Israeli Apartheid Week.

Israeli Apartheid Week: I give up - Dawg's Blawg (Blog)
Apartheid is a totally appropriate term. But, as one commenter suggested, "slow genocide" actually captures what is happening more directly.

As Arab world marches towards freedom, Israel would be wise to join them

Straight Goods - The genie is out of the bottle - As Arab world marches towards freedom, Israel would be wise to join them.
Excerpt from article by Uri Avnery (Uri Avnery is a peace activist, journalist, and writer. He was a founding
member of Gush Shalom (peace bloc), an independent peace movement, a
former publisher and editor-in-chief of Haolam Hazeh news
magazine. Avnery is also a former member of the Knesset and a founding
member of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.) :

"When our Zionist fathers decided to set up a safe haven in Palestine, they had the choice between two options:

They could appear in West Asia as European conquerors, who see
themselves as a bridgehead of the "white" man and as masters of the
"natives", like the Spanish conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon
colonialists in America. That is what the crusaders did in their time.

The second way was to see themselves as an Asian people returning to
their homeland, the heirs to the political and cultural traditions of
the Semitic world, ready to take part, with the other peoples of the
region, in the war of liberation from European exploitation."

I wrote these words 64 years ago, in a brochure that appeared just two months before the outbreak of the 1948 war.

I stand by these words today.

These days I have a growing feeling that we are once again standing at a
historic crossroads. The direction we choose in the coming days will
determine the destiny of the State of Israel for years to come, perhaps
irreversibly. If we choose the wrong road, we will have "weeping for
generations", as the Hebrew saying goes.

And perhaps the greatest danger is that we make no choice at all, that
we are not even aware of the need to make a decision, that we just
continue on the road that has brought us to where we are today. That we
are occupied with trivialities — the battle between the Minister of
Defense and the departing Chief of Staff, the struggle between Netanyahu
and Lieberman about the appointment of an ambassador, the non-events of
"Big Brother" and similar TV inanities — that we do not even notice
that history is passing us by, leaving us behind.

Israeli author, Gideon Levy, says Israel demonizes Palestinians to justify occupation

Straight Goods - Israeli author and journalist speaks out - Gideon Levy says Israel demonizes Palestinians to justify occupation.
Excerpt:

Gideon Levy was once an army recruit and an aide to former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He is now a veteran journalist who writes for Haaretz, Israeli's oldest daily newspaper. He said that he feels compelled to tell his fellow Israelis a story they don't like to hear about their country's brutal occupation in the occupied territories of the West Bank and in Gaza.

"I was brought up as a typical Israeli," he says, "but in the late 1980s I started to travel to a place a half hour from my home, a trip that most Israelis never make. I started to go into the occupied territories, our own dark backyard."        

"The rest of the world must raise its voice against the occupation."
   
Levy spoke recently in an Ottawa university auditorium while on a seven-city Canadian tour to promote his most recent book, The Punishment of Gaza. A group called Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East sponsored the event. Levy said he was surprised that about 300 people attended his talk. "In Tel Aviv not this many people would show up to hear me," he said.

What follows here are quotes from Levy's half hour address, which he delivered entirely without notes:

"I have never seen an occupation in which the occupier feels so good about himself and in which he also poses as the victim.

"Israel is occupation-addicted. It wants more real estate. Israel holds 3.5 million Palestinians against their will in conditions that you cannot imagine and there is no way Israel will move without pressure or a push from the outside.

"The Israelis are deeply convinced that seven billion people in the world are wrong, and that five million Israelis are right. It is a society that is losing its connection with reality. How can they feel so good about themselves? The explanation is simple. Israelis care about human rights, laws, values and morality but they have come to a simple conclusion. Palestinians are not human beings. Palestinians are not human, therefore there is no problem and that allows Israel to continue the occupation. And the Israeli media also tries to convince their readers that Palestinians are not humans.

Click the link to read the rest.

Indian port boycotts Israeli ships

RedBedHead: Boycott Of Israeli Ships Spreads To India
...
Trade unions at India's Cochin Port, one of India's main seaports and
its fastest growing, have agreed to boycott the unloading of Israeli
ships in protest of the siege of Gaza. This follows on from boycotts at Turkish, Swedish,
Norwegian and South
African ports.
...

