The Palestinian labor movement has never been as united as it is today in supporting the boycott against Israel and calling on all international trade unions and trade union federations to endorse BDS as the most effective form of solidarity with the people of Palestine in general and our working class in particular. Furthermore, we repeat our appeal to all international trade unions to sever their links with the Histadrut, a racist organization that has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination, and that has justified and applauded Israel’s war crimes in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
Activism
A majority of Israelis seem to get by just fine with the occupation, while B’Tselem is met with suspicion and accused of treason. Despite this, over the years in which targeted assassinations, smart bombs, closures, checkpoints, detentions without due process, lack of running water, poverty and a separation fence five minutes from Kfar Sava have all become routine, B’Tselem has continued to undermine the passion for denial, and to defend the rights of Palestinians and thus also the image of Israeli society.
If not for B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, the State of Israel would look different today. The occupation might have been even crueler, or just as cruel, but we certainly would look different. In its 20 years of existence, this important human-rights organization may not have succeeded in changing reality, but at least it has made it possible for us to know what that reality was.
“In a Muslim-majority country like Indonesia, it might come as a surprise to learn that Jews are critical of Israel,” Loewenstein tells The Jakarta Post… “I’m trying to challenge people’s perceptions that I’m Jewish, and I’m proud to be Jewish, but I’m pro-Palestine,” he says. “Israel is still occupying Palestine, and it’s my moral responsibility to fight against it in my own ways.”
When Hillel [was asked] to cancel Eitam’s meeting because of his previous violence and hate speech… it refused. Hillel and other Eitam supporters responded that the scrupulously-documented charges made against him were a “medieval blood libel”; that Eitam never said or did these things; that he was misquoted… or quoted out of context; that the leading Israeli newspapers reporting his words and deeds were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy; and that even if Eitam did say and do these things, he represents an important sector of Israeli opinion that should be heard.
[The US] defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” The Hebron settlers’ violence is certainly premeditated. It is, by their own admission, politically motivated. It is perpetrated solely against noncombatant targets (overwhelmingly children), and it is obviously the work of a subnational group – the settlers themselves. The business of the Hebron settlers is terrorism, pure and simple.
The outrageous treatment of the 21-year-old Bethlehem University student, Berlanty Azzam by the Israeli military is the latest incident in a long list of brutalities carried out by one of the longest and most brutal military occupations in history. Returning to Bethlehem in the West Bank, after a job interview in Ramallah, Berlanty… was detained at a military checkpoint, blindfolded, handcuffed, loaded into a military jeep and deported to Gaza.
Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund supports violent, racist Israeli settlers in Israeli-occupied Hebron who are taking over Hebron’s Old City in violation of international law, and driving out the Palestinian residents. The NY Mets are aiding the Hebron Fund by allowing it to hold a fundraiser at Citi Field.
The chairman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office, Dr. Rafiq Husseini, on Monday urges all Arab countries to cancel their business ties with two French companies – Veolia and Alstom – involved in the construction of a Jerusalem-based light railway which passes through the West Bank.
The banner referred to 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, which Peres won together with former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the peace talks that resulted in the Oslo Accords.
Protesters say the Israel Defense Forces used live ammunition from Ruger rifles last Friday to disperse a demonstration near the separation fence at the West Bank town of Na’alin. In 2001, the military advocate general ordered a halt to the use of such rifles for crowd control.
Next Event:
Standing in front of the 92nd Street Y (92nd/Lex), 7:00 – 8:00pm, Nov 21 when Alan Dershowitz comes to the Y.
Please sign the open letter in support of the Goldstone report
Arjan El Fassed: “Twitter is a great place to connect people with issues. But it’s also good at bridging cultural gaps. For most people, it’s difficult to identify with life in a refugee camp, but by linking it to a global network that resonates with millions, I was aiming to promote a sense of connectedness.”
Immortalize your name on a street: www.jouwstraatnaam.nl
Arjan El Fassed’s Twitter page: http://twitter.com/arjanelfassed
IOA Twitter page: http://twitter.com/IsOccupation
Left-wing groups enraged by Germany municipality’s decision not to allow anti-Zionist Israeli historian to speak at governmental institution. Pappe writes to Munich mayor his policy reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
The protest by gate48 is directed against CIDI’s hospitality and the “uncritical” manner in which [Lieberman] will be received by the Dutch government, board member Erella Grassiani says.
