Some 400 Israeli, Palestinian and international women gathered in the West Bank village of Beit Omar, under the slogan of “Women for Civil Disobedience as part of the Non-violent Popular Resistance to the Israeli Occupation”. It was the 2^nd Conference marking the International Women’s Day.

 The conference was organized by the “Lo Metsaytot” (“Women who will not obey”) Group, initiated by author and translator Ilana Hamemerman and the women committee of the Center for Freedom and Justice: center4freedom.org/ and with the cooperation and coordination with the Beit Omar Popular Resistance Committee and the Palestinian Solidarity Project http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/

Ebtesam Zidan, Chairwoman of the Palestinian Union of Women’s Struggle Committee, opened the session with a strongly-worded condemnation to the Israeli occupation brutal murder of 16 Palestinian innocent citizens in Gaza Strip.  Ebtisam saluted the legendary steadfastness of Hana Shalabi who has been on hunger strike for the last 24 days in a protest against the Israeli occupation apartheid administrative detention laws. She also highlighted the Palestinian women’s resistance, side to side with Palestinian men, to the Israeli occupation, and spoke about the women’s achievements in the Palestinian society and system.

Khawla Abu Marir  is the only Palestinian woman coordinating a popular resistance committee  - the popular committee against the Israeli illegal settlement and apartheid wall of South Hebron Hills (Yatta). Khawla called for the escalation and expansion of peaceful popular resistance to include all the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967. She valued the participation and solidarity of the International and Israeli peace activists who join the Palestinian protests throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip and called for more solidarity activities with the Palestinians’ just cause not only in Palestine but all over the world. She spoke briefly about the Israeli colonial attacks and activities in South Hebron Hills, and the enormous colonial expansion inside the Palestinians’ land in that area. There have been other Israeli attacks such as demolitions, and lately the assassination of the 17 years old citizen Zakariya Abu Eram, who was killed two days ago in cold blood by the Israeli occupation forces. She added, To Whom It May Concern, Area “C” should be marginalized no more, all official and civil society organizations should pay more attention to women and to have more development plans and projects for this area to support people’s steadfastness.

While the fifteen years old Rand Waleed Abdul Razzak from Silwan in East Jerusalem emphasized the children’s role in the Palestinian struggle against house seizure, demolitions, children’s arrests and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities and settlers in East Jerusalem. She pointed out the necessity of providing protection for children according to the international Children’s Rights treaties.

The Israeli speakers presented their perspectives of the Israeli occupation oppression system. Professor Nurit Peled-Elhanani presented  the findings of the International (Russell) Tribunal of 2011 in Cape Town according to which Israel has “established an institutionalized regime of domination, amounting to apartheid as defined under international law. Israel is discriminating against and eliminating an entire nation on racial grounds in a systematic and institutionalized way, and therefore all collaboration with Israel should cease”.

Peled Elhanani, whose is an expert in Education, further added that “Israeli children have been learning for generations that their neighbors – whether they are Palestinian citizens of Israel or subjects of the State of Israel stripped of human rights – are nothing but a terrifying demographic problem and a security threat. Those very children have meanwhile grown up, their senses of truth, justice and human brotherhood have been dulled by racist education and they have been brought up to become politicians and generals who now declare openly and with the arrogance of all-powerful masters what was once concealed by hypocrisy: that the other face of the Judaization project is the elimination of the Palestinian people, fully and unreservedly supported by the United States and rich countries in Europe”.

Ilana Hamerman told the participants:”in the midst of “an ugly reality we have created a spot of clear and exquisite reality, a unique spot of women’s political opposition, humane and moral, against an evil Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians. This opposition voice is heard in Israel, in Palestine and throughout the world.  This is a feminine voice of courage, friendship and joy of life. This voice carries a message that has no parallel in this torn, bleeding and cruel land”.

 She added: “We Israeli and Palestinian women refuse to be enemies. Our actions symbolize civil disobedience to evil, illegitimate and dangerous laws. We are enhancing our feminine power, the power to be free, to form friendships. We say NO to death and YES to life together. We shall pursue this path; we shall break through checkpoints and barriers within us and without. We are not afraid and we shall not give in.”

Louisa Morgenatti, former member of the European Parliament from Italy, who attended the conference, concluded the meeting by thanking the Palestinian and Israeli women “whose activity  has  rekindled our hope”.

Singer Rona Kenan performed pro-bono as an expression of her full identification with the message of the Conference and was received with enthusiast applause. The local Beit Omar girls’ Debbka Dance group swept all present into a whirlwind of dancing.