Israel as Victim (part 2)

kirbycairo: Israel as Victim (part 2) . . .
...
There will be no peace until Israel as well as Palestinians want peace.
But at the moment the Israeli state is as little interested in peace as
the most extreme factions of the Palestinians. They hide their real aims
behind an image of victim, and being considerably richer and more
influential in the powerful Western  nations, the Israelis are writing
(or should I say 'rewriting') history.

Israel as victim ...

kirbycairo: Israel as Victim . . . .
I saw the TV spot from the Canada-Israel Committee this morning and
found it deeply depressing. Only the most dishonest kind of political
spin can portray Israel as such a poor innocent victim. Here is a nation
which, with the backing of the strongest Western Countries took the
land of Palestine by force using the worst kinds of violence, (even
against Western Nations when they thought it would be useful). They have
maintained this power with billions and billions of Western dollars
which has built one of the strongest military powers in history, as well
as maintaining a nuclear arsenal against international treaties. But
worst of all they have continued for a generation to illegally build
settlements on land that is not theirs, against the will of the entire
world except for the US, and this constitutes the worst kind of
terrorism, because it is the intentional destruction of a people and a
culture.
...

Support Libby Davies

Rusty Idols: Support Libby Davies
From Rusty Idols:
The Israel right or wrong crowd are in full gotcha mode, screaming for
Libby Davies' head on a platter.

Prime
Minister Stephen Harper called on NDP MP Libby Davies to resign as her
party's deputy leader after she suggested Israel has been occupying
territory since the country came into existence.

"Mr.
Speaker, this is a fundamental denial of Israel's right to exist,"
Harper said in the House of Commons on Tuesday. "It repeats the kind of
comments that were made by Helen Thomas on which she was forced to
resign and the member of the NDP who said those should be forced to
resign as well."

Thomas was the veteran White House correspondent
who resigned after saying Jews in Israel should "get the hell out of
Palestine" and "go back to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere
else."

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae also denounced
Davies' comments.

"To deny the state of Israel's right to exist
and to propose an international campaign of boycotts, divestments and
sanctions against a legitimate member of the world community for over
60 years is to reveal a level of hostility and ignorance that is truly
breathtaking," Rae said in a written statement.

In a media scrum
later, Rae argued that Davies' comments were not simply a slip of the
tongue and called for her to step down as deputy leader.

Earlier
this month, Davies was interviewed at a rally in Vancouver and asked
if she believes the occupation in Israel began in 1948 or 1967. After
hesitating, she answered:

"Forty-eight. I mean, it's the longest
occupation in the world. But I mean, I'm not going to argue numbers.
It's too long, right?" She went on to say, "I mean, this is the longest
occupation in the world. People are suffering. I've been to the West
Bank in Gaza twice so I've seen for myself what's going on."

The
state of Israel was established in 1948.

In the video, Davies is
also asked if she supports the international campaign of boycotts, divestments
and sanctions against Israel (known as the BDS movement).

"I haven't even actually gone that far. You gotta understand, I'm
probably the strongest supporter in Parliament. There is virtually no
information in the political arena or understanding about the BDS movement.
People are actually afraid to speak out on this issue.… Elected people
who are sympathetic are actually afraid to speak out," Davies answers.

Later in the video, Davies says she personally supports the BDS movement,
adding, however, that she's not "someone who's there" but is instead a
Canadian politician demanding the Canadian government speak out more on
the issues.

The interview was posted on YouTube.

Since
her comments were made public, Davies has posted on her website a
letter she sent to the editor of The Ottawa Citizen.

"My
reference to the year 1948 as the beginning of the Israeli occupation
of Palestinian territory was a serious and completely inadvertent
error," she wrote. "I apologize for this and regret any confusion it
has caused. I have always supported a two-state solution to the ongoing
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have never questioned Israel's right
to exist and the Palestinians' right to a viable state."

Sorry
for the length of the quoted material - I just thought it was worth
demonstrating that its only finally at paragraph
15 that the story mentions that Libby Davies apologized for
saying 1948 when she meant 1967, that she doesn't question Israel's
right to exist and that she supports a two state solution.

For
that matter,
as Murray Dobbin writes, ask an Arab villager driven out of his
home in 1948 if he thinks his land is occupied. Ask an Arab Israeli
whose family have lived in the same house in Jerusalem for
decades...until they were forcibly evicted last summer to give their
home to a Jewish family.

Many historians in and out of Israel
consider it a
settled issue that Israel engaged in large scale ethnic cleansing
in 1948, complete
with massacres
- there's actually a whole academic
movement based around it in Israel scholarship.

All or
nothing, black or white, support Israel unreservedly and uncritically
and condemn anyone who criticizes her or you hate Israel and deny it's
right to exist. These are false choices. Libby Davies should not be
sacrificed to these deliberate, simplistic Manichean distortions.

The Thing About Israel

The Thing About Israel « Politics, Re-Spun
Excellent post on the spin around Israeli policy and criticism of that policy.

Canadian beaten by Israelis

Canadian detained on Gaza aid flotilla says he was beaten - thestar.com
Excerpts:

“The Israeli soldiers beat me on the ship,” said Audeh in a telephone
interview with CBC from Jordan.

“They had us bound, handcuffed
... and we were detained for an extensive period of time and were not
allowed to go to the washrooms ... or sleep. It's been a rough 24 to 48
hours, let's put it that way.”

...

Audeh said the attack began in the early hours of Monday morning when
Israeli naval ships began firing live rounds, rubber bullets and sound
bombs at the flotilla.

Troops then boarded the ships via
helicopter and began shooting at the passengers, Audeh said, adding that
dozens were injured in the attack.

Audeh denied Israeli reports
that the flotilla passengers responded to the raid with violence and
resistance, calling such accusations “ridiculous.”

“The question
is, why were they coming after us in international waters and attacking
us? It was a humanitarian aid ship. We were all civilians, we were
unarmed and we did not attack them.”

...

How the Israeli government and it's supporters are harming Israel

Rusty Idols: If you hate Israel...
"...and you pray for its destruction, you should:

    * Support the blockade of Gaza and the methods used to sustain it unreservedly and uncritically.
    * Support Netanyahu and his far right coalition of Likudniks, racist supporters of ethnic cleansing and petty grafters.
    * Denounce anyone offering even the mildest criticism as antisemites.
    * Describe those who attack foreign flagged vessels in international waters as victims when those on those vessels resist.
    * Oppose any compromise on settlements, Jerusalem or water rights.
    * Support and sustain the current government of Israel and any tactics it uses to maintain the current status quo.

If your goal is the isolation, abandonment and ultimate destruction of the state of Israel, these tactics will drastically accelerate your goals."

Israel's attack on the aid flotilla was "an act of illegal warfare"

The Legal Position on the Israeli Attack

...

A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a
foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not
piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is
rather an act of illegal warfare.

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean
however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of
the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place

on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the
applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the
incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish
territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf
of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In
that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls
under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli
military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If
Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then
it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under
Turkish law.

In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law
which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not
Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to
initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted
personnel for prosecution.
...

Israeli raid on humanitarian aid flotilla condemned by the UN Security Council

UN decries Israeli flotilla raid - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

The UN Security
Council has condemned acts leading to the deaths of civilians during
Monday's Israeli attack on a humanitarian aid convoy that was headed to
the Gaza Strip.

In a formal statement adopted after more than 10 hours of closed-door
negotiations, the council requested the immediate release of ships and
civilians held by Israel and called for an impartial investigation.

...

See also:

Previous Activists Killed By Israel
One of the ships in the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy is named Rachel Corrie, in honour of an American peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer.

US Middle East policy in spotlight
... among some quarters in Washington, questions over unqualified US support for Israel remain.

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet

Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured when troops
intercepted the convoy of ships dubbed the Freedom Flotilla early on
Monday, Israeli radio reported.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast.

