the soul unfolds itself

Israeli military refuser released from prison

25 March, 2010 — Yesh Gvul
Shir Regev, 19 years old, an Israeli anarchist, has just been released from his 1st prison term for refusing to serve in the Israeli army. His letter to the Israeli authorities follows. Shir is now awaiting the army's decision in his case.

To: Induction Bureau, Haifa
Copies : Prime Minister Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Barak  
 
Sirs!
My name is Shir Regev and I have been a deserter since 1/12/09. I believe it is my personal duty to refuse and defect from an army whose main purpose is to serve as an occupation police for maintaining "Israeli order" and imposing it on defenseless Palestinians who are denied citizenship.

And what is this "Israeli order" ? It is an ongoing process, in effect over 42 years, comprising a military regime over the Palestinians, denying them access to Palestinian community resources of land, water, agricultural crops and ores. It is also entails pollution of their land and their streams, along with support for disenfranchisement by settlers who live in the same areas, under a separate system of seemingly democratic laws. And I have not even mentioned the violation of more basic Palestinian human rights, like denying their freedom of movement, and causing bodily harm, including mass killing, without due investigation of alleged criminal offenses of the gravest type. These acts may constitute war crimes under international law.

Since I have the medical profile of a "combat soldier", had I joined the army, there is no doubt I would have been sent to serve this "Mafiosi" system, which has almost nothing to do with the IDF's designated role as "Defense Forces"... This is an army that serves interests in which I do not believe.

Therefore, in the dilemma between doing such service and obeying my conscience, I have no doubt about my decision. The day will come when my decision is appreciated by people who presently deny the horrible reality which we as a society are creating for another people and the damage we are inflicting on the souls of many young Israelis who may not be aware of the moral degradation in which they take part.

 

Sincerely

Shir Regev

Israeli member of Knesset calls British "Anti-Semitic Dogs"

From the UK's Telegraph
Britain's relations with Israel have sunk to a new low after a Mossad agent was expelled from the country and the Foreign Office warned that it may not be safe to use British passports there.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband calls Israel out for its use of forged UK passports in the Dubai assassination, leading to the

Israel has insisted there was no proof to show it was behind the killing in January but officials said there would be no tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsion. However, members of the Israeli parliament likened the British government to “anti-Semitic dogs” and demanded the expulsion of Britain’s military attaché in Tel Aviv.

“The British are being hypocritical, and I do not wish to insult dogs here, since some dogs show true loyalty, [but] who gave the British the right to judge us on the war on terror?” said Arieh Eldad, a Right-wing member of the Knesset.

Another member, Michael Ben-Ari, said: “Dogs are usually loyal, the British may be dogs, but they are not loyal to us. They seem to be loyal to the anti-Semitic establishment.”

What IS the anti-Semitic establishment?

An island inside Israel

"If they keep the Jordan Valley, they control all of Palestine... Then Israel will be the middleman between us and the rest of the world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/01/AR2009110102434.html

Howard Schneider exposes Oslo's facilitation of continual Israeli military and civil control over a majority of West Bank, including the entirety of the Jordan Valley.

US Palestinian Community Network: "Kick Dayton out of Palestine"

I started blogging again... for three days. I then realized Iwrite for myself, not for others... The pressure of expectation is at the root of most of my writer's block history. So rather than avoid sharing information because I don't know how to type without deleting and changing word choices and then deleting entire paragraphs, etc... I fall back on posting pertinent and interesting stories, voices, perspectives (a.k.a. "things") every once in a while.

So here's something I saw in Electronic Intifada the other day and decided it was a lovely example of US engagement in Israel and Palestine beyond the nearly $3 billion in economic and military aid to Israel, beyond the US' complicity in the siege, closure and invasions of Gaza, and despite the "strong words" Obama has used in discussing a settlement freeze (which is not happening in the slightest).

The US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), an organizing body that came out of the first convening of the US Palestinian Popular Conference in the Summer of 2008, released a statement about General Dayton and his mercenaries creating contra forces in the West Bank. It is a VERY scary reality for Palestinians and there is a call to organize to halt US funding and training of the Palestinian Authority "security forces."

