Miko Peled in Australia on Israel and Palestine
Miko Peled : Israel and Palestine – Separating Myth from Reality
This is the first vid from an 8 part lecture series.
Palestine / Israel Links
Israel allows export of palm fronds from Gaza in example of double standard –
“The Israeli Defence Ministry had no comment as to why the palm fronds were of any less security threat than any other Gaza crops.”
Arabs outraged over ban on October riots studies – That bastion of enlightened democracy and purveyor of equal rights for all Israel can’t bear Palestinians learning about their history.
MK Hanin Zoabi : “The Education Ministry is breaking the law. Teaching about October 2000 is teaching history and facts. Expressing one’s opinion is one of man’s basic rights and is the duty of every school.”
A Palestinian political prisoner’s take on Israel’s protest movement – Ameer Makhoul :
‘By not dealing with the colonial, racist Zionist ideology and the nature of the Israeli state, some are choosing to consider the Israeli social movement as “post-Zionist.” However, as we know very well, post-Zionism means neither anti-Zionism nor the de-Zionization of Israel.’
‘The two state solution is not a solution’ – “‘Two states for two peoples’ rings hollow when both states already contain both peoples”
Debunking ‘gay’ Israel: ‘For a start, Israel does not have a written constitution and its quasi-constitutional laws do not guarantee equal rights; they facilitate systematic discrimination against the Palestinians who comprise one-fifth of Israel’s population. Furthermore, the idea that Israel has banished homophobia is not supported by empirical evidence. A recent survey of gay members of the Israeli military found that 40 percent of respondents suffered verbal abuse and 20 percent sexual or physical violence.’
Australian parliamentary nobodies slither up to the ziolobby, Israeli apartheid and occupation
Palestinians Win Initial Vote on Unesco Bid : US begins strongarming
Sex discrimination in Israel : Israeli orchestra drops female singer after pressure from Orthodox subscribers
PACBI-Saluting the Action group for boycott of Israel at the KTH in Stockholm
Interview with Samah Sabawi, Public Advocate of Australia for Palestine
on the latest Palestinian bid as an observer in the United Nations. (Interview begins about one third of the way into the program.)
Tunisia denies visas for Palestinian bloggers
Erdogan speaking in Pretoria live
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: UN Security Council have passed 89 resolutions against Israel, none of them have been implemented.
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan:: Has there been any pressure applied on Israel? No.
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: Four bullets were removed from one of the martyrs in the Flotilla massacre.RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: I have brought up this issue with American officials including President Obama but I have received no reply
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: Until the embargo on Gaza is lifted and Israel apologises to Turkey, relations will not be normalised
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan is going to visit refugee camps housing Syrian refugees on the southern Turkish border then decide on sanctions
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: How many Israelis were killed by supposedly launched rockets from Gaza? Olmert could not answer meRT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: Israel killed thousands of people in Gaza
RT @khadijapatel: #Erdogan: Israel is pushing itself towards solitary in the region
RT @khadijapatel: Applause for #Erdogan as he tells ISraeli diplomat: You r living in peace here in SA bt there is no peace for Palestinians
RT @khadijapatel: One thing I missed tweeting was this to Israel: “That land is not yours” #Mehmet Erdogan
This outrageous policy is an affront to common sense, an assault on human dignity and a blight upon the state of Israel. It simply must stop.”
Israeli press complicit in dehumanization of Palestinian victims
Other Links
US fascism: Secret U.S. panel can put citizens on ‘kill list’
Update to “Decolonize L.A., That’s the Movement We Need”
Preliminary demands for #OccupySydney
William Blum on US deep, deep denial : The crime of making Americans aware of their own history
Rumsfeld doesn’t want to give a straight answer on whether troop numbers were sufficient when Iraq was invaded. Shameless dodging and ad hominem from one of the world’s most ruthless war criminals.
Saree Makdisi: “522 obstacles impeding Palestinian movement and 0 obstacles impeding movement of Jewish colonists; is this seriously not apartheid?”
Rolling Back the Latest Zionist Hasbara
Countering the hasbaroid ‘Judenrein’ accusation against Maen Areikat, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs, stated:
“The future Palestinian state will be open to all its citizens, regardless of their religion,” Habbash said, according to USA Today. “We want a civil state, which in it live all the faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jews also if they agree, (and) accept to be Palestinian citizens.”
Maen Areikat, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, told POLITICO that his comments earlier this week which some interpreted as meaning Jews would not be welcome were misconstrued.
“In no way was there a suggestion that Jews cannot enter Palestine or be in Palestinian state in the future,” Areikat said.
The officials’ comments follow a controversy the ambassador’s remarks at a breakfast on Tuesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor in which he said that Jews and Palestinians “need to be totally separated.”
USA Today reported that Areikat was calling for the future Palestinian state to “free of Jews.”
USA Today has now added a clarification:
In the headline and story, Palestinian Ambassador Maen Areikat says he was referring to Israelis, not Jews, when he stated that “it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated first.”
For future reference, the US tabloids might care to comprehend Dr Saree Makdisi’s analysis about the PA:
“The PA has become what it was always intended to be; a full blown collaborationist apparatus whose main function is to facilitate the occupation and colonization of the West Bank not to challenge it or end it … The unelected leadership in Ramallah which having been swept from office by elections in 2006 was brought back to office almost literally on the turret of an Israeli tank remains completely uninterested in any accounting for the scandal of the Palestinian Papers or anything else for that matter.”
The 2011 Edward Said Memorial Lecture with Dr. Saree Makdisi “Palestine: Epicenter of the Arab Revolutions”
Israeli police evict a Palestinian family from their home in Jaffa.
Palestine / Israel Links
Is someone born in Jerusalem born in Israel?
The bulldozer ziofascist entity at its dirty collective punishment habit again
Why the UN must abolish the ‘Quartet’ – Ali Abunimah: ‘Part of the difficulty of ascertaining where official Quartet business ends and Tony Blair’s personal interests begin is a complete lack of accountability and transparency.’
Post Your Zionist Oriented Art Here (Israel Culture Ministry offers prize for ‘Zionist-oriented’ art)
Israeli yellow journalism: Anatot: Yisrael HaYom Smears Palestinian Farmer, Calling Him Convicted Rapist
Calls to Boycott the Haifa International Film Festival
Open Letter to John Michael McDonagh from Don’t Play Apartheid Israel
Dear John Michael McDonagh,
We write you this letter in the hope that you will carefully consider cancelling your participation in and the screening of your film “The Guard” at the Haifa International Film Festival in October 2011 in Israel. Your participation will undoubtedly be interpreted as a political statement in support of Israel’s harsh and illegal apartheid.
As described by the Palestinian Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel (PACBI), “the Festival is sponsored by Israel’s political establishment, from the Minister of Culture and Sport to the Mayor of the city of Haifa. The Israeli Haifa elite celebrates Haifa as “a city that has become a symbol of co-existence, tolerance and peace,” in flagrant contradiction to the realities of segregation, discrimination, and racism suffered by the native Palestinian residents of Haifa, and in denial of Israel’s violent history of ethnic cleansing in that city.” [1] Thus, by screening “The Guard” at this festival, you would be lending your support to the Israeli government and its policies of apartheid, occupation and war crimes against the Palestinian people.
The PACBI call to boycott has been made by over 200 Palestinian civil society organisations, and has been endorsed by filmmakers and artists such as Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Roger Waters, Pixies, Iain Banks, Leftfield, Arundhati Roy, Elvis Costello, Naomi Klein, John Berger, Breyten Breytenbach and Gil-Scott Heron among others. Indeed, since 2006, Ken Loach has refused to participate in the Haifa Film Festival or any other cultural events in Israel while this terrible oppression of the Palestinian people continues. [2] [3] [4]
Over 200 artists in Ireland, including great directors and actors, have signed a pledge to boycott Israel. [5] These artists refuse to allow their work to be exploited by an apartheid state that disregards international law and universal principles of human rights. Attending cultural events in Israel truly is a political statement in support of apartheid, and against human rights. Please be aware of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s statement in 2005 that “We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and…do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”
The BDS (Boycott, Divesment and Sanctions) movement has reached global proportions and people around the world are joining in solidarity with the oppressed people who live under Israel’s harsh, oppressive, racist apartheid system.
There are many reasons not to participate in this film festival, some of them follow. The recent International Red Cross report on the siege of Gaza demonstrates how terribly damaging it is to Palestinians. [6] The siege most definitely constitutes human rights abuse. Also, the UN Report of 200found that Israel commited war crimes in its assault on Gaza in 2008/2009, including using white phosphorous on civilians and using human shields. [7]
In the light of last year’s murder of humanitarian activists by the Israeli military and the ongoing illegal and immoral siege of Gaza, as well as the occupation of Palestine, it is profoundly important that Israel not be allowed to profit from artists visiting the state until it upholds international law. Apartheid was wrong in South Africa and is wrong in Israel; please take a stand against it. [8] [9]
Our sincere hope is that you honour both your craft and human rights, and refuse to cross the picket line drawn by the Palestinian call for cultural boycott and cancel your film screening in Israel.
Sincerely,
We are a group of 774 members representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for 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.
[1] Israeli International Festivals: Occasions for Whitewashing Oppression or Resisting it?
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1722
[2] Call for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869
[3] After the Flotilla Massacre: Cultural Boycott of Israel Takes Off
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1291
[4] Filmmaker Ken Loach Joins the Cultural Boycott of Israel
http://electronicintifada.net/content/filmmaker-ken-loach-joins-cultural-boycott-israel/622
[5] IPSC “Irish artists’ pledge to boycott Israel”
http://www.ipsc.ie/archives/pledge/
[6] Gaza Closure: Not Another year!
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/palestine-update-140610.htm
[7] UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/FactFindingMission.htm
[8] Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) study : Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml
[9] United Nations Report on Movement and Access in the West Bank
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_MovementandAccess_FactSheet_September_2011.pdf
OPEN LETTER to George Clooney: Say NO to Haifa International Film Festival
Dear George Clooney,
Arts and culture have become an important weapon in the Israeli government’s public relations campaign, and in 2006, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched an initiative called “Brand Israel,” to salvage Israel’s deteriorating image abroad.
The Haifa International Film Festival is an arm of the Israel Ministry of Culture and Sport and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both of which are happy to exploit your good name as part of their effort to re-Brand Israel as a normal country by showing its “prettier face”–its vibrant cultural and artistic community. Thus, Israel is portrayed as an enlightened center of arts and technology, thereby concealing the ugly facts about its occupation, racial discrimination and grave violations of international law and fundamental Palestinian rights.
It came to our attention that the film you directed “The Ides of March,” will be the “opening film” at the Haifa International Film Festival.
Mr. Clooney, we urge you to follow the example of the renowned filmmaker Ken Loach, who declared in 2006 that he would decline any invitation to the Haifa International Film Festival, or other such occasions, as an acknowledgment of the Palestinian call for boycott, which Palestinians have been driven to pursue “after forty years of the occupation of their land, destruction of their homes and the kidnapping and murder of their civilians.” Loach was responding to the 2006 call by Palestinian filmmakers, artists and others to boycott state sponsored Israeli cultural institutions and urged others to join this campaign.
Since the Haifa International Film Festival has made no attempt to dissociate itself from Israel’s apartheid policies, we can only assume the festival organizers and sponsors are happy to screen films under the patronage of the State of Israel and/or its institutions. Meanwhile, the charges of war crimes against Israel hang thick in the air worldwide.
The apartheid wall, shown in these photos, is just one aspect of Israel’s illegal suppression of the other half of the population that is not Jewish. That other half is oppressed in atrocious ways that amount to war crimes. An estimated 7 million or more Palestinians live as refugees. Refugees that are denied their full legal right to return to their homes. Refugees that live in poverty and squalor, through no fault other than that they are not Jewish. They were expelled, in order for a jewish state to be formed. That state, globally, more and more, is known as “Apartheid Israel.”
George Clooney, please be on the right side of history, the side that eventually will win. The side that contributes, each person in their own small way, to the abolishing of apartheid.
Gaelic Neilson
member “Don’t Play Apartheid Israel”
(A group of over 770 people united to stop apartheid in Israel)
JOIN THE Haifa International Film Festival: A Call to Boycott
Here’s the Program for the Festival – if you see a director/film from your country, please contact them and request them to boycott apartheid Israel