Rights Blog 2005
"The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is denied, poverty enforced, where ignorance prevails & where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe" Frederick Douglas 1886
"If we do not change our direction, we are going to end up where we are now headed" Chinese Proverb Send comments to qumsi001@hotmail.com. Your comments may be posted here after review.
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12/31/2005
How does one reflect on what happened in 2005 with an eye to get us closer to pace with justice in 2006 (taking stock, looking to the future). The media highlight what they think made "big news" (in mainstream media: Bush second inaugural, Schiavo, "war on terrorism", and Martha Stewart etc.). I tried to compile some things of relevance to us who work for peace and justice and came up with 35 (of hundreds possible if I take the time) brief highlights of 2005. Please do not be offended if I did include something you think should be included, but rather send it to me and I will add it to this web page: 2005 Highlights.
Six Palestinians refugee camps launch joint internet web portals titled "Raghm al-Hudood" (across borders or defying borders) with separate pages for each of the camps
http://www.acrossborders.ps/Portal/ar/ (arabic) http://www.acrossborders.ps/portal (english)
Elect those who stand for justice in 2006, those who misuse public money to support oppression of Palestine should not be reelected You can donate to those folks even if you are not in their districts. Example recomendations http://www.milesforcongress.com/ http://www.cynthiaforcongress.com/ http://www.ElectJimNelson.com (send me other suggestions for candidates who stand for peace with justice)
With no Palestinian state in sight, aid becomes an adjunct to occupation. Israeli policy is the root cause of need in the occupied territories, but donors pay up without challenging it
Ghada Karmi, Saturday December 31, 2005, The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1675792,00.html
(Israel) Democracy of lords and masters http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/663596.html
Cultural Boycott of Israel: Why? http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=1523&ed=109
It is more important than halting nuclear proliferation: Let us stop a US/Israeli war on Iran http://www.counterpunch.org/christison12292005.html
Palestinian Envoy Brings New Strategy to Washington http://www.forward.com/articles/7088
Beyond Munich: The 10 movies Stephen Spielberg has yet to make http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1607_0_25_0_M
US invasions and interventions 1798-date http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/interventions.htm
Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel. Their status and recent developments (debunking the myth of Israel being a democracy"
http://www.adalah.org/eng/backgroundhistory.php
http://www.arabhra.org/about/palestinianminority.htm
(this is ofcourse not addressing the issue of the fact that to become a minority in tehir own land, Israel ethnically cleansed 3/4 of teh Palestinains in what became Israel by 1949; see PalestineRemembered.com)
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12/28/05
Celebrating NonViolence, conference in Bethlehem opens today http://www.celebratingnv.org
A photo journal in Israel/Palestine. It includes a picture of Marwa whom we brought here for treatment in CT and Lena Andoni, my niece at her wedding.
http://209.200.118.50/OpeningOfTheHeart/Exhibition/Exhibition.aspx?SelectedNode=toc-3-0
Thousands of school Children demonstrate in Jerusalem demandingh Israel stop its denial of their right to education
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archive2005/sep/week1/060905/6sepstudents.htm
(BTW I was a school teacher in a private school in East Jerusalem for 1.5 years. This was many years ago, today, I like other teachers from "behind the wall" would be denied entry to teach)
Israel building more settlements in the occupied areas http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4560550.stm
How the next generation views Israel: On Zionist new PR efforts directed at campuses in the US http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/12/how-next-generation-views-israel.html
The coming war on Iran, by James Petras http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2005/12/james-petras-israels-war-with-iran.html
Lest we forget. Now that the public is shifting dramatically against the War on Iraq (and for Israel) some hope the public also has short term memory of who pushed for this war and why. It was not "the Republicans" (amy republicansd and conservatives were against it). Many leading democrats like Hillary Clinton and Lieberman and Dean supported it. Below are 13 selected articles from late 2002/early 2003 with a small sampling of the evidence on the latest war pushed for those in US with loyalties to Israel rather than the American public (itself a vast literature that Zionists hate to have come out):
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison01252003.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=2125 ("this war is for us")
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FC73D48E-EE6F-4C4E-BD67-C8C1179E97CC.htm
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2005-04-14.htm
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305strauss_body.html
http://desip.igc.org/ConvergingAgendas.html
http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/siteinfo/newsround/iraq4.html
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_conc1.htm
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/heller1.html
http://www.isteve.com/2003_Which_Groups_Support_the_War.htm
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0530-Informant.html
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Israel sells to Arab countries and Israeli occupied Washington pushes more for that
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1134309651471&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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12/23/2005
Separated by a wall at Christmas. A letter from a Parish Priest in the occupied West Bank (including notes about Muslims and Christian relations)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051223/news_lz1e23aridah.html
Study on Palestinian school textbooks and what they do and do not teach http://www.cnionline.org/learn/palestine/unwarranted_controversy.htm
Twilight Zone, theater of the absurd; a Haaretz article about life of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians at the checkpoints http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/658494.html
Entire Region of Norway to boycott Apartheid Israel! http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/1061.shtml
Unrecognised villages in the Negev expose Israel's apartheid policies By Bangani Ngeleza and Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 21 December 2005
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4358.shtml
The Struggle Video Network has aired weekly 1/32 hour shows (98 shows so far) on several public access TV stations in CT
The video is available if you are interested to air them in other states. http://www.thestruggle.org/stream.htm
The never-ending struggle to sell Israel without giving justice to the ethnically cleansed Palestinians. This is an article about branding Israel. Selling it "like one sells tobacco or diapers"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/660996.html
US halts Arabic magazine meant to boost US image By Saul Hudson, Reuters. 22 December 2005 "The United States has suspended publishing a lifestyle magazine aimed at improving America's image abroad among young Arabs, in a further sign of troubled U.S. public diplomacy efforts." http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22352695.htm
Petrodollar warfare by William Clark: How US wars are related to maintenance of dollar supremacy and how this economic struggle is changing
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/headlines/petrodollar_warfare_dollars_euros_and_the_upcoming_iranian_oil_bourse
Notes on building a theory of revolution by Brad Spangler (two parts) http://www.rationalreview.com/content/882 http://www.rationalreview.com/content/5266
“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.” Arab American poet Kahlil Gibran-
For those who are religious, those spiritual but not religious, and those who are simply human beings trying to live life of peace and justice, happy holidays and love to ALL and may 2006 bring us closer to peace, justice, and universal human rights.
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12/17/05
The Bush administration has been busy creating "friendly" parties and candidates running in the elections in Iraq but Iraqis may have the last word. It will be clear in the next few months which parties are puppets of the US administration and which Iraqis truly want independence and democracy. A good test is oil revenues and so called "privatization" of Iraq natural resources. Will Iraq's resources be used for the public good or will they profit multinational corporations and a few Iraqi elites. Iraqis are smart enough to figure it out on their own and will continue to shape their destiny despite the continuing and costly US occupation.
Extremist Zionists were up in arms about the Green Party choosing to follow on the moral and sensible path of other groups (mostly church groups and few universities) that started divestment and boycott campaigns from Israel until Israel respects Palestinian rights as supported by International law
(http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_11_28.shtml ). It is time now to start working with consciencious Democrats and Republicans to advance these ideas in the two dominant parties. Recent decisions in Congress (resolutiosn drafted by AIPAC and its cronies in DC) indicate that much work is needed.
In the house of representatives, a vast majority voted to condition any future aid to the Palestinians if Hamas is included in elections. This AIPAC inspired resolution was drafted after it became clear that Hamas has widespread support and Fatah is losing votes (because Abbas et al. cannot show any achievement for cajoling Israel and working against violence). After the Palestinian authority intelligence relayed information to Israel about a car bomb targeting the illegal colonists of Beit Jala area, Israel imposed even more restrictions on Palestinians (rather than lift the suffocating siege). The call for democracy and pluralistic societies (and elections under foreign occupation and domination) has become a hollow canard to cover-up attempts to support violence and oppression. Earlier this month the US signed an agreement with Israel to provide $50 million as a first installment in a package to bring "high technology checkpoints and gates" to the illegal apartheid walls/barriers in Palestine (this is additional to of the nearly $3 billion in direct aid for Israel which is used to oppress Palestinians). We are told this is to enhance security for Israelis while supposedly "making life better for Palestinians" (those few who have permits to cross these prison gates). This gesture legitimizes and supports the ghetto walls built on Palestinian land and separating Palestinians from their lands, jobs, schools, and work. One wonders how this is gaining the hearts and minds of the Arab and Islamic world or why this administration does not spend this money for such advanced screening and gate operations in the US.
On the positive news, two high ranking Israeli leaders Avi Dichter and Moshe Yaalon were named defendents in US courts for targeting civilians. The two are retired and are in the US now (see website of Center for Constitutional Rights brief on these actions at http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=XeKpqhgbBK&Content=681 ). Also, last Tuesday in New Haven, CT, we marched with a few hundred union members and local supporters demanding peace and justice, human rights based on the Universal Decalartion of Human Rights, and to "stop the war on working people at home and abroad". And a new group is established to lobby congress:
Challenge AIPAC: Lobby for Justice in Palestine: It's in the American National Interest !
Year after year, Congress passes pro-Israel legislation by large margins--few oppose it. There is virtually no debate about whether such uncritical support for Israel is even in America's best interests. Some Congress people support Israel because they're Zionists and believe in the Jewish state, some understand what is going on in Palestine and vote against their consciences because they fear for their political lives. Most, however, are grossly misinformed about the facts because they hear ONLY from the Zionist community and its supporters. The case for Palestinian human rights has never been presented to them, and they are unaware that there are voters in their districts who support Palestinian rights. The American Council on Middle East Policy (ACME) has been formed to change that. We want to recruit teams across America to visit their Congressmen in their home offices, district by district, to talk about Palestinian rights, ask for achievable goals, and build a relationship. ACME will help by providing materials and guidance on setting up a meeting, approach, and follow up. Meeting with your Congressional representative is an extremely interesting experience. If you would like to become an anti-AIPAC lobbyist or simply want to learn more, please email Pallobby@aol.com.
Steering Committee
Basem Khader
Kathy and Bill Christison
Hassan Fouda
Mike Odetalla
Miriam Reik
Advisory Board
Kate Daher
Stephen Green
Janice Hayden
Christopher Leadbeater
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Alison Weir
The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) has produced a virtual tour of the neighbouring communities, Nazareth and Nazerat Illit. http://www.arabhra.org/Tour/Nazareth_Virtual_Tour.htm
I'Lam,Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel , is a unique civil society initiative deeply committed to the democratization of media policies, media practices, and the media landscape in Israel . We contribute to the invigoration of civil society, and the promotion of democracy and human rights in Israel. http://www.ilamcenter.org/
The Disappointing Trajectory of Amir Peretz, by Ilan Pappe, ZNet
"Amir Peretz has shown that you can make it from Sderot to the top by adopting leftist Zionist views. His prospective policies are not enough to change anything, but perhaps the next generation of Moroccan Jews will produce a leader capable of going one step further in liberating himself or herself from anti-Arab Orientalist ideologies of superiority -- and, in so doing, influence the thinking of Israeli society as a whole. It ought to be possible for outlooks to change. After all, 99 per cent of the inhabitants of Sderot and places like it are not candidates for the premiership; nor are they likely to find jobs, proper housing or education, or peace of mind. They are victims of Zionism as much as the Palestinians are. Let us hope that a sense of shared victimhood will one day provide a joint leadership and a genuine road map or train ticket out of our misery here in Israel and in Palestine." http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=9320
Abramoff Said to Use Ralph Reed to Influence White House http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102405M.shtml
A TIME investigation shows this Zionist lobbyist is now at the center of a federal probe had a good friend eager to open doors at the White House
Veterans for Peace boycott resolution to bring peace with justice in Israel/Palestine
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/convention05/resolutions_passed_2005.htm
Speakers at Caracas meeting explore situation in Occupied Palestinian Territory
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/HMYT-6K3ST5?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR
"Looking for Bigfoot" A novel by Iowan Mike Palecek is worth reading and giving as a gift to those who may not be familiar with our issues but would read a novel http://www.januarymagazine.com/fiction/bigfoot.html
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation year end action alerts and fundraising http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
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12/12/05
This Christmas season, it befits Christians and all humans to reflect on conditions in the birthplace of Jesus and listen to the calls from Palestinian Civil Society (http://www.badil.org/Boycott-Statement.htm). If the three wise men were traveling today, they would face a wall. If Jesus was walking to Jerusalem this Christmas season, he would be denied entry at the gates of the wall. Afterall, Christian and Muslim Palestinians in Bethlehem are barred from Jerusalem (their city). See http://www.openbethlehem.org for n initiative to open Bethlehem.
Jesus commanded his followers to be the salt of the earth and not be silent in the face of injustice or when they see people oppressed or suffering. Most (60-70%) of the Palestinians in the areas illegally occupied by Israel in 1967 live in extreme poverty and are being surrounded by walls. This Christmas season you have an opportunity to act. Contact local churches and ask them if you could distribute material on the plight of Bethlehem, ask if you can bring them a speaker (let me know if you need a Palestinian Christian speaker in your area). It is also an excellent time to write a letter to the editor of local and national newspapers.
Some resources (besides http://www.openbethlehem.org) are posted here on issues of Christianity and the struggle for human rights in Palestine
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2005/0511064.html
http://www.al-awda.org/christmas/
http://www.al-awda.org/remindchristiansabouttheholyland/
http://www.al-awda.org/appealbychristianleadersintheholyland/
http://www.christianzionism.org/ (challenges to Christian Zionism effectively)
Christian groups you can point to who support peace and challenge Israeli abuses of human rights:
Al-Bushra http://www.al-bushra.org/
American Friends Service Committee http://www.afsc.org/
Annadwa (International Center of Bethlehem)http://www.annadwa.org/
Christian Peacemaker Teams http://www.cpt.org/
Churches for Middle East Peace http://www.cmep.org/
Episcopelian Church http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2004/04442.htm
Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding http://www.emeu.net/
Every Church a Peace Church http://www.ecapc.org
Friends of Sabeel North America http://www.fosna.org
Global Ministries http://www.globalministries.org/
Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation http://www.hcef.org/hcef/
Holy Land Resources/Alternative Travel http://www.holylandalternatives.net/
Humanity Check http://home.earthlink.net/~humanitycheck/
Kenyan Anglican Church backs divestment http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_63421_ENG_HTM.htm
Methodist Federation for Social Action http://www.mfsaweb.org/
National Conference of Catholic Bishops Statement http://www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/middleast.htm
National Council of Churches USA http://www.ncccusa.org
Presbyterian Church, USA http://www.pcusa.org/worldwide/middleeast.htm
Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace http://www.sojo.net/
United Methodist Church Resolution http://www.qumsiyeh.org/unitedmethodistresolution/
World Council of Churches http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/international/palestine/
YMCA East Jerusalem http://www.ej-ymca.org/site/
YWCA in Palestine http://www.ywca-palestine.org/
Sometimes a personal christian story is more effective than anything else. Elkias Chakour's book "Blood Brothers" is excellent to give as a gift.
My own (briefer) story is posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/thecucumberandthecactus/
But the best way to honor the spirit of this Christmas is to take determined and persistent action to spread the word to your local church communities and insist that they stand up for peace with justice.
Finally, this is a note from Palestine Remembered
We like to take this opportunity to update you about PalestineRemembered.com's Oral History project. As of today, we have conducted over 130+ interviews with refugees who witnessed Nakba, and on average, each interview is over 150+ minutes. For the past few months, we have been working overtime to make all the interviews available for you to hear over the internet. For a complete list of the interviews, please click http://www.PalestineRemembered.com/OralHistory/Interviews-Listing/Story1151.html
Since this new feature demands a lot of bandwidth, please NOTE that you might experience a slight delay between clicking the Play Button and hearing the recorded voice (a longer delay might be experienced for people living outside the U.S.). We urge you to be patient, and you shall hear the desired interview soon.
To learn more about Nakba Oral History Project, click http://www.PalestineRemembered.com/OralHistory
Your continued participation at the site motivates us daily basis to serve you better; we very much appreciate your involvement. Our success is your success.
Our DATE is 57 years LATE, we shall return inchallah.
Abu al-Sous (Salah Mansour)
info@PalestineRemembered.com
http://PalestineRemembered.com/Donate
http://PalestineRemembered.com/ZionistFAQ.html
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12/8/05
In this issue:
- News and articles (Al-Arian, Zionist strategic views, Text of indictment against Zionists for spying for Israel etc)
- ACTIONS: Sign Petitions (against Clinton and Lieberman)
- ACTIONS: Contact congress
- ACTIONS: Two events Sunday in Boston and New York
- Photos and listings of events in Connecticut last month (samples of activism in one state)
NEWS AND ARTICLES
Sami Al-Arian and codefendents trial: Q&A (St. Petersburgh Times) http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/07/news_pf/Tampabay/Al_Arian_trial__QA.shtml
Zionist "strategic overview" of changing circumstances from the head of Intelligence for the Israeli military http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v8n3p1Far.html
(I would be interested to see what the Palestinian authority and Mahmoud Abbas has as a strategic evaluation!!)
Everyone should read this US government conspiracy indictment against Larry Franklin (Zionist stooge at the Pentagon who worked in Rumsfeld's office) and his two AIPAC handlers (Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman). The details are stunning in terms of how the FO1-3/Foreign Officials (Israeli embassy staff), Pentagon staff, and AIPAC formed a cohestive unit to effect policy both of the US and also leak sensitive documents (e.g. about Iran) to Israel. Like the case of
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2005/franklin_indictment_04aug2005.htm
More background on Israel use of Zionist Jews in high positions to spy and meddle in US affairs is at
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050704fa_fact
(this article is a must read also)
And a new book should be required reading: Terror Enigma: 9/11 And the Israeli Connection
by Justin Raimondo
Many in the media still ignore this story and provides few investigative reports.
Abusing anti-Semitism by Ran HaCohen (this is a bit dated article but it is even more relevant today)
http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h092903.html
The politics of the Anti-War movement: The question of International ANSWER
http://www.warresisters.org/nva1105-1.htm
ACTIONS: Sign Petitions
against Joe Lieberman http://thestruggle.org/petition1.htm
against Hillary Clinton http://new.petitiononline.com/ACME1/petition.html
ACTIONS: Contact congress to halt additional aid to Israel http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1162
ACTIONS: Two events Sunday in Boston and New York
Sunday December 11, 1-7 PM
Israel/Palestine: Where do we go from here?
Teach-in and Organizing Conference at Harvard University, Boston
Boylston Hall Room 110 in Harvard Yard,
Plenary Speakers: Dr. Allam Jarrar, Palestinian Medical Relief Society and Palestinian National Initiative (Al Mubadara); Rami Kaplan, former Israeli tank battalion commander, Courage to Refuse; Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Associate Professor of Genetics, Yale University; author, Sharing the Land of Canaan; Paul Beran II, Middle East Center for Peace, Culture, and Development, Northeastern University
Photo exhibit: Esti Machsom Watch: Israeli women's organization against the Occupation and for human rights, presenting a photo exhibit Bearing Witness in the West Bank. Organizing Workshops:
- Activist campaigns, including: Caterpillar Campaign, Imagine Life, U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
- Delegations to Israel/Palestine: Birthright Unplugged (Hannah Mermelstein) , Boston to Palestine, Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (Prof. Yoav Elinevsky), Jewish American Medical Project
- The Jewish peace movement in the U.S.: Tikkun, Jewish Women for Justice, Visions of Peace with Justice in Israel-Palestine, Workmen’s Circle Working Group on the Middle East
- Israel/Palestine and the U.S. antiwar movement
Suggested donation $10; $5 for students and low income. Details at http://www.justicewithpeace.org/
Sunday December 11th 5-7pm @ the Marriott Marquis Hotel in NYC
Located at 1535 Broadway between 45th and 46th streets. PROTEST THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA. Al-Awda NY/NJ is calling on everyone to spread the word and bring a crowd to protest this Death Dinner that celebrates genocide and the theft of Palestine
PHOTOS and listings of events in Connecticut last month
I uploaded pictures from events that the Connecticut Palestine activists organized or joined in the past month at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nov05/
Connecticut provides IMHO an inspiring model of activism where people belonging to various groups (Al-Awda-CT, Palestinian American Congress-CT, Middle East Crisis Committee, Greater New Haven Peace Council etc.) get together to plan joint events or to attend other events to challenge misleading speakers, encourage othesr, demonstrate, learn from each other etc. Our state-wide coalition now has over 25 groups; website at CTUnitedForPeace.org (but website needs updating with new groups).
For a sample of a news story about the event at Old Lyme Church, see http://www.astandforjustice.org/2005/11/11-14-08.htm
For a sample of what those who blindly support Zionist oppression said about events, see the "critiques" at
http://primerct.org/index.php?content=otheractivities/20051120-stein&title=A%20Tilted%20Tree%20of%20Life
http://primerct.org/index.php?content=otheractivities/20051020-finkelstein&title=Yale%20Speech%20Promotes%20Hatred%20of%20Israel
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12/6/05
In a stunning defeat to government prosecuters, Prof. Sami Al-Arian acquitted on half the charges, with Jury deadlocked on other charges. Co-defendents acquitted of all charges. The governments use of the anti-democratic "PATRIOT law" questioned: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/06/professor.terror.charges.ap/index.html
Democratic Party chiefs succumbing to the lobby, slams those who support human rights/opposes divestment from Israel. http://www.njdc.org/issues/detail.php?id=487
Palestine blogs roundup http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/12/05/this-week-in-palestinian-blogs-freedom-made-in-west-bank-and-gaza/
ACTIONS:
- Sign the petition that demands US officials (Hillary Clinton) stop attacking International law and basic human rights (American Council on Middle East Policy)
http://www.petitiononline.com/ACME1/petition.html
- The world can't wait. Sign petition and work to get Bush out and his policies reversed http://www.worldcantwait.net/
Finally, a commentary which I share with you hoping for feedback: Change and strategy.
