The 8th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 :

To accommodate various university schedules across regions, IAW will take place at slightly different times between February and March. Here is a list of dates for the regions confirmed so far:

Europe: February 20 – March 10
Palestine: March 12-19
United States: February 26 – March 3
Canada: March 5-9
Arab World: March 5-11
South Africa: March 5-11.

Follow @apartheidweek for updates, and check out the website at www.apartheidweek.org

Omar Barghouti: ‘Justice and equality only destroy their negation, injustice and apartheid, and this is precisely what Israel and its lobbies are running scared of, the effective and sustainable challenge of Israeli apartheid and colonial rule.’

Related Links

Compendium of Israeli apartheid links are here:

Israeli Apartheid is Worse Than South African Apartheid

Palestine / Israel Links

Current US opportunistic racism analysed by Daoud Kuttab: ‘Bashing Palestinians remains an easy political pastime, especially at election time.’
Israel is aiming to ethnically cleanse Bedouins from lands which it covets and on which it wishes to build Jews only settlements.
Jewish settlers attack Palestinian village, steal sheep herd
Abbas, Mashaal agree to form unity government
Hamas condemns Israeli attempts to wipe out Islamic, Christian shrines
Settlers attacked the Jerusalemite boy Amer Hejaij
Gaza fuel shortage ups risk of imminent health crisis
Settlers raid Ramallah village, vandalize property
International thoughts: Coping with the reality of Israeli occupation

I have experienced the checkpoint as an international, Muslim woman who wears the veil and observed the ignorant and mostly arrogant behavior of these young teenage soldiers. I am horrified, angry, and left paralyzed by confusion as I try to comprehend this behavior. I simply cannot imagine that the Palestinian people have to go through that every single day without having the possibility to leave as I do–without knowing that they can go home and are safe.

Happy Birthday, Dear Vittorio (RIP) by @ShahdAbusalama
Lawyers speak on academic freedom at @PennBDS conference

Other Links

Does your Australia senator or MP care more about US interests than the welfare of Australian citizen, Julian Assange?
The roles of class and culture in racism toward Indigenous Australians. Essential reading.
Electoral funding figures show Labor’s donations collapse
“Each star is a US base. But just to be clear, Iran is the one that is threatening us.”

Some memorable quotes:

“If our demands, these rights, threaten the existence of Israel, what does that say about Israel?”

“The hysteria about this conference tells us soemthing about the moment we are in, we are in the endgame.”

“Israelis don’t have a right to superiority.”

“We’re here for the dozens of children born at military checkpoints because Israelis have not allowed ambulances through.”

“We are here in solidarity with the prisoners, including nearly 200 Palestinian children.”

“It’s the occupation forces who should be standing trial, not the children.”

“We stand against sexism, islamophobia, homophobia, ableism, antisemitism, racism – all are welcome here tonight.”

“Palestinians are told: ‘you must be nonviolent’. Why don’t we hear that said to Israel?”

“End the military occupation, end all forms of discriminationa against Palestinians in Israel, recognise Palestinians’ right of return. None of these goals contradict the rights of Israelis.”

“We are the 99%, we have to link this struggle to so many other struggles, here and round the world.”

“We have an abuse of the Civil Rights act, insteading of opening the campus, it’s designed to silence discussion.”

“The BDS movement grew out of the realisation that the US and UN were not upholding their responsibilities.

They don’t because of the power realities. We have to do it ourselves. We’d like to reach a state where states acted responsibly. US resisted sanctions against SAfrica to the very end – it’s often citizens’ movements that push governments to act responsibly from the bottom up, not the top down.

The amazing thing about the movemetn is that it is led by Palestinians, the BNC, but the implementation is done by local initiatives and creativity all over the world. The question is where do you think it will go over the next 5 yrs – I look forward to your creativity. We have to do that work as part of the broader solidarity movement … It’s true Palestine has been a taboo even on the left in this country for a very long time.

Palestine was always pushed to the side, but this is changing. The shift is that Palestine is part of a much larger global struggle.”

Related Links

Video of my Penn BDS speech and how Zionist filmmaker pretended to be from Canada’s CBC
Keynote speaker Ali Abunimah presents to a full house at the @PennBDS conference on BDS
Douchowitless on @PennBDS & Jews supporting it: “Jews voted for Mussolini, Jews supported Stalin”
BDS Leader: ‘End Game’ Coming in Mideast
Professors take sides on BDS conference : Some professors participated in the discourse of the BDS movement
Panel on faith-based approach to BDS unites Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups
Susan Abulhawa : “There is something humiliating in perpetually having to prove that we are human”.
More whining by anti-BDS folk
Organizers say pro-Israel filmmaker with controversial past deceives, disrupts Penn BDS conference
Archbishop Desmond Tutu endorses PennBDS

Irish Chief Rabbinate Links to Extremist Groups

The Irish Chief Rabbinate has some unsavoury associations, linking to extremist Jewish groups:

‘The JDO is a self-described “militant” organisation, though others have labelled it a “terrorist group”. It is a splinter group from the more infamous Jewish Defence League (JDL), and like the JDL subscribes to the extremist Zionist ideology of Kahanism, and boasts of physically attacking pro-Palestinian activists in the US.’

