Normal Service Will be Resumed Soon

On Vacation!

My apologies for not having posted awhile but I'm on holiday in Italy with my kids!

That hasnàt stopped the Zionist nutter who is obsessed by my family from posting 37 times! But then the Zionist movement attracts its fair share of cranks who like talking to themselves. Since he is afraid of putting his own name to some of his vile posts, like celebrating the death of Victoria Buch, none of his comments will appear, unless I consider they are good enough examples of the bitter and twisted racist mentality of Zionismàs diaspora fanatics!!

I havenàt been totally idle though! I took a biography of Raoul Wallenberg with me. Wallenberg was the Swedish diplomat who through his unorthodox methods was able to save up to 100,000 of Budapestàs Jews from the Nazis, unlike the Zionist leader Rudolf Kasztner who saved 1684 of the àProminentsà (his description) by helping Eichmann to keep the Jews of Hungary quiet and uninformed.

The second book is by Enzo Traverso and is equally interesting. It is àUnderstanding the Nazi Genocide - Marxism after Auschwitz.à And when I get back to blighty I have 2 articles to write - one on Atzmonàs move to far-right anti'Semitic conspiracy stuff and the other a book review of Francis Nicosiaàs Zionism and anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, which despite the puff is extremely disappointing.

Tony Greenstein

Paris bookstore attacked, books destroyed by Zionist fanatics of the "Jewish Defence League"

The true face of Zionist 'democracy' was demonstrated last Friday in Paris, when the fascist thugs of the Jewish Defence League attacked a left-wing bookstore and destroyed the books and computers in it with impunity. Attacks on bookshops have a long fascist pedigree so it is no surprise that this bookshop was a target. The silence of Zionist leaders has been conspicuous by its absence. If this was an attack by Muslims on a Zionist bookshop the air would be full of accusations of 'anti-semitism'. There are no similar cries of anti-Arabic racism since only a week ago President Sarkozy was stirring up hatred against Muslims by devoting his speech to an attack on the Burka, a garment worn by a tiny fraction of Muslim women. Presumably there were no greater ills in French society than this to catch his attention. Tony Greenstein

Paris bookstore attacked, books destroyed by Zionist fanatics of the "Jewish Defence League"

Early in the afternoon of Friday, July 3, a half dozen thugs, mostly masked, openly belonging to the Jewish Defence League (Kahana group), assaulted and vandalized the bookstore Résistances in the 17th arrondissement of Paris (4 Villa Compoint).

The bookstore includes a reading room offering free use of computers, plus an auditorium which often hosts well-attended conferences by authors. The day before, a conference was given there by Mahmoud Suleiman from the Palestinian village of Al-Masara on non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation.

Instead of burning books, the Zionist fanatics ruined them by drowning them in cooking oil. They also smashed the computers.

As usual, they escaped before the police arrived. So far this highly active group has enjoyed total impunity for its attacks on property and persons. (translated by Diana Johnstone)

Some of us went there to see what had h appened, seeing as the Résistances telephone line was no longer functioning. This isn't the first time they've been victims of the Betar or the Ligue de Défense Juive (Jewish Defence League) - remember the teargas attack the night when Tanya Reinhart was speaking. Just two weeks ago, when the store was closed at night, the shutter had been painted with the star of David plus the LDJ signature.

Today the bookstore is in a terrible state - thousands of books covered in oil litter the floors - there is oil everywhere on the floors, and attempting to move anywhere is treacherous. The attack took place around 2 p.m., shortly after the store opened. Present at the time were only
Genevieve at the front desk, Olivia at her computer behind the counter in the middle room, and two clients. Five men dressed in black and wearing cagoules and black gloves rushed in yelling loudly through the front door and claiming they belonges to LDJ. They hurled the books off
the shelves and doused them with cooking oil and then charged down the corridor to the middle reading-room where they did the same; they also smashed the five computers there. The thugs stayed no more than 4-5 minutes, and were seen leaving by the library's neighbours.ve called the police.

The police subsequently showed up, too late to apprehend anyone of course. They took photos, taking away some of the empty oil bottles. It was even dangerous to move on the pavement outside, as that was completely covered in oil also. Quite a lot of the Résistances supporters were milling around outside, having gone there like us to show solidarity.

The LDJ, banned in the US - and even in Israel - are able to go on the rampage in France and are never punished, even when they've been occasionally caught on film while attacking.

annie (AAW = Americans Against War)

Numerous peace organisations, bookstores and library networks are calling for a rally next Wednesday to demand that these dangerous thugs be brought to justice and that the JDL be banned from operating in France. The rally will take place on Wednesday 8 July at 7 p.m. in front of the Résistances bookstore at 4 Villa Compoint, near 42 rue Guy Moquet, Paris 17 (metro Guy Moquet or Brochant, line 13).

We would like to thank the many who have sent messages of support to the bookstore. A video with English subtitles will be available tomorrow on http://www.europalestine.fr and other websites.

Video: http://www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article4252
More (in French): http://www.europalestine.com/

HEBREW And ARABIC TEXT

See on the Israeli website : http://kedma.co.il/index.php?id=2527&t=pages

Gilad Atzmon's attack on Judeo-Marxism and Israeli anti-Zionist Moshe Machover

Atzmon's Racist Attack on Israeli anti-Zionist Moshe Machover

As Gilad Atzmon moves further and further down the road of anti-Semitism and away from any anti-Zionist critique, he focuses what passes for his ‘analysis’ on Professor Moshe Machover, an Israeli anti-Zionist living in London.

For those who don’t know, Machover founded Matzpen, the Socialist Organisation in Israel which he helped found in 1962. Machover has been an inspiration in his conviction and articulation of anti-Zionist politics. As such, he is an obvious target for the bile of Atzmon, who prefers the analysis and company of outright Zionists to that of Jewish anti-Zionists.

In his ‘Tribal Marxism for Dummies’ Atzmon achieves what many of us thought impossible. A new low. He informs us that with Israel’s war crimes now proven to the world ‘No one needs the odd kosher ‘righteous Jew’ to approve that this is indeed the case.’ Quite.

Moshe Machover is a secular Marxist as well as being Jewish, yet this doesn’t stop Atzmon from attacking his ‘tribally orientated pseudo-analytical vision of reality.’ After all ‘Jewish Marxism is very different from Marxism or socialism in general.’ An interesting thesis. Even Hitler might have had trouble with that one! The erudite Atzmon informs us that ‘While Marxism is a universal paradigm, its Jewish version is very different. It is there to mould Marxist dialectic into a Jewish subservient precept.’

The fact that Marxism is, above all, predicated on rationalism whereas religion, in all its manifestations is based on received wisdom and faith in the irrational is passed over. There is Marxism and Jewish Marxism. Leave aside that many of the founders of the Marxist and Communist tradition were themselves of Jewish origin, including Marx himself, what Atzmon is peddling is no more than an updated version of the idea that Marxism is a Jewish conspiracy to enslave the non-Jew.