"If a day comes, and I hope it does, when Israelis decide to stop living in denial, they will have to realise that real peace will only come through justice. Justice in this context means one thing, that
the ideal of an exclusively Jewish state at the cost of an entire people might have to be abandoned. Only a bi-national state and a right of return for the Palestinian refugees will come close enough to rectifying some of the injustices committed in 1948 and since. Having been ethnically cleansed, this is also what the Palestinians are entitled to under international law and common human decency." Israeli psychologist Avigail Abarbanel
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12/3/05
Israeli violations of international law continued in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) during the reporting period (24-30 November 2005) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights 1 December 2005
http://pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2005/01-12-2005.htm
Howard Dean supports apartheid and violations of International law http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Frank1130.htm
National guard begin exchanges with Israeli forces http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/print.php?story_id_key=8265
What Peace Really Mean to Israelis (Israeli psychotherapist Avigail Abarnabel) http://avigail.customer.netspace.net.au/peace.html
What the Zionist lobby says about itself (I do not say pro-Israel because their actions in the long term adversely effect Israeli poor people and destroy chances for just peace for all)
http://www.aipac.org/documents/whoweare.html#achieved
Moving into East Jerusalem; An EU report criticizes Israeli expansion into the annexed part of the capital. By Ilene R. Prusher, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 December 2005
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1202/p06s02-wome.html
Jewish National Fund: Financing racism and violation of International law http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/JNF/Story1513.html
EI Exclusive: Did UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw help sell out Jerusalem? Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 28 November 2005 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4319.shtml
TWO ACTIONS
1) Intel supports ethnic cleansing, write to its leaders and write to the media http://www.al-awdacal.org/alert-intel2.html
2) SIGN THE URGENT APPEAL: PLEASE RELEASE OUR FRIENDS IN IRAQ (kidnapped peace activists) at http://freethecpt.org
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11/28/05
From Warner Brothers Independent Cinema comes an unexpected movie worth seeing. Paradise Now is a movie about childhood friends in Nablus, occupied Palestine, suicide bombings, and more. Those seeing this film will get a glimpse of life or lack thereof in occupied Palestine, violence, and PEACE. We saw this movie as a group this weekend and we were moved and educated. See http://wip.warnerbros.com/paradisenow/ for listings and tickets/locations nationwide. It is shown around the US in mainstream theaters. In Connecticut it is shown at: Cine 1234, 371 Middletown Ave, New Haven, CT 06513 (203) 776-5546 and Holiday Cinema 10, 117 Sharon Road, Waterbury, CT 06705 (203) 597-1756
New article Hanging to straws in Gaza and in Washington
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11/24/05
On US Thanksgiving holiday (Thursday), I join the Native Americans and all Americans of good conscience in recognizing a day of sorrow and hope. Sorrow at the Holocaust/genocide of Native Americans. Sorrow at how until recently, this nation has villified those victims as "savages" "brutes" etc. Sorrow at the fact that history and school books still create the myth of "Thanksgiving Holiday". The truth about Thanksgiving http://www.trinicenter.com/historicalviews/thanksgiving.htm
Give Thanks No More; It’s Time for a National Day of Atonement by Prof. Robert Jensen (setting the record straight on thanksgiving myths)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_robert_j_051121_give_thanks_no_more_3b.htm
I feel sorrow at how we fail to learn from history's lessons and we repeat them (e.g. the ethnic cleansing of Palestine). Hope because there are always good people in every culture who fight for justice and equality. Hope because of activists and natives resisting and most importantly never giving up. Hope because children light the way and remind us of the optimism/idealism that we sometimes to lose with age. Hope because I am reminded of what Howard Zinn wrote:
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory" (in You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A personal history of our times, p. 208)
Thus, I remain hopeful (& thankful to those who work for peace and justice). I wish you and your loved ones a day of reflection, hope, and peace. Now you may want to buy some books and give them as gifts for education (e.g. from http://palestineonlinestore.com or http://www.middleeastbooks.com/). Click here is a review just published of two excellent Palestine guidebooks
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November 16, 2005
After visiting the apartheid wall in occupied Palestine, the moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, David Lacy, joined the call for divestment/boycotts. He stated: "I was in South Africa in 1976 and witnessed apartheid in the raw. It had the same effect on me, one of recoiling from the injustice. And then you say, 'You can't just recoil, you have to somehow fight this'". Lacy added that he would call on fellow Christians to visit the region in order to "open their eyes to the reality here" and act. (http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=2235522005). I thinks this is sound advise and more Christians are doing so. On Sunday, Abouna (Father) Elias Chacour (from the Galilee, author of “Blood Brothers”) spoke in Old Lyme Church to hundreds of people, dozens of whom have already visited Palestine and more are thinking of going. He explained how he managed to build institutions of education and hope in the Galilee despite the ethnic cleansing of his village and Israeli discriminatory practices against Palestinians like him who now had to live in other towns and villages inside what became Israel in 1948 (Palestine 1948). He also explained the even worse plight of Palestinians in the 22% of Palestine that was occupied in 1967 (Jerusalem illegally annexed to Israel and other areas in the West Bank and Gaza not annexed but now reduced to ghettos/Bantustans).
The city of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, was occupied over 38 years ago. The city residents are now calling on People of conscience to work to tear down the walls and open the city (which is under siege):http://www.openbethlehem.org/ Perhaps we can work to ensure that if three wise men arrive from the East this Christmas, they won't have to turn back at the completed wall around Bethlehem (which Hillary Clinton praised). Perhaps Christians and Muslims of Bethlehem would be allowed to go worship in their Holy sites in Jerusalem (or at least get to schools and hospitals in Jerusalem).
Churches and colleges and universities are mobilizing based on the calls of the Palestinian Civil Society for divestments and boycotts (http://www.badil.org/Boycott-Statement.htm ). The growth in this movement has been phenomenal in the past two years (http://www.qumsiyeh.org/boycottsanddivestment/). A good example is the University of Wisconsin Divestment gathering steam. University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign website is at http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/ ; an article on the latest forum held by the board of regents is posted at http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=61221&ntpid=2 and pictures at http://madison.indymedia.org/newswire/display/27327/index.php
There is in fact so much positive energy developing despite the usual attacks both direct and indirect thru many groups that claim to support a "two state" solution to those that challenge human righst advocates. See this article by Joel Kovel which touches on issue like positions of Rabbi Michael Lerner as well as politics of Zionist pressures and misinformation: http://www.freespeech.org/fscm2/contentviewer.php?content_id=333
On the issue of Iraq, President Bush constinues to lie and mislead. A good analysis of his speech trying to justify the illegal occupation of and war on Iraq is this one by Fred Kaplan http://www.slate.com/id/2130295/nav/tap1/ UN Weapons inspector (and US Marine) Scott Ritter was interviewed on the distortions and since he has significant inside information, this interview is informative: http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/11/int05045.html
Many in the media prefer to be silent while reporting on Bill and Hillary Clinton tour of Israel who are also mumbling things about fighting terrorism in Iraq while not acknowledging their criminal support of the illegal war and occupation. What is not said is that this Clinton tour is to get support from AIPAC for Hillary’s presidential ambitions while paying the price by bashing Palestinians along the way. Jimmy Carter wrote an op-ed in the LA Times Monday (Nov 14, 2005) in which he stated “our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements - including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.”
It is a damning statement from an ex-president of the US who, unlike the Clintons, is interested in freedom and justice.
ACTION 1: Regularly write the Clintons, congressmen, senators and members of the Bush administration. Write the media (letters to editor in papers, to broadcast media etc). As thousands of messages are received, elites will know that they cannot continue to get away with injustice and lies (for Iraq and Palestine).
ACTION 2: Start your own divestment campaign. See this resource manual http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/docs/divestguide.pdf
ACTION 3: One of the best Palestine Calendar was just printed for 2006. We ordered 100 for distribution in CT. You can order yours at http://www.palestinecalendar.org/calendars.htm
More and more people are speaking truth to power and the tide is shifting. Silence is complicity.
==============
8 Nov 2005
Family of Palestinian child killed by Israeli soldiers donate his organs to Israeli Children
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=72793&d=7&m=11&y=2005
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9A352851-EFDC-4980-A46D-D17DD3744F2E.htm
(Despite repeated horrors inflicted on them including persistent ethnic cleansing and persistent attempts to villify them, many Palestinians continue to show compassion and love even to those who took their lands. Thanks to Doris Bittar for the links of this inspiring story. )
BBC: Italian state TV, Rai, has broadcast documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4417024.stm
Videos showing these and other war crimes in Iraq: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110805Z.shtml
The Media are minimizing the extent of US and British war crimes in Iraq http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1636606,00.html
One of the best analysis of the unholly alliance of right wing forces in Israel and the US that are arrayed against civil society and for hegemony and war. Read and circulate this excellent article by Prof. Jeff Halper, "What are we doing, what have we become? Israel as an extention of American Empire" http://www.counterpunch.org/halper11072005.html
(note: Counterpunch is definetly worth supporting by donating and reading it regularly)
Here is another article from Counterpunch by Professor James Petras on "Israel and the NeoCons" "the neocons are not at all daunted by the trials of their colleagues in AIPAC and the Vice President's office: they are pressing straight ahead for the US to attack Syria and Iran, via economic sanctions and military bombing. On October 30, 2005 the former head of the Israel Secret Police (Shin Bet) told AIPAC to escalate their campaign to pressure in the US to attack Iran (IsraelNationalNews.com)." http://www.counterpunch.org/petras11032005.html
This week in blogs (scroll down to summary of Palestine blogs) http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/
Finally Two action items
Action 1: If you live in the US and want to network with local activists in your area for attending local events (or planning them :-), please email me stating your city and state and I will put you in touch with appropriate people or listserves to join for local actions.
Action 2: ACTION ALERT From: Michael Shahin
At the 2005 National Lawyers Guild convention ("NLG") held in Portland, OR., a group of anti-Zionist NLG members put forth a resolution "Condemning Zionism As A Form Of Racism."
The resolution commanded a significant majority of NLG convention members, despite attempts to dilute it.
By supporting the resolution with an overwhelming majority vote of 100 in favor, 47 against, and 10 abstentions, the NLG convention members sent a loud and clear message where they stand. The result was a clear 2/3 rd majority vote required for the resolution to pass at the convention.
However, due to a lack of procedural clarity on whether "abstentions" count as "votes," the resolution will now be sent to the entire NLG membership by mail ballot.
It is critical that our community actively mobilize support for this resolution--every vote counts. Let us find NLG members and urge them to vote. Let us strongly encourage them to join the courageous majority of the NLG members who voted in favor of this resolution in the convention by:
1) Voting in favor of it on their mail ballot while also making sure to cast their mail ballot; and
2) Encouraging other NLG members to vote support this resolution as well.
Together we can make it happen. Please see resolution below
Michael Shahin—NLG Member
EMERGENCY RESOLUTION CONDEMNING ZIONISM AS A FORM OF RACISM
WHEREAS, the National Lawyers Guild has a long and proud history of fighting racism.
WHEREAS, the National Lawyers Guild has passed numerous resolutions in support of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the Resolution to Divest, in Principle and Practice, from Israel (2004); the Resolution to Stop and Dismantle the (Apartheid) Wall (2003); and the Resolution Affirming the Individual and Collective Palestinian Right of Return (2003).
WHEREAS, from 1975 to 1991 United Nations Resolution 3379 determined "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination," citing several resolutions by various states, including resolution 77 (XII) adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity at its twelfth ordinary session, 28 July to 1 August 1975, which noted "that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being."
WHEREAS, a review by the United Nations of the performance of Israel under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in May of 2003 raises serious concerns regarding continuing institutionalized and systematic racism directed by Israel against Palestinians:
"The Committee is deeply concerned about the continuing difference in treatment between Jews and non-Jews….and "reiterated its concern that the excessive emphasis upon the state as a 'Jewish state' encourages discrimination and accords a second-class status to its non-Jewish citizens."
WHEREAS, the United Nations recognizes that such institutionalized and systematic racism is intimately connected to Israel and its persistent denial of the right of Palestinian refugees to return, stating:
"The Committee is particularly concerned about the status of 'Jewish Nationality' which is a ground for exclusive preferential treatment for persons of Jewish nationality under the Israeli Law of Return, granting them automatic citizenship and financial government benefits, thus resulting in practice in discriminatory treatment against non-Jews, in particular Palestinian refugees."
WHEREAS , the very establishment of Israel in 1948 was based on racist violence aimed at expelling the Palestinian presence from the land, when Zionist occupation forces razed over 450 Palestinian villages, expelled at least 800,000 Palestinians from their cities and villages, and massacred countless other Palestinians.
WHEREAS, the ongoing war crimes of Israel against the Palestinian people are a continuation of this institutionalized and systematic violence.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the National Lawyers Guild:
Reaffirms United Nations Resolution 3379 declaring, "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination."
Condemns all manifestations of this institutionalized and systematic racism by Israel stemming from 1948 through today's present denial of the right to return and perpetuation of ongoing war crimes against Palestinians.
Resolves to integrate its policy against Zionist racism in practice by partnering with Palestinian communities and prioritizing the voice of Palestinians in their struggle to challenge occupation, oppression, and racism.
IMPLEMENTATION: By the Guild's anti-racism committee and the NEC.
Submitted by:
Merrilyn Onisko , Co-Chair Middle East Subcommittee*
Nancy Hormachea, Co-Chair Middle East Subcommittee*
Michael Shahin, NLG Member, LA Chapter*
James Lafferty , Executive Director, NLG/LA*
Ranya Ghuma, Co-Chair , The United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC)*
Renee Q. Sanchez , Co-Chair, The United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC)*
Lynne Stewart , Lynne Stewart Defense Committee*
Ralph Poynter , New Abolitionist Movement*
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard , Co-Chair, NLG Mass Defense Committee*
Maunica Sthanki , Co-National Student Vice President
Paul Wright , Co-Jailhouse Lawyer Vice President*
Ian Thompson, Executive Board, NLG-LA*
Carol Smith , Member, NLG Mid-East Committee*
Michael Smith , NLG/NYC Board Member*
Bernhard Rohrbacher, NLG/LA Board Member*
Leon Goldin, CA State Bar Commissioner (Ret.), NLG/LA Board Member*
Richard L. Solomon, NLG/LA Board Member*
Ban Al-Wardi , NLG Member, LA Chapter; Executive Board Member Palestinian American Women's Association*
Saja Raoof , NLG Member, NLG-MI*
Sammar Hasan Miqbel, NLG Member*
John Wheat Gibson , Immigration Lawyer, past president Baylor University Law School NLG Student Chapter; past co-chair Texas-Oklahoma Chapter, NLG; vice president, Texas United for Peace and Justice; Admiral for Yellow Submarine Warfare, Peace Movement Army, 1968-72*
*For identification purposes only.
==============
October 29, 2005
Pictures from latest wheels of justice tour (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho) posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/wheelsofjustice2005/ (also updated blog)
From Gaza to the Galilee: Same Policy, Same Agenda. By Isabelle Humphries http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Sept_Oct_2005/0509012.html
November 9 to 29 Days of Action to Support the Palestinian Right of Return and the Palestinian Civil Society Call against the Segregation Wall http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1150
Stunning 2006 Calendar for Palestine (get yours early, we ordered many) http://www.palestinecalendar.org/calendars.htm
Details about Connecticut statewide anti-war conference including location and parking at http://thestruggle.org/ctup_confr.htm and http://CTUnitedForPeace.org
Resolutions to be considered http://thestruggle.org/resolutions.htm
Help Cynthia McKinney’s reelection campaign (a decent African American voice for human rights): Donate http://www.cynthiaforcongress.com/donations.html
Palestine Timeline now online now in French at http://www.quibla.net/histoire/histoire23.htm
(thanks to readers who sent me corrections/updates e.g. that Gawler has only a city named after him in Australia, not a state) English version posted at Palestine Timeline
Setting up Abbas By Jeff Halper The Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4269.shtml
==================
October 21, 2005
The Wheels of Justice tour is rolling (UT, WY, CO, http://justicewheels.org) and received great feedback and attendancde at the highschools, colleges, universities and churches we spoke at. We also had the expected and welcomed rare critics. Some critics to their credit learned new facts and engaged in serious conversation and wanted to get more resources and facts. Some did not even attend but sent emails to others after the fact claiming bias and/or "shooting the messenger". Some critics attended but apparently did not listen to what we had to say because they did not challenge any of the observations or facts we presented but rather claimed they wanted the “other side” represented. Of course there is no tribal warfare here and no “other side” but thousands of perspectives. The perspective we gave is of us as individuals (Iraq and Palestine eyewitness speakers). We support International law and human rights, no more and no less. We never claimed that we would (nor could) bring representation (“balance”) of the MANY ideologies and interests out there: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Labor Zionists, Likud Zionists, Israeli communists, Shas, Palestinian Authority, Israeli Government, Military Industrial interests, oil companies, Israeli lobby in DC, neo-conservativers, etc. We do mention some of these in our talks and in response to questions/comments but our focus remains as eyewitness accounts to occupation/colonization from the perspective of the civilians subject to these occupations/colonization and our guiding principles is human rights as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We cannot equate occupier and colonizer armies with occupied and colonized people nor do we accept the mythology that such occupiers and colonizers represent either the Israeli or American public (e.g. 65% of US citizens now oppose the continued occupation of Iraq).
Anyways, there are few (minority) who want to silence any discussion or free speech or work for human rights and they are miseld by groups like the ADL with a history of attacks on civil liberties and free speech: see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/assaultontruth/
Now for related items:
NGO Monitor should not be taken seriously, By Yacoub Kahlen and Robert E. Foxsohn, The Electronic Intifada, 18 October 2005 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4255.shtml
Israeli army in effect gives green light to settler attacks on Palestinian children: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/636086.html
Israel redraws the roadmap, building quietly and quickly; settler population grows as Sharon grabs more West Bank land than he returned in Gaza, By Chris McGreal in Jerusalem, The Guardian, 18 October 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1594808,00.html
Nonviolent Resistance in Palestine, Znet, October 17, 2005 By Patrick O'Connor http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=8950
National tour schedule about the Palestinian Non-Violent resistance http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/speaking-tour
Palestine and the arts
Palestinian Rap Group debut in NY City http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4250.shtml
A new powerful film. “Private” will have its US theatrical premiere on November 18th at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. It will open in Los Angeles on December 2nd, with a wider national release in early 2006. More information on the film is available at the official website (injcluding trailer viewing), http://www.privatethefilm.com
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October 16, 2005
Utah WOJ diary: The Wheels of Justice Bus tour (truth and eyewitnmess to Iraq and Palestine) left Pocatello, ID on Tuesday and drove several hours to Salt Lake City. Hosted by Utahns for Just Peace (www.justpeaceholyland.org). We stopped by Mahan Khalsa’s home where our Iraq speaker (Kelly Dougherty) had already arrived. After some relaxation, Mahan led us to Park City where our gracious host Evelyn Richards lives. She had a beautiful home with a mountain view in the backdrop. The next day (Wednesday) we drove to SLC for two class presentations at SL Community College. In between these presentations, Mahan and I drove to Univ of Utah to flyer at the lecture of Rami Khoury (columnist and editor of the Beirut-Based Daily Star). I had a few moments to talk to Rami before he headed off. We handed out nearly 100 flyers. The class presentations at the community college were very good; Dr. Josh Gold is an excellent and thoughtful professor of Political science and addressed US role in the Middle East and what Iraqis and Palestinians observe under occupation. On Thursday, Kelly and I gave another class presentation in the morning while Dan (bus manager) and Bob (driver) went ahead with tabling at University of Utah in SLC. We joined them at 115 and observed how dozens of students crowded the table in front of the bus parked on the most prominent place on campus. Great networking was possible. Kelly and I gave a talk at noon at the student center where the room was full. We then did more flyering for upcoming events and had some deep discussions with faculty and students. It was possible to easily demonstrate to our critics the falsity of the PR campaign they have been subjected to. The hypocricy of US foreign policy is now so evident and clear with documents to anyone who cares to look or listen (especially in the dual occupation of Iraq and Palestine). Indeed many people who came told us that our presence made them rethink their ideas about what is going on with our taxes in Iraq and in Israel/Palestine. In the evening I gave a talk and book signing regarding my book “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle” (see my website for book detail at qumsiyeh.org) at Sam Weller Bookstore in Downtown Salt Lake City. On Friday, we were invited for a dinner cooked by two Palestinian women and hosted at Bothaina’s apartment. Bothaina is a Palestinian student doing a PhD in remote sensing as tools for studying forests (Geography, environmental issues). Like most Palestinians, they take their agricultural culture with them wherever they go. For example, she had successfully cultivated in her apartment mint, thyme, basil, and chives (not to mention other house plants). The Arabic food and the company were superb. We also discussed briefly our collective experiences in organizing locally and confronting the classic lies and distortions of special interests. We then went on to the main presentation (well attended) at the Jubilee Center in Salt Lake City. We were heartened by the reception, intellect, and generosity of those attending. Even those who came with skeptical and different opinions listened and asked good questions and in the end learned much that they did not know before. We made friends of all. It was a pleasure to meet our friend Barbara Kass (Luck, WI, where the bus hibernates for the summer) who was visiting family in this area. The donations and support we received in Salt Lake City will not be forgotten. We then drove the bus to Laramie, Wyoming where wer have several planned events.
