You can follow its progress at these websites:

GENERAL GAZA/FLOTILLA WEBSITES:

http://witnessgaza.com Possible live streaming.
http://ustogaza.org
http://ustogazawest.org
http://www.freegaza.org
http://twitter.com/huwaidaarraf
http://www.freedomflotilla.eu Possible live streaming.


INDIVIDUAL BOATS:

http://ustogaza.org/ (US boat)
http://twitter.com/usboattogaza
http://twitter.com/ibnezra (journalist on US boat)
http://ustogazawest.org/ (western USA)
http://www.tahrir.ca/ (Canadian boat)
http://www.savegaza.eu/eng/ (European Campaign)
http://irishshiptogaza.org/ (Irish Boat)
http://irishingaza.wordpress.com/
http://unbateaupourgaza.fr/ (if you can read French)
http://www.shiptogaza.gr/ (in Spanish)
http://www.freedomflotilla.it/ (and one in Italian)
http://www.shiptogaza.gr/ (and in Greek!)


CORPORATE WEBSITES:

http://english.aljazeera.net and http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.haaretz.com/ (check hebrew version too with google translate - i.e. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhttp://www.haaretz.co.il - because often the most inflammatory stories are left as Hebrew-only)
http://www.ynetnews.com (right wing, if you can stomach it)


PRO-PALESTINIAN WEBSITES:

http://electronicintifada.net
http://twitter.com/avinunu
http://mondoweiss.net/
http://www.imemc.org
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/
http://imeu.net

You can help the flotilla by contacting these officials to show support for it and the right of the participants to deliver assistance to the people of Gaza.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine

UPDATE 3: Here comes your non-violent resistance:

In any case, if you're among those who have made the argument that Israelis would give Palestinians a state if only the Palestinians would learn to employ Ghandhian tactics of non-violent protest, it appears your moment of truth has arrived. As my colleague writes, what happened on Nakba Day was Israel's nightmare scenario: masses of Palestinians marching, unarmed, towards the borders of the Jewish state, demanding the redress of their decades-old national grievance. Peter Beinart writes that this represents Israel's Palestinian Arab Spring: the tactics of mass non-violent protest that brought down the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and are threatening to bring down those of Libya, Yemen and Syria, are now being used in the Palestinian cause.

So now we have an opportunity to see how Americans will react. We've asked the Palestinians to lay down their arms. We've told them their lack of a state is their own fault; if only they would embrace non-violence, a reasonable and unprejudiced world would see the merit of their claims. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of them did just that, and it seems likely to continue. If crowds of tens of thousands of non-violent Palestinian protestors continue to march, and if Israel continues to shoot at them, what will we do? Will we make good on our rhetoric, and press Israel to give them their state? Or will it turn out that our paeans to non-violence were just cynical tactics in an amoral international power contest staged by militaristic Israeli and American right-wing groups whose elective affinities lead them to shape a common narrative of the alien Arab/Muslim threat? Will we even bother to acknowledge that the Palestinians are protesting non-violently? Or will we soldier on with the same empty decades-old rhetoric, now drained of any truth or meaning, because it protects established relationships of power? What will it take to make Americans recognise that the real Martin Luther King-style non-violent Palestinian protestors have arrived, and that Israeli soldiers are shooting them with real bullets?

UPDATE 2: J Street responds to the right of return protests on Sunday:

J Street is deeply alarmed by the serious outbreaks of violence in and around Israel today.

We call on Palestinian leaders and the Israeli government to work to minimize further violence and casualties, and to prevent further escalation. We urge governments and communal leaders in surrounding states to similarly avoid escalation.

The violence comes at the start of an important week, during which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the United States, meet President Barack Obama, and deliver several speeches outlining his government’s thinking about the state of the political process with the Palestinians. President Obama too has scheduled an important address Thursday in which he may lay out his ideas for reviving the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

This weekend’s violence only reinforces J Street’s concern that the absence of a credible diplomatic route to achieving a two-state solution sows the seeds of hopelessness that lead to conflict and violence.

J Street’s goal is to promote the security and survival of the state of Israel and its future as a democracy and a Jewish homeland. We fear that the failure of either leader to lay out bold steps toward a two-state solution this week and then to follow through on them in the months ahead condemns Israel, the Palestinians and their neighbors to more dark days of violence and bloodshed and puts Israel’s future and security at risk.

If you had a residual belief that J Street possessed some promise of protecting the Palestinians from the predations of Israel, this should dispel any remaining doubt. Indeed, the language of President Jeremy Ben-Ami's statement is eerily reminiscent of Tony Kushner's defense against the criticisms of Jeffrey Wiesenfeld.

Hat tip to Max Ajl at Jewbonics.

UPDATE 1: Syrian Revolution: It is all about Israel's security.

INITIAL POST: It is difficult to put into words, especially for someone who is not Palestinian like myself, but I believe that the yesterday's events in Palestine, where many Palestinians sought to exercise their right of return by forcing their way past Israeli checkpoints in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, are momentous, a foreshadowing of major changes in the Middle East, and perhaps, even the rest of the world.

Consider this account by Matthew Cassel:

Climbing up the mountain to reach the Palestinian right-of-return protest in Maroun al-Ras in south Lebanon on Sunday felt a bit like being back in Tahrir Square.

The thousands of mostly Palestinian refugees were smiling as they joked about the strenuous climb, and helped each other up the mountain to reach the site where they were going to stage their demonstration. Some knew it could even be dangerous, but that didn't matter as much as the rare opportunity to join together and call for their rights.

The small elevated Lebanese village just overlooking the border with Israel became a massive parking lot as buses carrying Palestinian refugees and Lebanese from across Lebanon converged for a protest commemorating what Israeli historian Ilan Pappé calls the ethnic cleansing by Zionist militias of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their lands and homes in 1948 – what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Large buses had difficulties reaching the top of the mountain, and rather than wait, protesters chose to make the half-mile climb by foot.

Men and women, young and old, secular and religious, were all present. This was the first time in 63 years that Palestinian refugees would go to the border in their tens of thousands and call for their right to return home. For most, it was their first time even seeing the land that they've grown up hearing described in precise detail through the popular stories of elders old enough to remember life in what is today considered Israel.

