Madison-Rafah Journal

The next meeting of the Divest From the Israeli Occupation group will be on Saturday, Nov. 17th from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm in the downtown Madison Public Library.

George Arida, with the Madison Rafah Sister City Project, will give a report on the recent meeting of the national U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and will present their adopted proposal to groups for a Motorola Boycott.

Other items on the agenda include
• State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) response to Action Sudan,
• prospects for work on the SWIB campaign,
• plans of allied groups,
• ideas for a public outreach campaign to publicize the nature and effects of the Israeli occupation,
• development of an apartheid analogy,
• and your ideas.

Mike Wyatt
251-4328
mapcmadison (at) merr.com

Dear Members and Friends of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project,

MRSCP will be holding an open general meeting on Sunday, Nov. 11 beginning at 7 pm at Escape Java Joint, 916 Williamson Street in Madison.

The point of this meeting is to share information on national and international trends in Palestine solidarity work, and to discuss the work of MRSCP in that light.

The meeting will open with a preview clip from one of our new films (Reel Bad Arabs or Occupation 101) and then move on to a power-point summary of the recent national conference of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, which adopted three new action proposals for 2007-2008. We will also have a short report on two other major Middle East conferences: the UN conference on Palestine that was held in Brussels in August, and the Boston Sabeel conference which was held the weekend of October 27-28.

This will be followed by a recap of what MRSCP has been up to and some discussion of possible plans for the coming year. Q&A and discussion will follow.

If you've been thinking of getting more involved with MRSCP or just wondering what we've been up to, be sure to attend this meeting…bring friends too. Escape has a great menu and we will be providing some hummus and zatar with Holy Land olive oil for you to sample.

Finally, here are links to two good articles: (1) the recent decision by Israel to collectively punish Gaza further by shutting off fuel and electricity, and (2) Bishop Desmond Tutu's speech at the Sabeel conference.

(Read on …)

Dan Izenberg and Tovah Lazaroff , THE JERUSALEM POST, Oct. 29, 2007

Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz on Monday rejected for the time being the Defense Ministry's intention of causing power shortages in the Gaza Strip as a punitive measure for rocket attacks against Israeli communities, the Justice Ministry announced.

The decision was made at the end of a late evening meeting attended by Mazuz, State Attorney Eran Shendar, other top Justice Ministry officials, representatives of the Military Advocate-General's department, legal advisers from the Ministries of Defense, Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister Office and the National Security Council and others.

Mazuz gave the green light for various economic sanctions including cutting economic and commercial ties with the Gaza Strip. However, as far as the army and defense ministry's intention of cutting power supplies to Gaza was concerned, Mazuz said more planning work had to be done before the decision could be carried out. This, "in order to look into the possibility of implementing the measure so that it would be in keeping with the government's decision [of Sept. 19.] That decision restricted sanctions so that they would not cause humanitarian harm to the civilian population."

According to an example provided by Channel 10 news, Mazuz instructed the army to determine how to warn Gaza hospitals of its intention to cut electricity in enough time so that the hospitals could turn on their own generators.

(Read on …)

Agence France-Presse, October 30, 2007

UN chief Ban Ki-moon overnight slammed Israel's "punitive measures" against the Gaza Strip as "unacceptable" and urged the Jewish state to reconsider its actions.

Spokeswoman Michele Montas said the secretary general "believes strongly that punitive measures taken by Israel which harm the well-being of the entire population of the Gaza Strip are unacceptable".

Mr Ban urged the Jewish state "to reconsider its actions and for all concerned to protect civilians and to meet their obligations under international law".

"The limitation of fuel and electricity supplies deepens the humanitarian distress of the 1.4 million residents of Gaza, as does the reduction of the supply of essential commodities and the tightening of restrictions on movement and access," she said.

But Mr Ban also reiterated his call for an end to "indiscriminate attacks by Palestinian militants targeting Israel, which he "strongly condemns".

(Read on …)

Donald Macintyre, The Independent, 26 October 2007

Jerusalem — A 21-year-old cancer patient in urgent need of specialist treatment was stopped from entering Israel from Gaza despite securing prior permission from the Israeli military to cross the border.

The incident, the latest in a series which the Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) claims is part of a tough new policy by the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet towards seriously ill patients from Gaza seeking treatment in Israel, came as Israel separately stepped up its response to the firing of Qassam rockets by Gaza militants.

The Defence minister Ehud Barak gave the go-ahead to begin phased cuts in power to the Strip in direct response to the firing of rockets, in line with last month's Cabinet declaration that Gaza was a "hostile entity".

His deputy Matan Vilnai said Israel was no longer obliged to supply more power than the "minimum needed to avert a crisis". The move is likely to begin with cuts of around 15 minutes after a rocket is fired, with the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, a frequent site for rocket launches, the most affected initially. Two Qassam rockets struck open fields in the southern border town of Sderot yesterday without causing injury and two Hamas militants and an Islamic Jihad member were killed by Israeli fire. Four mortar shells from Gaza landed near the Sufa crossing, used for humanitarian aid.

Saeb Erekat, a member of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's team negotiating with Israel, described the decision to limit electricity supplies as "collective punishment" and "particularly provocative" given the negotiations.

(Read on …)

Joan Mandell, Olive Branch Productions