HOLY ‘JEWHAD’ DECLARED AGAINST WOMEN IN JERUSALEM

May 10, 2013 at 14:28 (Civil Liberties, Intolerance, Israel)

Throughout it all, Women of the Wall prayed a full service, trying to sing over the screams that would rise every time a song began. For the first time in at least months, men and women mixed at the service, with no divider to separate them.
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Ultra-Orthodox Mob Swarms Western Wall To Protest Women’s Prayer Service

Demonstrators Force Women to Back of Kotel

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Prayer Protest: Haredi youth gathered early this morning at the kotel to prevent egalitarian services hosted by the group Women of the Wall.

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Prayer Protest: Haredi youth gathered early this morning at the kotel to prevent egalitarian services hosted by the group Women of the Wall.
 

By JTA

JERUSALEM — Haredi Orthodox youth mobbed the Western Wall plaza by the thousands to protest Women of the Wall as they held their monthly prayer service.

The youth, many of them students from haredi Orthodox yeshivot, had filled the Western Wall Plaza by 6:40 a.m. on Friday, 20 minutes before Women of the Wall, a women’s prayer group that holds monthly services at the Wall, began praying. Because haredi Orthodox women had packed the women’s section of the plaza earlier in the morning, Women of the Wall were forced to pray in the back section of the plaza, further away from the Wall itself.

A constant din of screaming came from the crowd as the service began, and shrieks erupted as a woman wearing a prayer shawl tried to push through the mob to reach the service. Police, sometimes holding hands, sometimes linking arms, held back the crowd as two officers, with difficulty, escorted the woman through.

The scene was a reversal from months past, when women wearing prayer shawls to the monthly service would be arrested for breaking a law that outlawed any deviation from “local custom” at the wall.

Last month, a Jerusalem District Court judge ruled that Women of the Wall did not violate the law and deserved police protection rather than arrests.

One day before the service, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteynman, a haredi leader, called on thousands of students to protest Women of the Wall.

“It’s sad that they’re using the Kotel to advance their interests,” said an Orthodox graphic designer from Jerusalem, 29, who declined to give her name. “They want to change all of Israel. It’s an insult to this place.”

Women of the Wall’s service has rarely, if ever, seen this many people come to protest. Many of the haredim said that they were there to pray, as haredim do daily at the Wall.

“I came to pay and to protest gentiles who masquerade as Jews,” said Pini, 17, from Jerusalem. “I’ve taken hits here and I’ll take more hits. They’re making the Torah crooked. They want us to be like them.”

As the service went on, the crowd of haredi Orthodox men tried to push through the police barricade several times – and almost succeeded before the officers pushed them back, sometimes manhandling a student or two along the way. As attempt after attempt to breach the police line failed, the men turned to throwing cups of water and coffee at police, journalists and – when they could – the women praying. One protester threw a chair.

At times, the haredi Orthodox crowd would itself break out into song, singing about the failure of wicked plans and the dominion of God.

Throughout it all, Women of the Wall prayed a full service, trying to sing over the screams that would rise every time a song began. For the first time in at least months, men and women mixed at the service, with no divider to separate them.

“This is an embarrassment and a shame how some people are acting to people who just want to pray,” said Bracha, 66, who participated in Women of the Wall’s service. “There’s space for everybody. People need to relate with understanding to those who don’t do the same thing as them.”

For some supporters of Women of the Wall, Friday’s conflict was about more than the right to pray freely at Judaism’s holiest site.

“This is a struggle for democracy in Israel,” said Lucas Lejderman, 30, a counselor in the Conservative Jewish youth movement here. “It’s amazing that in a democratic society people who believe this suffer from a lack of Jewish pluralism.”

Whether protesters will turn out in equal numbers when Women of the Wall meet next month is unclear. But as the crowd dispersed, the women sang Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem.

As if on cue, the handful of protesters who remained booed at the top of their lungs.

Source

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Video courtesy of jn1.tv

3 Comments

WELCOMING THE STRANGER IN ISRAEL, UNLESS THEY ARE BLACK

May 5, 2013 at 10:23 (Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Oppression, Racism)

The Torah, (not the King’s Edition) clearly states in Deuteronomy 10: 19 ‘You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.’ Those that read only hatred in the Torah are not only destroying it, but are destroying the Jewish people as well.
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The State of Israel does not provide these people homeless shelters, which is particularly problematic for women, since sex is sometimes a precondition for being taken into an apartment.The bitter irony here is, of course, that we might have expected that a nation shaped by the refugee experience would find humane ways to deal with today’s displaced people.

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Israel’s Heartbreaking Policy to African Asylum-Seekers

Nation Founded by Refugees Now Turns Its Back on Them

Unwelcome: Few refugees in Israel are granted official refugee status and asylum.

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Unwelcome: Few refugees in Israel are granted official refugee status and asylum.

By Leonard Fein

Meet Omer Olivier. Mr. Olivier is an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has been living in Israel for the last seventeen years without official status. Although he has filed a request to be recognized as a refugee, his lack of recognized status means he cannot work legally nor get medical services.

And so, typically, it goes for those who claim refugee status in Israel. In recent years, there have been 4,322 applications for refugee status; according to Physicians for Human Rights, three have been processed and approved. (The figures are murky. A different report estimates between 35,000 and 38,000 asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom, knowing how slim are the odds that they will actually be processed, let alone approved as “legitimate” refugees, have not applied for asylum. Of those who have applied, less than one percent have been processed and accepted as refugees.)

The stumbling block is Israel’s refusal to examine people who claim refugee status on a case-by-case basis. By Israel’s preferred definition, asylum seekers are in fact infiltrators. So much for being gracious to the stranger.

I met some of these “infiltrators” in a day-care center in Tel Aviv in mid-April. They are stateless people, unable to return to Eritrea for fear of arrest and worse, unable to establish legal residence in Israel. The ones I met were four years old. Thousands more, children and adults, are housed at a massive detention facility in the Negev, which I plan to visit on my next trip to Israel.

Often, the argument put forward in defense of Israel’s restrictive policy is demographic: Israel would be overrun were its doors to be opened. Indeed, Prime Minister Netanyahu has inexplicably asserted that these people are “a threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel.”

One obvious problem with this argument is that Israel is today a country with a population of more than eight million, and nowhere near the verge of being overrun, still less so were there a more thoughtful path to legal status.

Instead, Israel has determined that Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, the main asylum seekers, are simply not eligible for Refuge Status Determination, as required by the UN Convention on the Rights of Refugees, which Israel ratified on October 1, 1954. And when the terms of reference of that Convention were broadened in 1967, Israel ratified that, too, on June 14, 1968.

The Knesset Information Center acknowledges that Israel is the only developed country that uses temporary collective protection as an alternative to granting asylum on an individual basis, even though the guidelines of the UN High Commission on Refugees clearly state that granting collective protection does not relieve a country of its responsibility to guarantee basic social and economic rights to asylum seekers.

The collective “protection” currently imposed on Eritreans and Sudanese is, in effect, a deferred deportation order; those who are “protected” by it lack work permits, health insurance and welfare benefits. That means that Israel must somehow deal with the 60,000 asylum seekers in Israel who have survived the trek through Sinai, where many have been repeatedly raped or otherwise abused. Once in Israel, they congregate in poor neighborhoods where two-way resentment festers.

The problem: Israel makes the conferral of basic social rights contingent on at least legal residence. The unprocessed asylum seekers lack legal residence, hence lack access to health and social services, are cut off from all local social service frameworks, are barred from legal employment. This drives very many of them into an existence of indigency and want, renders them dependent on charity and non-profit social assistance organizations. Some women find their way to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which reports that many require gynecological attention in the wake of their experience of rape and abuse.

This is not the case in many other countries, where legal status and social benefits are de-linked. While awaiting a ruling on their legal status, asylum seekers in most developed countries enjoy many or all the social rights due a citizen. That is definitively not the case in Israel. After being detained for months or even years, they are given a document that explicitly states that they lack the legal right to work. Lacking the legal right to work, they enter the unregulated job market, where they are often underpaid and overworked and not protected by labor laws and where they are dependent on a network of volunteers for health care.

Plus: The State of Israel does not provide these people homeless shelters, which is particularly problematic for women, since sex is sometimes a precondition for being taken into an apartment.

The bitter irony here is, of course, that we might have expected that a nation shaped by the refugee experience would find humane ways to deal with today’s displaced people. Israel is easy to love — but too often it breaks your heart.

Source

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website

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‘LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT’ (YOUR LAPTOP) IF VISITING ISRAEL

April 25, 2013 at 07:24 (Boycott Israel, Civil Liberties, Dictatorship, Israel, Palestine, Racial Profiling, zionist harassment)

A third American citizen, who preferred that her name not be published, was also refused entry in May after refusing to allow airport security personnel to access her personal email account. She was also told that she must have something to hide.
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Israel airport security demands access to tourists’ private email accounts

Several U.S. tourists report being asked by airport security personnel for access to their personal email accounts; Israel’s Shin Bet security service says it acted within the law.

By Amira Hass
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Travellers in Israel's Ben Gurion Airport
Travellers in Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum
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Israel’s Shin Bet security service has been demanding access to personal email accounts of visiting tourists with Arab names, according to the testimony of three U.S. citizens who were interrogated at Ben Gurion Airport and subsequently refused entry into Israel in May.

Najwa Doughman, a 25-year-old architect from New York, landed in Israel on May 26. Doughman, who had already visited Israel three times in the past, planned to tour the country for ten days with a friend, Sasha Al-Sarabi, 24, who was visiting Israel for the first time. Both women were born to Palestinian families who were expelled from Haifa and Akko in 1948.

Around 5 P.M., approximately an hour after landing, Doughman’s interrogation began. She was questioned by a female security guard who did not divulge her name or position. Another female questioner was also present.  

