“Where there is occupation there will always be resistance.”
“We shouldn’t believe the imperialists that they can make a better world. It’s only the working class that can make the world much more possible to live in without injustice and having our freedom. When the working class gets its freedom in any country, it means that it is building a better future for the generations to come.”
EVENT : DEBATE : Should the Left support the BDS campaign against Israel?
For all Victorians, there will be a meeting on the 11 May · 19:00 – 20:30 at Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton.
Almost everyone on the Left under 55 can only remember Israel as the Goliath battling the Palestinians David — from the first Lebanon war to the two Intifadas a modern army has faced far weaker opponents. And yet Israel is still supported very strongly by Western governments like our own.
The Left is united in wishing to tackle the issue, and the biggest item on the agenda is BDS a campaign for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. But is BDS the best way forward – what should be the Left’s attitude to the global BDS campaign?
Two activists line up to debate the merits of BDS:
KIM BULLIMORE who has worked on the ground in Palestine with the Women’s International Peace Service since 2004 will be putting the case for the Global BDS.
Israeli-born SOL SALBE, a campaigner for Palestinian human rights in this country for 42 years will be putting case for a more selective pinpointed approach.
Former trade union activist BILL DELLER, who used to chair the Victorian Peace Network has agreed to chair the debate.
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This event is part of the New International Bookshop’s Underground Talk series. Entry is $5/ $2 concession.
The vicious discrimination brought to bear against Palestinians in the occupied territories deserves no applause from members of Congress attending the AIPAC conference. Instead, they should raise basic questions with Israeli officials about decades of inferior rights endured by Palestinians both inside Israel and the occupied territories.
The crowd included al-Qaida sympathizers as well as students who said they opposed bin Laden’s ideology, but were angry at the United States for killing him and consider him a martyr.
A central component of this vision is the normalization and integration of Israel into the Middle East. The US envisions a Middle East resting upon Israeli capital in the West and Gulf capital in the East, underpinning a low-wage, neoliberal zone that spans the region. What this means is that Israel’s historic destruction of Palestinian national rights must be accepted and blessed by all states in the region. In the place of real Palestinian self-determination (first and foremost the right of return of refugees), a nominal artificial state will be established in the dependent islands of territory across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This goal is an essential pre-requisite of US strategy in the region. Our political activities must be informed by this understanding if we are to successfully build effective solidarity movements to confront and turn back this project.
Raja Khalidi and Sobhi Samour present ‘a review of the neoliberal worldview that underpins new Palestinian political and economic thinking and which, in our view, endangers the Palestinian national liberation agenda by errors both of commission and omission.’
– the U.S. has blended its battle against terrorism with preservation of American global interests. Each blended component contradicts the other and creates confusing missions in U.S. foreign and military policies.
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The Middle East can be conveniently divided between the nations that the U.S. confronts and have been antagonistic to Radical Islam and the nations that the U.S. befriends and whose policies have contributed to terrorist actions against the United States.
The former nations, The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, occupy the northern area of the Middle East. The latter nations, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen occupy the Middle East’s southern frontier.
Fomenting nationalism with murder : While nationalism sweeps the US with the death of Bin Laden, Muslim Americans worry bigotry against them will persist.
Afghanistan / Pakistan Links
‘Khost Province has long been a breadbasket for Afghanistan because of its multiple agricultural growing seasons. It’s also a historical power base for insurgent networks run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. “Hekmatyar and Haqqani and their forces just flow back and forth through both sides,” said Lt. Col. Jesse Pearson, the battalion commander of Task Force Spader, of the border with Pakistan.’
US funding of the very nasty and still existent Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, “a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater.”21 According to journalist Tim Weiner, “[Hekmatyar’s] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him ‘scary,’ ‘vicious,’ ‘a fascist,’ ‘definite dictatorship material.’”
Around 18 months after the fall of the Taliban, another memo claims, Iranian intelligence gave a former Taliban commander and Hekmatyar US$2m to fund “anti-coalition militia” activities. Citing further intelligence reports, the file says: “In December 2005, representatives of Ismail Khan, former governor of Herat and minister of water and power in Afghanistan, met with two Pakistanis and three Iranians to discuss the planning of terrorist acts and to create better lines of communication between the [Hekmatyar group] and Taliban.”
This latter claim appears highly speculative as Khan is a long-term enemy of Hekmatyar and the Taliban – in 2009 he narrowly survived a suicide attack for which insurgents claimed responsibility.
‘By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations:
At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks, according to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads….
CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons.31
Although the CIA claimed that the purpose was to attack military targets, mujahideen trained in these techniques, and using chemical and electronic-delay bomb timers supplied by the U.S., carried out numerous car bombings and assassination attacks in Kabul itself.32’
Fiona Byrne keeps the faith on the universal relevance of human rights and the oppression of Palestinian people.
I am proud to have been one of five Greens and four ALP councillors on Marrickville who took the global message to local government.
We believe that we represent citizens who would not want their money being used to support the on-going dispossession of the Palestinian people.
We led Marrickville into support of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a grassroots movement, aimed at pushing the Israeli government to comply with international humanitarian law.
Rupert Murdoch, Barry O’Farrell, and, sadly, some of the leaders of the Labor Party felt differently.
They clearly believe that Australia is best served by the cone of silence on Middle Eastern policy that pervades our politics and our media, whether it is Israel, Syria or any other country where the struggle for human rights continues.
We do not agree.
I’m proud to have recently heard the story from my parents’ homeland of 12 department store workers in Dublin who in the mid-’80s went on strike for two-and-a-half years for the right to not handle goods from apartheid South Africa.
Initially they were vilified, but as the sanctions movement grew their courageous stand gave hope and strength to those fighting for their human rights half a world away.
The Marrickville Council was on the right side of history when it first chose to endorse the global BDS campaign. It remains so by insisting on Palestinian rights, despite the tactical setback. Brave Australians had done the same when responding to the calls from the oppressed South African majority under apartheid. We expect no less from conscientious Australians today in response to our urgent appeal for effective solidarity. I have no doubt that one day commentators and activists will mark Marrickville’s decision as the true beginning of mainstreaming BDS in Australia and of finally standing up to Israel’s lobby and for the rights of Palestinians.
