29 November 2012 — We are delighted that an overwhelming majority of countries at the UN General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine to a non-member observer status. To coincide with this, here is Roger Waters, the front man for Pink Floyd, the greatest rock band ever, speaking earlier in the day, on behalf of the Russell Tribunal, delivering his indictment of Israeli criminality at the UN and making a plea for the recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state.
By SR Editor on 11/30/2012
Yes 138 – No 9 – Abstain 41
The countries which voted YES
(no list available yet, but see map above to get an idea of the countries that did)
The countries which voted NO are
Israel, United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Panama, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau
The countries which abstained are:
Sponsored by:
Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Congo (DRC), Croatia, Estonia, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Togo, Tonga, the United Kingdom and Vanuatu.
Five countries failed to vote.
(no list yet available)
According to the highly respectable Democracy Index run by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), only 25 countries are full democracies. So, of those democracies, 17 voted for, 3 voted against and 5 abstained. If we take flawed democracies into account, 48 countries voted for, 5 voted against and 24 abstained. (With thanks to Sol Salbe for referring us to the Index)
Source: Sonja Karkar – Australians For Palestine
In Palestine
Terror reigns
Psychopaths claim dominance
and a “G-d given right” to rob, kill and maim
In Palestine
Terror reigns
Smiles … wiped of innocent faces
Little girls weep
Little boys butchered
Babies are slain
In Palestine
Terror reigns
Criminals are the law
They bomb, they shoot, they smite
With mini-nukes they wipe life out
In Palestine
Terror reigns
Without “lamp-shades”, bodies mutilated
Without “cremation-ovens”, toddlers charcoaled
Without “gas-chambers”, Tiny tots… exterminated
In Palestine
Terror reigns
Aggressors crowned with “victim-hood”
Their victims… “anti-Semites”, “filled with hate” !
They murder then cry
Sneer as they lie
They twist and deceive, innocence they proclaim
Apart from themselves, Everyone to blame
In Palestine
Primary colours no longer three
Red and green, black and white
Freedom painted red… Love is green
Sacrifice and faith… black and white
In Palestine
Out of the ashes humanity rises tall
Resilience leaves you speechless
Courage takes your breath away
and in contrast
Bottomless cowardice
As never seen before
In Palestine
Something miraculous happens
The more people die
The more hope is born!
Hope… Astounding
Bequest of the Divine
Seen in every face
Written with every name
Posted by nahida -Exiled Palestinian at 7:47:00 AM 
From Russell Tribunal on Palestine
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) calls on the international community to intervene to immediately end the Israeli “Operation Pillar of Defence”, launched on Wednesday 14 November.
Operation Pillar of Defence must be seen within the broader context of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. An occupation which has changed since the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlements in 2005, but that is still effective through the continuous control by Israel of the Gaza Strip’s ground, sea and air spaces.
The RToP wishes to remind that since 1967, almost one hundred Security Council resolutions have urged Israel to put an end to the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, to no avail. The current escalation of violence is therefore to be seen as a consequence of the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories by Israel and of the international community’s lack of will to force Israel to abide by its international legal obligations.
Israel invokes its right of self-defence against the launch of Palestinian rockets to Israel but the continued occupation of a part of the Gaza Strip by Israel in violation of the Security Council resolutions and of the UN Charter (Art. 25) becomes itself a permanent Israeli aggression against Palestine justifying a right of self-defence of the Gaza people (cfr. A/RES/3314, Art. 1 and 3; UN Charter, Art. 51).
Furthermore, the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza strip since June 2007 amounts to collective punishment of a civilian population forbidden by Art. 33 of the 4th 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
Testifying during the recent New York session of the RToP, Jeanne Mirer, President of the International association of Democratic Lawyers, highlighted some of the most salient impacts of the Israeli blockade on the life of the 1.6 million people living in the Gaza strip:
– 95 % of the industrial establishments are closed of have suspended their activities, the remaining 5% work at 25 to 50 % of their capacity,
– Fishing boats are not allowed to go further than 3 miles off the coast, and risk being shot at even when they respect these distances. This severely impacts on their fishing capacity.
