13 July 2011, Mondoweiss http://mondoweiss.net (USA)
Elke Zwinge-Makamizile is a member of the German Peace Council as well as The International League for Human Rights. She took part in the "Fly in" protest action to Palestine. She is being interviewed by Gitta Düperthal, a journalist for Junge Welt, in German. Translation by Cynthia Beatt.
Last Friday hundreds of activists attempted to travel to Palestine via Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. [Approximately 124 managed to do so]. You are one of those deported on Sunday. How did the Israeli authorities treat you?
It already began on Friday in Frankfurt/Main: as the plane was to start on time at 11 am, it suddenly braked sharply. After hours we were unloaded onto another machine and we were only able to take off around 5 pm – apparently due to an uneven surface area on the runway! Whoever wishes to believe this can do so; I rather believe this was to give the Israeli authorities time. Therefore we landed in Ben-Gurion Aiport at 11 pm, where they immediately took away our passports. The Israeli security officials seemed to know exactly who belonged to our group.
We had been invited by the Palestinian Peace Movements and there was a program prepared for us. The day of July 9th was chosen because this day in 2004 the International Court of Justice in the Hague declared the construction of the Wall on Palestinian Territories to be illegal. Amongst other activities, we were to visit the “Freedom Theatre”, to take part in the symbolic planting of olive trees and to visit a refugee camp. Instead we were forced to spend hours in detention rooms at the airport until we were taken in the early morning on Saturday to a prison van, in which other activists had already been sitting for four and a half hours. 23 women were inside and 16 men were penned in the other area of the same van. Around 35 security officials, whom we could see through the barred windows, stood outside. To pass the time we began to sing, upon which they threatened to use tear gas on us.
Where were you taken?
We were brought to the Beersheva Ela-Prison in the middle of the Negev Desert, where we were kept from Saturday morning until Sunday midday in a kind of luxury prison – not one of those prisons in which, according to Amnesty International, torture takes place. At our request consular officials of the countries from which the activists originate visited us; that was France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany. They noted our names and asked whether anyone should be notified. The Israelis were obviously at pains to ensure that no one would have reason to complain about their treatment there. Nevertheless we were under surveillance by video cameras the entire time.
How did the security officials react to you?
We used every opportunity to explain to them that we wished to make a contribution to easing the isolation of the Palestinians – the next step should be that Palestine must be recognized as a State and receive membership in the United Nations, to be voted upon in September. They did not comment on our views but my impression was some of them seemed to understand and did not show animosity towards us. They obviously had not been expecting people like us after the unbelievable propaganda campaign that Israeli officials started against us.
Israel’s Home Secretary Yitzhak Aharanovich, for example, described us as "extremists and hooligans", intending to disrupt public order. On the Ynet internet page we were even denounced as potential lawbreakers.
The ships of the second Gaza-Flotilla have been detained in Greece since days and many “Fly In” demonstrators couldn’t reach their destination – the Israelis compelled international airlines to refuse to even carry certain passengers. How do you feel about the success of this action?
We used the situation to make the media aware of how bad the human rights situation is in the West Bank and in Gaza. Through this sharp and totally exaggerated reaction by Israel it has become evident to many people all over the world what the government is prepared to do to isolate the people of Palestine.
Mostrando postagens com marcador flightilla. Mostrar todas as postagens
Mostrando postagens com marcador flightilla. Mostrar todas as postagens
quarta-feira, 13 de julho de 2011
sexta-feira, 8 de julho de 2011
GUSH SHALOM גוש שלום MESSAGE
8 july 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)
Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)
quinta-feira, 7 de julho de 2011
BIENVENU EN PALESTINE! FREE GAZA !
8 july 2011, Shalom 1492
Bienvenu en Palestine http://bienvenuepalestine.com
Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
ISRAEL’S MESSAGE: HATE THY PRO-PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST
Where Israel is concerned, a democracy that cannot bring itself to allow non-violent protest has already turned on itself.
7 july 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
By Bradley Burston
This weekend in synagogues the world over, Jews will be reading the story of Balak. In Israel, this will also be Shabbat Mashat, the Sabbath of the Pro-Palestinian Flightilla.
As luck would have it, both stories are about occupation. And about hatred.
The Biblical narrative (Numbers 22:2 – 25:9) begins just after the Children of Israel, en route to the Promised Land from Egypt, have won sweeping military victories and occupied the towns and territories of kingdom after kingdom.
Moab, east of the Jordan River, opposite the West Bank town of Jericho, is next in the path of Moses and his people. Moab's king, Balak, outnumbered and terrified, sends for Bilaam, a highly recommended hired-gun diviner from the East. Per Balak’s order, Bilaam rides in, and tries over and over to curse the Israelites and cause them to be defeated.
In a peculiarly cinematic series of scenes, however, Bilaam is repeatedly blocked from doing so, by an angel armed with a drawn sword, by his own (now-talking) donkey, and by the Lord Himself. In the end, Bilaam's attempts at damning Balak's enemies turn to blessings, among them the Ma Tovu prayer, prominent in Jewish liturgy to this day, giving voice to wonder and reverence for synagogues and other places of worship.
Time and Jewish tradition have not been kind to Bilaam, who became a prototype of the non-Jew responsible for all of our problems - including those which, as a consequence of occupation, are to a great extent self-inflicted.
In the best tradition of the worst Israeli hasbara, American-Israeli Orthodox Rabbi Berel Wein, spins the hapless but poetic Bilaam as a terrorist, Balak as an arch-terrorist – and, for good measure, throws in human rights activists as accomplices to terror homicide:
"It is not the suicide bomber – Bilaam – that is the only guilty party in terrorist attacks. It is the Balaks who send them and support them, that are certainly equally as guilty.”
"The pious human rights organizations that promote only hatred and violence under the guise of doing good deeds are also responsible for the loss of the precious lives of innocents caused by those whom they so nurture and support."
What Rabbi Wein fails to mention is that the real threat to the Israelites in the story of Balak comes from the actions of the Israelites themselves. After Bilaam gives up and goes home, God is enraged by the Israelites' immorality and idol worship, and lets loose a plague which kills 24,000 of the Israelites. (Later rabbis frame Bilaam for the killings).
In Israel, meanwhile, officials have been working overtime doing no little framing of their own. As pro-Palestinian activists, reportedly ranging in age from nine to 89, prepared to fly into Ben-Gurion Airport to demonstrate against the embargo on Gaza and the occupation, curses took wing from the diviners of hasbara.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a press release calling the the arrival of the activists an attempt "to undermine Israel's right to exist." It was, they said, part of a broader effort to breach Israel's "borders and its sovereignty, by sea, land and air."
Lest there be any doubt as to the severity of the threat, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Ahronowitz "These hooligans who seek to break the law and disturb the peace will not be allowed into Israel."
The activists' aim, Ahronowitz told reporters, was nothing less than "attacking our legitimacy in our own land." He ruled out demonstrations by the activists as illegal.
For months now, Israeli officials have described the participants of the flotilla campaign as terrorists, more recently (although with a subsequent Bilaam-like reversal) telling foreign media that the activists were planning to use "chemical weaponry," stockpiling sulfur to dump on Israeli security forces and set them alight.
The parallels to Bilaam don't end there. On Thursday, one of the organizers of the pro-Palestinian protest told Ynet that without Israel's exhaustive, high-profile efforts to condemn and curse the activists' fly-in, the campaign would never have gotten off the ground.
"We should be thanking Netanyahu, because without him, this wouldn’t have worked," the organizer said. "If we would have paid thousands of shekels in PR, it would not have worked out so well."
For those of us who live in Israel, perhaps the most useful section of the week's Torah portion is a part that barely makes it into the text. At the very close, occupation has led Moses' people to worship idols (which we, the contemporary Children of Israel, have repurposed as settlements), as well as to corruption, and immoral behavior.
The message from the government, meanwhile, remains, Hate Thy Pro-Palestinian Activist. It's certainly true that many if not most of the activists hate Israel at least as much as Israel hates them. But, as King Balak learned to his dismay, hatred and fear, as practiced by nations, have a tendency to boomerang.
Where Israel is concerned, a democracy that cannot bring itself to allow non-violent protest has already turned on itself.
Stay tuned. Within a few hours, we should learn who plays Bilaam in this version, who plays Balak, and, most tellingly perhaps, who plays the ass.
7 july 2011, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)
By Bradley Burston
This weekend in synagogues the world over, Jews will be reading the story of Balak. In Israel, this will also be Shabbat Mashat, the Sabbath of the Pro-Palestinian Flightilla.
As luck would have it, both stories are about occupation. And about hatred.
The Biblical narrative (Numbers 22:2 – 25:9) begins just after the Children of Israel, en route to the Promised Land from Egypt, have won sweeping military victories and occupied the towns and territories of kingdom after kingdom.
Moab, east of the Jordan River, opposite the West Bank town of Jericho, is next in the path of Moses and his people. Moab's king, Balak, outnumbered and terrified, sends for Bilaam, a highly recommended hired-gun diviner from the East. Per Balak’s order, Bilaam rides in, and tries over and over to curse the Israelites and cause them to be defeated.
In a peculiarly cinematic series of scenes, however, Bilaam is repeatedly blocked from doing so, by an angel armed with a drawn sword, by his own (now-talking) donkey, and by the Lord Himself. In the end, Bilaam's attempts at damning Balak's enemies turn to blessings, among them the Ma Tovu prayer, prominent in Jewish liturgy to this day, giving voice to wonder and reverence for synagogues and other places of worship.
Time and Jewish tradition have not been kind to Bilaam, who became a prototype of the non-Jew responsible for all of our problems - including those which, as a consequence of occupation, are to a great extent self-inflicted.
In the best tradition of the worst Israeli hasbara, American-Israeli Orthodox Rabbi Berel Wein, spins the hapless but poetic Bilaam as a terrorist, Balak as an arch-terrorist – and, for good measure, throws in human rights activists as accomplices to terror homicide:
"It is not the suicide bomber – Bilaam – that is the only guilty party in terrorist attacks. It is the Balaks who send them and support them, that are certainly equally as guilty.”
"The pious human rights organizations that promote only hatred and violence under the guise of doing good deeds are also responsible for the loss of the precious lives of innocents caused by those whom they so nurture and support."
What Rabbi Wein fails to mention is that the real threat to the Israelites in the story of Balak comes from the actions of the Israelites themselves. After Bilaam gives up and goes home, God is enraged by the Israelites' immorality and idol worship, and lets loose a plague which kills 24,000 of the Israelites. (Later rabbis frame Bilaam for the killings).
In Israel, meanwhile, officials have been working overtime doing no little framing of their own. As pro-Palestinian activists, reportedly ranging in age from nine to 89, prepared to fly into Ben-Gurion Airport to demonstrate against the embargo on Gaza and the occupation, curses took wing from the diviners of hasbara.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a press release calling the the arrival of the activists an attempt "to undermine Israel's right to exist." It was, they said, part of a broader effort to breach Israel's "borders and its sovereignty, by sea, land and air."
Lest there be any doubt as to the severity of the threat, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Ahronowitz "These hooligans who seek to break the law and disturb the peace will not be allowed into Israel."
The activists' aim, Ahronowitz told reporters, was nothing less than "attacking our legitimacy in our own land." He ruled out demonstrations by the activists as illegal.
For months now, Israeli officials have described the participants of the flotilla campaign as terrorists, more recently (although with a subsequent Bilaam-like reversal) telling foreign media that the activists were planning to use "chemical weaponry," stockpiling sulfur to dump on Israeli security forces and set them alight.
The parallels to Bilaam don't end there. On Thursday, one of the organizers of the pro-Palestinian protest told Ynet that without Israel's exhaustive, high-profile efforts to condemn and curse the activists' fly-in, the campaign would never have gotten off the ground.
"We should be thanking Netanyahu, because without him, this wouldn’t have worked," the organizer said. "If we would have paid thousands of shekels in PR, it would not have worked out so well."
For those of us who live in Israel, perhaps the most useful section of the week's Torah portion is a part that barely makes it into the text. At the very close, occupation has led Moses' people to worship idols (which we, the contemporary Children of Israel, have repurposed as settlements), as well as to corruption, and immoral behavior.
The message from the government, meanwhile, remains, Hate Thy Pro-Palestinian Activist. It's certainly true that many if not most of the activists hate Israel at least as much as Israel hates them. But, as King Balak learned to his dismay, hatred and fear, as practiced by nations, have a tendency to boomerang.
Where Israel is concerned, a democracy that cannot bring itself to allow non-violent protest has already turned on itself.
Stay tuned. Within a few hours, we should learn who plays Bilaam in this version, who plays Balak, and, most tellingly perhaps, who plays the ass.
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