Rights blog 2008
31 December 2008
From the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People
So far hundreds of civilians have been killed in Gaza. Five sisters in one family, four other children in another home, two children on a cart drawn by a donkey. Universities, colleges, police stations, roads, apartment buildings were all targeted. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian areas issued a statement that "The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent s evere and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war."
Twenty-five things to do to bring peace with justice:
1) First get the facts and then disseminate them. Here are some basic background information
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4933.shtml
http://www.mepeace.org/forum/topics/the-true-story-behind-this-war The true story behind this war
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/downloads/If%20Gaza%20falls.pdf If Gaza Falls
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml Gaza massacres must spur us to action
2) Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150 words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media about their coverage. In the US http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/ You can find media listings in your country using search engines like google
3) Contact elected and other political leaders in your country to urge them to apply pressure to end the attacks. In the US, Contact the State Department at 202.647.5291, the White House 202-456-1111 the Egyptian Embassy 202.895.5400, Email (embassy@egyptembassy.net) and the Obama Transition Team 202-540-3000 (then press 2 to speak with a staff member).
4) Organize and join demonstrations in front of Israeli and Egyptian embassies or when not doable in front of your parliament, office of elected officials, and any other visible place (and do media work for it).
5) Hold a teach-in, seminar, public dialogue, documentary film viewing etc. this is straightforward: you need to decide venue, nature, if any speakers, and do some publicity (the internet helps).
6) Pass out fliers with facts and figures about Palestine and Gaza in your community (make sure also to mention its relevance to the audience: e.g, US taxpayers paying for the carnage, increase in world instability and economic uncertainty)
7) Put a Palestinian flag at your window.
8) Wear a Palestinian head scarf (Koufiya)
9) Wear Black arm bands (this helps start conversations with people)
10) Send direct aid to Gaza through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). http://www.un.org/unrwa/
11) Initiate boycotts, divestments and sanctions at all levels and including asking leaders to expel the Israeli ambassadors (an ambassador of an apartheid and rogue state). See Palestinian call http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10056.shtml
12) Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts (actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from traveling abroad to some countries like Britain where they may face charges)
13) Calling upon all Israelis to demonstrate in front of their war ministry and to more directly challenge their government
14) Do outreach: to neighbors and friends directly. Via Internet to a lot of others (you can join and post information to various listservs/groups).
15) Start your own activist group or join other local groups (simple search in your city with the word Palestine could identify candidate groups that have previously worked on issues of Palestine). Many have also been successful in at bringing coalitions from different constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and civil activists, religious activists, etc).
16) Develop a campaign of sit-ins at government offices or other places where decision makers aggregate
17) Do a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place
18) Visit Palestine (e.g. with http://www.sirajcenter.org)
19) Support human rights and other groups working on the ground in Palestine
20) Make large signs and display them at street corners and where ever people congregate.
21) Contact local churches, mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship and ask them to take a moral stand and act. Call on your mosque to dedicate this Friday for Gaza actions.
22) Sign petitions for Gaza, e.g.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/98.php?cl_tf_sign=1
23) Write and call people in Gaza
24) Work with other groups that do not share your political views (factionalism and excessive divisions within activist communities allowed those who advocate war to succeed).
25) Dedicate a certain time for activism for peace every day (1 hour) and think of more actions than what is listed above.
For support and contacts of people in Gaza or to volunteer, please contact the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People, via gaza@imemc.org, or call 989-607-9480 (from the US and Canada) or 972 2277 2018 (from other places)
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29 December 2008
It was not possible to sleep here for two nights now. The events and the images of death and carnage of children, of policemen, of people that look like my mother and my son and my sister and my friends were simply too much. Gaza has run out of stretchers and many are now carried to hospitals (which are running out of supplies) and morgues on commercial street signs, in blankets or simply by their limp limbs. Three mosques were destroyed. I recalled the Israeli attacks on the Church of Nativity which was minor compared to this. I was watching Israel shell the University in Gaza city including its faculty of science and a residence dorm for female students and was thinking of my university and my lab and office at Bethlehem University. I was then shocked into more horrific scenes and news. In one house five young sisters killed. In another six family members including four children killed while eating breakfast. In a scene that haunted me where four children were killed with their mother, I saw rescue workers try frantically to pull the remaining surviving girl whose legs were crushed under a huge boulder from the roof. As some of them were calming her down and working hard, just next to them other workers pulled the dead body of her sister (looked like 3-4 year old). They quickly covered her but I think her sister noticed. Sometimes the dead are envied for their suffering has ended. Her suffering is just beginnig. I thought of all the thousands of relatives of all the victims and how they feel..I thought of friends I lost and talks with people in Gaza...I thought of my mother who at 76 has seen so much suffering and still she cried at the new images of new atrocities
My heart aches and struggles with my scientist brain. The latter wants to focus on facts and figures. The attack in its second day was in the words of Israeli leaders the beginning and is intended to send Gaza back decades. So far over 300 were killed and over 1000 injured (200 of those critically), 35% women, children and elderly. I examine numbers of homes, police stations, civil society building destroyed. I read the Al Mezan Center for human rights which rationally states that most Gaza victims are civilians 1. But even my rational mind refuses to deal with these things. How could it handle just that one image of the young girls anguished pained look under the rubble of her house and so tears stream down again to to try to wash the image to no avail..How could my mind examine rationally the statements of leaders saying this carnage is not the fault of the bombers and war criminals, but of Hamas!
Protests were organized around the world and more are being planned 2. The demonstrations helped vent some frustration and we hope will herald a reawakening of the heart of humanity that has been sputtering. But we hope it will go much farther to changing the rotted system of elites in power ignoring peoples rights for political expediency and for profit.
In the Bethlehem demonstration, we pounded on the permanently closed gate of the apartheid wall with deafening sound and the soldiers in the tower started to through stun grenades and tear gas. Injuries were sustained for activists....Our lungs still ache but our hearts ache more for the criminality of the apartheid regime, and the collaboration of the world governments. The Israeli occupation army killed two protesters with live ammunition in other parts of the West Bank 3.
Can someone asks western media or the Wetsern governments ruled by elite racists who keep spouting the nonsense about "Hamas" and "rockets" (projectiles that are militarily of little use and have no explosives, killed one person this year), why targeting civilian police stations, mosques, homes with children, ports, fishing vessels, streets, and more in one of the most densely populated areas on earth murdering hundreds of civilians would be an acceptable action (I dont say response because Israel was killing people and massacring them for 60 years before)? And what would they expect from a starving 1.5 million people to do? Especially when one million of those are refugees or displaced people denied their rights to return to their homes and lands for 60 years while settlers live across the borders on their lands in areas like Sderot and Netviot? Would they not expect some resistance from some of those? Isnt that codified in International law for the right of occupied people to resist including violently? (note that I personally support civil forms of resistance). Even if one buys the US/Israeli government propaganda, would it be acceptable to bomb cities in Europe and the US for any perceived or actual crime of a portion of their society or even their leaders (Bush and Blair in Iraq?)?
But again I think it is not best for me to try and reason things through in such times of calamities and little sleep. I got so many letters of support but please redirect your letters and energies elsewhere. Redirect them to challenge the injustice directly 4. Jesus made a statement directly relevant for us today:
"You are the earth's salt. But if the salt should become tasteless, what can make it salt again? It is completely useless and can only be thrown out of doors and stamped under foot. You are the world's light - it is impossible to hide a town built on the top of a hill. Men do not light a lamp and put it under a bucket. They put it on a lamp-stand and it gives light for everybody in the house.
It is thus the time when people who claim they want peace and justice to stop talking about it and actually work for it. Put your lamp higher. It is time for real change...It is time for a world Intifada (uprising against injustice). It is time to do something concrete (like throwing our shoes at someone?)
Below are a press release from human rights organizations in Palestine (please circulate to media and politicians) and a poignant letter from a friend worth reading.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
In Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine
http://qumsiyeh.org
Urgent Release
27 December 2008
Palestinian human rights community calls for international action
Palestinian human rights organizations strongly condemn the recent military attacks carried out by the Israeli occupying forces in the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008. The attacks began at approximately 11:30 am and lasted for approximately three hours. These attacks have destroyed most of the Gaza security offices including police stations, resulting in the deaths of over 200 Palestinians. More than 350 have been injured with over 120 critically.
The number of deaths resulting from these attacks indicates a willful targeting of the civilian police forces in these locations and a clear violation of the prohibition against willful killings. Willful killings are a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention under Article 147 and therefore, a War Crime. Both the time and location of these attacks also indicate a malicious intent to inflict as many casualties as possible with many of the police stations located in civilian population centres and the time of the attacks coinciding with the end of the school day resulting in the deaths of numerous children.
The ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip has left medical facilities in the Strip incapable of meeting the needs of the hundreds more who have been injured which will likely lead to an increase in the number of deaths. According to Israeli officials, these attacks are only the beginning of an open military campaign in Gaza. It is therefore imperative that the international community not stand in silence while Israel moves forward with impunity.
Despite repeated calls from the Palestinian human rights community with regard to Gaza, the international community has failed to act. We are now on the brink of an explosion of violence as result of this failure and are pushed once again to call for action.
In light of the above, Palestinian human rights organizations urge:
* The UN Security Council to call an emergency session and adopt concrete measures, including the imposition of sanctions, in order to ensure Israels fulfilment of its obligations under international humanitarian law.
* The High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to fulfil their obligation under common Article 1 to ensure respect for the provisions of the Conventions, taking appropriate measures to compel Israel to abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular placing pivotal importance on the respect and protection of civilians from the effects of the hostilities.
* The High Contracting Parties to fulfil their legal obligation under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to prosecute those responsible for grave breaches of the Convention.
* EU institutions and member states to make effective use of the European Union Guidelines on promoting compliance with international humanitarian law (2005/C 327/04) to ensure Israel complies with international humanitarian law under paragraph 16 (b), (c) and (d) of these guidelines, including the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions, as well as cessation of all upgrade dialogue with Israel.
Al-Haq
Addameer Prisoners' Support & Human Rights Association
Ad-Dameer Association for Human Rights
Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights
Defence for Children International
Ensan Center for Democracy & Human Rights
Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR)
Jerusalem Legal Aid & Human Rights Center (JLAC)
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession - Musawa
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People (PCR)
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies (RCHRS)
Women's Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC)
Women's Studies Center
The Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations' Network - PNGO
======================
Letter From Jenka (US citizen married to a Palestinian who was paralyzed by an Israeli bullet in the back but continues to have hope and work for peace -- and also for our International Middle East Media Center) 12/27/08
I sit in front of the computer, editing the article, trying, as always, to maintain objectivity, "Israeli airstrikes kill 205 Palestinians in Gaza".....my eyes begin to blur .....images of bodies, of wailing mamas screaming for their sons, of children missing limbs, hospital crews running, rushing....bodies everywhere......I can no longer see the computer screen through the tears. I think of our friends in Gaza -"Are they ok?" .....I try to think of an appropriate response: a protest at the Israeli consulate? A petition? A boycott campaign? They all seem so trivial, so ineffective. Send ANOTHER letter to my congressman, only to be rebuffed again with a form letter stating that the Congressman is in full support of Israel and their War on Terror?
I'm thinking about an article I read yesterday, about Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush just last week. The article was by Ramzy Baroud, who said that the reality of the world outside the Green Zone had finally broken into the carefully-scripted press conferences of Bush lies and al-Maliki smiles....
"What also confused the script is that al-Zaidi was not al-Qaeda, or an al-Qaeda sympathizer, not a foreign fighter, not a member of the dissolved Baath Party, nor was he affiliated with it in any way, and not even an Iraqi Sunni, for any such affiliation would fit perfectly in the political and media scripts that would demonize the man as an enemy of the Iraqi people, stability, democracy, freedom, and the rest of the redundant clichs. Al-Zaidi is simply an Iraqi man who has, as a journalist, highlighted the suffering of his people as politely, objectively and professionally as he could, and when he could no longer tolerate the lies told in the Green Zones ever malicious drama, he scrapped the script altogether, chucking his shoes at the main actor: This is a farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq. His words, although uttered for the first time in the Green Zone theater, echoed the voices of millions of Iraqis outside, who have chanted these words, for six long, tragic years."
He was fed up! He tried to be objective, kept reporting the daily toll of deaths, the daily violence of the occupation, the never ending river of blood and bodies.....and finally, after nothing he reported changed anything, he risked his career, and his life, to break the script at the press conference and express the rage and fury of the millions of Iraqis suffering and dying in the daily brutality of Bush's war. He has been tortured and beaten senseless for his deed, by Iraqi security, who, Baroud says, "mustve tried to impress their American security counterparts by teaching the poor al-Zaidi a lesson in good manners, Abu Ghraib-style".
here's that article: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14527
As I look again at the toll of today's Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, my eyes glance across a headline in one of the Israeli papers: "White House blames Hamas" .....and the fury and grief flow through me again. Israel drops 60 bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of civilians, wounding and maiming many more, and the first thing the White House has to say is that it is Hamas' fault! For what? For having been elected as the Palestinian government in uncontested and fair elections? For taking the unprecedented step of engaging in a unilateral ceasefire against Israel for the last six months, which was never reciprocated or even recognized by the occupying Israeli army? For begging Israel for a ceasefire this last week, but being rebuffed at every turn? The truth is, it doesn't matter what Hamas does, it is their very existence that Israel is trying to eradicate, with full US support. The fact that there is an Islamic movement that stands in resistance to the Israeli occupation is something that Israel cannot stand, and it's clear from their targets in today's airstrikes: Hamas government buildings, police stations, municipal headquarters, offices of the bureaucrats of an elected government. And they struck during rush hour, when the streets were full, in one of the most crowded places on earth, so as to maximize casualties.
And the US blames Hamas.
What eventually becomes clear, to any Palestinian, or any Iraqi for that matter, is that their occupier can do anything they want, with impunity, and no matter what, they, the occupied, will be blamed.
And the other thing that becomes clear, after day after day of this violence, month after month, year after year, is that the world, or at least those with the power to change anything, do not care.
It's like Ward Churchill said in his post-9/11 speech that got him fired from the University of Colorado despite his tenure: if you are a person in the Arab world and you see Madeline Albright up there on 60 Minutes saying, "Yes, we know that 500,000 Iraqi children have died from the sanctions, but we think the price is worth it", well, what are you SUPPOSED to think??? There's no other conclusion that you can reach except that the piles and piles of corpses, the thousands of innocent children, do not matter to Madeline Albright, or to the American people! The American people DO NOT CARE!
And no amount of objective journalism on the subject can make people care.
And what now - Barack Obama is supposed to be some kind of savior and change everything? I don't think so. My email after his election was mainly just surprise that there was not another Supreme Court-decided debacle. But he's not going to change US policy toward Israel. He's
never said that he would. I think maybe people just hoped that he would, with no evidence in his record that he would - just because people want someone to save them. But his appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, as his FIRST cabinet appointment, set the tone for what the Palestinians can expect from Barack Obama. Emmanuel's dad told an Israeli paper, "Of course my son will have a big influence on Obama regarding Israel - what, do you think he's going to be sweeping the floors of the White House? He's not an Arab!"
This is the kind of outright racism that Obama's dear friend Rahm Israel Emmanuel was raised with.
There's no chance whatsoever that he'll change US policy toward Israel. He's said so himself, many times.
What can we do?
Every day I edit articles coming out of the occupied Palestinian Territories, on the website http://www.imemc.org .....will that really change anything? I don't know.
But at least it's a record, documenting the daily Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
Every week the Palestinian Center for Human Rights publishes a detailed record documenting the Israeli crimes for that week.
http://www.imemc.org/newswire?search_text=pchr&x=0&y=0
The record of Israeli crimes is all there, verifiable and well-documented. But the US government does not, and will not, care. As far as I can tell, the State Dept. bureaucrat directing policy
toward Israel is: Director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs Thomas Goldberger 202-647-3672
Maybe the least we can do is to flood his office with calls, demanding that the US stop supporting an illegal occupation that engages in daily violations of international human rights law and completely disregards the internationally-recognized rights of the Palestinian people.
Right now, though, I kind of feel like throwing my shoes.
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1 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10063.shtml
2 http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1773)
3 see example here
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=1 )
4 Gaza Massacre must spur us to action (See article written even before three families were targeted killing 10 children)
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml
5 Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk5ZTy7sERY
http://www.aljazeera.net/Channel/KServices/SupportPages/ShowMedia/showMedia.aspx?fileURL=/mritems/streams/2008/12/28/1_881090_1_12.wmv
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27 December 2008
Please forward to media immediately and pick-up the phone and call media outlets immediately to condemn the atrocities being committed in Gaza (Using US taxpayer money and International and Arab Government Acquiescence). Demonstrations are ongoing throughout the West Bank. Here is the press release for the one in Bethlehem ( / arabic at Bottom).
A demonstration to condemn the massacres being committed in Gaza
Palestinian Civil Society organizations in the Bethlehem area, people of various political affiliations, Christians, and Muslims, and all people of conscience in the Bethlehem area are gathering at 5 PM in front of the Church of Nativity and Omar's mosque in Bethlehem.
Nearly 200 people were reported massacred so far by Israeli war planes bombings of the besieged Gaza strip. Hundreds were reported injured so far. The victims include men, women, and children and the number of victims are expected to rise rapidly. Join us today as we call for ending the massacres, ending the siege on Gaza, for reconciliation between all Palestinians, and for freedom.
For more information:
Khalid AlAzza 0545439263
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh 0598939532
Dr. Abdelfattah Abusrour 0599255573
A personal note: I was reading an open letter from a family from Gaza on my computer that talked of the hardships and the lack of food and electricity when my mother ran in to tell me that they are bombing Gaza. I watch a little on the TV and get sick to my stomach. I rushed to the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement and it is buzzing with activities. Thousands will come out today on short notice I am sure just in the Bethlehem area. Please spread the word.
Since this is an emergency posting, I had prepared to send tomorrow my weekly posting and to avoid flooding your inboxes, below is the draft of what I was planning to complete and send tomorrow but events are now likely to escalate beyond anything we all can imagine. May we all see peace.....
Mazin
It is amazing that CNN and some other media outlets who reported on the death of famous Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter mentioned he was Jewish and mentioned his criticism of the US policies but do not mention his persistent criticism of Israel and Zionism. Just in April he signed (with many other well respected Jews of Conscience) a letter that read in part We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations. We will celebrate when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle East. (see We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary, The Guardian, Wednesday 30 April 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/israelandthepalestinians
This is an example of self-censorship in some media. In parallel this same media fails to report the swindles of Zionists appropriately. An example of a story glossed over in its impact and relevance is the story of the way Zionists bilk donors and get rich (see Bernard Madoff: Wall Street Swindler Strikes Powerful Blows for Social Justice
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_29099.shtml )
And some editors (out of ignorance, shoddy journalism, or bias) in the West prefer not to report reality in Palestine. Few really explained Bethlehem under siege this Christmas and few reported on our candle light procession to demand end of colonization of the Shepherds field yesterday. Occasionally something does seep into Western Media like this article on reality in Gaza reported by the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7766509.stm
Below are two things on this reality we face here:
Genocidal settlers, Al-Ahram Weekly on-line, 18 - 24 December 2008
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/926/re71.htm
PRESS RELEASE
Free Palestine and Free all Political Prisoners
The One Democratic State Group urges the International community and people of conscience everywhere to demand that Israel respect International law by ending its illegal occupation of all areas occupied since 1967, by respecting and implementing refugees right to return, and by freeing all political prisoners including members of the Palestinian legislative council.
Since June 2006, Israel has kidnapped more than 64 elected Palestinian Legislative Council members and cabinet ministers, university lecturers, city mayors and health workers, including Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker, Professor Aziz Adwaik. Professor Adwaik is also Professor of Economics at An Najjah University in Nablus. Ahmed Saadat leader of the PFLP was just sentenced to 30 years imprisonment by the illegal military courts of the occupation regime. Israeli forces kidnapped Saadat two years ago from a PA prison in Jericho and kept him in solitary confinement since then. Saadat and other Palestinians refuse to recognize the authority of the court or to appeal to higher occupation courts. Israel currently illegally holds more than 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners. While Palestinians have different opinions on tactics of resistance to colonial occupation, we all share the same goals of freedom and self-determination and we all recognize the rights and obligations of occupied people to resist per tenets of International law.
The One Democratic State Group calls on the international community, all academic institutions, and all international civil society organizations to demand:
- The immediate release of Ahmed Saadat, Marwan Braghouti, Professor Adwaik, other elected legislatures and all Palestinian political prisoners.
- The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in international humanitarian law and international human rights law such as the Fourth Geneva Convention.
-An end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, Israeli apartheid and Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.
-Implementation of International law including the rights of refugees to return to their homes and lands.
For Comments contact:
Dr. Asaad Abu Shark + 972 599 322636 (Gaza)
Dr. Haidar Eid + 972 599 441766 (Gaza)
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh +972 598939532 (West Bank)
http://www.odsg.org/co/
5:00
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200 .
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0545439263 ()
. 0599255573 ()
. 0598939532 ()
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17 December 2008
Christmas Under Occupation
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NOVEMBER 7, 2008
First Sign of No Change: Obama Chooses his Chief of StaffOnline Journal 7 Nov 08
also Published in Palestine Chronicle
=================
10 November 2008
First Sign of No Change: Obama hires his Chief of Staff, by Mazin Qumsiyeh (occupied West Bank)
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3975.shtml
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14355
Action 1: Write Obama and tell him how disappointed you are that his first appointment shows no change: Zionist racist and bigots remain in control. Demand real change! Use this link to write his transition team http://change.gov/page/s/contact
Action 2: At 3:30 AM Sunday morning, the Israeli apartheid forces evicted a Palestinian elderly couple (Al-Kurd family) from their home in Sheikh Jarrah area of Arab East Jerusalem. They also arrested several International solidarity people who were having a continuous presence at the house to prevent such action. This after they already removed their sons family from the neighborhood. Speak out against the continued ethnic cleansing of native Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem by writing to your media and ask Obama to get involved to stop this. To learn more about this particular area in Jerusalem, see http://www.sheikhjarrah.com and http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/
The fourth Free Gaza boat arrived safely in Gaza but as we speak, some of the Internationals who joined Fishing boats are being subjected to attack by Israeli navy using water cannons and machine gun fire http://www.freegaza.org/
I will be in the US and the first few days in December for a short visit but I am available to speak around the 5-9 December (Universal Declaration of Human Rights day, my book was subtitled Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle and I have a lopt more stories to tell before I go back to Palestine). For a recent report by a UN commission about Israeli violations of basic human righst in the occupied areas (and for the first time calling for sanctions), please see
this link
In good news, the settlers who were supposed (according to their website) to come to Ush Ghrab in Beit Sahour Sunday did not show up. IMHO, our collective previous civil resistance activities including planned ones here were significant. On this day we had dozens of children flying kites and having music etc (thanks to all the local and international volunteers). It was a sight to see at the liberated military camp (a short video shot by Andy Trimlett is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnkdCPT3lPI and google videos on Ush Ghrab).
An earlier video of Children at Ush Ghrab http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liy37Q2LdX4
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29 October 2008
Press Release: Gaza Welcomes SS Dignity 29.10.2008
Once again, 27 activists from 13 nations-- including doctors, lawyers, teachers, and human rights advocates-- have arrived in Gaza from Cyprus, united in their determination to break the criminal Israeli siege and shed light on the suffering of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. They intend to deliver medical supplies, meet with civil society organizations, and volunteer in hospitals.
The One Democratic State Group commends this courageous step taken by the Free Gaza Movement and extends an open invitation to Amre Mousa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, to join the next trip to Gaza.
One passenger, Mairead Maguire, the winner of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, stated: "The people of Gaza are part of our human family. The Israeli government cannot cut off Gaza forever. We will come again and again until we reach our family. We go to visit our family, and the Israeli government has no right to stop us."The UN has called the situation in Gaza a humanitarian disaster, but the inhumanity goes on. More than 255 terminally ill people have already died as a result of this medieval siege imposed on 1.5 million civilians.
We in Gaza and the One Democratic State group take heart from this courageous mission by ordinary people from all corners of the globe. Dr. Haidar Eid from Gaza stated 'Their brave and direct action will remind the world of our incarceration and force the eyes of the world to look in our direction once more. We were happy at their safe arrival and thank them for their amazing action."
Once again, we reiterate our call on international civil society organizations to take similar actions as governments and multilateral organizations have stood by silently, and worse, even supported the barbaric Israeli siege on Gaza's 1.5 million people. We know that if we remain steadfast - and with the support of freedom loving - some day soon, thousands of boats will reach our shores.
The One Democratic State Group
www.odsg.org/co
onedemocraticstategroup@gmail.com
For comments
Dr. Haidar Eid +972xxxxxx (Gaza)
Dr. Asaad Abu Sharkh +9725xxxxxx (Gaza)
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh +9725xxxxxx (Bethlehem)
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17 October 2008
(please forward)
Below are
- Links to Videos of these events
- My brief write-up on the events at Ush Ghrab
- Links to other media sources on the events
Video Links
Part 1 http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bHpdc78xUvg
Part 2 http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=IjXsutlrHys
Brief report back
When our photographer friend was being wrestled to the ground and heavy boots stepping on his neck and his expensive camera being trashed, time seems to stand still. It was actually a few seconds when several members attempted to help him (by pleading with the brutal settler police and border guards and in some case trying to shield him from brutal blows with their bodies) and six individual were "arrested" (I use this term in quotes because they were actually just kidnapped illegally and held hostage). The events leading up to this event began with intents by racist colonial settlers (many of them with foreign passports) to take over this piece of Beit Sahour land that was for a while used by the Jordanian and later Israeli army. Christian and Muslim Palestinians in Beit Sahour (the Shepherds' Field) and the surrounding towns and villages continue to actively use their land in Ush Ghrab in creative and positive ways despite attempts by settlers to take over. We regularly join hands with International human rights activists to show the power of nonviolent resistance and affirmation of our rights. Part of the land was already developed for a recreational area including children playgrounds. Other areas are slated for a community garden, a nature walk, and a hospital.
Palestinians and our international friends use the site for many activities from meetings to nature walks to parties to barbeques and picnics. On this day, we had plans for a hike with bird-watching (Palestine Wildlife Society), music festivities, and athletics. We arrived at 11 AM and our first attempt was to take three barrels (one for regular trash, one for glass/plastic, and one for compost) to put at the place where the settlers are to gather. Dozens of heavily armed soldiers blocked our way. We asked to see the military order of closure and they showed us an order that said that the area is a closed military zone (ironic since colonial settlers were allowed to get in with no problems !). Some soldiers took over a private home near the site and imprisoned its owners in one room while they made it into a military post with roof and window guns pointed at us.
We asked the soldiers to at least please deliver the trash barrels/bins to the site because every time settlers come they leave trash everywhere. We did much education of the soldiers and police (or at least those of them who listened). The soldiers followed us in the hike around the mountain and it was when we came close to the road which settlers used to get up the hill that they became insistent on us leaving, as we were walking back, an international friend was suddenly attacked from behind and as others were also attacked and kidnapped. We were told that if we go back to the park area and stay there they might be released. So essentially, the friends were hostages to impact our decisions (this is considered a war crime and fits the definition of terrorism to try and coerce an action from someone by threats to harm a friend or relative). We did go ahead with our other activities (including over 70 children who had a rap and other music festival) while negotiations for the release of our friends ensued and expanded to include the Mayor and officers of the Occupation army. Finally after several hours, five of our comrades were released and one was still being held and maybe deported. The five released included two Palestinians (one from Beit Jala and one from Bethlehem) and nationals from Italy, England, and the US. After the army withdrew, we did not that the soldiers (but not the colonial settlers) did use our trash containers but had decided to also add a few rocks! The colonial settlers plan to return with their hateful messages (and trash) on 9 November. We will stay here with peaceful and creative activities always and we always invite anyone to join us whether in dialog or action for peace.
Links to other news stories
http://www.imemc.org/article/57343
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32584
http://www.mema3a.com/inside.php?arID=411&aCAT=6
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11 September 2008
Dear friends:
In Bethlehem area, we face colonial settlements and apartheid walls on three sides (north, west, south) and east is a closed military zone. A week ago an activist suggested we simply break the wall with the help of internationals (ala what happened in Gaza). Two days later I had a dream of doing precisely that. My dream was focused on feelings about doing such a thing as we were doing it; feelings of fear, anxiety, thrill, love, hope, trepidations, sadness and joy and more. Every morning when I get up I see the colony of Har Homa (built on the lands of Jabal AbuGhneim) and the meandering "geder hahafrada" (Hebrew name meaning "wall of segregation") that goes in to maximize the land grab while minimizing the number of Palestinians included on the "Israeli side". Funny though how objects here including land and air become associated with tribal Jewish identity. Sharon once exhorted settlers to grab the hills because "everything we grab will become ours and everything we don't will be theirs". The "us" he was referring to is the Zionist conception of the Jewish people (as an ethnicity and a "nation" not a religion). The "them" is the "Arabs" as Zionists refer to us trying to avoid the use of the term Palestinians lest we are reminded that we are the natives in Palestine and that there is something called Palestine. But of course the land and nature is no more "Jewish" than it became Roman under the Roman Empire. For the most part, native people and creatures here try to make as normal a life as possible under the abnormal circumstances of colonialism and attempts to reconfigure their lives. Just as I gaze at the wall separating me from Jerusalem (a mere five miles) and the lights turning off in the settelment, I also see other images of the morning: Palestinian children with dark black hair, olive skin color, and pressed uniforms heading to school, our neighbor opening his car repair shop, a guy with a NY yankees cap selling sesame cakes, a municipal truck collecting garbage, our cats and dog begging for food, and a dove gently landing on the olive tree. Life and hence hope, I think to myself, always finds a way. I get to the university at 8 AM and already it is full of young students (and I mean full that it is hard to walk around not like US universities). Apparent normality in an abnormal situation, I think to myself.
