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Today's Top News
Israeli Supreme Court Upholds Deportation Order on Pro-Palestinian Nobel Laureate Maguire
CD Editor's Note: This post was updated to reflect new developments.
JERUSALEM — Israel's Supreme Court on Monday upheld a deportation
order against an Irish Nobel peace laureate who has taken up the
Palestinian cause, clearing the way for her expulsion, a court official
said.
Irish Nobel laureate appeals Isralei ban. "There will be peace in this country, I believe, but only when Israel ends apartheid and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people," she told reporters.(AFP) Israel banned Mairead Corrigan Maguire, 66, from entering
the country because of her attempt to breach Israel's naval blockade of
Gaza aboard a ship in June. A lower court upheld the deportation order
Friday, and she appealed to Israel's highest judicial body.
Court spokeswoman Ayalet Filo said late Monday that the Supreme Court rejected her appeal. Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabin Hadad said Maguire was taken to Israel's airport and would be put on the first available flight out.
She won the peace prize in 1976 for her efforts to end sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, but has since turned most of her attention to the Palestinian cause.
Maguire was detained last Tuesday after landing at the airport in Tel Aviv on her way to meet Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
During Monday's Supreme Court hearing, Maguire called on Israel to cease what she called its "apartheid" policy against the Palestinian people.
"This is no place for propaganda," Justice Asher Grunis retorted and cut her off. The session ended soon thereafter.
The government opposed a court-proposed compromise that Maguire be allowed to join the delegation for two days and then leave.
Maguire's lawyers said they expect her to be deported, a decision that could further tarnish Israel's image abroad. Interior Ministry officials say Maguire knew she would not be allowed into the country but sought to provoke an incident.
Upon entering the courtroom, Maguire said to reporters: "There will be peace in this country, but only after Israel ends apartheid and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people."
Fellow Nobel laureate Jody Williams of the Nobel Women's Initiative, which sponsored the delegation, said they were unaware of the ban. But earlier in the year, Israel's Foreign Ministry denied the group's appeal to ease the ban and let Maguire take part in the delegation that arrived last week.
Maguire has also voiced support for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a man widely seen in Israel as a traitor, attended anti-Israel demonstrations in the West Bank and compared the Jewish state's reported nuclear arsenal to Hitler's gas chambers.
In 2007, she was wounded at a demonstration against Israel's West Bank security barrier when a rubber bullet fired by police hit her in the leg.
Israel has banned other pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country, including Jewish-American linguist Noam Chomsky in May. The government later said that was a mistake.
Also Sunday, the group that organized the Turkish flotilla intercepted by Israeli naval commandos on May 31 announced that about 500 activists from various countries in Asia would board ships headed for Gaza in December.
The Turkish IHH charity said they will set off from India by land on Dec. 2, cross Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Syria, then try to reach Gaza by sea on Dec. 27.
Nine pro-Palestinian activists, including an American citizen, were killed in the May 31 clash, setting off an international uproar.
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22 Comments so far
Show AllGood luck and best wishes, Mairead Maguire!
It's always a crapshoot with the judiciary.
I'm sure you won't be surprised if the verdict is "No matzo ball soup for you! Ten years!"
Not much of a punishment, Obedient Servant, if you've ever had matzo ball soup!
(i know you were referencing the soup nazi)
rita
Actually, I haven't-- but I've heard not-good things.
I see that my cynical prediction has been confirmed. Sad but not surprising.
"botched a raid"?
AFP:
'Maguire was one of 19 activists on board the Irish-owned "Rachel Corrie," which tried and failed to reach Gaza in early June a week after Israeli forces botched a raid on a six-ship flotilla heading for the coastal enclave, killing nine Turkish activists.'
Is AFP not aware of the UN Human Rights Council report, documenting "summary executions"?
'The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Wednesday to endorse the report of a U.N. fact-finding mission that accused Israeli commandos of summarily executing six passengers on a Turkish aid flotilla last May, among them a 19-year old Turkish-American dual citizen who was shot five times, including once in the face.'
"U.N. council endorses report accusing Israel of executions aboard aid flotilla," Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Wednesday, September 29, 2010; 9:52 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/29/AR2010092907857.html
It is no use.
The "botched raid" on the Mavi Marmara will go down in the alongside:
1. The atomic-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives by previenting a protracted, massive, ground invasion that would have otherwise certainly been necessary.
2. "We got there [Granada] just in time"
3. Very few Panamanians died on December 20 1989, they just had to put up with some loud rock music at the Vatican Embassy.
4. The Vincennes was perfectly jsutified in shooting down what it thought was a jet fighter instead of an Iranian airliner with 300 on board.
5. Saddam "kicked out" the UN inspectors, so Clinton had to bomb and starve Iraq to to submission.
6. Yugoslavia rejected a perfectly reasonable treaty at Ramboullet, then started driving Albanians out of Kosovo, so Clinton/Albright HAD to bomb the Serbians.
7. Mahmoud Ahmadenihjad said: "We will wipe Israel off the map" (or in some tellings: "off the face of the earth").
8. Arafat rejected a perfectly reasonable offer at Camp David.
9. Hamas attempted a coup aganist the legitimately elected Fatah government - succeeding in Gaza, so Israel HAD to start a brutal blockade on Gaza.
