As part of The Fifth International Week of Action against Israel’s Apartheid Wall between 9 and 16 November 2007 (www.stopthewall.org), protesters held a rolling picket in London raising awareness of the Apartheid Wall and calling on the public to boycott Israeli goods.
The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and its popular committees have called on the world to protest against the illegal occupation of Palestine. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the Apartheid Wall is illegal. Despite this, the British government has continued to support Israel economically, politically and militarily. Join the movement to boycott Israeli Apartheid.
The protest was called by Victory to the Intifada and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (www.revolutionarycommunist.org)
The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and its popular committees have called on the world to protest against the illegal occupation of Palestine. In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the Apartheid Wall is illegal. Despite this, the British government has continued to support Israel economically, politically and militarily. Join the movement to boycott Israeli Apartheid.
The protest was called by Victory to the Intifada and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (www.revolutionarycommunist.org)
Israel destroys Palestinian lives, livelihoods and homes daily, refuses to stop building its illegal apartheid wall, denies Palestinian refugees their right of return, grows produce and sets up industrial zones on stolen Palestinian land, and operates an apartheid, racist system against Palestinian people.
Meanwhile illegal Israeli settlements are continuing and growing, in defiance of international law. Already, 40% of the West Bank is taken up with Israeli infrastructure including settlements, outposts, roadblocks, checkpoints, military areas, nature reserves and the parts of the Apartheid Wall built so far. There are now 450,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the last 20 years the settler population has increased by 150%.
29 September 2007 marked the seventh anniversary of the start of the second Intifada. In those seven years the Israeli Occupation Army has killed more than 4,600 Palestinians, including 967 children and has injured a further 32,000. In August 2007 alone, the Israeli Occupation Army killed 52 Palestinians, 12 of them children.
The rolling picket began at Marks & Spencer in Edgware Road. M&S is one of the biggest British corporate sponsors of Israel and the occupation of Palestine. Marks & Spencer is not just interested in trading with Israel for profit like other companies; it IS and ALWAYS has been a supporter of Israeli apartheid – ‘aiding the economic development of Israel is one of our main objectives’ (Marcus Sieff, M&S chairman, Management: The M&S Way, 1990) and sells food and clothing manufactured in colonial settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank Palestinian Territories.
The protest then moved on to Sainsbury’s in Marble Arch, calling for the public to boycott Israeli goods, and picketed Marks and Spencer’s flagship store on Oxford Street, using street theatre to demonstrate the reality of the daily brutal oppression Palestinian People face.
We continued to Selfridges, which sells goods produced in Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights. Under pressure from pro-Palestinian campaigners they initially withdrew these products from their shelves only to stock them again.
Finally a lively demonstration was held outside John Lewis because they sell Caterpillar products. Caterpillar’s armoured bulldozers have been used by the Israeli army for the destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes, schools, wells and olive groves, and have also been used in the construction of the Apartheid Wall.
The aim of the campaign to Boycott Israeli Goods is to raise awareness of the economic links between British business and Israeli Apartheid and build economic pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestine. We aim to get people active on Britain's streets in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their national liberation struggle.
We call on the public to:
• Demand that British companies stop supporting Israel’s brutal occupation and apartheid by selling Israeli goods and goods made by companies directly involved in the destruction of Palestinian land, lives and livelihoods.
• Demand that the British Government stops supporting and funding Israeli racism.
• Join our campaign in support of the Palestinian Liberation Struggle. There is a demonstration every Thursday, 6 – 8 pm outside Marks & Spencer’s flagship store on Oxford Street (Marble Arch end), London. We urge everyone to boycott M&S as a focus of the boycott Israeli goods campaign in order to dent the profits of the British retailing company that has repeatedly stated their support for Israel and thus send a shock wave through the whole establishment.
End the Occupation of Palestine!
Victory to the Intifada!
Free all Palestinian Political Prisoners!
Tear down the Apartheid Wall!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
Meanwhile illegal Israeli settlements are continuing and growing, in defiance of international law. Already, 40% of the West Bank is taken up with Israeli infrastructure including settlements, outposts, roadblocks, checkpoints, military areas, nature reserves and the parts of the Apartheid Wall built so far. There are now 450,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the last 20 years the settler population has increased by 150%.
