Fwd: Time for a worldwide Gaza Campaign

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From: Gush Shalom [mailto:otherisr at actcom.co.il]
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 6:10 AM
To: info at gush-shalom.org
Subject: When the IDF shoots to kill at unarmed women - time for a worldwide
Gaza Campaign



Urgent appeal to make the month-long campaign a worldwide one

Today two Palestinian women, taking part in a non-violent human shield
action in Beit Hanoun were shot dead and numerous others wounded. They tried
- and partly succeeded - to save the fighters who had sought refuge inside a
mosque. The women spontaneously formed a human wall when it became clear
that the IDF intended to destroy the mosque with the men in it. Since we
told you of our preparations for tomorrow Nov. 4 "putting Gaza on the agenda
of the Rabin Memorial Rally" things only got worse. It is extremely
important that our campaign will be taken up also abroad. Hereafter you find
some background and the request to help make December 2 the campaign pique -
with suggestions how you can relate to it from wherever you are.

(Reminder to Israeli activists: we meet tomorrow Nov. 4 at the Rabin Square,
Frishman corner, at 7pm )



Gaza

Stop the Siege! Stop the War!

A month of protest: November 4 - December 2, 2006



The situation in Gaza has reached emergency levels - inadequate water,
electricity, and medicine; widespread hunger, poverty, and unemployment;
schools and other services out of operation; and constant bombardments and
attacks by the Israeli military. The problem is the siege of the Gaza Strip
by Israel and the sanctions imposed by the international community, made
worse by ongoing IDF attacks. If this siege continues, we will see
spreading disease, malnutrition, and anarchy.



Join Our International Campaign



The community of peace organizations in Israel has joined together in a
coordinated, major campaign to end the siege of Gaza and call upon Israel to
embark upon negotiations with the Palestinian legitimate representative.
Israel and the international community must respect the political choice of
the Palestinian people.







Gaza: Stop the Siege - Stop the War!



Throughout November: Vigils, teach-ins, petitions, flyers, posters

December 2: Demonstrations around the world



Please join us in this humanitarian and political effort: Use the month
until the big demonstration on December 2 to raise awareness in your
community. Send letters, faxes, and petitions to your elected
representatives. Hold vigils and teach-ins.



Let us know your plans so we can empower each other with our numbers and
advertise on our websites.

Write your plans to Debby Lerman at debbyl at actcom.co.il

Activities planned for Israel

Perhaps some of these will give you ideas for your own activity:

Printed material - informational flyers, a poster, an ad, and stickers.

Local events - "teach-ins" that bring films, witnesses, journalists, Gazans,
etc.

Small vigils/demonstrations - In front of the Prime Minister's office, the
EU, the foreign embassies, the offices of selected Knesset Members. At the
Rabin Rally on November 4, activists will distribute printed materials and
hold a human chain.

A special Knesset conference will be held to which strategic members of
Knesset will be invited. They will hear reports from Gaza - Palestinians,
human rights organizations, and journalists.

Media - We will write articles, letters to the editor, blogs, talk-backs -
for newspapers, TV, radio, and internet.

Car cavalcade to the Gaza border.

Mass rally on December 2 in Tel Aviv and all over the world to include phone
hookups with Gazans and, if possible, solidarity events held
internationally.

International campaign:

Actions to raise awareness and bring pressure on the US and European
governments - appeals to decision-makers and civil society in the EU and the
US to demand that their governments overturn the embargo.

December 2 - demonstrations all over the world.



Organizers of the Campaign

This campaign was initiated by the Coalition of Women for Peace with its 9
member organizations in Israel, including MachsomWatch, Bat Shalom and New
Profile. Other active organizers: Anarchists Against the Wall, Gush
Shalom, Hadash, High School Seniors draft refusers, Rabbis for Human Rights,
University Student Coalition, and Yesh Gvul.



