behind the wall

Bil'in Demo 13.1.2010

The people behind the wall. Barrier? My arse.

it works like this

These are two images from Banksy, an artist who is famous for drawing pictures on the illegal apartheid wall that Israel is building to both contain and separate the Palestinian people from their lands and from Israel. He is famous for drawing other artworks, too, as you will see from that link to a gallery of some of his pictures.

This wall been condemned by the United Nations, and to tell you the truth, I cannot understand why there is not more outrage about it. I cannot imagine living behind it. I cannot imagine being cut off from my friends, my family, my farmlands and so on. I can't imagine my daily life spent waiting at checkpoints, under curfew, soldiers raiding my house at will.

The west seemed to condemn the Berlin wall and it also has a lot to say about the division between South and North Korea, but this wall, we fully support it. I mean, it is our money and goodwill that is building it. That is, if our politicians are elected to support us. Why? Well, who knows? The media is not allowed to report on this issue in a truthful or outright manner it seems. This is well documented. Just read the Muzzlewatch blog by the Jewish peace group in the blogroll.

The article that ran these two pictures is an article on the controversy that surrounds Banksy's graffiti art. It is ninemsn, so it is very light. The two captions read:

In 2006 he travelled to Israel to paint a series of murals on the West Bank. That is under the caption of the Israeli soldier and donkey. No mention of the nationality of the soldier there, nor any reason why he might be fully armed against a donkey.

The second caption for the second picture reads: He created this graffiti on a wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem. On a wall? As if there are a hundred thousand such walls all over the world, and their existence is perfectly legit, and not to be questioned. As if this wall is not a matter of contention. On the wall, on the apartheid wall. Give me strength.

Possibly, this is the only way that mainstream media can get such strong images through to the general public, but considering how insipid the commentary is, I doubt that people well get how very seriously wrong this situation is. Hopefully it will make some question a little, it will make some query, feel queasy. Journalists need to keep their jobs, but not all of them are ignorant nor without compassion.

How long before those two pictures are removed from the gallery, I wonder? The usual claims made.

on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall

Palestinians, Israeli and international protesters toppeled one segment of the concrete wall, during a demonstration against the barrier in the West Bank village of Nilin, near Ramallah, Friday, Nov. 6, 2009.
The protest in Nilin was held to mark the 20th anniversary to the fall of the Berlin wall, which has been declared an international day of action against Israel's barrier.
The 300 demonstrators managed to topple a part of the eight meters tall concrete wall that cuts through the village's land. The concrete wall in Ni'ilin - five to eight meters (15 to 25 feet) in hight – has only recently been laid on the path of the wall cutting through Ni'ilin's lands, in addition to the already existing electronic barrier and razor-wire.

Photo by: Keren Manor/ Activestills.org
Photo by: Shachaf Polakow/ Activestills.org

mud bricks mixed with straw and resilience

Photo by Eva Bartlett
Which century do we live in? Why is it that one of the most advanced nations in the world, in terms of education, health, gross national profit, military, the arts and a slew of other ways in which we measure our life is given the support to make sure that another group of people live in third world conditions? This is a deliberate policy. This poverty and lack of quality of life is not due to natural disaster or the misfortune of being born in an area devoid of fertile ground and fishing seas.

Israel is still not allowing concrete into Gaza. As Israel bombed and shelled Gaza during its war on the same, houses and infrastructure, including schools, universities, mosques, United Nations compounds, have been destroyed. The international community (people from everywhere) and the governments of countries pledged aid, delivered aid, but what is the good if the aid cannot be let in?

Well, the Palestinians are very resilient, and they are building their houses from water and mud. With our energy resources rapidly dwindling, maybe the last laugh will ultimately rest with them as they retain the skills needed to live in a world without modern conveniences. I really don't think we should be putting it to the test, though.

The story is here, from In Gaza. The picture is lifted from the blog, too, and there are many more wonderful pictures.

Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square metre home is a basic one-storey, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw.

“My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it was overcrowded, impossible. We knew we had to build a home of our own,” Shaar said. “We waited over two years for cement but because of the siege there is none available. What could we do, wait forever?”

