Israeli thugs – organized criminals

By Paul J. Balles
17 July 2011

Paul J. Balles compares Israel to a thug who knows he has protection and asks: “How long can Israel's thugs keep getting away with the travesty of justice that's no better than organized crime in America?”

A thug enters your home, decides to stay, makes you his servants and locks you up in the worst conditions.

When the neighbours complain about what's going on in your home, the thug tells everyone that you are terrorists who want to destroy him and his family.

When the thug is told that he must treat you as equals in the house he has taken from you, he refuses, complaining that would leave him indefensible.

"The oppressed becomes the oppressor, the culprit becomes the victim, occupation is security, illegal colonization is cultural liberation, aggressive expansion is righteous reclamation, genocide is self-defence, apartheid is justice, resistance is terrorism, and ethnic cleansing is peace." Nima Sirazi

That’s Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. He's the latest in a long line of thugs who have burgled as many homes as arms from America could aid.
 Krav Maga Instructor Nima Sirazi comments cogently on the double-talk used by burglars like Netanyahu to con the public:

"The oppressed becomes the oppressor, the culprit becomes the victim, occupation is security, illegal colonization is cultural liberation, aggressive expansion is righteous reclamation, genocide is self-defence, apartheid is justice, resistance is terrorism, and ethnic cleansing is peace."

Netanyahu is not alone of course. An even worse thug is the ex-nightclub bouncer Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister.

This larger-than-life burglar stole one of the settlement properties for himself, kicked out the Palestinian home owners, moved in, took over and insisted that the occupation was necessary as a defensible border for Israel.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Gideon Levy reveals how Ilan Baruch, a veteran Israeli diplomat, acknowledged his inability to represent or explain Israeli policies. Last week he handed in his resignation letter.

Says Levy: "Our diplomatic corps today is comprised primarily of spineless propagandists void of values or a conscience."

Levy points realistically to how Israel's diplomats know what the world thinks of their country's machinations, their thievery and attempts to cover it all up.

"They know that under Lieberman's watch the Foreign Ministry has become a vessel of rage toward the entire world," observes Levy. "They know that no ambassador is sufficiently adroit to explain the brutality of Operation Cast Lead, or the pointless killing on the Mavi Marmara ship."

Israel's diplomats "know that no country on the planet actually accepts the occupation, the settlements or the indications of Israeli apartheid," adds Levy.

Despite what Israel's diplomats know, they remain silent. After all, the leading thugs and robbers are their bosses.

"Our [Israel’s] diplomatic corps today is comprised primarily of spineless propagandists void of values or a conscience." Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist

If these thugs were Italian, they'd be called Mafioso, arrested and jailed for being guilty of organized crime.
But such a comparison with common thieves who steal others' property is not possible for thugs who have protection.
The equivalent of organized crime judges being bought off can be seen in America simply by looking at the US congress who, like the family of a Mafia don, treat Netanyahu like the head of the Cosa Nostra.

How long can Israel's thugs keep getting away with the travesty of justice that's no better than organized crime in America?

“Although Jews constitute only two per cent of the American population, they have a disproportionate political impact: Pro-Israel interests have contributed 56.8 million dollars in individual, group and soft money donations to federal candidates and party committees since 1990,” reports activist-writer Bob Burnett.

Organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) do more damage to Jews than any organized Jew-hating group. They stimulate what they call anti-Semitism, meaning anti-Jew.

Notes writer Rand Clifford: “Americans have been so meticulously trained to ignore evidence in favour of what they want to believe, in conjunction with what they are wanted to believe, that too many have been rendered unable to objectively weigh evidence.”

They hold the position that nothing Israel does can be wrong, and everything their organizations do must be accepted – an extremely dangerous position to hold.

Why the Palestinians should never recognize Israel as a Jewish state

The PLO doesn't represent these Palestinians
and has no right to speak on their behalf

Khalid Amayreh

 One of the obsessive demands Israel keeps invoking these days is that the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for a possible peace settlement of the conflict in the Middle East.


