Saturday, April 28, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Danish protester: 'No one would care if a Palestinian was hit with a rifle'
Without the video, all Andreas Ias would have to show for his weekend bicycle ride in the Jordan valley would be two stitches and a slightly swollen lower lip – plus a hardening anger about the treatment by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians.
But a few seconds of footage uploaded to YouTube catapulted the 20-year-old Danish activist into the media spotlight, drew statements from the Israeli prime minister, president and chief of staff, led to the disciplining of an Israeli army officer, and prompted debate over the use of video cameras as a weapon of modern warfare.
Nevertheless, Ias – not his real name – is dismayed that in the aftermath of him being struck in the face with a soldier's rifle, so little attention has focused on what he describes as the routine aggression, harassment and displacement suffered by Palestinian villagers in the area.
"It has been framed in the media as the 'Danish incident', as though this is not how the IDF normally act," he said, swathed in a red keffiyeh in a Ramallah cafe. "But what happened to me is nothing compared to the systematic violence carried out on Palestinians. This is not a single incident, it's what we see every day. But it's very difficult to move the focus from me to the issues of the Palestinian struggle in the West Bank."
While volunteering for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the West Bank over the past six weeks, Ias says he has witnessed "a process of ethnic cleansing that has been going on since the start of the occupation".
"I've seen people whose homes have been demolished in the middle of the night by dozens of soldiers, people who are left with nothing. I've seen Bedouin villages without running water or electricity next to Israeli settlements with total control over water resources. I've seen people denied their basic human rights and any hope for the future. You can't experience that without it changing you."
Last Saturday, a group of 150-200 Palestinians and international activists set off on a bicycle ride through the Jordan valley to visit villages in an act of solidarity. As they reached route 90, the main road running north to south through the valley, they found their way blocked by the Israel Defence Forces.
According to Ias, the soldiers said the cyclists could not proceed "for security reasons". There was a standoff. "We were very peaceful, singing songs, clapping hands. It was a good, empowering experience, people were happy," he said.
But as one of the organisers moved forward, Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner, the deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade who was in charge of the operation, removed his rifle. "He obviously wanted us to move back, but he didn't say anything."
According to Ias's account, a Dutch activist was pushed to the ground and a Palestinian man was struck from behind. Then Eisner slammed the base of his rifle into Ias's face. "I fell to the ground. I was surprised and disoriented. I didn't feel any pain until later."
Eisner, who was forbidden to speak directly to the media, gave a different version of events to colleagues and friends. He said the activists were armed with sticks and were violent, and that one had hit him, breaking a finger. But, he added, "these stories do not interest the chief of staff or my commander. We know the history of these anarchists. They came with sticks and broke my hand – but no one will tell and film that."
He said his actions were necessary. "It was a two-minute confrontation so, yes, it's true that some pictures look bad, but I used a weapon in a [non-lethal] manner and I did not put anyone's life in danger."
Eisner – who was seen in the video wearing a type of kippah associated with the national-religious settler movement – and his colleagues claimed that the clip uploaded to YouTube was edited to distort the incident and cut out violence by the activists. Ias rejects this, saying the organisers have offered to hand over the unedited footage to the Israeli media to prove there was "no aggression, no attempt to violence, not a single stone picked up".
The military, which routinely films such incidents, mainly for intelligence-gathering, has not produced any footage.
Ias was taken to hospital in Jericho for treatment, later rejoined the activists, and "went home feeling it was just another incident in a lot of incidents I have seen in the past few weeks. I didn't expect it to have any consequences at all."
But the video was picked up and broadcast by Israeli television on Sunday – the same day the Israeli authorities launched a big security operation to prevent hundreds of international activists landing at Ben Gurion airport to attend a week of solidarity actions in the West Bank.
By Monday, the video had appeared on countless news websites and the story was running in papers round the world. The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, the president, Shimon Peres, and the military's chief of staff, Benny Gantz, all made statements saying Eisner's actions were unacceptable and in breach of Israeli military standards of conduct.
On Wednesday, Eisner was dismissed from his post for two years although he has been allowed to remain in the army.
