Who is organizing this demo??.................

For all we know it's a bunch of fascists linking with their sick leaders recent comments
about Islam and rape.

Sorry, i have israel bashing to do instead.

1 is right. Gurning in front of Marks and Spencers is much more fun than campaigning against real human rights violations. Shame on you for trying to draw attention away from our fight against the Jews.

Well, I just spent a week raising money for the Sudan appeal by selling fair trade goods at a festival, and then yesterday I went to a meeting about how the Israelis killed so many Palestinians and demolished so many homes in May.

So you see, the two are not mutually exclusive. Human rights violations are human rights violations. Saying, 'well they're doing it, therefore so can we', is not a moral position, and it is of special relevance to the West if you're doing it with the weapons we gave you and the money we sent you.

Sudan has turned into the biggest humanitarian disaster in the world presently, where are the peace-keeping troops?!?! In Iraq, carrying out an illegal and brutal occupation, committing torture, and sowing the seeds of civil war for years to come.
I don't think sanctions on Sudan will work, as it is such a poor country, it will only hurt the civilians more, it could be even more damaging than the sanctions on Iraq were. The only solution is UN peace-keeping troops to keep the two sides apart from each other.

But realistically will that happen? I don't think any country is in any mood to send troops anywhere at the moment. Iraq has been such a disaster and a drain, and the UN has been damaged almost beyond repair. The money people have been raising for Sudan is a temporary relief, but it's not sustainable. Chad, where the refugees have fled to, is a very poor country, with its own history of civil war, and I'm uncertain how an influx of 2 million refugees will affect it. The refugees need to return to their homes in Sudan. And only the UN can facilitate that...

Hermes, I protest both for Palestine and for the rights of people in Darfur - there are clear connections.

In Palestine, we have to support the right of genocidal Muslim maniacs to blow up small kuffar children with rockets, or machine gun pregnant kuffar women to death.

In Darfur, we have to support the right of genocidal Muslim maniacs to decapitate small kuffar children with machetes, or brutally rape kuffar women.

Are you a kuffar, Hermes? Because you will be next.

Hi dirty,

glad to see your true racist colours shining. When you can't resort to reason, you have to resort to threats. For the past months I haven't seen one zionist post that has been a reasoned argument, because I guess the argument has been long lost, and all you can do is resort to spam tactics and stupid comments.
This lack of coherence is a bit sad, to be honest. While your mind is clouded by hatred, many of us are very clear in what we want. One world in which all people live together in peace, one land for both the Israeli's and the Palestinians to live in together.
I'd like to see you offer anything except hatred and lies...

... obviously the answer to the unfinished question is no ...

but to finish the question 'do the zionist trolls really think' that by posting obviously racist/xenophobic articles and then making childish and meaningless replies, that they will somehow change the attitude of humanists?

Does the existance of such crimes and affronts to humanity that are taking place in Sudan give them a right to lump all muslims and all muslim sentiments into one?

Where any fool to try and link, say the deliberate policy of shooting children in Palestinian refugee camps dead with single bullets to the head or the heart to the destruction and vilification of, say, frech jews, then rightly they would be cast aside as the racist/xenophobic fools they are. The fact that those making similar claims against muslims think that it is legitimate shows how far thier thinking has been pollutted with notions of superiority.

The crimes taking place in Sudan are complicated and not as black and white as the headline grabbing sound bite reports so far issued on this site (with the obvious attempt to smear Arabs and muslims alike). In fact such attitudes are deeply offensive, not only do those suffering from such injustice have to deal with its consequences, but now they have to endure their suffering being hijacked by those completely disinterested in relieving it.

There is no barrel low enough not to be scraped in defence of the indiffensible.

Take your zionist racist filth and shove it, we are not putting up with it here or anywhere else.

The people of Sudan, Palestine and the world deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and equality. That is what the fight is about. Not about ensuring a racially/ethnically/religiously pure state for some and exploitation and diminutive rights for the rest. If there are some that think otherwise, let them say so simply and without the disingenous whining that has been displayed here on this thread.

How ever it is dressed up, it is disgusting and actually obvious to the majority of people who will come across it. I can't imagine how stupid one has to be to imagine otherwise.

Hermes and Jack don’t seem to get it.

The protest referred to in the article was to take place on a Thursday, the same day as a Pro Palestinian picket in Oxford Street. As the VTI people muster as much strength as they can from left leaning individuals and groups, the protest about Sudan will be neglected.

