Tag: Global Actions

Together

By Mansour

It is a very hot day today… in fact the last two months have been very hot here in Palestine, yet we continue to have a strong desire to resist the Occupation, especially the Annexation Wall. Every day that we have a nonviolent demonstration or action the sweat of Palestinians, internationals, and Israeli activists proves the reality of solidarity and the possibility of coexistence between people.

Force is not the language for peace. Unlike the coalition forces who claim to create democracy and global justice through their weapons and destructive technology, in Palestine, simple human beings with empty hands and full hearts face one of the strongest armies in the world, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). We won’t react towards the IOF by using the same means of violence that they use against us.

We are not teachers or lecturers, but we have the experience of 57 years of resisting the Israeli Occupation. By our continuous resistance and the hope we have maintained, we prove that force and violence is the weapon of the loser. We need you, our friends, side by side with us to work for that peace. We await you in Palestine.

Click here to join the Freedom Summer 2005 Campaign!

Lawyers Challenge EU and UK over Inaction on Palestine

Lawyers acting for campaigns group War on Want will today send letters to President José Manuel Barroso of the European Commission and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw challenging them to provide evidence of any action they have taken to curtail human rights abuses against Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

One year after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Israel’s Separation Wall is illegal, the EU and UK have failed to take the action required of them under the Geneva Conventions to ensure Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law. UN Special Rapporteurs have called on the EU to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, under which Israeli exports enjoy preferential access to EU markets, on human rights grounds.

Acting under instruction from War on Want, The Dove & the Dolphin Charity and a number of individuals affected by the Israeli actions, London solicitors Hickman & Rose are formally requesting the European Commission to provide evidence of all written communication with the Israeli authorities (including minutes of meetings and internal memoranda) relating to the Separation Wall since the ICJ ruling of July 2004. A parallel request is being made of the UK government under the Freedom of Information Act.

John Hilary, Director of Campaigns and Policy at War on Want, said: “Israel continues to defy international law with its actions in Palestine, and each new day of the occupation sees more Palestinians condemned to poverty and despair. Yet neither the EU nor the British government have honoured their obligations to the Palestinian people as called for by the International Court of Justice. As it assumes the EU presidency, we call on the British government to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement and bring Israel into line with humanitarian law.”

[International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its Advisory Opinion that Israel’s Separation Wall is illegal on 9 July 2004; the Opinion is available on the ICJ website: www.icj-cij.org].

[Copies of the letters from Hickman & Rose to the European Commission and UK governments are available by email. Please contact War on Want campaigns officer Nick Dearden at 07932 335464]

[For more details, comment and interviews, contact War on Want press officer John Coventry at 07905 397084. For comment from Hickman & Rose, contact Daniel Machover at 07773 341096].

UN Conference of Civil Society calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions!

Worldwide Activism, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign

In their recent session in Paris, July 13, 2005 the UN International Conference of Civil Society for Peace in the Middle East unanimously adopted the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Through the call participating groups recommitted themselves to ending the Occupation of Palestine and to bringing down the Apartheid Wall as a key element in ending Occupation policies of settlements, land grabs and the destruction of farms and houses.

Participants committed to working within a framework that calls for international mobilizations and campaigns to pressure their respective governments to abide by international law and end economic dealings with the Israeli Occupation until the Occupation ends and the Wall is torn down. The ruling of the International Court of Justice was seen as a key tool for these campaigns.

After the reading of the draft Action Plan, Na’eem Jeenah, Spokesman, Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa and President of the Johannesburg-based Muslim Youth Movement, said that within the South African context the struggle against apartheid had been based on four pillars. Two concerned internal resistance to apartheid and the international isolation of the Apartheid state. It was those pillars, which were crucial to bringing about an end to the in South Africa.

It had taken 30 years for that call to take root. Palestine and the Palestinian people did not have 30 years. From the Conference onward, it was time to intensify efforts to isolate Apartheid Israel. He highlighted the importance of Palestinian groups to be at the lead of the campaign at the global level.

The resolve of the conference declaration is a yet another step towards the consolidation of the call for the isolation of Apartheid Israel and a clear indication to the UN, governments and international bodies that the people globally are calling the decision makers into their responsibility and are leading the way inside civil society severing ties with Israel on all levels.

These are some of the things I wish everyone knew

A speech by Kate Raphael at San Francisco Pride.

These are some of the things I wish everyone knew:

I wish everyone knew what an olive tree looks like when its branches are lopped off, heavy full ones they call ‘hamel’, which means pregnant.

I wish everyone knew how Caterpillar bulldozers uproot the trees to make room for a Wall that is twice as high and three times as long as the Berlin Wall.

I wish everyone knew that the Wall will not stop terrorism and that’s not what it’s for, but it does separate tens of thousands of people from their land and put 3 million people in prison which will increase the hate.

I wish everyone knew that the number of checkpoints in the Palestinian lands doubled during a time when there were no attacks against Israelis, and

I wish everyone knew that the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, which is another name for land theft, doubled during the last peace process.

I wish everyone knew that 4100 Palestinians and 1100 Israelis have been killed in the last four years, and

I wish everyone knew that 8000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, and

I wish everyone knew that 2 million Americans are in American jails, and

I wish everyone knew that since 9/11 the US has disappeared people and secret prisons and 2000 immigrant detainees are held indefinitely without charges and is that how you spell PATRIOT?

