Happy Holidays from Leonard Peltier

Tweet http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

Greetings and happy holidays. I hope this letter finds you all
enjoying the spirit of the season with family and friends.

My August parole denial was appealed in short order. We are expecting
a response to that appeal sometime very soon. It has occurred to
me that the viciousness of this system knows no bounds, and so I
believe strongly in the coming days we will hear of another loss,
another denial. This one will be timed and intended specifically
as a twisted Christmas present for me, such is the nature of those
in charge. With no sense of balance, fairness, or decency, I await
my own personal stocking stuffer.

We all know the so-called justice system of this country is
more about revenge and retribution than finding true and just
resolution. It doesn't take into account the plight of the wrongfully
convicted, nor does it allow flexibility as human endeavors always
require. This system has always been about making money at the top,
furthering careers in the middle, and forgetting those at the bottom.

Their reason for denying my parole is that I refuse to admit guilt
and show remorse for the deaths of two FBI agents. I know the
righteousness of my situation. I know what I did and didn't do. I
will never yield.

I also know what this country did and continues to do to me and many
others. While they demand I make a false confession for the sake of
my freedom, they show no remorse for the loss of much of my life,
or the lives of Joe Stuntz and countless others they have murdered
over the generations simply for being who they were. Those lives
are meaningless when compared to their precious FBI, I guess. And
now, some of the very ones responsible for the deaths and suffering
of so many of my people, are peddling books and claiming to be a
friend of the Indian. We've seen this before, and I'll speak more
about this soon.

I remain proud of what I have stood for and mindful of what real
justice is. In this season of love and forgiveness, please say a
prayer for all of those who never knew justice and others who have
such difficulty in finding it still today.

My love and my prayers go out to all of you.

Happy Holidays.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,


Leonard Peltier
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Carter Apologizes for "Stigmatizing" Israel -- Democrats Have Zero Integrity

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/23/us/AP-US-Carter-Jews.html

ATLANTA (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter is offering the Jewish community an apology for any of his ''words and deeds'' that may have upset them.

Carter writes in an open letter to the Jewish community this week that he hopes the new year will bring peace between Israel and its neighbors. He says ''we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel.''

He adds: ''I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.''

Al Het is a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. It signifies a plea for forgiveness.

Carter has been criticized by some in the Jewish community who contend his 2006 book ''Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'' unfairly compared Israeli treatment of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza to the legalized racial oppression that once existed in South Africa.

Merry(?!) Christmas!

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Racism and War: The Dehumanization of the Enemy

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Our real enemy is not the ones living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us - Mike Prysner

SUPPORT IRAQ VETS AGAINST THE WAR IVAW.ORG

Galloway Raps Arabs over Forsaking Gaza!

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information@vivapalestina.org

British Member of Parliament George Galloway has leveled strong criticism at Arabs over their inaction and failure to play a role in organizing aid convoys to the besieged Gaza Strip.

“It is a shame that this convoy [Lifeline 3] is coming from Europe and not from the Arab countries,” Galloway told reporters upon his arrival at Damascus International Airport.

He said that Lifeline 3 charity convoy is a message of solidarity with the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip on the first anniversary of the Israeli onslaught against the coastal sliver.

Israel's three-week offensive against Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, more than half of them civilians, according to medical sources. The Israeli assault also led to the destruction of schools, mosques, houses as well as UN compounds, inflicting $ 1.6 billion damage on the Gaza economy.

The British anti-war activist added that the third Viva Palestina convoy is aimed to direct the world's attention to Israeli war criminals who committed the horrendous crimes in Gaza as well as the courageous Palestinian resistance. He voiced hope that the Egyptian authorities would secure the arrival of the convoy without hindrance.

Galloway meanwhile expressed his deep gratitude to Syrian authorities for the contribution they made to facilitate the entry of the Lifeline 3 convoy organized by the UK-based Viva Palestina movement. Galloway described Syria as a fortress and the symbol of pride that has never forsaken Palestine.

The third international convoy to Gaza departed from London on December 5, 2009. The convoy is made up of volunteers from Britain, Ireland, Belgium and Malaysia, who have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds in their local communities to pay for ambulances, minibuses, vans and lorries and to fill them with medical and other aid that is desperately needed in Gaza.

