Wellington Palestine Group

Discussion & Planning Event for Palestine

2011-04-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Wellington Palestine Group presents: Palestine in the New Arab World The 'New Arab Spring' has emerged - Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond - grassroots popular movements overthrowing oppressive state regimes. Yet we are not hearing much from Palestine, despite Palestinians being under perhaps the most oppressive and heavy handed regime - the state of Israel. What's going on in Palestine now? What are the likely ramifications of recent uprisings for Palestinians? What can we do? Come along to this Wellington Palestine Group organised event to hear and discuss more and most importantly figure out how we can all use the skills we have to contribute to raising awareness for Palestine. Discussion and planning event for Palestine Saturday 16th April Top floor, 13 Garrett St (off Cuba St) 2pm to 4pm - light afternoon tea will be provided Contact for the event: Tali Williams tali.williams@gmail.com or 0212044087

ANNA BALTZER VISITS WELLINGTON

2010-10-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

Wellington Palestine Group, Vic Students for Palestine &
Aotearoa Jews for Justice present:

Award-winning lecturer ANNA BALTZER
In Wellington for her only presentation:

Is Peace in the Middle East Possible?

CHAIR: Dr. Ramon Das

Senior Lecturer, Victoria University School of History, Philosophy, Political Science & International Relations

Thursday 4 November – 6.15pm
Old Government Buildings, 15 Lambton Quay, GBLT1.

Anna Baltzer, Jewish American award-winning speaker, author, former Fulbright scholar, and granddaughter of Holocaust refugees is coming to town with her acclaimed presentation about the conflict, and what you can do to bring peace and justice to Israel/Palestine.

Raised with traditional views, Baltzer’s perspective changed when she moved to the West Bank to work with nonviolent Palestinians and Israelis. Her courageous voice for coexistence and insistence on honest reporting has led to lectures at universities, churches, synagogues, mosques, and policy institutes around the world.

“Baltzer sheds light on the important political, historical, and emotional complexities of the challenges facing Israel and Palestine.” - Jim Doyle, Governor of Wisconsin

“Even those who are familiar with the grim reality of the occupied territories will quickly be drawn into a world they had barely imagined by these vivid, searingly honest, intensely acute portrayals.” - Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus & Middle East Specialist

Baltzer will also be selling and signing copies of her book: Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.For more information visit http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/

KIA ORA GAZA - KIWI AID TO GAZA

2010-07-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

KIA ORA GAZA

Kiwi Aid to Gaza

U P D A T E - 17 July 2010

OUR MISSION

The mission of Kia Ora Gaza is clear: to send Kiwi aid and volunteers to join the international humanitarian convoys leaving for Gaza on 18th September.

Three land convoys will leave from London, North Africa and Doha. The truck columns will rendezvous at Egypt's Rafah crossing into Gaza on the same day as a large sea flotilla heads for Gaza's shoreline.

These convoys of peace will be staffed by many hundreds of volunteers from around the world. Among these heros of social justice will be our very own Kiwi team.

OUR TARGET

To fund our Kiwi team, Kia Ora Gaza's target is to raise $100,000. We have only ten weeks to do so. Our success depends on the generosity of spirit of humanitarians like yourself.

To support our Kiwi team, go to our website kiaoragaza.net for details about our bank account, PayPal facility and Automatic Payments.

Kia Ora Gaza is a not-for-profit coalition whose entire funds go to the sole benefit of the people of Gaza. All our accounts are subject to audit by a professional auditor (donating his services free) who is independent of our Board of Trustees.

FALLEN HEROS

On 31st March, nine civilian aid workers on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza were shot to death by Israeli commandos. Our fallen heros made the ultimate sacrifice.

Your financial sacrifices over the next ten weeks will support our Kiwi contribution to the international convoys aiming to breach the prison walls of Gaza and deliver aid to its suffering people.

Your financial sacrifices will honour the ultimate sacrifice of our fallen heros.

CASH & PLEDGES

After being in public existence for less than a fortnight, Kia Ora Gaza has received cash and pledges of more than $20,000.

That is a mighty first step. Yet we need a large flow of donations every week for the next ten weeks to reach our target of $100,000. We can only make it with the financial support of people like yourself.

To donate, go to kiaoragaza.net

OFFICIAL SPONSORS

We invite you to become an Official Sponsor of our Kiwi team to Gaza:

A Golden Fern Sponsor is an individual or family or network or organisation contributing $1,000 or more to Kia Ora Gaza.

A Silver Fern Sponsor is a contributor of at least $500 but less than $1,000.

Talk with your family and your networks about becoming an Official Sponsor.

KIWI VOLUNTEERS

To date, sixteen courageous Kiwis have put up their hands and said: "Yes, I'm ready to become a volunteer with Kia Ora Gaza." They know they could be putting themselves in harm's way to help people on the other side of the world.

If you want to apply to become a Kiwi volunteer, email Kia Ora Gaza co-organiser Grant Morgan: grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz.

The number of volunteers we send will, of course, depend on how much money is donated by humanitarian Kiwis.

MEDIA COVERAGE

The world's media will be all over the international convoys when they leave for Gaza on 18th September.

Even at this early date, media in New Zealand are showing interest in the story of Kiwi volunteers going to Gaza.

Among the media already reporting on Kia Ora Gaza, or lining up to do so, are Radio Live, The Dominion (Wellington), Southland Times, Stuff, Central Leader (Auckland), Capital Times (Wellington), The Aucklander and a broad array of websites.

HOW TO HELP

Go viral: forward this Update to all your friends, and ask them to do likewise.

If you are with the media or have a blog, get the story out.

If you want to apply for our Kiwi team, email grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz.

DONATE GENEROUSLY OVER THE NEXT TEN WEEKS. Go to kiaoragaza.net.

Talk with your family and networks about becoming an Official Sponsor.

Yours in solidarity,

Grant Morgan
Co-organiser of Kia Ora Gaza
021 2544 515
grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz
kiaoragaza.net

PROTEST MARCH: SATURDAY 5 JUNE 12 NOON

2010-06-02T02:16:00.000-07:00

PROTEST VIGIL: Israel Murders 16 Aid Workers taking Humanitarian Supplies to the beseiged people of Gaza

2010-06-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

EXPEL THE ISRAELI AMBASSADOR
PROTEST VIGIL
Wednesday 2 June 12pm
Israeli Embassy
Greenock House (39 The Terrace)
Organised by Wellington Palestine Group
P.O.Box 642, Wellington - wpgnz@clear.net

Press Release – 1 June 2010

2010-06-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

New Zealand Must Condemn Israel’s Brutal Crimes

The Wellington Palestine Group has called on the New Zealand government to summon the Israeli ambassador for a reprimand over the Israeli commando raid on the humanitarian flotilla sailing for Gaza.

Spokesperson, Omar Hamed, says it's convenient that Israel has just appointed a new ambassador to Wellington.

"We protested at the time Mr Tzur arrived here, but now he's here, he needs dragging along The Terrace to get a dressing down at parliament for an act of international piracy", Mr Hamed says.

"The flotilla was still on the high seas on a mercy mission to bring vital supplies to the civilian population of besieged Gaza. The Gaza Palestinians are mostly refugees from Israeli occupation and have endured years of suffering under a brutal Israeli blockade. Now, when a shipload of good Samaritans try to help, the Israelis send their commandos out to murder the good Samaritans."

Mr Hamed says the Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, may historically be a friend of Israel. But Mr Hamed says Israel's illegal and brutal attacks on defenseless humanitarians have outraged even Israel's friends.

Mr Hamed says calling in an ambassador for a reprimand is a well established diplomatic action, and cited the New Zealand government calling in the French ambassador every time the French conducted a nuclear bomb test in the Pacific, as an example.

Mr Hamed says Murray McCully should join the rest of the international community and demand that the Israeli ambassador convey a message that Israel must lift its siege on Gaza and cease illegal settlement building elsewhere in occupied Palestinian territory.

For further information contact:
Omar Hamed - 029 455 5789
Serena Moran - 021 115 6685

ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN - 22 MAY - 6pm

2010-05-09T23:16:00.001-07:00

Protest the Israeli Ambassador - 7 May 10:30am

2010-05-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

On Friday 7 May the newly appointed Israeli Ambassador will be presenting his credentials to the Governor-General of New Zealand
Protest outside Government House, 75 Woburn Rd, Lower Hutt. @ 10:30am - Friday 7 May
Organised by NIEW Coalition (No Israeli Embassy in Wellington)

EXHIBITION & EVENTS - 'Occupation & Resistance: Photos from Palestine'

2010-01-31T02:07:00.000-08:00

Exhibition Opening: Tuesday February 2, 6pm
Then open Wednesday - Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday 10am-3pm
Thistle Hall, corner of Cuba and Arthur Streets, Wellington

Showcasing both the daily experience of Palestinians living under occupation and the joint Palestinian-Israeli non-violent resistance to the Israeli state and military, ‘Occupation & Resistance- Photos from Palestine’ features courageous images from the front line of the struggle for justice in Palestine.

These moving images are the work of the widely published group ‘ActiveStills’, a collective of photographers based in Israel, who believe in the power of photography as a tool for social justice.

Opening night will feature music by Don Franks and Albert Williams and include the New Zealand launch of the book ‘Gaza: Beneath the Bombs’ by Sharyn Lock of the Free Gaza Movement and Sarah Irving. Sharyn who was in Gaza during the attack by Israel last year writes about her unique account of the reality of life, including her harrowing eyewitness accounts while volunteering with Palestinian ambulance medics.

Sharyn’s blog can be found at http://talestotell.wordpress.com/
More info about the book: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330242&

Film screening: Slingshot Hip Hop
Thursday February 4, Thistle Hall, 6pm
koha entry

Slingshot Hip Hop braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them.

More info: http://www.slingshothiphop.com/

Teach in: From Palestine to Wellington
Saturday February 6, Thistle Hall, 2-6pm
Light refreshments provided, koha entry

Featuring:
Don Carson — on the history of Palestine from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire up to the current peace plans. Don is a journalist who first became interested in Palestinian issues in the 70s.

Nicholas Boyack — on the Massacre of the Palestinian village of Surafend by soldiers of the ANZAC Mounted Division in 1918. Nicholas is a journalist and former historian, his interest in Bob Dylan and the Weather Underground led him to research the Surafend Massacre.

Hamid Abu Shanab — On the impact of the occupation on his family in the Hebron area of the West Bank. Hamid is a Palestinian living in Wellington.

Kerem Blumberg — On peace and Palestine solidarity activism inside Israel, including Anarchists Against the Wall and opposition to the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. Kerem is an Israeli peace activist who became involved in the conscientious objectors’ movement in high school.

Te Kupu — On the links between Palestinian and Maori experiences of colonization, oppression and racial discrimination and his 2008 visit to the West Bank. Te Kupu is a tino rangariratanga activist, filmmaker and MC.

For more info: ‎http://wellingtonpalestinegroup.blogspot.com/‎
Or contact: pal.exhibition@gmail.com

‎

NZ Launch 'Gaza: Beneath the Bombs'

2010-01-28T01:56:00.000-08:00

Exhibition opening night will feature the New Zealand launch of ‘Gaza: Beneath the Bombs’
February 2 at 6pm, Thistle Hall, corner of Cuba and Arthur St.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza was described by Amnesty international as '22 days of death and destruction'. Sharyn Lock's eyewitness account brings home the horror of life in Gaza beneath the bombs.
Sharyn went to the Gaza strip with the Free Gaza Movement, thinking the greatest danger she faced was making it past the Israeli sea blockade in a fishing boat, but soon after her arrival Israel attacked Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants by land, air and sea. With others from the International Solidarity Movement, Sharyn volunteered with Palestinian ambulances, assisting them as they faced overwhelming civilian casualties. Her candid and dramatic blogs from Gaza gave the world an insight into the conflict that the mainstream media - unable to enter Gaza - couldn't provide.
Gaza: Beneath the Bombs provides a view of Gaza difficult to glimpse from outside - of a people who face their oppression not only with courage but with humour.

About The Author
Professor on International Law Princeton Universityfull c.v. at The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future research Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in New Internationalist, Big Issue North and Electronic Intifada. She has been reviews editor at Red Pepper and Peace News, and features editor at Ethical Consumer. She has been an active campaigner on Palestinian issues since 2001.
Sharyn Lock has been volunteering in Palestine since 2002. She has accompanied Palestinians in their nonviolent resistance to the West Bank Wall and volunteered at a Palestinian medical clinic in Lebanon during the 2007 attacks on Nahr El Bard refugee camp. She was also involved in planning to take boats through the sea blockade to Gaza with the Free Gaza movement. She has written for New Internationalist, Red Pepper and the Big Issue North

More info: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330242&
Sharyn’s blog can be found at http://talestotell.wordpress.com/

Media Release: "Occupation & Resistance - Photos from Palestine"

2010-01-16T04:48:00.000-08:00

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Date: 17/1/2010
Occupation and Resistance: from Palestine to Wellington

“Occupation and Resistance- Photos from Palestine”
2-7 February 2010
Thistle Hall, Wellington

A devastatingly courageous photo exhibition is opening at Thistle Hall in Wellington on February 2nd. Showcasing the daily experience of Palestinians living under occupation, the exhibition features bold images from the front line of the struggle for justice in Palestine.

This exhibition is a rare opportunity for New Zealanders to see a different side of the conflict. “We want to show the different ways in which Israel destroys people’s livelihoods, homes, land and hope” says Israeli peace activist and exhibition organiser Kerem Blumberg. “But we also want to emphasise that Palestinians and Israelis continue to work together towards real peace and justice, through non-violent resistance to the Israeli state and military. Now that I am living in New Zealand, it feels like something that I can share.” continues Kerem “I have found other people here who have been witness to the occupation who wanted to make the exhibition happen”.

These moving images are the work of the widely published group ‘ActiveStills’ a collective of photographers, based in Israel, who believe in the power of photography as a tool for social justice. Formed in 2005, they have since held and participated in exhibitions in Munich, Olympia, Bil’in (West Bank), Tel Aviv, Toronto, Montreal, Malmo, Lund and Amsterdam.

Events will be held during the week of the exhibition to raise awareness and mobilise solidarity with Palestinians.

ENDS

For more details about the exhibition or comment (also for high resolution photos), please contact Kerem Blumberg on: pal.exhibition@gmail.com

For more information about ‘ActiveStills’:
ActiveStills website: www.activestills.org

Regular photo updates of events in Israel/Palestine: www.flickr.com/photos/activestills

An article about ActiveStills in the Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804557937&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

"Occupation & Resistance - Photos from Palestine"

2010-01-16T04:08:00.000-08:00

You are warmly invited to:

“Occupation & Resistance- Photos from Palestine”

Showcasing both the daily experience of Palestinians living under occupation and the joint Palestinian-Israeli non-violent resistance to the Israeli state and military, ‘Occupation & Resistance- Photos from Palestine’ features courageous images from the front line of the struggle for justice in Palestine.

These moving images are the work of the widely published group ‘ActiveStills’, a collective of photographers based in Israel, who believe in the power of photography as a tool for social justice. Formed in 2005, they have since held and participated in exhibitions in Munich, Olympia, Bil’in (West Bank), Tel Aviv, Toronto, Montreal, Malmo, Lund and Amsterdam.

Events will be held during the week of the exhibition by local groups campaigning on the issue to raise awareness and mobilise solidarity with Palestinians.

The exhibition opens Tuesday 2nd Feb 6pm
Then open Wed-Sat 10am-6pm, Sunday 10am-3pm
Thistle Hall, corner of Cuba and Arthur Streets, Wellington

For more info contact: pal.exhibition@gmail.com

2009-09-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

Vic Palestine Group Film Screening - Tuesday 29 September, 5pm, Victoria University

2009-09-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

Couscous Dates Almonds Olive Oil

These are four Palestinian food products currently available at your local Trade Aid Shop http://www.tradeaid.co.nz/

Support Palestinian Producers

Che Guevara Tribute - Supported by Wellington Palestine Group - Saturday 13 June, 6pm, St John's Hall (cnr. Willis or Dixion St)

2009-06-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Israelis get four-fifths of scarce West Bank water, says World Bank

2009-06-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

By Rory McCarthy

Jerusalem -- A deepening drought in the Middle East is aggravating a dispute over water resources after the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians from a vital shared aquifer.

The region faces a fifth consecutive year of drought this summer, but the World Bank report found huge disparities in water use between Israelis and Palestinians, although both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.

Israelis use 240 cubic metres of water a person each year, against 75 cubic metres for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans, the bank said. Increasingly, West Bank Palestinians must rely on water bought from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot.

In some areas of the West Bank, Palestinians are surviving on as little as 10 to 15 litres a person each day, which is at or below humanitarian disaster response levels recommended to avoid epidemics. In Gaza, where Palestinians rely on an aquifer that has become increasingly saline and polluted, the situation is worse. Only 5%-10% of the available water is clean enough to drink.

The World Bank report, published last month, provoked sharp criticism from Israel, which disputed the figures and the scale of the problem on the Palestinian side. But others have welcomed the study and its findings.

Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli head of Friends of the Earth Middle East, said there was a clear failure to meet basic water needs for both Israelis and Palestinians, and that Israelis were taking "the lion's share".

"The bottom line is there is a severe water crisis out there, predominantly on the Palestinian side, and it will be felt even worse this coming summer," Bromberg said at a conference on the issue in Jerusalem.

Film Showing!!!!

2009-04-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Come along and watch Arna's Children, a great doco exposing more of the bleak realities in Palestine.

Palestine Teach-In !!!

2009-03-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Canada closes doors on Galloway

2009-03-20T15:24:00.001-07:00

British lawmaker George Galloway has been banned from visiting Canada to deliver an anti-war speech over his support for blockaded Gaza.

Canada's immigration service says the outspoken anti-war legislator was denied entry on national security grounds.

Calling the ban "idiotic", Galloway vowed to use all means at his disposal to overturn the ruling.

"The outrageous decision is not something I'm prepared to accept," Galloway said Friday.

Meanwhile, the Canadian immigration ministry said the decision would not be overturned since it was designed to "protect Canadians from people who fund, support or engage in terrorism".

Galloway violated EU sanctions on Gaza earlier in March by handing over more than 1.5 million pounds of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip.

Canada considers Hamas, the democratically-elected Palestinian government confined to the territory, as a terrorist group.

Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU

2009-03-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

A confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of "actively pursuing the illegal annexation" of East Jerusalem.

The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority's credibility and weakening support for peace talks. "Israel's actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making," says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem. The report, obtained by the Guardian.

Fundraiser for Gaza

2009-02-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

Khalid Amayreh - Obama's Inauspicious Beginning

2009-01-27T00:35:00.000-08:00

With George Bush now dumped into the dustbin of history, millions of people around the world are hoping that the new American president Barak H. Obama will make a genuine departure from the conspicuously criminal policies that characterized his predecessor’s gloomy era.

Undoubtedly, Bush excelled in the perpetration of evil. He murdered, killed, deceived and lied, thinking he was doing a great service to America and the world.

His era was drenched with blood, mostly the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, killed unjustly under the misleading rubric of “the war on terror.”

2009-01-16T12:35:00.001-08:00

Hi Everybody,

here are the details of the March for next week, please bring any old keys etc along to the March to represent the number of dead in Gaza since the beginning of the Siege.....we want to have around 1000 keys on the day.

'Die In' for Gaza/Palestine

2009-01-11T23:20:00.000-08:00

'Die In' for Gaza/Palestine

Meet: Tuesday 13 January - 12.00 midday

Rabin memorial - Harris Street, Wellington

(Organised by Christians for Justice in Palestine)

Christians for Justice in Palestine (CFJP)

CFJP is a group of Christians shocked into action by the present massive casualties in Gaza. We have gathered to demand a more active role from the NZ government in ensuring a just and lasting peace in Palestine.

As an initial action, we will be meeting at the Rabin memorial in Harris Street for a moment of silence to remember the 60 years of dispossession and suffering of Palestinians since 1948. The group will then move to Civic Square where a mass 'die-in' will take place. Participants will be invited to 'die' as a symbolic representation of the lives being lost at present.

At the end of the protest, a petition will be presented to the government via the nearby National Party headquarters.

The protest will be non-violent. All who wish to participate - believers or non-believers are invited. Please bring/ wear "bloodstained" clothes and/or bandages to be presented with the petition. Religious ministers are invited to wear their clerical garb.

Contacts: Cat Noakes-Duncan & John Maynar

Wellington Palestine Group's Statement

2009-01-10T19:55:00.000-08:00

The Wellington Palestine Group states that it was collectively responsible for the action which Gerard Burns undertook at the Yitzak Rabin Memorial in Wellington on Tuesday. Gerard Burns courageously carried out the symbolic act which was prepared and planned by the Group.

Wellington Palestine Group spokesperson Omar Khamoun says “we chose this memorial in Wellington as the object of our protest to highlight the long trajectory of Palestinian dispossession and suffering, which former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was party to”.

Khamoun says “Israeli historians document Rabin’s war crimes including the key role he played in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the districts of Lydda and Ramleh in 1948; his leading of Israeli forces in the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights. He is also infamous for his "broken bones policy" which openly encouraged breaking bones of peaceful Palestinian demonstrators during the first Intifada”
The memorial which was placed in Wellington in 2000 without public consultation is sponsored by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Khamoun says “The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is a racist organisation that administers the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by managing land stolen from the Palestinians for the exclusive benefit of the Israeli Jewish population.”
The group also chose the memorial to illustrate the insidiousness of the international public relations campaign waged by Israel creating mythical stories of figures like Rabin as peacemakers. “Rabin was never a peacemaker. Even after the signing of Oslo, he declared in front of the Israeli parliament that Israel will get peace without conceding anything”. Khamoun says.

The Wellington Palestine Group supports a solution to the Palestine/Israel question based on UN resolutions 242 and 194, but it sees this becoming increasingly difficult because of Israeli settlements and ongoing military repression.

Vatican justice and peace minister Cardinal Renato Martino described Gaza yesterday as “increasingly resembl[ing] a big concentration camp.” The military history of Rabin and the present bombing of Gaza make “spilling blood” on Rabin’s plaque entirely appropriate.

If the newly founded ‘Kiwi Friends of Israel’ are so offended by a drop of blood mixed with water soluble paint, then they should be outraged by the rivers of blood flowing in the streets, mosques, schools and hospitals of Gaza. What is really being desecrated, a stone monument or the sacredness of real lives?

PALESTINIANS MASSACRED IN GAZA: PROTEST VIGILS

2009-01-07T00:16:00.000-08:00

The Wellington Palestine Group will hold the following protest vigils against the war crimes Israel is currently perpetrating in the Occupied Gaza Strip:

Thursday 08 January

12 - 2.00pm

Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade

195 Lambton Quay (cnr. Panama Street)

Wellington

Thursday 15 January

12 - 2.00pm

Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade

195 Lambton Quay (cnr. Panama Street)

Wellington

Wellington Action and Solidarity

2008-12-30T02:27:00.000-08:00

Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about

2008-12-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.

The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago

YouTube Partners with MOSSAD

2008-12-18T00:41:00.000-08:00

I know it sounds too weird to believe, but that's the news. YouTube now has on-board one of the US’s domestic branches of Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad. The ADL, the Mossad’s most "professional" organization whose "speciality is spreading hate", are recruited as a professionals in the just struggle of "fighting against hate"?!

Israel blocks UN rights official

2008-12-17T19:24:00.000-08:00

The Israeli authorities have prevented a senior UN human rights official from entering the country, accusing him of being seriously biased against it.

Israel has been angered by a series of comments by Richard Falk accusing it of war crimes and comparing its actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany in WWII.

Mr Falk was stopped at Tel Aviv airport on Sunday and sent back to the United States on Monday morning.

An official accused him of following a distorted, anti-Israeli mandate.

Nasrallah organizing mass rallies against Gaza siege

2008-12-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

"For several weeks now our people in Gaza have been living under a comprehensive siege," Nasrallah said, "according to Israel's recent statements, there is no chance this blockade will be lifted anytime soon."

The Hizbullah leader said that beginning Friday the Shiite group will hold a series of rallies in support of the Palestinians and to call for bringing an end to the Israeli siege on the Hamas-controlled territory by opening the Egypt-Gaza border.

Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border

2008-12-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

Marie Colvin

AS a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.

“We had one meal today - khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”

Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.

Israel elects its Bush

2008-11-27T12:28:00.000-08:00

By Gideon Levy

The elections for the 17th Knesset have already been decided: Benjamin Netanyahu will be the next prime minister. Nothing will change the current trend, which was reflected in polls this weekend. At a time when the entire world, including Israel, is amazed and moved by the miracle election of Barack Obama, Israel is on the verge of electing George Bush.

Tzipi Livni will not become less feeble, and Ehud Barak will not fix his waywardness. And the new left-wing party in the works will not make a difference one way or the other - it is too little, too late. Israelis intend to vote for the conservative, right-wing, nationalist, bellicose candidate - the Israeli Bush. The world is moving forward, while Israel is taking a step backward.

Netanyahu may not be as awful as it would appear for the left, but the sweeping support he enjoys in the polls signals to us and to the world, including the Arab world, the true nature of Israeli society. Good riddance to the deceptive myth that most Israelis want peace; you can forget about all the deceitful polls that showed most of the public supports a two-state solution. No solution and no two states, but only the truth, which once again has been exposed: a nationalistic, belligerent society electing its spitting image as its leader.

Once every few years we have this referendum over the future of peace and the occupation, the main issue in every election campaign. Once every few years, the left is revealed to be as virtual a force as there ever was. Candidates bicker among themselves over who will "divide" and who will "return," who will "concede" and who will "give" - questions that are downright immoral given that the discussion is over territories that are not ours.

Free Media Satelite Software

2008-11-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

For those of us in New Zealand, satellite TV is a luxurious commodity for most... but now with the increasing speed of our Broadband and increasing bandwidth we can watch Satellite TV online for free?? But how so?

Just go to www.livestation.com and download the free software, from there search away!!

There is quite alot of decent media streaming available, stations such as Aljazeera Int., NPR, BBC Arabic, Al Manar and Russian TV are some just too name a few.... check it!

On Top of Humanitarian Disaster, A News Blackout

2008-11-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

by Cherrie Heywood

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israel has imposed a virtual news blackout on the Gaza Strip. For the last ten days no foreign journalists have been able to enter the besieged territory to report on the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's complete closure of Gaza's borders for the last two weeks.

Steve Gutkin, the AP bureau chief in Jerusalem and head of Israel's Foreign Press Association, said that he personally "knows of no foreign journalist that has been allowed into Gaza in the last week."

Gutkin said that "while Israel has barred foreign press from entering Gaza in the past, the length of the current ban makes it unprecedented." He added that he has received no "plausible or acceptable" explanation for the ban from the Israeli government.

AP has relied on reports from two of its journalists who were able to enter Gaza days before the closure began and are currently stuck there.

A delegation of European Union parliamentarians was also prevented from entering Gaza to assess the situation on the ground and to hold talks with Hamas leaders. They subsequently broke the naval siege of Gaza by entering the coast's territorial waters from Cyprus by boat, defying the Israeli navy.

During talks held with Hamas, the EU parliamentarians were able to get a historic commitment from the Islamic organisation to recognise Israel's right to exist within the internationally recognised 1967 borders. Hamas further offered a long-term ceasefire in return for Israel legitimising Palestinian rights.

Barack Obama links Israel peace plan to 1967 borders deal

2008-11-19T12:41:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.

Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.

The proposal gives Israel an effective veto on the return of Arab refugees expelled in 1948 while requiring it to restore the Golan Heights to Syria and allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.

On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser.

Abnormality Besieges Palestinians

2008-11-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

The UN warns that it is running out of food to distribute in Gaza, putting the civilian population there at severe risk, as a direct result of an Israeli food blockade.

A food blockade? That is a war crime! Why aren't the people ordering the malnourishment of a civilian population under foreign military occupation being arrested and taken to the Hague for trial?

I mean, people in the US are routinely arrested for animal abuse because they kept their pets malnourished. Wouldn't it be a crime to do that to Palestinian children?

A third Palestinian Intifada in the making

2008-11-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

By Ramzy Baroud

At a recent conference I was repeatedly asked about the prospects for a third Palestinian uprising, or Intifada. The question, although seemingly uncomplicated, is both loaded and important, and cannot be answered in a mere two minutes or less.

A 'third Intifada' would imply that the second has already ended. But has it? Or did it simply lose momentum, sense of focus and direction, or were its energies squandered - as a popular uprising - on factional disputes and internal division?

Some of its initial leaders are no longer involved, and a cohesive uprising cannot exist if too many of its players have switched sides, changed roles, or are absent altogether. To approach this subject more practically, the first Intifada in 1987 must be thoroughly scrutinized.

Fuel-starved Gaza faces blackouts

2008-11-10T01:52:00.000-08:00

Citizens in the Gaza Strip are bracing for more electricity blackouts after Israel cut off fuel shipments to the territory's only power plant.

Israel has closed crossings into Gaza, making it likely that electricity would be completely cut off in the territory from about 1600 GMT, Palestinian officials said.

Israel's defence ministry closed the crossings on Sunday after Palestinian fighters fired rockets into southern Israel. No one was hurt in the attack.

"More than 30 per cent of the electricity supply in the Gaza Strip could not be guaranteed this evening," Jamal al-Kudari, head of a committee campaigning to end Israeli sanctions, said on Sunday.

"Our fuel reserves are on the verge of being exhausted."

Adib S. Kawar - An Open Letter from an Uprooted Palestinian to Obama

2008-11-08T16:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Barack Obama

We take the opportunity to congratulate you for being elected for the presidency of the presently mightiest military power and thus most influential political post in the world.

We are sure that a man of your caliber and intelligence who was able to overcome the doubt to achieve a big victory in spite of the old inherent prejudice against electing an Afro-American to lead the American people during at least the coming four years.

Mr. President Elect, we are sure that you are aware that your emulator to the post, as is evident, requested the outgoing president not to openly extend support to him in the presidential election campaign, though they belong to the same political party, because he was afraid that Mr. Bush’s reputation would smear his and strongly affect his chances of winning the post as a Republican candidate; which had actually strongly contributed to his failure, which is simply a result of the foolish, both internal and international, policy the outgoing regime had followed, which caused unprecedented global tragedies, especially as a result its directly waged wars - as is the case against Iraq and Afghanistan - and threat to wage other wars, and indirectly by supporting the rogue states, the outstanding example of which is the Zionist state of Israel, with its continuous wars against the indigenous Arab population of Palestine, and other Arab states especially during the 2006 war against Lebanon, and Israel’s role in the devastating war against Iraq. Also its continuous pressure on your nation to wage a war against the far away Iran on the pretence of developing atomic energy, forgetting that it is indeed Israel that is the only state in the region with an atomic bombs arsenal. We are sure that one of the main causes of the failure of your competitor, Mr. McCain, who against the will of the vast majority of the American people, declared that the occupation of Iraq should be eternal. We are sure that you are aware that these wars destroyed Iraq as a people and as a land, as well as its contribution to the destruction of the American economy, and its contribution to the present financial crisis.

IDF concludes drill simulating war with Syria and Lebanon

2008-11-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

By Amos Harel

The Israel Defense Forces Northern Command concluded a large-scale exercise yesterday which simulated a double-front conflagration with Syria and Lebanon.

The drill, codenamed "Shiluv Zro'ot III" (Crossing Arms III), was the second largest of its kind since the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The exercise drilled the Israel Air Force and the Home Front Command in dealing with protocol and problem-solving missions under the simulated firing of thousands of rockets and missiles into the heart of Israel's population centers.In addition to the Northern Command, the air force and the home front command, Crossing Arms involved the IDF Military Intelligence directorate and the general staff. Unlike headquarter-level exercises from the past, Crossing Arms entailed the deployment of troops on the ground, comprising mainly reservists.

Additionally, helicopter gunships and airplanes were sent on mock raids and evacuation missions. The aircraft did not fire live ammunition, according to army sources.

Israel bars visit to father’s grave

2008-10-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

by Jonathan Cook

Salwa Salam Qupty clutches a fading sepia photograph of a young Palestinian man wearing a traditional white headscarf. It is the sole memento that survives of her father, killed by a Jewish militia during the 1948 war that established Israel.

"He was killed 60 years ago as he was traveling to work," she said, struggling to hold back the tears. "My mother was four months pregnant with me at the time. This photograph is the closest I've ever got to him."

Six decades on from his death, she has never been allowed to visit his grave in Galilee and lay a wreath for the father she never met.

This month, after more than 10 years of requests to the Israeli authorities, she learnt that officials are unlikely ever to grant such a visit, even though Mrs. Qupty is an Israeli citizen and lives only a few miles from the cemetery....

Flood ordeal for Palestinians stuck on Iraq-Syria border

2008-10-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

AL TANF, Iraq-Syria Border, October 30 (UNHCR)

The UN refugee agency has rushed assistance to hundreds of Palestinian refugees stuck in camps on the Iraq-Syria border after heavy rain and flooding caused chaos and misery.

Rainstorms on Tuesday night left tents inundated with water and sewage, possessions soaked and electricity supplies cut at Al Tanf, a settlement housing almost 800 people in the narrow no man's land between Iraq and Syria. The small mosque was damaged by fire, but there were no human casualties.....

Oct. 29th in history: Massacres in Palestine

2008-10-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today in history is another black day in the Palestinian history.

1. On October 29, 1948, when Israeli brigades captured the village of Safsaf. The known details of the massacre come to us via several contemporary second-hand Zionist reports and via Arab oral history. Yosef Nachmani, a senior officer in the Haganah (and later the director of the Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee), recorded in his diary what he was told by Immanuel Friedman, a representative of the Minority Affairs ministry:

In Safsaf, after … the inhabitants had raised a white flag, the [soldiers] collected and separated the men and women, tied the hands of fifty-sixty fellahin [peasants] and shot and killed them and buried them in a pit. Also, they raped several women…

Settler Violence Leads to the Arrest of Peace Activists

2008-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Here is one peace activists account of his encounter with violent settlers, check out the video footage:

At dawn the activists arrived. Around thirty Ta'ayush (Arab-Jewish Partnership) and international volunteers came to the Palestinian groves adjacent to the Jewish settlement in Tel-Rumeida, Hebron, to help the landowners pick their olives. Previous attempts by the Palestinian farmers -- who live behind fences and are subjected to daily violence -- to reach their olive trees had been blocked by the residents of Tel Rumeida, a stronghold of the most militant and extremist Jewish settlers. Even the Israeli police are afraid of these settlers while the military routinely bows down to their commands.

A few days earlier, the activists had been informed that the settlers had entered the groves and had stolen olives from their rightful owners. Complaints to the police were ignored, while the military decided to deny Palestinians all access to the trees.

And So IT Continues......

2008-09-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

By Laurie King-Irani Source: Electronic Intifada

This week marks the 26th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the second half of the twentieth century. A Google search for recent news reports on this year's commemoration of the atrocity, however, brought up very little. Yes, there were some emotional blog posts, as well as a link to the BBC's "On this Day" page, featuring quick facts and figures about the massacre, alongside an archival, and iconic, photograph of twisted corpses lying in a heap next to a cinderblock wall, the victims of an execution-style killing.

We are Functioning!!!

2008-09-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

Hi there all! Sorry about lack of anything up on this blog in recent weeks, had a little trouble with the Admin.....but is all swell and good now with google search etc.
So regular postings shall now hereby begin....

The Occupation 101 Film Screening on Thursday went so well, no hitches and a great turnout!! Thanks to all those people that came and watched and asked questions, we'll see you again at the next event no doubt.

The 15th and 16th of September marked yet again the Massacres of Sabra and Shatila, may we never forget and keep reminding the western superpowers and citizens of those murderous and horrific war crimes every year.
For those of you who would like to know a little more about the massacre, I have pasted Robert Fisk's eye-witness account of the massacre that he had published in his award winning book 'Pity the Nation'. So if you haven't read it yet.....check it out.

SABRA AND SHATILA

By Robert Fisk

What we found inside the Palestinian camp at ten o'clock on the morning of September 1982 did not quite beggar description, although it would have been easier to re-tell in the cold prose of a medical examination. There had been medical examinations before in Lebanon, but rarely on this scale and never overlooked by a regular, supposedly disciplined army. In the panic and hatred of battle, tens of thousands had been killed in this country. But these people, hundreds of them had been shot down unarmed. This was a mass killing, an incident - how easily we used the word "incident" in Lebanon - that was also an atrocity. It went beyond even what the Israelis would have in other circumstances called a terrorist activity. It was a war crime.

Jenkins and Tveit were so overwhelmed by what we found in Chatila that at first we were unable to register our own shock. Bill Foley of AP had come with us. All he could say as he walked round was "Jesus Christ" over and over again. We might have accepted evidence of a few murders; even dozens of bodies, killed in the heat of combat. Bur there were women lying in houses with their skirts torn torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall. There were babies - blackened babies babies because they had been slaughtered more than 24-hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition - tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded US army ration tins, Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey.

Where were the murderers? Or to use the Israelis' vocabulary, where were the "terrorists"? When we drove down to Chatila, we had seen the Israelis on the top of the apartments in the Avenue Camille Chamoun but they made no attempt to stop us. In fact, we had first been driven to the Bourj al-Barajneh camp because someone told us that there was a massacre there. All we saw was a Lebanese soldier chasing a car theif down a street. It was only when we were driving back past the entrance to Chatila that Jenkins decided to stop the car. "I don't like this", he said. "Where is everyone? What the f**k is that smell?"

Just inside the the southern entrance to the camp, there used to be a number of single-story, concrete walled houses. I had conducted many interviews in these hovels in the late 1970's. When we walked across the muddy entrance to Chatila, we found that these buildings had been dynamited to the ground. There were cartridge cases across the main road. I saw several Israeli flare canisters, still attached to their tiny parachutes. Clouds of flies moved across the rubble, raiding parties with a nose for victory.

Down a laneway to our right, no more than 50 yards from the entrance, there lay a pile of corpses. There were more than a dozen of them, young men whose arms and legs had been wrapped around each other in the agony of death. All had been shot point-blank range through the cheek, the bullet tearing away a line of flesh up to the ear and entering the brain. Some had vivid crimson or black scars down the left side of their throats. One had been castrated, his trousers torn open and a settlement of flies throbbing over his torn intestines.

The eyes of these young men were all open. The youngest was only 12 or 13 years old. They were dressed in jeans and coloured shirts, the material absurdly tight over their flesh now that their bodies had begun to bloat in the heat. They had not been robbed. On one blackened wrist a Swiss watch recorded the correct time, the second hand still ticking round uselessly, expending the last energies of its dead owner.

On the other side of the main road, up a track through the debris, we found the bodies of five women and several children. The women were middle-aged and their corpses lay draped over a pile of rubble. One lay on her back, her dress torn open and the head of a little girl emerging from behind her. The girl had short dark curly hair, her eyes were staring at us and there was a frown on her face. She was dead.

Another child lay on the roadway like a discarded doll, her white dress stained with mud and dust. She could have been no more than three years old. The back of her head had been blown away by a bullet fired into her brain. One of the women also held a tiny baby to her body. The bullet that had passed into her breast had killed the baby too. Someone had slit open the woman's stomach, cutting sideways and then upwards, perhaps trying to kill her unborn child. Her eyes were wide open, her dark face frozen in horror.

"...As we stood there, we heard a shout in Arabic from across the ruins. "They are coming back," a man was screaming, So we ran in fear towards the road. I think, in retrospect, that it was probably anger that stopped us from leaving, for we now waited near the entrance to the camp to glimpse the faces of the men who were responsible for all of this. They must have been sent in here with Israeli permission. They must have been armed by the Israelis. Their handiwork had clearly been watched - closely observed - by the Israelis who were still watching us through their field-glasses.

When does a killing become an outrage? When does an atrocity become a massacre? Or, put another way, how many killings make a massacre? Thirty? A hundred? Three hundred? When is a massacre not a massacre? When the figures are too low? Or when the massacre is carried out by Israel’s friends rather than Israel's enemies?

That, I suspected, was what this argument was about. If Syrian troops had crossed into Israel, surrounded a Kibbutz and allowed their Palestinian allies to slaughter the Jewish inhabitants, no Western news agency would waste its time afterwards arguing about whether or not it should be called a massacre.

But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians. The guilty were certainly Christian militiamen - from which particular unit we were still unsure - but the Israelis were also guilty. If the Israelis had not taken part in the killings, they had certainly sent militia into the camp. They had trained them, given them uniforms, handed them US army rations and Israeli medical equipment. Then they had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military assistance - the Israeli airforce had dropped all those flares to help the men who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila - and they had established military liason with the murderers in the camps

Palestinian Solidarity

2008-09-01T01:53:00.000-07:00

Hello, Gidday, Ahlan wa Sahlan and welcome to all Friends of Palestine in Wellington, New Zealand and abroad. This Blog is for all those interested in posting events, articles, discussions and anything at all to do with Watan Al-Filistine - PALESTINE!!!!!

* The occupation will not be televised but it will be blogged about.