Tag Archives: Palestinian solidarity

National march in Washington DC to demand “Stop the massacre in Gaza!”

Gaza City (Mohammed Saber:EPA) July 15 2014

There have been Palestinian solidarity protests reported in 50 cities around the world (if you count a lone picketer in McAllen, TX). Some have been “small but spirited”; some have been immense, numbering in the thousands. Eleven of those were in the US, though there were certainly more rallies unreported. These protests have to continue, have to grow, have to reach out & involve everyone under the sun demanding “Stop the massacre in Gaza.”

So it is great news that Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, has called a national demonstration in Washington, DC on Sunday, July 20th, calling for an immediate end to Israeli bombing & an immediate end to US military funding to Israel.

Here’s the info: Al-Awda National Rally to Defend Palestine; End the Genocide
Sunday, July 20, 2014
3 PM
US State Department to the White House
3514 International Drive NW
Washington DC

Organizations wishing to endorse and take part in this action, contact Don Bryant at 216.285.0223 or don@immigrantsupportnetwork.org

Everybody on the East Coast & east of the Mississippi River should consider finding a way to this rally & know it is an honor to support the people of Gaza in their struggle.

This is a photo of Israeli bombing in Gaza City where over half a million people live. There’s no way Zionists can put the soundtrack to “Exodus” to this carnage. “We Shall Overcome (for Palestine)” by Roger Waters is the only suitable anthem.

(Photo by Mohammed Saber/EPA)

Gaza solidarity rallies held around the world

UntitleTel Aviv (Yafo) protest July 12 2014

There are reports & photos from around the world showing thousands rallying to support Gaza & condemn Israeli ethnic cleansing. Protesters marched in Algeria; London, Leicester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Gloucester, & Manchester, England; Paris, France; Oslo, Norway; Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Belfast, & Derry, Ireland; Semarang & Jakarta, Indonesia; Athens, Greece; New Delhi, India; Tunis, Tunisia; Pretoria, South Africa; Brussels, Belgium; Ankara, Turkey; Shopian District, Bandipora District, & Srinigar, Kashmir; Sana’a, Yemen; Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, & Dundee, Scotland; Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, & Melbourne, Australia; San Salvador, El Salvador; The Hague, Netherlands; London, Ontario & Toronto, Canada; New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, & Denver, USA–& many, many more places not yet reported. This photo is the protest in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel, about 45 miles from the Gaza border.

This is the chant that’s gone round the world: Stop the massacre in Gaza! Our fullest solidarity with the people of Gaza!

(Photo by Yuyu Ilany)

Israeli bombing & ethnic cleansing in Gaza

This photo of a Palestinian responding to the Israeli bombing of a smuggling tunnel (earlier this month) captures the breadth & barbarism of Israel against Gaza–which is at once a siege of constant bombings & an embargo on vital human needs like medicine & foods. Palestinians are forced to build underground tunnels to smuggle what Israel won’t allow claiming Gaza uses much of the stuff to build bombs–though Israel has never been able to explain how books, paper, blankets, penicillin, aspirins, antibiotics, chocolate, spices, & other vital products are used in constructing heavy artillery. Such an embargo is however extremely effective in ethnic cleansing.

There are concentrated periods, often lasting several days & weeks, of Israeli bombing in Gaza but it never really ends. Drone sorties are most often triggered by Israeli claims of rocket attacks from Gaza. It’s become difficult for Israel to explain why thousands of alleged rockets have caused so little property damage & no casualties (including injuries from shrapnel) directly related to a rocket in the past several years. Zionist ideologues do not know shame but you have to hand to hand it to them for inventiveness in war & malice. They claim the lack of death & destruction is due to the massive civil defense infrastructure they built up in southern Israel near Gaza. They have bomb shelters, the noisy Red Dawn siren system, & the vaunted Iron Dome missile shield against rockets from Gaza. That means they never have to produce a single piece of evidence for the alleged rocket barrage.

There’s no question Israel sets off that noisy siren system & ushers people into bomb shelters to scare the hell out of them & justify the war footing against Gaza. It’s also likely some Palestinians in Gaza attempt to send over makeshift bombs loaded with blankets & oregano. But isn’t that Iron Dome working for Israel? Can’t the damn thing thwart such artillery?

Israel also claims it’s targeting Hamas military sites in Gaza. That doesn’t explain why they took out a washing machine factory in a refugee camp, a metal shop, schools, & homes; killed many civilians; injured dozens of others; & are keeping the people of Gaza under a reign of terror.

According to B’Tselem & the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, two Israeli human rights groups, there is a dramatic increase in the number of Palestinians injured or killed by gunfire near Israel’s apartheid wall encircling Gaza. Since December, B’Tselem documented 55 Palestinians injured near the fence–43 of them by live ammunition & two by tear gas canisters. There have also been several fatalities, including children & a mentally ill woman, but there is no reliable figure on how many. Mind you, they were all killed within Gaza on farm lands considered off-limit zones to the Israeli military. The military claims they were sabotaging the fence but that’s as believable as thousands of rockets bombarding Israel.

Support Palestinian justice by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729), supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, & demanding “No military aid to Israel!”

(Photo by Hatem Omar/AP)

Afghan president Karzai refuses to buckle to US Pentagon

Media & diplomats are calling Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) to maintain US military occupation in Afghanistan “The last stand of Hamid Karzai;” they liken it to a poker game, deplore he is “thumbing his nose” at the US & demonizing US troops & diplomats, accuse Karzai of mental health problems & ask if he is off his meds–all because he demands a minimal semblance of Afghan sovereignty, including accountability in Afghan courts for US soldiers who commit crimes & cessation of barbaric attacks on civilians.

Karzai is no prize package politically; he is a long-time collaborator with the US-NATO occupation & came to prominence only as a result of his corruption & collusion with the US. He will be leaving office after the April elections so his new independence may reflect some opposition within the Afghan elite to continued US occupation. It takes a certain amount of courage for Karzai to defy the US because if they thought they could get away with it the Pentagon would not hesitate to take him out.

By far, the most pernicious attacks on Karzai came from the Washington Post under the headline ”Karzai suspects US is behind insurgent-style attacks.” Citing unidentified officials in the Karzai regime & describing them as “palace officials,” the Post claims Karzai suspects many “shadowy insurgent-style attacks” in Afghanistan involved operatives of the US government. On hearing the claims, US officials swooned like actors in a Victorian melodrama; according to the Post, they “reacted with incredulity & anger to the idea that they are trying to debilitate Afghanistan’s government, which they have supported with hundreds of billions of dollars.”

The appropriately named US ambassador Cunningham (since he is both sneaky & a ham actor) said “It flies in the face of logic & morality to think that we would aid the enemy we’re trying to defeat,” & he accused Karzai of “deeply conspiratorial” thinking. Not really ambassador CunningHam. Karzai doesn’t have to go all libertarian; he only has to look at Iraq & Pakistan to see the future of Afghanistan.

As for those “hundreds of billions of dollars,” they were either bucks for bribery or for war & not reconstruction. There are some new showpiece high-rises in Kabul but the rest of the country is a shambles from bombing raids & house demolitions. Several agencies of the UN have issued reports on poverty, homelessness, & the increase in civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The UN reports blame it all on the corrupt Karzai regime, on the Taliban, on bad karma & not the US-NATO war because they support the war. One UN official in Afghanistan told reporters, “Poverty actually kills more Afghans than those who die as a direct result of the armed conflict.”

Poverty statistics in Afghanistan are quite staggering: according to one of the endless UN reports, nine million Afghans or 36% of the population live in “absolute poverty” while another 37% live barely above the poverty line. The streets are lined with homeless widows & their children begging. The poverty line established as $1.25 a day by the World Bank wouldn’t feed a mouse, let alone a child, so the distinction between absolute poverty & those barely above the poverty line is only one a sociopathic bureaucrat would make. But most importantly, can the UN tell us how those women were made widows & their children homeless? Has the bubonic plague hit Afghanistan & carted off all the men? Or might the US-NATO war be implicated in the massive poverty?

All out for the spring protests demanding “US out of Afghanistan!” “US out of Iraq!”

{Photo of Afghanistan from Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)}