Lifeline 3 will arrive in Gaza on December 27 through the Rafah border crossing to make a dent in the ongoing Israeli blockade imposed on the impoverished enclave.

Israeli political and military authorities now face the possibility of international prosecution and arrest over war crimes in the Gaza Strip. A British court has issued an arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

The UN Security Council awaits investigative reports ordered pursuant to recommendations made by UN investigator Richard Goldstone, who detailed countless Israeli war crimes not just in the attacks on Gaza in 2008, but throughout the Israeli siege, which began in 2006.

Meanwhile, Egypt is building a wall along its border with Gaza which is installed and funded by the US in order to block the tunnels that have served as the only lifeline for needed food, household and consumer goods in Gaza.

British MP George Galloway speaks to reporters in Damascus yesterday (21st Dec) during his campaign to aid Palestinains in the Gaza strip.

Peace Activists to Set Up Encampment in Washington DC

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http://www.truthout.org/1222091

In August of 2005, Cindy Sheehan, who had lost her son in Iraq, set up camp outside George Bush's vacation home in Crawford, Texas. She had a simple question; she wanted to know what the "noble cause" was for which her son had died. Thousands of people joined Cindy in Crawford, and Camp Casey became a national story that breathed new life into the antiwar movement.

In March of 2010, Cindy Sheehan and other activists from a group calling itself "Peace of the Action" will be converging on Washington, DC, to set up a camp on the National Mall.

When asked how long the encampment will last, Sheehan responded, "as long as it takes, that will be up to the government; we are prepared to stay until our demands are met."

Sheehan went on to say that the demands are simple, "troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities."

Sheehan said that she has known for years that the peace movement needs to take bolder action and that the group's goal will be to hold multiple civil resistance actions daily throughout the nation's capital.

Sheehan said that participants will be asked to adhere to agreed-upon nonviolence guidelines while standing up and resisting against what she called the "robber class."

She said they will also be reaching out to the homeless in DC by providing them food and clothing. "While there are a lot of long time homeless people with mental illnesses, increasingly there are people joining the ranks of the homeless for purely economic reasons stemming from the war economy" said Sheehan.

Peace of the Action's web site has the following call to action:

We've marched, written, called and faxed but the wars continue.

It is time for new creative strategies and bolder action.

Peace of the Action will bring forward an historic escalation of Peace Activism like we have not seen in the United States in a very long time.

We cannot allow business as usual go on in the Capital of the American Empire.

On a daily basis, Peace of the Action will perform courageous deeds of civil resistance until our demands are met.

We will show our righteous outrage at U.S. militarism by showing our elected officials that "Peace means Business," by clogging up government business. We want an end to Empire so we can build a new economy that is not drained by the costs of Empire and war. This Empire does not create jobs abroad while it has the effect of destroying jobs here on the domestic front. This Empire builds the profits of transnational businesses while Americans go further into debt and fights wars for oil and resources. It's time to stop using militarism as the PRIMARY tool of foreign policy. It's time to start adhering to the U.S. Constitution and International Law.

The group has a DC-based organizer, Robby Diesu, who, for the last two springs, organized "Our Spring Break," which brought students from across the country to Washington to protest war. According to The Wesleyan Argus:

"They spent the break sleeping on church floors and participating in demonstrations such as Stop Loss Congress, in which participants tried to prevent legislators from leaving Capitol Hill in order to protest stop loss, and the March of the Dead."

Diesu told Truthout that many organizations are getting involved in Peace of the Action, but they are not seeking endorsements. "We want them to be a part of the action and help plan it, not just endorse it."

Much of the organizing so far has been done via Facebook; the group has a Facebook page with over 1,800 members.

A conference call was held on Sunday night with over 50 participants.

The group is forming committees that include, housing, camp, fundraising, media, outreach, web site, food, and Be Our Own Media.

The Be Our Own Media committee will use the web site along with YouTube and other social networking sites to report on the actions. They are not going to depend on the media to cover their events.

Camp OUT NOW, will begin with the building of the camp on March 13 on the lawn of the Washington Monument, and actions will begin on Monday, March 22.