The Portugese company EPAL collaborates with Israeli water companies violating international law in the occupied West Bank.
[E]very time ["Turn, Turn, Turn"] is played, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions receives a few dollars, which accumulate to a “several thousand dollars every year,” according to the committee’s co-founder and coordinator. ICAHD is a non-profit organization that uses non-violent means to oppose Israeli demolition of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Seeger has been donating some of the song’s royalties to ICAHD for ten years.
Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been tried in Israeli military courts. As of the end of September 2009, 7,155 Palestinians were incarcerated in the various detention facilities by the Israeli security forces… The majority of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners are incarcerated within Israel, in contravention of international law, which prohibits transferring residents of an occupied territory outside its boundaries. Because of the closure imposed on the territories, many of the prisoners are deprived of visits by family members. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention since 1967. At the end of September 2009, 355 of the Palestinians in the custody of the security forces were being held in administrative detention.
Tom Wills, USSU President, said “Israel has broken more UN resolutions than any other state. No other Western-backed democracy has committed such egregious violations of international law, but the international community has failed to hold Israel to account.
The $3 billion dollars of annual U.S. aid to Israel helps fund Israeli prisons and detention centers where 8,100 Palestinian prisoners — including 60 women, 390 children, and 550 administrative detainees held without charge — are imprisoned in substandard conditions and subject to torture.
Ala Jaradat, program manager of Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association in the West Bank, will be on a US tour beginning Nov 3 in Chicago, and proceeding to Milwaukee, San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Youngstown, OH and College Park, MD.
Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.
Prosecution closes case against [Israeli] movement suspected of inciting youth to evade military service, cites lack of culpability, admissible evidence.
The university of Trondheim in Norway may become the first university in the West to adopt an academic boycott of Israel, if a majority of its board votes in favor of the move at a meeting on the subject [November 12].
Watch this short film detailing the Free Gaza Movement mission, the ideas behind the Movement and the kinds of action and witnessing International Solidarity Movement and Free Gaza activists have undertaken in Gaza.
The Bahraini parliament and government are in dispute over a proposed bill that could sentence a person to five years in jail for cooperating with Israel.
ADC has filed multiple administrative complaints with the US Department of the Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), requesting investigations into the activities of organizations claiming tax-exempt status under section 501(c)3 of the US Tax Code yet allegedly raising funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Ezra Nawi: “The court has been permitting the occupation for years, they are trying to stop me at all costs. The judge doesn’t scare me, and neither does the 30-day sentence. This is testimonium paupertatis to the court, I tried to stop criminal activity, and I ended up having to pay two officers who acted brutally. This is the Israeli reality.”
Over 750 individuals and organizations from around the world signed on to the US Palestine Community Network’s letter to Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, demanding the full implementation of the Goldstone report into Gaza war crimes. Sign letter.
Approximately 30 activists disrupted a lecture given in Chicago by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday which was hosted by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. While Olmert’s speech was disrupted inside the lecture hall, approximately 150 activists protested outside the hall in the freezing rain.
“We cannot ignore the truth – the occupation is a violent, racist, inhumane, illegal, undemocratic, immoral and an extreme condition that presents a mortal danger to both peoples,” the letter read. “We, who were educated on the values of liberty, justice, honesty and peace, cannot accept it.”
Abe Hayeem, an architect and founding member of Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine writes about Tel Aviv and its deeply-rooted colonial history.
“We hereby announce our refusal to take part in the military apparatus,” read the letter which was signed by 88 youths. “We do not see a military solution as the proper solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
IOA Editor: This is the largest number of Israelis collectively refusing the draft – even though the majority of them found ways to evade military service without formally refusing and being subjected to multiple, consecutive jail terms.
“These youngsters don’t realize the damage they’re doing… The problem is that their movement has lost all sense of proportion, it’s drifting away from a balanced point of view and has become completely obsessed with the occupation.”
IOA Editor: Yes, that pesky obsession that just won’t go away.
A Response to Uri Avnery: No Israeli who claims to support the national rights of the Palestinian people can, decently, turns his or her back to that campaign: after having claimed for years that “armed struggle is not the way,” it will be outrageous that this BDS strategy will too be disqualified by those Israeli activists. On the contrary, we must all together join to “Boycott from Within” in order to provide Israeli support to this Palestinian initiative.
