Madison Rafah Journal

Photo: Laura Durkay

Edgewood College
Predolin Humanities Center [Map], Room 307
Madison
7:00 pm

Josh Brollier, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, will give a talk with slides about this historic January 2010 march where 1300 delegates from 43 countries tried to break the siege of Gaza from Egypt.

Sponsored by Pax Christi, Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, and Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. For more information email rafahsistercity (at) yahoo.com or call 238-1227.

Israel builds still more facts on Palestinian ground, while stalemate persists

The Economist | Mar 4th 2010 | JERUSALEM

EVEN as the Americans strive to jump-start fresh talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli government has been using the hiatus to intensify the refashioning of East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as their future capital. This week the city’s Israeli mayor, Nir Barkat, unveiled his latest plan to turn Palestinian districts into Jewish biblical heritage parks. Fearing that their half of the city is being cast in an increasingly Israeli mould, Palestinian stone-throwers clashed with Israeli forces on the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, which Muslims venerate for its al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, and which Jews revere as the site of the biblical Temple. While George Mitchell, Barack Obama’s envoy, is yet again bidding to open “proximity talks” between the two sides, the Palestinians have been literally losing ground.

Unlike previous Israeli prime ministers, who built on the open hilltops above Arab population centres in the West Bank and on the edge of Jerusalem, Binyamin Netanyahu and his officials are concentrating on Jewish settlements bang in the midst of them. Car-parks and conservation areas, rich with Israeli symbols, are sprouting across East Jerusalem. Settlers with state protection are opening religious schools there. Scarcely a week passes without an Israeli newspaper heralding new Jewish housing units being built in Arab districts. Israeli archaeologists are scraping away the eastern parts of the city’s Arab surface in search of a Jewish past. Last month one of them declared she had “probably” found King Solomon’s city walls.

Inside the Old City itself (see map), the Israeli government’s East Jerusalem Development company has begun to interrupt the main Palestinian artery into the ancient centre, for sewage works. Mr Barkat says the project will improve services, but Palestinians fear it presages fresh archaeological digs aimed at exposing Jewish ties along the pilgrims’ route to the Temple that Jewish groups from the religious right seek to rebuild. To fulfil millennial Jewish yearning to restore the tabernacle, the company is also repairing what it says are ancient ablution pools.

Beneath the Old City’s Muslim quarter, the company says it will open its extension to 9,000 square metres of biblical quarries this summer and could yet link them to other subterranean routes, giving Israelis and tourists access from one end of the Old City to the other without having to pass an Arab or the trinket shops on which many Palestinian traders in the city depend.

(Read on …)

Jewish Voice for Peace, 11 February 2010

Midnight arrests. Defamation of human rights organizations. Expulsion of journalists. Human rights demonstrations broken up with violence. Censored films. Confiscated laptops.

That's just a fraction of the reality on the ground in Israel/Palestine that stands in contrast to the official story about 'the only democracy in the Middle East.'

That's the story we hear when AIPAC tries to justify the billions of dollars in military aid Israel receives. That's the story many of us grew up with.

But something is happening in Israel. The success of the Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement has led to a crackdown on Palestinians and those who support them that is unlike anything we've seen before.

In fact, on a recent trip to Israel/Palestine, activists on the ground who we work with said they needed our help. They said: "Please help us get the word out. The crackdown is growing worse by the day, yet most of what happens is invisible to the media, policymakers, and individuals. We need you to make these stories visible so we can work together to stop what's happening."

That's why we're launching The Only Democracy? today. Jewish Voice for Peace members wanted there to be one place where anyone in the world who cares about the struggle for equality and democracy in Israel/Palestine could read about and support the true heroes of today. The recent attacks by the right-wing group Im Tirtzu on the New Israel Fund are merely the tip of the iceberg.

(Read on …)

The message below is from Cassandra Dixon, who is about to leave for Palestine for a two-month stay in the West Bank with Christian Peacemaker Teams, accompanying Palestinians to deter attacks by settlers. (I hope that Cassandra will be allowed into Palestine, since earlier this month, two people who were scheduled to lead a CPT delegation were arrested at the Israeli airport, deported and told they could not return for 10 years. Two CPT members were similarly turned away last fall (more on that story).

If you would like to be on Cassandra's e-mail list for updates while she is in Palestine, please contact her at chrepairs(at)yahoo.com.

Note that she is also in need of support for this trip.

Thanks,
Barb Olson

(Read on …)

Agence France Presse, Jan 20, 2010

JERUSALEM – Israel will maintain a security presence along the eastern border of a future Palestinian state in order to prevent weapons smuggling, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

"The ability to proliferate into contiguous areas thousands of rockets and missiles… is something that creates a monumental security problem," he said at a news conference with foreign reporters in Jerusalem.

"We must ensure that in that entry there is a way to stop the infiltration of weapons."

"In the case of the future settlement with the Palestinians, this will require an Israeli presence on the eastern side of the prospective Palestinian state," he said, refusing to elaborate on the nature of such a presence.

This was Netanyahu's first public comment since coming to power last year on the issue of borders of a future Palestinian state, and comes amid intensive US efforts to restart the peace negotiations which were suspended a year ago.

(Read on …)

Gush Shalom, Haaretz, Jan 15, 2010

Mike Murray, The Capital Times, January 8, 2010

Dec. 27 marked the one-year anniversary of Israel’s brutal invasion of the occupied Gaza Strip, which was commonly referred to as “Operation Cast Lead.”

During this three-week act of aggression, Israel killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, injured thousands more, and destroyed billions of dollars of Palestinian civilian infrastructure. Today, Israel continues to subject the 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip to a dehumanizing blockade — an illegal act of collective punishment — that denies Palestinians adequate access to food, clean water, sanitation, electricity, and even school books and construction materials for rebuilding.

While most governments around the world have maintained an official silence about the siege of Gaza, activists worldwide are beginning to speak out against Israel’s illegal actions. Recently, a worldwide coalition of activists organized solidarity marches around the world — including Egypt and Gaza — to protest the siege.

Back in the United States, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, has begun to demonstrate an admirable proclivity for compassion, courage and rationality in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an institution where all three of these characteristics are sorely lacking on this issue: Congress. Many progressive and independent-minded members of Congress are beginning to tire of their colleagues’ unthinking support of Israel and are showing a willingness to challenge both Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians and our government’s unconditional support for Israel.

Recent events in Congress have revealed that many members — including Baldwin — are no longer willing to march in lockstep behind Israel. The most striking example was the House’s reaction to the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Report was issued by the U.N. and was written by a group headed by imminent international human rights jurist Richard Goldstone. The report detailed human rights violations that were committed both by Israeli invasion forces against Palestinian civilians and by Hamas fighters during the Gaza conflict.

(Read on …)