EYE ON THE WEST BANK ~~ SUPPORT GROWS FOR PRISONERS’ HUNGER STRIKE

April 30, 2017 at 08:56 (Activism, Eyewitness Report, Guest Post, Palestine)

As envisaged during the last days, at this very moment the daily clashes during the rallies to support Palestinian prisoners increased in the West Bank. The population feels very close to the protest of the empty stomachs, even if there are no hopeful news. The number of arrested minors is also increasing, in particular in the refugee camps. In this article, I am trying to tell you my impressions on-site. 

Broad support for Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike

 

Rallies in the West Bank

By Antonietta Chiodo,  from the West Bank. English Translation by Milena Rampoldi

I am here in the West Bank, close to the Palestinian population to describe daily life and to show that a child is forced to live a completely different life than the life we could imagine in a normal Western country, even if the latter is often rather boring.

In my previous articles, I have talked about what is happening here these weeks, after the participation of almost 2.000 prisoners detained in Israeli prisons in the hunger strike proclaimed by al Fatah leader Marwan Bargouthi.

On April 27, 2017, next to the Aida refugee Camp where there is the “famous” separation wall, embellished by the artists’ murals, early in the morning the rally in support of the prisoners starts. Many bins were reversed and burned to avoid the approach of the Israeli military forces to the main road leading to Jerusalem.

Many children carry stones, and are ready to escape at the start-up of their friends. In the distance, the emptiness, suffocatingly waiting for the Israeli soldiers. On the earth, hundreds of tear gas cartridges used to stun the population.

A moment later I try to take some photos. Then a military car at high speed moves in our direction. The tear gas makes our eyes water, and the confused voices of the children stun us.

On the day Abu Mazen called a general strike, all protesters hope to find a place of refuge. We are happy to see a small shop which has left the roller shutter open so that we can enter. Inside wet wipes and water are distributed to clear our throat and to blot the swollen eye lids.

In the end when I am able to open my eyes, among the shelves I see people bent to the ground with the head between their hands. Others run along the streets, and hide their face in the pullovers trying to get away as fast as possible from the main road. We stop for an hour, outside the air has become unbreathable.

At last, we come back to the street. In the meantime the boys have become tired, and some of them has taken the bicycle from home to run faster than the gas. In the distance, we can see three silhouettes of Israeli soldiers; directly in front of us there is an ambulance of the international Red Cross. At least 15 people have been rescued since this morning, among them also a couple of American tourists.

The children always stand in readiness, while from the roofs somebody with the face covered by a kefia throws stones towards the wall. The alarm restarts again, and the ambulance reverses to park behind a partition. We hear children crying, while they are running towards us… to make us understand that the time has come… again we have to find a place of refuge.

They run as swift as the wind, all of them scream, the gun-shots are blown in the sky, and the general escape starts again. A Palestinian photojournalist is hunched over his legs because he is without gas mask. He tightens his eyes between his hands. Then he stands up suddenly, and starts to escape to avoid the toxic powders. The smell is indescribable.

In the meantime, my companion sprays perfume on paper handkerchiefs and distributes them among the people. As a good Palestinian, he has gained experience over all these years.

A child runs towards us and tells us that a 17-year-old guy was arrested. He was kicked to the ground by four Israeli soldiers and then dragged on the asphalt like a lamb to the  slaughter. We cannot intervene, because we understand how quickly they would arrest us. And if arrested, we could not tell the latest in a long string of stories of ordinary  guerrilla where children play the role of disarmed, small heroes, like David played against Goliath.

So this is the result of today, April 27, next to Bethlehem: 4 minors arrested, at least fifteen people rescued because of the damages caused by toxic gas, and among them a couple of tourists.

The Israeli military forces did not just attack the rally, but also prepared an invasion into the near village arresting 7 people, the majority of which were minors.

In the  village of Betunia two people, one adult and one child, were arrested.

 

Written FOR

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ESS MEIN KIND

April 27, 2017 at 12:16 (Humour)

The title is the most famous of quotes from Jewish mothers …. it simply means ‘Eat my child’!

Here we see six brave non-Jewish folks to try a few traditional Ashkenazi foods for the first time. Watch the hilarious results for yourself below.

 

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IN PHOTOS ~~ THE ROAD TO FREEDOM COMES TO COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

April 27, 2017 at 09:45 (Apartheid, Associate Post, Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Exclusive, International Solidarity, Israel's Shame, Palestine, Photography)

We must not co-exist but rather co-resist 

On the evening of April 24th an auditorium at Barnard College/Columbia University was packed to capacity with students waiting to hear Omar Barghouti, one of the originators of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, speak.  Earlier in the day he was given the Gandhi Peace Prize at Yale University and all were aware that the Israeli government had tried to interfere with him taking this trip.  There was also interference from the university which was not pleased to have Barghouti at Columbia that evening.

When he entered the room he was given a loud, long and enthusiastic standing ovation.  Two other speakers were on the program, Professor Premilla Nadasen, of the Barnard History Department and Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace.  Both spoke well, Nadasen described her experiences growing up in an apartheid South Africa which she  said was not as bad as the apartheid in Palestine.  Vilkomerson discussed the new tactics that Israel was using, “lawfare”, in an attempt to defeat the growing BDS movement.  When Barghouti stepped up to the podium there was another lengthy standing ovation.  He began by giving the history of the non-violent BDS movement and explained their 3 demands – ending the occupation and the wall, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel (there are currently 61 laws in Israel that favor Jewish citizens over Palestinian citizens), and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees in the diaspora as guaranteed by the UN.  He said that the Nakba had never ended and that there was a continual effort to colonize the minds of the Palestinian people by destroying all hope.  But hope was not destroyed.  There is still strong resistance and the success of the BDS movement has raised hope even higher.  He added that we must not co-exist but rather co-resist.  To boycott or not to boycott is a moral choice that we must all make.  And when, not if, freedom, justice, and equality exist there the BDS campaign will come to an end.  And then there was another lengthy standing ovation for Barghouti and, by extension, for the Palestinian people.

Photos © by Bud Korotzer, Report by Chippy Dee

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ON SUNDAY OMAR BARGHOUTI WAS PRESENTED WITH THE GANDHI PEACE AWARD AT A CEREMONY IN NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

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AMERICA’S GLOBAL DECLINE

April 27, 2017 at 09:18 (Corrupt Politics, Economy, Guest Post)

With its “exaggerated sense of power” and “imaginary sense of mission,” America has with delusional self-righteousness embarked on a series of invasions, interventions, regime changes, and “Wars on Terror” whose imperial overreach is inevitably accelerating its own global decline.

