Their Fate is In Our Hands

May 17th: 24 hours of hunger in solidarity

with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails

This coming Thursday, May 17, will mark a month to the hunger strike, with over 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails participating in it. As Israel refuses to accept the prisoners' demands for their basic rights, including humane treatment, many of them face immediate risk of death as the world watches over in silence.

The prisoners have decided to live in dignity or starve to death in their isolation cells, and a global mobilization is urgently needed to break the deafening silence!   Join the  

Global 24-hour hunger strike

In front of Israeli embassies, consulates and UN offices

May 17, 2012

Endorse the Palestinian civil society call for a boycott of G4S due to its complicity in Israel’s violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights

Click here to pledge to join the Global 24-hour hunger strikeEmail us if you are organizing a sit-in in your community

Background
More than two weeks ago, some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have launched an open-ended hunger strike and their life is in danger. Their demands are simple and the strike's slogan, echoing through the prison walls, is just as plain- freedom or death. The lives of all prisoners on strike are currently under danger, but among them is a smaller group, which has been striking for a longer period and whose lives are under immediate threat.
Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab have not eaten for more than 70 days - since the 29th of February. Israeli courts have rejected their appeals and refused to free them from administrative detention where they remain without charge or trial, subject to secret evidence and secret allegations. They are in critical condition.

Hassan Safadi has been refusing food since the 2nd of March, Omar Abu Shalal, 54, since the 4th of March, Mahmoud Sarsak, the only Gazan to have been incarcerated under Israel's Illegal Combatants Law, since the 24th of March, Mohammed al-Taj, 40, also since the 24th of March and Ja'afar Ezzadeen, 41, since the 27th of march.
The Prisoners' key demands include:

• Ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation;
  
• End to the use of administrative detentions;
  
• The restoration of visitation rights to families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, a right that has been denied to all families for more than 6 years;
  
• Canceling ‘Shalit’ law, which restricts prisoners' access to educational materials as punitive measure. The law remains intact despite a prisoner swap deal last October.
  
• Ending systematic humiliation, including arbitrary strip searches, nightly raids and collective punishment.
  

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike have been hit hard with retaliation from Israel Prison Services, including beatings, transferring from one prison to another, confiscation of salt (an act that could have severe health consequences for hunger strikers), denial of family and lawyer visits, and isolation and solitary confinement of hunger strikers.

In response, Human Rights Watch issued a statement chiding Israel’s over its administrative detention policy; it said, “It shouldn’t take the self-starvation of Palestinian prisoners for Israel to realize it is violating their due process rights." Amnesty International also issued a call for urgent action from individuals around the world to contact Israeli authorities about Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh.

Emphasizing imprisonment as a critical component of Israel’s system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid practiced against the Palestinian people, Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations have called for intensifying the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to target corporations profiting directly from the Israeli prison system. In particular, we call for action to be taken to hold to account G4S, the world’s largest international security corporation, which helps to maintain and profit from Israel’s prison system, for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.

Signed:Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

---

Reply to this email | Forward this email
For real time updates on the popular struggle, see the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee's Twitter account.
This message was sent to tofu.hawks@gmail.com by Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Unsubscribe from this mailing list | Opt out of all future mailings from the Popular struggle Coordination Committee

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee | 12 Raffaele Ciriello St | Ramallah | OPT

Israel's Big Brother

Video: Saar Skali – Talking about the Israeli Occupation –
"The Big Brother" Reality show in Israel – Saar Szekely
פורסם בתאריך 17 בפברואר 2012  מאת  ערן ורד  גיב
                                     

This was seen live at prime time on Israel's leading TV network (Ch. 2)

The ‘Only Democracy in the Middle East’ Refuses to Allow the Commemoration of the Naqba

Curfew Imposed on Zochrot Offices in the Heart of Tel Aviv

Palestinian employees at the Customs Department, Haifa // Dr. Johnny Mansour

As in every year on Independence Day eve, Zochrot planned a street activity to commemorate and raise public awareness of the Nakba. After a discussion held in our offices, some 15 activists intended to go out on a symbolic, non-violent presentation activity at Rabin Square, which involved posting postcards with the names of Palestinian towns and villages destroyed in 1948 in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

As we intended to leave the offices, around 10:30pm, we were astonished to find that the building had already been surrounded by police - before we even had a chance to leave the offices - and that police officers had closed all exits. The senior officers who arrived on the scene made it clear to us that they would under no circumstances allow us to "disrupt public order", and would therefore prevent us from leaving the grounds. Besieged in the heart of Tel Aviv, we were shut in for nearly four hours and prevented from leaving the premises, unless we would agree to hand over our materials, present IDs and submit to questioning which including searches in our belongings. A lawyer who was present on the scene informed the officers that this was false arrest and that they had no probable cause to ask us to identify ourselves, but they refused to budge. We were "released" around 2:00am. The police arrested three activists who were released only a day later. Zochrot intend to press charges for false arrest.

In the heart of Tel Aviv, silencing reached new heights and left a bitter taste of dark regimes.

Watch an excellent video report about it. Another video by Israel Social TV.

The event was published by many reports. In Hebrew: IDF Radio, Haaretz, NRG, Chanel 2, post by Noa Shindlinger from Zochrot, Makor Rishon, Ofri Ilani at Eretz Haemori.

A father, refugee from al-Kafrayn, with his children, on a tour of al-Kafrayn // zochrot 2007

In English: Haaretz, Haggai Matar at Magazine 972, Larry Derfner at Magazine 972, Aljazeera, Jerusalem Post, Electronic Intifada

At the Israeli Independence Day, 26.4.2012, Zochrot participated at the Return March To Amqa and Kuwaykat organized by ADRID. Moran Barir spoke to the public.

