By Sylvia Schwarz, MinnPost, 20 January 2010

The four Geneva conventions at the core of international humanitarian law were adopted in 1949 and ratified by 194 countries in the world. These conventions specify conduct that can be found criminally culpable if violated. The first three are specifically applicable to conduct against military personnel who are not combatants (i.e., prisoners of war, medical personnel, wounded soldiers, etc.), and the fourth applies to civilian noncombatants.

Despite Israel’s protestations to the contrary, and despite its ratification of the four Geneva Conventions in August of 1949 (with the reservation that Israel would use the Red Shield of David instead of the Red Cross), it has violated these conventions through its 62-year history and continues to violate them to this day.

Below are just a few examples: In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding nearly 200 (in violation of the second Geneva Convention). Israel claims that it was a mistake, but there is a plethora of evidence to the contrary; the reason for the attack was to keep the United States from finding out about an ongoing massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war (in violation of the third Geneva Convention).

The first Geneva Convention applies to conduct toward medical transports, medical units, and medical personnel, all of which were targeted and many destroyed during Operation Cast Lead from December 2008 to January 2009. Israel denies that it targeted any of the protected facilities or personnel, but numerous reports show deliberate targeting of them. Israel claims that all of the reports critical of Israel are biased and that it has a legitimate right to self-defense. However, the Geneva Conventions also discuss what legitimate self-defense is and what constitutes illegal and disproportionate force.

The settlements issue
Conduct of an occupation is the subject of the fourth Geneva Convention, in which an occupier may not transfer a civilian population into occupied territory. Some Israel defenders have claimed that settlements in the West Bank are perfectly legal, but the fourth Geneva Convention is clear on that issue. Every single settlement, from the settler “outposts” to the large cities, is illegal according to international law.

With these examples and many others in mind, an attempt to put a resolution in the DFL platform for Minnesota to divest from its Israel bonds to force it to comply with international law was proposed at the DFL Progressive Caucus. The resolution passed unanimously in that caucus.

The strong ties between Israel and the United States, and specifically between Israel and Minnesota, have been given as reasons to reject the resolution. On the contrary, these strong ties are exactly the reasons we should divest from Israel bonds. The money invested in Israel bonds goes directly to furthering the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, by helping to develop the civilian infrastructure in the settlements, by building the separation wall, and by building roads that only the settlers can use. In other words, as investors in an illegal colonization we are violating international law.

Israel is getting messages from all over the world that policies violating international law cannot continue without consequences. These messages are coming mainly in the form of boycott, divestment and sanctions. Specific products and manufacturers that benefit from illegal occupation are boycotted, and universities and institutions are divesting from investments in Israel. We, as Minnesotans, should lead the effort and withdraw our financial support from a regime that violates international laws.

Sylvia Schwarz, St. Paul, is a member of International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network — Twin Cities (IJAN-TC).

On February 2, members and allies of MN Break the Bonds (MN BBC) brought forth political party caucus resolutions calling for the state of Minnesota to divest from Israel Bonds.

This resolution (see below), a response to the 2005 call from Palestinian civil society for campaigns of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until the Israeli government complies with International Law, had amazing results across Minnesota. So far, we know that the resolution was introduced in 37 precinct caucuses and passed in 32, but reports are still coming in! These results speak to the desire of the people of Minnesota to no longer fund and support the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. This is an amazing precedent for social justice, human rights and Palestine solidarity.

Thank you to everyone who brought forth a resolution and to everyone who supported this initiative. This is only the first step in a long road toward social justice and human rights. We look forward to traveling that road with you.

If you presented this resolution at your precinct caucus and we have not heard from you, please let us know how it went by e-mailing mn@breakthebonds.org!

The Resolution

WHEREAS, Israel has consistently defied rulings by the international court of justice, more than 65 UN Resolutions, and the Fourth Geneva Convention;

WHEREAS, the Israeli separation wall and Israeli-only roads and settlements in the occupied territory of Palestine racially divide populations, thus violating the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973);

WHEREAS, Israel’s apartheid system has caused thousands of civilian deaths, including children, and widespread human rights violations;

WHEREAS, Palestinian Civil Society put out a unified call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against the State of Israel until it complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights;

WHEREAS, Israel annually receives billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in economic and military aid;

WHEREAS, the U.S has a history of divesting from countries that commit human rights abuses;

WHEREAS, Minnesota has divested from Iran and Sudan for their human rights abuses.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT, the State of Minnesota shall divest from all Israel Bonds investments.

