Dear friends,
please find below, in case you missed it, a wonderful article which appeared on the website of Bethlehem based Palestinian News Agency, Maan News.

The article is an interview with the Alexandra Darby, the niece of Tony Blair (former British PM now Middle East Quartet Envoy) and her mother, Lauren Booth (Blair's sister in law). In August 2008, Booth, who is a journalist and broadcaster, was one of the participants on the Free Gaza boats, which helped break the siege of Gaza. Booth subsequently spent a month or more in Gaza working as a human rights volunteer and reporting on the siege. She has since returned to Palestine to participate in the Peace Cycle, bringing her daughter with her.

During their visit to Hebron, Booth and her daughter, just happened to cross paths with Tony Blair's cavalcade which had been in Hebron as well. Alex notes, after her and her mother spoke with local Palestinian residents, that her uncle visit reminded her of the Hans Christian Andersen fable of "The Emperor's New Clothes".

Alex told Maan: “Do you know the story of the emperor’s new clothes?" she asks, "Well the emperor is blinded by what they do, because for real there is nothing there. And I think that’s what they are doing, because when he went to visit the Old City, and well, the Israelis didn’t make him go through the metal bit to get into the mosque; he went through the wide bit. So he thinks, ‘Well, then it's right what they say, these people aren’t poor, these people aren’t under an occupation.’ That’s what they are trying to make him see, so he can make others see the same.”

What a wonderful comment from such a young person!

In solidarity,
Kim


**

Quartet envoy's eight-year-old niece sees the real Palestine
published 22/10/09 and updated on 27/10/09

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=234091

Bethlehem - Ma’an - Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby, the niece of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, toured the West Bank this week on a bicycle, peddling an estimated 200 kilometers from Amman to Jerusalem.

Asked what she will tell her school friends about the Peace Cycle journey, Alex reflected, “I’ll tell them that the people here are very nice, not like they say in the newspapers.”


Alex Darby - photo by Maan News.

The West Bank is not a usual vacation site for most eight-year-olds. But, as mother, journalist and activist Lauren Booth explained, “She’s been asking me for the last five years why she can’t go to Palestine, and despite the fact that the Israelis can make it bloody trying to get in and out, the greeting here I knew would be so sensational for her that I didn’t have a reason not to bring her.”

Why doesn't Alex think other kids get to come to Palestine? “Because, of course, the telly, which says Palestinians are not like us, that they are a revolting people, a violent people, a nasty people, it’s mad. In fact it’s the exact opposite, it’s the Israelis.”

Alex and Tony visit Hebron

On Tuesday, Alex visited Hebron with the Peace Cycle Group. As she entered the streets leading to the Old City, she saw her uncle’s motorcade drive away.

While in the city, mom Lauren had heard the Quartet envoy, and husband of her sister, may be in the area. “We tried to wave them down,” she said, but “they thought we were just waving at them [as fans] so they just waved back. They thought people on the streets were waving at them, which was a bit frustrating.”

But it meant Alex had the fortuitous experience of meeting the people who had just escorted Blair around the city. His visit was reported as a chance for Blair to hear about the troubles of Palestinians in Hebron so he could better inform the decisions of the Quartet as it pushes its Middle East peace Road Map.

“As soon as Blair left, we arrived and got to speak to the local dignitaries and to the police who had been part of showing him around, and their disappointment was total,” Lauren explained.

“He was shown into the mosque and cheered in by Israeli soldiers. He went not through the cattle grid and the humiliation of checkpoints that the local population has to go through to get to their own mosque; he went in through open doors used only by Israelis. How is he going to learn, and make any judgment about what the Palestinian people need, if that’s the sort of trip he makes?”


Tony Blair - former British PM and now Middle East Quartet Envoy.

Touring the area with her mom and the group, listening to the way people talked about Blair’s visit, and what he was supposed to be doing, reminded Alex of the Hans Christian Andersen fable The Emperor’s New Clothes. The tale is of a leader who hires swindlers to make him new robes and is fooled into believing they are made of a magical fabric that only the worthy can see.

“Do you know the story of the emperor’s new clothes?" she asks, "Well the emperor is blinded by what they do, because for real there is nothing there. And I think that’s what they are doing, because when he went to visit the Old City, and well, the Israelis didn’t make him go through the metal bit to get into the mosque; he went through the wide bit. So he thinks, ‘Well, then it's right what they say, these people aren’t poor, these people aren’t under an occupation.’ That’s what they are trying to make him see, so he can make others see the same.”

“The Palestinian Authority is culpable in this as well,” Lauren adds, “they arrange these visits so that he doesn’t have tea with a local family; they go along with these supposed security issues that allow Israel to protect foreign diplomats from the supposedly violent Palestinians and they never get to see the real situation.”

Alex, however, saw the real Hebron.

“I felt a bit scared in Hebron,” she admits, tucking her legs up into the chair, “You never really could be alone. When you came in there are Israelis looking down at you, then we got to one bit, there was this big thing the Israelis could look through just to see far-er, and he had a big gun,” Alex said describing the guard towers that dot the Old City.

“She has been afraid twice,” Lauren explained, “both times because of settlers, and that’s disappointing that she had to feel that. I never want any child to have to go through that, but she did… and it really affected her.”

Going home

Wednesday was the last night for Alex and Lauren in Palestine, so thoughts turned to what would happen when she returned to class.

What did she tell her friends before leaving? “I’ve told them about the siege, but they don’t listen, my best friend listens though.”

What will she tell them when she gets back? “I think it’s a mad idea to build a wall, to think of people getting guns and building a giant wall around France and saying ‘This is England;’ it’s mad.”

Does she think her visit will prompt them to come and see the place for themselves? “I don’t really think they will, because if I tell them about the soldiers they’ll be scared… I think their parents would come first, to get to know some people and make friends, then when they know the people quite well and that they’re nice, then perhaps they’ll bring their children.”


Peace Cycle - photo by Maan News.

That comment prompts an idea in Lauren, who, along with the other members of the Peace Cycle Team, has used the trip to make connections with local initiatives, hoping to pair them with organizations in the UK and Europe. “You need to know the people first, you’re right. Do you think your classmates would want to Skype with the kids in Jenin that you met?”

Alex nods, excited about the prospect of keeping in touch with some of her new friends.

“I have brought the most precious thing in my life to Palestine with the knowledge that she will be loved and cared for,” Lauren says as the buss rolls up to take the group to a school for the blind in Beit Jala, “and that she has found this to be a place where children are adored and not in the least like she would have expected it to be as a child exposed to the news.”

Getting nervous about the visit, Alex asks if we want to hear the song she will share with the children at the school.

“Are you ready?

Free my people Palestine - Sing it loud
We will never let you die - Sing it loud
Palestine West Bank Ramallah Gaza, this is for the child that is looking for an answer
I wish I could take your tears and turn them into laughter
Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!”

Dear friends,

My friend, Dominique, who I worked with in Palestine a year or two ago is currently back in Palestine working with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

Please find below Dominique's account of what happened in Jerusalem today when the Israeli state destroyed more Palestinian homes.

I have asked her if I could share her account of it with all of you and she was fine for me to pass it on. As you will see, Dominique's writing is informative, insightful and very moving.

According to Dominique in another post I recieved from her, all up today three house were demolished and 40 people were left homeless. As she notes in her blog, the rains and winter have just started and I can say for personal experience, winter is very, very cold in Palestine.

With her permission, I will also be regularly posting up a variety of her updates onto the Live from Occupied Palestine blog.

You can visit her blog: De L'autre Cote du Mur (From The Other Side of the Wall), which has a range of photos as well at http://delautrecotedumur.blogspot.com/2009/11/when-talking-about-palestine-and.html

In solidarity,
Kim

***
Dominique writes:


Today in Jerusalem
2 November, 2009


When talking about Palestine and Palestinian's rights it is difficult to decide where to start. So I will just tell you day about my day of today.

9:39am: I am drinking my second cup of tea, trying to do my arabic homework, (last minute as usual) when I got a text message “ DWG alert : demolition ongoing of a structure in Abu Dur in East Jerusalem. For further info call xxx”. I ring the number, try to get info about this address and figure out if it is still time to get there or if everything is already over.

I jump into a taxi, and start grumbling against Jerusalem's traffic. When we reach Abu Dur, a truck blocks the street. I get out the taxi, decided to find the place walking. But I realize I am in a very Jewish and “bourgeois” neighbourhood. Obviously nobody is going to demolish anything here. Did I misunderstood the indication? Did the taxi driver make a bad joke? I get down the hill looking for buldozers. Finally the neighbourhood's look changes. Smaller houses, pourer, narrow streets. Much more arabic looking. And suddenly 4 soldiers heavily equipped. They stare at me. I don't look very local. “Where are you going?” “I'm visiting” “Visiting whom? “nobody, just looking for a nice place to take photos” “Passport?”


Soldiers at today's house demolitions making way for bulldozer
Photo by ICAHD:http://www.icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu;=1&item;=745

10:25am: After checking my passport they let me go through. I hate them but at least I know I am on the right way now. And a few hundreds meters further I reach the crime scene. The house, I mean the rubble.

A woman crying, another shouting her anger. Buldozers and police left a few minutes ago. Men from the family and neighbours are already active trying to clean the place. They received an order from the municipal representative to clear out all the rubble that used to be their home within a week, otherwise they would receive a fine.

The few belongings the family managed to save are piled on the street. A children bike, books, a cupboard, toys, kitchen items. That's it. 2 houses, 16 persons just lost their all house, home, history, dignity, hope.

The father of the family fainted twice during the demolition, and was hospitalized.

Atmosphere is oppressive. A few people taking pictures, a few journalists. I meet people from Icahd, the ngo I volunteer with. Closed faces. What can we do or say? I don't know and feel ashamed and sad.

11am: Time to go. I'm already late for my arabic class though I promised myself I would not miss any.

During an hour and half I try to focus on grammar. I don't feel comfortable to speak about much with other students. This is life in Israel. Deal with ignorance at the best, and hate at the worst in your daily life.But I am the lucky one, I can go from one side to the other.

13h50: I am at Icahd' office in West Jerusalem. I am determined to focus on the advocacy document I am supposed to work on.

14h: phone call: new house demolition in Beit Hanina. We try to get more information before jumping into a taxi again, an arab one preferably cause others usually refuse to go to this part of Jerusalem.

14h30 : still in the taxi, tens of phone calls to try to locate the house.

15h : we found it. Again to late. Buldozers left half an hour ago. 22 persons homeless. A family with 10 children, plus grand-children. This house was built seven years ago. They have already payed 42000 shekels ( more than 8000 euros) as fines to 'regularize' their situation. Yesterday, the court ruled it was illegal. This morning the family received demolition order. this afternoon the buldozers.
Some families live years under demolition order. Not them. You never know when and where they are going to demolish one of the thousands of houses declared illegal. And one day, you see the buldozers coming, you have ten minutes to pack and then it's over. A woman from the family fainted when she saw the buldozers. The army called an ambulance. The ambulance treated her. Then the army gave the family the bill for the ambulance... They will then receive the bill for the demolition cost. Arrogance, cynism have no limit here.

A few months ago, the municipality told the family that if they would destroy by themselves the small annex they have, they would not touch the main house. The owner did it. He took off the roof and walls of the adjacent small building. Now he has absolutely nothing.

Is it necessary to add that it is raining and cold winter has just started.

I am there with an israeli activist from Icahd. Communication is therefore in hebrew. I can just take a few pictures. The only one smiling here is the little girl, maybe 4 years old. She asks me “Leish?” showing the destroyed house. This, I understand : “Why?”. I cannot answer anything, in whatever language.

After a few months of pause, the municipality of Jerusalem has clearly reinstated its illegal and racist policy of house demolitions in East Jerusalem. 11 within the last 3 weeks. These houses are ruled illegal by a municipality which does not grant any construction permits to Arabs but who promotes illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.

My day is not over but it's enough for now, Masalama.

By Kim Bullimore
Direct Action, Issue 16 October 2009
www.directaction.org.au


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed victory in the wake of US President Barak Obama’s first speech to the United Nations General Assembly and the September 22 meeting in New York between Netanyahu, Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In his September 23 UN speech, Obama confirmed that Washington had retreated on its previous demand that Israel halt building new illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, stating that “the time has come to re-launch [peace] negotiations — without preconditions”.

“I’m pleased that President Obama accepted my request that there should be no preconditions”, Netanyahu told Israel Radio in a telephone interview later that same day. He also said: “I commend this important speech of Obama’s and his call to renew the peace process without preconditions. I commend his unequivocal support of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.”

Obama’s accommodation to Netanyahu’s position, however, was not a surprise, as the previous day Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, revealed that Washington was about to back down on the “demand” that Israel temporarily freeze settlement building. Mitchell told Reuters news agency: “Neither the president nor the Secretary [of State, Hillary Clinton] nor I have ever said of any one issue ... that it is a precondition to negotiation.” He went onto say, “we do not believe in preconditions. We do not impose them and we urge others not to impose preconditions.”

While both Mitchell and Obama claimed that there should be “no pre-conditions” on peace negotiations, both made it clear that this only applied to Israel and that the Palestinians were expected to meet a number of “pre-conditions”, including recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state”, thus negating the right of Palestinian refugees driven into exile by the Zionists in 1948 to return to their homeland, and ending armed resistance to Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories seized in June 1967.



Despite claims by the Abbas and his team of negotiators that Obama had recognised the right of Palestinian state to exist in the territory seized in 1967, Obama did no such thing. Instead, while he noted that Palestinians needed a contiguous territory and that the 1967 occupation must end, he made no call for removal of all of the Israeli settlements from the occupied West Bank and East Jersusalem, nor for the dismantling of Israel’s apartheid wall. As a result, Obama has given Washington’s stamp of approval for Israel to retain some, if not all, of Israel’s illegal settlement infrastructure built on stolen Palestinian land. Ofir Akunis, an MP from Netanyahu’s Likud party told the September 24 Tel Aviv Haaretz daily that this means “construction in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] will continue alongside the diplomatic talks” with the Palestinian Authority.

With Obama’s tacit blessing, Israel will continue to create “facts on the ground”, ensuring that more and more Palestinian land is illegally annexed to Israel. Since 1993, when Israel agreed to begin peace negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel’s continued settlement construction in the occupied West Bank has resulted in the illegal Israeli settler population doubling to approximately 300,000, while the number of settlers living in occupied East Jerusalem is estimated to be around 180,000.



Prior to Obama’s UN speech, there had been much speculation in the corporate media that Obama would “pressure” Israel to stop settlement activity in order to clear the way for a resumption of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, which has been under intense pressure from the Palestinian masses not to do so until this activity was halted. According to Paul Woodward, the editor of the well-respected web journal, War in Context, Obama’s UN speech revealed “that in the end, it turned out that ‘pressure’ from the Obama Administration amounts to strong words with no visible force behind them”. Woodward went onto point out that this “pressure” comes “in the form of sternness — no doubt quite effective when Obama insists to [his daughters] Malia and Natasha that it’s bedtime, but not very impressive when it’s directed at the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu”.

While Netanyahu has emerged in a much stronger position, the New York “tripartite summit” has resulted in the wholesale undermining of Abbas’ position. Previously Abbas had refused to meet with Netanyahu or restart negotiations without a clear commitment from Israel to halt settlement activity. Abbas has sought to salvage his reputation by claiming he was forced into the meeting by Obama, with one of his staffers telling the September 24 Jerusalem Post, Abbas “couldn’t resist the heavy pressure the Americans put on him. In fact, he went to the meeting with Netanyahu against his will.”

Abbas’ capitulation, however, reflects the fundamental flaw in the Fatah leadership’s whole strategy for advancing the Palestinian national liberation cause — reliance on getting Washington to pressure Israel to accede to Palestinian demands, rather than exerting pressure on the Israel rulers by mobilising the Palestinian masses to resist Israel’s illegal occupation. “In all honesty, we want to protect our relations with President Obama under any conditions”, Abbas told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper after the New York summit. “We don’t want to come out with a crisis with the Americans, or create a crisis.”

The assumption behind Abbas’ strategy is that Washington is a neutral mediator, when in reality it is Israel’s prime backer. And while the Israeli rulers pay lip-service to the idea of the Palestinians eventually having an independent state, their real goal, which they have continuously worked at since Israel was set up in 1948, is to assert Israeli control over the entirety of Palestine.

Since having colluded with Washington in the toppling of the popularly elected Hamas-led PA government, Abbas has increasingly lost credibility among the Palestinian masses as an effective leader of their struggle for their national rights. His capitulation on the conditions for restarting negotiations with Israel will only further erode his standing. Hamas denounced Abbas for attending the New York summit, with Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri saying, “the only person to benefit from the New York meeting is Netanyahu because it will improve his image and give him cover to continue building settlements”.

Dear friends,
many of you may have already read that Marek Edelman died last week. Edelman was one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis during World War II. He was a member of the Bund and an anti-Zionist, remaining one until his death last week. While Zionism tries to claim Edelman and his comrades to help further the Zionist cause and myth, Edelman and his comrades (as Tony Greenstein writes below)were "the living proof that Jews could fight anti-Semitism where they lived and didn’t have to escape to a state mirrored on the principles of their oppressors in someone else's land in Palestine. Above all he [Edelman] excoriated the Jewish collaborators and traitors who the Zionists had seen fit to call ‘heroes’. He didn’t fit in with or conform to Zionism’s narrative of the Holocaust".

In 2002, Edelman revealed he had not waived from his principle that one must stand against injustice and oppression, when he publicly sided with the Palestinian resistance, much to the outrage of the Zionist and Israeli leadership.

Edelman should be remembered for the man and hero he was - a freedom fighter, who never waived from his principles or beliefs and who stood against injustice, racism, occupation and oppression.

Below is Tony Greenstein's obituary on Marek Edelman - anti-fascist, anti-Zionist, freedom fighter of the Warsaw Ghetto.

In solidarity,
Kim

**
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2009/10/marek-edelman-death-of-anti-fascist_07.html

Marek Edelman - Death of an anti-fascist hero of the Warsaw Jewish Resistance
Last Commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt Dies Aged 90
By Tony Greenstein

On October 2nd 2009, Marek Edelman, Deputy Leader of ZOB, the Jewish Fighting Organisation in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, died aged 90. Marek Edelman who, after the death of Mordechai Anielwicz, became Commander of ZOB, was a living legend as well as a world famous heart surgeon. He led the Bund units in the area of the Brushworks and the Tobins factories.



In December 1990 I reviewed his book The Ghetto Fights in Return 5, a Jewish anti-Zionist magazine.

Marek Edelman was a member of the anti-Zionist Bund, the General Jewish Workers Union of Poland. The Bund has originally been formed as the General Jewish Workers Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, but the Stalinists had eliminated it and its leadership.

Edelman’s life was the stuff of fiction. From fighting in the Ghetto Uprising, escaping via the sewers to the ‘Aryan’ side of Warsaw, a founder of Solidarity in Poland who was briefly imprisoned by the Stalinists.

Edelman was the living proof that Jews could fight anti-Semitism where they lived and didn’t have to escape to a state mirrored on the principles of their oppressors in someone else's land in Palestine. Above all he excoriated the Jewish collaborators and traitors who the Zionists had seen fit to call ‘heroes’. He didn’t fit in with or conform to Zionism’s narrative of the Holocaust.

Today Zionism praises the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but in the 1930’s and 1940’s it treated and made deals with the Nazis. In the Ghetto the Jewish leadership did nothing as two-thirds of the Jews were deported without resistance. The Chairman of the Judenrat, Adam Czerniakow, a General Zionist and compared to most leaders of the Judenrat, an honourable man, committed suicide. 'what could we do’ was the familiar refrain of the Jewish leadership. But the Bund, which delayed the setting up of the Ghetto through demonstrations and mass mobilisation, believed in relying on the masses, not the lying words of the Nazi enemy.


Edelman as a young man

Zionism had always preached the line of least resistance. As the anti-Nazi Boycott of German goods was launched in Britain and the USA in 1933 by the Jewish labour movement, the Zionist leaders negotiated an economic transfer agreement (Ha'avara) that led to 60% of capital investment in Palestine between 1933 and 1939 coming from Nazi Germany.

Edelman became a ‘non-person’ in Israel. He challenged the Zionist fable that the holocaust was part of a continuous road that led to the Israeli state and that the Ghetto Uprising was part of that same road. Having abandoned the Jews of Europe to their fate, Zionism created the myth that resistance to the Nazis was a Zionist endeavour.

As Yitzhak Laor noted in his review in Ha'aretz of 26.12.04. of Ruth Linn’s, Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting

‘How long did it take before we finally learned that there had been anti-Zionists among the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising? Who was Marek Edelman? Why could he show up from time to time at Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot (“Ghetto Fighters”) to sit down and chat with his soul mate Antek Zuckerman, while we, as readers, were kept in the dark as to the man’s charm and greatness? Because the collective memory was unable to tolerate people who had consciously chosen not to identify with the Zionist enterprise, even in the context of Holocaust memory.’

Linn’s book dealt with another Jewish hero of the holocaust hero, Rudolf Vrba, who with Alfred Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz, to warn the 800,000 Hungarian Jews that they were next on the Nazi butchers’ list. Their detailed description of the gas chambers and the location of their murder, the Auschwitz Protocols, was suppressed by the Zionist press and movement until the Swiss newspapers , the War Refugee Board and the Vatican, among others, blew the whistle.

The reason for the silencing of Edelman and Vrba was because the Holocaust has been harnessed to the cause the dispossession of the Palestinians. The Palestinians were the new Nazis and anyone who disagreed was also an anti-Semite. As Richard Goldstone found out this week when Israel's finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, accused him of being an anti-Semite. (BREAKING NEWS - Israel Finance Minister: Goldstone Is 'Anti-Semite').

As Idith Zertal wrote:

"Nationalizing the ghetto uprisings was a way of nationalizing the narrative and removing all the contradictory, non-Zionist elements…. The fact that the umbrella organizations involved in the rebellion included all the political parties was minimized or obscured. Of all the efforts to hush up and disguise the truth, the case of Marek Edelman is perhaps the most glaring."

As Zertal pointed out, the "Encyclopedia of the Holocaust," edited by Israel Gutman, one of Israel's Establishment Holocaust Historians at Yad Vashem, is very vague about Edelman's role, and devotes only one column to him. (The Living Dead, Yitzhak Laor)

Marek Edelman’s book, The Ghetto is Fighting, was first published in Poland in 1945 and republished in Britain in 1990. Given that this was the only first-hand account by a leader of the Uprising, it is hardly accidental that it took 56 years, until 2001, before it was published in Israel.

“Like Vrba, Edelman ‘ascended’ to Israel, refusing to become the ‘dead and obedient hero who could be moulded along with the political order of that time. On the contrary he remained alive and kicking and refusing and, therefore, extremely inconvenient for the creation of a heroic Zionist condensing and compensating myth.’ Zertal, I. Death and the Nation, 56-7 (Translation from Hebrew).



Fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto

As another survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Professor Israel Shahak, wrote in a letter published on 19 May 1989 in Kol Ha'ir, Jerusalem:

Nearly all the work of administration, and later the work of transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths, was carried out by Jewish collaborators. Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising… the Jewish underground killed, with perfect justification, every Jewish collaborator they could find. If they had not done so the Uprising could never have started. The majority of the population of the Ghetto hated the collaborators far more than the German Nazis….

the entire Nazi success in easy and continued rule over millions of people stemmed from the subtle and diabolical use of collaborators… This, and not what is 'instilled' was the reality. Of the Yad Vashem (official state Holocaust museum in Jerusalem - Ed.) theatre, I do not wish to speak, at all. It, and its vile exploits, such as honouring South Africa collaborators with the Nazis [the visit of South African Premier John Vorster to Israel - TG) are truly beneath contempt.

And this is the reason for the silencing and invisibility of Marek Edelman and Rudolf Vrba. They were living proof that Zionism was not and never was a movement of resistance in Europe, but a movement of collaboration. Ironically, given that Zionism accuses its Jewish opponents of ‘self-hatred’, it is as Antony Lerman points out in the Guardian, ‘arguable that Zionism was actually a display of it.’


Warsaw Ghetto fighters

Of course there were many Zionists who, despite their Zionism, fought against the Nazis. They included the Commander of ZOB, Mordechai Anielwicz of Hashomer Hatzair. But he too began the fightback with a declaration that his Zionist work in Poland had been wasted years. Even as preparations for the Uprising were underway, Zionist collaborators such as Abraham Gancawajch of Hashomer Hatzair were targeted (unsuccessfully in his case) for assassination.

As John Rose notes in his obituary in the summer of 2002,

Edelman, intervened in Israel's show trial of jailed Palestinian resistance leader, Marwan Barghouti. He wrote a letter of solidarity to the Palestinian movement, and though he criticised the suicide bombers, its tone infuriated the Israeli government and its press. Edelman had always resented Israel's claim on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as a symbol of Jewish liberation. Now he said this belonged to the Palestinians.

He addressed his letter to the Palestinian ZOB, "commanders of the Palestinian military, paramilitary and partisan operations – to all the soldiers of the Palestinian fighting organisations". The old Jewish anti-Nazi Ghetto fighter had placed his immense moral authority at the disposable of the only side he deemed worthy of it.

And this is the response to those who query the connection between the Palestinian fighters and the Jewish fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Former Israeli Foreign Minister, Moshe Arens, in Ha'aretz: reveals that when trying to get Edelman an award of an honorary doctorate from an Israeli university, Vrba received one in 1999 from Haifa University as a result of Ruth Linn’s efforts, ‘I ran into stubborn opposition led by Holocaust historians in Israel.’ These were the Zionists' establishment historians, people such as Yehuda Bauer, Yisrael Guttman, Gili Fatran and Otto dov Kulka, who have been in the forefront of Zionising and nationalising the Holocaust. Their task is to rewrite the history of the Holocaust so that it becomes the property of those who, in their time, were the real Jewish self-haters and collaborators.

Arens wrote of Edelman that

‘He had received Poland's highest honor, and at the 65th commemoration of the Warsaw ghetto uprising he was awarded the French Legion of Honor medal. He died not having received the recognition from Israel that he so richly deserved.’

Some would say that he was doubly fortunate in this respect!

Tony Greenstein

Dear friends,
Mohammed Othman, Palestinian activist involved in the BDS campaign has been arrested by the Israeli state on his return from a trip to Norway.

Please find details of his arrest and what you can do to assist in the campaign to free him. Please take action where you can.

I have also included a link to a Podcast from the International Middle East Media Centre of an interview with Mohammed.

http://palcast.org/2009/09/904

In solidarity, Kim

***

Free Mohammad Othman,

Palestine’s first BDS Prisoner of Conscience!


Photo credit: Photos courtesy from Free Mohammad Othman

On Tuesday, September 22, Mohammad Othman (33 years old)—a Palestinian human rights activist and advocate of the non-violent civil society campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)—was arrested by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Crossing, the border terminal between Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territory. He was returning from a trip to Norway—where he had been promoting BDS—when he was detained, arrested and then moved to a prison where he is being held for a military hearing scheduled for next Tuesday.

While Mohammad is only one of the approximately 11,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention centers, he has become the first Palestinian to be imprisoned by Israel in response to BDS advocacy activity. With BDS campaigns around the world gaining momentum, Israel has increasingly come under pressure to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. It is precisely the spectacular rise in the effectiveness of the BDS campaign and its successes in the Western mainstream that seems to have prompted Israel to take such a draconian measure against a prominent and indefatigable BDS activist.

Mohammad has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. His village, Jayyous, in the occupied West Bank, has lost most of its fertile agricultural land to Israel’s illegal Wall and colonial settlements. He has campaigned with the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign against the dispossession of Palestinian farmers and has urged for mechanisms of accountability for Israeli violations of international law and human rights, based on the Palestinian call for BDS, issued on 9 July 2005, a year after the International Court of Justice at the Hague had found Israel’s Wall and colonies illegal.


Demonstration outside Israeli embassy in Norway demanding Mohammad's freedom
Photo credit: Photos courtesy from Free Mohammad Othman

Mohammad’s trips to Norway—during which he met with senior officials including Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen—reflect the increasing international support for effective mechanisms of upholding international law and Palestinian rights. Norway’s state Pension Fund recently announced that it had divested from Elbit Systems, the Israeli company which provides both Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other military technology for Occupation forces as well as security systems for the Wall and settlements. The decision came after representatives of the fund’s Ethics Council met with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists, including Mohammad, who accompanied them on a tour of Jayyous and other West Bank villages affected by the Wall.

Since Israel’s illegal war of aggression on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 that killed over 1400 people, predominantly civilians, the BDS movement has grown exponentially and gained wide support among conscientious individuals, unions and international civil society in general, as well as among some governments. In the last two weeks, more countries have followed Norway’s example. The Brazilian Parliament has expressed itself against the ratification of a Free Trade Agreement with Israel until a Palestinian state is established, and the government of Spain denied settlement-based Ariel University College permission to participate in a high profile academic architecture competition. With the BDS movement making significant gains worldwide, human rights defenders like Mohammad are likely to be increasingly targeted by the Israeli government in its efforts to evade accountability for its ongoing violations of international law.


Photo credit: Photos courtesy from Free Mohammad Othman


The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls on all those who support basic human rights, whether or not they endorse BDS, international solidarity groups and human rights organizations to act urgently to bring attention to this case and apply due pressure to achieve the immediate and unconditional release of Palestinian human rights activist Mohammad Othman.

It is crucial that the international community combat Israeli attempts to criminalize human rights activists adopting BDS or any other popular struggle aimed at ending violations of international law and upholding universal principles of human rights.

Recommended Actions:

* Encourage others to join this campaign through petitions, demonstrations and / or letter writing / phone calling. Please provide them with contact information and details;
* Urge your representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah to demand the immediate release of Mohammad Othman. (For your consular contacts, see: http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-in/Israel#11725);
* Let the Israeli Embassy in your country know that you are campaigning for Mohammad’s release and for a just and lasting peace based on international law.
* Bring the case of Palestine’s first BDS prisoner of conscience to the attention of local and national media outlets;
* Follow the blog and facebook to free Mohammad Othman to see the latest updates and action alerts.

Blog: freemohammadothman.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref;=ts

For more information contact: freemohammad@bdsmovement.net

Direct Action Issue 15: September 2009
http://directaction.org.au/issue15/israel_continues_to_steal_arab_land

By Kim Bullimore

On August 26, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu offered to freeze the building of new Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank for nine months. Netanyahu’s announcement has been presented in the Western corporate media as a “victory” for US President Barack Obama, who has been pressing Israel to halt its illegal settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in order to be able to get the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” restarted.

Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, had been pressing for a 12-month freeze on illegal settlement activity in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both illegally occupied by Israel since June 1967. Netanyahu, however, has ruled out any halt to the Israeli takeover of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem, which Israel formally annexed in 1980 through its “Jerusalem Law”. This declared that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. This Israeli law was declared “null and void” and a violation of international law by UN Security Council Resolution 478, approved by 14-0 votes (with the US abstaining) in August 1980. A July 2004 statement of the International Court of Justice expressed the view that all countries are under an obligation not to recognise Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem.



According to the August 27 Tel Aviv Haaretz daily, Netanyahu’s settlement “freeze” offer excludes some 2500 housing units on which construction has already started and allows the erection of new “public buildings”, mainly schools, in existing settlements. Following the meeting with Mitchell, at which Netanyahu made his phony “freeze” settlement offer, the two issued a joint statement saying that “good progress” had been made in their discussions.

Writing in the August 12 Jordan Times, Hasan Abu Nimah, a former Jordanian ambassador to the UN, observed that “by demanding a temporary freeze [on Israel’s illegal settlements], the US is indirectly accepting what has been built so far, as well as the idea that Israel is entitled at the end of the agreed period to resume construction if its ever-escalating demands are not met”. He went on to argue that the notion of a “temporary freeze” allows Israel to shift the debate “from the illegality, under international law, of Israel’s settlements towards something totally superficial: the pace of construction”.


Israel soldiers on the outskirts of illegal Israeli colony

Jerusalem resident Joharah Baker, a regular writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), made a similar point two months ago. In a June 29 article on the Palestine Chronicle website, she argued that “a ‘temporary’ freeze is just that, temporary, which implies that later down the line Israel will not be obligated to maintain this offer and resume construction”. She correctly noted that the notion of a “temporary freeze” is simply part of Israel’s decades-long policy of trying “to stall a final agreement and permanent solution”, in order to allow the Israeli rulers to create “facts on the ground, which then must be negotiated”. Baker added that “today, instead of talking about a complete dismantlement of illegal settlements and outposts on occupied Palestinian land, we are talking about the minutest of details”, such as a “temporary freeze” of construction of illegal settlements.



Settler poster issued by illegal settlers in Binyamin colony opposing settlement freeze


Racist settler poster denouncing US President, Barak Obama

In 2003, as part of the US president George Bush’s “Road Map” for peace, Israel agreed to freeze settlement construction. However, the August 19 Washington Post noted that since then “the Jewish population in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, has increased from about 224,000 to about 290,000”. There are another estimated 180,000 Israelis living in illegal settlements built in East Jerusalem.

The Obama administration and the corporate media have also sought to play up Netanyahu’s pledge to remove 23 “illegal outposts” in the West Bank. However, very little has been said about the fact that most of these illegal outposts are not populated. As Khaled Amayreh noted in July 23-29 Egyptian Al Ahram weekly, these outposts are “merely used as rallying point[s] for settlers who are bent on preserving the occupation”.

Where illegal outposts are populated, the Israeli government has repeatedly dragged its feet on removing the settlers living there. A point in case is the illegal outpost of Migron, which was built in 2002 on privately owned Palestinian land. Despite Israel’s courts in 2006 recognising that the land is legally owned by Palestinians and that it should be evacuated, the Israel government has petitioned the Israeli courts to not be compelled to remove the illegal settlers until mid 2010. According to Amos Harel, writing in the July 7 Haaretz, when the settlers are removed from Migron, they will simply be transferred to the neighbouring illegal colony of Adam, where Israel is planning to build 50 new homes for the settlers.

Among the new illegal settlements in East Jerusalem that Israel is planning to build is Ma’aleh David, which is to be constructed in the middle of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Rasa al-Amud. According to the August 25 Haaretz, this new Israeli colony will consist of 104 “high-end” housing units, a swimming pool, a country club, library, synagogue, kindergarten and mikveh (a Jewish ritual purification bath). Haaretz noted that the new colony will be connected to the existing illegal colony of Ma’aleh Zeitem, which houses 51 settler families. Currently, Ma’aleh Zeitem is undergoing “natural growth” with another 66 housing units being built. The joint colony blocs will then form the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, with more than 1000 illegal settlers situated in the heart of the Ras al-Amud neighbourhood, home to 14,000 Palestinians.



Israeli settler children being taught how to use automatic weapons



Armed Israeli settlers


While the Netanyahu government has continued to build and expand illegal Israeli colonies on stolen Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it has also continued to carry out, with impunity, other human rights abuses against the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Figures from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reveal that in the 11 weeks since Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo, Israeli occupation forces have carried out at least 217 military incursions into the West Bank (an average of around three per day), plus several incursions into Gaza. In addition, at least 169 Palestinian civilians, including 40 children, were kidnapped by Israel and placed in Israeli detention without charge or trial in this same period, while dozens of hectares of Palestinian land was razed.

During the same period, Israel continued to build its apartheid wall, which has been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice, while also continuing its collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza by carrying out an illegal blockade of the tiny territory. Despite mounting evidence that Israel carried out a range of war crimes both during and after its war on Gaza in December-January, and the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from that war and the continuing siege of Gaza, Obama has continued to defend Israel’s “right” to blockade the Gaza Strip.



Illegal Israel settlers move into a Palestinian home in Sheik Jarreh (East Jerusalem) The Palestinian family was forcible evicted, along with their possessions which now lay on the street.


Campaign by Palestinian community in Sheik Jarreh to oppose illegal Israel settlers taking over Palestinian homes.

Israel’s continuing colonial drive to steal more and more Palestinian land and the unwillingness of both the US administration and other Western governments to do anything to stop it highlights the need for the continued support for and participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The campaign, which was launched by more than 170 Palestinian organisations in 2005, is starting to have an impact, with more and more unions and other organisations around the world signing onto the campaign. This impact has not gone unnoticed by the Israeli government or its supporters. In a May 7 speech, Howard Kohr, executive director of American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said that the BDS campaign is now part of “ordinary political discourse on our TV and radio talk shows; in the pages of our major newspapers and in countless blogs, in town hall meetings, on campuses and city squares . . . More and more they are invading the mainstream discourse, becoming part of the constant and unrelenting drumbeat against Israel.”

Dear friends,
an article by Mohammed Khatib, one of the leaders of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against the Wall, and the increased campaign by Israel and its occupation forces to crush the non-violent Palestinian struggle against the wall and occupation.

in solidarity,
Kim

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090928/khatib

Palestine's Peaceful Struggle
By Mohammed Khatib, September 11, 2009
The Nation

A few weeks ago, in the dead of night, dozens of Israeli soldiers with painted faces burst violently into my home. If only they had knocked, I would have opened the door. They arrested me. My wife, Lamia, was left alone with our four children. My youngest, 3-year-old Khaled, woke up to the image of Israeli soldiers with painted faces who were taking his father away. He has not stopped crying since. A few nights ago he woke up in terror, sobbing: "Daddy, why did you let the soldiers take me?" That's the way our children sleep--in a constant state of fear.
Many Americans know that the Obama administration has been pushing the Israeli government to accept a freeze on settlement construction. What is not commonly known is that even as Israel negotiates with the United States, it has been taking steps, including my arrest, to crush the growing Palestinian nonviolent movement opposing Israel's construction of settlements and the wall on Palestinian land in the West Bank.


Mohammed Khatib in Montreal

For over five years the residents of Bil'in and other villages have been protesting against Israel's separation wall, which cuts off our village's land for the sake of Israeli settlement expansion. We have even taken the struggle to the courts. The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in July 2004 that the wall, where it has been built inside the West Bank, is illegal under international law, as are all Israeli settlements. In September 2007, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the wall in Bil'in, which separates us from 50 percent of our land, is illegal according to Israeli law. The wall has yet to have moved.

The Israeli army is using more-lethal weapons and greater violence against protesters, and arresting many people, including many protest organizers. In Bil'in alone, twenty-nine residents have been arrested in the past three months. Twelve of them are children. Almost all were arrested during military raids in the middle of the night. Their detention has been extended repeatedly.

But the charges against them are baseless. As one example, I have been charged with stone throwing. I was released on bail with draconian terms only after my lawyers showed the court passport stamps proving that I was abroad at the time of the alleged offense. My friend, Adeeb Abu-Rahme, 37 years old and the father of nine, has been imprisoned for more than six weeks, though the charges against him are just as absurd.

Every Friday in Bil'in, we march to the wall in peaceful protest, along with our Israeli and international partners. Once a year we hold an international conference about the popular nonviolent struggle. Together we learn and gain inspiration. We struggle together to bring down the many walls between people that the occupation is creating. We've repeatedly addressed the Israeli soldiers here, telling them we are not against them as people, but that we oppose their actions as an occupying military force.

Still, nineteen demonstrators have been killed by the Israeli army in these nonviolent demonstrations against the wall. Many have been injured, including Israeli and international activists protesting with us. Here in Bil'in we recently lost our friend Bassem Abu Rahme, who was fatally shot by soldiers in April while he was imploring them to stop shooting at demonstrators.



Bassem Abu Rahme at a non-violent demonstration against the Wall in Bil'in


Bassem Abu Rahme was shot with a high velocity tear gas cannister by the Israeli military and dies shortly after.

Several months ago we were warned by Israel's occupation forces that they intended to crush the popular struggle.

Why has the Israeli government decided now to increase the suppression of demonstrations and to break the spirit of protest leaders? Maybe because they realize that the nonviolent struggle is spreading, that more and more villages have created popular committees that are organizing demonstrations. Perhaps the crackdown is a result of their concern and the growing international movement for the boycott of companies and businessmen such as Lev Leviev who are involved in Israel's land grab. Or maybe they fear that the new American government could learn through our demonstrations that Israel's wall is a means to annex land for the growing settlements, and that nonviolent Palestinian protests are being brutally suppressed.

Israel's actions suggest that it is intimidated by people struggling for their rights in a nonviolent manner. The Israeli government seems to believe that Palestinians who struggle while partnering with Israeli activists endanger Israel's occupation and that tearing down human walls is a dangerous act. Perhaps what the state of Israel fears most of all is the hope that people can live together based on justice and equality for all.

Dear friends,
many of you will be aware of the Gaza Freedom March, which is set to take place in January of 2010. It has now been endorsed by Palestinian Civil Society Organisations and they have issued a call for individuals and organisations to endorse and support the March.

Many Palestinian solidarity supporters around the world are planning to join the March in January in person, but many of us may not be able to do so for a range of reasons. If we are not able to join the March in person, solidarity can be show in our home towns and countries by organising solidarity actions to draw attention to the March and the illegal siege of Gaza, demonstrating the world-wide, international support for the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom and the ending of Israel's illegal and brutal occupation and siege.

Please consider how you or your group can support this very important campaign and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

in solidarity,
Kim


***



Dear supporters of just peace and international law,

We are writing to invite you to endorse the Pledge of the Gaza Freedom March, a creative initiative with historic potential organized by the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza. The March is aimed at mobilizing active and effective support from around the world for ending Israel’s illegal and immoral siege on Gaza, currently the most pressing of all Israeli violations of international law and Palestinian rights. To endorse the Pledge, please click here and enter your name -- or your organization’s name -- in the box provided at the bottom.

Also reproduced at the end of this letter, after the Pledge, is the organizers’ Statement of Context which provides the necessary Palestinian context of the siege, namely Israel’s occupation, its decades-old denial of UN-sanctioned Palestinian rights, and Palestinian civil resistance to that oppression.

The Gaza Freedom March has won the endorsement of a decisive majority in Palestinian civil society. Aside from the Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Aqsa University, and tens of local grassroots organizations, refugee advocacy groups, professional associations and NGOs in Gaza, the March was endorsed by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC)*, a wide coalition of the largest Palestinian mass organizations, trade unions, networks and professional associaitions, including all the major trade union federations, the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) and the largest network representing Palestinian refugees. Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, representing the most prominent Palestinian NGOs inside Israel, has also endorsed.

The March, planned for January 2010, to commemorate Israel's illegal war of aggression against the 1.5 million Palestinians in occupied Gaza, is expected to draw many prominent figures and massive activist participation from across the world. The organizers have shown exceptional moral courage and a true sense of solidarity in drafting the Pledge and the Statement of Context. We salute them all for their principled and consistent commitment to applying international law and universal human rights to the plight of the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza. We deeply appreciate their solidarity with our struggle for freedom and our inalienable right to self determination.

Anchored solely in international law and universal human rights, the Gaza Freedom March appeals to international organizations and conscientious citizens with diverse political backgrounds on the basis of their common abhorrence of the immense injustice embodied in the atrocious siege of 1.5 million Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the overwhelming majority of whom are refugees.

With massive participation of internationals, led by prominent leaders, alongside Palestinians in Gaza the world can no longer ignore its moral duty to end this criminal siege, and Israel can no longer count on its current impunity to last long. We strongly urge you to endorse the Pledge and to help secure more endorsements.

Haidar Eid (Gaza)

Omar Barghouti (Jerusalem)

* The BDS National Committee, BNC, consists of: Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine (all major political parties); General Union of Palestinian Workers; Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions; General Union of Palestinian Women; Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO); Federation of Independent Trade Unions; Palestine Right of Return Coalition; Union of Palestinian Farmers; Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Initiative (OPGAI); Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW); Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI); National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba; Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ); Coalition for Jerusalem; Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations; Palestinian Economic Monitor; Union of Youth Activity Centers-Palestine Refugee Camps; among others …

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/9750/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=2055

***

Endorse the Gaza Freedom March! Sign the Pledge Below!

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law that has led to mass suffering. The U.S., the European Union, and the rest of the international community are complicit.

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked. Yet, the siege of Gaza continues. It is time for us to take action! On January 1, 2010, we will mark the New Year by marching alongside the Palestinian people of Gaza in a non-violent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade.

Our purpose in this March is lifting the siege on Gaza. We demand that Israel end the blockade. We also call upon Egypt to open Gaza’s Rafah border. Palestinians must have freedom to travel for study, work, and much-needed medical treatment and to receive visitors from abroad.

As an international coalition we are not in a position to advocate a specific political solution to this conflict. Yet our faith in our common humanity leads us to call on all parties to respect and uphold international law and fundamental human rights to bring an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 and pursue a just and lasting peace.

The march can only succeed if it arouses the conscience of humanity.

Please join us.

The International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza
For more information, please see the Statement of Context

For a list of endorsers, please click here.




http://www.gazafreedommarch.org//article.php?id=5081

STATEMENT OF CONTEXT

Amnesty International has called the Gaza blockade a "form of collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza, a flagrant violation of Israel's obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention." Human Rights Watch has called the blockade a "serious violation of international law." The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, condemned Israel’s siege of Gaza as amounting to a “crime against humanity.”


Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has said the Palestinian people trapped in Gaza are being treated "like animals," and has called for "ending of the siege of Gaza" that is depriving "one and a half million people of the necessities of life."

One of the world's leading authorities on Gaza, Sara Roy of Harvard University, has said that the consequence of the siege "is undeniably one of mass suffering, created largely by Israel, but with the active complicity of the international community, especially the U.S. and European Union."

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked.

The Palestinians of Gaza have exhorted the international community to move beyond words of condemnation.

Yet, the siege of Gaza continues.

Upholding International Law

The illegal siege of Gaza is not happening in a vacuum. It is one of the many illegal acts committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories it occupied militarily in 1967.

The Wall and the settlements are illegal, according to the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

House demolitions and wanton destruction of farm lands are illegal.

The closures and curfews are illegal.

The roadblocks and checkpoints are illegal.

The detention and torture are illegal.

The occupation itself is illegal.

The truth is that if international law were enforced the occupation would end.

An end to the military occupation that began in 1967 is a major condition for establishing a just and lasting peace. For over six decades, the Palestinian people have been denied freedom and rights to self-determination and equality. The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes during Israel’s creation in 1947-48 are still denied the rights granted them by UN Resolution 194.

Sources of Inspiration

The Gaza Freedom March is inspired by decades of nonviolent Palestinian resistance from the mass popular uprising of the first Intifada to the West Bank villagers currently resisting the land grab of Israel's annexationist wall.

It draws inspiration from the Gazans themselves, who formed a human chain from Rafah to Erez, tore down the border barrier separating Gaza from Egypt, and marched to the six checkpoints separating the occupied Gaza Strip from Israel.

The Freedom March also draws inspiration from the international volunteers who have stood by Palestinian farmers harvesting their crops, from the crews on the vessels who have challenged the Gaza blockade by sea, and from the drivers of the convoys who have delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza.

And it is inspired by Nelson Mandela who said: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. ... I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”

It heeds the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who called his movement Satyagraha-Hold on to the truth, and holds to the truth that Israel's siege of Gaza is illegal and inhuman.

Gandhi said that the purpose of nonviolent action is to "quicken" the conscience of humankind. Through the Freedom March, humankind will not just deplore Israeli brutality but take action to stop it.

Palestinian civil society has followed in the footsteps of Mandela and Gandhi. Just as those two leaders called on international civil society to boycott the goods and institutions of their oppressors, Palestinian associations, trade unions, and mass movements have since 2005 been calling on all people of conscience to support a non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel fully complies with its obligations under international law.

The Freedom March also draws inspiration from the civil rights movement in the United States.

If Israel devalues Palestinian life then internationals must both interpose their bodies to shield Palestinians from Israeli brutality and bear personal witness to the inhumanity that Palestinians daily confront.

If Israel defies international law then people of conscience must send non-violent marshals from around the world to enforce the law of the international community in Gaza. The International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza will dispatch contingents from around the world to Gaza to mark the anniversary of Israel's bloody 22-day assault on Gaza in December 2008 - January 2009.

The Freedom March takes no sides in internal Palestinian politics. It sides only with international law and the primacy of human rights.

The March is yet another link in the chain of non-violent resistance to Israel's flagrant disregard of international law.

Citizens of the world are called upon to join ranks with Palestinians in the January 1st March to lift the inhumane siege of Gaza.

Dear friends,
an excellent article by Kim Petersen critiquing opposition to BDS, particularly in relation to the "Zionist Left" in Israel. The article also offers a critique of those who nominally support boycott but seeks to redefine the parameters/objectives of the campaign to suit their own political agenda, ignoring the fact that BDS as a campaign is a Palestinian initiated and led (global) movement.

in solidarity, Kim
***

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/boycotts-as-a-legitimate-means-of-resistance/


Dissident Voice header

Boycotts as a Legitimate Means of Resistance
As Determined by the Oppressed People

by Kim Petersen / August 29th, 2009



Kim Petersen

Prejudice does not always come with an ugly face. The same holds for Zionism and racism. It is entirely possible for well-intentioned people to hold a prejudice and, even worse, act on held prejudices.

Uri Avnery opposes the brutality inflicted on Palestinians. He campaigns for peace with Palestinians. But he also has a Zionist past. He is European born and fought for the terrorist Irgun in perpetration of a holocaust (Nakba) against Palestinans. He later renounced Irgun’s tactics. He is antiwar, but he is not anti-the fruits of war. He approves of a two state solution. In other words, Israeli Jews will keep the fruits of their dispossessing others — this while continuing to press for the return of what they were dispossessed.1

Avnery advocates selective use of tactics against Zionism. This is apparent when it comes to an international boycott of Israel. Avnery states that no one is better qualified than South African archbishop Desmond Tutu to answer this question.2

What does Tutu say? He has called on the international community to treat Israel as it treated apartheid South Africa. Tutu supports the divestment campaign against Israel.3

Avnery’s fellow Israeli, Neve Gordon, agrees that it is time for a boycott.4 Avnery laments, “I am sorry that I cannot agree with him this time – neither about the similarity with South Africa nor about the efficacy of a boycott of Israel.”

Indeed, the apartheids — while in many respects similar — are also different. Gary Zaztman pointed to a key difference:

For all its serious and undoubted evils and the numerous crimes against humanity committed in its name, including physical slaughters, South African white-racist apartheid was not premised on committing genocide. Zionism, on the other hand, has been committed to dissolving the social, cultural, political and economic integrity of the Palestinian people, i.e., genocide, from the outset, at least as early as Theodor Herzl’s injunction in his diaries that the “transfer” of the Palestinian “penniless population” elsewhere be conducted “discreetly and circumspectly.”5


Uri Avnery

Boycotts as a Tactic against Racism

Avnery says Tutu told him: “The boycott was immensely important, much more than the armed struggle.”

But it was the revolutionary, Nelson Mandela, who refused to give up the right to armed struggle, who negotiated the dismantling of South African apartheid.6

Tutu also told Avnery, “The importance of the boycott was not only economic but also moral.”

Avnery writes, “It seems to me that Tutu’s answer emphasizes the huge difference between the South African reality at the time and ours today.”

So what is Avnery saying? First he states that Tutu is best qualified person to speak to the effectiveness of boycotting as a tool in the fight against racism, then he says Tutu has it wrong. So is Avnery saying, then, that he is best qualified to speak on the effectiveness of boycotts against racism?

Avnery fears that Israeli Jews will feel “the whole world is against us.”

However, isn’t that, in a sense, what the purpose is: to show that the whole world is against Jewish racism against Palestinians? It must be emphasized that the world is not against Jews, as Israeli propaganda would choose to portray it. Although he doesn’t specifically state it, Avnery is using a version of the anti-Semitism smear: if you are against anything Israel does, then you are against Israelis. Hence, you are anti-Semitic. This grotesque perversion of morality and logic holds that to be against racism toward Palestinians makes one anti-Semitic.

Avnery admits, “In South Africa, the world-wide boycott helped in strengthening the majority and steeling [sic] it for the struggle. The impact of a boycott on Israel would be the exact opposite: it would push the large majority into the arms of the extreme right and create a fortress mentality against the ‘anti-Semitic world’. (The boycott would, of course, have a different impact on the Palestinians, but that is not the aim of those who advocate it.)


Avnery merely states what is the current status quo. Israel is already hunkered down in an extreme right fortress mentality. The boycott is not the cause. Avnery fixates on the population dynamics. What is the relevance of majority and minority in Avnery’s reasoning? It would seem that Palestinians being in the minority – and the fact that the Palestinians support the boycott – to be even greater reason for international support of the boycott. Who and what is Avnery supporting: Palestinians from racism or Israeli Jews from the economic effects and moral stigma of an international boycott?

As for the aim of the boycott campaign: “to deny Israel the financial means to continue to kill Palestinians and occupy the lands.”7

Avnery raises “the Holocaust” arguing that Jewish suffering has imprinted itself deeply on the Jewish soul. That the Nazis rounded up Jews in concentration was a moral outrage. But what is the lesson of World War II? That suffering imposed on any identifiable group of people is evil and wrong, or that one group can appropriate a holocaust, make it their own, and use past suffering as a shield to inflict a holocaust on another people? Avnery argues that boycotting Jews will remind them of Nazism, but when Jews use Nazi-type techniques what should they be reminded of?

Avnery says it is okay to boycott of the product of the “settlements.” He draws a distinction between “settlers” (i.e., “colonisers”) and other Israeli Jews. How then does Avnery rationalize the fact that the “settlers” are in the West Bank?


BDS poster

Avnery asserts, “Those who call for a boycott act out of despair. And that is the root of the matter.” Indeed, despair is life for many Palestinians under occupation or in refugee camps.

Avnery states that an international boycott would be difficult to achieve, and the US would not be behind it. It was not easy to achieve against the apartheid regimes in South Africa either. Is that a reason not to try? Did not the US oppose a boycott of South Africa? Yes, it might take a long time. But times do change. The US (and its western allies’s) recalcitrance was steam rolled in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and elsewhere. Empires have risen and fallen throughout history.

Avnery finds that the tactic of boycotting is “an example of a faulty diagnosis leading to faulty treatment. To be precise: the mistaken assumption that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resembles the South African experience leads to a mistaken choice of strategy.”

Avnery continues, “In South Africa there was total agreement between the two sides about the unity of the country. The struggle was about the regime. Both Whites and Blacks considered themselves South Africans and were determined to keep the country intact. The Whites did not want partition, and indeed could not want it, because their economy was based on the labor of the Blacks.”

Seems there is some faulty analysis going on. “Whites did not want partition”? How can Avnery state something so factually inaccurate? What were Venda, Lebowa, the Bantustans, if not sections of South Africa partitioned off by the White government? Furthermore, that Zionism is now no longer dependent on Palestinian labor does not mask that it at one time was dependent on such labor; Avnery is cherry picking in his argument. Denying Palestinians the right to work in historical Palestine is a tactic that evolved from Zionism.

Also, how is it that Avnery can argue against an international boycott of Israel when Israel maintains a crushing illegal embargo against Palestinians – a war crime? As long as Israel uses such a tactic, then resistance through boycott, certainly, is legitimate.

Avnery says Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have nothing in common. However, this same lack of commonality was true between White and Black South Africans as well. Nonetheless, I take exception with the thrust of such argumentation. It prepares the ground for racism. Israeli Jews, Palestinians, Black and White South Africans are all humans. They all eat, work, sleep, have dreams, have families. This should be reason enough to act humanely toward each other: love of humanity. It is entirely possible to embrace our shared humanity and respect diversity.

Avnery concludes, “In short: the two conflicts are fundamentally different. Therefore, the methods of struggle, too, must necessarily be different.”



This is logically flawed reasoning, much like the logical and moral flaw that being a victim of a genocide minimizes one’s own culpability in a subsequent genocide. One suspects that Avnery may well be the victim of a pained conscience and cognitive dissonance. I submit that the two “conflicts”8 are fundamentally similar. Fundamentally, colonial Israel and colonial South Africa share these hallmarks: a racially, culturally, spiritually, linguistically different group of outsiders through preponderant violence dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their homeland, and set up an apartheid system which humiliates the Indigenous peoples and privileges the occupiers.

Avnery focuses on certain “fundamentals” — which I submit are not fundamentals but nuances — that he considers different.

Avnery’s solution lies with “a comprehensive and detailed peace plan” from US president Barack Obama and “the full persuasive power of the United States” to lead to “a path of peace with Palestine.”

Avnery remembers well previous US-backed peace plans, like Oslo and the Roadmap. Why, then, does he cast his audacious hope on AIPAC appeaser Obama? Avnery hopes that Israeli Jews will realize that peace with Palestinians is the way? The peace activist touts a solution that has failed and been rejected many times. He rejects a solution that worked in South African because of the sensibilities of the oppressors.

But let us examine Avnery’s logic that fundamentally different “conflicts” demand different struggles.

Oppression is overthrown by struggle. Fundamentally different “conflicts” can succeed through similar struggles. As one example, revolutionaries overthrew an American-backed dictatorship in Cuba through armed struggle and Cuban revoluntionaries defeated South African forces in Angola through armed struggle.9

In his article’s finale, seemingly assured of his own argumentation over the person he deems the best qualified authority on boycotts as a tool to overcome apartheid, Avnery points to a prayer of Tutu’s – a prayer that would serve all of us well:

“Dear God, when I am wrong, please make me willing to see my mistake. And when I am right – please make me tolerable to live with.”

Hopefully, Avnery abides by such humbleness when he sees the error of his ways as well.

1. See Dinah Spritzer, “Last chance for Holocaust restitution?” JTA, 30 June 2009. [↩]
2. Uri Avnery, “Tutu’s Prayer,” Gush Shalom, 29 August 2009. [↩]
3. Desmond Tutu, “Israel: Time to Divest,” New Internationalist magazine, January/February 2003. Available online at Third World Traveler. [↩]
4. Neve Gordon, “Boycott Israel,” Los Angeles Times, 20 August 2009. [↩]
5. Gary Zatzman, “The Notion of the ‘Jewish State’ as an ‘Apartheid Regime’ is a Liberal-Zionist One,” Dissident Voice, 21 November 2005. [↩]
6. See Bill Keller, Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela (Boston: Kingfisher, 2008). Mandela wanted to pursue a peaceful, non-violent settlement, but when faced with the violence of state power he felt compelled to use violence as a method of struggle. Mandela did emphasize that this violence was not terrorism: 98. [↩]
7. ”Aim of the boycott campaign,” Boycott Israel Now. [↩]
8. The word “conflict” minimizes the atrocities wreaked on Palestinians and South Africans by their oppressors. [↩]
9. Isaac Saney contends that the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the “turning point in the struggle against apartheid. ”Isaac Saney, “The Story of How Cuba Helped to Free Africa,” Morning Star, 4 November 2005. Available at Embajada de Cuba en Egipto. [↩]

Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. He can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org. Read other articles by Kim, or visit Kim's website.

Dear friends,
an excellent article by Faris Giacaman on the issues of "peace", "dialogue" and "normalisation".

Originally published by The Electronic Intifada.

In solidarity,
Kim
*****

Can we talk? The Middle East "peace industry"
Faris Giacaman, The Electronic Intifada, 20 August 2009
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10722.shtml


Photo by Active Stills

Attempts to establish "dialogue" while Israel continues to oppress Palestinians only undermine the call for boycott. (ActiveStills)

Upon finding out that I am Palestinian, many people I meet at college in the United States are eager to inform me of various activities that they have participated in that promote "coexistence" and "dialogue" between both sides of the "conflict," no doubt expecting me to give a nod of approval. However, these efforts are harmful and undermine the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel -- the only way of pressuring Israel to cease its violations of Palestinians' rights.

When I was a high school student in Ramallah, one of the better known "people-to-people" initiatives, Seeds of Peace, often visited my school, asking students to join their program. Almost every year, they would send a few of my classmates to a summer camp in the US with a similar group of Israeli students. According to the Seeds of Peace website, at the camp they are taught "to develop empathy, respect, and confidence as well as leadership, communication and negotiation skills -- all critical components that will facilitate peaceful coexistence for the next generation." They paint quite a rosy picture, and most people in college are very surprised to hear that I think such activities are misguided at best, and immoral, at worst. Why on earth would I be against "coexistence," they invariably ask?

During the last few years, there have been growing calls to bring to an end Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people through an international movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). One of the commonly-held objections to the boycott is that it is counter-productive, and that "dialogue" and "fostering coexistence" is much more constructive than boycotts.

With the beginning of the Oslo accords in 1993, there has been an entire industry that works toward bringing Israelis and Palestinians together in these "dialogue" groups. The stated purpose of such groups is the creating of understanding between "both sides of the conflict," in order to "build bridges" and "overcome barriers." However, the assumption that such activities will help facilitate peace is not only incorrect, but is actually morally lacking.

The presumption that dialogue is needed in order to achieve peace completely ignores the historical context of the situation in Palestine. It assumes that both sides have committed, more or less, an equal amount of atrocities against one another, and are equally culpable for the wrongs that have been done. It is assumed that not one side is either completely right or completely wrong, but that both sides have legitimate claims that should be addressed, and certain blind spots that must be overcome. Therefore, both sides must listen to the "other" point of view, in order to foster understanding and communication, which would presumably lead to "coexistence" or "reconciliation."

Such an approach is deemed "balanced" or "moderate," as if that is a good thing. However, the reality on the ground is vastly different than the "moderate" view of this so-called "conflict." Even the word "conflict" is misleading, because it implies a dispute between two symmetric parties. The reality is not so; it is not a case of simple misunderstanding or mutual hatred which stands in the way of peace. The context of the situation in Israel/Palestine is that of colonialism, apartheid and racism, a situation in which there is an oppressor and an oppressed, a colonizer and a colonized.

In cases of colonialism and apartheid, history shows that colonial regimes do not relinquish power without popular struggle and resistance, or direct international pressure. It is a particularly naive view to assume that persuasion and "talking" will convince an oppressive system to give up its power.

The apartheid regime in South Africa, for instance, was ended after years of struggle with the vital aid of an international campaign of sanctions, divestments and boycotts. If one had suggested to the oppressed South Africans living in bantustans to try and understand the other point of view (i.e. the point of view of South African white supremacists), people would have laughed at such a ridiculous notion. Similarly, during the Indian struggle for emancipation from British colonial rule, Mahatma Gandhi would not have been venerated as a fighter for justice had he renounced satyagraha -- "holding firmly to the truth," his term for his nonviolent resistance movement -- and instead advocated for dialogue with the occupying British colonialists in order to understand their side of the story.

Now, it is true that some white South Africans stood in solidarity with the oppressed black South Africans, and participated in the struggle against apartheid. And there were, to be sure, some British dissenters to their government's colonial policies. But those supporters explicitly stood alongside the oppressed with the clear objective of ending oppression, of fighting the injustices perpetrated by their governments and representatives. Any joint gathering of both parties, therefore, can only be morally sound when the citizens of the oppressive state stand in solidarity with the members of the oppressed group, not under the banner of "dialogue" for the purpose of "understanding the other side of the story." Dialogue is only acceptable when done for the purpose of further understanding the plight of the oppressed, not under the framework of having "both sides heard."

It has been argued, however, by the Palestinian proponents of these dialogue groups, that such activities may be used as a tool -- not to promote so-called "understanding," -- but to actually win over Israelis to the Palestinian struggle for justice, by persuading them or "having them recognize our humanity."

However, this assumption is also naive. Unfortunately, most Israelis have fallen victim to the propaganda that the Zionist establishment and its many outlets feed them from a young age. Moreover, it will require a huge, concerted effort to counter this propaganda through persuasion. For example, most Israelis will not be convinced that their government has reached a level of criminality that warrants a call for boycott. Even if they are logically convinced of the brutalities of Israeli oppression, it will most likely not be enough to rouse them into any form of action against it. This has been proven to be true time and again, evident in the abject failure of such dialogue groups to form any comprehensive anti-occupation movement ever since their inception with the Oslo process. In reality, nothing short of sustained pressure -- not persuasion -- will make Israelis realize that Palestinian rights have to be rectified. That is the logic of the BDS movement, which is entirely opposed to the false logic of dialogue.

Based on an unpublished 2002 report by the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, the San Francisco Chronicle reported last October that "between 1993 and 2000 [alone], Western governments and foundations spent between $20 million and $25 million on the dialogue groups." A subsequent wide-scale survey of Palestinians who participated in the dialogue groups revealed that this great expenditure failed to produce "a single peace activist on either side." This affirms the belief among Palestinians that the entire enterprise is a waste of time and money.

The survey also revealed that the Palestinian participants were not fully representative of their society. Many participants tended to be "children or friends of high-ranking Palestinian officials or economic elites. Only seven percent of participants were refugee camp residents, even though they make up 16 percent of the Palestinian population." The survey also found that 91 percent of Palestinian participants no longer maintained ties with Israelis they met. In addition, 93 percent were not approached with follow-up camp activity, and only five percent agreed the whole ordeal helped "promote peace culture and dialogue between participants."

Despite the resounding failure of these dialogue projects, money continues to be invested in them. As Omar Barghouti, one of the founding members of the BDS movement in Palestine, explained in The Electronic Intifada, "there have been so many attempts at dialogue since 1993 ... it became an industry -- we call it the peace industry."

This may be partly attributed to two factors. The dominant factor is the useful role such projects play in public relations. For example, the Seeds of Peace website boosts its legitimacy by featuring an impressive array of endorsements by popular politicians and authorities, such as Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, George Mitchell, Shimon Peres, George Bush, Colin Powell and Tony Blair, amongst others. The second factor is the need of certain Israeli "leftists" and "liberals" to feel as if they are doing something admirable to "question themselves," while in reality they take no substantive stand against the crimes that their government commits in their name. The politicians and Western governments continue to fund such projects, thereby bolstering their images as supporters of "coexistence," and the "liberal" Israeli participants can exonerate themselves of any guilt by participating in the noble act of "fostering peace." A symbiotic relationship, of sorts.

The lack of results from such initiatives is not surprising, as the stated objectives of dialogue and "coexistence" groups do not include convincing Israelis to help Palestinians gain the respect of their inalienable rights. The minimum requirement of recognizing Israel's inherently oppressive nature is absent in these dialogue groups. Rather, these organizations operate under the dubious assumption that the "conflict" is very complex and multifaceted, where there are "two sides to every story," and each narrative has certain valid claims as well as biases.

As the authoritative call by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel makes plain, any joint Palestinian-Israeli activities -- whether they be film screenings or summer camps -- can only be acceptable when their stated objective is to end, protest, and/or raise awareness of the oppression of the Palestinians.

Any Israeli seeking to interact with Palestinians, with the clear objective of solidarity and helping them to end oppression, will be welcomed with open arms. Caution must be raised, however, when invitations are made to participate in a dialogue between "both sides" of the so-called "conflict." Any call for a "balanced" discourse on this issue -- where the motto "there are two sides to every story" is revered almost religiously -- is intellectually and morally dishonest, and ignores the fact that, when it comes to cases of colonialism, apartheid, and oppression, there is no such thing as "balance." The oppressor society, by and large, will not give up its privileges without pressure. This is why the BDS campaign is such an important instrument of change.

Faris Giacaman is a Palestinian student from the West Bank, attending his second year of college in the United States.

A while back, I posted up some old photos from Palestine taken before 1948. Here are a few more...


Fisherman in the Galilee, 1930s


Palestine stamp - Palestine for the Arabs.


Demonstration against Zionist colonisation/British rule, 1920


Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem


Jaffa, pre 1914


Palestine, circa 1920s


Bethlehem


Jerusalem, between 1898 and 1914

Dear friends,
an article by Kathy Newnam in the July 2009 edition of Direct Action (no 13)on the attempt to stop the BDS campaign by Pro-Zionist forces.

In solidarity,
Kim

***
Zionists try to counteract campaign to isolate Israel
By Kathy Newnam
Direct Action, No 13. July 2009

http://directaction.org.au/?q=issue13/zionists_try_to_counteract_campaign_to_isolate_israel

A significant victory in the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was registered on June 8. It was reported in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper that the French-owned Veolia company plans to abandon its involvement in the light rail project being built to connect Jerusalem to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

This project had made Veolia a target of the campaign internationally — contributing to Veolia’s loss of contracts worth more than US$7.5 billion since the BDS campaign escalated in the wake of Israel’s assault on Gaza in January. The pressure will be kept up, because Veolia continues to profit from the occupation of Palestine — including running a waste dump in the West Bank for waste from Israel and the illegal settlements.

Gillard’s trip to Israel

As the BDS campaign continues to gather momentum, there are increasing efforts to counter it by supporters of Israel. British foreign secretary David Miliband released a statement on June 23 expressing “dismay that motions calling for boycotts of Israel are being discussed by trade union congresses and conferences”. In late June, Australian Deputy PM Julia Gillard led a delegation to Israel to attend the inaugural “Australia Israel Leadership Forum”. Australian trade and diplomatic missions to Israel are nothing new, but this high profile trip was clearly timed to counter the growing calls for a boycott of Israel. Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of the Australian, who was part of Gillard’s delegation, condemned the BDS campaign in his June 25 column, giving glowing praise to Gillard for attending the forum despite calls from the Palestine solidarity movement for the trip to be cancelled.


Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and Benjamin Netanyahu

Gillard’s trip was also about trying to undo the impact that the Gaza war had on the popular view of Israel in Australia. This impact was reflected in a recent poll commissioned by the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine (CJPP). The Roy Morgan poll thought that 42% of people thought Israel’s actions were “not justified” while only 29% found them “justified”. According to CJPP convener Peter Manning, this showed that Gillard “was well out of step with public opinion when she expressed sympathy for the few Israelis who died from rocket attacks rather than the 1400 Palestinians being slaughtered by Israeli gunfire on schools, hospitals and residential buildings”.


Roy Morgan Poll

Sheridan was sycophantic in his praise for Gillard, writing: “She delivered a remarkably gracious address to the gala dinner in Jerusalem’s majestic King David Hotel, kicking the forum off. Without any ambiguity, Gillard celebrated Australia’s friendship with Israel. She drew attention, with pride, to Australia’s long military involvement in the Middle East.” Gillard celebrated this history of imperialist military intervention — a history stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands of people. The Australian ruling class and both the major capitalist political parties have stood side by side with the major imperialist powers in their decades-long struggle to dominate the region. It is this that underlies their ongoing support for the Zionist state, which is aptly described as the “US watchdog” in the Middle East.
Laborite support for Zionist state

Both Australia and Israel were founded as colonial-settler states. Support for Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine is ideologically consistent with support for the ongoing dispossession of Australia’s Indigenous people. The Australian Labor Party has played an especially important role in supporting Israel, starting with the Chifley government, which was one of the first governments to recognise the Zionist state in 1948. ALP representatives in the labour movement have fought consistently, though not always successfully, against unions extending solidarity to Palestinians. The latest example is the initiative of Paul Howes, Australian Workers Union national secretary and ACTU vice-president, to establish “Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine” (TULIP) — formed explicitly to counter the BDS campaign.

Howes and his collaborators Michael Leahy, secretary of Community, a British union covering the clothing, textiles, footwear, steel and betting industries as well as workers with disabilities, and Stuart Appelbaum, president of the US Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, have launched TULIP as an international organisation. On May 23 the Australian reported that their “international launch” would “not be remembered so well. Only two reporters rolled up, so plans for speeches and a formal press conference had to be dropped.”



Paul Howes (left on the end) at the failed offical launch of TULIP in New York.

In a statement in the Australian two days earlier, the TULIP founders said, “We believe in engaging with workers and their unions in Israel and Palestine, promoting co-operation and reconciliation”. When a people are being oppressed, such calls for “reconciliation” are nothing but mealy-mouthed cover for support to the oppressor. The TULIP statement lauds what it claims are “outstanding examples of co-operation between Israeli and Palestinian unions”. It makes no mention of the fact that the Palestinian unions signed on to the BDS call that launched the campaign in 2005 (with the support of more than 170 Palestinian organisations). It also does not mention that the Israeli “trade unions” played a central role in the establishment of the Zionist state and in the oppression and exploitation of Palestinian workers, or that they supported the Gaza war.

The TULIP statement pointed to an “initiative launched by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) to make life much easier for Palestinian drivers”. It called the initiative “a small but ground-breaking union agreement encouraging dialogue between the Palestinian and Israeli national trade union centres, as well as individual unions and their members on both sides of the divide. This agreement will help improve the livelihoods of hard-working union truckers and their families.” This agreement was between the Israeli Transport Workers’ Union-Histadrut and the Palestinian General Federation of Transport Workers. A report on the ITF website about the meeting that struck the agreement noted: “The Palestinians described their working lives as drivers, overwhelmingly dominated by the difficulties they face from over 500 military checkpoints and barriers which divide communities from each other”.

Checkpoints

The agreement did not mention that these checkpoints are illegal under international law, deliberately designed to restrict the movement of Palestinians. The “difficulties” created by the checkpoints include the fact that to get from Ramallah to Hebron can take up to 10 hours when it should take just under two, or that the trip from Ramallah to Jenin, which should take two hours, can take up to six (figures from International Checkpoint Watch). This does not include checkpoint closures, which are frequent and completely arbitrary, making it impossible to pass.

Another example of the “difficulties” caused by the checkpoints is the following story told in a report by B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights. On August 1, 2006, “Mater Khamaiseh was on his way back to Jenin from the vegetable market in Beita, a village south of Nablus. He knew that the army did not allow Jenin residents to cross the ’Anabta checkpoint, which is situated east of Tulkarm, so he bypassed the checkpoint. As he was driving, an army jeep with four soldiers inside stopped him. The soldiers removed him from the truck and led him to a nearby olive grove, where one of the soldiers fired a long volley of bullets over his head for no reason at all. Then the soldiers beat him all over his body, punching him and hitting him with their rifle butts, and kicking him.”








Palestinian workers waiting in cages at Israeli checkpoints to get to work. Some arrive at 2am in order to get work at 7am.

The “ground-breaking union agreement” lauded by TULIP agreed only that “the Histadrut Transport Workers’ Union will approach the Israeli security forces and request that they assign a representative to participate in the committee when security issues, including checkpoints and barriers, are under discussion” and “that the Palestinian Transport Workers’ Union will develop fast response mechanisms, such as a telephone hotline for transport workers facing urgent problems. The Palestinians will handle relevant problems in coordination with the Israeli Union.”

Leaving aside the bizarre assumption that a representative of the Israeli Defence Force on a committee would make one iota of difference, the ITF report also states that Histadrut “pledged its commitment to provide positive help where it can without compromising security”. But it is under the guise of “security” that the IDF prevents ambulances and women in labour from crossing checkpoints. According to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, in the two years 2000-2002 there were 69 recorded deaths of Palestinians waiting at Israeli checkpoints, the majority of whom were stopped on their way to hospital. If women in labour are a “security” risk in the view of the Zionists, it’s a safe assumption that the same excuse would be used for truck drivers.

The May 23 Australian implied that Howes initiated TULIP to build “his political profile”. But this misses the point. According to the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce website, Howes will lead a “timely trade mission” to Israel in September. Not only is he aiding the Zionist state within the Australian labour movement, but he will also do the bidding of the Australian ruling class in securing trade deals with Israel. TULIP is entirely consistent with the Zionist politics of the ALP.

The Zionists have taken their campaign into the labour movement because they know the threat posed by the growing support within unions for BDS. The TULIP website itself states that the BDS movement “has already won considerable support from trade unions in South Africa, Ireland, Britain and Norway. It seems unstoppable.” Israel is already suffering the effects of consumer boycotts. If the growing union support was turned into action, like the South African dock workers’ refusal in February to unload a ship of Israeli goods, then the campaign would start to have a serious impact on Israel. Furthermore, unions can play an essential role in educating and mobilising workers to support sanctions.

This is also why building support within the unions needs to be a priority for the BDS movement. This campaign won’t be starting from scratch; many unions have longstanding positions in support of self-determination for the Palestinians — a product of many years of education and solidarity actions. The stepped-up Zionist activity highlights the importance of continuing such work.


The likes of Howes have to couch their support for Israel in hollow rhetoric about workers’ solidarity because they do not have the truth on their side. Workers’ solidarity means siding with the oppressed. This can be served only by siding unequivocally with the struggle of the Palestinian people, because Israel is the oppressor. The BDS campaign gives the international solidarity movement a powerful weapon.

Dear friends,

My friend Sarah is currently back in Palestine (she was there a few years ago as well) doing volunteer Palestine solidarity work. While she is there she is sending out regular updates to friends and family about her activities and what she witnesses during her time in Palestine.

Sarah's writing is informative and insightful and quite irrevent at times, highlighting not only the absurdity of the Israeli state's policies but also their heartbreaking and anger-inducing impact.

Sarah has given me permission to make public some of her emails, so I hope you find them as informative, engaging and as passionate as I do.

Recently Sarah was one of the internationals arrested in Sheik Jarrah, a beautiful old Palestinian neighborhood in Occupied East Jerusalem, when she and other international human rights workers were trying to stop illegal Israeli settlers from taking over a Palestinain house. This is her account of what happened.

In solidarity,
Kim

****
Not all tours end in arrest - but mine did.
From Sarah:

I am volunteering with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). This is an Israeli human rights group with a focus on house demolitions both in solidarity with the Palestinians who suffer the devastation of losing their home, but also to debunk the Israeli myths about actions based on security: Destroying peoples homes can have no security justification- instead it is a tool in what the convener of the group, Jeff Halper, describes as the 'matrix of control'.

For a detailed account of the strategy of settlement, this article by ICAHD is pretty exhaustive: http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=3&id;=805

As I mentioned in an earlier email there is a hotly contested area in East Jerusalem called Sheihk Jarrah - it has even made it on to Obama's radar, with specific mention. There is a group of fanatical setters who want to create a new settlement complex in this neighbourhood, which means first expelling all the Palestinian residents, taking over their homes, then eventually razing the area for this new settlement.

Everytime settlers move into a neighbourhood means the Army also moves in to protect them, Palestinians are restricted from moving in the area, and the flavour of the neighbourhood of course changes. This is already a heartbreaking situation for Palestinians who's national aspirations both depend on East Jerusalem as capital for any future economically viable state, but also who's very cultural desire is tied up in this city.


Photo take on day of Sarah's arrest - settlers broke into Palestinian house with the protection of the Israeli military

The other point is that every home taken away from Palestinians is one less home available for Palestinians - not just in that neighbourhood, but in toto. They do not have the option to buy somewhere else in Jerusalem or Israel so they become homeless, or squish in with over-crowded relatives. In some cases, as per the policy design, they will give up their Jerusalem residency and privileges and job opportunities, and instead move to the West Bank. As my Israeli tour guide said yesterday, "we politely make it impossible for them to live here".

So. As the tour was almost finished, we got a message that settlers were in the process of occupying a home in this neighbourhood, which we were just about to pass. We jumped off and proceeded to the house (with a little difficulty as the neighbourhood, unlike the new settlements, is still somewhat like a refugee camp and does not really have addresses).

The home in question is claimed to have been bought by American bingo centre millionaire Irwin Moskowitz, who is integral to the fanatical settler movement (see this article by Israeli peace group Gush Shalom: http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/press_releases/1212262803). The sale is disputed by the locals who have a court case pending. This means the settlers should not take any action until the court has made a ruling on the 'sale', but they have tried to move in on several occasions since the legally protected woman living there died recently.

This time they had turned up with the police and when we got there they were already taking to the house with sledge hammers, and putting up a tin fence (not actually demolishing, apparently just renovating). Neighbours watched helplessly. The police are notorious for helping the settlers, and often pretend not to know about court orders until they are presented with a new emergency injunction when a demolition has already started - then they declare the house structurally unsafe and the demolition continues on this new logic!

This was the first time I had observed a demolition, and it really made me so sad. I could feel my heart in my chest, and the tightness of my throat. I wanted to cry with the Palestinians watching the process from the sidelines.


Sheik Jarrah

Anyhoo, 6 of us from ICAHD and ISM (International Solidarity Movement) sat down at the front of the alley way and linked arms to block the path of a small earth mover. After about 20 minutes the police told us to move, we didn't move, so they bodily removed us one at a time. They were very efficient. Five of us were put in a police van and taken to the station (4 internationals, 1 Israeli).

So far, pretty normal Israeli police response to non-violent action here. We expected to be held for a couple of hours and then released on condition not to return to the area for a few weeks. A lawyer paid by the Rabbis for Human Rights arrived and began negotiating for our release.

Three more ISM activists arrived. They had been arrested 2 hours after us for taking photos. They had walked into the area without being stopped, took some photos, the settlers told them not to, they asked why, the police told them not to, they asked why, the police told to leave, they started to leave, they were arrested.

Meanwhile we were separated and interrogated. Some people got good cop, some got bad cop. Israeli girl of course got a major grilling, told she has ruined her life with an arrest, asked why she is a self-hating Jew etc etc. She has to go through a similar spiel with pretty much every single cop, guard, driver, gaol officer, and paper-work processor we encounter, and then again after shift change. Some just ranted at her, several actually seemed to listen to her perspective.

I got bored cop. I confirmed my name and nationality (he had my passport, it was moot), and then for each question I answered "I have no response for that question" - ranging from "what's your mobile number here" to "did you come to Israel to disrupt the police". He told me I was held on suspicion of disrupting the peace and hindering police (I think - his English wasn't great). Then he asked with a sigh if I would sign a document about our interview, I said I wouldn't as it was in Hebrew and I didn't understand it.

After interrogations we were eventually put in a holding area with the police lockers, and were allowed to talk to each other. Our lawyer asked if we would agree to release on condition that we not enter the area for month, we said we would if ICAHD supported it, which they did... then nothing. Apparently the chief decided during these negotiations that we were being held overnight and our lawyer left.

Several people had their phone confiscated at the beginning but I still had mine and had credit, it was our link outside.

Then a new, mean cop came into our holding area and yelled at me for playing solitaire. The Israeli girl translated this as "NO! you don't play cards here, this is not a fun fair. Would you play cards in the police station in Australia?"... well, firstly the police would not have already held me for 5 hours, and if they had, and I had cards, well yes - I would play with them!

When we received a phone call he really spat the dummy and yelled at the other cops "what kind of a police station are you running here? you let them keep their phones all this time?". So that was that... my phone gone, I was now in communication silence. Sorry to panic my boyf with my sudden dropping off the radar there!

In the final analysis, I believe the court found us guilty of something along the lines of obstructing the peace and we are not to go within 500m of Sheikh Jarrah for 3 weeks - if we are caught there we will be deported and the Rabbis for Human Rights will pay NIS 5000 (AUD$2000 - more than they can afford). The prosecutor wanted us to be banned from the whole of Jerusalem and be forbidden from entering Israel for "some time" but our lawyer was very good at presenting case law from right-wing demonstrations where the perpetrators who threw rocks at Palestinians were only banned from the precise location (not a whole neighbourhood) and only for 15 days. She also made the prosecutor look a fool as he could not supply any examples of us being violent, and he could not demonstrate that police were obstructed as the work was completed on the day as planned.

The judge berated the police for holding us overnight which is good for precedent.

The earthmover did go in and do its business, but the media attention meant that the court injunction was rushed and the settlers must now stop (or at least the police will stop protecting them). Last night settlers tried to evict another family in the neighbourhood. There were internationals there, a group was mobilised to attend (not me) and media arrived. The police, with their recent admonition and the pressure of a US delegation apparently visiting the area yesterday, told the settlers to leave. A stay of execution, and a small victory.


Back to me!

Why were we held for so long? (24 hours till the court case, and then another 3 until we were released, then another hour until we got our stuff back)...

Either the police chief was in a bad mood. Or they were trying to scare internationals from taking actions, for fear of spending a night in gaol. In which case they failed because goal is only marginally skankier than my hostel and is mostly just boring. In any case the judge has pretty much put paid to that precedent for a while.


Sarah and Abbey leg shackled together in prison

Timeline of my incarceration (kind of vague, I wasn't really noting times):

12:15 - arrive at Sheikh Jarrah
12:45 - bodily removed by police
1-3pm - separated, interrogated, fingerprinted, waited, read my book, interrogated, advised of 24 hour arrest, paperwork
3-6pm - sit around and chat, phones removed. Fed at 5:30pm (bread, creamcheese, Israeli couscous).
6-7:30pm - ankle shackled to Abbey from Ireland
7:30pm - driven to Russian Hill gaol. Boys processed, girls wait in that room where you can talk through a phone to your loved ones (if they're there, obviously).
8:30pm - bags removed, we're moved to holding pen with gross bathroom. I pee while still shackled to Abbey, sticking my right leg under the door on the left and balancing so I don't actually touch the rim. gross. Female guard who we've been waiting for to search us takes one look and decides she has a call to be somewhere else.
9pm - back to phone room and unshackled. Paperwork starts again. My jewellery and watch are removed (in case I use them as currency to buy chocolate, says the guard).
10pm ? - back to holding pen and individually strip searched
10 - 11pm ? - questioned by doctor to make sure we're fit to be in gaol (are you pregnant, do you need drugs, are you healthy?)
11pm- 12:30pm ? - back to phone room. We're a novelty, they seem to enjoy keeping us there. Eventually our bags are individually searched, each valuable itemised and sealed.
12:30am - issued with prison goody bag: towel, sheet, 2 small soaps, shampoo, shaving cream (no razor)
1am (confirmed by guard) - shown to our cells - I share with Abbey and a Palestinian woman who was arrested because of a visa problem (I think her East Jerusalem ID had expired?). No toilet paper. No blanket, airco too cold. I slept on the top bunk with my skirt as a sheet, but had to eventually crawl under the sheet, directly on the not too skanky mattress.
5am? - lights on, stand up, be counted. That's when it really hit me that we're in prison!
8am (confirmed by guard) - breakfast (white bread, boiled egg, weird jam, olives, triangle cheese). Back to sleep.
10am - due in court, told that we are not going to court yet. Chat with Abbey.
11am - hand cuffed and ankle cuffed. Wait in phone room
12pm - driven to court 100m away (which seemed excessive, until I realised how much those ankle cuffs hurt)
12:15 - 1pm - court case
1pm - back to phone room. Observe 2 old Palestinian men brought in hand and ankle cuffed and also blind folded. Nice.
1:30pm - un-cuffed, back to cell... I have a "shower" under the pipe from the wall. The pressure is good but I have some complaints about the temperature adjustment which got very hot. I do some yoga. We're told we missed lunch because we were in court. Excuse us our foolish schedule! but we have bread remaining from breakfast - bread and water! prison!
3pm - moved to police office next door (no cuffs!) to be photographed, and have prints taken (Right hand, each finger and thumb, thumb again, whole palm and fingers. Left hand, repeat).
4pm - lurk around gaol window waiting for the hilarious guards to drip fee us our personals.
5pm - THE END!

I called my parents who sounded... annoyed. I had promised I wouldn't go seeking trouble and here I am getting tear-gassed on Friday, and arrested on Sunday. But in neither case did I feel that I was in an unusual or dangerous situation. This is the normal functioning of the Occupation. Apologies for those who were worried about me, but really I am fine, and being safe.

Most Israelis would be horrified to think of the tax shekels wasted in processing, feeding, sheltering and guarding us, plus court costs (or in fact it should be Americans horrified that their tax/ aid dollars are wasted this way).

It's time to tell our governments to join the Boycott, Sanction and Divestment campaign, until Israel complies with international law!

Hugs,

Convict Sarah.

By Kim Bullimore
Direct Action, Issue 13, July 2009

The much anticipated speeches on the Middle East “peace process” by US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month have been touted by the international corporate media as significant steps toward resolving conflict in the region. However, neither speech was a step forward. They simply regurgitated the long-held positions of both Washington and Tel Aviv, which have sought to ensure the ongoing subjugation and colonial oppression of the Palestinian people.



In his June 14 speech at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu repeated the Zionist position that “no preconditions” can be imposed on Israel in relation to negotiations. He then went on to demand that a raft of preconditions be met by the Palestinian Authority before Israel would consider recognising a Palestinian state. Veteran Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar noted in Haaretz the day after the speech : “Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neoconservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children,” Eldar observed that the purpose of the speech had nothing to do with the Palestinians or peace; instead it was to “appease Tzipi Hotovely, the settler Likud lawmaker, and make it possible to live peaceably with the settler foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman”.
New Israeli preconditions

According to Netanyahu, “a fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people”. Netanyahu’s second precondition for a Palestinian state was that it must be “demilitarised”. Throughout, Netanyahu also made it clear that Israel had no intention of dismantling its illegal settlements, that Palestinian refugees forcibly exiled by Zionist terrorists in 1948 would have no right of return, that Israel wouldn’t define its borders until the “final peace agreement” and that Jerusalem would be the “united” capital of Israel and therefore not the capital of any future Palestinian state.

Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as “a Jewish state” is relatively new, having first been formally advocated by then prime minister Ehud Olmert at Annapolis in 2007. Prior to 2007, the key demand was the acknowledgement that Israel had the “right to exist in peace and security”. This demand, for example, was stated in a 1967 speech by Abba Eban, Israel’s then foreign minister, to the United Nations in the wake of the Six Day War, in which Israel captured and occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Eban said repeatedly that the key to the conflict was the failure of the Arab states and peoples to accept Israel’s “right to exist” (not as a “Jewish state”) and that this right meant accepting “Israel’s rights to peace, security, sovereignty, economic development and maritime freedom”. From 1967 until 2007, this remained the key Israeli demand in relation to the Arab world.

The right of Israel to “live in peace and security” was recognised by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1988 in a political statement accompanying the PLO Declaration of Independence. The statement recognised UN Security Council Resolution 242, which stated in part that there should be “respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries free from acts of force”. Yasser Arafat further confirmed the PLO’s position in a September 1993 letter to Israel’s then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, stating that he recognised “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security”. The letter also stated that “the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence”.


Arafat's 1993 letter to Rabin

However, Israel offered no commitment to end its violence and state terrorism against the Palestinian people or to recognise the right of the Palestinians to a state or their right to live in peace and security. Instead, it only “recognise[d] the PLO as the representatives of the Palestinian people” and agreed to begin negotiations. The demand that the Palestinians now recognise Israel as a “Jewish state” is the latest ploy to ensure that a Palestinian state doesn’t come into existence in the near future, so that Israel can continue to expand its illegal settlements and create “facts on the ground”.


Demilitarisation

Netanyahu’s demand that any Palestinian state be completely demilitarised and under Israeli military sovereignty also runs counter to previous negotiations. Resolution 242 called for the establishment of “demilitarised zones” between Israel and an independent Palestine state, not the latter’s demilitarisation. While the issue of possible “demilitarisation” was raised as part of a speech given by then US president Bill Clinton in 2000, it was in a vastly different context. In his December 2000 speech, Clinton noted that while Israel wanted a future Palestinian state to be defined as “demilitarised”, the Palestinians had proposed “a state with limited arms”. As a compromise, Clinton suggested that a Palestinian state would be “non-militarised” but would have “a strong Palestinian security force”, “an international force for border security and deterrence purposes” and “sovereignty over its airspace”

This is vastly different from what Netanyahu demanded in his Bar-Ilan speech. According to Netanyahu, any “territory controlled by the Palestinians will be demilitarised — namely, without an army, without control of its airspace, and with effective security measures to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory; real monitoring, and not what occurs in Gaza today. And obviously, the Palestinians will not be able to forge military pacts.”



Clinton had also called for the evacuation of 80% of settlers from the West Bank and Gaza, for joint control of Jerusalem’s holy places and the “acknowledg[ment of] the moral and material suffering caused to the Palestinian people as a result of the 1948 war”. Clinton called for any agreement on refugees not to “negate the aspiration of the Palestinian people to return to the area”. Netanyahu rejected all of this in his speech. As Eldar noted in his Haaretz article, “The difference between these documents and the Bar-Ilan address is not only that the former recognise the Palestinians’ full rights to the West Bank and East Jerusalem”; “the real difference lies in the tone — in the degrading and disrespectful nature of Netanyahu’s remarks”. This is “not how one brings down a wall of enmity between two nations, that’s not how trust is built”.

Obama’s advice

Netanyahu’s speech was hailed by Obama and the international corporate media as a “step in the right direction”. This is unsurprising given the tone and nature of Obama’s Cairo speech 10 days earlier. Obama’s June 4 speech revealed that Washington also has no real interest in advancing the “peace process”. Stripped of its flowery prose and flourishing references to the Koran, Obama’s speech revealed that Washington’s current Middle East policy is little different from that of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Rather than advocating a real change in policy, Obama reconfirmed the “unbreakable” bonds between Israel and the United States, while demanding that the “Palestinians must abandon violence”. He made no demand that Israel put an end to its state violence, which has resulted in four times more Palestinian civilians killed than Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian resistance fighters. Obama, like Bush, continued to perpetrate the myth that “Palestinian violence” exists in a vacuum, separate from the greater violence of Israel’s brutal occupation.

Obama also failed to mention, even once, the word “occupation” and failed to call for the dismantling of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, instead calling, as Bush did, simply for an end to settlement expansion. Obama also made it clear that he had no intention of cutting military or economic aid to Israel if Netanyahu failed to stop the expansions.



Instead, as respected commentator Jennifer Loewenstein noted in a June 5 Counterpunch article, Obama “sent Benjamin Netanyahu the message he most seeks, whether Netanyahu recognizes it or not: continue your colonial-settler project as you have been doing; just change the vocabulary you use to describe it. Then nobody will get upset or notice that the status quo … persists”. Netanyahu’s speech two weeks later revealed that he had heard Obama’s message loud and clear.

Dear friends,
the Free Gaza Movement has issued an appeal for financial support and solidarity action in order to help them make their next trip to Gaza. If you can help please contact that Free Gaza Movement at the details below.

Please find below also footage from the latest moments on the Free Gaza Movement ship, the Spirit of Humanity, before it was attacked and boarded by the Israeli navy. The unarmed human rights workers were forcibly kidnapped by Israel and held in prison for several days. This was despite the fact they were in international water and had no intention of entering Israeli waters and posed no threat to the Israeli state or the Israeli military.

In solidarity, Kim

***


We need your help to prepare the next mission to Gaza

Dear friends,

As part of our Summer of Hope campaign, the Free Gaza Movement was planning to make 3 boat voyages to Gaza this summer, one in June, one in July and one in August. On our July and August voyages we had planned to take into Gaza all of the books that you have sent us as part of our Right to Read campaign (see below for update).

Due to Israel’s hijacking of our boat, the Spirit of Humanity last month, we have had to change our plans. No, we are not backing down. Now, more than ever, we believe it’s critical to continue these missions, and demonstrate the power of the international civilian community to stand up to cruelty, human rights abuses, and oppression. If we let Israel’s attack on our last mission stop us, we will be giving in to the violence that is perpetrated 100-fold against the occupied Palestinian people. The risks that we take by getting on these boats are nothing compared to the existential threats that Palestinians face every day of their lives. But to make this next voyage happen, we need your help urgently! We need to raise a substantial sum of money and engage in considerable outreach over the next few weeks in order to be able to send the next mission before the weather changes and the Mediterranean Sea starts becoming unpredictable.


Earlier Free Gaza Boats arriving in Gaza


Earlier Free Gaza boats arriving in Gaza

Please share this email with friends and family and decide on one or more ways you can get involved. We will not be able to do this without you.
Suggestions for things that you can do:

(1) Donate. You have donated to us so generously to us in the past, we need you to do it again. Please consider making a donation of $100 ( 100 or £100) and asking 9 friends to do the same. Go to: http://www.freegaza.org/index.php?option=com_content&view;=article&id;=109&Itemid;=147. Please do it now.

(2) Fundraise. Plan a fundraiser for the Free Gaza Movement in your home or community. A dinner, movie screening, house party or other could be a great way to get your friends and family more aware of and involved in our efforts, while contributing to our goal of purchasing a cargo ship and accompanying passenger boats to go to Gaza.

(3) Educate. We have volunteers in various countries that might be available to come speak at your school, university or other venue about their experiences in Gaza, the horrifying effects of Israel’s illegal blockade, and what the Free Gaza Movement is doing to break the siege. Consider hosting an event or a speaking tour for the Free Gaza Movement. For help in doing this, please contact us (friends@freegaza.org).

(4) Outreach. We would like to get celebrities, dignitaries, and community leaders to join our next mission in order to draw more attention to the dire situation in Gaza and the need for immediate action. If you have contact to an actor, singer, athlete, artist, producer, politician or other public personality, including prominent human and civil rights leaders, ask them to lend their voice and presence to this nonviolent action in defense of human rights. Reach out to your member of congress or parliament and ask him/her to join us. If someone is not able to physically be on our boat, ask him or her for a statement or letter or endorsement.


VIDEO by Ishmahil Blagrove - RicenPeas. Video time: 9.16 minutes

(5) Contribute. We would like to get as many local, national, and international groups and organizations involved in the success of this mission as possible. Approach a local group or organization about donating cargo to send to Gaza on the next Free Gaza boats. One of the two areas our next mission will focus on is education, taking in books (see information about Right to Read campaign below), paper, ink and school supplies. Ask your local school, church, mosque, synagogue, social justice group, or other NGO to commit to this effort. Even primary schools can contribute to breaking the siege on Gaza by writing letters to schoolchildren in Gaza. Please contact us (friends@freegaza.org) about the items that we are accepting for cargo.

The second area our mission will focus on is building supplies. It is now more than six months since the end of Israel's brutal 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip, which led to the killing of over 1400 Palestinians, and the people of Gaza are still living in rubble. Consider approaching a local business about sponsoring reconstruction cargo for Gaza. Please contact us (friends@freegaza.org) for details.

(6) Right to Read campaign. The response to the Right to Read (http://www.freegaza.org/right-to-read) campaign has been heartening. In addition to the books that the universities in Gaza requested, some of you sent us school supplies for children, as you know that paper, pencils and crayons are among the thousands of items that the Israeli authorities do not allow into Gaza. Others approached their local universities about offering free e-library and other database access to Palestinian universities; this is invaluable! Also a few authors have donated copies of their books to the campaign; thank you! As great as the response has been, we still have not acquired all of the books we need. Please, let’s keep going! We will start taking these books in on the next voyage. Visit: http://www.freegaza.org/right-to-read

How soon we can make this next voyage happens will depend on our collective effort. We are aiming for September/October. Let’s make it happen!

In solidarity & struggle,
FREE GAZA MOVEMENT
http://www.FreeGaza.org

Dear friends,
some of you may have already heard about the Israeli advert by Israeli telecommunications Cellcom which seeks to "normalise" and downplay the impact of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian people. The advert shows soldiers playing a "friendly" game of soccer near the apartheid wall supposedly with Palestinian youth on the other side of the wall.

In response to the advert, Ayyad Mediqa has made his own advert using footage of Bil'in, showing what a real soccer 'match' between real Israeli Occupation Soliders and Palestinians look like.

I have also included the article by Joharah Baker from MIFTAH on the Cellcom advert.

in solidarity, Kim



Response to Israeli Cellcom advert: What a real soccer match between IOF soldiers and Palestinians looks like



Original Cellcom advert which normalises Israeli occupation

***
http://www.miftah.org/display.cfm?DocId=20055&CategoryId;=3


Cellcom Commercials 'Clearly Not The Best'
July 13, 2009
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

Preposterous' is almost too mild a word to describe the new Cellcom commercial that many Palestinians and Israelis alike are calling for to be pulled. The advert portrays an Israeli army jeep patrolling near the West Bank separation wall when a soccer ball suddenly flies over from the other "Palestinian side", hitting the hood of the jeep. For the first brief moment after the boom of the ball-on-jeep impact, the soldiers go into combat-mode, a hint of fear sweeping over their faces, fingers on triggers. Jumping out of the vehicle, the soldiers first hold still in caution, not knowing what to expect from the "other side," the commander clearly waving his hand to stay his troops.

The final decision is to kick the ball over the wall to the other side (the players who, of course, are never shown). A "game of soccer" ensues between the two sides after one Israeli soldier calls some of his army buddies (on his Cellcom cell phone obviously) to join the game. The catchphrase of the commercial? "After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun."

It is no wonder so many groups – including one on the popular social network Facebook, has demanded that the Israeli mobile phone company cancel the advertisement. There are almost too many offensive and insulting aspects of the commercial to tick off. For starters, the idea that the separation wall can double as a volleyball net of sorts, undercuts and belittles the actual purpose and impact of this hideous structure.

Then, take the fact that the commercial reinforces stereotypes right from the get-go. The Palestinians are never seen, perpetuating the idea that "they" are too horrible or too dangerous to engage face to face. One only has to look at the soldiers' initial reaction to the soccer ball loudly bouncing off the jeep's hood to reveal the great divide between the two peoples. The Israelis are scared – perhaps thinking a Molotov Cocktail has been thrown at them, or at best, a rock. In any case, this is the way the bulk of Israelis perceive Palestinians, isn't it?

But then, the most dangerous part of all comes. Deciding to be "nice and playful" soldiers, they kick the ball back, hardly thinking the Palestinians will volley it right over again. Some may wonder why the elusive Palestinians do not come over on their own to retrieve their ball. Simple. According to the rules of this game, if they try to cross, jump over or in any way surpass the cement edifice they will be shot on the spot (or at best, arrested) for illegally entering "Israeli" territory.
This point opens yet another can of worms. Given that the wall, which Israel claims was built to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israeli cities, actually cuts into approximately 40 percent of the West Bank in areas that are conveniently adjacent to illegal Jewish settlements, the wall in this commercial just may be between Palestinian and Palestinian territory and not Israeli at all.

The soldiers in the commercial call up "reinforcements", including attractive young women soldiers to cheer the men on. As the ball goes back and forth, so do the laughs and pats on the backs between Israel's occupying soldiers. Then the line, "After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun."

Actually, no. If anything, the Palestinian "ghosts" on the other side of the wall would much rather find a way to tear down that wall than kick their ball back and forth with an army whose presence there has one purpose and one purpose only – to oppress and occupy their entire people. What Cellcom tried to portray – in poor taste, it should be added – was that this oppressive, imposing and discriminatory wall, can be viewed in no different of a light than say a volleyball net on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv. That "neighbors" could be "neighborly" if they chose, even when one is an occupied people not allowed to freely move a few hundred meters around a cement wall to find their ball, and the others is a heavily armed, militarily superior occupying army that protects this wall and the illegal settlers behind it.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Palestinians (and conscientious Israelis) find nothing amusing about this advertisement. The separation wall, which has caused considerable everyday suffering to Palestinians not to mention its long term purpose of grabbing as much Palestinian land as possible, is nothing to make light of.

Coincidently (or not), the commercial's release coincided with the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice's ruling on the illegality of the separation wall in July, 2004. Cellcom's commercial not only belittled the wall's impact on the Palestinians, it gave it an image of 'normalcy' and, most importantly one of a benign nature, which it is clearly not.

If anything positive comes of this, it hopefully will be the opposite of what Cellcom intended. Instead of portraying the Israeli army as playful and kind and the wall as an instrument of entertainment between two warring neighbors, perhaps the feedback from all those who feel so strongly against the advert will educate those ignorant minds that Israel's separation wall is no laughing matter.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.

Dear friends,
the following action alert and call has been sent out in relation to the campaign to release Adeeb Abu Rahme, one of the leaders of the Bil'in non-violent struggle against the wall.

Many of us of have spent time in Bil'in have met Adeeb on a number of occassions. He is a tireless and dedicated activist. As the call notes, he and other leaders of the Bil'in struggle are being target in a new wave of intimidation by the Israeli occupation forces.

Please consider if you are able to send through a letter in support of Adeeb.

in solidarity, Kim

***



letters are needed before Thursday! subject line should be Adeeb Abu Rahme

http://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7652

Adeeb Abu Rahme, a leading Palestinian non-violent peace activist was arrested in the weekly Bil’in demonstration against the Apartheid Wall (see the video, Adeeb is the protester in the orange shirt with the mega-phone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqaO8lFYuM0 ). The Israeli military is charging Adeeb with “incitement to violence,” a charge that could bring a serious jail term. This charge is the culmination of a new attempt to “break” the non-violent resistance in Palestine by targeting the leaders of the non-violent protests.

Adeeb is currently in detention and will be taken in front of a military judge on Thursday, 16 July 2009. The military prosecutor intends to request for Adeeb to remain in detention until the end of the proceedings against him. This could mean months or a year in military prison for Adeeb, who is the sole provider for his family of 9 children, wife and mother.

In the past five years, many attempts have been made by the to break the spirit of the Bil’in protests. Every new commander in Bil’in has promised to break the resistance, using new weapons and increasing the level of violence against unarmed demonstrators. But the spirit and resilience of Bil’in residents and their supporters cannot be broken; every Friday they continue to march and chant against the theft of Palestinian land and the systemic violence of the Occupation.

In the past month, Israeli forces have attacked Bil’in and other villages with renewed vigor, raiding homes in the early hours of the morning to seize suspected demonstrators. Mostly children under the age of 18, they are interrogated and pressured to ‘confess’ that they throw stones at the instructions of the village leaders. The truth remains that village leaders discourage stone throwing and recognize that it is used as a tool by the Occupation to falsely accuse the demonstrations of instigating violence. The Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements requested the presence of Israeli and international solidarity activists to document and discourage the night raids.

Anyone of the thousands who have marched with Adeeb can testify that despite provocation and serious attacks on his person, he has never responded violently. Attempts to criminalize the leadership of non-violent protests where curbed in the past with the help of an outpouring of support from people committed to justice from all over the world. We need you now to testify to Adeeb’s commitment to non-violence and to hold the Israeli military accountable for trying to destroy the resistance.

Please email your letter to palestinesolidarity@gmail.com

SAMPLE LETTER:

To whom it may concern,

I was disturbed to learn that Mr. Adeeb Abu Rahme, a leader in his village and participant in the non-violent demonstrations that take place in Bil’in every Friday, was arrested for peacefully demonstrating against Israel’s separation fence on July 10th, 2009 and is still being held in prison. Over the past five years Mr. Rahme and the leaders in Bil’in village have displayed an unshakable commitment to non-violence and dignified action.

Mr. Rahme in particular is well known for his commitment to the struggle for peace through non-violent means and for his willingness to work in partnership with Israelis. He is a respected member of the community. I am impressed with his honesty and commitment to non-violence. My understanding of Israeli law is that the right to demonstrate peacefully is protected. Mr. Rahme should be commended and not punished for his efforts.

I hope and trust that Mr. Rahme will be allowed to return to his family, including his 9 children, wife and mother for whom he is the sole supporter, and community without further delay and that his name be cleared of all accusations.

Sincerely,

Dear friends,
the International Women's Peace Service in Palestine is currently inviting applications for women to join them as long term volunteers working on the ground in Palestine.

Please find below the details of how to apply or visit the IWPS website at www.iwps.info

in solidarity, Kim
***



The International Women’s Peace Service in Palestine (IWPS-Palestine) is a team of women human rights workers, who provide international accompaniment to Palestinian civilians, document and non-violently intervene in human rights abuses and support acts of non-violent resistance to end the illegal Israeli occupation and building of the apartheid wall.

IWPS-Palestine is currently inviting applicants from women who would like to join our team of longer term volunteers. Successful applicants will serve a minimum of one three month term in Palestine and support our on-going work outside. Preference will be given to women able to commit to further terms in Palestine (1-3 months). Deadline for application 30.09.09. Please contact: iwpstraining@yahoo.com for more info and application form. More information about IWPS see: www.iwps-pal.org

By Kim Bullimore
www.directaction.org.au
Issue 12: June, 2009

Since Barack Obama’s swearing in as US president, both the Israeli and US media have peddled the idea his administration would take a strong stand with the newly-elected Israeli hard-right government of PM Benjamin Netanyahu and foreign minister Avigador Lieberman. On May 5, for example, United Press International claimed that Obama and “Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are on a collision course” over how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On May 7, Newsweek columnist Michael Hirsch claimed that Israel and the US were facing “a moment of truth” . Hirsch added: “for the last eight years Washington acted mainly as an unswerving supporter of Israel’s actions — some critics would say cheerleader — despite a few serious differences, such as the timing of the 2006 Palestinian elections. But the potential now exists for the most serious rupture of relations at least since 1989, when Secretary of State James Baker stunned AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] by calling on Israel to abandon its ‘unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel’ that included Gaza and the West Bank.”



Obama and Netanyahu

Despite such proclamations, there is very little chance of a serious rupture between Obama and the Netanyahu-Lieberman government. While the Obama administration has called on Israel to state publicly that it supports a two-state “solution”, it has not threatened to cut funding should Israel fail to do so. Like previous US presidents, Obama has no intention of pushing Israel to end its human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The primary reason for Obama’s demand for an Israeli commitment to a two-state “solution” is that it serves US imperialist goals in the region, seeking to gain diplomatic support from US-aligned Arab capitalist regimes such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for Washington’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to isolate anti-imperialist Arab nationalist forces in the region, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas.
‘Interests don’t change’

The corporate media have spun the line that the May 18 meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was fraught with disagreements. But Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, who was Israel’s ambassador to the US during Bush junior’s administration, told the Jerusalem Post on May 20 that the Obama administration’s policy differed little from that of its predecessor. “The basic interests and objectives of the US in our region do not change with different administrations”, Ayalon said, adding: “Approaches and nuances change but the interests remain the same.”

The only difference between the two administrations, according to Ayalon, is that Obama is “adding a regional element to the diplomatic process”. By this, Ayalon means that Obama will go along with Israel’s demand that Arab countries must normalise their relations with Israel before Israel makes any concessions on its military rule over the OPT. Obama has sought to give the impression that he supports the Arab League peace initiative, which would normalise relations once Israel withdraws to its pre-June 1967 war borders and develops a “just” policy in relation to the Palestinian refugees driven out of their national homeland in 1947-48. In reality, Obama supports an inversion of the initiative. As Noam Chomsky noted in a January 26 article on the Znet website, Obama has engaged in “carefully framed deceit” by calling on Arab states “to act [immediately] on the initiative’s promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism”, while ignoring the fact that the initiative proposes “normalisation” only after a two-state settlement has been achieved.


Obama speaking at American Israel Public Affairs Committee forum

The corporate media have also been full of rumours that Obama would support the strategic outline of a “bipartisan” report submitted to him by the US/Middle East Project. The report, entitled A Last Chance for a Two State Israel-Palestine Agreement, is authored by 10 former senior US government officials, including James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank and US special envoy on the Middle East, and Brent Scrowcroft, national security adviser to George Bush senior. The report calls for the US to broker a peace agreement based on two states, swapping land on a 1:1 basis in order to leave Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank intact.

While the report calls for addressing “the Palestinian refugees’ sense of injustice” and providing them with “meaningful financial compensations”, the report rejects the right of return and instead calls for refugees to be given “resettlement assistance”. It advocates that any Palestinian state be “a non-militarised” one for a minimum of 15 years. That is, it would have no military of its own and would be forbidden to enter military agreements with other countries, in order to ensure Israel’s security. There would be a US-led multinational “peacekeeping” force including Jordanian, Egyptian and Israeli troops. Jason Ditz noted in a May 20 article on the Antiwar.com website that over the last two years, while withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, Israel has continued to attack it regularly, so a demilitarised Palestinian state would most likely remain Israeli-occupied territory in everything but name.

Whether or not these “leaks” and rumours are true, Aluf Benn notes in a May 27 Tel Aviv Haaretz article, “Welcome to Realistan”, that Obama is a “realist” in the mould of Henry Kissinger. While Obama pays lip service to human rights, his foreign policy “is directed at a single goal: strong America as the leader of a stable world order”. In relation to Israel, Benn notes that in the meeting with Netanyahu, Obama’s focus was on “common interests” rather than anyone’s human rights. “Obama’s demand of Netanyahu to freeze the Jewish settlements in the West Bank does not derive from concern for the Palestinians whose lands are being stolen, or from opposition to violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention”, but is based on seeking to ensure that Washington’s Arab collaborators in the region, such as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas, are not ousted by popular discontent.
Netanyahu’s aims

Netanyahu, like his predecessors, will seek to deflect attention from Israel’s intransigence and refusal to enter into any real “peace process”. Since 1993, when the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation were signed, successive Israeli governments have repeatedly told US presidents that they would cease building and expanding settlements in the OPT, in line with the various US-backed agreements. But successive Israeli governments have allowed settlement building and expansion to go unchecked in order to establish “facts on the ground”. The most recent case in point was Netanyahu’s immediate predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who, while proclaiming that Israel must end its occupation, continued the expansion of illegal settlements. According to Israel’s Peace Now group, during Olmert’s prime ministership, between January 2006 and January 2009, more than 5100 illegal housing units were built in the West Bank and more than 1500 tenders were issued for housing units.


Settler racism

The primary aim of creating such “facts on the ground” is to ensure that no viable Palestinian state can be established, so that any state that is established will be politically and economically weak and militarily dominated by Israel. In 1973, Israeli general and later prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who is recognised as the “father of the settlement movement”, boasted to Winston Churchill’s grandson that the aim was to “make a pastrami sandwich” of the Palestinian territories by ”insert[ing] a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart”. Avika Elder noted on May 18 in Haaretz: “The 15 years of ‘peace process’ have served as an alibi to build more than 100 new settlements and outposts, and to enlarge the settler population from 110,000 to nearly 300,000, excluding East Jerusalem”.

Netanyahu has said while he will not stop settlement expansion, he will remove 22 illegal outposts. The offer is hollow, because the few hundred settlers from these outposts would be resettled in the bigger illegal settlements. Netanyahu’s policy is reflected in the words of his most trusted senior political adviser, Uzi Arad, the head of Israel’s National Security Council and former senior official in Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. In an interview in March with Israel National News TV, a settler television station based in the occupied West Bank, Arad stated that Israel “want[s] to relieve ourselves of the burden of the Palestinian populations — not territories. It is territory we want to preserve, but populations we want to rid ourselves of.”


Uzi Arad, former Mossad Official, now advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu

If Obama were serious about pressuring Israel to move forward in the “peace process”, he would be threatening to cut military funding to the Netanyahu-Lieberman government. However, Obama has already flagged increased funding to Israel in its 2010 budget. The Alternative Information Centre (AIC), a joint Palestinian-Israeli organisation, noted on its website on May 12 that Washington is set to increase military aid to Israel, while imposing harsher conditions on aid to the Palestinian Authority. AIC noted that Obama’s budget proposals for 2010 will increase aid to Israel by 10%, to US$2.775 billion. In addition, the budget also includes “an increase in the assistance to the production of weapons systems”. AIC also noted that the budget “calls for the administration to respect Israel’s claims on Jerusalem”, which “contradicts international law, which does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territories of East Jerusalem”, as well as “the Oslo Agreement, which defines all of Jerusalem as a territory to be discussed during the final stages of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations”.

Dear friends,
Please find below an article by Ben Lynfield from the UK newspaper, The Independent, about Israel soldiers abuse of Palestinian prisoners. The article confirms, once again, the wide spread and illegal use of abusive force against unarmed Palestinian prisoners, including children (some as young as 14) by the Israeli occupation forces.

In particular, the article focuses on the Israeli occupation forces invasion of Hares village in the Salfit governate of the Occupied West Bank.

Hares is the village that the International Women’s Peace Service www.iwps.info , (the team that I work with in Palestine) is based in. We have been located in the village since 2002, when the village issued an invitation for an international team to be based in the village as it was under constant attack in the first years of the Al Aqsa intifada.

Hares is located, along with several other villages, in the centre of the massive illegal bloc of settlements known as the “Ariel settlement bloc”. Ariel settlement is the largest settlement in the West Bank proper, with around 50,000 illegal settlers. From our balcony, you can see Ariel which is less than 2 km away; while from the window of our kitchen you are assaulted visually by the illegal colonies of Barkan and Revava. Barkan is an “industrial” settlement and produces furniture and wine, to name a few things. The settlement bloc includes approximately another 12 illegal colonies, all within a few kilometres of Hares.

At the time of the invasion mentioned in Lynfield’s article, my colleagues in Hares reported that the raid was part of an increased militarisation in the northern part of the Occupied West Bank that included the Israeli occupation forces erecting new roadblocks at the entrance of villages in the form of earth mounds – with this happening in Hares, as well as Azzun in the Qalqilya district (Azzun is approximately 30 -40 minutes from Hares).

Earlier in the month, the Israeli occupation forces invaded Hares and invaded our apartment/office in village. This was the first time in a number of years since this had happened. According to my team mates there was some speculation that the IOF has in the past few months been embolden by their “success” in Gaza and the election of the new ultra right government headed by Netanyahu

I have included below, as well, the link to the IWPS report on the invasion mentioned in Lynfield’s report. The original report, available on the IWPS website, includes a series of photographs taken during the invasion.

In solidarity,

Kim

***

Bound, blindfolded and beaten – by Israeli troops

Children among Palestinian detainees abused during West Bank operation, according to soldiers' confessions

By Ben Lynfield in Hares, West Bank

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bound-blindfolded-and-beaten-ndash-by-israeli-troops-1700194.html

Tuesday, 9 June 2009

Two Israeli officers have testified that troops in the West Bank beat, bound and blindfolded Palestinian civilians as young as 14. The damaging disclosures by two sergeants of the Kfir Brigade include descriptions of abuses they say they witnessed during a search-and-detain operation involving hundreds of troops in Hares village on 26 March. The testimonies have been seen by The Independent and are expected to add fuel to the controversy over recent remarks by Colonel Itai Virob, commander of Kfir Brigade, in which he said violence against detained Palestinians was justified in order to accomplish missions.

Both the soldiers, from the Harub battalion, highlighted the tight tying of the plastic hand restraints placed on detainees. "There are people who think you need to tighten the restraints all the way, until no drop of blood will pass from here to there," one soldier said. "It doesn't take much time until the hands turn blue. There were a lot of people that you know weren't feeling anything."

He said about 150 Palestinians, some as young as 14, were bound, blindfolded and detained at the village school during the operation, which lasted from 3am to 3pm. He was told it was aimed at preventing village youths throwing stones against nearby settler roads. It was clear many of the people detained had done nothing wrong, but they were held to gather intelligence, he said.


Photos by IWPS


Photos by IWPS

The worst beatings were in the bathrooms, he said. "The soldiers who took [detainees] to the toilet just exploded [over] them with beatings; cursed them with no reason. When they took one Arab to the toilet so that he could urinate, one of them gave him a slap that brought him to the ground. He had been handcuffed from behind with a nylon restraint and blindfolded. He wasn't insolent, he didn't do anything to get on anyone's nerves ... [it was] just because he's an Arab. He was something like 15 years old." The soldier said he saw a lot of soldiers "just knee [Palestinians] because it's boring, because you stand there 10 hours, you're not doing anything, so they beat people up."

A second soldier described a "fanatical atmosphere" during the search operations. "We would go into a house and turn the whole thing upside down," he recalled, but no weapons were found. "They confiscated kitchen knives."

The first soldier said involvement was widespread."There were a lot of reservists that participated, and they totally had a celebration on the Palestinians: curses, humiliation, pulling hair and ears, kicks, slaps. These things were the norm." He said the incidents in the toilet were the "extreme" and added that the beatings did not draw blood. They were "dry beatings, but it's still a beating".

The second soldier said some troops stole from houses they searched, even though the people were so poor it was hard for them to find anything to take.

Last month, Colonel Virob testified in a military court that hitting detained Palestinians could be justified. "Standing them against walls, pushing them, a blow that doesn't cause injury. Certainly, these are things that are commonly used in an attempt to accomplish the mission," he said. Despite a reprimand of Colonel Virob by the head of central command, General Shamni, and a disavowal by army chief of staff Lt General Gabi Ashkenazi, the remarks are seen by Breaking the Silence, an organisation that collects testimonies of soldiers, as proof that the alleged abuses in Hares cannot be dismissed as an isolated occurrence or low-level improvisations.

In Hares, Ihab Shamlawi, a university student, recalled watching as a high school pupil asked soldiers permission to go to the bathroom. "They put him on the floor, they kicked his legs and beat him," he said. Ten or 15 other soldiers were watching, Mr Shamlawi recalled. "They all laughed," he said.

The army spokesman's office yesterday said an investigation had been opened and added that, following Colonel Virob's previous remarks, General Shamni had distributed pamphlets to troops underscoring that "when someone is detained, stopped or held ... Israel Defence Force soldiers ... are absolutely and clearly forbidden to use any force or violence against them".

***


Photos by IWPS


IWPS report on Hares Invasion

27 March 2009

http://www.iwps.info/en/articles/article.php?id=1222

Army incursion in Haris, over 150 minors and youths arrested

Written by Rada Edited by Maria

A major military operation took place today in Haris between 2am and 5pm. Around 15 jeeps, 2 border police jeeps and vans belonging to Israeli Intelligence Shabak entered Haris and arrested around 150 people including large number of minors.

A number of people reported injury by the soldiers including several cases of beatings of small children and women. Soldiers also destroyed furniture, appliances, walls and various food products in at least 4 houses.

At 4:30pm most of the people who were arrested were released. At present IWPS is aware of 4 youths all aged 16 who have not been released and whose whereabouts is currently unknown. There are strong indications that more people were taken away and we are hoping to have more accurate figures soon.

At 2 am soldiers and jeeps entered Haris in a major military operation which lasted 15 hours. The soldiers raided most houses in Haris, arresting youths and interrogating them about their friends, family members and the layout of the houses. The IWPS has heard from many parents and adults that soldiers gave them a piece of paper with a number and photographed them holding this paper.

All those arrested were blindfolded, handcuffed and taken to the primary school in Haris. Here they were seated in the classrooms and in the playground and interrogated one by one by Shabak and the military. Those released were given a paper so that other soldiers would not re-arrest them as the arrests continued throughout the day.

The IWPS members witnessed several of the arrests and we have managed to secure photographic evidence and statements form a number of victims and their relatives.


Photos by IWPS


Photos by IWPS


IWPS also received a report of a man who suffered a back injury due to excessive use of force by the soldiers. The IWPS called for an ambulance which arrived shortly after but was denied entry into Haris by the soldiers, in spite of being urged by the IWPS and the villagers living near by. The reason given was that if a person was injured it would be army's responsibility to take care of them and provide the ambulance. However, the Israeli ambulance parked nearby was not called by the soldiers to treat the injured man.

Two photojournalists who managed to enter Haris close to the primary school where shortly after escorted by the border police out of the village. In addition, a TV van and two other journalists were denied entry into Haris.

The army incursion finished around 4.30 and the villages fear that it might continue in the near future.

When questioned about the purpose of the incursion, IWPS members were told by the army that they were updating its database of information of Haris residents. Last Saturday 21st March there was another army incursion into Haris where army jeeps and Shabak vans parked in front of the primary school and took photos of the school.

IWPS is concerned about the current wave of arrests of residents of Haris and especially minors and youths. IWPS is also very concerned about the violent behavior of soldiers during the arrests and the use of primary school for detention and interrogation purposes. In addition the media access has repeatedly been denied and there is limited flow information including about the very serious human right abuses mentioned above