قام افراد من الشرطه بحجز نشطاء في جمعية زوخروت ومنعهم من إحياء ذكرى النكبة في يوم الأستقلال
في مساء يوم الاستقلال الاسرائيلي، الساعة 22:30 خرج ما يقارب 15 ناشط وناشطة من زوخروت لإحياء ذكرى النكبة في ساحة رابين (تل بيب). أثناء خروجهم من المكتب، قامت الشرطة بمحاصرة المكتب من جميع الجهات ومنعهم من الخروج، حيث ادعى الضابط المسؤول بان خروجهم سوف يخل بالنظام العام. تم حجز النشطاء ما يقارب الاربع ساعات في المكتب ومنعهم من الخروج الا في حال قاموا بتسليمهم المواد والهويات بالاضافة الى تفتيشهم والتحقيق معهم. في تمام الساعة الثانية صباحاً غادرت الشرطة المكان بعد ان اعتقلت ثلاثة من النشطاء وافرجت عنهم في اليوم التالي.
لمشاهدة تقرير مصور حول الحدث اضغط/ي هنا، ولمشاهدة تقرير مصور اعده التلفزيون الاجتماعي اضغط/ي هنا
تقارير مكتوبه (بالانجليزية): حجي مطر، صحيفة هارتس، 972، الكترونيك انتفاضة، جريوزاليم بوسط، الجزيرة

في يوم الاستقلال الاسرائيلي، 26/4/2012، انضمت جمعية زخوروت الى مسيرة العودة في قريتي عمقا والكويكات والتي قامت بتنظيمها لجنة المهجرين. لقراءة الخطاب (بالانجليزية) الذي القته موران برير في المسيرة اضغط/ي هنا 

ביקשנו להפיץ חומרי הסטה
פוסט חדש בבלוג של איתן ברונשטיין
   
פוסט חדש

Tour of the destroyed Palestinian village Summayl (Near Qiryat Gat, 30 kilometers south to Ramla)
Tour of the destroyed Palestinian village Summayl and a meeting with its refugees
Date: Saturday, May 5th, 2012
Transportation: From Tel Aviv, Arlozorov train station at 9:30, and from Ramla, Orthodox school square, at 10:00
We will meet refugees of Summayl hear the story of its Nakba, tour among the ruins, post signs to commemorate the village and distribute a booklet about it.
For more information please Contact:
Zochrot's office: 03- 695 3155, Umar al-Ghubari, coordinator of tours: 052-874 3099 Tours@zochrot.org

First the Co-op – Next Tescos!

Co-operative Group Moves to End Trade Links with Those Who Trade With the Settlements

What was it that Norman Finkelstein said in that notorious interview?  That BDS is a ‘cult’.  Well it’s not so much of a cult that Britain’s fifth largest supermarket group has moved to sever links with Israeli companies that source from the Occupied Territories.

And none of this means that we therefore support trade with Israel inside the Green Line, but half a cake is better than no cake, especially when the best is yet to come!

Now that the Co-op, which feared having to face down debates at its Regional AGM’s, with the possibility of calls for more a more stringent Boycott, has taken the first move we can apply pressure on the other groups to match the Co-op.

Tony Greenstein

See

Palestine human rights campaigners today welcomed news that the UK’s fifth biggest food retailer, The Co-operative Group, will “no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements”.

The Co-op’s decision, notified to campaigners in a statement, will immediately impact four suppliers, Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company.  Mehadrin sources produce from illegal settlements, including Beqa’ot in the Occupied Jordan Valley.  During interviews with researchers, Palestinian workers in the settlement said they earn as little as €11 per day.  Grapes and dates packaged in the settlement were all labelled ‘Produce of Israel’.

Mehadrin’s role in providing water to settlement farms and its relationship with Israeli state water company Mekorot makes the company additionally complicit with Israel’s discriminatory water policies.  Other companies may be affected by the Co-op’s new policy if they are shown to be sourcing produce from Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Hilary Smith, Co-op member and Boycott Israel Network (BIN) agricultural trade campaign co-ordinator, said "we welcome this important decision by the Co-op to take steps toward fully realising their policy of support for human rights and ethical trading.  The Co-op has taken the lead internationally in this historic decision to hold corporations to account for complicity in Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.  We strongly urge other retailers to follow suit and take similar action".

The announcement by the Co-op came just before their Regional AGMs, due to take place over the next two weeks,  and where motions on this issue have been submitted for discussion.  For months Co-op members have been highlighting their concerns about trade with complicit companies through co-ordinated letter-writing and discussions with local offices.

A spokesperson from the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which works to improve the conditions of Palestinian agricultural communities, said:

"Israeli agricultural export companies like Mehadrin profit from and are directly involved in the ongoing colonisation of occupied Palestinian land and theft of our water. Trade with such companies constitutes a major form of support for Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people, so we warmly welcome this principled decision by the Co-Operative. Other European supermarkets must now take similar steps to end their complicity with Israeli violations of international law.  The movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law is proving to be a truly effective form of action in support of Palestinian rights".

Campaigners say that this widening of the Co-op's human rights and trade policy represents a victory for the BDS campaign, called for in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations.  Actions across Europe to highlight the issue of complicit agricultural trade companies have included co-ordinated popular boycotts, pickets of supermarkets, lobbying and blockades of company premises.

Last year Agrexco, formerly Israel’s largest agricultural goods exporter, was ordered into liquidation after posting record losses and failing to pay its creditors.  Shir Hever, Israeli economist and commentator who researches the economic aspects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, said that one factor was “the fact that Agrexco has been the target of an international boycott campaign, in protest at its role in repressing Palestinians”.

All other major supermarkets in the UK continue to trade with the companies that are now barred under the Co-op’s human rights and trade policy.

Contact:

Boycott Israel Network (BIN)
info@boycottisraelnetwork.org
John Snowdon, 07704567435
Sofiah MacLeod, 07931200361

About The Co-operative Group

Europeans call on supermarkets and governments to take Israeli apartheid off the menu, statement by Palestinian BDS National Committee
27th November 2011


Company Profile - Mehadrin Group, by Take Apartheid Off the Menu


Mehadrin Group - An Update, by Who Profits?