Read the link above for more information.

More related news:

Turks rally against Israeli Attack

Gaza's real humanitarian crisis

On Board the Freedom Flotilla

Israel Apartheid: Plain and Simple

The Z-Files: Israeli Apartheid: Plain and Simple
Israel is an apartheid state and that is why they are losing legitimacy - by Judy Rebick, March 2, 2010
Click the link to read the post.
Excerpt:
Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can't remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950's when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.

Last week the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed a resolution denouncing Israel Apartheid Week submitted by PC Peter Shure who said calling Israel an apartheid state was "close to hate speech." While there were only 30 MPP's in the Legislature at the time, NDP MPP Cheri di Novo was one of them and spoke in favour of the resolution. This week a Conservative MP is introducing a resolution calling IAW anti-Semitic.

Before I deal with why these unprecedented attacks are taking place, I'd like to share with you a great talk I heard last night at Ryerson from Na'eem Jeena: , a leading activist and academic from South Africa who works for Palestinian solidarity. He told us that South African apartheid had three pillars of apartheid and Israel shares all three.
...

Israel to engage in criminal sabotage of the global justice movement

Israel’s new strategy: “sabotage” and “attack” the global justice movement « Filasteen

Abbas Quits Election - Palestinians tired of waiting

Abbas Won't Seek Re-Election in Threat to Peace Efforts - TIME
"It's time for you to find another donkey." With those words, according to Palestinian sources, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told the Palestine Liberation Organziation (PLO) executive committee that he would not seek re-election in January. The 74-year-old leader, on whom U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East are heavily dependent, reiterated that message later on Thursday in a televised address from his home in Ramallah. "This decision does not at all amount to bargaining or political maneuvering. While I appreciate the views expressed by brothers [in the PLO, who rejected his move], I hope they will understand my wish."

...

3D tour of Israel's nuclear weapon factory - video

YouTube - Israel's Dimona Nuclear Weapons Factory In 3D

Israel must shed nuclear arms

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Iran: Israel must shed nuclear arms

Iran's foreign ministry has said the United States should concentrate on getting Israel to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, instead of criticising Tehran's nuclear programme.

The comments came after Hillary Clinton last week said the US would arm its allies in the Gulf region if Iran built a nuclear weapon.

The US already has, that is the problem.

Israel solidifies its control over web 2.0

Israel solidifies its control over web 2.0 « Paulitics

A while back here at Paulitics, I
discussed the campaign by the Israel lobby to pay university students
to agree with Israel in classroom discussions, university clubs and in
rallies.

This
programme and the overwhelmingly pro-Israel North American (and, to a
lesser extent, European) media coverage were however not enough for the
powerful and extremely well organized lobby.  The Israeli lobby then
created a desktop application called “Megaphone” about which many political commentators still remain blissfully unaware.  Megaphone
serves as a syphoning tool which has the power to instantly send
pro-Israel activists flooding into any online discussion, web poll or
other forum where Israel is being discussed in order to grossly
unbalance the discussion thus creating the impression among Internet
users that Israel’s support is both much wider and deeper than it
actually is.  However, as frightening and undemocratic as these two
operations were, they pale in comparison to what the government of
Israel is doing now in terms of making “crimestop” a reality.

The Israeli press is now reporting
that, in addition to the considerable influence of the Israeli lobby,
the government of Israel has decided to marshal its state treasury to
the cause further unbalancing the already obscenely unbalanced debate
over Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.  The
government of Israel will now directly pay pro-Israeli agents and
bloggers to infiltrate online discussions, message boards, online
newspaper comments et cetera with a ubiquitously pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian message.

... read the link at the top for the rest of the post.

Harper awarded for supporting genocide in Palestine

LeDaro: Stephen Harper - Reasons for his "Human Rights" Award
watch the video.
This is the reason that Harper received a "human rights" award from the
Canadian Jewish Council. It is sad. Do these children have no human
rights? If Harper had any credibility as a leader, this should put an
end to it. If the Canadian Jewish Congress had any claims of being an
organization for human rights, then this kind of award should put an
end to it.