– Israel has unilaterally established all along the border a “no go” buffer zone which deprives the Gaza Strip of 35% of its agricultural land.
– The lack of drinkable water in the Gaza Strip is due to Israel’s practices and policies towards Gaza:
1. Israeli military operations against Gaza destroyed or rendered useless pipes and sewage: therefore, such operations amount to attacking objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population and violate Rule 54 of customary international humanitarian law;
2. the Israeli blockade of Gaza is an impediment to the repair of these hydraulic systems (violation of Rule 54 quoted here above);
3. the Israeli kibbutz located in the upper stream of the wadi Gaza, a river flowing from the West Bank to Gaza, capture most of its waters and violate the customary principle of the “reasonable and equitable” use of transboundary waters (1982 Helsinki Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses, Art. 2, 2, c; 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, Art. 5; these conventions do not bind Israel but they express international custom).
Such grave violations of International Humanitarian Law by Israel entail the international community’s obligation to ensure compliance by Israel with international law. These obligations originate from common Art. 1 of the Geneva Conventions, which provides that “the High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances”.
In the current launching of the new Israeli assault on Gaza, it is important to state that contrary to Israeli claims, the escalation of violence started when Israeli forces conducted an incursion into Gaza on 8 November, opening fire towards an open area which lead to the killing of a 13 year-old boy.
Moreover, while the IOF is arguing that it focuses only on military targets, it has been proved during operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 that such so-called “surgical attacks” are impossible in such a tiny densely-populated area where there is no safe space and no bomb shelters. Attacks can thus only lead to the death of innocent civilians. Such indiscriminate military attacks on civilian population are forbidden under international Humanitarian law.
The UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict that followed the “Cast Lead operation” had stated that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity had been committed. This never led to any further inquiry and no international sanctions were applied against those responsible. Such impunity allows Israel to launch this new military operation that will most certainly lead to an important number of civilian deaths and injuries, and aggravate the dire living conditions that the Gaza population has been enduing since the beginning of the blockade.
Throughout its international sessions, the RToP highlighted the responsibilities and omissions of third states and international organizations regarding Israel’s recognized violations of international law. Today, the RToP can only but reaffirm that only third party involvement for a full recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination could lead to a just and durable peace in the region. The way the international press is currently covering the “operation Pillar of Defence” and most official statements that are coming through from various western governments are not giving prospect for this to occur in the short term.
The RToP therefore calls for the mobilization of international public opinion to condemn this situation and use all available tools available to civil society to put pressure on their governments and members of parliament, so that they ensure compliance by Israel with international law.
Pierre GALAND
RToP General Coordinator
November 16 2012
ACT: 64 ways to act http://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/
People are subjected to massive well-funded propaganda trying to sell a
“product” that “Israel is defending itself” by massacring civilians in Gaza
(again) and engaging in extrajudicial executions of resistance fighters.
The truth is hard to hide as are the statistics: Over the last four days,
16 Palestinian civilians were killed including several children (while 3
Israelis were killed), and over 170 Palestinian civilians were injured
(very few Israelis).
Over 140 military excursions by the most
sophisticated US supplied war planes and navy ships on 1.5 million people
in a large open-air prison. Anyone can find the pictures on the internet
of burned Palestinian babies, mutilated children, devastated neighborhoods,
and destroyed power plants and infrastructure.
The Gaza strip is one of the
most densely populated areas on earth thanks to the Israeli ethnic
cleansing creating the largest post-WWII refugee population on earth.
2/3rd of the 1.6 million people in this arid strip are refugees.
All
Israeli human rights violations are done by US funded horrific weapons for
which native Palestinians have no defense. Home-made native projectiles
fair poorly as a response to the massacre by advanced technologies. Yet,
the US administration still sides with apartheid colonial Israel against
the native Palestinians and so are the governments of Britain and France
that are trying to live-up to their colonial activities.