I had shared earlier with you a poem by a young person. Today I saw an email message forwarded from a young person that is also worth reading. This teenager reflects on how "lucky" she is to live in Ramallah rather than Gaza. This is a sad commentary on the state of affairs: when occupied Ramallah appears so much better than occupied Gaza. But this 15 year old has basically not even lived under the more normal occupation I lived under when I was her age. In those "good old days" of the early military occupation (1970s and 1980s), a Ramallah resident (or Bethlehem resident) could drive and go swim in the Dead Sea, or the Red Sea or the Meduiterranean sea. Our parents could also move and work anywhere. All these are now off limits to us (rare exeption given with special permits that few are able to get: usually collaborators, government officials, or wealthy businessmen that normalize with Israel). So I wonder if a few years from now we will also look at "the good old days" of today when Ramallah residents could visit and work in Bethlehem but not Jerusalem. Our Israeli friend Dr. Jeff Halper wrote an article this week in which he argues that apartheid in South Africa would never "warehouse" people like Israel is "warehousing" us the Palestinian people. But this an evolving system and (while it could get better with our colective efforts and resistance), it could get worse. I followed the article of this 10th grader with an action alert to organize in your community a meaningful activity for the 6th International "week against the apartheid wall".
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A Girl from Gaza Identified by her ID
By: Haneen Zaqout, Grade 10, Friends School- Ramallah
We all spend a lifetime trying to figure out what makes someone who they are, and what defines them. Is it their characteristics, appearances, or behaviors? It may be a combination of allfor regular people. But for people who come from where I come from, figuring out who they are is not a choice for them. I come from Gaza City in Palestine, where surviving each day is a huge struggle for all Gazans. Leaving Gaza was the hardest thing Ive ever done, partly because I miss my old life, and partly it is the guilt kicking in.
When I left Gaza, I had to go through this checkpoint. Its not ANY checkpoint. It is the Erez Checkpoint and its there to imprison the people of Gaza because as soon as the Israeli soldiers see a Gaza ID, that person is automatically considered an utter terrorist. Without knowing who they are, without any idea whatsoever about those people, they decide that they are criminals. Who has the right to take a persons identity from them? Or to judge them based on a piece of paper or nationality? How can they take away peoples choice of trying to figure out who they really are? I dont know but as I was walking through that long tunnel in that checkpoint, I realized that no matter what I do, no one will accept me for who I am. In that tunnel, they make no difference whether I am a terrorist or a person who is yearning for peace, not only for my people but also for the Israeli people.
I had the privilege to leave Gaza that others dream of having. Not because they dont love Gaza, nor for the fun of it, but because it is so hard to live there. Home became something you want to escape from instead of being the place you can run to when life gets too hard. As soon as I was through that checkpoint, after being treated like an animal, after being numbered like baggage, checked out by all the screening machines that never occurred to my mind that I would ever see them. I now live in Ramallah, which is only 2 hours away from Gaza. I left that exotic part of the world called Gaza; but still have it on my mind every second of the day, still influenced by my past there, and still motivated by its peoples strengths.
On the news, the talk about how Gaza has NO fuel, NO food, and even NO electricity; but the TV is just a source of information to pass on how people are sufferingdoes that mean that anyone outside Gaza understands what the people are really going through? No, they listen to that devastating news, feel bad for the people going through it, and continue on with their lives like nothing happened. Maybe some people can pretend, but as for myself I cant! This is the main reason Im writing this for as much as I know that words can be inconsequential, they can also make a difference in many peoples lives.
I hate that I feel guilty every time I eat a piece of chocolate, knowing that a friend or a little child is craving one. I hate that when Im bored I can open the TV or the computer and waste time, while my friends have nothing to do considering they have no electricity. I hate how I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, even outside Ramallah, while my friends are stuck at home because they have no fuel to even go around Gaza city! I hate buying new clothes, because my friends cant. I hate that Im absolutely and utterly helpless.
However in Gaza, regardless of the situation, you always find love and hope, you find people struggling for their lives. A mother trying to put a smile on her childs face, a father trying to get the strength to protect his childs little body from a missile. In Gaza you find those mixed feelings between love and hatred, between hope and despair, between frustration and satisfaction. In Gaza, you find people smiling when they cross the borders, even when it takes them hours and even days to cross. In Gaza you find just what you need. You find home.
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ACTION ITEM:
As part of the national and international mobilization to mark the 60th year of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe), in which millions of Palestinians were either slaughtered or displaced by the Zionist militias and army, the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and its Popular Committees call for the Sixth Week against the Apartheid Wall.
Six years after the first mass protests started in the northern West Bank against the Apartheid Wall, Occupation bulldozers and military are still targeting our land and people. We have continued to stand our ground, halting the construction works with our own hands, defending our land and mourning our latest martyrs - Ahmad Mousa (12 years) and Yousef Amira (17 years) from Nilin - that have given their lives in the struggle against the Wall. We call on you to stand in solidarity:
Mobilize and raise your voice during the Sixth Week against the Apartheid Wall,
November 9 16 2008.
The Wall has almost been completed, resulting in the confinement of Palestinians in the West Bank into segregated Bantustans. 60 years ago, the depopulation or destruction of 531 Palestinian towns and villages, ruthless massacres and the displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians from their houses and lands has turned the majority of the Palestinian people into refugees and placed those remaining in their homeland under an apartheid regime. Today, the Wall is threatening to finish the project of ethnic cleansing and land left that began in 1948.
Snaking through West Bank, the Wall has isolated 78 Palestinian villages, separating communities and wrecking livelihoods. Some are trapped between the Wall and the Green Line, where access is only allowed with permits through gates with restricted opening hours. Most are imprisoned from three sides by the Wall, settlers roads or settlements, with the only exit controlled by the Occupation. 14 of these villages face imminent demolition and are in serious danger of being wiped off the map.
The Wall is also sealing the fate of thousands of Palestinian Bedouin. Having faced expulsions since 1948, the Occupation is renewing the attack on them in order to clear the land in the Jordan Valley and around Jerusalem for annexation. Occupation authorities are pushing more than 6,000 members of the Jahalin Bedouin, residing east of Jerusalem, into rekuzim (concentration) camps in order to make space for Jewish-only settlements.
The fight for Jerusalem has reached a critical stage, with the Occupation consolidating and expanding the settlement ring around the city. Construction on the light rail, which will link Jewish settlements with the city centre, is near completion. Home demolitions have increased sharply, settlement construction is booming and Occupation forces regularly raid and close Palestinian institutions, events and religious sites.
As the Occupation tightens its grip on the West Bank, we must not forget the people of Gaza who are subjected to medieval siege and forgotten by the international community, yet continue to remain steadfast. They were the first to blow up the Wall, and their actions exemplify the resistance and determination of the Palestinian people.
The International Court of Justice has ruled that the Wall is illegal and has required that it be torn down and all laws and orders related to it be reversed. The Court has reminded the international community of their obligation not to render any aid or assistance to the Wall and instead to ensure the implementation of international law, including the ICJ decision itself. To date, the international community has not promoted any concrete move towards rulings implementation.
Instead, the United Nations and the international community have turned a blind eye to or even abetted Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The US sponsored and internationally endorsed Annapolis process is to result in a shelf agreement, meaning that while the Occupation will have no duty to change its policies, it will have gained the signature of Palestinian negotiators compromising our rights.
The only effective means to promote justice in Palestine to date is the united Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions issued in July 2005. The global adoption of the call has so far provided much needed support for our struggle.
We ask you to support the resistance of the people by mobilizing against the Wall and the apartheid system it has created on ground. We call on whoever still believes in justice, humanity, liberation, and resistance against tyranny to stand with us and:
Show solidarity to the Palestinian struggle against the Apartheid Wall
Expose Israeli occupation, apartheid, and colonialism
End global support for Israeli apartheid
Visit our website and use our awareness raising material to prepare your events and protests:
1)Palestinian Villages and Town between Isolation and Expulsion: a detailed study of the communities threatened with ethnic cleansing by the Apartheid Wall. Download the PDF here: http://stopthewall.org/activistresources/1583.shtml or contact us at global@stopthewall.org for hard copies. Please, see the French version at: http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/threatenedvillages-fr.pdf
2)Palestinian Villages and Town between Isolation and Expulsion the factsheet: a short summary of the most important facts and figures. Download the factsheet at: http://stopthewall.org/factsheets/1632.shtml
3) The Arab Jahalin: from the Nakba to the Wall: an in depth study on the history of the Jahalin Bedouin, from there expulsion from Tal Arad until the present. Based on a number of oral histories, the Jahalin narrate their own struggle. Download the PDF at: http://stopthewall.org/activistresources/1720.shtml or contact us at global@stopthewall.org for hard copies.
4) On the way of return to Tal Arad - the Arab Jahalin: a 25 minutes documentary on the Arab Jahalin and their struggle for dignity and return to Tal Arad. To obtain a DVD, please contact us at: global@stopthewall.org
5) Threatened villages 6 years of struggle: a powerful photo exhibit that illustrates the reality and struggle of the Palestinian villages threatened by the Wall and the Bedouin communities within the context of the ongoing Nakba. 36 photos, including captions.
To preview the exhibit, see: http://stopthewall.org/activistresources/1721.shtml
To obtain the hi-res photos of the exhibit and captions, please contact us at global@stopthewall.org
Develop your boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. For more information, materials and updates, see: www.bdsmovement.net
Mobilize against the Occupations policies and its Apartheid Wall!
Reach out to your media!
Reach out to your political representatives!
Stop support Israeli apartheid!
Go to www.stopthewall.org for information
Action is the best antidote to despair
=====================
8/18/08
Life is still beautiful
The drooping Israeli flags were as numerous, unmoving, and lifeless in the desert heat as the Israeli police and military conscripts blocking people from their basic rights. One of those young Israeli conscripts at the "immigration window", obviously not enjoying her work and trying to make it as hard as possible for Palestinians and visitors, asked do I have another passport.. yes... here it is a US passport. She kept my Palestinian document (called a passport but really not a passport and issued only via approval by Israeli officials) and asked gruffly "Istana" (=wait) and "roh henak" (go there).
But on the window nearby for Palestinians from Jerusalem (blue ID card) there was an even more problematic women: a lunatic Israeli who was literally screaming at the top of her lungs to the line of Palestinians who tried to figure out what to do to get her to calm down and process their documents. We wait, some for one hour some for four or more (and some are denied entry to their own homeland). Mine was a tolerable 3 hours until they called my name; this I think relate to having US Citizenship and thus pushing us around is thought to make us decide not to stay or even visit. The wait gave me time to chat with fellow travelers/sufferers and to begin to jot these notes and reflect on the day's progress and to think about other things.
The day had started at 4:30 AM in Amman and we were lined up in cars at the Jordanian side of the border at about 6 AM as the morning sun rose strong over the hills in this lowest place on earth near the dead sea. Swarming hungry flies got thicker as the line of cars inched its way amid the restless children and smoking drivers.
Our Amman driver (Hanna) was an old veteran at this and simply let his tape recorder play the songs of George Wasuf , songs that seem to defy reality of the crossing point to the hell of the occupied territories. Lyrics of "Lissa Elhaya 7ilwa" (Life is still beautiful) and "life is short, the fortune is fate". Hanna is a Palestinian Christian who has not been back to Palestine since 1967 when he as a child and his family were in Jordan as Israeli strolled through the West Bank and then prevented those who were abroad from returning. He has four children. He was not shy to express his dismay at how Palestine was invaded (by British and Zionist colonial powers), betrayed (by Arab leaders), ignored (by the rest of the world), and maligned (in Zionist controlled media). But he has retained rays of hope as he talks about his children who did find jobs, about his dream of visiting Beit Lahem...
After the checks on the Jordan side, we are loaded onto crowded buses and then move to the Bridge area and wait in a line of buses. Images flash before my mind: a girl with torn shoes, a newborn being shielded from the flies by a vigilant mother, a women with a patch on her eye, a man on crutches, pilgrims coming back from Saudi Arabia carrying "holy water". Most are very poor but there are a few wealthier folks (some zipped us by in the VIP shuttles).
The hardest parts were from 6 AM when we got into the Jordan bridge to 2:30 PM when we were still languishing at the Israeli terminal. Hundreds of Palestinians, more than 70% women and children wait patiently to be bossed around. We witness acts of Israeli insensitivity (e.g. when the young conscript demands children be lifted for her to see them rather than simply lean over the look at them), we witness small acts of treachery (e.g. a Palestinian man cutting in front of old women and children), but we witness more acts of compassion and kindness (offering drinks, food, helping each other with luggage etc).
In between periods of waiting, there are periods of frantic dash to get luggage load it onto one or another bus. I missed two buses as I decided I was not in such a rush and I should help others get onto it. In going from Amman to Beit Sahour, we passed through the following areas of authority (each with checkpoints): Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian, Israeli, then Palestinian again (the latter four are to pass from the Jericho ghetto/reservation to the Bethlehem Ghetto/reservation). The 11 hour ordeal for what should be a two hour trip is rather exhausting. Maybe they aught to make it an olympic marathon sport!
The apartheid system here is mean and people are being forced to worry more about their food than their freedom (of course they are directly related). But the apartheid system is not sustainable and even Israelis know it. It is the manner of its demise that we should start discussing (e.g. changing the concepts of nationalism to concepts of citizenship and equality). These are things I began to discuss and I find many interested. The conversations are fascinating, the people eminently interested (as well as complex). A friend who just spent the summer here wrote "the situation is so inhumane...How do we bring awareness to what occupation does to the lives of people..How do we get folks to to get it..this in the year 2008--it should not be allowed for one group of people to lawfully be able to murder, maim, torture, demolish homes, confiscate lands...Among the things we witnessed; we sat with the families in Sheik Jarrah.. once again, how can it be that settlers can come and kick the familes out of their homes ..and then arrest the owner..how can it be that Israel can just demolish the Al Kurd home in front of their eyes and those of the community family... then to impose such high taxes..that are nearly impossible for anyone to pay.. It reminds me of the gentrifcation happening in US cities where African Americans and the poor are being pushed out of their homes. I have so much respect for the ISM volunteers and others who are steadfast with the families...yes, a human shield...We saw so much oppression,children so defiant..after visiting a sibling in prison, or daughter not able to see her father for seven years --because he lives in Gaza and she lives in the West Bank..this is Bullshit!"
I do have to watch that I do nor waste time on negative thoughts. I did wonder briefly if people like Palestinian "negotiator" Saeb Erekat goes through the border hassles or cares about the suffering of ordinary Palestinians. I did wonder briefly about many in the "left" in the US who offer lip service to the suffering Palestinians while unwilling to really challenge the Israel lobby grip on US foreign policy. I wondered about Israeli transcripts some younger than my son who rule over millions of what they consider children of a lesser God at best or subhuman at worst. I wondered about collaborators and profiteers. I have to quickly shake off these negative thoughts to focus on actions since reality is far more interesting and there is far more goodness around as well as possibilities for good work (already I witnessed several acts of selfless giving). There are other things. I am glad that a child at the barber shop in Beit Sahour getting his first haircut seem to take more of my thought. A discussion of what to do with too many grapes in the garden far more interesting. Talk about actions to reduce solid waste and recycling far more exciting. Talk about what to with the liberated hill Ush Ghrab that is still under threat in Beit Sahour (see IMEMC video of the chronicle of this struggle and the inspiring message of resistance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9ZaFwi6WBo )...
So "joyful participation in the sorrows of this world" work is plentiful; come visit us. As we say in Arabic: Ahlan wa sahlan.
Indeed the George Wasuf song is correct that "Life is still beautiful".
PS: thanks to the hundreds among you who have written personal letters to me about this move. My apologies if I did not answer everyone personally. I am trying to catch up.
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Video: Preview of 6 part series: Chronicles of a refugee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPyXTW3bjyI
Pictures of Popular Palestinian Conference in Chicago
http://picasaweb.google.com/AlAwdaNY/USPCN
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8/14/08
Leaving the US For Palestine
After such knowledge; what forgiveness?
Think now
History has many cunning passages,
Contrived corridors
And issue, deceives with wispering ambitions
Guides us by vanities.
Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, she gives with such supple confusion
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
T. S. Elliot
I graduated from Jordan University with a Bachelor degree at age 21 and then taught in Palestinian Schools (Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho). In those year and a half as a middle and high school teacher (Jan 78-June 79) I worked very hard at two jobs (extra teaching at private school in Jerusalem) so as to save money for higher education. I saved enough for the airline tickets and an extra $1500 for the first few months in America. I came to the US in August 1979 to pursue higher education and ended up making it a home while maintaining a home in Palestine. Since then I got my doctorate, medical boards in genetics, and served on faculties at the University of Tennessee, Duke, and Yale Universities. I published over 130 scientific papers and three books. Here I also met first my wife, built a family, made thousands of friends, and chose to become a citizen. Thus, my journey in the US was wonderful and highly successful. Much of my activism was driven here by the desire to improve this country (e.g. stop it from committing war crimes and crimes against humanity). I strongly believe that unless all of us work together to change US foreign policy (a policy shaped by Zionist lobbies), we are all doomed. We see that millions of US citizens are also concerned about the way this foreign policy is damaging our economy and reputation around the world. I think it must (and it will) change. There are many good signs (e.g. the books of Carter and Mearsheimer and Walt became best sellers). Yet, today with the new laws that shred constitutional protections, government intrusion on every sphere of life, the US has been more Israelized. These things, restrictions on students coming from the Arab world, and the war economy in America (that devastated higher education here) makes a repeat of my story much more difficult if not impossible. My own journey has not been easy. Racist Zionists tried to block us at every corner and racism in a society shaped by Hollywood films that villify Arabs is rampant. Some take their positions at institutions of higher education and at funding agencies (e.g. March of Dimes, National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health) as a license to advance their racist ideologies. This situation continues although I did notice that in the past 12-15 years things have become more opened up. This is a function of a) numbers: Zionist ranks are dwindling and populations of all other people in the US are growing, b) the internet opening up the dialogues and increasing exposure to the truth, and c) more Arab and Muslim Americans taking on their civic responsibilities and asserting their rights and their responsibilities in this society. But perhaps it is always a struggle anyway.
But the difficulties I faced (including a major health issue) are nothing compared to what other Palestinians face under occupation or in exile (e.g. in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria). I consider my challenges/difficulties in life as blessings. I would not want them changed if I had the power to change them. Difficulties in life make us who we are and help us improve. In this I am thankful even to those self-declared enemies and protagonists who sometimes succeeded in what they aimed to do and sometimes failed but always provided me with good lessons. So perhaps a tinge of me wants more difficulties. I look back with nostalgia at my upbringing under Israeli occupation. I look with nostalgia at the time I was teaching in the West Bank. I talk to my elderly diabetic mother every week and she tells me stories of what is going on on the ground. Her stories include things like people dying because of being prevented from going to health clinics, students denied the right to go to school, lands confiscated, children shot in the back of the head, extra-judicial executions, further acts of ethnic cleansing, and more. I also go to Palestine every year and I see the apartheid system getting worse. Walls surrounding towns and villages, US weapons that killed or maimed friends and colleagues, economic strangulation, and much more. But both mother and I see so much good work being done by good people of all faiths and backgrounds.
Thus, every year when I go visit Palestine, I cannot wait to come back even though life there gets worse (checkpoints, the violence of the occupation, the economic deterioration). My last visit was of July last year. The hate I witnessed from settlers, from occupation soldiers, and yes from some natives was so thick in the air and permeated everything. The racism, the segregation, the apartheid walls... and all the other things I occasionally share with you through this cyberspace. BUT, there is also lots of love. Love is not usually expressed in words in Palestine. Even among family members it is rare to hear the words "I love you". Love is expressed at a far more meaningful sense in caring, asking how your health is, offering food, hospitality, offering your clothing and what little you have etc. These are acts of love.
In the US, I witness acts of love perhaps two or three times a day in person (I see many more on the emails and other news sources). In Palestine, in my last visit, I witnessed acts of love in the dozens in some days. In one day of a nonviolent demonstration in Bilin and then in the Hospital where Ibrahim Bornat was taken after being shot, I witnessed hundreds of acts of love. They came not just from Palestinians but from Internationals and even Israelis who were with us. In the US, writing a letter to the editor or demonstrating in front of a congressman's office are acts of resistance (and yes love). In Palestine, teaching a child to read, eating, drinking, breathing living, and everything we do in life there are acts of resistance (and love). This is because that is not what the colonial Zionist movement wants (they want us all out to create a more uniform "Jewish state" that is cleansed "nichsayon").
Of course without the US support of Israel, Israel can't survive as a colonial power. That is why work in the US has been and must continue to be a center of focus. We simply must change US policy in the Middle East (if nothing else than to save the US from economic collapse!). Work must be done both in Palestine and outside of Palestine. Indeed that is part of the reason why I have not relocated to Palestine earlier. There is something indeed about fate and destiny.
I also have a home in Connecticut and will maintain that for the time being. It is our destiny as Palestinians to be so conflicted and separated. I have relatives in 40+ countries. I have friends and colleagues in over 100 countries. So I guess, the world is my home. The corner of it that received a lot of oppression deserves a lot of attention/activism.
Activism for human rights is not only a duty but it is one of the most rewarding things to have done myself (marriage, having a son, writing books are others). Activism falls truly under the category of enlightened self interest which is what philosphers and sages of old have encouraged us to practice. So in that sense I am still going to be doing acts similar to here. My focus will shift though. I will be doing somethings:
- Teaching at Bethlehem University (a new masters program in Biotechnology, course in human molecular genetics)
- Working on environmental/conservation issues (see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nature/ )
- Building a laboratory for clinical genetics that employs Palestinian graduates
- Doing other activities that create job opportunities (see for example by going to http://www.pcr.ps/ and click on outsourcing Palestine project at right)
- Writing more books (the next one on my agenda to complete is on history, theory, and practice of Palestinian non-violent resistance over the past 128 years)
- Giving help where I can (my dream is to start a "food not bombs" chapter)
- Continue the never-ending work to improve myself and fight the demons within.
- Having fun!
And as our newly departed poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote: "I long for my mother's bread, and my mother's coffee, and her touch. Childhood memories grow up in me Day after day. I must be worthy of my life. At the hour of my death, worthy of the tears of my mother.
I have a home in Beit Sahour, a lovely town despite the colonial occupation. Please look at these two videos of my hometown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-D2jy1knHs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXFd48-W7JQ
It also seemed the right time on the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of Palestine) to focus more on helping in Palestine while still maintaining a base in the US.
With humility and serenity, I will try to be positive, productive and helpful as one of millions struggling under occupation/colonization. My regular email messages may slow down or get way shorter. These emails will also undergo a change away from posting things from secondary sources. Since I will be on the ground more, I will report more of what I observe in Palestine and occasional suggestions for unique and inspiring actions for peace with justice we can all support.
If I slighted any of you, I apologize. I want to thank all of you for your kind support (especially those who took the time to act on action calls). I also want to thank those in Connecticut who helped make the state a great place to live. You all will be in my thoughts always.
If you ever want to take a trip to Palestine, please drop me a note and come visit!
In the meantime, stay tuned and best of Love to all.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
PS: Lessons I try to remember about life (most learned from mistakes :-)
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/lessonslearned/
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8/12/08
Palestine Conference workshop on and need of support of Free Gaza movement
Dear friends:
I have just returned from attending the amazing national Palestine conference held in Chicago http://palestineconference.org/. It was a phenomenal success (beyond most people expectations). Over 24 workshops proposed by participants generated ideas and action plans. A summary report will soon be circulated from the coordinating committee. But I did want to give you a taste of one of these workshops, the one devoted to the Free Gaza movement and then ask you for your support of the movement (by donating and insisting media cover it).
The participants in the Free Gaza movement (freegaza.org) workshop reviewed the history of the initiative and watched a videotape with a special message to workshop participants. One boat is named "Free Gaza" and the other named "Liberty", the latter in honor of the USS Liberty that was deliberately attacked in June 1967 killing 34 US Navy personnel. The survivors have sent strong support and asked boat participants to drop 34 red roses in the sea in honor these US victims of Israel.
The workshop participants proposed for the Sunday town hall meeting that The USPCN strongly supports the Free Gaza movement and encourages its members to join a newly formed support group that aims to not only lift the siege on Gaza but lift all restrictions on free movement and entry in all of Palestine and end all Israeli apartheid laws. We call on all USPCN members to report back to the local communities about the success of our conference in Chicago and to initiate local actions (e.g. by hosting an event on Gaza) that carries on these successes
Action items for the workshop participants:
- We will build a networking with churches emphasizing the moral imperative of support for Palestine as a classic struggle against apartheid. We can also connect them to Christian communities in occupied Palestine.
- We must support the Right to Enter Campaign righttoenter.ps
- We will get other organizations to endorse the freegaza campaign
- We will publicize the issues including breaking the siege through mainstream and alternative media. This includes print media and audio and visual media (call in to talk shows too).
- We will arrange speaking tours for returning participants in the Free Gaza movement. Suggests establishing committee to coordinate this.
- We will seek boat participants to join the Wheels of Justice bus tour which will be touring in the areas of WI, IL, MI, OH, TN in the fall
Below are resources and videos followed by an appeal from boat organizers
Free Gaza Movement Video and powerpoint
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4777060879214101154&hl=en
Reports from the boat
http://www.presstv.ir/sections.aspx?sectionid=3510304
How is life in Gaza? See for yourself
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/aweekingaza
Video interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0vSIG2FuTc (boat press conference)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OB-kadwOL8 (lauren Booth, sister in law of Tony Blair)
An appeal from the passengers and crew of the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty:
Two years ago, about a dozen human rights activists devised a plan to sail a boat to Gaza in order to break the siege. We rejected a plan to rent a boat as impractical because a similar venture in 1988 failed and three organizers were killed. Thus no boat owner would willingly risk his craft. We ultimately decided to purchase two small boats that could carry 44 passengers, crew and media. (Some of the photos of the boats are on the IMAGE GALLERY http://www.freegaza.org/index.php?module=image_gallery page on our website.)
Each of us contributed what we could, and we also received thousands of dollars from individual supporters, most of whom used the Paypal link on our website. We also held fund-raising events, received a few thousand dollars from small grants, and several "angels" helped us along the way. Each passenger has paid his/her own way to get here, and many have raised additional money through their groups, worked extra jobs, and asked family and friends to donate. The passengers also paid an additional 600 Euros each for lodging in Cyprus and to cover the cost of supplies and food on land and sea.
Through these efforts we have raised $300,000, which we thought covered our costs.
But the eroding dollar/Euro exchange rate seriously drained our funds. All of our planning did not anticipate this contingency.
We are now in Cyprus awaiting our boats' arrival from Crete. When they come in, we will fuel up (with very high-cost diesel) and stock necessary food and supplies. We hope to cast off for Gaza this weekend. We are told that hundreds of thousands of Gazans will greet us on arrival.
Many people thought we'd never come this far. But here we are and we firmly intend to set sail regardless of some recent staggering debts. Frankly, we have spent much more than we raised; here are just a few of our recent expenses:
Two Sailor 250 FleetBroadband systems to allow us to stay in electronic contact and to send streaming video in real time, $16,000 each, or $32,000;
Repairs required to make the boats seaworthy, $25,000-$30,000;
Electronics, wiring, connections, satellite uplinks, SPOT Trackers to make the system work, $5000-$8000. (Most of the labor on the electronics and boats has been donated by the Greek crew and technicians.)
Forty-four life jackets and two hand-held GPS units, $8000;
Paint & banners for the boats, and balloons & toys for Gaza children, $2000
Diesel fuel for both boats, both ways, $15,000 to $25,000.
Except for part of the diesel fuel, we have already paid these costs by running our personal credit cards to the limit, borrowing money, and asking some of the Greek crew to help. Frankly, we're tapped out.
We need your help so that we sail on the Mediterranean Sea but not on a sea of debt.
Please . . . donate through the Paypal account on our website (www.freegaza.org), send a tax-deductible check to the US address on the website, and/or send a check to the address in the UAE. Every donation, large or small, will help keep us afloat.
And, finally, thanks for your interest, support, and prayers!
Sincerely,
The Passengers and Crew on FREE GAZA and LIBERTY
http://Freegaza.org
8/2/08
A letter from Bassam Aramin and two other relevant items at end: Journalist Mohammed Omer writing in the Nation about his ordeal at Israeli fascist hands and notes on why oil prices got so high. "Assay the powers within you.. our doubts make traitors of us all" Shakespear
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From One Bereaved Palestinian Father to Another
An open letter by Bassam Aramin, co-founder of Combatants for Peace
Translated from the Arabic by Miriam Asnes
Dear Hisam, father of Ahmed, may he rest in peace,
I learned of the death of your son, Ahmed Musa, through a one-sentence newsflash on the Palestinian news station Ma’an last Tuesday: “Ahmed Musa, a young boy, was killed by a bullet of the occupying forces in Nil’in.” I was immediately overcome with shock and grief and bitter tears. And above all, that relentless feeling of powerlessness that I know too well. We Palestinians cannot protect our children from being killed. Not because they are soldiers on the battlefield, but because we cannot imprison them in our homes. They must live their lives, play outside the house, go to school. We tell ourselves that there must be in our land a safe place to protect our little ones. Should not our villages be safe? Should not the courtyards of our homes be safe? And the safest place of all—should this not be the schoolyard?
