United Nations Report Proves ASIO Wrong

as posted here

The United Nations report on the Gaza conflict has proved ASIO is motivated by politics
and not intelligence gathering, says Asem Judeh, long time human rights activist. He says
ASIO’s claims have been undermined by the 575-page UN Fact Finding Mission on the
Gaza Conflict (the Goldstone Report).

"The Goldstone report demonstrates the absurdity and hypocrisy of condemning Hamas'
Brigades as a terrorist organization, while completely ignoring the extreme terrorism and
provocation by Israel. Remember, the Palestinians are a people without a country, being
constantly subjected to violence, humiliation and the theft of their land."

"Is ASIO an intelligence organization or a political tool?" he asks. "Many of ASIO’s
supposed ‘facts’ are based on the internet sources, which cannot be relied upon." This is not
intelligence, it is politics. ASIO has an important role to get accurate facts to advise the
Attorney-General and Parliament on important issues on security and safety that should
concern all Australians.

"It is not supposed to be affected by politics. It is supposed to analyse politics. But it is clear
that ASIO has been influenced. Consequently we have the absurdity of Hamas's Brigades
being declared a terrorist organization, but the use of extreme forms of terror against civilian
populations in Gaza by Israel, including the use of phosphorous bombs, is ignored. It is the
kind of attitude that gives Israel an excuse to kill Palestinian civilians, destroy their property
and ruin the civilian infrastructure."

Judeh says the Palestinians in Gaza are still suffering from the deprivations and humiliations
of Israel’s collective punitive sanctions imposed in June 2007, which have denied the
Palestinians almost all basic household staples, construction materials to rebuild destroyed
homes and medicines to relieve the pain and suffering of the thousands injured as well as the
acutely and chronically ill. "It is a classic tactic of terrorism: deprive people of their safety and
dignity in order to achieve a political end."

He says the report confirms this. It states that there is evidence of Israel’s intent "to punish,
humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity
both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of
dependency and vulnerability."

"Who are the terrorists?" asks Judeh. "No evidence was found of Hamas using its own
people as human shields, but there were numerous incidents cited of Palestinians being
used as human shields by Israeli soldiers."

Judeh says the Goldstone report provides a legal basis for applying the Geneva Conventions
to Israel’s behavior. He says Australia has an obligation to demand that claims of war crimes
against Israel be heard before the International Criminal Court of Justice. "Maybe ASIO can
stop turning a blind eye, start behaving like an intelligence organisaton, and pay attention
to the facts," he says.



as posted here