On the Sixth Anniversary of the Intifada... STOP the WAR AGAINST THE ARAB PEOPLE! >From Palestine to Lebanon, from Iraq to Brooklyn...
March and Rally Saturday, September 30th Gather at 12 Noon March steps off at 1:00 p.m. Grand Army Plaza, at the Fountain Brooklyn, NY Subway: 2 or 3 to Grand Army Plaza
Join the Coalition in Solidarity with the Arab People to march on the sixth anniversary of the Intifada to stop the war against the Arab people! We demand:
* Stop war on the Arab world! * Immediate & Unconditional Right to return for all Palestinian refugees! * End the occupation of historic Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and everywhere! * End all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel * Release all political prisoners! * Support the people's right to resist!
We stand united in our opposition to US war, empire, occupation and racism everywhere, from Afghanistan to Brooklyn, and in solidarity with the people of Iran and Syria against the ongoing threats of war.
Join us to march, and raise our voices for justice!!
The Coalition in Solidarity with the Arab People (Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition - NY; American-Iranian Friendship Committee; Anakbayan NY/NJ; Arab American Association of New York; Arab Muslim American Federation; BAYAN USA; International Action Center; International League of People's Struggle; Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine; New York City Labor Against the War; New York Committee to Defend Palestine; Pakistan-USA Freedom Forum; Workers World Party)
Also endorsed by: Million Worker March Movement (East), New York Committee to Free the Cuban Five, Queers For Palestine-East Coast
Endorse the demonstration! Send your endorsements to info @ al-awdany.org or call 718-228-8636!
For more information, to join the coalition, and to get involved, please contact: Al-Awda NY http://www.al-awdany.org 718-228-8636 info @ al-awdany.org
Campaign for Accountability Fact-Finding & Solidarity Delegation in Lebanon
Today, a fact-finding delegation, organized by Ramsey Clark and the Campaign for Accountability, arrived in Beirut, Lebanon. The delegation will be visiting the devastated country and filing daily reports.
This fact-finding and solidarity delegation is the next step after the very successful August 30th opening session of the Campaign for Accountability. This meeting, held at the UN Church Center in NYC, drew more than 250 people and eyewitness and expert testimony. For an initial report and to download some of the materials from the initial meeting, go to PeopleJudgeBush.org.
The delegation is planning to head to southern Lebanon today, to view some of the areas hit hardest by the U.S./Israeli attacks. They are also meeting with local politicians and community organizers. It is vital that the people of the U.S. let the people of Lebanon know that we do not support the brutal foreign policy of George W. Bush. This delegation is a concrete way to demonstrate our solidarity with the people of Lebanon, and with all of the people of the region who struggle against U.S./Israeli oppression and occupation.
The delegation will also be meeting with political leaders and community organizers in Lebanon. We cannot leave it to the State Department to decide what voices can be heard, and we cannot allow them to criminalize as 'terrorists' anyone who defies Bush's plans for a 'New Middle East.'
We need your help to build launch this Campaign for Accountability. With the materials gathered by the delegation and assembled in the initial forum of the Campaign for Accountability, we plan to assist and organize meetings, teach-ins, and forums across the U.S. The poeple of the U.S. have a right and an obligation to let We need your help to do this. Please contact us if you are interested in organizing a local meeting. We also need help with the enormous costs of this campaign--renting meeting spaces, printing literature, producing multimedia presentations, etc. Please consider making a donation to help build this campaign.
We arrived in Beirut, Lebanon today after flying into Amman, Jordan yesterday--where the first signs as we walked into the terminal in Amman were those of greeters waiting to receive people off our flight from DynCorp and Black Water--the same mercenary corporations that the rich hired in New Orleans to protect their property after Katrina. These free-lance mercenaries were most likely headed to Iraq.
Today, we went to the neighborhood of Haret el Hreik in South Beirut, a large Shiite community, where Hezbollah has strong support and Hezbollah television station Al Manar was housed. Israel razed the station in their first days of bombing, as well as most of the neighborhood of seven or eight story apartment buildings, to the ground. Huge craters were all that remain of many buildings--craters created not by the excavation of the debris, but by the magnitude and force of the bombs dropped.
The woman we are staying with told us that Israeli planes dropped flyers telling the people to flee their homes before the bombing began. When we asked her whether she had copies of the flyer, she said no--like others, she was too afraid to leave the house because Israel was randomly targeting people on the street.
