Israel's War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands
Activists say Israel is responsible for ‘attempted murder’ for allegedly sabotaging propeller shaft of an Irish ship, forcing it to pull out of the voyage.
IOA Editor: Clearly, the implication is that Israel has every right to stop the Freedom Flotilla, and to do so by any means it chooses. What next?
On Sunday, a convoy of activist ships known as the Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human set sail for the shores of Gaza. The convoy is the tenth such attempt by the Gaza Freedom Movement to break the naval blockade on the strip. The same day, the Israeli Government Press Office issued a release, warning foreign journalists that if they are on board the ships, they are liable to be banned from Israel for ten years.
U.S. Boat to Gaza passengers recorded short personal statements on who they are and why they chose to participate in the upcoming Freedom Flotilla 2. Israel has described Gaza Flotilla participants as terrorists and is preparing its mighty naval, air, and ground forces to deal with them as such. Based on the experience of the first Freedom Flotilla, we already know what to expect and who is going to do the terrorizing. Watch these brief personal statements to see who the participants really are, and just what a threat they pose to the only nuclear superpower in the Middle East.
The Freedom Flotilla 2, with 12+ boats carrying humanitarian aid and 1000+ peace activists, is sailing to Gaza in late June. Alice Walker, who’s sailing with us, calls this the Freedom Ride of our generation. We want to help open this Palestinian port and end the illegal Israeli blockade, which has caused so much suffering. Meanwhile, the global BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement is calling on Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson and Kiri Te Kanawa to cancel their 2011 Israel concerts and get on the boat!
On June 27, 2011, the Knesset’s Law, Constitution, and Justice Committee will deliberate the Boycott Bill, in preparation for second and third reading in the Knesset plenum. As part of our ongoing campaign against this anti-democratic legislation, we are now launching the second phase of our “Right to Resist” campaign. The campaign consists of four videos stared by some of Israel’s popular artists and cultural figures: singer-songwriter Rona Kenan, filmmakers Eitan Fox and Gal Ochovsky, the poet Meit Wizeltir, actress Einat Weizman, and cultural figure Muhammed Jabali.
“My understanding of the Jewish ethical tradition comes primarily from my knowledge of the Jewish historical experience… I feel they are the principal determining factors: our ethical tradition, our struggles for justice, going back to the 19th-century shtetl, where my great-grandmother was hunted by the Cossacks, in pogroms.”
The Israeli Defense Forces held a large drill Wednesday in preparation of the flotilla that intends to set sail to the Gaza Strip later this month. The drill focused on different scenarios that might occur at sea and methods to deal with them.
Bassem Tamimi of Nabi Saleh delivered a court statement at the start of his trial last Sunday saying ‘I reject [these laws] and cannot recognize their validity.’
“Israel is occupying the Palestinian people in my name, in the name of world Jewry,” Lucas, clutching his American passport, tells the camera. “And I myself, an American Jew, is here to say that is completely unjustified and ethically reprehensible.”
IOA Editor: This news story finally made it to Haaretz, and got distorted along the way. The group of Israelis marching through East Jerusalem chanting “death to the Arabs” was not “small,” as several video reports have clearly shown.
Muna and Muhammed are 12-year-old twins living in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Settlers have taken over the front of their home, but the family continue to live in the rest of the house.
Unarmed Naksa Day demonstration meets brutal Israeli repression.
Last Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Israeli youth marched along the Green Line to celebrate Jerusalem Day, an annual commemoration of the Israeli occupation of the city in the 1967 war. The organization of the march was done under a Zionist banner. Three days later, thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv in support of the Two State Solution. While many organizations participated, the overall slogan was “Netanyahu says no, Israel says yes to a Palestinian state”.
RELATED Jerusalem Day 2011 by Just Jerusalem
Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American activist of Israeli descent with the peace group CodePink, disrupted Netanyahu’s speech. Standing in the congressional gallery, she yelled, “No more occupation! Stop Israel war crimes! Equal rights for Palestinians! Occupation is indefensible!” As she screamed, members in the audience tackled her to the ground, and undercover security forces later dragged her outside. She was taken to George Washington University Hospital where she was treated for neck and shoulder injuries. At the hospital, police arrested Abileah and charged her with disorderly conduct for disrupting Congress.
An interview with Alternate Focus: an analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, covering several of the most central issues.
Move Over AIPAC / CodePink flashmob event at Union Station, Washington DC on 20 May 2011, during the annual AIPAC convention and the Move Over AIPAC convention and series of protest in Washington DC.
On the 63rd commemoration of the Nakba Palestinians coordinate a wave of historic demonstrations. Protests at the Lebanese, Syrian, West Bank, and Gazan borders and inside Egypt took place. Many died as a result of live fire, and hundreds were injured both from Israeli forces and others such as the Egyptian and Lebanese armies.
