Davos Annual Meeting 2009 – Gaza: The Case for Middle East Peace January 30, 2009

Keberanian dan Ketegasan Erdogan – PM Turkey January 30, 2009

Kebanyakkan akhbar melaporkan keberanian Recep Tayyip Erdogan ketika di atas pentas bersama Presiden Israel Shimon Peres.  Erdogan dengan lantang menyuarakan sokongannya terhadap rakyat Gaza yang dibunuh oleh Yahudi. Erdogan akhirnya meninggalkan pentas kerana ketidakadilan moderator majlis yang berpihak kepada Peres dengan memberi masa lebih kepada pemimpin Yahudi itu.

Dalam pada Turkey mempunyai hubungan diplomatik denga Israel Erdogan lantang dan berani menyuarakan pendiriannya membantah kekejaman Yahudi. Namun, pemimpin negara Islam lain [walaupun tidak mempunyai sebarang hubungan diplomatik] hanya sekadar bermesyuarat tetapi tunduk terhadap tekanan yang dikenakan ke atas mereka.

Baca lanjut di sini:

Turkish PM Erdoğan storms out of heated Mideast debate: http://todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=165508

PM Erdogan: I Will Never Come To Davos: http://www.huliq.com/1/76900/pm-erdoghan-i-will-never-come-davos

Turkish PM walks off stage over Gaza:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090129/ap_on_bi_ge/davos_forum

Turkey’s Erdogan storms out of Davos over Gaza debate: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=35798

Dan turut disiarkan oleh beberapa akhbar tempatan.

Sekian, IB

Iklan Yang BBC Enggan siarkan January 27, 2009

Inilah klip video iklan Rayuan Derma Gaza yang BBC enggan siarkan:

The BBC’s pact with Israel January 27, 2009

dipetik dari: http://www.redress.cc/global/redress20090127

Money and ideology behind BBC’s decision not to broadcast Gaza humanitarian appeal

By a special correspondent

27 January 2009

The BBC’s refusal to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for Gaza on behalf of a group of charities is motivated by a desire to appease US advertisers for its commercial TV channel and website, and by Mark Thompson’s own political proclivities.

Many people have been shocked and bewildered by the BBC’s refusal to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), an umbrella organization for 13 humanitarian aid agencies.

However, the decision by the BBC’s director-general, Mark Thompson, not to broadcast the appeal should have come as no surprise. In fact, media observers have been witnessing a steady tilt by the corporation towards Israel since the turn of the millennium.

According to our sources, there are two fundamental reasons for this. The first is the need to boost advertising revenue for the debt-ridden BBC World News television channel, which cannot be seen in the UK. This channel relies heavily on advertisers from the United States who we understand have told the BBC in no uncertain terms that they would advertise with it only if the corporation changed its editorial line on the Arab-Israeli conflict in favour of Israel.

Related to this is the decision by the BBC to introduce advertising on its news website for users outside the UK, bbc.com. Although this had been in the planning since at least 2000, it was introduced only in November 2007. However, we understand that throughout this period BBC executives argued that the corporation must make further changes to its coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to insure that it is on the right side of US advertisers when bbc.com goes commercial.

Thus came the first of a couple of humiliating concessions to Israel by the BBC. In November 2003, the then director of the BBC World Service, Mark Byford, paid a visit to Israel which culminated in “a joint declaration on a commitment to objective coverage of Middle East events” and the appointment by the corporation of a special adviser on Middle East affairs, Mark Balen, to insure that Israel’s viewpoint was always represented, if not given primacy, in news and current affairs coverage. In return, and to save the BBC’s face, Israel agreed to lift a boycott it had instituted after the corporation screened the programme “Israel’s Secret Weapon,” about Israel’s un-inspected nuclear, biological and chemical weapons capabilities.

Before leaving Israel, Mr Byford assured his new Zionist friends that this was not a one-off concession by the BBC. “We will maintain an ongoing dialogue, at senior levels, with all the sides, including the Israeli government, with regard to our coverage,” he told his hosts.

Two years later, in November 2005, the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, visited Israel where he held a face-to-face meeting with its then prime minister, Ariel Sharon. According to Guy Adams of the Independent,

Although the diplomatic visit was not publicised [in the UK], it has been seized upon in Israel as evidence that Thompson, who took office in 2004, intends to build bridges with the country’s political class.

Sources at the Beeb also suspect that it heralds a “softening” to the corporation’s unofficial editorial line on the Middle East.

“This was the first visit of its kind by any serving director general, so it’s clearly a significant development,” I’m told.

So, it was not without reason that British Health Minister Ben Bradshaw – of all people – urged the BBC to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally” and to broadcast the charities’ appeal for Gaza.

Nor was it fantasy on the part of Tony Benn when he said:

I never thought I would live to see [the BBC] refuse to broadcast a humanitarian appeal on the grounds that it was controversial. I know why it is – because [Tzipi] Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, has said there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

But what kind of management would sell the soul of an internationally-respected broadcaster such as the BBC for the sake of a few advertising pennies?

This brings us to the second fundamental reason for the BBC’s tilt towards Israel. That is perhaps where Mark Thompson’s ideology – or bias – comes in. According to a BBC insider quoted in the Independent, “Not many people know this, but Mark [Thompson] is actually a deeply religious man. He’s a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors.”

There you have it!

But where does this leave the BBC? Mr Thompson’s refusal to let the BBC air a non-political, humanitarian appeal by a group of charities on behalf of the destitute of Gaza has profoundly, and probably irreversibly, damaged the reputation and integrity of the BBC. Furthermore, by placing the BBC firmly on the side of Israel and its lobbyists in Britain and the US, Mr Thompson has made the BBC and its staff a target for reprisals against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

This is particularly bad news for the BBC World Service’s two flagship television channels, BBC Arabic and BBC Persian – the first struggling for a place in the crowded Arab satellite broadcasting environment and the second already facing accusations by the Iranian authorities that it is an agent for subversion.

