In this digest: Pictures from Palestine before the British occupation of 1917, declaration by prominent artists and others including Dany Glover, Naomi Klein, and Jane Fonda on Apartheid Israel (can add your name), Yakov Rabin’s article on why Zionism is anti-semitic, good news on spread of boycott campaign and on legal action to force EU to comply with its own laws and not support Israeli violations, and two planned actions (a march to Gaza and a UK action on campuses). Israel thumbed its nose even at the very minimal demand of a temporary “freeze” in its illegal colonial settlement activities (this is like a rapist wanting a lot of rewards for a partial temporary halt to raping his victim while they negotiate how to continue raping the victim in a longer term fashion). My thought is that the minimal we can do is total boycotts, divestments, and sanctions per the Civil Society call to Action of 2005 http://www.pacbi.org/
ACTION: Declaration by prominent artists and others including Dany Glover, Naomi Klein, and Jane Fonda
"we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime."
http://torontodeclaration.
To add your name to this letter, please send your name, occupation and country to tiff.letter@gmail.com.
We will accept signatures until September 8, 2009
Fighting antisemitism in Canada by Dr. Yakov M. Rabkin
According to the Israeli author Tom Segev, the founder of Zionism Theodore Herzl considered antisemites «our friends and allies»: antisemites want to be rid of Jews while Zionists want to gather them to Israel. Many Jews realized this and opposed Zionism from its very beginning in the late 19th century: they saw that Zionists played into the hands of their worst enemies, the antisemites. Indeed, the Zionists’ cooperation with antisemites was usually harmonious. Thus, in the 1930s, Zionist emissaries in Germany established a smooth working relationship with the Nazi authorities. In the opinion of Howard Sachar, American historian sympathetic to the Zionist movement, Adolf Eichmann, who was then in charge of Jewish emigration, “dealt cordially and cooperatively with Zionist representatives from Palestine. When the Zionists sought permission to open vocational training camps for future emigrants [to Palestine], Eichmann willingly supplied them with housing and equipment”.
http://www.thecanadiancharger.
Ahava drops spokesman Amid Public Relations Fiasco: A first victory for CODEPINK's "Stolen Beauty" campaign. “The Israeli cosmetics company, Ahava, which illegally manufactures and appropriates its products in occupied Palestinian territory, has dropped its spokesperson Kristin Davis amid a public relations debacle sparked by the peace group CODEPINK’s Stolen Beauty campaign.”
http://www.stolenbeauty.org/
(History books written by winners make the losers look really bad. Actually, the British rule of Palestine 1917-1948 was far more devastating to the fabric of native Palestinian society than the Ottoman rule for the 400 years before it and things got far worse as the British gave helped build the apartheid state of Israel)
Pictures of Palestine under Ottoman rule
http://www.lovely0smile.com/
ACTION: Gaza Freedom March Jan 1, 2010
http://gazafreedommarch.org/
Legal Action to enforce Human Rights Conditions in EU-Israel Association Agreement
The action was launched in a letter sent to President Barroso and Javier Solana, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, spelling out the way in which the Treaty conditions are being breached and the way in which international law applies. The case is being taken forward on behalf of the complainants by Public Interest Lawyers of 8 Hylton Street, Birmingham….In the letter it is argued that ‘Palestinian, Israeli and International Human Rights organizations have concluded in numerous reports and studies that Israel’s actions in Operation Cast Lead intentionally and systematically disregarded and violated both international humanitarian law and international human rights law’. Furthermore ‘the combined reports delivered to the UN including that of Richard Falk, charged with investigating the human rights situation in Palestine found several breaches of law in Operation Cast Lead. The Special Rapporteur on Poverty discussed reports that during
the military intervention Israel deliberately obstructed the work of humanitarian personnel leaving the poor without basic medical, food and other services in violation of both international humanitarian law and human rights law’ The case presented outlines the position of the International Court of Justice and the UN with respect to the countless violations, amongst which include the acquisition of territory by force,
obstructing the self determination of the Palestinian People and many other peremptory norms.
A full copy of the letter is available here: http://nlp.prc.org.uk/lists/
ACTION: Action Palestine (www.actionpalestine.org), the UK nationwide student movement active on Palestine issues and affiliate of the R2E Campaign have teamed up with several other Palestine solidarity originations in the UK to organize a weekend conference titled “Boycott: a strategy to defeat Israeli apartheid” aimed at sharing experiences and reflecting on the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. Action Palestine is currently preparing for the new academic year by putting together packs of information on education under occupation for freshers at UK Universities.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://qumsiyeh.org
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