Israel doesn't spell out the real motives behind this increasingly incessant demand. However, it is widely believed that Israel is seeking Palestinian consent, however tacit it may be, for the adoption of institutionalized racism against its non-Jewish citizens, including the 1.7 -million strong Palestinian minority, which constitutes more than one fourth of Israel's total population.

This institutionalized racism, many of whose virulent aspects are already rampant in Israel, ranges from systematic discrimination against non-Jews (presumably to encourage them to emigrate) to reserving the "right" to expel  as many Palestinians as it takes to maintain Israel's Jewish identity.

Israeli leaders and apologists keep invoking the largely discredited mantra that Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state. However, in light of reality today, including the recent approval by the Knesset of manifestly racist laws against non-Jewish citizens, it is amply clear that Israel cannot be both Talmudic and democratic at the same time.

The two are simply an eternal oxymoron that can never be reconciled. According to both the Old Testament and the Talmud, non-Jews living under Halacha or Jewish religious law ought to be enslaved as water carriers and wood hewers in the service of the master race, the Chosen People. Racism toward non-Jews could reach the point of having them exterminated in genocidal wars if the rabbinic authority deemed them hostile.

A recent book entitled King's Torah, which was endorsed by several prominent rabbis in Israel, explicitly permitted the killing of innocent non-Jews, including children, if the non-Jewish population was deemed hostile or posing a potential or future threat to Jews.

Rabbis who opposed the book readily admitted that while the content of the book was perfectly compatible with Jewish law, the book was politically incorrect since it could encourage Gentiles to hate Jews.

Readers shouldn't think this writer is evoking ancient canards that are both anachronistic and irrelevant. Only a few months ago, Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas, the fundamentalist haredi Jewish party, was quoted as saying that all non-Jews have the status of donkeys and that the Almighty created them solely so that they will serve the master race, the Jewish people.

Yosef is not a marginal figure in Israel as he enjoys the allegiance and loyalty of hundreds of thousands of followers.

Shas is also a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government headed by Benyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli Minister of Interior, Eli Yeshai is affiliated with Shas and is widely thought to be at Yosef's beck and call.

In an effort to blur or hide the real goals behind its rather sinister designs against its large Palestinian minority, Israeli leaders often use seemingly innocuous phraseology and  euphemisms to  connote what they have "in store" for the Palestinians.

For example, they speak of "two states for two people." Some honest people might be prompted to view this refrain as logical and harmless.
However, they would change their minds once they discover that what Israel has in mind is one state, namely Israel, that would devour at least 80% of historical  Palestine while the remainder would presumably go for the Palestinian state-let, an infinitely deformed entity, lacking real sovereignty as well as both territorial contiguity and economic viability.

Obviously, such a scandalous "peace deal" would be a real liquidation of the Palestinian cause which is why most if not all Palestinians would reject it outright.

In addition to the existential risks and dangers facing the very survival of Israel's Palestinian community, there are many other fatal implications of a possible Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

A key implication is that millions of Palestinian refugees, who had been uprooted from their homes and villages in what is now Israel in 1948, would have to kiss their right of return good-by.

Needless to say, the right of return is the crux of the Palestinian tragedy and is firmly sanctioned by international law through UN resolution 194.

The liquidation of the right of return, besides being a scandalous breach of justice, would leave the embers of the conflict alight for many, many years to come, pending  a more a humane solution of the conflict.

More to the point, it is highly doubtful if the Palestinian leadership, e.g. the PLO, would be able to convince a large number of refugees to give up their right to repatriation to their former towns and villages in Israel.

In addition, recognizing Israel, let alone recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, implies a Palestinian consent to ceding land, real estate and other property belonging to Palestinians in Israel. According to various estimates, 85% of land in pre-1967 Israel belonged to Palestinian landowners and proprietors many of whom still have pertinent land deeds and ownership registration documents, some dating back to the Ottoman era.

