The Veritas Papers Sources ~ A Guide to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

Sources for The Veritas Papers

One of our main sources was actually the original Veritas Handbook. We were surprised that it came in handy for this project.

You might be wondering about our photos, charts and graphics:

· The cover photos are either by Zoriah or Ahmad Mesleh. They have all been used with permission from the photographers and they have been credited on their photos. We encourage you to check them out.

· Carlos Latuff also kindly allowed us to use his comics—which feature in many of the papers.

· Graphics: Some of the graphics have been created by us, but unless otherwise stated, we don’t claim rights over them

· Charts: Most of the charts presented (and even some of the maps) were generated by The Veritas Team itself.

For sources of each individual paper, please visit the page dedicated to each paper. Also, you can view them below.

Paper 1: Occupation From Scratch

Note: We have only quoted sources for things that may be questioned for validity. Most of what has been mentioned is historical fact that can be read in any history book. We encourage you to do your own research on the various issues presented.

· The Maps: The maps used in this pamphlet were created by a member of our team using photoshop. Maps from the UN were traced and scaled to create what you see, and all maps are to scale and accurate. The following maps were used to create the graphics you see:

o UN Partition Plan

o 1949 Armistice Lines

o Fragmentation of the West Bank

· Historic Palestine: This refers to Palestine as set out by the British Mandate for Palestine, defining the region as Palestine.

· Population Statistics:

o Sources for individual years

§ Justin McCarthy’s “The Population of Palestine”

§ British Census

§ United Nations

§ Population Demographics before 1948: General Assembly, A/364, "UNSCOP Report to the General Assembly," September 3, 1947

· Land Statistics:

o Map 1: Land Ownership in 1917

o Map 2: United Nations (1945) Land Ownership Map

o Map 4 Land Statistics: According to the UN Armistice lines, Israel seized 77% of Palestine. It is currently in control of about 60% of the remaining 22% , which leads to it being in control of 90% of Historic Palestine.

§ Israel’s control of historic Palestine: the figure 90% is derived from the fact that:

· 60% of the West Bank is controlled by Israel (Area C) (including all borders, this is a generous figure given that Israelis also have partial control of Area B).

· 76.95% + 60%/21.71% = 89.98%

· Israel (all areas according to the CIA Factbook): 20 770 sq km.

· West Bank: 5860 sq km

· Gaza: 360 sq km

· Total Area: 26 990 sq km

o Israel: 76.95%

o West Bank: 21.71%

o Gaza: 1.33%

· UN Partition Plan of 1948

· 1917 Balfour Declaration

· Ethnic Cleansing:

o Some people may have a problem with the usage of this term, if so, read Paper 3, and Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”

Paper 2: Myth vs. Reality

· Most of the content of this paper is general fact or discussed in other papers. Some of them have been summarized from Ben White’s FAQ section, which can be read in The Veritas Handbook, page 127-137. Others have been summarized from Part II of the Handbook.

However, here are some more references:

· Fact 1: Hamas inception: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1654510.stm

o The strength of the Israeli military being the strongest in the region is actually affirmed by the US military aid, whose stated aim is to ensure that Israel has a “qualitative military edge”. For more on this, see Paper 10b

· Fact 2:

o Population Demographics before 1948: General Assembly, A/364, "UNSCOP Report to the General Assembly," September 3, 1947

o For more on the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, see Paper 11

o For more on Israel’s “right” to exist, see Paper 4

· Fact 3:

o Original Declaration of Israeli Independence: This does not include define Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. However, the idea of Israel being “Jewish and democratic” was added much later to the Basic Law of the Knesset which can be read here.

o Israel’s “Law of Return” applicable to Jews only worldwide

o Official Map: Israel doesn’t have “official borders”, and is probably the only country in the world not to have declared borders. However, on its Official Tourism website, Israel includes the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a part of Israel. See it for yourself.

· Fact 4:

o Israeli War Crimes: These are but a few of the many human rights reports regarding Israeli violations of human rights and war crimes. We encourage you to peruse through them on your own.

§ Promoting Impunity: The Israeli Military’s Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing, June 2005

§ Precisely Wrong: Gaza Civilians Killed by Israeli Drone-Launched Missiles, June 2009

§ Flooding South Lebanon: Israel’s Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006, February 2008

§ Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon

§ GoldstoneReport: Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,September 2009

§ Guidelines for Israel's Investigation into Operation Cast Lead: Position Paper, February2009

§ White Flag Deaths: Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead, August 2009

§ Under Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza, March 2009

§ Israel/Gaza:Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction , July 2009

§ Turning a Blind Eye: Impunity for Laws-of-War Violations During the Gaza War, April 2010

§ “I Lost Everything”: Israel’s Unlawful Destruction of Property During Operation Cast Lead, May 2010

· Fact 5:

o See Paper 6 on the use of the word “Apartheid”

· Fact 6:

o Definition of a Semite: “a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs”

o At great risk to themselves, Palestinians hid and saved the lives of 435 Jews during the gruesome Hebron massacres of 1929.

· Fact 7:

o For more on Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, see Paper 3: A Real Partner for Peace?

