Don’t say I did not warn you! The next report is a classic one; having killed over a thousand Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is now waging war on Mac laptops! If you doubt this, please read on:
Police shoot U.S. student’s laptop upon entry to Israel: Ha’aretz
Israel Border Police officers shot at an American student’s laptop as she entered Israel via Taba, Egypt, two weeks ago.
Lily Sussman, 21, wrote on her blog that border police subjected her to two hours of questioning and searches prior to shooting her Apple Macbook three times.
“They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions?where are you going?” Sussman wrote, describing the experience.
“Who do you know? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he Arab, Egyptian, Palestinian? Why do you live in Egypt? Why not Israel? What do you know about the ‘conflict’ here? What do you think? They quizzed me on Judaism, which I know nothing about,” she continued.
Sussman said that she then heard an announcement on the loudspeaker. “It was something along the lines of, ‘Do not to be alarmed by gunshots because the Israeli security needs to blow up suspicious passenger luggage,'” she wrote on her blog.
Moments later a man came to her and introduced himself as the manager on duty. “I’m sorry but we had to blow up your laptop,” Sussman said he told her.
“The security officers did not ask about my laptop prior to shooting it,” Sussman told Daily News Egypt. “They used the word ‘blew up’ when they told me they destroyed my laptop. I don’t know why they shot it.”
Sussman said the guards also looked through the photos saved on her camera, flipped through her journal and asked her about a map a friend had drawn for her that pointed out a main street, central bus station and the hostel where she was planning on stayig in Jerusalem.
She added that she had also been carrying an Arabic phrasebook, stamps from Syria, Qatar and the UAE and a Palestinians in Palestine guidebook.
The Israel Airports Authority said in response to the story: “A check that the lady’s luggage underwent raised an indication that required security figures to act according to procedures. A police, who carried out the stated operation, was called to the scene. We suggest that the Israel Police be approached for any additional information.”
Sussman managed to salvage the hard and guards gave her an address where she would be reimbursed for her mangled laptop, she told Daily news Egypt. “I’m going through the process of compensation,” she said. “It supposedly will take about one month to receive the money.
Apparently the police started an inquiry, when it was discovered that despite the fact they shots at the Mac 3 times, it it still works – the disc has survived this ordeal! There will now be special training, I suspect, to make sure the Israeli Police can kill a Mac in less than ten shots.
The moral of this story is: If you must go to Israel, take a PC. On the other hand, soon they may also shoot at Windows machines, so maybe the best thing after all is to go to Spain instead, where this habit of shooting at people and computer is not prevalent. Unless, of course, you like adventure. The rest of us will just support the BDS campaign.
Tzipi Livni managed to get away this time, and stay in Israel, rather than being arrested in the UK. Below David Miliband explains how shocked he is that she had a arrest warrant waiting for her. Maybe he should not be so shocked – he may himself (As may Mr. Tony Bliar) face the same fate soon when travelling abroad, for the British war crimes in Iraq!
Miliband voices shock over arrest warrant in call to Livni: Ha’aretz
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Tuesday called opposition leader Tzipi Livni to express his shock over an arrest warrant issued against her in Britain for alleged war crimes in Gaza and vowed to address the matter immediately.
Livni clarified that she doesn’t view the arrest warrant as a personal offense, but rather one that affects Israel as a whole. She added that it also harms efforts to operate jointly against threatening elements.
Livni stressed that Israel and Britain must work to solve the problem according to agreements outlined when she was foreign minister.
Miliband earlier on Tuesday denounced the arrest warrant issued for Livni as insufferable, after Israel warned that the matter could harm bilateral ties.
Miliband made the comments during a meeting with Israel’s ambassador to Court of St. James, Ron Prosor. The Israeli envoy asked to discuss the matter with Miliband on Monday, following news that Livni had canceled her trip to Britain after a warrant was issued for her arrest.
Prosor told Miliband that the British government must work immediately to combat the grave phenomenon of arrest warrants being issued against senior Israeli officials.
The foreign secretary said he had spoken with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and with Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw in order to try to resolve the problem.
Miliband called Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday and expressed concern over the arrest warrant, saying he and other British parliamentarians found it unacceptable. Miliband also planned to call Livni.
He told Lieberman that solutions must be found in order to prevent this situation from repeating itself in the future.
Lieberman expressed disappointment over Britain’s abstention during the United Nations vote on the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes in Gaza, and the Swedish proposal to recognize Jerusalem as a shared Israeli and Palestinian capital.
Also Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry summoned the British envoy to Israel to rebuke him over the warrant.
Israel views the arrest warrant with utmost gravity, Naor Gilon, deputy director at the Foreign Ministry in charge of Western Europe, told British ambassador Tom Phillips.