Finally, there is no doubt that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state could lead to a serious deterioration in the status of Islam and Christianity in Israel where religious places of immense importance belonging to the two faiths are located.

This prospect is especially worrying in light of the continued drift amongst Israeli Jews to right-wing Jewish nationalism, with conspicuous fascist overtones. (One Israeli cabinet minister was quoted a few months ago as saying that "we already live in a fascist state.")
It is abundantly clear that Israeli demands for a Palestinian recognition of Israel as an exclusive Jewish state is a red-herring tactic aimed at escaping peace and avoiding meeting its requirements, including giving up the spoils of the 1967-war.

Moreover, it is equally clear that the Palestinians are under no legal or moral obligation to recognize Israel's purported right to remain Jewish than the international community was to keep apartheid in South Africa.

For all the above reasons, the Palestinians must never even contemplate recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. After all, Israel, according to international law, is the nation-state for at least two-million non-Jews of whom Palestinians make up the vast majority.

The PLO doesn't represent these Palestinians and has no right to speak on their behalf, let alone reach agreements affecting their very existence and survival.

UN: Jerusalem is part of occupied Palestinian territories

Illegally occupied East Jerusalem

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization released a statement Friday confirming the occupied status of East Jerusalem.

"UNESCO wishes to reiterate that, contrary to recent claims, there has been no change in UNESCO's position on Jerusalem," the statement said.

"In line with overall UN policy, East Jerusalem remains part of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the status of Jerusalem must be resolved in permanent status negotiations."

"The Old City of Jerusalem is inscribed on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger. UNESCO continues to work to ensure respect for the outstanding universal value of the cultural heritage of the Old City of Jerusalem."

UNESCO had been criticized recently after it emerged that the organizations' website listed Jerusalem as Israel's capital, despite the international, and UN, consensus that the Eastern part of the city is under military occupation.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since 1967 and the international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over any of the occupied territories.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=405424

Israel’s Crackdown Grows with Boycott Bill

by Neve Gordon, July 15, 2011

Political change is slow. One doesn’t go to sleep in a democracy and wake up in a fascist regime. The citizens of Egypt and Tunisia can attest to the fact that the opposite is also true: dictatorship does not become democracy overnight.

Any political change of such magnitude is the result of a lot of hard work and is always incremental, indicating that there really is no single historical event that one can claim as the moment of conversion.

There are, however, significant events that serve as historical milestones.
The suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, who doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire when police confiscated his produce because he did not have the necessary permits, will be remembered as the spark that ignited the Tunisian revolution, and perhaps even the regional social uprisings now called the Arab Awakening. Similarly, the massive gatherings in Tahrir Square will probably be seen as the straw that broke the camel’s back, setting in motion a slow process of Egyptian democratisation.

In Israel, it might very well be that the Boycott Bill, which the Knesset approved by a vote of 47 to 38, will also be remembered as a historic landmark.

Ironically, the bill itself is likely to be inconsequential. It stipulates that any person who initiates, promotes or publishes material that might serve as grounds for imposing a boycott on Israel or the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem is committing an offence. If found "guilty" of such an offence, that person may be ordered to compensate parties economically affected by the boycott, including reparations of 30,000 Israeli shekels ($8,700) without an obligation on the part of the plaintiffs to prove damages.

The bill’s objective is to defend Israel’s settlement project and other policies that contravene international human rights law against non-violent mobilisation aimed at putting an end to these policies.

The Knesset’s legal advisor, Eyal Yinon, said that the bill "damages the core of Israel’s freedom of political expression" and that it would be difficult for him to defend the law in the High Court of Justice since it contradicts Israel’s basic law of "Human Dignity and Liberty". Given Yinon’s statement, and the fact that Israeli rights organisations have already filed a petition to the High Court arguing that the bill is anti democratic, there is a good chance that the Boycott Bill’s life will be extremely short.

