Road To Hope in Gaza!

See report at:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/152675.html

Update, 28 November (From Ken O'Keefe)

After a demanding and very long 7 week journey the convoy members have been given just over two days to stay in Gaza or risk joining the imprisoned population of Gaza; this is typical of the Egyptian control of the Rafah Crossing. 13 members of the convoy were blacklisted by Egypt, including a seventy-year-old children’s entertainer and magician from Wales who was transporting toys for the children of Gaza. Also blacklisted was a Scottish national who has never left Scotland and has no affiliation with any organization, along with a 19 year-old British national, again with no associations that could be considered prohibitive. Several survivors of the Mavi Marmara were banned, along with British/Pakistani nationals and previous convoy members. This trend makes it harder and harder for people to support Palestine and should be considered a part of the overall blockade of Gaza.

The convoy members will do their best to experience as much of Gaza as possible and share with the world the reality of life for people entering four years of a brutal collective punishment policy. The vehicles and aid will be distributed to various charities and organizations that are doing invaluable work. Among the aid is medical equipment and medicines, wheel chairs, crutches, toys, clothes footballs and shoes.

Ken O’Keefe will remain in Gaza for 40 days (or longer if imprisoned) and begin daily video reports focusing on the children of Gaza. These will be posted at his Facebook and Twitter accounts and his blog.

R2H Facts – The Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy left London on the 10th of October with £500,000 of humanitarian aid for the besieged people of the Gaza Strip. The convoy travelled with over 100 members and 32 vehicles over 5,000 miles through the UK, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and Egypt. Ultimately 35 convoy members reached Gaza due to the lengthy journey and blacklisting.

Road 2 Hope: Gaza on the horizon?

Continued from http://palywely.blogspot.com/2010/11/road-to-hope-abducted-to-greece.html

The ship (the second to have been chartered by the Convoy), with the vehicles and three of the convoyers is nearing Al-Arish port in Egypt. The Egyptian authorities refused overland public transport for the rest of the convoyers, who have had to raise money for a specially chartered flight to Al-Arish.

In addition Egypt has banned about a dozen of the convoyers, including Ebrahim, who will be returning to the UK shortly. Also Ken O'Keefe, who had returned to London after the Greek abduction before rejoining the Convoy. Israel has branded as a "terrorist" everyone who travelled on the aid ship Mavi Marmara - this may explain Egypt's action. Names and faces, even addresses - with degrees of accuracy - have been listed in a publication by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

Keith and Shahid, the remaining Bristol pair on the convoy, are well. The Bristol mini bus is destined for a disabled youth club and the other vehicles for other local charities as arranged previously; boxes of aid will be delivered to the Baptist Church.

The remaining convoyers should fly from Benghazi at about midday. Assuming they are reunited with their vehicles and the entry formalities are swift they may all reach Gaza City later on Thursday where the vehicles and aid will be distributed.

London under invasion?

If London - the UK - were under invasion and permanent curfew like, say, Palestine or Afghanistan, this is how it would be. And this film answers the puzzle for so many who are unable to understand why 'those foreigners' hate the Peace-keepers so much.

And on the same theme, here's action/street theatre by Columbia University students in NYC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_StjwC9ry8

The Bat Ayn 'settlement' - Neighbours from Hell

The Bat Ayn 'settlement' - or colony - was established in the early 1990s by a breakaway group from the nearby Gush Etzion colony. Bat Ayn was established under the guidance of the controversial Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg. Rabbi Ginsburg has been quoted in the New York Times as stating that “any trial based on the assumption that Jews and goyim [non-Jewish people] are equal is a total travesty of justice”. Rabbi Ginsburg also praised the actions of Baruch Goldstein who in 1994 murdered 29 people and wounded more than 125 people who were praying in a mosque in Hebron.

Bet Ayn is one of over 200 Israeli colonies within the West Bank. The International Court of Justice has deemed these colonies illegal under international law which prohibits an occupying power from moving its population into occupied territory. At least 42% of land in the West Bank is currently occupied by colonists or set aside for further 'settlement' expansion. The ongoing construction of colonies has been criticized by the United Nations, the United States of America and the European Union.

