The Parade of Shame

Akram Awad

Thursday March 20, 2008

It takes one a lot of courage to be brave enough (read unashamed) to celebrate a 60 year history of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, occupation, racism and war crimes. And it looks like the main Jewish bodies in the UK have decided to work hand-in-hand, taking their pride in that history to a new level this year by organising the “Salute to Israel” parade in London next June.

According to the organisers, the parade will demonstrate “affirmation of solidarity with and support of Israel”. This kind of unconditional support has always been the trend for both the organising and the supporting bodies of the parade. These include: Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies, the CST, JNF UK, Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester, Manchester ZCC, UJIA, UJS, Zionist Federation, Zionist Youth Council, the Movement for Reform Judaism, and the United Synagogue.

Celebrating the 60^th anniversary of the declaration of Israel as a State also means, undoubtedly, taking pride in the horrific crimes committed by the Jewish militias (which later became the Israeli Defence Force) against the indigenous Palestinians in the years 1947 till 1949, which paved the way for the existence of Israel. The systematic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians preceding the foundation of the State resulted in dozens of massacres, the destruction or Judaisation of more than 400 towns and villages, and the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians who now number 6-7 million refugees scattered all around the world. These figures are not only enough to make any Israeli ashamed of their country, but they are also sufficient by themselves to build the case against the right of Israel to exist.

Thus, it is striking to witness the major Jewish political and religious bodies in the UK praising a country with such a history, offending the memory of thousands of victims of Israeli terrorism, the millions of Palestinians in the UK and around the world, and the British people, as a whole, who take pride in promoting and defending fundamental human rights and ensuring mutual respect between the different groups making up this nation. Embedding the Union Jack within the Israeli flag in the parade’s logo is just another example of how ignorant the organisers are to the values of the British nation. I believe that it’s not questionable that neo-Nazis should not be permitted to promote their fascist beliefs by using the British flag with a Swastika. Promoting an illegal occupier and the only lasting apartheid regime on earth is not any better.

However, it is not just the pre-State history that is a source of shame for Israel. The military occupation of the rest of Palestine in 1967 (i.e. the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza strip) is an illegal act which, for the last 40 years, was condemned in dozens of resolutions by the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, International Court of Justice and Human Rights Council, of which Israel insists to abide by none. Add to this, the Apartheid practices imposed on the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are not limited to the Wall, checkpoints, settlements, imprisoning and water supply discrimination.

Moreover, the “only democracy in the Middle East” is probably the best example of what an extremely racist State can be. With discriminatory policies that favour Jewish citizens over Arab citizens and with the Law of Return which allows anyone with Jewish origin to become an Israeli citizen while denying the right of return for Palestinian refugees, there is hardly any room for doubt that Israel is a racist State.

The organisers of the “Salute to Israel” parade themselves are not remote from the above course of events. Some even played a key role in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The JNF, for instance, participated actively in the destruction of Palestinian villages, the Judaisation of others and the building of settlements. Nowadays, its main role is to cover up for the ethnic cleansing crimes by planting parks on ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages, all financed by charity money received through its offices around the world, including its UK-based registered charity, JNF UK.

The Union of Jewish Students in the UK, UJS, has taken a more active part in the military aspects of the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, by recruiting for the Israeli Army in the summer of 2007 and encouraging British Jews to do their national service in the Israeli Army “where it is really needed”. This is in breach of the UK Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 which considers it a crime for a British subject to enlist in the army of a foreign nation that is at war with any country that the UK is at peace with.

UJIA is the organisation responsible for encouraging and assisting Jews from the UK to immigrate to Israel i.e., ensuring the implementation of the racist Aliyah (Return) laws. This is of course in addition to funding the UJS and other organisations which strive to justify Israel’s crimes to the British public.

The examples of the involvement of the parade’s organisers in the crimes of the Zionist State are endless. However, what irritates more than anything else is watching the same people claiming to work for justice and peace while openly declaring themselves as believers of the racist Zionist ideology and supporting the Zionist State’s crimes. What sort of trust are faith leaders expected to show toward the United Synagogue during inter-faith activities when the latter salutes, out of all countries of the world, a country which John Dugard accused of committing war crimes against the Palestinians? Likewise, how are we expected to receive the UJS’s passion to save Darfur when all what they do, on the other hand, is to praise Israel in every possible occasion and suppress all the voices calling for an end to the Israeli illegal occupation and apartheid in Palestine? One phrase is enough to describe the Jewish bodies organising and supporting the “Salute to Israel” Parade: A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES.

The bunch of hypocrites have classified themselves as Zionist organisations which care unlimitedly about Israel and couldn’t care less about the reputation of the Jewish faith, which they are tarnishing by attaching themselves to a Divine faith that should be promoting the values of justice, equality and coexistence. The ball is now in the court of all those who stand for justice and cannot stand hypocrisy. The next time any of the parade’s organisers knocks on your door, a good “no, thank you” answer would be “Interesting to see an apartheid apologist playing the angel”!

Can those creatures be human?!

See what its like to live with Jewish Settlers (Colonisers) as your Neighbors. (Footage from Hebron, Palestine)

You can watch other footages about the daily sufferings of Palestinians in Hebron and Palestine at:

PaLoRaMa

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=jonyoutoobe

http://www.palestineremembered.com/...

