Category: Gaza

Day 5: Growing Support for University of Manchester Occupation

Students at the University of Manchester have just entered their fifth day of occupying university premises.

Latest update:

Today [Saturday] at 2pm around 60 people from around Manchester and beyond came to a protest outside the occupied Simon Building in a show of support for us and the struggle of the people of Palestine. Both campaigners outside and students inside spoke on many subjects ranging from the situation in Gaza now, to the experiences we’ve had in our occupation. During the course of the protest a handful of the scores of messages of support we have received from around the world were read out. This included messages from Palestinian students, the UCU union and other students in Britain campaigning for Palestine. Today’s protest was a continuation of the widespread support that we have from all over.

See the students’ blog from inside the occupation for more information, list of demands and upcoming events.

Continue reading “Day 5: Growing Support for University of Manchester Occupation”

Israeli army “subcontracted” by extremist settlers

An excellent piece by Jonathan Cook on the increasing proliferation of extreme right-wing elements, spurred on by fanatical rabbis, within the IDF.

An Israeli soldier inspects a wall of a mosque desecrated by suspected Jewish settlers, reading "Muhammad is a pig," West Bank city of Qalqiliya, December 2008. (Khaleel Reash/MaanImages)

Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics.

In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologization” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Their influence in shaping the army’s goals and methods is starting to be felt, say observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel’s religious extremist population.

Continue reading “Israeli army “subcontracted” by extremist settlers”

Dennis Brutus encourages solidarity action

Najwan Darwish (Jerusalem), Dennis Brutus, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad (PULSE co-founder), Somaya Al Susi (Gaza), Salim Al Nafar (Gaza)
Dennis Brutus after the Palestinian poetry night. Left to right: Najwan Darwish (Jerusalem), Dennis Brutus, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad (PULSE co-founder), Somaya Al Susi (Gaza), Salim Al Nafar (Gaza)

We have been flooded with messages of support and encouragement from across the world since our recent successful action at the University of Strathclyde. Of all the wonderful messages we have received there is none more meaningful than the one from Dennis Brutus, the great South African poet and anti-Apartheid campaigner who pushed to get South Africa suspended from the Olympics which eventually lead to the country’s expulsion from the games in 1970. He once took a bullet for his convictions and was incarcerated along with Mandela on Robben Island. Back in 2005, I had the pleasure of meeting this great man at the G8 Alternatives summit, and today I was delighted to see Prof. Brutus’s message of solidarity.

He also added: ‘we need solidarity action from scottish workers – especiallly scottish dockworker ; also from students in britain – they were great at anti-apartheid actions – especially in Aberdeen, Edinburgh Falkirk and Glasgow; we marched together, as I well remember’.

University of Manchester Student Occupation Continues

Next to the successful occupation of Strathclyde University, more than a hundred students of the University of Manchester are going into their fourth day of occupying their university in a demand for a stronger and more proactive position from the university on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.3253334209_1f9419b971

Over 500 students attended an emergency general meeting of the students union to discuss a motion on the issue. This democratic meeting was sabotaged and ultimately destroyed by pro-Israeli Zionist students who were desperate to shield Israel from criticism and couldn’t stomach the thought of their university helping to stop the suffering in Palestine. These students employed both bureaucratic and thuggish tactics to stop the meeting from taking place. There are countless reports from students who wanted to get in but were physically prevented. When the chair of the meeting refused to hear students’ complaints at the blockade and dissolved the meeting, several hundred students marched on University administration headquarters, the John Owens Building.

Latest Updates:

– “After being threatened with disciplinary measures by the vice-chancellor the students have decided to continue and expand the occupation of Manchester University. We are now occupying another space at the Simon Building on Oxford Road. ”

– An open letter written by the occupying students has been sent to Vice-Chancellor of the University, Alan Gilbert, who has so far refused to even discuss the students’ demands.

– “We are calling a demonstration outside our building for 2pm tomorrow in support of the people of Palestine and the student occupation in Manchester. We invite all pro-Palestinians to come along and to publicise it.”

Time: Saturday – 07 Feb – 2pm
Location: Outside the Simon Building, Oxford Road, Manchester. Look for the Palestinian flags

For more info and updates, the students have set up a blog and a facebook page from inside the occupation.

Continue reading “University of Manchester Student Occupation Continues”

Strathclyde Students Win Agreement

Students at the University of Strathclyde have just scored another victory for Palestine. After an overnight occupation of the Administration building (photos here) and following a rally earlier today the University has finally agreed to the following four demands:

  1. The university will no longer place any further orders with Eden Springs.
  2. Scholarships: The university will fund 1-3 students from Gaza.
  3. The DEC appeal will be posted all across the University and also on the University’s website.
  4. The University will issue a press release reiterating Strathclyde University’s longstanding relationship with the Islamic University of Gaza.
  5. The University denies that it has any links with BAE systems beyond the company funding one student to the sum of £5000 in the engineering department. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, and we shall investigate this further.

Here is a photo of the actual handwritten, signed agreement

Israeli Commander Cancels UK Tour

From the Muslim News:

London, (IRNA): The deputy commander of Israeli ground forces during the recent Gaza massacres has cancelled 20 speaking engagements during a planned tour of Britain, according to the Jewish organisers of his secret visit.

Colonel Geva Rapp was understood to have fled back to Israel fearing a citizens’ arrest for war crimes during his visit to Britain which was aimed to defend the slaughter of more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza to members of the country’s estimated 270,000 Jewish community.

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Dissent Ain’t Dead: Update on UK campus occupations

The following is an update of the previous post Dissent Ain’t Dead, adding new occupations and resources.  There have been two new occupations, today one at Manchester University and the other at Strathclyde University (an occupation involving two PULSE contributors).

Resources

Occupations

Irish civil society calls for boycott of Israel

The following letter was published in a full-page advertisement in The Irish Times on 31 January 2009:

The original ad, including signatures may be downloaded here. [PDF]

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza killed over 1,300 Palestinians, a third of them children. Thousands have been wounded. Many victims had been taking refuge in clearly marked UN facilities.

This assault came in the wake of years of economic blockade by Israel. This blockade, which is illegal under international humanitarian law, has destroyed the Gaza economy and condemned its population to poverty. According to a World Bank report last September, “98 percent of Gaza’s industrial operations are now inactive.”

The most recent attack on Gaza is only the latest phase in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people and appropriation of their land.

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Life in Gaza is not ‘back to normal’

Amira Hass in the Haaretz:

GAZA – “Only aerial photographs of the Gaza Strip will make it possible to show and to comprehend the extent of the destruction,” a number of Western civilians said this week. They added: “But there isn’t a chance that Israel will allow anyone to come with a light plane and do aerial photography.”

Continue reading “Life in Gaza is not ‘back to normal’”

Sanctions on Al Jazeera’s Israel Operations

According to Haaretz:

The government will impose sanctions on Israel-based employees of the Al Jazeera network in response to the closure last month of the Israeli trade office in Qatar, which hosts and funds the network. Qatar had closed the office in opposition to Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Following the closure, the Foreign Ministry, in conjunction with the newly-formed national information directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, considered declaring the station a hostile entity and closing its offices in Israel. After submitting the idea to legal review, however, concerns emerged it would not be permitted by the High Court of Justice.

Instead, it chose to limit the network’s activity in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. First, Israel will not renew the visas of Al Jazeera’s non-Israeli employees or grant visas to new employees. Second, station representatives will have reduced accessibility to government and military bodies, and will not be allowed into briefings or press conferences.

Israeli officials have recently criticized Qatar’s warming relations with Hamas and Iran. Foreign Ministry director-general Aharon Abramowitz told attendees at the Herzliya Conference on Monday that Qatar is moving toward a “radical axis.”

The supposed “democratic” Israeli government has little care for democratic principles, here trying to reduce press freedom. Clearly banning Western journalists from Gaza wasn’t enough to prevent images of Israeli acts of massacre being transmitted globally.  This is a problem for the Foreign Ministry and the propaganda outfit the national [dis-] information directorate and their solution is further unfreedom: try and ban those responsible, namely Al Jazeera.

Fear not as the BBC explains all:

Continue reading “Sanctions on Al Jazeera’s Israel Operations”