Israeli
authorities intensified their attacks tonight after home-made projectiles
fired by resistance forces in Gaza landed in Rishon Le Zion (first colonial
settlement here) and Tel Aviv (first time since the gulf war that sirens
were heard in Israel’s de facto capital). People of all backgrounds are
speaking out against these Israeli initiated attacks. Here in Palestine,
we had demonstrations including against the silly bickering that the
factions go through.
There are also demonstrations around the world
demanding Israel end its aggression against this impoverished strip of land
full of refugees. But we must do more than demonstrate and hold vigils.
Pictures from Gaza under attack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIpBnbnraCY
Timeline of the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza
http://imeu.net/news/article0023227.shtml
There are names to these murdered civilians
“The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that among those killed on Wednesday
evening are Ahmad Misharawi, 11 months old; Ranan Arafat, 7 years old;
Issam Abu Izah, 23; and Mohamed Al Kasih, 19. ”
http://imemc.org/article/64557
Reports from AlJazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/2012111419500140191.html
Take action:
1) 64 ways to act http://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/
2) 1.2 million signed petition and took other actions to give Palestinian a
state and give Palestinians our rights. I signed as a prelude to the
inevitable and logical and only durable solution: one democratic secular
state for all its people.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_worlds_next_nation_b/?kPZnccb
Also come visit us in Palestine (including Gaza)
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
In Beit Sahour
Palestine
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GAZA, (PIC)– The latest serious remarks made by de facto president Mahmoud Abbas have received widespread condemnation on popular social networking websites from different Arab and Palestinian noted writers and intellectuals. Editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper Abdulbari Atwan described Abbas on his twitter page as “dangerous to the Palestinian constants.” “Abbas is not able to defend the right of others from his people to return to Palestine when he gave up his own right to return to his hometown Safed…This man has become a threat to the Palestinian constants and must go,” Atwan said. Saudi political writer Hasan Al-Ajmi commented on Atwan’s twitter remarks by saying, “he has been dangerous for a long time and he is definitely more evil than the occupier. He is the one who confers legitimacy on the existence of the occupier. May God be with you, Palestine.” Specialist in Israeli affairs Saleh Al-Naami twitted: “the Palestinian left, which boycotted the visit of the Qatari emir to Gaza at the pretext he had ties with Israel, continues to sit with Abbas, although he waived the right of return.” “All Fatah leaders are aware of the damage caused by Abbas’s outspoken concession on the right of return, but they embark on vulgarly inventing interpretations for it for fear they lose their financial privileges,” Naami added. Director of the London-based Islamic political thought institute Azzam Al-Tamimi said on his page that “Abbas does not have anything in order to give up, and his statements are a kind of hallucination and of no value except that they confirm his deviance and bankruptcy.” Journalist for Palestine newspaper Mohamed Yasin stated on his facebook page that “what many facebook activists said against Abbas following his remarks on the right of return was like a popular trial and a final irrevocable sentence against him releasing him from his posts.” In a related incident, the Islamic student bloc at Birzeit university staged on Saturday afternoon a protest against Abbas’s remarks on the right of return and the popular intifada (uprising). According to the reporter for the Palestinian information (PIC) in Ramallah city, dozens of Birzeit student rallied outside the student council carrying Palestinian flags and banners slamming Abbas’s antinational remarks. |
On this day, 30 years ago, the soil of Lebanon was quenched with the blood of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese. It is said that chrysanthemums burst out of the earth at the place where martyrs’ blood flows. In the year 2012, however, no chrysanthemums are blooming in Sabra and Shatila. This bloody crime on the hands of the Israeli state, its US funder, its Lebanese proxy forces and the complicit Arab regimes that created the conditions for the massacre of 1982, is carefully skirted, quietly spun and wrapped in a cloak of silence. We are asked to forget our people or confuse the events surrounding their sudden disappearance; we are invited to debate these matters as a subject for narratives, disputes and counter narratives.