For Your Information, the occupied Palestinian City of Hebron is home to more than 150,000 Palestinians and 400 implanted Jewish Settlers (safeguarded by thousands of Israeli Occupation Forces and Israeli Police)

Messages in Memory of the Nakba (Part 2)

Akram Awad

Thursday, 17 May 2007

This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophe) in which the Zionist Jewish militias committed a horrendous number of massacres and crimes which led to the displacement of half of the Palestinian nation (around 750,000) from their villages and towns and the occupation of most of Palestine. In the memory of the Palestinian holocaust I have five messages that I would like to send to different people who have a lot to do with this continuing catastrophe: Palestinians living in Palestine, Palestinians living outside Palestine, Palestine solidarity movement activists, the international community and Jews worldwide. Part 1 of this article contained my message to the Palestinians. Part 2 carries my message to the rest of the world.

To the Palestine Solidarity movement activists

My third message goes to the Palestine solidarity movement activists around the world. The Palestinian nation salutes you for defending their rights, increasing the awareness of your people about the Palestinian cause and exposing the Israeli brutality and the evil face of Zionism. I can tell from my experience that there are non-Palestinians who are more Palestinian than some Palestinians. We are grateful for every single moment you spend for us and we will never forget your struggle with us.

I would just like to remind myself and you that the role of a solidarity movement is to defend the rights of a nation and mobilise people to support those rights. It is worrying though to notice a few examples where this red line is crossed by making compromises on behalf of the Palestinians and proposing "solutions" that drop some of the Palestinian rights. So that we don't lose the plot, we should always remind ourselves of our primary aim and that is to support all the Palestinians' rights (and not picking some and neglecting others). It is only the Palestinian nation -as a whole- that has the authority to decide for its future. We stood by the Black South Africans until the apartheid regime was dismantled. We did not impose solutions on them but supported the end of apartheid. Likewise, we should support all rights of the Palestinian nation including their right in their independent sovereign state and the right of all refugees to return to their original villages and towns and their right to compensation.

To the International community

My fourth message is for the international community. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." It is ironic that this statement is also 59 years old and it's yet to see the light in this wild world. If you think you have no hand in the suffering of the Palestinians for 59 years -or even more- then you have to rethink about it.

Palestine was granted to the Zionist Jews through the Balfour declaration 90 years ago which was then followed by mass immigration of the Jews from Europe and USA to Palestine where their camps were secured by British forces. Although Britain had no right in the first place to offer the land of the Palestinians to someone else they still issued a white paper clarifying that the Jews had no right to form their own state in Palestine, and that is when Zionist terror escalated against both the Palestinians and the British -with the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem being one example of that terror-. When the British lost control of the Zionist Jewish terrorist groups they simply decided to leave the Palestinians to their fate and leave the country! By that time the Americans were the main source of aids and funds to the Zionist terror militias and supplied them with all their military needs including air fighters.

It was in that decade when the Holocaust was committed against the Jews and other ethnicities. The sympathy with the Jews led 33 states -of which the most were either European countries or controlled by major powers- to vote for the UN partition plan of Palestine in 1947. But hold on, what do the Palestinians have to do with all of this?! There is only one answer; European states recognised the suffering of the Jews but still didn't want to host them. This brings to my mind the Aliens Act of 1905 which was enacted by the then-prime minister Arthur Balfour -Yes the same Balfour!- to restrict the immigration of Jews to the UK.

We didn't vote for Balfour, the British people did. We didn't vote for any foreign government that supported the Zionists before or after the declaration of their illegal state in 1948, the western nations did. Unfortunately, most of us only care about what the governments would do for us and ignore their support to the Zionists and their crimes. You have been paying taxes for ages; you probably received good health and social services in return, but how many times did you question the tax money redirected by your government to fund the killing of the Palestinians by the Israeli army? You enjoyed your freedom to vote for your representative in your Parliament, but only very few were caring enough to blame their governments for starving the Palestinians for practising their right to vote for a party other than what the Zionists prefer. Palestinians do not ask for anyone’s apology; All what they ask for is to help them end their catastrophe, which they had no hand in creating, and to support their freedom and their return to the land Zionists wouldn’t have taken without getting empowered by the US and many European governments.

Is it bliss to be ignorant? Not when it makes you involved in the crime. Your favourite shop is Marks & Spenser because it offers you good value for money, but then it is also your money that helps M&S to support Israel with hundreds of millions of US dollars every year. You open your bank account with Barclays, a bank which shamelessly sponsored the celebrations of "Israel's birthday", and you still justify it for yourself believing that closing your account won't make even a tiny difference. You will still insist to buy your makeup from Estee Lauder even when you are told that its Chairman, Ronald Lauder, is a Zionist working with the land-grabbing Jewish National Fund (JNF), opposing the right of return for Palestinians. What is worse is that you may be donating to the JNF charity in your country to help them erase any remaining signs of the Arab villages flattened by the Zionists since 1948. If you want to be passive and do nothing to help the Palestinians and pressure your government, the minimum I can ask you for is not to take part in their killing and daily suffering with your money… BOYCOTT!

To all Jews worldwide

My fifth and final message is dedicated to the Jews worldwide. Our problem is not with you; it's with Zionism. We lived in Palestine hundreds of years in peace and harmony as one Palestinian nation: Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze and others. We understand the suffering many of you had to undergo in Europe and the US but this should never give the Zionists the justification to cause another nation even worse suffering in your name. Muslims, Christians and Jews believe in the same God, a just and merciful God, a God who will never give one nation the right to expel another nation from their land and replace them, a God who will never allow a Jew to kill an Arab to secure a "Jewish state", a God whose wrath is sure to be provoked by the racist Zionist ideology and its adopters and implementers, specially when they claim to speak in the name of God.