Or, consider this one about Maroun al-Ras as well, sent to As'ad Abukhalil, the Angry Arab:

I saw courage and heroism today in front of my eyes. The sight was unbelievable. 10 death and dozens injured and the Palestinian guys would not stop. It is mind boggling. I was 200 meters behind the fence. The Lebanese army at the end attached us and was shooting like crazy up in the air. They chased us up the whole mountain. A day I won't forget in my life. Thousands of bullets wire fired above us to drive us back. Friends were literally at the fence and saw the guys falling. I will upload pics and videos later on FB. I will email you my thoughts later. We are still under shock. We were literally taking cover behind rocks, I really don't know what to say.i swear if only these Palestinians are trained, given arms and support, Israel will not last a week. Every shot Asad from Israelis, a wounded or a killed from our side, dozens of ambulances leaving the scene.. and the guys would not stop. Showers of rocks were going the other way, and the damn Israelis snipers were shooting them down one by one.

Perhaps, I exaggerate. Perhaps, with the passage of a week, a month, a year, yesterday's protests and the typically violent Israeli response to them, will be incorporated into the lethargic flow of history as the grinding brutality of the occupation persists unabated. But I don't think so. For those of us unable to perceive the subtle changes in the current, yesterday was, in the words of Fredric Jameson and others, a rupture, one that, paradoxically, did not constitute an actual, violent departure from the continuity of the past, but, rather, exposed our reflexive embrace of something that no longer existed. After all, a rupture is in the eye of the beholder, a subjective perspective incapable of keeping pace with the dynamism of social transformation.

And, what, precisely, was it that we embraced, that many of us considered so inexorable? It was, quite simply, the permanence of Zionism, and, more specifically, the impregnability of the state of Israel. And, beyond that, and, even more important, the invisibility of the Palestinians themselves, their lack of a historical agency that would enable them to ascend the stage and challenge the interrelated historical processes of capitalism and imperialism that had reduced them to marginality. Much as Marxists and anarchists have challenged capitalism, while considering its demise generations, if not centuries, into the future, anti-Zionists, with exceptions like As'ad Abukhalil and Hossam el-Hamalawy, characterized the dissolution of Israel as a Zionist state in utopian terms, something for which we should aspire to achieve without any expectation that we should expect to live to see it. Of course, I speak as someone at the intersection of engaged people and activists and the bourgeois world, so I am willing to concede that I may have possessed a pessimism that activists like Max Ajl and others, such as those involved in the International Solidarity Movement, have already overcome.

Certainly, the Palestinians have done so. And their Egyptian allies sense the historical opportunity as well, as it was necessary for Egyptian security forces to disperse Egyptians who attempted to storm the Israeli embassy in Cairo last night with tear gas and projectiles. Hossam el-Hamalawy has several posts, with video, about the confrontation. Naturally, as with any political movement in which the masses become engaged, those in power, regardless of their purported ideological identity, act to contain it. Hence, the efforts of the Egyptian security forces, the militaries of Lebanon and Syria and the political functionaires of Hamas, to suppress it, to insist that the participants act within the boundaries imposed by established authority. March to the border, but no further. Chant, hold up some signs and throw a few stones, but no more. Stand in front of the embassy and chant slogans, but don't try to breach the compound. In other words, stay within the acceptable confines of innocuous, non-violent, stage managed protest so adored by American liberals, thus the enabling existing regimes to perpetuate the social order while appearing as if they oppose it. Predictably, US and European media, such as the New York Times and the Guardian, looked for the usual suspects behind the protests, Hizbullah, Hamas and the Syrian government, as the alternative, acknowledging the mass base of the effort was too frightening to contemplate.

But, as they used to say long ago, the jig is up, and, if the movement is successful, it may result in the overthrow of other governments in the region, mostly American client states, in addition to the defeat of Zionism. Accordingly, a substantial escalation of violence, including a military conflict on the scale of the 2003 invasion of Iraq or greater, is not out of the question. Of course, as to the movement itself, we shouldn't romanticize. As in any such situation, there are many fissures amongst the Palestinians and those who support them around the world. The Palestinians live in conditions of severe poverty and state repression, represented by governments in the West Bank and Gaza insistent upon brokering away their revolutionary potential in return for the preservation of a dominant position in society. But, yesterday, the Palestinians refused to let any of that deter them, as they have been doing to a lesser, unpublicized degree for quite awhile. For those of us who advocated for them from the safe distance of utopianism, we will have to accept that they are likely to succeed much sooner than we ever anticipated, if we ever believed that they would at all. And, for some of us, this will be discomforting, as we will now have to address the future of Palestine as a real world transformation, with all of the messiness that it will invariably entail. Just as there were civil rights advocates who championed the rights of African Americans, but subsequently had problems when African Americans subsequently exercised their independent power and judgment, we can expect something similar here.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Egypt, Gaza, Lebanon, Palestine, Zionism

UPDATE 1: 15 dead, according to the Los Angeles Times.

INITIAL POST: From the Guardian:

Israeli troops opened fire on pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempting to breach its borders on three fronts, killing at least eight people. Scores more were wounded at Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.

Clashes also erupted in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Palestinians commemorated Nakba Day, the anniversary marking the 1948 war in which hundreds of thousands of people became refugees after being forced out of their homes.

Thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria marched towards the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967. At least four people were killed by Israeli troops as they crossed the border, Israel Radio reported. Up to 20 were injured, according to the Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance service.

A statement from the Israeli military said: Thousands of Syrian civilians breached the Israel-Syria border near the Israeli village of Majdal Shams.

IDF forces opened fire in order to prevent the violent rioters from illegally infiltrating Israeli territory. A number of rioters have infiltrated and are violently rioting in the village. From initial reports there are dozens of injured that are receiving medical care in a nearby hospital.

Most of the inhabitants of Majdal Shams, a large village close to the border, hold Syrian citizenship and have family on the other side of the border, from whom they are cut off. The Israeli army declared the area, which is heavily mined, a closed military zone on Sunday.

Despite being occupied by Israel for 44 years, the Golan is usually calm. Syria has repeatedly demanded Israel hand back the area.

A similar Nakba Day protest on the Lebanon border led to four people being killed and around 15 wounded, according to Lebanese media reports. Dozens of protesters approached the border from the Lebanese town of Maroun a-Ras.

Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, an Israeli military spokesman, said soldiers fired when demonstrators began vandalising the border fence. The army was aware of casualties on the other side, he said.