"The incident that took place in the Jordan river valley is extremely serious and in absolute contradiction with [IDF] ethics," an army spokesman said. "There are different bodies, some of them anarchists and belligerent war instigators, disparaging our soldiers to create a buzz in the media, but we must maintain IDF ethics and avoid getting dragged into a provocation."
Eisner told colleagues: "I did not expect this to be the decision. I thought they accepted my version of events and understood it. They showed me the door out. I need to digest the decision and then plan my future."
He said he did not "accept this as a moral failure in any way [but] it could have been a professional mistake to use a weapon in front of the cameras".
Ias is taking legal advice on the possibility of a civil suit against the officer.
After finishing high school in Aarhus, the young Dane worked in factories and hotels to save money for his trip to the West Bank. He arrived in mid-February, and will leave in three weeks when his tourist visa expires. He attended a two-day workshop in Ramallah to learn about his legal rights as an international activist, non-violent protest and Palestinian culture. He did not plan to spend any time in Israel.
"The ISM differs from other international solidarity groups in that we are willing to try to actively oppose the occupation, rather than just monitor it," Ias said. "We will use our bodies to intervene, to challenge. So if we see soldiers trying to grab Palestinians at a demo, we will hold on to them to make the arrest difficult."
But, he added: "I've not been presented with one single incident of ISM members being violent. I've not seen any statements espousing terrorism. The ISM is founded on principles of non-violence."
He said the international community had a duty to intervene when wrong was being done. "The colour of my skin and my nationality gives me great privileges. We have to use that to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians."
The Israeli government rejects the image of the ISM as peace activists. "They parade themselves as a non-violent movement but they refuse to condemn suicide bombings or attacks by Palestinians on innocent civilians," said the government spokesman Mark Regev. "They educate their members in an aggressively anti-Israel position. They never criticise human rights abuses on the Palestinian side."
This, Regev stressed, did not justify the actions of the Israeli soldier.
The incident triggered wide debate in Israel about activism and the power of the camera. B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, has been giving cameras to Palestinians for several years, encouraging them to document the behaviour of Israeli soldiers. The IDF has trained around 100 combat soldiers to use video cameras, partly to identify protesters, partly to counter what they see as activist propaganda, and sometimes to use in internal investigations.
Many commentators have pointed out that the IDF would not have taken action over the incident had it not been filmed and broadcast round the world. But, Ias said, his nationality and skin colour contributed to the attention. "The global media wouldn't care at all if a Palestinian had been hit in the face with a rifle.Coca-Cola habit linked to New Zealander's death
A pathologist has said a New Zealand woman's eight-litre-a-day Coca-Cola habit probably contributed to her death, a conclusion that led the soft-drink giant to note that even water can be deadly in excessive amounts.
Natasha Harris, 30, of Invercargill, died from a heart attack in February 2010.
Dr Dan Mornin testified at an inquest on Thursday that Harris probably suffered from hypokalemia, or low potassium, which he thinks was caused by her excessive consumption of Coke and overall poor nutrition, Fairfax Media reported.
Symptoms of hypokalemia can include abnormal heart rhythms.
Mornin said toxic levels of caffeine, a stimulant found in cola, also may have contributed to her death.
Harris's partner, Chris Hodgkinson, testified that Harris drank between 8 and 10 litres of Coke every day.
"The first thing she would do in the morning was to have a drink of Coke beside her bed and the last thing she would do at night was have a drink of Coke," Hodgkinson said. "She was addicted to Coke."
Hodgkinson said she ate little and smoked about 30 cigarettes a day. In the months before her death, he said, Harris had experienced blood pressure problems and lacked energy.
He said that on the morning of her death, Harris helped get her children ready for school before slumping against a wall. He called emergency services and tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but couldn't revive her.
Another pathologist, Dr Martin Sage, said in a deposition that "it is certainly well demonstrated that excessive long- or short-term cola ingestion can be dramatically symptomatic, and there are strong hypothetical grounds for this becoming fatal in individual cases."
With the evidence in the case now complete, the coroner's office will compile and issue a final report into the death.
