The Dominion - Palestine/Israel

Less Than Animals

hillarybain — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:46:24 +0000

Palestinian women imprisoned by Israel speak out

JERUSALEM—“The Russian Compound...” said Jehan Dahadha, before trailing off. Her gaze shifts to the floor and the 23-year-old Palestinian woman sighs before continuing.

“The level of pain that the prisoners suffer inside the Russian Compound, whether it is psychological or on a physical level, made it so that we call it the ‘Butcher Shop.’ It is not suitable for humans to live there. Even animals, it is not healthy for them.”

At age 19, Dahadha was arrested under Israeli suspicion that she belonged to the Islamic Jihad movement, and was taken away from her home and family in Ramallah, West Bank.

She spent several days being interrogated at the Russian Compound prison facility in Jerusalem before being sentenced to 16 months at Ha’Sharon prison in northern Israel.

“We as Palestinians are all subject to becoming prisoners: my sister, me, my mother, my brother. There is not a single Palestinian house that [does] not suffer whether from demolition or arrest,” said Dahadha, sitting in the offices of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah.

Dahadha says the real reason she was arrested was because she engaged in non-violent demonstrations against the Israeli occupation, visited the families of Palestinian political prisoners and helped these prisoners get in touch with lawyers.

“What's behind [the Israeli process of arrest and detention] is not to maintain order or to punish people for violations of laws or committing crimes; the idea is to crush the mentality of resistance or the idea of rejecting the occupation in your mind,” explained Ala Jaradat, Programs Director at Addameer.

Approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested or detained under Israeli military orders since 1967. This accounts for about 20 per cent of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and nearly 40 per cent of the male population.

Over the same time period, nearly 10,000 Palestinian women have been detained.

Presently, 7,000 Palestinians—including over 300 children and 34 women—remain in Israeli prisons. According to Jaradat, the small number of Palestinian women in Israeli jails makes it much more difficult for the prisoners to demand better treatment and rights, as compared to their more numerous male counterparts.

“[Male Palestinian prisoners] can organize themselves in such a way and actually negotiate and resist and struggle to have certain rights and to have a certain level of relations because of the larger number,” Jaradat explained. “With Palestinian women, it's harder to be able to organize because of the smaller number. Whenever they try to [negotiate] they are subjected to harsh treatments."

Dahadha says that despite the research and information she gathered before entering prison, she was shocked by what she saw there.

"I used to read in newspapers and on the Internet about prisoners in prison. But no matter how much you read, you will never understand it until you go there,” she said, explaining that poor lighting, unhealthy food, and the constant presence of insects and cockroaches characterized daily life in Ha'Sharon prison.

“They treat you very badly, not as humans. They make committees for animal rights. But humans for them, especially the Palestinians, are less than animals,” said Dahadha.

According to Jaradat, Israeli prisons sorely lack a gender-sensitive approach and issues such as personal hygiene and medical needs are rarely addressed.

Further, sexual harassment and intimidation are widespread and used as a means to coerce confessions out of Palestinian women during the interrogation process, he says.

While Palestinian women may have a unique experience, many of the injustices widespread in Israeli prisons are shared by both men and women—and are forbidden by international law.

Hiba Hamidat is originally from Jalazone refugee camp, seven kilometers north of Ramallah. She spent 32 months in Ha’Sharon prison in Israel for her participation in demonstrations and support of Palestinian prisoners.

Released just over a year ago, Hamidat explains that the hardest part was being separated from her family, especially her mother, who didn’t have an Israeli ID card and therefore could not enter Israel to visit the prison.

“While I was serving my sentence, my mother couldn’t visit me for one year. For one year, only my father visited me. It was very difficult to see that all the other prisoners had their mothers visiting them, while my mother couldn’t visit,” explained the 24-year-old.

According to Israeli human rights lawyer Lea Tsemel, Hamidat should never have been held in an Israeli jail.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power are prohibited."

Hamidat’s case is yet another example of how Israel blatantly disregards international law, says Tsemel, especially when it comes to arrest, interrogation and detention procedures for Palestinians.

“[Palestinians] are not recognized prisoners of war. They are held in different prisons within Israel which again is contradictory to the international Geneva Conventions, [which state] that people from the occupied territory will not be shifted to the occupier's territory,” explained Tsemel.

Jaradat, who does prisoner support with Adameer, says that a prisoner’s plight does not end with his or her release from prison. "Once a Palestinian has been to prison, their life will change. The punishments or violations of their rights and restrictions on their lives continue forever by the Israeli occupation," said Jaradat. "It’s never over."

Dahadha can speak to this reality first-hand.

"My life changed," she said. "I was engaged to someone in Jordan, but after I was released they prohibited me from leaving the country. Every time I try to cross the border they turn me back and give me an invitation for interrogation."

Newly engaged and planning her wedding for the fall, Dahada says her new fiance has been threatened with imprisonment by Israeli authorities for his connection to her.

"Even after a prisoner is out of prison," she said with a soft smile, "the torture and sentence does not stop there."

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a human rights activist and multimedia journalist presently based in occupied East Jerusalem.

Jehan Dahadha

Central Prison

The Same Boat

Moira Peters — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:15:33 +0000

Israel's attack on flotilla mirrors daily reality in Gaza

GAZA—On the evening of May 30, 2010, I awoke to a text message from a Gaza-based international activist saying that the Freedom Flotilla was being instructed by the Israeli Navy to halt its course to the Gaza Strip. The vessels were more than 70 miles from Gaza’s coast.

I wasn’t surprised. In every one of the nine Free Gaza trips from Cyprus to Gaza, the Israeli Navy commanded boats in international or Palestinian waters to turn around. Five voyages succeeded in ignoring the Israeli Navy’s threats and sailing on through international waters into Palestine.

Earlier that day, Gaza had been preparing for the arrival of the flotilla. A sea demonstration had ventured a couple of kilometres out; an Israeli gunboat patrolled another kilometre or so out and had been shooting on some poor fishing trawler.

In the morning of May 31, 2010, I awoke to text messages saying the boat had been attacked by the Israeli Navy. I wasn’t surprised. In December, 2008, as Israel pounded Gaza from the air, land and sea in a 23-day assault, Israeli gunboats rammed a Free Gaza vessel.

"The gunboats gave us no warning... They rammed us three times, hitting the side of the boat hard. We began taking on water and, for a few minutes, we all feared for our lives," said Free Gaza co-ordinator Caoimhe Butterly, who was on board during the 2008 attack.

Images of the latest attack on the Freedom Flotilla showed Israeli commandos dropping from military helicopters and firing on the passengers. Scenes of shocked faces carrying the dead and the injured emerged from the chaos.

"The attack on the Mavi Marmara [vessel] came in an instant: they attacked it with 12 or 13 attack boats and also with commandos from helicopters. We heard the gunshots over our portable radio handsets, which we used to communicate with the Mavi Marmara, because our ship communication system was disrupted. There were three or four helicopters also used in the attack. We were told by [the] Mavi Marmara their crew and civilians were being shot at and windows and doors were being broken by Israelis," said Kutlu Tiryaki, captain of another vessel in the flotilla, as reported by The Guardian.

This latest brutality, in which elite Israeli commandos opened fire on peace and justice activists on at least two of vessels and according to some estimates killed 19 and injured up to 60, was criminal but not shocking. That the Israeli commandos did so in international waters, far from Israel’s coastline and jurisdiction, was also not shocking.

Utmost respect for the killed and injured aside, I am not surprised.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, said the flotilla was carefully inspected before departure: “I want to say to the world, to the heads of state and the governments, that these boats that left from Turkey and other countries were checked in a strict way under the framework of the rules of international navigation and were only loaded with humanitarian aid."

There was no-one on board "other than civilian volunteers" he said.

Given that Israeli commandos boarded the vessels in international waters, and if, as the activists on board allege, the soldiers fired first with live ammunition—not rubber-coated bullets or tear gas—Israel's self-defence spin is simply not credible.

Having borne witness to Israeli attacks on clearly-marked medics (16 emergency workers killed by Israeli soldiers) and civilians (nearly 1500 Palestinians killed, the vast majority of whom were non-combatants) during the War on Gaza in December 2008, as well as the variety of war crimes perpetrated by Israeli soldiers, little surprises me now.

Having watched an Israeli soldier target an unarmed youth in his femoral artery because the young man protested the Israeli-imposed no-go zone, I’m not surprised by any Israeli action. Ahmed Deeb, 21, bled to death when the bullet exploded in his thigh.

On a daily basis, Israeli soldiers shell and fire on unarmed Palestinian civilians. Accompanying fishermen and farmers, I have seen and experienced this first-hand. I’m no longer surprised, although at first it was unimaginable: they are firing live ammunition on visibly unarmed people, I said. There are children here, older men and women. What threat do these people pose, I wondered.

The United Nations (UN) reports that two fishermen have been killed and 12 injured since January, 2009 alone, and these are only the reported cases.

In the border regions, unarmed farmers, workers and residents face daily attacks from Israeli soldiers enforcing a brutal no-go zone well beyond the 300 metres Israeli authorities say is off-limits. Tens have been killed and injured by these Israeli attacks.

But attacks are not limited to Palestinians working on Gaza’s waters and border region lands. Under a siege imposed shortly after Hamas was elected in 2006 and tightened brutally since mid-2007, all of Gaza’s 1.5 million suffer. The health sector has been decimated: the Israeli war on Gaza destroyed or damaged more than half of Gaza’s hospitals while the Israeli-Egyptian-international siege prevents 141 vital medicines from entering, and has led to more than 360 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

Gaza’s sewage and sanitation systems are collapsing; their alarming state has been well-documented by the UN, World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations.

Ninety-eight per cent of industry has been shut down, contributing to unemployment levels of roughly 50 per cent and an increase in the number of tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, as well as the number of desperate Gazans willing to work in them.

Without the siege on Gaza, the more than 1,000 tunnels would have no market for the goods they bring in daily. The more than 150 workers killed in the tunnels (by Israeli bombing, tunnel collapses, electrocution, Egyptian gassing and bombing) would have had alternative employment options.

Malnutrition is rife, particularly among children, with anaemia and growth stunting on the rise at a drastic rate.

Israeli officials claim that there is no “humanitarian crisis” as they admit more than enough food aid for each person. However, this aid is largely in the form of carbohydrates, leaving families deficient in protein and vitamins. The caloric requirements Israel authorizes per Palestinian in Gaza perpetuate the sentiment of Israeli governmental adviser Dov Weisglass who sought to “put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

The farmers and fishermen targeted by Israeli soldiers are providers of produce and protein not permitted through Israel’s borders. Their harvest would enable Palestinians in Gaza to stave off slow starvation. Roughly one-third of Gaza’s agricultural land lies in the region Israel unilaterally deems and mortally enforces as off-limits.

When I sailed to Gaza in November 2008 with the third Free Gaza voyage, I knew there was an element of risk: either we wouldn’t reach Gaza or we would be abducted by the Israeli navy. It was a risk worth taking but above all it was a small risk compared to the dangers Palestinians are exposed to every day.

Participants of the Freedom Flotilla, comprising nine vessels and nearly 700 people from over 20 countries, knew there was a significant risk the Israeli navy would attack or halt their boats.

And while the Freedom Flotilla carried needed construction supplies as well as toys, sweets and books for children, the significance of sailing to Gaza to break through the isolation and penetrate the siege cannot be overemphasized.

The siege, as crippling and cruel as it is, is about more than an engineered humanitarian, social and economic catastrophe. It is about the right to self-determination, the right to open borders and to freedom of movement.

The world should question not only the killing of non-threatening civilians in international waters, but also the validity of Israel’s jurisdiction in the whole matter. Does Israel occupy Gaza, or not? If so, why are malnutrition and poverty levels rising in the Gaza Strip?

Huwaida Arraf, abducted from international waters, said previously that "[w]hen states and the international bodies responsible for taking action to stop such atrocities chose to be impotent, then we—the citizens of the world—must act. Our common humanity demands nothing less."

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer living in Gaza. Read more about life in Gaza on her blog, ingaza.wordpress.com.

Flotilla Fish

Frustration, Suffocation and Crisis

Moira Peters — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:03:08 +0000

Strife, siege on Gaza continue one year after Israeli bombardment

GAZA—The Gaza Strip was already spiraling under years of siege long before the F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tanks, warships, unmanned aerial vehicles and armed soldiers waged a 23-day war on the Strip in winter 2008-2009.

The agricultural sector, which used to provide 50 per cent of Gaza’s food needs, had been steadily failing as a result of the siege and Israel’s policy of aggression in border regions. The Israeli-led, internationally-complicit siege bans all but roughly 40 items from entering Gaza.

In 2008 the Agricultural Development Association (PARC) reported a desperate need for nylon used in hothouses, irrigation piping, fertilizers, seeds, seedlings and pesticides. In March 2009, the United Nations’ Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reiterated the call, adding animal feed, livestock, olive and fruit tree saplings, saying the need was "urgent" and "very urgent."

The Israeli war on Gaza destroyed between 35 and 60 per cent of agricultural sector, tearing up irrigation networks, destroying hundreds of wells, water pumps, and cisterns, farm buildings and machinery, and killing over 35,000 cattle and sheep, and over 1 million chickens and birds.

The most fertile areas of the impossibly small Strip lie in Gaza’s border regions—inhabited but largely undeveloped. Of the 175,000 dunams of cultivable land, 60-75,000 dunams have been destroyed by Israeli invasions and operations.

The Israeli-imposed “buffer zone” in theory renders 300 metres flanking the borders off-limits. Israeli authorities say anyone within that zone risks being shot by Israeli soldiers. In reality, Israeli soldiers shoot and shell up to two kilometres from the border, rendering more than one-third of Gaza’s farmland inaccessible.

Since the end of Israel’s war on Gaza on January 18, 2009, at least 13 Palestinian civilians have been killed and 39 injured in and outside of the “buffer zone” by Israeli soldiers’ shooting and shelling. Children are among the casualites.

Despite the danger, farmers continue planting and farming. The inability to regularly access their land has meant many farmers sow low-maintenance crops instead of the diverse array of vegetables, grains and fruits that once flourished in Gaza.

Before Israeli bulldozers razed the fruit and olive trees that abounded along Gaza’s borders, bee-keepers were able to produce high-quality honey two or three times per year. Many bees have died out from Israeli bulldozing and during the last Israeli war on Gaza. In the absence of trees, most of the remaining bee-keepers substitute sugar-water for flowers.

The Palestinian fishing industry, employing more than 3,500, has been devastated by Israeli attacks on fishing boats, confiscation of boats and equipment, and the abduction of Palestinian fishermen.

Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinian fishermen have the right to fish 20 nautical miles off Gaza’s coast. Israeli authorities have steadily down-sized fishing zone limits. In 2008, fishermen were warned not to go beyond six miles. Currently, Israeli gunboats prevent fishermen from passing three miles.

Fishermen report being attacked by machine gun shooting, water cannons and shelling from Israeli gunboats within three miles of the coast. Israeli naval soldiers routinely force Palestinian fishermen in large vessels, or small hassakas just 2-300 metres off the coast, to motor or row out beyond the Israeli-imposed limit, whereupon the fishermen are abducted and arrested.

Abducted fishermen report being forced at gunpoint to strip, jump into the water (frigid in winter) and swim tens of metres to a retreating Israeli gunboat where they are hauled aboard, blindfolded and handcuffed, sometimes beaten, interrogated and taken to Israeli detention for one or more days.

The interrogations often include coercion, via threat and financial enticement, to work with Israeli intelligence.

Their fishing boats are frequently confiscated for months, often returned damaged or with equipment and parts missing.

Fishermen say the bounty of fish lie beyond the six mile limit. Reduced to fishing along the coast, the sparse catch comes from waters contaminated by 80 million litres of raw or partially-treated sewage pumped daily into the sea for want of proper sewage maintenance plants.

While Egypt is building a steel wall intended to cut off the hundreds of tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt, tunnelers say they will dig deeper. Palestinians in Gaza say they need the tunnels: they are a lifeline, bringing the imaginable—chocolates, cigarettes, medicines, appliances—to the unimaginable—livestock, cars, people.

Unemployment remains rife at near 50 per cent, with food aid dependence and poverty at over 80 per cent. Educated youths with university degrees languish without work, or take jobs driving taxis for a paltry salary. Students craving higher education, and with scholarships abroad, remain imprisoned by Gaza’s siege-closed borders, losing study and scholarship opportunities.

One year later, virtually nothing has changed, except the frustration, suffocation, and manufactured crises have worsened.

A complete schedule of Israeli Apartheid Week with speaker biographies is available on the website.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer living in Gaza.

Trauma

Fishing Group

Beit Hanoun

Gravel & Sand Dad & Kid

Buffer Zone

Fishing Steam

Sheep

Opposition MPs in the West Bank

Moira Peters — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:41:10 +0000

Liberal, NDP and Bloc MPs visit Palestinian evictees, call on Canada to respond

JERUSALEM—Following a trip to Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza in August, members of parliament from Canada's three opposition parties say they are committed to pushing their parties, and the government, on Canada’s role in the region.

Responding to Israel's seige on Gaza, Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Association (CPFA) representatives Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Liberal), Libby Davies (New Democratic Party) and Richard Nadeau (Bloc Québecois) flew to the Middle East to assess the humanitarian situation.

Reached by phone after returning to Canada, Davies (Vancouver East) said the Canadian government is silent when it should join in international condemnation of Israel's human rights abuses. The pressure on the Israeli state that is coming from Canadian civil society, including the Jewish community, is “not happening at the political level,” according to Davies.

The delegation entered and exited Gaza at the Rafah crossing, except for Wrzesnewskyj, who parted ways with the group in Egypt.

Wrzesnewskyj, MP for Etobicoke Centre and founder of the CPFA, was more optimistic than Davies. (Wrzesnewskyj resigned as Liberal foreign affairs critic after coming under fire for calling on Canada to dialogue with Hezbollah during the Lebanon War.)

“One day in the not too distant future, I hope that everyone there, regardless of who they are, could have the same hopes and dreams as the children living here in Canada,” he told me after his visit.

Turning his attention to the heart of the Palestinian struggle, Wrzesnewskyj remarked that “obviously East Jerusalem is going to be key for negotiations.”

Both Palestinians and Israelis lay claim to Jerusalem as their eternal capital. But Palestinian residents of the city are being forced out of their homes by Israeli soldiers.

Fifty-three Palestinians were evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem last month. Wrzesnewskyj argued that Israel's actions present a call for President Obama to act. However Wrzesnewskyj mentioned nothing about a similar response from Ottawa.

When, on August 8, Liberal, NDP and Bloc members stepped out of the Ambassador Hotel and into the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, they glimpsed a crucial instance of what is impeding Israeli-Palestinian peace. A few minutes away, Palestinians were camping on the sidewalk after being violently evacuated from their homes by hundreds of police six days before.

Settlement companies plan to increase Jewish residence in Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian refugees were given housing by Jordan and UN Relief and Works Agency in 1956. An hour after the Gawi and Hannoun families were evicted on August 2, Jewish settlers seized their houses. Israeli police and private security have since been guarding the properties.

The evictions and occupations of Palestinian homes began after Israeli courts allowed a Jewish association to claim ownership over land in Sheikh Jarrah from deeds dating back to the 1800s. But Palestinian refugees, like the Hannouns who were forced to flee their home in Haifa—now northern Israel—in the 1948 war, cannot return to homes they lost 61 years ago.

****

Since Canada would not fund or facilitate the CPFA reps' visit to Gaza, the officials' travel was facilitated by the North American feminist and peace organization, Codepink. Strolling to the Old City to grab dinner, the delegation of three MPs and members of Codepink were confronted instead by flashing blue lights from three police cars and Israeli border police in military wear with M16’s dangling from their shoulders.

Outside the Gawis’ house stood a blue three-by-three-metre tent, and about 50 people milling about underneath.

A religious Jewish man walked by, blood dripping from his forehead. More police arrived. Palestinians said a settler attacked their relative and the police then arrested a Palestinian man.

Moving away from the scene outside the Gawis’ home, the delegation followed Charihen Hannoun, 20, to the makeshift camp outside their home.

“We need all the world to know about our situation here and to help us back into our house,” she told the delegation.

****

Over the phone Davies said she will share this information with parliament. However, she says, it is “a challenge in and of itself to pressure our own government to be more proactive on upholding human rights and international law, whether it’s in Jerusalem or Gaza.”

Wrzesnewskyj believes that practically, only the US can push Israel on this issue. But there are signs the US is giving in to Israeli demands to leave East Jerusalem out of a settlement freeze.

Davies pointed out that when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian question, Canada’s foreign affairs website mentions UN resolutions, international law, the Green Line and the illegality of the separation barrier. “But what they have on paper, on the website, and what they actually do are two completely different things.”

Following the evictions, the UN, US and EU condemned Israel’s actions. I asked Davies about Canada’s position. “Well, I’m not aware that Canada’s said anything, are you?”

However, according to Foreign Affairs spokesperson Rodney Moore, Canada registered its concerns directly to the Israeli government on this issue.

The delegation has not yet completed their report.

Carmelle Wolfson is an independent journalist from Toronto currently based in Israel/Palestine, and a copy editor for Briarpatch Magazine.

A version of this article originally appeared in NOW Magazine.

MPs in West Bank

Settlers in Sheikh Jarrah

Palestinian Organizer Imprisoned after Tour of Canada

dru — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:54:20 +0000

Interview with Abdullah Abu Rahme of Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements

MONTREAL–Bil'in, a village in Palestine, has become a celebrated symbol of the Palestinian popular struggle against the Israel's "separation wall" built in the Palestinian West Bank. Each Friday, Bil'in villagers gather to peacefully protest the wall.

Demonstrations in Bil'in have attracted global attention and often face severe violence from Israeli military forces. Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahma, a Palestinian community activist from Bil'in, was killed last April after being struck at close range by a teargas canister. Abu Rahma was the 18th Palestinian to have been killed by the Israeli army during popular demonstrations against the apartheid wall in Bil'in and throughout the West Bank.

Bil'in is also known to people in Quebec and across Canada after village representatives launched a lawsuit against two Montreal-based companies involved in the construction of Israeli-only settlements on Bil'in lands. In June 2009, members of Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements visited Canada, touring 11 cities across the country.

In recent weeks Israel's military has been carrying out night raids on Bil'in, targeting members of the Bil'in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements with arrest. Among those arrested was Mohammad Khatib, a member of the Committee.

Khatib is a key Palestinian community activist from Bil'in. Khatib has been detained by the Israeli military for almost two weeks—a political prisoner, according to other Palestinian activists.

Khatib now joins an estimated 8,000 Palestinian prisoners currently detained by Israeli authorities. According to a recent report from Amnesty International, many Palestinian prisoners “face medical negligence, routine beatings, position torture and strip searches by Israeli prison authorities.” The Palestinian prisoner population includes over 400 children and over 100 women.

Last month, Abdullah Abu Rahme visited Canada for a national speaking tour with Khatib. On August 3, Israeli soldiers raided several homes and arrested Khatib. He is currently in prison with no charges.

Dominion: Abdullah, can you first give us an update on the ongoing night-time raids on Bil'in and the arrest of Khatib?

Abdullah Abu Rahme: During the past months, Israeli soldiers have been following closely activists from Bil'in, arresting [multiple] members of the Bil'in Popular Committee. Israel wants to arrest us all because of our ongoing popular protests and because we are standing against the apartheid wall and settlements.

In the last months Israel has been working to build more settlements on our land, and we as Palestinians are trying to stop Israel from colonizing our land. They are trying to stop our struggle by arresting us.

Mohammad Khatib is known in Palestine and around the world for [organizing] the popular, non-violent struggle in Palestine, in Bil'in. Mohammad was arrested on Monday morning and this week an Israeli judge asked the Israeli military to release Mohammad, but they are still holding him without charge.

Can you talk about your protest movement in Bil'in?

For over four years we have been protesting each Friday in Bil'in, our struggle, our protests include Israeli activists and many internationals from around the world. Bil'in is struggling to have the Israeli wall removed from our land, to stop the construction of settlements and to end the occupation.

In the last weeks we have been calling on many people to come to our village to protest with us in Bil'in because the Israeli army has been raiding our village at night and is now putting us in jail.

Israel's wall is confiscating our land, actually more than half of our land in Bil'in... [as] farmers we need our land [which is] agricultural land. Israel is [planning] to build settlements on our land and they actually built East Matityahu on our land.

If the Israeli military continues to arrest us and put us in jail we will see more Israeli and international activists coming to protest with our children every Friday, even if we are in jail. Bil'in will continue on with our struggle.

Mohammad Khatib from Bil'in was arrested this week—Mohammad who spoke at Concordia University and who also toured Canada in June. Bil'in's tour in Canada was focused on mobilizing support for your lawsuit in Canada against two Montreal-based companies building settlements on your land but also to build support for your weekly protests against the Israeli "apartheid wall." Abdullah, could you describe for people the Israeli wall on Bil'in's land?

Abdullah Abu Rahme: Israel's wall in Palestine is around 770 kilometres long and [annexes] around 12 per cent of the land of the West Bank. This land is rich with water resources which are very important for Palestine but with the wall the water is directed towards Israeli settlers, to the settlements.

In addition to stealing our water the land [annexed] by the wall is mainly rich agricultural land on the Palestinian side of the [1967] Green Line. In Bil'in's case, more than 50 per cent of our lands are behind the wall, around 2000 dunams [about 500 acres] of our land, which are rich lands for agriculture and lands with water. Actually Israel is planning to build settlements on all the lands of Bil'in [which have been] stolen by the wall.

It is becoming more and more difficult for us in Bil'in. We need our farm lands. We are being pushed to leave Bil'in, to another city or another country. This is a new Nakba for us, but we will never leave. We refuse to leave and want to stay on our land.

Back to Mohammad Khatib, who visited us recently in Montreal: What are you calling on people in Canada to do to respond to Mohammad's arrest?

Mohammad is my friend not only from the Popular Committee but from school, from university. He has two daughters and two sons, small children, who are sad about Mohammad's arrest. The whole village is sad. Mohammad has spoken in many countries about Bil'in's struggle: in Germany, in France, in Canada, in the US, in Italy, in Spain, presentations to call on people to come and celebrate with Bil'in.

In Palestine also Mohammad has given many lectures calling on people to join the popular protests, to use non-violence protest against the Israeli occupation.

To all the people in Canada, who know Mohammad and who don't know Mohammad, we are asking you to protest and to send a message to Israel to release Mohammad from prison.

We call on all people to join with Tadamon!, who have supported us in Canada and helped us with our legal case; contact Tadamon! and all our friends in Canada to organize protests to call for Mohammad to be released. To hold actions outside the Israeli embassy in Canada, to also collect money to [help us] pay our legal bills for our legal case in Canada.

People in Canada should [send] a message to the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv to support us in Bil'in, to call on Israel to free all our prisoners. Canada's Foreign Minister should do something to support our case in Bil'in.

Can you describe for us how Mohammad was arrested?

On Monday at three in the morning a [large] number of soldiers, around 200 soldiers with masks and painted faces, entered our village, surrounding our homes, the homes of the members of Bil'in's Popular Committee.

Israeli soldiers surrounded Mohammad Khatib's home and entered his home violently and took Mohammad in front of his children violently.

Also the soldiers came to other people's homes, arresting others also from the Popular Committee in Bil'in. Israeli soldiers beat Mohammad and the other Palestinians badly. Israeli soldiers put a knife to the neck of some people in our village demanding information about Bil'in's Popular Committee.

For more information visit: http://www.bilin-village.org

Stefan Christoff is an independent journalist and community activist.

Mohammed

Who profits from Israeli occupation?

Lia Tarachansky — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:56:51 +0000

More at The Real News

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.

Through Canada’s Rez Zone Looking Glass

Moira Peters — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:37:03 +0000

Israeli Apartheid Week

KUTENAI TERRITORY, TURTLE ISLAND–Divining the past can be difficult, especially when your crystal ball is a bit smudged; it’s not all shooting fish in a barrel. In this fifth consecutive year of an international effort to call attention to the nature of the relationship between the Israeli state and Arab Palestinians living within and without that or any state, a question has been stirring at the margins of permissible thought.

What would a Canadian Apartheid Week look like? American Apartheid Week? Mexican Apartheid Week? An Apartheid Week for every nation state in the so-called Americas? Except for Bolivia, of course. After the last Bolivian national election, the new President said that Bolivia would no longer be needing a Department of Indian Affairs because the Indians were now the government.

As an Indigenous person, I ask myself if there is some level of hypocrisy going on in Canada if progressives demonstrate against Israeli state actions while continuing to enjoy the benefits of living in an entire hemisphere of apartheid, at home on native lands. Why not do both at once? And while we’re at it, why not join in with an international movement to guarantee the right to life for Jewish folk no matter where they are located?

Before the Empire, under Britain’s fading leadership at that time, declared an Israeli state in 1948, Jewish Palestinians and Arab Palestinians were living comfortably side by side. That peaceful co-existence can be traced back a long ways. As a member of Turtle Island’s Indigenous Peoples, the year 1492 stands out for me, as an important date in history. It’s an important date in Jewish and Muslim history, too: the year that Sephardic Jews and Muslim Moors were expelled from Spain. Where did the majority of Sephardic Jews flee to? The Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, where Sephardic Jews were valued and appreciated for their skills, particularly in areas of scholarship. It was a reciprocal relationship, with Jews also introducing into Western Christian societies important Arabic knowledge in maths and other sciences.

Sad to say, but Empire has other needs. Now under US leadership, the Empire needs the Israeli state to continue relentlessly on the warpath it started down in 1948, a war of extermination against Arab Palestinians located within the region coveted by Eretz Israel. Eretz Israel is the land promised by the Hebrew Bible’s God to Abraham and his descendants through Issac and Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. This arrangement suits the Empire’s needs quite nicely, namely as a highly developed forward base for Empire’s ambitions in the Middle East. I’ll describe apartheid’s economic functions in more detail shortly, but for now suffice to say that, as long as the Israeli state follows the same exact methods practiced in Canada, the United States of America, Mexico, etc., etc., on down to and past (but now having to avoid Bolivia) then it will all work out... for the Empire.

This calculation leaves out the question of blowback against Jews, no matter were they are located. A thousand years of pogroms resulting from elites setting up Jews to be the fall guys should be enough of a history lesson, but consider the fate of Israeli Jews when Empire loses it’s regional grip. Add in Empire’s weakening of secularism within Arab states and Empire’s strengthening of fundamentalist beliefs, whether Christian, Islamic, Hindi, or Judaic, all united by the common belief that their own God has asked them to kill members of all of the others, and it looks like a sure recipe for disaster. Why would an intelligent Israeli Jew want to travel even one step further down that path?

Is anyone else confused about why the three major world religions that claim to descend from Abraham, namely, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all seem so intent on remaining bitter enemies, in action repudiating their own philosophies of brotherly love?

The question at hand, however, is a discussion about an international Israeli Apartheid Week. In all fairness to Israel, Zionist war mongers would have to kill hundreds of millions of Arabs, and occupy 16,430,000 square miles of Arab territory, in order to achieve parity with the apartheid system calmly proceeding, apparently unnoticed, on Turtle Island, in Canada, the US, Mexico, and so on.

An area that size would have to include all of the Middle East, plus considerable amounts of South and East Asia. A territorial expansion of that magnitude is certainly in Empire’s "New American Century" playbook, but clearly not in the cards for Israel. For an accurate comparison between Israeli Apartheid and Americas Apartheid, one must look at the historical record to make stage by stage comparisons.

Avigdor Lieberman’s call for the administration of a loyalty oath to Arab Israelis needs to be compared to the nation state of Canada’s Province of British Columbia, where new legislation is currently under consideration to legally recognize Indigenous Peoples within the boundaries of the province as human beings. Lieberman is ahead of the Province of British Columbia in that he already recognizes Arab Israelis as human beings, viciously prejudiced as his judgement may otherwise be. In BC, I’ll have to wait with bated breath, as the business community battles the Recognition and Reconciliation Act proposals, to discover whether I will become a legal person in the eyes of the law. Since Governor James Douglas' 1858 legal declaration that the lands in the new Crown Colony of British Columbia were unoccupied, Indigenous Peoples within that territory have been non-persons, especially in relation to any type of property rights, Indigenous or Canadian, a declaration still in effect at the time of this writing.

Taken in total, I’d like to suggest that Palestinian Arabs, Jews of the world no matter where located, and Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island have common cause: surviving genocidal onslaughts. Cynical power players within Arab, Jewish, and Indigenous populations can be seen siding with Empire, no doubt prompted by a misguided sense of Darwinian notions about survival of the fittest. This individualist perspective leaves out long-term analysis, especially an analysis of long-term non-human global reactions. For instance: general environmental destruction, to name just one.

We humans have the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacity to turn course, change direction. The recent presidential election in the United States was a collective expression of exactly that desire, immediately subordinated to the needs of Empire. As a not-yet-recognized-as-human denizen of Canada’s Rez Zone, BC division, I’d like to humbly suggest that the solution to the apartheid problem could be more quickly advanced by a solidarity movement involving Indigenous folk, Jewish folk, and Arab Palestinian folk, against Empire in general, and apartheid states in particular.

Canada’s Indian Act and Indian Policy is the acceptable role model for Israel’s apartheid policy, and for South Africa’s apartheid policy of yesteryear. Canada’s Gaza Strip and West Bank were happening in the 1800s: mass slaughters in various colonial frontier encounters, like the Chilcoot War; forced starvation, for instance the sealing off of western prairie reserves as collective punishment after the North-West Rebellion, where up to 50 per cent of reserve populations perished; and the systematic destruction of Indigenous economic, political and social structures that was and still is Canada’s Indian Act.

When I was a child there was a large “NO TRESPASSING” sign, in English, a hundred yards from my house at the edge of Saddle Lake Indian Reserve # 125, obviously meant for Canadians to obey. Centuries of forced separation still play out in the daily lives of Cree folk and Canadian settler descendants; in small towns like St Paul, Alberta, the apartheid is so palpable you can cut it with a knife, and folks on both sides of the now-invisible barriers regularly do.

However, in spite of five hundred years of living this experience, I’d like to suggest that our common cause is much more significant than our presumed differences. This is true for any of the so-called areas of conflict in the post-modern world, where folks tend to focus on gender/sexual orientation, or race, or class, or ecology or authority. From an Indigenous perspective these are all parts of the elephant being described by blind persons as they each touch the portion closest to them. Apartheid systems are just one facet of the global control system I’ve been calling Empire.

As promised earlier, I’ll return to a brief examination of the economic function of apartheid. Apartheid serves as a necessary firewall between human beings belonging by birth to differentiated groups. Differentiated groups are brought into close physical proximity by colonial expansion, which I’ll call imperialism. Imperialism solves some of the inherent contradictions in capitalism, by expanding capital supply through primitive accumulation (expropriation of lands and resources), expansion of non-home markets, safety valve outlets for burgeoning unwanted home population, sources of lower cost labour power, and, in more advanced cases, through the creative destruction of productive property, thereby allowing a new cycle of production to begin by generally reducing previous over-productive capacities.

One problem encountered in the settlement stage of colonial expansion is that humans have the tendency to ignore the artificially imposed differentiations, and spontaneously re-group. Some sort of apartheid policy is necessary to prevent the potentially “destructive” co-mingling of plain human beings. Theories of race were invented to specifically re-enforce this artificial separation.

In Canada, apartheid is still an important social dam holding back a generalized reaction against the ongoing systematic de-humanization that I and all Indigenous Peoples inside of Canada are daily subjected to. The BC Chamber of Commerce is very concerned about the proposed new Recognition and Reconciliation Act because it threatens this apartheid relationship which allows smooth functioning of traditional colonial accumulation through dispossession. Timber. Minerals. Real Estate. Water.

At a moment in human history when the obvious contradictions of capitalism, imperialism, sexism, and ecological destruction are glaringly in-the-face of the human public, amplified by the as yet unrestricted access to information provided by communications technology, a unified pro-life choice movement may be timely.

Without the needs of Empire to sustain, there would be no need for the accumulation by dispossession facilitated by apartheid systems. Scarcity, like race, is an artificially constructed ideology that serves the purpose of Empire. Overcoming the ideology of scarcity is the next major collective undertaking facing humanity. If Jewish Peoples, Arabic Peoples, and Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island were to unite in an anti-scarcity campaign, properly called a pro-plenty for all campaign if we remember to share, then we would see real, sudden, and dramatic change; the kind of change folks in the US thought they were voting for, the possibility of such a change that folks around the world celebrated ecstatically, on the evening of November 4th, 2008.

I realize that it’s a bit more complicated than that, and I’ll return to economic issues later, but for now I’ve had my say about apartheid. What do you think?

Gifted with a white privilege suit on his Birth Day, Steinhauer has been slipping back and forth across the invisible boundary between Turtle Island and Canada, since 1952, in his lovely birthday suit. And this is what he saw.

Steinhauer I

Steinhauer III

No Justice, No Play?

dawn — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:41:54 +0000

Gaza anger overwhelms hoops contest

TACOMA PARK, MARYLAND–We have officially entered uncharted waters. Never before in my years of reporting has a sports team been forced to abandon the field of play due to political protest from fans. Never before have fans become the central actors in turning a sporting event into a political melee.

But on January 5 in Ankara, Turkey, the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, had to flee the wrath of what the Associated Press described as "hundreds of fist-pumping, chanting Turkish fans." What exploded was yet another protest against Israel's bombardment of Gaza. The shock here is the setting, a sports arena, and the target, a basketball team.

It may be surprising that this came to pass in supposedly apolitical environs – a Eurocup game against a team called Turk Telekom – but local officials knew this could happen and took every precaution. Thousands of police officers surrounded the court, and street demonstrations of 4,000 were already taking place outside the arena. Protesters shouted, "Israeli murderers, get out of Palestine!" and "Allah-u Akhbar!" as the Hasharon team bus entered the arena.

Only 500 fans were even let into the arena and were also subject to intense searches, but it wasn't enough. Police made the mistake of not confiscating the shoes.

Before the game could begin, angry chants of "Israeli killers!" came down from the crowd as smuggled Palestinian flags were unfurled. Then, in a scene that would look familiar to a certain sitting president, off came the shoes as footwear rained down from the stands (the shoes didn't hit any players).

As both teams looked at the crowd, frozen in place, battles began between police officers and Turkish fans, as the fans surged forward to take the court. Both Hasharon and Turk Telecom were rushed off and spent two hours in the locker rooms while the battle for control of the arena raged on.

Hashoran captain Meir Tapiro spoke about the fear and chaos he felt around him to the Jerusalem Post. "The fans raced on to the court and ran towards us like madmen, but the police stopped them. It was really scary."

After ninety minutes all the fans were expelled, arrested or dragged from the arena. The referees attempted to get the teams back onto the court to play before an empty arena, but Bnei Hasharon, after two hours of being prisoners in their locker room, had no desire to play. Referees called it a forfeit, and the Turks were declared winners of the game by the official forfeit score of 20-0.

Hasharon team chairman Eldad Akunis was understandably incensed. "After such a trying ordeal, there was simply no point in playing. The players were just concerned for their safety. We were also given instructions by the Israeli embassy staff, who were monitoring the situation, not to play," said Akunis.

There is no doubt that it was "a trying ordeal," a frightening experience that not even Red Sox fans would wish on the Yankees. But to put it mildly, it pales in comparison to the situation in Gaza itself. With more than 500 deaths, 3,000 injuries and 100 tons of bombs dropped on one of the most impoverished regions of the world, the trials of a basketball team seem trivial.

It is certainly true that none of the players – two of whom are African, five of whom are American-born – bear a hint of responsibility for any of this carnage. But it is difficult to forget the famous telegram sent by playwright Arthur Miller to President Lyndon Johnson. Miller was invited for a gala of some kind and refused, saying, "When the guns boom, the arts die." Perhaps when the guns boom, sports should die as well.

We may recall January 2008, when soccer star Mohamed Aboutreika lifted his shirt to reveal the slogan "Sympathize with Gaza." He wanted people to stand up and notice that an economic blockade had triggered, for the Palestinians in Gaza, a humanitarian crisis. The new year begins with another instance where the reality of Gaza has unexpectedly interrupted the field of play. Only this time – fitting the new moment – it was altogether more livid, more dangerous and more desperate. No sympathy has meant no peace.

Dave Zirin is the author of A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com, or contact Dave at edgeofsports@gmail.com

Basketball protests

An Open Letter from Jewish Youth in Canada

dru — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:18:20 +0000

Diverse voices oppose apartheid policies, Zionism

January 5, 2009

Like much of the world, we have spent the last week watching in shock and disgust as Israel continues its assault on the Gaza Strip. With the body count rising and a new tragedy in full bloom, we feel that it is important to speak out as Jewish youth in Canada and to denounce what Israel is doing in our name. The Jewish diaspora is diverse and divided on its positions on the state of Israel's policies. At this juncture in history, as Israel has committed its worst massacre in Gaza since it began its illegal occupation in 1967, we feel that it is crucial that Jews speak out and denounce Israel's actions that amount to no more than war crimes committed by an apartheid state.

As Jewish youth, we are diverse, but we are unified in our solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza.

Some of us are students. We are outraged by the bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza city, as well as other civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and mosques.

Some of us are Arab-Jews and people of colour. We stand against Israel's racism, which has been enshrined in Israeli law, and privileges its Jewish citizens over its non-Jewish ones. This apartheid state views Palestinians as an expendable people, no more than collateral damage.

Some of us are queer. We reject Israel’s branding of itself as the only safe place for queer people in the Middle-East while it targets gay and lesbian Palestinians and renders life unsafe for millions of others.

Some of us are Israelis living in Canada. We are calling for a solidarity that stretches beyond borders and nationalities. Israel's violent actions will only serve to further isolate the state and its citizens from the rest of the world. By calling itself a Jewish state and committing war crimes in the name of Jews everywhere, Israel makes the world even less safe for Jews, leading to an increase in animus towards Jewish people around the world.

Even though there have been approximately 100 Palestinian deaths for every Israeli killed by rocket fire, we recognize that Israeli apartheid also leads to Israeli casualties. The blame for these deaths lies with Israel – if there were no occupation and no apartheid policies, there would be no rocket fire. If Israel, the world's fourth largest military power, is concerned about its citizens, it would abandon its apartheid policies and seek out justice for the Palestinian people.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society put out a clear call for international support through a non-violent campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) similar to that carried out against the apartheid regime of South Africa. Now, with the people of Gaza being crushed by Israeli bombs, manufactured in the USA and launched with Canada's blessing, it is more important than ever for Jewish communities throughout the world to take up this BDS campaign in order to end Israel's apartheid system, which makes life unsafe for millions of Jews and Palestinians alike.

Let us not be silent bystanders while humanity suffers. Let us raise our voices, as Jewish youth, and demand a single, democratic state, with equal rights for everyone in Israel/Palestine.

Ours is a generation that is committed to ending Middle-East violence by opposing all forms of discrimination, calling for a just peace within the entire region, and condemning Zionism to the dustbin of history.

Free Gaza, Free Palestine,

1 Jenny Peto, Toronto, ON
2 Aaron Lakoff, Montreal, QC
3 Max Silverman, Montreal
4 Rachel Gurofsky, Peterborough, ON
5 Simon Gurofsky, Ottawa, ON
6 Zohar Melinek, Montreal
7 Claire Hurtig, Montreal
8 Ben Saifer, Ottawa
9 Brook Thorndycraft, Toronto
10 Joel Balsam, Montreal
11 David Mandelzys, Toronto
12 Reena Katz, Toronto
13 Mia Amir, Vancouver, BC
14 Matthew Shuster, Kingston, ON
15 Avi Grenadier, Kingston
16 Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Waterloo, ON
17 Melissa Harendorf, Montreal
18 Jeff Hiemstra, Toronto
19 Sacha Moiseiwitsch, Vancouver
20 Jake Javanshir, Toronto
21 Noam Lapid, Montreal
22 Stephen Kamnitzer, Toronto
23 Naava Smolash, Vancouver
24 Tamara Herman, Victoria, BC
25 Ryan Katz-Rosene, Ottawa
26 Sarah Fuchs, Montreal
27 Daniel Thau-Eleff, Winnipeg, MB
28 Deborah Rachlis, Ottawa
29 Marie L. Belliveau, St. Catharines, ON
30 Sarah Kardash, Sackville, NB
31 David Taub Bancroft, Vancouver
32 Kinneret Sheetreet, Montreal
33 Rachel Marcuse, Vancouver
34 Lisa Barrett, Bowen Island, BC
35 Rosanne Iland, Echo Bay ON
36 Max Tennant,Vancouver
37 Noah Fine, Vancouver
38 David Hill, Vancouver
39 Corey Balsam, Ottawa
40 Lee Skinner, Vancouver
41 Britt Lehmann-Bender, Toronto
42 Alexis Mitchell, Toronto
43 Jesse Rosenfeld, Montreal
44 Peter Driftmier, Calgary, AB
45 Joshua Schwebel, London, ON
46 Gideon Boxall, Vancouver
47 Diana Jewell, Mission, BC
48 Judith Mintz, Peterborough
49 Omri Haiven, Halifax, NS
50 Anne Bosch, North Vancouver
51 Emily Bitting, Moncton, NB
52 Vivian Belik, Winnipeg
53 Sasha Lofquist, Oakville, ON
54 Maya Shapiro, Toronto
55 Lisa Frances Greenspoon, Montreal
56 Aviva Cipilinski, Winnipeg
57 Daniel Tetrault, Vancouver
58 Yaacov Iland, Kitchener, ON
59 Jonah Gindin, Toronto
60 Rachel Huot, Toronto
61 Michelle Ohnona, Montreal
62 Myka Tucker-Abramson, Vancouver
63 Smadar Carmon, Toronto
64 Eytan Holtzer, Kingston
65 Irene Germain, Montreal
66 Emma Beltran-Kulikovsky, Toronto
67 Jordan Topp, Montreal
68 Adam Balsam, Ottawa
69 Natalie Kouri-Towe, Toronto
70 Simone Arsenault-May, Toronto
71 Louisa Worrell, Ottawa
72 Rachel Deutsch, Toronto
73 Bee Sack, Toronto

To sign on to this letter, send an email to antizionistjews@gmail.com with your name and city

Israeli Supporters

Jewish Demonstrator

Israel Bombs Gaza, Killing Hundreds

dru — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:24:34 +0000

Emergency demonstrations attract thousands worldwide

MONTREAL, QUEBEC–On December 27, 2008, Israeli military forces initiated "Operation Cast Lead," a bombing offensive against the Gaza Strip. F-16 jets and Apache helicopters, which are manufactured in part in Canada and largely paid for by an estimated $3 billion in annual US military aid, dropped 100 tonnes of bombs in the first day. Reported targets included municipal buildings, police stations, mosques, homes, cross-border tunnels, and a university. According to on-the-ground reports, facilities that have been hit by bombs include hospitals, medical storage facilities and fuel depots.

As of December 30, over 363 people have been killed, and over 1,700 injured. According to a UN report, at least 39 of the deaths were children. Casualties have thus far included government functionaries, children, women, traffic police in training, and bystanders. In some cases, attacks began when children were on their way home from school.

Operation Cast Lead was named in reference to a children's Channukah song written by Israel's national poet, Hayyim Nahman Bialik. The attacks began on the sixth day of the Jewish festival of lights, an official holiday in Israel.

The aim of the operation, according to Israeli officials' initial comments, was to put a stop to Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks against towns close to the Gaza strip, such as Sderot and Ashqelon. In the last seven years, an estimated 24 Israelis (16 within Israel, eight in now-vacated Gaza settlements) have been killed and 433 have been injured by Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks. The attacks have caused post-traumatic stress disorder among residents of the affected towns.

"After this operation there will not be a single Hamas building left standing in Gaza, and we plan to change the rules of the game," armed forces deputy chief of staff Brigadier General Dan Harel told journalists.

"We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings," he added.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that Israeli forces "will expand to a ground attack if that is needed."

Since Israeli forces vacated settlements and pulled out of Gaza in 2005, they have maintained control over Gaza's airspace, borders, and coastal waters. Since 2007, in response to the election of Hamas, Israel has maintained a tightening siege of Gaza. Shipments of food, fuel, clothing, cooking oil and medicine have been severely restricted, and many Gazans rely on cross-border tunnels to smuggle in basic supplies. Malnutrition affects an estimated 70 per cent of Gaza's population of 1.5 million. After Israeli forces bombed Gaza's main power plant in 2006, the sole remaining plant fell into disrepair, leaving the majority of Gazans without electricity. Israel has turned away several ships carrying food and aid supplies.

Ehud Olmert's advisor, Dov Weisglass, described the siege thus: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger."

Demonstrations and Criticism

Immediately following the bombing, emergency protests were organized around the world, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in England, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries.

In Canada, emergency protests brought out an estimated 200 in Halifax, 600 in Montreal, 200 in Ottawa, 800 in Toronto, and 300 in Vancouver. Additional demonstrations are planned in Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

The New Democratic Party called on the government of Canada to immediately call for an end to the attacks. The Liberal Party and the Conservative government both released statements supporting Israel's "right to defend itself" and condemning rocket attacks.

"The people who’ve been subjected to this don’t have the right to defend themselves, but Israel has the right to defend," Dr. Ismail Zayid said to reporters at a protest in Halifax.

Demonstrators in Montreal shouted slogans like "Israel assassin, Harper complice" (Israel assassinates, Harper is complicit) and "Québec, Gaza, solidarité."

A press release from the Toronto-based Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid condemned what it called "the single worst massacre in Gaza since it was illegally occupied in 1967," and called for an end to the "two-year siege" that "has restricted all flow of aid, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities of life into the territory."

Vancouver organizers also condemned "official US and Canadian complicity."

"Targeting Hamas targets, when any civilian employed by the Hamas government, be they traffic police, civil police or in the Ministries, counts as a target, is an immoral declaration of war against a civilian population," Canadian Gaza-based solidarity activist Eva Bartlett wrote in a blog entry.

In Israel, some observers have ascribed the attacks to positioning for Israeli elections coming in February. "Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more," Michael Warschawski of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem told journalist Jonathan Cook. Writing shortly before the bombing began, Yoel Marcus observed that "the hysterical reaction by the public as a whole and politicians in particular stems mainly from the fact that the country is in an election period."

Ali Abunimah called for increased support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, initiated in 2005 by Palestinian Civil Society organizations. "Palestinians everywhere are asking for solidarity, real solidarity, in the form of sustained, determined political action," Abunimah wrote on the day the bombing began.

Media coverage was criticized for omitting the historical context of Palestinian dispossession. Writing in the Independent, Robert Fisk said, "The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear" in media coverage of the bombing.

Dru Oja Jay is an editor at the Dominion.

Gaza Protest, London

Gaza Montreal

Past Gaza Coverage

dru — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:33:58 +0000

Jon Elmer: "Israeli pilots carried out a series of air and artillery strikes throughout the Gaza Strip, targeting civilian infrastructure, assassinating militants and striking fear into the population with deafening noise as low-flying F-16 fighter jets shatter the sound barrier overhead day and night." (OCT 2005)

Jon Elmer: "Living in conditions of crushing poverty, less than 15 percent of Al-Mawasi residents were connected to the electricity grid; the rest relied on two generators that operated only in the evenings. With tight army checkpoints, residents had sporadic and unpredictable access to fuel, dictated by the apparent whims of Israeli authorities." (OCT 2005)

Ramzy Baroud: "On Tuesday, January 22, they descended on the Gaza-Egypt border and what followed was a moment of pride and shame: pride for those ever-dignified people refusing to surrender, and shame that the so-called international community allowed the humiliation of an entire people to the extent that forced hungry mothers to brave batons, tear gas and military police in order to perform such basic acts as buying food, medicine and milk." (FEB 2008)

Eva Bartlett: "The youth was struck from behind by an Israeli sniper bullet that dug into his spine, destroying three of his vertebrae and leaving him paralyzed and bleeding on the roof, where he lay for 15 minutes before his younger brother found him. The 13-year-old dragged Abed to the stairs and down into the family's home, dodging further sniper fire as he went." (JUL 2008)

Gaza, take I

dru — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:22:29 +0000

Eva Bartlett: "One hour later, Jihad Samour (approx. 55 years old), arrived with his 6 sons and one other youth, 15 year old Wassim Eid, HUto drop off scrap metal, the proceeds of which he was to use to buy food. A missile from a drone overhead hit the group, tearing them to pieces and exploding into an even larger blast than usual due to the oxygen tanks at the shop. One of the men, not immediately killed, ran around crying 'help me, I’m burning,' engulfed in flames from the explosion. Only one son, 23 year old Mohammed Samour, escaped the massacre, without an arm and a leg, and in critical condition."

Yoel Marcus: "This doesn't mean the situation is possible to live with, but it appears the hysterical reaction by the public as a whole and politicians in particular stems mainly from the fact that the country is in an election period."

Ali Abunimah: "Already I have received notices of demonstrations and solidarity actions being planned in cities all over the world. That is important. But what will happen after the demonstrations disperse and the anger dies down? Will we continue to let Palestinians in Gaza die in silence?"

Ha'aretz: "But Hamas officials and analysts said Monday that the organization would actually like Israel to launch a ground operation; it hopes this would let it inflict such heavy losses on Israeli tanks and infantry that Israel would flee with its tail between its legs."

Palestinians Dismantle Isreali Roadblocks

Lia Tarachansky — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:27:55 +0000

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.

Olmert Admits Israel Must Withdraw

Lia Tarachansky — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:08:41 +0000

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.