Category: News

Barbara Lubin to speak on Palestinian children’s rights
at Tree of Life Conference: EYES ON GAZA
Saturday, October 17 at First Congregational United Church of Christ
1126 SW Park Avenue, Portland OR 97205

EYES ON GAZA is a three-day series of presentations, films and workshops
to educate and empower participants to work for a just peace in
Israel/Palestine. Tickets and schedule of events are at http://gazaconference.brownpapertickets.com

Barbara Lubin was born into a conservative Zionist family, but in 1988, after witnessing firsthand the grave injustice, poverty and violence engendered by the Israeli occupation of Palestine, she founded the Middle East Children’s Alliance to provide humanitarian aid, support projects for children, and educate Americans about the effects of U.S. foreign policy on children in the region.

Since then, MECA has delivered millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to children’s clinics, hospitals, schools, and women’s organizations in the Occupied Territories. MECA’s scholarship programs have enabled hundreds of talented young people to attend universities in Palestine and the U.S.
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Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei to report on Gaza health crisis
at Tree of Life Conference: Eyes On Gaza
Saturday, October 17 at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Portland
 
Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei, psychiatrist, is director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, which provides crisis intervention and rehabilitation services to families in Gaza traumatized by years of military bombardment and siege.  Virtually everyone in Gaza – children and adults alike – suffers from continuous traumatic stress disorder.   The GCMHP was established in 1990 to meet the mental health needs of people exposed on a daily basis to malnutrition, destruction of homes and livelihoods, injury, and loss of family members.
 
Dr. Abu Jamei lost many family members in the 2014 assault on Gaza when an Israeli air strike leveled his home. “There was no place for parents and children to hide,” he says. “You never knew where the bombs were going to fall.” Yet he chooses to stay and help the people of Gaza, saying, “In Gaza, you just have to start by doing something. Select anything that will do good, and that is the right thing to do.”
 
EYES ON GAZA is a three-day series of presentations, films and workshops designed to educate and organize participants to work for a just peace in Israel/Palestine. Tickets and schedule of events are at http://gazaconference.brownpapertickets.com .
 
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Please consider signing…and sharing:

A U.S. petition to arrest Netanyahu is circulating – ahead of his scheduled UN General Assembly address in New York later this month. It aims for 100,000 signatures or more before his arrival – sending a message saying his genocidal crimes can’t be ignored.
A petition in the U.K. to arrest him got over 110,000 signatures so far. His longstanding record of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity demands accountability.
If you are a U.S. citizen, Sign the U.S. petition. Take a stand for justice. Let We the People mean something.

Petition:   https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/netanyahu-hold-talks-new-york-month-under-international-law-he-should-be-arrested-war-crimes

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Netanyahu is to hold talks in New york this month. Under international law he should be arrested for war crimes.
Benjamin Netanyahu to be arrested for war crimes when he arrives in New york

Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold talks in New york this September. Under international law he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the U.S for the massacre of over 2000 civilians in 2014

Published Date:
 Sep 08, 2015

At present, no issue facing this
country is more important than approving President Obama’s nuclear deal with
Iran. The moment for this peaceful, diplomatic breakthrough must not be allowed
to pass. Though the Iran Nuclear deal now seems to have enough votes to sustain
a veto, we must not relax our efforts to support the deal. People do change
their minds, and merely surviving a veto is a very low bar for a deal of such
importance.

It is important to continue to rally support
for the deal for other reasons. Rarely has a political issue been surrounded by
more falsehood, deception, and hyperbole. Among the people who argue that we should reject Obama’s deal and bomb Iran
immediately are Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Bill Kristol and Benjamin
Netanyahu—the same cast that gave us the debacle of the Iraq war. They were
dead wrong then and they are using the same bad arguments now. We must continue
to educate people about how misguided and bigoted these hawkish opponents to
the deal really are.

Wide
opposition to the treaty also reveals how misinformed the American public and
many of their elected representatives are. The difference in quality between
the arguments of the backers and the opponents of the deal provides a good
basic roadmap to sorting out the truth of this issue.

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Israel is considering giving its security forces a freer hand to shoot at young Palestinian stone-throwers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday.

Under standing orders, Israeli soldiers facing violent Palestinian protests can open fire with live bullets only in life-threatening situations. That effectively bans firing at Palestinians who flee after hurling a rock or petrol bomb.

But after meeting with several cabinet ministers and security chiefs to discuss an increase in stone-throwing in Jerusalem and on a highway in the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu suggested the rules could be hardened.

“Since the justice system finds it difficult to deal with minors who throw rocks, changes to orders on opening fire towards stone- and petrol bomb-throwers will be examined,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Netanyahu was quoted as saying at the session that his government’s policy was one of “zero tolerance towards stone-throwing and zero tolerance towards terror.”

Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, criticized the potential new policy.

“This rightist Israeli fanatic government is pursuing its criminal policy to kill Palestinians. The new regulations would mean more escalation, killings and crimes against our people” he told Reuters.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since 2014 and while violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has not approached the levels of past Palestinian uprisings, there has been a surge of Palestinian stone-throwing, long a symbol of resistance to Israeli occupation.

While tougher action against Palestinian stone-throwers would likely draw international concern, Netanyahu’s government and the military have been facing calls from Israeli settler leaders in the West Bank for a security crackdown.

Those demands mounted after a video last week that showed a masked Israeli soldier being hit and bitten by relatives of a Palestinian boy – a suspected rock-thrower whom he had placed in a headlock. On Israeli social media, many asked why the infantryman had not fought back or even used his assault rifle.

In July, Israel’s parliament imposed tougher penalties of up to 20 years in prison for people throwing rocks at vehicles, after a wave of Palestinian protests in occupied East Jerusalem.

But no such punishments have been reported since the new legislation was approved, and the measure does not apply to the occupied West Bank, where Israeli military law is in effect and stone-throwing.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem lists 12 Palestinian minors who were shot and killed by Israeli forces during protests and clashes in the West Bank in 2014. In at least four of those incidents, Israel said the youngsters had been throwing rocks or petrol bombs, according to B’Tselem.

Since 2011, three Israelis, including a baby and a girl, have been killed in the West Bank after rocks were thrown at vehicles they were traveling in.

Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/320288/benjamin-netanyahu-threatens-shoot-to-kill-crackdown-on-stone-throwers/#ixzz3kh991R28

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oregon’s Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley on Sunday became the 31st senator to announce support for the Iran nuclear deal, as momentum builds behind the agreement the Obama administration and other world powers negotiated with Tehran.

Merkley’s backing puts supporters within reach of the 34 votes required to uphold a presidential veto of a congressional resolution disapproving the agreement, which curbs Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
Read more

I
am honored to speak on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace, which stands in
solidarity with the people of Iran, the people of the U.S., and people of
conscience across our precious planet who yearn for our leaders to courageously
move us towards peaceful relations with Iran and away from setting us on a path
that, once on it, one simple miscalculation, might lead us inexorably toward
war with Iran.

 

If
you thought the Iraq war was a tragic disaster, get this:

Iran
is a regional power with a strong military. 
It is three times as populous and geographically much larger than
Iraq.  So, multiply everything in the
Iraq War by three to get a sense of the cost of a war against Iran:

Immediate cost: $3 trillion

Long term cost, including veteran care:  at least 10 trillion dollars

US troops killed: over 15,000

US troops seriously wounded: over 100,000

Iranian dead: 3 million

Iranians displaced: 12-15 million!

 

Let’s
be clear:  the U.S. has long had Iran
virtually encircled as a result of the American occupation of Afghanistan on
Iran’s Eastern border, its invasion of Iraq on its Western border, its NATO
ally Turkey hovering on Iran’s Northwestern border, some degree of military relationship with
Turkmenistan on Iran’s Northeastern border, and multiple U.S. client states
sitting right across the Persian Gulf (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and
Bahrain, where the massive US 5^th
Fleet is stationed).
Additionally, some combination of the U.S. and Israel has bombarded Iran with
multiple acts of war in recent years, including explosions on Iranian soil, the
murder of numerous Iranian
nuclear scientists, and sophisticated cyber-attacks.

 
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Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students, and organizations have launched a statement
expressing their solidarity and commitment to ensuring justice for
Palestinians. Signatories to the statement span a wide cross-section of
Black activists and scholars, including Angela Davis, Boots Riley,
Cornel West, dream hampton, Emory Douglas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa,
Patrisse Cullors, Phil Hutchings, Ramona Africa, Robin DG Kelley, Rosa
Clemente, Talib Kweli, and Tef Poe. 38 organizations signed on,
including The Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Institute of the Black
World 21st Century, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Organization for
Black Struggle.

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Israel’s Military Intelligence monitoring dozens of BDS groups around the world

While the IDF is responsible for foreign groups, local groups supporting BDS are monitored by the Shin Bet.

The Israel Defense Forces routinely gathers information on foreign, left-wing organizations that it believes are working to delegitimize the State of Israel, Haaretz has learned.

Read more on Haaretz

PRESS RELEASE
 
UN Officials call for an immediate demolitions freeze in the West Bank

Jerusalem, 18 August 2015
 
Today, the Coordinator for Humanitarian and UN Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Robert Piper, and the Director of UNRWA Operations West Bank, Felipe Sanchez, expressed grave concern about demolitions that were carried out yesterday by the Israeli Civil Administration in vulnerable Palestinian Bedouin refugee communities in Area C, near East Jerusalem. The officials both called for an immediate freeze on demolitions in the West Bank.

A total of 22 structures were demolished in four communities (Khan al Ahmar Abu Falah, Wadi Sneysel, Bir Miskoob and Az Zayyem Bedouin), displacing 78 Palestinians, including 49 children, the vast majority of whom are Palestine refugees. All four communities are located in and around the area of the planned E-1 settlement. According to UN records, this is the largest number of Palestinians displaced in the West Bank in one day in nearly three years. Concerns are also rising over reports of new displacements today in the Jordan Valley community of Fasayil al Wusta.

“Yesterday’s demolitions targeted some of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank,” Mr. Piper said. “The scale of displacement is particularly concerning – nearly 50 children lost their homes yesterday.”

“Many of these refugee families have now been displaced four times in the last four years” said Mr. Sanchez.
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