Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Obama Genuflects to AIPAC
Obama Genuflects to AIPAC - by Stephen Lendman
Edward Said once called AIPAC "the most powerful and feared lobby in Washington." For years, it's "drawn on a well-organized, well-connected, highly visible, successful, and wealthy Jewish population," subverting potential opposition.
As a result, fear and respect "for AIPAC (exists) all over the country, but especially in Washington, where in a matter of hours, almost the entire Senate can be marshaled into signing a letter to the president on Israel's behalf. Who is going to oppose AIPAC and continue to have a career in Congress, or" to represent the Palestinian cause "when nothing concrete can be offered by that cause to anyone who stands up to AIPAC?"
Deferentially, each year, US politicians, including presidents, flock to its annual conference, paying homage to Israel and its influence.
Calling itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," it's represented Israeli interests since founded in 1953, then incorporated in 1963 as a division of the American Zionist Council (AZC), its precursor.
Exempted from registering as a foreign agent, it's had virtual fifth column veto power over war and peace, trade and investment, multi-billion dollar arms sales, and all Middle East policies affecting Israel under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.
In March 2001, discussing the power of American Zionist organizations, Edward Said said:
"I find it absolutely astonishing, given that Palestinian policy has been essentially to throw our fate as a people in the lap of the United States without any strategic awareness of how US policy is in effect dominated, if not completely controlled, by a small minority of people whose views about the Middle East are in some way more extreme than even those of the Israeli Likud."
In fact, Zionist discourse in America reflects power, "and Arabs....are the objects of power - despised objects at that....To submit supinely to a Zionist-controlled (US) Middle East policy....will neither bring stability (for Israelis or Palestinians) nor equality and justice in the US."
As a result, today's status is what Said called "untrammelled immorality," a shocking disregard for the most basic sense of fairness - unrecognized, undiscussed and spurned in political and major media discourse. Instead, they focus solely on the interests of a rogue Israeli state - occupying, persecuting, and immiserating millions of Palestinians whose only offense is not being Jewish.
No wonder Obama's May 22 AIPAC speech affirmed rock solid support for a "strong and secure Israel," leaving Palestinians entirely out of his equation, despite paying disingenuous lip service to their interests.
No wonder also that an official AIPAC statement expressed gratitude for his assurance that Washington doesn't expect Israel to withdraw to June 1967 borders, besides explicitly calling Hamas a terrorist organization, ignoring its January 2006 electoral victory as Palestine's legitimate government.
Obama also ignored:
-- the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention), defined by the Rome Statute to include murder, extermination, enslavement, torture, arbitrary arrest, illegal imprisonment, denial of the right to life and liberty, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and other abusive acts imposed by one group on another;
-- Israel's abhorrence of peace and repeated international law violations;
-- its decades of lawless occupation, aggression, and collective punishment;
-- Palestinians denied free movement, expression and right of assembly;
-- explicit recognition of Palestinian self-determination under provisions of the December 1960 UN General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, and all other UN resolutions affirming it;
-- the universally recognized right of return;
-- Jerusalem as Palestine's legitimate capital;
-- Israel's illegal July 1980 East Jerusalem annexation despite SC Resolution 478 a month later declaring the Jerusalem Law null and void and requiring its immediate rescinding;
-- Israel's Separation Wall on stolen Palestinian land, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice;
-- Palestinians denied access to their own land, air space, coastal waters, and control of their borders;
-- extreme poverty, unemployment, exploitation and depravation;
-- daily violence against defense civilians, including children;
-- targeted assassinations and other killings;
-- mass arrests, detentions and torture;
-- illegal home demolitions;
-- apartheid settlements for Jews only, numbering 500,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, illegally transferred to Occupied Palestine;
-- around half of the West Bank and East Jerusalem off limits to Palestinians, according to UN estimates, as well as denying them access to their own resources; and
-- since June 2007, Gaza's suffocating siege, condemning nearly 1.7 million Palestinians to slow-motion genocide after Israel illegally declared it a "hostile entity," denying nonviolent civilians access to enough food, healthcare, fuel, electricity, and other essential needs.
Conditions in Besieged Gaza
The Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement "promotes rights guaranteed by international and Israeli law." In May 2011, it published a "Gaza Cheat Sheet" account of what Gazans endure daily out of sight and mind in Washington and other Western capitals.
As a result, Israel created a humanitarian crisis, requiring aid for over 70% of Gazans. Moreover, Cast Lead destruction remains rubble. Vital needs go unmet. Around 95% of Gaza's industrial enterprises were impacted, suspended, closed, damaged or destroyed. The remaining 5% operate at from 20 to 50% of capacity. Lost jobs haven't been regained.
Aside from Gaza's tunnel economy to Egypt, vulnerable to Israeli bombing, Kerem Shalom is the sole crossing point to Israel for the limited amount of aid let in.
Excluded are goods and materials called dual use, basic construction materials like cement, steel and gravel (except for small amounts), spare parts, and other vital supplies to rebuild what Cast Lead destroyed. Overall, a small fraction of what entered freely pre-June 2007 gets in now.
Moreover, exports are largely banned, except for occasional small amounts of strawberries, flowers, peppers and tomatoes to European markets. On average, it's about two truckloads a day compared to 400 or more in 2005.
In addition, travel between Gaza and the West Bank is extremely limited via Erez crossing to Israel and Rafah to Egypt. In fact, only "exceptional humanitarian cases" are allowed with an emphasis on medical emergencies, and not many of them.
Travel to other areas is only possible through Egypt, with very rare exceptions. By controlling Palestine's population registry, Israel has decision-making power over passports, required to exit through Rafah. Since Mubarak's ouster, only about 300 a day now cross.
As a result, students can't study abroad. Families are divided, and commerce can't operate freely. Further, Israel prohibits access to and from Gaza by air or sea. Fishing is allowed only up to three nautical miles offshore, excluding most Gazan waters from use. In fact, under Oslo, 20 nautical miles were established.
In addition, a 300 - 1,500 meter no-go "buffer zone" exists along Israel's separating border fence, placing 17% of Gaza off limits and 35% of its arable land. Farmers daring to work it risk being shot and killed.
For many years, in fact, travel between the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem was highly restricted, preventing most Palestinians from doing it, let alone having access outside the Territories. In large measure, occupation, especially for Gaza, has meant imprisonment, unable to move freely as international law permits.
Moreover, the international community bears direct responsibility for letting Israel perpetuate this crisis by not imposing boycotts, divestments, sanctions and isolation until it ends.
In fact, the 2009 Lisbon Treaty affirms fundamental freedoms, peace, democracy, human rights and dignity, justice, equality, the rule of law, security, tolerance, solidarity, mutual respect among peoples, the rights of the child, strict adherence to the UN Charter and international law, environmental protection, sustainable development, conflict prevention, and combatting social exclusion and discrimination.
Western nations literally let Israel get away with murder by spurning these principles.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 1:18 AM
<< Home
Showing posts with label anti-zionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-zionism. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Remembering Vittorio Arrigoni - by Stephen Lendman-From The SteveLendmanBlog
Monday, April 18, 2011
Remembering Vittorio Arrigoni
Remembering Vittorio Arrigoni - by Stephen Lendman
On April 15, International Solidarity Movement (ISM) members grieved for one of their own, their press release headlining, "Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank unite in mourning of slain activist Vittorio Arrigoni," saying:
"People will gather in Al Manara square in Ramallah and at Al Jundi al Majhull, (Gaza's) unknown soldier park," honoring the death of their comrade, slain and abandoned in a house north of Gaza. More on his death below.
Other events took place throughout Palestine, including protests following Friday's prayers across from the UN's Gaza headquarters. Bil'in and Al Masara also dedicated their weekly demonstrations to Vittorio, Vic to his friends.
On Saturday, the Popular Committee in Nablus held a commemoration with political parties in Nablus center, celebrating his work and condemning his killing.
ISM explained his activism for Palestinian liberation and justice for almost 10 years, including the past two and a half years in Gaza with ISM:
-- monitoring Israeli human rights violations;
-- supporting Palestinian resistance against occupation, and siege; and
-- daily violations of international law and democratic values.
Moreover, as a journalist, he wrote for the Italian newspaper IL Manifesto and Peacereporter, providing information about Gaza to a worldwide audience. The next Freedom Flotilla was renamed "Stay Human," honoring him and his book titled, "Gaza Stay Human."
Weeks earlier, he wrote comments like:
"The mighty flow of blood and hope from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria and Libya also washed over young Palestinian minds in Gaza. What started as a stream has become a torrent and will soon spill its banks....Palestinians are working hard to mobilize thousands of people (on March 15) to the squares of Ramallah and Gaza on the day (now) named "The Day of Reconciliation" rather than "The Day of Anger."
He also participated in the Free Gaza Movement's August 2008 siege-breaking flotilla. Established that month, it visited Gaza nine times by sea "to break Israel's illegal stranglehold on 1.5 million Palestinian civilians," suffocating under siege.
However, it never was clear sailing. In 2008, Free Gaza succeeded five times, but were "violently intercepted on the(ir) past four voyages," including the lethal May 31 massacre, killing nine or more activists and injuring many more. One of several earlier articles explained, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/brave-israeli-commandos-slaughter-aid.html
Free Gaza and its coalition partners are the only organizations "sen(ding) boats directly to Gaza in defiance of Israel's criminal" blockade. They "sail as an expression of citizen nonviolent, direct action, confronting" Israeli lawlessness, together with:
-- the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza;
-- IHH - the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights;
-- Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief;
-- the International Committee to End the Siege on Gaza;
-- Ship to Gaza Sweden; and
-- Ship to Gaza Greece.
Ahead, missions from growing numbers of countries plan to deliver vitally needed aid, sending a message that Israeli lawlessness won't stand.
During Cast Lead, Arrigoni helped medics and reported on IDF attacks to a worldwide audience. As a result, Israeli forces arrested him many times for his writing, activism, and support for Palestinian liberation and justice. His last arrest and deportation came after he reported on Israel's lawless confiscation of Gazan fishing vessels in Palestinian waters, one of many other times they've done it.
On April 15, a Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) press release headlined, "With Great Shock and Sorrow, PCHR Condemns the Murder of Italian Activist, Vittorio Arrigoni," saying:
That day his "body was found in an abandoned house in the north of the Gaza Strip, following his murder at the hands of kidnappers."
According to its own investigation, extremists called "Group of the Companion Mohammed Bin Maslamah" announced his kidnapping on April 14, demanding the release of its detained members affiliated with the so-called "Salafist Jihadist Group." If authorities didn't release them within 30 hours, they threatened to kill him, a threat fulfilled as broadcast on You Tube.
His face showed clear signs of beating, as well as handcuffs and strangulation marks on his neck. A Gaza Ministry of Interior press release condemned the crime, announcing the arrest of two of the group's members, as well as efforts to find the others.
On April 15, London Guardian writer Conal Urquhart headlined, "Palestinians rally to mourn kidnapped Italian activist murdered by extremists," saying:
He was abducted to force authorities to release Sheikh Abu Walid-al-Maqdas. The New York Times named Hisham Saidani as their imprisoned Tawhid and Jihad (TJ) leader, saying "details of the crime remain muddled," especially with TJ denying responsibility.
Luigi Ripamonti, deputy mayor of his hometown of Bulciago, told Italy's Sky 24 Television:
"Today we los(t) an Italian citizen, a citizen of Bulciago, and also a Palestinian citizen, because he married a Palestinian."
Egidia Beretta, Bulciago's mayor and Arrigoni's mother said he first arrived in The Territories in 2002, where "(h)e was taken with Palestine and Palestine took to him."
At first Hamas was reluctant to accuse anyone of the crime, suggesting possible Israeli involvement, spokesman Mahmoud Zahar saying:
"We cannot deny the relation between this incident and an international campaign by the Zionist enemy to restrict the arrival of pro-Palestinian activists. This crime is not in line with our norms as Muslims and Palestinians."
He added that "(s)uch an awful crime cannot take place without arrangements between all the parties concerned to keep the blockade imposed."
In Rome, the Italian Foreign Ministry said the killing was a "barbaric murder and vile and irrational gesture of violence on the part of extremists indifferent to the value of a human life."
Haaretz said a group calling itself Monotheism and Holy War released a video showing Arrigoni blindfolded with cuts on his face. It demanded authorities free its leaders and two others or they'd kill him. Despite the video, the group denied responsibility, raising suspicions of its origin.
The Guardian said a fellow US activist, Nathan Stuckey, said he spent most of his time as a journalist, but was involved in promoting the rights of Gaza fishermen to work freely in their own waters, adding:
"At the moment, he was particularly focused on the launch of our new boat, which we will use to monitor (Israel's navy) violation of the rights of the fishermen. He often said that he now felt more at home in Gaza than in Italy and he was strongly committed to the Palestinian cause."
