Boycott of Israel is demanded by New York City Labor Against the War--

"Labor for Palestine:

"Stop Israel's Massacre in Gaza and End the Siege Now!"

by New York City Labor Against the War

December 31, 2008

On the Web at:

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nyclaw010109.html

New York City Labor Against the War joins millions around the world in condemning Israel's ongoing murder and maiming of hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza.

WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS?

Israel claims that it is fighting "terrorism" -- the same hollow excuse with which the U.S. tries to justify wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the erosion of civil liberties and labor rights at home.

But as South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu points out, Israel's massacres "bears all the hallmarks of war crimes."

Long before these attacks, Israel had turned Gaza into the world's largest open-air prison, assassinating activists, and cutting off essential goods, jobs, and services to 1.5 million people.

Only as a result did Hamas abandon a unilateral two-year ceasefire and subsequent truce. Since that time, it has repeatedly offered to cease all rocket fire in exchange for an end to U.S.-Israel blockade and other military attacks.

Israel responded with escalating pogroms, arrests, home demolitions, settlements, and murder in the West Bank and Jerusalem -- from which no rockets have been fired.

As a result, violence is overwhelmingly one-sided against the Palestinians, who -- as an occupied people -- have no aircraft, artillery, tanks, or ships. While rockets launched from Gaza since 2000 have killed 17 Israelis, Israel's modern arsenal has killed more than 400 Palestinians -- including many children -- since December 27 alone.

The dead represent a greater portion of Gaza's population than the percentage of New Yorkers who died on 9/11. And Israel warns that these attacks are "only the beginning."

Indeed, this is the "bigger Shoah" against Gaza threatened by Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Matan Valnai on February 29, 2008.

Even the Israeli press admits that this brutality is a way for politicians to prove their "prowess" in contentious upcoming Israeli elections.

It is also part of an ongoing U.S.-Israeli campaign to collectively punish Palestinians for democratically electing Hamas.

And it is an attempt to stamp out all resistance -- including nonviolent protest -- to Israel's ongoing dispossession and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians since before the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.

U.S. GUNS AND MONEY

The U.S. stands behind Israel's war on Gaza.

The White House, President-elect Barack Obama, and leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties have -- actively or tacitly -- condoned the massacres.

In the past ten years alone, U.S. military aid to Israel was $17 billion; over the next decade, it will be $30 billion. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is U.S. aircraft, cluster bombs, and bullets that kill and maim on behalf of the occupiers.

Such support bolsters Israel's longstanding role as watchdog and junior partner for U.S. domination over the oil-rich Middle East -- and beyond. In that capacity, Israel was apartheid South Africa's closest ally.

LABOR'S ROLE

On December 27, Cosatu, the South African trade union federation, specifically condemned the current Gaza massacres and reaffirmed its support for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel, a campaign that has been endorsed by labor bodies and trade unionists -- many of them Jewish -- in Britain, Canada, and other countries.

On December 29, in response to the Gaza massacres, the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees urgently called for intensification of this campaign.

But much of labor officialdom in this country -- often without the knowledge or consent of union members -- has a longstanding complicity with Israeli Apartheid that dates to before 1948.

Some 1,500 labor bodies have plowed at least $5 billion of union pension funds and retirement plans into State of Israel Bonds.

In April 2002, while Israel butchered Palestinian refugees at Jenin in the West Bank, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was a featured speaker at a belligerent "National Solidarity Rally for Israel."

In July 2007, top officials of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win signed a statement that condemned British unions for even considering the nonviolent campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Virtually no labor bodies have opposed the Gaza massacres.

As Jewish Labor Committee President Stuart Appelbaum recently boasted, "American leadership is fundamental to challenging Israel bashing within the labor movement globally."

This complicity parallels infamous "AFL-CIA" support for U.S. war and dictatorship in Vietnam, Latin America, Gulf War I, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

It strengthens the U.S.-Israel war machine and labor's corporate enemies, reinforces racism and Islamophobia, and makes a mockery of international solidarity.

And as with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, workers in the United States pay a staggering human and financial price, including deepening economic crisis, for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation.

FREE PALESTINE -- A NECESSARY STAND FOR LABOR

More than forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came under intense public attack for opposing the Vietnam war. Even within the Civil Rights Movement, some dismissed his position too "divisive" and "unpopular."

In his famous speech at the Riverside Church in April 1967, Dr. King replied, "For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."

This principle is no less relevant for today's labor and antiwar movements.

