A Joint March of Palestinians and Israelis:

No to Walls and Checkpoints
Yes to Negotiation-
No to Unilateral “Convergence”

A-Ram, Jerusalem, Saturday, May 13th, 11 am

In contrast to the Israeli government’s assertion that “there is no partner”, and its program for unilateral annexation, the residents of A-Ram continue their joint activities with Israelis, against the occupation and for a peace that is just for both peoples. This march is the first in a series of actions by a coalition of Israelis and Palestinians together with the residents of A-Ram.

The Wall, which bisects the main street of A-Ram, has critically damaged the life of the residents. It has divided families, stopped workers from reaching their workplace and cut off teachers and students from their schools; in fact, three schools have already been forced to close.

The Wall has turned a thriving urban center into a jail.

The march, with the participation of schoolchildren, teachers, neighborhood residents and supporters will start at the center of A-Ram in the direction of the A-Ram checkpoint

For further details, contact:

Yossi Bartal—The Alternative Information Center, 0547-705048

Adam Keller – Gush Shalom, 050-6709603

Khulood Badawi–Taayush, 0547-469738

Bat Shalom * Gush Shalom * The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions* The Alternative Information Center* Mahsom Watch* Women’s Coalition for Peace* Taayush

What Jim Carrey Probably Doesn’t Know

Jim Carrey, who is currently visiting Israel, along with Ewan McGregor, Will Smith, and Sharon Stone, recent vistors, probably doesn’t know:

At the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, dozens of kidney patients have seen their dialysis sessions cut because of dwindling supplies because of the cutbacks in funding, and five patients have already died, doctors and nurses say.

Mousa Salim Mousa al-Sawarka, while he was grazing his camels in the al-Khousa area to the north of Beit Lahia…was killed instantly by shrapnel to the head.

That was Saturday, May 6 while this morning:

Hassan Hussein Khader al-Shaf’ei, 55, was killed by shrapnel throughout the body, while he was farming his land.

And in the past twenty days:

Six Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, have been killed, and at least 60 others, including 21 children, have been wounded by IOF shelling.

And this past April 37 Palestinians including six kids were killed by Israel’s Occupation Forces.

I wonder if Jim Carey has a clue what “Al-Nakba” means.

Most likely he won’t be subjected to humiliation like this poor soul at a military checkpoint near Ein Yabrud:

The occupation soldiers made a man around 30 years old completely remove his clothes, piece by piece. It was cold outside and raining lightly. And this was such a painful thing, with hundreds of people in tens of detained cars around to see.

And I sincerely doubt Jim Carrey knows how Israeli soldiers treat “crying” and “desperate” pregnant young women at checkpoints like Abdul-Latif Khalid does:

I noticed a lady looks pregnant in the last month and carrying another kid 2-3 years old sleeping on her hands. She came directly to the soldiers from a narrow passage specially for people entering to Nablus . She was very tiered and exhausted, and asking the soldier “please let me pass, I was waiting for a long time in the line and see I’m so tired see; here is the identity” The soldier shouted on her go back no way, then another old man came through the same way asking for similar help. The soldier start to talk with the old man, then I asked the lady “come beside me I will talk to him” The soldier finished with the old man and pushed him back to the line.

Does he know that Palestinians are being punished for voting for Hamas, and for refusing to recognize Israel’s “right” to exist as a Jews-preferred state, for refusing to recognized Israel’s “right” to ethnically cleanse the indigenous people of Palestine, for refusing to recognize Israel’s “right” for razing to the ground over four hundred villages, for refusing to recognized Israel’s “right” to dominate them? For the Palestinians refusal to capitulate to their cruel masters the following is the result:

Ramallah Hospital — the main referral hospital for all of the West Bank — is running out of medicines, sterile dressings and other disposable items.

Even former President Jimmy Carter, in very undiplomatic language appropriate for the dire situation says:

Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals

Jim Carrey probably knows about Israeli government’s efforts to “cajole” some obnoxious illegal settlers from a Palestinian owned house in Hebron since this has been ballyhooed in the press to indicate Israel is “cracking” down on its settlers.

What he most likely doesn’t know:

Israel quietly but forcefully continues its sustained policy of seizing and maintaining control over the West Bank, its land and natural resources.

And even the most non-violent Palestinians aren’t “coaxed” as are the illegal thugs in Hebron. On the contrary:

People living in the proximity of the wall conduct marches and even bravely try to break the metal locks on the gates that keep them out of their agricultural fields, but they are easily beaten back by Israeli rubber bullets and tear gas. Some of them also are “detained” [Several have been killed].

Jim Carrey, Will Smith, Sharon Stone, and Ewan McGregor probably don’t know any of this, but it is high time they found out rather than allow themselves to be used to enhance Israel’s image.

http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2006/05/what-jim-carrey-probably-doesnt-know.html

Bil’in Puts The Wall On Trial

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements is holding a large demonstration this Friday, May 12th. The demonstration will include Arab Knesset members, Palestinian Legislative Council members and representatives from the Palestinian National and Islamic forces.

On Sunday, May 14, the Israeli Supreme Court will hear Bil’in’s legal challenge over the theft of their land by the illegal wall.

Bili’in villagers have been protesting the wall nonviolently for the last 15 months and have become a symbol of Palestinian-Israeli-International cooperation.

The route of the wall in Bil’in is designed to annex the settlement of Modi’n Elite and it’s outpost, Matityahu Mizrah, to Israel along with the land belonging to Bil’in so that these illegal settlements can continue to grow.

In a separate court case obrought by the village and Peace Now against the new settlement of Matityahu Mizrah, the High Court was told of a land-laundering scheme that allowed the real-estate dealers and settler organizations to convert private land – “purchased” sometimes through dubious means – into “state land..” Then, before the construction of the separation barrier, the land was “returned” to the buyers so that they could establish facts on the ground and press the Defense Ministry into moving the route of the fence to the east of the new illegal neighborhood.

After being prodded by the Supreme Court, the Israel Police’s National Fraud Squad opened a criminal investigation into the illegal construction of hundreds of housing units in the Matityahu East “neighborhood” of the Modi’in Ilit settlement.

According to Haaretz, hundreds of millions of dollars are believed to have changed hands in the affair.

For more information call:

Abdullah 0547-258-210

Mohammed 0545-804-830

ISM media office 02-2971824

UK Training for Freedom Summer

London, May 27th/28th

Freedom Summer Campaign: July-August 2006

Join us for our pre-travel training in London which compliments the compulsory two day training you will receive in Palestine, and will give important information about your travel to Palestine. See www.ism-london.org for more details. Contact info@ism-london.org to book.

International Solidarity Movement, London
Witness – Learn – Support – Report
Now more than ever – join us in Palestine!

Warmongers EDO Corp. Surrender in British High Court

Final Victory For Peace Protesters Against Arms Company’s High Court Harassment Claim

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

7th May 2006: The attempt by arms manufacturers EDO MBM to restrict protest outside their Brighton, UK factory has ended in expensive failure.

EDO have consistently denied that they supply Israel with weapons systems, but in December 2005 in a related criminal case, ‘the rooftop 3 case’, former managing director David Jones admitted under oath that the company do supply the Israeli Air Force with parts for the VER-2 system – the main bomb rack used on the Israeli F16, which has been used in documented war crimes in the Palestinian Territories. Their dropping of the injunction case can be in no small part attributed to the fact that they had been caught out lying about this in the high court to avoid legal responsibility under the British International Criminal Court act – complicity in war crimes. Many of the protesters who were named in EDO MBM’s injunction have volunteered with ISM in Palestine and their witness of Israeli war crimes in Palestine would have been material to their defence that they had acted reasonably in circumstances of what they knew about events in Palestine.

EDO MBM’s attempt to secure a no-protest exclusion zone with an injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act has ended in unconditional surrender after a year-long High Court battle. The case is estimated to have cost the company upwards of £1 million and this week US parent company EDO Corp announced 2.7 million dollars losses this year and citing losses from legal actions as a contributing factor. EDO MBM will pay the protesters costs, expected to be tens of thousands of pounds.

Big questions remain over the handling of the case. What has come to light is a behind-the-scenes deal between EDO MBM, their lawyer Timothy Lawson Cruttenden (the solicitor responsible for the injunction restricting protests outside the Oxford Primate Lab), Sussex Police and possibly the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordinating Unit.

Andrew Beckett press spokesman for SMASH EDO said, “We were accused of harassment by EDO, and Sussex Police, who secured an interim injunction on trumped-up evidence, but it must be clear to the world after the collapse of the injunction and the dropping of so many criminal cases that we are ones who have been harassed, and it is they in who have been harassing us”.

EDO brought the injunction claim against 14 protesters and two protest groups in April 2005, and by bringing spurious evidence into the case were able to get an interim injunction against all protesters (i.e any member of the public campaigning outside the factory, regardless of their conduct).

The defendants argued consistently that the use of the Protection from Harassment Act to restrict protest infringed their rights under articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. This was dramatically illustrated by the imprisonment on remand of two protesters for alleged breaches of the injunction last summer. Both cases were subsequently dropped before reaching court. Protesters were placed under threat of five years imprisonment for any breach of the injunction terms that prohibited simple acts such as standing in the road.

In the year-long High Court case it was that Chief Inspector Kerry Cox of Sussex Police had changed her witness statement to exaggerate her view of the anticipated threat by protesters to company employees after direct pressure from EDO s lawyer Tim Lawson-Cruttenden. The altered statement was instrumental in gaining EDO an interim injunction against protesters that restricted their human rights.

The collapse of the EDO injunction case and also the 23 criminal charges against anti-EDO protesters cast a shadow over all similar injunction cases against animal rights protesters, as it highlights a shady practice by police and court officers in a political operation to suppress freedom of expression, acting in a manner that is clearly an abuse of the powers of the state over political activity, but has been supported by the highest levels of the government.

Notes for Journalists

Brighton & Hove is a UN Peace Messenger City

They and Sussex police also wanted to limit than ten people who had to be silent. Judge Gross refused to impose these conditions at the initial hearing of an interim injunction, which was put in place in the period before the full trial to be heard at the High court in London from November 21st. In his summing up he said, “The right to freedom of expression is jealously guarded in English law” and consequently refused to impose the requested limits on size, timing or noise made at demonstrations. He also said that he doubted that protesters were ‘stalking’ employees of EDO MBM.

EDO MBM Technologies Ltd are the sole UK subsidiary of huge U.S arms conglomerate EDO Corp, which was recently named No. 10 in the Forbes list of 100 fastest growing companies. They supply bomb release mechanisms to the US and UK armed forces amongst others. They supply crucial components for Raytheon’s Paveway guided bomb system, widely used in the “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq. EDO also withdrew a threatened libel action against Indymedia over being named as “warmongers”.

Campaign against EDO MBM People involved in the anti-EDO campaign include, but are not limited to: local residents, the Brighton Quakers, peace activists, anti-capitalists, Palestine Solidarity groups, human rights groups, trade unionists, academics and students. The campaign started in August 2004 with a peace camp. It’s avowed aim is to expose EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.

SMASH EDO PRESS RELEASE

Press Contact: Andrew Beckett or Sarah Johnson
+44 (0) 7875 708873

www.smashedo.org.uk