Lisa te Morenga, a nutritionist at the University of Otago, told the Associated Press that excessive consumption of any type of liquid in a cool climate would be likely to play havoc with the body's natural systems and balances.
Karen Thompson, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Oceania, said in a statement that its products were safe.
"We concur with the information shared by the coroner's office that the grossly excessive ingestion of any food product, including water, over a short period of time with the inadequate consumption of essential nutrients, and the failure to seek appropriate medical intervention when needed, can be dramatically symptomatic."
Top of the Agenda: World Leaders Vow to Confront Nuclear Threats
Top of the Agenda: World Leaders Vow to Confront Nuclear Threats
Fifty-three world leaders pledged to jointly combat the global nuclear terrorism threat at the end of a two-day nuclear summit in Seoul, South Korea. The leaders vowed to pursue nuclear disarmament and combat nuclear proliferation, while supporting "peaceful uses of nuclear energy" (al-Jazeera). Concerns over a planned North Korean rocket launch for next month dominated the summit, prompting international condemnation. U.S. President Barack Obama, who called for a "world without nuclear weapons," met with Russian and Chinese leaders to discuss Iran's nuclear program, which the West contends is for manufacturing weapons.
Analysis
"Since his Prague speech on nuclear disarmament in 2009, [Obama] has shifted attitudes both in the United States and internationally, changing the context in which these issues are debated. He moved things further on in South Korea by stating more forthrightly than he has in the past that the United States has more nuclear weapons than it needs," says this Guardian editorial.
"On the one hand, states such as Iran and North Korea must not develop nuclear arsenals. On the other hand, the established nuclear powers--such as the U.S., Russia and China--must make deep cuts in stockpiles. Only by making such cuts can they retain the moral right to demand that others refrain from building nuclear bombs," says this Financial Times editorial.
"Some of the warnings about nuclear terrorism in the wake of 9/11 were overdone; a lot of the claims that we would face a fifty-fifty chance of an attack were rhetorical flourishes at best, and there are a lot of reasons to believe that pulling off a nuclear attack is more difficult and less attractive than a lot of people thought. But that doesn't mean that it isn't a real risk," says CFR's Michael A. Levi in this CFR Interview.
Top of the Agenda: Paris Hosts Friends of Syria
Top of the Agenda: Paris Hosts Friends of Syria
Fifty-seven representatives of the so-called Friends of Syria--countries that have imposed sanctions on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad--met in Paris yesterday to discuss ways to maintain financial pressure on the embattled Syrian regime (NYT). The conference comes amid a fragile UN-Arab League-engineered cease-fire between the Syrian military and opposition forces, which both sides claim has been undermined by the other. At the same time, a small team of UN observers is in Syria "setting up operating headquarters" before a total of 250 peacekeepers are deployed to monitor the cease-fire.
Analysis
"And while Syrian troops did stop shooting, they did not pull heavy armor out of cities, as the Annan plan demands. But some whisper that the point of the plan is simply to make it more difficult, once it inevitably fails, for Mr Assad's friends to protect him," notes the Economist.
"What's often lost in the account of crisis given by po-faced humanitarians, with their pictures of dead bodies and tales of indecipherable evil, is how inspiring the revolt originally was for many ordinary Syrians. Virtually all the people I know in Syria have changed their opinions radically in the last year, and their demands have grown bolder and more ambitious," writes James Harkin for ForeignPolicy.com.
"As the violence endures, more men are heading back to Syria to smuggle in medicine and arms, and join the Free Syrian Army. This push to join the rebel cause has created an almost frantic need to get married and bear children among young men who fear they may die in combat," write Sophia Jones and Erin Banco for the Daily Beast.
PACIFIC RIM
Suu Kyi to Travel to Europe
Myanmar's pro-democracy leader and recently elected parliamentary member, Aung San Suu Kyi, is set to travel to the UK and Norway in June (al-Jazeera). The trip will be her first outside Myanmar in twenty-four years.
Myanmar's rapid reforms still must be viewed as small steps in a country where military forces retain considerable power, writes CFR's Joshua Kurlantzick in this Expert Brief.