America’s Arrogant, Apocalyptic Assaults Against The Rest Of Humanity Are Self-Destructive

by William Hanna
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“. . . The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favour, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God’s work. The Lord, after all, surely would not choose you as His agent and then deny you the sword with which to work His will. German soldiers in the First World War wore belt buckles imprinted with the words ‘Gott mit uns’ [‘God with us’]. It was approximately under this kind of infatuation — an exaggerated sense of power and an imaginary sense of mission — that the Athenians attacked Syracuse and Napoleon and that Hitler invaded Russia. In plain words, they overextended their commitments and they came to grief.”
Senator J. William Fulbright (1905-1995) in The Arrogance of Power, 1966.
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As a result of being obsessively preoccupied with the dangerous delusion of “American exceptionalism” that  maintains the U.S. is qualitatively different, arguably superior to all other nations, and deserving of being the dominant world power — a hegemonic tendency that has caused untold death and destruction starting with the 1893 overthrow of the constitutional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands  — the American people have consequently failed to notice the gradual apocalyptic erosion of their own accursed society: a society whose precariously perched position on the edge of a crumbling precipice was recently confirmed by the inauguration of President Donald “Make America Great Again” Trump: a barely literate, bigot, sexist, racist, and con artist whom psychologists and psychiatrists have diagnosed as having all the classic symptoms of mental illness.
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With its “exaggerated sense of power” and “imaginary sense of mission,” America has with delusional self-righteousness embarked on a series of invasions, interventions, regime changes, and “Wars on Terror” whose imperial overreach is inevitably accelerating its own global decline. Despite a brief hiatus of soul-searching and aversion to overseas military incursions following the humiliating and costly debacle in Vietnam, America soon resumed — egged on by Jewish “American” neocons — its contemptuous military adventurism including a more recent unilateral decision to “take out” seven predominantly Muslim countries in five years, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5fZziMWEE) a decision which incidentally happened to be in line with Israel’s “Yinon Plan” of causing the target countries to “fall apart along sectarian and ethnic lines” with the  resulting fragmentation compelling each one to be “hostile” to its “neighbours.”
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In the still ongoing process of “taking out” oil-rich Iraq, the U.S. has dehumanised millions of civilians and according to a report from Physicians For Social Responsibility (PSR), a U.S.-based medical and public health organisation, the U.S. military has between 1991 and 2003 killed 1.9 million Iraqis and a further one million have been killed from 2003 to the present time by U.S.-led military interventions. The PSR study also found that four million Muslims have been killed in countries ranging from Iraq to Pakistan. Though the situation in Iraq had alone mobilised some anti-war activism, not enough people had been spurred into action because of the alleged global “War on Terror” which had the Bush administration, the British government, and other Western allies describing Muslim civilians casualties as “collateral damage” — and all armed factions fighting the U.S.-led occupation as barbarians — thereby denying Iraqis any semblance of humanity. This is not “collateral damage,” but premeditated murder akin to a deliberate and barbaric genocide.
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“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the world — bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are whores for power and oil with hate and fear in our hearts.”
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Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) American journalist and author.
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In order to facilitate its global warfare against those it perceives as being either enemies or simply obstacles to its hegemonic aspirations, the U.S. maintains some 200,000 active troops in 800 bases spread over 177 countries at an annual cost of $100 billion. (http://fiscalpost.com/2017/03/1168/) With some 54 percent (about $600 billion) of all U.S. discretionary spending being for the military, the U.S. has the capability of continuing to commit its historic crimes against humanity either as and when it pleases (https://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html), or in accordance with the wishes of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which exercises complete control over Congress. This is despite the fact that 46 percent of Americans in 2016 supported punitive action against Israel in response to its settlement policies, representing a nine percent increase over the previous year.
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The inherent nature of American “exceptionalism” — akin to the racist concepts of a Jewish “God Chosen People,” and the Nazi Lebensborn Program for the creation of a blond, blue-eyed “Master Race” — demands a diabolical disregard for the inalienable human rights of others as declared in Article 2 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which the U.S. — along with its “greatest ally” and “only democracy in the Middle East,” Israel — has hypocritically signed and continues to violate with with arrogant impunity:
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“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”
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The U.S routinely violates international laws and treaties with no repercussions from international organisations including the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN which it bullies into tolerating and rubber stamping illegal U.S. interventions and wars that have undermined democracy and destroyed numerous countries refusing to capitulate to U.S. demands. In Latin America alone the U.S. has intervened more than 50 times while often overthrowing democratically elected leaders as was the case in Guatemala in 1954 when U.S.-backed dictators and death squads killed 200,000 Guatemalans; in the Dominican Republic in  the early 1960s; and in Chile in 1973 to overthrow the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
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Racial and religious hatred along with gratuitous violence have also become fundamental features of the “land of the free and the home of the brave” where authoritarianism, militarism, state surveillance, police violence against citizens, corrupt capitalism, and extreme wealth inequality have divided and devastated communities. Apart from being lied to and betrayed by their elected political “representatives,” the American people have also been deceived by American news outlets — dominated by six Jewish owned or controlled corporations — that had long abandoned their sacred duty as the guardians of democracy whose candid reporting helped members of the public to become responsible citizens capable of making informed political decisions.
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“We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is . . . We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”
Helen Thomas (1920-2013), journalist and author of Front Row at the White House.
“You cannot criticise Israel in this country (USA) and survive.”
                      Helen Thomas
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Comprehensive pro-Israel control of the American media has also meant that — according to an IRmep poll fielded by Google Consumer Surveys in 2016 — an astonishing 49.2 percent of Americans believe that Palestinians occupy Israeli land rather than the other way around.
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“ . . . in America, we have achieved the Orwellian prediction — enslaved, the people have been programmed to love their bondage and are left to clutch only mirage-like images of freedom, its fables and fictions.  The new slaves are linked together by vast electronic chains of television that imprison not their bodies but their minds. Their desires are programmed, their tastes manipulated, their values set for them.”
Gerry Spence, From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America.
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The harmful consequence of the American media’s failure to “Seek Truth and Report It” in accordance with the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, is further compounded by the fact that a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy has established that 32 million adults in the U.S. — 14 percent of the population — can’t read; 21 percent read below a 5th grade level; and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t read. Despite this reality the U.S. will allocate well over 50 percent of its Discretionary Spending on the military while allocating only six percent on education.
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“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
Isaac Asimov, Newsweek, 21 January, 1980.
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So while U.S. governments continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the military — an amount President Trump wants to increase (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/15/us/politics/trump-budget-proposal.html) — along with billions more on aid to a brutal Apartheid Israeli state, the U.S. has become a country where more than 50 million Americans live below the poverty line; where 48 million of them receive food stamps; where more than one in five children is on food stamps and living in poverty; where an astounding 15% of senior citizens live in poverty; where ethnic poverty rates are 28% for Blacks, 24% for Hispanics, 10.5% for Asians, and 10% for Whites; were being Black lowers one’s credit score by 71 Points; where a new AFL-CIO study on corporate salaries found that CEOs made 335 times more than the average employee who earned $36,875 while the the big company CEOs got approximately $12,400,000; where according to a Forbes survey 56% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their combined cheque and savings bank accounts; and where an observation once made in April 4, 1967 by Martin Luther King Jr. is fast becoming a reality: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
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In the meantime, and according to the Institute for Policy Studies, the 20 wealthiest people in the U.S (the 0.000006 Percent) now own more wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population combined which totals 152 million people in 57 million households. As a good deal of that wealth is secreted in offshore tax haven bank accounts, the reality is probably far worse. The Forbes 400 richest Americans now own about as much wealth as the nation’s entire African-American population and more than a third of the Latino population combined; more wealth combined than the bottom 61 percent of the U.S. population which is equivalent to an estimated 194 million people or 70 million households. Furthermore much of that wealth is Jewish money that controls most of what Americans read, hear, and watch. The perils of such control had been recognised some time ago in a report by the Commission On Freedom Of The Press which stated that “protection against government is now not enough to guarantee that a man who has something to say shall have a chance to say it. The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public.”
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The consequence of this reality means that the media — either owned or controlled by those who benefit most from endless conflicts — plays a major role in brainwashing the cash-strapped majority into accepting the necessity for wars that have been contrived for the benefit of the extremely affluent minority. Such wars also serve to satisfy the media’s need for the kind of news that increases readership and the size of the TV viewing public; serve to increase the popularity of political leaders while providing them with an excuse for postponement of urgent domestic reforms; serve to maintain private military contractors (PMCs) who would otherwise go out of business; serve to indefinitely defer decisions to reduce the overall military budget including the closure of surplus overseas bases; and serve to sustain the requirement for supplies from the military industrial complex whose costs to the Pentagon are never questioned because they are for the alleged purpose “defending America.”
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“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961.
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But while America’s military might has been gratuitously killing people and destroying cultures overseas, the American people have themselves begun to sense that something is very wrong with their own society and are concerned about rising socio-economic inequality, the erosion of national identity and purpose, increasing social polarisation, and a growing contempt around the world for their country which during the 1950s and 1960s was the richest and most envied nation on earth. Since then, America — the world’s premier creditor nation — has become the number one debtor nation whose ideology of denial, falsehood, wishful thinking, and self-deception has decayed its moral fibre so that 48 percent of American children are born to an unmarried mother while 43 percent of American children live in a home without a father.
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As a consequence of such entrenched denial and failure to face reality, there also exists a cowardly refusal — by those responsible for political leadership, for operating the mass media, and for maintaining the educational system — to confront, or even to simply acknowledge, the organised pro-Israel Jewish community’s wide-ranging powers which are enforced by the capacity to silence any criticism or challenge with unfounded but nevertheless zealous accusations of “anti-Semitism.” This fact alone is the single most important reason for the decline of American power, the decay of American society, and the death of the “American Dream.”
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“we supply all the wherewithal  — or a major part of the wherewithal — to finance or to pay for everything Israel does . . . The Senate is subservient to Israel, in my opinion much too much. We should be more concerned about the United States interest rather than doing the bidding of Israel. This is a most unusual development . . . The great majority of the Senate of the United States–somewhere around 80 percent–are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and again and this has made it difficult for our government.”
Sen. J. William Fulbright claimed on CBS Face the Nation.