So he decided to do it with mud.


Building earthen structures like bread ovens and small animal pens is a technique many Palestinians are familiar with, but extending the method to houses isn’t a notion that has taken hold in Gaza.

Jihad el-Shaar got the idea from his travels in Asia and the Middle East. “I travelled in Bangladesh, India, Yemen, Turkey…they all use some similar technique of building houses from earth. All you need is clay, sand and some straw.” These he mixed with water, and poured into brick moulds that were left in the sun to dry for three days. Good enough to build a fine house with.

While some Gaza residents speak of shame at the way life has ‘gone backwards’ with the siege – using cooking oil in cars, wood fires for cooking, and horse and donkey carts for transportation – Shaar is proud of his clay home.

“In the winter it is warm, and in the summer it will be cool. There’s no problem with leaking, and this type of house will last a lifetime,” he says. “And it was cheap to build. A house this size made of cement would cost around 16,000 dollars at least. This one, because it was made with simple, local materials cost just 3,000 dollars.”

Prior to Israel’s crippling siege on Gaza cement would have cost 20 shekels (about five dollars) a bag. Now, with cement among the many banned items, what does make it into Gaza through tunnels under the Egypt border costs ten times as much.Read more.

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I keep posting the pictures of these non-violent protests in the West Bank. They are against the apartheid wall, and the settlements which keep encroaching on Palestinian land. They're very inventive and deserve far more attention. Even if the wider world may not know very much about this situation, I think it should pique the curiosity as to why so many Israelis and internationals join Palestinians in protest.

A group of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals build a shack on the lands of the Jabari family in protest of the illegal building of settlements, next to a shack that was put by the settlers a few weeks ago, close to the settlement of Kyriat Arba, in Hebron, on 8.05.2009. The settlers tried to destroy the shack and put it on fire but they did not manage. They also repeatedly attacked and provoked the group.The Israeli soldiers and police arrived at the scene and violently pushed the group away while the settlers were allowed to stay. 8 Israelis, 2 Palestinians were detained. Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org

A Palestinian throws away a torch that was sent by some settlers who attempted to set h[sic] [fire to] the protest Palestinian shack on fire during an action against the settlements in Hebron on 8.05.2009...The settlers tried to destroy the shack and put it on fire but they did not manage... Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org

An Israeli activist argues with an Israeli settler during an action against the settlements in Hebron on 8.05.2009... Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org

your grandmother, your tax dollars, 7 million a day

Protest against the apartheid wall, al Masara. Palestine, 1/5/2009.
Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org


Protest against the apartheid wall, al Masara. Palestine, 1/5/2009.
Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org

U.S. aid to Israel.
What you can do about it

Read this report: Stephen Zunes via Norman Finkelstein: Pelosi the Hawk (My emphasis).

Reports by international human rights groups and from within Israel in recent weeks have revealed the massive scale of war-crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law, committed by Israeli forces during their three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Despite this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has steadfastly stood by her insistence that the U.S.-backed Israeli government has no legal or moral responsibility for the tragic consequence of the war.

This is just one episode in a long history of efforts by Pelosi to undermine international humanitarian law, in regards to actions by a country she has repeatedly referred to as America’s most important ally in the Middle East. It’s also part of her overall right-wing agenda in the Middle East. As the powerful Speaker of the House, Pelosi could very well undermine efforts by President Barack Obama in the coming years to moderate U.S. policy toward that volatile region.

...

Pelosi has supported strict economic sanctions and even threats of military force against Middle Eastern governments targeted by the Bush administration — such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran, or Syria — that were slow in complying with UN Security Council resolutions. Yet she has never publicly called on Israel to abide by any of the dozens of Security Council resolutions on international humanitarian law, illegal annexation of militarily-occupied territory, or nuclear proliferation with which that government remains in material breech. In Pelosi’s worldview, a country’s obligations to comply with the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions depend not on objective international legal standards but on their relations with the United States.
...

