Saturday, January 20, 2024

South Africa 🇿🇦 said “never again” and lived up to it.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Remembering Tom Hurndall 1981-2004 Killed by an Israeli Snipper as he carried Palestinian Children to safety

What do I want from this life? What makes you happy is not enough. All the things that satisfy our instincts only satisfy the animal in us. I want to be proud of myself. I want more. I want to look up to myself and when I die, I want to smile because of the things I have done, not cry for the things I haven't done.
— Tom Hurndall

They shot our son but they can't kill his spirit.
— Anthony and Jocelyn Hurndall

Thomas Hurndall (27 November 1981 – 13 January 2004) was a British photography student, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. On 11 April 2003, he was shot in the head in the Gaza Strip by a (IDF) sniper, Taysir Hayb. Hurndall was left in a coma and died nine months later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hurndall

Nesrine Malik in The Guardian: It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

Nesrine Malik

Supporters of Palestine have long been told their position is fringe. But this case gives them legitimacy – and tests the limits of human rights

It was only a little over six hours of legal argument, but the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the international court of justice had decades of history bearing down on it. The specifics dealt with Israel’s assault on Gaza, but at its heart, the case was about something wider: closing the gap between Palestinian reality and how the dominant political forces describe it.

For weeks now, anger at events in Gaza has spilled out on to the streets across Europe. Yet this anger has been resolutely ignored, dismissed, banned, or vilified by political leaders. Public support for a ceasefire, now at more than 70% in the UK, is not reflected in the positions of either the government or the opposition. Globally, condemnation of the violence from human rights organisations, the United Nations and even the pope has yet to translate into meaningful action from political leaders.

A UN resolution calling for a ceasefire was blocked by the US. Even the language of protest has been forensically analysed to render it problematic or ignorant; protesters have been accused of... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/israel-trial-south-africa-icj-palestine?CMP=share_btn_fb

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Kitaba by Tala Abunuwar: We are not free till all of us are free! Thank you South Africa 🙏

kittaba by Tala Abunuwar

We all just want to be seen and heard. No exceptions! We are not free till all of us are free! Thank you South Africa https://www.instagram.com/p/C2AdPbprumk/

With love from Palestine to South Africa

Mosab Abu Toha: "She is reading from a book..."

'Stunned, angry, and infuriated': Journalists address US silence on colleagues killed in Gaza

Jan 14, 2024

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 82 journalists and media workers have died since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7th, making this war the deadliest in modern history for journalists. Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya are the latest journalists to be killed in the war. Hamza is the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza Bureau Chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife, daughter, another son, and grandson in an Israeli airstrike. Al-Dahdouh vows to continue reporting through his pain and loss.

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Ben & Jerry’s has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, making it one of the first multinational companies to do so since Israel began bombing civilians in Gaza over 100 days ago.

Dear President Biden - I have hope

Dear President Biden,

I have hope- hope that more concerned human beings will find the courage to nonviolently do all they can to convince Americans to stop funding and fueling Israel's racist rage and genocidal war against the native non-Jewish people of the Holy Land.

Yes you might have stopped reading right there, because you don't want to think of Israel as the villain: Beloved hymns and prayers sing Israel's praises. TV ads/entertainment/news & newspapers polish up Israel's image at every turn with both news & opinion pieces. And preachers hoping for End Times want all Jews to go there to be destroyed. There are many different and contradictory factors stoking the Zionist project.

I know that it is hard to understand and even harder to admit being wrong about our "friend" Israel, but we must. We must realize that even Oslo and the promise of a two state solution to end the Israel-Palestine conflict has been abused by sovereign Israel to further impoverish and displace the stateless Palestinians.

We should not be funding, arming, and excusing a nation state that bases citizenship rights and freedom on a person's religion or race. Kudos to South Africa for seeing and condemning Israel's Apartheid and genocidal war on Palestine, and kudos to all worldwide who never ever forget Palestine, and the very real plight and suffering of Palestinian individuals and families.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Religion should be a personal, private choice, not a state funded project