Palestine solidarity on trial

Socialist Alternative

Palestine solidarity campaigners on 1 July last year.

On 1 May 19 Melbourne activists will be put on trial for their political activity. In a precedent-setting case, these pro-Palestine activists will be fighting a variety of charges designed to criminalise dissent in Baillieu’s Victoria and intimidate supporters of Palestine in Australia.

On 1 July 2011, Victoria Police attacked a peaceful demonstration in Melbourne’s CBD. In one of the largest political arrests in a decade, 19 activists were detained during a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) action against the Max Brenner store. The chocolateria is owned by Israeli conglomerate the Strabdsuss Group, a company that provides “care rations” for the Israeli military, including the Golani and the Givati brigades. These were two of the key Israeli military brigades involved in Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 that killed more than 1300 Palestinians. In more recent times the Golani brigade has been noted for its brutal enforcement of Israeli colonisation of Palestinian Hebron in the West Bank.

After a series of peaceful demonstrations against Max Brenner, the 1 July action was kettled by police before activists were individually targeted in an unprovoked attack by the riot squad. The police used pressure point tactics on some of the demonstrators; others reported bruising and rough treatment. One woman had her shoulder dislocated.

Damian Ridgwell, one of the arrested protesters told Electronic Intifada about his experience:
I was dragged behind police lines. Once they grabbed me and started dragging me, I went limp and dropped to the ground… As I was being carried through the corridors of the loading dock, I lost consciousness because one of the police had me in a choke hold. I am not sure how long I was out, probably a few minutes. I woke up on the loading dock floor and heard the police saying I was “out”.
The majority of those arrested were charged with trespass in a public place (yes that is apparently a crime) and besetting (an archaic law that means “to surround a building”); a small number were also charged with behaving in a “riotous manner”.

After attending another protest, four of these nineteen protesters were again arrested (for breaking their bail conditions) in dawn raids on their homes. These anti-democratic conditions stipulated that activists may not return within fifty metres of Max Brenner stores in the Melbourne CBD. Three were released from jail on a bail of $2,000 each. One of the more prominent campaigners, Vashti Kenway, was made to pay a $10,000 bail or face prison. All up the activists are facing fines of around $30,000.

Bloomberg warns BDS will lead to ‘massacres’ as Park Slope Co-op holds initial vote on boycott tonight

MondoWeiss
Matthew Taylor

The Park Slope Food Co-op is set to vote tonight on whether to hold a referendum on boycotting Israeli goods and the New York Times has sunk to a preposterously inconceivable new low with this news report biased propaganda on the proposed Park Slope Co-Op Boycott of Israeli products. What's missing:

- not a single quote from anyone who supports the boycott

- not a single mention of what is motivating the boycott: Israel's human rights abuses, theft of land, oppression of Palestinians, and so on

- not a single statement of comparative contextual history, e.g., grassroots boycotts of South Africa that successfully contributed to the end of Apartheid policies

Instead of of neutrality, impartiality, facts, and context, what do we get? A megaphone for hateful, delusional scaremongering:

“I think it has nothing to do with the food,” Mayor Bloomberg said of the boycott. “The issue is there are people who want Israel to be torn apart and everybody to be massacred, and America is not going to let that happen.”

Excuse me? Supporters of nonviolent boycott want Israelis to be massacred?

Not to be outdone, Manhattan borough president Scott M. Stringer called the boycott “an anti-Semitic crusade.” And again, no chance for a response from any co-op members who support the boycott.
Memo to the new Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren: I hope you read this. I hope you will read Falk and Friel's Israel-Palestine on the Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East. I hope you will turn over a new leaf in the newspaper of mis-record's coverage.

Barghouti and Waskow debate BDS on Democracy Now

MondoWeiss

Excellent point made in the comments section on MondoWeiss by Phan Nguyen:

This is the second time Waskow has argued against BDS in a debate on Democracy Now. He did so two years earlier against Omar Barghouti.

His arguments are specious, but here I just want to point out his false suggestion that Martin Luther King would never support a boycott against an entire country:

Even when Dr. King clearly, publicly, vigorously opposed the Vietnam War, he did not call for a boycott of all American products and producers. He didn’t do that in Europe or in the United States. He targeted where he was aiming. And I think BDS, as presently framed, doesn’t target.

In reality, MLK supported full boycott, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid South Africa as early as 1962:

From a joint statement by MLK and Chief Albert J. Lutuli, dated 9 October 1962 and again on 10 December 1962, addressed to the international community:

Urge your Government to support economic sanctions;
Don’t buy South Africa’s products;
Don’t trade or invest in South Africa;
Translate public opinion into public action by explaining facts to all peoples, to groups to which you belong, and to countries of which you are citizens until AN EFFECTIVE INTERNATIONAL QUARANTINE OF APARTHEID IS ESTABLISHED.

From a speech in London, December 1964, en route to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize:

Our responsibility presents us with a unique opportunity. We can join in the one form of non-violent action that could bring freedom and justice to South Africa—the action which African leaders have appealed for—in a massive movement for economic sanctions.

In a world living under the appalling shadow of nuclear weapons do we not recognize the need to perfect the use of economic pressures? Why is trade regarded by all nations and all ideologies as sacred? Why does our Government, and your Government in Britain, refuse to intervene effectively now, as if only when there is a bloodbath in South Africa—or a Korea, or a Vietnam—will they recognise the crisis?

If the United Kingdom and the United States decided tomorrow morning not to buy South African goods, not to buy South African gold, to put an embargo on oil; if our investors and capitalists would withdraw their support for that racial tyranny, then apartheid would be brought to an end. Then the majority of South Africans of all races could at last build the shared society they desire.

From a speech in New York for Human Rights Day, 10 December 1965:

Today, in our opulent society, our reliance on trade with South Africa is infinitesimal significance. No real national interest impels us to be cautious, gentle, or a good customer of a nation that offends the world’s conscience…

The time has come to utilize non-violence fully through a massive international boycott which would involve the USSR, Great Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Japan. Millions of people can personally give expression to their abhorrence of the world’s worst racism through such a far-flung boycott. No nation professing a concern for man’s dignity could avoid assuming its obligations if people of all States and races were to adopt a firm stand. Nor need we confine an international boycott to South Africa. The time has come for an international alliance of peoples of all nations against racism.

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed Over Boycott of Israeli Goods

AUPHR
Tom Nelson

Jen Nessel, CCR, (212) 614-6449, press@ccrjustice.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Jayne Kaszynski, Olympia Food Co-op, 360-357-1106 x11, publicrelations@olympiafood.coopThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed Over Boycott of Israeli Goods

Court Finds Suit Is Effort to Chill Boycotters’ Public Statements On Issue of Public Concern

February 27, 2012, Olympia, WA and New York, NY – Today, in a lawsuit brought against current and former members of the Olympia Food Co-op board of directors for their decision to boycott Israeli goods, a Washington State court dismissed the case, calling it a SLAPP – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation – and said that it would award the defendants attorneys’ fees, costs, and sanctions. The judge also upheld the constitutionality of Washington’s anti-SLAPP law, which the plaintiffs had challenged.

In a court hearing last Thursday, lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP argued that the court should grant the defendants’ Special Motion to Strike and dismiss the case because it targeted the constitutional rights of free speech and petition in connection with an issue of public concern.

“We are pleased the Court found this case to be what it is – an attempt to chill free speech on a matter of public concern. This sends a message to those trying to silence support of Palestinian human rights to think twice before they bring a lawsuit,” said Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

On Thursday, the courtroom was filled with interested observers, and boycott supporters held a rally outside the courthouse. Today, the courtroom was filled to overflowing and many co-op supporters spilled into the hallway.

Anti-Zionism growing among Jews

Gulf News

A large group of Jewish activists opposed to the Zionist ideology are challenging Israel's occupation, racist and colonial policies against Palestinians and calling for the return of Palestinian refugees.

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) of organisations and activists in western countries firmly support the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel as a moral tool in response to Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

The state of Israel, the manifestation of Zionism, declares IJAN, is "a colonial project that dishonours the memories of the European Jews who perished in the genocide in Europe".

Rejecting the Zionist ideology and institutions as "unjust…. leading to further entrenchment of an apartheid system and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people", the Network further indicates that such policies are implicating every Jew "in the oppression of the Palestinian people and in the debasement of Jewish heritages, struggles for justice and alliances with fellow human beings".

Along this line, IJAN has been launching campaigns to draw support to its activities, with one targeting and seeking to halt support to the National Jewish Fund, responsible since the early years of the twentieth century for capturing Palestinian lands or seizing their ownership papers.

In June 2010, IJAN hosted in Detroit, USA, the first anti-Zionist gathering, the ‘Assembly of Jews: Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid'. The gathering was declared a success. IJAN activists also joined campaigns in 2009 and 2010 in the USA, held in support of the BDS movement, led by a Palestinian coalition of civil society organisations.

Earlier in February 2009, IJAN published an appeal by an anti-colonialist Israeli citizen calling on Unesco to ‘revoke Israel's membership'. In fact, when in February, 2011, the Zionist organisations in America and around the world issued a statement condemning the BDS campaign, IJAN's 34 anti-Zionist Jewish individuals and organisations issued a counter statement declaring: (a) The BDS activities "are a moral tool of non-violent, peaceful response to more than 60 years of Israeli colonialism, and (b) "Rightfully place accountability on Israeli institutions (and their allies and partners) that use business, culture and academic ties to white-wash Israel's responsibility for continuing crimes against humanity".

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These anti-Zionist Jewish activists and organisations put the blame for ‘crimes against humanity' on Israel and its colonial structure in order to prevent blaming all Jews for the actions of Israel.

They have categorically rejected the label of anti-Semitism attached by the Zionists to the BDS campaigns, saying such "campaigns the world over are not rooted in anti-Jewish sentiment against the daily, brutal occupation of Palestine and military threat to the region by the state of Israel."

Flash Mob's Major Production at Portland Apartheid Supporter 'New Seasons'

Salem-News
Tim King

I think people are eventually going to learn, the way we all learned about South Africa...

With all of the stories about terrible things taking place in the world, it is good to know that flash mobs are out there to embarrass the holy living sh*t out of retailers that want to grease their palms with blood money from Israel.

It's no secret, Israel isn't just slightly over the line in terms of human rights violations and highly documented war crimes, the Zionist government of Netanyahu is almost primeval in its treatment of human beings. The folks at New Seasons in Portland know what is going on, and their stance in support of oppressive Israeli occupation is baffling.

We learned yesterday that Israel's government may reserve their most vicious public assaults for American Jews who dare to voice support for human rights. (see: Israel's Crap Treatment of an American Jew)

Many of us actually understand that the goal of peace can never be reached under the current system. George W. Bush turned the U.S. into a nation guilty of committing Genocide. 

After all, Iraq is an unjustified conflict against a civilian population that has a lot of oil. One point five million human lives eradicated by the U.S. led forces? Just imagine how greed transcends right down to the thought that fewer people mean more resources for the nation committing the acts. Fewer human beings to disagree? I saw two types of people up close in Iraq; they were either highly compliant, or bound, hooded and subdued.

The U.S. right wing nearly proclaims the country's 'Christianity' while at the same espousing a system of religions freedom, which is supposed to exist. However President Bush compared the war on Iraq to the Crusades (two wholly unjustified extended periods of bloodshed). Then, just as now, Genocide always happens for the simple reason; because of religious hegemony and oppression.

Israel, like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, admits that religious freedom is denied - it is written as such. By national doctrine they exist to serve the needs of only one faith, i.e. the 'Jewish State of Israel'. The same goes for the 'Islamic Republic of Afghanistan'. I wouldn't call the Afghan government Genocidal; in fact it was the scene of a Genocidal invasion and war from the former Soviet Union, which the Afghan Mujaheddin banded together and won. Unfortunately, the Afghan struggle for freedom led to destroyed ancient Buddhist statues and a near eradication of Jews. On that note, I had never looked into whether there are any Jewish people living in Afghanistan at all. Here is what Wikipedia says:

"Jews have lived in Afghanistan for at least 2,000 years, but the community has been reduced greatly because of emigration. Afghan Jewish communities now exist mostly in Israel, Pakistan and the United States. Today, it is believed that there is only one Jew, Zablon Simintov, residing in Afghanistan. He cares for a dilapidated synagogue in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, and receives aid from sympathetic Muslims and Jews around the world." (see: History of the Jews in Afghanistan - rom Wikipedia)

One guy! This is Afghanistan; America's big Middle east 'project', hearts and minds, all of that. I now wish I had gone to see that dilapidated synagogue when I was in Kabul, what a story that would have been. My question is this; if Israel had reduced the Muslim population of Palestine to a single sad broken down mosque, would it be cared for with the proceeds of sympathetic Jews? Would the Muslim running it survive a single day?

In Palestine, the backers of the Genocide are Jews, in Iraq they are Christians, in Afghanistan they are Muslims, and in Sri Lanka they are Buddhists, and good luck to you if you happen to live in one of the latter three places listed, and fail to fit in. But never assume that these terrible behaviors represent the actual religions or their people at large. Not in any case, including Northern Ireland.

Since the people of opposing religions tend to represent different cultures, at least perceptually, it is racism, and as soon as the killings begin en mass, then it is Genocide. The first defense of the Genocidal groups as I have learned in my years of writing, is to accuse the writer of being against the religion of the majority.

The people in this Portland, Oregon flash mob carry the virtues of what is right in this world, they are drawing attention to what is wrong. That is what we are supposed to do as human beings.

Israel came to power in 1948 and then attacked neighboring Arab countries in 1967 in the Six Day War and used their victory to justify a major land grab. Since then Israel has progressively encroached on the remaining Palestinian areas, forcing them to drive on separate roads, and be subjected to a different set of laws than those that govern Jews. This is what U.S. taxpayers are funding. Israel is obviously very guilty of years of violent and deadly ethnic cleansing. Background: Murdering Babies is 'Permissible' When They're Palestinian - Alison Weir Salem-News.com

Background on Israeli Occupation: The activists understand that: all of Palestine has been militarily absorbed by Israel, which didn't exist as a government until 1948. Gaza is an isolated coastal strip bordered by Israel on the east and Egypt to the south. The West Bank and Golan Heights are also Palestine, and everything else is Israel. So, you have Palestinians who live in occupied Palestine; Palestinians who live in Israel that are Israeli citizens, and Palestinians in Gaza who have been locked in an open air concentration camp for years.

Every time a person buys a Nestle product, they are funding the diesel fuel of a bulldozer that will mow down a Palestinian family home, sometimes with people inside, almost always illegally. And when they use Caterpillar construction equipment, they directly fund the destruction of Palestine's homes.

All Israeli settlement products are directly funding colonies that exist atop ancient Palestinian villages. The settlers regularly harass the native Palestinians and school kids aren't safe, families aren't safe. The settlers train with deadly weapons and fire homemade rockets into Palestinian neighborhoods. And before people start ranting about Hamas rocket attacks, remember that these rogue attacks from Gaza have killed exactly 28 Israeli people. That is terrible, nobody should have died and the deaths of the Israelis are no less significant than any others, but they are far, far fewer in comparison to Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israelis, like more than a 100 to 1, far more.

Israel built division walls across Palestinian farmland and they shoot farmers with sniper rifles when they try to work their land, even in the legal zones. The Israeli navy regularly attacks and harasses, detain, confiscate, arrest, etc., the poor fishermen of Gaza who try to earn a meager living in restricted waters. A great writer and peace activist who was killed recently in Gaza, Vittorio Arrigoni, regularly protested the treatment of the fishermen.

And that is all just one tiny glance at the problems people have living under Israel's highly aggressive illegal 'army' called the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). 

Learn more about BDS, take part.

In a Google search just now, I saw that anti-BDS sites have high ranking. The first thing I read was, "BDS leaders want to destroy Israel and vilify Jews in the process". They're so completely full of it. Salem-News.com has an overt reputation for reporting the truth and everything else be damned. 

I can go on forever about this, instead I will let you enjoy this super cool video featuring a unique concept known as 'humanity' that is often the missing guest. 

New Seasons, you guys need to drop your products that violate BDS and if you do it we will bring the television cameras to Portland and give you substantial coverage, all on is, to show people that anything and everything is possible once the right amount of education has been applied. 

Please do the right thing. I predict that if you drop just a few of your products, that you will earn many customers for life, and those are who you need.

The Portland BDS Coalition Mobs New Seasons Grocery demanding a total Boycott of Israeli Products