June 5th -- the anniversary of a war-- I think if black people aren't slaves in America any more & the US now has a black president, and if women can vote, and the Berlin wall fell, and Apertheid ended, if there is a list of child rights, and the Holocaust didn't exterminate the Jews, then of course Palestine will be free. And all the demons in hell, can't stop our freedom from coming. -- Ibtisam Barakat 2010
Palestine Investment Conference 2010
Yes, you can do business in the West Bank!
http://www.americantaskforce.org/daily_news_article/2010/06/04/1275624000_0
The U.S. Commercial Service in Jerusalem strongly encourages American exporters wishing to market their goods in the West Bank to use local Palestinian agents and distributors. Using Israeli agents for Palestinian markets does not utilize local, Palestinian market expertise...read more 
RE: Abbas makes promises to refugeesBy Rami G. Khouri
The first is the narrow technical level of who used force first - whether the Israeli attack was the problem or those on board who defended themselves against the Israelis triggered the fighting that resulted in death and injuries.
The second is the wider political context of the actions of both sides, raising important moral and legal issues - the long-running Israeli blockade and recent strangulation of the people of Gaza, and the growing Palestinian-international effort to break the Israeli siege and send basic humanitarian supplies to Gaza’s population.
The third level is Israel’s standing among the nations of the world. It is about how the entire modern Zionist movement that successfully created Israel as the homeland of the Jews who want to live there has found itself increasingly isolated because it ascribes to itself prerogatives that seem to place it above the laws that govern the conduct of all other states. This is why many have asked for years whether “Zionism is racism”.
The issues on all three levels are being widely discussed in the international media and political forums. The most important one, in my mind, is the third level - the hard questions about what Israel and Zionism have become, and how they relate to other people and states, beyond their conflict with the Palestinians and Arabs.
Are Israel and Zionism the noble manifestations of the Jewish people’s right to live in peace and security, without being subjected to genocidal pogroms - as Zionists portray their movement? Or have Zionism and Israel become so narrowly and blindly obsessed with their own needs that they have lost sight of the ethical foundations - justice, compassion, ethics-based law and equality for all humankind - that are widely seen as the core characteristics of Judaism, as of the other Abrahamic faiths?
Has Zionism, and by implication Israel and Judaism, been transformed from a commitment to preserving life to a media-based justification for siege, assault, piracy and murder?
These questions now being asked around the world are the deeper, more complex and often gut-wrenching ones that Israelis and Jews themselves need to debate and resolve. Israel wants to avoid this discussion, and prefers to keep the focus very narrow and technical. It has used its well-honed propaganda machine to shift the initial discussion in the international media to how a few passengers on one ship used sticks and knives to beat off the attacking Israeli commandos.
Jews were attacked by club- and knife-wielding mobs, the Israeli-Zionist refrain goes these days, and Jews must never again allow themselves to be attacked by mobs. In the wake of several hundred years of inhuman pogroms, racism and genocidal assaults against Jews mostly by white Christian Europeans, the message of Jewish self-defence carries special weight and resonance around the world - as it should. Yet the modern Jewish right to self-defence increasingly clashes with the modern Zionist and Israeli track record of aggression, ethnic cleansing, massacres, occupation, siege, collective punishment, low-intensity starvation, colonisation, and occasional bouts of barbarism against the Palestinians and other Arabs.
The practice of Israeli Zionism increasingly contradicts the ethical and moral foundations of historical Judaism: international law applies to the entire world, but the state of Israel reserves the special right to ignore and transcend that law, and to attack humanitarian convoys on the open seas, in the name of defending the Jewish people and their values.
Now, this Israeli-Zionist penchant for taking any measures deemed necessary to protect Jews has over-spilled the narrow conflict with Palestinians and Arabs, and has resulted in the death of Turks and a grave affront to the concept of the universality of international law.
Israel wants the world to get tangled up in an endless debate about a few knives and clubs. The world wants Israel to come to grips with the more fundamental issue of whether Israel respects the laws and norms that govern all humankind or behaves only according to an increasingly hysterical, violent and often murderous sense of its own perpetual victimhood.
Israel makes of its historical and permanent victimhood an absolute right to transform any place in the world into a free-fire zone and a killing field where it can run amok - in the name of protecting the Judaism that, in fact, it only increasingly besmirches and demeans.
Israel is becoming a new Jewish ghetto, increasingly isolated from and criticised by the world, and doubly tragic because this is largely the consequence of its own handiwork.
Jewish ethics hold human beings accountable to a higher moral code; does this also apply to Israel?
After years of marking time while negotiations with Israel went nowhere and Israeli colonisation proceeded apace, Ramallah is beginning to stir. One of the engines driving movement is the plan of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to build the infrastructure of a state and then unilaterally proclaim the state in August 2011.
It is interesting that there is now discussion of reviving the Palestinian pound, one of the key elements of statehood, independence and sovereignty. The restoration of the Palestine pound, once on a par with the British pound, would amount to a declaration of monetary and financial independence from Israel, which has held the Palestinian economy captive - along with the land - since the occupation in 1967.
Talk of a national currency coincides with the belated imposition of a ban on Palestinians working in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and a boycott of Israeli settlement produce, goods and services.
The PA is calling for $50 million for the national "Dignity Fund" established to pay half salaries for half a year to Palestinian workers who quit their settlement jobs and take up employment in the Palestinian private sector. The money would be channelled through employers and would encourage them to take on more workers, expand their businesses, and grow the small, weak Palestinian economy.
The time is right to impose this ban because the Palestinian construction sector is booming and can absorb labourers who left jobs in the settlements.
Initially, the workers resisted the idea of leaving their relatively well-paid jobs in the settlements. They argued that they would not get the same salaries working in the Palestinian private sector. Many of the 20,000 workers, particularly the 6,000 women, prefer to take menial jobs in the settlements rather than in their own communities. They have been given till the end of the year to comply with the ban or face heavy fines, or even imprisonment.
The ban amounts to a breakthrough in the thinking of Palestinian policy makers who are, at long last, preparing for the day when Palestine will separate from Israel - if ever it does.
Israel has long pursued a policy of "separation" - translated into South African terms, apartheid. This has been manifested in the construction of the West Bank wall, the denial of free movement to Palestinians, the cutting off of occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank hinterland, the imposition of a pass regime and the isolation of Gaza from the West Bank.
The PA took its time to react to Israel's "separation" policies because it did not wish to upset the negotiations applecart. Unfortunately, the PA discovered - almost too late - that the cart (the peace process) was rickety and there were no apples (benefits) to be had.
Fortunately, private individuals and groups took matters into their own hands. Some declared unofficial boycotts of not only settlement products but also Israeli goods. In 2000, during the opening weeks of the second Intifada, a group of Palestinian individuals formed a movement to promote a boycott of settlement goods. One of its founders, Salah Haniyeh, observed: "We were not connected with the PA and worked with the grassroots. While the PA did not stop us or support our campaign, we did not have the legitimacy to go to shops to ask them to stop stocking settlement products. This depended on the owners of factories and shops. They had to stop accepting settlement goods and start stocking Palestinian products. We made an awareness campaign through students and women."
He noted that women were particularly important because they decide what to buy for the home and family. The boycott succeeded in removing from the Palestinian market some soft drinks and bottled water originating in settlements.
At the end of last year, the government decided to join the boycott campaign. Thousands of volunteers wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan "Don't let settlements into your home" circulated in Palestinian towns and villages and handed out an 88-page guide listing settlement goods, services and manufacturers to be boycotted and giving instruction on how to participate. Palestinians are asked to sign the "karama", or "dignity", pledge to replace settlement products with local ones.
On April 26, President Mahmoud Abbas signed a law for the boycott of settlement products and it was promptly enforced. Lorries carrying asphalt and cement from settlements to the West Bank were turned away. The Ministry of Public Housing announced it would not use settlement materials in projects. Fruits and vegetables being sold in the West Bank were seized and burned or trashed. At least one settlement-based factory closed.
In tandem with the boycott, a consumers' protection society was established to oversee quality control and pricing of Palestinian products.
"This is very important. In 1987, during the first Intifada, we boycotted Israeli goods. Palestinian factories opened but after six months we saw that the products were not good quality and prices were high. Now we have institutions for standards and a hot line to the consumer protection society," stated Haniyeh.
He made the point that a boycott of settler goods and a ban on settlement employment does not violate the 1996 Paris protocol, which governs freedom of movement and trade in the occupied territories, or international law, which regards settlements as being illegal.
"We are beginning a popular battle, like the campaigns waged by Gandhi for Indian independence. The situation here is changing. The protests every Friday against the settlements and walls in the West Bank village of Bil'in have inspired 20 villages to join in. A small village can change the world."
By Taylor Luck
AMMAN - One of the largest service organisations in the world grew a little larger this week as Rotary International unveiled new clubs in Amman and Ramallah.
During a visit to the region, Rotary International President John Kenny unveiled the first Rotary club in Palestine, a club that was 17 years in the making.
“We are very proud to welcome our new members,” he said in a press conference in Amman on Tuesday.
According to Kenny, the focus of the Ramallah club will be children, with Palestinian Rotarians preparing an “ambitious” park programme entailing the establishment of 100 parks in Palestine.
“There are currently no parks in Ramallah for children, and the Ramallah club has shown interest in providing them spaces, and facilities for children with disabilities,” Kenny said.
Ramallah leaders are “proud” to have a club and to have the opportunity to give back to their community, Rotary International Director Phillip Rivers said.
He underlined how Rotary International aims to promote peace and understanding, pointing out that with the recent tensions in the region, “Rotary International is needed now more than ever.”
Jordanian Rotary clubs, which now number 10 after the introduction of a new Amman charter on Tuesday, will cooperate closely with the Ramallah branch, according to Usama Bargouthi, Rotary district governor nominee.
Jordanian Rotarians will attempt to apply successful programmes in Palestine, such as the Gift of Life initiative, which provides corrective heart surgery for children, and the establishment of a centre for the production of artificial limbs, he added.
“Rotary clubs in Jordan are our gateway to Ramallah,” Rivers said, noting that there has been “intense” interest among clubs across the region and the world for partnering with the new club.
In recent years, Jordan’s Rotary clubs have financed a microscope to examine cornea cells for the Jordan Eye Bank, provided a public park for Safawi residents, opened a brick factory to build limited-income housing in Al Adassia in addition to providing computers and educational programmes to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Bargouthi said.
Rotary clubs across the Kingdom are also embarking on a nationwide project to improve water access by digging wells for water harvesting in areas identified as water-poor, he noted.
Globally, Rotary International aims to improve literacy rates, eliminate hunger and ensure clean water and sanitation for communities in the developing world.
The international service organisation is still committed to the complete eradication of polio, Kenny pointed out, adding that “we are 99 per cent of the way there, but 99 per cent is still not good enough.”
Polio remains endemic in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, he said, underlining that in Tajikistan, polio made a return after two decades of its apparent eradication.
Rotary International, with the first branch established in Amman in 1956, played a large role in eradicating the disease in the Kingdom in 2001.
Rotary clubs are open to business and professional leaders who take an active role in their communities.
Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas around the world.
Palestinian activist wins Swedish prize
STOCKHOLM (AP) - Swedish organisers say a Palestinian peace activist has won the 2010 Anna Lindh prize for her work to promote nonviolence in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The 70-year-old Jean Zaru has been a teacher of religion and ethics at a school in Ramallah and written several books about non-violence. She will receive the 150,000 kronor ($19,000) award at a ceremony in Stockholm on June 10. The Anna Lindh memorial fund said Tuesday that Zaru was awarded for her "tireless work to build up a true peace culture and bring attention to all people's right to honorable and fair lives". The Anna Lindh award was established to honour the Swedish foreign minister who was stabbed to death in 2003. It supports those fighting prejudice and oppression.
Occupied with Nonviolence:
Issue No. 146, June 2010
Jaffa….. The Bride of the Mediterranean. Photo by Abdulrahman Hashem.
Akka’s harbour. Photo by Abdulrahman Hashem.
The Pisan Harbour in Akka. Photo by Abdulrahman Hashem.
Boats in Akka’s harbour.
Reconnaissance Family visit to Innabeh.
Walking through the rubble of Innabeh.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?id=3181&letter_id=5284085406
"Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: (i) resettlement in third countries, (ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or (iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside. What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer – a decision must not be imposed upon them." http://www.plomission.us/index.php?page=core-issues-3
On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. The USS Liberty Memorial web site tells their story and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died.
The Attack
After surveilling USS Liberty for more than nine hours with almost hourly aircraft overflights and radar tracking, the air and naval forces of Israel attacked our ship in international waters without warning. USS Liberty was identified as a US naval ship by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft nine hours before the attack and continuously tracked by Israeli radar and aircraft thereafter. Sailing in international waters at less than five knots, with no offensive armament, our ship was not a military threat to anyone.
The Israeli forces attacked without warning and without attempting to contact us. Thirty four Americans were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded. The ship, a $40-million dollar state-of-the-art signals intelligence platform, was later declared unsalvageable and sold for scrap...read more
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Washington’s unprecedented backing for a UN resolution for a nuclear-free Middle East that singles out Israel has both angered and deeply worried the Israeli government although officials are cagey about openly criticising their biggest ally.
The resolution adopted by the United Nations on Friday calls on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and urges it to open its facilities to inspection.
It also calls for a regional conference in 2012 to advance the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East.
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, with around 200 warheads, but has maintained a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its capabilities since the mid-1960s.
The document, which singles out Israel but makes no mention of Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, drew a furious reaction from Israel who decried it as “deeply flawed and hypocritical”.
But it was US backing for the resolution which has caused the most consternation among Israeli officials and commentators, who interpreted the move as “a resounding slap around the face” which has dealt a very public blow to Israel’s long-accepted policy of nuclear ambiguity.
Publicly, the Israel government has not criticised the US position but privately, officials expressed deep disappointment over the resolution, which Washington backed despite intensive Israeli efforts to block it.
According to the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “furious with the Obama administration for having failed to prevent the resolution from passing... and for choosing to support it”.
“The American support for the resolution, after decades in which it supported Israel on this issue, came as a complete surprise,” the paper said.
“In the secret talks that Netanyahu held with Obama’s men... Israel was promised that the resolution would not focus on Israel and that if it did, the Americans would vote against.”...read more
