- action to remember Palestinian activist Bassam Ibrahim Abou Rahme.
- FRIDAY MAY 8 12h00
Indigo Bookstore
corner of St. Catherine & McGill college
(metro McGill)
Montreal, Canada
Construction has begun on approximately 60 new homes in a Jewish settlement in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, the Israeli campaign group Peace Now says.
The work, in East Talpiot settlement, is aimed at creating a belt around East Jerusalem that would sever it from the rest of the West Bank, the group says.
As we conclude our conference today, we remember our friend and fellow in struggle, Bassem Abu Rahma, who was killed by the Israeli army last Friday during the weekly peaceful demonstration. Our hearts and prayers go out to his family and we wish them peace in these hard times. Our thoughts and prayers are also with Tristan Anderson and his family. Tristan, an American solidarity activist, was shot and seriously injured by the Israeli army last month while he was visiting Ni’lin village.
The Fourth Bil’in Conference for Non-Violent Resistance is held this year at a critical stage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. As Israeli violence and oppression against the Palestinian people to force it into submission has intensified, and an extremist Israeli government ascended to power, the Palestinian leadership is unacceptably divided and weakened.
Since its inception Israel has taken great pains to destroy all signs of Palestinian culture and target Palestinians who chose cultural production as their method of resistance. Edward Said explained “Culture is a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration”, and it is basic to colonial policy to present the colonized as primitive, backward and uncultured.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is concerned at recent Israeli statements implying that the State of Israel will not cooperate with the independent investigation established by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
A South African anti-Apartheid leader and union official is in the West Bank this week to share ideas and create stronger links for solidarity work with Palestinians.
“In South Africa we are familiar with the struggle of the people of Palestine for freedom and self determination,” said Zeko Tamela, the Head of External Relations of the South African Transport and Communications Workers Union. “As a previously oppressed people ourselves we forged alliances with freedom fighters around the world.”
Israeli military bulldozers demolished eight Palestinian houses southwest of Nablus Wednesday morning, witnesses said.
The demolitions are the first following a wave of eviction and demolition notices handed out by Israeli authorities to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in March and April.
Ground breaking musicians and artists from Montreal took the stage on Sunday, April 12th for the seventh edition of Artists Against Apartheid at La Sala Rossa, occurring within the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid and in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
Photo: Active Stills. Palestinian hit by chemical gas from Israeli army, Bil’in, Palestine.
Three Palestinians have been killed in separate incidents in the West Bank, Israeli army and Palestinian sources have said.
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man who allegedly threw petrol bombs towards the settlement of Beit El, close to Ramallah on Friday.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the incident.
Elsewhere, Israeli troops killed a man who had been protesting against Israel’s separation barrier, Palestinians said.
Photo: Denis Lemelin, the national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
As the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions in opposition to Israeli apartheid policies and in solidarity with Palestine grows upwards of a hundred people gathered in Montreal for a conference on the subject this past week at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).