And yet this law should still be considered as a turning point. Not because of what the bill does, but because of what it represents.

After hours of debate in the Israeli Knesset, the choice was clear. On one side was Israel’s settlement project and rights-abusive policies, and on the other side was freedom of speech, a basic pillar of democracy. The fact that the majority of Israel’s legislators decided to support the bill plainly demonstrates that they are willing to demolish Israeli democracy for the sake of holding onto the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The onslaught on democracy has been incremental. The Boycott Bill was merely a defining moment, preceded by the Nakba and Acceptance Committee laws, and will likely be followed by the passing of a slate of laws aimed at destroying Israeli human rights organisations. These laws will be voted upon in the coming months, and, given the composition of the Israeli Knesset, it is extremely likely that all of them will pass.

Israeli legislators realise, though, that in order to quash all internal resistance, the destruction of the rights groups will not be enough. Their ultimate target is the High Court of Justice, the only institution that still has the power and authority to defend democratic practices.

Their strategy, it appears, is to wait until the Court annuls the new laws and then to use the public’s dismay with the Court’s decisions to limit the Court’s authority through legislation, thus making it impossible for judges to cancel unconstitutional laws. Once the High Court’s authority is severely hamstringed, the road will be paved for right-wing Knesset members to do as they wish. The process leading to the demise of Israeli democracy may be slow, but the direction in which the country is going is perfectly clear.

Confused Strategy: How the PA Sold Out Palestinian Unity

Palestinians chanting for unity. (Aljazeera)

By Ramzy Baroud

If you happen to be a Palestinian government employee, chances are you will receive only half your usual salary this month. The other half will only be available when international donors find it in their hearts to make up for the huge shortage of funds currently facing the Palestinian Authority (PA).

With a deficit standing at around $640 million, the PA government of Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad is experiencing one of its worst ever financial crises. However, the Palestinian economy is not a real economy by universally recognized standards. It survives largely on handouts by donor countries. These funds have spared Israel much of its financial responsibility as an occupying power under the stipulations of the Fourth Geneva Convention. They have also propped up a Palestinian leadership that tries to secure its own survival by serving the interests of major donors.

The funds, however, are now drying up. This could be due to a political attempt to dissuade PA President Mahmoud Abbas from seeking recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN next September. PA officials have been greatly angered by the shift, blaming donor countries - including Arab countries - for failing to honor their financial commitments.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary-General of the PLO, spoke of an ‘unprecedented’ crisis to Voice of Palestine Radio. “The situation has become very complicated for the Palestinian Authority because of the failure of the Arab countries to fulfill their financial promises.”

Fayyad suggested it was an ‘irony’ that the current crisis comes at a time when the PA had reduced its reliance on foreign aid by almost half – from $1.8 billion in 2008 to $970m – according to the Jerusalem Post. Now, even this half is being slashed, as only $331m of the pledged $970m has been received.

Top PA officials are yet to openly connect the dots between the withholding of funds and the political reality in Palestine. Fayyad insisted that “the crisis does not cast doubt on our preparedness for the establishment of the state,” while Abed Rabbo asserted that the crisis would not halt PA efforts to seek an independent statehood along pre-1967 lines.
The PA undoubtedly understands the financial cost of any political adventure that is deemed unfavorable to Israel - especially since they are constantly reminded of the ‘historic ties’ and ‘shared values’ that unite Israel and the United States.

One such reminder was the huge margin at the US House of Representatives in July 2007. It was an “overwhelming 406-6 vote,” reported AFP, where US lawmakers “warned the Palestinians that they risk cuts in US aid if they pursue UN recognition of a future state not defined in direct talks with Israel.” The message echoed another vote on a similar resolution in the US Senate. 

Such unquestioning support for Israel by the US serves to make life much easier for Israeli diplomats. They now need to focus less on the US than on European countries that have promised to back the PA statehood initiative.

