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Free Hanaa Shalabi, End Administrative Detention

By Mahmoud El-Yousseph | Palestine Chronicle | February 28, 2012

Hanaa Shalabi is on hunger strike. She is a Palestinian female political prisoner from the village of Burgin near Jenin. She was kidnapped from her home on February 16, 2012 by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the middle of the night.

Hanna’s family was ordered outside the house, she was blindfolded and handcuffed. All cell phones and computers in the house were confiscated and a photograph of her brother hanging on the wall, who was killed by IOF in 2005, was torn up and stepped upon by one of the soldiers. Hanaa was also beaten and sexually harassed by the IOF.

Her attorney stated, “she is demanding the end of administrative detention and that the soldiers who beat her up and undressed her to carry out a body search be put on trial.”

Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret evidence without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Hanaa was ordered to serve administrative detention for six months in the HaSharon prison. As of this writing, Hanaa has entered her 13th day of an open-ended hunger strike and is currently being held in solitary confinement. Latest reports indicate that Israeli prison officials have moved her to different prison to cut off any contact with the outside world.

This young lady has been in administrative detention before, totaling 2 1/2 years starting in March, 2009 where she served for 6 consecutive terms. Hanaa was among the freed Palestinian prisoners who were released in October 2011 under the prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. However, this time Israel has reneged and rearrested her as it did in previous prisoner exchange deals. For example, in November 1983, Palestinian prisoner Ziad Abu Ain was supposed to be part of a prisoner release deal, but was rearrested on the bus containing those who were about to be released.

I will never forget that prisoners ‘exchange deal of Thanksgiving Day 1983. My younger brother Samih was among the freed prisoners, after spending 18 months in an Israeli concentration camp in south Lebanon. He was kidnapped by IOF while visiting our family with his German wife and 5 year-old daughter, Carmen. Throughout his captivity, neither our mother, his wife, Carmen nor our oldest brother was permitted to visit him, even though he was being held merely 20 miles away.

While lobbying in the US to secure his release, Israeli officials first denied holding him, then they admitted he was in Ansar prison camp, held on terrorism charges. When I refuted their false allegation, I was told he has committed a crime in Germany. However, after German officials denied this false claim, the Israeli Attorney General arrogantly stated on public record that under Israeli law, Israel can prosecute people for committing a crime in different countries. This was a clear flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Germany.

According to Ademeer, there are 25 members of the Palestine National Council, including the Speaker of the Parliament, who are among 5,000 Palestinians held captive in Israeli dungeons. This includes 6 women, 166 children and 320 “administrative detainees.”

According to Palestinian prisoner solidarity sites, over 20,000 administrative detention orders were issued since 2000 by the Israeli occupation authority. On February 24, 2012, the 320 Palestinian administrative detainees held captive without charge or trial declared a boycott of Israeli military courts. This boycott is to start on March 1 in protest of these sham courts that are used by the Israeli occupation army and Israeli intelligence as a cover for illegal detention based on “secret” files and lack of indictment.

One week after Hanaa’s kidnapping, her 67 year-old parents started an open-ended hunger strike in a tent set up in front of the family home in support of their daughter’s struggle for freedom and in protest of her illegal detention. Her father, Yahya Shalabi, promised that they will continue the hunger-strike until the release of their daughter and the abolition of administrative detention.

Hanaa Shalabi and her parents put themselves against overwhelming odds. They have the moral courage to challenge Israel’s injustice no matter what. This is a dignified family with deep conviction, who are standing firm and tall beyond anyone’s expectation. I know from experience that Israel does respond when its image and reputation is on the line. Therefore, I urge everyone who reads this to help in anyway then can to expose Israeli injustice.

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February 29, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Apartheid conference goes ahead in Paris despite university ban

By David Cronin – The Electronic Intifada – 02/28/2012

The University of Paris 8 is traditionally one of the more left-wing third-level institutions in France. Alas, its current president Pascal Binczak is seeking to negate this legacy. Under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, he recently banned a conference titled “Is Israel an apartheid state?” When students and academics organising the event defied him and vowed to proceed with the event on the university’s premises, he ordered the campus closed for two days this week, citing a risk to public safety.

His “fears” were unfounded. Moved to another venue at the last minute, the event passed off peacefully. The only discernible risk it posed was that attendees would increase their knowledge about Israel’s crimes against humanity, which explains why hawkish groups like CRIF (the self-declared “representative council” for French Jews) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center could not tolerate it.

CRIF was particularly exercised by the intended participation of Omar Barghouti, a coordinator of the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. As it happened, Barghouti had to pre-record his contribution for delivery by video because of a scheduling issue (although he is hoping to be physically present for a public meeting against Zionist bullying in Paris tomorrow).

“Weapon of intellectual terror”

In his message, Barghouti argued that Zionist groups “recklessly and maliciously” accuse the BDS campaign of anti-Semitism. “This is a weapon of intellectual terror deployed by Israel and its lobby groups, especially in France and the US, to silence dissent and muzzle debate,” he said.

