• On Saturday, some 6,000 people gathered at a rally in Tokyo calling for the withdrawal of U.S. Marine base stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

• Russian police broke up anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Sunday, and detained more than 100 demonstrators, including several opposition leaders.

• More than 150 inmates at a prison in Spuz, outside Podgorica, Montenegro launched a hunger strike last Wednesday, claiming guards are abusing them. This is the second such protest in ten days.

• In India, 10,000 teachers from 35 central universities began a two-day strike last Thursday, demanding changes in the regulation on service conditions which seeks to link their promotion to output.

• Dozens of students at Little Miami High School in Cincinnati walked out of class Monday morning on the eve of a critical levy vote. The walkout was followed by a sit-in at the school.

• A large number of staff at Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport, including security personnel, walked off the job yesterday and attended union meetings in protest against plans to outsource two employee canteens. Other employees who have downed tools include baggage handlers, the fire department, cleaning crews, technicians and drivers.

• Immigrants held in a South Texas detention center have begun an indefinite hunger strike. Its the second mass hunger strike in a year. Some of the detainees say they’ll refuse to eat until they are released.

• The Sheikh Yassin coalition organized a protest outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris on Saturday, demanding that Egypt stop building an underground steel barrier on the border with the Gaza Strip.

• Palestinians took part in a protest in Gaza City yesterday, calling for the release of their loved ones imprisoned in Israeli jails.

After more than half a century of intransigent injustice, the Palestine/Israel “conflict”—or “disaster,” or whatever you want to call it—only seems to get worse. In the last few years, Israel has pummeled both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip with devastating impunity and, especially in the Strip, forcibly prevented its victims from making any kind of meaningful recovery. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian activism in Israeli civil society is reportedly on the decline. But, in one of a series of events since returning from the partly-thwarted Gaza Freedom March, a group of activists spoke of their experiences on Thursday at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, telling a packed room of more than 200 people, “We are here to celebrate an achievement.”

The Egyptian government didn’t let most of the over 1,300 protesters from around the world into Gaza for the planned march, but those at Judson said that they witnessed a new stage in the emergence of a global movement, facilitated by the Internet, that may well be poised to end the international support that makes Israel’s policies possible. The linchpin of the movement, the Cairo Declaration of the Gaza Freedom March, was drafted by would-be marchers while they waited in Egypt. It includes commitments to:

Palestinian Self-Determination

Ending the Occupation

Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine

The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees

The Declaration also calls for comprehensive boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel and the interests that enable its occupation. Read the rest of this article »

Residents of At-Tuwani Village block the path of an Israeli military jeep.

Every time I return home after a vigil, I am asked, “How was it?” How does one answer? We were present? Ignored? Warmly greeted? Does it matter? The war goes on. Guantánamo remains open. Lies continue. We show up. We pray. We walk. So to attempt to describe my voyage with a Christian Peacemaking Team (CPT) delegation to Palestine/Israel in late November is more difficult to answer than the journey itself.

I am blessed to have been led to this step by Catholic Workers and very dear friends. My desire to join a delegation elsewhere was rerouted by the suggestion that I should go to Palestine. As I have related many times, when Anne Montgomery—an 80-year-old nun who travels the world taking part in nonviolent direct actions—says go to Palestine, you go. I went.

For 11 days, our delegation of seven—three women and four men, including a Briton, two Germans, a Canadian, and three Americans—jumped in and out of cabs, buses, hiked hills, climbed mountains, slept in hostels, caves, tents, met with lawyers, activists, shepherds, soldiers, teachers, settlers, and NGO human rights groups. We talked, vigiled, prayed. We learned. We tried to learn. For me, the more I heard, the more confused I became. I felt in the middle of a sudden death battle in which neither side would give in. But I also felt completely at home, welcomed.

In Hebron, I went through a checkpoint. I showed my passport, as instructed and walked on. Then I heard the Israeli soldier manning the post call. I was sure he was yelling at me, but I continued. He called again, in Hebrew. I turned and he asked, “What state?” I answered and he waved me on. But it made me aware that if one does not speak the language of the occupier, one can most certainly be put in harm’s way.

Read the rest of this article »

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, not the national holiday which is Monday. As an activist member of Jewish Voice for Peace, I have at times faced counter-demonstrations while I speak out against unjustifiable atrocities being committed allegedly for me and by “my” side. Being from the United States, I could be doubly responsible for the US/Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. As a long-time member of the War Resisters League, King and I share a belief that (in his words) “social change comes more meaningfully through nonviolence,” that the “business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love,” and that God didn’t choose “America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.” 42 years have passed since he was assassinated.

