KADAITCHA » international law

“Justice is the essence of peace” – Ali Abunimah’s Address at Penn BDS

Jinjirrie — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:21:07 +0000

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.”

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.

On Bedouins in the Naqab : Jazi Abu Kaf at the Russell Tribunal, Cape Town

Jinjirrie — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:58:35 +0000

Apartheid within Israel

Jazi Abu Kaf talks about the crime of persecution in regards to Israel’s actions towards the Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev) desert during the 3rd International Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Cape Town, November 2011.

Palestine / Israel Links

3-year-old arrested, leftist writer interrogated — another day in the “Jewish and democratic” state
The latest version of Israel’s propaganda kit.
As with apartheid South Africa, Israel purifies its sins through others
Israeli students organisation is paid by the Israeli government and @avimayer Jewish Agency to do state propaganda with a ‘pretty face’ – great expose

Other Links

This is a fabulous link – cool water to a parched mouth. : A powerful year of online media by and for Indigenous Peoples
‘Decolonization is a dramatic reimagining of relationships with land, people and the state.’

Please, Youn Sun Nah, Don’t Let Your Jazz Smooth Over Israel’s Crimes

Jinjirrie — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:11:42 +0000

OPEN LETTER to Youn Sun Nah: It’s Not Smooth to Jazz and Dine in Eilat while Gaza Suffers

Dear Youn Sun Nah,

The Red Sea Jazz Festival is a festival that is sponsored and promoted by the government of Israel. The festival is a part of the effort to normalize apartheid and talented Jazz musicians are being used to cover up Israel’s crimes. Your presence at such a festival sends the message that there is nothing wrong with the injustices that Israel commits daily against the Palestinian people. It undermines their non-violent call to boycott, which is their last resort for justice and freedom after 64 years of oppression and dispossession.

Your recent effort to raise awareness for the children of Africa through UNICEF was very commendable and would lead us to believe you would be interested to hear more about the plight of the Palestinian people. Being a musician of conscience, would you consider staying home? Would you refrain from playing in Israel?

Imagine if the children of Africa that you raised funds for were under military rule, and because of their ethnicity they were placed behind tall cement walls, and made to wait for hours to go through checkpoints. Suppose they were forced into an open air prison in which musical instruments and chocolate were not allowed in, and drones littered their skies daily, their memories grey with sadness from 22 days of bombing where over 1400 people were left dead, white phosphorus burning hands that would have liked to play music. If they asked you not to play for the government that was harming them, would you ignore their request and play anyway? Would you wine and dine with the elite in a resort, letting them hear your lovely voice and smooth jazz music all the while ignoring the suffering just miles away? Three artists based in France decided to cancel their Israel gigs in 2011 – will you join Vanessa Paradis, Mireille Mathieu, and Oumou Sangare?

Students in Seoul, Korea participated in Israel Apartheid Week in 2011. Please watch their very creative efforts:

If you are still not sure why over 170 civil society organizations in occupied Palestine have come together since 2005 to ask artists like yourself to boycott Israel, we’ve included some valuable background information below, written by the Palestinian BDS movement.

Regards,

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel

We are a group, of over 820 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 through the world.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION from the PACBI

Israel subjects Palestinians to a cruel system of dispossession and racial discrimination

Perhaps you are not familiar enough with Israel’s practices, widely acknowledged as violations of international law. If this is the case, then we hope you will reconsider your planned concert after thinking through some of Israel’s trespasses. Your performance would function as a whitewash of these practices, making it appear as though business with Israel should go on as usual. Concretely, Israel routinely violates Palestinians’ basic human rights in some of the following ways:

1. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a brutal and unlawful military occupation. Israel restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement and of speech; blocks access to lands, health care, and education; imprisons Palestinian leaders and human rights activists without charge or trial; and inflicts, on a daily basis, humiliation and violence at the more than 600 military checkpoints and roadblocks strangling the West Bank. All the while, Israel continues to build its illegal wall on Palestinian land and to support the ever-expanding network of illegal, Jewish-only settlements that divide the West Bank into Bantustans.

2. Palestinian citizens of Israel face a growing system of Apartheid within Israel’s borders, with laws and policies that deny them the rights that their Jewish counterparts enjoy. These laws and policies affect education, land ownership, housing, employment, marriage, and all other aspects of people’s daily lives. In many ways this system strikingly resembles Jim Crow and apartheid South Africa.

3. Since 1948, when Israel dispossessed more than 750,000 Palestinian people in order to form an exclusivist Jewish state, Israel has denied Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and their lands. Israel also continues to expel people from their homes in Jerusalem and the Naqab (Negev). Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees still struggling for their right to return to their homes, like all refugees around the world.

4. In Gaza, Palestinians have been subjected to a criminal and immoral siege since 2006. As part of this siege, Israel has prevented not only various types of medicines, candles, books, crayons, clothing, shoes, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee and chocolate, but also musical instruments from reaching the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the world’s largest open-air prison [9].

Israel uses arts and culture to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights.

In December 2008 and January 2009, Israel waged a war of aggression against Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians, predominantly civilians, dead [10], and led the UN Goldstone Report to declare that Israel had committed war crimes [11]. In the wake of this assault and to salvage its deteriorating image, Israel has redoubled its effort to “brand” itself as an enlightened liberal democracy [12]. Arts and culture play a unique role in this branding campaign [13], as the presence of internationally acclaimed artists from the West is meant to affirm Israel’s membership in the West’s privileged club of “cultured,” liberal democracies. But it should not be business as usual with a state that routinely violates international law and basic human rights.

Your performance would serve this Israeli campaign to rebrand itself and will be used as a publicity tool by the Israeli government.

Numerous distinguished cultural figures and public intellectuals have joined the call for BDS.

