Month: June 2011

The blockade on Gaza began long before Hamas came to power

by adminin Writing

MIDEAST ISRAEL PALESTINIANS+972 Magazine, June 29, 2011

The second Freedom Flotilla is slated to set sail by the end of the month in an attempt to challenge the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The act will call attention to the closure that the United Nations and human rights organizations have decried as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the collective punishment of civilians.

According to the Israeli government—and most of the mainstream media—the blockade began in 2007, following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. The aim of this “economic warfare” was to weaken Hamas, a group that the Israeli government had once supported. Israel also sought to stop rocket fire and to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza since 2006.

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Gaza goes mainstream

by adminin Writing

dsc06459Maan News Agency, June 28, 2011

At 33, Megan Horan is one of the younger passengers on the US Boat to Gaza. She admits that she is also a newcomer to the issues surrounding Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Speaking to Maan News Agency, Horan explains that she attended an interfaith conference last summer, soon after the Israeli raid on the flotilla that left nine activists on the Mavi Marmara dead. A Palestinian speaker who mentioned the recent attempt to break the blockade piqued her interest, as did Ann Wright who spoke of her experience on last year’s US boat, the Challenger 1.

“When I returned to Seattle, I started to really dig,” says Horan, who works in hi-tech.

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Flotilla organizers shake off threats

by adminin Writing

dsc06482Maan News Agency, June 28, 2011

At a spirited press conference in Athens today, organizers and participants of the Second Freedom Flotilla announced that recent events have not weakened their resolve to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The group also called into question American foreign policy.

While organizers remain reluctant to give an exact exit date—saying only that the flotilla will set sail for Gaza in the next few days—a departure seems imminent.

Members of European Parliament and a number of European politicians were present. The nine organizers and participants who spoke at the press conference sat before a white, red, black, and green banner that read, “We are breaking the blockade” in Greek.

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Unwelcome

by adminin Israel, Writing

dsc05730Tablet, June 3, 2011

It was one of the wordiest, most sophisticated protest placards I’ve ever seen a child hold. The pink sign, gripped by two Filipino-Israeli boys, read in Hebrew: “Prime minister, how long will children, innocent of crime, pay the price for the situation you created with your own hands?”

There were the usual catchy slogans, too, at Tuesday afternoon’s demonstration against deportation. Protesters chanted things like, “Kids aren’t criminals. Why are they being arrested?” (It rhymes in Hebrew.)

As the pink sign suggests, however, the struggle against the deportation of migrant workers and their children has gotten complicated. In the past, it was simple: These children speak Hebrew; they go to school here; they want to go to the army. They’re Israeli. So, they must stay here, in Israel.

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Complaint against US boat threatens Gaza voyage

by adminin Writing

dsc06273Maan News Agency, June 25, 2011

Organizers of the second Freedom Flotilla say that an administrative complaint has been filed against the US Boat to Gaza, the Audacity of Hope, claiming that the vessel is not seaworthy. This could delay or altogether prevent the ship from leaving Athens.

The harbor master received notification of the complaint Thursday afternoon, two days after suspected Mossad agents showed up at the ship.

The complainant is unknown. As of time of writing, a Greek lawyer representing the second Freedom Flotilla was working to obtain more details.

Israel has been open about its intentions to stop the flotilla using any means possible—including diplomatic avenues, lawsuits, and a media smear campaign.

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Flotilla organizers say Israel pressuring Greek government

by adminin Politics, Writing

flotilla_palestinian_flag1Maan News Agency, June 25, 2011

Organizers of the US Boat to Gaza say that the Greek government has come under intense pressure from Israel. The Israeli government is allegedly using trade agreements with the Greeks as leverage.

Spokesman of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gregory Delavekouras confirmed that Israel had contacted Greece about the US Boat to Gaza, which organizers have leased from Greek owners, as well as the flotilla in general.

“We’ve been in touch with Israel, we know their position, they’ve made it very clear,” he said.

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Savvy flotilla prep in full swing at Athens port

by adminin Lead Story, Writing

dsc06290Maan News Agency, June 25, 2011

Non-violence training and anti-sabotage measures are in place for the volunteers, activists and media arriving in Athens as the Freedom Flotilla II prepares to sail to Gaza.

In hopes of preventing sabotage which organizers said docked two boats from the 2010 flotilla, the ships for the June voyage have been moored in undisclosed locations, and press members have been asked not to release photographs of the vessels.

Upon arrival, those registered to sail to Gaza and attempt to break the Israeli blockade will participate in seminars designed by flotilla organizers on how to handle expected confrontations with Israeli forces when the boats approach the Gaza shore.

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Israel quashes West Bank protests

by adminin Israel, Writing

naksa_day_mya_guarnieri1Maan News Agency, June 5, 2011

An estimated 300 Palestinians who gathered at the Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem were met with tear gas and rubber coated bullets on Sunday, as they marked the 44th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

“To Jerusalem we go,” read signs held by protesters, who marched to the checkpoint separating the central West Bank from Jerusalem, located on the route of the separation wall, built some 5 kilometers on the Palestinian side of the 1967 border.

“Freedom is a human right,” another sign said, held by one of the few men who were able to bypass a heavy Israeli military cordon outside the checkpoint, which severed the crowd in two.

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The entitled people

by adminin Israel, Writing

israeliflagphotosouciant1Souciant, June 8, 2011

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before a special joint session of the United States Congress. A foreign leader, he looked at home as he thumbed his nose at US President Barack Obama. Just days before, Obama had reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to two states—one for the Palestinians, the other for Israelis—based on pre-Six Day War borders. Netanyahu defied Obama as he told Congress (and international audiences watching the live broadcast) that Israel would not withdraw to the 1967 lines.

Netanyahu’s words were the final nail in the coffin of the twenty-six year old ‘peace process’, which had begun under the sponsorship of his former archrival, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. They also marked a gulf between Congress and the President. And it is here, in this space, that a unique opportunity for the American public suddenly emerged.

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Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism

by adminin Israel, Writing

antizionismnotantisemitism1Mondoweiss, May 24, 2011

I’m fed up with criticism of Israel being shouted down as anti-Semitic. Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic. Here’s one simple reason why: a majority of the Jewish people lives in the Diaspora.

Just because this place, this strip of land, claims to represent us all doesn’t mean it does. And just because Israel claims to be the embodiment of the Jewish people’s longing for self-determination doesn’t mean it is.

Is brainwashing school-children self-determination? Is stuffing those same kids into uniforms and plunking them down, illegally, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories self-determination? Is keeping the nation chained to a conflict opposed by a majority of Jews self-determination?

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