Why did Agrexco go bankrupt? by Shir Hever
JNews, 7th October 2011

Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS
9th July 2005


The Co-operative and the illegal Israeli settlements,
27th April 2012

Since 2009, The Co-operative Group has operated a Human Rights and Trade Policy, which establishes the exceptional circumstances under which we will withdraw all trade from a particular state, area or settlement.

One such circumstance is where there is a broad international consensus that the status of a settlement is illegal.

There are only two examples of such settlements: the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and the Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara.

On this basis, our policy has previously been not to source any produce or own-brand product from the Israeli settlements (or from Moroccan settlements). Since its adoption, this position has been underpinned by a rigorous monitoring process.

On the 25th April, The Co-operative’s Board determined that, going forward, we will additionally no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements. This decision will impact four suppliers*, and circa £350,000 of trade.

In reaching this decision the Board was mindful of the additional costs involved in the tracing and auditing of all produce supplied by these businesses.

In line with the Board’s decision, we have audited our supply chain and identified a small number of businesses that we can no longer source from, as there is evidence that they source from the settlements.

This position is not a boycott of Israeli businesses, and we continue to have supply agreements with some twenty Israeli suppliers that do not source from the settlements, a number of which may benefit from a transfer of trade.

We will also continue to actively work to increase trade links with Palestinian businesses in the Occupied Territories.

27th April 2012

*The four suppliers are Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin.

Jerusalem Quartet Performance Disrupted in Brighton Tonight

A Not Too Happy Zionist Ends Up Swearing!

 

The Theatre Management Warn the Audience of What's to Come

The Culture of the Oppressor Put Under the Spotlight

For a second time, the Jerusalem Quartet were part of the line-up at the Brighton Festival.  Following on from our successful disruption of their concert at London’s Wigmore Hall two years ago, some of us decided that it would be helpful if we enlivened proceedings somewhat. 

In all there were about 5 disruptions of the JQ and although they were under strict instructions to play on, the disruptions made them inaudible at times.

I won’t rehearse the old, familiar arguments about culture and politics.  This was, of course, the standard line of defence of the defenders of Apartheid in South Africa.  No doubt the Zionists would say that it would have been wrong to disrupt the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra when they portrayed the ‘cultural’ side of Nazi Germany.  And of course when it came to the issue of Soviet Jewry, the last major reservoir of Jewish immigrants in Europe who could form the settlers of the Occupied Territories, Zionist groups didn’t hesitate to disrupt the Bolshoi Ballet and other artistic representations of the Soviet Union.

Hence why the Jerusalem String Quartet’s recital at the Brighton Festival on May 8th was interrupted by protesters objecting to Israel’s apartheid system, its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, its attacks on civilians in Gaza and its suppression of Palestinian human rights in Israel and the Occupied territories.

The action was taken in line with the call from Palestinian civil society for a boycott of state-supported cultural events. The call is available at

For previous coverage of the disruption of the Jerusalem Quartet see

Jerusalem Quartet - Liars and Ambassadors on Behalf of the Israeli State

Jerusalem Quartet Disruption - Gets More Coverage

Jerusalem Quartet Concert at London's Wigmore Hall is Disrupted & Radio 3's Live Broadcast is Terminated



I was spotted during the interval and unfortunately missed adding to the heavenly delights, but not before there had been 3 prolonged disruptions with another two to come.  Since the disruptions were in groups it made little difference although it would have been nice to have added my vocal support to Israel’s music ambassadors!

Enjoy the clips of the demonstrators adding to the musical ensemble!

Tony Greenstein

Palestinian Women's Bravery Against Israeli Army Brutality

Israeli military direct pepper spray into demonstrators' faces

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4C8_dyIiHw<<< 

One can see and hear both the bravery of young Palestinian women, the brutality of the Israeli military and the complicity of G4S, a company which profits in terror and exploitation.  G4S are, of course, a company which is responsible for many abuses against asylum seekers in this country.

Tony Greenstein

From: BDS South Africa

Dear Friends and Comrades,

A recently posted YouTube video provides a glimpse of the thriving resistance of the Palestinian people, and the depravity of the Israeli military.

In the video, a young Palestinian woman climbs over an Israeli military water cannon, effectively neutralizing the vehicle, while defiantly waving the Palestinian flag atop the water canon. Sadly, the video also shows Israeli occupation forces attacking protesters with pepper spray, aimed directly (and deliberately) into their eyes and from close range.

The incident occurred at a protest in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners who are on a hunger strike. Khader Adnan, Hana Shalabi and several other Palestinian political prisoners undertook hunger strikes to highlight their unfair imprisonment by Israel (Israel's notorious "Administrative Detention" has often been compared to Apartheid South Africa's "Detention Without Trail")

This year Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations marked Palestinian Prisoners’ Day with a call to action against the security company, Group 4 Securicor (G4S). G4S maintains, services and provides equipment to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and settlements - all against international law. In effect, G4S profits from the Israeli Occupation and prison system. Earlier this year, the Edinburgh University Student Association (EUSA) passed a motion to block their university's contract with G4S, and just last month the European Union declined to renew its contract with G4S … its time to have G4S excluded from all airports, campuses and other public spaces until it ends its complicity with Israeli crimes.

Read this report and take action in your community, town, city or university campus:

The End of the 2 States 'Solution'

Any comment is superflous.  This article in itself is the answer to those, like Norman Finkelstein, who still try to deceive the movement that a 2 State Solution is possible.

Israeli civilisation - Israeli Military do their duty with flattened tents in the background

The article is published on the Counterpunch site which contains many informative and well-researched articles on Palestine, as well as utter drivel from Israel Shamir and Atzmon.  