Unfortunately, few Democrats are even aware of how far to the right Pelosi is when it comes to the Middle East. Not only has the mainstream media failed to call attention to her Middle East agenda, but progressive publications have failed do so as well. In These Times praised Pelosi for her "solid record" on human rights issues, while Ms. Magazine lauded her for having a "voting record strong on…human rights," failing to even mention her defense of Israeli war crimes against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.

Obama was initially able to withstand attacks by right-wing Republicans over the Chas Freeman appointment and tentative plans to participate in the UN Anti-Racism Conference, but he capitulated once prominent Democrats began pressuring him as well. Unless, then, rank-and-file Democrats are willing to challenge Pelosi on the Middle East, there is little hope that Congressional Democrats will allow the Obama administration to take human rights or international law seriously — not just in terms of Israel and its neighbors — but anywhere else. Read more.

I wrote about Pelosi and some of her cronies in this post, too The undemocratic stance of the democrats

the longest letter

Art. This is a great story. I read the whole text somewhere else on these endless trawling days of the web... ahh, here we go. The whole letter is 1,968 words, which is not too much for a computer to handle, but is a substantial piece of text when it is being painted on the apartheid wall. The text is an open letter from Farid Esack (1959), who

is a writer, Muslim, scholar and human rights activist, well known for his opposition to apartheid and his appointment by Nelson Mandela as a gender equity commissioner. Esack has also been involved with the organisation Positive Muslims, which is dedicated to helping HIV-positive Muslims in Africa. He has been teaching at many universities, including Harvard University and Xavier University in the United States of America, the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Farid Esack is mawlana, a religious scholar. At the age of 15 he went to Karachi, Pakistan where he studied in a madrassah for eight years. Esack's mission is to create tolerance and understanding between ethnic and religious groups. In Pakistan he was shocked by the discrimination of Christians and the hate against Jews. In Palestine he saw the devastating effect of a new apartheid. On the request of the Sendamessage Foundation, Holland, Farid Esack wrote a letter, which will be sprayed on the wall at Ram (near Ramallah) of 2,625 metres.

The following is the beginning of the letter. Sendamessage has a wonderful website. Please visit, especially as each word of the letter, or so many characters, is being paid for via donation. The begininning of the letter is below, and the painting has begun. Non-violent resistance, again. It is a joint project between the Dutch group and one in Palestine. There is plenty of transparency on their website.

On the Wall near Ramallah.
Minimal length: 2,625 metres.

The full letter by Farid Esack comprises 1,998 words or 11,643 characters. Each 1.5-metre section of standard concrete wall segment will hold seven characters or spaces. This means that the full letter will stretch over 1,662 segments of wall, giving it total length of 2,493 metres. If you now add 88 empty segments to separate the 89 sentences, the total length will be 2,625 metres. At the end of the letter there will be plenty of room for extra signatures. With those we expect to surpass the 3,000 metres. However, we are not after a world record. This is about justice for the Palestinians. After 61 years of neglect, oppression and dispossession they deserve a message the world will not readily forget. This message, put into words by Farid Esack, deserves all the public and media attention it can get. [My emphasis].

This is a preview of what the letter will look like, and work on it has started as evidenced by the photo in this blog, courtesy of artists against apartheid.

My dear Palestinian brothers and sisters, I have come to your land and I have recognized shades of my own. My land was once one where some people imagined that they could build their security on the insecurity of others. They claimed that their lighter skin and European origins gave them the right to dispossess those of a darker skin who lived in the land for thousands of years. I come from a land where a group of people, the Afrikaners, were genuinely hurt by the British. The British despised them and placed many of them into concentration camps. Nearly a sixth of their population perished.

Then the Afrikaners said, ‘Never again!’. And they meant that never again will harm come unto them with no regard to how their own humanity was tied to that of others. In their hurt they developed an understanding of being’s God chosen people destined to inhabit a Promised Land. And thus they occupied the land, other people’s land, and they built their security on the insecurity of black people. Later they united with the children of their former enemies – now called “the English”. The new allies, known simply as ‘whites’, pitted themselves against the blacks who were forced to pay the terrible price of dispossession, exploitation and marginalization as a result of a combination of white racism, Afrikaner fears and ideas of chosenness. And, of course, there was the ancient crime of simple greed.

