Akehurst Justifies Israel’s Terror in Gaza and its Murder of Unarmed Demonstrators
Dylan Thomas wrote that ‘the hand that signed the paper felled a city’. I doubt if Luke Akehurst, a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and an aspirant to succeed John Spellar as MP for Warley, has killed anyone. However he has done his best to encourage, support and justify the murder of innocent Palestinians. Those legally minded may recall that Julius Streicher, the Editor of Der Sturmer, was hanged at Nuremburg for Crimes Against Humanity, even though he too was not judged to have personally killed anyone. Indeed the charge was invented to convict him.
Luke Akehurst’s willingness to justify and gather support for Israel’s use of live fire against peaceful demonstrators makes him no different from the war criminals who pull the trigger. If anything he is more culpable than the snipers who execute their orders.
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| Luke Akehurst has no problem with Israel using live ammunition against these demonstrators |
I suggest that people use the link on Akehurst’s ‘We Believe in Israel’ site to email MPs, but delete the Zionist message in the letter and explain why you are opposed to Israel’s war criminals shooting unarmed demonstrators and explaining why you have deleted Akehurst’s previous message. Akehurst also asked that people contact him with responses. Maybe you might like to send this wretch a response!
Luke Akehurst is Director of We Believe in Israel and a stalwart of Labour First. A former arms salesman Akehurst sent out an email at the weekend asking people to send an identikit letter to MPs defending Israel’s gunning down and murder of 27 unarmed Palestinians and the wounding of over one thousand more in Gaza during the last week. Every last lie and pretext, every dishonest subterfuge and circumlocution was used as Akehurst blamed the people who had been murdered or wounded.
Akehurst’s email was entitled: ‘Please email your MP to ask them to condemn Hamas for provoking violence on the Gaza border.’ You would be forgiven for having thought that Hamas had done the shooting. Perhaps Hamas had kidnapped thousands of Palestinians and forced them to march to the fence surrounding Gaza?
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| an injured demonstrator is carried away |
The Zionists are fond of accusing Palestinian supporters are engaging in ‘conspiracy theories’ but could there be any more malign and sinister conspiracy theory than depicting the demonstrators in Gaza as puppets of Hamas? The idea that people willingly walk into a free fire zone because Hamas has told them to is reminiscent of the darkest days of the British Empire when hundreds of demonstrators were mowed down by the British at Amritsar.
Akehurst has the racist mindset of all apologists for colonialists. The indigenous people only rise up against those who have dispossessed them because they are put up to it by ‘others’. They are too uncivilised and child-like to have a mind of their own. This is classic Kipling territory.
Contrast Akehurst’s wretched racism with Gideon Levy’s heart felt words in Ha’aretz yesterday:
It’s hard to understand how one can look at tens of thousands of people in their cage and not see them. How is it possible to look at these protesters and not see the disaster wrought first and foremost by Israel?
B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group issued a call to soldiers not to fire on unarmed human beings bringing down threats of prosecution on its head. But Akehurst isn’t in the business of human rights but defending Zionism and Jewish supremacy in Israel.
If the Labour Party is seriously concerned about racism, as opposed to the fake anti-Semitism it embroils itself in, it would immediately suspend Luke Akehurst for his anti-Palestinian racism.
By way of contrast Jeremy Corbyn sent a good message to the 2,000 plus demonstration outside Downing Street at the weekend. It is actions such as this which lie behind the fake anti-Semitism campaign and which guarantee why this particular show is set to run and run.
I have asked for this statement to be read at today's demonstration supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza:
The killing and wounding of yet more unarmed Palestinian protesters yesterday by Israeli forces in Gaza is an outrage.
The majority of the people of the Gaza Strip are stateless refugees, subject to a decade long blockade and the denial of basic human and political rights. More than two thirds are reliant on humanitarian assistance, with limited access to the most basic amenities, such as water and electricity.
They have a right to protest against their appalling conditions and the continuing blockade and occupation of Palestinian land, and in support of their right to return to their homes and their right to self-determination.
Firing live ammunition into crowds of unarmed civilians is illegal and inhumane and cannot be tolerated.
We stand in solidarity with the Israelis who have taken to the streets this last week to protest their government’s actions.
The silence from international powers with the responsibility of bringing a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict must end.
The UK government must support the UN Secretary-General’s call for an independent international inquiry into the killing of protesters in Gaza and review the sale of arms that could be used in violation of international law.
The events in Gaza and the threat of renewed conflict underlines the urgent necessity of genuine negotiations to achieve a viable two-state settlement that delivers peace, justice and security to both Palestinians and Israelis.
Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories - Amnesty International Statement (excerpts)
The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory (the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) is in its fifth decade and the undercurrent of violence and inherent abuses of fundamental human rights and disregard for international law inherent in any long-standing military occupation is presented by both sides. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence in the region.
Human rights violations by Israeli forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) have included, but are not limited to, home demolitions and the forced eviction of Palestinian families; punitive arrests, unfair trials, ill-treatment and torture of detainees and the use of excessive or lethal force to subdue nonviolent demonstrations as well as the use of restrictive legal means. In contravention of international law, Israel continues to build parts of the wall/fence in the OPT, expand settlements and use draconian restrictions on the movement of Palestinians with some 600 roadblocks and checkpoints. Amnesty International is also concerned about discriminatory policies affecting access to water for Palestinians.