Tony Greenstein

May 03, 2012

Illegal Settlements Bonanza - Israel Plots an Endgame

by RAMZY BAROUD

Israel’s colonization policies are entering an alarming new phase, comparable in historic magnitude to the original plans to colonize Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the war of 1967.

On April 24, an Israeli ministerial committee approved three settlement outposts – Bruchin and Rechelim in the northern part of the West Bank, and Sansana in the south. Although all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal by international law, Israeli law differentiates between sanctioned settlements and ‘illegal’ ones. This distinction has actually proved to be no more than a disingenuous attempt at conflating international law, which is applicable to occupied lands, and Israeli law, which is in no way relevant.

Since 1967, Israel placed occupied Palestinian land, privately owned or otherwise, into various categories. One of these categories is ‘state-owned’, as in obtained by virtue of military occupation. For many years, the ‘state-owned’ occupied land was allotted to various purposes. Since 1990, however, the Israeli government refrained from establishing settlements, at lease formally. Now, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now,  “instead of going to peace the government is announcing the establishment of three new settlements…this announcement is against the Israeli interest of achieving peace and a two states solution”

Although the group argues that the four-man committee did not have the authority to make such a decision, it actually matters little. Every physical space in the occupied territories – whether privately owned or ‘state owned’, ‘legally’ obtained or ‘illegally’ obtained – is free game. The extremist Jewish settlers, whose tentacles are reaching far and wide, chasing out Palestinians at every corner, haven’t received such empowering news since the heyday of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The move regarding settlements is not an isolated one. The Israeli government is now challenging the very decisions made by the Israeli Supreme Court, which has been used as a legitimization platform for many illegal settlements that drove Palestinians from their land.

On April 27, the Israeli government reportedly asked the high court to delay the demolition of an ‘unauthorized’ West Bank outpost in the Beit El settlement which was scheduled to take place on May 1st. The land, even by Israeli legal standards, is considered private Palestinian land, and the Israeli government had committed to the court to take down the illegal outposts – again, per Israeli definition – on the specified date.

Now the rightwing Netanyahu government is having another change of heart. In its request to the court, the government argued: “The evacuation of the buildings could carry social, political and operational ramifications for construction in Beit El and other settlements.” Such an argument, if applied in the larger context of the occupied territories, could easily justify why no outposts should be taken down. It could eradicate, once and for all, such politically inconvenient terms such as ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’.

“Previous Israeli governments have pledged to demolish the unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank, but only a handful have been removed,” according to CNN online. In fact, that ‘handful’ are likely to be rebuilt, amongst many more new outposts, now that the new legal precedence is underway.

Michael Sfard, an attorney with Yesh Din, which reportedly advocates Palestinian rights, described the request as “an announcement of war by the Israeli government against the rule of law.” More specifically, “they said clearly that they have reached a decision not to evacuate illegal construction on private Palestinian property.”

Some analysts suggested that Netanyahu was bowing down to the more rightwing elements in his cabinet – as if the man had, till now, been a peacemaker. The bottom line is that Israel has decided embark on a new and dangerous phase, one that violates not only international law, but Israel’s own self-tailored laws that were designed to colonize the occupied territories. It appears that even those precarious ‘laws’ are no longer capable of meeting the colonial appetite of Israeli settlers and the ruling class.

Israeli settlements have been contextualized through Israeli legal and political references, as opposed to references commonly accepted in international law. The emphasis on differences between Israeli governments, political parties and religious/ultra-nationalist settlement movements is distracting and misleading; colonizing the rest of historic Palestine has been and remains a national Israeli project.

An article in the rightwing Israeli Jerusalem Post agrees. “Support for settlement is not simply a program of right-of-center Likud. Its history has firm roots in Labor party activity during the periods of its governments, and activities by predecessors of the Labor party going back before the creation of the Israeli state” (April 27).

The only variable that might be worth examining is the purpose of the settlement, not the settlement itself. Following the war of 1967, the Allon plan sought to annex more than 30 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza for security purposes.  It stipulated the establishment of a “security corridor” along the Jordan River, as well outside the “Green Line”, a one-sided Israeli demarcation of its borders with the West Bank. Then, there was no Likud party to demonize, for that was the Labor party’s vision for the newly occupied territories.

While the Israeli settlement drive since then has swallowed much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, populating them with over half a million Israelis, the international community’s response was as moot in 1967 as it is now in 2012. Responding to the latest sanctioning of illegal outposts, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon declared that he was “deeply troubled” by the news. Meanwhile, Russia was ‘deeply concerned’ and so was the EU’s Catherine Ashton. As for the US, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted that the Israeli measure is not “helpful to the process.” What process?

While Israel has now showed all of its cards, and the international community declared its complacency or impotence, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah continues to plan some kind of UN censure of the settlements. Even if a watered-down version of some UN draft managed to survive the US veto, what are the chances of Israel heeding the call of international community?

There is no doubt that Israel is plotting its version of the endgame in Palestine, which sees Palestinians continuing to subsist in physical fragmentation and permanent occupation. Unless a popular Palestinian uprising takes hold, no one is likely to challenge what is actually an Israeli declaration of war against the Palestinian people.

Ramzy Baroud is editor of PalestineChronicle.com. He is the author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle  and  “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London).

Palestinian Hunger Strike Ignored – Chinese Dissident Feted

 What greater contrast can there be than over one thousand Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike against the brutal conditions in Israeli jails, imprisonment without trial and the occupation ‘justice’ which sees one law for the settler and another for the occupied, than the lack of coverage in the Western media.  The Press in the West, once characterised as having the prerogative of the harlet, power without responsibility, chooses to pursue a racist agenda ignoring a hunger strike by the enemies of the West’s strategic ally, Israel.  But a lone Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng is feted and praised, lavish publicity for one’s man’s struggle against the Chinese bureaucracy.

