Madison Rafah Journal

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times. Ezra Nawi directing other protesters demonstrating against an illegal Israeli settlement.

“I don’t consider my work political. I don’t have a solution to this dispute. I just know that what is going on here is wrong. This is not about ideology. It is about decency.”

ETHAN BRONNER, The New York Times, June 28, 2009

SAFA, West Bank — Ezra Nawi was in his element. Behind the wheel of his well-worn jeep one recent Saturday morning, working two cellphones in Arabic as he bounded through the terraced hills and hardscrabble villages near Hebron, he was greeted warmly by Palestinians near and far.

Watching him call for an ambulance for a resident and check on the progress of a Palestinian school being built without an Israeli permit, you might have thought him a clan chief. Then noticing the two Israeli Army jeeps trailing him, you might have pegged him as an Israeli occupation official handling Palestinian matters.

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Ahmed Abu Salama is a teenage boy from Gaza who was severely injured in an Israeli attack over one year ago.

Thanks to the efforts of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) Ahmed and his mother Karima arrived in Madison on Sunday May 24th, safely and on time for medical treatment donated by American Family Children's Hospital. Their journey from Gaza to Madison took two weeks, with the biggest challenge of getting from Gaza to Egypt going relatively smoothly.

An enthusiastic group of a dozen people greeted Ahmed and Karima at the airport. For the first week, Ahmed and Karima stayed with a volunteer host family. Since then, Karima has stayed at the Ronald McDonald House while Ahmed has been at Children's Hospital. If all goes well Ahmed will move into Ronald McDonald House with his mother later this week while receiving outpatient care at the hospital.

Ahmed was scheduled to have cranial reconstruction surgery on June 10th, but due to complications from other injuries it was postponed until June 16. The surgery went well, although Ahmed is still in the hospital and is being treated for an earlier foot infection. It is hoped that he will soon be discharged to return for outpatient treatment and therapy. At this time, we do not know the exact length of Ahmed's stay, but it is estimated to be 3 to 7 more weeks.

There have been many community volunteers who have helped Ahmed and Karima feel at home in Madison. Ahmed and Karima have also benefitted from the generosity of the doctors and staff at Children's Hospital and at the Ronald McDonald House. In the next few weeks, everyone will be working together to make Ahmed and Karima's experience here a very good one and to see that Ahmed's treatment is a success.

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This is not an academic or a legal issue. It affects each and every one of us. To this day Israel pursues those responsible for crimes committed during the holocaust. This is right, and just. Yet this same principle must be applied to all.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), 22 June 2009

Speech Presented to Conference in Madrid on Behalf of PCHR Director, Raji Sourani

Dear friends, comrades, partners in civil society, and national and international human rights organizations, thank you all for coming, and for joining us here today.

Today, the Gaza Strip lies in ruins. Five months after Israel’s criminal offensive, which cost the lives of 1,414 Palestinians – 83% of whom were civilians – and injured 5,300 others, recovery is impossible. The siege of the Gaza Strip, an illegal form of collective punishment imposed on Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants, has now been in place for over two continuous years. Individuals are denied their rights to freedom of movement, people and goods cannot enter or leave. Israel has systematically suffocated the economic and social life of the Strip, and created a humanitarian crisis. In Gaza today there is not even the concrete with which to build a tombstone. Five months after the end of the war, the situation in Gaza is exactly the same as it was on 18 January. Only the weather has changed.

It is because of this illegal siege that I cannot be here with you today. However, I hope that through this speech my words can still reach you.

On 29 January 2009 we were happy and proud. The Spanish Audencia Nacional had asserted that it would launch an investigation into the events surrounding the Al-Daraj attack in Gaza in 2002. This war crime killed 14 civilians, wounded approximately 150 others, and completely or partially destroyed 38 apartment buildings. It was a proud day across the globe, for all those who seek to uphold the rule of law, and to pursue accountability. It was especially significant coming so close as it did after the end of Israel’s war on Gaza. The Spanish judiciary had shown their independence and their integrity, continuing the trail of accountability from Pinochet to Ben-Eliezer.

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Your email inviting Congresswoman Baldwin to stop by the ADC Annual National Convention June 12-14 was forwarded to me. There are votes scheduled on Friday, June 12th. Congresswoman Baldwin will be returning to Wisconsin after votes because there are events scheduled in the district.

Thank you for your invitation to Congresswoman Baldwin.

Sincerely,
Maureen Hekmat

Maureen Hekmat
Executive Assistant
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin
2446 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202)226-6720

CAT CEO tells shareholders that if they don't like CAT being held liable for human rights violations, they should just sell their stock

Last Wednesday, JVP's Lynn Pollack and Hampshire College student Matan Cohen attempted to hand-deliver an enormous box filled with nearly 8,000 letters and signatures from you to Caterpillar's CEO Jim Owens. CAT security barred them from bringing the letters into the corporate boardroom – but we made sure Mr. Owens knew all of you want CAT to get out of the business of making money by violating international law (and he'll get a friendly reminder from us soon enough in the form of a FedEx package filled with signatures.)

Along with 5 others from our partner organizations, Matan Cohen, on behalf of JVP, was able to give a searing talk about CAT complicity in Israeli human rights violations to a boardroom that included CAT directors, shareholders, and journalists.

Cohen reminded the room that just a few months ago, a New York-based U.S. district judge broke new ground by allowing lawsuits to go forward that accused companies like General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and IBM Corp. of aiding South Africa's former apartheid regime.

The judge reasoned that the companies knew that their products and services were used to violate the human rights of South Africans.

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Photographs taken during broadcasts of President Obama's speech at Cairo University in Egypt on Thursday.

The New York Times, June 7, 2009

Cairo. Photo: Amr Nabil/Associated Press

Manama, Bahrain. Photo: Hasan Jamali/Associated Press

Beirut, Lebanon. Photo: Hussein Malla/Associated Press

Calcutta. Photo: Sucheta Das/Associated Press

Baghdad. Photo: Mohammed Jalil/European Pressphoto Agency

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Caterpillar is holding its annual shareholder meeting in Chicago this coming June 10th. Help us bring thousands of letters directly to the Board of Directors. Sign a letter to CAT by June 9, and we will print it and hand-deliver it for you.

If you will be in Chicago on the 10th, the day of the shareholder meeting, join a street protest outside the shareholder meeting.

JVP will be at the shareholder meeting for the sixth consecutive year. Our resolution is sponsored by an interfaith coalition that includes the Sisters of Loretto, the Mercy Investment Program, and over 10 additional Catholic congregations. This year, our resolution calls for CAT to issue a comprehensive report on its foreign sales of weapons-related products. We were stunned to find out that these sales to Israel and every other foreign government comprise only a negligible 0.06% of CAT's 2008 sales and revenues of $51.324 billion.

The company knows well how much suffering that small percentage really buys in Palestine, in terms of homes demolished, trees uprooted, and lives ruined.

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