State prosecutor: Palestinian rights groups undermine Israel

[Violet_Crumble]

An official statement submitted several days ago to the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court accused human rights organizations that represent Palestinians and residents of East Jerusalem in court of working against Israel's interests.

The statement called HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual and B'Tselem - Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - organizations "that undermine the existence" of the State of Israel, "besmirch" the state and its security forces, and "cause it damage in the world."

The Jerusalem court is hearing a suit brought by East Jerusalem resident Alaa Ali, who is claiming tens of thousands of shekels in damages from the state for alleged repeated arrests by the police and Shin Bet security service, unnecessary delays at checkpoints and abusive interrogations between 1996-1999. At one point in the proceedings, a Shin Bet official was questioned in camera, and attorney Yossi Wolfson of HaMoked, who is representing the plaintiff, filed a motion to release the transcript.


Attorney Nira Mashriki of the Tel Aviv prosecutor's office for civil matters wrote to the court in response: "The organization does not deal with 'defending human rights' as it claims, but instead with defending the rights of Palestinians only. The organization's activity is one-sided and it works in the interest of a group of people whose elected leadership is currently in a harsh conflict with the State of Israel and is undermining its existence."

Mashriki, the state's representative in the proceedings, wrote that "the organization's self-presentation as 'a human rights organization' has no basis in reality and is designed to mislead. The organization is funded by outside entities whose interests differ from those of the State of Israel and sometimes contradict them."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/690936.html

[bemildred]

1. Ah, good, sedition trials, coming right up.

Filthy, traitorious human rights organizations are a threat to the state.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Get real

I am 65 years old -- and I grew up in a very politically aware, politically active, LW family - with uncles "investigated" by McCarthy and HUAC.

I have petitioned my FBI file twice under FOIA -- American Civil Liberties union, Americans for Democratic Action, VietNam Veterans Against The War, etc.

And RWers always refer to the ACLU as the "American Communist Lawyers Union"

Would some be so kind as to elucidate where RW prosecutors do not refer to civil rights groups and human rights groups as "subversive" and "seditious."

[bemildred]

4. True, it's common everywhere.

Control freaks are all alike, as we used to say.

[Tom Joad]

6. Yep. Though not everywhere are their 200 children taken into

detention in just a one month span. Nor is it everywhere that children are subject to torture, separation from parents or legal rights. Nor is it everywhere that US taxpayers paying for such morally repugnant policies.

[bemildred]

7. Look, it's like this Tom ...

When someone chooses to use the US national security state as a deflection in defense of the Israeli national security state, I see no reason to interfere with that idea. The taxpayers pay for those policies here, every much as we do in Israel. That's part of where the moral blindness comes from, we're so used to it.

[barb162]

9. yeah, and about 200 rockets have been shot into Israel

... "Nor is it everywhere that Israeli children are subject to" terror attacks by Palestinians. "Nor is it everywhere that US taxpayers paying for such morally repugnant policies" as supporting firing rockets into Israel by Palestinians .

[Tom Joad]

10. How can any nation that supports such a policy of violence and

oppression not expect to suffer, to incite violence?

It would seem like it might be time to end the occupation. It was illegal and wrong in 1967, it is illegal now.

[Behind the Aegis]

13. ?

"How can any nation that supports such a policy of violence and oppression not expect to suffer, to incite violence?"

Are you talking about Israel or Hamas?

"It would seem like it might be time to end the occupation. It was illegal and wrong in 1967, it is illegal now."

Ending the occupation would be GREAT! And, it was illegal in 1967...as illegal as the 1967 war against Israel, in which Egypt and Jordan got their "asses" kicked and lost their "occupied" lands! Actually, Jordan didn't occupy the West Bank, it annexed it; much to the chagrin of the Arab world.

[heirs_of_liberty]

16. Simple fact is Israel is not a nation of Republican Liberty

The defect was the conservative fascist concept of creating a nation based upon totalitarian religious socialism. The perversity of colonizing a Muslim fascist protectorate with Jewish fascists was clearly missed by the Anglican imperial fascists of Britain. The result is that there is no true justice, liberty or democracy in either Israel or Palestine.

In the modern civilised world, only a state that is based upon Republican Liberty can remain viable. This means religious freedom and freedom from religious persecution
to and for all.

The only way to accomplish the truly impartial freedom that true justice and fair democracy requires, is to outlaw the establishment of any form of religious socialism, creating an impenetrable wall of separation between Church and State, in defence of all religion itself.

One wonders that when Truman surrendered to Churchill at Potsdam, allowing Churchill and Stalin to carve up Europe, if America surrendered Republican Liberty itself to conservative christian socialist imperial tyranny, simply to place itself on an equal fascist footing with conservative imperial Anglican socialist tyranny in Britain and conservative imperial communal socialist tyranny in the Soviet Union.

