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Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines ~ |
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Land theft and destruction / Ethnic cleansing
A human rights organisation has revealed that extremist Jewish settlers
have so far taken over 75 Palestinian buildings overlooking the Aqsa
Mosque, the last of which was the home of Qersh family a few meters from
the mosque.
Peace Now has posted the following video of the arrival of the settlers
in the Old City - to evict nine Palestinian families from a building
Nine
Palestinian families spent their first night in the open air on
Thursday, after being forced out of their homes by Israeli settlers
before sunrise the same morning. Sami Qeresh head of a household of six
dependents, said women and children "spent a night in the open air
waiting for Israeli forces to carry out their decision" over documents
allegedly showing Jewish ownership of the eleven-apartment building near
the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City.
Daily, Israeli oppression continues - demolishing homes, dispossessing
occupants, and revoking residency rights, three of its many crimes under
international law, Israel spurning it with impunity. On July 22, the
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported mass Jordan
Valley Al Farisyie village demolitions, displacing 107 people,
including 52 children. Targeted were 26 residential tents, 22 animal
shelters, seven taboun clay ovens, eight kitchens, 10 bathrooms, four
water tanks, and an agricultural equipment shed - in all, 74 structures
illegally bulldozed, family homes and belongings destroyed along with
large quantities of food and animal fodder ... In July, three other
communities were affected: - Fasayile al Fuga where a family home of
nine, including seven children and a 10-month old infant, was
destroyed; - Bardala where evacuation and demolition orders were issued;
and - Ras Ar Ahmar where 13 homes and dozens of animal shelters were
bulldozed after declaring the area a Closed Military Zone.
The Jordan Valley comprises about 30% of the West Bank
What
happened to the 130,000 Syrian citizens living in the Golan Heights in
June 1967? According to the Israeli narrative, they all fled to Syria,
but official documents and testimonies tell a different story ... By the
end of the summer of 1967 there were hardly any Syrian civilians left
in the Golan Heights. IDF forces prevented residents who'd left from
returning, and those who'd remained behind were evacuated to Syria. On
August 27, IDF General Command issued an order classifying 101 villages
in the Golan as "abandoned," and prohibiting entry to them ...
Officially, however, Israel continued to deny any evacuation or
expulsion of civilians.
27
July - The Syrian citizens who live in Israeli-occupied Golan don't get
nearly as much international media coverage as the Palestinians in the
West Bank or Gaza. But the situation they live in is just about equally
harsh. Indeed ever since Israel committed a unilateral (and globally
quite unrecognized) act of Anschluss against Golan in 1980, the
situation of Golan's legitimate, indigenous residents has been as tough
as that of the legitimate, indigenous residents of occupied East
Jerusalem. Yesterday, Haaretz had this report about the arrest of Mona Sha'ar, a resident of the Golan town of Majdal Shams.
The demolition of 45 houses in the Bedouin village of Araqib in the
Negev desert on Tuesday is seen as a trial run for further demolitions
and expulsions ... According to sources in the Israeli government who
wish to remain anonymous, Prawer’s plan involves partial recognition of
some of the 45 villages defined as ‘unrecognized’ – and mass eviction of
the remainder to government-designated townships in the north of the
Negev desert ...More significantly, activists speaking to government
authorities have concluded that any villages not included in the
definitive plan for the future of the Bedouin – about 20 villages – will
be evacuated, destroyed and their lands transferred to state hands for
development of Jewish towns, roads and farms. Their residents will be
required by law enforcement authorities to move to government-designated
townships in the northern Negev, such as Laqiya or Hura, despite severe
housing shortage and long waiting-lists in both townships. If such a
plan were put into practice it could affect tens of thousands of Bedouin
currently living in unrecognized villages.
BERLIN,
July 31 (Bernama) -- A Palestinan man went on hunger strike in front of
the Israeli embassy here, to fight for his daughter's right to reside
in occupied Beitol Moqaddas [Bayt al-Muqaddas, another name for
Jerusalem]. Speaking to Iranian news agency IRNA, Firas Maraghy stressed
his hunger strike was aimed at getting the Israeli travel documents for
his seven-month-old baby which would allow her to reside in the
city. "I come from Jerusalem and I have Israeli travel documents. I want
my seven-month-old baby daughter also to own travel documents so that
she can go with me to Jerusalem without a problem," said Maraghy who
began his hunger strike on July 26.
Violence and Aggression
Three
Gaza workers collecting stone aggregates from rubble near the Erez
crossing were hit and injured by Israeli fire in two separate incidents
shortly after 9a.m. on Saturday, medics told Ma'an. Officials said the
shots were fired from watch towers near the border crossing in the
northern Strip
Soldiers
watched as a settler harassed a Palestinian man near the illegal Kiryat
Arba settlement on Friday afternoon, Hebron’s Youth Against Settlements
group reported. When the man became angry and yelled back at the
group, he was assaulted and sustained severe bruises, the report said.
Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked a village south of the West Bank
city of Nablus and set fire to village land on Friday, reports said
... Israeli soldiers intervened in the ensuing clashes, firing tear gas
and sound bombs at villagers.
Disproportionate response to Grad rocket
An Al-Qassam Brigades fighter was killed and ten other Gaza residents
were injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes that hit targets across
the Strip on Saturday morning. The Hamas-affiliated military group
announced that one of its field leaders, 40-year-old Issa Abdul-Hadi
Al-Batran, was killed by one of the strikes near the Nuseirat refugee
camp in the central Gaza Strip. Eight others were injured in a second
strike targeting the Ansar Security Compound, formerly the presidential
compound in Gaza City, which caused massive damages to the buildings and
nearby homes, officials said.
At around 11:30pm last night (Friday 30 July 2010), ‘The Arafat
Compound’ Police College in central Gaza City was bombed by Israeli
F-16s, in the area of ‘Al Montada’ injuring seventeen people, three of
them seriously. Three children were also among the injured. Those first
at the scene described building debris scattered everywhere and burned
out cars still parked on the street. One man had severe injuries to the
eyes and head as a result of being hit by shrapnel from the bomb ...
Adie Mormech, a British volunteer in Gaza with ISM said: “The blast
caused buildings far from the epicenter of the explosion to shake and
windows were smashed. When we arrived at Shifa hospital the scene was
chaos. Family members were not allowed inside to visit while the
patients were being treated. Intermittently more of the injured arrived
amidst a mass of waiting media. “Others arrived at the hospital with
psychological trauma caused by the enormous impact of the bomb – some
were confused to the extent that they couldn’t describe whether they had
an injury or not.” One Gazan resident described the power of the bomb
as a rocket weighing more than a ton
Hamas vowed revenge on Saturday after Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza
Strip killed a senior militant and wounded eight other people. The
overnight Israeli raids came after a rocket fired from the strip hit a
southern Israeli city. One Hamas militant was killed in an airstrike on a
caravan near the Magazhi refugee camp in the centre of the Palestinian
enclave, a Hamas official said. The Israeli military said the site was
"a weapons-manufacturing warehouse."
Hours
before he was killed by an Israeli air strike, the Al-Qassam Brigades
leader told his second wife "Farewell! Today is departure day ... I can
no longer tolerate life away from my previous family." The fighter's
first wife, Manal Sha’rawi, was killed along with five of their
children, Bilala, Izz Ad-Din, Ihsan, Islam and Ayman, on 26 January
2009, when an Israeli shell targeted the family’s balcony in the
Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The renewal of Israeli air strikes on Gaza were a response to the Arab
League’s decision to resume direct peace talks, a Hamas official said
Saturday ... The Israeli army said the airstrikes on Gaza Saturday
morning were in response to the projectile launch a day before.
State
officials believe Grad rocket fired from Gaza into Ashkelon was attempt
by terror groups to prevent peace talks with PA; but that rocket was
not fired by Hamas, which is 'still deterred by IDF, not interested in
conflict' ... They say Israel's policy of retaliating for each instance
of rocket fire could further exacerbate tension and lead to an
escalation of violence... The Grad rocket fired Friday morning exploded
in a populated area of Ashkelon, causing eight people to sustain shock
but no physical injuries.
The
Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) armed group claimed
responsibility on Friday for launching a Russian-made Grad rocket from
the Gaza Strip at southern Israel. The group said in a leaflet sent to
Xinhua that armed members of Salah al-Dein Brigades, the armed wing of
the PRC, fired a Grad rocket from the Gaza Strip at the southern costal
Israeli town of Ashkelon.
Friday
- Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Ashkelon on
Israel's Mediterranean coast on Friday, blowing out the windows of an
apartment block and damaging parked cars in a residential area of the
city. No one was injured in the blast. But the attack ended over a year
of calm for the city closest to the enclave ruled by the Islamist Hamas
movement
Activism / Solidarity
Injuries were reported across the West Bank as Israeli soldiers
responded to weekly non-violent anti-wall protests with tear gas, sound
grenades and detentions on Friday. Clashes erupted in Bil’in, where the
wall cuts off agricultural lands from farmers despite a High Court
ruling mandating its removal. This week’s rally commemorated the third
anniversary of the killing of Ahmad Mousa, who was shot aged 10, and
Yousef A’mirah, shot aged 18, during non-violent anti-wall protests in
Ni’lin in 2008.
RAMALLAH, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) used tear gas, rubber-coated
bullets, and sound bombs to disperse peaceful anti wall demonstrations
in central and southern West Bank areas on Friday. A 23-year-old British
activist was injured when a gas bomb hit her leg while dozens of other
activists suffered breathing difficulties in Nabi Saleh village,
Ramallah district. Another foreign activist and a Palestinian were hurt
and many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation in Bilin
and Nilin villages, west of Ramallah.
Editor's note: I'm going to be writing a lot about boats these days. Americans are organizing a U.S. boat to Gaza,
with a cruise around New York this Wednesday to raise money for the
effort, and in the meantime a Jewish boat to Gaza will be sailing from
Europe. No departure set yet, but it could be in the next couple of
weeks. Yesterday I met Lillian Rosengarten, who arrived in this country
as an infant refugee from Nazi Germany, and she related her excitement
about joining the Jewish boat. She writes:
BALING,
July 31 (Bernama) -- Putera 1Malaysia volunteers will visit Gaza and
present an assortment of traditional Malay cakes such as bahulu (mini
sponge cakes) and kuih bakar (pandan sesame cakes) to Palestinians
during the upcoming fasting month and Aidilfitri [`Id al-Fitr]
celebrations ... Group leader Datuk Abd Azeez Abd Rahim said over 60
people including 33 doctors would leave KL International Airport for
Gaza on Aug 8.
Siege (Gaza and West Bank) / Restriction of movement / Humanitarian issues
A factory owner in Gaza was shocked to find that equipment he ordered
from overseas, which was held in an Israeli port for several years, has
been dismantled, with some parts missing and others broken. Mohammad
Al-Telbani, owner of Al-Auda ice-cream and biscuit factory, hoped to
develop new lines of potato chips and biscuits with the equipment, which
Israeli authorities have held in Ashdod for the last four years. The
damaged equipment was worth more than €1.5 million.
Israeli crossings officials told their Palestinian liaison counterparts
on Friday morning that all commercial crossings would close for the day
and remain shut until Sunday ... The southernmost crossing, Kerem
Shalom, has opened an average of five days a week with occasional sudden
closures, since August 2009, despite a transport schedule of six days a
week of crossings operations. The northern bulk goods crossing at
Karni, also set for operation six days a week, has opened twice a week
on average since August.
A British aid convoy will deliver vital medical equipment to Gaza, still
banned under Israel’s siege, a statement said. Citing reports from the
World Health Organization and the Health Ministry, Viva Palestina said
that since easing the siege, Israel has blocked the delivery of
essential medical equipment including a CT scanner, defibrillators,
monitors and seven oxygen machines, donated by the Norwegian government,
into the besieged enclave. Further, the Israeli government still
refuses to allow x-ray machines into the Strip.
Israeli forces turned away Palestinian medical teams at a checkpoint
erected at Iraq Burin on Saturday morning, telling international medical
volunteers that the area was a "closed military zone." Head of the
Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Nablus Ghassan Hamdan said the
volunteers tried to enter the Nablus-area village where the society had
prepared to offer a free treatment day at a local clinic ... An Israeli
military spokeswoman confirmed that the area was declared a "closed
military zone for all non-Palestinians," but said that an exception was
made for the doctors at 11a.m., hours after the group arrived at the
checkpoint.
Fatma
Sharif is a lawyer at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a non-partisan,
Gaza-based NGO that has voiced sharp criticism of both Hamas and
Israel. A women's rights activist, Sharif planned to study at the West
Bank's Birzeit University for a Masters in human rights and democracy, a
degree unavailable in Gaza. But whether or not she could travel from
Gaza to the West Bank rested in Israel's hands. As
Sharif, 29, applied for an exit permit, there was reason for hope. In
2007, the Israeli Supreme Court urged the state to let Gazans attend
West Bank universities in "cases that would have positive human
consequences". Sharif's work and intended course of study seemed to fit
the bill perfectly.
Despite the fact that Israel has no security claim against Sharif, her application was denied.
Once
again the summer heat is upon us. And once again, people’s ordeals, and
pleas at the overcrowded Allenby Bridge are melting as quickly as an
ice cream cone in the Jordan Valley’s high temperatures. The Allenby
Bridge is the only crossing point available to the 3.5 million
Palestinians of the West Bank ... Even after securing one’s turn to get
on the bus, hours of delays have been reported, often up to six hours
just to cross the three kilometers from one side to the other. Few or no
facilities are available as people wait under the blazing Jordan Valley
sun.
Gaza's
ubiquitous donkey carts are facing stiff competition after an influx of
South Asia's iconic tuk-tuks, powered by ultra-cheap smuggled fuel,
have hit the roads of the besieged coastal strip. The auto-rickshaws, in
which the front half of a motorcycle is welded onto a two-wheel
trailer, are well-adapted to the four-year blockade that has transformed
the local economy and daily life in the Palestinian territory. And the
phenomenon highlights one of the stranger side effects of the Israeli
border closures -- that gasoline in Gaza is now cheaper than water
... "Animal feed for donkeys is expensive because it comes from Israel.
These days the cheapest thing in Gaza is fuel," he said.
The Egyptian police on Friday night uncovered and destroyed a
secret tunnel on Gaza borders used for smuggling cars to the besieged
strip. A security source told Xinhua on Saturday that authorities
received information saying smugglers approached to finish a tunnel to
smuggle small cars from Egypt to Gaza. "A special team destroyed the
three-meter-wide tunnel on the Egyptian side using excavators," the
unnamed source said. The Egyptian police had been guarding the tunnel's
entrances until it was blocked.
Crossings officials reported Saturday that 20,213 travelers have left
Gaza via the Rafah crossing on Egypt’s border, while 25,168 have entered
the Strip during the last two months. Since the crossing was opened in
early June, Egyptian authorities have refused 4,589 residents permission
to cross into Egypt, a statement read. Gaza’s crossings administration
expressed readiness to facilitate the passage of travelers around the
clock, and asked Egyptian authorities not just to prioritize patients,
but to allow all Palestinians to cross freely.
Detention
Palestinian
Authority security forces detained at least 20 Hamas leaders in Nablus
over the past two days, a security source told Ma'an Saturday. Among
those detained was Islam Al-Betawi, son of Hamas-affiliated lawmaker
Hamed, the source said. Additionally, over €200,000 was seized by PA
forces after locating what the source described as a "Hamas hideout" in
the city.
Extra-judicial assassinations / War crimes
Investigators in the United States probing the assassination of a senior
Hamas official have drawn links between U.S. companies and suspects in
the case, bringing them closer to identifying them, according to an
American press report Saturday. The findings show U.S. authorities
playing a great role in the probe than previously revealed, the Wall
Street Journal reported.
...My
MP, a Foreign Office minister in the shiny new coalition government,
has written to me saying he believes the Foreign Secretary was
"extremely fair, tough and statesmanlike" in his reaction to Israel's
murderous assault on the vessel Mavi Marmara and the rest of the Free
Gaza flotilla. So I re-read William Hague's statement to the House of
Commons on 2 June, and it struck me as something the Israeli government
spin doctor Mark Regev might have penned. Here are some extracts:
Political developments / Diplomacy
Senior PLO official Hanan Ashwari says Obama administration has stepped
up pressure on Abbas to move to face-to-face negotiations with
Netanayhu, Arab media report.
DOHA
– Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal slammed Arab leaders for endorsing the
resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, in comments
published by Al-Jazeera on Friday. Meshaal described the Arab Peace
Initiative committee's decision to support negotiations with Israel as
an "attempt to mitigate the negativity of Arab political positions." ...
Meshaal, who was speaking to reporters after meeting Qatar's ruler
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, said the Arab leaders were suffering
from a lack of "leadership that can push their nations forward."
Officials in Jerusalem believe that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
will attempt to delay at all cost the beginning of direct peace
negotiations with Israel, even after the Arab League gave the green
light for the process at a special session on Thursday.
Chief
PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat denied reports on Saturday that direct talks
will resume after the holy month of Ramadan, which ends in September.
"I say that right now the issue is not the date for direct talks,"
Erekat told Ma’an Radio Network. "We want to resume talks but the key is
in the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” Erekat
explained that face-to-face talks will resume as soon as Netanyahu
agrees to stop settlement construction, including in occupied East
Jerusalem, outlines reference terms for negotiations, and approves
borders for the two states.
Other news
Rightist
activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir have received permission to
demonstrate in Umm al-Fahm but not outside the city's Islamic Movement
offices, following a compromise with the State Prosecutor's Office
... Ben-Gvir said the compromise was an important step: "The High Court
has made it clear to the police that we have a right to protest against
Raed Salah and his Marmara-supporting friends.
Arab members of the Israeli Knesset visit London to report on the
increasingly beleaguered Arab-Palestinian community in Israel ... Three
Arab-Palestinian parliamentarians, members of the Israeli Knesset,
visiting London to report on the situation of Palestinian citizens of
Israel, provided a stinging critique of the well-known maxim that
‘Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East’.
Analysis / Opinion / Human interest
...the Americans are exerting tremendous pressure on Abbas, and
Netanyahu fears that Abbas will give in. Therefore he declares that he
cannot freeze the settlements, because in that case - God forbid! – his
coalition would disintegrate. And if that does not suffice, here comes
the Eastern Front. The Israeli government is giving notice to the
Palestinians that it will not give up the Jordan Valley. In order to
emphasize the point, Netanyahu has started to remove the remaining
Palestinian population in the valley, a few thousand. Villages are being
eradicated, starting this week with Farasiya, where all the dwellings
and the water installations were destroyed. This is ethnic cleansing
pure and simple, much like the similar operation now going on against
the Bedouins in the Negev.
...As a collective, Palestine and its struggle for freedom and justice
is closer to the hearts and minds of Muslims all over the world than any
other group I have reached out to. To garner support among Muslims, one
is never obligated to make a case, to justify, or to respond to
accusations heralded from left and right. Needless to say, Muslim
affinity to Palestine is historic, based on Islamic principles
articulated in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah (the legacy of Prophet
Mohammed). But over time, something went astray. While the sentiment
remained strong, there was little unity in the way in which the energy
was harnessed, or the consensus galvanized.
When
the parties do not consider each other legitimate partners in owning
the land, it can be taken for granted that they will have difficulty
seeing each other as legitimate partners in sharing it ... It is
therefore essential that Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic negotiations be
conducted on the basis of a completely different logic than that on
which they have been conducted so far. A division of the land between
the two nations must not be discussed until they agree that they own the
land jointly.
For
nearly 50 years, Yasser Hirbawi has been producing kaffiyehs in his
family-owned factory in Hebron. Now the looms are nearly silent ... Who
will buy a Palestinian kaffiyeh for NIS 20 when there is a Chinese model
for NIS 10? The market, which has actually flourished in recent years -
the kaffiyeh has become a political symbol in Europe, where it is worn
carelessly thrown across the shoulders - is flooded. But none are
manufactured in Hebron.
(CNN) --
A cinema in the West Bank city of Jenin will next week open for
business for the first time in 23 years, following a remarkable chain of
events that began with the death of a Palestinian boy. In 2005,
11-year-old Ahmed Khatib was shot and killed in Jenin by Israeli
soldiers who mistook his toy gun for a real one. The Israeli government
apologized for the incident, and in an extraordinary gesture, Ahmed's
father, Ismael Khatib, decided to donate Ahmed's organs to six Israelis,
both Arabs and Jews.
A routine wait at the Qalandiyah checkpoint led filmmaker Rima Essa to
Ahlam, a little girl stricken with cancer, and the idea for a movie that
poses some tough ethical dilemmas ... Essa: "It didn't take long for me
to see what a Palestinian parent of a child with cancer has to go
through - the nightmare of getting up early in the morning and going
through checkpoints with a child who is sick and throwing up, the poor
state of the hospitals in the West Bank and their problematic
relationship with the occupation authorities.
Iraq
At a gathering at the Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala Shi’ite cleric
Ahmed al-Safitold thousands that the political impasse holding back the
new government is causing considerable harm to Iraqis. Meanwhile, at
least five Iraqis were killed and five more were wounded in light prayer
day violence. Also, a British inquiry (Chilcot) may recall
witnesses including Tony Blair, whose testimony in part contradicted
that of other witnesses.
A
roadside bomb killed four people, including three army soldiers, and
wounded 11 people south of Baghdad on Saturday, Iraqi officials
said. The blast took place near the municipal offices of the Rashid
district just south of the Iraqi capital as soldiers were responding to
an earlier explosion in the same area. The first explosion, also caused
by a roadside bomb, did not cause any casualties.
Iraqi
soldiers arrested two suspected insurgents behind a brazen series of
attacks in Baghdad this week that killed 16 people and wounded 14
others, a security official said on Saturday. The pair were arrested as a
result of security camera footage that showed insurgents setting alight
three dead soldiers and planting Al-Qaeda's flag, a defence ministry
official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A
US court has given approval for a lawsuit to proceed from 72 Iraqi
nationals against a private contractor accused of complicity in the
alleged abuse of detainees at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. US
District Judge Peter Messitte ruled that the Iraqis can proceed in their
case against L3 Communications and its unit formerly known as Titan
Group, which provided interpreters to the US army in Iraq after the US
invasion. In the ruling obtained Friday, the judge said the alleged
actions by the company "arguably violated the laws of war such that they
are not immune from suit under the laws of war."
FORWARD
OPERATING BASE CONSTITUTION, Iraq (AFP) – US and Iraqi military police
slowly comb a strip of dirt road west of Baghdad, looking for tell-tale
signs of hidden improvised explosive devices. But while the signs are
there, the danger is not, at least on this road: it runs through the
Constitution military base and the "IEDs" have been planted by US troops
as part of a training exercise.
Other Mideast
Syrian
president warns stability in Lebanon could be threatened if
international tribunal into assassination of former prime minister not
halted. Assad declares Syria to support Hezbollah if implicated in
killing
The
leaders of Syria and Saudi Arabia made an unprecedented show of
cooperation Friday on a historic visit to Beirut, saying Lebanon's
interests were a top priority in light of reports Hezbollah members may
be indicted in the Hariri assassination case.
BINT
JBEIL, Lebanon (AFP) – Qatar's emir on Saturday made a high-profile
visit to south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold destroyed in a 2006 war
with Israel and whose rebuilding the emirate is helping finance.
In
a region where the majority Muslim population frowns on alcohol, a new
generation of vintners is trying to make a splash on the world wine
market
US news
WASHINGTON — Reporters covering trials of accused terrorists at
Guantanamo on Monday will have their first-ever face-to-face chance to
air their complaints about the U.S government's restrictive rules, which
journalists say make it nearly impossible for the public to follow the
proceedings. Long-simmering tensions that began during the Bush
administration boiled over in May when Pentagon officials barred four
reporters from future coverage for naming a witness whose identity
military commission prosecutors wanted kept secret, even though it had
been publicly known for several years.
The
United National Antiwar Conference, attended by 850 people from July 23
to 25, 2010 in Albany, New York, marked a sea change in the attitude of
the antiwar movement toward Palestine. For the first time a broadly
representative, democratic national conference of peace activists
adopted the demand "End All US Aid to Israel." UNAC also endorsed the
global BDS movement, committed itself to joining Palestine solidarity
efforts around future flotillas, emergency responses to Zionist attacks,
etc., and expressed its opposition to the US's many-faceted complicity
in Zionism's various crimes. All of these positions were adopted in
near-unanimous votes and in the face of attempts by a handful of
delegates to water down or obstruct them.
It's
happened: the Anti-Defamation League has overplayed its hand (in this
case, neoconservative Islamophobia) in such a glaring manner that it is
being condemned at every quarter-- a statement from the group opposing
the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York. The statement openly abandons civil rights, standing for no principle at all except majoritarian intolerance:
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