Here we see an example of how ‘human rights’ is not neutral but a plaything in the hands of imperialism, to be turned on and off at will.  The human rights of the adversaries of our competitors or enemies is to be highlighted.  The abuse of our allies to be ignored.  What was that about a free press?

Tony Greenstein

The Massive Palestinian Hunger Strike: Traveling below the Western Radar

by Richard Falk
May 3, 2012

Can anyone doubt that if there were more than 1,300 hunger strikers in any country in the world other than Palestine, the media in the West would be obsessed with the story?  It would be featured day after day, and reported on from all angles, including the severe medical risks associated with such a lengthy refusal to take food. At this time, two Palestinians who were the first to start this current wave of resistance, Thaer Halaheh and Bilal Diab, entering their 64th day without food, are reported by the prisoner protection association, Addameer, and the NGO, Physician for Human Rights-Israel, to be in critical condition with their lives hanging in the balance.  Despite this dramatic state of affairs there is scant attention in Europe, and literally none in North America.

In contrast, consider the attention that the Western media has devoted to a lone blind Chinese human rights lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, who managed to escape from house arrest in Beijing a few days ago and find a safe haven at the U.S. Embassy. This is an important international incident, to be sure, but is it truly so much more significant than the Palestinian story as to explain the total neglect of the extraordinary exploits of these thousands of Palestinians who are sacrificing their bodies, quite possibly their lives, to nonviolently protest severe mistreatment in the Israeli prison system? Except among their countrymen, and to some extent the region, these many thousand Palestinian prisoners have been languishing within an opaque black box ever since 1967, are denied protection, exist without rights, and cope as best they can without even the acknowledgement of their plight.

There is another comparison to be made. Recall the outpouring of concern and sympathy throughout the West for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured on the Gaza border and held captive by Palestinians for five years. A powerful global campaign for his release on humanitarian ground was organized, and received constant reinforcement in the media. World leaders pleaded for his release, and Israeli commanding officers even told IDF fighting forces during the massive attacks on Gaza at the end of 2008, which killed more than 1,450 Palestinians, that their real mission was to free Shalit, or at least hold accountable the entire civilian population of Gaza. When Shalit was finally released in a prisoner exchange a few months ago, there was a brief celebration that abruptly ended when, much to the disappointment of the Israeli establishment, Shalit reported good treatment during captivity. Shalit’s father went further, saying if he was a Palestinian he would have tried to capture Israeli soldiers. Not surprisingly, Shalit, instead of being revered as an Israeli hero, has quietly disappeared from public view.

This current wave of hunger strikes started on April 17th, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, and was directly inspired by the recently completed long and heroic hunger strikes of Khader Adnan (66 days) and Hana Shalabi (43 days) both of whom protested against the combination of administrative detention and abusive arrest and interrogation procedures. It should be understood that administrative detention is validated by secret evidence and allows Israel to imprison Palestinians for six months at a time without bringing any criminal charges, with terms renewable as they expire. Hana Shalabi was among those released in the prisoner exchange, but then barely recovering from her prior detention period, was rearrested in a night arrest raid, and sentenced once again to a term of confinement for four months. Or consider the experience of Thaer Halahla, eight times subject to administrative detention for a total of six and a half years.

Both Mr. Adnan and Ms. Shalabi were released by deals negotiated at a time when their physical survival seemed in doubt, making death seem imminent. Israel apparently did not want to risk a third intifada resulting as a reaction to such martyrdom. At the same time Israel, as usual, did not want to seem to be retreating, or draw into question its reliance on administrative detention and imprisonment. Israel has refused, until the present, to examine the grievances that gave rise to these hunger strikes. In Hana Shalabi’s case her release was coupled with a punitive deportation order, which cruelly confines her to Gaza for the next three years, away from her family and the familiar surroundings of her home village of Burqin near Jenin in the West Bank. There are some indications that Ms. Shalabi was not fully informed about the deportation feature of her release, and was manipulated by prison authorities and the lawyer representing her interests. The current hunger strikers have been offered similar conditional releases, but have so far steadfastly refused to resume eating if it led to deportation or exile. At this time it is unclear how Israel will respond. There is a fierce struggle of wills between the strikers and the prison authorities, between those with hard power of domination and those with the soft power of moral and spiritual courage. The torment of these striking prisoners is not only a consequence of their refusal to accept food until certain conditions are met. Israeli prison guards and authorities are intensifying the torments of hunger. There are numerous reports that the strikers are being subjected to belittling harassment and a variety of punishments, including solitary confinement, confiscation of personal belongings, denial of family visits, denial of examination by humanitarian NGOs, and a hardhearted refusals to transfer to medically threatened strikers to civilian hospitals where they could receive the kinds of medical treatment their critical conditions require.

The Israeli response to the hunger strikes is shocking, but hardly surprising, within the wider setting of the occupation. Instead of heeding the moral appeal implicit in such extreme forms of resistance, there are widespread reliable reports of punitive responses by Israeli prison authorities. Hunger strikers have been placed in solitary confinement, held in shackles despite their weakened conditions, denied family visits, had personal belongings confiscated, and subjected to harassing comments by guards intended to demoralize. Israeli media has generally taken a cynical attitude toward the strikes, suggesting that these hunger strikers are publicity seeking, aiming to receive ‘a get out of jail free’ card, and deserve no empathy even if their life is in jeopardy because they voluntarily gave up food by their own free will, and hence Israeli prison authorities have no responsibility for their fate. Some news reports in Israel have speculated about whether if one or more hunger strikers die in prison, it will spark an uprising among the Palestinians, but this is less an expression of concern or a willingness to look at the substantive issues than it is a source of worry about future stability.

