domingo, 28 de janeiro de 2018

Reality check on cultural boycott of Israel

In the growing tide of support for the cultural boycott of Israel, New Zealand music star Lorde's decision to cancel her Tel Aviv concert was precedent-setting in many ways.
Lorde cancelled the Israeli leg of her 2018 world tour only days after it was announced. With commendable modesty and openness to engage moral questions of our times, she welcomed appeals from her fans who are active in challenging Israel's oppression of Palestinians through Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
Exhibiting the political maturity of a truly "informed young citizen", she recognised why the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, including artists, have called on international cultural figures not to entertain apartheid Israel, and she acted on her conscience to make the "right call."
At 21, Lorde is arguably the first artist of her generation and calibre (she has won two Grammy awards), to cancel a performance in Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, she was "by far, the biggest contemporary name to announce a 2018 show in Israel."
Lorde's cancellation touched a raw nerve in Israel's regime of oppression, with the foreign ministry shifting to damage control mode. Their panic was apparent when the Israeli ambassador to New Zealand tweeted to Lorde a desperate public invitation for a meeting.
The ambassador's involvement is a clear signal that the Israeli government views these cultural events as part and parcel of its global public relations efforts to art-wash its regime of occupation, colonisation and apartheid against Palestinians, and to use culture as a propaganda tool to present Israel's "prettier face", as a senior Israeli official once admitted.
Lorde's cancellation is not the only source of cultural boycott anxiety for Israeli officials. In 2017 alone, many scheduled gigs in Tel Aviv were cancelled following appeals from Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights activists.
In April rapper Princess Nokia cancelled her headline performance at Kalamazoo festival in Tel Aviv, after calls from fans and campaigners. In August, eight artists cancelled appearances at the Pop-Kultur music festival in Berlin, including headline act Young Fathers, to protest the festival's partnership with the Israeli embassy.
Young Fathers, winners of the UK's Mercury Prize, wrote that they "support the principle of a peaceful solution that allows Palestinians the right to return to a safe homeland and that allows Israelis and Palestinians of all faiths (and none) to live together in peace."
Other artists who withdrew from Pop-Kultur included Finnish metal band Oranssi Pazuzu, Tunisian singer and songwriter Emel Mathlouthi, and Syrian rap band Mazzaj. Thurston Moore, who performed at the festival in 2016, tweeted his supportof the artists' boycott of the 2017 edition and called on the organisers to end Israel's sponsorship.
Chilean-American-Palestinian producer and composer Nicolas Jaar performed in a Palestinian venue in Haifa, in accordance with BDS guidelines.
The French duo Acid Arab, who had in the past performed in Tel Aviv, announced in November that they would heed the cultural boycott of Israel: "We were naive enough to think that our musical project could break barriers… We refuse to lend our names to a regime of occupation… We will never undermine the non-violent Palestinians struggle for freedom, justice, equality and peace."
Also in November, Olof Dreijer of Swedish duo The Knife announced that he had declined an offer to DJ in Tel Aviv: "Palestinians living under military occupation and apartheid are denied their basic rights. I've been to Palestine myself and seen the effects of the occupation with my own eyes. As long as this goes on, I will not perform in Israel."
British singer-songwriter Rag'n'Bone Man tweeted that his scheduled Tel Aviv concert had been cancelled, following BDS calls, with many fans and human rights advocates thanking him for his decision.
US hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis also cancelled their scheduled concert in Tel Aviv due to "an unexpected change of schedule", as their producers said at the time. While there is no evidence that this cancellation was related to Palestinian rights or BDS, some Israeli commentators said it was a silent boycott, linking it to the considerable "controversy" that inevitably erupts whenever international celebrities cross the Palestinian BDS picket line by agreeing to perform in Tel Aviv or in Israeli-sponsored events.
Radiohead and Nick Cave did cross the peaceful Palestinian picket line and performed in Tel Aviv earlier this year. Yet, the raving endorsements of both bands by the Israeli government and its lobby groups around the world demonstrated what the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has been saying all along: "Playing in Tel Aviv is never simply about music," it is "a political and moral decision to stand with the oppressor against the oppressed."
Lorde's decision is not surprising given her progressive position on women's rights, racial justice and xenophobia. It is perhaps part of a growing trend of stars taking a stand on human rights causes including police brutality, indigenous and environmental rights, and sexual assault.
Her cancellation shatters the myth Israel has created and propagated through years of smear tactics, political intimidation and a well-oiled propaganda machine, that standing for Palestinian rights will kill an international celebrity's career. Lorde, Lauryn Hill, Michael Bennet, Naomi Klein, Brian Eno, Ken Loach, Mira Nair, Roger Waters, Miriam Margolyes, Mark Ruffalo, Viggo Mortensen, and many other conscientious cultural figures are bravely and resoundingly putting this myth to rest.
The Jerusalem Post stated that with Lorde's cancellation, Israel has "lost a generation". It is, in fact, losing the support of a generation, including  younger Jewish-Americans, that is distancing itself from Israel's decades-old system of injustice and brutal oppression against the Palestinian people.
With Lorde's morally consistent position, our world is gaining a principled and engaged generation, undeterred by intimidation and unafraid to heed the calls of the oppressed from Myanmar, to Yemen, to Palestine and well beyond.


Meanwhile,  25 artists and public figures wrote a letter to expresse“horror” over President Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, saying on Thursday that “The real target of this lethal attack is the Palestinian people themselves,” the group said in a joint statement. “It has been launched with the clear aim of dismantling their rights, by dismantling the institution that is charged with protecting them.”
Trump this month dared to blame the Palestinians for the deadlock of Peace Talks and threatened to cut U.S. funding. Washington subsequently suspended a $65 million payment to UNRWA, the U.N. agency that provides education, health care and other social services to over 5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants scattered across the Middle East.
The letter was released by the  Hoping Foundation, a London-based group that assists Palestinian children, as following: We wish to express our horror at the unprecedented attack on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by US President Donald Trump. This UN institution was set up almost 70 years ago specifically to protect, and provide urgently required humanitarian relief, to Palestinian refugees. So the real target of this lethal attack is the Palestinian people themselves. It has been launched with the clear aim of dismantling their rights, by dismantling the institution that is charged with protecting them.
UNRWA was established in 1949 by the UN General Assembly, to safeguard the Palestinian victims of the 1948 war, after their country and society were destroyed, and the majority made refugees. The United Nations recognises the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people; the same rights afforded to all peoples of the world. We wish to highlight here the fact that Palestinians’ human rights include their internationally recognised rights as a people. These rights are inherent, so cannot be removed by brute force, or alienated from them. 
2017 closed with the US President’s announcement of his intention to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, ripping up the internationally recognised rights of Palestinians to their land, while attempting to impose a ‘peace plan' that destroys all hope for peace. 2018 opens with President Trump's new attempt to force Palestinians to accept this grossly unfair ‘deal’, by threatening and endangering the international agency responsible for their basic needs as refugees. It is repellent to us that such tactics are being used in the 21st century, in direct contradiction of international law, and to human decency. Demanding the surrender of basic human rights, and from a people without a country to protect them, is truly shocking to witness.
Directly threatened by this American funding cut are millions of Palestinian refugees: more than half a million children in over 700 UN schools; primary health care for mothers, infants, and the sick; those requiring urgent emergency food assistance especially in Gaza and Syria.
We stand for dignity for the most vulnerable, and we stand with Palestinian refugees who are facing a terrible moment. We call on the UN Secretary General to immediately convene a conference that can establish a stable funding system in order to protect UNRWA’s vital work. Peoples across the world have always supported the Palestinian struggle for freedom, and understand that Palestinian refugees - the most vulnerable - are the key to hope, and to any chance of a peaceful future.
Signatories:Alfonso Cuarón; Andrew O’Hagan; Antony Gormley; Bella Freud; Brian Eno; Claire Foy; David Morrissey; Emma Thompson; Eric Cantona; Esther Freud; Gary Lineker; Gillian Anderson; Hanif Kureishi; Hugh Grant; James Fox; Jemima Khan; Karma Nabulsi; Ken Loach; Laura Bailey; Livia Firth; Mary McCartney; Olivia Wilde; Paul Laverty; Peter Gabriel; Peter Kosminsky; Robert Del Naja; Stephen Frears; Steve Coogan; Tilda Swinton; Tracey Emin; Vanessa Kirby; Viggo Mortensen; Will Self.
#FundUNRWA #DignityIsPriceless /  www.unrwa.org 
On Thursday, Trump said in Davos, Switzerland, that the Palestinians must return to peace talks to receive U.S. aid money.
The United States is the largest single donor to UNRWA, and the agency has launched a global fund-raising appeal in hopes of closing the gap. In all, it provides hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the Palestinians.
“We stand for dignity for the most vulnerable, and we stand with Palestinian refugees who are facing a terrible moment,” the statement said. The celebrities called on the U.N. chief to convene a conference to establish a stable funding system for the agency.
Meanwhile, the leaders of 21 international humanitarian groups urged the U.S. to reconsider its decision to withhold the funding to UNRWA, warning of “dire consequences” if funding is cut.
The groups said they are alarmed by the Trump administration’s link between aid and political objectives.
It is good they spoke up. They can also boycott Israel, like those below.


