Posted on Sunday, 14 March, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
“Seven years after my daughter Rachel was killed, I was finally able to hear Rachel’s friends, who were with her, testify in a court of law. Despite some disheartening procedural challenges, we remain hopeful that the truth about what happened to Rachel will be revealed, and that the people responsible for her killing will be held accountable.” — Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie
I had been following with growing frustration the issue of Israel’s U.S. sponsored occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands since the outbreak of the second Intifada, and my own tepid beginnings as an activist on the issue were spurred by two killings in Gaza, really. The first was the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura, a 12-year-old boy hunkered behind is father as the pair were trapped in the middle of a shooting fight. I watched the boy get killed on TV along with others in the same news room where I worked back then, and it was one of those images that lingered on.
Posted on Sunday, 7 February, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
And here we have further proof that the International Solidarity Movement continues to be one of the most effective organisations at bringing together diverse people to highlight the central crime in the region: the ongoing occupation of Palestine. Israeli occupation soldiers have invaded Ramallah (again) to seize international activists with ISM.
“The raid and detention of the two is in direct violation of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which clearly forbids any Israeli incursion into Area A for reasons not directly and urgently related to security. Even the conduct of “hot pursuit” is disallowed in non-security related matters, which overstayed visas are.”
There are loads of people in Area A with various degrees of Visa rights to be there. ISM’s effective, longstanding platform as an international device for spreading news about the conditions Palestinians are held in by this foreign, occupation government make it a target of the military. In short: they only target you when you’re being effective. Still it begs the question why the PA would enter any such agreements with an occupying regime who have clearly shown no interest in any sort of peace deal or form of co-existence.
Posted on Wednesday, 30 December, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
I was recently reminded about the Russell Tribunal on Palestine when a friend of mine invited me to join its group on Facebook. I had started a post on it some time ago, one of many along the lines of “look at this, isn’t this neat” type of thing. But the Tribunal, though still new, is kicking into high gear in March of 2010 with a its first session in Barcelona. Before that takes place I decided to look around its already published statements and whose who lists to see if it was something worth following or another in a long series of well-meaning organizations basically telling us all what we really already know without offering a tangible way forward.
The InterWeb loves a list, so that’s how we’ll format this one.
Posted on Saturday, 14 November, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Donate $140 to a youth center in the Askar refugee camp near the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank and get a street named after you. Be the start of what will be a post-occupation postal system.
Posted on Saturday, 7 November, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Richard J. Goldstone sets the record straight on his UN Fact Finding Report on war crimes in Gaza. The United States House of Representatives passed Resolution 867 in spite of several obvious pieces of misinformation, ranging from sweeping generalizations, factual inaccuracies and misleading statements. Not a surprise coming from the political body responsible for the war in Iraq.
One sample:
HR 867: “Whereas the mandate of the `fact-finding mission’ makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures;”
Justice Goldstone: “This whereas clause is factually incorrect. As noted above, the expanded mandate clearly included the rocket and mortar attacks. Moreover, Chapter XXIV of the Report considers in detail the relentless rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and the terror they caused to the people living within their range. The resulting finding made in the report is that these attacks constituted serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.”
Also, be sure to check out Washington State Congressman Brian Baird’s remarks on Hr 867. He was one of 36 in the House of Representatives to not lie (via voting in favor of it) to voters about the true nature of the Gaza siege. If your congress creature was on that very short list, do send them a letter of thanks.
Snip:
“What will it say about this Congress and our country if we so readily seek to block “any further consideration” of a human rights investigation produced by one of the most respected jurists in the world today, a man who led the investigations of abuses in South Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Kosovo and worked to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals as a member of the Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina?” — Brian Baird
I was recently reminded about the 
“So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.”