CANADIAN STUDENTS MAKE ME PROUD!!!

At LAST! An article that does not make an ashamed Canadian! THIS is heartening. If you remember, last winter Carlton was one of the universities that attempted to shut these same students down over matters Palestinian because a few Jewish students "felt threatened" by Canadians organizing an educational week on the Gaza situation. This was an international movement and only in Canada did the universities resort to threatening the students with fines and expulsion for their actions. At the time, when studying the CV of the Dean, I realized she was a shill, since many pictures showed her in Israel touring the settlements, shaking hands etc etc.

Well the students are back again! Thanks kids. Our country has been extremely disappointing to me lately. Our sovereign king Harper set on leading the world into the NWO at the behest of his Chabad Masters. Our record on Israel and investments. The general lack of interest. And worst of all, the media which praises Israel. SO, onwards and upwards, you are the coming leaders of this country given a chance. I wish you well. You have my support. South Africa success or not, alas this is a different world and your university is now owned by Zionism, the common enemy of most of the no longer free world.

Carleton University students
launch campus divestment campaign

Statement,
Students Against Israeli Apartheid Carleton

February 11, 2010
Electronic Intifada

For the past several months, Students Against Israeli Apartheid ~ Carleton (SAIA), a student group at Carleton University in Ottawa that is committed to supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom, has been conducting research on Carleton's investments in Israeli apartheid.

The Carleton Pension Fund currently lacks any ethical guidelines, with its only mandate being the maximization of profit. SAIA has discovered that the Pension Fund, which provides retirement income for Carleton staff and faculty, currently has some $2,762,535 invested in five companies that are complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people.

In light of these findings, SAIA has launched a campaign calling on Carleton to immediately divest from the offending corporations: Motorola, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications and Tesco supermarkets, as well as to adopt a socially responsible investment policy for all of its investments.

Motorola is involved in designing and implementing perimeter surveillance systems around illegal Israeli settlements and military camps in the West Bank. Motorola and its subsidiaries also have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts to supply the Israeli military with telecommunications technology, checkpoint security and control systems. By providing support for the Israeli military, Motorola plays a role in ensuring that settlement expansion will continue, and that the occupation will deepen, in a clear violation of international law.

BAE Systems is the world's third-largest arms producer. Both BAE and its Israeli subsidiary, Rokar, contribute to weaponry used by Israel to attack Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. BAE produces cluster bombs and the F-16 combat aircraft, which were used during the 2008-2009 assault on the Gaza Strip, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians, most of whom were non-combatant civilians.

Northrop Grumman, one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers, provided the Israeli military with many of the parts for the Apache AH64D Longbow Helicopter, which was described by Amnesty International as a piece of "key equipment used by the [Israeli military] in the [December 2008 ~ January 2009] Gaza bombing campaign." Furthermore, Northrop Grumman is the sole provider of radars for the F-16 combat aircraft. It also assists in producing the Longbow Hellfire 2 missiles, which, as has been documented by many human rights organizations, were widely used against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

L-3 Communications is one of the many large multinational firms aiding in the construction and maintenance of the system of military checkpoints that severely restrict Palestinian freedom of movement in the West Bank and around Gaza. The matrix of checkpoints has been condemned by human rights organizations as a brutally repressive system that violates the basic human rights of the Palestinian people. In addition to being a means of political repression and land annexation, the checkpoints constitute a tool of collective punishment, which is a crime under international law.

Tesco Supermarkets is a large United Kingdom-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain. It has been the target of social justice activists in the UK for selling produce originating from illegal Israeli settlements, for mislabeling products coming from the settlements as "West Bank," as well as for using an exporter, Carmel-Agrexco, which has been criticized for using slavery-type working conditions in its factories in the occupied West Bank. Tesco's financial support for the illegal Israeli settlements lends them legitimacy and enables their economic growth and physical expansion, while simultaneously inhibiting the development of the Palestinian economy.

Carleton is no stranger to boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activism, and it has a strong precedent to build upon. In 1987, Carleton divested from all companies complicit in the apartheid regime in South Africa. Carleton's president at the time wrote a memorandum, saying,

"Carleton University abhors apartheid and will do all it can to show its position on apartheid within its business practices."

Given Carleton's past commitment to divesting from apartheid regimes, SAIA is calling on the university to once again place itself on the right side of history by ending its investments in the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.

The South African victory serves as an inspiring model for SAIA's divestment campaign, which is the first Palestine-centered divestment initiative in Canada. Hopes are high that, through a well-planned local campaign, as well as the natural growth of BDS, momentum will pick up at universities across the country and similar initiatives will emerge to form a national movement to cut campus ties with Israeli apartheid.

Specifically, SAIA recommends that:

1. The Carleton University Board of Governors, via the Pension Fund Committee, immediately divest of its stock in BAE Systems, L-3 Communications, Motorola, Northrop Grumman and Tesco

2. Carleton University refrain from investing in other companies involved in violations of international law (for recommended guidelines see Conclusions/Recommendations section of the divestment report)

3. Carleton University work with the entire university community to develop, adopt and implement a broader policy of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) for its Pension Fund and other investments, through a transparent and effective process.

Download the full report: Carleton University Pension Fund: Complicity in Violations of Human Rights and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories [PDF]

INSIDE ISRAELI LAND GRABS

Over the weekend, Netanyahu reaffirmed Israeli government's support of settlements by planting a tree in each one of the three biggest settlement blocks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

We'll make a pastrami sandwich of them, ... we'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart. ~ Ariel Sharon

"The main difference between Bosnia and Palestine is that ethnic cleansing in the former took place in the form of dramatic massacres and slaughters which caught the world's attention, whereas in Palestine what is taking place is a drop-by-drop tactic in which one or two houses are demolished daily, a few acres are taken here and there every day, a few people are forced to leave" ~ Edward Said

“Terrorize the civilian population, assuring maximal destruction of property and cultural resources. The daily life of the Palestinians must be rendered unbearable. They should be locked up in cities and towns, prevented from exercising normal economic life, cut off from workplaces, schools and hospitals, This will encourage emigration and weaken the resistance to future expulsions” ~ Ur Shlonsky, quoted by Ghali Hassan

The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. For Ever. ~ Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine. The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple. ~ Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997

It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands. The plan is to kill or drive out the Palestinian people using poverty, hunger and war and so allow the Zionists to expand into ‘Greater Israel’. ~ Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

Those illegal settlements just seem to pop like mushrooms. A new crop of settlers comes in and just grabs a nice place and Israel gives them the wherewithal to build and supplies the supporting IDF to keep down those darned Palestinians who DARE to defend their ancestral lands. That is how it goes, all happenstance, right?

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! AND WRONG AGAIN!

There is a very set plan in operation and has been from the very beginning. Once you understand this, you have yet another very important insight into these land thieves and see just how insidiously and in depth this process is. Nothing, not one single detail, is left to chance. NADA. Everything goes according to their time tested formula. This film shows and explains precisely how settlements pop up. First the text and then the film. This is a MUST see for anyone interested in the issue of these illegal criminal developments.

This is a plan that successive Israeli governments have been carrying out for over 50 years. It has resulted, for example, a family in Nablus who can’t leave their home while its taken over by Israeli soldiers.

The Arab population is stolen from, children bullied, people burned out, water supplies fouled, the list goes on. In the settlements you find verdant green lawns of a settler community and public swimming pools which compares poorly with the parched starved landscape of the Palestinian West Bank.

And while the Israeli Prime Minister tells the world they have nothing to worry about, that the Israeli government has this under control, settler Daniella Weiss tells you all you need to know ~ she doesn’t plan on going anywhere.

Despite the Israeli government's support, funding, and approval of settlers, they are often presented in the media as in conflict with the state and the army. In this report, The Real News' Lia Tarachansky looks at this claim through a recent lecture by Shir Hever, an economist with the Alternative Information Center.

A perfect example of the methodology Hever describes can be seen in the settlement of Kedumim which lies adjacent to the Palestinian village of Kaft Qadum. The Real News spoke to the village council of the Palestinian village and the associate mayor of the settlement about how they've expanded and the impact this has had on their lives.

Bio

Shir Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour. Researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, some of his research topics include international aid to the Palestinians and Israel, the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of the economy of the Israeli occupation.

TRANSCRIPT

LIA TARACHANSKY (VOICEOVER), PRODUCER, TRNN: On Wednesday, 30 Palestinians from the village of Beitillu were injured when settlers from the nearby outpost of Geva Binyamin attacked them. The settlers' riot is part of something called the "price tag policy", whereby the Israeli government decides to demolish a small Jewish outpost in the West Bank or to enforce the settlement construction limit, and in retaliation the settlers attack Palestinians.

The media continue to portray the settlers as being in constant conflict with the government and the army, but since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the construction limit in December, there have been dozens of attacks on Palestinian villages by settlers, oftentimes with the military present or nearby.

The prime minister himself reiterated the government's support for the three biggest settlement blocks during the weekend, when he planted a tree in each one, saying these settlements are inseparable from the state of Israel forever.

In a recent lecture, Shir Hever, of the Alternative Information Center, described the mechanism by which settlers take over Palestinian land and expand. He talked about how a settler colony receives proactive or retroactive permits from various ministries, how the government supports its expansion, and how Israeli and international banks fund it.

SHIR HEVER, ECONOMIST, ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER: The Ministry of Defense gave a retroactive permit for this colony and recognized it as a community, as an official community in Israel. And after the Ministry of Defense gave their permission, this colony is now considered a town, a town in Israel, although, of course, they're not in Israel ~ they are on occupied land.

But they're not just a town. They also get a municipal area around them, which is determined by the Ministry of the Interior. And what the Army does, they evict all the Palestinians who live in the municipal area when the colonists want to establish a new neighborhood.

But rather than establishing their neighborhood close to the center, they establish it right at the border of their municipal area. It could be 7 km away; it could be that the colonies don't even see each other, they don't even know each other. It's for all purposes a new settlement, a new colony. But the way that they officially present it, it is as if it is part of the same community.

And then, again, the water administration of Israel connects this new neighborhood to water, the electricity company connects it to electricity, the Ministry of Transportation will make sure that they have their own road, and the army would put their own platoon to protect this new neighborhood.

What the army would usually do is to kick out the Palestinians from this area.

After a while, the colonists would come to the Ministry of the Interior again and say, "You know, all this land around us is empty. There are no Palestinians around us now. So why not add this new land to the municipal area?"

So the Ministry of the Interior gives them some more. The next neighborhood they can build here, and then get another piece of municipal area. And meanwhile the colony can expand also in another direction.

TARACHANSKY: Kedumim was the first Jewish settlement in Samaria, the northern West Bank. It follows the example Hever described in his lecture. Settlement representatives often argue the subsidies they receive are in compensation for the risk they are assuming and the harsh living conditions they endure.

But instead of growing in a cluster to ensure security, Kedumim, like so many other settlements, spread out over many hills. The Real News spoke to Shoshana Shilo, the associate mayor of Kedumim.

SHOSHANA SHILO, ASSOCIATE MAYOR, KEDUMIM SETTLEMENT (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION):
Ariel Sharon, who was a very good friend of the settlers, very good friend, he built most of the settlements and he told us to run fast and grab all the hilltops before they give them to the Arabs.

He said that probably there won't be a choice, and we'd have to connect the small settlements into big blocks and then give the small settlements away.

TARACHANSKY: Across the hill from Kedumim lies the Palestinian village of Kafr Qaddum. Its residents told The Real News that the settlement lies on land stolen from them and that they are subject to constant attacks by the settlers.

UMM EHAB (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): My name is Umm Ehab. We get bothered a lot by the settlers and the army. Just two days ago, or only two nights ago, my daughter Meriam was studying here, not very far from the house. The army came fast. There were three soldiers. They followed her and they ran after her.

TRANSLATOR (SUBTITLED): Do you remember life before the settlement was built?