In an apparent rebuttal of comments made a few weeks ago by Norman Finkelstein, Barghouti took issue with claims that the BDS movement has a hidden agenda of seeking to destroy Israel. Stressing that the core aims of the movement include both an end to the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and equal rights for Jews and Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship, he said: “If equality and justice would destroy Israel, then what does that say about Israel? Did equality and justice destroy South Africa? Did they destroy Alabama? Of course, not.”

“Most important right”

Barghouti added that the “most important right” asserted by BDS activists is the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. About 50% of the 11 million Palestinians throughout the world live outside historic Palestine (which includes the present-day state of Israel).

Several hundred Francophone academics signed a letter over the past fortnight urging Binczak to lift the ban he imposed on the conference.

Julien Salingue, a graduate of Paris 8 who now teaches at Auvergne University, told me that while Binczak had the power to cancel the conference on public safety grounds he had acted in a “disputable manner” by trying to gain approval from his academic colleagues. Binczak had called a meeting of the Paris 8 administrative council to discuss the ban. The meeting was held without following the usual procedures such as inviting student representatives to attend.

In my own presentation to the conference, I lamented how the European Union’s Monitoring Center for Racism and Xenophobia had drawn up a “working definition” of anti-Semitism in 2005, with the aid of the Anti-Defamation League (a right-wing Zionist group) in New York. The definition stated that describing Israel as a “racist endeavor” amounted to anti-Semitism.

While this definition has never been formally approved by the EU’s governments, it has been invoked by Zionists in a bid to prevent a robust critique of Israel on campuses in several countries. Visiting Birmingham in England last year, I learned that the student’s union in the city’s university had decided that all speakers invited onto the campus must not say anything that contravenes the EU’s “working definition.” The decision was taken in response to one Palestine solidarity activist who likened Gaza to a concentration camp.

“Blackmail”

Among the many articulate and courageous people I met in Paris was Jean-Guy Greilsamer from the Union of French Jews for Peace (UJFP). He has written a letter to Brinczak, describing the accusations of anti-Semitism made by CRIF and similar groups as “blackmail.”

“In keeping with the Israeli strategy of conflating Zionism and Judaism, it takes hostage all Jewish citizens of every country in the world who oppose the commission of crimes in their name,” he added. “Conflating the terms ‘Jew’, ‘Zionist’ and ‘Israeli’ facilitates anti-Semitism. Doesn’t caving in to this blackmail amount to accepting the confusion and everything it implies? Is it not the policies of Israel and its defenders that constitute a threat to public order, not the conferences organized by academics who believe in law and justice?”

February 28, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Khader Adnan ‘stable’ after surgery

Ma’an – 28/02/2012

RAMALLAH – Khader Adnan is in a stable condition after undergoing surgery on his intestine after his 66 day hunger strike, a lawyer for the Palestinian detainees’ center said Tuesday.

Raed Mahamid said after visiting Adnan in Zeev hospital in northern Israeli town Safed that his condition is good, and he is recovering from the anesthesia used during the operation.

Adnan underwent surgery after reporting severe pain in his abdomen two days ago, caused by an intestinal blockage, after he went for two months without food.

Israeli officials announced last week that they intend to release Adnan on April 17, shortly before his administrative detention term was set to end, and would not renew the order.

In return, Adnan agreed to end his hunger strike, the longest ever held by a Palestinian prisoner.

Female prisoner Hana Shalabi, who is being held under the same regulations permitting detention without charge, started a hunger strike on Feb. 16 after she was re-arrested, despite being freed in a prisoner swap deal in October.

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February 28, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Green Party conference calls for revocation of JNF UK charitable status

By Asa Winstanley – The Electronic Intifada – 02/27/2012

The annual conference of the Green Party of England and Wales this weekend passed a motion endorsing the Stop the JNF campaign and calling for the Jewish National Fund to have its charitable status revoked in the UK.

 Motion passed at the Green Party of England and Wales Spring conference on 26th February 2012

  • The Green Party of England and Wales condemns the Jewish National Fund for its activities in excluding non-Jews from Israeli land and denounces the organisation for claiming to be an ecological agency.
  • The GPEW endorses the international call for action against the JNF and supports efforts to revoke its charitable status in the UK.
  • The GPEW will add its name to the list of signatories of the ‘Stop the JNF Campaign’.(http://www.stopthejnf.org/).

As I reported last week, the campaign against the JNF (led by the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign) has been making impressive gains recently.

The Green Party has now followed the lead of the Scottish Green Party who made a similar move in October last year. The move is the latest blow to the JNF, which is accused by Palestinian citizens of Israel of ethnic cleansing and maintaining a system of land-apartheid that discriminates against non-Jews. The JNF describes itself as “the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners — Jewish people everywhere”.

Read the full Stop the JNF press release for more details.