Gilon also called on Phillips to urge his government to change the law that allows for arrest warrants to be issued against senior Israeli officials over alleged war crimes perpetrated in Gaza during the winter conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Netanyahu: We won’t allow our leaders to be tried for war crimes
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday issued a statement saying that Israel will not agree to have its leaders be recognized as war criminals.
“We will not agree to a situation in which Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendant’s bench,” Netanyahu said.
“We will not agree that IDF commanders and soldiers, who – heroically and in a moral fashion – defended our citizens against a brutal and criminal enemy, will be condemned as war criminals. We reject this absurdity outright.”
Netanyahu instructed National Security Adviser Prof. Uzi Arad to deliver a clear message on this issue to British envoy Phillips.
Dr. Arad spoke with Ambassador Phillips and made it clear to him that Israel expects the British government to act against this immoral phenomenon, which is trying to impair Israel’s right to self-defense.
A statement from the British embassy in Israel said the U.K. is determined to work for peace in the Middle East and to be a strategic partner to Israel.
“To do this, Israel’s leaders need to be able to come to the U.K. for talks with the British government. We are looking urgently at the implications of this case.” The embassy statement said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry earlier Tuesday called on the British government to end the “absurd situation” in which arrest warrants were being issued to Israeli officials over alleged war crimes in Gaza, warning that ties between the two countries could suffer as a result.
“Only actions can put an end to this absurd situation, which would have seemed a comedy of errors were it not so serious,” said the Foreign Ministry.
The ministry warned that in indulging the arrest warrant, the British government was hampering its own efforts at playing a role in Middle East peace negotiations.
“We appreciate the British government’s desire to play a central role in the Middle East peace process, and thus we expected it to translate the importance it gives its relations with Israel into actions,” said the ministry.
“Israel urges the British government to once and for all honor its promises to take action to prevent anti-Israel forces from exploiting the British legal system to act against Israel and its citizens, the ministry said. The absence of resolute and immediate action to redress this distortion harms relations between the two countries,” it added.
Vice Premier Silvan Shalom urged the ministry to make “real diplomatic” efforts to make it clear that Israel would not accept such behavior.
“We are all Tzipi Livni,” he said. “The time has come for us to move from the defensive to the offensive. We must use real diplomacy here, to tell Britain, Spain and all those other states that we will not stand for this anymore.”
Livni: World can judge us, but don’t equate IDF with terrorist
In response to the warrant, Livni said Tuesday that she would not accept any accusation that compared Israel Defense Forces soldiers to terrorists.
“I have no problem with the fact that the world wants to judge Israel,” said Livni. “We are part of the free world. The problem starts when they equate terrorists and Israeli soldiers.”
Senior officials in Israel confirmed reports on Monday that a British court issued the warrant against Livni for her role in orchestrating Israel’s military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago. The request for the warrant was submitted by a pro-Palestinian organization.
British sources reported late Monday that though a British court had issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza while she served as foreign minister, it annulled it upon discovering she was not in the U.K.
The incident was the latest in a string of attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to have Israeli officials arrested.
Pro-Palestinian lawyers attempted earlier this year to invoke the universal jurisdiction law to arrest Gaza war mastermind Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, but his status as a Cabinet minister gave him diplomatic immunity.
In 2005, a retired Israeli general, Doron Almog, returned to Israel immediately after landing in London because he was tipped off that British police planned to arrest him. The warrant against Almog – who oversaw the bombing of a Gaza home in which 14 people were killed – was later canceled.
Other Israeli leaders, including former military chief Moshe Ya’alon and ex-internal security chief Avi Dichter, have also canceled trips to Britain in recent years for the same reason.
Israel fury at UK attempt to arrest Tzipi Livni: BBC
Israel has reacted angrily to the issuing by a British court of an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.
The warrant, granted by a London court on Saturday, was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK.
Ms Livni was foreign minister during Israel’s Gaza assault last winter.
It is the first time a UK court has issued a warrant for the arrest of a former Israeli minister.
Ms Livni said the court had been “abused” by the Palestinian plaintiffs who requested the warrant.
“What needs to be put on trial here is the abuse of the British legal system,” she told the BBC.
“This is not a suit against Tzipi Livni, this is not a law suit against Israel. This is a lawsuit against any democracy that fights terror.”
She stood by her decisions during the three-week assault Gaza offensive which began in December last year, she said.
Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the UK’s ambassador to Israel to deliver a rebuke over the warrant.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the situation was “an absurdity”.
“We will not accept a situation in which [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defence Minister] Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendants’ chair,” Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.
“We will not agree to have Israel Defence Force soldiers, who defended the citizens of Israel bravely and ethically against a cruel and criminal enemy, be recognised as war criminals. We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain,” he said.
