BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees across Lebanon staged rallies on Tuesday to mark the first anniversary of the conflict at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp during which they stressed the need to reconstruct the camp and realize their right to return to their homeland.
Photo Christian Minelli: Palestinian youth flash victory sign in southern Lebanon.
Marwahin: Hundreds of Palestinian refugees headed to Lebanon’s southern border with Israel on Wednesday marking 60 years since the creation of the Jewish state and exile from what was once Palestine. “We want to return to our country. We desperately miss our country’s soil,” said Mahmud Mahmoud, aged in his 70s, who was wearing a traditional Palestinian headdress.
Photo from Artists Against Apartheid III in Montreal from photojournalist Ion Etxebarria.
Photos documenting the 3rd edition of Artists Against Apartheid in Montreal that brought together multiple artists, musicians, poets and performers as part of the global campaign struggling for Palestinian human rights through an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions on the Israeli government.
Artists Against Apartheid III attracted upwards of two-hundred people in Montreal to a lively concert crossing multiple musical styles from Jazz, to hip-hop, to folk. A cultural element to this international boycott campaign is growing in Montreal and internationally. This latest event in Montreal featured multiple musicians and artists from the celebrated hip-hop group Nomadic Massive and the roots, improvisational African Diaspora-driven Kalmunity Vibe Collective.
Interview with Raed Rafei, a Lebanese reporter working with the Los Angeles Times.
On Wednesday, May 14th, Lebanon’s government moved to reverse key decisions taken last week aimed at Hezbollah, including a decision to dismantle Hezbollah’s independent telephone communications system and a controversial move to replace a head security personal at Beirut’s international airport with sympathies towards the Lebanese opposition. Today’s government decision to reverse these decisions was announced minutes prior to this interview, creating a backdrop soundtrack of celebratory gunfire from opposition supporters in Beirut.
We read with dismay and sadness the report of your remarks in the Montreal Gazette with regard to those who criticize the State of Israel. As Jews, and as Canadians, we are deeply offended by your allegations that objections to Israeli policies that include the occupation, forced eviction, and denial of human rights to Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank — as well as discrimination against the many Palestinians living in Israel — are signals of “anti-Semitism.”
Montreal, May 2008 – L’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), a Quebec-wide student union representing over 42 000 students, has passed a resolution to support the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israeli Apartheid. The motion was passed at the ASSÉ annual Congress, held on April 26th and 27th in Montreal. This resolution comes after over a year of consultations and discussions held within local student unions, in collaboration with Tadamon! Montreal, a local social justice collective. ASSÉ now invites all progressive organizations to join and support the call for the boycott campaign, issued by over 170 Palestinian civil society groups.
It is with great shock and dismay that we have learned of your intention to participate in the Israeli Writers’ Festival this May, in conjunction with the “Israel at 60” festivities (largely supported by the Israeli Foreign Ministry). The function of cultural events such as this one in the international public relations campaigns of apartheid regimes is strongly reminiscent of the same maneuverings by the South African apartheid government. Have you forgotten the morally unconscionable historical ties between apartheid Israel and apartheid South Africa during the years of sanctions, when millions of dollars of weapons were supplied by Israel to the apartheid regime?
The friendships that you have shared with the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said, or John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Rights in the Occupied Territories, have offered you ample insight into the depths of the violence inflicted daily on Palestinians by the Israeli state. The 2001 World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa, labeled Israel as a “racist, apartheid state” and denounced its policies as “crimes against humanity.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu has even asserted that the situation in Palestine is worse than apartheid South Africa.
It is a strange feeling: after working as a productive professional in Gaza for five years, I have become a black market junkie. I make several phone calls a day hunting for fuel for my car, diesel for the electricity generator waiting on standby to power the house, even cigarettes and vitamins. The only way to get hold of these things, to buy life-saving medicines, to purchase the essentials for a life of basic dignity, is through the black market, if at all. Today all Gaza suffers severe water shortages, with the fuel needed to pump and transport water (as well as sewage) dangerously scarce. The few cars seen on Gaza’s mostly empty streets today almost invariably run on used cooking oil due to the lack of diesel.
Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN)
Au nom de la Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN), j’aimerais féliciter le Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses des postes (STTP) pour l’adoption d’une importante résolution de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien, lors de son congrès du 13 au 18 avril dernier réunissant des représentantes et représentants de plus de 50 000 travailleurs et travailleuses de l’État canadien. En effet, la recommandation adoptée par le STTP exprime, non seulement un appui politique à la lutte du peuple palestinien, mais elle permet de renforcir la campagne internationale de boycottage, de désinvestissement et de sanctions (BDS) contre l’apartheid israélien, tant qu’Israël ne respectera pas ses obligations de reconnaître le droit inaliénable du peuple palestinien à l’autodétermination et ne se conformera pas aux préceptes du droit international, incluant le droit au retour des réfugiés palestiniens dans leurs foyers et sur leurs terres, tel que stipulé par la résolution 194 des Nations Unies.
Join in Actions & Events taking place in Montreal throughout the month of
May 2008, which marks sixty years of struggle against Israeli apartheid.