I boycott Israel
Boycott Israel: People and Power


Speaking of Spielberg's zionism, above, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld drew criticism earlier this month when it emerged that while in Israel to perform in Tel Aviv, the famous comedian visited an air force base and took his family to a tourist attraction in the occupied West Bank for ideological and military instruction.
Caliber 3, the Israeli firm that runs what Israeli newspaper Haaretz calls an “anti-terror fantasy camp” boasted about the Seinfeld family’s patronage in a Facebook post on 7 January.
“Finally we are allowed to tell you!! The legendary Jerry Seinfeld and his family were at Caliber 3 during their visit to Israel last week, they came to us for shooting training with displays of combat, Krav Maga [martial arts], assault dogs and lots of Zionism,” the post – which has since been deleted – said, according to Haaretz.
Currently located in the settlement of Efrat, Caliber 3 says it was founded in 2002 by Colonel Sharon Gat and “works in close cooperation” with the Israeli army.
Seinfeld was not the first high-profile American entertainer to receive Israeli military training-as-tourism.
In this June 2017 report, Israel’s Channel 10 noted that the veteran American rock band Aerosmith had recently taken a course with Caliber 3:The report features a photograph of the band’s lead guitarist Joe Perry posing with a machine gun, surrounded by Caliber 3 instructors wearing Israeli army fatigues.
The video also reveals that the training courses include live weapons fire on targets designed to look like Palestinians and simulated armed combat in faux Palestinian villages.
Reinforcing anti-Palestinian narrative
For millions of Palestinians, Israel’s military is an occupying army that prevents their refugee relatives from returning home, crushes almost every aspect of their lives and regularly kills, maims and imprisons them and their children with impunity.
There are, for instance, currently 350 Palestinian children in Israeli military custody.
Israel’s supporters, however, believe that the sectarian army’s seven decades of experience are evidence of its acumen and claim it is one of the most effective and moral fighting forces in the world.
Like Spielberg, Seinfeld’s antics embody a stream of American liberalism that abhors guns and the gun culture at home, but glorifies Israeli militarism and violence whose targets are Palestinians.

PALESTINA

Ahed Tamini is still in prison / Ahed continua presa

Empire Files: Israeli Army vet: "I was the terrorist"



Israeli occupation forces have already killed
three 16-year-old unarmed Palestinians in 2018: 
Musab Tamimi
Ameer Abu Musaed,
Ali Qino




LIFE UNDER OCCUPATION in Hebron
There is a checkpoint next to my house. It determines my life’s routine. It is a source of constant worry: whenever my children are on their way home from school or to another place, I’m worried. I want to travel, to sit on the beach, to visit Al Aqsa and my family in Jerusalem. But because of the checkpoints, I can’t. Sometimes it takes hours to cross the checkpoint. I just sit and lean against the grates. — Kharbiyeh Marwani, Hebron.


OCHA  





Political Tourism in Jérusalem

BRASIL - DIRETAS, JÁ!

domingo, 21 de janeiro de 2018

Israel & USA vs Palestine: Dangerous "peace plan" to formalize occupation


The US peace plan on which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was reportedly briefed earlier this month, and to which he was responding in his recent enraged speech against Israel and the White House, was leaked this week on Israeli televison on Friday.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat presented Abbas with a 92-page document outlining the peace plan being formulated by the United States, that would include a number of measures previously rejected by the Palestinians. Erekat is said to have urged Abbas to reject the plan outright.
The plan reportedly calls for overall security responsibility for the West Bank to remain with Israel, with an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley and in key West Bank vantage points. The Palestinian state would be demilitarized with a strong police force, but Israel would maintain ultimate military control. Just like now.
It would also see the establishment of a Palestinian capital in Abu Dis, outside Jérusalem, with Israel (supposedly) maintaining freedom of worship for all religions at Jerusalem holy sites under its control.
Under this new US "peace plan", Israel would retain 10 percent of the West Bank, although the final borders between an Israeli and Palestinian state would be worked out between the two sides. It did not say which specific areas of the West Bank Israel would keep, though Israel has long maintained that settlement blocs should be part of the country under any future peace deal.
Trump would announce his support for Israeli annexation of 10% of the territory within months. Israel was said to have requested 15%, but was refused.
A timetable would be set for negotiations, though no deadline would be given for an Israeli military withdrawal from the West Bank once a deal was reached: the pace of an Israeli pullout would be determined by the Palestinians’ ability to maintain security.
As part of the deal, the Palestinians would receive control of certain sections of Ben Gurion Airport and the ports of Ashdod and Haifa, although security control would remain with Israel. Furthermore, the sides would establish regular passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — under Israeli control.
Regarding the Palestinian right of return, the US proposal speaks of a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees that would see them settled in a Palestinian state, without the option to live in Israel.
Countries would recognize Israel as the “national home of the Jewish people,” while a Palestinian state would be the “national home of the Palestinian people.”
Fortunately, Erekat urged Abbas to reject the deal out of hand, saying it was an attempt by the US to “impose dictates” regarding its vision for a peace deal.
“We have no reason to wait for an American plan that in practice will keep the status quo in place and give American legitimacy to settlements while establishing an eternal autonomy” rather than a full-fledged state, Erekat would have written in his briefing.
Following the bad reaction of the international community to this plant that formalizes the occupation,  White House officials denied the report and said that the Palestinians should not base their reactions to the Trump plan on them. They said they continued to work on a plan that would serve both sides’ interests. Which can't be true at all.
The worst part of it is that Saoudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan might support the US agaisnt the Palestinians and push for an unilateral deal that hurt them to the core. 

On the other hand, thanks to the leak of this new "peace plan", Palestine’s weak, spineless leader Mahmoud Abbas, has secured a vote to rescind Palestinian recognition of Israel. It was only a year ago that he declared an end to ‘security cooperation’, and then proceeded with business as usual. The decision on Israeli recognition will probably be the same.
Some members of the international community, which once in a great while notices the abject suffering of the Palestinians (not that it cares to do much about it), and recognizes that Israel is in violation of numerous international laws, provided some tepid reaction, ranging from ‘unhelpful’ (France) to ‘completely understandable’ (Russia).
There are a variety of questions this latest, non-binding ‘decision’ raises, and we will look at a few of them.
. Why did Palestine ever recognize its brutal occupier without demanding the same concession from Israel? Doing so gives some legitimacy to the occupation, and of all the countries that shouldn’t in any way imply that, Palestine is at the top of the list. Of course, since the U.S. has for decades called the shots, supported Israel and oppressed Palestine, it’s likely that Palestine had little choice in the matter.
. Why wouldn’t a country be able to withdraw its recognition of another country? Circumstances change, and while it may not be something that can be done easily or quickly, when one nation is in serious violation of international law, over a period of decades, has an apartheid system of government and refuses to be a part of any international monitoring of its nuclear capability, other nations would seem to have good reason to withdraw their official recognition.
. Why is Mahmoud Abbas still in the picture? Palestine is years past the time for scheduled elections, which would surely put the aged, traitorous, incompetent Israeli puppet out to pasture. The U.S., of course, while it hypocritically proclaims its support for the self-determination of people everywhere, works to prevent such an election, since Hamas would, in all likelihood, win in a landslide. And if not Hamas, some other party that won’t toe the U.S.-Israel line. The victorious party would be one that, for the first time in years, has the needs and desires of the Palestinians at heart, rather than one that would kowtow to the demands of Palestine’s brutal occupier and its cruel enabler.
Preventing foreign elections, if their outcome cannot be pre-determined to be in the U.S.’s favor, is not something with which the U.S. government has no experience. Once very specific case in point will suffice to demonstrate this fact.
In 1954, as the French were attempting, quite unsuccessfully, to hang on to Vietnam as a colony, the Geneva Accords agreement was signed that divided Vietnam into a Communist north, and a non-Communist south. The Accords provided for elections to be held in 1956, which would have been a referendum on reunification. These elections were boycotted by the south, at the urging of the U.S. In the memoirs of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he wrote that if the elections had been held in 1956, “Ho Chi Minh (the Communist leader of the North), would have gotten 80 percent of the vote.” Allowing people to determine their own leadership is only permitted if the U.S. likes that leadership.
The U.S.’s stated support for the will of the people has always been a myth. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson said that “Every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live.” Wilson’s Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, was deeply troubled by such statements. “In his private notes he wrote that it (the concept of self-determination) was loaded with dynamite, might breed disorder, discontent and rebellion. His neat, logical mind saw it leading the President into strange contradictions. ‘Will not the Mohammedans of Syria and Palestine and possibly of Morocco and Tripoli rely on it? How can it be harmonized with Zionism, to which the President is practically committed?’”
Palestinians in the West Bank, unarmed and unprotected, know that when Palestinian law enforcement officers are not on the scene, they can expect IDF terrorists to invade their homes, business, mosques and schools, arresting and terrorizing anyone they encounter, and killing innocent, defenseless men, women and children. This is known, in the peculiar parlance of Israel and Abbas, as ‘security cooperation’. Palestinians can’t throw stones, but Israelis can shoot to kill.
This is the policy that, a year ago, Abbas said he would no longer respect. Much like U.S. politicians, his words are meaningless; Palestinians in the West Bank continue to be harassed, killed, demoralized, held without charge for months or years at a time, regardless of age, all with the willing assistance of their so-called leader. Any election in Palestine would bring an end to this ‘security cooperation’.
The moves that Abbas says he’ll make, but doesn’t, could be game-changers for the Palestinians.
If Fatah’s law enforcement personnel spent their time opposing Israel, rather than working with it, the civil disobedience would quickly reach a boiling point that the international community would have to address. If he withdraws recognition of Israel, even the very threat of doing so may motivate other nations to agree to recognize Palestine, if it maintains recognition of the apartheid state.
But these are moves that would benefit the Palestinian people, and Abbas has proved repeatedly, over a period of several years, that that is the least of his concerns.
What comes next?
With the U.S. tightening the screws on the coffin of Palestine, and Israel busy digging the grave, one looks in vain for significant help from the leaders of the international community. The greatest hope lies with the rank-and-file members of that community, the people who are ever expanding the boycott, divestment and sanctioning (BDS movement) of Israel. The U.S. and other countries futilely attempt to outlaw such actions (in the U.S. completely disregarding the Constitution), while Israel spends millions of dollars to counteract the economic and reputational consequences of BDS.
Unfortunately, in the near-term, this changes nothing for the Palestinians; in Gaza, they are still locked in the world’s largest open-air prison, and in the West Bank, they continue to suffer from the brutal actions of IDF terrorists and settler terrorists. People of conscience and humanity the world over must increase their efforts; the very existence of the nation of Palestine depends on it.

The big lie about Gaza