Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures since occupying the West Bank in 1967, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
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Israeli bulldozers demolish mosque, 3 houses near Nablus
(MaanImages/File)
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli bulldozers on Tuesday demolished a mosque and three houses in a Palestinian village south of Nablus, an official said.
Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement-related activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that over 20 Israeli military vehicles entered Khirbet al-Tawil near the town of Aqraba early Tuesday morning.
Bulldozers immediately began demolishing a mosque and three houses belonging to Osama Anas, Anwar Sidqi Hani, and Muhammad Hani.
The structures were demolished under the pretext that they were built without permits, Daghlas said.
Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures since occupying the West Bank in 1967, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
Israel destroyed more than 663 Palestinian properties in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2013, displacing 1,101 people, according to UNOCHA. Some 250 people have been displaced since the beginning of 2014.
The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.
The suggestion that “the Jewish people would ever establish an apartheid regime” was “particularly hurtful,” wrote Danon, because it was made public on Holocaust Remembrance Day, “the solemn day when we remember the more than six million victims of our people murdered in the Holocaust last century in Europe.”
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One would think so …. wouldn’t they?
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Israeli official: Kerry’s apartheid comment calls U.S. role as honest broker into question
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon writes in opinion piece for Politico apartheid comment is just the latest in a series of ‘erroneous declarations.’
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department last week. Photo by AFP
John Kerrys statement that Israel will risk becoming an apartheid state if a two-state solution isnt reached soon is one of a series of statements that call into question the Obama administrations ability to act as an honest broker, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon wrote in an opinion piece for Politico.
Time and again, Secretary Kerrys erroneous declarations have come dangerously close to suggesting moral equivalency between Israel and its adversaries, wrote Danon. They call into question his administrations ability to act as an honest broker in our region.
Danon said Kerrys apartheid comment, which he made while speaking at the Trilateral Commission before senior officials from the United States, Europe, Russia and Japan, was just the latest in a series of destructive statements.
Kerry, who has since clarified that he in no way considers Israel to be an apartheid state, responded to a question in July about why the peace talks were so important by asking whether Israel wants a third intifada. By insinuating that if we do not give in to every Palestinian demand to ensure a successful end to the talks, we would return to the era of suicide bombers murdering hundreds of civilians in Israeli city centers, the secretary basically asked the state of Israel to negotiate with a loaded gun to our heads, wrote Danon.
Kerrys remark in February that the risks of failed peace talks were high for Israel because people are talking about boycott was another veiled threat at Israel that attempted to scare the Israeli public into capitulation, wrote Danon.
The suggestion that the Jewish people would ever establish an apartheid regime was particularly hurtful, wrote Danon, because it was made public on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the solemn day when we remember the more than six million victims of our people murdered in the Holocaust last century in Europe.
In a world characterized by the ubiquity of rapid mass communication the apparent degree of coordination among members of the American Zionist leadership shouldn’t be very impressive. Yet, it is impressive. And it also indicates something about those leaders’ perspective on strategy.
John Kerry’s decision to identify apartheid for what it is – the qualifier, “could be,” is just so much ornamentation – is commendable. And it’s already drawn bilious condemnations from the ADL, AIPAC, Congress and other Zionist strongholds in America.
ADL: “It is startling and deeply disappointing that a diplomat so knowledgeable and experienced about democratic Israel chose to use such an inaccurate and incendiary term.”
AIPAC: ‘”Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate. The Jewish state is a shining light for freedom and opportunity in a region plagued by terror, hate and oppression.” AIPAC also said that is “shares President Obama’s perspective that while there is a political conflict between Israel and the Palestinians that needs to be resolved, the use of the term “apartheid” to characterize Israel is inaccurate and unhelpful.”‘
Eric Cantor: “The use of the word apartheid has routinely been dismissed as both offensive and inaccurate, and Secretary Kerry’s use of it makes peace even harder to achieve.”
Is the statements’ similarity coincidental? The answer is almost certainly No.
Moreover, one word, “inaccurate” recurs more frequently than any other. That suggests something about the logic that underpinned the frantic discussion that preceded the distribution of talking points to members of the leadership. Mainly, that the “danger” here is that the charge will stick – and that the word “apartheid” may come to be regarded as more-or-less accurate shorthand for what the Jewish-Israelis are perpetrating in Palestine.
Finally, J Street, the center-right Zionist lobby organization, lauded Kerry’s recognition while exhibiting a fundamental inability to abandon life beyond the Looking-Glass. Running fast to go nowhere they seem to remember the future:
“Israel today is not an apartheid state, and that’s not what John Kerry is saying,” said Ben Ami. “For over a year now, Kerry has argued that, without a two-state solution, Israel is risking its future and its values as it moves toward permanent rule over millions of Palestinians without equal rights. Former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have used the ‘apartheid’ term as well to describe this possible future.”
You obviously have a problem with reading, so these might be of help to you in standing by the original words you muttered … Can you not see the similarities in the images below?
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And some attitudes and policies … Prepared by Michael Rivero
DesertPeace cited as a liar in the following report …
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I want to stress that I am convinced that the people quoted below are sincere in their beliefs and statements. The problem, as it so often is in the Middle East, is that there is so much more to the whole truth, as to render these statements and arguments, for lack of a better word, untruths.
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How to lie about Israel, Part Two: The Hard Left (Part One can be read HERE)
On the heels of last week’s “How to lie to college students about Israel,” four new lies, beginning with Genocide and ending with a question: If Jews aren’t indigenous to the Holy Land, can they ever be indigenous anywhere?
Protesters in France call for a boycott of Israeli products.Photo by AP
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An anti-Israel protester at Dublin Airport, Ireland, June, 7, 2010. Photo by AP
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I want to stress that I am convinced that the people quoted below are sincere in their beliefs and statements. The problem, as it so often is in the Middle East, is that there is so much more to the whole truth, as to render these statements and arguments, for lack of a better word, untruths.
Ethnic Cleansing is too gentle a word for what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, which is genocide.
Journalist Philip Weiss, interviewing retired CUNY Baruch College clerical worker Fran Korotzer, as she demonstrates at Google Headquarters, Manhattan, against Cornell’s partnership with Israel’s Technion university:
Philip Weiss: What are you telling these people about Israel?
Fran Korotzer: I say that they are committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It may be a slow genocide – sometimes it’s not so slow. The number of deaths – I think that we’re too gentle when we use the word ‘ethnic cleansing.’ I don’t think that really tells the whole story … When they shoot people that come out for peaceful protest, that’s murder.
PW: Fran, you’re Jewish, right?
FK: Yes.
PW: How’d you come to this issue? Aren’t most Jews Zionists?
FK: I don’t know. I don’t know. But I come from a progressive background …
PW: Fran, would you have used the word genocide a few years ago, or was that part of your learning curve?
FK: It was part of my learning curve. [In the past] I just thought there was a lack of equality. I didn’t realize how bad it was.
PW: Have you been over there?
FK: No. I won’t go. I won’t go to Israel.
PW: Have you ever been there?
FK: No.
PW: I’ve got to feel and touch and see something to believe it. Why are you convinced of the truth of the statements you’ve made? You haven’t even been there.
FK: Because I read my cousin’s blog, pretty much every day.
PW: And he describes a child killed by a rubber bullet while playing in a playground. … I trust the people that I hear talking about it and writing about it.
Lie No 2: Israel never had a right to exist as a nation. Nor do the Jews have a genuine tie to the Holy Land.
Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, cited in the Desert Peace blog above, writing in Middle East Monitor:
“Sometimes, (Israelis) allude to imagined historical rights as if these pathological liars from Eastern Europe, who lie as much as they breathe oxygen, had any truly historical rights in the land of Palestine.
“Sometimes, they speak of Jewish continuity as if these Khazari racists had any biological connection with Jacob and the ancient children of Israel, most of whose descendants had long converted to Islam and Christianity.”
“… Zionism is much more than criminal and nefarious. It is also genocidal, racist, rapacious, covetous, and of course utterly mendacious. Zionism is expansionistic, very much like a malignant cancer. This is why no people on earth can remain safe if living with or next to Zionism. In other words, if you don’t eradicate Zionism, Zionism will eradicate you.”
Lie No. 3: Israel has forfeited any right it may have once had to exist as a nation
Political analyst Sharmine Narwani, writing in Al Akhbar:
“What moves me instead in this post-two-state era, is the sheer audacity of Israel even existing.
“What a fantastical idea, this notion that a bunch of rank outsiders from another continent could appropriate an existing, populated nation for themselves – and convince the ‘global community’ that it was the moral thing to do. I’d laugh at the chutzpah if this wasn’t so serious.”
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“Israel has no right to exist. Break that mental barrier and just say it: ‘Israel has no right to exist.’ Roll it around your tongue, tweet it, post it as your Facebook status update – do it before you think twice. Delegitimization is here – have no fear. Palestine will be less painful than Israel ever was.”
Lie No. 4: Jews are not indigenous to the Holy Land
From a conversation at the University of Pennsylvania between author and journalist Max Blumenthal and Prof. Ian Lustick, on Blumenthal’s new book Goliath. Blumenthal refers at one point to “Israel’s attempt to engineer and maintain a Jewish, non-indigenous majority.”
Ian Lustick: “What I come away from a book like this feeling, is that Israel is not just a little bit fascist, Israel is a lot fascist. And one of the things that happens when you use the word fascist – and it’s being increasingly used throughout the discourse – is that it’s the ultimate de-legitimizer. Nothing post-World War Two can be legitimate and be fascist, and even be allowed to survive.
“So I’m asking you the question; What is your conclusion, with respect to the implications of the extent to which Israel is fascistic as a society, and whether or not you think that it must be ended entirely?”
Max Blumenthal: “…My concern, first, is to find some kind of scenario that will relieve the suffering of the indigenous people of Palestine.
“As for the Jewish Israelis, there are implications on what kind of future they should enjoy, in my last chapter. There is something implied there, which is that these are Israelis who are attracted to Europe, and do not feel that they are part of the Arab world.
“And it’s that attraction to Europe – that manifestation of Herzl’s famous quote that the Jewish state will be a rampart of civilization against barbarism – which has led to the present crisis and the failure of Zionism. Because there is absolutely no way for Jewish people in Israel/Palestine to become indigenized under the present order.
“And that’s what really has to happen. You have to be willing to be a part of the Arab world. Because you’re living in the Arab world. If you don’t, then you have to maintain this system, and continue to harden the present system, of the separation wall running along the West Bank, which Benjamin Netanyahu freely said was placed there not for security reasons, but to prevent demographic spillover.
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“So, there should be a choice placed to the settler-colonial population: Become indigenized, which I think many Israeli Jews would be happy doing … But if you think that you can maintain a kind of Berlin reality, you’ve created a recipe for the current dystopia and the environment that many describe as fascist.
“So this choice needs to be placed to the Israeli Jewish population, and it can only be placed to them through external pressure, the kind of pressure that the BDS movement is exerting.
“The maintenance and engineering of a non-indigenous demographic majority is non-negotiable.”
SAMPLE FOLLOW-UP QUESTON, IF I MAY: My dictionary defines indigenous as “Originating or occurring naturally (in a country, region, etc); Native to a particular region or environment but occurring naturally in other places as well.”
Believing, as I do, that both Jews and Palestinians are indigenous to the Holy Land, if Jews are not indigenous here, does that mean that Jews can never be indigenous anywhere?
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Video of Interview with Fran Korotzer cited above …
‘Israel is a vibrant democracy and I do not believe, not have I ever stated, publicly or privately that Israel is an apartheid state,’ stated Kerry. (File photo: Reuters)
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Whew ….. that’s a relief …. What would poor Israel do if that became official U.S. policy? … Could the U.S. find somewhere else to dump 30 Billion dollars a year??
The original Report from The Daily Beast can be read HERE
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Kerry: ‘I did not call Israel an apartheid state’
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry vehemently denied Monday he had ever called Israel “an apartheid state,” amid a row over comments reportedly made during a private meeting.
“Israel is a vibrant democracy and I do not believe, not have I ever stated, publicly or privately that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one,” the top U.S. diplomat said in a strong statement after calls earlier in the day for him to resign or at least apologize for the alleged comments.
“Anyone who knows anything about me knows that without a shred of doubt.”
But Kerry, who has seen his dogged efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians collapse, did suggest that he had used a poor choice of words during his speech Friday to international experts of the Trilateral Commission.
“I have been around long enough to also know the power of words to create a misimpression, even when unintentional, and if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two-state solution.”
The Daily Beast online news site reported that Kerry had warned that “a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens — or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”
The website said it had been given a recording of Kerry’s speech, which sparked a furor in Israel and led one Republican senator to call for his resignation.
Kerry has “repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to countenance a world in which Israel is made a pariah,” said Senator Ted Cruz.
“Before any more harm is done to our national security interests and our critical alliance with the state of Israel,” Kerry should offer his resignation and President Barack Obama should “accept it,” he added.
Veteran Republican Senator John McCain also said Kerry should clarify his comments immediately and apologize, but laughed at the suggestion the top U.S. diplomat should step down.
In his statement, Kerry said: “I will not allow my commitment to Israel to be questioned by anyone, particularly for partisan, political purposes.”
He insisted that “for more than thirty years in the United States Senate, I didn’t just speak words in support of Israel, I walked the walk when it came time to vote and when it came time to fight.”
He also said that in his year in office as secretary of state, he had “spent countless hours” working with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is Israel’s lead negotiator, “because I believe in the kind of future that Israel not only wants, but Israel deserves.
“I want to see a two state solution that results in a secure Jewish state and a prosperous Palestinian state, and I’ve actually worked for it.”
Paul Robeson Jr., at age 14, with his parents, Paul Sr. and Eslanda, in Enfield, Conn., in 1941.CreditFrank Bauman/Look Magazine, via Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library
I must be getting old if I find people I knew in the obituaries every day 😦
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Paul Robeson Jr., Activist and Author, Dies at 86
Mr. Robeson in 1998, accepting a Grammy for his father.CreditRichard Drew/Associated Press
Paul Robeson Jr., who worked to preserve the legacy of his father, the actor, singer and civil rights advocate, since his death almost four decades ago, died on Saturday in Jersey City. He was 86.
The cause was lymphoma, his daughter, Susan Robeson, said.
Mr. Robeson wrote two books about his father and created an archive of his writing and films. He aimed to teach new generations about his father’s radical politics and criticized those he thought misrepresented his life, including a 1978 Broadway play starring James Earl Jones, which he protested.
Mr. Robeson worked for many years as a Russian translator and served as a personal aide to his father. In his later years, he wrote books about politics and race, as well as a two-part biography of his father.
He admired his father and noted their similar political views in an interview with The New York Times in 1993 when he published his first book, “Paul Robeson Jr. Speaks to America.”
“I follow in my father’s cultural tradition,” he said, “and like him, I am a black radical.”
Mr. Robeson was born on Nov. 2, 1927, in Brooklyn, the only child of Paul and Eslanda Robeson. As a boy, he traveled with his parents to Europe and lived with his grandmother in Moscow, where he became fluent in Russian and attended the same public school, he said, as Joseph Stalin’s daughter.
After his father’s death in 1976, Mr. Robeson began to collect his father’s correspondence, recordings and photographs for an archive, part of which is housed at Howard University.
When the play “Paul Robeson,” opened on Broadway in 1978, Mr. Robeson and several African-American leaders, including Maya Angelou and Julian Bond, published a letter in Variety calling it a “pernicious perversion of the essence of Paul Robeson.” The play, written by Phillip Hayes Dean, who died earlier this month, did not emphasize Mr. Robeson’s socialist views, they argued, in order to appeal to a mass audience.
The show closed after 77 performances, but it returned to Broadway in 1988 and 1995, with Avery Brooks in the title role. During the first revival, Mr. Robeson said that the production had improved but added, “I still feel the character as written is a counterfeit.”
Mr. Robeson served as a consultant for several films about his father, including a 1999 documentary for the PBS series “American Masters.”
His first book on his father, published in 2001, followed an earlier biography by Martin Duberman. It read “like Paul Jr.’s attempt to correct the story of his father’s life as told by Duberman,” a review in The New York Times said. “In the end, however, it adds little and omits a great deal from the earlier biography.”
Besides his daughter, Mr. Robeson is survived by his wife, Marilyn, and a grandson.
Mr. Robeson was tall and athletic like his father; both men played football in college. While they had much in common, he said one difference was that he was a member of the Communist Party from 1948 to 1962 while his father never joined the party. (During the McCarthy era, his father faced F.B.I. surveillance after he criticized the government.)
Asked whether it was difficult being in his father’s shadow, Mr. Robeson said that his father once told him: “If you want to be somebody, you’re going to have to be yourself. You can’t copy anybody else, especially me.”
“So I never remember having any need to compete with him,” Mr. Robeson said. “He gave me a sense of being my own man.”
Kerry does not seem to realise that it already is one …
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“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens, or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”
Kerry faces strong political backlash from pro-Israeli factions for his remarks. Using the term ‘apartheid’ in reference to the Jewish State has long been a point of contention which perhaps reached its peak when former US president Jimmy Carter released his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid.
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Kerry: Israel to become apartheid or non-Jewish
Recordings document Kerry’s warnings bleak future without peace; Paski: ‘there’s no such thing as a one-state solution’.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry warned foreign leaders in private discussions on Friday that Israel will risk becoming “an apartheid state” or losing its Jewish identity if a peace accord with the Palestinians is not reached in the near future, The Daily Beast reported on Monday.
The Daily Beast acquired recordings of the comments which were made to the Trilateral Commission, a group meant to encourage cooperation between the US, Europe, and Japan.
According to the report, Kerry also noted that the failure of peace talks could lead to a rise in violence from Palestinians against Israeli civilians and condemned Israeli building settlements.
Kerry also hinted at his intentions for the near future to lay out a peace deal that Israelis and Palestinians will have to either, “take it or leave it.”
“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens, or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” said Kerry in the recordings.
Photo: EPA
“Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.”
The Secretary of State also expressed dissapointment is leaders from both sides and said that if, “there is a change of government or a change of heart, something will happen.”
Political Backlash
Kerry faces strong political backlash from pro-Israeli factions for his remarks. Using the term ‘apartheid’ in reference to the Jewish State has long been a point of contention which perhaps reached its peak when former US president Jimmy Carter released his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid.
During his election campaign in 2008, Barack Obama responded to claims that Israel is an apartheid state saying, “I strongly reject the characterization.”
Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal,” said Obama.
“It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe,” he concluded.
Others defended Kerry’s comments including State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki who spoke to The Daily Beast.
“Secretary Kerry, like Justice Minister Livni, and previous Israeli Prime Ministers Olmert and Barak, was reiterating why there’s no such thing as a one-state solution if you believe, as he does, in the principle of a Jewish State,” Paski said.