Today more than 1,000 colonists from Bet Ayn live on land that was used for centuries by Palestinian families. Residents of Bet Ayn have a long history of violence. In 2002, four people from Bet Ayn were convicted of terrorism related offences following an attempt to blow up a Palestinian girl’s school in East Jerusalem. The men were arrested outside the school with a trailer containing explosives.

Residents of Bet Ayn frequently attack neighbouring residents of Palestinian villages and destroy their sources of income. The following are some examples of colonist violence, destruction and intimidation since April 2009:

– November 16 2010, burnt and destroyed 70 olive trees in the Saffa Valley.

– November 15 2010, burnt and destroyed 85 fig and olive trees in the Saffa Valley.

– 24 June 2010, set fire to farmland in the Saffa Valley and threw stones and bottles at nearby houses.

– 11 March 2010, set fire to a number of trees in the Saffa Valley.

– 9 January 2010, 40 settlers attacked three local farmers with stones.

– 31 December 2009, shot a local farmer with a hand gun.

– 20 December 2009, shot at local farmers.

– 13 July 2009, set fire to farmland in the Saffa Valley.

– 1 and 2 May 2009, entered the Saffa Valley destroyed fruit trees and shot at nearby residential homes.

– 26 April 2009, beat two elderly Palestinians, including holding down an 80 year old male and repeatedly smashed his head with stones.

– 8 April 2009, invaded Palestinian land and shot at local residents.

– In 2007, large numbers of colonists from Bet Ayn terrified locals by marching through neighbouring Palestinian villages dressed in white and carrying weapons, including M16 machine guns. The primary reason behind this campaign of terror and destruction is an attempt to deter local Palestinian farmers from farming their land, facilitating the annexation of the land by the Israeli military for further colonial expansion.

A website associated with the Bet Ayn colony states:

All who visit the Bat Ayin are struck by the beautiful vistas, the peaceful surroundings, and the profound level of devotion and spirituality of the people who live there. (http://www.batayin.org/73023/About-Us)

Unfortunately life, for Palestinians living near the Bat Ayn colony, is far from peaceful.

First published at http://palestinesolidarityproject.org

America: Silence of a Nation

Excerpts from a speech by Chris Hedges. The author spoke at the Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting at Ethical Culture Society on January 13, 2009 condemning Israel and USA complicity in the Zionist colonisation of Palestine and the slow but determined destruction of the Palestinian people...

Palestine, and the livin' ain't easy

Israeli boycotters strike Tel Aviv opera
by PHILIP WEISS on November 16

The ground really is shifting. Here's incredible video from Israel of Israeli boycott activists trying to submarine the Cape Town Opera House's performance of "Porgy and Bess" in Tel Aviv last night. Boycott apartheid! they sing. Note the big turnout of activists, the inspiring songs. Ynet reports 40 activists. Wow. This is inside Israel. And it's civil society: people of conscience around the world waking up to the humiliation and dispossession and statelessness of the Palestinians-- and seeing that they can take action.

Road to Hope abducted to Greece

Greek commandos board Gaza-bound aid ship

Continued from: http://palywely.blogspot.com/2010/11/road-to-hope-convoy-to-move-on-at-last.html

Main-stream news reports in Greece(Friday 12-Saturday 13th) say Greek commandos boarded the Gaza-bound ship on Friday in the country's main harbour of Pireaus during a dispute between the ship's captain and the aid group over money.

The 10 travellers with the Road to Hope organization said they were being treated like terrorist suspects by the Greek commandos.

The organization said the Maltese-flagged ship, Strofades IV, with 16 crew members was originally intended to sail from Libya to El Raid in Egypt with the aid then to be transported via land route to Gaza. After a two-week wait at the Libyan/Egyptian border, the group had raised the money to pay for this alternative journey.