Under a rain of thousands of bombs targeting hundreds of buildings, people fled the neighborhood. Today we could see men, women and children returning to the area to sort through the rubble for anything they could find that remained of their homes. The destruction is devastating in a way that I can't even put into words.
And yet the work of cleaning out the debris -- a monumental task -- has already been undertaken by Hezbollah. The resistance movement has crews in the area, loading debris onto trucks and cleaning out shattered apartments. We watched several workers carefully removing furniture from an apartment on the fifth floor of a ruined building, as a service to the family that resided there. And with all this work going on, workers today had hosed down a large area and were setting up plastic lawn chairs and speakers for a religious event they were having tonight--we were told that Hezbollah organized it so that the neighborhood could feel like it was getting back to its life.
On our way, we passed one of the many highway overpasses that had been bombed during the Israeli assault. While traffic was definitely slower because of the damage, what we noticed was that the area beneath the break had already been cleaned, and people were sitting around it leisurely, even selling their wares to cars that passed by. The images of a trip I took to New Orleans after Katrina came to my mind over and over today--where, in the same amount of time, nothing had been done to restore the area for the people who lived there; and where, I know, one year later, little-to-nothing has been done.
We were able to talk to some of the workers and neighborhood residents. What struck me the most about our conversations is that every single person told us, "The Lebanese people are not against the people of the United States. We know the difference between the people of the U.S. and its government, and it is its terrorist government that we are against." There was a clear understanding that this most recent attack of Israel on Lebanon was sanctioned and funded by the U.S.
Hezbollah has adopted the slogan "The Divine Victory," and beautiful signs can be seen throughout Beirut with this message in English and Arabic--some emblazoned with pictures of katuschkas, some of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Other billboards emphasized the overwhelming civilian toll with pictures of wounded children and the Israeli term that they only struck, "extremely precise targets." On top of the ruins of bombed out apartments and other buildings, signs read "Made in U.S.A." and "The New Middle Beast." It appears that the "Divine Victory" slogan serves not only as a reminder of the great triumph that the Lebanese resistance movement has just won; but also as motivation for the ongoing struggle, the struggle against imperialism that the resistance movement here is confident will be won.
Tony Blair was in Beirut today, and protests were scheduled. There is also a demonstration being called to mark the anniversary of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, here in Beirut, on Friday. Stay posted.
Campaign for Accountability for U.S./Israeli War Crimes
August 28, 2006
Join us Wednesday 6 - 9 pm United Nations Church Center 777 UN Plaza - 44th St. & 1st Ave, NYC Momentum for the Campaign for Accountability for U.S./Israeli War Crimes is building. The campaign has received thousands of endorsements from across the globe over the past weeks as the world learns more and more about the horrific crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel in Lebanon and Palestine.
A recently released report from Amnesty International accuses the Israeli Army of deliberately attacking civilian targets -- a crime under international law. Even the U.S. has been forced to respond to global outrage by announcing an "investigation" of Israeli use of cluster bombs against civilians. However, the U.S. has been pressured into conducting several investigations of this sort in previous decades, but this never stopped the flow of arms and military aid to Israel. And it never stopped the brutal crimes against the people of Palestine and Lebanon. The only force that will stop the U.S./Israeli crimes against humanity is a global peoples movement to demand justice.
We need your help to build launch this Campaign for Accountability. In just a few days, we will hold our initial session in New York City's U.N. Church Center. Over the next few months, we plan to assist and organize similar sessions across the U.S.--in schools, community centers, churches and mosques--to expose U.S./Israeli War Crimes. We need your help to do this. Please consider joining us in our initial session on August 30 in NYC. If you are unable to do so, contact us about organizing a local meeting. We also need help with the enormous costs of this campaign--renting meeting spaces, printing literature, producing multimedia presentations, etc. Please consider making a donation to help build this campaign.
A message from Ramsey Clark:
Dear Friends,
On August 30, 2006 the International Action Center will launch a major campaign to require accountability by the United States and Israel for their wars of aggression and assaults on the equal sovereignty of nations, which are crimes against peace, and their war crimes which include excessive force,
AUGUST 30 Wednesday 6 - 9 pm United Nations Church Center 777 UN Plaza - 44th St. & 1st Ave, NYC
indiscriminate bombing, targeting civilians and civilian facilities and collective punishments of entire populations.