After the Gaza assault and even more so after the flotilla massacre in May 2010, many international artists, intellectuals, and cultural workers have been rejecting Israel’s cynical use of the arts to whitewash its Apartheid and colonial policies. Among those who have supported the BDS movement are distinguished artists, writers, and anti-racist activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu [14], John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Adrienne Rich, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, Roger Waters, and Alice Walker [15].

World-renowned artists, among them Vanessa Paradis, Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart, Faithless and the Pixies have also cancelled their performances in Israel over its human rights record. Maxi Jazz (Faithless front-man) had this to say as he maintained his principled position not to entertain apartheid,

While human beings are being willfully denied not just their rights but their needs for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals that [performing in Israel] is either ‘normal’ or ‘ok’. It’s neither and I cannot support it. It grieves me that it has come to this and I pray everyday for human beings to begin caring for each other, firm in the wisdom that we are all we have. [16]

Please say no to performing in Israel.

If you remain unconvinced because of claims that a cultural boycott of Israel may infringe on freedom of expression and cultural exchange, may we recall for you the judicious words of Enuga S. Reddy, director of the United Nations Center against Apartheid, who in 1984 responded to a similar criticism voiced against the cultural boycott of South Africa by saying:

It is rather strange, to say the least, that the South African regime which denies all freedoms… to the African majority… should become a defender of the freedom of artists and sportsmen of the world. We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism. They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime. [17]

[9] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7545636.stm
[10] http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGMDE150212009
[11] http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=91&LangID=E
[12] http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/13/truth_and_advertising
[13] http://mondoweiss.net/2009/03/ny-times-offers-the-rationale-for-the-cultural-boycott-of-israel.html
[14] http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article675369.ece/Israeli-ties–a-chance-to-do-the-right-thing
[15] http://usacbi.wordpress.com/endorsers/
[16] http://www.wallofsilence.org/news.html
[17] http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/mayjune08/positions.cfm

SOURCE

Arch Enemy and BDS: F*CK the Boycott & Amnesty International will go with us to Tel Aviv

Jinjirrie — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:24:40 +0000

The Palestinian Freedom Riders recently highlighted Israel's unjust apartheid policy of separate but unequal.

Will Amnesty International decide to ignore the Palestinian call for justice but to instead obey Arch Enemy’s call? Arch Enemy is making strong claims that Amnesty International accompany them to Israel, as they break through the Palestinian picket line known as BDS.[1]

The cultural boycott is Palestine’s non-violent form of resistance to the continued oppression and apartheid inflicted on them by Israel. Amnesty making a “show” with Arch Enemy would only serve to normalize apartheid and deflect from the need to hold Israel accountable to International Law.

Electronica musician Moby recently broke the boycott call and played for Israel’s Pic.Nic for apartheid. Moby did not have the audacity to demand that Amnesty International be present at his concert. Art For Amnesty lists Moby as one of their prominent supporters.[2] That Moby broke the boycott call is appalling, but it would have been worse had he removed all references to Palestine on his facebook (he never did), and insisted on Art For Amnesty to join him in Israel, all the while, thanking Israel lobby group “Stand With Us,” and recording vocals with a pro-settler band in Israel.

Can Amnesty International maintain credibility and appear in Tel Aviv with Arch Enemy?

Arch Enemy has repressed all mention of the Palestinian call on their facebook, aggressively banning human rights volunteers and deleting posts.[3]
In a disturbing disregard for the Palestinian plight today, Arch Enemy has not responded nor acknowledged the PACBI’s letter written directly to Arch Enemy.
Arch Enemy’s lead singer has publicly thanked “Stand With Us.” The “Stand With Us” twitter profile clearly shows exactly who they are. Until pressured to remove it, the lead singer kept her tweet of thanks to SWU visible.[4]
Arch Enemy’s lead singer did collaborate with the pro-Zionist band Amaseffer. She did the vocals for the band’s track “Midian” in 2008.

Amnesty set a precedent in 2009. They chose to withdraw from Leonard Cohen’s concert in Israel.[5] Depending on which way the pendulum swings, Amnesty will either choose to maintain the precendent they set in 2009, or they will choose to ignore the Palestinian call for boycott, creating a setback in the fight for human rights. Hopes are high that Amnesty will simply refrain.

_____________________________________________________________________________

[1] See http://www.kadaitcha.com/2011/12/19/anarchist-arch-enemy-stands-with-fascism/
[2] See http://amnesty.org/en/art-for-amnesty/who-works-with-us/music,-gigs-and-tours
[3] See http://zazafl.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/arch-enemys-angela-gossow-refuses-to-hear-palestinian-voices/
[4] http://refrainplayingisrael.posterous.com/arch-enemy-thanks-israel-lobby-stand-with-us
[5] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2009/amnesty-international-withdraws-from-leonard-cohen%E2%80%99s-israel-concert-fund-513#.TvVAVTVSTFK

SOURCE

Deceit and Threats by Zionist Extremists against BDS Activists

Jinjirrie — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:19:16 +0000

UPDATE 8th January, 2012

Israeli propaganda group HonestReporting denies encouraging employee to smear UK professor

The fact she was a MediaCentral employee is what I reported and focused on, mainly because the Jewish Chronicle failed to even mention this basic fact. The problem with Marcus Dysch’s story is that it failed to mention Bakovic works for what is essentially a PR agency that aims to improve Israel’s image in the world.

…

This also calls into question the professionalism of Jewish Chronicle journalist Marcus Dysch. He’s entitled to promote a pro-Israel viewpoint, but that’s no excuse for dishonesty or (at best) poor journalism. The omission of such a salient point means he either didn’t do the five minutes of research it took to find out who Bakovic works for, or that he knew and covered it up.

Today, I asked Dysch on Twitter why he didn’t mention it, but he hasn’t replied (he’s unlikely to have seen this question, however, because he’s preemptively blocked me, despite the fact I’m pretty sure I’ve never Tweeted at him before).