(Note: The ‘Be it Resolved’ language was used consistently, while the ‘Whereas’ clauses were subject to change)

Rukhsana Ghouse, MN Daily, 11 November 2009

The recent letter to the editor, “Don’t allow boycott of Israeli universities” would be considered laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that it is part of a dangerous campaign to cover up the apartheid nature of the Israeli government.

For years now, the American public has been kept in the dark about the atrocities and war crimes committed by Israel since the onset of the brutal occupation – facts which are well known to most of the world, including our ally: Great Britain. The countless human rights abuses committed by the Israeli government for decades have been documented extensively by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, Lawyers for Human Rights, and the Committee of the Red Cross, to name but a few.

The latest such crimes of war took place a year ago when Israel attacked an already desperate population in Gaza. The Report of the United Nations fact finding mission on the Gaza Conflict, headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, concluded that Israel’s objective in the attack was “to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”

The authors’ comment that “Stifling academic cooperation is not only offensive to our diverse student body, which includes thousands of international students who come from nations with governments that individual University faculty members may disagree with politically, but it is also offensive to the thousands of researchers and scholars at the University who depend on relationships with academic leaders all over the world to improve lives through research” turns a blind eye to the stifling of criticism of Israel in mainstream American media.

The system of separating and mistreating Palestinians has been described by Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in his book ‘Peace not Apartheid’ as “worse even than those that once held sway in South Africa.” The oppressive regime in South Africa was finally brought down by an international campaign of isolation that included economic, cultural, political and academic boycotts. Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the well-established system of apartheid practiced by the Israeli state, and their silence in the matter is the biggest indicator of their complicity.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

Rukhsana Ghouse is a community activist, stay-at-home mom, and member of MN Break the Bonds.

By Sanna Towns and Joseph Towns, MinnPost, 12 November 2009

This week German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, other world leaders and the people of Europe celebrated and commemorated the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. We were reminded of President Ronald Reagan’s insistent provocation to Gorbachev in 1987:  “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

In a sense, Reagan was preaching to the choir. Gorbachev, with his Glasnost and Perestroika policies, had signaled a new “openness” and freedom within the Warsaw Pact nations of the Soviet empire, thus heralding the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But while the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this week, today there is another wall rising more than double its height, creating the impoverished, degrading, prison-like ghettos of Israeli-occupied Palestine: the 25-foot tall Israeli wall. Yet neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has spoken out against this wall.

People displaced, homes demolished
This wall, at times concrete, razor wire, and a no-man’s land, stretches over 400 miles (three times longer than the Berlin Wall) deep within West Bank cities, villages and neighborhoods, and zigzags throughout 10 out of the 11 West Bank districts. Several thousand Palestinian residents have been forced to leave their homes, several hundred houses and buildings have been demolished, and land has been stolen for the construction of this wall. On its path, the wall de facto annexes to Israel nearly 50 percent of the West Bank (the Palestinian state of the so called “two-state solution”) and destroys all continuity of life in the region.

As the Berlin Wall affected their Berliner counterparts, the Israeli wall splits Palestinian families but confines them to even greater abuses and indignities. Already suffering from land lost to massive Israeli settlements (housing as many as 500,000 Israelis), Israeli-only roads and military expansion, Palestinians are deprived of freedom of movement, work, agricultural land, hundreds of thousands of uprooted olive trees, water, roads, access to health facilities, educational institutions, markets, family connections and religious sites — all within the Palestinian territories. The Israeli military forces have established a complex, draconian permit system requiring Palestinians trapped by the wall to obtain and renew permits to remain in their homes, go to their jobs and other communities, obtain medical help, and gain access to their agricultural fields.

According to the recent Amnesty International report, “Israel Rations Palestinians to Trickle of Water,” the wall contributes to Palestinians being further deprived of water. Israel appropriates to its settlements and Israel proper large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and bars Palestinians from accessing them. Palestinians must obtain permits from the Israeli military in order to carry out water-related projects in the territories. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.

Amounts to effective annexation
The Israeli wall, the Israeli-only settlements, and the occupation itself violate international law. A major United Nations Charter violation of the wall is the unilateral demarcation of a new border in the West Bank that amounts to effective annexation of occupied land. Furthermore, along with the settlements, the destruction for and building of the wall have amounted to numerous violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention. And because the wall divides populations on the basis of race and ethnicity and discriminates against the residents of the West Bank to benefit illegal Israeli settlers, thus complying with the definition of apartheid, the wall constitutes a violation of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Hence, many of us refer to the barrier as the Israeli Apartheid Wall.

