Israel

July 5, 2012December 11, 2020

Richard Bona & Mandekan Cuba, Please Stand Against Israel’s Racism – Boycott!

Dear Richard Bona, Luisito Quintero, Roberto Quintero, Dennis Hernandez, Mike Rodriguez and Osmany Paredes (Mandekan Cubano),

We are aware that you are returning to play at the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Israel, a government supported and sponsored event. We (Don’t Play Apartheid Israel) would like to ask you to make the courageous choice to refrain from playing the festival this year.

You may not be aware, but new developments have taken place in Israel, which make it even clearer that Israel is an extremely racist state. The very city you will perform in has been to the forefront in the latest racist incitement and attacks specifically directed against Africans. Please read these examples:

Eilat Mayor Presses for Immigration Enforcement. Eilat mayor Yitzhak Halevi is a leader in the movement against Africans.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/156175#.T-3PyBdSSI8
Netanyahu: African refugees threaten Israel’s identity, security
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-21-israel-on-african-immigrants/
Israelis attack African migrants during protest against refugees, protesters go on ‘unbridled rampage’ targeting African workers and looting shops serving refugees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/24/israelis-attack-african-migrants-protest
Immigration in Israel: African outcasts in the promised land. As African refugees are put into camps and attacked by racist gangs, Donald Macintyre reports from Tel Aviv http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/immigration-in-israel-african-outcasts-in-the-promised-land-7879780.html
Israel launches African migrant deportation drive
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/17/us-israel-southsudan-idUSBRE85G07620120617
African refugees in Israel get a cold shoulder and worse
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/27/world/la-fg-israel-africa-refugees-20120527
Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from the country (and anyone who disagrees deserves to be raped)
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/video-israeli-mob-demands-all-african-refugees-be-deported-from-the-country-and-anyone-who-disagrees-deserves-to-be-raped.html

Please join other ethical jazz musicians who have chosen to heed the boycott call. These include Cassandra Wilson, Jason Moran, Eddie Palmieri, and Tuba Skinny. Other artists, such as Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello and Roger Waters at first agreed to perform in Israel but then , decided that it was of greater importance to support the just struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli oppression, and we hope you join them in rethinking your performances. Often artists intend to stand apart from politics and just play their music, but please be aware that your performance will be used to musicwash Israeli apartheid. For example, see 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.” Also, be aware that Palestinians will not be able to see you perform as they will not be able to attend the festival, because of the apartheid. Can you, with the knowledge of Israel’s racist oppression, play to a segregated audience?

The savage Israeli siege of 1.7 million people in Gaza and other forms of collective punishment of the 2.7 million people in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem are only part of the Israeli war crimes. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that “Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalized regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law.” Jeff Halper, an Israeli professor of anthropology, testified saying: “the situation in Israel was ‘ugly’ and ‘more than just the separation of people’. “If you look at the map of the region, you can see the bantu state that has been created.” Nearly 6 million Palestinians are subjected to Israel’s harsh form of apartheid.

Palestinian Civil Society called for a cultural boycott of Israel – many musicians support it, such as the over 150 Swiss artists who have signed up to respect the boycott, stating “We note that the non-violent boycott, when it gains wide popular support, is an effective means of putting pressure on those in power.”

Recently Alice Walker, respected author of The Color Purple, called international attention to the urgency of abolishing apartheid in Israel. She refused Yediot Books in Israel permission to republish her acclaimed novel. A strong supporter of the cultural boycott, Alice wrote:

“It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.”

Richard Bona, Luisito Quintero, Roberto Quintero, Dennis Hernandez, Mike Rodriguez and Osmany Paredes, we hope you will join these other brave people in respecting the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott.

Sincerely,

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel
We are a collective of over 900 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel. This is essential in order to work towards justice for the Palestinian people under occupation, and also in refugee camps and in the diaspora throughout the world.

SOURCE

July 4, 2012December 11, 2020

Due to Israel’s Expansionism, Two States are Out of the Picture

ICAHD, ID SR on situation in Palestinian territories, 25th Meeting
02 July 2012

Israeli Committee against House Demolitions Mr. Itay Epstein, Interactive Dialogue with: – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 A/HRC/20/32 . Item 7: Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories – 25th Plenary Meeting. 20th Session of the Human Rights Council. HRC Extranet.

The art of intransigence, from Shamir to Netanyahu

It was Shamir who taught Bibi the method of pushing off the risk of concession without saying “no” to the Americans and inventing preconditions for the political process that the Arabs would undoubtedly reject. Shamir demanded that the PLO not be invited to the Madrid Conference that the administration of Bush senior convened at the end of 1991. Shamir demanded the Palestinian delegation be part of the Jordanian one and not include any representative from East Jerusalem. And just to be sure, he also demanded that every Arab nation, especially Syria, show up in Madrid.

To Shamir’s great surprise, the Palestinians agreed to all the conditions and found indirect stratagem that made a laughingstock out of Israel, such as finding East Jerusalem representatives who also happened to have addresses is Ramallah. I remember the panic in the Prime Minister’s Office after its staff read a piece I published in this newspaper about an American congressman who had visited Damascus bearing the message that Hafez Assad had decided to dispatch his foreign minister to the Madrid Conference. When I met Shamir a few days later, I couldn’t resist, and said to him, “You’re right, Mr. Prime Minister, you just can’t trust those Arabs.” Shamir, knowing what I meant, didn’t laugh. He was not amused.

Netanyahu’s policy on the settlements and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people demonstrate that Netanyahu is Shamir without the mustache.

July 4, 2012December 11, 2020

Litvinenko Redux – Exhume Arafat

Could Litvinenko have a connection with Arafat’s death? Radioactive polonium has been found in Arafat’s clothing.

Arafat’s symptoms in his decline were similar to those of Litvinenko’s.

The death was reminiscent of that of Yasser Arafat, who became ill with nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea after eating dinner in his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Oct. 12, 2004. The symptoms continued for more than two weeks before he was evacuated to France where he died on Nov. 11.

Doctors were unable explain his rapid decline and supporters accused Israel of having poisoned Arafat. Israel denied the allegation and no evidence of poison was ever found.

…
Litvinenko worked for the KGB and its successor, the FSB. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris Berezovsky and spent nine months in jail from 1999 on charges of abuse of office. He was later acquitted and in 2000 sought asylum in Britain, where Berezovsky also lives in exile.

In 2005 according to this article, Litvinenko named Arafat as a KGB agent.

The bloodiest terrorists of the world were or are agents of the KGB-FSB. These are and well-known Carlos Ilyich Ramiros, the nickname “Jackal” (he is condemned for terrorism in France), deceased Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Adjalan (he is condemned in Turkey), Vadi Haddad, the head of the service of external operations of the Popular front of releasing of Palestine, Hauyi, the head of the communist party of Lebanon, mister Papaionnu from the Cyprus, Sean Garland from Ireland and many others. All of them were trained in the KGB, received money from there, weapon and explosive, counterfeit documents and a communication facility necessary for carrying out of acts of terrorism practically worldwide.

Russian tycoon, Boris Berezovosky aka Platon Elenin, in whose house in London Litvinenko lived, said in 2003:

“If Israel, a tiny country with the most superb security in the world, can’t protect its people from suicide bombers and other terrorist acts, how is Russia, a vast country with an incompetent and impoverished security apparatus, going to do so?”

Will the fingerprint impurities in the polonium found on Arafat’s belongings turn out to reveal the same origin as that in Litvinenko, which the British authorities suppressed?

In 2007, Fatah accused Mohammed Dahlan of poisoning Arafat.

Top officials of Abbas’ Fatah Party issued a report Sunday contending that former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan sent poison disguised as medicine to Arafat while he was in a Paris hospital.

They offered no evidence to back up their claim, other than to say Dahlan ordered Arafat guards to burn the vials in which the alleged poison was stored.

“We must kill him softly and throw him out from the PA Presidential palace, we must find an alternative leadership. I’m sure Mohamed Dahlan is qualified for this mission”. Moshe Ya’alon, ITF Chief of Staff

Arafat’s body might be exhumed, questions pondered about it, but the two state solution is beyond resurrection.

Related Links

Palestinians and Arabs have alleged Israeli agents poisoned Arafat. Some Palestinian Authority leaders have suggested former Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan assisted Israel in the alleged poisoning.
Arafat poisoned? Danny Rubinstein told us so

Litvinenko Revisited
Who dun it? Litvinenko
Meanwhile, Cheney goes to Saudia
Spies in the Sushi Bar
Luguvoy and the Timeline Change

After losing 15 citizens to suicide bombings in September 2003, Israel’s security cabinet decided to “remove” Arafat, without elaborating publicly on the precise action it planned to take. An Israeli newspaper quoted Dichter as saying at the time that it would be better to kill Arafat than exile him.

After polonium revelation, Israel’s PR hacks revive lies that Arafat was gay and died of AIDS

UK’s Litvinenko inquest suffers setback
Judge leading probe into death of ex-Russian spy in London upholds government request to withhold crucial evidence.

June 25, 2012December 11, 2020

Samah Sabawi : Boycott Israel on Both Sides of the Green Line

TRANSCRIPT

Leading Liberal Zionists have come out in impressive numbers calling for the boycott of settlements, but I have to warn you there is something to dread; they want you to buy Israeli products instead! They say they want to save Israel from a dangerous extremist threat. Namely, the Israeli gov’t and the BDS! Yes, they have lumped us together as two extreme versions calling for one state. Both? Extreme?

In this absurd reality BDS’s call for equality is apparently as extreme as ethnic cleansing. In what world is this convincing?

In their grand hypocrisy they want us to fortify the Green line that supposedly separates a Jewish state from a future Palestine but without ever supporting Palestinian resistance. Is it then a matter of a state of mind? If we think it, the settlements will go? What tools can we use and where are these liberal Zionists when nonviolent protestors are shot in the face with gas canisters?

They want us to be as delusional as they are. They want us to be docile. They want us
to exonerate Israel of all its past crime or God forbid, we would be accused of clinging to victimhood.

They want us to march along side the spin doctors and bleeding hearts ‘The settlers are to blame for the erosion of Israel’s democracy!’, ‘The settlers are to blame!’. ‘The settlers are to blame for the erosion of Israel’s democracy’. ‘The settlers are to blame!’.

For the destruction of a Zionist fantasy!

As if settlers exist in a vacuum. As if settlers have come from some far away planet. landed on a hill in the West Bank and without any help from congress, the Knesset or the senate, they began to build their colonies on our land.

‘The settlers are to blame!’ As if Israel was not built on the ruins of Palestinian villages long before the settlers came to the West Bank. Long before the checkpoints and the wall, long before it all, long before there was an occupation, there was a total devastation, a ruthless destruction of an entire nation.

‘The settlers are to blame!’ But as far back as 1948 villages were erased, Palestinians were massacred, to make way for the establishment of this state.

‘The settlers are to blame!’ But go on and ask this soil you tread whose ancestral flesh
has fed this earth for centuries? Whose blood runs in the sap of the olive trees? Whose stories are written between the cracks of these old stones?

‘The settlers are to blame!’ Close your eyes and search your soul. Dig deep. Those nightmares in your sleep are the voices that once filled this Arab home you have occupied with laughter. Look beneath your bed. Did they leave their slippers when they ran barefoot down the street and into exile? Did they leave behind the tea-kettle warm on the kitchen table? Before they wore an eternal label ‘refugees’!

‘The settlers are to blame.’ But who shoots the gas canisters and live bullets at the protestors in the West Bank? Who enables these settlers to steal Palestinian land?

‘The settlers are to blame.’ Who is responsible for the death of thousands in Gaza?
Was it settlers riding on their F16 fighter jets who dropped the phosphorus bombs on schools, houses and mosques? Or was it a state army, your army, wearing a uniform that supposedly represents all of Israel that killed and maimed at will?

The best part is when Liberal Zionists like Beinart suggest calling the West Bank ‘undemocratic Israel’. ‘Undemocratic’ as opposed to what? The democratic Israel on the other side of the Green line where Palestinians who survived the Nakba and hold Israeli citizenships have dozens of laws that single them out and discriminate against them?

‘The settlers are to blame!’ But how are the settlers alone responsible for the systematic racism of a state that defines all non-Jews as second-class citizens?

And pray tell, who set the Eritrean migrants’ house on fire in Jerusalem and demanded the deportation of Africans seeking asylum?

If we boycott settlements and buy Israeli goods will the Jews in Israel become more accepting of non-Jews in their neighborhoods?

Let’s put an end to this grand deviation. Settlers wouldn’t exist if not for the support of an ethnocentric nation, dedicated by any means necessary to driving out the indigenous population.

Yes, Boycott the settlements. But don’t stop at the green line because they did not.
Boycott the settlements but also boycott ethnic superiority. Boycott discrimination against Palestinians who are second-class citizens in their own country. Boycott Israel’s academic institutions for their complicity. Boycott Israel’s culture for its duplicity. Boycott Israeli industries. Boycott Israeli institutions for supporting war crimes. Boycott Israel’s apartheid policies on both sides of the green line until all of this changes and we are all free, living together Palestinians and Jews in equality.

Boycott Israel and I promise you, this day will come.

Related Links

Omar Barghouti explains why BDS targets ‘trade with companies that profit from the illegal settlement enterprise, as well as other Israeli violations of human rights and international law’
Hit apartheid Israel where it hurts – trade

June 20, 2012December 11, 2020

Barrington Levy, Please Boycott Israel, Say No to Racism and Apartheid

You can contact Barrington Levy and let him know that breaking the boycott against apartheid Israel is unacceptable from the contact link on his web site.

Gangsters - BARRINGTON LEVY Dear Barrington Levy,

We have discovered you are scheduled to play in Israel on ~~22 June~~ the 28 August.

The fact that there is a cultural boycott of Israel is not something of which all musical artists are aware when they schedule to play Israel. After becoming aware, many cancel. (See http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1788)

We are writing to let you know more about this global movement, and we hope you will decide to be a part of it.

Israel has claimed authority over the lives and land of millions of Palestinian people. What began in 1948 in Palestine has now escalated into what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many others call apartheid. Racism runs deep in the streets of Tel Aviv, Africans seeking asylum and living as refugees are filled with fear as Israelis demonstrate on the streets against their presence. Last May brought fear to Africans in Israel as a series of fire bombings of apartments and a day nursery were set off in an area where African migrants live. Shops run by or serving migrants were smashed up and looted in violent demonstrations in which several Africans were attacked. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated:

“We’ll start by ejecting the infiltrators from South Sudan…and then move on to other groups.”

Israel’s Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai said chillingly:

“The infiltrators [African immigrants] along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream…we don’t need to import more problems from Africa…[they] think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man”.

A heinous series of walls, checkpoints, and sniper towers dot the landscape for millions of Palestinians. Brutal military might is flaunted daily and children in Gaza are regularly targeted to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of new weapons. Armed soldiers raid homes, fire into schoolyards, maiming and killing children.

While some liberal “peacenik” Israelis will tell you they want you to play because they will be your audience, please know that the most effective tool to end the oppression is an unequivocal stand against the injustice by saying no. Instead listen to the brave Israelis from “Boycott From Within” who have asked many artists to stay away from the failing Zionist state. (See http://boycottisrael.info/ )

Artists who do play for apartheid are being used to promote Israel as a false democracy. The Israeli government has an official twitter and uses its position to let the world know which artists lend their name to promote Israel’s false image. Just three of many examples are Bobby McFerrin, Gun N Roses and Sister Bliss.

Please don’t allow your name to be used to whitewash racism, apartheid, and the horrible illegal annexation wall (pictured here in this recent video).

Join the boycott for justice, equality, freedom and human rights.

Yours truly,

DPAI
Don’t Play Apartheid Israel (DPAI) seeks to inform musicians of the Palestinian call to boycott Israel, and the extent to which their decision to play in the apartheid state will be instrumentalized – against their will – as propaganda for the maintenance of a horrifying status quo in Israel/Palestine: that is a brutal, decades-long occupation, ongoing ethnic cleansing, continual land theft, passing of over 20 racist laws within Israel/’48, and the crackdown on human rights groups. We represent over 900 members from 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.

For more information:
http://972mag.com/israeli-coalition-members-speak-about-refugees/47455/

SOURCE