This Weekend: Speak Out against War on Iran

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a member group of United for Peace and Justice, urges its member organizations and individual supporters to take part in this weekend of action to speak out against war on Iran. This coming weekend -- July 19-21 -- people around the country will be participating in the Days of Local Action initiated by the UFPJ Iran Working Group. Now, before any irreversible steps are taken, is the time for us to speak out against any U.S./Israeli military attack on Iran. We urge you to take part in this important effort: 1) On Monday, July 21st, join the nationwide call-in day to make sure your member of Congress knows there is strong opposition to military action against Iran in his or her district. Pressure on Congress is critical right now as it considers H.Con.Res. 362. 102 House Democrats and 117 Republicans have cosponsored a resolution against Iran that demands President Bush "initiate an international effort" to impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Iran to prevent it from importing gasoline and to inspect all cargo entering or leaving Iran. Imposing such a blockade without UN authority could be widely construed as an act of war. We have already heard about 2 representatives who were convinced by their local anti-war groups to remove their names as co-sponsors of this dangerous resolution! Click here to read more about the work of one of these groups. 2) Ask your mayor to sign on to a resolution urging the Bush administration to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran. At least 36 mayors have already signed on -- now is the time to approach your mayor! For more information visit the Cities for Peace website. 3) Write letters to the editor of your local papers and to call into local radio talk shows, especially during the July 19- 21 Days of Action. Click here for a sample letter. 4) Sign the open letter to presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama urging him to stand up for diplomacy. 5) You can organize a visible presence in a busy location in your town: a vigil, an afternoon of leafleting or tabling, a human billboard, etc. Be sure to pick a time and location that has a lot of pedestrian or vehicle traffic! To find out what might be happening in your area, click here.If you plan an activity, please post it on the UFPJ calendar of actions.Many of this Friday's Iraq Moratorium events will be focusing on Iran as well. Keep checking the UFPJ website for new organizing and educational resources.

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Mandela - He Who Has Laid the Foundation of Kindness

Former South African president and first living person to be made an honourary Canadian citizen, Nelson Mandela, smiles during an interview with the media at his house in Qunu, rural southeastern South Africa, Friday, July 18, 2008. (AP / Themba Hadebe)

A child stands in front of a cake made in honour of former South African President Nelson Mandela during his 90th birthday celebration on Robben Island, South Africa, Friday, July 18, 2008. (AP / Schalk van Zuydam)

18 July 2008
Kgalema Motlanthe
Cape Town
South Africa

Allow me to join the millions of our people and the people of the world who proclaim their respect and admiration for our leader and former President of South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

His birthday is on 18 July and that is a special day in his life. And we wish him many happier returns as well as bountiful good health. But to us, every day of his life is very precious. Therefore we celebrate today, we will celebrate tomorrow, we will celebrate on 18 July, we will celebrate on 2 August, when the ANC hosts a rally in his honour, and of course, generations to come will celebrate his centenary and for ever thereafter.

Throughout his life, Mandela, has been in harness of the struggle for liberation from colonialism and national oppression. From his predecessors he learned about discipline, dedication, humility and sacrifice. He learned never to demand of others what he himself would not be prepared to do.

As a student he involved himself in the struggles of students and that resulted in his expulsion from Fort Hare University. He played an active part in the formation of the ANC youth league in 1944. He was instrumental in crafting and canvassing support for the adoption of the Programme of Action at the 35th National Conference of the ANC in 1949.

He became the volunteer in chief during the 1952 Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign. He was among those charged for sedition. He was banned and debarred from participating in meetings and conferences of the ANC. He was one of 157 treason trialists in 1956. I say 157 because the Guardian newspaper was also an accused in that trial.

When time for armed struggle came he led from the front and was among the first of our militants to receive military training in Algeria. He became the commander in chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). He was the first accused in the Rivonia Trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment which he served on Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison.

For all of the 27 years that he spent behind bars, his family was subjected to unrelenting persecution and harassment at the hands of the state security branch.

The movement waged the struggle under four pillars; the first being the international mobilisation and isolation of the apartheid regime and the second being the legal mass work, and the third being the underground organisation, and the fourth being the armed struggle.

It was once the regime banned the ANC that 48 years of peaceful forms of struggle came to an end. As Nelson Mandela put it, the leadership took the view that "there comes a time in the life of every nation when the choice is to surrender or to continue the struggle", and the choice they made was to continue the struggle.

Mandela participated in all those four pillars. That is why he is so special in our hearts, because he was the first to be sent by the movement to prepare the ground for those who would end up in exile. And he taught most of the African states that were on the eve of attaining their independence from colonisation about our struggle. He addressed the first meeting of PAFMECSA, which preceded the formation of the Organisation of African Unity.