Palestinians were in Sabra and Shatila 30 years ago – and are in Shatila, in refugee camps throughout the Arab world, and around the world in exile and diaspora today – after being made refugees and forced from their homeland, Palestine, in 1948 in the Nakba which established the Zionist state through the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Today, there are over 6 million Palestinian refugees. All of them have been denied their right to return to their homes and lands for over 64 years now, and yet have continued to struggle. The refugee camps have been incubators of Palestinian resistance, the core of our liberation movements, and a compass for our struggle – pointing towards liberation and towards return. Time and again, they have been subject to massacre, and time and again, they have remained the center of steadfastness and resistance.
Perhaps the chrysanthemums did not grow because they did not agree on the number of deaths amid the “conflicting” narratives and the exhumed mass graves that were quickly bulldozed over. Snipers were shooting at every possible witness who attempted to walk the streets or tried to search for a bottle of milk for a crying baby. Initial reports of the Lebanese Red Cross and Beirut hospitals tallied the death toll at 8,000. The US and European media report that the toll was no greater than 2,000 to 2,400. Israel seeks to evade its responsibility, saying that Lebanese forces committed the crimes. All in all about 4,500 Palestinian men, women, children and elderly were never accounted for after the records went missing. And all the while, US and Israeli officials obfuscated their role in the horror.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was meant to annihilate the Palestinian resistance movement once and for all. Led by Ariel Sharon as the minister of defense, Israel pounded Lebanon by land, sea and air murdering 40,000 people, the vast majority civilians, in a matter of few months. Like the previous Israeli massacres of Palestinians and Lebanese, the invasion was meant to psychologically defeat the will of a population to resist.
After the Palestine Liberation Organization agreed to a ceasefire and withdrawal of all armed fighters from Beirut, Israeli forces laid siege to Shatilla camp and the adjacent Sabra neighbourhood of Beirut and took over neighboring tall buildings as watchtowers, establishing checkpoints at all entrances and exits. On the morning of September 15th, 1982, a strict curfew was imposed and Israeli forces opened fire on all those who attempted to leave the camp. After coordination between military commanders and political leaders such as Sharon, Eitan, Habiqa, Dawri, Gemayel and Afram, Israeli forces shelled Shatila camp before their Lebanese proxies stormed the camps on the eve of September 16th, 1982 – as Israeli forces lit the sky with flares in order to aid their vision – and commenced brutal killing, rape and torture that lasted for 36 hours.
Men were lined up in front of walls and executed, then partially buried by bulldozers in an attempt to cover up the aftermath. Women shielding their children from the rain of bullets were found curled around the corpses of their offspring, sometimes with limbs protruding from the rubble.
Lebanese who heard the shooting and tried to enter the camp were militarily intercepted by the Israeli forces and in some cases murdered on site. Those who fled the blood bath were also intercepted by Israeli soldiers pleading ignorance. An amateur videographer documented an Israeli soldier telling a Palestinian family that he heard of no shooting but if the family would not return, they would start hearing it. He then proceeded to shoot close to their feet. This family returned to certain death.
Like Deir Yassin, Houla, Qibya, Bint Jbail, Nahr Al Bared, Jenin and Qana, Sabra and Shatilla was meant to hurt, demoralize and defeat. These events did not simply occur between a victimizer and a victim, nor were they an internal Arab matter. Sabra and Shatila is another of the long line of massacres committed by a pillaging occupier, an invader, a colonialist imposition against an indigenous population determined to resist, and who fought back against that invading force.
While Israel was attempting to expel resistance from the countries surrounding Palestine with military might, treaties and US-supported dictatorships, the fight was taken to the heart of Palestine. The invasion was followed by two uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza and today we witness a rising youth movement in the land occupied in 1948 confronting Zionist racism and genocidal practices. And all along, Palestinian refugees – in the camps in Palestine and the Arab world, in exile and diaspora everywhere – have kept their eyes and compass focused on return to Palestine and the full achievement of their liberation.