And why is it that Black Africa does not receive the same attention as the Palestinian issue? The humanitarian crisis in Sudan deserves urgent attention as hundreds of thousands of civilians are being murdered and made refugees by state sanctioned militias. IT IS THE MOST URGENT HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THE WORLD TODAY.

However, attention is still drawn to Israel. Journalists are given juicy stories about this and that, special pieces about Palestinians made refugees over 50 years ago. Political groups use the Middle East as a tool to muster political support. Black Africa simply doesn’t have popular appeal. Just look at Rwanda, nobody cared about the genocide that took place. “Tribal war” they called it.

If the Palestinians were black then I don’t believe they would receive as much attention as they are currently enjoying.

Darfur is extremely serious. So stop trying to make political capital for zionism out of a human catastrophe, stop trolling newswires and get out there and organise!

The palestine mobilisations may be larger than the darfur ones, but then there has been decades of organising on the issue of palestine whereas Darfur is an emerging crisis, at least in the conciousness of westerners.

There does need to be more widespread mobilisations against human rights violations, whoever the perpertrator. Another factor behind the scale of mobilisations is the degree of complicity of our own government - I gurantee you that if the British government was supplying equipment for terrorist attacks to Hamas there would be big demonstrations attended by many who also march against Britain's support for Israeli state terror.

Its not an either or. Frankly, using the tragedy in darfur to further zionist goals is sickening. Human rights are a universal concept, something incompatible with the segregative nationalism of zionism. If you truly care for human rights, stop your nationalist bleating and start helping those who are already organising . . .

Humanist,

I understand your points. However, let us not be naive by thinking that only recently have the west opened its eyes to human rights abuses in Sudan and other parts of Africa. Sudan is not just Darfur, human rights abuses have been synonymous with Sudan for many years now. And why is it that the western media has only opened its eyes to Darfur? Because black Africans being killed is not a juicy story.

I am not trying to make political capital for Zionism no. However, whilst human rights abusers must be demonstrated against, Israel has become a soft target for those wishing to vent their anger to the point of neglect on other issues, often more pressing and dangerous in scale and nature.

“Another factor behind the scale of mobilisations is the degree of complicity of our own government”

- Don’t be silly. Its political capital that can be gained by mobilizing against an issue that is dominated by press and media coverage. ie Iraq War, Afghan War, Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The black south africans got plenty of attention from us, and the same people involved in the anti-apartheid campaign are involved in the campaign for Palestine. But there is a race issue involved. What makes Israel/Palestine an issue is that the West are directly involved in it, and it is essentially white Europeans and Americans carrying out the oppression of the Palestinians, like in South Africa, backed by huge amounts of US funding.
But perhaps more importantly, the issue of Palestine has direct effect on our lives. I got involved in the issue after September 11th, and this bogus 'War on Terror' we've got involved in has its solution in solving the issue of the middle-east. We are directly involved in this oppression like no other, except now our own occupation in Iraq, and therefore we are in a good position to stop it. The momentum has been built up over the past few years and it's not going to stop until the occupation is over, and the Jews and Palestinians live together in peace.

Why organise a demonstration at the same time as another demonstration, and then complain that the people at one didn't turn up to the other? On your part, that complaint is a deliberate attempt to use the suffering of another people to take the pressure off Israel, which I find manipulative and not very helpful to those who are suffering.

I have Sudanese friends, one of whom is a Black Muslim, now living in Egypt, who fled the country for political reasons, and from what I understand from him the situation is complicated. Economically, the Sudan has the potential to be one of the richest countries in Africa, but constant civil war and economic mis-management has kept it poor. The religious conflict was mainly between the North and South, which has it's roots form when a religious leader declared himself the Mahdi, ( like the messiah ), and set about waging a jihad against the egyptian/turkish rulers, then the British, then the Christians in the south. However, peace moves have been made towards the south now, and the conflict in Darfur is not about religion. It is an escalation of conflicts that existed between rival nomadic groups.

A very good explanation can be found here
 http://www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darf.htm

The conflict is definately one of the most pressing humanitarian disasters. So is the situation in Gaza at the moment. So lets keep trying to understand and solve these situations.

My point was related to press attention to conflicts and human rights abuses. Indeed South Africa received attention but why? Because it was a white oppressing blacks issue. In the case of other black nations such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo/Zaire, Liberia, Haiti, and even Zimbabwe (don’t get me started), when more complex situations are present, there is little to no media attention and little to no mobilization.