As a Jew you may be thirsty to speak against Zionism, and I do understand the risks you will have to undertake considering the Zionist attempts to silence you, but believe me it's worth the risk. You won't be alone; the majority of silent Jews are non-Zionists, and all what you need to do is to break your silence and add your name to the honour list of Jewish heroes who dare to speak out for Judaism and against Zionism. It may sound a bit pragmatic for a Palestinian to encourage non-Zionist Jews to speak out the truth about their faith to unveil the lies of the Zionists who pretend to represent the Jews, but I'm sure even the non-Zionist Jew dreams of the day when, for people all over the world, the word "Judaism" becomes attached to peace, justice and equality instead of Zionism, racism, occupation, war and "Nakba".

Messages in Memory of the Nakba (Part 1)

Akram Awad

Thursday, 17 May 2007

This year marks the 59th anniversary of the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophe) in which the Zionist Jewish militias committed a horrendous number of massacres and crimes which led to the displacement of half of the Palestinian nation (around 750,000) from their villages and towns and the occupation of most of Palestine. In the memory of the Palestinian holocaust I have five messages that I would like to send to different people who have a lot to do with this continuing catastrophe: Palestinians living in Palestine, Palestinians living outside Palestine, Palestine solidarity movement activists, the international community and Jews worldwide.

To Palestinians living in Palestine

My first message is to the Palestinians living in Palestine. Your struggle and resistance of the Zionist Israeli occupation and apartheid made you the role model for all freedom fighters and all those who seek justice around the world. We outside Palestine have always been proud of being Palestinians, not because of what we have done for our cause, but rather because of your steadfastness in the face of the Zionist terror that has been imposed on you for the last 59 years. We would love to stand side-by-side with you and face the Zionist occupation together in Palestine, but unfortunately this is out of our hands. The majority of Palestinians outside Palestine are refugees who are denied the right to return and, for those who are not, there is always a need for Palestinians to be all over the world in order to spread the message about the Palestinian struggle and to defend the Palestinian cause and rights wherever the Zionist propaganda twists facts and delivers a distorted picture about the history of the Palestinian struggle and the ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

It took other nations hundreds of years to get rid of colonisation and gain their freedom. It took India four centuries to get its freedom and independence, and it took the Algerians 130 years to end the French colonisation. Palestine is no less than any of these and therefore we should not expect to pay a cheaper price for our freedom. Always bear in mind that life without dignity is worse than death, and life without freedom loses all its dignity. If you think that compromising parts of the nation's rights, fought for by three generations, will do you any good you are very much mistaken. There will always come a day when a new generation starts seeking their dignity and, once again, they will realise it is found in their freedom and their return to their home land. Neither the Israeli occupation nor its collaborators should let you down or drive you to give up your rights.

It is fate that every coloniser and occupier recruits collaborators from within the colonised nation to pave their way in. We heard about many examples in the past and the modern history, with Iraq probably being the most recent example. We also have them in Palestine, but this should never make you ashamed of being Palestinian because the moment a collaborator helps the enemy they lose their Palestinian identity. I have no doubt that the recent clashes in Palestine have been ignited and directed by the Zionists and their collaborators. But how are we going to identify them? It is not that difficult. I'll be very frank and reveal to you my simple approach to point them out. Question the loyalty of everyone who hugs a Zionist, whose hand is full of Palestinian blood. Question the loyalty of everyone who accepts military and logistic aid from the same countries starving the Palestinians. Question the loyalty of everyone whose militias are freely allowed in and out of Palestine while the Palestinians have to wait for days or even weeks on border points –and in several cases die from illness while waiting. Question the loyalty of everyone who says no to a temporary state but welcomes the road map, and says yes to the right of return but is willing to negotiate it and make compromises. To conclude my message to the Palestinians inside I shall say again: you made us proud of you for 59 years and this shall continue until we all declare a Palestinian state over the whole of Palestine.

To Palestinians living out of Palestine

My second message is for the Palestinians living outside Palestine. I shall remind myself and you that what makes someone a Palestinian is the Palestine deeply rooted in their heart. So a true Palestinian should live as a Palestinian no matter where they are, and will raise their family to appreciate the Palestinian culture, traditions and lifestyle because this is part of our struggle to preserve the Palestinian identity which the Zionists have been striving to erase ever since they took our land.

It is not a luxury, but rather an obligation, to educate people whom we live with about our cause, our rights, our history and our culture. No one is capable of speaking on behalf of the Palestinians better than the Palestinians themselves. This is conditional on having Palestinians who understand, and are able to communicate with, the communities they live amongst. Never assume others are going to be the ones to take on such a role; Let it be you. Educate yourself about your cause and don't be shy to speak out about the Palestinian struggle wherever you are. We always blame the world for not standing with us but we never asked ourselves if we have ever made an effort to tell the world what they should know about our just cause. Someone may keep saying something for ages but that will be useless if he speaks a language his audience do not understand!