The conference was provided with a Hebrew-Arabic-English simultaneous translation service that facilitated the free flow of communication between the women. Regrettably, Knesset member Hanin Zuabi who was scheduled as one of the speakers had to cancel at the last moment owing to a demonstration planned by Israeli right-wingers in front of her Nazareth home.

The conference accomplished its goals on developing and expanding popular resistance efforts, the empowerment of women by officials and NGOs, and increasing female participation in political decision making within Palestinian society.  Additionally, conference participants spent time discussing allocating more time and resources to organizing micro economic self-sufficiency projects in communities in order to achieve an independent source of income for women.  Lastly, the conference was effective in increasing further cooperation and coordination between Palestinian and Israeli women activists in their efforts to bring about freedom and justice for all people who live in the area.

The conference organizers extend their appreciation to all those who put their time and resources into ensuing that the event was a success.  The following incomplete list are individuals who need to be thanked for efforts and support – Ebtisam Zidan, Khawla Abu Mrir, Nurit Alhanan, Le’a Zsemel, Rand Abdul Raziq, Nitza Aminof, Dr. Carmel Shalev, and all of the moderators including Iman Abu Mariya, Ofra.

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AFGHAN WOMEN’S FREEDOM FROM THE CLUTCH OF FUNDAMENTALISM, OCCUPATION AND PATRIARCHY IS ONLY POSSIBLE WITH THEIR OWN STRUGGLE

Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan’s statement on the International Women’s Day

Afghanistan’s women spent another year under the burden of occupiers, dominance of a Jehadi-Mafia government and terror of the Taliban, the result of which was an increase in poverty, homelessness, immigration, loss of dear ones, domestic violence, rape, self-immolation, a high maternal and infant mortality rate and thousand other miseries.

According to figures from the UN, almost 5000 cases of violence against women were recorded last year, though the actual figure is several times higher than this. The last ten years of US and NATO occupied Afghanistan has been a burning hell for women and young girls who have been raped or gang-raped. According to a report of the European Union there are tens of women in jails who are rape victims but are imprisoned for being a “criminal”; rapists are high-ranked government officials or people related to them and Afghanistan’s corrupt judiciary made up of a number of stone-aged clerics can’t deal with or prosecute them. According to the State of the World’s Mothers 2011 report fifty mothers die every day in Afghanistan while giving birth, something that doesn’t hold the slightest importance in the eyes of the treacherous Afghan government officials, minister and ministry of women’s affairs, decoration pieces in the parliament, NGOs and finally the US and west, that occupied Afghanistan under the pretext of women’s rights.

US and its allies occupied Afghanistan ten years back under the excuse of uprooting terrorism, Al-Qaeda and Taliban. According to data collected by Professor Marc Herold, US took its revenge on Afghan civilians by bombarding and killing about the same number of civilians killed in the September 11th attacks in New York in just the first few months of Afghanistan’s occupation. Most of our people wanted the obliteration of the barbarous and criminal Talib regime but not at the cost of losing their independence. RAWA, just a few days after the start of the US attacks, said in a statement, “The actual issue our people face is the eradication of the plague of Taliban and Al Qaeda -though they (our people) didn’t have any part in its cultivation and germination- and the establishment of a government based on democratic values… Our compatriots, therefore, must rise up for a thorough demolition of Taliban and their Osamas…” RAWA’s demand along with the people of Afghanistan’s was that the Taliban dominance be abloshed by the uprisings and struggles of the people of Afghanistan and not by invasion of foreign aggressors.

The US government and NATO who were looking to invade and stay in Afghanistan for their own military, economic and strategic aims, misused the troubles and miseries of our women and have been busy playing a cat and mouse game with the Taliban for the past ten years. After shedding the blood of thousands of innocent women and children, young and old, they have now started another treacherous game of “peace and negotiations” with the Taliban. First they divided the sanguinary Taliban into “moderate“ and “extremist” and have now gone so far that Joe Biden, the vice president of US, announced that “Taliban are not our enemies”! This is true, the Taliban were a project of the US that was run by ISI, they can never be their enemies, they are the deadly enemies of our people, freedom, women, democracy and justice.

The first victims of a deal with the bloodthirsty Taliban will be the women of our country. By endorsing medieval laws for women, Karzai’s mafia-puppet regime wants to pave the way for association with the Taliban, these lackeys of Pakistan. The most recent example of these inhumane laws is the statement of a stooge government body called the Ulema Council of Afghanistan, which is a copy of the laws of the Taliban era of ignorance and terror. Karzai also shamelessly backed the statement.