Single Payer: The Polls Prove it

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Israel Jails Anti-wall Campaign Leader

Tweet http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=61275&s2=21

December 20, 2009

Bethlehem – Ma’an – The Stop the Wall Campaign announced on Sunday that its coordinator, Jamal Juma, has been imprisoned by Israel since 16 December.

Juma’s arrest follows what activists say is a military-legal crackdown on popular expressions of rejection of Israeli occupation. Dozens of protest leaders, boycott campaigners, and other civil society advocates have been arrested in recent weeks.

The Ramallah-based Stop the Wall Campaign, a coordinating body for local anti-wall initiatives said in a statement "This latest arrest is yet another escalation of Israel's attack on Palestinian human rights defenders and clamp down on the right to freedom of expression and the right to association."

According to the campaign, Israeli security summoned Juma for interrogation at midnight 15 December. After questioning he was brought to his home.

"Juma was handcuffed while soldiers searched his house for two hours as his wife and three young children looked on helplessly," the anti-wall campaign said in a statement.

The soldiers told Juma’s wife "she would only see her husband again through a prisoner exchange."

"Since then, Juma has been detained, and banned from speaking to a lawyer or his family, with no explanation for his arrest," the organization added.

A prominent figure in Palestinian civil society Juma, 47, served as coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign since 2002 and helped found the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC).

In September, another well-known member of the Stop the Wall campaign, Mohammad Othman, was detained by Israeli forces at the Allenby border crossing upon returning to the West Bank from Norway where he met with the country’s Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen and other officials.

On 10 December Israeli soldiers seized Abdullah Abu Rahmah, the coordinator of the anti-wall Popular Committee in the West Bank village of Bil’in, during a raid on his house.

Witnesses said that the Israeli military raided houses in Bil’in and another village, Nil’in, early on Saturday. Both villages hold weekly demonstrations against the construction of the separation wall on their land.

According to the Stop the Wall Campaign, Jamal Juma’s court date is set for Monday.

Left in the Dark: Israeli Military Denies Electricity to At-Tuwani

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My heroes -- the Villagers of Al-Tuwani

(via Aletho News)

Low targets, Goals Dropped: Copenhagen Ends in Failure

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Beg pardon; post took off on me before I added link (LJ): http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal

Negotiators will now work on individual agreements such as forests, technology, and finance – but, without strong leadership, the chances are that it will take years to complete.

Obama cast his trip as a sign of renewed US global leadership: "The time has come for us to get off the sidelines and shape the future that we seek; that is why I came to Copenhagen."

But the US president also said he would not be staying for the final vote "because of weather constraints in Washington".

Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, said the deal had "the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change scepticism in action. It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush."

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. Ed Miliband [UK climate change secretary] is among the very few that come out of this summit with any credit." It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen."

Lydia Baker of Save the Children said world leaders had "effectively signed a death warrant for many of the world's poorest children. Up to 250,000 children from poor communities could die before the next major meeting in Mexico at the end of next year."

U.S Kill 63 Civilians, 28 Children in Yemen Air Strikes

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Run time: 00:43
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBrwZDXjadI


Hey, Hey, Obama, Say: How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?

One Billion Go Hungry (Per U.N.) -- Nick Pell

Tweet Part of article below; whole thing here: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=61236&s2=20

December 19, 2009

The UN reported that 1 billion people world wide are currently going hungry. This is the largest number of hungry people ever, up sharply from 2008. There is no food shortage. Natural disasters and local famines account for a tiny minority of the world's hunger. Indeed, we live at a point in history where the world produces more than enough food to feed everyone, and global caloric production is actually up. The cause of hunger, almost throughout the entire world is not a lack of resources. Hunger and starvation exist because food is distributed for the personal profit of the global elite.

The world's food production is increasingly in the hands of global agribusiness. The largest commercial producers of food have as their primary motive the creation of profits for stockholders rather than the feeding of human beings. This is not an abstract question. Because there is ample evidence that these companies don't give a shit about the proles.

It is also worth noting that these companies have been making a drive in the last few years to copyright plants. In the third world this has already amounted to companies trying to force farmers to buy genetically modified (and thus, patented) seeds. The food is then sold at grossly inflated prices. In the United States the percentage of food consumed that is patented will probably shock you. While the situation is not as bad as say, Mexico guess where you're about to be living.

Wall of Shame

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The End of American Exceptionalism -- Mark Levine

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At a closed door meeting I just returned from in Istanbul, Palestinian and Israeli scholars and activists, including those deeply involved in the settlement movement, are beginning the hard but necessary work of envisioning a new architecture of identity that would allow Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs to share sovereignty and territory throughout the whole of Israel/Palestine.

These and other uncoordinated attempts to change the basic structure of the system Obama is trying to reinforce represent the first stirrings of a new vocabulary, even language of change.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/12/2009121613200705468.html
More of this article below.

While most of the US sat transfixed by the ever-widening saga of Tiger Woods' infidelities, Barack Obama, the US president, gave what might well be remembered as one of the most significant speeches by a US leader in the post-World War Two era.

It is no coincidence that the one should happen in the midst of the other. They may seem utterly disconnected, but both reflect the end of an idea of American exceptionalism that for too long has excused and even enabled the violation of the very ideals it was meant to reflect.

Woods became the richest athlete in history by creating a persona defined by unprecedented talent coupled with steely invincibility and a sense of "fair play" supposedly peculiar to golf - and to the US as well.

Sponsors paid him hundreds of millions of dollars and Americans of all classes and colours flocked to his "brand" in order to identify with such a consummate winner, the epitome of the American dream and its sense of uniqueness and historic mission.

No one cared to explore the realities beneath the dream until it could be spoon fed to them in depoliticised, sensationalised tabloid format.

Brand Tiger

'Brand Tiger' became the epitome of the American dream [GALLO/GETTY]

Few fans, never mind the mainstream media, will look beyond the sex to scrutinise the engine that has powered brand Tiger. Serial infidelity can be safely condemned and ultimately forgiven.

It would be a lot harder to ignore the implications of the relationships with unsavoury corporations that have made Tiger fabulously wealthy when he inevitably returns to professional golf.

But who wants to be reminded of exploited third world labour or toxic oil spills while watching Tiger sink another miracle put?

Like the trans-fats or preservatives in fast foods, thinking about them will only detract from the consumer experience.

And so while Woods has admitted personal mistakes in order to preserve his brand, the underlying rationale and costs of the system that sustains it (and all those who feed off it, from television networks to tabloids) will not be challenged, or even mentioned.

And this is where the Tiger Woods saga intersects with the situation Obama now faces.

Brand America

Like Woods, America's brand is under threat. Unlike Woods, however, Obama cannot be blamed for the problems that so tarnished the country's image in the last decade.

Indeed, as Thorbjorn Jagland, the chairman of the Nobel committee, all but admitted, he was awarded the Peace Prize in good measure because of his attempts to re-brand the US as a less bellicose, more cooperative global leader.

Read through the "Obama Doctrine" outlined in his Nobel speech, however, and the similarities to the strategy behind the rehabilitation of 'Brand Tiger' are clear.

"We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend," the president eloquently intoned.

The reality is that Obama is willing to admit to "mistakes" made by predecessors, but he will not question, or even mention, the larger system that has produced them.

He cannot do so because that would call into question the myth of American exceptionalism that for so long has been used to justify them.

As long as the US is a unique, divinely appointed and essentially just power, its mistakes, however costly, do not threaten the core values that have made it exceptional.

System of global dominance

Obama cannot acknowledge what the rest of the world well understands: that the wars he has inherited, and have now made his own, are the direct result of decades of policies aimed at supporting a system that enabled the global dominance of the US, but at the cost of large-scale violence, oppression and exploitation across the developing world.

Rather than challenge or even scrap the system that produced this violence and the periodic blowback it generates, the Obama doctrine will reinforce it.

Thus the bewildering continuities between Obama's policies and those of George Bush, his predecessor, emerge: the continued presence in Iraq - which is not close to "winding down" as the president described it, the deepening footprint in Afghanistan, the refusal to support treaties banning land mines and biological weapons, the continued use of private mercenaries, the ongoing detainee abuse at Guantanamo and Bagram prisons, and defence spending higher even than his Republican predecessor's.

These are not mistakes; they are inevitable policy choices in a system built on imperial dominance. And like empires past, they are justified by the use of rhetoric and arguments that exalt one's own ideals while misrepresenting and denigrating those against whom the mistakes are committed.

But where Bush administration officials readily admitted America's imperial status, Obama has banished the idea from polite conversation even as he shores up the system.

And so Obama declared in Oslo that when the US fights it does so as the "standard bearer" of morally justifiable violence, engaging only in "just wars" to pacify otherwise unresolvable conflicts.

Oslo & the Empire – Workers World Editorial

Tweet Link to original (via Palestine Think Tank): http://www.workers.org/2009/editorials/oslo_and_empire_1224/

It was an historic moment: a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that was an apology for an imperialist war of occupation. More than that, it preemptively laid out the justification for U.S. imperialist wars.

Even without hearing the speech, you could measure it by the reactions it evoked. Reactionaries Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, who have otherwise attacked everything President Barack Obama does and says, applauded and praised the speech, as did much of the U.S.-based corporate media. Others more skeptical of U.S. military adventures were either surprised or appalled. One common commentary in the media was that “Obama sounded like Bush,” or at least “like a better educated Bush.”

The Oslo speech provides an opportunity to step back from individuals and look at the forces that drive U.S. imperialism. The same political and repressive mechanisms remain in play whatever party has its hands on the reins and whatever president is in the White House.

The George W. Bush years tended to obscure this reality. Bush himself was always so arrogant, always so obviously a product of a lifetime of unearned privilege and always so crass and enthusiastic in his promotion of Washington’s narrow interests that anyone not looking closely might miss the fact that he and his policies had the full support of the great majority of the U.S. ruling class — until his wars started to crumble.

Vice President Dick Cheney so epitomized the evil figure behind the throne that you might ignore his central role in the capitalist establishment. The rest of the Bush gang, what were called the “neo-cons,” used whatever managerial or intellectual talents they had to plan aggressive wars and transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. They always made sure to put some in their own pockets — with an obvious attitude that they were entitled to their privileges.

Many saw the problem with the U.S. role as rooted in Bush and Company, or the Republican right, or the Republican Party, and missed the central role of the imperialist system that engendered this particular set of war criminals.

But now there is a Democratic Party administration, and a large Democratic Party majority in Congress. The president is a much more sympathetic figure. He makes intelligent speeches that show a broader world perspective. Yet the Oslo speech dissolves the differences.

U.S. foreign policy, U.S. aggressive war policy, as explained in Oslo, remains the same: the U.S. will invade where it wants to. To Washington, the opponents of the U.S. are “evil,” while U.S. interests are “good.” In Washington’s ideological model, the Taliban and whatever al-Qaida forces remain in Afghanistan — 100 according to U.S. intelligence — take the place of Saddam Hussein and “weapons of mass destruction.” A slightly new set of lies will be used to justify war in Afghanistan, war on Pakistan, and whatever other war is seen as useful to U.S. banks and industry or strategic position.

Behind this policy is the crisis of capitalism worldwide, the U.S. drive to continually expand its access to raw materials, especially energy resources, its access to markets and new areas of investment, the competition with imperialist rivals in Europe and Japan, the growing contradictions and anticipated conflicts with Russia and China. These make U.S. military aggression almost inevitable.

The Pentagon designed Washington’s policy for Iraq and now for Afghanistan. Driven by that same impulse to expand — while the capitalist economy is contracting — the ruling class here has reached a consensus behind that aggressive strategy. Regarding the Afghanistan escalation and the Oslo speech, this is apparent from the broad support from the corporate media, including not only the militarist hacks at Fox News but the capitalist mainstream semi-official media like the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

The Democratic Party goes along with this — whatever the tactical misgivings of Vice President Joe Biden or the opposition of a senator or two. And whether the president is enthusiastic, neutral or reluctant hardly seems to matter. The Oslo speech shows that he accepts the role of the U.S. president — chief executive for U.S. imperialism — and will argue its case.

No matter how dangerous the war, how high the suffering of the occupied population or the sacrifices of U.S. workers and youth, neither the generals, the class they serve nor the two capitalist political parties will accept defeat and withdrawal. That is, unless there is a resistance army fighting them blow for blow in the occupied country and a powerful workers’ movement challenging them at home.

New EU Foreign Policy Chief Lambastes ‘Israeli Occupation’

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http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/new-eu-foreign-policy-chief-lambastes-%E2%80%98israeli-occupation%E2%80%99/

17/12/2009 – Catherine Ashton on Tuesday leveled scathing criticism at the “Israeli occupation,” in her first speech as the European Union’s first high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

The British stateswoman, who has also served as the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission, said that in the EU’s view, “East Jerusalem is occupied territory, together with the West Bank.”

Ashton demanded that Israel immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, and reiterated that the union opposes the existence of the West Bank separation fence, as it opposes evictions of Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem.

The stateswoman, whose full title is Baroness Ashton of Upholland, also only defined Israel’s partial freeze of West Bank settlement construction as a “first step,” as opposed to the warmer description of the move by EU foreign ministers, who last week took “positive note” of it.

In her address to MEPs in Strasbourg, Ashton, who was only recently appointed to the new position, said she had spoken with Israelis, Palestinians and the U.S. Secretary of State about the role the Quartet of international mediators, and that of its special envoy to the region, Tony Blair.

Ashton said she had told Blair personally that, “The Quartet [a special group set up by the U.S., EU, UN and Russia] must demonstrate that it is worth the money, that it is capable of being reinvigorated.”

Following her comments, a number of MEPs from the Liberal side of the house called for punitive measures against Israel, including the suspension of the EU’s Association Agreement. Irish centre-left member Proinsias De Rossa, who visited the West Bank last week, called Israel’s treatment of Palestinians a form of “apartheid.”

This time it was neither the “infamous” Swedish president who pulled the EU toward an anti-Israel resolution, nor a “daydreaming judge” in Britain who issued an arrest warrant against an Israeli foreign minister. Criticism of Israel has become the language of choice in European discourse.

When the Israeli government offers new benefits to settlers, and peace talks with the Palestinians are deadlocked, even the superpower’s long arm is helpless. Even former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, a devout Jew who serves as an external advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, does not hide his chagrin with the settlements policy.

Indyk has recently told Haaretz in an interview that statements by figures like Minister without Portfolio Benny Begin, according to which settlement construction will continue despite the moratorium, are damaging to Israel’s interests. He said these comments, as well as the decision to pump funds into isolated settlements, strengthen the impression that the declaration of the freeze is not worth the paper it is written on. He warned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will pay a political price for the move, without gaining the benefits which it was intended to grant Israel in the international arena.

End the Israeli Occupation of Palestine -- Saturday Vigil Noon Westlake

Tweet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQqItZu4Is&feature=related


Saturday, December 19

Noon-2:00 pm

Westlake Plaza, 4th & Pine

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VoicesOfPalestine.org
http://www.voicesofpalestine.org
"Do you think you have seen it all?" Click here http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/showme.asp?dif=2&alb=aqsaint&title=Al-Aqsa+Intifadah&start_at=407

Class War

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"Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape -- Resistance in Bethlehem's Villages" -- Ellen Cantarow

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"We will not stop."

Part of article below; whole article here: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=61097&s2=16

This past October Abu Swayk took me to see the sewage mounting and the ruined plot of land. The apricot grove was about five of 120 dunams inherited by 53-year-old Mahmoud Yusef Kalawi from his father and grandfather, both full-time farmers. So far, beyond the five dunams destroyed for the sewer housing, Kalawi has lost nothing else, but last February Israel announced it was confiscating another 1771 dunams for the construction of a brand-new settlement. Kalawi’s 115 dunams are included. Stop the Wall has brought another suit in Israel’s Supreme Court and it bucks Kalawi up to continue farming.

During the Jewish holidays we found him in a plot adjacent to the land where the sewer housing rises. One of a small minority of Palestinians with permits to enter Israel, he works there six days a week as a builder, leaving home at 5:30 AM and returning at 8 PM. Sundays and Jewish holidays he works on his farm. In the late afternoon the sun was going down; sheep and goats browsed in the brush. Kalawi and his wife and children were preparing the terrain for planting. He has a deeply lined face that smiles readily and is full of good cheer – remarkable, given his ceaseless labor, the trauma of his loss, and his anxiety about the future..

