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Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
July 15, '09 - Our Meeting With Rob McKenna and Chief of Staff Randy Pepple
On July 15th, I joined a group of 14 invited guests to speak to Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna. We’d come to discuss our objections to a letter he co-signed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That letter began, "The undersigned Attorneys General write to convey our strong support for the State of Israel's actions in Gaza. The State of Israel's actions are taken in furtherance of its right to self-defense ...."
While 80% of the state Attorneys General offered the letter did not sign, Mr. McKenna joined nine other Attorneys General to sign a letter fully supporting all of Israel’s recent actions in Gaza. The first of our speakers raised the most obvious question: Why is Rob McKenna offering his legal opinion, as the Chief Legal Officer of our state, on the question of Israel's actions in Gaza?
In my turn, I gave Rob McKenna an article from the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, February 19, 2006. It begins, “[The Israeli team responding to Hamas’ election] had not laughed so much in a long time. The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas ... agreed on the need to impose an economic siege …, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: 'It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians [in Gaza] will get a lot thinner, but won't die'."
This is conclusive public evidence – from the top Israeli official in charge of responding to Hamas’ election victory – that the Israeli response would involve denying food to a civilian population.
Next I gave Mr. McKenna one page – from among 60 pages the Israeli consul provided his office –showing data provided by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza. The purpose of the bar graph is to show Israel’s allowing 2,560 shipments of food after the Gaza military operation; however it shows only 92 shipments during the ceasefire.
This is conclusive evidence – from the Israeli military itself – that humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza even during a successful ceasefire with Hamas – amounted to 20% or less of normal.
How bad is the "economic siege" promised by Dov Weissglas? This is President Barack Obama:
"On the other hand, the fact is, is that if the people of Gaza have no hope, if they can't even get clean water at this point, if the border closures are so tight that it is impossible for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts to take place, then that is not going to be a recipe for Israel's long-term security or a constructive peace track to move forward."
President Obama was speaking to the Israeli Prime Minister, May 18, 2009, at the White House. He is testifying to the seriousness of the Israeli border closures that affect even safe drinking water.
Finally, I read to Mr. McKenna a quote from Ephraim Halevy, former head of the Israeli Mossad intelligence service. Writing in the Israeli press on January 4, 2009, Mr. Halevy said: "If Israel's goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured quiet for a generation."
Here a former Mossad head is putting a lie to the central claim of Mr. McKenna's letter: that Israel’s actions in Gaza were an unavoidable – and therefore a legal – act of self-defense.
In my first letter to Mr. McKenna, May 18, 2009, I wrote this: “The question I wish to ask you is not, Did Israel allow some humanitarian aid into Gaza? – but rather, What legal justification exists for Israel to have restricted any amount of available humanitarian aid to civilians?”
On June 4th, Rob McKenna’s appeared on KUOW’s Weekday program. I called in to ask him this question. He replied: “The question will probably come down to whether or not it was reasonable for [the Israelis] to interdict humanitarian aid in order to stop weapons from being shipped in, as opposed to interdicting international aid just to cause harm to the civilian population.”
Immediately after the interview – perhaps realizing that Mr. McKenna’s response was, at best, inadequate – his office sought to get more information. His office went to only one source – not an impartial aid provider such as the ICRC – but to the Israel Consul General to the Pacific Northwest.
And the question asked was not did Israel restrict humanitarian aid and, if so, on what legal basis. Instead his office wrote: “We would like advice about how to counter certain arguments, most prominently, the accusation that Israel has blocked the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza. … AG McKenna will be meeting with some of these groups – including the parents of Rachel Corrie – in July. He would love to speak with you before that meeting.” (emphasis added. Here our FOIA request found that the AG’s office, in effect, was acting as an agent for the Israelis.)
The contact with the Israeli Consul General was to “counter certain arguments” to answer us. Yet in our meeting Rob McKenna said nothing about this. But I personally did eventually receive an answer: “[Mr. McKenna] doesn't know if [the restrictions on aid] were illegal. Information provided to him by the Israeli people he talked to led him to think Israeli actions were legal.”
As a final point in our meeting, I corrected one part of Dov Weissglas' joke – that Palestinians in Gaza would "get a lot thinner, but won't die." The restriction of food (and medicine and safe drinking water) is a weapon that discriminates against the most vulnerable, children under five.
