Filed under: 2008, Israel | Tags: 25th September, 60, Anniversary, concert, Friendship First, Paul McCartney
‘Sir’ Paul shows he’s actually quite keen to go day tripping to apartheid Israel. I wonder if he’ll consider how Palestinians are suffering while he is having his ‘great evening’? Or if he’ll visit the occupied territories as well as Tel Aviv? It’s sad when people get old and lose the idealism of their youth. All Paul’s songs, that encapsulated the values of the sixties, values of love and peace, taste like ashes in the mouth with this careless attitude to the colonial aparthied project called Israel. Has he ever considered his friends who support Israel might be wrong? If he was truely thinking he’d at least consider why people have taken the time to write to him and investigate why it might be a bad idea. It’s not like he doesn’t have the time, it’s just he doesn’t think. ‘We can’t wait to get out there and rock’ – spoken like an ignorant cock. As a Beatles fan, I’m disappointed Paul. Also for those interested it appears the Israeli Government didn’t ban the Beatles after all. The following from the BBC:
In 1965 the Israeli government pulled a Beatles concert
Sir Paul McCartney has insisted his first show in Israel will go ahead, despite pressure from campaigners who want him to cancel it.
The 65-year-old will perform some of his biggest Beatles and solo hits at the Tel Aviv gig later this month.
But protesters asked him to reconsider over Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its Gaza Strip blockade.
He told newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth: “I refused. I do what I think, and I have many friends who support Israel.”
…
In a statement confirming the concert on McCartney’s website last month, he said: “I’ve heard so many great things about Tel Aviv and Israel, but hearing is one thing and experiencing it for yourself is another.
“We are planning to have a great time and a great evening. We can’t wait to get out there and rock.”
Filed under: 2008, Image, Israel, June, Palestine, Salute to Israel Parade, Video, london | Tags: 29th, 60
Footage and reporting from the recent demo against the Salute to Israel parade. A parade which was designed to celebrate 60 years since the rape, massacre and transfer that constituted the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and birth of Israel.
For more excellent photographs see Terence Bunch’s work or try flickr
Indymedia: Today, a series of non-violent protest actions disrupted the ‘Salute to Israel’ parade. The parade celebrated 60 years since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Activists wished to remind the public that since its inception, Israel has been maintained through the constant oppression of the Palestinian people, in particular through ethnic cleansing.
The ‘Salute to Israel’ parade was a shameful show of support to a government engaged in war crimes. Sponsors included the Jewish National Fund, an organisation deeply involved in the colonisation of Palestinian land as well in anti-Palestinian discrimination within Israel. Activists wish to stress that the British government’s authorisation, protection and support of this event is entirely unacceptable.
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Stolen from the lovely Ann of Peoples Geography - sorry!
Palestinians mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba with, among other things, large symbolic keys and black balloons over Al Quds-Jerusalem.
This video clip comes from our good friends over at the great Italian Guerrilla Radio site (4.36)
The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation also has this striking poster and terrific advertisement (click on thumbnail for larger image).
The Campaign will be placing more than 1,000 of these posters on the streets of Manhattan, educating New Yorkers about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Filed under: 1948, 2008, Israel's 60th Anniversary, Palestine | Tags: Stephen Lendman
The following from Global Research:
On May 14, Israelis will commemorate the 60th anniversary of their “War of Independence” and founding of the Jewish State. It also marks 60 years of Palestinian Nakba suffering. The web site www.alnakba.org recounts the history:
– from the late Ottoman empire period; to
– the birth of Zionism; to
– the early Jewish colonization of Palestine; to
– the 1917 Balfour Declaration support for a “Jewish national home in Palestine;” to
– the simultaneous British betrayal of the indigenous Arabs; to
– the British occupation; to
– its delayed promised end; to
Filed under: 1948, 2008, Israel's 60th Birthday | Tags: chlldren, Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, Jerusalem
We are told children are the theme of this years 60th birthday celebrations. But what they mean is – Israeli children are the theme – as tight restrictions are placed on Palestinian kids: preventing them from taking part in their annual visit to the holy city. Why the restrictions? We can only presume security is tightening for Israel’s celebration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The Israeli Government has imposed a new travel restriction which has prevented Palestinian Christian children from traveling to Jerusalem for this year’s annual Children’s Journey to Jerusalem, according to Bethlehem office of the event’s sponsoring organization, the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF). As a result of the new restriction, the event has been. postponed
This year, for the first time, the Israeli Government surprised the organizers of the event by announcing that the children, ages 13 and under, would require permits to enter the Holy City. With great effort, HCEF managed to submit applications for the permits three weeks before the scheduled date of the event on May 2, but on April 30 Israeli authorities told HCEF that there was not enough time to consider the applications.
