Source: Haaretz

What’s anti-Semitic about persons of conscience who believe that an apartheid state deserves to be boycotted?

The Bundestag has defined the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel as anti-Semitic. Benjamin Netanyahu and Gilad Erdan rejoiced. Germany ought to be ashamed.

From now on, Germany will consider every supporter of BDS to be a Jew-hater; saying “the Israeli occupation” will be like saying “Heil Hitler.” From now on, Germany cannot boast of its freedom of speech. It has become an agent of Israeli colonialism. While some are indeed anti-Semites, the majority of BDS supporters are persons of conscience who believe that an apartheid state deserved to be boycotted. What’s anti-Semitic about that? The majority of parties in the Bundestag supported the resolution, including that of Chancellor Angela Merkel, the conscience of Europe. How sad. So paralyzing are the guilt feelings, so effective the propaganda.

Does Merkel think that Daniel Barenboim – the musical director of the Berlin State Opera and the principal conductor for life of its orchestra, the Staatskapelle, a prime example of an artist who is committed to conscience and morality, a proud Jew and embarrassed Israeli, the co-founder of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an Israeli patriot, yes patriot, who fears with every fiber of his being for the future of the country of his youth – is also an anti-Semite? Barenboim may not explicitly support BDS, but for years he has quietly boycotted Israel’s concert halls. He cannot bring himself to play for Israelis when, less than a one-hour drive from the auditorium, a nation is groaning under the occupation. That is his noble way of expressing his protest. Merkel is his friend. She undoubtedly admires his sense of justice. What will she say to him now?

What will the German legislators say about those who call to boycott the products of sweatshops or of the meat industry? Will they criminalize them as well? What about the sanctions on Russia, over its invasion of Crimea? Why is one occupation worthy of a boycott and another of cheers? What did Germans think about the sanctions on South Africa? What is the difference?

It’s permissible to call for a boycott against a tyrannical regime; in fact, it’s obligatory. It’s also permissible to think differently, to think there is no Palestinian people and no occupation, only a chosen people in the promised land. But to criminalize justice-seeking Germans as anti-Semites? I know a few of them, and they have absolutely nothing in common with anti-Semites. One more push from the Erdans, and BDS will be designated as a terrorist organization.

Guilt feelings are always a bad counselor. This time they turned out to be a particularly terrible one.

Germany is not a country like any other. It carries a deep obligation to the state of the Jews. It is duty-bound to contribute to its security and its growth, but that duty must not be allowed to include moral blindness and automatic license for Israel to do whatever it wants and to scorn the resolutions of the international institutions that were established in the wake of the war that Germany instigated.

Germany has a duty to support Israel, but like any true friend it must also do everything possible to prevent it from being an evil state. Fighting opposition to the occupation is not friendship.

Germany may supply Israel with submarines, but it must also place ethical demands on the state. On the margins of its guilt toward the Jews, it also carries an indirect moral responsibility for the fate of the people that lives in the land to which the Jews fled from Germany in terror and in which they created a state. Germany also has an obligation to those who would not have been deprived of their land and their rights if not for the Holocaust. This people has been living for decades under the Israeli boot. Germany must aid in its liberation.

In passing this resolution, the Bundestag did not do right by Israel, by justice or by international law. Only the Israeli occupation profited from it. The Bundestag does not have to support BDS, it’s permissible to object to the boycott movement, but to criminalize it as anti-Semitic, especially in Germany? The “other Germany” betrayed its duty to its own conscience-driven civil society, to the Palestinians and also to Israel.

Source: Al Jazeera

This final plea for a boycott of Eurovision 2019, and its art-washing of occupation and Israeli apartheid, fell on deaf ears.

Dear Madonna and Eurovision 2019 contestants,

You have so far decided to ignore several requests to honour the Palestinian picket line. On May 9, Gaza cultural organisations and artists issued a strong call asking them to boycott the contest out of respect for the two babies and two pregnant women along with the 23 other Palestinians killed in Israel’s latest violent assault on the strip.

In addition to the repeated calls made by the Palestinians and their Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, tens of thousands of people in Europe and around the world have signed petitions reiterating the plea to #BoycottEurovision2019 in Tel Aviv and asked you to stop art-washing occupation and apartheid. But it all has fallen on deaf ears!

Perhaps you don’t care, or perhaps you believed Israel’s propaganda that we are all terrorists and the attacks on Gaza are “security operations”. Some of you have spoken about supporting peace, but if you really do, then you wouldn’t be singing in Israel.

Let me tell you what supporting peace really means.

It means affirming the fact that Palestine is under occupation and that Israel has violated numerous UN resolutions calling for the withdrawal of its troops from Palestinian territories. It means recognising that Israel and its illegal settlements operate under apartheid, where Palestinians are segregated, surveilled, oppressed, and killed into submission. It means acknowledging that Israel was built on a land whose original native population was violently ethnically cleansed and dispossessed.

The very venue your hosts are having you sing at, the Expo Tel Aviv, was built on the ruins of the Palestinian village Al-Shaykh Muwannis, which like 530 others were completely razed to the ground in 1948 to make way for settlers coming from your countries in Europe. We, the six million Palestinian refugees scattered around the world, are the living proof that Palestine was a thriving and civilised land before the arrival of the European Zionists.

Those few Palestinians who were able to remain in their land and were given Israeli citizenship, face more than 50 discriminatory laws which make them non-equal citizens. In fact, last year Israel finally officially acknowledged the apartheid it had imposed for decades on the non-Jews within its borders by proclaiming itself a Jewish state. But even before this declaration, anti-apartheid fighters, like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, had repeatedly compared Israel to South Africa and said that the parallels are clear.

If Europe took action and boycotted the racist murderous regime of apartheid South Africa, why aren’t you doing so with Israel? Why do you insist on rewarding the perpetrators of the second-gravest crime against humanity, apartheid?

Why are you pretending not to see the colonisation of Palestine? Over the past few days, you have been singing just a few kilometres away from a vast network of segregated infrastructure and checkpoints that separate some 650,000 Jewish settlers who live in illegal settlements built on occupied Palestinian land from the Palestinian population. Meanwhile, the true owners of the land in the West Bank have no state to protect them, no rights to the resources of the land, including water, no real freedom of movement, and no real economic prospects to live a dignified life.

Nearby, just 60km south of where you have been signing is also my home, Gaza, which has been under a medieval blockade for 12 years. It has been compared to a concentration camp and an open-air prison, but I would say it is much worse. We struggle to live with no access to clean water and just a few hours of electricity a day; our children are suffering from malnutrition and our sick are dying at an unimaginable rate for lack of medication and proper treatment.

Israel has waged three major wars on us in the past 10 years, killing thousands in the indiscriminate bombing by American-made fighter jets. After every conflict, international organisations usually talk about reconstruction. In our case, they do not. After every violent Israeli assault, we cannot rebuild because there is no concrete, basic building materials or electric supplies.

All this constitutes “collective punishment” and under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime – one of many Israel commits on a daily basis.

By next year, according to the UN, Gaza will become uninhabitable.

How does it feel to sing and dance so close to so much human misery and suffering? Just 60km away from a place that can no longer support human life, but holds some 2 million people under lockdown by your host?

Does this mean anything to you?

With brutal precision, we have been uprooted, humiliated at checkpoints, imprisoned without charge, denied our heritage and religious sites, denied our freedom to move and see family members, denied water, arable land and our livelihoods, denied our dreams of a normal life. All along, you and the rest of Europe have merely watched and done nothing, although it was European powers who brought this suffering onto us seven decades ago.

But it is not too late. You can still do something.

You can stand up against apartheid and occupation, you can stand up for basic human rights and equality and refuse to sing on the ruins of a Palestinian village one more night. You can support one of the many apartheid-free Eurovision gatherings happening across Europe. You can back BDS and call on others to do so.

This is our last appeal.

Remember your peers of the previous generation who stood up bravely against South African apartheid and backed the boycott movement. Like them, you can stand on the right side of history and boycott Israel today!

Haidar Eid is an associate Professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

World-renowned pianist and orchestra leader says he is ‘ashamed to be an Israeli’ following passing of apartheid legislation

Source: Haaretz

I went on to say that, “this remarkable document expressed the commitment: “The State of Israel will devote itself to the development of this country for the benefit of all its people; it will be founded on the principles of freedom, justice and peace, guided by the visions of the prophets of Israel; it will grant full equal, social and political rights to all its citizens regardless of differences of religious faith, race or sex; it will ensure freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.””

The founding fathers of the State of Israel who signed the Declaration considered the principle of equality as the bedrock of the society they were building. They also committed themselves, and us, “to pursue peace and good relations with all neighboring states and people.”

70 years later, the Israeli government has just passed a new law that replaces the principle of equality and universal values with nationalism and racism.

It fills me with deep sorrow that I must today ask the very same questions which I asked 14 years ago when addressing the Knesset:  Can we ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel?

Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other?

Can the Jewish people whose history is a record of continued suffering and relentless persecution, allow themselves to be indifferent to the rights and suffering of a neighboring people?

Can the State of Israel allow itself an unrealistic dream of an ideological end to the conflict instead of pursuing a pragmatic, humanitarian one based on social justice?

14 years later, I still believe that despite all the objective and subjective difficulties, the future of Israel and its position in the family of enlightened nations will depend on our ability to realize the promise of the founding fathers as they canonized it in the Declaration of Independence.

Yet, nothing has really changed since 2004. Instead, we now have a law that confirms the Arab population as second-class citizens. It therefore is a very clear form of apartheid.

I don’t think the Jewish people survived for 20 centuries, mostly through persecution and enduring endless cruelties, on order to now become the oppressors, inflicting cruelty on others. This new law does exactly that.

That is why I am ashamed of being an Israeli today.

¡No pasaran! Confronting the Rise of the Far-Right

2 March 2019  ¡NO PASARAN! Conference in London to organise against Europe-wide rise of the far-right. Bringing together activists, MPs, campaigners from across Europe.

Details and registration…

Source: Middle East Eye

On  Nakba of all days an apartheid state is being rewarded by the glitz and glamour of an international song contest.

The choice of Israel as the venue for this glittering occasion is wrong in every way. Israel qualifies for the competition because the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is a member of the European Broadcasting Union, which is responsible for the event. The country’s first participation in the contest came in 1973.

Nevertheless, Israel is not part of Europe. It likes to see itself as European, but that is not the same thing.

Secondly, it is likely that Expo Tel Aviv, like many other parts of the city, was built on land originally expropriated from the Palestinian village of al-Sheikh Muwannis and villages close by.

Like many others, the village was evacuated by the use of Israeli terror and brute force after 1948, and then demolished. This ugly history has not gone; it will hang over all the singing and the dancing at the Expo Centre.

Twenty minutes away from the Eurovision festivities lies the Gaza Strip, a tormented land of siege, poverty and hunger, of Israel’s own making. Eighty per cent of the population is aid-dependent, unemployment runs at between 50 and 70 percent, shortages of basic materials are frequent and severe, and hospitals can barely cope with the sick and wounded.

Nearly two million Palestinians are incarcerated in the open-air prison that is Gaza today for no crime other than that they are not Jews. It is a wonder the cries of the frightened children, the amputees and the wounded of Gaza do not reach the revellers in Tel Aviv.

The second Nakba

One year ago on 14 May 2018, the exact opening date of Eurovision this year, Israeli snipers stationed on the self-styled border with Gaza, shot and killed over 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.

Then, too, another celebration was taking place in Jerusalem at the same time: the US illegal recognition of the city as Israel’s capital and the announcement of the US embassy move there. In the year since that time, Israeli forces have killed a further 267, according to Gaza’s ministry of health, and over 30,000 wounded with more than 7,000 people shot with live ammunition.

But the most significant coincidence of timing this week is the 71st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. On 15 May 1948, the second day of the Eurovision contest, the state of Israel was established, and with it the catastrophe that has blighted Palestinian lives ever since was set in motion.

Each year, at about this time, Israel celebrates its so-called Independence Day, oblivious to the tragedy its establishment caused for Palestine’s indigenous people.

Once a settled, cohesive society, Palestinians today are fragmented over different countries, 5.3 million of them still living in refugee camps. For years Israel has striven to escape or cover over its responsibility for this tragedy, and in that sense, the Eurovision contest has been a godsend.

Israel’s reality

Israelis have spared no effort to exploit every opportunity to show themselves off as a part of the Western world. Tel Aviv is bristling with signs in English, an army of local volunteers has been raised to assist visitors, and a free bus service provided, even on the Sabbath – to objections from Orthodox Jews.

A teaser video on Israel TV displays one of the Eurovision hosts, a token Arab in the shape of Lucy Ayoub, the daughter of an Arab-Christian father and a Jewish mother, singing a welcome to the guests. It tells them that, despite what they’ve heard, Israel is a “land of honey and milk, always sunny, and as smooth as silk.”

Many people are aware that the reality of Israel is very different. In 2017, the UN released an authoritative report on Israeli’s apartheid system that permeates its laws and conduct towards its non-Jewish citizens.

This was compounded in the summer of 2018, when Israel passed its Nation-State law, affirming its status as the nation-state of the Jewish people. In practice and in law, Israel is a state that discriminates against non-Jews in favour of Jews: apartheid in anyone’s understanding of the term.

Meanwhile, crimes against the Palestinian people and their culture continue apace. In August 2018, Israeli bombing destroyed the Said al-Mishal cultural centre in Gaza.

Palestinian artists are routinely denied exit visas to participate in cultural events abroad, and the Palestinian poet, Dareen Tatour, is in prison for “inciting terrorism” through her verse.

Rewarding apartheid

On what basis should a state of this kind be rewarded by the glitz and glamour of the Eurovision song contest? What message does this pretence that Israel is a normal state give when its policies and conduct obviously clash with so many civilised norms that the international community aims to live by?

What delusion drives people like the British celebrities, who include Stephen Fry and Sharon Osborne, to write a letter of protest defending Israel against a boycott of Eurovision as advocated by Palestinians and their supporters, on the grounds that Eurovision’s “spirit of togetherness” was under attack?

What togetherness is found under apartheid? Was the cultural boycott not accepted as part of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?

A propaganda tool

Other artists have not been fooled. In January, a number of writers and artists such as fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and film director Mike Leigh, called on the BBC to cancel its planned coverage of the contest.

The musician Roger Waters has urged Madonna not to participate in Eurovision, and in September 2018, he wrote to all 41 contestants asking them to stand with the Palestinians.

Artists like Brian Eno, Lana del Rey and Annie Lennox have declined Eurovision’s invitation.

If anyone doubts Israel’s need to use the Eurovision contest for propaganda, its deputy minister of public diplomacy, Michael Oren, gave the game away.

As Israel agreed ceasefire terms with Hamas to end the military flare-up on 5 May, he said, “Hamas must go, but right after our holidays and Eurovision.”

Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. The family moved to England in 1949, where she grew up and was educated. Karmi practised as a doctor for many years working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. From 1999 to 2001 Karmi was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

I suddenly found myself thinking it could have been one of my kids in that bag, and that thought upset me more than anything has for a long time.

This letter was originally published on 3 August 2014. Brian Eno is an artist, musical innovator, record producer for artists ranging from David Bowie to U2 and Coldplay. He is president of Stop the War Coalition.

Dear All of You,

I sense I’m breaking an unspoken rule with this letter, but I can’t keep quiet any more.

Today I saw a picture of a weeping Palestinian man holding a plastic carrier bag of meat. It was his son. He’d been shredded (the hospital’s word) by an Israeli missile attack – apparently using their fab new weapon, flechette bombs. You probably know what those are – hundreds of small steel darts packed around explosive which tear the flesh off humans. The boy was Mohammed Khalaf al-Nawasra. He was 4 years old.

I suddenly found myself thinking that it could have been one of my kids in that bag, and that thought upset me more than anything has for a long time.

Then I read that the UN had said that Israel might be guilty of war crimes in Gaza, and they wanted to launch a commission into that. America won’t sign up to it.

What is going on in America? I know from my own experience how slanted your news is, and how little you get to hear about the other side of this story. But – for Christ’s sake! – it’s not that hard to find out. Why does America continue its blind support of this one-sided exercise in ethnic cleansing? WHY? I just don’t get it. I really hate to think its just the power of AIPAC… for if that’s the case, then your government really is fundamentally corrupt. No, I don’t think that’s the reason… but I have no idea what it could be.

The America I know and like is compassionate, broadminded, creative, eclectic, tolerant and generous. You, my close American friends, symbolise those things for me. But which America is backing this horrible one-sided colonialist war? I can’t work it out: I know you’re not the only people like you, so how come all those voices aren’t heard or registered?

How come it isn’t your spirit that most of the world now thinks of when it hears the word ‘America’? How bad does it look when the one country which more than any other grounds its identity in notions of Liberty and Democracy then goes and puts its money exactly where its mouth isn’t and supports a ragingly racist theocracy?

I was in Israel last year with Mary. Her sister works for UNWRA in Jerusalem. Showing us round were a Palestinian – Shadi, who is her sister’s husband and a professional guide – and Oren Jacobovitch, an Israeli Jew, an ex-major from the IDF who left the service under a cloud for refusing to beat up Palestinians. Between the two of them we got to see some harrowing things – Palestinian houses hemmed in by wire mesh and boards to prevent settlers throwing shit and piss and used sanitary towels at the inhabitants; Palestinian kids on their way to school being beaten by Israeli kids with baseball bats to parental applause and laughter; a whole village evicted and living in caves while three settler families moved onto their land; an Israeli settlement on top of a hill diverting its sewage directly down onto Palestinian farmland below; The Wall; the checkpoints… and all the endless daily humiliations. I kept thinking, “Do Americans really condone this? Do they really think this is OK? Or do they just not know about it?”.

As for the Peace Process: Israel wants the Process but not the Peace. While ‘the process’ is going on the settlers continue grabbing land and building their settlements… and then when the Palestinians finally erupt with their pathetic fireworks they get hammered and shredded with state-of-the-art missiles and depleted uranium shells because Israel ‘has a right to defend itself’ ( whereas Palestine clearly doesn’t). And the settler militias are always happy to lend a fist or rip up someone’s olive grove while the army looks the other way.

By the way, most of them are not ethnic Israelis – they’re ‘right of return’ Jews from Russia and Ukraine and Moravia and South Africa and Brooklyn who came to Israel recently with the notion that they had an inviolable (God-given!) right to the land, and that ‘Arab’ equates with ‘vermin’ – straightforward old-school racism delivered with the same arrogant, shameless swagger that the good ole boys of Louisiana used to affect. That is the culture our taxes are defending. It’s like sending money to the Klan.

But beyond this, what really troubles me is the bigger picture. Like it or not, in the eyes of most of the world, America represents ‘The West’. So it is The West  that is seen as supporting this war, despite all our high-handed talk about morality and democracy. I fear that all the civilisational achievements of The Enlightenment and Western Culture are being discredited – to the great glee of the mad Mullahs – by this flagrant hypocrisy. The war has no moral justification that I can see  – but it doesn’t even have any pragmatic value either. It doesn’t make Kissingerian ‘Realpolitik’ sense; it just makes us look bad.

I’m sorry to burden you all with this. I know you’re busy and in varying degrees allergic to politics, but this is beyond politics. It’s us squandering the civilisational capital that we’ve built over generations. None of the questions in this letter are rhetorical: I really don’t get it and I wish that I did.

In September 2018, Brian Eno alongside a host of artists wrote published an open letter supporting the appeal from Palestinian artists to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 hosted by Israel. “Until Palestinians can enjoy freedom, justice and equal rights, there should be no business-as-usual with the state that is denying them their basic rights.”

Ahed Tamimi tells the story of her arrest and eight months in an Israeli prison – and the struggles she faces as a symbol of Palestinian resistance.

On December 15, 2017, Ahed Tamimi was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier after her 15-year-old cousin was shot at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet. Film of the incident went viral and Tamimi was arrested four days later at her house in Nabi Saleh. She was sentenced to eight months in prison and a fine. Tamimi was one of 1467 Palestinian minors arrested by the Israeli army in 2017.

Life behind bars was very hard. The guards woke us at 5.30am for the count and at 8am they returned to search the cells. Our doors opened at 10.30am, when we were let out for breakfast. Afterward, we would go to the other rooms, where I could talk to my fellow inmates. There were around 25 of us. We were not allowed outside and walked around in a big hall for exercise. Along with the other girls, I tried to make study groups, but the prison administration did not encourage this and broke up the class. Instead, we read books, and I managed to pass my final exams in prison. Only my immediate family was allowed to visit me, and that was limited to 45 minutes through a glass barrier every two months.

Through my arrest, I became the symbol of the occupation, but there are 300 other children in Israeli jails whose stories no one knows. Nurhan Awwad was arrested when she was 16 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. It is said that she tried to kill a soldier. Nurhan was walking with her cousin, who was shot and killed in front of her eyes. Israeli security forces also shot Nurhan, who was sent to hospital. From there, they took her to prison on a 13-year sentence. She is 18 today. The youngest girl in prison is Hadia Arainat. She is 16 and has already served three years; she should be released in four months. They say that she also tried to kill a soldier; she was on her way to school in Jericho at the time of her arrest.

Ahed Tamimi in prison 2018

Since I was released on July 29, I have become a spokesperson for the Palestinian cause, which is not easy. With this role comes a great deal of responsibility and pressure. In parallel, I am on a suspended sentence for the next five years; if I say something they don’t like, I can be imprisoned for another eight months. I must tread carefully. People often ask where I find my strength and courage to stand up to the occupation, but I am experiencing a situation which forces me to be strong. Of course, it is also due to the influence of my parents. They remain my biggest inspiration. Yet I believe that everyone in my village is like me; I am not special. Do I sometimes wish that I could just let go and not be strong? No. Under occupation, you must be. I have always challenged my fear and found the strength I needed.

If there was no occupation and Palestine was a normal country, I would move to Acre and live by the sea and go swimming. I have only been once – even if the water is only 30km from my house. Some years ago, during Ramadan, Israel gave us permission to visit Jerusalem. On that day, my dad took us kids to the sea. We were afraid, of course, because it was illegal – the permit we had only allowed us to stay in Jerusalem for a few hours, but my father was determined.

I want to be a regular 17-year-old. I like clothes, I like makeup. I get up in the morning, check my Instagram, have breakfast, and walk in the hills around the village. Sometimes I go to Ramallah with friends to go bowling, eat ice cream, and go to restaurants – but I am not a normal teenager. Both my parents have been in jail, as have I, and now my eldest brother, Waed, is imprisoned too. If I were permitted to be a regular teenager living in a normal country, I would play sports. I wanted to become a football player but I don’t play here because there is no time. Instead, I have been involved in demonstrations and confrontations with the Israeli army since I was a child. Many criticize that, but why not criticize the army who places itself in front of children? Under the occupation, everything is a crime. People should not accuse us; it is the occupation that is wrong.

Everything we Palestinians do is a reaction against the occupation. I do not see any signs of improvement. On the contrary – the settlements will continue to expand and there will be even more checkpoints; that is what I see three years from now in the West Bank. Yet, we still aspire that one day we will live in a free Palestine. Two states will never come to pass. We believed that the Oslo Accords (signed in 1993 and 1995) would serve as a step to eventually achieve this – but look at the situation today.

“Now that I’ve completed high school, I want to study law, although I do not know where. I have a dream to work internationally, five years from now, doing high-level advocacy for Palestine and speaking at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

I understand that I have this role now, but I have no privacy any more. Sometimes I feel like I am losing myself – my personality. People ask me what life was like in prison, but I wish I didn’t have to talk about it. I just want to forget.”

Join the National Demonstation for Palestine 11 May 2019 Details…

Source: Al Jazeera

Barbaric massacres committed since 2006, have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, including many children.

Again, the victims were children and women. Fourteen-month-old Palestinian toddler, Siba Abu Arrar, was killed along with her pregnant aunt, Falastine, who succumbed to her wounds shortly after American-made, Israeli warplanes targeted their home in Zeitoun neighbourhood.

On Friday, like all the previous 57 Fridays, I joined thousands of peaceful protesters at the eastern fence of the Gaza concentration camp, where Israeli snipers shot and killed four Palestinians and injured 51, including children. One of those killed was 19-year-old Raed Abu Teir, who was walking on crutches, having been injured during previous protests.

Calls for a ceasefire were made as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to launch “massive strikes” in the hope of killing the largest possible number of Palestinians by targeting residential areas.

As with previous truce initiatives, this time once again Israel and the Palestinians – the oppressor and the oppressed – were equated as “two sides to a conflict” and what constitutes legitimate resistance under international law was put on the same level as a brutal illegal occupation. The fact that Israel has an actual army, disproportionately bigger firepower and is an occupier was neglected as usual, and so was the stark difference in the death toll: 24 Palestinians and four Israelis.

Like all previous ceasefires mediated by the Egyptian authorities and the United Nations, this one also aimed to maintain “stability” in the open-air concentration camp that Gaza is, for as long as possible, by demanding that any form of resistance is subdued.

In this case, the Israeli government is eager to quiet Gaza down ahead of the generous opportunity European countries are giving it to whitewash its war crimes by hosting the Eurovision song contest in Tel Aviv, an hour’s drive away from the strip.

As in the past, Palestinians are now expected to gratefully accept a “period of calm” where Israeli bombs are not raining on their houses and its blockade continues to strangulate Gaza.
In fact, what has come to be regularly required of the Palestinians is to conduct themselves as “house Palestinians”, and be thankful to their white Ashkenazi masters for the breadcrumbs they let them have in order to barely survive.

They are to give in to a slow death, die like cockroaches, showing no form of rebellion, and accept that if they die resisting, then it would be their own fault.

But enough is enough!

Palestinians will no longer accept the dictates of the so-called “international community” which continues to favour Israel and cover up its war crimes. Any talk of improving the conditions of oppression in light of the great sacrifices made by our people is a betrayal of Palestinian victims.

Any ceasefire agreement that does not lead to the immediate lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip and the reopening of the Rafah crossing, and all the other crossings in a manner that allows the inflow of fuel, medicine, and all other basic goods, and does not include provisions for ending what the Israeli occupation and apartheid – will not be accepted.

We will no longer allow Gaza to be severed from Palestine and the historical context behind the suffering of its people. This is not a “conflict”, as the Israelis like to present it, with a hostile armed group.

It is an occupation, launched by a settler-colonial power which seeks to ethnically cleanse an entire indigenous population in order to solidify and legitimise its colony. What is happening in Gaza is incremental genocide, not a “security operation”.

The barbaric massacres committed by apartheid Israel since 2006, have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, including many children. Entire families have been wiped out in broad daylight in conjunction with the systematic destruction of hundreds of Palestinian homes; doctors and paramedics were killed while on duty and so were journalists. Tens of thousands have been permanently disabled in these wars.

We, the Palestinians in Gaza, have already made our choice. We will not die dishonourably a slow death while thanking our killers under the self-deception that portrays slavery to the occupier as a fait accompli.

No, we will continue to fight for our dignity, for ourselves and for our children. We, members of the Palestinian civil society, have long argued that the way forward should be people’s power – the only force capable of tackling the huge asymmetry of power in the struggle against Israel.

And our Great March of Return has demonstrated this. We successfully broke efforts to intentionally separate the Gaza “conflict” from its roots and made our demands heard across the world. We don’t want another short-term ceasefire or slight “improvement” in living conditions under a “deal of the century”. We don’t want breadcrumbs. We want to return to our lands, we want our rights under international law to be recognised.

That is why, each Friday, we continue to call for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and we hail the effort of various groups and individuals across the world – the true international community – who have joined our efforts.

We now call on all Eurovision artists to give up their participation in whitewashing the murder of toddlers, pregnant women, medics, journalists, and musicians and the destruction of civilian homes, hospitals, schools and cultural centres.

Do you really want to entertain Israeli soldiers sniping down unarmed protesters? Do you really want to perform 60km away from Gaza, where the family of the 14-month-old Siba cannot stop grieving? Do you really want to sing in apartheid Israel?

It is time for you, as well as the rest of the art world, to stand on the right side of history – just like they did a few decades ago during the apartheid era in South Africa – and boycott Israel.

Haidar Eid is an associate Professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

Join the National Demonstation for Palestine 11 May 2019 Details…

Source: Middle East Eye

No other country enjoys the same level of military, economic, diplomatic and moral support, no strings attached.

For decades now, Israel has continually spat in the face of the rest of the planet – with casual disdain for international law, and with complete disregard for the explicit decisions and detailed policies adopted by global institutions and by most of the world’s national governments.

Out there in the world, however, all that spittle somehow passes for raindrops. The election came and went with no discernible effect on the blindly automatic support for Israel by European governments and, of course, by the Americans too: unconditional, without reservations, apparently unchanged. Evidently what was is what will be.

Israel, though, has changed during the course of Netanyahu’s long reign. This talented Israeli statesman is leaving his mark on the profile of his country, with deep and lasting effect – more so than anticipated or even apparent.

Yes, it’s true that leftist governments in Israel also did their utmost to preserve the Israeli occupation forever and had no intention, not for one moment, of ever bringing it to an end – but Netanyahu is taking Israel much farther afield, to places even more extreme.

He is damaging what constitutes acceptable governance within Israel’s recognised sovereign territory, even with respect to its Jewish citizens. The very face of the “only democracy in the Middle East”, which has long functioned mainly to the benefit of Jewish Israelis who comprise its privileged class, is being altered now by Netanyahu and company.

Darling of the West

Meanwhile, incredibly, the response of the world is to alter nothing in the support it has been extending to Israel during all the years of Netanyahu’s rule, as if in this latest round he were changing nothing, as if the shifting positions taken by Israel will neither augment nor diminish that support.

With or without Netanyahu, Israel remains the darling of the West. No other country enjoys the same level of military, economic, diplomatic and moral support, no strings attached. But the next Israeli administration, the fifth Netanyahu government, is getting ready to announce a change that the world will finally find difficult to ignore.

The new government is poised to rip the last layer of mask from its real face. Israel’s main asset, in casting itself as a liberal democracy that shares values dear to the West, is about to be demolished.

Will the West continue supporting it, then? The West, which demands that Turkey adopt deep changes before according it full admission, which levies sanctions on Russia the moment it invades Crimea, will this West go on supporting the new Republic of Israel that Netanyahu and his governing partners are preparing to launch?

A radical change

The degree of change expected cannot be overstated. Israel will look different. Where the previous government lit fires, this one will fan the flames as they spread. The judicial system, the media, the organisations defending human rights and the rights of Arabs in Israel will soon feel a scorching  sensation.

Op-ed articles will soon be denied publication in Israeli media, by law, if they criticise Israeli soldiers, for example, or support a boycott of Israel. Ben-Gurion Airport will deny entry more broadly to critics of the Israeli regime.

Civil society organisations will be stripped of legal standing. Arabs will be more thoroughly excluded en route to actualising the vision of a Jewish state all of whose legislators are Jews. And of course there’s the annexation currently waiting in the wings.

The new government will be the Israeli annexation government. If the anticipated backing from Washington is forthcoming – American recognition of the annexation of the Golan Heights was the first step, the trial balloon – then Netanyahu will take the step he has refrained from taking throughout his reign thus far.

He will announce the annexation of at least part of the occupied territories.

The import will be unequivocal: Israel will admit for the first time that its 52-year military occupation of the West Bank is here to stay; that it is not, as long claimed, a passing phenomenon.

Dramatic policy changes

The territories are not “bargaining chips” in negotiations for peace, as was claimed at the outset of the occupation, but rather colonial holdings meant to remain under Israeli rule permanently. There is no intention that the territories annexed now, which could then be expanded, would ever be returned to the Palestinians.

Thus the new Netanyahu government will declare two dramatic policy changes. First will be an end to the two-state solution which even Netanyahu supported and which all global leaders have declared themselves as favouring.

That option will be declared dead. At the same time, Israel will declare itself an apartheid state, not just de facto but now, for the first time, also de jure.

Since none of those favouring annexation intend to grant equal rights to Palestinians in the territories to be annexed, and since targeted annexation of the land on which the settlements sit is patently deceitful, the world’s statesmen will have no choice but to acknowledge that under their radar, in the 21st century, a second South Africa-style apartheid state has been declared.

Last time around, an apartheid regime was miraculously brought down without all-out bloodshed. Will the world rally around this time and effect a repetition?

Which Israel do you still support?

This question must be posed first of all to the leaders of Europe, from Angela Merkel to Emmanuel Macron, including Theresa May – to all the EU leaders. They have endlessly repeated the mantra that their support for Israel and its right to exist in security are firm and unchangeable.

They have continually declared their support for a negotiated two-state solution. So whom do you support now? What do you support? Which Israel, exactly? What world do you imagine you are living in? Perhaps in a dream world you evidently find comfortable, but which has less and less of a connection to the real world.

Will Europe manage to continue claiming that Israel shares its liberal values, when civil society organisations are banned in Israel? When nearly all the Zionist politicians in Israel declare that they have nothing whatever to discuss with the elected Arab legislators in parliament?

Try to imagine a European diplomat declaring that the Jewish members of his nation’s parliament cannot be party to any political dialogue whatever. Or that a European diplomat would declare the Jewish citizens of his country to be traitors and a fifth column.

This sort of thing is politically correct in Israel, across party lines. And what of freedom of speech, so sacred in European discourse, when the 2019 World Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders already ranks Israel as number 88 – behind Albania, Kyrgyzstan, and Viktor Orban’s Hungary.

This is the Israel you are supporting.

Two-state solution is dead

The West’s automatic support for a two-state solution also demands updating. Do you really believe, dear statesmen and stateswomen, that this Israel has any intention whatever of implementing such a solution, ever?

Has there ever been a single Israeli politician who wanted to, or could, displace some 700,000 settlers, including from occupied East Jerusalem?

Do you believe that without a withdrawal from all of the settlements, which represents a minimum of justice for Palestinians, there is any prospect that such a solution would take hold and turn into a reality

One could note that most Western diplomats who are well-informed about what is going on have already known for a long time that such a solution is dead, but none of them has the courage to admit it.

Admitting it would require them to reconfigure all their positions on the conflict in the Middle East, including support for the existence of a Jewish state.

With the advent of the new Netanyahu government, the Western world cannot just continue to turn a blind eye and claim that everything is just fine. Nothing is just fine.

So the question is now: are you prepared to go along with this? Will you remain silent, stay mute, lend your support, and turn a blind eye to reality?

Those of you who are most concerned for Israel’s future should be the first to wake up and draw the required conclusions. Indeed, every person of conscience ought to be doing that.

Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. His new book, The Punishment of Gaza, has just been published by Verso.

Join the National Demonstation for Palestine 11 May 2019 Details…

Source: al Jazeera

Public figures who criticise Israel are attacked as anti-Semites, as shown by the witch-hunt against members of the British Labour Party.

Apartheid is alive and well and thriving in occupied Palestine.

Palestinians know this. South Africans know this. Many Israelis have accepted this as part of their political debate. Americans are coming to terms with this, with new voices in Congress and NGOs like Jewish Voice for Peace unafraid of speaking this truth.

Only in Europe is there a steadfast denial of Israeli apartheid over Palestinians despite overwhelming evidence underlining it.

Israel’s restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory are a resurrection of South Africa’s hated pass laws, which criminalised black South Africans without a permit or pass to be in a “white” city. Israel’s policy of forcible population removals and destruction of homes resembles the relocation of black people from areas zoned for exclusive white occupation in apartheid South Africa.

The Israeli security forces engage in torture and brutality exceeding the worst practices of the South African security apparatus. And the humiliation of black people that was a feature of apartheid in South Africa is replicated in occupied Palestine.

Racist rhetoric in the Israeli public debate offends even those familiar with the language of apartheid South Africa. The crude racist advertising that characterised campaigning in Israel’s recent elections was unknown in South Africa.

Of course, there are differences that arise from the different histories, religions, geography and demography, but both cases fit the universal definition of apartheid. In international law, apartheid is a state-sanctioned regime of institutionalised and legalised racial discrimination and oppression by one hegemonic racial group against another. 

In some respects, apartheid in South Africa was worse. In some respects, Israeli apartheid in occupied Palestine is worse. Certainly, Israel’s enforcement of apartheid in occupied Palestine is more militaristic and more brutal. Apartheid South Africa never blockaded a black community and methodically killed protesters as Israel is currently doing along its fence with Gaza.

These facts are well known. No one who follows the news can claim to be ignorant of the repression inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation army and Jewish settlers. It is common knowledge that the different legal systems for settlers and Palestinians have created a regime of separate and grossly unequal legal statuses.

Why then do Europeans consistently deny the existence of apartheid in occupied Palestine? Why is it business as usual with Israel? Why is Eurovision to be held in Tel Aviv? Why does Europe sell arms to Israel; trade with it, even with its illegal settlements; maintain cultural and educational ties? Why is Israel not subjected to the kind of ostracism that was applied to South Africa and complicit white South African institutions?

Why were sanctions against apartheid South Africa welcomed while European governments take steps to criminalise the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to secure freedom, justice and equal rights for Palestinians?

There are three explanations for this conundrum.

First, pro-Israeli lobbies in many European countries are as effective as their US counterparts without the same degree of visibility.

Second, there is Holocaust guilt. The policies of some countries towards Israel, such as the Netherlands, are still determined by guilt stemming from the failure to have done more to save Jews during World War II.

Third, and most important of all, there is the fear of being labelled anti-Semitic. Encouraged and manipulated by Israel and Israeli lobbies, the concept of anti-Semitism has been expanded to cover not only hatred of Jews but criticism of Israeli apartheid.

In the case of South Africa, President PW Botha was hated because he applied apartheid and not because he was an Afrikaner. It would seem obvious that in the same way many hate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because he enforces apartheid and not because he is a Jew. But this distinction is increasingly blurred in Europe. To criticise the government of Israel for applying apartheid is seen as anti-Semitism. And so it becomes dangerous and unwise to criticise Israel.

In Europe, criticism of apartheid in South Africa was a popular cause. The Anti-Apartheid Movement, which lobbied for the boycott of South African exports, trade, sport, artists and academics was encouraged and subjected to no restrictions. Governments imposed different kinds of sanctions, including an arms embargo. Public protests against apartheid were a regular feature of university life.

Criticism of Israel’s discriminatory and repressive policies, on the other hand, can result in one being labelled anti-Semitic with serious consequences for one’s career and social life. Consequently, there are fewer protests against Israeli apartheid on European campuses and less popular support for BDS. Public figures who criticise Israel are attacked as anti-Semites, as evidenced by the witch-hunt against members of the British Labour Party.

Until Europeans have the courage to distinguish criticism of Israel for applying apartheid from real anti-Semitism – that is, hatred of Jews – apartheid will continue to flourish in occupied Palestine, with the direct complicity of Europe.

John Dugard is Professor Emeritus at Universities of Leiden and the Witwatersrand.

To perform in Israel serves to normalise the occupation, the apartheid, the ethnic cleansing, the incarceration of children, the slaughter of unarmed protesters.

In Paris in 1948 the then fledgling United Nations drafted and subsequently adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined in international law that all our brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity or nationality or religion, have certain basic human rights, including but not limited to the right to life, liberty and self-determination.

So the question each one of us should ask ourselves is this: do I agree with the United Nations Declaration?

If your answer to this question is yes, then a second question arises: am I prepared to stand behind my support for human rights and act on it? Will I help my brothers and sisters in their struggle for human rights, or will I cross over and walk by on the other side?

In the context of the current conversation about the location of the Eurovision finals and the participation of Madonna and the other performers, the brothers and sisters in question are the people of Palestine who live under a deeply repressive apartheid regime of occupation and do not enjoy the right to life, liberty and self-determination.

Back in 2004, Palestinian civil society appealed to the rest of the world for help and, among other things, established a cultural picket line, asking artists to refrain from performing in Israel until such time as the Israeli government recognises the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Since that time I have responded to their call and done what I can to persuade others to do the same.

Some of my fellow musicians who have recently performed in Israel say they are doing it to build bridges and further the cause of peace. Bullshit. To perform in Israel is a lucrative gig but to do so serves to normalise the occupation, the apartheid, the ethnic cleansing, the incarceration of children, the slaughter of unarmed protesters … all that bad stuff.

By the way, because I support human rights and criticise the Israeli government for its violations, I am routinely accused of being antisemitic. That accusation can be used as a smokescreen to divert attention and discredit those who shine a light on Israel’s crimes against humanity. I should point out that I support the fight for human rights for all oppressed peoples everywhere. The religion of the oppressor is neither here nor there. If I support the Rohingyas and deplore the Myanmar persecution of them, it doesn’t make me anti-Buddhist.

It is my belief that the future of the human race will largely depend on our ability to develop our capacity to empathise with others, not our capacity to oppress and control them. We cannot afford to regress to the dark ages, when might meant right. We are better than that, aren’t we?

I suppose I’m calling on everyone involved in what I see as Eurovision’s betrayal of our joint humanity to focus on their capacity to empathise with their Palestinian brothers and sisters. To try to put themselves in that place. Try to imagine, for 70 years, generation after generation, waking every morning to the systematic, creeping plunder of your people’s life. And they, who have held their heads high and resisted with great courage, fortitude and grace, have asked us, “the bleeding hearts and the artists” for our help. We, all of us have, in my view, an absolute moral and human obligation as fellow human beings to answer their call.

My mum, in maternal attempts to provide guidance to me in my youth, used to say: “Roger, in any given situation, there’s nearly always a right thing to do; just think about it carefully, whatever it may be, by all means consider all points of view, then decide for yourself what the right thing to do is and just do it.”

I would urge all the young contestants – in fact all young people, in fact all people young and old alike, so that includes Madonna – to read the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It’s been translated into 500 languages so anyone can apprise themselves of its 30 articles. If we all abided by them we might yet save our beautiful planet from its imminent destruction.

• Roger Waters is a founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd

Source: Counterpunch

She will simultaneously flip the bird to millions of Palestinians who languish under a brutal system of colonial oppression and ethnic cleansing.

This May Madonna is set to perform two songs at Eurovision in Tel Aviv. She will reach an estimated 180 million viewers. She has moneyed backing too. Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams has pledged to pay $1 million dollars for her performance at Eurovision. And she will simultaneously flip the bird to millions of Palestinians who languish under a brutal system of colonial oppression, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Madonna is no stranger to this controversy. In 2012 she launched her MDNA tour in Tel Aviv against the urging of BDS activists.

There is a dark legacy of pop icons who play in places where there is rampant oppression or injustice. In the 1980s scores of artists played Sun City, a resort in the Bantustan state of Bophuthatswana. A state with limited autonomy created by the racist regime of apartheid South Africa in order to forcibly displace Black South Africans from their lands. Dolly Parton, Elton John, Frank Sinatra and Liza Minelli were among the big headliners there and reportedly received millions for their performances. In 2009, Sting reportedly got £1 million playing for Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the notorious repressive leader of Uzbekistan. He was unrepentant about that gig.

In 2015 Nicki Minaj played for Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the repressive president of Angola who has been widely associated with human rights abuses and corruption. But Minaj wasn’t fazed by criticism. In fact, she laughed it off and inadvertently exposed the real reason these artists play in such venues in the first place. On Instagram she posted a photo of her and the daughter of dos Santos saying “Oh no big deal… she’s just the 8^thrichest woman in the world…. GIRL POWER!!!!! This motivates me soooooooooo much!!!!”

And therein lies the answer. Pop artists are products of an industry that is obsessed with wealth accumulation and privilege. In fact, they celebrate it as a virtue and promote the fallacy that wealth equates with liberation movements like feminism, personal success and agency. It is a fallacy that “motivates”them, as Minaj revealed.

Indeed, the music industry, especially under late stage capitalism, churns out a banal formula for success, one deeply associated with wealth and power, uninterested in social, environmental or political movements. It shouldn’t be surprising then that most pop stars are consumed with this. They, like so many in the art and movie industry, are captivated by the excesses, bling and thrill of being connected with the powerful. Ethics be damned.

Many pop stars claimed in the aftermath of playing in repressive places that they were ignorant of the human rights, economic or environmental abuses. But Madonna cannot make that claim. In 2016 she paid $20 million dollars for a two story penthouse in Tel Aviv. She undoubtedly sees the headlines on Haaretz.

She knows what is happening in that city to African migrants and refugees who are routinely demonized and persecuted by politicians and rightwing fascists. Migrants who are sent to internment camps in the Negev.

She has undoubtedly heard about the Nakba and the refugee camps, and knows all too well what is happening now in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

She knows that Israel maintains a US funded army, navy and air force, and the Palestinians do not. She knows Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2007, subjecting nearly 2 million people to intolerable conditions that amount to collective punishment. Indeed, Gaza has been declared “unlivable”in many regards by the UN.

She knows scores of unarmed protestors, as well as reporters and medics, have been gunned down in cold blood along the Gaza fence.

She knows about the checkpoints, settlements and the settler violence against Palestinian school children and villagers. She knows about the environmental terrorism of slashed olive trees and poisoned wells.

She knows millions of Palestinians are subject to Israeli rule under the occupation without equal representation, the very definition of apartheid.

She knows about the wall of separation that limits Palestinian access to their jobs, farmland, medical facilities and schools.

She knows Palestinians homes in the occupied West Bank are routinely demolished. And that scores of children are routinely whisked away in the middle of the night with no warning by the IDF, and taken to undisclosed detention facilities where they are often subjected to threats and violence and placed in solitary confinement, and then subjected to military tribunal unlike their Jewish counterparts who enjoy access to civil courts.

She knows that Israel periodically flattens parts of Gaza killing scores of people with block decimating bombs and white phosphorus.  And she knows that under the racist Trump regime Israeli crimes against humanity have been given complete impunity.

In addition to this, Madonna knows this is not really about “building bridges of peace and understanding.” She knows that there are millions of Jews around the world and many Israelis who vociferously and courageously oppose the occupation, apartheid and the continued oppression and dispossession of the Palestinians. People who are horrified at the fascistic lurch Israeli society has taken, especially in recent elections. People from organizations like If Not Now who represents Israeli soldiers who are speaking out about what they have seen and have been asked to do, and Jewish Voice for Peace who have implored her not to artwash or even pinkwash apartheid and to stand on the right side of history.

She knows that there has been a call by Palestinian civil society for a non-violent boycott of Israel as long as it continues to commit these ongoing crimes. But she ignored them then, and she will undoubtedly ignore them now.

So for those expecting more out of Madonna they are bound to be disappointed. And this may be a hard pill for some to swallow at first. After all, I remember growing up and coming out to Madonna tunes. Her liberated sexuality and avant-garde style (at least in regard to Hollywood culture) was refreshing for a youth immersed in a society of puritanical repression and rigid social mores. In truth, I still listen to some of her songs on occasion when I wax nostalgic. Those icons represent a torch for many youth looking for a way out from under the boot of reactionary authoritarianism. But somewhere along the line something changes for most people with a conscience. The icons are forced to descend from their pedestals and become human, and like any human, they are understood to be subject to the enticements and corruption of coin and privilege. In truth, they cannot be expected to be anything more than a product of an ethics devoid industry and economic order itself.

Millions of people will watch Madonna perform at Eurovision, a European musical contest ironically being held in the Middle-East, Europe’s last enduring colony. She will present Tel Aviv as a bastion of European values in a hostile environment, surrounded by savages. Her message is a new branding for an old orientalism writ large for a new generation.

One can only hope that her performance will cause some to dig deeper and see that human rights are either universal or they are nothing. And that there is no justification for playing apartheid. Not in South Africa 40 years ago. Not in Israel and Palestine today.

Source: al  Jazeera

124 amputations have taken place in Gaza in the last year as a result of injuries sustained during the Great March of Return.

The February 2019 Situation Report from the World Health Organization (WHO) states that 266 Gazans have been killed since the beginning of the march. But civilian deaths are only part of the story. The report also highlights the fact that in just under one year, 29,130 people – more than 0.01 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip – have been injured. Of those, 6,557 sustained live ammunition gunshot wounds and in 89 percent (5,183) of these cases, the lower limbs were affected.

During the protests, sniper bullets that are designed to kill a target at a distance of more than a kilometre were fired on protesters from just a couple of hundred metres, causing devastating injuries. Patients with such injuries usually require five to nine surgeries before their wounds could heal and their treatment takes a minimum of two years to complete. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health’s Limb Salvage Unit, there are between 800 and 1,200 young Palestinian men currently awaiting reconstructive surgery in Gaza. 

Earlier this month, an experts meeting was held by Doctors without Borders (known by its French initials, MSF) in Brussels to discuss the burden of providing reconstructive surgery to these patients. Ironically, by the end of the first day of the MSF meeting on March 22, another 181 Palestinians had been wounded in Gaza, some of them by live ammunition.

At the MSF meeting, Palestinian surgeons from Gaza’s largest hospital Shifa described how the majority of those injured by Israeli snipers were shot in the lower thigh/back of knee where a single bullet can damage nerves, arteries and the knee joint all at once. The prevalence of such hard to treat injuries, reminiscent of the ones sustained by Northern Ireland’s “kneecapping” victims during the Troubles, demonstrate how Israeli snipers shoot not only to temporarily immobilise their targets, but also to inflict long-term damage.

Approximately 30 percent of such gunshot wounds lead to bacterial bone infections, further complicating an already gruelling treatment process. In the age of multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR), treating these infections is both difficult and costly. 

According to the WHO, 124 amputations have taken place in Gaza in the last year as a result of injuries sustained during the Great March of Return. This number is likely to increase in the coming days, as infected gunshot wounds can deteriorate quickly and render limbs unsalvageable, despite the best efforts of medical professionals.

Before the start of the Great Return March a year ago, Israel’s repeated wars on Gaza had left thousands of Palestinians with war-related disabilities. These injuries, just like the ones from the past year, are the result of a technologically advanced version of the infamous “break the bones” policy former Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin pursued during the first Intifada – today, Palestinian bones are broken not with clubs and bare hands, but with sniper rifles. 

This policy of intentionally maiming protesters and creating an epidemic of disability serves several purposes for Israeli settler colonialism.

First, it puts enormous strain on the already crumbling Palestinian healthcare infrastructure. On May 14, 2018, for example, during the protests against the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem, Israeli forces wounded so many Palestinians (more than 1,300) within 10 hours that the healthcare system was completely overwhelmed and hospitals in Gaza ran out of beds, forcing doctors to issue early discharges.

Second, it burdens already struggling Palestinian families, who not only lose a breadwinner, when one of their members is maimed, but also have to provide care for him or her and find additional funds to cover medical costs.

Third, maiming attempts to smother the spirit of resistance of protesting Palestinians while avoiding international criticism for mass killing. By creating a humanitarian catastrophe, Israel is able to reframe the global debate around the rights of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip from that of national liberation and anti-apartheid struggle to one of the medical needs of an afflicted population. The need to provide for a large number of disabled people further entrenches modes of dependency on aid.

The past year has been a testament to the unbridled bravery of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The international community has, unfortunately, yet again, failed them – further emboldening Israel’s sense of impunity that fuels its crimes.

Despite this failure, the determination of the Palestinians in Gaza to end a medieval blockade that has lasted for over 12 years – robbing a whole generation of its potential – spurred by their belief that they deserve a better and more dignified life, will go down in the annals of history as testimony to the human spirit.

Source: The Guardian

It is the duty of supporters of justice worldwide to mobilise in solidarity with Palestinians to help usher in an era of freedom.

Israel’s repression of Palestinian citizens, African refugees and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza has become more brutal over time. Ethnic cleansing, land seizure, home demolition, military occupation, bombing of Gaza and international law violations led Archbishop Tutu to declare that the treatment of Palestinians reminded him of apartheid, only worse.

I’m also deeply disturbed that critics of Israel’s brutal policies are frequently threatened with repression of their freedom of speech, a reality I’ve now experienced at first hand. Last week, a public meeting in Vienna where I was scheduled to speak in support of Palestinian freedom, as part of the global Israeli Apartheid Week, was cancelled by the museum hosting the event – under pressure from Vienna’s city council, which opposes the international movement to divest from Israel.

South Africa’s apartheid government banned me for life from attending meetings. Nothing I said could be published, because I stood up against apartheid. How disgraceful that, despite the lessons of our struggle against racism, such intolerance continues to this day, stifling free speech on Palestine.

During the South African struggle, we were accused of following a communist agenda, but smears didn’t deflect us. Today, Israel’s propaganda follows a similar route, repeated by its supporters – conflating opposition to Israel with antisemitism. This must be resisted.

A growing number of Jews worldwide are taking positions opposing Israel’s policies. Many younger Jews are supporting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a peaceful mobilisation inspired by the movement that helped to end apartheid in South Africa.

The parallels with South Africa are many. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently said: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens … Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people – and them alone.”

Similar racist utterances were common in apartheid South Africa. We argued that a just peace could be reached, and that white people would find security only in a unitary, non-racist, democratic society after ending the oppression of black South Africans and providing freedom and equality for all.

By contrast, Netanyahu’s Likud is desperately courting extremist parties, and abandoning any pretext of negotiating with the Palestinians. His plan to bring an extremist settler party and Kahanist terrorist party into his governing coalition is obscene. His most serious opponent is a general accused of war crimes in Gaza. As long as a repressive apartheid-like regime rules, things will only worsen for Palestinians and Israelis too.

The anti-apartheid movement grew over three decades, in concert with the liberation struggle of South Africa’s people, to make a decisive difference in toppling the racist regime. Europeans refused to buy apartheid fruit; there were sports boycotts; dockworkers from Liverpool to Melbourne refused to handle South African cargo; an academic boycott turned universities into apartheid-free zones; and arms sanctions helped to shift the balance against South Africa’s military.

As the movement developed and UN resolutions isolated Pretoria’s regime, pressure mounted on trading partners and supportive governments. The US Congress’s historic adoption of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (1986) was a major turning point. When the Chase and Barclays banks closed in South Africa and withdrew their lines of credit, the battle was well-nigh over.

This required huge organisational effort, grassroots mobilisation and education. Similar elements characterise today’s BDS movement to isolate apartheid-like Israel.

Every step is important – pressing institutions and corporations that are complicit in Israel’s crimes and supporting Palestinians in their struggle for liberation. This is not about destroying Israel and its people but about working for a just solution, as we did in South Africa.

It is the duty of supporters of justice worldwide to mobilise in solidarity with Palestinians to help usher in an era of freedom.

• Ronnie Kasrils is a former South African government minister, and was a leading member of the African National Congress during the apartheid era. He is the keynote speaker at the public meeting Legacies of the Anti-Apartheid Movement 10 April 2019 at SOAS London. Full details…

Lowkey: Long Live Palestine

Source: Middle East Eye

In her short life she witnessed three Israeli military aggressions that wounded and killed thousands of innocent Palestinians.

She used to hide the gift behind her back, then give me a kiss and sing the famous Arabic song “Sit il-habayeb, ya habiba” (“Dear mother, my most beloved”).

She will not this year. Her absence consumes us; we are filled with melancholy. But at the same time, I am determined to continue on her path of humanitarian and nationalistic work.

A sovereign Palestine

Razan was a vibrant young girl, full of hope, and generous to all. She dreamed of returning to our home village, Salamah in Jaffa, from where we were forcibly expelled in 1948 – and she believed in the realisation of an independent, sovereign state of Palestine.

Razan was the buttress that supported our household, and a good model for her five brothers and sisters.

My daughter was 20. Her short life was constrained within the boundaries of the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, where she witnessed three Israeli military aggressions that wounded and killed thousands of innocent Palestinians. Nonetheless, Razan maintained her determination and commitment to serving her people through her voluntary humanitarian work.

She aspired to be a doctor. But my husband’s unemployment and our poor economic conditions, resulting from the Israeli blockade, deprived her of the opportunity to pursue this dream after high school. Yet, she did not give up; instead, she studied nursing and took several intensive courses, in which she excelled. She reached out to the sick and injured everywhere, providing them with pro bono healthcare services.

Since Razan’s martyrdom, I have also been volunteering as a paramedic in the medical tents for the Great March of Return protests. It provides me with strength and perseverance to continue in the footsteps of my daughter. It proves that Razan is still alive, with her spirit and everlasting message of humanity.

‘We have to remain strong’

The day the Great March of Return started, on Land Day last year, near the eastern borders of Khan Younis, I was surprised to see my daughter wearing her white uniform and telling me resolutely: “I will take part in the marches of return. We all have the duty to peacefully resist the occupation in order to regain our usurped rights. We have to remain strong and to have an ironclad will to save our people.”

She sold her ring and cellphone, and bought medical supplies to provide patients with healthcare, even though we urgently needed money. Razan’s role in the marches was to rescue and evacuate injured protesters.

Armed with unusual tenacity and an emboldened spirit, Razan was fearless and energetic until her last breath. Indifferent to the barrage of bullets fired by Israeli soldiers at point-blank range, she moved courageously from one place to another to rescue the injured.

Razan became increasingly energised with each passing day, despite being subjected to a dozen injuries, from tear-gas inhalation, to fractures to her arms and chest, to being hit by shrapnel.

One day, I rushed madly to the medical tents upon hearing of her injury; while riding with her in the ambulance, she opened her eyes and said, “Get me down. I am here to treat others, not to be treated.” Indeed, she rested for a few minutes and returned to complete her work.

Razan told me dozens of stories about the difficult experiences she had while treating injured protestors. One of the most touching was her attempt to save the life of Tahrir Abu Sibla, a deaf boy killed in a peaceful demonstration by an Israeli sniper, who shot him in the head. My daughter was horrified, but unhesitatingly offered him first aid until the ambulance arrived.

Exposing Israel’s crimes

Fear took hold of us each day Razan went out to the marches. We knew full well that the Israeli military was deliberately targeting paramedics and journalists, who expose the crimes of Israel to the world.

The question I often ask myself is: What crime had my daughter committed, wearing her white uniform and trying to rescue the injured, to be shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper? What is the stance of human rights organisations and the international community towards Israel’s massacres and continuous violations of international conventions?

Despite the bitterness that rages in my heart, I am proud of my daughter. She is a bright model for the struggle of Palestinian women, showing that the Israeli military occupation has not weakened our legendary steadfastness and resistance.

Razan paid with her life for what she believed in. Her story testifies to Israel’s continuing attempts to assassinate the dreams of Palestinian youth.

I see Razan in the eyes of every young Palestinian. Today, I ask you to watch her interviews with the media – to hear the messages of humanity she shared with her colleagues.

Razan is now gone, but her ideas and spirit live on. I promise to continue on the path of my eldest daughter until we realise our right to self-determination in our home, Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital.

Source: Middle East Eye

They shot medics, journalists and even the disabled in this unprecedented violation of international human rights and humanitarian law.

This densely populated strip of land, surrounded by Israeli barriers, has long been a prison to the Palestinian people who inhabit it.

Look east and you see the fence, brimming with rifles and soldiers ready to execute any Palestinian who steps too close. Look west and you see Israeli military boats, a menacing form along the Mediterranean coast, prohibiting all entrance or exit – all this, despite Israel’s claim that it withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Awakening the behemoth

When I first called for the Great March of Return last year, I could never have anticipated the slumbering behemoth that I awoke.

In the three months that preceded the march, Palestinians with different ideologies and political opinions were filled with motivation and hope. Civil society activists, youth groups, writers, artists, women’s rights associations and journalists expressed to me their absolute support for this peaceful alternative. Even members of armed factions were able to get behind it.

What started as a Facebook post turned into a historic movement, giving Israel an unprecedented opportunity: It could encourage Palestinians to adopt peaceful resistance, through words and culture, rather than guns and violence. But instead, Israel turned to violence.

On 30 March, 2018, Israeli soldiers killed peaceful demonstrators who posed no threat. Snipers sat in military towers safe from the fight, wilfully shooting and killing women and children. They shot medics, journalists and even the disabled in this unprecedented violation of international human rights and humanitarian law.

These were avoidable deaths. They did not come as response to a physical threat posed by the Palestinian people, but from a desire to kill the very idea that these peaceful demonstrators represented. As the old adage goes, it’s easier to kill a man than an idea.

Undeniable right of return

For Israel, the Palestinian “problem” is a concept more easily sold to the international community when Palestinians are labelled as violent and armed. The reality, however, is that the Great March of Return represents the peaceful faces of the men, women, children and elderly residents of Gaza.

The significance of the march cannot be understated. It is symbolic of the intent of the Palestinian people to peacefully continue to fight for our undeniable right of return. It sends a message that millions of refugees, spread around the globe, must return home. This is their right; it must no longer be treated as an academic exercise or a theoretical question. It is practically achievable and must be treated as such.

The vast majority of the land on which refugees lived before Israel expelled them in 1948 is either still empty or has a low population density. With the right political will, we would be able to end the tragedy that has engulfed millions of Palestinian refugees, and ensure a peaceful existence alongside their Jewish neighbours.

We want a solution based on the foundations of justice, equality and freedom. This means a country where indigenous Palestinians can coexist with their Jewish neighbours according to the shared values of citizenship, equal rights and international justice – not a state “only of the Jewish people,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contends, but one that we can share together.

Redefining the Palestinian-Israeli relationship

What is certain is that the current situation is unsustainable. When Israel expelled the Palestinians in 1948, it hoped they would resettle in their destination countries and quickly forget their homeland. But today, 70 years after being expelled, millions of Palestinian refugees still yearn for a homeland long denied to them.

The right of return is more than a political statement: it is ingrained in the very nature of what it means to be Palestinian, rooted in Palestinian culture, literature and the minds of refugees residing in camps and foreign countries around the globe.

It exists in artistic works, on the names of stores and buildings, and in oral memory – and this is what the Great March of Return represents. This is a right that cannot be forgotten or questioned.

Fear exists about the right of return, but fear comes from injustice. A solution exists, but we must redefine the Palestinian-Israeli relationship on the basis of human equality, rather than expulsion and racial discrimination. We must accept a coexistence founded on the joint principles of humanity, rather than occupation and hate.

Let us come together to end this dark era of injustice and suffering, and put in place the basis for peace and stability, built on the recognition of the right of all peoples to freedom, equality and return.

Ahmed Abu Artema is a Palestinian journalist and peace activist. Born in Rafah, in 1984, Abu Artema is a refugee from Al Ramla village. He authored the book “Organized Chaos”.

Source: Al Jazeera News

Israel has created new concepts that do not exist under international law to justify the killing of civilian protesters.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are set to mark the one-year anniversary of the Great March of Return protests, anticipating more of the same lethal violence that has characterised Israel’s approach since the demonstrations began.

Last month, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) published a damning indictment of Israeli forces’ conduct in suppressing the protests.

According to the COI, Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting civilians, killing and maiming protesters – including children, as well as journalists and medics.

The COI’s findings were welcomed by human rights groups who last year unsuccessfully challenged the army’s rules of engagement and its shooting policy in Israel’s Supreme Court.

Those rules permit soldiers to target so-called “main inciters” – civilians deemed to be encouraging protesters to approach the fence.

“Israel has simply invented the concept of ‘main inciters,'” Professor Kevin Jon Heller, associate professor of public international law at the University of Amsterdam, told Al Jazeera.

“No such status exists under international humanitarian law (IHL) or international human rights law (IHRL). Under IHL, you are either a combatant or a civilian. Under IHRL, force of any kind requires the target to pose some kind of actual threat,” Heller continued.

“You can’t simply shoot someone in the leg because you think they are leading a demonstration. And lethal force requires the target to post an imminent threat to life.”

Legal rights centre Adalah was one of the groups which challenged Israel’s response to the protests in the courts. “Israel – including the army, the government, and the Supreme Court – is recreating international law to fit its practices”, said Suhad Bishara, a lawyer at Adalah who petitioned against the use of sniper fire.

“In a combat situation, IHL applies and civilians should be protected. In a law enforcement paradigm under IHRL, civilians are protected. So, what Israel has done is create new concepts that do not exist under international law to justify the killing of civilian protesters,” Bishara told Al Jazeera.

As two Israeli legal experts wrote in an assessment of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the government’s position “conflates and obfuscates the international legal frameworks at play, creating an extremely pliable set of rules that can be manipulated depending on the exigencies of the moment”.

A key part of Israel’s approach to the protests is the designation of Gaza as an “enemy entity”, which dates back to a September 2007 security cabinet decision.

It is this definition which “gives the green light to many illegal practices”, said Bishara, whose colleagues at Adalah are currently challenging in the courts a decision to prevent any Palestinian in Gaza from seeking compensation on the basis they live in an “enemy entity”.

“For the sniper, everyone on the other side of the fence is seen de facto as a threat; either you are officially affiliated to Hamas, or you are protecting them somehow. The Israeli Supreme Court categorised the demonstrators as participating in hostilities and determined that, as such, ‘they lose their protection’. This is how you criminalise everyone as a potential threat – according to these broad, arbitrary, and inaccurate definitions, Israel is saying there is almost no civilian society in Gaza.”

Hundreds killed, thousands wounded

According to Palestinian health officials, more than 250 Palestinians have been killed since the protests began and thousands more have been injured.

In its report, the UN found that 189 Palestinians were killed between March 30 and December 31 last year.

Israel’s response to the Great March of Return protests is only the latest in a series of actions in Gaza that have drawn international condemnation.

During the 50-day offensive in 2014, for example, Israeli officials were slammed for a policy that saw Palestinian family homes repeatedly targeted over supposed links to armed faction members.

Haydee Dijkstal, an international criminal and human rights lawyer from 33 Bedford Row, told Al Jazeera that the steps taken by Israel with respect to Gaza since the 2005 withdrawal of settlers signify “a trend away from the concept of proportionality, and a retreat from protections that civilians are guaranteed under international humanitarian law”.

“To categorise a whole family, groups of protesters or an entire residential area in such a way that innocent civilians could be targeted or designated as acceptable collateral damage suggests an attempt to create a justification for indiscriminate attacks and collective punishment which does not exist under international law”, she added.

Israel has responded to the COI and other criticism from local and international human rights groups with the same basic message: the Great Return March protests are organised by terrorists, and the overwhelming majority of those shot have been terrorists.

A key part of Israel’s public relations campaign has been figures disseminated by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre, once described by an Israeli security journalist as a “pipeline” for “assessments that the Military Intelligence research division does not want directly associated with it”.

Meir Amit’s “analyses” of Great Return March casualties is – by its own admission – reliant on “circumstantial evidence”, with a mere “affiliation” or “link” to any Palestinian political faction enough to classify a protester as a “terrorist”. Meir Amit has categorised children as young as 13 as “terrorists”, as well as slain journalist Yaser Murtaja.

The centre’s “statistics” are cited by Israeli diplomats, as well as pro-Israel publications with headlines like: “Firm Proof That Most Palestinians Killed in Gaza Protests Had Terrorist Ties”.

By contrast, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has concluded that, out of 190 identified fatalities among demonstrators, only 53 – or 28 percent – were confirmed as “participating in hostilities”, a designation the NGO assigns based solely on an individual’s active membership in an armed faction.

The UN COI, meanwhile, stated that “at least 29 of those killed at the demonstration sites were members of Palestinian organized armed groups”.

For international law experts like Dijkstal, Israel’s ongoing approach to Gaza “risks providing an example whereby creating overly broad policies and categorisations could be used to suppress opposition or protest, and individuals exercising their fundamental human rights to free expression and peaceful assembly are unlawfully targeted under the guise of being a threat”.

“Israel constantly stretches the limits of IHL and IHRL to justify its use of force against Palestinians,” said Heller.

“Instead of using international law as a minimal standard designed to protect civilians, Israel uses it as a ‘war manual’ … looking for loopholes and basing its actions on unreasonable and legally flawed interpretation, founded on a morally repugnant world view,” a B’Tselem spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

“This is not a legalistic or theoretical issue: this guise of legality legitimizes Israel’s immoral, lethal policies in the eyes of both the Israeli public and the international community, which allows Israel to persist in its action with their fatal outcomes.”

What people are afraid of is that there are two Muslims in Congress that have their eyes wide open, that have their feet to the ground, that know what they’re talking about, that are fearless.

On 27 February 2019, Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the first Muslim women elected to the US Congress, spoke at a public meeting in Washington DC. This is a transcript of Ilhan Omar’s speech.

But we never really allow space for the stories of Palestinians seeking safety and sanctuary to be uplifted. And to me, it is the dehumanization and the silencing of a particular pain and suffering of people, should not be ok and normal. And you can’t be in the practice of humanizing and uplifting the suffering of one, if you’re not willing to do that for everyone.

And so for me I know that when I hear my Jewish constituents or friends or colleagues speak about Palestinians who don’t want safety, or Palestinians who aren’t deserving I stay focused on the actual debate about what that process should look like. I never go to the dark place of saying “here’s a Jewish person, they’re talking about Palestinians, Palestinians are Muslim, maybe they’re Islamophobic.” I never allow myself to go there because I don’t have to.

And what I am fearful of is that because Rashida and I are Muslim, that a lot of Jewish colleagues, a lot of our Jewish constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel, to be anti-Semitic, because we are Muslim. And so to me, it is something that becomes designed to end the debate.

Because you get in this space, of like, I know what intolerance looks like and I’m sensitive when someone says that the words you use Ilhan, are resemblance of intolerance. And I am cautious of that and I feel pained by that.

But it’s almost as if every single time we say something, regardless of what it is we say, that it’s supposed to about foreign policy or engagement, that our advocacy about ending oppression, or the freeing of every human life and wanting dignity, we get to be labeled in something, and that’s the end of the discussion, because we end up defending that, and nobody gets to have the broader debate of “what is happening with Palestine?”

So for me, I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country. And I want to ask, why is it ok for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil fuel industries, or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobby that is influencing policy?

And I want to ask the question, why is it ok for you to push, for you to be… there are so many people… I mean most of us are new, but many members of Congress have been there forever. Some of them have been there before we were born. So I know many of them were fighting for people to be free, for people to live in dignity in South Africa. I know many of them fight for people around the world to have dignity to have self-determination. So I know, I know that they care about these things.

But now that you have two Muslims that are saying “here is a group of people that we want to make sure that they have the dignity that you want everyone else to have!” …we get to be called names, we get to be labeled as hateful.

No, we know what hate looks like. We experience it every single day. We have to deal with death threats. I have colleagues who talk about death threats. And sometimes… there are cities in my state where the gas stations have written on their bathrooms “assassinate Ilhan Omar”. I have people driving around my district looking for my home, for my office, causing me harm. I have people every single day on Fox News and everywhere, posting that I am a threat to this country. So I know what fear looks like.

The masjid I pray in in Minnesota got bombed by two domestic white terrorists. So I know what it feels to be someone who is of a faith that is vilified. I know what it means to be someone whose ethnicity that is vilified. I know what it feels to be of a race that is, like I am an immigrant, so I don’t have some of the historical drama of some of my sisters and brothers have in this country, but I know what it means for people to just see me as a black person, and to treat me as less than a human.

And so, when people say “you are bringing hate,” I know what their intention is. Their intention is to make sure that our lights are dimmed. That we walk around with our heads bowed. That we lower our face and our voice.

But we have news for people. You can call us any kind of name. You can threaten us any kind of way. Rashida and I are not ourselves. Every single day we walk in the halls of Congress and we have people who have never had the opportunity to walk there walking with us.

So we’re here, we’re here to stay and represent all the people who have been silenced for many decades and many generations. And we’re here to fight for the people of our district who want to make sure that there is actual prosperity, actual prosperity, being guaranteed.

Because there is a direct correlation between not having clean water, and starting endless wars. It’s all about the profit and who gets benefit.

There’s a direct correlation between corporations that are getting rich, and the fact that we have students who are shackled with debt.

There is a direct correlation between the White House and the people who are benefiting from detention beds that are profitized.

So, what people are afraid of is not that there are two Muslims in Congress. What people are afraid of is that there are two Muslims in Congress that have their eyes wide open, that have their feet to the ground, that know what they’re talking about, that are fearless, and that understand that they have the same election certificate that everyone in Congress does.

Source: Electronic Intifada

More than 400 French intellectuals, artists and activists sign an open letter to Macron: “If you decide to pursue us, to silence us, even to imprison us, well, you can come and get us.”

More than 400 intellectuals, artists and activists have signed an open letter to Macron that was published on 28 February in the national newspaper Libération.

“Mr. President, we are French citizens who respect the laws of the republic, but if you adopt a law against anti-Zionism, or if you officially adopt an erroneous definition of anti-Semitism that permits outlawing it, please know that we will break this law with our words, our writing, our art and our acts of solidarity,” the letter states.

“And if you decide to pursue us, to silence us, even to imprison us for that, well, you can come and get us.”

Among the signatories are academics and educators Ariella Azoulay, Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun and Michèle Sibony; filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, Simone Bitton and Eyal Sivan; writers Nancy Huston and Abdellatif Laabi; and veteran journalist Alain Gresh.

“Anti-Zionism is an opinion, a current of thought born among European Jews at the moment when Jewish nationalism was taking off. It opposes the Zionist ideology that advocated (and still advocates) the installation of the world’s Jews in Palestine, today Israel,” the letter adds.

It notes that the essential argument of anti-Zionism is “that Palestine was never an empty territory that a ‘people without land’ are free to colonize based on a divine promise, but a country populated with real inhabitants for whom Zionism would soon become a synonym for exodus, despoilation and the negation of all their rights.”

During his speech to CRIF, a major Jewish communal organization and pro-Israel group, Macron claimed “anti-Zionism is one of the modern forms of anti-Semitism” and pledged that France would formally adopt the so-called IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

Supported by the Israel lobby, the definition deliberately conflates criticism of Israel and Zionism on the one hand, with hatred of Jews, on the other.

Macron did not promise a change in the penal code to outlaw anti-Zionist speech, but said that instructions would be issued to police, judges and teachers “to permit them to better combat those who hide behind the rejection of Israel and even the negation of its existence.”

The French president’s move, praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is part of a transatlantic campaign to weaponize often false accusations of anti-Semitism to smear and silence critics of Israel.

But while Macron is so far not proposing to change the law, some 30 lawmakers are pushing just such an initiative and said in February that they have been working up proposals for several months.

“What we want to outlaw is denying the existence of Israel,” Sylvain Maillard, a lawmaker from Macron’s La République en Marche party, said. “Of course one can continue to criticize Israeli governments.”

In his speech to CRIF, Macron seemingly sought to allay demands to outlaw anti-Zionism directly by touting French authorities’ legal crackdown against BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

Macron pointed to convictions against boycott activists, and said there would be more.

The campaign group BDS France took aim at the president’s renewed attacks on the boycott movement.

“In reality, the vast majority of complaints against BDS activists do not result in convictions,” BDS France stated. “They either are not prosecuted, or are resolved by acquittals.”

The group noted that even the staunchly pro-Israel European Union has conceded that boycott activism to pressure Israel and complicit institutions and companies to end abuses of Palestinians is protected free speech.

“Let’s recall that boycott is a frequent form of protest against injustice practiced by such historic figures as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela,” the group asserted.

Paraphrasing Macron’s own words, BDS France vowed that none of the president’s repressive measures would succeed in “erasing from our society the anti-apartheid struggle or the criticism of Israeli policies.”

“We will hold on and, in the end, we will win,” BDS France stated.

Ali Abunimah is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine. He blogs regularly at Electronic Intifada.

Source: Counterpunch

As Palestinians have fought Israeli tyranny for years, Venezuelans will continue to fight foreign tyranny and unlawful political and military interventions.

Venezuela is struggling to defeat a coup attempt that is supported by the United States, Israel and many Western governments.

The relationship between Venezuela and Palestine has been particularly strong under the presidencies of late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez and current president Maduro. Neither leader has missed an opportunity to show their solidarity towards the Palestinian people, a fact that has always irked Tel Aviv and its western benefactors.

The Gaza rallies, however, were more than a display of gratitude towards a country that had enough courage to break off ties with Israel following the latter’s 2008-9 war on Gaza – a bloody campaign known as “Operation Cast Lead”. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in that one-sided war. No Arab government that has diplomatic ties with Israel severed its relations with Tel Aviv. While Caracas – over 10 thousand kilometers away – did. Then, former President Chavez, accused Israel of “state terrorism”.

But there is more to Palestinian solidarity with Venezuela than this recent history. Palestinians have experienced decades-long collective trauma from US-funded Israeli colonialism and military occupation. The US has imposed itself as an ‘honest peace broker’ as a way to mask its political interference and meddling in the Middle East, while fully and blindly supporting Israeli aggressions.

While the Venezuelan people have every right to protest their government, demanding greater accountability and economic solutions to the crushing poverty facing the country, no one has the right to meddle in the affairs of Venezuela or any other sovereign country anywhere.

We must remember that the US government has hardly ever been a source of stability in South America, certainly not since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Since then, the US has done more than mere meddling, but outright political and military interventions, supporting various coups that toppled or attempted to overthrow democratically-elected governments.

What is underway in Caracas is a repeat of that sad and tragic history.

The unhealthy relationship between the US and its southern neighbors took an even darker turn when, in 1904, then US President Theodore Roosevelt declared the “right” of his country to hold “international police power” in Latin America. Since then, the entire region has been Washington’s business.

Always looking for opportunities to exploit, Washington now sees a chance to undermine Venezuela and its elected government.

The Venezuelan people are dealing with overwhelming poverty and a very unstable social situation. Hyperinflation and the crumbling of the country’s oil industries led to a dramatic economic downturn, with about 10% of the population fleeing the country. Poor policy choices led to an escalation of the already endemic corruption, to a significant weakening of local production and increasing devaluation of the country’s currency.

However, consensus around president Maduro’s socialist government is still broad, as witnessed by their victory in the 2018 presidential election.

Despite the presence of about 150 international observers from 30 countries and international organizations, which declared that the last Venezuelan election was transparent, domestic opponents, supported by the US and its western and regional allies denounced it as “fraud foretold”, even before Maduro delivered his victory speech.

The US and its Western allies are frustrated by the fact that despite its economic problems, most Venezuelans remained united around Chavez, and now Maduro, who are perceived, especially by the poorer classes, as independent national leaders fighting against constant US destabilization and neocolonialism.

The world order is vastly changing, but US ruling elites refuse to change. While speaking about Washington’s need to “protect democracy” in Venezuela, US National Security Advisor, the infamous Israel supporter, John Bolton admitted that the coup in Venezuela is an opportunity to exploit the country’s oil and natural resources.

“It will make a big difference to the United States economically”, Bolton told Fox News in an interview this week, “if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

Tragically, the US boycott against Venezuela forced the country to sell its gold in return for valuable currency, as well as consumer goods, food and medicinal products. The coup is meant to completely push Caracas to its knees.

Western predators are all moving in, each party playing the role entrusted of them, as if history is repeating itself. Bank of England (BoE) has blocked Maduro’s officials from withdrawing $1.2 billion worth of Venezuela’s gold. Worse, brazen interference from foreign countries is becoming so pronounced that UK foreign office minister, Sir Alan Duncan has suggested that the BoE grant access to the gold reserves to the self-proclaimed opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Germany, and France and Spain gave Venezuela’s Maduro an ultimatum: the President has eight days to call elections, otherwise they’ll recognize Guaido as president. On January 31, the European Parliament recognized Guaido as a de facto leader of Venezuela in complete disregard of the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people.

Yet, as odd as this may seem to some, Maduro still enjoys greater legitimacy in his country than Donald Trump or Emmanuel Macron do in the US and France respectively. Yet, no entity is threatening to intervene in France, for example on behalf of the ‘Yellow Vests’, who have protested in their hundreds of thousands for weeks, demanding an end to Macon’s rule.

It is doubly important that Venezuela doesn’t collapse before this US-led sinister campaign because of the rising far-right powers in South and Latin America, namely the upsurge of reactionary forces in Brazil.

If Venezuela’s political order disintegrates, others, too will become target: Bolivia, Cuba, and even Mexico.

Since the US partial withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, and the Obama Administration’s ‘pivot to Asia’, to challenge the inevitable dominance of China, US policy makers have been keen on staging a comeback in South America as well. More recently, the just-departed US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley was instrumental in shaping the aggressive US policy towards Venezuela.

Now that the country is struggling with extreme poverty – itself resulting from the manipulation of oil prices – the US sees an opportunity to make its move, and reclaim its destructive, domineering role in that part of the world. The election in Brazil of far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, who wants to “make Brazil great again’ is tipping the balance in favor of reactionary forces in the whole region.

But the plot against Venezuela is also an opportunity for those who want to challenge the old order, to tell the US government ‘enough is enough’; that the age of coups and blood-soaked interventions should be behind us, and that South America must not be subjugated again.

As Palestinians have fought Israeli tyranny for years, Venezuelans will continue to fight foreign tyranny and unlawful political and military interventions as well. And with true and tangible global solidarity, both nations will prevail – sooner or later.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle.

Source: Fair

The false narrative portrays Israelis and Palestinians as harming each other to a roughly comparable degree, and sharing proportionate responsibility for the absence of peace.

The media’s attempt to present a “balanced” version of these events is a fundamentally flawed approach, because it erases myriad, consequential differences:  between colonizer and colonized; between oppressing people and people resisting oppression; between, on the one hand, the regional military superpower backed by the global hegemon and, on the other, unarmed and lightly armed protestors.

These inequities are buried when Palestine/Israel is presented as though it were a civil war, or a “he said, she said” story where the reality of what’s happening—ethnic cleansing, apartheid and resistance to these—is impossible to unravel. Such “both sides” coverage wrongly suggests to readers that this is a mere “conflict” between parties on equal footing and with equally valid claims of injury against each other. It is the formal expression of what I show in my book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, is the false narrative that Israelis and Palestinians have harmed each other to a roughly comparable degree, and share proportionate responsibility for the absence of peace.

On a day when Israel killed seven Palestinian demonstrators, two of whom were children, a Reuters report (9/28/18) devoted 62 words to the Palestinian account of the violence and 57 to Israel’s. One 43-word paragraph is spent presenting the issues animating Palestinian protest as statements of fact:

About 200 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza protests began on March 30 to demand the right of return to lands that Palestinian families fled or were driven from on Israel’s founding in 1948, and the easing of an Israeli/Egyptian economic blockade.

One 35-word paragraph presents the Israeli perspective as statements of fact:

A Gaza sniper killed an Israeli soldier in an earlier protest, and Palestinians have used kites and helium balloons to fly incendiary devices over the border fence, destroying tracts of forest and farmland in Israel.

Presenting Palestine/Israel in such an “even-handed” manner necessarily involves elisions. The latter passage lists the weapons Palestinians have used during the protest (a sniper, “kites and helium balloons”) but there is scant mention of the weapons Israel is using—drones, helicopters, jets, a naval blockade—to try to quell the protests, maintain apartheid, and prevent Palestinian refugees from returning to their lands. Had these been inventoried, it would be obvious that there is nothing balanced about the deadliness of the weaponry available to the parties involved in this struggle.

Similarly, readers are told that Palestinians have “destroy[ed]tracts of forest and farmland in Israel,” but no details about the consequences of the blockade of Gaza are noted. These include the theft of Palestinian farmland, which is one part of Israel’s deliberate destruction of Gaza’s economy, as well as Israel’s obstruction of  Palestinians’ access to clean water, electricity and medical care. Such specifics would belie the symmetry these articles attempt to construct.

CNN (9/28/18) spent three paragraphs on the Palestinians’ version of events and three on Israel’s. This structure encodes the message that Palestine-Israel is a story of two parties on a level playing field. Yet one party has international law on its side—and, frankly, any minimally coherent conception of justice—and the other doesn’t: Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal; the Palestinian refugees have a legal right to return to their homes, and a legal right to resist occupation, including by force.

When Israel killed three Palestinian demonstrators, including a thirteen-year-old, the Associated Press (10/6/18) spent 68 words describing what Palestinians say happened. These are set against 52 words given to Israel’s side of the story. Readers are told that

responding to calls by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, thousands of Palestinians thronged five areas along the fence, burning tires, throwing rocks.

And also that

the Israeli military said about 20,000 protesters participated. They threw explosive devices and grenades toward the troops which used tear gas and live fire to, it added.

Allotting almost the same number of words to the colonizer killing three Palestinian civilian protestors, including a child, as to anti-colonial resistance against an occupier’s military forces implies that these actions are equivalent. Yet this supposed equivalence rests on omission: A reference to Palestinians “chanting slogans against a stifling Israeli/Egyptian blockade” of Gaza is the only reason for the protests that the article provides; that the Palestinians are attempting to exercise their right of return is excised from the conversation. Mentioning that more than two-thirds of the Palestinians in Gaza are refugees displaced by Israel, and that Israel and its allies are preventing these refugees from  exercising their right to return to their homes, would expose the absurdity of giving equal weight to Palestinian and Israeli grievances.

A CNN story (10/12/18) on Israel’s killing of seven more Palestinian protesters spends 186 words on what Israel has done to Palestinians and 190 on what amounts to Israel’s point of view. Mentions of the deaths of Palestinians are consistently paired with a reference to ostensible Palestinian violence:

• “Seven Palestinians died Friday after being shot by Israeli soldiers along the security fence between Gaza and Israel during violent weekly protests.”
• “The deaths occurred during Friday protests, which often turn violent.”
• “Israeli soldiers have killed more than 200 Palestinians in the clashes, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, with thousands of others injured. Israel asserts it is protecting its sovereignty from violent rioters. During one protest in July, a Gaza sniper shot and killed an Israeli soldier. The last few months have also seen Gaza militants fire more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, which has responded with dozens of air strikes.”

A fake “balance” between Palestinians and Israelis is a “balance” that favors Israel, because it requires a downplaying of the severity of the wrongs Israel has done and is doing to Palestinians, and an amplification of Israel’s untenable rationalizations for these. “Balance” ought not to be the goal of coverage of Palestine/Israel. Instead of pretending that the conduct of Palestinians and Israelis is qualitatively and quantitatively the same, what’s needed is an honest accounting. That necessarily entails foregrounding the dispossession, oppression and murder Israel has inflicted on Palestinians, and situating Palestinian actions in this context. Presenting a wildly unbalanced situation as balanced is as morally bankrupt as it is intellectually indefensible.