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.
It’s made clear in Waters’ column, and in the original call for BDS that came from Palestinian civil society in 2005, that this is not about targeting or punishing Israelis:
My conviction is born in the idea that all people deserve basic human rights. This is not an attack on the people of Israel. This is, however, a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.
By supporting the BDS movement, and urging other artists to support the cultural boycott by refusing to perform in Israel, Waters has taken a bold step in support of equality and basic human rights for Palestinians and Israelis. Waters acknowledges the stalemate taking place at the governmental level and calls for Israelis, many of whom are fed up with their government’s intransigence, and people around the world to support this nonviolent struggle for justice.
Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government’s policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel.
Boycott. Divest. Sanction.
This article and this website really upset me at times. Where is the protest or articles on Muslim honor killings of women? Muslim on Muslim violence, or Muslim on Christian violence? Or articles about how Muslim women are not allowed to take part in civil society, even in the “occupied territories”
Here is a website you should all become familiar with:
http://www.christiansfairwitness.com
Or how about the fact that in Hamas controlled areas they have surpressed the same peoples revolution going on in other parts of the Middle-East. Perhaps the Jews caused that as well.
This site and the authors are either all anti-semetic, anti-Zionist or assist those who are, with their ongoing hate articles of Jews around the world.
This isn’t about fair coverage of issues as much as it part of the leftist, anti-war crowd’s constant Israel and anti-US bashing and conspiracy to demonize the Jews.
@Bob Jones – Copying and pasting your comments from my previous post seems like an odd move, especially when this post doesn’t relate, even remotely, to honor killings, “Muslim on Muslim violence”, or how Muslim women take part in their civil societies. At the very least, can we ask that you comment on the subject of the post?
As for your charge of anti-semitism, it’s a strong charge, and you provide no evidence whatsoever for my, or the site’s anti-semitism. If being opposed to particular policies of the state of Israel is anti-semitism, then you need to work on your definitions. Jews who oppose the occupation and Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza, are they self-hating Jews, anti-semites?
It’s not about demonizing anyone. It’s about finding and supporting nonviolent means to bring about justice for subjugated peoples.
Well said, Samuel. We all need to look unflinchingly at all policies. This article calls for nonviolent means to justice by standing with both nonviolent Palestinians and Israelis who disagree with their own government’s policies–how is that anti-semitic? Whenever a government espouses fair and just policies for all of its citizens, it is better off–and safer.
I guess the news about a family killed in their beds must somehow been missing from this website.
I think they were pretty much non-violently sleeping when their throats were cut. Perhaps the baby was is the IDF?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110313/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansconflictsettlers_20110313040056
NABLUS, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – An attack blamed on Palestinians killed five members of an Israeli family in their beds in their West Bank settlement, sparking a huge manhunt by the Israeli army Saturday.
Media reports said a baby girl of three months, two children aged three and 11, and their parents were all stabbed to death.
Army radio said two children aged four and two had been spared and a third, a girl of 10, had discovered the massacre when she arrived home and alerted neighbours.
The radio said the killer or killers had managed to get past an electric fence surrounding the settlement.
One paramedic told news website Ynet one of the children still had a pulse when they arrived, but that they had been unable to resuscitate him.
“It’s a very serious attack; a whole family has been massacred by terrorists,” regional military commander General Avi Mizrahi said on army radio.
“We are hunting those responsible and we think we will lay hands on them very quickly and they will pay for it.”
The newly appointed military commander, General Beny Gantz, went to the scene to direct the manhunt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the authorities would do everything possible to protect Israelis and demanded that Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas punish those responsible for the murders.
“Israel will act vigorously to defend the Israeli population and to punish the murderers,” said a statement from his office.
“The prime minister demands that the Palestinian Authority and its head (Abbas) find and punish the authors of this attack.”
Palestinian security sources told AFP soldiers in jeeps had deployed in the sector, sending ambulances to the scene, and that an army helicopter was flying overhead.
Troops entered the Palestinian village of Awarta, near Itamar, searching house-by-house and questioning “many residents.”
There was no immediate claim for the attack, but the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Brigades, the armed wing of the hardline Islamic Jihad movement, excused it.
“This operation is normal because it symbolises the right of resistance against the (Israeli) occupation and its crimes,” a statement said.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he had ordered the Israeli mission at the United Nations to take the matter to the Security Council.
Danny Dayan, the head of Yesha, the main settlers’ organisation, said the “fact that the Israeli army has to rely on the Palestinian security forces as partners to keep us safe can only explode in our faces.”
Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said “we clearly and firmly condemn all forms of violence, and I condemn what happened last night in Itamar, just as I condemn the crimes against Palestinians.”
Tensions between Palestinians and Jewish settlers in the area have been extremely high in recent days.
On Monday, Israeli soldiers fired live rounds at Palestinians after they fought with settlers near Nablus.
A week earlier police and settlers clashed as officers moved in to remove illegal structures erected in a settlement outpost west of Nablus.
