Author: ISM Media Group

AATW: Anti-Leviev protest at Tel Aviv Critical Mass

On December 8, Israeli activists held a critical mass protest against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, and against capitalism. About 50 bicycle-riding activists rode to the David Intercontinental hotel where the Israel business conference was taking place. One of the sponsors of the event was Africa-Israel, a vast holding company controlled by Israeli diamond and settlement mogul, Lev Leviev, whose jewelry boutique in New York City was the target of a protest by 60 people the same day. The New York protest was called by Adalah-NY, which is leading a campaign to boycott Leviev’s businesses because he builds settlements and abuses marginalized communities in other parts of the world. Activists in Tel Aviv held aloft signs that read in English, “Africa-Israel & Lev Lebaiev Build on Robbed Lands,” and “Lev Lebaiev & Africa-Israel: Land Theft Incorporated.”

Robbed Lands 2
Land theft inc

The riders never made it to their destination. When they arrived at Yarkon, they were met by police who announced they would arrest the activists if they didn’t move to the sidewalk. A minute later, the police began pushing riders over with their vehicles, and on foot. The police cursed at and hit the protestors, continuing even after six arrests, including a photographer. This abuse continued on the way to the police station.

The photographer was released later that night, and the other arrestees were scheduled to appear before an Israeli judge on the morning of December 9.

December 8 in Tel Aviv: Six Arrested at Critical Mass
https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8107/index.php

December 8: Protesting Leviev in New York City
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/12/93360.html
By Israeli activists http://www.awalls.org

Once again Azzoun is set upon by Israeli forces

After a few days of quiet, Israeli army jeeps re-invaded Azzoun, again enforcing curfew on the village of 11,000. Military and police jeeps, along with a military hummer and a large personnel carrier, overran the village around 3pm—not coincidentally the time when youths are leaving school. As with prior raids, the army announced their presence via sound bombs, the shooting of live and rubber-coated ammunition, and tear gas.

The imposition of curfew –a full lockdown dictating that residents must leave the streets and stay in their homes, regardless of work, medical needs, or study –was again heralded by sirens, soldiers announcing over speakers that, effectively, residents must drop everything and go home.

Jeeps and foot soldiers stationed themselves at the town’s centre, occupying key transit points and obstructing the passage of many citizens through the centre to their homes. Azzoun sources report that the Israeli forces blocked all of the 5 entrances/exits to the village, as well as that of neighboring Izbat at Tabib.

After nearly 3 hours of patrolling and occupying streets from which soldiers fired further sound bombs and live ammunition, the last jeeps occupying the town centre pulled abruptly away near 6 pm. A line of cars which had been able to enter Azzoun’s main entrance was finally able to continue to their destinations, one of which included a medical facility outside of Azzoun. The mother of a sick child had been told simply to wait until the army said their car could pass and, thus, their toddler could reach a doctor. Army vehicles returned to empty streets two hours later to ensure the curfew was being kept.

It is important to consider how a curfew not only disrupts plans made and travel possibilities. It also seriously wounds an already ill economy, shutting down businesses long before closing hours and preventing goods, let alone customers, from entering or leaving. Additional to the detrimental effects on study, medical care, and the economy, these regular raids and house-arrests serve a larger purpose of both fomenting mistrust of the Israeli army and of Israel’s peace intentions, and of painting Azzoun as a problem area.

By creating the belief that Azzoun is a high-risk zone which necessitates these regular invasions and curfews, it is quite likely that in the near future, Israeli authorities will use their regular and heightened military presence here as a justification for greater ‘security’ measures, such as continued roadblocks, a ‘security’ wall along restricted road 55, and possibly the imposition of a ‘closed military zone’ order on areas around Azzoun. By deeming an area a ‘closed military zone,’ Israel sets the stage for annexation of land, as well as settlement and Israeli infrastructure expansion.

On the Twentieth Anniversary of the First Intifada

Click here for the original article

The first Intifada began in a piecemeal fashion with demonstrations and civil disobedience sparked by an increasing number of shootings and human rights abuses by the Israeli occupation.

The Intifada marked an end to passive resistance

The grassroots protests of 1987 escalated into full-blown riots involving much of civil society, from organisations, union groups to newly created institutions to the ordinary population who came out in large numbers on to the streets led by rock-throwing youths.

As the protest movement developed, more sophisticated missiles, such as the Molotov cocktail, were used and occasional operations by resistance fighters against the Israeli occupation forces and its installations were carried out.

Israel reacted by killing and deporting Palestinian residents, closing universities and making mass arrests. By December 1987 a full-scale uprising had broken out in the Gaza Strip. It continued for five years.