If I had written an analogous story about a Palestinian student who was an employee of, say, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, without mentioning who he or she worked for, that would have been sloppy at best and dishonest at worst.

If Bakovic’s campaign against Professor Pratt has “no connection whatsoever” to her employer, as Plosker claims, why not simply say as much in the Jewish Chronicle article? Why did they wait till after Abraham Greenhouse and myself wrote about the case on Electronic Intifada to admit the fact?

Dysch’s reporting has also been called into question after he claimed in a second article that the agency which reviews the performance of universities in the UK “would conduct a preliminary investigation” into Pratt’s behavior. The Quality Assurance Agency soon denied this to the Times Higher Education magazine. They reported that: “no official complaint has yet been made and the QAA will require more details over the allegations before it could proceed with any investigation”.

This smear against Israeli human rights activists is all too familiar

UPDATE 5th January, 2012 Dysch publishes in the JC a story full of dire innuendo, sinisterly entitled “Performers deny ‘dark art’ funding”.

Dysch insinuates misdoing with the frightening news that ‘At least 34 artists (out of 150) who supported it [the cultural boycott campaign] have received funding to help pay for tours, running costs or fund individual projects’ and refers to Raymond Deane.

Composer Raymond Deane, a founding member of the IPSC, has received around £76,000 from the council during the past five years.

He said: “Neither I, nor the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, receives a penny from the Irish government for our activities in defence of Palestinian rights.”

Well, I hope that clears up Dysch’s confusion.

[UPDATE 28th December: Raymond Deane is contacted by a journalist from the Jewish Chronicle, Marcus Dysch.

"Mr Deane - I'd like to speak to you about reports in the Israeli media which name you and others involved in the IPSC and claim you are receiving Irish government funding for your pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activities. We are likely to run a story in our newspaper this week which includes Israeli officials suggesting you are knowingly using funds from the Arts Council for these activities. I'd like to speak to you about this and hear your reaction. Please let me know if we can speak in the next 24 hours.

Marcus Dysch
Reporter
Jewish Chronicle
Tel: 020 7415 1665

You can email them back at: marcusdysch@thejc.com

You can also tweet Marcus at @MarcusDysch

@MarcusDysch
Been in office 25 minutes and already had three emails accusing me of being an Israeli government agent. (I'm not, if you were wondering.) #

The Jewish Chronicle's editor, Stephen Pollard regards the Jewish Chronicle as "Israel's candid friend". Previously the JC has had to apologise and pay damages to Tafazal Mohammad, Managing Director, Muslim Youth Skills for false allegations against him.

Ilan Pappe draws attention to the campaign of intimidation conducted by the zionist lobby in his article today in the Electronic Intifada, noting

"What you learn is that once you cower, you become prey to continued and relentless bashing until you sing the Israeli national anthem. If once you do not cave in, you discover that as time goes by, the ability of Zionist lobbies of intimidation around the world to affect you gradually diminishes."

[UPDATE 25th December: Recently, zionists made hacking threats against BDS activists. The Amnesty International UK site was compromised on or before December 16th. According to Paul Royal of Barracuda Labs,

So, if you have visited the website anytime between and has out-dated Java software, there’s a good chance that your computer is infected. In that case, run a complete system scan using your updated anti-virus. It is also a good idea to change the passwords of your online accounts.
...
This exploit will not affect you if you had already installed the latest Java updates or if you don’t have Java installed.

Paul also says:

The working theory for this anomaly relates to Amnesty International as a human rights non-governmental organization. To explain, certain countries use zero day exploits and other techniques to gain electronic information about the activities of human rights activists. Of course, a subset of these activists are too smart to click on links in even well-worded spearphishing emails. But what if you compromised a website frequented by these activists (e.g., Amnesty International)? Then your targets come to you. The context-specific damage potential is significant.

Amnesty International is currently being asked to disassociate itself with Arch Enemy lead singer Angela Gossow's claim that they will accompany the band in Israel. Amnesty International withdrew its support from a boycott breaking Leonard Cohen concert in 2009.]

[UPDATE 23rd December: On Ynet, world-renowned Irish composer Raymond Deane is "price-tagged" at the mammoth sum of $119 million (now amended to $119,000) over the past 5 years, which he has, according to the shameless libeller Itamar Eichner, received from the Irish government (are oil companies involved here as well?) to 'subject to verbal attacks and letters of incitement' 'Irish elements interested in sustaining ties with Israel', and 'in a bid to free him from the need to work for a living so that he could devote his time and energy to the creation of music.' For zionist propaganderists, music isn't considered a "real job", at least if the targeted musician has private activities which include solidarity in campaigns for Palestinian human rights. And here's the zionist veiled threats against a musician's livelihood for daring to exercise conscience to support boycotts, divestment and sanctions from apartheid, colonial Israel:

The Foreign Ministry report also reveals that although the Irish foreign minister has voiced his objection to any type of boycott against Israeli culture, Deane is still receiving government funding.
...
"The ongoing funding of a person who has been conducting a hostile, public and aggressive campaign against Israel from Irish taxpayers' money raises very difficult questions," says a source in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

The propaganderist ends on a softened tone which only serves to highlight the previous attempt at intimidation of an individual of conscience in a foreign country:

"Nonetheless, an artist's breach of trust toward Ireland's authorities is an internal Irish matter which we cannot and do not wish to intervene in, despite its harsh implications on us."