10. Israel had no choice but to devastate large swaths of Lebanon all the way to Beruit (twice) - it was "self defense".
11. Throughout the summer and fall of 2008, Hamas just wouldn't stop bombarding Israel with its oh-so-deadly Quassam rockets, so Israel had to level Gaza - it was "self defense".
12. "Remmeber the Maine"
Etc, etc, ad-nausea (not "nauseum" per a Latin expert's remarks yeaterday)
Call it, "the writing of history by urban myth".
I just returned from 13 days with Mavi Marmara survivor Ken O'Keefe, who disarmed 2 of the Israeli commandos and i will be writing this week about this hero!
LEARN LOTS @ http://www.wearewideawake.org
Wonder what our Hilary (Secretary of State) has to say about this? But I won't hold my breath.
I sometimes wondered if the always reasonable "Mairead" here on CD was Ms. Maguire (She isn't).
What a brave woman !
I met Mairead in Jerusalem in 2008 and we did a PRESS TV interview together shortly there after.
On November 19, 2008, during the final day of Sabeel's [Arabic for The Way] 7th International Conference: THE NAKBA: MEMORY, REALITY AND BEYOND, keynote speaker Mairead Maguire said:
"...I know that all occupations, and violent conflicts, sooner or later come to an end and that here in this part of the world, occupation will end, justice will reign, and reconciliation will flourish between the Israeli and Palestinian people.
"But before peace can flourish, its roots of freedom, equality, justice, must be nourished with courage and truth. It takes courage to speak truth to power when the consequences are often suffering. The truth shall indeed set your spirit free, but in this oppressive occupying power, the truth will also be physically, emotionally and in other ways very costly.
"But we must challenge not only Israeli state injustice, but also challenge Palestinian armed militant insurgency groups to reject violence and use non-violent civil resistance – a political strategy which is not only morally right but in our Northern Irish experience does work. Still there have always been people in history, willing to tell the truth at great personal cost to themselves, and it is to such people we, the human family, remain indebted..."
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1112&Itemid=212
MORE @
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1780&Itemid=235
The pariah state continues to its ultimate downfall.
Courage and Truth;
The clock is ticking, Israel.
Time, you are running out of time, and friends, and credibility.
To paraphrase the existing poem:
Your candle burns at both ends,
it will not last the fight.
But ah my foes and oh my friends,
it spreads a terrible blight.
I suppose she's also interfering with the Obama admin's "peace process" . . .
I don't agree. Israel doesn't practice "apartheid", since the Palestinian areas are in negotiation to become a Palestinian State. Two, Israel doesn't practice "Ethnic cleansing," a very serious human rights charge. The two peoples want two separate states. So what's the problem?
Israel also has 1 out of 6 citizens who are Arabs. Why doesn't she mention that fact? The Arab territories burned down synagogues , in Hitler style, in the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip. Where were the human rights people when these events occurred?
I would personally like her to come to the United States, and declare our country an 'apartheid state' , which it largely is.
You’re right Jack, what Israel practices is far worse than South African apartheid, because the Zionists are driving Palestinians out of Palestine in order to exclude them from a racially pure “Jewish state.” The “negotiations” you refer to must be the sham negotiations Israel has always used to provide a PR cover for Israeli crimes against humanity.
You cynically call the West Bank and Gaza Strip “disputed” areas. These areas belong to Palestinians, as does the territory Israel now occupies. There is no legal dispute about ownership, there is simply de facto Zionist occupation and ethnic cleansing of Arabs.
But you know all this, don’t you Jack? The Nazis always claimed they were acting in self-defense against the Jews, and it was useless to argue with them. They, like the Zionists, were fanatical racists, and reason was useless against them.
New video of Israeli soldier humiliating a bound Palestinian woman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxFlmXbzY3I&feature=player_embedded
Ann Stoler in support of BDS:
It would be difficult not to recognize Israel’s past and ongoing illegal seizure of Palestinian land, the racialization of every aspect of daily life, and the large-scale and piecemeal demolition of Palestinian homes, destruction of livelihoods, and efforts to destroy the social and family fabric, as decimation by concerted and concentrated colonial design... As with other colonial regimes, the Israeli state designates and redraws geographic borders, suspends Palestinian civil rights and arbitrarily transgresses what for Israelis are recognized and guarded as private space.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16275
It is difficult to see how Israel can object to boycotts of its products and people if they engage in behavior like this. And for a high court judge to say, "This is no place for propaganda," when confronted with the evidence against the government's position kind of puts to rest any remaining idea that the Israeli judiciary is at all engaged in impartial justice.
Every time you try to make a "Nazi" comparison, you lose credibility with most folks who don't already agree with you, and even some who do.
If the jackboots fit, honey, ...
/cm
this morning in their coverage of the Tuskagee Experiment, Democracy Now had a clip where the surgeon general in the 40s says, in response to the reporter who asked if the Nuremburg Codes (established against the Nazi experiments with human subjects) wouldn't apply to the tuskagee experiment, "but they are Nazis!"
i could almost hear the zionist and other neo-fascists of Israel and this country saying, "but they are Nazis!"
genocide, based on "we're superior and they are sub-human" idea, has been committed by many peoples at various points of human history.
israel and its backers like the US is living its own 15 minutes of fame.