Israel’s 60th Birthday

Amira Hass via Norman Finkelstein:

In the middle of November a new method of “smuggling” Palestinians into Israel was exposed: in the northern Jordan Valley, two cars from East Jerusalem disguised to look “police-like” were used in an attempt to transport Palestinians without permits through the Bezek crossing. The same week a private smuggling attempt from the West Bank to Israel came to light: a woman was transporting someone concealed in her car, and by her behaviour she aroused the suspicions of soldiers at a checkpoint. This was reported in passing on the radio, as a curiosity. Neither of the two incidents represented a security danger; they were merely additional attempts by unemployed people to work in Israel. There are probably hundreds like them every month, who have not yet been discovered en route to “infiltration” into Israel in a desperate search for livelihood and food for their children. It could even be added: while heroically endangering themselves.

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In 1974, John Pilger made the film ‘Palestine Is Still The Issue’. It was about a nation of people - the Palestinians - forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation by Israel. An occupation condemned by the United Nations and almost every country in the world, including Britain.

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American Government putting pressure on Israel with threats of a birthday boycott?

JN: US President George W. Bush would very much like to be in Israel to commemorate the reborn Jewish state’s 60th Anniversary this May.

There’s just one small proviso: Israel must make some serious progress in implementing its commitments to the Palestinian Arabs under the ‘Road Map’ before the American leader will agree to come.

This incidence of political blackmail was revealed Monday in a report posted on the Jerusalem-based website Israel Today.

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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.

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A selection of tunes from Checkpoint 303.

Gaza Calling

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Needle Stuck on Lebanon

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Looks like the Zionist Federation is targeting UK schools with its birthday celebration propaganda.  Will British schools help them celebrate the ethnic cleansing in Palestine?

While I think its good children should learn about science its wrong that it should be used as a trick in a political campaign to make them think positively of the worlds leading criminal state.

Concern over lack of funds for Israel 60th
08/02/2008
By Dana Gloger
LONDON’S Israeli embassy will not receive any extra funding from the Foreign Ministry to mark the state’s 60th-anniversary celebrations after the Israeli government said it will not be allocating additional money to any of its outposts across the world.

This has left the embassy in London, as well as others worldwide, having to dip into their own budgets if they wish to mark 60 years since independence.

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“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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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

• Advert
• Reason for the advert

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!

The Australian Government will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The morning of the vote a group arranged an advert in a national paper titled not in our name -

“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,” (a friend was involved who will soon forward me a copy - thanks Ann!)

The following by Sonja Karkar on the Electronic Intifada:

So much for the new Australian government taking an even-handed position on Israel-Palestine. Before our politicians even warmed their seats in the new parliamentary sittings, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that he will lead a parliamentary motion to honor Israel on 12 March acknowledging Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. The opposition leader will second the motion. Then, celebrations will take place at a reception in the Mural Hall of Parliament House.
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I love the contradiction that the Australian Government recently appologised for its colonial treatment of its own indigenous population - yet now it celebrates the same treatment of Palestinians. Why do I love it? Because it exposes these fraudulent politicians as being committed to power and spin rather than real values. Alan Ramsey in the Sunday Morning Herald:

You might recall Labor’s Julia Irwin and her efforts 5½ years ago to debate Israel’s theft of what used to be the Palestinians’ half of Palestine. On September 26, 2002, Irwin gave formal notice that she wanted Parliament to debate Israel’s continued military occupation, in defiance of the United Nations, of the West Bank and Gaza for 35 years. Despite thuggish efforts to shut Irwin up, the Howard government allowed her four-point motion to go ahead in the House of Representatives six weeks later but restricted debate to six MPs, each given only five minutes’ speaking time.

As a “debate” of the core malignancy convulsing the Middle East ever since the UN partition of Palestine in 1948, it was a travesty. It was also one of those extremely rare occasions that the easily intimidated Australian Parliament, ever mindful of Jewish financial support of party coffers, has debated the Middle East at all.

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The Australian: A BIPARTISAN motion congratulating Israel on 60 years of statehood has provoked division in federal Labor, with one government MP threatening to boycott the vote and union heavyweights accusing the Jewish state of racism and ethnic cleansing.The parliamentary motion is due to be passed by MPs today, commemorating 60 years of friendship between Australia and Israel.

The motion provoked a clash between Kevin Rudd and Labor MP Julia Irwin yesterday after Ms Irwin questioned why the Government was supporting the gesture, given Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.And today a group of individuals and organisations, including the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the Maritime Union of Australia and South Australian Democrat MP Sandra Kanck, have put their names to an advertisement in The Australian condemning the motion.

“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,” the advertisement reads.

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