Protests against Shimon Peres in England

31-03-2011

Al Qassam website - Scores of Brits gathered outside Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London to protest the institute's reception of Israeli President Shimon Peres to mark 60 years of Israeli-British diplomatic ties.

Protesters shouted pro-Palestinian calls and condemned Israeli policies concerning Palestinians and called Peres a war criminal. They also demanded that Peres be arrested.

Zahir Beirawi, the spokesman of the Palestinian forum in Britain, one of the organizations behind the demonstrations, said the protests came to object that a war criminal would be allowed into the capital of England and to condemn Chatham House's invitation to have him give a lecture on the relations between Israel and the UK.

Beirawi added that the semi-official position of Chatham House encourages Israel to proceed in its crimes against the Palestinians.

”The time has come for this government to be honest with itself and its people and to stop giving Israel a cover for its crimes,” he said.

Peres began his visit to England Tuesday and arrived from Switzerland where he received condemnation by several rights groups who demanded he be arrested for war crimes committed during the 2008-2009 war on Gaza.

Source: Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades - Information Office.
Link: http://qassam.ps/news-4353-Protests_against_Shimon_Peres_in_England.html.

Madrid protests Israeli visit, urge ban

Fri Feb 25, 2011

Hundreds of demonstrators in Spain have protested a visit by Israeli President Shimon Peres, calling for the immediate lifting of the siege on Gaza by the Tel Aviv regime.

Human rights associations and Palestinian living in Madrid were among the protesters gathered in front of the ministry of foreign affairs on Thursday, calling on the EU to impose sanctions on the regime and to boycott Israeli companies.

Protesters also demanded that Peres testify in court and be held accountable for last May's deadly Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound freedom Flotilla and its massive violations of human rights against the Palestinian people, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Spain's Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told Peres that his country was ready to expand strategic ties with Israel beyond issues regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Demonstrators were chanting slogans such as “Peres the murderer,” “free Palestine” and “Zapatero accomplice of a criminal.”

The Israeli regime has continued to expand its settlements while Palestinians are confined to limited areas in their own country within the Apartheid wall.

Israel has been persistently proceeding with the demolition of Palestinian structures and construction of its settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/166937.html.

Thousands attend funeral of wife of Israeli President Shimon Peres

Fri, 21 Jan 2011

Tel Aviv - Eulogized by her husband, and accompanied on her last journey by thousands of mourners, Sonia Peres, the wife of Israeli President Shimon Peres, was buried near Tel Aviv Friday, a day after she died in her sleep aged 87.

"My love for her will remain in my heart until I die," the president said of his wife of 67 years.

He said that when he first met Sonia 73 years ago at the Ben-Shemen youth village south-east of Tel Aviv, "I knew that it was love at first sight."

"She loved the country. She loved the people. She did most of her work in secret," he said, in remarks broadcast live over the radio. "She went to clean floors at a number of institutions for children with special needs or hospitals."

Although married to one of Israel's leading and longest-serving politicians and statesmen, Sonia's reluctance to share in her husband's limelight was legendary and the couple rarely appeared together at public functions.

She did not move to the president's official residence in Jerusalem when Shimon Peres was elected president in 2007, but instead remained living at the couple's apartment in Oppenheimer street in an upscale Tel Aviv neighborhood.

It was there that her grandson discovered her dead late Thursday morning.

Peres is said to have been shattered by Sonia's death, and according to media reports, has been teary-eyed and uncommunicative since he was told of her passing.

The funeral was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni, Defense Mister Ehud Barak, and a host of other top Israeli politicians and officials.

It was held, at her request, at Ben-Shemen, and not at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, where Israeli leaders and dignitaries are usually laid to rest.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/363488,israeli-president-shimon-peres.html.

Peres blames Iran for no Palestinian state

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Israeli President Shimon Peres declares Tehran as the main obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian State.

"The big problem today is Iran," he said in an interview with German television channel, ARD.

The 86-year-old politician who arrived in the German capital of Berlin on an official visit to mark the so-called 'International Holocaust Remembrance Day,' was especially critical of Iran's support for the Islamic resistance movements in the region, namely Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran's connections with the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, he claimed, have until now prevented the creation of a Palestinian state.

Observers in the region, however, insist that Israel's preconditions on the creation of a Palestinian state render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible.

Tel Aviv says a future Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, cede control of its airspace to Israel and recognize the territory occupied and run by the regime in Tel Aviv as the 'Jewish homeland.'

Israel also geographically separates Gaza and the West Bank, strangling trade and other exchanges between the two territories at will.

"Iran supports Hezbollah, which has divided Lebanon,” Peres claimed. “They bought 80,000 missiles. We must refer to the source, to the heart of the problem."

According to observers, the Israeli president is infamous for making baseless claims during his foreign tours in efforts to demonize Hezbollah and Hamas. Such claims have been refuted and condemned by Lebanese officials and other world leaders, namely the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Referring to efforts to contain Iran's peaceful nuclear program, the Israeli leader also expressed concern for a world where "nuclear proliferation is no longer controllable."