The first part of the interrogation began with questions like: “Do you feel more Arab or more American?” (to which the interrogator supplied her own answer: “Surely you must feel a little more Arab.”), “Will you go to Al-Aqsa?” and “Why are you coming now for the third time? You can go to Venezuela, to Mexico, to Canada. It is much closer to New York, and much less expensive!”

When Doughman responded by asking “Don’t you have other tourists who come here more than once?” her interrogator responded, “I’m asking the questions here.”

Then, according to Doughman, her interrogator said, “Okay, we are going to do something very interesting now!” As Doughman describes it, the harsh stare on the security woman’s face gave way to a slight smirk. She typed www.gmail.com on her computer, turned the keyboard toward Doughman and demanded that she log in to her personal email account.    

Doughman said she that, while she was taken aback, it did not occur to her to refuse, despite the fact that this was clearly not a reasonable request.

According to a piece Doughman wrote several days later on the blog Mondoweiss, the security woman read through every email with certain key words (including “Palestine,” “Israel,” “West Bank” and “International Solidarity Movement”), reading some lines out loud as well as some chats between her and her friend regarding their upcoming trip. Then she recorded a number of her contacts’ names, emails and telephone numbers.

After some five hours of questioning, Doughman and her friend were forced to wait another three hours, after which they were told that they would be refused entry into Israel. Accompanied by a heavy cadre of security people, they were led to another part of Ben Gurion Airport, where they were photographed and their bags were searched meticulously down to the smallest objects.

Their computers and iPads were passed, twice, through an explosives-detection machine. Then they were given body searches behind a curtain.

When a metal detector beeped while being passed over a button on Doughman’s jeans, she was asked to take her pants off. She broke down in tears and refused, to which the security team responded by threatening to remove her pants by force. Instead, she was given a pair of shorts from her own suitcase and told to put them on instead of her jeans.

The two spent the night in a detention facility at Ben Gurion Airport and were flown out via France, some 14 hours after landing in Israel.

On May 21, another U.S. citizen, Sandra Tamari, a 42-year-old Quaker from St. Louis, was also asked to give airport security people access to her email before being denied entry into Israel. Her interrogation lasted eight hours. When she refused to open her email account, she was told that she was probably hiding something.

Tamari, also of Palestinian descent, has been active in campaigns for a boycott and sanctions against Israel. Her description of events was also published on Mondoweiss.

A third American citizen, who preferred that her name not be published, was also refused entry in May after refusing to allow airport security personnel to access her personal email account. She was also told that she must have something to hide.

A similar case was reported in October of 2011.

Ronit Eckstein, a spokesperson for the Israel Airports Authority, told Haaretz that the Interior Ministry is responsible for the entry of tourists to Israel, and that the security officials who interrogated the women were not employed by the Airports Authority or by Ben Gurion Airport.

The Interior Ministry said in response that the security checks are the responsibility of the Shin Bet security service.

The Shin Bet confirmed that Doughman and Tamari had been questioned by Shin Bet agents after landing in Israel, adding that the actions taken by the agents during questioning were within the organization’s authority according to Israeli law.

Source

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Israel’s Response …

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Israel Rebuffs Criticism Over E-Mail Checks at Airport

Civil RIghts Groups Blast ‘Drastic Invasion of Privacy’

E-Mail Invasion? Israel is legendary for its tight airport security. But is it going too far by demanding that some passengers show their private e-mails?
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E-Mail Invasion? Israel is legendary for its tight airport security. But is it going too far by demanding that some passengers show their private e-mails? 

By Reuters

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Israel’s top legal adviser on Wednesday rebuffed criticism of authorities for asking travellers entering the Jewish state to show border officers their emails, saying the checks affecting only certain foreign nationals were lawful.

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein’s written legal opinion was given in response to a query by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) which first questioned the practice last year.

On Wednesday the group called the checks a “drastic invasion of privacy … not befitting a democracy”.

Israel’s security agencies have been keen to stop pro-Palestinian activists they suspect may be planning anti-Israel activities in the occupied West Bank or inside the Jewish state.

Weinstein said officers of the internal undercover security service, the Shin Bet, needed “to establish or dispel suspicion against prospective foreign nationals wishing to enter Israel who show initial suspicious signs”.

He said officers were not allowed to access email accounts without the consent of the owner and added that travellers could refuse to cooperate. This did not necessarily mean they would automatically be barred entry.

“The traveller is not asked to reveal passwords … but opens the account on their own. The traveller has a full right to refuse the search and will not be forced to comply, although this will be taken into account when the authorities decide whether to allow the person to enter Israel,” he said.

Marc Grey, an ACRI attorney, said the issue was not so much the matter of revealing the email account’s password but the actual perusal of the private content in the mailbox.

“Passwords are not the issue, email accounts are about as private as it gets,” Grey told Reuters.

He said he did not know how many travellers to Israel had been asked to open their email accounts.

Lila Margalit, another ACRI attorney, said travellers were not on an equal footing when they faced questioning.

“A tourist … to Israel (who is) interrogated at the airport by Shin Bet agents and told to grant access to their email account, is in no position to give free and informed consent. Such ‘consent’, given under threat of deportation, cannot serve as a basis for such a drastic invasion of privacy,” she wrote in an email distributed on Wednesday.

“Allowing security agents to take such invasive measures at their own discretion and on the basis of such flimsy ‘consent’ is not befitting of a democracy.”

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WHO IS THE CRIMINAL, THE OCCUPIER OR THE RESISTOR?

April 6, 2013 at 19:03 (Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, Hasbara, Illegal Settlements, Israel, Nonviolent Resistance, Palestine)

CHUCKMAN - NETANYAHU - BLEEDING HEARTS 
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And if you ask the major apologists who work at finessing the truth, you’ll get the answer that, sure, the settlements were Israel’s biggest mistake ever but, they’ll also tell you, Palestinians are the criminals for resisting. And they’ll tell you that those who support their resistance are anti-Semites.
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Who may resist (or, ‘Do you see any smokestacks?’)

by Ilene Cohen
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For any active colonial enterprise, the answer is that no one may resist, not violently, not nonviolently—not in any way, because the business of a colonial power is to maintain itself as a colonial power. To that end, it demands the passivity, compliance, and collaboration of the colonized people. When, historically, compliance is not forthcoming, the colonial power responds with repression and violence.

Israel—with its relatively small (by the numbers; think India, by contrast) but still very real colonial occupation—is no different. Colonial powers do not acknowledge that there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing; indeed, they defend their actions as legal and just. Thus, it is the resistance that is the crime. Think about American slavery: it was the “lawful” status quo. Violence against slaves (and abolitionists) was the acceptable norm. Escaped slaves—property gone missing—were hunted down and brought back in shackles. A slave uprising (as with a colonial uprising) was the crime; John Brown is the terrorist, not the slave owners.

This is a schematic presentation, I know, but I think it holds.

Regarding today’s Israel, ask the members of Netanyahu’s coalition; ask the members of AIPAC; ask lots of even well meaning American Jews. They’ll insist that Israel, (the unacknowledged) colonial occupier, is the victim and that those who resist must be punished, lest the phenomenon (of resistance to illegal occupation) spread.

And if you ask the major apologists who work at finessing the truth, you’ll get the answer that, sure, the settlements were Israel’s biggest mistake ever but, they’ll also tell you, Palestinians are the criminals for resisting. And they’ll tell you that those who support their resistance are anti-Semites.

It breaks down to whether you support the occupation by justifying it and calling it something else or whether you believe that the occupation must end (and ending the occupation, as they well know, would entail a lot of decolonizing).

Amira Hass has the heart of a lion. She stands apart for her decades-long struggle as a journalist to expose the ugly, suppressed truth about the occupation and to challenge it. Read the comments that accompany her articles and you’ll see the vitriol directed at her. Yesterday she wrote about resistance: 

Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule. Throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance. Persecution of stone-throwers, including 8-year-old children, is an inseparable part − though it’s not always spelled out − of the job requirements of the foreign ruler, no less than shooting, torture, land theft, restrictions on movement, and the unequal distribution of water sources.

It has generated the virulent response one would expect, with settlers accusing Haaretz of being anti-settler. See Noam Sheizaf’s commentary at +972: 

[T]he real issue is the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance in the eyes of Israeli society – or more correctly, the lack of legitimacy. . . .

In the Israeli political conversation, all forms of Palestinian resistance are forbidden. Those advocating for Israel view every Palestinian action as a form of terrorism, and as such, they become inherently illegitimate and justify repercussions and unilateral moves by Israel. The BDS movement – which is clearly non-violent – is often referred to as “cultural terrorism” and “economic terrorism,” the UN statehood bid was “diplomatic terrorism,” stone-throwing is “popular terrorism,” and so on. The Israeli government is taking active measures to suppress all those forms of resistance, and the debate in Israel isolates and punishes those who support them. The sad reality is that by doing so, Israel leaves more and more Palestinians to wonder on the value of such non-violent acts, as opposed to that of the real, armed terrorism.

There is an aversion in Israel to admitting that there is even an occupation (they still babble about “disputed” territories, not occupied territories). But as of June this oppressive occupation will have been running for forty-six years. How can one argue with Amira Hass’s contention that “throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.” Richard Goldstone in his eponymous report acknowledged the right of an occupied people to resist—with the warning that legal resistance did not permit harming civilians. It seems, unfortunately, that in the case at hand it is the occupiers who are permitted to harm civilians, as we see the Israelis doing routinely with international impunity.

For me there was irony in the publication on the same day as the Hass article thepiece by Robert Rozett about Jewish resistance during the war. He is challenging the once regnant Israeli wisdom that the Jewish heroes of the Holocaust were those who engaged in armed resistance, whereas the rest went shamefully like sheep to the slaughter. Rozett says, no, resistance and the struggle to stay alive and human take many forms. In fact this notion is not new; an undergraduate course about the Holocaust that I took at Columbia in 1970 or so had a week or two on the syllabus devoted to readings that the professor understood in this way. But it’s an important point; the macho understanding of resistance is a cruel hoax. In the Jewish world, Jews are valorized for resisting in whatever way, for their amidah (taking a stand); Palestinians, however, may not resist and their sumud (steadfastness) is to be condemned. This, I believe, is unacceptable.

My parents moved to Israel in the late 1970s. My father and I argued vehemently and nonstop about the matter of Palestinians, a Palestinian state, the occupation, and the wars from even earlier, from the mid-1970s until his death four years ago. It was he who, really irritated with something I’d said, countered with, “Do you see any smokestacks?” Meaning that until there are gas chambers and ovens, there’s nothing  to discuss: for him, Palestinians were simply barbaric terrorists. End of story. What a paltry standard of (in)justice it is that allows the prism of the Holocaust to distort everything. I saw my father, whom I loved very much, as a typical Israeli (or, perhaps, he was simply a typical American Jew).

It has become the thing in Israel today to crow about how “quiet” things are in the occupied territories—they boast that there’s no terror even as they exploit talk of terror all the time. In 2012, they tell you, no Israelis were killed at the hands of Palestinians. By contrast, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the IDF has already killed eleven Palestinians in 2013. The campaign talk in Israel a few months back was about how it was unnecessary to even think about Palestine: the natives, that is, were not restless. But in fact they are.

It is the right of peoples under occupation to resist. Why should the Palestinians be the only people in the Middle East denied this right?

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AIR FRANCE FINED FOR RACIST INTERROGATION

April 5, 2013 at 10:34 (Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Hasbara, Hate crimes, Israel, Palestine, Racial Profiling, zionist harassment)

“We cannot tolerate this kind of conduct on our territory,” state prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini had said during the trial. “Today they ask you if you’re Jewish, tomorrow if you’re Muslim, after tomorrow if you’re homosexual or a trade unionist.”
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Paris court fines Air France for following Israeli order to interrogate passenger whether she was Jewish

 by Ali Abunimah 
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An Air France jet at Nice airport. (Source)

 (Mathieu Marquer / Flickr)

On 15 April 2012, Horia Ankour, 30, a French nursing student, boarded Air France flight 4384 from Nice to Tel Aviv. She was traveling as part of a solidarity initiative called “Welcome to Palestine.”

Just minutes before the aircraft was scheduled to take off, a cabin attendant approached Ms. Ankour, took her to a corner and asked her whether she had an Israeli passport. When Ankour answered “no,” the cabin attendant demanded to know whether she was Jewish. When she also answered negatively, Ankour was thrown off the flight.

Ankour was given a written statement from Air France documenting the incident and confirming that the questions were asked at the direct behest of Israeli authorities.

“Today they ask you if you’re Jewish, tomorrow if you’re Muslim…”

Today a court in the Paris suburb of Bobigny found Air France guilty of illegal discrimination against Ankour and fined the airline 10,000 euros ($13,000) in damages and another 3,000 euros ($3,900) in costs.

“The court declares Air France guilty of the crime of discrimination,” Judge Nabila Mani-Saada said in her ruling.

“We cannot tolerate this kind of conduct on our territory,” state prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini had said during the trial. “Today they ask you if you’re Jewish, tomorrow if you’re Muslim, after tomorrow if you’re homosexual or a trade unionist.”

Fabrice Pradon, the lawyer for Air France, had told the court that the demand to ask Ankour the questions about her religion had come “directly from Israeli authorities.”

Several other airlines were complicit in Israel’s effort to stop the Welcome to Palestine initiative by barring passengers on Israeli orders.

Israeli “airline security” a front for Shin Bet secret police

The incident is reminiscent of a row that broke out between Israel and South Africa in 2009 after Jonathan Garb, a former security official with the Israeli airline El Al told the South African investigative television program Carte Blanche that the airline’s security had been a front for Israel’s Shin Bet secret police for years and that it used explicitly racist tactics against black and Muslim travelers at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport.

“What we are trained is to look for the immediate threat – the Muslim guy,” Garb claimed. “The crazy thing is that we are profiling people racially, ethnically and even on religious grounds … This is what we do.”

After Carte Blanche sent in an undercover reporter whose experience confirmed the differential and unconstitutional treatment of Muslims, South Africa protested to Israel and deported an El Al security official.

While it is unclear whether French authorities will take similar steps to prevent Israel from exporting its racism onto French territory, it appears that it is still possible for citizens like Horia Ankour to receive vindication in French courts.

 

 

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RESTRICTIONS ON PALESTINIAN MOBILITY STARTED LONG BEFORE SUICIDE BOMBINGS DID

April 2, 2013 at 07:39 (Apartheid, Civil Liberties, Israel, Oppression, Palestine)

It began in January 1991, on the eve of the Gulf War.
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Israeli crackdown on Palestinian mobility began well before suicide bombings

Most Israelis labor under the misconception that restrictions on Palestinian movement were a result of suicide bombings, but they started long before that.

By Amira Hass
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Palestinians at the Qalandiyah checkpoint in 2012.
Palestinians at the Qalandiyah checkpoint in 2012. Photo by Michal Fattal
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“I didn’t know you were such an empiricist,” a friend told me impatiently, a veteran peace activist with a doctorate, when I insisted at some meeting on specifying the prohibitions on the movement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

That was in 1995, and he thought I didn’t see the big picture, the positive direction, the vision, the beat of the wings of history, and instead was merely insisting on going into detail, into temporary malfunctions. He wasn’t alone in thinking that. One of my editors at the time told me I lacked perspective because I lived in Gaza, and so my reports looked the way they did. In short, wearisome.

The signs were there right from the start − signs that the so much talked-about Peace Process was a process of subjugation; signs that Israel intended to impose on the other side an agreement whose terms were far from the Palestinian minimum, and far from what many countries in the world envisioned as a two-state solution.

But it was hard for these signs to infiltrate public awareness ‏(as well as the Israeli and international media‏) through the powerful interest in seeing the outward manifestations of something that you believe exists: in Gazans bathing in the sea; in the head of the Israeli Shin Bet security service meeting with the head of the Palestinian security service; in Shimon Peres visiting Gaza; in joint security patrols; and in our soldiers no longer patrolling in the heart of the Palestinian towns.

From the supposedly narrow perspective of the Strip, though, the reality of incarceration was, looked and felt like the complete opposite of a peace process.

The chronology is important here − I’ve repeated it countless times and will repeat it countless more times − because local readers like to think that the blanket prohibitions on Palestinian mobility were a response to the suicide attacks from 1994 on. That is not the case.

It began in January 1991, on the eve of the Gulf War. The Israel Defense Forces GOC Central and Southern Commands then revoked an earlier order, from the 1970s, of a “general exit permit to Israel” − in other words, one that allowed the Palestinian residents of the occupied territory to enter Israel, and move freely within its borders and between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Initially, the revocation was interpreted as something temporary, a preventive measure during the unclear period of wartime. But after a lengthy curfew, the residents of the Strip woke up to a new reality. If up until 1991 Israel had respected ‏(for reasons of its own‏) the right to freedom of movement for all Palestinians, but withheld it from a few people, after 1991 the situation was reversed: Israel denied all Palestinians ‏(those in the West Bank as well‏) the right to freedom of movement, aside from a few groups and numbers that it determined.

Since then, this is the rule in effect, aside from shifts in the various categories and specific numbers of those permitted to leave. The expectation that signing the transfer of powers from the Civil Administration to the Palestinian Authority in May 1994 would restore freedom of movement was soon dashed. That was the first clear sign.

Incarceration within the Gaza Strip bagged several birds during this process of subjugation:

Just how important and deliberate that fourth step was may be gleaned from two other signs. Under the Oslo Accords, the PA has the power to change a person’s home address on his or her identity card, and only has to report the change to the Civil Administration ‏(as the representative of Israeli’s Interior Ministry‏), which enters the new details in the database of its Population Registry. But in 1996, it emerged that Israel was refusing to register address changes from Gaza to the West Bank.

In 1997, another military order was issued: Gazans now needed a permit even when entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge. That closed a loophole which students and others had exploited until then: They would depart Gaza through Egypt, fly to Jordan, and then continue westward, through the Allenby Bridge crossing.

‘No reason to leave’

As early as 1995 I asked a woman in the Israeli security establishment why, if “confidence-building measures” between the Palestinians and Israel had been declared, there would be no easing up with respect to mobility permits and the convoluted bureaucracy that developed around them. Why not, for example, grant women and children exit permits that were valid for a year − if not to Israel, then at least to the West Bank? This woman, though not a decision maker, was placed in the right junction to answer my question: “Because they have no reason to leave,” she told me, honestly.

Clerks and junior officers in the system hear and grasp what is planned in the corridors of power, but are less careful than their superiors about what they say, and do not bother to hide certain intentions. In 1997, when I was already in the West Bank, I started to become acquainted with the traditional Palestinian farming communities in the Jordan Valley, whose tent encampments and shacks had been systematically destroyed by the Civil Administration’s inspectors and soldiers.

Several of the people whose homes had been demolished told me: “I asked the inspector, ‘So where will we go now that you’ve destroyed our home?’ And he replied: ‘Go to Arafat, go to Area A [the small area which was then designed to be under Palestinian administrative-civilian control].’”

These soldiers also divulged the intentions of their superiors. To this day, 16 years later, that is the policy behind the destruction of the water cisterns and of tent encampments there. To this day, that is the state’s answer to the High Court of Justice in petitions by residents of the southern Hebron Hills against intentions to evict them from their communities: “They have somewhere to live in Area A.”

“Area A” and “Area B” ‏(under Palestinian civil control and Israeli military control‏) are the code names for the Palestinian enclaves that formed in the past 20 years − the years of the “peace process.” The Israeli battle to create the detached and separate Gaza enclave succeeded better than expected when Hamas − aided by foolish decisions of the PA − created its own separate institutions of government.

The Israeli campaign strategy to create Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank has also been crowned a great success, and its name is Area C ‏(which is under full Israeli administrative and security control‏). Areas A, B and C were established in the Oslo Accords as purely temporary categories, to mark the gradual nature by which the military forces would leave the Palestinians’ territory. Fourteen years later, Area C − the last area the military was supposed to vacate ‏(in 1999‏) − still covers about 62 percent of the West Bank, and is the expansion space reserved for the outposts, settlements, industrial zones and multilane highways. Permanent and sacred and ours, like the Temple Mount.

  • Separation and creation of distance between senior officials and ordinary folks by granting “generous” mobility permits to a select class of Palestinians: freedom of movement for senior PA officials who came from abroad and gave no thought to the reality that existed before, without a need for permits, and to several prisoners who had been released and positioned themselves high in the PA leadership;
  • Satisfying the PA and then PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s sense of pseudo-control − closing the crossings and requesting permits necessitated coordination between the Civil Administration and its Palestinian twin ‏(the Ministry of Civil Affairs‏);
  • Giving the PA a chance to develop the commercial monopolies of its people and cronies − by sheer dint of the need to coordinate exits between the PA and Israel;
  • Most important of all: Severing the society in Gaza from that of the West Bank. In other words, undermining the basic condition for a Palestinian state, in both parts of the territory conquered in 1967.

Just how important and deliberate that fourth step was may be gleaned from two other signs. Under the Oslo Accords, the PA has the power to change a person’s home address on his or her identity card, and only has to report the change to the Civil Administration ‏(as the representative of Israeli’s Interior Ministry‏), which enters the new details in the database of its Population Registry. But in 1996, it emerged that Israel was refusing to register address changes from Gaza to the West Bank.

Source

1 Comment

TIME TO RID ISRAEL OF BREAD AND ARABS

March 19, 2013 at 12:57 (Apartheid, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Complicity, DesertPeace Editorial, Hasbara, Holidays, Israel, Palestine)

no-bread
Passover comes early this year, starting a week from today. Observant households are in a frenzy of ridding their homes of all forms of leaven, in some cases even rice and legumes.
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The new Israeli government is also in a frenzy as to when to ‘lock the gates’ closing off all of Israel to its Palestinian residents for the duration of the 8 day holiday. President Obama’s visit to the region makes that a bit awkward, but the timing is perfect as he will be leaving a few days before the holiday actually starts as not to witness the true meaning of apartheid.
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Latuff”s view of the settlement’s new government …
netanyahu-and-the-settlements
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The Jewish ‘Festival of Freedom’ means that Palestinians lose whatever vestiges of  freedom they might have. They will be unable to go to work, unable to visit friends and family, unable to live, period! All in the name of ‘Freedom’ …. (sic)
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The following rap song appears on the FaceBook page of the US Consul General in Jerusalem … The US is obviously aware of the situation but chooses to be silent about it. ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, Freedom ain’t worth nothing but it’s free’ … Yup, it’s free until you don’t have it!
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Below is a repost of my annual Passover message, unfortunately still valid today …
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CLEANSING THE LAND OF BREAD AND ARABS

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My maternal grandmother was a simple Shtetel Jew. She came from a place not much different from the small town portrayed in Fiddler on The Roof.
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Traditionally the womenfolk from those areas were uneducated in matters of anything other than home making and child raising, while the menfolk studied their Holy Books for hours on end. Life was simple for them, and they themselves were basically a very simple folk.
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I remember my grandmother going through the frenzy of cleaning the house this time of year…. the traditional Passover cleaning. All traces of leaven had to be removed from the home before the start of the Holiday. To her, that process included the removal of any trace of dust or smears on the window panes. The house sparkled when she was finished. Most of our non-Jewish neighbours were going through the same process, but simply called it ’spring cleaning’, ridding the house of all unwanted matter, including broken furniture and junk.
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I remember asking my grandmother why she was going through such a frenzy…. her answer was simple and to the point…. “If a Jew eats bread during Passover he will die!” That was what she was taught, that’s what she taught us….
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In Israel today, things are not much different from life in the Shtetel when it comes to Passover preparations. But today there is a growing number of non observant Jews as well as a growing number of non Jews. This is a threat to the lifestyle of the self-imposed Shtetel Jew living here today.
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Christian Pilgrims from abroad, as well as local Christians are denied access to their Holy Sites. Where is the uproar against this?
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Where is the uproar against the Neanderthal rabbis that have recently called for the expulsion or the genocide of the Palestinians? WHERE??? As in previous years, the Palestinians living on the ‘other side’ of the great wall of apartheid will be sealed in for the duration of the Holiday (8 days), literally making the State of Israel Arabrein for that period of time. Where is the uproar against this? WHERE???
Israel does need a cleansing… a good one; not only of bread during the Holiday season but also of hatred. Both are violations of the Holy Teachings.
 

2 Comments

FIGHTING AND STARVING FOR ALL OF PALESTINE

March 12, 2013 at 10:49 (Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, Israel, Nonviolent Resistance, Oppression, Palestine)

Do not worry if my heart stops. I am still alive now and even after death, because Jerusalem runs through my veins. If I die, it is a victory; if we are liberated, it is a victory, because either way I have refused to surrender to the Israeli occupation, its tyranny and arrogance.

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We are fighting for all Palestinians
In jail, my fellow hunger strikers and I are doing battle against the Israeli occupation that humiliates our people
Samer Issawi
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Palestinians protest outside the International Red Cross offices
Palestinian families gather in solidarity with hunger-striking prisoners at the Red Cross offices in East Jerusalem. Photograph: Mahmoud Illean/Demotix/Corbis
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My story is no different from that of many other Palestinian young people who were born and have lived their whole lives under Israeli occupation. At 17, I was arrested for the first time, and jailed for two years. I was arrested again in my early 20s, at the height of the second intifada in Ramallah, during an Israeli invasion of numerous cities in the West Bank – what Israel called Operation Defensive Shield. I was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges relating to my resistance to the occupation.

I am not the first member of my family to be jailed on my people’s long march towards freedom. My grandfather, a founding member of the PLO, was sentenced to death by the British Mandate authorities, whose laws are used by Israel to this day to oppress my people; he escaped hours before he was due to be executed. My brother, Fadi, was killed in 1994, aged just 16, by Israeli forces during a demonstration in the West Bank following the Ibrahimi mosque massacre in Hebron. Medhat, another brother, has served 19 years in prison. My other brothers, Firas, Ra’afat and Shadi were each imprisoned for five to 11 years. My sister, Shireen, has been arrested numerous times and has served a year in prison. My brother’s home has been destroyed. My mother’s water and electricity have been cut off. My family, along with the people of my beloved city Jerusalem, are continuously harassed and attacked, but they continue to defend Palestinian rights and prisoners.

After almost 10 years in prison, I was released in the Egypt-sponsored deal between Israel and Hamas to release the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. However, on 7 July 2012, I was arrested again near Hizma, an area within the municipality of Jerusalem, on charges of violating the terms of my release (that I should not leave Jerusalem). Others who were released as part of that deal were also arrested, some with no declared reason. Accordingly, I began a hunger strike on 1 August to protest against my illegal imprisonment and Israel’s violation of the agreement.

My health has deteriorated greatly, but I will continue my hunger strike until victory or martyrdom. This is my last remaining stone to throw at the tyrants and jailers in the face of the racist occupation that humiliates our people.

I draw my strength from all the free people in the world who want an end to the Israeli occupation. My weak heartbeat endures thanks to this solidarity and support; my weak voice gains its strength from voices that are louder, and can penetrate the prison walls.

My battle is not just for my own freedom. My fellow hunger strikers, Ayman, Tarik and Ja’afar, and I are fighting a battle for all Palestinians against the Israeli occupation and its prisons. What I endure is little compared to the sacrifice of Palestinians in Gaza, where thousands have died or been injured as a result of brutal Israeli attacks and an unprecedented and inhuman siege.

However, more support is needed. Israel could not continue its oppression without the support of western governments. These governments, particularly the British, which has a historic responsibility for the tragedy of my people, should impose sanctions on the Israeli regime until it ends the occupation, recognises Palestinian rights, and frees all Palestinian political prisoners.

Do not worry if my heart stops. I am still alive now and even after death, because Jerusalem runs through my veins. If I die, it is a victory; if we are liberated, it is a victory, because either way I have refused to surrender to the Israeli occupation, its tyranny and arrogance.

 

 

Written FOR

1 Comment

LIVE ON CAMERA ~~ LOVE IN THE TIME OF ISRAELI APARTHEID

March 10, 2013 at 09:56 (Palestine, Israel, Corrupt Politics, Activism, Civil Rights, Occupied West Bank, zionist harassment, Videos, Collective Punishment, Civil Liberties, Dictatorship)

Video .. “Love in the Time of Israeli Apartheid”

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Israeli forces on Saturday broke up a wedding procession organized at a West Bank checkpoint to challenge Israeli laws preventing Palestinians in the West Bank and Israelis from marrying.

 

Two buses left from Jaffa and Ramallah to meet at opposite sides of Hizma checkpoint, northeast of Jerusalem, for the wedding of Hazim, from Abu Dis and his bride, who is from Nazareth.

 

Both buses were stopped by Israeli forces before reaching the checkpoint and Israeli forces fired sound bombs at guests who had begun singing and dancing on the West Bank side of Hizma, an organizer told Ma’an. “While they were dancing and singing for the groom, Israeli occupation forces started throwing sound bombs and pushing people back. They then fired tear gas, forcing people to run away,” organizer Najwan Berekdar said.

 

Over 200 people participated in the wedding, including founder of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouthi and Palestinian author Rima Nazzal Kitana.

 

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that “100 rioters at Hizma threw stones at security services, who used riot dispersal means, including tear gas, to disperse the riot.”

 

The wedding was organized by the “Love in the Time of Apartheid” campaign, a grassroots initiative set up by Palestinian youth to challenge the Citizenship and Entry into Israel law, which denies residency status in Israel for West Bank Palestinians married to Israeli-Palestinians.”This Israeli law challenges Palestinian national unity and prevents Palestinians from even considering marrying another Palestinian from the other side,” Berekdar says.

 

“It divides Palestinians not only geographically but nationally, socially and culturally and has a severe economic and psychological affect on Palestinian families.

 

“We are calling for international pressure from the UN and civil society groups to put pressure on Israel to revoke this racist law, which interferes with basic human things like choosing a future life partner,” Berekdar says.

 

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel law was enacted by the Israeli Knesset in 2003, and prohibits granting residency or citizenship to Palestinians from the occupied territories who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel, Adalah says.

 

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website says the temporary order is “security orientated” and enacted after people took advantage of Israeli identity to carry out “terrorist attacks.”

 

Human Rights Watch has said that “the law violates Israel’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which applies not only to race but also to national or ethnic origin.”

 

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2003 called on Israel to revoke the law.

 

Source

 

1 Comment

JEWS WITH CONSCIENCE URGED TO STAY AWAY FROM ISRAEL

March 7, 2013 at 11:54 (Civil Liberties, Deportations, Human Rights, Israel, Just Plain Disgusting, Palestine, zionist harassment)

What other ‘Jewish Democracy‘ bars entry to Jews disagreeing with their policies?
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A Jewish-American pro-Palestinian activist who is married to an Israeli woman was not allowed to enter the country with his pregnant wife. An Israeli court rejected his petition to cancel the order against his entry Tuesday, and he is expected to be put on a plane back to the United States Wednesday night.
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Israel denies entry to pro-Palestinian American Jew

An Israeli judge ruled the activist, who arrived at the airport with his pregnant Israeli wife, was still subject to a 10-year ban from 2002.

By Amira Hass
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Ben Gurion Airport
Shapiro is expected to be deported Wednesday. Photo by Moti Milrod

A Jewish-American pro-Palestinian activist who is married to an Israeli woman was not allowed to enter the country with his pregnant wife. An Israeli court rejected his petition to cancel the order against his entry Tuesday, and he is expected to be put on a plane back to the United States Wednesday night.

Adam Shapiro, 41, and his wife Huwaida Arraf, 37, are among the founders of the International Solidarity Movement and have worked on behalf of the Palestinian cause for over a decade. Arraf has both American and Israeli citizenship.

In the summer of 2002, Shapiro was arrested during a demonstration near the West Bank city of Nablus and later deported and banned from entering Israel for 10 years. As a result, Shapiro, a documentary film director, and Arraf, a lawyer, have lived separately for much of the period since then. The couple participated in a number of the protest flotillas to Gaza and Shapiro is now involved with the Irish human rights organization Front Line Defenders, which work to protect human rights activists threatened by various regimes, such as the government of Bahrain.

Shapiro was again arrested in Israel in 2009 after the Israel Defense Forces diverted the Gaza-bound ship he was on. He was then deported, while Arraf remained in Israel. She was not investigated or charged at the time. Shapiro and Arraf, who is eight months pregnant, hoped that more than ten years after the original deportation order, the Israeli authorities would allow Shapiro to enter the country – especially since the couple is expecting a child.

Majd Badr, a lawyer, recently looked into Shapiro’s prospects for entry. He was told Shapiro would have to file a visa request with the Israeli consulate – a response he says did little to clarify Shapiro’s status.

Arraf and Shapiro landed at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport on Tuesday. Shapiro filed a petition with the Central District Court in Lod and was allowed to stay in Israel until Judge Avraham Yaakov ruled Wednesday to uphold the 2009 deportation order, which Shapiro’s lawyer said he was unaware of. Yaakov was not swayed by Shapiro’s offer to refrain from entering the West Bank. He said the only way to appeal a 10-year deportation order and refusal of entry by the Interior Minister is by petitioning the High Court of Justice, Israel’s Supreme Court.

Source

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Detailed report on Mondoweiss …..
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Using secret travel ban, Israel prepares to deport activist Adam Shapiro preventing him from being at the birth of his first child

3 Comments

HUMANITY HAS LOST A DEAR FRIEND WITH THE PASSING OF STÉPHANE HESSEL

February 28, 2013 at 07:55 (Activism, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Class Struggle, Human Rights, In Memoriam)


A Holocaust survivor who truly lived the mantra Never Again
TO ANYONE!
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 Stéphane Hessel, whose pamphlet Indignez-Vous! sold 4.5m copies in 35 countries
Stéphane Hessel, whose pamphlet Indignez-Vous! sold 4.5m copies in 35 countries. The French president, François Hollande, said of Hessel: ‘He leaves us a lesson, which is to never accept any injustice.’ Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty

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Stéphane Hessel, writer and inspiration behind Occupy movement, dies at 95

Hessel, resistance fighter, diplomat, writer of Time for Outrage! and co-author of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dies
By Kim Willsher for The Guardian
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The story of the French author Stéphane Hessel’s long and extraordinary life reads like a Boy’s Own adventure.

From his childhood in Berlin and then Paris, where he was brought up by his writer and translator father, journalist mother and her lover in an unusual ménage à trois, to his worldwide celebrity at the age of 93, when a political pamphlet he wrote became a bestselling publishing sensation and inspired global protest and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

And then there was everything in between: his escape from two Nazi concentration camps where he had been tortured and sentenced to death, his escapades with the French resistance and his hand in drawing up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

Sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday, just a week after his last big interview was published, Hessel’s long and extraordinary life came to an end. He was 95 years old, but as one French magazine remarked: “Stéphane Hessel, dead? It’s hard to believe. He seemed to have become eternal, the grand and handsome old man.”

Le Point magazine added that the man with an “old-fashioned politeness and elegance from another age” had “danced” with the best part of a century.

“When one is received by the world in television studios, when one writes bestsellers, when one has baptised an international mobilisation movement, does one still die?” the magazine asked.

In 2010, when most people are winding down and after a long career as a diplomat, Hessel’s life took yet another dramatic turn when his 48-page pamphlet Indignez-Vous!, sold 4.5m copies in 35 countries. It was translated into English as Time for Outrage.

The work was originally written as a speech to commemorate the resistance to Hitler’s occupation of France during the second world war. It served as a rallying cry for those appalled by the gap between the world’s rich and poor.

Hessel said afterwards he aimed to imbue French youth with the same passion and fervour as had existed in the resistance. He compared the 21st-century struggle against what he described as the “international dictatorship of the financial markets” to his generation’s struggle against oppression as a young man during the war.

His wife, Christiane Hessel-Chabry, told France’s AFP news agency on Wednesday, that the writer had died overnight. No other details were given.

The French president, François Hollande, said Hessel was an “a huge figure whose exceptional life was devoted to the defence of human dignity”.

“It was in pursuit of his values that he engaged in the resistance,” he added, concluding: “He leaves us a lesson, which is to never accept any injustice.”

The French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, also paid tribute to Hessel, whom he described as “a man who was engaged” and who was the incarnation of the “resistance spirit”.

“For all generations he was a source of inspiration, but also a reference. At 95 years, he epitomised the faith in the future of a new century,” Ayrault said.

As a committed European and supporter of the left, he was behind the Socialist François Hollande’s successful presidential election bid last year. On Wednesday after news of his death broke, French politicians lined up to express their admiration, respect and sadness.

Hessel was born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1917, the son of a journalist and a writer. The family moved to France when Hessel was eight and he took French nationality in the late 1930s, having passed his baccalauréat at the young age of 15.

His parents’ unusual living arrangement was said to have inspired the celebrated François Truffaut film Jules et Jim.

The young Hessel refused to follow Marshal Philippe Pétain’s collaborationist Vichy government and fled to London, where he joined General Charles de Gaulle’s resistance fighters. As a prominent figure in the resistance, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and deported to Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps, where he suffered waterboarding torture. He escaped being executed at Buchenwald by exchanging identities with a prisoner who had died of typhus, and later escaped from Dora during a transfer to the Bergen-Belsen death camp. After fleeing his German guards, he met advancing American troops.

After the war, he worked with the US first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, in editing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Time for Outrage! argued that the French needed to become as outraged now as his fellow fighters had been during the war. He was highly critical of France’s treatment of illegal immigrants, and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and passionate about the environment, a free press and France’s welfare system. His call was for peaceful, non-violent insurrection.

During the eurozone crisis, one of the names given to the protests against austerity programmes and corruption in Spain was Los Indignados, taken from the title of Hessel’s work. These protests, along with the Arab spring uprisings, inspired protests in other countries and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States.

“The global protest movement does not resemble the Communist movement, which declared that the world had to be overturned according to its viewpoint,” Hessel said in an interview a year ago.

“This is not an ideological revolution. It is driven by an authentic desire to get what you need. From this point of view, the present generation is not asking governments to disappear but to change the way they deal with people’s needs.”

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On Occupy Wall Street

From Democracy Now

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As the Occupy Wall Street movement expands across the United States, drawing inspiration from the Arab Spring and the protests in Spain, Democracy Now! spoke with former French Resistance fighter, Stéphane Hessel, whose pamphlet-length book, Time for Outrage, helped inspire some of these uprisings. His book has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 10 languages, with several more planned. Hessel, 93 years old, has occupied many positions in his life: immigrant, French Resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor, diplomat, advocate and author. He joined the French Resistance during World War II, was caught by the Gestapo and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He escaped during transfer to Bergen-Belsen and later helped draft the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then became an honorary “Ambassador of France,” appointed to special government missions. He has since been a fierce advocate of the Palestinians. Democracy Now!’s Juan Gonzalez interviewed Hessel earlier this month. 

“You must find the things that you will not accept, that will outrage you. And these things, you must be able to fight against nonviolently, peacefully, but determinedly,” Hessel says, noting his support for the Occupy Wall Street encampment. “They’re there determined to see that their values are to be respected.”

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Speaking at the Russell Tribunal in New York City this past October
Photo © by Bud Korotzer
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Palestine loses a friend and supporter …
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The Russell Tribunal on Palestine mourns the passing of Stéphane Hessel

Stéphane Hessel, author of the bestseller « Time for outrage »,
French ambassador, human rights’ advocate and great philosopher, died
last night at the age of 95.


