by Robert Fisk Al Jazeera May 2010

Photo: ActiveStills Palestinians walking along the hills of historic Palestine.

Power and the media are not just about cosy relationships between journalists and political leaders, between editors and presidents. They are not just about the parasitic-osmotic relationship between supposedly honourable reporters and the nexus of power that runs between White House and state department and Pentagon, between Downing Street and the foreign office and the ministry of defence. In the western context, power and the media is about words – and the use of words.

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Al Jazeera report May 31 2010.

Photo ActiveStills Palestinian family walks along in Israeli occupied Palestine.

An international children’s rights charity has said it has evidence that Palestinian children held in Israeli custody have been subjected to sexual abuse in an effort to extract confessions from them.

The Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affadavits from Palestinian children who said they were mistreated by their Israeli captors.

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Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

Photo ActiveStills Palestinian boy holds flag above Israeli apartheid wall.

Ramallah, Occupied Palestine May 2010 — The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)expresses its profound appreciation for the courageous positions in support of Palestinian rightstaken by the membership of the University and College Union (UCU) at its Congress today inManchester. The UCU has again firmly and decisively established its unwavering commitment to the Palestinian civil society’s campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) againstIsrael until it complies with its obligations under international law and recognizes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

Making history in the international trade union movement in the West, UCU’s Congress also voted with an overwhelming majority to “sever all relations with Histadrut, and to urge other trade unions and bodies to do likewise.” The UCU has today confirmed its established position that it is legitimate to denounce Israel’s oppressive policies and to hold the state and its complicit institutions accountable for human rights abuses, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.

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Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) May 31st 2010.

Photo Gaza freedom flotilla departs from Istanbul, Turkey in late May.

Dear Prime Minister Harper, I am writing to you on behalf of the 54,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. You will be aware that the Israeli navy, in an act of piracy in international waters, has hijacked the international flotilla of ships which was attempting to deliver essential humanitarian aid to Gaza. The aid includes construction materials which would enable the people of Gaza to rebuild the homes destroyed by Israel in Operation Cast Lead in 2009.

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Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, statement May, 2010

Photo: Free Gaza boats sail over the Mediterranean Sea.

I never cease to be amazed at the power of the human spirit to survive. During my last visit to Gaza in October 2008 I was amazed and deeply moved by the power of the people I witnessed. In a triumph of hope over adversity and tremendous suffering, love still abides.

Gaza comprises a small strip of land 27 miles long and 6 miles wide. This coastal strip is bordered by Israel on the one side, the Mediterranean Sea on the other and to a lesser extent by Egypt at the southern end. With one and a half million inhabitants Gaza is the fifth most densely populated place on the planet, 50% of which are under the age of 18. Two thirds of the total population hold refugees status, and comprise the victims and their descendants of previous acts of Israeli aggression.

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3 June 2010 statement by church leaders in the Philippines on Gaza flotilla massacre.

Photo: Israeli commandos storm Mavi Marmara, the flagship of Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

“Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and
inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Deuteronomy 16:20, ESV

We church leaders in the Philippines express our great shock and indignation at the act of terrorism perpetrated by the apartheid state of Israel on hundreds of international peace activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a six-vessel fleet carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

We condemn the disproportionate use of lethal force by Israeli naval commandos that killed at least ten and injured dozens of civilians armed only with sticks and metal bars and a tenacious resolve to deliver relief supplies to the besieged people of Gaza.

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photo by Anas Qtiesh

Photo: Anas Qtiesh Palestinian flag flying in Boston at flotilla massacre protest.

Protesters took the streets around the world to protest the Israeli commando raid against the Gaza freedom flotilla massacre, above featured in a photo from a protest in Boston taken by Anas Qtiesh.

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Photos from ActiveStills documenting Israeli protests against Gaza flotilla massacre.

Photo: ActiveStills Israeli activists protest beneath the nighttime skyline in Tel Aviv.

Photos documenting Israeli activists protesting the Israeli military massacre on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in Tel Aviv. In response to the nighttime commando raid on the humanitarian ships bringing aid to the besieged Gaza Strip grassroots activists inside Israel have held multiple street protests to protest the war crimes committed by the Israeli military in the Mediterranean.

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end Israeli siege of Gaza! demonstration for victims of Gaza flotilla massacre

Saturday June 5th 13h30
corner Peel & St. Catherine
Dorchester Square
metro Peel
Montreal, Quebec

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Nora Barrows-Friedman, Electronic Intifada 25 May 2010

Photo: Israel denies Palestinians in “unrecognized villages” basic services like water and electricity. (Yotam Ronen/ActiveStills)

Al-Masadiya, al-Garin, Khirbat al-Watan, Bir al-Hamam, Khashem Zana, Sawin, al-Shahabi, Wadi al-Naam and al-Mashash are all Palestinian Bedouin villages facing destruction by bulldozers and cement mixers as Israel’s transportation ministry plans to lengthen its Trans-Israel Highway southward into the Naqab (Negev) desert. This means that more than 3,000 Palestinian Bedouins could be displaced if an injunction filed by Israeli civil rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) doesn’t succeed in the high court.

Spokespeople for Bimkom (Planners for Planning Rights), the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, some of the groups filing the injunction, say that the Israeli government approved the highway construction without consideration for indigenous populations in the Naqab.

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