Tag: Global Actions - Page 38 - International Solidarity Movement

ISM London: Protest outside Leviev store on Old Bond Street, London

To view the ISM London website click here

On Saturday 13th December a number of ISM activists braved the rain and cold, took to the streets and voiced their opposition to Lev Leviev and his blood diamonds which finance the illegal Israeli settlement expansion into the Palestinian territories.

Located on the upmarket Old Bond Street in the West End of London, activists stood out against a backdrop of designer boutiques. Despite initial opposition by Leviev’s security guards, management and police officers, the demonstration went ahead undeterred.

Activists shouted various chants, read out facts about Leviev’s human rights abuses and war crimes, distributed leaflets and spoke with members of the public about Leviev’s more sinister activities. We wanted to raise awareness that the shine of the diamonds can’t take away from the darkness of his abuses. Even the security guards took an interest and it was suggested they find an alternative company they could be proud to work for.

Nonetheless, after a couple of hours of, we felt we had successfully deterred potential customers, with no one during the entire time of our presence even entertaining the idea of entering the store.

We hope the protest will pave the way for future actions to maintain the pressure against Leviev, and show solidarity with the New York and Dubai activists protesting the Leviev stores there as well as all other activists involved in the anti -Leviev campaign.

Background info:

Lev Leviev commits a compendium of human rights abuses ranging from supporting the oppressive Angolan Dos Santos regime which is renowned for its corruption, lack of transparency and violence, owning diamond mines which employ private security firms known to beat, whip and sexually abuse employees, through to purchasing rubies from Burma which supports the military junta and directly financing the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

As part of the Jewish Land Redemption Fund, Leviev finances the expansion of Mattityahu East in Modi’in Illit, Zufim, Maale Adumim and Har Homa. All of these are in violation of International Law as set down in the Fourth Geneva Convention and the position is further supported by both the UN and the international Court of Justice. The theft of Palestinian land leads to the impoverishment and subjugation of Palestinian people and violent oppression against Palestinian non-violent resistance.

For more information visit:

www.adalahny.org

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/09/israelandthepalestinians.foreignpolicy

http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/1746.shtml

Gulf News: Call to boycott Israeli jeweller

By Abbas Al Lawati

To view original article, published by Gulf News on the 14th December, click here

Dubai: Activists campaigning against Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev urged Dubai residents to boycott the jeweller during the screening of a documentary film on activist hip hop at the Dubai Film Festival on Friday.

Forty T-shirts and one hundred letters from the West Bank town of Jayyous were distributed to the audience at the screening of Slingshot Hip Hop, a documentary about Palestinian rappers in Israel by Arab American filmmaker Jackie Salloum.

Leviev’s companies build Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank, including the village of Jayyous. Leviev also owns a self-titled diamond label that has been selling in Dubai for almost a year.

Salloum, who has been to Jayyous, described the situation there are dire, saying that the “security barrier” and colonies being built by Israel there have robbed its residents of their livelihoods.

Online campaign

The distributed T-shirts called on Dubai residents to boycott Leviev as well as Levant Jewellery, owned by Leviev’s local agent, Palestinian-Moroccan Arif Bin Khadra.

Meanwhile, activists campaigning against Leviev’s activities have set up a Facebook group that is calling for a boycott of all Dubai venues that host stores selling Leviev diamonds.

The group has gained almost 400 members in less than two weeks since its launch, according to group administrator Jabbar, a UAE-based Palestinian rapper.

Levant stores exist in the Atlantis, Al Qasr and Mina Al Salaam hotels. Another branch is planned for the Dubai Mall.

“It’s important for people to be aware of where their money is going. Especially if it is happening so close to home,” said Jabbar.

New York based Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (Adalah-NY), has led the international campaign against Leviev.

The group has recently had success in persuading Hollywood celebrities to distance themselves from Leviev.

So far, Sex and the City star Kirsten Davis, Full House star Mary-Kate Olsen, as well as Felicity Huffman and Melissa George have reportedly asked Leviev to stop using their names to promote the diamonds.

Pictures of a number of other celebrities such as Salma Hayek, Sharon Stone and Whitney Houston remain on the Leviev website.

Free Gaza Movement: Dignity ship leaves Gaza with Palestinian students

(GAZA PORT, GAZA – 11 December 2008) – The Free Gaza Ship “Dignity,” departed from Gaza International Port at 22:10 hours, Thursday 11 December. Aboard the ship were eleven Palestinian students who had been denied exit by Israel to attend their universities abroad. Over 700 students are currently trapped in Gaza, unable to obtain permission from Israel to continue their education.

Accompanying the students are two British academics, Jonathan Rosenhead and Mike Cushman, of the London School of Economics and the British Committee for Universities for Palestine (BRICUP), an organization of UK-based academics responding to Palestine’s Call for an Academic Boycott of Israel.