So I am perplexed when I see “pro-Israel” signs that extol Martin Luther King’s defense of Israel, using quotes (which I also am fond of doing) by the late revolutionary, but in their case, highlighting things he said that seem to place him on “their” side of the police line, not mine. On the occasion of his birth, newsletters of synagogues may even have articles touting King as a staunch defender of Israel’s right to defend itself. They take quotes from 42 years ago as I do, to make our points. Certainly, after the Six Day War of 1967 (and before), King defended Israel. However, events of the last two score years I think would have reinforced King’s pacifism and “eternal hostility towards militarism, racism and economic exploitation.” He never would have become an anti-Semite, but I do think facts on the ground would have led him to become quite critical of Israel. I want to briefly mention five specific issues that would have negatively effected King’s perspective on Israel:

Read the rest of this article »

It was 3am when they came barreling into town – Israeli jeeps and tanks preempting the dawn and hollering menacing messages over their loudspeakers. ‘Wake up you Arab dogs’ they would exclaim as our team gathered to prepare our nonviolent direct response to the impending threat of violence.  What do we do?  Planning a course of action as a member of the International Solidarity Movement entails its own process, one that not always dovetails with the ethos of being a member of the body of Christ.  For those of us who have been led to Palestine by our love for Jesus, for God and for humanity, we inexorably find ourselves asking, like Christoper Dickey in his article in Newsweek, what would Jesus do in Palestine?  As followers of Jesus, our answer is crafted from the loving words and actions of the Good Shepherd who is both Jewish and Palestinian.

Side by side with self-proclaimed atheist anarchists, I found myself at times unnerved by the cavalier attitude of tank-chasers and the hostility of those who sought to provoke violence for the sake of their own aggrandizement.  This is not to devalue or dismiss the legitimacy of others’ motivations for being there but to honestly convey my own perception of existing ranks within the organization.  In fact, it was on this day that despite the disparity in our spiritual and political motivations we were able to act in concert for the betterment of the Palestinian people.  Why? Because we let love be our guide.  We assessed the situation and determined that our highest priority were the humanitarian concerns of those Palestinians who were unable to access food and essential provisions because of the curfew.  The team member in charge of facilitating communication was an Israeli-Jew fluent in Hebrew and English.  In all humility, he put himself in harm’s way on behalf of people he never met because he believed that those who shared his religion and ethnicity were perpetuating a grave injustice.  To me, this is what Jesus did during His time, and this is what Jesus would do today.

A nonviolent revolution is well underway in Palestine, one in which native Palestinians protest,  boycott and divest alongside Israeli and international partners.  We strive for the end of military occupation, to end the appropriation and destruction of Palestinian land, an end to the bloodshed and adherence to international law.  Yet for all this to happen one very important thing must happen.  Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians must come to love and respect each other.  I heard Palestinians tell me that the conflict will only end when the Jews were pushed into the sea and obliterated.  I saw first hand how ruthless Israeli Jews and settlers could be towards Palestinians.  This is why I believe that recent efforts like those of B’Tselem are on target to address the conflict at its roots and are aimed at creating understanding, respect and tolerance amongst those at war with each other.  The conflict must be transformed by building bridges that showcase culture, through dialogue, by sharing hopes, dreams, tears and aspirations.

In short, Jews and Arabs must fall in love with each other.  Barriers and walls, rockets and arbitrary detentions only dash the hopes of a lasting peace built on a foundation of respect for mutual sanctity.  Palestinians must continue to tell their stories, for the very right to tell their own history is under threat.  In the midst of such an asymmetrical conflict, we must stand in solidarity with those who are in jeopardy of losing it all.  And, like Jesus, one who perfectly embodies a Jewish-Palestinian identity, we must call into unity and awareness all who are blinded by hate, power and greed.  We can and will do this with the simplicity of our impartial loving concern.

• British graffiti artist Banksy popped up with 4 new murals on the Regent’s Canal in London last week, one of which was this protest of global warming denialism.

• More than 1,000 people marched in Islamabad on Friday as part of a nationwide campaign that took place in 53 other Pakistani cities and towns to protest both Taliban bombings and the American drone strikes.

• Hundreds of demonstrators rallied on opposite sides of an Israeli-Gaza border crossing on Thursday to protest at the blockade of the strip imposed by Egypt and Israel. In Gaza, about 100 international activists staged a rally with some 500 Gazans, chanting and carrying signs denouncing the blockade. A small number of anti-Zionist, Orthodox Jews were among them.