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GOOD MORNING FROM A HUNGRY PALESTINE

April 27, 2017 at 08:43 (Associate Post, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Israel's Shame, Palestine)

Today all of Palestine is on strike in solidarity with the fasting prisoners and tomorrow is a day of indignation, demonstrations, and confrontations with the occupiers. Bethlehem is a ghost town and all shops and public transportation are closed and Israeli helicopters are in the skies. [Volunteers came to museum and we are taking a group on tour of the wall and impact of settlements n the environment because this is not work but resistance]. Tomorrow is a day of demonstrations and confrontations. In this message I just want to reflect on why this is very important.

More than 1800 of our freedom fighters are on their 11th day of Hunger Strike inside Israeli occupation jails.

 Salt and water is all they will take until their just and rightful demands are met

By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

Every day we encounter greedy people focused on their own needs and unhealthy desires. How many cheated us? How many come around us because they want some material interest? How many corrupt politicians we know? How many people we know turned out to be kinder and gentler and more self sacrificing than we thought? How many turned out more mean, more selfish, more sadistic? Looking at the world in this fashion (some would claim it is seeing reality) can be truly dispiriting. It can remove any remaining humanity in many people. But then comes a prisoner hunger strike! It sounds small but it touches a cord in human beings bigger than any other and I will argue it is the way to reclaim our humanity.

Today, Palestinians and their friends around the world show solidarity with over 1800 Palestinian political prisoners who are on their 11th day of hunger strike. Salt and water is all they will take until their just and rightful demands are met (basic decent treatment in prison based on international law). It sounds simple but this is a profound even in Palestinian and human history. The price one pays for resistance is injury, death or imprisonment. It is the antithesis of selfishness and greed.

800,000 Palestinians tasted life in prison and today almost 7000 are there in the colonial apartheid Israeli prisons. While everyone knows this, the hunger strike brought the prisoners’ message home to all – rich and poor, greedy and self-sacrificing, honest and liar. This message is nothing short of that we humans must reconnect to our humanity and that caring for others is the way to save humanity. In this 21st century with weapons of mass destruction and climate change, we cannot afford as a species to do otherwise. Prisoners show us the way like many decent human beings showed us the way before (think of Jesus and prophets and revolutionaries like Che Guevera). But the alarm bells for us are now alarm bells for a dying species unless we act. It is more urgent than ever in our short history on earth. We really have a choice to make and it is both an individual and a collective choice. That choice is to either accept war and greed as “natural” and follow the other human lemmings over the cliff OR resist and give of ourselves as a way to save humanity.  Mahatma Gandhi used hunger strike to refocus people away from greed and selfishness to caring for each other. Hunger is painful and people will die sooner or later unless we all act. What is at stake is very high: our own self-respect (dignity) as human beings. But as the world changed, the danger is that we can also go extinct as a species unless we manage to collectively transcend a huge baggage of greed, colonialism, and  capitalism that cannot be sustained in the 21st century. Palestinian prisoners by their silent deeds of self-sacrifice have shown us the way. As did martyrs like Basil Al-Araj who simply noted that in his extremely short last words on paper: there is no more eloquant speech than the deed of the Martyr.

Kkalil Gibran wrote in “The Prophet” 1923: “You give but little when you give of your possessions; it is when you give of yourself that you truly give.  For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?  And what is fear of need but need itself.” The prisoners and the martyrs gave silently of themselves. For the rest of us, where we stand today and tomorrow will say a lot about who we are.

Here is a relevant article I wrote seven years ago “The Savior in Each of Us”

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THE REALITY OF APARTHEID AND ITS REPRECUSSIONS

April 26, 2017 at 10:15 (anti-Semitism, Apartheid, Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Exclusive, Israel, Palestine, Videos)

THE FACTS OF THE MATTER …..


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ZIONS RESPONSE …

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AND OUR RESPONSE

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THE LEAST YOU CAN DO ….

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THE BDS MOVEMENT WAS HONOURED ON SUNDAY WHEN OMAR BARGHOUTI WAS PRESENTED WITH THE GANDHI PEACE AWARD AT A CEREMONY IN NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT


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WE ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT ALONE …. AND WE SHALL OVERCOME!

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ASSORTMENT OF TOONS ~~ FROM A HUNGRY PALESTINE

April 24, 2017 at 08:57 (Cartoons, Civil Liberties, Israel's Shame, Palestine)

Collection is FROM

Organizations and individuals which side with Palestine are welcome to reproduce the following cartoons on hunger strikers!

