Actions around the world
for
Palestinian Prisoners Day 2017 Week of Action
The Palestinian hunger strike taking place right now has left me utterly helpless.While the road for Palestinian self-determination and the conflict in its essence can be seen as rather complex, leaving some desinformed people with questions of love and hate, betrayal and false promises; it leaves you above all with questions about humanity.
Over the past five decades 800.000 Palestinians (roughly 40% of Palestine male population and 20% of the overall population) have been arrested.
Many of those suffered from torture, degrading treatment, and medical negligence.
Over 1.500 Palestinian political prisoners are currently on a hunger strike to demand basic human rights. There righst consist of installing a public telephone, reinstating bi-monthly family visits, allowing for adequate medical care, end open-ended solitary confinement, among many others. All of which are rights granted to prisoners worldwide unter international law.
Only in 2016, Israel held 25 Palestinian children in solitary confinement.
Besides, 800 young Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli and PA security forces as a result of a computerized program that tries to predict "lone-wolf" resistance attacks based on social media posts. How can a supposedly democratic country jail someone for a "crime" they haven't committed?
The campaign, called #SaltWaterChallenge or #تحدي_مي_وملح, was initiated by Aarab Marwan Barghouti to show solidarity with now over 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who embarked on a mass hunger strike last week. This simple act of Palestinian solidarity went viral.
"Why salt water? Because the prisoners have been living only on salt water for seven days so far," Aarab says in the video.
The clip ends with Marwan Barghouthi's son Aarab nominating 'Arab Idol' winner Mohammed Assaf and others to take part in the challenge. And they did.
Palestinian streets were almost empty of cars and passers-by, throughout cities, towns, villages and refugee camps, in solidarity with more than 1,500 prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.
Shops, factories, banks, factories, government institutions, universities were all closed; the only exceptions to the strike are high schools and emergency medical services and hospitals.
Public transportation came to a halt, and public and private institutions, including universities, were shut for the day.
Groups working to support the prisoners in their hunger strike also declared Friday to be a "day of rage," in which Palestinians were called on to confront Israeli soldiers at various contact points.
The general civilian strike was also called by imprisoned leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms for his involvement in the Second Intifada against the Israeli occupation.
Further to Palestinian civil society support, several members of the European parliament organized a sit-in in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners on the 11h day of the mas "Freedom and Dignity" hunger strike taking place across Israeli prisons.
The sit-in was organized by Chair of Delegation for relations with Palestine Neoklis Syliukiotis, and took place at the European parliament in Brussel, Belgium.
Among the participants was MEP Martina Anderson, an Irish politician from Northern Ireland who spent 12 years in British jails as a political prisoner. Martina tweeted a photo from the sit-in, showing parliament members from Sweden, Greece, France, Italy, Spain, Britain, Austria, Denmark and Portugal.
Israeli military forces shot at least seven protesters with live bullets, four of them, minors. And dozens others were wounded by ruybber-coated bullets, being struck by projectile tear gas canisters, and tear gas inhalation.
Protests took place in Nabi Saleh, outside the Ofer miligtary prison, in the city of Silwad, in Sinjil, and the Qalandiya checkpoint, in Bethlehrem, the Nablus-aera town of Beita, al-Naqura, Awarta, al-Arrub, Beit Ummar, At a checkpoint near Qalqilya, Jenin, and in Kafr Qaddum.
What is happening now in the West Bank reminds me of the First Intifada, also led by a young Marwan Barghouthi. The Intifada of strikes, civil disobedience, which turned out to be a a total succes that brought back Yasser Arafat to Palestine.
O que está acontecendo na Cisjordânia lembra a Primeira Intifada, também liderada pelo então jovem Marwan Barghouthi. Foi a Intifada de greves, desobediência civil, um sucesso que culminou com o retorno de Yasser Arafat à Palestina junto com a cúpula da OLP.
And as Palestinian prisoners' 13th day of hunger strike continued, 100 more prisoners joined the hunger strike in Migiddo prison.
And 17-year-old girl Malak Salman, from Jerusalem, arrested on 9 February 2016, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was transfered between different prisons, but is currently placed in Hasharon.
As Palestinian prisoners were entering their day 16 of the mass hunger strike that is spreading daily, Israel obstructed negotiations and severely impeded communication from the strikers to the outside world. On Saturday 30th April, Israel reportedly ordered mobile phone companies to block reception in the western area of the Naqab desert in the south of the country to prevent Palestinians on strike in the Ketziot and Nafha prisons from communicating. Meanwhile, the leaders are still in solitary confinement with no visit by families and lawyers.
But, if Israeli prisons function as tools to regulate the native population, they simultaneously serve as sites for Palestinian political and social mobilization.