Arrigoni's death comes days after a gunman killed Juliano Mer-Khamis, an Israeli actor who ran a Jenin refugee camp theater. He also supported Palestinian liberation and justice. His mother, Arna Mer, was a Jewish activist for Palestinian rights. His father, Saliba Khamis, was born and raised in Nazareth.
In 2006, he opened the Jenin Freedom Theater with Zakariya Zubeidi, former local Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades military leader. He was threatened numerous times, and his theater was torched twice previously. Jenin's Governor Qadura Moussa called him a great Palestinian supporter.
Haaretz's senior editor and theater critic called him a "great actor and extraordinary human being whose life-story is part of the tragic reality of this country," who in death, became "another tragic victim of life in the Middle East."
Shot dead on April 4, he's remembered as one of the best along with Arrigoni and Rachael Corrie, a 23-year old American peace activist, murdered in Gaza on March 16, 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer operator when she tried to stop it from demolishing a Rafah refugee camp home.
According to witnesses, she climbed up on it, spoke to the driver, climbed down, knelt 10 - 20 meters in front in clear view, blocking its path with her body. With activists there screaming for it to stop, the soldier-operator crushed her to death deliberately by running her over twice to be sure.
For many years, Israel killed numerous other peace activists, including Tom Hurndall, a 21-year old photojournalist shot in the head by an Israeli sniper in April 2003, trying to rescue Palestinian children under fire. He clung to life in a vegetative state until succumbing on January 13, 2004, another victim of Israeli barbarity and contempt for human life, a testimony to an out-of-control rogue state.
Like Arrigoni, Corrie and Hurndell were also ISM members, heroic peace activists for Palestinian liberation and justice.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 1:12 AM
Remembering Vittorio Arrigoni
Remembering Vittorio Arrigoni - by Stephen Lendman
On April 15, International Solidarity Movement (ISM) members grieved for one of their own, their press release headlining, "Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank unite in mourning of slain activist Vittorio Arrigoni," saying:
"People will gather in Al Manara square in Ramallah and at Al Jundi al Majhull, (Gaza's) unknown soldier park," honoring the death of their comrade, slain and abandoned in a house north of Gaza. More on his death below.
Other events took place throughout Palestine, including protests following Friday's prayers across from the UN's Gaza headquarters. Bil'in and Al Masara also dedicated their weekly demonstrations to Vittorio, Vic to his friends.
On Saturday, the Popular Committee in Nablus held a commemoration with political parties in Nablus center, celebrating his work and condemning his killing.
ISM explained his activism for Palestinian liberation and justice for almost 10 years, including the past two and a half years in Gaza with ISM:
-- monitoring Israeli human rights violations;
-- supporting Palestinian resistance against occupation, and siege; and
-- daily violations of international law and democratic values.
Moreover, as a journalist, he wrote for the Italian newspaper IL Manifesto and Peacereporter, providing information about Gaza to a worldwide audience. The next Freedom Flotilla was renamed "Stay Human," honoring him and his book titled, "Gaza Stay Human."
Weeks earlier, he wrote comments like:
"The mighty flow of blood and hope from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria and Libya also washed over young Palestinian minds in Gaza. What started as a stream has become a torrent and will soon spill its banks....Palestinians are working hard to mobilize thousands of people (on March 15) to the squares of Ramallah and Gaza on the day (now) named "The Day of Reconciliation" rather than "The Day of Anger."
He also participated in the Free Gaza Movement's August 2008 siege-breaking flotilla. Established that month, it visited Gaza nine times by sea "to break Israel's illegal stranglehold on 1.5 million Palestinian civilians," suffocating under siege.
However, it never was clear sailing. In 2008, Free Gaza succeeded five times, but were "violently intercepted on the(ir) past four voyages," including the lethal May 31 massacre, killing nine or more activists and injuring many more. One of several earlier articles explained, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/brave-israeli-commandos-slaughter-aid.html
Free Gaza and its coalition partners are the only organizations "sen(ding) boats directly to Gaza in defiance of Israel's criminal" blockade. They "sail as an expression of citizen nonviolent, direct action, confronting" Israeli lawlessness, together with:
-- the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza;
-- IHH - the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights;
-- Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief;
-- the International Committee to End the Siege on Gaza;
-- Ship to Gaza Sweden; and
-- Ship to Gaza Greece.
Ahead, missions from growing numbers of countries plan to deliver vitally needed aid, sending a message that Israeli lawlessness won't stand.
During Cast Lead, Arrigoni helped medics and reported on IDF attacks to a worldwide audience. As a result, Israeli forces arrested him many times for his writing, activism, and support for Palestinian liberation and justice. His last arrest and deportation came after he reported on Israel's lawless confiscation of Gazan fishing vessels in Palestinian waters, one of many other times they've done it.
On April 15, a Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) press release headlined, "With Great Shock and Sorrow, PCHR Condemns the Murder of Italian Activist, Vittorio Arrigoni," saying:
That day his "body was found in an abandoned house in the north of the Gaza Strip, following his murder at the hands of kidnappers."
According to its own investigation, extremists called "Group of the Companion Mohammed Bin Maslamah" announced his kidnapping on April 14, demanding the release of its detained members affiliated with the so-called "Salafist Jihadist Group." If authorities didn't release them within 30 hours, they threatened to kill him, a threat fulfilled as broadcast on You Tube.
His face showed clear signs of beating, as well as handcuffs and strangulation marks on his neck. A Gaza Ministry of Interior press release condemned the crime, announcing the arrest of two of the group's members, as well as efforts to find the others.
On April 15, London Guardian writer Conal Urquhart headlined, "Palestinians rally to mourn kidnapped Italian activist murdered by extremists," saying:
He was abducted to force authorities to release Sheikh Abu Walid-al-Maqdas. The New York Times named Hisham Saidani as their imprisoned Tawhid and Jihad (TJ) leader, saying "details of the crime remain muddled," especially with TJ denying responsibility.
Luigi Ripamonti, deputy mayor of his hometown of Bulciago, told Italy's Sky 24 Television:
"Today we los(t) an Italian citizen, a citizen of Bulciago, and also a Palestinian citizen, because he married a Palestinian."
Egidia Beretta, Bulciago's mayor and Arrigoni's mother said he first arrived in The Territories in 2002, where "(h)e was taken with Palestine and Palestine took to him."
At first Hamas was reluctant to accuse anyone of the crime, suggesting possible Israeli involvement, spokesman Mahmoud Zahar saying:
"We cannot deny the relation between this incident and an international campaign by the Zionist enemy to restrict the arrival of pro-Palestinian activists. This crime is not in line with our norms as Muslims and Palestinians."
He added that "(s)uch an awful crime cannot take place without arrangements between all the parties concerned to keep the blockade imposed."
In Rome, the Italian Foreign Ministry said the killing was a "barbaric murder and vile and irrational gesture of violence on the part of extremists indifferent to the value of a human life."
Haaretz said a group calling itself Monotheism and Holy War released a video showing Arrigoni blindfolded with cuts on his face. It demanded authorities free its leaders and two others or they'd kill him. Despite the video, the group denied responsibility, raising suspicions of its origin.
The Guardian said a fellow US activist, Nathan Stuckey, said he spent most of his time as a journalist, but was involved in promoting the rights of Gaza fishermen to work freely in their own waters, adding:
"At the moment, he was particularly focused on the launch of our new boat, which we will use to monitor (Israel's navy) violation of the rights of the fishermen. He often said that he now felt more at home in Gaza than in Italy and he was strongly committed to the Palestinian cause."
Arrigoni's death comes days after a gunman killed Juliano Mer-Khamis, an Israeli actor who ran a Jenin refugee camp theater. He also supported Palestinian liberation and justice. His mother, Arna Mer, was a Jewish activist for Palestinian rights. His father, Saliba Khamis, was born and raised in Nazareth.
In 2006, he opened the Jenin Freedom Theater with Zakariya Zubeidi, former local Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades military leader. He was threatened numerous times, and his theater was torched twice previously. Jenin's Governor Qadura Moussa called him a great Palestinian supporter.
Haaretz's senior editor and theater critic called him a "great actor and extraordinary human being whose life-story is part of the tragic reality of this country," who in death, became "another tragic victim of life in the Middle East."
Shot dead on April 4, he's remembered as one of the best along with Arrigoni and Rachael Corrie, a 23-year old American peace activist, murdered in Gaza on March 16, 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer operator when she tried to stop it from demolishing a Rafah refugee camp home.
According to witnesses, she climbed up on it, spoke to the driver, climbed down, knelt 10 - 20 meters in front in clear view, blocking its path with her body. With activists there screaming for it to stop, the soldier-operator crushed her to death deliberately by running her over twice to be sure.
For many years, Israel killed numerous other peace activists, including Tom Hurndall, a 21-year old photojournalist shot in the head by an Israeli sniper in April 2003, trying to rescue Palestinian children under fire. He clung to life in a vegetative state until succumbing on January 13, 2004, another victim of Israeli barbarity and contempt for human life, a testimony to an out-of-control rogue state.
Like Arrigoni, Corrie and Hurndell were also ISM members, heroic peace activists for Palestinian liberation and justice.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 1:12 AM
Saturday, January 01, 2011
From The United For Justice With Peace Website- End The Siege Of Gaza!-Defend The Palestinian People!
Click on the headline to link to an entry from the UJP Website on a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians in Boston on New Year's Eve.
Markin comment:
End The Siege Of Gaza!-Defend The Palestinian People!
Markin comment:
End The Siege Of Gaza!-Defend The Palestinian People!
Thursday, September 02, 2010
*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-ILWU Ship Boycott: Token of Solidarity with Palestinians
Click on the headline to link to the Workers Vanguard website for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our labor-centered communist program in defense of the besieged Palestinian people.
Markin comment:
This article goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our labor-centered communist program in defense of the besieged Palestinian people.
Monday, July 05, 2010
*"From The "We Are Wide Awake" Website- Hear The Heroic Israeli Class- War Mordechai Vanunu Speak-Free Vanunu! Let Him Leave Israel!
Click on the headline to link to the We Are Wide Awake Website to hear more about Mordechai Vanunu
Markin comment:
I received this comment in response to a posting that I did on July 3, 2020 (reposted below) concerning the case of Israeli class-war prisoner Mordechai Vanunu. I am linking to that site in this post for the purpose of letting others hear from Brother Vanunu himself.
*********
1 Comments:
eileen fleming said...
Please listen to Vanunu speak for himself in 2005, 2006, 2008 video interviews and learn all about his FREEDOM OF SPEECH Trial and why Israel persists to persecute him @ http://wearewideawake.org/
THE VANUNU SAGA 2005-2010!
8:19 PM
**********
Markin comment:
Every person in the world, and I mean literally every person, owes a great debt of gratitude for Brother Vanunu's courageous acts in exposing the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Such men are dangerous to the imperial order-and we know why. Thanks, Brother. All Honor To Vanunu.
********
This is passed on from the Partisan Defesne Committee.
Workers Vanguard No. 960
4 June 2010
Thrown Back in Prison
Free Vanunu! Let Him Leave Israel!
On May 23, Mordechai Vanunu, the whistle-blower who spent 18 years in prison for exposing the extent of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, began serving a three-month prison sentence that stems from his December 29 arrest for meeting with a Norwegian woman in Jerusalem. Despite serving his entire prior sentence, Vanunu remains barred from talking to non-Israelis and going near airports, ports and embassies, subject to 24-hour surveillance and prevented from leaving the country.
Following his December arrest, Vanunu was sentenced to six months of “community service” in overwhelmingly Jewish West Jerusalem. Fearing his life would be threatened by right-wing Israelis who consider him a “traitor,” Vanunu requested that his sentence be served in predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem. When the court rejected his request, Vanunu declined to carry out his community service. On May 11, he was sentenced to prison once again.
The vindictive, blood-soaked rulers of the Zionist state will not rest until Vanunu, a former technician at the Israeli nuclear weapons facility in Dimona, is forever silenced for having revealed that Israel had upwards of 200 nuclear warheads. This arsenal, built up with the active support of the French and then the U.S. imperialist powers, was enough not only to incinerate every Arab capital but to bomb major cities in the Soviet Union as well.
Vanunu was born to a Sephardic Jewish family that emigrated from Morocco to Israel, where he experienced discrimination at the hands of the European-derived Ashkenazi establishment. As a student at Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University, he joined protests against Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and actively fought for the rights of Palestinian and Bedouin students. Fed up with the Israeli garrison state, Vanunu left the country in 1986 and later converted to Christianity while in Australia.
In 1986, he was kidnapped in Italy by the Israeli Mossad secret police, thrown into a desert prison in Ashkelon and sentenced by a secret military court. In prison, Vanunu was given the kind of treatment Israel’s rulers reserve for those they deem “subhuman”—the Palestinians imprisoned within the electric fences that surround Gaza, those confined behind the concrete walls and checkpoints of the West Bank, the thousands who languish in Israel’s prison torture chambers. He spent more than eleven years in solitary confinement, entombed in a six-by-nine cell in a high-security complex built for Palestinians.
When Vanunu walked out of prison in April 2004, he said that he was “proud and happy to do what I did.” He was arrested later that year and, in 2007, he was sentenced to another six months’ imprisonment. He remains defiant, declaring before he was dragged away to his cell last month, “You didn’t get anything from me in 18 years; you won’t get anything in 3 months. Shame on you, Israel.” Defenders of the Palestinian people and opponents of capitalist repression everywhere must take up the call to free this courageous opponent of Zionist terror and demand that he be allowed to leave Israel.
Markin comment:
I received this comment in response to a posting that I did on July 3, 2020 (reposted below) concerning the case of Israeli class-war prisoner Mordechai Vanunu. I am linking to that site in this post for the purpose of letting others hear from Brother Vanunu himself.
*********
1 Comments:
eileen fleming said...
Please listen to Vanunu speak for himself in 2005, 2006, 2008 video interviews and learn all about his FREEDOM OF SPEECH Trial and why Israel persists to persecute him @ http://wearewideawake.org/
THE VANUNU SAGA 2005-2010!
8:19 PM
**********
Markin comment:
Every person in the world, and I mean literally every person, owes a great debt of gratitude for Brother Vanunu's courageous acts in exposing the Israeli nuclear arsenal. Such men are dangerous to the imperial order-and we know why. Thanks, Brother. All Honor To Vanunu.
********
This is passed on from the Partisan Defesne Committee.
Workers Vanguard No. 960
4 June 2010
Thrown Back in Prison
Free Vanunu! Let Him Leave Israel!
On May 23, Mordechai Vanunu, the whistle-blower who spent 18 years in prison for exposing the extent of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, began serving a three-month prison sentence that stems from his December 29 arrest for meeting with a Norwegian woman in Jerusalem. Despite serving his entire prior sentence, Vanunu remains barred from talking to non-Israelis and going near airports, ports and embassies, subject to 24-hour surveillance and prevented from leaving the country.
Following his December arrest, Vanunu was sentenced to six months of “community service” in overwhelmingly Jewish West Jerusalem. Fearing his life would be threatened by right-wing Israelis who consider him a “traitor,” Vanunu requested that his sentence be served in predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem. When the court rejected his request, Vanunu declined to carry out his community service. On May 11, he was sentenced to prison once again.
The vindictive, blood-soaked rulers of the Zionist state will not rest until Vanunu, a former technician at the Israeli nuclear weapons facility in Dimona, is forever silenced for having revealed that Israel had upwards of 200 nuclear warheads. This arsenal, built up with the active support of the French and then the U.S. imperialist powers, was enough not only to incinerate every Arab capital but to bomb major cities in the Soviet Union as well.
Vanunu was born to a Sephardic Jewish family that emigrated from Morocco to Israel, where he experienced discrimination at the hands of the European-derived Ashkenazi establishment. As a student at Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University, he joined protests against Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and actively fought for the rights of Palestinian and Bedouin students. Fed up with the Israeli garrison state, Vanunu left the country in 1986 and later converted to Christianity while in Australia.
In 1986, he was kidnapped in Italy by the Israeli Mossad secret police, thrown into a desert prison in Ashkelon and sentenced by a secret military court. In prison, Vanunu was given the kind of treatment Israel’s rulers reserve for those they deem “subhuman”—the Palestinians imprisoned within the electric fences that surround Gaza, those confined behind the concrete walls and checkpoints of the West Bank, the thousands who languish in Israel’s prison torture chambers. He spent more than eleven years in solitary confinement, entombed in a six-by-nine cell in a high-security complex built for Palestinians.
When Vanunu walked out of prison in April 2004, he said that he was “proud and happy to do what I did.” He was arrested later that year and, in 2007, he was sentenced to another six months’ imprisonment. He remains defiant, declaring before he was dragged away to his cell last month, “You didn’t get anything from me in 18 years; you won’t get anything in 3 months. Shame on you, Israel.” Defenders of the Palestinian people and opponents of capitalist repression everywhere must take up the call to free this courageous opponent of Zionist terror and demand that he be allowed to leave Israel.
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