It is a well-known medical fact that young children who are denied adequate and varied nutrition – who lack calories and/or a reasonable variety of foods – suffer a physical, mental and emotional lack of development. They are also the most vulnerable to opportunistic diseases because their immune system is less developed and unable to fight off simple diseases that a healthy child can.
The epidemiologist with us (yet another Jewish member in our group) confirmed to Mr. McKenna what I had said: Young children are particularly at risk from a food embargo. Using data from The New England Journal of Medicine about a similar embargo, but scaling the number of expected deaths to the smaller population in Gaza, I said the data could leave one to conclude that ever day, on average, ten more children in Gaza would die as an result of this economic siege.
A letter from ten international lawyers and legal scholars sent to Rob McKenna contained this statement: “This siege - an act of war under customary international law - violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention as a form of collective punishment.” I ask: Why can’t Attorney General McKenna offer a judgment whether it is legal or not to deny food to a civilian population as a tool of coercion or punishment?
###
Sunday, July 19, 2009
June 29, '09 - my email back to AG regarding his non-judgment of withholding of food
Dear Tammy Teeter,
I am emailing you to ask if you would please pass all this along to Mike Bigelow so that he'll be able to look it over (before he leaves) and discuss it with Rob McKenna.
Thanks, Bert Sacks
P.S. I've just left you and Mike Bigelow voice messages about this. If you're not able to pass this along, please get back. And if you can, please also please just let me know. Thanks again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Attorney General McKenna:
I appreciate the chance to meet with you to discuss my concerns regarding Gaza.
However, for the meeting to be useful from my perspective, I am asking you to familiarize yourself with articles I have already sent -- and reply again to my request.
In particular, I ask you to read the concern President Obama expressed to the Israeli Prime Minister about Gaza during Mr. Netanyahu's recent visit. It is in the email (below) that I'd sent Mike Bigelow to pass on to you about a month ago.
I appreciate that your motivation to co-sign the letter to Secretary Clinton was a desire to support Israel. But, as President Obama pointed out, politically supporting Israeli policies doesn’t necessarily help Israel. I ask for your legal opinion of these policies.
If my first letter to you is not in your files, I am attaching an electronic copy and its two enclosures. I especially ask you to re-read that first letter to you, followed by the attached article by Richard Falk (Professor Emeritus of Int'l Law at Princeton).
In previous letters, I asked for your legal judgment whether the Israeli denials of (any amount of) food, medicine, fuel and water to civilians is legal under international law.
Mike Bigelow forwarded your response: "[Rob McKenna] doesn't know if they were illegal. Information provided to him by the Israeli people he talked with led him to think Israeli actions were legal."
You might think it unnecessary to form an opinion because you believe Hamas’ firing rockets is much worse than restricting food, medicine and fuel to civilians by Israel.
The deaths of the several Israeli civilians caused by rockets from Gaza is a human-rights violation and is not excusable. But denying food, medicine and fuel to civilians can cause an amount of suffering and death that is orders of magnitude greater.
If you doubt this, please re-read the relevant paragraphs of Professor Falk's article – and do your own research on UN and Red Cross reports of malnutrition, anemia, water-borne diseases and lack of medicines in Gaza.
If you are still in doubt about the potential impact of an economic blockade on civilians, then please read the results of The New England Journal of Medicine report for the case of the US/UN economic embargo on Iraq covering just the first 8 months of 1991: the NEJM found excess deaths of 46,900 Iraqi children!**
If you had not chosen to condemn Hamas, you would have no obligation to also pass a judgment on Israeli actions. But you chose otherwise. Therefore I am asking you: If you believe these actions by Israel are legal, please explain; and if not, please explain. (I believe you have an obligation to form some opinion.)
I hope this brief discussion will begin to make clear the seriousness of the issue. The denial of any amount of food, medicine, fuel and water is potentially a grave matter of life and death. And a lack of adequate nutrition also has a devastating impact on the mental and physical development of young children, those who are most vulnerable.
I am glad to put you in touch with a number of fine medical doctors – either from Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (WPSR) who have visited Gaza or from the Jewish Israeli group Doctors for Human Rights – who can testify to you about this.
