On this day - April 27 - in Palestinian history

April 27, 1948: Zionist forces attacked the villages Yaffa, occupying Salameh, Yazur and others, expelling about 5,000 Palestinians as part of Al Nakba

April 27, 1948: Zionist forces invaded and captured the suburbs of Al Quds (Jerusalem) taking the quarters of Katamon, the German Colony, and the upper Bakaa; expelling about 30,000 Palestinians as part of Al Nakba

April 27, 1996: The Lebanese cease fire goes into effect.

April 27, 2000: At the PFLP Congress in Damascus, George Habash – the Christian Palestinian founder of the PFLP – announces his retirement from the organization. Abu Ali Mustafa is expected to replace him as leader of the Popular Front.

April 27, 2001: The IDF opens fire on Palestinians near the northern entrance of El Bira City after Friday Noon prayers, wounding dozens. Al Quds (Jerusalem) was closed by the military to prevent Palestinians from praying at Al Aqsa Mosque. In Gaza, near Rafah and also at El Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza, IDF bulldozers continued to the razing of Palestinian agricultural land in order to promote starvation. At Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, Ismail Abu Romia, 40, was shot six times by IDF forces based inside the Kosofim settlement and then abducted by them, taken to an unknown location. Settlers attack Palestinian property in Haris. A roadside bomb explodes near a settlement in gaza, injuring one IDF soldier and one settler.

April 27, 2002: The IDF opened artillery fire on the Christian Palestinian town of Bethlehem, attacking Dahaisha and Khadder as well as destroying stores and restaurants near the Church of the Nativity. At the same time, IDF forces attacked a number of peaceful Palestinian villages west of Occupied Al Khalil (Hebron). The IDF opened fire on a completely peaceful demonstration protesting the Israeli siege of President Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, wounding eight. Northwest of Ramallah, the IDF opened fire on the El Nabi Saleh primary school, terrifying the Palestinian children under fire. In Gaza, the IDF opened random fire on Palestinians in Rafah, wounding at least three. In the process of the random massacre of Palestinians in Rafah, Mohammed S. al-Debbis, 19, was murdered by IDF terrorists. In Jericho, Billal A Khadder, 27, was abducted by IDF terror forces and taken to an unknown location. Two Hamas gunmen, dressed in IDF uniforms, raid Adora settlement, killing five settlers and wounding another seven.

April 27, 2003: The IDF attacked the village of Kufur Ne’ma, west of Ramallah, abducting Fadi R. Za’roor, 17, and Mohammed Za’roor, 16. In Gaza, the IDF raided the al-Sattar al-Gharbi area, northwest of Khan Younis, abducting two brothers: Osama al-Jallad, 23, and Mohammad al-Jallad, 24. The martyr Khaled M. Jaro’, 23, already murdered by occupation forces was laid to rest at Rafah. A gang of 20 armed settlers, accompanied by the Tourism Minister, Benny Elon, attack two Palestinian homes in East Al Quds (Jerusalem), seriously injuring four Palestinians. The Israeli police intervene to stop the settler assault on the Palestinians but do not bother to arrest the attacking settlers because they are doing nothing more than participating in the Israeli national pastime – beating defenseless Palestinians.

April 27, 2004: The IDF murdered Islam Hashen Razaq Zahran, aged 13, of Deir abu-Mashal, near Ramallah. Youg Islam died of head wounds sustained April 18 from an IDF “rubber-coated” bullet while throwing stones at an observation tower section of the Apartheid Wall. This was part of Israel’s deliberate and systematic campaign to exterminate Palestinian children. Otherwise the IDF attacked the al-Sudanya area northwest of Gaza City as well as Al-Buraij refugee camp. In an attack on Tulkarem refugee camp (northern W. Bank), Israeli forces wounded 15, including one critically (Imad R. al-Dameeri, 17). The martyr Mossa I. al-Mqayad, 14, previously murdered by Israeli forces was laid to rest in Jabalya refugee camp. The IDF attacked Thabet Thabet Hospital, abducting Mohammed M. Mqaitash, 19. Unidentified Palestinians raid a Hamas hideout trying to steal explosives, resulting in a gunfight that leaves two attackers and one Hamas fighter dead in Gaza.In the Gush Katif settlement in gaza, some 70,000 illegal settlers and their allies demonstrate against Sharon’s “disengagement” scheme.