Yes, the Israel lobby seeks to silence opponents of Israeli Apartheid. All the more need for trade unionists to break that silence by speaking out against Israeli military occupation, for the right of Palestinian refugees to return, and for the elimination of apartheid throughout historic Palestine.

Therefore, we reaffirm our support for the international Boycotts, Sanctions, and Divestment campaign, including an immediate end to all support for Israel -- including that provided by U.S. labor leaders.

Issued by NYCLAW Co-Conveners:

(Other affiliations listed for identification only)

Larry Adams
Former President, NPMHU Local 300

Michael Letwin
Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys

Brenda Stokely
Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; Co-Chair, Million Worker March

Click here to sign on to this statement.

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Turkey: The Israeli offensive "has reached the scale of a crime against humanity..."

"Israel's PM deserves a pair of shoes like US president- Turkish MP" "Hurriyet" (Istanbul, Turkey) On the Web at: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/10689105.asp?scr=1

January 2, 2009

Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "deserves a pair of shoes to be thrown at him" after the deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip, a senior official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said on Friday. (UPDATED) The Israeli offensive "has reached the scale of a crime against humanity," Bulent Gedikli told the Anatolian Agency, slamming the Jewish state also for failing to facilitate access to humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. "The Israeli prime minister too seems to have deserved a pair of shoes to be thrown at him," he said, referring to the incident in Baghdad last month when an Iraqi journalist famously threw his shoes at outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush. The Israeli offensive, which began four days after a visit to Ankara by Olmert, has killed at least 430 Palestinian and wounded more than 2,100 others. A quarter of the dead are civilians, the U.N. estimates

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Turkey: Calls to boycott Israel grow very loud.

"Turkish mass rallies demand Israeli boycott"


January 2, 2009

Zaman (Istanbul, Turkey)

On the Web at:

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=162888&bolum=100



The Turkish public has reacted with anger to the Israeli air strikes on Gaza by appearing in huge numbers at rallies aimed at condemning Israel for the onslaught, which has taken the lives of almost 400 Palestinians.

"Let's have an economic embargo against Israel," chanted one protestor at a rally yesterday in İstanbul organized by the Health Workers Union (SES). The group issued a statement at the end of the rally and asked the Turkish government to suspend all commercial and diplomatic ties with Israel. "We are ashamed to learn that Israeli fighter pilots are being trained in Konya," the statement said.

The group also demanded a halt to the killing of all civilians by Israeli defense forces.

The protest was one of hundreds held across the country. In front of Israeli diplomatic posts in İstanbul and Ankara, human rights organizations staged protest meetings, calling on Turkey to cancel all bilateral agreements signed with Israel.

The call garnered support from political party leaders across the board. While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called the attacks "a crime against humanity," Parliament Speaker Köksal Toptan condemned the Israeli actions strongly yesterday and said, "As a country we have been deeply hurt in our hearts by what is happening in Gaza."

Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, the leader of the Grand Unity Party (BBP), demanded the suspension of all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel. Stressing that Israel has used a disproportionate amount of force, Yazıcıoğlu asked the government to give a clear and unambiguous message in the face of the massive civilian causalities. Labeling Israel as a "terrorist state," the BBP leader called for a boycott of all Israeli goods until the cessation of hostilities by Israel.

Felicity Party (SP) leader Numan Kurtulmuş went further and called the attacks "genocide." He said Israel had already turned the Gaza Strip into an "open prison" where the economy had been destroyed and the basic needs of the Palestinian people such as food and medicine could not be met. He called on the Foreign Ministry to recall the Turkish ambassador to Israel to protest the attack and demanded the suspension of all bilateral ties with Israel.

In the meantime, feeling pressure from angry constituents, many deputies voiced their criticism of the Israeli action at Parliament. Many deputies resigned from their posts at the National Assembly's Turkish-Israeli Caucus in protest of the Israeli attack. "Out of a total of 300, 136 group members resigned after the attacks," the chairperson of the caucus, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy Nursuna Memecan, said in a press conference.

Even with half of the members gone, the remaining members still condemned the Israeli attacks. Memecan said: "We continue to exist as the administration board. The reaction we have inside is big and is evident in the resignations; however, holding our posts and performing our tasks is more important."

"The Israeli offensive slapped the hand we had put forward in friendship. We will convey this message to our colleagues at the caucus in Israel as well," AK Party deputy Hanifi Alır noted.

Meanwhile, the Turkish group at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) announced they would take the Israeli offensive to PACE's agenda. "We will demand an urgent session," the head of the Turkish group, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said.