• Hundreds of relatives of prisoners in a Mexican jail protested the expected transfer of inmates to make way for a film shoot with director Mel Gibson next year.

• Internally displaced people at a campsite in Nakuru, Kenya demonstrated along a highway to protest their poor living conditions following the onset of rains and demanded building materials.

• Dozens of Jordanians held a sit-in near the Egyptian embassy in the Jordanian capital on Sunday to protest Egypt’s plan to construct a steel wall along its borders with the besieged Gaza Strip.

• Thousands of people in Hong Kong took to the streets on New Year’s Day to demand full democracy in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. The Chinese government ruled in 2007 that the territory cannot directly elect its leader until 2017 and its legislature until 2020.

• Police detained dozens of people at an anti-Kremlin protest on Thursday, including 82-year-old Lyudmila Alexeyeva, one of Russia’s most respected rights activists.

• Iranian riot police fired tear gas in clashes with thousands of opposition supporters who shouted anti-government slogans during a Shiite mourning event on Saturday. On Sunday, at least 15 protesters were killed as the demonstrations, which at times turned violent, continued. 

• Students at several universities in Germany staged a campus sit-in over Christmas to protest the worsening of study conditions and rising fees.

• Members of two of Turkey’s largest unions started work after an hour-long delay Friday to protest layoffs and the closure of offices that resulted from privatization. They plan to continue holding one hour protests every week until the ruling party hears their demands.

• Palestinians have held a mass demonstration against Egypt’s construction of an underground wall along the border with the Gaza Strip which claimed its first victim on Friday.

• More than 200 workers organized a sit-in Thursday morning in front of the Social Affairs Center in Jabriya, Kuwait to protest the withholding of their salaries for more than seven months, bad housing conditions and not having their residency permits renewed.

• Rallies, hunger strikes and demonstrations continued for the fourth consecutive day on Saturday in the Telangana region of India, where the demand for a separate state keeps gaining momentum.

• Taxi drivers in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki went on strike Saturday to protest the murder of a fellow taxi-driver in the region of Pylaia on Christmas Day.

To mark the one year anniversary of the three-week Israeli assault on Gaza and to draw the world’s attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis there, over 1,300 people from more than 40 countries, along with an estimated 50,000 Palestinians, will participate in a nonviolent rally and 5-km (3-mile) march from Abu Drabo - a Palestinian community that has been almost entirely destroyed - to the Erez border crossing into Israel on December 31.

According to its website, the Gaza Freedom March – which is being organized by the International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza – will:

…feature hip hop music (including a song written especially for the march) and commentary on the impact of the siege by farmers, fishermen, merchants and others.  Upon reaching Erez crossing, balloons, kites and/or flags will be flown to express solidarity with Palestinians and Israeli peace activists on the other side.    

Almost all of the international delegates participating in the march are first meeting in Cairo, and will head from there to the Egyptian border with Gaza.

Last Sunday, however, organizers for the march ran into a problem. After months of negotiating with the Egyptian government, the Foreign Ministry announced that the Rafah border crossing would be closed due to the “sensitive situation” in Gaza.

Read the rest of this article »

• The streets of Qom, Iran’s holy city and the center of its religious life, filled with tens of thousands of mourners on Sunday. They came both to honor a founding father of modern Iran, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, and to protest the government he had come to oppose.

• More than 3,000 female Burmese workers at a bra factory in Tak’s Mae Sot district again went on strike on Monday over an assault on two of an employee’s relatives by four security officers.

• In New York City, students left school early on Monday in a walk-out to protest the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan to stop giving students free Metrocards. The youngsters left school at 2 pm and gathered in front of the MTA’s headquarters to demand that the agency find a way to fill its $400 million budget shortfall that won’t force students to pay to commute to city schools.

• Some 300 municipal staff began a sit-in at the Town Hall in Alcoy, Spain on Monday against the local government’s decision to sack nine workers, saying they will remain there until this afternoon.

• Over 5,000 indigenous, Afro-Colombian and farming community members are occupying the community center of Piñuña Negro in the department of Putumayo, Colombia. A crowd of all ages has gathered at the highest government office in the area—the Police Inspector’s office—to demand negotiations with local and national government representatives and an end to military and paramilitary harassment and coca eradication programs that are causing thousands of residents to be displaced.

• Hundreds of Palestinian citizens on Monday evening participated in a sit-in organized by Hamas Movement near Salahuddin terminal on the Palestinian-Egyptian borders in protest at the building of a steel wall on Gaza borders.