But following an argument between the ship's Greek captain and an Egyptian broker, the aid group's cargo and nearly 70 other volunteers were left behind in Libya and the ship sailed to Pireaus instead. According to an earlier statement from Road to Hope, the captain was reported to be saying he wanted to proceed to Greek islands and drop off the convoyers and Libyans, so that the Greek people could deal with them as illegal immigrants. The ship contains 10 aid workers - seven Britons, two Irish and an Algerian - on board as well as several Libyan police officers, plus a senior port official. The police officers had gone on board at the port to help settle the dispute, when the ship set off from the Libyan port of Darnah.
The captain had set off while the Strofades IV was still moored, snapping the ropes holding his boat by force and heading for open waters.
"The scene was crazy," said Saeb Shaath, one of the convoyers who was at the port helping the charity to dispatch the aid consignment and who witnessed the incident, speaking to Reuters.
"He [the captain] broke anchor without permission to leave. He broke the ropes tying the ship ... and nearly capsized the ship when when it hit the wall. There were a lot of people on that ship."
Libyan authorities pursued the ship with Zodiac speedboats and aircraft, but the captain refused to stop. "He won't listen," said Shaath. Libyan authorities had secured the boat while waiting to resolve the dispute between the captain and his passengers. The volunteers understood the captain feared the agent would not pay him the $90,000 fee for the voyage to Gaza. After leaving harbour, he apparently disembarked 22.50 GMT on Wednesday 10th, through a side door of the ship, onto a speed boat, which made for another cargo vessel in Darnah harbour – “Odin Finder”.
There followed this short statement from one of those on board:
"reports of 4 Libyan navy vessels & two fighter jets surrounding ship, attempting to bring the vessel back to harbour safely.
Attempts to ensure 10 kidnapped convoyers & 3 libyans safely transferred to Libyan ships, to return to Darnah. No force being used – only verbal reasoning applied to Strofades IV captain"
After this, the journey to Greece resumed.


Britain's foreign ministry said it was aware of the incident. It released a statement:
"Our Embassy in Athens has spoken to the shipping company and is also in close contact with the Greek authorities. Our priority remains that there be a safe resolution to this incident.”
The ship's owners are the Pireaus-based Ionion Bridge Shipping Management.
Ministry officials said all those on board the vessel were in good health; although it is known that for the earlier part of the journey they were allowed only washing-water to drink and no food.

Update, 14 November 19.45 GMT:

Ebrahim reports back: The convoy has just driven away from the port of Darnah where the debacle with the ship took place and apparently caused some bad feeling with the local police.

He says they are all safe and well, and had their passports returned.

The two local Bristol people, Keith and Shahid, are fine.

Internet connections have been limited and this is the reason communications have been so fragmentary.

They are driving to Tobruk where they will have some freedom and can relax.

There are no ships over the next few days as it is the festival of Eid.

They have their money back and have news of a ship arriving next Thursday which would leave on Saturday.

Ebrahim Mussaji, from Gloucestershire, is part of the Bristol Contingent of Road2Hope.

21st November: The abducted convoyers have returned to the UK but some of them were hoping to fly back to rejoin the convoy for the departure of ship number two, planned for the night of Sunday 21st; while the Captain of

Strofades IV

is, apparently, under arrest.

Gaza "unchanged"; Plans to raze Jerusalem

John Ging: Conditions in Gaza have not changed

since Israel declared it would ease the blockade

Thursday, 11 November 2010

John Ging: 'No tangible change has occurred to the lives of Gaza's people since Israel announced it would ease its economic blockade of the Strip last June.'

The Director of Operation for the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] in the Gaza Strip, John Ging, has confirmed that "no tangible change" has occurred to the lives of Gaza's people since Israel announced it would ease its economic blockade of the Strip last June.

Israel's announcement that it would lift some of the restrictions imposed on Gaza to allow the entry of more food and consumer goods followed the international pressure it came under after nine Turkish peace activists were killed by Israeli soldiers aboard a Turkish vessel attempting to breach the siege.

John Ging accused Israel of ignoring the demands of the international community to lift the blockade and stated that "there is no tangible change for the people on the ground here with regard to their condition, dependence on aid, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction. And there is no economy."

Mr Ging asserted that "The ease as described was nothing more than a political ease of pressure on Israel and Egypt."

He also stated that Israel had imposed its stifling siege on the Gaza Strip for more than four years and prevents the entry of the majority of basic materials, primarily construction materials, which the sector desperately needs for the reconstruction of buildings destroyed by Israel during the war.

