palestine

Boycotted by activists, the Israeli company AHAVA is backed by one of Israel's most powerful families
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Description: After the Israeli attack on Gaza earlier this year, the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign (BDS Movement) escalated all around the world. Now, activists are targeting AHAVA, an Israeli cosmetics company founded by and based in an Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank. The AHAVA company, as many others in Israel that are based in the Palestinian Territories or profit from their occupation are owned by the powerful Israel family - the Livnat family. The Real News investigates how the family's dynasty is invested in the economy of the occupation.

Photograph: David Parker

Citizens around the world are taking to the streets in opposition to the recent Israeli military invasion of Gaza. Grassroots movements have mobilized people in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, acting together on co-ordinated international days of action.

In Canada, cities across the country organized their own rallies, marches, and demonstrations, including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Halifax, and other cities, some demonstrations numbering in the tens of thousands of participants.

Since December 27, 2008, over 875 Palestinians have been killed, including over 300 children, and approximately 4000 have been wounded, the majority civilians.

In Halifax last week, rallies on Friday and Saturday drew a combined 300 demonstrators out on the streets, denouncing the on-going occupation of Palestine and the gross escalation of Israeli violence that has drawn the world's attention.

For many Palestinian Canadians in the crowd, the killing in Gaza hits very close to home. Many members of the crowd had family in Gaza, and were worried for the safety of their loved ones.

To hear the full audio report, click here.

Also reported here in the Guardian on November 5th:

A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory.

Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious break in a ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they wanted to return to atmosphere of calm.

I don't normally post letters to the editor, even those with little chance of being published, but I feel that the more that editorials like this are met with flack, the harder it will eventually become to continue reporting the middle east with the same "Paletinians attack, Israel just tries to protect itself" garbage.

Here's hoping you try it out yourself in '09.

To: letters@globeandmail.com

Israeli politicians kill, editorialists provide apologetics. Although your editorial on December 30th ("Responding to Provocation," Dec 30, 2008) may have seemed to your staff to appear "dovish" in its call for pressure from the US, the EU, and the Arab League (although not Canada) for a ceasefire, it is nonetheless a justification of Israel's assault on civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Once again, the assumption has been made that only Israel has the "right" to "make its point" by denying humanitarian aid, turning Gaza into an open-air prison, and then killing 350 people while Hamas, elected by the Palestinian people, has no right to anything other than that of a conquered existence.

In the middle east war, the war of words matters far more than the military battles. Israel is allowed to kill hundreds and injure thousands only because this is considered something that's kind of okay by editorialists around the world. If your editorial staff truly cared about contributing to a peace in the middle east, they would stop providing incomprehensible defenses for Israel's "right to make a point" and start questioning its choice to commit collective punishment, a crime under international law.

by David Parker. October 12, 2008. Interview with Jon Elmer.

In the 2007 publication “Hollow Land“, Eyal Weizman, the Israeli-born, London-based architect, reconceptualized geopolitics in the Occupied Territories. The political space created by Israeli apartheid is a web of total domination and control over Palestinians. The architecture and urban planning inside the territories demonstrate a late-modern colonial occupation. Israel owns the subterranean aquifers beneath Gaza and the West Bank, controls the airspace above, and has weaved a web of Israeli only settlements, highways, and security perimeters throughout the West Bank, while turning Gaza into an open-air prison.

According to Weizman, the natural and built features of the landscape function as weapons and ammunition for the conflict. The Occupied Territories have become a series of layers and territories, each manipulated by the Israeli authorities. Borders are porous for Israelis but solid for Palestinians. Checkpoints are a source of humiliation.

The political power of Israel re-inscribes relationships of force in the organization of the built environment. Contemporary urban warfare in the West Bank and Gaza is a constant destruction and construction of space. At the root of the warfare lies Israeli racism and colonialism.

Lines of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza can change overnight. Borders are flexible for the daily incursions of Israeli forces who inflict torture without sullying their home soil. Palestinian homes are a potential theater of war. Palestinian houses are demolished, their farms destroyed and confiscated.

As Palestinian villagers decide to take dismantling the Israeli occupation into their own hands, the Real News Network's Lia Tarachansky speaks to Jesse Rosenfeld on segregation and the West Bank. Checkpoints and roadblocks play a key role in separating Palestinians from Israelis and Israeli appropriated areas, from commercial areas, and from each other. Since the beginning of the second Intifadah in September 2000 the number of checkpoints in the West Bank increased to over 500.

Israel/Palestine- Ehud Olmert passes leadership of the Kadima Party to Tzipi Livni and leaves a challenging legacy. In comments he made during an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Olmert admits Israel must withdraw from areas of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and even the Golan Heights, an area at the center of the Israeli-Syrian dispute.

OTTAWA, ON - On August 6th 2008, returning from a trip to the West Bank and Israel, Liberal MP and External Affairs Critic Bob Rae spoke in the Canadian Senate about his views on the crisis in Palestine. Many were disenchanted with the inconsistency of his message.

Rae flip-flopped on numerous points as they suited his message including the importance of the history of the conflict, the success of the Annapolis process, the legality of the occupation, and the basis for Canada's involvement in the conflict.

The event was hosted by the National Council on Canada Arab Relations and the Middle East Discussion Group.

OTTAWA, ON- Aug 6th, 2008- what began as a fairly balanced description of the historical record of the creation of Israel in Palestine, quickly became yet another bipartisan speech of the Liberal party. Strongly criticizing Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party’s actions in regard to Israel/Palestine, Liberal Party External Affairs critic Bob Rae failed to provide any concrete actions his own party intends to take.

Contradicting himself several times throughout his speech, Rae paid lip service to the social justice movement while adding to the pile of anti-Iran rhetoric.

“Iran’s president is a holocaust denier and refers to Israel by what can only be described as the most hateful of terms."

“Our role should not be of simple neutrality,” he said, adding, “Our friendship with Israel by no means can be indifferent to the Palestinian claim [for self-governance].” When challenged on his proposed plan of action, he reverted back to mediating and perpetuating the aging peace-process. Meanwhile, he admitted, “I don’t think the process today is particularly transparent.”