The Lobby and the Bulldozer: Mearsheimer, Walt and Corrie

Published on Thursday, April 13, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
by Norman Solomon

Weeks after a British magazine published a long article by two American professors titled “The Israel Lobby,” the outrage continued to howl through mainstream U.S. media.

A Los Angeles Times op-ed article by Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Max Boot helped to set a common tone. He condemned a working paper by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that was excerpted last month in the London Review of Books.

The working paper, Boot proclaimed, is “nutty.” And he strongly implied that the two professors — Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago and Walt at Harvard — are anti-Semitic.

Many who went on the media attack did more than imply. On April 3, for instance, the same day that the Philadelphia Inquirer reprinted Boot’s piece from the L.A. Times, a notably similar op-ed appeared in the Boston Herald under the headline “Anti-Semitic Paranoia at Harvard.”

And so it goes in the national media echo chamber. When a Johns Hopkins University professor weighed in last week on the op-ed page of the Washington Post, the headline was blunt: “Yes, It’s Anti-Semitic.” The piece flatly called the Mearsheimer-Walt essay “kooky academic work” — and “anti-Semitic.”

But nothing in the essay is anti-Semitic.

Some of the analysis from Mearsheimer and Walt is arguable. A number of major factors affect Uncle Sam’s Middle East policies in addition to pro-Israel pressures. But no one can credibly deny that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, where politicians know that they can criticize Israel only at their political peril.

Overall, the Mearsheimer-Walt essay makes many solid points about destructive aspects of U.S. support for the Israeli government. Their assessments deserve serious consideration.

For several decades, to the present moment, Israel’s treatment of Palestinian people has amounted to methodical and despicable violations of human rights. Yet criticism of those policies from anyone (including American Jews such as myself) routinely results in accusations of anti-Jewish bigotry.

The U.S. media reaction to the essay by professors Mearsheimer and Walt provides just another bit of evidence that they were absolutely correct when they wrote: “Anyone who criticizes Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over U.S. Middle Eastern policy — an influence AIPAC celebrates — stands a good chance of being labeled an anti-Semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby.’ In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-Semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.”

Sadly, few media outlets in the United States are willing to confront this “very effective tactic.” Yet it must be challenged. As the London-based Financial Times editorialized on the first day of this month: “Moral blackmail — the fear that any criticism of Israeli policy and U.S. support for it will lead to charges of anti-Semitism — is a powerful disincentive to publish dissenting views. It is also leading to the silencing of policy debate on American university campuses, partly as the result of targeted campaigns against the dissenters.”

The Financial Times editorial noted: “Reflexes that ordinarily spring automatically to the defense of open debate and free enquiry shut down — at least among much of America’s political elite — once the subject turns to Israel, and above all the pro-Israel lobby’s role in shaping U.S. foreign policy.”

The U.S. government’s policies toward Israel should be considered on their merits. As it happens, that’s one of the many valid points made by Mearsheimer and Walt in their much-vilified essay: “Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided U.S. support and could move the U.S. to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well.”

But without open debate, no significant change in those policies can happen. That inertia — stultifying the blood of the body politic by constricting the flow of information and ideas — is antithetical to the kind of democratic discourse that we deserve.

Few other American academics have been willing to expose themselves to the kind of professional risks that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt took by releasing their provocative paper. And few other American activists have been willing to expose themselves to the kind of risks that Rachel Corrie took when she sat between a Palestinian home and a Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza three years ago.

The bulldozer, driven by an Israeli army soldier on assignment to demolish the home, rolled over Corrie, who was 23 years old. She had taken a nonviolent position for human rights; she lost her life as a result. But she was rarely praised in the same U.S. media outlets that had gone into raptures over the image of a solitary unarmed man standing in front of Chinese tanks at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

In sharp contrast to the high-tech killers who run the Israeli military apparatus and the low-tech killers who engage in suicide bombings, Rachel Corrie put her beliefs into practice with militant nonviolence instead of carnage. She exemplified the best of the human spirit in action; she was killed with an American-brand bulldozer in the service of a U.S.-backed government.

As her parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, said in a statement on her birthday a few weeks after she died: “Rachel wanted to bring attention to the plight of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, a people she felt were largely invisible to most Americans.”

