I have lived my entire adult life under occupation, with Israelis holding ultimate control over my movement and daily life.
When young Israeli police officers force me to sit on the cold ground and soldiers beat me during a peaceful protest, I smolder. No human being should be compelled to sit on the ground while exercising rights taken for granted throughout the West.
A British court issued an unprecedented arrest warrant for Israel’s former foreign minister over war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza this year – only to withdraw it when it was discovered that she was not in the UK, it emerged today .
Tzipi Livni, a member of the war cabinet during Operation Cast Lead, had been due to address a meeting in London on Sunday but cancelled her attendance in advance. The Guardian has established that Westminster magistrates court issued the warrant at the request of lawyers acting for some of the Palestinian victims of the fighting, but it was later dropped.
Although ignored by much of the Western media, a battle which echoes the biblical story of David and Goliath is taking place in The Hague. In the modern-day version, young David is personified by a soft-spoken 15-year-old girl named Amira Alqerem. Goliath takes the form of the world’s fourth most powerful, nuclear-armed military state: Israel.
At stake is victims’ rights the world over and the international commitment to “never again.” It is this commitment—as well as to international law, as laid down in the Fourth Geneva Conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—that Amira is asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) to recognize and uphold.
Nahr al-Bared, Lebanon – More than two years after their refugee camp was destroyed in a war between the Lebanese army and the Islamist militant group Fatah al-Islam, Nahr al-Bared refugees Wednesday witnessed the start of the camp’s reconstruction. Their relief is mixed with scepticism, however.
Established in 1949, the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in north Lebanon’s Akkar region has become home to more than 30,000 residents. In the summer of 2007, the camp was totally destroyed as the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) fought a group of well-equipped, mostly non-Palestinian militants who had taken over the camp.
Mustafa Tolba, president of the International Centre for Environment and Development and a key participant at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, warned that even though the Arab world produces a mere five per cent of global carbon emissions, several Arab countries are in disproportionate danger from the negative impacts of global warming.
At the Copenhagen Environmental Summit the overriding concern seems to be who is responsible for global warming instead of what to do about the negative impact of climate change.
In his books, Joe Sacco always draws himself the same way: neat and compact, a small bag slung across his body, a notebook invariably in his hand. At a single glance, the reader understands that he is both reporter and innocent abroad, an unlikely combination that propels him not only to ask difficult questions, but to go on asking them long after all the other hacks have given up and gone home. You sense in this black-and-white outline, too, a certain taut, physical alertness. Should there be trouble, he is, it seems, ready to run.
Photo: Sabrien Amrov Solidarity demonstration with Palestine in downtown Montreal.
Ever since the Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip last December the global debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has intensified with both sides upping the ante, and the stakes of the framing battle increasing almost daily.
One of the most recent — but almost totally unreported — developments in Canada is something called the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA). It is not an official parliamentary body but is a multi-party, voluntary association of 13 MPs. It is currently holding an inquiry into anti-semitism because, it says, “The extent and severity of anti-semitism is widely regarded as at its worst level since the end of the Second World War.”
a year-end solidarity gathering | musical performances celebrating Sheikh Imam
Since 2005’s historic Palestinian call for a comprehensive, international movement for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, we have seen many important victories for this movement in both Québec and Canada. Now is the time to reflect on the successes of the BDS movement in Quebec and Canada to date and to consolidate and intensify our efforts in solidarity with the people of Palestine, who continue to suffer under the brutal system of Israeli apartheid.