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/index.php

Jerusalem attorney discloses Israeli plan for

full destruction of city

10 November 2010
The Israeli government is “planning to completely destroy the city of Jerusalem and a erect a new Jerusalem with a Zionist vision amid a plan it prepared which it calls the Jerusalem 2020 plan,” Jerusalem attorney Ahmed Al-Ruwaidi said in a statement he released on Wednesday.

The Jerusalem unit head said the wide-ranging plan envisions new settlements in the city and a complete transformation of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Old City walls will dwindle down to a trace on the full parameters of biblical parks, bridges, and synagogues in an area covering the Silwan, Sheikh Jarah, Wadi Al-Jawz, and Al-Sawanah districts of the city, he added.

The plan alleges that Jerusalem is “the capitol and spiritual center of Israel and the Jewish people and a world city which attracts the souls of millions of believers across the globe.”

Ruwaidi went on to say: “All of the settlement projects in Jerusalem during the past three years, some of which have been practically implemented, fall under [the plan’s] framework, including a decision to erect a thousand new settlement units in Jebel Abu Ghunaim aimed at completing the isolation of the city with a wall of settlements.”

“Israel announced previously it will build 50,000 new units in the city. The implementation of 20,000 of those units has been initiated practically under projects that have been approved from time to time for political objectives linked to political and international action.”

20,000 Palestinian housing units have been threatened with demolition.

Under the plan, Arab Jerusalem will make up 71,000 dunums of the eastern and western sides of the city’s total 126,000 dunum land area.

Ruwaidi added that planning projects for new settlement units, conferences held in Jerusalem, excavation projects in the holy city’s area, and revocation of Palestinian residencies that have recently appeared in the media are part of a decided Israeli program that the Israeli government and other parties have been working to materialize.

Ruwaidi met on Wednesday with a legal team from the UK accompanied by political and cultural extensions from the British Consulate in Jerusalem. The delegation is currently developing a report about the situation in the city.

The Palestinian attorney presented a comprehensive report to the UK delegation relating to the city and the distress of its citizens, and the need to put the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and The Hague Convention of 1907 into action and to recognize Israel as an occupying force in Jerusalem that has no right to change the city’s landmarks.

He called for legal, political, and economic support for Palestinians in the holy city.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/

Jewish Pride!

To take action in an arena like this, surrounded in the dark by a whole lot of people who believed you were like them and who may now want to kill you, waiting for your turn to stand, must take a good deal of old-fashioned bravery...

The culture of destruction thrives - this week in Palestine

Hebron

As a further move to render the ancient city of Hebron void, a group of extremist settlers opened a new settlers-only road in the old city on the 9th November. Reports from the Palestinian Information Centre indicate that the group attacked two Palestinian families, including one worker employed in building Israeli settlements.

Al-Walajeh

Residents of al-Walajeh, northwest of Bethlehem, witnessed what appeared to be a near-fatal setback when the Israeli High Court of Justice ordered a 45-day grace period in which the Israeli army may continue building the wall that will completely encircle the village.

Seen through the broken window of one family's future home, the village of al-Walajeh may soon be surrounded on all sides by the Israeli wall.

The court ruling, delivered on Monday, effectively halfs the current land area of the already winnowed village. Al-Walajeh has lost 13,000 of its original 17,000 dunums of land since 1948, or about 75% (a dunum is about a quarter of an acre). Once the wall is complete, a development many say they can expect within the mandated 45 days, villagers will be cut off from another 1,800 dunums.

Officially, the 45-day period is for the Israeli army to report back with the security reasons behind the wall’s proposed route. But al-Walajeh residents say those reasons don’t exist and must be fabricated as their village shrinks.

“The court was Israeli, the judges were Israeli, the people confiscating the land are Israeli,” said Saleh Halmi Khalifa, head of the village council. “So the court just gave the army 45 days to confiscate more and more land.”

Khalifa called the decision “purely political” and said if the wall wasn’t finished surrounding al-Walajeh in 45 days, the court might grant another two or three months. He rejected the Israeli security rationale, citing the lawyer representing the villagers, who claimed via an Israeli security expert that Israelis near al-Walajeh might actually be less safe with the wall on its proposed grounds. But with the apparent rebuke of the lawyer, Ghayat Nasir, the wall is going up regardless.

