Your Excellency Secretary General
Mr, Antonio Guterres,

On the 22nd anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325 and the annual open discussion at the Security Council for the advancement of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, the Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition for the Implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 would like to bring your attention to the fact that the suffering of Palestinian women living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has unprecedentedly escalated since this resolution was passed, due to the Israeli occupation’s ongoing, hostile policies, systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law that are disproportionally impacting women and girls in the OPT. These violations include extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, restriction on movement, military blockades, house demolitions, land confiscation and illegal de-facto and de-juri annexation, in addition to the ongoing isolation of areas of the OPT from one another. This has had both individual and collective impact on the lives of women, impeding their access to resources, compounded by the deteriorating economic situation due to the occupation’s control and dominance over land and resources. Added to this is the rise in poverty levels due to unemployment, military blockade on the Gaza Strip for over 15 years and the occupation’s exercise of systematic long-term violence against the Palestinian protected population in the OPT, settlement expansion combined with settlers’ violence and vandalism

The Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition strongly believes that 22 years since the passage of UNSC Resolution 1325 has not resulted in concrete measures for the advancement of the women, peace and security agenda to Palestinian women living under Israeli prolonged military occupation. A lot still need yet to be made by the Security Council to maintain peace and security for Palestinian women living under military occupation. To the contrary, complications and challenges to Palestinian women have increased in terms of implementing the WPS agenda, due to Israeli impediments to its implementation. Israel, the occupying power, has also placed enormous obstacles before Palestinian women who seek to implement this resolution, given its continued occupation of the OPT and the absence of a just and durable solution to end this prolonged belligerent occupation. No concrete measures were taken by the international community to implement UN resolutions related to the question of Palestine, namely UN Resolutions 242, 338, 194 and 2334. Instead, Israel is intent on confiscating and annexing more land to build settlements, which has severed any path to the establishment of an independent and contiguous Palestinian state. Instead, OPT has been transformed into isolated islands more like the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa, as indicated in the most recent evidence based-report by Amnesty International, describing Israel as an apartheid regime, where one racial group is discriminating against other racial groups.

The Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition, would also like to point out to the remarkable conclusions of a UN independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) in its recent to the UN General Assembly in New York on 20/10/2022, which considered the Israeli occupation as unlawful according to international law. The report called on the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice for an urgent advisory opinion on the illegality of this prolonged military occupation, and the impacts of the Israeli illegal measures and violations against the Palestinian civilian population in the 1967 OPT.

Your Excellency UN Secretary General,

As the UNSC is meeting to discuss the advancement of the WPS agenda, we would like to draw to their attention the double standards employed by the United Nations in dealing with its own resolutions, especially when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the practices of Israel, the occupying power against Palestinian civilian population. Israeli illegal policies in the OPT , has not only curtailed Resolution 1325 from guaranteeing protection for women and involving her in security and peacemaking, it has also thwarted all international tools and mechanisms for the protection of civilians in times of war and under occupation. This is due to the failure of the international human rights and humanitarian law especially the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protections of Civilians at time of War and under occupation. The reason for this is that the UN itself is discriminatory and has double standards in its handling conflicts, and peoples’ causes due to the huge imbalance in justice and the policy of impunity, which Israeli, the occupying power enjoys. These policies have allowed Israel to escape from accountability or any punitive measures in accordance to UN Charter and more specifically Article 11 of UNSC Resolution 1325, which demands that perpetrators of crimes and violations during war are not afforded impunity. The fact that Israel is treated as a country above the law, and the absence of any form of accountability has only encouraged it to commit more crimes and violations. A case in point is the recent murdering of Palestinian Journalist Shirine Abu Akleh, where no one has been held accountable thus far, although the incident was caught on tape and there is hard evidence proving that her death was the result of premeditated and extrajudicial killing by the Israeli army.

During its evaluation and review of its action plan, the Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition noted that Resolution 1325 and the nine subsequent resolutions, pinpointed the reasons for the outbreak and development of conflicts in various regions of the world to racial, religious and ethnic disputes. However, it excluded women under racist, colonialist occupation, which is the case of Palestinian women under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thus, it has disregarded all international resolutions pertaining to the rights of the Palestinian people, over and above Israel’s disregard for its responsibilities as an occupying power. This necessitates a special resolution addressing the status of Palestinian women under racist, colonialist occupation, and addressing the root causes of the suffering of Palestinian women and the major obstacle they face in meaningful political participation, and in moving forward in the advancement of the women, peace and security agenda.

Mr. Secretary General,

Finally, we in the Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition for the implementation of Resolution 1325, thank your Excellency for your understanding, and for conveying our concerns to all nation states during the open debate on WPS in the Security Council this year. We call on you to dedicate ample attention to the status of Palestinian women during the 22nd Security Council meeting on Resolution 1325, with the objective to develop and push forth the WPS agenda and put into action the role of international tools of accountability. We ask you to provide the necessary protection for Palestinian women under occupation, by closely overseeing the implementation of this resolution and the party responsible for impeding its application on the ground, namely, the Israeli occupying power that has exacerbated the suffering of Palestinian women at all levels and increased discriminatory measures against them.

