Khader Adnan is now on his 63rd day on Hunger Strike, and is very close to death.

Sahar Francis, a Lawyer for Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Ad-Dameer, visited Khader  yesterday, Friday17th Feb. Adnan told Francis that he is determined to continue his hunger strike, despite his gradually deteriorating health condition, and added that:

“his battle is not personal, but a Palestinian struggle against the illegal Administrative Detention, that confines hundreds of detainees behind bars without charges, in direct violation of International Law and the Fourth Geneva Conventions”.

Francis said that the Israeli Prison Administration agreed, only two days ago, to allow Adnan to bathe, cut his hairs and nails, for the first time since he was kidnapped and taken prisoner in December 2011.

She added that Adnan still enjoys high confidence, and solid determination, despite his bad health condition, and is determined to continue his strike.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, issued a statement today, Saturday, saying that the

“EU is concerned over reports of the deteriorating health condition of Khader Adnan,”

Ashton went on to say that

“the EU is concerned about the extensive use by Israel of administrative detention without formal charge.” 

Today, Khader’s wife Randa said that he was not ending his Hunger Strike, and is determined to carry on.

In his hometown, family and friends handed out bags of bread from his bakery.

On Wednesday, Randa visited him in hospital, and she described his condition in the following statement:

 ”His health has drastically deteriorated from the last time I saw him. . . .I expect the worst,”

“The world should pressure the Israeli government to release him before it’s too late.”

““Israel denied Khader fairness & decency, maybe the rest of humanity will show more mercy.”

 

A Doctor who examined Khader on Wednesday, described his condition as been “In immediate danger of death”, and his Lawyers have filed an urgent appeal. The appeal was approved by a High Court Justice, and will be heard at the earliest opportunity.

Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories,  described the situation as urgent, and said the international community should intervene on Mr. Adnan’s behalf.

“In view of the emergency of his situation, the Government of Israel must take immediate and effective action to safeguard Mr. Adnan’s life, while upholding his rights,” said Mr. Falk in a statement.

Richard Falk went even further today in an Op Ed piece in the following Al Jazeera article:

Saving Khader Adnan’s life is saving our own soul Richard Falk

The Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta issued the following statement on Thursday:

“The Carter Center calls on the Israeli government to immediately charge or release Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who was arrested on Dec. 17, 2011, based on “secret evidence” and has been held in administrative detention without charge. Mr. Adnan has undertaken a hunger strike since his arrest 62 days ago and his life is in imminent danger. His grave medical condition has been verified by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.”

Due to the urgency of Khader’s condition, the Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO) urges the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Union to take immediate action and intervene with Israel in the strongest manner possible to save Khader’s life.

The PCHRO demands that the international community put pressure on Israel to end his arbitrary detention before it is too late.

Today in Gaza and the west Bank, thousands of people came out to show their support for Khader.

Speaking to a mass rally in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh had this to say about Khader:

“We stand by the heroic symbol of prisoners, brother Khader Adnan, in his unlimited hunger strike,”

Across the world, vigils are been held for Khader, and at the prison facility, Ofer, daily demonstrations are been held. The protesters have come under sustained attacks from the Israeli military, and many people have been injured after been shot with rubber bullets, and effects of tear gas inhalation.

Support for Khader Adnan has also come in from Oliver Hughes, whose brother Francis , 25, died in the H Blocks after 59 days. His cousin, Thomas McElwee, 33, also died on Hunger Strike after 62 days. In total, 10 Irish men died during this Hunger Strike in 1981 which included Bobby Sands.

OnTuesday, as Khader Adnan entered his 60th day on Hunger Strike, Oliver, sends a message of support and solidarity to Khader.

Click on the link below to hear Oliver’s message.

Khader Adnan receives message of support from Oliver Hughes. Feb 14th, 2012

Tommy McKearney, an Irish man who went 53 days on Hunger Strike also sent a message to Khader as he entered his 54th day last week

Khader Adnan receives message of support from former Hunger Striker Tommy McKearney

Khader was arrested on 17 December 2011 and has since been refusing food and medical treatment until he is granted release. On 8 January 2012, Israeli authorities issued a four-month administrative detention order, which was confirmed on 7 February 2012 by an Israeli military judge despite his worsening health condition.

The appeal against his administrative detention order was rejected by an Israeli military judge on 13 February.

Anti-colonial heroes: Khader Adnan & Mahatma Ghandi

Comrade, On Behalf of the family of Irish Republican Army Volunteer Francis Hughes, who died on Hunger Strike on the 12th of May 1981, we offer to you and your comrades our total support and best wishes.

“On this day you will have completed 59 days on Hunger Strike. It was after 59 days on Hunger Strike that my brother died.. My cousin Thomas Mc Elwee also died after 62 days.

The Irish people understand the plight of the Palestinian people. Our country has been occupied by the British for 800 years, and throughout all those years we have suffered murder, imprisonment, and death on Hunger Strike.
The Palestinian people are a proud people. You must keep up the struggle. You have a lot of support and sympathy worldwide. My thoughts and prayers are with Khader Adnan his comrades, family, and friends on this day.”

Oliver Hughes, February 14th, 2012,

Click on the following link to watch video

Khader Adnan receives message of support from Oliver Hughes

Tommy McKearney shows his support for Khader Adnan

My name is Tommy Mc Kearney.

I am a former member of the IRA and 32 years ago I was on hunger strike for 53 days in the H.Blocks.

Today, Khader Adnan will be 54 days on hungerstrike.
Held by the Israeli government on Administrative Detention, in other words, without charge or conviction.
He is battling against atrocious conditions and a very unjust system.
His life is ebbing away in a very cruel and harsh regime. His conditions are hard, difficult and awful.
The world must intervene to save this mans life in the name of humanity, in the name of decency, justice and legality.
54 days on hungerstrike his body is beginning to collapse. We cant say whether this man will be alive tonight or tomorrow night because at this stage, he has passed the critical stage that a human body can survive without food and nourishment.

His pain is enormous and his plight deplorable. We must act, the world must act to save this man and I call upon the Israeli regime to show some mercy, something it has not shown in the past, but we must demand that it shows mercy and correctness and justice to release this man immediately to save his life and to save dignity and humanity throughout the world

Click on the following link to listen to Tommy’s message

Khader Adnan receives message of support from former Hunger Striker Tommy McKearney

Khader Adnan is now on his 62nd day on Hunger Strike, and is very close to death.

Yesterday, Khader’s wife visited him in hospital, and she described his condition in the following statement:

 ”His health has drastically deteriorated from the last time I saw him. . . .I expect the worst,”

“The world should pressure the Israeli government to release him before it’s too late.”

““Israel denied Khader fairness & decency, maybe the rest of humanity will show more mercy.”

 

A Doctor who examined Khader on Wednesday, described his condition as been “In immediate danger of death”, and his Lawyers have filed an urgent appeal. The appeal was approved by a High Court Justice, and will be heard at the earliest opportunity.

Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories,  described the situation as urgent, and said the international community should intervene on Mr. Adnan’s behalf.

“In view of the emergency of his situation, the Government of Israel must take immediate and effective action to safeguard Mr. Adnan’s life, while upholding his rights,” said Mr. Falk in a statement.

Richard Falk went even further today in an Op Ed piece in the following Al Jazeera article:

Saving Khader Adnan’s life is saving our own soul Richard Falk

The Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta issued the following statement today:

“The Carter Center calls on the Israeli government to immediately charge or release Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who was arrested on Dec. 17, 2011, based on “secret evidence” and has been held in administrative detention without charge. Mr. Adnan has undertaken a hunger strike since his arrest 62 days ago and his life is in imminent danger. His grave medical condition has been verified by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.”

Due to the urgency of Khader’s condition, the Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO) urges the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Union to take immediate action and intervene with Israel in the strongest manner possible to save Khader’s life.

The PCHRO demands that the international community put pressure on Israel to end his arbitrary detention before it is too late.

Across the world, vigils are been held for Khader, and at the prison facility, Ofer, daily demonstrations are been held. The protesters have come under sustained attacks from the Israeli military, and many people have been injured after been shot with rubber bullets, and effects of tear gas inhalation.

Support for Khader Adnan has also come in from Oliver Hughes, whose brother Francis , 25, died in the H Blocks after 59 days. His cousin, Thomas McElwee, 33, also died on Hunger Strike after 62 days. In total, 10 Irish men died during this Hunger Strike in 1981 which included Bobby Sands.

OnTuesday, as Khader Adnan entered his 60th day on Hunger Strike, Oliver, sends a message of support and solidarity to Khader.

Click on the link below to hear Oliver’s message.

Khader Adnan receives message of support from Oliver Hughes. Feb 14th, 2012

Khader was arrested on 17 December 2011 and has since been refusing food and medical treatment until he is granted release. On 8 January 2012, Israeli authorities issued a four-month administrative detention order, which was confirmed on 7 February 2012 by an Israeli military judge despite his worsening health condition.

The appeal against his administrative detention order was rejected by an Israeli military judge on 13 February.

Carlos Latuff

The prisoner swap deal with Israel, which Hamas has concluded through Egyptian and German intermediaries, is undoubtedly a perfect gift to the entire Palestinian people, given the deal’s auspicious timing, having taken place three weeks before the occurrence of Eidul Adha holiday.

Families celebrating the reception in RamAllah

The imminent release of some 1030 Palestinians from Israeli bastilles, dungeons and concentration camps is a definitive victory for Palestine and its struggling people by all conceivable standards.

Israel, the country, which has been oppressing and tormenting our people nonstop  for generations, has been forced to treat us with some respect, with a semblance of parity despite the enormous gap in the balance of powers between the two sides.

Israel, after all, is effectively a superpower which also tightly controls the politics and policies of the world’s sole superpower, its guardian-ally, the United States.

This is whereas Hamas is a small, besieged and blockaded resistance group, with a few thousand militiamen, struggling to resist a Nazi-like militaristic state that is hell-bent on murdering more Palestinians and stealing still more of their land.

Hence, the success of Hamas and other resistance groups to deal with Israel from a position of near  parity is a great moral, psychological and political victory for the Palestinian Islamist movement.

We should all remember that only a few months ago, Israel was demanding rather vociferously the destruction of  all Hamas’s human and resistance infrastructure.

Indeed, in addition to  the overwhelming joy which will hover over more than a thousand Palestinian  households, the deal will encompass the entire  Palestinian people because in the final analysis the prisoners’ cause is the national cause par excellance.

For many decades, Israel instilled in our minds the idea that Palestinian freedom fighters are “hopeless cases” that would only leave jail on their way to their graves!!

This deal is proving that for Palestinian political and resistance prisoners, spending one’s life and dying in an Israeli jail is not and doesn’t have to be an ineluctable fate.

This should be viewed as a strategic gain for the resistance as well as a huge morale booster for the estimated 4000 prisoners, still languishing in Israeli jails, and their families and beloved ones.

This means that the Israeli theory of deterrence will never be the same from now on. Yes, Israel is likely to seek and find ways and means to reaffirm and renew its psychological deterrence. However, the Palestinians, too, will never stop being more creative and more innovative, and, yes, more daring, in their unrelenting efforts to force Israel to meet their just grievances.

Because, ultimately, those fighting a foreign occupation are akin to those resisting rape and murder. One really exaggerates little by saying that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is an ultimate act of rape.

Hence, calling these Palestinian heroes “terrorists” and other evil epithets is the ultimate form of “fornication with language.”

Another point, which must be featured prominently, is that protracted negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and successive arrogant Israeli governments produced virtually nothing, apart from the accumulating frustration and despair among our people.

Hence the imminent swap deal shows that resistance to Israeli aggression, terror and criminality, should never ever be abandoned because then there would be no pressure on Israel to meet Palestinian demands, however just and legitimate these demands may be.

Yes, Israel might occasionally resort to offering Palestinians some “overtures” and “gestures of good will.” But this is very much like receiving handouts and charity whereby the giver decides everything while the receiver, or more correctly the beggar, has no choice but to accept whatever is thrown unto him.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

I felt I had to employ this analogy because since the conclusion of the hapless Oslo Accords in 1993, Israeli rejectionism, insolence, and arrogance of power effectively reduced the pathetic PA into a vanquished supplicant, begging Israel and the United States, for everything, from obtaining a travel permit to reach Jerusalem to releasing Palestinian inmates from Israeli jails.

Now, the resistance is demonstrating that its way pays off, because Israel knows only the language of real politik, in other word the language of force.

There is no doubt the imminent prisoner exchange deal will boost the status and stature of Hamas, not only among Palestinians but among Muslims worldwide. Hamas deserves this enhanced standing; it has earned it the hard way.

Rawhi Mushtaha (right) who was imprisoned since 1988

The deal is also expected to further cement relations between Egypt and Hamas. The deal asserted Egypt’s Arab and regional status as a central state which will always be a huge asset for all Arabs and Muslims and their various causes.

We hope and  pray that Cairo will keep moving away from the Zionist axis and keep getting nearer and closer to the masses’ axis.

The masses, long humiliated by nefarious Israeli policies and  murderous Israeli practices,  hate and loathe   Israel, the criminal state that doesn’t stop trying to obliterate the Arab-Islamic identity of Palestine, even by burning mosques and unearthing ancient cemeteries.

A final salute must go to those who kept Shalit’s whereabouts an absolute secret for more than five years.

Those unknown soldiers proved to friend and foe alike that there are still honorable men in Palestine who won’t be intimidated by sticks or induced by carrots.

Their exemplary determination, discipline, resilience and integrity thwarted Israeli efforts to rescue or liberate Shalit, who was being detained all these months and years, not in Tehran or Cairo, or Beirut, but under Israel’s nose, in her very backyard, only a few kilometers from Israel’s centers of power.

Finally, a word or two to Israel and its leaders.

I know you are in no mood to receive advice from Gentiles, let alone from your enemy, or more correctly, your victims, the Palestinians.  Your phenomenal arrogance and insolence don’t allow you to be reasonable, just and wise.

But let me tell you this, don’t you ever  force the Palestinians to kidnap your soldiers; treat them with some Justice and respect, don’t detain their children  for prolonged periods for political reasons, treat them as you would want to be treated.

Remember the pornographic oppression you are meting out to us, such as dumping our young men, including intellectuals, in your jails and dungeons is likely to boomerang on you.

PIC

A top Palestinian official reiterated Sunday calls to replace Tony Blair as the Quartet’s Mideast envoy, despite a recent announcement by the Palestinian Authority, according to which the Palestinians were willing to work with Blair despite criticism of his alleged impartiality.

Palestinian concerns regarding Blair’s alleged lack of impartiality in his duty as Mideast envoy first surfaced earlier this month, as Nabil Shaath, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the former British premier and was “useless.”
Tony Blair and Salam Fayyad – AP

Tony Blair, Middle East Quartet Representative, left, and Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority Salam Fayyad in Brussels, April 13, 2011.
Photo by: AP

“Lately, [Blair] talks like an Israeli diplomat, selling their policies,” Shaath told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “Therefore, he is useless to us.”

Just days following Shaath’s remarks, Mohammed Ishtayeh, a member of the Central Committee of the dominant Fatah movement and a confidant of Abbas, told Voice of Palestine radio that Blair was no longer trusted to be an impartial mediator.

Following that wave of criticism, Abbas’s spokesman indicated last week that the Palestinians would continue to work with Blair, saying: “The Palestinian presidency will continue to work with the envoy of the international Quartet Committee Tony Blair in his capacity as the choice of the Quartet.”

However, speaking with Al-Jazeera in an interview released on Sunday, Ishtayeh reiterated his demand to replace Blair as Mideast envoy, saying that discontent of the Quartet envoy’s conduct was pervasive throughout PA leadership.

“The Palestinian leadership has raised this issue very seriously. The general consensus among the Palestinian leadership is that he is not anymore an honest broker,” Ishtayeh told Al-Jazeera, adding that “the expected thing for him to do is to say ‘I’m sorry, goodbye.’”

“The biggest problem that he did actually for us is that all of a sudden he started speaking against our steps going toward the United Nations,” the top PA official said, adding: “You cannot be a mediator for the Quartet in which 50% of the Quartet supports our step.”

According to the Al-Jazeera, a PA spokesman indicated that the Palestinians would not openly criticize the Quartet envoy.