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza strip are the ones involved in deciding on the best strategies and methods to physically resist the Israeli occupation on one hand, and to run the Palestinian community on the other hand. Palestinians may differ in their approaches to these issues and therefore it is legitimate and understandable that they form different parties and groups representing and promoting those approaches. Palestinians living outside Palestine have no reason or justification however, to split themselves into different camps. We should be an example of unity and harmony for we have one goal we all long to achieve: our freedom and return. A Palestinian living outside should always live and present themselves not as a member of Fatah, Hamas or any other party but only as a proud Palestinian.

Hadeel ... Now on PaLoRaMa

the short film "Hadeel", the winner of the Jury's award in Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival for the category of Short films, is now available on PaLoRaMa (Hat tip to the Director Riyadh Shaheen and My friend Arwa).

Hadeel is about childhood and innocence, but it's also about the Zionist barbarism and the world's apathy.

Watch the film and read a news article about Hadeel

Another innocent child dies in Israeli bombardment of Gaza

By: Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS)

At 5.30pm on Monday 10 April 2006, at least six artillery shells fired by the Israeli military fell on the family house of Mohammed Rabe'eya Ghaban in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Shrapnel from the shells pierced the skull of Mohammed's eight-year old daughter Hadeel, killing her instantly. The shelling also resulted in the injury of eight other family members, including Hadeel's brothers and sisters:

Rawan Ghaban 1 and a half years old
Rana Ghaban 3 years old
Munir Ghaban 4 years old
Amneh Ghaban 9 years old
Ghassan Ghaban 11 years old
Bassam Ghaban 15 years old
Tahrir Ghaban 17 years old

The children's mother, 35-year old Sofia, was the eighth family member wounded in the attack.

Several neighbours were also injured including:

Jaqueline Mo'ein Maarouf 11 years old
Mariam Maher Al-‘Assi 15 years old

The killing of Hadeel and the wounding of her siblings and friends is the latest crime to come out of Israel's escalating aggression against the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip. Despite the physical withdrawal of the Israeli military from the area in August 2005, Israeli occupation forces continue to exercise military control over the entire Strip – intensifying assassination attacks against Palestinian activists, shelling residential areas and imposing a virtual siege on the whole strip by sealing entry and exits points to goods and people.

Since the beginning of this year, 15 Palestinian children have been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including eight from the Gaza Strip. Four of the eight were passers by - killed in Israeli extra-judicial assassination attempts against Palestinian activists; two Gaza children were killed by gunfire; one by unexploded ordinance while Hadeel is the eighth Gaza child to die so far this year.

Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS) views with grave concern this growing list of child fatalities and this latest Israeli crime. The recent Israeli military activities, including the bombing of residential areas, preventing food supplies from reaching the population and carrying out extra-judicial killings are considered war crimes under international law.

As such, DCI/PS calls on the international community to assume its moral responsibilities and legal obligations under international law and to act immediately and effectively to stop these gross violations being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians.

"We Killed Jesus, and We're Proud of it !"

The so called "Jewish" settlers in Hebron keep surprising us with their ability to prove continuously how someone in the shape of a human being can act worse than an animal; excuse me animals! I'm sorry that I have no choice but to call them "Jewish" as this is what they claim to be and I can't call them Israelis as they don't live in the so called "Israel" but rather in the West Bank, a land internationally recognised as an Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Tel Rumeida is a small Palestinian neighbourhood deep in the West Bank city of Hebron. Palestinian families, from whom these settlers occupied lands, live directly next to these settlers and are often virtual prisoners in their homes, subject to the settlers' violent attacks and destruction of property.

The footage below shows a "Jewish" settler in Tel Rumeida cursing and threatening a British volunteer among many internationals who left their homes and families and moved to Palestine to work in the neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida, Hebron, keeping a presence on the streets to prevent against settler attacks and soldier/police harassment of the Palestinian residents who live in the neighbourhood. The title above is just one of that settler’s sick quotations recorded in the footage.

The Zionist state of "Israel" still insists to implant such scum in the Arab Palestinian city of Hebron in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine. I call upon our brothers, the true followers of the divine religion of Judaism and all those who care for the Jewish faith and its reputation and purity to publicly distance themselves from and disown those uncivilised creatures whose acts help in nothing but to distort the image of the Jewish faith, and to extend that to include all the zionists who believe in the racist myth that God gave them the right to expel the Palestinians from their homeland and take it over.

And as a Palestinian, I would like to salute the heroes from all over the world who are sacrificing their lives, luxuries, hopes, and dreams to save the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom sending a bold message “Shame On You” to their own governments, specially the American and European governments who are empowering "Israel" and imposing a total blockade on the Palestinians.

As we are in it, I would like to draw the attention to the new trend in Europe and specially here in the UK to endorse a new definition for Anti-Semitism that was suggested by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). The definition considers "Israel" part of the Jewish identity and hence equates Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism. I respect Judaism as a faith and that's why I reject the Zionist agenda to politicise this divine faith linking it with the terrorist state of "Israel". Furthermore, We should all reject such a definition which would gag us and disallow us from questioning the right of the illegal zionist state to exist in Palestine.

One interesting part of the definition reads as follows:

"Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:

...

- Using the symbols and images associated with classical anti-Semitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis."

From my personal experience I never heard anyone openly accusing the Jews of killing Jesus (well in fact for me as a Muslim I don't even believe that Jesus was killed). The only two examples I recall in my whole life for using this claim in any context were of "Jewish" settlers in Hebron who were stating proudly that they killed Jesus; One of which is shown below. The other one occurred last year when "Jewish" settlers attacked the internationals and almost killed a Belgian volunteer again in poor Hebron... Strange enough!

