Politics

April 30, 2012December 11, 2020

Thanks, Dervish for Respecting the Boycott of Apartheid Israel

The Irish group Dervish has come forward with a courageous decision to stand up for Palestinians and the cultural boycott. Their note on their facebook states:

Dervish wish to announce they will not be taking part in the Irish music concert series in Israel this June.

Our original decision to participate in the concerts was, like all our tours and appearances, completely non-political.

The organiser of the shows is a musician and friend of the band for many years. He has worked to bridge divides between people through music for much of his life. These concerts were organised in this same spirit.

At the time we agreed to these performances we were unaware there was a cultural boycott in place.

We now feel that we do not wish to break this boycott.

Our decision to withdraw from the concerts reflects our wish to neither endorse nor criticise anyone’s political views in this situation.

Dervish are a grouping of like musical minds, we are not a political party.

Our motivation as a band has always been and will continue to be our love of music

(from http://www.facebook.com/dervishofsligo/posts/10150865226896341)

An OPEN LETTER had been written to the band from Raymond Deane. A facebook page had been initiated asking the band to respect the boycott.

A letter of thanks to the band emphasizes how important and significant their decision is.

Dear Kathy Jordan, Brian McDonagh, Liam Kelly, Tom Morrow, Shane Mitchell and Michael Holmes of Dervish,

Thank you for taking a principled stand to say YES to the cultural boycott of Israel. You should be proud of your decision to act in favor of justice and human rights. You follow in the footsteps of Roger Waters who wrote:

“Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government’s policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel. This is [however] a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.

Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel.”

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu would certainly suppport your courageous decision, he wrote:

“International Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against the Apartheid regime, combined with the mass struggle inside South Africa, led to our victory … Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong … to perform in Israel“.

Your cancellation in support of the cultural boycott brings the children in Jen Marlowe’s heart wrenching film below one step closer to justice and freedom. We know you may have felt the pain of Gaza when Israel pounded it with thousands of tons of explosives. You would know that the suffering of surviving children in Gaza from Israel’s attacks continues. In the heartbreaking short film: “One Family in Gaza”, the children do play in the rubble of their house, but their little souls cannot escape the trauma of being shot at and seeing their home bombed and their brother repeatedly shot, even after his death. Jen Marlowe made this film showing the children play, she doesn’t show the bombing, allowing their loving parents to speak of their anguish.

One Family in Gaza from Jen Marlowe

Dervish, the Israeli state has a multi-million dollar hasbara [the Hebrew equivalent to propaganda] campaign and thousands of recruits to propagate it. Some Israeli promoters who bring the artists to Israel were even invited to the Israeli Knesset to discuss the anti-boycott campaign and the Israeli regime agreed on financial support to those who bring artists from abroad. Israeli ministers previously have stated the significance of culture in whitewashing Israel’s crimes – for example, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated in 2005:

“We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

We know you will be pleased to know that your name will not be used by Israel to justify policies of apartheid. You won’t appear on the CCFP’s dishonorable list of artists who ignored the boycott.

Thank you again for your great courage in honouring the Palestinian call for boycott, freedom, justice and the rights of innocent children like the dear ones in Jen Marlowe’s film.
Sincerely,

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel
We are a group, of 850 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & 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.
“Like” and “Share” on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Dervish.no.Travelling.Show.Israel

SOURCE & SOURCE

UPDATE May 1, 2012

Whole Irish Festival in Israel cancelled?

Fullset announces their cancellation on Facebook and Twitter.

UPDATE May 3, 2012

On the duplicitous portrayal of the response to Dervish’s cancellation of their date with apartheid:

“Let’s remind ourselves, then, of what’s really going on. Israel’s new-found cultural appetite isn’t about a night’s entertainment in an Israeli concert-hall or theatre. It’s about taking the world’s mind off, and consequently her sympathies away from, the horrors being inflicted daily on the Palestinian people by the Israeli army and fanatical settlers. It is about the degredation and infamy of an apartheid regime; soldiers who can kill without answering to anyone, commanders who can commit potential war crimes and smile in the face of international law. It’s about covering all of this up in tinsel. It’s about promoting denial.”

April 26, 2012December 11, 2020

Normalisation of Racist Oppression isn’t Playing Ball, Harlem Globetrotters

The Harlem Globetrotters plan to entertain apartheid Israel again (they are reported to have played last year as well) on May 1 and May 3 at Nokia arena, Tel Aviv. This was only recently revealed In the following short Israeli TV clip:

http://www.mako.co.il/news-channel2/Channel-2-Newscast/Article-9e212773b6e7631018.htm
(starting time 02:20)

It appears one of the globetrotters has been duped into thinking their performance will help stop segregation in Israel, he was taped in London for Israeli TV saying that in the 20th century, the team played at venues where black people were not allowed. He adds that the team was one of the forces which paved the way for the civil rights movement in America.” Can the Harlem Globetrotters really believe that violating the call of Palestinian civil society for a cultural boycott will help end it?

TAKE ACTION NOW

You can contact them directly via “Contact the Harlem Globetrotters” at http://www.harlemglobetrotters.com/contact

They are also on twitter, known by @globies
http://twitter.com/#!/globies

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HarlemGlobetrotters

Please remind the Harlem Globetrotters:

Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid and occupation will not be allowed to set foot in Tel Aviv and enjoy their performance.
Playing basketball in Tel Aviv as if it’s business as usual is a slap on the face of all those who realize that Israel’s colonialism, apartheid and occupation bear a striking resemblance to segregation in America and apartheid in the old South Africa.

SOURCE

April 26, 2012August 24, 2022

BDS Maroc : Rocking the Casbah with Anti-Normalisation

In the wake of BDS Maroc’s successful campaign against the orientalist Mediterranean Delight Belly Dance Festival in Marrakech, more anti-normalisation initiatives are in train. BDS Maroc is calling for cancellation of an Israeli company [HP Indigo] printing industry exhibition and associated sales activities, while Moroccan Palestinian solidarity organisations are demanding the Moroccan government criminalise normalisation with Israel.

Google translation of the BDS Maroc press release follows:

Moroccan activists critical of the high pace of normalization with the Jewish state under the Islamic government ‘Quds Al-Arabi’:
by BDS Maroc on Monday, 23 April 2012 at 08:07 ·

Rabat ‘Quds Al-Arabi’: embracing Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco’s special exhibition to produce an Israeli company in the industry of printing machines, to be held on the sidelines of the exhibition for the meetings with the actors, trade and economic specialists in the marketing of these products, and introduce them to Bmostagdadtha and urged them to market their goods advanced.

The law enforcement Moroccan activist Sion Osadon that the exhibition due to open next Monday ‘a big scandal, but a stab in the back of our Palestinian brothers who are in dire need of at this exact time to support and do what is necessary for a boycott of the Zionist entity’.

In a time of escalating protests of Morocco on the activities of normalization with the Jewish state, it is noted that there are points of deliberately raising the pace of normalization fields of multi-which explains Baharj government led by the ruling Justice and Development with reference Islamic and adopt a hard-line positions and participate Kiedjoh in the bodies of anti-normalization with the Jewish state.

Received Abdelilah Benkirane the prime minister and leader of the party last Wednesday, both of Khaled Sufiani coordinator of the work of national support Iraq, Palestine, Mohammad Alandlosa Ben Jelloun Secretary General of the Moroccan Association to support the Palestinian struggle and handed them a memorandum calling for the criminalization of normalization with the Jewish state legally and to issue instructions to all government institutions and sub- government of not doing any activity Ttabiei.

Although the company incubator of the exhibition Israel, has said that it deals with the ‘Belgian company and the other Spanish’, it recorded a web page allocated by the Moroccan company incubator of the show Israel that within the officials of the four representatives of the Israeli company HP Indigo, Vice President and General Manager of ‘Alon Barchana’, Israeli incumbent control of the Headquarters Central to the company in ‘Rehovot’, near Tel Aviv.

The newspaper ‘News Today’ Moroccan official source at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and modern technologies it is not responsible for such events and not have the power to license or deny that the ‘ministry did not organize this meeting was not called for by any one, and since it is organized by the contractor Morocco, the the ministry does not intervene in the partnerships and relationships Moroccan businesses and imports of products’.

He considered that any official source product coming directly from Israel will not be able to enter the Moroccan market, ‘but if they have other ways to import the product factory in another country for example, there is no authority for us to prevent it from entering the Moroccan market.’

The ‘news of the day’ that the Israeli company’s products bear the stamp of ‘Made in Israel’, and that the first breakthrough achieved by the Israeli company was the Arab markets through the sale of one of the printers of the National Office of Airports of Morocco during the reign of former general manager.

The newspaper added that ‘serious in the policy of this company, it draws its marketing to the public procurements to provide ministries and public administrations Btabatha advanced, and turn in to the different methods to get those deals, knowing that the public administrations of Morocco does not need high-tech which is characterized by the HP Indigo ‘.

The date of the establishment of the Israeli company to the year 1977, by ‘Penny Wanda’, the slope of the Israeli parents for Jia to Poland during World War II, specializing in imaging and printing since his childhood, he joined through the studio of his father. He then continued his postgraduate studies in London before heading to Israel, and establishes the company ‘Indigo’ that after the success achieved over the years, attracted the attention of company ‘HP’ world famous in 2000, and invested $ 100 million to become the HP Indigo. The ‘Alon Barchana’, the mastermind of the company in the past two decades, and the man who took over planning for its partnership with HP and seeks to achieve a wider spread her world, armed with university Bashhadath obtained from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The move comes in the context of initiatives normalization of sync, where he attended the Israelis in the parliamentary conference Mediterranean held in the Moroccan capital of the end of March last and the station broadcast the Moroccan second anniversary of the massacre of Deir Yassin, a documentary entitled Tinghir Gerazlem about the Jews in Palestine Mahtaatlh and the establishment of four officials Moroccans visit to Israel this week the past, and the Declaration of human rights Moroccan Sion Osadon that a delegation from the Moroccan farmers Moroccans will pay a visit to occupied Palestine to participate in the exhibition peasants of Israel, in the month of May next also organizes dancer Israel in the middle of May next in the city of Marrakech Festival of Dance-east.

The activities of Hewlett Packard in support of Israel’s criminal Occupation and Israeli defence industry have been well-researched by WhoProfits.

The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is maintained and preserved by daily practices of surveillance and control. In recent years, these practices have increasingly relied on technological mechanisms provided by international and local corporations. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is one of the companies that unable this technological supervision and oppression.

Through its subsidiary EDS Israel, HP is the prime contractor of the Basel System, an automated biometric access control system installed and maintained by HP in checkpoints throughout the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt).

Another control mechanism with which HP is involved, is Israel’s ID card system, which reflects and reinforces the state’s political and economic asymmetries as well as its tiered citizenship structure. HP was charged by the Ministry of Interior with the manufacturing of biometric ID cards for the citizens and residents of Israel (Jewish and Palestinians). In addition, HP also provides services and technologies to the Israeli army.

Furthermore, two of HP’s technological service providers in Israel are Matrix and its subsidiary, Tact Testware, which are located in the illegal West Bank settlement of Modi’in Illit. HP further participates in the “Smart City” project, implemented in the illegal West Bank settlement of Ariel, providing a storage system for the settlement’s municipality.

BDS Maroc also is urging exclusion from an Agriculture Exhibition at Meknes for products of companies with Zionist origins from stolen Palestinian land, and also the participation of a Moroccan delegation in the gallery of Agriculture Tel spring (on land 1948 ) between 15 and 17 May 2012.

A Google translation of this press release follows:

Marrakech, organized by the dancer from the Zionist entity brazenly defending the positions of Zionism,

– Expresses its satisfaction with the retreat of those responsible and salutes all those who contributed from near or far in the pressure on these bodies expose in its attempts to deepen relations with the Zionist racist regime at all levels, this time under the banner of art.

– Reflect the initiative of my DS Morocco in particular, has expressed its condemnation to display some brokers and unscrupulous merchants – the exhibition of international of Agriculture to be held in Meknes during this week – for the products produced by companies Zionist origins of Palestinian land stolen, and also the participation of a Moroccan delegation in the gallery of Agriculture Tel spring (land 1948 ) between 15 and 17 May 2012,

– Condemning the initiative my DS Morocco multiplicity of events that welcome the Moroccan authorities Bmanla the land of Palestine, another example is to accept the post player coming from the Zionist entity league tennis Fes …

– Calls on all national forces and created the Moroccan civil society to respond to the call of Palestinian civil society organizations to boycott 2005 “Israel”, divestment and sanctions (known as the call BDS)

To form a bulwark against the Zionist apartheid regime.

April 24, 2012

In the streets of Marrakech, a youth protest on bicycles and foot to launch anti-normalisation with and boycott of Israel was held last Sunday, presaging the spread of the BDS campaign to other centres in Morocco to coincide with Nakba (the zionist genocide of Palestinians in 1948) remembrance on May 15.

Google translation:

Launching campaigns against the normalization of youth from the streets of Marrakech

Was launched last Sunday in Marrakech youth campaign to educate public opinion, the local issue of normalization with the Zionist entity and which carried also calls for a boycott of products that support for “Israel.”

According to the campaign, Samir al-Rawi A young activists in the fight against normalization with Israel Palmdnah red, was in the form of tours bicycle and on foot with raised Palestinian flags and distributing awareness leaflets in Marrakech.

And began following tours in front of the Royal Theatre at 11 am and roamed the street Mohammed VI the Great that ended in the morning a tour inside the lighthouse, to be followed round the evening off at five o’clock pm from Square Alharta in the direction of Djemaa el Fna famous, where over there carrying a Palestinian flag large and chanting slogans against the normalization of the next episodes of the popular Djemaa el Fna.

He says Samir al-Rawi that the bodies involved, a coalition Moroccans Palestinian Intifada and the renewal student and bds maroc, played a crucial role in the abolition of Oriental Dance Festival in Marrakech, who will know the post dancers Israeli soldiers, prompting them to resume their activities of anti-normalization of the city center in a more creative and communicative with the citizens.

Activist Marrakech shows in connection with the “Hespress” that a group of Tenseekiet “coalition of the Moroccans, the Palestinian uprising” will organize the campaign in several towns within the Moroccan territory Karabat, Tangier, Oujda, and the following Altenseekiet is preparing to commemorate the first anniversary will be held on May 15, which coincides with the anniversary of Nakba, the celebration will be allocated where this subject is the organization of festivals and anniversary marches in support of the Palestinian people, pro-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem.

Tunisian BDS is also actively promoting anti-normalisation, holding a mass protest at the end of March.

April 21, 2012June 7, 2018

Israeli Orientalist Festival in Morocco Bellyflops

Moroccan BDS activists who say NO to normalisation with apartheid Israel have claimed victory with the cancellation of the second Mediterranean Delight International Belly Dance Festival which was to be held in Marrakech in May. The Festival has now relocated to Loutraki, Greece in June. It is produced by Israeli Simona Guzman, also involving owner of an Israeli belly dancing school, Asi Haskal, and Israeli belly dance teacher Anabel.

While the Festival site is available in English, Hebrew and other languages, there is no Arabic version, highlighting the exploitative orientalism of the Festival.

Guzman is crying foul:

“I cancelled it because I didn’t receive any authorization and I was afraid for the safety of my participants,” festival producer Simona Guzman told AFP.

Islamist members of parliament and pro-Palestinian associations had criticized the invitation to the Israelis for the May 10 festival.

Criticism over the Israeli presence was first heard last year when the festival was also held in Marrakesh, but the event went off without mishap.

On her Facebook page, Guzman falsely blames “fanatic Moroccan islamists movements” for her cancellation and exposes her racism and bigotry. According to Moroccan news source, Scoop, the Festival was cancelled due to the participation of Israelis. However, objections to the Festival came from across the Moroccan community, regardless of religious view. Guzman further admits on her Facebook:

While the pressure increased, we were asked by the Moroccan authorities to ask for an authorization to produce the festival in Moroccan Territory, a thing that was never asked before. We were suppose to receive an immediate confirmation, but the Moroccan bureaucracy has it’s own time, and time is running short.

The Festival was opposed by Moroccan BDS activists because it was organised by Israelis and aimed at whitewashing Israeli crimes.

Elsewhere, in Hespress, Guzman denies being Israeli and claims to be a Turkish citizen, while on Rue 20 she is said to have “family roots in Turkey and Morocco” and “responded she was surprised by reports in the Arabic media that the event had stirred controversy in Morocco because Israelis would be present”. Yet on her own site she is described as “among the leading belly dancers in Israel”, and offers bellydancing classes in Israel.

‘I teach belly dancing to women of all ages – ranging from high school students to pensioners.

The classes are offered privately, at “Studio C” at “Derech Haim House” and Beit Danny in Tel Aviv and in many other locations.’

The Festival website, bellydancefestival.net is registered to

simona guzman
moshe basula 1
tel aviv, israel, tel aviv 69869
Israel

At the present time, the Belly Dance Festival website shows the transition to the new venue and dates – the homepage and registration have been changed, still many of the associated Moroccan activities have not been altered.

The Festival is partly sponsored by Israeli business Sea of Spa, based in Arad, whose website is owned by Yuval Yarin Dead Sea Ltd. Sea of Spa claims to be “a family business that was founded in 1998, though its activities at the Dead Sea began at the end of the end of 1980s.” YYDS Ltd also owns seaofspa.biz.

Sea of Spa products are marketed, along with Ahava’s, on deadseaofspa.com “founded in 1999. Dead sea of spa.com is a web store dedicated for dead sea and other products related to Judaism and the state of Israel”. seaofspa.com and deadseadeal.com market Sea of Spa products too and have the same domain owner information which coincides with the contact information on the aforementioned storefronts. Ahava.co and seaofspa.us are also owned by the same organisation.

new dead sea
pob 507
arad, 80700
Israel

The visit of the ex-Israeli Consulate from New York, now Head of European Parliament Liaison Department – Mission of Israel to the EU, David Saranga, was also the target of Moroccan protest last week.

On Sunday, Israeli diplomat David Saranga was forced to cut short a working visit to Morocco after tens of thousands of people took part in a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the parliament in Rabat where he was attending meetings.

Saranga, Israel’s representative at a meeting of the Euro-Med organization that groups the 27 EU states with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and eight Arab countries in the region, was escorted out of the parliament at the end of the meeting and – instead of spending another night in the Moroccan capital – was taken directly to the airport and put on a flight to Paris.

Palestinians have called for boycott, divestment and sanction of Israel until they receive their just human rights guaranteed under international law.

Congratulations to BDS Maroc for successfully fighting normalisation with apartheid oppression. Morocco, which has been exploited by Israel as a playground for normalisation, is now at the forefront of the anti-normalisation campaign.

UPDATE 24/4/12

Moroccan belly dancer Nour withdrew from the festival after becoming aware of the BDS anti-normalisation campaign. Translation of scanned material below:

The people against normalization with Israel are getting ready to face off against the Belly Dance Festival. (written in yellow)

Khalid Alsoufiani. with the National Labor group for the support of Iraq and Palestine disputes Guzman’s claim that she is Moroccan, (she claims her mother is Turkish) Khalid said that if Guzman was speaking the truth then she needs to leave Israel and move to Morocco then.

Noor (dancer who cancelled): Don’t entangle me in this troublesome situation with this festival, I’m not going to participate in it.

Kuzman: I am from Moroccan origins and seek for peace
Anti-normalisation activists prepare to face the oriental belly dancing festival

Last year, a Zionist delegation of 17 dancers participated in the festival.. so how many dancer will they participate this year?

Last year, Al-Tajdeed (renewal) newpaper which was owned by the minister of telecommunications and the spokesperson of the new government, published an article on its front page about the the Zionist dancer who is gonna visit Marrakesh to teach the Moroccan girls how to shake their bellies in the capital of Yusuf Bin Tashqin. So what the newspaper is going to write this year which is a tool to Adala and Tanmiya (Justice and development) party?

The activists of Al-Misbah (Lamp) party protested last year in front of the hotel which organised the festival demanding to punish who allowed it to be organised, and kick the Zionist dancers out. Who is going to punish whom this year? who is going to kick the Zionists out? adding: “how come some business men allow themselves to let their classy hotels host Zionist dancers, and at the sametime they claim their support for the national issues and not promoting alcoholic drinks in their markets.” Summing up: The second version of the oriental dancing festival which was organised from the 6th-11th of May.

Related Links:

Youth and BDS groups corresponded with PM Benkirane to cancel the Festival because of its normalisation of zionist oppression against Palestinians.

BDS Maroc calls for cancellation of an Israeli company exhibition in the printing industry and associated sales activities, while Moroccan Palestinian solidarity organisations demand the Moroccan government criminalise normalisation with Israel.

A new report on the complicity of Hewlett-Packard with the policies of the occupation

April 21, 2012December 11, 2020

Challenging Zionism’s False Dichotomy : Human Rights are for All

In his excellent response to Daniel Levy, Yousef Munayyer sets the record straight and takes apart Levy’s liberal zionist apologetics, emphasising that Palestinians are not seeking a zionist-style national identity as Levy and others assume, but rather rights as a priority.

“The question of Palestine has always been one of rights — rights to vote, rights to return to and live on your land, rights to equality among others — and not simply one of identity. Palestinians are not in search of a national-state identity; we know who we are, and we are the people of Yaffa, Haifa, Nablus, Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine.

This is perhaps why the ‘peace process’ was such a dismal failure. It attempted to Zionize the Palestinian cause, converting it from a cause of rights to a cause for an ethnically homogeneous state to address a Zionism-created problem of statelessness within the confines of 22% of Palestine. Palestinians do not want a state for the sake of having a state, a flag, an anthem, an army, or a president. Palestinians who supported a two-state outcome only sought a Palestinian state in so far as that state would be a vehicle toward realizing Palestinian rights.”

Disgracefully, the nationalist ethnosupremacist ziocolony, founded at the expense of Palestinians’ human and civil rights, advertises the achievement of these essential rights as a threat to its existence.

Munayyer goes on to explain:

“It is because Zionism holds that these two things, Palestinian human rights and “national Jewish interests” are mutually exclusive. It’s because Zionism was put into action at the expense of the rights of Palestinians and that the maintenance of Israeli Jewish monopolization of political control demands the continued violation of Palestinian rights.

The way forward requires us to challenge this false dichotomy, which means challenging Zionism. The human rights of Israeli Jews do not need to be violated in any way for the human rights of Palestinians to be realized.”

Daily, Israel abrogates Palestinian rights in the most appalling ways – like how Israeli soldiers trained this week:

‘Israeli soldiers shot an 18-year-old shepherd in the chest on Thursday evening during military training exercises in the northern West Bank.

Yasir Suleiman Nijad Kaabnah was shot while herding sheep and camels near Wadi al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley.’

And here’s how Israel torments and brutalises the Indigenous Palestinian people of the village of Al Aqaba.

Yet zionism doesn’t only abuse the rights of Palestinians, it exploits its Jewish citizens as well – Holocaust survivors are struggling to make ends meet. Political zionism is intrinsically antisemitic from the first as it’s predicated on the lie that Jews cannot be safe anywhere except in an ethnosupremacist entity, and yet in apartheid Israel, Jews who were persecuted in World War 2 are not safe. While Nutanyahoo exploits the Holocaust on Remembrance Day for political gain, drumming up fear of Iran, sloganising and extolling the fascist Jabotinsky, as Peres hypocritically preaches about antisemitism. the Kadish and ‘love thy neighbour’, some 2,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors are having their sustenance completely curtailed by the Israeli treasury.

Back in the Occupied Territories, it’s been just another week of monstrous Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity committed with impunity against Palestinians, brushed aside by the international elite since it collaborates with the zionist ruling class.

As the cycling Danish victim of Israeli military fascism who has received stellar international media coverage noted “What happened to me is nothing compared to the systematic violence carried out on Palestinians. This is not a single incident, it’s what we see every day. But it’s very difficult to move the focus from me to the issues of the Palestinian struggle in the West Bank.”

Out of sight, out of mind, 206 Palestinian children imprisoned by Israel languish in Israeli dungeons, often in solitary confinement.

Israel has increased its incarceration of Palestinian children by 53% since December 2011 according to Defence for Children International. In the full bulletin for March:

‘This month [March] saw a 10 percent increase
in the number of children prosecuted in
the Israeli military courts and
imprisoned. This is the third consecutive
month in which a rise in the number of
children in detention has been
recorded. There has been a 53 percent
increase in the number of children held
in military detention since December
2011. This month also saw a 29 percent
increase in the number of young
children (12-15 years) being detained.

On 26 March, DCI re-issued an Urgent
Appeal on behalf of children held in
solitary confinement. In spite of a
number of UN agencies calling for a
complete prohibition on the use of
solitary confinement for children, the
Israeli Security Agency (ISA) and the
Israeli Prison Service (APS) continue to
hold children in isolation. The reason the
UN has called for a total prohibition on
the use of solitary confinement for
children, is because the psychological
impact can be severe, and in some
cases catastrophic. Since 2008, DCI has
documented 50 cases in which children
report being held in solitary
confinement at the Al Jalame and
Petah Tikva interrogation centres.

On 31 March, DCI submitted a report to
the UN Committee Against Torture. The
purpose of the report is to assist the
Committee in its preparation of a List of
Issues prior to the review of Israel?s fifth
Periodic Report under the Convention
Against Torture in 2013. All states that
have ratified the Convention are
reviewed by the Committee every four
years to assess compliance.’

How can a state which systematically and flagrantly abuses children be permitted impunity? Kony must be envious. Human rights are for all – but prosecution and censure for human rights abuses are limited to those disfavoured by the cruel, biased hegemon and its cronies. Israel singles itself out by its crimes and impunity for them.

Raed Salah commented this week in the Guardian:

The Palestinian issue can only be resolved if Israel and its supporters in Britain abandon the dogmas of supremacy and truly adhere to the universal values of justice and fairness. Britain has a special responsibility in this, because it is uniquely responsible for our suffering: our national tragedy began with the Balfour Declaration.

While Britain enforced the first part of the declaration, which promised Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people, but ignored the part that states: “It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

The US, UK and Israel are ruling class vehicles – Israel is the thorn in the side of the region to divide and rule on behalf of elites. Poisonous spells of conflict, racism and bigotry are woven and infused to disunite and attempt to make resistance futile. Resist anyway 🙂

Palestine / Israel Links

Habima’s cultural propaganda role exposed. Israeli Foreign Ministry will fund Habima’s Globe performance
Appeal to L. Subramaniam to boycott the Tel Aviv White City Music Festival 2012
Land thief Israel continues to thumb its nose at the Geneva Conventions … “the prefabricated permanent homes in the illegal outpost were built in lands officially recognized by Israel to be owned by Palestinians.”

Israeli soldiers and policemen expelled resident Khaled An-Natsha and his family from their home in Al-Ashqariyya area, in Beit Hanina, north of Israeli controlled East Jerusalem. The eviction came following a court order that granted Israeli settlers ownership over the property

A senior United Nations official has condemned the eviction today of two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem and called for an end to such violations of international law.

Israeli undercover unit’s murder of Palestinian civilian was part of “training exercise” :

‘Conducting the operation was the Duvdevan Unit, a division of the Israeli military that is characterized chiefly by impersonating Palestinians and carrying out undercover operations and trainings. It appears that the training on 27 March, which incorporated a grave breach of international law, is an integral and systematic element of training this elite group.’

Find out how to support the US Methodist church major divestment initiative

1200 racist rabbis think Israel is not responsible for human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Raed Salah: “Despite the Israeli policy of “transfer” – another term for ethnic cleansing – the Palestinians will not go away. The Israeli state can occupy our lands, demolish our homes, drill tunnels under the old city of Jerusalem – but we will not disappear. Instead, we now aspire to a directly elected leadership for Palestinians in Israel; one that would truly represent our interests. We seek only the legal rights guaranteed to us by international conventions and laws.”

Ilan Pappe writes about the hysteria manufactured and marketed in Israel and elsewhere by the malignant narcissist, sociopathic ruling class.

So biting – on the hasbara of dialogue between unequals bringing ‘peace’. : Freedom Funnies: ‘The Angel of Dialogue, the Gift of Censorship, and the Power of Boycott’

Why a cultural boycott of Israel is justified