Israel's War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands
Ynetnews: Around 100 extreme leftists are protesting near Tel Aviv’s Cinematheque in a show of support for the Palestinian “Nakba Day,” “the Just people’s uprising”, and against “the killing of innocent civilians”.
IOA Editor: Interesting that Israel’s most popular Hebrew newspaper describes Israeli-Jews demonstrating in solidarity with Palestinians on Nakba Day as “extreme leftists” when all they do is protest against violations of international law. We now say, “We’re all extreme leftists…”
To an outside observer, Israel looks like a nation obsessed with finding a technological fix for problems that are historical, national, and moral – but entirely not ‘technical.’ [Instead,] the Occupation must be dismantled.
[Daniel Barenboim] said the Israeli and Palestinian conflict was one between two peoples who believe they are entitled to live on a single piece of land rather than a conflict between two nations about borders, adding that the whole world understood that a Palestinian state should be established on the land that Israel occupied in 1967. “Everyone has to understand that the Palestinian cause is a just cause therefore it can be only given justice if it is achieved without violence. Violence can only weaken the righteousness of the Palestinian cause,” he said.
Our problem is not just with the settlement of Halamish. Our problem is the whole occupation. The settlement is merely a face of the occupation. In Bilin and Nilin they set specific goals like moving the separation fence to the green line. That is a problem. Our only goal is to end the occupation.
We say that most of us are in favor of the two-state solution, but we vote for parties that will do nothing to advance it. We vehemently oppose a one-state solution but we live, in fact for decades, in an apartheid state. We favor free access and worship at Joseph’s Tomb but not at Al Aqsa. We remember 1948 but without the Nakba. We oppose returning Palestinian property from before 1948 but we evict Palestinian inhabitants in Hebron and Sheikh Jarrah on the grounds that their homes were under Jewish ownership before 1948. We shoot passengers in Palestinian cars who refuse to stop at roadblocks, but when the Palestinian police do the same, we call it a “murderous terror attack.” We call the Israeli army Defense Forces, while most of its work is occupation.
IOA Editor: Brilliant!
To suggest that Palestinians are equally responsible for this state of affairs would suggest the two sides hold equal power to shape events. They don’t. No matter how many rhetorical checkpoints get thrown up, there are some basic facts you just cannot get around. Israel is the occupier; Palestinians are the occupied.
Solidarity activists have traditionally been embraced, virtually adopted even, by their host communities. That they should be killed by those they were trying to defend generated shockwaves that reached deep into the heart of Palestinian communities across the world.
Suad Amiry’s inspiring, and hilarious, closing speech at the TEDx, Ramallah meeting on 16 April 2011. A Must-Watch video!
In memoriam: Moshé Machover remembers his close friend, Matzpen co-founder Oded Pilavsky.
Oded Pilavsky: I finally started to comprehend what was happening there. A collectivist bunch imbued with socialist ideals, equipped with the best of agricultural machinery purchased on credit from the Jewish Agency, was reaping- robbing the fruit of the labor of poor Arabs who had been expelled from their land and their country…
New York University Students for Justice in Palestine’s divestment campaign targets predominately U.S. corporations whose products help make the occupation possible. Withdrawing material support from such companies challenges Israel’s ability to violate international law and oppress millions of Palestinians.
Juliano was angry. His rage was the kind that only a Jew like him, who was born on the left and craved equality until the end, can allow himself to express as a way of life. Palestinians must conquer the anger, mellow it; they must tame it, repress it, sublimate it. That’s the only way to stay both alive and sane (without getting arrested, wounded or killed ) under the conditions of physical and non-physical violence dictated by Israel.
A video ad declaring the continuation of the opposition to the Israeli Occupation (Hebrew, with subtitles).
On March 30, 2011, join the international campaign to Stop the Jewish National Fund. A key pillar of the colonization of Palestine – from the founding of the State of Israel to the present – has been the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (KKL), commonly known in English as the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF enjoys charity status in over 50 countries. This is despite its role in the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land, the theft of their property, the funding of historic and present-day colonies, and the destruction of the natural environment.
Let’s tell the generals, spooks, inquisitors and ideologues that we want to be first on the list to be investigated. I delegitimize Occupation. There. Now I said it. I feel better already. Now when can I be expecting that knock on the door in the middle of the night from someone from headquarters saying they just have a few questions?
A dramatic change is taking place in the form of Israeli control in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), whereby, in addition to soldiers and security officials, one begins to notice the growing presence of private security personnel. A number of Israeli security companies operate in the oPt, taking over some of the tasks that were traditionally executed by the army… The variety of operations of private security companies illustrates, perhaps most lucidly, that the Israeli occupation today is sustained not only by state military forces, but also by a multitude of commercial and economic forces, whose activities in the oPt are interwoven into the establishment of control itself.
The National Lawyers Guild (U.S.) strongly urges the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to pass a resolution supporting the referral of the Israeli siege, blockade, and war on Gaza to the International Criminal Court. Such a resolution would pave the way for the UN Security Council to make such a referral.
I just wanted to look at Tanya —
how she stood tall in her coat
at the end of the hall
on her department’s floor
as I came out of the elevator;
how she lit her cigarette
at the entrance archway
as we walked out to Broadway…
IOA Editor: We remember Tanya Reinhart, a courageous anti-Occupation activist, great moral thinker, world renowned linguist, a comrade and a friend. (Born 23 July 1943, Palestine; died 17 March 2007, New York.)
Abdallah Abu Rahmah was given a hero’s welcome in the West Bank village of Bil’in after being released from Ofer Prison on Monday. He was greeted by over a hundred and fifty townsfolk who escorted him home waving flags and letting off fireworks in his honor.
Julian Schnabel’s Miral – Trailer. Stars Freida Pinto, Willam Dafoe, Hiam Abbass and Vanessa Redgrave. To the displeasure of Israeli officials, the full film was shown today at the UN headquarters in New York.
NOAM CHOMSKY:
