BOYCOTT ~ OF AHAVE DEAD SEA PRODUCTS MAKES AN IMPACT

Adri Nieuwhof
The Electronic Intifada,
December 2, 2009

The international campaign to boycott Ahava beauty products has recently won the support of a Dutch parliamentarian and an Israeli peace group. During the past few months, activists in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Israel, the United States and the Netherlands have campaigned against the sale of Ahava products because of the company’s complicity in the Israeli occupation.

The Stolen Beauty campaign has included protest actions by “bikini brigades” around the United States organized by the American peace group CODEPINK, and allied actions have taken place in London, Paris, Vienna, Montreal and Amsterdam. The Dutch “bathrobe brigades” that appeared in shopping centers in Amsterdam and Haarlem, not only caught the eye of the press, but also that of Dutch parliamentarian Harry van Bommel.

Ahava manufactures its cosmetics in a factory in the illegal Mitzpe Shalem settlement in the occupied West Bank. However, Ahava labels its skin care products imported into the EU as originating from “The Dead Sea, Israel.” Van Bommel, concerned about this misleading labeling, asked Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen to investigate the origin of Ahava cosmetics, and Verhagen agreed.

The settlements Mitzpe Shalem and Kalia, located deep within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, own 44 percent of the shares of the company. Before the June 1967 war, Palestinians lived on some of the lands that are now part of the two settlements; there were Palestinian communities in Nabi Musa where Kalia is now located and in Arab al-Taamira next to Mitzpe Shalem.

According to the Israeli group Who Profits From the Occupation? (www.whoprofits.org), the mud used in Ahava products is taken from a site on the shores of the Dead Sea inside the occupied territory, next to Kalia. Ahava uses Palestinian natural resources without the permission of or compensation to the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Israel denies Palestinians access to the shores of the Dead Sea and its resources, although one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the occupied West Bank.

This week Palestinian tourism minister Khouloud Daibes voiced her disagreement with Ahava’s practices in the West Bank. In protest of Israel’s aspirations to nominate the Dead Sea for the Seven Natural Wonders of the World competition, Daibes wrote her Israeli counterpart a letter to express her objection to “promoting the Dead Sea in the competition, alongside products like Ahava, which are produced illegally in the Israeli settlement on occupied Palestinian lands.”

Recently, the international campaign to boycott Ahava beauty products received support from the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, which sent an open letter on 17 November to Ahava’s management, urging the company to move its operations out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Gush Shalom stated:

“Your decision to locate in Occupied Territory and make use of natural resources which do not belong to Israel was a mistaken gamble which already harmed your interests and might harm them even much further. Sooner or later you will have to get out of this damaging and illegal location ~ and the sooner, the better.”

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, parliamentarian Van Bommel told The Electronic Intifada he welcomes the international Ahava campaign. “It might appear a minor issue, but it is important as an example of [Israel] economically hampering the realization of a Palestinian state.”

He added that he would welcome initiatives in other EU countries to raise the issue in their parliaments. “Subsequently, the pressure on Israel will increase and more importantly, we can engage the public in the debate.”

Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant based in Switzerland.

At this special consumer driven time of the year, pressure put on Ahava will be all the more effective if people steer clear of shops selling ANY of their goods and letting these merchants WHY you are not buying Auntie Sue the bath salts you have purchased for the last 10 years there. Let them see that even carrying the Ahava line hurts their own business.

BOYCOTT ~ AHAVA DROPS SPOKESPERSON AMID PR FIASCO

GOOD NEWS! GOSH THE SECOND "WIN" THIS WEEK WITH OUR INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT! BE STILL MY BEATING HEART BUT SUCH NEWS DOES MAKE THE SLOGGING AND BLOGGING WORTHWHILE!

WASHINGTON
September 4

The Israeli cosmetics company, Ahava, which illegally manufactures and appropriates its products in occupied Palestinian territory, has dropped its spokesperson Kristin Davis amid a public relations debacle sparked by the peace group CODEPINK’s Stolen Beauty campaign.

As Gawker.com first reported yesterday, 'Sex & the City' star Kristin Davis has been dropped by Ahava. All trace of her image and mention of her name have already been removed from Ahava's website.

Davis' dismissal, and the accompanying blow to Ahava's image, follow the successful launch of CODEPINK's Stolen Beauty campaign designed to spread word of Ahava's illegal practices ~ its products are falsely labeled as "Made in Israel" but in actuality are made in an illegal settlement in occupied Palestinian territory, and often contain resources appropriated from occupied land, in clear violation of international law.

CODEPINK Women, in Washington, DC, outside the Tschiffely Pharmacy on Dupont Circle, July 29, 2009

For the past two months CODEPINK activists have been appearing at Ahava stores, trade booths, and online, spreading word of Ahava's illegal business practices (view photos and publicity at www.stolenbeauty.org).

Particularly newsworthy was Davis' dual role as Ahava spokesperson and as a goodwill ambassador for the international charity Oxfam ~ a group that has courageously spoken out against the illegal Israeli settlement trade.

First, CODEPINK activists reached out to Davis to dissuade her from continuing her paid promotional appearances for Ahava. When that failed, public pressure forced Oxfam to suspend Davis from publicity work for the charity.

The glare of publicity, including a story on Page Six of the New York Post, surrounding that controversy appears now to have helped make untenable Ahava's P.R. campaign centered on Davis.

