פעילי זכויות אדם פולנים (לא גזעניים, לא ימניים, בוודאי לא אנטישמיים) הצליחו לעשות מה שהיה בלתי נתפס עד לפני זמן לא רב בפולין, שהממסד המאובן בה נשלט ע"י אלו שמנסים להשתיק כל ביקורת על ישראל. הפעילים הפגינו ומנעו את פתיחת מופע התעמולה של הגנרל איתן דנגוט בווארשה לציבור הרחב.

Polish activists force Israeli General onto the Defensive

December 1 2010

Warsaw, Poland

Today the Polish Solidarity Campaign with Palestine (Kampania Palestyna)
and the Polish Stop the War Initiative protested the invitation of
General Eitan Dangot, Israel’s Military Co-ordinator of Government
Activities in the (occupied) Territories to present at the Polish
Institute of International Affairs.

The Institute is a government think-tank providing platforms for experts
to inform government policy on international relations. The meeting was
jointly organised and sponsored by the Israeli government through the
Israeli Embassy in Warsaw.

Major General Dangot’s lecture was shut down to the public by the
Institute in response to Kampania Palestyna and Stop the War’s protest.

A few hours beforehand, another group of human rights activists had
graffitied the exterior of the building with slogans of solidarity with
the occupied Palestinian people.

The words: Eitan Dangot Criminal, a billboard poster of “Apartheid
Isreal”, a graphic accompanying the words “Israeli Apartheid” and Black
Power style raised fists in the colours of the Palestinian flag greeted
the General, Israeli Embassy entourage and Institute organisers on the
morning of the talk.

The spokesman of the Israeli embassy in Warsaw, quoted by a right-wing daily newspaper “Rzeczpospolita”, expressed outrage at this treatment of ‘a soldier who defends his country’.

The protest had shown General Dangot that he was not welcome in Poland,
and forced the Israeli embassy and Institute to justify their decision
to invite him.

Dangot was Head of the Strategic Planning Division in the IDF Planning
Directorate (1991-2001), Home Front Command Execute Officer (2001-
2004), and Military Secretary of the Minister of Defence (2004-2009)
before being appointed Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the
(occupied) Territories. Dangot clearly has a history of forming and
carrying out policies and practices that violate international
humanitarian and human rights law in the context of Israel’s illegal
occupation.

These include violation of: the Convention on the Suppression and
Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1976); The Fourth Geneva
Convention (1949) Art 49 regarding transfer of an occupying powers’
civilian population into the territory it occupies;  The Right to Life,
article 6 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966; Fourth
Geneva Convention (1949), Art 33, Prohibiting collective punishment of a
civilian population; and Articles 53 and 147 on deliberate and wanton
destruction of personal and state property not justified by military
necessity.

These as well as numerous European Union laws have been violated by
Israel’s policy of founding illegal colonies on Palestinian territories
as well as the land, sea and aerial blockade on Gaza, plus numerous
military operations which have targeted civilians and civilian
infrastructure and property, Israel’s policy of extra-judicial execution
and the continued building of the illegal separation barrier (wall)
inside occupied Palestinian territory.

Kampania Palestyna issued a statement explaining, ‘Major General Dangot
should be standing in the dock answering charges of war crimes, not
standing in a Polish government-sponsored institution answering
questions on foreign policy’.