Broader issues are also at stake. When in the past Palestinians resorted to violent forms of resistance they were branded by the West as terrorists, their deeds were covered to bring out sensationalist aspects, but when Palestinians resort to nonviolent forms of resistance, whether hunger strikes or BDS or an intifada, their actions fall mainly on deaf ears and blind eyes, or worse, there is a concerted propaganda spin to depict the particular tactic of nonviolent resistance as somehow illegitimate, either as a cheap trick to gain sympathy or as a dirty trick to destroy the state of Israel. All the while, Israel’s annexationist plans move ahead, with settlements expanding, and now recently, with settler outposts, formerly illegal even under Israeli law, being in the process of being retroactively legalized. Such moves signal once and for all that the Netanyahu leadership exhibits not an iota of good faith when it continues to tell the world that it is dedicated to negotiating a peace treaty with the Palestinians. It is a pity that the Palestinian Authority has not yet had the diplomatic composure to call it quits when it comes to heeding the calls of the Quartet for a resumption of direct talks. It is long past time to crumble bridge to nowhere.

That rock star of liberal pontificators, Thomas Friedman, has for years been preaching nonviolence to the Palestinians, implying that Israel as a democratic country with a strong moral sensitivity would yield in the face of such a principled challenge. Yet when something as remarkable as this massive expression of a Palestinian commitment to nonviolent resistance in the form of this open-ended hunger strike, dubbed ‘the war of empty stomachs’, takes place, Friedman along with his liberal brothers is stony silent, and the news sections of the newspaper of the New York Times are unable to find even an inch of space to report on these dramatic protests against Israel’s use of administrative detention and abusive treatment during arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment. Shame on you, Mr. Friedman!

Robert Malley, another influential liberal voice who had been a Middle East advisor to Bill Clinton when he was president, while more constrained than Friedman, suggests that any sustained display of Palestinian nonviolence if met with Israeli violence would be an embarrassment for Washington. Malley insists that if the Palestinians were to take to the streets in the spirit of Tahrir Square, and Israelis responded violently, as the Netanyahu government certainly, it “would put the United States in an … acute dilemma about how to react to Israel’s reaction.” The dilemma depicted by Malley derives from Obama’s constant encouragement of the democratic aspirations of a people who he has repeatedly said deserve their own state on the one side and the unconditional alignment with Israel on the other. Only a confirmed liberal would call this a genuine dilemma, since any informed and objective observer would know that the U.S. Government would readily accept, as it has repeatedly done in the past, an Israeli claim that force was needed to maintain public order. In this manner, Palestinian nonviolence would be disregarded, and the super-alliance of these two partners in crime once more reaffirmed.

Let there be no mistake about the moral and spiritual background of the challenge being mounted by these Palestinians. Undertaking an open ended hunger strike is an inherently brave act that is fraught with risks and uncertainties, and is only undertaken as an expression of extreme frustration or acute deprivation. It is not an act undertaken lightly or as a stunt. For anyone who has attempted to express protest in this manner, and I have for short periods during my decade of opposition to the Vietnam War, it is both scary and physically taxing even for a day or so, but to maintain the discipline and strength of will to sustain such a strike for weeks at a time requires a rare combination of courage and resolve. Only specially endowed individuals can adopt such a tactic. For a hunger strike to be done on such a scale of collective action not only underscores the horrible ordeal of the Palestinians that has been all but erased from the political consciousness of the West in the hot aftermath of the Arab Spring.

The world has long refused to take notice of Palestinian one-sided efforts over the years to reach a peaceful outcome of their conflict with Israel. It is helpful to recall that in 1988 the PLO officially accepted Israel within 1967 borders, a huge territorial concession, leaving the Palestinians with only 22% of historical Palestine on which to establish an independent and sovereign state. In recent years, the main tactics of Palestinian opposition to the occupation, including on the part of Hamas, has been to turn away from violence, adhering to a diplomacy and a practice that looked toward long-term peaceful coexistence between two peoples. Israel has not taken note of either development, and has instead continuous thrown sand in Palestinian eyes. The official Israeli response to Palestinian moves toward political restrain and away from violence have been to embark upon a program of feverish  settlement expansion, extensive targeted killing, reliance on excessive retaliatory violence, as well as an intensifying oppressiveness that gave rise to these hunger strikes. One dimension of this oppressiveness is the 50% increase in the number of Palestinians held under administrative detention during of the last year, along with an officially mandated worsening of conditions throughout its prison system.

Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Read more articles by Richard Falk.

The Cowardice of the Methodist Church

One should not of course be too surprised by the cowardly refusal of the Methodist Church to stand up and be counted where Palestinian repression is concerned.  In the 1930’s, the German Church, without exception, failed to oppose Hitler’s anti-Semitism as they were signed up to his wars of aggression.  This was true not only of the Reich Church but its erstwhile opponents in the Confessing Church.

The Church’s primary function has always been to appease the guilty consciences of the rich and that is why the British state has the established church at its very heart.  Whilst the Methodist Church may not be a state church, its founder John Wesley was a reactionary to the core.  Methodism has always distinguished itself by its conservatism such as opposition to the French Revolution and support for the Government after the Peterloo Massacre. 

It is therefore no surprise that with the advent of the movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, the Methodist Church holds that basic solidarity is ‘divisive and counter-productive to peace.’

Tony Greenstein

 United Methodist Church’s shameful failure to divest from injustice

Susan Abulhawa
The Electronic Intifada
4 May 2012

This week, amidst the incredible ongoing mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners, some of them on the brink of starvation, the United Methodist Church failed to pass a resolution to divest from three major beneficiaries of the most incendiary human rights abuses and colonial crimes of our time.
Among the heartbreaking collection of ignorant statements, delegates had the audacity to claim that divestment was divisive and counterproductive to peace.

Many things in this conflict are divisive and counterproductive to peace. A 30-foot concrete wall with guard towers not unlike those that once encircled the Warsaw ghetto is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Policies of the state purposely designed to make human beings, entire Palestinian families and communities, homeless, through systematic and regular home demolitions, is divisive and counterproductive to peace. The arrest, detention, torture of Palestinian children is divisive and counterproductive to peace.