Pro-Palestinian campaigners have tried several times to have Israeli officials arrested under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
‘Cynical act’
This allows domestic courts in countries around the world to try war crimes suspects, even if the crime took place outside the country and the suspect is not a citizen.
Israel denies claims by human rights groups and the UN investigator Richard Goldstone that its forces committed war crimes during the operation, which it said was aimed at ending Palestinian rocket fire at its southern towns.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas has also been accused of committing war crimes during the conflict.
Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday: “Israel rejects the cynical act taken in a British court,” against Ms Livni, now the head of the opposition Kadima party, “at the initiative of extreme elements”.
It called on the British government to “act against the exploitation of the British legal system against Israel”.
Addressing a conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Ms Livni did not refer specifically to the arrest attempt.
But she said: “Israel must do what is right for Israel, regardless of judgements, statements and arrest warrants. It’s the leadership’s duty, and I would repeat each and every decision,” Israeli media reported.
‘Strategic partner’
Israel says it fully complies with international law, which it says it interprets in line with other Western countries such as the US and UK.
PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO ARREST ISRAELI OFFICIALS
Oct 2009: Former military chief Moshe Yaalon cancelled a UK visit because of fears of arrest for alleged war crimes
Oct 2009: Filed attempt to raise warrant against Defence Minister Ehud Barak. Court ruled he had diplomatic immunity
Sept 2005: Arrest warrant issued for a former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip Gen Doron Almog. He received warning before disembarking from an aircraft at Heathrow Airport, and flew back to Israel
On Monday Ms Livni’s office denied the reports that a warrant had been issued and that she had cancelled plans to visit the UK because of fears of arrest.
It said a planned trip had been cancelled two weeks earlier because of scheduling problems.
The British foreign office said it was “urgently looking into the implications of the case”.
“The UK is determined to do all it can to promote peace in the Middle East, and to be a strategic partner of Israel,” it said in a statement. “To do this, Israel’s leaders need to be able to come to the UK for talks with the British government.”
Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 people were killed during Israel’s Cast Lead operation between 27 December 2008 and 16 January 2009, more than half of them civilians.
Israel puts the number of deaths at 1,166 – fewer than 300 of them civilians. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.
The BBC’s Tim Franks says that, privately, senior Israeli figures are warning of what they see as an increasing anti-Israeli bent in the British establishment.
In turn, our correspondent adds, there is clearly concern among British officials that should further arrest warrants be issued, relations with Israel could be damaged.
A most important document in support of the BDS campaign, released this week:
Christian Palestinian leaders call for church boycott in Kairos document
Press release, Palestinian BDS National Committee, 11 December 2009
Today, prominent Christian Palestinian leaders are releasing a historical Kairos Palestine Document, calling on churches around the world “to say a word of truth and to take a position of truth with regard to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.” Unambiguously endorsing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) as one of the key nonviolent forms of solidarity that international faith-based organizations are urged to adopt, the document affirms: “We see boycott and disinvestment as tools of justice, peace and security …”
Kairos is an ancient Greek term meaning the right or opportune moment. The Kairos Palestine Document is inspired by the liberation theology, especially in South Africa where a similar document was issued at a crucial time in the struggle against apartheid. Informed by a lucid vision based on the universal principles of “equality, justice, liberty and respect for pluralism,” Palestinian Christians issue this document today to explore a morally sound way out of the “dead end” reached in the Palestinian tragedy, “in which human beings are destroyed.”
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) salutes the moral clarity, courage and principled position conveyed in this new document, which emphasizes that resisting injustice should “concern the Church” and is “a right and a duty for a Christian,” adding that it is “a resistance with love as its logic.”
The BNC keenly notes the importance of releasing this historical call on this day, 11 December, which marks the 61st anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, issued in 1948, calling for the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes of origin “at the earliest practicable date.” Whereas Palestinian refugees are still awaiting their return six decades later, we share the message of hope in today’s Palestinian Kairos: “One of the most important signs of hope is the perseverance of the generations and the continuity of memory, which does not forget the Nakba (catastrophe) and its significance. This land is our land and it is incumbent upon us to defend it and reclaim it.”
Particularly praiseworthy is the Kairos’s emphasis on urging all churches to positively respond to the call by Palestinian civil society, including religious institutions, for “a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel,” which, the document clarifies, “is not revenge but rather a serious action in order to reach a just and definitive peace.”
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) Member organizations: Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine,
General Union of Palestinian Workers, Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Palestinian National Institute for NGOs, Palestinian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (PFITU), Palestine Right of Return Coalition, Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Initiative (OPGAI), General Union of Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Farmers, Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW), National Committee for Popular Resistance, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba, Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), Coalition for Jerusalem, Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations, Palestinian Economic Monitor, Union of Youth Activity Centers-Palestine Refugee Camps