Reparations are required for more than a thousands deaths, many thousands of injures and an estimated $10 billion for destruction of civilian facilities in Lebanon in one month alone; and thousands of deaths and injuries in Palestine since the Oslo Accords, the systematic destruction of the government of Palestine, the kidnapping of half the cabinet and the speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, the assassination of leaders and indiscriminate killing of others, and the destruction of the offices of President Arafat, the Foreign Ministry and civilian facilities throughout Gaza and the West Bank.
If the present ceasefire does not hold, bolder action must be taken. There must be absolute assurance from the U.S. and Israel that they will honor the equal sovereignty of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran and recognize and honor the sovereignty of the State of Palestine, cruelly delayed for 58 years. Individuals in the U.S. and Israeli governments must be held accountable by prosecution for their criminal acts, and responsible leaders must be removed from office by impeachment in the U.S. and appropriate legal action in Israel.
The new tragedy of Lebanon has brought death to hundreds of civilians, children, women and men. Hundreds of thousands, approaching one-fourth the population of four million, are fugitives from their homes within and outside of their country. Destruction of the infrastructure will require decades to rebuild, if and when peace comes. Rage at Israel and the U.S. dominate all other emotions in Lebanon and throughout the Muslim world. New anger is spreading over every continent.
If the capture of two soldiers, or one in the case of Palestine, justifies assaults against whole nations and peoples, as Israel has done, then there is no law, no alternative to war, no hope for peace. Only a person with a memory no longer than three weeks could believe the capture of three Israeli soldiers began the present violence. Was not cross-border violence between Israel and Lebanon commonplace for decades? Had not Israel kidnapped half the Palestinian cabinet, destroyed its Foreign Ministry offices and other government buildings and engaged in summary executions throughout Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, since the elections this year of the Hamas majority in the Palestinian parliament? Was there not a continuum of assaults at will against the Palestinian people over decades?
We must ask whether the forced withdrawal of Syrian peacekeepers from Lebanon earlier this year by the U.S., and Israeli political pressure after the murder of former Lebanon Prime Minister Hariri, were the preludes of a plan for Israel to assault Lebanon and reoccupy territories up to the Litani river in Southern Lebanon. While Syrian forces were present in Lebanon, such an assault did not occur.
And we must ask whether the fierce assault on Lebanon and Palestine are the prelude to broader actions against Syria and Iran. President Bush has made it abundantly clear that he would like nothing better than regime change in Iran and Syria and has attempted to lay responsibility for violence in Lebanon and Palestine at their door.
As Iraq descends into uncontrollable sectarian war, President Bush needs new threats to distract the attention of people in the U.S. from what his Shock and Awe policy has brought for Iraq, for us, and for the world. War in Lebanon helps divert attention temporarily and may serve to widen the conflict to include Syria and/or Iran. If not, there are always Cuba, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela and others to act against.
As with Iraq, in Lebanon we have seen a war of aggression, the supreme international crime; an attack on the equal sovereignty of Lebanon, violating the First Principle of the United Nations Charter; excessive force of a major magnitude, with Israeli planes striking a nation defenseless against aerial assaults; indiscriminate bombing; targeting of civilians; and collective punishment, in which everyone in Lebanon suffers.
The future of Palestine remains the central issue for peace in the Middle East. That future is more endangered than at any time since the Oslo Accords. Everyone in Palestine suffers from the violence unleashed on its people by Israel’s renewed Roadmap to War.
President George Bush supports every act of Israel, every strike against Lebanon and Palestine, alone among international heads of government. And Condoleezza Rice congratulates the Prime Minister of Lebanon for his courage while telling him there must be further destruction of his nation and government--an insult to every human being who cares about peace and understands that the world cannot be made safe for hypocrisy.
By permitting President Bush to pursue his policy of domination through threat and lawless force, we risk ever widening international violence.
I hope to see you at the UN Church Center on August 30th . This historic meeting will be the first in a series of national and international mass public gatherings in a Campaign for Accountability for U.S./Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon. We need your support, participation, and donations.
I hope that you will lend a hand to this campaign as best you can. We must persevere until peace prevails.
Sincerely, Ramsey Clark P.S. By making a donation, you will support the August 30th event and the ongoing work of the Campaign of Accountability, including videos and podcasts, international dissemination of testimony given at that event and other information giving the truth about U.S./Israeli war crimes.
No Justice, No Peace - U.S. Out of the Middle East
No Justice - No Peace - U.S. Out of the Middle East!
August 5
Support the Palestinian and Lebanese Peoples' Right to Resist!