To mark Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, on Monday, April 17, some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners across the political spectrum launched an open hunger strike, calling for an end to their inhumane treatment and the establishment of a mass movement against the Israeli occupation. Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip responded to the call, by rallying in support of the initiative and clashing with Israeli forces.
The hunger strike is being led by jailed Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, who has been commonly referred to, in the international press, as the “Palestinian Mandela”; in an attempt to foil the hunger strike, Barghouti has been forced into solitary confinement, along with six other hunger strikers.
Israeli prisons served as training and recruiting grounds for the resistance after June 1967 and well into the 1980s. In confinement, Palestinian detainees received instruction and developed a “revolutionary culture” through educational programs, seminars, smuggled literary/historical writings, and “ideological curricula” organized and disseminated by other prisoners (usually veteran guerrillas). This instruction prepared these detainees for leading roles in political organizations upon their release.
Because the Israeli military and security apparatus penetrates “virtually all aspects of Palestinian life,” just about every Palestinian family has had a relative incarcerated by the Israeli regime. As a result, prisoner initiatives have tended to spread and resonate within Palestinian society.
Marwan Barghouthi has shaken headlines by leading this last hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and by publishing an op-ed in the NYT.
The Israeli establishment is frothing at the mouth against what they call his lies, denying his allegations that he was tortured in earlier prison stints, denying that Israel even has political prisoners — implying that all 6,500 Palestinians in Israel jails, including 500 administrative detainees, are security prisoners — and bashing the New York Times.
Marwan Barghouti has been a charismatic Palestinian leader for decades and a committed and consistent two-state supporter, before and after the second Intifada. He is a mortal political threat to Mahmoud Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan. Surveys have long shown that he is the most likely to win a presidential election among Palestinians of the region; they also consistently show that nearly two-thirds of Palestinians wish for Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to resign.
Moreover, Marwan has previously taken on the punishing task of criticizing human rights abuses by the PA against Palestinians — a sign that he might commit himself to a more democratic form of governance were he to enter office. He has been in jail for 13 years, where his popularity has only grown among Palestinians, and has been a leader of the struggle for Palestinian prisoner rights.
I am familiar with the path of certain leaders from violent struggle against political oppression, to statesperson. Such as Gerry Adams of Irish Sinn Fein, or Nelson Mandela — both served jail time for charges related to violence.
For all these reasons, Marwan Barghouti should be released so that he can run for Palestinian political office, in the (unfortunately) unlikely event of Palestinian elections. He might bring more accountable governance to an increasingly rotten political system for Palestinians.
He has brokered Hamas/Fatah agreements and could bring Hamas along with his program in a way Abbas will never be able to, and has rallied both Hamas and Islamic Jihad to support unarmed protest in favor of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. In fact, non-violent political opposition is at the heart of his current political agenda. Further, he may be the only person capable of salvaging deeply flagging Palestinian support for a diplomatic two-state resolution. He has called Israel “our future neighbor.”
All the above, by the way, may be additional reasons for the Israeli government’s rejection of any suggestion of freeing Barghouti, even when a prisoner exchange provided a convenient opportunity. A free Barghouti could become a powerful agent for Palestinian unity, the last thing the Israeli overlords want.
Divide et impera – "divide and rule" – since Roman times this has been a guiding principle of every regime that suppresses another people. In this the Israeli authorities have been incredibly successful. Political geography provided an ideal setting: The West Bank (of the Jordan river) is cut off from the Gaza Strip by some 50 km of Israeli territory.
Hamas got hold of the Gaza Strip by elections and violence on both sides, and refuses to accept Mahmoud Abbas's ruling with too much compromise withe the occupier.
Marwan Barghouthi was kidnapped in the West Bank by the IDF during the Second Intifada, charged and convicted in an Israeli civilian court for involvement in attacks that killed Israeli civilians inside the Green Line. He called his case a show trial. It was.
Marwan was the leader of Tanzim, and indirectly, among the leaders of al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, responsible of the most deadly attacks against Israelis in the West Bank during those blood-drenched years of the second Intifada.
Civilian blood flows on both sides. And Israel has caused greater numbers of civilian deaths than the Palestinian resistants.
Interview with Marwan Barghouthi in 2006
"
I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a
regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other
oppressed person has advocated - e the right to help myself in the
absence of hel from anywhere else." MB
I like Marwan Barghouthi.
I like Marwan Barghouthi very much. As much as I liked Nelson Mandela. As much as I like Desmond Tutu.
Marwan Barghouthi is a good man.
Marwan Barghouthi is a very intelligent man.
Marwan Barghouthi is a highly educated man.
Marwan Barghouthi is not a criminal. He is a patriot.
Marwan Barghouthi is Palestinian.
Marwan Barghouthi is a leader. He always was a leader. He will always be. Outside and inside prison.
Marwan Barghouti does not want the end of Israel. He wants the State of Palestine next to the State of Israel. He wants to establish peace between the two states, based on the 1967 lines (with minor adjustments), with open borders and cooperation.
