Gaza doctor to Obama: Do you have a heart?

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who volunteers at the overburdened Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip, has written a letter addressing US president Barack Obama.

World Bulletin / News Desk

Dearest friends,

The last night was extreme. The "ground invasion" of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying - all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza's hospitals are working 12-24 hour shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!

Now, once more treated like animals by "the most moral army in the world" (sic!).

READ FULL LETTER!

Samer Issawi: No going back, I am owner of Right

Samer's father and sister, Tariq and Shireen, holding a photo of Samer in the family's home in East Jerusalem's Issawiya (Photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler)

Posted by Zahi Damuni (cause leader) Tell your friends about this SHARE THE PHOTO Letter from prisoner Samer al-Issawi as it came from the Ministry of Prisoners: I turn with admiration to the masses of our heroic Palestinian people, to our Palestinian leadership, to all forces, parties and national institutions. I salute them for standing by our fight to defend our right to freedom and dignity. I draw my strength from my people, from all the free people in the world, from friends and the families of the prisoners who continue day and night chanting for freedom and an end to the occupation. My health has deteriorated dramatically and I'm hanging between life and death. My weak body is collapsing but still able to be patient and continue the confrontation. My message is that I will continue until the end, until the last drop of water in my body, until martyrdom. Martyrdom is an honor for me in this battle. My martyrdom is my remaining bomb in the confrontation with the tyrants and the jailers, in the face of the racist policy of the occupation that humiliates our people and exercises against us all means of oppression and repression. I say to my people: I'm stronger than the occupation army and its racist laws. I, Samer al-Issawi, son of Jerusalem, send you my last will that, in case I fell as a martyr, you will carry my soul as a cry for all the prisoners, man and women, cry for freedom, emancipation and salvation from the nightmare of prisons and their harsh darkness. My battle is not only for individual freedom. The battle waged by me and by my heroic colleagues, Tariq, Ayman and Ja'affar, is everyone's battle, the battle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and its prisons. Our goal is to be free and sovereign in our liberated state and in our blessed Jerusalem.  The weak and strained beats of my heart derive their steadfastness from you, the great people. My eyes, which started to lose their sight, draws light from your solidarity and your support of me. My weak voice takes its strength from your voice that is louder than the warden's voice and higher than the walls. I'm one of your sons, among thousands of your sons who are prisoners, still languishing steadfastly in the prisons, waiting for an end to be brought to their plight, their pains and the suffering of their families. The doctors told me I became exposed to stroke because of the disorder of my heartbeats, the shortage of sugar and the drop in blood pressure. My body is full of cold and I can't sleep because of the continued pain. But despite the extreme fatigue and chronic headaches, as I move on my chair, I'm trying to summon all my resources to continue on the road till its end. There is no going back, only in my victory, because I'm the owner of Right and my detention is invalid and illegal. Do not be afraid for my heart if it will stop, don't be afraid for my hands if they will be paralyzed. I am still alive now and tomorrow and after death, because Jerusalem is moving in my blood, in my devotion and my faith. Palestine 16/02/2013 The above letter (in Arabic) was published on 16 February on Shirin Issawi's Page in Facebook. Translated to English and Hebrew by Free Haifa Please share it and act everywhere to save Samer Issawi and for all the people that were imprisoned for their struggle for freedom.

Subtitle: Take Action as Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza

Dear Milena,

Israel has escalated attacks on the Gaza Strip. Click above for updates.

Today, Israel launched a major offensive in the Gaza Strip, killing the Hamas leader nearby civilians, including two girls under the age of five. The death toll continues to rise. The US Campaign strongly condemns these brutal attacks, carried out with U.S. weapons given to Israel as military aid and paid for by U.S. taxpayers, and Israel's ongoing, illegal siege of Gaza. You can follow updates from Gaza here.

Please act now and call on the Obama administration to exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to bring about an immediate cease-fire and to initiate an investigation of Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons against Palestinians in this and previous attacks.

White House: 202-456-1111
State Department: 202-647-6575

As Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza heighten, activists in the United States are taking action. Yesterday, the Associated Students of the University of California at Irvine voted unanimously in support of divestment from companiesthat profit from Israeli occupation and apartheid. The US Campaign congratulates Irvine Divest for its hard work on this principled action, in line with a tradition of campus campaigns leading the way in social justice struggles throughout history.

Among the companies mentioned in the resolution were Caterpillar and Hewlett Packard -- targets of multiple, recent faith-based initiatives and victories following years of work by US Campaign member groups, including the Palestine Israel Action Group of the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting, United Methodist Kairos Response, and the Israel-Palestine Mission Network.

In two historic resolutions this year, the United Methodist andPresbyterian churches voted to boycott products produced in Israeli settlements, including SodaStream, a device that makes carbonated water and soda from tap water, made primarily in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumin. SodaStream's illegal activities were also highlighted in this week's UC Irvine resolution.

Click above for more information on and resources to join the Black Friday Boycott SodaStream Day of Action!

SodaStream is being promoted widely this holiday season at such outlets as Costco, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Macy's. In response, many US Campaign member groups -- both faith-basedand non-faith-based -- are supporting a Boycott SodaStream Day of Action on "Black Friday,"the day after Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year.

There are many ways to take action on NEXT FRIDAY, November 23rd (Black Friday):

1. Write or call. Generate letters/petitions or calls from individuals, congregations, or groups to one or more stores and their corporate offices. Reference any ethics/responsible business practice policies they may have. Click here for sample letters, store contacts, and links to ethics policies.

2.  Store visits. Go in groups or individually to selected stores to talk to management about not carrying SodaStream. Fill out comment cards to that effect. Most store managers have no information at all about the occupation of Palestine. A visit is a good way to share information. Click here for sample handouts and other materials.

3. Hold a vigil, prayer vigil, informational leafleting, etc. at a local mall or in front of a chain or chain stores that sell SodaStream. This can be effective even with a few people (though be aware that store security guards and local authorities have been known to approach, antagonize, and even arrest vigilers). Click here for sample signs and leaflets.

4.  Tweet! Use the hashtags #SodaStream and #BDS to generate interest in your Tweets. Post information on your own or your group's Facebook page.

Member groups from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. are boycotting SodaStream.

Please send photos and report-backs to the US Campaign by clicking here so we know what you did!

Students in Gaza, in spite of everything, remain steadfast, recently launching Gaza's first campus-based boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign. In solidarity with the students and people of Gaza, and inspired by UC Irvine's recent divestment decision involving SodaStream, member groups are planning actions from Sacramento (building on the recent de-shelving of SodaStream from a major local store) to Washington, D.C. Join them in taking action next Friday in your local community!

Yours,


Anna Baltzer
National Organizer


P.S. -- On Friday, we will be delivering our open letter and petition to the State Department calling on the United States to investigate Israel’s killing of Rachel Corrie in the Gaza Strip and its injuring and killing of additional U.S. human rights defenders. You can still have your signature delivered to the State Department if you sign before 4pm Eastern tomorrow.

40 Days of Hana Shalabi’s Hunger Strike: Appeal Denied, Take Action Today

Hana al-Shalabi has been held under administrative detention without charge or trial since her re-arrest on February 16, 2012 and has maintained a continuous hunger strike since that date, inspiring international solidarity and action. Today, March 26, marks the 40th day of hunger strike – and also a new decision handed down by an Israeli court denying her appeal of her administrative detention sentence.

Click here to send a letter to Israeli officials demanding Hana’s release.

Click here to send a letter to Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird demanding action for Hana’s release.

Not only did the judge refuse to consider Shalabi’s ill-treatment and torture, according to Addameer, “In his decision, the military judge disregarded Ms. Shalabi’s critical medical condition; rather, he stated that she is responsible for her own recovery.”

Administrative detention dates from the British Emergency Law of 1945 under the British Mandate of Palestine. It allows the Israeli occupation to detain Palestinians for up to six months at a time without charge or trial, on the basis of secret evidence not disclosed to either the accused person or his or her lawyer, and can be renewed indefinitely. There are 320 Palestinians currently held under administrative detention, including a number of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and some have been held for over four years. Hana Shalabi is one of 4,637 Palestinian political prisoners in the jails of the Israeli occupation, 30 of whom continue to be held in isolation, from Palestinian national leaders and Palestinian children – all of whom are demanding freedom. Within Israeli jails, hunger strikes are spreading as 24 prisoners continue open-ended strikes and a prison system wide one-day strike was held on March 24.

Download cards for use in Canada and the US to publicize Hana Shalabi’s case.

Hana al-Shalabi’s current imprisonment began only four months after her release from over two years of administrative detention without charge or trial on October 18, 2011, a release secured in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Palestinian resistance. During her hunger strike, her health has grown progressively worse; she was visited today by a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights, who reported “stated that Ms. Shalabi’s muscle atrophy and wasting have increased, which now includes her heart muscle. Ms. Shalabi still refuses nutrition aside from vitamins and salts in her water and is in danger of death.”

The Israeli occupation is entirely responsible for the life and health of Hana al-Shalabi. In the past few days, pickets, mobilizations and demonstrations have been held in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Glasgow, Chicago, Derry, Belfast, and London. Amnesty International has issued a new appeal calling for Hana’s release – however, many other human rights organizations have maintained complete silence even as Hana Shalabi’s hunger strike reaches its 40th day.

More action is urgently needed to mobilize global support for Hana al-Shalabi as her health worsens and her appeals are denied, to support her steadfast struggle for her freedom, the freedom of Palestinian political prisoners and the freedom of Palestine.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

1. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges the Palestine solidarity movement in North America and around the world to publicize the case of Hana al-Shalabi and all Palestinian political prisoners. Join in the call for an April 17 day of action for Palestinian prisoners’ day!
2. Contact Israeli occupation officials and demand Hana al-Shalabi’s release. Sign your letter here. 
3. Write to your government officials:
1. In Canada: Click here to send a letter to Foreign Minister John Baird (developed by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid)
2. In the United States: Call the office of Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs (1.202.647.7209). Demand that Jeffrey Feltman bring this issue urgently to his counterparts in Israel and raise the question of Khader Adnan’s administrative detention.
4. Organize a picket or protest outside the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Hana al-Shalabi and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that the eyes of the world are on the situation of Hana Shalabi and demand an end to the use of isolation, torture solitary confinement, and administrative detention against Palestinian political prisoners. Send us reports of your protests at Israeli embassies and consulates at samidoun@samidoun.ca.
5. Keep sharing Hana’s story on social media.
•  Tweet now: 40 Days of Hunger Strike: Release #HanaShalabi now! #Palestine http://samidoun.ca/?p=487
•  Tweet now: Three years, no charge? no trial? Free Hana al-Shalabi now! #FreeHana Take action: http://samidoun.ca/?p=487

R&B Singer Macy Gray to Perform for 4th Time in Israel, Despite BDS Calls

The US Campaign started an online letter-writing campaign on January 21, 2011, asking Macy Gray to cancel her performances in Israel. Since then, 5,622 individuals have emailed the popular singer through our web site, causing Gray to seriously reconsider her travel plans. Unfortunately she has still not been swayed by activists' exhortations. CLICK HERE and take just two minutes to toss your own weight into the campaign.

Sunday, 30 January, 2011
Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

American R&B and soul singer Macy Gray has announced that she will be performing in Israel, despite much talk of boycott and a Facebook forum with thousands urging her to stay away.

A few weeks ago Gray acknowledged that she had been contacted by people calling on her to boycott her two Tel Aviv concerts in February.

"I'm getting alot of letters from activists urging/begging me to boycott by NOT performing in protest of Apartheid against the Palestinians," Gray wrote on Facebook.

ARTICLE CONTINUES...

Open Letter to Jon Bon Jovi: This One Should Go out to the Palestinians [ 73654 ]

January 6, 2011





It is with great disappointment that the undersigned organizations learned of your scheduled performance in Israel set for 2011 as part of your 'Circle Tour'. Given that Israel is involved in grave violations of international law and human rights, particularly as indicated in the UN Goldstone Report, we urge you to cancel this gig until the time comes when Israel is in compliance with its obligations under international law and fully respects Palestinian rights.



We were particularly surprised by news of your planned performance given your deep involvement in affordable housing and homelessness issues. As part of its ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people, Israel continues to demolish Palestinian homes and entire villages, including the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, which was destroyed seven times this year. Indeed, the entire modern history of the Palestinian people is based on dispossession and homelessness as more than 750,000 people were made refugees to enable the creation of the state of Israel, then kept in permanent refugee status despite the requirements in international law that they be allowed to return to their homes. In your commitment to effect change you have understood that your position as a respected and prominent musician can weigh on politics and contribute to advancing freedom, justice and human rights. It is in this spirit that we address you.



Don’t be Complicit in Entertaining Apartheid



In 2004, inspired by the triumphant cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, and supported by key Palestinian unions and cultural groups, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) issued a call for boycott of institutions involved in Israel’s occupation and apartheid. We wish, in our letter to you, to stress the importance of this Palestinian call, and underscore the rationale for the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.




The 2004 Palestinian call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel appealed to international artists to refuse to perform in Israel or participate in events that serve to equate the occupier and the occupied and thus contribute to the continuation of injustice. Following this, in 2005, an overwhelming majority in Palestinian civil society called for an all-encompassing BDS campaign based on the principles of human rights, justice, freedom and equality. The BDS movement adopts a nonviolent, morally consistent strategy to hold Israel accountable to the same human rights standards as other nations. It is asking artists to heed the boycott call until "Israel withdraws from all the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; removes all its colonies in those lands; agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian refugees rights; and dismantles its system of apartheid."




Your performance in Israel would constitute a rejection of the appeal from over 170 civil society organizations that comprise the Palestinian BDS movement. It would also seem like a rejection of your own sentiments, as expressed in your song in response to a newspaper report about "a young boy in the West Bank living smack in the middle of the conflict between Palestine and Israel". Your song, "Hook me up", proclaimed that "everybody’s waiting for someday". What better moment is there than this one for you to answer the call coming from the Palestinian people? Years after you wrote that song, they are telling you that they are hooked up, they have a voice, and they are asking to be heard. Indeed, in light of your song, your performance in Israel would appear as tragicomedy!




Dispossession and Racial Discrimination




Perhaps you are not familiar enough with Israel’s practices, widely acknowledged as violations of international law. If this is the case, then we hope you will reconsider your planned concert after thinking through some of Israel’s trespasses. Your performance would function as a whitewash of these practices, making it appear as though business with Israel should go on as usual. Concretely, Israel routinely violates Palestinians’ basic human rights in some of the following ways:




Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a brutal and unlawful military occupation. Israel restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement and of speech; blocks access to lands, health care, and education; imprisons Palestinian leaders and human rights activists without charge or trial; and inflicts, on a daily basis, humiliation and violence at the more than 600 military checkpoints and roadblocks strangling the West Bank. All the while, Israel continues to build its illegal wall on Palestinian land and to support the ever-expanding network of illegal, Jewish-only settlements that divide the West Bank into Bantustans.




Palestinian citizens of Israel face a growing system of Apartheid within Israel's borders, with laws and policies that deny them the rights that their Jewish counterparts enjoy. These laws and policies affect education, land ownership, housing, employment, marriage, and all other aspects of people's daily lives. In many ways this system strikingly resembles Jim Crow and apartheid South Africa.




Since 1948, when Israel dispossessed more than 750,000 Palestinian people in order to form an exclusivist Jewish state, Israel has denied Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and their lands. Israel also continues to expel people from their homes in Jerusalem and the Naqab (Negev). Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees still struggling for their right to return to their homes, like all refugees around the world. In Gaza, Palestinians have been subjected to a criminal and immoral siege since 2006. As part of this siege, Israel has prevented not only various types of medicines, candles, books, crayons, clothing, shoes, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee and chocolate, but also musical instruments from reaching the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the world’s largest open-air prison.




Could you possibly perform in such a state with a clear conscience? In a country in which Palestinians living just minutes away in the West Bank and Gaza will not be able to attend? Are we back to the Jim Crow South?




Whitewashing Violations of International Law



In December 2008 and January 2009, Israel waged a war of aggression against Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians, predominantly civilians, dead, and led the UN Goldstone Report to declare that Israel had committed war crimes. In the wake of this assault and to salvage its deteriorating image, Israel has redoubled its effort to "brand" itself as an enlightened liberal democracy. Arts and culture play a unique role in this branding campaign, as the presence of internationally acclaimed artists from the West is meant to affirm Israel’s membership in the West’s privileged club of "cultured," liberal democracies. But it should not be business as usual with a state that routinely violates international law and basic human rights.


After the Gaza assault and even more so after the flotilla massacre in May 2010, many international artists, intellectuals, and cultural workers have been rejecting Israel’s cynical use of the arts to whitewash its Apartheid and colonial policies. Among those who have supported the BDS movement are distinguished artists, writers, and anti-racist activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Adrienne Rich, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, and Alice Walker.




World-renowned artists, among them Bono, Snoop Dogg, Jean Luc Godard, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron, Carlos Santana, Devendra Banhart, Faithless and the Pixies have also cancelled their performances in Israel over its human rights record. Maxi Jazz (Faithless front-man) had this to say as he maintained his principled position not to entertain apartheid:



"While human beings are being willfully denied not just their rights but their needs for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals that [performing in Israel] is either 'normal' or 'ok'. It's neither and I cannot support it. It grieves me that it has come to this and I pray everyday for human beings to begin caring for each other, firm in the wisdom that we are all we have."




Please Say No to Performing in Israel


If you remain unconvinced because of claims that a cultural boycott of Israel may infringe on freedom of expression and cultural exchange, may we recall for you the judicious words of Enuga S. Reddy, director of the United Nations Center against Apartheid, who in 1984 responded to a similar criticism voiced against the cultural boycott of South Africa by saying:



"It is rather strange, to say the least, that the South African regime which denies all freedoms... to the African majority... should become a defender of the freedom of artists and sportsmen of the world. We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism. They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime."



Today, Palestinian civil society groups are calling on artists to shun Tel Aviv in the same way that South African activists called on artists to boycott Sun City. All we are asking is for you to act consistently in the spirit of your past social actions, and to refrain from crossing a picket line called by Palestinian society, endorsed by international organizations, and increasingly supported by progressive-Israelis. Palestinian civil society is asking this of you as the most essential contribution to their struggle to achieve peace and justice. We urge you to hear their call.


(Original lyrics are "This one goes out to the ones in need" from Bon Jovi's hit song We Weren't Born to Follow on their album The Circle. See here.)




- For more information regarding the work of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) contact: pacbi@pacbi.org and visit www.PACBI.org.






Signors:






Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)


Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel


South African Artists Against Apartheid


Creative Workers Union of South Africa (Affiliate of the Congress Of South African Trade Unions)


European Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (EPACBI)


Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (Occupied Ramallah)


Yabous Productions (Jerusalem)


Popular Art Centre (Al-Bireh, Occupied Ramallah)


Oriental Music Ensemble (Occupied Ramallah)


Palestinian Students for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PSACBI)


BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Israeli BDS activists)


Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK)


The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC)


British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)


US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)


Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)


International Jewish anti-Zionist Network


British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWISP)


Artists Against Apartheid (International Alliance)


Americans AGAINST Apartheid UK


Leeds Palestine Solidarity Campaign


International Solidarity Movement-France (ISM-France)


Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods


Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) UK


Queers Against Israeli Apartheid


Boicotisrael-Madrid


Educators for Peace and Justice (Toronto)


Tadamon! Montreal


Al-Awda NY: The Palestine Right To Return Coalition


New York City Labor Against the War


Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (InCACBI)


BDS Group Berlin


Action Group at KTH for Boycott of Israel (Sweden)


United4Palestine


Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (Toronto)


Australian Artists Against Israeli Apartheid (Australia)


Italian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (ICACBI)


Belgian delegation for the academic boycott of Israel


Berlin Academic Boycott (BAB)


Comissió Universitària Catalana per Palestina (CUNCAP)














:: Article nr. 73654 sent on 07-jan-2011 14:03 ECT


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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...