With our sincere thanks and appreciation,
The Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition for the Implementation of UNSCR1325

Mr. President, Esteemed Members of the Security Council,

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to address you today, especially thankful to H.E. Ambassador Macharia Kamau, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary and the Republic of Kenya for the kind invitation.

For over 70 years, the UN and its various bodies have been seized of the Palestine question; repeatedly reviewing conditions, adopting resolutions, and dispatching fact-finding missions, to no avail. Sadly, this Council has been unable to assert authority, allowing this injustice to become a perpetual tragic human, moral, political and legal travesty.

So it would be disingenuous of me to come before you assuming I could inform you of something you do not already know. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the opportunity to communicate in a candid manner, not to recite endless statistics, nor to reiterate the ongoing pain of a people, deprived of their basic rights, including even the right to speak out, admonished not to “whine” or “complain,” as a means of silencing the victim.

The tragedy is that you know all of this; yet, it has had a minimal impact, if any, on the horrific conditions in Occupied Palestine.

I imagine it must be disheartening and frustrating for this distinguished organization and its members to find themselves trapped in this cycle of deliberate disdain and futility.

It is therefore imperative that this Council consider where it has gone wrong and what it can do to correct course and serve the cause of justice and peace.

Undoubtedly, the absence of accountability for Israel and of protection for the Palestinian people has enabled Israeli impunity to ride roughshod over the rights of an entire nation, allowing for perpetuation of a permanent settler-colonial occupation.

Mr. President,

Much of the prevailing political discourse overlooks reality and is diverted and subsumed by chimeras and distractions proffered by Israel and its allies under such banners as “economic peace,” “improving the quality of life,” “normalization,” “managing the conflict,” “containing the conflict,” or “shrinking the conflict.”

These fallacies must be dismantled. Volatile situations of injustice and oppression do not shrink. They expand and explode, with disastrous consequences. Similarly, the delusion of “imposing calm” under siege and systemic aggression, particularly as in Gaza, is an oxymoron, for calm or security on the one hand and occupation or captivity on the other are antithetical and irreconcilable.

Likewise, the fallacy of “confidence-building measures” is misguided since occupation breeds only contempt, distrust, resentment, and resistance. The oppressed cannot be brought to trust or accept handouts from their oppressor as an alternative to their right to freedom and justice.

The misleading and flawed “both sides” argument calling for “balance” in a flagrantly unbalanced situation is another attempt at obfuscation and generating misconceptions.

Israel’s impunity is further enhanced using such excuses as being the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East” or a “strategic ally,” or having “shared values,” or even for the sake of protecting its “fragile coalition.”

There has also been tacit and, at times overt, acceptance of Israel’s ideological, absolutist arguments, including the invocation of religious texts as a means to dismiss and supplant contemporary political and legal discourse and action. Hence, the so-called “Jewish State Law,” which allocates the right to self-determination exclusively to Jews in all of historic Palestine, is endorsed and normalized.

In the meantime, a massive disinformation machine persists in its racist maligning and demonizing of the Palestinian people, going so far as to label them “terrorists,” or a “demographic threat,” a dehumanizing formula exploited as a way to deny the right of millions of Palestine refugees to return.

Such slander has warped political focus and discourse globally. Some states have gone off on a tangent pursuing Palestinian textbooks for so-called “incitement,” or adopting the IHRA definition that conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, or criminalizing BDS, or intimidating and censoring academics and solidarity activists who stand up for Palestinian rights.

These distortions ignore the unequal and unjust laws designed to persecute Palestinians, individually and collectively. It is evidenced in the defamation of our political prisoners and the targeting of their families’ livelihoods, as though Israeli military courts or prison systems have anything to do with justice or legality.

The mindless refrain that Israel has the “right to defend itself,” while the Palestinian people are denied such a right, is perverse in that the occupier’s violence is justified as “self-defense” while the occupied are stigmatized as “terrorists.”

We cannot afford to disregard the context of occupation and its systemic aggression as the framing device for all critical assessments and action.

Excellencies,

Occupied Palestine, including Jerusalem, is the target of a comprehensive and pervasive policy of colonization and erasure, of displacement and replacement, in which Israel is appropriating everything Palestinian; our land and resources; our cultural and human heritage; our archeological sites, which we have safeguarded for centuries; our history; our cuisine; the names of our streets; and most egregiously the identity of Jerusalem, as we witness in the ethnic cleansing of the Old City, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan among others. Even our cemeteries have been desecrated such as the building of a so-called “museum of tolerance” on top of human remains in Maman’ Allah cemetery. And, Israel continues to stoke the flames of a “holy war,” with repeated assaults on our holy sites, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Jerusalem is being targeted in a deliberate campaign of annexation and distortion. Israel now brazenly declares its intent to complete the settlement siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the territorial contiguity of the West Bank, with its outrageous plans for E-1, Qalandiya airport (Atarot), “Pisgat Ze’ev” and “Giv’at HaMatos.”