This wall can be viewed as an expansion of the American empire in that U.S. governments and corporations invest billions into Israel’s military institutions and arsenals, thus ensuring it as a military stronghold in the Middle East and using its might in subjugating the Palestinian people. We saw Israel’s military might in action last December and January in its 22-day war on the more than two-year and still besieged, blockaded, and imprisoned people of Gaza, a war that killed 1,400 Palestinians.

Now, here we are, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, being led by an African-American president who, during his days at Harvard, protested South African apartheid. Will we one day hear Obama say, “Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this wall!”?

Sanna Towns of St. Paul is a retired St. Paul school teacher; Joseph Towns of St. Louis Park is a former University of Minnesota graduate student. They are members of the Coalition for Palestinian Rights.

By Sylvia Schwarz, MinnPost, 7 October 2009

We’ve heard a lot recently about the evil of Iran and its government, about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust, about how he stole the election, and about the grave threat to the world his nuclear facilities are. In July 2007 Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, said Ahmadinejad “worship[s] the bomb more than he’s worshipping God in heaven.” This statement may have helped to whip up opinion among fundamentalists of all religions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it did little to allay skeptics’ questions about the real nuclear threat in the Middle East.

Since the beginning of Iran’s nuclear program, Iran has been a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel has not. Iran has allowed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into its facilities and complied with all the requirements of the IAEA. Israel has not. In fact, Israel’s nuclear weapons are still a “secret.” Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician, spent 18 years in prison there after revealing aspects of the secret program to the British press.

By all accounts, Iran perhaps could produce one nuclear bomb per year, and might have one now, which is untested. According to Seymour Hersch in “The Samson Option,” Israel already owns more than 200 nuclear weapons, and since that book was published in 1993 Israel certainly has produced more.

Examine the record first
But isn’t it the case that with a loose cannon like Ahmadinejad in power in Iran, there can be no security if Iran has the technology to create any nuclear weapons? There are a lot of loose cannons out there, and there is no doubt that Ahmadinejad is, speaking generously, not well educated about world history. But we should examine the record before accusing him of attempting to sacrifice the Iranian people to nuclear war. Iran has never attacked the United States, Israel, or any European or Arab country.

It is true that Iranian students, with the go-ahead from the government at the time, took American embassy workers hostage for more than a year. And it is possible, though he disputes the claim, that Ahmadinejad was one of those students. Israel has not been so restrained, attacking all surrounding Arab countries in the 1967 Six-Day War, and in what should offend Americans to this day, bombing the USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171. Since the Six-Day War Israel has attacked Iraq’s nuclear facility (1981), Syria’s nuclear facility (2007), and Lebanon (1982 and 2006), and kept up a brutal campaign of occupation and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.

Iran has no freedom of the press, closes down media outlets and persecutes journalists. Israel is known for its free press, yet it also clamps down on dissent. This year Israel confiscated computers and harassed members of New Profile, a peace group in Israel. Israel would not allow any foreign journalists into Gaza before or during its assault there in December, just as it barred journalists into Jenin in 2002 during what human-rights workers and Palestinians called a massacre.

Israel: A democracy for some
Iran recently had a disputed election and is not by any means a democracy. Israel is repeatedly called the only democracy in the Middle East. But its Basic Laws (Israel has no constitution) deny non-Jews many of the rights that Jews alone enjoy, including the right to automatic citizenship at birth, the right to marry and live with one’s choice of mate, and the right to own property. Israel is a democracy for Jews alone, not for all citizens.

Iran has no chance of nuclear parity with Israel. Iran, a huge country to the east of tiny Israel, could never launch a first strike, with Israel’s far superior weaponry and world opinion. Israel, on the other hand, could very easily launch a nuclear strike against Iran, wiping it off the map, and knowing that since the wind blows from west to east, the fallout would be well diluted before it made its way back to Tel Aviv. Given Israel’s history with world opinion, there would be no fallout on that stage either. Iran rightly believes that Israel poses an existential threat to Iran, not the other way around.

Since Iran could never expect protection from the world, it feels it should be allowed to protect itself from Israel.

Sylvia Schwarz, a resident of St. Paul, is a member of the Coalition for Palestinian Rights (CPR) and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Twin Cities (IJAN-TC).