14 September 2009, San Francisco Chronicle

Photo: ActiveStills. Nil’in protesters block road from Israeli occupation forces.

An Oakland man who was seriously wounded by a tear gas projectile fired by Israeli police during a West Bank protest will file suit despite a military report concluding that he was engaged in an “act of war,” his lawyers said Sunday.

The case of Tristan Anderson, who remains hospitalized with brain damage and a fractured skull six months after he was injured, may test Israel’s efforts to shield itself from lawsuits for harm it causes during wartime, said attorney Michael Sfard.

(…اكثر)

Daily Star, Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Photo Abu Dhabi skyline.

ABU DHABI: A United States citizen of Lebanese origin facing trial on terrorism charges in the United Arab Emirates confessed under torture, and his case should not be heard in a UAE court, his lawyer told a court on Monday. Naji Hamdan, who has been in custody in the UAE, is charged with “supporting terrorism” and being a member of Iraqi militant group Ansar al-Sunna because he entered an Islamist website and donated money to an Islamic charity.

(…اكثر)

Defense for Children International DCI – Palestine, September 14, 2009.

Photo: Palestinian children within an Israeli military check-point, West Bank, Palestine.

According to the latest figures compiled by DCI-Palestine from sources including the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) and temporary Israeli army detention, the number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons and detention centres inside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory at the end of August, was 339.

(…اكثر)

Ahmed Moor, Electronic Intifada, 11 September 2009.

Photo: Masser Palestinian community in the West Bank, Palestine.

The occupation looms large over everything in Palestine. Men with guns patrol your neighborhoods, detain your family and neighbors and dictate exactly when you can leave your house. There are days when you can’t get to school or go to the beach on your rutted roads, and most of the people you know are poor. You learn before long that the men with guns are Jews — and the people living in the beautiful homes on the hills behind barbed wire are Jews. The language on your milk carton is Hebrew. Not long after that, you begin to ask why things are the way they are.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “Zionism” as “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.” While the word “Palestine” appears in that definition, the word “Palestinian” is noticeably absent. Zionists will argue that there were no Palestinians, as such and that the Merriam-Webster dictionary is not guilty of any omission or historical elision. Zionists miss the point.

(…اكثر)

Friday, September 11, 2009 Daily Star

Photo: Masser: Golan Heights, Israeli-occupied Syria, south of Shebaa Farms.

BEIRUT: The politics of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a rugged sliver of mountainside wedged between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, have long overshadowed what some Lebanese environmentalists call “the real issue” of the disputed area: its water resources. Now activists are calling for hydro-diplomacy to take precedence over political maneuvering as the most effective solution to one of the key stumbling blocks to Middle East peace.

“Rising Temperatures Rising Tensions,” a report published in June by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, considers water to be a major trigger for conflict in the Middle East, the world’s most water scarce region.

(…اكثر)

Haaretz by Ora Coren, September 12th, 2009.

Photo: Filippo Minelli. Open sky shining above Israel’s apartheid wall in Palestine.

The U.S. pension fund giant, TIAA-CREF, confirmed in statements to the media on Friday that it divested from Africa Israel Investments, owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, earlier this year.

The statements came in response to a letter initiated by a pro-Palestinian group, Adalah-NY, and signed by TIAA-CREF clients.

The fund’s investment in Africa Israel amounted to only $257,000, so the financial effect of the divestment is minimal. The news of the divestment came as the Israeli firm was suffering a deep financial crisis, having recently announced that is unable to meet its liabilities to its bondholders.

(…اكثر)

Al Jazeera by Ahmed Habib, September 2009.

Photo: Satellites pointing to the sky in Toronto, Canada.

Moviegoers who were hoping for world class cinema at this week’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) may find themselves at the centre of a growing controversy steeped in international politics.

Considered to be one of the five most prestigious film festivals, the TIFF this year introduced the City to City programme, a new theme to its traditional programming grid, “that will explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best documentary and fiction films from and about a selected city.”

Festival organisers say they have chosen Tel Aviv to be the focus of the inaugural edition of the programme.

(…اكثر)

anticipating DAM’s Montreal concert we screen documentary film Slingshot Hip Hop.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17th, 2009
8pm – 10pm
Off the Hook
1021 St- Catherine west
metro Peel
Montreal, Quebec

(…اكثر)

for immediate release – September 11th, 2009.

Photo: Wissam Nassar, MaanImages. Palestinian solidarity messages on national flag.

MONTREAL – Members of Montreal Palestine solidarity collective Tadamon! and fans of Montreal poet and singer Leonard Cohen will gather today in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood to call on the singer to cancel his concert in Tel Aviv planned for later this month.

By performing in Israel, Cohen is ignoring the 2005 appeal by 171 Palestinian organizations which calls on the international community to join the peaceful movement to end Israeli apartheid and occupation through the implementation of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state until it complies with international law and respects Palestinian human rights.

(…اكثر)

September 03 – 09, 2009, report Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Photo: Zoriah (c). Movements along the seafront in Gaza.

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (03 – 09 September 2009)

During the reporting period, IOF killed a Palestinian child and wounded 6 Palestinian civilian, a resistance activist and an Israeli journalist.

On 04 September 2009, IOF shot dead a Palestinian child in Beit Hanoun town in the northern Gaza Strip, as he was walking with his family towards their farm in the border area.

On 03 September 2009, a Palestinian resistance activist was wounded in fighting during an Israeli military incursion into the east of Gaza City.

On 09 September 2009, a Palestinian civilian was wounded in Beit Hanoun town, when Israeli troops positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel fired at him.

(…اكثر)