The indefinite imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Outright land theft, that Israel makes no pretense of hiding, is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Siphoning of water so Jews can have swimming pools while Palestinians must ration water is divisive and counterproductive to peace.

A total of 954 checkpoints and barriers peppered throughout the West Bank to impede movement of Palestinians is divisive and counterproductive to peace. “Battle testing” new weaponry on a principally unarmed civilian population with no place to run or hide is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Jewish-only housing and roads are divisive and counterproductive to peace. They are the epitome of apartheid; and apartheid is divisive and counter to basic human
dignity.

Divestment is not divisive

Divesting from three of the chief corporate beneficiaries of these crimes that aim to wipe an entire native population off the map is not divisive. It is, in fact, a token expression of decency that acknowledges the basic humanity of Palestinians. It is a symbolic show of solidarity with an oppressed people who are facing imminent demise. And in that way, it was the smallest test of morality, which the United Methodist Church has so shamefully failed.

So there is no mistake of what this decision means, let me be very clear. Through their words, actions and financial investment, the United Methodist Church will continue to support three companies that profit from Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

The church has decided to support Caterpillar, which supplies the bulldozers and other earth eviscerating equipment used by Israel to demolish the homes, farms and orchards of human beings whose primary crime (let us not lie!) is that they are non-Jewish natives living on property Israel wants to steal and hand over to Jewish residents, most often imported from other countries.

The church has decided to support Hewlett-Packard, which provides advanced biometric technology that effectively monitor and confine 5 million human beings (all non-Jewish, of course) into small enclaves and open-air prisons.

And the church has decided to support Motorola, which furnishes surveillance equipment for illegal, Jewish-only colonies built on confiscated Palestinian land.

For an analogy of the meaning, change the date and the names of companies, perhaps to those that benefited from transporting Jews to death camps, or those that supplied weapons used to mow down schoolboys in Soweto, or bus lines that made black folk sit in the back and give up their seats for whites. Who would call divesting from such abominations divisive and counterproductive to peace? And tell me the difference between the behavior of those companies and the three aforementioned.

An utter disgrace

Kairos and people of conscience tried to find something positive in this ignominy, claiming it a victory for those fighting for justice because the divestment debate itself ignites a conversation from which there is no retreat. I don’t deny the truth in that. But it is wrong to stop there because it was so much more than that.

It was an utter disgrace, a blight on the church of the same magnitude as that which comes from the institutional failure to speak up for Jews in the late 1930s.

And when juxtaposed to the courage, principled fortitude, and ineffable will of 2,000 human beings with nothing but their hunger to protest Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian society — the actual natives of the Holy Land — the decision of the United Methodist Church delegates becomes vulgar and unforgivable.

Just this week alone, a woman in Gaza was shot by Israeli soldiers who opened fire on farmers working on their own land in Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis. In a previous incident of Israeli target practice on Monday, another Palestinian farmer was shot in the same area.

On Wednesday, Israeli bulldozers demolished 13 sheds and tents belonging to the Jahalin Bedouin tribe, near Jerusalem, leaving several families without shelter for themselves of their livestock. These ancient dwellers of the land have been particularly hard-hit by Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies, as their homes are routinely destroyed and they are pushed off their lands as if cattle in broad daylight.
Last week, Israeli forces evicted a Palestinian family from their home in Beit Hanina and moved Jewish settlers in their place, a scandalously racist Israeli practice that has escalated in and around Jerusalem to Judaize historically Palestinian areas.

At the same time, Israeli settlers this week constructed twenty new homes on privately-owned Palestinian land in an illegal outpost known as Ulpana, in Beit El settlement northeast of Ramallah.
There were at least 57 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip just this week alone.

Failure to take a moral stand

Reverend Alex Joyner, who opposed the resolution, said, “We are all concerned about the suffering and the ongoing occupation, because it is hurting Israeli and Palestinian society. But what the church has said is we want a positive step, and we reject punitive measures as a way of trying to bring peace.”

His platitudes and patronizing drivel aside, what measures, pray tell, does the Reverend Joyner propose to bring peace to Palestinian children who are systematically terrorized and traumatized by Israel to the point that 98.6 percent of them suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder? Or to the hundreds of children kidnapped in the middle of the night from their families and thrown into jails where their fragile spirits waste away without charge, without trial, without mercy?

The United Methodist Church had a historic opportunity to take a moral stand, however unpopular but undoubtedly moral. Instead, they took a decision that moves them toward the realm of moral irrelevance.

But to all Palestinians, to all people of conscience and to those Methodists who stood on the right side of justice, where Jesus would undoubtedly stand, take heart! Take heart! Palestinians may be starving, languishing and bleeding, but Israel and its backers are rotting at their core, because that’s what racism, self-interest at all costs, and cowardice does to the soul.

Take heart and do not despair. We have not reached the end of history. There is still blood in our veins, air in our lungs and brilliant souls in our wombs. They have but the cold steel of death machines and the moral void of lies, which cannot and will not prevail against naked hearts and empty stomachs taking up the good fight for freedom.

Susan Abulhawa is the author of the international bestselling novel Mornings in Jenin.

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren Tries to Suppress CBS Programme on Christians

'Well There's a First Time For Everything, Bob!'

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's Response to Bob Simon's observation that he has never experienced an attempt at censorship by another state before

Not for nothing is Israel known as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East.’  The genocidal leaders of American fundamentalist Christians – Pastor John Hagee, Pat Robertson et al. have a ‘dispensationalist’ view that the Jews' 'return' to Palestine is the precondition for the return of Christ.  Christians in Palestine don’t exist for them.  They receive no support as the anti-Semitic US Christians interpret the Bible so as to exclude Palestinians who are Christian.  Indeed the whole of US fundamentalist Christianity is based on denying the fact that Jesus was a Palestinian.

