Late last night Occupation forces raided the Stop the Wall offices in Ramallah. Some 10 military jeeps, hummers and an armoured bus surrounded the building as soldiers searched rooms, turning the office upside down and confiscating computer hard disks, laptops, and video cameras along with paper documents, CDs, and video cassettes.
anti-Occupation
The activists’ lawyer described their arrest as part of a campaign by Israel to choke off weekly demonstrations by Palestinians, left-wing Israelis and foreign activists against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier as peace efforts remain at a stalemate.
Amira Hass: Tufakji has for years been researching Israel’s settlement policy and the ways by which Palestinian land is taken over, as well as planning policy which discriminates against Palestinians. He heads the cartography department of the Arab Studies Society, established in 1980 to document the social, political and cultural history of the Palestinians.
IOA Editor: Knowledge is power. Clearly, those Palestinians armed with the facts pose the greatest security risk to Israel.
B’Tselem, Yesh Din, Machsom Watch, Breaking the Silence and their ilk are nudniks, they are one-sided, they pick up any story floating around, often giving exaggerated credence to hearsay testimony and they have a tendency for overkill, conflating every report into a phenomenon. Yet we couldn’t do without them.
IOA Editor: Indeed, without them, liberal Anglo-Saxon Jewish immigrants such as Mr. Pfeffer could themselves become targets of the neo-fascist camp that is rapidly rising in Israel as a counter-movement to domestic human rights organizations and to Israel’s international critics. This Israel-centric commentary is presented here to show the tremendous pressure Israeli rights organizations are operating under, and the limited support they receive even from relatively-friendly media such as Haaretz.
“They’re using me to attack in the most blatant way the basic principles of democracy and the values of the Declaration of Independence: Values of equality, tolerance, social justice and freedom of speech,” she added. On Thursday, Chazan received an e-mail from Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horovitz, informing her the newspaper would cease publishing her column. Chazan had provided the daily with one of its few leftist voices in recent years.
IOA Editor: Democracy for Jews only. The Declaration of Independence has been a part of Israel’s democratic facade since 1948: it never stopped Israel from robbing the Palestinian people of their homeland and turning them into refugees and third class citizens of the Only Democracy in the Middle East. In addition, unlike the US Constitution, the “Declaration” is just that: a non-binding statement without any legally enforceable powers.
“These organizations are trying to help Hamas in [its] fight against Israel,” argues Im Tirtzu chairman Ronen Shoval. “They are slandering the State of Israel and the Israeli soldiers around the world.”
Michael Sfard: “I am embarrassed to say that the investigation team did not even go to Ni’ilin, the scene of the shooting… If a Jewish man had been shot and wounded, there is no doubt that the entire village would be under curfew and Israel would do everything possible to investigate.”
Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it also. We did.
IOA Editor: As did this former Zinn student, and probably everyone else. A friend who knew Howard well and worked closely with him said: “Howard had that je ne sais quoi that is rare beyond expression. Allowed him to say the most amazingly radical thing and seem like common sense. And make you laugh while doing it.” Exactly.
Carleton University (Canada) students’ new BDS campaign video which re-tells the story of the censorship of a poster by the University and the reasons behind the new divestment campaign.
We can continue to remain silent and know that silence means collaboration. But when the left wakes up it will be too late. In fact, it is already too late. Meretz is dead, Labor is dying, Kadima is nonexistent, Peace Now is still deliberating over whether to petition against the pardon, and the right is freely celebrating and going wild.
Spelman College girls are still “nice” but not enough to keep them from walking up and down, carrying picket signs, in front of two supermarkets in the heart of Atlanta. They are well-mannered, but this is somewhat tempered by a recent declaration that they will use every method short of violence to end segregation.
IOA Editor: In these days of Apartheid Walls and resistance to military occupation, it is both interesting and inspiring to read Howard Zinn’s account of protesting segregation in the South.
It has been a wonderful privilege to have been able to join Howard on his “moving train” on many occasions over these years of challenge, inspiration, torment, and persistent concern over impending catastrophe. Like everyone who knows him, I too have been struck by his enduring optimism… Howard’s life and work are a persistent reminder that our own subjective judgments of the likelihood of success in engaging human problems are of little interest, to ourselves or others. What matters is to take part, as best we can, in the small actions of unknown people that can stave off disaster and bring about a better world, to honor them for their achievements, to do what we can to ensure that these achievements are understood and carried forward. In brief, to follow the model provided for us by the subject of this welcome biography.
“He’s made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,” Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said tonight. “He’s changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can’t think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect.”
IOA Editor: Howard Zinn, our friend, teacher, a life-long activist so many of us followed with great interest and admiration, and an IOA Advisory Board member, passed away today. Words cannot express how much he will be missed.
MORE:
Howard Zinn – IOA Video Selection
HowardZinn.org
Democracy Now! – a tribute
The Sheikh Jarrah vigils started as an avowedly political act – an outcry against a system which allows Jews to reclaim property held in east Jerusalem prior to 1948, but prohibits Palestinians from doing the same in west Jerusalem… Silencing the drums of Sheikh Jarrah is akin to eroding the pillars of Israel’s freedom.