The PA is of course very vulnerable to threats, despite their insistence to the contrary. Once the US and others start to wave the withholding-of-funds card, any solid PA political program usually falters into perplexing and even self-defeating political babble. The lack of certainty in the PA’s political language could be attributed to fear that a single decision to withhold funds coupled with an Israeli decision to hold taxes collected on behalf of the PA, the government would not last for more than mere weeks.

One ought to remember that the West Bank and East Jerusalem are Occupied Territories. Deprived from even a semblance of territorial sovereignty and presiding over a donation-based national economy, the PA has no political independence outside the permissible margins allowed by the US and Israel, countries that are hell-bent on defeating the Palestinian national project.

The PA has been grappling with this strange situation since its inception in 1994. Being a guardian of Palestinian national interests and simultaneously satisfying Israel’s political interests and US expectations is an impossible feat. That enigma has almost always been settled at the expense of the Palestinians themselves. The latest casualty has been the unity deal signed between Hamas and the PA’s ruling party, Fatah, in Egypt on April 27.

The unity was essential for a cohesive political program to be formed towards Palestinian rights and possible statehood. When the agreement was officially signed early May, it was assumed that various committees would be able to quickly finalize the process aimed at setting a date for future elections and bringing to a complete end the four-year feud between the two factions.

However, a counter Israeli strategy was immediately forged. On May 4, as Palestinians celebrated their unity, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led the counter campaign from London. “What happened today in Cairo is a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism,” he told reporters (as reported by Reuters). The US echoed Netanyahu’s foreboding words, EU countries responded ‘cautiously’, and the arm-twisting began.

Once again, Abbas and the PA were faced with a dilemma around priorities. National unity in Palestine was to suffer yet another blow. “The Palestinian president does not want to wage two diplomatic battles for recognition of an alliance with the Islamic militants and for a U.N. nod to statehood at the same time,” said a PLO official (as quoted by the Associated Press and Ha’aretz).

The UN vote “would be a largely symbolic step that the Palestinians hope will nonetheless improve their leverage against Israel,” according to the AP report. ‘Symbolic’ maybe, but is a priority that Abbas feels comes ahead of urgently needed national unity and a unified political program. 

Meanwhile, PA forces – trained and armed by the US and in constant coordination with the Israeli army – reportedly arrested 68 Hamas members in recent weeks, according to a report by Maan News Agency, citing a Hamas statement.

While Abbas is now leading a diplomatic mission to drum up support for his UN initiative, Fayyad is trying to collect funds to prop up the PA economy for a few more months. Meanwhile, Palestinian national unity - without which Palestinians will remain hopelessly fragmented and vulnerable to external pressures and foreign priorities – remains merely ink on paper.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

Palestinians call on US to support UN bid

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat gestures has said

that the Palestinians have called on the United States to

reverse course and support their United Nations membership bid.

 [AFP/File Abbas Momani]

RAMALLAH (AFP) -- The Palestinians have called on the United States to reverse course and support their United Nations membership bid, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Wednesday.

Erekat, speaking at a news conference in Ramallah, said the Palestinians had been in touch with Washington after a meeting of the Middle East peacemaking Quartet this week that failed to produce a final joint statement.

"In the aftermath of the Quartet meeting, yesterday we urged the United States administration to revisit, reassess, re-evaluate its position vis-a-vis our attempt to gain Palestine admittance to the UN," he said.

The Quartet meeting on Monday, which brought together representatives from the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia, was intended to discuss potential peace initiatives that could head off the Palestinian UN bid.

But the talks ended with no joint statement and no action plan, a sign the grouping remains divided on how to move forward.

The Palestinians say they will not return to the negotiating table without a freeze on settlement construction and clear parameters for new talks, including that any borders will be based on the lines that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, with mutually agreed land swaps.

But Israel has rejected any new settlement moratorium, and says setting preconditions for talks prejudges the substance of negotiations.

The stalemate has left the Palestinians more determined to seek UN membership at a meeting of the General Assembly in September, despite Washington's explicit opposition to the move.