Now I’ll leave you with the disgusting footage WARNING: The film contains bad language (In fact the worst!)

Here is one more footage setting new higher limits for barbarism

(If you can't see the video controls right-click on the video and click on "Play/Pause")

For more footages and information about Tel Rumeida volunteers, please visit their website: http://www.telrumeidaproject.org

You can also find some of the settlers footages on my own library PaLoRaMa

PALORAMA

Palestine Film Collection

Palestine Through The Camera Lens

This is a humble effort to start a library of all film material on Palestine that are available online. There are some documentaries, movies and video footages. I would encourage everyone to buy their personal copies of the films from www.arabfilm.com or www.palestineonlinestore.com as they are really precious assets to keep at home and show to your family, friends and in local community events.

This library needs your help. If you know any film on Palestine that is available online please let me know about it by adding its link and information at the comments section.

Happy watching!

Latest:

• Hadeel (NEW)

Documentaries:

• Palestine is still the issue

• Peace Propaganda and the Promised Land

• The Iron Wall

• Arna's Children

• My Dear Olive Tree

• Jenin Jenin

• The Agony... Deir Yassin

• Deir Yassin Remembered

• The Nakba Archive

• This Body is a Prison

• The Killing Zone

• Palestinian Refugees in Iraq

• Rachel... An American Conscience

• Frontiers of Dreams and Fears

• People and The Land

• We Dare to Speak: Jews Against Zionist Genocide in Palestine

• Captured Prisoners: the Whole Story

• Israel’s Secret Weapon

• Zionist War Crimes

Movies:

• Paradise Now

Video Footages on Zionist savagery against Palestinian civilians:

• Settler Riot in Tel Rumeida

• Settler Children in Tel Rumeida

• Settler Women in Tel Rumeida

• Soldiers Swim in Drinking Water

• Hebron Settlers Assault International Activists

• Palestinians Harassed by Jewish Settler in Hebron Cage (Part 1)

• Palestinians Harassed by Jewish Settler in Hebron Cage (Part 2)

• Tobias - Life in Palestine Real Footage

• Shebab Daiya - Life in the Promised Land

Important Notice

The owner of this blog is not responsible for the content of the posted films and doesn't claim to have watched all of them. If you believe any of the films posted or parts of them are offensive to any race or faith please post a comment in the comments section or email me at akram.awad(at)gmail.com and I will take action accordingly

Hadeel

Palestine is still the issue

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land

The Iron Wall

Arna's Children

My Dear Olive Tree

Jenin Jenin

The Agony.. Deir Yassin

Deir Yassin Remembered

The Nakba Archive

This Body is a Prison

The Killing Zone

Palestinian Refugees in Iraq

Rachel Corrie... An American Conscience

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears

People and The Land

We Dare to Speak

Captured Prisoners: the Whole Story

Israel’s Secret Weapon

Zionist War Crimes

Paradise Now

Settler Riot in Tel Rumeida

Settler Children in Tel Rumeida

Settler Women in Tel Rumeida

Soldiers Swim in Drinking Water

Hebron Settlers Assault International Activists

Palestinians Harassed by Jewish Settler in Hebron Cage (Part 1)

Palestinians Harassed by Jewish Settler in Hebron Cage (Part 2)

Tobias - Life in Palestine Real Footage

Shebab Daiya - Life in the Promised Land

Carter Centre's Voluntary Cleanup

Carter Center advisers resign over book

POSTED: 2:19 p.m. EST, January 11, 2007

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter's controversial book and subsequent remarks about the Israel-Palestinian conflict have prompted the resignations of 14 people from an advisory board of the Carter Center, the 25-year-old Atlanta-based humanitarian organization.

The 14 explained their concerns, which reflect an uproar in the U.S. Jewish community over Carter's Mideast stance, in separate letters sent Thursday to fellow Board of Councilors members and Carter.

"We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position," the letter to Carter said. "This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support."

The letter to the fellow Board of Councilors, with more than 200 members, was brief and less detailed but expressed concern about Carter's book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."

"We are deeply troubled by the president's comments and writings and are submitting the following letter of resignation to the Carter Center," the letter said.

The letters were signed by Alan Abrams, Steve Berman, Michael Coles, Jon Golden, Doug Hertz, Barbara Babbit Kaufman, Liane Levetan, Jeff Levy, Leon Novak, Ambassador William B. Schwartz Jr., William B. Schwartz III, Steve Selig, Cathey Steinberg, and Gail Solomon.

The letter to Carter said while each person "has been proud to be associated" with the center and its work, "we can no longer in good conscience continue to serve the center as members of the Board of Councilors."

The Board of Councilors is separate from the center's board of trustees, which is its governing body, the center says.

The Board of Councilors "is an advisory body of community leaders and business people who are briefed quarterly on the center's work and serve as emissaries of the center to the greater community," the center said. "They are not engaged in implementing work of the center and are not a governing board."

The letter to Carter accused him of abandoning his "historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side." Carter's book confused "opinion with fact, subjectivity with objectivity and force for change with partisan advocacy," the letter said.

"Israelis, through deed and public comment, have consistently spoken of a desire to live in peace and make territorial compromise to achieve this status. The Palestinian side has consistently resorted to acts of terror as a national expression and elected parties endorsing the use of terror, the rejection of territorial compromise and of Israel's right to exist. Palestinian leaders have had chances since 1947 to have their own state, including during your own presidency when they snubbed your efforts."

The center's initial response to the departures expressed appreciation for the members' efforts but did not address the concerns.

"We are grateful to these Board of Councilors members for their years of service and support for The Carter Center in advancing peace and health around the world," the center said.

Many Jewish groups say it is unfair to equate Israel or its policies in occupied territories with the old South African apartheid system that divided the races.

Carter has said the term refers to Israeli policies in occupied territories, not to Israel itself.

The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner has been busy speaking out on the issue since the book was published.

Brandeis University in Massachusetts -- a nonsectarian school with a Jewish heritage and a large Jewish student body -- said Thursday that Carter will speak there and take questions.

The school said he "has accepted an invitation from a student and faculty committee" there "to speak on campus, perhaps as soon as January 23, although the date may be subject to change."

Carter: Israeli Apartheid Worse than South African

Last Word: Jimmy Carter

Revisiting 'Apartheid'

Newsweek International

Dec. 25, 2006 - Jan. 1, 2007 issue - Former president Jimmy Carter has long been regard-ed as an elder statesman, using his political muscle to address issues like democracy and human rights. But he's also been a prolific author. Since leaving office in January 1981, he has written 23 books, on subjects ranging from American moral values to his childhood on a Georgia farm. His latest—and perhaps most controversial—offering, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," reflects his long interest in the Middle East. (As president, he personally negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt.) But it has also drawn fire for its use of the word apartheid to describe the current circumstances of the Palestinian people. While the book has shot up the best-seller list, the former president has been denounced for his criticism of Israel. He's also come under fire from former Carter Center associate Kenneth Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Emory University, who has raised questions about the book's accuracy. (Disclosure: NEWSWEEK's Christopher Dickey was one of the people asked to comment on an early draft of the book.) President Carter spoke to NEWSWEEK's Eleanor Clift. Excerpts:

Clift: You've created quite a stir. I suspect it was partly intentional.
Carter: Well, it was. One of the purposes of the book was to provoke discussion, which is very rarely heard in this country, and to open up some possibility that we could rejuvenate or restart the peace talks in Israel that have been absent for six years—so that was the purpose of the book.

The word apartheid—did you agonize about that?
Not really, I didn't agonize because I knew that's an accurate description of what's going on in Palestine. I would say that the plight of the Palestinians now—the confiscation of their land, that they're being suppressed completely against voicing their disapproval of what's happening, the building of the wall that intrudes deep within their territory, the complete separation of Israelis from the Palestinians—all of those things in many ways are worse than some of the aspects of apartheid in South Africa. There is no doubt about it, and no one can go there and visit the different cities in Palestine without agreeing with what I have said.

Why do you think you're under attack for the book and the title?
You and I both know the powerful influence of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], which is not designed to promote peace. I'm not criticizing them, they have a perfect right to lobby, but their purpose in life is to protect and defend the policies of the Israeli government and to make sure those policies are approved in the United States and in our Congress—and they're very effective at it. I have known a large number of Jewish organizations in this country [that] have expressed their approval for the book and are trying to promote peace. But their voices are divided and they're relatively reluctant to speak out publicly. And any member of Congress who's looking to be re-elected couldn't possibly say that they would take a balanced position between Israel and the Palestinians, or that they would insist on Israel withdrawing to international borders, or that they would dedicate themselves to protect human rights of Palestinians—it's very likely that they would not be re-elected.

In some of your interviews you've said that this is a debate that's out in the open in Israel, and it's only here that we feel inhibited.
Oh yes—that's correct. Not only in Israel—all over Israel, the major news media, every day—[but] obviously in the Arab world, even in Europe. In this country, any sort of debate back and forth, any sort of incisive editorial comment in the major newspapers, is almost completely absent.

You're obviously aware of your main critic, Mr. Stein, who used to be with the Carter Center.
Thirteen years ago! He hasn't been associated with the Carter Center for 13 years.

He says that he was a third party in some meetings and that his notes don't jibe with yours.
He was a third party in some of the meetings, I can't deny that. And a lot of those meetings took place when I was still president and an exact transcription was kept and it's in the official files. So the reports that I gave in the book are completely accurate.

He also accuses you of plagiarism, saying you took from other sources.
The only source that I took anything from that I know about was my own book, which I wrote earlier—it's called "The Blood of Abraham" ... Somebody told me [that Stein] was complaining about the maps in the book. Well, the maps are derived from an atlas that was published in 2004 in Jerusalem and it was basically produced under the aegis of officials in Sweden. And the Swedish former prime minister is the one who told me this was the best atlas available about the Middle East.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16240761/site/newsweek/

 

Talking about apartheid, I remember few months ago when we erected the mock Apartheid wall here in Leeds a Jewish student approached me and shouted "This is disgusting!" I replied "It is indeed." He got mad when he sensed sarcasm in my reply (I was serious though. I was referring to the original wall not the mock one!) He said "I am a Jewish student and I feel offended by calling the fence Israel is building an apartheid wall" !!!! One think I have to admit, when Zionists get bankrupt of any worthy arguments they become really funny and they make your day after a day full of hard work!

Zionists blackmail "University of Freedom"

 

Gagging of Leeds students ‘in breach of law’

15/12/2006

By Nathan Jeffay

The Jewish Chronicle

The University union authorities in Leeds have been warned that they will be breaking the law if they apply the controversial new policy of gagging Jewish students.

As the JC reported last week, the student union has been mandated to ignore Jewish Society complaints “as long as Judaism as a faith is not offended.” Jewish students — who number 1,000 in Leeds — were outraged, saying the move gives the growing pro-Palestine lobby, which proposed the motion, carte blanche to libel Israel.

This week, the Union of Jewish Students decreed that “the motion is in contravention of the 1994 Education Act.” According to campaigns director Mitch Simmons, it appears to offend the requirement outlined in section 22, dealing with student unions, that “there should be a complaints procedure available to all students or groups of students who... are dissatisfied in their dealings with the union.”

Damola Timeyin, communications and democracy officer for the Leeds union, refused to comment on the legal question. However, in a letter to the JC, he insisted: “The motion in no way changes Jewish students’ right to support the State of Israel or debate the issue.”

Mr Simmons said that UJS was not currently planning legal action, as it expected the union to drop the policy given its “clear” legal difficulties. “The point of this law is that any group has the right to complain,” he said. “You cannot say that this motion, however well it was passed by student democracy, is able to overturn that right.”

However, a J-Soc campaign officer, Hannah Zatman, said it was “consulting lawyers, and is determined to fight this policy with as much strength as possible.”

Chaplain Rabbi Michael Treblow met pro-vice chancellor Professor Stephen Scott at the start of the week “to convey that this is an issue of great concern to Jewish students and to British Jewry as a whole, and also to make it clear that the reality of Jewish identity in the UK is that it is intertwined with the existence of the State of Israel.”

He voiced alarm that the sole definition of Jewish identity in the student union was religious, on the say-so of the Palestinian Solidarity Group, authors of the policy. This meant that Jewish students were effectively powerless to complain against any anti-Israel activities in the union.
He also discussed fears that the J-Soc might be banned as a consequence of the policy. With Israel’s legitimacy as part of Jewish identity challenged, the PSG was free to claim that the J-Soc was not advocating Jewish identity but a political ideology that, in the motion, was equated with racism. The J-Soc could then find itself excluded from the union under its “no platform” for racists policy.

But despite the chaplain’s arguments, vice-chancellor Professor Michael Arthur wrote to the JC this week insisting: “The referendum decision… does not conflict with the university’s values.” He claimed that an acceptable status quo existed, whereby “people may criticise the policies and actions of the State of Israel on our campus. But they may not be antisemitic.”

On hearing of Professor Arthur’s position, Rabbi Treblow was “not happy,” considering it a “simple defence,” rather than addressing student concerns. Ms Zatman criticised the university, arguing: “It has possibly not looked at the policy, which is a direct attack on the Jewish Society. It should be more concerned with the Jewish Society not being allowed the rights of other societies — clearly a matter of discrimination.”

Akram Awad, the Palestinian Solidarity Group activist who introduced the policy, posted a jubilant blog entry dedicated to “Leeds University’s Zionist J-Soc, to the Zionist UJS, and to all advocates of the racist illegal Zionist regime called ‘Israel.’”

He wrote: “Nothing on earth would stop us from fighting for the justice and freedom… for all victims of the evil Zionist virus anywhere in the world. If you think that Leeds motions are our biggest victory you are very mistaken; this victory is so little for us and we haven’t even started yet. If you decide to keep defending and advocating the Devil then don’t blame us for [J-Soc] being offended every time we expose your beloved Zionists’ crimes, because ‘Israel’ itself is the biggest offence to humanity.”

From the motion
This Union notes: That although the LUU Jewish Society (J-Soc) is categorised by the Student Union as a religious society, a principal role for JSoc is to promote the state of Israel via its activities and affiliation with the National Union of Jewish Students…
This Union resolves: To formally advise the LUU Jewish Society that promoting and defending Israel in its activities indicate that J-Soc is taking and advocating a curtain [sic] political stand in behalf of the Jewish students on campus…

 End of JC article

I salute the University of Leeds' Vice-Chancellor Prof. Michael Arthur and the Student Union's Communications and Democracy Officer Damola Timeyin for their strong righteous stand in support of freedom of speech and healthy debate for everyone on campus INCLUDING THE JEWISH STUDENTS.

Zionist J-Soc ... Bad Losers!

Jewish students gagged at Leeds

08/12/2006 15:21:00

By Nathan Jeffay

The Jewish Chronicle Newspaper

Britain's largest Jewish student community was in a state of shock this week after being constitutionally gagged against a background of intensifying anti-Israel campaigns and propaganda. The student union at the University of Leeds has recently become the stronghold of a growing pro-Palestine lobby, which regularly runs campaigns declaring Israel to be a racist and apartheid state. Following a campus-wide referendum last Friday, union authorities have been mandated to ignore J-Soc complaints "as long as Judaism as a faith is not offended." This policy was carried by 1,421 votes to 895. The motion, proposed by members of the Palestinian Solidarity Group, catalogues J-Soc complaints against it. It then claims that the existing practice of "considering every complaint received by the student union as a real complaint" constituted "an arbitrary use of authority." A further successful motion, worded as a polemic against Israel, resolves to twin the union with the student body at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, where many seats on the student council are held by the Hamas-linked Islamic List. It brings to a climax a disturbing term for Jewish students - in the last month alone, UK J-Socs have fought against some 11 motions, the majority of which they managed to defeat. Campus leaders, students and academics have voiced concern that the first motion singles out the university's Jewish students - thought to number almost 1,000 - and strips them of basic rights enjoyed by all others. They fear this principle will be introduced in other unions, creating a culture where Israeli's critics have carte blanche to launch tirades regardless of their truth, and where it becomes taboo for any J-Soc to show solidarity with Israel. They have also reacted with incredulity to the motion's wording, in which its Palestinian Solidarity Group authors claim for themselves - and to the exclusion of Jewish students - authority to define Jewish identity. Now the motion has passed, Jewish identity is now exclusively religious, according to the union's constitution. After the votes, the atmosphere at Hillel House was gloomy. "The motion is trying to tell us what we should and should not think about Judaism," said Mark Frazer, 21. "Its proponents are saying that Israel should not be part of our Jewish identity; we think is. It should be for us to decide." Judith Keen, 20, spoke of "feeling let down as the referendum process is meant to help students here, not be used a political tool." Zach Esdaile, one of the J-Soc's campaign officers, claimed it will "add to fear on campus." He said: "This motion is supposedly about freedom of speech [by preventing complaints], but it delivers anything but that." However Damola Timeyin, communications and democracy officer for the union, said that the motion was passed by a democratic forum, and as such is binding. According to Mitch Simmons, campaigns director at UJS, the motion represents the "stepping up" of a "national, systematic and coordinated attempt on campuses" to blacken Israel's reputation and delegitimise Israel's centrality in Jewish identity. Insiders in the National Union of Students report a growing rift with Leeds over the motion, even though, publicly, NUS respects the autonomy of member unions. NUS president Gemma Tumelty would not "comment extensively," but confirmed there is a clash.

Here is a competition for all of you; count as many lies as you can in the report. The winner gets a very exceptional reward: ZIONISTS WILL HATE YOU!

Blackening Israel's reputation?! Oh yeah, The Worst Country in the World, what a reputation we should work hard to spoil!

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Source: Jerusalem Post

It could take Israel 30 years to change its brand image, after it placed last in a study of 36 countries, one of the leaders in the field of nation branding warned Saturday. Simon Anholt spoke with The Jerusalem Post on the heels of a recent survey he released in which 25,000 consumers were asked to rank 36 countries on issues of tourism, exports, governance, investment, immigration, cultural heritage and people. According to the study, known as the Nation Brands Index, which has been published four times a year since 2005, "Israel's brand is, by a considerable margin, the most negative we have ever measured in the NBI, and comes in at the bottom of the ranking on almost every question." Israel is not typically included in the survey, which looks at such as places as the US, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, China and Singapore. Britain came in first in the survey and the US was ninth. It was included in the third quarter survey of 2006 because there is a guest slot in each survey. "Only Bhutan, the first guest country we included in the NBI, achieved a similarly low score," said the study. But in the case of Bhutan the study attributed its poor score to the fact that few people had heard of it, according to the study. "Israel's poor scores are clearly not the result of anonymity; it is one of the most known countries in the world," said the study. The Foreign Ministry's Director of Public Affairs Amir Gissin said the survey underscored for him the importance of the new nation-branding drive Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni launched this fall. "We see Anholt's research as an opportunity to increase the awareness of decision makers in Israel to the image problem that Israel has in order to make us more determined to deal with the image problem," Gissin told the Post. As part of that drive, the ministry is looking for ways to focus international public attention away from the country's conflicts with the Palestinians and Hizbullah in favor of more positive images such as the country's technical innovations as well as musical, cultural and historical attractions. But Anholt warned on Saturday that the Foreign Ministry would have to be very patient before it benefits from its labors. While his 30-year prediction is not set in stone, Anholt said, he warned that changing people's attitudes and prejudice was so difficult and time-consuming that it often took decades. It took Japan and Ireland 30 years to change their public image, Anholt added. "There are no quick fixes to this," said Anholt, who added that he hoped the Israelis "are very patient." It was for this reason that he did not believe his study was significantly impacted by the fact that it was conducted during the war with Hizbullah in Lebanon over the summer. Israel was often in a state of conflict, Anholt said. It had been his experience, he said, that the survey measured long-seated opinions that were not greatly swayed by current events. Still, he said, just to be certain he planned to include Israel for a second time in the survey during a quiet period, "just to ascertain that the results were not skewed." Anholt said that his study differed from that of other surveys, in that this was not a politically-based public opinion poll. It did not measure people's ideas about the conflict with the Palestinians or Hizbullah, but rather it examined people's instinctive associations with the country that would impact their decisions outside the political arena, such as whether they would buy a product from Israel, visit the country, or hire an Israeli.

Finally this is a message to all advocates of the racist illegal Zionist regime called "Israel", nothing on earth would stop us from fighting for the Justice and freedom of the Palestinian nation (in Palestine and in Diaspora) from the evil Zionist virus "Israel". If you think that Leeds motions are our biggest victory you are very mistaken; this victory is so little for us and we haven't even started yet. We will keeping speaking out the truth and educating people about our cause no matter how much it costs us. If you decide to keep defending and advocating the Zionist state then don't blame us for being offended every time we expose your beloved Zionists' crimes, because "Israel" itself is the biggest offence to humanity.