World Palestine Newswire Archive

To mark the fifth day in occupation of a key university building, student protestors held a rally to gather support for the campaign before a meeting with University officials on Monday.

ISM Gaza Strip



Israeli Military Shoot Gaza Farmer - 18th February 2009 Israeli forces shot a twenty year-old Palestinian farmer as he worked his land in the village of Al-Faraheen, east of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. International Human Rights Activists were accompanying the group of farmers

Prospects are grim with Israeli Arab Knesset member (MK) Ahmed Tibi calling Livni "90% Lieberman and 10% Netanyahu." For his part, Netanyahu is 100% hard-line, and won't give an inch on compromise. As head of state, he promises to destroy Hamas. Whoever forms the government, Palestinians, Israelis, and most others will be losers.

Goliath

Professor Joel Kovel—an outspoken critic of Israel and author of the book Overcoming Zionism—has been dismissed from his position as the Alger Hiss Chair in Social Studies at Bard College in New York state.

On February 10, Israel held parliamentary elections for 120 seats in its 18th Knesset. The process repeats every four years unless the body calls an earlier election by majority vote. The prime minister may also ask the president to request one early that will proceed unless the Knesset blocks it. Parliamentary terms may be extended beyond four years by special majority vote. Israel has no constitution. Under Article 4 of its Basic Law: The Knesset:

"The Knesset shall be elected by general, national, direct, equal, secret and proportional elections, in accordance with the Knesset Elections Law." Every Israeli citizen 18 or older may vote, including Arabs who are nominally enfranchised, may serve in the parliament, but can't govern or in any way influence policy.

Knesset seats are assigned proportionally to each party's percentage of the total vote. A minimum total is required to win any seats. Jewish parties alone are empowered. Arab parliamentarians have no decision-making authority. They're also constrained by the 1992 Law of Political Parties and section 7A(1) of the Basic Law that prohibits candidates from denying "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people."

Last week, at a relatively well-attended meeting, my branch Executive seconded a motion to support a twinning with a Palestinian university, building on existing Student Union work. A few of us decided to propose an additional note about “the increase in antisemitic atmosphere on British campuses associated with Israel’s conflicts”. We are all broadly supportive of the twinning but conscious that in our institution it has been a vehicle for intensifying calls for the ostracisation and dissolution of Israel. Our intervention was fairly puny and didn’t say what needed to be said about this twinning - in retrospect since it was almost certain to fall we should have made more amendments.

Please note that professor finkelstein will be speaking at two different venues on the same day.

Norman Finkelstein explores the corruption and bias of scholarship surrounding the Palestine-Israel conflict. The talk will examine the growing tendency of pro-Israel commentators to use spurious charges of anti-Semitism to deflect and discredit legitimate criticism of Israel.

"A fundamental principle of mine is that the educator must criticize the injustices of the world, whether or not this involves him or her in conflict with the powers that be. The systematic failure of the academy to do so plays no small role in the perpetuation of injustice and state violence. In no sphere of political action does this principle apply more vigorously than with the question of Zionism; and in no country is this issue more strategically important than in the United States, given the fact that United States support is necessary for Israel's behavior. The worse this behavior, the more strenuous must be the suppression of criticism."

“Just driven at 40mph through the streets of Tangier. Crowds of people lined the route cheering, giving victory signs and waving. Amazing!” - george galloway

A fellow pilgrim adds:

“The feeling is immense peace, love, respect and humbleness. The people here are true brothers welcoming us with food, love and hospitality. When the convoy got off the ferry from Spain to Tangier the whole convoy group joined together in one big Jummat.”

'Raise your voice, raise your voice, raise it in your song! Songs are still possible, they are still possible!'

"Please tell me how he was! How did you find him? Was his body still put together? Was it in pieces?! You have to tell me!" demanded the mother of the martyr Yousef Abu ‘Oda.

In 1939 Europe turned a blind eye to the rise of Nazism. The British foreign minister Neville Chamberlain believed that a policy of appeasement would work with Hitler; it did not. Hitler attacked Poland, giving the world a costly lesson - a policy of appeasement does not work with fascism. The outcome is well known: Europe was ruined and around 50 million lost their lives. Yet thanks to the Norwegian "home front" resistance, Hitler was deprived of the heavy water needed for manufacturing the nuclear bomb; had he acquired enough material to do so, the history of humanity might have been dramatically different to that which we know.

This Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for February 14th through February 20th 2009.

The Lambeth Branch of UNISON, the second largest trade union in the UK, has raised over £2000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians through a fundraising drive throughout the Borough’s workplaces. Nationally, UNISON has committed to send a donation of £10,000 to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and Lambeth Branch activists collected a further £2020.43 for MAP’s Emergency Appeal for Gaza through a series of collections amongst Lambeth’s workers.

Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center,
www.imemc.org, for Thursday, February 19th, 2009.

On Friday, February 6, the University of Rochester-SDS (UR-SDS) organized an occupation of Goergen Hall at the University of Rochester for peace and solidarity with the Palestinians. The action was partially inspired by the wave of occupations across the UK in support of Palestine the past few weeks. UR-SDS made a list of demands of the administration (including divestment from weapons manufacturers, educational and humanitarian aid to Gaza, and scholarships for Palestinian students). In a related event, on Thursday, February 12, 2008 Hampshire College of Amherst, MA. became the first US school to divest from corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The occupation of a key University building by nearly 100 student protestors in St Andrews is now entering its second day after a petition signed by nearly 800 students and lecturers calling for the University to investigate it links with Israel was handed to the University.

For the first time in the history of Palestine, two women were appointed as judges to the Islamic Sharia court in the West Bank cities of Hebron and Ramallah. President Mahmoud Abbas accepted the appointment of the two female judges among 11 judges appointed to the Sharia Courts in the West Bank, after each woman successfully passed two competitive judicial exams held in Ramallah.

There is a shrinking group of free people, people who believe in a context with everyone’s equal worth. This group still dreams about a society where everyone is included and for this, one is prepared to struggle.

The hours are not enough. Daddy Obama tries every night to give Natasha and Malia some of his time. The hours are not enough. That is just the way it is. Part of the job, the assignment. Much has been promised and every promise has to be kept.

Unable to attend the Viva Palestina convoy send-off in London, I watched video footage of the occasion with tears in my eyes.

Here at last were people of courage and moral backbone... a dying breed in Britain, I had thought. How easily they put our leaders to shame.