The US aggressors proved RAWA’s perpetual claim that this country is always at war with the Afghan people and at peace with criminals. The US’s dark and blood-stained history shows that they have always collaborated with the most treacherous regimes, elements and bodies and conspired for the annihilation of governments and movements of the people. The US doesn’t care about the kind of government that takes power in Afghanistan, what only matters is that the regime should be made up of traitors who they reign, which doesn’t oppose their permanent military bases, allows them to use this land for threatening and controlling Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and India; allows Afghanistan to become a place where the US and other imperialists use it to suppress every kind of revolutionary movements of the people in the region, and in general a government that protects the interests of the US and its allies. Now it’s of least importance to the US and NATO if that government is headed by a Talib or a Northern Alliance criminal, or some other criminal which oppresses the Afghan people.

Like every puppet ruler, Karzai uses all his power and abilities to serve the aims and policies of his foreign masters, especially the US, so he looks more useful to them and his corrupt regime can stay in power longer. The Traditional Jirga, which was a gathering of spies and traitors who do not have a speck of honour or patriotism, for agreeing to and legalizing the long-term presence of the US and its bases, was another effort in the same matter.

The limitless and boundless costs of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the deep economic crisis in the capitalist societies and the huge anti-war, anti-capitalist system movements of the people in the western countries, has forced the US and other imperialists to deceive their people and reduce their military forces in some places and attack other nations instead and allow their plunder. The most recent example we saw was Libya, where the country was destructed and a fundamentalist regime of the kind of the savage Taliban was implemented upon its poor people.

Although the US and NATO talk about the exit of their forces in 2014, this is just a reduction and not a complete withdrawal. The US, now busy signing the agreement of building their permanent bases with their Afghan stooges, will in no way leave Afghanistan due to its important strategic position in Asia, unless they are driven away humiliatingly by our nation like the English and Russians.

After ten years of killing and destruction, the US and NATO leave a government to our people which is occupied by Northern Alliance, Taliban and Gulbuddini criminals and spies of foreign countries at every level; a country that is second in corruption in the world; a country that is the biggest producer of drugs in the world with two million addicts despite the influx of millions of dollars; a country that has half a million internally displaced persons and largest number of refugees in the world; a country whose 7 million out of 27 million people suffer from hunger; a country whose most important posts are occupied by the most infamous and traitorous people like Fahim, Khalili, Atta, Farooq Wardak, Rahim Wardak, Ismail Khan, Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi, Spanta, Karim Khuram, Hadi Arghandiwal, Dostum and countless other murderers and plunderers.

Despite all the treacheries of the US and west, a handful of stooge intellectuals and so-called analysts without a conscience, tirelessly propagate for the permanent presence of the US through the government media every day, as if the fortune and prosperity of our country is tied to this military agreement, as if peace, stability and comfort of our people and women is only attainable if the US permanent bases exist. These intellectuals who have sold their souls and are blinded by the dollars the US pays them, cannot or do not want to see the extensive damage and crimes the US and its Afghan accomplices have committed. Maybe they will come to at a time when their own loved ones are killed by the ruthless NATO and US soldiers and then urinated upon or their fingers are cut and kept as trophies. They try to act stupid and ignore this important historical lesson that no nation can prosper by linking itself to an alien nation, and that like the US which has a history marked by the blood of countless, unless its people unite and make sacrifices for gaining grand values like democracy and their rights.

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on the International Women’s Day announces to all the women in Afghanistan that our freedom from the grasp of foreign occupiers, Northern Alliance mafia, vicious Taliban and other anti-women elements, is only achievable by our unity and struggle. It is impossible that domestic violence, rape, beating and self-immolation among women be ended by seminars or some discussions of the NGOs. It is only attainable by the organization of women of all ethnic backgrounds and tribes into an anti-fundamentalist movement against the occupation.

http://www.rawa.org/index.php

 March 2012

1. Israelis have the right to play on both sides of the court, whereas Palestinians can only play on their own side.
2. For security reasons, Palestinians do not have the right to pass the ball between players, the ball could hit an Israeli player.
3. There will be no basket on the Israeli side.
4. Israel is allowed to shoot at any time, even during time-outs.
5. Palestinians are not allowed to have supporters. Only Israelis should be supported.
6. Israel selects the press and what the press reports.
7. Israel encourages Palestinians to shoot into the Palestinian basket. Players who refuse will be nominated as terrorists and will not be allowed to play.
8. Palestinian players are allowed to leave the field but can not return. One exception: A Palestinian can be replaced by an Israeli.
9. Israel selects and instructs the referees, and tells them to look away.
10. Israel selects the captain of the Palestinian team.
11. Israeli faults and Palestinian good plays will not be shown on TV.
12. Israel takes the money sponsors pay to Palestinians.
13. Only Israeli players get refreshments.
14. Palestinians are required to play, when and where designated by Israel.
15. Rules only apply to Palestinians. Israelis may change the rules during the game and are not required to advice the Palestinians of the changes.

