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Not only from the sea - 500 activists to arrive by air on July 8
By Olivia Zémor, Roni Hammermann, Laura Durkay
June 27, 2011
Email message from: olivia.zemor@wanadoo.fr
(including previous messages on the same topic)

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Palestinian Call to international civil society :

Dear friends,

Palestinian civil society organizations and peace and human rights defenders and activists on the ground call on civil society organizations and people of conscience around the world to come to Palestine July 8 for a week of fellowship and peace-building. Israel must recognize the basic human right of entering to Palestine by those who want to visit us. Israel`s arbitrary and abusive control over entry into the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful and must be vigorously opposed. (See the Right to Enter Campaign at http://www.righttoenter.ps/)

Palestinians throughout historic Palestine and in exile still believe in and work for peace based upon justice and trust that with the help of the international community we will achieve our peace and freedom and restore the values and principles that we share as human beings.

We believe in peace-building based on nonviolence for implementation of International Law and Human Rights. We believe that every single one of us is a change maker, and nobody has the right to to deny us the access to suffering populations.

We invite you. We call upon you. Join us and be the change you want to see in this world. You will be accommodated locally and enjoy Palestinian hospitality and a program of networking, fellowship, and volunteer peace work in Palestinian towns and villages (e.g. land reclamation).

Local activist groups in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa are organizing delegations. Email us atinfo@palestinejn.org if you would like to be connected to the organizing group in your country.

Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Centre, www.alrowwad-acts.ps
Alternative Information Center www.alternativenews.org
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights:www.badil.org/
Bil’in Popular Resistance Committee www.bilin-village.org
Friends of Freedom and Justice, Bil’in www.bilin-ffj.org
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign www.stopthewall.org
Holy Land Trust: www.holylandtrust.org
International Solidarity Movement: www.palsolidarity.org
Open Bethlehem: www.openbethlehem.org
Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People www.PCR.PS
Palestine Justice Network www.palestinejn.org
Palestine Solidarity Project WWW.palestinesolidarityproject.org
Popular Struggle Coordinating Committee www.popularstruggle.org/
Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies, www.sirajcenter.org
Youth Against Settlements (Hebron)

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Challenging Israeli apartheid, starting at Ben Gurion Airport

by Laura Durkay on June 20, 2011

From July 8-16, I will join hundreds of internationals for a week of solidarity actions in coordination with 15 Palestinian civil resistance organizations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. To my knowledge, this will be the first attempt to bring such a large number of internationals—already over 500, according to organizers—to the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a coordinated manner. While Freedom Flotilla 2, sailing in the coming days, rightly puts the spotlight on Israel’s cruel blockade of Gaza, we intend to show that Israeli repression in the rest of historic Palestine—the West Bank, Jerusalem, and what is now Israel—is no less important and is part of the same project of ethnic cleansing and colonization.

The opening act of our week of nonviolent resistance is, in my opinion, its most creative and daring component. On a single day, July 8, hundreds of internationals and Palestinians living abroad will fly in to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport and perform one simple but radical action: refuse to lie about the fact that we are there to travel to the Occupied Territories and visit Palestinians.

Anyone who has traveled to Palestine knows the potential risks associated with this action. Israel controls all entry points into Palestine, except for the Rafah crossing into Gaza, which is controlled by Egypt and has its own Kafkaesque challenges. The Israeli government routinely denies entry to people it knows or simply suspects of being Palestine solidarity activists; journalists, academics and cultural workers sympathetic to the Palestinians; even people coming to do volunteer or charity work in the Occupied Territories.

This means that for years, the most common strategy among solidarity activists entering Palestine has been to keep your head down and lie about why you are there.

Plenty of us know the routine. You say that you’re a tourist. You play dumb about history and politics, and you never say you are going to visit Palestinians. You don’t point out the fact that every person of color in your group just got picked out for questioning. You submit calmly to interrogation and construct non-offensive half-truths, conveniently leaving out certain parts of your itinerary. When they search your stuff, you nod and say you understand it’s for “security reasons.” You swallow every rebellious instinct that brought you to Palestine in the first place and temporarily submit to a racist, invasive, intimidating security apparatus in the hope that they will deign to let you in to Palestine, and accept that this is the price to be paid for being able to do the work you want to do.

