NOVANEWS
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Reflections on solidarity – November 29, 2011
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Now they care
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Personal narratives vs. a colonial reality: Inside the Palestine Writing Workshop
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Ann Lewis and Bill Kristol do ‘playful banter’ at AIPAC summit
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Key Occupy Wall Street organizers include activists with roots in Israel/Palestine
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Israeli forces tear gas and arrest girls during home demolition in South Hebron Hills
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Could Ron Paul’s Iowa surge finally open up political debate on Israel and Iran attack?
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The last koffiyeh factory in Palestine
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Israeli gov’t warns Israelis in U.S. not to marry Americans but come home
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Cornel West & Rosemary Ruether launch petition to stop Marc Ellis’s dismissal from Baylor University
Reflections on solidarity – November 29, 2011
Nov 29, 2011
Jennifer Bing
Jennifer Bing (left) visiting friends in Ramallah.
Speech given at Wellington Church in Chicago, IL on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People:
As I look out among all of us gathered here tonight, I realize that so many of us are engaged in this work for peace and justice due to a visit to Palestine.
For those who have visited a Palestinian community, one will always remember the hospitality. Tea, coffee, soda, sweets, and fruit are offered to each guest, even if the host has barely enough food to feed his or her family. We remember the fresh baked bread, olive oil, za’atar, and sweet white cheese that is collectively shared at breakfast. We remember the handshakes and greetings from all members of the family – even from children who are just learning to walk.
We remember spending time looking at family photo albums, the certificates of achievement from schools and universities, letters sent from family abroad, and perhaps a peek at a wedding video. We remember walking the fields of villages, climbing olive trees and hilltops, and dancing to the beat of a late night drum. We remember being told stories of struggle and of joy; of fear and frustration, of great sadness and great hope. And we remember often leaving with a memento of our visit – an embroidered pillow, a bottle of olive oil, a plastic bag filled with marameeya, or a photo and email address promising to stay in touch.
I’ve been reflecting today on what it means to be in solidarity with Palestinians. So many people often ask – how do we continue to work for peace and justice, especially as the situation on the ground is so grim – more settlement colonies built, more people living in poverty, more political unrest, violence and disunity? There are three qualities that I think those who desire to be in solidarity must develop: courage, compassion, and commitment.
It takes courage to visit Gaza and the West Bank. Courage to see the reality of life under military rule. Courage to hear the stories of pain and suffering. Courage to understand the risks people take to stay steadfast in their homes and lands. Courage to remain hopeful that change is possible.
It also takes courage to come back to the United States and tell the stories of what we’ve seen. To speak to our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and elected officials — some who may misinterpret our passion and accuse us of being traitors, self-hating, one-sided, anti-semitic. As we’ve learned here in Chicago from the FBI subpoenas sent to members of our community, it also takes courage to stand up to the US government’s attempt to criminalize solidarity efforts, even humanitarian assistance to Palestine.
It takes compassion to be in solidarity with Palestinians. So often our hearts can become hardened to the suffering of those who live in Palestine and Israel. We become numb to the statistics, frustrated by double standards and endless efforts to negotiate, angered by US policies that allow military occupation to continue. We tire of having to explain the basic information about the conflict to those who should know better, or to dispel cherished myths that dehumanize one or the other side. We must remind ourselves of the power of love to overcome evil, and to practice compassion in our pursuit of a just peace, even when we feel deep anger and sadness.
Finally, it takes commitment to be in solidarity with Palestine. Quakers began their efforts in Gaza in 1948-49, administering to the needs of Palestinian refugees. Today Quakers still maintain a presence in Gaza, working with youth to rebuild their communities and lives despite conditions of occupation and siege. We stay committed to changing US policy and divesting from corporate investments that support military occupation.
Many in this space tonight have dedicated many days, years, and decades to the cause of Palestinian self-determination, human rights, and peace. Our commitments must be praised and re-energized by coming together as a community like we have this evening, to find creative ways we can move forward together in solidarity. Let us have the courage, compassion, and commitment to a future day of solidarity where we will celebrate a free Palestine.
Now they care
Nov 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
New York Times photographer Lynsey Addario
The Israeli border guards’ brutal treatment of a pregnant NY Times photographer at the Gaza crossing has driven Joe Klein to denounce “Israeli Thuggery” at Time:
Lynsey Addario… was forced to pass through the machine 3 times while being verbally abused and then strip-searched for good measure.
This is completely outrageous, of course. It is another indication that Israel has been brutalized by its occupation of Arab territories since 1967. For those of us who feel strongly about the need for Israel to exist–especially those of us who love the place, warts and all–this incident is yet another reason to fear for Israel’s future.
Tablet’s Allison Hoffman is also upset. “Israel’s Infuriating Treatment of Lynsey Addario”:
But what is there to understand, exactly? That it’s okay for teenage checkpoint guards to decide whether it’s safe to expose a fetus to X-rays? That it’s okay for them to treat an American journalist in a cavalier and cruel fashion without, say, stopping to consult with their superiors? Or that it’s okay for the apparatus of the military occupation to continue committing acts that, inevitably, bring shame and embarrassment on Israel, a country that is constantly striving to paint itself as a moral and just haven, one that American Jewish organizations, and the American government, spend millions of dollars and valuable political capital every year defending from delegitimizing attacks suggesting otherwise? […]
The truth is there’s simply nothing to excuse, justify, or even really explain why these guards decided to force Addario back through the machine twice, and then three times, “as they watched and laughed from above,” according to Addario’s complaint. Nor would anything make reason of the fact that, afterward, they forced her to strip down to her underwear and lift her shirt to expose her belly for additional inspection. This, from a country that treats women’s fertility and prenatal health as a paramount public policy issue. This, from a country that prides itself on the procedures used by its military. This, from a country whose soldiers should know better than to do anything that they wouldn’t want the world to see on YouTube, and whose commanding officers should know to watch their teenage charges like hawks. This, from a country that imagines itself as the kind of place where Addario, and any other person who posed no threat, is treated with fairness and perhaps even kindness. Thankfully, she seems to be fine. The rest of us should be apoplectic.
Oh but Dahlia Scheindlin at +972 gets the story (boldface mine):
Here’s the rub: we get upset when the face is known to us, even by association: New York Times; hostage in Libya; journalist. The fact is this happens all the time, to other 27-week pregnant women with no editor to write the IDF and stand up for them. If you cut them, do they not bleed? And if you wrong them, will they not take revenge?
I’ll say it again: occupation behavior is monster that cannot be silenced on command. Once an occupier of Palestinians at a checkpoint, you will be an occupier of westerners and journalists at the checkpoint, of Arab citizens in Israel, on the roads, in the supermarket, and probably, eventually, in your very own home.
Personal narratives vs. a colonial reality: Inside the Palestine Writing Workshop
Nov 29, 2011
Ian Rhodewalt
Nancy Kricorian meets with the Palestine Writing Workshop
We settle into our chairs, our small talk introductions, as we wait for the table to fill up. The workshop, titled “Family Stories: Writing Fiction and Nonfiction Narrative from Life” with Nancy Kricorian, is being offered by the Palestine Writing Workshop and draws us for different reasons. Some of us want practice in a writing workshop, some are striving to break away from the dryness of academic writing with the wish to return to the creativity of a younger time (before university killed said creativity), some come for lessons from a published author, and some for a budding interest in this thing called “writing”.
Nancy Kricorian (Photo: Palestine Writing Workshop)
The class begins, and Nancy asks us to introduce ourselves formally and give some biographical background. At the table there is an economist, a runner, a development worker, a mother, a few college students, a grandmother who writes about Palestinian embroidery. We relay details about what brought all of us together at this particular moment, for this week of writing classes. After we’ve gone around, Nancy introduces herself as an author and activist, a mother and an Armenian. She points out how each one of us picked out one particular facet, of the thousands that make up our identity, to describe ourselves. What is it about each of these individual, unique facets that we cling to in order to identify ourselves, she wonders.
Then she sets a task for us, to write about one of the family photos we had been asked to bring with us. As we all put on intense writing faces for fifteen minutes, and dip into the memories, the room becomes silent. History sits in the center of the table, as we scratch away with our pens, putting into words these images before us, their meaning to us, these stories we carry inside our chest, stories of Ramallah, of Jaffa, of the Mount of Olives and the old city of Jerusalem, of rural Pennsylvania, of India, of Gainesville, Florida, of Portugal – some of us were born and raised here, some of us are expats.
When we break for tea, our heads remain in this swirl of history, and that’s where our conversations turn to now. Where is the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah? Who lives there now? What happened there during the first Intifada? Those families that used to live on the hills where the settlements now sit – what happened to them? The children of that time must have families of their own now – where are they?
As we return to the second half of this first class, our new assignment is to now write for fifteen minutes on a different photo that belongs to one of our classmates. This time, the writing feels more challenging – more of us have furrowed brows, we struggle with making up stories about people we don’t know who are somehow related to someone else at the table, someone we only just met. We worry about creating fiction about real people, we worry about getting facts wrong, or making up facts. Eventually, we just write what we see.
The next day, we begin by talking about writers whose work we really admire. The list is an impressive one – Mahmoud Darwish, Naguib Mahfouz, John Burger, Elias Khoury, Mourid Barghouti, Jose Maria de Eca de Queiroz, John Edgar Wideman, Sherman Alexie, Ian McEwan. “This is quite an esteemed group of authors we’ve put together here,” Nancy notes, pointing out that many of them are highly politically engaged in terms of what they write. “No wonder,” someone says, “being here.” And it’s true. In a place like Palestine, where we eat, breathe, drink and sweat politics, even being able to get the proper medicine is a political act, so it should come as no surprise that the writers we are drawn to are political. Or that in the writing of our family stories, our earliest memories, even the dialogue of two characters who want different things, the words we choose, how we tell the tale, all this is deeply infused with an urgency, a demand to be heard, a thirsting for justice. At some point, Nancy mentions that it is these strong, powerful personal narratives that can burn through the colonial narrative that Israel, the US, and establishment media in the West present.
Over the course of the week, as we work our way through drafts, workshop feedback, revisions, more drafts, one-on-one meetings with Nancy, and further revisions, we hone the voice and the message of each of the pieces that we’re working on individually. An exciting aspect of a workshop setting like this is that we each bring our own thoughts, passions, and writing obsessions to the table, and through sharing them out loud with each other, a transformation occurs. Not only do we have an appreciative audience for our own work, listening to our fellow writers enriches us as well. We hear stories that otherwise we might never have encountered. More than that, we learn ways of storytelling that may differ from our own. This weeklong workshop allows, or rather, creates, a space for each of us to engage in one of the most essential and important functions of being human – making sense of our lives from the whirl of information we receive on a daily basis.
Under occupation, where it is often said that ‘existence is resistance’, we get great value from articulating the truths of our existence to another’s ears. Expressing this through the written word solidifies that truth, and sharing our writing adds a layer of solidarity with our audience. That is, through writing our stories, we become the validation that we seek, and through listening to other’s stories, we join together, we gain empathy. In this process, we place our narratives side by side, so that they stand in the face of a colonizing force that does not tolerate resistance.
Ann Lewis and Bill Kristol do ‘playful banter’ at AIPAC summit
Nov 29, 2011
Philip Weiss
Ann Lewis
Erika Schupak Neuberg reports in a Phoenix Jewish publication on an AIPAC summit in Scottsdale, AZ (h/t Max Blumenthal):
Proud. Energized. Alarmed. Exhilarated. These are just a few of the words that describe my experience at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Summit – our premier foreign-policy conference held Oct. 30-31 at the Fairmont Princess Resort….
We were soberly reminded of the overwhelmingly dangerous and unpredictable threats to Israel’s safety and security, yet also armed with strategic tools to make a difference. We felt collective pride and awe as we saw a few examples of the amazing technology coming out of Israeli companies, including the Iron Dome missile-defense system and ReWalk, a powered exo-skeleton technology that actually enabled a paraplegic woman to rise from her wheelchair and walk.We were entertained by the playful political banter among Paul Begala, Bill Kristol, Mike Murphy and Ann Lewis.
I think this is an important point. One difficulty with the Israel issue is that American Jews of my generation and older tend to close ranks in support of anything Israel does. And really there’s no difference between liberal Jews and rightwing ones, let alone Democrats and Republicans. Thus all the liberal Jewish Democrats who voted for the Iraq war, in part because Tom Lantos was calling Saddam “Hitler” because he backed suicide bombers. Thus Barney Frank, a big liberal, says he privately opposes settlements but he won’t go public unless Jeff Halper can find 5,000 Jews in his district who will support him.
The AIPAC anecdote explains Frank’s problem. His own sister Ann Lewis is a big liberal Democrat, close to Hillary Clinton, and she does a lot of work for AIPAC. She has said, “The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties.”(perDana Milbank).
Really is there any difference on this issue between Ann Lewis and Bill Kristol? Israel is the royal road to neoconservatism.
Key Occupy Wall Street organizers include activists with roots in Israel/Palestine
Nov 29, 2011
Alex Kane
Amin Husain recently appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to discuss the movement.
Lost in the debate over whether Palestine is a pertinent issue to the Occupy movement is this interesting fact: two of the core organizers behind Occupy Wall Street in New York have close ties to both Israel and Palestine.
A new New York magazine feature on the Occupy Wall Street protests does not delve into the controversy over Palestine solidarity, it does paint an interesting picture of organizers Yotam Marom and Amin Husain.
From John Heilemann’s article:
Take Amin Husain, who is characterized by a number of the prime movers as one of OWS’s “deep thinkers.” Husain, a 36-year-old Palestinian-American who grew up poor before becoming a corporate lawyer, spent much of the aughts working on complex structured-finance deals. His last job before leaving the law to become an artist was as a contract attorney at Cravath, laboring on behalf of its client PricewaterhouseCoopers when PWC was being sued over its auditing (or, arguably, non-auditing) of AIG, reading hundreds of internal e-mails that may expose the perfidy of both.
In his kaffiyeh and a camouflage military cap, Husain certainly has the look of a revolutionary, but he sounds more like the artist he’s become. When I ask what drew him to OWS, he says, “I felt it was a moment for something to shift. It’s time to have people empowered to imagine, what does it mean to live in a beautiful country like the United States of America? This is a movement not about speaking to people, but about hearing. It’s not for the people. It’s with the people. It’s a new way of thinking.”
This kind of talk is common among a certain sort of OWSer, especially those who are newbies to public agitation. But then there is another sort: committed activists. Among the OWS prime movers, a goodly number, including Yotam Marom, were involved in Bloombergville, the sidewalk protest near City Hall against the city’s budget cuts that took place last summer. While their vernacular is at times as airy as Husain’s, their politics are much firmer, steeped in the cut-and-thrust of battles for tangible objectives. And, unlike Husain, who invoked the phrase “leaderless movement” again and again, the activist prime movers make no bones about the fact that OWS has a leadership cadre—and that they are part of it.
“Anybody who says there’s such a thing as a totally nonhierarchical, agenda-less movement is … not stupid, but dangerous, because somebody’s got to write the agenda—it doesn’t fall out of the sky,” says Marom, who in some ways is Husain’s mirror image. A 25-year-old veteran of the New School occupation and co-founder of the quasi-socialist Organization for a Free Society, Marom was raised in Hoboken by Israeli parents and has lived in both a commune (in Israel) and a collective (in Crown Heights). Articulate and charismatic, he came to OWS with a bone-deep wariness toward many of the far left’s ingrained tendencies, notably “the glorification of process and vagueness,” he says.
Marom is a familiar face in New York’s activist scene. He was a part of the occupation of the New School two years ago, and was a key activist involved in Bloombergville, a 24/7 protest encampment earlier this year that is seen as a precedent for Occupy Wall Street. Marom, a member of the left-wing Zionist group Hashomer Hatzair, has written some on Israel/Palestine (here he is responding to an article by Ilan Pappe), although his interests also include “communalism, education…parecon, gender, sexuality, student activism, and vision and strategy for a new society.”
Husain is also an interesting character. The Toronto Star writer Leslie Scrivener reported on Husain in a recent piece on the protest movement:
Husain, 36, a former finance lawyer, smiles. A tall man, lightly bearded, wearing a kaffiyeh, he saw that day as the start of something he had longed for all his life. He grew up in the Palestinian uprisings of the ’90s and spent time in prison in his early teens. He links that movement to the present one:
“It was this hope we can create a better world.”
And he believes that it is now underway: “There are moments when the stars align.”
Kalle Lasn, the editor of Adbusters, told me that he believes the Occupy movement has the potential to change
not just the way we think about financial speculators and fat cats on Wall Street, but all kinds of arenas as well, including the political and foreign policy arenas
Husain’s linking of the Palestinian intifada to the Occupy movement is indicative that Lasn may be right.
Israeli forces tear gas and arrest girls during home demolition in South Hebron Hills
Nov 29, 2011
Seham
Video: Israeli occupation forces demolish homes and mosque, arrests girls near Hebron, Ali Abunimah
On 24 November Israeli occupation forces demolished two homes, a mosque and a barn, killing livestock, and arrested two young women in the village of Umm Fagarah, in the South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank.
“Law Enforcement” Destroys Prayer House, Homes, School – Just Because They’re for Arabs, Assaf Oron
Last Thursday, November 24, employees of the Israeli company “E.T. Legal Services”, hired by the deceptively named “Civil Administration” arm of Israel’s military Occupation regime in the West Bank, demolished a mosque. Among other things.
link to theonlydemocracy.org
Army To Demolish A Palestinian Home In Jerusalem
The Israeli Army decided to demolish a home that belongs to resident Nawal Al Jahaleen in Jabal Al Mukabber area, in occupied East Jerusalem.
link to www.imemc.org
Israeli demolition firm takes pride in West Bank operations
Having relatives in the West Bank is a problem. So is a school in the South Hebron Hills. The list of prohibitions is endless.
link to www.haaretz.com
Lift Travel Ban on Human Rights Defender, B’Tselem
Israeli authorities in the West Bank should lift the travel ban imposed since 2006 on West Bank resident Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem said today. Israeli authorities violated Jabarin’s due process rights in imposing the ban and have not produced any evidence that would justify continuing to restrict him from travel, the groups said.
link to www.btselem.org
Witness looks at the struggle to get an education under occupation.
link to www.aljazeera.com
Israeli Regime Violence / Aggression
According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, 350 private Israeli security guards are currently employed in East Jerusalem by private security firm Modi’in Ezrahi, which is subcontracted by the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction, to protect 2,000 settlers living illegally in the occupied territory.
link to electronicintifada.net
Organized chaos and bare life (*): The non-story of the night raids
There exists a general, intentional, cleverly constructed misunderstanding surrounding the true nature of the Israeli occupation. Some say it’s a simple dispute over land, like many others in the world; other think the conflict is about national independence for the Palestinians, prompting statements like, “The Basques and the Kurds aren’t independent either, so why do people pick on Israel?” But the occupation is something else. It is the ongoing military control over the lives of millions, and everything that comes with it: The lack of civil rights, the absence of legal protection, and perhaps more than anything else, a sense of organized chaos, in which the lives of an entire civilian population is run at the mercy of soldiers 18 to 20 years old. Most of the time, it’s almost hard to explain how bad it is for those who haven’t seen it with their own eyes.
link to www.promisedlandblog.com
Political Detainees / Interrogations / Other Prisoner News
Two girls detained, livestock crushed in Umm Fagarah
On November 24, the Israeli army broke into the South Hebron Hills village of Umm Fagarah, demolishing several huts and detaining two girls.
link to www.alternativenews.org
Adnan Ghaith summoned for investigation again
Silwan secretary-general of Fatah Adnan Ghaith was summoned for investigation by Israeli police on 24 November, in Oz police station on Al-Moqaber. Ghaith was interrogated about his activities and correspondences during his 8 months of exile from Jerusalem this year, which he spent in Ramallah. He was also threatened by interrogators to cease all political work, lest he be punished again.
link to silwanic.net
Israeli intelligence summonses two female ex-detainees for interrogation
The IOF violently stormed at dawn Sunday the homes of two Palestinian women released as part of the swap deal between Hamas and Israel and handed them summonses from the intelligence.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Israel blocks visit to Palestinian prisoner
Israeli occupation forces blocked a visit to Palestinian prisoner Sheikh Jamal Abul Haija by his daughter Sajeda on Monday without giving reasons.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Self-Education: Story of a Palestinian Prisoner, Ben Lorber and Khalil Ashour
On the third floor of the Nablus Municipality Library, there sits a room of over 8,000 books set apart from the rest. Many of these books are very old and tattered; many of them, in lieu of a normal face, are adorned with images taken from old National Geographic or Reader’s Digest magazines. Some are laboriously written by hand. The spines of the books show a variety of languages, from Arabic to English, French and Spanish. ‘The New English Bible’ is flanked by ‘The Great American Revolution of 1776’ on one side and ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ on the other; across the aisle, Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ and ‘The Greek Myths’ look on silently, next to ‘Elementary Physics’ and a study of ‘The Chinese Road to Socialism’.
link to palestinechronicle.com
Aruri: 2nd stage of exchange deal should take place by 19 December
Political bureau member of Hamas Saleh Al-Aruri has said that Israel should set free the second batch of Palestinian prisoners by 19 December in accordance with the exchange deal.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Prisoners write to Abbas demanding PA support
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails sent a letter to President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday demanding support from the Palestinian Authority in their fight for better conditions. The letter highlighted that Israel had enacted punitive policies against prisoners since the swap deal in October between Israel and Hamas, and said the situation for detainees was “on the verge of explosion,” a statement from a prisoners’ society said.
link to www.maannews.net
Official: Fatah, Hamas to release political prisoners
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Fatah and Hamas are in talks to release political prisoners in a bid to end all outstanding disagreements, an official said Monday. “(President Mahmoud) Abbas gave instructions to the director of the Palestinian Authority’s general intelligence service, Majid Faraj, to release Hamas-affiliated detainees stated in a list received from Hamas,” Fatah affiliated lawmaker Faysal Abu Shahla told Ma’an.
link to www.maannews.net
Gaza
Gazans wait on outcome of Egypt elections
Egyptians take to the polls, many Palestinians hope Egypt’s future foreign policy will be more sympathetic to their cause. Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood party. It is expected to do well in the elections that started on the 28th November. There is some concern that if the Muslim Brotherhood wins in Egypt and Hamas grows stronger, human rights in the Gaza Strip could suffer. After the Egyptian revolution, the military council announced it would re-open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. This is the only crossing not controlled by Israel. Many Palestinians would also like to see Egypt establish a full commercial crossing at Rafah. Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston reports from Gaza.
link to www.youtube.com
Gaza Quarries: Resisting Ruin, Ruqaya Izzidien
The Gaza Strip is a small coastal enclave that is frequently bombed, destroying and damaging houses, agricultural land and businesses. But under the blockade that Israel imposes, construction material is banned from entering Gaza. Although a small amount of building materials does enter, it is assigned from the outset to internationally recognised organisations, making it seemingly impossible for regular Palestinian civilians to rebuild.
link to english.al-akhbar.com
Despite Israel’s blockade on building materials entering the Gaza Strip, local entrepreneurs have come up with a way to turn destruction into reconstruction by recycling rubble into construction material.
link to english.al-akhbar.com
Israeli Racism / Discrimination
Virtually all military court cases in West Bank end in conviction
Report shows the military appeals courts decidedly favor the prosecution, with judges accepting 67 percent of prosecution appeals, as opposed to only 33 percent of appeals filed by the defense.
link to www.haaretz.com
Living in the grey area: African refugees in Israel
For years, Israel ignored African refugees rather than making a legal framework to process the requests of asylum seekers. Now, the state is building a detention center to simply lock them up.
link to www.alternativenews.org
Solidarity / Activism / Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions
UN marks ‘day of solidarity’ with Palestinian people
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that a Palestinian state was “long overdue,” in a statement to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. “The need to resolve this conflict has taken on greater urgency with the historic transformations taking place across the region,” Ban said. The UN chief said that a solution to the conflict must end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and establish two states with Jerusalem as a shared capital.
link to www.maannews.net
As the Australian delegate on the Tahrir boat with the recent Freedom Waves initiative, Michael Coleman recently confronted all of the barriers that the government of Israel could muster.
link to electronicintifada.net
Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo Donates Sport Boots for Palestinian Children Foundation
Real Madrid forward, Cristiano Ronaldo, showed his concern to the Palestinian children in Gaza by donating his sports shoes to the Palestinian kids foundation.
Original enclosure (ronaldo_with_palestinian_
link to www.imemc.org
Israel Declared an Apartheid State in “People’s Court”
…a panel of eminent jurists serving on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine heard testimony from expert witnesses regarding the apartheid practices of Israel against the Palestinian people.
link to www.imemc.org
PCHR Strongly Condemns WHO’s Decision to Conduct a Conference in Jerusalem
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest possible terms the decision of WHO Europe to conduct an official conference in Jerusalem, hosted by Israel. The first World Health Organisation (WHO) European Conference on the New European Policy for Health is to take place on the 28–29 November 2011.
link to www.imemc.org
DePaul University Students Declare Victory in Sabra Hummus Campaign
Just prior to Thanksgiving, US Campaign coalition member group DePaul University Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced an important victory in its campaign against the sale of Sabra hummus in university dining halls. Earlier this year, DePaul SJP launched a campaign to have Sabra hummus removed from campus dining halls because it is partially owned by the Strauss Group, which provides material and financial support to Israeli military units. After an inquiry into the activities of the Strauss Group, the university elected to continue selling Sabra hummus. However, the university has quietly introduced the sale of an alternative brand of hummus in the university’s dining halls providing students with the opportunity to make ethical consumer purchases.
link to blog.endtheoccupation.org
“On the morning of Black Friday – the single largest shopping day of the year – demonstrators went through three of the busiest shopping centers in Chicago: H&M, Nordstrom and the Water Tower Place Mall. The demonstrators asked holiday shoppers to think of the ethics behind their purchases, and organized brief two-minute chants in favor of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid and advocated a consumer boycott of Israeli products.
link to youthanormalization.blogspot.com
Europeans hold 60 ‘Boycott Israel’ actions in 10 countries
In a European Day of Action under the banner ‘Take Apartheid off the Menu’, human rights activists in ten countries held actions on Saturday calling on consumers to boycott food products made in Israeli settlements, and urging supermarkets to stop carrying Israeli settlement-made products.
link to www.imemc.org
BDS success or health problem? MF DOOM mysteriously cancels Tel Aviv show
The Israeli news site Walla! reports that British-American rapper MF Doom canceled his Tel Aviv show, less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to take to the stage.
link to www.alternativenews.org
Citizens Sue Minnesota State Board of Investment for Illegal Investments in Israel Bonds
The lawsuit asserts that investment in Israel Bonds by the SBI is both unlawful and imprudent, and further contends that such investment violates the Minnesota statutes that control the types of foreign investments that the SBI is permitted to make.
link to www.imemc.org
Streisand to sing at Israeli soldier benefit in LA
Rare performance: Barbra Streisand will play a Dec. 8 LA gala for the Israel Defense Forces. Hosted by Jason Alexander, who is going to forge the two-state solution. Sponsored by Haim Saban. (Hebrew link) She’s a big Democrat, right? So’s Saban, more or less. No Christian Zionists in sight. Here’s Barbra talking about Bill Clinton’s dedication to human rights. And kids in Africa, and global climate change. Progressive except Palestine. This is what J Street is up against, inside the Jewish community. And what America is up against.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/streisand-to-sing-at-israeli-soldier-benefit-in-la.html
Cornel West & Rosemary Ruether launch petition to stop Marc Ellis’s dismissal from Baylor University, Adam Horowitz
Mondoweiss contributor Marc Ellis is under threat of losing his job at Baylor University under pressure from new university president Kenn Starr (yes, that Kenn Starr). Cornel West and Rosemary Ruether have started a petition on Change.org to support him:
link to mondoweiss.net
Organize a Film Screening of New Documentary about Israeli Apartheid
In 2006, at the 5th Annual National Organizers’ Conference of the US Campaign, coalition member groups overwhelmingly resolved to adopt the language of apartheid and Jim Crow segregation in describing Israeli policies towards Palestinians. Applying the apartheid framework to analyses of Israeli practices offers a methodical and startling assessment of conditions on the ground in occupied Palestine. The apartheid framework also explicitly highlights Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian human rights and international law. Palestinian solidarity activists Ana Nogueira and Eron Davidson have produced an important new documentary,“Roadmap to Apartheid,” comparing Israeli policies with those of apartheid-era South Africa. A film tour is being scheduled for 2012 (see below for more info) and we would like to encourage you to consider organizing a screening in conjunction with an anti-apartheid training seminar. For information on how to organize an anti-apartheid training in your community, please see our training curriculum.
link to blog.endtheoccupation.org
Political Developments / Diplomacy
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli official said Saturday evening on live television that if the Palestinian Authority collapses it would not be the “end of the world for Israel.” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Shimon Sheffer, former Palestinian minister Sufian Zayda, and Dove Viziglas, who was former adviser to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, were analyzing the possibility of the PA disbanding on the television show “Face the press.”
link to www.maannews.net
Lieberman fights PM over release of PA tax revenues but foreign minister backs down from threat to topple Netanyahu’s coalition.
link to www.haaretz.com
Lieberman vows to stop release of Palestinian tax funds
FM fervently opposes transferring tax revenues to Palestinian Authority, says money is used to fund housing for terrorists.
link to www.haaretz.com
Lebanon (now remember, Al Qaida in Lebanon is supported by Western allies, not by Hezbollah)
Rockets ‘fired from Lebanon hit Israel’
Several Katyusha’s fired from southern Lebanon landed in Israel, but there were no casualties, Israeli army says.
link to english.aljazeera.net
Israel hits suspected Lebanon rocket sites
Missiles land in the town of Ayta Shaab after rockets launched from south Lebanon strike northern Israel.
link to english.aljazeera.net
Hezbollah denies involvement in rocket fire on north
Militant Shiite group says had nothing to do with Katyusha fire on western Galilee; IDF says event likely an isolated incident
link to www.ynetnews.com
Al-Qaida linked group claims responsibility for Katyusha fire against Israel
UNIFIL deploys extra troops and patrols along border, after four rockets launched into Israel overnight; no causualties reported in rocket fire, Israel responds with artillery rounds.
link to www.haaretz.com
Egypt
Egypt gas pipeline ‘blown up by saboteurs’ for the 9th time
Blast strikes pipeline carrying gas to Jordan and Israel, in the latest of a series of attacks on the export route.
link to english.aljazeera.net
Israel security unnerved by Egyptian politics
The Egyptian revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak had particular resonance in Israel. The country lost one of its closest allies in the region, and a loyal partner in security and now with the Muslim Brotherhood poised to make great gains in the elections, Israel’s long-standing peace treaty with Egypt is again coming into question. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports from Sinai.
link to www.youtube.com
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli Knesset member Benjamin Ben-Eliezer on Monday said Israel should be prepared for “the worst scenario” following changes in Egypt. Ben-Eliezer called for the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in order to improve relations with Egypt, Israeli Radio reported.