"We have been told by the Americans many times that they'll use a veto at the Security Council against our bid for admittance and we were told that at the General Assembly if we pursue that line at there will be consequences," Erekat said.

"Without Security Council approval, we cannot get admittance by the General Assembly," he said, adding the Palestinians could however seek to have their status upgraded to a non-member state by the General Assembly.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to meet on Thursday in Qatar with Arab representatives to discuss the legal aspects of the UN bid.

The Palestinians have insisted they do not see the plan as contradicting new peace talks.

But Erekat said he did not believe the Israeli government would agree to set parameters for negotiations, or accept using the pre-Six Day War lines as the basis for negotiations.

"I don't think we'll hear this from this government," he said.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since 1967.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=405018

CPS Gaza crew attacked by Israeli warship

Israeli naval forces attacked the Civil Peace Service Gaza monitoring boat with water cannons earlier today.

Civil Peace Service Gaza is an international third party non-violent initiative to monitor potential human rights violations in Gazan territorial waters




The initial attack happened at 12.05pm local time. There were four people aboard the Oliva boat at the time, two CPS Gaza crew members (from the UK and Sweden), the captain and a journalist.

British human rights worker Ruqaya Al-Samarrai stated: “We were fewer than two miles away from the Gaza coast when they fired at us. We saw them firing water at some fishing boats so we headed to the area. When we got close, the warships left the fishing boats, and turned on us. They attacked us for about ten minutes, following us as we tried to head to shore and eventually lagged when we reached about one mile off the Gaza coast.”

A fishing boat was also fired at and damaged with live rounds. Currently Israel claims to allow fishing boats to work within three miles off the coast of Gaza, but the limit is rarely respected and fishermen as close as 1.5 nautical miles are regularly targeted.

Media inquiries: 0595629228

Background

Restrictions on the fishing zone are of comparable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially 20 nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.

During the Oslo Accords, specifically under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994, representatives of Palestine agreed to 20 nautical miles for fishing access. In 2002 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan empowered Catherine Bertini to negotiate with Israel on key issues regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a 12 nautical mile fishing limit was agreed upon. In June 2006, following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit near the crossing of Kerem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom), the navy imposed a complete sea blockade for several months. When the complete blockade was finally lifted, Palestinian fishermen found that a 6 nautical mile limit was being enforced. When Hamas gained political control of the Gaza Strip, the limit was reduced to 3 nautical miles. During the massive assault on the Strip in 2008-2009, a complete blockade was again declared. After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army began imposing a 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010).

The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’ and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gazan coast by Israeli gunboats.

The fishermen have been devastated, directly affecting an estimated 65,000 people and reducing the catch by 90%. The coastal areas are now grossly over-fished and 2/3 of fishermen have left the industry since 2000 (PCHR: 2009). Recent statistics of the General Union of Fishing Workers indicate that the direct losses since the second Intifada in September 2000 were estimated at a million dollars and the indirect losses were estimated at 13.25 million dollars during the same period. The 2009 fishing catch amounted to a total of 1,525 metric tones, only 53 percent of the amount during 2008 (2,845 metric tones) and 41 percent of the amount in 1999 (3,650 metric tones), when the fishermen of Gaza could still fish up to ten nautical miles from the coast. Current figures indicate that during 2010 the decline in the fishing catch continues. This has caused an absurd arrangement to become standard practice. The fisherman sail out not to fish, but to buy fish off of Egyptian boats and then sell this fish in Gaza. According to the Fishermen’s Union, a monthly average of 105 tons of fish has been entering Gaza through the tunnels since the beginning of 2010 (PCHR 2009).

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip.” Oct. 2010. http://www.pchrgaza.org/facts/factsheet-bufferzone-aug.pdf

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “A report on: Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishers in the Gaza Strip.” August 2009. http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/Reports/English/pdf_spec/fishermen3.pdf