The Russell Tribunal on palestine (RToP) mourns the passing of its
honorary president and huge supporter.


Pierre Galand, RToP general coordinator says :
« The Tribunal has always ben his project, and he was its soul as he
has always inspired us with his ideas and supported us with concrete
gestures. He would have participated in the last session of the
Tribunal, in Brussels on 16 and 17 March, but now that he’s passed
away we will pay him the tribute he deserves. With his death, we loss
a last eye-witness of the drafting of the Human Rights’ declaration.
If the World loses a great personality and a distinguished
intellectual and activist, at a personal level, I will miss him as a
comrade and a friend ». 

In all sessions of the RToP held in Barcelona, London, Cape Town and
New York, Hessel has denounced the outragious  complicity of third
parties in the continuous violation of the Palestinian people’s rights
and the failure by Israel to comply with the international law. He’s
also called on individuals and organisations around the World to put
pressure on the international community so that politicians and
decision-makers adopt all possible measures to reach peace in the
Middle East and enforce the existing sanctions on those countries
which don’t comply with UN resolutions.


On 18 February 2013, Stéphane Hessel gave a last interview on his
involvement in the RToP. The interview will be published in a book by
the French publisher Editions de L’Herne, due out in mid March. You
can read the interview at this link (French only).


3 Comments

STANDING UP AGAINST THE USE OF ABUSIVE POWER

February 8, 2013 at 11:00 (Corrupt Politics, Associate Post, Activism, Democracy, Civil Liberties)


Those who spoke …
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Christopher Hedges
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Daniel Ellsberg
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Michael Moore
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All Photos above © by Bud Korotzer
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THE RIGHT 
TO STOP 
INDEFINITE DETENTION

Daniel Ellsberg, February 6, 2013, outside of the 2nd circuit court of appeals which heard oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging section 1021 of the NDAA in which he is a plaintiff. He is one of the most highly lauded government whistle-blowers in U.S. history.
THE RIGHT TO STOP ABUSE OF POWER
NOTE: Read the excerpt below from an article on the front page of the New York Times from the same day, February 6, 2013, written by Robert F. Worth, Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane.
SANA, Yemen – Late last August, a 40-year old cleric named Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber stood up to deliver a speech denouncing Al Qaeda in a village mosque in far eastern Yemen. 
It was a brave gesture by a father of seven who commanded great respect in the community, and it did not go unnoticed. Two days later, three members of Al Qaeda came to the mosque in the tiny village of Khashamir after 9 p.m., saying they merely wanted to talk. Mr. Jaber agreed to meet them, bringing his cousin Waleed Abdullah, a police officer, for protection.
As the five men stood arguing by a cluster of palm trees, a volley of remotely operated American missiles shot down from the night sky and incinerated them all, along with a camel that was tied up nearby.
This is not a state secret… this information has been well-documented and is well-known…
Extrajudicial executions/assassinations are being carried out by the Obama administration and U. S. military that are criminal and immoral. No matter if a legal argument is constructed to justify these means, the end is deadly wrong.
We are looking at a continuous pattern of escalating abuses of power, employing a constellation of methods, including indefinite detention, torture, increasing surveillance and extrajudicial assassinations by unmanned drones.
WHAT WILL WE DO?
WE WILL NOT BE SILENT is an artist/activist collective that has been in existence since 2006. Through the creative use of language embodied on shirts and at times emboldened on signs held up in public spaces, we respond to current social justice issues, encouraging creative, direct public-actions where many people can participate.

 
FACEBOOK / TWITTER     
Contact: INFO@WEWILLNOTBESILENT.NETWWW.WEWILLNOTBESILENT.NET

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ZIONISM MUST BE PUT UNDER CONTROL

January 29, 2013 at 10:54 (Palestine, Israel, Corrupt Politics, Ethnic Cleansing, Soldier Brutality, Occupied West Bank, zionist harassment, Civil Liberties)

This report details the crowd control weapons used by Israeli security forces in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem).

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Crowd Control: Israel’s Use of Crowd Control Weapons in the West Bank

pic.phpf=28alf

Crowd control weapons are supposed to be non-lethal, enabling authorities to enforce the law without endangering human life. In fact, however, they are dangerous weapons that can cause death, severe injury and damage to property if used improperly.

This report details the crowd control weapons used by Israeli security forces in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem).

Tear gas is a chemical irritant that severely affects the eyes and the respiratory system. It is the predominant crowd control weapon in use by Israeli security forces and is dispersed through several types of grenades manufactured in the United States: A rubber tear-gas grenade (known as “400″ or “skittering grenade”), which can be hand-thrown or fired from a launcher mounted on a rifle, and a 40mm aluminum canister (known as “gas rocket”) which is fired from a launcher. In East Jerusalem security forces also use the splitting tear-gas grenade which separates into three sub-canisters. 40mm-caliber canisters are fired from several different types of launchers. Some are mounted on soldiers’ rifles and can be fired one grenade at a time. Others are stand-alone launchers which can fire from one to six grenades in quick succession. Israeli security forces also have at their disposal a jeep-mounted system that enables firing salvos of grenades, which can cover a large area with tear gas.

Stun grenades are also a predominant crowd control weapon. They are a diversionary measure, whose explosion emits a bright light and a thunderous noise. The grenades are designed to cause panic, thereby enabling security forces to overpower people. Like the tear-gas grenades in use by Israeli security forces, the stun grenades are also manufactured in the United States.

Rubber-coated metal bullets are utilized primarily against stone-throwers. Security forces use two types of bullets made of a metal core coated with either rubber or plastic, and fired from launchers mounted on rifle-barrels. These so-called “rubber” bullets are manufactured by Israel Military Industries Ltd. The Orr Commission prohibited the use of rubber-coated metal bullets within Israel’s borders. In East Jerusalem, since the prohibition, Israel Police has been using 40mm-caliber sponge rounds imported from the Unites States.

The Skunk is a foul-smelling liquid developed by the Israel Police for the purpose of dispersing demonstrations. It is sprayed from truck-mounted water cannons. The odor is so offensive that it forces any person in its vicinity to back off. The report also details the relevant orders of the military and the Israel Police which regulate the use of these weapons, and which the security forces refuse to divulge. In addition the report surveys the implementation of the regulations in the field and the detrimental results of violating them.

This report has found that there are two main problems with the use of crowd control weapons in the West Bank. First, the wording of the open-fire and safety regulations is ambiguous, and in some cases the regulations cannot be properly followed. Second, when security forces in the field violate the regulations, even systematically, practically no action is taken to put an end to this wrongful conduct. Senior-ranking officers deny that violations of the open-fire regulations are the norm and classify injury to civilians from improper use of crowd control weapons as “exceptions to the rule”. Furthermore, even in the rare instances in which investigations into such incidents are conducted, most are closed without the perpetrators or their superiors being held accountable. Following are some of the report’s findings:

  • Soldiers and Border Police often fire tear-gas grenades directly at demonstrators with the aim of hitting them, or fire carelessly, without ensuring that demonstrators are not in the direct line of fire, in direct contravention of regulations.
  • Soldiers and Border Police systematically violate standing orders, firing rubber-coated metal bullets even in circumstances clearly prohibited by the orders. B’Tselem has documented instances in which security forces have fired rubber-coated metal bullets at a closer range than that permitted by the regulations, making it potentially lethal. They have also fired at minors, at the upper torso and at passersby or demonstrators who had not been throwing stones and did not pose a danger to security forces or any other individual. In some cases, commanders, including high-ranking officers, knew of the unlawful firing and even ordered it.
  • Security forces sometimes fire live ammunition during demonstrations, particularly at Palestinians who are throwing stones at them. B’Tselem has documented use of live ammunition in circumstances that were not life-threatening.
  • Soldiers and Border Police have fired 0.22 inch-caliber bullets under circumstances that do not warrant the use of lethal weapons. In effect, this ammunition is used as if were a non-lethal means of crowd control.
  • In several cases security forces sprayed the foul-smelling Skunk liquid at or near homes, raising grave suspicions that it is being used as a collective punitive measure against residents of villages where regular weekly demonstrations are held.
  • Police officers make use of pepper spray in contravention of official police procedure, which is designed strike a balance between law enforcement considerations and safety considerations.

The unlawful use of crowd control weapons by Israeli security forces is accompanied by further restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of speech and their freedom to protest the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. These restrictions include the arrest and prosecution of demonstration organizers; the dispersal of demonstrations using force, even when demonstrators were not violent in any way; and the deportation of foreign nationals participating in the demonstrations. Areas in the West Bank where demonstrations are held every Friday are declared closed military zones for the time scheduled for demonstration. Specific orders designating closed military zones enable security forces to keep Israeli activists from taking part in the demonstrations and to make them liable for arrest and prosecution. These disproportionate restrictions deviate from the instructions issued by the Legal Advisor for the West Bank, which prohibit the declaration of an area a closed military zone to a specific group, such as activists at demonstrations.

Members of the security forces who are faced with stone throwers, sometimes in large-scale events, have the authority to use the various weapons detailed in this report. However, the authorities must ensure that the troops on the ground obey the open-fire regulations and use crowd control weapons within the parameters that keep them non-lethal. It follows that every soldier, officer, or police officer violating these rules must be prosecuted. In addition, B’Tselem demands that Israeli security forces:

  • prohibit the use of live ammunition, including 0.22inch-caliber bullets, for the purpose of dispersing demonstrations, except in instances of mortal danger;
  • restrict the use of rubber-coated metal bullets to instances of mortal danger, to be used as a preliminary measure, before firing live ammunition;
  • completely prohibit the firing of 40mm tear-gas canisters either directly at individuals or horizontally, in a way that could cause result in injuries.