I come from Apartheid South Africa.

Arriving in your land, the land of Palestine, the sense of deja vu is inescapable. I am struck by the similarities. In some ways, all of us are the children of our histories. Yet, we may also choose to be struck by the stories of others. Perhaps this ability is what is called morality. We cannot always act upon what we see but we always have the freedom to see and to be moved. Continue reading.

here are your Gandhis

For Durban, visit Antony Loewenstein, he has a lot, and Mondoweiss. Visit the blogroll.

The video halfway down this post is old in the current affairs scale of things, it being shot on April 17, but it is a video of Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme who died last week after being hit in the stomach by a teargas canister. I blogged about it here and here.
The Israeli news, Ynet, reports Bassem's relative, Abdullah, who was near Bassem when he was fatally wounded, as saying (my emphasis):

"I can say for certain that there was no violence or provocation on the part of the protestors... The casualty's last words were to the soldiers and police officers: 'Stop firing, stop firing.' And then the grenade hit him and he was critically injured."

Bassem was wearing a bright green shirt and was shot directly by a soldier from some thirty metres away. The teargas canisters are huge.
Abdullah follows up his above statements with the words below, which should be given close attention by all the people who are crying out for the Palestinians to get themselves a Gandhi (my emphasis):

Abdullah claims that the increasing incidents of firing on demonstrators in recent weeks, and the growing number of protestors injured and killed in anti-fence rallies, show that the Israelis don't know how to handle the non-violent protests.

"When the struggle is armed, the Israelis like it," he says. "They know that with their weapon, with one aircraft, one bombing, they can handle the struggle. But when the struggle is non-violent, and when peace activists from Israel and the entire world are taking part in the demonstrations, it's harder to conceal the truth, to hide the robbery and violence.

"We're noticing that they're losing their senses, and this why, over time, they run wilder and become more violent."

According to Abdullah, "We know that what worries the Israelis more is that this style of a non-violent struggle might spread from Bilin, Naalin and other numbered centers and become a wide model. So they are seeking to suppress this model before it spreads even more, because they know our struggle is justified and that they are losing.

"Moreover, Bassem was killed when we were trying to enter land which an Israeli court ruled we are allowed to enter."

I have blogged a little about this fear of non-violent protest in this post where the Israeli forces have described peaceful protest as being "...a smart way to trigger Israeli violence and thus incite the uprising''

Apparently the soldiers asked the Palestinians who were protesting against the apartheid wall if they wanted more 'gas' (read the Mondoweiss article below). As this 'incident' was actually filmed, it made the news in Israel, and there will be a self-investigation and so on and so on.

This text is from Mondoweiss. The shorter video he refers to has been removed due to violating terms of use... whatever that means...considering it was apparently distributed by Reuters.

This is a fuller video than the short, shocking video we posted last night depicting the killing of Bassem Ibrahim Abu Ramah yesterday at the weekly protest of the confiscatory wall in the West Bank village of Bil'in. The video shows plainly that the demonstrators were not violent. Here is a rough translation of the words on the video, supplied by an anonymous friend:

The demonstrators are telling the soldiers in Hebrew that there are children and Israelis present and they are asking them not to shoot. Bassem is shouting "listen, wait a minute, wait a minute" before he falls to the ground. The soldiers then fire another round of tear gas as the demonstrators yell that he is injured and needs an ambulance.

In the longer video, as [Mohammed] Khatib is arguing with the soldier, I can't make out all of it because they're talking over each other, but you can clearly hear the soldier say, "do you want more gas?" They can see someone is on the ground and bleeding and because they know it's a Palestinian, they don't care.

And the soldier is telling Khatib "Are you going to shut up?" as Khatib pleads with him to stop shooting. The Israeli who's next to Bassem right after the shooting is just saying, there's an injured man, bring an ambulance quickly. He asks Bassem where he was hit. The demonstrators also repeat throughout, this is a non-violent demonstration. The soldiers merely respond with teargas.

This is what Bassem looked like not even one year ago:


From the active stills group.

An archive photo, taken on 25/7/2008, shows Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme (ElFeel) during a protest against the wall in the village of Bilin.

And also, thanks to Mondoweiss, this is the Full Text of President Ahmadinejad’s Remarks at U.N. Conference on Racism for anyone who is interested.

monkey brain sushi

There is serious stuff to write, and hopefully I'll get around to it. Unfortunately, the world does not stand still while I'm nursing a hangover. Monkey Brain Sushi was a great book of Japanese short stories that I read in the early nineties. It's how my head feels, too, and my general being. Kind of raw and slithery. Still, I will go to the castle in a few hours with a friend, and enjoy some of the remaining cherry blossoms. Hopefully the weather is not too chilly. Oh, okay, I'll get a little serious. A follow-up to yesterday's story.

In these two photos, an Israeli protestor [sic] is seen in two different demonstrations, both held in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel aviv, holding a sign with the same slogan: “Also I am an un-armed protestor- shot [sic] me!”

The first photo was taken on the 19/5/2004 during a demonstration after the Israeli army attacked a protest in the Gaza strip, kilning many Palestinians, and the second one, was taken on the 18/4/2009 during a demonstration after the Israeli army murdered Bassam Ibrahim Abu Rahme during a protest in Bilin.

Photos by: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

A Palestinian man holds the tear gas canister that killed Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme (ElFeel), at a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah on the 17/4/2009.
Bassem was murdered by the Israeli army, during a protest against the apartheid wall in Bilin. A soldier shot him with an extended range tear-gas projectile that was aimed directly at him from a distance of 30 meters. Bassem was critically injured in the chest and died shortly after arriving at a hospital in Ramallah.

Photo by: oren Ziv/ Activestills.org

flying kites

From the active stills group.

An archive photo, taken on 25/7/2008, shows Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahme (ElFeel) during a protest against the wall in the village of Bilin.

Bassam was murdered by the Israeli army [17 April, 2009], during a protest against the apartheid wall in Bilin. He was shot with an extended range teargas projectile directly at him from a distance of 30 meters. Bassem was critically injured in the stomach and died not long after in a hospital in Ramallah.

That is a similar teargas projectile, and a similar way of targeting, that caused American, Tristan Anderson's, criticial condition.

*Note: I see that Israeli Uri Avnery at Gush Salom has commented on this. His post is short. It follows in full (my emphasis, apart from the title):

Bil'in demonstrator Bassam Abu Rahme killed – soldiers' trigger-happiness inspired from higher up
Already for four years, demonstrations are taking place at the village of Bil'in, to protest the "Separation Fence" which robs the villagers of much of their land, and whose route is in blatant violation of the Supreme Court ruling. Also before, the army used violence to disperse the Palestinian, Israeli and international demonstrators. But, until this morning no one got killed. The killing of Bassam Abu Rahme today, a Bil'in resident, follows upon the severe head wounding of American peace activist Tristan Anderson a month ago, and constitutes a grave escalation.

This escalation was not caused by the demonstrators' behavior, in which there had been no change, but to new instructions given to the military forces on the ground. Whether by explicit instructions or by a tacit nod and a new "spirit of the commander", the finger on the trigger was loosed and authorization given for the tear gas containers as lethal missiles.

This is the harsh heritage of the Gaza War and the mass killings which it entailed. To this is added the odious spirit of the new government, which confronts the entire world and places a racist provocateur in charge of its foreign affairs - not to speak of the new-old Defence Minster Ehud Barak, who is responsible for a lot of bloodshed.

It's not writing, it's a video

It's not writing, it's a video!

It's not writing, it's a link! Israel's 60 minutes programme(article, Jan 25, 2009).

And the latest on the BBC refusal to run a Gaza charity appeal.

Uri Avnery and Obama .

I'll make my point very sanely

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Sanity in motion



From Channel 4.

Part of the problem was the IDF's expansive definition of a military target. It attacked a range of civilian facilities, from government offices to police stations, on the theory that they all provided at least indirect support to Hamas militants. But by that theory, Hamas would have been entitled to target virtually any government building in Israel on the ground that its office workers indirectly supported the IDF. That would make a mockery of the distinction between civilians and combatants that lies at the heart of the laws of war, which require direct support to military activity before civilians become legitimate military targets. Behind the unsupportable legal claim seemed to lie a determination to make Gazans suffer for the presence of Hamas--a prohibited purpose for using military force.

The IDF's credibility probably took the biggest hit on the issue of its use of white phosphorous. A typical artillery shell of white phosphorous releases 116 phosphorus-soaked wedges which, upon contact with oxygen, burn intensely, releasing a distinctive plume of smoke. That smoke can be used legitimately to obscure troop movements, but white phosphorous can be devastating when used in urban areas, igniting civilian structures and causing people horrific burns. Its use by the IDF in densely populated sections of Gaza violated the legal requirement to take all feasible precautions during military operations to avoid harming civilians. It never should have been deployed.

The IDF has tried to defend itself with denial and obfuscation. It first denied using white phosphorous at all. Then, when that proved untenable, it claimed that use was limited to unpopulated areas of Gaza. Neither claim is true. On Jan. 9, 10 and 15, a Human Rights Watch military expert personally observed white phosphorous being fired from an artillery battery and air burst over Gaza City and the Jabalya refugee camp. Its telltale jellyfish-like plume was a dead giveaway, as can be seen from many photographs that are now emerging from Gaza of white phosphorous raining down on civilian areas.
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Predictably, the IDF holds Hamas wholly responsible for civilian casualties in Gaza, alleging that Hamas combatants stored weapons in mosques and fought from among civilians. Those allegations may or may not be true. Long experience, as during the 2006 war in Lebanon, shows that we must take such ritual IDF pronouncements with a grain of salt. We will not know exactly how Hamas waged the war until human rights monitors can conclude the on-the-ground investigations that they are only just beginning because of the IDF's earlier refusal to let them into Gaza.

Israelis seem dismayed that the world has not embraced the justness of its latest war in Gaza. Of course Israel is entitled to defend itself from Hamas' rocket attacks, but when it does so in violation of its duty to spare civilians, and with so massive a civilian toll, public outrage is entirely predictable. Meanwhile, the IDF does itself no favor when it resorts to censorship, PR techniques and misrepresentation rather than subject its conduct to the open and independent scrutiny that should characterize any military that is genuinely committed to respecting the laws of war.

"The Incendiary IDF", Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch, 22 January, 2009. Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch.
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BBC vs Disasters Emergency Committee

Well, Channel 4 shows that it can go for the jugular, but the BBC's approach is a little more mixed.(Pressure still on BBC in Gaza row, BBC News, UK, 25 January, 2009).

They have come under flak for so far deciding not to show a charity fund raising appeal for the people of Gaza. The BBC feels that it would compromise its impartiality in an ongoing story by airing the appeal. However:

The BBC has given free air time to previous appeals by the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella for groups including the Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children. The appeals have raised millions of pounds (dollars) for victims of war and natural disaster in Congo, Myanmar and elsewhere (BBC slammed for not airing gaza appeal, Ninemsn, January 24, 2009).

From the first link above, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the British public could "distinguish between support for humanitarian aid and perceived partiality in a conflict".

There is quite a lot of governmental pressure on BBC to run the appeal, and 2000 people protested the fact that they have, so far, decided not to. Of course the governmental pressure is worrying for any news group, but as BBC has supported other appeals, as detailed above, which were also surely dealing with ongoing news stories, the reasons given for not showing the appeal do not necessarily stand up, unless of course, by showing the appeal they are somehow limited in their access to Gaza and Israel. Within the articles I have read, that does not seem to be the case.

From the Ninemsn article (the second one linked above):

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said the BBC had made the wrong decision. He called on the BBC to reconsider, "to recognise the immense human suffering and to address the concern which I think otherwise may develop that somehow the suffering of people in Gaza is not taken as seriously as the suffering of people in other conflicts."