That prompted settlers to firebomb a Palestinian house, which saw two children hospitalised for smoke inhalation.
They also smashed shops and cars in the southern city of Hebron and cut down 500 olive trees planted at a former settlement outpost.
Settlers routinely stage so-called “price tag” attacks when police and soldiers demolish illegal structures they have built, taking it out on the Palestinians for what they consider “anti-settler” activity by the government.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon counseled against such action, saying it it is morally wrong and “could only hurt us from a political and security point of view.”
The last deadly attack on a West Bank settlement was on August 31, when four settlers were killed near Hebron. Two other Israelis were wounded in an attack the next day in Ramallah.
The following month, the Palestinian Authority said those responsible for both attacks had been arrested. They were identified as members of the rival Hamas group that controls the Gaza Strip.
In June 2002, a Palestinian killed five Israelis in an attack on Itamar.
The international community considers illegal Israeli settlements built in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and 14 of the 15 Security Council members recently backed a resolution condemning Israel for continuing settlement activity.
The United States vetoed the resolution, saying it did not think the UN was the right forum to address the issue, but reiterated its opposition to Israeli settlement building
It seems like you really haven’t spent much time on this site Bob or even read the “About” page. This site isn’t about violence per se but nonviolent resistance. That should be pretty clear in the title of the blog.
That is why we haven’t had articles on “Muslim honor killings of women… Muslim on Muslim violence, or Muslim on Christian violence.” We would however have articles on people protesting against honor killings or against violence against Muslims or Christians or any other religious or ethnic group. Does that make sense?
I consider myself to be a pacifist. I’m against all violence, including the killing of Israelis and settlers. But documenting the use of violence isn’t our goal. It’s showing how people resist violence and injustice without responding in kind.
Similarly with this comment, it’s not relevant to my post. Waging Nonviolence is not an Israel/Palestine news website, but is a site covering the use of “nonviolent methods—such as strikes, boycotts, or sit-ins—by people around the world everyday in their struggles for justice, often under the most difficult of circumstances.”
But I will digress and briefly address the incident you posted about. The murders are atrocious in their brutality. Period.
In situations like this, it’s worth contextualizing things. Crimes, murders included, don’t take place in a vacuum but they take place in real life, with real people, and with real factors and circumstances at play.
These are some articles I have been reading which have helped me to frame and contextualize these murders.
http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2011/03/condemnation.html
http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2011/03/condemnation-ii.html
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/13/on_the_murders_at_itamar
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/03/violence-hypocrisy-and-resistance.html
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/03/settler-murders-recall-nat-turner-slave-rebellion-in-1831.html
http://www.maxajl.com/?p=5064
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/13/on_the_murders_at_itamar
This is a hate site. Under the guise of free press. That’s why its a “blog” rather than a news site. Fewer rules, only opinion and selected news which fits into the worldview of the editors and authors.
Karma!
http://www.christianfairwitness.com
I’ve never seen so many “pacifists” with so much blood on their hands.
BJ
Bob, the problem with pointing fingers is that it never leads to a solution. I followed your link from above and would urge you to read one of the links therein:
http://www.christianfairwitness.com/writings/FearPalestinianIsraeliConflictArt.pdf
This is a site about nonviolent solutions for all and surely you don’t need to call that hateful.
Bob, could you explain what we are hating by writing about nonviolent means of conflict resolution? We believe all lives are precious, be they Israeli or Palestinian. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the conflict between the two be resolved through nonviolent means.
Your comment about the blood on our hands struck me in a way that I don’t think you intended. As an American whose tax money goes toward funding the Israeli military and pays the salaries of politicians like Peter King–who fan (not put out) the flames of Islamic extremism–I oftentimes do feel like there is blood on my hands. But that is why I spend my time writing about and promoting nonviolence. I think we need to raise awareness of peaceful means of conflict resolution. Don’t you?
Forget this Bob Jones writer who copies and pastes the same things over and over. I just attended the annual meeting of Jewish Voice for Peace and learned so much about the BDS strategy. I really think this group has so much to offer in terms of strategy, energy, and enthusiasm. I feel honored just to have been there. The big push is to endorse the TIAA-CREFF campaign asking for divestment of 5 companies profiting from the occupation: motorola, Caterpillar, Veolia, Northop Grumman, and Elbit. The genius behind this is than instead of picking company, pick a fund of companies. Already there are 22,000 signatures and one can sign up on their web site. There are many products that can be boycotted but I think that getting behind one big strategy is a great idea.
Israel Action Network
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=192892
Christians Fair Witness
http://www.christianfairwitness.com
International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageNavigator/eng/USENG_homenew
So you have some self-hating Jews who are part of the BDS movement and think that amounts to validity. Wrong. They, like you all, are on the wrong side of history and Christian/Jewish/Muslim relations.
Blood on your hands. Anti-Semites all.
HAMAS Fires missles into Israel, Israel responds by bombing GAZA and then HAMAS kills within Israel.
