Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights

WHAT WOULD history look like if it were written in the style of the [Israeli] "Solid Cliff (a.k.a. Protective Edge) operation?

For example:

Winston Churchill was a scoundrel.

For five years he kept the population of London under the unceasing fire of the German Luftwaffe. He used the inhabitants of London as a human shield in his crazy war. While the civilian population was exposed to the bombs and rockets, without the protection of an "iron dome", he was hiding in his bunker under 10 Downing Street.

He exploited all the inhabitants of London as hostages. When the German leaders made a generous peace proposal, he rejected it for crazy ideological reasons. Thus he condemned his people to unimaginable suffering.

From time to time he emerged from his underground hideout to have his picture taken in front of the ruins, and then he returned to the safety of his rat hole. But to the people of London he said: "Future generations will say that this was your finest hour!"
Read more: Who is Winning?

Published in Socialist Worker: Palestinian activist Wael Elasady examines Noam Chomsky's critique of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid.

IN 2003, I picked up a copy of Noam Chomsky's Hegemony and Survival and devoured it within a week. It had been two years since 9/11, and I was still reeling, trying to wrap my head around the daily racism that I was now being subjected to.

The year before, I had spent hours watching Israeli forces pummel the West Bank on my parent's Arab satellite stations--dramatic images of Israeli soldiers laying siege to the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, combat bulldozers crashing through the homes of families in the old city of Nablus, helicopter gunships firing missiles at the refugee camps in Jenin, Israeli tanks surrounding Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah.

With the racism unleashed by September 11, the drowning of the Second Intifada in blood, and the shock and awe of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, I, like many young Arabs and Muslims in the U.S., was beginning to draw radical conclusions about the nature of U.S. empire, the roots of Islamophobia and its connections to a system of capitalist exploitation.

Hegemony or Survival helped fortify my newfound radicalism, confirming my suspicions of the long and ugly history of U.S. imperialism and the economic interests that it served. I soon was reading every Chomsky article and digging up every Chomsky YouTube video I could find. Along with Edward Said and Karl Marx, Chomsky's ideas and biting critique of the capitalist system were critical in helping to shape and give confidence to my emerging socialist leanings.

Over a decade later, Israel is again terrorizing Gaza and the West Bank, and the Israeli state is, as Max Blumenthal aptly put it [1], inciting Israel's population into a "tribalistic frenzy."

But the most recent article I've read by Chomsky was published on July 2 at TheNation.com, with the title "On Israel-Palestine and BDS." [2] The article on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid amounts to a disappointing rationalization for abandoning some of the core rights of the Palestinian people.
Read more: Why doesn't Noam Chomsky support BDS?

This is a message from Dr. Mona El-Farra with the Middle East Children's Alliance.

Dear Friend of Palestinian Children,
 
Every day I have been trying to get news to the world—through radio interviews and writing in email, on Facebook.
 
Telling the world what is happening to us. Reminding the world that we are not just numbers. We are human beings with stories, dreams, anger, laughter and everything in between. Trying to get the world to listen to the voices from Gaza, while Israel’s lies are told again and again in a much louder voice.
 
You are a friend of MECA, so I know you understand all this. I am writing to ask you to show your caring and solidarity by making a contribution to the Middle East Children's Alliance now.
 
Every day I go to the Red Crescent Society to treat children, women and men who are coming in with terrible injuries—head wounds and missing limbs, severe burns and shrapnel in their bodies. And we are running out of medicine.
  Read more: Please help children in Gaza!

URGENT CALL FROM GAZA CIVIL SOCIETY: ACT NOW!

13.7.2014

Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine–We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world, to act, protest, and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.

With the world turning their backs on us once again, for the last four days we have in Gaza been left to face massacre after massacre.  As you read these words over 120 Palestinians are dead now, including 25 children. Over 1000 have been injured including countless horrifying injuries that will limit lives forever – more than two thirds of the injured are women and children. We know for a fact that many more will not make it through the next day. Which of us will be next, as we lie awake from the sound of the carnage in our beds tonight? Will we be the next photo left in an unrecognizable state from Israel’s state of the art flesh tearing, limb stripping machinery of destruction?

We call for a final end to the crimes and oppression against us. We call for:

- Arms embargos on Israel, sanctions that would cut off the supply of weapons and military aid from Europe and the United States on which Israel depends to commit such war crimes;

- Suspension of all free trade and bilateral agreements with Israel such as the EU-Israel Association agreement; (1)

- Boycott, divestment and sanctions, as called for by the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Civil Society in 2005 (2)

Without pressure and isolation, the Israeli regime has proven time and time again that it will continue such massacres as we see around us now, and continue the decades of systematic ethnic cleansing, military occupation and apartheid policies. (3) 
Read more: Urgent call from Gaza civil society: Act now!