The "Wheels of Justice Bus Tour" is endorsed by major US peace and justice groups committed to work non-violently for peace with justice such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Voices for creative non-violence, Jews Against The Occupation, International Solidarity Movement, The US Campaign to End the Occupation, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Veternas For Peace, Montana Peace Seekers, Colorado Communities for Peace and Justice, Pax Christi USA and others. http://www.justicewheels.org/endorsements.html
Now for a couple of other items:
1) The Left Wing Gate Keepers of the American Anti-Israeli occupation movement by Dr. Seth Farber http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct05/Farber1007.htm
2) Protest at Harvard: Israeli apologists face off human rights advocates http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/42891/index.php
3) Global Institute For Technology advancement, GIFTA would like to invite Arab American community leaders, activists, and organizations for a strategy session to discuss its effort to launch a yearly conference toward bringing technology advancement and innovation to the Middle East.
Conference goals and objectives:
* Provide a platform to discuss innovative ideas. Sources for such ideas come from: university professors, students' work and research, business research interest, and business ideas.
* Provide a platform to bridge Arab American resources in this field with their counterparts in the Middle East and help establish technology incubation through collaboration
* Establish a consistent and repeatable environment for collaboration in this field
* Provide a platform to develop outsourcing capabilities to MiddleEastern companies and help open the US market to such companies.
Strategy meeting objectives:
* Help mature conference goals and objectives
* Define conference sponsorship models and the efforts needed for successful delivery
* Define each organization's role and its level of involvement.
* Develop a highly organized structure needed for successful execution
This first strategy meeting will be held on November 19th, 2005 from 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM. We reserved a conference room in the American University in Washington DC. We will provide a more detail information on logistics as time approaches.
Seats are limited so please register to attend this strategy session. Registration is available through GIFTA web site by clicking at http://www.gifta.org/tinc?key=OtyR88jt
For information on GIFTA, please visit our web site at http://www.gifta.org
To joint our effort and become a GIFTA member, fill in our on-line membership for at http://www.gifta.org/getinvolved.html
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October 11, 2005
(Email back with any comments, positive or negative on this weekly/at most biweekly letter/action newsletter or if you want to be removed or to suggest others to invite; forwarding also encouraged)
Left Turn Magazine published my article Disllusion wiith disengagement while I am still on the bus trucking through the so called “red states”. The Wheels of Justice bus Tour (http://justicewheels.org) had some staff changes in Helena, Montana. David Lippman (speaker and entertainer) left and we also had a change of drivers (from young Brad Jones to Bob Abplanalp, a veteran of the Navy and many decades of peace work, about 70 y.o). We drove from Helena, Montana to Pocatello, Idaho, a long trip of over 6 hours in a bus that has non-functioning heating system in the front of the bus (the back had some heat). We stayed the first night in Pocatello at the lovely home of Beatrice who is active in issues of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The next two nights we stayed at the home of Fred Belzer and Terry Kaufman, long term peace activists in the community. The hospitality of the local group and the organization was excellent. We spoke the first day at the First Congregational Church of Pocatello (Sunday).
On Monday, we parked the bus in front of the Student Center at Idaho State University and put a table out and for several hours had good conversations with students, faculty and staff who stopped by. Only one person made a negative comment and walked off but he came back a couple of hours later and apologized. The main event hosted by the social club was at 6 PM at the Student center and we had a very lively conversation with great ideas from the diverse audience (Hispanic, African American, European American). We also got interviewed broadcast later that night on channels 3 and 8 (excellent segment). At 4:40 PM we met with three high school students who organized an event for us for Tuesday afternoon to meet with a larger group of high school students in Pocatello. Dan (the man) Pearson, our bus manager is doing a stellar job and we will be heading to Salt Lake City for several events then to Denver for other events and the Friends of Sabeel Conference (one of several held in North America which are highly recommended conferences, see http://www.fosna.org/).
In our presentation on Iraq and Palestine we highlight reality on the ground. Obviously this does not jive with eth mythology perpetuated by the powers to be (elites and special interests). For example showing maps around Qalqilia (see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/palestine101/ ) proves the wall as a land and water theft device not focused just on “security” (security is an excuse to continue th ethnic cleansing started in 1947). The wall around Jerusalem cuts Arab Jerusalem from its Palestinian suburbs like El-Eizariyaa (<1 mile), Bethlehem (7 miles) and Ramallah (10 miles) (Jewish colonies in East Jerusalem have direct access through roads open only to Israeli Jewish settlers and not the native Palestinians). This much was just admitted by Israeli Cabinet minister Ramon who said that the wall around Jerusalem makes it “more Jewish” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1526627,00.html )
So what can we do? See http://www.qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/ Silence is complicity.
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October 1, 2005
A note from Ron Francis of the Sommerville Divestment Project (http://www.divestmentproject.org) states that Cindy Corrie, the mother of Rachel Corrie will speak in Somerville at 7pm On Thursday Oct. 6th at the College Ave Methodist Church. The Somerville Divestment Project has collected over 4500 signatures of Somerville people requesting that the question of divestment be put on the ballot for Somerville voters.
Nov. 9-29 Days of Action: Protest Israel's Illegal Wall and Support the Right of Return http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1150
Help Cynthia McKinney’s reelection campaign: Donate http://www.cynthiaforcongress.com/donations.html
Ali Abunimah interviewed on the savage bombardment of Gaza http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4213.shtml
Today I will be joining the Wheels of Justice bus tour (WOJ, http://www.justicewheels.org ) as a for three weeks. We will be in Montana, Idaho, Utah and Colorado. I urge you to check the website and email the contact person for event details (as well as inviting the bus to other local events, we have done as many as four events in one day, highschools, colleges, churches etc). You can get the local coordinator by clicking on your city at http://www.justicewheels.org/calendar/month.php or email ceylon@vitw.org for itinerary/scheduling
Also, we are still looking for donations. Please send your generous donation (details of donation address r online donations at http://www.justicewheels.org/donate.html
Below is a sampling of a WOJ program/speakers for events hosted by Helena Peace Seekers (http://www.helenapeaceseekers.org)
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9/27/05
The huge antiwar rallies in DC and many other cities attracted hundreds of thousands. For us riding on the buses down from CT and arriving early before eh subways opened at 7 AM allowed for ample opportunities for networking. Two buses parked behind us were from Boston and New Hampshire. The success of these rallies in spreading the word and exposing the truth is evidenced at so many levels. Even extreme right wing (and racist) commentators like Limbaugh and Savage have been ranting about these rallies and trashing the rally organizers and speakers (including Cindy Sheehan and Cynthia McKinney). Cindy was later arrested at the White House.
But here are again bits of under-reported news.
- According to British media, the US is having to replenish dwindling munitions from Israel after spending on average 250,000 bullets per insurgent killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article314944.ece ).
- Israeli security agents (all with previous service in Israeli army or intelligence services) did not only provide services by training US troops in methods of “urban warfare” (read collective punishment and other war crimes) but are now in New Orleans getting taxpayer money to occupy our US cities (see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/scahill ).
- According to http://WayneMadsenReport.com the “Anti-war protest in Washington, DC today. Very few Democratic members of Congress to appear. Reason: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), according to Democratic insiders on Capitol Hill, put out the word that any member of Congress who appeared at the protest, where some speakers were to represent pro-Palestinian views, would face the political wrath of AIPAC. According to Democratic sources on the Hill, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts was the chief conveyor of the AIPAC warning to his colleagues. At the time of this report, three members of Congress were to address the anti-war protestors: Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), John Conyers (D-MI), and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). “
Rep. McKinney if you recall was targeted by AIPAC money and cronies in the newspapers who managed to get her out of office for two years but she came back with a very comfortable majority. This episode proved that AIPAC and its extensions in the media are not as invincible as they like to portray themselves.
Many of the great speakers at the huge rallies, including McKinney, did not shy away from connecting the struggles at home and in Iraq and in Palestine. Among those attending the links were most evident in the signs and flags carried. Literally a sea of Palestinian flags (the most dominant flag at this demonstration). Here is a speech by Mohammed Abed of the University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign and SC member of the US Campaign to End the Occupation at the September 24th rally against the war that explains the importance of working on this issue: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/isitnotapartheid/
Activists also distributed thousands of flyers directly linking the wars and occupations in Iraq and Palestine. An example of one flyer which had over 5000 distributed in DC and other places: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/iraqpalestineflyer/
My article on the Israeli lobby and its role in eth war on Iraq (English http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/ ) was translated to Spanish and is posted here: El lobby israelí y la guerra de Irak http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=20595
ACTION ITEM: lf we all write (handwritten letters are best) to our elected officials and also send letters to media (inundate them with as many letters as possible), the criminal wars on Iraq and Palestine can be ended sooner.
Holy Land or Living Hell, Ecoside in Palestine an analysis of environmental issues in Palestine/Israel http://earthfirstjournal.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=11
“The Clinton Years: U.S. Policy Toward Israel and Palestine, Part One,” by Cheryl A. Rubenberg http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/pubs/20010119ib.html
AIPAC's Overt and Covert Ops by Juan Cole http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3467
TEL AVIV’S INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS: the pro-Sharon thinktank http://mondediplo.com/2003/07/06beinin?var_recherche=iran
An older article but still relevant to issues of the war and the Israeli lobby
http://www.al-awda.org/mightymorphinpowerbrokers/
ACTION ITEM 2: Comprehensive Guide to Campus Divestment (Campuses and Student groups must reading) http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/docs/divestguide.pdf
ACTION ITEM 3: Attend an international Conference in Toronto Oct 26-29: A call for morally responsible investment. http://www.sabeel.ca
==================
9/23/05
It is a coincidence that Hurricane Rita will hit shore as we converge on Washington DC this weekend by the hundreds of thousands to challenge this government. The media will likely try to hide behind other news so as not to cover these massive rallies and marches planned for months. We must have and implement a clear media strategy to get the message through anyway. I am not sure what/if any serious media strategy is being proposed by the two national coalitions leading the rallies (ANSWER and UFPJ) in light of Hurricane Rita. Having worked with media for nearly 15 years, I think it is critical. But ultimately, it falls on each of to contact the media and explain that our key demands include end of misallocation of resources to wars and occupations frm our needs at home (including disaster preparedness and recovery). One chant which will be heard loud and clear is that we want money and resources and national guard for our needs at homes not to serve special interests abroad. It is up to each of us to contact the media. Get a few numbers of media outlets and call them. Inundating them with phone calls, they may get the message. But also after the events this weekend, we must pursue both the so called mainstream media and alternative media and push for accountability and sane government policies in the public (not special) interests. Our collective efforts are making a difference as evident by the governments being on the defensive on these issues and evidently their interest in a better response to Hurricane Rita. We must up the heat using evey possible media/communicaton strategy.
I received lots of comments on my article on the Zionist lobby in the US (posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/ )
Very few were critical and most were interested to get more data and resources. I would like to start collecting data on the lobby (widely defined to include those in the media, academics, civic society and even peace groups that lobby for various brands of Zionism). Please send any information my way and I will complile and post on the website. It is interesting byut Scott Ritter (senior US military person who was US/UN Weapons inpector) was in New Haven a week ago and argued convincingly that Iran is next on the neo-con agenda. In todays digest, I include an article from the Forward (Jewish newspaper) that talks about the lobby pushing for sanctions on Iran. Also in this digest, you will find an excellent article from Amira Hass in Haaretz about the Israeli government addiction for destruction, an article from Robert Fisk on why the West has “lost” its moral compass, and a reminder about the massacres of Sabra and Shatila made possible by US Tax money and support of Israel. You will also find a link to a new human liberation journal from Florida and an article on the boycotts/divestmets (a movement growing despite the Zionsit lobby).
Jewish Groups Press for Iran Sanctions, By Ori Nir, Forward, 23 September 2005 http://www.forward.com/main/printer-friendly.php?id=4004
A talent for destruction, By Amira Hass, Haaretz, 22 September 2005 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/627752.html
We have long ago lost our moral compass, so how can we lecture the Islamic world? Years of Western interference in the Middle East has left the region heavy with injustices By Robert Fisk
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10321.htm
ADC Press Release: 23 Years Later, Sabra and Shatila Remembered http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2593
New Human Liberation Journal http://nakba48.org/journal.htm
Israel boycott feud resurfaces; Fresh exchanges as academics try to forge new policy in wake of lecturers' union vote. By Polly Curtis, The Guardian, 20 September 2005
http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1573495,00.html
===============
9/15/05
1) Over 1200 of you clicked and read the story from Jordan Flaherty from Inside New Orleans (originally posted to listserves on 9/2/05 and linked at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/notesfrominsideneworleans/ )
Now Jordan went back to his city and sent a follow-up story titled “Back inside New Orleans.” I think it is rather revealing on reality that the mainstream corporate media does not tell us: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/backinsideneworleans/
2) Letter I sent to david.laidler@gettyimages.com :
By now you must be aware that an orchestrated campaign directed at you and Getty Images vilifying the stunning and amazing photographs of Kai Wiedenhoefer: http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Getty_Images_Awards_Photo_Bias.asp Ofcourse there is nothing honest about this misnamed "HonestReporting". This is evident for example in their action alert where they claim the sole purpose of the barrier is to prevent terrorism. As anyone who visited the area or bothered to look at maps can tell you, the barrier has everything to do with control and impoverishment of Palestinians and consolidating the control by the colonial settlements of natural resources including water and agricultural lands. In the area of Qalqilia ("Kalkilya") mentioned in their release, you would note by looking at the facts that the lands of Palestinain villages of Jayyus and Falamya were confiscated partially when Israel was established (1948-1949). The settlement of Zofin was built inside the land occupied by Israel in 1967 to control the rich remaining agricultural land belonging to Falamya and Jayyus. When the wall was completed in this area, Jayyus and Falamya were now cut off from most of their land and most of the water wells (Western Watyer Aquifer) as well as from a direct rout to the nearby urban center (Qalqilia). Qalqilia, a city of nearly 50,000 Palestinians is actually now ringed almost completely by the wall with only one exit to the east. Hundreds of families already left the besieged city. The wall in this area is clearly using the colony of Zofin (and the Israeli colony on the other side of Qalqilia: Alef Manashe) by Israel to control the rich Palestinian agricultural areas and most of the water wells and destroy the economy of Qalqilia so that its residents are thinned out (it is too close to the Mediterranean). Maps of the areas in question are at Palestine 101
More details and fact sheets debunking other mythologies on the wall are at http://stopthewall.org/news/activistresources.shtml
Getty Images is to be congratulated on not succumbing to politically motivated pressures and bringing the best photographs to the best media outlets in the world.
3) In my last email I mentioned that Muslim Countries donated “over 100 million” after Hurricane Katrina. Actually Kuwait alone donated $500 million. I was provided with more accurate figures and documentation and the total for donations from Muslim majority countries is over 1 billion (to be precise: $1,055,0600,000). I hope these countries could muster more resources to help needy Palestinians.
4) The Divestment snowball, Haaretz article on the growing divestment movement afrom Israel with analogies to South African Apartheid.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/624571.html
5) Al-Haq is the most careful and meticulous indiginous human rights organization working in the Occupied Palestinian Lands. Over the past 25 years they carefully worked to defend human rights. Their fairness and accuracy were evident whether they were dealing with violations by the colonization/occupation army and settlers or with Palestinians living under occupation/colonization. In the organizations anniversary report, Waiting for Justice, Al-Haq summarized the history of their work which is essentially a history of human rights violations in Palestine over the past 25 years. In addition, the report provide an overview of the specific Israeli practice addressed since 1967; in depth legal analysis of the violations of international human rights and humanitarian law taking place in the OPT; in addition to affidavits from eyewitnesses or victims of human rights violations during 2004. The issues addressed include property destruction, movement restrictions, family unification, settlement expansion and settler violence and the continued construction of the Annexation Wall. As Rouba Al-Salem of Al-Haq wrote “The victims of violence and injustice are waiting; they notice when we use words to mask inaction; and they notice when laws that should protect them are not applied.” The full report (322 pages) is available at: http://asp.alhaq.org/zalhaq/site/books/files/Annual%20Report%20Combo.pdf
============
9/13/05
Good deeds continue to come: the Muslim community in the US is well on its way to raise $10 million for victims of Katrina, Arab countries already donated over $100 million, and even the Palestinain refugees today handed a check for $10,000 to the US Consul General in Palestine to aid the victims. In this email, I thought I’d include recent news and two other calls for action.
(Sam Goldberger and I are quoted in this article about the 9/11 Hope Out Loud Festival in Hartford in which hundreds attended to push for peace on the anniversary of 9/11) “A Celebration Of Peace, Justice: Hope Out Loud Festival In Bushnell Park Features 35 Groups Offering Views On Such Issues As Iraq War, Mideast, Vietnam” Hartford Courant 9/12/05
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-hopeoutloud0912.artsep12,0,1447805.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
Challenging Christian Zionism (5 articles which can be used as resources for study and advocacy)
http://www.sabeel.org/?page=article&id=71
http://www.sabeel.org/?page=article&id=72
Holocaust Religion and Holocaust Industry in the Service of Israel
http://stateofnature.org/holocaustReligion.html
Amnesty International Deplores failure to arrest Israeli war criminal suspect
(Israeli General Flees England)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR450362005 (report)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/623564.html (news story)
http://pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2005/101-2005.htm (more detailed background)
Sharon: Israel builds in W.Bank despite US objections, Reuters
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050911/ts_nm/mideast_sharon_dc
The forgtton onslaught on the Iraqi city of Tel Afar thousands lost homes, hundreds killed, no aid) http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/63044
ACTION 1: New York says no to visit of Ariel Sharon (Join if you can) http://www.al-awdany.org/
ACTION 2: Read this if you are in an academic institution (college or University): The Academic and Research Community traditionally played an important role in advancing justice and human rights throughout the world. The aim of Academics For Justice (http://www.academicsforjustice.org/) is to work for justice and human rights, to defend academic freedom of speech and association, to educate the public, and to help bring about peace with justice. A current area of emphasis is working toward a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To join us, a) sign the petition on our website http://www.academicsforjustice.org/
b) subscribe to the AFJ list by sending a blank email to AcademicsForJustice-subscribe@yahoogroups.com then follw received instructions
Please forward any and all from above to others who might be interested.
Comment receive and answer I sent:
Sorry, but I don't agree with the "good deeds." Why is the Muslim community int he US, the pro-US Arab countries and Palestinian refugees supposedly raising money for Katrina victims? There are plenty of Palestinains, Iraqis, Afghanis and Sudanese refugees, who are in war-torn areas who need the money and aid more so than the Americans. Bush and the terrorist US government is responsible for Katrina, not us. We have our own people to help before helping others living under a government that is killing our sisters and brothers as we watch them die without doing a damn thing about it. yesterday, a Palestinian youth was killed in Hebron by the ZIonist Occupation Forces, and yesterday US forces with their traitor Iraqi soldiers went into the city of Tel Afar...and the killing continues. Bush is responsible for the terrorist US regime and to help the Katrina victims.
MQ: The help is not directed to Bush but to poor and destitute people in the effected areas (one of the highest concentration of poor African Americans in the US). We are all fellow human beings and one can do both: help Arabs and help others. Further part of eth reason for previous community organizing that was ineffectual for effecting foreign policy in teh US is that many Muslim and Arab citizens of this country keep acting as if they are leaving the US in a month or two. It is time we take this as our country and effect changes here. Further, we ask others to support our causes and we need to show compassion and support for others; as you may notice some in the media continue to villify us as hateful and narrow-minded. But certainly you can choose to support whatever you want to support. I myself, Alhamdulililah, can do both.
===================
9/9/05
FEMA directs Katrina donors to give to Pat Roberston's Group "Operation Blessing" and four Jewish groups among others but not to Muslim groups helping victims nor to local groups.
see list at http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18473
Write to FEMA!
You can donate to Muslim Communities' to aid victims, visit
http://www.icna.org/
https://icnany.org/Donation/Donation.php?a=relief
http://www.irw.org/katrina/
There are other options for aid:
http://www.gnof.org
http://www.acorn.org
http://southernmutualhelp.org
http://www.ecd.org
http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/katrinarelief.html
Now, as the media focuses on New Orleans (rightly so), Israel uses a window of opportunity to build more settlements and counts on US government support to continue violations of basic human rights and international law. The War criminal Sharon will visit the UN and speak on Sept 15th (ironically two days before the anniversary of the massacres at Sabra and Shatila).
Hoping to Buttress Sharon, U.S. Urges Allies' Restraint By Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times 4 September 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/politics/04mideast.html
Livnat says pullout is 'window' to build W. Bank, even over U.S. ire By Amos Harel and Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondents, and Reuters
Haaretz 6 September 2005 http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/621730.html
Israeli soldiers tell of indiscriminate killings by army and a culture of impunity: Whistleblowers' testimony shows desire for revenge on Palestinians, By Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv, The Guardian 6 September 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1563255,00.htm
On the gentle removal of settlers and demonstrators who flocked to Gaza as compared to the brutality used by the Israeli army against non-violent civilians demonstrating against the Apartheid wall in Bi'ilin.
Where's the restraint in Bil'in? Haaretz Editorial: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/621392.html
Demonstrations continued. The latest one was in Eizariya, see photos andd report at
http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/996.shtml
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2248
Interview with Samah Idriss in Electroc Intifada, This is very revealing on issues of Lebanon and Syria and Palestinian refugees
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4155.shtml
Interview with Mazin Qumsiyeh Published in Spanish (share with your Spanish speaking colleagues :-)
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=19694
Less than 5% of the world population controls some 90% of its wealth. America, the richest nation on earth with 6% of the world population uses 25% of its resources; but even here millions of Americans live in abject poverty including over 400,000 victims of Katrina. For those who are not wealthy (the majority), they can join hands with millions working to change the systems of inequality. By shedding any illusions that we should follow the system in the hope of joining the elite minority that profits from the system, we can build real power. For the wealthy minority with the illusion of being in power, it is well to remember that life is fleeting and only good deeds would be remembered when we are gone. Leading a rewarding life is far more satisfying than material goods. As more and more people realize that there are enough resources in this world to give everyone a comfortable and rewarding life, we can indeed shape a better world for all based on justice and equality.
=======================
9/2/05
Some of our colleagues who helped with the Wheels of Justice Bus Tour were stranded in Midtown New Orleans. They managed to leave their residences early in the crisis and found shelter in the American Can Company building. The area is surrounded by water but the structure was stable (a picture of the building is at: http://www.gnocdc.org/orleans/4/45/snapshot.html ). My last visit to the area with those folks was in April when I gave talks at places that are now under water and Jordan took us on a tour of the inner city. Jordan Flaherty and others were just airlifted a few hours ago and Jordan sent a report Notes from Inside New Orleans that is revealing.
Some people reacted to my message yesterday about government negligence. Most agreed, one person felt indiginant and stated that I am politicizing this tragedy. But pointing to the screwed priorities of this government that is resulting in the deaths of fellow Ameriacns in New Orleans and elsewhere IMHO is actually a duty. In fact I think remaining silent while people are starving and dying of thirst in New Orleans is literally criminal (where are the air drops of food instead of dropping bombs in Iraq)? I am glad to see that the New York Times editorial today points out some of these issues including the fact that Louisiana and Mississippee had huge deployment of National Guard serving in Ireaq which could have mobilized on short notice to the area.
The Notes from Inside New Orleans is thus the most poignant. It is a MUST READ.
Here are other comments/emails received on this subject.
-----------
Greens Rally to Assist Hurricane Victims; Call Katrina a Predictable Symptom of Global Warming
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_09_01.shtml
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Mazin,
I appreciate your email messages, and the contacts you provide.
On this one, an environmental correction. The problem is global warming, caused by greenhouse gases that create a blanket over the atmosphere, trapping the heat in. The gas primarily responsible is carbon dioxide, CO2, not ozone, O3. The carbon dioxide is created by burning organic fuels that contain carbon. The ozone depletion is primarily over the poles - caused by chloroflorocarbons. That emission was reduced several years ago, but you are right, that the US has repudiated the Kyoto Protocol despite general strong support by other industrialized countries. Otherwise, I am with you on all the spending, but particularly when spending was cut to study the effects of a Level 4 or 5 hurricane on New Orleans, and reports urging the strengthening of the levee system were ignored. This disaster could have been prevented or considerably mitigated, given reasonable and timely action by the federal government during the Bush administration.
Jeremy Brigham
Instructor in Geography and Cultures of the Middle East,
Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
-----------
Larry King Live mentioned at the opening of the show on Aug. 31, 2005 that National Geographic reported last year that FEMA considered a major hurricane on New Orleans to be a threat to national economic security. He also asked Sen. Mary Landrieu "should we have been better prepared" and, of course, she said yes. The point here is that a major periodical in the United States reported on the potential disaster, and the state and federal governments effectively did nothing, and when asked about it on national television, Sen. Landrieu gave a weak answer.
You can read the transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/31/lkl.01.html
Albert Marceau
Central Connecticut State University
--------
There is a lot of negative coverage in the British press of the feeble federal response to Katrina. Also the blanket coverage in the US press may have hidden the importance of the speech by Ken Clarke, contender for the leadership of the Tory Party, in which he said that Blair's foolish decision to invade Iraq has made Britain a more dangerous place. Best wis
------------
ACTION CALL: Time to bring the National Guard back from Iraq. Use this form to write to congressmen and senators
http://www.usalone.net/nationalguard.htm
In other news in these days of challenge that test the metal of all:
Where will the water come from? By Amira Hass
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619642.html
(what is not mentioned is that the water in Present day Israel belongs to the native Palestinians. International standards also require that since the occupied territories both of 1948 and 1967 constitute one water unit, that water be allocated based on human needs and equal demographic distribution without bias. This article shows the kind of bias used to allocate water based on religion).
CT resident Chris Towne came back from Palestine with lots of stories. This is just one article in a local newspaper about his trip
http://news.newstimeslive.com/story.php?id=73976&channel=Local
Please see if you can invite the Wheels of Justice to your area and let us see if we can get Jordan on board.(see http://Justicewheels.org)
A Luta Continua
=================
9/1/05
The catastrophic situation resulting from Hurricane Katrina has been covered extensively in the news. Some of the coverage was distorted and some of it was missing altogether. Only once did I hear criticism of the government aired (by one of the victims asking where the help is and why they did not have resources in place to help; it was on NBC not on CNN, Fox etc). Here are some questions the media should have been asking:
Why were the warnings by the scientific community about the impact of pollution and depletion of the Ozone layer ignored? Referring to this as a "natural disaster" is not accurate: there is now well established links between these increasing weather phenomena and our disproportional use of dirty fuels, and other environmentally disastrous policies (the US rejection of the Kyoto accords and other policies of the US government are major contributing factors).
Why was there no preparedness or deployment of national guard and navy ships to the area before Katrina hit the shore (it was known this is a dangerous storm at least 2-3 days before)?
Why was there such a feeble response from the federal and state governments after the catastrophe (looting is just one example)? Could it be that our resources are stretched because: a) we spent $250 billion in the past thirty years to support Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people angering billions of people, b) because we have 130,000 service men and and women in Iraq, c) we have spent over $250 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan (estimates go as high as 1 trillion before we are finished), d) we spend more on the military than all other discretionary government spending combined, e) Keep troops in 60 countries, f) all of the above.
Ofcourse our first priority should be to HELP THE VICTIMS. I urge all to donate and help as much as we can. But we should also write to the media (letters to the ditor, op-eds, letters to TV and radio stations) asking the difficult questions. It is our duty to the future and to the victims.
Now for other weekly compilations (sorry about the number of items since I did not post to you for a few days, much interesting stuff):
Freedom for Palestine: Ticket-holders only? By Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada. What really transpired when Barenboim and company held a concert in Ramallah, Occupied Palestine
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4151.shtml
US continues being occupied by special interests: Palestinian assets in US frozen, BBC News Online, 31 August 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4199548.stm
Wall, a Film by Simone Bitton (see it, ask for local screenings etc)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3357.shtml (review)
http://www.wallthemovie.com (website)
info@lifesizeentertainment.com
Nation as trauma, Zionism as question: Jacqueline Rose interviewed
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=2&debateId=97&articleId=2766
Settlements growing at rapid pace in occupied West Bank
The Israel Defense Forces and the Civil Administration began issuing land expropriation orders this weekend for construction of the separation fence around Ma'aleh Adumim.. Lawyer Danny Seidemann of the Ir Amim organization said that Israel was exploiting the withdrawal from Gaza to build the fence around Ma'aleh Adumim."
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/616334.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3134749,00.html
Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun asked me a question about demolishing colonial/settler houses in Gaza and if settlers could have become citizens in the "Palestinian state". My response followed by Lerner's additional comments responding to the idea of coexistance and bringing up other issues.
http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/news_item.2005-08-28.7217412647
Lerner's additional comments argue that a human rights advocates help right wing policies and that the human rights argument is about eliminating Israel. This is simply not true. A human rights agenda is about eliminating racism and discrimination no more and no less. How could any rational human being support rejecting the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands because they are not Jewish while accepting that any Jew including converts get automatic citizenship? How could anyone support forced demographic engineering? Don't we all agree to basic human rights. In South Africa, removing apartheid and giving the native blacks their rights was not about eliminating South Africa, it was about basic human rights and equality. For a detailed discussion/debate on these issues, please read this exchange between Rabbi Lerner and Dr. AbuSitta: http://www.al-awda.org/debatewthtikkunonrefugees/
My plea to Rabbi Lerner is to read the excellent book of Marc Ellis "Out of the Ashes" (Ellis is a Jewish theologian at Baylor) and for us to join together as one human family working for true equality and justice rather than "us here, them there".
Action Call: Demand that the International Union Against Cancer not list Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem as being in “Israel”
Requested Action:
The International Union Against Cancer wants to list a Palestinian patient service organization in East Jerusalem under its Israel category. Activists should write to the UICC ( info@uicc.org ATTN Isabel Mortara, Executive Director) to set the record straight and request accurate listing.
Talking points/background:
- Patients' Friends Society-Jerusalem (PFS, http://www.pfsjer.org) is a Palestinian non-governmental, non-profit organization founded in 1980 in East Jerusalem. Its mission is to provide medical services and health education for the Palestinian population.
- PFS was accepted to membership in the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) in May 2005. The UICC states that 'following discussions with our leadership, UICC's policy is to list our members on our website by country (as determined by postal address)'. They will list PFS under Israel and they go on to say that if we supply them with an alternate postal address they would be pleased to change the listing. Finally they state that the ' UICC is a non-political and non-sectarian organization and we must abide by our guidelines and hope that the …listing is an acceptable compromise'. 'We trust that Patients' Friends Society will understand our position and remain a member of UICC.'
- Listing PFS under Israel is unacceptable and actually contradicts the notion that UICC is non-political in addition to contradicting International Law. East Jerusalem has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. In 1980 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 476 which reaffirms the call to end the illegal occupation of lands occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem and reconfirms that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, ”have no legal validity” and constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This position was reaffirmed on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice in their ruling on the segregation Wall being built in East Jerusalem and other areas of the West Bank.
- Non-governmental organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories struggle on a daily basis to provide services for their people under incredibly difficult circumstances of occupation and segregation. We expect International bodies such as the UICC to recognize and support the good work that such groups do and not try to list them in unacceptable categories. East Jerusalem is simply not part of the State of Israel but is occupied Palestinian territory.
- There are possible listings that would be clear and comply with International law and International standards: Occupied Palestinian Territories and occupied Palestine. This would be precise. The address for the organization can say via Israel or even Israel but that is a postal address and not a listing under "Israel".
They welcome and appreciate financial contributions to help in serving patients: Patient's Friends Society-Jerusalem, Arab Bank, account: 903060 2955710. Swift code: CRESCHZZ80A
=====
8/27/05
Silence is Complicity
Interview by Andrea Bistrich of Mazin Qumsiyeh on "A vision for a durable peace in Israel/Palestine" published by Al-Jazeera.info
http://www.aljazeerah.info/ (middle) or direct link
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2005%20Opinion%20Editorials/August/26o/A%20vision%20for%20a%20durable%20peace%20in%20the%20Middle%20East%20Interview%20with%20Dr%20Mazin%20B%20Qumsiyeh%20By%20Andrea%20Bistrich.htm
US Campaign unfairly chracterized: US Campaign to End the Occupation Open Letter to Al-Awda. http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1146
Don't think of a Jewish state: Can Palestine be put back into the equation. By Kathleen Christison, ex CIA Analyst
"Those who may know something don't care about the Palestinians, don't care to fight for simple justice, and don't fathom the long-range strategic import for the U.S. of continued support for Israel's oppressive regime. ...Everyone takes the easy way. Antiwar activists focus on the war where Americans are dying, not where Palestinians are dying and believe that for tactical reasons they should avoid introducing disunity by talking about this issue. Far too many moviemakers who turn out anti-Bush films ignore the Palestinian issue and Israel's role in U.S. politics altogether."
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison08262005.html
Don't mention the word 'J' by William Bowles
"Were such statistics to be about Israelis, again, imagine the clamour in the Western media! There is only one explanation for the existence of such a vast chasm between press coverage of Israel and that of the Palestinians and that is the role racism plays in reducing Palestinians to that of sub-humans" http://www.uruknet.info/?p=15084
President Chavez suggests Venezuela offer poor Americans gasoline and healthcare
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/08/23/chavez.gasoline.reut/
A book review and Interview of: 'American Mania: When More is Not Enough' (On consumerism)
Book published in January, 2005 Author: Dr. Peter C. Whybrow Published by W. W. Norton & Company http://www.alternet.org/story/24545/
"Israel Military Industries won a tender Tuesday for around $300 million to supply the U.S. army with ammunition...The Yitzhak factory produces light ammunition principally for American forces operating in Iraq, the IDF, the police and the Israeli defense establishment, as well as various western European clients." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/616757.html
==============
Please act by contacting (preferably by phone) media outlets
1) Article on the Gaza disengagenment
Excerpt "There has been a media circus fed by a huge Israeli government PR effort to drum up sympathy for the “painful” relocation of settlers from Gaza (<2% of total settler population). But who are these settlers and why were they brought there in the first place? Is Israel really leaving Gaza or merely switching to occupying it from outside rather than from inside? Will Gaza become a large open air prison with its population held hostage as Israel control its airspace, natural resources, and access? Few journalists dare to ask.
....
The media circus historically stayed away from any mention of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. No busloads of journalists came to watch as 530 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed and removed off of Israeli maps. Tday, they do not dare show the pictures of eth expulsion of hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians (for a taste of this, visit http://Palestineremembered.com). Successive Israeli governments rejected demands of International law for repatriation and compensation for refugees. We saw little on the media here even as Israeli forces made 50,000 more Palestinians homeless in the past five years.
......
Israel is requesting billions more in our tax money to support the charade of “disengagement” (from reality?) while using billions more of our tax money for its colonial project in the West Bank (including Jerusalem). If the American public is informed that we give Israel more than what we give sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Central America combined, the public would be up in arms. If informed about this conflict fairly, we would insist that all aid to Israel be tied to implementation of International law including dismantling the apartheid wall (recently judged illegal by the International Court of Justice) and allowing the return of refugees to their homes and lands. Rejecting apartheid and advancing such universal human rights would put us firmly on the road to a durable peace. Justice for Palestinians would be recognized in America (as it is now recognized in the rest of the world) to be one of the most important steps for advancing harmony and peace around our troubled world." More at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/onthegazadisengagement/
2) Press Advisory For Immediate Release 18 August 2005 Gaza City, Occupied Gaza Strip
President Abbas Hosts Mass Friday Prayer
As the evacuation of Israel’s colonies in the Occupied Gaza Strip draws to an end, President Mahmoud Abbas will host Friday prayers to commemorate those Palestinians killed by the Israeli army and settlers. The prayer will also be in solidarity with the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners currently languishing in Israeli prisons and the thousands of Palestinians whose homes have been demolished by the Israeli army.
The prayer known as the “In Memoriam and Solidarity” prayer will take place on 19 August 2005 at 11 a.m. (gathering time) at the President’s Office Gaza City.
Open Press Availability
Background: In 1967 Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and soon after began colonizing these areas. An estimated 7,300 Israeli settlers (amounting to less than 2 percent of the total settler population) are currently being evacuated from the Gaza Strip.
• Throughout the 38-year military occupation more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army.
• An estimated 8,500 Palestinians are currently imprisoned in Israeli jails. Approximately 20 percent of the Palestinian population, has, at some point been imprisoned by Israel.
• In the past 4 years alone, Israel has destroyed the homes of more than 16,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
For additional information, please contact:
Diana Buttu, Advisor to the Palestinian Technical Team on Israel's Evacuation, Tel: +972-599-604-657
3) Speaking the truth to Jews by Paul Eisen
"Many Jews, now aware of the injustice associated with the establishment of Israel, but still unable to relinquish their belief in Israel’s essential innocence, have congregated around the slogans: 'End the occupation!' and 'Two states for two peoples!’ That there is no 'occupation', and that there will never be a true Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, are simply denied. The long-term Zionist strategy for the conquest of Palestine was always to wait for what Ben-Gurion called ‘revolutionary situations’, meaning situations which would provide cover under which the take-over of Palestine could be completed. The first of these ‘revolutionary situations’ presented itself in 1947 and 1948, when, under the cover of the conflict, 78 percent of historic Palestine was transformed into Israel. Another such situation presented itself in 1967." More at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/speakingthetruthtojews/
===============
8/17/05
Desmond Tutu quote, taken from and describing the book: "Speaking the Truth About Zionism and Israel" (edited by Michael Prior, Melisende, 2004): "In our struggle for justice and peace in South Africa we had to learn to speak - and listen to - hard truths. Our experience should encourage all who strive for justice and peace in the Holy Land. My visits to the Holy Land remind me so much of South Africa: apartheid is back, complete with the "Separation Wall" and bantustans. History, it seems, repeats itself. Yet, if peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come also to the Holy Land. I welcome this book that exposes some of the hardest truths about Israel-Palestine. The distinguished contributors - from Israel, Palestine, the US, the UK and Ireland, women and men, Jews, Christians and Muslims - speak their Truth. Reconciliation will follow later."
Resources and talking points on the Gaza disengagement
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/259.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/379.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4093.shtml
http://www.nad-plo.org/main.php?view=mainextra_know
http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/gaza/pdf/gaza.pdf
Cindy Sheehan (son killed in Iraq in 2004) received some media attention though they tried to suppress her message especially when it comes to linking the war on Iraq and Israel. She stated: “And the other thing I want him President Bush to tell me is ‘just what was the noble cause Casey died for?’ Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism. There, I used the ‘I’ word – imperialism, and now I’m going to use another ‘I’ word – impeachment – because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.” For more, see http://groups-beta.google.com/group/bullyard/msg/7f523b1a73be1a36?hl=en http://www.gsfp.org/
US church rebukes Israel for barrier "A five-million-strong US church has rebuked Israel for building a separation barrier along the West Bank, becoming the second major US Protestant denomination to reject policies implemented by the Jewish state. The resolution titled 'Peace Not Wall' was adopted on Saturday on a 668-269 vote by members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at their convention in Orlando, Florida, despite pleas from Jews to refrain from the move."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A8B31654-754C-4343-A818-243857E86793.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5208273,00.html
Another divestment victory at the national Veterans for Peace conference:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/convention05/resolutions_passed_2005.htm
On this link you will find an example in detail of a racist Zionist lies and distortions (and threats). At Piping The Day you will see:
1) The Original and Excellent Article by Dr. Fouda on "Double Standard on Islam"
2) Letter from Daniel Pipes Threatening Legal Action
3) Dr. Fouda's letter documenting that Pipes is not telling the truth in his letter
4) The Day misleading "Correction" put out even after the above letter was sent to them
5) Article by Dan Levine on the subject of the Day's buckling to threat
6) Letter from Liz Viering Published in the Day
=================
8/15/05
Academics For Justice Action Alert
Act now to ensure fair hearing for Norman Finkelstein’s excellent new book
Action Required:
Write and call bookstores that have canceled an appearance by Norman Finkelstein and also host Finkelstein in your town (see below)
Background:
- After several months of close editing and legal wrangling, the Univ. of California Press is publishing Professor Norman G. Finkelstein's much anticipated book, “Beyond Chutzpah: The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History”. Alan M. Dershowitz, and his supporters engaged in a campaign of intimidation and abuse against Finkelstein’s book because it exposes the lies and distortions of Dershowitz's “The Case for Israel.” See also these two articles in the Nation and Counterpunch
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20050711&s=wiener
http://www.counterpunch.com/farley08132005.html
- Now that Dershowitz has been unsuccessful in blocking the publication of “Beyond Chutzpah”, he has resorted to character assassination, comparing Finkelstein -- whose own parents experienced the brutality and horrors of Nazi concentration camps firsthand -- to "a neo-Nazi" and "a Holocaust denier."
- There are few opportunities for the U.S. public to learn the most basic facts about the U.S.-Israel-Palestine conflict and the distortions of Zionist-apologists like Dershowitz.
- Finkelstein is an excellent speaker who attracts audiences interested to hear about Israel's U.S.-funded colonization and the “Chutzpah” of lies and delusions that prevent US Taxpayers from learning the truth.
ACTION:
1) Write and call these two bookstores that rescinded invitations to host an event for “Beyond Chutzpah” asking them to reextend the invitation:
- Harvard Bookstore, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge MA 02138 (original Invitation that was canceled September 29, 2005). Email: MLamphier@harvard.com, CHorne@harvard.com, ADarling@Harvard.com. Telephone: 1-800-542-READ, 1-617-661-1515.
