BDS | KADAITCHA

January 2, 2011December 11, 2020

This Year, The Illegal, Malicious Israeli Occupation Must End

To those who dwell in Palestine and Israel who oppose injustice and are working in solidarity to end Israel’s cruelty, salutations, and greetings to the people of the world who support their struggle. The appalling death yesterday of Jawaher Abu Rahmah from inhalation of tear gas fired by the Israeli Occupation Forces at a peaceful demonstration in Bil’in protesting the apartheid wall and Israeli land theft is an unwelcome beginning to the year.

The Israeli IOF spokesman attempted to muddy the waters and smear Palestinians by suggesting they created a false story about Jawaher’s death.

An Israeli military statement issued Saturday evening said Palestinians initially reported that Abu Rahmah was released from hospital Friday and died at home. “Subsequently the Palestinians changed their version of events, claiming that she died in the hospital,” the statement continued.

A military spokesman did not immediately know who the Palestinians quoted in the statement were, but said he would look into it.

Bil’in popular committee spokesman Jonathan Pollak said the statement was a “shameless lie aimed at distorting reality.”

Abu Rahmah arrived at the hospital unconscious and doctors were unable to revive her, Pollak said. She did not die because of a lack of medical treatment, but because Israeli forces used a lethal tear gas banned in several European countries, he added.

More IOF lies have bubbled up through the zionist swamp. Jewish Voices for Peace @jvplive tweeted at the time from the protest : “One eye injury and jawaher – sister of bassem who was killed last year at a demo -was taken to the hospital for gas inhalation.”

Journalist Lisa Goldman, who was also present at the protest, has translated Jonathan Pollak’s collection of witness statements.

Ali Abunimah @avinunu also notes on twitter: In report on Jawahir Abu Rahmah BBC World Service just lied that Israel’s wall is “built around the West Bank” (it’s built through it) #

Jawaher’s funeral:

Hundreds of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv also to protest Jawaher’s murder. Lisa Goldman, who was also present at the Bil’in protest, reports:

The demonstration to protest Jawaher’s death by tear gas asphyxiation was announced mid-morning on Saturday, via Facebook and Twitter. Despite the short notice, it attracted at least 200 people. The crowd was sufficiently large to block traffic across from the Ministry of Defense (Kirya) on Kaplan Street, a main traffic artery that connects to the Ayalon Highway.

Waving poster-size mourning posters emblazoned with photos of Jawaher Abu Rahmeh and carrying placards with slogans in Hebrew and English, demonstrators chanted in Hebrew: “Citizens, awake! Fascism is already here!” “Barak! Barak! Minister of Defense! How many demonstrators have you killed today?!” ; in English: “Apartheid! Fight back!”; and in Arabic: “Min Ghaza el Bil’in, hurra hurra Falasteen!” (from Gaza to Bil’in, freedom, freedom for Palestine).

Haaretz notes that former MK Musi Raz is “reportedly arrested and beaten by Israeli police” at the Tel Aviv protest against Jawaher’s murder.

According to Joseph Dana, another participant in the Bil’in protest, there’s a new form of BDS arisen in Israel.

Israeli activists protesting the killing of Bil’in’s Jawaher Abu Rahmah ‘returned’ spent tear gas canisters to the residence of the American ambassador to Israel late Saturday evening.
…
The tear gas used by the Israeli forces in Bil’in is manufactured by Combined Systems Inc.; a United States company based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. This is the first protest where empty tear gas canisters have been returned to an ambassador’s home.

Approximately twenty five Israeli protesters gathered in front of the residence of American ambassador to Israel, James B. Cunningham around 1am local time. The protesters ‘returned’ loads of spent tear gas canisters collected in the West Bank village of Bil’in in protest of the murder of Bil’in’s Jawaher Abu Rahmah. The demonstrators also made noise throughout the Ambassador’s neighborhood informing residents of how American military aid to Israel is being used to kill unarmed and nonviolent demonstrators in the West Bank. They chanted, “one, two, three, four stop the occupation stop the war. Five, six, seven, eight end the funding (US) end the hate.”

Meanwhile, as Israel bombs and terrorises them, the besieged people of Gaza await the arrival of the Asia to Gaza convoy.

Egypt yesterday gave permission for the Asia to Gaza Caravan — or Asia1 — to pass through Egypt to Gaza, according to Khaled Abdel Megid, a member of the Palestinian National Congress.

He said the Egyptian embassy in Damascus informed the convoy of the permit that allows only 120 activists entry to Egypt and then Gaza. It denied entry to 46 activists from Iran and Jordan.

Egypt will not allow 10 generators donated by the Iranians to enter to the besieged Gaza Strip. This will decrease the size of the humanitarian aid convoy to below 300 tons, which will be limited to food and medical aid in addition to toys, according to Abdel-Meguid.

The Asia to Gaza Caravan consists of approximately 160 people from more than 15 countries, including Iran, India, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Kuwait. It was scheduled to reach Gaza by 27 December, in time for the second anniversary of Israel’s 22-day war on the Strip that started on 28 December 2008.

Approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed and 5,000 injured or maimed in the three-week war. Half of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed and remains unrepaired as a result of Israel’s siege, which includes a ban on the entry of building materials into the Strip.

The time has come for justice, an end to the lies and crimes of those who consider themselves privileged and above others, who maintain their privilege by stepping on and stealing from those whom they oppress. Justice is for all, equal rights are for all. Please boycott, sanction and divest from apartheid Israel until the Occupation is ended and Palestinians have attained their just rights.

Happy new year to everyone! I am blessed with the best online friends one could imagine, sources of joy, knowledge and companionship largely absent from the elitist, white-privileged area of Queensland, Australia in which I live. Thank you 🙂

UPDATE January 7

From Mondoweiss:

It may be a nonlethal weapon, but tear gas can have serious effects. A 2003 article published by four Israeli army doctors in Archives of Toxicology noted that CS gas — the type used by the IDF at these protests — causes tearing and burning for about 15 to 30 minutes, and this is lessened if people are moved into fresh air. The army has insisted on the safety of CS beyond these immediate effects. But the Israeli army doctors’ article noted, “At high concentrations, enclosed spaces, or prolonged exposures, severe side effects may occur and human deaths from lacrimating [tearing] agents have been reported.”

A 2009 article in the British Medical Journal came to similar conclusions, noting that tear gas is “not a gas at all, but a toxic chemical irritant.”

Palestine / Israel Links

Bilin protestor’s mother ‘not seeking revenge’
Gazan youth issue manifesto to vent their anger with all sides in the conflict
Demonstrators ‘return’ tear gas canisters to US ambassador home over the killing of a Bil’in protester
The teargas grenades that killed Jawaher Abu Rahmah were most likely ‘made in the USA’
Hundreds rally in Tel Aviv to protest Bil’in woman’s death
Police clash with leftists at Tel Aviv demonstration of Bil’in protester’s death
Gazans face cooking gas shortage
WikiLeaks cable: UN Goldstone resolution: NZ is watching Europe
Army investigating death of Bil’in protester
Protesters Breached the Wall in Bil’in
The first martyr of 2011 and where we go from here
Abbas: Latest Palestinian death another Israeli crime against our helpless nation
Israeli Forces Kill Female Protester in Bil’in
IMAGES: funeral of Bil’in protester Jawaher abu Rahmah
The death of Jawaher Abu-Rahma is a direct result of occupation and the inhumane violence and brutality against the nonviolent demonstrators in Bilin
Settlers set fire to home as seven Palestinians sleep inside
Sister of Bilin victim dies in anti-fence protest
How many israeli police officers does it take to guard a locked door? Four…
Report: U.S. in secret talks with Syria over peace accord with Israel
Use this site to know which Israeli products to boycott 🙂
What options exist for Netanyahu next time on the high seas?
An open letter from Gaza to Thomas Quasthoff: Do not Forget the Gaza Concentration Camp and “Tell It like It Is!”
NY Times Isabel Kershner Wasn’t At Bil’in Demo–But Still Wrongly Reports On It
More Israeli lies : Israel says direct negotiations best path to peace
Boston says: Break the Siege of Gaza!
Holocaust survivors warn of stirrings of neo-fascism
Israeli forces arrest 2 children in Jerusalem
WikiLeaks: Israel has only 12-minute warning if Iran attacks
Netanyahu Wants Nonstop Talks With Palestinians

Wikileaks Links

The Anti-Empire Report Wikileaks, the United States, Sweden, and Devil’s Island
Coming to terms with the information age : Mark Pesce
On the double-o licence of the powerful
Announcing ScienceLeaks
Invasion of privacy in Paraguay : US Collects DNA And Data On Foreign Presidential Candidates
US government knew about human experiments : Pfizer tested drugs on children
Tortured Until Proven Guilty: Bradley Manning and the Case Against Solitary Confinement
My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website
WikiLeaks, Ideological Legitimacy and the Crisis of Empire
Wikileaks: Israel preparing for ‘large scale war’

