Month: March 2012

March 31, 2012December 11, 2020

On Land Day, Australians March in Solidarity with Palestinians

As part of the Global March to Jerusalem to support Palestinian Land Day, Australians turned out to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian peoples’ struggle for justice, rights and freedom, The protesters marched to BDS (boycott, divestments and sanctions) target, Max Brenner, in Sydney. Max Brenner is owned by the Israeli Strauss group which supports the apartheid Israeli regime, in particular the IDF Golani and Givati brigades which are responsible for numerous atrocities against oppressed, occupied indigenous Palestinians.

In Melbourne, hundreds of protesters marched for Palestinians, also to Max Brenner and its apartheid-sweetener coffee shop.

This year on Land Day, which commemorates Israel’s cold-blooded murder of six unarmed Palestinian Israelis in a 1976 demonstration and strikes held to protest against a massive outrageous land grab, Israel spilt yet more Palestinian blood on Palestinian soil, murdering 20 year old Mahmud Zakut near the border fence with the apartheid entity at Beit Hanoun. Hundreds of Palestinians protesting for their birthright on Land Day were injured by the criminal Occupier.

Deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme, Ann Harrison said:

“News that Israeli forces are firing live ammunition on Land Day demonstrators near the Erez Crossing in Gaza, and that scores have been injured in protests in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem is extremely worrying, particularly in the light of frequent and persistent use of excessive force against Palestinian protesters.

“We are also concerned at reports that Palestinian Authority security forces have tried to prevent protests in areas under their control, while Hamas security forces have beaten protesters in Gaza. All those involved in policing demonstrations should respect freedom of assembly and must adhere to international policing standards.”

‘the BDS protesters held leaves to symbolize Palestinian orchards and wore costumes made from painted cardboard boxes to represent houses. They then held a painted cardboard cut-out of a bulldozer and “bulldozed” the houses and trees to the ground.

“We have to bring what happens every day under the watch of the JNF … to the streets of Philadelphia,” said College freshman and PennBDS member Sahir Doshi with a megaphone. “They have not made the desert bloom, they have made the desert bleed.”’

Land and Blood: The Transformation of an Annual Commemoration into a Daily Experience
Informed commentators agree that Israel implements a system of apartheid

A recent report by the United Nations concluded that Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories ‘exhibit features of colonialism and apartheid’. B’Tasleem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, published in its report Land Grab that Israel ‘has created a system of legally sanctioned separation based on discrimination that has, perhaps, no parallel any where in the world since the apartheid regime of South Africa’. The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa also concluded in its legal study that Israel is guilty of apartheid crimes.

Other Links

Anonymous Hacks Neo-Nazis, Finds Ron Paul

March 27, 2012December 11, 2020

Speaking Out Against Israel’s Detention of Hanaa Al-Shalabi

Hanaa Al-Shalabi is a Palestinian political prisoner of apartheid Israel. She was released from over two years in administrative detention on 18 October 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal. She was re-arrested less than four months later on 16 February 2012, and she immediately began a hunger strike in protest of her detention without trial or charge.

Hana has now been on hunger strike for 41 days and her appeal for release has been rejected by Israel’s military courts.

“Cultivate Hope”, a poem written on day 40 of Hanaa Al-Shalabi’s hunger strike, is by Rafeef Ziadah with music by Phil Monsour.

March 23, 2012December 11, 2020

A Call to Action for the Besieged People of Gaza

PRESS RELEASE 21.3.2012

Gaza Is Dying!

Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine — We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Israeli war crimes committed against our people in the Gaza Strip. We call on the international community and the Arab and Islamic worlds to take up their responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from this heinous aggression and immediately terminate the continuing Israeli policy of collective punishment.

Since June, 2007 Israel has adopted a continuous series of measures harming the civilian population. In September,2007 Gaza was declared “an enemy entity,” and imports were restricted to 9 basic materials. Prohibited have been such items as certain medicines, furniture, electrical appliances, cows and cigarettes, and decreased amounts of such basic foods as fruits, milk and dairy products. Fuel and electricity supplies have also been cut. Gaza used to depend 100% on Israel for its fuels and close to 60% for its electricity. Gazans, however, resorted to digging tunnels on the Egyptian borders with Palestine in order to get fuel, medicine and other necessities. The Mubarak regime took every possible step to tighten the siege and destroy the tunnels. The ousting of Mubarak should have meant the end of the deadly siege imposed on Gaza. This has not happened yet, one year after the great Egyptian revolution! The Rafah crossing is still “partially” open; supply of fuel through tunnels has completely stopped, and the electricity ration is only for 6 hours a day! Hospital generators have stopped!

Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest concentration camp with the largest population of prisoners in the world. The international conspiracy of silence towards the slow genocide taking place against the 1.5 million civilians in Gaza indicates complicity in these war crimes.

