Israel’s 60th Birthday

Action alert from the Friends of Al-Aqsa.

Supporters of the state of Israel are planning its 60th Birthday celebrations around the world. The Palestinians are also marking this day as the 60th anniversary of the Nakba the catastrophe that cost them their homeland and made them refugees for 6 decades. The brutal occupation continues and every day, Palestinians continue to be killed by the Israeli army who shows little consideration for life and property.

Israel’s planned celebrations include:

1.A JNF funded charity dinner at Windsor Castle

2.An international friendly football game against Manchester United, in Israel

Israel continues in its occupation of Palestinian land. Its building of illegal settlements means that a future Palestinian state is no longer viable. Israel has built a separation wall within the West Bank cutting many Palestinians off from Jerusalem , and imprisoning others on the Israeli side. The death toll continues to rise. Israel must to brought to justice for its War Crimes, and its celebrations must be challenged. Israel is in breach of UN Resolutions, Geneva Convention and International law.

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More people celebrating the 60th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Top Israeli singer Noa to headline

Noa, known in Israel as Achinoam Nini, is a leading international concert and recording artist who has been called the Israeli Celine Dion. She will perform in concert for Kaleidoscope Israel@60, Tuesday, May 13, at 7 p.m., at the Blanche Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, according to an announcement by the chairs of the Kaleidoscope Israel Committee, Diane and Paul Gallant, their children Steve and Amy Gallant and grandsons Richie and Tommy Gallant. (more…)

The only Israeli writer to boycott the Paris book fair explains why.

Silvia Cattori & Aharon Shabtaï

26 February, 2008
Countercurrents.org

An Interview with Aharon Shabtaï

When the announcement that Israel would attend the “Fiera del libro” of Turin, (*) came out, an immediate wave of protest arose in Italy; and many personalities supported the boycott call, made by the Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian Writers’ Associations (**). In France, strangely enough, the same invitation, to the “Salon du livre” of Paris, did not make much noise. Alone, the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtaï has refused to participate in these events, contrary to the 39 Israeli writers who accepted to be part of the Israeli delegation to these two exhibitions. Aharon Shabtaï explains here why these events –which he qualifies as “promotion of propaganda” for Israel-, must be boycotted, as well as any cultural event where this apartheid State is celebrated.

Silvia Cattori: In December 2007, learning that your name was among 40 Israeli writers invited at the “Salon du livre” of Paris where Israel is the “guest of honour”, you declared that it is not possible to participate in an event where Israel, which commits daily crimes against civilians, is invited. Apparently, 39 Israeli writers do not see any problem in participating!?

Aharon Shabtaï [1]: This event will be opened by the French president Sarkozy and the Israeli president Shimon Perès. Given this situation, going to the “Salon du livre” of Paris as a writer, with the Israeli delegation, means that you are going dressed with the colour of the Israeli flag. Every day, Israel commits war crimes and imposes collective punishments on the Palestinians. There is no reason to celebrate anything. (more…)

Activists to Bono: Don’t honor Israel!
Open Letter, PACBI, 25 February 2008

“We strongly urge you to uphold the values of freedom, equality and just peace for all by rejecting the invitation to attend a conference in Israel celebrating that country’s contribution to science and scholarship. Israel is not a member in good standing of the global community of scientists and scholars, and cannot be honored as such. After all, “it’s not about charity, it’s about justice.”

The following is an open letter from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to musician and activist Bono, issued on 22 February:

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has learned that you have been invited by Israeli President Shimon Peres to take part in a conference designed to mark Israel’s contributions to medicine, science and conservation. We urge you, as a prominent activist on issues of global inequality and a campaigner for basic human rights, to say no to Israel, especially since the invitation coincides with celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state. With the creation of this state 60 years ago, “Palestine ceased to exist except in the hearts and mind of Palestinians,” [1] of whom three quarters of a million were dispossessed and uprooted from their homes and lands, condemned to a life of exile and destitution.

Israel at 60 is a state that is still denying Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned rights, simply because they are “non-Jews.” It is still illegally occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands, in violation of numerous UN resolutions. In the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Israel is continuing the construction of its colonies and massive Wall in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 2004. It is still persistently and grossly breaching international law and infringing fundamental human rights with impunity afforded to it through munificent US and European economic, diplomatic and political support. It is still treating its own Palestinian citizens with institutionalized discrimination. (more…)

 From the International Jewish Solidarity Network

June 2007 marks the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Golan. May 2008 will be the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948 in which Zionist militant forces destroyed more than 500 Palestinian villages through massacre and intimidation, and at least 750,000 Palestinian people became refugees. These are terrible anniversaries: they call our attention and demand our response. (more…)

“At the end of June, London’s first ever street parade for Israel.” JC

First London parade celebrating ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation, war crimes and racism! Will peace activists mobilise, protest and make it the last?

* The following is amended new information from comments

There are two parades mentioned on the Israel at 60 UK site.

One in Manchester and one undisclosed - presumably the London one. Perhaps they’re yet to recieve permission? Both are for 29th June.

• Manchester Salute to Israel Parade
• Salute to Israel Parade

Windsor Castle and the Royal Family excellently exposed for celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary by wake from your slumber.

To think that they claim being “peace mediators”… I wonder if Tony Blair, the “Middle East envoy” will also be celebrating the elimination of Palestine in Windsor Castle??

Common friends… be good sports and let us all celebrate the rape of International Law, of UN resolutions, of the International Court of Justice, of the Geneva Convention and of the Charter of Human Rights! Let us all celebrate illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, illegal possession and development of nuclear weapons, illegal possession and development of chemical and biological weapons, assassination of political leaders without accountability, practice of apartheid and racism, the jailing of 11 thousand people without due process of law, the jailing of children and the daily murder and torture of innocent civilians.

Let us celebrate the dropping of 4.6 million cluster bombs/bomblets over Lebanon during the 2006 war or the deliberate targeting of Lebanon’s infrastructure and even UN buildings. Let us celebrate the Israeli siege on Gaza and the deliberate deprivation of 1.5 million innocent civilians of medical treatment and food or the spraying of Palestinians and their crops with poisonous gas in order to ethnically cleanse them. (more…)

Peoples Geography: Having first indicated Egypt as their choice, organisers of the Turin Book Fair postponed having Egypt as their international Guest of Honour for 2009. One would consider that in 2008, inviting Palestine as Guest of Honour would have been inspired, a powerful symbolic gesture to a peoples who have not experienced any let-up in blocked efforts towards justice.

Instead, the organisers chose Israel as book fair guest this year. This decision is coupled with the choice of Israel as guest of honour for the Paris Book Fair and is ill-considered, coinciding as it does with the 60th Anniversary of the Naqba and the founding of the state of Israel, and at a time when the Israeli military occupation has only worsened.

Italian and international protests and calls for boycott have ensued, protesting the organisers decision that would serve to “commemorate” the Israeli occupation state and and its repressive policies in the OPT. The protest organisers are “appalled to see the world of culture take the side of those who methodically operate to annihilate Palestine and the Palestinians”.

One of the invited Israeli writers, poet Aaron Shabtai, applied his conscience when he rsvp’ed the organisers. Here is his note to Edna Degon of the organising committee (from Tlaxcala):

Dear Edna,
Thank you for your letter.
I do not believe that a State that maintains an occupation, committing on a daily basis crimes against civilians, deserves to be invited to any kind of cultural week. That is, it is anti-cultural; it is a barbarian act masked as culture in the most cynical way. It manifests support for Israel, and even to France that sustains the occupation. And I do not want to participate.
Kind regards,
Aharon Shabtai
7 December, 2007

Will Russia Celebrate the 60th anniversary of ethnic cleansing of Palestine?

Israeli minister in charge of Independence Day festivities visits Moscow to discuss possibility of holding week of Israeli cultural events in Russian capital

Roni Sofer

YNet: Russia is looking into the possibility of holding a week-long festival of cultural events in Moscow to mark Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations this year.

Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila, who recently returned from a visit to Russia, will bring the proposal before the cabinet for discussion on Sunday.

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