But our children are still murdered in cold blood in front of our homes, in the heart of our villages and in our schools. For on another black Tuesday a year and a half ago, soldiers of the occupation killed my own beloved ten-year-old daughter. Abir Aramin was shot in the head in front of her school in the village of Anata on January 16th, 2007. Ahmed and Abir passed on the same day of the week, at the same age; both were shot in the head by the same kind of killer: one of the Israeli border patrol guards.
The moment I heard the news of your son’s death, I found myself speaking aloud to him. “Ya Ahmed, please give my regards and my love to Abir. Your two pure souls will meet in paradise. Go in peace, beloved, do not fear for you are not alone—there are others there waiting for you. Ready to greet you are more than a thousand Palestinian children who have been killed since the year 2000. And though I hope with all my heart, Ahmed, that you will be the last victim of these legitimized Israeli war crimes, I cannot help but wonder—who will be killed next?”
We Palestinian parents—are we not fully responsible for what happens to our children? For why do we allow our children to go out into the streets in the light of day? Why do we permit them play outside the house? Why do we not only let them, but actually encourage them to go to school and be educated? And even more importantly, I place the blame our martyred children—how dare you let your heads get in the way of the Israeli sharpshooters? Let’s try to be reasonable: the soldiers of the occupation don’t really want to kill our children, it can’t be a deliberate policy of intimidation and violence—they are simply trying to help us keep our children in a safe place. And clearly they believe that the safest place for our children to be, where no one can harm them, is in their graves.
When I heard what happened to Ahmed, I was in the middle of reading a book about international human rights and the specific laws pertaining to children in times of war and armed struggle. Every Palestinian should read these laws until he knows his rights, and every Israeli should read these same laws until he understands the enormity of the criminal and fascist practices of the Israeli army against the Palestinian people.
Major General Gabi Ashkenazi, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Occupation Forces, has said that “My greatest fear is the loss of humanity among Israeli troops because of the ongoing warfare.” I must inform the distinguished General that he lost his humanity a long time ago. He and his army should fear for their loss of humanity, for under his leadership the Israeli army killed Ahmed Musa. And if he doesn’t care about Ahmed because he is a Palestinian, General Ashkenazi should at least be afraid that his army has lost its humanity in its treatment of Israelis as well. We have all seen how Israeli soldiers treat their own people who join us Palestinians in peaceful protest in Bil’in and Nil’in and Artash and in the Galilee and in Tulkarem. Did the General see when soldiers fired rubber bullets at Dr. Tsfiyah Shapira and her son Itamar, who were participating in a peaceful march in the village of Shufa near Tulkarem alongside many peace activists? I’m guessing that he did witness this, in fact I would guess that General Ashkenazi ordered this operation and the many others like it. Look closely, General, and you will find the source of your fear.
Hisam, Ahmed and Abir have gone to the hereafter, and I promise you that in eternity they will outlive their murderers. Our children are the epitome of innocent humanity, and their killers are the most despicable of criminals. But while such ruthless men exist as part of the occupying army, please know that there are thousands of Israelis who refuse to participate in these crimes, who are ashamed at the bloody stains that soak the uniform of the Israeli army and all those who would call its conduct moral or democratic. There are Israelis like Tsfiya and Itamar who feel it is their moral, and human, duty to stand with us.
They have killed our children, Hisam. What can we do but fight on? We will never lay down our arms. For despite the advanced military technology and deadly force that we face, it is we who posses the most dangerous weapons of all. These are the weapons of morality and justice. We will not surrender these in the face of brutality, and we will be steadfast in demanding justice for our children. Ahmed and Abir’s murderers must be judged and sentenced as criminals. Let me be clear: we do not seek revenge. Justice for our beloved, dead children will not be served by the murder of a young Israeli girl in front of her school, or by the murder of a young Israeli boy by a bullet to the head. We will refuse to mirror the violent means of the occupation. You and I, and every Palestinian, must let our morals and our humanity and the teachings of our great faith be our guides.
Yours in bereavement and steadfastness,
Bassam Aramin
Alquds for Democracy and Dialogue chairman
022349888 0542383907
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Truth and Consequences Under the Israeli Occupation By Mohammed Omer writing in the Nation
"At one point I fainted and then awakened to fingernails gouging at the flesh beneath my eyes. An officer crushed my neck beneath his boot and pressed my chest into the floor. Others took turns kicking and pinching me, laughing all the while. They dragged me by my feet, sweeping my head through my own vomit. I lost consciousness. I was told later that they transferred me to a hospital only when they thought I might die."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/omer
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The US military is the largest fuel burning entity in the world. According to published data the US army used 144 million barrels of fuel in 2004 with budgeted cost of energy used by the army at 8.2 billion for that year. The U.S. military consumes 10-11 million barrels of fuel each month to sustain operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. At $140/barrel only (unrefined) that is 1.4 billion monthly just on fuel. All this consumption and its impact on the demand is unmentioned by politicians and media in the west (this is not counting all other federal agencies use of fuels domestically - e.g. all the hundreds of thousands of SUVs in the service of government bureacracies). Also the dollar keeps coming down in value (so oil denominated in dollars is higher) because of the debts incurred by the US war economy. And you wonder why oil prices are high?
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7/28/08
The news today was received from Kathy Kelly that our friend Joel Gullege was beaten by a Jewish colonial settler. Joel is is a co-coordinator of voices for creative nonviolence, a reservist with Christian Peacemaker Team in Palestine, and has been a speaker and a volunteer with our Wheels of Justice bus tour. He is also founder of a website on At-Tuwani area of South Hebron where settlers routinely attack Palestinian Children on their way to school and try to drive their families out. Kathy wrote: "Joel called at 6:45 a.m. on Sunday, very shaken, just before an ambulance arrived to bring him to a hospital. A masked settler carrying a slingshot had come out while Joel and Jan Benvie were escorting 15 children to school. Jan raced the children to safety. I think Joel might have been filming the settler. The settler caught up with Joel, broke his glasses and took the video camera--the settler repeatedly hit Joel on the head and in the face with the video camera and punched Joel in the face many times. Joel wouldn't go down on the ground; he just kept calling for help. Then the settler ran away."
The stories of oppression are many every week so we can only give examples. The NY Times had an article on Native Palestinian boys reduced to poverty trying to make a living by digging for valuables in the trash of the Jewish colonial settlers. The Israeli occupation army arrested a Canadian and the father of the girl who filmed its troops shooting a bound and blindfolded Palestinian. But there are also stories of activism and endless energy of resistance. Below you can read about the Free Gaza movement that is taking boats from Cyprus to break the blockade/siege on Gaza. You can read about artists canceling trips to the Apartheid state of Israel and of students mobilizing Palestinian Americans. You can view videos of a brief congressional testimony on why BUsh should be prosecuted for murder and a video of Iranian Americans speaking for peace. You can read an article by a South African leader writing in Haaretz that segregation is worse in Palestine than it was in South Africa and an article by a Palestinian American on Obama's Mideast tour that was intended to cater to the Israel lobby.
Free Gaza boats to launch: Jamal Alkhudari, chairman of the Popular Committee Against Siege(PCAS), "confirmed on Sunday that two international boats, loaded with internationals and assistance packages, will arrive in Gaza between August 5-10. In a press conference in Gaza city, aL-Khudari pointed out that two boats will arrive in Gaza shores, coming from Cyprus. One of the boats will carry peace activists, foreign parliamentarians and Palestinian refugees from overseas. Al-Khudary expected that Israel will intercept the boats, saying that the boat's passengers are ready to face any Israeli measures against them, even if they are forced to stay besieged on board. He pointed out that tens of Gaza boats will be welcoming the visiting boats, maintaining that a press conference will be held upon arrival of the solidarity boats. Israel has been imposing a crippling closure on the coastal region since June2007. Many essential food items and raw materials have been made scarce as unemployment and poverty rates have hit the highest records." Visit http://www.freegaza.org
ACTION: Don't Play Israel joins other groups in celebrating the list of artists to recently cancel appearances/engagements in Israel. We believe the cultural boycott is gaining in effect. Recent cancellations include: Jean-Luc Godard, Bjork, Chris Cornell, Siouxie Sioux, and Snoop Dogg. We believe that the hard work of activists and calls issued by organizations such as PACBI have been effective in increasing consciousness of the boycott -- many other artists are refusing to play Israel, but are doing so quietly. The next challenge is to encourage these artists to publicly engage with the boycott. And much remains to be done. Artists to have recently announced upcoming concerts include: Laurie Anderson and Mercedes Sosa. Details on how to contact these artists appear on the Don't Play Israel blog: http://www.dontplayisrael.blogspot.com Pass on the word... the cultural boycott is spreading.
Action: General Union of Palestinian Students asks: "Join The Popular National Palestinian Conference"
http://www.gups-usa.org/
Video: Brilliant congressional testimony by Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (Author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDAFozFn4kU
Video: Voices of Iranian Americans for peace
http://www.searchles.com/channels/show/4563
Article: No need for the A-word By Jonathan Berger
"Whether motivated by legitimate security considerations, fear, mistrust or sheer prejudice, the occupation's physical manifestations - including distinct identity cards, number plates and roads, as well as checkpoints, electronic fences and concrete walls - result in a degree of separation far in excess of what was achieved in South Africa. This separation speaks for itself, whether or not one categorizes it as apartheid. "
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005365.html
Opinion: Barack Obama's visit to Israel and Palestine this week seemed designed to appease pro-Israel groups in the US, By Ali Abunimah
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/23/barackobama.israelandthepalestinians
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7/23/08
In this newsletter, I share with you action items (petitions on Iran and on protection of academic freedom and update on popular conference and Susan Nathan US Tour), a video of a deliberate shooting of a bound/blindfolded Palestinian, a video of how to protect yourself when approached by law enforcement (especially useful for profiled for Arabs and Muslims), an interview I had with Iran TV which explores the origin of the mess we are in, and an article with Palestinian and Israeli Women Talking Religion, Peace and Politics!
Actions first:
ACTION 1: Sign Petition from AcademicsForJustice.org to Protect Academic Freedom (reference to a professor who was unfairly treated because she spoke out for Palestinian Human Rights)
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Protect-Academic-Freedom
ACTION 2: Sign Peace Action petition on Iran
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/161/t/288/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1312
ACTION 3: Popular Palestinian Conference 2008 updated schedule posted. I urge all to register and join us so as not to miss this historic conference. Also we are calling for a meeting of leaders of organizations active on Palestine to be held Friday night on the sidelines of this conference (for the latter please contact me for details and to sign up to attend this). http://www.palestineconference.org/program.shtml
ACTION 4: Susan Nathan Speaking Tour Fall 2008
Susan, an Israeli citizen and author of The Other Side of Israel (My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide) is currently scheduled to speak from mid September through early November. Groups wishing to invite her or contribute to her expenses can find biographical information, financial expectations and obligations, and a letter of intent form, her calendar and other relevant information on the website link: www.snathantour.com Nathan wrote one: "Currently, I find myself outside the consensus of my country, but not alone in these thoughts. The discontinuity between the state's politics and my vision of Judaism is being noticed by a growing number of the Jewish-Israeli population who seek a different, realistic and viable alternative to the current situation. Progress in my region of the world will depend on freedom, justice and compassion. These are the concepts that a civilization is built on. Identifying one's Judaism with one's nationality, as occurs here in Israel, means little if it is devoid of these guiding principles." Contact: snathantour@gmail.com http://www.snathantour.org
Video: Israeli army shoots rubber coated steel bullet at bound and blindfolded man who participated in nonviolent resistance. Because this incident was caught on tape, the Israeli army launched "an investigation" but like other such investigations (hundreds) it will never result in prosecution or punishment for members of the apartheid army of occupation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hdm89WxkGs
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/jul/21/palestinianshooting
Video: Give you Information about how to protect you and your family when approached by law enforcement
http://www.muslimadvocates.org/get_involved/got_rights.html
Question and answer on issues of Palestine on Iranian TV (English, translated and broadcast Farsi). Some material are from my book "Sharing the Land of Canaan"
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/irantvjuly2008/
Dialogues from the West Bank: Palestinian and Israeli Women Talk Religion, Peace and Politics
http://www.imow.org/wpp/stories/viewStory?storyId=1409
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7/17/08
The Israeli apartheid regime finally agreed to exchange Israeli with Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. This exchange could have been done before the summer 2006 massacres of Lebanese civilians which Israel launched claiming it is to liberate the two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah. This exchange shows the bankruptcy of the political and war making Israeli regime. That summer an Israeli chief of staff called his broker and sold his stocks an hour after getting out of a cabinet meeting that decided to launch that offensive (in every sense of the word) war. In that summer, Israel dropped millions of cluster bombs that are still killing and maiming Lebanese children today. That is the war than both Obama and McCain supported and our government funded and that is the war that now has been proven pointless. Despite AIPAC and its cronies in the media, that and many other truths remains clear to all who want to see. The overriding fact also remains that Zionism is the main cause of wars and conflict throughout the region from Palestine to Afghanistan. Peace is possible and it must start with ending US support for that apartheid regime and bringing peace to Palestine (where Jews, Christians, Muslims and others are then allowed to build a democratic country of all its people). That is the real road map to peace in Western Asia and indeed key to US economic recovery.
In todays message, you can skim through articles and video on Israel's lobby role in wars, an article on the Palestine conference in Chicago (I will be there), a refugee story (one of millions), news of the Green Party... and/or you can go directly to action items.
Turning the Tables on the Israel-Firsters by Michael Scheuer (Former director of CIA's Bin Laden Unit)
Now that the dust has settled in the spat between journalist Joe Klein and the ideologues at Commentary, it is time to regret the ink spilled over the non-issue of "dual loyalties." The idea that there are U.S. citizens who have equal loyalties to the United States and Israel is passé. American Israel-firsters have long since dropped any pretense of loyalty to the United States and its genuine national interests.
http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=13139
Video: Bill Maher interviews Michael Scheuer
Former director of CIA's Bin Laden Unit interviewed on Real Time with Bill Maher (09-21-2007). Includes a bonus shout out to Ron Paul, a smackdown to US policies in the Middle East, and a heated discussion on Israel. A little something for everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4_oaTIH8g
Shell Games: Are They Really Oil Wars?
"Big Oil prefers peace and stability, not war and geopolitical turbulence, in global energy markets... behind the drive to war and military adventures in the Middle East lie some powerful special interests (vested in war, militarism, and geopolitical concerns of Israel) that use oil as an issue of “national interest” —as a façade or pretext— in order to justify military adventures to derive high dividends, both economic and geopolitical, from war."
http://www.counterpunch.org/zadeh07092008.html
SOUL Searching by IMTIAZ MUQBIL
US Palestinians plan for unity A historic conference in Chicago in August 2008 is intended to serve as an open arena where individuals and organisations coordinate and refine strategies, link efforts, plan united actions, and inform one another and the community about their work on behalf of Palestine
http://www.bangkokpost.com/060708_Perspective/06Jul2008_pers008.php
(A story worth reading from a 20 year old refugee on her visit to her ethnically cleansed village) My New Birthday By Areej Ja'fari, Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Palestine
"I laid down on one of the ruined walls of a house and kept watching the blue, clear sky, at that moment I felt the sky was very close, I wanted to hide in it to stay in Deir Rafat. I was breathing the air again and again as if I could not have enough of it, the passing clouds over Deir Rafat during that time was the first thing in common
between my village and I.....It's time to wake up from the real dream, time to go back to Dheisheh Refugee Camp, which I like, but do not belong to. Its time to face my family, they were all anxious to know how home looked like, where exactly did I go. I couldn't reply more than that it's the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life." More at
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/mynewbirthday/
US Green Party Nominates Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente for President and VP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-E00fLAL4Q
http://www.runcynthiarun.org/
Actions everywhere:
Write to the media about the issues and your concern of their (mis)coverage or lack of coverage of critical issues of our time. Write to politicians, demonstrate at their events, challenge them…
Actions in the US:
1) Write Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa mayor@lacity.org to object to his trip to the Zionist Apartheid regime
2) Monday, July 21st, 5:00-8:00 PM,
9th Street and Mass. Avenue NW, Across from DC Convention Center, Washington DC
Protest the right-wing Christians United for Israel Annual Conference, and raise awareness about preventing war with Iran and the importance of respecting world religions.
a coalition of peace and social justice groups wishing to foster greater understanding between faith traditions and stopping an illegal and immoral military strike on the nation of Iran will be protesting outside the Christians United for Israel Conference at the DC Convention Center.
3) Register and Vote http://www.rockthevote.com/
4) Conference in Michigan in September
Many churches, organizations and institutions in the Southeast Michigan region are co-sponsoring the Sabeel* Conference, "Peace Palestine and US Policy 1948-2008", which will be held September 25-27, 2008 at the First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Michigan, located at 1669 W. Maple Road.
Peace in the Middle East is the most pressing issue of our time. It cannot be achieved without a just solution to the Israel-Palestine issue. A host of speakers including Ilan Pappe, one of Israel ’s foremost historians, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges, authors Joel Kovel, Susan Nathan, Naim Ateek, Anna Baltzer, Don Wagner and John Quigley, will provide insights into the history and current status of the issue, along with workshops for those looking for ways to effectively serve peace through action. The cost for the three-day conference will be $110 for early registrants and $50 for students. It includes a reception, a banquet and two lunches. Space is limited, so register and/or get more information on line at http://www.fosna.org Sabeel (The Voice of Palestinian Christians) is an ecumenical peace organization founded by Episcopal Canon Naim Ateek. It has offices in Jerusalem and Nazareth as well as support groups in Europe, Canada, and the US. Its Board of Directors includes Bishop Desmond Tutu. You can learn more about Sabeel at www.sabeel.org
(I was originally scheduled to speak at this conference but now I will be teaching in Palestine in the fall)
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7/14/08
I get many one finger salutes while driving on US highways (and one guy also tried to run me off the road) and I usually respond by smiling and waving peace signs. I am sure these are not related to my driving habits or driving vehicle (a Toyota Prius). It may have to do with the bumper stickers: "End the war on Iraq", "Free Palestine", "Stop US Aid to Israel", "Support the Troops: bring them home". I also get many peace signs, honks of approval and thumbs-up. But the vast majority of those who note the stickers are indifferent. The number of people who support ending wars, colonizations and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine is in the billions on this small planet. These billions also favor fixing our destructive habits especially in poisoning our small planet. But as in all social movements those who believe are many, those who act are few (I got the honor to interact with hundreds of such activists at the Green Party Convention in Chicago where I was invited to speak on the Nakba). Such activists occasionally get targeted and attacked by the ignorant, the misled, and the implanted agents who sow discord (e.g. Dr. Terri Ginsberg and Dr. Norman Finkelstein losing positions, Rachel Corrie losing her life etc.). But it is always inspiring to see those who keep going year after year doing great work. US Citizens are of course responsible for changing US policies; policies that support torture, warrent-less domestic spying, erosion of civil liberties, detention without legal process, etc. It is the responsibility of the Israeli public to challenge Israeli apartheid and war crimes. It is the responsibility of the Palestine public to root out defeatist and collaborative elements, to engage in more actions of civil society resistance, and to build solidarity and joint resistance with all people especially those who are also impacted by imperialism, racism, and zionism.
Now for an action item: Our wheels of justice bus will participate as a support vehicle for the walk from Chicago to the Republican National Committee. Unfortunately, today its transmission finally went down and we need to install a new transmission costing $2100. A donor is willing to give up to $1000 to match public donations to get the bus back in shape. To donate write your check to Wheels of Justice (or if you want it tax deductible do it to "Progressive Foundation for Wheels of Justice") and mail to Wheels of Justice, 740 Roundlake Rd., Luck, WI 54853 OR donate via secure online credit card donation here: http://www.justicewheels.org/donation-and-endorsements
US specific event: Peace Action Convention this weekend in Washington DC (I will be there)
http://www.peace-action.org/2008Congress.htm
Breaking Into A Prison To Uphold The Law by Ramzi Kysia
I want to tell you a secret and I want to ask you a question. Shhh! - Come closer. Listen carefully: I’m part of an international conspiracy to break into the world’s largest open-air prison this summer by sea. Will you help me? http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/06/10145/
Free Gaza movement promotional video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex0v5BDVFHk
'This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank
"Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here," said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the West Bank. "There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it's impossible."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/this-is-like-apartheid-anc-veterans-visit-west-bank-865063.html
Video: Washington DC event in promotion for Palestine Popular Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nJFvg6Uits
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7/10/08
So far, 1.2 million Iraqis have lost their lives since the US invasion (the largest genocide on earth in this five year period). http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
This is the fourth anniversary of an historic ruling by the International Court of Justice on the Apartheid wall. Al-Haq human rights organizations stated that "On 9 July 2004, at the request UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an Advisory Opinion on “The Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The ICJ found the construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), its associated regime of movement restrictions, land confiscation and property destruction, as well as the Israeli settlements in the OPT, to be in breach of customary international law. Furthermore, the ICJ declared that the facts on the ground created by continued construction of the Wall would be 'tantamount to de facto annexation.' The Advisory Opinion therefore held that Israel must cease construction of the Wall, dismantle those parts already constructed in the OPT, and provide remedies to the affected Palestinian civilians. At the same time, the ICJ outlined the legal responsibility of the international community, declaring that it must not recognise or assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by the Wall, and must consider further actions to bring that situation to an end."
On this anniversary, which happens to also be (not coincidentally) the third anniversary of the Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS against Israel, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)* launched the Global BDS Movement Website at http://www.bdsmovement.net and Palestinians demonstrated in two villages in the West Bank.
To act: Hang up on Motorolla, a campaign initiated by the US Campaign to End the Occupation http://www.hanguponmotorola.org/
(Good news, US specific) Our success at the National Assembly. Read about it:bApproval of mass action, independence from political parties and Support for Palestinian rights as integral to the movement and calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions "A Damned Good Assembly" http://www.counterpunch.org/heller07092008.html
(US Specific event) In Chicago Starting Thursday: Green Party National Convention. I will be conductinga workshop titled "The 60th Anniversaries of the Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba) and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: The Green Party's Response" 10:45-Noon FGriday, in Clark 3 Rm., The Palmer House Hilton, 17 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603, 1 877 865 5321 and 312-726-7500 Details at: http://www.greenparty2008.org
(BTW, Stan forgot to mention that Arab and Muslim Americans led and two were elected to the new Administrative Committee)
*BNC Member organizations include:
Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine
General Union of Palestinian Workers
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)
Federation of Independent Trade Unions
Union of Arab Community Based Associations (ITTIJAH)
Palestine Right of Return Coalition
Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Initiative
General Union of Palestinian Women
Union of Palestinian Farmers
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW)
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba
Civic Coalition for the Defence of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem
=====================
7/3/08
This newsletter is sent sent once or twice a week to the Wheels Of Justice listserve and to other listserves totaling some 50,000 email addresses. We sent a survey to the WOJ listserve (part of the population which receives those messages) and asked for feedback in the form of filling a survey and adding text comments. Over 320 people responded in the first 48 hours which gave us a great statistical sample. We will spend time to analyze the data and thus modify the way the messages are sent. Thanks to all who responded to the survey request. Initial results are posted here: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/surveyresults/ Areas readers are most interested in are a listing/summary at top with links for additional information as needed, Reports from people under occupations in Iraq and Palestine, and News articles (items not reported in mainstream media). Most people skimmed through the material reading only parts of it that they are interested in (57% on average) and found what they read useful (79% on average). It was very interesting to read what other topics readers were interested in besides topics we listed. The additional comments provided were insightful. We need to digest these data more carefully to act on them (more later on this).
In this week's message you will see below (depending on your interest/location):
* An action alert for US readers on the outrageous Congressional plan to give Israel even more aid
* Israeli authorities attempts to stop Jews from romancing/dating Muslims
* Links to excellent rally in London on 60 year of Nakba
* Two letters published in "Indian Country" to support an editor attacked by the ADL for telling the truth about Israel.
------------
Take Action (for US readers): Outrageous! $170 Million More in Military Aid to Israel
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1664
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Before the civil rights struggle intensified and succeeded, white girls were warned of dating black men. This was sanctioned and supported at the highest levels of local governments. Just this week it was publicized that "Kiryat Gat tells its school girls: No romancing with Bedouin" (BTW Kiryat Gat is build on land of Iraq AlManshiyya, land stolen from Palestinian villagers who are now refugees in Gaza).
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997629.html
-----------
Excellent Rally in London to cap June and expose Israel apartheid. Israel first celebrants shocked at success of Nakba comemorations. Here are some links to these inspiring actions
http://israels60thbirthday.com
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/anti-apartheid-demo-in-london-angers-zionists/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/402175.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/402208.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/402191.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/402208.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/402234.html Video of singing
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/402326.html
http://fanonite.org/2008/06/30/londons-shameful-salute-to-israel/
http://loolt.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/saluting-israel-palestinan-style/
Photos by David Ash and more http://www.day-tripper.net/080629%20Israel%20Parade%20demo/
http://www.billymacrae.blogspot.com/
http://billymacrae.blogspot.com/2008/06/salute-to-israel-and-counter-demos-3.html
http://billymacrae.blogspot.com/2008/06/salute-to-israel-and-counter-demos-2.html
http://billymacrae.blogspot.com/2008/06/salute-to-israel-and-counter-demos-1.html
----------------------
Two letters published in Indian Country to support the stance on Native Americans who support justice and hence support indigininous Palestinians (they were attacked by Salberg of the misnamed ADL):
Dares to speak out
Michael Salberg of the misnamed ''Anti-Defamation League,'' in attacking Steven Newcomb ''Different circumstances,'' Vol. 28, Iss. 3, claims that the ''Israeli-Arab conflict'' is a ''political dispute over national borders'' which is not the same as other European colonization of Native American lands.
Yet, 7 million of the 10 million native Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) are now refugees or displaced people, and the number grows every day. Israel defines itself as a country for and by the Jewish people everywhere. Every Jew in the world is considered as a national of the state whether they want it or not (part of 'Am Yisrael). Any Jew, including converts, can go there, get automatic citizenship and live on Palestinian lands while Palestinian refugees are not allowed to return simply because they are Christian or Muslim.
Israeli artists declared in 2002: ''If the state of Israel aspires to perceive itself as a democracy, it should abandon once and for all, any legal and ideological foundation of religious, ethnic and demographic discrimination. The state of Israel should strive to become the state of all its citizens. We call for the annulment of all laws that make Israel an apartheid state, including the Jewish law of return in its present form.''
The ADL persistence in obfuscating reality is not new. The ADL has always tried to stifle free speech. The ADL was also fined and signed a statement pledging not to engage in further spying and collecting information after federal investigators found that ADL had paid investigative police officers to gather information on Arab-Americans and blacks active in the movement against apartheid South Africa (see www.counterpunch.org/adlspying2.html).
The ADL is not the only well-funded group attempting to recruit Jews to support dubious agendas by attacking anyone (Jews included) who dare to speak out. For an understanding of these attempts to silence free speech on this issue in Congress, in the media and at college campuses, people should read Rep. Paul Findley's book, ''They Dare to Speak Out.''
It is sad that our media gives space to a vocal minority that believes in racial or religious superiority and a minority that insists our tax money continue to be funneled to Israel in support of the segregationist, colonialist ideology of Zionism. So far we spent more than $400 billion of our taxes to occupy Iraq for control of oil and other Zionist plans to reshape the Middle East, and more than $1 trillion to support the Israeli government. (Highest recipient of U.S. aid. We gave it more than we gave to Africa as a continent.) Yet, one-third of Israeli children live below the poverty line, while Israel is using billions of our tax dollars to ethnically cleanse and oppress the native Palestinians.
Only a public outcry would force the U.S. government to change its policies of supporting oppression despite the strong lobbies in Washington. That is why groups like ADL attempt to stifle debate and any exposition of the truth. The attacks on President Jimmy Carter for his latest book on Israeli apartheid, like the letter by Mr. Salberg, are symptomatic. Peace will come, but only with justice and the return of the stolen lands to their rightful owners.
- Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
Orange, Conn.
Dr. Qumsiyeh is of Christian Palestinian heritage and author of ''Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle.''
http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417610
All the land
Michael Salberg's criticisms ''Different circumstances,'' Vol. 28, Iss. 3 of Steven Newcomb's column, ''American Zionism,'' were off the mark. The fundamental problem between Palestinians and Israel comes from the fact that the Zionist movement wanted all the land between the Mediterranean and Jordan to become a Jewish superiority state with most non-Jews expelled. This is a caricature of traditional Jewish religious aspirations for life after the return of the Messiah.
Orthodox Judaism (in which I was raised, but no longer practice) taught that Jews will return to the Promised Land when God thinks they have repented for their sins. According to the Talmud, it is a serious sin for mass migration to Israel. God would bring redemption when he judged the time was right.
As Newcomb wrote, Zionism is analogous to the notions of privilege and entitlement of the Pilgrims. I would also add its ''theology'' is similar to the Dutch Boers in apartheid South Africa. All the prattle about Israel's desire for peace means nothing when its leaders demand that Palestinians accept permanent submission and exile.
- Stanley Heller
Chairman, The Middle East Crisis Committee
Woodbridge, Conn.
http://indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417611
=============================
7/1/08
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6/25/08
This weekend, many Palestine activists will be in Cleveland, Ohio for the National Assembly (http://www.natassembly.org), a meeting of hundreds anti-war activists of every stripe who are hoping to re-energize and reform the anti-war movement. We need your help to network with people in Cleveland and anyone who can come to this conference to support a principled stance that Palestine and the anti-war movement are one and the same.
In our view many activists fear of exposing Israeli connections to the so-called “War on Terror” out of fear or lack of information (rarely because of allegiance to racist ideologies like political Zionism). While oppression of Palestinians and colonization/occupation may be mentioned occasionally, the influence of Israel and its US supporters pushing for wars on Arab and Muslim countries is minimized or ignored. This is done out of: 1) a crude analysis which sees a US elite capitalist class as the sole malevolent engine in world affairs, 2) vague notions of what constitutes "anti-Semitism" and fear of Zionists attacking those who criticize them as "anti-Semitic" or "self-hating Jews", 3) fear of alienating Democratic Party or trade union officialdom with close tied to political Zionism. The result is the national anti-war coalitions talk about oil and talk about arms makers, but they don’t connect Palestinian oppression and Israeli militarism to the wars against Iraq and likely war on Iran. Americans see the Presidential candidates and Congress pledging allegiance to AIPAC and its demands to smash Iran, but some anti-war activists pretends this is all inconsequential.
A resolution that was adopted at the New England United conference about these issues and was then submitted to the National Assembly by the Middle East Crisis Committee (http://thestruggle.org) is appended below. We could use your support to pass this resolution at the National assembly. But first a couple of other items worth reading/acting on.
Action: Tell your representative to OPPOSE H. Cong. Res. 362, calling for a US naval blockade of Iran (an act of war):
http://capwiz.com/justforeignpolicy/issues/alert/?alertid=11518951
CBS news acknowledges Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningnews/main4206201.shtml
Background on Israel and the last and ongoing (Iraq) war
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/
To understand what is happening in Palestine today, see this presentation by Dr. Mustafa Barghouti
http://www.adc.org/flash/palestine/files/eslides.swf
Tactics that ended apartheid in S. Africa can end it in Israel, by Bill Fletcher executive editor of www.blackcommentator.com and former president of the TransAfrica Forum, which led the U.S. movement to overthrow apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_9681308?nclick_check=1
The above two items could help in you drafting letters to media, politicians, friends, colleagues, and others. In short No Justice = No Peace.
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement (resolutions submitted for the National Asembly)
The oppression of Palestinians is not just another cause to be occasionally mentioned by the anti-war movement. It is integral to what is causing the so-called “War Against Terror”, what is in reality a war to subdue and impoverish the Middle East and Islamic countries. It is intertwined because of Israeli designs on the Middle East, Al-Qaeda Islamist attempts to hijack the Palestinian cause, and the influence of the Zionist lobbies (Christian and Jewish) on US politics.
Because Israel is an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinians and because it has expelled most of the Palestinians of Palestine to neighboring countries and refuses to let them return, it finds itself necessarily in conflict with Middle Eastern countries whose populace sympathizes with Palestinians. If Israel can’t join with the US to bring collaborationist regimes to power in the Middle East it seeks to have independent minded countries invaded or rendered helpless or divided.
US Neo-cons politicians advocate a “War of Civilizations” against Arab and Muslim peoples as a way on enriching themselves and maintaining the military-industrial complex now that they can’t exploit Cold War fears and use sympathy for Israel to further their ends. While the lust for oil remains the bedrock of US interest in the Middle East the importance of Israel in US-European imperial motivations cannot be ignored.
In the run-up to the Iraq invasion AIPAC was a prime supporter of the murderous sanctions on Iraq. Israeli officials repeatedly urged a military attack on Iraq both to the Administration and in the U.S. media. Israel's paper of record, Haaretz, wrote on Nov. 14, 2002 that “Israel is the only country to absolutely support the American decision to attack Iraq, and has urged it to act, and quickly.”
Considering that a peaceful and just resolution would advance security and economic interests of the US and people in Western Asia (The Middle East) resolved that the anti-war movement should:
• Integrate the issue of Palestine in the broader anti-war struggle
• Build solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists
• Actively support the call of the Palestine Civil Society Movement for boycotts, divestments and sanctions until Israel complies with international law and respects human rights.
==============
6/15/08
Israel will build 1300 more housing units in the illegal colonies in East Jerusalem. The US government over the past 6 decades had shifted its position from calling such settlement/colony activity "absolutely illegal", "illegal", "contrary to obligations under International law", "an obstacle to peace", "contrary to road map obligations", "a hindrance to peace", and finally "not helpful to the atmosphere between the Israelis and the Palestinians". The atmosphere!!? Let us look at the atmosphere: seven million Palestinian refugees and displaced people denied their right to return to their homes and lands, 93% of the Palestinian lands stolen in six decades of colonization, 600 checkpoints, an apartheid wall, half a million colonists living on stolen Palestinian land in areas illegally occupied since 1967, an apartheid wall, denial of right of families to live in their own lands, literal economic starvation/strangulation of remaining people, and denial of right to medical services, education, (e.g. in Gaza), etc.
We learned that in the weekly Friday demonstration against the wall in Bil'in, the Israeli occupation army shot Ibrahim Bornat again, this time far more seriously. Ibrahim was injured several times before. Last year Ibrahim was shot in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet in the demonstration that I attended in Bil'in last summer and we interviewed him in the hospital at the time. This time he was shot in the femoral artery with more lethal bullets when he was challenging the illegal wall that separates his village from the village lands (even the Israeli supreme court ruled that this was unfair stealing of land). Ibrahim's brother Rani was shot by an Israeli sniper which left him paralyzed from the neck down. Those in Ramallah area can donate blood for Ibrahim (blood type is AB+, please call Sarah at 0523991897)
Video of Friday's attack on Ibrahim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF1ibN40FJE
Video of Last year's incident and interview with Ibrahim in the Hospital: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZB_hlziDKQ
People are taking more risks everyday. What risk are we taking?
Here is another video of colonial youth living on stolen Palestinian lands attacking native Palestinians (BBC tries to spin it at the end). Cameras provided by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7451668.stm
(Commentary on this video): "Hitler youth in the West Bank"
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/06/15/hitler-youth-in-the-west-bank/
Video: Israel lobby power in the US
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N294FMDok98
The Influence of Israel in Westminster
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13821
ACTION: Write and call media, politicians, and other decision makers. Remember that "the squeeky wheel gets the grease" and more important that Silence is complicity.
ACTION ALERT from ISM for people in Europe (although talking points below can be used elsewhere): On the 16th June, the European Union will be discussing the possible upgrading of relations with Israel. Please send this letter to your various representatives and express your concern at this measure while Israel continues to flaunt international law. For details of your representative please follow this link: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public.do?language=EN
Sample letter sent
I am writing to you now in order to express my profound concern about the possible upgrade of relations between the European Union and Israel and urge you to advocate for its rejection within the EU.
Israel's ongoing systematic violation of Palestinian human rights, its flaunting of both its international obligations and international law is well documented, as is its violation of commitments to the EU itself.
As I understand it, under its 'European Neighbourhood Policy', the EU offers to neighbouring nations opportunities for political and economic co-operation. In turn, the EU expects these neighbouring states to respect and abide by EU values and practices, particularly those related to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. In the case of Israel, I am concerned that the EU may be offering opportunities for social and economic cooperation and integration, but abandoning its expectation that Israel will respect and practice the central principles of human rights and international law.
Israel has consistently and flagrantly denied the call for Palestinian national and individual rights, violated international law, defied even the most basic guidelines of the Road Map as discussed at the Annapolis summit in November 2007, and failed to uphold it obligations to the EU under the Barcelona Process. Let me give some specifics:
- Israel has embarked on a siege of the Gaza Strip that has resulted in the denial of medical access, shortages of food, fuel and electricity and stands as a grave act of collective punishment. This siege has been imposed amidst Israeli attacks on Gaza which have shown clear disregard for civilian lives. Water has been severely restricted and polluted in the Gaza Strip, with the Mediterranean now receiving 50 million litres of sewage per day because Gazans have no alternative.
- Israel has continued construction in more than 100 of its illegal settlements in the West Bank and throughout so-called "Greater Jerusalem"
- In the last six months, Israel has issued a call for bids on the construction of 847 new housing units in settlements throughout the West Bank and 1,300 units in East (Palestinian) Jerusalem
- In the last six months, Israel has demolished more than 185 Palestinian structures, including 85 homes
- Israel continues to operate over 600 checkpoints, roadblocks, and other physical barriers to the movement of the Palestinian population.
- Israel has still not complied with the 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice that determined that it must stop
construction of the Wall, remove those parts already built, and provide reparations
- Through a series of restrictions, Israel has consistently hindered implementation of the Interim Association Agreement concluded between the EU and the PLO on behalf of the PNA
- Israel is in direct violation of its Association Agreement with the EU regarding products produced by its illegal settlements. Despite the Association Agreement, Israel continues to export products to the EU as if they were manufactured and/or wholly obtained within Israel and to refund settlement businesses, using illegal subsidies, for import taxes paid by these settlement-based businesses in their export to the EU.
In light of Israel's systematic breach of European Union, international, and human rights obligations, agreements and laws, the EU's possible upgrade of its relationship with Israel can only be viewed as a reward to unlawful behaviour. Israel will certainly understand this upgrade as not just a condoning of its behaviour, but as a complete absence of consequences for its illegal and unethical policies and actions.
Moreover, by upgrading its relationship with Israel, the EU would be discarding a key incentive to Israel in proceeding with a just peace process. The EU has a vital opportunity here to play an active role in encouraging a just peace in the region; not by improving its relationship with Israel regardless of its violation of international law, but as a reward for its compliance with international and human rights law and EU agreements.
There is a great need for accountability at this critical juncture in EU-Israel relations. It is imperative that the EU make clear to Israel that the key to improving their relationship lies in embracing and implementing fully the goals and values of Europeans.
I thank you in advance for urging the EU to uphold fair, consistent and objective standards in its dealings with neighbour states and to decide against the upgrade of its relationship with Israel until it abides by international and human rights law and all EU agreements.
====================
6/6/08
This week, we commemorate the illegal Israeli invasion and now 41 year old occupation of the 22% of Palestine the Zionists did not control by 1948. That "6 day war" (really walk across since there was hardly any fighting after Israel decimated Egyptian and Syrian armies with US weapons) and subsequent brutal occupation is only second to the Nakba (the catastrophe of the ethnic cleansing of 1947-199) in its impact on all Palestinians. I grew up under Israel's brutal occupation. I have lived through and witnessed the beatings, the land confiscation, the murders of civilians, the checkpoints, the racism of settlers and soldiers, the torture (e.g. of my brother-in-law) and much more. The myths about the war are still perpetuated by some Zionists although many of them come out and honestly say that the invasion was for land expansion. Both Yitzhak Rabin and Ezer Weizman clearly allude in their autobiographies to the fact that they barred any and all political solutions to the crisis short of war. Rabin, Chief of Staff, admitted that: "Nasser didn't want war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war He knew it and we knew it." (Le Monde, February 28, 1968). Levy Eshkol admitted that "the Egyptian layout in Sinai and the general build up there testified to a militarily defensive Egyptian set-up, south of Israel" (Yediot Ahronot, October 16, 1967).
Here is also an article by Sandy Tolan from last year on the 1967 war and declassified US documents that show the same thing. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/04/six_day_war/
But in any case, UN security council resolutions were very clear about teh illegality of the subsequent occupations, annexations (of East Jerusalem and the Golan), of the colonial settlement activities etc (these are also illegal based on the UN-adopted Geneva Accords)
The US vs Obama, McCain, and AIPAC by Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3340.shtml
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13861
(I also sent this article to the Obama Campaign)
Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/revealed-secret-plan-to-keep-iraq-under-us-control-840512.html
Jeff Carter on his father's visit to the Middle East "Elliot Abrams of the NSC runs the Israeli-US connection much to the consternation of the State Department. All of the State Department negotiations with Abbas and such are a complete sham. After Condi gave a press conference in Israel last December saying that they had all agreed there would be no more settlements she got on her plane and before she landed in Washington, Israel had announced another 900 settlement units. Abrams wanted the news to greet her when she got home to show her who was really calling the shots. That’s Realpolitik"
http://www.thecitizen.com/~citizen0/node/27663#comment-72184
An article on the wearing of things like Kaffiyyas and Kippas etc by Daoud Kuttab
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/the-kippa-the-keffiya-gre_b_104293.html
Action alert 1: Support the Free Gaza Movement http://freegaza.org
Action Alert 2: Why You Should Do Wear a Kuffiyeh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHi3HHvsQ7U 1:45 minutes (Mazin Qumsiyeh)
Show Solidarity: Wear a Kuffiyeh and Put it on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqVUzduqdXU 36 seconds (Stanley Heller)
suggest you watch them by pressing the "high quality" button one inch below the video and in the right hand corner
Complain to Dunkin DonutsL Dunkin' Donuts Public Relations Department, 130 Royall Street, Canton, MA 02021, Tel: 781.737.5200
"Wear Your Kuffiyeh With Pride" day :) So we can confront those biggots who claim that it symbolizes terrorism!!! See http://www.PalestineOnlineStore.com for the whole scoop! and to buy a Kuffiyya".
Example of Action:
Message to the Obama campaign by Rod Driver sent via web site: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2
Obama to AIPAC: My goal is to eliminate threat to Israel from Iran.
Excuse me? Who will protect civilization from Israel?
Israeli soldiers and settlers destroy Palestinian homes and crops. They shoot Palestinian children for amusement. They torture and hold Palestinian prisoners for years. They are starving the people of Gaza. They deny Palestinians the right to travel in their own country -- even for medical care. They use American-supplied planes, bombs, guns and bulldozers to murder Palestinians.
Israeli settlers and soldiers violently attack Palestinians trying to live in their own homes and on their own land. They humiliate Palestinian women and girls by strip searching them (to see if they have guns hidden in their vaginas).
Israel bombs other countries such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at will. Even after a cease fire had been arranged in Lebanon in 2006, Israel flooded that country with cluster bombs which to this day are taking limbs and lives of Lebanese. Israel refuses even to provide maps of where they left the deadly unexploded bomblets. Now Israel threatens violence against Iran.
Israel captured and held in solitary confinement for more than a decade the man who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Israel is in violation of more UN resolutions than any other country ever was -- and Israel has been protected from other UN resolutions by U.S. vetoes.
Israel blocked UN observers from entering the country to see what Israel was doing to Palestinians in Jenin and Gaza.
Israel recently even prevented Dr. Norman Finkelstein and Bishop Desmond Tutu from entering Palestine to see what was happening.
Israelis murdered Americans on the USS Liberty in 1967 and crushed to death Rachel Corrie in 2003. No one was ever brought to justice.
On the one occasion where Israelis were tried for killing a Palestinian at a "checkpoint" the penalty was "one agora" -- an Israeli coin which is so worthless it hasn't been made for decades.
======================
6/2/08
Good news: The State Department finally asked Israel to allow students from Gaza to get to their universities abroad. We will see how hard they push this. It came from being asked by lots of groups about an article that appeared in NY Times about the State Department withdrawing Fullbright Grants from Gaza students because they "would be prevented from leaving by Israel". The lessons from this story is that a) it is worthwhile pressuring mainstream media to publish stories of the persistent human rights violations, and b) it is worthwhile for organizations and individuals to challenge administrations (this applies whether it is a Clinton, Bush, or Obama administration).
Good news: U.K. academic union moves to consider boycott of Israeli academia http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/988087.html
ACTION 1: Join Washington DC Demonstration
Tuesday, June 3rd, 5:30 – 7pm
"we protest the presence of yet another corrupt Middle East leader, who’s a terrorist/child-killer, warmonger/no peace-partner and one of a long line of military junta leaders of his country. Ehud Olmert: Israel’s Prime Minister speaks at AIPAC Policy Conference.
Mt Vernon Sq’s NW corner near the Convention Center’s entrance
Where Mass Ave and NY Ave meet between 7th and 9th Sts.
3 metro stops: Gallery PL-Chinatown or Mt. Vernon Sq-Convention Ctr or Metro Center
ACTION 2: Dunkin Donuts Pulled Ad Featuring Rachael Ray In A Scarf That Looks Too Arab
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/28/dunkin-donuts-pulls-ad-fe_n_103859.html
FRIDAY JUNE 6th is a day designated to wear a Kaffiya to show our solidarity. Also videotape yourself and your group members wearing the Kaffiya and then post it on youtube and google videos.
ACTION 3: A movie recommendation: see "the Visitor", excellent artistic film that makes you think/debate.
"A lonesome widower and college economics professor finds his mundane existence suddenly shaken up when he befriends a pair of illegal immigrants, one of whom has recently been threatened with deportation by U.S. immigration authorities.."
Trailer/Preview http://prod.takepart.com/social_network/action/thevisitor/
Review in NYTimes http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/movies/11visi.html
ACTION 4: ONLINE REGISTRATION IS NOW AVAILABLE
THE POPULAR CONFERENCE FOR PALESTINIANS IN THE U.S.: RECLAIMING OUR VOICE, ASSERTING OUR NARRATIVE
REGISTER TODAY! (August 8-10, 2008, Chicago, IL)
https://www.eventville.com/Catalog/EventRegistration1.asp?Eventid=1003795
Informative articles
Understanding United Methodist Divestment--Full Report
http://www.unitedmethodistdivestment.com/GeneralConferenceActions.htm
From Rich Siegel: Notes on the counter-demonstration at the New York "Salute to Israel" parade, June 1, 2008
Some memorable (or perhaps better forgotten) signs:
"Rachel Corrie is in hell" (This one obviously gets the grand prize for obscenity!)
"Arabs get out of Israel"
"Christians stand by Israel"
Caterpillar logo (sans commentary)
"Keep Golan, get rid of Olmert"
A few other slogans critical of Olmert, connecting his policies with terrorism.
"Kahane was right!" (with fist logo)
Some memorable (or perhaps better forgotten) moments:
The usual chant: "2,4,6,8 Israel is the Jewish state. 3,5,7,9 No such thing as Palestine" repeated ad nauseum by various groups, mostly by large groups of children.
A new one: "Don't worry, be Jewish" sung to the tune of "Don't worry, be happy", taking me back to memories of my misspent youth in Zionist organizations (memories best forgotten!)
Senator Chuck Shumer yelling at the demonstrators some nonsense about terrorism while waving an Israeli flag. He really put on quite a performance!
Several plastic bags full of some unidentified grocery product thrown from a float at the demonstrators, ignored by police. Then when the demonstrators threw them back, the police took notice.
Numerous incidents of marchers giving demonstrators "the finger", often parents doing this in front of children who were also marching.
I was personally called "traitor" and "self-hating Jew" numerous times, and witnessed others experiencing similar. (My sign identified me as a Jewish supporter of the Palestinians.)
Some idiot woman screaming incessantly about sharia law- as if this is relevant to Palestinian rights.
Some problems on "our side":
The regular appearance by three members of the Islamic Thinkers Society with their Muslim extremist signs, calling for Islam to take over the world, for an atomic bomb on Israel, etc. Everyone else kept their distance from these goons, but unfortunately they made themselves visible. MQ note: those are Zionist implants
A single "Jew for Jesus" guy carrying a ridiculous sign with an American flag, shouting something equally ridiculous to the marchers about their being "fake Americans". Distance was also kept from him.
Found out later:
A friend of mine who wanted to attend for the first time was prevented from entering the demonstration area by police.
Best parts:
The free Handala T-shirt I got from Adalah just for wearing it, and, having a pint at a pub after the demo with a young lady tourist visiting from London who just happened on our demonstration, and, unlike my friend, was
allowed in.
Let's hope and pray that there will be no reason to demonstrate next year, but if there is, I hope everyone can make it.
-Rich Siegel
==========================
5/30/08
111 Countries agreed to ban the use of cluster bombs. Israel, the US, China, India and Pakistan did not agree. That is shameful especially after Israel dropped over 2 million cluster bombs in Lebanon that killed so many civilians and continue to kill and maim Children in Lebanon. Challenging injustices like this should be a duty to every human being with conscience. Tonight (Friday) we held a dinner event and joined the new campaign Five For Palestine http://www.fiveforpalestine.org
Here is more stuff to learn and do (but please remember to scroll to the action items at bottom).
Archbishop Tutu meets devastated Gaza family
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/archbishop-tutu-meets-devastated-gaza-family-835867.html
Jimmy Carter for the first time exposes Israel as having 150 nuclear weapons
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/987703.html
Body of 15 year old Palestinian boy found mutilated in Israeli settlement
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m43179&hd=&size=1&l=e
Israeli occupation forces continue the economic genocide
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/05/27/eighteen-years-of-work-destroyed-in-less-than-four-hours/
Palestinian Suffering Dampens Israel Celebration by Bessy Reyna
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-reyna0516.artmay16,0,3405837.column
Sixty Years of Dispossession, Humiliation, and Oppression in the Middle East by Susan Abulhawa
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/05/14/02348.html
Dancing on graves – Israel celebrates 60 years
http://palestine.org.nz/phrc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=102&Itemid=1
ACTION: We should all demonstrate against those who celebrate ethnic cleansing and slow genocide. A counter demonstration to the "Salute to Israel Parade" will be held Sunday June 1, 11 AM - 3 PM in New York City (we will be going from CT and nearby areas, but if you are too far, do please attend similar rallies in your area).
Gather on the West side of 5th Ave between 58 & 59 Streets in New York City (that’s by the fountain in front of the Plaza). The site can only be approached from the West Side, as 5th Ave can’t be crossed when they put up the barriers for the parade. Bring Palestinian flags, signs will be provided.
R, N to 5th Avenue (use only west exit marked Central Park South near downtown end of platform - the end furthest from Queens!); F to 57th St. (at 6th Av.); Q to 57th St.-7th Ave; take 4, 5, 6 to 59th St (at Lex.)
http://www.salutetoisrael.com/
ACTION: NAKBA fliers to download, print and distribute everywhere
Download printable brochure: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/NakbaTrifold-sml.pdf
Download full-bleed brochure (to have professionally printed)
Front: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/NakbaTrifold.pdf
Back: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/NakbaTrifold2.pdf
ACTION: Write letters to the editors of newspapers, TV, and radio.
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.asp
http://capwiz.com/adc/dbq/media
==============================
The past seven days were as inspiring as any. In Wisconsin, we had a retreat to plan the fall tour of the Wheels of Justice bus (see call below for participation and support). The retreat was at a community farm (intentional and sustainable living). In Chicago, we had a great series of events that included talks on the Nakba and peace issues (myself, Sandy Tolan, author of the Lemon Tree, and Rabbi Lynn Gotleib who just returned from a successful trip to Iran). Last night in Greenwich, Connecticut, three Jews of conscience (Stan Heller, Rich Siegel, and Yoram Gelman) explained how they have evolved in their thinking about Israel and Zionism. (and we heard that the Nakba demonstration in front of the UN in NY was a huge success despite the rain). In between, I had time to write a commentary on issues of self-interest and goodness which I hope you will find useful. Please read and forward the two items below but please do help if you can on the first item which is the fall tour of the Wheels of Justice.
ACTION CALL: FALL 2008 WHEELS OF JUSTICE TOUR
The Fall '08 Wheels of Justice tour needs your active participation and support.
The Wheels of Justice Bus Tour has already covered 48 states bringing eyewitness accounts to US Taxpayer-funded occupations of Iraq and Palestine. We spoke and outreached at over 200 Middle and High schools, over 1200 Colleges and Universities, and hundreds of churches and community centers. The new fall season begins September 12 as we see significant changes in the landscape including in public opinion, elections, the failing occupation of Iraq, the 60th year of the colonization in Palestine, and the suppression of civil liberties here at home. The all-volunteer bus team is growing and adapting to changing circumstances and with your help will continue to offer the very best in compelling witness, testimony and expertise on our roles and responsibilities as taxpayers and world citizens. The bus also helps local organizers with tools and resources (we can also offer workshops on relevant activism subjects such as media work). With your much-needed help (need volunteer hosts, organizers, speakers, money etc), we will continue to speak and mobilize at more high schools, more colleges, more churches, and more community centers and to a wider audience.
Now what you should do:
1) If you live in the areas along the route or know people there consider hosting the Wheels Tour and participating fully. We would also appreciate any contacts you have for activists, friends, and relatives along the route. The tour kicks off in Madison, Wisconsin and on through Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
2) Let us know if you know of good speakers with eyewitness accounts to occupations in Iraq and/or Palestine. We are also looking for bus drivers and bus managers.
3) Spread the word. Call and email people you know along the present rout or people you think might be interested in being added o the route. Also hold fundraising events and raise needed funds.
4) DONATE. It takes money to operate this educational platform. It takes money for speaker travel costs, biodiesel, food, literature, mailing, logistics etc. This summer, we will also be installing a system on the bus to allow use of spent cooking oil (grease from restaurants etc) for fuel. This system will cost $3000 and we have two organizers/donors who have put up $1500 matching funds so we need to raise only $1500. To donate, send checks to Wheels of Justice, 740 Roundlake Rd., Luck, WI 54853. On line donations via paypal can be made at http://www.justicewheels.org/donation-and-endorsements (BTW, tax deductibe donations can be made to the Progressive Foundation-For Wheels of Justice and mailed to the address above).
Contact Lama Nasser lamalucynasser@yahoo.com and qumsi001@hotmail.com to help and visit http://justicewheels.org for more information.
---------------------------------
On enlightened self-interest
random thoughts by Mazin Qumsiyeh
============================
5/27/08
Quote of the day
"The United Nations said in a report Friday that the number of Israeli obstacles in the West Bank has increased by 7 percent since last September, despite an Israeli pledge to ease Palestinian movement in the area as part of fledgling peace talks sic. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem said the overall number of obstacles increased from 566 on September 4, 2007 to 607 on April 29, 2008. The shift included the construction of 144 new closures and the removal of 103 in the same time period." (AFP)
Also on Friday, Israel detained and then deported Prof. Norman Finkelstein at Tel Aviv Airport. Citing "security", Zionists with hundreds of nuclear weapons and an army that is the fourth or fifth in strength in the world is afraid of Finkelstein's truths and has banned him for 10 years from entering into a country that they stole from the native Christians and Muslims (see also Khalid Amayreh: Finkelstein and me
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/05/26/finkelstein-and-me/)
Before we get to this week's material, you maybe interested in comments and reflections received on the "Enlightened self-interest" article. These are now posted at the bottom of the article link here and in bold: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/onenlightenedselfinterest/
Chris Hedges: It’s Time for a Declaration of Independence From Israel http://www.alternet.org/story/55827/
U.S. Professor gives Israeli prize money to a Palestinian university and to Gisha (Israeli group that works against the Israeli apartheid system)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/986898.html
Videos of direct action: Code Pink disrupts Petreaus hearnings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASkl7BmoVqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCOBsHFV5vk
ACTION: Donate
- to Cindy Sheehan For Congress http://www.cindyforcongress.org
- to Sam Rasool For Congress http://www.samrasoul.us
- to other progressive candidates
Video of Direct Action: Thomas Friedman pelted with pies at Brown University
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv6nvMUq10U&NR=1
ACTION: From Nicholas Schmader (nschmader@cox.net)
Hi All,
The indefinite expulsion of Molly Little from Brown University for throwing some green whipped cream at N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman is grossly out of proportion to the act. The pieing was not a frivolous student prank, rather, as she intended, the action did evoke some good discussion on the contextualization of "free speech" in our society. Recently, an online petition has been created(see link below) in defense of Molly.
Molly is a Green and my first look at the YouTube video was from a link posted on this listserv, I believe by Joanne. Wherever you stand on the "free speech" controversy is not at issue here. If folks want to have that discussion, fine, but this is about closing ranks in solidarity with one of our own. Molly has been consistently, selflessly, publicly, and passionately opposing U.S policy in the Middle East for close to six years. Many of us feel that she's being targeted for bringing Norman Finkelstein, Dahlia Wasfii, and Mazin Qumsiyeh to speak at Brown. In the aftermath of the pieing, she has endured, courageously, some incredibly ugly backlash.
If you write to other lists please spread this petition effort. Thank you all for your continued efforts towards justice. Please excuse my silence on this list but we really do have a fairly active local antiwar coalition going on here in RI. – Nick (RI)
Please sign the petition in defense of Molly Little by clicking this link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/422buml/petition.html
If you are a Brown alum, please indicate that as well on your petition signature.
===========================
5/15/08
Palestinian Options at 60 Unpublished
==================
4/29/08
Killed by the Israeli occupation army in Gaza yesterday were four children and their mother of the Abu Me'teq family while they ate breakfast in their home. Mother Myasser was 40 y.o, and the children were 7 months old (Misaad), 3 yo (Hanaa), four (Rodina), and five (Saleh). Picture attached. The Israeli 'Defense' minister and war criminal Ehud Barak stated that it is Palestinian's fault that these deaths are continuing!
Instead of focusing on the ongoing war crimes perpetuated with our tax money and government support in Palestine, Iraq and beyond, the slimy and spineless US media is instead focusing on vilifying Jeremia Wrigt (the retired pastor of Barak Obama) and vilifying Jimmy Carter. The media pundits are using this to squeeze Obama to wrench further capitulations, until he becomes like McCain and Clinton simply puppets of the extremist in the US Zionist movement. I actually found Wright's and Carter's logic and rationals rather amazingly accurate and pertinent (say 99.8%) as opposed to the media which give accurate and pertinent information less than 10% of the time (perhaps 2% for Fox News). Given the choice between Wright/Carter and the talking heads on TV People of conscience always chose the former. I urge you to just listen to a full speech of Reverend Wright (e.g. here
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/politics/28cnd-wright.html?ref=politics ) and interviews and speeches of Jimmy Carter (for example see his report on his recent trip here http://www.cartercenter.org/news/trip_reports/middle_east_2008.html
and see his interview with Larry King here http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/28/lkl.01.html
Now for good news.
We just concluded the New England United annual meeting (http://www.newenglandunited.org ). I and Stan Heller (Jewish American and chair of our local CT Middle East Crisis Committee see http://thestruggle.org) facilitated a workshop on Palestine and the anti-War movement. The top four Resolutions adopted included the ojen developed by our workshop and it is copied below (received near unanimous support, only 4 no votes). We hope something similar can be devoped at the National Assembly in June.
http://www.natassembly.org
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
The oppression of Palestinians is not just another cause to be occasionally
mentioned by the anti-war movement. It is integral to what is causing the
so-called "War Against Terror", what is in reality a war to subdue and
impoverish the Middle East and Islamic countries. It is intertwined because of Israeli designs on the Middle East, Al-Qaeda Islamist attempts to hijack the Palestinian cause, and the influence of the Zionist lobbies (Christian and Jewish) on US politics.
Because Israel is an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinians and because it has expelled most of the Palestinians of Palestine to neighboring countries and refuses to let them return, it finds itself necessarily in conflict with Middle Eastern countries whose populace sympathizes with Palestinians. If Israel can't join with the US to bring collaborationist regimes to power in the Middle East it seeks to have independent minded countries invaded or rendered helpless or divided.
US Neo-cons politicians advocate a "War of Civilizations" against Arab and
Muslim peoples as a way on enriching themselves and maintaining the
military-industrial complex now that they can't exploit Cold War fears and
use sympathy for Israel to further their ends. While the lust for oil
remains the bedrock of US interest in the Middle East the importance of
Israel in US-European imperial motivations cannot be ignored.
Considering that a peaceful and just resolution would advance security and
economic interests of the US and people in Western Asia( The Middle East).
Resolved that the NEU should
- Integrate the issue of Palestine in the broader anti-war struggle
- Build solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists
- Actively support the call of the Palestine Civil Society Movement for
boycotts, divestments and sanctions until Israel complies with international law and respects human rights.
-------------
Other news
Challenge magazine: an English magazine on the Israeli Palestinian conflict
http://www.challenge-mag.com/
Repeating the Crime: The Iraq War Morphs Into the Iran War By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts04292008.html
New Head of the US Congress Foreigh Affairs Committee
“Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist,”
http://www.forward.com/articles/13244/
More on the founding of J Street, the more left pro-Israel lobby
http://meretzusa.blogspot.com/2008/04/q-on-new-dovish-israel-lobby.html
US peace delegation departs to Iran led by woman Rabbi
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208870516382&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
==============
4/22/08
The US house of representatives today voted on a resolution drafted by Israeli lobbyists in Washington, a resolution to congratulate Israel on 60 years of murder, land theft, and ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, another spy for Israel is uncovered; one who handed nuclear and high tech US military secrets to Israel. According to news agencies: "U.S. authorities arrested the former military officer (Ben-Ami Kadish) on charges that he disclosed classified U.S. defense information, including on nuclear weapons, to Israel, the Justice Department said Tuesday... 'These kinds of activities whether they occurred long in the past or present time are not the kind of actions we would expect from a friend and ally and we would expect that Israel would not be engaged in such activities,' said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. 'We will be discussing, if we haven't already, this issue with the Israelis,' he said. Casey said Kadish's case was 'in some ways connected' to that of Pentagon spy Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life term after being convicted on a charge of spying for Israel in the mid 1980s. Pollard had allegedly passed thousands of documents to Israeli agents whilst working as a US naval officer. The Israeli government publicly admitted in 1998 that Pollard had been their agent and awarded him Israeli citizenship, reports have said. " Imagine the uproar if it was any other country especially one whose very existence and continued oppression of others is dependent on continued US military, financial, and diplomatic aid.
In good news, the wheels of justice bus keeps on rolling, bringing eyewitness accounts to occupations of Iraq (now 5 years) and Palestine (now 60 years). Below are reflections from three people who have been on the bus in the past few weeks: Kathy Kelly, Gene Stoltzfus, and Hannah Mermelstein. They speak of reality and of action-- inspiring.
-----------------------------
Notes By Kathy Kelly
Yesterday afternoon, we arrived in Lawrence, Kansas where we're scheduled, today, to join the local witness against war taxes.
This morning, the Lawrence Journal World carried an AP report about U.S. Senators and Representatives who are troubled that Iraqis might experience windfall surpluses of revenue generated by rising oil prices while Americans bear the burden of paying for war in Iraq. Several lawmakers are considering proposals that would require Iraq's government to partially fund U.S. combat operations in Iraq and also assist with reconstruction in Afghanistan.
"Next they'll ask Iraqis to rebuild the levees in New Orleans," murmured a fellow bus traveler, Nora Barrows Friedman, shaking her head in disbelief as she read the news.
A spate of recent news reports suggest that Iraq now has a large surplus of funds because of rising oil prices. It's helpful to consult comments of people who've been paying close attention to Iraq's energy resources. On April 11, 2008, UPI's Energy Editor Ben Lando clarified that:
"Iraq would not make $100 billion in oil sales this year ... unless the price of oil went substantially higher, like nearing $200 per barrel. And the "surplus" would be anything beyond the $50 billion 2008 budget, which at current oil prices will give it just about a $10 billion surplus."
But, before U.S. lawmakers begin spending Iraq's $10 billion dollar surplus, shouldn't we ask about the "rights" of an aggressor nation that illegally invades another country. The U.S. waged an unprovoked war of choice against Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. people. Did Iraq have any "rights" after it invaded Kuwait? Under the Nuremberg principles, an aggressor nation has no rights. Period. Commenting on suggestions, within the U.S. Congress, that the U.S. impose financial obligations on Iraq, Lando writes:
"This begs the question as to whether a country can invade another country – which inherently destroys the capital, political and societal infrastructure – poorly spend both occupying and occupied funds, unilaterally create conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds, and then bind the occupied country to make reparations and take out loans from the occupying country?"
Part of our work, on the Wheels of Justice tour, is to help people empathize with and better understand what Lando summarizes as "conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds." This bus tour began eight years ago as part of efforts to awaken U.S. people to the suffering endured by Iraqis as the U.S. waged brutal economic warfare against them by imposing sanctions that wrecked Iraq's infrastructure, caused widespread impoverishment and directly contributed toward the deaths of over one half million children under age five. Today, the available statistics about the impact of U.S. invasion and occupation and the ensuing chaos that has engulfed many areas of Iraq speak of misery nearly unimaginable to most people in the U.S. One out of six Iraqis has been displaced from their homes. 70% of the population lacks access to potable water. A March 2007 report from Save the Children, a credible NGO, stated that 122,000 Iraqi children didn't reach their fifth birthdays in the year 2005 alone. With the World Health Organization reporting that 1 out of 3 Iraqi children are malnourished and one out of four are afflicted with acute malnourishment, should we expect improvements in health care for Iraqi children? 55% of Iraq's doctors have fled the country.
Who could blame people with resources for taking their families to relatively safer environs in neighboring countries? The flight of approximately 2.2 million people away from Iraq has caused a "brain drain" which severely impacts Iraq's capacity to rebuild. Those who remain face daily shortages of electricity and fuel. Many must also endure the terror of living in a country wracked by three civil wars. (See Juan Cole's April 13th analysis in The Boston Globe)
In the past year, there has been a fivefold increase in U.S. aerial bombardments of Iraqi neighborhoods and the number of Iraqis incarcerated in U.S. prisons in Iraq has doubled. Should Iraqis then be asked to pay for the combat expenses of their occupiers?
Perhaps news of proposals requiring Iraqis to pay for U.S. combat expenses will spur Iraqis presently aligned with U.S. forces to stop aiming their weapons against other Iraqis and to instead find common cause to use all means of nonviolent resistance to defy the U.S. occupation.
But we've really no right to prescribe actions that Iraqis might or might not take in response to the illegal, immoral war that has turned U.S. taxpayers into collaborators with war crimes. What the U.S. government wants from most of us, in order to continue this war, is our money. This tax day, the best prescription I can imagine for a war weary U.S. public is to draw energy from a simple, doable act. Plan now to eliminate at least $100 of spending for war from your personal budget. You can do this by planning to refuse, for one year, at least $100 of your federal income tax. It's a small step to take which incurs a small risk. The money can be redirected to assist Iraqis with acute medical needs and also to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina whose most basic needs are still unmet. (see http://www.nwtrcc.org )
Hopefully, my companions and I were among many people who felt outraged, reading the morning paper, over the notion that Iraqis should pay for combat expenses of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq. But our best hope lies in awakening the U.S. public to resist payment for ongoing war against Iraq.
Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She hasn't paid federal income tax since 1980.
---------------------
By Gene Stoltzfus
"Last week I visited three communities in the Great Plains as part of a Wheels of Justice bus tour. We traveled in a made-over 56 passenger bus powered by a 290 Cummings diesel engine that once transported school children in Tucson, Arizona. At stops in Denver, Wichita and Manhattan, Kansas our 100 gallon tank was filled with fuel made from soy, now costing more than five dollars a gallon. Our clown like bus called out at whoever noticed the animal life and written words of hope on the sides of the vehicle "War is not the Answer". The sight of our bus made us a hit, an instant enemy, or a curiosity in every town and rest stop, mostly a curiosity.
We travelled in this way to elicit conversations on war and peace. The mission of Wheels of Justice now approaching eight years of criss crossing the country is to tease the nation away from war. The bus is under the able management and driving of Bill Hill, 62 , a foster child, Viet Nam war veteran and single father who raised two daughters. Bill learned to manage big machines as a tank driver with the 3rd Tank Battalion of the 3rd Marine Division in Da Nang, Viet Nam. He helps two speakers on the bus's travelling team by telling his story that includes war making, addictions and the war memories buried deep in his mind that last for a lifetime. During the six months of the year when the Wheels of Justice is not announcing "war is not the way" Bill has retooled 20 old buses that now carry passengers in Cuba through Pastors for Peace.
High school students, college students and peace warriors made up our audiences as we wound our way through the Great Plains. In ventures like this I am accustomed to at least a little hostility, but this was not to be last week. The mood of the times has swung away from the days of Shock and Awe. But we know a single incident may bring those days back. Warrior-peacemakers like me can get inspired when students push us for new, more effective ways of violence reduction and peacemaking, a strategy for the future. I feel the hope in their faces looking for something worth working for, worth living for, worth dying for.
On this trip I mostly told stories of Iraqi families and their children who are still disappearing into the catacombs of US and Iraqi prisons. The two speakers, me on Iraq and another on Palestine wove together the threads of war, terror and smart bombs in the Middle East and here at home. We nudged and challenged our audiences to remember that comprehensive solutions lead back to dealing with the US government's unbalanced support for Zionism expressed in the nation of Israel.
A brightly painted bus gets attention. But attention getting buses, speakers and literature tables reminded me that organizing for peacemaking is still hard work. After getting people to notice you must keep their attention long enough to motivate them to do real long term work. Thirty-eight years ago I helped organize the Indochina Mobile Education Project, not a very catchy name by today's standards. The project did in another war period some of what Wheels of Justice tries to do today.
We equipped a VW mini van to carry 24 display panels showing everyday life for Vietnamese people and the effects of war. Over five years the exhibits appeared in 350 shopping centres across the country for two to five days. Viet Nam hands, civilian and military, Vietnamese and Americans who had been through the war spoke in schools, colleges, churches, service clubs and community meetings. I wish we could have been a little more creative with the paint on our VW vans. To be honest I think one reason we didn't spice up the paint was because we preferred not to have our vans trashed by people who hated our message. Several times the travelling team called me to prepare a replacement display panel that had been spray painted or destroyed by upset citizens.
In those days the country was not yet so carefully tucked in with "private" regulations about shopping malls or a "free speech culture" of a Department of Homeland Security. We expected that our message might be a hard sell and learned how to deal with harsh charges and mean words. I would get a calls from a local organizer who couldn't figure out how to get permission to place the exhibit in a mall.
Often I jumped into my aging Volvo and travelled to a future display site, put on my only suit and went with local people to meet the mall manager armed with letters of blessing and recommendations from important personalities and mall managers who had formerly opened their doors to us. Often the negotiations were protracted. Occasionally when we suggested that the media might be interested in the success of our local display, its speakers and special Vietnamese dinner the door got nudged open a little bit further.
We learned early on not to take the easy way out and place the exhibit in little visited church basements. Like people everywhere we Americans go to market, but we call it the mall. Could we get into 350 malls today? I doubt it. It would easier to get into a Baghdad or Saigon market. Forty years ago the law of the private American market place had not yet constrained us to consumer conversation and colourful displays of boundless goods.
So now we need attention getters like Wheels of Justice and local organizers who know how to work the phone, the internet, and breakfast meetings to bring visibility to hard truths. By combining the visuals of a display, the sounds of our voices, the touch of materials from Viet Nam with the taste of Vietnamese food we learned how to light some flames. The steps to creating a recipe for conversations about the signs of times is as difficult on the Wheels of Justice as it was with our fledgling efforts 40 years ago.
One thing these two projects have in common. Everywhere we went last week as in the late 60s, we met veterans newly returned from war who are trying to put their lives together and escape the memories. I always looked for a better way to include their pain and harsh memories in the trek across our country. Bill Hill, the driver helped me get closer to an answer by telling his story.
"War is not the answer." "Occupation the Roadmap to Nowhere" cries out from the side of our bus as we move on. I suspect it's a little pushy for some. It may make others cringe with embarrassment that there are people like us who have not yet learned to see America as that unique nation under God put here to be a light on a hill.
As we travelled I watched spring unfold. I saw lush green wheat fields drinking up the sparse sunshine. These are the field where settlers met and their government betrayed native people. In those days the earth sometimes shook. In the fields I saw another future for all of us, the children of clashes, the prophets of hope.
--------------------
Bus blog April 20, 2008
Kansas City, KS is abloom on this mild, sunny Sunday.
I'm glad for a quiet afternoon and a chance to recall impressions of our experiences, earlier this week, when teachers and students at Lawrence H.S., in Lawrence, KS, hosted Nora Barrows Friedman, Abby Coburn, Bill Hill and me.
We visited Lawrence H.S. two days in a row, meeting each day with four classes that each lasted one and a half hours. I had fretted about whether or not we could engage students for one and a half hours, but was relieved to realize that my anxieties were baseless. Students were generally attentive and interested during presentations.
At the end of the first day, we told the teachers who invited us how impressive it was to be in a school with such a diverse student body. Better yet to see that the students take it for granted that they're well-integrated. "Maybe sometimes an adult will make something out of somebody being different," said one student, "but, then we'll just wonder, like, what's the big deal?"
During the second period, on our first day, our bus tour members attended a talk given by alum of the school, a West Point educated soldier who recently returned from Iraq where he had led a platoon stationed south of Baghdad. Soon, he'll return to Iraq. The soldier was engaging, articulate, and fair-minded as he handled questions. Joe Carr, a "para," (teaching assistant), was one of the last questioners. "If you were serving with the U.S. military in this country," Joe asked, "and if foreigners militarily invaded the U.S., do you think you would fight back?" The U.S. soldier struggled with the question for a few moments. "I'd uphold the Constitution," he said, "if I was under oath to do so. And, yes, I'd fight. I'd fight to the death." The obvious next question seemed to hang over the room. Why does the U.S. military designate Iraqi people fighting to resist foreign invasion and occupation as "the bad guys?"
I wouldn't be surprised if this very question isn't regularly discussed amongst U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
After reading about viewer dissatisfaction following last week's ABC televised debate between Senators Obama and Clinton, I wondered if the country could learn more from discussions held during seminar days at Lawrence H.S.
Inside the bus, on the walls, are "visitor passes" from high schools all over the U.S. They're like a badge of honor. We're privileged, honestly, to be amongst teenagers, to learn from them, and to hopefully help raise awareness about matters of war and peace.
As ever, the bus is getting by on a shoestring budget. If anyone reading this feels inclined to promote outreach in grass-roots communities which often lack funding to bring in outside speakers, please chip in to keep the bus rolling. http://www.justicewheels.org
--------------------
Hannah Mermelstein
Rawlins, Wyoming We’ve been stuck in Rawlins, Wyoming for more than 24 hours now, as the highway has been alternately open and closed with lots of snow, wind, and accidents. The good thing about the bus, though, is that whether we are giving presentations or not, and whether we are even in the city we’re supposed to be or not, our message is always out there for the world to see.
I joined the bus in Salt Lake City last week, and have given several presentations and spoken informally with several people since then. Audiences have been mostly small but engaged and receptive. It’s interesting that no matter where in the country I go, when I introduce myself as a Jewish American it brings connections. At my first presentation a man approached me afterwards and thanked me as a fellow anti-Zionist Jew. At my second, the son of a rabbi used the time to try to work through his own positions and past connection to Israel, stating that he now knows that rights should not be based on religion and ethnicity. At the next presentation, a woman told me she comes from a Jewish background and has just been ignorant about Palestine all her life.
The bus’s ability and effort to go into small communities is a wonderful complement to the many events and activities about Palestine and Iraq in cities and larger towns. One community at a time, we are doing our small part to educate and activate the US public.
To support, visit http://www.justicewheels.org
================
4/21/08
It saddens me to report in this weekly message the death under very suspiscious circumstances of an important activist for Palestine/for peace. Riad Hammad visited us in CT twice and we have met many times and exchanged lots of conversations by email and phone. He will be missed by his family, by the hundreds of Palestinian children and families he helped, and by all of us who knew him.
Obituary as Published in Austin American Statesman
Riad Elsolh Hamad
Longtime peace activist, beloved father, partner, soul mate, and educator
Riad Elsolh Hamad died tragically on April 14, 2008. Riad was born on September 20, 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon, but called Austin home since 1970. A lifelong scholar, Riad received the first of many degrees from the University of Texas, Austin. At the time of his death, he was pursuing a PhD in Educational Technology. Riad touched many lives as an educator and friend. He was a computer technology instructor at Clint Small Middle School. He was a selfless individual who focused on helping students realize their potential. He was also a champion of human rights and worked tirelessly for peace and justice. He founded the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund to aid Palestinian children, women, and families in need. Riad is survived by his loving partner, Diana; his daughter, Rita; his son, Abdullah; his brother, Omar; and other siblings and family across the world. He leaves behind countless friends who will miss him dearly and a legacy of love and peace. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund (http://www.pcwf.org, or by mail at PCWF - Riad Hamad Memorial, 405 Vista Heights Road, El Cerrito, CA 94530).
An interview with Riad can be found here
I think the best way to honor Riad and all who preceded him (Rachel Corrie, Tanya Reinhardt etc) is by getting more involved and doubling our efforts including donating more. Towards this, I wanted to focus in this week's message on Asking for your support for Peace Action.
Earlier this year I was nominated for, and accepted an appointment to the Board of Directors the Peace Action Education Fund (PAEF).
The board has since endorsed our Wheels of Justice Bus tour. Peace Action had previously also supported the Palestinian Refugees Right to Return. Peace Action Education Fund's work is an excellent compliment to the Wheels of Justice work, and I expect my role on the Board of Directors will provide great opportunities for cross-fertilization and potential partnership with both organizations. As a grassroots membership organization of 50,000 members the Peace Action Education Fund can provide an excellent opportunity for outreach for the Wheels of Justice Tour.
As one of my first acts of Board of Directors I'd like to invite you to visit the Peace Action Education fund website and consider join the Peace Action Education Fund, with a tax-deductible contribution of , $100 $50 or $15.
I am working to raise $1,000 over the next two month, and your contribution will go directly to support work educating voters about our issues, during campaign season and promoting a more diplomatic foreign policy.
If you are not ready to join with a membership, but would like to support their work you can take action to end the occupation of Iraq by visiting here.
The Peace Action Education Fund works to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs and encourage a foreign policy that embodies respect for human rights. Their work includes supporting the Student Peace Action Network, and voter education to elect pro-peace candidates, through their Peace Voter campaign.
If you have any questions about the Peace Action Education Fund's work or ways you can get involved, please contact Development Associate Seth Long at 301-565-4050 x 308 or by email at slong@peace-action.org
Sincerely,
Mazin Qumsiyeh
=====================
4/19/08
In the past 24 hours, Israeli occupation forces massacred 21 Palestinians including six children and a cameraman for Reuters. In the same period Israeli forces also attacked and damaged El Wafa Medical Rehabilitation Hospital and the damage does cause conditions that endanger lives (e.g. damaging power and essential medical equipement that cannot be replaced due to the siege). Patients denied access to medical care are still dying in Gaza due to the brutal siege. Abu Mazen and others who are trying to please the Israeli government (the 800 pound Gorilla in the room) continue to claim that the fault lies with Hamas for the concentration-camp-like of the Gaza strip. But creating a concentration camp with occasional runs by US-supplied weapons to kill civilians and destroy essential infrastructure is a war crime and a crime against humanity and there are no excuses per International law.
Israel intensified the attacks to send a political message to President Jimmy Carter who is meeting with all leaders willing to meet with him including Hamas. Israeli authorities and their stooges shunned the ex-president, refused him entrance to the Gaza strip, and intensified their media attacks/vilification. The three candidates for US President (Clinton, Obama, McCain) dutifully obeyed the Israel-first lobby in the US by also denouncing the peace efforts of Carter. (Obama who said he would meet with leaders of Iran claimed to self-appointed "Jewish leaders" in Pennsylvania that we should not meet with Hamas until they fulfill conditions that the Israeli government refuses (renounce violence, accept the other side, abide by signed agreements). Meanwhile, ex-Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that "We Zionists/Israel are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq" and added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor" (1). But I think he is wrong at least on the second part, I think in the long run the truth is very costly to hide and will be discovered by most people. Let me give you examples.
The chorus of public discontent is rising and the media and politicians cannot continue to ignore it. In the US and Canada, alternative Jewish voices are getting organized in forming lobbies to counteract the Israel-first right wing lobbies. Boycotts, divestments, and sanctions are spreading like wildfire prompting Israeli authorities (both in an out of Israel) to divert significant resources to combat these efforts. The ensuing discussions only act to expose Israeli apartheid. The Nakba events and commemorations are raising significant awareness about the 60 year process of ethnic cleansing that is continuing and was and is intended to create a more homogenous Jewish state in a land that was and is inhabited by Christians, Muslims, and others. For example, LeftTurn just had an issue devoted to the Nakba including excellent articles about Refugees and about the upcoming August Popular Palestine conference in Chicago (2).
It is gratifying to see Nobel Peace Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu endorses the Nov. 2008 anti-apartheid organizing tour of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (3).
It is nice to see for a change fair coverage of the demonstration that challenged Zionism in the center of the highest concentration of Zionists in the US (4). It was also gratifying that other local newspapers are publishing our letters to the editor on such subjects (5).
It is nice to see the Huffington Post ridicule the front page coverage in the LA times about Obama's "Palestinian Connections" (6).
It is nice to see a new survey shows public in Arab world becoming even more opposed to the US and Israel (and thus at odds with their governments) despite over hundreds of millions spent by the US to sway public opinion in the Arab and Islamic world to support their (political Zionist) agenda (7)
And it is nice to see that those who support apartheid and racism on college campuses are frustrated; see for example what this person reports in Israel's right wing newspaper about the University of Texas in Austin (8).
These examples are of tens of thousands. The chorus is getting louder and will become deafening when more US citizens find out how their economy was fleeced.
ACTION: Donate to help Palestinian Refugees: Friends of UNRWA Association, Inc.
http://www.friendsunrwa.org/donate.html
and speak out!!
Attend and organize events. Sample upcoming events in the next 10 days (hope to see you there)
Thursday April 17 , 7 PM
Philly Remembers Al-Nakba: 60 Days for 60 Years
The Western “Peace Process” & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Lecture by Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
Golkin Room is on the 2nd floor., Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce St., Univ of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
April 18-19 Living Stones Conference
Seattle, WA
http://www.livingstonesconference.org/
Saturday, April 19 at 4 pm
Western Connecticut Peace activist meeting (email me if interested)
Saturday, April 19 7:30 PM
Palestinians in CT meeting (email me for details)
April 25-27
Sabeel Conference in Philadelphia
http://www.fosna.org/conferences_and_trips/PhiladelphiaConferenceFlyer.htm
April 27 6:30 PM
Irish American Club, 177 West St., Malden, MA 02148
Palestinian Night with Dr. Elaine Hagopian and Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
April 25-26, 2008
Tufts University – Medford, MA
A New England United Conference: END THE WAR(S) ABROAD AND AT HOME
CHARTING A PATH FOR 2008
NOTES:
1) http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html
2) http://leftturn.org/?q=currentissue
3) For more info, please see: http://www.endtheoccupation.org
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrgGW5Q-f7s
4) Protestors at street fair denounce Zionism
http://www.teanecksuburbanite.com/NC/0/98.html
5) Letter to the editor published in North Jersey Record April 13, 2008
http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationalpolitics/17572724.html?c=y&page=2
6) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-wiener/breaking-news-obama-met-p_b_96115.html
Original LA Times article at http://tinyurl.com/4hp855
7) http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9458.shtml
8) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208246577144&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
===================
3/23/08
Two videos, four good articles, and six action items for peace (How about doing at least two of the six actions?)
(Video) US Bulldozers driven by Israeli occupation forces versus Human Rights advocates engaged in nonviolent resistance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA66xdLZXh0
(Video) Bilin Nonviolent Demonstrations and repression by Israeli occupation forces
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzIAYQmIDRU
Good Op-Ed by former Palestinian negotiation adviser Diana Buttu at NPR's "this I believe"
http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=30286&lastname=Buttu&yval
(Short but excellent) This land was theirs. By Hannah Mermelstein writing in the Jewish Advocate
As an American Jew, I could move to Lajun/Megiddo tomorrow, gain full citizenship rights, and live on the land that Adnan’s family has tended for centuries. Adnan, who lives just a few minutes away, is forbidden from doing so.
http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/opinions2/?content_id=4644
Rachel Corrie's Case For Justice By Tom Wright & Therese Saliba
http://www.countercurrents.org/saliba210308.htm
With friends like these By Gideon Levy writing in Israeli paper Haaretz
The amount of support being shown for Israel these days is almost embarrassing. The parade of highly-placed foreign guests and the warm reception received by Israeli statesmen abroad have not been seen for quite some time. Who hasn't come to visit lately? From the German chancellor to the leading frontrunner for the American presidency. And the secretary-general of the United Nations is on his way. A visit to Israel has become de rigueur for foreign pols. If you haven't been here, you're nowhere.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/967055.html
ACTION 1: Tax Day Is Coming: Offset Your Tax Dollars to Israel
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1607
ACTION 2: Donate and join the ship to the free Gaza movement
http://www.freegaza.org/pages/joinIn.html
ACTION 3: Newsletters of the Palestine Conference and needed support
http://www.palestineconference.org/newsletter.html
ACTION 4 (For Jews): NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: Jews Remember the Nakba" is a campaign organized by anti-Zionist Jews from around the U.S. and Canada to coordinate and make visible Jewish response to Israeli Independence Day celebrations and Jewish participation in commemoration of the Nakba. Sign the NO TIME TO CELEBRATE statement and pledge of action (text below). Go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/notimetocelebrate/ to sign! All signatories will be sent additional information about how to get involved in the campaign.
ACTION 5: "Palestinian refugees living in the US, EU, Canada and Latin America are requested to use their foreign passports to fly to the Israeli Ben-Gurion Airport from May 14-16. The plan calls for the Palestinians to hire dozens of boats flying UN flags that will converge on Israeli ports simultaneously."
ACTION 6: "Dying to Live"- A Peoples Struggle, Gaza Fundraiser- Friday March 28th at 6pm at Rutgers University Newark NJ, 350 MLK Jr. Blvd. in the Paul Robeson Campus Center in the MPR. Guest Speaker is Commissioner Ramsey Abdallah, there will be dinner, poetry, auctions, debkah performece. Tickets are $10 student and $15 General. The sponsoring groups are The Palestinian American Organization of Rutgers Newark, The Muslim Student Association of Rutgers Newark, The National Islamic Association and Islamic Relief. If people cannot attend but would like to donate the best and safer way is to make the Check out to Rutgers University and place under it somewhere PAO (PAO is the Palestinian American Org, we are the account holder and main sponsorer and we would be able to cash the check from our account at the university and put it with the rest of the donations.) If they would like to add a name or message to the donation we can give them a shout out during the event thanking them for the donation. Info: Manal Ramadan manalramadan2023@yahoo.com Rutgers University
===============
3/19/08
(Written and distributed on the fifth anniversary of the last leg of the War on Iraq: BTW the US/British-led war on Iraq started on 15 Jan 1991 and has killed nearly 3 million people since then including nearly 1 million children by sanctions alone)
On violent and nonviolent struggle: what about our personal responsibility?
=====================
3/14/08
Note on the last email: The quote read by Nelson Mandela at his inauguration as President of South Africa was written by Marianne Williamson (Thanks Marcelle and others who pointed this out).
In this email: Wheels of Justice background, upcoming events, two action items, and articles on Zionism, the vile accusations of "Jewish-self hatred" and more.
As more Palestinians and Iraqis got murdered, and as many in the International community begin to understand the depth of the bankruptcy of the Western war economy (just watch bank stocks, mortgage meltdowns, hyperinflation, and the beginnings of the worst recession since 1930s), the Wheels of Justice bus tour keeps going: acting, meeting people, networking, and communicating. I finished my stint of about three weeks on the bus (I may go back on later in April) and now will focus on giving other talks (in North Carolina Saturday, Albany Sunday, NYC Wednesday at a high school etc), putting together a documentary on the bus (a rough/poor 10 minute video is on the website), and preparing for a summer trip to Palestine. I listed below public events I will be speaking at and other important events (like events to commemorate Rachel Corrie, Washington civil disobedience to end the war, a demonstration in NYC where a war criminal is visiting etc). Before that, let me give you a glimpse of the Wheels of Justice bus tour and what it is about (some of this taken from our website).
The Wheels of Justice (WOJ) bus tour brings eyewitness accounts to occupation in Iraq and Palestine. The schedule can be packed. In 11 days in Oregon, we spoke to five churches, four community gatherings, three Middle and Elementary Schools, a 1 hour TV program, a radio program, two newspapers, and to five colleges and universities. The colorful bus has already traveled to the 48 contiguous states over the past 9 years (including twice before passing through Oregon).
Through education, outreach, nonviolent actions and personal witness, we stand in opposition to the violence and injustice of war, terror and occupation. We recognize that to find peace, the root injustices must be sought, seen and directly dealt with.
To speak honestly and openly about Palestine/Israel, one must recognize that the Israeli military occupation continues a legacy that began in 1947 with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to make room for the State of Israel. The violence suffered by the native Palestinians and by Israelis will continue as long the roots of the conflict remain: colonization, occupation, displacement, apartheid and the denial of the right of Palestinian refugees.
To speak honestly and openly about the war against and occupation of Iraq, one must recognize the ongoing legacy of U.S. involvement in Iraq. The current U.S. occupation of Iraq, the lifting of sanctions under U.S. military rule, and the continued local instability deny the Iraqi citizenry the very self-determination championed by the United States. The cultural, political and economic institutions of Iraq belong to the Iraqis, not to Washington; the hijacking of Iraq's culture and resources by a foreign power exacerbates and prolongs the consequences of the 17-year U.S.-led war, and the ordinary people of Iraq still have no self-governance.
We believe that peace comes with justice and we cannot see justice without actively resisting injustice. The consequences of wars and occupations fall upon the shoulders of the poor and oppressed, the refugees and the marginalized, and those in our own communities whose needs are neglected by governments' costly pursuit of foreign wars; the human cost is paid for by the innocent and most vulnerable, here and abroad. To see an end to the violence and injustice of war and occupation, we must invest in justice and human rights for those living with and living under the occupation and war.
As much of this violence is supported by our tax dollars and by our elected officials, Americans bear a great responsibility. The people of the world know this, and U.S. government policy provokes rage and retaliation against Americans. Further, draining our treasury on weapons and wars helps prolong and exacerbate our economic downfall and diverts resources greatly needed to build American schools and infrastructure and provide employment and healthcare to our own citizens.
To break the cycle of violence we must change our roles in these conflicts; as individuals and as a nation, we must move from instigator to negotiator, from enabler to resister. We support self-determination for both Iraqis and Palestinians stands instead of occupation and colonization and we draw parallels to the dispossession and oppression of other peoples, including Native Americans, African Americans, South African blacks under Apartheid, etc. We have huge economic problems after spending one trillion dollars of our taxes to support the Apartheid state of Israel and one trillion more on the war on Iraq (and talk now of attacking Iran by the same Israel-first lobbyists). But we are optimistic. Movements for social improvements, peace, and justice require activism and are many times successful if enough people get involved. Women's right to vote, civil rights, a 40-hour work week, ending the war on Vietnam, ending US support for Apartheid South Africa, and many more social movements happened precisely the same way.
To support the bus (financially, logistically etc.), please see http://justicewheels.org
ACTION 1: Ask Congress to save the US economy by ending US Military aid to Israel and by ending support for the war on Iraq or other wars pushed for by special interests
Here are EXAMPLES of events to attend (google for others in your city) followed by articles and relevant news items of global interest:
ACTION 2: Make your own event or join event to remember the murder of Rachel Corrie and the thousands of other innocents killed by the Israeli army funded by the US. See Rachel's emails here http://www.rachelswords.org/rachels-emails/
Saturday March 15,
Muslim American Public Affairs Council annual dinner
Keynotes speakers Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh and Imam Shaker El-Sayed
McKimmon Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
See http://www.iqraanc.net/
Sunday March 16, 1 PM
Rachel Corrie Commemoration
People Center, 37 Howe Street, New Haven
Sunday March 16th, 4 PM
Unitarian Universalist Complex, 405 Washington Avenue (intersection with Robin St.), Albany, NY
Talk by Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh on "Terrorism, the US, and the centrality of the question of Palestine"
Contact: Paul Rehm for the Palestinian Rights Committee Kprehm@aol.com
Sunday March 16 at 6 PM
Hartford Friends Meeting, 144 South Quaker Lane West Hartford, CT
Reading of Rachel Corrie's E-mails: "Rachel's Words”
http://www.hopeoutloud.org/#Rachel
Wayne (860)234-5405
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 5 pm
Waldorf Astoria (50th & Park), NYC
PROTEST: BUTCHERS OF GAZA IS COMING TO NEW YORK!!
While hundreds of Palestinians have been slaughtered in Gaza and while Ehud Barak threatens further invasions and massacres, the so-called "Friends" of the Israeli Occupation Forces are celebrating Barak and the war criminals of the Israeli Occupation Forces with a $1000-a-plate dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria!
60 years of Occupation, exile and murder have done nothing but bring more genocide and, now, threats of "Holocaust" from Israel's Deputy Minister of "Defense". Join us to protest in outrage and solidarity as the war criminal Ehud Barak is celebrated and IOF Soldiers dine at the Waldorf to raise money for more genocide.
WAR CRIMINALS NOT WELCOME HERE! PROTEST EHUD BARAK AND THE "FRIENDS OF THE IOF"!
Bring banners, signs and Palestinian Flags!
Protest the Genocide inflicted on Gaza!
Protest the Israeli Occupation Forces Fund-raising Dinner!
info@al-awdany.org http://www.al-awdany.org 718-228-8636
Wednesday March 19
Washington Civil disobedience to end the war
see http://www.5yearstoomany.org
ARTICLES/OPINIONS
An invention called 'the Jewish people' By Tom Segev
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html
The first time I was called a self-hating Jew by Mike Marqusee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/04/israelandthepalestinians.bookextracts
Akiva Orr is an anti-Zionist co-founder of Matzpen www.matzpen.org . You can download his books at http://www.akiorrbooks.org (no charge, no copyright)
Article by Paul Kendall: Did an 'Expert' on Terrorism Conspire With a Foreign Government to Violate the Constitutional Rights of American Muslims?
http://justiceandliberty4all.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/israeliconsulate.pdf
=======================
3/11/08
We are now (Tuesday) heading to Boise, Idaho on the Wheels of Justice Bus Tour. We had great time in Oregon (and over 300 signed on as new friends of the bus; ranging in age from 11-88 year olds :-). Here is a relevant short poem I wrote inspired by a message covering a mirror at the Catholic Worker house where we stayed in the last few nights in Portland (note I am a medical geneticist and not a poet :-{ ) followed by the weekly relevant links:
Faces
As a child we first recognized faces before objects or toys
And we loved all faces.. ALL Faces
But a child's eyes grow some times
and learns to avert from some faces
Those who still really see.. see all faces
Faces that look away and those that engage us
Faces of youth radiant with young love
Faces of old content in holding hands
Faces of a lifelong activists with passion and determination
Faces of anger and fear and yes even racism in people who may or may not feel guilty for their thoughts of tribalism or yes racism
Faces that see the color of the face not its _expression_
I see faces of child angels who have no fear of strangers
Faces of mothers looking at their suckling babies
Faces suffering illness
Faces of students unsure of where to go
and those which light up with new knowledge
Faces contorted with hunger
Faces smiling at new friendships
Faces wet with the tears at the loss of loved ones
Faces weeping at coffins of young shot by those with young faces
Faces of those who claim to be good Christians, good Muslims, Good Jews
While doing unto others what they would not want done unto them
Faces of hate and bigotry
or compassion and understanding
Faces devastated at a home demolished
a family uprooted, a refugee camp
Faces of horror
Faces of despair
Faces of deep love
Faces of those who still see with a child's eyes
and those hardened and cynical
Faces of kindness and mercy
or ignorance and racism
Smiling or laughing
shouting or wailing
All human faces..etched when we look carefully
IN THE MIRROR
and choose
Here is a quote from a speech by Nelson Mandela, African National Congress leader who spend decades in prisons in Apartheid South Africa and became its President after the end of Apartheid that maybe relevant (I read this two years ago and was reminded of it by my cospeaker on the bus Mike Miles, who is thinking big by building a community farm, see http://www.anathothcommunityfarm.org/ ):
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Video: AFSC video on the cost of war on Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnq6cD5jk1Q
Video: Palestinian children in a destroyed refugee camp in Jenin express steadfastness/resistance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lHb7FtyxO4
Scary Video: The "Christians United for Israel Tour!" (End-times, nuclear weapons blowing up, Jews accepting Jesus and "Moslems = Satan" circus). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig
AND BUSES ARE GROWING :-)
From CAPJPO-EuroPalestine http://www.europalestine.com
We would like to thank all those who took part in our fantastic bus tour through Paris on the 23 February, date of the international day of protest against the blockade of Gaza. This provided us with the opportunity to make the film "Paris-Palestine Tour", which we wholeheartedly recommend to you. You can watch it on our site http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article3033 , or on YouTube, DailyMotion or Google ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkxgvXoy4F8 ; http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4lles_paris-tour-de-soutien-palestine_news ; http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=1115376689250369205&hl=fr ).
The mega prison of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe (Pappe was a professor at Hebrew University and is now at the University of Exeter). http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9370.shtml
Al Jazeera, March 9/08 Tragedy of Israel and Palestine By Mark Levine
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BB1E373A-50F9-403A-9263-98D09D584A31.htm
Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem "My message to the Jews"
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/03/10/my-message-to-the-jews/
ACTIONS: Speak and write to friends, family members, the media, and to elected officials. Express your opinion in every forum. Every voice counts. As Howard Zinn said "You can't be neutral on a moving train" (in this case the train is likely heading for a cliff and we need to stop it or get off of it).
============
3/8/08
Here we are on the road again with the very colorful Wheels of Justice bus tour. The prominent slogan on the side of the bus is the most appropriate message for this week of violence. In big letters we have "Nonviolence or Nonexistence" visible for the thousands who saw the bus in the past few days. In addition to our usual talks, we pass generic strip malls with the usual burger joints, shoppers of made-in-China trinkets and cloths, and residents of motels named Cozy Inn, Snoozy Inn and Comfort Inn. Here and there colleges and universities pop-up and we table in front of student center and quads everywhere. Here and there church and school goers see us. People in sprawling housing developments as well as farmers and ranchers greet us. Along the way we get lots of thumbs up, honkings of approval, and peace signs. When we stop at diners or in parking lots of universities, colleges and schools, many rush to give us words of encouragment and an occasional donation to keep us going. We had over 20 talks in one week (at three churches, two community colleges, four universities, five high school classes, three demonstrations, one hour live TV program, a radio program, and informal gatherings at places like a Multicultural Center and a Catholic Worker house). We dined at Arabic restaurants owned by Palestinian Americans (including one whose brother was of the LA8 group recently cleared after nearly 20-year legal ordeal). We stayed at homes of activists and got inspired by those who do great work (ranging from daily demonstration in Corvallis to regular letter writing to the editor by an activist in Albany, OR). We post some of our public events at http://justicewheels.org and we hope you will join us or organize events for us. We like to stay busy and do 5-7 events a day (we can also split our team in case there is a conflict as we did yesterday when Mike Miles spoke in Portland colleges while I spoke in a high school and a Mennonite Church nearby). In all events, we bring eyewitness accounts to occupations, colonizations, and oppression highlighting the need to address these root causes of violence. Here is a 50 minute video of the Women in Black demonstration in Portland, Oregon where the bus was featured and both Mike Miles and I spoke:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2675207947729912526
We wanted to write more about the tour with a blog of all the great things we did and saw this past week (e.g. the great questions from hundreds of students in WA and OR). However, it is worthwhile to focus on this issue of violence and existence in more detail considering the news from occupied Palestine in this weekly message and add relevant good articles. While we are never shocked by the distorted US media coverage of what is going on, we are sometimes surprised by the audacity of editors and journalists. For example, compare the coverage of the killing of 8 Israelis in occupied Jerusalem with the coverage of the killing of 126 Palestinians in Gaza in the seven days before that; including many children (four playing soccer, babies in mother's arms, etc). BTW, only Israeli papers like Haaretz explained the history of the "school" that the Israelis were killed at (a training school for terrorist Rabbis). It might be worthwhile to put out some quotes on the so-called "cycle of violence" between the occupier/colonizer and the occupied/colonized (and people forget this aspect, the etiology of the disease, when they focus on the symptoms/the violence):
"The curse of Gaza is as powerful as death: if the entire occupation is a tragedy, the occupation of Gaza is its essence: 360 square kilometers, some 1.5 million people, 1 million refugees, and the responsibility is all ours. From the beginning there were those who warned us of the curse, and not only Sapir; even Moshe Dayan used words of caution. It did no good. The euphoria is contagious, the war rolls on, and a wise people is a foolish one. In the Zionist enterprise's march of folly, Gaza stands out as a major milestone, a signpost of weeping. The foundation stone of our tears." Yossi Sarid
"Many westerners justify Israel's actions because they believe that Israel, as a sovereign country, has the right to defend itself. The truth is, so long as the government of Israel is occupying the Palestinian territories, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and denying the people their freedom, dignity, and human as well as political rights, international law gives them the right to resist and to defend themselves. " Sabeel Ecuminical Liberation Theology Center
The United Nations Human Rights Council today labeled Israel’s response to recent rocket attacks from Gaza a war crime and 'collective punishment against the civilian population'
"As long as there is occupation and the brutality and violence it entails, we will mourn Israeli and Palestinian lives. In this context, media coverage that portrays violence as part of a short-term cycle of attack and retaliation obscures the facts, including the role the US has played, through covert action, in fomenting civil war in Gaza, as recently revealed by a groundbreaking report in Vanity Fair. As long as the United States continues to support Israel's decades-long practice of illegally appropriating land, destroying homes, and using disproportionate force--a policy which has proven to be both morally bankrupt and self-destructive for Israel--neither Palestinians nor Israelis will ever know peace." Jewish Voice For Peace
"The murderers Palestinians are the Amalek of our day, coming to remind us that Amalek has not disappeared, just changed its appearance." Settler Rabbi Ya'akov Shapira, head of the center that trained the "students" in hate at this extremist "seminar/Yeshiva" that created so many extremist colonial settlers.(For those who do not know what Amalek is they should read the part of teh old testament were God gets to give the orders for the genocide of men, women and children of the Amalkites, Canaanite native inhabitants of the land to be conquered).
"Compared with the international silence that surrounded Israel's recent massacres of Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Gaza Strip, condemnation and condolences for the victims of the shooting attack that killed eight students at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem has been swift...The day before the Jerusalem attack, Amira Abu 'Aser was buried in Gaza. She had lived just 20 days on this earth before being shot in the head by Israeli occupation forces who attacked the house of friends she and her family were visiting. Needless to say, she had not been firing rockets at Sderot when she was killed. One of the house's inhabitants was found the next day, shot dead and his head crushed by an army jeep, an apparent victim of an extrajudicial murder by Israeli forces." Ali Abunimah in the Electronic Intifada
"We need to find a legal and legitimate way to kick those few Palestinian Arabs in east Jerusalem who make it their choice to aid and take part in terrorism back to Ramallah," Israel's "Public Security" Minister Avi Dichter
"We at Tikkun feel equally grieving for the people killed by vicious and immoral terrorists at the Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav (the ultra-nationalist religious center that developed the ideology which inspired religious Zionists to believe that they had a God-given right to settle and hold on to the territories without regard to the consequences for the Palestinian people already living there) as we do for the victims of Israeli terror (which in the past week killed 120 people, many of them children, many of them sitting in their homes when Israeli troops randomly fire-bombed and murdered them, as documented by the same international human rights organizations that today condemned the attack in Jerusalem by terrorists)." Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun
“Condemning the ongoing Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations, and for other purposes...” US House Resolution 951
Statement on Gaza Bill by Rep. Ron Paul March 5, 2008 (Paul was the only one who voted Nay!):
I rise in opposition to H. Res. 951. As one who is consistently against war and violence, I obviously do not support the firing of rockets indiscriminately into civilian populations. I believe it is appalling that Palestinians are firing rockets that harm innocent Israelis, just as I believe it is appalling that Israel fires missiles into Palestinian areas where children and other non-combatants are killed and injured. Unfortunately, legislation such as this is more likely to perpetuate violence in the Middle East than contribute to its abatement. It is our continued involvement and intervention – particularly when it appears to be one-sided – that reduces the incentive for opposing sides to reach a lasting peace agreement. Additionally, this bill will continue the march toward war with Iran and Syria , as it contains provocative language targeting these countries. The legislation oversimplifies the Israel/Palestine conflict and the larger unrest in the Middle East by simply pointing the finger at Iran and Syria . This is another piece in a steady series of legislation passed in the House that intensifies enmity between the United States and Iran and Syria . My colleagues will recall that we saw a similar steady stream of provocative legislation against Iraq in the years before the US attack on that country. I strongly believe that we must cease making proclamations involving conflicts that have nothing to do with the United States . We incur the wrath of those who feel slighted while doing very little to slow or stop the violence.
(ACTION: Write and/or call to your congressman/women and ask them why they voted in support of Apartheid Israel aggression. Phone numbers for reps here http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/mcapdir.html ).
But perhaps the most poignant comment on violence in Palestine/Israel is these statements from Nurit Peled-Elhanan whose daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber:
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nuritpeledelhanan/
(Must Read) The Day the Earth and Sky Traded Places: Gazan Holocaust By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN
http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein03042008.html
An Interview with Aharon Shabtaï "Israel's most acclaimed Hebrew poet." He explains need for cultural boycott of Israel: "Israel, 'Guest Of Honour' In Paris And Turin, Does Not Deserve To Be Invited," By Silvia Cattori & Aharon Shabtaï, 26 February, 2008, Countercurrents.org. http://www.countercurrents.org/cattori260208.htm
Racism in Israel on the rise: Association for Civil Rights in Israel publishes annual report; reveals country overwhelmed by racism, restriction of personal freedoms, discrimination, especially towards Israeli-Arabs. Report not surprising, say Arab MKs, By Aviram Zino
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3480345,00.html
Vanity Fair: The Gaza Bombshell
After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever. READ MORE.....
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
Analytic Report "REVEALED: THE US PLAN TO START A PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR, The Electronic Intifada, 4 March 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9366.shtml
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3/2/08
Dear friends:
It was energizing to be in Portland, Oregon and meet with so many good people. The most poignant and yet inspiring was spending time with Saed Bannoureh and Waddah Sofan, Palestinians paralyzed by the Israeli army bullets paid forby our taxes. See Saed's story here: A moment that changed my life
http://www.imemc.org/article/10754?language=en&include_comments=true&print_page=tru
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/moment.html
But we also had really uplifting times like speaking to bright students at colleges and universities, like services and networking done today at Central Lutheran Church (http://centralportland.org/) and at the Catholic Workers' House in Portland (http://whitefeatherpeace.org/). Wherever we go, we meet people already mobilized or people who will mobilize to act for peace and justice. That is after all love of humanity materializes into. We are touched and we are grateful for those who helped along the way (too many to mention). Rev. Brandt of CLC reminded us of our responsibilities as human beings towards those who are suffering. He reminded us that love is precisely about giving and living as God intended for us to live. He said that those of us who accept our responsibilities and choose to go down that path of peace-making are usually not the people you expect. And indeed those in power (Presidents, rulers, pharisees) will not get their way for the meek shall inherit the earth. Let us work so that this vision of justice and peace comes sooner than later so that fewer people suffer in the interim. Keeping the Wheels of Justice bus tour (http://justicewheels.org , BTW it is not too late for you to invite us to your schools, churches etc) on the road has been the most significant way for our volunteer bus crew to retaining sanity and humanity for the past few years on days like the past two days when 70 Palestinians were murdered in Gaza (a desert concentration camp where 1.5 million Palestinians, 70% of them are refugees, are being literally starved to death). Saturday we learned that four Palestinian children were killed while playing football in Gaza
Over 20 readers of our weekly messages wrote to express sympathy for the deaths of so many Palestinian civilians including children. Two individuals raised the usual Zionist red herring that Palestinians bring this on tehmselves. In saying so, they reiterate what Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defence minister, told Israel army radio "The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah Hebrew word for the Jewish holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves." In other words, "stop doing violent acts and the genocide may stop". This is not a new argument: colonialists have used it from time immemorial. Native Americans, black South Africans, Aborigines in Australia were all implored to stop the violence, stop "barbarity", stop the "irrational" behavior against us the civilized white folks who are bringing progress and enlightenment. It is sad the the "white man's burden" to "fix" these savages.
An Israeli general stated that after Zionists colonized all the land, all Palestinians will be able to do is "run around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle". And Israeli intelligence analysts predicted "roach" behavior well. They planned ahead of the first Intifada and they prepared for how to capitalize on the predicted divisions in a starving desperate population. They planned well to attack nonviolent resistance relentlessly and powerfully (e.g. look at their brutal response to the tax resistance in Beit Sahour of 1988 or their more recent weekly oppression of nonviolent demonstrations in villages like Bil'in and Budrus).
Hamas offered a full ceasefire on all fronts for as long as 30 years. Israel is the one that refuses to negotiate and instead wait for the "cockroaches" (or trapped animals) behave as expected. Afterall, what do you expect even when you corner a dog and keep poking him with a heated iron rod, that he would lick your hand?
Further, let us not confuse the symptoms for the disease. 82 Palestinians were killed in the first two months of this uprising before a single Israeli was even attacked or attempted to be attacked (in 2000). More importantly, violence is a characteristic of occupation and colonization. There can not be occupation and colonization without violence whether it was in Apartheid South Africa, Vietnam, India, or Palestine. South Africans killing white South Africans was a minor part during Apartheid or Native Americans killing white European settlers in the 17th, 18th and 19th century? How do you explain the symptoms of colonization, ethnic cleansing and genocide? How do you explain the etiology when 7 million of the 10 million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people? So many questions....
For now perhaps you can read what Mohammad Omer, a student and a journalist from Rafah wrote on his blog, view a couple of videos and more importantly ACT:
"I had a long day, an awful day, taking photos and writing from on the ground in Gaza
City and northern Gaza. I met with two children who survived Wednesday’s Jabalyia soccer bombing: the other 4 kids were, as you likely know, killed. One of the children I saw had no flesh on their legs, had burns all over their bodies from the tank’s shelling. This was one of the scariest things I have seen yet, and I have seen a lot more than that. I asked one boy to give me details of what happened that Thursday afternoon. The 9 year old boy cried while he told that he’d seen the decapitated head of his cousin strewn far from his body, arms and legs, far away from where they were all playing soccer. His mother added that there wasn’t any electricity when her son was admitted to the hospital".... More at
http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm
Aljazeera videos (audio in Arabic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zblI9xDF2I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIl3nJLSjbk
ACT on these on going massacres (from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs http://www.wrmea.com/ ):
Call or write your local editors and radio talk show hosts, and contact your elected representatives in Washington, DC. Help stop these attacks and the blockade on Gaza.
President George W. Bush, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20500 (202) 456-1414
White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 Fax: (202) 456-2461 E-mail:
E-mail Vice President Dick Cheney: vice.president@whitehouse.gov>
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Department of State
Washington, DC 20520
State Department Public Information Line: (202) 647-6575
Any Senator, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-3121
Any Representative, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-3121
E-mail Congress: visit the Web site for contact information.
The Israeli Embassy, Washington, DC (202) 364-5500
The Israeli Embassy, Canada (613) 567 6450
===============
News and Action items
Question for those who claim Israel is the tail of the dog and the tail does not wag the dog. Can you explain to us why a memorandum of understanding (still in effect today, renewed every five years) obliges the US to give Israel oil even when the US itself is in shortage? See
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4504
The original memorandum between the US and Israel is posted at
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/peace%20process/guide%20to%20the%20peace%20process/memorandum%20of%20agreement%20between%20the%20governments%20of
This Week in Palestine deals with environmental issues in the latest edition
http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com
(Is this because they worry about companies now aiding Israeli apartheid?)
Department of Justice sic Urges Supreme Court to Stop Lawsuit Alleging Companies Aided Apartheid
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=1203123343622
To read more about Israel relationship to South Africa
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1704037,00.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_Secrets_Lies/Israel_SAfrica.html
And for how British and American Jewish organizations sided with Apartheid, see the book Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa By Gideon Shimoni
A war for Israel video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNN9cMvnHdc
Action 1: Join the Wheels of Justice Network to work for justice which brings peace
http://justicewheels.org/updates/the-wheels-of-justice-network
Action 2 (your school can be next):
London School of Economics students vote to divest from Israel
http://www.imemc.org/article/52823?language=en
Action 3: In Ref to: "Palestinian Christians live in constant fear of Muslims" http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=317540
I wrote a letter to the editor (copy below) you can write your own letter and send it through this link:
http://www.nationalpost.com/contact/letters.html?name=Letters&subject=Letter+to+the+editor
As a Palestinian Christian, I found the article "Palestinian Christians live in constant fear" by Father Raymond J. De Souza to be highly offensive. He blames Muslims for the economic and other hardships of Palestinian Christians who live under a brutal Israeli occupation. But the facts, as is said, do not cease to exist because they are ignored. Forty years before Hamas was founded, Palestinians Muslims and Christians were expelled to make place for a self described Jewish state. Two of the three main Palestinian guerrilla groups beginning in 1965 that fought Israel were led by Palestinian Christians. Palestinian Christians are leading non-violent (and sometimes violent) resistance even as we speak. The proportion of Palestinian Christians among refugees in 1948 was exactly their proportion in the general population. The Israeli occupation army home demolished 7000 Palestinian homes in the last seven years that included both Christian and Muslim homes. Yes, there are conflicts internally among Palestinians (also proportional to population so more probability of conflict between a Muslims and a Muslim than between a Muslim and a Christian). An Israeli General predicted such conflicts under occupation and starvation stating that: "when we have settled the land, the Arabs will be like cockroaches in a bottle". It is curious that the author admits that Palestinian Christians under occupation would "tell foreign visitors that they have excellent relations with their Muslim neighbours." He dismisses that as being due to threats by Muslims! Well, how about Palestinian Christians inside Israel who say the same thing or Palestinian Christians who live outside (like me) or Palestinian Christian denominational leaders? The leading Palestinian intellectual and author in the US was the late Prof. Edward Said, a Christian. Dare we read his books including "The Question of Palestine"? Here is a link of relevant Christian websites that give a dose of reality: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/christianlinks/ . Dare we read them? Why not invite me (or any of those listed) to speak to your community? What would Jesus want us "to do" about Muslims (or Jews that matter)? Dare we reread the Sermon on the Mount?
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
qumsiyeh.org
address/tel
===================
Feb 14, 2008
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Frederick Douglass
"If one remains neutral in situations of injustice, then one is complicit in that injustice" Desmond Tutu
(Two action items at bottom)
Nearly 500 people attended Alison Wier's talks in Greenwich library on Thursday and Saturday (event reinstated after extremist Zionists tried to have it canceled). For those who never heard Alison speak or those who want to share with their colleagues, here is a short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDHNNtyjfts
Website: http://ifamericansknew.org/
A lot of media coverage of the controversy but Alison's talks are about how the media choses not to report the reality of Israel and Palestine. In fact, I just took time to write a few snippets of storied from these past few days that you would not have seen on CNN, Fox, Time Magazine, or NY Times:
- After generations of occupation, Valentine's Day has meant little in the Gaza Strip. But the flowers that lovers presented in Europe have. Majed Hadaeid, 43, knows that better than most, as he watches livestock make a meal of the flowers he had hoped to export to Europe. "I have 130 dunams (32 acres)," he says. "All carnations, in 30 different colours, and varieties yielding 16-17 million blossoms per year." In all, about 480 dunams of plantation produce on average 60 million flowers a year in Gaza between mid-November and mid-May. The seasonal export brings five million dollars in revenue, and means 4,000 jobs.
- "Fayezza Qabb, 67 Year old women dies in West Bank Village when Israeli occupation officer at checkpoint refused to allow her to get to Palestinian Hopsital." 2/15/2008
- "The latest round of Israeli massacres in Gaza has resulted in the brutal killings of eight members of Al Fayeq family in Bureij Refugee camp, Gaza City as they sat in their own house. An American-made F16 fighter plane targeted Ayman Al Fayeq’s house in the evening. Ayman, his wife, his daughter, and five other members of the family were found under the rubble. 40 other people, mostly women and children were injured, some critically. The death toll is expected to rise." 2/15/2008
- "The eight-month closure of Gaza has created "grim and miserable" conditions that deprive Palestinians of their basic dignity" according to the U.N.'s humanitarian chief (2/15/08).
- Israeli occupation authorities raided dozens of homes, money changers and businesses throughout the West Bank stealing hundreds of thousands worth of money and precious items (they gave the public excuse that money was being funneled to support the resistance, what they call terrorism but offered no prof and took no one to court). 2/11/08
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza%20Feb_08_2008.pdf
- Amnesty International: Israeli army destroying Palestinian homes
"Every single home in the West Bank villages of Humsa and Hadidiya is slated for destruction. The Israeli army has declared most of the Jordan Valley, where the villages are situated, as a "closed military area" from which the local Palestinian population is barred. The local Palestinian population – which has been there since long before Israeli forces occupied the area four decades ago – is being put under increasing pressure to leave the area. In contrast, Israeli settlements – established in blatant violation of international law – continue to be expanded in the area and Israeli settlers are allowed to move freely and use vast quantities of water."
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0214-18.htm
============
ACTION 1
Popular Conference for Palestinians in the U.S. 2008
http://www.palestineconference.org
A historic gathering of the Palestinian people in the US will take place in Chicago, Illinois the weekend of August 8, 2008, the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakba: The convening of the first Palestinian Popular Conference in North America.
PLEASE PUT THIS remindar ON YOUR Work , School, Masjed , Church , cell phone, Ipod , Iphone , Facebook page, Myspace book , anywhere you can reach out your fellow Palestinians,
WE can not do it without you this is a self funded project ,we are welcoming all uncoditional support read more about this collective efforts in the web site
http://www.palestineconference.org
We also need your support where you can donate on line $$$$$
It's your chance to meet your fellow Palestinian in almost every field , it's a celebration of Unity , Culture and Identity .
==================
ACTION 2
The Palestinian Summer Celebration 2008
15 June 2008 – 17 August 2008
June 15th – July 13th 2008 (first month)
July 14th – August 17th 2008 (second month)
Come and celebrate Palestine, learn Arabic, study history, know the people
and their culture, share some time with local families and volunteer with a
local community organization.
http://www.sirajcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=1
Everything is optional
The Palestinian summer celebration is a unique annual program that gives
people from all over the world the chance to encounter the life and culture
in Palestine in addition to donating some of their time to a local community organization through voluntary work and internships. The Palestinian summer celebration 2008 will take place in the Bethlehem area
in Palestine, between June 15th and August 17th 2008. The annual celebration is organized by Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies
www.sirajcenter.org in partnership with Bethlehem University
www.bethlehem.edu and the US based Society for Biblical Studies,
www.sbsedu.org.
Participants will also have the opportunity to listen and question high
level speakers of various positions and expertise.
The 2007 participants developed videos explaining their time and experience
during the 2007 Summer Celebration:
4- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JQ-PsklS04
3- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ5jzZHqvnY
2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0PHXE1-TYg
1-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1MMve_qHK0
They have written about their time: http://www.sirajcenter.org/s-blogs.htm
The program includes, studying Arabic, History and Theology at Bethlehem
University, living with local families, volunteering with local community
organizations in addition for touring Palestine and enjoy its beauty and
culture and have a firsthand experience of the political situation.
Participants will have the chance to have Palestinian Cooking classes,
Palestinian Debkeh Dancing training, and during the program, eight films
will be screened in the Siraj office.
For more information regarding registration and cost:
http://www.sirajcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=1
2- Christmas Pilgrimage for Peace
December 28th 2008- January 10th 2009
The Christmas Pilgrimage for Peace is an annual program that gives people
from all over the world the opportunity to experience oriental Christmas in
Bethlehem celebrated with local families. Moreover, gives participants that
chance to more educated about the pledge for Justice and Peace. The
Christmas Pilgrimage for Peace, will enrich its participants with the
culture of the land, through living and sharing the lives of the people of
the land.
for more information:
http://www.sirajcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=1
George S. Rishmawi
Coordinator,
Siraj, Center For Holy Land Studies
Beit Sahour, Schoold Street
P.O.Box 48
Palestine
Email: george@sirajcenter.org
======================
Feb 10, 2008
ACTION for those in the US (see below for Abbie's action alert): My note on this- This is the most successful outreach project bringing eywitness accounts to occupations of/colonizations in Iraq and Palestine. In six years, we already covered 48 states, >200 high schools, >1000 colleges and universities, hundreds of Churches and Community centers etc but much more remains. The Spring tour lined up good speakers (including me from Feb 25-March 13) and even better speakers after (like Kathy Kelly). You can help by attending scheduled events, spreading the word, organizing additional events (especially in ID, WY, KS, IA, but we like to do several events every day and stay busy in other places), and/or donating. See message from the organizer Abbie Coburn below and email her at abigail.coburn@gmail.com (and or me) if you like to help in any way, shape, or form.
BTW, other events I will appear at in the coming months (in RI, WA, ID, MA, NY etc) are listed at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/upcomingevents/
NEWS/COMMENTS
Gaza Diary: Not a life for children By Omar, a humanitarian worker in partnership with Oxfam
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=40931&s2=08
Insightful and sober analysis of the US/Israel self-destructive partnership from an ex-CIA analyst
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison02072008.html
Israel "Democracy for Jews Only"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/864734.html
------------------------------
ACTION ALERT FROM WHEELS OF JUSTICE
Dear Friends and Supporters of The Wheels of Justice!
The Spring 2008 tour is about to start on February 25th in Olympia, WA! We have a great line-up of stops along the way going through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Our itinerary is posted below. There are still some tentative stops, as well as other stops still on our wish list. Take a look and see if there's any way you can help bring us to any of these places listed with a ? after it.
Along the way we'll be participating in a variety of important commemorations and national observances, from the Nakba in Palestine (60 years and counting), to the 5th anniversary of the US invasion in Iraq (March 19). We have a great pool of speakers, listed below, who will be joining us throughout the route, as well as some other tentative speakers later in the season. The bios of all our speakers can be found on our website, http://www.justicewheels.org
Thank you to all for your continued support. I have confidence that this will be a highly successful tour this spring, and hopefully many of you will be a part of it. Again, please let me know if your town falls along our route so we can make sure to stop there. If not, you can always support us by making donations via our website!
It's an honor to be working with all of you, and I hope we can continue doing this valuable work together.
In solidarity,
Abbie Coburn
Wheels of Justice
abigail.coburn@gmail.com
Itinerary
Feb 25-27 Olympia, WA
Feb 28-29 Vancouver, WA
Feb 29-March 2 Portland, OR
March 3-6 Eugene, OR
March 12-13 Boise, ID
March 13-15 Sun Valley, ID (?)
March 16-19 Boise, ID
March 20-24 Jackson, WY (?)
March 25-28 Salt Lake City, UT
March 28-30 Riverton/Dubois, WY
Cheyenne, WY (?)
Nebraska (?)
April 10-14 Manhattan, KS
April 15-17 Lawrence, KS
Wichita, KS (?)
Des Moines, IA (?)
Cedar Rapids, IA (?)
Speakers
Iraq: Mike Miles, Salam Talib, Ed Kinane, Gene Stoltzfus, Kathy Kelly
Palestine: Mazin Qumsiyeh, Mark Turner, Hannah Mermelstein, Nora Burrows-Friedman
http://www.justicewheels.org
====================
Feb 7, 2008
In this message: Examples of what individuals can do (after all silence is complicity), Article on Obama and Clinton, Urgent Action alert to US Citizens denied entry to Israeli/Palestine, and media alert on launch of 4th International Israeli Apartheid week
Examples of what individuals can do (one Democrat, one Republican):
From Bill:
At last night's Democratic Party precinct caucus in Northfield,
Minnesota, I was able to get two resolutions passed.
The first one called for the United States to restore diplomatic relations and direct negotiations with the government of Iran.
The other resolution said that, until Israel removes its military presence from the West Bank, that the United States should end all financial aid to Israel, except for humanitarian aid specifically intended for those who have suffered due to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Bill McGrath, delegate for U.S. Senate candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
From Andy:
Great job, Bill.
I attended the Republican caucus held last night at the Greenvale Town Hall, with the intention of supporting a genuine peace candidate, Ron Paul.
My resolution was short and sweet: that all foreign aid payments from the US treasury should cease immediately, until our government gets its debt and deficit spending under control. This resolution was first met with stunned silence-- most of the resolutions at this type of event are usually routine: pro-life stuff, support for the troops, etc.
In the discussion that followed, I pointed out that the largest recipient of our foreign aid dollars is Israel, a country with a high standard of living (at least for those Israelis getting the money). I argued that the aid was more a function of who had lobbying power in Washington, and that the aid going to such nations as Egypt and Pakistan is really at the behest of Israel, to prop up unpopular regimes there that are to Israel's liking.
My resolution failed, but only by a razor thin margin. It was the old guard who voted against it; I was pleased to see most of the newcomers and younger folks voting in favor. I think there is broad grass roots opposition to foreign aid out there among both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. I believe the root of the problems in the Middle East is our government's support of the Zionist regime. An effective method of confronting this policy that is sure to gain broad-based support among our fellow citizens is to question the whole idea of foreign aid payments in general.
-Andy Korkven
P.S. Ron Paul received only three votes out of 35 at our caucus's straw poll. Romney won by a couple votes, followed closely by McCain and Huckabee. I was pleasantly surprised to see a great deal of vocal hostility to McCain's candidacy. Several people, including myself, declared publicly that if McCain receives the nomination, they would cross the aisle and vote for Obama in the general election.
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(Must read) Questions They Weren't Asked: The Great Clinton-Obama Debate By RALPH NADER, CounterPunch, February 2/3, 2008
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader02022008.html
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URGENT ACTION
ATTENTION US CITIZENS WHO HAVE BEEN DENIED ENTRY
The US State Department in Washington DC and the US Consulate in East Jerusalem have been following up on the current situation of US citizens denied entry in recent years. This is an excellent opportunity for us to alert US government representatives of the ongoing harm caused by Israel's continued practice of entry denial on an arbitrary and unlawful basis.
While some individuals denied entry have, with great persistence and often at significant cost, managed to re-enter, we know that the majority of those denied entry have not been able to re-enter the oPt. Moreover, those who have been able to re-enter have often been issued visas of a short duration and, when these all too quickly expire, they have faced the difficult choice of exiting and again facing denial of entry or remaining in the oPt without a valid visa.
If you have been denied entry and have not yet been able to return or have faced harassment or discriminatory treatment at Israeli borders, please join us in challenging false claims by Israeli authorities that this issue has been resolved. We know that the issue continues to cause suffering and undue harm to numerous individuals and families. We need to hold the US Government and other third states responsible for putting an end to entry denials; this requires our documentation.
US government representatives are asking for evidence. Let's give it to them. Let's flood them with our stories!
We would like to compile as many stories as possible in the next 2 weeks so that we can send them to relevant US government officials en masse.
Please remember, that even if you prefer to remain unidentified, your unanimous story can make a valuable contribution to overall statistics from which we can establish trends and report impact. We are committed to respecting all requests for confidentiality.
What to do:
1. If you have not already done so, file a report with the Campaign regarding your denial(s) of entry, please do so at. Click here for the form: http://www.righttoenter.ps/ReportYourCase.php?mid=16&sid=18
If you have trouble downloading the form, let us know and we will forward it to you as an attachment.
2. If you have not already filed a report on all your entry denials, please consider doing so. You can send the US Consulate your denial of entry report using this form: http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/uploads/images/1EEiY6hT_ExE9IqokfOl9g/AllenbyDenialForm.pdf
If you have trouble downloading the form, let us know and we will forward it to you as an attachment.
Or, if you prefer, we would be happy to forward your report, if you send it to us. (For reasons of confidentiality, we will only do this if you specifically request us to do so.)
3. Update the Campaign and relevant US government representatives on whether you have managed to re-enter or not.
– If you've attempted to return, let us know if you've been successful or not.
–Provide a full description of the impact entry denial has had and/or continues to have on your life, that of your family and the ability you have to contribute to the social and economic development of the oPt.
– If you haven't tried, let us know why and under what conditions you might try to return
If you prefer, we can forward your story to the US Consulate in East Jerusalem and other relevant government officials. (Again, for reasons of confidentiality, we will only do this at your specific request.)
4. Assist us in compiling stories and encourage/help friends and family members who have been denied entry to take the above steps.
The successful return of individuals previously denied entry and the unhindered entry of others is made possible by organized civic action involving a broad alliance of concerned individuals and organizations within the Palestinian, Israeli and international communities. We need to double our efforts to put an end to Israel's denial of entry policy. Random and piecemeal "alleviation" of the unlawful practice of entry denial is no substitute for its abolition.
If you wish to contact US representatives directly, please consider sending your story to:
1) Mr Jake Walles, US Consul General, US Consulate, East Jerusalem jerusalemacs@state.gov
2) Ms Angie C Smith, Assistant to the Consul General, US Consulate East Jerusalem SmithAC2@state.gov
3) JerusalemACS@state.gov
4) Your relevant congressional representatives.
5) To help the Campaign's advocacy efforts on this issue, please also cc or forward your correspondence to info@righttoenter.ps
As another year gets under way and Israel persists in arbitrarily deny entry and in discriminatory treatment against those attempting to enter or stay in the oPt, we need to call on our government representatives to demand an end to Israel's persistent violations of international law.
Together we can defeat this policy. Act now! Send your stories by 12 February.
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MEDIA ADVISORY: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE 4th ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK IS LAUNCHED
Israeli Apartheid Week 2008 was officially launched on Sunday, February 3rd in Soweto, South Africa. Exiled Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, Azmi Bishara, addressed his lecture on the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their land to become what remains one of the world’s largest refugee populations. Bishara spoke under the banner 'Silenced in Apartheid Israel - Welcomed in Soweto’ alongside prominent South Africans such as Eddie Maque, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
Speaking in South Africa, Bishara states, “Reconciliation happened in South Africa after apartheid was dismantled, not instead. The message sent to the Palestinians is that you have to make peace and reconciliate. We can reconciliate after racism and occupation is dismantled.” Dr. Bishara’s lecture will be screened during the week in participating cities around the world.
The 4th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is taking place in 25 cities from February 3-19 2008. Concurrent events are being held in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa, and Palestine. IAW will feature lectures, film screenings, cultural activities, and demonstrations aimed at raising awareness about Israel’s apartheid policies toward Palestinians and to gather support for the international boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign. The demands of this campaign are: full equality for Arab- Palestinian citizens of Israel, an end to the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, and the protection of Palestinian refugees’ right to return pursuant to UN resolution 194.
“It has become imperative for people around the world to isolate the Israeli apartheid regime, especially in the face of governments’ failure to ensure respect for human rights and to hold Israel accountable before international law and countless U.N. resolutions” said Ahmad Shokr, an organizer of IAW in New York City. Shokr adds that “by supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign the international community can bring an end to Israeli apartheid and work toward a future of justice, equality and peace.”
For more details and the full schedule, please go to http://www.apartheidweek.org .
Media Contacts:
United States: +646 312-0143 or israeliapartheidwee k@yahoo.com
Canada: +647 831 5516 or saia@riseup. net
South Africa: +27 (0) 842119988 or witspsc@gmail. com
United Kingdom: +447 870 341537
Palestine: +972-599649815 or global@stopthewall. org
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Feb 5, 2008
Lighting a candle instead of cursing the dark
If you are in the US and is registered as a Democrat or Republican, vote in the primaries today. Go to the polls carrying pins and signs that remind others of the centrality of the struggle against Israeli apartheid. But let us also mobilize after the elections. For voters in Maryland, Virginia, and DC, see the message below.
The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel was in the official delegation at the airport saying goodbye to President Bush when he is reported by many media outlets to have thanked Bush "thank you for or standing up to Israel and for the war on Iraq." This chief Rabbi also recently said that Gaza residents should be expelled to the Sinai (most of Gaza residents are refugees already expelled from villages and towns in what is now Israel).
On the positive side, a tiny fraction of the >500 ethnically cleansed and destroyed Palestinian village and town locations will now be marked. Zochrot, an Israeli organization that works on these issues thinks it is a positive step. While this subject is taboo in Zionist circles in the US, it is finally becoming more uncovered in Israel. Zochrot's Executive Director Eitan Bronstein said that the decision shows that "The sky won't fall if we admit that we expelled Arabs and demolished villages." Denying the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is just as reprehensible as denying the genocides of Native American, Armenians, Rwandans, or Jews, Gypsies and communists in Nazi Germany. (see article on Palestinian Villages in Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/950689.html )
And Australia to Apologize to Aborigines! (Inshallah Israel next)
"The national inquiry recommended that state and federal authorities apologize and compensate those removed from their families. But then-Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly refused to do either, saying his government should not be held responsible for the policies of former officials." (But neocon Howard wants all governments to keep paying Zionists for atrocities against Jews regardless of passage of generations or the fact that Zionists collaborated with Nazis)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_on_re_as/australia_aborigines
Action: International Call for Entries: Expressions of Nakba Competition 2008 http://www.expressionsofnakba.org
Action: Plan an activity for Rachel Corrie commemoration, see http://rule19.org/upandout/rachel-day.htm
Action: For those in MD/VA/DC
Greetings all,
As you may know, there is some speculation that Super Tuesday on the democratic side may not be decisive and if so, all eyes may be on the primaries that follow. Four states and the Virgin Islands will vote the following weekend and then Maryland/Virginia/DC will be that Tuesday. It might be a good opportunity to get our voice heard on the special interest of peace and justice in Palestine. I know we are facing a "might storm" in this regard but in a close race, politicians tend to at least patronize all and it is at least better than total silence.
In that regard, below are two letters (one to Clinton and one to Obama) briefly outlining some concerns regarding their platform as it relates to there proposed administration's ability to serve as an honest broker. Because timing is short and critical, we are hoping to get these letters out by this Wednesday (the day after Super Tuesday). So if you are a registered voter in Maryland/Virginia/DC, I am asking you to consider if you can do one or more of the following:
* Add your name to the letter (we will hand deliver it on Wednesday after Super Tuesday). Just reply to this email and indicate you want to add your name.
* Print out a copy and ask others to sign (I can send word document versions if desired)
* Create your own letter -- If you don't like this one, you can modify it or draft a completely new one.
* Spread the word to others
If you are not a registered voter, have a different party affiliation or are from a different state, you can help by spreading the word. Is a bit of a numbers game, so more is better.
Please know that this is not an open petition that will sit in cyberspace....it will be hand delivered. You do not need to commit to voting for a candidate (you can sign both) nor is it an indication that you are a one-issue person and this is all you care about. It is merely saying that on this particular special interest/issue, there are aspects of the platform that you are concerned about.
Below the two letters is also info about handing the letters (our plan for getting these to the campaigns). If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, I would love to hear from you. Thanks for your consideration...Susan Kerin (301) 675-9518 cell
OBAMA LETTER
February 6, 2008
The Honorable Barack H. Obama
U.S. Senator for the State of Illinois
713 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Obama,
We are citizens of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia who are registered to vote in the February 12th primary. In general, your position on a number of issues, as well as your overall theme for change, have attracted us to consider your candidacy for U.S. President. That is, we are seemingly natural constituents for you.
However, collectively, we also represent a growing community that has found the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict of key importance to us personally, as well as to U.S. and global interests. We find that the disproportionate role that the Israeli lobby has on influencing the politics of the national campaigns, both disturbing and counterproductive to future peace initiatives. In recent weeks, these influences have seemingly played a more prominent role in the Obama campaign.
Specifically, we are referring to your recent letter (following the urging of the Simon Wiesenthal Center) to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations requesting a veto of the Security Council resolution related to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and statements to Jewish and Israeli journalists last week in which you indicated that international law related to the right of return �should not be taken as literal.�
So that we might accurately and favorably evaluate whether the Obama administration would serve as an honest broker towards a durable peace outcome, we are hoping that we might get more details on your platform on this issue. In particular, we are seeking a better sense of your position with regard to (1) universal protection of human rights, (2) adherence to international law, and (3) a commitment to democratic ideologies as it relates to this conflict. At this point, these principles are unclear and/or are of concern.
Of course, we greatly welcome any statements or clarification your campaign might provide on these principles....principles which we hold dear and have confidence will serve as a strong foundation towards achieving that elusive and long-overdue sense of peace and security for all in that region. Thank you for your consideration during what we appreciate is a busy and critical time in your campaign.
Sincerely,
Name (affiliation if desired)
City, State
CLINTON LETTER
February 6, 2008
The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton
U.S. Senator for the State of New York
c/o Hillary Clinton for President
4420 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203
Dear Senator Clinton,
We are citizens of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia who are registered to vote in the February 12th primary. In general, your position on a number of issues, as well as your overall leadership experience, have attracted us to consider your candidacy for U.S. President. That is, we are seemingly natural constituents for you.
However, collectively, we also represent a growing community that has found the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict of key importance to us personally, as well as to U.S. and global interests. We find that the disproportionate role that the Israeli lobby has on influencing the politics of the national campaigns, both disturbing and counterproductive to future peace initiatives. These influences seem to play a prominent role in the Clinton campaign.
Specifically, we are referring to your associations with several Israeli extremists/settlers including Avigdor Lieberman, who advocates for the forced transfer of the indigenous Arab community that currently live inside of Israel and Benny Elon, a settler who, according to an Israeli human rights organization, has personally been involved in several violent settler attacks into Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. We are particularly concerned that these relationships have been influential in your platform regarding those Israeli actions which have been found to breach the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international law. These include the proliferation of Jewish-only settlements (which you refer to as neighborhoods) and the barrier which has been condemned by the World Court on the basis of its location which encroaches onto Palestinian soil rather than being built on a border.
So that we might accurately and favorably evaluate whether the Clinton administration would serve as an honest broker towards a durable peace outcome, we are hoping that we might get more details on your platform on this issue. In particular, we are seeking a better sense of your position with regard to (1) universal protection of human rights, (2) adherence to international law, and (3) a commitment to democratic ideologies as it relates to this conflict. At this point, these principles are unclear and/or are of concern.
Of course, we greatly welcome any statements or clarification your campaign might provide on these principles....principles which we hold dear and have confidence will serve as a strong foundation towards achieving that elusive and long-overdue sense of peace and security for all in that region. Thank you for your consideration during what we appreciate is a busy and critical time in your campaign.
Sincerely,
Name (affiliation if desired)
City, State
HANDLING OF LETTERS
Letters will be hand-deliverd to Obama and Clinton's Congressional offices as well as Clinton's national campaign headquarters in Fairfax. Obama's national campaign is a PO BOX in Chicago, however they are currently setting up campaign offices in Richmond and Townson. They don't have fax numbers yet, but if we get that contact information, we can fax or send via Fed EX.
If you want to be added to the hand-delivered letter: Email Susan Kerin (susank@md.capconcorp.com) indicating which letter (or both) you want to add your name to. Please include your name, city and state. If you want your affiliation (e.g., an organization or your religion) that is fine. We won't include your contact info (email) unless you want us to.
If you want to send your own letter: You can contact Susan Kerin above and we can arrange to add your letter in the hand delivery (needs to be in our hands by Tuesday afternoon). Or you can fax directly to the campaign (contact Susan on Tuesday to see if the fax numbers are available yet).
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Jan 30, 2008
IMPORTANT EVENTS
Thursday, January 31st, 5:30-7:30 PM
Demonstrate the annual Israel lobby dinner/fundraiser in New York (make sure they know that we object to those who put Israel war interests in Iraq and Iran ahead of US public interests, bring signs)
Marriott Marquis Times Square, 1535 Broadway at 46th Street, Westside Ballroom, New York City
Details of the AIPAC event is at http://www.aipac.org/nydinner2008/Full-Invite-2008.pdf
(Neturei Karta, Ultra Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews will be there to demonstrate, all human rights advocates should attend/join hands with them! See letters below from Neturei Karta on the Siege of Gaza and Israeli murderous activities)
Thursday, January 31st, 7-10 pm
Workshops on Activism for Palestine (open and free to all who support Palestinian human rights including the right to return)
Room 318 and 320 in the Curry Student Center at Northeastern university, Boston. (same building where the northeastern ballroom) http://www.northeastern.edu
Palestine Week at the University of North Carolina this week http://unc.palestineweek.org
OTHER ACTIONS: Organize a house party on March 16 for Rachel Corrie Anniversary
http://rule19.org/upandout/rachel-day.htm
ACTION FOR ISRAELIS: sign petition in support of the United Methodist Church
http://www.petitiononline.com/Israelis/petition.html
ACTION: Join Consumers for Peace. Petition and Know what Gas companies to boycott
http://www.petitiononline.com/EndWar08/petition.html
http://www.consumersforpeace.org/
Bendib wicked cartoon on the presidential election debates http://www.bendib.com/newones/2008/january/small/1-19-De-Bates.jpg
Center for Public Integrity documents 935 false statements (ie. Lies) from the administration between 9/11 and going to war on Iraq �Orchestrated deception on the way to war� http://www.publicintegrity.org
(MUST READ) One and Two State Solutions: The Myth of International Consensus By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON http://www.counterpunch.org/christison01242008.html
A rough guide to Hebron: The world's strangest guided tour highlights the abuse of Palestinians.The Independent, January 26/08
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/a-rough-guide-to-hebron-the-worlds-strangest-guided-tour-highlights-the-abuse-of-palestinians-773018.html
URGENT LETTER TO THE ESTEEMED SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS, THE HONORABLE BAN-KI MOON FROM ORTHODOX JEWS IN JERUSALEM AND WORLDWIDE ABOUT THE CURRENT ZIONIST ONSLAUGHT AGAINST THE PALESTINIANS IN GAZA
NETUREI KARTA of THE ORTHODOX JEWRY PALESTINE , JERUSALEM
NETUREI KARTA of THE ORTHODOX JEWRY PALESTINE , JERUSALEM
Jan 21.08
URGENT LETTER TO THE ESTEEMED SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS, THE HONORABLE BAN-KI MOON FROM ORTHODOX JEWS IN JERUSALEM AND WORLDWIDE ABOUT THE CURRENT ZIONIST ONSLAUGHT AGAINST THE PALESTINIANS IN GAZA
Dear Hon. Secretary-General:
It is with a heavy heart that we write you from the city of Jerusalem. For sixty years the authorities of what is mischaracterized as the "Jewish State" have been undertaking a vicious campaign of oppression and ethnic cleansing against millions of Palestinians who currently still live in historic Palestine and who are refugees from Palestine in other countries. And they have been committing all these crimes in the name of the ancient and holy Jewish religion! For sixty years the State of Israel been desecrating and violating our sacred religion! For sixty years the State of Israel has been flaunting international law and United Nation General Assembly and Security Council resolutions! For sixty years they have been bringing Mankind to the edge of world war, claiming to do so in the name of Judaism!
Even today, as we write this letter, the Zionist regime is waging an unrelenting war of starvation and suffering against the people of Gaza. In the name of the sacred values of the Jewish religion we cry out to the international community and especially the great powers and the United Nations: Please use your skills to finally stop the vicious and insane campaigns of the State of Israel against the Palestinians whose suffering worsens from one day to the next under the heavy hand of occupation and oppression, ethnic cleansing and discrimination!
Mr. Secretary-General, we beseech you to use your offices to work with world leaders to stop this mad campaign of collective punishment and oppression! Our holy religion teaches us values that are the utter opposite of those of the State of Israel: we are taught by our Torah to live in harmony and brotherhood, friendship and neighborliness.
The State of Israel is trying to use its military power to preserve its ethnocracy and is demanding that the world community watch silently as they continue to hammer the Palestinian People year after year with the most sophisticated weapons of war. This cannot go on any longer! The state-sponsored terrorism and collective punishment practiced by the State of Israel must be condemned and stopped!
We fervently pray that G-d guide world leaders to take the necessary action to stop the suffering of the Palestinian People, rein in the State of Israel, restore the full rights of the Palestinians throughout their homeland in historic Palestine, and thereby create peace not only in the Holy Land, but also throughout the world. The world cannot stand by and watch the State of Israel commit these terrible crimes!
Thank you kindly for your attention to this urgent matter,
Yours truly,
Rabbi Meir Hirsh
Neturei Karta Palestine
Jan. 16/08
To: Honorable Doctor Mahmud Al-Zahar
As Orthodox Anti-Zionist Jews we harshly condemned the brutal acts of terrorism committed by the Zionist thug regime against the Palestinian People. We wish to express our most sincere sympathies to all suffering Palestinians, especially following the latest vicious attack of the Zionists in Gaza. We also wish to express our most sincere sympathies to you personally, Dr. Al-Zahar, for the death of your son, Hussam, at the hands of the Zionists following on the tragic murder of your other son, Khalid, several years ago at the hands of the Zionists. We pray fervently to God to stop the vicious crimes of the Zionist regime and to dismantle that absurd Zionist state and restore all the rights to the Palestinian People, both those living inside Zionistoccupied Palestine and in other countries as refugees.
RABBI MEIR HIRSH
Neturei Karta
Jerusalem, Palestine
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Jan 27, 2008
Powerful/must read commentary from Anna Baltzer on Gaza Civil Rights etc and a Checkpoint story, two Gaza Actions and more
Israel forces injured 8 and kidnapped four at the Friday weekly nonviolent demonstration against the apartheid wall built at the village lands of Bil'in. Those of us who braved cold weather to demonstrate support for lifting Gaza are not faced with rubber coated steel bullets or toxic gases. There were nearly 100 such demonstrations Friday and Saturday around the world. In Palestine, Israelis and Palestinians joined forces to demonstrate. Umm al-Fahm turned out the lights and 1000 Israelis (Jews, Christians, Muslims) made their way to a rally at the border with Gaza demanding freeing of the Gaza Ghetto from the Israeli siege (see http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948261.html ). Here in CT, we had two demonstrations: in New Haven with 25 people and in Hartford with 80-100 people. The thousands who participated in events outside of Palestine are some of those who truly believe that "silence is complicity" and who practice what they believe (thus living life to the fullest). Join them/us next time!
The media needs to be challenged and pushed to stop pandering to the illusion of Zionist power. People especially in the US, Canada, Israel, and England need to be reminded that they can take back the power from the entrencjed elites who serve teh narrow Zionist special interests. In the US we need to shatter the illusion of a "choice" between leading democrats and leading republicans in the Presidential elections. It is a game to give the illusion of democracy while business as usual goes on fleecing the US public by lobby interests (look at what happened in the media to those who tell the truth about the downward spiral of the US economy and the role of the Israel lobby: Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich).
By a vote of 30 to 1 (the one being Canada) the UN Human Rights Council criticized Israel on Thursday for its blockade of Gaza (the US and Israel are not participants). Shame on Canada for voting against human rights and shame on the EU for abstaining. Time to challenge them. You have the power as Citizens of those countries to demand that they re-allign their policies to support human rights.
ACTION: Donate to Gaza
http://www.friendsunrwa.org/donate.html
ACTION: Sign a petition on Gaza
http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_end_the_siege/8.php?cl=50712896
Another Checkpoint story by Rana Qumsiyeh
http://beit-sahour.info/content/view/21/1/lang,english/
Video on Palestine: Bittersweet symphony http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ8KobX3rrE
Gaza Escape: Too little too late http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/gaza-escape-too-little-too-late/2008/01/25/1201157668344.html
Combatants for Peace and Mazin Qumsiyeh on Free Thought Radio Sunday
http://freerangethought.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=277&Itemid=45
Letter From Anna Baltzer (young Jewish American women and author of book "Witness in Palestine"):
(excerpts from a sermon delivered in Minneapolis last Sunday, combined with some recent events)
This week, our country celebrated Martin Luther King Day and the official end to segregation and racial discrimination in this country. As we celebrate certain historic advances, we mustn't forget that these policies are far from over in this country, and that as we struggle against one injustice we are perpetuating another system of discrimination and segregation on the other side of the world in Occupied Palestine, a land where there are separate roads, schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, and legal systems, access to which depends on one's ethnicity or religion.
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King "wept" from disappointment with the laxity of the church and its leaders in taking action against the status quo for fear of being considered "nonconformist." I recently met a young Palestinian Christian dancer (one of those censored in New England last December) who echoed similar frustration with churches around the world who are doing nothing to ease the suffering of Christians and others in the Holy Land. She spoke to a group of church-goers in Old Lyme, Connecticut:
"My name is Mary Qumsiyeh. I am an English teacher from the little town of Bethlehem. My husband works in tourism and I have met many groups that said `We are here to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.' But are they acting the way that Jesus did?
"Our churches are now like museums. Tourists visit, take pictures, and leave. What about the living stories? Jesus in his time was living under the Roman occupation. Today, after 2000 years, we are still living under occupation�now the Israeli occupation that has confiscated 88% of Bethlehem's land. If Jesus were alive today, would he permit this to happen? Jesus helped the oppressed and the ones in need. He made the blind see.
"I ask you all to see how many times in the Bible the word justice is mentioned. And remember that Jesus did not avoid politics. Please spread our message, a message of joy, happiness, and justice, a message from youth full of life, willing to live and die in the little town of Bethlehem."
Thankfully, churches eventually stepped up to play a large and historic role in the civil rights movement, and it's worth remembering how: It was not simply by hoping for change, or by praying for change, or even by voting for change. It was by making change happen, by Christians stepping out of their comfort zones and challenging the status quo even if it meant going to jail or being ostracized.
Making change happen is never comfortable. It's what Dr. King called "tension." He confessed, "I am not afraid of the word `tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth."
Notice the word "necessary." This necessity is often hard for people of privilege to grasp. We think, "if only we educate our leadership, or the Israeli government, they'll come to their senses..." How much more comfortable it would be if it were just a matter of waiting, and listening, and sharing! But we forget Dr. King's clear wisdom: "We have not made a single gain without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that
privileged groups seldom give up their privileges until they have to... Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
Today in Gaza, Palestinians demanded freedom from the Israeli siege that has endured for years since the so-called "disengagement" and before. After several days under even tighter isolation by Israel, which had sealed the borders of the small strip and cut off electricity, food, medical supplies, and other lifelines, Palestinians blasted through a wall of their collective prison and flooded into Egypt in search of medicine, soap, fuel, cement, and other desperately
needed supplies.
Some might call blowing up a wall "extreme." In fact, just about any action taken unilaterally for Palestinian liberation is portrayed as such. Martin Luther King was also called an "extremist," and eventually embraced the word, calling on others to join him in creative extremism. Criticism of the status quo will always be dismissed as ideological or extreme, and that's what makes challenging power structures so uncomfortable. We would prefer to affect change
through consensus and the blessing of communities that have traditionally supported the status quo, like mainstream Jewish temples and US legislators. But, my friends, this is unrealistic; these groups will hopefully become a part of the movement someday, but they will not lead the movement today. And while it would be nice to wait until a day when it feels more convenient, remember that change will never be convenient for those who are profiting off of the way things are. Let us not forget that Palestinians, like people of color in Dr King's time (and still today), have not had the luxury waiting and choosing a
convenient time... Indeed, there is no convenient time. But inconvenience and discomfort are a small price to pay for justice. Remember that prophets have always been scorned in their own time.
In Palestine, that inevitable discomfort�or tension, as Dr King calls it�has taken the form of popular nonviolent resistance met with army brutality, checkpoints, roadblocks, invasions, curfews, house demolitions, and mass imprisonment. In this country, that inevitable tension has taken the comparatively mild�but admittedly unpleasant�form of moral blackmail: anyone who dares criticize Israel's violations of human rights and international law is labeled anti-Semitic. But this is absurd. Occupation, oppression�these things have nothing to do with Judaism, and to oppose them in Israel, Palestine, or anywhere else in the world is simply not anti-Semitic. On the contrary, it is in line with the Jewish tradition of critical thinking, open debate, and social justice, which have been a source of pride for Jews through history.
The Israel/Palestine struggle is portrayed in our media and elsewhere as an endless religious rivalry, but it is no more a war between Jews and Muslims than the civil rights struggle was one between African-Americans and Whites. This is a struggle for justice, one that affects us all and in which we all play a part. In the words of Dr. King, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single
garment of destiny."
This mutuality is clear in the collaboration today between Palestinians and the Israelis who support their struggle, working together towards an end to discrimination and the Occupation, towards a common future of integration and coexistence. In the United States, churches are once again taking the lead. The United Methodists, the Presbyterians, and others have started campaigns calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the Israeli government until it complies with international law. This is a crucial campaign not only because it has the potential to be successful in conjunction with Palestinian resistance (after all, it was Black South African resistance supported by international solidarity and divestment that ultimately contributed to the end of Apartheid there), but also because it was called for by Palestinian civil society. This is a Palestinian struggle, and we need to be taking our lead from Palestinians. They have been reaching out for support through the years, particularly this week in Gaza as they were cut off even further from the world. We need to reach back.
Here are just a few reports, calls to action, and a petition regarding Gaza this week:
www.alhaq.org/etemplate.php?id=345
www.freegaza.ps
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BBA4E18B-E72F-4AB2-A1B4-26612DEFEAE3.htm
www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_end_the_siege/
For more information about Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions, visit
www.BDS-Palestine.net
For a list of companies profiting off of the Occupation, visit
www.InterfaithPeaceInitiative.com/ProfitingFromOccupation.htm
For organizing ideas, campaigns, and to get more involved in the movement, visit www.EndTheOccupation.org
Thanks for reading,
Anna
==========================
January 25, 2008
The US thwarted any action by the UN Security Council to demand Israel comply with International law and lift the siege on Gaza (further eroding what shreds remain of thinking that the US may have an independent foreign policy not beholden to the Zionist lobby).
But Palestinians then showed the power of people to liberate themselves. They broke the barriers and flooded out of the Gaza Concentration Camp to buy necessities of life.
But the struggle is far from over. We must marshal all resources to support all our people of Palestine (>10 million, most refugees or displaced people). See below for a sampling of events around the US and the world in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Some background reports first:
Text reports
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1706252,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3359066.ece
VIDEOS:
2 minute glimpse into life in the Gaza Concentration camp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01hqVzViFTw
A video by Al Jazeera on Rafah border breach http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TocjkugWEEc
ACTIONS: JOIN EVENTS (or make your own event) AND WRITE TO THE MEDIA AND POLITICIANS. Let us expand and grow the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel.
Anaheim, California: Saturday, Jan. 26, 1 p.m.
512 S. Brookhurst St., Between Orange Ave. & Broadway
Boston: Thursday, Jan 24, noon Israeli Consulate
Saturday, Jan 26, noon-1pm in Harvard Square
Charlotte, North Carolina: Saturday January 26, 4 PM Forum, Charlotte Energy Solutions, 337 Baldwin Ave; Organized by Charlotte Action
Chicago: Tues., Jan. 29, 5 pm at the
Lakeshore Theater, 3175 North Broadway (at benefit for the Friends of the 'Israeli Defense Force').
Initiated by ISM. Call 773-463-0311 for more information.
Cleveland: Saturday, Jan 26
for more info contact donmbryant@yahoo.com
Costa Mesa, California: Friday, January 25, 5-7 PM, vigil at Bristol & Anton
Edinburgh, Scotland: Wednesday January 23, 5.30 PM at the foot of the Mound, Princes Street.
Glasgow, Scotland: Friday January 25, 5.30 PM George Square.
London, England: Thursday January 24, 6 PM and Saturday January 26, 4 PM Opposite 10 Downing Street, Whitehall.
Montreal, Canada: Friday January 25, 2:00 PM
De Maisonneuve Boulevard corner of MacKay Street, Montreal (Metro Guy-Concordia).
New Haven, CT: Friday, January 25th, 4:30 to 5:30 PM
The Federal Building on Church Street (opposite the flagpole on the Green). Bring signs. Bring candles.
New York City:
Thursday January 24, 2008 at 7 PM at The Center for Constitutional Rights, 666 Broadway, 6th Floor To build a coalition for Nakba events)
Friday January 25 3pm (after friday prayers)
RALLY at the Zionist Consulate 42nd & 2nd ave & MARCH to the EGYPTIAN Consulate (58th & 2nd ave) NY NY
Saturday, Jan. 26, 1 p.m. at the
Israeli Embassy, 43rd St. and 2nd Ave.
Philadelphia: Friday, Jan 25 Press conference and vigil in front of the Israeli Consulate (15th & Locust) at 12 noon
Saturday, Jan 26 Assemble at 12 noon to march from 5th and Market Sts. to the Israeli Consulate (15th & Locust) Contact: rkamel@verizon.net
San Diego, California: Friday January 25, 3:00 - 5:30 PM downtown corner of Broadway and Front Street.
San Francisco, California: Friday, Jan. 25, 4-6 p.m.
Israeli Consulate, 456 Montgomery St. (near California)
Seattle: Friday, January 25, 4 p.m., Westlake Park, 4th & Pine Sts.
Saturday Jan 26, 12-2, Leafletting/sign-waving protest on at Westlake Center downtown.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Saturday January 26, 12 Noon at 12th & Phillips
St. Paul, Minnesota: Friday January 25, 4:15-5:30 P.M., Corner of Summit and Snelling Aves
Toronto: Friday January 25, 5 PM Israeli Consulate at 180 Bloor St. West
Washington DC:
Thursday, January 24 at 12:00pm. Israeli Embassy.
Abir's father, Bassam Aramin, a co-founder of Combatants for Peace, will be joined by his wife Salwa and 13-year-old daughter, Areen, as well as Yonatan Shapira, a former IDF pilot and co-founder of Combatants for Peace, and Donna Baranski-Walker, Executive Director of Rebuilding Alliance, the US-based NGO sponsoring the Combatants for Peace US Speaking Tour and organizing relief trucks from Egypt to Gaza.
Friday, Jan. 25, Israeli Embassy, 3514 International Dr. N.W.
ACTION EXAMPLE: An interesting and plain-spoken letter to the editor to show that individuals can make a difference My comments in brackets:
Israelis are 'brutal aggressors'
Published in The Florida Times-Union January 23, 2008
American media coverage of the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians invariably turns violent events upside down to portray the Israelis as the victims, when in actuality the Israelis are the brutal aggressors and always have been.
Here's the other side of the story: In 1948, under United Nations authority, European Jews took 77 percent of Palestine and pushed out most of the Palestinians who had lived there since ancient times.
Some 400 Palestinian villages actually 530 towns and villages were destroyed, thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed and 750,000 Palestinians fled to safety in neighboring countries.
They were never allowed to return to their homes, and thousands actually hundreds of thousands still live in refugee camps. That's how Israel came into being as a state.
The 1967 Six-Day War was a war of conquest by Israel, for the purpose of expanding Israel's territory. The result was Israeli occupation of the remaining 23 percent of Palestine.
Israel also took territories from other neighboring states.
Even now, it is building Israeli settlements in most of these areas (with American dollars, incidentally).
The Arabs say there will be no peace until Israel returns these private properties to their rightful owners International Law is also clear on this need.
During peace talks, Israel has repeatedly promised to do so (for international consumption only), but the Israelis don't mean it and don't intend to return anything they are not forced to return.
The Israeli government has long engaged in systematic destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes, farms, orchards, stores, schools, mosques and factories and Churches.
It has intentionally killed and maimed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women and children.
The Palestinians fight back the way helpless people have always fought back against an overpowering, rapacious enemy - with terrorism not true, they fought back with nonviolent resistance 99% of the time and violent resistance both terrorism and Internationally recognized violent resistance in 1% of the time.
The suicide bombings would end tomorrow, if Israel would withdraw from the occupied territories and stop its brutal treatment of the Palestinians.
The U.S. government backs Israel to the hilt in everything it does.
That, and that alone, is the cause of the terrorist threat to America.
BENTON L. BRADBERRY
Jacksonville
==========================
1/20/08
Yesterday in Connecticut, we had the honor to hear from the father, mother, and sister of 10-year-old Abir Aramin who was murdered by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in occupied Anata, Jerusalem, Palestine. We also heard from Israeli refusenik Yonatan Shapira. Abir�s father Bassam Aramin was jailed in Israel starting at age 17. When released he and Yonatan cofounded Combatants for Peace which combined Israelis and Palestinians who now advocate nonviolence and justice. He and others continued with the group even after his daughter was murdered in front of her school and while walking with other classmates, friends, as well as her sister (who gave us a heart-wrenching account of what happened and who spoke movingly about how Palestinian Children want to live like other children).
There is no symmetry between occupied and occupiers, oppressed and oppressors; the occupation must end and human rights restored. This is understood by leaders of this group (http://www.combatantsforpeace.org/ ), as well as by the group that is arranging the US tour and raising money to build a garden in the name of Abir (The Rebuilding Alliance http://www.rebuildingalliance.org/ ). We can only hope that this tour will bring people to act. While the killing of Children in the West Bank abated in the past few months (in order to advance the Israeli political agenda of domesticating the Palestinian Authority leaders), the situation got worse in Gaza. 92 children were murdered by the IOF since Abir's murder exactly a year ago and most were in Gaza. Today we face a major catastrophic situation unfolding in this concentration camp otherwise known as the Gaza Strip (home to 1.5 million Palestinians, 70% of them refugees). A very short message from a resident in Gaza reminded me with the call we heard from Jerusalem during the massacres by the Crusaders or other calls in history: "Wa Mu3tasmah...". It was simply:
�Dear all: This is going to be short, as short as possible: At least 80% of Gaza under darkness. Not only the lights but every thing related to electricity. It is expected to have hundreds or even thousands of people dead if this situation continues. What can we do with this WAR CRIME? Bassam M. Nasser, Gaza, Palestine"
Ofcourse that is still an understatement. Already dozens have died for lack of medications. Some are already hungry and 70% live below the poverty line thanks to the Israeli murderous siege (benignly referred to as "collective punishment"). A European colleague candidly noted in an email that Gaza now is new concentration camp �conceived as such� and �needs a new Nuremberg trial.� For those who know history they know that large scale deaths at concentration camps only occurred years after they were inhabited by thousands of inmates (communists, gypsises, homosexuals, Russians, Jews, Poles etc). Let us not wait for this progression, let us not wait for the day when Israelis parade before mass graves in Gaza. But what indeed can we do with the continuing Nakba in Palestine (60 years of mayhem, ethnic cleansing, destruction etc.)?
Read about the mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza
http://www.freegaza.ps
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BBA4E18B-E72F-4AB2-A1B4-26612DEFEAE3.htm
We think we also have 60 years of heroism, sacrifices, acts of justice, and yes also lots of acts of kindness. That has always made the difference that prevents total annihilation and keeps the hopes of liberation, justice, freedom alive. So if you are like us outraged by these and others tories you hear, then do something. Below is from a US Citizen asking fellow citizens to act but if you are not in the US, please do similar actions with your government and the media:
If you are an American TAX PAYER you are culpable in these crimes against humanity and silence is complicity!
WRITE and TELEPHONE THOSE WORKING FOR YOU IN WASHINGTON AND DEMAND THAT THIS CARNAGE END!
It is the PEACEMAKERS who are the children of God, NOT those that starve, bomb, torture and occupy others!
President George W. Bush (202) 456-1414 president@whitehouse.gov
White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 Fax: (202) 456-2461
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (202) 647-6575
Any Senator (202) 224-3121
Any Representative (202) 225-3121
E-Mail Congress: visit http://www.congress.org
Embassy of Israel, 3514 International Dr., NW, Washington, DC 20008 (202) 364-5515
AND WRITE TO/CALL THE MEDIA AND DEMAND THEY COVER THIS HUMANITARIAN DISASTOR AND ONGOING WAR CRIMES. Media contacts:
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.asp
http://capwiz.com/adc/dbq/media
Ask Journalists to interview Palestinians; there is no shortage of those (e.g. in the US, here is a listing of many Palestinian Americans: http://imeu.net/news/palestinian-americans.shtml ).
==========================
1/18/2008
Doing action half an hour or an hour per day is the best form of uplifting mind and spirit :-)
----------------------------
ACTION 1: Arun Gandhi, the Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi made comments that irked Zionists around the world. His comments on the need to abandon the culture of violence were published at the Washington Post blog �on faith�
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/arun_gandhi/2008/01/jewish_identity_in_the_past.html
He later clarified and apologized for some of these comments, although I would have preferred he point out the ample evidence of Israel and Zionism claiming to represent Jews, pushing for enless wars (on Palestine, on its neighbors, on Iraq, and soon on Iran). The rabid attacks on Arun keep coming and span the spectrum of Zionist world from the Jerusalem Post to ADL to the Zionist President of his University of Rochester. I just sent a letter of support at Gandhi�s institute and urge you to do the same.
http://www.gandhiinstitute.net/contactUs.html
(BTW, on the Wheels of Justice bus tour that we organize, we have painted on the side of the bus the slogan �Nonviolent or nonexistence� and we must continue to live to that creed and advance it even when we get attacked).
--------------------------
ACTION 2: The American Jewish Committee, like other Zionist outfits in this country, spreads fake quotes that they claim came from Martin Luther King Jr in support of Israel and Zionism. In their ads this week, they used a fake quote (see more about the misuse of MLK below), Write to the media to challenge these things and also speak out against war, against racism, and against the bigotry of these people (which MLK would be doing today if he was alive).
Fraud fit for a King: Israel, Zionism, and the misuse of MLK by Tim Wise http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/content/2003-01/20wise.cfm
Desperation and Drastic Measures: The Use and Abuse of Martin Luther King Jr. by Israel's Apologists http://www.counterpunch.org/kiblawi01172004.html
MLK Jr in his own words illustrate clearly that he would be against the so called PATRIOT act and any discrimination, wars and oppression (all suported by AJC, ADL, and other Zionist outfits in the US):
http://www.almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html (Letter from Birmingham Jail)
http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=72 (I have a dream speech) or simply
"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.... There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,' but will curse and damn you when you say, 'Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!' There is something wrong with that press...." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
---------------------
ACTION 3: Racist Zionist says: �The Quran is a book of Hate�
Write to advertisers to stop advertising at this Islamophobe and racist show of Michael Savage. See this link for audio and action item details/contact information for advertisers:
http://nosavage.org?utm_source=rgemail
In the New York Times article on the subject of Savage and his background, we find:
�At one point Mr. Savage � who was born Michael Weiner, and who still is, legally, Michael Weiner � led a visitor to a glass case that included a photo of him as a boy wearing a tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl.�
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/arts/17sava.html
Jews especially need to disassociate themselves from bigots and racists like Weiner/aka Savage and David Frum. Their racism and bigotry if unchallenged by fellow Jews encourages anti-Semitism and hatred
----------------------
ACTION 4: IN honor of MLK Jr, ASK CONGRESS TO END RACIAL PROFILING. Take Action! Visit this page:
http://capwiz.com/adc/utr/1/MZAXHZVHLR/CGWIHZXHCC/1673521901
----------------------
Must see debate between Zionist Neocon David Frum and George Galloway
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19099.htm
---------------------
Zionist Jews attack Barak Obama. See this vitriolic article that equates calling for an end to the occupation and balanced US foreign policy with �Anti-Semitism�. Bizarre but relevant to understand and to challenge.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obama_and_israel.html
The reality is that Obama has gone out of his way to ignore human rights to satisfy the political need to get the Israel-First Lobby
For a an article "How Obama Learned to Love Israel" http://www.electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml
=================================
1/15/08
The Israeli occupation forces massacred 19 residents of the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza city in one day yesterday. They are also going ahead with buildings in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem. This while Bush is literally dancing with Arab dictators and calling Israel a beacon of democracy. The second son of Hamas leader Mohammad AlZahar was one of those 19 and joins his older brother Khalid as victims of Israeli terrorism. Dr. Saeb Erekat of the rival Fatah faction issued a statement condemning "the blazing destruction of Palestinian lives and property and a continuation of the Israeli policy of undermining the peace process and the efforts being exerted to revive hope in the minds of people that peace is possible." What "peace process" may I ask when Israel is defying 70 UN Security Council Resolutions? Why not support the call for total boycotts, divestments and sanctions until Israel complies with human rights and International law. Or at least set a deadline (say by the end of 2008) and afterwards say all talk is done. Actually the Oslo accords expired in 1998 because the interim period with a Palestinian authority was supposed to last 5 years (93-98) and here we are 10 years later still talking about talking!
In good news, famous Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim (who befriended the late Edward Said) has just taken Palestinian Citizenship. Ofcourse when Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 it offered Samaritan Jews of Nablus Israeli citizenship. They refused and opted to stay under the same occupation regime as their fellow Palestinians, Christians and Muslims (when the Palestinian Authorities was established in 1994, like all other Palestinians, they were allowed and eagerly took the Palestinian passport). But this case is very significant and could set a precedent for more Israelis joining in what is and has always been Palestine. It will bring us closer to the inevitable one state solution (see http://qumsiyeh.org/unitedstatesofcanaan/ ).
Two follow-ups to previous emails:
1) I received lots of responses to the series of questions posed as well as a few more questions. A selection of these are posted at
http://qumsiyeh.org/questionsandanswers/
(send me more. I had no responses from Israeli Jews so those are especially needed :-}
2) Many people who called the cable companies in the US about the need to carry Al Jazeerah English were told that more people need to call before they relent! So go ahead and call:
Time Warner Cable Inc.: 1-203-328-0600
Charter Communications: 1-888-438-2427
Comcast: 1-800-COMCAST
Cox Communications: 1-404-269-7054
Dish Network: 1-888-284-7116
Mediacom: 1-866-755-2225
National Cable & Telecommunications Association: 1-202-222-2350
ACTION: Help organize the Palestine Popular Conference (Chicago, 8/8/08). Partake in Reinvigorating National Palestinian Institutions in the US. Assert the Palestinian Narrative, Reclaim Palestine's Voice.
Contact: info@palestineconference.org
http://www.palestineconference.org
Israel Lobby Unrelenting in Efforts to Stifle Speech It Doesn�t Want Americans to Hear By Ron David
http://www.washington-report.org/archives/December_2007/0712023.html
Good article in the financial times: Of ordinariness and occupation
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d631e05e-c0b0-11dc-b0b7-0000779fd2ac.html
Must Read Gulf News Editorial addressed as a "Letter to George W. Bush"
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/01/11/10180995.html
The Hands of Esau by Uri Avnery (also on Bush�s visit)
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1200227323/
ACTION: Peter Shulman's art exhibit on Palestine will be at Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts between 4 and 10 February. The exhibit is available on loan for the price of shipping. If you are interested please email Linda Elbow at breadpup@together.net
more details at http://breadandpuppet.org/uofmajd.html
Candidates� Unconditional Support Isn�t Right for Jewish State by John J. Mearsheimer
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/13/6349/
The Arab vote in Michigan (there are half a million Arabs and Muslims in Michigan; their vote can be critical) See this CNN video:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/251.6/popup/index.php?cl=5954167
Ron Paul Reggae Song http://ronpaulvoterbomb.blogspot.com/
Mike Huckabee, Christian Zionist http://www.jewsonfirst.org/08a/huckabee_christian_zionist.html
==============
January 14
Questions and Answers
=====================
January 11, 2008
The following article of mine was published in the New Haven Register On the same day that Bush was in Ramallah (Thursday Jan 10). For those in CT, please take time to comment on it by sending an email to letters@NHregister.com (You can be sure those opposed to human rights and International law will write letters!). For those in other places, please write and contact the media (see action details at bottom plus a must see video from Al Jazeera on Bush's disastrous trip).
Bush in Palestine
==================================
Some Iowa residents will caucus for peace this evening while Israeli newspaper analyze who is the most supportive of the election primary candidates to Zionist aspirations (Clinton and Giuliani win). Let us all take notes and plan for a new year of work for justice (=peace). The 2007 Statistics: 899 US Troops killed in Iraq (most in one year since the illegal occupation), 18,610 Iraqis killed, 373 Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces, 13 Israelis killed by Palestinians, and on and on. Hundreds of billions of dollars siphoned off from us and our children for war and occupations from Afghanistan to Palestine. In the first three days of 2008: 12 Palestinians and dozens of Iraqis killed. Let us all say loudly: enough. Let us all "caucus" to do positive actions for peace.
Can we at least do what the hundreds of Children in Gaza who started the new year by forming a human chain calling for ending the siege (http://www.freegaza.ps/english/ )
Can we sacrifice a little like these hosts and principles of the Wheels of Justice bus tour arrested in Iowa at HUckaby headquorters for asking "who would Jesus bomb"? (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/29679
For more information about the campaign please visit http://vcnv.org or
http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/sodapop.html )
Or can we imitate the villagers of Bil'in who continued their non-violent resistance on the first day of 2008 by lying underneath caravans for new "outpost" (illegal Jewish colony) being constructed on their land and were attacked by racist Jewish settlers protected by a racist state?
What was your/our new year pledge?
In other news and commentaries:
Arab hackers target Israeli websites: Various commerce sites, Likud party site among those affected. Israeli-Arab youth leads hacking cell.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3488978,00.html
(BTW, the Likud Party Platform and its hymns are fascist and racist and in many ways even more radical and certainly more dangerous than current racist white supremacist website)
Nakba is now: Only by understanding the Nakba as a unified continuing strategy
can we hope to reverse it, writes Serene Assir
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/877/re82.htm
Palestine Is Being Destroyed By Mark Braverman, The Day, New London, CT
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=876a32a6-a92f-4821-8d88-de89e6cbdaa8
Democracy: An existential threat? by Ali Abunimah and Omar Barghouti,
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9187.shtml
It's Secular by Charley Reese (on role of religion in US politics)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese421.html
Rice Compares Israeli Occupation to US Segregation: If a Jewish state is legitimate in principle, how and why did "the only democracy in the Middle East," end up looking like apartheid South Africa and the segregated American south. By Lenni Brenner http://palestinechronicle.com/story-123007162104.htm
Personal story: Dina Takruri of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service talks about her experience crossing into Palestine
http://www.kabobfest.com/2007/12/blind-israeli-injustice.html
Interesting quote: "if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished." Ehud Olmert (news.bbc.co.uk - 11/29/07)
Olmert's actions and other words show he means a Jewish sovereign state and Palestinian bantustans not two sovereign states and his other statements clarify that to him State of Israel means only a Jewish racist state not a state of its citizens.
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