April 27, 2005: The IDF conducts abduction raids in Askar and Balata refugee camps and fires on residential areas near Rafah. Some 40,000 Israeli settlers and allies protest in Neve Dekalim settlement against the “disengagement” scheme. Palestinians fire 2 rockets and three mortars at the Neve Dekalim demonstration lightly injuring two IDF soldiers. Settlers from Karnei Shomron settlement uproot some 300 Palestinian olive trees near the settlement with full sanction of the Israeli government.

April 27, 2006: The IDF attempted an extrajudicial assassination of Palestinians allegedly connected to the “Islamic Jihad” organization killing Wa’el Ibrahim Mutair al-Qara’an, 27 and Ahmad Abu Nijim and wounding four others. The IDF also reinvades Nablus and Askar refugee camp and Jenin.

Emigration from Israel exceeds immigration, report

Emigration from Israel exceeds immigration, report
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), 04/20/2007


Tel Aviv (dpa) - In Israel, the number of emigrants exceeded the number of immigrants for the first time in 20 years, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Friday. Many emigrants were recent arrivals who wanted to leave Israel again, the report said. In 2007, 14,400 immigrants are expected in Israel while 20,000 people are expected to leave the country, according to the report based on figures for the first months of 2007. The last time emigration exceeded immigration was in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and in 1983 and 1984 when inflation was high.

Meanwhile the Maariv newspaper reported that approximately a quarter of the Israeli population was considering emigration. Almost half of the country's young people were thinking of leaving the country, the report said. Their reasons included dissatisfaction with the government, the education system, a lack of confidence in the political ruling class and concern over the security situation.

40 Years of Occupation: A Global Action Call

June 2007 marks the 40-year anniversary of Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights.

The ICNP (International Coordination Network on Palestine) has launched during last year's annual UN civil society conference on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people a global Call for Action Days on June 9-10, 2007, under the banner, "The World Says No to Israeli Occupation." The call demands an end to occupation and the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination, the right to return and the right to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.

Please, join the hundreds organizations, networks and groups worldwide that are mobilizing for June 9/10 and let us know about your actions. (See below.)

"We are building nonviolent global campaigns of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions, and we will work on a wide range of educational and cultural campaigns, all culminating in the Global Days of Action. We will insist that governments all over the globe stop providing military, economic, diplomatic and corporate support for Israel's illegal occupation, and instead create new foreign policies that will support an end to occupation, equal rights for all, and a comprehensive, just and lasting peace."

If you have prepared any activist and info material (posters, stickers, leaflets etc.) that want to share with others so that they can adjust them to their local circumstances, please send them to ICNPcall@gmail.com. We will prepare a selection of material that we will publish and disseminate.

Please circulate this mail as widely as possible.
Thank you for your support to Justice in Palestine!

Maren Karlitzky
(Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign - outreach)
http://www.stopthewall.org/

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Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott (PACBI)
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April 22, 2007
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PACBI Press Release
Statement on Visits of International Delegations and Individuals to the OPT and Israel
PACBI | April 15, 2007

At a time when the international movement to isolate Israel is gaining ground in response to the escalation of Israel's colonial and racist policies, we respectfully urge conscientious academics, artists and intellectuals from around the world, including those who visit the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), to refrain from visiting Israel to participate in any event or encounter that is not explicitly dedicated to ending Israel's illegal occupation and other forms of oppression. Regardless of intentions, such visits only contribute to the prolongation of injustice by normalizing and thereby legitimizing it, and inadvertently support Israel's efforts to appear as a "normal" participant in the "civilized" world of science, scholarship and art while at the same time practicing a pernicious form of apartheid against Palestinians.

Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
130 UK Physicians Call for a Boycott of the Israeli Medical Association and its expulsion from the World Medical Association | Guardian | April 21, 2007

In a letter appearing in the Guardian on April 21, 2007, prominent UK physicians have called for a boycott of the IMA and its expulsion from the WMA. The letter follows:

Norwegian Socialist Left Party renews support for BDS
| Socialist Left Party | The Socialist Left Party (SV), one of three parties in the Norwegian Government, has renewed its support for sanctions against Israel. The Party's Congress adopted 25th of March unanimously a resolution named "Sanctions against the Occupier - not the occupied."

NUJ votes to boycott Israeli goods
Stephen Brook | The Guardian | April 13, 2007
The National Union of Journalists has voted at its annual meeting for a boycott of Israeli goods as part of a protest against last year's war in Lebanon.

Jews for Boycotting Israel: A New Initiative
Ruth Tenne | The Palestine Chronicle | April 2, 2007
The latest report of the International Development Select Committee regarding the Occupied Palestinian Territories (31 January 2007) makes for very distressing reading. In its section on trade, it refers to the ongoing restrictions in movements and access faced by the OPT, citing an OXFAM report which points out "that transaction costs for Palestinians wishing to export products are up to 70% higher than for Israelis exporting the same product. This market benefit is also true of products produced by Israeli settlers in the West Bank who can get direct access to markets in or through Israel without the disruptive road blocks and back-to-back transfers faced by the Palestinians.

Cultural Boycott
Letter from PACBI to the Irish Academy of Artists (Aosdana)
PACBI | April 22, 2007
To the Members of Aosdána,
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott (PACBI) would like to thank Aosdána and its members for their adoption of a recent motion ...

June 10 Protest Is Coming—We Need Your Help Today!

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
June 10 Protest Is Coming—We Need Your Help Today!

Imagine thousands of people massing at our nation's Capitol demanding an end to US support for Israel's illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands.

Imagine thousands of people marching to the White House calling for a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

Imagine hundreds of people converging on Capitol Hill to meet with their Members of Congress to demand a change in our government's policy.

Imagine millions of people being educated about the harsh realities of life for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation through billboard campaigns and posters.

These are some of the things that will happen between now and June 10 when the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and United for Peace and Justice organize a two-day mobilization in Washington, DC to protest 40 years of Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

But we can't do all of this without your support. We have the opportunity to put together the largest demonstration ever in the history of the United States in support of Palestinian human rights and a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Please help to make this a reality by making the most generous tax-deductible contribution you can today by clicking here:

Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we're a little more than 2/3 of the way toward our goal of raising $25,000 by the end of April to support this mobilization. Please help us reach our goal today by making the most generous tax-deductible contribution you can today by clicking here:

Here are some examples of how your donation will help us:

• Your donation of $25 lets us print more than 800 full-color postcards. We've distributed more than 75,000 postcards around the country so far!
• Your donation of $50 lets us send 10 organizing packets to our hundreds of endorsing organizations and volunteer organizers around the country
• Your donation of $100 lets us print more than 800 full-color 11X17 mobilizing posters
• Your donation of $500 lets us print 25 gigantic ads for the Washington, DC metro system

For a limited time, everyone who donates $25 or more will receive a free set of six anti-apartheid posters. These full-color, glossy, 18X24 inch posters are union-made and suitable to frame. Click here to view the poster set

Please make your generous tax-deductible donation today!

For more information about the mobilization, including the schedule of events and logistical information, downloadable organizing resources, a list of endorsing organizations, and much, much more, click here.

Thank you in advance for making your generous tax-deductible contribution today by clicking here

Please note that we can also take tax-deductible contributions by credit card over the phone. Our phone number is 202-332-0994. We can also accept tax-deductible contributions by check made out to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, PO Box 21539, Washington, DC 20009.

We'll see you in Washington, DC on June 10-11!

CNI Foundation Ads in the New York Times

The sixth of six full-page New York Times advertisements published by the Council for the National Interest Foundation in the last year will run opposite the editorial page in this Sunday's, April 22nd, "Week in Review" section of the Times.