And lets talk about Gaza and lets talk about the West Bank and what is not talked about on television and in the press. Recently there are reports about political turmoil in Gaza and Palestinian corruption. But how many know the true scale of the corruption? We are not talking about simply cronyism here or taking a few dollars from international donations. The Palestinian Authority in Gaza has run extortion rackets on Palestinians, double taxing their produce (by use of force) and destroying the livelihood of Palestinians. And this occurred well before 2000 and the start of the intifada. From 1994 the income of Palestinians has steadily decreased as a direct result of Palestinian Authority corruption who run Gaza like a Mafioso crime syndicate. This is a major reason for the growing popularity of Hamas who appear to be clean.

In Bethlehem in the West Bank there has been ethnic cleansing of Christians since 2000. Many have been expelled from their homes by Palestinian militants and Muslims are favoured for housing grants in Bethlehem, a city that is incorrectly still called a Christian city. Soon Bethlehem will no longer have Christian majority.

So Hermes, don’t worry about Jews and Palestinians living together. Worry about Palestinians living together. And as Israel’s Jewish majority are Jews from Arab countries (not white) expelled from their homes, it can not really be compared to South Africa.

Lets worry about where out tax money goes when it is given to the Palestinian Authority.

In fact lets promote human rights everywhere in the world and not look towards soft targets for political gains.

The recent political turmoil in Gaza springs up mainly from when the Israeli army went into Gaza and demolished hundreds of homes, and the PA failed to act to look after the homeless. Feeling between Hamas and the PA have always been tense in Gaza, and the recent troubles have only made this division worse. But then, that was the purpose of Hamas, which was set up in Israel, initially to provide a counter to the secular PLO.

I visited the town of Qalqilia, which has been surrounded by a big wall, with just the one checkpoint leading in and out, and one of the striking things about being there was just how frustrated the people were there, and how this frustration started to manifest itself as distrust towards each other. Surround people with a concrete wall, or effectively put 2 million people in a giant prison like in Gaza, and you are going to get unrest like we are seeing at the moment. It has to do with the corruption of the PA, for sure, but mostly it has to do with the effects of illegal occupation, house demolitions, destruction of sanitation, random killings perpetrated by the Israeli army. If Israel gave the Palestinians some space to breath, then perhaps these problems could be addressed, but as it is, it is impossible to do anything while under militiary occupation and apartheid.

DO you realise the extent of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza at the moment? During the May incursions, much of the sewage system was destroyed, and thousands of people were made homeless. I would not be surprised if epidemics of disease will come next.

The zionist project was primarily a white european effort, and has consistently been led by that cross-section of Israeli society, and funded by white Americans and Europeans. The oppression of the Palestinians comes directly from our funds and support. That is why it gets the attention it does. A boycott of Israeli products will have a direct effect on the situation, in the same way the boycott of South Africa did.
In the case of China/Tibet, I think a boycott could also be effective, but it is a much stronger power, it doesn't have the direct support of the West like Israel has, and the actions we take are less effective.

In the case of Sudan, the action taken has to be different. It is not as though the Sudanese government has complete control over the situation in the country, although it is definatly complicit in what is happening. But to boycott Sudan, or worse impose sanctions, will only make the conditions in this third world country even worse, and increase the conflict. That's why I think peace keepers are the only solution, to be honest.

And Zion 1, true the PA is corrupt. Politicians are corrupt. That doesn't legitimise the occupation, it just adds another layer of suffering to the misery of the palestinian population.

Qalqilia is not in Gaza so you should have made that clear.

“Breathing space” was given to the Palestinians in 1993 in the form of the Oslo accords and it was during this period especially after 1994 when Arafat’s comrades returned from Tunis and given positions in the newly established PLO that corruption became rife. Economically, the Palestinians had suffered ever since.

This is not a consequence of occupation. To say this is an over simplification of a complex problem, one that you seem to have no grasp on. Hamas and the PA have not only recently been battling. The first Intifada, especially in its later stages, was marred by inter Palestinian fighting between Hamas and the PLO. In addition the PA has been engaged with gun battles between Hamas militants on many occasions. The problem reached crisis point in late 2001.

“The zionist project was primarily a white European effort, and has consistently been led by that cross-section of Israeli society, and funded by white Americans and Europeans.”

-get out of her with that silly logic. Funds were raised by Jews for Jews and not by American or European governments who saw Zionism as a threat because at the time Zionists had Bolshevik tendencies. And calling it a white European effort degrades the second class position of Jews in Europe during the rise of Zionism. Indeed, Jews were not allowed to feel very European and were a nation onto themselves some white, some not.

