Philip Weiss and other Americans have been required to “waive consular rights” before they might be allowed entry to Gaza from Egypt. At the time of this post, it’s not certain his group and others will finally get permission. Weiss writes:

I’m fearful of the emotional consequences of going. Before I left Jack Ross told me that he wouldn’t go because he fears it would radicalize him, and I understand that.

If allowed to shuffle into Gaza, perhaps the experience will finally cause Mr. Weiss to lose his jaw-dropping, irritating propensity to feel sorrier for his privileged self than he does for the victims of Zionism and its cohorts.

CODEPINK organised two new delegations to Gaza, one entering from Egypt (28 May – 5 June), and the other from Israel (5-14 June).

From CodePink4Peace:

Both will deliver toys, school supplies and materials to build three playgrounds. Due to the Israeli siege, items such as toys, paper and construction materials are almost non-existent in Gaza.

CODEPINK’s FACT SHEET opens with this sentence:
The children of Gaza will decide its future – and the region’s

The malnourished, traumatised, tortured and imprisoned children of Gaza will decide its future and the region’s? Give them toys so they won’t hate the people who torture and murder their family members? In what context of reality does this make sense? In the alternate universe where propagandists are promoted non-stop by corporate and public media, given free reign to spew such nonsense without the competent challenge it deserves?

International Solidarity Movement
22 May 2009

Residents of Ni’lin gathered in the olive groves near the village to hold the weekly prayer before the start of the demonstration at 12:30. Several speeches were made to commemorate the 1 year anniversary since Ni’lin’s resistance against the Apartheid Wall began. Israeli soldiers positioned themselves around the people praying. Several soldiers occupied a nearby under-construction house.

As soon as the prayer ended, soldiers began to throw and fire tear-gas canisters. Residents, along with international and Israeli solidarity activists, ran away from the tear-gas on to the main road. Several young men responded to the military violence by throwing stones.

[Read the report]

uprisingradio.org 22 May 2009
Listen to the entire program

Following his meeting earlier this week with President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted in statements made yesterday that Jerusalem will remain undivided. His assertion on the contentious issue central to the prospect for peace between Israel and Palestine follows reports that Netanyahu was unflinching during his talks with Obama in his disregard for a two-state solution. Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft also bombed locations in the Gaza strip…

[Read More]

Postcard from Ramallah
By Tim McGirk, Time.com, 1 June 2009

Nijim stencils part of a 1.6-mile-long message near Ramallah. Jim Hollander / EPA

Israelis normally react furiously when comparisons are drawn between their treatment of Palestinians and the behavior of South Africa’s racist regime. But this time, does it matter? The writing is on the Palestinian side, and the only Israelis who see it are soldiers patrolling in humvees. And as Van Oel points out, the Israelis aren’t the only ones the messages are aimed at. “A Palestinian taxi driver once told me that he likes the writing on the wall, even though he can’t read it,” he says. “He’s reassured that Palestinians haven’t been forgotten by the outside world.”

2625 meters – painted where it won’t be a bother to Israelis?

It may not be for 7 tin hut dwellers – if they’ve left the area – but for those upgraded to trailers?* One can only hope.

Israel dismantles West Bank settlement outpost
Agence France Presse 21 May 2009

KOKHAV HASHAHAR, West Bank (AFP) – Israeli police said they razed a tiny Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank on Thursday in what media called a gesture to US President Barack Obama after his talks with Israel’s prime minister.

“We dismantled seven tin huts,” said police spokesman Danny Peleg, specifying that the outpost had been built without government authorisation.

Open Letter

Farid Esack, 2009

Excerpt:
White South Africa did of course seek to control Blacks. However it never tried to deny Black people their very existences or to wish them away completely as we see here. We have not experienced military occupation without any rights for the occupied. We were spared the barbaric and diverse forms of collective punishment in the forms of house demolitions, the destruction of orchards belonging to relatives of suspected freedom fighters, or the physical transfer of these relatives themselves. South Africa’s apartheid courts never legitimized torture. White South Africans were never given a carte blanche to humiliate Black South Africans as the Settlers here seem to have. The craziest Apartheid zealots would never have dreamt of something as macabre as this Wall. The Apartheid police never used kids as shields in any of their operations. Nor did the apartheid army ever use gunships and bombs against largely civilian targets. In South Africa the Whites were a stable community and after centuries simply had to come to terms with Black people. (Even if it were only because of their economic dependence on Black people.) The Zionist idea of Israel as the place for the ingathering for all the Jews – old and new, converts, reverts and reborn is a deeply problematic one. In such a case there is no sense of compulsion to reach out to your neighbour. The idea seems to be to get rid of the old neighbours – ethnic cleansing – and to bring in new ones all the time.

[Read the letter]

*edited to include this link

France criticizes Netanyahu for declaring Jerusalem Israel’s undivided capital
Katherine Orwell, International Middle East Media Center, 23 May 23 2009

France accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of prejudicing the outcome of the Middle East peace process by declaring that Occupied Jerusalem would forever be Israel’s undivided capital.

[Read the report]

Obama: Israel Must Retain Control of Jerusalem
16 April 2008 Philadelphia, PA