Ishtayeh also referred to recent reports in British media, accusing the former U.K. premier of an inappropriate coming together of his role as peace broker and his private business ventures.

“We’ve seen reports by the British media which actually show explicitly that Mr. Tony Blair has very serious conflicts of interest in which he is doing business during the term of his official duties, and I think that’s not a very healthy situation,” the top official said. “It erodes his credibility as an envoy for the Quartet.”

In response to Ishtayeh’s claims, a Blair spokesperson told Haaretz that the former U.K. PM “had never spoken against the Palestinian intention to approach the UN, arguing that it was a matter for the Palestinians to decide.”

“Our focus is on activating the Quartet statement’s call for a return to direct talks between the parties. It is the job of the Quartet Representative to interact with both sides, not least so that we can continue to deliver change on the ground for Palestinians to improve their quality of life.”

In reference to claims of Blair’s alleged conflicts of interest, the spokesperson for the former British premier said that “Tony Blair has advocated for the both the Wataniya project and the Gaza gas development at the direct request of the Palestinians.”

“It is his responsibility as Quartet Representative to work to build the Palestinian economy and the Wataniya project represented the single largest foreign direct investment there has been into the Palestinian Authority,” the statement added, saying: “That is good news for the Palestinians.”

“The fact that we have been doing so is hardly a revelation: it is listed on our website. Both were long-standing demands of the international community. In neither case was Mr. Blair even aware JPMorgan had a connection with the company. He never discussed it with them. They never raised it with him,” the statement added.

Haaretz

Palestinian political factions are due to meet on September 24 to discuss part of the reconciliation deal, a Fatah official said Wednesday.

Fatah national relations commissioner Diab al-Loh told Ma’an that the factions will meet to discuss the issue of community reconciliation, which was part of the deal signed in May.

The meeting was supposed to be held on September 17, al-Loh said, but Hamas asked for it to be postponed.

Fatah agreed to the request by Hamas in order to maintain the reconciliation deal, al-Loh added.

The reconciliation deal was signed in Cairo on May 4 and set out a path for the creation of a transitional government of technocrats and an end to the animosity which has split the Palestinians into two camps since 2007.

In August, Fatah and Hamas agreed to delay efforts to implement the reconciliation agreement until September.

Ma’an

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington. And predictably, there has already been an excess of analysis in the mainstream media about the significance of the monstrous crimes committed a decade ago. Equally predictably, most of the analysis is repetitive and superficial.

Nonetheless, when I flicked through some newspapers, I came across a comment that came close to echoing my own thoughts. It was from a writer called Amy Waldman, whose debut novel The Submission was published recently. Waldman argues that the date of 11 September 2001 is now considered sacred in the United States. Indeed, it has been imbued with so much sacredness that there is “no limit to the profanity justified to preserve it.”

In an insult to the innocent people killed 10 years ago, the US establishment has used their deaths as an excuse to launch all-out-attacks against the defenceless populations of Afghanistan and Iraq and to bomb Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Israel, meanwhile, was quick to jump on George Bush’s bandwagon and to claim that its ceaseless oppression of the Palestinian people made it an indispensable ally in the so-called war on terror.

Israel has chalked up a long list of profanities over the past decade. I will now zoom in on one of them: a 2002 offensive named Operation Defensive Shield.

That operation began at the end of March 2002 with the bombing of the compound where Yasser Arafat was based in Ramallah. Altogether it lasted four months, involved the Israeli military reinvading parts of the West Bank they were supposed to have vacated under the Oslo accords and killing almost 500 Palestinians, over 70 of whom were children. Perhaps its most infamous episode was the sustained shelling of Jenin refugee camp, where more than 4,000 people were left homeless because of the systematic demolition of buildings. Medical relief teams were blocked from entering the camp for 10 days during a two-week period, when 54 Palestinians in the camp were killed. Amnesty International and other human rights groups who investigated the events stated plainly that Israel had perpetrated war crimes.

Shock doctrine in Palestine

At a time when people in the West Bank were still traumatized by Israel’s latest acts of brutality, Palestine fell victim to what the Naomi Klein has subsequently called the shock doctrine. In June 2002, Salam Fayyad took over as finance minister of the Palestinian Authority after Yasser Arafat was strongarmed into appointing him by the United States and the European Union.