Israel, the sole possessor of nuclear warheads in the Middle East, accuses Tehran of making efforts to build a nuclear bomb and has openly threatened Iran with military strikes should the country continue enriching uranium.

As one of the four countries that have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Tel Aviv has maintained the policy of neither admitting nor denying its possession of nuclear warheads. However, it is widely believed that Israel has some 200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

The doctrine of nuclear ambiguity has enabled Israel to deter foes for decades in a region with only one alleged nuclear power.

In order to maintain its military advantage, Tel Aviv insists on preventing other Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East, from acquiring nuclear capabilities while remaining outside of the international nuclear non-proliferation system.

Peres' visit to Germany comes after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Chancellor Angela Merkel last week in a bid to press Berlin to sell six Dolphin-class diesel submarines to Tel Aviv.

Israel had previously received three submarines as a donation from the government of the then German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

The Dolphin submarines are among the most sophisticated and capable submarines in the world that could be equipped with nuclear missiles.

Built in German shipyards for the Israel Navy, the submarine is capable of carrying American-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles equipped with nuclear warheads.

While the restrictive German export regulations bar the sale of weapons to crisis areas, the German government has justified the submarine sale by invoking its "special responsibility" towards Tel Aviv.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117110§ionid=351020604.

Israel's Peres arrives in Germany to remember Holocaust - Summary

(WARNING): Article contains propaganda!

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Jerusalem - Israeli President Shimon Peres arrived in Berlin on Monday for a three-day visit in which he is to commemorate the Holocaust and give a landmark address to the German Parliament. Peres, 86, is accompanied by a delegation of German-born Holocaust survivors marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the date on which in 1945 the Auschwitz death camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

In Berlin, Peres is also to meet a series of German officials, including President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He will also hold a memorial ceremony at Platform 17 of the Grunewald Railway Station, where tens of thousands of Berlin Jews were deported to extermination camps during the Holocaust, the Nazi campaign of genocide during World War II.

The service will be attended by several high-ranking German officials and military figures.

In his address to the parliament, or Bundestag, Peres is to mourn the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, among them his grandparents and uncle who were burned alive in the synagogue in Vishneva, Belarus.

The Israeli president also planned to speak about the historical connection between Israel and the Holocaust, and the relationship between Israel and Germany following the war, his office said.

Peres, whose political career spans almost the entire history of the state of Israel, is to present his own vision and hope for the future of Israel, Germany and the Middle East.

His speech is to mark the first time an Israeli president has addressed the Bundestag in Berlin. Before German reunification in 1990, the post-war government of West Germany was located in Bonn.

Before the speech, Peres is to attend a reception hosted by Merkel at the chancellery and walk through the Brandenburg Gate.

The Israeli president is also to receive the Walther Rathenau Prize, awarded annually for outstanding lifetime achievement in foreign policy.

The award is named after a German-Jewish businessman who became Foreign Minister at the start of the Weimar Republic and was murdered in June 1922 by ultra-nationalist extremists.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/305669,israels-peres-arrives-in-germany-to-remember-holocaust--summary.html.

Israel's Peres to mark Holocaust day with speech to Bundestag

(WARNING): Article contains propaganda!

* * * * *

Jerusalem - Israeli President Shimon Peres flies to Berlin on Monday for a three-day visit to commemorate the Holocaust, during which he will give a landmark address to the German Parliament. Peres, 86, will be accompanied by a delegation of German-born Holocaust survivors marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the date on which in 1945 the Auschwitz death camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

In Berlin, Peres is also to meet a series of German officials, including President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He will also hold a memorial ceremony at Platform 17 of the Grunewald Railway Station, where tens of thousands of Berlin Jews were deported to extermination camps during the Holocaust.

The service will be attended by several high-ranking German officials and military figures.

In his address to the parliament, or Bundestag, the Israeli president is to mourn the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, among them his grandparents and uncle who were burned alive in the synagogue in Vishneva, Belarus.

Peres also planned to speak about the historical connection between Israel and the Holocaust, and the relationship between Israel and Germany following the war, his office said.

Peres, whose political career spans almost the whole history of the state of Israel, is to present his own vision and hope for the future of Israel, Germany and the Middle East.

Peres will be the first Israeli president to address the Bundestag in Berlin, where it relocated after German reunification in 1990.

He will precede the speech with a reception hosted by Merkel at the chancellery and a walk through the Brandenburg Gate.

The Israeli president is also to receive the Walther Rathenau Prize, awarded annually for outstanding lifetime achievement in foreign policy.

The award is named after a German-Jewish businessman who became Foreign Minister at the start of the Weimar Republic and was murdered in June 1922 by ultra-nationalist extremists.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/305612,israels-peres-to-mark-holocaust-day-with-speech-to-bundestag.html.