His comrade, friend, brother and partner at law, Oliver Tambo, led the campaign for the isolation of the apartheid regime. Not once did Oliver Tambo accept an award in his own right and his own name because he understood the power and the symbolism of those who were behind bars. Everywhere he went all the awards were received in the name of Nelson Mandela.

It is those efforts by Oliver Tambo which made Nelson Mandela an international icon, a world-renowned struggle leader and revolutionary.

Nelson Mandela waded through his years in prison with fortitude and remained an inspiration to those of us who were young; remained an inspiration to our combatants in the camps; and remained an inspiration to our people, even in the remotest of villages.

It was from that same prison confinement that he initiated discussions with the regime. The first meeting was with Kobie Coetzee, who was Minister of Justice, to communicate to him the very important message that when all is said and done, the struggle of our people was surely going to triumph. That was the beginning of the talks about talks. So, Mandela, having played a leading role in the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, in the recruitment of combatants, took up arms not because he was a violent person; he took up arms because it was necessary to defeat the monster of apartheid.

Our historical obligation

In his poem, To Posterity, the world-renowned German poet Bertolt Brecht says, "To those who shall emerge from this flood into which we are sinking" remember that those who took up arms did so in order "to lay down the foundation of kindness". But they themselves could not be kind because they had to confront a brutal regime. Therefore, to the younger generations, to posterity, to those of us who have benefited from the efforts of the generation of Nelson Mandela, we have to choose very carefully our historical obligation, because we cannot take up arms when we have a democratic constitution and country.

Mandela led in efforts to attain the strategic objective of uniting our people and he bent backwards at certain times - even at the risk of being criticised by some among our own ranks. He bent backwards to reach out to the former ruling bloc, which oppressed us, which discriminated against us. He gave meaning to the preamble of the Freedom Charter when it says: South Africa belongs to all who live in it - black and white - and that no government can claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people. He gave meaning to that very, very important aspiration of our people articulated at the Congress of the People in 1955.

Every generation has to select for itself its own historical obligations. Our obligation is to build a united democratic, non-sexist, non-racist, and prosperous South Africa. If all of us put our efforts towards the attainment of this objective, our children will inherit a prosperous democratic, non-racial, non-sexist country.

Currently we are facing grinding poverty and unemployment. The continent and other parts of the world face wars and violent crimes, malnutrition and disease, HIV and AIDS, climate change and natural disasters, land hunger and homelessness, ignorance and lack of skills, inequality and discrimination, sexism and ethnic chauvinism, spiraling inflation and debts. These converge and conspire to produce an environment which is very similar to what Bertolt Brecht described in his poem when he said, "To those of you who shall emerge from this flood into which we are sinking", because it leaves many people with a sense that we are sinking into a flood of all of these negative happenings. It is the burden of leadership to wade through all of these challenges and remain positive in a way which inspires our people.

Nelson Mandela has had a very rich life. Even when he said he was retiring from government and the leadership of the movement, all he meant was that he was slowing down, because he did not retire. He continued to mobilise resources to build schools in remote villages where there are no schools; where children still learn under trees.

I cannot forget how, once, he took me with him to Zeerust where the community had only one high school and they were, therefore, compelled to resort to a platoon system of learning: two schools, in essence, with two sets of teachers, two principals who had to share one building.

Nelson Mandela showed his passion and I remember when the little aircraft that we were flying in landed on the landing strip outside of Zeerust. Because he was President of the Republic, the military was there to protect him and they had taken up positions behind the shrubs and the trees. As he emerged from the aircraft, in his own style he walked straight to one that he saw under a tree, shot out his hand and said: "How are you? How are you?" As he was shaking that hand, he saw the other one, went to him and said: "How are you? How are you?"

To the chagrin of the commanders of that platoon, he left them in complete disarray, but out of the power of love and compassion.

Kgalema Motlanthe is the Deputy President of the ANC. This is an edited extract from a speech in the National Assembly on the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela.

Award Winning Journalist Tourtured By Israel

On June 26, 2008 Palestinian journalist and Washington Report on Middle East Affairs correspondent, Mohammed Omer was stopped by Israeli security agents while traveling from London to his home in Gaza. Omer was in London to receive the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism as a result of his courage in reporting the news, his commitment to an oppressed people, and his conviction, against violent retaliation.

Initially, Omer's chances of reaching London to accept the award had been unpromising. Israel refused to grant him an exit permit out of Gaza, and ultimately, diplomatic intervention was necessary to obtain the permit. On his way back home, Omer ran into the same problem. Though given permission to return (again, only through extensive and painstaking diplomatic intervention), Omer was stopped in Amman and refused entry into Rafah.

Finally, on June 26, he was told that arrangements had been made to get him across the border. Dutch diplomats would receive him at the Allenby crossing, and from there would escort him home to the Gaza Strip. Despite his diplomatic escort, Omer was detained by Israeli Shin Bet security agents.

The agents at first asked Omer for the stipend that came with his award. When he told them he did not have it with him, they proceeded to strip him down and beat him unconscious. Later, Omer would recall "one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror." Vomiting and going in and out of consciousness, he was dragged to a Palestinian ambulance, where the GSS agents tried to have him sign a contract indemnifying them from their actions.

The Palestinian medic in the ambulance refused, and, after threatening to contact the Dutch embassy escort waiting for Omer, the Israeli agents finally let them through. Omer woke up in a hospital in Jericho, from which he was released and escorted home to Gaza. The ordeal he had gone through, however, was not so easily dissipated. The next day, suffering from cracked ribs and other injuries, he was admitted to a hospital in Gaza, where he remains as of this writing.

Please join other CNI Foundation members concerned about the fate of Mohammed Omer and other journalists in signing a petition which will be delivered to Secretary of State Rice condemning Israel's attacks on journalists, both Palestinian and international. Add your voice to Mohammed Omer's on behalf of voiceless Gazans and all Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation-an occupation made possible by American tax dollars.

To Sign the Petition and find out more information please CLICK HERE

Council for the National Interest Foundation
1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1 · Washington, DC 20024
800.296.6958 · 202.863.2951 · Fax: 202.863.2952
http://cnifoundation.org/

Oil, oil, oil is behind America's and Europe's worries over Iran

India warns against any attack on Iran

3 hours ago

NEW DELHI (AFP) — India is "gravely concerned" over reports suggesting the use of military force against Iran and is strongly against any such action, the foreign ministry said on Monday.

There has been concern an attack against Iran could be imminent after it emerged Israel had practised a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"India is gravely concerned at these statements threatening the use of military force against Iran," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"India is against any such military attack, which constitutes unacceptable international behaviour. There is no military solution to the issues that are being discussed between Iran and the international community."

India's comments come after Iran intensified international tensions on the nuclear issue by conducting two days of tests, which included the firing of a missile that it says can reach Israel.

The United States and its regional ally Israel have never ruled out a military attack to end Iran's controversial nuclear work, which the West fears could be used to make weapons -- a charge vehemently denied by Tehran.

Energy-hungry India, which enjoys warm relations with Iran, expects to finalise a deal on a 7.5-billion-dollar pipeline that will transport gas from the Middle East to here via Pakistan.

New Delhi says Tehran has the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy but has asked it to cooperate with the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

India has previously rejected pressure from Washington not to do business with Iran, viewed in the US as a state sponsor of terrorism and seen as bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.

Earlier this year, New Delhi told the US not to interfere in its dealings with Iran after a State Department spokesman said Washington would like India to put pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

"India calls upon all concerned Governments to exercise restraint and choose the peaceful path of persuasion and negotiations," the foreign ministry said."

* * *

Israel uses America's and Europe's oil dependency as back-up for their own ambitions to militarily rule the Near East and all its oil supplies in order to protect itself from its Arab neighbors and the Palestinian population it is at war with. Iran cannot be allowed to become a military power in the Near East just as Iraq could not either. Only Israel is allowed nukes and freedom to militarily intervene in other people's nations, even committing crimes against humanity as Israelis allowed their Phalange partners to do to Palestinians under Ariel Sharon' command in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps in Lebanon.

No one in the West protests this geopolitical war being conducted by Israeli Jews against Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East because Islam is our new Communist Menace and boy, can Big Business make money off these wars with Arab Muslims! Meanwhile, no Muslim nation in the Near East can rise to prominent position amongst Muslim nations, lest it threaten Israel's security. One would think the U.N. would intervene but long ago the U.N., as a puppet of Western Powers after WW II, created the Israel problem in the first place.

Strange that the U.N. so often cited for lack of real political power has been allowed to create the monstrosity of the last European religious colonials escaping European persecution only to inflict the same on the indigenous population of another Third World country. But not so strange when one sees that Western Powers still very much run the U.N. their way at the expense of any other geopolitical group, especially Muslims.

Lawyers--who needs them?

Total_Package27 asks: “What is it like to defend someone who, in the eyes of the public, is guilty?”

Alan Dershowitz, O.J. Simpson lawyer.

“That's my job. If the public ever believed somebody to be innocent, I probably wouldn't take the case. A good lawyer should want to take the hardest cases, the most unpopular defendants, and the least likely to succeed. Just as a good surgeon would more likely take a difficult operation, rather than a nose job. Statistically, most of my clients are guilty. Statistically, most people charged with crimes in America, are guilty. And thank God for that. Would we want to live in a country where most people charged are innocent? That might be true in Libya, or China, but not here.”

America has more lawyers per citizen than any other nation in the world. America has more people behind bars than any other nation in the world. Lawyers are one of the highest paid professionals in America and anyone who has watched public trials knows that money can and often does buy the judgments that come out of American courtrooms. Alan defended O.J. Simpson and Richard North Patterson defends Israel as both move in the moneyed circles beyond the reach of average Americans and beyond the reach of justice.

Mormon missionary calendar-maker excommunicated

Chad Hardy, 31, creator of the 'Men on a Mission' calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries, is pictured at his home in Las Vegas on Thursday, July 10, 2008. Hardy has been summoned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints to appear before a council of elders.
(AP

Sun Jul 13, 11:09 PM ET

SALT LAKE CITY - The creator of a calendar that featured shirtless Mormon missionaries was excommunicated Sunday after a disciplinary meeting with local church leaders in Las Vegas. Chad Hardy said he bears no ill will toward the council of elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I felt like I spoke my truth," the 31-year-old entertainment entrepreneur said. "Bottom-line, they still felt the calendar is inappropriate and not the image that the church wants to have."

"Men on a Mission," which has sold nearly 10,000 copies at $14.99 each, included pictures of 12 returned missionaries wearing black slacks, but not their trademark white shirts, in modest poses. The men also were photographed in traditional missionary garb and share their religious beliefs in biographical sketches.

Some of the 12 models have also been called to disciplinary meetings, but none were punished.

"I have no ill feelings toward any of those people," Hardy said of the church council. "They did what they believed was right and I really do feel it was the best decision for both of us."

Frank E. Davie, the senior leader over a group of Mormon congregations in the Las Vegas area, confirmed the 12-member council's decision in a telephone call to The Associated Press. He declined further comment.

Hardy said the purpose of the 2008 calendar was not to tear down the church or its 13 million members.

"The project is about stepping outside the stereotypes and stepping outside of the image," Hardy said. "Not everybody fits the image and I let them know we're not trying to portray an image for the entire church."

An excommunicated person is removed from official church rolls, but are still welcome at church services. Excommunicated members are prohibited from receiving the sacrament and can't perform church callings such as teaching or preaching during meetings. They also cannot enter church temples.

Exile--another killer goes free

a review of Richard North Patterson's book, Exile

by Steve Lewis

I've always had a mild love/hate reaction to author Richard North Patterson's books. Patterson is another one of the lawyers-turned-authors but unlike the others Patterson has moved into political thrillers from the inside, as an upwardly mobile political climber himself. Using well-written but still basically sycophantic odes to political leaders whom he continually pats on the back for their moral anguish at making the tough decisions, Richard North Patterson conveniently forgets these political rascals are the same ones that have dragged America onto the verge of another world war, this time with all of Islam.

Very much like one of his morally challenged main characters Richard himself has advanced in a calculated trajectory for higher public recognition than his work really deserves. From courtroom dramas to heading Common Cause and friendships with political shakers and movers at the highest levels of government, Richard has done all right for himself if not for political truth which is why I am writing this criticism after reading “Exile”, Richard North Patterson's thriller about an assassination of an Israeli Prime Minister on U.S. Soil.

My beef with Mr. Patterson's viewpoint as expressed in by his main character in Exile, a high-profile secular Jewish lawyer with political ambitions, is that he uses a veneer of ethical issues in his books without ever delving into the deeper morality of the political events he's now using as topics for creating popular novels, each well-written, no doubt about that, but also ones which politicians will read and move our ambitious lawyer's career ever forward. Scoping out the political landscape in America post-9-11 and seeing which way the political wind is blowing, Richard North Patterson has in his political wisdom allied himself to the Israeli/Jewish lobbies immense political power in America, especially in Washington D.C., the turf the main characters in Mr. Patterson's later books are all headed towards.

I don't like liberal hypocrisy that masks a political agenda that ends up killing innocent people, and I don't like Zionism and unfortunately for Richard North Patterson, I find he's mixed the two together in “Exile”. In a compelling read Exile makes his political deception all that much more irritating for this American who knows as one, like Richard, who's been there, but unlike Richard North Patterson, has come away with the only moral conclusion possible: Israel is a complete abomination as a supposedly religious state and total hypocrisy as a “democracy”. For Arabs in Israel and for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, Israelis are another fascist oppressor in the same order now as Nazis and South Afrikaaners in their racist treatment of Palestinian Arabs, and like them, being Europeans and foreign invaders, Israelis enjoy Western nation support—at least until they go too far in the eyes of the world in fascist acts of violence towards their victims.

Exile is good for getting glimpses of what life is like for Palestinians living under the jackboot of Israel's occupation but one has to wonder where on earth Richard's ethics have disappeared to when his main character sees the appalling conditions most Palestinians are living under and yet sides with their oppressors, laying out the oppressor's false religious claims to their victim's land as if these were believable documents shoring up a contentious claim in court. No attempt is ever made by Mr. Patterson to question the logic of a religious mindset that cares nothing for historical truth, international laws, ecology, or morality when these things interfere with the Cult's religious objective of taking another people's land away from them and claiming it for themselves alone.

Zionism cares not about international laws that protect people from foreign invasion. Zionism cares not about racism in their doctrines that exclude non-Jews from land ownership and major decision-making in Israel. Zionism cares not about lying about history of Jews, covering up the Khazar Jewish conversion even today in order to sell the world the Jewish homeland concept of Israel. A tiny country in the Near East, Palestine, becomes the focus of Jewish immigration and the land soon is filled with millions of European and American Jews posing as “Semites”. Ecology be damned if it counters “Eretz Yisrael” as Israelis fill Palestine with European and American Jews and thus stack the “Right of Return” deck in their favor to exclude that right from the indigenous population. All this happens because the West turns a blind moral eye on what Jews do in Israel. Now Richard North Patterson's book aids the Zionist cause along its road to perdition.

Patterson dedicated Exile to Alan Dershowitz with the same false moral window dressing Dershowitz used defending O.J. Simpson, the same ethically-challenged rationale as all lawyers use, to defend the morally indefensible by hired intellectual guns who make money, large amounts of it, off of a very faulty criminal justice system where money spent on lawyers fees often decides justice or its lack. O.J. goes free in America and so does Israel in Patterson's book, but both are guilty when facts are objectively presented instead of a lawyer's propaganda to sell his case.

Dear Stephen,

Three years ago today, Palestinian civil society issued a call for the rest of the world to support them by boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. This call for campaigns of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) was issued on the one-year anniversary of the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion ruling Israel's apartheid wall illegal.

The US Campaign is proud to say that we've answered this call for BDS. In addition to our ongoing work to stop Caterpillar from selling the D-9 bulldozers to the Israeli military, we've launched a corporate accountability campaign focused on Motorola.

Last year, at our national conference, US Campaign member groups voted to launch our Hang Up on Motorola project to boycott Motorola, as it profits from Israeli occupation and human rights abuses by:

• Selling Israel fuses for aerial munitions such as the kind of bombs dropped in its 2006 war with Lebanon.
• Providing the "Mountain Rose" communication system that the Israeli military uses in the Occupied Territories.
• Providing surveillance systems at 47 illegal Israeli settlements as well as along the illegal apartheid wall

Since our last conference the US Campaign, working with faith and corporate social responsibility groups, has begun a dialogue with Motorola. Click here to read our initial letter to Motorola CEO Greg Brown, Motorola's less-than-impressive response, and our rejoinder. Click here to send your own letter demanding accountability from Motorola!

We've also produced a factsheet that can be used to inform others about Motorola's support for Israeli apartheid. Click here to download a PDF of our Motorola factsheet.

Join us at this year's national conference as we lay the groundwork to escalate our Hang Up on Motorola project from polite corporate engagement to an all-out public boycott.

You can also get involved in our growing campaign to pressure our government to sanction Israel by cutting off aid for the human rights abuses it commits with our tax dollars. To learn more about our campaign to challenge U.S. military aid to Israel and get involved, please click here.

The US Campaign is excited to take part in the international response to Palestinian civil society's call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. As these tactics helped push South Africa to abandon apartheid, our hope is that they will do the same in Israel/Palestine.

Click here to support this important project by making your generous tax-deductible contribution today!

Hague High Court concluded that three parts of the apartheid wall are illegal--according to international law

On Wednesday, July 9th, villagers from Nilin emerged from a four-day house arrest, to
commemorate the fourth anniversary of the day the Hague High Court concluded that three parts
of the apartheid wall are illegal--according to international law--and must be re-routed.
Israel, however, has changed nothing. About 120 strong, the delegation included a number of
popular committees from the west Ramallah area, Israeli activists, internationals, and
Moheep Awwad of the Palestinian cabinet.

At 11am, the group advanced to the construction site and surrounded
the bulldozer. Clashes broke out and Israeli soldiers assaulted the crowd with tear-gas
and rubber-coated steel bullets. Two of the protesters, Mahmoud Khawaja and Salah Tayeh
Alkhawaja, were injured; and five were arrested, among them Hassan Yousef, Ahmed Wehebba,
and Wesam Wahebba.

There will be another demonstration tomorrow, Thursday July 10th, at 11am. For more
information call Ibrahim Amira at 054-7493831.
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=66&Itemid=1

http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=128

PRESS RELEASE

(TO ALL MEDIA)

July 8, 2008

The Village of Bil’in, in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories, announced today that it has commenced legal proceedings in Canada against two Canadian Companies for committing war crimes. The case has been filed in the Quebec Superior Court sitting at Montreal, Canada. A full copy of the claim is attached.

Bil’in alleges that Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc., both registered corporations in the Province of Quebec, acting as agents for Israel, are illegally constructing residential and other buildings on lands under the municipal jurisdiction of the Village and are marketing and selling condominium units to the civilian population of the State of Israel. Bil’in further alleges in its claim that its land and the defendants are subject to the rules and obligations of international law because the West Bank is occupied territory arising from an act of war that took place in 1967.

Bil’in claims that Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. have violated international law and Canadian domestic law. Bil’in claims protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Those statutes both prohibit an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into territory that it has occupied as a result of war. Bil’in also relies on the Canadian Geneva Conventions Act and the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act which contain the same prohibition. These statutes have jurisdiction over Canadians regardless of where in the world the offence has taken place.

Bil’in is seeking an immediate Order from the Canadian court stopping the illegal construction, punitive damages and other relief as set out in the claim. Upon obtaining such an Order in Canada, Bil’in intends to petition the Israeli Court to enforce the Canadian Court Order in Israel and the West Bank.

A Quebec Registry search has revealed that the Green Park companies have appointed a single director who resides in the Montreal Region. It is believed that this director is likely a nominal director having no direct involvement with Green Park and at this time Bil'in has no direct evidence implicating or linking this director personally to any of the civil wrongs set out in the claim.

The legal claims of Bil’in are not related in any way to the business or undertakings of Greenpark International Inc., “Canada’s Largest Homebuilder”, located at 8700 Dufferin Street, Vaughan, Ontario or its affiliated companies.

The Village of Bil’in will be holding a Press Conference in Ramallah on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 1:00 PM (Local Time) and at 10:00 AM (EST) at the offices of its Canadian legal counsel in Toronto, Canada. All media are invited to attend.

To obtain background information on Bil’in please visit www.bilin-village.org/english.

Michael Sfard – Attorney Mark H. Arnold – Barrister and Solicitor

Law Office Gardiner Miller Arnold LLP

49 Ahad Ha’am Street, 1202 – 390 Bay Street

Tel-Aviv – Jaffa, 65206 Toronto, Ontario, M5H2Y2

Israel Canada

Tel: +972-3-6206947 Tel: + 416 393-2614 Ext. 231

Cell: +972-54-4713930 Cell: + 416-705-3055

michael@jurists.co.ii mark.arnold@gmalaw.ca

Israeli Counsel to Bil’in Canadian Counsel to Bil’in

Thank you for you continued support,

Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
Head of Friends of Freedom and Justice in Bilin

Email- ffj.bilin@yahoo.com
Mobile- (00972) (0) 547847942
Office- (00972) (2) 2489129
Fax- (00972) (2) 2489129

www.bilin-ffj.org

The world's best choreographers are birds

I saw blackbirds doing these kinds of aerial ballets right after the storm of 1998 cleared. They looked like they were celebrating the sunshine returning. It was one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen animals do. They literally formed moving three-dimensional solid sculptures in the sky with amazing coordinated flying that makes anything humans do look like child's play.

The birds in this video are doing the same thing I saw but the forms these birds are making weren't beautiful like the ones I saw above Broadway in Eureka. The forms our birds made were more complex that those in the video and the amazing part is that the three-dimensional forms had "edges" to them that were kept intact yet were in fast motion and changed constantly. How these birds can do such coordinated flying is astonishing.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=8704649

Animals do the most amazing things.

Why can't we make electric motorcycles?

Below is the story from the Eureka Reporter about Zero electric motorcycles which are great sounding alternatives EXCEPT they cost a small fortune. Electric auto and motorcycle companies are trying to cash in on our oil dilemma but it seems to me we could do better ourselves. Create cheaper electric motorcycles. The Chinese will do soon anyway. Just wait and see.

Dirt Rider Magazine calls them “the future of off-road motorcycle riding;” Forbes Magazine calls them a “leap of innovation;” and Blaine Bermers of Eureka calls them “really cool.”

Joining the ranks of alternative-fueled vehicles that are growing in popularity against the backdrop of ever-climbing gas prices, “Zero Motorcycles” are the newest addition to electric vehicle family.

“They’re not your normal motorcycle,” said Bermers — who is currently displaying two off-road models for sale now — one at the showroom of Bedliners Plus in Eureka, and one that was available for demonstration at Ruth Lake over the July 4 weekend.

Street-legal versions are expected to be available later this month.

Founded by former NASA project manager, Neal Saiki, the Zero Motorcycle, known as “Zero X,” has no tailpipe, making it noiseless and emission-free, weighs a mere 130 pounds, has no gears, no clutch, and accelerates from zero to 30 mph in less than two seconds, the Web site states at www.zeromotorcycles.com.

They run on “second-generation lithium-ion cells” to ensure against fire, and deliver 20 horsepower that has 100 percent torque at all times and reaches speeds up to 60 mph.

A slightly more expensive German-made motor option is also available that offers 10 percent more power, the Web site states.

“You just plug it into an outlet and it takes two hours to charge. Most of the cars take 10 to 12 hours,” Bermers said. Once charged, the street-legal model goes for 60 miles and the off-road goes for about 40, Bermers said. “They say it will only cost you less than one cent per mile to drive.”

“I rode it up in the mountains and all the animals just turned around and looked at me like ‘what’s this?’” said Bermers of the whisper-quietness of the bike.

Comparable to a 250cc motorcycle, the Zero X costs about $7,400 and can arrive on a doorstep in a UPS box.

“I’ve got one sitting here that just came out of the box and another one I could get within the month,” Bermers said. “There’s a high demand right now as you can imagine with the gas prices.”

“Get dirty while staying clean,” the Web site invites.

For more information, phone Bermers at 619-640-0173 or see the bike currently on display at 1326 Koster Lane off Broadway in Eureka.

Electrify this!

Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

By ETHAN BRONNER

Published: July 6, 2008

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

No couch potatoes here!

Kent Couch lifts off from his gas station in Bend, Ore., in his lawn chair rigged with more than 150 giant party balloons, Saturday, July 5, 2008. Couch, 48, is making his third cluster balloon flight and hopes to go more than 200 miles to Idaho before running out of daylight or helium.

Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dead at 83

By JOHN ROGERS – 7 hours ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Larry Harmon wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure, said his publicist, Jerry Digney. He was 83.

As an entrepreneur, Harmon licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos.

"Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us," Harmon told The Associated Press in a 1996 interview.

Pinto Colvig, who provided the voice for Walt Disney's Goofy, was the first Bozo the Clown, a character created by writer-producer Alan W. Livingston for a series of children's records in 1946. Livingston said he came up with the name Bozo after polling several people at Capitol Records.

Harmon would later meet his alter ego while answering a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records.

He got that job and eventually bought the rights to Bozo. Along the way, he embellished Bozo's distinctive look: the orange-tufted hair, the bulbous nose, the outlandish red, white and blue costume.

"You might say, in a way, I was cloning BTC (Bozo the Clown) before anybody else out there got around to cloning DNA," Harmon said in the 1996 interview. "I felt if I could plant my size 83AAA shoes on this planet, (people) would never be able to forget those footprints."

Susan Harmon, his wife of 29 years, indicated Harmon was the perfect fit for Bozo.

"He was the most optimistic man I ever met. He always saw a bright side; he always had something good to say about everybody. He was the love of my life," she said Thursday.

The business — combining animation, licensing of the character and personal appearances — made millions, as Harmon trained more than 200 Bozos over the years to represent him in local markets.

"I'm looking for that sparkle in the eyes, that emotion, feeling, directness, warmth. That is so important," he said of his criteria for becoming a Bozo.

The Chicago version of Bozo ran on WGN-TV in Chicago for 40 years and was seen in many other cities after cable television transformed WGN into a superstation.

Bozo — portrayed in Chicago for many years by Bob Bell — was so popular that the waiting list for tickets to a TV show eventually stretched to a decade, prompting the station to stop taking reservations for 10 years. On the day in 1990 when WGN started taking reservations again, it took just five hours to book the show for five more years. The phone company reported more than 27 million phone call attempts had been made.

By the time the show bowed out in Chicago, in 2001, it was the last locally produced version. Harmon said at the time that he hoped to develop a new cable or network show, as well as a Bozo feature film.

He became caught up in a minor controversy in 2004 when the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee took down a plaque honoring him as Bozo and formally endorsed Colvig as the first. Harmon denied ever misrepresenting Bozo's history.

He said he was claiming credit only for what he added to the character — "What I sound like, what I look like, what I walk like" — and what he did to popularize Bozo.

"Isn't it a shame the credit that was given to me for the work I have done, they arbitrarily take it down, like I didn't do anything for the last 52 years," he told the AP at the time.

Harmon protected Bozo's reputation with a vengeance, while embracing those who poked good-natured fun at the clown.

As Bozo's influence spread through popular culture, his very name became a synonym for clownish behavior.

"It takes a lot of effort and energy to keep a character that old fresh so kids today still know about him and want to buy the products," Karen Raugust, executive editor of The Licensing Letter, a New York-based trade publication, said in 1996.

A normal character runs its course in three to five years, Raugust said. "Harmon's is a classic character. It's been around 50 years."

On New Year's Day 1996, Harmon dressed up as Bozo for the first time in 10 years, appearing in the Rose Parade in Pasadena.

The crowd reaction, he recalled, "was deafening."

"They kept yelling, `Bozo, Bozo, love you, love you.' I shed more crocodile tears for five miles in four hours than I realized I had," he said. "I still get goose bumps."

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Harmon became interested in theater while studying at the University of Southern California.

"Bozo is a star, an entertainer, bigger than life," Harmon once said. "People see him as Mr. Bozo, somebody you can relate to, touch and laugh with."

Associated Press writers Polly Anderson in New York and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Take Action: Outrageous! $170 Million More in Military Aid to Israel

Protest Rep. David Obey's earmark of $170 million in military aid for Israel which he snuck into the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008. Find out how you can join us in our campaign to cut off military aid to Israel. Read More »

Report Card, 110th Congress (2007-2008) Updated July 1, 2008 * NEW--110th Congressional Hall of Fame/Shame Find out if your Members of Congress support restricting the sale of cluster munitions, a renewed U.S. role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, condemning the UN for highlighting Israel’s human rights violations, and much more. Read More »

Take Action: Votes on Military Aid to Israel Coming Soon The House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs are scheduled to vote on $2.55 billion in military aid for Israel in FY2009 on July 16 and 17. Find out how you can take action to oppose this. Read More »

Commemorate World Refugee Day--June 20 Find resources and learn more about what you can do to commemorate World Refugee Day. Plus check out a cool video of our Nakba mobile billboard crashing the Israel birthday celebration on the National Mall, June 1. Read More »

Register Today for the 7th Annual National Organizers' Conference & Lobby Day Washington, DC | July 25-28 The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is excited to announce its 7th Annual National Organizers' Conference, July 25-28 in Washington, DC at American University's Main Campus. Each year, delegates of member organizations of the US Campaign come together to network, strategize, decide upon priorities for the upcoming year, and elect a new Steering Committee to guide the work of the coalition. It's not too early to start making your plans to attend this year's conference. For conference FAQ's, logistical details, registration, a draft agenda, a list of member organizations in good standing, and a form for Steering Committee nominations, please follow the link below! Read More »

Huge Nakba Ad to Crash Israel B-Day Celebration on National Mall Attendees at this Sunday’s “Israel@60: A Capital Celebration” on the National Mall in Washington, DC will find an uninvited guest at their party: a giant 10x22 foot mobile billboard commemorating the Nakba.To watch a video of our billboard in action on the streets of DC, please click here.To view pictures of the billboard, please click here. Read More »

You’ve Got to See Our Nakba Ads in NYC Read more about our Nakba awareness advertising campaign in New York City and find out how you can get a copy of the poster. Read More »

View the Expressions of Nakba Gallery The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Nakba ("the catastrophe"): the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is sponsoring a commemoration of the Nakba through personal expressions in the form of visual arts, essays, poetry, music, video, and digital media. See the winning entires and honorable mentions on our stunning new on-line art gallery. Read More »

Nakba 60th Anniversary Commemoration in Cities Near You! May 15 is Nakba Day, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In 1948, the newly-created State of Israel destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages, and caused to flee or exiled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.These refugees and their descendants number today in the millions as Israel continues to deny them their right of return. From now until the end of May, events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nakba will be taking place throughout the United States. We encourage all our supporters and member organizations to attend these events. Read More »

Take Action: Thank Rep. Kucinich for His Statement on the Nakba Read Rep. Kucinich's statement in the Congressional Record about the Palestinian Nakba, the US Campaign's letter of thanks to him, and find out how you can take action to thank Rep. Kucinich for his commitment to Palestinian human rights. Read More »

Take Action: House to Vote on Resolution and Make Statements on Israel’s 60th Anniversary On April 22, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on H.Con.Res.322, “recognizing the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel and reaffirming the bonds of close friendship and cooperation between the United States and Israel.” In addition, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has reserved time each week through June for Representatives to make statements on the floor of Congress on the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation urges all of its member groups and individual supporters to contact their Representative in Congress and ask him/her not to vote for resolutions or make statements that recognize Israel’s 60th anniversary but fail to recognize the historic injustices that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people and the injustices that it continues to inflict daily. Read More »

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Endorses US Campaign Nov. 2008 Anti-Apartheid Tour Watch the video of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu endorsing the US Campaign's Nov. 2008 anti-Apartheid organizing tour and find out how to get the tour to come to your city. Read More »

NEW SECTION Black America and Palestine Writers, poets and artists speak to a shared experience in the struggle for justice. This web page is dedicated to both building new and strengthening existing bridges between Black Americans and the Arab World. This site does not romanticize this relationship, nor does it represent an attempt to gloss over contradictions that have existed either between Black Americans and Arabs (including Arab Americans), or contradictions within the Arab world that concern matters of race. Rather, the site aims to be a repository of information and a medium of exchange between two peoples that have suffered historically as a result of various forms of national oppression, colonialism and racism.