In the United States, the nonstop pro-Israel media siege aims to keep them scarcely visible.

Norman Solomon’s latest book is “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com

Two Bil’in Teens Arrested During Night

By Jane

Just when I thought I was in for a quiet night, saying good bye to the resisters in Bil’in, the Israeli army came into the village and arrested 2 young men, Yassar aged 16 and Tariq aged 19.

It was a beautiful warm night at the outpost. R and I arrived just after dark. We tried to collect some wood and we built one of the smallest fires the outpost has witnessed. As we finished our supper of aubergine dip, yoghurt and bread the shebab begun to to come out of the night in two’s and threes. Ali arrived in his truck bringing his young son. They got the fire going and the kettle on. A typical outpost night of being taught arabic words, sweet tea, rich coffee, cigarettes, sunflower seeds and loud stories of which I could only understand the final burst of laughter. The full moon shone and we came out from under the shelter to bathe in it’s light.

At midnight I pulled myself into the cab of Ali’s truck. Shebab climbed into the back and we left R and 2 young men from the village behind. We took the slow, bumpy ride back to the village. Through land belonging to Ali’s family, now piled with stones and rubble, 300 year old olive trees uprooted and gone. Onto the security road by the fence, up the hill, round the fence and down to the gate and the site of the Friday demonstrations. Along the old tarmac road, unmaintained, pot holed, passing fields then houses. They dropped me outside the ISM apartment. We called goodbye, they told me to bring all my family to visit Bil’in.

I read till late and finally turned out the light at about 1.30am. No sooner had I closed my eyes than Abdullah was banging on the door. Soldiers are outside. I grabed my camera, bag with notebook, pen and cigs, stuck my feet in my trainers, pulled on another top and I was out of the house. Abdullah was standing in his red pyjamas, two armed soldiers next to him. He was demanding they leave the village. There were 3 or 4 military vehicals in the street. It was hard to see behind the glare of their headlights. Soldiers with nightsights and guns pointing at roofs, round walls, at trees and shrubs. Abdullah went up on his roof, “Get off the roof” yelled two soldiers, “No I won’t, this is my house, what are you doing here, we don’t want you here , go away”. I’m walking up and down the street, between soldiers. Soldiers emerge from a building, they all climb into vehicals and drive past the mosque and up the hill. It’s only now that I can see a group of shebab and a camera man by the mosque. ” Hello Jane”, I recognise a few of them. “Did they take anyone” they ask me. “No I didn’t see anyone with them”. We start to follow the military vehicals up the hill.

Five hundred yards and the soldiers have stopped again. I look at the cameraman and we go forward. Again I’m walking in among the soldiers asking what are they doing, why are they here. It’s the middle of the night, the occupying military force is armed and on the streets of a small West Bank village and I’m walking around in the middle of it all. It’s very strange. Then from a track soldiers are bringing a young boy, Yassar, he is frightened, he’s a child. On his face are the tracks of a few tears. His eyes, like headlights, beam out fear. “What are you doing with that child, let him go, let him go, he’s a child, why have you got a child, let him go”. They try and put him in the back of a vehical. There’s me shouting and getting in the way and a whole lot of big soldiers but my white skin, my english voice means they hesitate. At one point I managed to get my arm round they boy and we begin to walk away. For a split second I think they will let us go. Hands get hold of us, they start to pull us apart, we are holding onto each others arms and hands, the distance between us gets bigger and bigger till we can’t hold onto eachother any more. A soldier twists my arm behind my back. “You are interfering with our operation, go away”. “Yes I am interfering with you trying to take away a child”. A woman in a nightgown appears, she is pleading with the soldiers. A man in his night time clothes approaches. We are in a chaotic bundle around the child.

So many soldiers. Were there 16, 18, 20. I don’t know. They took the child. Later I found out he was 16 years old. In the night, surrounded by soldiers he looked about 13.

As the door of the vehical closed on the boy the stones started flying. Soldiers fire teargas at the shebab. Stones seem to be coming from all directions. I find myself crouched behind a wall with a soldier. The vehicals start turning, the soldiers run to them and off they go, stones bouncing of the metal and scattering across the road.

The shebab congregate back at the mosque. Abdullah appears in his pyjamas. News comes that Tariq, 19 years old, has also been taken. The soldiers drive through a couple more times and are met by stones raining down from behind every wall and gate. The stones of the shebab are shouting “get out of our village, get out of our village”.

Bil’in has been targetted by the Israeli military because of it’s continuous non violent resistence to the annexation fence/apathied wall. This week, in addittion to Yassar and Tariq, 2 children were arrested whilst tending their goats. ISM supports Bil’in’s ongoing struggle by standing side by side with the villagers, trying to prevent arrests, witnessing, media work and legal support. This legal support is expensive as it costs 1000’s of sheckles to get villagers released from Israeli detention.

The ISM urges all its supporters to continue raising money for the legal fund, so that we can continue to support non-violent protest against illegal occupation and theft of Palestinian land, and continue to free jailed children.

To donate see the PayPal link at palsolidarity.org

Stop the Shelling of Gaza! – Action Alert and Digest

1. ACTION ALERT: Stop the bombing of Gaza! Prevent a humanitarian crisis!
2. Laila El-Haddad: “Just another Gaza Friday”
3. Laila El-Haddad: “And suddenly, the seams of childhood disappeared”
4. Video: Shelling of Gaza Continues
5. Amnesty International Calls for Halt to Gaza Attacks
6. Human Rights Watch: “UNRWA Director: ‘Counting down to a crisis in Gaza’ ”

____________________________

1. ACTION ALERT: Stop the bombing of Gaza! Prevent a humanitarian crisis!

Eight days and thousands of shells later, the assault on Gaza continues. Israel has vowed that it will continue to intensify the attack. Eighteen people are dead, including at least two children, and many more are injured.

Amnesty International is “calling on the Israeli army to end immediately its air bombardments and shelling of civilian residential areas in the Gaza Strip.” Amnesty says, “Israeli forces…must put an immediate end to the frequent, disproportionate and excessive use of force against Palestinians. Such attacks continue to cause death and injury to Palestinian children and other bystanders, and constitute violations of international law.”

John Ging, Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, stated that “from a humanitarian perspective the outlook here in Gaza is bleak at the moment. We are once again facing imminent food shortages, insecurity is making delivery of humanitarian services difficult and we are very concerned about the public health risks from the outbreak of avian influenza. All of this is likely to add up to more refugees falling below the poverty line and becoming dependent on humanitarian assistance.”

Please help stop these atrocities:

1. Contact your local representatives and demand they raise the issue of the bombardment of Gaza and the closure of the Karni checkpoint (see information below).

2. Contact your Ministry of Foreign Affairs and demand they put pressure on Israel to stop the bombardment of Gaza and open the Karni checkpoint (see information below).

3. Hold a protest, vigil, or rally in front of your Israeli embassy or consulate and demand that Israel stops bombarding Gaza and opens the Karni checkpoint. To find the address of the Embassy or one of the Consulates, go to (www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Israel.cfm#171)

UK
Contact MPs
politics.guardian.co.uk/aristotle/

Fax your MP direct from this site
www.faxyourmp.com/

USA
Contact local representative
www.house.gov/writerep/

Contact your Senators
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

US (Department of State)
www.state.gov/

Websites for Ministries of Foreign Affairs
For all countries see www.usip.org/library/formin.html

Australia
www.dfat.gov.au/contacts.html

Denmark
www.um.dk/en/servicemenu/Contact/?wbc_purpose=basi

France
www.diplomatie.gouv.fr

Greece
www2.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/en-US

Germany
www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/index_html

Japan
www.mofa.go.jp/feedback/index.html

Spain
www.mae.es/en/Home/

____________________________

2. Laila El-Haddad: “Just another Gaza Friday”

from her blog: http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com

I’ve always loved Fridays in Gaza. In the mornings, save for the lone garbage collector futilely sweeping the abandoned streets and Municipality park, littered with plastic cups, watermelon seeds, and strangled straws from the night before, the hustle and bustle of the city comes to a standstill.

