Saudi women have started a right-to-drive campaign that has quickly garnered the attention of the international media as well as the concern of conservative Saudi Arabian authorities. The organizers of Women2Drive had began encouraging women to take to the streets en masse, behind the wheel, on June 17 in defiance of a religious edict, fatwa, forbidding women to drive automobiles. A figurehead of the movement, Manal al-Sharif, was detained and released on Saturday and then arrested on Sunday by Saudi police shortly after she posted a video of herself driving a vehicle.

The social media tools that al-Sharif and her fellow activists had used to spread the word about the campaign were quickly removed from the internet. The video of her driving was taken down, as was its replacement. Additionally, the Facebook page marking the June 17 protest against the driving ban was removed and al-Sharif’s Twitter account appeared to be ‘secretly’ taken over by Saudi authorities. Unsurprisingly, the internet community rallied: the video has been reposted, two new facebook pages are online, as is a new twitter account for the campaign.

Before it was removed by Saudi censors, the “I Will Drive Starting June 17^th” Facebook event page read:

We women in Saudi Arabia, from all nationalities, will start driving our cars by ourselves. We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities. We are here to claim one of our simplest rights. We have driver’s licenses and we will abide by traffic laws.

The Women2Drive campaign is not the first time a group of Saudi women have organized a protest against the religious fatwa (as distinguished from a governmental law) issued against women driving, but this most recent attempt has taken practical and rhetorical measures to avoid a drastic response from Saudi authorities. According to Abu Dhabi’s English publication The National:

Planners of the June 17 protest were taking care to avoid violating the kingdom’s prohibition of public demonstrations by urging women to go about their errands individually and not converge on one place. “It means these girls learnt a lesson. They’re smart,” said Fawziah Al Bakr, a professor of education at King Saud University and one of the women who participated in a 1990 protest against the driving ban.

Women who drove in that protest were severely punished. Some lost their jobs, were forbidden to travel abroad, or were maligned in mosque sermons.

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Palestinian political factions, Fatah and Hamas, signed a notable reconciliation accord last Wednesday in Cairo. The agreement may foster a much-needed spirit of unity between the two political camps that have remained divided, with calculated assistance from Western powers, for the last several years. Analysts across the political spectrum have offered explanations for the reconciliation agreement, such as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas attempting to forestall the nascent Palestinian youth movement inspired by the Arab Spring, or the Palestinian Authority reaching out to Hamas to gain a semblance of legitimacy as the great majority of Palestinians see the Palestinian Authority as a Western-backed government that is actively avoiding elections.

Angered by the reconciliation agreement and the possibility of Hamas gaining legitimacy, Israel quickly froze more than $86 million of tax revenues collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Rather than holding Israel accountable for seizing money belonging to a foreign government, the European Union agreed to provide additional aid to the Palestinian Authority to help cover the cost of government employee salaries and welfare payments.

Predictably, most Western governments have been slow – if not, unwilling – to celebrate the joining of the Palestinian governing parties. Politicians and government spokespeople have returned to parading around worn-out rhetoric about the preconditions to be placed on Palestinians before the ‘dog-and-pony-show’ peace process resumes. Britain and the United States both made statements calling on Hamas to renounce violence and to recognize Israel (if you think Hamas is unique in this respect, please remember the Likud charter which rejects a Palestinian state), or else the Fatah-Hamas coalition may be left out in the cold. These demands are reminiscent of Obama’s words in Cairo in June 2009:

Palestinians must abandon violence.  Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed.

Obama continued:

Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.  To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Any mention of Israel’s need to abandon violence was absent from Obama’s speech in Cairo, as it is now absent in the statements that followed the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation agreement.  Western powers have been continually harping on Hamas, since their democratic election to power in 2006, to abandon violence and any forms of armed resistance. Even following Wednesday’s agreement with Fatah, Hamas maintains their right to utilize armed resistance, a right that happens to be supported by international law. What has changed is the new agreement that Hamas and Fatah will (theoretically) be in consultation on a variety of governance issues, including chosen forms of resistance.

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A US boat named The Audacity of Hope is scheduled to sail to Gaza next month along with a flotilla of 15 ships from Europe, Canada, India, South Africa, and the Middle East, carrying passengers from more than 22 nations. The US Boat to Gaza is part of a larger campaign to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip and draw attention to Israel’s inhumane blockade of the Palestinian coastal enclave. The organizers, supported by a large list of signatories, explained the reasoning behind the presence of a US boat in the upcoming flotilla as such:

The U.S. government is complicit through established policies that uncritically support Israel in its brutal attack on the Palestinian people and on those who attempt to intervene on their behalf. We in the United States must continue to step up and do our part. We must join with others from across the world to support an end to the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The international movement to end the siege on Gaza reached a violent peak on May 31, 2010 when Israeli commandos intercepted the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, killing eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American. In the aftermath of Israel’s raid on the Freedom Flotilla, Israel mounted an aggressive PR campaign to derail the growing global awareness of the humanitarian crisis resulting from Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

The Israeli daily, Haaretz, reports that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon to stop the flotilla that is set to arrive in Gaza in May. In his statement to the UN, Netanyahu accused the impending flotilla, deemed the Freedom Fleet, of being comprised of radical Islamists “whose aim is to create a provocation and bring about a conflagration.”