• A protest at the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) on Monday drew attention to the contribution of the New Zealand business to climate change. A sit-in occurred, blocking the entrance to the building, and police arrested nine activists. The protest featured ‘Radical Cheerleaders’, a samba band, and around 80 diverse protestors.

• The Islamabad Bar Association (IBA) on Saturday protested near Sihala police training college in Islamabad to urge the government to expel the US private security company Blackwater, which lawyers said was operating inside Sihala college.

The Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid just put out this helpful top ten list of companies that make products that directly harm Palestinians – either by exploiting labor, developing technology for military operations, or supplying equipment for illegal settlements – that should be boycotted this Christmas. Here is a sampling from their list:

1. AHAVA

This brand’s cosmetics are produced using salt, minerals, and mud from the Dead Sea — natural resources that are excavated from the occupied West Bank.  The products themselves are manufactured in the illegal Israeli settlement Mitzpe Shalem.  AHAVA is the target of CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign.

2. Delta Galil Industries

Israel’s largest textiles manufacturer provides clothing and underwear for such popular brands as Gap, J-Crew, J.C. Penny, Calvin Klein, Playtex, Victoria’s Secret (see #10) and many others.  Its founder and chairman Dov Lautman is a close associate of former Israeli President Ehud Barak.  It has also been condemned by Sweatshop Watch for its exploitation of labor in other countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.

3. Motorola

While many of us know this brand for its stylish cellphones, did you know that it also develops and manufactures bomb fuses and missile guidance systems?  Motorola components are also used in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or “drones”) and in communications and surveillance systems used in settlements, checkpoints, and along the 490 mile apartheid wall.  The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has launched the “Hang Up on Motorola” campaign.

4. L’Oreal / The Body Shop

This cosmetics and perfume company is known for its investments and manufacturing activities in Israel, including production in Migdal Haemek, the “Silicon Valley” of Israel built on the land of Palestinian village Al-Mujaydil, which was ethnically cleansed in 1948.  In 1998, a representative of L’Oreal was given the Jubilee Award by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for strengthening the Israeli economy.

To check out their full list, visit their website.

Tens of thousands of South Korean workers rallied Saturday to protest the government's plan to begin implementing contentious labor laws. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

• Thousands of Japanese gathered in sweltering heat on the southern island of Okinawa on Sunday to demand that a US Marine base be moved out of the region, days ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama.

• To mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall yesterday, a group of masked activists in the West Bank used a lorry to pull down segments of Israel’s cement seperation wall before Israeli security forces confronted them with tear gas grenades.

• Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators rallied across Ireland on Friday to protest government plans for tough austerity measures.

• More than 30,000 workers of bakery shops across the Kashmir Valley went on indefinite strike on Saturday morning, protesting against the authorities’ cruel polices against them.

• Hundreds of teachers from private high schools in this western China city called a strike this week to protest low salaries and deplorable working conditions.

• Scores of environmental activists from five continents have begun a fast to put pressure on countries to agree a strong deal at climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month.

• In Philadelphia, the strike by SEPTA workers that had paralyzed much of the region since last week ended yesterday morning with a signing of an agreement by SEPTA officials and leaders of Transport Workers Union Local 234.

• Kurdish political prisoners in Syria started an open-ended hunger strike on October 30, against the harsh conditions and unfair judgments of the Supreme State Security Court.

• Ten women among a group of almost 250 Sri Lankan asylum seekers refusing to leave their boat in Indonesia have begun another hunger strike.

The Iranian opposition movement resumed mass street protests on Wednesday and faced a violent crackdown by the security forces, as official rallies mark the 30th anniversary of the storming of the US embassy in Tehran.

• About 14,000 port workers in Peru started a two-day nationwide strike yesterday to protest the government’s privatization push and to pressure it to revoke a recent agreement for the modernization of an important port.

• Angry Afghan villagers protested Thursday against what they said was the killing of 11 civilians by foreign troops.

• Thousands of Opel workers have gone on strike to attend a protest over General Motors’ decision to abandon the company’s sale to new owners who staff hoped would save jobs.

• A daylight hour protest fast involving about 800 women in Tonga is continuing. Tongan Women’s National Congress members have been fasting for about three weeks between six am and six pm to protest against what they describe as poor governance of the prime minister, Feleti Sevele, and to call for his and his deputy’s resignation or removal.

• A one-day rail strike across Belgium caused widespread disruption for commuters Thursday, forcing many people to stay home and leaving some highways jammed.

• Workers of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) yesterday in Abuja, Nigeria began a protest strike over issues that are presumably connected to welfare.