Written by Dror Feiler, an ex-Israeli para from kibbutz Yad Hanna, now living in Sweden. He is a member of European Jews for a Just Peace. Published in New Interventions, Volume 12, no.1, Spring 2005.

This wall between us slowly grows
slinking along the dusty earth
like some snake in the desert sands

Once in Jericho it fell down
by those who now do the building
the heirs of the trumpet blowers

Once Belshazzar saw the writing
on the wall, Daniel read the words
Mene, mene, tekel, parsin.

The days of your kingdom will end
for your acts have been found wanting
and your kingdom is divided

Jim Aitken

Jenin, o Jenin

dust, all over the camp,
has settled like a shroud

and this was supposed
to fight the terror
and deliver whatever

with Apache helicopters
themselves recalling
an earlier ethnic cleansing
raining down missile and flame

what havoc was wrought here
in refugee impoverishment
insults the whole of humanity
but it is those especially
who chose to be silent

and we know who they are
the ones who now prepare
in civilised Christian goodwill
silent too on Manger Square
after the dust has settled here
to change a regime elsewhere

and it is this silence that enabled
all the desecration to descend
the silence of willing accomplices
deliberate stalling diplomacies
while the crazed, cleaving butcher
unleashed his rabid hounds of war
and there are no streets anymore

those who did this seem to imitate
clinicians who once tormented them
with real talk of getting rid of lice
and the barbed camps of degeneration
and the absence of sanitation
no electricity or water
bulldozers shovelling the slaughter
like something from the Warsaw Ghetto

and now how to come back from this
demands psychiatric analysis
where once abused becomes abuser
trapped in the ghetto of traumatised minds
while new masters remain silent and blind
o if only perpetrators could see
how their actions will never make them free
and to excorcise their demons inside
and seek peace with the world on the outside

Jenin, o Jenin…

Jenin was written by Jim Aitken, who read it out to the Anti-War demonstration in Glasgow’s George
Square on April 27th. It is taken from the new book, From the Front Line of Terror, published
by the Stop the War Coalition & the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. £3 from SPSC, Peace & Justice Centre, Princes St., Edinburgh, EH2 4BJ.

As Israeli tanks and bulldozers bury any lingering hopes of an early peace settlement in the rubble of West bank towns, it is legitimate to ask, why? What can the Israeli State hope to achieve by dismantling the very institutions they had invested so much effort in creating? The convoluted peace process begun in Oslo some 12 years ago may have ground to a halt even before the second intifada and the Sharon election victory administered it the coup de grace, but the PNA, with Arafat at its head, still posed the option of an imposed deal that could be given a wash of legitimacy. That option has now gone for the duration of this government and the next, at the very least.

In the aftermath of the offensive, Sharon has insisted this sacrifice was far from accidental. He has gone from the destruction of the institutions that would have underpinned some sort of Palestinian entity, to demanding the removal from the stage of the only person who could have negotiated in the name of all Palestinians: Arafat.

There is deep irony here. Before the invasion of the West Bank towns, the main thrust of Israeli propaganda was that Arafat was now irrelevant. He could not control his people, had lost his base of support, was forced through his weakness (or, alternatively, was driven by his malevolence) to support attacks on Israel. There was some truth to this, in that Arafat was totally bound up with the Oslo Process and its failure to deliver either peace or economic and social gains to Palestinians had resulted in a drift of support to more radical groupings. However, one consequence of the siege of Arafat at Ramallah has been an improvement in his standing, granting him greater freedom of manoeuvre. Sharon has no intention of utilising such an opening, at least not beyond shortterm goals such as ending the Bethlehem church siege. Negotiations with Palestinians on a full settlement are off the agenda.

Arafat’s capitulation

A full appreciation of the gravity of this change in Israeli strategic thinking requires a brief review of the last 10 years. These were the years of Oslo, of grinding negotiations, of Palestinian concessions, of Israeli facts on the ground. It was also the years of the construction of the PNA (in essence, of a Palestinian police force), of the semi-autonomous Palestinian enclaves and of the Israeli–controlled barriers between them.

The Oslo Process was one of the first results of the new world order that followed the collapse of the USSR and the assembling of the Gulf War coalition. For Israel, the rewards were an end to the intifada that had damaged its standing abroad, while sapping morale and threatening the consensus at home. Maintaining an occupation army had become a burden both economically and socially. The idea of a client Palestinian state that would police its population on Israel’s behalf was appealing. There was another prize in waiting, though: Israel’s economy was straining at the bit. It was a regional super-power without a region to dominate, forced into competing for sales in Europe and the
USA, denied its own sphere in North Africa and, critically, the oil states of the Gulf. A peace settlement seemingly accepted by the Palestinians would open the doors locked for 50 years. The process required a further ingredient – a partner to negotiate with. This was provided by the Arafat wing of the PLO. It was a perfect match – an aging leader who wished to see some success before he died, who could still trade on his status as the symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israel, along with a liberation army that had grown soft and corrupt in North African havens, far from any conflict zone. In return for conceding 78% of the Palestinian territory to Israel, this body of men was returned to the Occupied Territories. The British police and the

CIA engaged in training this force for its role as controller of Palestinian militants. Half of the Gaza Strip and, one by one, the towns of the West Bank were handed over to the control of the PNA.

However, Israel failed to keep its side of the bargains in full. The settlement building program and expropriation of Palestinian land continued at an accelerated pace. Deadline after deadline in the original process timetable was missed. Every act of resistance by the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad was met by collective punishments which served to illustrate how feeble was the autonomy of the
PNA areas. These did not control even their power and water supplies. A succession of blockades strangled the
PNA economy. Palestinians began to look back at the intifada years as a golden era.

When Barak presented the final settlement plan, against the background of an impending election defeat, it fell far short of what Arafat could sign. It gave the Palestinians only 90% of the remaining 22% of Palestine, and that territory was too fragmented to be viable. Furthermore, Israel retained control over borders and foreign policy. Access of Palestinian goods and labour to the Israeli market was to be curtailed. No satisfactory answer was given to the questions of Jerusalem and of the refugees. The Palestinians asked for more time to consider the plan and propose amendments. The Israelis walked out, withdrawing the offer. In the meantime, Sharon staged his visit to El Aqsa Mosque and triggered the second intifada.

Return of the Transfer Option

After his election victory, Sharon’s strategy appeared to be ambiguous. He led a coalition government and, although he had won the election, a clear majority of the population favoured a deal which would create a Palestinian entity of some form. His response to the intifada was a tight ring of steel around the
PNA areas and, in time, brief incursions into them. This escalating violence drew an unsurprising response – an escalating rate of reprisals, including suicide bombings. It could still be argued, though, that Sharon was attempting to squeeze the fight out of Palestinians and would then seek their agreement to a plan still less favourable to them than the Barak plan.

The strategy has now become clearer – and negotiations are not part of it. Among Sharon’s rivals on the right, former Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly advocated reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza. However, it is hard to see a simple return to the morass of the 1980’s as being a credible goal. This would have to be a reoccupation with another agenda – ethnic cleansing. The Transfer Option, the name used to make more palatable the idea of expelling all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories, has long been attractive to Sharon, who has often stated that Jordan is the natural location for a Palestinian State. Annexation of the West Bank and Gaza into a Greater Israel has always featured in the Likud programme. The main obstacles to carrying out the policy have been world and internal opinion. One of Sharon’s successes has been to shift internal opinion far to the right. For example, two years ago, less than eight per cent of those who took part in a Gallup poll among Jewish Israelis said they were in favour of the Transfer Option. Now, that figure stands at 44 per cent. As for the world, the USA, its most important component, in Israeli eyes at least, has shown that its protests are for window dressing only.

An Israeli historian, Martin van Creveld, has suggested that plans have already been laid for carrying out the transfer. All that is needed is a pretext. One possible trigger could be a major US assault on Iraq. One danger sign is that Israel’s supporters in the USA have been geared up to start preparing the US public for the crime. On May 2nd, Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, endorsed on television the expulsion of all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. This is just the most serious of recent calls for ethnic cleansing to appear in the US media.

Build the Solidarity Campaign

The recent Guardian Opinion Poll showed an overwhelming majority of those with an opinion now supported the Palestinians. The invasion of the Occupied Territories has created an opportunity to build a mass, global, solidarity movement over this issue. Unless we seize the opportunity, we may end up watching helplessly while 2 million Palestinians are evicted from their homes and land.