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وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالإِنسَ إِلاَّ لِيَعْبُدُونِ [Qur'an, 51:56]

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Egypt “bans” the Gaza Freedom March

December 22, 2009 By Sarah 11 Comments


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8425232.stm

As you may or may not have heard today, the Egyptian government, citing security concerns and escalating tensions, has decided not to let the Gaza Freedom March cross into Gaza.

The foreign ministry has said they would not allow the march to take place because of the “sensitive situation in Gaza.” When was the last time the situation in Gaza wasn’t sensitive? The strip has been under siege and blockade for years now, by not only the Israeli government but the Egyptian government as well. What’s really amusing is while all of this is happening, Egypt has just begun constructing (with US funds) a metal wall along it’s border with Gaza, which will measure 10km long and delve some 18 metres below ground; a desperate attempt to cut the only lifeline the people of Gaza have left – the infamous “smuggling” tunnels. Of course, this is only after they initially denied it. Could their decision to ban the march be an attempt at brushing over the issue of the wall and steering media attention in a new direction?


gaza_egypt_wall


It is interesting just how quickly this story made it to the headlines today. I got a call this morning from our Canadian coordinator for the march, in which she briefly mentioned an email that would come out later this morning informing us of this decision. By around noon today, the BBC story made it to my Facebook feed and from there it spread like wildfire to various alternative news sources. This is the first time since signing on to the march that I’ve seen a story this big about the Gaza Freedom March come out of a news source as well-known as the BBC. It’s as if the Egyptian government was waiting for just the right moment, with just the right statement, before feeding the press the perfect angle with which to cover this march.

Honestly, I may be the only one who feels like this, but I see this “ban” by the Egyptian government as a good thing. First, like the old adage goes: “any press is good press.” And that couldn’t be more true in this case. One of the core goals of this march (to me, atleast) has always been to amass as much media attention to the matter as possible. I wanted to see Al Jazeera, Press TV, Ramattan and others, at the march covering it with a live video feed streaming back to viewers all over the world! Ok, so the BBC article doesn’t necessarily match up 🙂 but it’s a start!

Second, it’s clear the Egyptian government simply just doesn’t care anymore; not about what they say, how they look to the world, or how they’ll be judged or accounted for their actions….kind of like their teacher and master, Israel. And like Israel, they too will be singled-out and targeted by massive campaigns of boycotts (tourism), formal complaints to consulates and embassies, and even just some good ol’ fashioned protests and demonstrations.

So even if we don’t get into the Gaza Strip on the 28th of December (or ever), I still can’t help but imagine what 1,400 internationals gathered at the Rafah border would look like from an aerial view…and that’s not even considering what may or may not happen with the Viva Palestina convoy! I can’t even begin to picture the visual impact that would make as it streams to all the television sets and computer monitors of the world.

Egyptian embassies and missions all over the world have already begun hearing by phone, fax and email from delegates and the supporters of the Gaza Freedom March with the clear message: “Let the international delegation enter Gaza and let the Gaza Freedom March proceed.”

We set out to break the siege of Gaza and that is EXACTLY what we will do!


If you want to help, please spread and share this information everywhere, through email, facebook, twitter, and blogs. Then, make sure you contact your Egyptian embassies and consulate offices to voice your support for the march and the delegates who are going.

You can find the contact information at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website here.

Below is a some sample text you can include in your correspondences:

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to express my full support for the December 31, 2009 Gaza Freedom March, and am in touch with my Member of the Canadian Parliament on this issue.

I respectfully urge the Egyptian government to allow the 1,360 international delegates to enter the Gaza Strip through Egypt.

The aim of the march is to call on Israel to lift the siege. It is also humanitarian: the delegates will also take in badly needed medical aid, as well as school supplies and winter jackets for the children of Gaza.

Please let this historic March proceed. Doing so will do much to endear Egypt to both the marchers and their many friends and supporters.

Thank you

Filed Under: Gaza Freedom March, In the News Tagged With: apartheid, blockade, egypt, gaza, gaza freedom march, israel, march, Palestine, rafah, siege, wall

What can we do? Boycott!

December 20, 2009 By Basem 1 Comment

The first thing we can do to stop oppression is to stop aiding it. I would like to tell you to boycott taxes, but the movement is just not there yet. The best strategy at this point is to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global boycott movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

In July 2005, a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.” The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions–BDS for short–was born.

And the time has come… People of good conscience have chosen to boycott israeli products and companies supporting the zionist entity. Others can also show their opposition to israel’s project by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli goods and services. A consumer boycott works in two ways: firstly by generating bad publicity for the offender and secondly by applying economic pressure for change.


The israeli barcode starts with 729
The israeli barcode starts with 729



Aim

Raise awareness among consumers about the consequences of buying Israeli goods and services. Pressurise supermarkets and shops into removing goods with barcode 729 – denoting Israeli origin – from their shelves. Encourage companies who make use of Israeli technology and components to find alternatives and join the boycott. Focus the attention of the world on Israeli occupation and apartheid and expose those who bankroll the Israeli regime; and to foster an environment in which it is unacceptable to promote Israeli policies.

Why

Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel’s project by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli goods and services. A boycott can also put pressure on companies whose exports are linked to some of the most evident aspects of the Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Agrexco export fruit and vegetables for sale all over Europe and the US under the trade name Carmel. Much of its produce is grown on confiscated Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley, and the Israeli government owns 51% of the company. Jaffa Oranges were famous for centuries before Israelis successfully colonised the Palestinian name along with the city of Yafa.


Israeli forces and settlers watch as an occupation bulldozer destroys a Palestinian water tank
israeli forces and settlers watch as an occupation bulldozer destroys a Palestinian water tank


Motorola, as well as producing mobile phones, also manufacture wireless data networks for military bases and battlefield communications systems. Much of the cutting-edge technology contained in products such as mobile phones, computers and software is developed in the manufacture of military services and goods. Products developed to meet the needs of the Israeli military have a reputation for reliability, having been tried and tested on Palestinians.

Tel-Aviv is the global hub of a trade with considerable moral and ethical implications having consistently fuelled conflicts, wars and oppression throughout Africa. Many of the globes major dealers use Tel Aviv as the processing point for a trade which makes a major contribution to the Israeli economy. Consumers in Arab countries have begun to raise their voices in recent years. Tired with their US-backed governments, they have taken the isolation of Israel into their own hands – creating enormous losses especially for US producers complicit in the occupation of Palestine. In the West, consumers are growing more and more aware of the products they buy and the food they eat. In the UK a survey conducted in 2005 for the Co-Op bank revealed that over half of the questioned consumers stated that they had avoided buying products from a company on the basis of its reputation. Boycotts are big business, and it is vital that the international public are made aware of the moral and ethical dimension of buying Israeli goods.

Do it yourself

Avoid goods produced by companies with a significant business interest in Israel or containing parts produced by Israel. It includes boycott of companies whose management uses the profits and the power of the company to promote Israeli colonial policies of occupation and apartheid. This approach was used successfully by consumers opposing apartheid in South Africa. By the time Barclays’ Bank (UK) had pulled out of apartheid South Africa, its share of the student market had plummeted from 27% to 15%. A boycott must focus on strategic targets of particular significance, such as: Produce that is symbolic of its origin from Israel e.g. fruit, vegetables, cut flowers.



Palestinians growing vegetables on the little land left to them by the occupation.
Palestinians growing vegetables on the little land left to them by the occupation.


1. Don’t buy Israeli goods

This is easier than it sounds and a list of common products from Israeli companies can be found on a series of websites listed in the Resource section. You could also send a letter to the supermarket, the media and local political parties in your country informing them of your decision and the reasons.

2. Identify and lobby retail outlets that stock Israeli goods

Outlets that stock Israeli goods can be lobbied to break off such business relations in response to Israeli policies. You can send letters to local shops and large retailers asking them to de-shelve Israeli products. Find organizations and networks that would be willing to endorse the letter in order to achieve a more powerful effect.

3. Boycott and picket outlets that do not respond to lobbying

Where outlets continue to sell Israeli goods, go a step further and write informing them that you will no longer shop there. Organiza a picket of the shop and distribute campaign materials informing people of the BDS campaign.

4. Set up a local campaign and website promoting the boycott

Spread the word about the BDS campaign. Useful material, fact sheets and resources can be taken straight from the BDS website for you to set up your own local campaign. You could also provide a blacklist of outlets in the local area that are refusing to stop selling Israeli goods.

5. Further steps

Organise pickets and blockades of the transportation of Israeli produce; Encourage shop workers, dockworkers and others to refuse to handle Israeli goods; Putting out public information about companies’ use of Israeli technology and components; Create a Buycott alternative, promoting ethical alternatives to Israeli goods and reward companies who publicly distance themselves from the Israeli economy with greater levels of trade.

BRANDS & LABELS TO BOYCOTT

(click on the images to get more info)





Boycott Israel

Filed Under: In the News, Politics Tagged With: apartheid, boycott, divestment, israel, sanctions

The Siege on Gaza

December 16, 2009 By Basem Leave a Comment

The Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, was the most violent and deadly offensive by Israel since the second Intifada began. According to the UN, 1,434 Palestinian residents of Gaza were killed by the Israeli forces, and over 5,000 were injured.

Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed, and the Gazan economy remains in ruins. Israel has been controlling and limiting the amounts of international aid that are allowed into the Gaza Strip, and has thus caused a mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including an acute shortage in clean drinking water, food, medical supplies, power, construction and repair materials, and sanitation.

The continuing siege on Gaza has prevented the clearing of dangerous rubble, the restoration of water and sewage systems to normal working order, and the rebuilding of damaged and destroyed houses. The Gaza Strip has become the world’s most aid-dependent region in the world, with over 90% of the population relying on aid shipments of some sort.

Filed Under: Gaza Freedom March, Politics Tagged With: blockade, gaza, israel, Palestine, siege

Purpose of the March

December 14, 2009 By Basem Leave a Comment

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law that has led to mass suffering. The U.S., the European Union, and the rest of the international community are complicit.

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked. Yet, the siege of Gaza continues. It is time for us to take action! On Dec. 31, we will end the year by marching alongside the Palestinian people of Gaza in a non-violent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade.

Our purpose in this March is lifting the siege on Gaza. We demand that Israel end the blockade. We also call upon Egypt to open Gaza’s Rafah border. Palestinians must have freedom to travel for study, work, and much-needed medical treatment and to receive visitors from abroad.

As an international coalition we are not in a position to advocate a specific political solution to this conflict. Yet our faith in our common humanity leads us to call on all parties to respect and uphold international law and fundamental human rights to bring an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 and pursue a just and lasting peace.

The Palestinians of Gaza have exhorted the international community to move beyond words of condemnation. The march can only succeed if it arouses the conscience of humanity.

Filed Under: Gaza Freedom March Tagged With: gaza, gaza freedom march, march

Was 9/11 an inside job?

September 9, 2009 By Piece of Mind 2 Comments

Photo: SodaHead.com
Image: SodaHead.com

It’s the 8th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks…a day that will live on in our hearts and minds as the most tragic event ever carried out against our nation…but with 2 full-fledged wars in the Middle East, and a third one brewing in the works, the question still remains, who was responsible for 9/11? If you still believe that a “bunch of dirty Arabs with turbans living in a cave half-way across the world” carried out this precision-guided attack, I urge you to please KEEP READING!

The official story just does not add up, and with a new president in office, don’t you think it’s time for a real, in-depth, independent investigation into the day that ended thousands of lives, and affected millions more? We owe it to the victims, their families, as well as the people of the United States, to reopen those silenced investigations.

President Obama now has the POWER, and more importantly, the RESPONSIBILITY, to re-investigate that dreadful day, under his new administration. Perhaps the 20 points below (taken from an open letter to the President by Charlie Sheen) are a good starting point for the questions that need to be asked about that most terrible event in our modern history.

Please note that there are hundreds and maybe thousands of groups and organizations who are all also asking these same questions, and have been doing so for the past 8 years…I’m talking architects, engineers, fire-fighters, police officers, medics, airline pilots, and just everyday concerned citizens like you and me. Can they ALL be crazy conspiracy nuts? Maybe we need to look past what’s being fed to us through the media, and go and do some research of our own. I know it’s hard to take in and accept new information that challenges our way of thinking, but this is the only way that we can grow as individuals, as a nation and ultimately, as a society.

not-a-conspiracy-theorist-air-force-pilot

Please keep in mind that all information and claims below are hard facts based on documented evidence that is open and freely available to the public. None of it is opined, and none of it is false…In fact, I have included a link at the end to a bibliographic reference sheet for each point discussed.

Alright, now on to the questions…

1. On the FBI’s most wanted list, Osama Bin Laden is NOT charged with the crimes of 9/11 because ” the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

2. FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was dismissed and gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as bombs as early as April 2001. In July of ‘09, Mrs. Edmonds broke the Federal gag order and went public to reveal that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.

3. The following is a quote from Mayor Giuliani during an interview on 9/11 with Peter Jennings for ABC News. “I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.”
WHO TOLD HIM THIS??? To this day, the answer to this question remains unanswered, completely ignored and emphatically DENIED by Mayor Giuliani on several public occasions.

4. In April 2004, USA Today reported, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the targets was the World Trade Center.

5. On September 12th 2007, CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, reported that the mysterious “white plane” spotted and videotaped by multiple media outlets, flying in restricted airspace over the White House shortly before 10am on the morning of 9/11, was in fact the Air Force’s E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit; otherwise known as “The Doomsday Plane”.

Though fully aware of the event, the 9/11 Commission did not deem the appearance of the military plane to be of any interest and did not include it in the final 9/11 Commission report.

6. Three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles from Washington, DC, are conducting training exercises in North Carolina 207 miles away as the first plane crashes into the WTC. Even at significantly less than their top speed of 1500 mph, they could still have defended the skies over Washington well before 9am, more than 37 minutes before Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, however, they did not return until after 9:55am.
Andrews AFB had no armed fighters on alert and ready to take off on the morning of 9/11.

7. WTC Building 7. Watch the video of its collapse.

Image: 911ShareTheTruth.com
Image: 911ShareTheTruth.com

8. Flight 93 is fourth plane to crash on 9/11 at 10:03am. V.P. Cheney only gives shoot down order at 10:10-10:20am and this is not communicated to NORAD until 28 minutes after Flight 93 has crashed.
Fueling further suspicion on this front is the fact that three months before the attacks of 9/11, Dick Cheney usurped control of NORAD, and therefore he, and no one else on planet Earth, had the power to call for military sorties on the hijacked airliners on 9/11. He did not exercise that power. Three months after 9/11, he relinquished command of NORAD and returned it to military operation.

9. Scores of main stream news outlets reported that the F.B.I. conducted an investigation of at least FIVE of the 9/11 hijackers being trained at U.S. military flight schools. Those investigations are now sealed and need to be declassified.

10. In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone.
As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”

11. Hundreds of eye witnesses including first responders, fire captains, news reporters, and police, all described multiple explosions in both towers before and during the collapse.

12. An astounding video uncovered from the archives shows BBC News correspondent Jane Standley reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. Tapes from earlier BBC broadcasts show news anchors discussing the collapse of WTC 7 a full 26 minutes in advance. The BBC at first claimed that their tapes from 9/11 had been “lost” before admitting that they made the “error” of reporting the collapse of WTC 7 before it happened without adequately explaining how they could have obtained advance knowledge of the event.
In addition, over an hour before the collapse of WTC 7, at 4:10pm, CNN’s Aaron Brown reported that the building “has either collapsed, or is collapsing.”

13. Solicitor General Ted Olson’s claim that his wife Barbara Olsen called him twice from Flight 77, describing hijackers with box cutters, was a central plank of the official 9/11 story.
However, the credibility of the story was completely undermined after Olsen kept changing his story about whether his wife used her cell phone or the airplane phone. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004. American Airlines confirmed that Flight 77 was a Boeing 757 and that this plane did not have airplane phones on board.
According to the FBI, Barbara Olsen attempted to call her husband only once and the call failed to connect, therefore Olsen must have been lying when he claimed he had spoken to his wife from Flight 77.

14. The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125ft in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no more than 16ft in diameter. The engines of the 757 would have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner, especially when contrasted with other images showing airplane crashes into buildings.

15. What is the meaning behind the following quote attributed to Dick Cheney which came to light during the 9/11 Commission hearings? The passage is taken from testimony given by then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta.
During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, “The plane is 50 miles out.” “The plane is 30 miles out.” And when it got down to “the plane is 10 miles out,” the young man also said to the Vice President, “Do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?”
As the plane was not shot down, in addition to the fact that armed fighter jets were nowhere near the plane and the Pentagon defensive system was not activated, are we to take it that the orders were to let the plane find its target?

16. In May 2003, the Miami Herald reported how the Bush administration was refusing to release a 900-page congressional report on 9/11 because it wanted to “avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report,” particularly regarding pre-9/11 warnings as well as the fact that the hijackers were trained at U.S. flight schools.

17. Top Pentagon officials cancelled their scheduled flights for September 11th on September 10th. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, following a security warning, cancelled a flight into New York that was scheduled for the morning of 9/11.

18. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that point it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones which formed an integral part of the official government version of events were technologically impossible at the time.

19. On April 29, 2004, President Bush and V.P. Cheney would only meet with the commission under specific clandestine conditions. They insisted on testifying together and not under oath. They also demanded that their testimony be treated as a matter of “state secret.” To date, nothing they spoke of that day exists in the public domain.

20. A few days after the attack, several newspapers as well as the FBI reported that a paper passport had been found in the ruins of the WTC. In August 2004, CNN reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s visa was found in the remains of Flight 93 which went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At least a third of the WTC victim’s bodies were vaporized and many of the victims of the Pentagon incident were burned beyond recognition. And yet visas and paper passports which identify the perpetrators and back up the official version of events miraculously survive explosions and fires that we are told melted steel buildings.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/20_minutes_bibliography.html#briefing1

If you have read this far, I commend you. That is a lot to read and take in all at once, especially if this is all news to you. But I urge you to take what you’ve read here and follow up on it, do your own investigation, see what you find for yourself. No one can convince you, you have to do that yourself. All we can do is provide the information that sparks the slightest bit of interest, curiosity, or concern. The rest is up to you. But once you learn the truth, it’s your responsibility to wake up and educate those around you.

Good luck, God Bless, and just remember: the truth will prevail..

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: 911, afghanistan, ground zero, inside job, iraq, obama, osama bin laden, planes, war, world trade center, wtc

Welcome!

September 1, 2009 By Sarah Leave a Comment

Assalamu Alaikum, Peace and Blessings to all…

This is our first post on our new blog! We hope to use this as a forum to share our views of and experiences with important and relevant issues from around the world.

Our first major project will be our trip to the Gaza Strip at the end of this month with the Gaza Freedom March, in which 1,400 people from over 40 countries will converge in Cairo, then enter into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Border with Egypt. We will then meet up with over 50,000 Gazans and embark on the 3-mile march to the Erez border crossing with Israel to demand an end to the inhumane siege and illegal blockade that has been placed on the entire population. There will also be another delegation which will march from the other side of the border (from Israel) and meet us at the Erez crossing.

We hope to make an enormous impact both on a local and global scale, through media, internet, videos and images to bring the message of the Palestinian people to the world!

Stay tuned to be kept up-to-date on each step of our journey, and in the meantime feel free to watch this video which explains the purpose and logistics of the march.

In peace & solidarity,
~Nu

[local /wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Gaza-Freedom-Why-Were-Marching.flv]

Filed Under: Gaza Freedom March, In the News, Politics, Spirtual Tagged With: blockade, egypt, gaza, gaza freedom march, israel, march, Palestine, protest, rafah, rally, siege

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