But having told us that ‘Jewish Marxism’ is merely a ‘Judeo-centric pseudo intellectual setting which aims at political power.’ Atzmon informs us that Marxism in all its guises is irrelevant because there is ‘little in common’ between Gaza and Nablus today with 19th century Europe.' Atzmon in this phrase demonstrate his intellectual and philosophical prowess. The whole point of Marxism is that it is a tool of analysis and understanding that isn’t confined to one particular geographical area or era. Hence why it’s understanding of capitalism has laid bare the vacuity of New Labour with its ‘end to boom and bust’. Capitalism is nothing if not crisis ridden.

But I digress. ‘Jewish Marxists had a far more adventurous plan for Palestinians, Arab people and the region in general.’ They wanted all Arabs to become ‘cosmopolitan atheists’ and “drop ‘reactionary Islam’”. Of course Atzmon doesn’t deign to source or footnote his assertions, because that is all they are, the assertions of a conspiracy theorist who has all but lost touch with reality.

Atzmon takes particular exception to Machover’s unremarkable statement that Islamic anti-imperialism is ‘backward looking’. Of course any Marxist worth their salt would share the position that not only Islam, but all religion is backward looking and when it comes part of the ideology of an oppressed people it cannot but become a hindrance in terms of being able to appeal to a wider audience.

Hamas, which Atzmon flatters to deceive, is a good case in point. The attraction of Hamas to Palestinians was not because of their fundamentalist ideology but they represented an opposition to Zionism and the Israeli occupation which, unlike Fatah, had dined so long at the table of the ‘peace process’ that all they could look forward to was a few crumbs of comfort. Of course Hamas too is not without original sin. As Avi Shlaim and others have pointed out, Hamas was all but the creation of Israel’s secret police, Shin Bet, in the 1980’s as a counter-weight to secular Palestinian groups.

As is well known, Atzmon detests Moshe Machover because he represents everything he is not. Machoer never felt the need to swap one form of racism for another coming from a long tradition of Jewish opposition to racism. Atzmon comes from the tradition of Zionist racism, except that he has transferred that racism in the direction of other Jews, in particular anti-Zionist Jews. Hence his nonsensical statements that ‘Jewish Marxism is there to… stop scrutiny of Jewish power and Jewish lobbying.’ Note ‘Jewish Power’ not Zionist power or lobbying even. What Atzmon doesn’t tell us that this comes from someone who has swapped Jewish fundamentalism for Christian fundamentalism!

Unlike the good Atzmon ‘Machover’s reading of Zionism is pretty trivial.’ And what is the triviality that this genius of Jewish power detects? “ ‘Israel’, he says, is a ‘settler state’. For Machover this is a necessary point of departure because it defines Zionism as a colonialist expansionist project.”

And therein lies the rub. Atzmon being a plain vanilla anti-Semite rejects the idea that Israel is a product of the colonial era and is the only surviving example of a settler-colonial state. The idea that Zionist settlers came to dispossess, with the might of the British army to protect them, is anathema to Atzmon. It all happened because they were Jews! No doubt the oppression of the Irish was on account of the peculiar racial qualities of the British. But this is important to Atzmon because ‘As long as Zionism is conveyed as a colonial project, Jews, as a people, should be seen as ordinary people. They are no different from the French and the English, they just happen to run their deadly colonial project in a different time.’

Leaving aside Atzmon’s conflation of Jews and Zionists, this is the heart of Atzmon’s reactionary rejection of the colonial explanation. If it were all a matter of imperialism and colonialism then Jews might be seen as ‘ordinary people’ when we all know that they are the devil’s spawn.

But unfortunately Machover, when putting forward his tribal thesis forgot to take account of the Atzmon genius. ‘His entire premise can be demolished in a one simple move.’ And here is the killer punch. ‘If Israel is a ‘settler state’ as he says, one may wonder, what exactly is its ‘motherland? In British and French colonial eras, the settler states maintained a very apparent tie with their ‘motherland’. In some cases in history, the settler state broke from its motherland…. However, as far as we are aware, there is no ‘Jewish motherland’ that is intrinsically linked to the alleged ‘Jewish settler state…. The lack of material Jewish motherland leads to the immediate collapse of Machover’s colonial argument.’

Or so Atzmon hopes. Unfortunately his one semi-argument is itself built on sand. The essential feature of settler colonialism, except in its earliest phase, is not the tie to the motherland. Anyone in the least acquainted with the history of the white British colonies – Australia, Canada, the USA, South Africa – will be aware of one thing. As soon as the settlers have achieved critical mass and are able to go on to the offensive against the natives, then they begin to turn their minds to rebellion and revolt, or at the very least to loosening if not breaking those very same ties with the mother country. Hence why, by the beginning of the 20th Century, most of the white colonies had achieved a form of semi-independence, i.e. Dominion Status. This was in fact the demand until 1945 of Ghandi and Congress. In return for control over things like foreign and military affairs with ultimate constitutional power residing in the British Crown, the white settler states achieved home rule and de facto independence. Even the Irish Free State (Eire) was given Dominion status and therefore a place within the British Empire until 1945.

In fact Israel too had a mother country, in terms of a sponsor. It’s just that Atzmon knows nothing about the history of Zionism. That sponsor was Britain, which in 1917 issued the Balfour Declaration. Although the Zionists went to war with the British after 1945 this was not at all unique. In South Africa there was the Boer War. In the USA there was a War of Independence. In Rhodesia there was UDI under Ian Smith. And in South Africa a majority of the settlers didn’t even see Britain as a mother country and in the American colonies this also was true. And from 1945 onwards Israel replaced Britain with the United States as its sponsoring power.

But to Atzmon ‘it may be true that Zionism carries some colonial elements and yet, it is not a colonial project per se, for no one can present a material correspondence between Jewish ‘motherland’ and a Jewish ‘settler state’. The Jewish national project is unique in history and as it seems it doesn’t fit into any Marxist materialist explanation.’ Of course there is an obvious and gaping hole in what passes for Atzmon’s logic. Whether a state is a settler colonial state is not dependent on whether the colonists look towards a motherland. After all South Africa declared itself a republic in 1961. Australia is likely to do the same within the next decade. The American colonies did just that but in none of these cases did that prevent them from being settler-colonial states. Settler-colonialism is nothing more than settlers creating their own distorted class structures, including a settler working class, who colonised the land and either drove the indigenous population out, exterminated them or exploited them. The question of a motherland is in fact largely irrelevant.

But to the Jewish conspiracist Atzmon “Machover’s ‘settler state’ is just another Judeo Marxist spin that is there to divert the attention from the clear fact that Israel is the Jewish state.’ But of course. What is unique about Israel is not that it is the product of western imperialism but the fact that it is Jewish , even though what is being created is a Hebrew-speaking people whose primary difference from other peoples is their language. There is no other specificity.

Atzmon takes especial except to Machover’s claim that “Islam “is backward looking and inherently unable to deliver progress.” He sees it ‘important to make sure that every Muslim on this planet grasps that an Elder Jew Marxist from London is convinced that they should throw away their Qur’an.’ Note ‘Elder Jew’. Atzmon just loves paraphrasing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hitler loved the book and it was a source of inspiration to the Nazis. It is likewise a source of metaphor and understanding to Atzmon. The fact that it is a forgery, something The Times discovered in 1921 is irrelevant.

One might have thought that Atzmon would pause to take on board the actions of the Islamic state of Iran and draw some conclusions from how it is doing to its own people what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. But no doubt Atzmon, like his mentor Israel Shamir, is fully supportive of Ahmedinajad’s open rigging of the elections, his attack on workers and students and his anti-gay (& anti-Arab) politics. To Atzmon, the most reactionary aspect of Hamas’s politics, its anti-working class practices, its elitism and patronage, is what appeals most. An anti-socialist organisation in the forefront of the resistance.

Now all socialists support the oppressed and when Hamas is under attack from Israel one defends it unconditionally. But when Hamas attacks fellow Palestinian trade unionists, women and democrats one opposes them. Such subtleties are too much for Atzmon to take in.

Indeed Atzmon gives every appearance of having got lost amidst the conspiracies. He praises Nick Griffin of the BNP, a good Zionist incidentally, for being ‘kind enough to offer ‘foreigners’ £50,000 to go back to their ‘homeland’,” whereas ‘our Kosher Marxist Machover is set to rob the indigenous of his belief on his land.’

Note the sleight of hand. The BNP merely want to expel the foreigner but at least he offers them some compensation! Machover is far worse. He wants to take away their belief in Islam, because in his fevered mind, all Palestinians are Islamicsts. Of course Palestinians are not the monolithic ideological bag carriers that Atzmon imagines them to be in a typically racist view of colonial peoples. Palestinians have many views about religion, as is appropriate to a people who have emulated the Jews of the diaspora in their devotion to education.

And continuing his ludicrous attempt to find a stick to beat Machover and ‘Jewish Marxism’ with he criticises the statement that equal rights are a precondition for resolving the conflict in Palestine. Apparently ‘Machover somehow failed to realise that the Jewish state is not going to willingly approve any form of equality, for Jewish political ideology does not succumb to the belief in human equality.’ I have a strong suspicion that Moshe Machover is all too aware that Israel is not going to concede equal rights without a fight! Name me a settler-colonial state which did!

As far as I know, Atzmon still rejects the idea that he is a racist. However it is clear beyond any doubt now that Atzmon is not only a reactionary politically but a racist as well. It is not, of course ‘Jewish political ideology’ that rejects human equality. This is the touchstone of all settler-colonial ideologies, be it Protestant Supremacy in Ireland, Afrikaaner and White nationalism in South Africa or the Jim Crow laws and segregation in the USA. In other words supremacism has nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent nature of any particular religious ideology. Religion may justify racism but it doesn’t cause it.

Atzmon takes particular exception to Machover’s call for the de-Zionisation of Israel. He informs us that ‘Machover, who doesn’t even live in Israel, believes that he can tell the Israelis in what kind of country they should live in.’ So applying this logic Atzmon too should shut up! Noone should have any view of anything outside their own anthill. No one is entitled to express any opinion about anything outside of their own lebensraum.

Atzmon also doesn’t like the call for a single state to be democratic and therefore secular. ‘Once again the Elder Jew Marxist… is telling the Palestinians and the Israelis that if they want to live together they better be secular. One should admit by now, it indeed takes some chutzpah to be a Judeo Marxist.’ Note the Nazi phrase ‘Judeo Marxist’ or as they preferred it ‘Judeo-Bolshevik’. Despite his protestations, Atzmon has moved another step down the road to becoming a fully fledged and open anti-Semite and neo-Nazi supporter. I don’t say he has reached that destination yet but ideologically that is the direction he is moving in. Quite why there is anything ‘Jewish’ in advocating secularism and seeing it as a pre-condition for the resolution of the Israeli Jewish-Palestinian conflict within the borders of one state is never explained. That the removal of religion from the confines of the state to the privacy of one’s home is an essential prerequisite for the liberation of all within Palestine doesn’t seem to have occurred to Atzmon, for whom the more ‘Islamic’ as opposed to ‘Jewish’ a state is the better.

For Atzmon ‘Islam is the rising force, whether our four Judeo Marxists like it or not, Hamas scored astunning win in the first Palestinian parliamentary election which it has taken part in.’ err yes. But why did they win? Anything to do with the quisling administration in Ramallah? Perish the thought. Atzmon supports them too!

And posing now as the potential saviour of the socialist movement, Atzmon intones that ‘the time may be ripe for Socialists and Marxists to save themselves from the Judeo political grip.’

What is interesting about this otherwise deadly dull and racist article, with its homage not only to religioud obscurantism, but the most backward elements within those religions, is that even on the Palestinian Sink Tank’s own pages, Atzmon has been criticised. His racist rant has been seen as completely over the top even by the Sink Tank’s usual Palestinian supporters. Even Mary Rizzo has come out with criticisms of Atzmon citing, in the comments section, the criticism of one Hussein Ibish of the colonial analysis. Ibish is an Arab American commentator who calls for the recognition of Israel, opposition to the Boycott and of course opposition to the idea that Israel might be a colonial entity. In other words in his search for allies Atzmon is forced to seek comfort from the most reactionary, quisling elements in Arab society.

This article is only interesting in that it pinpoints the trajectory that Atzmon is taking as he consorts openly with holocaust deniers such as Michelle Renouf, the only person to keep David Irving company through his libel trial battle with Penguin Books some years ago.

Almost unbelievable is the fact that the Socialist Workers Party, who are reputed to have dropped Atzmon, nonetheless still carry a statement by him Gilad Atzmon and Marxism 2005 denying that he is a holocaust denier or an anti-Semite. accessed 5.7.09.

Housing Minister: Spread of Arab population must be stopped

In any other country it would be the cause for large headlines and demands for his sacking and prosecution. Imagine a British Housing Minister saying openly that the spread of Muslims or Blacks into areas that Whites live must be stopped. They are a threat to the 'native' British. Such sentiments would be recognised for what they are - the virulent racism of the British National Party and similar fascist groupings. It is no wonder that the BNP is the most devoted supporter of Israel among British political parties. Everything they would like to do in Britain has already been achieved in Israel. Indeed Nick Griffin must look on in envy at how Israel gets away with this naked racism - which is what Zionism represents - whilst he is criticised for far milder comments. Tony Greenstein
Housing Minister Ariel Atias on Thursday warned against the spread of Arab population into various parts of Israel, saying that preventing this phenomenon was no less than a national responsibility. By Guy Lieberman, Haaretz Correspondent 21:30 02/07/2009

I see [it] as a national duty to prevent the spread of a population that, to say the least, does not love the state of Israel

Atias told a conference of the Israel Bar Association, which focused on a reforming Israel's Land Administration. The Shas minister referred to Harish, a housing project built for the Haredi community in northern Israel, saying that the Arab population from the nearby Wadi Ara was spreading into the Harish area.
Atias went on to address the issue of the Galilee, saying that "if we go on like we have until now, we will lose the Galilee. Populations that should not mix are spreading there. I don't think that it is appropriate [for them] to live together." "Look at what happened in Acre," Atias continued, referring to violent protests that broke out on the Eve of Yom Kippur last year over Jewish-Arab tensions in the mixed town. "The mayor of Acre visited me yesterday for three hours and asked me how his town could be saved," Atias said. "He told me 'bring a bunch of Haredis and we'll save the city, even if I lose my political standing.' He told me that Arabs are living in Jewish buildings and running them out." Atias argued that lands should be marketed to each sector separately, in order to create segregation, not just between Jews and Arabs but also between other sectors, such as ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews.

"There is a severe housing crisis among the young ultra-Orthodox couples, and in the general population. I, as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, don't think that religious Jews should have to live in the same neighborhood as secular couples, so as to avoid unnecessary friction. And since some 5,000 to 6,000 religious couples get married every year, a problem arises because they require a certain kind of community life that goes along with their lifestyle."

The housing minister went on to say that the problem stemmed from faulty handling of land within the Land Administration and the Housing Ministry, among other reasons. "

Today there is a serious housing crisis facing all the young couples in Israel, in part because of the limited appropriation of land in recent years in the Lands Administration and the Housing Ministry, and also due to faulty decision making which resulted from the high turnover of ministers over the last decade. 8 ministers have held the office of Housing minister in the last decade and the Land Administration wasn?t under the ministry's authority for part of the time.

According to Atias, the solution he is spearheading is to flood the market with available land for housing construction. Atias explained that a team of planners has already begun working on the project. "I plan to market large amounts of land to the Arab population in the Galilee in order to solve their problems, as well as land for secular and religious Jews," he said. see also Minister Atias: Stop Arab takeover in north and Jews, Arabs should not live together: Israeli minister

Cynthia McKinney: Letter from an Israeli Jail.

As Israel's open piracy, the kidnapping of 21 peace lovers on the Spirit of Humanity, is condoned by world leaders whose tongues have all been silent, Cynthia McKinney, a former Congresswoman who the Zionist lobby targetted, pens a letter from her prison. Imagine what would have happened and the outcry if Iran had done the same. This is the utter hypocrisy of those who preach about 'terrorism' 'the international community' and the 'rule of law'. Tony Greenstein

Letter from an Israeli Jail
By Cynthia McKinney.

This letter was first broadcast on WBAIX on July 3rd.

This is Cynthia McKinney and I’m speaking from an Israeli prison cellblock in Ramle. [I am one of] the Free Gaza 21, human rights activists currently imprisoned for trying to take medical supplies to Gaza, building supplies - and even crayons for children, I had a suitcase full of crayons for children. While we were on our way to Gaza the Israelis threatened to fire on our boat, but we did not turn around. The Israelis high-jacked and arrested us because we wanted to give crayons to the children in Gaza. We have been detained, and we want the people of the world to see how we have been treated just because we wanted to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

At the outbreak of Israel’s Operation ‘Cast Lead’ [in December 2008], I boarded a Free Gaza boat with one day’s notice and tried, as the US representative in a multi-national delegation, to deliver 3 tons of medical supplies to an already besieged and ravaged Gaza.

During Operation Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16’s rained hellfire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full scale outright genocide. U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs - new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel’s onslaught that Gaza had become Israel’s veritable weapons testing laboratory, people used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.

The world saw Israel’s despicable violence thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international water ... It’s a miracle that I’m even here to write about my second encounter with the Israeli military, again a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military.

The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime ... I am now known as Israeli prisoner number 88794. How can I be in prison for collecting crayons to kids?
Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else’s children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza’s children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, but Israel must be declared a failed state.

I am facing deportation from the state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to Israel against my will. I am being held in this prison because I had a dream that Gaza’s children could color & paint, that Gaza’s wounded could be healed, and that Gaza’s bombed-out houses could be rebuilt.

But I’ve learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it’s incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream ... like my cellmates, one who is pregnant. They are all are in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better ... The once proud, never colonized Ethiopia [has been thrown into] the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must free their country because superpower politics [have] become more important than human rights and self-determination.

My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn’t cheap. Many of them represent their family’s best collective efforts for self-fulfilment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel only after they arrived Israel told them “there is no UN in Israel.”

The police here have license to pick them up & suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious and proud women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world’s first Jews and Christian. I too believed that marketing and failed to look deeper.

The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped in Ramle’s detention facility. And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for 6 months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that hope, change, and ‘yes we can’ were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfilment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.

It was a slick marketing campaign as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel’s marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.
We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s letter from a Birmingham jail. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that I too would one day have to do so. It is clear that taxpayers in Europe and the U.S. have a lot to atone for, for what they’ve done to others around the world.

What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people’s children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I’m experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. [But] I’m lucky. I will leave this place. Has Israel become the place where dreams die?
Ask the people of Palestine. Ask the stream of black and Asian men whom I see being processed at Ramle. Ask the women on my cellblock. [Ask yourself:] what are you willing to do?
Let’s change the world together & reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity. I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in Israel as the guardian of the Holy Land, resettled in safe homes. I appeal to the United State’s Department of State to include the plight of detained UNHCR-certified refugees in the Israel country report in its annual human rights report. I appeal once again to President Obama to go to Gaza: send your special envoy, George Mitchell there, and to engage Hamas as the elected choice of the Palestinian people.

I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free Palestine, and to the women I’ve met at Ramle. This is Cynthia McKinney, July 2nd 2009, also known as Ramle prisoner number 88794.
---
Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congresswoman, Green Party presidential candidate, and an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice. The first African-American woman to represent the state of Georgia, McKinney served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1993-2003, and from 2005-2007. She was arrested and forcibly abducted to Israel while attempting to take humanitarian are construction supplies to Gaza on June 30th.

For more information, please see go here.
See Cynthia Mckinney on Youtube

The Boycott Rolls on - Aipac Issues Warning

Once again there is more news to warm the cockles of your heart! Straight from the horses, or in this case, the asses mouth. No less than the Executive Director of AIPAC, the main Zionist lobby group in the USA, is ‘invading the mainstream discourse’. I’m sure you will be pleased to hear that, as a result of Israel’s disastrous and bloody invasion of Gaza, that it is now beginning to pay an ever higher price in political support.

It is also clear beyond doubt that the ONLY thing that worries the Zionists, like the Whites of South Africa before them is the threat of sanctions and punishment for their war against the Palestinians. Cries of ‘anti-semitism’ are falling on increasingly deaf ears as most people understand that it doesn’t matter who it is who is responsible for injustice, land theft, mass murder, torture and impoverishment, they should be made to stop in their tracks. Until Israel becomes a state of all its people, without distinction of race or religion, then Israel should be subject to increasingly severe sanctions.

Coupled with news that Veolia is on the brink of pulling out of the Jerusalem Light Railway system, because of their failure to secure billion dollar contracts in Europe, a direct result of their actions in Israel, it is clear that we must continue to keep the pressure on.

Pro-Israel Lobby Alarmed by Growth of Boycott, Divestment Movement

June 29, 2009

By Art Young Art

The movement to call Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people is growing, it is "invading the mainstream discourse, becoming part of the constant and unrelenting drumbeat against Israel." It could eventually threaten the existence of the Jewish state by undermining the support it receives from its strongest backer, the U. S. government.

That was the message of alarm delivered by the Executive Director of the American Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Howard Kohr, to the AIPAC Policy Conference on May 3. [i]

AIPAC is one of the principal organizations that lobby publicly on behalf of Israel in the United States, where it is an important influence on foreign policy. Among the 6,000 dignitaries who attended its policy conference were more than half of the members of the Senate and a third of the members of the House of Representatives. Featured speakers included Vice President Joe Biden, Senator John Kerry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli President Shimon Peres.

AIPAC and its allies are often alleged to act as a kind of shadow government in Washington, distorting policy in Israel's interest rather than that of the U.S. This stands reality on its head. The pro-Israel lobby carries real weight in the halls of power, but only because the U.S. and Israel share the same fundamental interests. The U.S. relies on Israel to keep the Arab states of the Middle East divided, weak, and under constant threat of attack, thus ensuring that they remain subservient to Washington. For its part, Israel could not continue to exist in its present form without the strong political and material support it receives from the U.S. It received more than $2.5 billion in military aid from the U.S. in 2009. [ii] Israel and the United States may be partners with shared objectives, but the relationship is a highly unequal one.

Kohr's address focused on the growing power of the international movement against Israel's criminal behavior, identifying support for boycott, divestment and sanctions as a particularly worrisome development.

Kohr pointed to a variety of statements and actions against Israel's onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, including demonstrations in Spain and Germany. He noted that 400 British academics had demanded that Britain's Science Museum cancel an event highlighting the work of Israeli scientists and that an Italian trade union calls for a boycott of Israeli products."Incredibly, there now is even an Israel Apartheid Week conducted in cities across the globe," he added.

Kohr noted the strength of opposition to Israel in the Middle East, Europe, and in international forums. But he voiced particular concern over the movement's progress in the United States "where Israel stands accused of apartheid and genocide, where Zionism equals racism, where a former president of the United States can publicly accuse Israel of apartheid."

Significantly, the AIPAC leader also insisted on the profound nature of the issues that divide supporters and critics of Israeli policy.

What we are witnessing is the attempted delegitimization of Israel; the systematic sowing of doubt that Israel is a nation that has forfeited the world's concern; a nation whose actions are, in the strict meaning of the term, indefensible. This is more than the simple spewing of hatred. This is a conscious campaign to shift policy, to transform the way Israel is treated by its friends to a state that deserves not our support, but our contempt; not our protection, but pressured to change its essential nature....

I'm not saying that these allegations have become accepted. But they have become acceptable. More and more they are invading the mainstream discourse, becoming part of the constant and unrelenting drumbeat against Israel. These voices are laying the predicate for an abandonment. They're making the case for Israel's unworthiness to be allowed what is for any nation the first and most fundamental of rights: the right to self-defense. .... They are preparing us for a world in which Israel stands alone, isolated, and at risk.... Now, there's little we can do to stop the boycotts of Israeli goods launched in London or Lisbon or Rome.

There's little we can do to stop Israel Apartheid Week. But there is much we can do to stop this campaign from taking hold here. Here where it matters the most, in Washington, where United States policy is forged, we must stop the delegitimization of Israel. We must not let it penetrate the halls of Congress and the counsels of our president."

To win support for Israel from the U.S. ruling class, Kohr argued, friends of Israel must address "the absolute foundation, the base on which all else rests," that is, the fact that Israel is "a Western outpost in the Middle East. To those who make that accusation, I say you are right. Israel is the only democratic country in the region that looks West, that looks to the values and the vision we share of what our society, our country should aim at and aspire to. If that foundation of shared values is shaken, the rationale for the policies we pursue today will be stripped away. The reasons the United States would continue to invest nearly $3 billion in Israel's security; the willingness to stand with Israel, even alone if need be; the readiness to defend Israel's very existence, all are undermined and undone if Israel is seen to be unjust and unworthy."

Kohr's argument that Israel is a garrison state, "a Western outpost in the Middle East," the front line of the defense of imperialist interests in the region, is not often stated in such forthright terms. But it is quite accurate, and speaks to the source of the conflict in the region.

Palestine appeals for solidarity

In his speech, Kohr voiced great alarm at the growth in solidarity with the Palestinian people in recent months. The unprecedented growth of the international solidarity movement is a grass-roots response to the crimes committed by Israel during its murderous 22-day assault on Gaza, and the tight siege of the territory that it maintains to this day.

Solidarity with Palestine is being expressed in many different ways. One of these is the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Support for BDS has grown considerably in recent months, which is why the AIPAC leader highlighted it as a cause for particular concern.

The BDS movement responds to an appeal for solidarity that was issued by Palestinian civil society in July 2005. More than 170 organizations, including trade unions, political and social organizations, and women's and youth groups, issued the appeal. The signatories represent all three components of the divided Palestinian nation, namely, refugees, Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, and Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The appeal from Palestine said, in part,

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194. (iii)

Students mobilize for Palestine

Students have been in the forefront of the solidarity movement with Palestine.

The attack on Gaza spurred student solidarity to new heights.

In what one newspaper described as "the biggest student revolt for 20 years," students in the U.K. organized occupations at 34 universities. They used the facilities to hold meetings and show films promoting awareness of the oppression of the Palestinians. Many occupations demanded that their university provide practical aid to Palestinian universities and students. Another common theme of the movement was a call to end all ties to arms manufacturers - the university-military connection being particularly strong in the U.K. The universities promote research that benefits the merchants of death; they also invest in those companies.

The student movement achieved some notable gains. Glasgow Strathclyde University agreed to end its purchases from Eden Springs, an Israeli company that produces bottled water from land in the Golan Heights that Israel refuses to return to Syria. Several universities agreed to provide scholarships to Palestinian students. Others organized fundraising for Palestine; many of these efforts are ongoing. The Oxford and Manchester universities agreed to donate surplus books, journals and other educational material to universities in Palestine.

At the University of Manchester, an emergency meeting of the student union attended by more than 850 people adopted a motion committing the union to campaign for BDS.

One of the most important results of the wave of occupations was to raise consciousness of the Palestine issue among thousands of students and beyond. It also provided activists with valuable experience in organizing on this issue and forged links between them. Following on the occupations, many of the campus Palestine committees have increased their activity in support of BDS. Efforts are also being made to build a more sustained student Palestine solidarity movement. [iv]

In early February, new ground was conquered in the U.S. when Hampshire College agreed to implement a policy of divestment, the first college or university in the country to do so. Bowing to a two-year campaign by Students for Justice in Palestine, the Board of Trustees agreed to withdraw its investments from six companies targeted by SJP because they profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. SPJ noted that "this groundbreaking decision follows in Hampshire's history of being the first college in the country to divest from apartheid South Africa 32 years ago, a decision based on similar human rights concerns."[v]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu hailed the decision: "This is a monumental and historic step in the struggle for Palestinian equality, self-determination and peace in the Holy Land by non-violent means. I see what these students have accomplished as a replica of the support of their college of our struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Hampshire College's decision to divest should be a guiding example to all institutions of higher learning."[vi]

Israeli Apartheid Week

In his speech to the conference, AIPAC leader Hauk twice referred to Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), an annual series of presentations and film showings that focus on the Israeli apartheid system and the need for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Initiated at the University of Toronto in 2005, IAW events took place this year on five continents in more than 40 cities and towns, 11 of them in Israeli-occupied Palestine, during the first week of March.[vii]

Organizers of IAW in Canada, one of the centers of the movement, had to contend with a sustained barrage of attacks and threats from Zionist organizations backed up by the federal government. In February Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism, decried the "anti-Zionist version of anti-Semitism" which maintains that "the Jews alone have no right to a homeland." A few weeks later Kenny took aim directly at IAW. Speaking to the House of Commons, he proclaimed that "Israel Apartheid Week is not about [freedom of opinion] .... We condemn these efforts to single out and attack the Jewish people and their homeland." He thus suggested, without the slightest basis in fact, that IAW organizers were violating Canada's criminal code, which bans "hate propaganda.

University administrators on a number of campuses followed the government's lead, attempting to disrupt Israeli Apartheid Week. But IAW organizers were successful in beating back these attacks. The daily events unfolded as planned, with audiences of up to 500 in Toronto and Ottawa and 400 in Montreal. [viii]

Boycott Motorola

Campus-based activities in solidarity with Palestine are one facet of a broader international campaign, which includes targeted boycotts of companies that profit from Israel's oppression of the Palestinians.

Motorola is one such company. The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is urging consumers to "Hang Up On Motorola" until it stops selling communications and surveillance equipment to the Israeli military and to Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. The group organized a protest outside Motorola's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago on May 4. Inside the meeting, representatives of the Presbyterian, United Methodist and other churches pressed shareholders to adopt a resolution that would instruct Motorola to follow corporate standards consistent with international law.

The pressure on Motorola has already forced it to give up some ground. After Human Rights Watch announced that its teams had found shrapnel carrying Motorola serial numbers at some of the civilian sites bombed by Israel in its recent assault on Gaza, the company sold the department that makes the fuses for the bombs.[ix]

Caterpillar is another target. Israel makes extensive use of its bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes and to build the apartheid wall. In early February the Church of England announced that it had withdrawn investments of more than £2.2 million ($3.5 million) from Caterpillar, following a policy that it adopted in 2005 of not investing in companies that support the occupation. Other churches and faith-based organizations have joined the divestment movement against the company.[x]

In Canada, the Committee Against Israeli Apartheid and other solidarity activists have organized a boycott of Indigo Books and Music. They demand that the majority shareholders of the bookstore chain, Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, publicly end their support of Heseg, the Foundation for Lone Soldiers. Reisman and Schwartz created the foundation in 2005 to reward "lone soldiers," volunteers who travel to Israel to serve in the Israeli military. Every year, Heseg grants scholarships to a hundred or more of these zealots to help them remain in Israel after they complete their military service.[xi]

For the last two years, solidarity activists have picketed and distributed leaflets periodically outside some of the company's main bookstores. They have also spoken out at some of its high-profile promotional events and at its annual shareholder meetings. The Indigo campaign has been a useful way to reach out and educate the general public about Palestine. It has also helped to maintain the visibility of the issue during periods when the mainstream media chooses to ignore it.

In Europe, consumer boycotts of Israeli products, particularly agricultural produce, are gaining momentum. The U.K.-based daily The Guardian reported in its April 3 edition that "Israeli companies are feeling the impact of boycott moves in Europe ... amid growing concern within the Israeli business sector over organized campaigns following the recent attack on Gaza" "Last week, the Israel Manufacturers Association reported that 21% of 90 local exporters who were questioned had felt a drop in demand due to boycotts, mostly from the U.K. and Scandinavian countries. Last month, a report from the Israel Export Institute reported that 10% of 400 polled exporters received order cancellation notices this year, because of Israel's assault on Gaza."

The article also cited the Israeli financial daily, The Marker, which said that "the horrific images on TV and the statements of politicians in Europe and Turkey are changing the behavior of consumers, businessmen and potential investors. Many European consumers boycott Israeli products in practice."[xii]

Veolia: a major victory for the corporate boycott campaign

european solidarity activists have waged a particularly effective campaign against the French multinationals Veolia and Alstom. These companies are part of a consortium that is building a light railway connecting occupied Jerusalem to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, reinforcing Israel's hold on Palestinian land.

In the U.K., the Palestine Solidarity Campaign conducted an active petition campaign against Veolia's attempt to win a 25-year waste collection and recycling contract worth £1 billion ($1.6 billion) with the Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. On March 16 the council announced that Veolia had failed to qualify for the shortlist of three companies that would be invited to bid on the contract.

Also in March, the Swedish national pension fund AP7 announced that it was removing Alstom from its investment portfolio. Activists in Sweden had organized a public education campaign for divestment. The pension fund specifically cited the Jerusalem rail project as the reason it had blacklisted the company.[xiii]

The following month the Urban Community of Bordeaux cancelled its contract, worth 750 million euros ($1.0 billion), with Veolia. Although the French municipality cited commercial factors, the cancellation came in the wake of a major controversy over Veolia's involvement in the Jerusalem project. The Galway City Council in Ireland and the Stockholm Community Council in Sweden both recently decided not to renew their contracts with Veolia.[xiv]

Finally, the pressure became too much for Veolia. On June 9 the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the company was abandoning the Jerusalem project. The paper described the company's decision as a "body blow" to the project, noting that "the French firm had been losing major projects in Europe because of its involvement in the Jerusalem job. Observers claim that's the real reason Veolia opted out." [xv]

This marks the first major victory of the corporate boycott campaign. Veolia was forced to divest from the Jerusalem project as a result of a targeted and sustained campaign in various countries, coordinated internationally with the help of the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The victory demonstrates how such campaigns can produce tangible victories. It is likely to spur supporters of Palestine to increase their efforts to force corporations to sever their ties with Israel.

Labor solidarity

Israel's bloody assault on Gaza earlier this year has also led to new initiatives by organized labour in solidarity with Palestine.

Not surprisingly, support for Palestine and the boycott movement is particularly strong in South Africa. Many South Africans see Israel's oppression of Palestinians through the prism of their own experience under apartheid.

In early February dock workers in South Africa, members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), announced that they would refuse to offload a ship from Israel that was scheduled to dock in Durban on February 8. COSATU and the Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa explained the significance of the dock workers' action in this way:

The pledge by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe.

Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU's General Secretary Randall Howard, the union's members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods.

SATAWU's action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to offload South African goods. South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions.

Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.

This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honor, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.

COSATU and the Palestine Solidarity Committee reaffirmed their commitment to campaigning for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. They called on the South African government to sever diplomatic and trade relations with Israel and announced a week of activities under the theme: "Free Palestine! Isolate Apartheid Israel!"[xvi]

COSATU was the first major national labour federation to call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Several other national labour federations have followed suit, including those of New Zealand and Ireland. On April 24 the convention of the Trade Union Congress of Scotland voted overwhelmingly in favour of BDS after an extensive debate.[xvii] A few weeks later the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, which represents more than a third of the country's work force, urged its government to lead an international boycott of Israel if it continued to violate Palestinian rights.[xviii]

Individual unions and labour organisations in many countries have also taken a stand.[xix] In June 2007 the national conference of UNISON, the largest union of public workers in the U.K., with more than 1.3 million members, called for "concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott." [xx] More recently, in the wake of the assault on Gaza, the leadership of the largest teachers' union in France, the Fédération syndicale unitaire, endorsed the BDS campaign and called on the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel.[xxi]

On the other side of the Atlantic, in April 2008 the Canadian Union of Postal Workers became the first country-wide union in North America to adopt a BDS policy. Denis Lemelin, the national president of CUPW, has spoken at a number of meetings and demonstrations in defence of Palestinian rights over the last year. On January 7 he wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on behalf of the union to ask the Canadian government to apply a policy of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to force it to comply with international law, including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.[xxii]

In recent years CUPW has waged a series of battles against the government's moves to downsize and privatize postal services. The union also has a history of supporting international freedom struggles. It was the first union in Canada to call for a boycott of apartheid South Africa. In a joint statement, several solidarity organizations noted that the union "played a lead role in labour solidarity with South African workers, engaging in concrete actions such as the refusal to handle mail from South Africa."[xxiii]

The Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents more than 220,000 workers in the public sector, has played a key role in blazing the trail for labour solidarity in Canada. The decision of CUPE Ontario's May 2006 convention to endorse boycott, divestment and sanctions sparked massive controversy, thereby drawing international attention to the Palestinian appeal for BDS. Supporters of Israel in various quarters including government officials, editorialists, and even leaders of other unions, directed a torrent of abuse against the union, alleging that the decision was anti-Semitic, undemocratic, and outside the union's jurisdiction. Sid Ryan, the president of CUPE Ontario, received numerous death threats; his family was also threatened. Ryan and the chair of the union's international solidarity committee were inundated with hostile telephone and email messages.

Ryan and the union have stood firm against the pressure. Union activists organised an extensive grass-roots education campaign, using an attractive 16-page pamphlet "Towards peace and justice in the Middle East" produced by the CUPE Ontario international solidarity committee. Ryan continued to speak out for Palestine on every possible occasion. As a result, the Zionists were unable to find a base of support in the union; they chose not to contest the BDS policy at the 2008 convention. But the public campaign of vilification of Sid Ryan and CUPE Ontario continues, boosted by a personal attack on Ryan by the Canadian government.

Quebec teachers, students support boycott

A year after the CUPE Ontario convention, a major union in Quebec joined the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.

The Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (National Teachers Federation of Quebec) is the largest union of teachers in higher education in Quebec. Its 23,500 members work at community colleges, universities, and private schools. At its May 31 - June 1, 2007 meeting, the federal council of the union reiterated its long-standing solidarity with the Palestinian people and its right to self-determination. The council also endorsed the BDS campaign.[xxiv]

In November 2007 the FNEEQ published a special edition of its magazine, Carnets, with the title, "Do more for Palestine." The attractive, 32-page magazine contains articles that explain what life is like under Israeli occupation, Israel's "separation" wall, why Canada is not a friend of Palestine, and the situation of women under the occupation. Five pages present the need to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel; the views of two Israeli citizens who support BDS, Ilan Pappé and Michel Warschawski, are featured. The lead editorial, written by the president of the FNEEQ, Ronald Cameron, explains that the union is educating its members so that they will understand why taking concrete action to support the Palestinian people is an urgent issue of labor solidarity.[xxv]

Compared to the abuse showered on CUPE Ontario, criticism of the FNEEQ's decision to join the boycott-Israel movement has been relatively mild. Quebec is the area of the country where popular sentiment is most favourable to the Palestinian cause. Various unions in Quebec have been active on this issue over the years, and the union leadership in higher education supports the Palestinian cause. (CUPW, discussed earlier, is one of a small number of major Canada-wide unions that have a sizable membership in Quebec.)

The FNEEQ's record of support for Palestine is particularly strong. In October 2004 it sponsored a delegation of 20 Quebec teachers who attended an international conference on Education, Globalization and Social Change in Ramallah, Palestine. (Willie Madisha, then president of COSATU, also participated in the conference.). The FNEEQ has participated in several other Quebec-based solidarity delegations to Palestine since then. In late May a 17-person delegation from Quebec that included members of the FNEEQ, CUPE and the CUPW spent a week investigating the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli authorities turned them back when they attempted to enter Gaza.

The FNEEQ is also helping to educate students about Palestine. It organized workshops on the issue on community college and university campuses across Quebec during the 2007 - 2008 school year, in collaboration with the Quebec Public Interest Research Group and the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante. The ASSÉ represents approximately 42,000 Quebec students. In May 2008 it became the first major student union in Canada to join the international BDS campaign.[xxvi]

The FNEEQ and the ASSÉ joined forces again this May when they jointly published Israël Ne Peut Pas Rester Impuni ! (Israel Cannot Remain Unpunished!) a 14-page dossier that explains how Israeli military rule undermines the right to education in Palestine. Much of the content consists of translations of material produced in Palestine, notably by the Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University. The two unions have made copies of the dossier available to the public on their web sites.[xxvii]

At its May 30-31 congress, the FNEEQ unanimously reaffirmed its support for BDS. It also decided to participate in the World Education Forum, part of the World Social Forum movement, that will be held in Palestine in October 2010.[xxviii]

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia: no ties with Israel

One of the aims of the international boycott-Israel movement is to induce governments to break all economic and diplomatic relations with Israel, treating the Zionist state as an international pariah. This is starting to become a reality in Latin America.

Cuba broke relations with Israel in September 1973, on the eve of the Yom Kippur war.[xxix] Time and again in international forums the revolutionary government has spoken out in support of the struggle of the Palestinian and Arab peoples and against Israeli aggression. It has translated those words into action whenever it could.

However, for decades Cuba's has stood alone in the region in its support for Palestine. In the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, domination by Washington was the rule, and with it, support for U.S. foreign policy. Israel became notorious for the support it gave - through arm shipments, special "advisors" and the like - to bloody dictatorships from Guatemala to Chile.

But now a process of radical transformation is unfolding across the region. Radical, popular movements have emerged in many countries as large numbers of working people begin to act to improve their circumstances. These movements are putting their stamp on society and government. One important result of this process has been the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), an alliance of seven countries that promotes fair trade and mutual aid based on principles of solidarity rather than profit. ALBA also champions respect for national sovereignty and unity of the region against U.S. domination.[xxx]

The rising tide of struggles in Latin America has been accompanied by a rise in support for the Palestinian people, including by the governments of the region. ALBA has led the way on this.

In September 2008 the ALBA countries were instrumental in securing the election of Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann as president of the General Assembly of the United Nations. D'Escoto is a well-known supporter of Palestine. As foreign minister of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua during the 1980s, he played a prominent role in exposing Israel's role in the "dirty war" that Washington organized against his country.

On November 24 d'Escoto told a meeting at the U.N. that 60 years after partition, "the failure to create a Palestinian state as promised is the single greatest failure in the history of the United Nations." He went on to say that "although different, what is being done against the Palestinian people seems to me to be a version of the hideous policy of apartheid." [xxxi] Addressing the General Assembly later the same day, he repeated the apartheid characterization, adding that "I believe it is very important that we in the United Nations use this term. We must not be afraid to call something what it is."

