Boycott Israeli Goods?

Over the last few months, many of us have been actively taking action to register our opposition to the Israeli government siege of Gaza. There has been a move to boycott Israeli companies - military and non-military - and companies which accept Israeli products, especially those grown in settlements. Corporate Watch have published the first of a couple of articles examining this for people who want to know more, which can be read here.

FoR has also just published an article examining Britain’s role within the history of the conflict, which is available to read and download from here. Any comments or suggestions are welcome and can be emailed to the FoR office via martha@for.org.uk.

Five Daughters: A New Martyn Joseph Song for the People of Gaza

I write this in tears because I cannot face the truth of it. Why do we allow these things to happen? How do David Milliband and Hilary Clinton sleep at night without doing something about this?

I grew up in a large family, the eldest of five children.

When I was 17, my youngest sister was two. If ever I was depressed - as I often was in my late teenage years - she'd cuddle up on my lap and say "Don't worry David". "Don't worry" were some of the first words she learned. She's eight now, but her positive nature still lights up my life.

When I was 21, my second youngest sibling, Grace, was nine. I left for university that year, and when Grace found out about it she spent and evening howling the house down. Each time I'd visit home, when the time came for me to leave, they'd be an outburst of uncontrollable tears. She's 12 now, but she still makes sure she's the first to run and bearhug me whenever I visit.

On 30th December, five Palestinian sisters were killed by an Israeli rocket as they slept in their Gaza home.



Five siblings, still so close that they slept together in the same room. Singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph was so horrified when he heard the news that he wrote about it the next day in his online diary:

"Five Palestinian sisters were killed during an attack from Israel yesterday. Amazingly enough they were lying together asleep when the deadly rocket hit the mosque next door to their flimsy house causing the roof to collapse on them. The eldest was 17, the youngest 4. Their names were Tahir, Ikram, Sarnar, Dina and Jawaher. ‘They grow up day after day and night after night, within a second I have lost them’. Those were the words of their father Anwar Balousha who turned on fellow Palestinians who tried to turn the burial into a political gain saying ‘this is a funeral, not a rally’. He continued saying ‘we are not those who are firing rockets at Israel, we are just people, human beings and not animals’. [...]

"Five sisters managed to close their eyes and drift off despite the injustice they lived and breathed on a small strip of land. Just another night for them but it all ended in a second. This enrages me; I know it enrages many thousands of good people. How does this happen? This violence will solve nothing and will only fuel a fire that will continue to burn and bring more violence and loss of life and a greater distance from justice and peace. [...] The world is too small for us to live this way."

Martyn channelled his anger into writing a song, which he has made available for free download here.

Please download the song and share it with your friends.

Also today I received an email that directed me an article by Ellen Cantarow about the situation in Gaza. Although I have some appreciation of what it's like in Gaza, I could never find words to describe it as hard-hitting as Cantarow's:

"Gaza is an immense concentration camp — 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth.

"Gaza is still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen. The claptrap about “pinpoint” accuracy and “avoiding civilians” is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child — certainly any Gaza child — could grasp it."

If you do nothing else today, please sign this postcard of protest to David Milliband.

Israel's Military

I was shocked when we were in Palestine/Israel by the number of guns we saw - real guns slung across the shoulders of the security forces, Israeli and Palestinian, 'toy' guns carried by young boys, and most alarmingly, the Israeli settler gathering that took place in our hotel, where most of the male, adult civilians had guns, as well as a large contingent of IDF accompanying them.

The military is the largest industry in Israel, and certainly, off-duty IDF soldiers carry their weapons home with them. Israel has provided military and security assistance to many countries, including training the London Metropolitan Special Operations Unit.


However, someone must be propping up Israel's military, and it's not just the US. The UK supplies Apache helicopters to Israel, the helicopters that are being used in the attack on Gaza. The UK also supply components to US-supplied weaponry. Please visit www.stoparmingisrael.org for more information, and let your MP know you want the UK to stop supplying weapons to Israel.

We Will Not Go Down

Please listen to and watch A Song for Gaza. A beautiful song about a horrific situation.

And to read an article written by an Israeli, living in Sderot about the situation, and her views on it, please click here.

BBC Oxford Radio Interview

This morning Martha talked on BBC Oxford about the FoR delegation to Palestine and Israel. To listen please click here (available for the next seven days only) and fast forward to 02.10.00. The interview lasts 20 minutes (continuing after the Save the Children speaker). Happy Listening!

Crisis in Gaza

Like me, you may have been watching in horror at the escalating crisis in Gaza. The death toll is already around 300, with over 1,400 wounded. A Palestinian doctor in Gaza has told the BBC nearly all the casualties he had seen overnight and on Monday had been civilians.

It was only last month that I was standing on the border of the Gaza strip looking out at the Gaza city skyline while the sun shone down on the Mediterranean sea.

I can remember the moment we sat with Israeli's in a Jewish kibbutz in Sderot. As we arrived, our host told us that if we hear a siren with the words "COLOUR RED", we had about 40 seconds to rush to the bomb shelter. I later found out that it was nearer 15 seconds and the announcement is in Hebrew. Sderot has been one of the main targets of Qassam rocket attacks from Gaza.

Whilst we listened to their stories of community life, less than a mile from the Gaza border, we heard a loud rushing noise as an F16 fighter plane flew directly overhead. Our speaker stopped talking and the whole room fell silent. During our time at the kibbutz we heard several other jets flying overhead. Our Jewish friends told us that this activity from the Israeli Air Force was not normal. At the time we discussed whether these were intimidation tactics by the Israeli Defense Force towards the Gazans but in hindsight it seems that they may have been preparing for the recent attacks.

When asked whether they felt protected by their government, the Israelis said "No" and furthermore that the Israeli government needed holding to account by the US and international community.

The ongoing rocket attacks from Hamas have been used to justify the latest military campaign. The Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has said that the aim of the strikes is to "stop rockets and missiles being launched on Israel". However it is already clear that the recent attacks on Gaza will not only strengthen the resolve of Hamas to destroy Israel it will serve to increase the bombardment of rockets into Israel. There has even been talk of Hamas resuming the campaign of suicide bombing.

Our Israeli friends are now undoubtedly less safe as a result of the recent Israeli military campaign. I only hope and pray that as Israel prepares the next stage of the attacks it doesn't seek to recapture the Gaza strip or indeed trigger a third Intifada.

Please sign the petition calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza or follow the other actions on Rachel's blog post.

Gaza

I have been horrified to witness the unravelling of the situation in the Gaza Strip over the last two days. 300 hundred people are dead. Israel is bombing an enclosed territory of 1.5million people, many of whom are refugees.

Please take action by:
- Writing to your MP through www.writetothem.com asking the UK government to put pressure on Israel and Hamas to stop the violence.
- Visit http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/?cl=161620838&v=2605 and sign the petition calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
- Attend a demonstration - some information here
- Boycott Israeli goods, and tell them you are doing so by writing to the Israeli ambassador:

Ambassador Ron Prosor
2 Palace Green
London
W8 4QB

(the photograph above was taken in November 08 from a Kibbutz close to the Gaza border - it shows Gaza City in the distance)