Please join New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine for...
LEBANON: FROM DESTRUCTION TO RESISTANCE Saturday, January 13, 2007 3:00 PM Old Bergen Church 1 Highland Ave. at the corner of Highland and Bergen Jersey City, NJ
(minutes from Journal Square - take the PATH to Journal Square, and walk down Bergen Ave. to the church)
In the past year, the people of Lebanon weathered a brutal Israeli invasion that saw over a thousand Lebanese killed, massive destruction to Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, including airports, roads and bridges, the dropping of over a million cluster bombs on Lebanon, and a wholesale attack on the Lebanese people; a complement to the ongoing Zionist war on the Arab people of Palestine.
Since the people of Lebanon, and their resistance forces, repelled the invasion, the people's movement in Lebanon has only grown stronger, despite the massive destruction. Surging from their resistance, millions of Lebanese have taken to the streets of Beirut, filling the squares and staying in downtown Beirut, struggling to achieve their demands.
See a powerful film documenting the human cost of the war on Lebanon, and hear from an activist who recently returned from Lebanon, where he attended the massive demonstrations in Beirut...
Film Showing: "SAMIDOUN" ("Steadfastness") - a multi-media journey through the 34 day war in Lebanon and its aftermath, by Ana Nogueira and Andrew Stern - Samidoun is a multimedia presentation of the recent war in Lebanon and its aftermath, produced by award-winning independent reporters Ana Nogueira and Andrew Stern. Interweaving still photography, audio and video, Samidoun is a uniquely intimate look at the human cost of this conflict that took the lives of over 1200 people, wounded thousands more, and displaced over one million.
Speaker: BILL DOARES, a New York-based activist with the International Action Center and Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, who recently returned from a month in Lebanon with a delegation that attended a major international solidarity conference in Beirut, toured the towns of South Lebanon deeply impacted by the war on Lebanon, and attended the major demonstrations in Beirut, speaking with participants, organizers and leaders.
Please join us for this informative and powerful event!
STOP the WAR AGAINST THE ARAB PEOPLE! From Palestine to Lebanon, from Iraq to Brooklyn...
9/25/2006
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH
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
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.
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
DONATE to help with organizing expenses
In the past few days, the horrific crimes committed against the people of Lebanon and Palestine by the U.S.-backed Israeli regime have inspired outrage and protest across the globe. What has become clear to many watching the criminal invasion of Lebanon and the ongoing brutality against the people of Palestine is the role of the U.S. as the initiator, supplier, and funder of Israel's crimes.
There would be no occupation, no bombs dropping on Lebanese and Palestinian children, no tanks destroying homes, no artillery to rain destruction on hospitals without billions of dollars each year that the U.S. government gives to the Israeli government. Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $84,854,827,200. We must expose, challenge, and struggle to end the U.S. support for Israel's crimes.
Immediately after the criminal invasion of Lebanon, the International Action Center issued a call to action for August 5, under the slogan, "No justice, no peace--U.S. Out of the Middle East!" Across the U.S., activists are organizing pickets, protests, teach-ins, informational leafleting, and public forums, all directed against the U.S. role in the crimes of war and occupation. Now, more than 200 organizations worldwide have signed on to the call, and protests will take place across the globe, from London to Cairo to Tel Aviv and throughout Latin America.
It is not enough to just say "Bring the troops home from Iraq." We must challenge the Empire everywhere that it is attempting to carve up and recolonize the area, from Afghanistan to Iran to the West Bank. We can no longer look at these struggles as isolated crises--we must unite on the streets to say "U.S. Out of the Middle East!"
Next Step: August 12, Washington DC
Join us this weekend on the streets for emergency international protests. Then, join us for the next step, the August 12th National March on Washington, called by the National Council of Arab Americans, the Answer Coalition, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. Contact us at 212-633-6646 for buses from New York to Washington.