Therefore, I am asking you for a serious consideration of what I have written -- now that the seriousness of this potential violation of international law is, I hope, made clear.
Your previous answer -- that Israelis you spoke with led you to think what they did was legal -- could be compared to asking Hamas leaders whether their firing of rockets was legal. There are serious reasons to think the Israeli blockade was – and continues to be – equally indiscriminate and equally illegal.
Before our July 15th meeting, I am asking you to please respond with your legal judgment of the Israeli actions I discuss here -- in just the same way as you offered your legal judgment to Secretary Clinton about the actions of Hamas.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Bert Sacks
* Ha'aretz is the only one of three major Israeli Hebrew-language newspapers that is re-printed online in English. It's a sad commentary on the U.S. mass media that it will hardly ever cover stories that address Palestinian concerns -- as Ha'aretz does. As an example, I include a new article from Ha'aretz, "Gaza Bonanza," which gives a real insiders' view of the policy. Equally, the article I’d sent by Gideon Levy is revealing.
** That New England Journal report – which has gone virtually unreported in the media of this country – is at http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/327/13/931
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 7:54 AM, Bert Sacks wrote:
Dear Ms. Teeter,
Thank you for passing on my voice message to Mike Bigelow. He called me yesterday and we spoke on the phone about my concerns and request for a reply.
Would you kindly pass this email on to him so that he'll have my email contact?
Also, I'll use this chance to pass on a brief paragraph from President Obama's recent press conference with the visiting Israeli Prime Minister. (Unfortunately, The NY Times failed to include it in their coverage.) It shows that President Obama is aware of the issue that I focus on in my letter -- and that he shares his own concern.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Bert Sacks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(From a commentary by By David Bromwich, Professor of Literature at Yale, in the Huffington Post online, dated May 19, 2009)
Finally, Gaza was much in President Obama's mind and on
his conscience at this meeting; so much so that he
broke decorum and stepped out of his way to mention it:
The fact is, is that if the people of Gaza have no
hope, if they can't even get clean water at this
point, if the border closures are so tight that it
is impossible for reconstruction and humanitarian
efforts to take place, then that is not going to be
a recipe for Israel's long-term security or a
constructive peace track to move forward.
And yet not a word from Stolberg and the Times about
these words of Obama's on Gaza. Nor was any analytic
piece offered as a supplement -- the usual procedure in
assessing an event of this importance.
June 23, '09 - reply from the AG to my 2 requests
Rob McKenna
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WASHINGTON
1125 Washington Street SE • PO Box 40100 • Olympia WA 98504-0100
June 23,2009
Mr. Bert Sacks
6550 Greenwood Ave N, #1 1
Seattle, WA 98103
Dear Mr. Sacks:
Thank you for your letter regarding Israeli actions in Gaza. You asked Attorney General McKenna to respond to two questions:
1 . In my previous letter (enclosed) I ask your opinion whether the Israeli denial of food,
medicine and water is legal under international law. I am again asking you for a response
to this question before our meeting. Response — he doesn't know if they were illegal.
Information provided to him by the Israeli people he talked with led him to think Israeli actions were legal.
2. My friend and neighbor Bruce Ramsey, who works for The Seattle Times and who has met with you, would like to join the meeting. Would that be agreeable? Response — it is our preference that Mr. Ramsey not attend the meeting because he represents the press. If he attends, we feel obligated to invite other press members and then the meeting will become a press event. The mere presence of the press will interfere with candid discussions between you, other attendees and Attorney General McKenna. We want this meeting to be with constituents and not the press. Thank you for asking and understanding.
Mr. Sacks, I will be retiring next week and suggest that you contact my replacement (Mr. Randy Pepple) with further questions regarding this matter. ... Thank you and good luck in your endeavors.
Sincerely,
MICHAEL L. BIGELOW Chief of Staff MLB/sr
June 16, '09 - my reply to AG with two requests for July meeting
Bert Sacks
6550 Greenwood Ave N, #11
Seattle, WA 98103
June 16, 20098
The Honorable Rob McKenna
Washington State Attorney General
1125 Washington Street SE
Olympia, WA 98501-2283
Re: Your letter regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza
Dear Attorney General McKenna:
Thank you for the invitation to meet with you (and the Corries and others) on July 15th. I have two specific requests that I respectfully ask for a reply to before that meeting.
(1) In my previous letter (enclosed) I ask your opinion whether the Israeli denial of food, medicine and water is legal under international law. I am again asking you for a response to this question before our meeting.
(2) My friend and neighbor Bruce Ramsey, who works for The Seattle Times and who has met with you, would like to join the meeting. Would that be agreeable?
In addition to the two supporting documents I originally sent with my earlier letter (which are available online) I enclose part of an op-ed by Kate Pflaumer; it has relevance to the issue we are discussing in Gaza.
Thank you. I look forward to a reply to my two requests.
Sincerely,
Bert Sacks
Attachment: my earlier letter, dated May 18, 2009, sent to you at your office in Olympia.
Excerpts from an opinion piece in the Seattle P-I, June 21, 2001, by Kate Pflaumer.
Previous attachments:
Richard Falk article, “Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe” (Jan. 2, 2009) available at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-falk/understanding-the-gaza-ca_b_154777.html
Gideon Levy article, “As the Hamas team laughs,” Ha’aretz (Feb. 19, 2006) available at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=684258July 11, '09 - letter from ten international lawyers and legal scholars to the AG
The Honorable Rob McKenna
Attorney General, State of Washington
1125 Washington Street SE
PO Box 40100
Olympia,WA 98504-0100
Dear Mr. McKenna:
We are a group of international lawyers and legal scholars, writing in our individual capacities, who have studied, and in some cases, litigated, issues pertaining to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We have read with concern your letter of March 30, 2009, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supporting Israel's December-January attack on the Gaza Strip. We find numerous factual and legal errors in the letter, and write to share our analysis of the letter with you and to ask you to publicly repudiate its claims. Below is a list of our principal concerns.
2. The second paragraph of the letter contains several errors of fact and misleading statements. First, Hamas did not take exclusive control of the Gaza Strip in June,2005, as the letter alleges. Rather, Hamas gained the right to form a government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by prevailing in lawful democratic elections in January, 2006. Hamas attempted on more than one occasion to form national unity governments with members of Fatah, but such attempts were either unsuccessful or short lived. In June 2007, Hamas forces, apparently acting to pre-empt a feared coup attempt, expelled fighters loyal to Fatah from the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas then dissolved the Hamas government, as he was lawfully entitled to do. But Abbas then violated the Palestinian Authority's Basic Law by appointing a new government of his own supporters. Under the Basic Law, the previous cabinet should act as a caretaker government until a new government can be formed. Under Palestinian law, therefore, the former Hamas government had legal claim to continuing governing authority in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
3. The third paragraph of the letter makes claims that have no grounding in international law. Hamas has been designated a "terrorist organization" in the domestic law of a handful of nations, but not a "terrorist regime" - a phrase that has no accepted meaning in international law. In any case, this designation in no way relieves Israel of its responsibilities to abide by international law. The claim that Hamas "acts under the cover of a 'sovereign state'" is devoid of legal meaning. Hamas has never declared statehood in the Gaza Strip nor anywhere else, nor has any nation in the world recognized Hamas or the Gaza Strip as an independent state. It is true, however, that non-state actors such as Hamas are subject to the rules of customary international humanitarian law and human rights law in the conduct of warfare.
4. The fourth paragraph of the letter correctly identifies the standard of proof in international criminal tribunals as "beyond a reasonable doubt," and also correctly cites the principle of distinction (the obligation of warring parties to distinguish between civilian and military targets). Yet the presumption of innocence is also a facet of international criminal law. Thus while the available evidence suggests strongly that some individuals within Hamas (not "Hamas" as a collective entity) may bear criminal liability for indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians, no trials have yet been held. To declare Hamas "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" without benefit of trial violates the presumption of innocence that is part of both the U.S. and international legal tradition.
