Rights Blog 2006
"The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is denied, poverty enforced, where ignorance prevails & where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe" Frederick Douglas 1886
"If we do not change our direction, we are going to end up where we are now headed" Chinese Proverb
Send comments to qumsi001@hotmail.com. Your comments may be posted here after review.
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Here is the front image from my Christmas Card to you
http://ifamericansknew.org/images/beth06-front.jpg
Question: What would happen if the Virgin Mary came to Bethlehem today?
http://news.independent.co.uk/appeals/indy_appeal/article2097790.ece
Below are reflections/greetings for this holiday season followed by a statement and action alert from the Palestinian American Congress.
1) Click here Christmas 2006
and May this holiday season and the new year bear the fruits of the collective hard work for peace with justice to all people.
2) From the Palestinian American Congress: Holiday Greetings and Action Alert
Many traditions celebrate holidays this season and we in the Palestinian American Congress wish them all peaceful and happy Holidays. Such holidays remind us of those less fortunate than we are and of our responsibilities to them. We thus stand in solidarity with our Iraqi brothers and sisters of all religions as they endure their fourth year under military occupation. We stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters who are unable to truly celebrate or even to practice their religious traditions because of the Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing, theft of their lands, and destruction of their society.
Palestinian Christians this Christmas season cannot travel between Bethlehem and Jerusalem (a distance of 7 miles) because of the illegal apartheid walls. Palestinian Muslims this Eid Al Adha are subjected to similar restrictions. Both live in shrinking apartheid cantons subjected to political, economic, and physical siege. Most families cannot provide for their Children's basic needs let alone buy gifts for the holidays. Our prayers and thoughts must be with those people. But they need more than that. They need our solidarity and support. There are many things each of us can do. Here are just ten suggestions.
1) Learn more about history (http://www.PalestineRemembered.com) and the isolation of Palestinians and infringement on their religious and civil rights (http://www.maannews.net/en/,
http://www.openbethlehem.org, http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml ). Learn more about suffering of Iraqis (see http://www.electroniciraq.net/) and other people.
2) Support the Palestinian Civil Society call to action; for boycotts, divestment and sanctions from Israel until it complies with human rights and International law (see http://stopthewall.org/news/boycot.shtml).
3) Write letters to the editor (150-200 words) and/or op-eds (700-800 words) to your local or national newspapers about the issues. Some media contacts can be found here:
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.asp
http://capwiz.com/adc/dbq/media
4) Write and call your TV and radio stations and ask that they interview native people from these areas on issues of religious freedom and the plight of Muslims and Christians in Iraq and Palestine and
beyond (write to us if you would like suggested speakers near you).
5) Write and call your elected officials. Contacts available at
http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
6) Contact local churches in your area and ask that they bring Palestinian Christians to speak to their congregations and that they pray for justice and peace.
7) Contact mosques and ask that they dedicate a Friday Prayer to Donate to worthy causes that help the suffering populations and/or those that educate and lobby to stop policies of oppression and deprivation.
8) Take time to teach children about what is going on in Palestine. Give them copies of this book titled "A little piece of ground" by award winning author Elizabeth Laird (published by Haymarket Books) and then discuss it with them. http://tinyurl.com/y7lej6 and http://www.haymarketbooks.org
9) Hold a teach-in, a vigil, a forum or other community gatherings to bring attention to the plight of people in need.
10) Send this message to your relatives, friends, co-workers and acquaintances and ask them to act. Forward to other listserves.
Contact: media@pac-national.org
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12/19/06
Wheels Of Justice promotional video of about 9.5 minutes on youtube (the bus will be in AZ, NM, TX, LA, GA, FL in April so book your appearances early; email me qumsi001@hotmail.com)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryyxai9tDiU
Ethnic cleansing of Palestine 1948 by Prof. Ilan Pappe (revealing article that summarizes some material from his newest book on the subject)
http://71.18.226.238/final/en/journals/printer.php?aid=7175
Johann Hari: Ethnic cleansing returns to Israel's agenda
The silence over Lieberman's appointment is a bleak sign of how far Israel has drifted to the right
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article1963583.ece
Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions: a movement whose time has come http://users.sgci.com/~peacenews/2006Sept.html
more from Palestine Joint Advocacy Initiative http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=173
Watch Ali Abunimah discusses his book One Country on C-SPAN2: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6265.shtml
Streaming Video from the Arab world to balance the non-sense spewing from CNN, Fox etc http://www.linktv.org/mosaic/streamsArchive/
When There's No One Left to Blame: What Are You Going to Do Now, Israel? By VIRGINIA TILLEY, Johannesburg, South Africa
http://www.counterpunch.com/tilley12152006.html
Action: Sign Petition- Why we stand for immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/OutNow/
Boston Metro (owned by NY Times) published an interview with Mitchel Bard and now they interviewed me on Carter's book (it is not quite reflective of what I said but is close)
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12/14/06
- Fact of the day: Zionists lobbied and worked against allowing Jewish refugees from WWII to settle in other countries. Here is just one excerpt from Alfred Lilienthal's book "What Price Israel":
BEGIN QUOTE
President Roosevelt was deeply concerned with the plight of the European refugees and thought that all the free nations of the world ought to accept a certain number of immigrants, irrespective of race, creed, color or political belief. The President hoped that the rescue of 500,000 Displaced Persons could be achieved by such a generous grant of a worldwide political asylum. In line with this humanitarian idea, Morris Ernst, New York attorney and close friend of the President A Jewish cofounder of what became the ACLU - MQ went to London in the middle of the war to see if the British would take in 100,000 or 200,000 uprooted people. The President had reasons to assume that Canada, Australia and the South American countries would gladly open their doors. And if such good examples were set by other nations, Mr. Roosevelt felt that the American Congress could be "educated to go back to our traditional position of asylum." The key was in London. Would Morris Ernst succeed there? Mr. Ernst came home to report, and this is what took place in the White House (as related by Mr. Ernst to a Cincinnati audience in 1950):
Ernst: "We are at home plate. That little island and it was during the second Blitz that he visited England on a properly representative program of a World Immigration Budget, will match the United States up to 150,000.
Roosevelt: "150,000 to England—150,000 to match that in the United States—pick up 200,000 or 300,000 elsewhere, and we can start with half a million of these oppressed people."
A week later, or so, Mr. Ernst and his wife again visited the President.
Roosevelt (turning to Mrs. Ernst): "Margaret, can't you get me a Jewish Pope? I cannot stand it any more. I have got to be careful that when Stevie Wise leaves the White House he doesn't see Joe Proskauer on the way in." Then, to Mr. Ernst: "Nothing doing on the program. We can't put it over because the dominant vocal Jewish leadership of America won't stand for it."
"It's impossible! Why?" asked Ernst.
Roosevelt: "They are right from their point of view. The Zionist movement knows that Palestine is, and will be for some time, a remittance society. They know that they can raise vast sums for Palestine by saying to donors, 'There is no other place this poor Jew can go.' But if there is a world political asylum for all people irrespective of race, creed or color, they cannot raise their money. Then the people who do not want to give the money will have an excuse to say 'What do you mean, there is no place they can go but Palestine? They are the preferred wards of the world."
Morris Ernst, shocked, first refused to believe his leader and friend. He began to lobby among his influential Jewish friends for this world program of rescue, without mentioning the President's or the British reaction. As he himself has put it: "I was thrown out of parlors of friends of mine who very frankly said 'Morris, this is treason. You are undermining the Zionist movement.' " He ran into the same reaction amongst all Jewish groups and their leaders. Everywhere he found "a deep, genuine, often fanatically emotional vested interest in putting over the Palestinian movement" in men "who are little concerned about human blood if it is not their own."
This response of Zionism ended the remarkable Roosevelt effort to rescue Europe's Displaced Persons.
END QUOTE
from http://www.alfredlilienthal.com/what_price_israel_2.htm
- AFSC action: Support President Carter, write to Congress
http://support.afsc.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=3761.0&JServSessionIdr011=im7b0rxz12.app2b
- A petition of "thank you President Carter" http://tinyurl.com/ycegyc
- French Voters signing pledge to vote only for those who support sanctions on Israel and thus support freedom for Palestine
http://www.mavoixpourlapalestine.net/
- Institute for Middle East Understanding provides media outlets with access to Palestinian Christians and others who speak on the holidays in the Holy Land. They share their memories of Christmas in Bethlehem and how those compare to Bethlehem today. (pass to your media contacts)
http://imeu.net/news/article003837.shtml#mazin
- My letter to the Boston Globe as published. It will receive the usual apoplectic Zionist responses. If you want to write, send your letters to letter@globe.com
Delicate matters of diplomacy in the Middle East
Boston Globe, December 13, 2006
THE 160-PAGE Iraq Study Group report will fail because it does not address human rights and international law (except in describing the background of its authors -- for example, Vernon "Jordan practiced general, corporate, legislative, and international law in Washington, D.C."). While the report recognizes the centrality of the issue of Israel-Palestine, the United States is told to continue to support Israel and promote talks with "Palestinians (who acknowledge Israel's right to exist)." But Israel is not required to recognize Palestine's right to exist; Israel never defined its borders (so recognizing its right to exist under such unfair and vague terms means nullifying Palestinian rights in their lands); and there is no such thing as the right of states to exist in international law (they simply exist; no one demanded that Mexico recognize the right of the United States to exist). Unless the American public rises in unison to demand respect for international law and human rights, it looks like mayhem will continue and we the taxpayers will continue to pump billions to support Israeli apartheid and the US government's other pet projects of occupation and oppression in Iraq and elsewhere.
MAZIN B. QUMSIYEH
Orange, Conn.
The writer is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle."
- My letter in response to Daniel Pipes "opinion"
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061206/OPINION01/612060304
(you can write your own letter to letters@detnews.com)
Daniel Pipes was given the space to publish an op-ed on these pages challenging the right of Universities to determine hiring and promotion without interference by outside groups. It is remarkable that the column failed to mention which outside groups he was alluding to or what agenda they were promoting. The groups are those whose interests are Zionism first (they claim they merely support Israel) and hence are anti-American in my views and the views of most of other targeted faculty. His attacks and others like him are focused on those who speak truth about the situation in Western Asia (aka the colonial term "Middle East") in a way that challenges Zionist mythologies. Pipes himself used the McCarthian tactics of compiling lists of professors to be targeted and had to withdraw that from his website when he realized that it exposed his agenda. Pipes' attempt to silence free speech at academic institutions was actually the reason his appointment to the US Peace Institute was never approved by the Senate. Yet, people like Pipes refuse to engage in public dialogues with people like me and other targeted academics because it would also lead to exposing their agenda and their lies. For a detailed description of these issues, see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/assaultontruth/ Pipes and others like him hope that intimidation will work and that there won't be open discussion of these issues. They continue to push for support of Israeli apartheid which they believe is a win-lose scenario. But it only profits them financially on an interim basis (Pipes's slalary is derived from his anti-Academic stances) and it clearly leads to only lose-lose outcomes for people in Western Asia (including Israelis and Palestinians). A win-win situation (based on human rights and International law) is feasible. But Pipes and company manage to only delay that inevitable outcome by attacking academic freedom and personally attacking patriotic Americans who refuse to succumb to their lobby and intimidating tactics (e.g. see attacks on President Jimmy Carter for his new book "Palestine: Peace not apartheid").
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12/11/06
It is truly remarkable that the Iraq study group report in 160 pages and thousands of words fails to mention human rights and International law (the words only appear in describing the background of three of the study authors such as "Mr. Jordan practiced general, corporate, legislative, and international law in Washington, D.C." and "Mr. Hamilton’s distinguished service in government has been honored through numerous awards in public service and human rights as well as honorary degrees".) So like the Israel lobby authored Bush-pedaled "road map to peace" (2218 words, lacking the four words "Human rights" and "International law") it is destined to be relegated to the dustbin of history and will not help bring justice nor peace in the Middle East. As far as the requirement that the US promote talks between Israel and "Palestinians (those who acknowledge Israel's right to exist)" that is simply a non starter since Israel does not recognize the right of Palestine to exist and has never defined its borders so recognizing its right to exist under such broad and vague terms means nullifying Palestinian rights in their lands. Further in International law there is no such thing as right of states to exist (no state has a right to exist in legal terms, they simply exist; no one for example ever demanded that Mexico recognize the right of the US to exist or that India recognize the right of Pakistan to exist or vice versa).
Anyway, it seems that as in all human history, we must still rely on grass root efforts to effect social change (in America that is how Women got the right to vote, how civil rights laws came about, how we ended the war on Vietnam, how we ended support for Apartheid South Africa, and how we will end support for Apartheid Israel and US military adventure in Iraq). I have been to five states in the past month and spoke at dozens of events and anyone cannot help but notice the tremendous hunger for change, for information, and for action among people of various backgrounds. I spoke at Juniata College and Bard College to very interested and packed audience. Let me tell you though about one most inspiring event in my home state of Connecticut (CT is also proud to have organized in the past few weeks a bus to see the Rachel Corrie play in New York, demonstrating against the visit by war criminal Shimon Peres, to hosting four talks by Anna Baltzer, to a statewide peace conference planning etc). The event I do want to expand on is the Second Tree of Life Conference at Old Lyme Congregational Church that focused on the plight of Bethlehem as an example of a Palestinian city under occupation and siege.
The event held at the first Congregational Church of Old Lyme (http://www.fccol.org/) was attended by nearly 200 people. Speakers included Yehuda Shaul, the founder of Breaking the Silence (Israeli soldiers speaking of atrocities they were ordered to undertake), Benjamin Beit Hallahmi (Israeli professor of psychology at Haifa University and author of Original Sins a book on the Zionism's crimes and distortions), representatives of Bethlehem University (which is an extraordinary model of hope in the troubled Holy Land, being a place where Christians and Muslims live and study together, http://www.bethlehem.edu), Anna Baltzer (see http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com ), and Dr. Mark Braverman (The Fellowship of Reconciliation).
Attendees learned in this conference simple facts like these:
- Bethlehem University was closed by a military order for three years during the late 1980s
- Bethlehem University student body diversity shrank as Israel instated hundreds of checkpoints and walls that separate Palestinian areas from other Palestinian areas.
- Hundreds of students were held over the past few years as political prisoners (20% held without charges in "administrative detentions")
- The apartheid wall/segregation barrier resulted in loss of over 10% of Bethlehem area.
- The apartheid wall/segregation barrier separates Palestinian families from each other and from their jobs, hospitals, schools, churches and mosques.
- There is a new Jewish only settlement/colony built in Bethlehem at Rachel's tomb area (a holy site for Muslims that includes a large Islamic cemetery that is now off limits to its owners and relatives of those buried there)
As I witnessed in my last visit to Bethlehem in July, the situation has deteriorated rapidly from the time six years ago when I wrote and published the article below on Christmas in Bethlehem.
You can take the opportunity of Christmas to write about the Holy Land today and how apartheid is being implemented in the land of the birth of Jesus, the prince of peace (for resources get on the web, at least see http://www.openbethlehem.org/ and http://www.stopthewall.org). Letters to the editor (150-200 words) or op-eds can be submitted to your local or national newspapers but also send them to TV and radio stations and ask that they interview native people from these areas. Some
media contacts can be found here:
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.asp or using this link
http://capwiz.com/adc/dbq/media
You can also attend conferences and travel to Palestine to bear witness and learn first hand. A group that does both kinds of activities is Sabeel (see their upcoming conferences and trips as well as a list of other groups sending delegations at http://www.fosna.org/conferences_and_trips/index.html )
A season of Mayhem (title inserted by editor, not my original title)
Published in the Boston Globe January 4, 2001
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11/30/06
Yesterday was the (UN designated) International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
ACTION: Palestinians are the Priority Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/grosveno/petition.html
ACTION: Submit this piece to your local paper and Write letters of support (see link below)
APARTHEID: Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped By JOHN DUGARD
Many aspects of Israel's occupation surpass those of the apartheid regime. Israel's large-scale destruction of Palestinian homes, leveling of agricultural lands, military incursions and targeted assassinations of Palestinians far exceed any similar practices in apartheid South Africa. No wall was ever built to separate blacks and whites."
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2006/11/29/1129edcarter.html
Zionist groups are mobilizing to get letters to attack this article. To write letters to support the article, use this link
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
ACTION: Call and support ending the US support for Apartheid Israel, support Jimmy Carter in calling what is happening apartheid
Nancy Pelosi (202) 225-4965 -- a nice staffer will take your message
The DNC (Democratic National Committee, Gov. Howard Dean) 202-863-8000
NEWS AND VIEWS
Dr. Jeff Halper responds to two Zionists in the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle
"Security is not the issue; Israel's exclusive claim over the entire country west of the Jordan, which leaves no place for the Palestinians, is. Almost no element of the Occupation can be explained by security: not the 300-400 settlements (and they are illegal; the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an Occupying Power from moving its population into an occupied territory - and even your government considers the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza occupied); not the construction of 29 Jewish-only highways linking the settlements to Israel;.....more"
http://tinyurl.com/ydf28y
IRC report on Palestinian Impoverishment: A growing number of households in the Palestinian territories are becoming impoverished, according to a report recently completed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/palestine-news-211106?opendocument
Refugees Are The Key: Israel should admit its historical responsibility to the Palestinian people and recognize the rights of the refugees. by SAM BAHOUR
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/112706BAHOUR.shtml
Are Israeli actions against Palestinians Genocide?
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison11272006.html
Muslim lawyer wrongly arrested by the FBI settles case against the US government for $2 million
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/us-to-pay-2-million-for-false-terror/20061129125409990003?_ccc=3&cid=842
Ten thousand orthodox Jews protest the existence of a "Jewish State"
http://www.nkusa.org/activities/demonstrations/2006Nov9.cfm
Ali Abunimah and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi addressed on Democracy Now the current situation in Palestine, the role of US policy, and former President Jimmy Carter's new book on Palestine. To read the transcript or listen to audio:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6128.shtml
Mazin
http://qumsiyeh.org
http://www.wheelsofjusticetour.org
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11/26/06
The 37th National Day of Mourning was held in Plymouth, MA on US Thanksgivng holiday by the United American Indians of New England
http://www.uaine.org/
And The Truth about Thanksgiving http://www.raceandhistory.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1006609974,95667,.shtml
Outreach to supermarket shoppers in Belgium to boycott Israeli consumer products http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6075.shtml
"GAZA: Stop the Seige! Stop the War! Petition to the Israeli government and world leaders, written by Gila Svirsky and Debby Lerman?
http://www.petitiononline.com/SaveGaza/petition.html
Palestinian academics in solidarity with Irish academics in solidarity with Palestinians
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6083.shtml
Ceylon Mooney reports from occupied Palestine (Ceylon was the main engine for many years behind the highly successful Wheels of Justice tour)
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/ceylonmooney/
Video of Police spying on Americans and beating the crap out of people in a crowd spraying young children footage taken by police themselves
http://bravoclan.com/ppmaps/index.html
CIA Role in Robert Kennedy Killing, BBC investigation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/6169006.stm
Video clips from Zochrot outreach, including visits to Der Yassin, Majdal, and Birim
http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=227
http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=228
http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=244
Video: Nakba in Hebrew http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/images/kikar.wmv
Video: Remebering Deir Yassin http://www.zochrot.org/images/Media/dyir%20yassen2006.wmv
Video: Remembering Village of Bira'am http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/images/Bira'am/video.wmv
Video: Remebering Village of Magdal http://www.zochrot.org/images/Media/Magdal.wmv
Video: Zionism, the real enemy of the Jews http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/115
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11/20/06
More Israeli apartheid laws are being enacted and others being enforced. A new law will punish Palestinians using yellow-plated ("Israeli") cars (including taxis) and punish the drivers unless they have special permits from Israeli occupation authorities. A Palestinian getting a ride even from a friend or a relative (or even an Israeli spouse) will get them both punished. The law was enacted and will go into effect in January. Israel also is proceeding with other laws intended to ethnically cleanse Palestine of a key segment of its remaining population and deny any international support to Palestinians. An apartheid law is being implemented removing Palestinians, including those born in Palestine, who hold foreign passports (and who were unable to retain or get the Israeli issued ID card, other set of apartheid laws stripped thousands of their ID cards). Tens of thousands of Palestinians thus were denied their residency rights and families are forced to either separate or find other countries to live in. This coincides with accelerated plans to de-develop the remaining Palestinain economy by a system of strangulation. For example, Palestinians in Jerusalem are being separated by massive walls from Palestinians in the suburbs of Jerusalem (imagine the devastation to both suburbs and city in America if a wall is built around the city separating it from these suburbs). BTW Bethlehem and Ramallah are each within 10 mile radius of Jerusalem old city and are thus suburbs. Unemployment in the West Bank (including Jerusalem) is now at 70% and over 50% of Palestinians who remained in Palestine live in poverty. 80% of Palestinians overall are refugees or displaced people (the largest and longest lasting among the world's refugees).
Foreigners are also now routinely denied entry to Palestine. This is intended to remove witnesses and peace activists from the deepening apartheid/hafrada. How will we respond and will the hundreds of organizations around the US (and thousands around the world) that profess support for human rights rise to this challenge? Will governments be forced to obey the International Covenant against Crimes of Apartheid and Racism? Will more people write regularly to the media to demand they do their job and report the real news, not racist PR?
A new e-Book/Book on the Web explores some of the Israeli apartheid laws and practices: "Foundations of Civil and Political Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories"
http://www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/yschmidt/index.htm
The Niggerization of Palestine
http://www.blackagendareport.com/002/002h_js_niggerization_of_palestine.html
25 Leading Professors from major academic institutions in Germany explain "Why the 'special relationship' between Germany and Israel has to be reconsidered"
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?lg=en&reference=1569
Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Jewish extremists in Hebron
"Tove Johansson from Stockholm walked through the Tel Rumeida checkpoint with a small group of human rights workers (HRWs) to accompany Palestinian schoolchildren to their homes. They were confronted by about 100 Jewish extremists in small groups. They started chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!” — a refrain the settlers had been repeating to internationals in Tel Rumeida all day....."
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/11/18/hebron-day-06/
Palestinian mass resistance blocks Israeli air strike
Palestinians have started to employ new tactics to prevent Israeli air attacks on their houses. Hundreds of protesters successfully forced the Israeli air force to halt air strikes on a house belonging to Muhammad Baroud in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday night.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6074.shtml
Picture Balata: Outside the West Bank City of Nablus lies the Balata Refugee Camp. Home to almost 25,000 residents living on less than one square kilometer, Balata is the most densely populated refugee camp within the West Bank. In recent years Balata has seen hundreds of deaths and arrests, dozens of home demolitions and the camp is subject to near nightly invasions by the Israeli army. It is here that the Picture Balata workshop was started to teach youth from the camp about photography. Picture Balata puts the camera into the hands of the children born and raised inside the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6067.shtml
Israeli Zionist Group on Israeli settlements/colonies in the occupied West Bank: "More than a third of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are built on privately owned Palestinian land, an Israeli campaign group has reported. Peace Now says nearly 40% of the land the settlements sit on is, according to official data, "effectively stolen" from Palestinian landowners. This, the group says, is a violation of Israel's own laws. Settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law, although Israel rejects this. About 430,000 Jews live in these residential areas in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Peace Now called on the Israeli government to return the private land to its owners." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6168752.stm
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11/16/06
The challenges facing human rights advocates with regards to US/Israeli hegemonic designs in the Middle East are daunting. Our organizational structures and ability to work together must and will rise to meet the challenge. It is not easy. But if it was easy, it would have already been done and the struggle would not be as worthwhile. Let us review some sobering reminders after the US vetoed yet another (mild) UN resolution regarding Israel.
First there is the Israeli lobby that many like to ignore but like the 800 pound gorilla in the room, is really hard to ignore. Here is an article of relevance on how AIPAC is early Building Ties With New American Lawmakers
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20061113_AIPACEatsNewCongressCrittersforLunch.php
A more detailed analysis of the lobby's influence is here: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/thelobby/
Then there are "Christian" Ziolnists, an important factor in countries like Holland, England and the US. They preach hatred, collect money, ignore the message of Jesus (e.g. Sermon on the mount), and collect money, support Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Christians and Muslims, and collect money. Here is a link to an article Defining Christian Zionism By Donald Wagner
http://www.christianzionism.org/articlesN.asp#Wagner02
and this news story shows how such bigots operate, speak while enriching their pockets
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/111406/met_6211753.shtml
The Israeli economy profits from the ignorance of many in trhe world. Diamond exports were at nearly $10 billion. Diamonds are merely rocks (not taht rare by the way, there are rarer rocks) culled from African land at slave wages and compensations to Africans, cut and "polished" mostly in Israel (or by Zionist controlled industry leaders), pedaled as valuable items by slick and misleading advertisement campaigns (for love, "a diamond is forever"!), and sold at exorbitant prices. Much of the profit goes to fund wars, violence, occupation etc (the term "blood diamonds" is thus apt description). But diamonds are not the biggest Israeli exports. Most Israeli exports relate to weapons and "security" (Israel likes to use the term "high tech industries"). Most of these Israeli exposrts are American technology given courtesy of the US taxpayers even though they end up competing with US industries.
In a recent article in Tikkun Magazine, Israeli author and activist Dr. Jeff Halper argues that Israel has no interest in peaceful resolution but "muddling through" in order to balance continued theft of Palestinian land with its "security". http://tikkun.org/magazine/tik0611/frontpage/responsibility1106
The Israeli lobby pushed for the wars and sanctions on Iraq (see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/ ). What were the consequences of these wars and sanctions? Over 2 million Iraqis killed in the past 15 years as a direct result. Here is just some (graphic) video of what happened in one part of Iraq, Fallujah
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1134673789364675735&q=fallujah+hidden&pl=true
Today we had the last event for the fall leg of the Wheels of Justice Bus Tour (http://www.wheelsofjusticetour.org). I and Dr. Dahlia Wasfi were speakers. Dahlia was born to a Jewish American mother and a Muslim Iraqi father in New York. She spent her early childhood in Basra. Dr. Wasfi graduated from Swarthmore College in 1993 with a B.A. in Biology, and from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1997. Her latest trip to Iraq was a 3-month stay during the spring of 2006. Watch this powerful testimony of Dr. Dahlia Wasfi before a US Congressional Committee in Washington, DC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELjgVq6GtPA
She spoke in tour events about the effects of sanctions, direct violence, and depleted uranium (also effected US troops with increased mortality and increased birth defects in children of vets) but most of all she speaks of her own personal story in a way that humanizes Iraqis. She spoke of how Rachel Corrie inspired her to focus her life on telling the truth and changing the system. Dahlia's website, http://liberatethis.com includes a wealth of useful information.
Talking about Rachel Corrie, I think people need to go see the play My Name is Rachel Corrie (http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/?p=47) which is playing at Minetta Lane Theater in New York. We have a few extra tickets (from the bus trip from CT to NY) so email me if you are in CT and NY and are interested in buying these tickets.
In a later email report, I will give you a glimpse of the wonderful people we met along the bus tour in the past two weeks. We had great receptions from high schools, classes at colleges, public presentations and informal discussions. People are more hungry for facts than ever before. The corporate media outfits under heavy Zionist influence are pushing to lengthen this devastating war. See "Operation Last Resort-The New Media Offensive to Prolong the Iraq War" By Norman Solomon
http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon11162006.html
I just finished reading Carter's new book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid". Ofcourse there are far better books on this question but Carter brings in a presidential level visibility to the subject of Israeli Apartheid. Here is Carter in a revealing interview about the book with the Jewish Daily Forward
http://www.forward.com/articles/carter-discusses-new-book-on-israel-and-the-middle/
(action item: ask supermarkets, bookstores and other places where books are sold to get copies).
Finally, below is a declaration from us Palestinians living in America who met in Cleveland over the last weekend in a preparatory meeing for a large popular conference of Palestinians to be held in Chicago in 2008 (the 60th anniversary of the Nakba).
There is so much work being done all around the world, and so much work yet to do. We must intensify our efforts. As Howard Zinn also said: you can't be neutral on a moving train (corollary: silence is complicity).
The Cleveland Declaration and Summary of Meeting
Activists and organizers from the Palestinian community in the US with diverse political backgrounds, geographical locations, and organizational affiliations met in Cleveland, OH Nov 10-12, 2006 in follow up to the initial meeting held in Detroit on June 23, 2006.
We, the participants, had grave concerns about: a) the recent escalation of massacres and other war crimes committed in Beit Hannoun and other areas of occupied Palestine, b) the plight of Palestinian refugees in Iraq as well as the suffering of all people in Iraq under US/British occupation, c) the recent atrocities committed by Israel in Lebanon, and d) the US government veto of yet another UN Security Council that attempted to hold Israel accountable for persistent severe Human Rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
In these historic times, the participants reiterated their commitments to affirm our Palestinian narrative and assert our rights to:
-- Self-determination and equality for the Palestinian people
-- Return of the Palestinian refugees to their original homes, lands, properties and villages (a natural right supported by international law and UN Resolution 194)
-- End of Zionist occupation and colonization of Palestine, including Jerusalem
After a weekend of intense deliberation, brainstorming, and strategizing the participants have decided and committed to:
1) Convene and build a popular Palestinian national conference in Chicago in Summer 2008 in order to empower our community, unify our voice, and affirm the right of Palestinians in the Shatat (exile) to participate fully in shaping our joint destiny. We established various committees to carry on the functions needed for this.
2) Holding a larger preparatory meeting in 2007 that would further empower and build support among all our community members and organizations.
3) Continue empowering our community by exchanging projects, ideas, and campaigns done by the many local and national organizations and build upon them by providing fora for communication and positive collaboration.
We are calling on fellow Palestinians in the US to join us as we empower our community (individuals and organizations) and build for the Palestine National conference reflecting the will of ALL Palestinians in America. We believe strongly that our community can and must rise to the challenges facing us, as they do in Palestine.
Preparatory Committee for the US Popular Palestinian National Conference
======================
11/13/06
Nightmare in Beit Hanoun, How Gaza Offends Us All, By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN
http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein11092006.html
A simple road to Middle East Peace, by Zaki Khouri
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20061110/news_lz1e10khouri.html
Palestinian Art Calendar for 2007
http://www.resistanceart.com/products.htm
U.S. vetoes (Yet another) U.N. resolution condemning Israel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061111/ts_nm/mideast_un_dc_7
Videos on Gaza massacre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X5MWjJZpsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOu-NT0W2eg
Prof. Norman Finkelstein on Jimmy Carter's book Peace Not Apartheid (New York: 2006)
(includes excerpts from book... must reading)
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=676
ACTION ALERT from the US Campaign to End the Occupation
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1272
Jimmy Carter on Apartheid in Palestine
On November 14, Simon & Schuster is scheduled to release President Jimmy Carter's latest book, tentatively entitled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid".
The US Campaign has not reviewed an advance copy of the book and cannot speak to its content. However, the fact that a former US president is using the term "apartheid" to describe Israel's policies toward Palestinians represents a fundamental shift in the discourse on Israel/Palestine in the United States and has the potential to dramatically shift US policy for the better.
The US Campaign urges its individual supporters and member organizations to take action around President Carter's book release to increase awareness in the United States of Israel's apartheid policies toward Palestinians.
TAKE ACTION:
1. Organize or participate in an event during the US Campaign-endorsed Fourth Annual International Week of Action against the Apartheid Wall, called for by Stop the Wall: The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. Click here for an action alert and suggested ideas.
2. Contact your local bookstore and ask them to stock this book. Ask your friends, colleagues, and family to purchase the book and host a book club to discuss the issues raised in President Carter's book and what you can do change the situation.
3. President Carter's book is likely to generate significant media attention and debate. Call your local talk radio programs and write a letter-to-the-editor to your local paper affirming that Israel's policies toward Palestinians are apartheid. Click here for contact information for your local media. ttp://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/
4. Democratic Party leaders such as Reps. Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and DNC Chair Howard Dean have criticized President Carter for using the term "apartheid" to describe Israel's policies. Pelosi denied that Israel "institutionalizes ethnically based oppression" and Dean "fundamentally disagrees and does not support his Carter's analysis of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Conyers even called on Carter to change the title of his book. Send a message to your Members of Congress and the Democratic Party stating that you support President Carter's use of the term "apartheid" to describe Israel's policies. Click here for contact information for your elected officials.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS ADVISORY
Experts Available to Speak on Israeli Apartheid Policies as Pres. Carter Releases New Book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid"
Washington, DC (November 13)-The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is making available to the media experts who are available for interviews to discuss the apartheid nature of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
Tomorrow, former President Jimmy Carter is releasing a new book, entitled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid". In conjunction with the book release, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 200 organizations, issued an action alert urging its supporters to use the book release as an opportunity to raise awareness in the United States about Israel's apartheid polices toward Palestinians. The action alert can be viewed by clicking here.
Contact information and pull quotes from US Campaign experts are below.
Noura Erakat, National Grassroots Organizer/Legal Advocate, US Campaign
"Palestinians endure a system which denies them access to work, hospitals, and schools; restricts their freedom of movement; expropriates their land; forces them to live in separate reserves; imprisons them without trial; and frustrates their national self-determination--this system is also called Apartheid according to the International Convention of the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid."
Bill Fletcher, Jr., labor and international writer and activist, US Campaign Advisory Committee Member
Bill Fletcher, a former organizer with the Massachusetts Labor Committee for a Free South Africa and former president of TransAfrica Forum, stated: "The world is coming to view the Palestinian dilemma as a 21st century version of apartheid. The theft of land; the marginalization of the population; and the not-so-subtle effort to drive the Palestinian people from their lands, makes this a continuously unfolding crime. Those of us who participated in the supporting the South African anti-apartheid struggle are morally obligated to raise the call for Palestinian freedom. Silence is impermissible."
Mark Lance, Professor, Georgetown University, US Campaign Steering Committee Member
Mark Lance, a former organizer with Students for a Free South Africa at University of Pittsburgh, stated: "The dark history of South African apartheid stands as a stark example of the human consequences of forcible separation of peoples, and of systematic discrimination. The proud history of international resistance to South African apartheid stands as a shining example of what people of conscience can accomplish when they stand in solidarity. The system of occupation, walls, military blockade and legal discrimination set in place by the Israeli state is a system of apartheid, and one that will be defeated by the same coalition, with the same nonviolent power, that led to a free South Africa."
Dr. Nancy Murray, US Campaign Advisory Committee Member
Nancy Murray, a former organizer of the South African anti-apartheid movement in the United Kingdom and Kenya, stated: "The fragmented West Bank resembles, in miniature, the archipelago that was the homeland of Bophuthatswana. The international community refused to recognize the South African homelands as independent states. Will it accept Palestinian Bantustans as the basis of a "two-state solution?"
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
PO Box 21539 Washington, DC 20009 phone: 202-332-0994 http://www.endtheoccupation.org
======================
11/7/06
Alert From the The Palestinian American Congress http://www.pac-national.org
Since the Israeli "redeployment" from Gaza on August 20, 2005, Israeli occupation troops killed 694 Palestinians and wounded four thousand. Israel also took advantage of media preoccupation with midterm elections to commit new war crimes including large scale home demolitions and indiscriminate firing on peaceful demonstrators. The atrocities of the last few days could intensify unless we focus attention on them and insist they be covered by the media and stopped immediately. Palestinians have also called for an international week of action against apartheid, against the wall, and against the ghettoization of Palestine for November 9-16 (see http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/1328.shtml )
Please write about this subject to all national and local media outlets as well as to all elected officials (including newly elected officials). Some
media contacts can be found here: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/contact/media.asp or using this link
http://capwiz.com/adc/dbq/media
Background to use in your letters/communications:
Electronic Intifada reports on the situation
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5973.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5951.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5939.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5927.shtml
Beit Hannoun women show the way http://www.thepencil.org/index.php?categoryid=18&p2003_articleid=41
Gideon Levy on Israel’s actions
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/783711.html
Amy Goodman Interview with Jennifer Lowenstein from Gaza. Casualties Mount in New Israeli Attack on Gaza, Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/02/1451201
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main....Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne
================
11/1/06
Dear friends:
It is sometimes hard to be a witness to the increased regressive trends around us. How so many people who normally think of themselves as democratic and pluralistic are misled by special interests into believing in "us here, them there", "pre-emptive" wars of domination, torture and flaunting of international law, support for Israel's ethnic cleansing, denial of rights of self determination, racist lies about Muslims etc. There is even apathy with increased presidential powers unchecked by Congress and giving the president powers not only to arrest people and hold and torture them without charge but to spy on Americans and to even declare marshal law (see http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/bush-moves-toward-martial-law ). Some argue that such a trend was inevitable considering the history of slavery and treatment of natives going back to the founding of America. Others believe the increased lying and intensified attacks on others is a more recent phenomenon. Some argue that a solution is to elect those who supported war but belong to the "other party" (i.e. Democrats); the lesser of two evils. Some believe in going to third parties not beholden to special interests (Greens). Others argue for pressure on ruling parties (whether Democrat and Republican) similar to the pressures that gave women the right to vote, pushed for civil rights, ended the war on Vietnam, ended US support for Apartheid South Africa etc. Some think they can get away with ignoring the large elephants in the room (special interests that shape elections including one of the biggest the Political Zionist lobby). But activists around the country are taking matters into their own hands, showing up at candidate rallies, candidate debates and other places shining a light on this precise issue. The Zionist influenced mainstream media is frantically and desperately trying to suppress any leakage of those events and trends. Yet, many good activists write and object and continue to push for truth and justice.
What gives us hope is that unlimited money and resources are needed to suppress the truth and we need only limited energy and resources to speak truth to power. So please continue to speak truth to power, think globally and act locally, and live as humans were meant to live. Doing so is not easy but it is always the right thing to do.
Any successful project for (or person/group doing) outreach for peace with justice would be attacked by those who promote war, violence, and racism. The Wheels of Justice Tour http://wheelsofjusticetour.org is no exception. So far we spoke to literally hundreds of schools (including elementary, middle, and high schools) in 48 states in the US. In two schools, we had opposition from the usual suspects. Below is one report on one of such attacks. The racist and misnamed ADL leads the attacks on us; this is the same group that spied on Arab and African Americans and is famed for its support of racism (see http://www.adlwatch.org/). Yet, again we have an edge: truth. And good people: the ACLU is involved in defending us as are teachers, and over 200 students signed a petition in support of our rights at North Andover High School (and that is only within the first few hours). But we need you:
TO PLAN OUR FUTURE EVENTS, WE COULD USE ANY TESTIMONIALS FROM YOU ON OUR BUS TOUR AND/OR SPEAKERS. Please email me briefly stating where you saw us or heard about us, feedback from you or feedback you heard from others attending, impressions of the event/s you attended, and why you think it is important. Please also let us know if we can use your full name or just first name (or just your comments without attribution). Having a good long list of testimonials would help us get into many more venues and successfully challenge racist groups like the ADL to go back to the two schools where they temporarily blocked students from hearing eyewitness accounts to occupation and oppression. Truth will be heard with your help. If you have not heard us speak, you can still help (see http://www.wheelsofjusticetour.org/ and http://www.qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/ )
The mission and platform of the WOJ are very clear and while articles like the one below fail to mention it, the material is readily available on our website (http://www.wheelsofjusticetour.org/the-wheels-of-justice-tour-platform ).
Anyway, please do send your testimonials about the bus and/or its speakers to qumsi001@hotmail.com
Thank you.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
http://www.wheelsofjusticetour.org
qumsiyeh.org
PS The situation is dire but never hopeless. Here is an example of how dire it is getting with just one of the Palestinian villages being ethnically cleansed using US tax money
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329613773-103552,00.html ). But only dead fish swim with the current so as long as we have hundreds of projects and actions speaking truth to power (like the WOJ), we have life! Look around you and you will see lots of fish swimming upstream :-)
========================================================
"School is hit for canceling speeches: War critics were invited to speak"
By Maria Sacchetti
Boston Globe, October 31, 2006
On the Web at: http://stopcrucifyingpalestine.blogspot.com/2006/10/zionists-force-cancellation-of.html
The president of Andover's teachers union and the ACLU of Massachusetts are accusing school officials of stifling free speech by abruptly canceling a talk by critics of the US and Israeli governments.
Tom Meyers, the union president and a social studies teacher at Andover High, said he and five other social studies teachers had invited Hassan Fouda and Joe Carr of Wheels of Justice, a group of peace activists touring the nation in a converted school bus, to speak to about 200 students on Friday.
But Meyers said the principal canceled the talk Thursday, after several people complained about the group. Wheels of Justice offi- cials came to campus Friday and asked the principal to reconsider, but a police officer told them to leave, Meyers said.
He said it was the first time the school has canceled a talk in his 21 years of teaching there. Wheels of Justice planned to speak about its criticisms of the war in Iraq and Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
"I find it highly problematic that a few people, because they don't like the ideas of the speaker, feel they have the right to shut that person down," Meyers said yesterday.
He is working with the American Civil Liberties Union to have the talk proceed.
Leonard Kesten, a Boston lawyer representing the School Committee on this issue, said school of- ficials postponed the talk to make sure the discussion would be appropriate for high school students.
The principal could not be reached, and School Superintendent Claudia Bach refused to comment.
"They have not been forbidden to speak," Kesten said. "There's some legitimate questions being raised by some parents."
Refusing to allow the speakers wouldn't violate the First Amendment, he said.
"A high school is not a soapbox in the park," he said. "Not everybody can just come in and say what they want."
But Sarah Wunsch, a staff lawyer with the ACLU of Massachusetts, wrote to Kesten last week that the First Amendment does not permit the government, including public school officials, to discriminate against speakers because of their views.
Rabbi Robert S. Goldstein of Temple Emanuel in Andover said he urged school officials to cancel the talk. Goldstein said he is not opposed to airing pro-Palestinian views.
But Goldstein said he felt that Wheels of Justice's views were extreme.
"No one is trying to suppress a point of view," he said. "It's just how it's done."
Dan Pearson, Wheels of Justice bus manager, said the organization presents speakers with a variety of views.
"We make it very clear, especially when we're talking to young people . . . that they don't just take our word for it," he said.
Ron Francis, an Andover High physics teacher, helped arrange the talk in his capacity as a pro- Palestinian activist off campus. He called the school's decision "political discrimination tinged with racism."
"The Zionists, by that I mean people who support a Jewish privileged state, the Zionists don't want people to be educated about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians," Francis said.
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com
-- END --
======================
10/25/06
Many are silent as fascists who openly call for ethnic cleansing join the highest levels of Israeli government (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5874.shtml ), as even Palestinian-Americans are being turned back at the borders while Israel starves the remaining Palestinians (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=776037 ), and as the genocide continues in Iraq. Will history keep repeating itself because of apathy or will you/we take a stronger stand for peace with justice?
Below are upcoming public events of the wheels of justice bus tour and brief bios on those on the bus now. We need you to: a) contact us to arrange other events, promote existing events, and/or to ask about non-public events at classrooms in high schools etc. and b) donate to this, the most effective outreach peace project in the US (see http://wheelsofjusticetour.org )
Wednesday October 25, 7 PM
Faculty Staff Dining Room, Main College Bldg, Simmons College, MA
Thursday Oct 26, 7 PM
Bldg 35, room 225, Massachussets Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Friday 27 October and Saturday 28th Sommerville, and Andover MA
Sunday October 29, 2-4 PM Harvard University, (include speakers from Palestine/Israel via teleconference: Rabbi Arik Asherman, Palestinian Ismail Al-Khatib who donated organs of his Israeli murdered son to Israeli children)
Wed Nov 1 Mt Holyoke College 50 College Street, South Hadley, Massachusetts
Thursday November 2, 7:30 PM Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Saturday November 4, 3 PM Public presentation Smith College, Northampton, MA
Monday Nov. 6, 7 PM, Public Event, Danbury, CT
(Western Connecticut State University)
Tuesday November 7th 6:30-8 PM Marcus White Hall, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT
Wed. November 8 and Thursday Nov 9: Essex, NY, Adirondack region of upstate
Friday November 10, SUNY Albany, NY
November 11-13 Harrisburg and Gettysburg, PA
November 17-19 Philadelphia, PA and Camden, NJ
---
Bring your questions and challenges (and hopefully energy to do something). The WOJ bus tour has been to 48 states in the past few years bringing compelling speakers to over 1000 academic Institutions. On this leg of the tour (some only through November 2nd):
Bill Hill (Bus Driver): Bill served in Vietnam for 27 months in the 1960s and has become a peace activist including driving buses for Pastors for Peace and others.
Dan Pearson (Bus Manager): Dan was in Palestine working with the Israel Committee against Home Demolitions to rebuild Palestinian homes demolished by Israeli authorities.
Joe Carr (Iraq and Palestine Speaker): Peace activist and performance artist from Kansas City, Missouri. Organized with direct-action movements such as Earth First, Food Not Bombs, and Arts in Activism. In the last three years, he’s worked with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine and Christian Peace Makers in Iraq. He witnessed Israeli soldiers murder international activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall. He is friends with those CPT members held hostage in Iraq (three subsequently released, one killed). More at http://www.lovinrevolution.org
Dr. Hassan Fouda (Palestine/Lebanon speaker) is former Assistant Director at Global Research and Development, Pfizer, Inc. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD-USA: www.ICAHD.org). He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Right to Return Coalition and served as the Connecticut chair. He is also active in several educational and interfaith peace advocacy groups including the Council for National Interest (CNIonline .org), If Americans Knew (IfAmericansKnew.org) and the Connecticut based We Refuse to be Enemies (Jews, Moslems and Christians in Coalition for Peace). In January 2006, Dr. Fouda was a member of a delegation from the Council for the National Interest that participated as international observers to the recent Palestinian elections. The delegation which included two former U.S. ambassadors, met with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and President Emile Lahoud of Lebanon, with Amr Mousa, Secretary General of the Arab League, with other officials, Islamist and other opposition leaders and opinion makers in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine-Israel. Dr. Fouda returned to Israel-Palestine in February 2006 with an American interfaith delegation seeking to find and amplify voices of hope and accommodation among Israelis and Palestinians.
===========
10/20/06
I was sleepy and my hybrid car hit the road railings hard Monday when I took a break from the Wheels of Justice bus tour* to go to my clinical lab to sign out cases (>4 hour drive each way Upstate NY to Hawthorn NY). I am OK and the car just needs some bodywork (I was very lucky). Yet, it was another sobering reminder to think more of how best to use what remains of our lives (which could be a few days or a few decades!). News and tragedies around the world came into sharper focus as I rejoined the tour (Tuesday and Wednesday in Corning, NY). One of those is the coincidentally just published research report from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, that calculates that as many as 655,000 Iraqis have died from war-related causes since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. These are not abstract numbers but real people each with a real story and life like yours and mine.
In fact this is the largest recent genocide in the world since Rwanda (800,000, killed; BTW Darfur 200-300,000) and we should not be afraid to use this term. It is actually worse since we should add the 1.5 million Iraqis who died as a direct result of the US/UK led sanctions (1991-2003) and the one million who died in the Iran-Iraq war (which was also US POLICY; as Henry Kissinger put it “our policy was to get them to kill each other”). Silence means complicity with this ongoing genocide especially for us living and paying taxes in the US. The Palestinian catastrophe also continues and we are equally responsible. Some 7 million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people, some 5000 were murdered in the past six years alone, and some 9,000 political prisoners languish in Israeli jails. And Lebanon had 1.2 million cluster bombs dropped on it, half in the less than three days between the UN approval of the cease fire and its final implementation). Over 1400 Lebanese civilians were killed in one month and thousands lost their homes. Due to depleted Uranium use, cancer rates in Southern Iraq are at many folds the normal rate. 75 young US Soldiers were killed in the past two weeks alone and thousands will suffer from the effects of Depleted Uranium (both a teratogen and a carcinogen). I could go on and on but these are the symptoms of the underlying disease of colonialism, greed, and racism. Therapy and prognosis are areas we should also focus on.
I was inspired and my spirit uplifted by the reaction of the hundreds of young people we met at schools, colleges, universities, churches and more over the past two weeks on the bus. One student at a class at Corning Community College made our day when she stated how she was always nagged by many questions about why we are in the Middle East, why we support Israel etc and that for the first time she hears logical answers and facts (and wished there were more time to ask more questions). The young people are the future and they will inherit the trillions of debt incurred by the Bush/Clinton generation. I was inspired by groups like Corning Peaceworks, teachers and professors, retired and unemployed young people, and people of all other walks of life who decided to take things into their own hands, to be the leaders, and to do what needs to be done.
More and more citizens are awakening everywhere to reclaim their rights and duties as citizens (and not mere consumers of news and "things"). America had few times when real democracy (literally "people power") manifested itself with glory: from the rights of women to vote, to the civil rights movement, to ending support for Apartheid South Africa, to ending the war on Vietnam and much more. All were real people movements regardless of who was in the white house or congress at the time. Ditto for other parts of the world where all positive change comes from the people (grass root). Now we are in the midst of another people power campaign to end Israeli apartheid and challenge the war profiteers and the war mongers (be they Democrats or Republican).
I have been and continue to be on the road, my emails have become far rarer and so this one might include a bigger list of items than usual (plus the ramblings above):
(*WOJ new website: http://wheelsofjusticetour.org but note that events are not updated, email me for update).
Even Palestinian-Americans are being turned back at the border By Amira Hass Haaretz 18 October 2006 "I have no complaints against Israel," said S. "It's an occupying nation. My complaints are directed at the U.S. We are citizens and they the U.S. fail to defend us from a discriminatory policy. We wouldn't have these problems - split families and being barred from returning to our homes - if we were Jews."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=776037
Palestine Right to Enter Campaign (action needed to challenge Israel's policy of denial of entry and denial of residency rights in Palestine)
http://www.righttoenter.ps
Plans for the Olive Harvest Campaign 2006 by the International Solidarity Movement http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/10/07/oh-plan-2006/
A new poll commissioned by the Council for the National Interest Foundation shows that a significant number of Americans are wary of the power of the Israel lobby, and believe it is behind the invasion of Iraq and the current belligerent tone of the White House and Congress toward Iran.....The poll suggests that the espionage charges against two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the publicity given to a new study of the power of the Israel lobby by two mainstream academic professors has had an affect on people's awareness of the lobby.....Among ethnic groups, Hispanics (53%) believed that the lobby's role was influential. Among age groups, 50% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 agreed that the Israel lobby had a hand in forming the current pro-war policy. ....Some 1,035 people participated in the poll, which was conducted in every part of the country. For a full presentation of the data, see
http://www.cnionline.org/learn/polls/czandlobby/
Israel Lobby Initiates Hispanic Strategy: "Invadimos a Iran" Grant Smith | Institute for Research: Middle East Policy | 10/4/2006. The Israel lobby has recently begun strategizing how to influence the Hispanic vote in the United States. Already a $760 billioni powerhouse consumer market, the Hispanic share of US voters will reach 8.6% in 2006 according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Hispanics accounted for 50% of the US population between 2000 and 2004 but only 10% of the increase in the total votes cast.ii In the event of amnesty or other citizenship initiatives for undocumented immigrants, this segment of voters will become even more significant as population gains translate into voting power.
http://www.irmep.org/hispanic.htm
http://mideastcouncil.org/newsanalysis_more.php?id=66_0_8_0_M
Israel Lobby Congressional Junkets – as Usual.
PoliticalMoneyLine, a watchdog group that follows money in politics, reported on its website that while congressional travel spending has significantly dropped this election year from levels attained in 2003, the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) continues to spend freely on congressional junkets it runs to Israel. The junkets are underwritten by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which is the 501(c)(3) wing of AIPAC. In the period between July 2005 and July 2006, it spent $583,131 in travel expenses, sponsoring 62 trips to Israel for lawmakers, their relatives, and congressional staff. This was about one-third the entire amount spent on congressional travel that was reported for the whole year.
http://www.cnionline.org/learn/IsraelLobby/congressional_junkets.htm
Zionist lobbyist Jack Abramof's emails show he knew of the attack on Iraq to benefit Israel a year earlier than the actual attack.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/1/0185/88184
This happened through Zionist Wolfowitz who also tipped British officials (Downing Street meeting minutes of March 2002 prove this "Downing Street Memo" http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/docs/meyermemo.pdf )
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israeli Apartheid Moves Forward; Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, October 9, 2006. (Toronto, October 9, 2006) – Over 600 people attended the landmark conference, Boycotting Israeli Apartheid: The Struggle Continues, held from 6-8 October in Toronto, Canada. The conference represents a watershed moment in the Palestinian solidarity movement, with leading anti-apartheid activists from Palestine, South Africa, Canada and England addressing the way forward in the global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=388_0_1_0_C
U of M-Dearborn student government demands divestment from Israel, The Arab-American News, October 2006. Dearborn Student Government (www.umdsg.com) adopted General Assembly Resolution 2006-001 at its September 26th General Assembly meeting. The Resolution is in response to the growing call to demand that the University Of Michigan administration "cease all investment in companies that financially benefit from the actions of the Israeli military in illegally occupied territories." http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A380_0_1_0_M
Ilan Pappe: Israeli academia deserves to be boycotted, Irish Times, Oct 03, 2006 - Israeli academia is guilty as charged by the Palestinian academics. By not raising their voices in protest, Israeli academics allow the atrocities to continue. Moreover, Israeli academia is providing the moral infrastructure for the occupation and key members of it assist in its daily praxis. http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=16602
Iraq under occupation: Government Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad By Dahr Jamail With Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service 20 October 2006
Death squads from the Ministry of Interior posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital, emerging evidence shows. (US involvement is well known as US "experts" train Iraqis, the same ones who trained death squads in Honduras and El Salvador)
http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=9893
==================
10/15/06
We were four people with diverse experiences on a decorated bus with a tight schedule giving over 20 talks in one week in a rural upstate part of New York (at four high schools, three colleges, six public events). Below are some notes from the bus tour to give you a flavor of why I believe this is the most important outreach effort we have been engaged in over 20 years. I ask you to get involved and at the end I list places we plan to visit in the next few weeks that YOU can help with
On the bus beside myself for this leg of the Fall tour: Lysander Pucchio (bus manager, ISM member, visited Palestine, great company, great organizer), Joe Mueller (CPT Iraq, excellent speaker), and Bill Hill (Bus Driver, Vietnam Veteran, person who spent the longest time on the bus of the over 100 people who have been on the bus crew). The colorful bus brought its message of justice and peace to upstate New York, a conservative area very different from NY City.
One is always struck by the imposing (and sprawling) physical and psychological structures of American educational institutions. We visited four high schools, three had superb facilities and one was somewhat lacking (that one was the one with right wing strict supervision preventing free exchange of information). Yet all have far more resources than available for example to Iraqi or Palestinian students. The numbers of students per class was always one third to one half that in those countries directly being destroyed using our tax money. But tax money and resources are not being used to help US schools or people either (witness lack of money to shore up the levees in New Orleans and lack of National Guard to help our citizens; they were instead in Iraq shooting Iraqis). I am always amazed at what information is allowed and what is not allowed in US schools. You can tell this by asking questions and seeing where students are on issues like geography and knowledge of the world. Here are some questions:
- How many Muslims are in the world today? Range few thousand to few million (correct number is 1.3 billion)
- I am introduced as a Palestinian, what religion do you think my family is? Muslim is the uniform answer (many students could not imagine there are Palestinian Christian or that Jesus was born in Palestine and hence is a Palestinian).
- When Christians in the Middle East refer to God, what word do they use? (Correct answer is Allah).
- Why are we in Iraq? This gave mixed responses: 9/11, terrorists, WMD, bringing “them” a government like ours, oil (but not one thought it has anything to do with Israel, documents show otherwise).
- What percentage of Americans are your age or younger? Correct answer about 20%
- What percentage of Iraqis or Palestinians are your age or younger? Correct answer 50-60%
- Oldest civilization? Mesopotamia. Where is it? Much less knowledge.
This is not their fault. When we flip through assigned textbooks written or edited by those who hold Straussian and/or Zionist ideologies, we find such statements as “the struggle over Jewish land claimed by Palestinians” (Imagine if it was “the struggle over white land claimed by Bantu people in South Africa” or “the struggle over Christian land claimed by American Indians”).
How does one explain reality of life to a white audience inundated daily with misinformation, lies, and outright racism against Arabs and Muslims? Why should they care about Hiam, a 7 year old Palestinian girl who was hit by an Israeli rubber coasted steel bullet in her eye while walking with her mother on a quiet street to visit a friend? (see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/hiamsstory/) Both sides of the family are refugees from the ethnic cleansing of 1947-1949, ancestors having worked the land for hundreds of years. Grandfather forced to find jobs in agriculture in the Gaza strip that is until Israel occupied that area and settlements took away the land and the water. He and Hiam’s father both then worked for Israelis (on stolen Palestinian land) then that stopped in 2000 (Israel forbade such work for most Palestinians). With 12 brothers and sisters, Hiam and her family rely on food aid and charity (which got more restricted this year because of the blockade and siege of Gaza).
Of the nearly 700 people we met and talked to in the last six days (ranging in age from 12-82), we found lots of backgrounds and lots of political views. Why is it then that the media and the educational system have a reductionist attitude when it comes to “Arabs” and “Muslims”? Why is it that there is so much misinformation being deliberately fed to an unsuspecting public?
We try to tell our own stories (Joe of Iraq, I and Lysander of Palestine, Bill of Vietnam) in hope that people start to dust off their thinking cap. Few resist and merely want to regurgitate what they heard on CNN, Fox, or their teachers. We can only tell our stories (mine is posted at http://www.qumsiyeh.org/thecucumberandthecactus/ ) and hope for the best. But how much control do Americans have over their daily life? How much do Palestinians and Iraqis? How many finally realize that they have been deceived. In the meantime a new study came out from John Hopkins in the Lancet which showed as many as 650,000 Iraqis died since the US invasion of 2003. That is more than three times those in Darfur. Yet no one dares call the US policy in Iraq genocidal. It was of course including the application of sanctions that for 10 years killed 5000 Iraqi children every month. With our taxes and government support, 70% of Palestinians were made refugees and displaced people over the past 6 decades. Israeli professor Baruch Kimmerling called it “politicide.”
There is so much to be thankful for every day. From beautiful Fall scenery to great sunsets to great people living life to the fullest. We are also grateful for programs like the Wheels of Justice bus tour because of its educational ripple effect. So many people learn so many new things, get brochures, books, links, exchange emails and phone numbers, plan other events, and feel more connected. Those of us who have the privilege of being on the bus for an extended period of time consider it the best and most productive times of our lives. This is for so many reasons but most of all for the enrichment of our lives by meeting and working with the best people in America. It is not an exaggeration to say that those who spend their time trying to help others and to educate fellow citizens are usually the brightest, most interesting, and most courageous people one will ever meet. From a group that protests weekly at a street corner to those who regularly right letters to editors and to their congressmen to those who organize events and speeches to student activists etc. etc. From people like Kath Buffington, ex-safety and traffic coordinator in this area who has dedicated the last few weeks to make this leg of the tour so busy that we were literally running from event to event. From people like our hosts for four nights: Doug and Mary Jo (and their three beautiful children). From those who bravely grasp the moment to do acts of kindness at the spur of the moment. One example is an impromptu invitation to join the Islamic Center of Olean to break the fast on Saturday capped the week. The fellowship of great people (over 60 including several Christians who joined us to meet their Muslim neighbors some for the first time and over great food (cooked by three families of Bangladish background). This Iftar raised $760 to help with the bus expenses. (total income on the bus this week >$1600 but we have a number of expenses including new brakes nearly $500, biodiesel, train and bus tickets, and cost of books; to donate visit ).
Another example is Barbara and Barry who invited us to speak to their group and stay at their home at a chilly night of unplanned staying in Olean. They also offered us the chance to break our routine by watching a sobering documentary on the machinations of International bankers, the scam of the “Federal Reserve Bank” (private banks that rule our economy), the IMF and the World Bank. And those like Robert who helped us in libraries and internet cafes to stay connected. They are all heroes in the real sense of the word: they put their neck on the line for a good cause and provide an inspiring example of what dedicated individuals can do. They are ordinary people doing extraordinary acts to challenge systems of oppression and disinformation.
Media Coverage for events of the week in Allegany County:
- Wellsville Daily Reporter (10/4/06 and 10/5/06, pre-event stories, 10/11/06 after event story by Kathryn Ross)
- Olean Times Herald (10/4/06 and 10/6/06, pre-events, on e post event)
- Cuba Patriot and Free Press (10/4/06 and 10/5/06, pre-events, one post event)
- One radio station
(All media coverage was good except for one picture caption added by someone who was not there and did not take the picture).
==============
10/9/06
(Note: The proliferating nuclear weapons and the misinformation around its origin and causes illustrate that the peace movement a) was right in all its predictions about US and Israeli government designs and outcomes, and b) has a lot of work to do. Thankfully, for the next two weeks I will be on the wheels of justice bus tour http://justicewheels.org speaking to high schools, colleges, universities and others about our challenge to be peacemakers. I may have spotty email access both to send and read emails.)
How US tortures (official documents on methods etc)
http://www.kimsoft.com/2000/kubark.htm
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/kubark.htm
Another little reported Washington scandal: Zionist Michael Chertoff awards contracts worth billions for US border security to the Boeing group including key Israeli company Elbit and its US subsidiary Kollsman Inc. Losing competitors were All-American teams Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co., as well as Sweden's Ericsson group. More US jobs lost to special interest lobbies (not to mention security risks).
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14136
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13845 (background on other teams)
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/21_11/homeland/28712-1.html
Iraq: Palestinians Targeted With Death Threats, Human Rights Watch, 5 October 2006
"Shi'a armed groups have threatened to kill Palestinian refugees living in Baghdad if they do not leave Iraq within 72 hours, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch urged the Iraqi government and the Multi-National Forces to investigate these threats and provide greater security to Palestinians in Iraq."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/fe2cbc38721139752b48a1898450eaab.htm
Universal instincts. By Azmi Bishara, "The West, served by Arab "moderates", is attempting to take the Arab world back to the Stone Age"
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/815/re2.htm
The Kansas City Sabeel Conference, October 20-21, is a two-day educational and advocacy conference featuring outstanding experts on the Palestine-Israel conflict. Please join us. For biographies and photos of speakers, and information about how to register, please visit http://www.kcsabeelconference.org
For activists who are Palestinian Americans: If you have not registered to attend the Palestinian American planning meeting in Cleveland scheduled for November 11, 2006 (for planning the large conference in 2007 and/or 2008), please do so ASAP. For info contact PalestineConferenceUSA@yahoo.com
The New York Times ran the following commentary by Palestinian American Sam Bahour today. It is important that they hear from us so they will continue to run honest pieces like this. Please write to letters@nytimes.com. Letters should be 150 words or less and include your name, address and telephone (for identification purposes only).
We Can't Go Home Again By SAM BAHOUR Published: October 7, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/opinion/07bahour.html?_r=1
==============
10/5/06
Yesterday (Sept 4th) was the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Political prisoners. see
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/pal-prisoners.html
and this article I wrote 2 years ago
http://www.counterpunch.org/qumsiyeh08272004.html
Palestinian Reality: The Need for an Urgent Alternative Political Programme by Dr Haidar Eid
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=15765#
Saving Darfur: Zionist Conspiracy?
http://ww4report.com/node/2582
Green Party resolution http://gp.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=247
Palestinian Heritage exhibition of the Munayyer collection sparks controversy and understanding
http://www.palestineheritage.org/Newsletter_September_2006.htm
The Gaza Economy by Dr. Sara Roy
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/informationbrief.php?ID=169
Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006): With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.
by Molly Ivins http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0928-20.htm
Operation peace for the winery: Israel does not want peace with Syria by Gideon Levy
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/769339.html
FDR, Ruth Gruber and me: Zionists stymie WWII rescue plan, by Ronald Bleier October 2006
http://desip.igc.org/FDRGruberAndMe.html
The Palestinian people are not cheap, Khalid Amayreh Oct 2, 2006, 00:24
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m27142&hd=0&size=1&l=x
Students want U-M to divest from Israel: Dearborn student government group wants the school to cease interaction with firms doing business with Israel.
http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061003/METRO01/610030314/1003/METRO
Paul J. Balles voices his shame at the silence of world civic leaders - professors, ministers, attorneys, medical professionals, judges - in the face of the crimes committed by Israel and its patron, the USA. http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/pjballes34.htm
ACTIONS:
- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is tentatively planning to host their Gaza Correspondent, Mohammed Omer, on a U.S. Speaking tour from November 28th to December 16th. The tour plans to reach the West Coast, Midwest, East Coast, and possibly the South. Born in Rafah, Mohammed is the youngest journalist in Gaza, Founder of RafahToday.net, and frequent contributor to international press on all issues Gazan. Given the ongoing siege and the difficulty for people to travel to the United States, Mohammed will provide a rare view in to current situation with presentations and discussion. To view Mohammed's articles in the Washington Report, please visit http://www.wrmea.com/ and search his name. Matt Horton, Director of Public Relations for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is coordinating the tour and currently in the process of setting a basic schedule and making initial contact with organizers who might be interested in taking part. Please contact him at (202) 939-6050 x103 or write to communications@wrmea.com.
- If you know US citizens or others with foreign passports who have faced difficulties in entering Palestine, please send the information to khulood48@yahoo.com (Khulood Badawi, field researcher with Association for Civil Rights in Israel) with a copy to media@pac-national.org
- The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and the Boycott Israeli Goods Campaign (BIG) called on activists nationwide to join a Boycott Day of Action on October 7 against Israel. The PSC and the BIG campaign are responding to calls from Palestine and calling for a boycott of until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. The call for an international boycott has been signed by 180 civil society organisations in Palestine. (Similar actions in the US can be carried out) http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=379_0_1_0_C
============
10/1/06
In the past few days we had some really good events ranging from the speech by the Israeli and Palestinian bereaved family members to a major Islamic Taste of Ramadan Iftar attracting nearly 300 people to a joint rally for immigrant rights and peace (money for jobs and education not for war and
occupation). The number of upcoming events around the country is mushrooming this fall and the wheels of justice bus tour also keeps on trecking (coming to a city near you, see http://justicewheels.org).
Before I share with you the usual weekly dose of news and commentary you won't find on New York Times, CNN, NBC or Fox, I thought I would share this sample hate mail; this one sent in response to posting of Nurit's speech, an Israeli women who lost her daughter to a Palestinian suicide bombings and she blames Zionist racism for the mess (see her bio and excellent speech at
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nuritpeledelhanan/). Note that the names in the from field and at the signature of his email do not match.
Hello,
I read the article by Prof.Nurit Peled-Elhanan about the death of children. After reading this article I felt terrible that I am an Israeli.
I am disgusted at my government's handling of the whole situation. I wish that Israel would change and that the first thing would be to arrest and then hang all you traitors and impose the death penalty (without trials) of all Arabs suspected of terrorism or aid and comfort to terrorists.
Arabs can live here, but not as citizens, but as residents. Jewish traitors like you and that son of that Jewish whore Arna Khamis Mer should be shot or expelled from our holy country.
Thank you,
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Hod
---------------------
Another $460 million of ourt taxes going to Israel thanks to Israeli occupied Congress: The increased funding by Congress is seen as a major achievement for Israel and was support by pro-Israel activists in Washington. Josh Block, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said that "Congress is continuing its strong support for cutting-edge defense programs, which benefit both the United States and Israel, and strengthen their strategic partnership."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193348715&pagename=JPost%2FJPArti\cle%2FPrinter
Anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox group of Rabbis meet with Iranian president Ahmedinujad in New York (the media still chooses not to cover these realities): photos posted at
http://www.nkusa.org/activities/demonstrations/2006Sept21.cfm
From the Jewish Forward: “If Democrats take the House, we’re going to see a huge influx” of Jewish lawmakers, said Ira Forman, the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. ‘But even on a disappointing night, I think we’ll see a few more Jewish Democrats in the House.’.
http://www.forward.com/articles/a-tribe-of-candidates-leads-drive-to-retake-house/
Now in English: A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism
http://www.amazon.com/Threat-Within-Century-Opposition-Zionism/dp/1842776991
But we don’t need them (an article on why it is imperative to communicate directly with your neighbors and friends and family); i.e. speak truth to us the people
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Carpenter1102.htm
Israel, it's time for an apology - Ynetnews staff members tell State of Israel what they think it should ask forgiveness for, and from whom. And the list is long See:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3309645,00.html
Report on the Israel lobby debate in NY. (Lobbyists Ross and Indyk basically "lobby" against exposing them as lobbyists :-) http://www.counterpunch.org/smith09292006.html
Associated Press Story: FCC ordered to Destroy report on concentration of media ownership. WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says. Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that "every last piece" of the report be destroyed. "The whole project was just stopped - end of discussion," he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC's Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14836500/
===================
9/28/06
If you do not read anything else today, read the speech (below, item 2) by Nurit, an Israeli women who lost her daughter to a Palestinian suicide bombing. All in the audience, Christians, Muslims, and Jews literally cried (except two known individuals out of nearly 100). Read it and judge for yourself. But it is equally sad and ironic that Nurit's relevant comments came on the eve of the shameful passage of Congressional resolutions (commented on by the American Civil Liberties Union in Item 1) that I call Zionification of America thanks to greed and racism (and AIPAC). Nurit and a Palestinian women who lost her brother will speak at the rally Sunday at 2 PM (Hartford, CT Meet at Capitol Ave and Broad St, Hartford; Rally at South Green Park; to my knowledge first rally combining immigrant rights with anti-war movement).
ITEM 1: Sliding into Tyrrany and Oppression
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)
"The American Civil Liberties Union expressed distress as the Senate adopted S.3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006. That bill is identical to legislation adopted by the House yesterday, and removes important checks on the president by: failing to protect due process, eliminating habeas corpus for many detainees, undermining enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, and giving a "get out of jail free card" to senior officials who authorized or ordered illegal torture and abuse....Senators rejected several amendments that would have corrected shortcomings in the legislation. The bill gives the president license to weaken enforcement of the basic protections in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions ... Additionally, the bill undermines the American value of due process by permitting convictions based on evidence literally beaten out of a witness or obtained through other abuse by either our government or other countries. Government officials who authorized or ordered illegal acts of torture and abuse would receive retroactive immunity for many of these acts, providing a "get out of jail free" card that is backdated nine years. In the closest vote today, the Senate rejected by a 51-48 vote an amendment by Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to preserve minimal protections of the courts in their historical and constitutional role as a check on the executive branch, through habeas corpus. "Nothing could be less American than a government that can indefinitely hold people in secret torture cells, take away their protections against horrific and cruel abuse, put them on trial based on evidence that they cannot see, sentence them to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and then slam shut the courthouse door for any habeas petition," said Christopher Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "But that's exactly what Congress just approved." see http://www.aclu.org/natsec/gen/26861leg20060925.html
ITEM 2: Dr. Nurit's speech: Nurit Peled-Elhanan
===================
9/26/06
Do the actions you are waiting for!
Be the leader you are looking for!
ACTION NEEDED: "The proposals being voted on this week by US Members of Congress are truly frightening. If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has his way, we could see a nightmare “Big Brother” bill that combines a rubber stamp for warrantless domestic spying on phone calls and emails with new torture and detention tactics that would gut the Geveva Conventions by diluting the War Crimes Act, taking away checks on the president's power..."
Go to this site to learn how to reach your elected representatives: http://tinyurl.com/r7b73
Ask five friends to call as well. Use the ACLU's 'Doonesbury' e-card alert: http://action.aclu.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=3401
ACTION: Boycott ExxonMobile and more
http://consumersforpeace.org/
http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/modules11748.php
http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/modules5533.php
ACTION: Stop the Israeli lobby http://www.stopaipac.org/about.htm
ACTION: Coalition against Israeli Apartheid (meeting in Toronto Oct 6-8) http://www.caiaweb.org
ACTION: Join/help the wheels of Justice http://justicewheels.org
Link of the week: Resource to find contact emails for hundreds of editors, publishers, media pundits etc http://www.everyonewhosanyone.com
Book review by Dr. Ludwig Watzal of: Arthur Neslen's "Occupied Minds: A Journey through the Israeli Psyche." Pluto, London-Ann Arbor 2006, 291 pp
http://www.anis-online.de/1/ton/29
Palestinian-Israeli conflict for beginners (and those who think they know)
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story725.html
Silence is complicity
==============
9/20/06
Peace wheels roll into MSU: Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize nominee tour to discuss human rights issues in Israel, Iraq
http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=37664
This example of news coverage of the Wheels of Justice Bus tour http://justicewheels.org while not the best shows why it is an important outreach effort. The bus has booked a busy schedule for the fall in MI, OH, PA, NY, NJ, CT, MA with dozens of volunteers working hard on this. YOUR help is needed
Congressman Nye and Jack Abramoff: Justice versus lobbies . By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD Online Journal Contributing Writer, Sep 19, 2006.
Why did prosecutors enter into a plea agreement with discredited Congressman Bob Ney even when they already struck a plea agreement with the guy who bribed him, Jack Abramoff? And why did many mainstream media outlets ignore the most crucial facts of this case?....
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1218.shtml
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nyeandabramoff/
The Pope's remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably
Islamophobic by Karen Armstrong (Author of many books including Islam: A short History), The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1874653,00.html
Chavez proposes creation of Bank of the South to challenge IMF and World Bank monopolies and destructive policies
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200609170318.htm
Book review “The Lemon Tree“ http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/09/18/the-lemon-tree/
Video on Lebanese and Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli jails http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/cap-pris.html
Facts on cluster bombs: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0126-04.htm
Why I Don't Live In Israel By Orit Weksler http://www.alternet.org/story/40388
New book by President Jimmy Carter "Palestine: Peace not apartheid"
http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026
Palestinians hit out as Israel tightens visa controls
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/350c5a24-4131-11db-827f-0000779e2340.html
The Dream Philosophy of Paranoids: Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism, By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
http://www.counterpunch.com/finkelstein09122006.html
Pro-Israeli editors seek to influence new Al-Jazeera English TV By Khalid Amayreh
The Electronic Intifada - Sep 15, 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5735.shtml
Bush's Useful Idiots: Tony Judt on the Strange Death of Liberal America, By Tony Judt, London Review of Books 21 September 2006
http://lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/judt01_.html
More on denial of residency and entry rights http://www.zajel.org/article_view.asp?newsID=6765&cat=1
BOYCOTT ISRAEL-FREE PALESTINE
================
9/15/06
Palestinian Refugees Right of Return and Related matters
http://canpalnet-ottawa.org/Keenan_ROR.html
Brazilian Cartoonist under Likud attack and commentary
http://www.anis-online.de/1/rooms/latuff/likud.htm
List of collective massacres perpetrated by Israeli Army in its attack against Lebanon in summer 2006
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/lebmassacres.htm
UN Civil Society Conference slams Israeli apartheid
http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/1300.shtml
US Politicians rated for their "support of Israel" (actually obediance to the Israeli lobby and support of Israeli elite interests and war mongering)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerPage.jhtml
What happened to the five dancing Israelis who were happily photographing themselves with the burning WTC on 9/11
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html
New Video on efforts to hold Israel accountable in third party jurisdictions.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dA4pwIGZEY
Few individuals claim being shocked at any comparison between what early Nazi laws and behavior (in the 1930s) and current Israeli laws and behaviors. But any deeper study will actually be shocking in the other direction: i.e. on the extent of collaboration and mimicry of Nazi and fascist behavior by the Zionist movement over the past 60 years. Lenni Brenner (who is Jewish) did significant studies ond this and you can read his book Zionist revisionism and its collaborations at
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/index.htm His more recent book is "51 Documents: History of the Nazi-Zionist
Collaboration" Reviewes are at Amazon, here is a tiny url link to that:
http://tinyurl.com/qge87
Follow-up on the last action alert: More on Israel's policies of denial of entry and other policies to "cleanse" Palestine of its indiginous non-Jewish population.
http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/443.shtml
http://www.jordantimes.com/thu/opinion/opinion4.htm
Lengthy but Excellent article: Anti-Arab Racism, Islam, and the Left/Antiwar movement
"..there is indeed a certain legitimacy and respectability given to anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism that is not found with other forms of racism. This legitimacy stems from the fact that anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism cuts across the entire political spectrum, from right to left. It is accepted and even practiced by those who would not tolerate other forms of racism. While the anti-racist record of liberals and some on the left is not the best, it is particularly bad when it comes to Arabs and Muslims."
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/elamine030906.html
The Coming Collapse of Zionism: The Moral Bankruptcy of Israel's Founding Idea By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON Former CIA Analyst Counterpunch - Sep 12, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison09122006.html
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9/11/06
Link of the week: International Middle East Media Center gives updated non-corporatist news from the Middle East http://www.imemc.org/
Christian Religious Leaders' Statement on "Christian" Zionism "We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation."
http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=94029
Activists in Palestine picketed Kofi Annan's visit http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/08/30/kofi-visits-ramallah/
Labor actions and news from the Middle East http://www.labourstart.org/middleeast/
Butcher of Qana finds No Safe Haven on Capitol Hill, Photo Report, CJA, 16 August 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5551.shtml
Confronting the Zionists Where they Live, Kate Raphael, Electronic Lebanon, 14 August 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5549.shtml
Beirut street projections in New York City, Nigel Parry, Electronic Lebanon, 14 August 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5524.shtml
Photostory: "Evacuate" Flyers dropped over Tel Aviv, Anti-war activists Photostory from Zochrot, 13 August 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5516.shtml
Malaysians Urged to Boycott US products for support of Israel http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2006-08/25/01.shtml
Swiss Journalist Sylvia Cattori interviews daughtor of abducted Palestinian vice-PM http://www.voltairenet.org/article143228.html
Constitutional right or fascism: Wearing T-shirts with Arabic script in airports (ADC is following up on this and activists are wearing more of those T-shirts)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5297822.stm
Amnesty International detailed report on recent Israeli war crimes
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde180072006
UN denounces Israel use of cluster bombs (made in America) and death toll rises from cluster bombs in Lebanon.
http://jordantimes.com/thu/news/news2.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329564982-103552,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5299938.stm
Two scholars say pro-Israel lobby has warped U.S. policy, By Frank James, Chicago Tribune
(on the latest appearance by Mearsheimer and Walt at the national Press Club)
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/15383641.htm
Hugo Chavez is respected by the Arab people (Arab "leaders" put to shame)
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0393C044-9D53-43FB-9B2F-3F15DF88AF91.htm
The Attack on Cynthia McKinney: American Racism, by Richard Searcy August 9, 2006 http://www.cynthiaforcongress.com/
Behind the plan to bomb Iran By Ismael Hossein-zadeh (economics professor at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa) Asia Times, August 30 2006
"The driving force behind the neo-conservatives' war juggernaut must be sought not in the alleged defense of democracy or of national interests but in the nefarious special interests that are carefully camouflaged behind the front of national interests. ...They include both economic interests (famously known as the military-industrial complex) and geopolitical interests (associated largely with Zionist proponents of "Greater Israel" in the Middle East, or the Israeli lobby). There is an unspoken, de facto alliance between these two extremely powerful interests - an alliance that might be called the military-industrial-Zionist alliance. More than anything else, the alliance is based on a conjunctural convergence of interests on war and international convulsion in the Middle East. Let me elaborate on this point..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH31Ak01.html
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8/31/06
From the annals of racism in the 21st Century
"You see, the probability that an Arab child will grow up and becomes an Albert Einstein, or Sigmund Freud, or even Alan Greenspan, is equal to the twelfth digit after the decimal point, to the probability that a Jewish child will grow up to become a jihad fighter. Of course, not every Jewish child becomes an Einstein, and not every Arab child chooses a brief but spectacular career of a shahid. However, Jewish children, if you don't kill them before it's too late, form Jewish communities, and Jewish communities, in addition to producing Einsteins from time to time, are known throughout the entire history of the Diaspora for bringing prosperity to every society that allows them to prosper. 'I will bless those who bless you.' Unlike Jews, Arabs do not form communities; instead, they form the 'Arab street'. The 'Arab street' has never produced an Einstein and, I am sure never will. Instead, it is producing an abundance of mass murderers....What occupation? What 'Palestinian people'? Learn some real history. The 'Palestinian people' is a blood libel, next to which the infamous Protocols look almost inoffensive. I challenge you to produce a single pre-1967 reference to the 'Palestinian people'. I challenge you to name at least one document that gives the terrorist organization you call the 'Palestinian people' the legal right to one square inch of territory in Israel or anywhere else in the world. " From Suggestions to the Crucified by Zack Lieberberg, August 29, 2006
The ignorant racism based on a sense of "tribal" superiority is obvious in such statements (just imagine if the text included African-American or "Nigger" instead of Arab or Palestinian in the above). Unfortunately for America, such ignorant and malicious thoughts are not marginal and are now at the highest levels of the US government. I will leave it to a future posting and readers' own research skills to evaluate these racist statements and their impact. For readers interested in Arab contributions to civilization, here is a concise summary http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=247
However, since the Zionist Lieberberg and other Zionists are fond of mentioning Einstein and Freud I thought I would share these quotes from those two famous non-Zionist Jews:
"My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain - especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state." Albert Einstein http://globalwebpost.com/farooqm/writings/other/einstein.htm
"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the Emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherutprecursor to the Likud-MQ), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menahem Begin, leader of this party to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American Support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States." From a letter signed by prominent Jews including Einstein published in the NY Times Dec. 2, 1948 http://www.qumsiyeh.org/einsteinetalonbegin/)
When approached to sign a petition to condemn the Arab revolt in Palestine and to support the settlement of Jews Sigmund Freud wrote in response: "I cannot do as you wish. I am unable to overcome my aversion to burdening the public with my name, and even the present critical time does not seem to me to warrant it. Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this....I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives. Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope."
Freud's Letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler Keren HaYassod, Vienna: 26 February 1930; posted at the Freud Institute in UK website: http://www.freud.org.uk./arab-israeli.html
This brief article by Amira Hass in Haaretz can't even begin to describe the ugly face of political Zionism (unfortunately justified by the supremacist attitude exemplified by Lieberberg's article) and its horrific impact on the native Palestinians:
Can you really not see? by Amira Hass, Haaretz
"Could you all be in favor of systematic discriminating laws? Laws stating that the Arabs of the Galilee will not even be compensated for the damages of the war by the same sums their Jewish neighbors are entitled to (Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz , August 21). Could it be that you are all in favor of a racist Citizenship Law that forbids an Israeli Arab from living with his family in his own home? That you side with further expropriation of lands and the demolishing of additional orchards, for another settler neighborhood and another exclusively Jewish road? That you all back the shelling and missile fire killing the old and the young in the Gaza Strip?" More at
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/756413.html
Below is a letter I sent to letters@washpost.com (please write your own letter, for quotes and background see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/thelobby/). I write two or three letters a day on various subjects (most do not get published but some do, see examples of published ones at
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/exampleletterstotheeditor/ )
Ref: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801178_pf.html
Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby, By Dana Milbank Tuesday, August 29, 2006; A02
Dear Editor
It was rather amazing to see the article from Dana Milbank (August 29) trashing professors Walt and Mearsheimer for simply speaking about the power of the Israel lobby in our government's disastrous foreign policy. The distortions in Milbank's article are obvious to anyone who attended or watched the event at the National Press Club on Monday. I watcxhed the event on c-SPAN and it is available for the record on cspan.org so that people can judge for themselves whether Milbank or the two professors are correct. There is indeed a significant body of evidence in support of the power of the lobby even quotes from the lobby itself. Howard Friedman, President of AIPAC, titled his letter of July 30, 2006 to friends and supporters of AIPAC "Look what you've done". He explained: "Israel is fighting a pivotal war for its life...the expected chorus of international condemnation of Israel's actions. ..only ONE nation in the world came out and flatly declared: Let Israel finish the job.. That nation is the United States of America--and the reason it had such a clear, unambiguous view of the situation is YOU and the rest of America Jewry....How do we do it? ... decades of long hard work which never ends." The viscious attack by Milbank on the two scholars merely proves the thesis that there are people in this country who are so fix
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