. The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ rationale for continuing his make-believe talks with Mr Olmert on an illusory peace process is that the alternative would be war. Arab efforts at reconciling the two Palestinian factions have yielded little but recrimination.

The truth is that with Americans perennially handicapped by the clout of the American-Jewish lobby and the love of the Christian evangelical Right for Israel, no US administration can do much to resolve the problem. Mr Barack Obama, who flaunts his liberal credentials, was the first to pay homage to the Israeli lobby, promoting the dubious Israeli claim to an undivided Jerusalem as its capital.

http://newageislam.com/israel%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98no%E2%80%99-to-palestinians-costing-them-a-great-deal/islam-and-the-west/d/744