5. The fifth paragraph of the letter reiterates common Israeli claims that Hamas has used Palestinian civilians as "human shields." In fact, no evidence has yet emerged that Hamas intentionally used civilians to protect armed fighters from attack, in the manner barred by international law. Merely fighting from inhabited areas, as some Hamas troops apparently did, does not, in itself, constitute illegal conduct. We note, moreover, that during the fighting, Israel categorized Palestinian civilian police as "combatants," killing over 300 of them. Needless to say, these police officers, charged with directing traffic and maintaining public order, were, indeed, positioned in heavily populated areas, as their jobs required. Israel's definition of Palestinian police officers (and other civil servants who were employed by the Hamas-led government) as "combatants" violates well-grounded principles of international humanitarian law. Ironically, there is ample evidence that Israeli troops, in fact, used Palestinian civilians as human shields in the invasion of Gaza, as they have repeatedly in the past. It is disturbing that Israeli troops persist in a practice which has been repeatedly held to be illegal even by the Israeli High Court.
6. This sixth paragraph criticizes Hamas for its failure to establish "a flourishing, independent Palestinian state." Yet under the Oslo accords, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization agreed that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were to be treated as an indivisible unit, and that their final status would be subject to negotiation. Thus, for Hamas to have declared an "independent state" in the Gaza Strip would have entailed a violation of the Oslo accords - which Hamas is under international demand to respect. Moreover, as Israel's government has now made clear in words as well as in deeds, it is firmly opposed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. It has done everything within its power to foil effective government by Hamas, including withholding tax revenues due the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo accords, kidnapping and jailing without trial 27 Hamas legislators, including the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and placing the Gaza Strip under virtual siege for almost two years. This siege - an act of war under customary international law - violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention as a form of collective punishment.
7. The seventh paragraph misleadingly analogizes Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip to the behavior of the Allies in World War n, ignoring the development of international humanitarian law and human rights law over the last sixty years. Arguably, however, Israel remains an occupying power in the Gaza Strip, by virtue of its continuing "effective control" of the Gaza Strip exercised from the outside. As such, Israel owes a duty of protection to the residents of that region. It has violated this duty by employing massive force against an occupied population and largely defenseless population. The proper legal paradigm, in short, is not warfare between the organized militaries of independent nations, but rather the law of military occupation provided in the Hague Conventions of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
8. Although the international legal system does not function, strictly speaking, as an extension of the "common law," the eighth paragraph correctly notes that intent is an element in establishing international criminal culpability. It is partly for that reason that we would not convict "Hamas" for its rocket attacks on Israeli civilians without further evidence, even though it seems likely that at least some of Hamas's rocket fire violated international law. We note that Israeli military censorship of press references to base locations, troop movements, and other security-related information complicates evaluation of the intent behind Hamas rocket fire, which in some cases may have been directed toward military targets. We note further that other Palestinian organizations have also fired rockets and mortars into Israel, and Hamas leaders may bear no culpability for those acts by other groups and individuals. In contrast, statements by Israeli military and political leaders make quite clear that they intended to strike civilian infrastructure and to kill civilian individuals (such as the aforementioned police officers). Other statements and reports by observers strongly suggest that Israel deliberately employed disproportionate force in violation of international law, knowingly attacked medical and other emergency responders, used weapons illegally (including white phosphorous), and abused Palestinian detainees. We believe that this evidence would be sufficient at a minimum to justify further investigation of Israel's acts, although we would reserve judgment at this stage as to the culpability of any particular Israeli military or political leaders.
9. The ninth paragraph describes the impact of the visits of numerous attorneys general of the states to Israel. Among them seems to be a willingness to overlook Israel's illegal acts with respect to territories it has occupied in its various wars. Under the United Nations partition plan of 1947, the city of Jerusalem was slated to be governed by the UN as a "corpus separatum," and not to be part of either the Jewish or Palestinian state. Israel occupied the western portion of the city in 1948, but its sovereignty there has never been recognized by the international community. Israel occupied the eastern half of the city in 1967, and extended Israeli domestic jurisdiction there, effectively annexing it. Israel has also repeatedly extended the municipal boundaries of the city eastward, incorporating portions of the West Bank. All of these acts have been declared legally "null and void" by the United Nations Security Council. Israel also purported to extend domestic jurisdiction to the Golan Heights - part of Syria - in 1982, effectively annexing that territory as well. That act has been similarly condemned by the international community as a violation of the Charter of the United Nations.
We do not question the right of attorneys general for the states of the United States to hold and express political opinions as private individuals. But you have signed this deeply flawed and intemperate letter as the highest legal officer in your state. We wonder about the propriety of state officials, elected to perform limited functions under the constitutions of their states, endorsing the tendentious legal positions of a foreign state in an international armed conflict. We have not studied that issue, and ultimately that may be a political question to be resolved between you and your constituents. Nonetheless, we strongly encourage you to withdraw your name from the letter and publicly repudiate its contents.