Paper 3: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

· For detailed referencing, we highly suggest you read Ilan Pappe’s well-researched book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”

· Definition of Ethnic Cleansing by US State Department.

· Ilan Pappe’s article “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” was also one of our sources. (Apologies to those with no access to JSTOR, visit your local library: they will probably have access)

· Text of Plan Dalet: begins page 24

· Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13

· The quote of the al-Dawaymiya massacre, has been quoted by famous Israeli historian Benny Morris, the text has been referenced here.

· More about Palestinian refugees

Paper 4: Israel’s “Right to Exist”

· Much of the inspiration for this piece was found through If Americans Knew pamphlet on the same subject. It can be downloaded here.

· Hamas has been willing to accept an extended cease-fire truce with Israel on the 1967 borders, but has not conceded on the Palestinian right to return.

· Ben White has been quoted from his book “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide”, the FAQ section of which can be found beginning on page 127 of The Veritas Handbook.

Paper 5: The West Bank & Settlements

· Israeli control over the West Bank- more than 60% (Area C) according to the UN in 2011. Israel also controls parts of Area B, but to be generous, we didn’t include that in the percentage of Israeli control.

· Number of settlers in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) has been taken from B’Tselem. The exact number is 498,077 (however, this number is from the end of 2010, and does not include the population increase of 2011, it has certainly surpassed 500 000 this year 2012).

· Other information has been taken from:

o UN West Bank Fact Sheet

o West Bank & East Jerusalem OCHA OPT Presentation (including movement, types of closures and facts on the apartheid wall)

§ The map on the last page has been taken from this presentation and all credit for this map goes to the United Nations OCHA oPT.

o Route of the Apartheid Wall and facts on it

o Access and Closure Map of the West Bank, August 2011

Paper 6: Apartheid

· The Legal Definition of Apartheid, according to Article II of United Nations Resolution 3068:

“For the purpose of the present Convention, the term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them:

a) Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person: i. By murder of members of a racial group or groups; ii. By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; iii. By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;

b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;

c) Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

d) Any measures, including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;

e) Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;

f) Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.”

· The various laws quoted have been taken from the Israel Law Resource Center
· One of our other sources was the works of Ben White. You can read an excerpt here.
· More on Apartheid Roads can be read in this report.

FURTHER READING

· Ben White has excellent books that are easy to follow and extremely well-researched in regards to apartheid, both within the Occupied Territories and within Israel’s 1967 borders. They are well worth the cost!

o Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, Pluto Press, 2009

o Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, Pluto Press, 2009

Paper 7: Breaking Gaza

The information used in this paper has been taken from:

· UN OCHA OPT Map of the population density in Gaza
· Settlement population in the Gaza Strip before "disengagement"

· Settlement and Settler Statistics (and its vast increase), BTselem
· Settler relocation to the West Bank

· Statistics of Operation Cast Lead, BTselem

· UN OCHA OPT Gaza Strip Fact Sheet

· UN OCHA OPT Gaza Strip Presentation

· Israel’s stated aims in the Gaza blockade has been a mixture of the following (a) stopping rockets (b) pressuring Hamas (c) an economic blockade. Its stated aim has been to weaken the Hamas government, knowing that the civilian population would suffer. To read more on this, see the PCHR report on the Gaza blockade and Jonathan Cook’s piece on “The Real Goal of Israel’s Gaza Blockade”
Human Rights reports on Operation Cast Lead and Israeli War Crimes:

· GoldstoneReport: Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,September 2009

· Guidelinesfor Israel's Investigation into Operation Cast Lead: Position Paper, February2009

· White Flag Deaths: Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead, August 2009

· Under Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza, March 2009

· Israel/Gaza:Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction , July 2009

· Turning a Blind Eye: Impunity for Laws-of-War Violations During the Gaza War, April 2010

· “I Lost Everything”: Israel’s Unlawful Destruction of Property During Operation Cast Lead, May 2010

· Humanitarian Situation in Gaza graphs:

o The data for these graphs has been taken from a report by the World Food Programme, titled Gaza: Eased or Un-eased? Published June 2011

Paper 8: International Law

· Text of the various laws and resolutions mentioned:

o General Assembly

§ General Assembly Resolution 194

§ General Assembly Resolution 3236

§ General Assembly Resolution 10248

o Security Council

§ Security Council Resolution 242

§ Security Council Resolution 446

§ Security Council Resolution 1397

o Universal Declaration of Human Rights

o 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention

o International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Apartheid Wall

o Resolutions Vetoed by the United States

· The table on the last page with all of the resolutions: you might not believe us, but we researched this ourselves. The UN has all of their resolutions online, and a very convenient search process. We used their search engine to find all resolutions pertaining to “the question of Palestine” and “Israel”, then manually went through them to make sure that they pertained to the conflict. Some of these resolutions have been passed over and over (with new resolution numbers) since Israel has not complied. Nevertheless, this is the number of resolutions that have been passed (including resolutions that have been passed more than once).

You can try doing it yourself if you want to make sure we’re telling the truth… but it will take you a few hours J

o Here’s the search engine for the voting records:

§ You can limit the search to GA resolutions or SC resolutions

§ Add the relevant resolutions to a “list” that you can later e-mail to yourself.