EHAB: Yes. You see this settlement? This is the land of my family. When we were young, when we were 10 or 15 years old, we would keep playing there until the sunset call for prayer.

SAMIR AL-QADDOUMI, VILLAGE COUNCICL, KAFR QADDUM (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): It started as a small settlement with few houses and caravans, and then it started expanding into a settlement, extending piece by piece, until now it looks like islands that forcefully annexed all the lands of Kafr Qaddum.

The Israelis wanted to build a wall around this settlement. There was a decision to build the wall and that decision was taken. We were even happy with the decision for the building of the racial discrimination wall, because we wanted to be relieved of the expansion of Israelis and settlers upon us.

But, unfortunately, the people responsible for the settlements refused the wall, so as to keep the ability to expand and extend the settlements.

SHILO: In Kedumim, we don't have the [segregation] fence. I don't know if you've noticed, but in Kedumim, there is no fence. This is thanks to [former mayor] Daniella Weiss. She led this line. She said that after the Holocaust, Jews won't live in ghettos, definitely not in Israel, and she said if you want to fence someone in, go ahead, fence in the Arabs. We don't have a problem with it.

Weiss taught young settlers that their rights were inviolable and to just ake what they want from Palestinians. She has contributed greatly to Israeli violence against the Palestinian people.

And all the governments and all the chiefs of staff tried to fence us in with the purpose of protecting us, but Daniella said we don't believe that a fence protects. If there is a fence, it sends a message to the enemy that we are afraid and we're fencing ourselves in.

Thanks to this, we've also grown each time into a new neighborhood. Of course, I want to emphasize: all the settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) are on state land. No settlement took Arabs' land, private lands, and settled on them.

In my own studies last year on Mrs.Weiss, she comes across as a supremely arrogant, confident, highly racist woman. Forceful and powerful, she is accorded the status of being "volatile and dangerous" by the Israeli government. After reading this article I realize she was most likely chosen specifically for those traits to hold the position she did.

Weiss is not above exploiting naive American Christian Zionists. At this link check HERE and see the extent that American goys are being shucked and bilked in the name of their desired Armageddon. They are also given a taste of "real life in the Settlements" due to the evil Palestinians. I am sure they do not see how the Settlers displace and steal from the Palestinians.

HERE is an excellent write up of a gang of young Israeli holy thugs, guarded by the IDF, operate on Palestinian families. After all, it is kosher because she has taught them ‘God gave this to us.’

Guaranteed to remind Americans of savage Natives attacking honest American settlers, visiting Zinofascist Christians are treated to a simulated terrorist attack with dogs and educated about "wild Muslims".

HEVER: And the only way Palestinians can stop them is if they are able to prove that the land which is annexed to the colony is privately owned by a Palestinian farmer. Unfortunately, there are many Palestinians, farmers or house owners, landlords, that do have all the documents to prove that this land does belong to them, but their documents are not accepted by the Israeli court.

And, also, Israel is using an Ottoman law that remains from the period of the Ottoman Empire, which means that if a Palestinian is not using their land for three years, this land can be confiscated.

The walls and fences and arbitrary moods of the local IDF can frequently make it impossible for the farmer to get to his land for that amount of time. Or settlers can make it impossible or burn his groves. It is a huge land grab.

TARACHANSKY: In 2008, Michael Lesence, from Kedumim, attempted to invoke this law by taking the lands of Abdul Rahim, Abdul Latif, and Ahmad Abdallah of Kafr Qaddum. After a long legal fight, however, the Israeli legal NGO Yesh Din was able to return the land to the Palestinians, and in the legal proceedings revealed that the settler's lawyer himself admitted the confiscated lands were indeed privately owned.

HEVER: The process of expansion means a lot of investment, mainly government investment, because the government gives all these illegal colonies high-priority in terms of economic development and gives them more money. The illegal colonies are also receiving special subsidies from the government. And make no mistake: the subsidies in the West Bank apply only to Jewish illegal colonies. Palestinians under occupation receive no money from the Israeli government at all.

TARACHANSKY: But regardless of whether the land is private or not, according to a legal opinion commissioned by the UN and issued by the International Court of Justice in 2004, all the Israeli settlements and the annexation wall in the West Bank are against international law.

This legal opinion led to an increase in Palestinian and international resistance to land confiscations. After a popular campaign in Belgium, the only international bank that loaned to settlements, Dexia, announced six months ago that it will stop renewing its loans. Earlier this week, two Danish banks also divested from Israeli companies because of their involvement in settlement construction and the wall.

Thomas H. Kjaergaard of the Danske Bank Group commented that

"We do not want to put our customers' money in companies that violate international standards."

DISCLAIMER: Please note that TRNN transcripts are typed from a recording of the program; The Real News Network cannot guarantee complete accuracy.

FILMMAKER LOACH URGES CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

THANK YOU, MR. LOACH!! YOUR HELP IS APPRECIATED
FROM ALL WHO CARE ABOUT PALESTINE.

Fri, 15 Jan 20
Press TV

The acclaimed British director and winner of Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Ken Loach, has called for the boycott of Israeli movies at the international film festivals and cultural events.

“The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make the showcasing of Israeli films in various sections of international film festivals unacceptable,” Loach was quoted as saying at a ceremony commemorating Israeli offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip by IRNA.

“Tel Aviv sponsors various international film festivals with the intention to open the way for Israeli films.”

He added the call for a boycott of Israeli cultural products comes from many writers, artists, journalists, lawyers, academics, trades unionists and teachers. They see it as “a contribution to the struggle to end Israel's occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.”

Last July, Loach withdrew his film ''Looking for Eric'' from the Melbourne International Film Festival in protest against the Israel's sponsorship of another filmmaker. Tel Aviv provided airfare for Tatia Rosenthal, whose film ''9.99'' is an Israeli-Australian co-production.

In May 2009, Loach as director of the Edinburgh International film festival returned a £300 gift from the Israeli embassy as a sign of his cultural boycott of Israel and in protest at Tel Aviv's policies towards the Palestinian people.

