Gaza Mom

HOPE TO HAVE A MORE DETAILED REACTION TOMORROW, JUST GOT BACK FROM HELSINKI, BUT NOW

EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT (from various organizations)

Call White House and demand US hold Israel accountable for attack on flotilla Israeli commandos kill at least 16 unarmed humanitarian volunteers.

Protests against Israel’s daily aggression against the unarmed humanitarian aid volunteers aboard the Freedom Flotilla are breaking out across the globe.

People of conscious all over the world were horrified Sunday to watch Israeli commandos intercept the Mavi Marmara in international waters. Israeli military gunfire killed at least 16 unarmed civilians and wounded more than 50 in the five vessels that were transporting donated medical and humanitarian supplies to the besieged people of Gaza.

The Israeli Public Relations machine already is in overdrive to whitewash their criminal actions. They will try to get U.S. political leaders to speak their language and say that Israel has the right to defend itself. Israel already has tried to paint the Flotilla as supporting terrorism. The pro-Zionist lobby AIPAC will persuade Congress to urge President Barack Obama to support Israel in this difficult time. They will also swamp media outlets with its fabricated stories.

WE MUST STOP THEM IN THEIR TRACKS. We cannot allow Israel to frame this story so that policy makers and international bodies ignore the fact Israel boarded ships registered to sovereign countries and killed unarmed passengers in international waters. Not this time.

Israel’s actions only increase Arab and Muslim mistrust the United States, thus further eroding our standing at this critical time in our nation’s history. Israeli actions prove once again that it is a strategic liability to the United States and only complicates US relations with the rest of the world.

TAKE ACTION

We must flood the phone lines to the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office at 11 a.m. EST on Tuesday, June 1.

We must flood emails of Congress and demand they cut off all U.S. foreign aid to the State of Israel.

Call President Barack Obama and Secretary Clinton and tell them they MUST stand firm and put U.S. interests ahead of Israel. Demand the United States hold Israel accountable for its criminal actions and the deaths of the humanitarian aid volunteers.

TALKING POINTS

1. Remain firm but polite
2. Israel boarded the ships in international waters
3. Israel attacked unarmed civilians
4. Israel’s blockade of Gaza amounts to collective punishment, which is against international law.
5. The United State’s support of Israel weakens U.S. standing in the world and threatens American national security

CONTACT

White House – Call 202.456.1111 and press ’1′ when prompted.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – 202.647.5291

To email your congressman, click here.

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As the Freedom Flotilla approaches ever closer to besieged Gaza, the Hasbara campaign continues full speed ahead.

While Gaza continues to suffer the most methodical modern-day asphyxiation of modern history, where the most basic rights of child and adult alike…the right to food, to life, to work, to health, to learn, to play… are purposefully denied and where the lists of what shall be denied are crafted and tweaked on a weekly basis, then approved and applauded by friend and foe alike, we continue to hear the naysayers; even the media, misinforming, justifying, questioning why such a flotilla need attempt to sail to Gaza. Why the fuss and the worry.

“We offered them alternative ports and crossings to enter…!
“Israel allows in plenty of aid…!”
“The people of Gaza are thriving! No need for an outcry or food!”

To put things in perspective, the latest reports from aid organizations, including the UN and the umbrella organization AIDA (Association of International Development Agencies) give sobering statistics:
at least a quarter of medical permits for life-threatening conditions have been denied by Israel;

*70% of the population survives on under a dollar a day (with an average family spending just 56 US cents on food a day).
*41% of the population unemployed.
*Half the farm land is out of production or inaccessible due to the Israel destruction and “buffer zones”;
*61% of the population is food insecure. 65% of children are. 65% of babies are anemic.
*Fishing catches are down by 72% since fishing zones have now been further restricted to only 3 nautical miles at best-just below Sardine catch lines.
*Allowable exports are at nearly 0% compared to 3000 tons of strawberries and cherry tomatoes and 55 million carnations that were exported to Europe and elsewhere previously. Imports are 70 trucks TOTAL since December. This is compared to 118 daily in the past.
*12 hour electricity outages

“But they are run by a terrorist government!…”
“Rocket-throwers!”
“Kidnappers!”
“Evil-doers!”
“Arabs!”

“Key principles of humanitarian action include that the aid be delivered with neutrality and impartiality, it should “do no harm” to the people and that it not be used to advance political objectives. These principles have been severely lacking in the international humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip” reminds Alegra Pachecho, an attorney and worked for an international humanitarian organization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for seven years.

There is, of course, as GISHA points out, the obvious contradiction in terms of how the blockade can be so successful by Israeli standards if Gaza, in the Israeli government’s own words, is “thriving”.

We can hear statistics day and night. They are jaw-dropping, especially when we consider that they have been created purposefully; that their existence is actively encouraged and applauded: “It’s like an appointment with a dietitian. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die,” said the Israeli government’s infamous adviser, Dov Weisglass, once explaining the Gaza siege to Israel’s post Palestinian elections Hamas strategy team, who reportedly rolled over laughing.

But in the end, this blockade, this siege, this occupation, never was about food or unemployment at face value, as shocking as these statistics are. It is about creating a situation-of fear and insecurity and exhaustion and hopelessness- where we all agree to accept this siege willingly; this occupation; this slave-hood; where we are willing collaborators in our own imprisonment and we nod our heads approvingly, helplessly, reflexively, and laud the noble efforts of the humane occupier, the pioneer of empty lands, at once an anti-imperialist democracy and the Undertaker of Freedom.

To quote Darwish:

“This siege will endure until we are truly persuaded
into choosing a harmless slavery, but
in total freedom!”

And by we, I do not just refer merely to Palestinians.

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Off to Helsinki for the weekend for the World Village Festival

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Just take a look at this list. Really, just do it. Now. GISHA caveats that the list is approximate and partial, and it changes from time to time, and that some of the items are permitted only for use by international organizations (lest the Red Cross have a midnight Lion Bar craving). It is based on information from Palestinian traders and businesspersons, international organizations, and the Palestinian Coordination Committee.

The list was published alongside a press release informing that after 12 months of unsuccessful attempts by Gisha, Israel has finally admitted that it does indeed possess a list of goods whose admission into the Gaza Strip is permitted (no surprise there, but now its official).

Cattle and coffee. Notebooks and newspapers. Sugar and spice and shoes. Baby wipes, batteries, blankets. Diapers (back to cloth, I guess? Perhaps another “greenwashing” scheme?). Cilantro, cumin, pomegranates, or ginger. Tinned meat, macaroni, tahini, or powdered milk. And on and on.

A collective "time out" for Gaza's babies

Once again we see how invasive the occupation is-how the siege determines not only what food you have on your plate, but what you can and cannot read, how you move, what you clothe yourself with.  Or as far as children are concerned, what you play with (yes, toys are on the list too).

Oh, and it has also surfaced that they are calculating how many calories each person needs. Because remember what Dov Weisglass said before this all started: “think of it like an appointment with a dietitian. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.”

GISHA’s tireless director had this to say of the matter to the BBC:

Sari Bashi, says she is no security expert, “but preventing children from receiving toys, preventing manufacturers from getting raw materials – I don’t see how that’s responsive to Israeli security needs.”

And she says that some of the prohibitions appear to be absurdly arbitrary: “I certainly don’t understand why cinnamon is permitted, but coriander is forbidden. Is there something more dangerous about coriander? Is coriander more critical to Gaza’s economy than cinnamon? This is a policy that appears to make no sense.”

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Not that this was totally unexpected, but sure is a slap in the face of Cairo given how highly funded this border steel barrier project was. As a tunneler once told me- “we will always find a way around, we are like rabbits under the ground”. Block and close and asphyxiate and bomb and kill and imprison all you want, Gaza has never and will never go down.

For the complete video, go here.

The Egyptian government says it began constructing the barrier along the Gaza-Egypt border last year. When finished it is meant to be 11km-long (seven miles), stretching down 18m (59ft) underground.

According to Egypt it is made of bomb-proof, super-strength steel and is costing millions of dollars to build.

Mohammed smiles when he hears this.

“We pay around a $1,000 (£665) for a man with an oxygen-fuelled cutter to come and break through it. It takes up to three weeks to cut through but we get there in the end,” he says. The blockade has meant that Gaza is to a great extent dependent on the smuggling tunnels from Egypt. Millions of dollars worth of goods are smuggled in every month.

Everything from fridges to fans, sheep to shampoo comes through the tunnels. The BBC even obtained video footage this year of whole brand-new cars being dragged through tunnels from Egypt.

The UN estimates that as much as 80% of imports into Gaza come through the tunnels.

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Pro-justice activists got creative over the weekend as the Museum of Science in Boston on Sunday hosted a daylong propaganda event sponsored by the Israeli Consulate titled “Israeli Innovation:  Healing the World Through Technology.”

Groups of activists infiltrated the event at continuous intervals, disrupting a panel that sought to entice venture capitalists to invest in Israel technologies. At point, one of the speakers draws a direct comparison between Israeli medical technologies and Israeli weapons manufacturing, calling it a “very nice example”.

According to activists, “panel organizers were overheard multiple times expressing anger and frustration at their inability to determine who was “plastering” the exhibit with this literature.”

The activists also plastered the museum with a mock brochure (“Israel: the world’s leader in cutting edge Apartheid technologies”) highlighting the complicity of Israeli technology in human rights abuses, and replacing the original titles of panels with things like How to run a country without international legitimacy”, “Sustainable darkness: Israeli innovations in torture technology and extra-legal maneuvering” and “Strategic water appropriation in the Middle East: Might Makes Right”.

Sponsor bios were also re-written to reflect their actual “accomplishments”.

Meanwhile, an international group of scientists and scholars issued an open letter condemning the “misuse of science and technology to serve the public relations machine of the State of Israel.”

We, the undersigned group of scientists concerned with human dignity and equality, condemn the Museum of Science’s decision to co-sponsor and host “Israeli Innovation Weekend” (IIW) on May 2.

IIW is far from an innocent educational endeavor. It is part of a propaganda campaign by the State of Israel to present itself as a beacon of progress in a desert of backwardness and deflect attention from its atrocious human rights record and fundamentally discriminatory policies.

Propaganda efforts such as IIW are key to sustaining the virtually unconditional U.S. support for Israel that only exacerbates the conflict. The U.S. singles out Israel for special treatment, lavishing billions of dollars of aid upon it every year and protecting it from any concerted action in the UN Security Council. This assistance supports a state that systematically privileges Jews from anywhere in the world over the country’s non-Jewish inhabitants and which continues to perpetrate war crimes and other human rights abuses to uphold this fundamental inequality.

To learn more about the call for BDS, and to read about other organizations engaged in BDS work who also support the protest of the “greenwashing” of Israel, see:

http://www.bdsmovement.net/ – site of the global BDS movement; you can read the call for BDS here

http://www.pacbi.org/ – site of the Palestinian campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

http://www.endtheoccupation.org/ – site of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

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I feel I should explain my prolonged absences between posts. You see, I’ve signed on with the brilliant Helena Cobban of Just World News, and now of Just World Publishing to, well, write a book

That’s right: Gazamom, the book! Except that’s not what it’s called (still working on title-suggestions encouraged! Kabobfest maintains that if I include “infidel” or “jihad” in the title, its sure to be a hit!).

The book will in essence be a compilation of articles I’ve written, pictures I’ve taken, commentaries I’ve made, and then of course, my blog. But in some sort of succinct coherent enthralling order! What Id really like to do is take the reader on a journey to Gaza through my eyes; a Gaza whose situation has essentially remained unchanged from the period from ’04-07 (the time period I will mainly be covering). The broader themes of subjugation occupation and isolation are consistent and have only intensified, and have been harbingers of things to come from the beginning. I’d like to highlight these themes through my personal lens and journey.

So anyway, that’s what I’m up to. More as I progress….

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