While Davis' apparent hypocrisy served as a convenient initial lightning rod for mobilizing the Stolen Beauty campaign, and has helped generate enormous press coverage of Ahava's crimes, the campaign has yet to begin to reach its full force.

In a few weeks, another wave of activity (and a whole new pressure point for Ahava) will be unveiled.

In the meantime, though, CODEPINK activists celebrate this first small victory, and the enormous increase in consumer awareness it has focused on Ahava's illegal practices.

CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.


CODEPINK rejects foreign policies based on domination and aggression, and instead calls for policies based on diplomacy, compassion and a commitment to international law.

With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.

SOME CODE PINKLINKS

CODE PINK NATIONAL

CODE PINK ACTION

STOLEN BEAUTY

PINK TANK: THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL

WOMEN SAY NO TO WAR

PALESTINE THROUGH THE EYES OF ALICE WALKER

Alice Walker in Gaza with Palestinian member of parliament and mother of five, Huda Naim.

"The best place one could be on Earth"

Alice Walker,
The Electronic Intifada,
24 July 2009

Last March, poet, novelist and feminist Alice Walker joined a delegation organized by Code Pink, to travel to the Gaza Strip just weeks after the 22-day Israeli bombardment and invasion. Walker, globally acclaimed for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, had also traveled to Rwanda, Eastern Congo and other places where she witnessed cruel and barbaric behavior that left her speechless.

In an essay on her blog entitled "Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel," Walker recounts the stories of the people she met, and offers a lyrical analysis that ties their oppression and struggles to what she and her community experienced growing up in the violence and fear of the segregated American South. The excerpt below begins with her arrival in Gaza after a long overland journey through Egypt.

Despite the fact that there are a few major things I disagree with Ms. Walker about in this piece, her skill and the sheer poetry of her words are enough for me to forgive her. I do not believe either of her comparisons to Palestine are valid. The situations of the deep South and the Apartheid of South Africa are entirely different from that of Palestine. They were horrific crimes against humanity.

I remember the struggles of the South from my younger years. I could never understand why the children were separated for school. None of it made sense to me, it still doesn't to be honest. There was violence and fires, hatred and struggle. But these are Ms. Walker's life reference points and I accept that. Besides, her description of life in the ghetto being "home" was suitable to the point she was making ~ her automatic feeling of kinship with the Palestinians.

As for South Africa, Palestinians have had it for much much longer with no end in sight. Nor did they have so many things to deal with as the Palestinians. It was atrocious however, the Zionists are not merely "allowing to exist" they are out to complete genocide. And, times are NOT good in South Africa for blacks. There might be some opportunity where once there was none, but for the average there is nothing but grinding poverty and a struggle to survive.

But these things aside, I find parts of this essay to be perhaps some of the most poignant observations regarding the situation in Gaza yet. Despite the aforementioned flaws, this is writing at its best, tackling horror with a depth rarely encountered. Alice's words shook my soul to the core.

I had considered using photos to illustrate this piece but decided that images of that sort, of which we have seen so many, would distract from Alice's words. Instead I decided to go with Palestinian art, just because it is the love of Palestine, by those who are created of the Palestinian soil and waters. Please enjoy.

Coming "home" to Gaza

Rolling into Gaza I had a feeling of homecoming. There is a flavor to the ghetto. To the Bantustan. To the "rez." To the "colored section." In some ways it is surprisingly comforting. Because consciousness is comforting.

Everyone you see has an awareness of struggle, of resistance, just as you do. The man driving the donkey cart. The woman selling vegetables. The young person arranging rugs on the sidewalk or flowers in a vase. When I lived in segregated Eatonton, Georgia, I used to breathe normally only in my own neighborhood, only in the black section of town.

Everywhere else was too dangerous. A friend was beaten and thrown in prison for helping a white girl, in broad daylight, fix her bicycle chain.

But even this sliver of a neighborhood, so rightly named the Gaza Strip, was not safe. It had been bombed for 22 days. I thought of how, in the US perhaps the first use of aerial attacks on US soil, prior to 9/11, was the bombing and shooting from biplanes during the destruction by white mobs of the black neighborhoods in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921.

The black people who created these neighborhoods were considered, by white racists, too prosperous and therefore "uppity." Everything they created was destroyed. This was followed by the charge already rampant in white American culture, that black people never tried to "better" themselves.

There is ample evidence in Gaza that the Palestinians never stop trying to "better" themselves. What started as a refugee camp with tents, has evolved into a city with buildings rivaling those in almost any other city in the "developing" world.

There are houses, apartment buildings, schools, mosques, churches, libraries, hospitals. Driving along the streets, we could see right away that many of these were in ruins. I realized I had never understood the true meaning of "rubble." Such and such was "reduced to rubble" is a phrase we hear. It is different seeing what demolished buildings actually look like.

Buildings in which people were living. Buildings from which hundreds of broken bodies have been removed; so thorough a job have the Palestinians done in removing the dead from squashed dwellings that no scent of death remains. What this task must have been like, both physically and psychologically, staggers the mind.

We pass police stations that were simply flattened, and all the young (most Palestinians are young) officers in them killed, hundreds of them. We pass ministries, bombed into fragments. We pass a hospital, bombed and gutted by fire. If one is not safe in a hospital, when one is already sick and afraid, where is one safe? If children are not safe playing in their schoolyards, where are they safe?

Where are The World Parents of All Children?
The World Caretakers of All the Sick?

My companion and I are assigned to the home of two sisters who share their space with friends and relatives who come and go. One morning I get up early to find an aunt sleeping on the floor in the living room. Another time, a cousin. In the middle of the night I hear one of the sisters consoling her aged father, who sounds disoriented, and helping him back to bed. There is such respect, such tenderness in her voice.

This is the same place that, just weeks earlier, was surrounded by rocket fire, a missile landing every 27 seconds for 22 days. I can only imagine what the elderly residents must feel, as, even in their old age they are subjected to so much fear. Each morning we are sent off to learn what we can in our four days in Gaza, well fed on falafel, hummus, olives and dates, sometimes eggs, tomatoes, salad and cheese. All of it simple, all of it delicious.

More delicious because we realize how difficult it is to find such food here; the blockade keeps out most of it. Delicious also because it is shared with such generosity and graciousness. Always the culinary student, I try to learn to make the especially tasty dish that consists mainly of tomatoes and eggs. I learn the tea I like so much is made out of sage!

Dance in the face of disaster

On International Women's Day we leave for the celebration for which we have come, a gathering with the women of Gaza. Gael Murphy, Medea Benjamin, Susan Griffin and I, along with 20 or so other women had been arrested for protesting the war on Iraq on International Women's Day, 2003.

If the world had paid attention we could have saved a lot of money, countless sons' and daughters' lives, as well as prevented a lot of war-generated pollution that hastens globe-threatening climate change. How doofus humans are going to look ~ we thought as we marched, sang, accepted our handcuffs ~ still firing rockets into apartment buildings full of families, and dropping bombs on school children and their pets, when the ice melts completely in the Arctic and puts an end to our regressive, greed sourced rage forever.

That had been a wonderful day; this International Women's Day, of 2009, was also. It was the kind of day that makes life, already accepted as a gift, a prize. Early in the morning of 8 March, we were shuttled to a women's center in the north of Gaza City, to meet women who, like their compatriots, had survived the recent bombardment and, so far, the siege.

This center for women was opened under the auspices of the United Nations, which has been administering to the Palestinian people since 1948, when thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes under Israeli attack, became refugees. It is a modest building with a small library whose shelves hold few books. It isn't clear whether most of the women read.

The idea, as it is explained to us, is to offer the women a place to gather outside the home, since, in Palestinian culture the mobility of most women is limited by their work in the home as mothers and caretakers of their families. Many women rarely leave their compounds.

However, today, International Women's Day, is different. Many women are out and about, and women who frequent this particular center are on hand to welcome us. After arranging ourselves around a table in the library, we, about 30 of us, sit in council.

I learn something I'd heard but never experienced: Arabs introduce themselves by telling you they are the mother or father of one of their children, perhaps their eldest. Then they tell you how many children they have. They do this with a pride and joy I have never seen before.

Only one woman had one child. Everyone else had at least five. There is a feeling of festivity as the women, beautifully dressed and wearing elegant headscarves, laugh and joke among themselves. They are eager to talk.

Only the woman with one child has trouble speaking. When I turn to her, I notice she is the only woman wearing black, and that her eyes are tearing. Unable to speak, she hands me instead a photograph that she has been holding in her lap.

She is a brown-skinned woman, of African descent, as some Palestinians (to my surprise) are; the photograph is of her daughter, who looks European. The child looks about six years old. A student of ballet, she is dressed in a white tutu and is dancing. Her mother tries to speak, but still cannot, as I sit, holding her arm.

It is another woman who explains: during the bombardment, the child was hit in the arm and the leg and the chest and bled to death in her mother's arms. The mother and I embrace, and throughout our meeting I hold the photograph of the child, while the mother draws her chair closer to mine.

What do we talk about?

We talk about hatred.

But before we talk about hatred I want to know about headscarves. What's the deal about wearing the scarf? Why do so many women wear it? I am told something I'd never considered: in desert countries most of one's hydration is lost at the back of the neck, which can quickly lead to heat stroke, so a headscarf that wraps around the neck is essential to block this loss.

The top of the head is covered because if a woman is living a traditional life and is outside a lot, the sun beats down on it. This causes headache, dizziness, nausea, stroke, and other health problems.

In Gaza, one of the women pointed out, there were many women who did not wear scarves, primarily because they worked in offices. This was true of the women in whose home we were sheltered. They seemed to own a lot of scarves that they draped about themselves casually, just as my friends and I might do in the United States.

Because I had shaved my head a week or so before going to Gaza, I understood exactly the importance of the headscarf. Without a covering on my head I could not bear the sun for more than a few minutes. And, indeed, one of the first gifts I received from an anonymous Palestinian woman was a thick black and red embroidered scarf, which I wore everywhere, gratefully.

Our host told us a story about the uglier side of the headscarf business: On the first day of bombing she was working downstairs in the basement and wasn't aware that her apartment building was next to one that was being shelled. When the policemen came to clear her building, and she stepped out of the elevator, one of them, a political and religious conservative, was taken aback at the sight of her bare head. So much so that instead of instantly helping her to a shelter, he called a colleague to come and witness her attire. Or lack thereof.