Sincerely,
Lama Abu-Odeh, Georgetown University Law Center
Susan Akram, Boston University Law School
Asli Bali, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law
George Bisharat, University of California Hastings College of the Law
Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London
Zaha Hassan, Esq., Attorney at Law, Oregon
Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Department of Law
Ugo Mattei, University of California Hastings College of the Law and Torino University, Department of Law
Steve McCaffrey, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law
Tom Nelson, Esq., Attorney at Law, Oregon
June 8, '09 - humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza per the IDF
…. Humanitarian aid has provided a range of essential supplies, including foodstuffs, medical equipment, fuel and cooking gas, and domestic electrical appliances, to residents of the Gaza Strip.
Chart 4 demonstrates the sharp increase in the volume of shipments from the international community following Operation Cast Lead.
Chart 4**
Donations from the international Community (shipments)
The following figures demonstrate the high level of aid entering the Strip during the three-week period following the Operation (as of February 7, 2009): 4,915 shipments of humanitarian aid (123,663 tons) from the international community; 169 new donation applications were submitted to Israeli customs -134 applications were approved during the three week period following the Operation. In the following months (by mid-May), approximately 250 additional donation applications were submitted, of which roughly 80% were approved. In addition, until the end of February 2009, Israel’s Ministry of Health put in place special procedures to expedite the transfer of all food, medicine and medical equipment into the Gaza Strip, Thus, a mechanism for solving blockages in the transfer of aid was decided upon and approved by all the relevant official parties in Israel.
The Gaza Strip has received humanitarian donations from a number of different sources, including NGOs and international relief agencies, the private sector, and the international community. A total of 25,935 trucks carried donations from NGOs, international relief agencies and the private sector from January 1, 2008 to December 28, 2008, amounting to 629,393
31 ** As of May 17.2009.
13 of these donations were intended for the West Bank,
33
CC-00062
PRR-2009-00226
For an actual image of this page supplied by the Israeli Consulate from the Israeli IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to the AG's office: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqP4JBhXzQuWNmZEeowktx6yI-xa_u5nW68JN1rYT4Dqkah_-AcaYGAYHsuipT83ZLcGkC7EyoeGBjJD3-uc2Lp3G0TkRUbVdL66IeRmFn4IJT0DRZJ3o_XxY3Y0lkwkVrvTX_CeCWFJ1a/s1600-h/DonationsOfAidToGazaPerIsraelPg33-FOIAJul09.jpg
June 4, '09 - email to Israeli Consul General immediately after radio interview
Akivs Tor
Consul General
Consulate of Israel to the Pacific Northwest
456 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94104
Web: wwwIsraeliconsulate.org
From: Sytman, Dan (ATG)
Sent,- Thursday, June 04, 2009 12:01 PM
To: Israeli Consulate, Consul's General Office
Subject: Meeting request
Mr, Tor,
I am writing to request a phone call in the next few weeks between you or someone you recommend and Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna.
In March, AG McKenna co-signed a letter to Sec. Clinton, The letter supports Israel's actions in Gaza. The letter may be found here: http://www.cpjnews.com/State%20Attorney%20General%20Letter%20March%202009.pdf
Since March, AG McKenna has been criticized by anti-Israel groups in our state. Here is some of the criticism that has been posted online:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6150
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/8604/34/
We would like advice about how to counter certain arguments, most prominently, the accusation that Israel has blocked the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza. We are aware that Israel has actually done quite a bit to ensure that medica! supplies are able to enter. However, we'd love to have supporting data. AG McKenna will be meeting some of these groups - including the parents of Rachel Corrie - in July, He would love to speak with you before that meeting.
Thank you for your time,
Dan Sytman
Olympia Media Relations Manager | Office of State Attorney General Rob McKenna
1125 Washington Street SE | PO Box 40100 | Olympia I WA I 98504-0100
Join Attorney General Rob McKenna's Listserv for the latest news from the AG's office or visit our Web site at www.atg.wa.gov
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COOOQQ2 PRR-2009-Q0226
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