Anat Matar

Israeli officer promotes war crimes at Harvard


On 9 July Harvard University’s Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research invited Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, former Israeli military legal adviser, to their online Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum. The stated aim was to bring “objective” discussion to the principle of distinction in international humanitarian law. Maryam Monalisa Gharavi and Dr. Anat Matar report for The Electronic Intifada. 

The war to annihilate Palestinian civil society

On 19 December 2002, Israeli activists held an event at Tzavta Hall in Tel Aviv to protest the indefinitely extended prison sentences currently being handed to the young men refusing conscription. The event was sponsored by conscientious objector organisations Yesh Gvul and Shministim, the latter a group of high school seniors who have declared their refusal to serve in the Israeli army. The following is the text of a speech made at this event by Anat Matar, a veteran anti-occupation activist and the mother of Haggai Matar, one of the men in prison for refusing to serve.