Aref Nammari (goplayer)'s blog/

The siege of Gaza continues and worsens. Fuel is cut-offand hospitals are running on emergency generators putting at risk the most vulnerable. All of this happens as the world sits watching genocide as it unfolds. Never again does not seem to apply to those in Gaza as they are seen as subhuman. When will the world be outraged? No matter what anyone thinks of any given organization, collective punishment against a whole population, 1.5 million in the case of Gaza, is a crime. How much more needs to happen before the "civilized" world wakes up?

electronicintifada.net/v2/article9241.shtml

For those in the UK:

End the Siege on Gaza

International Day of Action

Saturday 26^th January

4-6pm

Parliament, London

View a short film about the protest on the 12^th of January outside Downing Street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWhBC6hP6cM

Join us in protesting against Israel blocking desperately ill Palestinians from accessing medical treatment and its escalating military attacks on Gaza

Saturday 26 January, 4-6pm Parliament

We are particularly appealing to medical staff to join us in uniform to visibly express their opposition to Israel preventing Gazans from traveling for lifesaving medical treatment.

‘The human catastrophe deliberately inflicted on Gaza by western policies over the past two years is one of the great crimes of the century so far’. Jonathan Steele, Guardian 11 January.

Israel’s illegal, brutal siege of Gaza is tightening, restricting fuel and electricity, and preventing even medical supplies, food, essential construction materials and paper for UN schoolbooks from entering Gaza . With lethal military strikes being launched on Gaza , and Ehud Barak has warned that an Israeli invasion of Gaza is nearing.

Even those who desperately need medical treatment are prevented from leaving. Over 65 Palestinians have died as a direct result of Israel ’s prevention of access to medical treatment. Miri Weingarten from the Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said ‘ Israel intends and wishes to punish the general population in Gaza , and they're not hiding it -- in fact, they've stated it clearly.’

Dr Ahmed Abu Tawahineh, deputy director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, has pointed out that since last June, only a hundred patients have been allowed out of Gaza to seek treatment - less than 10 per cent of the more than 1,000 applicants.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported harrowing scenes of: 'a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, Ahmed Samut from Khan Yunis, and a nine-and-a-half-year-old girl, Sausan Jaafari, of Rafah, as they entered the Erez crossing alone, after being torn from the arms of their weeping parents. The two children have heart conditions and need urgent surgery to save their lives...The parents of the two children, both fathers and mothers, were not permitted by the Israel Defense Forces' coordination and liaison administration to accompany their children to the fateful surgery. They are "denied entry" to Israel. The fact that Sausan's parents had accompanied her to previous operations at Wolfson did not change the evil decree. It is indeed a decree of unparalleled evil. Only the elderly uncle of one of the children was allowed to go with them.' http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943343.html.

Collective punishment is being inflicted upon the Palestinians for voting for a government against the wishes of Israel , the US and the EU. Call on the British government to end its collusion with these policies, which are imprisoning Gazans and attempting to destroy their lives by limiting access to food, electricity, clean water supplies and medical treatment.

26 January has been declared a day of international solidarity. Join us in calling on our government to act to immediately lift the siege of Gaza . Join us in calling on our government to end the siege immediately!

details: www.palestinecampaign.org; www.endgazasiege.net;

View a short film about the 400 strong protest on the 12^th of January outside Downing Street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWhBC6hP6cM

For more information please visit www.palestinecampaign.org

***PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY***

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Dr Norman Finkelstein UK Speaking Tour

In Manchester, Keele, Cambridge, London, Sussex and Edinburgh

From 21^st to 25^th January.

Author of 'Image & Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict', 'The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering' and 'Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti Semitism and the Abuse of History'. He is the son of two Holocaust survivors and one of the world's foremost political scientists.

For full details and booking information please visit: http://tinyurl.com/2y7o2v

Monday 21 Jan

Manchester University 19:30 - 22:00
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Tuesday 22nd of January 2008
Keele University 12:00 - 13:15

University of Cambridge (evening)
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Wednesday 23 Jan 2008
London School of Economics 18:00 - 20:00
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Thursday 24 Jan 2008
University of Sussex 13:30 - 15:30
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Friday 25 Jan 2008
Edinburgh University 18:00 - 21:00

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Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London
WC1N 3XX

Tel:   020 7700 6192
Fax:  020 7609 7779

Email: info@palestinecampaign.org

Power to the (PALESTINIAN) people!


by Jeff Halper




_______________________________________________________________


AFP PHOTOS


The people of Palestinian have done it again, taking their own fate in their
hands after being let down by their own “moderate” political leadership and,
indeed, the entire international community in their struggle for freedom.
Early this morning they simply blew up the wall separating Gaza from Egypt ,
breaking a siege imposed on them by an Arab government in collaboration with
Israel .

