Five Minutes To Midnight
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
If things stay on the same road they are travelling now, I will probably turn this blog into a human rights one - to promote the fair treatment of human beings around the world. Maybe this will turn into something big! If you think about it, the only way towards world peace is through acceptance of international humanitarian laws. This is very difficult to do in many cases, but if civilians pursuade their governments to do so, we will live in a peaceful world. Yes, even the US can stand to learn a lesson from humanitarian treatment of others. If they were to abide by all international laws, there would be less looting from the onset of a post-Hussein Iraq, there would be no stolen artifacts from the National Museum of Iraq (shame!), and possibly, there would be no war.
Just a note on the National Museum of Iraq: I believe that the world's cultural and scientific endeavours, both those of the past and present, must be preserved. The fact that the National Museum of Iraq, a site that held some of the most important artifacts of the dawn of civilization, was defiled is something that brings tears to my eyes... The innocent are all to be protected in this war - be it civilians or historical sites.
On April 13, I attended a presentation by The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. This NGO basically deals with reporting and investigating human rights issues in and around Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and contested land in the area.
Although much of the news regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict focuses on the use of suicide bombers, the truth is that there is a vast number of other issues caused by the Israeli military that warrant the same public attention and scrutiny. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories is one human rights advocacy group that keeps track of human rights abuses in, as the name says, occupied territories. This NGO mainly investigates attrocities performed by the Israeli military simply because their abuses far outnumber those of the Palestinians'. There are three main policies that the Israeli military uses which break international humanitarian laws. These include the use of human shields, restrictions on movement, and the building of the Separation Barrier.
Although the use of human shields has died down and is not considered "official" policy, many soldiers still partake in the act. The term is fairly vague however, and the following examples will illustrate its true severity.
-- When some Israeli soldiers enter contested areas where they risk getting shot at, they sometimes take Palestinian citizens and place them in front of themselves. Therefore, when they walk into town, they are standing behind a civilian who has to be shot first before someone can actually get a good shot at the solider.
-- If the Israeli military suspects a household protecting terrorists, they sometimes get a local Palestinian to go to the house and try to coax the terrorists to come out for the military or to simply show themselves and become viable targets for the waiting gunmen. The main problem with this is the fact that the military is using civilians, in some cases women, to do their dirty work. There have been cases where these civilians were killed due to this work.
Restrictions on movement is another issue that drastically decreases quality of life in the occupied territories. What this issue deals with is the building of roadblocks and checkpoints on major roads and highways between cities, towns, villages, and so on. In some cases, these roadblocks are nothing more than huge mounds of dirt that cars, including ambulances, school buses, and water tankers, cannot pass. In some cases, roads are blocked off for no apparent reason. This is a large problem for many reasons, some of which have been implied in the preceding lines. Many Palestinian villages in the area do not have adequate water storage and filtration facilities, so most of the water must be transported using water tankers. However, if movement is restricted between villages and towns, a problem magnified by the presence of mounds of dirt that render roads useless, how do villages get water? The sad fact is that they don't. The same goes for ambulances and school buses - some kids cannot go to school anymore and villages with no hospitals suffer as well.
Lastly, the third major problem is the Separation Barrier. This is an extremely long wall/fence/ditch that is to extend across the entire Israeli-Palestinian border. Crossing this barrier is expected to be hard (if not impossible), with military patrols monitoring for anyone attempting to do so. Upon construction of such a barrier, one would expect it to be built on the border of the territories involved. This is not so in this case: Israeli construction crews are actually building the wall inside Palestinian territories, thereby stealing their land. The wall is also meant to restrict Palestinian access from Israeli settlements which, too, are in Palestinian territory and are illegal based on UN and international laws. Due to the incoherent construction process, many Palestinian towns and villages are being cut off from each other, as well as from crucial sources of food and water - in some cases, the wall actually works to separate a village from its farms, due to the military's not respecting borders. Some areas are even completely encircled by walls, creating a perpetual siege of wire and military patrols around a large gathering of civilians who, if it was even possible, would barely have a chance to access water and food from the areas lying outside the barrier.
The above is just a generalized list of human rights abuses in the conflict. I haven't even mentioned the extended curfews that in some cases, only allow Palestinians to leave their homes for an hour or two a week. Nor did I touch upon the more common abuse of authority by the Israeli military and border police, which has a reputation in the area for its brutality...
Now as I close off, I'd just like to say that I believe that The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories' goals and initiatives are extremely noble. The organization is monitoring the situation in Palestine and is telling the world what problems and abuses are occurring there. If you go to their website, betselem.org, you will be able to read testimony, find statistics, and get links to other such organizations - if this subject interests you, you will not be disappointed.