Loach has been active towards the Palestinian cause in the part of the world he knows best, the world of film and theatre.

The Toronto international film festival (TIFF) came under fire in September for selecting Tel Aviv as the subject of its inaugural City-to-City Spotlight strand. Renowned movie makers including Loach, Jane Fonda and David Byrne were among those who signed a statement supporting Canadian film-maker John Greyson, who withdrew his short film “Covered” from TIFF after learning of the program.

In a letter to the festival, Greyson cited Israeli action in Gaza and the expansion of illegal settlements as reasons for his withdrawal.

A United Nations inquiry led by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone details what investigators call Israeli actions "amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during Israel's offensive against Gaza.

Tel Aviv is worried that charges could be lodged against politicians and army officers for war crimes committed during Israel's 22-day offensive against blockaded Gaza Strip. Top officials who would be in the judicial cross-hairs could include former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as well as current Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during three weeks of Israel's land, sea and air assault in the impoverished coastal sliver. The offensive also inflicted $ 1.6 billion damage to Gaza economy.

Filmmaker Ken Loach Joins the Cultural Boycott of Israel

Ken Loach, Wikipedia

Edinburgh film festival refuses Israeli grant due to pressure by Ken Loach

BOYCOTT ~ BELGIAN BANK WON'T LEND TO SETTLEMENTS

ANOTHER VICTORY!

'Belgian bank won't lend to settlements'

1.02.2010

The Jerusalem Post

The Belgian French bank group Dexia, which specializes in financing municipalities and other local authorities, is refusing to work with Judea and Samaria local councils, Israel Radio reported Wednesday morning.

Sources in the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip told Israel Radio that in several cases, applicants were informed that their loans could not be approved as their localities were situated over the Green Line.

The bank reportedly cited the fear that if an agreement was to be signed between Israel and the Palestinians which resulted in settlements being dismantled, applicants would not be able to repay loans.

Shmuel Reifman, who chairs the Center for Regional Councils, confirmed Israel Radio’s report. He noted that certain entities which do not support Israel were putting pressure on Dexia, and threatening to downsize investments in the company if it continues to extend credit to councils over the Green Line.

The local subsidiary of the company, Dexia Israel, responded to the report by saying that the bank operates solely according to business considerations.

Dexia Israel Bank, formerly Otzar Hashilton Hamekomi and a subsidiary of the French-Belgium Dexia Group, is a specialized bank for Israeli local authorities and financing of municipalities while also providing banking services to the general public including short and long-term credit, receipt of deposits, and current accounts. Based in Tel Aviv with a workforce of 40 employees.

Dexia Bank Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium For a visual treat, do a search on Images for Dexia. It is amazing what they do at night.

Dexia Israel plays an important role as an intermediary for financial transfers between the state and local authorities. Dexia Israel is the third largest bank in terms of lending to municipalities after Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi.

In February 2001, the Dexia Group, a global leader in public sector financing, acquired control of Otzar Hashilton Hamekomi and presently holds 65.31% of the bank’s share capital. Additional shareholders are the Union of Local Authorities. In January last year, Dexia Israel received a full banking license from the Bank of Israel allowing the bank to expand its products and activities in Israel. Sharon Wrobel

Dexia Israel’s decision was reported on various Palestinian Web sites as early as June this year, apparently as the result of a political campaign in Belgium.

One pro-Palestinian site quoted Dexia’s management as saying that funding Judea and Samaria settlements was against the bank’s code of ethics.

Judea and Samaria local council heads called for the bank to be closed down, stating that any company that refused to give loans to settlements should not be allowed to make money from other authorities within Israel.

The leaders also called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to extend loans to local councils in the West Bank.

Sharon Wrobel contributed to this report.

Enlarge this thumb to read why the Zionists and Jews have NO RIGHT to complain about being boycotted or to call it anti-Semitic. THIS boycott in the 1930's changed our lives forever.

DEXIA ISRAEL STOPS FINANCING ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS

Posted by marcy newman
June 11. 2009

Complicit firms

The Belgian-French financial group Dexia has announced it will no longer finance Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories through its Israeli branch Dexia Israel.

This is the result of a months-long campaign in Belgium, supported by NGO’s, political parties, local authorities, trade unions and other organizations. Dexia’s management states that financing Israeli settlements is indeed against the bank’s code of ethics and it will stop giving loans due to this.

In 2001 Dexia Group buys the Israeli bank Otzar Hashilton Hamekomi and renames the bank Dexia Public Finance Israel. Just like other Dexia subsidiaries, Dexia Israel is specialized in financing municipalities and other local authorities.

It takes until October 2008 for a few Belgian solidarity groups to discover that Dexia Israel is not only financing regular Israeli municipalities but is also granting loans to illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories. In a document of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), the director of Dexia Israel, Mr. David Kapah, confirms that the bank has indeed granted credits to seven settlements and three regional authorities in the occupied West bank between 2003 and 2007.

This ‘smoking gun’ evidence entails the start of a fast growing campaign in Belgium. United under the slogan ‘Israel colonizes, Dexia finances’, the campaign knows its first successes. In the following months petitions are being launched, MP’s are being questioned and local actions are being started up. Very important is the support of local Belgian authorities such as municipalities and provinces, as they hold a vast amount of shares in Dexia Group.

Today the action platform consists of 61 Belgian organizations, gathered over 4000 signatures and got 29 local authorities to sign a resolution. They all demand that Dexia breaks off its relations with the settlements and stops financing the occupation immediately.

Dexia: ‘Guilty, but we won’t do it again’

For several months the Belgian government and the Dexia management never really responded to the demands of the action platform. However as the campaign started to get more media coverage and the pressure started to rise, something changed. On May 13, the activists of the campaign were able to voice demands at the annual shareholders meeting of Dexia Group in Brussels.

In response, Jean-Luc Dehaene, chairman of the board of Dexia and former Belgian prime minister, admitted that the bank has been extending loans to Israeli colonies. He stresses however that, since September 2008, there has been no additional financing of these or other colonies.

Dehaene declared no new loans will be granted to the settlements. He added that the credits and loans to the settlements which are granted before are in runoff and will not be prolonged any longer; neither will they be replaced by similar loans.

Dehaene: “In the past, Dexia Israel granted 5 million Euros of loans to the settlements, this was only 1% of the total budget of Dexia Israel. The loans to the Jerusalem municipality are not included in this amount, as Dexia Group feels that Jerusalem is not contested territory.”

However, East Jerusalem belongs to Palestine. Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in June 1967, and extended Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration to this part of the city.

In response the Security Council adopted resolution 252 that it “[UN Security Council] Considers that all legislative measures by Israel, including expropriation of land and properties thereon, which tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status”.

In 1980 Israel declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, including East Jerusalem. The same year the UN Security Council adopts resolution 476 that the Security Council

“Reconfirms that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which purport to alter the character and status of Jerusalem have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.

Dexia’s financial support to the municipality of Jerusalem can be considered as support to the colonization of East Jerusalem.

Dehaene also states that the activities of Dexia Israel do not belong to the core-business of Dexia Group anymore, adding: “Don’t be surprised that at one point, Dexia Group will sell Dexia Israel”.

The campaign has been fruitful already, but this is not the end

According to Mario Franssen, spokesperson of the action platform, the campaign will continue until Dexia has officially declared ~ and provided the proof for ~ a full stop of settlement funding, including the disputed loans to Jerusalem.

Franssen explains that the action platform is not yet satisfied, but these concessions from Dexia are a good start.

"We are still demanding a full and immediate stop of all connections between Dexia and the colonies. Dexia is guilty of financing the occupation, and this has to end”, Franssen added.

THE GOOD NEWS IS, DEXIA HAS STOPPED FINANCING THE SETTLEMENTS AND NOW DEALS WITH ANGRY ISRAELIS WHO MOST LIKELY CONSIDER THEM TO BE ANTI SEMITIC. THE REST OF THE WORLD SMILES AND CHALKS UP ANOTHER SMALL VICTORY TOWARDS ENDING THE INCARCERATION OF THE PALESTINIANS.

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.

ZIONIST/HITLER AGREEMENT ~ EDWIN BLACK

I AM absolooootely THRILLED!! For years now I have gone out on a limb and surmised there was collaboration between the Talmudic Jews and Hitler ~ that the victims in the camps were part of some sort of agreement. I have gathered quotes, studied Rabbi Stephen Wise, the wars, the untaught history of the times, the Holocaust that we revisionists are said to deny ever happened at all, (PURE BUNKUM charge might I add), but this morning I have found a book written by a Jew that verifies my contention.

One thing neglected here is what led up to the Boycott by the Jews on Germany. It did not just materialize out of thin air, there is a history involved and this should be understood. When WW1 began it was primarily the British and the Germans at arms with each other. Germany was well ahead and had even called to end the war, it was over. However, the Rothschild cabal, in their zeal to create Israel from Palestine, sent representatives to Britain who promised that they could bring America into the war guaranteeing Britain to win ~ a war that they had almost already lost. The upshot was history, the Germans were beaten and the Jews were awarded the Balfour Declaration, granted to the Rothschild family.

These Jews were clearly working against their homeland, Germany, where up until then, all had been treated well. The Germans lost, paid dearly, but then problems began between German and Jew. The Germans felt betrayed ~ as indeed they had been. One thing led to another until the Jews declared war on Germany and began their international boycott. This boycott broke Germany, hunger, job loss, displacement, these things were not just felt by the Jews, but also the Germans were losing outA letter to American Jews from Wise on United Jewish Appeal stationery continued to support the 'selected' immigration of Jews to Palestine, despite the fact that 3 million Jews were now trapped in Nazi-occupied Poland: "Selectivity is an inescapable factor in dealing with the problem of immigration to Palestine. By selectivity is meant the choice of young men and women who are trained in either agriculture or industry."It was under these circumstances that Hitler (very possibly an unacknowledged Rothschild family member) puppet, took charge of this country in turmoil.

My Snippits and Snappits are in green.

About THE TRANSFER AGREEMENT by Edwin Black.

On August 7, 1933, the situation in Berlin, was tense. The following scenarios are all appropriate. It was a hot afternoon when:

~ well-dressed Jews in Germany could not step into the street without fear,

~ laboring kibbutzniks in Palestine proudly swept the midday perspiration from their foreheads,

~ anxious German businessmen worried the next telegram would cancel yet another order for increasingly unsellable Reich goods,

~ Nazi organizers throughout Europe gleefully reviewed statistics on Jewish populations and Jewish assets within their midst,

~ Polish blackshirts viciously beat Jews in town squares,

~ ordinary jobless Germans wondered where they could find enough money for the next meal,

~ young Jewish boys in German schools were forced to stand painfully before their classmates as examples of detestable vermin,

~ defiant Jews across America and England raised their fists in anger proliferating their punishing anti-German boycott,

~ Jewish Palestinian exporters wondered nervously whether their biggest customer Germany would retaliate,

~ thousands of homeless German Jews existed as refugees and some in concentration camps,

~ the prospects for Jewry in Europe seemed over.

On this fateful day in the first summer of the Hitler regime, an official delegation of four German and Palestinian Zionists and one independent Palestinian business man were ushered into an Economics Ministry conference room. The Jews had been authorized by a combine of Jewish and Zionist bodies to negotiate with the Third Reich.

After hours of wrangled debate, Hans Hartenstein, Director of the Reich Office of Currency Control, was about to call the meeting to an inconclusive close when a messenger from Deutsche Reichpost delivered a telegram from the German Consul in Tel Aviv.

The telegram advised Hartenstein that a coalition of official and commercial Zionist interests in Palestine was the best way to break the growing Jewish-led worldwide anti-Nazi boycott that was crippling the Hitler regime in its first months. A deal with the Zionists would be necessary.

And so it was done.

The Transfer Agreement was created.

There was no hard copy contract with names penned at the bottom. The agreement was actually an official Reich decree, 54/33, issued three days later, on August 10 by the Reich Economics Ministry.

The decree authorized the Zionists to create two transfer clearinghouses, one under the supervision of the German Zionist Federation in Berlin, one under the supervision of Anglo-Palestine's trust company in Palestine.

The office in Tel Aviv was called Haavara Trust and Transfer Office Ltd. Often called Haavara Ltd. for short, this corporation was organized under the Palestinian commercial code and operated by business managers.

Its stock was wholly owned by the Anglo-Palestine Bank, which was renamed Bank Leumi.

Haavara, the Hebrew word for transfer,

quickly became a synonym for transfer.

The bargain was this:

Jews could leave Germany before being pauperized, and take some of their assets with them in the form of new German goods which the Zionist movement would then sell in Palestine and eventually throughout much of the world market. The proceeds would be given to the emigrants, with a portion reserved for state-building projects such as industrial infrastructure and land purchase.

Jews could not enter Palestine without a so-called “Capitalist Certificate” issued by the British proving they possessed the equivalent of $5000. Transfer made this possible. Addressing more than just active emigrants, the Transfer Agreement allowed “potential emigrants” to protect their assets in these special bank accounts which again could not be accessed without purchasing and reselling German goods. Between the active and potential emigration accounts, the Transfer apparatus meant millions of reichsmarks ~ to both the Germans and Zionists.

The more goods the Germans sold, the more Jews would be permitted out of Germany and into Palestine, and the more money would be available to build the Jewish State.

The price of this commerce-linked exodus would be the abandonment of the commercial war against Nazi Germany. The punishing, global anti-Nazi boycott that organizers loudly promised would topple the Hitler regime in its first year, this growing non-sectarian and interfaith coalition that every day was vituperatively breaking German contracts, canceling German orders and diverting German business to any Depression-era competitor who would step forward.

Jews were fighting back. The Nazi had decided that this moral counterattack ~ one which Germany feared more than any other Jewish response ~ had to be stopped.

(The Jews had begun this mess by their betrayal of their host country during WW1!)

It did not matter whether the anti-Nazi boycott could have succeeded in real terms. Boycott effectiveness is not measured in dollars and pfennigs but in ergs of fear. The Germans feared the mythical international Jewish conspiracy of global economic manipulation more than any other.

(!!!not so mythical in the opinion of many very savvy capitalists. Please read The International Jew by Henry Ford)

The Zionist understood it. And soon the Jewish and non-sectarian boycott organizations came to grips with it. One could not save a Jew from the Nazis without selling German goods. That killed the boycott before the boycott could even begin to kill the Third Reich.

Whole branches of Judaism would wither, but the trunk would survive ~ Herzl's words. This one time, this crucial and unparalleled time, the Jewish emergency would be used to secure a future, not ransom a past. From this crisis of humiliation, agony, and expulsion would come sanctuary, nationhood, and a new Jew, with a new home to call his own.

What is being said here is, the decision was made to sacrifice fellow Jews for the good of Zionism.

In its various public and private forms, the Transfer Agreement transferred some 60,000 Jews and $100 million ~ almost $1.7 billion in 2009 dollars ~ to Jewish Palestine. Ultimately, the Transfer Agreement saved lives, rescued assets, and seeded the infrastructure of the Jewish State to be.

During the prewar years, the Transfer Agreement tore the Jewish world apart, turning leader against leader, prompting rebellion and even assassination within the Yishuv and Diaspora alike. Jewish Agency de facto foreign minister Chaim Arlosoroff, who had negotiated the deal on behalf of the Zionist Mapai Labor party, was assassinated on an empty stretch of the Tel Aviv (near where the current Tel Aviv Hilton stands), presumably by Revisionist Zionist of the Ze’ev Jabotinsky camp. The Revisionist Zionists, a minority at the time, violently opposed the deal with the Nazis. Today streets everywhere in Israel are named for Arlosoroff.

American Jewish leaders and organizations such as the American Jewish Congress and Stephen Wise ~ choosing the Zionist solution ~ were forever soul-torn by the decision to abandon the organized and cohesive boycott against the Nazis. Official Jewry left the protest war to a rag-tag, disorganized but ardent movement devoid of support where it counted. However, without the boycott, there would have never been a Transfer Agreement.

Despite the searing communal outrage, as the situation for Jews in Europe worsened, variations on the same German transfer arrangement was readied by Zionists for Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other Nazi-occupied or dominated countries. Then, when War erupted, when dispossession turned to annihilation, the Transfer was used to rescue whatever and whoever could be rescued. The debate disappeared. However, by that time, the Transfer Agreement had been curtailed or terminated in most respects.

For almost three decades, the Transfer Agreement and the anguished details surrounding it were forgotten. Finally, in 1984, when the full story became known with the original publication of The Transfer Agreement, the book launched a fiery debate, a debate few were prepared to comprehend. Back then, the world and the Jewish community were still confronting the genocide, the survivors, and the guilty.

The world’s emphasis was on the murderous events of the war years. Organized remembrance was collectively fighting an anti-Semitic revisionist movement that was trying to deny or minimize the Holocaust with rabid pseudo-history.

(Or debunk some patently dispersed lies and falsifications.)

Few, especially in the English-speaking world, had publically spoken in detail about the financial aspects of the Holocaust until the book’s publication. Few had used the words “Zionist” and “Nazi” in the same sentence until this book did.

For perspective, consider that the very first television attempt to treat the Holocaust was a TV series called “The Holocaust,” which aired in 1978 ~ the same year neo-Nazis marched through Skokie. That was the year, 1978, research began on The Transfer Agreement.

At the time, the Second Generation movement of children of Holocaust survivors was just forming. The First World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors was only in the planning stage. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which received its charter in 1980, was several years and many controversies away from opening.

Organized Holocaust education was essentially nonexistent. For society and for survivors, the dominant priority was coming to grips with the genocide ~ not the assets.

Today, society understands most of the outward manifestations of what happened. Now the world has turned almost entirely to other more worldly questions: assets.

Pilfered Swiss bank accounts, stolen art, blood gold, expropriated property, slave wages, unpaid insurance policies, and financial collusion. Everywhere the accusations and the defenses swirl not about the issue of murder but around the issue of money. First the world struggled with the death toll. Now the world struggles with the dollar toll.

(The world STILL struggles with the death toll as! I would also question why it was primarily the young and fit who made it to Palestine, not the ill, deformed or elderly.)

As such, it places the Transfer Agreement at the forefront. While international efforts continue to recover lost Jewish assets, the Transfer Agreement stands alone as the sole asset rescue that actually worked. And it worked contemporaneously, not with the benefit of hindsight, not lubricated by the after tears of devastation but in the hellish frenzy of the Nazified day as Zionist leaders looked over their shoulder to remember the past and up to the heavens to envision the future.

The State of Israel will not release most of the assets to the beneficiaries or their descendants. Most is held in (Jewish) Swiss Banks known for their secrecy and protection of their clients. Stories abound of people denied access to what is rightfully theirs. What the Zionists have stolen they do not wish to return, even to Jews

They remembered and reminded their contemporaries that even Moses was commanded by God to take the sheep and goats with. In that context, the world can examine the enormous task facing the Zionist negotiators of 1933 and the monumental arrangements they sealed.

A few coldly realistic Zionist leaders in an office on Wilhelmstrasse were willing to make those decisions. It helped save a people. It helped create a state. Nonetheless, 25 years after the book was published and more than 55 years after the deal was negotiated, the nagging questions still haunt all those who confront the Transfer Agreement.

Was it madness?

Or was it genius?

There are still many other unanswered questions to be answered regarding this Transfer Agreement. It should shed light on the camps and the events that took place as a result of its creation.

Edwin Black is the award-winning bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust, and his first book, The Transfer Agreement, now re-released in a 25th Anniversary edition (Dialog Press), with an afterword by Abraham Foxman. Black can be reached at www.edwinblack.com.

COURTESY OF SCRIBD, HERE IS THE TRANSFER AGREEMENT SO PLEASE READ BECAUSE WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM IT I AM THINKING.

The Transfer Agreement

INSIDE ISRAELI JAILS THE REAL VICTIMS OF A CRY FOR JUSTICE

I go on record once again claiming that ~ should we last that long ~ in the not-so-distant future, humanity will look back on what is being done in Palestine by the Israelis and, if one has not done what one could to halt these horrors, one will feel shame for his apathy and negligence.

These people do not realize that what is going on in Palestine is what the Talmudic Zionists have in mind for ALL OF US should they succeed in their diabolical and greedy endeavours for humanity. Only, they would not use the word "humanity" for THEY consider themselves the only true humans. The rest of us would be treated like the chattel/cattle their beloved Talmud and rabid rabbis tell them we are.

Well, I don't buy this swine swill and will remain defiant until the end.

For now, "defiant" means fighting for our future and the future of our progeny. I repeat myself, Palestine is a trial run for the future for all of us.

If we care about anything at all, we must deal with these beasts of Satan as quickly and effectively as possible.

Read here the cost of protest, if not at the receiving end of a bullet. America backs this up so well that even when their own Nationals are killed or seriously maimed they ignore it, as in the cases of Rachel Corrie mowed down by a Caterpillar tractor and Tristan Anderson, shot in the eye and permanently damaged.

And then there is Mohammad Othman.

Please enlarge the thumbs to read.

November 24, 2009
By Jesse Rosenfeld
The National

Amid the growing media fever over a possible prisoner swap involving the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas, another young captive has a less visible public profile ~ but personifies Israel’s choke-hold on Palestinian self-expression.

(In the tape of Gilad Shalit released a short time ago, the young man was in fine health, looked well cared for and his eyes were not haunted. He did not look at all ill treated other than kept from his home and family.)

Mohammad Othman, 33, from the West Bank town of Jayyous, and an activist with the grassroots Palestinian organization Stop the Wall, was arrested on September 22 at the Allenby Bridge crossing on the Jordanian border. He was on his way home after a meeting in Norway with supporters of the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel (BDS).

Adameer (Arabic for “conscience”), the Palestinian prisoners’ support and human rights organization, contends that his arrest is a result of “his successful human rights advocacy and community activism”.

Mohammad was interrogated for two months at the Kishon detention centre in northern Israel. His lawyer told me he was repeatedly asked about his meetings, contacts and political activities in Europe. He alleges that Mohammad was kept in isolation, deprived of sleep, questioned round the clock, and threatened with death.

On Monday, Mohammad was formally placed in Israeli administrative detention for three months. He is the latest of more than 335 Palestinians held in this way, a practice based on a 1945 emergency British Mandate law and highlighted in a report last month by the Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem and HaMoked.

I first met Mohammad Othman in Jayyous a year ago, during a protest against the annexation of the town’s farmland to build Israel’s wall. Residents had just had their permits to cross the wall to their farms revoked, and had rekindled their earlier campaign of resistance.

He led me down an alley as soldiers began retaking the main street with tear gas and rubber bullets, forcing young boys to retreat from the barricades that were blocking the military jeeps from driving through the town. “We constantly worry about army raids and arrests, all the local activists do,” he told me after we were out of the line of fire.

On Sunday, almost exactly a year after that in Jayyous, I watched Mohammad stand in front of a military tribunal housed in a barracks that looked like an over-sized chicken-coop inside Israel’s Ofer prison in the West Bank. His lawyers were appealing against his prolonged detention without charge.

Outside the court, family members of other detained Palestinians clung to the fence, waiting for news about their loved ones. British and German consular officials and representatives from Israeli and international NGOs filled the small courtroom. Shackled at the legs, and having only a fraction of the proceedings against him translated, Mohammad raised his fist twice to the gallery in a gesture of strength and resistance.

Across the West Bank, just as in that courtroom, Israel is trying to tighten its grip on expressions of Palestinian self-determination. The border village of Bil’in has captured the international eye with a forceful and well-documented resistance campaign against the dispossession caused by Israel’s wall.

It is precisely such international calls from Palestinian society that Israel is targeting with a systematic campaign of violence and incarceration inside its controlled territory.

This summer a committee of representatives from Bil’in visited Canada to support a lawsuit against two Israeli settlement construction companies registered in Montreal. When they returned, their leader, Mohammad Khatib, was arrested by the Israeli army.

And while those two companies continued to build illegal homes on the farmland of Bil’in, the military conducted systematic raids into the village for three months.

When I last spoke to Mohammad Khatib in September, he was exhausted from a combination of the Ramadan fast and constant night-time army invasions. He told me that young people arrested in Bil’in were severely beaten by the army on the way to interrogation, and then had confessions beaten out of them.

Last Thursday, pressure on the town again escalated again when undercover Israeli soldiers beat and arrested a 19-year-old village activist, Mohammed Yasin. Gaby Lasky, the lawyer for the Bil’in detainees, says she has been told by the military prosecution that the army intends to put an end to the village’s anti-wall demonstrations by using the full force of the law against protesters.

And that is the strategy of Benjamin Netanyau: hit all pressure points. On the diplomatic stage he is demanding acquiescence from the Palestinians’ official representatives, but that policy is not limited to a public-relations dance with a Palestinian Authority that a growing number of people are calling to be dissolved.

The aim is to turn

the Palestinians’ internationally heard

call for solidarity

into a cry for Israeli mercy.

It is being expressed in military raids on Palestinian homes, and in political prisoners held without trial in Israeli jails and tied to chairs in interrogation rooms.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a Canadian freelance journalist working in Israel and the Occupied Territories since 2007, and currently based in Jaffa.

Enlarge the above brochure for an education you might wish you never had.

Free Mohammad Othman, Palestine’s first BDS Prisoner of Conscience!

On Tuesday, September 22, Mohammad Othman (33 years old) ~ a Palestinian human rights activist and advocate of the non-violent civil society campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) ~ was arrested by Israeli authorities at the Allenby Crossing, the border terminal between Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territory.

He was returning from a trip to Norway ~ where he had been promoting BDS ~ when he was detained, arrested and then moved to a prison where he is being held for a military hearing scheduled for next Tuesday.

While Mohammad is only one of the approximately 11,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention centers, he has become the first Palestinian to be imprisoned by Israel in response to BDS advocacy activity.

With BDS campaigns around the world gaining momentum, Israel has increasingly come under pressure to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. It is precisely the spectacular rise in the effectiveness of the BDS campaign and its successes in the Western mainstream that seems to have prompted Israel to take such a draconian measure against a prominent and indefatigable BDS activist.

What can you do? Boycot Leviev businesses.
Learn more about this vengeful greedy Jew here:
DID LEVIEV'S EMPIRE SUCCUMB TO BOYCOTT?

Mohammad has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. His village, Jayyous, in the occupied West Bank, has lost most of its fertile agricultural land to Israel’s illegal Wall and colonial settlements. He has campaigned with the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign against the dispossession of Palestinian farmers and has urged for mechanisms of accountability for Israeli violations of international law and human rights, based on the Palestinian call for BDS, issued on 9 July 2005, a year after the International Court of Justice at the Hague had found Israel’s Wall and colonies illegal.

Mohammad’s trips to Norway ~ during which he met with senior officials including Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen ~ reflect the increasing international support for effective mechanisms of upholding international law and Palestinian rights.

Norway’s state Pension Fund recently announced that it had divested from Elbit Systems, the Israeli company which provides both Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other military technology for Occupation forces as well as security systems for the Wall and settlements.

The decision came after representatives of the fund’s Ethics Council met with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists, including Mohammad, who accompanied them on a tour of Jayyous and other West Bank villages affected by the Wall.

Since Israel’s illegal war of aggression on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 that killed over 1400 people, predominantly civilians, the BDS movement has grown exponentially and gained wide support among conscientious individuals, unions and international civil society in general, as well as among some governments.

In the last two weeks, more countries have followed Norway’s example. The Brazilian Parliament has expressed itself against the ratification of a Free Trade Agreement with Israel until a Palestinian state is established, and the government of Spain denied settlement-based Ariel University College permission to participate in a high profile academic architecture competition.

With the BDS movement making significant gains worldwide, human rights defenders like Mohammad are likely to be increasingly targeted by the Israeli government in its efforts to evade accountability for its ongoing violations of international law.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls on all those who support basic human rights, whether or not they endorse BDS, international solidarity groups and human rights organizations to act urgently to bring attention to this case and apply due pressure to achieve the immediate and unconditional release of Palestinian human rights activist Mohammad Othman.

It is crucial that the international community combat Israeli attempts to criminalize human rights activists adopting BDS or any other popular struggle aimed at ending violations of international law and upholding universal principles of human rights.

Recommended Actions:

• Encourage others to join this campaign through petitions, demonstrations and / or letter writing / phone calling. Please provide them with contact information and details;
• Urge your representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah to demand the immediate release of Mohammad Othman. (For your consular contacts, see: http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-in/Israel#11725);
• Let the Israeli Embassy in your country know that you are campaigning for Mohammad’s release and for a just and lasting peace based on international law.
• Bring the case of Palestine’s first BDS prisoner of conscience to the attention of local and national media outlets;
• Follow the blog and facebook to free Mohammad Othman to see the latest updates and action alerts.

Blog: http://www.freemohammadnow.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36429272741&ref=ts

For more information contact: freemohammad@bdsmovement.net

YOU SURE HAVE TO GIVE THE ISRAELIS BIG GOLD STARS FOR BRAVERY. THEY HAVE BRANCHED OUT FROM KILLING WOMEN, AND BABIES AND HAVE ADDED THE BLIND TO THEIR LATEST TALLY OF VICTIMS!

BLIND PRISONER EXPOSED TO HARSH INTERROGATION BY ISRAELI OFFICERS

This gentle looking blind man, Obadah Bilal, does indeed look like a terrifying individual. Over and over again, these Israelis do not even know how they embarrass themselves by their inhumanity and foolish actions. We who witness, will not forget.