Gideon Levy tells it like it is on Iran

Israel should be afraid of its leaders, not Iran:

‘All Israeli wars since 1973 were flawed wars of choice. Israel initiated all of them. None of them was inevitable, none resulted in any benefit that could not have been achieved using different means. In fact all of them were disastrous for us, even if the disaster was even greater for the other side. The most megalomaniac of them all, the Second Lebanon War, was also the most disastrous of them all. This bears remembering when debating the even greater megalomania of an attack on Iran. ‘

Israel / Palestine Links

Israel before democratic protest: Zionist extremist member for Caulfield David Southwick @SouthwickMP slanders BDS
Boycott apartheid Israeli blood diamonds
The Australian Greens showed they were “joining the bastards” when they watered down their platform on BDS.
Human Rights Watch: ‘Israeli policies have arbitrarily denied thousands of Palestinians the right to live in or travel to and from the West Bank and Gaza’
Ben White debunks BICOM’s lies and looks at some of the laws privileging Jews at the expense of Palestinians in apartheid Israel.
‘A wide variety of youth organizations has organized the protests to oppose the French acquisition of $500 million worth of drones from Israeli Airspace Industries.’
Ethnic cleanser in waiting, Yair Lapid – “Jerusalem belongs only to the people of Israel”
Israel’s grab of West Bank heritage sites funded by ‘charitable’ tax-deductible donations through the United Israel Appeal and Keren Hayesod worldwide continues.
‘In cooperation with our allies internationally, PACBI members will be supporting various IAW 2012 activities wherever possible. We see IAW, which has spread dramatically over the past years to include events in over 100 cities, as a clear sign of the growing momentum of the BDS movement globally and on university campuses specifically.’
Bilal Hassan explains the obvious: Israeli preconditions kill talks before they begin.
Who made Netanyahu the leader of the Jewish people?

Growing up as a Jewish anti-apartheid activist in South Africa, I was often told by white racists to “go back to Israel”. The idea that Jews don’t belong among non-Jews is the traditional language of anti-Semitism – and also of the modern ideology of Zionism that emerged in the late 19th century. Zionism’s founder, Theodore Herzl, believed that anti-Semitism of the sort I encountered was inevitable and even “natural” whenever Jews lived among gentiles. He effectively concurred with the anti-Semites’ remedy: that I should “go back to Israel”.

Apartheid, by the way, denied black people the rights of citizenship on the basis that their “national homelands” were in Bantustans such as Transkei and Kwazulu – bogus “states” in which they supposedly would exercise their right to self-determination.

Jews have certainly suffered for the right to live in security and safety, but the majority have chosen to exercise that right not in a separate Jewish nation state, but instead as Americans, Argentines, British or French. When Mr Netanyahu proclaims himself not just the prime minister of Israel, but also the “leader of the Jewish people”, that’s an expression of an ideology that holds that we’re a separate nation. I don’t believe that the majority of diaspora Jews are comfortable with the idea that they’re not really Americans or other nationalities, but are instead part of a separate people whose “national home” is Israel. While their grandparents’ experience may have been one of Jewish persecution and impermanence, most young Jews in the West today are not assuming that their gentile neighbours are going to turn on them.

If the current distribution of the world’s Jewish population changes in the coming decades, Israel’s share is more likely to shrink than to grow. The Israeli government revealed in 2003 that some 750,000 Israeli Jews were living abroad. Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert addressed French Jews a couple of years later and implored them to send their children “home” to Israel. Ironically, his sons were living in Paris and New York at that time.

By insisting that the Palestinians declare Israel “the national home of the Jewish people”, Mr Netanyahu is, in effect, asking Mahmoud Abbas to recognise a claim against which more than half of the world’s Jews have voted with their feet.

Another ‘This Week in Palestine’, Israel attacks, thieves land, demolishes Palestinians’ homes, 56 incursions

‘Charging these “Me Firsters” with principled loyalty to Israel drastically overestimates them. The record suggests that they are, as a rule, in it squarely for themselves. This confusion is significant, for example because a more realistic appreciation of the interests driving the Israel lobby and its sympathisers would draw attention to the ways in which support for Israeli militarism benefits and speaks to elite interests in the US, rather than just in Israel.’ (I’d go further about how US militarism benefits and speaks to elite interests in Israel

The US is blackmailing the UN again. “Ban told Abbas that continued bids for UN membership would harm the organization, due to further cuts in American funding.”
How illegal Israeli settlers terrorise an Indigenous Palestinian family on their own land without reprimand from Israel, which rarely prosecutes its expansionist vanguard for their crimes. This policy is constitutes a war crime.
Israeli fascists harass elected Palestinian representatives in the Knesset, highlighting Israel’s rancid, thuggish ethnocracy.
13 Injured in Nabi Saleh During Weekly Non-Violent Protest
Israeli international law experts: the Supreme Court erred in permitting Israel to operate quarries in the occupied territories
Anti-Semitism And Israel’s Inherent Contradictions

Other Links

As’ad AbuKhalil critiques the imperialist charade at the UN re Syria
Solidarity with the Egyptian revolution against the US-backed junta.

‘Tibi showed the Forward a clip from his speech at this year’s Palestinian Martyrs Day rally, on January 7, where he named people he considers “martyrs,” all of whom were civilians killed by Israel and none of whom perpetrated attacks. By editing last year’s clip to give a different message, Palestinian Media Watch “tried to violate and mislead,” he said.’

Tibi’s satirical poem about MK Anastasia Michaeli’s throwing a cup of water over him during a Knesset sitting also annoys the linguistically challenged Knesset Ethics Committee which bans him from the Knesset for a week for his literary prowess. Who says poems don’t bite and sting in all the right places?

‘The issue in this case was his reading of an allegedly offensive poem from the Knesset podium aimed at Anastasia Michaeli, a lawmaker from Yisrael Beteinu. On January 9, Michaeli, herself a sometime practitioner of politics by provocation, threw a cupful of water into the face of Arab lawmaker Ghaleb Majadle, of the Labor party, after Majadle called her a “fascist” during a Knesset debate. Michaeli was banished from all parliamentary proceedings for one month as punishment for her misconduct.

In his poem responding to Michaeli, Tibi said the Yisrael Beiteinu member had “a problem with her plumbing” and used the Hebrew term “cos amok,” or “cup of frenzy” to describe her act.

The Knesset’s Ethics Committee took this phrase as an innuendo, as it sounds like an Arabic curse that refers to female genitalia, and imposed its ban. Tibi denies any innuendo. “Worse than its stupidity is it not knowing Hebrew,” he said of the committee. ‘

And now, the poem:

“Anastasia, / Who has a problem with her plumbing, / Grew in the dung beds of our home Israel — or shall I say, Russia? / From there it was a short way to the Law of the Muezzin, / Which meanwhile has been / Turned into a joint Bibi [pronounced by Tibi bibey]-Anastasia project, / A thoughtless use of water in time of drought / When every drop counts. / Israel is drying out / But is not ashamed. / Anastasia ran amok and poured / Water on a colleague. / And so I’ll call a spade a spade, / That is, a cup of frenzy.”

That may not make a whole lot of sense to you, much less seem a literary gem — but that’s only because you don’t have the original before you. How many delicate little touches you would notice if you did! The rhyme of “Anastasia” and instalatsia (“plumbing”), for example; or the play on arugot ha-bosem, “spice beds,” from the Song of Songs (“My beloved has gone down into his garden, unto the beds of spices”) and arugot ha-zevel, “dung beds”; or the pun on “Bibi” and bivey, “sewers”; or the inversion of mityabeshet, “is drying out,” and mitbayeshet, “is ashamed.”

Kudos to MK Tibi for his dry wit!

I’m reminded of Henry Lawson and his immortal lines on Australian wowserism:

O this is the Wowsers’ land,
And the laughing days are o’er,
For most of the things that we used to do
We must not do any more!

The power of literature is demonstrated again in Israel recently.

Israeli fascist organisation Im Tirtzu attempts to have Palestinian actor banned from performing in a Lorca play. Fascists are frightened of intellectuals, classically their prime targets. The intellect might restrain the fascist drive for power.

Palestine / Israel Links

IOF soldiers arrest seven Gazans in January including three minors
The Israeli Attorney General attempts to quash Adalah’s petition to annul the racist Admissions Committee Law. “The law, passed by the Knesset in March 2011, allows small communities in Israel built on ‘state land’ (public land) to reject applicants who “do not suit the lifestyle and social fabric of the community.”‘
Anwar revealed as an imperialist friendly zionist stooge committed to Israel’s dupicitous ‘security’ hasbara, the cover it uses to justify its land theft and occupation

Other Links

Saying No to CSIS: Dozens of groups launch campaign to not co-operate with Canadian spy agency
No, @WilliamJHague you can’t weasel out of the British Empire’s responsibility for its nepotism & imperialism in the ME

You may have heard about the growing movement of people who stand in solidarity with Palestinians and their struggle for human rights. You may have heard of Boycott, Divest and Sanctions against Israel (BDS). This is a people’s movement, and a growing number of musicians are choosing to be a part of BDS.

In 2006, the majority of Palestinian civil society united to ask artists like you to respect their call for a cultural boycott of Israel. [1] We are confident that, seeing the facts of Israel’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and colonialism, you will decide to refrain from playing in Israel until justice is delivered to the oppressed Palestinian people.

This grassroots global people’s movement is the only foreseeable way to end Israel’s crimes. The United Nations, despite numerous resolutions against Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, has not ensured that Israel is forced to comply with international law.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said

“International Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against the Apartheid regime, combined with the mass struggle inside South Africa, led to our victory … Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong … to perform in Israel.”

Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd, emphasised

“Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government’s policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel. This is [however] a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott. Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel.”

Playing in Israel today, in violation of the boycott call, sends two messages:

1. The artist has chosen to ignore the Palestinian people’s call for solidarity through BDS.
2. The musician is aware of and accepts that the Israeli Ministry of Culture will endeavor to use an artist’s name to legitimize and promote the current oppressive, racist, apartheid government through social media like Twitter[2], through press releases, and via the CCFP. [3]

Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, former deputy director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, stated “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.” [4]

We hope you will refrain from playing in Israel, playing Tel Aviv has been compared to playing in Sun City during South African apartheid. A musician does not need to play in Israel in order to “see” the human rights violations that are going on there.

Cat Power, this is your opportunity to be a part of a people’s movement and to choose to stand NOT with Israeli crimes against humanity, but with a movement that Belgium filmmaker Chris den Hond calls one of the “most prominent international grassroots movements against the Israeli policy of occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.” [5]

Over 11 million people are oppressed by Israel’s violations of human rights against non-Jews. Howard Zinn referred to both American “western expansion” and Israel’s occupation of land as “ethnic cleansing.” [6] People were and still are forced from their homes, and made into refugees. Gaza was made into a crowded, Israeli-controlled open-air jail. The West Bank is surrounded by an apartheid wall and sprinkled with over 500 roadblocks and checkpoints. [7]

While Israel presents itself as a democracy, in fact it is a democracy only for Jews, whilst indigenous Palestinians, most particularly in the Occupied Territories, are treated as less than human. Palestinians, lesser citizens within Israel itself, are discriminated against by 43 laws privileging Jews at their expense.[8]

Please cancel your concert, do it for Shabrawi and Ezz ad-Deen, the two Palestinian children whose story was recently featured in The Guardian [9]. These two boys lived through solitary confinement, interrogation, shackling of hands and feet, verbal abuse (“You’re a dog, a son of a whore” – is common), sleep deprivation, and threats against their families.

We hope you’ll choose not to play in Israel while so many children are suffering just miles away from Tel Aviv.

Peace,
DPAI

We are a group, of over 830 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel. This is essential in order to work towards justice for the Palestinian people under occupation, and also in refugee camps and in the diaspora throughout the world.

Notes:

[1] PACBI Guidelines for the International Cultural Boycott of Israel www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1047
[2] Punk Rocker’s “Simple Plan” part of Israel’s Apartheid Plan refrainplayingisrael.posterous.com/punk-rockers-simple-plan-part-of-israels-apar
[3] Creative Community for Peace and Apartheid www.artistsagainstapartheid.org/?p=1835
[4]About face http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/about-face-1.170267
[5] BDS boycott divestment sanctions against Israel by Chris den Hond http://youtu.be/utn7qOQyvfA
[6] Howard Zinn on Palestine blog.endtheoccupation.org/2010/01/howard-zinn-on-palestine-advance-of.html
[7] MOVEMENT AND ACCESS IN THE WEST BANK by UNITED NATIONS Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory
unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/8F5CBCD2F464B6B18525791800541DA6
[8] Haneen Zoabi at the Russell Tribunal Cape Town: ‘We need equality’ www.kadaitcha.com/2012/01/09/haneen-zoabis-presentation-at-the-russell-tribunal-cape-town/

SOURCE

JOIN Cat Power, Please Respect the Boycott of Apartheid Israel
[9]The Palestinian Children – Alone and bewildered – in Israel’s Al Jalame jail www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/22/palestinian-children-detained-jail-israel

Calling on Indigenous Young People to get involved in the Constitutional Recognition debate
Call to investigate police after tent embassy protest

“Aboriginal people want to talk about many issues, including economic development, sovereignty, land rights and treaty. These may be uncomfortable issues for the Australian people, but they are issues that must be resolved, sooner rather than later.”

Arrest the real criminals – Gillard and Abbott

Genocide is not just wiping people out in concentration camps, or forcing them to assimilate.

It is also stealing their land so they can no longer exist as a people, Tony. Dispossession is genocide. And that is what the Northern Territory intervention is about, tony. Driving aboriginal people off their land. That’s happening too in the major mining areas of Australia.

Too tolerant of ugly racism
The current state of the Northern Territory intervention – On Line Opinion – 31/1/2012
The National Riot Mismanagement Squad

Mr Anderson said the comments were disrespectful.

“He said the Aboriginal embassy had to go; we heard it on a radio broadcast,” he said.

“We thought no way, so we circled around the building.”

He said the protesters wanted the leaders to clarify their position and whether Mr Abbott was serious about removing the embassy.

“You’ve got 1,000 people here peacefully protesting, and to make a statement about tearing down the embassy – it’s just madness on the part of Tony Abbott.

“What he said amounts to inciting racial riots.

Barbara Shaw, who told Aboriginal Tent Embassy protesters the whereabouts of Opposition leader Tony Abbott at the Lobby, said she did not realise Prime Minister Julia Gillard would be present at the restaurant which protesters later picketed.

Ms Shaw says she couldn’t predict what would happen.

“I don’t regret it at all because nothing came of it,” she said.

“People wanted to make a little bit of noise and that is what they did.”

Ms Shaw says she did not realise the Prime Minister was with the Opposition Leader until after the restaurant incident.

But she says she does not regret telling people where Mr Abbott could be found.

“I basically informed the crowd of his whereabouts and they went,” she said.

“So I’m not responsible for people’s actions.

“It is up to people to do what they want to do.”

An eye witness relates the affair at the Lobby Restaurant.

A contingent of about 100 protesters made their way up the road to The Lobby and surrounded it. Though they were loud and noisy they were non-violent. Security blocked the protesters from getting close to the restaurant for a while but it didn’t take long for a few protesters to break the line and soon the rest had gotten close up against the restaurant’s walls. As the walls of The Lobby are made of glass the protesters could look in and see Mr Abbott and the others pretending not to hear them and, after about ten or fifteen minutes Julia Gillard’s white jacket was recognised and the protesters realised that she was in there along with Mr Abbott.

The aim of the protest had been to get Mr. Abbott to come out and talk to the crowd – now it wanted to get Ms. Gillard to come out and do the same as well. Yet they continued to ignore the protesters, drink champagne and take photos of one another while their constituents tried to get their attention.

A short time later a contingent of riot police and protective service officers arrived at the restaurant. All up there were about 50 to 60 officers there and protesters watched on as a group of about 20 riot police hurtled past them in V-formation, bursting into the restaurant and then locking themselves inside.

When I spoke to Sam she said that the protesters thought the riot police were arranging to form a sort of guard around the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader so that they could come out and talk to the crowd but, as the rest of the media has shown, the riot police’s real objective was to ‘escort’ the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to their cars.

As more protesters made their way to the restaurant, the riot police charged out the doors, practically dragging Ms Gillard along, while the onlookers began to shout “where are you going?” and “why won’t you talk to us?” As the cars drove off, some people threw plastic water bottles and water at the cars.

At this point things began to get fairly nasty; one protester was knocked into the rose bushes and one gigantic cop started brandishing a can of tear gas or capsicum spray (reports differ on this point) in people’s faces and shoved Sam, another girl and a female photo-journalist in the head. When Sam told him to calm down he reportedly bared his teeth and grinned so widely his eyes nearly popped out of his head; to many on site it was fairly clear that the officer was barely under control.

Then the police began to link arms to form a line against the protesters and the protesters followed suit, ending up with a Mexican standoff. Some of the Indigenous Elders called for the protesters to return to the Tent Embassy but a female Elder began a non-violent sit-down protest in the road just down from the café and soon a line of Indigenous women, female Elders and non-Indigenous women had been formed across the road.

The women declared that they were not going to be intimidated by the police and that they would not move until the police stood down. While some of the other protesters returned to the Tent Embassy, a large group (including some of the Occupy Melbourne contingent) remained to watch on and support their fellow activists until the police eventually gave in and stood down.

As the remaining protesters made their way back to the Tent Embassy they were greeted by applause and the female protesters went through a cleansing smoke ceremony.

Several eye witnesses in the report above confirm there was no violence amongst the protesters, and it was the police who were violent. The white colonial Gubbahs have failed to sanction their own, instead blaming the protesters.

John Passant, another eye witness says:

The cops reacted as they always do when confronted by angry Aboriginal people.

The riot squad and the Prime Minister’s protection unit brutalised the crowd to clear a path for Gillard and Abbott, the two politicians of the Northern Territory invasion, the two politicians of hate, the two politicians of dispossession, the two politicians of aboriginal genocide.

Why is non-violence never expected of settler colonial oppressors?

Abbott now claims he was misconstrued yet his words retain the implication that there is no longer a need for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

Mr Abbott said he never suggested it was time for the Aboriginal tent embassy itself to “move on”.

“I was asked a question (and) I made the point, a lot’s happened in 40 years and I think we have moved on from the issues … that caused the Aboriginal tent embassy to be setup,” he said

However, the goals of the Tent Embassy are far from being met.

According to Channel 9 hyperbolic reportage, Australia’s leaders were “shoved” and “pushed” “in a mad dash” to safety.

The only ‘violence’ was caused by police, captured below as police assaulted protesters, despite the reportage playing up a ‘security threat’:

Aboriginal Australians have a long, proud and often ignored tradition of resistance to white settler colonialism.

‘Aboriginal Australians have been no different from the Palestinians in fighting back against ethnic cleansing and settler-colonisation. Our people actually carried out an extensive armed resistance to European settler colonialism. This resistance began the moment Cook set foot on Australian soil in 1770 – the Gweagal people attacked Cook’s landing party with spears and woomeras. From that moment on Aboriginal resistance never ceased.

Prior to Invasion Day 2012, Michael Anderson, the “last survivor of the four young Black Power men who set up the Aboriginal Embassy in 1972″ said he had “received intelligence that there is a move to destroy him personally and the Aboriginal sovereignty movement in which he plays a large role”.

Recently, during a visit by my mother and sister to Goodooga, my mother warned me that I need to be very well protected, because the government will find Aboriginal people to cause disruption to the sovereignty movement and threaten my life.

I have a very good idea of where the trouble will come from, as police intelligence is aware of the threat to my life and the sovereignty movement and that the people involved will commence a campaign to first character assassinate me to win support to reject me, thereby nullifying the sovereignty movement, by creating enormous divisions; which would permit the Australian government to say publically: Aborigines will never come together as a united body to fight for their sovereign status.

The First Nations Parliament wishes to return Julia’s shoe, lost during the rush to her vehicle.

Paul Coe, spokesperson for the First Nations Parliament, an organisation which has been re-established as a result of the anniversary celebrations, said Embassy activists were disgusted at the behavior of police.

“We’re appalled at the violence we saw today directed against the Prime Minister, and the tactics police employed to try and intimidate members of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, who were peacefully protesting at a family gathering.

“There was no need for that number of police to be there, or to have that level of menace or intimidation.

“They overreacted without assessing whether or not there was any risk to the Prime Minister. The only violence came from police.

“There was no risk to the Prime Minister of Australia. No-one here would have hurt the Prime Minister. Even the Opposition leader was safe.

“I’d remind the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader that in 1972 the then leader of the Opposition Gough Whitlam and the late Lionel Murphy came and met with us in the tents. They never felt threatened.

“We wish to return the shoe to her as a gesture of friendship and in the spirit of cooperation. We hope she will turn up here tomorrow to accept it in the same spirit.

“It’s to show we mean no harm and will not tolerate any threats or intimidation against the Prime Minister of Australia.

“I am appalled that the Prime Minister felt intimidated or threatened in any way because the Prime Minister of Australia should not have to endure or tolerate any of those kinds of behavior directed at her, be it from police or anyone else.

“The shoe is now a symbol of trust between two nations of people.”

Mr Coe said the First Nations Parliament would be established with a year.

“We’re sending letters out to our lawmen and women asking them to meet with First Nations to convene our parliament and to draft our constitution.”

The organisation came about after meetings at the Tent Embassy celebrations.

“We have re-asserted our First Nation sovereign rights through the re-establishment of the First Nations Parliament (the AP was first formed in 1972),” Mr Coe said.

Julia may have lost a shoe, but Tony lost everything, with his fearful, racist paternalism exposed.

UPDATE

Julia’s shoe has been returned to her via a security guard at Parliament House.

UPDATE 2

Michael Anderson may not have been too far off the mark, considering the tenor of today’s Australian Editorial, extolling colonial-friendly Aboriginal ‘leaders’ and minimising present Indigenous disadvantage and demands. The editorial censuriously accuses protesters of bullying while tutting about free speech, which the protesters were exercising:

“In short, as Mr Abbott suggested, events have moved beyond the grievances of the tent embassy. The former Labor premier of NSW, Bob Carr, wrote bluntly yesterday that it should be “packed up”. Brave and sensible indigenous leaders such as Warren Mundine and Mick Gooda have observed how the protest has been a blow against free speech. The bullying antics are aimed at silencing opponents. Even if someone had called for the tent embassy to be “torn down”, they should not be met with intimidation. “

Thus do the rightwing appropriate righteous victimhood. The Australian editor bleats blithely onward:

“As Meryl Tankard Reist, Ian Plimer or even Andrew Bolt can attest, the modern illiberal Left seems to care little for free speech unless that speech echoes their views. This is a disturbing tendency that The Weekend Australian will always seek to expose and counter. If Australia Day is to mean anything, we must embrace open minds, free speech and common sense. “

Yet who is responsible for this misleading headline which an average Australian might consider an incitement?

Comment has been sought from Ms Sattler.

Mr Anderson said the Tent Embassy would pursue a legal challenge against the British Government.

He said the embassy had lawyers in London who would take their concerns to the European Court of Human Rights and possibly the International Court of Justice.

”England still has some residual obligation in Australia.

”So what we’re doing now is we’re investigating the legal ramifications of that 1875 Act which recognises when Queen Victoria said she did not claim sovereignty or dominion over Aboriginal lands of this country and the people.

”Our objective is to go after England because they failed to implement their law in this country.”

Mr Anderson said he had been advised that the Tent Embassy had the capacity to sue the British Government in the court system.

Ms Sattler, who was present at Thursday’s protest at the Canberra tent embassy, is yet to address claims she was Mr Hodge’s mystery contact.

..

Mr Abbott yesterday tried to distance himself from his remarks, saying he did not advocate tearing down the tent embassy.

But conservative think tank Menzies House, co-founded by Mr Abbott’s colleague Cory Bernardi, has set up a petition calling for the embassy’s closure.

Some Aboriginal leaders have condemned the tent embassy activists, describing their behaviour as “appalling”.

But tent embassy co-founder Michael Anderson defended the violent protest and said the embassy was still important to promote Aboriginal rights.

Ms Gillard slammed the ugly scenes on Thursday.

“What I utterly condemn is when protests turn violent the way we saw the violence (on Thursday), and particularly disrupting an event which was to honour some extraordinary Australians,” she said.

Opposition attack dog Christopher Pyne said he would be surprised if Mr Hodges acted alone.

Activists from Canberra’s tent embassy were furious with Mr Abbott after wrongly believing he had called for the protest camp to be disbanded.

They rushed a nearby restaurant upon hearing Mr Abbott was inside.

Earlier, radio presenter Ray Hadley reported a staffer to Ms Gillard had rung Aboriginal tent embassy protester Barbara Shaw, or another protester, that Mr Abbott had called for the embassy to be torn down.

“Once she was told that, she was also told Mr Abbott was across the road (and) ‘maybe you can give them a bit of a liven up’,” the 2GB presenter told his audience.

The statement from Ms Gillard’s office did not address the allegation that Mr Hodges sought to inform tent embassy activists of Mr Abbott’s alleged comments.

Mr Abbott earlier declared he’d been “verballed”, saying he had not said the tent embassy should be removed.

“I never said that and I don’t think that,” he said.

“I made the point that a lot has happened in 40 years and I think that we have moved on from the issues of 40 years ago which caused the Aboriginal tent embassy to be set up.”

Ms Shaw, who told the protesters Mr Abbott wanted the tent embassy disbanded, said she heard of Mr Abbott’s comments from “a fly on the wall”.

Related Links

Australia Day shame

After Ms Gillard was bundled into a waiting car and whisked away, a protester displayed one of Ms Gillard’s blue high-heel shoes, which had fallen off during her hasty exit, and shouted: ”Gingerella, come get your shoe!”

A day for celebration, not a day to dwell : vacuous patronisation by a Gubbah or migaloo sharing Abbott’s mindset
‘
White supremacist alert – Darrin Hodges touting housie Mundine as a valid representative of Indigenous Australians.
It is right to be angry; it is right to protest – land rights now!
Abbott says Tent Embassy should remain

Senior indigenous leaders such as social justice commissioner Mick Gooda and Warren Mundine are dismayed at what happened on Thursday,

but a tent embassy organiser called them “handpicked puppets” who did not represent grassroots Aboriginal people.

Michael Anderson, the last surviving member of the original four that established the tent embassy in 1972, denied the ugly protest had set back the indigenous movement.

“You fellas can … dwell on that and stay there, but right now we’re passed that,” he said.

“We’re over it, so get over it and move on.”

Davies’ article marred by incorrect designation of Australian Aboriginals as ‘Aborigines’ – (see Luke L. Pearson’s article) Aussie Day ‘riot’: perspective and balance hard to find

The protest was not violent. It was certainly rowdy and confronting. The protesters chanted loudly and angrily, and some beat time on the glass walls of the restaurant. There was some pushing and shoving as the VIP cars finally moved out. Police on the day said there were “scuffles” and no arrests would be made.
…
You know there has never been any compensation, nor has the legal situation fundamentally changed. The contemptuous white attitude of the past persists today in the intervention in the Northern Territory, which was imposed by Tony Abbott’s party and continued by the Prime Minister’s party.

The intervention blatantly belies Abbott’s and Gillard’s claims that things are better than 40 years ago and that most Australians have respect for Indigenous people. Respect would involve looking together for a way forward, not draconian and racist income management and displacement from traditional country.

Change Australia Day: Mansell Mr Mansell said Aboriginal people would support any date other than January 26.

‘No evidence of criminal act’: AFP will not investigate disclosure of Abbott’s location

In a statement issued today, Ms Sattler said the News Ltd reports were “inaccurate”.

“As I said in my statement yesterday, Tony Hodges from the Prime Minister’s office told me what Tony Abbott had said – that people should ‘move on’ from the tent embassy,” she said.

“Yesterday the Prime Minister gave an accurate account of my role.”

Merrill Garbus is a signatory of the 500 Artists Against Israeli Apartheid letter published in February 2010, so it’s fair to think the cancellation indeed was political.

Montreal artists are now joining this international campaign to concretely protest the Israeli state’s ongoing denial of the inalienable rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in and protected by international law, as well as Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Gaza, which also constitutes a violation of international law and multiple United Nations resolutions.

Palestinian citizens face an entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation, resembling the defeated apartheid system in South Africa. A matrix of Israeli-only roads, electrified fences, and over 500 military checkpoints and roadblocks erase freedom of movement for Palestinians. Israel’s apartheid wall, which was condemned by the International Court of Justice in 2004, cuts through Palestinian lands, further annexing Palestinian territory and surrounding Palestinian communities with electrified barbed wire fences and a concrete barrier soaring eight meters high.

Gaza remains under siege. Israel continues to impose collective punishment on the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza, who still face chronic shortages of electricity, fuel, food and basic necessities as the campaign of military violence executed by the apartheid state of Israel endures. UN officials recently observed that the “situation has deteriorated into a full-fledged emergency because of the cut-off of vital supplies for Palestinians.” As a result of Israeli actions, Gaza has become a giant prison.

The global movement against Israeli apartheid, supported by a large majority of Palestinian civil society, is not targeted at individual Israelis but at Israeli institutions that are complicit in maintaining the multi-tiered Israeli system of oppression against the Palestinian people.

In fact, the Palestinian civil society BDS call, launched by over 170 Palestinian organisations in 2005, explicitly appeals to conscientious Israelis, urging them to support international efforts to bring about Israel’s compliance with international law and fundamental human rights, essential elements for a justice-based peace in the region. The present appeal is also rooted in an active engagement with many progressive Israeli artists and activists who are working on a daily basis for peace and justice while supporting the growing global movement in opposition to Israeli apartheid.

Israel uses all culture as propaganda to obscure and solidify its oppression – its use of music and musicians is no exception. A ubiquitous catchcry of Israel’s hasbara diplomats, many of whom are now paid for their efforts, is “Music should cross borders, not create them”. Yet in breaking the boycott, musicians undermine the peaceful tactic which Palestinian people have chosen to struggle for their rights. Musicians who respect the boycott conscientiously choose to support non-violent resistance to terrible injustice.

Israeli apartheid creates borders which no music can cross.

Related Links

PACBI
BDS Movement
tUnE-yArDs on Twitter
tUnE-yArDs on Facebook
Musicians sign up to back Occupy :

Rapper Talib Kweli rubs shoulders with British saxophonist Evan Parker, and the bassheads at Glitch Mob stand next to the Flaming Lips’ Kliph Scurlock. Alongside septuagenarians such as Roy Harper and Frederic Rzewski, there is Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus.

Tel Aviv is the world’s gayest apartheid travel destination

Israelis in Jerusalem answer the question “Where ya from?” Spot the zionist white supremacists.

According to Addammeer:

Islam Dar Ayyoub was arrested in the early hours of 23 January, when the Israeli forces entered his house at 2 a.m., asking for him. He had already been arrested earlier that month and held for several hours at Halamish settlement before being released. The family’s house had also been targeted twice that month for ‘mapping’ by the Israeli forces: an operation in which soldiers enter the house in the middle of the night, wake up its inhabitants and take photographs and ID numbers of all the men and children living there.
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Whilst under interrogation at the police station Islam was threatened with electric shock treatment or attacks by dogs. His lawyer appeared at the police station but the Head of Interrogation of Judea and Samaria gave the order not to give him access as, according to him, Islam was beginning to admit to accusations and incriminate others, and the lawyer’s presence may ‘compromise the interrogation’. During his interrogation Islam was not informed of his right to remain silent nor of his right to seek legal counsel. It was only after approximately five hours of interrogation that he was allowed to see his lawyer who was waiting outside. By this time, he had already signed a statement in Hebrew on the understanding that if he did so his family would come and collect him and take him home. The statement, which he did not understand, incriminated Bassem and Naji Tamimi, two of the key protest organizers from Nabi Saleh. After signing the statement iron handcuffs were applied to him and he was taken by military car to Ofer detention center. After spending 3 days at Ofer, Islam was brought before a Military Judge

Palestine / Israel Links

Israeli ‘scholar’ incites genocide of Bedouins
The EU notices Israel’s genocidal policies in Area C and “harshly criticizes Israel’s policies in the West Bank, claiming they have caused the Palestinian population in Area C to shrink significantly and recede into enclaves.”
EU on verge of abandoning hope for a viable Palestinian state
Israel’s racist, fascist Citizenship law stands
The fascist Israeli occupation at its dirty work again: ‘Abu Warda is currently being held in Israeli detention after he was arrested on Dec. 28, 2011. The journalist is being held without charge and has not been allowed to speak with a lawyer’.
First steps to fascism are quiet’ – Israeli activists against Boycott Law

I caught up on a twitter fight that happened yesterday. Someone called out someone else for using ableist language. I follow both users and find that I generally agree with the politics of one and the work of the other. I thought we all were on the same page, but the Syrian revolution has exposed many arab leftists to be unable to criticise a regime that appears to be anti-israeli. I say appears because of course the Syrian regime has done nothing for its people in the occupied Golan heights. They’re happy to talk about and support resistance in other countries but not their own.

Now I’m not saying that the other account falls within that bracket, it’s just that their position is suspect. I don’t like accusing people of something without proof, and so far I only have circumstantial evidence. All I can say is that their criticism of the regime and support of the revolution has been conspicuously absent. But anyway, that’s not the point. The fight was about the use of ableist language. As that account used the term “lame” to refer to a stand up comedienne who they think has very suspect politics when it comes to Palestine. While I used to agree that she had problematic politics (that view has changed since I first published this post because I talked to her and she clarified her position. I was wrong and misinformed. She is a one state supporter and very vocal in her support for Palestine), the point was about the language used.

It’s very interesting to see that people are still very unaware of ableist privilege. The problem is that ableist language is so ubiquitous within our parlance. We don’t think twice about using certain terms that are derived from or mocking the physically and mentally disabled. To use the word “lame” to describe someone or someone’s comedy is very ableist. It is wrong to use it to describe someone who does not have a disability, but it’s even worse when you use it against someone with a disability. Even if you don’t mean to be ableist, using it is highly problematic. It perpetuates the idea that there is something wrong with certain forms of disability. It always comes from a place of privilege. Once that is pointed out one needs to realise and change their behaviour.

I must admit that I myself used, unthinkingly, a lot of ableist language. In fact, if you go back through my blog posts, you will probably come across a lot of ableist terms. I did not mean to use them to abuse or mock the disabled, but they still do. I have since realised that those terms are unacceptable and stopped using them. At the end of the day, all you can do is realise that you’ve done something wrong and try to fix it as best you can. No body is perfect, but it’s important to try not to hurt people because you unthinkingly use terms that abuse them and their being.

The problem is that people with disabilities suffer from real oppression, be it in accessibility or recognition, and that oppression is invisible. People without disability do not see the person with a disability but see the disability. When faced with someone in a wheelchair say, people don’t really see the person in the wheel chair but the wheelchair, they conflate the person with their disability. Moreover, the struggle of the disabled for recognition and accessibility is very often ignored by the media and its coverage is not as prominent as other forms of oppression.

We have been able to rid our language of much of the racist, sexist, classist, etc terms. However, ableist terms are still used wantonly without people realising. What happens when someone is challenged for using such language is that they become very defensive, and deny that they are doing anything wrong. Ideally, they would then think about it and realise that they were in fact in the wrong and stop using those terms. However, that doesn’t always happen, and cries of political correctness gone mad are uttered. The problem is that people aren’t always happy to acknowledge their privileged position.

All of us without disabilities are privileged, not in that we are better than people with disabilities, but we reap benefits within our society because of our lack of disability. It is imperative if we consider ourselves to be fighting for justice, that we take on the cause of the disabled as our own. We must recognise our privilege and work against it. This involves changing our language and not perpetuating the power relationship that they embody. Those terms normalise the idea that disabled people are not equal to people without disabilities. There is something absolutely wrong with that attitude and it must be fought with as much force as all other injustices.

The fight against oppression isn’t a simple one. We aren’t fighting against a group of people but against a system that created hegemonic power relations. Those power relations are actualised in real physical violence or lack of accessibility but are also mirrored in our language. If we want to fight oppression effectively we must dismantle all the forms of oppression including our use of terms that perpetuate and normalise that oppression. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject. I’d like to hear what you have to say about it. It would be interesting to get your perspectives. Stay safe everyone. Live long and prosper.

SOURCE

Papuan activist claim illegal detention in PNG

A West Papuan activist in Australia claims his father and three other men have been illegally detained on trumped up charges in Papua New Guinea.

Ronny Kareni, who fled with his family from West Papua in 1984, says his father and the three men returned to the Indonesian territory to attend West Papuan independence celebrations in October.

Mr Kareni says they were initially detained by the Indonesian military before they fled back to PNG where they were targetted by corrupt police and customs officers.

It’s sheer bloody murder, right on our doorstep – The genocidal settler colonialism of Indonesia in West Papua – fostered and abetted by Australia and the US in service of mercantilism.

In December, pro-independence groups in West Papua claimed 17 people were killed in a couple of days as “Indonesian military forces used mining company helicopters to attack villages in the Indonesian-occupied region.

In actions against TPN, 20,000 people in the Paniai area of West Papua have been left homeless after the army attacks.

They believe an Indonesian counter-terrorism unit Detachment 88 is involved in ongoing military operations in Paniai.

Quoting human rights defender Ferry Marisan, Media Alert says 30 people have died in the latest round of violence, including 17 this week.

”Only 10 of these victims were members of the TPN, according to Marisan.”

Children aged between two and four were among the dead.

The latest conflict area is in the area of the Derewo River Gold, a joint venture between an Indonesian company and Australian investors, Paniai Gold, a fully owned subsidiary of Melbourne based gold mining company West Wits Mining.

Related Links

Vote Freeport Worst Company

West Papua Report January 2012

Indonesian security forces, including the U.S. and Australian supported Detachment 88, conducted “sweeping operations” in the Paniai area of West Papua that destroyed churches, homes and public buildings, and forced hundreds of civilians from their homes. The Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) urged the Police Commander to remove forces from the region, echoing civil society leaders in Paniai. Jakarta’s failure to provided basic health services to Papuans has led to a high rate of death among mothers at child birth according to a recent report. An unconfirmed report claims that President Yudhoyono has committed to withdraw non-organic troops from West Papua and to suspend the operations of a special unit proposed to address fundamental Jakarta-Papua problems. The cost in human life for Papuans of Jakarta’s decades of neglect of the Papuan population is well documented. Amnesty International met with a senior official in Jakarta to press for release of political prisoners, particularly in West Papua and Maluku. The three-month old strike by workers at the Freeport McMoRan mines appears to be headed toward resolution.

…

Inadequate Health Care Responsible for High Rate of Death of Mothers at Child Birth

The Jakarta Post reports that maternal deaths in West Papua remain high. Victor Nugraha, an official with the Papuan Health Agency, speaking to media in Manokwari, said that the rate of deaths in 2011 would be at least as high as in 2010. Real figures, he added, were difficult to ascertain because many cases of death during child birth are not recorded due to the shortage of medical personnel to maintain records.

According to the official the main causes of maternal death were hemorrhage, post-pregnancy infections, and hypertension. Anemia due to iron deficiency can lead to hemorrhaging. Beside low iron levels due to poor nutrition, anemia can also be caused by malaria, which is common in West Papua. The official also explained that late pregnancy checks and poor surgery facilities for caesarean sections in clinics also contribute to maternal deaths.

This report echoes a far more detailed study conducted in the Kebar Valley of West Papua in 2008 (see Health care in the Bird’s Head Peninsula. Its conclusions are stark:

Out of 708 pregnancies 4.7% led to miscarriage and 1.4% of the children were born dead.
Out of 665 child births, where the baby was born alive, 213 baby’s and children eventually died. This is an infant mortality rate of 32.0%. This means that almost 1 out of 3 children dies before its fifth birthday.
57.3% of the died children (213) were younger than 1 year old. 27.7% is between the age of 1 to 5 when it dies.
Most baby’s and toddlers (32.9%) died of fever or malaria. Fever in combination with coughing (probably pneumonia) causes a mortality rate of 13.9%.
Diarrhea, icterus, prematures and pulmonary affections like tuberculosis, pneumonia and bronchitis also occur, but in smaller numbers.
In 12.7% of the dead infants the cause of death was unknown, according to the mother.
94.4% of the pregnant women give birth at home, whether or not with the presence of a traditional midwife .
14 children were born twins; 3 are still alive.

3 Papuan prisoners in need of medical treatment for stroke
Papuan Political Prisoners Released in FakFak

Palestine/Israel Links

Israeli military commends itself for saving, not taking, lives
Settler leader says Israeli democracy must be dismantled and in its place a halakhic state, based on Jewish law
Twitter reveals JNF’s approach toward Palestinian Bedouin

South Africa Links

South Africa’s ANC celebrates 100 years
Free Nelson Mandela