On top of which, the Israeli military has continued harassing him. One day this past fall while he was bulldozing his land, soldiers appeared. Kalawi told me, "They took the number of the bulldozer, and said, 'What are you doing here? Building? Digging a well?’ "(Israel forbids Palestinians to dig wells. Israel’s water-confiscation and rationing for Palestinians is a separate story. "'I’m just planting as our people do," he told the soldier. "You can see for yourselves we’re not building,’" Despite Kalawi’s pleas, the soldiers made him stop his work and stand in the sewer housing for an hour. Then they allowed him to go back to his labors, warning he should stay a hundred meters from the sewer.

After that, Bethlehem Stop the Wall members and internationals came to stay with him while he worked. Guarding people like him is imperative: so many others have left their land out of fear and exhaustion. Of course, this is what Israel wants. As Defense Minister Moshe Dayan once put it, "You Palestinians, as a nation, don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you." You will "live like dogs, and whoever will leave, will leave." (Gershom Gorenberg, Accidental Empire, p.82).

By backing and helping farmers, bringing them services (bulldozers; plants; roads for accessing their fields) Stop the Wall makes life more bearable for some, persuading them not to leave, and expanding its base. The campaign also travels, trying to raise awareness and inspire energy. "We try to coordinate all the villages, go to the mosques," said Abu Swayk, explaining the campaign’s efforts to arouse popular resistance. "Everywhere I go I say, 'You have to be aware. You’re losing your land.’"

* * *

Artas once had 13, 830 dunams of land. Israel has already confiscated 69 per cent of that for its colonies. If Stop the Wall were to fail in its litigation against the most recent confiscation, Artas would be left with only 18 per cent of its former wealth. Excavating the mountains for the settlement would create debris and havoc throughout the agricultural valley. "No more lettuce," comments Abu Swayk. "No more onions, cucumbers, potatoes. Nothing will be in this valley."

In the midst of loss, every defense, however small, is urgent. Two years since the apricot grove was destroyed, Abu Swayk has been able to keep his promise to replant the trees. Stop the Wall petitioned the PA Ministry of Agriculture to buy new ones for Kalawi: 65 have already been delivered. In early December another 65 will come.

Other victories: through litigation in 2007, Stop the Wall was able to prevent at least part of the wall from being built into Artas. In May, 2008, it raised money among Artas villagers to rent a bulldozer to clear a small dirt road so farmers could reach their land more easily. The PA Ministry of Agriculture is financing another such road; construction is due to start during the Christmas season. On November 22 an e-mail arrived from Mazin Qumsiyeh, who teaches at Bethlehem University announcing a victory on lands belonging to the village Um Salamuna, very near Artas: "[O]ver 150 Palestinians and internationals participated in an activity to reclaim and plant olive trees on a threatened hill in an area called Um Salamuna. Um Salamuna already lost significant amount of its land to colonial . . . settlements . . . The wall that includes the settlements has not been completed in this area and is slated to zig-zag to capture the hill we worked on. . . ."

Bethlehem’s Stop the Wall committee also plans to dig seven wells on Artas land lying next to the segregation wall. "We will go to court if the Israelis stop us." What if the army comes? "I expect the army will destroy what we do. But we will do it two, three, four times. We will not stop."

Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children Increasing

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From: gerard@dci-pal.org
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:31:56 +0000
Subject: [lphr] Child detention

Dear All

According to the latest figures compiled by the Israeli Prison Service and DCI-Palestine, the monthly average number of Palestinian children detained in 2009 is 360, up 13% from 2008.

Of greater concern is the number of young children (12-15 years) in detention, which is up 64% on the corresponding period in 2008.

For more information please visit - http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=1323&CategoryId=1

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Best regards

Gerard

Gerard Horton
International Advocacy Officer - Lawyer
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section
Tel: +972 2 242 75 30 ext. 103
Fax: +972 2 242 70 18
Mobile: + 972 0599 087 290
Email: gerard@dci-pal.org
Website: www.dci-pal.org