Witnesses said that Israeli troops had fired across the border at protesters throwing stones from within Lebanon, a move that could have serious repercussions and prompt further cross-border incidents.

UN peacekeepers on the Lebanese side of the border appealed for maximum restraint to prevent casualties

In Gaza, around 60 people were injured by shelling and machine-gun fire when protesters approached the heavily fortified Erez border crossing, according to Palestinian medical sources. Israelis living near Gaza were advised to stay inside bomb shelters.

As'ad Abukhalil is correct. It is time for troops on the other side of the border to start shooting back.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, YouTube, Zionism

From Haaretz:

Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces General Sami Anan warned Israel against interfering with Egypt's plan to open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on a permanent basis, saying it was not a matter of Israel's concern, Army Radio reported on Saturday.

Egypt announced this week that it intended to permanently open the border crossing with Gaza within the next few days.

Palestinians take part in a protest at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, April 27, 2011.

The announcement indicates a significant change in the policy on Gaza, which before Egypt's uprising, was operated in conjunction with Israel. The opening of Rafah will allow the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza without Israeli permission or supervision, which has not been the case up until now.

Obviously, if this happens, it is a significant development. And, then there are the spontaneous actions of Egyptians to impair the delivery of Egyptian natural gas to Israel through the Sinai, as demonstrated by this explosion along the pipeline a few days ago. As explained by Yolande Knell of the BBC:

Egypt's agreement to supply gas to Israel, built on the 1979 peace accord, has long been controversial. A former energy minister and other officials face trial for allegedly agreeing below market prices. Recent protests outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo called for supplies to be cut.

Last week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil el-Araby told the BBC that gas exports are going on. Now though, it appears saboteurs have had their way.

Opposition to the exports is also reportedly related to Bedouin resentment over poor treatment in the area traversed by the pipeline as well. One of the interesting things that has happened since the removal of Mubarak has been increased public criticism of Israel, even by those associated with the military leadership, as evidenced here. One gets the impression that the military is attempting to preserve its economic preeminence within Egypt by cosmetically aligning itself with public displeasure with Israel. But, if so, the announcement of the opening of the Rafah crossing is an indication that Egyptians are insistent upon more concrete action. Protests at the Israeli embassy in Cairo are becoming an ongoing feature of Egyptian political activity, after being consistently suppressed by Mubarak, violently, if necessary.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Egypt, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

UPDATE 1: Just got done watching President Obama's brief statement about the departure of Mubarak. His body language was in marked contrast to his words, conveying a sense of fatigue, of defeat, of the realization that he was not able to shape events in Egypt in a way consistent with perceived US interests.

INITIAL POST: For my perspective, accidentally written in advance, please consider reading my initial post from yesterday if you have not already done so. As I said, the removal of Mubarak, and the failure of the US to replace him with Suleiman, is a significant anti-imperialist event comparable to the people of Venezuela coming out into the streets in April 2002 to reverse the US supported coup against President Hugo Chavez. One of the most monstrous dictatorships in the world, one constructed with billions of US dollars to facilitate US hegemony in North Africa and the Middle East, has come to an end. We can only hope that the Egyptian people will soon act to end the economic strangulation of Gaza by opening the Rafah crossings. Perhaps, wikileaks, or some future variant thereof, will reveal the disparity between what the US government said in public and what it did in private in response to the Egyptian revolution.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Egypt, Gaza, Neoliberalism, YouTube

(snip)

Since the Hamas takeover, Israel has designated Gaza as a hostile entity, and maintained an economic embargo against the territory. Under this designation, decisions on shekels in circulation in Gaza and the territorys economy in general are treated by the GOI as security matters, and therefore are subject to the same high levesl of uncertainty that the GOI uses to keep potential sources of security threat off-balance. Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis. The Palestinian Authoritys request for a guaranteed floor transfer rate of NIS 100 million per month will not be seriously considered by the GOI until after January 2009, when the Palestinian political situation becomes more clear. In any case, given the size of the population and economy in Gaza, GOI interlocutors find it implausible that the number of workers on the Palestinian Authority,s (PA) payroll there and the amount of money to be paid each month accurately reflect the current size of the territory,s civil service or its future government service requirements, nor do they agree with the PAs contention that these payments are buying loyalty. Furthermore, GOI officials doubt the effectiveness and authority of the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA) to regulate and police banks in Gaza. Israeli officials reject the PA,s argument that denying banks the liquidity to pay PA salaries in full bolsters the Hamas regime. While some acknowledge the gains to Hamas from a weakened formal banking sector in Gaza, they argue that such gains are small relative to the cost of giving Hamas greater access to shekels or the economic benefits they bring to Gazans. A USG policy that encourages the GOI to review its present policies (as requested by the Office of the Quartet Representative and the PA) while pressing the Israelis to approve as much funding each month as possible under security constraints, assisting the PA to improve its regulatory regimes and due diligence procedures, and continuing to foster direct dialogue between officials of the GOI and PA on Gaza issues in the monthly Joint Economic Commission meetings is our best bet for minimizing economic/political gains to Hamas in Gaza.

(snip)

Israel closed the entry and exit points into the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, on 25 June [2006] and has conducted frequent raids and bombings that have killed 262 people and wounded 1,200. The crisis in Gaza has been largely ignored by the rest of the world, which has been absorbed by the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

Women in Gaza tell me they are eating only one meal a day, bread with tomatoes or cheap vegetables, said Kirstie Campbell of the UN's World Food Programme, which is feeding 235,000 people. She added that in June, since when the crisis has worsened, some 70 per cent of people in Gaza could not meet their family's food needs. People are raiding garbage dumps, she said.

Not only do Palestinians in Gaza get little to eat but what food they have is eaten cold because of the lack of electricity and money to pay for fuel. The Gaza power plant was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in June. In one month alone 4 per cent of Gaza's agricultural land was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers.

The total closure imposed by Israel, supplemented by deadly raids, has led to the collapse of the Gazan economy. The 35,000 fishermen cannot fish because Israeli gunboats will fire on them if they go more than a few hundred yards from the shore. At the same time the international boycott of the Hamas government means that there is no foreign aid to pay Palestinian government employees. The government used to have a monthly budget of $180-200m, half of which went to pay 165,000 public sector workers. But it now has only $25m a month.

