Bulletin N°246


Subject: ON THE PATH TO WORLD WAR THREE ?


25 July 2006
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The totally irresponsible and illegitimate leadership of the United States is suffering from dangerous delusions which put all of us at great risk. This is the assessment of millions of Americans who have joined with Europeans and the nations of the Middle East to appeal for peace. It is incumbent on every sane person to study the current dangers rationally and to act locally to promote peace within the communities and institutions where they live and work.

In the present situation, writes Howard Zinn : Indifference = Criminal Collaboration !


Below, we offer our readers six articles we recently received which describe the ever increasing dangers our generation now faces throughout the world.

Item A. is a warning from author William Rivers Pitt on the signs of an approaching World War, unlike any other we have seen.

Item B. is Robert Fisk's historical perspective on the western nations' Lebanon evacuation, which is now underway.

Item C. by Gilbert Achcar is an analysis of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Lebanon.

Item D. is Dahr Jamail's eye-witness account of life in Beirut under Israeli missiles.

Item E. is an announcement forwarded to us by Dr. Catherine Shamas on a new international call for an Israel Boycott.

Item F. is a call for tomorrow's protest demonstration organized by the Council for National Interest Foundation in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington,
            D.C. against Israeli aggressions in Lebanon and Palestine.

We preface these six articles with the very informative newsletter sent to us by William Blum, author of Killing Hope, and with an important photo study by The March For Justice focusing on U.S. atrocities in Iraq.

Blum : http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer35.htm

On the U.S. atrocities in Iraq : http://www.marchforjustice.com/shock&awe.php



Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université Stendhal - Grenoble 3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/

_______________
A.
from TruthOut :
23 July 2006
http://
www.truthout.org


There is no way to tell exactly how this Middle East upheaval is going to unfold, and making any sort of prediction is a dangerous game," writes William Rivers Pitt. "There are, however, a number of disparate factors threaded through this situation that, if allowed to coalesce, will create an unspeakably dangerous convulsion that will be felt all across the globe.


The Pin in the Grenade
by William Rivers Pitt

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072406J.shtml


_____________
B.
from Robert Fisk :
21 July 2006
http://www.independent.co.uk/

This is not Dunkirk. This is Munich
by Robert Fisk

How brave our warships looked at dawn. Spread over the pale blue Mediterranean, bristling with cannons and machine guns and missiles, it was an armada led by the destroyer HMS Gloucester and the USS Nashville and York and the sleek French anti-submarine frigate Jean-de- Vienne. They represented Us, those ships upon which the Lebanese stared with such intensity yesterday. They represented our Western power, the military strength of our billion-dollar economies. Who would dare challenge this naval might?

It was, our journalists told us, to be the greatest evacuation since Dunkirk. There it was again, the Second World War. And it was another cruel lie which the Lebanese spotted at once. For these mighty craft had not arrived to save Lebanon, to protect a nation now being destroyed by America's ally, Israel, Lebanon whose newly flourishing democracy was hailed by our leaders last year as a rose amid the dictatorships of the Arab world. No, they were creeping through the dawn after asking Israel's permission to help their citizens to flee. These great warships had been sent here by Western leaders (Jacques Chirac excepted) too craven, too gutless, too immoral, to utter a single word of compassion for Lebanon's suffering.

Even Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara could only condemn Hizbollah for attacking the Israelis last week - yes, of course, Lord Blair, they did indeed "start this", as our Foreign Secretary never ceases to say - without mentioning Israel's savage killing of more than 300 Lebanese civilians. No, those ships I watched steaming into Beirut port yesterday did not represent Dunkirk. They represented Munich.

Even the newspaper and television stories managed to avoid the reality. As our Jolly Tars helped the elderly on board and US Marines landed very briefly - or "stormed the beach", to quote the Associated Press's imperishable report - to protect their ship, television crews hunted through the crowds of refugees for suitable pictures. Their problem, of course, was that almost the entire evacuation is of Lebanese who happen to hold dual citizenship. Cameras moved inexorably towards the very few blue-eyed men and blonde ladies of the "kith and kin" variety, anyone in fact who didn't look remotely like most of the rest of the refugees. It was pathetic. Even while we are betraying the Lebanese, we tried not to film the lucky few who could escape on our ships.