Health minister Ben Bradshaw called the BBC's decision inexplicable and accused the publicly funded broadcaster of being cowed by the Israeli government.

"I am afraid the BBC has to stand up to the Israeli authorities occasionally," Bradshaw said.

ITV, Channel 4 and Five are going to broadcast the appeal, though ITV had said earlier that it would not.

It is interesting that 2000 people protested the BBC's decision. I wonder if in Australia

a) there would be or is a similar appeal , and

b) whether 2000 people would care enough to protest (somehow I think everyone is thinking of Australia Day tomorrow).
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Rubber Bullets and Boycotts

On Wednesday, 21 January 2009, at 12.30, residents of Ni’lin, along with International and Israeli solidarity activists, gathered to demonstrate against the construction of the Apartheid Wall. The demonstration began in the olive fields but was forced back when the Israeli army shot teargas and threw sound bombs. After the demonstration began, the army invaded the town from the fields and the checkpoint at the entrance of the village, firing tear gas canisters, rubber coated steel bullets and plastic coated steel bullets. The army proceeded towards the centre of the town, shooting at houses and cars. Israeli forces arrested three Ni’lin residents who were not participating in the demonstration and injured nine individuals.

This is a peaceful demonstration, as can be read here, and the demonstrations are held regularly, with Palestinian people, ISM volunteers and Israeli volunteers.

All the above is very worrying, of course, but the thing that most worries me is this:
This is the second invasion of Ni’lin in one week. The Occupation is collectively punishing the Palestinians of Ni’lin for their resistance to the Apartheid Wall. When completed, the Apartheid Wall will annex land belonging to villagers. Furthermore, the simultaneous establishment of the Apartheid Wall and a tunnel will allow the Israeli army to bar all but one connection leading to complete control over movement for Ni’lin residents.

There has just been an update posted on the town, too.

Israel is often cited as the "only democracy in the Middle East". But these practices seem pretty undemocratic to me. Once people are finally and completely hemmed in. What then? Further stories and statistics can be found at B'tselem. Australia currently has United Nations security sanctions on Sudan and Congo. It supported the security sanctions on Rwanda, which have recently finished. It has autonomous sanctions on Zimbabwe.

I assume that these sanctions are mostly in place due to the practices of genocide and human rights abuse. So, again, to the people who say why not look at the problems of these countries instead of Israel and Palestine, well, my government seems to be concerned about the injustice that occurs there, and I think, at the very, very least, my government could follow Malcolm Fraser's following suggestion of . . .support[ing] the appeal for the Australian Parliament to pass a resolution recognising the hardships of the Palestinian people and committing Australia to work for a fair and peaceful resolution and the establishment of a viable independent state for Palestinians. At the very least. So much more could be done. ( Balanced policy the only way to peace, Malcolm Fraser, The Age, May 10, 2008) such as the following moves:
Both Oxford City council and Quebec Colleges and Universities are endorsing and calling for extensive boycotts of Israel. Maybe it's time for the "culpably ignorant" to ask ourselves why.
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Essential reading

Because she says far more than I ever can.
The last two entries from Eva Bartlett's blog:

Beneath the surface and

It's a ceasefire, just not on the beach, not in your home. Children are still getting injured by Israeli fire, by the way. A 'siege-fire' as one commenter put it.

Further interesting reading (not from Eva) is as follows, if you are up to it:
Gaza crisis: Regimes react with routine repression, January 21, 2009; Human Rights Watch and,
Newsweek:, Feb 2nd, 2009 and,
Francis A. Boyle,, 30 December, 2008.

Depressingly, but not suprisingly, fundamentalism is further on the rise and has a focus as articles from this site can attest. And a big shout out to it for a lot of the material presented above, though it can readily be found on the Net also. Also to the other blogs I visit and friends who send me things they think I might be interested in.

If you've stuck with me this far, Gong Xi Fa Cai‏ ! for the 26th (two hours away for my side of the world), and Happy Australia Day.