(snip)

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reports that the five youth were roughly 300 meters from the fence, just on the edge of the buffer zone -- the no-go area imposed by Israel covering a wide swath of land on the Gaza side of the boundary with Israel, in the east and north -- when Israeli firing began. Relatives and neighbors agree: Hassan was unarmed and shot without provocation other than his presence in Israel's unilaterally-declared buffer zone.

That buffer zone ruinously affects Gaza residents living in areas like Khozaa. Khozaa, and the whole rural area east of Khan Younis -- which includes the towns and villages of Abasan al-Kabir, Abasan al-Saghira and al-Farrahin -- have been the subject of numerous incursions, demolitions, shelling and shootings over the past several years, occurring with an increasing frequency in recent months. Homes with any exposure to the boundary with Israel are pocked with hundreds of bullet holes, and children are barred by their parents from playing in areas which are within the line-of-sight to the boundary after dusk.

Officially, the buffer zone is 300 meters wide, at least according to the leaflets the Israeli military dropped on all of Gaza's hinterlands on 19 May 2009, showing a map of the Gaza Strip with clearly demarcated no-go areas. Unofficially, however, it extends as far as the bullets from Israeli snipers fly before they hit something.

According to a report put out by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 29 percent of Gaza's arable farmland is inaccessible due to the belt of forbidden or dangerous land, which extends from 0.5-1 kilometer on the eastern frontier and 1.8 to 2 kilometers on the northern frontier.

In the southern governorates, the imposition of the buffer zone has hit agricultural production hard. For example, in the Khan Younis area, the administrative area of which includes the smaller zones to its east, agriculture and fishing-related activities plummeted from 24 percent of all jobs in the second quarter of 2007 to 7.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

If not enforced by physically present soldiers armed with sniper rifles, it is enforced by women soldiers manning remote-controlled motion-sensing machine gun turrets. The landscape there is marked by ditches, peppered by broken clumps of barbed wire. It's a tableau of exposed dirt and sliced-off irrigation tubes. It looks like the war zone that it frequently is.

And soldiers often fire at anything that enters the buffer zone. Indeed, repeated calls to the Israeli military spokespersons' office to ask how they made the determination that Hassan was a militant either were met with unfulfilled promises to call back shortly, or the response that we can't reveal that information for security reasons. Nor has the Israeli military issued a correction in response to the repeated queries.

Labels: American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

A must read blog entry by Max Ajl at Jewbonics, who just returned from spending the last 6 months or so in Gaza. In Palestine, the left, it seems, finds itself caught between the Zionist hammer and the Islamic fundamentalist anvil. As with Iran, leftists should resist the temptation to ignore the repressive domestic practices of fundamentalists just because they oppose US and Israeli imperialism. Iran is a good example of how such behaviour merely serves to evade serious socioeconomic questions that cannot be suppressed.

Navigating between the militarism of the US and Israel and the fundamentalist autocracy of Iran and Gaza may be difficult, but it is essential if the left is to retain any credibility. As Ajl concludes:

There is some romanticization of Hamas, sure, as a resistance movement that plays hardball with the Israeli government. That’s understandable. What’s less understandable is any sort of solidarity between the left and the Hamas government (see: George Galloway). There are better people to support, people loosely linked with leftist parties, NGOs engaged in local capacity building and educational work, groups with anti-authoritarian pedagogies, groups that aren’t misogynistic. Hamas is unpopular because it has been systematically starved of resources, and was never given a chance to govern by Israel and the West. But no one forces it to repress leftist rallies. It executes that screw-up all by itself.

As elsewhere, the left primarily exists outside of the institutions of the state. The prospect of any left parties gaining power in the Middle East in the near future is slight (leaving aside the question as to whether left aspirations can be achieved in liberal democratic social systems). Accordingly, leftists should, as suggested by Ajl, align themselves with people and organizations in anti-authoritarian, community oriented activities. By doing so, they should also, as the content of his post indicates, anticipate finding themselves in conflict with those in positions of power within Israel and the occupied territories.

Labels: American Empire, Gaza, Iran, Iranian Protests, Israel, Palestine

UPDATE: Sign the petition in support of the Olympia Food Co-op's decision to boycott Israeli goods. You can also send a letter as well.

INITIAL POST: From the Global BDS Movement website:

Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel's project by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli goods and services. A boycott can also put pressure on companies whose exports are linked to some of the most evident aspects of the Israeli occupation and apartheid.

The Israeli barcode starts with 729.

Agrexco export fruit and vegetables for sale all over Europe and the US under the trade name Carmel. Much of its produce is grown on confiscated Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley, and the Israeli government owns 51% of the company. Jaffa Oranges were famous for centuries before Israelis successfully colonised the Palestinian name along with the city of Yafa.

Motorola, as well as producing mobile phones, also manufacture wireless data networks for military bases and battlefield communications systems. Much of the cutting-edge technology contained in products such as mobile phones, computers and software is developed in the manufacture of military services and goods. Products developed to meet the needs of the Israeli military have a reputation for reliability, having been tried and tested on Palestinians.

For additional boycott targets, consider the following from Adalah-NY:

SABRA HUMMUS

Sabra produces traditional Arab salads like hummus, baba ghanoush, and fried eggplant. Sabra is 50% owned by the Israeli company the Strauss Group, and 50% owned by Pepsico. The Strauss Group is the second largest Israeli food and beverage company and is widely touted as one of the great successes of Israeli industry. According to a Strauss Group report, Humus is one of our national foods, and can be found in just about every Israeli home.

On its website in the section on Corporate Responsibility, the Strauss Group emphasizes its support for the Israeli army, noting in a section entitled In the Field with Soldiers, Our connection with soldiers goes as far back as the country, and even further. We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments. We have adopted the Golani reconnaissance platoon for over 30 years and provide them with an ongoing variety of food products for their training or missions, and provide personal care packages for each soldier that completes the path. We have also adopted the Southern Shualei Shimshon troops from the Givati platoon with the goal of improving their service conditions and being there at the front to spoil them with our best products.

DELTA GALIL INDUSTRIES

According to the Jerusalem Post, Delta Galil is the nation's largest manufacturer and marketer of textiles and is one of the largest private-label underwear manufacturers in the world. The company was one of the first local firms to benefit from the peace process, as it moved manufacturing to neighboring countries with low labor costs. Delta currently manufactures in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Scotland.

