Palestinian/ Israeli update 1/14/2016..Palestinian Kids Dodge Settler Attacks
1 killed, 3 wounded in Israeli attack in Gaza
IDF officer lightly injured in West bank stabbing attack
Palestinian shot dead near al-Khalil
Palestinian Kids Dodge Settler Attacks
“Probing Israel for killing Palestinians stupid”
Israel summons Swedish envoy over FM’s remarks
6 Funerals for Palestinians Killed by Israeli Forces
Israel slashes gas supplies to Gaza Strip
Israel Banishes Palestinians from East Jerusalem
UN database for Gaza aid may give Israel targets to attack — secret memo | The Electronic Intifada
The UN was warned that its database of potential aid recipients in Gaza could provide Israel with targets for future attacks, a document obtained by The Electronic Intifada reveals.
Diplomats and UN officials were also warned that plans for rebuilding Gaza after it was attacked by Israel in 2014 violated international law.
The UN-backed Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM) is illegal and violates the very “right to life” of the Palestinian people, according to a confidential legal opinion by a law professor who analyzed the mechanism for a major aid agency that works closely with the UN.
The Electronic Intifada is publishing the full text of the GRM for the first time, along with the legal opinion. Both documents are below.
Recall that in 2014, The Electronic Intifada revealed that the GRM, the UN-brokered agreement that was supposedly going to facilitate reconstruction, would effectively reinforce Israel’s control over Gaza.
But the UN, the Palestinian Authority and Israel have kept the actual text of the GRM secret, despite demands for transparency from Palestinians whose ability to rebuild their lives has remained hostage to its suffocating restrictions.
The expert who wrote the legal opinion, the University of Nottingham’s Professor Nigel White, warned that the UN was becoming an active participant in Israel’s crimes, including enforcing the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007.
White, co-director of the Nottingham International Law and Security Centre, is considered one of the world’s leading experts on United Nations law.
“The UN, by becoming party to the GRM, is itself contributing to the maintenance of the blockade and, therefore, is committing as well as aiding and assisting violations of international law,” White states.
“If the UN persists in aiding and assisting the implementation of the GRM it will be jointly (with the GoI [Government of Israel]) responsible for the injuries and losses caused to the people of Gaza,” White adds.
White warns that the database of personal details of Palestinians in Gaza created under the terms of the GRM violates the “right to life” because of “potential misuse of the database by the GoI [Government of Israel] for the identification of targets.”
The legal opinion was commissioned by the Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Resource Center, which is funded by the Swedish and Swiss governments. It is part of Diakonia, a major Swedish development organization that receives funding from the Swedish government, the EU and the UN.
The legal opinion was shared with diplomats and international agencies. But unlike other expert opinions commissioned by Diakonia, the organization has not published White’s analysis.
Diakonia did not respond to an email requesting comment.
The stark and shocking nature of the legal advice might explain why the GRM has been kept secret from its supposed beneficiaries. Had the legal opinion been published it would have seriously undermined UN assurances and claims about the GRM.
Dictated by Israel
In the summer of 2014, Israel’s assault on Gaza killed more than 2,200 Palestinians.
The Israeli invasion and bombardment destroyed or severely damaged 24,000 homes and caused lesser damage to another 146,000, according to the UN monitoring group OCHA.
After the 26 August 2014 ceasefire, Robert Serry, then UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process (UNSCO), negotiated the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The deal was effectively dictated by Israel according to its “security” requirements and then given a stamp of approval by the UN and the PA.
Under the guise of reconstruction, the UN monitors and gathers detailed private information about Palestinian households in a database accessible to Israel, which has a veto over who is eligible to sell and receive building materials.
But despite promises that the deal would at least allow Palestinians made homeless by Israeli bombing to quickly rebuild, the mechanism has failed.
The GRM placed enormous obstacles in the way of reconstruction such that by November 2015 the UN had only managed to assist the reconstruction of a single totally destroyed house in Gaza.
Building supplies are doled out based on Israeli approval, under extreme security and in such small quantities that they are often more valuable to desperate Gaza families to sell on the black market than for any use in reconstruction.
The GRM continues to give Israel a stranglehold on Gaza’s economy………………..
Email to Clinton: Spark Palestinian protests
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton considered a secret plan to foment unrest among Palestinians in order to push Israelis into taking action, a new batch of emails reveals.
The proposal was made in a Dec. 18, 2011 email to Clinton by then US ambassador to Israel, Thomas Pickering, as a method to prompt Israel’s leaders to resume the failed negotiations with the Palestinians.
Pickering characterized the plan as a potential “game changer in the region,” recommending that the United States undertake the campaign to spark protests, led by female Palestinians, against Israel.
“What will change the situation is a major effort to use non-violent protests and demonstrations to put peace back in the center of people’s aspirations as well as their thoughts, and use that to influence the political leadership,” Pickering wrote.
“This is far from a sure thing, but far, in my humble view, from hopeless,” he continued. “Women can and ought to be at the center of these demonstrations. Many men and others will denigrate the idea.”
He said that Israeli soldiers were “fearful, nervous, outnumbered [and] insecure,” and would resort to the use of force when encountered by Palestinian men.
Pickering, who also served as undersecretary of state for political affairs under former President Bill Clinton, wrote that the White House must keep its role in the unrest a secret so as not to create tensions with Tel Aviv.
The former diplomat suggested that the United States should employ non-governmental groups and third parties to “help” implement the plan.
Benjamin Netanyahu meets Hillary Clinton at the prime minister’s office on November 20, 2012.
Pickering said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the impediment to reaching a two-state solution and would not accept any suggestions that the Palestinians can offer.
“He is much more satisfied with the status quo than with the risks of change,” he said of Netanyahu.
Pickering’s email was among 3,000 pages of Clinton’s emails the State Department released last Thursday night, which included 66 that were deemed classified.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/01/palestinian-israeli-update_14.html