D'Escoto also urged the member states to consider implementing sanctions against Israel. "More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non-violent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations." [xxxii]

ALBA was founded by Venezuela and Cuba, and the Venezuelan government has been especially forthright in speaking and acting for justice in the Middle East. This is an expression of the profound anti-imperialist character of the struggle that has been unfolding in Venezuela since President Hugo Chavez was elected in 1999.

In July 2006 Chavez forcefully denounced the war that Israel had unleashed on Lebanon, and Venezuela matched its words with deeds. It withdrew its ambassador from Israel, sent 20,000 tons of emergency aid to Lebanon, and began a drive to raise funds for Lebanese reconstruction.[xxxiii]

Soon after Israel began its attack on Gaza, Venezuelans took to the streets in protest. Speaking to a rally in Caracas on January 9, 2009, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro announced that his country would send 80 tons of medicine, water, and food aid to Gaza, as well as 30 doctors and a humanitarian work brigade.

On January 14, both Venezuela and Bolivia broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. When Israel retaliated by expelling Venezuelan diplomats, Chavez responded that "it is an honour for this socialist government and this revolutionary people to have our representatives expelled by a genocidal government such as Israel."[xxxiv] Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, announced that his country would formally indict Israel's leaders for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. "They've made the world move backwards with crimes against humanity that we haven't seen since Rwanda and Yugoslavia," he said.[xxxv] Bolivia is also a member of ALBA.

On April 27 Venezuela and the Palestinian Authority established formal diplomatic relations and opened a Palestinian embassy in Caracas. Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki said that the embassy would coordinate solidarity with Palestine across Latin America.[xxxvi] A Palestinian embassy has functioned in Havana, Cuba for decades.

A growing movement, larger struggles ahead

The BDS movement now includes its first national Jewish organization. At its first annual general meeting on June 14, the Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) overwhelmingly endorsed boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. "Independent Jewish Voices has voted to join the international boycott campaign because we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and support their right to self-determination," said Diana Ralph, co-chair of the organization. "We are calling on the Canadian government and all Members of Parliament to push for immediate sanctions on Israel." IJV has chapters in seven Canadian cities.[xxxvii]

Israel's prestige and moral standing in the world has suffered a serious setback as a result of its barbaric attack on the besieged population of Gaza. Growing numbers of people are coming to understand Israel's crimes, the apartheid nature of the Israeli state, and the need to express solidarity with the Palestinian people through concrete action. The protests against Israel's actions in many countries were unprecedented in their size and duration. New forces are joining the international movement in solidarity with Palestine. As part of this process, the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel is emerging as one of the most important ways to demonstrate this solidarity.

This survey of recent developments provides only a partial picture of the scale and diversity that the BDS movement is acquiring as it grows. (The movement is actively promoting an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, for example. For more information on this boycott, see the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott, and the article "Palestine and the Cultural Boycott" by Rafeef Ziadah, .)

But even this partial account is sufficient to demonstrate that the international campaign to boycott Israel is making headway on a number of fronts. Although still relatively new, the movement has achieved some notable successes. It shows the promise of developing into a powerful and sustained international force that can help attain justice for the Palestinian people.

AIPAC's call to arms is a grudging recognition of these initial successes of the movement and, above all, of its potential. It is evident that supporters of the Jewish-only Israeli state - be they official lobbyists, powerful government figures, or others - intend to redouble their efforts to smear the BDS movement as anti-Semitic and to suppress public debate of Israel's crimes. Supporters of the rights of Palestinians are responding by uniting with others to defend the right to free speech on these issues and by reaching out to win new support for the boycott-Israel campaign.

The Spirit Of Resistance Lives

Art Young is a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto. From:Z Net

[i] http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SpeechesByAIPACLeadership/HowardKohr.pdf

[ii] Israel received $2.55 billion in "security" aid from the U.S. during fiscal year 2009, the first year of a new ten-year program. U.S. aid will increase annually, then level off at $3.1 billion for the last six years of the program. (All amounts in this article are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.)

[iii] "Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel," http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/BDSEnglish.pdf

[iv] "Students demand justice for Palestine," and information from Katan Alder, a participant in the movement.[v] Under heavy fire from supporters of Israel, the administration subsequently denied that it had acted because of the Palestine issue. But the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Trustees at which the decision was taken explicitly acknowledge "the good work of SJP that brought this issue to the attention of the [investment] committee." Furthermore, the college has not rescinded its decision to divest. See and ","

[vi]http://www.hsjp.org/endorsements/

[vii] "About Israeli Apartheid Week,"

[viii] "For more information about attempts to repress Israeli Apartheid Week, pro-Palestine advocacy, and free speech more generally, see:"Israeli Apartheid Week Beats Back Attacks on Free Speech" By John Riddell, , "For Free Expression on Palestine" by Justin Podur, and "Freedom of Expression and Palestine Advocacy" by Rafeef Ziadah, http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet219.html

[ix] "The Israel Boycott is Biting" by Nadia Hijab,

[x] "http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/1840.shtml

[xi] "HESEG Foundation,"

[xii] "Israeli exports hit by European boycotts after attacks on Gaza,"

[xiii] "Divestment campaign gains momentum in Europe" by Adri Nieuwhof, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10418.shtml

[xiv] "Veolia loses contracts in France and Ireland, faces court proceedings,"

[xv] Haaretz, June 9, 2009,

[xvi] "FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL!,"

[xvii] "Scottish Trade Union Congress Joins BDS Campaign!!!," http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/376

[xviii] Haaretz, May 17, 2009,

[xix] For more information about labour support of the boycott campaign, see . For a list of unions supporting BDS, current to July 2007, see http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/listBDS.pdf

[xx] "UNISON supports boycott of Israel," http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7058.shtml

[xxi] http://www.fsu.fr/spip.php?article1426

[xxii] http://www.caiaweb.org/sites/caiaweb.org/files/jafa2009_2.pdf

[xxiii] "Support the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' campaign against Israeli apartheid,"

[xxiv] http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/fr/comites/action_internationale/palestine/resolutioncf.html

[xxv] "Faire plus pour la Palestine,"

[xxvi] "Étudiants et étudiantes contre l'apartheid israélien,"

[xxvii] "Une publication conjointe de l'ASSÉ et de la FNEEQ sur l'éducation en Palestine," http://www.fneeq.qc.ca/fr/comites/action_internationale/communiques/communiques_2009/comm_0016.html[xxviii] Information provided by Ronald Cameron

[xxix] http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2001/ing/f060501i.html

[xxx] Member countries of ALBA are Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.[xxxi]http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/statements/ids241108.shtml

[xxxii]http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/statements/agendaitem16241108.shtml

[xxxiii] "Support for Palestine Builds in Latin America" by John Riddell,

http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=415[xxxiv]

"Chávez Welcomes Expulsion of Venezuelan Diplomats from Israel,"

[xxxv] Venezuelans Protest Israel's Attack and Send Aid to Gaza," and

"Venezuela and Bolivia Cut Diplomatic Ties with Israel, "http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4113[xxxvi] "Venezuela and the Palestinian Authority Establish Diplomatic Relations,"

[xxxvii] Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) media release, June 16, 2009