IOA Editor: Written from an Israeli-centric perspective, this commentary supports citizens’ right to protest. But it overlooks a 61-year long reality where the “pillars of Israel’s freedom” never applied to Israel’s Palestinian citizens. And, no country running a four-decade long violent colonial occupation project can make any claims to “freedom.”
The IDF also uses networking sites to its own ends: The army spokesperson’s office makes regular use of Facebook and Twitter, as well as publishing regular blogs. In the last year the military has intensified its online activities in an attempt to broaden its public relations drive to reach young people who increasingly gather information from unofficial sources, rather than traditional news providers.
IOA Editor: The reach and importance of online ‘social networks’ is often underestimated: Facebook, for example, has over 300 million global users. To the IDF, social networks provide a nearly limitless global arena for propaganda dissemination – for example, using what Israel does in Haiti to whitewash what it does in Gaza.
The IOA on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Israeli.Occupation – ‘fan’ us…
The IOA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/IsOccupation – follow us.
“The Palestinians don’t have a real organization fighting for their rights and they can’t expect others to fight for them… No revolution in history was ever led by a government or a bureaucracy. We’ve became an agency of Israel and of the United States. You can’t lead a revolution and fly to America. Our leaders are too fluid in their views. A revolution requires toughness, not flexibility. In music, you can be flexible, but not when you’re leading a revolution.”
“There is a large variety of international activists here,” he says. “There are those who spend weeks and months in the village and take the political issue seriously, and there are others who, as part of their trip to Israel and Palestine, drop in at Bil’in to see what’s happening. Some of them have a strong political awareness, others come to take pictures.
In the early hours of the morning, dozens of soldiers invaded the village of alMaasara – a site of weekly peaceful demonstrations for over three years – and surrounded the houses of Popular Committee members Mohammed Barjiya and Mahmoud Zwahre. Both Barjiya and Zwahre were warned about that repercussions will follow if they do not stop organizing protests in the village. Zwahre was even threatened that a child may end up dead.
Leftist activists have held weekly demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah for the past three months, in protest of the eviction of Palestinians from their homes and their replacement with Jewish families.
A new global movement is challenging Israel’s violations of international law with the same strategies that were used against apartheid
Israeli soldiers raided the Ramallah home of Eva Nováková tonight at 3 am near the Manara square. The operation to apprehend Nováková, the ISM’s new media coordinator since three weeks ago, was carried out by a force of both soldiers and members of the “Oz” immigration police unit. Eva was subsequently deported, forced on a plane back to Prague the next morning.
I mark the beginning of the new decade imprisoned in a military detention camp. Nevertheless, from within the occupation′s holding cell I meet the New Year with determination and hope… The price I and many others pay in freedom does not deter us. I wish that my two young daughters and baby son would not have to pay this price together with me. But for my son and daughters, for their future, we must continue our struggle for freedom.
My husband is a school teacher and farmer from the Palestinian village of Bilin. When Israel built its apartheid wall here, it separated Bilin from more than half of its land, in order to facilitate the expansion of the illegal settlement Mattityahu East. In response, Abdallah and fellow villagers began a campaign of nonviolent resistance. Every Friday for the past five years, we’ve marched, with Israeli and international supporters, to protest the theft of our land and livelihoods.
The Israeli authorities must immediately release, or bring before a fair trial, three Palestinian human rights activists detained in Israel following their protests against the construction of the West Bank fence/wall, Amnesty International said today.
[G]reat efforts have been made to create an artificial symmetry between the systematic rebellion in the settlements and the refusal to serve in the territories that was prevalent at the beginning of the decade.
There is an internal document that has not been leaked, or perhaps has not even been written, but all the forces are acting according to its inspiration: the Shin Bet, Israel Defense Forces, Border Police, police, and civil and military judges. They have found the true enemy who refuses to whither away: The popular struggle against the occupation.
Jonathan Cook gave a talk to a visiting delegation from Belgium in Bethlehem on 5 December 2009. Much of the talk, presented in five parts, is included here. It covers a wide range of topics, including Israel’s development of the homeland security industry, its economic dependence on US aid, its use of Gaza as a laboratory for experimentation in warfare, its need to promote a global clash of civilisations, and the increasing promotion of Jewish religious fundamentalism.
For additional Jonathan Cook interviews: www.jkcook.net/Interviews
“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.”
In recent months there is a growing tendency among opponents of Israeli oppression and defenders of Palestinian rights to refer to Israeli policy towards the Palestinians as “apartheid”… I would like to warn against an unthinking use of this misleading analogy between Israeli policy and that of the defunct apartheid regime in South Africa. It is theoretically false and politically harmful.
IOA Editor: This very important discussion of the similarities and differences between the Occupation and Apartheid, originally published in 2004, is again timely, in view of recent commentaries, including on the IOA.
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
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.
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.
Only Amira Hass could have received the International Women’s Media Foundation lifetime achievement award by saying her life as a journalist had been a failure. By her standards maybe, but then she sets them high… But make no mistake, the Haaretz columnist fully deserves this award.