According to Rosenhead and Cushman, “As academics we are particularly pleased to be traveling on the Dignity on this mission to enable at least some of the hundreds of students trapped in Gaza by the Israeli siege to get out and take up their places at universities round the world. This siege is an affront to any idea of academic freedom or human rights. How can anyone justify preventing young people from fulfilling their potential and learning how to serve their community more fully?”

In an act of nonviolent defiance to the ongoing Israeli Occupation of Palestine, the Free Gaza Movement has been running civil resistance ships to Gaza for several months. This voyage is the fourth such trip, helping to reunite families, and delivering medical supplies, mail, and international humanitarian and human rights workers to besieged Gaza.

Free Gaza spokesperson Ewa Jasiewicz stated that, “Though we carried in a ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula on our ship, our mission in Gaza was not to provide charity, but to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine, break the silence of the world over this continuing calamity, and physically break through the blockade of Gaza in an act of direct resistance against the siege. In the end, the oppression and humiliation of Occupation assaults the humanity of both occupier and occupied and cannot and must not be tolerated any longer.”

Osama Qashoo, another Free Gaza spokesperson, explained their success by saying that, “the sea passage to Gaza is open. Our fourth mission was a quick response to Israel denying earlier attempts by Libya, Qatar and by Palestinians from 1948 to also break through the siege. We hope that other nations, civil society organizations, and activists around the world will learn from our experience, be strategic in their planning, and not let Israeli threats and aggression stop them from coming to Gaza. Freedom of movement and of education, and to live in peace is everyone’s right.”

Free Gaza Movement: “We’re back!” – Fourth successful voyage breaks through siege of Gaza

(GAZA, 9 December 2008) – The Free Gaza Movement ship “Dignity” successfully broke through the Israeli blockade for the fourth time since August, arriving in Gaza Port at 2:45pm, Tuesday 9 December. The ship carried one ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula, in addition to a delegation of international academics, humanitarian and human rights workers. Three earlier missions made landfall in Gaza in August, October, and November through the power of non-violent direct action and civil resistance. The Free Gaza ships are the first international ships to reach the Gaza Strip in over 41 years.

Ewa Jasiewicz, a Free Gaza organizer, journalist, and solidarity worker, pointed out that, “Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day, and it’s high time the world turned its rhetoric on human rights into reality. We mounted this mission to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine and to highlight the strangulating conditions Israel causes in besieged Gaza. The inhumane effects of this siege threaten to stunt an entire generation – both in terms of physical and mental growth due to malnutrition, terrorization by bomb attacks, incursions and the use of sonic booms – but also in terms of the generation of students which have won places at academic institutions around the world but cannot fulfill them, and those undermined on the ground in Gaza by a lack of food, medicine, electricity, materials, and the peace and space to make use of them in.”

For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5 million human people who live in this tiny, coastal region. The World Bank recently warned that the entire banking system in Gaza may soon collapse resulting in “serious humanitarian implications.” Already, over eighty percent of Gazan families are dependent on international food aid in order to feed their children.

Lubna Masarwa, another Free Gaza organizer and the current delegation’s leader, pointed out that, “The Palestinians of Gaza don’t need charity. What they need is effective political action that changes their lives and ends the Occupation. We can’t bring electricity to Gaza on our boats. We can’t import freedom of movement or safety. But we can get into Gaza and we are intent to keep coming. We will come again and again and again until the world breaks its silence and we shatter this siege once and for all.”

Maan: Blockade-busting voyages to Gaza planned from Qatar, Israel, Yemen, Cyprus, Jordan

To view original article, published by Maan News Agency on the 3rd November, click here

Gaza – A series of ships sailing Qatar, Israel, Yemen, and Cyprus, and Jordan will challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip over the next two months, said Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Jamal Al-Khudari on Tuesday.

On Friday a ship sailing from Qatar is scheduled to make landfall in Gaza. On Saturday, a ship sailing from Haifa, in northern Israel will reach Gaza carrying five tons of humanitarian aid, including medicine, said Al-Khudari, who is the leader of the Popular Committee Against the Siege of Gaza.

The ships will further test Israel’s willingness to block shipments of vital goods to the coastal territory. After allowing a group of international and Palestinian activists to sail to Gaza three times since August, Israel gunboats forced a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tons of aid to turn back on Tuesday.

On 18 December the Islamic Parliamentary Union will dispatch a ship from Larnaca, Cyprus. Two days later, Jordanian activists will send a boat from the Red Sea port of Aqaba.

A Yemeni vessel will set sail in January.

Al-Khudari said, in a statement that the Israeli blockade of Gaza has left 70% Gaza residents without electricity.

After nearly a year and a half of closure, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 4 November, preventing deliveries of aid by land, sea, and air. The territory’s sole power plant has frequently shut down, and the United Nations was forced to suspend a food aid program that feeds 750,000 Palestinians.