- Barnes and Noble, at DePaul University, 122 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011 (originally scheduled an event for September 2005, rescinded on the orders of the corporate headquarters, B&N will host an event for Alan Dershowitz's book). You might want to express your opinion of this intellectual consistency. Email: DCobb@bn.com, JPenque@bncollege.com Telephone: Donna Cobb (author promotion), 1-212-633-4089 and Jeff Penque, 908-991-2153.
2) Invite Finkelstein to speak to your campus, church, synagogue, mosque etc. See http://www.normanfinkelstein.com for more details.
3) Contact local bookstores and suggest they order Finkelstein’s “Beyond Chutzpah” and ask that they host a book signing event.
Academics For Justice is is a group of over 1000 academics working for justice and human rights, to defend academic freedom of speech and association, to educate the public, and to help bring about peace with justice. The Academic and Research Community traditionally played an important role in advancing justice and human rights throughout the world. A current area of emphasis is working toward a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We challenge fellow academics to work with us in the same methods we used to isolate apartheid South Africa (including divestments and boycotts). We work with other faculty, staff, and students on campuses around the world and with our communities to effect change. For more information, visit http://academicsforjustice.org
============
8/10/05
A book review of "The Question of Zion", Princeton University Press. "Brave is the scholar who embarks, as Jacqueline Rose has done in The Question of Zion, on a critical analysis of the ideology that created modern Israel. Braver still is the writer who uses this analysis to diagnose that country with a dangerous, possibly fatal pathology contracted at birth. Few subjects stir as much passion and draw as much poison-penned invective." More at
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,1529941,00.html
Palestinian NGO Network statement on the "disengagement" from Gaza "PNGO views the disengagement plan as a trade-off meant to legitimize the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including in and around Jerusalem, which are currently under expansion, as well as the Separation and Annexation Wall, which is being erected in violation of international law." More at
http://www.eutopic.lautre.net/coordination/article.php3?id_article=329
Palestine is still the issue, new article by Mazin Qumsiyeh
Blog from Occupied Palestine
"The refugees in Aida come from 27 different villages, and none of the refugees have been allowed to return. Instead, they must live in crowded refugee camps. Israel's confiscation of their lands and property has left the families in generational poverty. ..I was shown pictures from the villages. Many are now grazing fields for cattle (stolen from people and given to animals). Some are totally empty now. Obviously, Arabs could return to those lands easily. But Israel wants to maintain a Jewish majority. ...The kids were so touched by this trip that they want to do it again. And this time they want to bring trees to plant, to plant something in what is rightfully their land... so they can remember and hope for justice." More at
http://christowne.blogspot.com/
============
8/3/05
Good news this week: the overthrough of the Mauritanian dictator who was a lackey of US and Israeli governments. Other news and suggested actions:
Please attend and ask your church group to attend Friends of Sabeel Conferences around the US and in Canada: http://www.fosna.org/
You can listen to an interview with me live at 1 PM EST Friday at http://www.wmnf.org available on the internet everywhere and in Tampa area, Florida on the dial
Israel continues colony/settlement expansion in the West Bank http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/608691.html
Muslims should not apologize for thugs
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/melkikhia/stories/MYSA072905.02O.mansour.1c2094ec.html
Palestine, the anti-war movement and the quest for genuine unity by Toufic Haddad
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=1&ItemID=8392
Campus anti-war Network statement on Unity for September 24
http://www.campusantiwar.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=2
A note on Iraq and Palestine: Thinking of Israel as an arm of US Imperialism (military industrial complex) or thinking that Israel's lobby is the driving force behind everything are two extremes. The truth is ofcourse somewhere in the middle. I urge all to educate ourselves on these issues because there is an organic link between Iraq and Palestine (and it is not the same as say Iraq and Haiti or Iraq and Venezuella). A great and well articulated reason (articulated by architects like Pasul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and other Zionist neocons) for this war on Iraq is for Israel. "Project for the New American Century," the devastating Perle document "A Clean Break" and others amply illustrate this. IMHO Iraq will continue to be a magnet of resistance fighters pouring in from other Arab and Islamic countries as long as Israel is supported in its continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
See these links for resources:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/706/op60.htm
http://www.al-awda.org/thewaroniraq/
http://qumsiyeh.org/neoconsisraelandthebushadministration/
http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2005-04-14.htm
CFL ACTION ALERT
SEND OUR PREWRITTEN LETTER NOW: http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/CFLWeb/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1060
OR, WRITE YOUR OWN:
*********************************
Citizens for Fair Legislation For Immediate Release August 3, 2005
CFL ALERT: TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE TREATMENT
AND ILLEGAL DETENTION OF CHILD PRISONERS IN PALESTINE AND IRAQ.
TALKING POINTS:
*Please take a moment to write to your representatives and ask them to speak out against the illegal detention of children in Iraq and Palestine. Reports on the abuse at Abu Ghraib indicate that the Pentagon has proof (photographs and video) that detained Iraqi children are being sodomized and raped by American soldiers. In Israel, Palestinian children are also being held indiscriminately and illegally in violation of international law and human rights law. Reports by Israeli human rights organizations indicate that like Iraqi children, Palestinian child detainees are regularly tortured and not allowed visits by either the Red Cross or their parents.
* In a report written last year called, ‘Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children’ the authors interviewed a teenager who gave the following description of his treatment by the Israeli military: "Three more people in masks came into the room. They blindfolded me, put a hood over my head... they kicked and slapped me. They beat me with a plastic pipe and whatever they could get their hands on. I couldn't see anything because I was blindfolded. I just felt the blows. That lasted ten to fifteen minutes... Later they stood me on a chair and told me to grab a pipe that was fixed to the wall. They removed the chair from under me and left me hanging in the air,
with my handcuffed hands holding onto the pipe and the weight of my body, hanging in the air, drawing my hands downwards. They left the room." - Ismail Sabatin, 17 years old. Palestinian children being held by the Israeli military range between the ages of 9-17 years old, many
of these children are being held without charges, others have been held for months for merely throwing stones at Israeli tanks. Tell your representatives that because we give $12 billion dollars in American welfare to Israel a year that we have a moral obligation to demand that the Israelis end this despicable treatment of Palestinian children.
*Treatment of Iraqi children under the U.S. occupation forces is no better. Last week the Pentagon blocked the release of pictures of Iraqi children being raped and sodomized by American soldiers as publication of those pictures would have been a public relations disaster of the U.S. In an expose done by the Sunday Herald late last year a child witness of the abuse at Abu Ghraib gave a statement to investigators saying that he witnessed the rape of a boy who was 15 years old: “The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door … and I saw the soldier’s name is deleted who was wearing a military
uniform.” The witness then described in graphic details how he witnessed that soldier rape “the little kid”.
*The abuse of children by the United States and by the U.S.’s staunchest ally in the Middle East is unacceptable; it’s time that we held our government accountable for the blatant violations of human rights occurring in Iraq and Palestine. Tell your representatives that you feel that the illegal detention of Palestinian and Iraqi children is deplorable and that as your elected officials you expect them to
speak out against the cruel treatment of children. Remind your elected officials that none of these actions in Iraq or Palestine could occur without the tacit approval of the U.S. government.
EMAIL AND OR CALL THE WHITE HOUSE
WHITE HOUSE COMMENTS LINE: 202-456-1111
WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: 202-456-1414
WHITE HOUSE FAX: 202-456-2461
Citizens for Fair Legislation is a grassroots organization committed to encouraging a fair domestic and foreign policy with an emphasis on the US/Arab world. http://www.cflweb.org
=================
7/19/05
Lawyers Challenge EU and UK over inaction on Palestine one year after International Court Ruling http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=10331
National Education Association is moving in the right direction on the illegal war on Iraq (a "sea change" according to USLAW) http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=8486
Urgent Warning about what may come after the so called "disengagement" from Gaza: Three Israelis explain
and ask us to sign and circulate this alarm http://www.counterpunch.org/davis07162005.html
1001 lies about Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/1001lies.html
O Palestine, new poem posted
============
7/16/05
- United Nations meeting in suppot of Middle East Peace concludes with adoption of action plan by Palestinian civil society:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6EA38R?OpenDocument
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3993.shtml
Original Palestinian Civil Society plan posted at http://www.badil.org/Boycott-Statement.htm
- Friedman misleads again: Article by Prof. Juan Cole on Islamic condemnation of Bin Laden
http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/friedman-wrong-about-muslims-again-and.html
- From Jeff, posted at Al-Awda-NY/NJ: The following letter was sent to the San Francisco Bay View, the Bay Area' s award winning Black newspaper and will give you an idea of the extent that Israeli diplomats are attempting to go to influence what is published in the African-American press and the US media in general. This is forwarded with permission of the Bay View. Check it out. http://www.sfbayview.com/
Jeff
Dear San Francisco Bay View,
I would like to take this time to introduce myself. I am the Press Officer at the Consulate General of Israel in San Francisco. This position allows me to provide you with official government reactions as well as background information for all stories dealing with Israel.
As we approach August, the Bay View will surely be publishing more articles about Israel, especially relating to the Israeli government’s plan to unilaterally disengage from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.
I think it would be helpful to meet with you or someone from your staff about the way your paper covers this historic event. I hope you will take this opportunity to get in touch with me so that you can be better informed of the situation from Israel’s perspective. Hopefully this will lead to a better product on your end.
Please let me know of your interest regarding an introductory meeting or any other way my office can assist you.
Sincerely,
Jarad Bernstein
Jarad Bernstein, Press Officer, Consulate General of Israel, 456 Montgomery St., Suite #2100, San Francisco, CA 94104, Tel.: 415-844-7507, Fax: 415-844-7555 E-mail: press@sanfrancisco.mfa.gov.il
NOTE: It would be nice if local activist groups mobilize to meet with editors and provide the needed resources and articles showing the lies and distortions of Israeli governments (the Hasbara project). I would be happy to help in that regard and there are other groups that would be useful such as IfAmericansKnew.org
- Middle East Information Service provides digests of Middle East Coverage in German media: http://www.anis-online.de/meis/about.htm
It would be really good to start thinking about having a similar service in the US. Perhaps an expansion of the project electronic intifada? I would be happy to donate to such a project.
- War for the empire of lies continues to wreak havoc in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere. US President Bush continues ignoring the growing public demands to end the latest illegal war and seems to be planning others (e.g. Iran). US taxpayers foot the bill (over 180 billion in Iraq and over 150 billion to support Israel's colonization of Palestine). Israel is now demanding an additional $2.2 billion while building an illegal apartheid wall separating Jerusalem from its Palestinian suburbs and natives from their lands and livelihoods. On September 24th, hundreds of thousands of people will gather in Washington DC to challenge the drive for empire and colonization and to ask that people's needs be put ahead of corporate greed.
As you know there was a unified action of the two major anti-war coalitions in 2003 and 2004. This year, there appears to be plans to hold separate marches. For background on the two coalitions positions on unified actions, see
http://www.internationalanswer.org/ (click on upper right hand side bar "Can there be a unified mass demonstration..")
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2966
A group of activists and a number of organizations have called for unified marches. We join all genuine efforts for a unified march. Considering that this was done before, it would seem logical to insist on unity based on principles that ANSWER and UFPJ espoused earlier. Thus, we call on UFPJ and ANSWER to do all they can to join in one unified demonstration in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 24, based on their own prior commitments to "End the Occupation in Iraq" and "End the Occupation in Palestine."
This is the joint call for March 20, 2004 demonstration which can still be adopted by the national coalitions for September 24th:
JOINT STATEMENT BETWEEN MARCH 20th MOBILIZING COMMITTEE AND MARCH 20th NATIONAL COALITION CONCERNING NEW YORK CITY MARCH AND RALLY
On March 20th, the one year anniversary of the U.S. war against Iraq, a Global Day of Action will bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets in cities around the world. In New York City the March 20th Mobilizing Committee and the March 20th National Coalition are organizing a unified demonstration opposing the criminal and empire-building policies of the Bush administration and their impact abroad and at home. We will march for an end to the U.S. occupation and corporate control of Iraq and to bring the troops home now. We will march for an end to the occupation of Palestine. We will march to fund human needs, restore cuts in social programs and against the ever-expanding attacks on all immigrants, labor rights and everyone's civil liberties - and we will stand united against racism here and abroad. We represent diverse communities and organizations opposed to the Bush Administration policies for many reasons, but on March 20th we will march together. By working together our two coalitions are confident we will mobilize a massive turnout on March 20th and send a strong, clear message.
The updated joint statement would then read the same except for changing March 20th to Sept 24th. Having a united front at this critical juncture is very important. After the march and rally, we would hope that both national coalitions reflect on ways to empower the grassroots and build this movement in a democratic and transparent fashion.
All out for September 24th.
==========
7/13/05
Chutzpah and free speech (on Dershowitz and his fraud)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-wiener11jul11,1,6360784.story?amp;cset=true&ctrack=1&cset=true
More on this topic at Norman Finkelstein's website at http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/
39,000 Killed in Iraq http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15901883-38201,00.html
Barrier Meant to Ensure Jewish Majority, Associated Press 11 July 2005 "Israel's separation barrier in Jerusalem is meant to ensure a Jewish majority in the city and not just serve as a
buffer against bombers, an Israeli Cabinet minister acknowledged Monday." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071100257.html
Gate to nowhere, By Amira Hass. Haaretz (how Israel is committing land theft and claiming humanitarian concerns): http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/597434.html
United Nations reports on humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian areas http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/
US taxpayers to foot the bill for Israel's unilateral moves Israel requesting additional $2.2 billion in US largesse. BBC News Online http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4671169.stm
"Is the world blind? Two more Palestinian homes demolished." (Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions) http://www.icahd.org/eng/
One year on: Governments have obligations to hold Israel to account. By Jeff Handmaker, Peter Malcontent and Gentian Zyberi. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3974.shtml
Did you act recently? Check What you can do
=================
7/9/05
As usual, many of the US mainstream media tailor their news to benefit special interests and show as little as possible of the reality. Instead they bring racist bigots like Steve Emerson (a Zionist and anti-Muslim) to lie and distort reality. It is incumbent upon all of us to challenge this media hegemony and utilize alternative media (including the internet) to speak truth to power. Here again are some things you will not see on Fox, CNN, or main US newspapers.
American Muslim organizations condemn terrorist attacks in London
http://www.masnet.org/takeaction.asp?id=2594
http://mpac.org/home_article_display.aspx?ITEM=790
http://icna.org/pr_london_attacks.htm
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050707/dcth034.html?.v=19
http://isna.net/index.php?id=35&backPID=1&tt_news=220
-Israeli colonies destroy Palestinian environment
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4081672.stm more on this topic at http://arij.org
-Kenyan Anglican Church backs divestment from Israel
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_63421_ENG_HTM.htm
The United Church of Christ joined the long list of Churches calling on Israel to tear down the wall and supporting divestments as tools to end Israeli occupation (two resolutions posted at http://www.ucc.org/ ). The resolution on on the wall reads in part "the 25th General Synod of the United Church of Christ calls upon the Israeli government to cease the project to construct the barrier, tear down the segments that have already been constructed, and make reparations to those who have lost homes, fields, property, and/or lives and health due to the barrier and its effects as security for both peoples can best be achieved through an end to the occupation and efforts to encourage access and contact, rather than restricting and denying it;..." The one on using economic pressure "calls upon the Covenanted Ministries, Pension Boards, United Church Foundation, Conferences, local churches and members to use economic leverage, including, but not limited to: advocating the reallocation of US foreign aid so that the militarization of the Middle East is constrained; making positive contributions to groups and partners committed to the non-violent resolution of the conflict; challenging the practices of corporations that gain from the continuation of the conflict; and divesting from those companies that refuse to change their practices of gain from the perpetuation of violence, including the Occupation.."
more on divestments and boycotts at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/boycottsanddivestment/
-There is a settler in every Israeli http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/596329.html
-The first classical concert dedicated to Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall. Donations and support appreciated http://weepingskies.blogspot.com
-4,050 Palestinians killed during intifada: report " According to the report, the number of Palestinians killed during the intifada, is 4,050, including 751 children, 236 women, 344 security men, 836 students and teachers and 325 militants."
http://english1.peopledaily.com.cn/200507/04/eng20050704_193806.html
-Daniel Ellsberg: I wrote Bush's war words .. in 1965 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9370.htm
===============
7/5/05
Silence is complicity
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has” Margaret Mead
I add "The greatest impediment to action is the mistaken lack of beliefe in one's own abilities to effect change"
- July 9th will mark the one year anniversary of the ruling by the International Court of Justice on the illegality of the apartheid wall Israel is building on Palestinian land. This was a seminal ruling that also (unanimously) recognized all occupied areas (including East Jerusalem) as subject to the Geneva convention. All settlement/colonial Zionist activities are thus illegal. Today, Israeli governments were exposed to have lied that the fence was strictly for security measures and was a temporary barier that can be moved. See story in Haaretz how governments lie http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/595610.html
There is a call to ACT on this issues. You can write editors etc. See http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/945.shtml
- Gross Misinformation: the media in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict By Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada 4 July 2005 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3963.shtml
- A new book: "Arab voices speak to America." Congressman Paul Findley wrote about this: "This book should stimulate a powerful movement down the road to a just peace. It is a must read, especially for the Americans who have no Arab ancestry. Through fascinating personal interviews with Arabs in private life in the Middle East, this book identifies shocking made-in-America Ground Zero that Arabs resent deeply. In remarkable candor, the interviews explain the critical steps the U.S. government must take before America will once again be revered throughout the region."
http://www.arabvoicesspeak.com/
- The "third category" and the Palestine solidarity movement: Jewish identity, Zionism and Palestine (article by Gilad Atzmon) http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/gatzmon6.htm
- Ariel Sharon frequently quotes Vladimir Jabotinsky, the ideological grandfather of the ruling Likud party in Israel. Most recently, Sharon used Jabotinsky in exlaining how disengagement from Gaza would help strengthen settlements in the West Bank and retain US support for rejection of international law on issues like Jerusalem and refugees. Here is a quote from Jabotinsky with a clear articulation (and prophetic description) of the Arab-Israeli conflict and world troubles that emanate from that (including the US invasion of Iraq) written in 1923 (well be fore the major waves of ethnic cleansing of Native Palestinians):
"Every reader has some idea of the early history of other countries which have been settled. I suggest that he recall all known instances. If he should attempt to seek but one instance of a country settled with the consent of those born there he will not succeed. The inhabitants (no matter whether they are civilized or savages) have always put up a stubborn fight. Furthermore, how the settler acted had no effect whatsoever. The Spaniards who conquered Mexico and Peru, or our own ancestors in the days of Joshua ben Nun behaved, one might say, like plunderers.
... Compromisers in our midst attempt to convince us that the Arabs are some kind of fools who can be tricked by a softened formulation of our goals, or a tribe of money grubbers who will abandon their birth right to Palestine for cultural and economic gains. I flatly reject this assessment of the Palestinian Arabs. Culturally they are 500 years behind us, spiritually they do not have our endurance or our strength of will, but this exhausts all of the internal differences. We can talk as much as we want about our good intentions; but they understand as well as we what is not good for them. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie.
... It is of no importance whether we quote Herzl or Herbert Samuel Zionist Commissioner of British Mandate in Palestine in the 1920s to justify our activities. Colonization itself has its own explanation, integral and inescapable, and understood by every Arab and every Jew with his wits about him. Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible.
... Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy. Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with our efforts.Every reader has some idea of the early history of other countries which have been settled. I suggest that he recall all known instances. If he should attempt to seek but one instance of a country settled with the consent of those born there he will not succeed. The inhabitants (no matter whether they are civilized or savages) have always put up a stubborn fight. Furthermore, how the settler acted had no effect whatsoever. The Spaniards who conquered Mexico and Peru, or our own ancestors in the days of Joshua ben Nun behaved, one might say, like plunderers. " From Vladimir Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall: We and the Arabs" First published in Russian under the title "O Zheleznoi Stene" in Rasswyet," November 4, 1923. Translated by Lenni Brenner. It can be downloaded at http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
=====================
6/29/05
- The visit and theater performances by the Palestinian Refugee Children in the US so far were great, inspiring, and highly successful. In CT, nearly one hundred attended the performance at Falls Village, over a thousand at Grove Festival, and over 250 at the Sunday performance in Hartfored. I posted some pictures here:
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/alrowwad/
(I do not have photos for Grove and Falls Village, photos 1-14 re at Hartford, photos 15-22 are at picnic hosted by Palestinian American Community, photos 23-28 are during trip to Six Flags amusement park, last four photos are en route to VT). Please send me any pictures or stories you may have. For upcoming schedule in Vermont and Kentucky, see
http://alrowwad.blogspot.com/
- A historical joint statement from Iraqi Labor Leaders and US Labor Leaders (against war and occupation). Excerpt: "The principal obstacle to peace, stability, and the reconstruction of Iraq is the occupation. The occupation is the problem, not the solution. Iraqi sovereignty and independence must be restored. The occupation must end in all its forms, including military bases and economic domination. The war was fought for oil and regional domination, in violation of international law, justified by lies and deception without consultation with the Iraqi people. The occupation has been a catastrophe for both our peoples." MORE AT:
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=8371
- Review by Dr. Anis Hamadeh in English and German of my book "Sharing the Land of Canaan" http://www.anis-online.de/pages/_22-ebene/ton16.htm more reviews and comments at http://qumsiyeh.org/sharingthelandofcanaan
- Giving Chutzpah new meaning by Jon Wiener http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050711&s=wiener
- The return of refugees: A key to peace http://www.plands.org/speechs/1.htm
====================
6/23/05
Must read: Confronting Israeli Myth-Making by ex-CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Chistison(the lies Zionists make are so brazen and repeated so often assuming any truth telling can be dismissed as "anti-Semitic")
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison06222005.html
Haifa: Peaceful town with a silent pain (a story of Zionist efforts at ethnically cleansing Palestine of its native inhabitants; Haifa, "the
Bride of the Mediterranean", is a Palestinian city that was devastated)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3936.shtml
Human Rights Watch says that the Israeli army investigation of Palestinian deaths a 'sham'
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/iopt0605/1.htm#_Toc106249162
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/591103.html
(A bill in the Israeli Knesset actually proposes immunity from civil law suits for any actions in the occupied areas that harms Palestinians but not settlers)
On "The Onion": Democratic Middle East Union votes to Invade US and much more (Humor) http://www.theonion.com/
Updated list of US vetoes to shield Israel from criticism by the UN Security Council (39 vetoes) http://www.wrmea.com/archives/May-June_2005/0505014.html
We must try harder (for peace and justice) an article that explains the importance of actions like boycotts and divestment http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=4502
The myth of incitement in Palestinian schools (this is an oft repeated smear by Zionists trying to distract world attention from continued colonization activities and ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3923.shtml
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=911
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/47093.pdf
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/pal_children.pdf
http://www.mideastjournal.com/textbookswars.html
http://www.geocities.com/nathanbrown1/CAJE.htm
Good resource of information and commentaries
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/
http://www.mediareviewnet.com/
===============
6/13/05
1) Photos from Recent Events in Connecticut in June. I am sure thousands of such events are held around the US suggesting a momentum in this country for peace with justice and against war and US imperialism. Picnic in support of Al-Rowwad theater visit (June 4th) http://www.al-awda.org/alrowwadfundraiser/
American Friends Service Committee Annual Banquet (June 11) http://www.qumsiyeh.org/afscdinner/
Danbury Unity March in support of immigrant Rights (June 12) http://www.qumsiyeh.org/danburyunitymarch/
For upcoming events in CT, visit http://www.al-awda.org/ctupcomingevents/
2) Statement from Palestinain health and affiliated organizations on issues of boycotts and cooperation http://www.qumsiyeh.org/healthcooperation/
3) Story on Wheels of Justice in this months issue
Wheels of Justice Roll Through Iowa
By Michael Gillespie
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
July 2005, p. 90, 431 words
Human rights activists Ed Kinane and Mazin Qumsiyeh spoke to large and receptive audiences when the Wheels of Justice Tour bus rolled through Iowa in April.
Kinane, who worked with Voices in the Wilderness in Iraq before, during, and after the U.S. invasion in 2003, spoke to a large and receptive audience at the Ames Public Library on April 22.
“The building would shake during ‘Shock and Awe’ bombing,” said Kinane, who, along with dozens of other activists, sheltered in the Al-Fanar Hotel, directly across from the Palestine Hotel, during the invasion.
“This may have been the first time in history an invading army encountered its own nationals protesting the invasion,” said Kinane.
“I had so much anger that I couldn’t hand them the water. I just stood there,” said Kinane, describing his first encounter with U.S. troops in Baghdad, when he and other Voices in the Wilderness activists approached the invading troops outside the hotel to offer them bottled water. Kinane said that, at the time, he was wearing a black T-shirt with the statement WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER emblazoned in bold white letters across the chest.
Kinane told this reporter that one of the unit commanders later said to him, “Don’t blame these kids. I give the orders. I know we’ve killed civilians, and I can’t sleep because of it.”
A New-York-based activist, Kinane modestly described himself as “the warm-up act” for Palestinian-American university professor and activist Mazin Qumsiyeh.
Qumsiyeh, widely recognized as an authority on Palestine and the Israeli-Palestine conflict, told his audience that the Wheels of Justice Tour’s mission encompasses not only the crisis in illegally-occupied Palestine but similar human rights issues in Iraq and beyond.
“Half of the people in Iraq and half of the people in Palestine are children. And half of the Palestinian refugees are children,” said Qumsiyeh.
“Of the 8.5 million Palestinians in the world, two-thirds of them are refugees and half of these refugees and half of the Palestinian general population are children,” said Qumsiyeh, noting that at least 750 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in the past four years alone.
Qumsiyeh humanized the Palestinians and their plight by presenting the stories of two Palestinian children wounded by Israeli sniper fire who have been brought to the United States for medical care in Connecticut that is not available in occupied Palestine.
Using maps and photographs, Qumsiyeh offered his listeners a compelling picture and informative narrative of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Qumsiyeh recently returned from Palestine where he visited with members of his Palestinian-Arab-Christian family in Beit Sahour (house of the shepherds) and with Palestinian and Israeli human rights leaders. His book, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Pluto Press, 2004), is a comprehensive examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a call for a shared state.
Vietnam veteran and peace activist Bill Hill drives the Wheels of Justice Tour bus and contributes significantly to the jaunty and defiantly good-natured rolling protest against war and occupation.
The Wheels of Justice Tour http://www.justicewheels.org/ event in Ames was co-sponsored by the Ames High School Progressive Club, Catalyst, and the Ames Public Library.
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." Howard Zinn (You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A personal history of our times, p. 208)
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6/9/05
Is Israel unique New Article
=============
6/2/05
A Two-State Solution is No Solution: Thinking Outside the Box on Israel / Palestine By Mazin Qumsiyeh, Counterpunch 6/2/05
http://www.counterpunch.org/mazin06022005.html Also posted at Thinking outside the box
==============
5/30/05
Photos from picnic held by Palestine American Congress and Al-Awda-CT May 29, 2005 in Manchester, CT http://www.al-awda.org/wickhampicnic/
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/wickhampicnic/
Story in the Hartford Courant
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-pacpicnic0530.artmay30,0,5255689.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
The Jewish Threat -- Real or Imaginary? -- Trying to learn the truth", George Salzman, Apr 9, 2005
at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2005-04-09.htm
"The Israel Lobby and the Left -- Uneasy questions", Jeff Blankfort, Jan 2003 at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2005-04-10.htm
"War for Israel", Jeff Blankfort, Jan 2004 at http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2005-04-14.htm
Finally this excellent article by Justine McCabe of the Connecticut Green Party and Al-Awda Chapter in CT. Please take time to write io-eds and letters to editor of newpapers. Some hints ffor media work are at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/activistmanual/
What Indians And Palestinians Share By JUSTINE MCCABE
Published on 5/29/2005, The Day, New London
Controversy over Indian rights in Connecticut recently intensified when the federal government reversed its recognition of Stonington's Eastern Pequots and Kent-based Schaghticoke tribes. Overall, officials and the public appear pleased. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, “One reason this is so historic is because no positive recognition decision has been reversed before. This is a first for the nation, which makes it all the more significant and satisfying,” according to The Litchfield County Times.
Clearly, it's not satisfying for Connecticut's indigenous peoples as their rights and attachment to the land continue to be challenged even centuries after first contact with European settlers.
Due-process arguments put into high relief the irony experienced by America's native peoples in obtaining recognition: they must prove they exist. They must demonstrate that their people and cultures actually survived government intentions to eradicate them and seize land on which survival depended.
Meanwhile, the original injustice is submerged in a bureaucratic system organized to disavow it: even applying for BIA recognition costs millions, encouraging many tribes to resort to casino investors despite their corruption of traditional native values. Indian participation (let alone success) in this admittedly suspect process arouses only insecurity and hostility among my non-Indian Kent neighbors. Tellingly, references to original dispossession and the enduring traumatic impact of European contact are circumvented. Expressions of collective responsibility or apologies are absent.
Most Americans experience a kind of collective denial about our shameful history. Yet its legacy lives dangerously on — not just at home but also in our foreign policy.
As Attorney General Blumenthal began challenging Schaghticoke recognition, then-Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas was visiting some of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in camps in Lebanon, reassuring them that their right to return to their homes in what is now Israel would not be abandoned in future negotiations.
There are more than 6 million Palestinian refugees who have been waiting to go home since the 1947-49 Naqba(“catastrophe”). Most refugees live within 60 miles of their former homes, some close enough to see and weep for lost orchards and fields.
Like America's native peoples, Palestinians bear the burden of proof of their existence and right to their ancestral lands.
Possession of keys and deeds, or official registration as refugees with the U.N. haven't succeeded. Neither has international law. In fact, in keeping with several bodies of law, the U.N. explicitly conditioned Israel's 1949 U.N. admittance on its implementation of Resolution 194 affirming Palestinians' inalienable right to return home. Despite this, Israel has refused to allow its native peoples to return. The U.S. has implicitly supported this since the Truman administration.
Indeed, American Indian dispossession is older than that of the Palestinians. But the same national formative act — and its denial — constitute a significant component of the “special relationship” touted between the U.S. and Israel. This denial begs attention to fully explicate the complacency of American foreign policy in the face of undeniable antipathy toward the U.S. that has only grown since the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Like Americans, Israelis “know” what their own historians have amply documented: Palestinian dispossession is the foundation of their state. Between 1947 and 1949, more than 75 percent of the native population was expelled by Zionist forces that seized their lands for exclusive Jewish-Israeli use. Then, in 1967, 35 percent of the population of Palestinian Gaza and the West Bank were forced out, some made refugees twice in a generation.
But for Palestinians and Israelis, this colonial past is present.
Every day since 1967, the 3.3 million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories continue to experience the post-modern version of manifest destiny: 400,000 Jewish settlers facilitate an ongoing Israeli land grab — 200,000 during the Oslo “peace” period. In the past four years alone, Israel confiscated over 56,000 acres of Palestinian land, razed another 18,000 acres of farmland, uprooted over 1.1 million trees. Over 250 miles of Israeli-only bypass roads and hundreds of checkpoints have created more than 200 disconnected Palestinian reservations. Even if Israel evacuates Gaza, Prime Minister Sharon insists that the huge (illegal) West Bank settlements will stay. His intention is underscored by the soon-to-be-completed “separation” wall, which will seize another 15 percent of West Bank land and leave 600,000 Palestinians in an open-air prison between it and the Green Line.
Meanwhile, Israel's non-Jewish citizens cannot rent, own or live on “state” lands reserved exclusively for Jews — 93 percent of the country. Under Israel's Law of Return, any Jew born anywhere can immigrate to Israel and become a citizen, yet indigenous refugees cannot go home.
Why does Israel continue violating international law? Its answer embraces that historically familiar — but no less ethnocentric — assertion: to maintain its “Jewish” character. Yet even within the Green Line, Israel is now, and has always been, a multicultural land where about 28 percent of its citizens are non-Jews, including at least 20 percent who are Palestinian.
But to the world's formerly colonized people — the vast majority of the world's population—there's strong identification with the injustice to Palestinians that sustains hostility toward Israel and the U.S., and threatens the security of Americans as well as Israelis. At the deepest psychological level, American Indians and Palestinians bear witness to the fact that human attachment to home and land can neither be dismissed nor divided by politicians with impunity.
But it's not too late. Israel has not reached the entrenched U.S. condition that reduced American Indians to less than 1 percent of our population (about a third of whom live on reservations to which they were confined over a century ago). Instead, 78 percent of Jewish-Israelis occupy only 15 percent of the country, making it feasible for Palestinian refugees to return to largely unoccupied land with little displacement of Israelis living there now. Sharing the land is a matter of fairness and international will, not viability.
Like the European colonization of America, the colonization of Palestine began with the imperial mindset that particularly flourished in the 19th century. We give Israel billions of dollars annually in aid, weapons and political support to underwrite those 19th-century colonial practices for which, surely, most 21st century Americans and Europeans are ashamed, however much they may want to forget.
We cannot return to colonial America to undo the degradation of our own native peoples. But we can act to make sure ethnic cleansing doesn't continue in Palestine, now, in our names and with our money.
Justine McCabe, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist and clinical psychologist who lives in New Milford.
===============
5/23/05
As more land confiscation goes on, more unjust laws instituted, more US tax money flows to support occupation and oppression, and more Iraqis and Palestinians suffer needlessly, some good folks speak out and millions choose to become involved citizens rather than accept roles of "consumers" and "patriots" of unjust governments. The pressure from citizens made a huge difference in the way many governments from Europe to Venezuella to Brazil and Lebanon stood up and showed some spine against unjust US government demands (a government beholden to narrow special interests). The conference of Latin American and Arab countries moved forward despite all the attempts to scuttle it by the US. More and more real democracy is developing (as opposed to the fake talk of "demcracy" and "freedom" by the Bush administration as it continues to prop repressive regimes from Israel to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Jordan and Egypt). Dare we hope that the US and Israel will be next to undergo a transformation (now the two countries with the highest disparities between rich and poor citizens among all the nations of the world)? Dare we act?
Photos by the Christian Peacemaker Team in Hebron of Graffiti messages by State sponsored settlers (500 racists in Hebron, aided by 3000 Israeli soldiers). Click on the photos to enlarge them.
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album03
Occupation forces confiscate more Palestinain land around Bethlehem, continue building the apartheid wall http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/917.shtml
maps at http://stopthewall.org/maps/177.shtml
It will never be just, By Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly, The State of Israel this week took another step forward in formalising the mass theft of Palestinian property and lands, writes
Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/743/re2.htm
Israeli anthropolgy (aided by extremist Zionist anthropologists in the US) is in the service of racism. These exchanges involving Smanadar Lavie and the "establishment" is educational
http://www.ha-keshet.org.il/articles.asp?article_id=192
http://www.ha-keshet.org.il/pictures/an.2005.46.5.3.pdf
But then again, even a supposed liberal Israeli University (Haifa University) hosted a conference that is racist and anti-Arab. See this message from Ilan Pappe
From Ilan Pappe, this evening:
This morning a group of Palestinian and Jewish students demonstrated outside the hall of the conference in the university of Haifa titled 'The demographic problem and the Demographic policy of Israel' – the euphemism used for talking about the Arab Demographic threat and the need to encounter it; by transfer even, if need be. The posters against the conference were brutally torn and taken away by the security guards of the university, bruising and beating some of the students on the way. The students were unable to go into the hall as a wall – what else – of tables and chairs blocked their way into the seats. Cameras were working overtime, taking photos of the Arab students, so that they could be charged with violating public order and brought in front of a disciplinary committee.
My student, L. H., a fragile young Palestine woman, succeeded in getting in: "they thought I was Jewish", she told me later. She managed to stay calm when one demographer elaborated on the dangers of loosing a Jewish majority, and even when Professor Arnon Sofer, claimed that it was me who sent the students to demonstrate as part of my alliance with 'contemptible' Europe and 'despicable' Britain. She even sat through when he explained that he will not allow Tel-Aviv to become Cairo. The kind of rhetoric one hears in the meetings of the national fronts meetings across Europe and in the neo-Nazi rallies in Berlin. Here it was in an academic conference sponsored and honoured by the Rector.
But she had enough when Yoav Gleber claimed that any numbers of Palestinians living before 1948 were fabricated for political reasons, and in any case if he had to choose between a Jewish State and a Democracy, he prefers the former. She stood up and condemned him and was silenced by the crowed as being stupid and later ushered out of the meeting by the security people.
L.H. is afraid to go into classes today if this is the university she studies in. But she will overcome her fear and continue to demand what is hers by right and virtue. The important question what does it tell us of the University of Haifa. The speakers in the conference came from among its top professors, but also the demonstrators came from that university. The former threw out the latter: oppressed and silenced them. Another question is how best can we help the Palestinian and Jewish students who demonstrated bravely and will be probably charged? I have answered these questions in the past and suggested that only outside pressure can help, but far more important is the question of what will happen if nothing is done? Can you, like me, conjecture the titles of next year's conferences: 'The Meaning and Objective of Transfer'; 'Encouraging Abortion Among Palestinian Women' etc. Sometimes you feel that the authorities of this university deserve every bit of the trouble that came its way recently.
==================
Study Reveals TV News Vastly Underreports Palestinian Children's
Deaths, If Americans Knew, 10 May 2005
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3833.shtml
Its not the boycott stupid its the occupation
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=2215
Democracy and rights are also for Palestinian Refugees
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/printer3829.shtml
http://www.civitas-online.org
On Current Issues TV topics are diverse and interesting. This week on lobbies in Washington and on the Al-Nakba (the catastrphic ethnic cleansing of over 500 villages in Palestine by Zionist forces). Go to http://www.currentissues.tv and click on this week's show
Israel seizure of land and housing has made a two state solution impossible, a new study shows http://www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2005/press386-05.htm
Some Democrats in Congress want to be even more pro-Empire and pro-Zionist than neoCon republicans http://forward.com/articles/3071
The Palestinian Gandhi, By Ran HaCohen, Antiwar.com, 2 May 2005
http://antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=5796
New Muslim Groups: the Ugly, the Bad and the Good, By Hussein Ibish, Muslim Wakeup! 7 May 2005 http://www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2005/05/new_muslim_grou.php
==============
April 27, 2005
The Wheels of Justice bus tour is very busy in Iowa and so we had not had time to write updates or send emails in the past few days. Yesterday and today we had five events (including three classes at the University of Northern Iowa). Good media coverage. I hope to send you a report later this week. In the meantime, I found these links useful.
IfAmericansKnew performed statistical analyses of Israel/Palestine coverage in the NY Times showing distorted coverage. Response of ombudsman is
revealing. More at http://www.counterpunch.org/weir04252005.html
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/nyt-report.html
Psychology of Influence (relevant reading to those who want understand how opinions are influenced) http://www.workingpsychology.com/modernp.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0688128165/002-3875143-9884067?v=glance
Jewish Voice For Peace has articles and updates on duvestments (they are supportive): http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
Other Jewish or Jewish led groups of interest: http://qumsiyeh.org/predominantlyjewishlinks/
Left Turn Magazine has interesting articles (some may disagree but this could be worth reading) http://www.leftturn.org/
==============================
April 23, 2005
Actions speak louder than words. Please act.
- A group from CT is in Palestine with a local reporter filing reports. So far six reports were published in The Day of New London. Here is an example
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=228E27C3-D3D1-4D03-A119-E4D71729FF1E
- The Wheels of Justice bus tour events yesterday April 22 in Iowa were great including a luncheon attended by aides to two Congressman in Des Moines and a public event that drew about 100 at Ames Public Library (see http;//justicewheels.org)
- Caravan to Palestine from Europe http://caravane.palestine.free.fr/
- Bethlehem Media Net http://www.bethlehemmedia.net
- WHEELS OF JUSTICE IN URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
Nonviolent education and action against war and occupation in Iraq and Palestine for justice and universal human rights (www.justicewheels.org)
“Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land” (not an official WOJ event)A 90 minute DVD from the Media Education Foundation; Post-film discussion led by Professor Robert McChesney, UIUC McKinley Foundation, 5th and Daniel, Main Lounge,
Tuesday, April 26th, 7 p.m.
“School of the Americas: Terrorist Training Camp in our Own Back Yard”Video: “Guns and Greed” Ed Kinane speaks from experience on the role of theSOA in maintaining poverty and oppression in Latin America.
Channing-Murray Foundation, Oregon and Matthews, Red Herring Café
Wednesday, April 27th, 6 p.m. (Afterwards, all are cordially invited to El Centro Benefit Dance, 8 p.m., upstairs)
Mazin Qumsiyeh on Focus 580 with David Inge, WILL-AM 580 Thursday, April 28th, 10 a.m.
“Palestinian Right of Return” Mazin Qumsiyeh
Room 407 Illini Union, 1401 West Green Street, Urbana
Thursday, April 28th , 3 p.m.
“Witness to occupation, witness for peace: Deep Inside Iraq and Palestine”Mazin Qumsiyeh and Ed Kinane
University YMCA, Wright and Chalmers, Latzer Hall
Thursday, April 28th, 7:30 p.m.
Student Activism, Urbana High School
Friday, April 29th , Morning classes
“Non-Violent Witness and Resistance” Ed Kinane and Cal CarpenterCIMIC (Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center) Lincoln and Springfield
Friday, April 29th, 8 p.m.
Look for the Bus in Downtown Champaign Saturday, April 30th
Mazin Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian American and was an Associate Professor of Genetics Yale University School of Medicine. He is author of the widely acclaimed book Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle. He is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation. He is a cofounder of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition.
Ed Kinane’s veteran activism led him to hot spots as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, and Guatemala to serve in the Peace Brigades International. In the 1990’s Kinane became very involved in the movement to close the School of the Americas or SOA in Fort Benning, Georgia. Ed spent 5 months in Iraq just prior to, during and after the bombardment of Baghdad in 2003. Currently Ed helps edit the Syracuse Peace Council's "Peace Newsletter."
Cal Carpenter has been in and out of the West Bank a number of times over the last couple of years as a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron and At Tuwani, engaging in high-risk nonviolent witness and intervention. Much of his time is spent as a nonviolent presence to deter settler violence against native Palestinians.
Bill Hill served in federal prison for blocking the doors to the federal building in protest of the 1991Gulf War. Hill goes wherever his conscience demands to work on behalf of the poor, be it Casa Maria Catholic Worker community in Tucson, Chiapas, Mexico, Cuba, or Central America.
Events sponsored by: the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort, University YMCA, McKinley Foundation, First Mennonite Church Peace and Justice Initiative, Channing-Murray Foundation, Muslim Students Association, Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, El Centro Por Los Trabajadores, Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center, Illinois Disciples Foundation, Coordinated Effort for the Reporting of Rights Violations.
==============================
April 20, 2005
Arkansas and Iowa Wheels of Justice marching on and a couple of action items:
Sunday April 17 we had a presentation to the nuns (over 40 nuns) then we drove the bus to a great outdoor party organized by the local peace and justice group where various bands played music ranging from rock to mixed pop with themes from love to spirituality to peace. In between bands playing we were able to speak to a very interested group of people (mostly youth). We also had great barbequed food. All proceeds were donated to the bus (over $400).
On Monday April 18, we went to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and gave a presentation to two classes (over 100 students) on issues of science and ethics. In the evening, we had a public forum at the monastery where about 40 people of various background listened intently and discussed openly issues of US role in the war and occupation in Palestine.
On Tuesday April 19 early AM we drove to Fayetteville, AR where we had tabling at the University of Arkansas from 11-2 (we also flyered for the evening event). Local TV covered us and also we did a short 7 minute segment for airing on public access TV (will be aired 3 times). We had a nice potluck supper followed by a public presentation at the Omni Center (http://www.omnicenter.org). We were fortunate to have with us Ceylon Mooney who brought our new Iraq speaker (Ed Kinane). Ceylon drove all the way from Memphis over 5 hour drive picking up Ed from the airport in Little Rock. Ceylon is the central engine that keeps all the other volunteers of the bus focused and directed with a schedule.
But the bus also depends heavily on the local volunteers/organizers and the generosity of donors. On two occasions in the past few days, we had people approach us in parking lots asking to donate money. As the bus rolls along the highways, many give us chears and encouragement in so many ways. This is heartening despite the occasional attempts to silence us or pressure those who invite us to rescind their invitations.
On Wednesday April 20th we had a long drive from Fayettevile, AR to Ames, IA (nearly 500 miles). Along the way we stopped in Bethany, Missouri to load up on biodiesel (in this case made 100% from soybean oils). As you may know, we drive the bus as much as possible on biodiesel because it is renewable energy and far friendlier to the environment. We have a number of events in Ames including a main event Friday evening at Ames Public Library (Potluck at 5:30, program at 7 PM). We then travel to Cedar Falls, IA and then to Urbana, IL. We urge all to get involved (see http://justicewheels.org). I will leave the bus in IL to head to Houston for an amazing conference April 29-May 1 (see http://www.knowjusticeknowpeace.net for details).
Now here is one news link with a small comment and three action items
Ariel Sharon reiterates plans for increasing colonization http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/567677.html (Sharon’s right hand man Dov Werisglass had said the disengagement from Gaza was talk intended to place the whole idea of a Palestinian state and any concessions “in Formaldehyde” Bush continues to support colonial activity that violates the Geneva Conventions and are considered by International law as war crimes; including the land grab separation barrier).
Donate to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation: Olive Branch campaign http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=876
Please help Holy Land Trust (you can also join their Summer encounter program) http://www.holylandtrust.org
Finally this message forwarded:
Are you young, Jewish, and planning to be in Israel/Palestine in June or July?
Are you interested in meeting Palestinian families, peace activists, and community leaders, and learning about life under occupation? Join us for a 6-day educational trip through the West Bank!
In five days, we will visit Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps and help you develop an understanding of daily life under occupation. We will meet with Palestinian and Israeli community leaders, NGO representatives, peace activists, political figures and families. We will encourage you to be deeply reflective and give you a chance to ask
tough questions.
Your trip will be facilitated by two women who have spent extended periods in Palestine/Israel. They are experienced trip leaders in the West Bank, and are familiar with all the communities where you will be spending time. This Jewish educational travel project has upcoming trips that will run during June/July '05 and December/January '05-'06.
For more information, and for application materials, e-mail: westbanktours@yahoo.com. We look forward to hearing from you! Please post and forward widely.
==============================
4/17/05
Wheels of Justice Update
(some photos at http://tulsapeace.org/images.html )
This leg of the tour started on Wednesday 4/13 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My flight arrived in Tulsa at 6:40 PM after some complications (rerouting Philadelphia/Atlanta/Tulsa to Philadelphia/Cincinatti/Tulsa). I was met at the airport by Andrea and Louay. They work with Tulsa PeaceFellowship (http://tulsapeace.org/) which arranged the series of
events for us. We drove through the pleasantly not-so-crowded and clean city of Tulsa to the Saffron café where the bus was and the team was
being assembled. It was nice to see old friend Bill Hill, a vietnam veteran who drives the bus. Jerry Stein, a member of Christian Peacemaker Team and a retired Catholic priest had also just joined the bus as our Iraq speaker.
The café was a laid back place. There we met some really good folks of various backgrounds who were very interested in issues of justice, environmental concerns (and of course the key issues of US role in Iraq and Palestine). Bill and Jerry stayed at Nancy’s house. Nancy has two children and the whole family is involved in the TPF. I stayed with Louay. Louay was born in Iraq in a Shiite family which suffered terribly from rulers and dictators for decades before they fled Iraq over 20 years ago. I was touched by Louay’s gentle manner of explaining how the US and other Western countries were involved and are still involved in promoting oppression and occupation in Iraq, his telling of
torture and suffering was moving but never showed the slightest hint of any bitterness or anger. We were all very interested to speak to him and hear from him (even though he was not one of the speakers on the tour). I personally took advantage of his kind hospitality to listen and learn of some perspectives from him and his ailing mother; perspectives I was not familiar with. We discussed politics, philosophy, religion, nature, and art.
On Thursday 4/14 we had lunch and then spoke at Phillips Theological Seminary and in the evening we had dinner and spoke at Tulsa Islamic Center. In both places we were welcomed as if we were members of the brotherhood and sisterhood. It was extremely generous. The Islamic Center community donated to each of us (Bill, Jerry, and I) an honorarium which we put in the WOJ tour. The Peace Academy school principle (Nuredin Giyash) was there and he asked if I could come speak to students the next day (a school affiliated with the Islamic community of Tulsa). We were impressed at both theological settings by the decency, integrity, generocity, inclusiveness, and kindness of all.
On Friday April 15, I spoke to dozens of children at the Tulsa Peace Academy. Their questions and attention truly were impressing. The school principle (Nuredin) added a few words at the end on how he was impressed by Father Jerry Stein's presentation and how people of all faiths must work together for peace and justice. An early lunch was had at the cafeteria with the kindergarden kids :-)
We then rushed to the local highschool (Booker T Washington) for two class presentations. The divesity of students at both Peace Academy and BTW was impressive. As were the good questions we received. We encouraged students to explore varied perspectives and investigate the facts so that they can develop informed decisions on issues that obviously are directly relevant to their lives. In the evening we went to a demonstration in front of the post office (Tax day) where the Tulsa Peace Fellowship had dozerns of signs about the use and misuse of our tax money. One of the students from the highschool showed up (he said he plugged into the web and found out there was a demo and decided to join). Between 5-10 PM hundreds of locals saw the message of peace and justice.
On Saturday April 16 we went for a walk in a local park in the morning then drove to Tahlequah, OK for a presentation and food hosted by the Indigenous People Alliance at the Uniterian Universalist Church in Tahlequah. The informal conversations with native Americans included inspiring discussion of the plight as well as stedfastness of all native people (including Palestinians) in the face of incredible odds. At the end we not only received collected donation but far more important was three Eagle feathers each delicately laced with a leather strap (with great symbolic meaning). We stayed for the annual Powwow held on the campus of Northeast University in Tahlequa. This Powwow was truly amazing. For me as a Palestinian, the dances, the music, the decorated dresses, the embroidery and jewelery, the sound the women make with their tongues (we call it taghreed in Arabic) was so much reminding of Palestinain heritage. Customs were even the same. At one point, those congregated gave money at the feet of an elder who was hit
with a stroke, used a wheelchair, and needed aid.
We stayed at St. Scholastic Monastery (a Benedictine Monastery for sisters) in Ft Smith, Arkansas and attended early service Sunday
morning with the sisters in this monastary. We will speak here at a few venues then move to Fayetteville, AR, and Ames, IA and onward (see
http://justicewheels.org) for updates. A luta continua (the struggle continues).
====================
4/9/05
- Anniversary of Deir Yassin Massacre. Read more on this at http://www.deiryassin.org/
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Dayr-Yasin/
- Two year anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie (Guardian Article) http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1454990,00.html
- Write Op-Eds to the top 100 newspapers http://www.ccmc.org/oped.htm
- Reminder: Al-awda Convention in Los Angeles April 14-15 (for details, see http://www.al-awdacal.org/). Unfortunately, I will
miss this as I will be on the Wheels of Justice bus tour through Mid America from April 13 to April 29th (http://justicewheels.org ). I hope those attending take the time to read the previous conference and convention reports and action plans and build on them (these are found at http://www.al-awda.org/conferencereports/ ).
- There is a conference in Houston, TX April 29-May 1 about Justice for Palestinians and resolving final Status issues (Azmi
Bishara, Paul Findley, Diane Butto among the speakers; see http://www.knowjusticeknowpeace.net ) which I will attend.
There are many other events going around as the momentum for justice builds. Attend and/or build such events in your own community.
- Israeli racism being talked about (but not in US media)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=562013&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/560739.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/557996.html
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Iqrit/index.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=560433&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/557421.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/562521.html
- Letter Of Resignation From The Jewish People by Bertell Ollman; Tikkun; March 13, 2005
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=7430
==================
4/6/05
New Orleans Palestine Solidarity (http://www.nolapalestinesolidarity.org/) hosted a regional workshop on Palestine aimed at training activists in skills ranging from media work to lobbying to organizing. The program was sponsored by the US Campaign to End the Occupation (http://www.endtheoccupation.org/ ). The Wheels of Justice bus tour was there (http://justicewheels.org). Local activists were extremely hospitable and generous. The combined local organizing with national networking is exactly the kind of work needed. I hope similar future events would be held and that more people in those regions would participate.
Israel is to dumb 10,000 tons of its garbage in the occupied areas
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=560433&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
An existential struggle New article
=============
3/29/05
Photo tour and presentation on the emerging ghetto of Qalqilyah, Palestine (must see) http://www.rauhanpuolustajat.fi/qalqilia/1.html
Click on the following website for details of the rally to protest Ariel Sharon's meeting with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas April 10. http://www.crawfordrally4peacenjustice.org
Two powerful articles on the racist attacks on Columbia University
- The Mideast Comes to Columbia http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050404&c=1&s=sherman
- Columbia Unbecoming: A European Student's Experience at Columbia http://www.counterpunch.com/robert03262005.html
Cancer mapping for Jews only http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/557421.html
This article by the late Edward Said is worth a (re)reading by all activists http://www.counterpunch.org/said09252003.html
more of Edward Said writings at http://www.edwardsaid.org
SEND YOUR PREWRITTEN LETTER NOW OR, WRITE YOUR OWN TO CONGRESS: http://www.cflweb.org/congress_merge_.htm
"Come invest in colonies and settlements; come buy land confiscated from Palestinians" NY City April 1-3 http://www.israelrealestateshow.com/
Finally this message from Henry Lowi:
"Opponents of the right of return routinely refer ominously to the ?flood? of returnees that would destroy the democratic, stable, and peace-loving Israeli society. The stoically pacifist struggle of the Christian Maronite Palestinians of the village of Ikrit in Upper Galilee puts the lie to this racist attitude. The Ikrit campaign repeatedly highlights the viciousness, the dishonesty, and the incorrigible nature of Zionist colonialism. See the current status, at:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/557996.html
Read more about Ikrit, that was ethnically cleansed in October 1948, and whose ?present absentees? are in Galilee, citizens of Israel, treated like ghosts, and waiting to return.
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Iqrit/index.html "
====================
3/24/05
Regional Southern Conference for Palestine April 2-3, New Orleans http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=152
Al-Awda National Convention April 15-17, Los Angeles, California http://www.al-awdacal.org/
Wheels of Justice is traveling through these cities in the next 30 days (please join, visit http://justicewheels.org for upcoming updates on these appearances): March 24-25 (Hattiesburg, MS) March 28-29 (Baton Rouge, LA), March 29-April 3 (New Orleans, LA), April 4-7 (Houston, TX), April 8-11 (Crawford, TX including visit of Ariel Sharon), April 13-16 (Tulsa, OK), April 17-18 (Ft. Smith, AR), April 19-20 (Fayetteville, AR), April 21-26 (Iowa), April 27-30 (Champaign-Urbana, IL)
Connecticut Updated upcoming events including visit by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi http://www.al-awda.org/ctupcomingevents/
- New and updated links and resources on divestments and boycott campaigns
http://www.al-awda.org/divestmentandboycotts/
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/boycottsanddivestment/
- Over 3700 links and pages on the Middle East http://www.robincmiller.com/melinkfr.htm
- Arab-Americans: Take survey on impact of 9/11 http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/57514/18e0/
============
3/20/05
Rallies and marches against the war and occupations were held in hundreds of cities in the US and hundreds more around the world. In hartford, CT over 1000 attended and the march covered several city blocks. The organizers, speakers, and marchers called for ending the occupations of Iraq and Palestine and for civil rights at home. Photos from the march are posted at these two websites (please send me more pictures from CT and I will post them to both of these websites):
http://www.al-awda.org/ctmarch19/
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/march19hartfordrally/
Media coverage was great (TV/Radio/Print). After the rally, we had a teach-in on Palestine.
For sponsoring/endorsing organizations and list of speakers, visit http://ctunitedforpeace.org http://thestruggle.org
Upcoming events in CT http://ctunitedforpeace.org/calender/calendar.pl and http://www.al-awda.org/ctupcomingevents/
Similar rallies and events occurred around the US and around the world. To stay in touch for future events, network with your local group in your city and state/country.
Also, please write elected officials (Congress, Senate, White House) and the media. Let them know about the mass support for ending the occupations in Iraq and Palestine and why as decision makers and opinion molders they are failing or succeeding.
For News and issue discussion on Iraq you won't see in Orwell's Corporate US Media:
http://www.occupationwatch.org/
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/
http://electroniciraq.net
http://www.uruknet.info/
http://www.epic-usa.org/
=======
3/18/05
1) This weekend, demonstrations and rallies in hundreds of cities against war and injustice; JOIN one of them:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2782
http://www.internationalanswer.org/
In Connecticut, we will have a statewide rally, see http://ctunitedforpeace.org
2) Why can't we go to Jerusalem on a Donkey? Non-violent action on Palm Sunday http://peacefile.org/wordpress/
3) Racists witchhunts:
- The Witchhunts Continue: Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism By M. JUNAID ALAM http://www.counterpunch.org/junaid03022005.html
- Hateful ADL smears the Wheels of Justice http://www.adl.org/main_Israel/wheels_of_justice.htm
- Racists make lists of activists http://discoverthenetwork.org/individual.asp
4) Conference on Christian Zionism, Chicago, April 11-15, 2005 http://www.christianzionism.org
==================
3/11/05
My letter as just published in Commentary Magazine (March Issue, an American Jewish Committee Publication) regarding Divestment Conference: see Example Letters to The Editor
Statement from the Network of Christian Organizations in Bethlehem district (NCOB) on Israel and divestments http://www.qumsiyeh.org/ncobstatement/
Palestine: More than "just" divestment by Zeev bin Natan http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/Discus/2005-03-02.htm
"Lebanon the Arab's Bastard Son?" By Tony Chakar (inisghtful analysis on power plays in Lebanon by a Lebanese veteran intelletual)
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/lebanonandpolitics/
Please Sign the International Petition for Gaza Students' Rights http://www.petitiononline.com/right2ed/petition.html
A thrilling epic of democracy by Meron Benvenisti (on US government hypocrisy) http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/550173.html
Why the dollar is falling (this has political ramifications) http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1759
Injustice: US Federal Judge Weinstein covers up war crimes of using agent Orange in Vietnam http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/10/agent.orange.ap/index.html
New Palestine Calendar http://www.palestinecalendar.org/
Silence is complicity and actions speak louder than words.
===============
3/10/05
Thoughts on stasis and individual responsibility
=============
3/6/05
This is about Israel, not anti-Semitism, Article by the Mayor of London
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5140254-107935,00.html
Concise call to boycott Israel and those who support its apartheid policies
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/new_web/boycott_cover.htm
Other sites for divestment/boycotts
http://bycottisraeligoods.org
http://www.bigcampaign.org
http://www.boycottisrael.org
http://www.divest-from-israel-campaign.org
Prof. Jeff Halper's two stage plan for peace http://www.tikkun.org/archive/backissues/tik0501/050112.html
US military developing "weapons" to deal with protesters ("rioters") http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7077
Call for support of the Wheels of Justice bus tour as it arrives in YOUR area (http://justicewheels.org)
===================
3/2/05
Notes AND Photographs from my trip to Palestine are now posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/palestinediary/
This is about Israel, not anti-Semitism, Article by the Mayor of London http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5140254-107935,00.html
Concise call to boycott Israel and those who support its apartheid policies
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/new_web/boycott_cover.htm
Other sites for divestment/boycotts
http://bycottisraeligoods.org
http://www.bigcampaign.org
http://www.boycottisrael.org
http://www.divest-from-israel-campaign.org
Prof. Jeff Halper's two stage plan for peace http://www.tikkun.org/archive/backissues/tik0501/050112.html
US military developing "weapons" to deal with protesters ("rioters") http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7077
Call for support of the Wheels of Justice bus tour (http://justicewheels.org)
=============
2/17/05
Call in and join live on the Internet http://www.currentissues.tv on Thursday (tonight) evening 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM Central Time as I and Dr. Rick Swanson discuss the movement to silence Academic debate and what we can do about it (the show will also be archived in case you miss it).
Review of my book "Sharing the Land of Canaan" as published in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (March issue) http://wrmea.com/archives/March_2005/0503074.html
Prof. Jensen's article: Who stands to Gain from Hariri's death (revealing and must reading for those who swallow US/Israeli demonization of Syria) http://jordantimes.com/thu/opinion/opinion2.htm
Despite the ceasefire declared by the Israeli and Palestinian sides in Sharm al-Sheik on 8 February 2005 and the Palestinian commitment to this declaration, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have launched more attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This week, 4 Palestinians, including 2 children, were killed by IOF.
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2005/17-02-2005.htm
Protest the Stewart Lynn Verdict http://www.nlg.org/news/statements/DayOfOutrageLynne.htm
Confessions of an economic hitman: how countries are destroyed http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={32865A26-0522-4FF1-93D2-E3471F26DCBB}&language=EN
Uprooting Palestinian trees for being close to Mofaz's house. http://english.wafa.ps/body.asp?field=tech_news&id=2135
US Media Coverage of Israel-Palestine Conflict http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=2005021704442228#
Iraqi groups united in rejecting the occupation speak about the "elections" http://uruknet.info/?s1=2&p=9724&s2=17
==============
2/12/05
Dear friends: Below is a letter just published in Connecticut Post followed by an "alert" about it sent by a local anti-Palestinian group (attacking this short letter). IMHO, human rights activists have the truth on their side (easier to defend than the lengthy contortions of those defending colonization).
I share my letter and the lengthy PRIMERCT "analysis" for fairness so that you maybe the judge. For factual answers to the common rants/myths regurgitated by PRIMERCT, visit
http://www.palestineremembered.com/ZionistFAQ.html
Those in Connecticut may email their letters regarding this issue or any other to the CT Post at: edit@ctpost.com or swinters@ctpost.com (remember to include contact address and tel number). Other newspaper contacts at thestruggle.org And do write to your local newspapers regarding issues of concern to you.
As published by CT Post 2/11/05.
The media frenzy about declaration of a ceasefire between a compliant Abbas and a triumphant Sharon is not a step in the right direction. There is simply no parity in violence or suffering between an occupying/colonizing power and an occupied and colonized people. This was true for Native Americans fighting white European settlers, it was true for blacks in South Africa fighting the apartheid regime, and it is true in Israel/Palestine. Today, some two thirds of the 9 million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people while Israel has a per capita income of $16,000 thanks to US taxpayers shelling billions every year to prop the occupation.
Even if one limits the suffering to the number of civilians killed, it is striking that many in the media suppress the fact that in the past four years alone 623 Palestinian children have been killed as opposed to less than 100 Israeli Children. Any one with an understanding of history of other colonial conflicts knows that native suffering cannot be remotely compared to colonial settler suffering. The charade in these “ceasefire” announcements is that they fail to say one word about International law, ending the occupation, or even basic human rights. This bodes ill for any chance for durable peace, which can only be based on International law and human rights and not the severe imbalance of power.
"Alert" sent by PRIMERCT.org folks
Some of Qumsiyeh's assertions are partially true, although generally not in the way he means or for the reasons he gives; many of his assertions are outlandish.
The ceasefire may or may not prove to be a step forward. It depends on the behavior of the Palestinian Arabs, including the Palestinian Authority. If it is used as a first step towards dismantling the terrorist infrastructure built up in the PA areas, the prerequisite to progress on the road map, it will be a step forward. If it is used, as in the past, as a way to give the
Arab terrorists a breathing spell and an opportunity to regroup, it will be another step backwards.
In terms of parity of suffering, humans who suffer do so regardless of their political status, which does not affect the quality of their suffering. What lacks parity is the responsibility; there is no parity between the responsibility of a rogue, terrorist entity as the Palestinian Authority has been and the responsibility of a free, democratic government, such as that of Israel, which has striven to achieve peace and avoid suffering.
Qumsiyeh falsely implies analogies between European settlers, South Africa's apartheid regime and Israel. Indeed, if there is any such analogy, it is with the Palestinian Arabs, so many of whom are relative newcomers to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza (making them the colonists), in contrast to the Jews who have lived in Israel for thousands of years.
Israel is the one democratic state in the Middle East and the state for which any association with apartheid is the most absurd. It is the only state where all people can live freely and (ironically, except for Jews) practice their religion relatively free from interference by the government. In contrast, throughout most of the Middle East women are second class
citizens while Jews and Christians are oppressed. How soon we forget how the very soldiers risking their lives to save the Saudi Arabian regime were not
permitted to practice their religion. Jews are not allowed to become citizens of Jordon, generally considered the most liberal Arab country,
while selling land to a Jew is a capital offense in the Palestinian Authority.
It is a shanda that so many Palestinian Arabs are still without permanent homes; the leaders of the Palestinian Arabs and the rest of their Arab brethren should be ashamed of the way they have used those people as pawns in their violent struggle against Israel. Roughly as many, if not more, Jews were (involuntarily) displaced in the aftermath of the 1948 War as Arabs, who mostly fled either at the behest of their brethren or as the "normal" consequence of the chaos and violence of a war launched by their own brethren against a people who wished only to live in peace.
Qumsiyeh refers to the number of Palestinian Arab children killed in the terrorist offensive over the last four years, but omits the most relevant information and also includes the many children who were killed while they themselves were violently attacking Israelis. Many others were killed in crossfires, which will be unavoidable when the Arab terrorists choose to operate out of civilian areas, often deliberately putting children between themselves and the Israelis they are firing at in order to use them as shields. Many of those victims were actually killed by Arab gunfire, or bombs, such as the young girl killed recently when a bullet fired in celebration came down, as bullets have a tendency to do.
Reliable figures show the majority of Israelis killed were civilians, deliberately targeted, while the overwhelming majority of Arabs killed were directly involved in aggressive or terrorist activity. The Palestinian Arab terrorists deliberately target civilians; the Israeli government tries very hard to avoid civilian casualties, but cannot always succeed because of the
deliberate strategy of the terrorists.
Qumsiyeh also ignores the reality that at the time the current terrorist offensive was launched in 2000, for most practical purposes the so-called "occupation" was long over, with more than 95% of the Palestinian Arabs in the disputed territories living under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Arabs had been offered virtually all of the
disputed territory. Unfortunately, they rejected the opportunity to establish a state at that time, they rejected peace, and they chose an unjust terrorist war that has cost the lives of thousands, both Arab and Israeli.
Qumsiyeh posits the necessity of justice, but it is impossible to undo the injustice perpetuated by the Arabs towards Israel over the last century and it is even impossible to undo the injustice perpetrated by the Palestinian Arabs over the last four years. In any reasonable scale of injustice, the brutal and deliberate murder of thousands of people at the hands of
Palestinian Arab terrorists rates very high yet is ignored by Qumsiyeh.
Regarding Qumsiyeh's reference to the nebulous entity referred to as "international law," it was the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Resolution in 1948, their subsequent illegal invasion of the tiny, reborn state of Israel, and their subsequent flouting of the spirit of every meaningful United Nations Security Council Resolution ever since that has caused and perpetuated the last 60 years of war. There is a saying about people in glass houses.
Now here are some links for myth debunking
http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html
http://al-awda.org/media/myths.html
http://www.iap.org/zioinism19.htm
http://www.mideastfacts.com/
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/engfaq.html
http://www.palestineremembered.com/ZionistFAQ.html
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article865.shtml
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/palestiniannonviolentresistance/
Regarding Barak's Generous Offer, see
http://al-awda.org/media/myths.html#q1
http://www.gush-shalom.org/media/barak_eng.swf
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article865.shtml (myth 5)
=======================
2/1/05
President Bush met with reporters in what was dubbed a press conference for 48 minutes. Yet few really had the courage to ask him challenging questions and when they did he simply avoided answering. The most comical was his refusal to respond to the question of whether bringing democracy to the world applies to so called allies where people are arrested if they simply speak out. He brushed off the question about Jordan and stated that "our friend" King Abdullah takes care of "bringing more freedom and democracy." This is the Achilles’ heel that shows the hypocrisy of this administration's rhetoric about "advancing democracy and freedom". The rhetoric is obviously only useful to mollify Americans to allow continued pillaging in and war on countries needed for strengthening big corporations. People need to insist that the media challenge this administration on its rhetoric by asking about "friendly countries" like Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Kuwait and about installing in power "friendly" corrupt individuals like Karzai and Allawi!!
How many know what is really happening in the "new democracy" of Afghanistan? Now the only employment possible seems in the resurrected opium poppy fields. Bush's Karzai cannot even venture out of his palace without US special forces protection. His palace and life style is opulent while poverty increases and people are starving; the only large infrastructure project is a gas pipeline to benefit US companies and people like Karzai (who used to work for one of those US companies). How many know that the US "Embassy" in Iraq is intended to be THE hub of control of the Middle East with thousands of staff (from the CIA, DIA, NSA, army, marines etc); an unprecedented city of foreign bureaucrats directing affairs of millions of native people in the Arab world. How many know about the history of the chief US powerbroker in Iraq Negroponte (his designation as "Ambassador to Iraq" is like saying Bush is merely a spokesperson in the US). Negroponte's coddling of South American dictators and his support of human rights violations and war crimes in South America are matters of available record. How many know the status of the permanent US military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq even as we speak about "sovereignty." A CEO of one US company once said that the US military and intelligence agencies have now become taxpayer-funded mercenaries for narrow interests of US corporations. I would add enabled by a web of lies from the likes of Condoleeza Rice and Richard Perle. Isn't it time for US mainstream media to speak truth to power?
Some readers asked for details on the removal of UNRWA chief Peter Hansen. Details are in this BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4191313.stm
Pastor and professor Meyers speech on issues of morality in America http://www.qumsiyeh.org/drmeyersonmorality/
Freedom and DEmocracy? Here are pictures from Iraq the neocons do not want you to see (WARNING: Some are Graphic) http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/iraq/?D=3&pic=274&M=1
Destroying Babylon: From Occupied Iraq http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000171.php
'NOT IN MY NAME’ – An analysis of Jewish righteousness by Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/notin.html
Another article by Gilad Atzmon titled "Zionism and other marginal thoughts," is worth reflecting on http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/ziomargin.html
Similar thoughts are reflected in this article by Lana Habash and Noah Cohen: Zionism is still the issue: http://www.onepalestine.org/resources/articles/Zionism_Is_Issue.html
This great article by Dr. Lustick of UPENN while talking about number of non-Jewish immigrants to Israel under the Israeli law of Jewish "return" is instructive on complexity of Israeli laws and their relevance to future peace: http://209.196.144.55/articles/lustick.html
Uri Avnery's article on "King George" explains where Bush is going in his second administration http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/12794/
Assault on Truth file updated including more data on attempts by those who support racism to silence free speech http://www.qumsiyeh.org/assaultontruth/
and other Relevant Zionist Quotes here: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story637.html
====================
January 30, 2005
Hollow elections held in bloody day: Report from the ground contradicts media hype in US http://electroniciraq.net/news/1838.shtml
see for balance BBC report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4220551.stm "At best a trickle of voters"
UN Issues report on Israel as an occupying power (even if disengagement from Gaza happens, Israel remains an occupying power per teh Geneva convention) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/532868.html
On Israel's project to continue gobbling East Jerusalem http://www.nad-plo.org/prelease.php http://www.amin.org/eng/uncat/2005/jan/jan28.html
New Online magazine on Israeli occupation (in four languages) http://www.kibush.co.il/index.asp?lang=1 (for English version)
Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions: Statement on Sanctions http://www.icahd.org/eng
Yale Petition against the ROTC http://www.petitiononline.com/yalerotc/petition.html
Arab Countries Aid for the Tsunami Disaster exceeds US aid on a per capita basis http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0112/p04s01-wome.html
A CIA report predicts that American global dominance could end in 15 years. http://slate.msn.com/id/2112697
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January 25 2005
New Article on UN Commemoration
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January 21 2005 URGENT
From Israeli Newspaper Haaretz: Israeli government decision aims to strip Palestinians of their properties in East Jerusalem http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/529510.html
Laws bar Palestinians from living in Jerusalem if their spouses live in other parts of the occupied areas because Jerusalem is annexed and now extending absentee laws, racist laws intended to confiscate Palestinian refugee properties to East Jerusalem finishes the task. We know that Dov Weisglass stated earlier that talk of the disengagement from Gaza was intended to freeze the peace process. We now know why. Already, two thirds of the nine million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people. We also know from history what happens when people are stripped of their lands, citizenship and rights.
Haaretz also reports on the racist law that Israelis can marry and bring any foreigners as spouses to live with them in Israel with one exception: If the spouse happens to be Palestinian
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/528450.html
Please write your own letter to all media outlets and to all elected and unelected officials. Spread the word, educate, engage, work, divest, boycott, act; silence is complicity.
Please note alert below from CFL
SEND OUR PREWRITTEN LETTER NOW OR, WRITE YOUR OWN: http://www.cflweb.org/congress_merge_.htm
Citizens for Fair Legislation
For Immediate Release
Jan 21, 2005
CFL ALERT: ISRAEL AIMING TO STEAL HALF OF PALESTINIAN OWNED EAST JERUSALEM LAND.
The Sharon government plans on implementing the Absentee Property Law in East Jerusalem in an effort to steal Arab owned land in East Jerusalem from thousands of Palestinians currently living in the West Bank. Estimates show that Israel could end up appropriating up to half of all Arab owned East Jerusalem property. This decision has already been approved by the prime minister and attorney general. The Absentee Property Law is a racist law as it is only applied to Palestinians and it also is another mechanism that Israel is utilizing in order to illegally unify Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in violation of UN Resolution 252.
TALKING POINTS
*Remind your representatives that by stealing Palestinian owned land in East Jerusalem that Israel is violating a litany of UN Resolutions, most importantly, U.N. Resolution 252 which calls on Israel to rescind all measures that change the legal status of Jerusalem, including the expropriation of land and properties thereon and that Israel stop taking measures to unify Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. The current land grab and the building of the apartheid wall in Jerusalem proves that Israel is not serious about making peace with the Palestinians and that Israel can and will violate any U.N. Resolutions it pleases without being held accountable by Washington. Ask your elected officials how long they will tolerate Israeli intransigence of the law.
*Ask your representatives to clearly explain how American taxpayers benefit from unfettered support of Israeli war crimes. Tell your representatives that you resent that American lives are being placed in danger because of this government's sordid relationship with Israeli interest groups. Remind your representatives that the "Arafat excuse" is off the table and that you are watching to see whether this country is serious about democracy, freedom and human rights or whether we were
merely paying lip service to these ideas.
Please choose the appropriate letter to send! (YOU MUST PICK A SUBJECT FROM THE DROP DOWN BAR). After you enter your contact info the appropriate addresses are provided. Simply type, or send our prewritten letter and click send. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can send ONE LETTER EVERY DAY. We have prewritten letters for your convenience.
EMAIL AND OR CALL THE WHITE HOUSE
WHITE HOUSE COMMENTS LINE: 202-456-1111
WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: 202-456-1414
WHITE HOUSE FAX: 202-456-2461
Citizens for Fair Legislation is a grassroots organization committed to
encouraging a fair domestic and foreign policy with an emphasis on the
US/Arab world. http://www.cflweb.org
============
January 16 2005
Zionist leaders and soldiers sometimes talk honestly among themselves about the reality of what they are doing to Palestinians (and indirectly to themselves). Below is a commendable example published in Maariv in Hebrew 1/11/05 that you will not find in the US media or even American Jewish Newspapers.
I am compiling interesting links and information like this on my website. It includes common lies and myths debunked (wanting peace, terrorism, most ethical army etc). I would appreciate any links or quotes you think can be included. A draft of this incomplete compilation (but shows dozens of examples) is posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/liesandtruth/
NRG Ma'ariv Online, 11 January 2005, by Chen Kost-Bar http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART/852/255.html
Translated from Hebrew by Diana Rubanenko posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/likezombies/ Like Zombies
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January 12, 2005
1) From Tillawi@aol.com of The Current Issues
Current issues Proud to present Live next Thursday, January 13, 2005, at 8:00 PM Central Standard time, an Interview with the Honorable Dr. Baker Abdel Munem. The Palestinian Ambassador to Canada. We will talk to the Ambassador about the Palestinian elections and what does it mean for the future of the Palestinian people, if any. Will all this attention to the PNA presidency materialize in any thing meaningful for the Palestinian People or is it just another episode in the non-ending roller coaster ride in the Palestinians quest for freedom and justice in a world that appears to know no justice? In the second hour we will talk to Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh. Cofounder of the Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right of Return Coalition for his views on the Palestinian elections. Please join us Live at 8:00PM CST by clicking on www.currentissues.tv then click on Watch the Show. We do welcome your phone calls for either speaker by dialing 337-232-4434 and enter extension 207
We have uploaded last Thursday's show which includes an interview with Ms. Linda Sobeh, national President of the Palestinian American Congress. Please visit our site at http://www.currentissues.tv To watch the show and listen to the interview with Ms. Sobeh. As usual we need your support. Please be there for us on Thursday as we need all the support we can get. remember our activism can only grow and spread collectively. We need you to be there for the Live show on Thursday, and don't forget to send this email to all your lists and friends.
2) Below are three letters to the editor that were published today. Please consider writing letters. You can get involved and learn some skills by joining al-awda media committee (see http://www.al-awda.org/mediaactivism/ ) and/or Palestine Media Watch (see http://pmwatch.org ).
Mideast Prospects After Abbas's Victory
Published: January 12, 2005 New York Times
Free, fair and democratic elections in the occupied territories might make many misguided Israelis and Americans feel good, but the fact remains that Oslo ushered in an era of aggressive Israeli land grabs.
Is a separate, viable and fully sovereign Palestinian state still possible? Many moderate and wise scholars who have devoted a great deal of research and honest thought to examining the situation think otherwise.
For instance, "Sharing the Land of Canaan," by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, carefully studies human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. His conclusion is that a shared state is the best way to achieve justice and peace for Israelis and Palestinians.
As his book is not a mystery novel, I feel that it is fair to give away the ending: "We can either remain locked in our old mythological and tribal ways, or we can envision a better future and work for it. The choice is obvious."
Anne Selden Annab
Mechanicsburg, Pa., Jan. 11, 2005
send letters to letters@nytimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/opinion/l12mideast.html?oref=login
======================
Right Of Return Is Well-established
Published on 1/12/2005, The Day, New London
On what basis did The Day decide to belittle international law by calling the Palestinian Right to Return “so called”? (“Stonington man selected to monitor Palestinian elections,” Jan. 8).
Paragraph 11 of United Nations Resolution 194 states: “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date . . . compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return.” This resolution was affirmed practically every year with universal consensus, except for Israel and, on occasions, the United States.
U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3236 reaffirms, “the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return.” Even Israel's admission to the U.N. was conditional on its acceptance of relevant U.N. resolutions, including 194.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reaffirms the right of every individual to leave and return to his country, as well as the right of ownership and domicile in that country. The declaration was applied to the Palestinian people in 1969 and included their right to struggle for “self-determination and liberation.” The land and property of the refugees remains their own and they are entitled to return to it.
Just because Israel has defied international law and blocked the return of refugees does not mean The Day should follow suit by adopting Israeli terminology.
Hassan Fouda
Groton
Editor's note: The writer is Connecticut chairman of the Palestine Right to Return Coalition.
send letters to Letters@theday.com http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=8FA8CECF-D447-4F43-8EDF-F58E7DE3E766
=================
Detroit Free Press 1/12/05
Palestinian victims
Mike Thompson's Jan. 11 cartoon claims that Palestinians have "moderated" their stance from a position of driving Israel into the sea to "walking" Israel into the sea. The reality is that Palestinians were the ones literally driven, run, kicked and walked out into the sea and into the deserts over the past 57 years.
This process continues today with home demolitions -- thousands just in the past four years. Some two-thirds of the 9 million Palestinians in the world are thus refugees or displaced people.
send letters to letters@freepress.com
http://www.freep.com/voices/letters/epalestinian12e_20050112.htm
===============
January 9, 2005
In last week's email message, I mentioned the murder of seven Palestinians (see http://pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2005/5-2005.htm for a report on this incident) while discussing the issue of elections under occupation. Some thought I was a bit too harsh in addressing the blackout in many media outlets on such stories. But its a recurring problem and explains why mainstream US media and a large section of the US public almost live a different reality than the remaining 95% of world population. It explains why there is not a huge outcry in America about the billions we send every year for the Israeli continued violations of basic human rights (including rejection of the rights of refugees to return and instead continued ethnic cleansing practices).
As you know, elections were held in the occupied areas. Falsely dubbed as "Palestinians electing their leader" by many in this same US mainstream media (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times etc). And falsely portrayed as "facilitated by Israel" in other outlets. The reality is that only 1.7 million Palestinians were allowed to vote out of a total of nearly 9 million Palestinians in the world (over 4.5 million adults of voting age). Further only a portion of those 1.7 million people chose to vote (% voter turnout was lower than in the similar elections of 1996). Some 3-400,000 chose not to vote because voting was held under occupation and a neo-apartheid system. Others were not able to vote because of Israeli restrictions. Candidates were harassed and prevented from campaigning and at least one leading candidate (Mustapha Barghouti) was detained twice and beaten by the Israeli occupation forces (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4153465.stm). However, these elections are not inconsequential. They proved once again (this has happened frequently in history going back to the 1920s elections, to the PLO original structure of representation, to the municipal elections of 1976 etc) that Palestinians are ready for freedom and democracy and can exercise both if given a chance. I urge all to be writing letters and op-eds to their newspapers and contacting the editors and ombudsmen about these issues and some of the shabby journalism we have been seeing. Please email me (qumsi001@hotmail.com) copies of any material you submit. More on these elections are at:
http://www.imemc.org/
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/01/06/opinion/edbrown.html
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/fr1.htm
In the meantime, 200 miles east, Iraq continues to real under occupation. There is now trickle of information on the war crimes committed in such places as Faluja (see http://electroniciraq.net/news/1767.shtml and http://electroniciraq.net/news/ ). Counter inaugural demonstrations and a general freeze on all buying and commercial transactions in the US will be held January 20th (UFPJ and ANSWER coalitions and other groups). The struggle continues.
And here are more relevant links for education and action this week:
- Zionism and Peace in Palestine are incompatible, By Nizar Sakhnini http://www.qumsiyeh.org/zionismandpeaceinpalestine/
- University of Wisconsin Divestment Project http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/
- On Divestments: Even failure brings success by Paul Beran, Daily Star http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=11627
- Amer Jubran's opinion http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m8632
- Washington Report, pages 60-64, December 2004, http://www.wrmea.com/archives/December_2004/0412060.html
- The Olga Appeal: This is a must read http://www.qumsiyeh.org/theolgaappeal/
- Abna Albalad submission to the anti-imperialist camp http://www.antiimperialista.com/en/view.shtml?category=48&id=1089274911&keyword
- Zionist Terror Attacks in January 1946-1948 http://al-awda.org/zionistattacksinjanuary19461948/
From the past
Seventy six years ago: A Statement to the 1919 Peace Conference by prominent U.S. Jews (including one Congressman):
"We raise our voices in warning and protest against the demand of the Zionists for the reorganization of the Jews as a national unit, to whom, now or in the future, territorial sovereignty in Palestine shall be committed. This demand not only misrepresents the trend of the history of the Jews, who ceased to be a nation 2000 years ago, but involves the limitation and possible annulment of the larger claims of Jews for full citizenship and human rights in all lands in which those rights are not yet secure. For the very reason that the new era upon which the world is entering aims to establish government everywhere on principles of true democracy, we reject the Zionistic project of a ‘national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.’ ...As to the future of Palestine, it is our fervent hope that what was once a "promised land" for the Jews may become a "land of promise" for all races and creeds, safeguarded by the League of Nations which, it is expected, will be one of the fruits of the Peace Conference to whose deliberations the world now looks forward so anxiously and so full of hope. We ask that Palestine be constituted as a free and independent state, to be governed under a democratic form of government recognizing no distinctions of creed or race or ethnic descent, and with adequate power to protect the country against oppression of any kind. We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish State" Quoted in Roselle Tekiner, Samir Abed-Rabbo and Norton Mezvinsky, eds., Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections, (New York: Amana Books, 1988).
Two Years Ago (Jan 2003) by Edward Said http://www.counterpunch.org/said01252003.html |