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Zionists force Palestinians to fight for a hole in the ground, to bury their dead children

Click on photo to enlarge it.

These five sisters were killed when Israel bombed the mosque next door, on December 28, 2008. (Israel has bombed 5 mosques in the last week.)

With space running out in the cemetery, the five girls had to be buried in just three graves, one for the eldest and the others forced to share.

(See full article and photo in "The Independent", at-- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/five-sisters-killed-in-gaza-while-they-slept-1216224.html )

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"Besieged Palestinians battle to find burial spaces"

• by Hazem Balousha in Gaza and Toni O'Loughlin in Jerusalem
• The Guardian, Friday 2 January 2009, on the Web at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/02/israel-palestinians-cemeteries

Salim Abu Sadaq and six of his relatives scrabbled around in the soil of Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan cemetery for two hours yesterday, searching for a space in which to lay his cousin to rest. In the end, he opened his grandfather's grave and moved the older man's remains aside to make space for the body of his grandson.

After "The Beginning", the first chapter in the Qur'an, was read aloud to mark the end of a life, Abu Sadaq expressed misgivings about the shared grave. "I feel very bad about it. It hasn't happened before, but there's no space."

At the entrance to the cemetery hangs a makeshift sign, written on fabric and strung up by the ministry of religious affairs. "It is forbidden to bury here," it says, directing mourners to the newer cemetery on Gaza's eastern outskirts near Jabalia, where there is still some open ground.

The Sheikh Radwan cemetery has been closed for years, as have the other two in Gaza's densely populated city.

But Abu Sadaq's family had no choice.

The Israelis' intensive bombing of Gaza's eastern perimeter has turned the newer cemetery into a lethal ground and as a result families are forced to reuse old graves in the closed one, despite Islamic law normally forbidding that.

After digging for hours, Abu Sadaq rang a sheikh. "He told us that we could dig up an old family grave and move the remains to one side. We have to bury the body as soon as we can," he said.

Burial space is not the only shortage. Israel's 18-month blockade of Gaza has created a severe lack of concrete and building blocks, so families have been unable to build proper graves. Last year, before the tunnel economy began to take off, there was also a shortage of white burial cloth, required for Muslim funerals, forcing families to wrap their dead in whatever they could find.

"We are lucky here because we have an old grave," said Abu Sadaq as he buried his cousin, who died from cancer...

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"Boycott Israel" -- in the "Concord Monitor" (New Hampshire)

			Friday, January 2, 2009	.The news you need now

Letter "Boycott Israel" by Kenneth Jopp, Concord
For the Monitor
January 02, 2009 - 12:00 am
In the Concord, New Hampshire "Monitor", at: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090102/OPINION/901020344 "...On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces launched an aerial attack on the Gaza refugee camp, a million and a half dispossessed Palestinians, the third generation of whom have lived in poverty and squalor and, under the current Israeli siege, without potable water, electricity, adequate sanitation, medicine or medical care. More than 200 men, women and children have been slaughtered. "Palestinian children are now malnourished at the same level of children in Darfur. Most have suffered hearing loss due to the sonic booms of illegal Israel over-flights. "More than 90 percent suffer from emotional trauma, the same PTSD our troops in Iraq are afflicted with. "Israel has undertaken a policy of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, principally to acquire the land of Palestine and to drive them from their homes into exile. Israel continually flouts international law and treaties and has acted in an abhorrent, lawless manner inconsistent with the norms of civilization. "I wish then that the community of nations boycott, divest and sanction the apartheid government of Israel, revoke its UN charter and hold it responsible for its violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights until it chooses to act in accordance with international law. "If our civilization is to survive, we need to constrain such ideological destruction. If we do not embrace and enforce the rule of law, we will all descend into an endless night of madness." KENNETH JOPP Concord

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ADC's Israeli War Crimes Tribunal, at the University of Michigan.

* Israeli War Crimes Tribunal-- proposed by Professor Francis Boyle (see below.)

* Israeli War Crimes Tribunal-- at the University of Michigan (see "Michigan Daily" article, also below.)


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"An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICTI) May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War"

By Francis A. Boyle

On the Web at:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21579.htm

December 31, 2008

"Global Research" -- -- The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a "subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.

The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine-- just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.

The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel's other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as "low-hanging fruit" ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria's defense.

And of course Israel and the Bush Jr administration very much want a pretext to attack Iran. This scenario could readily degenerate into World War III.

For the U.N. General Assembly to establish ICTI could stop the further development of this momentum towards a regional if not global catastrophe.

--Francis A. Boyle is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. He has advised numerous international bodies in the areas of human rights, war crimes, genocide, nuclear policy, and bio warfare. He received a PHD in political science from Harvard University.

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Israeli War Crimes Tribunal

At the University of Michigan--

"Jewish, Palestinian students face off"

By Laura Deneau

Michigan Daily Staff Reporter

November 21, 2000, Page 1.

Full article on the Web at:

http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/2000/nov/11-21-2000/news/02.html

While tensions mounted yesterday on the Diag, a confrontation between students supporting Israel and students supporting Palestine ended in a calm consideration of future gatherings.

The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee originally organized a reading of alleged war crimes committed against Palestinians, Iraqis, Jews and South Africans.

But after requests from the American Movement for Israel to cancel the event, members of the ADC invited members of AMI to attend the event.

While Palestinian students listed the alleged crimes, members of the two groups started shouting at one another. After one Israeli supporters said that the war crimes being read were "all a lie," a brief scuffle broke out.

Rackham student Amer Zahr, a member of the ADC, called on the crowd to be peaceful. "We're not here to compare pain for pain. We're not here to compare death for death," he said.

The bombing of an Israeli school bus on the Gaza Strip yesterday increased the tension between the two groups.

"It's a little hypocritical to have a tribunal when just this morning there was a terrorist attack on an Israeli school bus," said Israel-Michigan Political Affairs Committee chairman Eric Bukstein, an LSA junior. "Students on campus need to realize that this is a sensitive situation and there are many sides to the conflict," he said.

ADC members said they held their "war-crimes tribunal" in an attempt to educate students about the state of Israel and give a Palestinian perspective to the recent violence in the Middle East.

"This isn't an attack against any Jewish students but against the state of Israel and the principles of Zionism," Norah Rabiah, ADC president said.

Nursing junior Elise Erickson said that there is a discrepancy between the portrayals of Israelis and Palestinians in the media.

"When an Israeli dies you see pictures of the family, ... when a Palestinian dies you see a mob. We're here to fill in the gap," Nursing junior Elise Erickson, the Michigan Student Assembly's health issues chairwoman, told the crowd.

"There's a long history that people in the United States don't hear about," Erickson said.

ADC members said the sources of their information come from public documents and other information not reported in the mainstream media they have gathered in the past two weeks.

Many students in support of Israel argued that the information presented was taken out of context....

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"Israel's War Crimes"

by Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories

Published in THE NATION (New York), December 29, 2008, at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090112/falk?rel=hp_currently

"The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.

"Those violations include:

• Collective punishment: The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.

• Targeting civilians: The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.

• Disproportionate military response: The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.

"Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.

"Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.

"Israel has also ignored recent Hamas diplomatic initiatives to re-establish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on December 26.

"The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

"I remind all Member States of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law--regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people."

About Richard Falk:

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University, is the United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur in the Occupied Territories and a member of The Nation editorial board. He is the author of many books, including The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order After Iraq.


Editor's Note: This statement was issued December 27 in response to Israel's attack in Gaza by Professor Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories and a longtime member of The Nation's editorial board.


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• Israel in Gaza: Irrationality

  
  

  Wallace Shawn: It is not rational to believe that the Palestinians in the occupied territories will be terrorized by force and violence, by cruelty, by starvation or by slaughter into a docile acceptance of the Israeli occupation.

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Kenya Demonstration for Gaza-- carrying shoes, and burning the occupier's flags:

Click on photo to enlarge it.

Muslims in Mombasa burn a US flag during a demonstration in Mombasa on Thursday. They condemned the Israel attacks on Gaza. (Photo by Laban Walloga)

"Muslims in protest over Gaza crisis"

"Daily Nation" (Nairobi, Kenya)

Thursday, January 1 2009 at 20:29

On the Web at:

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/-/1070/509478/-/709his/-/

"Hundreds of Muslims on Thursday thronged the streets of Mombasa to protest against the Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip.

"The procession started at the Kwa Shibu Mosque in Mwembe Tayari and proceeded to Kenyatta Avenue and on to Digo and Makadara roads. The protesters then converged at Makadara grounds for prayers.

"Men, women and children joined in the protest carrying placards, shoes and Palestinian and Israeli flags. They at the same time chanted slogans to register their bitterness against Israel.

"At one point, Mombasa head of police Tom Odero tried to control the movement of the crowd but the youth turned rowdy and had it their way."

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