This new round of violence was started by your comrades in GAZA and their vicious non-peace agenda to destroy Israel and the Jews.
But you and your leftist pro-Palestinian groopies won’t see it this way.
http://www.christianfairwitness.com
Bomb rocks Jerusalem bus stop, killing woman
AP – Israel Rescue workers and paramedics work next to a pool of blood following an explosion at a bus stop …
– 8 mins ago
JERUSALEM – A bomb struck a crowded bus stop in central Jerusalem Wednesday, killing one woman and wounding more than 20 other people in what authorities said was the first major Palestinian militant attack in the city in several years.
The bombing brought back memories of the second Palestinian uprising last decade, a period in which hundreds of Israelis were killed by suicide bombings in Jerusalem and other major cities.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Israeli police blamed Palestinian militants. The attack came against the backdrop of a rising wave of violence that has threatened to upset more than two years of relative calm that has prevailed since an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this month, five members of a Jewish settler family were knifed to death in their sleep at their West Bank home. And in recent days, Israel has carried out reprisals in Gaza in retaliation for rocket and mortar fire launched into southern Israel. On Tuesday, an errant Israeli strike meant for Palestinian militants killed four members of a Palestinian family in Gaza.
Adding to the tensions, peace efforts with Hamas’ rival, the Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank, have been stalled for months. Palestinian leaders condemned the attack.
Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak hinted that Israel would retaliate against Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza. At least three rockets landed in the southern city of Beersheba on Monday, and mortar shells were landing in southern Israel late in the afternoon.
“We will not tolerate the harming of Israeli citizens, not in the south and not in Jerusalem,” Barak said. “Hamas is responsible for the firing of rockets toward Beersheba today and this responsibility has a price.”
The 3 p.m. bombing occurred near the main entrance to Jerusalem, next to the city’s central bus station and main convention center, an area that is crowded with travelers and passers-by. The bomb went off next to the a food stand ironically called, in a Hebrew play on words, “a blast of a kiosk.”
The blast reverberated throughout Jerusalem and blew out the windows of two crowded buses. Rescuers removed bloodied people from the area on stretchers, as sirens from speeding ambulances wailed in the background.
“We are talking about a terror attack,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Click image to see photos of the bombing in Jerusalem
AP/Sebastian Scheiner
He said a 60-year-old woman died from her wounds. Israel’s national rescue service said some 24 others were wounded, including three in critical condition.
Jerusalem’s police chief, Aharon Franco, said that the bomb was about four pounds (one to two kilograms) and was planted in a small bag on the sidewalk. He said security services were on alert for additional attacks.
He said authorities had no firm leads but were investigating a possible link to a small bombing earlier this month that wounded a garbage collector as he removed the device from a trash can.
“I saw kids crying on the street, lying in blood on the side of the road,” said one man who witnessed the blast. Crying on the telephone, he frantically tried to reach his daughter, calming down a bit when he found out she was safe. The man, trembling in shock, refused to give his name.
Radio and TV stations posted emergency numbers for concerned citizens to inquire about relatives.
Meir Hagid, one of the bus drivers, said he heard a loud explosion as he drove by the site, located near the main entrance to Jerusalem and its central bus station.
“I heard the explosion in the bus stop,” he said. He halted his vehicle and people got off. He said nobody in his bus was hurt.
Samuel Conik, 20, said he ran to the scene when he heard the explosion and saw fire coming out of a phone booth. Nearby was a badly burned man with bloody legs and his skin peeling off.
At the scene, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews began chanting “Death to Arabs.”
Eli Yishai, Israel’s interior minister, rushed to the scene and called for swift Israeli retaliation. “With these murderers, these terror organizations … we must act, or we will lose our deterrence,” he told Channel 2 TV.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader had decided to delay a planned trip to Moscow for several hours to deal with the crisis.
Police, accompanied by sniffer dogs, broke into cars near the site to search for evidence and possible additional explosives.
The Palestinians are divided between two rival governments, the Hamas regime in Gaza and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The West Bank government seeks peace with Israel, though talks broke down last September.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the bombing “in the strongest terms.” His boss, President Mahmoud Abbas, who was traveling in Russia, issued a similar condemnation through his office.
In the Gaza Strip, the Islamic Jihad militant group, which has carried out dozens of attacks, said it was not connected to the blast. But spokesman Khader Habib said the group “applauds all efforts to respond to the crimes committed daily against our people.”
Jerusalem suffered dozens of suicide bombings that targeted buses and restaurants during the second Palestinian uprising last decade. But the attacks have halted in recent years. Jerusalem last experienced a suicide bombing in 2004, and the last suicide bombing in Israel occurred in 2008 in the southern town of Dimona.
Even so, the city has experienced other deadly violence. In early 2008, eight students at a Jerusalem seminary were killed when Palestinian gunmen entered the school and opened fire.
Palestinians also carried out several attacks with construction vehicles against Jerusalem in the past few years that ended with fatalities when the drivers rammed their vehicles into bystanders.
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