According to the official narrative, Fayyad was appointed to root out corruption in the PA. Undoubtedly, such corruption was a major problem, yet I do not believe that tackling it was a high priority for the West. Instead, there is ample evidence to indicate that Fayyad was imposed on the PA because he was regarded as somebody that would do more or less exactly what the US and Europe told him to do.

As he has become the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister since then, it is important to ask the question: who exactly is Salam Fayyad?

For almost 15 years before he joined the PA, Fayyad worked for the International Monetary Fund, which is largely controlled by the US Treasury. He was clearly inculcated with the neoliberal dogma laid down by that institution, judging by the economic blueprints that he has signed. These have placed the interests of a corporate elite ahead of those of ordinary Palestinians. He has recommended, for example, that more than one-fifth of all public sector jobs should be cut by the PA.

Fayyad has had his ego inflated enormously over the past few years. He has received lavish praise from that vile war criminal Tony Blair and from Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief. And his old pals in the IMF and the World Bank have fed his delusions of grandeur by stating that the PA is sufficiently prepared to assume the responsibilities of statehood. According to Fayyad, these assurances amount to the “birth certificate” of a Palestinian state.

Neoliberal birth cert What kind of a “birth certificate”, then, is being drawn up for the state which Fayyad wants to have recognised at the UN later this month? This certificate will say, implicitly if not explicitly, that Palestine must pursue economic policies that have been shown time and time again to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Institutions like the IMF are determined to keep the Palestinian economy on a tight leash, just as they have with many other economies around the world.

The Netherlands is one of several EU governments that has signalled it will oppose the vote on Palestinian statehood at the UN. This proves once again that Uri Rosenthal and Mark Rutte, the Dutch foreign minister and premier, will do almost anything that Israel requests them to do. But that doesn’t mean the PA’s statehood initiative should be supported, simply because some of the most reactionary political leaders in Europe are against it.

The truth is that even those European governments, like that of Spain, who have indicated they will back the statehood initiative cannot be considered real friends of the Palestinian people. And I emphasize that I mean the Palestinian people as a whole, not the quislings in the Palestinian Authority. For all 27 states in the EU and all of the major EU institutions have increased their cooperation with Israel so considerably in recent years that all of them must be considered complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

Europe sides with the aggressor

I will cite one example of EU-Israel cooperation, with which I have become slightly obsessed. This cooperation is in the field of scientific research. Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual research programme. That programme has been allocated €53 billion between 2007 and 2013, with Israel taking part in some 800 coordinated activities under it.

A few days ago, I checked Cordis, the EU’s online information service on scientific research, to see if there are many cases where Dutch universities or private firms are linked up with Israel in projects funded by the European taxpayer. The result of my search indicated that the number of such projects involving both the Netherlands and Israel could be as high as 200.

To give you a flavour of these projects, there is one called Maaximus, which is designed to make aeroplanes that are lighter and can be more quickly assembled than the ones you will find landing today at Schiphol. This 70 million euro project brings together several Dutch partners, including the University of Eindhoven and the National Aerospace Laboratory here in Amsterdam, with Israel Aerospace Industries. Israel Aerospace Industries is one of the main suppliers of the pilotless drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that were used to bomb civilians during Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.

Towards the end of this year, the European Commission is scheduled to publish a formal blueprint for the future of EU scientific research policy. From all of the discussions I and others have had with EU officials about the surrounding themes, it appears that the Commission is determined to keep on subsidising Israeli weapons manufacturers and by extension providing support to Israeli war crimes.

The EU’s decision to embrace the Israeli arms industry more tightly than before is partly a result of lobbying by international weapons manufacturers. They have convinced policy-makers that it is necessary to allocate them more resources to ensure that Europe doesn’t have to deal with its own 11 September.

Well, I remain unconvinced that subsidising an industry that relies on war to generate profits makes us or future generations safer. And even if it did, I do not want even one cent of my tax euros to be given to Israeli arms companies. This support for companies who profit from oppressing Palestinians is the most grotesque aspect of the EU’s relationship with Israel. And that is why it must be stopped.

Electronic Intifada