On Land Day, March 30, 2011, join international efforts to Stop the Jewish National Fund.

A historic confrontation of the JNF by Atlanta Jews seeking the revocation of JNF's charitable status

Via: Stop the JNF Campaign.
Stop the JNF Campaign announcement
22 March 2011

The Palestinian BDS National Committee has called for a Global Day of Action to commemorate Palestinian Land Day.

On March 30, 2011, join the international campaign to Stop the Jewish National Fund

Palestinian Land Day is the annual commemoration of the 1976 general strike and marches against massive land expropriation by Israel in which six Palestinians were killed and hundreds of others were jailed and wounded. Since then it has been a day to recall many decades of Palestinian resistance to historic and on-going displacement and dispossession.

A key pillar of the colonization of Palestine – from the founding of the State of Israel to the present – has been the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael (KKL), commonly known in English as the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF enjoys charity status in over 50 countries. This is despite its role in the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land, the theft of their property, the funding of historic and present-day colonies, and the destruction of the natural environment.
(Download the Stop the JNF Campaign fact sheet)

Join the campaign to Stop the JNF. The campaign is already underway in Britain, Canada, France and the US, and challenges to the JNF continue across Palestine, including in Israel.

To join the campaign:

• Sign your organization to the international call at http://www.stopthejnf.org/callforaction.html.
• Include the JNF in your BDS and Palestine solidarity work.
• Bring the campaign to your city or region.
• Tell us about your activity at info@stopthejnf.org

The campaign to challenge the JNF will launch on Land Day 2011. As part of the global movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle, and until such time as the State of Israel respects and implements international law, we call on global civil society to join in a campaign to challenge the JNF.

Click here to download the Stop the JNF campaign fact sheet.
For more information about the campaign, email us at info@stopthejnf.org.
To join regional campaigns email the following:
Canada: canada@stopthejnf.org Palestine: palestine@stopthejnf.org
Great Britain: gb@stopthejnf.org United States: us@stopthejnf.org

Read the announcement in French / in Spanish

Stop the JNF Campaign.

Egypt in Movement. By Samir Amin

Via: NewsClick.

Samir Amin (SA): In the short paper, I wanted to stress the strategy of the enemy, that is, the strategy of the USA and the ruling class of Egypt. Many people do not understand this. Now I would like to discuss the components and the strategies of the movement.

There are four components of the opposition. One is the youth. They are politicized young people, they are organized very strongly, they are more than one million organized, which is not at all a small number. They are against the social and economic system. Whether they are anti-capitalist is a little theoretical for them, but they are against social injustice and growing inequality. They are nationalist in the good sense, they are anti-imperialist. They hate the submission of Egypt to the US hegemony. They are therefore against so-called peace with Israel, which tolerates Israel’s continued colonization of occupied Palestine. They are democratic, totally against the dictatorship of the army and the police. They have decentralized leaderships. When they gave the order to demonstrate, the mobilization was one million. But within a few hours, the actual figure was not one million, but fifteen million, everywhere throughout the whole nation, and in the quarters of small towns and villages. They had an immediate gigantic positive echo in the whole nation.

The second component is the radical left, which comes from the communist tradition. The young are not anti communist, but they do not want to be put in the frame of a party with chiefs and orders. They do not have bad relations with the communists. Absolutely no problem. Thanks to the demonstrations, there is a coming together, not of leadership, but of interaction.

The third component is the middle class democrats. The system is so police and so mafia that many, including small businessmen, were continuously racketed in order to survive. They are not part of the left; they accept capitalism, business and the market, they are even not totally anti-American, they do not love Israel but they accept it. But they are democrats, against the concentration of power of the army, police and the gang mafia around. El Baradei is typical of them, he has no idea of the economy other than what it is — the market. He does not know what socialism is, but he is democrat.

The 7th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week 2011.

Via: Israeli Apartheid Week.

High-resolution version of IAW 2011 Poster for printing (JPG)

March 2011

Israeli Apartheid Week organizers across the globe are gearing up for the 7th year of actions in support of Palestinian Civil Society’s call for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Last year’s IAW was incredibly successful with over 55 cities worldwide joining the week to end Israel’s apartheid.