NORTH KOREA: The Foreign Ministry yesterday rejected a recent agreement with the United States (NYT) to suspend its nuclear weapons program in exchange for food aid. The United States had already suspended the aid following a failed North Korean rocket launch last week, which was condemned by the international community.
SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA
NATO Ministers Meet over Afghan Funding
The foreign and defense ministers of NATO member states are meeting in Brussels today to discuss a strategy for funding Afghan security forces after NATO troops fully withdraw (BBC) from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. Washington is expected to provide around $3 billion per year, while calling on other countries to contribute up to $1 billion.
This CFR Timeline examines the events that precipitated the U.S. war in Afghanistan as well as the history of the war.
MALDIVES: Former president Mohamed Nasheed, who was ousted by police and military officers in February, called on the international community to support early elections (Guardian), during a visit to Delhi. Both the United States and India have recognized the new administration of Nasheed's successor, President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, while calling for a government of national unity.
MIDDLE EAST
Egypt Panel Upholds Ban on Three Candidates
Egypt's presidential election commission upheld the disqualification of ten presidential candidates (LAT) yesterday, including Omar Suleiman, the spy chief under former president Hosni Mubarak; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Khairat al-Shater of the Muslim Brotherhood.
AFRICA
Sudan, South Sudan in Border Clashes
Sudanese and South Sudanese officials accused each other of escalating an armed conflict along the contested oil-rich border area that divides the countries, while the UN Security Council discussed imposing sanctions (Reuters) to alleviate the mounting crisis.
MALI: Interim President Dioncounda Traore--put in power last week by military coup leaders who overthrew the democratically elected government last month--appointed Cheick Modibo Diarra as Mali's new prime minister (Telegraph). Diarra, a former astrophysicist, was Microsoft's chairman for Africa.
EUROPE
IMF Warns on Euro Crisis
The European economy could suffer an extended downturn if leaders fail to take stronger action to combat the eurozone debt crisis and facilitate growth (WSJ), the International Monetary Fund said yesterday. The world's finance ministers and central bankers are set to convene in Washington this week for semi-annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.
SPAIN: The Spanish government and those of other eurozone states are calling for the temporary European Financial Stability Facility to be amended so it can provide direct loans to ailing financial institutions (DerSpiegel), rather than just to governments. Germany has opposed such a move.
The eurozone, once seen as a crowning achievement in the decades-long path of European integration, is buffeted by a sovereign debt crisis of nations whose membership in the currency union has been poorly policed, explains this CFR Backgrounder.
AMERICAS
Secret Service Prostitution Scandal Widens
U.S. investigators indicated that up to twenty-one alleged prostitutes (WaPo) may have been brought by U.S. Secret Service and military personnel back to a hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of President Barack Obama's visit for an economic summit last week. Eleven Secret Service agents and ten military officers are suspected of misconduct.
ARGENTINA: The Spanish government threatened retaliation (BBC) against Argentina after President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner moved to nationalize Argentina's largest oil firm, YPF, which is majority-owned by a Spanish company. At the same time, credit rating agency Moody's downgraded YPF's debt.
CAMPAIGN 2012
Obama Takes On Oil Speculators
President Barack Obama proposed new measures Tuesday to reduce oil market manipulation, with hopes that stiffer penalties will stave off false price fluctuations. The New York Times notes that the "nationwide average for gas prices is hovering near $4 per gallon--not far from the $5 per gallon that Mr. Obama's political advisers believe could cripple his re-election chances."
GOP front-runner Mitt Romney defended speculators (CNBC), and blamed the Obama administration for cutting back on licenses for drilling for oil on federal lands, offshore drilling, and fracking, as factors in driving up prices.
Economic confidence inched back up last week, according to Gallup, just two points below its four-year high three weeks ago. But confidence is heavily split along party lines, with 63 percent of Democrats saying the economy is getting better, compared with 24 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of independents saying the same thing.
Editor's Note: For more information on the presidential election and foreign policy check out CFR's campaign blog, The Candidates and the World.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)