I wish everyone knew that in 1970, the Iraqi constitution, under Saddam Hussein, declared all women and men equal before the law, and

I wish everyone knew that until 1991 women in Iraq were 38% of teachers and 31% of doctors.

I wish everyone knew that the Bush administration wants a quota of 25% women in the Iraqi legislature and women make up 15% of the US Congress and we have no quota.

I wish everyone knew that women in Palestine hold 18% of seats in local government and women in Israel hold 12%.

I wish everyone knew that the US state department says it has built 11 women’s centers in Baghdad and when was the last time they built a women’s center in Bayview? And

I wish everyone knew that Muslim women don’t need us to free them, but they do need us to stop oppressing them, and

I wish everyone knew that half of older lesbians depend on Social Security for most of their income, and

I wish everyone knew that under Bush’s social security plan the average retired worker would get less than half what they get now, and

I wish everyone knew that 12 million people are now held as slaves around the world, including some right here in San Francisco, and 80% of them are female and 50% of them are children, and

I wish everyone knew that Black women in the US are 20 times as likely to get AIDS as white women and AIDS is the third leading cause of death for Black women and

I wish everyone knew that marriage won’t help us get health care when 39% of people in this country don’t have health coverage from their job.

Most Americans think foreign aid is 24% of our budget but it’s actually less than 1%, and

I wish everyone knew that 22% of US children live under the poverty level.

I wish everyone knew that we’ve killed 25,000 Iraqi civilians since March 2003 and the US has 37,000 troops in South Korea and 16,000 in Afghanistan, and

I wish everyone knew that US women earn 76 cents to a man’s dollar but if they are Black they earn 66 cents and if they are Latina they earn 55 cents, and

I wish everyone knew that 25% of US women who become pregnant have abortions and 87% of US counties have no abortion provider, and

I wish everyone knew how it feels to watch gay people cross the picket line at Badlands to go drink half-price beer at a racist bar, and

I wish everyone knew that queers are a community and not a market sector, and

I wish everyone knew that the parade didn’t used to have barricades and used to be for everyone

I wish everyone knew about Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and LAGAI Queer Insurrection, and

I wish everyone knew that Stop AIDS Now Or Else was the first group ever to block the Golden Gate Bridge, and

I wish everyone knew that the Bolivian people are rising up to throw out the gas companies and winning, and

I wish everyone knew about the Gay Liberation Front, and

I wish everyone knew that Stonewall was a riot, and

I wish everyone knew that revolution is possible.

Verdict on Killing of Tom Hurndall – ISM London

Regardless of the outcome of today’s verdict on the killing of Tom Hurndall, the International Solidarity Movement, London maintains that justice cannot been served while the culture of impunity in the Israeli army remains intact. Tom was one of hundreds of civilians killed in Rafah alone in the past four years. He was shot whilst trying to get children out of the line of Israeli army gunfire. As he bent down to pick up a young boy, he was shot in the head.

Human rights activist, Raphael Cohen (39), who was with Tom on the day of the shooting said, “On the very street where Tom was shot, two children had been shot just days before. This is why he and the rest of the group went to that spot, to protest against the shooting of children as they played outside their homes. There has never been any investigation into the shootings of those children.”

Last month, two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the village of Biet Liqya near Ramallah. Adi Asi, 15 years old and Jamal Asi, 14 years old, were killed as the soldiers who were guarding the Apartheid Wall surrounding the village shot at the group of children. They were killed with live bullets to the chest and abdomen. Witnesses said they were playing football.

Recent Human Rights watch Report

As Human Rights Watch state in their recent report, “Promoting Impunity, The Israeli Military’s Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing”, “Pressure for a proper investigation rises every time a high-profile killing takes place, but Israeli authorities have taken no serious steps to improve the accountability of the armed forces, create an independent investigation system, or reform the military justice system.”

According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, between the beginning of the intifada and the end of November 2004, 3,040 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, including 606 children. According to Human Rights Watch, “The number of official investigations into alleged wrongful use of lethal force equals just two percent of the total number killed and only 15 percent of the number of children killed, despite the fact that many deaths occurred in non-combat circumstances and the extreme unlikelihood that many of the children killed were legitimate targets.”

The investigation into Tom’s killing was the result of a long hard process by his family and supporters to pressurise the Israeli government into providing answers. Without the family’s unrelenting efforts and personal investigations, this trial would not have happened.

No Human Rights for Palestinians

Israel has no national human rights institution, nor any independent commissioner for complaints about human rights violations committed by the army. Meanwhile, the government of Israel continues to deny entry to human rights activists, witnesses and journalists and deports those who take part in non-violent demonstrations against the seizure of Palestinian land and destruction of homes.

We, at ISM London, are calling to the people of Britain to do what our government refuses to do, to demand justice for the Palestinians. Britain continues to supply military equipment to Israel to be used in its campaign against the civilian Palestinian population. We urge people to put pressure on the government and people of Israel via economic boycott, to end the killings, withdraw the settlements, end the occupation and allow the people of Palestine and Israel to have a peaceful and prosperous future. This will be impossible while the occupation continues. Without justice there can be no peace.

Visit the ISM London website at http://www.ism-london.co.uk

Download the Human Rights Watch report (pdf):
“Promoting Impunity: The Israeli Military’s Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing”

Download the summary & recommendations in Arabic (pdf) here.