The Israeli government campaign to silence dissent and curb criticism of Israeli governmental and military policy, evidenced by Netanyahu’s desperate plea to Ki-Moon, has accelerated with the creation of a military intelligence research division tasked with monitoring left-wing groups and so called “deligitimizers.” The new unit will reportedly work closely with Israeli government ministries and has already been in discussion with the Prime Minister’s office regarding the Freedom Fleet’s upcoming journey to Gaza.

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Will all Pink Floyd fans please stand up and tune into Roger Waters’ message for today? Pretend like you just got home from the record store after purchasing the newest, highly-anticipated Pink Floyd album and you’re about to sit in front of your stereo and listen to the complete album without interruption. Listen up, this is gonna be good.

The Guardian just published a column by Roger Waters in which he declares his support for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to be levied against Israel until the occupation ends and Palestinians and Israelis enjoy equal rights:

Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes – and it surely will come – when the wall of occupation falls and Palestinians live alongside Israelis in the peace, freedom, justice and dignity that they all deserve.

Waters’ public stance is huge. He is the highest-profile musician to declare his support for the BDS movement to date. The nonviolent struggle against Israeli apartheid is going mainstream, and not in some soft, cuddly, watered-down manner; but BDS is a means of nonviolent struggle that really has some teeth, as was seen in South Africa. A cultural boycott of Israel, where artists would refuse to entertain and whitewash Israeli apartheid, is a nonviolent tool with the power to rapidly erode the moral standing of Israel in the world.

Waters doesn’t beat around the bush when speaking about the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and the diaspora, that has brought him to publicly supporting BDS.  Instead, Waters concisely describes the injustice inflicted on Palestinians and challenges people of conscience to wake from their slumber:

In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair-minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.

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All across the occupied Palestinian territories, women took to the streets on Tuesday in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.

In Gaza city, an estimated 500 women marched through the city center calling for national unity and an end to the rift between rival political factions, Fatah, which governs the West Bank, and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.  Women called for a unified Palestinian voice, while hoisting a 10-meter long Palestinian flag, as a necessary step in resisting Israel’s expanding settlement project that includes the ongoing judaization of Jerusalem.

Palestinian women also led protests across the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, dozens of women blocked an Israeli bypass road – a crucial piece of the transportation infrastructure built to connect Israeli settlements, a transportation system to which Palestinians have limited access – in protest of Israel’s vast system of roadblocks that limit Palestinian movement.

At Qalandia checkpoint, a monstrosity of a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem, 150 Palestinian women demonstrators attempted to pass through to Jerusalem.  Israeli border guards formed a human wall to prevent the women from proceeding through the checkpoint, demonstrating Israel’s restriction of Palestinians’ movement, including the denial of access to areas supposedly under Palestinian control such as East Jerusalem.

In Hebron, a broad swath of women’s civil society, including representatives from non-governmental organizations, schools, labor unions, and women’s cooperatives organized to distribute flowers to a  large number of women across the city.

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An estimated one thousand Palestinians, joined by Israeli and international activists, took to the streets on Friday to demand the opening of Shuhada (Martyrs) Street, a former thoroughfare in the West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli occupying forces fired foam-tipped bullets, tear gas, and sound grenades resulting in the serious injury of nine protestors, in addition to the many who suffered the adverse effects of tear gas inhalation.

Protestors attempted to reach Shuhada Street but were intercepted by Israeli forces who formed human walls to prevent Palestinians from reaching the street that formerly hosted the city’s main market. The protestors marched towards the line of soldiers, holding signs and chanting, “We don’t want the settlers nor the occupation,” and, “the people want Shuhada Street.”

Israeli forces used riot dispersal methods at multiple locations when they were outnumbered by the protesters who had gathered. The use of these weapons effectively segmented the crowd that was forced to scatter to adjacent streets and alleys to avoid the incapacitating tear gas and the disorienting sound grenades. A small minority of Palestinian youth responded with stone throwing only after Israeli forces had violently suppressed the protesters assertion of their rights to free speech and freedom of movement. (I mention this for the sake of refuting the misleading articles and headlines which parroted the claims of Israeli military spokespersons, emphasizing the injury of five Israeli Border Police while dismissing the history and current political realities of Israel’s colonization of Hebron).

Friday’s protest marked the 17^th anniversary of Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 29 Palestinians who were praying in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque. Following the 1994 massacre, Shuhada Street – a main artery serving the Old City of Hebron as well as the Ibrahimi Mosque – was closed to Palestinian traffic. No Palestinian cars, nor Palestinian themselves are permitted on Shuhada Street; whereas, Israeli settlers are permitted to travel freely while under the protection of the Israeli military. Many Palestinians whose homes are located on Shuhada Street are not able to use their front doors. Some residents of Shuhada Street are forced to use ladders connected to neighboring roofs in order to leave their homes.

As seen in in Hebron on Friday, the Israeli government continues to suppress Palestinian popular resistance and attempts to paint all Palestinians actively involved in the nonviolent struggle as deviant and violent individuals. The Israeli media predictably reported that stone-throwing troublemakers were seeking to gain access to the “Jewish Quarter” of Hebron, while in fact, the protestors were attempting to access a street, in the heart of an Arab city, from which they have been barred based on ethnic criteria. Contrary to Israeli hasbara (propaganda) claims, the Palestinians in Hebron, and all across the West Bank, who are daily struggling against Israeli’s expanding colonial project are ordinary people, they are people who have been pushed to the brink by Israel’s inhumane occupation.

The residents of al-Arakib, a Bedouin village in Israel’s Negev Desert, refuse to leave and they refuse to cease rebuilding, despite 17 demolitions in a span of just eight months -  the most recent taking place on Wednesday.  As the number of demolitions has risen, the severity of force used against al-Arakib residents, who rightfully resist the demolition of their homes, has also risen. Those at the scene on February 16, reported that Israeli forces arrived and immediately began shooting tear gas, stun grenades, and foam-tipped bullets at the residents. Tamar, an Israeli activist who was present during the most recent round of demolitions reported on the Israeli forces’ indiscriminate use of violence:

The police harshly beat the women and children who were standing in quiet protest, they simply beat women and children…I stood alongside a woman who was beaten by four police officers, actual fists in her face, ears and neck, in addition to kicks until she almost lost consciousness…people are sitting on the ground, in the rain, and not moving, women and children. The police shot stun grenades and foam bullets directly at the women, at point blank.

The Bedouins of al-Arakib comprise a few hundred of the more than 100,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Negev. Nearly half of the that population live in villages that the State of Israel doesn’t officially recognize. Unrecognized villages are not connected to the electrical grid, water mains, or trash pick-up and sewage systems.

Many are calling the demolitions in al-Arakib the “ethnic cleansing of the Negev Desert.” Demolitions carried out by the Israel Land Administration are made possible by the overwhelming presence of Israeli riot police and their gross use of force. The demolitions are an attempt to Judaize more territory in the Negev by forcing Bedouin residents off their ancestral land and into the towns that Israeli created in the late 70′s/early 80′s for the purpose of concentrating the Arab Negev population.

In the most recent demolitions, activists reported that the bulldozers that razed the dwellings and animal enclosures were not Israel Land Administration equipment, as used previously, but were marked as belonging to the Jewish National Fund (see here and here for harrowing video of previous demolitions).

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On January 11, thirty-five New Yorkers gathered outside the offices of Point Lookout Capital Partners, a New York firm that facilitates investment in Combined Systems Inc. (CSI), to protest the company’s ongoing sale of tear gas to the Israeli army. The Israeli army’s use of the CSI tear gas has resulted in the deaths and injuries of numerous nonviolent protesters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including the killing of Bil’in resident Jawaher Abu Rahmah earlier this month.

According to a press release from Adalah-NY, who organized the protest:

The New York protesters held signs with photos of Palestinians and international activists killed and severely wounded by Israeli tear gas canisters at protests, including Jawaher Abu Rahmah and her brother Bassem, who was killed when shot directly with a canister in April 2009, and Palestinian Khamis Abu Rahmah and Americans Tristan Anderson and Emily Henochowicz, all of whom were severely injured by Israeli tear gas canisters fired directly at them in 2009-2010. Protesters displayed photos of tear gas canisters manufactured by CSI, financed through Point Lookout Capital, and shot at protesters in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’ilin by the Israeli army.

Participants staged a re-enactment of protest marches held weekly in Bil’in, including a mock tear-gassing by an actor dressed as an Israeli soldier. The protesters then choked and collapsed motionless on the sidewalk outside the office of Point Lookout Capital. A protester dressed as a doctor then read the names of some of those killed and injured by tear gas in the West Bank.

Dave Lippman from Adalah-NY explained the connections between CSI, Point Lookout, and the Israeli military’s repression of nonviolent activists:

The Israeli military is using tear gas manufactured by CSI and financed through Point Lookout Capital as a weapon to crush the growing unarmed protest movement against Israel’s illegal confiscation of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements. We as US taxpayers are paying for some of the tear gas that Israel is shooting at Palestinian, Israeli and American protesters. The US government needs to stop providing this deadly aid, and CSI and Point Lookout need to end their complicity in Israel’s violent repression of legitimate protest.

Adalah-NY, in partnership with Codepink, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and Jewish Voice for Peace wrote a letter urging CSI to stop providing equipment and weapons which are used to kill and maim unarmed protesters in the West Bank. Following this open letter, an Adalah-NY action alert inspired 870 emails to CSI and the supporting firms Point Lookout Capital and the Carlyle Group. Additionally, a Codepink petition directed to the same companies has garnered 2,141 signatures.

Follow those links to express your displeasure with the Israeli military’s misuse of CSI’s tear gas, resulting in injury and death.

Why should you be displeased, even outraged? Because if you are a US taxpayer, you are paying for some of the tear gas that is used by the Israeli military against unarmed protesters. In 2007 and 2008, the US State Department provided $1.85 million worth of “tear gasses and riot control agents” as a piece of the $3 billion in military aid that the US pays annually to Israel. This lethal tear gas is then used on Palestinians, joined by international and Israeli supporters, who are peacefully lifting their voices to demand that their land be returned and that Israel and the international community recognize their inalienable rights.

For nearly six years, the Palestinian residents of the West Bank village of Bil’in have held a weekly nonviolent demonstration against the separation wall—a barrier cutting through large portions of Palestinian land that has been declared illegal by the International Criminal Court and the Israeli High Court.

A reported 1,000 people gathered for last Friday’s weekly demonstration, declaring the last day of the decade to also be the last day of the wall on Bil’in’s land. But the pronouncement and the ensuing attempt to break through the wall were marred by the tragic death of 36-year-old Jawaher Abu Rahmah, who died as a result of being poisoned by the active ingredient in tear gas.

Abu Rahmah is survived by four brothers, one sister, and her mother, Subhiyeh, who also lost her son Bassem in 2009 during a demonstration in Bil’in. He was killed by the Israeli military when they shot him in the chest with a high-velocity tear gas canister. Another of her sons, Ashraf, was shot by Israeli forces while blindfolded and under arrest.

Subhiyeh has nevertheless rejected notions of revenge and instead called for joint Israeli-Palestinian resistance to the occupation in the face of the killing of her daughter:

I brought my children to the world with love and I educated them to believe in peace and not to act violently. Out of six children, I have four left. I’m not complaining because it’s not in our hands. God decides what will happen. I ask the people of Israel to take a firm stand against the occupation. They must support our just struggle against the fence and for the liberation of the lands we were robbed of, because only together we’ll be able to put an end to the tragedy of our two people.

Heeding the call of Jawaher’s mother, Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv on Saturday, gathering in front of the Defense Ministry, to protest the killing of Abu Rahmah. Approximately 200 people blocked a main traffic artery while publicly decrying the actions of their government. Tel Avive-based journalist Lisa Goldman described the protest:

Waving mourners’ posters emblazoned with photos of Jawaher Abu Rahmeh captioned in Arabic, and carrying placards with slogans in Hebrew and English, demonstrators chanted in Hebrew: “Citizens, awake! Fascism is already here!” “Barak! Barak! Minister of Defense! How many demonstrators have you killed today?!” ; in English: “Apartheid! Fight back!”; and in Arabic: “Min Ghaza el Bil’in, hurra hurra Falasteen!” (from Gaza to Bil’in, freedom, freedom for Palestine).

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After serving more than 18 months in Ofer prison, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, a champion of nonviolent resistance, is a free man. Jerusalem-based activist Joseph Dana reports:

Before he had even reached the gate of Ofer military compound, Adeeb Abu Rahmah had his hands in the air in celebration. Abu Rahmah crossed the iron gate of the compound and walked into freedom after eighteen months in military prison. Despite the frigid mountain air, the warmth of Adeeb’s presence could be felt strongly by all present. He embraced his daughters immediately with tears in his eyes. With barely a moment to catch his breath, Adeeb kissed and hugged everyone that was present, occasionally throwing his hand high in the air with a peace sign and yelling out one of the many chants that are common on demonstration days in Bil’in.

As Adeeb Abu Rahmah greeted his loved ones on a windy night in the Ramallah hills, he led chants calling for national unity and for the release of his cousin, Abdallah Abu Rahmah.

Abdallah Abu Rahmah was taken from his home in the middle of the night on December 10, 2009 and has remained in prison since his arrest.  The initial charges against Abu Rahmah—stone throwing and arms possession—were dropped and he was later convicted of incitement and organizing demonstrations. Abu Rahmah’s conviction drew criticism from Amnesty International, B’tselem, Human Rights Watch, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, the Spanish Parliament, and the European Union.

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