This is not a secret agreement: Marwan Barghouti has repeated this proposal many times, both in prison and outside.
His
wife, Fadwa, is a lawyer but devotes her time to fight for
the release of her husband. She is a woman of her time, like me, like millions of educated women.
At the crowded funeral of Yasser Arafat, one could see Fadwa's tear-streaked face mourn her husband mentor.
Two weeks ago her husband, together with more than a thousand other Palestinian prisoners in Israel, started an unlimited hunger strike.
Many have just signed a petition for Marwan's release.
Marwan Barghouthi s a born leader. In spite of his small physical stature, he stands out in any gathering. Within the Fatah movement he became the leader of the youth division. (The word "Fatah" is the initials of "Palestinian Liberation Movement, in reverse).
The Barghoutis are a widespread clan, dominating several villages near Ramallah. Marwan himself was born in 1959 in Kobar village. An ancestor, Abd-al-Jabir al-Barghouti, led an Arab revolt in 1834.
There are two other prominent members of the Barghouthi family in Palestine. Mustafa Barghouti, an intelectual activist for freedom and democracy. Omar Barghouti, the leader of the international anti-Israel boycott movement - BDS.
I have a great respect and sympathy for the three of them.
Nevertheless, Marwan is special. He is one of a kind. He is bright, very bright, and cultivated, just like the two other Barghouthis, but he has something unique, rare, a strong charisma, an unswerving sense of justice, and empathy with human beings to a high degree.
Marwan Barghouthi joined the Palestinian resistance movement at the age of 15. He was one of the leaders of the First Intifada. Later, under Yasser Arafat-Abu Amar's leadership, during the Second Intifada Marwan would become the leader of Tanzim, Fatah's military wing until his imprisonement in 2002.
Marwan was/is a freedom fighter, in his, mine, and millions of people's eyes; a "terrorist" in the eyes of the Israeli authorities, the occupier power.
Marwan Barghouthi earned the right to be called the "Palestinian Mandela". Despite their difference in height and skin color, there is a basic similarity between the two: both were men of peace, but justified the use of violence against their oppressors. However, while the Apartheid regime was satisfied with one life term, Barghouti was sentenced to a ridiculous five life terms and another 40 years – for acts of violence executed by his Tanzim organization.
There is another similarity between Nelson Mandela and Marwan Barghouti: when the apartheid regime was destroyed by a combination of "terrorism", violent strikes and a world-wide boycott, Mandela emerged as the natural leader of the new South Africa. Many people expect that when a Palestinian state is set up, Barghouti will become its president, after Mahmoud Abbas.
Despite being out of the public eye for a few years, Marwa Barghouthi
remains the most popular leader among the Palestinian people. According
to polling data in mid-2012, 60% of Palestinians would vote for him for
president of the Palestinian Authority if they were given that chance,
and he would beat both Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for the top post.
There is something in Marwan's personality that inspires confidence, turning him into the natural arbiter of internal conflicts. Hamas people, who are the opponents of Fatah, are inclined to listen to Marwan. He is the ideal conciliator between the two movements.
The hunger strikers do not demand their own release, but demand better prison conditions. They demand, inter alia, more frequent and longer visits by wives and family, an end to torture, decent food, and such. They also remind us that under international law an "occupying power" is forbidden to move prisoners from an occupied territory to the home country of the occupier. Exactly this happens to almost all Palestinian "security prisoners".
A hunger strike is a very courageous act. It is the last weapon of the least protected people on earth – the prisoners. The abominable Margaret Thatcher let the Irish hunger strikers starve to death.
The Israeli authorities wanted to force-feed Palestinian hunger strikers. The Israeli Physicians Association, much to its credit, refused to cooperate, since such acts have led in the past to the deaths of the victims. That put an end to this kind of torture.
Some years ago, already under the leadership of Marwan, a large number of prisoners belonging to the two organizations signed a joint appeal for national unity, setting out concrete terms. Nothing came of this.
This time, Marwan Barghouti demands also that Palestinian political prisoners be treated as prisoners-of-war. No chance of that. Not without the intervention of the United Nations, against the USA.
However, one should demand that prisoners of any kind be treated humanely. This means that deprivation of liberty is the only punishment imposed, and that within the prisons the maximum of decent conditions should be accorded.
In Israeli prisons, the prison service is the enemy of the Palestinian prisoners, making their life as miserable as possible - just like the IDF does to the Palestinians outside. This has worsened now, in response to the strike.
This policy is cruel, illegal and counter-productive. There is no way to win against a hunger-strike. The prisoners are bound to win, especially when decent people all over the world are watching. Perhaps even the NYT.
I am waiting for the day when I can visit Marwan as a free man in his home in Ramallah. Even more so if Ramallah is, by that time, a town in the free State of Palestine.
"Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation.
Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn't get anything except [controlled] authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty." MB
But " courage" has many limits. The very next day the NYT published an editor's note stating that Marwan Barghouti was convicted for murder. It was an abject surrender to Zionist pressure.
The man who claimed this victory was an individual I find particularly obnoxious. He calls himself Michael Oren and is now a deputy minister in Israel, but he was born in the USA and belongs to the subgroup of American Jews who are super-super-patriots of Israel. He adopted Israeli citizenship and an Israeli name in order to serve as Israel's ambassador to the USA. In this capacity he attracted attention by using particularly virulent anti-Palestinian rhetoric, so extreme as to make even Binyamin Netanyahu look moderate.
It was him, and not "a rash of readers” that objected the “distorted characterization” of Marwan Barghouti's article’, although Liz Spayd, its public editor implied.
From “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” after the complaints, an editor’s note was appended the following day, stating that Barghouti had been convicted in an Israeli court on “five counts of murder and membership of a terrorist organization.”
Of course, the NYT never adds such caveats regarding Israeli leaders who write for the newspaper, even when war crimes they oversaw are detailed by the UN or human rights organizations – perhaps because the international impunity they enjoy means that their Palestinian victims never have their day in court.
That is plainly wrong. The wall – or “barrier” – is not built along the 1967 boundary between present-day Israel and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). Rather, it penetrates deep into the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from their land.
Overall, some 85 percent of the wall extends into the West Bank.
Another article about Banksy’s hotel that the Times published in April was also misleading.
Ian Fisher, author of that article, described the wall as an “ugly 26-foot symbol of all that separates Israelis from Palestinians.”
Once again, the Times was implying that the wall separates Israel from the West Bank. Vital context on Israel’s policies of colonization were omitted by Fisher, the paper’s latest bureau chief in Jerusalem.
Fisher adds that the wall has been “endlessly debated.” Part of the debate, he suggests, is whether it constitutes a prison for Palestinians, a “security measure that worked” or even “400 miles of proof of the failure of negotiations.”
He doesn’t mention that despite its land grabs of Palestinian territory, long stretches of the wall have not been completed, or that the end of suicide bombings in Israeli cities can better be explained by Palestinian factions’ abandonment of the tactic.
Fisher also neglects to mention that the International Court of Justice ruled the wall illegal back in 2004.
Israeli Peace bloc GUSH SHALOM : Barghouti got 5 life terms? Begin would have gotten 91!
I like Marwan Barghouthi. I like Marwan Barghouthi very much. As much as I liked Nelson Mandela. As much as I like Desmond Tutu.
Marwan Barghouthi is a good man.
Marwan Barghouthi is a very intelligent man.
Marwan Barghouthi is a highly educated man.
Marwan Barghouthi is not a criminal. He is a patriot.
Marwan Barghouthi is Palestinian.
Marwan Barghouthi is a leader. He always was a leader. He will always be. Outside and inside prison.
Marwan Barghouti does not want the end of Israel. He wants the State of Palestine next to the State of Israel. He wants to establish peace between the two states, based on the 1967 lines (with minor adjustments), with open borders and cooperation.
This is not a secret agreement: Marwan Barghouti has repeated this proposal many times, both in prison and outside.
At the crowded funeral of Yasser Arafat, one could see Fadwa's tear-streaked face mourn her husband mentor.
Two weeks ago her husband, together with more than a thousand other Palestinian prisoners in Israel, started an unlimited hunger strike.
Marwan Barghouthi s a born leader. In spite of his small physical stature, he stands out in any gathering. Within the Fatah movement he became the leader of the youth division. (The word "Fatah" is the initials of "Palestinian Liberation Movement, in reverse).
The Barghoutis are a widespread clan, dominating several villages near Ramallah. Marwan himself was born in 1959 in Kobar village. An ancestor, Abd-al-Jabir al-Barghouti, led an Arab revolt in 1834.
There are two other prominent members of the Barghouthi family in Palestine. Mustafa Barghouti, an intelectual activist for freedom and democracy. Omar Barghouti, the leader of the international anti-Israel boycott movement - BDS.
I have a great respect and sympathy for the three of them.
Nevertheless, Marwan is special. He is one of a kind. He is bright, very bright, and cultivated, just like the two other Barghouthis, but he has something unique, rare, a strong charisma, an unswerving sense of justice, and empathy with human beings to a high degree.
Marwan Barghouthi joined the Palestinian resistance movement at the age of 15. He was one of the leaders of the First Intifada. Later, under Yasser Arafat-Abu Amar's leadership, during the Second Intifada Marwan would become the leader of Tanzim, Fatah's military wing until his imprisonement in 2002.
Marwan was/is a freedom fighter, in his, mine, and millions of people's eyes; a "terrorist" in the eyes of the Israeli authorities, the occupier power.