1500 of our freedom fighters are on their 7th day of Hunger Strike inside Israeli occupation jails.

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For the 7th day, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails continue their open hunger strike.

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Good morning from Palestine .. !

From Latuff

Why we strike ….

Statics you SHOULD know about the miserable conditions at the Israeli jails..

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FAKE NEWS IN DEFENSE OF ZIONISM

April 23, 2017 at 08:52 (Associate Post, Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Cover Up, Deception, Germany, Israel, Palestine)

Now, almost every day inflationary targeted pro-Israel articles are published in different German media. They voluntarily hide the word “occupation” and Zionist crimes. Apparently, the more than 45 million US-Dollar spent by the Israeli ministries for the Hasbara propaganda are worth it. It is understandable that a right-wing regime like the Netanyahu regime makes use of these methods as there is nothing Zionists fear more than the truth.

Facts, instead of the diffusion of political fake news!

by Evelyn Hecht-Galinski, English translation by Milena Rampoldi

Again these days, where the Jewish Passover celebration almost coincides with the Christian Easter, the international values hypocrites use fake news to hide their mistakes and the bombs violating international law.

In this case it is useful for politicians, churches, and media to have an enemy image they can work on together. And this enemy image is “Islam” and the “Muslims” against whom prejudices and fears are created. And all the time it is “Islam” and the Muslims who are regularly connected to “terrorism”. Who wonders if in the German/European population hatred against Muslims increases?

What the Jews were in the past, today Muslims and Islam are.

Can this kind of politics where Western values politicians whitewash the state terrorism against Muslims, masked as “defence from terrorism”, last for a long time? All is authorised, because we are the “good ones” defending “our” values, while “Islam” and Muslims murder barbarically!

What a horrible “order of values” turning all upside down what makes up real values. Since a long time German politics have abandoned peaceful values. However, these values are always indicated by politics when it is about the implementation of more than questionable objectives suggesting us that only “our” way of life is the ONLY  right one.

This kind of colonization of the “Christian-Jewish community of values” has already caused so much sorrow to mankind. It does not distinguish itself from the previous crusades but it is technically more elaborated and more efficient and adapted to the contemporary epoch.

Hypocritical “Christian” German politicians, from Merkel to von der Leyen, try to justify and legalize the US aggression against Syria violating international law. Our minister of war put herself in the frontline by supporting the US propaganda which grants itself the right to bomb another country, without research and proofs concerning the alleged poison gas attack. She supports the NATO and Trump. In the Anne Will program of last Sunday, 9th of April, the minister praised the US strikes and called this brazen violation of international law a necessary “warning” against Assad. Fortunately, the former biological weapon experts and foreign politics spokesperson of the left party Die Linke van Aken was appalled because the minister applauded this aggression against international law, even if there are no proofs that Assad committed the offence. This TV program is another example of the decline of German television culture and its presenters.

What Miss Will did on that occasion, was to oppose to ANY kind of clean journalism, when she tried to discredit Michael Lüders, one of the few competent Middle East experts, by de-qualifying him as a paid “lobbyist”. However, the “steel helmet Jew” and former Bundeswehr Professor Michael Wolffsohn, a well-known lobbyist of Israel and among others a member of the advisory board of Deutsche Bank, the former US ambassador in Germany, John Kornblum, also a lobbyist for Israel and consultant of financial economists, law offices, and banks. Politics. (1) (2)

Do we deserve such politicians and presenters who lie to us in more than controversial talk shows? If German President Steinmeier attacks the brutalization of the language on the net, he should care about the brutalization of the language of politicians of all parties telling us fake news and dismissing us as conspiracy theoretics if we do not accept them as the truth!

Of course, we still have the opportunity to go to the elections. However, also this “agony of choice” is getting more and more difficult because the parties are increasingly resembling each other. And all resembles the great coalition when also SPD foreign minister Gabriel and the defence expert Arnold speak up for the US aggression against Syria, violating international law. From the left to the right, from red to green: there is not so much the party landscape can offer. Only the brave “old Green” politician Ströbele condemns the US aggression. (3) (4)

At the moment, German politics offer very few essential contents, like the woolly statement of the “SPD Shooting Star” Schulz, who even wants to be congratulated on doing it. Even SPD Federal President Steinmeier begins to flutter by asking for more German responsibility, also in the military field. While the Green Party, from Cem Özdemir to Rebecca Harms, wallow in the anti-Erdogan and anti-Putin smear campaign, Göring-Eckardt has specialised in waste separation and the elimination of the yellow bag. (5)

Under Trump, the “father of all bombs”, for the first time in Afghanistan the “mother of all bombs” was dropped. Perhaps, the Netanyahu regime has already ordered this “mother” at the US Pentagon to quickly implement the final solution of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and its Judaization. The Minister of Education and the “Settlements King” Naftali Bennett has already threatened to commit genocide in Lebanon, and this without the so loud outcry of the Western world value community staying silent about it! (6) (7)

Trump seems to have reached  the point to be supported by official politics; now  “Kosher Nostra” guided by his daughter Ivanka, the converted wife of Jarred Kushner, the Jewish son-in-law and main consultant of Trump has taken over the White House. (8)

In this situation the Netanyahu regime can relax, and praise further US aggressions against Syria or other countries of the Arabic-Islamic world. This is the only way for the Jewish regime to further exacerbate the eternal illegal occupation of Palestine and the Syrian Golan Hills; and in addition, shortly the US embassy guided by the hard-core Zionist Friedman will reside in Jerusalem as the official “eternally undivided“ capital of the “Jewish State”.

Again, this year, which will be the fiftieth year of the illegal occupation of Palestine, the Federal Government will celebrate the Independence Day, the “Birthday of the Jewish State”, together with the officials of the Central Council of Jews and the representatives of the “Jewish State”. This proofs the repeated total failure of democracy in Germany, since up to now all German governments and politicians of all parties have only supported the legalization of internationally condemned international law violations committed by the Zionist occupiers.

72 years after the liberation of Auschwitz this is really a shame.

If the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Lau, misuses the holocaust to distract from his own crimes, this is a crime all survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants should oppose to, instead of defending these crimes of the “Jewish State”! As long as Jewish citizens do not take their distance from the Zionist occupation crimes, they will never been considered as trustful. We need same rights for all: what we pretend from Muslims, should apply to ALL religions! (9)

While German politicians and the group media bash Putin and Erdogan, regimes like the ones of al-Sisi, the Saudi Kingdom or Netanyahu can continue committing their crimes against humanity and putting all “our” values upside down!

The hypocrisy has taken such incredible forms, in particular for BDS activists and their supporters, that we have to ask ourselves how this will go on and end.

Philo-Semite politicians set the tone. And a special emphasis should be put on the “Philo-Semite Anti-Semite” Volker Beck, who really seems to smell Jewish hatred and as tracking dog of the Green Party opposes to all kind of Israel critics. However, this is only possible because there is no real opposition. Like in the Nazi regime, fear, moral cowardice, and limitless gutlessness dominate when it is about critics against Israeli politics!

Would it not be adequate to take Mr Beck to the court on the basis of the article 5 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany because of his unjustified attacks against the freedom of opinion?