You can also view the ad as a PDF or JPG file on our new CNI Foundation website by clicking either of the following links:

* Speaker Pelosi: After Damascus... Tehran? (PDF) 824 Kb
* Speaker Pelosi: After Damascus... Tehran? (JPG) 956 Kb

You can see all six of the full-page ads published in the New York Times over the last year on our new website by clicking on the following link:

* CNI Foundation Newspaper Ads

Speaker Pelosi: After Damascus... Tehran?

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE NANCY PELOSI should be applauded for taking a bipartisan group of Congressmen to Damascus to talk with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Her visit, which was sharply criticized by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, was clearly in the national interest.

Taking a tip from the Iraq Study Group Report, Speaker Pelosi acted responsibly to encourage change in the U.S. foreign policy dynamic in the Middle East. For the last six years, the region has reeled under the impact of war and counterinsurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and more recently Lebanon. Talking to the head of state of Syria marks a promising beginning of greater realism, less ideology in the conduct of foreign policy.

Opening up a congressional dialogue with the Iranians is the next logical step. Only by talking to all parties concerned can solutions be found to the difficult and complex issues in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

Continuing on to Riyadh, Speaker Pelosi gave important and needed recognition by the American people to King Abdullah's extraordinary effort to reopen the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process, so crudely ignored by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and President Bush. To try to end the callous suffering of the Palestinian people, the king successfully intervened earlier in the year to resolve the differences between Hamas and Fatah and to bring about a unity government. This should have allowed the resumption of foreign aid.

Bush: 'Forget it; I am NOT speaking to any Democrats!'

That has not happened. During her entire Middle East tour, Speaker Pelosi never once called for a clear start of negotiations for resolving the core issue confronting Middle East peace - the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the Iraq Study Group Report states, "The United States does its ally Israel no favors in avoiding direct involvement to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict." The Israelis continue to undermine prospects for peace by constructing the separation or Apartheid wall, expanding Jewish colonies in the West Bank, annexing Palestinian land around Jerusalem, and destroying Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.

Can we have any hope that the Speaker will now show as much courage on the Palestinian issue as she has shown in going to Damascus? But First Deal With Israeli Apartheid in Palestine!

PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER caused an uproar by daring to title his recent bestseller about Israeli policy in the occupied West Bank and Gaza "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." Before the book was even published, Speaker Pelosi joined other Democrats in condemning Carter's use of the word Apartheid, which he defined as the "forced separation of two peoples in the same territory with one of the groups dominating or controlling the other."

As former Israeli Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni argues, "The U.S. Jewish establishment's onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practices a brutal form of Apartheid in the occupied territories. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp."

On June 9th the world will mark the 40th anniversary of Israel's oppressive military occupation of Palestine - the longest occupation in modern history. Yet the U.S. government continues to fund, support and even encourage Israel's policy of colonization, Apartheid, and imprisonment of the Palestinians.

Olmert: 'Mirror, mirror on the Apartheid wall...'

Israel has turned Gaza and the West Bank into open-air prisons. Only Jewish people are allowed to live in Israeli settlements in the West Bank - housing that is highly subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer, at the rate of $500 million per year. Israel's intimidating wall, built on Palestinian land, separates Palestinians and their goods from Israelis, from the outside world, and, most perversely, from 100,000 other Palestinians living on the "wrong" side of the wall.

Among a population of 2.5 million Palestinians on the West Bank, Israel has strategically placed nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers, supported by a vast network of settler-only bypass roads and military checkpoints that crisscross the territory, making a two-state solution to the conflict impossible. It is a simple grab for land and water.

The military and political domination of Palestinian Muslims and Christians by Israel's Jewish population could not continue without U.S. support, including $3 billion in annual military aid from U.S. taxpayers. Meanwhile, U.S.-imposed sanctions on the Palestinians have led to skyrocketing unemployment in the occupied territories. More than two-thirds of Palestinians now live in poverty. Such senseless sanctions on an entire people are a violation by the U.S. and Israel of the Geneva Convention's prohibition on collective punishment.

Speaker Pelosi must make the step that the Bush Administration has so far been unwilling to take and insist that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be a central component of our foreign policy. That would be an honest step towards ending our quagmire in the Middle East.

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