Due to the popularity of Israeli Apartheid Week we have extended the “week” to allow campuses, organizations and regions on different schedules to participate:
March 7-20, Global
March 21-26 United Kingdom

To make getting involved even easier, we have made a list of regional representatives who will help you in this process. They will make sure you have the IAW organizing packet, answer any questions you may have, help you get your event posted on the IAW website and help you connect with other IAW organizers and events in your area. We urge you to contact them as soon as possible.

If you are planning to organize IAW in your city in 2011, but there is no contact listed for your region, please contact the general IAW email at: iawinfo@apartheidweek.org

Note: Only cities listed on this website are officially part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2011.

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A Neoconservative ‘Shock and Awe’: The Rise of the Arabs. By Ramzy Baroud

Via: The Palestine Chronicle.

Arab societies have risen with a unified call for freedom. (Aljazeera)

A pervading sense of awe seems to be engulfing Arab societies everywhere. What is underway in the Arab world is greater than simply revolution in a political or economic sense– it is, in fact, shifting the very self-definition of what it means to be Arab, both individually and collectively.

Hollywood has long caricatured and humiliated Arabs. American foreign policy in the Middle East has been aided by simplistic, degrading and at times racist depictions of Arabs in the mass media. A whole generation of pseudo-intellectuals have built their careers on the notion that they have a key understanding of Arabs and the seemingly predictable pattern of their behavior.

Now we see Libya – a society that had nothing by way of a civil society and which was under a protracted stage of siege – literally making history. The collective strength displayed by Libyan society is awe-inspiring to say the least. Equally praiseworthy is the way in which Libyans have responded to growing dangers and challenges. But most important is the spontaneous nature of their actions. Diplomatic efforts, political organization, structured revolutionary efforts and media outreach simply followed the path and demands of the people. Libyans led the fight, and everyone else either obliged or played the role of spectator.

There is something new and fascinating underway here – a phenomena of popular action that renders any historical comparisons inadequate. Western stereotypes have long served an important (and often violent) purpose: reducing the Arab, while propping up Israeli, British and American invasions in the name of ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘liberation’. Those who held the ‘torch of civilization’ and allegedly commanded uncontested moral superiority gave themselves unhindered access to the lands of the Arabs, their resources, their history, and, most of all, their very dignity.

Yet those who chartered the prejudiced discourses, defining the Arabs to suit their colonial objectives – from Napoleon Bonaparte to George W. Bush – only showed themselves to be bad students of history. They tailored historical narratives to meet their own designs, always casting themselves as the liberators and saviors of all good things, civilization and democracy notwithstanding. In actual fact, they practiced the very opposite of what they preached, wreaking havoc, delaying reforms, co-opting democracy, and consistently leaving behind a trail of blood and destruction.

Israel Apartheid Week/Month. By Mazin Qumsiyeh

Via: Popular Resistance.

The Israel apartheid events* are already being attacked ahead of the events. We are now writing from Colorado where we had our first US stop and where the local groups arranged a number of appearances for us to launch the apartheid Month. In three days we have public lectures at a church, two universities, a bookstore, interview with two radio stations, informal meetings with community leaders, and a meeting with a congressman. Some anti-Semitic Ashkenazi Zionists have been writing to organizers telling them that we are “anti-Semitic” and sending them the link to the ferociously right-wing and settler supporting and misnamed “Anti-Defamation League” (ADL should be called Arab Defamation League). The link they send is this that includes a serious of quotes from me http://www.adl.org/israel/qumsiyeh/in_his_own_word.asp (I have no problem with the quotes, only that some of them are truncated and out of context).

*For more on the Israeli Apartheid Week events held in over 50 cities worldwide, see http://apartheidweek.org/ and this interesting and rather balanced article in Haaretz about this activityhttp://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/what-does-israeli-apartheid-week-actually-achieve-1.347807

March 15 is Palestine’s moment to join the other struggles in Arab countries for freedom and people power. All Palestinians and their supporters are encouraged to get down to the streets in all cities and towns wherever they occur. We also demand an end to the West Bank Gaza Split but I personally do not use terms like reconciliation. There are many Palestinian factions on the ground similar to the number of factions that existed in South Africa when it was struggling to end apartheid. The problem lies in the confusion and damage done by the Oslo process which created a “Palestinian authority” (now 2) without any real authority. It relieved the pressure on the occupiers by administering people and controlling their anger while really making the occupation cost-free to the occupiers.