Filed under: 2008, Israel's 60th Birthday | Tags: Independence, Larry Derfner, May 8
A good article by Larry Derfner – its also worth remembering that Israeli Arabs have been threatened with another nakba for not celebrating.
On May 8, Israel’s 60th Independence Day, 80 percent of the country’s population—the Jewish citizens—will be celebrating or at least identifying with the holiday.
Twenty percent, the Arab citizens, will not be.
More and more Israeli Arabs view Independence Day, which celebrates Israel’s victory over the Arabs in the 1948 War of Independence, as the Day of Catastrophe, or Nakba in Arabic. Israel’s 1.4 million Arab citizens are descendants of the Palestinians who remained in the country after the war, which turned the great majority of their people into refugees, cost them a state, and set the stage for six ensuing decades of bloody conflicts. “For us, it’s a day of sadness, of mourning,” says Amira Shawahna, a teacher marching in the recent annual Israeli Arab “Land Day” protests in Galilee against the state’s historical policy of expropriating land from Arab localities and giving it to Jewish ones.
In Nazareth and other Israeli Arab cities and villages, residents will again commemorate what they call the nakba by visiting some of the hundreds of onetime Arab villages whose residents either fled or were expelled during the 1948 war and which were later given over to the burgeoning Jewish majority.
President Bush and other world leaders are due in Israel for the holiday (Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, which is why some official events will be held on that date even though the date is marked in Israel according to the Hebrew calendar and thus falls this year on May 8.) Parades, concerts, and fireworks are planned nationwide.
Filed under: 2008, Israel, Israel's 60th Birthday, JNF, May, Palestine, Peaceful Protest, Royal Family, UK, Windsor Castle, london | Tags: demonstration, Downing Street, Gaza, ILA HAIFA
Some upcoming events in the UK really worth attending -
Windsor JNF dinner Protest
MONDAY 7TH APRIL, 6PM ONWARDS
‘COME SPOIL ISRAEL’S 60TH BIRTHDAY BASH AT WINDSOR CASTLE’
Demonstrate against Israel’s 60th Birthday celebrations at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire. Come with banners and placards and join us at the main entrance to the castle, Henry V111th Gate, Castle Hill, Off High Street, Windsor, Berks.
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Filed under: 2008, Art, Cartoon, Illustration, Image, Israel, Israel's 60th Birthday, Logo, Nakba, Palestine | Tags: artwork, brandalism, competition, subvert
In the 1980’s a group of Israeli researchers began to re-examine the historical record surrounding the foundation of Israel in 1948. This is an interesting and important year that Ilan Pappe describes as a departure point for history. For one side, the Israelis, it was “a miracle, the best year in Jewish history” where the Zionist colonial project achieved its goal of building an independent Jewish State. Yet for the other side it was a disaster, the worst year in their history, what the Palestinians call the Nakba (Catastrophe), “almost the Holocaust.”
In May Israel will celebrate this event calling it their 60th ‘birthday’ and are inviting world leaders and the global media to attend. In other words – they’re not just celebrating while Palestinians are mourning they are using it as a photo opportunity!
With this in mind we propose a competition to create artwork that either commemorates the Nakba or highlights the offensive and indecent nature of celebrating while others mourn.
As the global celebrations run into 2009 so will the competition. We will however pick a handfull of the best from the 14th – 16th of May that will be distributed to the media and journalists.
All the artworks will be displayed on the ‘Artwork Competition‘ page and will be added to this flickr group (flickr pool RSS feed). To submit an artwork either post a link in a comment, email the artwork or add it to the flickr group. Also could bloggers that are willing to distribute the winning entries leave a comment to show their support?
Thumbnails
In the future they will be posted here.
Filed under: 2008, Israel, Israel's 60th Birthday, Palestine, Public Relations, Ron Prosor, UK, Zionist federation
A little background on the new UK ambassador Ron Prosor who is using the 60th Birthday to promote a more positive image of Israel. Strange topic to choose for PR considering it raises the issue of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Haaretz: Israeli PR efforts in Britain have kicked up a notch since Prosor became ambassador two months ago. As a former Foreign Ministry director general, he is focusing on speeches to new kinds of audiences, frequent television appearances and press interviews.
“I’m not afraid to appear anywhere, and there is no platform – suitable of course – that I will not utilize for PR work,” Prosor says.
Among other venues, he delivered a speech at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, the day after that institution invited Holocaust denier David Irving to speak.
Prosor says he wants to influence British public opinion, which he says is more extreme than the political establishment in its criticism of Israel, and hugely influential.
“If something remains of the British Empire’s power in the world, it is the British media’s impact,” he says.
“So I will go to universities, to trade unions, to relevant conferences. So long as somebody gives me a platform – I will come.”
more from the Jerusalem Post
Israel’s new ambassador to London is spearheading a new campaign to make Israel’s case more succinctly in the country’s media and has vowed to work more closely with the UK’s Jewish communities to do so.
As part of a bold new strategy, Ambassador Ron Prosor, who arrived in the UK in November, wants to focus on media perceptions of Israel.
Filed under: 1948, 2008, Anniversary, Commemorating the Anniversary, Human Rights, Israel, Israel at 60 Celebration, Israel's 60th Anniversary, Israel's 60th Birthday, Israel@60, May, Nakba, Palestine, Peaceful Protest, Refugees, Resistance, Right of Return, UN
PA urges Palestinians to return to Israel on 60th anniversary
JP:The Palestinian Authority is planning to mark Israel’s 60th anniversary by calling on all Palestinians living abroad to converge on Israel by land, sea and air.
The plan, drawn by Ziad Abu Ein, a senior Fatah operative and Deputy Minister for Prisoners’ Affairs in the Palestinian Authority, states that the Palestinians have decided to implement United Nations Resolution 194 regarding the refugees.
Article 11 of the resolution, which was passed in December 1948, says that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”
The initiative is the first of its kind and is clearly aimed at embarrassing Israel during the anniversary celebrations by highlighting the issue of the “right of return” for the refugees.
Filed under: 1948, 2008, Anniversary Plans, Chancellor Merkel, Germany, Holocaust, Independence, Israel, Israel at 60 Celebration, Israel's 60th Anniversary, Israel's 60th Birthday, Israel's Birthday Plans, Israel@60, Palestine, Who's Celebrating?, World Leaders
“The visit does not have a high political agenda. It is more of a symbolic visit.”
To have no real political agenda in a time of great crisis for the Palestinians is to be complicit in Israel’s war crimes and refusal to negotiate peace.
Shame on Merkel travelling to Israel to celebrate 60 years since the beginning of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
A rather more interesting trip took place recently involving German intellectuals. See Israel’s creation made Palestinians victims of the Holocaust and No more preferential treatment for Israel.
The Local: German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to Israel on Sunday for a visit of major historical significance more than 60 years after the end of World War II, writes AFP’s Simon Sturdee.
Merkel will be the first German chancellor to address the Knesset when she gives a speech at the Israeli parliament on Tuesday, an honour reserved normally for heads of state.
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Filed under: 1948, 2008, Anniversary, Australia, Independence, Israel, Israel at 60 Celebration, Israel's 60th Anniversary, Israel's 60th Birthday, Israel's Birthday Plans, Israel@60, May, Palestine, Who's Celebrating? | Tags: advert, Improper motion, Not in our name, The Australian
Australians voicing opposition to the PM’s motion put before Parliament to recoginse and congratulate Israel on its 60th birthday placed this advert in a national paper The Australian.
Not in Our Name
We, as informed and concerned Australians, choose to disassociate ourselves from a celebration of the triumph of racism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the al-Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948. As we write, Israel continues to expand illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem.
Australia and Australians should not give the Israeli people and its leaders the impression that Australia supports them in their dispossession of the Palestinian people. Israel has poisoned our (the West’s) relations with the whole of the Arab and Muslim world. Rather than celebrating the creation of the State of Israel, we should be recognising the people of Palestine, those who were dispossessed, those who lived and died as refugees, those who continue to live and die and suffer at the hands of the State of Israel, and those who will continue to suffer and die in the future until justice is done.
From 1948.com.au
Background
- Australia to celebrate colonialism and ethnic cleansing
- Colonialism – Bad for Australia, Good for Israel
- Will Australia celebrate Israel’s 60th Birthday?
Big thanks to Ann for sending me this!