We, the peoples of the world, should take great pride and encouragement in
this quintessentially civil society refusal to accept subjugation, to
abandon their fate to governments, including their own, for whom the lives
of ordinary people are simply grist for their political charades – Annapolis
and its subsequent “peace process” being but the last cynical expression.
For the Palestinians represent far more than just themselves. Their refusal
to submit to the dictates of governments, or to governments’ lack of
interest in the well-being of people in general, reflects the desire of
billions of oppressed people for identity, freedom, a decent life and
actualization of their collective and individual rights and potentials. Most
of the oppressed, the “wretched of the earth” as Franz Fanon called them a
half-century ago, are too preoccupied with the daunting daily struggle for
survival to organize and resist. Others do resist in a myriad of ways, but
are most often repressed by their own political and economic “leaders,”
disappearing anonymously from view. In a few cases they have managed to
mount effective resistance to oppression, even to prevail – though the
billions spent on “counterinsurgency” warfare by the US, Europe, Russia,
Israel and many “developing” nations augur ill for peoples attempting to
overthrow oppressive regimes.

In this the Palestinians stand at the forefront, in the front lines of
peoples’ insistence everywhere that their rights, well-being and fundamental
values as human beings be respected by governments. And they do so (and I
write this as an Israeli with great sorrow and shame) against one of the
world’s strongest and most ruthless military powers – a power that has
dispossessed them from 85% of their land, which is trying to transform its
occupation into a permanent regime of apartheid, which has spent decades
impoverishing and disenfranchising them; the fourth largest nuclear power
which nevertheless casts itself as the victim. Not only have the
Palestinians experienced the dehumanization all oppressed and colonized
peoples experience, not only have  they been made into the embodiment of the
rich and powerful’s greatest fear, evil “terrorists” who may tear down their
privileged “civilization,” but they have been turned into guinea pigs.
Israel is able to gain an edge in the counterinsurgency industry and win
entree into the heart of the American military/hi tech complex by turning
the Occupied Territories into a laboratory for the development of fiendish
weaponry and tactics intended for use against people.

And yet the Palestinian people – and in particular those who remain sumud,
steadfast, in Palestine – continue not only to resist but to surprise and
confound its would-be Israeli master at every turn. Despite unlimited
control, a complete monopoly over the use of force, utter callousness and a
vaunted Shin Beit, Israel ’s military intelligence, Palestinians vote as they
want, resist, carry on their daily lives with dignity – and blow huge holes
in the walls and policies constructed in order to imprison and defeat them.

All this is not on the minds of those desperate people who surged into Egypt
today. They may not have the “Big Picture.” Yet they deserve the respect and
gratefulness of every person who cherishes a better world based on human
rights and dignity, a world that is inclusive. As an Israeli Jew, I am
saddened and mortified that my own people, after all they have experienced,
cannot see what they are doing to others. But on a larger scale, not as an
Israeli Jew but as a human being, I take heart in the Palestinians’ active
refusal to be ground under a global system that is producing unimaginable
wealth and power for a few at the expense of the growing ranks of the
wretched.

I am not a Palestinian; I am not one of the oppressed. I only hope I can use
my privilege in an effective way in order to redeem the gift the people of
Gaza have given all of us: the realization that the people do have power and
can prevail even in the face of overwhelming power. We may each express our
responsibility towards the people of Gaza in whatever way most suits us, but
as the privileged we must do something. We owe the Palestinians and the
Palestinians writ large at least that.

_______________________________________________________________


Dr Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD,,,,)and until recently, was Professor of Anthropology at Ben
Gurion University in Israel . He has researched and written extensively on Israeli
society and is the author of the book “Between Redemption and Revival: the
Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century”, Westview, 1991.  His
works also focuses on the Israel/Palestine question and he has written
numerous articles and books on the subject. In 2006, he was nominated for
the Nobel Peace Prize along with Palestinian activist Ghassan Andoni for his
untiring work in organising and leading nonviolent direct action and civil
disobedience against Israel ’s occupation policies and authorities, putting
his own personal safety on the line.  His currently organises Israelis,
Palestinians and internationals to help rebuild demolished Palestinian
homes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQYHKILXD4k

Sara Thomsen

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb8Udga61bA