Marwan Barghouthi earned the right to be called the "Palestinian Mandela". Despite their difference in height and skin color, there is a basic similarity between the two: both were men of peace, but justified the use of violence against their oppressors. However, while the Apartheid regime was satisfied with one life term, Barghouti was sentenced to a ridiculous five life terms and another 40 years – for acts of violence executed by his Tanzim organization.
There is another similarity between Nelson Mandela and Marwan Barghouti: when the apartheid regime was destroyed by a combination of "terrorism", violent strikes and a world-wide boycott, Mandela emerged as the natural leader of the new South Africa. Many people expect that when a Palestinian state is set up, Barghouti will become its president, after Mahmoud Abbas.
There is something in Marwan's personality that inspires confidence, turning him into the natural arbiter of internal conflicts. Hamas people, who are the opponents of Fatah, are inclined to listen to Marwan. He is the ideal conciliator between the two movements.
The hunger strikers do not demand their own release, but demand better prison conditions. They demand, inter alia, more frequent and longer visits by wives and family, an end to torture, decent food, and such. They also remind us that under international law an "occupying power" is forbidden to move prisoners from an occupied territory to the home country of the occupier. Exactly this happens to almost all Palestinian "security prisoners".
A hunger strike is a very courageous act. It is the last weapon of the least protected people on earth – the prisoners. The abominable Margaret Thatcher let the Irish hunger strikers starve to death.
The Israeli authorities wanted to force-feed Palestinian hunger strikers. The Israeli Physicians Association, much to its credit, refused to cooperate, since such acts have led in the past to the deaths of the victims. That put an end to this kind of torture.
Some years ago, already under the leadership of Marwan, a large number of prisoners belonging to the two organizations signed a joint appeal for national unity, setting out concrete terms. Nothing came of this.
This time, Marwan Barghouti demands also that Palestinian political prisoners be treated as prisoners-of-war. No chance of that. Not without the intervention of the United Nations, against the USA.
However, one should demand that prisoners of any kind be treated humanely. This means that deprivation of liberty is the only punishment imposed, and that within the prisons the maximum of decent conditions should be accorded.
In Israeli prisons, the prison service is the enemy of the Palestinian prisoners, making their life as miserable as possible - just like the IDF does to the Palestinians outside. This has worsened now, in response to the strike.
This policy is cruel, illegal and counter-productive. There is no way to win against a hunger-strike. The prisoners are bound to win, especially when decent people all over the world are watching. Perhaps even the NYT.
I am waiting for the day when I can visit Marwan as a free man in his home in Ramallah. Even more so if Ramallah is, by that time, a town in the free State of Palestine.
"Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation.
Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn't get anything except [controlled] authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty." MB
The New York Times' cowardness & subservience to Israel lobby
Last
week Barghouti set out these demands in an op-ed article published by
the New York Times, an act that shows the newspaper's can have a better side. The
editorial note described the author as a Palestinian politician and
Member of Parliament. It was a "courageous" act by the paper (which
somewhat restored its standing in my eyes after it condemned Bashar
al-Assad for using poison gas, without a sliver of evidence.)But " courage" has many limits. The very next day the NYT published an editor's note stating that Marwan Barghouti was convicted for murder. It was an abject surrender to Zionist pressure.
The man who claimed this victory was an individual I find particularly obnoxious. He calls himself Michael Oren and is now a deputy minister in Israel, but he was born in the USA and belongs to the subgroup of American Jews who are super-super-patriots of Israel. He adopted Israeli citizenship and an Israeli name in order to serve as Israel's ambassador to the USA. In this capacity he attracted attention by using particularly virulent anti-Palestinian rhetoric, so extreme as to make even Binyamin Netanyahu look moderate.
It was him, and not "a rash of readers” that objected the “distorted characterization” of Marwan Barghouti's article’, although Liz Spayd, its public editor implied.
From “Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” after the complaints, an editor’s note was appended the following day, stating that Barghouti had been convicted in an Israeli court on “five counts of murder and membership of a terrorist organization.”
Of course, the NYT never adds such caveats regarding Israeli leaders who write for the newspaper, even when war crimes they oversaw are detailed by the UN or human rights organizations – perhaps because the international impunity they enjoy means that their Palestinian victims never have their day in court.
It’s far easier for the paper to cite convictions in the colonizer’s courts than to highlight the misdeeds of powerful war criminals who evade justice.
Endless debate?
By contrast with its swift reaction to the Marwan Barghouti op-ed, the paper has still not corrected a clear error of fact about Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank to which some fellow journalists alerted several times last month without no response. Both the public editor and the foreign desk ignored the rectification of that and other errors.
The error was contained in an article by Russell Goldman on The Walled Off Hotel, a project by the British graffiti artist Banksy.
According to Goldman, the windows of that “nine-room guesthouse” in Bethlehem “overlook the barrier that separates the territory [the West Bank] from Israel.”That is plainly wrong. The wall – or “barrier” – is not built along the 1967 boundary between present-day Israel and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). Rather, it penetrates deep into the West Bank, cutting Palestinians off from their land.
Overall, some 85 percent of the wall extends into the West Bank.
Another article about Banksy’s hotel that the Times published in April was also misleading.
Ian Fisher, author of that article, described the wall as an “ugly 26-foot symbol of all that separates Israelis from Palestinians.”
Once again, the Times was implying that the wall separates Israel from the West Bank. Vital context on Israel’s policies of colonization were omitted by Fisher, the paper’s latest bureau chief in Jerusalem.
Fisher adds that the wall has been “endlessly debated.” Part of the debate, he suggests, is whether it constitutes a prison for Palestinians, a “security measure that worked” or even “400 miles of proof of the failure of negotiations.”
He doesn’t mention that despite its land grabs of Palestinian territory, long stretches of the wall have not been completed, or that the end of suicide bombings in Israeli cities can better be explained by Palestinian factions’ abandonment of the tactic.
Fisher also neglects to mention that the International Court of Justice ruled the wall illegal back in 2004.
Indeed, the Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, now heading a mass hunger strike in the Israeli prisons, was sentenced by an Israeli court to five life terms. The New York Times was ready to publish this fact after the high-level protests made by the Government of Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his ministers should be reminded of some more facts. For example, in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, carried out on July 22, 1946, by the Etzel (Irgun) underground organization headed by Menachem Begin, 91 people were killed. Of them, as reported at the time, 28 were Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews, and five others.
This means that according to the current rules prevailing in the Israeli judicial system, the Etzel commander Menachem Begin, who personally ordered and supervised this attack, deserved to be sentenced to 91 cumulative life terms - in addition to dozens more life terms for dozens of other killings carried out by Etzel members under Menachem Begin’s command and leadership.
Despite all this - as PM Netanyahu knows very well - Menachem Begin was accounted in Israel to be a gifted parliamentarian and a leader of great stature. The fact that the British government defined him as a terrorist and placed a big prize on his head did not prevent him, at a later stage, from holding a state visit to Britain as Prime Minister of Israel and being received officially at 10 Downing Street. Likewise Yitzhak Shamir, who was likewise designated a terrorist by the British, and who also ultimately held a state visit to Britain as Prime Minister of Israel. All this is not unusual or exceptional - many of the independent states now existing in the world were established by those who took up arms to fight for independence and were therefore considered to be terrorists.
Gush Shalom opposed the show trial of Marwan Barghouti, held in the Tel Aviv court, in which the verdict was clear from the outset. Gush activists, headed by Uri Avnery, at the time carried out protests at the courtroom and were removed by police. But perhaps there was one good result: Marwan Barghouti's long imprisonment has brought him great sympathy among the Palestinian public, bringing him closer to a leadership position in which he could become a partner in making peace with the State of Israel. That is, of course, if and when an Israeli government is formed which is seriously interested in peace and is ready to end the occupation rule in the Palestinian territories.
In themselves, most demands of the hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners are simple and elementary, and there is no reason to reject them. For example, in all prison wings of criminal prisoners held in Israel there are public telephones through which prisoners can regularly speak with their families. This right is given also to cruel murderers and to the leaders of organized crime gangs who are known to be still directing criminal activities even from inside prison. On the other hand, Palestinian prisoners who are defined as "security prisoners" are denied the right to maintain contact with their families by means of a public telephone, even though the prison authorities and security services can monitor all such calls. This increases the motivation to smuggle mobile phones to jail – as was highlighted in the Bassel Ghatas affair.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his ministers should be reminded of some more facts. For example, in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, carried out on July 22, 1946, by the Etzel (Irgun) underground organization headed by Menachem Begin, 91 people were killed. Of them, as reported at the time, 28 were Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews, and five others.
This means that according to the current rules prevailing in the Israeli judicial system, the Etzel commander Menachem Begin, who personally ordered and supervised this attack, deserved to be sentenced to 91 cumulative life terms - in addition to dozens more life terms for dozens of other killings carried out by Etzel members under Menachem Begin’s command and leadership.
Despite all this - as PM Netanyahu knows very well - Menachem Begin was accounted in Israel to be a gifted parliamentarian and a leader of great stature. The fact that the British government defined him as a terrorist and placed a big prize on his head did not prevent him, at a later stage, from holding a state visit to Britain as Prime Minister of Israel and being received officially at 10 Downing Street. Likewise Yitzhak Shamir, who was likewise designated a terrorist by the British, and who also ultimately held a state visit to Britain as Prime Minister of Israel. All this is not unusual or exceptional - many of the independent states now existing in the world were established by those who took up arms to fight for independence and were therefore considered to be terrorists.
Gush Shalom opposed the show trial of Marwan Barghouti, held in the Tel Aviv court, in which the verdict was clear from the outset. Gush activists, headed by Uri Avnery, at the time carried out protests at the courtroom and were removed by police. But perhaps there was one good result: Marwan Barghouti's long imprisonment has brought him great sympathy among the Palestinian public, bringing him closer to a leadership position in which he could become a partner in making peace with the State of Israel. That is, of course, if and when an Israeli government is formed which is seriously interested in peace and is ready to end the occupation rule in the Palestinian territories.
In themselves, most demands of the hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners are simple and elementary, and there is no reason to reject them. For example, in all prison wings of criminal prisoners held in Israel there are public telephones through which prisoners can regularly speak with their families. This right is given also to cruel murderers and to the leaders of organized crime gangs who are known to be still directing criminal activities even from inside prison. On the other hand, Palestinian prisoners who are defined as "security prisoners" are denied the right to maintain contact with their families by means of a public telephone, even though the prison authorities and security services can monitor all such calls. This increases the motivation to smuggle mobile phones to jail – as was highlighted in the Bassel Ghatas affair.
. On the tenth day of the hunger strike, as the strikers were facing worsening health as the strike grows, a new statement from the Palestinian prisoners' movement reaffirmed urgent call for support .
. https://www.UNISON Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK
. B'Tselem doesn't take orders from Netanyahu. Nor does the world.
. Numbering Palestinians - Hebron 2017: Fewer Palestinians, more checkpoints.
. Israel sunk in 'incremental tyranny', say former Shin Bet chiefs.
. UK students to begin hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinian.
. On 28 April, Palestinian prisoner and former hunger striker Thaer Halahleh's was kidnapped by IDF soldiers at a suddenly placed checkpoint near Bethlehem. He has been seized by Israeli occupation forces on multiple occasions and has spent over nive years in Israeli prisons, most of them in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. He was most recently released in October 2016. Thaer engaged in a 77-day hunger strike in 2012, winning his freedom from administrative detention alongside fellow administrative detainee Bilal Diab.
Many other Palestinians have been arrested in the West Bank since the beginning of the Hunger Strike for Freedom on April 17.
17th day of hunger strike: Ramallah: Mass rally for hunger-striking prisoners
While Palestinians continued their hunger strike, in England, a large crowd of protesters turned out at the School of African and Asian Studies in central London to protest the presence of the Israeli Ambassador to the UK, the great deceiver Mark Regev.
The Israeli hasbara spokesperson was invited, by means of lobbying, to speak at the prestigious London University against the wishes of many students and pro-Palesitnian organizations.
Kick Settlements Out of Football at FIFA's upcoming Congress! by Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
FIFA will make a decision on Israeli football teams based in illegal settlements at their upcoming Congress on May 11, 2017. This is our chance to ensure that Palestinian human rights are front and centre on their agenda!
Let’s make sure FIFA and member federations get the message: settlement clubs and Apartheid have no place in the beautiful game. See additional actions you can take:
Sample tweets:
More than one hundred sports and human rights associations representing millions of people across the globe have called on FIFA to demand that the Israeli Football Association immediately exclude teams based in illegal settlements, and for FIFA to suspend the association if it refuses to comply.
As the pressure mounts on FIFA to respect its statutes, the Israeli government is using its embassies to push for removing the issue of settlement clubs from the Congress’ agenda altogether. We can’t let that happen: teams based in illegal settlements and human rights violations have no place in the beautiful game.
Take action now to pressure FIFA to respect its own statutes and Palestinian human rights:
- Join the Thunderclap to FIFA ahead of its upcoming Congress!
- Join the action on social media! See below sample tweets and memes to share. Use the hashtag #RedCardIsrael
- Organize an action to deliver the letter to your national football association and FIFA Council members urging them to vote Israeli settlement teams out of FIFA. Email us to let us know of your planned action, and don’t forget to take photos and video to share on social media!
- Urge sports personalities to take a public stand against the inclusion of Israeli settlement clubs in FIFA.
- Contact sports journalists in your country and encourage them to cover the story
Leading arts world figures urge Radiohead to cancel Israel gig
Israel imposed closure on Occupied West Bank & Gaza Strip for "independence day".
The closure - which only applies to Palestinians, not Israeli settlers - will last 72 hours.
Collective punishment & apartheid in action.
Israel trancou a Cisjordânia e a Faixa de Gaza durante "dia da independência", que celebra 50 anos de espoliação, repressão e opressão dos palestinos nos territórios ocupados.
O bloqueio - que se restringe aos palestinos e não aos colonos israelenses - durará 72 horas.
Punição coletiva & apartheid em pleno vapor.
Marking the festival of liberation as the occupation hits 50
Ilan Pappe: The Myth of Israel
"The concept of partition that started this crime [Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestine] wave will not be solved through a two-state solution", which the Israeli professor argues is simply another form of partition. As long as the colonialist attitude persists, Israel will never enjoy “moral legitimacy. Peace is not a matter of demographic change, nor a redrawing of maps. It is the elimination of racist ideology and apartheid policies".
Whether or not an ideology can actually be eliminated remains to be seen, but without a doubt, political Zionism is both the root of the problem and the Achilles’ heel of the Israeli state.
Khaled Meshaal leaves his mark
BRASIL - DIRETAS, JÁ!
"Os trabalhadores brasileiros estão de parabéns.
Também os militantes políticos, os ativistas sociais, sindicatos e movimentos sociais. Assim como os estudantes e a juventude.
Hoje é um dia histórico.
Nesses dias difíceis, a luta pela democracia e a defesa das conquistas sociais são dever de todos nós. O povo brasileiro foi às ruas para dizer que não aceita a perda de seus direitos.
Foi às ruas contra um governo golpista que promove o mais brutal ataque aos direitos dos trabalhadores. E que compromete o futuro dos nossos filhos e netos, com um retrocesso na previdência que é perverso e sombrio.
Por isso, o Brasil parou. A greve geral aconteceu, apesar de setores da imprensa e dos golpistas que tentaram ocultar e reprimiram a ação corajosa dos que lutam contra o retrocesso na previdência e destruição dos direitos trabalhistas.
Essa greve é símbolo de coragem. É um momento de esperança e resistência. Trinta e cinco milhões de brasileiros cruzaram os braços para fortalecer a democracia no Brasil.
Essa greve é uma homenagem a todos que trabalham dias e dias, ao longo dos anos, dedicados brasileiros e brasileiras, incansáveis cidadãos que com seu esforço constróem o nosso país.
Estamos do lado certo. Meu coração se enche de esperança. Vamos em frente. A luta por dias melhores para todos os brasileiros está apenas começando. A ampliação da democracia nos levará à vitória.
O povo brasileiro mostra sua coragem: não vai desistir nunca. Vai lutar pelas suas conquistas e por mais avanços". #BrasilEmGreve. Dilma, 28/04/2017
Nesses dias difíceis, a luta pela democracia e a defesa das conquistas sociais são dever de todos nós. O povo brasileiro foi às ruas para dizer que não aceita a perda de seus direitos.
Foi às ruas contra um governo golpista que promove o mais brutal ataque aos direitos dos trabalhadores. E que compromete o futuro dos nossos filhos e netos, com um retrocesso na previdência que é perverso e sombrio.
Essa greve é símbolo de coragem. É um momento de esperança e resistência. Trinta e cinco milhões de brasileiros cruzaram os braços para fortalecer a democracia no Brasil.
Essa greve é uma homenagem a todos que trabalham dias e dias, ao longo dos anos, dedicados brasileiros e brasileiras, incansáveis cidadãos que com seu esforço constróem o nosso país.
Estamos do lado certo. Meu coração se enche de esperança. Vamos em frente. A luta por dias melhores para todos os brasileiros está apenas começando. A ampliação da democracia nos levará à vitória.
O povo brasileiro mostra sua coragem: não vai desistir nunca. Vai lutar pelas suas conquistas e por mais avanços". #BrasilEmGreve. Dilma, 28/04/2017
Deputada cearense em Brasília, constata, no aeroporto, sucesso da greve
Brasil Paralyzed by Nationwide Strike: Fora Temer!
Sucesso da Greve Geral no Brasil contra o Golpe!Jornal Nacional teve de agasalhar a greve
Como dizia Camões, mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades...
O IBOPE Inteligência perguntou aos brasileiros o potencial de voto e a rejeição dos possíveis pré-candidatos à presidência da República nas eleições de 2018. Dentre os nomes pesquisados, o ex-presidente é o que possui o maior potencial de votos. Lula tem, hoje, um potencial de voto de 47% dos eleitores brasileiros: 30% dizem que votariam com certeza - o maior dentre todos os nomes pesquisados - e 17% declaram que poderiam votar nele para presidente em 2018. Na sequência, aparecem Marina Silva com 33% (9% com certeza votariam e 24% poderiam votar), José Serra com 25% (7% e 18%), Geraldo Alckmin com 22% (7% e 15%), Aécio Neves também com 22% (6% e 16%), Joaquim Barbosa com 24% (12% e 12%), Ciro Gomes com 18% (5% e 13%), Bolsonaro com 17% (8% e 9%) e João Doria com 16% (6% e 10%). Enquanto isso, o Francisco lembra os egípcios, e o mundo, que cristinaismo não rima com conflito
Inside Story: What can Pope Francis achieve in Egypt?
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