We should be clear that Israel’s border controls and repressive entry policies are part of the apartheid system—a big part. Entry restrictions on solidarity activists, journalists, and NGO workers are a natural outgrowth of the restrictions that prevent a large percentage of the worldwide Palestinian population from returning to their own country and/or moving about freely within it. They are a component of the elaborate matrix of borders, walls, checkpoints, permits, soldiers and secret police by which the Israeli government exerts a choke-hold on free movement and political activity throughout occupied Palestine. They are part and parcel of the occupation machinery that seeks to isolate the Occupied Territories and make life there unbearable so that Palestinians will leave, and that frequently forces them out whether they want to go or not. And like all other parts of the apartheid system, they deserve to be challenged.

Some fellow activists have raised the possibility that this action will result in nothing more than hundreds of us being summarily deported, and possibly banned from entering Palestine in the future. It is entirely possible that this will happen, and anyone participating in this action should be aware of the risk. It seems to me a very small risk to take in comparison to the crushing violence Palestinians have stood up to for over 60 years. While this action is not for everyone, I believe the time is right for those in a position to expose and nonviolently resist Israel’s repressive entry policies to do so on a mass scale.

Just as no one thinks one flotilla (or two or three) is going to bring the siege of Gaza to an end, no one believes this one day of action will immediately alter the state of affairs at Ben Gurion Airport and the rest of Israel’s borders. In the short term, it is possible that it may even make airport personnel more suspicious and aggressive. That is how oppressors respond to acts of resistance. They often become more aggressive before they are defeated, because they rightly sense that the momentum is on the side of justice.

July 8, and the week of solidarity it opens, is one step in the long process of taking down the apartheid system. The Arab revolutions, the growing BDS movement, and Israel’s own increasingly hysterical reactions to nonviolent protest have radically accelerated the timeline of that process from what many of us believed possible only a few years ago. Israeli apartheid’s days are numbered, and now is the moment to challenge it on every front.

Laura Durkay is a member of Siegebusters Working Group and the International Socialist Organization in New York City. You can follow updates from the week of solidarity on her personal blog, Laura on the Left, and on Twitter at @lauradurkay.

Individuals interested in participating in the July 8-16 week of solidarity should email info@palestinejn.org or visit http://www.palestinejn.org/

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From: Olivia Zémor
To: akisch@bezeqint.net
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 7:01 PM
Subject: 8 July mission

Dear Annelien

The `Bienvenue Palestine mission` is going to arrive in Tel Aviv next July 8 with more than 500 men, women and children having bought their tickets and flying from various countries to arrive at the same time in order to get to East jerusalem and the Westbank.
Much has been said about the Gaza Flotilla, and we hope it will succeed. But the situation is no less serious on this side of Palestine. It`s even worse in terms of dispossesion (stealing Palestinian lands, expelling Palestinians from East Jerusalem, razing Palestinian villages in the Neguev...

And while all the attention is concentrated on the Gaza strip, Israel is accelerating its ethnic cleansing on the other side and the world is silent.

So we are answering this call from 15 Palestinian associations (see below) and I am at your disposal to answer any of your questions about this historical initiative because we`ll refuse to hide and lie, we`ll refuse arbitrary individual interrogatories at the airport (the website for the mission is http://www.BienvenuePalestine.com

We would be very grateful to you and your group of `disobedient` women to help us in circulating this information, in asking those who can to come and welcome us at the airport on July 8th.

Best wishes and many thanks again for your attention. Please tell me if you received the message.
Olivia
00 33 9 79 33 54 52 (landline). Skype : oliviazemor

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On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 6:05 PM,
Roni Hammermann wrote:

Dear friends,

We hope that many of the 8th of July mission visitors will make it to the West Bank! As a contribution of our Machsomwatch team to this international activity, Tamar Fleishman and me, Roni Hammermann, will be at the Qalandiya Checkpoint on Sunday afternoon, July 10th, receive visitors who will be in the surroundings of Ramallah, guide them through the checkpoint and explain them (in English and in German) how the Israeli Army controls the Palestinian population by restricting their freedom of movement. Whoever is interested to know more and to participate in this activity is invited to write me an email roniham@gmail.com, or to call me by phone: +972 2 5661601, or +972 544 561601. We hope to meet many activists and wish you a safe and successful journey to Ben Gurion Airport. We will be at the Qalandiya checkpoint on Sunday, July 10, from 15:30 and wait for you.

Tamar Fleishman and Roni Hammermann


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See also





Links to the latest articles in this section

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Back home on the Gaza Border - and the terrible war still goes on