IDF soldier describes the distress of a young woman who tearfully pleaded to be allowed to pass through a Jenin checkpoint in order to sit an important exam. He gradually came to understand, he says, that the Israeli army’s intention was “to enforce tyranny on people who you know are regular civilians” and to “make it clear who’s in control here”.
A dramatic video published by the website baladee.net shows the moment when hundreds of Palestinian refugees and Syrians break through the border fence from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (part of Syria occupied by Israel in 1967 and illegally annexed in 1981).
At the end of March, the Israeli parliament passed the Nakba Law which states that any body that receives government funding, such as schools, can be fined for commemorating the Nakba on Israel’s Independence Day. The Nakba means “Catastrophe” in Arabic and refers to the 1948 war, the result of which was the depopulation of two thirds of the Palestinian population, which today numbers millions of refugees. To this day many still hold the keys to their original homes, but are not allowed to return. In defiance of the law, the Israeli organization Zochrot posted a sign with the law in German throughout the core of Tel Aviv where thousands celebrated. Within minutes, police surrounded the Zochorot office.
Rapper Mic Righteous’s improvised set on BBC 1Xtra met with complaints after corporation masks the words ‘free Palestine’.
IOA Editor: What a sorry bunch running that ‘venerable institution’ called BBC.
On May 2, 2011, the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University held a program on “Gaza: Israel’s War and the Goldstone Report.” The speakers included Norman Finkelstein, Peter Weiss, and Rashid Khalidi. The program was moderated by Bashir Abu-Manneh.
Noam Chomsky in a telephone interview held on 1 March 2011 with Gadi Algazi of Israel Social TV. The interview covers the democracy uprising in the Middle East, US and the Occupation, democracy in Israel, Chomsky’s vision for Israel and Palestine, Iran and Israel’s nuclear policy, and Israel’s mainstream media.
On April 15, 2011, Italian journalist and activist Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped and killed in the Gaza strip. According to a video released by his kidnappers, they belonged to a Salafi group, which Hamas identified as including a former Hamas policeman. While the mainstream media portrayed the killing as an act of an extremist group identifying with Al Qaeda, many are saying the group, as other Salafi groups operating in Gaza represents a growing force from inside Hamas itself.
Suad Amiry’s inspiring, and hilarious, closing speech at the TEDx, Ramallah meeting on 16 April 2011. A Must-Watch video!
Israeli prison authority terrorized Palestinian prisoners in a ‘commando’ raid at the Ketziot prison which was designed to “boost the morale” of prison guards. One Palestinian prisoner was killed and several were injured. This was a routine prison raid, carried out against sleeping prisoners in the middle of the night. The video had been suppressed by the Israeli government from the time it was made in 2007, but was shown on Israel’s Channel 2 TV last week.
Paul Jay interviews Lia Tarachansky, The Real News Middle East correspondent. Tarachansky covers the political economy of the occupation, while also focusing on international law and its applicability to the conflict. Having grown up in an Israeli settlement in the heart of the occupied West Bank, Tarachansky speaks about how denial of narrative fuels a conflict where the two peoples, the Israelis and Palestinians, become further segregated, physically, socially, and psychologically.
A video ad declaring the continuation of the opposition to the Israeli Occupation (Hebrew, with subtitles).
Francis Boyle: Basically, the resolution as currently drafted authorizes a war across the board against Libya — air-strikes, naval blockade, even a land invasion. The only exception in there is against a foreign military occupation force. But under the laws of war, there is a distinction between a land invasion and an occupation force.
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.
While portraying the image of the “honest broker” Canada’s military and intelligence cooperation and arms trade with Israel paint a different picture. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky interviews Yves Engler, the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid about the political, military, and corporate support Canada extends Israel and its meddling in Palestinian internal politics. She also speaks to Richard Sanders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade about Canada’s weapons export to Israel and the government’s failure to report accurate exports statistics.
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.
Leila Farsakh discusses the implications of the protest movements in the Arab world on Palestinian politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict in a video interview with The Journal of Palestine Studies.
don’t mention Zionism
if you mention Zionism
they’ll call you anti-Semitic
and people will believe them
don’t cite Palestinian sources
no one will believe you
I won’t believe you
trust Israeli sources…
IOA Editor: It was a thrill watching Remi Kanazi in action last night at a Columbia University book release party for his latest book Poetic Injustice. It was poetry of defiance at its best. We wish him well, and know he’ll do well.
Video of the Tel Aviv demonstration against rising fascism in Israel held of 15 Jan 2011.
Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 36, was evacuated to the Ramallah hospital yesterday after inhaling massive amounts of tear-gas during the weekly protest in Bil’in, and died of poisoning this morning. Abu Rahmah was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah who was also killed during a peaceful protest in Bil’in on April 17th, 2010.
A conversation with Noam Chomsky on Palestine/Israel, covering Zionism, the nature of statehood, bi-national / one-state / two-state solutions, the right of return, and the BDS movement – its actions, and their impacts on the Palestinian people. Filmed September 2nd, 2010.
NOAM CHOMSKY:
