News Release

Netanyahu in the U.S.

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RICHARD FALK
Falk is professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University and Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories for the United Nations Human Rights Council. He said today: “If the American president believed that the rule of law applied to Israel he would certainly favor the establishment of an international inquiry, under UN auspices, to the flotilla incident of May 31, call for a total freeze on settlement construction and remind Israel that its settlement wall was declared illegal in 2005 by a 14-1 majority of the World Court, which also decreed that the wall should be dismantled and Palestinians compensated for all harm endured.”
The New York Times on Monday published a piece titled “Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank.”

IARA LEE
FATIMA MOHAMMADI
Currently in Turkey, Lee is director of Cultures of Resistance and an independent filmmaker who was on the Mavi Marmara when Israeli forces boarded it in international waters and killed nine activists. While Israeli forces confiscated most video from people on the ship, Lee’s crew smuggled out one hour of Israeli raid footage. She wrote the piece “The Video Israel Doesn’t Want You to See: Smuggled Footage From the Flotilla Attack.”
Mohammadi, like Lee, was on the Mavi Marmara. In this video, she states that Israeli forces used lethal force prior to boarding the ship.
Mohammadi said today: “Israel is allowing a bit more aid into Gaza through Rafah as a public relations move. This allows it to continue to justify to the world the overall siege of Gaza. Israel prohibits exports out of Gaza. What security rationale is there for that? Such restriction shows that the Israeli government is aiming to cripple the economy of Gaza as part of its collective punishment against the people of Gaza.”

NASEER ARURI
Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the book Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. He said today: “Ultimately at stake is whether a substantive change in U.S. policy will emerge, particularly given Obama’s endorsement of [Gen. David] Petreaus’ claim that a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is a vital national security interest of the United States. Should Obama continue to uphold this thesis, positive change may be in the offing, otherwise; it will likely mean that Obama has caved to the traditional domestic political forces.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858