]

In November, Palestinian Solidarity activists in Ireland protested the holding of an Israeli film event at Filmbase in Dublin which was sponsored and funded by the Israeli Embassy.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) also issued an “Open Letter to Filmbase“, expressing its surprise

“that a prominent Irish cultural institution would allow the Israeli embassy to carry out this audacious ‘Brand Israel’ activity on its premises hardly two weeks after Irish peace activists were illegally apprehended by the Israeli navy in international waters, humiliated, and imprisoned in Israel…”

These approaches were rejected by Filmbase, despite much dissension among its employees, not all of whom supported the decision to host the event. The opening of the festival, a wet and miserable evening, saw Filmbase “defended” by a force of at least two dozen Gardaí. Members of the IPSC, the Irish Anti-War Movement, Act for Palestine and others demonstrated noisily and peacefully, displaying Palestinian flags and placards with such slogans as “End the Siege of Gaza” and “Boycott Israel”. The arrivals of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, and the Minister for Defence and Justice Alan Shatter were greeted with particularly vociferous cries of ”shame! shame!”

These state marketing events are mooted by Israeli propaganderists (hasbarists) as effective tools to whitewash Israeli crimes of apartheid, colonialism and Occupation and to counter what they cast as “delegitimization”, although through its ongoing crimes against humanity, Israel accomplishes singlehanded its own delegitimization. Attempting to address “the BDS delegitimization network”, the Reut Institute which develops propaganda strategy for Israel crows that ‘it takes a network to fight a network’. What a tawdry network the hasbarist network is! Some elements supportive of Israel of late have taken to using dirty tricks, as evidenced below from Filmbase to the present, fabricating threats supposedly made by BDS activists against venues and performers that are unsubstantiated, despite repeated challenge.

More recently, these deceits have been spotted on the Arch Enemy Facebook wall and elsewhere, with the band’s lead singer Angela Gossow, who has recorded with far right Israeli illegal settler band Amaseffer, making threats of her own against BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement) activists.

Now the tactic of falsely accusing BDS people of threats has resurfaced on the facebook wall of Joker, who announced his decision not to play Israel a few days ago, following information about racism the last time he played there. Joker has said several times since he is not going to play Israel, while Israel’s hasbarists have continued to claim that he is not cancelling, on twitter and facebook. The Israeli media has also published a misleading and unsubstantiated story about the cancellation claiming Joker and his girlfriend had received threats on their lives. An email was also circulated from CLUTCH – Electronic, claiming that ‘Joker was very frustrated from the situation and said to tell everyone that the decision was very hard for him and was directly because of death threats and his girlfriend lives.’ They accuse BDS supporters, then admit they made massive efforts to convince Joker to play, including direct conversation with Joker and all those around him – euphemisms for bothering his girlfriend and libellous attacks against people who supported Joker’s decision to cancel.

Along with the institutionalised apartheid it inflicts on Palestinians, Israel is a hotbed of racism against people of colour, evidenced by a disgraceful march in Tel Aviv held against African refugees on December 11, 2011.

In fact, it is Israel’s zionist propaganderists who are making threats toward BDS activists and who are conducting a shoddy campaign of deceit and bullying which delegitimizes that which they claim to defend further. Ludicrously, one hasbarist even accuses a BDS activist of being funded by oil money! Other threats are made to attack BDS activists’ computers.

After Joker decided to cancel, Israeli founder of hasbara group ‘Act for Israel’ Noa Tishby was consulted by Ido Daniel on twitter asking her what to do. There’s no thought of Joker’s music and Noa is based in Los Angeles. Gidi Grinstein of the Reut Institute orated at Noa’s marriage, effusing on Israel.

‘Politically savvy and passionate, Noa Tishby is a Member of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Relations Committee) and has traveled to Washington DC to lobby on Capitol Hill. She is also a member of The Israeli Consulate Speakers Bureau, a member of “Summit Series” organization for young entrepreneurs, a member of the ILC (Israeli Leadership Council) and is a mentor for Women In Film.’

The Israeli Leadership Council of which Tishby is a member, is involved with the Reut Institute taskforce.

Israel Leadership Council (ILC) of Los Angeles partners with the taskforce – As part of its current strategic re-visioning effort, the ILC invited the taskforce to think about its potential leadership role. In this context, a report was written and presented to ILC board members in Israel. The report includes both a theoretical framework describing the fledgling phenomenon called the organized Israeli Diaspora, as well as guidelines for how the ILC can best fit into this emerging reality. The report aimed to address the following question: How can the ILC leverage the Israeli Diaspora in the US?

Act for Israel concocts lists of spurious ‘talking points’ for Israel’s hasbara borg hubs to proliferate, while spreading malicious interpretations of BDS activists’ tweets, misspelling Palestinian rights advocate Ali Abunimah’s name and labelling him an ‘antisemite’.

Below is the evidence of the malicious Israeli campaign against activists for Palestinian human rights which ironically attests to the effectiveness of the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement, otherwise these reprobate zionists would be otherwise occupied.

Arch Enemy

Zionist hate on Arch Enemy related Facebook walls

Zionist Hate, Threats and Lies on Joker’s Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere

Joker is not playing Israel Confirmations

Filmbase

Hasbara Links

Act for Israel talking points for dummies to tweet.
The uninformed are essential to a working democracy, study finds
NOAM CHOMSKY – TOP 10 MEDIA MANIPULATION STRATEGIES
Israel as a spurned Facebook friend: the worst propaganda video ever?
Reut Institute
Act for Israel casts the good old anti-semitic slur at Ali Abunamah [sic] of Electronic Intifadah [sic]

Happy Summer Solstice 2011

Jinjirrie — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:42:35 +0000

Nutanyahoo expresses his wish that violent settler rioters will be prosecuted in military courts, as are occupied Palestinians. Does this presage the advent of similar juridicial trying of Israelis who are in solidarity with Palestinians, arrested for protesting Israel’s apartheid wall, land grabs and occupation?

Barak would rather treat the settler thugs as a terror group yet suggests ‘administrative arrests’. Lieberman worries about the impact of the rioters on the fortunes of Israel’s illegal settlements projects, seeing them as “weeds that must be uprooted.”

The ministers’ comments came after some 50 settlers and right-wing activists entered a key West Bank military base on Tuesday, throwing rocks, burning tires, and vandalizing military vehicles.

