Tag: international law

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Stanley Jordan, Please Respect the Boycott of Israel

Stanley JordanDear Stanley Jordan,

We are aware that you, Kenwood Dennard and Alex Blake, are slated to play at the Eilat Red Sea Jazz Festival in January, 2013, and wish to persuade you to reconsider and cancel. In 2005, Palestinian civil society called for boycott as a principled tactic to achieve justice and the rights denied to them by Israel. SInce then, prominent musicians such as Elvis Costello, Roger Waters, Cat Power, Cassandra Wilson and many others have responded in solidarity and with vocal support. The Portico Quartet has already cancelled their performance at Eilat. A letter sent to the director of the band said that “the decision to cancel the arrival of the ensemble Israel stems directly from the Israeli government’s decision to build 3,000 housing units in E1”.

The call to boycott is made to people of conscience across the globe because governments have refused or been unable to act to implement justice guaranteed to Palestinian people under international law. The Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is similar to the effective means employed by anti-apartheid activists to end South African apartheid. Noted anti-apartheidists like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Alan Boesak, Ronnie Kasrils and others have stated that the apartheid practised by Israel is far worse than that which they experienced in South Africa.

As you observe in your NLP studies, while music can be employed as a healing tool, 65 years of music have not healed Israel’s constant oppression of the Palestinians and denial of their basic human rights. Music has not helped to end the criminal occupation of Palestinian lands, to allow equal rights for all in Israel and to recognise the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. Israel continues to steal Palestinian land and prevent the Palestinian people from attaining self-determination, while pretending to be for ‘peace’ under the pretext of interminable negotiations, ‘security’ and ‘the right to defend itself’.

In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry specifically denoted all culture as propaganda, a means to obscure Israel’s oppression, to anaesthetise its first class citizens from the results of their state’s actions, to dehumanise Palestinians and send a false message to the world that all is normal. Musicians who breach the boycott are used to promote these lies and are flaunted on Israel’s propaganda sites to bolster excuses for ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Portico Quartet supports BDS
Portico Quartet announcement of support for BDS – http://www.facebook.com/porticoquartetmusic/posts/10152308885645234

Please do not compromise yourself and your music by being appropriated and used in this way against a moral right. Music can move the spirit of the planet, yet it can also drown out the cries of oppressed people.

As the powerful entity in this grossly unequal situation, Israel intends to dominate the message, and sees all criticism of its crimes as delegitimising. Nevertheless, the truth about its oppression is beginning to ring out clearly. You can assist Palestinian people in gaining their rights by choosing to do no harm to their chosen tactic of resistance – please cancel, and stand in solidarity with the voiceless who rely upon those who can use their voice to support their just cause.

Best regards

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel

We are a group of 950 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians and other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel. This is essential in order to work towards justice for the Palestinian people under occupation, and also in refugee camps and in the diaspora throughout the world.

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Solidarity with the Palestinian People of Gaza

Monique Buckner reports on Israel’s recent 8 day attack of the people of Gaza, who have now been besieged for over 2000 days.

The Palestinian people of Gaza have been devastated by Israel’s latest attack, which has killed 158 people, 33 of whom were children. Palestinians are still dying from injuries.

The Gaza Strip is an area of 141 square miles, occupied by Israel since 1967, along the Mediterranean coast bordering Israel and Egypt and comprising 8 refugee camps with 80% of its inhabitatnts being the refugees and their descendants of the ethnic cleansing of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from what became Israel. More than half the 1.7 million population of Gaza are children. Gaza has been under a relentless blockade since June 2007, which many legal experts have deemed ‘collective punishment’ which is illegal under international law. As UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk has described the blockade as a crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law. Living under blockade, Gaza’s population has still not recovered from Israel’s previous offensive which has led to further impoverishment and homelessness or internal displacement, insufficient hospital care, food insecurity to the point that 80% rely on food aid, an unavailability of essential life-saving medications, shortages of fuel, a lack of building materials, especially to rebuild or repair after ‘Cast Lead’ and insufficient clean, safe drinking water, leading to ‘blue baby syndrome’. Israel has admitted to engineering the Gazan economy to be on the brink of collapse and often cuts electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip. In fact, the World Health Organisation says that by 2020, Gaza will probably be completely uninhabitable. As Israel is the occupying power with full responsibilty for the well-being of the occupied, it has legal obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the neglect of this making Israeli leaders guilty of violations of humanitarian law and human rights.

Israel’s ‘counting of calories’ has led to the stunting of children’s growth and development due to nutrient and calorie deficiency (10%) and chronic anaemia in pregnant women, among other health problems.

Theories abound concerning the true cause of Israel’s latest attack on Gaza. One is that Israel wanted to prevent the Palestinian bid for UN recognition as a ‘UN non-observer state’, which might open the way for the Palestinian people to pursue legal actions against Israeli politicians and officials for war crimes. Some have speculated that this latest offensive was to test the Iron Dome missile defense shield in preparation for future wars. Another theory is that the Israeli elections are in January and Netanyahu will gain popularity by spilling blood with his hawkish behaviour. Indeed, 91% of Israelis in one poll supported the offensive against Gaza. Eerily, Israeli elections also succeeded the Cast Lead massacre. “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages,” says Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Yisrael Katz, the Minister of Transport, used colonial imagery and mentality to explain how Palestinians should be “hunted down as one hunts wild, dangerous animals.” Also see the violent racist and homophobic chants in Tel Aviv.

Dr Gershon Baskin, an Israeli negotiator and human rights activist, has noted that Israel spoiled a permanent truce agreement that had been on the table. Just hours before the truce was finalised, Ahmed Jabari was assassinated. This permanent truce could have resulted in Gaza being opened and the economy boosted as a result, but Israel does not want self-determination for the people of Gaza and the Palestinians in general.

From 2004 – 2012, a total of twenty-six Israeli civilians have been killed by Gazan rocket attacks, which are a symptom rather than a cause of Israeli aggression and truce violations. On 4 November, the Israeli army shot dead an unarmed and mentally-ill man who had wandered into the buffer-zone, an area created by Israel that has taken a third of Gaza’s arable land. Any person (including children, and even animals), who wanders into this area, is killed by Israeli soldiers.

For the timeline of Israel’s latest attack on the people of Gaza, see these two sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kanwisher/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611.html and http://imeu.net/news/article0023227.shtml

Under international law, occupied people have a legal right to defend themselves, as long as civilians are not targeted, which constitutes war crimes. Israel manufactures ‘justifications’ for targeting civilian infrastructure (also a war crime).

The death of 12 members of the al-Dalu family spanning four generations, including 5 children, is an indication of how civilians have been targeted by Israel in so-called ‘wrong house’ episodes.

In one of the most densely populated areas on earth where the civilian population is trapped under a blockade with no bomb shelters, there is no refuge for Gazans, let alone anti-missile defences. In contrast to Israeli military capability, Gaza has no army, navy or airforce with which to defend itself, and the destructive power and range of their missiles paints an obvious David and Goliath narrative when comparisons with Israel are made. Taking this into perspective, it is easy to conclude just who is a very real, not merely an existential threat to whom.

Actions to take for Gaza and Palestine in general

1) Boycott Israeli products, such as Teva medicines and Tivall vegetarian products. Always read labels at the supermarket.

http://www.bigcampaign.org/the-palestinian-call/

Join in solidarity with the BDS movement.

2) Donate now:

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) responded immediately to the crisis caused by Israeli air, tank and naval strikes, working with local hospitals, doctors and nurses to ensure they have the supplies they need to treat the casualties. Medical Aid for Palestinians works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. Medical Aid for Palestinians is an international, non-governmental, independent, non-political, non-religious organisation established in 1984.

Online: www.map.org.uk
Mobile: Text 70070 with the phrase
“GAZA10 £10”. This will donate £10 and will be added to your phone bill
Phone: 020 7226 4114
Post: Send a cheque to Medical Aid for Palestinians 33a Islington Park Street, Freepost ND6445, London, N1 1BR

3) Sign a petition to remove the 2013 UEFA finals from Israel, especially after it destroyed the Gaza sports stadium http://www.thenation.com/blog/171344/killing-hope-why-israel-targets-sports-gaza

http://redcardapartheid.weebly.com/

4) Purchase Palestinian fair trade products, such as Zaytoun.

5) Contact the media and if need be confront their distortions and bias, raise awareness on social media, join a protest, create an awareness event, write a blog post, share this blog post.

http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/how-the-bbc-is-re-writing-history-in-its-reporting-of-israels-assault-on-gaza

GUEST POST BY Monique Buckner

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The Appalling Racism Within Apartheid Israel

Figures on the rampant, overt racist attitudes of Israeli Jews revealed in Haaretz are astounding and vile:

‘The majority of the Jewish public, 59 percent, wants preference for Jews over Arabs in admission to jobs in government ministries. Almost half the Jews, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 percent don’t want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don’t want their children in the same class with Arab children.

A third of the Jewish public wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset and a large majority of 69 percent objects to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.

A sweeping 74 percent majority is in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. A quarter – 24 percent – believe separate roads are “a good situation” and 50 percent believe they are “a necessary situation.”

Almost half – 47 percent – want part of Israel’s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority and 36 percent support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange’

From past figures, it seems that Netanyahu’s fanatical rightwing pandering has contributed to the growth in vicious racism.

In 2010, 36 percent of Israeli Jews were in favor of revoking the voting rights of non-Jews.

In 2007

Over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason, according to a recent survey by the Geocartography Institute.

The survey, which was conducted for the Center Against Racism, also found that over 75 percent of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. Sixty percent of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home.

Related Links

Full text

Apartheid without shame or guilt : We’re racists, the Israelis are saying, we practice apartheid and we even want to live in an apartheid state. Yes, this is Israel.

Levy corrects his errors

The article itself, which I wrote, did not contain any mistakes. It provided a precise and detailed description of the survey results. In my analysis of the survey, which appeared as a separate article, there was a single sentence that did not accurately represent the poll results and contradicted what I had written in the news piece a short time beforehand. My sin was to write: “The majority doesn’t want Arabs to vote for the Knesset, Arab neighbors at home or Arab students at school.”

The truth, as I wrote in the news piece, is different: “Just” 33 percent of the respondents said they don’t want Arabs to vote in parliamentary elections, “just” 42 percent wouldn’t want an Arab neighbor, and about the same proportion said it would bother them if there were an Arab student in their child’s class. Not a majority – just a (large ) portion of Israelis espouse these frightening views. Cold comfort.
…
The most important thing was, and remains, that a significant portion of Israel’s Jewish society advocates positions that can only be described as nationalistic and racist. Nearly half of the respondents don’t want an Arab neighbor or an Arab student in their child’s class; a third don’t want Arabs to vote; nearly half want to discriminate against Arabs living in the country. Isn’t that enough to scare anyone who fears for the future of this country?

Parents of children at a Jewish kindergarten in Nazareth Illit oppose plan to bring in Arab children, threaten strike
Racist JNF plans for driving Bedouins out of the Negev
Zionists continue to attempt to stifle BDS on campus – if it wasn’t effective, would they bother?
Another reason to support academic and cultural boycott of the bulldozer land-thieving zionist entity

How Israel’s murdering IOF thugs shoot Gazan fishermen with impunity

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Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – Pressuring Israel to End Its Oppression

Find out more about the logic of BDS – become involved with the international grassroots campaign for justice and rights for Palestinian people dispossessed of their Indigenous land and deprived of basic human rights by their oppressor.

More information about the One Democratic State Group can be found here. The ODSG believes “that the One State Solution is the only viable option that guarantees comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The establishment of a Secular Democratic State on historic Palestine for all of its citizens regardless of religion, race, or sex–after the return of Palestinian refugees–IS the solution to the Middle East conflict.”

The ODSG is also

“active in the Palestine-initiated campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. These measures, similar to those applied to South Africa during the apartheid era, are necessary to bring an end to Israel’s genocidal policies towards Palestinians both within Israel and throughout the Occupied Territories. We believe that these non-violent measures should be maintained until Apartheid Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of a democratic state on Mandatory Palestine; a state for ALL of its citizens.”

Related Links

Strength to strength : As part of the ongoing campaign for solidarity with Palestine, the Palestine Action Group is calling another peaceful protest against Max Brenner at Parramatta Westfield. Max Brenner is an ongoing target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for its support for Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Mark the 8th November for protest action against apartheid Israel.

Diab wants Palestinians to seek citizenship of Israel. What of Palestinian refugees?

Diab’s Monty Pythonesque ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinians’ is frivolous and patronising – Palestinians lead their own struggle. Diab writes if Israel/Palestine is a movie set. He is pontificating of course. There’s no recognition by him of intrinsic Indigenous rights. Settler colonials don’t have the same relationship with the land as Indigenous people. Further, people shouldn’t have to do any deals to enjoy basic human rights, or equal rights either, though. They are non-negotiable.

Is Diab really promising the end of the racist, oxymoronic “Jewish democratic state” when he says “likewise it is the Israeli people who make Israel Jewish and so emancipating the millions of disenfranchised Palestinians will not make the state any less Jewish than it is today – only fairer and more just”?

I am reminded of words from Queensland Aboriginal activists : “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together”. How can one liberate others if one is not first liberated, how can one decolonise the minds of others if one’s own mind is not decolonised first?

When the oppressor frames the dimensions of the struggle of the oppressed, colonialism is implicit. Do Palestinians see Diab’s proposal as ‘ideologically neutral’?

Other Links

Democracy and peaceful protest is alive and well in Venezuala : “The numbers on both sides of the campaign makes one thing plainly clear; there is something at stake in Venezuela. The people have said goodbye to the concept of “pacted democracy” – the choice of voting for two parties with near-identical policies, long since buried over here, but still alive and well in the UK – and they do not want it back. The opposition say they want to unite the country, but poor people have experienced the type of ‘unity’ that denies their existence, let alone their right to live a dignified life, many times before.”

The US is a gulag state.
Irreversible Warming Will Cause Sea Levels to Rise for Thousands of Years to Come, New Research Shows