• Chanting “People are dying every day!” and “Everyone in and no one out!”, nine protesters who support universal health care were arrested and dragged out of the office of Joe Lieberman yesterday.

• Strike action by the sugar workers represented by the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) continued this week even as both the union and the sugar corporation await the start of the arbitration process.

• About 100 pupils and students in Mabutsane, Botswana have gone on strike over alleged inadequate food and general maltreatment at their Rural Area Dwellers (RAD) hostels.

• Palestinian hunger strikers at Israel’s Nafha prison have faced “repressive” action and been denied family visits since the start of their protest on Monday against constant bunk raids and maltreatment by Israeli prison guards.

• Four Moroccan teachers’ unions paralysed public schools nationwide on Thursday (October 29th) by striking to protest problems that include shortages of instructors and overcrowded classrooms.

An estimated 500 people gathered at the White House yesterday to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to request a meeting with President Barack Obama. Some of the demonstrators chained themselves to the White House fence and some lay prone on the sidewalk as if they were dead, while others chanted "mourn the dead, heal the wounded, end the war". Sixty-one were arrested.

• Some 800,000 teachers, medical workers and other public-sector staff went on strike in Romania yesterday to protest pay cuts imposed by the government under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. Hospitals only dealt with emergencies and teachers supervised children without conducting lessons.

• About 10 people were involved in the blockade of a coal loading depot in South Lanarkshire as part of a protest against open cast coal mines in the area and 13 new mines due to open in Scotland. Five were arrested.

• About 110 protesters sang and spoke about the need for health care reform in front of UnitedHealth Group’s corporate headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota yesterday. Six were arrested for blocking the entrance.

• About 200 D.C. high school students skipped classes yesterday morning to march on the offices of Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and protest the layoff of 229 teachers last week.

• Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the West Bank capital of Ramallah yesterday to protest the Palestinian Authority’s support for delaying the endorsement of a UN report on possible war crimes committed during Israel’s Gaza offensive.

• Around 700 expatriate labourers held a protest in downtown Kuwait on Sunday to demand payment of their salaries they say are three months overdue.

• Thousands of students, faculty members and other employees of the University of California system protested budget cuts Thursday across the state.

• In New York City tomorrow, the Mobilization for Health Care for All is launching a campaign of “Patients Not Profit” sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care and puts insurance company bureaucrats between doctors and patients. Sign up to sit in and join the battle today at http://www.mobilizeforhealthcare.org.

• About a thousand G-20 protesters, mostly anarchist youth, took to the streets Thursday in a non-sanctioned march starting in Pittsburgh’s Arsenal Park. On Friday, a large protest sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center’s Antiwar Committee drew several thousand peaceful protesters. As of Saturday, authorities had reported 181 arrests during the two-day period, not including 14 Greenpeace activists.

• A labor dispute in the heart of San Francisco reached a new level Thursday night as hundreds of hotel workers took to the streets in protest with some engaging in civil disobedience.

• Around 400 executive pilots of Air India’s total pilot strength of 1,200 did not report for duty on Saturday, marking the start of an indefinite strike to protest against the airline management’s decision to cut incentive pay as a means of cutting costs.

• Around 1,500 climate activists in white suits protested Saturday in Copenhagen against the use of fossil fuels and marched to a coal-firing plant, which they planned to shut down by chaining themselves to conveyor belts.

• On Friday, hundreds of people from the town of Na’lin and international activists from Spain, Italy, Britain, Sweden and the United States participated in the weekly nonviolent march to the seperation wall erected by Israel. Eight people were injured by gas canisters shot directly into the crowds and three were arrested.

• Hundreds of Palestinian villagers have made a short but symbolic march to the separation wall that Israel has built on their land, a non-violent protest that they regularly undertake.

• More than 300 Iraqis protested yesterday to demand that Syria stop its alleged support for “terrorists and assassins” determined to carry out attacks in Iraq.

• Argentine farmers marked the end of an eight-day sales boycott on Friday with rallies and marches promising to “keep fighting” in support of aid for peers suffering from the worst drought in decades and to eliminate the current export tariffs system which distorts production and threatens several crops.

• 40 anti-coal activists gathered on the steps of Parliament in Victoria, Australia yesterday to launch a campaign to close one of the state’s coal power stations.

• Following a recent robbery, about 50 disabled persons in Patna, India assembled on the platform of the Patna Junction yesterday morning and held a sit-in demonstration on the tracks to protest the lack of security in areas reserved for them on trains.

• Dozens of Prisoners at a prison in Bryanston, South Africa have gone on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the prison’s administration’s refusal to go through parole processes.