Mission & Justice

Yuval Azoulay and Shahar Ilan; 16/9/08

The Israel Defense Forces must investigate its soldiers’ failure to prevent a group of settlers from attacking and wounding eight Palestinians on Saturday, a human rights group demanded Monday. In a letter to Military Advocate General Avichai Mendelblit, Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights requested a Military Police investigation into the incident, which took place outside the West Bank village of Asira al-Kabiliya. “So far, no one has been arrested in connection with the incident, which sends lawbreakers a message that Palestinian lives are not worthy of protection,” attorney Michael Sfard wrote on behalf of the group.

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Rosemary Neill & Padraic Murphy; 15/8/08

Contrarian feminist Germaine Greer argues that Aboriginal men suffer a rage they “can’t get over”, one that is responsible for violence in their communities. She also argues that indigenous women who supported the federal intervention in the Northern Territory Aboriginal communities will be seen as colluding “with the enemy”. But her arguments have angered indigenous leaders, who claim her comments discourage personal accountability and are a step backwards in tackling violence.

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Bin Laden driver gets 66 months
8/8/08
A military jury has sentenced the former driver of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, to five and a half years in prison for supporting terrorism. The sentence delivered on Thursday means that Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni citizen, would be eligible for release in less than six months. However, the US government has previoulsy argued that it has the right to continue to hold Guantanamo detainees as “enemy combatants”. Prosecutors had earlier called for Hamdan to serve at least 30 years in jail after being convicted the previous day of providing support to al-Qaeda, although he was cleared of conspiracy to commit war crimes.

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18/8/08
The intensification of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip over the past couple of days is likely to be attributed to the Jewish state’s inability to cope with Hamas’s latest successful operation - two days ago, Palestinian fighters killed three Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. The immediate Israeli knee-jerk reaction was of course to bomb the Gaza Strip continuously until it was deemed sufficient by Israeli leadership. Tel Aviv is infamous for breaking all kinds of international laws if it means preventing the deaths of its people; this includes daily aerial and ground attacks on Gaza and killing of innocent Palestinian civilians.

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