Of course, there are various kinds of escape, and one of the most adept of political Houdinis is His Excellency Mr Jeffrey Feldman, the US ambassador to Lebanon. In the past few hours, he had to listen - in person - as the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, desperately appealed for a ceasefire to end the destruction of Lebanon by the Israeli air force. "Is the value of human life in Lebanon less than that of the citizens of other countries?" Mr Siniora asked. "Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by Israel is inflicted on us?" Answer: yes.

Now all this presented Mr Feldman with a little problem. This was the same Mr Feldman, remember, who was heaping laurels on Mr Siniora and his democratically elected government last year for its "cedar revolution", for throwing the Syrian army out. But if he were to praise Mr Siniora's speech condemning Israel, Mr Feldman would, no doubt, be summoned back to the State Department in Washington and dispatched to the US embassy in Ulan Bator. So what was he to say when asked for a comment on Mr Siniora's speech? It was, Mr Feldman said, "articulate and touching". Articulate - as in "he-knows-how-to-string-the-words-together" - and touching, as in "sad".

Now to the Department of Home Truths. Mr Siniora did not mention the Hizbollah. He did not say he had been powerless to stop its reckless attack on Israel last week. He didn't want to criticise this powerful guerrilla army in his midst which had proved that Syria still controls events in this beautiful, damaged country. And he did not dare criticise Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, whom Israel tried to assassinate a few hours later by dropping a massive bomb on what it called a "bunker" in Beirut's southern suburbs, an explosion which physically shook the entire city. Untrue, cried the Hizbollah. It was the building site for a new mosque.

Ho hum. One has to say that it was indeed a building site that was hit and a few of the unfinished walls appeared to be of Islamic design. But on closer inspection, it did also have a very big basement. A very big basement indeed. "Well," as one colleague put it to me, "I suppose even mosques have basements, but..."

Quite so. For no one takes anything at face value these days. And that applied to President Bush's promise to ask Israel to stop destroying any more of Lebanon's infrastructure. It was an eloquent gesture. And no doubt touching. But there isn't much of Lebanon's infrastructure left to destroy.


_____________
C.
from Gilbert Achcar :
21 July 2006
http://www.socialistworker.org/Storylist.shtml

'Israel is holding a whole population hostage'

Gilbert Achcar
interviewed by Alan Maass

Q. THE U.S. media place the blame for Israel's attack on Hezbollah, for "starting" the violence? Is that how you view the situation?

 Achcar. WHATEVER ONE thinks about Hezbollah or the operation mounted by Hezbollah--and I do have my own reservations about its appropriateness with regard to its foreseeable consequences--this cannot by any logic justify what Israel is doing.

The killing of the seven Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two soldiers was an act of war, and Lebanon and Israel are two countries that are still at war.

Israel regularly encroaches on Lebanon's sovereignty: it has attacked the country innumerable times, especially after 1967 (the first Israeli devastating attack on Beirut's airport took place in 1968); it invaded a small piece of Lebanese territory in 1967 (the Shebaa farms), a big chunk of southern Lebanon in 1978, half of Lebanon in 1982; it then occupied a big part of the country until 1985, its southern part until 2000, and it still holds the stretch of Lebanese territory that it seized in 1967.

Since 2000, there has been an ongoing low-intensity war between Hezbollah and Israel: cross-border skirmishes, covert Israeli action in Lebanon, including assassination of Hezbollah leaders, etc.

But what Israel is carrying out now in Lebanon is massive retaliation against a whole population. It is holding a whole population and country hostage and trying to impose its conditions.

This brutality is most cowardly, because whatever military means Hezbollah--or the whole of the Lebanese state, for that matter--possess are dwarfed by the military power of the state of Israel.

 This isn't some kind of an equal fight, despite the fact that Hezbollah is retaliating with some rockets. One of the world's mightiest military powers is committing a naked aggression against one of the weakest states in the Middle East, and murdering scores of people.