Source via Uruknet

1 Comment

FBI CRACKDOWN ON OCCUPY MOVEMENT

December 30, 2012 at 10:58 (Activism, Civil Liberties, Class Struggle, F.B.I., Occupy Wall Street)

“FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.”
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How the FBI Coordinated the Crackdown on Occupy

By Naomi Wolf

 

 

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

t was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves -was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document - reproduced here in an easily searchable format - shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations’ knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a “terrorist threat”:

“FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.”

Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it “police-statism”:

“This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”

The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a “Bank Fraud Working Group” met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its “domestic terrorism” unit. The Anchorage, Alaska “terrorism task force” was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan “joint terrorism task force” was issuing a “counterterrorism preparedness alert” about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the “Bank Security Group” – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to “National Bad Bank Sit-in Day” (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state’s Occupy members’ details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its “joint terrorism task force” aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages.

Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the “longterm plans” of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.

There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people’s income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.

Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one’s personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a “terrorist organization” and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

Why the huge push for counterterrorism “fusion centers”, the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about “the terrorists”. It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.

 

Source

 

4 Comments

FACEBOOK UNFRIENDING TRUTH ACTIVISTS

December 28, 2012 at 09:53 (Activism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, DesertPeace Editorial, FaceBook, zionist harassment)

 unfriend
FaceBook has literally launched a cyberwar against Truth Activists. They are obviously succumbing to zionist pressure to do this as most of those ‘unfriended’ are friends of Palestine.
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I just received the following from Michael Rivero of What Really Happened;
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Social Fixer is telling me I am no longer FB friends with the following people:You are no longer friends with:
Michael F Rivero 11 min ago (account inactive)
Anthony J Hilder 11 min ago (account inactive)
William Lewis 11 min ago (account inactive)
Richard Gage 11 min ago (account inactive)
William Rodriguez 11 min ago (account inactive)
Infowar Artist 11 min ago (account inactive)
Weare Change 11 min ago (account inactive)
Wacboston At Twitterr 11 min ago (account inactive)
Michael Murphy Tmp 11 min ago (account inactive)
Robert M Bowman 11 min ago (account inactive)
Peter Dale Scott 11 min ago (account inactive)
Jason Infowars 11 min ago (account inactive)
Mike Skuthan 11 min ago (account inactive)
Packy Savvenas 11 min ago (account inactive)

Some of these people, like Rivero, Gage, Bowman, Peter Dale Scott, William Rodriguez are prominent 9/11 truthers and bloggers.

Click HERE to see the comments.
My name is not on the list as I am not on FaceBook. I have given my reasons for this many times…
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Our message will continue to ring out for Peace and Justice VERY LOUDLY!
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As I said when banned from Blogger and Kos; “They can ban us, but they cannot silence us!”
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Kudos to Rivero and his site for doing this daily … He is an inspiration to all of us!

2 Comments

“IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO” > THE THINGS THAT YOU’RE LIABLE TO READ IN THE BIBLE

December 23, 2012 at 12:03 (Civil Liberties, Illegal Settlements, Israel, Palestine, zionist harassment)

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Despite that, zionists still try to justify the unjustifiable ….
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Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria claim too often and too loudly that their rights are grounded on scriptures. This argument, legitimate as it may be to a religious Zionist or Evangelical public, is a losing argument when addressed to everyone else: It is a losing argument when presented to Muslims who can quote Islamic jurisprudence to corroborate their claims over the whole of Eretz Yisrael. It is a losing argument with secular Jews and Christians, who believe that the interpretation of international law should not be conditioned by the Bible. It is even a losing argument among those ultra-orthodox Jews who believe that the Talmud disavows contemporary Jewish claims in the Holy Land.
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Settlers and human rights

 West Bank Jews claim too often and too loudly that their rights are grounded on scriptures

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The case for Jews to reside in Judea and Samaria is solid. It is regrettable the world has yet to realize this. The blame must not be laid on global anti-Semitism or ignorance about the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict, but mainly on the way Jewish rights have been justified to date.

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Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria claim too often and too loudly that their rights are grounded on scriptures. This argument, legitimate as it may be to a religious Zionist or Evangelical public, is a losing argument when addressed to everyone else: It is a losing argument when presented to Muslims who can quote Islamic jurisprudence to corroborate their claims over the whole of Eretz Yisrael. It is a losing argument with secular Jews and Christians, who believe that the interpretation of international law should not be conditioned by the Bible. It is even a losing argument among those ultra-orthodox Jews who believe that the Talmud disavows contemporary Jewish claims in the Holy Land.

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Given these precedents, is it really surprising that the White House, the European Union and the United Nations refuse to acknowledge the rights of Jews to reside in the West Bank? Couching the case for Jews to reside in Judea and Samaria in religious language has done incalculable damage to a cause which is primarily one of historical and human rights.

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We will not dwell on Jewish historical rights over Judea and Samaria. These have been elucidated elsewhere and are well-known to most readers. It is high-time to discuss the rights of Jews to reside in the West Bank in terms of human rights. Is this a joke? To those who conflate human rights with the goals of the Palestinian liberation movement, probably. But let us take these peace activists to task: If Jews were once again denied the right to reside in England or Spain these pacifists would be appalled. At the same time these pacifists deny analogous rights to Jews who have for decades resided peacefully in West Bank towns like Efrat and Ariel.

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Let us believe that they genuinely support Jews’ right to live in peace and security in the West. Yet by denying similar rights to Jews in the Middle East these pacifists implicitly deny universal human rights standards. Misguided cultural relativism pushes them to hold the West – and Israel – accountable to a sterling standard while excusing members of non-Western cultures for such immoral acts as bombing civilians, preaching violence in the name of God and planning the mass expulsion of religious minorities.

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Israel should perhaps forgive Western pacifists for their naïveté. But can it condone the hypocrisy of the Arab leadership? If Abbas and the Palestinian Authority genuinely desired peace and reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, they would invite the Jewish residents of the West Bank to apply for citizenship in a future Palestinian state. To accept Jewish neighbors on their soil would be the best way to prove that a future Palestinian state would be a tolerant multi-religious and multiethnic society. It would also be the best way to reassure Israelis that a Palestinian state would be a peaceful neighbor. Nevertheless, Palestinian leaders openly vaunt their determination to cleanse all Jews from the West Bank.

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The irony cannot be missed that Abbas, for all his lofty rhetoric about democracy and human rights, strives to establish an ethnically pure Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza.

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The court of world history will praise Nelson Mandela for reassuring whites that a post-apartheid South Africa would not curtail their civil and property rights. There is no reason for the international community not to demand the same assurances from the Palestinian leadership with regards to Jews. These assurances would demonstrate that Palestinians genuinely respect the rights of minorities and that they are ready to avoid the mistakes of independence movements elsewhere in the Arab world.

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As long as the Palestinian leadership does not give Jews assurances analogous to those given by Nelson Mandela, there is every reason to believe that the profligate use of the word “peace” by Abbas is a mantra devoid of all substance and honesty. Under these circumstances a Palestinian state should not be established.

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It is the right and the duty of Israel’s government to justify its reticence towards the establishment of a Palestinian state on human rights grounds. It is respect for universal principles of human rights – not the sacrifice of human beings to placate Islamism and Arab nationalism – that will bring genuine peace to the Middle East. Israel should remind the world about this truth.

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Op Ed in Ynet

 

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website

2 Comments

ZIONISM: DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO YOU?

October 24, 2012 at 09:04 (Civil Liberties, DesertPeace Exclusive, Dictatorship, Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Germany, Hasbara, Hate crimes, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, Soldier Brutality, zionist harassment)

 The following images were sent to me by Michael Rivero to share with my readers…
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It makes sense to the likes of these few….
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Now look at the following (disturbing) photos to see how zionism is repeating the crimes of history, can you honestly say this makes sense? Yet, these attrocities are supported by the United States government, the European Union and others, even receiving Nobel ‘Peace’ Prizes for that support. Surely this cannot make sense to any rational person.
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GERMANY 1940               ISRAEL 2009

8 Comments

WHEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS JUST PLAIN WRONG

October 21, 2012 at 09:31 (Civil Liberties, Democracy, DesertPeace Editorial, Israel, U.S. Election)

 
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I left the United States in 1967 with no intention of ever returning there. Yet, I have the right to vote in US elections. Does that make any sense to you? It doesn’t to me.
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My next country of residence was Canada which I left in 1984, also with no intention of returning. I do not have the right to vote in Canadian elections. That makes sense to me. Canada has a Parliamentary System whose representatives are elected by voters living in a given area. Israel is NOT one of those areas. Is that fair? It is to Canadians.
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The talk in the street in Israel these days (among  former American residents) is; Did you vote yet? And who do they vote for? Obviously whichever candidate has a stronger pro Israel position. There is little or no concern about which candidate will make a better President for the American people.
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This is what I call the right to vote wrong!
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This brings to mind the election practices of the Southern States up till the early 60′s … Afro-American RESIDENTS of those states did not enjoy the benefit of voting in elections. Because of the strength of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, many of these residents were afraid to even register to vote. Their fear was justified as can be seen in what happened to those that tried to change that situation. Even worse was the participation of the Federal Government, through its local agencies in carrying out the criminal activities.
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Yet, in those very days, American citizens (permanently) living abroad had the right to vote. Again, this seems wrong.
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American citizens living in the United States should all have the right to vote for the candidate who will represent AMERICAN interests in AMERICA, NOT IN ISRAEL or elsewhere.
Then, it won’t be wrong!
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Americans in Israel can learn something from the following piece written by a distinguished educator and two time Vice Presidential candidate, rather than burying their heads to the plight of the Palestinians. To know the history of their own nation could help prevent its evils continuing in other nations.
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Ask not what an American President can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for the country you reside in.
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Jim Crow and the Palestinians

by ANGELA DAVIS*

The controversy generated by Newt Gingrich’s outrageous statement last year that Palestinians are “an invented people” should have led to greater caution in the formulation of politicians’ public statements on Israel and Palestine. However, this seems not to have been the case: Mitt Romney recently offered the judgment that “Palestinians have no interest in peace” as if he were making an uncontested factual observation.