He was angry with her, for not wearing a headscarf, though Israeli rockets were tearing into buildings all around them. And what could we do but sigh along with her, as she related this experience with appropriate shrugs and grimaces of exasperation. Backwardness is backwardness, wherever it occurs, and explains lack of progressive movement in afflicted societies, whether under siege or not.

One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the American South today you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate. This is the legacy of people brought up in the Christian tradition, true believers of every word Jesus had to say on the issue of justice, loving kindness, and peace. This dovetailed nicely with what we learned of Gandhian nonviolence, brought into the movement by Bayard Rustin, a gay strategist for the Civil Rights Movement.

A lot of thought went into how to create "the beloved community," so that our country would not be stuck with violent hatred between black and white, and the continuous spectacle, and suffering, of communities going up in flames.

It is astonishing, the progress, and I will always love Southerners, black and white, for the way we have all grown. Ironically, though there was so much suffering and despair as the struggle for justice tested us, it is in this very "backward" part of our country today that one is most likely to find simple human helpfulness, thoughtfulness and impersonal courtesy.

I speak a little about this American history, but it isn't history that these women know. They're too young. They've never been taught it. It feels irrelevant. Following their example of speaking of their families, I talk about my Southern parents' teachings during our experience of America's apartheid years.

When white people owned and controlled all the resources and the land, in addition to the political, legal and military apparatus, and used their power to intimidate black people in the most barbaric and merciless ways.

These whites who tormented us daily were like Israelis who have cut down millions of trees planted by Arab Palestinians; stolen Palestinian water, even topsoil. They have bulldozed innumerable villages, houses, mosques, and in their place built settlements for strangers who have no connection whatsoever with Palestine; settlers who have been the most rabid anti-Palestinian of all, attacking the children, the women, everyone, old and young alike, viciously, and forcing Palestinians to use separate roads from themselves.

It feels very familiar, I tell them, what is happening here. When something similar was happening to us, in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, I say, our parents taught us to think of the racists as we thought of any other disaster. To deal with that disaster as best we could, but not to attach to it by allowing ourselves to hate. This was a tall order, and as I'm talking, I begin to understand, as if for the first time, why some of our parents' prayers were so long and fervent as they stayed there, long minutes, on their knees in church.

And why people often wept, and fainted, and why there was so much tenderness as people deliberately silenced themselves, or camouflaged atrocities done to or witnessed by them, using representative figures from the Bible. At the end of the table across from me is a woman who looks like Oprah's twin. In fact, earlier she had said to me: Alice, tell Oprah to come see us. We will take good care of her." I promised I would email Oprah, and, on returning home, did so.

She laughs, this handsome woman; then speaks earnestly. We don't hate Israelis, Alice, she says, quietly, what we hate is being bombed, watching our little ones live in fear, burying them, being starved to death, and being driven from our land. We hate this eternal crying out to the world to open its eyes and ears to the truth of what is happening, and being ignored. Israelis, no. If they stopped humiliating and torturing us, if they stopped taking everything we have, including our lives, we would hardly think about them at all. Why would we?

There is, finally, a sense of overwhelm, trying to bring comfort to someone whose sleeping child has been killed and buried, a few weeks ago, up to her neck in rubble; or a mother who has lost fifteen members of her family, all her children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, her husband.

What does one say to people whose families came out of their shelled houses waving white flags of surrender only to be shot down anyway? To mothers whose children were, at this moment, playing in the white phosphorous laden rubble that, after 22 days of bombing, is everywhere in Gaza? White phosphorus, once on the skin, never stops burning.

There is really nothing to say. Nothing to say to those who, back home in America, don't want to hear the news. Nothing to do, finally, but dance.

The women and I and everyone with us from Code Pink went across the hall to a big common room where music was turned up full volume. At first I sat exchanging smiles and murmurs with an ancient grandmother who was knitting booties, and who gave me two pairs, for my own grandchildren.

Sitting didn't last. Without preamble I was pulled to my feet by several women at once, and the dance was on. Sorrow, loss, pain, suffering, all pounded into the floor for over an hour. Sweat flowing, wails and tears around the room. And then, the rising that always comes from such dancing; the sense of joy, of unity, of solidarity and gratitude to be in the best place one could be on Earth; with sisters who have experienced the full measure of disaster and have the heart to rise above it.

The feeling of love is immense.
The ecstasy, sublime.

I was conscious of exchanging and receiving Spirit in the dance. I also knew that this Spirit, which I have encountered in Mississippi, Georgia, the Congo, Cuba, Rwanda and Burma, among other places, this Spirit that knows how to dance in the face of disaster, will never be crushed. It is as timeless as the wind. We think it is only inside our bodies, but we also inhabit it. Even when we are unaware of its presence internally, it wears us like a cloak.

Our silence will not protect us.

I could have gone home then. I had learned what I came to know: that humans are an amazing lot. That to willfully harm any one of us is to damage us all. That hatred of ourselves is the root cause of any harm done to others, others so like us! And that we are lucky to live at a time when all lies will be exposed, along with the relief of not having to serve them any longer. But I did not go home. I went instead to visit the homeless.

Coming out of a small grouping of tents, with absolutely nothing inside them, no bedding, no food, no water, were middle-aged and elderly people who looked as if their sky had fallen. It had.

