Solidarity with the Palestinian People of Gaza

Monique Buckner reports on Israel’s recent 8 day attack of the people of Gaza, who have now been besieged for over 2000 days.

The Palestinian people of Gaza have been devastated by Israel’s latest attack, which has killed 158 people, 33 of whom were children. Palestinians are still dying from injuries.

The Gaza Strip is an area of 141 square miles, occupied by Israel since 1967, along the Mediterranean coast bordering Israel and Egypt and comprising 8 refugee camps with 80% of its inhabitatnts being the refugees and their descendants of the ethnic cleansing of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from what became Israel. More than half the 1.7 million population of Gaza are children. Gaza has been under a relentless blockade since June 2007, which many legal experts have deemed ‘collective punishment’ which is illegal under international law. As UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk has described the blockade as a crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law. Living under blockade, Gaza’s population has still not recovered from Israel’s previous offensive which has led to further impoverishment and homelessness or internal displacement, insufficient hospital care, food insecurity to the point that 80% rely on food aid, an unavailability of essential life-saving medications, shortages of fuel, a lack of building materials, especially to rebuild or repair after ‘Cast Lead’ and insufficient clean, safe drinking water, leading to ‘blue baby syndrome’. Israel has admitted to engineering the Gazan economy to be on the brink of collapse and often cuts electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip. In fact, the World Health Organisation says that by 2020, Gaza will probably be completely uninhabitable. As Israel is the occupying power with full responsibilty for the well-being of the occupied, it has legal obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the neglect of this making Israeli leaders guilty of violations of humanitarian law and human rights.

Israel’s ‘counting of calories’ has led to the stunting of children’s growth and development due to nutrient and calorie deficiency (10%) and chronic anaemia in pregnant women, among other health problems.

Theories abound concerning the true cause of Israel’s latest attack on Gaza. One is that Israel wanted to prevent the Palestinian bid for UN recognition as a ‘UN non-observer state’, which might open the way for the Palestinian people to pursue legal actions against Israeli politicians and officials for war crimes. Some have speculated that this latest offensive was to test the Iron Dome missile defense shield in preparation for future wars. Another theory is that the Israeli elections are in January and Netanyahu will gain popularity by spilling blood with his hawkish behaviour. Indeed, 91% of Israelis in one poll supported the offensive against Gaza. Eerily, Israeli elections also succeeded the Cast Lead massacre. “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages,” says Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Yisrael Katz, the Minister of Transport, used colonial imagery and mentality to explain how Palestinians should be “hunted down as one hunts wild, dangerous animals.” Also see the violent racist and homophobic chants in Tel Aviv.

Dr Gershon Baskin, an Israeli negotiator and human rights activist, has noted that Israel spoiled a permanent truce agreement that had been on the table. Just hours before the truce was finalised, Ahmed Jabari was assassinated. This permanent truce could have resulted in Gaza being opened and the economy boosted as a result, but Israel does not want self-determination for the people of Gaza and the Palestinians in general.

From 2004 – 2012, a total of twenty-six Israeli civilians have been killed by Gazan rocket attacks, which are a symptom rather than a cause of Israeli aggression and truce violations. On 4 November, the Israeli army shot dead an unarmed and mentally-ill man who had wandered into the buffer-zone, an area created by Israel that has taken a third of Gaza’s arable land. Any person (including children, and even animals), who wanders into this area, is killed by Israeli soldiers.

For the timeline of Israel’s latest attack on the people of Gaza, see these two sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kanwisher/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611.html and http://imeu.net/news/article0023227.shtml

Under international law, occupied people have a legal right to defend themselves, as long as civilians are not targeted, which constitutes war crimes. Israel manufactures ‘justifications’ for targeting civilian infrastructure (also a war crime).

The death of 12 members of the al-Dalu family spanning four generations, including 5 children, is an indication of how civilians have been targeted by Israel in so-called ‘wrong house’ episodes.

In one of the most densely populated areas on earth where the civilian population is trapped under a blockade with no bomb shelters, there is no refuge for Gazans, let alone anti-missile defences. In contrast to Israeli military capability, Gaza has no army, navy or airforce with which to defend itself, and the destructive power and range of their missiles paints an obvious David and Goliath narrative when comparisons with Israel are made. Taking this into perspective, it is easy to conclude just who is a very real, not merely an existential threat to whom.

Actions to take for Gaza and Palestine in general

1) Boycott Israeli products, such as Teva medicines and Tivall vegetarian products. Always read labels at the supermarket.

http://www.bigcampaign.org/the-palestinian-call/

Join in solidarity with the BDS movement.

2) Donate now:

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) responded immediately to the crisis caused by Israeli air, tank and naval strikes, working with local hospitals, doctors and nurses to ensure they have the supplies they need to treat the casualties. Medical Aid for Palestinians works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. Medical Aid for Palestinians is an international, non-governmental, independent, non-political, non-religious organisation established in 1984.

Online: www.map.org.uk
Mobile: Text 70070 with the phrase
“GAZA10 £10”. This will donate £10 and will be added to your phone bill
Phone: 020 7226 4114
Post: Send a cheque to Medical Aid for Palestinians 33a Islington Park Street, Freepost ND6445, London, N1 1BR

3) Sign a petition to remove the 2013 UEFA finals from Israel, especially after it destroyed the Gaza sports stadium http://www.thenation.com/blog/171344/killing-hope-why-israel-targets-sports-gaza

http://redcardapartheid.weebly.com/

4) Purchase Palestinian fair trade products, such as Zaytoun.

5) Contact the media and if need be confront their distortions and bias, raise awareness on social media, join a protest, create an awareness event, write a blog post, share this blog post.

http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/how-the-bbc-is-re-writing-history-in-its-reporting-of-israels-assault-on-gaza

GUEST POST BY Monique Buckner

Roger Waters Speaks at the UN Against Israel’s Oppression of Palestinians

Text trancript of Roger Waters’ UN speech – the full text of Waters’ address is below the UN transcript

“The BDS movement, which has spread from Palestinian civil society to activists around the world, is part of that non-violent resistance and I support it whole heartedly, but let us be clear that the disparity of power, and the reality of the occupation, and the response of the occupied is the reality we face unless we find recourse in international law and hold all parties to it. “

——————————————————————————————————————

The 3rd of December, 2012, marks 2000 days of siege by Israel on the people of Gaza – collective punishment, a crime against humanity. End Israel’s oppression and apartheid, equal rights for all, recognise the right of Palestinians to return to their lands, and until these are achieved, boycott, divest from and sanction Israel!

Don’t forget to boycott Israeli goods for Christmas – and join the campaign in Melbourne

Following the UN vote admitting Palestine as a non-member observer state, Netanyahu has announced 3,000 more illegal Jews-only settler houses in Occupied East Jerusalem. The reactions of Western governments has been one of horror as they believe this development will make two states geographically impossible, as if two states weren’t already geographically impossible. Still, their concern for protecting the mirage of the possibility of two states blows their continued support for Israel as a willing negotiator if only the Palestinians would negotiate, out of the water. The UK mutters about diplomatic withdrawals – I’ll wake up a little more if the UK threatens an arms boycott. Otherwise this sort of thing is symbolic. It may cause Israel to feel more isolated, delegitimised and even belligerent. There’s a couple of possibilities the zio-elite may have in mind to get their noxious impunity from the West back – the obvious is to precipitate another conflict. Otherwise is an early election possible? Netanyahu on the other hand may have decided to go for broke and to snatch Area C in the West Bank in total.