Delta Galil provides clothing to, among others, Victoria’s Secret, the Gap, J Crew, JC Penney, Ralph Lauren, Wal-Mart Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Hugo Boss and Playtex.

Finally, there is this from End the Occupation:

Join our boycott to pressure Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories to end its support for Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Ahava excavates resources and manufactures their products in illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank. These settlements, Mitpze Shalem and Kalya, collectively own 44% of Ahava's stock and thereby directly profit from Ahava sales.

Of course, a boycott of Motorola products, as suggested by many BDS advocates, is, like the campaign against Caterpillar, aimed at US corporate complicity in the occupation, but there is no reason why we cannot boycott both American and Israeli corporate interests associated with it. Note also that the BDS campaign does not take a stance on whether the occupation is best ended through either a two state or one state approach, although in my personal view, it generates momentum towards one secular state in Palestine. Despite the failure to resolve this question, BDS is a laudable attempt to demand humane treatment and political rights for the Palestinians.

Labels: American Empire, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Gaza, Israel, Palestine

Yikes! Look at this statement that Archbishop Tutu released the other day:

I, Desmond Tutu, fully support and endorse the Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli products. The Olympia Food Co-op has joined a growing worldwide movement on the part of citizens and the private sector to support by non-violent tangible acts the Palestinian struggle for justice and self-determination. Cooperatives have a long history of working for and with the oppressed to strive for a better world, and now Olympia Food Coop has been the first to build off of that legacy in support of freedom for Palestinians. I encourage other cooperatives, grocers, and businesses to follow their courageous example of boycotting Israeli goods and for shoppers to support their principled stand.

Quick, someone needs to get ahold of Tutu and explain that boycotting Israel hurts the Palestinians that he wants to help. Surely, he will release a repudiation of this statement after someone tells him what Chomsky has to say about it.

On a more serious note, Tutu's statement is just another reflection of how there are no longer any gatekeepers when it comes to support for the Palestinians. People like Tutu and Tariq Ali understand, but others don't. The spontaneous energy is with those in the BDS movement, with those who are working to try to try break the siege of Gaza, instead of those who remain constrained by a romanticized Zionism that never existed. Palestine is an essential arena of conflict against US imperialism in the Middle East, a conflict that cannot be prosecuted to a successful conclusion absent the creation of a secular, multiethnic state.

Labels: American Empire, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Gaza, Israel, Noam Chomsky, Palestine

Please see this statement from the Palestine Program at the Forum. It has also been confirmed within the last hour at the Forum's Facebook page. Congratulations to those who organized against the presence of Stand With Us and brought the matter to a successful resolution.

Labels: Activism, Gaza, Palestine, US Social Forum, Zionism

Hat tip to T at Pink Scare

Labels: American Empire, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Tariq Ali, Zionism

UPDATE: From lenin at Lenin's Tomb:

And here's the punchline. The blockade has left most Gazans wholly or partially dependent on food aid. However, the blockade has also placed a stranglehold on the amount of aid actually getting to Gaza. The amount entering Gaza in mid-2009 was 25% of that entering in 2007. This has resulted in nine out of ten residents living below the poverty line of a dollar a day. Even such aid as is devoted to Gaza can't be spent because of the blockade, according to Amnesty and the ICRC. Israel has consistently blocked food shipments, only allowing them through when it became an embarrassing political incident. It has held up medicines until they have expired. 80% of all imports to Gaza come through the tunnels. Israel has deliberately turned Gaza into a ghettoised economy, dependent on smuggling from outside fences, walls, and boundaries enforced by military violence. The tunnels, of course, are routinely attacked by aerial bombardment, on the pretext that they are being used to smuggle weapons - because Gaza, this tiny land mass with no navy or standing army, might get a few guns to defend itself the next time Israel decides to invade.

INITIAL POST: From the Guardian:

Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.

Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.

Sound familiar? Well, sort of. But it turns out that US Special Forces do this sort of thing more cleanly and efficiently:

The two helicopters swooped low over a cluster of mud homes, whirling in the cold night sky before landing in a wheat field on the edge of the small Afghan village.

From his home nearby, 23-year-old Najibullah Omar strained his eyes in the darkness as he made out the faint shapes of armed men pouring from the helicopters’ bellies.

A third helicopter circled menacingly in the moonless sky above the village of Karakhil in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul.

Then a loud explosion shook the ground and a plume of smoke rose from his cousin Hamidullah’s house 20 yards away. Its guest room caught fire. Omar heard a burst of gunfire before all went quiet.

His worst fears were confirmed the moment he walked through the compound gate at first light.

The body of his cousin, a 32-year-old construction engineer who had taken a break from his job in a far-off province to visit his family, lay sprawled next to those of his wife and their seven-year-old son. Blood ran in dark pools on the mud floor of the terrace outside their door.

The wife and son had been shot in the head, each with a single bullet. The engineer had died from a shot to the chest. The precision of the killings, coupled with his failure to find any bullet casings after the raid, led Omar to believe that his cousin was murdered either by US special forces or by an intelligence agency.

No wonder that Vice President Biden was mystified over the furor that has erupted as a result of the Israeli assault, exclaiming: So what's the big deal here?

Labels: Air War, American Empire, Death Squads, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

UPDATE: Quick, someone tell Grossman:

Statements by senior Israeli military commanders made in the Hebrew media days before the massacre revealed that the raid was planned over a week in advance by the Israeli military and was personally approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak. The elite Israeli commando unit known as Unit 13 was tasked with carrying out the mission and its role was known by the Israeli public well before the raid took place. Details of the plan show that the use of deadly force was authorized and calculated. The massacre of activists should not have been unexpected.

INITIAL POST: More liberal rationalizations of Israeli brutality by David Grossman, even as he engages in a pretense to the contrary:

No explanation can justify or whitewash the crime that was committed here, and no excuse can explain away the stupid actions of the government and the army. Israel did not send it soldiers to kill civilians in cold blood; indeed, this is the last thing it wanted. And yet, a small Turkish organization, fanatical in its religious views and radically hostile to Israel, recruited to its cause several hundred seekers of peace and justice, and managed to lure Israel into a trap, precisely because it knew how Israel would react, knew how Israel is destined and compelled, like a puppet on a string, to react the way it did.

