News Highlights:
- Palestinian officials boycott handover ceremony, marking Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, due to Israel’s unilateral closure of the vital Rafah border crossing.
- Sept. 12th – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visits evacuated settlement and says Gaza must not become one large prison.
- Amnesty Int’l. today deplored the failure of UK authorities to act upon the arrest warrant for war crimes for Israeli general Doron Almog, when he was at Heathrow airport.
- Activists in Vancouver have called on Canadian Attorney General, Irwin Cotler, to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Colonel Zeev Raz who is coming to B.C.; he was the leader of the Israeli aggression against Iraq in 1981 that destroyed the Osirak reactor.
- Sept. 12th – Israel is negotiating with the Emir of Qatar to meet with Ariel Sharon at the U.N.; Sharon is already meeting with George Bush, Jordan’s King Abdullah and leaders from Turkey and Canada.
Feature:
The special feature marked the 23rd anniversary of the massacre carried out in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon. The survivors and families of the victims have yet to receive any justice, despite a recent attempt to bring all those involved, including then-Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, to trial in Belgium. It is especially cruel that on this anniversary, Ariel Sharon, now Prime Minister of Israel, is being received at the U.N. as a “man of peace”. Several reports were presented, one from an international tribunal convened in Geneva in 1983 and eyewitness testimony from two foreign journalists who were in the camps in September 1982.
Focus on Zionism:
A Sept. 11th press release from the Israeli refusenik group, Yesh G’vul, detailing how they no longer have faith in the Israeli High Court and their files against Israeli officers suspected of war crimes will be sent to the U.K.
Here is an audio file of this show: