Over 1,000 delegates from 42 countries have signed up to participate in the December 31 Gaza Freedom March that will mark the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion and call for an end to the siege that has brought 1.5 million people to the edge of disaster.
Activism
The Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition working to “end to the ten year commitment of $30 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid pledged to Israel in 2007 by the Bush administration,” reports they have a new set of billboards with a new company and slightly altered message. Seventy-five percent of US military aid to Israel is, by law, given to US arms manufacturers.
A Holocaust survivor, a retired military officer wife and I issued an invitation to Elie Wiesel to come to Gaza with us. This invitation was extended as he spoke before a standing-room crowd of around 2800 people on Tuesday evening, December 1, at St. Louis University… He responded with an immediate and dismissive “I heard you.” He then turned and looked in the other direction.
The international campaign to boycott Ahava beauty products has recently won the support of a Dutch parliamentarian and an Israeli peace group. During the past few months, activists in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Israel, the United States and the Netherlands have campaigned against the sale of Ahava products because of the company’s complicity in the Israeli occupation.
The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday awarded veteran Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass a “Press Freedom” prize, for “independent and outspoken reporting.”
The Palestinian labor movement has never been as united as it is today in supporting the boycott against Israel and calling on all international trade unions and trade union federations to endorse BDS as the most effective form of solidarity with the people of Palestine in general and our working class in particular. Furthermore, we repeat our appeal to all international trade unions to sever their links with the Histadrut, a racist organization that has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination, and that has justified and applauded Israel’s war crimes in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
A majority of Israelis seem to get by just fine with the occupation, while B’Tselem is met with suspicion and accused of treason. Despite this, over the years in which targeted assassinations, smart bombs, closures, checkpoints, detentions without due process, lack of running water, poverty and a separation fence five minutes from Kfar Sava have all become routine, B’Tselem has continued to undermine the passion for denial, and to defend the rights of Palestinians and thus also the image of Israeli society.
If not for B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, the State of Israel would look different today. The occupation might have been even crueler, or just as cruel, but we certainly would look different. In its 20 years of existence, this important human-rights organization may not have succeeded in changing reality, but at least it has made it possible for us to know what that reality was.
“In a Muslim-majority country like Indonesia, it might come as a surprise to learn that Jews are critical of Israel,” Loewenstein tells The Jakarta Post… “I’m trying to challenge people’s perceptions that I’m Jewish, and I’m proud to be Jewish, but I’m pro-Palestine,” he says. “Israel is still occupying Palestine, and it’s my moral responsibility to fight against it in my own ways.”
When Hillel [was asked] to cancel Eitam’s meeting because of his previous violence and hate speech… it refused. Hillel and other Eitam supporters responded that the scrupulously-documented charges made against him were a “medieval blood libel”; that Eitam never said or did these things; that he was misquoted… or quoted out of context; that the leading Israeli newspapers reporting his words and deeds were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy; and that even if Eitam did say and do these things, he represents an important sector of Israeli opinion that should be heard.
Of greatest concern is what is happening on American campuses, which are slowly becoming pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli. That is dangerous because this is where America’s future leaders are bred. But our opponents are not motivated by anti-Semitism, as our political hacks like to claim. If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, then anti-Semitism is the last refuge of the occupier.
IOA Editor: Marcus, historically, a defender of the Occupation, is beginning to appreciate the significance of Israel’s diminishing popularity. This Israel-centric commentator marks the early signs of change, and a welcome indication of the success of BDS and the global anti-Occupation movement.
[The US] defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” The Hebron settlers’ violence is certainly premeditated. It is, by their own admission, politically motivated. It is perpetrated solely against noncombatant targets (overwhelmingly children), and it is obviously the work of a subnational group – the settlers themselves. The business of the Hebron settlers is terrorism, pure and simple.
The outrageous treatment of the 21-year-old Bethlehem University student, Berlanty Azzam by the Israeli military is the latest incident in a long list of brutalities carried out by one of the longest and most brutal military occupations in history. Returning to Bethlehem in the West Bank, after a job interview in Ramallah, Berlanty… was detained at a military checkpoint, blindfolded, handcuffed, loaded into a military jeep and deported to Gaza.
Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund supports violent, racist Israeli settlers in Israeli-occupied Hebron who are taking over Hebron’s Old City in violation of international law, and driving out the Palestinian residents. The NY Mets are aiding the Hebron Fund by allowing it to hold a fundraiser at Citi Field.
The chairman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office, Dr. Rafiq Husseini, on Monday urges all Arab countries to cancel their business ties with two French companies – Veolia and Alstom – involved in the construction of a Jerusalem-based light railway which passes through the West Bank.
The banner referred to 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, which Peres won together with former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the peace talks that resulted in the Oslo Accords.
Next Event:
Standing in front of the 92nd Street Y (92nd/Lex), 7:00 – 8:00pm, Nov 21 when Alan Dershowitz comes to the Y.
Please sign the open letter in support of the Goldstone report
Arjan El Fassed: “Twitter is a great place to connect people with issues. But it’s also good at bridging cultural gaps. For most people, it’s difficult to identify with life in a refugee camp, but by linking it to a global network that resonates with millions, I was aiming to promote a sense of connectedness.”
Immortalize your name on a street: www.jouwstraatnaam.nl
Arjan El Fassed’s Twitter page: http://twitter.com/arjanelfassed
IOA Twitter page: http://twitter.com/IsOccupation
Left-wing groups enraged by Germany municipality’s decision not to allow anti-Zionist Israeli historian to speak at governmental institution. Pappe writes to Munich mayor his policy reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
The protest by gate48 is directed against CIDI’s hospitality and the “uncritical” manner in which [Lieberman] will be received by the Dutch government, board member Erella Grassiani says.
The Portugese company EPAL collaborates with Israeli water companies violating international law in the occupied West Bank.
Chomsky on the US’s unwavering support for Israel and “rejectionism” of the two-state solution, effectively on offer for 30 years: That’s not because of the overweening power of the Israel lobby in the US, but because Israel is a strategic and commercial asset which underpins rather than undermines US domination of the Middle East… America’s one-sided role in the Middle East isn’t harming their interests, whatever risks it might bring for anyone else.
IOA Editor: Noam Chomsky has just concluded a speaking tour in the UK and Ireland. For coverage of his tour, see:
Israel’s worst enemies are those who support its policies
Hundreds flock to hear Noam Chomsky in Dublin
Discussion with Workers Solidarity Movement
[E]very time ["Turn, Turn, Turn"] is played, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions receives a few dollars, which accumulate to a “several thousand dollars every year,” according to the committee’s co-founder and coordinator. ICAHD is a non-profit organization that uses non-violent means to oppose Israeli demolition of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Seeger has been donating some of the song’s royalties to ICAHD for ten years.
Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been tried in Israeli military courts. As of the end of September 2009, 7,155 Palestinians were incarcerated in the various detention facilities by the Israeli security forces… The majority of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners are incarcerated within Israel, in contravention of international law, which prohibits transferring residents of an occupied territory outside its boundaries. Because of the closure imposed on the territories, many of the prisoners are deprived of visits by family members. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention since 1967. At the end of September 2009, 355 of the Palestinians in the custody of the security forces were being held in administrative detention.
Tom Wills, USSU President, said “Israel has broken more UN resolutions than any other state. No other Western-backed democracy has committed such egregious violations of international law, but the international community has failed to hold Israel to account.
The Israeli army has targeted [Mohammed Khatib]. He was arrested, severely beaten and threatened with death during a series of midnight raids on the village this summer. He was freed on condition that he report to an Israeli police station each Friday at the hour of the weekly protest… Relative calm prevails in the Palestinian territories, but Khatib says it cannot last long under the diplomatic impasse… He believes Israel is trying to crush nonviolent activists because it would rather take on an armed insurgency.
IOA Editor: Israel’s favorite Palestinian Occupation-resister is one ‘throwing a bomb’ – and the more violent, the better. It is much more difficult to defend shooting non-violent Bilin demonstrators, though, Israel manages to get away with murdering demonstrators just fine.
The $3 billion dollars of annual U.S. aid to Israel helps fund Israeli prisons and detention centers where 8,100 Palestinian prisoners — including 60 women, 390 children, and 550 administrative detainees held without charge — are imprisoned in substandard conditions and subject to torture.
Ala Jaradat, program manager of Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association in the West Bank, will be on a US tour beginning Nov 3 in Chicago, and proceeding to Milwaukee, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Youngstown, OH and College Park, MD.
Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.
Prosecution closes case against [Israeli] movement suspected of inciting youth to evade military service, cites lack of culpability, admissible evidence.
Israeli authorities are increasingly targeting and intimidating non-violent Palestinian grassroots activists involved in anti-occupation activities who are drawing increased support from the international community.
The university of Trondheim in Norway may become the first university in the West to adopt an academic boycott of Israel, if a majority of its board votes in favor of the move at a meeting on the subject [November 12].
Watch this short film detailing the Free Gaza Movement mission, the ideas behind the Movement and the kinds of action and witnessing International Solidarity Movement and Free Gaza activists have undertaken in Gaza.
The Bahraini parliament and government are in dispute over a proposed bill that could sentence a person to five years in jail for cooperating with Israel.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupt former prime minister’s speech, week after similar incident in Chicago. Woman identified as a Jews shouts at him, ‘No more genocide in my name.’ WATCH VIDEO.