How insecure, confused and panicky a country must be, to act as Israel acted! With a combination of excessive military force, and a fatal failure to anticipate the intensity of the reaction of those aboard the ship, it killed and wounded civilians, and did so – as if it were a band of pirates – outside Israel’s territorial waters. Clearly, this assessment does not imply agreement with the motives, overt or hidden, and often malicious, of some participants in the Gaza flotilla. Not all its people are peace-loving humanitarians, and the declarations of some of them regarding the destruction of the State of Israel are criminal. But these facts are simply not relevant at the moment: such opinions, so far as we know, do not deserve the death penalty.

Israel was lured into a trap? Israel, the powerless victim of a Turkish conspiracy? Pure nonsense, as Norm Finkelstein recognized the other day:

What happened with the Gaza flotilla was not an accident. You have to remember that the Israeli cabinet met for fully a week. All the cabinet ministers discussed and deliberated how they would handle the flotilla. There were numerous reports in the Israeli press, numerous suggestions, numerous recommendations about what to do. At the end of the day, they decided on a nighttime armed commando raid on a humanitarian convoy. Israel is now a lunatic state. It's a lunatic state with between two and three hundred nuclear devices. It is threatening war daily against Iran and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah in Lebanon has already stated on several occasions: if Israel attacks it will retaliate in kind. Things are getting out of control.

Furthermore, it is essential to observe that the subject of concern in Grossman's article is Israel, and even more specifically, the IDF soldiers that were ordered to carry out the raid. He has perfected a style of literary expression that appears, at first glance, to recognize the autonomy of the Palestinians, but, upon closer inspection, subordinates them to the urgencies of the Zionist project at every turn. Like a kindly therapist, he seeks to identify the neurosis purportedly manipulated to such tragic ends by the Turks and propose appropriate treatment, in this case, the end of the siege of Gaza:

Israel’s actions yesterday are but the natural continuation of the shameful, ongoing closure of Gaza, which in turn is the perpetuation of the heavy-handed and condescending approach of the Israeli government, which is prepared to embitter the lives of a million and a half innocent people in the Gaza Strip, in order to obtain the release of one imprisoned soldier, precious and beloved though he may be; and this closure is the all-too-natural consequence of a clumsy and calcified policy, which again and again resorts by default to the use of massive and exaggerated force, at every decisive juncture, where wisdom and sensitivity and creative thinking are called for instead.

Admittedly, Grossman acknowledges that the populace of Gaza is innocent, but the issue of most pressing concern for him is that they will be even further embittered towards Israel because of the siege. There is a nationalistic narcissism on display here, wherein he hopes to relegitimize Israel, and, by extension, Zionism, as both a physical place and an abstract principle for ordering society, enabling people to wholeheartedly identify with them again: I would like to believe that the shock of yesterday’s frantic actions will lead to a re-evaluation of the whole idea of the closure, at last freeing the Palestinians from their suffering, and cleansing Israel of its moral stain.

Come again? Lifting the siege will free the Palestinians from their suffering? While settlement activity proceeds apace, and thousands of Palestinians remain detained within Israel? While settlers run amok in the West Bank, supported by millions of dollars of Israeli and American assistance, abusing an indigenous populace that lives in poverty? Paradoxically, it appears that Grossman craves a sort of special forces approach to the Palestinian problem, one that involves covert actions out of sight and out of mind even as he condemns such an action in the Mediterranean.

Beyond this obvious material aspect, there is the implicit characterization of the Palestinians as an inferior people only capable of achieving a live without suffering, like, say, feudal peasants, while the people of Israel, associated with the higher calling of Zionism, aspire to an attainment of moral perfection. Hence, Israelis are full bodied people, possessing all the human frailties of self-interest, morality and human agency. By contrast, Palestinians are merely passive participants who are either abused by Israelis as they play out their larger than life ambitions as the master builders of Palestine or irrational perpetrators of violence in response to these abuses. In short, they lack the capacity for self-determination.

But we shouldn't be surprised. He was more odious, lacking in any of the subtlety of expression encountered here, when speaking about the Israeli attack upon Lebanon in 2006, as related here and here. We should, however, be appreciative that, while he considers anti-Zionism a criminal offense ( . . the declarations of some of them regarding the destruction of the State of Israel are criminal . . ), he doesn't consider violations as warranting the death penalty. Perhaps, only 6 months county jail or work project, maybe he can elaborate in his next pronouncement. Fortunately, I live in the US, and for all of its obvious faults, it hasn't criminalized public expressions of anti-Zionism.

Labels: David Grossman, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

UPDATE 2: Yesterday, there was yet another example of how Israel deals with non-violent protest:

An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel’s murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.

21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.

They clearly saw us, said Sören Johanssen, a Swedish ISM volunteer standing with Henochowicz. They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.

UPDATE 1: We Are All Gazans Now

INITIAL POST: From Max Ajl of Jewbonics, reporting from Gaza:

Before the attack, Israeli spokespeople and statesmen had sedulously tried to paint the flotilla in the colors reserved for scoundrels and terrorists. "Israel … invited the flotilla organizers to use the land crossings ... however, they're less interested in bringing in aid than promoting their radical agenda and playing into the hands of Hamas provocations…. [The organizers have] wrapped themselves in a humanitarian cloak, but engage in political propaganda," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, said that "the flotilla is an attempt at violent propaganda against Israel, and Israel will not allow a violation of its sovereignty at sea, in the air or on land." The flotilla carried hundreds of wheelchairs for crippled Gazans and a dental clinic for Al-Shifa Hospital.

The pattern of mind is one that views resistance as terror, self-defense as murder and pacifism as violence. Such a mindset cannot admit to the possibility of a legitimate or just challenge. So nonviolent sailing ships transmute to violent propagandists, "an Armada of hate and violence," as Ayalon described the Freedom Flotilla. International Solidarity Movement activists become human shields for bomb-planters, and the Palestinian resistance gets locked up in prison - there are about 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails; they make up 50 percent of the prison population. There are hundreds more in administrative detention. Israeli Arab lawmakers who contest Israeli apartheid are bludgeoned with politically motivated indictments and forced into exile, as Azmi Bishara was. Palestinian lawmakers and civil society leaders are locked in penitentiaries and tortured there, as Ameer Makhloul, the chairman of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms and the director of Ittijah, an umbrella group of hundreds of civil society organizations, has reportedly been. The tacit presumption is that Palestinian resistance is inherently illegitimate. The corollary is that Palestinians and their supporters have no right to resist Israeli actions. So when they defend themselves from corsairs intent on commandeering their ships, "They are directly responsible for the violence and the deaths that [occur]," as Israeli army spokesman Mark Regev comments. They should just take it.