Peacekeepers in Sudan? I agree with you, and aid must be monitored so that it gets to where it is needed.

WARNING: any implied criticism of the PA, as just and fair as it may be, is likely to get you beaten up by the hardcore of vicious and rabid pro-Palestinian thugs that frequent UK anti-Israel protests.

Ask Outrage!. Outrage! isn't evenly remotely Zionist, but the moment they dared to widen the discussion beyond 'KILL ALL JEWS' to include mention of the PA's horrific abuse of Palestinians - accompanied by much harsher criticism of Israel - the intimidation from the blinkered and violent Pali hardcore started.

"vicious and rabid pro-Palestinian thugs that frequent UK anti-Israel protests"

Have you any evidence for this slur? I frequent UK 'anti-israel protests'. I have taken part in numerous direct actions against suppliers of the IDF. I have not once seen pro-palestinian demonstrators being 'thugs', 'vicious' or 'rabid' - though I have been assaulted by Marks and Spencer security and verbally abused by confused zionists.

I have only encountered one palestinian sympathiser, though not an activist or demonstration attender, who is a staunch supporter of the PLO/PA. She's an old-school Marxist and thinks Castro's great too - but she's the exception, not the rule. In fact many activists I have met are either anarchists or deeply cynical about politicians of any variety, and certainly wouldn't unduly defend a corrupt politico like Arafat.

As I understand it the specifics of the Outrage! incident at the PSC rally are disputed, but of course Outrage! make a good point and it is wrong for people to try and silence them, if that is what happened. As to the notion the agenda is 'KILL ALL JEWS', you are certainly mistaken. *Once* I was talking to a palestinian man who was sounding anti-semitic saying 'the jews are causing our misery' and similar. I questioned him, and he explained that in palestine the words Israeli, Jew and Hebrew are often used interchangably by Palestinians *and* Israeli soldiers alike (even Sharon says things like 'we the jewish people') and so in english he meant to say 'the israelis are causing our misery' - a perfectly valid opinion from someone who has lived under occupation. That is the nearest to antisemitism I have come across within the pro-palestine movement.


As to Sudan, peacekeepers are probably the best course of action . . . although a bunch of confused US/UK soldiers who don't speak the lingo are more likely to kick off a serious multilateral conflict between various ethnic, tribal and religious parties who would see the return of the imperialist powers. That could make the refugee crisis worse, as in Kosovo, where the NATO bombing triggered an exodus of refugees and the now infamous massacres by serb forces (and less well known ones by the KLA). Perhaps african peacekeepers would be better, with the US/UK providing funds and offering logistical support and training? Its a real rock-hard place situation, but looking at the ways the US/UK armies are acting in Iraq i wouldn't fancy them telling the difference between the various factions in a complex civil war and thus making the situation still worse . . .

I very much know the roots of Hamas. It was originally set up precisely for the reason of fighting the secular PLO, and it was funded by Israel.

ORIGINS OF HAMAS

It is not a well known fact, but it will not surprise those who know anything about the history of the Taliban in Afghanistan, that Israel in many ways initially created this monster but later lost control over it.

Richard Sale, a UPI Correspondent, wrote an illuminating article on the origin of Hamas in which he pointed out that, "According to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years."

Israel "aided Hamas directly ‑ the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.

According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War.

After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees in the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movement's success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many who were living on the edge of poverty.

"Social influence grew into political influence, first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank", said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association with the name of Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers through religious propaganda and social work.

According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel itself. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran.

"The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named. "Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said.

According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said." (Published on the June 18, 2002)


I cited Qalqilia as an example of what surrounding people with walls and effectively imprisoning them does. Qalqilia is on the West Bank, not Gaza, and it used to have very close ties with Israel, and from what I understand from the people there, some quite close friendships with Israelis as well. The wall has changed all that, and sown greater seeds of hatred and distrust.
The people in Gaza live in a giant prison and no nothing else but the misery of militiary occupation. A kid growing up there, all he knows about a Jew is the soldier who shot his friend, and demolished his families house. They cannot go to the sea, it is difficult to leave and visit other countries and cultures. What do you think that will do to the mindset of these people? That is the point I want to make.

We may have to go to a completely different thread to carry on about Oslo. But in any case, I believe the 2-state solution to be inherently unworkable, and that only by working towards one country for both people's will provide any sort of security for the region. During Oslo, Palestine essentially became a state dependent on Western money and upon Israel for work, because the West Bank and Gaza is simply not the foundation for a workable state. For the PA to have gone down that route was a mistake. To be honest, I think they chose that option, thinking that in the future they would be in a position to fight for the rest of their historic lands. So you see, that with 2 states, there is always going to be the threat of renewed violence, because for the Palestinian to accept that solution is still to accept an injustice done against them. You know that any Palestinian state would essentially be dependent on Israel for employment, for example. Why beat around the bush, it would essentially be the same country, with one ethnic group living with less rights than another, providing a source of cheap labour.

But with one state, both people's can live wherever they like in Israel/Palestine, with equal rights, which also solves the problems of the enormous settlements. And the idea of Palestinians living in Israel is not unprecedented. During Oslo, many used to work there, and could rent out flats. Going back to South Africa, the whites were terrified of reprisals by the blacks. This has not happened, and if done sensitively and sincerely in Israel/Palestine, it would not happen there.

Anyway, this thread is about to disappear. I hope you read this post before it goes. But know that I don't attack Israel because I just hate Israel or Jews or something like that. I sincerely want a solution to this problem, like I hope you do, and I believe a one-state solution to be the only one, and in many ways this is contrary to the aims of zionism, which wants to seperate the people, to maintain a Jewish majority. Yet I believe this to be far more harmful to the Jewish people, to surround them in a huge fortress with an enormous army and suspicious, hostile neighbours, than to aim for a goal in which the Jews and the Palestinians live together, as one, in peace.

Einstien believed in zionism, but of a cultural and spiritual manner, the re-vitalisation of the Jewish spirit, but when it came to the issue of a state
"I should much rather see a reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain."

What you did not mention about Hamas is that it is divided. It has a political wing and a terrorist wing. Hamas when first established, was a political organisation that centred itself on relief and educational projects in the Palestinian territories. It was particularly strong in Gaza.

Israel helped to establish Hamas because 1. Palestinians needed an alternative to Fatah and the PLO who had hegemony over the Palestinian politics. A second force was needed to create balance and represent the divergent (very divergent) views of Palestinians. 2. Their aid system was needed, as aid was provided to Palestinians from Palestinians and therefore much more affective.

Hamas gained popularity and during the first intifada, its launching of its military wing gave it unprecedented popularity. Terrorist attacks gave Hamas support as the activities of the PLO decreased during its exile in Tunis and its later transformation into the PLO. Suicide attacks on civilians were a strange concept 15 years agao and through violence Hamas became what it is today. Israel supported Hamas as a political entity and never as a violent counteract to the PLO.

Children in Gaza did not see Jews as a soldier who shot their friend prior to 2000. During the Oslo process I remember Palestinian kids enrolling to tours and leadership courses where they met Israel kids their age and held joint seminars. I remember back in October 2000 being in Arab East Jerusalem at a Café playing arcade games with the Palestinian kids and I was the only Jew there!

But there is a generation of Palestinian youth who, through Palestinian media, schools, and summer camps have gown up with the notion that Jews are pigs, apes, and liars. A Palestinian kid in Nablus will see pictures of dead “martyers” on the walls of educational institutions. In short, the good work that was done during the Oslo years have been wasted because during the last 4 years, the PA, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad have led Palestinian youth to believe that their eight of Palestinian national liberation rests on their shoulders and that Israelis are not human.

A two state solution can work and there is no other alternatives. I suggest deeper involvement with Jordan and Egypt for the two state solution to work. There is a theory behind this but I don’t have time to explain it fully. However, one state solution will not happen ever. It will not be accepted and cannot be accepted. The self determination of a people can not occur at the expense of another.

"However, one state solution will not happen ever. It will not be accepted and cannot be accepted. The self determination of a people can not occur at the expense of another."

The crux of zionist argument. You can't share a political entity with those who are ethnically/regigiously/imaginarily distinct. That my friend is racist nationalism. If you are correct and Israelis and Palestinians are just eternal enemies, how would a two state solution be any different to the situation now? Stick a load of jewish nationalists one side of an invisible line (or big wall) and a load of palestinian nationalists on the other and you expect peace?!?

Segregation sows the seeds of eternal conflict. What is needed is for ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to meet each other and straight away the propaganda and misconceptions would begin to evaporate. I remember hearing about a telephone project set up by relatives of suicide bomb victims and palestinian civilians where people would just share their grief. They quickly realised they shared more common humanity with each other than with their respective leaderships. Apparantly the Israeli government wasn't keen on the project, and no doubt hamas would consider it 'collaboration' - but its a glimpse of what is needed to over come the hatred born of occupation, misconception and grief.