A  self-respecting director-general would resign. But what self-respecting director-general would put a great British institution in this position in the first place?

Saudi patience is running out January 26, 2009

In my decades as a public servant, I have strongly promoted the Arab-Israeli peace process. During recent months, I argued that the peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia could be implemented under an Obama administration if the Israelis and Palestinians both accepted difficult compromises. I told my audiences this was worth the energies of the incoming administration for, as the late Indian diplomat Vijaya Lakshmi Nehru Pandit said: “The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.”

But after Israel launched its bloody attack on Gaza, these pleas for optimism and co-operation now seem a distant memory. In the past weeks, not only have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk.

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told the UN Security Council that if there was no just settlement, “we will turn our backs on you”. King Abdullah spoke for the entire Arab and Muslim world when he said at the Arab summit in Kuwait that although the Arab peace initiative was on the table, it would not remain there for long. Much of the world shares these sentiments and any Arab government that negotiated with the Israelis today would be rightly condemned by its citizens. Two of the four Arab countries that have formal ties to Israel – Qatar and Mauritania – have suspended all relations and Jordan has recalled its ambassador.

America is not innocent in this calamity. Not only has the Bush administration left a sickening legacy in the region – from the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to the humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib – but it has also, through an arrogant attitude about the butchery in Gaza, contributed to the slaughter of innocents. If the US wants to continue playing a leadership role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact – especially its “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia – it will have to drastically revise its policies vis a vis Israel and Palestine.

The incoming US administration will be inheriting a “basket full of snakes” in the region, but there are things that can be done to help calm them down. First, President Barack Obama must address the disaster in Gaza and its causes. Inevitably, he will condemn Hamas’s firing of rockets at Israel.

When he does that, he should also condemn Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians and support a UN resolution to that effect; forcefully condemn the Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from settlement building in the West Bank to the blockade of Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians; declare America’s intention to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, with a security umbrella for countries that sign up and sanctions for those that do not; call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shab’ah Farms in Lebanon; encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for peace; and support a UN resolution guaranteeing Iraq’s territorial integrity.

Mr Obama should strongly promote the Abdullah peace initiative, which calls on Israel to pursue the course laid out in various international resolutions and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4 1967; to accept a mutually agreed just solution to the refugee problem according to the General Assembly resolution 194; and to recognise the independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return, there would be an end to hostilities between Israel and all the Arab countries, and Israel would get full diplomatic and normal relations.

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over “this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children” in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom’s primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.

So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel. Today, every Saudi is a Gazan, and we remember well the words of our late King Faisal: “I hope you will forgive my outpouring of emotions, but when I think that our Holy Mosque in Jerusalem is being invaded and desecrated, I ask God that if I am unable to undertake Holy Jihad, then I should not live a moment more.”

Let us all pray that Mr Obama possesses the foresight, fairness, and resolve to rein in the murderous Israeli regime and open a new chapter in this most intractable of conflicts.

Protes Untuk Gaza Terhadap BBC January 26, 2009

[PARA penunjuk perasaan berhimpun di hadapan bangunan BBC di London semalam.–AFP]

BBC dikecam hebat kerajaan Britain dan aktivis kerana berkeras tidak menyiarkan rayuan bantuan kecemasan bagi penduduk Palestin di Genting Gaza.

BBC beri alasan: Penyiaran boleh menjejaskan sikap berkecualinya, dan mempersoalkan sama ada bantuan boleh disalurkan dengan berkesan di Gaza.

Beribu-ribu penunjuk perasaan berhimpun di luar pejabat BBC semalam untuk memprotes pendirian tersebut.

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Klik di sini untuk tonton MP George Galloway during Protest For Gaza, Against BBC Charity Broadcast refusal – London 24 Jan 2009:

Tony Benn – former Secrataru of State and Minister of British Government in the 60s and 70s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lJoRi0HKWk

Gerald Kaufman, the Jewish veteran Labour Party MP Jewish MP debating in the House of Commons – Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray during Stop Gaza Massacre protest London Saturday 10 January 2009

Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9oRlHec1a8&feature=related

Yvonne Ridley Stop Gaza Massacre protest London 10 January 2009

click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3aCnzbJaYo

Israel must be judged at the International Criminal Court – Universal petition January 26, 2009

Approximately 300 among NGOs and associations ask the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open an investigation on the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Our support is indispensable. Sign and circulate this urgent «universal petition».- [click here]

To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC)

Law is the distinguishing mark of human civilisation. All progress made by humanity coincides with the consolidation of rights. The challenge that Israel’s aggression against Gaza poses to us consists in affirming, when confronted with such great suffering, that the response to violence is justice.

War crimes? Only courts are able to bring about a sentence, but all of us can bear witness, because a human being only exists in his relationship with others. The circumstances show the breadth of their dimension in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1949, «All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.»

The protection of populations, and not only of States, is the reason why the International Criminal Court exists. A population without a State is the most threatened of all, and before History, they are placed under the protection of international bodies. The most vulnerable populations must be the most protected. Killing Palestinian civilians, the Israeli armoured tanks have caused humanity as a whole to bleed. We have been insisting that the power of the Prosecutor be put at the service of all the victims, and this task must allow that the entire world receives a message of hope, that of the construction of international rights based on human rights. And together, one day, we can pay homage to the Palestinian people for the contribution that they have given to the defence of human freedom.

Campaign begun on  19/01/2009

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