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Hundreds Demonstrate in Hartford

200 to 300 people rallied in Hartford in the late afternoon against the Gaza Massacre in front of the Federal Building. The rally was mainly organized by the Islamic and Palestinian community. People came from all over the state. The sponsors were the Council on Islamic Relations, Palestinian-American Congress, Middle East Crisis Committee, American Friends Service Committee, People of Faith, Queers Without Borders, ISO-CT

Demonstrate Against the Gaza Massacre

Saturday, January 3rd. - 1 pm
Times Square
42nd and 7th Ave.

Followed by a march to the Israeli mission.

Adalah-NY and friends will gather 12:40 PM at the North East corner of 39th St and 7th Ave. At 1:10 PM, we will join the protest and try to be near 41st St. and 7th Ave

Endorsed by:
Al-Awda: Palestine Right to Return Coalition-NY, Arab Muslim American Federation, MAS-NY (Youth Center), National, Queens, NJ, Yonkers, The General Union of Palestine Students, Bayan-USA, Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, Salam Church, International Action Center, Brooklyn Cultural Center, Hudson Valley Islamic Center, December 12 Movement, New York City Labor Against the War, DRUM, Troops Out Now Coalition, Pakistan USA Freedom Forum, International League of Peoples Struggle, Dawoud Mosque, Muslim Alliance in New America, Masjid Al-Taqwa, Islamic Circle of North America, F.I.S.T.

higher quality image

Statement of Determination to Boycott Israel Sponsored by The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)

Gaza's Guernica
Enough is enough

The Israeli government is sending waves of F16 fighter jets to bomb the Palestinian population of Gaza, many of whom are already weak and sick from two years of siege and encirclement by Israel. Children, says an Israeli spokeswoman, are legitimate targets because if they inhabit a house allegedly being used to manufacture home-made rockets to fire into Israel, they are 'terrorists' themselves. On Saturday December 27, Israel says it dropped 100 tonnes of bombs on Gaza.

We say enough is enough. As long as the state of Israel continues to defy humanity and international law, we, the citizens of the world, commit ourselves to boycotting Israel.

When Nazi planes firebombed the Basque town of Guernica in 1937, to advance General Franco's revolt against the democratically elected Republican government, Britain, France and other European powers continued to refuse military and political support to the Republic, and Franco and his Nazi allies prevailed.

Since our governments decline to take action against Israel, we, as citizens, must act.

We declare that, in solidarity with the bombed, maimed, tortured and ethnically cleansed people of Palestine, we will, individually and collectively: refuse to buy any fruit, vegetable, flowers, cosmetics, underwear, swimwear or piece of technology manufactured or produced in Israel or the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and we will inform shops that we object to them stocking Israeli products;

we will not go on holiday to Israel;

we will research which brands of computer contain Israeli-designed and manuctured components, make the information public, and and press all computer manufacturers to end research partnerships with Israel;

we will boycott Israeli films, theatre companies, dance groups and orchestras, and make known our objections to the management of theatres and cinemas;

we will campaign actively for our governments not to allow citizens of our countries to serve in the Israeli army, navy, airforce and security services;

we will lobby in our professional organisations and trade unions for Israeli institutions to be boycotted unless they state publicly that they oppose their government's actions, will not co-operate with the state (for instance by teaching courses for the security services, which all Israeli universities do), and support the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Signed:

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, London
Professor Haim Bresheeth, London
Abe Hayeem, London
Mike Cushman, London
Professor Keith Hammond, Glasgow
Professor Ghada Karmi, Exeter
Jenny Morgan, London
Dr. Sue Blackwell, Birmingham

28 December 2008

for a higher quality image of Guernica/Gaza click here

20 Send Letter to Hartford Courant Dec. 28

click to see the letter

Donate Now - Tax Deductible 2008

The best investment is in the struggle for human rights. We in the Middle East Crisis Committee have been part of it since 1982. We're a 501 (c3) tax deductible charity educating the public about human rights stuggles. Click here to give us a contribution. Come to our next demonstration Wed. Dec. 31 at noon at the Federal Building, 141 Church St. in New Haven.

The British papers are writing about the growing pitiful hunger in the Gaza Strip. Peter Beaumont, the Foregin Affairs editor of The Observer (UK) on December 21 reported that Palestinians are picking through garbage dumps looking for the remains of food. A week earlier the London Times website featured an article talking about a family that lived on wild grass. The mother and 12 year old daughter beg and when they don't get enough they eat khobbeizeh, the leaves of a plant that grows in the streets.

On the 18th UNRWA announced that it once again was stopping food distribution to the 750,000 refugees in Gaza because Israel will not allow the trucks laden with food in past the checkpoints. Israel's excuse, as always, is the rockets which fall on Sderot, but when there was a fairly well observed truce for five months Israel only opened the flow of food, medicine and materials into the Strip by a trickle. This is all very much like Iraq in the '90's. Supposedly all Saddam had to do to end the sanctions on Iraq was to obey certain demands (goal posts that were ever changing). Since he didn't it was perfectly reasonable for the UN to kill a million Iraqis to make him comply.

The Strip goes in a never ending spiral downwarded, from being walled-in ghetto, to being blockaded, to becoming the world's largest prison, to having the status of a enemy "entity" under siege. Only the option of extermination camp has not been applied. The only food and supplies coming in is through tunnels from Egypt. Sara Roy in an upcoming aritcle for the London Review of Books writes that Israel is allowing the tunnels hoping to make Gaza an Egyptian problem.

On the 20th a boat carrying a Qatari delegation, Lebanese activists and journalists from Israel and Lebanon sailed into Gaza City's small port in defiance of a border blockade. It was the fifth such boat trip since the summer, part of the Free Gaza movement. On of the Israelis was activist Neta Golan (see an interview with her in our recent TV shows) She was arrested when she left Gaza to return "home".

The Free Gaza boats have been leaving from Cyprus. Arab governments and private Arab groups are finally starting to challenge the blockade. A Libyan ship with 100 tons of medicine was turned back from Gaza. A Qatari boat tried to land in Ashkelon Israel with 2 tons of cancer supplies and was turned back angrily by Defense Minister Barak. A boat from Lebanon will reportedly be next to challenge the siege.

Speaking of Barak the latest stage of all out siege was started by him when on the night on the US Presidential election his troops defied the truce and raided the Strip, killing six Palestinians. Palestinian rockets flew and the heightened siege began, Why did he do it? The Israeli elections are coming up in a month or so and each Israeli party tries to outdo each other in fascist attacks and threats. Barak's attempt to be "strong" backfired. Polls suggest his Labor Party will be crushed in the next election.

Final note the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories is Richard Falk. His job is to report to the UN on conditions for the Palestinians. He's an American Jew, a former Princeton professor. All this counts for nothing to Israel. When he arrived in Tel Aviv on December 14 he was detained and forced on a plane and out of the country. Israel says he is "biased" and that's that. The US government,crusader for "democracy" has nothing to say. Neither does President-elect Obama.

At times it all seems hopeless, but we must patiently (but passionately) expose all this to the American people. They pay billions for this continuuing outrage. If it's explained well at some point people will refuse to be fleeced by the Imperialists and the Zionists. . An op-ed about Gaza by MECC Chairperson Stanley Heller was published in the New Haven Register.

There are thousands of Palestinians in the US from Gaza. They need to tell their story to the papers and to the net.

Hundreds March against the War in Hartford on December 7

On a cold windy day 150 to 200 marched and rallied against the war in Hartford CT. CCSU professor Mike Alewitz electrified the crowd with his denunciation of the war and vain hopes of those pressing for a New New Deal . Other speakers were CT AFL-CIO President John Olsen, Dave Ionno of Veterans for Peace, Jerrimarie Leisgang of Queers Without Borders, Mazin Qumsiyeh of the Middle East Crisis Committee and several student leaders. SEE VIDEO

Not a single elected politician was in evidence anywhere in the crowd.

After speakers were done the crowd marched a mile through Hartford neighborhoods. Colorful MECC banners "60 Years of Occupation and Apartheid are Enough" and "End the Siege of Gaza" were in the thick of it. Despite the weather many windows opened and onlookers waved. One TV station gave the event a minute of nightime coverage and of course TSVN, The Struggle Video Network recorded the whole event for future programs..

The UN Resolution That Time Forgot

Ghada Karmi reflects on the Right to Return resolution 60 years after its passage.

UN General Assembly President Calls for Boycott of Israel

Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua the current head of the UN General Assembly called for a boycott of Israel. On the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People which takes place yearly on the day the UN voted the 1947 partition resolution he said, "Although different, what is being done against the Palestinian people seems to me to be a version of the highest policy of apartheid." The General Assembly president called on international institutions to boycott Israel and sever its financial ties to the world, and for the imposing of sanctions against Jerusalem

READ MORE

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Says: Suspend Israel from UN

Mairead Maguire who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in Ireland in 1976 has called on the United Nations to suspend Israel's membership. She takes this stand because Israel has defied a long string of UN resolutions concerning the Palestinians. Maguire has been invovled in Palestinian rights causes for years. In 2004 she welcomed Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu on his release from prison. In 2007 Israeli soldiers injured her with a rubber coated bullet and tear gas in a demonstration againg the Wall in Bil'in.

READ MORE

Hamas Says It Will Accept State
on '67 Borders

The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on Saturday his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. He spoke to 11 members of the European Parliament who had arrived in Gaza via the second sailing of "The Dignity". Another person on the boat was Amira Hass the amazing journalist for Haaretz who has been kept out of Gaza for two years.

The Europeans delivered a ton of medical supplies and a medical scanner. "We are taking very basic medical supplies like paracetamol and painkillers. We were shocked when we got the list from the Health Ministry in Gaza - it means they don't have anything," said Arafat Shoukri, a doctor from the UK.

The "Dignity" Makes it to Gaza

Despite threats that the boat would be towed to Ashod the new boat of the Free Gaza movement, made it to Gaza City on the morning of October 29th.

Read this account by Ramzi Kysia, a member of the boat's company :

"This morning I walked to the Indian Ocean and made salt in defiance of the British Occupation of India. This morning I marched in Selma, I stood down tanks in Tiananmen Square, and I helped tear down the Berlin Wall. This morning I became a Freedom Rider. "

"The Freedom Riders of the 21st Century are sailing small boats into the Gaza Strip in open defiance of the Israeli Occupation and blockade. This morning I arrived in Gaza aboard the SS Dignity, part of a Free Gaza Movement delegation of twenty seven doctors, lawyers, teachers, and human rights activists from across the world, including Mairead Maguire - the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. CONTINUE

Hear Stanley Heller's telephone interview with Huwaida Arraf in Cyprus shortly before the boat left harbor by clicking here."

While this is good news the grinding siege is the biggest reality. Medicine to Gaza is now down to a "trickle" according to the International Red Cross

Israeli settlers attack a Beit Sahour neighborhood, detain six persons

Beit Sahour is a town next to Bethlehem. Part of it has land that was used as an army base by Jordan and later by Israel. Palestinians were hoping to build a hospital on the land. Settlers are trying to take the land. On October 16 IMEMC reported, "Dozens of Israeli colonists, some of them were armed, stormed on Thursday the Osh Ghrab neighborhood of Beit Sahour town in the West Bank. Israeli police detained six people including four international human rights activists and two Palestinian. "

These are videos of what happened Part 1 Part 2

Mazin Qumsiyeh who is in Beit Sahour fills in the details:

When our photographer friend was being wrestled to the ground and heavy boots stepping on his neck and his expensive camera being trashed, time seems to stand still. It was actually a few seconds when several members attempted to help him (by pleading with the brutal settler police and border guards and in some case trying to shield him from brutal blows with their bodies) and six individual were "arrested" (I use this term in quotes because they were actually just kidnapped illegally and held hostage). The events leading up to this event began with intents by racist colonial settlers (many of them with foreign passports) to take over this piece of Beit Sahour land that was for a while used by the Jordanian and later Israeli army. Christian and Muslim Palestinians in Beit Sahour (the Shepherds' Field) and the surrounding towns and villages continue to actively use their land in Ush Ghrab in creative and positive ways despite attempts by settlers to take over. We regularly join hands with International human rights activists to show the power of nonviolent resistance and affirmation of our rights. Part of the land was already developed for a recreational area including children playgrounds. Other areas are slated for a community garden, a nature walk, and a hospital.

Palestinians and our international friends use the site for many activities from meetings to nature walks to parties to barbeques and picnics. On this day, we had plans for a hike with bird-watching (Palestine Wildlife Society), music festivities, and athletics. We arrived at 11 AM and our first attempt was to take three barrels (one for regular trash, one for glass/plastic, and one for compost) to put at the place where the settlers are to gather. Dozens of heavily armed soldiers blocked our way. We asked to see the military order of closure and they showed us an order that said that the area is a closed military zone (ironic since colonial settlers were allowed to get in with no problems !). Some soldiers took over a private home near the site and imprisoned its owners in one room while they made it into a military post with roof and window guns pointed at us.

We asked the soldiers to at least please deliver the trash barrels/bins to the site because every time settlers come they leave trash everywhere. We did much education of the soldiers and police (or at least those of them who listened). The soldiers followed us in the hike around the mountain and it was when we came close to the road which settlers used to get up the hill that they became insistent on us leaving, as we were walking back, an international friend was suddenly attacked from behind and as others were also attacked and kidnapped. We were told that if we go back to the park area and stay there they might be released. So essentially, the friends were hostages to impact our decisions (this is considered a war crime and fits the definition of terrorism to try and coerce an action from someone by threats to harm a friend or relative). We did go ahead with our other activities (including over 70 children who had a rap and other music festival) while negotiations for the release of our friends ensued and expanded to include the Mayor and officers of the Occupation army. Finally after several hours, five of our comrades were released and one was still being held and maybe deported. The five released included two Palestinians (one from Beit Jala and one from Bethlehem) and nationals from Italy, England, and the US. After the army withdrew, we did not that the soldiers (but not the colonial settlers) did use our trash containers but had decided to also add a few rocks! The colonial settlers plan to return with their hateful messages (and trash) on 9 November. We will stay here with peaceful and creative activities always and we always invite anyone to join us whether in dialog or action for peace.

Nir Rosen Back from Afghanistan

Taliban Takeover Looks "Irreversible"

Sign the Petition to Outlaw the Degrading Strip-Searches of Palestinianians and Jewish Dissidents

Click here to see what's it's all about

150 Jews from Around the World Denounce Drive to Attack Iran

See the statement and signers by clicking here. Statement issued August 11, 2008 and updated as of August 15. Statement in English, Arabic, French and German

MECC Calls for
"We Cannot Afford a War Against Iran" Campaign

We have a chance of stopping war against Iran. This country can't afford it and people know it. Iran has warned that any "limited bombing" of their country will result in a massive strike against oil tankers, our troops in Iraq and Israel. Oil prices will skyrocket. Still Congressional support for HCON 362 is rising (247 sponsors) and with the fanatics in the White House anything is possible. We have a good leaflet on the subject for distribution and we call on all our readers to write letters to the media and to call Congress. We also have a petition available for downloading. And listen to an great interview with Scott Ritter here.

Big Success at National Assembly

In Cleveland on June 28-29 four hundred people gathered for the National Assembly, a body called to urge the fractured anti-war movement to get back massively in the streets. Anyone who attended had an equal vote. The Middle East Crisis Committee's proposal on Palestine passed as did others on Afghanistan and Iran. For a full report click here for the Counterpunch article.

The National Assembly is not a rival anti-war coalition, but an attempt to show existing groups the state of grassroots sentiment and to call for unity. The Assembly did decide to continue as a network.

Poets for Palestine

You've heard Remi Kanazi's poems on our "The Struggle" TV program. He's just one of the poets in the collection "Poets for Palestine"

"Poets For Palestine" was published to unite a diverse range of poets, spoken word artists, and hip-hop artists who have used their words to elevate the consciousness of humanity. Sixty years after the dispossession of the Palestinian people, this anthology presents forty-eight poems alongside original works by Palestinian artists. All proceeds from the sale of this collection will go toward funding future cultural projects that highlight Arab artistry in the New York City area. .

Selected Past Headline Stories

November 15 Hamas Says it Will Accept 1967 Borders

July 30 Another Youth Killed in Nil'in

May 26 Regime Deports Jewish Hero

April 25 Dems Offer Bush an Extra $70 Billion

April 17 Israel Threatens to End the Iranian Nation

March 30 Will "Stop Loss" Break Through? **** Ritter Regrets

March 8 Israelis Loot Orphanage - Vilnai Threatens "Holocaust"

February 22 The Man Who Should Win the Academy Award

January 1 Peace Activists Occupy Huckabee’s Iowa Campaign Office

November 24 Palestine Authority Doesn't Have the Right to Cut a Deal

October 30 Break the Siege

September 15 Cut and Run

September 13 Pentagon Will Take Out 1,200 Iranian Targets

August 20 European Union Turns off Gaza Electricty

July 12 Senate Supports Lieberman 97-0

July 6 - Is US Killing 10,000 a Month in Iraq...or is it More?

June 28 - Israelis Kill 11 in Gaza --- Katzav Cops a Plea

June 25 Lieberman Commits War Crime

June 1 Rabbi Uses Bible Story to Justify Carpet Bombing

May 20 Israelis Shoot Dead Fetus

May 2 Whistleblower Vanunu Found Guilty

April 8 Sanctions Working: Another Dialysis Death

March 31 Six Month Old Killed at Checkpoint

March 20 Tanya Reinhart has Died / 80% on Food Aid in Gaza

February 27 Nablus Raped Again

February 19 - Facing MECCA - Uri Avnery

More past headlines

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