Read Call Endorse List Activity Download Flyer Donate
LOCAL ACTIONS
NEW YORK CITY, NY Sat., Aug. 5 - 4:00 pm Rally at Times Square; 5:30 pm - March to Exxon Mobile Contact the IAC at 212-633-6646 for more info
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA Sat., Aug. 5, Street Meeting, Education & Outreach Day 1 P.M. at Powell & Market Street Contact IAC S.F. at 2940 16th St. #207, San Francisco, California 94103 Phone 415-561-9752 Actioncenter-SF@action-mail.org
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA Sat., Aug. 5, 6 P.M. to 9 P.M. Protesters will occupy all four corners of 16th & Broadway Bring signs, banners and displays
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA Sat., Aug. 5, 2 P.M. Rally at Westwood Federal Building March to Occidental Petroleum call (323) 936-7266 www.iacenterla.org
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA Join the protest in Los Angeles on August 5th. For transportation to LA call 619-692-4422 iacsandiego@sbcglobal.net
DETROIT, MICHIGAN Fri., Aug. 4, 4:30 P.M. Gather at Detroit/Windsor Tunnel Entrance Randolph & E. Jefferson in downtown Detroit March to Grand Circus Park for a 6 P.M. Rally & Teach In Called by: Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) Phone: 313-680-5508 or 313-869-8383 www.mecawi.org
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
US Out of the Middle East! No more war, mass murder, and occupation for oil profits! 11 AM - Gather at State + Jackson (Dept. of Homeland Security) 11:30 - Leaflet State St.; promote Aug. 9 forum and Aug. 12 mobilization in DC 12 PM - Picket offices of BP Amoco, Aon Center, 200 E. Randolph for more information, call (773) 381-5839
BOSTON, MASS Sat., Aug. 5, 11 A.M. Israeli Consulate at 20 Park Plaza March to JFK Federal Bldg Sponsored by a broad array of community, anti-war and labor groups (for a full list and for flyers and information contact www.iacboston.org) Phone: IAC 617-522-6626 Email: iacboston@iacboston.org www.iacboston.org
ROCHESTER & BUFFALO, NY Regional protest in Rochester Friday, Aug. 4, 4:30 P.M. to 5:30 P.M. at the Federal Building 100 State St., Rochester, NY Phone: 585-234-9459 In Buffalo: 716-604-9515 iacbuffalo@action-mail.org
PHILADELPHIA, PA Friday, Aug. 4 Federal Building at 5th & Market Sts. 4:30 P.M. The demonstration will march to a nearby media outlet--Fox news as well as other corporate beneficiaries of the expanding war. 215 724-1618 PhillyIAC@action-mail.org
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND Friday, Aug. 4 Street Outreach and Corner Protest Gather at the State Office Building Complex at Preston Street to distribute flyers to State workers between 4 P.M. and 5 P.M. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Preston St from 5 P.M. to 6 P.M. Called by: All Peoples Congress Phone: 410-235-7040 Email: apcbaltimore@pipeline.com
ATLANTA, GEORGIA Sat. Aug. 5, 12 Noon Outreach Day, Meet at the IAC office, 1083 Austin Ave., Room 203 (corner of Euclid & Austin) Phone: 770-989-2536 Email: AtlantaIAC@aol.com
CLEVELAND, OHIO Sat., Aug. 5, Protest, 12 Noon Market Square Park, W 25th & Lorain Called by the Peoples Fight Back Center Phone: 216-481-6671 Email: PFcenter@sbcglobal.net
HILTON HEAD, S.C. Fri., Aug. 4, 4:30 P.M. Vigil & Protest at Rt 278 Called by: Hilton Head for Peace Phone: F. Taylor 843-681-4010
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.
No Justice, No Peace- U.S. OUT of the Middle East: August 5
Make the Weekend of August 5th National Days of Actions to Say:
No Justice, No Peace- U.S. OUT of the Middle East
Over the weekend of Saturday, August 5th, the International Action Center is proposing that activists across the country organize demonstrations, teach-ins and other events around the theme: “No Justice, No Peace, U.S. Out of the Middle East.”
Stand with the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance
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
The expansion of U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in the Middle East and the widespread campaign of demonization against Hezbollah and Hamas, the movements of national resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, makes it urgent for those of us opposed to war and injustice to clarify for the people of the U.S. the reality--that the problems of the Middle East are not rooted in a struggle between religions, but in the drive by greedy imperialist policymakers in the U.S., like Bush and his super rich friends, to dominate, colonize, exploit and rob the natural resources (especially oil) of the people of the Middle East. We must explain that the obstacles to peace in the Middle East are not Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria or Iran, but the U.S. government and its client, the Israeli settler state.
Republicans and Democrats alike have united to back the expansionist Israeli war against Palestine and Lebanon, a war that is really an extension of the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration has given the Zionist rulers in Tel Aviv the green light to wage all-out war in Lebanon and Palestine, with full diplomatic, political and military support of Washington. Israeli soldiers and bomber pilots may be doing the killing in Lebanon, but this is fundamentally a U.S. war, and the Israeli army is a criminal surrogate for the Pentagon. Furthermore, Bush and Co. are dangerously laying the basis for a wider war against Syria and Iran and are ready to crush--by war, shock and awe, torture, mass murder, repression and terror--the dreams of the masses of the Middle East for self-determination and freedom from occupation and colonialism.
Together, we must intensify the struggle to get U.S. imperialism out of the Middle East and to free the thousands of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi prisoners held in U.S. and Israeli jails, because this would serve the cause of peace and justice in that region and worldwide. We join with all the peace-loving people and organizations that are organizing locally, nationally and internationally around this struggle. Along with all the other important protests, we encourage everyone to make the weekend of August 5th days of action around the theme “No Justice, No Peace: U.S. Out of the Middle East.” We must support all local and emergency actions against this criminal war, along with the August 12 mobilization in Washington, D.C.
In organizing around the issue of justice and peace in the Middle East, we encourage activists to make the connections to other struggles. The racist nature of the U.S. war in the Middle East is part of the same racism behind the treatment of the primarily African American victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and the racism behind the attacks on immigrant rights.
Now, more than ever, it’s vitally necessary for all of us in the U.S. who genuinely believe in peace and justice--whether we be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Atheist, Black, Latin@, Native, Arab, Asian or White--to fully embrace the Palestinian freedom struggle and to forge new bonds of solidarity with all the peoples of the Middle East, so that all the world will know that Bush’s war is not our war. No justice no peace- U.S. out of the Middle East!
Please endorse the August 5th weekend of actions and plan local actions focusing on the U.S. role in the Middle East and full solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese people.
Force it into the headlines, call your local media, complain, inform and demand coverage...
Rally in anger, in memory, in support of the Palestinian struggle to survive.........
Friends and supporters of Justice in Palestine: join Chicago, New York, Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco, Boston, and dozens of other cities in North America, calling for a Day of Action in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle against the Genocidal Apartheid Israeli State.
WHEN: Friday, June 16th, 2006, at 5:00 PM. WHERE: Union Square South
**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY**
EMERGENCY RESPONSE: PROTEST ISRAEL'S MURDER OF PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS! END THE SIEGE ON PALESTINE! RESPOND TO HODA CRIES FOR JUSTICE!
11 Palestinians, Including a Man, His Two Children and Two paramedics, Killed and 30 Others Wounded in an IOF Air Strike on a Civilian Car in Gaza
On Tuesday noon, 13 June 2006, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) committed a new extra-judicial execution in Gaza City, which killed 11 Palestinians, including 9 civilian bystanders. A man, his two children and two paramedics were among the victims. The targeted person in this attack was a member of the Islamic Jihad. Investigations conducted by PCHR indicate that IOF aircrafts launched a missile at dozens of civilians, including paramedics, who gathered near a civilian car shortly after IOF aircrafts attacked it, targeting a member of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad. Thus, the number of extra-judicial executions committed by IOF in the past 4 days has mounted to 6, which have killed 18 Palestinians and have wounded at least 40 others. This latest attack and other similar attacks have come as an implementation of a series of decisions taken by the Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz to escalate extra-judicial executions against Palestinian militants to stop launching locally made rockets at Israeli towns. Peretz has been also considering intensifying military operations in the Gaza Strip, whose victims are often unarmed civilians.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 11:45 on Tuesday, 13 June 2006, an IOF aircraft launched one missile at a civilian vehicle (Voks Wagen) that was traveling near Martyr Mohammed al-Durra Hospital in al-Tuffah neighborhood in the northeast of Gaza City. Two members of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad, were traveling in the car. The missile directly hit the car, killing the two members of the al-Quds Brigades: Hammouda al-Wadiya; and Shawqi al-Saiqali. Palestinian civilians living in the area gathered around the car and two paramedics from the nearby hospital came to provide first medical aid. Immediately, IOF aircrafts launched another missile at the car, killing 10 civilians, including a man, his two children and the two paramedics:
In addition, at least 30 other civilians, including a number of children, were wounded; the wounds of 12 of them have been described by medical sources as serious.
PCHR strongly condemns this latest attack. PCHR is gravely concerned over the Israeli escalation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). PCHR asserts that such crimes serve to escalate tension in the region and threaten the lives of Palestinians. PCHR calls upon the international community to immediately intervene to stop such crimes, and reiterates its calls for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to meet their obligations to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in the OPT.
On Friday evening, June 9th, 2006, at least seven Palestinian civilians were killed when Israel Navy gunboats firing artillery shells hit a beach in the northern Gaza Strip. Some 40 others were wounded. Among the dead were three children, three women and one man. Many of those wounded in the attack were also children, Palestinian sources said. Hoda came back to the beach to find her family murdered in cold blood by Israeli bombing.
This horrifying escalation of violations by the Israeli occupation forces, coupled with the prolonged humanitarian crisis that the Palestinian people are already enduring, is fueling rising tensions and instability on the ground. As the European and U.S. governments demand the freezing of humanitarian assistance to the people of Palestine, Israel has continued its military attacks against the Palestinians, arresting hundreds more civilians, destroying countless homes and property, expanding its illegal settlements and its Apartheid Wall, and imposing more than five hundred checkpoints and roadblocks throughout the territories, including in and around East Jerusalem, seriously restricting freedom of movement and suffocating the economic and social life of the Palestinian people.
In the past week, Israeli forces have launched missile air strikes against "targets" in densely populated civilian areas of the occupied Palestinian territories, directly intended to kill Palestinian civilians, a policy of extra-judicial executions that has continued unabated even though the democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian government, and the vast majority of resistance organizations, have complied with a self-imposed, unilateral truce against the Israelis for over a year.
On June 5th, Israel launched an air strike against a car in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing Mr. Imad Mohammad Assaliya and Mr. Majdi Tayseer Hammad, and wounding three other people. And on June 7th, the occupation forces, using artillery bombardment, attacked a national security post east of Gaza City, killing four Palestinian men.
Moreover, Israeli continues to raid Palestinian cities and villages, carrying out military and arrest operations. On May 31st, Israeli soldiers stormed the Balata refugee camp east of the city of Nablus, shooting and wounding two Palestinian children in an "operation" to arrest six other Palestinians in the camp, including two women. A series of arrests have also been carried out in the Qalqilya, Jenin, Al-Khalil (Hebron), Bethlehem and Ramallah areas, typically with no information given to the families of those detained as to their whereabouts or conditions. Israel's army also continues to restrict the movement of ambulances treating wounded or sick civilians, and has even fired upon ambulances during the recent period, including the shooting at one, which was carrying a woman in labor, on May 27th, destroying the vehicle's engine, terrorizing the woman, and delaying her arrival at the hospital.
END THE SIEGE ON PALESTINE NOW! END ISRAELI OCCUPATION NOW!
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