It is a serene if lethargic time, an escape from the sea of chaos, uncertainty and violence that grips our lives each waking day and night. For a few hours, things seem ordinary in a place where ordinary is an illusion. And it doesn’t seem like anything can disrupt those moments, as if some force is saying to the madness that envelopes us: “come back another hour!”

Slowly, the streets come to life again as evening takes hold. This is Yousuf’s favorite time. He likes to go out to the balcony, as we did yesterday, and “people watch”-just take in the incongruent and cacophonous sites and sounds of another Friday in Gaza.

In the park in front of us, children boisterously played football, women licked ice cream cones and chatted, and wedding motorcades ( “zaffit sayyarat”), which, no matter what the season or situation, you can always except to hear on Thursday and Friday evenings like clockwork-made their way to beachside hotels and lounges. They tirelessly honked their horns in sync with live wedding dabke music, blaring out from portable speakers or played by live for-hire bands seated in the back of rented pick-up trucks decorated with carnations.

Boys and relatives clamored for a standing space in the back of the trucks, dancing and clapping feverishly along with the music. Young children chase them down the street to join in the fun. If the wind is just right, the sky becomes a showcase of homemade kites, dancing and flirting with each other, challenging the physical bounds imposed upon this battered area’s residents, reaching to places they can only dream about, allowing them to navigate freedom, no matter how purposeless, for just a little bit.

In the distance, the ubiquitous double-thuds of artillery fire could be heard exploding a few kilometers away, increasing in number and intensity, it seemed, as the evening progressed, only to be drowned out ever-so-slightly by the cacophonous symphony of Friday blitheness, as if to say-“not today! Today, you will not steal our moment.”

The evening passes, the clock strikes midnight, and suddenly, the carriage tranforms into a pumpkin again. The magic dissipates. And 6 people are dead.

Just another Gaza Friday.

____________________________

3. Laila El-Haddad: “And suddenly, the seams of childhood disappeared”

from her blog: http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com

Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”

Hadil Ghabin, 9 years old, was killed Monday night after an Israeli shell struck her family’s home. 13 other members of her family were injured, including her pregnant mother, several toddlers, and her 10-year-old brother Ahmed, who lost his eye sight.

One-year old Rawan comforts her other sister, Rana

Hadil’s mother was baking bread when the shells began to fall around them. She gathered her children and they huddled inside the house for safety.

According to her aunts, Hadil loved reading, writing stories, and playing “make-believe”. Her Aunt told me :”She would always gather all the neighbourhood children and tell them all sorts of wild stories” .

And why not, for sometimes imagination is the only refuge we have here, the only realm that cannot be invaded.

The Israeli Army asserted today that despite the civlian deaths, which resulted from narrowing their range of attack, the shelling will continue.

Overcome with emotion, Hadil’s mother collapsed when the body of her daughter, limp and expressionless, was brought to the house for a final farewell.

Hadil’s 10-year-old brother Ahmed lost his sight in the attack.

Neighbours tried to comfort the grieving family, as they wept alongside them and threw fragrant basil flowers on her lifeless body before the burial.

Even as Hadil was being carried away, shells continued to pound the area, leaving billows of white smoke in the distance and an acrid smell lingering in the air.

The Ghabin household. The mother was baking bread when the shelling began, and gathered her children together in the living room when their house was hit.

“And suddenly, the seams of childhood
disappeared

And the stories and dreams
flew away
like a kite”

____________________________

4. Video: Shelling of Gaza Continues

Watch footage of the Israeli shelling of northern Gaza:
http://dc.indymedia.org/usermedia/video/7/mvi_0036.avi

Also watch footage of a family mourning in the aftermath of recent deaths caused by shelling:
http://dc.indymedia.org/usermedia/video/2/mvi_0031.avi

Both are from Laila El-Haddad’s blog:
http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com

____________________________

5. Amnesty International Calls for Halt to Gaza Attacks

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
11 April 2006

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGMDE150312006

Israel/Occupied Territories: Israel must halt attacks on Gaza residential areas – children killed

Amnesty International is calling on the Israeli army to end immediately its air bombardments and shelling of civilian residential areas in the Gaza Strip. At least two Palestinian children have been killed and tens of other civilian bystanders injured in recent days during the course of such attacks; at least 15 other Palestinians, most of them reported to be members of armed groups, were killed.

Hadeel Ghaban, a seven-year-old girl, was killed on 10 April 2006 when Israeli troops fired artillery shells at her home in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. The child’s mother and a dozen of her siblings and other relatives, including several children, were injured in the attack. Three days earlier, a five-year-old boy, Bilal Abu al-‘Einein, was killed in an Israeli air strike as he was standing near a car with his 14-year-old brother and their father. The boys’ father and three other men were also killed and several other bystanders, including two children, were injured in the attack. The four men who were killed in the attack were reported to be members of a Palestinian armed group but not to have been involved in any armed confrontation at the time when they were targeted by the air strike.

Commenting on this 7 April attack, the Israeli army stated: “In a security forces activity tonight in the southern Gaza Strip, the IDF carried out an aerial attack against a vehicle carrying terrorists as it was leaving a training camp of the Popular Resistance Committees organization. Terrorists were using the camp for terror training and weapons training.” The statement failed to mention the killing of the five-year-old child.

Israeli army and Defense Ministry sources were reported by the Israeli media to have expressed regret over the killing of Hadeel Ghaban but to have vowed to continue intensive attacks on the Gaza Strip. On 11 April, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was reported to have stated that “As long as it’s not quiet here [in Israel], it won’t be quiet there [in Gaza.]”

Expressions of regret by Israeli army and government officials for the killings of Palestinian children and other bystanders ring hollow as repeated attacks by Israeli troops on densely populated residential areas continue to claim the lives of Palestinians, including children, in situations where they pose no threats to the lives of Israelis.

Another example is the killing of three Palestinian children, 14-year-old Ahmed al-Sweifi and Ra’ed and Mahmud al-Batash, aged 11 and 17, in an Israeli air strike in the afternoon of 6 March in Gaza City. The children were walking in the street when an Israeli missile hit a passing car in which two members of a Palestinian armed group were travelling, killing the two passengers of the car and the three children.

More than 15 Palestinian children have been killed and dozens have been injured in Israeli army attacks throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the beginning of this year. They were among some 75 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in the past three months, during which scores of Palestinians, including children, have been injured. Many of those killed were members of Palestinian armed groups who were targeted while they were not involved in armed attacks or confrontations.

The Israeli authorities have long pursued a policy of extrajudicial executions as a substitute for arrest and prosecution of Palestinians involved in attacks against Israelis. Hundreds of bystanders have been killed in such attacks, in addition to the targets of the attacks. Since Israel redeployed its troops from inside the Gaza Strip in September 2005, Israeli forces have stepped up air strikes and artillery attacks against different areas of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli authorities contend that such attacks are in response to frequent mortar and rocket attacks by Palestinian armed groups launched from the Gaza Strip against Israeli towns and villages near the Gaza Strip. Although they have rarely caused Israeli fatalities or casualties, these Palestinian attacks are unlawful and should stop immediately.

Israeli forces, for their part, must put an immediate end to the frequent, disproportionate and excessive use of force against Palestinians. Such attacks continue to cause death and injury to Palestinian children and other bystanders, and constitute violations of international law.

____________________________

6. Human Rights Watch: “UNRWA Director: ‘Counting down to a crisis in Gaza’ ”

From UNRWA: http://www.un.org/unrwa/

PDF Version of Press Release:
http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/releases/pr-2006/hqg06-06.pdf

Gaza – Another week of closure at Karni commercial crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip adds to the mounting woes facing Palestine refugees living in Gaza. This follows a weekend that saw the killing of 14 Palestinians, protests by refugee farmers who have yet to receive any compensation for bird flu and widespread public demonstrations protesting the cutting of donor funding.

John Ging, Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, warned that “if Karni remains closed, we are, once again, counting down to a food crisis.” 765,000 refugees depend on UNRWA’s food distribution of flour, oil, sugar and other basic items. Ging stated that “the clock is now ticking and distribution will have to be shut down entirely for the second time in less than a month if the crossing does not open immediately.”

Returning from a visit this morning to an UNRWA primary school in Beit Lahia, where parents and teachers protested that the children are in very real danger from the daily Israeli shelling in close proximity to the school, Ging stated that “from a humanitarian perspective the outlook here in Gaza is bleak at the moment. We are once again facing imminent food shortages, insecurity is making delivery of humanitarian services difficult and we are very concerned about the public health risks from the outbreak of avian influenza. All of this is likely to add up to more refugees falling below the poverty line and becoming dependent on humanitarian assistance.” However, Ging warned that UNRWA does not yet have the money to meet today’s needs and is facing a bill of almost $900,000 in penalties for port and other charges arising from the Karni closure.

-Ends-

For more information please contact:

Jerusalem: Johan Eriksson
Office: 972-2-589-0249
Mobile: 972-59-428-056

Gaza: Adnan abu Hasna
Office: +972-8-677-7531
Mobile: +972-59-428-61

Jamal Hamad
Mobile: 972-599-416-877

____________________________

For more reports, journals and action alerts visit the ISM website at www.palsolidarity.org

Please consider supporting the International Solidarity Movement’s work with a financial contribution. You may donate securely through our website at www.palsolidarity.org/main/donations/

Stop the bombing of Gaza! Prevent a humanitarian crisis!

UPDATE: Since this Action Alert was posted, the shelling of Gaza has continued almost non-stop.

Eight days [now 17 days] and thousands of shells later, the assault on Gaza continues. Israel has vowed that it will continue to intensify the attack. Eighteen people are dead, including at two children, and many more are injured.

Amnesty International is “calling on the Israeli army to end immediately its air bombardments and shelling of civilian residential areas in the Gaza Strip.” Amnesty says, “Israeli forces…must put an immediate end to the frequent, disproportionate and excessive use of force against Palestinians. Such attacks continue to cause death and injury to Palestinian children and other bystanders, and constitute violations of international law.”

John Ging, Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, stated that “from a humanitarian perspective the outlook here in Gaza is bleak at the moment. We are once again facing imminent food shortages, insecurity is making delivery of humanitarian services difficult and we are very concerned about the public health risks from the outbreak of avian influenza. All of this is likely to add up to more refugees falling below the poverty line and becoming dependent on humanitarian assistance.”

Please help stop these atrocities:

  1. Contact your local representatives and demand they raise the issue of the bombardment of Gaza and the closure of the Karni checkpoint (see information below).
  2. Contact your Ministry of Foreign Affairs and demand they put pressure on Israel to stop the bombardment of Gaza and open the Karni checkpoint (see information below).
  3. Hold a protest, vigil, or rally in front of your Israeli embassy or consulate and demand that Israel stops bombarding Gaza and opens the Karni checkpoint. To find the address of the Embassy or one of the Consulates, go to (http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Israel.cfm#171)

UK
Contact MPs
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/aristotle/

Fax your MP direct from this site
http://www.faxyourmp.com/

USA
Contact local representative
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Contact your Senators
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

US (Department of State)
http://www.state.gov/

Websites for Ministries of Foreign Affairs
For all countries see http://www.usip.org/library/formin.html

Australia
http://www.dfat.gov.au/contacts.html

Denmark
http://www.um.dk/en/servicemenu/Contact/?wbc_purpose=basi

France
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr

Greece
http://www2.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/en-US

Germany
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/index_html

Japan
http://www.mofa.go.jp/feedback/index.html

Spain
http://www.mae.es/en/Home/

Protest Against the Withdrawal of US and EU Funding

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bil’in, Occupied West Bank

Protesters wearing US, EU and UN flags will eat a lavish feast in front of others, fenced in and wearing Palestinian flags who will eat nothing.

The protest symbolises the withdrawal of US and EU funding of the Palestinian Authority, as a result of the democratic election of Hamas earlier this year.

Villagers, International and Israeli peace activists, anarchists and others will hold the peaceful symbolic protest on Friday afternoon after midday prayers.

Peaceful protests in Bil’in have taken place every week for over a year now, since the apartheid wall and illegal settlement construction threaten approximately half of the village’s agricultural land. The withdrawal of EU and US funding will not make their situation any easier.

For more information call:
Mohammed Katib: 054 557 3285
ISM Media office: 02 297 1824 or 057 572 0754