With this letter I would like to officially withdraw as a member of the jury for the 2008 Prize of the Alex and Ruth Dworkin Foundation for the Promotion of Tolerance through Cinema (2008 Prix annuel de la Fondation Alex et Ruth Dworkin pour la promotion de la tolérance à travers le cinéma) at the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québecois.

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The Israeli army on Wednesday invaded both the city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, and the village of Beit Ummer, located near the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank. In total, at least 85 Palestinian civilians were abducted by the invading military.

Israeli troops stormed the village of Beit Ummar at around 1:00 am on Wednesday. Troops searched and ransacked scores of homes, with local sources stating that the army placed the village under curfew, not allowing families to leave their homes.

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Condemnation of a virtual blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by Israel since last June reverberated loudly yesterday along Montreal’s prime downtown shopping strip.

A vocal 90-minute march by more than 230 demonstrators – punctuated with such chants as: “Israel is criminal, Canada is complicit” – broke the weekend-afternoon tranquility of Ste. Catherine St. W.

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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY, 17th, 8pm
O Patro Vys
356 Mont-Royal east
(mount royal metro)
suggested donation: 7-15$

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occurring within the context of the international Israeli Apartheid Week.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9th, 12:30
Maisonneuve & Mackay
(metro Guy-Concordia)
Montreal, Quebec

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Whenever he stands at his front door, or looks out of an upstairs window, Jamal Swailem can clearly see Erez Crossing. His house lies just 400 metres from Erez, close enough for him to see pedestrians walking through the crossing into Gaza; and also close enough for the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) to see every move the Swailem family make.

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An angry debate was reignited in the Guardian last summer over calls for an academic boycott of Israeli universities by British ones. The United Kingdom’s University and College Union recommended boycotting Israeli academics’ “complicity” in their government’s occupation of Palestine. The act hearkens back to the 1965 academic boycott of apartheid South Africa, which the union considered instrumental in ending state-sponsored segregation.

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Qualified as a “war crime” by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and illegal “collective punishment” by the European Union and international agencies, the humanitarian and political crisis created by Israel’s five-day hermetic seal on Gaza is taking a toll not only on the 1.5 million inhabitants of the impoverished coastal strip. Damaged “beyond repair”, according to several Palestinians speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly from Rafah, is the image of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is being widely blamed for “turning a blind eye to the misery of his own people in Gaza” while continuing to engage in talks with Israel on peace.

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Cities across Canada and around the world are participating in a global week of action against Israeli apartheid from 3 to 10 February. Israeli Apartheid Week, initiated at the grassroots level in Palestine, is now in its fourth consecutive year. In 2008, Israeli Apartheid Week occurs during the 60th year of the Palestinian Nakba (“catastrophe”)– 60 years of dispossession, ethnic cleansing and exile for Palestinians resulting from the creation of the state of Israel.

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At approximately 8:00pm on Sunday, 20 January, the Gaza Strip power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, plunging the Gaza Strip into darkness. The closure of the Gaza power plant, in addition to Israel’s continued, tightened siege on the Gaza Strip, will have a catastrophic effect on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic shortages of fuel, medicine and some basic food stuffs. The director of Gaza’s main hospital, al-Shifa, describes the current situation as “potentially disastrous.”

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