Friday, September 11, 2009 Daily Star

Photo: Masser: Golan Heights, Israeli-occupied Syria, south of Shebaa Farms.

BEIRUT: The politics of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms, a rugged sliver of mountainside wedged between Lebanon, Israel and Syria, have long overshadowed what some Lebanese environmentalists call “the real issue” of the disputed area: its water resources. Now activists are calling for hydro-diplomacy to take precedence over political maneuvering as the most effective solution to one of the key stumbling blocks to Middle East peace.

“Rising Temperatures Rising Tensions,” a report published in June by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, considers water to be a major trigger for conflict in the Middle East, the world’s most water scarce region.

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Haaretz by Ora Coren, September 12th, 2009.

Photo: Filippo Minelli. Open sky shining above Israel’s apartheid wall in Palestine.

The U.S. pension fund giant, TIAA-CREF, confirmed in statements to the media on Friday that it divested from Africa Israel Investments, owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, earlier this year.

The statements came in response to a letter initiated by a pro-Palestinian group, Adalah-NY, and signed by TIAA-CREF clients.

The fund’s investment in Africa Israel amounted to only $257,000, so the financial effect of the divestment is minimal. The news of the divestment came as the Israeli firm was suffering a deep financial crisis, having recently announced that is unable to meet its liabilities to its bondholders.

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Al Jazeera by Ahmed Habib, September 2009.

Photo: Satellites pointing to the sky in Toronto, Canada.

Moviegoers who were hoping for world class cinema at this week’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) may find themselves at the centre of a growing controversy steeped in international politics.

Considered to be one of the five most prestigious film festivals, the TIFF this year introduced the City to City programme, a new theme to its traditional programming grid, “that will explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best documentary and fiction films from and about a selected city.”

Festival organisers say they have chosen Tel Aviv to be the focus of the inaugural edition of the programme.

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anticipating DAM’s Montreal concert we screen documentary film Slingshot Hip Hop.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17th, 2009
8pm – 10pm
Off the Hook
1021 St- Catherine west
metro Peel
Montreal, Quebec

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for immediate release – September 11th, 2009.

Photo: Wissam Nassar, MaanImages. Palestinian solidarity messages on national flag.

MONTREAL – Members of Montreal Palestine solidarity collective Tadamon! and fans of Montreal poet and singer Leonard Cohen will gather today in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood to call on the singer to cancel his concert in Tel Aviv planned for later this month.

By performing in Israel, Cohen is ignoring the 2005 appeal by 171 Palestinian organizations which calls on the international community to join the peaceful movement to end Israeli apartheid and occupation through the implementation of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state until it complies with international law and respects Palestinian human rights.

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September 03 – 09, 2009, report Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Photo: Zoriah (c). Movements along the seafront in Gaza.

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (03 – 09 September 2009)

During the reporting period, IOF killed a Palestinian child and wounded 6 Palestinian civilian, a resistance activist and an Israeli journalist.

On 04 September 2009, IOF shot dead a Palestinian child in Beit Hanoun town in the northern Gaza Strip, as he was walking with his family towards their farm in the border area.

On 03 September 2009, a Palestinian resistance activist was wounded in fighting during an Israeli military incursion into the east of Gaza City.

On 09 September 2009, a Palestinian civilian was wounded in Beit Hanoun town, when Israeli troops positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel fired at him.

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Montreal action to call on Leonard Cohen to cancel Tel Aviv concert.

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2pm
corner of St. Laurent and Marie-Anne
métro St. Laurent, bus #55
Montreal, Quebec

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Wednesday, September 9, 2009 Toronto Declaration

Photo: Matthew Cassel. Palestinian flag in Gaza winter 2009.

As members of the Canadian and international film, culture and media arts communities, we are deeply disturbed by the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.

In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched “Brand Israel,” a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture.

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Globe and Mail, Naomi Klein, Tuesday, September 08, 2009.

Photo: Zoriah (c). Palestinian building in Gaza destroyed by Israeli bombs.

When I heard the Toronto International Film Festival was holding a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv I felt ashamed of my city. I thought immediately of Mona Al Shawa, a Palestinian women’s-rights activist I met on a recent trip to Gaza. “We had more hope during the attacks,” she told me, “at least then we believed things would change.”

Ms. Al Shawa explained that while Israeli bombs rained down last December and January, Gazans were glued to their TVs. What they saw, in addition to the carnage, was a world rising up in outrage: global protests, as many as a hundred thousand on the streets of London, a group of Jewish women in Toronto occupying the Israeli Consulate. “People called it war crimes,” Ms. Al Shawa recalled. “We felt we were not alone in the world.” If Gazans could just survive them, it seemed these horrors would be the catalyst for change.

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Harper’s Magazine, by Naomi Klein, September 2009.

Photo: Zoriah (c). Crack in wall in south Beirut, Lebanon.

When I arrived at the grand offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the Palais Wilson, looking out at a drizzly Lake Geneva, Navanethem Pillay was hunched over the shoulder of her deputy, Kyung-wha Kang, dictating a press release. “I am shocked and deeply disappointed,” I heard her say, pointing at the screen while Kang typed. It was 3:00 p.m., and Pillay was having a very bad day.

“Done,” she finally declared, plopping down at her conference table. The press release was a response to some disappointing news. The previous night, the United States, under the leadership of its first African-American president, had announced that it would boycott the United Nations Durban Review Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, citing its alleged anti-Israel bias. The conference was to start the following day, April 20, 2009, with Pillay presiding. Known by critics as “Durban II,” this was the only United Nations gathering specifically focused on pushing governments to combat racism inside their borders, a task that had become increasingly urgent as financial crises continued to stoke ethnic tensions around the world.

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