Other Links

Egypt church bombing: Why some point to Al Qaeda-linked group
Who is Behind The Alexandria Explosion !!?
Fahem Boukadous and Tunisia’s War on Press Freedoms
US at War Since 1950: A New Year’s Meditation

December 28, 2010August 24, 2022

The Death Throes of Israel’s Tyranny

Let’s count the triumphs for justice from the grassroots up – the bands, musicians, authors, filmmakers, speakers, unions, societies, academics, universities, cooperatives and corporations who have said NO to the iniquity of Israeli apartheid and genocide. Salute to the flash mobs in department stores and on the streets, activists in the weekly resistance protests at Bi’lin, Ni’lin, Nabih Saleh, Sheik Jarrah and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories and the courageous flotillas to Gaza.

Emphatic solidarity for Palestinian human rights resounds across social networks and blogs – boycotts, divestments and sanctions are burgeoning throughout the world despite the pernicious ziocolonial hasbara proliferated by Israel and its reactionary ziolobby groups. In the mainstream media too, there has been progress, with publication of high profile stories of Palestinian resistance and solidarity, peaceful flotillas to break Israel’s evil, illegal siege on Gaza, powerful visions for the only real solution – one state and support for BDS.

Ending the apartheid of South Africa took 34 years from 1960 to 1994, yet since 2005 when boycotts, divestments and sanctions were declared by Palestinian civil society, progress toward the end of racist Israel’s crimes against humanity is accelerating far more rapidly. Hanging on by a thread to their ethnosupremacist dreams, Israel’s vile leaders are increasingly dismayed, attempting desperately to hide their abominations behind the deceitful canard of ‘self-defence’, counter-productively ramping up oppression, land theft and ethnic cleansing.

Yet with every spiteful conniption, denial of responsibility for atrocities, new fascist law, repressive act toward human rights activists, torture of prisoners and detainment of peaceful resistance leaders, Israel’s repellent tyranny moves closer to self-extinction. Apartheid Israel is delegitimising itself, its cheerleaders and their supporters are caught in the paradox of fascism, unaware they are active participants who embrace an oppressor state as “normal”. In our irrevocably connected world, this paradox is unsustainable. The fulfillment of the Palestinian peoples’ legitimate claims are now within reach.

Let’s continue to hold the banner for justice high, intensify boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israeli apartheid, and remember Gandhi’s prescient words:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.”

Palestine / Israel Links

Make no mistake – Israelis have always been racist
‘Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to lawyers’
The invisible Palestinian liberation struggle
Ayalon Prison: Inmate commits suicide, then disappears
Israeli military targets Palestinian paramedics during clashes
GAZA: TWO YEARS AFTER THE HORROR – BY HAIDAR EID
Gaza Two Years Later: A little girl
Ethnic cleansing in Silwan
Karma – Racist Grinch ‘We’ll have No Christmas trees here’ Upper Nazareth mayor arrested on graft charge
PM: Israel won’t apologize to Turkey for Gaza flotilla raid
Activism roundup: world to commemorate Gaza massacre anniversary
Right-wing Israelis parade through East Jerusalem sparking clashes
Israel Set To Build And Market 5000 Units In East Jerusalem and the West Bank
Gaza families recall horror two years after Israel’s assault
ISRAEL: Neighbors watchful as Israel demarcates maritime borders with Cyprus
Palestine: Gaza aftermath – Photos
Israeli secret service targets Israeli BDS organizers, claiming “terrorist activity”
The Gaza “Cast Lead” Massacre
Iran, Syria stress support for resistance
20 Israeli contractors for construction of Rawabi effectively join settlements BDS
A Provocative Blueprint for Peace in the Mideast

Palestinians Reject Piecemeal Talks offered by Israel
Israeli navy tracks ship carrying aid for Gaza
Thug Lieberman has taken over the Israeli government
Britain risks Israeli anger by extending diplomatic recognition to Palestinians (why should the UK care about risking Israeli anger?)
BDS 2010: More Powerful Than the Sword
Nutanyahoo’s number 1 & racist demand for negotiations – that Israel be recognised as a jewish state
Israel disregards its legal obligation towards civilians, including patients in Gaza [Al Mezan]
Gaza Rubble and Scrap Collectors – Deliberate Attacks and Lack of Protection
The power of the alliance between Netanyahu and the religious extremists is an invitation to a dramatic change. But anyone who lifts their eyes from the peas scattered on the floor will see that a forest greater than Birnam Wood can move.

