Technorati Tags: Palestine, Waste, Trash, Israel, Excess, Oppression

via Sabbah

According to the Israeli press, Oprah is going to Israel for a “solidarity” visit.
Coming from someone like Oprah, she should be sympathizing with the
oppressed and above all, not showing solidarity with a racist state.
Most surprising is that the word “apartheid” has no meaning for her or
“ethnic cleansing.”

Wiesel called on Winfrey to visit Israel, where “the major war against terror is currently taking place.”

in her speech, Winfrey said she sympathized with the suffering of
the people of Israel, and that she intended to accept Wiesel’s
invitation and come with him to Israel.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Gillerman, who attended the event, said
that a visit of a figure with such influence on the international media
could help bring an end to the indifference towards the terror threat
faced by Israelis. (Source: YNet)

It is sad to believe that Oprah believed these Zionist lies about
fighting terror. Someone needs to tell her that Israel is the terrorist
state which kills the Palestinian children everyday and commit war
crimes every sunrise and that Palestinians are not terrorists but
freedom fighter struggling for decades to return their stolen lands and
live in peace.

Action:

Please write to her and send whatever information you can including reports from human rights organizations (Example: Yesterday’s Amnesty report)
and/or articles. Even recommendations for books that might educate her.
I’m sure she will change her mind if she knows more about the racist
state she intend to visit.

This is a page where you can write your thoughts:
http://www2.oprah.com/email/reach/email_reach_fromu.jhtml

Also, you can send your ideas in for a future show, which might be
about the suffering of the Palestinians, and their Nakba. This is a
page where there are a few email addresses:
http://www2.oprah.com/email/email_landing.jhtml

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I always knew some underhanded shit was up with that pseudo-humanitarian Eli Wiesel.  Since I saw him on Oprah once with a show covering the holocaust and his campaign to end the suffering of the people of Darfur, I was wondering… why the hell can’t he see through the blatant oppression happening in Israel.  Blatant Segregation and Inequality and yet he’s supporting the state wholeheartedly while shifting focus to other lands, which I think is a deliberate attampt to change the media agenda away from Palestinian suffering, not that other conflicts are any less deserving of coverage.  But this media and PR war is getting sickening.

I don’t like Oprah much, but many people follow her show religiously… for someone like her not to see the disconnect here is very disturbing.  I seriously think that her allegiance is to her show and her making a good appearance rather than to any true moral values.  So if you like the Oprah show, please write to her and let her know that this is just wrong and she should think about it seriously.

Peace,

M.

Technorati Tags: Oprah, Eli Wiesel, Israel, Hypocrisy

An article by Desmond Tutu – posted in the Guardian

In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders.  What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.   On one of my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?  I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: “Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews.”   My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?  
Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice. We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won’t let ambulances reach the injured.  The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred.  Israel has three options: revert to the previous stalemated situation; exterminate all Palestinians; or — I hope — to strive for peace based on justice, based on withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on those territories side by side with
Israel, both with secure borders.  We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world. If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land?  My brother Naim Ateek has said what we used to say: “I am not pro- this people or that. I am pro-justice, pro-freedom. I am anti-injustice, anti-oppression.”   But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticise it is to be immediately dubbed anti-semitic, as if the Palestinians were not semitic. I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures?  People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God’s world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.  Injustice and oppression will never prevail. Those who are powerful have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the powerful: what is your treatment of the poor, the hungry, the voiceless? And on the basis of that, God passes judgment.  We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace, because it is God’s dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers.  

Desmond Tutu is the former Archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission. This address was given at a conference on Ending the Occupation held in Boston, Massachusetts, earlier this month. A longer version appears in the current edition of Church Times

Michael Kinsley’s Guardian article arguing that Israel is not an Apartheid State, did have a rebuttal by some people who wrote a couple of letters which called him out on pertinent aspects…

Kinsley
also asks “where is the Palestinian Mandela?” It is no argument to
defend the systematic oppression of a community of people by lamenting
that they don’t behave as well as you feel they should under that
oppression. If human rights were restricted to those people fortunate
enough to be led by someone of the stature of Nelson Mandela, we’d all
be in trouble. But again, just for the record, Mandela did endorse a
bombing campaign, and our own prime minister of the day described him
as a terrorist (while Israel sold guns to South Africa).

But
if the Israelis are desperate for a Palestinian Mandela, how about
Marwan Barghouti for a candidate? Now where is the Israeli De Klerk?

Sabbah points out a ketter by a former US Senator which confirms that support for Israel by the US Senate is indeed based on fear.

And
now… the country which claims NOT to be an apartheid state refuses
South African Nobel Laureate and Arch Bishop, Desmond Tutu, permission
to lead a fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli-Palestinian
violence. (Al Jazeera)

“We
find the lack of co-operation by the Israeli government very
distressing, as well as its failure to allow the mission timely passage
to Israel,” Tutu said. “We have, in our view, been turned down.”

If
they are so hard-core on their position on NOT being an Apartheid
state, shouldn’t they be excited to invite an expert on apartheid to
give them a good clean endorsement of their position? Or do you think
they have something to hide? Duh!

Kabobfest points out this cool write-up… The International Herald Tribune ran an oped by Leila El-Haddad, a Palestinian journalist and the blogging genius behind the Raising Yousuf blog.

And finally… some Palestinian Hip-Hop is on the rise at San Francisco State University… check out this excellent Slide show with audio track. Brilliant

On Iraq, President Bush said Wednesday he would “not be rushed” into a decision
on a strategy change for Iraq, saying that in a round of consultations
he heard both some interesting ideas and some “ideas that would lead to
defeat.”

Well that’s good I think, last time he “rushed”
he invaded Iraq, luckily he’s taking his time now, since the longer he
takes, the more Iraq is leading to their defeat…and I also suspect
that the ideas which lead to defeat are exactly wthe ones which call
for withdrawal. Watch out for the spin

Peace,
M.

Technorati Tags: Palestinian Mandela, Marwan Barghouti, Michael Kinsley, US Senate, Desmond Tutu, Gaza Prison, Bush, Iraq, Hip-Hop, Palestinian Hiphop

One country bombed two countries. Such impunity might astound were it not business as usual. In response to the few timid protests from the international community, Israel said mistakes were made.How much longer will horrors be called mistakes?This slaughter of civilians began with the kidnapping of a soldier.

The United Nations makes recommendations but never decisions. When it does decide, the United States makes sure the decision is blocked. In the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. has vetoed forty resolutions condemning actions of Israel.How much longer will the United Nations act as if it were just another name for the United States?Since the Palestinians had their homes confiscated and their land taken from them, much blood has flowed.

Papal Moral Bankruptcy…

On Beit Hanoun: Yesterday the Arab League said that the actions of the US vetoing the draft UN resolution to condemn the massacres in Beit Hanoun dooms the Middle East Peace Process.

“This sends a message that causes us great sorrow and anger. The message was well received, and it tells us that the peace process is completely dead… This veto is incomprehensible and will only fan the flames of anger gripping the Middle East.” Secretary General Amr Mussa said.

The draft resolution would have condemned the artillery strike which occured on Wednesday in the northern Gaza Strip town and killed 19 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Britain abstained, France and Russia voted in favour, but America refused to allow the United Nations to condemn the Israelis. The resolution would also have condemned Palestinian rocket firing into the Jewish state (this aspect was included when Qatar modified the resolution). Even though this was included, America’s Ambassador to the UN, Mr Bolton described it as “in many places biased against Israel and politically motivated”.

Here, I echo Jews Sans Frontieres… A UN resolution that’s “Politically Motivated”? These zionists don’t even have to make sense any more.

Surprisingly, the Arab League announced that they are NOT going to adhere to any resolutions or foreign on-ground actions that ban support of Palestinians, financially.
Arab League Breaks Financial Embargo against PA (Reuters).

One day after the Israel army declared that it had pulled out and completed Operation Autumn Clouds in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, 24 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and the West Bank, 19 people were killed and at least 45 were injured as a large number of shells were fired at the town. Another five Palestinians were killed in Jenin, northern West Bank by Israeli army fire.

The series of incidents began at 6 a.m., when eyewitness said that dozens of tank shells and missiles landed simultaneously in a small and limited area in Beit Hanoun. Ambulances found it difficult to evacuate the wounded. According to Palestinian sources, some of the shells landed on a house, killing 11 members of one family called Al-A’athamein, including a nine-year-old child and a 73-year-old woman. Israeli sources confirmed that artillery shells were fired Wednesday morning. Incredibly, they said it was not yet known whether the matter was a technical error or a human one.

Sources in Gaza reported that some of those killed were hurt after shells hit a group of civilians who arrived to aid those hurt in the first barrage. Residents in the area were called to donate blood for fear that the number of casualties would be higher. Khaled Radi, a Palestinian Health Ministry official, said all the dead were civilians. He said seven children and four women were among the dead.

Radi also said at least 45 more were wounded, all civilians. Four hospitals are treating the wounded across Gaza. Emergency and first aid director in the ministry of health, Dr Moa’aweyah Hasanein announced that the latest round of Israeli war crimes in Gaza has resulted in a new massacre in the northern town of Beit Hanoun. Nineteen innocent civilians, including seven children and four women, have been murdered brutally as they slept in their own house. This brings this week’s toll alone to around 80 Palestinian martyrs and more than 350 have been injured. an extract from an article published on Electronic Intifada: “Yousef Alhelou writing from Beit Hanoun, occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 8 November 2006″ (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5993.shtml)

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We counted about eight impacts. The shells appear to have landed roughly in a straight line, starting in the fields at the end of the street and hitting houses on either side of it. A pen for livestock was struck by one of the explosions and the animals are lying dead on the ground.There are pools of bloodstained water outside one of the houses, which has had a hole blown through the roof and there are shrapnel marks everywhere from the explosion.A woman just walked past me crying, being helped by some of her neighbours.Most people are shocked and uncomprehending about what happened in their street during the night. A father of one child who was killed told me: “One missile I believe could have been a mistake, but the number of missiles that were fired, I can’t believe that was a mistake.”“I am angry. I hate the US, I hate George W Bush, I hate of course Israel. I also hate the Arab states which do nothing to help and the international community,” said Raed.But it was not anger in his eyes, it was more like an immense sadness that showed through.

MARCH AGAINST APARTHEID ISRAEL!
Saturday 4 November 2006
From Mary Fitzgerald Square (opposite Market Theatre)
To Gauteng Provincial Legislature @ 10AM

Given the appalling history of apartheid in our country, we as a people can no longer stand by and watch as Israel, an Apartheid State, continues to brutalise, expel and ethnically cleanse all the non-Jewish people of Palestine. This is being done in a brutal and inhumane effort to maintain Jewish Supremacy.

Today much of Palestine has been stolen, millions have been forced off their lands and into refugee camps, an Apartheid Wall further dehumanises and impoverishes its people, and the siege of Gaza and many other villages has left thousands destitute. Yet the world watches helplessly as the suffering continues unabated. We all recognise the need to intensify our struggle to isolate this racist regime, but we sit idly in our comfort zones unwilling to stand up for humanity.

We must demand that the South African government breaks all diplomatic relations and impose sanctions on the racist Israeli state!

As Muslims, we are against all forms of oppression, injustice and racism. Our humanity does not only stretch out to ‘our’ people. We support all those oppressed people of the world in Darfur, Sri Lanka, Australia, Palestine, Iraq and all over the world. As Muslims we MUST take this opportunity to once again show our support for the Palestinian people. Together with all peace loving South Africans we will march from the Market Theatre to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, this Saturday, November 4 2006.

May God send his help and blessing to all the oppressed people all over the world!

One cannot truly understand the Israeli – Palestinian ‘conflict’ without first understanding the history and origin of Israel. In order for us to understand this situation, it is also necessary to for us to work around and demystify the political and media jargon that is thrown at us everyday. And as time goes, this blog hopes to address those truths and fallacies that surround this ‘conflict’.

Today’s post serves as an introduction to two laws that govern Israel and how these laws impact on ordinary Palestinians.

Israel was established as a Jewish state and this in turn means that it was not intended to be a state for all of its citizens – Jews and non Jews alike. Instead it was primarily envisaged as a state of which every Jewish individual throughout the world would be a potential citizen.

So when Israel was unilaterally established in 1948, it became imperative for its legislative body to define in law those persons who would qualify as actual or potential citizens and those who would be excluded (non Jews in general and Palestinian Arabs in particular).

A mere 2 years later, the Knesset (Israel’s legislative body) passed 2 laws: the Law of Return and the Absentee Property Law. The former defined the boundaries of inclusion (‘every Jew has the right to immigrate into the country’) and the latter defined the boundaries of exclusion (‘absentee’).

So what do these law’s mean? Well under these laws, every Jew throughout the world is legally entitled to become a citizen of Israel upon immigration whilst some 2 million people (the 1948 Palestinian Arabs and their descendants) who were exiled as a consequence of the 1948-9 and the 1967 wars, are denied the rights of citizenship. Now here’s the kicker – their (the exiled Palestinians) right of return is universally recognised in international law and in repeated UN resolutions (beginning with resolution 194 (III), 11 December 1948). Yet they are defined by Israeli law as ‘non-existent’ and as ‘absentees’, and hence excluded from actual or potential citizenship in the Jewish State.

It is important to realise that the

“the most damaging manifestation of Israeli legislation is directed against those non-Jews who are legally excluded as ‘absentees’ from the body of Israeli polity: two million Palestinian Arab displaced persons, conventionally referred to as ‘refugees’.Thus, each Israeli Jew has a shadow: the Palestinian Arab refugee of 1948. Israeli Jewish homes are built on the ruins of their homes. Israeli Jews cultivate their land.
The Palestinian Arab refugee of 1948 is today a soldier in the Palestine Liberation Army: a fida’i. All human beings will rebel, must rebel, in such circumstances, to reconstitute their full human existence, to reclaim their rights, if necessary by armed struggle, inside every part of the homeland from which they have been excluded. And in this struggle the Palestinian Arab deserves our full moral and material support.” (Uri Davis, Israel: an Apartheid State)