On 8 November, the day the Israeli government announced hundreds of new Jewish-only housing units in East Jerusalem, young Jews interrupted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he addressed the Jewish Federations of North America in New Orleans.
Five members of the Young Leadership Institute of Jewish Voice for Peace stood up to hold placards and shout protests denouncing the occupation, settlements and the new Israeli oath of allegiance as betraying Jewish values.
…
Part of the British “boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) for Palestine movement attended the British Olympic ball on 24 September, to put pressure on the ball’s sponsor, BT, to cut its ties with Bezeq, supplier of telecommunications services to Israeli checkpoints, bases and illegal settlements.
Among the great and good in the world of sport and sports-sponsorship arriving at the red carpet at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London was a long pink stretch limo.
…
The latest attempt to break the Israeli siege of Gaza was organised by Jewish groups using a Jewish-crewed catamaran. The Irene was stopped and boarded by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on 28 September en route to Gaza with a cargo of aid.
The passengers included 82-year old Holocaust survivor, Reuven Moskowitz; former IDF pilot Yonatan Shapira; and Rami Elhanan, an Israeli who lost her daughter in a Palestinian suicide bombing. The IDF claimed that it used “no violence of any…
Israel’s military “demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence” in its 31 May raid on the humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza, according to a report by the UN Human Rights Council.
The report also concluded that Israel’s interception of the Mavi Marmara ship “was clearly unlawful”, that there is “clear evidence” to support prosecutions for the crimes of wilful killing, torture and inhuman treatment, and that Israel’s confiscation of video and photographic…
“We have been attacked while in international waters…the Israelis have behaved like pirates”. So says Henning Mankell describing the infamous attack by the Israeli army on the Gaza Aid Freedom Flotilla earlier this year. His piece is just one in a fine collection of articles edited by Moustafa Bayoumi, and published with admirable rapidity as a rebuttal to the official Israeli version of events.
This is an excellent resource for activists which provides both eyewitness accounts of the…
On 18 September, an aid convoy left to take much-needed medical equipment to the people of Gaza and draw attention to the inhuman blockade of this tiny strip of land.
UN officials have described the situation as a “medieval siege”. 70% of Gazan families live on less than a dollar a day per person. On 2 August, a Palestinian man was arrested for stealing a bucket of Israeli water.
Wales participants in the convoy left Newport for the long hard overland drive to Gaza, taking…
On 24 August, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, co-ordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee in Palestine, was convicted of incitement and organising illegal marches by an Israeli military court. The conviction concluded an eight-month trial, during which he remained in prison. Sentencing was postponed. Abdallah had been arrested at home in Ramallah at 2am on 10 December.
Abdallah has played a key role in organising the successful grassroots campaign against the Israeli separation wall that cuts…
As PN went to press, the Lebanese women’s aid ship Mariam was still anchored in the port of Tripoli. The women-only ship cannot sail directly from Tripoli to Gaza, as Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war.
Cyprus had agreed to be a staging post, but on 21 August withdrew permission for the use of its ports for vessels departing to Gaza. Greece has been approached. In July, the Libyan aid ship Amalthea attempted to break the Israeli siege of Gaza but was forced to divert to…
On 16 August, Mordechai Vanunu swam in the sea for the first time in 25 years – since he went on the run from Israel in 1985. The swim took place in Tel Aviv where he has now moved. Vanunu lived in East Jerusalem for six years after his release from 18 years of solitary confinement for exposing Israel's secret nuclear weapons programme.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) are encouraging viewer’s complaints to the BBC about the programme “Death on the Med”, about the Gaza flotilla massacre: www.tinyurl.com/peacenews293
On 23 July, 12 Jewish women, 12 Palestinian women and four children spent a day at the seaside at Tel Aviv.
As the Palestinians were from the West Bank, and had no entry permit into Israel, the day out was an act of civil disobedience, a protest at the “Entry into Israel Law”, which allows every Jew to move freely between the Mediterranean and the Jordan, while restricting Palestinians. After the Palestinians had been safely smuggled back, the Jewish women wrote to the press…
Four activists taken to court for blockading the Israeli-owned cosmetics shop, Ahava, in Covent Garden, London, in 2009, were acquitted by Highbury Corner magistrates on 12 August after the shop manager refused to attend court to give evidence.
The four had closed the shop down for the day on two occasions by locking themselves to concrete-filled oil drums.
Fortnightly Saturday lunchtime demonstrations continue outside the shop, 39 Monmouth St WC2, for its complicity in the…
On 7 July, Israel’s Army Radio reported that the United States had sent Israel a “secret letter” pledging nuclear cooperation between the two countries.
According to the report, the Obama administration promised to sell nuclear technology, despite Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The deal was confirmed by Israeli finance minister Yuval Steinitz on 8 July. He called it a major achievement of the 6 July meeting of Israeli prime minister Benjamin…
Peace News pays tribute to the Gaza flotilla martyrs: Cengiz Akyüz (42), Ali Heyder Bengi (39), Ibrahim Bilgen (60), Furkan Dogan (19), Cevdet Kiliçlar (38), Cengiz Songür (47), Çetin Topçuoglu (54), Fahri Yaldiz (43), and Necdet Yildirim (32), killed by the Israeli Defence Forces on 31 May. Let us not mince words. The Israeli assault on the Gaza aid flotilla was an act of terrorism, of state terrorism. The killings of these Turkish solidarity activists was merely the latest chapter in the…
When Cengiz Songür set off to join the Freedom Flotilla, one of his six daughters put a letter into his jacket pocket, where it stayed unnoticed until he was on board the Mavi Marmara.
The letter started: “I have thousands of words to tell you, but they are now all stuck in my throat. I am scared, Dad. I get scared as I see the sadness in my sisters’ eyes and the worried look on my mum’s face. Dad, please do not get scared. Please, go there, Dad. Go there to put a smile on an…