Paper 9: Resistance

· To discuss Israeli weaponry, and how this is not a balanced conflict, see the last chart of Paper 3: A Real Partner for Peace?

· For a longer discussion on Non-violent vs. Violent Resistance, see the perspectives section of The Veritas Handbook, from page 210

· Norman Finkelstein: What We Can Learn From Gandhi

· Expanding of settlements and settler population increase during and after Oslo Accords: see this BTselem report, page 17-19

· Casualties of Operation Cast Lead from BTselem can be viewed here

· The murder of Mustafa Tamimi, article on BTselem

· For more on Israeli restrictions on Palestinian non-violent protests, see the following reports from BTselem:

o Protests in Nabi Saleh

o TheRight of Palestinians to peacefully demonstrate

· The Village of Bilin’s creative protesting, including noteworthy imitation of Avatar.

o See http://www.bilin-village.org/ for more on the village.

Paper 10: A Real Partner for Peace?

· Text of the Oslo “Declaration of Principles”

· Camp David according to the PLO

· For more on Gaza, see Paper 7
· "The Palestine Papers" were released by Al-Jazeera.

· Casualties: The statistics and numbers of the casualties quoted from Operation Cast Lead have been added from the reports of B’Tselem and can be viewed here

· Israel’s control of historic Palestine: the figure 90% is derived from the fact that:

o 60% of the West Bank/Gaza is controlled by Israel, Area C (this is generous given that Israel also partially controls Area B)

o 76.95% + 60%/21.71% = 89.98%

o Israel (all areas according to the CIA Factbook): 20 770 sq km.

o West Bank: 5860 sq km

o Gaza: 360 sq km

o Total Area: 26 990 sq km

§ Israel: 76.95%

§ West Bank: 21.71%

§ Gaza: 1.33%

· Military Strength:

o Report by the Institute for Middle East Understanding, fully referenced, see the article for more references.

o Also see: Israeli Military Strength by Global Fire Power (the reference cited is the CIA, but we were unable to independently confirm the veracity of this source).

Paper 11a: Canada’s Role:

· UN Information on Lester Pearson

· Palestinian Right to Self-Determination, UN voting results, 2007

·         Canada’s explanation of voting in 2008
· Harper comments on Israel's onslaught of Lebanon
· Peter Kent's comments on Israel's onslaught of Gaza
· George Galloway banned entry into Canada
·   Funding cut to KAIROS and CAF and UNRWA
·         Canada and Israel Relationship (according to the Canadian government)

· CPCCA findings: Final Report

· Canada abstaining from 2004 resolution 10248 on the ICJ ruling

· 2009 Canada vote UN HRC (Document A/64/53 E)

· 2011 UN GA voting results

Further Information:

· Al Jazeera Documentary “Canada-Israel: The Other Special Relationship”

· Israel’s New Best Friend, by Jon Elmer

Paper 11b: America: Israel’s Biggest Ally

· American Aid to Israel

o U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, Jeremy Sharp, Congressional Research Services, September 2010

· UN Security Council resolution vetoes in favour of Israel by the US

o Until 2009

o Veto in 2011 on settlements

· AIPAC

o Official website of AIPAC

· USS Liberty

o For more on the USS Liberty, check out this excellent collection of videos and documentaries, courtesy of ifamericansknew.org

· Israeli espionage in the US

o For a collection of resources, see ifamericansknew.org

Paper 12: Boycotting Israel

· Information on the BDS campaign has been taken from the movement’s official website: http://www.bdsmovement.net

· Agrexco going bankrupt

· Success of the boycott movement and Israel seeing the movement as a threat. See this special on YNET

· Divestment of:

o Methodist Church

o Hampshire College

o UC-Berkeley (vetoed)

· Famous People: See the addenda for details on famous people who have endorsed the boycott.

Addenda

Famous People and Things That Support Palestine

· 150 American actors, directors etc. sign on to the boycott of illegal settlements.

· Coldplay endorsing the song and facebook removal.

· Lush’s ethical campaign supporting One World’s song “Freedom for Palestine”

· Toronto Boycott Declaration (what Viggo Mortensen signed on to)

· Lupe Fiasco

o Waving Palestinian flag

o “Words I never Said” – song that includes lyrics about Gaza getting bombed.

· Roger Waters

· Cristiano Ronaldo

· Noam Chomsky

o Read his books or articles and you’ll get a better impression of this vociferous critic of Israel who was recently barred from entering Israel because of his political views.

· Jesus

o Some people may have found this addition a little odd, but we believe it. Jesus, as a lover of humanity and justice, without a doubt, supports the Palestinian plight for justice.

§ Methodist Church

§ Presbyterian Church

§ Bethlehem during Christmas

· Naomi Klein

· Desmond Tutu

· Elvis Costello and Santana

· Lowkey

o Long Live Palestine Official Video (lyrics include references to the BDS campaign)

· Alan Rickman

· History of the Kaffiyeh

o Support the kaffiyeh factor! Buy your authentic Palestinian kaffiyeh here.

Companies to Boycott: Be a Responsible Buyer