“He was talking about the kind of future Israel wants and the kind of future both Israelis and Palestinians would want to envision,” she said.
On Friday evening I was approached by a local resident in the French Hill area who with anger in his voice he said that “a ‘creature’ threw stones at one of our buses …. we must do something about the situation”. My response was that “I never saw a ‘creature’ throw stones, was it a cat or a dog”? “NO! It was one of YOUR Arabs from Issawyia”! “What can we do about that”??
I answered with,”first we can end the occupation and second people like yourself can start referring to the Arabs as human beings and treat them as such”!
The resident in question is a recent immigrant from the United States. Not too long ago, after ‘coming down’ from a bad ‘trip’ on pot at a beach in Miami, he found God (the opiate of the people) , packed his bags and moved to Israel. Before his (and others of his ilk’s) arrival to the French Hill area we lived in peace with our neighbours in what was truly a showcase of coexistence …
On the other hand, this short video gives a glimpse of what life is like on the other side of the wall in the neighbouring village of Issawyia …
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Surely this situation will lead to animosity, even hatred, towards the Jewish residents in the area …. but there are ways to deal with the situation. Stone throwing at innocent civilians is definitely NOT the solution and will only lead to a continuation of the growth of hatred on the Israeli side of the wall. Let us come together and prove to the White Man that peace IS possible. Then the wall will come down and hopefully the White Man will return to his true home on the beach in Miami. We definitely do not need or want his ilk destroying the peace process before it even starts.
Activists in Bradfort, CT (Photo via Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel)
The second annual Free Cone Day leafleting action at Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops on Tuesday, April 8, organized by Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel (www.vtjp.org), was a great success.
Solidarity activists in at least 12 states (CA, CO, CT, NY, MA, MN, NC, NH, OR, NH, VT, and WA) distributed thousands of leaflets prepared by VTJP on Ben & Jerry’s commercial ties to illegal, Jewish-only settlements.
Additionally, 335 e-mails were sent to the company’s CEO, Jostein Solheim, on April 8, and in the two weeks leading up to FCD, more than 500 messages were e-mailed to him.
Your ice cream is free today – Palestine is not!
VTJP is still compiling reports on this year’s FCD action, and, in due course, we’ll post on our website [www.vtjp.org/icecream] a comprehensive summary of what transpired on April 8.
Here’s a sampling of what we’ve learned so far:
In San Jose, California, nearly 1,100 leaflets were handed out, and one of the activists shared an observation common to those who leafleted everywhere: “Most of the customers were pleasant, and many were interested to hear the information and take a leaflet.”
At least 1,000 more leaflets found their way into the hands of people at four scoop shops in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. There, as in San Jose, most encounters with the public were friendly and, according to one of the activists, “Many were ignorant of the situation in [Israel-Palestine], so it was a wonderful opportunity for education.”
Our compatriots with the New England Palestine Education Network and Veterans for Peace in Manchester, New Hampshire, told us many people are surprised to learn that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is being sold in Israeli settlements. VTJP activists have had the same experience frequently.
In Denver, a student activist was grateful for the opportunity to talk with people in his community about the Ben & Jerry’s campaign and the Israeli occupation generally. He also appreciated the exposure this action generated for the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Colorado.
Members of Upper Hudson Peace Action’s Palestinian Rights Committee leafleted outside a cone shop in Albany, New York, and held a sign that read: “Ben & Jerry’s: Yes in Albany. No in Illegal Israeli Settlements.” They spoke with the shop manager, who was polite, said he knew why they were there, and invited them in for a free cone.
In Portland, Oregon, twelve volunteers from the local chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, Portland Palestine Coalition, Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land, and Americans United for Equal Palestinian Rights passed out hundreds of leaflets and only two were dropped on the ground.
Jewish Voice for Peace activists in Tacoma, Washington, noted that not only were folks “willing to take the info, but the overwhelming majority left with leaflet still in hand!” The action also provided a great opportunity to reach a lot of young people.
In Vermont, there was leafleting at the two scoop shops in Burlington, including the one at the University of Vermont, and at the company’s factory in Waterbury. Members of VTJP’s BDS committee spoke with CEO Jostein Solheim and Rob Michalak, the head of the company’s Global Mission Office, when they dropped in at the scoop shop in downtown Burlington.
The Ben & Jerry’s Campaign is Growing!
The FCD action this year saw many more activists, groups and scoop shops involved. Moreover, since last September, 220 organizations around the world have signed VTJP’s letter [http://www.vtjp.org/icecream/internatletter.php] urging the company to stop doing business with Israeli settlements. We respectfully ask organizations that have not done so to consider adding their names to the letter.
What began as a conversation in 2011 between a small band of activists in Vermont on how to contribute locally to the international BDS movement has grown into something much bigger than we could have imagined, and inspires us to keep organizing and engaging Ben & Jerry’s.
VTJP is one year into this campaign, and there is still much work to be done.
Do any of you really think that Abbas would forge ahead with ‘unity talks’ without the prior approval of his boss, Netanyahu?
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Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mahmoud Abbas in 2010/Getty Images
Israel is expected to cut all ties with the Palestinian unity government that is due to be formed in five weeks and even impose sanctions on it. Washington is also expected to turn a cold shoulder to the new government. At this stage, the European Union and Arab states, most of which support the reconciliation, will have to make a decision. Will they allow some 5 million Palestinians to be left with no services, no funds and no hope of a political horizon, or will they take this opportunity to shape reality in the Middle East, rather than merely observe from the side?
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Why is the Palestinian reconciliation driving Israel into a panic?
Contradictions are rife when it comes to Israel’s refusal to engage in dialogue with Hamas.
Has PM Ismail Haniyeh, right, after the announcement of a Palestinian unity agreement in Gaza, April 23, 2014.Photo by AP
“Israel is an existing fact, and the State of Israel will continue to exist. But Hamas will only consider recognizing Israel when an independent Palestinian state is established … As a Palestinian, I want a state within the ‘67 borders,” said Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in an interview with Reuters in January 2007. It was six months before Hamas’ armed takeover of Gaza, which created the deepest, most violent rupture ever of Palestinian leadership.
Nobody in Israel took Meshal’s statement seriously, as nobody took seriously a document released by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s adviser a month earlier. The document proposed a five-year “hudna,” or “ceasefire,” to “… enable Israel and the Palestinians to advance toward setting up two states for two peoples.”
In May 2013, Meshal told Foreign Policy, “Hamas would be open in principle to negotiations with Israel, though the reality on the ground today made such talks pointless. The [military] resistance … is a means to an end, not a goal by itself.”
The goal is a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967.
Is Hamas riper now than in the past to conduct negotiations with Israel? The panic that gripped Israel’s government in view of the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation signed this week indicates that the question should be directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before it is directed at Meshal. Israel after all signed the Oslo agreements with the Palestine Liberation Organization, not with the Palestinian state. The PLO was defined as a terror organization and the talks with it took place before it recognized Israel and announced the renunciation of the armed resistance.
Hamas is not part of the PLO, but other Palestinian groups, known as the “rejectionist organizations,” are an inseparable part of it. Yet Israel never demanded that these groups recognize it before it signed the Oslo agreements.
The reconciliation will lead Hamas and Islamic Jihad into coalition with the PLO, making them an inseparable part of the formal framework that signed the Oslo agreements. It is possible of course that the new PLO will move to revoke these agreements unilaterally. But so far no inclination has been reported on Hamas’ part to condition its joining the PLO on revoking the agreements.
On the contrary, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has stated that there is no contradiction between the peace talks and the reconciliation agreement. This could indicate an agreement between Fatah and Hamas to maintain the peace talks, as Meshal made clear already in 2012, when the basic reconciliation agreement between the two movements was ratified.
The reasons for Hamas’ signing the reconciliation agreement on are no secret. Since Hamas severed its ties with the Syrian regime due to the civilian massacre, it was immediately cut off from the Iranian feeding tube. Hamas cannot take advantage of Qatar’s contributions, intended mainly for development, due to the double closure of Gaza by Egypt and Israel.
Turkey is still transferring money to Hamas, but not enough to maintain and pay the wages of tens of thousands of Gazan policemen and administrative officials. Hamas must also iron out its differences with Egypt. Hamas is seen in Egypt as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian regime defines as a terror organization.
In the absence of an Arab patron, Hamas is forced to examine the possibility of adopting Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas, for his part, has good reasons of his own to reconcile with Hamas. The first is ideological. Abbas, not his predecessor Yasser Arafat, lost Gaza to Hamas. Abbas must also maintain the PLO’s title as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, as stipulated in the Arab League conference of 1974. At the time, Hamas wasn’t even part of the game. But now, Abbas must represent the entire Palestinian people if he wants to achieve international recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
Here too lies the dilemma that Abbas is placing on Israel and the United States’ doorstep. If they want to advance a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, they cannot demand to neutralize Hamas and at the same time claim that Abbas does not represent all of the Palestinians.
Israel’s automatic reaction is not surprising. It prefers to negotiate ad hoc with organizations, even terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, on specific issues, like releasing prisoners or a cease fire. It does not conduct diplomatic talks with groups that don’t recognize it. But the Palestinian Authority also doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state, yet Israel conducts peace talks with it all the same.
Another contradiction in Israel’s position pertains to Hamas. Israel objected to talks with Hamas because it was a terror group and served as an Iranian agent in the region. But when Hamas cut itself off from Iran and moved to join the PLO, Israel used it as an excuse to stop the peace negotiations with the Palestinians and blame Abbas for the talks’ collapse.
Israel is expected to cut all ties with the Palestinian unity government that is due to be formed in five weeks and even impose sanctions on it. Washington is also expected to turn a cold shoulder to the new government. At this stage, the European Union and Arab states, most of which support the reconciliation, will have to make a decision. Will they allow some 5 million Palestinians to be left with no services, no funds and no hope of a political horizon, or will they take this opportunity to shape reality in the Middle East, rather than merely observe from the side?
Starbucks is to offer SodaStream a 30 percent premium on its market price with the purchase of 10 percent of its shares
Despite the ongoing campaign to boycott SodaStream due to its production plant in Mishor Adumim Industrial Zone, Starbucks is in advanced talks to acquire 10 percent of SodaStream at a company value of $1.1 billion, reports Globe, the Israeli economic newspaper. The newspaper adds that sources close to the deal say that an official announcement will be made soon.
Globes states that Starbucks’ offer reflects a 30 percent premium on SodaStream market price, with the total value of SodaStream’s issued shares at $850 million.
Market sources have previously believed that SodaStream was seeking a partner, like the partnership between Coca-Cola Company and coffee machine maker Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. The two companies plan to launch a home soda maker machine next year, which would make carbonated beverages from Coca-Cola syrups.
February’s acquisition of 10 percent of Green Mountain by Coca-Cola for $1.25 billion sent SodaStream’s share price tumbling amid market fears of Coca-Cola’s massive entry into the home beverages maker market.
Some months earlier, the Israeli maker of home soda machines hired Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson as the company’s global brand ambassador in the hope of boosting its earnings in financial markets.
However, amid growing criticism of businesses profiting from the Israeli occupation, SodaStream shares were in freefall in the first quarter of 2014.
SodaStream is a company registered in the Netherlands and Israel and its main production site is in Mishor Edomin, the industrial park of Ma’aleh Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
Mishor Adumim is one of 17 industrial parks that Israel has established in the occupied Palestinian territories in order to benefit Israeli settlements. The Industrial Park is located on 30,000 dunams of expropriated Palestinian land. The settlement of Ma’ale Adumim directly benefits from SodaStream through the taxes the company pays to the municipality, which directly support the development of infrastructure and services in the settlement.
If Starbucks does purchase a share in SodaStream it will become accomplice to the company’s policies and a likely target for boycott.
As Rami walked away towards his school, three Israeli soldiers burst out of an alleyway, grabbed his arm, and detained him in the street.
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At approximately 7 am this morning, Rami Rajabi, a six-year-old child, was 20 meters away from checkpoint 29 when he threw several pebbles in al-Khalil (Hebron).
As Rami walked away towards his school, three Israeli soldiers burst out of an alleyway, grabbed his arm, and detained him in the street.
After approximately 20 minutes of pressure from locals and activists, the child was released and was taken home by a friend of his family.
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On Earth Day, Activists Ask Zabar’s to Stop Selling Israeli Occupation Profiteer SodaStream
On Earth Day, 70 human rights activists gathered on New York City’s Upper West Side outside the iconic Zabar’s store, demanding that SodaStream home carbonation devices be removed from the shelves because they are made in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank (photos; video). The demonstration was coordinated by the NYC Coalition Against SodaStream, which is made up of Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Jewish Voice for Peace NYC Chapter (JVP), Jews Say No!, and Park Slope Food Coop Members for BDS.