The campaign against Marrickville Council’s support for BDS shows just how worried apologists for Israel are about the growing global support for an ethical local policy towards Israel based on its treatment of Palestinians.
The developments on Wednesday represent an unambiguous failure of Israel’s long-standing policy of ‘divide and rule’. It was in pursuit of such a strategy that Israel began to fund Hamas in the late seventies and eighties, in order to undermine the secular Palestinian leadership of the PLO. This strategy appears to have backfired dramatically, in a similar fashion to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in the creation of the other asymmetric threat on Israel’s borders, the Shi’ia Hizbollah movement.
In retrospect, such a development was always likely in view of the utter intransigence of Israeli negotiators revealed by the Palestinian Papers. The leaked documents reveal a supine, if not desperate, Palestinian negotiating team making sweeping concessions on refugees right to return, the legal status of the Temple Mount and illegal settlements in East Jerusalem, to no avail. Such obduracy, arguably far in excess of what hardline Zionist Vladamir Jabotinsky was recommending in his doctrine of the Iron Wall, recalls Golda Meir’s stance towards Anwar Sadat in 1971, a stance that led inexorably to the Yom Kippur War.
Gaza is a symbol of occupation, thanks to Israel : Israel’s Pavlovian response to Palestinian reconciliation, which included the usual threats of boycott, is the result of the ingrained anxiety of people who no longer control the process
The occupation is continuous in Israeli society and this is why they lose — because they try to force us to accept them as an occupier, and that will never happen. We don’t have any problem with Jewish people. Our problem is with Zionism. We don’t hate them on the other side; we simply demand that they end the occupation of their minds. The separation between us is between different ways of thinking, not between land. If we change our ways of thought and remove the mentality of occupation from our minds — not just from the land — we can live together and build a paradise.
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The army is determined to push us toward violent resistance. They realize that the popular resistance we are waging with Israelis and internationals from the outside, they can’t use their tanks and bombs. And this way of struggling gives us a good reputation. Suicide bombing was a big mistake because it allowed Israel to say we are terrorists and then to use that label to force us from our land. We know they want a land without people — they only want the land and the water — so our destiny is to resist. They give us no other choice.
Apparently Benazir Bhutto’s estimation years ago that Osama Bin Laden was dead was greatly exaggerated. Obama’s election campaign will now experience a mammoth boost. All hail the mighty terrorist killer! Mission accomplished!
Bin Laden was reportedly killed in a mansion outside Pakistan’s capital Islamabad last week.
Reports say he was killed along with 20 other people in a drone strike.
The 54-year-old Saudi has been the most wanted man in the world since 2001 when he helped orchestrate the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
President Obama announced late tonight that bin Laden was killed during a U.S. military action. DNA from bin Laden’s body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister, confirmed bin Laden’s identity. The body was recovered by the US military and is currently in its custody.
Will the US military commitment in Pakistan and Afghanistan be reduced accordingly, or merely transferred to some other arena?
The decision to bury Bin Laden’s body at sea was part of a carefully-calibrated effort to avoid having a burial place that would turn into a shrine to the Qaeda leader, a place where his adherents could declare him a martyr.
Bin Laden was killed with a bullet by US Navy Seals. About 24 Seals got out of Chinook and Blackhawk helos and raided the compound. About 40 Seals total were involved.
There is a photo of his dead body. According to this official the picture is “gruesome.”
3 other males were killed in the raid including a man believed to be Bin Laden’s 24 year-old son.
“Lots of bullets were fired.” This official called the raid, “purely a U.S. operation.”
He was asked to surrender briefly before being shot.
These Seals have been practicing the operation for 1 week.
Dishonouring an enemy demonstrates fear. Was OBL the greatest threat to imperial power the US has ever fostered? terrorism kills very few people. Perhaps it was his words which the empire despised so much, yet ideas can’t be killed. Unfinished business?
‘Interestingly enough, according to the Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, burial at sea was more a matter of necessity than choice. Sailors accepted it when far out to sea because there was no other option, but bodies were apparently buried ashore whenever possible. This could be because the changeable nature of the sea denies the living a sense of the permanence of death, a way to complete the ritual of separation that a burial in the earth represents. It also denies the living a single place to go to memorialize the dead. When memorialization was considered especially important (as in the case of Admiral Lord Nelson after Trafalgar), those in command went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the body would be buried ashore.’
“A military officer read prepared religious remarks which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was place on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased’s body eased into the sea,” the official said.
Burying Osama bin Laden’s body at sea has ensured that his final resting place does not become a shrine and a place of pilgrimage for his followers.
Saudi Arabia is reported to have refused to take the body for burial.
Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of senior Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.
Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.
Bin Laden’s burial at sea “runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values and humanitarian customs,” said Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning.
A radical cleric in Lebanon, Omar Bakri Mohammed, said, “The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don’t think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration.”
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But the Lebanese cleric Mohammed called it a “strategic mistake” that was bound to stoke rage.
In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta warned that “terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge” the killing of the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Bin Laden is dead,” Panetta wrote in a memo to CIA staff. “Al-Qaida is not.”
According to Islamic teachings, the highest honor to be bestowed on the dead is giving the deceased a swift burial, preferably before sunset. Those who die while traveling at sea can have their bodies committed to the bottom of the ocean if they are far off the coast, according to Islamic tradition.
“They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam,” Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai’s grand mufti, said about bin Laden’s burial. “If the family does not want him, it’s really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that’s it.”
“Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances,” he added. “This is not one of them.”
But Mohammed Qudah, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Jordan, said burying the Saudi-born bin Laden at sea was not forbidden if there was nobody to receive the body and provide a Muslim burial.
“The land and the sea belong to God, who is able to protect and raise the dead at the end of times for Judgment Day,” he said. “It’s neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden’s body.”
