The Lebanese government on Wednesday rejected Israel’s call for direct peace negotiations.

“Lebanon’s position is clear to all and there is no place for bilateral negotiations between Lebanon and Israel,” Premier Fouad Siniora’s media office said in a statement late Wednesday. The statement stressed that Lebanese territories occupied by the Jewish state are subject to “UN resolutions that do not require any negotiations.”

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Tuesday, July 1st, 9pm, 2008
in the lot beside l’Insoumise
2035 St-Laurent
(between Ontario and Sherbrooke)
metro St-Laurent

Join us for a double-bill of fabulous documentary films under the moon in downtown Montreal. Tadamon! will be presenting two excellent films reflecting on struggles against land theft and colonization in Palestine and Turtle Island. Presented as part of the mobilization for the demonstration “400 years of colonialism and militarism: nothing to celebrate!” in Quebec City on July 3rd.

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Photo: Armand Emamdjomeh. Village in south Lebanon after Israel’s 2006 attack.

Tyre: A Lebanese man was killed on Thursday by a cluster bomb dropped by Israeli forces during the 2006 war in Lebanon, a police official said.

Hisham al-Ghossein, 39, was killed in the village of Qantara, near the Southern town of Marjayoun, after stepping on the bomb while working in his field, the official said.

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Photo: Maan Images. Palestinians in Gaza take cover during clashes with Israeli troops during demonstrations marking 60 years of Palestinian dispossession from their homeland. May 15th 2008.

“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger,” said Dov Weissglas, Sharon’s closest advisor, a few years ago. Today, Israel is slowly choking occupied Gaza, indeed bringing its civilian population to the brink of starvation and a planned humanitarian catastrophe.

If the US government is an obvious accomplice in financing, justifying and covering up Israel’s occupation and other forms of oppression, the European Union, Israel’s largest trade partner in the world, is not any less complicit in perpetuating Israel’s colonial oppression and special form of apartheid.

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At its Biennial Delegate Conference in May 2008 the public sector union IMPACT passed two motions criticizing Israeli suppression of the Palestinian people and calling for a boycott of Israeli goods and services. The motions also called for divestment from those companies engaged in or profiting from the occupation as well as an education campaign to raise awareness of the plight of the Palestinian people. Conference furthermore called on the Irish Government to take a stand on Palestine independent of EU foreign policy, demanded the restoration of EU funding, and also called for the suspension of the preferential trading status enjoyed under the Euro-Med Agreement.

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Les Palestiniens, qui subissent les privations quotidiennes dues au siège de l’armée israélienne, sont très durement frappés par la flambée des prix des aliments, qu’ils doivent importer en grande partie.

C’est ce qu’a indiqué le syndicaliste Manawell Abdul-Al, dirigeant de la Fédération générale des syndicats palestiniens (FGSP), hier à La Presse.

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Broadcasts from Beirut VII: Rami Zurayk professor, activist in Beirut: Land and People.

A Tadamon! interview project aiming to highlight progressive voices from the ground in Lebanon on the ongoing conflict, voices independent from major political parties…

May 2008 saw political turmoil in Lebanon reach its most violent peak since the end of the official end to the Lebanese civil-war in 1990. A negotiated political treaty has brought temporary peace however fails to address the poverty at the core of this tension.

This interview with professor Rami Zurayk in Beirut presents a critique of the recent Doha agreement. Critics argue that the Doha agreement is a testament to how mainstream Lebanese political leaders continue to neglect the ongoing economic crisis, compounded by Israel’s military attack in 2006. Lebanon’s agricultural areas in the south were particularly devastated, leading to major internal displacement following Israel’s attack, as farm lands remain strewn by thousands of cluster bombs dropped by the Israeli military.

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Call to support the first major student union in Quebec or Canada to back
the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel…

Montreal May 2008: Across the world grassroots movements struggling in opposition to Israeli apartheid are marking 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.

A grassroots response in opposition to Israeli apartheid is growing throughout the world sparked by an appeal launched by Palestinian civil-society organizations in 2005 for an international campaign directed at the government in Israel, a campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions. This critical campaign is modeled on a successful international campaign similar in nature that played a critical role in bringing an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

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Photo essay from Carole Kerbage.

Beirut May 10th 2008: Barbour district Beirut witnessed harsh armed battles.

As Lebanon’s political crisis moves to a temporary negotiated solution, tensions remain high after intense street level clashes in recent weeks between pro-government forces and the Hezbollah-backed opposition. Street barricades struck across Lebanon’s capital city have now been removed, as Lebanese political leaders return to Beirut after arriving at an agreement in Doha, Qatar.

This photo essay documents recent events in Beirut’s, featuring images captured at street level within recent weeks. Lebanon’s current political struggle extends back to an intense national political history, in a nation still recovering from a 2006 Israeli bombardment that left over 1000 Lebanese civilians dead and major elements to the countries national infrastructure destroyed. Lebanese photographer Carole Kerbage has documented Beirut’s streets in the past week and now features photographs from Beirut on Tadamon!

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Graffiti for Future Movement, founded by the assassinated Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

In May 2008 the streets in Beirut and throughout Lebanon witnessed military clashes between armed forces backing the Lebanese opposition lead by Hezbollah and the former Lebanese government supported by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. In May the walls on the streets of Beirut expressed the level of political split of Lebanon.

Street level graffiti is now common throughout Lebanon’s capital as rival political forces take their political struggle to the city walls in Beirut. This photo essay from Farah Kobaissy documents the writing on Beirut’s walls, featuring images captured at street level within recent weeks.

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