The Palestinian people continue to stand steadfast and see the accumulation of their continued resistance is isolating Israel internationally. A new global consensus is emerging calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions on the criminal state. Gaza may be under siege today, but the Palestinian people know that resilience will ultimately mean victory. This assertion is not a dream but it is built by the inspiration proven by the twice-liberated Southern Lebanon, the defeat of apartheid in South Africa, the wave of indigenous rule sweeping Latin America, the decolonization of the twentieth century and the brewing Arab revolutions of the twenty-first. We shall never forget nor forgive. The chrysanthemums shall return, as shall Palestine’s refugees, and a life of justice with return to Palestine is neither far nor near, but as Naji Al Ali stated, it is measured by the distance of the resistance.
The US Palestinian Community Network urges all chapters, members, supporters and our Palestinian and Arab communities and solidarity allies to act throughout September, to take this 30th anniversary and hold protests, educational events, meetings, and demonstrations about Palestinian refugees’ right to return.
These actions will remember the massacres at Sabra and Shatila – and the long history of massacres against the Palestinian people from 1948 to 2012 – and continue to inspire action to achieve justice for Palestine. Please contact us at uspcn@uspcn.org to inform USPCN about your right of return actions, meetings and demonstrations.
[youtube http://youtu.be/bcUEFHG1y7g?]
Publiée le 27 août 2012 par theIMEU
Just days after a mob of Jewish Israelis beat and injured three Palestinian youth, one nearly to death, Israel’s Ynet news website conducted interviews in Central Jerusalem’s Kikar Hahatulot [Cat Square], just a few hundred feet from the site of what was dubbed by Israeli police a “lynching.” The video is reminiscent of a controversial 2009 video made by Jewish-American journalist/author Max Blumenthal and American-Israeli journalist Joseph Dana titled “Feeling the hate in Jerusalem.”
This is a roughly translated English-captioned version of the original video report courtesy of Shunra Media and the IMEU.
The original report is available in Hebrew at Ynet’s website: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4272467,00.html
This video and the English language transcript are also posted at http://imeu.net/news/article0022927.shtml.
If you love Palestine please use this world map as a profile picture or at least post and share it with your friends and here is why…
On July 25th Iron Chef Sameh Wadi owner of Saffron restaurant who happens to be Palestinian posted this world map from the early 1700, showing the state of Palestine. His caption was “We need more world maps that are correct, such as this one!” which by they doesn’t mean that he hates Israel but as a Palestinian he loves his own country and excited to see it on a world map.
On July 25th Iron Chef Sameh Wadi owner of Saffron restaurant who happens to be Palestinian posted this world map from the early 1700, showing the state of Palestine. His caption was “We need more world maps that are correct, such as this one!” which by they doesn’t mean that he hates Israel but as a Palestinian he loves his own country and excited to see it on a world map.
Until someone started reading between the lines like the bug eater Andrew Zimmren and tweets this to the whole world. All Zionist customers boycott the restaurant (although they admit they love the food) and started giving it bad rep.
Andrew Zimmern @andrewzimmern tweets: Sameh Wadi … Your joking right? Are you saying Israel doesn’t exist? Or shouldn’t? http://twitpic.com/aemyr7
And then AZ followed that up with this: @saffronmpls Care to explain your comment at top? Do you deny existence of Israel? Or just want it to go a http://instagr.am/p/N1OQYBIK5s/
Perhaps Zimmern should stick to eating bugs and stay away from politics. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on their own Facebook page. Palestine was on the world map and will come back regardless of what you say. No ethnic cleansing will make it go away.
— avec Charlotte Karem Albrecht et 49 autres personnes.
source : Miko Peled’s fb
band annie's Weblog 
