Preface

Censorship is incompatible with Israel’s claim to be a "democracy"

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers."

Freedom of the press is a hallmark of a free and open democracy. It is inevitable that there will always be some restrictions on a free press; the most widely accepted being those pertaining to personal privacy and those relating to national security. However, in Israel today freedom of information is just one more area to come under attack by the Israeli establishment and the truth is another victim. Censorship, in its many forms, is being taken to an extreme degree, one most unbecoming of a so-called "democratic" nation. Under the guise of "security" Israel is taking quite extraordinary measures to censor news coming out of both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). Israel, in fact, has such a blatant disregard for   or to be more accurate, a blatant hostility towards   journalists  reporting on the "wrong side" of the conflict that it actually resorts to the deportation, banning, arrest, intimidation, physical abuse and even killing of journalists, seemingly with total impunity.

In 1948, following the horrors of World War Two and the atrocities committed by the Nazis against millions of people across Europe, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide  to ensure that no such actions would ever take place or go unpunished again. 

However, in a strange twist of fate, the very people who the framers of the Convention had in mind, namely the primarily Jewish victims of the Holocaust, find themselves currently represented by a state, Israel, that claims to speak on their behalf and which is now the perpetrator of similar crimes against another group of innocent people, namely the Palestinians.

But what is genocide? Derived from the Greek word "genos" which means a race or tribe and the Latin word "cide" which means killing, the term "genocide" therefore literally means the killing of a group of people united by tribal, racial or ethnic ties.

1. Introduction: A call for the normalisation of relations.

A mere eleven minutes after Israel declared its independence in 1948, US President Harry Truman recognised the newly created state.  That instantaneous public support has never really wavered and ever since then the two countries have shared a "special relationship", one that is unlike any other. America has stood by Israel through thick and thin; right or wrong; supporting it on all fronts: financially, politically, diplomatically and militarily. However, many observers have for a long time now believed that this has become a toxic association, whereby America's entrenched and unwavering support for Israel is actually doing the United States more harm than good. In 2003 the European Commission conducted a poll across Europe in which 59% of those interviewed said they felt that Israel, America's staunchest ally, was in fact the greatest threat to world peace.

By
Dr Hanan Chehata
Press Officer, Middle East Monitor, London

This morning (November 30th) John Ging, the Head of the United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency (), hosted a discussion on the current crisis in the Gaza Strip. The closed seminar, which was co-hosted and organised by Oliver McTernan, Director of Forward Thinking and Dr Daud Abdullah Director of the Middle East Monitor, was attended by a small group of prominent individuals with a deep interest and commitment to the situation in the region. Those in attendance included Clare Short (MP), Jeremy Bowen (BBC), a representative of the Malaysian High Commissioner, a representative from Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP), Interpal, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and several members of the press.

The main focus of the discussion was the siege on Gaza and what needs to be done to alleviate the suffering of the 1.4 million Gazans trapped in the region.

Policy makers must go to Gaza and see the situation for themselves

John Ging started by giving an overview of the situation in Gaza. According to Ging, one of the main problems at the moment is simply that “the truth is not getting out.” What is happening on the ground is not being reported widely enough or accurately enough. Throughout the meeting one of Ging’s main action points was to suggest that people, particularly high profile policy makers, go to Gaza to see the situation for themselves. He stood firm by his conviction that if members of Parliament and Congress and governments around the world could see first hand what was going on in Gaza, they would be forced to implement a change in their policies in the region. “I am convinced that they will be compelled to do more if they see the situation for themselves”, he stated. It is not enough to just sit around a Foreign Ministry table and discuss the situation. The Ministers must first go out and see the situation with their own eyes and then go back and have their meeting, he argued. This is particularly important in the case of EU member states, he said and for the members of the Quartet.