In an apparent price-tag attack earlier Wednesday, anonymous perpetrators set a historical Jerusalem mosque alight, spray painting phrases such as “Muhammad is dead” and “Muhammad is a pig” on its walls.

Also on Wednesday, Justice Minister Ne’eman is expected to form a list of proposals geared at toughening legal actions against right-wing activists and in the wake of recent price tag attacks.

Prosecution under military law would marginalise the settlers from Israel proper and could also move the goal posts contemporaneously for solidarity protesters.

The zionist ‘State’ has spoken – violent acts against its ‘defensive’ apparatus are not civil crimes, but acts of war regardless of whether the ‘crime’ is committed by the occupied, or those who steal from occupied Palestinians. (Crimes of theft from Palestinians and even crimes of violence against Palestinians by illegal settlers however are rarely prosecuted by Israel.) With its response to the settler assault on its IOF, the state is setting itself against its own nationals.

This is the sort of contradiction which exemplifies fascism. In fascist states, the state, the collective of ‘nationals’ (and only Jews are nationals in Israel) is deemed to be more important than the rights of the individual. Yet those who belong to the state – its nationals, are expected to have allegiance to the state, although it puts itself before their rights. To go against the state means pitting oneself against a collective of which one is a part by nationality and allegiance, to which one already has surrendered one’s individual rights.

Peres, the ‘soft’ face of Israel, pokes up his hypocritical head and wails about the Ten Commandments, as if zionists, other than the odd spiritual zionist, have ever cared about keeping them where Palestinians are concerned. Deceitfully, the Yesha (settler) Council chairman attempts to cover up for the settlers, setting the tone for the usual retreat back to the customary defensive posture of entitlement to land theft by claiming provocation, including an oblique slur toward Islam.

“most of the settlers are opposed to violence. There is no justification for (these) actions, no matter what the religion of the victims is.” However, Dayan added that “in recent days there is a trend of incitement… against the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.

Who is inciting again?

since the start of 2011, more than 500 Palestinian homes, wells and water containers and other basic infrastructure in the West Bank and Jerusalem have been destroyed, which led to the displacement of more than 1, 000 Palestinians according to UN statistics.

“This is more than double the number of people displaced over the same period in 2010, and the highest figure since at least 2005. More than half of those displaced have been children for whom the loss of their home is particularly devastating,”

Lebanon’s president highlights West’s hypocrisy on ‘democracy’ & treatment of Palestinians
Before the zionist invasion began in the 19th century, “Palestinians made up 95 percent of the indigenous population of Palestine”.
Maybe Newt can occupy Palestine, but Israel can’t
Palestinian flag raised at UNESCO marking admission as new member
The ugly face of ziofascism
Resistance key to freeing Palestine: Haniyeh
From Palestine to Syria: Free Razan @RedRazan

No Freedom of Expression in the Shadow of the Occupation

Jinjirrie — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:59:48 +0000

Israel’s theft from the people of Nabi Saleh of their water and land created the weekly protests against the Occupier. This is the moving speech of Nariman Tamimi, read at the Human Rights March rally in Tel Aviv, December 9, 2011 by Nisreen Alyan, an attorney at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which emphasises that

“In the shadow of the Occupation, there is no dignity and there is no freedom of expression.”

“Even the most basic right to demonstrate and protest against the action of the Occupation is grossly abused.”

A short time after the speech was read in Tel Aviv, at the weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh, Mustafa Tamimi was critically injured from an IOF teargas projectile manufactured in the US and fired at him face from point blank range. He died in the hospital the following day, on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011.

According to eye witness to the murder, Linah Alsaafin, the Israeli soldiers delayed Mustafa’s transportion to the hospital.

‘The soldiers laughed. They smiled. They took pictures of us, zooming in on each of our faces, and they smirked. ‘They laughed at us as we screamed at them to let us through to where he was, unconscious in a taxi near the watchtower. They threatened us if we didn’t go back. We waved the flag with his blood on it in front of them. One of them had the audacity to bat it away. We shouted, “His blood is on your hands!” They replied, “So?”’

Another eye witness, Ibrahim Bornat, artist and activist from Bil’in was standing next to Mustafa at the time of the murder and describes the inordinate, cruel delays created by the Occupation forces.

I ran back to get people, because we were far away, but there was no ambulance around, so the people around gathered him and put him in a servee [a communal taxi] and tried to leave. The soldiers stopped the servee and tried to arrest Mustafa, but when they saw that he was on the brink of death, they began to act as if they were humanitarian, to revive his heart. But what is ‘humanitarian’, to shoot someone to kill, and then to try to help him? These were the same soldiers from the jeep that shot him. They shot him, then say they want to help him. What they really did is prevent him from leaving.

The body lay on the ground for half an hour. They wanted Mustafa’s ID, and they also wanted the ID of his mother, of another family member, and of Bassem Tamimi’s wife, because these people wanted to go out with him too… They were doing some kind of medical treatment while he was lying on the ground, but this was no hospital, and what he needed was to be taken to a hospital. He should have been flown out in that moment. There is nothing you can do for him on the street there.

RT @ibnezra: The Israeli army has failed to confirm that its soldiers violated ‘open-fire regulations” resulting in the death of Mustafa Tamimi.
RT @shunradan: The jeep frm which #mustafatamimi was shot carries a “how am I driving?”sticker http://twitpic.com/7qupdd Call 02-5694211 & tell them!
RT @Abou_Charlie: #MustafaTamimi’s father was denied a permit to exit West Bank to be with his son as he fought for his life. How ethical!
RT @iRevolt: IOF spokesperson displays picture of slingshot as the reason 4 blowing off half of #MustafaTamimi’s head is.gd/JycvNU
RT @gazaheart: Hate has no limits. I was shocked to read comments re IDF murder of #mustafatamimi beneath article is.gd/EXLXZ0

Mustafa was the 20th person which Israel’s sadistic Occupation forces have killed with tear gas canisters, and the first martyr of Nabi Saleh. The criminal IOF have excused themselves by stating that the incident was ‘exceptional’. (exceptionally cruel?)

Figures in the army’s Central Command said the soldier claimed he “didn’t see” Tamimi. But even if that is true, the IDF’s rules of engagement prohibit the firing of tear gas grenades from a rifle pointed directly at demonstrators or from a distance of less than 40 meters away. They also stipulate that the shooter must use the rifle sight and verify that no one is in the line of fire. Central Command and the Military Police are conducting separate investigations into the incident.

Plan Dalet has never ended, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians has never ended, Israel’s expansionism, its deceitful posture of ‘defence’ and ‘security’ which it uses to obscure and justify its foul land grabs and murder has never ended.

At Mustafa’s funeral, the IOF again resorted to violence, with 3 people injured and 8 arrested. Once again, the IOF fired tear gas projectiles directly at the crowd, spraying the village with skunk water which will pollute it for days. This collective punishment on people who are being robbed of their birthright and denied civil rights is a crime against humanity.

RT @LinahAlsaafin: The pig soldiers wanted to arrest us all. They beat us. We formed a human pile on the ground, limbs bodies twisted. They continued to hit us

RT @LinahAlsaafin: I held up a picture of #MustafaTamimi in front of a soldier’s face. He grabbed it and balled it in his fist. It’s in my bag now, torn.

Meanwhile, Israel focussed its terror on the civilians of Gaza, breaking the ceasefire again, invoking the biblical symbology of Palestinians as Amakelites as a sheep and chicken farm was attacked, causing mass death of livestock.

On Saturday, Israeli soldiers fired artillery shells targeting a chicken and sheep farm in Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip — dozens of livestock died in the attack; excessive damage was reported.

The Maan News Agency reported that the shelling targeted the farm of local resident Ramadan Abu Ghazala, located east of Beit Hanoun. The shelling led to no human casualties.

In another Israeli state terrorist attack

A Palestinian child was severely wounded and her father was injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza city at dawn Sunday.

At present, Gaza may serve as a scapegoat for Israel’s impotence toward incidents in the Sinai. Israel is also threatening to punish the Gazan people in another despicable way – by cutting off their water supply.

Mustafa #fail’: Israeli military spokesman mocks on Twitter death of Palestinian demonstrator killed by army tear-gas canister
Israeli Defence Force spokesman sparks fury after ‘mocking’ dead Palestinian demonstrator on Twitter

‘It is not important what this bill teaches us about Danon as a person – that he did not study history, for example, or that he did but he knows very well that in fascist regimes the State is above all else; or that as an experienced demagogue he knows just how close a connection there is between the level of discrimination against a certain ethnic group and the claims about crime among its members. ‘

Israel’s religious right builds fascist machismo, while the govt builds fascist political repression
The Haaretz editorial is still being coy – ‘religious extremism’ and ‘nationalism’.
Count the fascistic lies and distortions in this drivel where Israel claims to support human rights.
Turkish President shuns event attended by Israel’s Defense Minister
Drones spotted above Gaza as Israel breaks truce; death toll at 5
Israeli Airstrike Injures Father, Daughter in Gaza
Israel must refrain from launching Gaza offensive
Israeli aircraft strike Gaza, as cross-border violence continues
“Israel cannot strike at the donkey, so it hits the saddle instead and Gaza cops it.”
My attempt to arrest Israeli weapons chief
Israeli ambassador to take up Cairo post
In pictures: When a nonviolent protest ends in death
Ministry of Hasbara: IDF Has Become Israel’s Chief Delegitimizer
Invitation: Third National BDS Conference
Gingrich, part of the invented ‘US people’ describes indigenous Palestinians as ‘invented’ : Gingrich won’t like where his logic leads.
Nabi Saleh Activist Critically Injured by Tear Gas Canister | Palestine Solidarity Project
VIDEO (Graphic): 27 year old Mustafa Tamimi after being shot in head by an IOF tear gas canister yesterday
Seeing the forest and the trees: The untold story of the Jewish National Fund – A sleazy tale : follow the JNF land thieving fund money :

Recalling that Bob Geldof praised the JNF land thieves. Bob Geldof breached the boycott [on May 31, 2011, 'when he accepted a dis-honorary fake degree from Ben Gurion University] praised the JNF when he spoke to patrons at a Jewish National Fund event telling them that the JNF ‘got’ the idea of sustainability & the importance of water over 100 years ago.

Israel is gobbling Palestinian land again extending an illegal Jews-only apartheid settlement to the edge of Bethlehem. while meanwhile Regev slithers out and lies that it’s all Palestinians’ fault again, for refusing ‘direct’ peace talks.
Great news! ‘Ads calling for “peace with justice and equality” and an end to the U.S. aid to Israel went up last week in a prominent location in the Civic Center station in San Francisco as well as on 15 AC Transit buses servicing the East Bay area. ‘

Christian bigots get Lowes ads pulled : Lowe’s Pulls Advertising from Muslim Reality Show After Bigots Complain
Palestinian flag to be raised at UNESCO headquarters
New initiative in UN to ‘censure Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.’ : how about STOPPING Israel’s attacks for good with BDS ?
Shufat residents were protesting the construction of a new Israeli military checkpoint at the entrance of the camp, which they say will cut the 45,000-string community from the rest of the city and control their movements.
Bedouin protest Israel’s relocation plans; village receives notice of imminent eviction
There’s no need to be any less bigoted than Europe implies Nutanyahoo
Palestinian protester’s death an ‘exceptional’ incident, say IDF officials
Israel’s Russian doll apartheid : Legal researcher on Israel: “Segregation within segregation within segregation”

Egypt Links

Egypt’s military will have final say on country’s new constitution

Other Links

Wondering why the domestic police are bristling with weapons to use against those they are supposed to defend?
US missiles ‘hit Iranian village’
We are all ‘persons of interest’ in the #newfeudalism of full spectrum surveillance

Chomsky Lecture at Deakin University 4 November 2011

Jinjirrie — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:31:30 +0000

Professor Noam Chomsky presented a lecture ‘Changing Contours of Global Order’ a look at our drastically changing world, and the implications for domestic and world order on 4 November 2011.

Noam Chomsky – 7th Edward Said Memorial Lecture on November 5, 2011

——————————————————————————————————

Australia/US MOU Links

Overview Factsheet
Palantir, the War On Terror’s Secret Weapon
From the left, Gillard marches to Uncle Sam’s beat
Sweden vs. Assange

Australia Selling Uranium to India Links

What’s the harm in selling uranium to India?

US Abstains on Kimberley Process Vote – Zimbabwe Free to Export Marange Diamonds

Jinjirrie — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:38:28 +0000

Effectively clearing Marange blood diamonds for sale to blood diamond processor, Israel, the US abstained from the Kimberley Process plenary session vote. US and EU sanctions remain in place for Zimbabwe diamonds, yet the lifting of sanctions against diamonds from Marange will permit the diamond sales to bolster the Mugabe and apartheid Israeli regime. The KP Civil Society Coalition of NGOs, led by Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) and Global Witness commented

… the KP has “thrown away” its main point of leverage over the Zimbabwean government by allowing it to export diamonds without first fulfilling previous commitments to reform its diamond trade.

“The KP has effectively given up on Zimbabwe. KP member governments and the diamond industry seem ready to turn their back on the interests of Zimbabwe’s citizens, the public good and the principles on which the Kimberley Process was founded,” said Liberia-based Green Advocates president Alfred Brownell.

Edward Cross, an MP from Tsvangirai’s rival MDC party agrees with the NGOs and human rights organisations that the sanctions should have remained:

“I think it was absolutely wrong to allow the Marange diamonds to be sold,” he said.

“I have evidence that the value and volumes of Marange diamonds are being underestimated and are being used to subvert the democratic process in Zimbabwe.”

Rights groups accuse Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party of funnelling profits from Marange diamonds to senior military officials and party leaders.

More concerns are raised by Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe Minister for Finance and a founding member of the MDC opposition party:

But Zimbabwe’s revenue has not been fully accounted for, prompting Mr Biti to complain bitterly of systematic plundering by authorities. The minister has had several clashes with President Robert Mugabe and Mr Mpofu.

In a document seen by Business Day that Mr Biti presented to the government recently, he complained about the systematic corruption linked to the diamond fields. Mr Biti said the money from diamond sales could go towards paying public servants and other state obligations.

Diamond proceeds mostly bypass the fiscus amid suspicions that Mr Mugabe, his ministers and business allies are diverting the revenue for their own public administration and political activities. Under pressure, the Zimbabwean mines ministry yesterday claimed that it would ensure “minerals are exploited for the people’s benefit”.

Revenue has not been fully accounted for, prompting Mr Biti to complain of plundering by authorities

In the past, Mr. Biti has been arrested and detained for political reasons by the Mugabe regime.

Other diamond processor representative bodies acclaiming the removal of sanctions include India’s Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council.

Next year the US will take over the chairmanship of the KP.

Global Palestinian Solidarity Statement

Sean Clinton from Global Palestinian Solidarity writes:

“The agreement to allow the export of blood-tainted diamonds from Zimbabwe sets the Kimberley Process (KP) and the diamond industry on collision course with civil society. On Tuesday, a letter (attached) signed by over 2000 people worldwide addressed to all members of the KP was sent to KP Chair, Mr. Mathieu Yamba and to the NGOs, Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada. The letter calls for:

1. – an urgent review of the KPCS definition of a “conflict diamond” so all diamonds that generate revenue used by any group or government to commit breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law are classed as conflict or blood diamonds
2. – the ending of the use of the term “conflict free” to describe diamonds that fall outside the existing narrow KPSC definition of a conflict diamond.
3. – the introduction of a universal hallmarking system for all diamonds so consumers can be fully informed where a diamond was mined, cut and polished.

Human rights activists highlighted the fact that despite the Israeli diamond industry being a major source of revenue for the Israeli military which stands accused by the UN Human Rights Council of war crimes, Israeli diamonds are not classed as conflict or blood diamonds and are labeled conflict free by jewellers worldwide.

The decision of the Kimberley Process members to allow the export of diamonds from Zimbabwe demonstrates that the industry is unwilling to end the trade in all diamonds that fund gross human rights violations. As a result, the KP could not legally prevent the export of diamonds from the Marange area. In order to maintain the charade and keep the discredited KP in place, member states have agreed to turn a blind eye to concerns expressed by NGOs, including Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada. The agreement reached serves only the diamond industry which will once again claim that all diamonds are conflict free – a totally false and misleading claim which must be challenged.”

Palestine / Israel Links

Public Lecture by Professor Noam Chomsky

Freedom Waves to Gaza : End the Blockade by Apartheid Israel

Jinjirrie — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:46:00 +0000

With superb stealth in order to thwart sabotage by Israel which occurred on the last Freedom Flotilla earlier this year and with plans only alluded to in +972 Magazine last week, two Freedom Waves boats are en route to Gaza. They are attempting like 11 fleets before them to break the hideous illegal blockade of land, air and sea that Israel perpetrates as collective punishment on the people of Gaza.

“The Freedom Waves to Gaza emerged from the Freedom Flotilla initiatives,” says Irish Ship to Gaza organiser Fintan Lane from on board the MV Saoirse. “While the Freedom Waves to Gaza will be delivering some much-needed medicines, our primary goal is to help free Palestinians from their inhumane isolation in what is in effect an open air prison.”

