Израел: Да се даде отдавна отказваният статут на арабско селище в централен Израел

Дете от Дамаш се кани да пресече релсите,
за да поеме по пътя към съседния град Рамла © 2010 Yuri Haasz/Human Rights Watch

Липсата на канализация води до чести наводнения
по непавираните улици на Дамаш през зимата
© 2010 Arafat Ismayil, Dahmash


Тази площадка, финансирана от неправителствена организация,
е била направена през 2006 г. в Дамаш.
Веднага след като е била построена,
израелската администрация е заповядала да бъде разрушена,
защото е била направена без разрешение.
© 2010 Arafat Ismayil, Dahmash

Хюман Райтс Уоч заяви, че израелското правителство трябва да даде законен статут на 60-годишно селище с над 600 палестинско-израелски жители. Властите отказват да признаят селището за жилищна зона, въпреки че било одобрено прилежащото жилищно развитие на еврейско-израелски райони. Израелските граждани не дават обяснение за различното отношение.

Дамаш, село на близо 20 километра от Тел Авив, между градовете Рамла и Лод в централен Израел, е населено поне от 1951 г. и жителите му са израелски граждани. Властите отказват да променят зоната на жилищна, въпреки че са го направили в съседни райони. Те също така отказват да осигурят основни услуги като павирани улици, канализация, здравни заведения, детски градини и училища, въпреки многобройните молби на местните жители. Вместо това властите смятат всяка от 70-те къщи за „незаконна”, а 13 са заплашени от разрушаване. Съдът решава този казус на 11 октомври 2010 г.

„600-те души в Дамаш са третирани сякаш не съществуват, докато еврейските градове растат наоколо по начин, който застрашава достъпа на жителите на Дамаш до домовете и земите им,” каза Джо Сторк, заместник-директор за Близкия Изток към ХРУ. Той коментира: „Плановете на властите не трябва повече да включват това дискриминационно отношение, а незабавно да признаят статута на жителите на Дамаш и да осигурят отказваните им от десетилетия основни услуги”.

Според международното хуманитарно право, една от фундаменталните забрани е тази срещу дискриминацията, включваща всяко неоправдано диференциращо отношение, което води до нарушаване на равнопоставеното признаване на човешките права въз основа на раса, етнически произход или религия.

Планове за магистрална детелина в района и строителни проекти, които според официалните представители на местната администрация са насочени към развитието на еврейските израелци в околността, ще блокират почти всички съществуващи входове към Дамаш.

Жителите на Дамаш са платили за план и са го предали на съответните комитети още през 2006 г., но властите го забравят, докато през 2008 г. съдебно решение не ги задължава да започнат обсъждането му. На 5 юли 2010 г. Централният регионален комитет за планиране и благоустройство отхвърля плана с позицията, че „не е намерено никакво основание за създаването на ново селище в Централен Израел”. Отделът по планиране твърди, че само министърът на вътрешните работи може да създаде ново селище и не е желателно „да се легитимира незаконно строителство”.

От 1948 г. в Израел са били създадени повече от 900 еврейски селища и градове, докато единствените нови арабски градове, които е било разрешено да бъдат създадени в период от 60 години, са били седем градчета, които правителството е планирало и построило за бедуинските жители от пустинята Негев. На много палестински израелци им е забранено да правят строителни планове. Според неправителствената организация „Проект Шатил за смесените градове” повече от 70% от арабските домове в Рамла и Лод нямат законен статут. Официалните цифри не са на разположение.

„Време е Израел да прекрати собственическото си отношение към земята. Първата стъпка към това е да признае правото на жителите на Дамаш да живеят на нея,” завършва Сторк.

www.hrw.org

Take Action: Help Stop Delivery of CAT Bulldozers to Israel

Thursday, October 28, 2010

For more than five years, we've been working to hold Israel, Caterpillar, and the United States accountable for Israel's misuse of Caterpillar bulldozers to commit human rights abuses of Palestinians. These bulldozers are provided to Israel as U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid.

Earlier this week, we learned from Israeli media that Caterpillar has decided to delay the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers--the same kind that the Israeli military used to kill U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie as she nonviolently tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in the occupied Gaza Strip in March 2003.

Together with the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church, (U.S.A.), and Jewish Voice for Peace, we are pressing the Obama Administration to make sure that the delivery of these bulldozers does not go through.

Help up reach our goal of collecting 10,000 signatures by next week.

How Much Money is Needed to Stop the BDS Movement?

Thursday, October 28, 2010

How Much Money is Needed to Stop the BDS Movement?

From Alex Kane:

"$6 million dollars: enough to combat a largely grassroots, bottom-up and growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel? That’s what the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs are hoping..."

READ FULL ARTICLE...

Muslim People and Palestine

In fact, I feel very sad on receiving messages or calls inspiring the feeling that some Muslims feel powerless, helpless and completely inadequate.
It is deadly to feel powerless, a feeling refuge from which should be sought in Allah and protection against whose dangers should be asked from Allah. In this regard, the Prophet (peace be upon him) would say, so as to teach us, "O Allah! I seek refuge with You from helplessness and laziness.[1]"
Undoubtedly, each member of this Ummah can be effective and positive on the course of events not just remain passive. On the contrary, one who surrenders to adverse circumstances without an attempt for a change is classified by the Prophet (peace be upon him) under the yes-man type. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "None of you should be a yes-man who says, 'I am with (the majority of) people if they do well, I do well and if they do badly, I do badly.' Rather, you should accustom yourselves to do well if people have done well and to avoid their bad deeds if they have done badly.[2]"
There is no whatsoever excuse for any individual not to play a role regarding all Muslims' issues, foremost among which, undoubtedly, is the Palestinian cause.
I know for certain that rulers have given up their Muslim brothers in Palestine. Moreover, I know for sure that some of them exert pressure on Palestinians to surrender to the Zionist army. Furthermore, they chase those "accused of" supporting the Palestinian issue, imprison them and defame them through their mass media.
Although I eye-witness these things, rulers can by no means hold back people's capacities and may not weaken a strong sincere will or stop a real flood of faith that is flowing in the hearts of righteous persons.
So, regardless of whatever rulers may do, we, Muslim peoples, are capable of doing such many significant things as can never be hindered by oppressive and unjust powers.
In fact, we have a tongue which we can make use of in keeping the Palestinian cause alive forever.
We will publicize the cause in both Islamic and non-Islamic circles. We will explain in detail the Palestinians' right to their lands and will highlight the aggressive and oppressive practices of the Jews. Our words will definitely reach everywhere here and there; we will just say and Allah will convey our message to the whole world.
It is most dangerous to the Palestinian cause that it be inactive in the hearts of the Ummah members and that it becomes active only when tremendous disasters take place or when hundreds are martyred.
No doubt, Palestine is till under occupation. Even if the situation cools down, bombing stops and Jewish armies withdraw from Gaza, Palestine is still under occupation and thus its cause should never be pacified. Actually, this is one of the most essential roles peoples are to play and may not be stopped by unjust rulers so long as Muslims are fully enthusiastic and lead a serious struggling life. Being in a great pain over Gaza events, why then are we occupied by trivial and insignificant matters or even sinful acts? The only reason I can imagine is that we are emotionally rather than rationally impressed by the cause. Were we rationally motivated, we would always be occupied by the cause even when the situation is calm. This is because liberating the country form the enemy is as essential individual duty as offering prayers and fasting, overlooking which is just equal to overlooking prayers.
Actually, this is not the only action within the capacity of Muslim peoples.
Although we think ourselves to be of limited resources, we, in fact, own as much money as mountains when we jointly collect money for our brothers in Gaza who are in dire need thereof. Undoubtedly, spending in the cause of Allah is part and parcel of jihad. In this regard, Allah the Almighty paired sacrificing lives and wealth in many occurrences in the Qur'an dealing with jihad. For example, He said, {But the Messenger (Muhammad SAW) and those who believed with him (in Islamic Monotheism) strove hard and fought with their wealth and their lives (in Allah's Cause). Such are they for whom are the good things, and it is they who will be successful.} [Al-Tawbah, 88]
Moreover, the Prophet (peace be upon him) gave us a glad tidings in the Hadith that reads, "Anybody who equips a warrior going to fight in the Way of Allah is like one who actually fights. And anybody who looks after his family in his absence is also like one who actually fights.[3]" As for young men who were deprived by rulers of fighting in the way of Allah, they still have the opportunity to receive the reward of jihad through supporting mujahids (strugglers) with money even if in a little amount. However, it is improper to donate plentifully only in a given stage of the crisis. In fact, we are required to constantly donate so as not to interrupt the course of jihad and, at the same time, to keep the cause alive in our hearts.
It is also within our capacities to boycott the commercial goods of the enemy and its supporters. In fact, commercial boycott is not only meant to cause an economic loss to our enemies but also to prove to ourselves and to everyone that we refuse to have ties with those who kill our children and brothers and occupy our lands and sanctuaries. Demanding our rulers not to normalize relations with enemies, we, with greater reason, should be first and foremost to boycott Jewish, American and English goods and to boycott whatsoever government supporting the Jewish aggression.
In addition to the abovementioned facts, our rulers cannot prevent us from raising our hands high praying Allah frequently out of sincere and wholehearted faith to support our struggling brothers, make firm their foothold and bestow on them from His endless treasures. Furthermore, our rulers cannot prevent us from invoking Allah to revenge from oppressors, were they Muslims or non-Muslims, for an invocation of those oppressed might not be rejected and there is no barrier between it and Allah.
In fact, we have so far listed some actions, in addition to many others, that are within the capacity of peoples. In this regard, Muslim peoples should turn form being stressed by their rulers into a stressing factor on them and should seek to change the painful actual fact. In fact, it is not an inescapable fate to surrender and yield to our rulers. Rather, we have to seek a way out of our current crisis following the example of many non-Muslim peoples around the world. Thus, it is not acceptable on the part of this Ummah to be the weakest nation on earth when they are the best of peoples ever raised up by Allah for mankind.
A question here arises, where is the way out? I answer: asking and confusion indicates a lower degree of sincerity and faithfulness incapable of enlightening the way and guiding to the right path. I here refer those who ask to the Qur'anic verse indicating that guidance is conferred on those who are firm in faith and are completely sincere: {As for those who strive hard in Us (Our Cause), We will surely guide them to Our Paths (i.e. Allah's Religion - Islamic Monotheism). And verily, Allah is with the Muhsinun (good doers).} [Al-'Ankabut, 69]
Undoubtedly, the way out leading to our glory we look for will be clear only when we so sincerely lead a struggling life that Allah might sees we are truthful. Only then we will not ask where the way out is!
I ask Allah to glorify Islam and Muslims!
 Dr. Ragheb ElSergany

---

[1] Related by Al-Bukhari on the authority of Anas bin Malik and by Muslim

[2] Related by Al-Tirmidhi, who judged it to be a Hassan (reliable) Hadith, on the authority of Hudhayfah bin Al-Yaman

[3] Related by Al-Bukhari on the authority of Zayd bin Khalid and by Muslim

--
"Whoever guides [another] to a good deed will get a reward similar to the one who performs it." Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)[Sahih Muslim]
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Help us restore sanity in Washington, DC

Dear Milena,

This Saturday, October 30, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are rallying their masses of fans on Comedy Central with a duel between "Restoring Sanity" and "Keeping Fear Alive." More than 100,000 people are expected to attend.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is partnering with CodePink to welcome Stewart and Colbert to town.

CodePink will be hosting a Madhatter Tea Party in the midst of the rally.  We think Jon Stewart is either Alice or the Madhatter -- we're not sure, but Clearly Colbert is the Queen of Hearts.  The whole thing is going to be a costume-clad Halloween weekend of madness, so we don't really expect anything will make much sense.

…Which just might be the point! With humor, creativity and truthiness we'll show that sanity means ending unwinnable wars, and ending occupations of other people's land.

If you're looking for confirmation that the country has lost its mind, this is surely the weekend to join us here in DC.

Join us or wish us luck on Saturday!


Now: Learn more, get details...

Al-Awda Launches New Palestinian Children's Rights Campaign

To: Members in Palestinian Refugees Right to Return - Al-Awda

Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition announces the launching of its new Palestinian Children's Right Campaign. The mission of this campaign is to advocate for the immediate release of all Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons, and to demand an end to the institutionalized and systematic abuse that these children are subjected to. The campaign has set as its goal the full restoration of Palestinian children's rights in accordance with international law including, but not limited to, their right to return to their homes of origin, to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression. BACKGROUND According to International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights, 1,859 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli army since September 28, 2000. This is equivalent to more than one quarter of the 7,407 Palestinians who were killed by Israel in the same period. According to mental health care organizations, approximately 80% of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip display symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and are in need of care. According to Defense Children International (DCI), a Geneva-based non-governmental agency, about 700 Palestinian children in the West Bank alone are imprisoned by Israel every year. Further, based on a survey of 100 of these imprisoned children in 2009, DCI found that 69% were beaten and kicked, 49% were threatened, 14% were held in solitary confinement, 12% were threatened with sexual assault, including rape, and 32% were forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not understand. Such institutionalized and systematic mistreatment by the Israeli state of detained Palestinian children is considered torture by the United Nations under international law. Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are also systematically denied their right to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression. The total Palestinian population in the world today is estimated at about 11 million. Of these, 7.2 million including their children are living in forced exile or internally displaced, and are denied their right to return to their homes and lands of origin by the state of Israel. ACTION The current situation and the severity of the systematic attack by the Israeli state on the children of Palestine demands a comprehensive and coordinated response. Therefore, Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition has decided to launch this campaign specifically to demand the release of all Palestinian children from Israeli prisons and an end to all forms of institutionalized abuse of these children by the Israeli state. The committee, which has been formed to lead this campaign, intends to provide comprehensive education to the public, politicians and the media, and to organize effective advocacy for the rights of Palestinian children living under occupation, internally displaced or in forced exile in refugee camps and elsewhere. It intends to raise funds to support its work and help provide mental health services for children in need of such service. Among its goals, the committee intends to develop informational campaigns that will include regular updates, the production of factsheets, organization of lecture tours, film showings, rallies and protests and other educational events. The committee will also organize meetings with politicians and newspaper and other media editors and editorial boards. It will publish calls and petitions to action, and press releases regularly. It intends to highlight the work needed for Palestinian child rights at the Annual International Al-Awda Conventions, and to reach out to community and student organizations, clubs, churches, mosques, etc. The committee also intends to coordinate its work with other children's rights organizations and to support all boycotts, divestment and sanction campaigns until children achieve their full rights in compliance with international law and legal norms and standards. The committee also intends to fundraise to support its work and to help provide mental health services for children in need of such service. HOW YOU CAN HELP We need your assistance with all aspects of this campaign! Volunteer: If you would like to volunteer to help us with the action plan outlined above, please write to us at child.rights@al-awda.org explaining how and with what aspects you may be able to help. Donate: To make a tax-deductible donation to help with the work of this campaign, please address your check or money order to Al-Awda - PRRC, PO Box 131352, Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA. Please indicate "Palestine Children's Campaign" in the memo line. Alternatively, you can submit your donation using your credit card online using the PayPal button at http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html If you prefer, you may call us 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Monday to Friday at (USA) 760-918-9441 with your credit card information instead. Organizations: We invite all organizations, who would like to advocate for the children's rights and would like to coordinate efforts with us on this campaign, to write to us at child.rights@al-awda.org Children are the most vulnerable members of any society. Israel's systematic attack on Palestine's children demands that all people of conscience stand up and take action in demand of their full rights! Until return, Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition PO Box 131352 Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA Tel: 760-918-9441 Fax: 760-918-9442 E-mail: info@al-awda.org WWW: http://al-awda.org Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to education and advocacy for the restoration of Palestinian human, national, legal, political and historical rights in full with particular emphasis on the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands of origin from which they have been dispossessed since 1948. PRRC is a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible. To donate, go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the instructions. To become a member, go to http://www.al-awda.org/membership.html

Call to Action Support the cause. Be counted: I Read This

Replant an Olive Tree in Palestine

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is proud to partner with Canaan Fair Trade and its Trees for Life program to replant olive trees in Palestine. You can help Palestinian farmers remain steadfast on their land and non-violently resist Israeli occupation by donating money to replant an olive tree. For centuries, these olive trees have formed the backbone of Palestinian agriculture. Yet, as part of its illegal military occupation, Israel has systematically uprooted these Palestinian olive trees by the thousands to clear land for illegal Israeli settlements, apartheid fences and walls, and to dispossess Palestinian farmers of their lands and livelihoods. Is this a gift? Yes No Name on Certificate: For every $25 tax-deductible contribution you make to support the work of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, we will replant one olive tree in Palestine. Donate $100 and we will replant five trees. Make your tax-deductible contribution today. After making your donation, the US Campaign and Canaan Fair Trade will send you via email a Trees for Life Certificate. You can replant a tree in your name or in honor of a loved one. Just let us know how you’d like the certificate to read when you make your donation. Please allow two weeks to prepare your certificate. Remember that it is our tax-payer dollars, in the form of nearly $3 billion per year in military aid to Israel, that are financing the Israeli army’s purchase of Caterpillar bulldozers and backhoes used to uproot these olive trees. Please make your tax-deductible contribution to the US Campaign today so that we can both help replant olive trees and continue our work to end U.S. support for these and other Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians. Make your tax-deductible donation today. Thank you for your generous support. PS: To make a donation to replant an olive tree by phone, call 202-332-0994 to donate via credit card. Or, mail a check, money order, or cashier's check to: US Campaign, PO Box 21539, Washington, DC 20009. Be sure to indicate that your donation is for our replanting olive trees campaign and the name you would like printed on the certificate. To make a donation of less than $25 to support our work, please click here.

Scottish PSC AGM, Saturday 6 November, 1pm

Saturday 6 November, 1pm
Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Scottish PSC members are invited to the Scottish PSC AGM in Edinburgh on 6 November.

Nominations for officers to be elected at the AGM:

Chair – Mick Napier
Vice-Chair – Jan Benvie
Treasurer – Ian MacDonald
Secretary – Sofiah MacLeod
Newsletter Editor – Ahmed Asif
Publicity Officer – Robert Stewart
Press Officer – Kevin Connor
Campaigns Officer – Tom McVitie
Events Coordinator – Niel Forbes
Student Coordinator – vacant
Trade Union Coordinator – Rob Paterson

Please email secretary@scottishpsc.org.uk to confirm your attendance.

ORGANISATION

1.      Membership DriveThis meeting believes that there can be no democratic accountability in any campaign unless the membership base is clarified, and the rights of membership are specified.

This meeting calls upon the Scottish PSC Coordinating Committee to:
1. maintain up-to-date records of paid-up members, including those active in a branch and members at large
2. specify the procedures and individual roles involved in signing up new members and processing their membership application
3. ensure that every member receives a regular newsletter from the Campaign
4. institute a re-registration and new membership push every New Year

2.      Membership
SPSC needs to develop a large membership base if we are to deliver a higher level of solidarity in the years to come.  We need, as a matter of urgency, to put in place the necessary systems and materials to recruit and retain substantial number of new members in the coming year.

3.      Delivering effective solidarityThis AGM
1. notes the wide range of issues that SPSC has engaged in over the years and the multiple opportunities and challenges facing us in the coming year
2. urges members to form all-Scottish teams to take forward specific projects of BDS and other campaigns
3. sees such campaign teams as key to ensuring success in the many of the areas we choose to fight, or which are forced upon us.

4.      Relations with other campaigning groupsThis meeting resolves that:
1. SPSC will establish relations with other groups having compatible aims, either by joining coalitions or by establishing bilateral relations
2. where such organisations operate at a Scottish or international level, the Scottish Coordinating Committee is charged with negotiating the basis for such cooperation: where a campaigning group is purely local, the SPSC Branch should do so
3. That such relations should be based on the following principles:
a. decision-making procedures should be based on a delegate structure enabling all affiliates, including the SPSC, to have a meaningful input
b. decisions should be made in a transparent manner
c. officers in such a coalition should be representative of the variety of groups affiliated

POLICY

1.      ZionismThis AGM agrees that Zionism is a racist ideology, since the theory and practice of a Jewish State on land stolen from others, which politically privileges Jews over non-Jews, is a violation of basic human rights.

2.      Political Campaigning and humanitarian fund-raisingThe Scottish PSC is a broad-based political campaign, independent of any political faction or party, and invites the active participation of members of many political parties and none.

This AGM resolves:
1. To campaign for Palestinian human and national rights and against those forces in Scotland and beyond that are complicit in the violation of Palestinian human rights.
2. To direct supporters of Palestine who want to get involved in charitable work, i.e. work that would qualify for charitable status under British law, to one of the many excellent charities which work to help the Palestinian people.

3.      HistadrutSPSC notes the central role of the Israeli Histadrut in

• the colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine
• the expulsion of Palestinian workers from many workplaces and their replacement with Jewish labour
• the maintenance of Israel’s illegal occupation
• the functioning of an apartheid system which privileges Jews over non-Jews in the State and in the Histadrut itself

SPSC further notes the call for boycott from the entirety of Palestinian civil society, including all Palestinian trade unions (PGFTU, GUPW and others).

SPSC resolves to
1. educate supporters as to the true nature of the Histadrut in the above
2. support those Palestinian trade unions currently being penalised by international trade union bodies for their principled boycott of the Histadrut
3. campaign among British trade unionists for the expulsion of the Histadrut from all international trade union bodies

PALESTINE

1.      Who are we in solidarity with?This conference notes that every colonising project needs collaborators among the colonised.

This conference further notes & condemns:
- British government support for Abbas in annulling the results of democratic elections
- The role of the PA in suppressing resistance to Israel
- Abbas’s silence during much of the massacres in Gaza in January 2009
- The role of the British government and the PA in working to suppress the Goldstone report

This conference declares
1. its solidarity with all those resisting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, siege of Gaza and racist oppression throughout ’48-’67 Israel
2. that the legitimacy of our solidarity with the Palestinian people derives from British government complicity in, and Palestinian resistance to, Israel’s bloody programme of ethnic cleansing

This conference resolves
1. to develop the closest possible links with the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which represents signatories to the call for BDS, which includes the three main segments of the Palestinian people: in the occupied Palestinian territory; inside Israel; and in exile (mainly the refugee community)
2. to prioritise all calls from the BNC for specific solidarity initiatives

Keeping Hope Alive in Gaza

October, 2010

Dr. Mona El-Farra

Children are everywhere here in Gaza. They make up more than 60% of the entire population because the average family size is 7.2 people. Crowded towns, refugee camps and cities cram over 1.5 million people into these 360 square kilometers, making Gaza one of the densely populated areas of the world.
Between the Israeli occupation, the siege of Gaza, and the internal Palestinian divisions, children in Gaza have been, and continue to be deprived of many of their basic rights. The right to play, to live in suitable homes, to live in a safe and healthy atmosphere, and to have access to food and clean water.
In short, children in Gaza are not living in safety. They are not living with the rights we are supposed to provide them.
In Gaza we know that our situation will not improve overnight so we look to our children as the future. All efforts to support our children are extremely needed and appreciated by the community. The accumulative work of everyone who cares in the local and international communities will affect the future of the hundreds of thousands of kids who experience poverty and the threat of military attacks on a daily basis . This creates an immediate need to make life easier and tolerable through entertaining activities and relief services. I don't expect we can make quick, dramatic changes given the complexity and deterioration of the situation in Gaza. But certainly I believe the effects of these efforts will prove to be important in the future, particularly in the lives of these children and their families.
In such complicated circumstances with endless needs for children, the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) is working hard to make life tolerable for children in Palestine. In my day-to-day life, I can see the effects of MECA's work. When I was at one of the UN schools where we implemented a water purification system, one of 15 systems we supplied so far this year, I was touched to hear the different stories and positive comments from the families, the teaching staff, and the children. We all know the importance of good clean water but many people take drinking clean water for granted. This is not the case for people who are deprived of it in Palestine, India, or countless other locations around the world. In the Gaza Strip, more than 90% of our water is not suitable for drinking.
The university scholarships project targets students and whose families would not be able to educate their children without MECA's support. I see the huge impact of the psychosocial program “Let the Children Play and Heal” that has already reached more than 110,000 children throughout all of Gaza, plus providing vital trainings to hundreds of mothers that empower them to take action to help their own families and communities. I went several times to the Zaytoun neighborhood this summer to observe “Learning on the Rubble,” a project that provided intensive educational and psychosocial support to children in a particularly impoverished and traumatized area of Gaza. None of these children can be completely healed while the occupation and siege continue but I believe our work meets the children's most urgent needs and contributes to their chances for a good future.
I feel privileged to see the successes of MECA projects and partnerships on the ground. I feel proud to be part of the team of MECA. I tell the children of Palestine more and more about MECA's work and about the committed people abroad who work hard to help the Palestinian people. I try to educate the entire community about the genuine great work in support of the Palestinian people's rights and the continuous work to expose the colonial racist nature of the Israeli occupation that is happening around the world. I understand that our freedom is not an easy task to be achieved but to be sure there are growing solidarity efforts to achieve peace and justice and MECA is an important part of them. MECA's work and the work of all the friends and solidarity activists around the world make me feel not alone and not forgotten and I convey this message everywhere in Gaza where my people live one day after another working hard to endure the most difficult situation.

Water in Palestine

by Nora Barrows-Friedman

October, 2010

Thanks to Nora Barrows-Friedman for this special post on water in Palestine! Today is Blog Action Day 2010 and the focus is water. We hope this piece will contribute to awareness, discussions, and solutions to the water crisis around the world. - MECA


“The wind finally came to Palestine,” a friend of mine told me on the phone today, from his home in Battir, a small village near Bethlehem. “Now we can finally breathe.” He said he was relieved that the sweltering Palestinian summer was nearing its end and Autumn was showing its colors in the parched hillsides and in the air. But the water in my friend's home, in his village and across occupied Palestine is still slow to trickle, as it has been for months.
As Jewish Israelis enjoy trips to the beach, neighborhood swimming pools, unfettered access to clean drinking water, state-of-the-art sewage treatment infrastructure, and endless amounts of running water in their homes, Palestinians in communities separated by boundaries, walls, and checkpoints brace and prepare each time the weather heats up and the antiquated wells dry up. For weeks on end – especially in the refugee camps inside the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip – there simply is no water coming from the tap, and people are forced to purchase bottled water just to meet their daily needs.
For Palestinians under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and in Palestinian-Bedouin communities inside Israel itself, water has historically been a precious commodity especially in the summer months – which can stretch, like this years', for over five months – because of the ongoing resource theft of groundwater tables by the Israeli state and the economic blockade the government continues against the people in Gaza.
According to current statistics by Amnesty International, Israel takes 80% of the water in the Mountain aquifers in the north (one of many water sources available to Israel, including the state's full access to the Jordan River, which runs inside the occupied West Bank); while Palestinians in the West Bank are left with just the remaining 20% of that one aquifer, and are prohibited from accessing water from the Jordan river altogether.
However, in Gaza, 95% of the groundwater is extremely polluted and deemed unfit for human consumption, according to new reports from Israeli human rights organization B'tselem (http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20100823_Gaza_water_crisis.asp). The water crisis has entered into a troubling phase as Israel maintains its suffocating blockade against the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped inside the strip. This blockade, which has been in place as collective punishment following the Hamas party's political takeover in 2007, prevents entry to hundreds of items – including essential industrial materials needed to repair the water infrastructure.
The Electronic Intifada reported on B'tselem's findings back in September (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11517.shtml):
“Citing reports from the United Nations' Environment Program, the Palestinian Water Authority, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility and international aid organizations, B'Tselem's report says that children are being especially affected by the water crisis in Gaza. The report references the over-pumping of groundwater, combined with poor wastewater management systems and the toxification of ground soil from waste disposal sites -- where asbestos, medical waste, oils and fuels were dumped after Israel's three-week attacks in 2008-09. As a result, according to B'Tselem, chemicals such as chlorides and nitrates are contributing to excessive diseases and internal injuries, especially in Gaza's children.

Israeli air strikes during the winter attacks also damaged wastewater treatment plants in Gaza, and damaged thirty kilometers of water networks, eleven wells and six thousand residential water tanks. Reports estimate that the damage to the water infrastructure amounted to approximately $6 million.

"According to international aid organizations, twenty percent of Gazan families have at least one child under age five who suffers from diarrhea as a result of polluted water," B'Tselem reports. "A UN study published in 2009 estimates that diarrhea is the cause of 12 percent of children's deaths in Gaza. The lack of potable drinking water is liable to cause malnutrition in children and affect their physical and cognitive development."
Moreover, the blockade and the bombings have affected the sewage infrastructure as well. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza City released a shocking report in August on the toxification of the sea itself because of the deterioration of Gaza's wastewater treatment plants.
“Gaza's current wastewater treatment facilities were constructed with an operational capacity of 32,000 cubic meters of waste a day,” states the report (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11455.shtml).
“With a growth rate that is one of the world's highest -- an estimated 3.6 percent annually -- Gaza's surging population has overwhelmed the capacity of the waste treatment facilities, and Monther [Shoblak, director general of the Coastal Municipality Water Utility] estimates that the facilities are now receiving at least 65,000 cubic meters of waste daily. Unable to handle more than half of its intake, much of the sewage is directly transported to the sea, where it is dumped completely untreated. Much of this sewage washes back onto Gaza's shores, polluting the beaches and creating toxic swimming conditions for the countless children and adults seeking escape from the intense summer heat,” the report continued.
Facts like these are staggering, and nothing new to Palestinians who have experienced decades of humanitarian crisis. So, what do we do about this deliberate water emergency unfolding across Palestine, especially inside the Gaza strip, and especially affecting the most vulnerable population, the children?
Berkeley, California-based Middle East Children's Alliance has taken direct action against the water crisis in Gaza, launching the Maia project to provide Palestinian children with clean, safe drinking water. Maia is Arabic for water.
According to their website, http://www.mecaforpeace.org/project/maia-project, the project began “when the Student Parliament at the UN Boys’ School in Bureij Refugee Camp, Gaza were given the opportunity to choose one thing they most wanted for their school: They chose to have clean drinking water. MECA’s partner in Gaza heard about this vote and, after meeting with representatives from the school and the Student Parliament, came to MECA to see if we could respond to the children’s request for drinking water. MECA provided the funds to build a water purification and desalination unit for the school in 2007.”
MECA's interest in simply providing something we here in this country, and in most industrialized places across the world, take for granted – clean, safe, drinking water – is intrinsically aligned with their 22-year old philosophy that Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese children deserve a better and healthier future than the one they've acquired under so many years of occupations and wars.
This philosophy includes the radical notion that there are already incredible people on the ground who are already working hard to better their communities, and international donor support should compliment and sustain that locally-based work. MECA says they are working in partnership with various community organizations “to build water purification and desalination units in schools throughout the Gaza strip...We have provided clean water to twelve large UN schools in Palestinian refugee camps and to ten kindergartens in refugee camps, towns, and villages,” they say.
MECA is appealing for generous donations to combat the aggressive and unraveling humanitarian crisis in Gaza by building water purification systems in Palestinian childrens' schools.
“A large purification unit for a UN school in a refugee camp costs $11,300. The UN schools run in shifts due to overcrowding and each unit provides drinking water for 1,500-2,000 children and staff. A small purification unit for a preschool or kindergarten costs $4,000 and serves 150-450 children. Many of the small units are located in community centers with after-school programs and summer camps so the units serve these children as well. Many organizations, individuals, and schools around the US are raising the whole cost of a unit in their communities,” MECA says.
There's always so much despair when I talk or think or write about Palestine – but through this project, and with the work that MECA's staff in California and in Palestine have been doing for so many years, I know it's possible to make an extraordinary difference in children's lives.

Illume Magazine highlights "The Palestine Buy-cott"

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Boycotts have been instrumental in effecting political change, such as its successful use as a tool to end South African apartheid. But many find it virtually impossible to avoid all the companies on the list. For those who can't give up that morning Starbucks, or that Coca-Cola with dinner there is another tool in the economic arsenal. In addition to boycotting Israel, you can buy Palestine.

Despite the Palestinian economy being stifled by Israeli policies, Palestinians continue to farm, and produce a wide variety of products which can be purchased on a number of websites.

READ FULL ARTICLE IN ILLUME...

Open Letter from PACBI to Guns N' Roses: "An Opportunity to Untie your Hands"

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Occupied Ramallah, 19 October 2010

Dear Guns N’ Roses,

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was dismayed to read reports that you are considering performing in Israel later this year. PACBI, supported by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society and, in particular, by almost the entire community of Palestinian cultural workers, views such a performance in Israel as a form of complicity in whitewashing Israel's occupation, apartheid and war crimes. More importantly, your upcoming performance would violate the appeal of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which urges people of conscience throughout the world to isolate Israel until it ends its colonial and apartheid oppression of the Palestinian people, as was done to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

LETTER CONTINUES...

Song for the Freedom Flotilla by Doc Jazz

Wonderful song by Doc Jazz about the Freedom Flotilla. Please watch, then pass on to your own contacts. The song is clear and eloquent and should be seen around the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuDdevj0iLc



--
Greta Berlin

Lawyers establish Flotilla Justice Group to coordinate legal action on behalf of flotilla victims

[Doha, Qatar, 25 October] International legal experts and lawyers representing victims of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla today announced the establishment of the “Flotilla Justice Group.” The announcement came at the conclusion of a two-day meeting held on 23 and 24 October, aimed at coordinating legal actions to hold Israel accountable for its 31 May 2010 attack on the Freedom Flotilla. The meeting, hosted by the Doha-based Al Fakhoora campaign, brought together 70 representatives from 20 countries, to follow up on work that began at the first lawyers’ meeting held in Istanbul on 15 July.

The international advocacy groups, legal and media experts, and lawyers in attendance met in a number of workshops to devise a comprehensive strategy for national, regional and international legal action, inter-organizational coordination, and media mobilization. “The Flotilla Justice Group” will serve as a coordination mechanism for facilitating communication and the exchange of information between lawyers working on behalf of flotilla victims around the world.

Bettahar Boudjellal, a Qatar-based international human rights expert, said, “Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla breached international, human rights and humanitarian law. Our efforts to unify the legal actions through a designated coordination apparatus will allow us to collectively bring the State of Israel to justice.  More importantly, it will serve as a foundation for responding to Israel’s future violations.”

The conference workshops were led by prominent personalities within the growing movement to end Israel’s strangulation of Gaza as well as its persistent human rights violations throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. Participants in the meeting included representatives from the following countries: Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Canada, Egypt, France, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestine, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yemen.

“The creation of the Flotilla Justice Group is a vital step forward on the road to holding Israel accountable for its attack on our flotilla, and their ongoing abuse of the Palestinian people” said the Freedom Flotilla organizers.

Organizations and firms participating in the conference included: the Turkish İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH), the Free Gaza Movement, European Campaign to End Siege on Gaza (ECESG), Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), the Elmadag Law Firm from Turkey, Mazlumdar -- the Turkish Human Rights Association, the UK-based Hickman and Rose law firm, Ship to Gaza - Greece, Ship to Gaza – Sweden, Indonesian Muslims’ Lawyer Team, the Muslim Lawyers Association of South Africa, and others.

###

Fakhoora is an international campaign which aims to secure the freedom to learn for Palestinian students in Gaza and the West Bank. The campaign is named after a United Nations girls’ prep school in Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp that was the scene of an attack by Israeli tank shells on January 6, 2009.

Caterpillar to delay supply of D9 bulldozers to IDF

Jerusalem Post, 25 October 2010 -- Caterpillar, the company which supplies the IDF with bulldozers, has announced that it is delaying the supply of D9 bulldozers during the time that the trial of Rachel Corrie proceeds, Channel 2 reported on Monday.

The company does not usually manufacture a military version of the D9 but it has many features that make desirable for military applications and the IDF has used them extensively for operations.

Rachel Corrie was a US activist who was killed in Gaza seven years ago by a bulldozer driver who struck and killed her. Her family charged that the IDF and its officers had acted recklessly, using an armored Caterpillar D9R bulldozer without regard to the presence in the area of unarmed and nonviolent civilians.

READ FULL STORY...

Израел отхвърля критиките на синода за Близкия изток

Израел определи като "политическа атака" срещу еврейската държава посланието на синода за Близкия изток, свикан от папата във Ватикана, в което се настоява да се сложи край на израелската окупации на арабски територии. Изразяваме нашето разочарование от факта, че този важен синод се превърна в трибуна за политически нападки срещу Израел според най-добрата традиция на арабската пропаганда, заяви заместник-министърът на външните работи Дани Аялон. В посланието си синодът с участието на епископи в мнозинството си от Близкия изток поиска да се сложи край на израелската окупация на арабски територии и постанови, че израелската държава не може да се позовава на Библията, за да защищава политиката си на колонизация. Израел не може да използва термина "Обетована земя", фигуриращ в Библията, за да оправдае връщането на евреите в Израел и изселването на палестинците, заяви мелкитско-гръцкият епископ на Нютон, САЩ, монсеньор Салим Бутрос, председател на комисията за посланието на синода. Повечето еврейски духовници смятат, че земята на Израел е дадена на евреите от Бога, и еврейските заселници често цитират Библията, за да запазят властта си над Западния бряг на Йордан и Източен Ерусалим, окупирани след Шестдневната война през 1967 г. Говорителят на израелското външно министерство Игал Палмор обаче заяви, че свещените текстове никога не са били използвани от израелското правителство за оправдаване на окупацията или колонизацията на дадена територия. /АФП /

Women- Israeli Mother Addresses European Parliament

By Nurit Peled-Elhanan

14 May, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is the mother of Smadar Elhanan, 13 years old when killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in September 1997. Below is Nurit's speech made on International Women's Day in Strasbourg.

Thank you for inviting me to this today. It is always an honour and a pleasure to be here, among you (at the European Parliament).

However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R`aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family`s strawberry field. No one
will ever stand trial for this murder.

When I asked the people who invited me here why didn't they invite a Palestinian woman, the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.

I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse,
torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars. It is true, unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli army, has expanded around the globe, In fact, state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence, are the lot of Muslim
women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA .

This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.

Great France of "la liberte égalite et la fraternite" is scared of little girls with head scarves. Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb which its ministers call a demographic threat.

Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists. This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.

I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour, I don't know the kind of violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose hоmes are broken into at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished , who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal. But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the
free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children.

Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses , though they may have various illustrious names--such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland--are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful. 

We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers who are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: `I gave him birth, I breast fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land.` All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies. And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to
be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land thirsty generals..

Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute Democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in
spite of the impossible conditions my world in putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they
are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.

Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference and co-operation is and Israeli racism and its cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order
Palestinian women at gun-point, to strip in front of their children for security reasons, it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.

I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers` cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are
race and religion dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova--another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children--asked:

Why does that streak o blood, rip the petal of your cheek?

Free Ameer

Every Human

To: Members in Every Human Has Rights

Free Ameer Leading human rights activist from Israel, Ameer Makhoul is now entering his sixth month in jail in Israel after being accused of being a spy for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, despite any evidence against him, without free access to lawyers and following torture under interrogation according to the Union of Arab Community Based Organisations. “My human dignity, basic human rights and constitutional rights are suffering from basic violations,” said Ameer Makhoul, who is a Palestinian citizen. Ameer goes on trial next week and so we need to get as many signatures from across the world to call for his release. Please share the link: http://www.everyhumanhasrights.org/component/content/article/107 And invite all you know to the Cause!

Saturday 23rd of october: Join the Boycott Ahava and Veolia Demonstrations

Dear Friends,

This saturday 23rd of october in London, we are carrying on with our efforts to bring those who profit from the illegal occupation of Palestine down:
  Join the fortnightly demonstration outside Ahava, which sells stolen goods manufactured in the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Shalem from 12pm to 2pm, 39 Monmouth Street Covent Garden. bring banners, leaflets and friends!

more info on the campaign against Ahava: http://freepalestinefortnightlydemo.wordpress.com/ or www.ism-london.org.uk
 

 Action against Veolia, complicit in maintaining and expanding illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank: 'Veolia The Alternative Exhibition" outside the Natural History Museum in South Kensington from 2pm to 5pm

(some of us present at the demonstration against Ahava will be going together)

more information on the Veolia action:
 

"Veolia is the chief corporate sponsor of the Wildlife Photography Exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London.

For Veolia such sponsorship - with the corporate name and logo liberally sprinkled on publicity material at the museum- is a key part of projecting a caring, green and progressive image.

The reality is completely different: Veolia is actively complicit in helping Israeli maintain and expand the Illegal Settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. For this reason Veolia is one of the key targets of the international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement.

This year (like last year) a protest is being planned outside the Natural History Museum to publicise Veolia's direct connection to Israel's illegal occupation. There are a few thousand people who go to the Natural History Museum on a Saturday and so this gives us a ready-made target audience.

We are organising 'Veolia-The Alternative Exhibition' outside the Museum.  We will have large long sheets of hardboard and are asking everyone who comes to the protest to bring along pictures (cut from a newspaper / magazine or pictures printed off from the internet etc ) and to stick their pictures on the hardboard to create a montage of images of Israel's Occupation. The pictures do not need to relate directly to Veolia and can be any size.  The idea is to create a visual association in the public's mind between Veolia and the Occupation.   We will also have blank sheets for people to write comments.

The 'Alternative Exhibition' should give us a backdrop/talking point to engage with the public/passers-by. There will of course be the usual leafleting etc.

Hardboard sheets plus blutack for sticking up pictures will be provided. Please bring your pictures, banners and placards as well as yourself and other supporters. We will start at 2pm and aim to finish by 5pm; it is the same day as the fortnightly boycott Ahava demo, so the timing is designed to allow people to attend both if they want. Come along even if you can't make it for all of the time.

A number of London PSC branches and other solidarity activists have already said they are going to support this event - so please help us to build further on this. The more people we have the bigger the impact.

Attached to this e-mail is a short flyer on Veolia; could we ask you to circulate it to friends, supporters, post up on facebook etc

You can find out more info about Veolia's activities in Occupied Palestine by going to http://www.bigcampaign.org/index.php?page=veolia"

Hope to see you on saturday!!

In solidarity,

fellow campaigners for justice

МОНОЛОЗИТЕ НА ГАЗА

17 октомври 2010 г. 16:00 - 18:00

Националният дворец на децата,София

Форум за арабска култура منتدى للثقافة العربية

Форумът за арабска култура „Махмуд Даруиш” И Националният дворец на децата Ви канят да чуете МОНОЛОЗИТЕ НА ГАЗА Палестински деца говорят за своето ежедневие и мечтаят за бъдещето. Нека помечтаем заедно с тях и да ги подкрепим в стремежа им да постигнат мечтите си! Заповядайте в Националния дворец на децата – София, бул. „Ал. Стамболийски” № 191, Неделя, 17 октомври 2010 от 16,00 ч. ======================================= Международната културна инициатива, озаглавена „Монолози от Газа”, е подета от палестинската театрална трупа „Ищар” в името на пробив в блокадата на Ивицата Газа. „Монолозите на Газа” са авторски монолози на деца от Газа, които разказват за ...своя житейски опит преди и по време на войната срещу Газа. Монолозите представят чувствата на младите момчета и момичета от Газа – индивидуални, съкровени чувства, с които светът не би могъл да се запознае чрез медиите. Монолозите на Газа” ще отплават от крайбрежието на Ивицата с книжни корабчета сутринта на 17 септември 2010, за да тръгнат към държавите в света. Този път израелските военноморски части няма да има как да ги прихванат в териториалните води, няма да има как да стрелят по тях задето били подозрителни тела. И те ще отплават в открито море, за да поемат курс към световните пристанища, където да разтоварят товара си на световните театрални сцени на два етапа. За първия етап Театрална трупа „Ищар” търси партньори по цял свят, които да вземат участие в това културно и общочовешко приключение. Тя е събрала и превела текстовете на монолозите на различни езици, за да ги разпространи сред партньорите си, всеки от които ще подготви група деца на възраст между 14 и 18 години с интереси и заложби в областта на театъра, и те ще изнесат представление по монолозите – всеки на своя език – на 17 октомври т.г.   Досега за участие в инициативата са откликнали театрални дейци от: арабските държави, Зимбабве, Великобритания, Испания, Гърция, Кипър, Норвегия, Швеция, Италия и др.