In areas under control of the Palestinian Authority, concerns include, but are not limited to, excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment, torture and the use of administrative detention to jail individuals without charge or trial. Some detainees also do not receive adequate medical attention.
A ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip in effect since 2009 has been generally respected. The Gaza Strip has been under increasing restrictions since 2005, when Israel unilaterally pulled troops and settlers out of the strip. June 2007, restrictions tightened to an almost air-tight blockade, deepening the hardship there and virtually imprisoning the entire population of 1.6 million.
Israel maintains effective control over Gaza, controlling all but one of the crossings into the Gaza Strip, the airspace, territorial waters, telecommunications and the population registry which determines who is allowed to leave or enter Gaza. Therefore, Israel is still considered the occupying power and is responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants in the strip under international humanitarian law.
Israeli authorities rejected or delayed hundreds of permit applications to leave Gaza by Palestinians requiring specialist medical treatment; a few died as a result. Most of Gaza's inhabitants depend on international aid, which is severely hampered by the blockade. In May 2010, Israeli forces killed nine men aboard an aid flotilla in international waters that was challenging the blockade's legality.
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| Palestinian photojournalist Yaser Murtaja soon after he was shot in the chest during clashes at the Gaza border Friday April 6, 2018.IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/רויט |
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| Palestinian journalist Yaser Murtaja was sh ot in the chest and died despite wearing a clearly visible press jacket |
Israel claims to have Gaza are just one more lie
In 2005 Israel pulled out its troops from Gaza. Not in order to allow the people of Gaza to live their own lives in peace but in order to better control them from the outside. Gaza was turned into an open air prison, an area in which to test different weaponry, a live firing range.
As Amnesty International maintains above, in terms of international law Israel is the occupying power, preventing access to the territory by sea, air and land. It maintains a Population Registry and uses this to control who goes in and out.
The extent to which Israel maintains control is shown by the following story in Ha’aretz. A Palestinian couple based in Germany want to marry in the West Bank where the man’s family is. Although the bride, Abu Nada, has lived in Germany for over a decade, Israel has her still registered as living in Gaza. Gazan’s aren’t allowed with rare exceptions to go to the West Bank and certainly not her family. Israel has therefore, callously and bureaucratically refused permission for them to marry amongst family and friends. The reasons? None are given but all this is, of course, done in the name of security. No doubt the execrable Luke Akehurst would approve.
Israel Refuses to Let Palestinian Couple Living in Germany Wed in West Bank
The Civil Administration says the bride is registered as a resident of the Gaza Strip, even though she left more than a decade ago
Yotam Berger Apr 08, 2018 1:37 AM
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| Ala Abu Nada and Omar Mohsan |
Israel's Civil Administration is not allowing a Palestinian couple who live in Germany to hold their wedding ceremony in the West Bank, saying the bride is registered as a resident of the Gaza Strip even though she left more than a decade ago.
The Civil Administration in the West Bank informed the two that they “do not meet the criteria” for obtaining entry permits, but gave no further details. The couple, who hold Palestinian identity papers and have been living in Germany for years, have postponed their wedding indefinitely.
Ala Abu Nada was born in Gaza and left in 2004 for Germany, where she grew up and now lives. She met Omar Mohsan, a Hebron resident who went to Germany to study engineering, at a Palestinian convention in Malmo, Sweden. Last year the two asked the Civil Administration for permits allowing the Abu Nada family to travel from the Gaza Strip to Hebron so they could attend the wedding.
In a letter, the Civil Administration said that because the bride’s request was denied there was no reason to approve travel permits for the family. It added that travel from Gaza to the West Bank for the wedding of immediate family members is only approved when either the bride or the bridegroom are West Bank residents who live there.
In a conversation with Haaretz from Germany, Abu Nada said she met Mohsan two years ago when she was 18.
“Omar talked to my parents, who live in Cologne, and then we got engaged,” she said. “To this very moment we don’t know why they denied us entry. We only want to get married and return to Germany. It’s my dream to meet Omar’s family and celebrate my wedding there.”
Abu Nada said the wedding had been planned for April 6. She said the Israeli authorities had not contacted her and she only heard about the refusal through the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, a nonprofit organization that is helping the couple.
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| Ala Abu Nada and Omar Mohsan |
“I have never been to the West Bank,” she added.
People at Gisha said Abu Nada was indeed registered with the Civil Administration as a Gaza Strip resident but has not lived there for 14 years. She is not requesting exit permits from Gaza for herself.
As attorney Osnat Cohen-Lifshitz, the head of Gisha’s legal department, put it, “You can be an adult American-born citizen but for Israel you remain a Palestinian and that’s how you’ll be treated. You can’t enter through Ben-Gurion Airport, and you’ll be subject to their system of permits. The origin is the dominant factor there.”
According to Cohen-Lifshitz, the difference in this case is that the request is for Gaza residents who wish to enter the West Bank. For the Civil Administration that does not fit any category.
Cohen-Lifshitz says Abu Nada and her family’s requests met the necessary requirements because permits for a wedding of an immediate family member are “on the list.” “It’s one of the main criteria,” she said.
Nidal Mohsan, Omar’s father, said his son wanted to come for seven to 10 days in order to have a party and then return and finish his studies. He believes his son will stay in Germany when he finishes his degree.
“Maybe he’ll come once a year or every year and a half for a visit,” the father said. “You know how it is.”
For its part, the Civil Administration said Abu Nada’s request was received in September and was examined by the relevant authorities.
“Her request did not meet the criteria and the permit was denied,” it said.