| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"The Truth Seeker" |
| Date: |
08 Mar 2006 09:57:48 AM |
| Object: |
Free Speech is No Longer Allowed in America |
"The flights for cast and crew had been booked; the production schedule
delivered; the press announcement drafted and approved; tickets advertised
on the internet. The Royal Court production of 'My Name Is Rachel Corrie',
the play co-edited by Alan Rickman, was transferring next month to the New
York Theatre Workshop."
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1720592,00.html
However, the decision by the New York Theatre Workshop to cancel the play is
down to pure censorship.
Initially, the NYTW said the cancellation was due to the work commitments of
Mr Rickman. But this couldn't be further from the truth and has been totally
denied by Mr Rickman, who said he had actually cancelled other work so that
he could transfer the award winning play from the Royal Court Theatre in
London to New York.
The truth is the cancellation follows extensive protests to the theatre by
the Jewish Lobby, whose only aim to to stop any criticism of Israel.
But play doesn't even deal directly with the Israeli/Palestine conflict.
How long will Americans put up with this censorship ?
A censorship that if anyone speaks out against the crimes of Israel they are
immediately silenced, or in the case of any US politician, their careers are
ruined.
Why is it that Jews, who make up less than 3% of the American population,
have such power and influence over the whole of American society ?
The Truth Seeker has spoken and needs some answers.
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| User: "The Truth Seeker" |
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| Title: 1967 - Israel Warned On Illegality of Settlements |
11 Mar 2006 05:41:40 PM |
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Israelis were warned on illegality of settlements in 1967 memo:
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem - Published: 11 March 2006
London Independent.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article350586.ece
Israeli ministers were secretly warned just after the Six-Day War in 1967
that any policy of building settlements across occupied Palestinian
territories violated international law.
A "top secret" memo by the Israeli Foreign Ministry's then legal counsel
said that would "contravene the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva
Convention". Growth of Jewish settlements over the next three decades
followed.
The official advice that a policy which is now a major obstacle to a
peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had no basis in
international law has been highlighted by the Israeli historian, Gershom
Gorenberg. His new book, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the
Settlements will generate fresh debate on the legality of the West Bank
settlements in the wake of Ariel Sharon's decision to withdraw 8,500
settlers from Gaza last August.
Most of the international community has held that Jewish settlement in the
territories seized in the 1967 war contravened international law, and the
Geneva Conventions in particular, but this has long been publicly contested
by Israel.
The highly classified internal advice was given by Theodor Meron, who left
Israel a decade later and became a leading international jurist who until
the end of last year was president of the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia.
After the 1967 Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, made it known he wanted
settlements in the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the war, and in the
Jordan Valley, to make Israel's borders more defensible, Mr Meron was asked
whether international law allowed such settlement.
The counsel sanctioned short-term settlement "by military bodies rather than
civilian ones", but explicitly ruled out civilian settlements which were
energetically established by successive Israel governments, leading to an
Israeli population of more than 240,00 in the West Bank today.
The Israeli acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has made it clear that while
Israel is prepared to withdraw further settlements from the West Bank, it
intends, unilaterally if it cannot reach a negotiated peace deal, to annex
territory occupied by others, including the three big settlement blocks of
Ma'ale Admumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel.
The Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, 78, who is still in a coma, had secured
assurances from President George Bush that borders in a "final status"
agreement with the Palestinians would allow such blocks to remain in Israel.
Mr Meron's advice, also referred to in another recent book on the 1967 war
and its aftermath by the eminent Israeli journalist Tom Segev, also
explicitly rejected an argument now used by Israel to defend the legality of
settlements, namely that the West Bank was not "normal" occupied territory
because it had not indisputably belonged to another sovereign national power
and had been unilaterally annexed by Jordan.
Mr Meron said the international community would regard settlement as showing
"intent to annex the West Bank", adding that "certain Israeli actions are
inconsistent with the claim that the West Bank is not occupied territory".
He pointed out that the government specifically decreed military courts had
to apply the Geneva Conventions in the West Bank.
Israel has long argued that the policy of settlement conforms with the 1922
League of Nations decision at the San Remo conference in favour of Jewish
settlement in Palestine. It also contests that the Fourth Geneva
Convention's clear prohibition of transfers of civilian population to
occupied lands was drafted to deal with forced population transfers in
central and eastern Europe in the Second World War.
Yesterday, Mark Regev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Israel did not
accept that settlements properly decided by the government contravened
international law. "We distinguish between illegal outposts, which will be
demolished, and legal communities established according to the law." He said
the original advice had not been upheld by decisions of the Israeli courts.
In yesterday's New York Times, Mr Gorenberg said: "Today it is clear that
Israel's future as a Jewish state depends on ending its rule of the West
Bank." He adds: "Thirty-eight years after the missed warning, we must find a
way to untie the entanglement."
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