It is to the credit of CBS that they stood up to the pressure of Israel’s propagandists and diplomats.  Michael Oren was put under the spotlight by Bob Simon who told him that this attempt, by an Ambassador of a foreign state, to get a programme suppressed, when he didn’t even know what was in the documentary (but suspected that anything true would be adverse) was the first in his experience.  Oren responds:  ‘Well there’s a first time for everything Bob!’

Tony Greenstein

Top Ten Reasons Israel tried to Censor Bob Simon’s Report on Palestinian Christians

"Well, there is a first time for everything, Bob" ??

by Juan Cole

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren not only called the head of CBS news in an attempt to quash a report on the displacement of Palestinian Christians by the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but he briefed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the far right wing Likud Party on his attempt.

Here are the top ten reasons Israel’s Likud Party would have wanted to censor American television news on this occasion (and of course we don’t know all the occasions they have successfully done so):

1. The report told Americans that there are Palestinian Christians. Right wing Israelis have attempted to displace, expropriate and erase the Palestinian nation, and to convince Americans that Palestinians don’t exist or if they do are enemies of the U.S. When the foe of the US was the Soviet Union, they made the Palestinians Communists. When the foe became al-Qaeda, they made the Palestinians violent fundamentalists. But if some percentage of Palestinians is Christians, then that fact disrupts the propaganda. In fact, millions of Palestinians are descended from the 700,000 or so Palestinians ethnically cleansed by the Israelis from what is now Israel in 1948, of whom about 10 percent were Christian.

2. The report mentioned that some Palestinians are Lutherans, Catholics and Episcopalians, establishing a link of commonality between them and Americans. The Israeli Likud Party wants Americans identifying only with Israelis, not with Palestinians.

3. The report told Americans that Israel is occupying and colonizing Palestinian land. Most Americans think it is the other way around because of the success of Likud disinformation.

4. The report let it slip that Palestinians in the West Bank need a permit to travel to Arab East Jerusalem and are subjected within the West Bank to humiliating check points that turn a 7 mile journey into an all-day ordeal. This system sounds an awful lot like the old South African Apartheid.

5. The report allowed Palestinians to speak for themselves and to refute Oren’s anti-Palestinian talking points. It is a key principle of right wing Israeli propaganda that Palestinians should never be allowed to challenge the Israeli narrative on American television.

6. The report allowed a prominent Palestinian businessman and Coca Cola distributor to say that he knew of no Palestinian Christians who were leaving the West Bank and Jerusalem because of Muslims but that rather they were leaving because of Israeli oppression.

7. It allowed the Palestinians to point out that the West Bank now looks like Swiss cheese, with Israeli colonies grabbing the good land and water, and the stateless Palestinians pushed into the holes.

8. The report described the Palestinian Kairos Document, calling for nonviolent, peaceful struggle by Palestinians against Israeli Occupation and land grabs. Likud propaganda insists in racist fashion that all Palestinians are inherently angry and violent and that their protest against being made stateless and homeless by Israel is irrational.

9. The report quotes an Israeli scholar who puts “Political Judaism” on par with “Political Islam.” It is a key principle of Likud propaganda that no movement in Israel may ever be compared to movements in the Muslim world.

10. The report allows Palestinians to point out that the way the Israelis built the Separation Wall isolated Bethlehem, Jesus’s birthplace and a city that still is 18% Christian, had made it “an open-air prison.”

The Jewish Chronicle’s EDL Supporting Blogger

‘I’d have no problem standing with the EDL… In fact, I’m surprised there aren’t more Brits demonstrating against Islamofascists

Only a couple of weeks after the Jewish Chronicle was found to have been allowing the BNP’s candidate for the London Mayoralty to have a blog on its site,  the Jewish Chronicle has a new hate blog on its site, this time mocking a former kidnap victim, John McCarthy, who was captured in Lebanon.

But if the excuse last time was that the JC had an open blog policy (despite banning people like myself!) what is the excuse this time for having a blogger who declares that he would ‘have no problem’ standing with the EDL.  Under ex-Express editor Stephen Pollard, the JC has been dragged even further to the right and finds it difficult to exclude on grounds of anti-Semitism those with whom it has so much else in common.

Tony Greenstein

Jewish Chronicle’s new hate blog shame: mocking a former kidnap victim

Ben White on Fri 05/04/2012

UK newspaper The Jewish Chronicle (The JC), a publication well known for its attacks on pro-Palestinian solidarity activists, has published a blog mocking a former hostage.

Under the title ‘John McCarthy: Now where’s that radiator?’ a blogger called Melchett Mike expressed his unhappiness with the British journalist’s new book, concluding: “we can only be sorry that he is not still there [chained to a radiator]” - a reference to McCarthy’s five years in captivity after being kidnapped in Lebanon in the 1980s.

It turns out that this particular blogger, Melchett Mike, has also previously expressed support for Islamophobic hate group the English Defence League (EDL). Commenting on another blog run by pro-Israel activist Richard Millett in 2010, he said:

'I’d have no problem standing with the EDL… In fact, I’m surprised there aren’t more Brits demonstrating against Islamofascists.'

It was only recently that The JC was embarrassed by revelations that the far-right British National Party (BNP)’s candidate for London mayor had been posting blogs on their website. In a fumbled damage limitation exercise, Editor Stephen Pollard claimed he had blocked the BNP activist’s access in September – yet refused to explain how a further post was published in November.

Pollard was right to point out that the BNP politician was taking advantage of an open access blog hosting policy, where anyone could register and post. However, since that no longer exists, Melchett “I’d have no problem standing with the EDL” Mike is presumably an approved, invited blogger.

That Pollard is happy to oversee a publication hosting such posts is sadly not so surprising. Last year, The JC Editor stood by a columnist who expressed “pleasure” at the killing in Gaza of Italian human rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni.