Volume 1, Issue 7Newsletter Archives < Return to Archives Index
September - October, 2003
The Prism Group has been very busy in the last month. Our efforts continue to bring important issues to light. This month, as well as opening up a new subject, we are focusing on three areas discussed in the past. Clearly, the issues require further monitoring:
The Prism Group has noted that the issue of prisoners of war is being discussed with increasing urgency in the world’s media. It is a subject we raise here for the first time, but intend to return to at a later date.
What links each story is the specter of the potential abuse of human rights. Most recently, the American, British and Australian forces in Iraq went out of their way not to capture many of Saddam Hussein’s supporters. The preferred approach was “disarmament and speedy release,” unless there were special circumstances. It is probable that this line of action was developed after analyzing the consequences of the Afghanistan campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Here, the prisoners were transferred to the Guantanamo base in Cuba. Although visits by members of the Red Cross are permitted, trial is still a long way off for most. And they have yet to be recognized as POWs. Recently, the British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, urgently called on the Americans from the House of Commons to address this issue.
Israel holds hundreds of Palestinian combatants as well as terrorists from neighboring states. Three of the main prisons are Megido in the north, Ketziot near the Gaza Strip and Ofer close to Ramallah. All these prisons are open to the Red Cross. Trials are held in accordance with international law. What is unclear is the status of another complex, about which details are only beginning to emerge. The subject is now before the local courts in Israel.
The Geneva Convention is very clear in stipulating the rights of captured peoples in arms. However, history shows that numerous states and leaders in the Middle East have paid only lip service to these internationally accepted ethics.
The examples are many. The horrendous treatment of POWs by both sides in the Iran – Iraq war of the 1980s has been well documented. The Turkish response to Kurdish rebels drew long and continuous criticism from the European Union and human rights groups. Going further back, in the October 1973 war, the Egyptians shot on sight those Israelis soldiers who admitted to having fought in the previous war in 1967. And so the list goes on.
The next immediate stage in this episode of despair is the rumored package currently brokered by the German authorities between Israel and the Hizbollah in Lebanon. Officially, little is known of the conditions of Israelis held in captivity for the past three years, nor of Ron Arad, an Israeli air-force navigator, who was captured in Lebanon in October 1986. After being transferred amongst several Palestinian factions, an act illegal under the Geneva Convention, Arad was eventually removed to Iran. It is believed that he is being held in solitary confinement in Tehran. No visitation rights. No trial. And ignored by human rights’ groups around the world.
As part of its continuing review of the rights of children in the Middle East, last month the Prism Group published a thorough survey of materials offered to Palestinian children in their schools. The evidence we found strongly suggests that large segments of the Palestinian school system are still swirling in an atmosphere of hatred. It must be remembered that this is a system that receives hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money from UNRWA, EU, Belgium and elsewhere. The results of the Prism study were disturbing enough that we decided to go public.
Reaching out to government and organizational leaders in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia, our volunteers have sent the Prism Group report far and wide, and most reactions that we received were positive and interested.
Additional disconcerting evidence was sent to us in response to our report. It would seem that the UNRWA "College of Science Education" (a teacher's academy in Ramallah), instructs the Geography teachers of the next generation of Palestinians to exclude any reference to Israel, the Jews, Jewish towns, Jewish holy sites or any Jewish historical contribution to the area taught as being Palestine - from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.
While children are being taught - with the encouragement and official support of the international community - that Israel simply does not exist and has no legitimate claims, little hope is left for compromise in this bitter dispute.
The failure to organize school materials focusing on the benefits of promoting peace and understanding, rather than hatred and the glorification of violence, leaves children of all sides in a more precarious position than ever.
The Prism Group believes that it is vital that all children, both Palestinian and Israeli, grow up free of violence and hate. This is the key to a true and lasting peace for the region and the world as a whole.
We need your help as well. Please write to your local leaders and newspapers. Tell them this is an issue crying for attention. Make your voice heard.
In our newsletter of June 2003, we reported on the status of women in the Middle East. We commented how at the beginning of the 21st century, citizens of western, democratic societies take the rights of women for granted. However, in the Middle East many women still face insurmountable cultural hurdles.
In recent weeks, a new story has come to light in the relatively open society of Jordan. The government had attempted to carry legislation to permit women to file for divorce and to allow courts to impose harsh punishment for “honor killings”. The Chamber of Deputies rejected the calls for change. The Associated Press reported one deputy as saying that bills were "contradictory to our traditions and Islamic teachings…”
Prism urges its members to contact local human rights groups to protest at this step backward in the Hashemite Kingdom.
In the face of growing evidence that PA funds were used to finance terror, the Prism Group joined other leading human rights organizations in supporting the convening of a Parliamentary Committee of inquiry into the alleged misuse of funds supplied to the Palestinian Authority by the European Union. The Prism Group position paper was circulated throughout the European Parliament.
In January 2003, the requisite number of European Parliamentarian signatures was presented to the President of the parliament. In the face of assurances by the European Commission that all funds were being applied only to the intended purposes under the monitoring eye of the International Monetary Fund, the inquiry was never launched.
The IMF has consistently denied any such monitoring role, and just last week issued a report categorically stating that $900m of tax monies had been diverted to secret accounts controlled by Palestinian politicians. Although much of the money has been recovered, with assets turned over to the Palestinian Authority, not all the money could be accounted for. Additional control weaknesses and cash payments in areas not yet fully audited were also identified. This further strengthens the suspicions that European funds have not always reached their intended destination - that of assisting the ordinary Palestinian and creating an environment where a normal civil society can be established.
Today, numerous European institutions are facing growing calls to “open their books” and to apply basic accounting controls. The Prism Group calls on the European Parliament and Commission to ensure that proper procedures are in place to ensure that aid to the Palestinian population reaches its proper destination and achieves its desired objectives. Towards this end, we hope that you will take a moment to write to your local elected representatives (and Member of the European Parliament where relevant) to press this issue.
As our resources and reports expand, we have worked hard to keep the web site up to date with our latest efforts. Share this newsletter with your friends. Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets, so that our work can be shared. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
We would just like to take a moment to offer greetings to our Jewish and Muslim readers as they each respectively approach a season of fasting and festivities.
We hope that the efforts of the Prism team will bear fruit and create a better Middle East for all.