Also on board in this civil society to civil society initiative are delegates from Canada, Australia, the US, Greece, Palestine, Poland and Egypt. “We have just entered international waters and hope to reach the shores of Gaza in a couple of days. The only obstacles in our way are Israel’s military, but international public opinion is behind this effort, and so is civil society in Gaza.”

“The Palestinians living in Gaza want solidarity – not charity. They have made it clear to the world that their primary demand is for freedom. While humanitarian aid is helpful, Palestinians are still prisoners with no freedom of movement,” adds Ehab Lotayef, the Canadian boat organizer. “Israel’s illegal blockade prevents not only imports into Gaza, but exports as well. And the blockade prevents Palestinians from moving freely between Gaza and the West Bank, in violation of fundamental human rights.”

From an October 2011 Report from the UN OCHA, some fast facts help explain why it is imperative to challenge and end Israel’s closure of Gaza:

. The population of Gaza is 1.6 million, with over 50% under 18.
. 38% of Gazans live in poverty.
. 26% of the Gazan workforce, including 38% of youths, is unemployed.
. The average wage declined by over 20% in the past six years.
. 54% of Gazans are food insecure and over 75% are aid recipients.
. 35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli military measures.
. 50-80 million litres of partially treated sewage are dumped in the sea each day.
. Over 90% of the water from the Gaza aquifer is undrinkable.
. 85% of schools in Gaza run on double shifts.
. About one-third of the items in the essential drug list are out of stock.
. Since the beginning of 2010, 64 Palestinian civilians have been killed and 621 injured by Israeli forces; over 60% of casualties occurred in the access-restricted areas. Another 60 civilians were killed and 137 were injured in tunnel-related accidents

The Gaza blockade (through the land, air and sea) is a denial of basic human rights in contravention of international law and amounts to collective punishment. It severely restricts imports and exports, as well as the movement of people in and out of Gaza, and access to agricultural land and fishing waters. Gazans are unable to provide for their families and the quality of infrastructure and vital services has deteriorated.

Israel has now beleaguered the civilian population of Gaza, flaunting international law, for 1604 days.

The MV Saoirse from Ireland, sailing under the US flag, and the Tahrir from Canada carry 27 passengers between them. The humanitarians on the Irish boat include Parliamentarians and famous footballer Trevor Hogan while the Tahrir has several Al Jazeera journalists aboard.

After setting sail under the protection of a Turkish Coast Guard vessel from Fethiye in South West Turkey, the boats are now in international waters and expect to arrive at Gaza on Friday. According to Michael Coleman, Australian representative on the Tahrir:

I went home from the last flotilla feeling quite frustrated, as the ministerial edict that stopped us sailing to Gaza had no basis in law, and almost felt cheated out of doing the most meaningful thing I had ever set my mind to. And I’m hopeful that that won’t happen again, but if it does, it doesn’t deter my determination.

The aims of the flotilla are twofold. While we do have a small amount of aid on board—and that’s one of the goals, is to take aid to the besieged Strip—but the other is public awareness. And we’re well aware that the small amount of aid we have is tokenistic. It’s not going to prevent the suffering of 1.5 million people. Only governments and international institutions can do that. But we, as private citizens, can pressure governments and international institutions to do what is right.

According to Haaretz, the IDF ‘plans to intercept vessels, offer them to dock at Ashdod or port in Egypt’.

Yesterday, Israel brandished its phallic military objects as Netanyahu bellowed for a strike on Iran and more illegal racist Jewish colonies in Occupied East Jerusalem. Deceitfully, Netanyahu claimed support from long dead Gandhi, whom zionists have been wont to attempt to coopt in the past.

‘Talking about Gandhi, he said, “Each of us who knew him knows how deeply engraved Jerusalem was in his soul. It was the center of his being, it towered above all else in his world view.”

Yet Gandhi was no friend of zionism.

“My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?”

The Israeli PM appears oblivious to US signals to Turkey of its favoured diplomatic position – Turkey’s recent promotion to co-chair with the US on the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum and 3 deadly new USMC AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters with which to assault the PKK along with messages of support from the US attest to this. Further, Turkey insisted boat passenger numbers be reduced prior to departure (this report says only 11 on the Tahrir and 10 on the MV Saoirse).

For these reasons, it’s unlikely that Turkey will send its navy to escort the vessels. In early September, in yet another of its ubiquitous bumbling Turkish affairs reports, Haaretz claimed that Turkish naval vessels would accompany future aid ships, relaying that ‘According to the report, Turkish naval vessels will accompany civilian ships carrying aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.’

However, Al Jazeera more reliably reported at the time:

Turkey’s naval forces would escort Turkish humanitarian aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister has said, following Israel’s refusal to apologise for its deadly raid on an aid flotilla heading to the besieged Palestinian territory in May 2010.

“We have humanitarian aid to be sent there. And our humanitarian aid will not be attacked anymore, as happened to the Mavi Marmara,” he told the Al Jazeera on Thursday.

“Turkish warships will be tasked with protecting the Turkish boats bringing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.”

Please contact your Federal Parliamentarians and Media Representatives and forward them a copy of the Freedom Waves for Gaza Press Release, explaining why it is important that these boats succeed on their mission. Fair sailing and firm hearts, folks!

Support Freedom Waves

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Canadian and Irish ships set to challenge Israel’s illegal blockade with Freedom Waves to Gaza
CALL TO ACTION – We Need Waves of Support for Gaza

Palestine / Israel Links

Olympia Food Co-op fights back against Israel-backed anti-boycott lawsuit
The US abstains on the KP vote, effectively clearing Marange blood diamonds for sale to blood diamond producers like Israel. US sanctions prevent them being traded in the US, but as for US cronies – so the US wants to chair the KP process next year? that should smooth its way when it eases in its AFRICOM scam.
Goldstone walks alone on a bridge to nowhere