Clerics in Iraq, where an offshoot of al-Qaida is blamed for the death of thousands of people since 2003, also criticized the U.S. action. One said it only benefited fish.
“If a man dies on a ship that is a long distance from land, then the dead man should be buried at the sea,” said Shiite cleric Ibrahim al-Jabari. “But if he dies on land, then he should be buried in the ground, not to be thrown into the sea. Otherwise, this would be only inviting fish to a banquet.”
Osama bin Laden was unarmed when Navy SEALs burst into his room and shot him to death, the White House said Tuesday, a change in the official account that raised questions about whether the U.S. ever planned to capture the terrorist leader alive.
The Obama administration was still debating whether to release gruesome images of bin Laden’s corpse, balancing efforts to demonstrate to the world that he was dead against the risk that the images could provoke further anti-U.S. sentiment. But CIA Director Leon Panetta said a photograph would be released.
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Panetta underscored on Tuesday that Obama had given permission to kill the terror leader: “The authority here was to kill bin Laden,” he said. “And obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn’t appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children – also in Iraq – as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq’s oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.
You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.
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This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations – whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction – has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
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“Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny.”
‘623. * If a person dies on a ship and if there is no fear of the decay of the dead body and if there is no problem in retaining it for sometime on the ship, it should be kept on it and buried in the ground after reaching the land. Otherwise, after giving Ghusl, Hunut, Kafan and Namaz-e-Mayyit it should be lowered into the sea in a vessel of clay or with a weight tied to its feet. And as far as possible it should not be lowered at a point where it is eaten up immediately by the sea predators.
624. If it is feared that an enemy may dig up the grave and exhume the dead body and amputate its ears or nose or other limbs, it should be lowered into sea, if possible, as stated in the foregoing rule.
625. * The expenses of lowering the dead body into the sea, or making the grave solid on the ground can be deducted from the estate of the deceased, if necessary. ‘
A few examples give meaning to the ‘apartheid’ analogy–for example, at least 40% of the land in the West Bank is now inaccessible to Palestinians for residence, agriculture, transportation, or commerce; or the existence of entire road systems that are restricted to Israelis alone; the continuing ethnic cleansing of occupied East Jerusalem; and of course, there is the so-called ‘Separation Wall’, which is condemned by the International Court of Justice. This apartheid wall has divided the West Bank into isolated segments very similar to the Bantustans of South Africa in which Palestinians live isolated from their own families and communities.
Furthermore, the problem of apartheid extends beyond the Occupied Territories. Ninety-three percent of the land in Israel is managed by the Israel Lands Administration whose interests are in preventing the purchasing, leasing or renting of land to those who are not Jewish. Several cases of attempts by Israeli citizens to rent to Palestinian families have been brought before the Supreme Court because of government interference. The Israeli government, for instance, denies Palestinian citizens of Israel the right to marry and raise a family in Israel with someone from the Occupied Territories. We would point the VLG to the racially segregated school systems which exist within Israel itself, or the fact that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, expelled from Palestine beginning in 1948, have never been granted the internationally recognized “right of return” to their homes of origin. And discussions have been underway in Israel that, while originating among the so-called right-wing fringes, have now shifted to the so-called mainstream circles proposing to remove Palestinian citizens of Israel entirely from the country and relocate them in either the Occupied Territories or some other Arab country.
The VLG is an organization whose cryptic website reveals little about who is involved, who it represents, what it does, and what it believes in, though the website is peppered with references to the VLG’s participation in AIPAC conferences and tours to the Israeli Knesset.
Naturally, this suggestion ignores the fact that, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 61% of Gazans are “food insecure,” of which “65% are children under 18 years;” the level of anemia in infants is as high as 65.5%, about 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid, and 60% have no daily access to water. It also sidesteps the fact that, as Rebecca Sargent of the Peace and Collaborative Development Network has noted, “Much of the population remains unemployed and thus have no money to buy supplies for themselves. U.N. Resolution 1860 calls for the unfettered access of aid and commercial goods to Gaza, although it would appear this call has been mostly ignored by the Israeli government’s blockade.”
If the Palestinian government also decides to sign and ratify the international criminal court’s Rome Statute, the territories of the West Bank and Gaza will fall under the international tribunal’s authority to investigate and prosecute.
Lifta is the last of the deserted Palestinian villages still standing in modern-day Israel. The several hundred other communities abandoned have either been built over, destroyed or resettled.
For decades the quasi-governmental organization the Jewish National Fund has been planting non-indigenous forests on Palestinian land, often covering up the remains of destroyed villages, as part of the state’s quest to colonize more and more land.
Abdüllatif ?ener, a former AK Party deputy who resigned and established his own Turkey Party (TP), told Today’s Zaman in an exclusive interview during an election rally in Sivas that the Hamas leader visited Turkey under an agreement between the Turkish and Israeli governments. “The official invitation was extended to Mashaal after a secret agreement was brokered between Turkey and Israel. I know for a fact that the visit was originally planned at the request of the Israelis,” he added.
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Since Hamas “won a democratic election, from now on it must act in a democratic way,” he said. US and Israeli officials insist they will have nothing to do with the Hamas administration unless it renounces violence and recognizes Israel’s right to exist. ?ener further claimed that Erdo?an called Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to silence the outspoken Israeli ambassador in Ankara who harshly criticized the visit. “In the company of some people, including me, the prime minister called the Israeli foreign minister and said: ‘We made an agreement with you before Mashaal came. Tell your ambassador [in Ankara] to stop making comments. This is enough,” ?ener recalled.
Responding to popular pressure from Palestinian civil society, including a growing youth movement, the two main rival Palestinian factions, Fateh and Hamas, have agreed to an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal after years of failed attempts at ending their divisions. Although details of the agreement have yet to be made public, it reportedly calls for an interim unity government and elections within a year. Join us as we examine the significance of this development, and the ramifications it might have on the overall political situation just a month before Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress.
GUESTS:
Ali Abunimah is an analyst & media commentator, as well as the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.
Lina Al-Sharif lives in Gaza where she is a senior English Literature student at the Islamic University in Gaza as well as an active blogger and writer.
Fadi Quran lives in the West Bank and is a coordinator within various youth movements as well as the founder of an alternative energy startup. A graduate of Standford University, Quran is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
Yousef Munayyer (Guest Moderator) is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center in Washington D.C.
Unity is an illusion unless it is representative of the call of Palestinian civil society themselves, as Ali says, for the end of occupation and apartheid, for equal rights for Palestinians in Israel and recognition of right of Palestinians to return to their lands. The unity the unelected ‘leaders’ can offer is worthless if it isn’t steadfast to the people’s vision.
The agreement signed last night between Fatah and Hamas does not represent unity. The reconciliation agreement represents a move to appease growing popular movements on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank which are demanding real unity, one that might not even involve the PA and Hamas, in order to combat Israeli occupation.
The drive for recognition is led by Salam Fayyad, the appointed Prime Minister of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA). It is based on the decision made during the 1970s by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to adopt the more flexible program of a “two-state solution.” This program maintains that the Palestinian question, the essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, can be resolved with the establishment of an “independent state” in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In this program Palestinian refugees would return to the state of “Palestine” but not to their homes in Israel, which defines itself as “the state of Jews.” Yet “independence” does not deal with this issue, neither does it heed calls made by the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to transform the struggle into an anti-apartheid movement since they are treated as third-class citizens.
Khaleda Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al Jazeera that the latest development represented an opportunity for Palestinians.
“I think it is a good opportunity for reconciliation, especially with the Arab revolutions around and the Palestinian youth movement which has started to pressure both Fatah and Hamas to really put an end to the divisions.
“This time we hope that it will be a real reconciliation, it will work because of the changes [in the region] and the internal pressure from the Palestinian people,” she said.
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But Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, stressed he would retain control over foreign policy.
He added that he remained ready to talk peace with Netanyahu if Israel halted its settlement construction on occupied lands and said the caretaker government would not include Hamas activists.
“The people will be independents, technocrats, not affiliated with any factions,” Abbas told a group of Israeli businessmen and retired security chiefs.
He said the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he heads and to which Hamas does not belong, would still be responsible for “handling politics, negotiations”.
“Dislike, agree or disagree (with Hamas) — they’re our people. You, Mr Netanyahu (are) our partner,” Abbas, speaking in English, told his Israeli audience.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted swiftly and furiously to reports of Palestinian reconciliation by reiterating what he had said a month ago: that Abbas could not have peace with both Israel and Hamas.
If Bibi meant this as a threat, it seems an odd one, since he has steadfastly refused all moves toward peace. His tactic has been to ensure that settlement construction continues, thus making it politically impossible for Abbas, in the wake of Obama’s determination to obtain a freeze on settlements, to return to talks and then shedding crocodile tears for the Palestinians “refusal” to come and talk to him.
This tactic has killed a peace process that, after twenty years of settlement expansion and massive tightening of the occupation, was already on life support. So, Bibi essentially gave Abbas a choice between peace with Hamas and no peace at all. Abbas, then, made the only call he could.
“I have met Netanyahu in Washington and in Jerusalem, and it led to nothing,” Abbas said. “All he wants to talk about is security. I understand the Israeli concern, but I won’t have Israeli forces in the Palestinian state. Netanyahu wanted an Israeli army in the West Bank for another forty years. That means the occupation continues.”
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Among other Palestinian officials present were former head of security Jibril Rajoub, who was rarely seen together with Abu Mazen in recent years, and former chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who added his own comment to questions from the Israeli media regarding the reconciliation agreement. “This is about peace, but also about democracy,” he said. “We respect the democratic choices of the Israeli people. We ask Israel to respect ours.”
Among those present on the Israeli side were former head of Mossad, Danny Yatom, former Labor Minister Moshe Shahal, buisness tycon Idan Ofer and Adina Bar Shalom daughter of Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
“I’m glad I came to Ramallah today,” said Bar Shalom. “I feel that we have a partner.”
If a Palestinian state threatens to undermine Zionism in these ways, it is not surprising that it is not on offer. It is simply implausible to expect it come about through Palestinians negotiating with no bargaining power — because to create a sovereign and legitimate state would require that the Palestinians force Israel to give something which many see not to be in their interest to concede: The abandonment of Zionism. Any concession in this area (of Zionism) inevitably opens a can of worms and the risk of igniting civil war between the various strands of Zionism. It suits Israel better to have a Palestinian “state” without borders, so they can keep negotiating about borders and count on the induced uncertainty to maintain Palestinian and international quiescence.
I recommend the views of a philosopher friend, Peter Slezak, in Australia. A few years ago he surprised his left-liberal friends by voicing support for keeping the Queen. Royalty serves a useful purpose, he said: the pomp and ceremony helps undermine respect for state authority.
Samah Sabawi was be interviewed on the ABC’s Fran Kelly show tomorrow at 6.20am and will be heard again on SBS Arabic at 7.20pm tonight – Please ring in with questions for Samah if you’re around.
Item without notice: Motion (O’Sullivan/Macri)
THAT Council:
1. Resolve not to pursue the GBDS against Israel in any shape or form as called for in the December 14 resolution; and
2. Remains concerned about Palestinian human rights and calls on Israel to end the occupation of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall; ensure the fundamental rights of Palestinians to full equality; and respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.
Motion Carried For Motion and against BDS:
Councillors Hanna (Ind), Iskandar (ALP), Macri(Ind), Olive (G), O’Sullivan (ALP), Phillips (G), Tsardoulias (ALP) and Wright (ALP)
Against Motion and for BDS:
Councillors Byrne (G), Kontellis (G), Peters (G) and Thanos (Ind)
Marrickville BDS says:
Although Council is for the time being unable to continue formal support for BDS, there are many of us in the community to continue the struggle until apartheid is dead in Israel and it is a democracy for all its citizens.
Yesterday morning before the vote, Fran Kelly revealed that the NSW State ALP left faction voted in favour of BDS earlier this year in her interview with Deputy Mayor Sam Iskandar. Sam said BDS is not a goer as far as Marrickville council is concerned and unanimously the council was now against BDS. He seemed to be channelling the ziolobby and Ramallah, denied Anthony Albanese was a significant factor and sounded convinced that BDS is a federal issue. He also appeared to be under the misconception provoked by the ziolobby that the BDS movement holds a position on the one or two state solutions. It doesn’t.
Boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel can be implemented on an individual, organisational or institutional level with flexible, tactical measures targeting entities which support the Israeli Occupation and apartheid. BDS is grounded in human rights and international law and is called for because governments have failed Palestinians. The Australian government, for example, doesn’t support Palestinians, it sycophantically follows the Israel-centric US policy and interminable fake peace process, the deception by which Israel steals more Palestinian land, and continues its apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
For Marrickville Council to defer BDS to the federal government as ‘foreign policy’ is to deny truth – the Australian government has failed and is failing Palestinians – and it also means that the ziolobby strategy, to make an example of Marrickville in order to deter other such efforts, will have succeeded, temporarily – for as with other global human rights and justice grassroots movements, nothing can stop BDS. In Australia, grassroots mass movements for justice and rights with truth on their side inevitably WIN. The Marrickville Council BDS affair has served to gain national press coverage of BDS, the adversaries against it showed all their cards and it’s clear they will not withstand the unstoppable, legitimate ongoing global push for human rights and justice for Palestinians and accountability from Israel which BDS demands.
Those who think BDS is the wrong way to go to achieve justice and rights for Palestinian people aren’t listening to Palestinian civil society, but to the colonial voice in their head.
Boycotting Israel is the right thing to do:
Why Murdoch’s Australian is wrong over BDS
Speakers include:
Samah Sabawi, Australians for Palestine
Antony Loewenstein, author of My Israel Question
Sylvia Hale, former NSW Greens MP
The Murdoch media’s campaign to force Marrickville Council to abandon its support for a global campaign to pressure Israel to abide by international law has been relentless.
This meeting, called by concerned residents, will discuss the issues behind the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and how we can support justice for Palestine.
Plus a screening of the short video by Anna Baltzer: Life in Occupied Palestine
Organised by Marrickville residents supporting the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. Sponsored by the Sydney Peace Foundation.
Friday May 13, 6.30pm for 7pm
Holy Trinity Church Hall
11 Herbert Street
Dulwich Hill, Sydney
Gold coin donation
Marrickville Council Meeting
@Jo_Tovey Massive crowd at #marrickville council meeting. Protestors out front. Huge number of people can’t get in. Placards for and against boycott.
RT @bgaensler: Media circus at #Marrickville #BDS http://yfrog.com/hs9e0dlj
RT @bgaensler: Minute’s silence for lives lost in Israel/Palestinian conflict. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @Jo_Tovey: There are more than 20 members of the public speaking on the #BDS tonight. Could be a late one. #marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS Fiona Byrne marrickville mayor arrives to thunderous applause for originally backing Palestinian rights
Hasn’t read bdsmovement.net RT @Jo_Tovey: Speaker Leslie Marsh says the boycott has no paramaters, no goal of what would bring it to an end. #marrickville
RT @Pollytics: I can understand why The Australian is so against BDS Testing, being Ramsey RESET fundamentalists & all (comes w being dim)
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS how many speakers will discuss Palestine? First person says gaddafi and David duke backs bds. Er Riiiight then.
Yay, go @fatherdave !! RT @bgaensler: Speaker 2, “Father Dave”: flowery, poetic, & pro-BDS. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @antwoabboud: fr bob: #marrickville becomes the frontline for this conflict. Death threats in this little town. In support of mayor. #bds
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS father Dave speaks. Strategy of non violent resistance against military occupation of Israel. Must be supported. #Marrickville
RT @idunnonews: Father Dave says ‘i don’t know if this fight can be won but this fight is worth fighting…prepare for glory’ #marrickville
@domknight The Middle East has come to a halt as Israelis and Palestinians alike wait nervously for the verdict of #Marrickville Council.
@domknight If the Marrickville boycott goes ahead, a chastened Israel plans to leave the region entirely and relocate to the NT.
RT @aljazsydandrew: motion is downgrade policy fr active participation n boycott 2 merely ‘in principle’ support. #BDS #Marrickville
RT @andalusiya: every anti-BDS speaker wants peaceful actions, but they support the wars and occupation of Palestine. #marrickvile #bds
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS people speaking against bds seem to not want to talk about reality in west bank and gaza. Funny that. #Marrickville
RT @mayouss: #BDS #Marrickville yey Newtown yuppie waffling. He has 3 mins to talk shit.
RT @bgaensler: Speaker 4, Ashley from Newtown: “#BDS is a ploy to delegitimise Israel. Shouts from gallery of “terrorist”, “racist”. #Marrickville
@idunnonews Another speaker says ‘I supports mayor of marrickville, who has never degraded anyone based on their culture/faith/race’ #marrickville
@antloewenstein #BDS Colin Hesse talks bout #Murdoch hate campaign against people talking bout middle east. Never let truth get in way of islamophobia.
Hasbara twaddle RT @idunnonews: Jewish speakers calls for unity through consensus rather than mistrust through #BDS #marrickville
Hasbara RT @Jo_Tovey: Prof Alan Rosen asks community to start again, come together for peace and communal harmony. #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: #Marrickville Anti-Palestinian hate being espoused by speakers against #BDS is incredible.These people spruiking utopia r living in a bubble
Oh I can’t WAIT for her article on that #sarcasmfont RT @Jo_Tovey: Just spotted Miranda Devine in the press gallery. #marrickville
RT @mayouss: #bds #Marrickville speaker against says she’s the Jewish lobby and she says friendly. I am scared.
RT @aus4pal: #Palestine = bad,#Israel = good. That’s what the haters here in #Marrackville will have us all believe!! #BDS
RT @Jo_Tovey: Indigenous speaker Ray Minnecon said he would have loved to see this kind of action for his people’s injustices #marrickville
RT @mayouss: #BDS #Marrickville @antloewenstein says council should maintain bds motion because human rights matter #herehere #palestine
RT @mayouss: #Marrickville #BDS citizens acting locally to support globally
RT @Jo_Tovey: Says Israel does what it does bec west allows it, says there r not 2 equal sides in this conflict but an occupier & occupied.
RT @Jo_Tovey: Academic Peter Slezak praises BDS, says Jews like himself have an obligation to protest violence in their name #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Palestian Samah Sabawi says most concerning thing abt this debate is the bullying endured by elected officials. #marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #bds just spoke at #Marrickville. Israeli crimes matter. Standing up for Palestine matters. Happy to speak up for bds. Justice matters.
RT @antloewenstein: #bds just spoke at #Marrickville. Israeli crimes matter. Standing up for Palestine matters. Happy to speak up for bds. Justice matters.
RT @bgaensler: Speaker 14, Samar, her family still live in Gaza. Well spoken, actually referred to motion being considered! Pro-BDS. #Marrickville #BDS
Zionists find BDS negtive because it challenges their privileges & apartheid RT @Jo_Tovey: Uri Windt, from Jewish BD, says healing must begin and that no resolution containing the negativity of the BDS should pass. #marrickville
@Jo_Tovey Uri Windt, from Jewish BD, says healing must begin and that no resolution containing the negativity of the BDS should pass. #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Palestinian Bishara Costandi says issue is ‘local because Israel is global’. Says councillors must show moral fortitude. #marrickville
RT @bgaensler: Speaker 13: blames Murdoch press, government, Israel lobby. “Criticism from these groups shows #Marrickville is on right track with #BDS”.
Speaker 16: evicted from occupied territories in 1950s. Says if Palestinians had occupied Israel, everyone in #Marrickville would want #BDS
RT @bgaensler: 17th & last speaker at #Marrickville #BDS, Carole: “I support the boycott of Israel.”
RT @aus4pal: Local Carole Lawson speaks of #Bethlehem sister city farce if #bds is not implemented fully. #Marrickville
RT @idunnonews: Speaker says ‘ Palestinian uni students can’t get to their schools because of Israeli occupation in palestine’ #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Carole list other international councils who support #bds. Congrats to Mayor Fiona Byrne for your courage!! #marrickville
Mayor Fiona Byrne now thanking contributors, about to open discussion amongst Council. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @Jo_Tovey: Labor cr Laura Wright says symbolic support is for BDS is wrong, is a banner that will continue local war of words. #marrickville
More rubbish RT @Jo_Tovey: Greens cr Max Phillips says he will not back mayor’s call for in-principle BDS, not enough support in community to justify it. #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr Victor Macri spews the standard #hasbara. you #fail in this debate Cr Macri. #Marrickville #BDS
The spitting ziolobby have no idea what they have helped along. BDS will win the final battle 🙂
RT @aus4pal: Cr Marika speaks the #truth. #humanrights is THE MOST important thing!! #Marrickville #BDS
RT @misseagle: RT @mayouss: #bds #Marrickville palestine – It is a just cause. Councillor Marika.
RT @thebigriboldi: Greens Clr Kontellis sticks to resolve: it is a job as a human being to stand up for injustice #Marrickville 3 for 3 against (2 backflips)
RT @bgaensler: Councillor: we’ve let contract w Eden Springs expire because they supply water to Golan settlements #Marrickville #BDS
RT @goldentalon: #BDS has put #Marrickville on the map. Good on the Greens for taking a stand. The zionist entity must feel the wrath of the int’l community.
RT @mayouss: #bds #Marrickville not first council in the world. Will not cost a cent. @ councillor Marika
RT @aus4pal: Cr Marika reads letter of support frSpanish cnclrs 2 #Marrickville n #BDS. We mst spprt human rights and international law!!
Zionists don’t care about human rights for Palestinians because they don’t regard Palestinians as human! #Marrickville
RT @thebigriboldi: Clr o’Sullivan: symbolism doesn’t mean much. Obviously didn’t support the Apology #Marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS #marrickville sadly many councillors talk bout how much they care about Palestine and yet seem to want to sit on fence/reject bds. Sigh
RT @Jo_Tovey: Greens councillor Peter Olive denounces Labor councillors who supported original motion but have since gone silent. #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr O’Sullivan has sold out the #Palestinians. This is a disgrace. She’s speaking gibberish. WTF! #Marrickville #BDS
RT @jdub: The early, grass roots campaigns against apartheid began in universities and local government. #bds #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr O’Sullivan is totally out of order. Crocodile tears for #Palestinians. #Marrickville #BDS
We already know RT @aus4pal: The man of the moment. Cr Iskandar is the deal breaker on #BDS #Marrickville debate. What will happen……….
RT @bgaensler: Cr Iskandar: We r a little isolated council but we stand for social justice & r respected 4 doing so. #Marrickville #BDS
If it walks like a duck and spits like a duck @misseagle @peter_b1953: The people acting like Nazis here are the Zionists #BDS #Marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr Iskandar tells us how much he cares about #Palestine. And???????? #Marrickville #BDS
RT @thebigriboldi: Hangs on Sam Iskander. Lebanese. Once vocal supporter of BDS. Albo’s numbers man… #Marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS #marrickville almost comical to hear some councillors keep on saying how much they love Palestine but anything practical impossible.
Coward! RT @Jo_Tovey: Labor’s Sam Iskander says he will continue to support Palestinians but will not support BDS #marrickville
RT @bgaensler: Cr: Can’t make case that symbolism isn’t important. Exhibit A: @KRuddMP apology 2 stolen generations. #Marrickville #BDS
Cr Thanos is a champion for #Palestine. A real voice for #humanrights. Such voices must resonate!! #BDS #Marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Ind D Thanos said symbolism has always been important in setting people free. Sounds like he will continue to support BDS #marrickville
Once upon a time, a long time ago, Australians used to believe in something called “a fair go”. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @nav_guy: 1. Vote for boycott 2. get fired by fascist o’farrel 3. immortality 4. ???? 5. Profit!! #Marrickville #BDS #braddpitt
@antloewenstein BDS #marrickville finally a councillor who talks about boycott against Burma being in council job. So why not Israel?
Cr: “Precedent 4 #Marrickville #BDS is our Burma boycott”. But presumably no divided opinion from locals on Burma
RT @Jo_Tovey: Looks like vote will be 8 – 4 against boycott at this stage. #marrickville
Oh yessss RT @aus4pal: #bds vote goes down in #Marrickville but the journey has only just begun. #israel WILL be held to account
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS #marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne. We have put bds on the national agenda. Bravo!
You can count on it! RT @bgaensler: Mayor Byrne: “Whatever the vote tonight, this issue will not go away.” #Marrickville #BDS
RT @bgaensler: Vote to rescind harshest part of #Marrickville #BDS motion: 6 in favour, 6 against. Mayor uses casting vote to defeat amendment.
RT @bgaensler: Vote on milder amendment to #Marrickville #BDS motion: 8 against, 4 in favour, amendment defeated.
RT @thebigriboldi: 2 Greens and 4 Labor flip. BDS goes down at #Marrickville Council, but campaign not over.
RT @Jo_Tovey: Still to vote on whether to overturn it completely, a separate motion #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Prediction correct – only four support retaining boycott. Thanos, Kontellis, Peters and Byrne. #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Council now debating a snap motion to write to BoF and Albanese outlining thoughts on their intervention into issue. #marrickville
#Marrickville might write to @Australian too, telling them to concentrate on locating those who make death threats against elected pollies
RT @Jo_Tovey: That motion was voted againt by Macri, Hanna and Labor, but passes. Council will write to both politicians. #marrickville
MT @bgaensler: Final vote on original #Marrickville #BDS to come. many people confused, think vote been taken, walking out!
RT @aus4pal: Cr Macri is going nuts. He’s clearly on someone’s #fascism payroll. #BDS #Marrickville
Councillor Macri: “This meeting has become a farce.” #Marrickville #BDS
Cr Macri: “#Marrickville Council is in a tailspin.” # BDS
RT @bgaensler: Vote to drop #Marrickville #BDS completely, but to “remain concerned” as to Palestinian plight: motion carried. No BDS!
#Marrickville councillors who voted to drop #BDS will go down in Australian’s book of Infamy
RT @bgaensler: Final motion as passed and how they voted. #Marrickville #BDS http://yfrog.com/h44qsagj
RT @Jo_Tovey: To clarify: boycott has been completely quashed, but council did call for Israel to ‘end occupation of Palestinian lands’. #marrickville
RT @kevinwilde: Over at Leichhardt Council tonight the Greens voted down a Labor resolution ruling out future boycott of Israel. #bds #marrickville
The final motion resolved “not to pursue BDS against Israel in any shape or form” while at the same time maintaining the three tenets of the BDS call – to end the occupation of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall, to ensure full equality for Palestinians living in Israel and to support the right of Palestinian refugees to return home. This was carried 8 votes to 4 against. None of the councilors who had opposed the BDS resolution seemed aware of the incongruity of now voting for a motion that included the very demands that BDS seeks, while refusing to do anything about it, nor that Point 1 of the original in principle BDS statement had in fact not been rescinded.
Disinformation and smear tactics may have partially lost us this battle, but the struggle for freedom, justice and equality is undoubtedly stronger as a result of your efforts. Marrickville will be remembered as the “battle” that effectively put boycotting Israel on the map in Australia!
The night before the election, Greens supporters photographed a group of men putting up posters and stickers accusing the Greens of homophobia, hating democracy and supporting terrorism. The posters have been the subject of complaints to the police and the NSW Electoral Commission.
The Greens have also criticised a controversial phone poll conducted during the campaign.
A group called the Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance claimed responsibility for the poll last week, but denied any wrong-doing.
On March 3 a request from the group was accidentally published on the Jewish news website J-Wire and a blog, requesting $12,000 in public donations for activities ”to research what local people really think … carefully targeted media coverage and advertising in relation to the election … Please also pass this information on quietly to like-minded friends”. It was quickly deleted.
Eleven days later Marrickville Council said it was investigating four complaints from residents about a survey ”asking residents to comment on the GBDS against Israel”. At least one resident complained the interviewer had claimed to be from the council.
Cr Byrne labelled it a push poll and a dirty trick.
The survey and its results, showing only one-third of respondents support the boycott, have been made public.
The poll’s introduction said the interviewer was doing a ”short five-minute study about your views and opinions of the Marrickville City [sic] Council”.
It asked residents what factors should influence council policies and initiatives and provided a list that included climate change, traffic congestion and foreign affairs. It also asked whether the interviewee was aware of the boycott.
After saying that the mayor was the Greens candidate at the state election, it asked whether that would influence their vote.
Uri Windt, who is a member of both the alliance and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said the poll was scientific and definitely not intended to mislead.
”It’s not push-polling; it does not fit the definition. It was professionally conducted,” Mr Windt said.
The alliance has refused to comment on how much it collected and spent on its campaign.
”It’s not relevant what we raised,” Mr Windt said. ”It really was us taking responsibility for our own actions and the strategy we wanted to apply, so we raised the funds and paid our debts.”
Accusations of one-sided media coverage of the issue were also rife at Tuesday’s meeting. The academic Peter Slezak, of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, said Jewish critics of Israel and supporters of the BDS campaign had not been heard, particularly in the Jewish media.
Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian-Australian, said their voice had been lost. ”I don’t feel we were able to discuss and debate the issue rationally and I don’t feel the door was open for Palestinian voices to discuss what the BDS was about.”
Vic Alhadeff, chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said his organisation had no knowledge of the poster campaign, or the phone survey, until afterwards.
Noted that Alhadeff’s comment is out of sync from the cached blog post of the Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance, which says:
Also, we have among our own numbers people who are deeply involved in the Jewish community, and we are in frequent communication with Vic Alhadeff and Yair Miller from the Jewish Board of Deputies as well as Peter Wertheim from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
I focused on the realities in Palestine and Israel’s racial discrimination. This is something that impacts us all, the lack of dignity of the indigenous peoples of the land. One side is the occupier and the other is occupied. It’s not really all that complicated. This is what Zionism is.
I spent my allotted three minutes detailing how the West props up Israel and it is our responsibility to speak up for human rights. Jewish-only roads in the West Bank. The siege on Gaza and ever-increasing settlements in the West Bank. Nearly universal backing in the UN for Palestinian rights (except Nauru, Marshall Islands, Australia, Israel and the US). As BDS takes off in countless places, the arguments against it become even further removed from Palestine itself. If you can’t argue on the facts, change the subject. Talk about local politics, or “balance” or “peace”.
Last night BDS was defeated in Sydney but the message I’m hearing from countless activists is that this has galvanised people to step up the campaign for Palestinian rights
It is fundamentally dishonest to attack opposition to Israel as anti-Semitic. It is intended to silence legitimate criticism. It also makes it impossible to challenge the real anti-Semitism that is, unfortunately, on the increase. This is largely fuelled, but not caused, by Israel‘s atrocities against the Palestinians.
There seems to be a dearth of real information in the mainstream media about the nature of the non-violent BDS call by Palestinian people and a tangible quashing of Palestinian voices, along with smears, distortions and intimidation of BDS supporters. Those who are unjust fear justice. The non-violent BDS call is firmly based in human rights and justice. and was initiated in 2005 since all other measures by governments and UN have failed to deliver Palestinians their just rights under international law.
Australian individuals, institutions and organisations should be at the forefront against Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights in the same way they were against apartheid in South Africa. Measures under BDS do not need to be sweeping nor disadvantage communities financially, but can be targeted against specific institutions and organisations which support the illegal Israeli Occupation and horrendous apartheid. BDS is a creative tactic which builds, in global grassroots solidarity with Palestinian people, an ongoing awareness of and resistance to Israeli oppression.
I hope that the Marrickville Council does not back down to intimidation and unseemly political pressure and contributes more than just lip service to BDS.
(Learn more about BDS and how other Councils round the world have incorporated BDS at bdsmovement.net ; for information about Israel’s crimes of apartheid and colonialism, see http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml)
Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS -Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights 9 July 2005
Moammar Mashni, of Australians for Palestine, said the withdrawal of support for actual boycotts was disappointing.
”[Critics] have created such a frenzy around this debate that moved away from the central message of what the BDS was all about – it’s about non-violence … a principled stand to deliver both peace and justice,” he said.
…
The expatriate activist and journalist John Pilger has weighed in on the controversy,sending a message of support to the council.
”Justice for Palestine, said, [Nelson] Mandela, is ‘the greatest moral issue of our time’,” Pilger wrote.
”That’s the company those Marrickville councillors – who have stood up for this ‘greatest moral issue’ – keep.”
The bulk of the story is interpretation or hasbara, and includes an unctuous plea from the hasbaroid lobby group which conspired to destroy BDS using push polls which are euphemised in this group as a survey.
A local group, the Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance, said even the mayor’s revised motion should be rejected.
”There’s real healing that needs to be done in our community and just coming in with in-principle support for the BDS movement, that hasn’t been discussed with us or the community,” said the group’s secretary, Janet Kossy.
…
The Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance carried out a phone survey on the campaign in March, and found that two-thirds of residents did not support it.
Ms Kossy called for $12,000 in donations in early March for ”activities that we believe will make a decisive difference” against the boycott. She would not comment yesterday on how much had been spent on the campaign.
It’s beginning to end. It’s beginning to end in the UK, it’s beginning to end even in the United States, in much of Europe, where people are finally being able, feeling that they can talk about it. And non-violent, completely non-violent campaigns, like the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign, the BDS campaign, which is much more modest than the anti-Apartheid movement but based on that, and supported by the likes of Desmond Tutu, who speaking in the spirit of Nelson Mandel called Palestine the greatest moral issue of our era, are starting to discuss it. There are views on this and those views should be heard, but this thuggish intimidation of people who are simply standing up for a justice is something that is particularly striking in Australia and in the Australian media and in my view reflects the, that monopoly, that omission, censorship by omission that exists mroe in Australia, than practically in any other Western democracy.
Jake, a 55-year-old Jewish health professional with friends in Marrickville, was so incensed by the council’s Israel boycott that he took three weeks off work to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Greens, plastering the suburb with posters late at night, accusing them of homophobia for boycotting gay-friendly Israel.
“I felt so angry,” says Jake, who wants to remain anonymous. “I couldn’t sleep at night, so I organised the posters, hired some utes and ladders” and enlisted the help of his son and his friends. Greens supporters harassed them, ripped down the posters, called police, and tried to intimidate Jake’s young helpers, posting footage of them on YouTube.
Two nights before the election, a “black sports car with neon high beams and a pseudo photographer kept flashing his camera right up on our eyes . . . It slowed us right down.”
Another night “cowboy” greenies in a Toyota Camry started following them home, until Jake confronted the driver at a roundabout. “It was like something out of a movie”.
On election day, Jake and his son organised 10 friends wearing T-shirts with “Boycott the Greens” logos to visit polling booths, prompting “Zionist pigs” abuse from greenies.
“The Greens knew we were the enemy, but the Labor people all nodded and smiled and gave us the thumbs up. Anthony Albanese [whose wife Carmel Tebbutt was ALP candidate] shook my hand and thanked me. We must have had quite an effect.
“On Sunday I took the boys out to dinner. It’s not often in life a private citizen can make a difference.”
What is emerging instead is a slow but sure manifestation of a new transnational movement, centred less on statehood and more on forging a national project that will traverse the existing Palestinian divides – diaspora, occupied territories and Israeli Arab citizens – and bypass the notion of an independent Palestinian state on part of Palestinian soil.
Samah Sabawi was be interviewed on the ABC’s Fran Kelly show tomorrow at 6.20am and will be heard again on SBS Arabic at 7.20pm tonight – Please ring in with questions for Samah if you’re around.