The US Palestinian Community Network is appalled that the government of the United States not only continues its unconditional support for Israel, but has engaged in establishing Palestinian contra forces in the West Bank, aimed at deepening Palestinian internal division and engaging in arbitrary arrests and assassinations of political activists. We demand an immediate end to all such programs and the immediate withdrawal of US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton and his mercenaries from Palestine!

US Lt. General Keith Dayton, the US Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, has overseen the creation of a paramilitary force serving the occupation under the title of Palestinian Authority "security forces." While Israeli occupation soldiers regularly abduct, injure and kill Palestinians, Dayton's contras have engaged in a campaign of intimidation against the Palestinian populace, including arbitrary arrests, raids on charitable institutions and non-governmental organizations, assassinations and torture of political opponents of the Palestinian Authority.

Furthermore, the focus on "security" comes at the expense of the Palestinian people's real needs. While Palestinians continue to organize to resist occupation and strengthen their communities by building schools, hospitals and community-centered institutions that support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people, the US has poured money, arms and resources into "security forces" that provide no security for Palestinians who face daily threats from settlers and occupying forces, but instead act as threats against Palestinians on the ground.

The actions of these squads are fully coordinated with the Israeli military occupation. They carry out arrests, abductions and raids at the direction of Israeli military forces and provide the occupation forces with information about the location of Palestinian activists. Israeli officials have bragged about the success of these paramilitary forces in repressing Palestinian resistance.

In addition, this force is designed to prop up a subservient and collaborationist Palestinian authority. The training for these forces is provided by a number of repressive Arab regimes, who themselves maintain their power due to US funding and support.

These paramilitary squads are not an internal Palestinian question alone. As taxpayers and residents of the United States, we demand that the US ceases its funding and training of Dayton's mercenaries. US involvement in paramilitary death and terror squads is nothing new -- from Colombia, to the Philippines, to El Salvador, to Nicaragua, to Angola and Mozambique, the US has funded trained and armed paramilitary forces to serve US interests and/or support reactionary local rulers.

To read their call to action visit their site:
http://www.palestineconference.org/dayton-statement.shtml

It aint no dry ice!

its tear gas at the demo in Bil'in today.

"They fear the word Nakba like a criminal fears his victim"

On my most recent Interfaith Peace Builders Delegation, we took a tour of the Israeli settlements built around occupied East Jerusalem, and noticed the construction of new Jewish housing units and nearby destruction of Palestinian homes. At one of the settlement vistas was a plaque explaining the horizon of hills and buildings. Only the Jewish sites were referenced. The Palestinian towns, the Dome of the Rock, the Al Aqsa Mosque... none of it was marked on the map. "From a young age, we are taught not to see Palestinians, because to see Palestinians would complicate our lives," Yahav, our Israeli tour guide from the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions said.

Reported in the news today, Israeli "Education Minister Gideon Saar has instructed that Arab sector textbooks not teach that the establishment of the State of Israel was a catastrophe for Arabs." All articles note that Jewish Israeli textbooks have never used the term Nakba, catastrophe in Arabic, in complete ignorance or even denial of the Palestinian disaster that took place in 1948. As is stated by the group Zochrot who attempts to bring the Nakba into Israeli consciousness and Israeli society, "The Nakba has no place in the language, the landscape, the environment, and the memory of the Jewish collective in Israel."

There are 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel out of a population of 7 million. Many of them are internally displaced and refugees from the 1948 war. The Nakba, and Israel's independence, is a central aspect of their identity and their political reality. The Nakba was the destruction of the villages and cities, the killing, the expulsion and erasure of Palestinian culture.

This move by the Education Minister is not very surprising in light of a recent bill that has preliminarily passed, which will deny all state funds linked not only to the commemoration of Nakba, but also "prevent the government from supporting activities that reject the state's democratic character, as well as basic democratic principles such as popular sovereignty, human rights, separation of powers, rule of law and an independent judiciary." In a democratic country with a large non-Jewish population, an open discussion about the reality of the democracy of the state should be unquestionable, especially provided the different applications of the law and human rights to Israel's Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Israel's fascist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman drafted the original bill which would have banned all Nakba commemorations with penalties of up to three years in prison for violation of the law.

In Israel's attempt to "erase this memory from the collective consciousness and from the landscape... the Israelis, study in [their] schools that the Jews came to Israel to transform the desert into a blooming country, because we were a 'people without a land' returning to a 'land without a people.'" In a recent Haaretz article Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian Israeli who represents the Balad party in Israel's Knesset stated it well: "This is the only country which enacts a law to rewrite history... They fear the word Nakba like a criminal fears his victim."

Cellcom ad inspires subversive art!

There has been a creative grassroots response to the atrocious Cellcom (Israel's largest cell phone carrier) ad which aired in Israel, depicting Israeli soldiers playing soccer with invisible Palestinians over the Annexation Wall built on Palestinian land. The voice over in the original ad affirms this normalization, "After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun." The Wall for Palestinians represents a furthering of Israeli policies of confiscation and colonization. It represents separation and strangulation. It represents a lack of autonomy and control of their own access and movement. It isolates families from one another, from their land, from their schools and hospitals, from their right to livelihood. The Wall kills the reality of a viable Palestinian state and the prospects for peace and creates an invisibility to Israeli society and the world of the daily reality for Palestinians living under siege in the West Bank and Gaza. Below are the three response videos.

The first was covered in the BBC and Ha'aretz and is a grassroots response from the people of Bil'in.
The second is an anonymous "more real" subversive version.
And one more in the same vein.
For more information about the Wall visit the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Click here for the BBC article.
Click here for the Ha'aretz article.

Day camps help bring Gaza's traumatised children back on track

Al Jazeera covers a trauma workshop/day camp in Gaza, processing with youth their experiences of Israel's invasion of Gaza in December '08 and January '09.

Violence in my back yard...

Today when I walked out of the Fruitvale BART station, a few young people were asking people to boycott BART tomorrow to honor the killing of Oscar Grant, a 22 year old man BART police shot and killed in the early hours of January 1st, on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland. I have been following the story since New Year's Day when I learned of the fatal shooting just hours earlier on the platform just a few hundred meters from where I live. make-shift vigil at Fruitvale BART station

Video footage supported by eyewitnesses reports of this incident shows that Grant was "lying on his stomach with his hands out in a non-threatening position when he was shot". Police have confirmed Grant was unarmed and have suggested the shooting was an accident. Grant lived in Hayward and leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter. There will be a rally to protest the shooting from 3pm till 8pm on Wednesday January 7th at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland after a public funeral in Hayward.

Israeli Anarchists block entrance to Israeli Air Force base in protest of Gaza strikes

By Ofri Ilani
Original piece published in Ha'aretz

Twenty-one members of the "Anarchists Against the Wall" group were arrested Friday morning after they blocked the entrance to the Sde Dov Israel Air Force base in North Tel Aviv.

The protestors, wearing white masks and covered in fake blood, laid on the street and played dead. They said they were arrested after they left the road and were on the sidewalk.

The sign reads: "blood of children on your hands"

Ayala, one of the protestors, said that the protest was meant to "show IAF pilots the results of their actions in Gaza. From thousands of feet in the air, a pilot who aims and presses a button can ignore, forget, or be unable to fathom that at that moment he killed innocent people. We came here to remind them of this."

bathing baby shahed

I submitted three photographs of three different women, telling three different stories about Palestine for a photography contest on Motherhood for Mother's Day for the International Museum of Women. One of them (well actually two were posted) was one of the final 10 selected entries! The other entries are quite a diverse range of beautiful images as well. I encourage you to check them out.

For those of you too lazy to click on the link... I posted the two photos below.
The one on top was "the winner" and the second one is part of the same series that is nice because you can see Mama Dalal... but Jumana is a bit too out of focus. They work together though...

If anyone has other ideas of where to submit my photography I have many thousands of images I would love to get out there. Get in touch...

palestine blues

many of you know that once upon a time i worked on a documentary film project with a palestinian american man i met in palestine- my friend nida sinnokrot... the film is called palestine blues and its out and about these days and well worth seeing, buying or showing!
check it out... www.palestineblues.com

18 Palestinians killed after Israeli "withdrawl"

For full article click here.
According to the International Middle East Media Center:
18 Palestinian civilians were killed and scores injured on Wednesday morning due to Israeli army shelling residents' houses in the Town of Beit Hannoun, north of the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources reported that army tanks stationed at the Israeli – Gaza borders shelled residents' houses. The Al Othmani family house that consists of four apartments, was leveled to the ground and the number of houses sustained heavy damage, causing a high number of deaths and injuries.

(photo courtesy of reuters)
According to medical sources, 5 of the 18 killed were moved to Kamal Adawan hospital and the other 13 were moved to Beit Hannoun Hospital. Doctors said that they were unable to identify most of the killed civilians because the bodes arrived severely mutilated. Doctors added that there are the critical among the wounded, which led the doctors to say the number of the killed may increase.

Earlier at around 1:00 am on Wednesday, several tanks and army bulldozers invaded the town of Beit Hannoun, destroyed some farm lands and fired at residents' houses causing damage to their property, eyewitnesses reported.

The Israeli army has redeployed around Beit Hannoun on Tuesday morning after a six-day military operation that left 63 Palestinians dead and more than 150 wounded.

Bay Area activists support the people of Gaza!

In Gaza over 56 people have already been killed in the past six days of Israel’s most recent offensive against Gaza with no end in sight.

According to reports by Dr. Mona Elfaraa, tanks and armored vehicles have been surrounding the Beit Hanoun hospital for the last six days and preventing medical volunteers and victims of violence from reaching it.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged Sunday to press ahead with Israel's offensive in northern Gaza, brushing off international calls to halt the aggression and the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza – inadequate electricity and medicine and dwindling supplies of water, food and other staples.

Today a group of Bay Area activists affiliate with groups including Break the Silence, Break the Siege, ISM, ISO, SUSTAIN, QUIT, Women In Black, Heads Up Collective and MECA stood to show their support for the people of Beit Hanoun and to protest the Israeli aggres-sion against the people of Palestine and the siege of Gaza! They stood insolidarity with the more than two hundred women of Beit Hanoun who were shot at with live ammunition during a nonviolent demonstration on Friday, killing two women, and wounding numerous others.

For photos of the solidarity vigil see photos click here...

For more information: Institute for Middle East Understanding www.imeu.net ; Electronic Inti-fada www.electronicintifada.net ; International Middle East Media Center www.imemc.org ; Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza www.pchrgaza.org ; Palestine News Network www.pnn.ps

Emad Bornat Released to House Arrest

Report from ISM
A judge at Ofer military court ordered Bil’in cameraman Emad Bornat to be released tomorrow after almost 3 weeks in detention. Emad was seized in the village after a demonstration against the annexation wall on October 6th as he was filming Israeli forces. Whilst in the border police van Emad sustained serious head injuries requiring hospital treatment. A military judge ordered an inquiry into his injuries, casting doubt on the explanation of the border police that communications equipment fell on him.

Whilst in detention at Ofer military prison the Israeli military refused Emad medical treatment in defiance of the instructions of the court. Today a judge ordered the head of the military police to give account to the President of the Appelate Court as to why Emad didn’t receive the required treatment.

Emad will be released on 15,000 NIS bail and into house arrest in a neighbouring village to Bil’in. Emad, whose footage featured in the award-winning “Bil’in habibti” is charged with throwing stones and assaulting a border policeman. No date has been set yet for his trial.

help release palestinian cameraman emad bornat

Your help is needed to help release Emad Mohammad Bornat of the village of Bil'in, video photographer for Reuters and documentary film maker, who was arrested on Friday October 6th, 2006 by a Israeli Border Police unit that entered the village, firing rubber bullets and sound grenades. Emad is being held in Israeli military custody. In his trial yesterday Tuesday the 10th of October, at Ofer military base, Judge Shlomo Katz rescinded an earlier decision to free Bornat, and his release has been postponed until the prosecution can decide whether to contest the ruling or indict Bornat..

Please, phone, fax, write to the addresses at: http://toibillboard.info/gov_addr.txt

Emad, who was filming at the time, was arrested by an Israeli Border policeman. When Emad arrived at the police station in Givat Zeev, he was wounded. The Border Police soldiers claimed a radio "fell" on him in the jeep, on the way to the station. He was taken to the Hadassah - Har Hatzofim hospital and was then taken back to the police station in Givat Zeev. After he was interrogated, the police refused to view the tapes that Emad filmed. Emad is accused of "assault on an officer" and of stone throwing and was sent to the Etzion prison. Israeli Border Police have in the past been rebuked by military judges on false testimonies towards arrested Palestinian demonstrators and their Israeli supporters.

Emad has tirelessly documented the struggle of his village against the wall and settlements, and is known by many other professionals with whom he works and cooperates, giving them video material for their films and reports. He is a man of peace and a dedicated and responsible video-photo-journalist. His video footage has been broadcast throughout the world, showing the demonstrations against the wall Israel is constructing on his village's land. It shows the routine, and often brutal, violence of the Israeli military in general and the Border Police in particular on the demonstrations, especially as used against Palestinians.

For more information:

Attorney Gaby Laski: 054 449 18988
Mohammed Khatib: 054 557 3285
Shai Polack: 054 533 3364

See also: Meron Rapaport: Judge orders probe over Palestinian cameraman hurt in Bil'in

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772866.html

Activism Through Documentary Film

A friend of mine has been video-documenting the actions of our local coalition involved in organizing events and actions and raising awareness about the atrocities occurring in the Middle East with our tax dollars. We're called Break the Siege.
Check it out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_rMq2UAN0

More of his work can be found on his site Mental Rev Productions: Activism Through Documentary Film or on his myspace.

On Saturday September 16th, more than 40 Bay Area activists staged a "die-in" at the Ferry Building in San Francisco to highlight US tax $$ used to fund the attacks on and killings of civilians in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The "die-in" was also held to commemorate the anniversary of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon.

some good news...

Courtesy of the International Solidarity Movement

On Monday, August 28th, two structures were demolished in the illegal Israeli settlement of Matityahu East, on the land of Bil'in village. Construction of the settler colonies had continued until an Israeli court issued a stop work order pending a decision on the status of the colony. The demolition was carried out by the construction company responsible for expanding the colony. This reversal is in response to an Israeli Supreme Court order on July 20th, instructing the company to demolish the two partial structures. The court also decided that a Palestinian road must be built in order to give the village access to their land. This latter ruling has so far not been enforced.

As well as demanding the demolition of the two structures in the Matityahu East enclave, the court instructed the company to restore the land to its previous pre-colonial state, wherein the land was a flourishing olive grove. Previously the whole of the illegal colonies of Matityahu and Mod'in Elit was agricultural land belonging to Bil'in and other villages in the area.

Occupation authorities annexed 1,100 dunums (275 acres) of the land of Bil'in in 1991. At the time, the confiscation was justified by reference to an old Ottoman-era law allowing for confiscation of unused land. Much later, it was revealed that in order to demonstrate that the coveted land was "unused," the State made use of photos of seasonal crop farmland taken when the crops were not yet in season. More than a decade after the confiscation, Israeli colonial settlements began to be built, following a typical pattern of settlement expansion, whereby first, Palestinian land is declared State property and then eventually distributed to Israelis. As a reaction to the theft of the land, weekly non-violent demonstrations have been held in Bil'in village for the past 17 months.

These demonstrations, in existence weekly since January 2005, garnered international attention and support, making a protracted legal campaign challenging the settlement's legality a possibility. Yesterday's demolition is a major step in the struggle of Bil'in village to restore their land to its pre-colonial state. The village plans to continue to challenge plans to gain retrospective permission for other parts of the colony already constructed or under construction.

1000 words in motion...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1O8il0AxSI
Alan the wonderman of the video camera meets the miracle of YouTube!
Here is a video of Tuesday's action posted below.