Freedom Flotilla: testimony from two survivors

These two men, with whom I travelled on the Mavi Marmara, are particularly well-placed to continue broadcasting witnessed evidence about the Israeli army's attack, and the reason for the convoy in the first place. For more about the Freedom Flotilla, please visit http://hanleyexpress.blogspot.com and click on "Flotilla"

Israeli court welcomes pre-48 land claims, from Jewish Israelis only

by Jesse Bacon

It has been pointed out repeatedly, but now it’s official, the Israeli Supreme Court will accept your pre-1948 claim, if you are Jewish that is. In one of those cases that is a testament to presumably intelligent people’s ability to ignore the larger implications of their actions, the court has been ruling that Jews who left East Jerusalem during the founding of the state of Israel/ Palestinian Nakba/ Catastrophe have a right of return. I hope there are Palestinian refugees filing similar court cases, as many more of them were dispossessed during that time. I would love to hear an Israeli court explain why the Jewish Israelis claims are more valid.

Photo: One of the Palestinian families that could be evicted from their homes as a result of the ruling. By Michal Fattal

See more, and hear Kinky Friedman tell it in song, at http://theonlydemocracy.org/2010/10/

israeli-court-welcomes-pre-1948-land-claims-from-jewish-israelis-only/

Dundee flies the flag and Bristolians hit the road

Members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign's Dundee Group and Tayside for Justice in Palestine have called for the council to raise the flag in the wake of the attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying aid to Gaza in May.
More than 3000 people signed a petition backing the move and calling for Dundee City Council to support the next aid flotilla and to boycott Israeli goods and services.
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/article/5938/dundee-city-council-flies-the-flag-for-palestinians.html

Meanwhile, other convoys are setting off, or laying plans. A group of Bristolians leave town on Saturday 9th October to join the latest road convoy, which will have major backing from the Syrian Government, http://bglink.ning.com/. Leading the group will be Mohamed Elhaddad, chair of Bristol-Gaza-Link Association, Dr Judith Brown Vice-Chair of Bristol-Gaza-Link, Keith Darkin, Martin Longhurst from Swansea plus Ebrahim Musaji from Gloucester. The vehicles will be loaded with donated aid. This includes donated medical and educational materials which are still desperately needed in Gaza.

Others plan to travel by sea, as reported in Haaretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/
hundreds-of-activists-from-muslim-countries-planning-new-gaza-bound-flotilla-1.317150

West Bank incursionists attack mosque

One sign that the official end of the "freeze" has in fact made a difference is this attempt by Israeli colonists to destroy a West Bank mosque. This one is in a small village near Bethlehem, itself hemmed in by ever-expanding "settlements", but its strategic inconvenience is that it is close to the illegal community of Gush Itzion. There already was a feeling that the hardline Zionists could do what they wanted while Netanyahu's administration was claiming, with little justification, to be exercising restraint in the spread of selective demolition and exclusive new building; now they will feel there is nothing, really, to stop them from repeating the behaviour of some card-carrying Germans in the Thirties towards their Jewish neighbours.

West Bank: no speed limit

There can be no doubt that the Zionist regime has no intention other than to make Palestine into a totalitarian racist state; and the pressure must be on now that its backer, the USA, may not be able to afford to maintain its proxy empire much longer.

Saed Bannoura of IMEMC reports that Israeli army bulldozers uprooted farmlands close to Tiqoua’ “settlement”, built on land stolen from residents of the Tiqoua’ Palestinian village, south east of Bethlehem, in order to build new, exclusively Jewish homes.**

Dozens of “settlers” also placed caravans in Palestinian-owned lands, in and around Al Mas’ha, east of Bethlehem.

Droves of so-called West Bank “settlers” celebrated the end of the temporary “settlements” phoney-freeze on September 30, while the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu declared that 2000 homes for Jewish “settlers” will be built soon in the West Bank.

Rather than pack up and go home as he may well have done, on the 1st October U.S. envoy George Mitchell held yet another futile round of discussions with Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Mitchell’s boss, Barack Obama, has been at pains to appear as one pushing the Zionists to compromise - but there is always the possibility that this is merely a front for laisse-faire, as the US requests are continually undermined by its regular, unequivocal injections of money and armaments to the rogue state.

The gloves are coming off elsewhere on the West Bank: for instance, the infrastructure for four illegal outposts is being constructed around the West Bank city of Hebron.

In an interview with Ma'an Radio on 30th September, Abed Al-Hadi Hantash said the outposts would be integrated to form a new “settlement”, which would be linked with Kiryat Arba, the largest “settlement” in the district.

Combined, the “settlements” would constitute a third of the ancient city of Hebron, which is already surrounded by illegal “settlements”, and where many of the non-Jewish residents must beg for special permits to use their own front doors.