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February 27, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Judge throws out Israel-backed lawsuit against Olympia Food Co-op, upholds right to boycott

By Ali Abunimah – The Electronic Intifada – 02/27/2012

In a major setback for Israeli efforts to suppress the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in the United States, a judge in Olympia, Washington today dismissed a lawsuit designed to force the Olympia Food Co-op to rescind its boycott of Israeli goods.

The judge ruled that the lawsuit, brought by opponents of the boycott, violated a Washington State law designed to prevent abusive lawsuits aimed at suppressing lawful public participation. The court said it would award the defendants attorneys’ fees, costs, and levy sanctions against the plaintiffs.

While the lawsuit was brought by several individuals against present and former members of the Olympia Food Co-op Board, it was planned in collusion with StandWithUs, a national anti-Palestinian organization, working with the Israeli government, an Electronic Intifada investigation revealed last September.

“SLAPP” lawsuit designed to chill free speech

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), whose lawyers acted for the Olympia Food Co-op argued that the lawsuit was an example of “SLAPP” – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. In a statement this afternoon, CCR explained:

SLAPPs are lawsuits that target the constitutional rights of free speech and petition in connection with an issue of public concern  Although many cases that qualify as SLAPPs are without legal merit, they can nonetheless effectively achieve their primary purpose: to chill public debate on specific issues. Defending against a SLAPP requires substantial money, time, and legal resources, and can divert attention away from the public issue and intimidate and silence other speakers. Washington State’s Anti-SLAPP statute was enacted in 2010 to deter such lawsuits.

Today, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee told a packed courtroom he agreed with that analysis and dismissed the lawsuit, ordering the StandWithUs-backed plaintiffs to pay court costs and legal fees.

The judge also also upheld the constitutionality of Washington’s anti-SLAPP law, which the plaintiffs had challenged, CCR noted. Each of the defendants in the case could be entitled to receive up to $10,000 from the plaintiffs in addition to legal fees.

“We are pleased the Court found this case to be what it is – an attempt to chill free speech on a matter of public concern.  This sends a message to those trying to silence support of Palestinian human rights to think twice before they bring a lawsuit,” CCR quoted Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney as saying.

BDS is a national movement, judge finds

In attempting to overturn the Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli goods, the plaintiffs had argued that the Co-op could only observe “nationally-recognized” boycotts, and that BDS did not fit that description.

According to live tweets of the judge’s statement by Anna-Marie Murano, on behalf of the Palestine Freedom Project the judge found that BDS was “nationally recognized.”

CCR Statement in full

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February 27, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Japanese Distributer Ends Contract With AHAVA

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | February 27, 2012

DaitoCrea, Japanese agent of the Israeli cosmetics firm, AHAVA, announced on their Webpage that it has ended all sales of AHAVA products for what it attributed to “financial reasons”. The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement said that decision is the outcome of direct action and protests.

The company stopped all AHAVA sales starting on January 31, 2012. The victory was that of the persistent efforts of a 2-year campaign conducted by the BDS movement that calls for boycotting all Israeli products made in Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

The Forum added that its activists informed the firm, by direct action and advocacy, of the illegality of AHAVA goods and the suffering it inflicts on the Palestinian people.

An Executive at the DaitoCrea told the Palestine-Forum campaign that the company had no idea about the background of AHAVA when they started dealing with them, and had no idea about the location where AHAVA products are made.

AHAVA – Israel products are made in a settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank; settlements are illegal under International Law.

AHAVA uses Dead Sea minerals and resources while the Palestinians are kept out of the Dead Sea area due to Israel’s illegal policies.

The campaign informed the distributor that AHAVA labels their products as “Made In Israel” while in fact it is made in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.
In May 2010, the campaign held a meeting with officials of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they stated that in is not appropriate for AHAVA to labels its goods as made in Israel while they are made in a settlement.

In 2010, the MUJI beauty products in Japan decided to cancel its plans to open stores in Israel for what they described as “financial reasons”. The BDS movement said that the decision was made after a seven-month campaign against opening the store.

THE BDS movement in different parts of the world is active on different levels, including the boycott of Israeli settlements goods, information about the illegal Israeli occupation, and on cultural and intellectual levels to raise awareness on the Israeli violations against the Palestinian people.

These violations affect every aspect of the life of the Palestinians, and deprive them from their rights in their homeland and their right to their natural resources.

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February 27, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

High Noon and the West Coast Docks

By Daniel Borgström | Dissident Voice | February 24th, 2012

High Noon is a 1952 morality play about people deciding whether or not to stand up to the forces of corruption and criminality. Scenes from it often come to mind, since I’ve repeatedly seen people around me facing up to analogous situations here in Oakland, at the docks and also in the plaza.

The setting for this movie is a western town around 1880, and the bad guy, Frank Miller, has just been released from prison. He’s a nasty, hands-on, in-charge figure who previously controlled everything that went on in the town. He’ll be returning on the noon train, and the townspeople will either have to stop him, or else resign themselves to living under his corrupt tyranny.

Such scenes were part of the real life of the screenwriter, Carl Foreman, formerly a member of the Communist Party. Being a leftwing activist was not easy. In the 1930′s he and his comrades walked picket lines under the threat of being clubbed or shot by police and company thugs. Although he was no longer a member of the Communist Party, he was nevertheless later targeted by the vengeful one-percenters and their Congressmen. In 1951, while he was writing the script for High Noon, he was summoned to appear before HUAC and name names. He refused and was therefore blacklisted by the Hollywood studio bosses. The movie was, Foreman later said, “a parable of what was happening in Hollywood.”

This movie, made in the early 1950s and set in a small frontier town of the previous century, presents a relatively simple world where solutions are uncomplicated. The characters are well-defined and the dialogue is concise. The answer to the question posed by the movie, as the theme song puts it, is “to shoot Frank Miller dead.”

Will Kane, the town marshal, is stuck with the task of dealing with Miller and his trio of gunslingers. It’ll be four against one, a very uneven fight, unless Kane can muster up a bunch of people to join him in the battle. It’s Sunday morning, so Kane goes to the church to interrupt the service to ask for volunteers. As he enters, the choir is singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and they’re on the verse that goes: “He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgement seat.” In the course of the movie, all the people in the town get sifted as they decide to fight or give in to the bad guy.

Life and art often follow the same script. I remember a scene here in the East Bay, shortly after the police had attacked antiwar protesters at the Port of Oakland, injuring fifty-nine people including demonstrators, longshoremen, and journalists. That was in April 2003. The message from the police, the shipping companies, and the mayor was very clear: “Don’t ever set foot in the port again! Don’t even think of it!”

Our 1st Amendment rights were at stake. A rally was held at the Oakland Plaza to protest the police violence. Each speaker spoke his or her piece, leading up to the last speaker, Sasha Wright, who said: “We’re thinking of returning to the Port to shut it down. If we do, how many of you would go with us?”

I stood there, thinking at the time how much this resembled a scene from High Noon, and was moved to see a substantial show of hands. Five weeks after the attack, on May 12, 2003, several hundred people marched back into the Port of Oakland and set up a picket line at the terminal where people had been attacked and injured. Thus the First Amendment rights of the community were reaffirmed; it was an amazing experience, an amazing day to be alive.

But that’s not at all how the movie script goes. When the protagonist Will Kane appeals to the townspeople, they find reasons to decline. They rationalize. Bad Guy Miller isn’t all that bad, they seem to conclude. They can reason with him, work things out. Some are afraid of him, while others actually seem to be in cahoots with him.

Will Kane is on his own. And because this is a 1950s western, the hero always wins, no matter what the odds. Then, after having won, he looks scornfully at the cowardly, opportunistic, and undeserving townspeople and leaves in disgust. That’s how it ends.

The ending seems simplistic, the weak part of an otherwise excellent script. In reality, there are often at least a few brave men and women who’ll join together in standing up to the bad guys, to the Frank Millers of this world. That I saw back in 2003, and again last fall (2011), when perhaps a hundred Occupiers linked arms at the Oakland Plaza on the morning of October 25th. And again that afternoon, and in the days that followed. People faced those dangers together, even though several were injured. Scott Olsen was injured critically.

Tens of thousands took part in the port shutdowns of November 2nd and December 12th — despite rumors and fears of more police violence.

Those actions energized rank-and-file workers in their struggles against the one percent, most notably the embattled dockworkers in the small town of Longview, Washington. ILWU Local 21 President Dan Coffman of Longview told Occupy Oakland, “You cannot believe what you people did [on November 2] for the inspiration of my union members who have been on the picket line for six months.”

The outcome of the battle on that relatively small stretch of waterfront on the Columbia River would probably determine the future of the longshore union on the West Coast. Both sides turned to allies. The union-busting shipping company EGT had the backing of the police, and the Obama Administration was sending the Coast Guard. This was the first time since 1970 that military units were intervening in a labor dispute. The dockworkers called out to other unions and also to Occupy for support in the upcoming showdown.

A struggle such as this isn’t won by a lone superhero; it takes large numbers of committed men and women. Although that may seem obvious, it’s easy to overlook the obvious. The myth of the superhero has been with us since Homer composed the Iliad; it survived the Middle Ages in stories of knights in white shining armor, and lived on to become a Hollywood cliché, particularly in Westerns. In today’s world it fits perfectly with the concept of capitalist individualism, justifying the huge salaries and bonuses of greedy CEOs at the expense of the 99%–the supposedly undeserving townspeople.

There are indeed a lot of real-life heroes in this world, but not every player is a hero, and Carl Foreman did an excellent job of portraying those who are not. They’re the town’s leading citizens, mostly well meaning people–but giving in to Frank Miller is the easy way out. We see plenty of them in Oakland, starting with the Mayor, a former Maoist who waffled back and forth, finally caving in to the 1%. In the weeks leading up to the West Coast Port shutdown of December 12, labor bureaucrats actually urged dock workers to cross picket lines. And even supposedly “leftist” journalists adopted the one-percenters’ talking points against Occupy. It’s in presenting those non-heroes, “leaders” who mislead, that Foreman’s script is at its best.

“If [Kane’s] not here when Miller comes in, my hunch is there won’t be any trouble, not one bit,” says a prominent citizen in Foreman’s movie script, and that’s essentially what a lot of liberals and labor bureaucrats have been saying of Occupy, first in December, and again this January regarding events up north in Longview.

Action in the movie focuses on the arrival of the 12 o’clock train, when Miller and his escort of gunslingers will make their move. In the Port of Longview, the focus was on a ship, which was about to arrive, escorted by the Coast Guard. Dockworkers had sent out a broad appeal for support, and Occupy and labor responded with caravans ready to rush to Longview to meet the present-day Frank Miller. Mostly they’d be from Seattle, Portland and other cities of that region; there would also be a contingent from Occupy Oakland.

“We can expect cold weather and cops,” Barucha Peller told a meeting in Oakland on the eve of our expected departure. Snow was reportedly on the ground in Longview. People shivered visibly at the very thought of going north to do battle in snow, slush and freezing rain, but nobody seemed to be backing out either. 150 from the Bay Area had so far signed up for the caravan, and the list was growing. Then, came the news: EGT, the shipping company, had given in and signed a contract that the dockworkers of Local 21 found acceptable.

The victory was won by the determination of a large number of courageous people who were willing to fight the battle. This suggests another possible ending to High Noon. In this scenario, as the hour approaches, a dozen or so of the townspeople head out to the train depot. Frank Miller sees them coming, gets back on the train, and sets out for parts unknown.

Daniel Borgström is an ex-Marine against the war, a veteran occupier. He writes about progressive actions. He can be reached at: daniel@borgstrom.com.

February 24, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Hana al-Shalabi on hunger strike against renewed administrative detention

By Ali Abunimah | The Electronic Intifada | February 23, 2012

News emerged today that a Palestinian woman, Hana Yahya al-Shalabi is on hunger strike against her renewed “administrative detention” without charge or trial by Israel. Al-Shalabi spent more than two years in administrative detention, and had been freed last October as part of the prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.

On 17 February, al-Shalabi, who is 29, was once again arrested by Israeli occupation forces from her home near Jenin in the occupied West Bank and is again under detention without charge or trial.

According to an Addameer profile which refers to her earlier period of detention:

Shalabi was arrested from her family home on 14 September 2009. At approximately 1:30 a.m. that morning, Israeli soldiers in 12 military jeeps surrounded her house in Burqin village, near the West Bank town of Jenin. The soldiers ordered Hana’s entire family outside of the house and demanded Hana give them her identity card. They then proceeded to conduct a thorough search of the family’s home. During the search, one of the soldiers forcibly removed framed pictures of Hana’s brother Samer, who was killed by the Israeli army in 2005, tore them apart and walked over the pieces in front of the entire family.

Shalabi was subjected to solitary confinement, abuse and sexual harassment during her interrogation and then ordered to be detained without charge or trial for six months.

That order was later renewed, however she was subsequently released as part of the prisoner deal in which Israel agreed to release 1,027 Palestinians in exchange for the return of an Israeli soldier who had been held in Gaza since 2006.

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February 23, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

‘Water occupation’ of Palestine

By Stuart Littlewood | Al-Ahram | February 16, 2012

There are few crimes more despicable than stealing your neighbour’s water, and polluting what’s left, then watching him and his children suffer thirst, disease and ruin. Most of us would want nothing to do with the perpetrators of such evil.

British Water describes itself as the voice of the water industry. It talks about best practice and corporate responsibility, and lobbies governments and regulators on behalf of its members. No doubt it does a good job. It also has international ambitions including in the Middle East. So presumably it knows what’s going on water-wise in the Holy Land.

British Water should know, for example, that the 400-mile long structure known worldwide as Israel’s Apartheid Wall bites deep into the Palestinian West Bank dividing and isolating communities and stealing their lands and water.

If the wall was simply for security, as Israel claims, it would have been built along the internationally-recognised 1949 Armistice Green Line, although not even this is an official border. The wall’s purpose is plainly to annex plum Palestinian land and water resources for illegal Israeli settlements, and to that end it closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer.

In 2004 the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the construction of the wall is “contrary to international law” and Israel must dismantle it and make reparation for damage caused. The ICJ also ruled that “all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction”.

But the wall marches on, aided by American tax dollars and America’s protective veto, so that Israel can wield complete control over the water resources it sees as necessary to the regime’s present and future needs. This makes the Palestinians, who sit on top of enough water to be self-sufficient, entirely dependent on Israel for God’s life-giver. Israel also consumes most of the water from the Jordan River despite only three per cent of the river falling within its pre-1967 borders. Palestinians now have no access to it whatsoever due to Israeli closures.

Most of the Coastal Aquifer, on which Gaza’s inhabitants rely for water, is contaminated by sewage and nitrates, and is unfit for human consumption. Children particularly are at great risk. The aquifer is depleted and in danger of collapse. The damage could take generations to reverse, say experts.

During Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza (Operation Cast Lead) in 2008-09 over 30km of water networks were damaged or destroyed in addition to 11 wells. A UN fact-finding mission (the Goldstone Report) considered the destruction “deliberate and systematic”. Proper repairs have been impossible these last three years because Israel blocks the import of spare parts.

“Thirsting for Justice” is an aptly-named campaign by the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group, a coalition of 30 Palestinian and European humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam. It calls on European governments to put pressure on Israel to respect international law and the Palestinians’ basic rights to water and sanitation.

Under the warped arrangements of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (1995) Palestinians are only allowed to extract 20 per cent of the “estimated potential” of the mountain aquifer beneath the West Bank. Israel not only takes the balance (80 per cent) but overdraws its sustainable yield often by more than 50 per cent. A Joint Water Committee was set up to implement the agreement but Israel was given veto power and the final say on decisions. As a result, a number of essential projects for Palestinians have been denied or delayed. To make up for part of the supply shortfall, Palestinians are forced to buy water from the Israeli national water company Mekorot, some of which is extracted from wells within the Palestinian West Bank. In other words they are having to buy their own water, and at inflated prices.

Oxfam, which is very active on the ground in Gaza, confirms that 90-95 per cent of water from Gaza’s only source, the Coastal Aquifer, is undrinkable. At the current rate the aquifer will be unusable by 2016 and the damage irreversible by 2020.

Gaza residents are restricted to an average of 91 litres of water per day compared to 280 litres used by Israelis. 100-150 litres a day are required to meet health needs, says the World Health Organisation. Marginalised Palestinian communities in the West Bank survive on less than 20 litres per capita per day, the minimum amount recommended by WHO to sustain life in an emergency.

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are said to have full legal rights to nearly 750 million cubic metres of water but they have to make do with a trickle, or go without, while Israelis fill their swimming pools, sprinkle their lawns and wash their cars. In Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp the water is turned off for days. When the street taps come on again, usually for a few hours, there’s a desperate scramble to refill domestic tanks and other containers before the next cut.

Haaretz last month reported the French parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee findings on the geopolitical impact of water in confrontation zones like Israel-Palestine.

According to the report, water has become “a weapon serving the new apartheid. Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there. In times of drought, in contravention of international law, the [illegal] settlers get priority for water”.

Israel is waging a “water occupation” against the Palestinians, says the report accusing the Israelis of “systematically destroying wells that were dug by Palestinians on the West Bank” as well as deliberately bombing reservoirs in the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. Furthermore, “many water purification facilities planned by the Palestinian Water Ministry are being blocked by the Israeli administration.”

Head of the Palestinian Water Authority Shaddad Attili observed: “Palestinians need to be able to access and control our rightful share of water in accordance with international law. The Oslo Accords did not achieve this. Without water, and without ensuring Palestinian water rights, there can be no viable or sovereign Palestinian state.”

Not content with robbing the Palestinians of their water, the Israelis are in the habit of flooding Palestinian fields and villages with untreated sewage from their hilltop settlements.

Against this background British Water has decided to cooperate with MATIMOP, an Israeli government agency that has been ordered to enter into international agreements and “aggressively expand opportunities for Israel’s industry”.

Always eager to oblige, the UK Trade and Investment Department’s briefing on Environment Opportunities in Israel contains this advice: “Israeli companies are keen to form alliances with companies abroad, and this is where the UK can benefit. In addition, growing development and marketing costs compel Israeli environmental companies to seek cooperation with foreign partners. The UK are world leaders in many aspects of the environment and so the UK and Israel complement each other and have much to offer each other in this sector. Teaming up with Israeli environment companies will give UK companies access to innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. UK companies can also benefit by providing their experience in marketing and management for Israeli companies.”

British Water signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MATIMOP on 21 December, so close to the Christmas holidays that it went unnoticed here. The event was not even recorded on British Water’s website but it was proudly featured on the embassy of Israel site and treated by the Israeli press as a triumph. MATIMOP calls it “a strategic cooperation agreement”. Executive Director Israel Shamay said: “We are pleased to be working closer with British Water than we have worked with any foreign trade organisation before. The UK water sector is well respected internationally for its world-leading capabilities, solutions and services, making it the perfect partner to help commercialise and market Israeli innovation and R&D in this sector.”

British Water agreed the text for an announcement by the Embassy of Israel but didn’t release it themselves, apparently happy for Tel Aviv’s propaganda boys to take care of it. In the press release MATIMOP says: “Israel has been coping with water scarcity since its founding.” Yes, coping by thieving.

The Palestinians have been subjected to the longest and most brutal military occupation in modern times and are held prisoner within the fragmented remnants of their own country, unable to develop its resources or travel freely within it to find work, attend university, visit family, or worship at their holy places in Jerusalem. Is helping Israel to become a water superpower really the right thing for British Water to be doing?

British Water’s CEO David Neil-Gallacher was asked: “EU agreements require Israel to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” and provide for the agreement to be suspended otherwise. Does the MATIMOP agreement include similar good behaviour conditions?”

His reply: “The agreement with MATIMOP is a Memorandum of Understanding. Both parties are professional organisations with admirable aims and objectives.”

Another question: “British Water will be aware that Israel illegally occupies its neighbour Palestine and has seized control of its water resources. The path of Israel’s 400-mile separation wall closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer and encloses key supplies. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the construction of the wall in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is ‘contrary to international law’ and ‘all states are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction’. In the circumstances, should ethically-minded British companies allow themselves to become embroiled?”

Neil-Gallacher was unfazed: “I’m not sure what you mean by ’embroiled’ or ‘ethically-minded’. The aim of the MoU is for businesses to work together for the good of the global water industry. It’s no part of our role to exchange philosophical concepts with you. The arrangement with MATIMOP is one of commercial intent for the benefit of UK and Israeli companies.”

Finally, “is British Water being evenhanded in this Holy Land confrontation zone? Are you offering help to the Palestinian Water Authority? Have you responded positively to the sea-water desalination project for Gaza and other programmes for West Bank towns and villages?”

Neil-Gallacher: “We notify our member companies of potential commercial opportunities wherever they may arise, leaving them — as they’re best-qualified — to weigh the relative attractiveness of different markets.”

David Neil-Gallacher is also Director-General of Aqua Europa, which does the same sort of job on a Europe-wide basis. This was his parting shot:

“Regions of tension are bound to engender strong views and conflicting principles, and it’s usually notoriously difficult to discern unequivocal moral ascendancy on the part of any of those involved. In my dealings with our companies active in the region, however, I’ve never seen any evidence that they are lacking in principle or moral locus. British Water’s perspective has to be a commercial one. We do our best to conduct our activities in the best interests of our part of British industry and strictly within the requirements of the law.”

How will British Water avoid complicity with Israel’s endless oppression of the Palestinians and the deadly strife with its other neighbours in the region? Perhaps Neil-Gallacher should ask one of his own member companies, Veolia, what can happen if caught up in Israeli projects that violate international law. Veolia dumps Israeli waste on Palestinian land and is helping to build and run a tramway connecting Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements. The company must rue the day it crossed the line to fall foul of those nice folks at BDS — the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement.

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February 23, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel student society attacks peaceful Palestine protest with water bombs at London School of Economics

By Asa Winstanley – The Electronic Intifada – 02/20/2012

A student street theatre put on by the Palestine Society at the London School of Economics was attacked by members of the Israel Society today.

Part of Israeli Apartheid Week, the peaceful mock checkpoint was attacked with water bombs, knocking down some of the set. LSE Palestine Society member Jen Izaakson said they shouted “Hamas” and “death to Israel” as they threw the water bombs.

With breathtaking hypocrisy, the Israel Society later put out a statement demanding a “full apology” and “dialogue”, claiming the street theatre had been “provocative”.

But Izaakson told EI the attack had only increased the Palestine Society’s “resolve to do more stuff this week” promising the checkpoint stunt would be extended from one day to five in response. “People did get hurt” by the water bomb attack, she said.

Reality of Israeli apartheid for Palestinians

The “checkpoint” had been set up to illustrate to LSE students the kind of restrictions Palestinians in the West Bank regularly face at Israeli checkpoints. Palestinians in the West Bank are stopped and detained at Israeli checkpoints every day, while (often armed) Israeli settlers living in the same area sail through them unmolested.

LSE Jewish Society President Jay Stoll seemed perfectly aware of this reality. He claimed on twitter to have responded to the checkpoint that “I’m Israeli and don’t need” an ID.

Although the students’ union blamed unnamed “organised individuals” Izaakson said she recognized the attackers as “prominent members” of the Israel Society.

In a statement, the Palestine Society said: “Students from LSESU Palestine Society re-enacted an Israeli checkpoint on Houghton Street, as the start of Israeli Apartheid Week. The re-enactment was to show the suffering Palestinians face on a daily basis, trying to live their lives. All students which took part, had pre-agreed to take part in the re-enactment and students who did not wish to be involved were not forced to take part. The re-enactment passed peacefully for two hours, with students responding incredibly positively to the action… We as a society call on management to continue to protect our right to peaceful protest on LSE’s campus.”

Rafeef Ziyadeh, a spokesperson for the London organizing committee of Israeli Apartheid Week told EI: “This is typical of the usual intimidation from Zionist groups. It’s not going stop this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week, which is set to be the biggest one yet. We call on London students to come out and attend our week of events and not let Israel’s apologists provoke or intimidate them.”

The LSE Students’ Union released a statement saying: “Whilst peacefully re-enacting an Israeli checkpoint and talking to students about the issue, a small group of organised individuals ran towards members of the LSESU Palestine Society and threw water bombs which hit several students and knocked over property of the Palestine Society… The safety and welfare of students is of the utmost importance and the Union will be investigating the matter immediately in conjunction with the School.”

Israeli Hasbara minister worried about sucesses of Israeli Apartheid Week

Coming on the first day of Israeli Apartheid Week, this seems to be an attempt to draw pro-Palestinian students into violence, and attention away from the week’s events that seek to highlight the realities of Israeli apartheid in occupied Palestine.

A report in the Jerusalem Post yesterday said that Israel’s Hasbara (propaganda) minister Yuli Edelstein had dispatched Israeli settlers and other “Faces of Israel” to London and other cities where Israeli Apartheid Week was taking place to “answer to the attempts to de-legitimize Israel”.

Israeli Apartheid Week is taking place on university campuses around the world this month. The London event is on this week, with the biggest event set for Wednesday. You can read more about it on this Facebook page.

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February 20, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Valiance in the Face of Cruelty

Khader Adnan’s Hunger Strike

By CHARLOTTE SILVER | CounterPunch | February 17, 2012

A month ago only those who had met him knew Khader Adnan. Now all of Palestine and people across the world know his name and his cause.

Before December 17, when Khader was arrested for the eighth time from his home in Jenin, he was one of thousands of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories who had entered and re-entered administrative detention.

Administrative detention allows Israel to hold Palestinian prisoners without charging them, and potentially indefinitely. There is no specification as to why each person is held and the length of the detention has no legal limits.

In its very essence administrative detention is dehumanizing; its effects are to homogenize the Palestinian population and strip each man, woman and family that encounters it of his or her singularity and personal identity. Each person who enters administrative detention is the same as the one who came before, and the one who will follow. This endless cycle of incarceration paints all those who pass through it with the same brush, rendering the Palestinian population indistinct.

“The essence of totalitarian government and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanize them.”

Hannah Arendt wrote these words after observing the trial of Nazi leader, Adolf Eichmann, in Jerusalem. What is perhaps so remarkable about this sentence is the ambiguity of whom she is speaking. Arendt’s words note that both the oppressors and the oppressed become agents of, or cogs in, a regime of totalitarianism. In this understanding, there is no room in a system of oppression for individuals.

But Khader’s unbearably long hunger strike has stopped this process, clearing the fog of bureaucracy that turns humans beings into mechanisms allowing them to disappear into the monochromatic fabric of administrated tyranny.

He told his lawyers, “I am a man who defends his freedom. If I die it will be my fate.”

Khader is a graduate student of Economics, a father of two girls, a husband to Randa, who is pregnant with their third child, and a member of Islamic Jihad. He is a political activist and a baker at a pita shop, Qabatiya, near his home in Jenin.

We cannot know the internal process by which Khader came to his decision to engage in a hunger strike that may end his life. He began the strike as soon as he was detained, so it seems certain that he was neither surprised that he was detained yet again, nor unprepared for a different and meaningful response.

In a letter he wrote from an Israeli hospital on day fifty-six of his strike, Khader stated, “The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners. I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey.”

But we do know that when Khader entered administrative detention on 17 December, he made the decision to interrupt the routine of administrative detention, a system whose banality defines its power.

His reaction, to go on hunger strike, marked a radical departure from obediently waiting out his sentence, as the steady stream of Palestinian detainees had done before him. After Khader refused his meal, Israeli soldiers proceeded to beat him, rip hair from his beard, smear dirt from a soldier’s shoe onto his face, force him into painful stress positions and verbally degrade female members of his family.

Even as Khader nears the end of his sixty-second day, the weakened man remains shackled to his hospital bed by both his feet and one hand—in a strange and symbolic recognition of how threatening and powerful this act truly is.

The might of Khader’s humanity and his valiance in the face of cruelty will not be met with a just response. There is no just response a master can give to a slave—for justice would see the end of the master/slave relationship. And while Khader’s strike will not and cannot lead to the end of Israeli tyranny over Palestinians, it is certainly a profound denial of its power to erase the humanity of Palestinians.

Khader has shown the face of a Palestinian. He has etched his name onto the hearts and thoughts of all who became aware of his plight, and in his quiet, agonizing determination he shows the world the man who Israel murdered with its savage weapon of “administrative detention.” That is a profound feat and for it, we owe Khader Adnan our deepest gratitude.

Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in Ramallah, West Bank and currently the editor of The Palestine Monitor.

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February 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Movement “I DON’T PAY” is spreading across Europe

Uploaded by on February 11, 2012

February 19, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

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