In early April, the coalition began a series of actions at Zabar’s to raise awareness about SodaStream, after the store’s management did not respond to activists’ requests for a meeting. Over 1200 people so far have signed a petition asking Zabar’s to stop selling SodaStream, with 130 signatures collected this evening alone. On the busy Broadway sidewalk, people handed out postcards including to several Zabar’s workers encouraged petition-signing, and blew bubbles. Signs and chants played on Zabar’s high standing among food-lovers, such as “Bagels, lox, and a schmear! But get that SodaStream outta here!” One sign, based on a graphic by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), addressed the issue of labor and political repression by pointing out that the number of Palestinians employed by SodaStream is 500, while the number of West Bank Palestinians denied basic rights by occupation SodaStream helps sustain is 2.6 million. With guitar accompaniment, activists sang “Soda Streamin'” to the tune of “California Dreamin'”: “Don’t buy oppression any more / Take settlements away / No more SodaStreamin’ / No more apartheid days.”
Adalah-NY’s Riham Barghouti explained that shoppers’ purchases of SodaStream products enables the continuation of the Israeli occupation and devastation of Palestinian land. “SodaStream’s main factory is built on an illegal Israeli settlement. And despite its greenwashed image as a supporter of environmental causes, SodaStream is actually helping to destroy Palestine’s environment through uprooting of olive trees, depletion of water resources, and the confiscation and pollution of the land,” she told the crowd. Donna Nevel of Jews Say No! spoke as a neighborhood resident, saying, “For those of us on the Upper West Side, Zabar’s has been an important institution in our community. We want to continue to love and support it. Zabar’s, do the right thing and stop selling SodaStream.”
Today’s demonstration comes on the heels of the environmental organization Earth Day Network’s decision to end its partnership with SodaStream in response to criticism on human rights grounds. In an earlier development, the actor Scarlett Johansson had been a longtime Ofxam Ambassador until her position as a Global Brand Ambassador for SodaStream led to widespread protests and, ultimately, the breaking of ties between her and Oxfam in January.
Well, not quite, but with the Palestinian representative of Israel, Mahmoud Abbas …
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The very fact that Hamas and Fatah signed a deal strengthens Israel’s demand for rigid and all-encompassing security arrangements to be set in place. The agreement will also allow Israel to claim Abbas is responsible for the handy work of Hamas and unruly terror organizations, and if he cannot control them he will prove that he lacks the capability to implement any agreement reached with Israel. Such a situation will undoubtedly be manipulated to the political benefit of the Israeli right.
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Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff
Hamas wins, Abbas loses
The unity agreement signed Wednesday is a lifeline for the Islamist organization struggling to ruling Gaza, and poses a threat to the development in the West Bank.
When one examines the articles of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, one can quickly understand that this is an old soup that has been reheated. The agreement the two sides signed was to implement previous agreements on internal Palestinian unity.
The only significant difference to grant the current deal a modicum of gravitas is the rigid timeframe it stipulates: Five weeks to the formation of an interim government, and legislative elections six months after. But the agreements Fatah and Hamas reached in Cairo and Doha also set a timeframe – one that was never implemented.
A further sign that this is a tactical move, at least for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is that the agreement fails to include the release of security prisoners held by the respective parties in the Gaza Strip (Hamas) and the West Bank (Fatah). The deal also fails to outline which principles the Palestinian security bodies of both Hamas and the PA would operate; it is also unclear how these two bodies plan to merge their respective governing administrations. Those searching for additional signs that Abbas is hedging his bet may notice that, despite a laconic statement that the deal is not incongruent with peace talks, the Palestinian leader has made little public comment on its content. Only Hamas officials Ismail Haniyeh and Moussa Abu Marzook have elaborated on the unity agreement.
It is no wonder, because Hamas is the agreement’s biggest winner. The radical Islamist group controlling Gaza is currently facing a severe economic and political crisis, and is unable to meet the needs of the Strip’s 1.5 million residents. After it turned its back on Syria and Iran, Hamas also lost Egyptian support following the ascent of the current regime there, which views it as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood and as a group that threatens Egyptian security. As such, General al-Sisi’s forces are actively destroying tunnel after tunnel connecting Gaza to Egypt, and only occasionally open the Rafah crossing.
The unity deal signed Wednesday gives Hamas international legitimacy, which could allow it to receive aid and donations to help it extract itself from the crippling crisis threatening both its rule and the wellbeing of Gaza’s people. Today, even Turkey and Qatar are fulfilling their pledge of sending aid to Gaza.
But even more importantly for Hamas, the deal makes Abbas the person responsible for the welfare of Gaza’s impoverished residents. The PA president is already footing the bill for Gaza’s gas stations – Israel, of course, supplies the gas itself. Abbas has also been paying the wages of Fatah-affiliated teachers in Gaza, who have been sitting idle since 2007.
But now Abbas is responsible for everyone. He will have to figure out how to raise funds from the Americans and Europeans – funds that will have to reach Hamas and other Gaza-based institutions.
Another perk for Hamas is that they and other Gaza groups such as Islamic Jihad will be offered membership in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a move that could allow Hamas to take over the organization that is the legal representation of the Palestinian people. It is important to bear in mind that Abbas derives most of his legitimacy from the fact that he is the leader of the PLO. If Hamas manages to seize power of the organization, it will take on a new, militant tone.
Minimal gains
In contrast, Abbas and his Fatah party do not get that much out of this newfound unity. They get brownie points for actually reaching the deal, which is highly popular in the West Bank and the refugee camps. Abbas also gains an additional whip to wave at the Israelis and Americans regarding the renewal of peace talks.
Palestinians celebrate unity in Gaza (Photo: AFP)
One should note that, despite his statement on the lack of incongruence between the Hamas-Fatah unity and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian talks, if the conditions Abbas recently laid out for extending negotiations with Israel are met, he can still scupper this deal with Hamas just as he has done before.
Conversely, should Israel fail to meet his demands, he can blame them and the Americans for pushing him into the arms of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. This aside, he has more to lose than to gain.
Abbas has good reason to be displeased with the agreement. He knows that any thaw in ties between him, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will be a cause for concern around the world, specifically in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are increasingly hostile towards the Muslim Brotherhood and their ilk.
