Women Peace Activists & Green Party Slam Gaza Attacks
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MADRE Demands an End to Attacks in Gaza and Israel
MADRE
November 16, 2012
WASHINGTON
MADRE, an international women's human rights
organization, condemns the growing violence that has killed at least 18 people
in the past days: 15 in Gaza and three in Israel. We assert that all attacks
against civilians must end immediately.
Yesterday, Israel carried out a targeted killing of Hamas
leader Ahmed Al-Jaabari, in violation of international legal prohibitions on
extrajudicial assassinations. Subsequent attacks brought the death toll in Gaza
to 15. Reports from Gaza indicate that at least 130 people are wounded. Three
Israelis have been killed in a rocket attack that collapsed part of a building.
These latest assaults come after a period of escalating
attacks and tension. In the week leading up to the assassination of Jaabari,
the Palestinian Center for Human Rights documented the deaths of six civilians
in Gaza due to Israel's military activity.
That same week saw repeated rockets attacks from Gaza
into Israel, also in violation of international law.
In January, Israel will be holding elections, and some
have suggested that the assassination and airstrikes are a bid by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to galvanize his far right base. Now that a ground
offensive may be imminent, many more lives are at risk.
The people of Gaza already live under a US- supported
Israeli military siege that denies them basic rights, like access to clean
water and medical care. The current airstrikes not only risk civilian lives,
they destroy essential infrastructure in Gaza still not rebuilt from the last
Israeli offensive four years ago.
Today, MADRE Executive Director Yifat Susskind said,
"By assassinating a man who has played a central role in past ceasefire
negotiations, Israel's leaders are further foreclosing the possibility of
peace. That, in fact, is the essence of Netanyahu's election strategy. And
families in Gaza are paying with their lives for his political manipulations.
The Palestinian and Israeli women we work with are committed to breaking the
cycle of violence and ending Israel's occupation and siege of Gaza."
__________
MADRE is an international women's human rights
organization that works in partnership with community-based women's
organizations worldwide to address issues of health and reproductive rights,
economic development, education, and other human rights. MADRE provides
resources, training, and support to enable our sister organizations to meet
concrete needs in their communities while working to shift the balance of power
to promote long-term development and social justice. Since we began in 1983,
MADRE has delivered nearly 25 million dollars worth of support to community-
based women's organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East,
Africa, Asia, the Balkans, and the United States. For more information about
MADRE, visit our website at www.madre.org.
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Green Party: The U.S. must press Israel not to launch a
new war on Gaza; Greens urge an immediate truce and resumption of negotiations
The U.S. is
ignoring the source of the conflict
and chain of
incidents leading up to the
current Gaza
crisis, say Greens
November 16, 2012
WASHINGTON, DC
Green Party leaders said today that the U.S. must
pressure Israel not to resume its war on Palestinians living in Gaza, and that
the illegal blockade and hardship imposed by Israel on Gaza must end.
"President Obama and Congress have the clout to stop
a repeat of the 2009 Gaza War, in which more than 1300 Palestinians were
killed, including 700 civilians, over 300 of them children. Thirteen Israelis
were also killed, of whom three were civilians. This is a 'David and Goliath'
fight, with nuclear-powered Israel acting in disregard for international law
against a dispossessed people living under siege. Israel's assaults on Gaza
will not make Gazans go away or resolve the conflict," said Muhammed
Malik, former co-chair of the Miami- Dade Green Party, who recently spoke at
the Students for Justice in Palestine National Conference at the University of
Michigan. (2009 Gaza War casualties: see
and figures referenced at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War
Green Party leaders noted that targeted
assassinations are illegal and that the airstrike
authorized by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak that killed
Hamas military commander Ahmad al-Jabari also killed his 14-year-old son.
The Israeli airstrike ended two days of calm after news
that Egypt had brokered a truce between Israel and Palestinian officials. The
truce was meant to end a surge of violence that resulted in more than 100
missiles fired out of Gaza and repeated Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip,
where people are already living in conditions comparable to an open-air prison
( http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/16/israeli_negotiator_hamas_commander_was_assassinated).
"The Obama Administration should press for an
immediate ceasefire and resumption of the negotiations. Claims by Israeli and
U.S. officials that the IDF is trying to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties
are not credible. Washington and the U.S.
media have focused on the increased Palestinian rockets
fired from Gaza but are ignoring the chain of incidents, including killings of
Palestinian civilians, that motivated Hamas to fire rockets out of Gaza,"
said Jill Stein, the Green Party's 2012 nominee for
President.
"The terrorism that Israel is using to maintain the
occupation far outweighs the retaliatory terrorism committed by Hamas. Unless
these assaults can be halted, we'll see another massacre of Gazan civilians and
further deterioration of the city," added Dr.
Stein. (For a timeline of events leading up to the recent
confrontation, see http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-shattered-gaza-truce-leading-escalating-death-and-tragedy-timeline
and
"The U.S. government and most U.S. media have
ignored the heart of the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, including
Gazans -- Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their native land,
ongoing colonization of Palestinian land in Israel and the Occupied
Territories, and Israel's refusal to allow refugees to return home, as
prescribed by international law. Over
two thirds of Gazans are from Israel and the West Bank," said Justine
McCabe, co-chair of the Green Party's International Committee (http://www.gp.org/committees/intl).
While self-defense and armed resistance against military
occupation are legal under international law, no such law tolerates attacks on
civilians.
Greens have urged support for Palestinian and Israeli
peace groups and for nonviolent resistance, and have called for an end to all
violence targeted at unarmed civilians. Greens insist that regional stability
and security for all the people of Israel and Palestine are not possible until
peaceful negotiation based on international law resolves the conflict.
The Green Party of the United States has called for
boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until it complies with
international law and U.N.
directives, ends the occupation of Palestinian lands, and
observes full and equal human rights for Palestinians within Israel and the
Occupied Territories, including the right to return home.
"Washington must stop aiding Israel's violations of
human rights. Israel has a budget surplus and 6.5% unemployment. U.S.
taxpayers, facing austerity and unemployment at home, are seeing $3 billion of
their tax money sent annually to Israel, which receives 60% of all U.S. foreign
military financing,"
said David Schwartzman, member of the DC Statehood Green Party
and the Green Party's International Committee.
"Israel's history of aggression towards Palestinians
and neighbors like Lebanon and Syria has made it increasingly isolated
internationally. If this situation continues, we'll see more animosity directed
against the U.S., and chances for peace and security for Israelis and
Palestinians will dwindle. Nor will Americans indefinitely accept their
government's misguided Middle East policies and pay exorbitant tax dollars for
it," said John Rensenbrink, Maine Green and member of the International
Committee.
See also:
"U.N. experts say Israel's blockade of Gaza
illegal"
Reuters, September 13, 2012
"U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel"
Congressional Research Service, March 2012 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
"Hamas Wins Palestinian Elections: Questions you
need answered"
Jewish Voices for Peace
"Gaza Redux"
By Mazin Qumsiyeh, Popular Resistance, November 16, 2012 http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/11/gaza-redux.html
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