Inventive tactics

The Intifada (or popular uprising) marked a new era in mass resistance in Palestine, signalling an end to years of passivity. Lacking the necessary arms to face the Israeli military, people in the occupied territories invented their own ways of fighting back. Many young men took to wearing masks and ambushing the Israeli army with a rain of stones.

One interesting mode of asserting independence was when Palestinians rejected Israel’s daylight-saving time and worked to their own clock.

Initially the Intifada was led by the Unified National Command, a loose grouping of Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) bodies. Later, the PLO incorporated with the command to take credit for leading the Intifada.

Hamas members parade in the streets of the central Gaza Strip

Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) defied the secular national movement, especially in Gaza, and sought to take over the leadership of the Intifada. It saw the new developments as a deliberate relinquishment of the rights of the Palestinian people. Hamas continued to carry out field operations against the Israeli forces, insisting that armed resistance was the only way to win back Palestinian rights.

The Intifada developed more sophisticated tactics. The military operations and stone-throwing were backed by a network of well organised strikes, the boycotting of Israeli goods, closures and demonstrations.

Refugees’ resistance

The refugee camps became major centres for action. The goals of the Intifada won broad sympathy from the governments and people of Arab and Muslim countries, while Arabs in Israel took the side of their blood brothers.

They considered the Intifada to be a rebirth of the 1976 uprising, later known as the “day of the land”, which saw demonstrations and strikes in protest against the confiscation of Arab land for use by Jewish settlers in the north of Israel.

In June 1988, a new way of resistance to back the stone-throwers was adopted. Palestinian resistance fighters set fire to 500 Israeli interests over a 27-day period.

Israel had demanded the international community put pressure on the Intifada leaders to give up armed resistance. Yet, in July 1988 the Israeli authorities did not prevent a group of Jewish extremists from digging a new tunnel between the two Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, al-Buraq Wall and the al-Aqsa mosque.

Appeal to the people

Muslim clerics, through mosque loudspeakers, appealed to the people to defend their holy sites. Muslim Arab Palestinians rushed to stop the digging. The Israeli police forces were brought in leading to bloody clashes in and around al-Aqsa.

Later, fighting spread throughout Palestine. There were dozens of Palestinian casualties. A state of emergency was declared, and Palestinian cities, towns and villages were put under siege. Schools and universities were closed.

The Intifada carried on during the early 1990s

The Intifada carried on throughout the early 1990s. On 9 October 1990 Israeli forces killed 19 Palestinians in clashes with stone-throwers, and in December 1992, 413 Palestinians were deported to the inhospitable borders with Lebanon.

As the first Gulf war was underway in 1991, Iraq ceased to be a major power in the Middle East. The Palestinians felt that they had lost a substantial backer, and this resulted in rapid developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The peace process, started in Madrid in 1991, led to secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway, and by 1993 Arafat recognised Israel’s right to exist and signed a peace agreement.

In 1994, the Palestinians were given limited autonomy in parts of the occupied Palestinian territories. By that time, tension began to ease and the popular uprising petered out, amid high hopes for a better future.

According to the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, BTselem, 1124 Palestinians lost their lives in the first Intifada. Some 16,000 were imprisoned and many were routinely tortured. Fewer than 50 Israeli civilians were killed.

Adalah-NY: Despite NYC Palestinian rights protest, Dershowitz buys jewelry from settlement mogul Leviev

Parts one and two of the Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein debate on Democracy Now.

Part 1

Part 2

Notice in part 1 where he says he ‘opposes the settlements, [he] always opposed the settlements’.

New York, NY, Dec. 8 – Wealthy Madison Avenue holiday shoppers were greeted Saturday afternoon by boisterous music and dancing, as 60 New Yorkers protested in a growing campaign to boycott Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Participants performed a joyous dabke, a traditional Palestinian dance, and chanted to music from the eight-piece Rude Mechanical Orchestra. During the protest, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz entered LEVIEV New York and emerged to jeers as he displayed a LEVIEV shopping bag to the crowd.

Saturday’s event was the third and largest protest outside LEVIEV New York since the store’s November 13 gala opening. The protesters highlighted Leviev’s abuse of marginalized communities in Palestine, Angola and New York. In the West Bank companies owned by Leviev have built homes in at least five Israeli settlements. These settlements carve the West Bank into disconnected bantustans, seize valuable Palestinian agricultural and water resources, and isolate Palestinian East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, rendering the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible. All Israeli settlements violate international law. Yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Israel against its plans to build new homes in Har Homa, one of the settlements where Leviev’s company Danya Cebus is building.

