Le Devoir. January 24 2009.

Photo: Israel drops chemical weapons over a U.N. school in Gaza.

We are a group of teachers and employees at Quebec colleges and universities who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and with the people of Gaza who have suffered through the Israeli siege as targets of Israel’s brutal military attack. It will take more than ceasefires to bring a just and lasting peace in Palestine and Israel. We are acting in response to an appeal for support issued January 2, 2009 by the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees. In the wake of the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza, the Federation of Unions has urged academics around the world to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

We support this call and place it within a wider campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions. The struggle against apartheid in South Africa was supported through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. We support a similar strategy against the Israeli state.

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Amnesty International, January 19th 2009. Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Photo: Wissam Nassar. White phosphorus over the Gaza Strip.

Amnesty International delegates visiting the Gaza Strip found indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north.

“Yesterday, we saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army,” said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert who is in Gaza as part of a four-person Amnesty International fact-finding team.

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photo essay by Bissane.

Photo: Bissane. An image of the massive protests for Gaza in London in recent weeks.

In London historic demonstrations in opposition to the Israeli aerial bombardment and following military invasion into Gaza have attracted record numbers of people from across the U.K. Multiple estimates, including the Guardian newspaper, estimate that around 100 000 people gathered in downtown London for the largest protest against the Israeli attack on Gaza on Saturday, January 10th.

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photo essay from Robin Iversen Rönnlund.

Photo: Protesters converge at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm.

Across Europe major protests have been taking place, not only in major world centers such as Paris or London, but also in other European cities such as Stockholm which saw thousands take to the streets in solidarity with Gaza. This photo essay presents images from a major protest in downtown Stockholm which attracted thousands who called for an end to the Israeli bombardment on Gaza.

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Derrick O’Keefe, rabble.ca January 20, 2009.

Photo: Martin Luther King protesting Vietnam War.

Today is a day to watch history unfold before our eyes. But today is also a day to think about the ongoing struggle to make history, to achieve social and global justice, and to put an end to empire.

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by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. January 2009.

Photo: Palestinians bury the dead in Gaza.

Two days ago, the same day we discussed violence, the ineffable Condoleezza Rice, a US official, declared that what was happening in Gaza was the Palestinians’ fault, due to their violent nature.

The underground rivers that crisscross the world can change their geography, but they sing the same song. And the one we hear now is one of war and pain.

Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in Palestine, in the Middle East, right here next to us, the Israeli government’s heavily trained and armed military continues its march of death and destruction.

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Gaza solidarity poster designed by graphic artist Kevin Lo.

Poster is available in PDF from the following link on-line.

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Cinema Politica launch for winter/spring 2009 program. co-presented by Tadamon!

MONDAY JANUARY 19th 19h30
Concordia University, room H-110
1455 de Maisonneuve
metro Guy-Concordia
Montreal, Quebec

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Montreal Mirror. by Matthew Hays.

Photo: Israeli bombings over the Gaza Strip.

It’s an old adage in the film business that timing is everything, but the coincidence involving the Palestinian Perspectives documentary film series showing in the next couple of weeks at the Cinémathèque is truly odd.

The series, which features several different docs on issues facing Palestinians, screens on the next two consecutive Fridays at the Cinémathèque québécoise. The films were chosen and programmed last year, long before the current Gaza offensive by the Israeli military. “Now it’s become a crisis,” says Mary Ellen Davis, a filmmaker and co-programmer of the event. “But even before this, every day, the Palestinians have been under siege. They’ve been dealing with checkpoints, new settlements and the wall for some time now.”

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Montreal, January 15th, 2009.

Photo: Palestinians running with flag along Israel’s apartheid wall.

On the twentieth day of Israel’s attack on Gaza, a group of Montrealers occupied the office of Quebec’s Economic Development Minister Raymond Bachand, calling on the Charest government to immediately end ties with Israel, and specifically withdraw from the Quebec-Israel accord.

“The accord, signed this fall, establishes unconditional economic ties between the two countries,” said Marc-André Faucher, spokesperson for ASSÉ, representing over 40,000 Quebec students. “The accord does not include measures to force Israel to respect international law, but provides economic backing and diplomatic cover for current war crimes in Gaza.”

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