 They have already killed over 200 people in less than one week, and the number keeps growing day after day. The overwhelming majority, more than 90 percent, of Israel's victims are uninvolved civilians. They are neither fighters, nor even militants; just ordinary civilians, families and a considerable number of children appallingly torn to pieces by Israeli bombs.

Israel is destroying the infrastructure of the country. It is also destroying the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people. Lebanon is a country where the summer season is very important to thousands and thousands of people--the large proportion of the population that get seasonal jobs in the tourism sector and depend on these earnings for their living for the whole year. And now these people are being fired by the tens of thousands because everybody understands that there won't be any "summer season" in Lebanon.

If you take all this into consideration and compare it to whatever border operation Hezbollah executed, it is absolutely clear that this has become just a pretext--seized on by Israel, backed by the United States and other countries, to try to impose what they have been attempting to force since 2004.

 That year, they had the UN Security Council adopt a resolution calling not only for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, but also for the disarmament of armed groups in the country--meaning, above all, Hezbollah, and secondarily, the Palestinians in their refugee camps.
 

THE DOUBLE standard of Western media presentations of the situation and the hypocrisy of Israel's statements are so glaring that they constitute by themselves a moral aggression--for example, the capture of one soldier by the Palestinians becomes Israel's justification for a murderous and destructive assault on Gaza, while Israel holds close to 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails, most of whom are civilians abducted by Israel in the territory that it occupies since 1967 in total violation of international law.

We know this double standard well. Noam Chomsky has made it one of his specialties for so many years to denounce the permanent double standards and hypocrisy in the imperial countries and in their media. We are now witnessing an appalling new case of that same double standard.

And the fact is that if this hypocrisy can go unnoticed for an average audience in Western countries, you can be sure that in the overwhelming majority of Third World countries--and, of course, in Muslim countries, and, even more so, in Arab countries--the double standard is conspicuously and outrageously obvious.

That's why people don't give any credit to the utterances of Western leaders--to the Bush administration's talk about democracy and other lies.

Instead, what we are seeing right now is that the hatred toward not only Israel but the United States, and all the other Western countries backing Israel and allying with the United States, is reaching heights which are far beyond what existed before September 11, 2001.

In other words, the United States and the state of Israel are preparing for the rest of the world, including their own populations, nightmarish events, compared to which 9/11, I'm afraid, will be only a foretaste.

People in the West, especially in the United States, have to become aware of the hypocrisy of their government, and of this total lack of justice and even humanitarian commiseration in dealing with the Arab populations of the Middle East.

They have to become aware of the fact that, for very good reason, the Arab and Muslim peoples are coming to perceive that they are considered as sub-human beings, and that their lives have no value in the eyes of Israel, the United States and their allies.

Therefore, they become receptive to the kind of discourse that comes from the likes of Osama bin Laden--that if our civilian lives have no value to them, then their civilian lives should have no value to us. So we are reaching a completely infernal situation because of the criminal reactionary policies of the U.S. administration and the Israeli government.

 
Q. WHAT ARE Israel's goals in carrying out this assault?

 Achcar. STRATEGICALLY SPEAKING, both Israel and the United States consider their main enemy in the Middle East to be not bin Laden or al-Qaeda--these are only minor nuisances in their eyes, if conveniently useful nuisances--but Iran.

There is what they call the Shiite axis or crescent, which has its source in Iran, and goes through the pro-Iranian Shiite forces in Iraq, through the Syrian government, which is allied to Iran, and reaches Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This is why they consider Hezbollah a very important enemy--because with their kind of conception of the world, they see everything through their obsession with what they consider to be their main enemy state. At the time of the Cold War, they used to see everything worldwide in terms of a confrontation with the former Soviet Union. Now, they see everything in the Middle East in terms of a confrontation with Iran.

Besides that, Israel has its own specific reasons for wanting to get rid of Hezbollah, as the organization that played the major role in forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, in 2000. This is an organization that is permanently defying Israel by its very existence, its very presence.

Ever since Israel left Lebanon, there's been a determination to take revenge on Hezbollah, and we're now witnessing Israel in the midst of carrying this out, using the pretext of the border clashes.
 

Q. THE U.S. government denounces Hezbollah as a band of terrorists. What is the actual role that it plays in Lebanon?

Achcar.
THROUGHOUT THE years, Lebanese politics have had a communal dynamic, so you have some kind of identification of communities with this or that political organization. Hezbollah managed to become the main force in the Shiite community, which is the largest minority in Lebanon, where no religious community constitutes a majority.

Hezbollah came to play this role for a variety of reasons. The major one is the role that Hezbollah played in liberating southern Lebanon, where the Shiite community is concentrated, from the Israeli invasion.

But there are other factors. Generally speaking, the rise of Hezbollah's influence fits into a framework that we've seen at the regional level for the last 30 years, where the failure of the left and the bankruptcy of nationalist leaderships create a void in the leadership of the mass movement that has been filled by organizations of an Islamic fundamentalist character.

This was very much propelled by the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The shock wave of the revolution was tremendous in the area--especially, of course, among the Shiites, since Iran is a Shiite country.

The birth of Hezbollah was the result of the conjunction of this shock wave with the conditions created by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It was born after the invasion, and its rise was associated with its success in the fight against the occupation.

Another factor is the way that Hezbollah managed to build its social base. Hezbollah was very much backed by Iran from its founding. Tehran trains and funds Hezbollah, and the organization has made clever use of the funds that it gets. It organizes several kinds of social services and a social network, which helps huge numbers of Shiite families.

It also managed to translate the clout built through the resistance in political terms, when it entered the elections. Hezbollah has an important fraction in the Lebanese parliament and there are even Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese government.

So it's not a "terrorist" organization, as Washington's and Israel's terrorist governments call it. It is a mass party fully involved in the legal political life in Lebanon.

No one in Lebanon, except for a tiny minority of ultra reactionaries, considers what Hezbollah does in confronting Israel to be "terrorism." The Lebanese government itself considers it as national resistance.
 

Q. CAN YOU talk about how Israel's assault on Lebanon is connected to the intensified war on Palestinians since Hamas won control of the Palestinian Authority?

Achcar.
THERE ARE several connections. To be sure, there are connections of a kind that fit into Washington's conspiracy theory.

Hamas and Hezbollah are both organizations in the same regional alliance. Part of Hamas's leadership live in exile in Syria, and it has very good relations with Iran. Tehran backs Hamas: when the new Palestinian government was elected, and there was a boycott organized by the Western powers and Israel, Iran was the first country to pledge support for the Palestinians to compensate for that boycott.

The other connection is the result of how Israel's onslaught on Gaza has been so traumatizing for the whole region.

Whatever the original motivation for Hezbollah's operation that captured the Israelis--I'm saying this, because Hezbollah's chief Hassan Nasrallah said that it had been months in the planning--when it took place, it was seen across the whole Middle East as a legitimate and necessary gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza who are being crushed by Israel. That's why there was a lot of sympathy for it.

Like in Lebanon now, Israel used the pretext of the abduction of one of its soldiers in Gaza to hold the whole population hostage and begin a frenzy of destruction and murder that falls into the canons of state mass terrorism of the worst sort known in history.

 
Q. HOW DOES the war on Lebanon fit with the other wars that the U.S. and Israel are carrying out in the Middle East?

Achcar.
FOR ISRAEL and the U.S., the main enemy, as I said, is the whole alliance, with Iran as the most central part of the alliance. The main target is the Iranian regime, which they want to get rid of, in one way or another.

The Syrian regime is more of a secondary enemy. I don't believe that there is a real drive toward overthrowing that regime. Israeli officials explain that they don't wish to see a new Iraq unfolding at their border, because they know that if the Syrian regime were to collapse, that's what you would get: a chaotic situation that could very much threaten the security of Israel.

Of course, they would like to get the Syrian government to break with Iran. And they want to compel Tehran, too, to abide by their rules. But because they don't have any confidence in the Iranian regime, they wish that they could overthrow it in one way or another. That's their basic goal: what they call in Washingtonese "regime change."

With the prevailing replica of the Cold War imperialist mentality, Hezbollah is presented as a mere agency of Iran. Now, to be sure, it's no secret to anyone that Hezbollah is closely linked to both Damascus and Tehran. And Hezbollah would have been foolish to undertake its July 12 attack without some degree of coordination with its backers.

So what? Unlike those of the Afghan mujahadeen, when they were fighting against the Soviet occupation of their country, the weapons Hezbollah is using are, of course, not U.S.-made or U.S.-provided!

It is absolutely normal for forces confronted with much more powerful enemies to try to find external sources of support. Hezbollah has to get the means from somewhere to be able to resist.

Or does Washington believe that it is entitled to intervene wherever it wants by the sole right of its "manifest destiny"--for instance, backing today the so-called People's Mujahedin of Iran in its cross-border attacks against Iran from U.S.-occupied Iraq, after having backed yesterday the far more significant contras against Nicaragua's government--while Iran has no right to support its correligionists in Lebanon or Palestine. This chutzpah is only exceeded by U.S. complaints against Iranian interference in Iraq, a country under U.S. occupation!

The fact that Hezbollah has links to Syria and Iran doesn't mean in the least that it is not waging a legitimate national resistance struggle--in the same way that the fact that the Vietnamese were backed by this or that Communist country didn't mean in the least that they were not fighting for the liberation of their country.

___________________
GILBERT ACHCAR grew up in Lebanon, before moving to France, where he teaches political science at the University of Paris-VIII. Among his most recent works are Eastern Cauldron (2004) and The Clash of Barbarisms (2d ed. 2006); a book of his dialogues with Noam Chomsky on the Middle East, Perilous Power, is forthcoming from Paradigm Publishers. He talked to Socialist Worker's ALAN MAASS.

 
______________
D.
from Dahr Jamail :
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006
Subject: Iraq Dispatches: Lebanese Devastated In All Sorts of Ways
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

Lebanese Devastated In All Sorts of Ways
by Dahr Jamail


*BEIRUT, Jul 23 (IPS) - Much of Beirut is a devastated city, infrastructure in many areas lies in a shambles after the Israeli bombing. But the Lebanese are also just feeling devastated.*

"Does our country not have the right to move forward like other democracies," says Nidal Mothman, a 35-year-old taxi driver in downtown Beirut. "We hate the American government for giving the green light for the Israelis to bomb us back to the stone age."

Mothman, like so many Lebanese in the capital city, is seething with anger over what he called "indiscriminate" Israeli aggression towards their country.

"How many Hezbollah have they killed," Mothman said. "Maybe just a few, while they've killed over 350 Lebanese civilians. What kind of war are they waging against my country?"

From the street to the leadership, most people seem to talk the same language. Last Thursday Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora told reporters that his country has been torn to shreds. "Can the international community stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted on us?"

Siniora also accused Israel of massacring Lebanese civilians and attempting to destroy everything that allows the country to stay alive.

The facts on the ground add credence to his remarks. The humanitarian crisis continues to worsen by the hour, with close to a million Lebanese displaced. Officials say at least 64 bridges have been bombed. Many roads are cut by the bombing, and this is hindering transportation of food and aid supplies.

Other Israeli targets have included the country's largest milk factory, a food factory, two pharmaceutical plants, water treatment centres, power plants, grain silos, a Greek Orthodox Church, hospitals and an ambulance convoy.

In certain districts of Beirut life goes on as normal, but southern Beirut has been hit hard, with entire buildings brought to the ground by Israeli air raids.

"When do you think this war will end," 22-year-old student at the American University of Beirut Nishan Ishaqi said. "I lived in southern Beirut, and everything I know is totally destroyed now. I only want peace, and a safe place to stay."

Ishaqi, who was preparing to leave for Tripoli (north of Beirut in Lebanon) to stay with relatives, wept as he said, "Why must they do this to us? If they want to fight Hezbollah, let them fight them -- but not the Lebanese civilians."

Meanwhile, Israeli military operations continue to pummel southern Lebanon, including the city of Tyre, while Lebanese in Beirut had a day of relative calm Sunday.

Foreign war ships are crowding ports as evacuation of foreign nationals continues. "Yes, we see the priorities of the western countries as they evacuate their people," 55-year-old clothing merchant in the Hamra district of Beirut, Ayad Harrar said. "So you see, screw the Lebanese, they do not matter to us. This is what their governments are saying to us by these actions."

Harrar said people are shocked that his country was once again plunged into war, just when they thought they had found peace.

"This afternoon it is calm, but we all know that when they finish evacuating their people, we will be bombed once more," Harrar said. "It is not possible to live a life while we live under these conditions; not knowing when our day to die is coming from more Israeli bombs."

On Saturday, after meeting with members from a United Nations team who had just returned from the region, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told reporters that the situation in Lebanon was part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East", and said that Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire.

Not many people in Beirut are able to see it that way. Suthir Amalat carrying her child in one arm as she bought water to take home for emergencies said she was preparing for everything to worsen.

"We are angry at Hezbollah for starting this catastrophe, but even more angry at the Israelis for destroying all of Lebanon," she said. "And America, who we thought was our friend, clearly now supports the Israeli destruction of our country."


______________
E.
from Catherine Shamas :
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006
Subject: PACBI Update 7--July 23, 2006
inf
o@boycottisrael.ps

Hello
If you are interested you can suscribe directly to PACBI
Warmly
Catherine

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PACBI Update 7: Boycott Israel to stop its crimes in Lebanon and Gaza

BDS press release, calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions, international solidarity and related articles and anaylsis.

BDS Press Release:

Boycott Israel to Stop its War Crimes in Lebanon and Gaza!
Palestinian Civil Society Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
(BDS) against Israel -- Acting Steering Committee   July 18, 2006
http://www.pacbi.org/announcements_more.php?id=281_0_5_0_M


A. Calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions:

1.Formation of SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL COALITION IN SOUTH AFRICA
Press release | | July 21, 2006

The crisis caused by the imperialist-backed Israeli state in their collective punishment of the Palestinians and the Lebanese people has demanded an urgent response.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=290_0_1_0_C

2.Derry protesters demand Israeli goods boycott
Sarah Brett | Belfast Telegraph | July 21, 2006

Anti-war protesters will be on the streets of Londonderry tomorrow calling for a boycott of Israeli goods.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=289_0_1_0_C


B. International solidarity:

1.Greens to Bush: Press Israel to Stop the Attacks on Lebanon
Green Party, USA |  July 20, 2006

Slaughter of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians is a punishable war crime; use of U.S. weapons for such purposes violates U.S. laws.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=292_0_1_0_C

2.Filmmakers Demand Withdrawal of Israeli Government Sponsorship of Film Festival
| | July 18, 2006

The following intervention by Arab and other filmmakers has resulted in the Locarno International Film Festival 2006 renouncing financial support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=287_0_1_0_C

3.NADEL CONDEMNS ISRAEL'S FLAGRANT BREACH OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW
  NADEL | | July 2006

The National Association of Democratic Lawyers of South Africa condemns the flagrant breaches of international humanitarian law and the violations of the human rights of Palestinians further exacerbated by the latest attack by Israel on the residents of Gaza in Palestine.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A282_0_1_0_M


C. Related articles and analysis:

1.Analysis: could Israel face war crimes charges?
Michael Herman | TimesOnline | July 20, 2006

A UN warning that Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon may constitute war crimes has legal legs - but with the issue as much about politics as law prosecutions are unlikely anytime soon, analysts say.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=286_0_1_0_C

2.Film festival drops Israel as sponsor to protest attack
Jim Quilty | The Daily Star | July 21, 2006

BEIRUT: The organizers of the 2006 Locarno International Film Festival have dropped the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a festival sponsor because of that country's unremitting bombardment of civilian targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=288_0_1_0_C

3.Israeli Apartheid
Bruce Dixon | The Black Commentator | July 20, 2006

Imagine, if you will, a modern apartheid state with first, second and eleventh class citizens, all required to carry identification specifying their ethnic origin.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=291_0_1_0_C

4.Nothing but anti-Arab racism can fully explain the behaviour of the Israelis
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown | The Independent | July 17, 2006

Born in Germany, Hugh was from one of those cultured, intellectual Jewish Berlin families crushed by Nazism. He escaped to Britain in the late 1930s to become a world-class scientist. Israel would bring out the worst in his people, he always said, and I argued with him. Survivors of the Holocaust, I believed, were on the side of the angels. "No, my dear," he would respond, "the Jewish state will make us nationalists, and will one day make us racialists." I am glad he is not alive to see his prophetic words turned flesh.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=285_0_1_0_C

5.Boycott Israeli Dance Companies
Paul Ben-Itzak | The Dance Insider | July 2006

PARIS -- I'd love to be able to start this column with the dance angle, explaining why we should boycott the Israeli companies performing at this month's Lincoln Center Festival -- including Ohad Naharin's Batsheva, opening tomorrow -- but unfortunately, in the face of the dissembling and pandering to the Israel lobby by Senator Hilary Clinton and others, even as Israeli bombs continue to kill Lebanese children (the toll at the end of yesterday: 230 Lebanese civilians killed by Israel, 13 Israeli civilians
killed by Hizbullah), I'm afraid some context is in order.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=284_0_1_0_C

6.A New Middle East is Born: But not exactly the one Shimon Peres had in mind
Omar Barghouti | Electronic Lebanon | July 19, 2006

Six long, bloodstained days have passed since Israel launched its barbaric attack on Lebanon without succeeding in exacting a significant military toll on the resistance itself. Six days are exactly what it took Israel to deal a crushing and humiliating military defeat to the largely inferior armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967, and to subsequently occupy the Palestinian Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=283_0_1_0_C

7.Peace With Justice Is Only Way Out
  Sam Bahour | OhmyNews International | July 18, 2006

In case anyone had any remaining doubts, the flawed Middle East peace process and the international community's half-hearted efforts have miserably failed, culminating in Israel's most recent aggression in Gaza and Lebanon. Following the Palestinian's democratic legislative elections which brought Hamas to power, Israel announced that its goal was to topple the Palestinian government at any cost.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A280_0_1_0_M

8.Ties with Israel open to debate, says Pahad
  Boyd Webb | Cape Times | July 17, 2006

Pretoria: While the government is not entertaining thoughts of cutting diplomatic ties with Israel or imposing sanctions, it is open to debate on the issue, says Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A279_0_1_0_M

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
PACBI
www.pacbi.org



____________
F.
from : Council for the National Interest Foundation <cnifoundation@gmail.com>
To: Francis.Feeley@u-grenoble3.fr
Subject: Protest Israel's Assault on Lebanon and Gaza, Tuesday in DC




STOP ISRAEL’S ATTACK ON LEBANON AND GAZA!

March on the Israeli Embassy and demand an end to the killing!
 
 
Letting Lebanon Burn
 

Since July 13, Israeli forces have killed close to 400 Lebanese civilians in a massive bombing campaign targeting civilian infrastructure and homes. During the same time, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli incursions into the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Israel’s assault on Lebanon has injured thousands of civilians and made more than 700,000 homeless, half of whom are children. Israel has directly targeted civilians, flattening them in their homes and apartment buildings or cutting them down in their cars as they try to flee the fighting. Most of the key roads and bridges have been bombed along with a milk factory, convoys bringing food and medicine, gas stations and power plants, creating a humanitarian crisis of major proportions.

Tuesday, July 25
5:00 PM

@ Van Ness and Connecticut (the Van Ness / UDC Metro Station)
Washington, DC

Wear black for a funeral procession carrying coffins draped in Lebanese and Palestinian flags.
March will begin at 5:30 and proceed north on Connecticut, west on Brandywine, south on 36th,
ending with a rally at the Israeli Embassy (514 International Dr. NW)
(meet at 3:30 to help assemble coffins and prep march)

Endorsed by: The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (DC Chapter), Codepink, Partners for Peace, Pax Christi USA, The Council for the National Interest, The Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace, The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and more. . .



Council for the National Interest Foundation
1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1
Washington, District of Columbia 20024
http://www.cnionline.org/
http://www.rescuemideastpolicy.com/
Phone: 202-863-2951
Fax: 202-863-2952