Skip to main content

They're in!

Not surpisingly, the UN overwhelmingly voted for the admission of Palestine to the UN with Observer State status.    It is shameful to think that the move was either opposed (and these are the countries which voted against - Israel, United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Panama, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau) - or that 41countries, most likely intimidated or coward by the Israel/Jewish lobby, abstained.

What does it mean?     From Australians for Palestine, the ramifications, as explained by Professor of International Law in Chicago:

"This can be the start of a 'Legal Intifadah' by Palestine
against Israel:

1. "Palestine can join the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court
and file a Complaint with the ICC against the illegal settlements and
settlers, who are committing war crimes;

2. "Palestine can join the Statute for the International Court of Justice,
sue Israel at the World Court, and break the illegal siege of Gaza;

3. "Palestine can join the Law of the Sea Convention and get its fair share
of the enormous gas fields lying off the coast of Gaza, thus becoming
economically self-sufficient;

4. "Palestine can become a High Contracting Party to the Four Geneva
Conventions [this deals with the laws of war];

5. "Palestine can join the International Civil Aviation Organization and
gain sovereign, legal control over its own airspace;

6. "Palestine can join the International Telecommunications Union and gain
sovereign legal control over its own airwaves, phone lines, bandwidths."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?