This was the moral equivalent of saying that African Americans were never interested in ending Jim Crow or that black South Africans did not want to see Apartheid dismantled.

It is revealing that Romney proposed this characterization of Palestinians’ political stance in the same speech (at a fund-raiser among the ultra-wealthy in Florida) in which he insisted that 47 percent of the people in this country believe that they are entitled to government assistance and do not want to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

The convergence of backward positions regarding governmental guarantees of universal availability of food, health care, housing, and other necessities and retrograde policies on settler colonialism practiced by Israel might be expected. But the Democratic Party scarcely fares better when it comes to Israel and Palestine.

At its recent national convention, the party leadership chose to disregard voting preferences of delegates by passing a two-thirds voice vote — despite the fact that the convention’s oral response clearly indicated otherwise — asserting that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Such flagrantly undemocratic behavior summons up such past moments in convention history as the conduct toward Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964.

In my home state of California, elected officials have gone so far as to encourage the violation of First Amendment rights in order to control opposition to Israel. Largely in response to University of California students’ support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, state legislators recently passed an Assembly Bill (HR 35) that, while unbinding, calls upon campus authorities to restrict student activism that is critical of Israel.

Such desperate measures implicitly proclaim that curbing criticism of Israel is more important than safeguarding constitutional rights. Perhaps those who support these measures fear the increasingly widespread use of the “apartheid” label to describe Israel, employed not only by students but also by such prominent figures as President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

If they fear the emergence of a new anti-apartheid movement, this time directed against Israel, they may very well be correct. The BDS movement is rapidly gaining support: this past spring, the Eighth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week was observed on campuses in South Africa and throughout Europe, North America and the Arab World.

Shortly after the passage of California Assembly Bill HR 35, the University of California Student Association passed a strong resolution that not only opposed HR 35 but recognized “the legitimacy of boycotts and divestment as important social movement tools” and encouraged “all institutions of higher learning to cleanse their investment portfolios of unethical investment in companies implicated in or profiting from violations of international human rights law, without making special exemptions for any country.”

We here in the U.S. should be especially conscious of the similarities between historical Jim Crow practices and contemporary regimes of segregation in Occupied Palestine. If we have learned the most important lesson promulgated by Dr. Martin Luther King — that justice is always indivisible — it should be clear that a mass movement in solidarity with Palestinian freedom is long overdue.

*Angela Davis is Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California Santa Cruz and a member of the jury for the 2012 Russell Tribunal on Palestine. She is author of many books including “The Meaning of Freedom” and New Critical Edition of Frederick Douglass’s  ”Narrative of a Life of a Slave,” both published in the Open Media Series by City Lights Books, www.citylights.com.

Written FOR

1 Comment

HOLIDAYS AND LOCKUPS

October 3, 2012 at 10:17 (Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, DesertPeace Editorial, Hasbara, Hate crimes, Israel, Occupation, Oppression, Palestine, Police Brutality, zionist harassment)

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In Israel, Jewish holidays mean total closure of the Occupied Territories. Total closure means that any Palestinian found roaming on Israeli streets is stopped by the Israeli Border Police and asked to show their Identity Card, God help them if they do not have one showing they are an Israeli citizen. If that is not the case, they become a part of a fast growing statistic;
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Palestinian man with Israeli ID card (Identifying him as an Arab)
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ID Card from the Occupied Territories
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(Lets not forget that Israelis complained to the world that Jews in the Soviet Union were forced to carry ID Cards identifying themselves as Jews …. but it’s OK to do the same thing to Palestinians living in Israel)
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Palestinian Prisoners

At any one time, Israel holds in excess of 9000 Palestinian prisoners. In fact, 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel since 1967. Prisoners include children, women, and Palestinian government officials.

Thousands of Palestinians are arrested for no apparent reason, and held without charges, or a trial for years at a time. This is called administrative detention, and is a clear violation of international law. Israel arrests Palestinians, even children, for reasons such as walking on settler only roads within occupied territory. Many Palestinians are arrested simply to keep Israeli jails full, as Palestinian prisoners have been used in negotiations in the past. Hence, for Israel, Palestinian prisoners are nothing more than commodities to be traded later on.

Many prisoners have no visitation rights, as such, they are separated from their families for years at a time. This is even true for child prisoners. The families of the prisoners are hardly ever informed about the reason for the arrest, and often don’t see their relative from the moment of arrest, where Israeli soldiers often state “we just want to speak with them for a minute”, only to disappear for years.

Vast numbers of Palestinian children are held in Israeli prisoners. These children can be as young as 12. Israel, in violation of international law, regards anyone above 16 as an adult, and furthermore, any Palestinian above the age of 14 can be tried as an adult, and held in the same prison as adults.

Torture

According to various studies, anywhere between 85% and 98% of Palestinian prisoners are tortured in Israeli prisons. The process of arresting a Palestinian is often degrading and violent, including bashing, insulting, and stripping detainees.

In prisons, these prisoners are subject to violent interrogations, and are often forced to confess in order for the torture to cease. When incarcerated, the prisoners are tortured in a variety of measures, including; sleep deprivation, beatings, forcing prisoners to be seated in painful positions, choking. The conditions are also appalling, with prisoners forced to endure extreme heat and extreme cold. Prisoners are also humiliated and mocked by Israeli guards.

Resources

http://palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article9

http://palestinianprisoners.blogspot.com/2009/06/pcdp-98-of-palestinian-prisoners-in-ioa.html

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These are facts! What is also a fact is that no one outside of Israel says a word about these injustices. THAT TOO is a crime! COMPLICITY KILLS!

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RAISE YOUR VOICE NOW TO END THESE ZIONIST CRIMES!

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2 Comments

ACTION ALERT: DEMAND FREEDOM FOR PALESTINIANS ARRESTED BY PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

September 21, 2012 at 08:02 (Action Alert, Civil Liberties, Corrupt Politics, Oppression, Palestine, Palestinian Authority)

Take Action: Demand Freedom for Palestinians Arrested by the PA!

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On Tuesday, September 18, 2012, as Palestinian hunger strikers Samer al-Barq, Hassan Safadi and Ayman Sharawna struggle for their lives within Israeli prisons, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank launched a campaign of arrests throughout the area, rounding up 60 political activists, including youth organizers, journalists, writers and former political prisoners. The arrest total has now risen to 114 and none of the detainees have been released. Act today to demand immediate freedom for the arrestees!

Among the detainees are at least 35 freed prisoners, including some freed in recent weeks from Israeli jails. Fuad al-Khuffash, director of the Ahrar Centre in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners – and who has now declared an open hunger strike –  was one of the arrestees, as was journalist Walid Khaled, released from occupation prisons only 2 weeks prior. Among the detainees, rounded up by the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence and Preventive Security, are participants in the recent hunger strikes in occupation prisons and a number of recently freed prisoners. Adel Shawamra, one of today’s detainees from Bethlehem, was recently released after 13 years in Israeli prisons.

The PA’s role here is nothing new. As part of the Oslo Accords and its subsequent security corollaries, the Palestinian Authority and its Preventive Security/General Intelligence have acted as security subcontractors for the Israeli occupation, trained by US military officials (such as Gen. Keith Dayton) to round up Palestinian resistance fighters and political dissidents.

It is not coincidental that these arrests come shortly after mass protests in response to economic inequality swept the West Bank, soon focusing on the Oslo Accords and their economic corollary, the Paris Agreements. The existence of Palestinian Authority security forces engaging in “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation, effectively undermining the Palestinian resistance, links directly back to the Oslo Accords.

Amid Hassan Safadi’s hunger strike, his brother Saleh was arrested by the PA; Palestinian prisoners including Ahmad Sa’adat, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Ahmed Qatamesh and many others have spent time in PA prisons as well as Israeli prisons. This practice has been part and parcel of “security cooperation” with the Israeli occupation from the earliest days of the Palestinian Authority.

As we mark the nineteenth anniversary of the Oslo Accords with a series of PA arrests, we also note that there remain 111 prisoners who have been imprisoned since before the Oslo accords – these prisoners remain inside the occupation’s jails to the present day. Prisoners throughout the Israeli prisons engaged in a one-day hunger strike on Thursday, September 13 – the anniversary of Oslo – and again on Tuesday, September 18 – demanding the freedom of these long-time prisoners. Just as Oslo did not bring freedom, justice or liberation to Palestine, nor did it for its prisoners, a group of Palestinians who despite their centrality to the Palestinian national movement – were ignored and excluded from the Oslo “peace process.” Oslo’s latest victims – the political detainees in the West Bank – are demanding freedom. Act today to support their freedom and united Palestinian struggle against Israeli apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism.

Take action!

1. Email the Palestinian Embassy or PLO Mission in your country. Click here for a list of contact information. Act now to send this email message!  Make it clear that Palestinians around the world and international activists stand together to confront occupation, end security coordination, and free these detainees – including the former prisoners who have already given so much to the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

2. Call the Palestinian Embassy or PLO Mission. This is a case where phone calls can make a real difference! Palestinians and internationals around the world can raise their voice and demand action. Phone numbers for some missions follow: PLO Delegation in Washington, DC:  202-974-6360. Palestinian Mission to the UN: 212-288-8500. Palestinian General Delegation in Ottawa, Canada: 613-736-0053. Palestinian Mission UK: +44 (0)20 8563 0008. More may be found here!

3. Act to support Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons. Hassan Safadi, Samer al-Barq and Ayman Sharawna are all still on hunger strike demanding their freedom! Write now to take action to demand their freedom from occupation prisons!

Write to Palestinian Authority/PLO Missions To Demand an End to the Political Arrest Campaign

Send an email to international missions of the Palestinian Authority and PLO to demand that the political arrests end and the detainees be freed immediately.
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Prepared BY .. click on link to get text of letter

3 Comments

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