Related Links

Google Mapping Apartheid
Terrorist Jewish settlers steal and occupy a Palestinian house in East Jerusalem.
Stevie Wonder cancels concert for Israeli group
Major boycott of Israel victory as PSI congress adopts boycott resolution
Impressive solidarity from ‘Maria’ of Sesame Street for Palestinians
Hackney: stopped from voicing opposition to Veolia
Ahmed Moor: ‘Israel can destroy, demolish and colonise, but cannot resist the overwhelming morality of the Palestinian cause. ‘
Settler colonial Canada shamefully props up Israeli apartheid
Iyad Burnat, leader of the Popular Committee of Bil’in: “Since the 1936 Intifada against British Occupation, we have been working peacefully for freedom. We don’t know the meaning of ‘freedom.’ We know it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but we don’t know how it feels.”
“Let our motto be: Palestine is an integral part of the cause of freedom, justice and peace in this world.”
Israel and Palestine Play Battleships
Political realism from Randa Abdel-Fattah:

“Those who place their hope in the Palestinian Authority taking steps to hold Israel to account naively failed to grasp that the Palestinian Authority essentially manages the occupation for Israel
through its “security coordination” with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas has “always been the obedient servant of the United States and Israel.” It must not be forgotten that in October 2009, Abbas, under pressure from Israel, the United States and European diplomats, abandoned a resolution requesting the UN Human Rights Council to forward Judge Richard Goldstone’s Report on war crimes in Gaza to the UN Security Council for further action.

Meanwhile, the settlement expansion and land and water expropriation will persist unabated, and Israel will continue to cement its status as an apartheid state.”

How will Israel and the adminstrators of its occupation in the West Bank and Gaza keep up their pretence now? Ban ki Moon: “Israel’s construction plans ‘fatal blow’ to the two-state solution”.

Other Links

The Indonesian occupation of West Papua must be challenged and ended.
Senator Faulkner’s speech is wide-ranging and well worth reading in full, particularly in regard to transparency of political donations and corporate accountability.

Hasbara and the Case for Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel

Israel uses all culture as propaganda and does so unashamedly. In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry emphasised:

“We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

Israeli universities are subverted in the mission to sell the apartheid state, with Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities offering courses “in hasbara for Israeli and International students respectively. Hasbara is the name Israelis give to propaganda and disinformation in defence of Israel and the Occupation.”

Further, Israel runs state-funded and organised campaigns to enlist volunteers to spread its noxious, prevaricative messages.

If they receive funding by the state, Israeli artists who play internationally are expected to be political ambassadors and must sign contracts which declare their cooperation with state marketing aims. The standard Israeli sponsorship contract states:

“The service provider [or in English, 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.

Yet some zionist Israeli performers are zealous supporters of the apartheid entity, and fervently offer themselves up as crude instruments of propaganda.

Idan Reichel joins ranks with the cultural boycott of Israel. English translation:

Naftaly Bennett: We love you, Idan Reichel
**
Here’s what Idan Reichel wrote in Shabat’s Yediot newspaper:
“I believe that our role as artists is to be recruited into Israeli Hasbara. This is a war on our home, and our country, and in times of war we must be recruited. Full stop.
I strengthen our soldiers hands, yes, the so-moral ones, and strengthen the IDF that no more moral army than that can be found around the world.”
**
At a time of artists and “intellectuals” who make an effort to understand “both sides” (Hamas and Israel), it is wonderful to hear the clear voice of Idan Reichel: I am in favor of Israel.
**
Dear Idan: You are not wrong. We are not from the UN. We are in favor of Israel.
We will carry on going to your shows and buying your albums (well, because you are such an amazing artist..).
Thank you.
Naftaly
**
PS – whoever wishes to may share and write “I love you Idan Reichel”, and we’ll flood facebook.

(source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=497659216922418&set=a.396861670335507.89917.396697410351933)

Thanks, Ronnie Barkan, for the translation above from the original hebrew.

Since Israel deliberately employs its artists and academic institutions to market its apartheid and colonialism with duplicitous propaganda designed to paper over the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the state, the case for cultural and academic boycott is strengthened accordingly.

Related Links

Zionist propaganda site established to capitalise on and collect the quotations of artists who have played Israel.

The Case for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel

Israel 2012, The Question of a Nation: What Does Culture Have to Do with Politics?

PACBI-Letter from Alice Walker to Publishers at Yediot Books

Israel Bombs and Lies, Again

Driven by its politicians’ malevolent rhetoric, Israel foams with fascist fervour. In the streets zionist fanatics scream for Palestinian genocide. Not one to demur from a frolic in a foreign blood bath, the saturnine imperial potentate Obama mouths the customary western obscenity about the racist zionist entity having a right to defend itself, rubberstamping its criminality in chorus with one hundred percent of the good old boys and girls in the US senate. Ashton is ‘deeply’ duplicitous as the EU turns away from Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza, a deliberate, premeditated crime against humanity which, as in November 2008, the ziocolony has orchestrated bloody mayhem to spice the lead up to its apartheid faux elections. In Australia, bipartisan prevarication oozes from the shonky Australian political shills for empire and zionism.

Fascist states refresh themselves continuously through calibrated, manufactured spectacles, to reprime the illusionist themes of sanctioned violence amd self-righteous racism, all the better to support the state’s drive for power and expansionism. To retain its expansionary, militarist, oppressive and racist nature, the ziocolony indulges in regular orgiastic, violent frenzies. Yet this sadistic, cathartic behaviour is inherently unstable and unsustainable.

Thicker than Netanyahu’s Amerikkkan accent, the putrid zionist hasbara flows through the western media, to obscure the deaths and maiming of Palestinian civilians who unlike cossetted, privileged Israelis, have no air raid shelters or early warning sirens, no Iron Dome defence system supplied by the world’s super-maniacal power. Children in Gaza are crying in fear and hurt, dying again in the arms of their parents, parents slaughtered before their children’s eyes, buildings new-built since Israel’s 2009 Cast Lead frenzy pulverised by torrents of bombs which in the urban density of Gaza take a bloody toll of innocent civilians. Israel’s vile oppression must end, with its war criminals and their western accomplices brought to justice at The Hague.

While awaiting the moral arc of governments to grind far too slowly toward justice, individuals can act = boycott apartheid Israel – conscientious attention costs nothing and adds to the growing weight of grassroots action to transform the racist, oppressive behaviour of the brutal apartheid entity. On no account buy your beloved diamonds for Christmas – you don’t know where they’ve been. Israeli diamonds are blood diamonds.

Revolución está al alcance de todos – resistir a la Bestia. Tierra y libertad!

Bombs and Lies

through shrouded sky
to a Gaza reprise
fascist drones fly
remotely contrived
for justice’s demise
at maimed childrens’ cries
chorused liberal sighs
can’t obscure genocide
in apartheid eyes
truth dies
as empire’s disguise
Israel lies
lies and lies
a Pillar of Lies

Related Links

Ali Abunimah on CBC radio
Protestors in front of the Scottish Parliament
Egyptian PM Hesham Kandil: “What I am witnessing in Gaza is a disaster and I can’t keep quiet. The Israeli aggression must stop. Egypt supports the Palestinians, Israel’s actions will not go unnoticed”.
Solidarity for Gaza in Toronto

Understanding why the brutal Israeli entity is not the victim it portrays itself to be, and why its crimes against humanity perpetrated on the people of Gaza since 1948 should end.
Expel all Israeli ambassadors back to the apartheid criminal entity.

Forget the Australian Greens, overrun with white supremacism, zionism and equivocation between oppressor and oppressed. A good sign of their western colonialist infection perhaps is their use of the ‘deeply’ word, so beloved of Cashton and Rice.

The Malaysian government condemns Israel’s murderous attack on the civilian population of Gaza while “Viva Palestina Malaysia (VPM) chairman Datuk Dr Musa Mohd Nordin said the airstrike on Gaza that killed 10 Palestinians yesterday was yet another display of Israel’s contempt for international laws and its ruthless defiance of accepted norms of co-existence.”

No wonder Israel executed Jabari – he would have removed Israel’s chances for a pre-election murder spree against Indigenous Palestinians who suffer its hideous Occupation.

Israel’s sociopathic cruelty

Organise for Gaza

Sell out of all Israeli shares. BDS the Israeli stock market!