US poet Adrienne Rich on Israel‏

February 3 2009

Dear All,

Last week, with initial hesitation but finally strong conviction, I endorsed the Call for a U.S. Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel. http://usacbi.wordpress.com/. I'd like to offer my reasons to friends, family and comrades. I have tried in fullest conscience to think this through.

My hesitation: I profoundly believe in the visible/invisible liberatory social power of creative and intellectual boundary-crossings. I've been educated by these all my life, and by centuries-long cross-conversations about human freedom, justice and power—also, the forces that try to silence them.

As an American Jew, over almost 30 years, I've joined with other concerned Jews in various kinds of coalition-building and anti-Occupation work. I've seen the kinds of organized efforts to stifle—in the US and elsewhere--critiques of Israel's policies--the Occupation's denial of Palestinian humanity, destruction of Palestinian lives and livelihoods, the "settlements," the state's physical and psychological walls against dialogue—and the efforts to condemn any critiques as anti-Semitism. Along with other activists and writers I've been named on right-wing "shit-lists" as "Israel-hating" or "Jew-hating." I have also seen attacks within American academia and media on Arab American, Muslim, Jewish scholars and teachers whose work critically explores the foundations and practices of Israeli state and society.

Until now, as a believer in boundary-crossings, I would not have endorsed a cultural and academic boycott. But Israel's continuing, annihilative assaults in Gaza, and the one-sided rationalizations for them have driven me to re-examine my thoughts about cultural exchanges. Israel's blockading of information, compassionate aid, international witness and free cultural and scholarly expression has become extreme and morally stone-blind. Israeli Arab parties have been banned from the elections, Israeli Jewish dissidents arrested, Israeli youth imprisoned for conscientious refusal of military service. Academic institutions are surely only relative sites of power. But they are, in their funding and governance, implicated with state economic and military power. And US media, institutions and official policy have gone along with all this.

To boycott a repressive military state should not mean backing away from individuals struggling against the policies of that state. So, in continued solidarity with the Palestinian people's long resistance, and also with those Israeli activists, teachers, students, artists, writers, intellectuals, journalists, refuseniks, feminists and others who oppose the means and ends of the Occupation, I have signed my name to this call.

Adrienne Rich

>News Clots<

Re: Urgent Appeal to Israel's Prime Minister's office‏

The official Israeli response to the petition to end Israeli state violence in Gaza forges an unacceptable context to recent events in Gaza Strip by asserting that the story began 'in the past eight years'.

....

Re: Urgent Appeal to Israel's Prime Minister's office‏
From: PMO HEB (PMOH@pmo.gov.il)
Sent: January 11, 2009 9:07:36 AM
To: 'uddari@live.ca' (uddari@live.ca)

We acknowledge receipt of your e-mail regarding the IDF campaign to protect the residents of southern Israel.

For the past eight years, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have lived under the specter of incessant and indiscriminate rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. While people in other countries have carried about their normal routines, sending their children to school and walking their dogs in the park, the people of Sderot and its neighboring communities have been denied such luxuries – for fear of being hit by incoming missiles (http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=58&ar=panic02-V&ak=null). No sovereign nation should be expected to tolerate the daily targeting of its people, and yet the State of Israel has exercised maximum restraint and worked relentlessly to achieve a peaceful solution with the Palestinians.

Since seizing control of the Gaza Strip by way of a violent coup in June 2007, Hamas – a terrorist organization allied with Iran, Syria and Hizbullah – has escalated its assault on the State of Israel. Even a truce with Israel was abused by Hamas which persisted in attacking Israeli towns, while also conspiring to upgrade its terrorist capabilities, manufacture and smuggle massive quantities of weapons into Gaza and construct a network of underground tunnels for combat purposes. Now, after Hamas has unilaterally abandoned this ceasefire and expanded the range of its missiles to threaten close to one million Israelis, the State of Israel must act decisively to defend its citizens.

In 2005, the Disengagement plan brought an end to Israel's presence in the Gaza Strip, with the hope and aspiration that its Palestinian residents would begin to govern themselves and prosper. Israel has no desire to re-establish its hold over Gaza, but has resolved – in self-defense – to gain control over areas from which rockets are being launched on Israeli towns, and to significantly disable the Hamas terrorist infrastructure. Ultimately, Operation Cast Lead aims to produce lasting change in the security predicament affecting residents of Southern Israel, and Israel expects the international community to lend its support in the fight against Hamas terror. Terrorism is terrorism no matter where it occurs.

At the same time, the IDF is taking great pains to direct its activities exclusively against terrorists. Hamas, however, callously places Palestinian civilians in harm’s way, using schools, mosques, other public institutions and even private homes as arsenals and bases of operation – effectively taking the Palestinians of Gaza hostage and using them as human shields. Responsibility for injury to civilians in Gaza rests solely with Hamas. In contrast, the State of Israel is doing its utmost to minimize any harm to the Palestinian civilian populace; hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid have been allowed passage into Gaza and this assistance will continue. There is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The State of Israel seeks peace and will remain steadfast in its pursuit of a two-state solution that will allow Israelis and Palestinians to live together as neighbors in harmony.

Sincerely,
Prime Minister’s Office – E-Correspondence

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Sign these petitions:
Gaza Time for Peace
Stop the Violence in Gaza
Stop the Attack on Gaza

Sign the Appeal to Stop the Attack on Gaza!

Urgent Appeal for Israel to Immediately Cease Its Murderous Bombing, Siege and Threatened Invasion of Palestinian Gaza
Initiated by 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award winner Ramsey Clark

Let President George W. Bush, President-Elect Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Designate Hillary Clinton, Vice President Richard Cheney, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban, U.N. General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states, the President, Prime Minister, Cabinet and Opposition leader of Israel, and Major media representatives know you support this urgent appeal initiated by 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award recipient Ramsey Clark for Israel to Immediately Cease Its Murderous Bombing, Siege and Threatened Invasion of Palestinian Gaza! Sign the petition here!

Sample Text

Urgent Appeal for Israel to Immediately Cease Its Murderous Bombing, Siege and Threatened Invasion of Palestinian Gaza!

To: President George W. Bush, President-Elect Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Designate Hillary Clinton, Vice President Richard Cheney, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban, U.N. General Assembly President d'Escoto-Brockmann, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states, the President, Prime Minister, Cabinet and Opposition leader of Israel, and Major media representatives:

For 60 years, Israel has persecuted the Palestinian people with impunity in defiance of United Nations General Assembly and United Nations Security Council Resolutions, orders of the International Court of Justice, International Law and fundamental human rights.

Throughout the years, Israel has proclaimed itself the victim as it grew richer, more powerful and more violent, while Palestinians were abused, impoverished, divided and demeaned.

A consistent tactic of Israel through all the years has been to divide Palestinians against their most effective organizations. Through most of the recent years Israel has attacked Fatah. Now it is Hamas that Israel attacks. But there is only one Palestinian people and there can be only one Palestinian State. This has been the guiding principle of the PLO. Israel's policy has always been to destroy the possibility of a Palestinian State. Its criminal assault on Hamas is in truth Israel's continuing assault on the possibility of a Palestinian State: divide and conquer.

Now in the waning days of the disastrous Bush Administration, the government of Israel with its Prime Minister under criminal indictment, is testing whether world opinion will permit it to escalate its isolation and impoverishment of Palestine and selective and systematic assassination of Palestinian leadership in Gaza to a genocidal, indiscriminate assault and invasion of Palestinian Gaza, knowing full well its acts will inflame passions throughout the Middle East and Arab and Muslim worlds risking conflict of disastrous magnitude in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, even between India and Pakistan.

Beyond crushing Gaza's capacity to resist and imposing its final solution on Palestinians, Israel is seeking confrontation that will lead to war with the U.S., the European Union, and NATO fighting for Israel against Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan to impair their ability to prevent expansion of Israel's domination of the region while the "only one President at a time" the U.S. has, George W. Bush, will support Israel, finding all fault with Gaza.

In these dangerous and difficult days and hours the undersigned call upon the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, NATO members, and European countries independently, the governments of Asia, foremost China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, the nations of Africa, and the Americas to demand an immediate ceasefire throughout Israel and Palestine and the assurance of peace. All borders to Gaza, Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, must be opened for humanitarian relief and a complete arms and trade embargo on Israel until it fully complies with all the requirements of permanent peace.

We call upon all the people, the ultimate power in every nation when organized and energized, to take to the streets where they live and demand that their governments do all in their power to cause Israel to stop its war of aggression against Palestine and for all parties to pursue peace and for Israel, the U.S. and other nations who have provided material support for Israel's aggression to be held accountable for the deaths, injuries and damage Israel has inflicted.

We call upon governments and humanitarian agencies to provide all needed emergency relief to Palestine - medical care, food, humanitarian supplies, shelter; and on all the media that truly seeks peace, justice and respect for the equal dignity of every child, woman and man on earth to headline the demand that Israel stop its aggression immediately. All parties must engage in continuous negotiation with all Palestinians until a one state solution is agreed or the state of Palestine as mandated not later than October 1948 in UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) is created, fully implemented, and Palestine thrives.

Sincerely, (Your signature will be appended here based on the contact information you enter in the form) Initiated and signed by Ramsey Clark, winner, 2008 U.N.Human Rights Award (Posted December 30, 2008. Campaign to Stop the Bombing, Siege and Threatened Invasion of Gaza) Sponsored by: International Action Center www.iacenter.org c/o Solidarity Center 55 West 17th St 5C New York, NY 10011 For further information call: (212) 633-6646

Gaza‏, Jan 5/09

The Gaza Ghetto Uprising http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10110.shtml

It is now recognized that Israel's 1967 invasion of Egypt aimed successfully to destroy Gamal Abdul-Nasser, the enemy of all US dictatorial allies among the Arab regimes ... Israel thus rendered a great service to Arab monarchies (and a few republics) from "the ocean to the Gulf," whose survival was threatened by Nasser and Nasserism. Israel's subsequent intervention in Jordan in 1970 to help the Jordanian army destroy Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas and its final crushing of that organization in its massive invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 were also important services it rendered to these same regimes ... Israel's services to Arab regimes continue apace. Its 2006 invasion of Lebanon, engineered to destroy Hizballah, was cheered by Arab regimes and neoliberal Arab intellectuals hostile to Hizballah and employed exclusively by Saudi media outlets. ... The Bahraini foreign minister suggested a few weeks ago that Israel join the Arab League. ... Since 2006, Arab regimes, neoliberal Arab intellectuals, as well as the Palestinian Collaborationist Authority (PCA) in Ramallah have reached an understanding that only Israel will be able to save them from Hizballah and Hamas, both organizations constituting a threat to the open alliance Arab regimes have with the US and Israel against Iran and all progressive forces in the region. ... A veritable open alliance now exists between the Palestinian Collaborationist Authority, Arab regimes, and Israel with the support of neoliberal Arab intellectuals, wherein Israel is subcontracted to decimate the Hamas government -- the only democratically elected government in the entire Arab world.

On collaboration and resistance of the oppressed http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10103.shtml

Hosni Mubarak's government in Egypt and the unelected PalestinianAuthority in Ramallah have actively colluded with Israel, first tounsuccessfully overthrow Hamas from Gaza through force and then to chokethe Palestinians in Gaza by denying them basics such as food, cleanwater, medical treatment and a decent education.

Azmi Bishara: Statement on the Gaza Situation http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/statement-on-the-gaza- situation-20090104.html (short link: http://twiturl.de/bishara)

[Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesseth]

Israeli Offensive in the Gaza Strip: Before the Next Stage http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/israeli-offensive-in-the- gaza-strip-before-the-next-stage-20090101.html (short link: http://twiturl.de/stage)

Israeli demands require Hamas to choose between humiliation and death. However, in response, Hamas forces Israel to choose between genocide and defeat. At the current stage, only the physical elimination of the movement’s membership will prevent Hamas from leading the national liberation movement. Israel can achieve a military victory over Hamas, but only through genocide. Up to certain extent, this is the meaning of the demands of the Israeli public as expressed in the Hebrew press.

The Aggression towards Gaza and the Official European Discourse http://www.alternativenews.org/blogs/nassar-ibrahim/aggression- towards-gaza-and-the-official-european-discourse-this-how-politics- disfigure-the-false-moral-set-20090105.html (short link: http://twiturl.de/nasser)

Given the Palestinian blood flowing in the streets of the Gaza Strip as a result of the ongoing Israeli war of aggression, the vague, diplomatic language and meticulously selected terms being employed by European governments lose all their value, becoming mere justification and protection for Israel’s actions.

International community giving Israel time to weaken Hamas in Gaza http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052330.html Hebrew: העולם נותן לישראל זמן http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1051941.html

Gideon Levy: And there lie the bodies http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052348.html Hebrew: נהר של דם עד עזה http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1052433.html

The moral voice of restraint, if it ever existed, has been left behind. Even if Israel wiped Gaza off the face of the earth, killing tens of thousands in the process, [...] one can assume that there would be no protest.

Amira Hass: No humanitarian crisis in Gaza? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052606.html

Khaled Hroub: A “New Hamas” through Its New Documents (Summer 2006) http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx? id=7087&jid=1&href=fulltext (short link: http://twiturl.de/hroub)

Since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, its political positions as presented in the Western media hark back to its 1988 charter, with almost no reference to its considerable evolution under the impact of political developments. The present article analyzes (with long verbatim extracts) three recent key Hamas documents: its fall 2005 electoral platform, its draft program for a coalition government, and its cabinet platform as presented on 27 March 2006. Analysis of the documents reveals not only a strong programmatic and, indeed, state building emphasis, but also considerable nuance in its positions with regard to resistance and a two-state solution.

Michael Warschawski: Blaming the “Two Sides”: Worse than the Killers http://www.alternativenews.org/blogs/michael-warschawski/blaming-the- two-sides-worse-than-the-killers-20081230.html (short link: http://twiturl.de/warsch)

In order to show concern, Europe is sending (symbolic) humanitarian assistance to the population of Gaza. While listening to French Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner supporting the Israeli action, while simultaneously announcing the decision to send humanitarian supplies to Gaza, I could not but remember the broadcasted International Red Cross delegations coming to Nazi extermination camps with chocolate and cookies. I know, it is not at all the same, but no-one can control his mind's associations… Bernard Kouchner, however, has one extenuating circumstance: the Arab regimes, in particular Hosni Mubarak's, are also supporting the Israeli aggression. And they also will send chocolate and cookies to the children of Gaza. Except, of course, to those lying dead in Shifa hospital.

The Predictable Trajectory of Israeli Public Opinion http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/the-predictable- trajectory-of-israeli-public-opinion-20090101.html (short link: http://twiturl.de/atinsky)

International Intervention Now! http://www.alternativenews.org/blogs/michael-warschawski/ international-intervention-now-20081231.html (short link: http://twiturl.de/now)

The holy crusade for the defense of human rights has one interesting articularity: one possesses the right to violate every single human right, in order to defend human rights. Beginning with the right to life. The international community has given a green light to the state of Israel to massacre hundreds of Palestinian women, men and children in order to protect human rights from Islam in Gaza, as it is doing in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Do Israel pilots feel happy killing innocent women and children? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/gaza-diary-israel

A Palestinian in Gaza chronicles life under Israeli bombardment

Six children among 12 killed in mosque blast http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/04/mosque-blast-gaza

Scenes of carnage as Israeli shells strike crowd of civilians who were leaving evening prayers

Tanks, rockets, death and terror: a civilian catastrophe unfolding http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/05/civilian-catasrophe-gaza

John Ging, the head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, described the situation there as "inhuman". "We have a catastrophe unfolding in Gaza for the civilian population," he said. "The people of Gaza City and the north now have no water. That comes on top of having no electricity. They're trapped, they're traumatised, they're terrorised by this situation ... The inhumanity of this situation, the lack of action to bring this to an end, is bewildering to them." The UN has been particularly angered at the contention of the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Ging also accused Israel of a campaign of destroying public buildings vital to the administration and governance of Gaza. "The whole infrastructure of the future state of Palestine is being destroyed," he said. "Blowing up the parliament building. That's the parliament of Palestine. That's not a Hamas building. The president's compound is for the president of Palestine."

>NewsClots<

Stop the Massacre in Gaza: Boycott Israel Now!

By Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee -- BNC; December 28, 2008 - Znet http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20071

Source: BDS Movement

Press Release:

Occupied Ramallah, Palestine - 27 December 2008: Today, the Israeli occupation army committed a new massacre in Gaza, causing the death and injury of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including a yet unknown number of school children who were headed home from school when the first Israeli military strikes started. This latest bloodbath, although far more ruthless than all its predecessors, is not Israel's first. It culminates months of an Israeli siege of Gaza that should be widely condemned and prosecuted as an act of genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians in the occupied coastal strip.

Israel seems intent to mark the end of its 60th year of existence the same way it has established itself -- perpetrating massacres against the Palestinian people. In 1948, the majority of the indigenous Palestinian people were ethnically cleansed from their homes and land, partly through massacres like Deir Yassin; today, the Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom are refugees, do not even have the choice to seek refuge elsewhere. Incarcerated behind ghetto walls and brought to the brink of starvation by the siege, they are easy targets for Israel's indiscriminate bombing.

Prof. Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law expert at Princeton University, described Israel's siege of Gaza last year, when it was still not comparable in its severity to the current situation, as follows:

"Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy."

The most brutal episode of this "collective tragedy" is what we have seen today.

Israel's war crimes and other grave violations of international law in Gaza as well as in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, could not have been perpetrated without the direct or indirect complicity of world governments, particularly the United States, the European Union, Egypt, and other Arab regimes.

While the US government has consistently sponsored, bankrolled and protected from international censure Israel's apartheid and colonial policies against the indigenous people of Palestine, the EU was able in the past to advocate a semblance of respect for international law and universal human rights. That distinction effectively ended on December 9th, when the EU Council decided unanimously to reward Israel's criminal disregard of international law by upgrading the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Israel clearly understood from this decision that the EU condones its actions against the Palestinians under its occupation. Palestinian civil society also got the message: the EU governments have become no less complicit in Israel's war crimes than their US counterpart.

The large majority of world governments, particularly in the global south, share part of the blame, as well. By continuing business as usual with Israel, in trade agreements, arms deals, academic and cultural ties, diplomatic openings, they have provided the necessary background for the complicity of world powers and, consequentially, for Israel's impunity. Furthermore, their inaction within the United Nations is inexcusable.

Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, President of the UN General Assembly prescribed in a recent address before the Assembly the only moral way forward for the world's nations in dealing with Israel:

"More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

Now, more than ever, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, BNC, calls upon international civil society not just to protest and condemn in diverse forms Israel's massacre in Gaza, but also to join and intensify the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel to end its impunity and to hold it accountable for its persistent violation of international law and Palestinian rights. Without sustained, effective pressure by people of conscience the world over, Israel will continue with its gradual, rolling acts of genocide against the Palestinians, burying any prospects for a just peace under the blood and rubble of Gaza, Nablus and Jerusalem.

* The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) includes: Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine; General Union of Palestinian Workers; Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions; Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations' Network (PNGO); Federation of Independent Trade Unions; Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations; Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition; Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI); General Union of Palestinian Women; Palestinian Farmers Union (PFU); Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW); Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI); National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba; Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ); Coalition for Jerusalem; and Palestinian Economic Monitor.

Contributed by blackandred on Sun, 2008-12-28 08:18.

Source: http://mostlywater.org/stop_massacre_gaza_boycott_israel_now