Wikilinks

Zimbabwe: Wikileaks Could Quicken Demise of GNU
Open letter to those inciting murder upon Julian Assange and/or members of his family
Morgan Tsvangirai faces possible Zimbabwe treason charge
Jailed Soldier Has Support of Resisters
The Embarrassment of the Wikileaks Links – cartoon
Belarus Updates: How Many Thousands Protested on 19 December?
Robert Fisk: WikiLeaks exposed US and Hillary’s hopelessness
The unofficial Wikileaks metawiki
Game Changer – Why Wikileaks will be the death of big business and big government.
The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired

Other Links

Dick Cheney’s $250-Million ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card
While it’s been raining cats and dogs here in Jinland and we’re cut off from anywhere, at least we haven’t had to chance the perils of a long car trip to nowhere. Derek Barry takes us for a ride through the floods of Queensland
Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010
The Rise and Rise of Super Fascism
Hitchens on Kissinger
The Norwegian government’s controversial but arguably predictable decision to buy new fighter jets from its most important ally, the US, has been hit with another major cost issue. Documents leaked to WikiLeaks and reported in newspaper Aftenposten indicate the price tag has jumped by 66 percent and may cost Norwegian taxpayers another NOK 12 billion.
The JSF program sets new benchmarks for exceeding initially intended Unit Procurement Costs in a weapon system being developed.

December 27, 2010December 11, 2020

Two Years Later, Israeli Cast Lead War Criminals Elude Justice

Accompanying an alarming metastasis of racism within Israel, baleful, triumphalist zionist rhetoric directed at the defenceless people of the Gaza gulag is building ominously once more.

The scenario for the next round is unfolding in front of our eyes and it resembles depressingly the same deterioration that preceded the massacre of Gaza two years ago: daily bombardment on the Strip and a policy that tries to provoke Hamas so that more expanded assaults would be justified. As one general explained, there is now a need to take into account the damaging effect of the Goldstone report: namely the next major attack should look more plausible than the 2009 one (but this concern may not be that crucial to this particular government; nor would it serve as an obstacle).

Today, on the anniversary of the commencement of Israel’s attack of the people of Gaza, many of us reflect on the events of two years ago in mourning and regret that its criminal progenitors have eluded justice, courtesy of the largesse and impunity lent by Israel’s blinkered, biased imperial benefactor, the US and its bevy of colonialist toadies, including Australia.

Then acting Australian PM Julia Gillard disgracefully cheerled the Israeli massacre:

Israel’s attack upon Gaza was met with a curious indifference by most of the so-called leaders of Western nations. As acting Prime Minister of Australia at the time, the ill-informed Julia Gillard refused to criticise, let alone condemn the actions of Israel. Supposedly speaking on behalf of the Australian people, she said: “Australia recognises the right of Israel to defend itself.” That comment was made on the third of January 2009, by which time it was widely known that 430 Gazans had already been killed and 2,300 wounded in 750 individual strikes carried out by air and by sea over the previous five days.

The Cast Lead massacre was committed with malice aforethought on an imprisoned Gaza population of 1.5 million people, 55% of whom were under the age of 18 years. Israel broke its truce with Hamas on November 5th, 2008 although there had been no actual Hamas rockets during the ceasefire. Nor had Israel cooperated with the spirit if not actual terms of the truce by easing its illegal blockade. Israel automagically, conveniently blames Hamas for any rockets fired from the oppressed Gazan sliver of land. In revenge, Israel inflicts ongoing indiscriminate collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza, whom it has now incarcerated for 1,293 days.

Yet the truce was working, as during the final couple of months, there were practically no rockets fired from Gaza at all. After breaking the truce ,.Israel refused to renew it, even though Hamas expressed its willingness to renegotiate provided the siege was eased. Israel attacked on the 27th December, 2008. During the 22 infamous days of Operation Cast Lead, Israel killed 1417 Palestinian people, 352 of whom were children.

Flaunting the Geneva Conventions, Israel fiendishly, illegally targeted and destroyed ambulances, hospitals, schools, universities, the sole electric power and sewerage plants, chicken farms, dairy farms, crops, trees, police stations, homes and whole villages. Israel made around 50,000 Gazans homeless during winter, then for 18 months after the end of its 22 day attack, malevolently disallowed materials for rebuilding to enter Gaza. Two years later:

Israel has so far only approved the import of materials for 25 UNRWA[2] construction projects for schools and clinics, a mere seven per cent of UNRWA’s entire reconstruction plan for Gaza. Even for these approved projects, only a small fraction of the required construction materials have actually been permitted to enter Gaza so far.

More generally, says the report, the UN has estimated that Gaza needs 670,000 truckloads of construction materials for housing alone in Gaza. An average of only 715 truckloads of construction materials have entered the Gaza Strip per month since the ‘easing’ announcement, says the report. At this rate, it would take many decades to build the needed homes. And because UNRWA has been unable to get construction materials to build new schools, 40,000 eligible children could not be enrolled at UN schools at the start of the new academic year.

“Only a fraction of the aid needed has made it to the civilians trapped in Gaza by the blockade”, said Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam International. “Israel’s failure to live up to its commitments and the lack of international action to lift the blockade are depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, electricity, jobs and a peaceful future.”

Altogether in the Occupied Territories, between 29th September, 2000 and 30th November, 2010, around 1313 Palestinian children have been slaughtered by Israeli security forces, according to B’TSelem.

According to an Al Mezan report from December 2010, over 21,000 people remain displaced two years after the end of Operation Cast Lead. Israel has committed more grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147) as

careful documentation indicates that the IOF destroyed at least 1,723 shelters after the end of hostilities when they had come under Israel’s effective control. These shelters could not be deemed military objectives. Nor were they near any other legitimate military targets. Their destruction was therefore illegal, violating fundamental international humanitarian law principles, and amounting to war crimes.

Thanks to rejection by the credulous zionist sycophants in the US congress of the painstaking research within the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report into Cast Lead war crimes, Israeli war criminals responsible for the planning and execution of the heinous Cast Lead massacre still walk free, with no justice attained for, nor compensation paid to Israel’s civilian victims.

‘Despite its listing count after count of international law contraventions, Israeli “war crimes” and “possible crimes against humanity,” the European Union, the United Nations, the Red Cross, and all major Human Rights Organizations have called for an end to the illegal, medieval siege, it carries on unabated. On 11th November 2010 UNRWA head John Ging said, “There’s been no material change for the people on the ground here in terms of their status, the aid dependency, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction, no economy…The easing, as it was described, has been nothing more than a political easing of the pressure on Israel and Egypt.’

Though the resistance of Palestinians who endure it is unflinching, and international boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israeli apartheid and occupation are flourishing, Israel’s pitiless, illegal siege remains.

Israel’s harvest from its vindictive, cruel folly is bitter – as Nelson Mandela said, “A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he’s locked behind bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.” Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their freedom. How much hatred, prejudice and narrow-mindedness imprisons Israel?

Palestinians deserve long overdue justice to be brought to their oppressors, for the hideous illegal siege to be lifted completely and for Israel’s aggression and expansionism to end. Join the #Gaza2 Campaign on twitter and post on your blog to remind the people of Palestine that neither they nor the calamities and evils inflicted on them during Operation Cast Lead by Israel and its collaborators are forgotten.

Palestine / Israel Links

The toxic downfall of the Jewish dream of a safe homeland
An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice
Israel’s image campaign a facade
Israeli foreign minister: Peace deal ‘impossible,’ ‘forbidden’
Dennis Ross Bats For Netanyahu
Hillary’s Envoy : Not Everyone is Cheering
New Mossad Chief Makes Nice to Brits
In Pictures: the slaughter of Gazan children – Victims of the Israeli occupation forces in the tenth day of their attacks on Gaza Strip – January 5, 2009
The drums of war are heard again in Israel
Davuto?lu blames Israel for failure to mend ties
And What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Gaza? Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People
Sorry, ‘Mother Jones’ but you’re piping the Israeli narrative of Gaza ‘war’
How long will American Jews deny this crushing reality?
Rabbi threatens civil war if settlements are evacuated
IDF warns troops: Facebook can bring terrorists to you
Jewish activist faces jail for West Bank resistance
Nomads No More: Israel evicts Indigenous Bedouins for more sterile racist settlements
Groundbreaking report details Israel’s inhumane conditions for isolated prisoners
UK considers recognizing PA diplomats
Palestinian group launches ‘Gaza Holocaust’ website
Another Gaza war?
Vigil outside the Israeli embassy in London to mark the second anniversary of the start of Operation Cast Lead
“To shoot an elephant” is an eye witness account from The Gaza Strip. December 27th, 2008, Operation Cast Lead. 21 days shooting elephants. Urgent, insomniac, dirty, shuddering images from the only foreigners who decided and managed to stay embedded inside Gaza strip ambulances, with Palestinian civilians.
The Gaza massacre and the struggle for justice
Suheir Hammad: 2. Rafah
Stuttgart Declaration
An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice
Operation Cast Lead 2 Years On
Leftist Yonatan Pollak sentenced to 3 months in jail
Shin Bet puts Israeli ‘anarchists’ in crosshairs
Israeli activist sentenced to 3 months in prison for protesting Gaza war

Wikileaks Links

WikiLeaks founder baffled by sex assault claims
THE WIKILEAKS NEWS & VIEWS BLOG, Special Holiday Weekend Edition!
Saving Private Manning
Beyond WikiLeaks: The Privatization of War
Austria and the WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
WikiLeaks tells why drug king is still free
Wikileaks: State Department Lied, Denying Dubai Asked for Assistance in Tracking Mossad Assassins
Wikileaks cables have revealed a disturbing development in the African uranium mining industry: abysmal safety and security standards in the mines, nuclear research centres, and border customs are enabling international companies to exploit the mines and smuggle dangerous radioactive material across continents.
EX-CIA SPOOK CALLS FOR “COVERT ACTION” VS. ASSANGE
WikiLeaks may spawn new sedition act

Other Links

Afghanistan denounces deadly NATO-led raid
America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane
Can Gillard Last?

December 22, 2010August 24, 2022

Witchhunts of Human Rights Activists : a Symptom of Serious US Malaise

Managing Editor of the excellent Electronic Intifada, Maureen Murphy, has been served by the FBI with a summons to appear before a US Grand Jury.

The FBI came unannounced to knock on doors at two apartments in Chicago this morning. FBI agent Robert Parker, under orders from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, delivered a subpoena to Maureen Murphy. Murphy, like several other individuals served subpoenas, is an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago.

This continues the repression unleashed by Fitzgerald on the anti-war movement since September 24th, when fourteen subpoenas were delivered to anti-war, labor, and solidarity activists in coordinated raids involving more than 70 federal agents. Armed FBI agents raided homes, taking computers, phones, passports, documents, notebooks, and even children’s artwork. A total of 23 subpoenas have been served to activists around the country.

Maureen Murphy said, “Along with several others, I am being summoned to appear before the Grand Jury on Tuesday, January 25th, in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. We are being targeted for the work we do to end U.S. funding of the Israeli occupation, ending the war in Afghanistan and ending the occupation of Iraq. What is at stake for all of us is our right to dissent and organize to change harmful US foreign policy.” Ms. Murphy is also the Managing Editor of the widely-read website, The Electronic Intifada.

In addition, three women in Minneapolis – Tracy Molm, Anh Pham, and Sara Martin – are threatened with reactivated subpoenas by Fitzgerald’s office and new Grand Jury dates. Tom Burke of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression explained, “It is likely the three individuals, like all the others so far, will continue to refuse to take part in Fitzgerald’s witch hunt. Fitzgerald can then call for putting them in jail as long as he wants.”

For more information: www.stopfbi.net

Contact: Tom Burke, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, 773-844-3612

On the 20th December, Electronic Intifada reprinted a United States Palestinian Community Network press release in support of US Palestinian activists and other community activists harassed by the FBI.

Since 24 September, the FBI has raided seven Chicago and Minneapolis homes of activists and has served a total of 19 federal subpoenas across the Midwest. The targeted citizens are outspoken community organizers and students critical of US policy in Colombia, Palestine and the Middle East.

The grand jury and FBI are seeking evidence that connects the 19 activists and their “potential co-conspirators” to US-designated “terrorist organizations.” Five of the nineteen activists being targeted are Palestinian-Americans whose only crime is working tirelessly to inform fellow citizens of the realities of Israeli occupation. None of the 19 has been charged with a crime, and all deny providing material support, including money, to any foreign organization. These activists are shining examples of courage and fortitude, ordinary citizens doing the extraordinary work of building knowledge and support for justice and a common humanity

Federal harassment of our communities and associational life has grown precipitously during the last decade, as Arabs, Muslims and their allies continue to be persecuted for their lawful and necessary civic engagement. This suppression of civil rights and free speech seeks to criminalize and quell civic activism undertaken in support of Palestinian and other oppressed peoples’ struggles against US-funded occupation and war. This harassment must stop.

The United States Palestinian Community Network stands in full support of our brothers and sisters unjustly targeted by the federal government.

We assert our determination and commitment to challenge our government’s policies, both here and abroad, and will continue to defend the rights of Palestinians, our allies, and all those struggling against oppression. The USPCN upholds the constitutional right of Americans to dissent without fear of persecution, and the rights of peace and justice organizations to organize, educate, and assemble, free and unbridled.

We call upon all USPCN local chapters, members and fellow citizens, to join existing local and national efforts organized by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (http://www.stopfbi.net).

Do not be intimidated, we struggle together. Continue to speak your conscience, continue to educate, and continue to organize. Justice will prevail.

It is beyond reprehensible that the US is witchhunting honourable people who stand up for truth and justice for oppressed people. What next? Star chambers and kangaroo courts for Electronic Intifada subscribers? How can YOU help? Firstly:

@Maureen_70 : if you think the FBI shouldn’t be messing with activists be sure to call US Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald (312-353-5300) and say so #stopfbi #

Secondly, donate to Electronic Intifada so the truth can continue to ring out clearly above a cacophony of base, repressive dross.

Next, subscribe and donate to the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.

These loathsome US measures are signs of the empire’s moral bankruptcy and desperation. When the state is challenged, when truth is spoken to power, the state devolves to authoritarianism, with FBI actions being “reminiscent of the agency’s COINTELPRO program of the 1950s and 1960s that targeted Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Black Panther leaders, among many others”.

“To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.” – Edward Gibbon, “Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Chapter 3

Wikilinks

Transcript: The Assange interview – abominable interview by the increasingly popularist BBC
Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?
WikiLeaks’ Assange fires back at The Guardian to competitor
I receive death threats from US soldiers: Assange
WikiLeaks cables: Iraq security firms operate ‘mafia’ to inflate prices
Julian Assange defends decision not to face questioning in Sweden
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange issues threat and complains about … leaks
Nothing in the Wikileaks documents? Please
Assange Responds To Time Naming Zuckerberg Person of the Year
WikiLeaks cables: Bangladeshi ‘death squad’ trained by UK government
WikiLeaks cables: Lamb sales behind New Zealand’s ‘flap’ with Israel
WikiLeaks cables: McDonald’s used US to put pressure on El Salvador
Cablegate And Sudan : $ 9 billion Man !!
US embassy cables: US anger over Fahrenheit 9/11 screening at New Zealand Labour Party fundraiser
CIA launches task force to assess impact of U.S. cables’ exposure by WikiLeaks WTF!!
Reporters Without Borders to host mirror site for WikiLeaks
Rundle: the trouble with being Assange
WikiLeaks cables: Vatican vetoed Holocaust memorial over Pius XII row
Rundle: police procedures ignored in Assange interviews
WikiLeaks and the Secrets that Deceive
Raw Story report confirmed: Bank of America is Wikileaks’ target
WikiLeaks and Turkey
The #Wikileaks Forums
Yours Obediently, Europe

Australian Wikilinks and other Australian Links

Haneef settlement figure kept under wraps

Palestine / Israel Links

The smoking cable: Israel said it had ’secret accord’ with U.S. over expanding settlements even as Obama said in Cairo they must stop!
FBI delivers subpoenas to four more anti-war, solidarity activists as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald Expands Witch Hunt
Has racism become acceptable?
Israeli arms firm to benefit from EU-funded research
Israel Effectively Denies Palestinian Victims of Operation Cast Lead Access to Justice: PCHR files petition to Israeli Supreme Court
“Guys, I just totally raped this student chick!”

Hundreds in Tel Aviv call for deportation of foreign workers, refugees
Israeli Intransigence Lets BDS Into the Mainstream
Israeli MK meets Austrian far right chief; irks local Jews
Arabs: Political environment to blame for attacks
NYT vs. WaPo on Life in Gaza
How to spend 40 years morally corrupting a society
Limited Judaisation – changes to racist Knesset Bill – ‘The sponsors have agreed that the bill will be limited to communities comprising up to 400 families, down from 500 in the original proposal. In addition, it will apply only in the Negev and Galilee, and not throughout the country. ‘
Thirteen-year-old Sentenced to 21 Days House Arrest in Jerusalem
Israel to blame for deadlock in Mideast peace talks : Erdogan is only half right – the US is primarily to blame because of its stupid policies which support Israel at the expense of Palestinian rights
Palestinian refugees: Israel’s demographic policy and right of return
Deck London’s Walls with Bethlehem’s Calls
Migrants fearful after rally
PSCC Media Coordinator May Face Prison for Riding a Bicycle
Human rights NGO monitoring Palestinians’ legal rights gets robbed of internal use documents