An old, old man, leaning on a stick, met me as I trudged up a hill so I might see the extent of the devastation. Vast. Look, look! He said to me in English, come look at my house! He was wearing dusty cotton trousers and an old army great coat. I felt dragged along by the look in his eyes. He led me to what had been his house. It had obviously, from the remains, been a large and spacious dwelling; now he and his wife lived between two of the fallen walls that made a haphazard upside down "V."

She looked as stunned and as lost as he. There was not a single usable item visible. Near what must have been the front entrance, the old man placed me directly in front of the remains of bulldozed trees: They broke my house, he said, by bombing it, and then they came with bulldozers and they broke my lemon and olives trees.

The Israeli military has destroyed over two and a half million olive and fruit trees alone since 1948. Having planted many trees myself, I shared his sorrow about the fate of these. I imagined them alive and sparkling with life, offering olives and lemons, the old man and his wife able to sit in the shade of the trees in the afternoons, and have a cup of tea there, in the evenings.

You speak English, I observed.

Yes, he said, I was once in the British army.

I supposed this was during the time Britain controlled Palestine, before 1948. We walked along in silence, as I did what I had come to do: witness.

Code Pink members and my companion and I walked through the rubble of demolished homes, schools, medical centers, factories, for half an hour. After the bombing the Israelis had indeed bulldozed everything so that I was able to find just one piece of evidence that beauty had flourished on this hillside; a shard from a piece of colorful tile, about the size of my hand. Someone in our group wanted it, and I gave it to her. They had taken pains to pulverize what they had destroyed.

Coming upon another grouping of tents, I encountered an old woman sitting on the ground in what would have been, perhaps, the doorway of her demolished, pulverized home. She was clean and impeccably dressed, the kind of old woman who is known and loved and respected by everyone in the community, as my own mother had been.

Her eyes were dark and full of life. She talked to us freely. I gave her a gift I had brought, and she thanked me. Looking into my eyes she said: May God Protect You From the Jews. When the young Palestinian interpreter told me what she'd said, I responded: It's too late, I already married one. I said this partly because, like so many Jews in America, my former husband could not tolerate criticism of Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians.

Our very different positions on what is happening now in Palestine/Israel and what has been happening for over fifty years, has been perhaps our most severe disagreement. It is a subject we have never been able to rationally discuss. He does not see the racist treatment of Palestinians as the same racist treatment of blacks and some Jews that he fought against so nobly in Mississippi.

And that he objected to in his own Brooklyn-based family. When his younger brother knew he was seeing me, a black person, he bought and nailed over an entire side of his bedroom the largest Confederate flag either of us had ever seen. His brother, a young Jewish man who had never traveled South, and had perhaps learned most of what he knew about black history from Gone With the Wind, expressed his contempt for black people in this way.

His mother, when told of our marriage, sat shiva, which declared my husband dead. These were people who knew how to hate, and how to severely punish others, even those beloved, as he was, of their own. This is one reason I understand the courage it takes for some Jews to speak out against Israeli brutality and against what they know are crimes against humanity.

Most Jews who know their own history see how relentlessly the Israeli government is attempting to turn Palestinians into the "new Jews," patterned on Jews of the Holocaust era, as if someone must hold that place, in order for Jews to avoid it.

Lucky for me, my husband's family were not the only Jews I knew, having met Howard Zinn, my history teacher at Spelman College in 1961, as my very first (secular) Jew, and later poet Muriel Rukeyser, at Sarah Lawrence College, who like Grace Paley, the short story writer, raised her voice against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the horrible mistreatment of the Palestinian people.

There are my Jewish friends of the planet: Amy Goodman, Jack Kornfield, Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, and Barbara Lubin, who are as piercing in their assessments of Israeli behavior as they have been of African or African American, or Indian, or Chinese, or Burmese behavior.

I place my faith in them, and others like us, who see how greed and brutality are not limited to any segment of humanity but will grow wherever they are unchecked, in any society whatsoever.

The people of Israel have not been helped by America's blind loyalty to their survival as a Jewish State, by any means necessary. The very settlers ~ they've used American taxpayer money to install on Palestinian land ~ turn out to be a scary lot, fighting not only against Palestinians, but against Israelis, when they do not get their way.

Israelis stand now exposed, the warmongers and peacemakers alike, as people who are ruled by leaders that the world considers irrational, vengeful, scornful of international law, and utterly frightening.

There are differing opinions about this, of course, but my belief is that when a country primarily instills fear in the minds and hearts of the people of the world, it is no longer useful in joining the dialogue we need for saving the planet.

There is no hiding what Israel has done or what it does on a daily basis to protect and extend its power. It uses weapons that cut off limbs without bleeding; it drops bombs into people's homes that never stop detonating in the bodies of anyone who is hit; it causes pollution so severe it is probable that Gaza may be uninhabitable for years to come, though Palestinians, having nowhere else to go, will have to live there.

This is a chilling use of power, supported by the United States of America, no small foe, if one stands up to it. No wonder that most people prefer to look the other way during this genocide, hoping their disagreement with Israeli policies will not be noted.

Good Germans, Good Americans, Good Jews. But, as our sister Audre Lorde liked to warn us: Our silence will not protect us. In the ongoing global climate devastation that is worsened by war activities, we will all suffer, and we will also be afraid.

Finding our voices

The world knows it is too late for a two-state solution. This old idea, bandied about since at least the Eighties, denounced by Israel for decades, isn't likely to become reality with the massive buildup of settlements all over what remains of Palestinian land.