Midway through Saturday’s protest Alan Dershowitz suddenly appeared in front of LEVIEV New York. “Just before he entered the store, I told Mr. Dershowitz, “you claim to be for peace, but you are deliberately putting money in the pockets of a man who builds settlements and prevents peace,” explained Issa Mikel of Adalah-NY.” Dershowitz responded, ‘Thank you for telling me about this place. I’m going to shop here from now on.’ It’s not surprising that Dershowitz is proud to support Israeli settlements, despite their illegality and immorality. Dershowitz is also a defender of torture, and has proposed that Israel destroy entire Palestinian villages.” As Dershowitz emerged from the store holding high his LEVIEV shopping bag, he was met by loud chants of, “Alan, Alan, you can’t hide, your support for Apartheid.”

New Yorkers were joined by members of the New Jersey Star dance troupe for likely the first ever Madison Avenue performance of the Palestinian folk dance dabke. Riham Barghouti of Adalah-NY explained, “Our dabke performance at Leviev’s store was an affirmation of our identity as Palestinians, and of our refusal to accept Israel’s efforts to cleanse us from our land and destroy our culture.”

Participants were reminded of the breadth of Leviev’s abuses when a stream of cars decorated with Burmese flags and “Free Burma” banners drove by the protest honking their horns in support. In September, 2007 The Sunday Times in London reported that its undercover journalist was shown Burmese rubies for sale, allegedly “blood rubies” used to finance Myanmar’s military junta. UPI reported in October that Leviev was warned by the EU to stop doing business with Myanmar or face sanctions.

Protesters held signs saying, “Latkes not land theft”, and “Dreidels not demolition and “Candles not confiscation.” Ethan Heitner of Adalah-NY explained, “I can think of no better way to celebrate Hanukah than to shine a light on the abuses Leviev is committing around the world.”

Leviev mines diamonds in close partnership with Angola’s repressive Dos Santos regime, and the security company Leviev employs in Angola has been accused of serious human rights abuses. In New York City, Shaya Boymelgreen, Leviev’s US partner until this summer, has been the target of a campaign by local groups for employing underpaid, non-union workers in hazardous conditions, and violating housing codes to construct luxury apartments that threaten to displace lower-income residents.

Protest photos available upon request, email us at: justiceme@gmail.com

For more on Adalah-NY: www.mideastjustice.org

AP: NY Judge Rules Against Principal Seeking Arabic School Job Back

December 5th

NEW YORK (AP) — The free-speech rights of the founding principal of the city’s first Arabic-themed school were not violated when she was forced out after being criticized for what she said during a newspaper interview, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein made the finding as he read a lengthy opinion in his Manhattan courtroom addressing the history of Debbie Almontaser as an educator in the nation’s largest public school system.

Almontaser had sued schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, saying they violated her First Amendment rights when she was pressured to step down after she discussed the history of the word “intifada,” an Arabic term commonly used to refer to the Palestinian uprising against Israel, during an August interview.

The judge said Almontaser participated in the interview in her role as acting principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn. He said speech is not protected when it occurs as part of the duties of an employee working for an employer that has a responsibility to supervise and monitor its messages to the public.

Almontaser lost her position after she was criticized for not condemning the use of the word “intifada” on a T-shirt made by a youth organization.

She said the meaning of her words was distorted after she told a reporter that “intifada” stemmed from a root word meaning “shake off” and that the word has different meanings for different people but certainly implies violence to many, especially in connection with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The judge noted that she had been instructed by the press staff for the schools not to discuss the T-shirts.

The New York Civil Liberties Union criticized the judge’s ruling.

“This is just another example of how recent Supreme Court rulings are undermining constitutional rights in general and First Amendment rights in particular,” said Christopher Dunn, NYCLU associate legal director. “Public employees now have every right to be worried about being fired for their speech.”

Almontaser also was asking the judge to stop the city from looking for a new principal. But the judge said he wouldn’t block the job search.

City law department senior counsel James Lemonedes called the ruling well reasoned because Almontaser should not be able to force the city to reconsider her for the principal position.

“Her application had been previously considered, in accordance with the chancellor’s regulations, and she was not recommended for interviews,” he said. “We are comfortable the judge’s decision will be affirmed if the plaintiffs choose to appeal.”

Several weeks ago, the city said Almontaser will not be renamed principal of the Gibran academy. It said she had resigned to ensure the stability of the school and the schools chancellor agreed with her decision and considered the matter closed.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg had called Almontaser’s resignation the “right thing to do.”

The judge’s ruling Wednesday did not end the case, however. Almontaser’s lawsuit proceeds to a trial based on more evidence rather than the two-day hearing on which the judge based his preliminary ruling.

The school, named for the Lebanese Christian poet who promoted peace, opened quietly in September with 55 sixth-grade students enrolled. It is the first in the city to teach Arabic and Arab culture.