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9117&Itemid=64

Settlers target Palestinian olive trees

Dr Cesar Chelala /New York

During the last few years, Palestinian olive trees - a universal symbol of life and peace- have been systematically destroyed by Israeli settlers. “It has reached a crescendo. What might look like ad hoc violence is actually a tool the settlers are using to push back Palestinian farmers from their own land,” stated a spokeswoman for Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organisation monitoring incidents in the West Bank.

The tree and its oil have a special significance throughout the Middle East. It is an essential aspect of Palestinian culture, heritage and identity, and has been mentioned in the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Torah. Many families depend on the olive trees for their livelihood.

Olive oil is a key product of the Palestinian national economy, and olive production is the main product in terms of total agricultural production, making up 25% of the total agricultural production in the West Bank. Palestinians plant around 10,000 new olive trees in the West Bank every year. Most of the new plants are from the oil-producing variety. Olive oil is the second major export item in Palestine.

For the last forty years, over a million of olive trees and hundreds of thousands of fruit trees have been destroyed in Palestinian lands. The Israel Defence Forces have been accused of uprooting olive trees to facilitate the building of settlements, expand roads and build infrastructure.

More at: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?

cu_no=2&item_no=397349&version=1&template_id=46&parent_id=2

Road to Hope convoy to move on at last

Continued from: http://palywely.blogspot.com/2010/11/road-to-hope-tenth-day-at-egyptian.html

The Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy, which includes five vehicles containing aid from Bristol, is boarding a ship from Libya to Egypt today (Wednesday) and hopes to sail tomorrow (Thursday). The convoy group launched a last-minute fund-raising appeal last night for over thirty thousand pounds to pay for the ship and news on Wednesday evening is that this has been answered by a group of supporters in London.

After a month on the road having departed from London on 10th October, Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza has been stranded on the Libyan-Egyptian border for over two weeks witnessing a wrangle with the Egyptian authorities. Egypt is insisting that all aid for Gaza must arrive at the port of Al-Arish near the Gaza crossing, either by sea or by air, and refuses all overland crossings of its territories.

Just a skeleton crew have remained with the vehicles in Libya towards the end of the long wait. Some of the Bristol convoyers have had to return to the UK for work or personal reasons. But some have pledged to return to the convoy once it is on the move and to join it for the final leg of the trip from El Arish to the Rafah Crossing into Gaza.

Sakir Yildirim of Fishponds who has been on all the previous Bristol convoys and was on the Mavi Marmara says “I will drop everything to return to the convoy as soon as I know it is on the move. I want to be part of the team when we drive our aid into Gaza”.

Others who returned to Bristol are considering their plans but have spoken positively of the trip so far. Such convoys may be less likely in future for two reasons: there have to be less expensive ways of getting aid to Gaza; and, at least 50% of the raison d'etre of the convoys being publicity and the world's news media being perfidious as it is, hence zero publicity being generated.

However, there is another flotilla in the planning stages for early 2011.

Gaza on starvation diet -it's official

Israeli Government Documents Show Deliberate Policy To Keep Gazans At Near-starvation Levels

Documents, whose existence were denied by the Israeli government for over a year, have been released after a legal battle led by Israeli human rights group, Gisha. The documents reveal a deliberate policy by the Israeli government in which the dietary needs for the population of Gaza are chillingly calculated, and the amounts of food let in by the Israeli government measured to remain just enough to keep the population alive at a near-starvation level. This documents the statement made by a number of Israeli officials that they are "putting the people of Gaza on a diet".

Calculation sheet from newly-released documents (image from Gisha)

In 2007, when Israel began its full siege on Gaza, Dov Weisglass, adviser to then Prime-Minister Ehud Olmert, stated clearly, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” The documents now released contain equations used by the Israeli government to calculate the exact amounts of food, fuel and other necessities needed to do exactly that.

The documents are even more disturbing, say human rights activists, when one considers the fact that close to half of the people of Gaza are children under the age of eighteen. This means that Israel has deliberately forced the undernourishment of hundreds of thousands of children in direct violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This release of documents also severely undermines Israel's oft-made claim that the siege is "for security reasons", as it documents a deliberate and systematic policy of collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza.

Gisha's director, in relation to the release of documents, said, "Israel banned glucose for biscuits and the fuel needed for regular supply of electricity – paralyzing normal life in Gaza and impairing the moral character of the State of Israel. I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place."

In its statement accompanying the release of the documents, Gisha wrote:

The documents reveal that the state approved "a policy of deliberate reduction" for basic goods in the Gaza Strip (section h.4, page 5*). Thus, for example, Israel restricted the supply of fuel needed for the power plant, disrupting the supply of electricity and water. The state set a "lower warning line" (section g.2, page 5) to give advance warning of expected shortages in a particular item, but at the same time approved ignoring that warning, if the good in question was subject to a policy of "deliberate reduction". Moreover, the state set an "upper red line" above which even basic humanitarian items could be blocked, even if they were in demand (section g.1, page 5). The state claimed in a cover letter to Gisha that in practice, it had not authorized reduction of "basic goods" below the "lower warning line", but it did not define what these "basic goods" were.

Commentator Richard Silverstein wrote: "In reviewing the list of permitted items for import, you come to realize that these are the only items allowed. In other words, if an item is not on the list, it’s prohibited. So, for example, here is the list of permitted spices: Black pepper, soup powder, hyssop, sesame. cinnamon, anise, babuna (chamomile), sage. Sorry, cumin, basil, bay leaf, allspice, carraway, cardamon, chiles, chives, cilantro, cloves, garlic, sesame, tamarind, thyme, oregano, cayenne. Not on the list. You're not a spice Palestinians need according to some IDF dunderhead. And tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, toys, glassware, paint, and shoes? You can forget about them too. Luxuries all, or else security threats."

Despite the disturbing nature of the documents, which show a calculated policy of deliberate undernourishment of an entire population, no major media organizations have reported the story.

The full text of the released documents, and the original Freedom of Information Act request filed by Gisha, can be found on Gisha's website below

http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1904&intSiteSN=113

Originally published on IMEMC News by Saed Bannoura

The real Yitzhak Rabin

The War of Ideas in the Middle East

The real Yitzhak Rabin
by ALEX KANE on November 4
Originally published on MondoWeiss

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of when former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli extremist for Rabin’s signing of the Oslo Accords with Yasir Arafat. With the anniversary comes the obligatory mourning of Rabin as a “man of peace,” as the Israeli leader who, had he survived, might have been the one who brought lasting peace to Israel and Palestine.

While that’s the conventional wisdom of Rabin, it’s based on a total erasure of his sordid role in the Israeli military establishment as well as a fundamental misreading of what the Oslo accords were intended to do. The only way that wisdom holds is if you shut out Palestinian views of Rabin, which is what happens in U.S. media and political discourse.

Former President Bill Clinton’s Op-Ed in today’s New York Times is emblematic of the narrative about Rabin in the United States. Clinton says Rabin had a “vision for freedom, tolerance, cooperation, security and peace”; that had he lived, “I am confident a new era of enduring partnership and economic prosperity would have emerged”; and that the “the cause for which Yitzhak Rabin gave his life” was “building a shared future in which our common humanity is more important than our interesting differences.”

The reality of Rabin is that he was a key player in the expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians during the 1947-49 war that led to Israel’s founding, which Palestinians refer to as al-Nakba, or the Catastrophe. During the First Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, Rabin infamously gave orders to “break the bones” of Palestinians participating in the uprising against the then-twenty year old Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And the Oslo accords were never really about peace; it was a successful attempt to “subcontract” the occupation out to the newly formed Palestinian Authority, as Israeli professor Neve Gordon puts it in his excellent book Israel’s Occupation.

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe writes:

Israel’s ‘peace’ axioms were re-articulated during the days of Yitzhak Rabin, the same Yitzhak Rabin who, as a young officer, had taken an active part in the 1948 cleansing but who had now been elected as prime minister on a platform that promised the resumption of the peace effort. Rabin’s death – he was assassinated by one of his own people on 4 November 1995 came too soon for anyone to assess how much he had really changed from his 1948 days: as recently as 1987, as minister of defence, he had ordered his troops to break the bones of Palestinians who confronted his tanks with stones in the first Intifada; he had deported hundreds of Palestinians as prime minister prior to the Oslo Agreement, and he had pushed for the 1994 Oslo B agreement that effectively caged the Palestinians in the West Bank into several Bantustans.

Ha’aretz columnist Amira Hass gave voice to what Palestinians think of Rabin in this article:

Before the handshake on the White House lawn, before the Nobel Prize and before the murder, when Palestinians were asked about Rabin, this is what they remember: One thinks of his hands, scarred by soldiers’ beatings; another remembers a friend who flitted between life and death in the hospital for 12 days, after he was beaten by soldiers who caught him drawing a slogan on a wall during a curfew. Yet another remembers the Al-Amari refugee camp; during the first intifada, all its young men were hopping on crutches or were in casts because they had thrown stones at soldiers, who in turn chased after them and carried out Rabin’s order.

As for the goals of the Oslo accords, here’s what Gordon writes:

The Oslo process was, to a large extent, the result of Israel’s failure to crush the intifada, and Israel’s major goal in the process was to find a way of managing the Palestinian population while continuing to hold on to their land. As Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and several others pointed out from the outset, Oslo was not an instrument of decolonization but rather a framework that changed the means of Israel’s control in order to perpetuate the occupation. It constituted a move from direct military rule over the Palestinians in the OT to a more indirect or neocolonial form of domination.

And what has the creation of the Palestinian Authority, perhaps the most lasting legacy of the tenure of Rabin, brought to the Palestinian people? Collaboration with Israel and repression of dissent.

Let’s save the lauding of Rabin as a “man of peace” for someone who is really working towards peace and justice in Israel and Palestine.

This post originally appeared on Alex Kane's blog.

Road to Hope: tenth day at Egyptian border

As the Road To Hope Convoy languishes with its loads of aid for Gaza, convoyer Laura Stuart has released this bulletin, below. Laura was a member of the Viva Palestina convoy which passed through North Africa in February/March 2009. Many of the current travellers have already travelled with an Al Quds convoy on that first journey and they have a bond already with the Libyan drivers as they shared the hardships and difficulties of the journey with them. On that occasion there was no objection from Egypt and they were welcomed by the Egyptian Government who gave members of Viva Palestina and Al Quds a police escort and hospitality all the way from Al Saloum to Rafah.

Laura is one of 7 present survivors of the Mavi Marmara attack by Israeli commandos which took place in international waters on the 31st May 2010 and which has been called a "war crime" and a "crime against humanity" by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission report published in September. She said "we owe it to those who lost their lives on the ship, the widows and 29 children who were orphaned by the attack, to continue the struggle to have the blockade of Gaza lifted completely and for all borders to be open for aid convoys".

"Now we have moved to Tobruk, we have received an amazing welcome from the local people here, who are stopping us on the streets and inviting us into their homes and restaurants for tea and food. All across the Muslim lands of North Africa we have been given the utmost protection and assistance from the King of Morocco instructing his police force to ensure our safe passage through Morocco followed by the amazing fact that Algeria and Morocco opened the border which is sealed for many years. If this border was thrown open to us after 15 years of closure then we wonder why can't the Egyptian border not be opened to us as well? Algerian, Tunisian and Libyan police have escorted and protected our convoy and many local organisations have given us free food and accommodation. The support for the Palestinians and people of Gaza across North Africa from people at every level is overwhelming.

'We are not wealthy people, we are humanitarians, people of conscience who came together to form a convoy taking aid to Gaza, now we are faced with the prospect of our only hope of reaching Gaza being to hire a ship for our vehicles and to pay for ourselves to fly to Al Arish. The cost of this was never reckoned into the cost of reaching Gaza. We also feel that although charities from Libya or elsewhere may offer to assist us financially that this money could be better spent directly on the people of Palestine rather than being spent on taking a ship to deliver what we can take by road. On the other hand we are steadfast in our determination to continue however much we may suffer from being separated from our families and loved ones, we recognise that our suffering is very minor compared to the struggle of daily life that the people of Palestine face. Some of our people have had to leave to fulfil work commitments but about 60 of us remain and reaching Gaza is our aim and we remain steadfast on that aim."

On the 1st November, Siamak Alimi sent out a quick blog:

Libyan Government actively and vigorously trying to help R2H get a boat. Egyptian Government has been very happy, for weeks, to facilitate r2h getting into Gaza by El Arish port. Egypt has repeated its full permission to facilitate access to Gaza through El Arish. Libya is repeating its offer to try to fix up a boat. It is all still up for grabs. We are confident that the convoy will be on the move again soon and will complete its mission.

Mike Leigh boycotts Israel

British director Mike Leigh, who was scheduled to visit Israel from November 20-27 to teach a master class in Jerusalem as part of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School’s "Great Masters" programme, cancelled for political reasons. He last visited Palestine/Israel in 1990.

In a letter announcing his decision, Leigh, the director of Abigail’s Party, Secrets & Lies, Happy Go Lucky and the just-released Another Year, cited several of Israel’s policies, including the proposed “loyalty oath”, plus the so-called 'settlements' and the attack on the Freedom Flotilla as the reason for his change of heart. In his letter to the School he said,"I have become ever-increasingly uncomfortable about what would unquestionably appear as my implicit support for Israel were I to fulfil my promise and come."

"I have absolutely no choice. I cannot come, I do not want to come, and I am not coming,"


For an in-depth comment on this, visit Youth Against Normalisation:

While the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against apartheid Israel continues to grow, its opponents continue to resort to the same old canards in trying to defend Israel. In a Jerusalem Post article published on 17 October 2010, columnist Hannah Brown gives us a good example of some of the Israeli talking points ("British director Mike Leigh cancels Israel visit". In her concluding paragraph she writes...
http://youthanormalization.blogspot.com/2010/11/bds-debunking-pro-israeli-arguments.html

Picture: BAFTA.org

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Hebron a closed city during Jewish holiday

On Saturday 30 October in Al-Khalil much of the city was under alert for another Jewish holiday; the old city was overwhelmed with thousands of settlers and Jewish tourists. The atmosphere was tense and internationals were restricted from entering the area surrounding the Ibrahim Mosque until 4 p.m. Access to the mosque was completely denied to Muslims for the entire day as settlers had the whole mosque to themselves.

Due to the massive presence of settlers in the city, the weekly Shuhada Street demonstration was canceled. During the day a Palestinian activist working for B’tsellem was arrested while monitoring settlers and released only late that night.

On Sunday, ISM volunteers patrolled the city all day, following soldiers stopping Palestinians at random to check their IDs, and monitoring children on their way to school. Wadi Al-Hussein is a Palestinian neighbourhood close to Qiryat Arba, the settlement with a population of 5000 people.

On one of the settler-only roads, an old man approached us and told us about the situation of his 11-year-old grandson, Karam. One day while Karam was walking to school, settlers threw stones at him so he ran home scared. Shortly thereafter, soldiers arrived at Karam’s house to arrest him and bring him to prison in Ramallah. He was held for a week and released only on a bail of 2,000 shekels and house-arrest. He’s spent the last five months confined to his uncle’s home. Once a week the teacher brings the whole class to have a lesson with him. His family goes to visit him regularly but his mood is very low.

Since there are few internationals monitoring that particular area regularly, the ISM is going to step up its presence there. We (of the International Solidarity Movement) spoke to the headmaster of the school who told us that sometimes during the night, settlers break into the school to destroy property and shoot live ammunition. Teachers are often stopped by soldiers on their way to school, and have been strip-searched, or forced to drop their trousers, take off their shirts, and stand for an hour in front of the school while kids pass by. Israeli Soldiers often interrupt lessons by coming into the school, and in one case broke a teacher’s hand.

First published by http://palsolidarity.org

Gary Moore boycotts Israel

Belfast man Gary Moore has announced that he would never visit Israel, describing it as a criminal state during a press conference in Moscow.

The PIC [Russian language] quoted Moore, who recently arrived in Russia to perform at a number of concerts, as saying that he had visited a lot of countries, offering the opinion that music is without boundaries but adding that he would not visit Israel.

He told the press conference that his refusal to visit Israel was because of its racist policies against the Palestinian people, adding that he could not accept Israel's policy and lies about Palestine and its people.

The renowned guitarist, whose blues/rock career stretches back to the late Sixties, said that Israel was exerting big efforts to display itself as a victim of war, while it is "absolutely not".

Listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0nKJFVVoYM&feature=related