But above all, the deal with Hamas poses a real threat to Fatah’s rule in the West Bank. Hamas could take over and drag the West Bank into a violent conflict with Israel, thus exporting the economic turmoil currently plaguing Gaza to the West Bank.
Israeli satisfaction
Israel has nothing to be sorry about. The deal between Hamas and Fatah gives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon a PR win that can be used to paint Abbas and his men as terrorists in sheep’s clothing – a far cry from the dovish peaceniks they claim to be. The Hamas-Fatah merger goes a long way to giving weight to this claim.
In the meantime, the White House has taken an intriguing position, for it appears willing to grant Hamas indirect and roundabout legitimacy, on condition that the unity agreement does not hinder continued talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The unified Palestinian government, the Americans say, will accept the principles of non-violence and recognition of Israel, as well as previous agreements, and thus Hamas will be saved from being forced to directly accept these conditions.
But the Americans have added one more demand, which is likely to tie Hamas and Abbas in knots, for the unified Palestinian government will have to actually make good on these conditions. Words will not be enough, and rocket fire will absolutely not do.
And so Israel can notch up another win. If the deal is actualized, Abbas will become personally responsible for every rocket fired from Gaza or bomb that goes off in Israel or the West Bank. This will reinforce Israel’s security demands as part of the framework deal being hatched, and allow Netanyahu and Ya’alon to keep elaborating on security demands.
The very fact that Hamas and Fatah signed a deal strengthens Israel’s demand for rigid and all-encompassing security arrangements to be set in place. The agreement will also allow Israel to claim Abbas is responsible for the handy work of Hamas and unruly terror organizations, and if he cannot control them he will prove that he lacks the capability to implement any agreement reached with Israel. Such a situation will undoubtedly be manipulated to the political benefit of the Israeli right.
Israel’s call to cancel the scheduled meeting between peace negotiators is part of a counter-measure to apply pressure to the US and Palestinians, and place the onus of the potential failure of the talks on Abbas, thereby exonerating itself. Everyone gets to play the blame game.
So while it seems that the unity deal appears signed and ready to go, there is no certainty that Abbas will actually follow through. On the other hand, it’s safe to assume that Hamas will be more than willing to make good on its part of the bargain, should its minimal demands be met. It’s fair to say that the implementation of the agreement hinges one thing – if Israel and the Palestinians reach a deal to extend talks.
If a deal is reached, then the unity agreement will evaporate as quickly as it came together. If no such deal is reached, Abbas will continue to work with Hamas until it all implodes, yet again.
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Help JVP beat AIPAC’s Facebook ‘Likes’ by Friday, and a donor will match $1 per Like!
JVP or AIPAC: Who do you like more?
Help JVP beat AIPAC’s Facebook ‘Likes’ by Friday, and a donor will match $1 per Like!
AIPAC, the political powerhouse that ensures unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s most egregious policies, has suffered a string of embarrassing defeats: Visa waivers. Syria. Iran.
With a few simple clicks, you can help us add one more to the list: Facebook.
Last week we launched a campaign to surpass AIPAC’s Facebook follower count, and today we’re fewer than 4,000 “Likes” away from our goal of 48,000. We also just got word from a generous donor who will contribute one dollar for every new Facebook “Like”, through Friday!
Already “Like” our page? We still need your help.To beat AIPAC— an organization with a $60 million annual budget— we’re going to need you to spread the word by taking this simple action.
Although we’ve had fun with it, this campaign is no laughing matter. A bigger social network means our pro-justice, pro-peace perspective spreads even further.
Plus, funds we receive from this campaign will help us to confront AIPAC on its own turf.
JVP has a relatively small budget, but we have more social media followers than organizations with budgets that are 10 and 50 times our size. Defeating AIPAC on Facebook shows the size of the pro-justice constituency, compared to AIPAC’s shrinking pro-war base.
We’ve got a way to go before defeating AIPAC online translates into the ability to defeat them in Washington. But with your help, we are getting there.
Like many Latin American writers, Garcia Marquez transcended the world of letters. He became a hero to the Latin American left as an early ally of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and a critic of Washington’s interventions from Vietnam to Chile. His affable visage, set off by a white mustache and bushy grey eyebrows, was instantly recognizable. Unable to receive a US visa for years due to his politics, he was nonetheless courted by presidents and kings. He counted Bill Clinton and Francois Mitterrand among his presidential friends.
YET
“The world has lost one of its greatest visionary writers – and one of my favorites from the time I was young,” President Barack Obama said.
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Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff
An unexpected eulogy from the President of Israel …
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Peres eulogizes Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez
President says author, who died at the age of 87, ‘expressed great interest’ in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
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President Shimon Peres eulogized Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez who passed away on Thursday afternoon at the age of 87.
“The world will feel the loss of a great dreamer, who told both children and us adults, in such a beautiful manner, about life’s truths,” Peres wrote.
In his statement, the president told of his meeting with the acclaimed author in Marquez’s home country of Colombia.
(Photo: AFP)
Marquez, Peres said, “expressed great interest” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The literary giant wished for Middle East peace, Peres said, and said that until peace is achieved “my heart will remain broken and I will pray every day for the realization of the dream of peace.”
One of the most revered and influential writers of his generation, Marquez brought Latin America’s charm and maddening contradictions to life in the minds of millions and became the best-known practitioner of “magical realism,” a blending of fantastic elements into portrayals of daily life that made the extraordinary seem almost routine.
Known to millions simply as “Gabo,” Garcia Marquez was widely seen as the Spanish language’s most popular writer since Miguel de Cervantes in the 17th century. His extraordinary literary celebrity spawned comparisons with Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.
(Photo: AFP)
His flamboyant and melancholy works – among them “Chronicle of a Death Foretold,” `’Love in the Time of Cholera” and “The Autumn of the Patriarch” – outsold everything published in Spanish except the Bible. The epic 1967 novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” sold more than 50 million copies in more than 25 languages.
The first sentence of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” has become one of the most famous opening lines of all time: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
(Photo: AP)
With writers including Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, Garcia Marquez was also an early practitioner of the literary nonfiction that would become known as New Journalism. He became an elder statesman of Latin American journalism, with magisterial works of narrative non-fiction that included the “Story of A Shipwrecked Sailor,” the tale of a seaman lost on a life raft for 10 days. He was also a scion of the region’s left.
Shorter pieces dealt with subjects including Venezuela’s larger-than-life president, Hugo Chavez, while the book “News of a Kidnapping” vividly portrayed how cocaine traffickers led by Pablo Escobar had shred the social and moral fabric of his native Colombia, kidnapping members of its elite. In 1994, Garcia Marquez founded the Iberoamerican Foundation for New Journalism, which offers training and competitions to raise the standard of narrative and investigative journalism across Latin America.
(Photo: EPA)
But for so many inside and outside the region, it was his novels that became synonymous with Latin America itself.
“The world has lost one of its greatest visionary writers – and one of my favorites from the time I was young,” President Barack Obama said.
When he accepted the Nobel prize in 1982, Garcia Marquez described the region as a “source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune. Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable.”
Marquez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 2002 (Photo: Reuters)
Like many Latin American writers, Garcia Marquez transcended the world of letters. He became a hero to the Latin American left as an early ally of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and a critic of Washington’s interventions from Vietnam to Chile. His affable visage, set off by a white mustache and bushy grey eyebrows, was instantly recognizable. Unable to receive a US visa for years due to his politics, he was nonetheless courted by presidents and kings. He counted Bill Clinton and Francois Mitterrand among his presidential friends.
Marquez and former US President Bill Clinton (Photo: AFP)
“From the time I read `One Hundred Years of Solitude’ more than 40 years ago, I was always amazed by his unique gifts of imagination, clarity of thought, and emotional honesty,” Clinton said Thursday. “I was honored to be his friend and to know his great heart and brilliant mind for more than 20 years.”
Garcia Marquez was born in Aracataca, a small Colombian town near the Caribbean coast on March 6, 1927. He was the eldest of the 11 children of Luisa Santiaga Marquez and Gabriel Elijio Garcia, a telegraphist and a wandering homeopathic pharmacist who fathered at least four children outside of his marriage.
“The Earth Day Network is rightfully following the path of Oxfam by disassociating itself from SodaStream, a company that produces its water carbonating devices in an illegal Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian territory. Jewish Voice for Peace will continue campaigning against SodaStream in Seattle, New York, DC, Minneapolis, Boston, Portland ,and other cities across the U.S. to remind consumers that buying products manufactured in stolen land is neither ethical nor sustainable,” said Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace.
A previous version of the Earth Day Network website showed SodaStream logo.
The Earth Day Network, which promotes the annual Earth Day environmental consciousness initiative, has cut ties to a campaign launched by Israeli occupation profiteer SodaStream and endorsed by its spokesmodel Scarlett Johansson.
The screenshot above shows the SodaStream logo as it appeared previously on the Earth Day Network’s official sponsor page. On the current version of the page, the SodaStream logo is gone.
Earth Day Network Cuts Ties with SodaStream After Palestinian Rights Groups Decry Greenwashing Campaign
21 April, Washington, DC – On the eve of Earth Day, groups working for Palestinian rights globally are celebrating Earth Day Network’s decision to end its partnership with SodaStream, whose main production factory is located in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Earlier this month, SodaStream, which markets its home carbonating devices as a green alternative to bottled beverages, announced the launch of an awareness-raising campaigncentered around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Several articles reported that this “Secret Continent” campaign was developed with Earth Day Network (EDN), which works with more than 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify, and mobilize the environmental movement.
“This Secret Continent campaign is a clear example of SodaStream attempting to greenwash its complicity in Israel’s occupation through a public relations stunt. SodaStream appeals to customers by marketing itself as environmentally friendly, but a product manufactured in an illegal settlement on occupied land cannot be ‘green.’ We applaud Earth Day Network for listening to the thousands of concerned individuals who contacted them and sending the message that companies profiting from human rights abuses have no place in the global environmental movement,” said Ramah Kudaimi of theUS Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
PENGON, the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network, added: “We are happy to see that Earth Day Network cut ties with the Israeli settlement manufacturer SodaStream. Israeli occupation and its settlement enterprise are not environmentally friendly. On the contrary, they are based on the pillage of our land and deplete and pollute our water resources. Over the last 40 years, Israeli occupation has cut hundreds of thousands of trees to make space for their colonization. We call on all environmental organizations and activists to stand with us against the Israeli occupation and its systematic large scale destruction of our land.”
This is the second major controversy this year involving SodaStream’s settlement factory. In January Oxfam International came under fire to drop Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson as a Global Ambassador after she became a Global Brand Ambassador for SodaStream. After an international campaign, Johansson resigned from her role with Oxfam.
“The Earth Day Network is rightfully following the path of Oxfam by disassociating itself from SodaStream, a company that produces its water carbonating devices in an illegal Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian territory. Jewish Voice for Peace will continue campaigning against SodaStream in Seattle, New York, DC, Minneapolis, Boston, Portland ,and other cities across the U.S. to remind consumers that buying products manufactured in stolen land is neither ethical nor sustainable,” said Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Since the 2005 call from more than 170 Palestinian civil society groups for the international community to engage in boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns targeting institutions and corporations complicit in Israel’s oppressive policies towards Palestinians, activists across the globe have been organizing under the slogan “Occupation is Not Green” to convince stores and consumers to boycott SodaStream.
“We congratulate Earth Day Network on doing the right thing by ending its collaboration with SodaStream. After the media firestorm surrounding SodaStream, Scarlett Johansson, and Oxfam, and now this dissolved partnership with Earth Day Network, SodaStream is going to have difficulty finding reputable individuals and groups to help whitewash and greenwash its ugly occupation profiteering,” said Nancy Kricorian of CODEPINK: Women for Peace.
Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign in the occupied West Bank, added: “We thank the Earth Day Network for having canceled its cooperation with SodaStream and are grateful to all those people around the world that continue mobilizing to ensure the truth about SodaStream is no secret anymore.”
“While the illegal Wall and the settlements rob Palestinians of their land and resources and lock them up into economically and socially unsustainable enclaves, companies such as SodaStream ensure profitability of the Israeli settlement enterprise by exploiting Palestinian workers who are left without workers’ rights and without any viable alternative to make a living.”
Following a recent visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, Friends of the Earth International chairperson Jagoda Munic condemned what she referred to as the “less visible forms of occupation,” which include toxic waste-dumping, the expropriation and diversion of fresh water sources, and the development of polluting industries close to Palestinian towns.
She called these Israeli governmental policies “truly shocking” and went on to say: “Palestine stands as an example of the link between environmental injustice and social and political injustice.
Desertpeace 