Ariel Sharon is having the last word: Jewish settlements exactly like a Pastrami sandwich; Palestinian life erased, as if it never existed, or crushed under the weight of a superior Israeli military presence and a teaching of Jewish supremacy sure to stunt Palestinian identity among Arabs living in Israel.

What is to be done? Our revered Tolstoy asked this question generations ago, speaking also of War and Peace. I believe there must be a one-state solution. That Palestinians and Jews, who have lived together in peace in the past, must work together to make this a reality once again.

That this land (so soaked in Jewish and Palestinian blood, and with America's taxpayer dollars wasted on violence the majority of us would never, if we knew, support) must become, like South Africa, the secure and peaceful home of everyone who lives there.

This will require that Palestinians, like Jews, have the right of return to their homes and their lands. Which will mean what Israelis most fear: Jews will be outnumbered and, instead of a Jewish state, there will be a Jewish, Muslim, Christian country, which is how Palestine functioned before the Europeans arrived. What is so awful about that?

The tribunals, the generals will no doubt say. But both South Africa and Rwanda present a model of restorative justice in their Truth and Reconciliation Councils. Some crimes against humanity are so heinous nothing will ever rectify them.

All we can do is attempt to understand their causes and do everything in our power to prevent them happening, to anyone, ever again. Human beings are intelligent and very often, compassionate. We can learn to heal ourselves without inflicting fresh wounds.

Watching a video recently about Cuba's role in the ending of apartheid in South Africa, I was moved by the testimony of Pik Botha, once a high ranking official of white South Africa. He talked about how liberating it had been when South Africa was forced to attend talks prior to negotiating Nelson Mandela's release from prison and a change from a fascist, white supremacist regime to a democratic society.

He said the feeling of not being hated and feared and treated like a leper everywhere he went was wonderful. The talks were held in Egypt and for the first time he felt welcomed by the Egyptians and took the opportunity to visit the pyramids and the Sphinx and to ride on a camel!

As a white supremacist representative of a repressive, much hated government, he'd never felt relaxed enough to do that. His words demonstrate what we all know in our hearts to be true: allowing freedom to others, brings freedom to ourselves.

It is true that what one reads in the papers sometimes about the birthing pains of the New South Africa can bring sadness, alarm, and near despair. But I doubt that anyone in South Africa wishes to return to the old days of injustice and violence that scarred whites and blacks and coloreds so badly.

Not just citizens of South Africa were demoralized, oppressed and discouraged by white South Africa's behavior, but citizens of the world.

Israel helped keep the racist regime in power in South Africa, giving it arms and expertise, and still the people of the world, in our outrage at the damage done to defenseless people, rose to the challenge of setting them free. That is what is happening today in Palestine.

The world has found its voice and though the horror of what we are witnessing in places like Rwanda and Congo and Burma and Israel/Palestine threatens our very ability to speak, we will speak.

And we will be heard.

Alice Walker is a poet, novelist, feminist and activist whose award-winning works have sold over ten million copies. These excerpts, reproduced with the author's permission, first appeared on her blog (www.alicewalker.info) as part of the essay "Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel."

WHO WILL STOP THE AIPAC JEWS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE?

By Medea Benjamin

Wednesday, May 6, 2009
CommonDreams.org

While I was being tackled by security guards at Washington's Convention Center during the AIPAC conference for unfurling a banner that asked "What about Gaza?," my heart was aching. I wasn't bothered so much by the burly guards who were yanking my arms behind by back and dragging me ~ along with 5 other CODEPINK members ~ out of the hall. They were doing their job.

What made my heart ache was the hatred I felt from the AIPAC staff who tore up the banner and slammed their hands across my mouth as I tried to yell out: "What about Gaza? What about the children?"

"Shut the f--- up. Shut the f--- up." one staffer yelled, red-faced and sweating as he ran beside me. "This is not the place to be saying that shit. Get the f--- out of here."

What makes my heart ache is thinking about the traumatized children I met on my recent trip to Gaza, and how their suffering is denied by the 6,000 AIPAC conventioneers who are living in a bubble ~ a bubble where Israel is the victim and all critics are anti-Semitic, terrorist lovers or, as in my case, self-hating Jews.

I found it fascinating that AIPAC's executive director Howard Kohr opened the conference admitting that there was now a huge, international campaign against the policies of Israel. He painted a picture of 30,000 people marching in Spain, Italian trade unionists calling for a boycott of Israeli products, the UN Human Rights Council passing 26 resolutions condemning Israel, an Israeli Apartheid Week that is building a global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.

This global movement, he warned, emanates from the Middle East, echoes in the halls of the United Nations and the capitals of Europe, is voiced in meetings of international peace organizations, and is spreading throughout the United States-from the media to town hall meetings, from campuses to city squares.

"No longer is this campaign confined to the ravings of the political far left or far right," he lamented, "but increasingly it is entering the American mainstream."

But Kohr failed to explain why there has been such an explosion in this movement, even among the American Jewish community. He didn't tell the attendees that the world was shocked and outraged by Israel's devastating 22-day attack on Gaza that left over 1,300 people dead ~ mostly women and children.

He didn't mention the killing of civilians fleeing their homes, the use of white phosphorous, the bombing of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, factories.

