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Chicago bans anti-war march during NATO Summit

RT | 30 March, 2012

A judge has rejected the demands of anti-war activists for a march to be held in Chicago during a planned NATO summit.  The activists say the city’s arguments against the march defy logic.

­Anti-war activists filed a request to court after their initial demands for a march to be rescheduled were rejected by the City of Chicago.

Andy Thayer, an activist leader, says he will still be marching on May 20, the day the NATO summit opens.

“I can say definitively we are marching on May 20,” he noted, as quoted by Reuters. “We will hold a peaceful protest.”

The anti-war demonstrators originally planned to hold a march on May 19, the day another meeting of global leaders, the G8 Summit, closes in Chicago. However, when the summit’s venue was changed to Camp David, the activists decided to move their march a day forward to coincide with the start of the NATO summit.

But this request was rejected by the Chicago Transportation Department.

The department wrote back to Thayer, saying there were not enough on-duty police officers or other employees authorized to regulate traffic.

“The commissioner finds that there are not available at the time of the parade a sufficient number of on-duty police officers, or other city employees authorized to regulate traffic, to police and protect lawful participants in the parade and non-participants,” the assistant commissioner of the department wrote to Thayer.

But Thayer says the argument makes no sense – as the police assured the public it had enough personnel to deal with the protests on May 19.

“It defies logic,” Thayer remarked. “Ultimately the city is … pursuing a political agenda of denying meaningful First Amendment expression of anti-war views.”

The city did advise the protesters to change their itinerary, but the alternative route will not pass through Daley Plaza in the city center, and will take much longer.

Thayer argues that the city’s reluctance to allow the peaceful demo is part of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s efforts to silence dissent.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

One Killed, 37 Injured, by Israeli troops Gunfire in Gaza Land Day Protests

By Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC News | March 30, 2012

(Reuters/Ammar Awad and Ronen Zvulun)

A Palestinian 20 year old youth was killed, 37 injured, among them a journalist when Israeli troops opened fire at Palestinian protesters marking land day in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources reported that soldiers opened fire at protesters who marched up to the borders with Israel near Gaza city killing Mohamed Zakout, 20, and injuring 37 others. Among those injured were 3 in critical conditions and a local journalist.

In the West Bank Israeli troops injured 100 civilians including an American activist who marked land day in different parts of the West Bank today.

Marking the 36th anniversary of land day today Palestinians and their supporters marched for Jerusalem demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the city. Protests were organized near the Israeli Lebanese borders as well as the borders with Jordan.

The Land day commemoration started in 1976, when Palestinian residents of the Galilee to the Negev protested Israel’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for security and settlement purposes. Israeli military and police attacked the protests leaving 6 killed, hundreds injured.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

MK Zoabi: Struggle for democracy is a struggle against Zionism

Haneen Zoabi, an MK from the Balad party, speaks to Elsa Rassbach about Land Day and her relationship as a Palestinian to Zionism and citizenship. 

By Elsa Rassbach | +972 | March 29, 2012

Since the 1980s, Palestinians have marked every March 30 with protests to celebrate Land Day.  The day commemorates the first widespread struggle of Arab Israelis against processes of land confiscation intended to create Jewish majorities in certain communities. The marches and general strikes began in the Galilee in 1976, and resulted in the killings of six unarmed Arab citizens of Israel. Solidarity protests spread to the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the refugee camps in Lebanon. Since then, the day has marked the first common struggle for a Palestinian national cause following the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, an event Palestinians call the Nakba. This year on Land Day, worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activities will take place against Israeli policies, as well as the Global March to Jerusalem, which will call attention to the continuing Judaization and ethnic cleansing in the city that was supposed to be the multi-ethnic, multi-religious capital of a future Palestinian state.

Haneen Zoabi, 43, became a Knesset member in 2009, as the first Palestinian woman elected on an Arab party’s list. She is a member of the Balad party, which seeks to transform Israel into a democracy for all of its citizens, irrespective of national, ethnic or religious identity. Zoabi was born in Nazareth to a Muslim family. In 2010, she participated in the Gaza flotilla on board the Mavi Marmara. I spoke with her recently by Skype.

What does Land Day mean to you?

To me, Land Day is a day of ongoing and a continuous struggle around the issue of “land property.” This is still the crucial issue between us and the state. The core of the Zionist project is a continuous stealing of land from the Palestinians and transferring it to the Israeli Jews. Renaming the places, the junctions, the villages, the streets, and giving Jewish names to the landscape is part of this “confiscation.” It’s a way to steal from us and confiscate our historical relation with our homeland. This is the meaning of Ariel Sharon’s famous statement in the Knesset in 2002 when he said that the Palestinians inside Israel, whom he called “Israeli Arabs,” in effect have only temporary “rights in the land,” the land not yet confiscated, but “all the rights over the Land of Israel are Jewish rights.”

During the 63 years since 1948, Israel has confiscated 85 percent of our land and turned it over to the exclusive use of the Jews. It has developed and built 1,000 towns, cities and villages, all of them only for the Jews. And zero for the Palestinians. We live now on 2 percent of our land. We don’t even have permission to build our own houses on our own land and thus have no rights to use our land that hasn’t been confiscated.

How does Israel’s definition of itself as a “Jewish state” affect the Palestinian citizens of Israel?

The “Jewish state” is a state that has been established by Jews and is run by the Jews for the sake of the Jews – all at the expense of the Palestinians. It’s a racist definition. The state declares me to be an outsider in this land, though I’m the opposite. I’m the indigenous people. I didn’t immigrate to Israel; it was Israel that immigrated to me.

The State of Israel claims that it can be Jewish and democratic at the same time, as if there were no contradiction between the two. Any debate within Israel regarding the inherent contradiction between being a Jewish state and being a democratic state is considered no less than a “strategic threat.” If we are not Jewish and refuse to give up our rights, then obviously we present not just an alternative view, but something that contradicts the state’s very legitimacy: Zionism. 

How you define your struggle as Palestinian citizens of Israel in relation to the struggle of the rest of the Palestinian people?  

Our struggle has two components, as citizens and also as Palestinians. And unlike the state, we don’t see why both components — our citizenship and our nationality – should clash.

On the contrary, citizenship should be inclusive. We are fighting for normal citizenship with full recognition of our national rights as indigenous people that would include our history, our identity, our culture and our nationality.

My citizenship is conditioned by the Jews’ privileges.  It’s even conditioned to my loyalty to these privileges!  Therefore, there is no way to struggle for full equality and full citizenship without challenging the concept of “Jewish state.” To struggle for democracy in Israel is to struggle against Zionism. And this is what unifies our struggle with the wider Palestinian struggle.  Racism, Oppression, Judaisation, Apartheid and Undemocracy inside Israel; Apartheid, Occupation, Oppression, and Judaisation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; and the denial of the right of return – all of these mechanisms of control serve the same ideological project: Zionism.

Nakba Day, the first intifada, the second intifada – all of these days are days of unity.  But still our struggle is not united, because it lacks a unifying vision and a unifying framework of legitimacy. The Palestinian issue did not begin in 1967 and does not only concern the territories occupied in 1967.  It concerns the entire Palestinian people, and even the wider Arab region.

After the Oslo Accords of 1993 defined the Palestinians inside Israel as an internal Israeli matter, we reformulated our national project in a manner that secures our reintegration into the Palestinian people and guarantees our place as an integral part of the Palestinian issue, both as part of the conflict and as part of the solution.  Our demand for a “state of all its citizens” has put the Palestinians in Israel at the heart of the direct confrontation with the Zionist enterprise and has forced the “Jewish state” to admit the primacy that it grants to Jewish-Zionist values over democratic values, and to recognixe the impossibility of coexistence between the two.

This is the role we play.

Elsa Rassbach is a filmmaker and journalist from the United States, now based in Berlin. Her award-winning film, ”The Killing Floor,” an historical dramatic film about a union’s struggle against racism in the Chicago Stockyards, will be re-released this year.

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rallies Worldwide to Mark the 9th Anniversary of the Disappearance of Aafia Siddiqui

Please also note that events scheduled for Saturday include a rally in New York at 12 noon, and a rally in Toronto (sisters only) at 6 pm. On Friday (March 30), there is also a rally in Fort Worth, Texas at 3.30 pm.

By Andy Worthington – 29.3.12

On Saturday, outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, I will be speaking at an event marking the ninth anniversary of the disappearance in Pakistan of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who vanished for five years and five months, and then mysteriously reappeared in Afghanistan in August 2008, where she was arrested, and then allegedly tried to shoot at the US soldiers who were holding her.

She was subsequently flown to New York, where, in September 2010, after a trial at which she did not appear to be well, although her mental health was not considered to be an issue worthy of scrutiny, she was sentenced to 86 years in prison, which she is serving in a notorious psychiatric prison, FMC Carswell, in Texas. 

The rally outside the US Embassy, organized by the Justice for Aafia Coalition, takes place from 3 pm to 6 pm, and the speakers, and the timing of speeches, are as follows:

1500: Introduction
1510: Sultan Sabri (Croydon Muslim Association)
1520: Raza Karim
1530: Andy Worthington (journalist, author of The Guantánamo Files)
1540: Asif Hussain
1550: Raza Nadim (MPACUK – Muslim Public Affairs Committee)
1600: Sheikh Suliman Ghani (Imam, Tooting Islamic Centre)
1610: Anas Altikriti (Cordoba Foundation)
1620: Ken O’Keefe (anti-war activist)
1630: Statement of Support from the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
1635: Joy Hurcombe (Save Shaker Aamer Campaign) reads out Statement of Support from Walter Wolfgang
1645: Omar Deghayes (former Guantánamo prisoner)
1655: Adnan Rashid (Hittin Institute)
1705: Sultana Parvin
1715: Uthman Lateef (Hittin Institute)
1725: Conclusion

I hope to see some of you down there, as the case of Aafia Siddiqui, which I have been following for many years, remains deeply troubling. My previous articles can be found here, and below is a re-cap of her story, drawn largely from an account of the website of the Justice for Aafia Coalition.

Please also note that other events scheduled for Saturday include a rally in New York at 12 noon, and a rally in Toronto (sisters only) at 6 pm. On Friday (March 30), there is also a rally in Sandton, South Africa at 2 pm, and another in Fort Worth, Texas at 3.30 pm.

The story of Aafia Siddiqui

Nine years ago, on March 30, 2003, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen, and a cognitive neuroscientist, disappeared in Karachi along with her three children, the youngest of whom, Suleman, was just a baby. For the next five years their whereabouts were unknown, and have never been publicly acknowledged by either the Pakistani or the US government, even though it seems clear that she was held in secret detention, where she was severely abused. Former Bagram prisoners have stated that a female prisoner was held in the prison, identified by the number “650,” and have said that they heard her horrific screams.

Following demands for her recovery by human rights organisations and the Pakistani public, Aafia resurfaced in Afghanistan in August 2008, framed with the attempted murder of US personnel. Transferred to the US, she was convicted in a shocking miscarriage of justice and was sentenced in September 2010 to 86 years in prison. She is currently held in isolation at FMC Carswell, Texas, a facility notoriously referred to as the “hospital of horrors.” She is denied any meaningful contact with her family and is unlikely to see her children again.

Whilst the two elder children were released in 2008 and 2010 respectively, the whereabouts of her youngest child, Suleman — only six months old at the time of the abduction — remain unknown, although it is believed that he may have been killed art the time of her initial capture. Most recently, disturbing reports have emerged that her health is deteriorating and there are serious concerns that she may have cancer.

To request Aafia Siddiqui’s repatriation to Pakistan, please contact the following officials in the US and Pakistani governments:

Eric Holder: Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001, Tel: +1 202 353 1555, Email: AskDoJ@usdoj.gov

Hilary Clinton: Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street, N.W. Washington DC 20520, Tel: +1 202 647 4000, Fax: +1 202 261 8577, Email: questions@friendsofhillary.com

Mr. Asif Ali Zardari: President of Pakistan, President’s Secretariat, Islamabad, PAKISTAN, Tel 92 51 920 4801/921 4171, Fax 92 51 920 7458, Email: publicmail@president.gov.pk

Mr. Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani: Prime Minister of Pakistan, Prime Minister House, Islamabad, PAKISTAN, Fax: + 92 51 922 1596, Email: secretary@cabinet.gov.pk

Mr. Rehman Malik: Minister of Interior, Room No. 404, 4th Floor, R Block, Pak Secretariat, Islamabad, PAKISTAN, Tel: +92 51 921 2026, Fax: +92 51 920 2624, E-mail: minister@interior.gov.pk, ministry.interior@gmail.com, interior.complaintcell@gmail.com

Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi: Foreign Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Islamabad, Pakistan, Tel: +92 51 921 0335, Fax: +92 51 920 7600, Email: smhq148@hotmail.com

You can also write to Aafia:

Aafia Siddiqui # 90279-054
FMC Carswell
Federal Medical Center
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127
U.S.A.

And to send a message of support to her family, email: support@justiceforaafia.org

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Open Letter to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO

By Ralph Nader | March 28, 2012

Dear Mr. Trumka,

You have come to your leadership position of our country’s labor federation of unions with 13 million members the hard way. Starting by working in the coal mines, then becoming a lawyer, heading the United Mine Workers, then becoming the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO before assuming your present position in 2009, who can pull rank on you in the formal labor movement?

Yet, the AFL-CIO’s public leadership in three major areas has been far less effective than one would expect. I am referring to your less than assertive response to President Obama: 1) turning his back on raising the federal minimum wage; 2) failing to advance his card check promise to you in 2008; and 3) dropping the ball on backing long-overdue safety and health responsibilities of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

I say this with the awareness of your group’s public stands in favor of these three crucial matters to working families. But as you well know, there is a very marked difference between being on-the-record, as the AFL-CIO is, and being on-the-daily ramparts pushing these issues, as your organization is not.

Even just making a statement, however, took a back seat in your March 13, 2012 endorsement of Barack Obama for a second term as president. In what ways has Mr. Obama “moved aggressively,” as you declared, “to protect workers rights, pay, health and safety on the job?”

He has neither championed nor pressed Congress, when the Democrats were in control in 2009-2010, to give you card check which you have long-said was needed to reverse the serious decline and expand the ranks of organized labor by millions of workers (you told me this in 2004).

Second, Mr. Obama appointed an excellent head of OSHA and then betrayed OSHA – an agency that has estimated 58,000 workplace-related American deaths a year from disease and trauma! That is over 1000 people a week, every week, on the average.

Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor and the head of OSHA, cannot get White House approval for issuing long-overdue standards or strengthening weak and outdated standards such as the woefully inadequate silica rule, to save American lives not threatened by terrorists, but by corporate negligence or worse. Why have you not exposed this reality in public? Has Mr. Obama, whom you have socialized with at White House viewings of the Super Bowl, ever invited you to come across Lafayette Square to discuss this serious ongoing, preventable tragedy?

Had he taken worker concerns seriously, he might have asked you why the AFL-CIO for many years, has retained at its large national headquarters so few full-time advocates on occupational health and safety? And you in turn might have asked him why his politicos are blocking Dr. Michaels and why he is content in having only $550 million for OSHA’s annual budget while the U.S. spent $675 million in 2011 paying corporate contractors to guard the overbuilt U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Are these the Obama “values” you extolled in your endorsement statement?

More dismaying is your touting Mr. Obama for aggressively protecting workers’ pay. By pushing for more NAFTA type “pull-down” trade agreements through Congress, and not moving to revise NAFTA as he promised in his 2008 presidential campaigns, he is undermining both workers’ pay and jobs. By totally abandoning his pledge made to over 30 million workers in 2008 that he would press for a $9.50/hour federal minimum wage by 2011, he left them defenseless with more debt and fewer necessities of life.

The AFL-CIO wants at the least to catch up to 1968 with an inflation-adjusted $10/hour minimum wage law. Where is the visible muscular campaign for such legislation? Keeping up with inflation for the federal minimum wage is historically supported by 70 percent of the people. That includes many Republicans and even Rick Santorum and, until his latest flip-flop, Mitt Romney. A $10 minimum wage, after years of windfall price increases and executive compensation windfalls at labor’s expense, would annually pump tens of billions of dollars into greater consumer demand by low-income families in this recessionary economy.

What is the AFL-CIO waiting for? Hundreds of non-profit organizations will follow your lead. Talk is not enough. Resources and muscular lobbying are required along with far more relevant and tough public advertisements than your members are seeing and paying for on TV these days. Enough, already, of the general feel-good mood spots on TV.

As someone who in earlier days had been a dig-in-your-heels labor negotiator in fights with management, what did you receive for millions of American workers in your early, blanket endorsement of Mr. Obama? No wonder he can get away with giving the trade union movement and unorganized workers the back of his hand. You have unnecessarily allowed him to believe that you have nowhere to go. This is another way of saying that the Republicans, by being worse than the bad Democrats, are holding the American labor movement hostage to the corporatist Democratic Party.

The AFL-CIO is in a deep, defensive rut when in these tough times it should be in an aroused, innovative state of high alert and aggressive action. Workers in the 1930s’ Depression were in worse shape than workers today, yet organized labor was more militant.

People inside and outside the AFL-CIO know the problems. They are: complacent bureaucratic rigidity, fractious relations between member unions over how supine they need to be to Obama and the Democrats (with their costly wars), the lack of union democracy and competitive elections both within member unions and at the AFL-CIO plus, except for a few unions like the California Nurses Association, a distinct lack of sustained fervor and money for organizing drives.

You know all this only too well. Yet, as a 14th Century Chinese philosopher once said, “to know and not to do is not to know.” Unless you shake the AFL-CIO up and reorder its priorities against the corporate state, expect another four years of an Obamabush Administration.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scores Injured as Israeli Troops Attack West Bank land Day Protests

By George Rishmawi & Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC | March 30, 2012

Thousands of Palestinians marked land day, on Friday, Palestinian sources said that 100 civilians were injured when Israeli troops attacked protesters in Ramallah and Bethlehem cities.

Marking the 36th anniversary of land day today Palestinians and their supporters marched for Jerusalem demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the city. Protests were organized near the Israeli Lebanese borders as well as the borders with Jordan.

The Land day commemoration started in 1976, when Palestinian residents of the Galilee to the Negev protested Israel’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for security and settlement purposes. Israeli military and police attacked the protests leaving 6 killed, hundreds injured.

Today After the midday prayers, people marched from Ramallah city, central West Bank, towards Qalandiya checkpoint that separates Ramallah from Jerusalem.

Troops fired tear gas and sound bombs then later used rubber-coated steel bullets. 80 Palestinians were injured. Witnesses told IMEMC that among those injured were two Palestinian medics.

In Bethlehem 20 residents were injured, seven were moved to hospitals, when soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs at land day protesters. The marchers were first stopped by the Palestinian security forces however they managed to reach the gate of the wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem. As protestors reach the gate, youth threw rocks and firebombs at the wall and the nearby military tower.

“We are here to tell the Israeli occupation that Jerusalem is Palestinian and will never forget it.” One of the protesters told IMEMC.

Israeli troops responded by firing tear gas and sound bombs. A source from the Palestinian Red Cresent Society told IMEMC that one resident was hit with a tear gas canister in his back causing burns and bruises.

The wounded was identified as Yousef Sharqawi from Bethlehem. Another activist from the US was hit with a tear gas canister in his head and was transferred to the hospital for medical treatment. Field medics said his wound is moderate.

Photo of Land Day Protest in Bethlehem Today –  by Ghassan Bannoura
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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian lawmaker wounded in Land Day protest


Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti
Press TV –  March 30, 2012

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti has been injured by Israeli forces attacking peaceful demonstrations marking international Land Day, Press TV reports.

Barghouti was wounded on Friday in the city of al-Quds (Jerusalem) where he attended a Land Day rally.

Israeli forces opened fire on peaceful pro-Palestinian rallies across the occupied Palestinian territories, with clashes underway between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Qalandiya.

Earlier reports said at least two protesters were injured by Israeli troops and several others were arrested.

More demonstrations were planned for after the Friday Prayers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) despite Tel Aviv restricting access to al-Aqsa Mosque for the weekly prayers.

Pro-Palestinian rallies have been held near border areas in Lebanon and similar demonstrations are expected in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria where activists will also march towards the Palestinian borders.

The rallies, joined by international human rights activists, are part of an international campaign named Global March on al-Quds (Jerusalem), a peaceful international movement that also condemns the Israeli occupation of the holy city.

The event marks Land Day and the Israeli military’s deadly attack on Palestinians peacefully protesting Tel Aviv’s land policies in 1967.

The demonstrations have prompted Tel Aviv to deploy thousands of police and armed forces across the occupied Palestinian territories and around border areas near Lebanon and Jordan.

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

On the eve of Land Day: Al Quds anticipates the Global March

29 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

March 30 is Land Day in Palestine. The events of the day annually commemorate the events of 1976, when Israeli authorities seized massive quantities of land from Palestinian owners, and then killed several and injured dozens to crack down on the general strike called to protest the theft.

This year on Land Day, March 30, people from around Palestine and the world will march towards Al Quds  (Jerusalem) to protest the theft in progress today: the isolation and ethnic cleansing taking place in Al Quds, as well as throughout occupied Palestine through illegal settlement activity. Marches are planned towards Al Quds from multiple points in the West Bank, Gaza, inside the Green Line, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria, as well as in Asia, North America, and Europe. The global march aims to highlight the colonization of Al Quds by Zionists and the refusal of access for Palestinians to the holy city.

According to multiple treaties and UN resolutions, Al Quds is recognized as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel seized control of the city in 1967. Al Quds has long been the center of religious, cultural, health, and commercial life for Palestinians, and an estimated 270,000 Palestinians reside in the eastern parts of the city (OCHA 2011).

The Palestinian population and presence in Al Quds is currently under extreme pressure from Israeli authorities and illegal settlers as the Zionist state seeks to take complete control of the city, drive out the Palestinian inhabitants, and eliminate any hope of its future as a Palestinian capital. This pressure is manifested in various ways:

Isolation

Fadwa Khader, an Al Quds resident and organizer of the Global March on Jerusalem remembers a time when Al Quds was “the most important place in Palestine.” Now, the apartheid wall and associated military closures prevent the majority of Palestinians from traveling to Al Quds for any reason. The city’s status as a center of Palestinian life is fading, due to its isolation from the rest of the West Bank. But material realities will not erase Al Quds’s place in the hearts of the Palestinian people. One needs only to view the multitude of images of Al Aqsa mosque in Palestinian homes, businesses, and streets to understand this.

Removal and Denial of Residency

In a systematic effort aimed at reducing the number of Palestinian residents of Al Quds, Israeli authorities seize any opportunity to rescind the residency permits of individuals, even those who are born and have lived their entire lives in the city. If Palestinian residents are known to have lived in the West Bank or abroad, even temporarily, they risk the withdrawal of their residency rights and may never be allowed into Al Quds again, even to visit family.

Fadi, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is a Palestinian who resided in Jordan for example, has retained his Jerusalem IDs. Yet his children who were born in Jordan and whose mother is a Palestinian refugee, have been unable to attain their Jerusalem IDs. “My family’s history is in this city,” said Faid. “The lack of jobs, and the bleak future of Palestinians here forced me to seek these elsewhere. Now that I have returned and have brought my children with me, my children are unable to maneuver throughout the city as they are undocumented in their own father’s hometown. Israel refuses to recognize them as the children of a Jerusalemite, but we will remain here, even if that means that my children and wife live without an ID or any rights.” Fadi continued after a long silence and the evident hurt in his eyes. “This is our resistance to Zionism.”

This policy has the effect over time of reducing the Palestinian population in Al Quds and preventing residents from traveling or living elsewhere for fear of losing residency.

Pressure on existing residents

Fadwa Khader noted another component of Israel’s campaign for the complete colonization and ethnic cleansing of Al Quds: the application of pressure to Palestinian residents in order to drive them out of the city. One way this is manifested is in the denial of municipal services in the eastern parts of the city inhabited by Palestinians.

The residents here pay the same taxes as the Jewish residents of West Al Quds.  Despite this, the municipality of Jerusalem does not provide adequate services to the Palestinian neighborhoods of the city. Ninety percent of the municipality’s sewer lines and paved roads and sidewalks are in West Al Quds (B’tselem). In some neighborhoods, cleaning services come only once every three days as opposed to three times a day in West Al Quds. n February the Wadi Hilweh Information Center  reported the Jerusalem Municipality created a dump at the door of Palestinian neighborhoods.

Khader notes the dual nature of this denial of services: First, to make life in Al Quds miserable and untenable in an effort to convince existing residents to leave. Second, to demonstrate to the internationals that visit Al Quds that the Palestinian residents “don’t care about their neighborhoods” and live in filth.

Pressure is also applied to Palestinian resident through settlement of East Al Quds neighborhoods by extremist Israelis, evictions of Palestinian families, and demolitions of Palestinian homes. The neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan have been particularly affected by this strategy. The goal of the Israeli authorities and Zionist activists is to forcibly settle Jews in East Al Quds through the seizure of land and homes and settlement of Israelis in these areas. In addition, home demolitions make life increasingly untenable for affected residents.

The Global March this Land Day will seek to highlight these issues and call for an end to Israeli Zionist settlement policy, access restrictions, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Al Quds and throughout occupied Palestine.

Khader has a message for the international Palestine solidarity movement:

“We want to live in peace and liberty  and to feel free. Can you imagine how we suffer and sacrifice for this dream?”

She noted that there can never be a real Palestinian state as long as the Israelis continue to steal land and water, to control borders, and to separate cities and villages of Palestine from each other.

Still, she is hopeful.

“We won’t give up hope. We believe in you (international solidarity activists). You are our voice outside of Palestine, calling for dignity, liberation, and an end to the occupation.”

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Settlers Attack Internationals Accompanying School Children on Shuhada Street

28 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Today at around 1 PM  extremist settler Anat Cohen attacked a Canadian woman accompanying school children, and a few minutes later sent two teenage settlers to throw rocks at the Canadian woman and a Finnish man.  The attack occurred at the bottom of the stairs connecting the Qordaba Girls School with the section of Shuhada street where Palestinians are allowed to walk.

Cohen passed the internationals in her car and stopped to talk to soldiers at the nearby checkpoint.  She then reversed her car, parked next to the internationals and proceeded to shove, kick and scream at the Canadian women while soldiers looked on.  Eventually a soldier came to force the internationals up the stairs, but did nothing to stop Cohen from harassing them.

A few minutes later two children who Cohen had just spoken with ran up a parallel staircase and threw rocks at the  internationals from less than a foot away, hitting the Finnish man in the ear.  Two soldiers watched the second attack, then turned in the opposite direction and refused to intervene.  Cohen then called the police, who demanded the passports of all the internationals present, who detained them for several minutes, and then told them they were not allowed to stand at the bottom or top of the stairs.  When asked why the police were doing nothing about the attacks, a soldier responded that Anat Cohen is “well known to the police” and there was “nothing to be done.”

The staircase that connects Palestinian schools and houses with Shuhada street has been a site of frequent settler attacks, particularly on girls from the nearby Qordaba school who have been stoned by settlers many times on the stairs and the area leading to it.

Internationals have been accompanying children in this area to try and prevent attacks by settlers and harassment from soldiers.

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Marwan Barghouti: A Decade of Defiance

Despite spending the past 10 years in prison, Marwan Barghouti remains at the forefront of the Palestinian liberation movement.

By Fadi Abu Saada | Al Akhbar | March 29, 2012

In mid-April 2002, Israeli occupation forces invaded Palestinian cities under Operation Defensive Shield.

The Israeli government at the time was after Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who managed to disappear for three weeks before he was arrested under circumstances that remain unclear to this day.

Barghouti is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Secretary-General of Fatah in the West Bank, but the Israeli state accused him of leading al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and deemed his arrest a great success.

The verdict of five life sentences and 40 years in prison that Barghouti was handed is a clear indication of Israel’s recognition of the “threat to Israel” that he represents. This was expressed by one Israeli leader who described Barghouti as a “young Abu Ammar,” Yasser Arafat’s nom de guerre.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said that he prefers to see Barghouti dead rather than in prison, because he is the engineer and the brains behind the intifada, and he is a symbol of Palestinian national unity and resistance.

Despite his forced absence from the Palestinian public arena, Barghouti is still at the forefront of the political scene. An opinion poll revealed that 55 percent of Palestinians would elect Barghouti if he were to run for the presidency and president Mahmoud Abbas does not run.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which conducted the poll, explained that Barghouti swept other Fatah candidates by a big margin, receiving 55 percent of respondents’ votes, while other candidates did not receive more than 3 percent each.

Palestinian political analyst Khalil Shahin refers to three main factors to explain Barghouti’s popularity.

The first is the struggle factor: “Barghouti was always at the forefront of the leaders standing with the people. He had been exiled and detained and with the start of the second intifada, he led the protests,” says Shahin.

“The decisive factor of the legitimacy of any leader,” he adds, “is joining the ranks of the people and that is what Barghouti did.”

The second factor, according to Shahin, is “the nature of the discourse adopted by Barghouti as it is nationalist par excellence. It is not factional and it is not Fatah-centered. Barghouti walked in the footsteps of national leaders like the late Arafat, George Habash, Abu Iyad, Abu Jihad, and others.”

The third factor has to do with “the staunch positions” held by Barghouti and “represented in the last message he issued from prison in which he spoke about the political process, the senseless negotiations, reconciliation, and corruption which might push for the adoption of an new path in the Palestinian strategy for the next phase.”

In addition, the vision proposed by Barghouti, says Shahin, “scares Israel because it might represent the opening of new path in Palestinian resistance against Israel in order to isolate it internationally, which Israel considers a grave danger.”

Despite his imprisonment, the Israelis could not stop Barghouti’s continued struggle as he issued a series of messages to the Palestinian people from inside his prison cell.

On the 10th anniversary of his arrest, Barghouti called for an end to all forms of security and economic cooperation with Israel and for launching wide-ranging popular resistance.

“Experience has demonstrated that there is no partner for peace in Israel. Even worse, settlement building multiplied three or four times over the course of two decades of negotiations and the Judiazation of Jerusalem is accelerating in an unprecedented manner,” his message read.

“We must confirm the absolute right of our people to resist the occupation by all forms, means, and methods, and concentrate this resistance in the territories occupied in 1967 while highlighting the importance of choosing the appropriate form and method for the current phase,” he added.

Barghouti also spoke in his letter about the importance of achieving reconciliation and national unity, and the need for the Palestinian leadership to deal seriously and responsibly with this issue.

He urged pairing resistance with work at the level of diplomacy, politics, and negotiations, as well as struggle and popular activism.

He called for a complete official and popular boycott of Israeli products and goods, and for encouraging people to purchase Palestinian products. He also called for renewing efforts to achieve Palestinian membership in the United Nations.

Barghouti did not forget the most important issue and that is battling corruption which he saw as another face of the occupation. He said “the symbols of corruption who have not been held accountable yet must be held to account.”

Palestinian public opinion might differ on the question of reconciliation but there is an agreement on Barghouti’s strong presence and his nationalist discourse.

Despite him being in prison for 10 years, he has the final word on many sensitive matters having to do with the issue of prisoners, Fatah, and the Palestinian Authority.

Exist to Resist

The Palestinian prisoner and MP Marwan Barghouti was born in 1959 in the village of Kobar to the northwest of Ramallah. He joined Fatah at the age of 15.

He was arrested and put in prison by the Israeli occupation forces in 1976 when he was only 18 years old.

After his release, Barghouti headed the Birzeit University Student Council and graduated with a degree in History and Political Science and an MA in International Relations.

He was arrested again in 2002 and has been in prison since then.

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

UNAC: A Real Anti-War Movement in the Belly of the Beast

By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | March 28, 2012

With passage of a short and elegant plank in its Action Plan for 2012, the United National Anti-War Coalition is building a peace movement that is finally prepared to confront President Obama’s global military offensive, cloaked in “humanitarian” interventionist rhetoric. The language states: “End all threats of war and intervention against Iran and Syria! No to sanctions, blockades and embargoes!”

It is a simple expression of the singular mission of anti-warriors in the belly of the beast. That mission is to disarm the beast– not to quibble with the war machine about where best to deploy its overwhelming firepower, or to advise corporate warmongers on the most efficient killing-mix of live troops and automated drones, or to pick and choose from a Democratic administration’s menu of regimes that might be changed to make the world more amenable to Wall Street. Our task as Americans – our overarching responsibility, for which we are uniquely positioned and, therefore, solemnly obligated – is to dismantle from within the monstrous apparatus of imperial aggression. Period.

I was privileged to present the coordinating committee’s draft of the Action Plan to UNAC’s national conference in Stamford, Connecticut, this past weekend. “This action plan does not just target some U.S. wars,” said the committee’s statement. “It does not target the currently unpopular wars. It does not shy away from condemning wars that remain acceptable to half the population because the real reasons for them are obscured in the rhetoric of humanitarian intervention. It does not advocate that we avoid putting U.S. boots on the ground by mounting embargoes that bring economic devastation on the peoples of Iran. It does not condone war by other, more sanitized, means. It does not cheer on wars that minimize U.S. combat deaths by the use of robotic unmanned planes or the highly trained murder squads of the Joint Special Operations Command. It does not see war by mercenary as somehow less threatening to the peoples of the world and the U.S. than war by economic draft. It does not give credit to Washington for removing brigades from one country in order to deploy them in the next.”

The document demands an end to “all wars, interventions, targeted assassinations and occupations” and U.S. withdrawal from “NATO and all other interventionist military alliances.”

UNAC’s reasoning is rooted in the principle that all the world’s peoples have the inherent right to self-determination,to pursue their own destinies – the foundation of relations among peoples, enshrined in international law but daily violated by the United States.

American exceptionalism – the belief that rules of international conduct, or even the rules of history and human development, do not apply to the United States – is deeply entrenched in the popular American psyche and has long been the bane of the U.S. anti-war movement. It encourages Americans to think they have a privileged perspective on the world and a consequent right to preach, lecture and ultimately intervene in other people’s affairs – just as their government does. In anti-war movements, this national arrogance (deeply entwined with racism) allows self-styled peaceniks to behave like little imperialists, imposing conditions and caveats on their willingness to confront their own government’s aggressions. They reserve the right to pick and choose which U.S. violations of international law to oppose. Unmoored by principle and crippled by national chauvinism, such “peace” movements inevitably disband at the earliest opportunistic juncture.

UNAC emerged with the disintegration of United for Peace and Justice, which showed itself to be more of an anti-Republican formation than an anti-war movement. UFPJ disintegrated at the first whiff of the new Democratic administration, clearing the way domestically for a new imperial strategy: “humanitarian” intervention. At its founding conference, in July of 2010, UNAC tackled the first taboo of American foreign policy with a plank to “End all U.S. aid to Israel, military, economic and diplomatic!” – a direct confrontation with Israeli “exceptionalism.” Last week, UNAC broke decisively with Obama’s humanitarian “exception” to the rules of international behavior. There now exists a place for genuine anti-imperialists to gather and plot for peace – and that is a beginning. No repeats of Libya, no more equivocations in the face of U.S. carnage.

A luta continua – the struggle continues, in the belly of the beast.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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March 28, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I Want My Sunni Back

By Sharmine Narwani | Al Akhbar | 2012-03-25

There is something quite unique about the Middle East’s “Resistance Axis” which includes Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas and a smattering of smaller groups opposed to western imperialism and zionism.

It is the only major grouping or alliance in the region that includes 1) Arab and Iranian, 2) Sunni and Shia, 3) Islamist and Secularist.

People in this part of the world use communal and political affiliations as a calling card. First name, last name, village of origin, neighborhood, school, mosque, church, group of friends, reading material…all of these things are a quick measure of “identity.”

This emotional link to community has often been exploited as a useful political tool to split people across national, political and religious lines. I have written before about these three “Mideast Stink Bombs,” cleverly wielded by dictators, religious extremists and western hegemonists to “divide-and-rule” the region’s populations to advantage.

The Resistance Axis poses an existential threat to these antagonists, whose very authority depends on vilifying the “Other:” the longterm Saudi project to demonize the Shia/Iran; pro-US autocrats and monarchies using “radical Islam” as an excuse to exclude moderate Islamists from the political process; manufacturing an Iranian “nuclear threat” to isolate a foe and justify weapons sales and military build-ups.

Instead, the rather successful alliance of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah annihilates the argument that these “differences” are unbreachable fault lines in the Middle East. We can see with our own eyes, that here – standing strong and supportive in the face of common external foes – are Shiite, Sunni, Islamist, Secularist, Arab and Iranian.

Wrenching Away Our Sunni

So it is not at all surprising that the moment the Arab Spring touched a member of this Axis – Syria –all hands came on board to exploit any vulnerabilities and crow about the imminent break-up of the Resistance.

I recall the Wall Street Journal first breaking the Hamas-defecting-from-Axis story – it was called: Hamas Removing Staff From Syria – that bit was true. The next two paragraphs, however, greedily projected on the storyline: “The Islamic militant group’s parting of ways with Mr. Assad…” and the even more ambitious “Leaving Syria also distances Hamas from Iran…”

Plenty of Hamas officials went on the record denying a break with Syria and Iran, but the WSJ story grew legs, arms and heads. Not many western journalists rushed to cover the visit of Hamas’ top official in Gaza travelling to Iran afterward. But they went full-court press when the very same Ismail Haniyeh addressed a select crowd inside Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque, saying: “I salute all people of the Arab Spring, or Islamic winter, and I salute the Syrian people who seek freedom, democracy and reform.”

The New York Times’ unabashed interpretation of that solitary quote leads its breaking story: “A leader of Hamas spoke out against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday, throwing its support behind the opposition…”

Actually, no. Assad and Iran and Russia and China also claim to support freedom, democracy and reform for the Syrian people. They are just as vague about from whence this freedom, democracy and reform will come as was Haniyeh during his Friday Prayer sermon.

So where exactly does Hamas stand on Resistance? And what does this mean for the future of the group and the geopolitics of the region?

The Arab Spring has made way for the “established opposition” in various countries to unseat autocratic governments. The most entrenched opponents of secular, pro-US regimes in the Mideast happen to be Islamists – most of which are of Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) origin, like Hamas.

But while Hamas was marked as an early “winner” of the Arab Spring – their co-religionists in Egypt were, after all, meant to sweep away the previous regime’s oppressive actions against Gaza – they instead found themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place in Syria.

It is the old holdover of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria that forms the backbone of the opposition there. And so Hamas found itself in the indelicate position of being expected to choose between its Islamist identity and its Resistance identity. It is worth noting that other Islamist Resistance Axis members do not seem to struggle with the issue: even other Sunni groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) who have also been under scrutiny over this very issue. It really begs the question: is Hamas just too big a Resistance prize for regional players who want this Axis destroyed? The ones courting Hamas assiduously – and asking them to make these choices – are the same ones trying to break Syria’s back, isolate Iran, neutralize Hezbollah and stop armed resistance in Gaza (PIJ).

Hamas: Islamist or Resistance?

It is a difficult challenge for the group. The fact is that Hamas is both Islamist and Resistance. The question of whether one prevails over the other is an interesting one, and has been with me since my August 2010 interview with Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal, at which time I concluded: “Hamas is clearly a national liberation movement that has at it roots a “resistance” outlook. It’s focus is the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation, and the group’s Islamist character complements rather than competes with Hamas’ political objectives.”

Meshaal even took a crack at explaining the roots of the Resistance Bloc, which has long been an area of interest for me: “The forming of this bloc is a natural consequence of events in the region – firstly, the presence of Israel and its atrocities against the region, and then the failure of the negotiation process to achieve something substantial… So there is a vacuum. There is a fiasco. There is a frustration. There is an increasing fury and anger among the masses. And now, embarrassment at the official level in the region. Resistance has therefore become an attractive model for states in the region.”

Prescient statement. The Arab Awakening, of course, kicked off a few short months later in Tunisia.

But then Meshaal said something very interesting, which I think goes to the heart of this Axis. Pointing to Iran, Syria, Turkey, Sudan and Qatar, Meshaal insisted: “They each have their own modus operandi and interests. Something these nations do share, however, is the self-desire to develop this new trend, but at the same time to remain open – not closed or bound – to enjoying options.”

In other words, the Resistance Axis is not an ideological grouping – it is an opportunistic one. An alliance based more on common goals than commonalities. When Saudi Prince Faisal famously quizzed Meshaal about his alliance with Iran, the Hamas chief explained: “Yes, we have relations with Iran and will do so with whomever supports us. We will say thank you to them, but this is not at the expense of our Arab relations. We are a resistance movement, open to the Arabs, to the Muslims and to all countries in the world, and we are not part of any agenda for regional forces.”

Does Hamas know where Hamas is going?

Which brings us to today. In my view, Hamas is exploring its options right now. I have confirmation from both Hamas and Iran that financial assistance continues as before. And it seems that every time speculation about worsening relations hits a peak, a senior Hamas official pops up in Tehran to dispel rumors.

Syria is a much harder problem. Hamas officials tell me that the reason for vacating their political office in Damascus is because other nationals were refusing to meet them in Syria. But let’s be honest, the sectarian undercurrents in both Syria and the region – fanned heavily by Saudis, Qataris, Salafists and the western cabal hyper-focused on Iran – are putting the screws on Hamas.

The group is under tremendous pressure from these parties to break from the Resistance Axis, which many have disparagingly dubbed the “Shiite Crescent.” They have offered money, incentives, sanctuary to Hamas. They have used threats. They have invoked the “Brotherhood” of the Sunni. But then consider this: why, a year later, are we still uncertain of Hamas’ position regarding its alliance with Iran, Hezbollah and Syria.

A rather observant pro-Resistance source remarked the other day: “Hamas is under tremendous pressure to criticize Syria, and that’s all they came up with? It’s not very convincing. Hamas is not giving opinions voluntarily about Syria, I can assure you.”

As Hamas looks to the future and finds many natural co-religionist allies in the various Ikhwan groups emerging on the Arab political landscape, it will be faced with the same dilemma – this time from a different direction. The Islamist character of Hamas may be more fulfilled, but will there be a big gaping hole in their resistance outlook?

Can the Ikhwan get them Palestine? Or can Iran, Syria and Hezbollah fulfill that long-held ambition? Part of the problem with the emerging Ikhwan political parties is that Saudi Arabia, Qatar – even the United States – are trying to guide their direction. If successful, that will not be a comfortable home for Hamas. These new “mentors” will not allow them much breathing space – these are the Old Regimes that actively support the regional Old Order and encourage “flexibility” with Israel.

The big dog-and-pony show of a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation led to Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas taking the lead. What became of Hamas’ awkward Jordanian visit that was only possible because of Qatari hand-holding? Fatah and Jordan are the last places to look for a Palestinian solution – they are too beholden to western interests.

The new mentors will bang away at Hamas; demand political blood from the group; push them toward unpalatable concessions. A wise colleague points out: “Hamas will be finished when it becomes Fatah.”

In a 2009 interview with Usama Hamdan, Hamas’ international relations chief told me: “In the West, they try to shape you before dealing with you. This is the Palestinian experience. They’ve done this with Fatah. Hamas’ position is to say what we are, what we stand for – clearly – and we can defend our rights best that way.”

An equally-senior Hamas official told me recently in a lengthy off-the-record conversation that there were “good changes” taking place in the region, but “real dangers” ahead: “The international community does not care about the people of the region… the conflict still is between real independence and being under occupation – or the influence of outsiders.”

He also refuses the notion that Islamist trends in the region will end up hostile to the Resistance: “You can’t say the Ikhwan is against Resistance – they have been real supporters of Hamas.”

There are two main priorities for Hamas these days, he says: “The needs of the people in the region and dealing with Israel and its supporters.”

Hamas may evolve in the next few years, but if it cleaves to its core values – somewhere in the middle of the current leadership’s political spectrum – I think you will find a group that will not commit itself to concepts or allies outside of those parameters. The group will talk to all players, consider all options, test the new waters of this fast-changing region – as it should. In the final analysis, it is the liberation of Palestine that bestows popular legitimacy on this group, and Hamas will need to choose the path that best serves that goal.

And Resistance itself might change, as one Hamas official hinted to me. If sectarianism can be contained, when this ferocious geopolitical Battle of the Blocs is over, we might perhaps even see a clean sweep from the Persian Gulf to North Africa of people rejecting foreign hegemony and Zionism. This is what the Old Guard fears most – and the vast majority of Arabs, Iranians, Sunni, Shia, Islamists and Secularists wholeheartedly support.

It will take some time, but I will have my Sunni back.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

March 26, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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