Category: News

Tent of Nations is a farm near Bethlehem, owned by the Nassar family, members of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Surrounded by Israeli settlements, their road blocked by Israeli soldiers, they operate the farm as a peace center, under their motto: “We refuse to be enemies.” Please read details of Monday’s attack and destruction of their orchards by Israeli soldiers and take action. Details below.

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Israeli forces destroyed an estimated 1,500 fruit trees belonging to
the Tent of Nations farm outside Nahalin village, in the Bethlehem
region of the occupied West Bank yesterday morning.

Owned by the Nassar family, the farm lies just below Neve Daniel, an
Israeli settlement, located in the Gush Etzion bloc. The property has
long been targeted by Israeli occupation authorities seeking to
confiscate the land and remove an obstacle to settlement expansion.

According to the family, soldiers arrived at their land early in the
morning, and in a couple of hours uprooted some 1,500 apricot and apple
trees, burying them under piles of soil. “This is going to make it very
difficult for us to recover and rehabilitate the land,” Daoud Nassar, a
member of the family, told me. Photographs are available on the
project’s Facebook page.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
NEWS FLASH

15 May 2014

Israeli forces display recklessness in killing of two protesters in West Bank

Israeli forces have displayed continuing recklessness in their use of force against Palestinian protesters when they killed a young man and a teenager, and injured others, during a crackdown on demonstrations to commemorate the Nakba in the occupied West Bank today, said Amnesty International.

The killings occurred in a demonstration outside Ofer military camp. As well as commemorating the Nakba (the dispossession of Palestinians in 1948), the demonstrators were expressing solidarity with around 125 Palestinian detainees who are being held by Israel without charge and have been on hunger strike for 22 days to protest their detention conditions.
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September 13, 2012
Peter Miller
With technical assistance by Steven Miller

On the second day of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, the world was treated to a spectacle of voter fraud on national TV.  The Democratic leadership, apparently at the behest of President Obama, brought forth last minute changes to the language of the Democratic platform that required a 2/3rd vote of the convention delegates.  There were two changes, quickly shown and obviously intended to be pushed through: introducing the word “God” into the platform, and affirming that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.  After three attempts and obviously lacking the required 2/3rd vote, the convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, ignored the voice of the delegates and continued reading the scripted proceedings from his teleprompter, announcing that the Ayes had won.  Amidst boos and looks of disgust, Villaraigosa soldiered on, the teleprompter trumping the vote.  Jon Stewart commented, “On the bright side we’ve finally discovered the evidence of Democratic voter fraud the Republicans are always complaining about.”

An audio analysis of the Yes (Aye) and No votes demonstrates that not only was there not a 2/3rd majority in favor of changing the language, but that the No vote was louder by at least 162% meaning that the changes were defeated by a majority of 62% to 38%.  This is close in fact to a two third majority in favor of the No votes.  Of course, if the votes had actually been counted, perhaps it would have gone differently, the loudness of the No votes might simply be evidence of the anger of delegates watching their democratic rights trampled before their eyes in the name of a foreign country. The one chance the delegates had to actually make a real decision at the convention, even though cynically presented to them, was shabbily and fraudulently denied them. 

As this little study makes it obvious, the voice vote extremely problematic as an measure of voter intent.  As was also obvious from the floor of the Democratic convention, people always have to struggle to make democracy work or it will not happen.

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(JTA) — Danny Glover and others featured in a documentary about a 98-year-old Asian-American activist are protesting the film’s screening at a Tel Aviv film festival.
In a statement released Monday, participants in “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” including Boggs, said they “formally stand with the people of Palestine,” support the call for a cultural and an academic boycott of Israel, and were “shocked” to find the film slated for inclusion at the Doc Aviv festival this week.
Boggs, a philosopher and writer who has been involved in left-wing American social movements, “has explicitly stated her support of the boycott and believes this screening is in direct contradiction to her legacy and ongoing work as a revolutionary,” the statement continued.
The producers posted the statement on the film’s website, but prefaced it by saying they had been “unaware that playing in the festival would be an issue for the participants of the film. We respect their position and regret the discomfort this has caused for them.”

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/05/13/default/danny-glover-among-protesters-of-documentarys-screening-in-tel-aviv

This is all over the wires, and it might be historic. John Kerry,
Secretary of State, blamed the Israelis for the breakdown of peace talks
during a hearing before
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. Israel failed to
release prisoners on time according to a deal it had with Palestinians,
then announced 700 settlement units– “poof!”– causing the latest
breakdown in the talks, Kerry said.

The Times had the story hours ago: ”Israeli Settlement Plan Derails Peace Talks, Kerry Says.”

The State Department has already sought to cover for Kerry, saying he meant that both sides are to blame.

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Appeals Court Upholds Olympia Food Co-op’s Boycott of Israeli Goods
press@ccrjustice.org

April 7, 2014, Seattle – Today, the Washington State Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by five members of the Olympia Food Co-op against current and former members of the Co-op’s Board of Directors for their decision to boycott Israeli goods. The court held that the lawsuit was a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, and that participation in the boycott is protected by the First Amendment. The court also affirmed $160,000 in statutory damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs for the board members, and awarded attorneys’ fees for the appeal. The lawsuit is part of a broader pattern of targeting pro-Palestinian activists in the United States, particularly in legislatures and across college campuses.

“Those who would try to intimidate concerned citizens speaking out on behalf of Palestinian human rights should take note,” said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Maria LaHood. “The law and history are on the side of peaceful boycotts for social change, and today’s ruling reaffirms that this time-honored tradition is protected by the First Amendment. Instead of trying to suppress speech calling for Palestinian human rights, opponents should address such speech on the merits.”   
 
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I am writing today to express grave concern about a wave of legislative measures in the United States aimed at punishing and intimidating those who speak their conscience and challenge the human rights violations endured by the Palestinian people. In legislatures in Maryland, New York, Illinois, Florida, and even the United States Congress, bills have been proposed that would either bar funding to academic associations or seek to malign those who have taken a stand against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

These legislative efforts are in response to a growing international initiative, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, of which I have long been a supporter. The BDS movement emanates from a call for justice put out by the Palestinian people themselves. It is a Palestinian-led, international non-violent movement that seeks to force theIsraeli government to comply with international law in respect to its treatment of the Palestinian people.

I have supported this movement because it exerts pressure without violence on the State of Israel to create lasting peace for the citizens of Israel and Palestine, peace which most citizens crave. I have witnessed the systematic violence against and humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation and pain is all too familiar to us South Africans.

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime. My conscience compels me to stand with the Palestinians as they seek to use the same tactics of non-violence to further their efforts to end the oppression associated with the Israeli Occupation.

The legislations being proposed in the United States would have made participation in a movement like the one that ended Apartheid in South Africa extremely difficult.

I am also deeply troubled by the rhetoric associated with the promulgation of these bills which I understand, in the instance of Maryland, included testimony comparing the boycott to the actions of the Nazis in Germany. The Nazi Holocaust which resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews is a crime of monstrous proportions. To imply that it is in any way comparable to a nonviolent initiative diminishes the horrific nature of that genocidal and tragic era in our world history.

Whether used in South Africa, the US South, or India, boycotts have resulted in a transformative change that not only brought freedom and justice to the victims but also peace and reconciliation for the oppressors. I strongly oppose any piece of legislation meant to punish or deter individuals from pursuing this transformative aspiration. And I remain forever hopeful that, like the nonviolent efforts that have preceded it, the BDS movement will ultimately become a catalyst for honest peace and reconciliation for all our brothers and sisters, both Palestinian and Israeli, in the Holy Land.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

This statement was issued by Oryx Media.

To all our Sabeel-Colorado trip friends:
 
On most of our Sabeel-Colorado trips we have visited Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem.  Usually Mark Brown, the Lutheran World Federation representative in Jerusalem, or his assistant — has explained how an institution of mercy has to function under conditions of occupation. 
 
Caught under the grinding political realties, Augusta Victoria has not received payment for medical services she has performed.  Help is needed to restore this funding lest the services be curtailed and greater suffering ensue.
 
So, now I am asking you to write/phone your elected officials in Washington and ask them to make this request of USAID. The situation at Augusta Victoria is explained below.  Please google your senators and congresspersons to obtain the needed contact information.
 
The facts:

• The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has run Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) for over 65 years. AVH provides life-saving care (specifically, providing oncology care not available elsewhere in Gaza or the West Bank). AVH is part of a consortium of East Jerusalem hospitals.
• A large percentage of AVH patients are referred to AVH by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA has not paid their bills to AVH in 14 months. The debt is now 25 million USD for AVH and nearly 40 million USD in total for the East Jerusalem and some West Bank hospitals. The debt is increasing 1.5 million USD each month for AVH. AVH bears the largest burden of this debt because of the expensive nature of the care.
• The PA has been unable to pay because some of the funding they receive from the Oslo agreement has been withheld to pressure them in the current peace negotiations.
• 200 million USD already has been appropriated by Congress to the PA and is now available for disbursement by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). We wish to request that 40-50 million USD of that amount be designated for humanitarian health care in East Jerusalem. This would help to cover the 25 million USD debt that AVH is now bearing.
• Our request is that elected officials make phone calls to USAID urging them to designate a portion of the 200 million USD for bills the PA has already incurred related to health care.
• In addition to the life-saving care provided by AVH, it also plays an important role in building Palestinian institutions and capacity for health care. The Hospital’s life-saving work also can help maintain a favorable atmosphere amongst Palestinians for a final status agreement between them and the Israelis.

Your follow up to what we experienced on our Sabeel trips is deeply appreciated.
 
Thank you, and blessings,
 
Arnie Voigt, arnievoigt  AT  msn   DOT  com

For more see: http://www.lutheranworld.org/news/critical-financial-situation-augusta-victoria-hospital-east-jerusalem