Other Links

5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam
Richard Holbrooke: A Statesman’s Statesman — if You Take Your Diplomacy Straight up Without Principles as a Chaser
Obama wants to keep suspects in jail for as long as he wants
How Energy Use Dwarfs the Power of Facebook and Twitter
In a big antiwar piece, Mearsheimer dares to say ‘why they hate us’
Spanish Legislature Rejects Hollywood-Backed Copyright Law Changes
Terrorist by Association : The Justice Department targets nonviolent solidarity activists
Guantánamo Prisoners Sacrificed in Political Horse-Trading
Why Turkey is not turning Islamist
Turkey and Syria aim to change region’s destiny
Christmas Sweater Club Punished At Local High School – US insanity
UN capitulation to Colombo criminals

UPDATE ON THE WITCHHUNTS

Standing together against US government witch hunt
Statement from Palestine solidarity activist Maureen Murphy on receiving a subpoena
Flashpoints: U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald Expands his Witch Hunt against anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists in the Chicago area. We will speak to one of those who was subpoenaed by the FBI. Also Obama takes executive action in support of indefinite detentions without trial, of so-called enemy Combatants
FBI Expands Probe into Antiwar Activists

December 21, 2010August 24, 2022

Friends of the People, Enemies of the Apartheid State

Gal Lugassi is an Israeli conscientious objector, a member of the Shiministim, an activist with the Anarchist Against the Wall action group, and the Boycott! from Within group. She also volunteers at the Coalition of Women for Peace and with the Who Profits project.

Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) is a direct action group that was established in 2003 in response to the construction of the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. The group works in cooperation with Palestinians in a joint popular struggle against the occupation.

Since its formation, the group has participated in hundreds of demonstrations and direct actions against the wall specifically, and the occupation generally, all over the West Bank. All of AATW’s work in Palestine is coordinated through villages’ local popular committees and is essentially Palestinian led.

Wikileaks Links

The government’s one-way mirror
Essays by Julian Assange
The Deleuzian Philosophy of Julian Assange – ‘Assange’s philosophy – and WikiLeaks as an organisation – is perhaps one of the purest manifestations of a Deleuzian political movement ever to come into existence (Deleuze referred to such a political movement as a ‘War Machine‘).’
Rundle: police procedures ignored in Assange interviews
Bradley Manning is a hero
WikiLeaks hints at Israeli-Palestinian cooperation
Daniel Elsberg on Bradley Manning mp3
WikiLeaks cables: Syria believed Israel was behind sniper killing
Rundle: time for WikiLeaks to announce a process — autonomous, at that
WikiLeaks cables: How US ‘second line of defence’ tackles nuclear threat

Australian Wikilinks

Mid-East peace: a time to speak – ‘Rudd made a distasteful joke about Menachem Begin carrying out ”some interior redesign” of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel – referring to a terrorist bombing in 1946 that killed 91 people. Has Rudd really has got it as a diplomat? ‘

Palestine / Israel Links

In cases of vandalizing or destroying property, no charges are pressed in 100 percent of the incidents.
The occupation testimonies: The brutalization of the IDF – Yossi Gurvitz reviews the Breaking the Silence Diaries
African Asylum Seekers in Israel – Israel’s planned new ghetto within a ghetto
Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru are expected to recognize the state of Palestine with its borders prior to 1967, following the recent announcements from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and last week Bolivia, according to Palestine sources.
One Democracy ONE STATE News and Opinion Dec 2010
Local Australian council to boycott #Israel – supported by Greens, Labor & independent councillors
Asia aid convoy signals increased support for Gaza
Israel, duplicitous & pathetic – Castigating Global Activism as ‘Lawfare’
Israeli warplanes raid Gaza
Growing worldwide solidarity with Palestine
IOA scheme to build 130 housing units in OJ endorsed
“Israel’s orgy of racism and fascism”
Boycott roundup: activists mark holidays with boycott carols & victories
High-speed train project to entrench occupation
How Europe aids the occupation: David Cronin interviewed
The Great Islamophobic Crusade

Other Links

Can I Quote You on Your Hidden Agenda, Defense Wonk?