He didn't talk about the continuing, cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip that is keeping desperately needed humanitarian aid from reaching 1.5 million people and making rebuilding impossible.

There were no seminars at the conference by human rights groups like Amnesty International that are calling for an immediate and comprehensive suspension of arms to Israel.

Instead, one after another, U.S. elected officials eager to curry favor with AIPAC pledged continued U.S. financial support for Israel.

Senator Kerry, despite that fact that he was one of only a handful of legislators who visited Gaza, didn't say one word about the massive destruction he witnessed and pledged that as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he would do everything to ensure that "the $30 billion in military aid to Israel is delivered in full. America will continue our military aid, and Israel will keep its military strength," he insisted.

Instead of calling for talks with the democratically elected government of Hamas, Kerry said: "Hamas has already won one election ~ we cannot allow them to win another."

He ended his speech shouting several times in Hebrew, "Am Yisrael Chai ~ Israel lives!"

Even Vice President Biden, who at least told AIPAC that Israel should freeze new settlement activity, didn't say a word about the ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's invasion and continued blockade of Gaza.

No U.S. officials, and there were hundreds at the conference, dared echo the call of the United Nations or the world community to lift the siege of Gaza.

Republican Congressman Eric Cantor was one of the most emotional speakers, portraying Israel as the victim of an evil global movement determined to wipe out Israel and all Jews. Evoking the "shivering, naked victims who were herded into the gas chambers," he wondered when it would become too late to protect Israel. "When is it too late?", he repeated over and over.

I wonder the same thing. When is it too late, I wonder, to stop Israel from destroying itself?

When is it too late to tell AIPAC attendees that more violence and hatred is not the answer? When is it too late to open the hardened hearts of my people, once victims of a terrible holocaust, to realize that by occupying Palestine we have become they evil we deplore?

When is it too late to restore meaning to the Hebrew term "tikkun olam" by truly working to heal the world?

When is it too late for the Jews of the world to weep for the children of Gaza, recognizing that they, too, are the children of God?

I couldn't ask my questions at AIPAC. My mouth was muzzled by the sweaty hands of hate-filled staffers demanding that I "shut the f--- up."

But despite AIPAC's massive funds and influence, I feel certain that more and more members of the Jewish community will step forward and refuse to be silent. I just pray it is not too late. For information on upcoming delegations to Gaza, see www.codepinkalert.org/gaza.

Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org).A

PALESTINE ~ BEFORE THEIR DIASPORA

Palestinian/German artist Anis Hamadeh
working on his new Liverpool series.

With the emphasis on the horrors of life in Palestine over the past century, what has been forgotten is the artistic expression and vital vibrant art of these amazing people. The event now referred to as Nakhba in 1948, gave Palestinian more depth, a different focus, and a unifying message shared by all Palestinians, no matter where in the world they now reside. This message of determination and hope is for the

SURVIVAL OF THE PALESTINE PEOPLE AND
RETURN OF THEIR RIGHT TO LIVE AGAIN
ON THEIR OWN SOIL FREE OF OPPRESSION.

To remember the past there are many great artists who have and do create vital paintings of traditional Palestinian culture, keeping the memories alive so that they are not lost to history. These powerful beautiful works, sold around the world, teaches others of the peaceful pastoral life currently being decimated and stolen by the aggressors and Occupation to be replaced with trials, tribulations and deprivations of the worst sort. So such art is very important.
Also born as a result of Naqba and the Occupation was the extremely potent and viable Resistance Art that keeps these amazing people strong; it also reminds the world constantly of what is being done by the dark forces of Zion. There are many great resistance artists in the world today, notably Carlos Latuff and Ben Heine, both dearly loved and highly regarded in Palestine. But people often do not see the art of the local Palestinians because they have not access to the same international resources to get their work out. I have been using Latuff and Heine for years in my blogging. See my PALESTINE ~ GUERNICA for a small taste of Palestinian resistance art.
The brilliantly coloured work of the following artist, Anis Hamadeh. caught my eye a few days ago and completely captivated me. Anis is an internationally famous artist of German/Palestinian lineage. His work is like nothing else I have ever seen and I advise you to see these pieces in their full glory by enlarging the thumbs. There is NO comparison once they are larger, the detail is just amazing. Included are his Twelve Palestinian drawings as well as other works he has done. I particularly enjoy his piece of the CodePink activist confronting Condoleezza Rice and the interview to which I provide a link. Anis Online Art Club is a good site to see more of his work. with text in German, French, Arabian or English.

Twelve Palestine Drawings

Harvesting olive pickers, melon sellers, a monastery, the Via Dolorosa, a water mill, a traditional soap factory, fishermen from the Sea of Galilee ~ the twelve exhibits the"Before their Diaspora" series shine in glossy colors. The 42 cm x 29,5 cm drawings trace back to photos from a richly annotated illustrated book of the same title. Internationally noted Palestinian historian, Professor Walid Khalidi, created this book to document the everyday life and the history of the Palestinians from 1876 until 1948.

"I wanted to bring new colour to the black-and-white shots, so I used shining Copic Markers to resurrect them," Anis said in an interview with the British newspaper Metro. Until today the Palestinian refugees are the largest group of refugees in the world, now with more than five million people concerned. On the second drawing one can see how locals in Jaffa were literally driven into the sea. "The media often talk about Arabs wanting to drive the Jews into the sea. The only photo on the subject shows exactly the opposite case, this is why I chose the motif", explains Anis whose father was born in the West Bank.

All subtext to the Diaspora paintings are from the book "Before their Diaspora" by Walid Khalidi.
Anis says he kept thinking of the Jerusalem photo and wondered how it would look if he infused it with colour and glory. The photos seemed dead and far away to him and he wanted to breath life into them, make them sing to the eyes. So he set to task on the Jerusalem photo and a week later had the results you now see. Again I remind you to PLEASE enlarge the thumbs to become enthralled by these beautiful pieces of art.

VIA DOLOROSA (DIN A3) © Anis 2007

"The Via Dolorosa, Fifth Station of the Cross,
in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, Jerusalem."

FISHERMEN of the Sea of Galilee (DIN A3) © Anis 2007

MONASTERY (DIN A3) © Anis 2007
"The Christian monastery of Mar Saba, commemorating a Byzantine
ascetic of this name who died in A.D. 531. The monastery is located
in the wilderness southeast of Jerusalem. Mar is the Arabic word
for "saint". Many Palestinian Muslim shrines
honor Hebrew prophets and Christian saints."

HILLS OF BETHLEHEM (DIN A3) © Anis 2007
"The hills of Bethlehem. Note the traditional headdress."

SOAP FACTORY IN NABLUS (DIN A3) © Anis 2007
"The ancient craft of soapmaking ... Palestinian traditional industries,
particularly the production of edible oil and the manufacture of soap,
were vigorous, and Palestinians were increasingly active in
the tobacco, textile, wood products, cement, and paper industries."

COURTYARD OF IBRAHIMI MOSQUE (DIN A3) © Anis 2007
"Muslim dignitaries conferring in the courtyard of the Ibrahimi
(Abraham) Mosque, Hebron, 1947. The mayor of Hebron,
Shaikh Muhammad Ali al-Ja'bari, is on the right."

MELONS (DIN A3) © Anis 2007
"Palestinian Agricultural Production: Contrary to prevailing opinion
in the Western world, the Palestinians were responsible for the bulk of
agricultural production in the country during the British Mandate.
Melons: of 125.979 dunams planted with melons, the Palestinians owned
and cultivated 120.304 dunams."
(one dunam = one thousand square meters)

OLIVES (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

"Palestinian Agricultural Production: Contrary to prevailing opinion
in the Western world, the Palestinians were responsible for the bulk of
agricultural production in the country during the British Mandate.
Olives: of 600.133 dunams, 99 percent was
Palestinian-owned and cultivated.
" (one dunam = one thousand square meters)

EASTER IN JERUSALEM (DIN A3) © Anis 2008"Christian Orthodox procession on Easter Day (note the lighted candles)
from the Greek Patriarchate to the Holy Sepulchre

in the Old City of Jerusalem, ca. 1910."

WATER MILL (on the Auja River near Jaffa) (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

INTO THE SEA (DIN A3) © Anis 2008
"Palestinians driven into the sea at Jaffa Harbor, late April 1948.
With the land routes cut off by the Haganah, tens of thousands
of the citizens of Jaffa and neighboring villages fled by boat to Gaza
and Egypt; scores were drowned. Jaffa was to have been the main port
of the Palestinian state envisioned in the UN partition

recommendation of 29 November 1947."

NAHR AL-BARID (DIN A3) © Anis 2008
"A typical Palestinian refugee camp at Nahr al-Barid in
northern Lebanon, winter 1948."
Background: "The First Palestinian Diaspora. By 15 May 1948
hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from scores
of Palestinian towns and hundreds of Palestinian villages
had been scattered to the four winds in the neighboring Arab
countries. On 5 June 1948 David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary:
'We must make immediate preparations for settlement of
the abandoned villages with the assistance of the Jewish National Fund.'"

THE CODE PINK PAINTING/INTERVIEW

CODEPINK is a women's initiated grassroots organization dedicated to ending the war in Iraq and preventing war in Iran. Personally, I am a huge supporter of CODEPINK. Their methods are peaceful, outrageous, brave, dangerous, effective, outspoken, controversial, ethical, educational and most important of all ~ PASSIONATE , all of which are beautifully captured in the photo below. The reptilian chill of war criminal Rice has rarely been more starkly contrasted against the raw passion of a brave peace lover.
On October 24, 2007, CODEPINK activist Desiree Fairooz walked up to Condoleezza Rice during a Congressional hearing and displayed her hands covered in a blood-like liquid. She yelled "war criminal" as Ms. Rice prepared to testify and was dragged out of the room by the police. The pictures and story went all over the world. See video, photos and read news stories here: www.codepink4peace.org/article.php?id=3587

The subsequent interview with Desiree can be found here.

THE FREE GAZA ART FESTIVAL SERIES
AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES

FREE GAZA (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

FREE GAZA 2 (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

FREE GAZA 03 (DIN A3) © Anis 2009

FREE GAZA 04 (DIN A3) © Anis 2009

Fishermen of Galilee

Tuareg

The Lion and the Lamb

LIVERPOOL CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2008

LIVERPOOL (1): OTTERSPOOL (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

LIVERPOOL (2): CHINESE GATE (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

LIVERPOOL (3): MOUNT STREET (DIN A3) © Anis 2008

LIVERPOOL (04) (DIN A3) © Anis 2009