End the Occupation of IRAQ, PALESTINE and LEBANON
Support the Palestinian People's Right to Return
U.S./Israeli Troops Out Now
No More Fighting and Dying for Oil Profits
STOP U.S. Aid to Israel
What you can do to help:
* Join us for a work session Friday, from 2 pm to 7 pm and Saturday, from1 pm to 3 pm, at our new office at 55 W. 17th St. 5th Floor. We will need help assembling placards, painting banners, and preparing other materials for Saturday's demonstration.
* Help get the word out. We have only two more days to get out tens of thousands of flyers, stickers, and posters. Come by our office (55 W. 17th St. 5th Floor) and pick up materials to get out in your neighborhood, on the subways, in your workplace, etc.
* Volunteer during Saturday's demonstration. We will need volunteers to help collect names, hand out literature, staff tables, and to help with takedown after the closing rally. Look for the Troops Out Now table to volunteer.
* Donate to help with the enormous expenses of organizing national demonstrations.
* Download leaflets. We have local and national leaflets available in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
* At Saturday's demo, look for the Troops Out Now table to buy your bus tickets for the August 12th National March on Washington.
STAND WITH THE PEOPLE OF LEBANON AND PALESTINE AGAINST U.S.-ISRAELI TERROR AND WAR CRIMES
Wednesday, July 26Friday, July 28
6:00 P.M. 3:30 to 6:30 P.M. Union Sq. South Israeli government offices 14 Street and Broadway 801 Second Avenue (42 and 43 Sts.) Called by the Arab Community of Brooklyn
With the full backing of the U.S. government, Israel continues to unleash its U.S. funded military might on the civilian and refugee populations of Lebanon and Palestine. Israel has killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over half a million people, while intentionally targeting the infrastructure of Lebanon and Gaza with missiles and bombs. With their propaganda, the U.S. and Israel also demonize Iran and Syria, in a bloodthirsty attempt to expand their war crimes further throughout the region. All the while the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq. The onslaught against the Arab world expands and continues, and we stand up to say no more!
Join Al-Awda New York on Wednesday, July 26th at 6:00 p.m. in Union Square at 14th St. to rally against the war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon!
Stop the War on Lebanon and Palestine!!
Freedom for All Arab Political Prisoners in Zionist and U.S. Jails!! End US Aid to Israel Now!! The People of Palestine Have the Right to Return!!
Join Awda NY and other Arab and community organizations again on Friday, July 28th from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 at the Zionist Consulate at 42nd St. and 2nd Ave.
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on all youth and rank and file GI’s to…
RESIST! Don’t Enlist! Don’t Go!
Don’t fight, die, or massacre for big oil!
Our fight is at home against poverty, war and racism!
My Lai, Vietnam, 1968. Haditha, Iraq, 2005. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush hate it when anyone mentions these two events—these two war crimes—in the same breath. All the more reason to examine them closely, to see that they have the same basis that they spell out the same lesson.
Thirteen-year-old Safa Yunis was the family’s only survivor. She says U.S. Marines slaughtered her father and mother, Khafif and Aeda Yasin Ahmed, her four sisters aged 14, 10, 5 and 3, her 8-year-old brother, and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family. Neighbors said the family members were shot at close range or killed by grenades. The children died screaming. Safa survived because she was covered in her mother’s blood when she fell to the floor. The Marines thought she was dead.
Pentagon officers are expected to announce a judgment on the Haditha war crime. Will they call it murder? Will they instead excuse the young Marines who killed the Iraqi children, women and men that day last November? What they won’t do is put the blame where it belongs first of all: on those who conspired to invade Iraq, on those who lied to justify this conspiracy, on those who put U.S. young men and women in the horrible position where they kill babies. For if there were really justice not only the Marines would be put on trial but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their whole gang who sent these Marines to kill for power, for “strategic interests”, for oil profits.
What is the lesson of My Lai and of Haditha? It’s that when an occupation army is ordered to suppress a resistance movement (in Iraq this is called the “insurgency”) that has popular support, then it commits war crimes. The young Marines know that all the Iraqis hate them, including the civilians, including the children. So when they attack, they kill civilians. They kill children. When this is done with bombs from airplanes, it is called “collateral damage” in Pentagon newspeak.
It is ridiculous to think that a “refresher course” in military ethics will change the situation. The Marines are ordered to go in and win a battle. Rep. John Murtha saw this happen in Vietnam and has exposed this latest war crime in Haditha. But we have to go further than Murtha in our conclusions from these facts. There is no longer a way to hide the criminal nature of the war. It is out there before the world. And there are very few “ethical” or honorable choices before the young Marines, soldiers and other U.S. combat troops if they want to avoid being war criminals. Their only choice is to refuse to take part in these military operations in Iraq. This is a heroic choice but it is also the only honorable choice. And it is up to the anti-war movement to give every support possible to those who refuse.