However, in the meantime it seems to be part of the political tone to silence all honest Israel critics and to try to intimidate them by defamation.

Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, Article 5

(1)   Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship. (…)
Of course this right also applies to supporters of the BDS campaign and to Israel critics!
More than six thousand Palestinian prisoners are in arbitrary and unjust detention. Many of them are in administrative detention without accusation. On Easter Monday, after a call by Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian “Nelson Mandela”, 1300 of them started a hunger strike to struggle for better detention conditions and their liberation. This Palestinian new hope would be the right candidate for the Presidential Office in a free Palestine! However, the Jewish occupiers and the “moderate” collaborators and the PA and Abbas would like to stop him because he would question and challenge their status quo. Therefore Barghouti must remain in Judaistic detention. For Barghouti unfortunately there is no lobby and no German politicians or media engaging for him as they do it for the prisoners in Turkey … and in a particularly media-effective way for the reporter of the newspaper “Die Welt” Deniz Yücel – no wonder if we read his fervent article supporting the Israel lobby opposing to the Germans‘ right to criticize Israel, and as a consequence the right for freedom of opinion! For his work, Yücel got the Theodor Wolff Prize for Press Freedom. Remember: If you are supported by a lobby, prizes are distributed like counterfeit money. However, the numerous Palestinian journalists in Israeli detention rot down, without any award! (10) (11) (12) (13) (14)

Now, almost every day inflationarily targeted pro-Israel articles are published in different German media. They voluntarily hide the word “occupation” and Zionist crimes. Apparently, the more than 45 million US-Dollar spent by the Israeli ministries for the Hasbara propaganda are worth it. It is understandable that a right-wing regime like the Netanyahu regime makes use of these methods as there is nothing Zionists fear more than the truth.

The power of images is enormous in our time. While fake images of small, probably Syrian children are diffused all around the world, the murdered Palestinian children never get a place on the cover page of our brave media. Walter Herrmann, this unforgotten Kölner Klagemauer fighter for the justice in Palestine, who wanted to remember photos of the Gaza genocide of barbarically murdered children in Gaza, was brought to justice!

Do not let us permit to substitute the power of facts with the diffusion of political fake news!

Unfortunately, all is repeated, and about this matter the poem by Erich Fried Nicaragua is everywhere says it all.

(In German)

Wo liegt Nicaragua?

by Erich Fried

Wo liegt Nicaragua?

Dort wo Reagan seine bezahlten
Mörder hinschickt
oder seine Agenten.
Es liegt also in Angola,
wo er mit seinen weißen
politisch verlässlichen südafrikanischen Freunden
die Banden der Unita
bewaffnet und unterstützt.

Wo liegt Nicaragua?

Am Horn von Afrika,

wo er zahlt für seinen Stützpunkt
in Mogadischu.

Wo liegt Nicaragua?
Es liegt in Palästina,
es liegt im Staat Israel
dem er Geld gibt und Waffen
für den Kampf
gegen die Palästinenser
und den er zu seinem Sprungbrett
im Nahen Osten gemacht hat.

Wo liegt Nicaragua?
Nicaragua liegt in Europa
das aussätzig ist
von seinen Atomraketen
und das Kriegsschauplatz sein soll
im nächsten Krieg.

Wo liegt Nicaragua?
Nicaragua liegt in England,
aus dem er Flugzeuge
aus dem er Flugzeuge aufsteigen ließ
gegen Libyen?
Wo liegt Nicaragua?
Es liegt in Libyen,
in Tripolis und Benghazi
auf die seine Bomben fielen.

Wo liegt Nicaragua?
Es liegt überall dort,
wo die Vereinigten Staaten Geheimdienstleute einschleusen
zur Verteidigung der Freiheit der freien Welt.
Und weil Nicaragua überall ist, darum muß man
endlich etwas von Nicaragua wissen:
Daß es in Nicaragua um alle Welt geht,
und dass man Nicaragua überall helfen muß
gegen Reagen und Weinberger und ihre Agenten und Söldner
und nicht vergessen soll, dass der Internationale Gerichtshof
im Haag die Vereinigten Staaten verurteilt hat
als Angreifer und als Verletzer des Völkerrechts,
als das, was man Kriegsverbrecher genannt hätte und
Friedensverbrecher, wenn die Vereinigten Staaten
etwas kleiner wären und nicht so mächtig.

Und weil Nicaragua überall ist, darum stehen die Menschen
überall, wo sie für Nicaragua stehen,
auch für sich selbst und ihre eigenen Kinder,
für ihr Leben und gegen ihren Tod.

Und wer in Deutschland am Leben bleiben will,
soll bedenken:
Nicaragua liegt in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,
die alle Hilfe für Nicaragua gesperrt hat,
die aber Geld schickt an die Mörderbanden der Contras.
Nicaragua liegt in Deutschland, das Asylanten
In ihrer Herkunftsländern abschiebt zu Tod und Folter
Als wären noch nicht genug Todestransporte gerollt

über deutsche Geleise
zur Erledigung jenseits der Grenzen.

Erich Fried

Zur Zeit der Verleumder

Sie nennen mich
Verräter an meinem Volk
Sie nennen mich
Jüdischer Antisemit
weil ich spreche von dem
was sie tun in Israels Namen
gegen Palästinenser
gegen Araber anderer Länder
und auch gegen Juden
die totgeschwiegen werden

Später einmal
werden Juden die übrigbleiben
wenn dieser Wahnsinn vorbei ist
zu suchen beginnen
nach Spuren von Juden
die nicht mittaten
sondern warnten

So haben Deutsche gezeigt
nach dem Untergang Hitlers
auf Deutsche die tags zuvor
noch verfolgt wurden oder getötet
Die sollten nun Zeugen sein
daß Deutsche auch anders waren

Ob dann ein Wort
noch nachlebt
von meiner Warnung
Wichtiger aber:
ob dann in Palästina noch Juden leben
entronnene jener Vernichtung
die sie selbst herbeiführen halfen
durch ihr Unrecht
zu meiner Zeit?

 

Originally appeared AT

3 Comments

INTERVIEW ~~ SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIAN HUNGER STRIKERS CONTINUES TO GROW

April 23, 2017 at 08:39 (Activism, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Interview, Israel's Shame, Palestine)

A couple of days ago, the leader of al Fatah, Marwan Barghouti, published his shocking article on New York Times. He had just started a legendary protest, called the “struggle of the empty stomachs”. Marwan has been able to start an extended non-violent struggle of at least 1.300 prisoners in Israeli prisons, a hunger strike. The objective is to show their reality to the rest of the world, and to make people understand what is going on in this land of denied rights. In his article published by New York Times Marwan attacks the Israeli military forces by using very hard words. The Zionist regime is responsible for the total absence and/or the daily violation of human rights, for daily physical and psychological torture, and also for bad food. 

Image by Carlos Latuff

Day 5 of 1,500 Palestinian detainees’ hunger strike in Israeli occupation jails!

