molly hankwitz on 29 Jan 2001 03:27:48 -0000


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[Nettime-bold] Struggle must go on


>From: "The Other Israel" <[email protected]>
>To: Other Information int-3 <[email protected]>
>Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 01:56:00 +0200
>X-Distribution: Moderate
>Subject: Struggle must go on
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>Priority: normal
>
>STRUGGLE MUST GO ON
>Tel-Aviv, January 27, 2001
>
>The upcoming elections divide the peace activists into two camps: those who
>prefer  Barak over Sharon and those who don't see that it makes so much of
>a difference who will win. The last-minute "Nearly Agreement" show with
>which the talks at Taba concluded may not change the minds of enough
>voters to prevent a Sharon victory. Most Arab voters (20% of the whole) seem
>adamant on an election boycott after the excessive violence used against
>them in October, leaving 13 demonstrators dead and many imprisoned untill
>this very day.
>
>Tomorrow, this agonizing debate between "Blank Ballot" and "Barak in spite
>of everything" will be debated in a public meeting called by Gush Shalom,
>with former minister Shulamit Aloni, poet Yitzchak Laor and Uri Avnery.
>
>Meanwhile, the activity on the ground is what brings us together: the
>determination that however powerless we feel against the waves of death and
>destruction, the protests and struggle for a real peace must go on.
>
>- Last Wednesday, a day of particular bad weather, there were some twenty
>activists standing in the drizzle outside the Jerusalem District Court. They
>were protesting the scandalous verdict - six months'  community service -
>which the court found a fitting punishment for Nahum Korman, security officer
>of the settlement Betar for the 1996 killing of the ten-year old child Hilmi
>Shusha. "This racist sentence discriminates between Jewish and Palestinian
>blood and totally disregards the value of Palestinian life" reads the leaflet
>distributed to the few bypassers on Salah-a-Din Street, as well as to the
>three policemen, who had to stand it out in the rain, too.
>On the other side of the street, the court building was silent behind its
>high
>metal fences. This court is located in the midst of East Jerusalem, an alien
>Israeli enclave, transplanted into the Arab part of the city as part of the
>futile
>effort at annexation and needing to be defended against its environment. This
>circumstance might not be entirely unrelated to the quality of verdicts
>delivered in its courtrooms...
>
>- On the following day, there was a different group of activists on board the
>Peace Boat, chartered by Peace Now ([email protected]) which
>sailed off the Egyptian resort of Taba on the Red Sea, where Israeli and
>Palestinian negotiators met for a last-ditch effort to reach some kind of
>agreement. They were close enough to be seen by some negotiators stolling
>on the shore, to wave banners reading "Yes to peace" and "Israel wants
>peace" and to confront a rival boat crammed with Sharon supporters.
>
>-Today (Saturday) there was going to take place a Yesh Gvul demonstration
>outside Military Prison 6, in solidarity with Reserve Lieutenant Noam Livneh
>who got 56 days for his refusal to serve in the occupied territories. But,
>suddenly and unexpectedly,  the news came that Livneh was released. This
>of course made unnecessary the Yesh Gvul demonstration which  - from the
>number of calls which they got - was going to be quite big. Could it be that
>higher echelons had their reasons to get this off the agenda?
>
>And so, here we are - ten days before the elections which seem bound to
>make Ariel Sharon Prime Minister of Israel. Following is - for your
>information, and where feasible in hope of your participation -
>information on
>some anti-occupation actions planned for the near future.
>
>- The Coalition of Women for a Just Peace calls for Sunday, Feb. 4, at 5.00
>PM,  a demonstration outside the Ministry of Defence, on Kaplan St., Tel-
>Aviv. The demand: an immediate end to the inhuman closure which is
>imposed  upon the Occupied Territories as a whole, as well as an end of the
>siege of individual towns and  villages - a collective punishment against the
>Palestinian people that is a  blatant violation of their human rights. "We
>will
>
>not remain silent - we will not remain passive witnesses" states the
>organizers' communique.
>For more information: Gila Svirsky <[email protected]>
>
>- Supreme Court appeals against the closure and its devastating effect on
>the Palestinian population were presented both by the Civil Rights
>Association, <[email protected]> and Physicians for Human Rights
><[email protected]>. A comprehensive report on the closure and its effects
>was produced by B'Tselem <[email protected]>,  which is also maintaining
>an ongoing ad campaign in the press on this issue. The full report is
>available
>
>at www.btselem.org.
>
>-The Women in Black vigils against the occupation are going on every
>Friday. At Jerusalem, Tel- Aviv, Haifa and Nazereth it is between 1.00 PM
>and 2:00 PM; at Acre between 2:30  PM-3:30 PM); at Nachson Junction (on
>the old road to Jerusalem) 1:30 PM- 2:30 PM.
>Further info Dalia Sachs <[email protected]>,
>
>There is an initiative to set up a new Friday vigil in Be'er Sheba area
>(not  specifically for women - and indeed, there are men participating
>also in many  of the aforementioned).