And a half-hour drive east (if you're Jewish/Israeli) or anything from, say, one day to a few weeks away, if you're in the wrong tribe: the Jordan valley has the same mix of dread and destruction. Although it has a third of the West Bank’s water resources, Palestinians have not been allowed to drill wells since 1967, as Michael Jansen writes in the Irish Times*.

“Settlement” crop fields cover the flat land while the incursion homes and military zones are taking over the hills, shrinking yet more valuable Palestinian space.

A broad band of land stretches north to south for 120km behind barbed wire; security roads and minefields line the Jordan river border with the Kingdom of Jordan.

Since occupying East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, Israel has regarded the valley as its eastern border. Israel says it would never withdraw because the valley, 30 per cent of the West Bank (and as such, the agreed part of Palestine alloted to the Palestinians before the ’67 war and also an element of the Two-State Solution which so many UK politicians fool themselves into believing in), functions as a strategic buffer zone.

Since 1967 Israel has built 36 “settlements” and half a dozen military camps here.

Israel has complete control of the valuable resources of the valley which Palestinians insist must belong to their future state. What is left of the larger areas of the ‘free’ West Bank will soon be effectively like Gaza: their function as ‘soft” death camps.

Picture by Palestinian News: Friday - Israeli invaders from the Itamar group in south Nablus burned over ten dunums of olive tree land northeast of Awarta village.

*http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1001/1224280078941.html

**http://www.imemc.org/article/59522

Nobel Peace Laureate still imprisoned by Israel

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire is still imprisoned by Israel and awaiting deportation from the country.

Maguire was arrested after landing at an airport in Tel Aviv. Israeli security officials said that Maguire was arrested and is facing deportation for taking part in the Freedom Flotilla that was heading to Gaza to break the Israeli siege.

She will challenge the deportation order during a hearing at a Tel Aviv Court on Friday.

In June, Maguire was on board the Rachel Corrie solidarity ship, one of many ships part of the Freedom Flotilla that was heading to the besieged Gaza Strip to deliver medical and humanitarian supplies.

The Israeli army violently attacked that Mavi Marmara Turkish aid ship, part of the Freedom Flotilla, killing nine Turkish peace activists.

Israel Detains, Denies Entry to Nobel Laureate, Mairead Maguire

Wednesday September 29, 2010 - 08:11

The Israeli Authorities detained Tuesday Irish Nobel Prize laureate, Mairead Maguire, at the Ben-Gurion International Airport, and refused to allow her into the country.

In 1967, Maguire was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. The Nobel Prize was awarded to her and to Betty Williams.

She flew to Israel on Tuesday morning after a flight from Frankfurt – Germany.

The Nobel Prize laureate was accompanied by a peace delegation of women, including five other Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

Israel previously issued a permanent order banning Maguire from entering the country for her participating in solidarity flotillas sending humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.

She was one of the human rights activists who were on the “Rachel Corrie” solidarity ship that was seized by Israel in May this year.

Judy Williams, an American Nobel Prize recipient, who intended to be part of the delegation with Maguire, stated that preventing entry to Maguire is of a great concern to the people who dedicate their lives for peace.

“The people who dedicate their lives to peace should not be considered a threat to security”, Williams said.

Two years ago, Maguire voiced a sharp criticism to Israel for ignoring all international community resolutions calling for ending Israel’s occupation in Palestine. She also called for removing Israel from the United Nations for its ongoing violations to Human Rights.

Update: 3rd October - An appeal by Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire against her deportation orders over entering Israel has been rejected by a court.

Jewish humanitarian boat to Gaza

The Israeli navy intercepted a catamaran carrying humanitarian aid and nine Jewish activists off the coast of Gaza on Tuesday [28th September] morning, according to the Israel Defence Forces and the mission’s organizers.

The boat was diverted to an Israeli port, according to a post on an official Israeli military blog, headlined, “Provocation Yacht on Its Way to Ashdod Port, Boarded by Israel Navy Without Incident.” On their Web site, JewishBoattoGaza.org, the mission’s organizers said in a statement:
The Irene, a boat carrying nine passengers and aid for Gaza’s population, has been taken over by the Israeli navy and denied access to Gaza. The boat is flying a British flag and its passengers include citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Israel. Two journalists are also on board.

Last contact with the boat’s captain, Glyn Secker, was at 0937 G.M.T., when their path had been cut off by a destroyer. Recent reports from other news sources indicated that the boat has been surrounded and boarded. At this point they were less than 20 miles from Gaza’s shore. Since then all phones went dead.
The occupied Gaza Strip’s territorial waters end 12 nautical miles from shore, but the Israeli blockade is enforced at 20 miles from shore.

Originally posted by Chantal at BGLink.ning

Gratuitous violence during boarding; tasers; cameras stolen; invasive searches at Ashdod - "It's fantastic coming back to amazing support that’s buzzing. I’m overwhelmed with the results I think it was really successful. We made our point to the world very powerfully that there are probably hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world who are appalled at the Israeli policies to the Palestinians; the violations of their humanity and their human rights." - see JewishBoattoGaza.org for updates