Interview with Khaled, during a rally to support Palestinian prisoners

by Antonietta Chiodo, ProMosaik, English translation by Milena Rampoldi

In these hours, the population wants the competent authorities to take their responsibility to sanction a state whose law is based on the exercise of violence and power against a helpless population. However, as we can see today, this population has not stopped resisting. The President of the Palestinian Authority Abu Mazen declared his unconditioned solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners. The groups next to Hamas and the Islamic Party have not made a clear decision about whether they will participate to the hunger strike by involving their own members in Israeli prisons or not.

The day after the publication of Barghouti’s article and the extended participation to the hunger strike by prisoners, the Knesset put the leader Marwan Barghouti and other three main organizers of the protest in solitary confinement in the high-security prison in the Northern West Bank next to the city of Jenin. Since the beginning of the protests, the clashes and arrests are increasing, in particular around Nablus, Hebron, and Bethlehem.

Today I went into the streets and talked to a group of people during a solidarity rally for the Palestinian prisoners in hunger strike. Among them there was also an about eight years old handicapped child. Some of them wore gas masks. An ambulance was ready to intervene in case of clashes.

Everywhere the shapes of Israeli soldiers. In sight the separation wall. There are upset garbage containers which make me think about a day full of tensions. During the rally, I talked to Khaled, one of the guys participating to the protests, to ask him a couple of questions about them.

Have there been news from the prisons during these last hours?

No, since the beginning of the hunger strike, Israel has not been giving any information… we have only heard that the leaders of the protest were put into solitary confinement and that many prisoners are not even allowed to talk to their own lawyer.

Do you feel supported by the Palestinian Authority these days?

I cannot answer to this question… I cannot say anything about it… I am just a man who decided to take to the streets these days… as many women and children did… we would like to tell the world what has been happening in this land since seventy years now….  However, politics are the heart of Palestine… the whole world turns around politics, we do not want to know if one is on our part or not… since this is our life, and our freedom, and we will continue our resistance against the occupation, day after day… If you want to know if we trust Abu Mazen …. Then I can answer you: No, Palestine has stopped trusting him since a long time now.

Were there many clashes during these rallies? Do you think others will follow today?

We protest the whole day, also in the evening. They usually attack us in the afternoon or after sunset. As you can see, we have no arms. We just have flags… but we resist. Because resisting is the thing we can do best…. And it is not a coincidence that the majority of people participating to these rallies comes from the refugee camps, in particular from the Dheisheh Refugee Camp.

Do you think that Marwan Barghouti’s initiative will be really helpful?

Yes, I am absolutely convinced that it is a light, an open window so that the world can look into here… so that all can see how strong we the Palestinians are… we prefer dying than continuing to be oppressed and tortured. Our situation has been unchanged for seventy years now… So our fellows have started this struggle, and we have to support them because they are brave men and true examples for us.

 

Written FOR

1 Comment

ASSORTED TOONS FOR THE WEEK’S END

April 21, 2017 at 13:07 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Corrupt Politics)

Images by Carlos Latuff

Uncle Sam’s Impending War on North Korea

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Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails on hunger strike!

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Instead of giving French weapons to “moderate” head-choppers in Syria, how about you protect your own citizens from terrorism, eh Hollande?

Assorted ‘Free Turkish Media’ by various artists

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The eternal love affair continues …..

2 Comments

PASSOVER ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK

April 20, 2017 at 09:20 (Activism, DesertPeace Exclusive, Holidays, Human Rights, Videos)

Young Jews are trying to find their way to accommodate their budding radicalism with their Judaism. The following video is of a Passover Seder held in the streets of New York …. sponsored by 

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Image by Pete Pasho

2 Comments

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF OCCUPATION

April 20, 2017 at 09:00 (Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Israel, Occupation, Occupied West Bank, Palestine)

Image by Carlos Latuff

Israel celebrates 50 years as occupier

Jonathan Cook

Israel is to hold lavish celebrations over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of what it calls the “liberation of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights” – or what the rest of us describe as the birth of the occupation.

The centerpiece event will take place in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. The West Bank settlement “bloc” enjoys wide support in Israel, not least because it was established long ago by the supposedly left-wing Labour party, now heading the opposition.

The jubilee is a potent reminder that for Israelis, most of whom have never known a time before the occupation, Israel’s rule over the Palestinians seems as irreversible as the laws of nature. But the extravagance of the festivities also underscores the growth over five decades of Israel’s self-assurance as an occupier.

Documents found this month in Israel’s archives reveal that, when Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, its first concern was to hoodwink the international community.

The foreign ministry ordered Israel’s ambassadors to mischaracterize its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem as a simple “municipal fusion”. To avoid diplomatic reprisals, Israel claimed it was necessary to ease the provision of essential services to the occupied Palestinian population.

Interestingly, those drafting the order advised that the deception was unlikely to succeed. The United States had already insisted that Israel commit no unilateral moves.

But within months Israel had evicted thousands of Palestinians from the Old City and destroyed their homes. Washington and Europe have been turning a blind eye to such actions ever since.

One of the Zionist movement’s favorite early slogans was: “Dunam after dunam, goat after goat”. The seizure of small areas of territory measured in dunams, the demolition of the odd home, and the gradual destruction of herding animals would slowly drive the Palestinians off most of their land, “liberating” it for Jewish colonization. If it was done piecemeal, the objections from overseas would remain muffled. It has proved a winning formula.

Fifty years on, the colonization of East Jerusalem and the West Bank is so entrenched that a two-state solution is nothing more than a pipe dream.

Nonetheless, US president Donald Trump has chosen this inauspicious moment to dispatch an envoy, Jason Greenblatt, to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a “goodwill” response, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has unveiled a framework for settlement building. It is exactly the kind of formula for deception that has helped Israel consolidate the occupation since 1967.

Netanyahu says expansion will be “restricted” to “previously developed” settlements, or “adjacent” areas, or, depending on the terrain, “land close” to a settlement.

Peace Now points out that the settlements already have jurisdiction over some 10 per cent of the West Bank, while far more is treated as “state land”. The new framework, says the group, gives the settlers a green light to “build everywhere”.

The Trump White House has shrugged its shoulders. A statement following Netanyahu’s announcement judged the settlements no “impediment to peace”, adding that Israel’s commitments to previous US administrations would be treated as moot.

Effectively, the US is wiping the slate clean, creating a new baseline for negotiations after decades of Israeli changes stripping the Palestinians of territory and rights.

Although none of this bodes well, Egypt and Jordan’s leaders met Trump this month to push for renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The White House is said to be preparing to welcome the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Some senior Palestinians are rightly wary. Abbas Zaki, a Fatah leader, fears Trump will try to impose a regional solution on Arab states, over Abbas’s head, designed to “eliminate the Palestinian cause altogether”.

David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, reportedly once said: “What matters is not what the goyim [non-Jews] say, but what the Jews do.”

For nearly a quarter of a century, the Oslo accords dangled an illusory peace carrot that usefully distracted the global community as Israel nearly quadrupled its settler population, making even a highly circumscribed Palestinian state unrealizable.

Now, that game plan is about to be revived in new form. While the US, Israel, Jordan and Egypt focus on the hopeless task of creating a regional framework for peace, Israel will be left undisturbed once again to seize more dunams and more goats.

In Israel, the debate is no longer simply about whether to build settler homes, or about how many can be justified. Government ministers argue instead about the best moment to annex vast areas of the West Bank associated with so-called settlement blocs such as Gush Etzion.

Israel’s imminent celebrations should lay to rest any confusion that the occupation is still considered temporary. But when occupation becomes permanent, it metamorphoses into something far uglier.

It is past time to recognize that Israel has established an apartheid regime and one that serves as a vehicle for incremental ethnic cleansing. If there are to be talks, ending that outrage must be their first task.

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IN PHOTOS ~~ THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DEATH AND TAXES

April 19, 2017 at 15:54 (Activism, Associate Post, Class Struggle, Corrupt Politics, DesertPeace Exclusive, Photography)

Tuesday April 18, 2017, in the United States this is TAX day. Thousands of people will rush to get their taxes in to the Internal Revenue Service on this final day.  But on Saturday, April 14th, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the United States, in all the major cities, put their feet on the streets demanding Trump release his tax returns. This was a massive national political action protesting Trump’s resistance to make his tax returns public. All presidents for the last forty years have done so. This demand is important because the public has no way of knowing if his policies will benefit the American people or his international business interests.

On a beautiful spring day  New Yorkers also put their feet to the streets protesting Trump’s resistance. The rally began at New York City’s Bryant Park 6th Avenue. The police cordoned off an entire traffic lane for blocks to accommodate  the thousands prepared to march up 6th Avenue to Trump Towers on 5th Avenue and then to Trump’s International Hotel at 59th Street Columbus Circle after the speeches at the park. It took well over an hour for the parade of people to finally pass Bryant Park.  

Photos © by Bud Korotzer, Report by Chippy Dee

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More Photos by Matthew Weinstein HERE

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MUCH ADO ABOUT THE PALESTINIAN HUNGER STRIKE

April 19, 2017 at 14:10 (Civil Liberties, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, Israel's Shame, Palestine)

Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons

Carlos Latuff shows his solidarity with Palestinian prisoners who launched a mass hunger strike in Israeli jails, yesterday.

Palestinians in Israeli prisons begin hunger strike!

Israel, the mother of terrorism has called this article an act of terror. Please read and distribute as far and wide as possible.

Op-Ed in the New York Times

By MARWAN BARGHOUTI

Photos of prisoners during a demonstration demanding the release of the Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, in Ramallah, West Bank, this month. Credit Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images

HADARIM PRISON, Israel — Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike.

Some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have decided to take part in this hunger strike, which begins today, the day we observe here as Prisoners’ Day. Hunger striking is the most peaceful form of resistance available. It inflicts pain solely on those who participate and on their loved ones, in the hopes that their empty stomachs and their sacrifice will help the message resonate beyond the confines of their dark cells.

Decades of experience have proved that Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.

Israel, the occupying power, has violated international law in multiple ways for nearly 70 years, and yet has been granted impunity for its actions. It has committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions against the Palestinian people; the prisoners, including men, women and children, are no exception.

I was only 15 when I was first imprisoned. I was barely 18 when an Israeli interrogator forced me to spread my legs while I stood naked in the interrogation room, before hitting my genitals. I passed out from the pain, and the resulting fall left an everlasting scar on my forehead. The interrogator mocked me afterward, saying that I would never procreate because people like me give birth only to terrorists and murderers.

A few years later, I was again in an Israeli prison, leading a hunger strike, when my first son was born. Instead of the sweets we usually distribute to celebrate such news, I handed out salt to the other prisoners. When he was barely 18, he in turn was arrested and spent four years in Israeli prisons.

The eldest of my four children is now a man of 31. Yet here I still am, pursuing this struggle for freedom along with thousands of prisoners, millions of Palestinians and the support of so many around the world. What is it with the arrogance of the occupier and the oppressor and their backers that makes them deaf to this simple truth: Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.

Israel has built nearly all of its prisons inside Israel rather than in the occupied territory. In doing so, it has unlawfully and forcibly transferred Palestinian civilians into captivity, and has used this situation to restrict family visits and to inflict suffering on prisoners through long transports under cruel conditions. It turned basic rights that should be guaranteed under international law — including some painfully secured through previous hunger strikes — into privileges its prison service decides to grant us or deprive us of.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and medical negligence. Some have been killed while in detention. According to the latest count from the Palestinian Prisoners Club, about 200 Palestinian prisoners have died since 1967 because of such actions. Palestinian prisoners and their families also remain a primary target of Israel’s policy of imposing collective punishments.

Through our hunger strike, we seek an end to these abuses.

Over the past five decades, according to the human rights group Addameer, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel — equivalent to about 40 percent of the Palestinian territory’s male population. Today, about 6,500 are still imprisoned, among them some who have the dismal distinction of holding world records for the longest periods in detention of political prisoners. There is hardly a single family in Palestine that has not endured the suffering caused by the imprisonment of one or several of its members.

How to account for this unbelievable state of affairs?

Israel has established a dual legal regime, a form of judicial apartheid, that provides virtual impunity for Israelis who commit crimes against Palestinians, while criminalizing Palestinian presence and resistance. Israel’s courts are a charade of justice, clearly instruments of colonial, military occupation. According to the State Department, the conviction rate for Palestinians in the military courts is nearly 90 percent.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whom Israel has taken captive are children, women, parliamentarians, activists, journalists, human rights defenders, academics, political figures, militants, bystanders, family members of prisoners. And all with one aim: to bury the legitimate aspirations of an entire nation.

Instead, though, Israel’s prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom.

Israel has tried to brand us all as terrorists to legitimize its violations, including mass arbitrary arrests, torture, punitive measures and severe restrictions. As part of Israel’s effort to undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom, an Israeli court sentenced me to five life sentences and 40 years in prison in a political show trial that was denounced by international observers.

Israel is not the first occupying or colonial power to resort to such expedients. Every national liberation movement in history can recall similar practices. This is why so many people who have fought against oppression, colonialism and apartheid stand with us. The International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners that the anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada and my wife, Fadwa, inaugurated in 2013 from Nelson Mandela’s former cell on Robben Island has enjoyed the support of eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates, 120 governments and hundreds of leaders, parliamentarians, artists and academics around the world.

Their solidarity exposes Israel’s moral and political failure. Rights are not bestowed by an oppressor. Freedom and dignity are universal rights that are inherent in humanity, to be enjoyed by every nation and all human beings. Palestinians will not be an exception. Only ending occupation will end this injustice and mark the birth of peace.

2 Comments

HUMAN RIGHTS UPDATES ~~ 1500 PALESTINIAN PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE

April 18, 2017 at 14:33 (Associate Post, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Israel's Shame, Palestine) 

Today 17 April 2017, nearly 1500 political prisoners in Israeli jails went
on an open-ended hunger strike until their demands of basic humane
treatment in prison are met.