>For details contact Motti Birnberg <[email protected]>.
>
>- A joint Israeli-Palestinian prayer vigil is held every Friday in the
>Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Jerusalem, opposite Temple Mount/Haram
>A-Sharif. They are sitting together in solidarity with the  families of
>the fallen - Israeli and Palestinian - praying for peace in a shared
>Jerusalem and in the whole Middle East, and for an end to the barbaric
>cycle of fear, hate, and revenge, of which military occupation can provide
>no solution. Directions: From the Jewish Quarter, on the corner of Rechov
>Misgav Ladach and Shoneh Ha'halachot, facing the Temple Mount/Haram A
>Sharif,  turn  right onto the small stairway. After a few meters, on your
>left side, you will  see the group, every Friday at 10:30AM-1:00PM.
>Contact: Devorah Brous <[email protected]>
>
>- Different individuals and groups continue their efforts to provide some
>relief -
>for the  Palestinian population in general, or for particular areas with whom
>they have previous personal and/or political contact. Support and
>contributions (in money  or kind) would be welcome.
>
>Here are those we know of:
>
>* Ta'ayush - Arab-Jewish Partnership, <[email protected]>
>(food convoys to Hares and other villages and towns in the Salfit area of
>the  West Bank).  Checks to the order of "Ta'ayush" to Dr. Gadi Algazi,
>Dept. of General  History, Tel Aviv University, POB 39040, Tel Aviv 69978;
>or money transfers  ('swift') to Poalilita (that's the bank code),
>12-606-396608 (HaPo'alim Bank, Ramat Aviv Branch).  .
>
>* Abdullah 'Abid from Kafr Yasuf and Ada Gorni from Jerusalem,
><[email protected]> (food for needy families at Yasuf and surrounding
> villages in the Nablus District). Checks to Gorni, 17 Kfar
>Etzion  Street, Arnona, Jerusalem 93392, made out to the order of the
>Hitkarvoot  Association and earmarked "Food for Kafr Yasuf".
>
>* Popular Committee of the Haifa Arabs, <[email protected]>,  (trucks with
>shipments of rice, flour, sugar, oil, tea  etc. to various parts of the West
>Bank and Gaza Strip).
>Checks payable to "Hava'ad Ha'amami Shel Arviyey Haifa" (earmarked "food
>trucks" to P.O.B. 4454, Haifa.
>
>* Amit Leshem  <[email protected]>, (basic food packages for residents of
>the El Am'ari Refugee Camp - last  Wednesday, 17.01.01, food was sent to
>60 families in the village Betunia near Ramallah).
>
>* Avivit Ish-Am  <[email protected]> (clothes in general, and winter clothes
>for
>children in particular, for needy people in the Gaza Strip).
>
>* Hagar Kolman, 972-(0)4-9831157, 972-(0)52-365426 ( food for villages in the
>Jenin Area) checks to the order of  Hagar Kolman to 66 Keren  Kayemet St.,
>Tivon 36082, Israel.
>
>* Keren Assaf  <[email protected]> (buying the stocks of olive oil  of
>besieged  Palestinian villagers and selling them to activists in Tel-Aviv and
>Jerusalem).
>
>* Hagar Garti,  972-(0)3-5231682  (collecting clothing for villages and
>selling
>Palestinian olive oil to neighborhood shops and individuals).
>
>* Windows (Israeli-Palestinian Friendship Center), 972-(0)3-6208324
><[email protected]> (collection of money for the
>purchase of food, in cooperation with Window's members in Nablus;
>collecting of toys and games for the children of Asira A-shamalia).
>Donations to POB 56096, Tel Aviv 61560. (Windows Tel-Aviv is also a center
>for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue & discussion every Tuesday and Friday.)
>
>Since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising there is an upsurge of Jewish
>dissident groups in various countries, expressing open criticism of the
>Government of Israel's policies, sometimes acting in cooperation with
>Palestinians resident in the same countries. We know of such groups active
>in various parts of the US as well as in Canada, Holland, France, Britain,
>Sweden, Brazil, Australia and other countries. The latest we heard, just this
>week, was of a joint demo by Jews and Palestinians at Yale University, to
>protest a propaganda lecture by a visiting Israeli military officer.
>
>If you can report such activities in your own environment, please pass the
>information on to Stanley Heller <[email protected]> and to Eddy Keizer
><[email protected]> who respectively in the U.S. and in Holland are both
>involved in collecting and promoting such information.
>
>Finally, if you din't see yet Uri Avnery's article (Jan. 14) on the issue of
>the
>Palestinian Right of Return (which was discussed and passed on quite
>intensively) we advise you to read it at:
>http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article127.html
>
>==============================================
>The Other Israel is the newsletter of the
>Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
>pob 2542, Holon 58125, Israel - ph/fx: +972-3-5565804;
>http://other_Israel.tripod.com/
>==============================================
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