We cannot be distracted by symbolic gestures that create a false impression of progress. Claims that the “time is not right,” or that it is “difficult now” to work for a peaceful solution, give license to Israel to persist in its perilous policies. Likewise, repeating a verbal commitment to the two-State solution, while one state is allowed to deliberately destroy the other, rings hollow.

Mr. President,

All of this does not preclude our recognition of our own shortcomings. We do not shirk our responsibility to speak out against internal violence, human rights abuses, corruption, or other such practices that are rejected and resented by our own people. It is our responsibility to carry out democratic reform and revitalize our body politic while ending our internal divisions. This is a Palestinian imperative.

But we must caution others against exploiting our shortcomings to justify Israeli crimes or international inaction, or to condition any positive engagement on the creation of an ideal system of governance in Palestine while we languish under a lawless system of Israeli control.

We ask that you, trustees of the rules-based order, uphold your responsibilities: provide us with protection from aggression and empower our people to amplify their voice, both in governance and liberation.

Esteemed Members of the Council,

Peace is not achieved by “normalizing the occupation,” sidelining the Palestine Question, or rewarding Israel by repositioning it as a regional superpower. Such an approach maintains the causes of regional instability and insecurity, while enabling Israel as a colonial apartheid State to superimpose “Greater Israel” on all of historic Palestine.

Generation after generation, the people of Palestine have remained committed to the justice of their cause, the integrity of their narrative, the authenticity of their history and culture, and their inviolable right to live in freedom, and dignity, as an equal among nations and in the fullness of our humanity.

It is time to reclaim the narrative of justice and invoke our collective will to activate the UN Charter and affirm the relevance of international law.

The time has come for courageous and determined action, not just to undo the injustice of the past but to chart a clear and binding course for a peaceful future of hope and redemption.

I thank you.

To view the full Speech as PDF

We, the undersigned global coalition of leaders –from civil society to academia, art, media, business, politics, indigenous and faith communities, and people of conscience around the world– call upon the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to act decisively to put an end to Israel’s notorious use of arms and military equipment for the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights against Palestinian civilians by immediately imposing a comprehensive two-way arms embargo on Israel.

In the spring of 2021, the world once again watched in horror as Israeli occupying forces attacked defenceless Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and inside Israel. Palestinian civilians peacefully protesting against colonisation of their land were assaulted with live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs, tear gas and skunk water. Israel’s deadly military aggression against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip was the fourth in a decade. Over 11 days, 248 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children. Thousands were wounded, and the reverberating effects of the use of explosive weapons on hospitals, schools, food security, water, electricity and shelter continue to affect millions.

This systematic brutality, perpetrated throughout the past seven decades of Israel’s colonialism, apartheid, pro-longed illegal belligerent occupation, persecution, and closure, is only possible because of the complicity of some governments and corporations around the world.

Symbolic statements of condemnation alone will not put an end to this suffering. In accordance with the relevant rules of the ATT, States Parties have legal obligations to put an end to irresponsible and often complicit trade of conventional arms that undermines international peace and security, facilitates commission of egregious crimes, and threatens the international legal order.

Under Article 6(3) of the ATT, States Parties undertook not to authorise any transfer of conventional arms if they have knowledge at the time of authorisation that arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements to which they are a Party.

Under Articles 7 and 11, they undertook not to authorise any export of conventional arms, munitions, parts and components that would, inter alia, undermine peace and security or be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.

It is clear that arms exports to Israel are inconsistent with these obligations. Invariably, Israel has shown that it uses arms to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, as documented by countless United Nations bodies and civil society organisations worldwide. Military exports to Israel also clearly enabled, facilitated and maintained Israel’s decades-long settler-colonial and apartheid regime imposed over the Palestinian people as a whole.

Similarly, arms imports from Israel are wholly inconsistent with obligations under the ATT. Israeli military and industry sources openly boast that their weapons and technologies are “combat proven” – in other words, field-tested on Palestinian civilians “human test subjects”. When States import Israeli arms, they are encouraging it to keep bombing Palestinian civilians and persist in its unlawful practices. No one –neither Israel, nor arms manufacturers in ATT States parties– should be allowed to profit from the killing or maiming of Palestinian civilians.

It is thus abundantly clear that imposing a two-way arms embargo on Israel is both a legal and a moral obligation. ATT States Parties must immediately terminate any current, and prohibit any future transfers of conventional arms, munitions, parts and components referred to in Article 2(1), Article 3 or Article 4 of the ATT to Israel, until it ends its illegal belligerent occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory and complies fully with its obligations under international law. Pending such an embargo, all States must immediately suspend all transfers of military equipment, assistance and munitions to Israel.

A failure to take these actions entails a heavy responsibility for the grave suffering of civilians – more deaths, more suffering, as thousands of Palestinian men, women and children continue to bear the brutality of a colonial belligerent occupying force– which would result in discrediting the ATT itself. It also renders States parties complicit in internationally wrongful acts through the aiding or abetting of international crimes.  A failure in taking action could also result in invoking the individual criminal responsibility of individuals of these States for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in accordance with Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Justice will remain elusive so long as Israel’s unlawful occupation, settler-colonialism, apartheid regime, and persecution and institutionalised oppression of the Palestinian people are allowed to continue, and so long as States continue to be complicit in the occupying Power’s crimes by trading weapons with it.

In conclusion, we believe that the ATT can make a difference in the Palestinian civilians’ lives. It has the potential, if implemented in good faith, to spare countless protected persons from suffering. If our call to stop leaving the Palestinian people behind when it comes to implementation of the ATT is ignored, the raison d'être of the ATT will be shattered.

Joining organisations:

1. Action Sécurité Ethique Républicaines
2. Adalah Justice Project
3. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
4. AFPS 63
5. Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
6. Aldameer Association for Human Rights
7. Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man
8. Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society
9. American Muslims for Palestine
10. Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
11. Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ)
12. Arab Canadian Lawyers Association
13. Arab Organization for Human Rights
14. Argenteuil Solidarité Palestine
15. Asociación Americana de Juristas
16. Association Belgo-Palestinienne WB
17. Association femmes plurielles
18. Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS)
19. AssoPacePalestina
20. Australia Palestine Advocacy Network
21. Australian Centre for International Justice
22. Australians For Palestine
23. Badayl
24. BDS Australia
25. Begian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
26. Campagne BDS France
27. Canadian BDS Coalition
28. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)
29. Center for Constitutional Rights
30. Center for International Policy
31. Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios Estratégicos para la Seguridad y el Desarrollo Social CIESED A.C.
32. CNAPD - Coordination Nationale d'Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie
33. Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine
34. Collectif 69 de Soutien au Peuple Palestinien
35. Collectif BDS 57
36. Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine
37. Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines
38. Columban missionaries Britain
39. Columbia Law Students for Palestine
40. Combatants for Peace
41. Comitato BDS Campania
42. Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe
43. Comité pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient asbl
44. Community Action Center - Al-Quds University
45. Confederación Intersindical Gallega (CIG)
46. Cultura è Libertà, una campagna per la Palestina
47. Dagropass
48. De Palestijnse gemeenschap in Nederland
49. Defense for Children -Palestine (DCI-Palestine)
50. Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
51. docP - BDS Netherlands
52. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
53. European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP)
54. European Legal Support Center
55. Femmes Unies pour la Paix dans la région des Grands Lacs
56. FILEF Sydney Federation of Italian Migrant Workers
57. Finnish-Arab Friendship Society
58. Friends of Palestine Tasmania Inc
59. Gaza Action Ireland
60. Gesellschaft Schweiz Palästina GSP/ASP
61. Global Kairos Asia Pacific Solidarity For Palestine (GKAPS)
62. Good Shepherd Collective
63. Housing and Land Rights Network
64. Human Rights and Democratic Participation Center “SHAMS”
65. Human Rights Network Nigeria
66. ICAHD Finland
67. ICAHD UK
68. Independent Jewish Voices Canada
69. Indian Writers Forum
70. Indo Palestine Solidarity Forum
71. International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD)
72. International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific
73. Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
74. Jewish Voice For Peace
75. Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
76. Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
77. Karapatan
78. Kenya Human Rights Commission
79. Labor for Palestine
80. Manushya Foundation
81. National Association of Democratic Lawyers (South Africa)
82. National Justice & Peace Network (NJPN)
83. National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Subcommittee
84. Nederlands Palestina Komitee
85. Newweapons research group
86. Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI)
87. North Notts Unite Community
88. NOVACT
89. Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
90. Palestine Solidarity Network - Edmonton
91. Palestinian and Jewish Unity
92. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
93. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)
94. Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO)
95. Pax Christi International
96. Pax Christi, England and Wales
97. Paz con Dignidad
98. Platform of French NGOs for Palestine
99. Salaam ragazzi dell'Olivo, comitato di Trieste
100. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
101. SODePAZ
102. Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative
103. The Civic Coalition for Palestinians Right in Jérusalem
104. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
105. The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC)
106. The National Association of Human Rights Defenders
107. The Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
108. The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC)
109. The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy-MIFTAH
110. UJFP French Jewish union for peace
111. Union syndicale Solidaires
112. US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
113. US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
114. Visualizing Palestine
115. Vrede vzw
116. Vredesactie
117. War on Want
118. Women for Palestine
119. Women in Black Vienna
120. Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling

Joining individuals:

121. Ahmed Ben
122. Ahmed Reda Tolba
123. Alaa Shalaby
124. Alaaeddine Tatak
125. Aline Shaban
126. Amin Abbas
127. Andrea Balduzzi
128. Angie Mindel
129. Ann McNicholas
130. Anne Peacey
131. Ashley Tellis
132. Atamjit Singh
133. Audrey J Bomse
134. Badee M.T. Aldwaik
135. Baruti Likoyi
136. Bernadette McPhe
137. Chirag Shah
138. Claudia Karas
139. Claudia Schiavelli
140. Denise Peillon
141. Denotter JJ
142. Devaki Khanna
143. Dr. Ibrahim Lada’a
144. Dr. Nerina Cecchin
145. Egbert Harmsen
146. Marc Fayard
147. Firoz Ahmad
148. Flavia Lepre
149. Françoise Abadie
150. Frstot Marie-Paule
151. Gabriel Mondragón Toledo
152. Geeta Kapur
153. Geeta Kapur
154. Georges Franco
155. Gillard Francois
156. Gina Cardosi
157. Githa Hariharan
158. Gregory Kotoy
159. Gyan Prakash
160. Haidi Ali Muhammad Eltayeb
161. Hélène Le Cacheux
162. Herman De Ley
163. Huwaida Arraf
164. Ian Ampleford
165. Ian Mc Cabe
166. Indu Chandrasekhar
167. Jake Javanshir
168. James Dickins
169. James Lafferty
170. John King
171. Joop Hoekstra
172. Julia Auf Dem Brinke
173. Julie Hart
174. Kalyani Chaudhuri
175. Karel Arnaut
176. Karin Brothers
177. Karin Verelst
178. Kathryn Kelly
179. Kellie Tranter
180. Lauren Speiser
181. Laurent De Wangen
182. Lee Rhiannon
183. Luisa Morgantini
184. M.N. Harakeh
185. Madeline Lutjeharms
186. Maha Abdallah
187. Maha Alami
188. Malini Bhattacharya
189. Mani Shankar Aiyar
190. Marcy Newman
191. Maria Bartolacci
192. Marjorie Cohn
193. Martin Mavenjina
194. Massimiliano Masini
195. Maxime Florentin
196. Maya Devi
197. Michael Letwin
198. Michel Gevers
199. Mohamad Arouki
200. Mohamed Aboelazm
201. Mohammad Al Nabulsi
202. Mohan Rao
203. Monique Vincent
204. Muralidharan K
205. Nalini Nayak
206. Nandini Sundar
207. Naresh Dadhich
208. Nasir Tyabji
209. Navdeep Mathur
210. Nick Deane
211. Nozomi Takahashi
212. Oishik Sircar
213. P A Azeez
214. Pamela Blakelock
215. Pamela Philipose
216. Paola Manduca
217. Patrick Lechopier
218. Persis Ginwalla
219. Pierre Bordone
220. Pushpa Achanta
221. Pushpamala N
222. Raffaele Spiga
223. Rajni Palriwala
224. Rev Joseph Ryan
225. Rey Asis
226. Rudolf Knutti
227. S. Raghunandana
228. Salim Yusufji
229. Sellin Jean-Christophe
230. Shafey Kidwai
231. Sharib Aqleem Ali
232. Sigour Brigitte
233. Sonia Fayman
234. Stephen Flaherty
235. Sue Ingham
236. Sumanta Banerjee
237. Terri Ginsberg
238. Valter Mutt
239. Vinay Bharadwaj
240. Vincent Basabé
241. Winfried Belz
242. Yousuf Saeed
243. YVes Goaer
244. Yves Jardin

To View the Letter as PDF

Here is what we know: we know that almost three-fourths of Israelis want the full evacuation of the settlements NOW. We know that two-thirds of Israeli settlers are willing to leave their settlements if adequately compensated.

We know that Palestinians can stop violence against Israel -- they have done it before, under Barak for instance, when a whole year went by and not a single Israeli was killed in an attack. And we know that when a strong Palestinian Authority is in place, while the prospect for an end to the conflict is within sight, Palestinians turn away from violence.[1]

We know that Palestinians and Israelis can build bridges -- they have built them before, and they want to build them again.

We know that they can reach a compromise: in Taba, in January 2001, just a few days before the elections that were to make Ariel Sharon Prime Minister, the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating delegations issued a joint statement in which they said in part, “the two sides declare that they have never been closer to reaching an agreement and it is thus our shared belief that the remaining gaps could be bridged with the resumption of negotiations following the Israeli elections.”[2]

We know that the Arab countries are tired of their war with Israel and that they are willing to establish full and normal relations with the Jewish state. Last year, when they met in Beirut, they issued a statement that said that once a just and mutually acceptable settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis is reached, the Arab countries would “consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region,” and that they would “establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.”[3]

We know that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not interested in moving the peace process forward and that their aim is not a happy and peaceful co-existence with Israel. We also know that their strategy of confronting Sharon has not cowed the Israeli public into rejecting Sharon nor has it forced Israel to withdraw, as Hezbollah's attacks on the Israeli army forced the Israelis to evacuate after twenty years in Southern Lebanon. Instead, it has given Ariel Sharon the very thing he has thrived on: an excuse to avoid serious political negotiations and cover to continue building settlements -- and worse, new a wall that is quietly swallowing swaths of Palestinian lands.

We know that Ariel Sharon and his Likud party are also not interested in moving the peace process forward. At best, they intend to tolerate a collection of Palestinian Bantustans, with token political sovereignty and no independent economy (indeed, a central tenet of the Likud is that there shall be “no Palestinian state West of the Jordan [River]”), and at worst they are willing to begin transferring Palestinian populations out of the Occupied Territories, as Israel's minister of tourism is now calling for in his tour of the US Bible Belt.

We also know that Ariel Sharon's strategy of attacking the Palestinian Authority, assassinating Hamas leaders, and collectively punishing Palestinian populations, has failed utterly to bring about security to the Israelis. Indeed, all but one of the ninety two suicide bombings since the start of this Intifada two and a half years ago have taken place under Ariel Sharon's watch.[4]

As for the so-called “Road Map”, we know that the Palestinian Authority, under the new leadership of Prime Minister Abu-Mazen, has officially accepted it without reservations. By contrast, Ariel Sharon has issued more than one hundred objections and has so far fundamentally rejected it by insisting that violence must stop before proceeding with talks (the very deadlock the map was designed to unlock), and has announced as off the negotiating table the issue of the Palestinians' right of return, an issue the Map explicitly accepts as legitimate for compromise at later stages.

Now for the big unknown: Will George W. Bush push Ariel Sharon to accept the map and to begin its implementation? Will he emulate his father and exert some of his own massive domestic “political capital”?

Those who say that George W. Bush should not risk political suicide by emulating his father forget two basic facts about the 1992 presidential runoff: first, George Bush senior was running against one of the biggest cheerleaders of Israel at the time, Bill Clinton, among whose natural constituency anyway was indeed the Jewish vote; and second, even though George Bush senior was no darling of the Republican base, let alone the poster boy of the far right, and he was nevertheless still able to win Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and even Florida.[5]

The question then is: what has George W. Bush to risk by pushing Ariel Sharon to accept the Road Map? What can the right-wing pro-Israel bloc do? Will they really mete out severe political punishment to the most pro-Israel president since Harry Truman? And would the Christian Right really sacrifice its prodigal son for the sake of pleasing Sharon?

And what if George Bush’s opponent ended up being Joseph Lieberman? How much can George W. Bush count on the Jewish vote then to deliver Florida for him anyway, lest there be a recount?

George W. Bush has a chance to do something truly great for a change. The political risks are paltry compared to the potentially monumental gains. But will he do it? And if not, why not?

Notes:

[1] 'Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles' -- http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0i5d0
[2] Joint Statement, signed by Ehud Barak's negotiating team, Taba, Egypt, January 27, 2001 -- http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0j7o0
[3] 'Arab Peace Initiative: full text', March 28, 2002 -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4383912,00.html
[4] 'Suicide and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles' -- http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0i5d0
[5] 1992 election results: http://www.multied.com/elections/1992state.html
2000 election results: http://www.multied.com/elections/2000map.html

Mr. Ahmed Bouzid is President of Palestine Media Watch and author of "Framing the struggle." He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from Pennsylvania, USA.

Dear all,

The multi-headed other side is stepping up its media offensive, judging from the proliferation of all kinds of sites and the millions of dollars that are being poured in advertisements in all the major papers.

According to my latest reckoning, the following are pro-Israeli groups out there:

.http://www.camera.org -- Camera
.http://www.imra.org.il -- IMRA - media analysis
.http://www.memri.org -- Memri - translations of Arabic media
.http://www.honestreporting.com -- HonestReporting
.http://www.pmw.org.il -- Palestinian Media Watch
.http://www.british-israel-group.org/ -- British-Israel-Group (BIG)
.http://www.eyeonthepost.org -- Critiques of Washington Post
.http://www.tampabayprimer.org -- Critiqes of St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
.http://www.meimad.org/ -- Hasbara on-line
.http://www.fair-reporting.com/ -- FairReporting

I am sure there are more out there I am missing.

Also, whether it pans out or not, the Godfather of the other side's PR machine in the US, Benjamin Netanyahu, was apparently offered the post of Foreign Minister, an indication of how important it is for Sharon to keep the PR machine in the US humming (in addition to keeping his nemesis close by and in check). To be sure, Netanyahu's crude gimmicks have no legs in Europe or even in Israel, but the man knows how to play his gullible Americans and loves to perform in this country -- the land where O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are two of the most highly rated talk shows in the US today.

In short, this is no time to slack or to give the relentless opposition an inch. With Sharon going all right-wing, with no Shimon Peres shmoozing and confusing Larry King with nice phrases, this is yet another opportunity to recommit ourselves to the endless, but crucial task, of raising our voice and ensuring that the media does its job of boldly informing us of what is taking place, and honestly and accuractely as humanly possible.

If you are not part of a PMWATCH chapter, please consider joining one now.Go to the main page -- http://www.pmwatch.org -- and select from the drop down list below the front page action call.

If your paper or media outlet is not in the list, please think about heading a chapter for PMWATCH. To find out more, please go to:

http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/volunteer/mainleader.asp

For stories mentioning the work of Palestine Media Watch and other pro-Palestinian media watch organizations, please see:

http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/chronicle/mediamentions.html

The opposition is well-financed and has Madison Avenue PR houses for consultants. They have spent millions of dollars on slick campaigns, and plan to spend millions more. We, by contast, are purely self-sustained, purely grass-roots, and have nothing but the facts and a commitment to the truth for fuel. And yet, we, and the few other pro-Palestinian media watch groups out there, are making them sweat and jump hurtles. They are finding out to their frustration that the media have learned to answer them with, "well, pro-Palestinians think that we are pro-Israel in our coverage...." That is why it is crucial that the media hear from us every day and why you need to stay involved if you have been with us, and to get involved if you have not yet.

Thanks,

Ahmed Bouzid
Palestined Media Watch
http://www.pmwatch.org
(610) 993 - 0608
Please keep PMWATCH financially afloat:
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/donations/

Despite the evidence, the simple view that Palestinians slaughter civilians and Israelis at worst unintentionally or mistakenly kill them (with "stray bullets" and "errant shells") still prevails, unshaken, in the reporting of the conflict by all the major U.S. newspapers. The result is coverage that reports, as a matter of routine, suicide bombings by Palestinians with blaring headlines and Page One photographs, while the killing of Palestinian civilians (even children) is covered with little fanfare.

This occurs even though human-rights organizations on the ground report that Israel does target civilians, deliberately and systematically. Physicians for Human Rights concluded that Israeli soldiers "are specifically aiming at peoples' heads"; and Human Rights Watch issued a report May 3 concerning actions in Jenin, stating, in part, that Palestinian civilians there "were killed willfully or unlawfully" by the Israeli military, which "used Palestinian civilians as 'human shields' and used indiscriminate and excessive force."

Yet coverage of the conflict continues to sketch a far different reality. Some examples:

On June 21, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers opened fire on the Jenin marketplace in broad daylight, killing four Palestinians -- three children and a schoolteacher -- and wounding dozens. The IDF claimed that the soldiers erred in firing the shells and said it was opening an investigation. In a survey of 20 U.S. papers, Palestine Media Watch discovered that only The Seattle Times ran a Page One photo of the attack. Of the 20, 11 did run a front-page story on the shelling, but of that number, five reported in their headlines as a matter of fact that the shelling was "a mistake" -- as in the San Francisco Chronicle's "Israeli tanks mistakenly kill 4 civilians in West Bank." Of the 11 that ran a front-page story, only four mentioned in the headline that most of the victims were children.

Or take the Gaza bombing July 22, when a Hamas leader was killed along with nine sleeping children and five more civilians. Of the 17 papers whose July 23 front page was examined by Palestine Media Watch, only six ran a Page One picture above the fold depicting the aftermath of the attack, and only two (the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune) mentioned in the headline that children were among those killed.

Speaking of pictures, between March 28 and Aug. 1, The Philadelphia Inquirer published 13 above-the-fold photographs depicting the Israeli toll after suicide bombings, while publishing only one above-the-fold picture depicting the Palestinian toll after Israeli attacks. Moreover, during that same period, the Inquirer published 10 front-page photos showing Palestinians. Of those 10, six depicted militants, suicide bombers, and would-be suicide bombers.

Also quite telling is the fact that during that same period, the Inquirer ran only two Page One photos showing Israelis in a slightly negative light (one showing soldiers patrolling the streets, the other showing a soldier yelling at civilians), and both were small in size and below the fold. And this was during the height of Operation Defensive Shield this spring, when 497 Palestinians were killed.

The vocabulary used in covering the conflict also reveals how the U.S. media are entrenched in the paradigm that views Israelis as engaged in self-defense and never intentionally targeting civilians. A LexisNexis database search for the words "retaliation" or "retaliate" within the text of news reports filed from Israel/Palestine and published in The Washington Post over a 19-month period (from the start of the Intifada to this May) turned up 32 news stories that used the words "retaliation" or "retaliate" somewhere in the text and not in the context of a quotation. Of those, 31 instances were specifically in reference to Israeli actions and were presented as facts rather than as a point of view or a claim made by Israeli officials. In other words, according to The Washington Post, Israel never initiates violent actions, but only "retaliates" -- Israel always acts in self-defense.

Another LexisNexis search for the word "terror" within news reports filed from Israel and published in the Post over the 17 months following the start of the Intifada revealed that the word was used exclusively to describe Palestinian violence.

The examples I cite are not the exception but the rule. Needless to say, commitment to the prevailing paradigm is not confined to the printed press. The electronic media are just as guilty.

Unless and until American journalists free themselves from the blinders they have decided to put on when covering the Middle East conflict, we will continue to suffer reporting that avoids the obvious and often presents as obviously true what is misleading, incomplete, or outright false.

THE DAY will come, hopefully soon, when everyone, and not just those watching the Palestinian-Israeli conflict up close, will look back to this time with utter astonishment and disbelief and ask: Why was the American media totally silent over Israeli war crimes against Palestinian children? Why didn't they rise up, through their editorials and their on-air commentaries, with disgust and indignation over Israel's policy of killing children and innocent civilians as a tactic to pressure Palestinians to turn against their leadership? When such a day comes, will editors be able to legitimately plead ignorance? Unlikely. The evidence has been overwhelming, and everywhere: from day one of this Intifada, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Peace Now, Gush Shalom, B'tselem, along with the United Nations Human Rights Commission, and many, many other groups, have been denouncing the Israeli army's policy of shooting at children to kill.

As far back as December 2000, only three months after the outbreak of the Intifada, Amnesty International concluded that: “For a force trained in policing riots and equipped and prepared for stone throwers, neither stones nor petrol bombs should be lethal. Therefore there should be no need for the use of firearms, let alone lethal force, against stone throwers.”

And yet, the killing and maiming has continued, unabated, to the tune of 80 Palestinian children younger than 15 and 197 below the age of 18, and tens of thousands of wounded, while the media have stood by in utter silence. Indeed, not one editorial in any of the main media outlets that I can remember since the outbreak of the Intifada a year and a half ago has been published that stated, unambiguously or otherwise, that although Israel has a right to defend itself, it has no right to kill and maim children and innocent civilians as a pressure tactic; as a policy. Keeping to a long-standing tradition of ignoring what human rights organisations have to say (unless they are targeting America's official “enemies”), the US mainstream media have decided to simply look the other way.

But then reports of such atrocities began to appear in the mainstream media itself, under the very noses of editorial writers. Last October, for instance, in a gripping article by New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, published in the October issue of Harper's magazine, we read about the Israeli army's routine practice of inciting Palestinian children and then shooting them to kill. Hedges also appeared on NPR's Fresh Air on Oct. 30, 2001, where he told millions of listeners the following: “I've seen death squads kill families in Algeria or El Salvador. But I'd never seen soldiers bait or taunt kids like this and then shoot them for sport. It was — I just — even now, I find it almost inconceivable. And I went back every day, and every day it was the same.”

Then came the eyewitness accounts of Israeli soldiers who are now refusing to serve in the occupied territories, citing their objection to “illegal orders” for unleashing death and violence against civilians. In their statements, the soldiers state: “We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the state of Israel for long weeks every year... were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people; we, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this occupation exacts from both sides; we shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.”

And lately, a heated, passionate debate within Israel itself is raging about Israel's crimes against civilians. In a Feb. 10 piece in Israel's Haaretz newspaper, veteran journalist Gideon Levy wrote bitterly that “the Israeli army has totally shaken off any and all moral responsibility for the killing of these children”, noting that “in not one of these cases did the Israeli army spokesman take the trouble to do the minimum human necessary thing — to express sorrow at the death of the children. The only conclusion is that the Israeli army is not sorry about their killing. That is the message to those who did the killing and to the families of those who were killed. No less grave, the Israeli army did not even contemplate investigating the circumstances of the deaths”.

Levy goes on to observe: “The fact is that not everything is permitted. When the Israeli army wanted to prevent immoral and illegal actions, it was able to do so. There are two offences that Israeli army soldiers have rarely committed during the years of the occupation — sexual harassment and looting.”

As is well known, Israel cannot engage in any atrocities if the government of the United States decides that it must stop. And the US government will not tolerate such atrocities if a chorus of outrage were raised by the US media. If the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, the USA Today, the LA Times, and other papers, along with commentators on NPR, CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, started publishing and airing unambiguous condemnations of Israel's policy of killing children, you can bet that the US administration will ensure that such killing stops at once before the outcry against Israel spirals out of control — and anything spiralling out of control is the thing the US (and any government) fears the most. (A campaign of outcries against US moves to do as they please with the Taleban and Al Qaeda “detainees”, with total disregard to the Geneva Conventions, certainly has pressured the administration to begin worrying at least about seeming to respect international law.)

In other words, the moral responsibility of the US media is clear and direct: the chain from silence to bullet is present, real, indisputable and straightforward, and no matter how they choose to justify this silence, members of the US media cannot shirk that responsibility and maintain any claim to moral integrity.

Members of the US media need to take a clear stand against the illegal practices of the Israeli army now, before the train of history passes them and the ignominy of having stood silent while crimes against humanity were committed forever blots their already soiled record on this unending tragedy; a tragedy in whose prolonged agony they must sadly accept a share of responsibility.

The writer is president of Palestine Media Watch. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times