Sources
¶ 8:40 PM
Just a note on the National Museum of Iraq: I believe that the world's cultural and scientific endeavours, both those of the past and present, must be preserved. The fact that the National Museum of Iraq, a site that held some of the most important artifacts of the dawn of civilization, was defiled is something that brings tears to my eyes... The innocent are all to be protected in this war - be it civilians or historical sites.
On April 13, I attended a presentation by The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. This NGO basically deals with reporting and investigating human rights issues in and around Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and contested land in the area.
Although much of the news regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict focuses on the use of suicide bombers, the truth is that there is a vast number of other issues caused by the Israeli military that warrant the same public attention and scrutiny. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories is one human rights advocacy group that keeps track of human rights abuses in, as the name says, occupied territories. This NGO mainly investigates attrocities performed by the Israeli military simply because their abuses far outnumber those of the Palestinians'. There are three main policies that the Israeli military uses which break international humanitarian laws. These include the use of human shields, restrictions on movement, and the building of the Separation Barrier.
Although the use of human shields has died down and is not considered "official" policy, many soldiers still partake in the act. The term is fairly vague however, and the following examples will illustrate its true severity.
-- When some Israeli soldiers enter contested areas where they risk getting shot at, they sometimes take Palestinian citizens and place them in front of themselves. Therefore, when they walk into town, they are standing behind a civilian who has to be shot first before someone can actually get a good shot at the solider.
-- If the Israeli military suspects a household protecting terrorists, they sometimes get a local Palestinian to go to the house and try to coax the terrorists to come out for the military or to simply show themselves and become viable targets for the waiting gunmen. The main problem with this is the fact that the military is using civilians, in some cases women, to do their dirty work. There have been cases where these civilians were killed due to this work.
Restrictions on movement is another issue that drastically decreases quality of life in the occupied territories. What this issue deals with is the building of roadblocks and checkpoints on major roads and highways between cities, towns, villages, and so on. In some cases, these roadblocks are nothing more than huge mounds of dirt that cars, including ambulances, school buses, and water tankers, cannot pass. In some cases, roads are blocked off for no apparent reason. This is a large problem for many reasons, some of which have been implied in the preceding lines. Many Palestinian villages in the area do not have adequate water storage and filtration facilities, so most of the water must be transported using water tankers. However, if movement is restricted between villages and towns, a problem magnified by the presence of mounds of dirt that render roads useless, how do villages get water? The sad fact is that they don't. The same goes for ambulances and school buses - some kids cannot go to school anymore and villages with no hospitals suffer as well.
Lastly, the third major problem is the Separation Barrier. This is an extremely long wall/fence/ditch that is to extend across the entire Israeli-Palestinian border. Crossing this barrier is expected to be hard (if not impossible), with military patrols monitoring for anyone attempting to do so. Upon construction of such a barrier, one would expect it to be built on the border of the territories involved. This is not so in this case: Israeli construction crews are actually building the wall inside Palestinian territories, thereby stealing their land. The wall is also meant to restrict Palestinian access from Israeli settlements which, too, are in Palestinian territory and are illegal based on UN and international laws. Due to the incoherent construction process, many Palestinian towns and villages are being cut off from each other, as well as from crucial sources of food and water - in some cases, the wall actually works to separate a village from its farms, due to the military's not respecting borders. Some areas are even completely encircled by walls, creating a perpetual siege of wire and military patrols around a large gathering of civilians who, if it was even possible, would barely have a chance to access water and food from the areas lying outside the barrier.
The above is just a generalized list of human rights abuses in the conflict. I haven't even mentioned the extended curfews that in some cases, only allow Palestinians to leave their homes for an hour or two a week. Nor did I touch upon the more common abuse of authority by the Israeli military and border police, which has a reputation in the area for its brutality...
Now as I close off, I'd just like to say that I believe that The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories' goals and initiatives are extremely noble. The organization is monitoring the situation in Palestine and is telling the world what problems and abuses are occurring there. If you go to their website, betselem.org, you will be able to read testimony, find statistics, and get links to other such organizations - if this subject interests you, you will not be disappointed.
Sources
B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. 16 April 2003.
J., Maya. "The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories." Toronto, Canada, 13 April 2003.
Note: I didn't write Maya's last name just because I don't know who reads this or whatever. If you want to know more about her presentation, e-mail me at gryc@rogers.com.
¶ 8:40 PM