Ajl has written an excellent article for Truthout that should be read in its entirely.

Perhaps, the attack upon the aid convoy provides some insight as to why liberal exhortations for a Palestinian Gandhi are so naive and condescending:

We Palestinians are often asked where the Palestinian Gandhi is and urged to adopt nonviolent methods in our struggle for freedom from Israeli military rule. On April 17 [2009], an Israeli soldier killed my good friend Bassem Abu Rahme at a nonviolent demonstration against Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land. Bassem was one of many Palestinian Gandhis.

One month prior, at another demonstration against land confiscation, Israeli soldiers fired a tear-gas canister at the head of nonviolent American peace activist Tristan Anderson from California. Tristan underwent surgery to remove part of his frontal lobe and is still lying unconscious in an Israeli hospital. In 2003, the Israeli military plowed down American peace activist Rachel Corrie with a Caterpillar bulldozer as she tried to protect a civilian home from demolition in Gaza. Shortly thereafter, an Israeli sniper shot British peace activist Tom Hurndall as he rescued Palestinian children from Israeli gunfire. He lay in a coma for nine months before he died.

Despite the killing of these unarmed civilians and documented evidence of systematic human-rights abuses, the U.S. continues to supply Israel with approximately $3 billion in military aid annually, allowing Israel to continue abusing Palestinians and preventing any meaningful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Israeli government orders the confiscation of Palestinian land for one of two main purposes: to build or expand illegal colonies or to construct the Wall that the International Court of Justice ruled illegal in 2004. In the case of Bassem's village of Bil'in, even the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli government to change the route of the Wall, though Israel has yet to comply. Consequently, Palestinian farmers cannot reach their crops and they are devastated economically. Israel's policy is intended to force Palestinians to give up and leave in order to survive.

When village residents gather weekly to protest, they use various creative methods of nonviolent resistance, including carrying mirrors up to the soldiers to show them "the face of occupation" or dressing as various politicians and wearing blindfolds to symbolize the world's blind eye to their struggle. The Israeli military meets them and their Israeli and international supporters with tear gas, grenades, and bullets.

Of course, one of the necessary preconditions for a successful campaign of civil disobedience is the prospect that people around the world will respond to any violence used against the participants and compel the perpetrators to acknowledge their demands. To date, that response has been absent, and Israel is a country where much of the populace celebrates the use of violence as a means of asserting their social identity, as is now happening in response to the attack. Such a celebration is quite tragic for the Israelis as well, but, for now, the primary victims of it are the Palestinians, as they have always been.

If there is a contemporary nation state that readily confirms the anarchist condemnation of them, it is Israel and, of course, the US, which has a similar public relationship to the uses of violence for the purpose of achieving social cohesion. To lecture the Palestinians about how they would have already obtained their own state over 20 years ago, as Michael Tomasky does in the article linked above, is not only comical, but an insult to a people that have been subjected to extreme military violence every time that they have dared to organize collective resistance. No doubt the state that he envisions is one in which every important decision related to Palestinian life is one that must be pre-approved by Israel.

Labels: American Empire, Anarchism, Gaza, Israel, Liberals, Palestine, Zionism

UPDATE 2: An appeal for political action by Caoimhe Butterly:

And, here in Northern California, Code Pink has announced a protest at the Israeli consulate in San Francisco later today:

Gaza Flotilla Emergency Response: San Francisco

Emergency Protest at 12noon. Israeli Consulate and march to Union Square, Memorial Day. Please be there! Bring your own sign!

Israeli Consulate
456 Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94104

Six ships with the Free Gaza Flotilla en route to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid were attacked by IDF commandos, killing at least 10 people and injuring 50. The Flotilla carries 700 passengers from 50 different countries along with reconstruction, medical and school supplies. Protests are planned in Istanbul, New York, Cairo, Toronto, Belfast, Houston, Chicago and Dublin.

For more info:
http://www.freegaza.org/
http://gazafreedommarch.org/cms/en/Solidarity.aspx

UPDATE 1: Richard Seymour of Lenin's Tomb:

By the logic of Israel, any abridgment of its right to murder Palestinians constitutes an act of antisemitism, an existential attack on the Jewish people, whom they represent by proxy. Its job, then, is to do whatever it deems fit in discouraging and punishing said 'antisemites' while aggressively retailing whatever they do to an increasingly hostile world which, at any rate, they insist is driven by exterminationist antisemitism anyway. If the two ends - the violent preservation of Israeli supremacy in the Middle East, and the global PR - increasingly come into conflict, this is only because of a 'new antisemitism', not because of anything Israel actually does.

INITIAL POST: As reported by aljazeera. Meanwhile, Haaretz and the Times of London report 10 dead. Other reports say only 2 dead. By tomorrow morning here on the west coast, we will surely know more. But people in Turkey, the country from which the flotilla originated, aren't waiting before taking action. Meanwhile, we can be certain that the US will continue to focus on North Korea.

Max Ajl of Jewbonics, who is currently living in Gaza, has provided some background on the flotilla and the hysteria that it provoked within Israel here and here. Apparently, Israel believed that if the flotilla successfully broke the blockade, Turkey would have permanently broken the siege of Gaza.

Labels: American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

Perhaps, you haven't heard of the impending Gaza Freedom March:

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law that has led to mass suffering. The U.S., the European Union, and the rest of the international community are complicit.

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked. Yet, the siege of Gaza continues. It is time for us to take action! On Dec. 31, we will end the year by marching alongside the Palestinian people of Gaza in a non-violent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade.

Our purpose in this March is lifting the siege on Gaza. We demand that Israel end the blockade. We also call upon Egypt to open Gaza’s Rafah border. Palestinians must have freedom to travel for study, work, and much-needed medical treatment and to receive visitors from abroad.

