CEMEX tries to reason away complicity in Israeli violations of international law

Submitted by Adri Nieuwhof on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 03:11

 

In May, The Electronic Intifada documented the illegal mining and the transportation of construction material from Yatir and Nahal Raba quarries in the occupied West Bank into Israel. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in London published the article and invited CEMEX and Heidelberg Cement to respond. Heidelberg Cement remained silent, but CEMEX tried to reason away its complicity in Israel’s violations of international law.

Illegal mining of Palestinian natural resources

In a statement of 28 June, CEMEX confirms that its subsidiary Lime & Stone is “in a partnership with Kfar Giladi Quarries which operates the Yatir quarry”. The Yatir quarry is located in the south Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank. CEMEX clarifies that the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria issued the permits and receives the royalties for Yatir quarry. However, this arrangement is contrary to international law.

The video below documents the transport of construction material from Yatir quarry into Israel on 16 May 2011.

The International Court of Justice reaffirmed the Palestinian people’s right of self-determination and Israel’s status as the occupying power in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2004. As the occupier, Israel is bound by the Hague Regulations of 1907. According to an interpretation of Article 55 that is clearly applicable to quarrying by Julius Stone, a former Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law at the University of Sydney, the article “forbids wasteful or negligent destruction of the capital value, whether by excessive cutting or mining or other abusive exploitation, contrary to the rules of good husbandry”. UN General Assembly Resolution 1803, passed in 1962, states that permanent sovereignty over natural wealth and resources is a “basic constituent of the right to self-determination.” The Palestinian people own the natural wealth in the OPT.

In its statement, CEMEX claims that the operations “including those in Israel strictly comply with all relevant legal requirements.” I asked Israeli attorney Shlomy Zachary for a comment. He said that “the West Bank is not Israel and the laws applicable there are different”. Zachary was involved in legal action by the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din in 2009 to halt illegal mining activity in the West Bank. Zachary clarified: “Yesh Din’s petition argues that the whole mechanism and permits to dig in this land are illegal. Therefore, any acts committed based on illegal permits can be allegedly illegal as well.”

Recently, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, addressed the issue on the occasion of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, “Many States maintain contradictory or antiquated laws on mining and land acquisition for development. These laws must be re-assessed to determine if they are consistent with international human rights standards and principles.”

CEMEX’s presence in the West Bank

In its reply to Business & Human Rights, CEMEX confirms the operation of three ready-mix concrete plants in the settlements of Mishor Adumim, Mevoh Horon and Atarot by its Israeli subsidiary Ready Mix. In 2004, the International Court of Justice determined that Israel’s wall and settlement construction in occupied territory were illegal under international law. An occupying power is not allowed to transfer its population to the territory it occupies. The same applies to the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Again, CEMEX claims that the plants have “all the permits and licenses necessary according to applicable laws”. The company states that according to the Oslo Accords the plants are in “areas under the control and responsibility of Israel, until a permanent agreement is reached between the parties”. Zachary’s comment: “But the land for itself and the land in area C are still under occupation, and first and foremost the laws governing the area are the laws of occupation, including Article 55 of the Hague Regulations. The fact that there are other agreements between the parties does not matter and cannot nullify the international laws of occupation or to substitute them.“

CEMEX does not try to justify its operations in the occupied Golan Heights in its statement. The same applies to the provision of concrete elements for the construction of Israel’s wall and military checkpoints in the West Bank and of concrete for the construction of Israel’s controversial Jerusalem Light Rail project. The project strengthens Israel’s grip on the greater Jerusalem area by connecting West Jerusalem with several settlements in or surrounding occupied East Jerusalem.

CEMEX continues to violate UN Global Compact principles

CEMEX has endorsed the principles of the UN Global Compact. The UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices.

The first two principles of the Global Compact state that businesses should support and respect the protection of international human rights within their spheres of influence, and make sure they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Although CEMEX is fully aware of its involvement in Israel’s violations of international law in the occupied West Bank and the Golan Heights, it shows no sign of changing its policy. At present, CEMEX acts like Veolia did when it learned about the illegality of the Jerusalem Light Rail project in 2005. Veolia did not take criticism seriously and refused a dialogue with public investors. That is why the international BDS movement has been holding Veolia to account for years by calling on investors to divest from and local authorities to do no business with the company. 

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/adri-nieuwhof/cemex-tries-reason-away-complicity-israeli-violations-international-law

IDF promotes colonel who encouraged violent interrogations

Monday, August 15 2011|Yossi Gurvitz

Colonel Itai Virob, who won notoriety when he admitted he encouraged his soldiers to use violence against Palestinians they were questioning, will become a brigadier general soon 


The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Binyamin Ganz, decided (Hebrew)  to promote Colonel Itai Virob, formerly the commander of the designated occupation brigade Kfir, to brigadier general. Virob will be appointed to the office of Chief Infantry and Paratroopers Officer, a plum assignment which generally indicates the officer will become an aluf, in Israel not merely a major general but also a member of the General Staff Forum.

If the name of Virob rings a bell, it’s probably because he’s the senior officer who admitted in court he allowed his soldiers to perform some acts of violence (Hebrew).  For the purposes of questioning, Virob said – he was defending one of his junior officers, charged with assault of a Palestinian – he found that “a slap, sometime a blow to the back of the neck or the chest, sometimes kneeing [in the stomach? Unclear – YZG] or strangling [is required] for the purposes of calming” the detainee during an “impromptu interrogation”. The plain truth caused a minor shit storm, Virob’s promotion was delayed, and he was officially rebuked by his commanding general. Two years have passed, and now Virob, too, is a general.

Turns out, if you’re an IDF officer and you’re ordering your gunmen to violate human rights and military law, and they do (as mentioned above, Virob’s order was exposed during a rare trial of Kfir soldiers who tortured Palestinians; we’ll probably never know how many Palestinians were beaten under Virob’s order), you will not be prosecuted, you will not be expelled from the ranks of the even-more-moral-than-Hamas army, you will not be demoted; your promotion will merely be delayed, and as compensation you’ll receive one hell of a job.

But that’s not the whole story. When Virob testified, he was admired military reporters and IDF gunmen alike for “telling truth to power” to judges sitting in air-conditioned halls. The fact that Virob, like any senior officer, also spends most of his time in air conditioned bureaus was conveniently forgotten. He was considered as an officer standing for his gunmen.

That’s not the case, however. Virob was summoned to testify in the trial of one of the other gunmen, a grunt, not an officer. And there, after being officially rebuked, he changed his tune so much from his earlier testimony, the court rebuked the officers who rebuked Virob, saying – strangely enough – this amounted to obstruction of justice. When you peel back the layers of obfuscation, it seems the court was strongly hinting Virob was perjuring himself during this second testimony.

So this great defender of the gunmen turns out yet another officer in a long and dishonored IDF tradition of selling your soldiers down the river in exchange for a promotion. Strangely enough, the gunmen never seem to remember that an officer promising them it will be fine and he’ll be there for them if they break the law will in all likelihood drop them like smelling socks if they are caught in the act.

So, next time some fool tells with high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory that old lie, that the IDF is a moral army capable of investigating itself, feel free to laugh in his face. And the next time someone decides to skip the IDF system of justice and just go straight to Hague, Binyamin Ganz, who promoted an open endorser of violent interrogation, should blame himself only.

http://972mag.com/idf-promotes-torture-endorsing-colonel-to-general/

Are ’supporters’ being hired to attend Glenn Beck rally?

Wednesday, August 17 2011|+972blog

An ad on Janglo seeks people to serve as ambassadors for their countries of origin at Glenn Beck’s Restoring Courage rally. Will they get paid? “Depends where you’re from”

By Mya Guarnieri

Conservative talk-radio host Glenn Beck (photo: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The uber-conservative Christian Zionist commentator Glenn Beck has arrived in Israel. He will hold his “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem on August 24.
So it seems like a mighty odd coincidence that a few weeks ago, I found this ad on Janglo:

On August 24 2011 there is a huge international event being held in Jerusalem where people are coming to stand with Israel.
At the event there are flags from every country and we are looking for people to be the ambassador for their country….
We are looking for people who were either born in or had a parent or grand-parent from numerous different countries…..
Please note, Albania, Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Palau, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States are full
If you have a connection to any country not mentioned above please be in contact.
Thank you !

I emailed the contact listed. I included the link to the ad and asked a straightforward question: “will you be paying people for their participation in this event?”

I received a response from Jonny Daniels—Senior Advisor to MK Danny Danon (Likud)—who wrote “Depends where you are from.” So, in other words, that means at least some of those who attend might be getting paid to do so.
————————————–
Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based writer and journalist.

http://972mag.com/are-demonstrators-being-hired-to-attend-glenn-beck-rally/

Who is behind the Eilat terror attack?

Friday, August 19 2011|Joseph Dana

The horrific terror attacks in Oslo some weeks ago provided a valuable lesson for journalists. Almost as soon as the attacks took place, journalists throughout the world rushed to place blame on Al Qaeda. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative blogger at the Washington Post known for her extreme views on Israeli politics, wrote that the attacks were committed by Al-Qaeda terrorists and used them to attack President Barak Obama’s foreign policy objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her piece was left unchanged on the Washington Post website for a full 24 hours despite evidence that the perpetrator of the attack was, in fact, a right wing Christian fanatic not connected to Al-Qaeda.

Yesterday morning, Israel was rocked by a triple terror attack which left eight people dead and moved the country to a state of high alert. Within hours of the attack, Israel began a series of aggressive airstrikes on targets in the Gaza Strip, claiming that they were reprisal attacks against the Palestinian leadership who gave the order for the Eilat operations. However, Israeli officials and their spokespeople in the media failed to provide factual evidence clearly proving responsibility. The airstrikes killed a number of senior operatives in the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a terror group with weak links to Hamas, as well as civilians including at least one child. The speed at which Israel began airstrikes in Gaza without providing factual evidence of PRC’s involvement raises questions concerning the existence of a premeditated Israeli plan to launch a summer offensive against the population of Gaza. For the record, Hamas has publicly stated numerous times in the past 24 hours that it had nothing to do with the terror attacks in Eilat.

Twitter feed belonging to Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz

Despite uncertainty over those responsible for the attacks yesterday, Israeli journalists were quick to pass on government hearsay as fact. Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz, rushed to place responsibility on the PRC for the terror attacks on his Twitter feed. When I asked him to provide factual proof for his claim other than citing anonymous sources, he responded, “This is what I know from my sources. You can choose to believe or not to, like every article I publish in Haaretz.”


Shouldn’t one evaluate Ravid’s reports and claims based on the factual material which he presents? Since when does “belief” play a central role in a reporter’s credibility on specific military issues? Without knowing Ravid’s sources, it is difficult to ‘believe’ and judge them on their credibility. Ravid was not alone in placing blame on PRC as most of the international media outlets adopted the Israeli government line.

Screenshot of Barak Ravid's twitter feed

In recent months, Ravid has relied on unsubstantiated Israeli government sources for pieces which amount to glorified hearsay without basis in reality. Earlier this summer Ravid wrote a piece propagating Israeli government rumors that activists on board this year’s flotilla “may be bringing chemical substances on the ships to use against Israeli soldiers to prevent them from boarding the ships.”

Oslo should be a warning that rushing to place blame on a group for a horrific terror act without factual proof reflects poor journalistic ethics. In the Israeli context, placing blame on the PRC effectively legitimatizes Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. At the time of this writing there has been no claim of responsibility and the only proof that PRC is behind these terror attacks comes from Israeli government officials who do not cite any specific or verifiable source.  The PRC very well might be behind these attacks but the “shoot first, ask questions later” principle, accepted as mantra in Israel, often results in the loss of innocent life and should not be a fixture of Israeli journalistic ethics.

UPDATE 18:16–

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the PRC has praised the Eilat terror attack but denied responsibility in carrying it out. Speaking with the AFP, a PRC spokesman in Gaza said, “”The occupation wants to pin this operation on us in order to escape its own internal problems.” Israel maintains that the PRC is responsible for the attacks but has yet to release any verifiable proof connecting the Gaza based group to the attack which has so far claimed eight lives.

Read more about the Eilat terror attacks:

Dimi Reider – News coverage of the shooting and bombing
Yossi Gurvitz – Why Israel shouldn’t attack Gaza

http://972mag.com/who-is-behind-the-eilat-terror-attack/

FILLING IN THE BLANKS ON ‘TERROR’ ATTACK

August 19, 2011 at 09:53

STILL TOO EARLY TO TELL WHAT HAPPENED IN ISRAEL …. SO LET’S MAKE UP THE STORY

*

We’ve even learned how to ‘doctor’ photos

*

It is still too early to tell whether the terrorists who carried out Thursday’s attacks exited Egypt, passed through Sinai and headed south toward the region of Eilat, or if this was the action of a terrorist cell of Islamic origins, acting for some time already in Sinai. In any case, it is clear that the Egyptian revolution that began in Tahrir Square and spread through other Arab states has now made its way into Israel.

*

That’s not the version we were fed yesterday by the Israeli press… now it’s ‘We don’t know what happened’.

*

Mubarak’s fall will lead to Israel’s demise? Is that what they want us to believe now? Read the following from HaAretz to see this viewpoint…

*

Mubarak falls, Sinai terror rises

The series of terror attacks near Eilat on Thursday indicate that the Egyptians are losing their grip on Sinai.

The series of terror attacks that took place early Thursday afternoon on the road leading from the Israeli-Egyptian border to Eilat did not come as a surprise to Israel’s senior security officials. They had expected it would occur at some stage or another.

The escalating security situation in the Sinai Peninsula, continuous work on the new border barrier and the frustration of terror groups within the Gaza Strip who – for some time now – have not managed to successfully carry out a terror attack from within the Strip, all pointed at the likelihood of an attempt to attack via the Egyptian border.

It is still too early to tell whether the terrorists who carried out Thursday’s attacks exited Egypt, passed through Sinai and headed south toward the region of Eilat, or if this was the action of a terrorist cell of Islamic origins, acting for some time already in Sinai. In any case, it is clear that the Egyptian revolution that began in Tahrir Square and spread through other Arab states has now made its way into Israel.

Over the past few months, Israel has allowed the Egyptian army to increase its forces in Sinai a number of times, allowing much larger Egyptian forces there than the Camp David Accords allowed for, including the entry of thousands of Egyptian soldiers and tanks in the El Arish region and northern Sinai, within the framework of a widespread mission against al-Qaida. It is now evident that the Egyptian efforts alone are not enough, and that the Israel Defense Forces – who over the past three decades has been able to reduce its forces along the Egyptian border, focusing instead on reinforcing the northern border, West Bank and Gaza Strip – will now have-to strengthen its presence in the south.

This is not just a case of transferring security forces. There is a far greater need to complete the construction of the southern border and its fortification via advanced observation posts, which requires hundreds of millions of shekels in increased funding for the security budget. The Finance Ministry’s spin two days ago about halving the security budget ended within 48 hours, as the gunmen opened fire near Eilat.

Beyond the financial aspect, Israel’s security heads will need to get used to a state in which, as it seems, they cannot depend on its ally, the Egyptian army, to protect its southern front.
Source
*
‘Terror Timetable’ … also from HaAretz
*

Timeline / Eight hours of terror in southern Israel

A series of terrorist attacks took place near Eilat on Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens.

* 12:00 P.M. – Terror cell fires at Egged bus from a private vehicle, 7 hurt
* 12:30 P.M. – IDF forces called to the scene of the attack hurt by explosive device
* 12:35 P.M. – Mortar shells fired from Egypt into Israel, no one hurt
* 13:10 P.M. – Terror cell fires anti-tank missile toward private vehicle near border, 7 hurt
* 13:11 P.M. – Another anti-tank missile fired toward private vehicle, six people killed
* 18:00 P.M. – IDF begins military strike on Gaza, killing at least six Palestinians
* 19:00 P.M. – Fresh firefights erupt in southern Israel, 2 people gravely injured
*
Solution….. BOMB GAZA!
Why?
Because they can!

*

Photo Essay of Victims of Israeli strike on Gaza ( click HERE to view)

*

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/filling-in-the-blanks-on-terror-attack/