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ISLAMIC HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
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PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

26th July 2001

ISRAELIS SET UP RECRUITMENT BUREAUS IN NINE MAJOR CITIES

The Israeli Army announced last Saturday that it has opened offices in nine major cities around the world to recruit dual national Israelis abroad for military service. Recruitment bureaus have been set up in Johannesburg, Frankfurt, Bombay, Bangkok, Paris, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New York, and London to call up Israelis and bring them to serve “in the event of a real emergency situation”, according to an Israeli Army spokeswoman. Israeli reservists living abroad for over a year or on holiday abroad would be eligible.

Although the Israeli military record is exceedingly dire, consisting of routine violations of international law, illegal occupation, grave human rights abuses, the systematic use of torture, acts of genocide, and ethnic cleansing, the military recruitment campaign has met with little protest from the governments of those countries now housing Israeli Army recruitment offices. The United Nations has issued a collection of resolutions against Israel criticising these illegal policies unmatched by the record of any other nation. The major themes reflected in these UN resolutions over the years include the brutal occupation of Palestinian territory; the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes; unlawful attacks on neighbours; systematic violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, including deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; confiscation of Palestinian land; the establishment of illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories; and the refusal to abide by the UN Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

Massoud Shadjareh, Chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said:

“By consenting to the establishment of Israeli Army recruitment offices in London, the British Government has illustrated not only its indifference to the Israeli military’s human rights abuses in occupied Palestine, but also its hypocrisy in condemning international terrorism. What would the Government do if Indonesia had decided to set up army offices in London to recruit for military service to support the occupation of East Timor?”

The presence of the offices potentially constitutes a violation of the Terrorism Act which prohibits the support of terrorism abroad. Massoud Shadjareh said:

“Israel’s dismal humanitarian record makes clear that it is a terrorist state that routinely violates international law. This new development further clarifies the hypocrisy and duplicity of the British Government’s claim to be concerned about international terrorism. It seems that the Government’s lucrative trade and military links with the Israeli regime are far more important than the fact that the country is a terrorist state, which is why the Government turns a supposedly blind eye to the support of Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian people going on right here in London.”

For more information on the above, please contact the IHRC Press Office on (+44) 20 8902 0888, (+44) 958 522 196, e-mail: ihrc@dial.pipex.com.