The movement should bring this same message to recruiting offices around the country. Appeal to the youths to refuse to sign up for the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army and the National Guard. Otherwise they may be placed in the position of being war criminals. Not signing up is an easier choice than refusing to fight once in Iraq, but it is still a sacrifice to those without jobs or future in civilian life. So the anti-war movement should also be dedicated to fighting for jobs for all and for education for all.
Organize Emergency Protests at Recruiting Centers…
In New York City…Fri., June 9th, 5 P.M.- 6 P.M. at the Chambers St. Recruiting Station (address & subway info) For more information contact the Troops Out Now Coalition at 212-633-6646 or www.troopsoutnow.org
Say No to U.S. War Crimes! RESIST! Don’t Enlist! Don’t Go!
Friday June 9 5-6 pm Chambers Street Recruiting Station 157 Chambers St. (take 1 or 9 train to Chambers St.)
For more information contact the Troops Out Now Coalition at 212-633-6646 or www.troopsoutnow.org Troops Out Now Coalition Statement:
My Lai, Vietnam, 1968. Haditha, Iraq, 2005
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on all youth and rank and file GI’s to…
RESIST! Don’t Enlist! Don’t Go!
Don’t fight, die, or massacre for big oil!
Our fight is at home against poverty, war and racism!
My Lai, Vietnam, 1968. Haditha, Iraq, 2005. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush hate it when anyone mentions these two events—these two war crimes—in the same breath. All the more reason to examine them closely, to see that they have the same basis that they spell out the same lesson.
Thirteen-year-old Safa Yunis was the family’s only survivor. She says U.S. Marines slaughtered her father and mother, Khafif and Aeda Yasin Ahmed, her four sisters aged 14, 10, 5 and 3, her 8-year-old brother, and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family. Neighbors said the family members were shot at close range or killed by grenades. The children died screaming. Safa survived because she was covered in her mother’s blood when she fell to the floor. The Marines thought she was dead.
Pentagon officers are expected to announce a judgment on the Haditha war crime. Will they call it murder? Will they instead excuse the young Marines who killed the Iraqi children, women and men that day last November? What they won’t do is put the blame where it belongs first of all: on those who conspired to invade Iraq, on those who lied to justify this conspiracy, on those who put U.S. young men and women in the horrible position where they kill babies. For if there were really justice not only the Marines would be put on trial but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their whole gang who sent these Marines to kill for power, for “strategic interests”, for oil profits.
What is the lesson of My Lai and of Haditha? It’s that when an occupation army is ordered to suppress a resistance movement (in Iraq this is called the “insurgency”) that has popular support, then it commits war crimes. The young Marines know that all the Iraqis hate them, including the civilians, including the children. So when they attack, they kill civilians. They kill children. When this is done with bombs from airplanes, it is called “collateral damage” in Pentagon newspeak.
It is ridiculous to think that a “refresher course” in military ethics will change the situation. The Marines are ordered to go in and win a battle. Rep. John Murtha saw this happen in Vietnam and has exposed this latest war crime in Haditha. But we have to go further than Murtha in our conclusions from these facts. There is no longer a way to hide the criminal nature of the war. It is out there before the world. And there are very few “ethical” or honorable choices before the young Marines, soldiers and other U.S. combat troops if they want to avoid being war criminals. Their only choice is to refuse to take part in these military operations in Iraq. This is a heroic choice but it is also the only honorable choice. And it is up to the anti-war movement to give every support possible to those who refuse.
The movement should bring this same message to recruiting offices around the country. Appeal to the youths to refuse to sign up for the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army and the National Guard. Otherwise they may be placed in the position of being war criminals. Not signing up is an easier choice than refusing to fight once in Iraq, but it is still a sacrifice to those without jobs or future in civilian life. So the anti-war movement should also be dedicated to fighting for jobs for all and for education for all.
For more information contact the Troops Out Now Coalition at 212-633-6646 or www.troopsoutnow.org
The Troops Out Now Coalition (TONC) is a national grassroots coalition of antiwar activists, trade unionists, solidarity activists and community organizers.
For more information, or to find out how you can get involved, visit our homepage at TroopsOutNow.org