29 September 2007 marked the seventh anniversary of the start of the second Intifada. In those seven years the Israeli Occupation Army has killed more than 4,600 Palestinians, including 967 children and has injured a further 32,000. In August 2007 alone, the Israeli Occupation Army killed 52 Palestinians, 12 of them children.
The rolling picket began at Marks & Spencer in Edgware Road. M&S is one of the biggest British corporate sponsors of Israel and the occupation of Palestine. Marks & Spencer is not just interested in trading with Israel for profit like other companies; it IS and ALWAYS has been a supporter of Israeli apartheid – ‘aiding the economic development of Israel is one of our main objectives’ (Marcus Sieff, M&S chairman, Management: The M&S Way, 1990) and sells food and clothing manufactured in colonial settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank Palestinian Territories.
The protest then moved on to Sainsbury’s in Marble Arch, calling for the public to boycott Israeli goods, and picketed Marks and Spencer’s flagship store on Oxford Street, using street theatre to demonstrate the reality of the daily brutal oppression Palestinian People face.
We continued to Selfridges, which sells goods produced in Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights. Under pressure from pro-Palestinian campaigners they initially withdrew these products from their shelves only to stock them again.
Finally a lively demonstration was held outside John Lewis because they sell Caterpillar products. Caterpillar’s armoured bulldozers have been used by the Israeli army for the destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes, schools, wells and olive groves, and have also been used in the construction of the Apartheid Wall.
The aim of the campaign to Boycott Israeli Goods is to raise awareness of the economic links between British business and Israeli Apartheid and build economic pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestine. We aim to get people active on Britain's streets in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their national liberation struggle.
We call on the public to:
• Demand that British companies stop supporting Israel’s brutal occupation and apartheid by selling Israeli goods and goods made by companies directly involved in the destruction of Palestinian land, lives and livelihoods.
• Demand that the British Government stops supporting and funding Israeli racism.
• Join our campaign in support of the Palestinian Liberation Struggle. There is a demonstration every Thursday, 6 – 8 pm outside Marks & Spencer’s flagship store on Oxford Street (Marble Arch end), London. We urge everyone to boycott M&S as a focus of the boycott Israeli goods campaign in order to dent the profits of the British retailing company that has repeatedly stated their support for Israel and thus send a shock wave through the whole establishment.
End the Occupation of Palestine!
Victory to the Intifada!
Free all Palestinian Political Prisoners!
Tear down the Apartheid Wall!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
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Gaza Attacks To Follow Annapolis
11.11.2007 19:40
Call the media and your representatives.
THE REALITY OF ISRAEL'S DESIRE FOR PEACE
Countdown to the offensive
Israel is waiting callously for the Annapolis meeting to pass before wreaking intended destruction on Gaza, writes Saleh Al-Naami
Last Sunday Zaher Al-Orr had a surprise for his son Ashraf and his friend Mohamed Abu Herbid. He prepared breakfast for them before going home, after their night shift. The three worked as guards in a bathroom fittings factory near Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Normally they would have breakfast after returning from work. But this was going to be a special morning. Another worker who clocked in early joined them in the meal. Things didn't go exactly as Al-Orr planned. Minutes after the men sat down to eat, an Israeli artillery shell exploded on their dining table. All four men died.
Not only has Israel's shelling of Gaza grown more brutal, the targets have also changed. Now the Israeli air force is shelling the offices, positions, and patrols of the Palestinian police.
Five policemen were killed at two different police stations. Dozens others were wounded. Citing sources at the Israeli staff command, Israeli radio said that the intensification of military operations in the Gaza Strip aims at "punishing" Palestinians for the shelling of nearby Jewish settlements.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says that an incursion into Gaza is "imminent". Israeli television Channel 10 said last Friday that the international community was siding with Israel. Offer Shelah, presenter of the "Harvest of the Week" on Channel 10, said that, "despite the casualties among Palestinian civilians, the world is showing sympathy and tolerance for Israel's action. This is due to the fact that Abbas is continuing to meet Olmert at a time when the Israeli army is killing the Palestinians. Why be more royal than the king?"
Amnon Abramovic, an announcer at the Hebrew-language Israeli television, put it in a nutshell: "our army killed in 24 hours 10 Palestinians, including children, and yet we didn't hear anyone protesting."
(Did anyone know?)
The continued shelling of the Palestinians in Gaza is not a substitute for an Israeli incursion. Most likely, it is a prelude. In its Friday issue, Haaretz cites Israeli military sources as saying that the likelihood of waging an all-out military campaign in Gaza has grown since the military realised that the collective punishment Israel is imposing on the Palestinians wasn't stopping the firing of homemade rockets.
(Israeli defense analysts predicted that this would actually increase Gaza's response - and Israel plans to use this as a pretext for their long-premeditated assault.)
According to Israeli television Channel Two, a heated debate is taking place within the Israeli Joint Chiefs of Staff over military attacks on Palestinian police stations. Although the police stations are an "easy target", army generals note that attacking them may undermine security in Gaza and thus cause further complications for Israel. The generals want any incursion into Gaza to be postponed until the Annapolis summit is held, for fear of weakening the Israeli negotiating position.
Israel has already rallied international support for a military operation in Gaza. In its Sunday issue, Maariv reported that during his recent visit to Washington, Barak obtained a US green light for an offensive in Gaza. Barak, the newspaper says, brought intelligence officials with him. Reportedly they told the Americans that Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza were stockpiling weapons and that Hamas now has a virtual army.
IDF Complicit In Gaza Arms Smuggling
israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/7686/index.php
According to Israeli intelligence reports, Hamas has stepped up the smuggling of weapons in an unprecedented manner to consolidate its military capabilities. The Islamic Jihad movement is also said to have doubled its arsenal of weapons and succeeded in recruiting a large number of security officials in Gaza following the Hamas takeover.
(Which was a response to Israel-America's failed Coup attempt by proxy, using corrupt members of Fatah.)
Meanwhile, the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are believed to have received considerable assistance, partly from Lebanon's Hizbullah.
Israel's retired army generals have reservations about a major campaign in Gaza. General Yaeir Naffe, a former commander of Israeli occupation forces in Gaza, believes that an incursion would be "useless unless it lasts for a minimum of two years." He warns that unless the Israelis stay for a long time in the Strip, the firing of rockets will resume. Speaking to Israeli Hebrew- language radio last Sunday, Naffe argued, "contrary to the situation in the West Bank, in Gaza we don't only need to stop the firing of rockets, but to guarantee that the Palestinians won't be able to produce rockets in the future." If the Palestinians succeed "to fire one rocket after our withdrawal, the whole operation would be seen as a failure," he added.
(But why aren't the Palestinians allowed the right to their own security? The hypocrisy surrounding this whole 'debate' is ludicrous.)
Some Israeli politicians linked the escalation in Gaza with Barak's personal motives. Former Israeli Education Minister Shulamit Aloni said that Barak was using Gaza to become prime minister. In an interview with the Nazareth- based newspaper Events, Aloni described Barak as "the most dangerous man for Israel, because of his nature, because he is a man of war, and because of his arrogance. He is taking an extreme position because he thinks that by committing crimes he would be able to defeat Netanyahu in the upcoming elections."
Aloni called for Barak to be tried as a war criminal in The Hague.
The Palestinians are taking Israel's threats seriously. Dismissed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Sunday that he was aware that the US administration gave Israel a green light to attack Gaza, and warned that Gaza would "be a tomb for the invaders".
The Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, called on other resistance groups in Gaza to form a "joint operations room" to confront Israel's escalation. Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, said that Israel's invasion of the Strip would be a "great folly... they will know that they had committed a big mistake by invading the Strip. They say they're angry at the abduction of soldier Gilad Shalit. Let me assure them that we will kidnap many more of their soldiers if they invade the Strip," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The Palestinian Ministry of Interior maintains that Israeli attacks on the Palestinian police are designed to throw Gaza into "chaos". Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Al-Ghosein told the Weekly that the ministry has no plans to evacuate police stations in anticipation of further shelling, but he didn't rule out such a move in the future.
Abu Ahmed, spokesman for Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, promised that the firing of rockets at Israel would continue, both during and after any Israeli offensive. For Gaza's beleaguered Palestinians, one thing is clear: following the Annapolis meeting, Israel will attack.
desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/11/reality-of-israels-desire-for-peace.htm
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