World Palestine Newswire Archive

Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center
www.imemc.org, for Thursday, January 22nd 2009.

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff, on behalf of the valiant Palestinian people and their struggle for survive US backed IsraHell's state terror.

Artwork I made for the Israel Apartheid Week. Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff on behalf of the brave Palestinian people and their struggle for survive U.S. backed IsraHell's state terror.

Refusenik update – a letter from Courage to Refuse
To members of Friends of Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Vanessa Marlowe
January 21 at 11:20pm

THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (EAFORD)

We Palestinian Arab students at Haifa University strongly condemn the discriminative polices and practices employed by the administration of the university against its Arab students.

Noam Chomsky writes about the latest attacks on Gaza.

Editorial cartoon, to be published in the bulletin of FISENGE (Federacao Interestadual de Sindicatos de Engenheiros), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center
www.imemc.org, for Wednesday, January 21st 2009.

WASHINGTON—George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States of America, passed away painlessly in his sleep Monday night, White House sources confirmed.

We are e-mailing, writing media and politicians, sharing ideas and developing strategies to develop the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel as well as bringing Israeli leaders to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Please begin to or expand your work in your community for BDS. For resources and tools, we are listing below links to: pictures and video, facts on Gaza, Declarations by the UN and human rights groups, political analysis, and the link to 25 actions to do.

The Lambeth Branch of UNISON, the second largest trade union in the UK, has voted to condemn the recent slaughter of Palestinians and the ongoing occupation by Israel at a meeting of its Branch Committee this morning.

Israeli media reported Monday that Israeli children from the town of Sderot have returned to school and normalcy. Meanwhile, children in every part of the Gaza Strip are either bleeding in overcrowded hospitals or sifting through the rubble of what used to be their schools, mosques and homes.

PFLP statement on the so-called ''ceasefire'', 18/01/09.

Marching amid the 50,000 protesters in London bearing witness against the Israeli offensive on Gaza, I spotted a hand-made placard inscribed with the words of the radical Brazilian educator Paolo Freire: “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”

The merciless Israeli bombardment of Gaza has stopped -- for now -- but the death toll keeps rising as more bodies are pulled from carpet- bombed neighborhoods.

What Israel perpetrated in Gaza, starting at 11:30am on 27 December 2008, will remain forever engraved in history and memory. Tel al-Hawa, Hayy al-Zeitoun, Khuzaa and other sites of Israeli massacres will join a long mournful list that includes Deir Yasin, Qibya, Kufr Qasim, Sabra and Shatila, Qana, and Jenin.

The objective in Lebanon is "regime change" and to repress all forms of political opposition. But how to bring it about? The forecast of the 2009 general-elections in Lebanon does not look favourable for the March 14 Alliance. Without an internal political or armed option in Lebanon, which could result in the installation of a U.S.-sponsored "democracy," Washington and its indefictible Israeli ally have chosen the only avenue available: a military solution, another war on Lebanon.

The following images and text were posted on Professor Norman Finkelstein's web site -- however at the moment his ISP appears to have suspended his site. An interview with him published today contains his justification to publishing these images:

turkishny.com: On your Web site, there is an argument that the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by the Nazis. Do you agree with that?

Norman Finkelstein: I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war. In the first week of the massacres, there were reports in the Israeli press that Israel did not want to put all its ground forces in Gaza because it was preparing attacks on Iran. Then there were reports it was planning attacks on Lebanon. It is a lunatic state.

turkishny.com: But do you agree with the characterization?

Norman Finkelstein: Look at the pictures and decide for yourself. I am not going to tell people what they should think about it. But what I say is they should look at the pictures and decide for themselves. (For the pictures go to:  http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2510 )

A protest was held today outside UAV Ltd. in Shenstone, Staffordshire to protest against the company's link with the repression and massacre in Gaza. 30 protesters from around the Midlands, including locals from Shenstone, gathered to draw attention to the fact that this company is owned by the Israeli defence contractor Elbit systems, and all the evidence points to them producing the engines for the drones which have been used to carry out surveillance and targeting for the IDF strike fighters.

tudents occupying a lecture theatre at the London School of Economics have continued their demonstration in to the fifth day.

Over forty students started the occupation in solidarity with Palestine last Thursday afternoon demanding that the LSE condemns Israeli aggression, divests from BAE, a firm that arms Israel, and provides material support for Palestinians. The students are demanding that the LSE waivers application fees and provides more scholarships for Palestinian students, sends surplus computers and books to Palestine and facilitates a cross-campus collection for Medical Aid for Palestine.