Image by Carlos Latufff

 

HUMAN RIGHTS UPDATES

Compiled by Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD


Today 17 April 2017, nearly 1500 political prisoners in Israeli jails went
on an open-ended hunger strike until their demands of basic humane
treatment in prison are met. This includes family visits, stopping abuse,
availability of medical treatment, knowing their sentence (administrative
detainees held for months and sometimes years without charge or trial),
etc.  There were many activities to honor them and show solidarity. For
example we in Al-Rowwad Culture and Art Society held the festival of return
(3aidoun) in their honor, there were demonstrations at the wall (inhaled
much tear gas) and we have a candle-light vigil later tonight in
Bethlehem’s manger square. Please keep prisoners issues alive so that they
stay alive and are treated with dignity they deserve. These events happen
in between our usual work at the museum (research, education,
conservation). 15 elementary school children visited as did several local
people. Our team of international volunteers (seven today) continue and are
working hard. Look for us on facebook under Palestine Museum of Natural
History.

Why we are on hunger strike in Israel's prisons (more)


U.S. Drops Its Biggest Non-Nuclear Bomb on Afghans, Already Traumatized by
Decades of War. In Afghanistan on Thursday, the United States military
dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever—the Massive Ordnance Air
Blast, or MOAB, nicknamed "The Mother of All Bombs." The 21,600-pound bomb
reportedly unleashed an explosion equivalent to 11 tons of TNT with a
mile-wide blast radius…..

[They keep telling us it is “non-nuclear” (why not non-biological,
non-chemical?). It was described the Afhani officials as devastating to
people and the environment. This came after Trump refused independent
investigations and claimed he knows Syrian government used chemical weapons
and bombed Syria. He is now the typical neocon….]

American police are now regularly getting training from Israeli apartheid
officers. Is it any wonder then they drag people out of airplanes and shoot
blacks in the street? Here is an interesting opinion piece in the
Washington Post. Crucified man had prior run in with authorities:

I guess this is how we are writing up the victims of crimes now. I did not
realize that when you boarded a plane you gave away the right to have your
past remain your past, but a theme of life these days is that only people
who have never done anything wrong, or are in some way related to Donald
Trump, deserve to go through their lives unmolested. In accordance with
this new house style I am writing up an incident whose anniversary some
people are celebrating this week.  The gentleman arrested Thursday and
tried before Pontius Pilate had a troubled background.


Open Secrets: The UAE’s Deals With Israel

 

2 Comments

A LOOK AT TURKISH ‘ELECTIONS’ IN TOONS

April 18, 2017 at 09:54 (Associate Post, Cartoons, Corrupt Politics, Turkey)

Erdogan Declares Victory In Widely Contested Referendum

Monitors Say Turkish Referendum Neither Fair Nor Free

Images by Carlos Latuff

Sound familiar?

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Congratulations for “electing” me as your dictator.

1 Comment

HAPPY EASTER

April 16, 2017 at 11:46 (DesertPeace Editorial, Holidays)

To all of our true Christian readers, family and friends ….

A most joyous Easter Sunday.

May His message of love and peace drown out the sounds of the bombs we are hearing about daily.


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‘Wanted Poster’ from before His murder

Image by Art Young


To this very day they continue to kill the family of Jesus ….

(Click on link)

 KILLING THE FAMILY OF JESUS

2 Comments

TOONS FOR THE END OF THE WEEK, PERHAPS EVEN THE END WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

April 14, 2017 at 11:34 (Afghanistan, Associate Post, Cartoons, Collective Punishment, Corrupt Politics, War Crimes)

BREAKING: U.S. drops the the largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan. It’s the first time the GBU-43 bomb has been used in combat.

Images by Latuff

U.S. just dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” in Afghanistan, and I can only remember this cartoon I made in 2007

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MOAB: Mother of All Bombs dropped by the U.S. in Afghanistan
WAR: Mother of All Business

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday that US forces dropped a GBU-43 bomb on a system of tunnels and caves in Afghanistan.

Comments Off on TOONS FOR THE END OF THE WEEK, PERHAPS EVEN THE END WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

US AIRSTRIKE IN SYRIA HAS KILLED MORE CIVILIANS THAN THE SUPPOSED GAS ATTACKS

April 13, 2017 at 14:50 (Collective Punishment, Syria)

Syrian sources claim the US attack Wednesday on ISIS targets struck poison gas supplies and released toxins which ‘killed hundreds’.

Chemical warfare (IDF spokesman’s unit)

Syria: US hit ISIS chemical weapons depot, killing hundreds

The Syrian army claimed that an air strike late yesterday by the US-led coalition hit poison gas supplies belonging to ISIS , and released a toxic substance that killed “hundreds including many civilians”.

The incident in the eastern Deir al-Zor province proved that ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked militants “possess chemical weapons”, a statement by the army publicized on Syrian state TV claimed, adding that these weapons had been obtained from “countries in the region which are well known.”

The report could not immediately be independently verified and the US has denied that it attacked any ISIS chemical weapons site.

Last week the US launched cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase , in response to a deadly poison gas attack in the west of the country that Washington blamed on President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Syria and its ally Russia deny that Damascus carried out any such chemical attack. Assad even claims that the US ‘fabricated’ the chemical attack, while Moscow has said the poison gas in that incident last week in Idlib province belonged to rebels.

The US strike on the Syrian air base last Thursday was the first time Washington has deliberately and directly targeted the Syrian government.

 

Source

 

Don’t forget for one moment who ISIS is …

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TURNING HATRED TO TOLERANCE IN JERUSALEM

April 13, 2017 at 14:29 (Activism, Hate crimes, Israel, Racism, Tolerance)

After finding anti-Arab slogans spray-painted near a Jerusalem park, which has come to symbolize peaceful coexistence, residents were not content with the mere removal of the hateful graffiti calling for Arabs to ‘go home’ and for ‘revenge’, resolving to head for the park to make signs bearing messages against bigotry and racism; ‘We want to live in peace and harmony.’

The racist graffiti

Anti-Arab graffiti prompts message of tolerance in Jerusalem

‘We love our neighbors’

Residents of the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem were shocked on Wednesday to discover racist, anti-Arab graffiti sprayed near a park connecting the neighborhood with the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa.

“Arabs, go home,” and “We want revenge” were two of the hateful slogans sprayed on walls near the park, which was, since its establishment, a popular recreational spot for Jews and Arabs alike, thus becoming a symbol for peaceful coexistence.

“Khaneh was right” was also sprayed on the walls in reference to Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the outlawed Kach movement, who was assassinated in Manhattan in 2012.

The stunned residents reported the vandalism to the city municipality, which was promptly removed.

Not content with the mere removal of the graffiti, some of the residents made their way to the park with their children—still during their Passover holiday—and made big colorful signs bearing the opposite message of the hateful graffiti: ‘We love our neighbors.’

Ilana Nelson, a resident of the neighborhood who made the sign with her kids, said “our message, the message of the residents, is that we do not tolerate racism.

“We want to live in peace and harmony with our neighbors. Just yesterday I was at the park with my husband and I saw a nice couple, an Arab Muslim and a woman wearing a Hijab, who asked a Jewish couple to take their picture,” she added.

“I thought we lived normal lives in a normal world, and then we woke up to that.”

Nelson’s son, who studies at Jerusalem’s Yad be-Yad Max Rayne Bilingual School, wrote the sign in both Hebrew and Arabic.

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)

 

Source and more photos HERE

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