For more information and your updates: Debby Lerman at
<mailto:debbyl at actcom.co.il> debbyl at actcom.co.il or +972-52) 457-0704





Background Material:



The Economy of Gaza



.According to the World Bank, Palestinians are currently experiencing the
worst economic depression in modern history. The opprobrious imposition of
international sanctions has had a devastating impact on an already severely
comprised economy given its extreme dependence on external sources of
finance. For example, the Palestinian Authority is highly dependent on two
sources of income. The first is annual aid package from Western donors of
about $1 billion per year (in 2005, according to the World Bank, donors gave
$1.3 billion in humanitarian and emergency [$500m/38%], developmental
[$450m/35%] and budgetary [$350m/27%]) assistance, much of it now suspended.
The second is a monthly transfer by Israel of $55 million in customs and tax
revenues that it collects for the PA, a source of revenue that is absolutely
critical to the Palestinian budget and totally suspended. In fact, Israel is
now withholding close to half a billion dollars in Palestinian revenue that
is desperately needed in Gaza.



The combined impact of restrictions, notably the almost unabated closure and
the ongoing economic boycott, has resulted in unprecedented levels of
unemployment that currently approach 40 percent in Gaza (compared to less
than 12 percent in 1999). In fact, Palestinian workers from Gaza have not
been allowed into Israel since 12 March 2006, Gaza's primary market and all
entry and exit points have been virtually sealed since June 25, 2006 when
Israel's current military campaign in Gaza began. In the next five years,
furthermore, 135,000 new jobs will be needed just to keep unemployment at 10
percent. Trade levels have been similarly affected. By early May 2006, for
example, the Karni crossing, through which commercial supplies enter Gaza,
had been closed for 47 percent of the year with estimated daily losses of
$500,000-$600,000. Compounding this are agricultural losses amounting to an
estimated $1.2 billion for both Gaza and the West Bank over the last six
years.



By April 2006, 79 percent of Gazan households were living in poverty
(compared to less than 30 percent in 2000), a figure that has likely
increased; many are hungry.



Sara Roy, The Palestine Center

October 12, 2006





Not an Internal Palestinian Matter



.These are the steps in the experiment: Imprison (since 1991); remove the
prisoners' usual means of livelihood; seal off all outlets to the outside
world, nearly hermetically; destroy existing means of livelihood by
preventing the entry of raw materials and the marketing of goods and
produce; prevent the regular entry of medicines and hospital supplies; do
not bring in fresh food for weeks on end; prevent, for years, the entry of
relatives, professionals, friends and others, and allow thousands of people
- the sick, heads of families, professionals, children - to be stuck for
weeks at the locked gates of the Gaza Strip's only entry/exit.



Steal hundreds of millions of dollars (customs and tax revenues collected by
Israel that belong to the Palestinian treasury), so as to force the
nonpayment of the already low salaries of most government employees for
months; present the firing of homemade Qassam rockets as a strategic threat
that can only be stopped by harming women, children and the old; fire on
crowded residential neighborhoods from the air and the ground; destroy
orchards, groves and fields.

Dispatch planes to frighten the population with sonic booms; destroy the new
power plant and force the residents of the closed-off Strip to live without
electricity for most of the day for a period of four months, which will most
likely turn into a full year - in other words, a year without refrigeration,
electric fans, television, lights to study and read by; force them to get by
without a regular supply of water, which is dependent on the electricity
supply.



It is the good old Israeli experiment called "put them into a pressure
cooker and see what happens," and this is one of the reasons why this is not
an internal Palestinian matter.



Amira Hass, Ha'aretz

October 4, 2006





Israel's scandalous siege of Gaza



Israel has killed 2,300 Gazans over the past six years, including 300 in the
four months since an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was captured in
a cross-border raid by Palestinian fighters on June 25. The wounded can be
counted in the tens of thousands. Most of the casualties are civilians, many
of them children.



The killing continues on a daily basis - by tank and sniper fire, by air and
sea bombardment, and by undercover teams in civilian clothes sent into Arab
territory to ambush and murder, an Israeli specialty perfected over the past
several decades.



How long will the "international community" allow the slaughter to continue?
The cruel repression of the occupied territories, and of Gaza in particular,
is one of the most scandalous in the world today. It is the blackest stain
on Israel's patchy record as a would-be democratic state.



Patrick Seale International Herald Tribune

October 27, 2006



The siege is sowing anarchy and death in Gaza.

It is a man-made disaster that we must bring to an end.





For more information and your updates: Debby Lerman at
<mailto:debbyl at actcom.co.il> debbyl at actcom.co.il or +972-52) 457-0704











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