As an international coalition we are not in a position to advocate a specific political solution to this conflict. Yet our faith in our common humanity leads us to call on all parties to respect and uphold international law and fundamental human rights to bring an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 and pursue a just and lasting peace.

The march can only succeed if it arouses the conscience of humanity.

Unfortunately, Egypt is not willing to allow the marchers to enter Gaza from Egypt, thus confirming the isolation of the people of Gaza:

We are determined to break the siege

We all will continue to do whatever we can to make it happen

Using the pretext of escalating tensions on the Gaza-Egypt border, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry informed us yesterday that the Rafah border will be closed over the coming weeks, into January. We responded that there is always tension at the border because of the siege, that we do not feel threatened, and that if there are any risks, they are risks we are willing to take. We also said that it was too late for over 1,300 delegates coming from over 42 countries to change their plans now. We both agreed to continue our exchanges.

Although we consider this as a setback, it is something we've encountered-and overcome--before. No delegation, large or small, that entered Gaza over the past 12 months has ever received a final OK before arriving at the Rafah border. Most delegations were discouraged from even heading out of Cairo to Rafah. Some had their buses stopped on the way. Some have been told outright that they could not go into Gaza. But after public and political pressure, the Egyptian government changed its position and let them pass.

Our efforts and plans will not be altered at this point. We have set out to break the siege of Gaza and march on December 31 against the Israeli blockade. We are continuing in the same direction.

Egyptian embassies and missions all over the world must hear from our supporters (by phone, fax and email)** over the coming crucial days, with a clear message: Let the international delegation enter Gaza and let the Gaza Freedom March proceed.

Contact your local consulate here:
http://www.mfa.gov.eg/MFA_Portal/en-GB/mfa_websits/

Contact the Palestine Division in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cairo
Ahmed Azzam, tel +202-25749682 Email: ahmed.azzam [at] mfa.gov.eg

If you are in the U.S., contact the Egyptian Embassy, 202-895-5400 and ask for Omar Youssef or email omaryoussef [at] hotmail.com

There is also this link where you can send an e-mail directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Egypt. For updates related to the March, go here and also here, Jewbonics, a blog maintained by Max Ajl, one of the participants. His most recent post describes the vulnerability of the people of Gaza to viruses like H1N1.

Labels: Egypt, Gaza, Israel, Palestine

As promised, here is the video of the debate last Wednesday between the Angry Arab and an Israeli consular official, Akiva Tor, at San Francisco State, a debate in which the real subject in dispute was the Zionist project itself:

Labels: American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, YouTube

As'ad Abukhalil, a professor at California State University Stanislaus, known over the Internet as the Angry Arab, debates an Israeli diplomat at San Franciso State:

We go to the hall and I notice that there are two chairs and two name signs: for me and for him (the Israeli representative of the usurping entity). I did not like the arrangement. So I tell her: I don't want to sit next to him. I would like you as a moderator to sit between us. She asked me whether I was kidding. I said: do you see me in a joking mode? Do you see me kidding with you? You think that this is a joking matter for me? She realized--let me just say--that Angry Arab was not kidding. She said that she was planning to make her remarks and sit in the audience. I said: that is easy: instead of sitting here, we can move your chair to separate between me and him. I also was told that she (or the university) was planning to host a reception for the two guests before somebody who knew about me told them: I can assure you that As`ad will not agree to a reception with the Israeli diplomat. So the reception was scrapped. I then told the host that I will not be recognizing or talking with the Israeli guest. She looked baffled but nervous. She asked me why do I have these positions? I said you will understand after you hear my remarks. She was getting more nervous, I could tell, by the minute. She then upset me more by saying something about "academic" environment or collegiality and then added something about "us" getting along. I was more angry at that. I got more angry (but that was a good preparation for my debate) and said: this is no joke or a game or schtick for me. This is about killing 400 Palestinian children in Gaza in three weeks. I don't "get along" and I don't want to "get along." The security and the police only got more visible and more extensive. The moderator then remarked that the security was required for "his safety" in reference to the Israeli speaker. I was here more pissed (all that getting angry before the debate was preparation as far as I was concerned). I said: what about my safety? Did that enter into the picture? or do Arabs don't deserve safety?

Of course, there is more, much more, and I recommend that you read his post about the encounter in its entirely. It is also anticipated that video of the debate will soon be posted on YouTube. If it is, I will let you know.

Labels: American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

From Haaretz:

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills." A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!" A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

With such blatantly racist attitudes towards Palestinians, it is any wonder that Israeli troops in Gaza went on a killing spree? With the passage of time, we are discovering what the IDF really did there:

A squad leader said: "At the beginning the directive was to enter a house with an armoured vehicle, to break the door down, to start shooting inside and – I call it murder – to shoot at everyone we identify. In the beginning I asked myself how could this make sense? Higher-ups said it is permissible because everyone left in the city [Gaza City] is culpable because they didn't run away."

The accounts, which also describe apparently indiscriminate destruction of property, were given at a post-operation discussion by graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military course at the Oranim Academic College in northern Israel. The transcript of the session in front of the head of the course – details from which were published by the newspaper Haaretz – prompted the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) military advocate general Avichai Mendelblit yesterday to announce a military police investigation into the claims. Haaretz said the airing of the "dirty secrets" would make it more difficult for Israelis to dismiss the claims as Palestinian propaganda. The course principal, Danny Zamir, told the newspaper that after being "shocked" by the testimonies on 13 February he told the IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi he "feared a serious moral failure" in the IDF.

In one account, an infantry squad leader describes how troops released a family who had been held in a room of their house for several days. He said: "The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go and it was okay... The sharpshooter saw a woman and children approaching him. He shot them straight away. I don't think he felt too bad about it, because, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to, the lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers."

A second squad leader, who described the killing of the elderly woman, says he argued with his commander over loose rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, soldiers had complained that "we should kill everyone there [in the centre of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist." The squad leader said: "To write 'death to the Arabs' on walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics."

Of course, this shouldn't be that surprising to us. Our troops engaged in similar practices in attempting to suppress the Iraqi insurgency. Indeed, the practice of permitting troops to engage in indiscriminate violence against civilians as a purported means of self-protection has been commonly accepted by the US military for a long time.

Labels: Gaza, Israel, Occupation of Iraq, Palestine, Sadomasochism, Zionism

Labels: American Empire, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism