Author: alannahpriestley

Roger Waters endorses BDS and speaks against Israeli anti-boycott law

The great Roger Waters once again stands up for justice.

Roger Waters supports those who will publicly declare their disregard of new Israeli anti-boycott law. Please support and promote Palestinian rights by joining the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

More on the BDS campaign and the Boycott from Within statement. Also, see ICAHD founder Jeff Halper’s message below:

The following statement has been issued by Jeff Halper, Director, ICAHD:
Continue reading “Roger Waters endorses BDS and speaks against Israeli anti-boycott law”

Playing with Political Fire

by Brenda Heard

The timing of political manoeuvring often reveals the stark business of domination.  Sometimes the timing is flagrant, like the recent commotion in Greece.  In the very hours of forbidding the passage of the aid flotilla to Gaza, the financially strapped Greek government welcomed the approval of an €8.7 billion aid payment from the European Union.  With Israel’s position as an EU-groupie, even the Associated Press couldn’t resist smirking at Greece’s underlying ‘incentive to cozy up to its rich Mediterranean neighbor’.

Political manoeuvring also thrives on more subtle timing, as for example in the case of the notorious indictments of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Widely announced as imminent in December 2010, they somehow found themselves on the backburner when the Arab uprisings claimed every corner of Middle East news coverage.  Some six months later, on the heels of the formation of a Lebanese government non-hostile to the targeted Hezbollah—in the very hours between finalising the government’s policy statement  and its being subject to a parliamentary vote of confidence—only then were the indictments set into motion.  Bored of battling the credibility of Arab protests, international media eagerly shifted to the new sensational headlines.

Particularly when it comes to the Zionist project, the Western Israeli Alliance has often banked on timing—on distraction and exploitation. Five years ago, for instance, Israeli forces repeated the pretext-invasions of 1978 and 1982.  Five years ago, Israeli forces renewed their aggressive campaigns of 1978 and 1982.  With the full backing of their Western allies, five years ago Israeli forces again attacked Lebanon.

Continue reading “Playing with Political Fire”

Indigenous resistance is the new ‘terrorism’

(EPA)

Manuela Picq has the following to say on “terrorism” in Ecuador at Al Jazeera:

If you thought there was anything romantic about environmental activism or indigenous rights, think twice.  Socialist ideas about nature – such as keeping water a pubic good – can get you facing charges of sabotage by a leftist government. In the land of the Incas, if you protect the pachamama [“Mother World”], you might just be a “terrorist”.

It’s becoming tricky to identify “terrorists”, at least in Ecuador. They are not members of criminal organisations, they don’t spread fear or target civilians, nor have a politically motivated agenda. According to President Correa, “terrorists” are those opposing Ecuador’s development. So today’s “terrorism” might just look like indigenous peoples peacefully taking over the streets, with their ancestral knowledge and values, to demand environmental and social rights.

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Representing the East, Viewing the West

Renowned anthropologist Laura Nader (sister of Ralph Nader) discusses how Arab/Muslim women perceived the west during their encounters in the past centuries.

Downloadprogram audio (mp3, 47.8 Mbytes)

Laura Nader

Edward Said spent much of his distinguished career combatting Western stereotypes of the Arab world. Laura Nader explains what Said meant by “Orientalism,” and describes what Arabs who visited the West in past centuries came to think of Western practices. Also, Adel Iskandar talks about the volume in which Laura Nader’s article about Said appears.

Adel Iskandar & Hakem Rustom, eds., Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation UC Press, 2010.

The Mozlems Are Coming

by M. Shahid Alam

Fear grips the country from coast to coast.
Politicos, anchors and talk-show hosts

chatter all day, The Mozlems are coming;
they’ve dropped their drivel about fighting

them there. While our troops fought in Iraq
holding the ‘terrorists’ at the gates, back

home, greater troubles were brewing.
Radical Mozlems were actively scheming

to impose an Islamo-fascist theocracy
on the United States. Our great democracy

confronts an existential threat from within.
Let us act fast – good Republicans raise a din –

Moslems inside the US are working openly
to force sharia-law upon us. Act quickly,

harangue the pundits – or lose this great country
to heathens. Now’s not the time for an energy

plan, overhaul Medicare, fix the infrastructure,
or trim the deficit. We face greater dangers

from the enemy within: The Mozlems are coming.
It’s women in burqa, no gambling, no drinking,

nor driving for women. Americans get cracking
‘cause your country is calling. The Mozlems are coming.

– M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Palgrave, 2009) and Poverty from the Wealth of Nations (Macmillan, 2000). Write to him at alqalam02760@neu.edu.

Outsourcing the Gaza blockade

Huwaida Arraf, chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement International Flotilla Committee, was great on this edition of Al Jazeera’s Inside Story discussing the global BDS movement and Greece’s role in aiding Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

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Gaza Flotilla: The Media Battle in Israel

Lia Tarachansky reports for The Real News Network:

Gaza mobilizes for Freedom Flotilla

by Joe Catron

Palestinian children in Gaza rally in support of the Freedom Flotilla (Photo: Noor Harazeen)

An international flotilla of nine ships and hundreds of crew and passengers is a huge undertaking, in Gaza as much as anywhere. Mahmoud Elmadhoun knows this better than most. A member of Gaza’s Higher Government Committee, as well as the Governmental Committee for Breaking the Siege and Receiving Delegations (GCBS), which is tasked with welcoming solidarity missions to Gaza, he just finished hosting the Miles of Smiles convoy of 55 European dentists. Now he could face one of the most daunting challenges in the GCBS’ history: Freedom Flotilla – Stay Human.

“The main issue is whether the Israelis will let the Flotilla come,” Elmadhoun told me last Monday in his office in the Foreign Ministry. Their reception in Gaza, he assured me, was not a question. “We are ready to receive those people. Don’t worry; within 24 hours’ notice of their departure from Athens, everything will be in place.”

He quickly rattled off the GCBS’ responsibilities in the Flotilla effort. “Our main tasks are logistical: hotels, transportation, security, and of course activities,” he said. “Wherever they want to go in Gaza, they will be welcomed.”

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Photo Chronicle of Mexico’s Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity

by Kristin Bricker and Santiago Navarro

This article first appeared at Upside Down World.

On June 4, poet Javier Sicilia and farmer Julian LeBaron led a 500-person caravan through what one major Mexican magazine referred to as the country’s “route of blood.” Over the following week, the caravan passed through some of the most dangerous places in Mexico: Michoacan, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Chihuahua. The caravan ended on June 10 in Ciudad Juarez, which Sicilia dubbed Mexico’s “epicenter of pain” because just over one-fifth of the country’s homicides occurred in that city in 2010.

One of the caravan’s principle goals was for drug war victims to network and organize. The caravan collected victims’ stories and contact information in every town it visited.

Dozens of drug war victims from across the country, such as Nepomuceno Moreno Nuñez from Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, travelled with the caravan to meet other victims and share their stories.

Moreno Nuñez (above, right, shown hugging Javier Sicilia) wants to find his son, 18-year-old Jorge Mario Moreno León, who was kidnapped and disappeared along with five friends on July 1, 2010.

Moreno Nuñez spoke with the kidnappers when they answered Jorge Mario’s cell phone. They told him that the young men were kidnapped because they collaborated with the Beltran Leyva criminal organization. “They made a mistake,” laments Moreno Nuñez. “They said that one of the boys [Mario Enrique Diaz Islas] was the son of an accomplice to the Beltran Leyvas. It’s not true.” In reality, Mario Enrique’s father, Mario Diaz Garduño, was the director of the Hermosillo municipal Health Department.

Continue reading “Photo Chronicle of Mexico’s Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity”

An Open Letter to Senator Mark Kirk on the Gaza Flotilla

An Open Letter to Illinois Senator Mark Kirk
responding to his call for U.S. Special Forces to attack a flotilla of ships that will sail to Gaza

Senator Mark Kirk
524 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510

June 29th, 2011

Dear Senator Kirk,

We are Illinois residents writing to you from Athens, Greece. Just before leaving the United States, we wrote to inform your office about our intent to sail on “The Audacity of Hope,” as part of the US Boat to Gaza project.  In our letters, we explained why we were traveling to Gaza.  We told you of our previous experiences living among Palestinians who lack access to basic necessities, such as clean water, because of the blockade. Referring to Gaza as the world’s largest open-air prison, we mentioned how hard it has been for people to rebuild after previous lethal assaults, especially the Operation Cast Lead attack which ended, after 23 days, on January 18, 2009.  According to B’tselem, the foremost Israeli Human Rights Organization, Operation Cast Lead caused the deaths of 1,389 Palestinians in Gaza.  Of those, 344 were children. Of the 13 Israelis who were killed, four were soldiers killed by friendly fire.

Knowing that you and your staff care deeply about the consequences of unemployment, poor education and dangerously limited health care delivery, we pointed out related statistics affecting people in Gaza where 45% of the population is unemployed and hospital administrators are sounding the alarm because they are running out of crucial medicines.  Half of Gaza’s 1.6 million people are under age 18.

Continue reading “An Open Letter to Senator Mark Kirk on the Gaza Flotilla”