According to UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

We, therefore, call upon the international community to demand that the rogue State of Israel end its siege and compensate for the destruction of life and infrastructure that it has visited upon the Palestinian people. We also call upon all Palestine solidarity groups and all international civil society organizations to demand:

– An end to the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
– The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention (to which Israel itself is a signatory.)
– Immediate opening of the Rafah Crossing (24/7) and the flow of goods, fuel and medicine.
– That Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip be provided with financial and material support to cope with the immense hardship that they are experiencing
– An end to occupation, Apartheid and other war crimes.
– Immediate reparations and compensation for all destruction carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip.

Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine

One Democratic State Group

Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel

University Teachers’ Association in Palestine

Israel Apartheid Week Organizing Committee-Gaza

March 22, 2012December 11, 2020

I cook and I write for all the Palestinians denied their right to go home!

Growing up
My father’s poems
Ran through my veins
Like blood
A necessary life ingredient
A rhythm that kept my heart pumping
Growing up
My mother’s cooking
Warmed my soul
Her spices
Penetrated every fibre of my being
My Palestinian identity
Shaped
By food and poetry
By a feast of will and hope
By an assortment of words
Carefully arranged
On our kitchen table
And succulent flavors
That lingered in our heart
But of late
My father’s poems
Seem to come out broken
Fatigue crept into the mind
Of a man who waited for too long
Of late
The aroma of my mother’s spices
No longer lingers in the air
A sense of aging
A touch of despair
Like many of their generation
Time is running out
And they are still trapped
In the physical distance
Too far away from home
Strangers to the ground
On which they tread
I look beneath my feet
I too stand
In a vast land
Of aspirations not fulfilled
Dreams not accomplished
Desires relentless
Unforgotten
Sometimes
I am confronted
By the deplorable display of inhumanity
That has forced millions away from home
And kept them from returning
I hold on to my identity
I write poetry
And pray its rhythm
Will keep my children’s hearts pumping
I bring out the spices
And carefully measure my cumin
My cardamom
My sumac and cinnamon
I want to fill the air
With a defiant aroma
That will nourish my children’s soul
And remind them where we come from
I write and I cook laboriously
with resolve
I create a Palestinian feast
Of delicious verses
for all the parents
who have waited for too long
I write and I cook
I hope my pen doesn’t dry out
And my spices linger
For a while longer
Until I satisfy my hunger
For justice
I tell my children we must be patient
My generation has yielded revolutions
But revolutions take generations to yield
So let me teach you how to write and cook
How to live and hope
For a future
Where Palestinians will no longer wait
For freedom
Justice
And their simple right to return home!

by Samah Sabawi
[published with permission]

Samah is a Palestinian writer, playwright and Public Relations expert with years of experience both as an activist for human rights as well as a political analyst. She is a Policy Advisor at Al-Shabaka. Presently living in Australia, Samah awaits the end of Israel’s denial of her right to return to Palestine.

Photos of Palestinian food and spices courtesy of Palestine Food [published with permission].

Related Links

Samah Sabawi spoke at the Israeli Apartheid Week in Sydney – here’s her full paper on normalisation.

“We have said it loud and clear: We will not co-exist with you in your world of inequality. If you want to co-exist with us, you are welcome to join us in our struggle for freedom, because right now, this is the only place where we exist!”

March 21, 2012December 11, 2020

BDS Activists Speak Out on Israeli Culturewashing in Rome

Rome, Italy: Boycott Action Condemning the Use of Culture to Cover Israeli Crimes

On Sunday, March 18, 2012, at the Cortoons Festival of Rome, a group of 20 activists of the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel requested, and were granted by the organizers, the possibility to speak prior to the presentation by Hanan Kaminski, director of the school of animation of the Bezalel Academy of Jerusalem.

The festival took place just meters away from the monument commemorating Rachel Corrie, a US activist killed in Gaza on March 16, 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while attempting to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home.

The BDS activists informed the audience that the participation of Bezalel, with the sponsorship and financial support of the Israeli Embassy in Italy, represents one of many attempts by Israel to use culture to rebrand its image and divert attention from policies of occupation, colonialism and apartheid.

In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated: “We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and we do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

Artists who accept funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are required to sign a contract which states that the artist “is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.” (http://www.haaretz.com/putting-out-a-contract-on-art-1.250388)

The activists condemned the use of art to cover the crimes of Israel, reminding the audience that the Israeli Embassy, representing the Government of Israel, also “sponsored” the recent Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that killed 28 Palestinians and wounded 80, the demolition of 24,000 Palestinian homes, the detention without charge of more than 300 Palestinian political prisoners, the Apartheid Wall and illegal settlements, the confiscation of Palestinian land and the over 1400 civilians killed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, including 500 children.

The words of the activists were greeted with warm applause from the audience and several people left the theatre along with the activists.

The Palestinian appeal for BDS calls for a boycott of Israeli businesses as well as its cultural and academic institutions until Israel complies with international law and human rights.

In solidarity with the Palestinian people. Without their freedom we will never be free.

http://bdsmovement.net

SOURCE

Palestine / Israel Links

Samah Sabawi spoke at the Israeli Apartheid Week in Sydney – here’s her full paper on normalisation. “We have said it loud and clear: We will not co-exist with you in your world of inequality. If you want to co-exist with us, you are welcome to join us in our struggle for freedom, because right now, this is the only place where we exist!”