Certainly while both have the right to exist, accepting national governments explicitly crafted as religious fascist tyrannies like Saudi Arabia and Israel, is the problem, not the solution.

It is immaterial who bit who's conservative fascist ear off or who didn't have whatever rights to do what in the first place!

The only path to peace is Liberty!

[Englander]

11. Mashriki works for the State.

She works in the Tel Aviv prosecutor’s office for civil matters, so, personally,
I'd hope that any individual who representated the State, would try & be impartial,
& not 'rw' or 'lw'. At least, that's how it works around these parts, I know it's
different on the other side of the Atlantic. Thankfully, it's also how it works in
Isreal, Mashriki doesn't get the support of her boss;

State prosecutor rejects criticism of human rights groups
By Yuval Yoaz

The state prosecution is distancing itself from comments from a state attorney this week that two human rights organizations are serving interests that undermine the existence of the State of Israel.

"The comments of the attorney reflect neither the prosecution's position nor the position of the state, and were not authorized ahead of time and certainly not retroactively," State Prosecutor Eran Shendar said in a letter Wednesday.

Shendar's letter came in the wake of a Haaretz report published on Tuesday that quoted attorney Nira Mashriki of the Tel Aviv prosecutor's office as saying in an official statement that HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual and B'Tselem - Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories work for interests that "besmirch" the state and its security forces, and "cause it damage in the world."

The report caused a storm in the Justice Ministry and generated protests from HaMoked and B'Tselem. In addition, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz-Yachad) asked Shendar and the attorney general to bring Mashriki before a disciplinary hearing. As of press time, the prosecution has decided not to do so, but has begun an urgent inquiry into the matter.

"The state's position has been and continues to be that HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual and the B'Tselem organization are human rights organizations," Shendar wrote to ACRI legal adviser Dan Yakir.

Shendar's assistant, attorney Elad Rosental, said the prosecution planned to issue a revised version of the statement Mashriki had written and was submitted to the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court in reference to a lawsuit brought by an East Jerusalem resident against the state. He said the "inappropriate" comments would be excised.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/692172.html

[Violet_Crumble]

12. The article didn't say anything about the Attorney being a right-winger...

What party are they connected with?

And to answer yr question:

"PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, I've made it clear that I am a member of Amnesty International.

I remain a member of Amnesty International.

I was presented this particular pin -- I haven't said that before -- by the international president, as Minister.

I was Minister when it was given to me, and as long as I remain a member -- and I do support very strongly Amnesty's commitment to its charter and ideals -- I'll continue to wear a badge proudly."

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s120187.htm

I hope no-one's going to try to argue that Phillip Ruddock isn't a right-winger.

"A Federal Government minister is being stripped of his lapel badge. The Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock has fallen foul of Amnesty International, an organisation which he proudly supports. The human rights group has asked him to remove his Amnesty badge while performing his ministerial duties and to not to refer to his membership when promoting policies that Amnesty opposes."

http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s111533.htm

Violet....

[Coastie for Truth]

14. Of what relevance is the position of the Australian Immigration Minister

with respect to a matter in a lower level trial court in Israel?

PS - I think yer grenade launching bunnie rabbit is cute.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. Gosh, maybe coz he's now our Attorney General?

You didn't answer my question, Coastie. Where in the article did it say that this particular prosecutor was a right-winger?

PS - I'm so glad you like Miffy. My kidlet loves Miffy as well :)

Violet...

[Coastie for Truth]

17. That's as much of a non-sequitor as

1. Before Dick Thornburgh became the Reagan and Bush I Attorney General he was pro-Choice and on the Board of the Pennsylvania affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. Upon his nomination he resigned from the ACLU and supervised efforts to overturn Roe.

2. Before George H. Bush became Reagan's Vice President he was Pro-Choice.

BTW - in the court room, litigating cases type prosecutors tend to be more RW then, e.g., the defense lawyers they come up against. Exceptions - but not a lot.

[president4aday]

18. Lame....Harass'n civil rights is what RW prosecutors do. Ho hum.

[Wordie]

2. A little OT, but is anyone else having difficulties accessing Haaretz?

I could follow your link, but if I enter the basic url, to go to the online homepage, I get a blank page. And if I try to click on any of the other links on the page your link goes to, I also get a blank page. Is this happening for others? What's going on?

[Tom Joad]

5. Nothing unusual for Haaretz.

Stuff happens to me too. I think regardles of subject matter. Just the way they run their website.

[Wordie]

8. Well...

Oddly, I seem to be having problems accessing the AIPAC site, too (http://www.aipac.org). I've tried on and off all day, but I either have to turn Java off, in which case I can get to the AIPAC homepage, but I'm not able to follow any of the links, or I turn Java on, and the site crashes my browser immediately.

It's weird, but probably just a strange coincidence...