East End Report: 01/04/2009

Letter from Luisa Morgantini - V.P. Euro Parliament

forwarded by jewishvoiceforpeace.org

LETTER

TO ITALIAN POLITICIANS and not only to them

from

Luisa Morgantini
Vice President of the European Parliament

Rome , 3rd January 2009

Not a word, not a thought, not a sign of grief for the hundreds of people killed, women, children, the elderly and Hamas militants,also them persons. Homes, entire buildings, ministries, schools, pharmacies, and police stations gutted. Where has our humanity gone? Where are the Veltronis, with their "I care"? How can you be silent about or defend the Israeli policy of aggression?

The people of Gaza and the West Bank, all Palestinians, pay the price of the failure of the international community to oblige Israel to respect international law, and to halt its politics of colonialism.

Certainly, by launching rockets, Hamas generates fear and is a threat against the Israeli civilian population, unlawful actions that are to be condemned. They must by stopped.

But enough with the impunity of Israel and the blackmailing by its leaders.

Since 1967, Israel has militarily occupied the Palestinian territories; a brutal and colonial occupation. The theft of land; the demolition of houses; checkpoints where Palestinians are treated with contempt, beaten, humiliated; colonies that grow alarmingly, taking over land and water resources, destroying crops. Thousands of political prisoners, who are even denied visits by family members.

But you political leaders, have you ever seen the desperation of a Palestinian farmer who embraces his olive tree while a bulldozer uproots it and while soldiers beat him with their rifles to force him to let it go? Or a woman giving birth behind a rock, whose husband cuts the baby's umbilical cord with a stone because Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint do not allow them to cross to reach the hospital? Or Um Kamel, evicted from her home bought through sacrifice because Jewish fanatics not Holocaust survivors but from Brooklyn - thinking that this land and therefore this house is their divine right, entered her house by force and occupied it because they want to build another Jewish colony in this Arab quarter of Jerusalem?

Have you ever seen the children of the villages surrounding Tuwani in the south of Hebron who, in order to go to school, must walk for more than an hour and a half because a settlement lies along the direct road from their villages to the school, and whose inhabitants beat and assault the children? Or the shepherds of Tuwani who find their water tanks or their sheep poisoned by fanatical settlers? Or the city of Hebron, reduced to a ghost town because 400 settlers live in the old city defended by several thousand soldiers, having chased out thousands of Palestinians, forcing them to close more than 870 shops?

Have you seen the wall that cuts through streets and neighborhoods; that steals land from villages; that separates Palestinians from Palestinians; that annexes fertile land and water resources to Israel; a wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice? Have you seen the cancer patients waiting at the Eretz crossing, turned back for 'security reasons'? In the last 19 months, 283 people have died from a lack of medical care that they should have received at hospitals abroad, but who were not allowed to pass despite receiving guarantees from Israeli doctors from the group 'Physicians for Human Rights.' Have you felt the cold of the icy Gazan nights that penetrates the bones, because there is no heating and no light? Or premature babies born at the Shifa Hospital, whose little bodies want to live but who will die after just thirty minutes without electricity?

Have you seen the fear and terror in the eyes of children, their bodies torn apart? Certainly, the fear of the children of Sderot is no different, and rockets can also kill, but at least they have somewhere to take shelter, and fortunately, they have never seen buildings gutted, dozens of dead bodies around them, or airplanes that carpet-bomb them. One death is enough to say no, but proportionality also counts, and since 2002, 20 people have been killed in rocket attacks by Palestinian extremists. Too many, but at the same time, thousands and thousands of homes have been destroyed in Gaza, and more than 3,000 Gazans have been killed, including hundreds of children who played no part in the firing of rockets.

After the demonstrations in Milan where Israeli flags were burned, you political leaders all expressed your outrage, you shouted out your condemnation. You have every right. I do not burn the flags of Israeli nor of other countries, and I think that Israel has a right to exist as a normal State, a state for its citizens, along the 1967 borders, much wider than those of the partition plan passed by the United Nations in 1947.

But I would have liked to hear your outrage and your humanity, and to hear you shouting for the pain of so many deaths and so much destruction, for such arrogance, for so much inhumanity, for so many violations of international and humanitarian law. I would have liked to hear you tell the Israeli government: cease your fire, end the siege on Gaza, stop the construction of settlements in the West Bank, end the military occupation, respect and implement the United Nations resolutions. This is the way to remove any room for fundamentalism and threats against Israel.

And listen to the thousands of Israelis in Tel Aviv, they are saying: we refuse to be enemies, stop the occupation, stop the massacre.

My God, what a terrible world we live in!

[English Translation by Kirsten Sutherland ]

INFO: Luisa Morgantini, 0039 348 39 21 465

OFFICE 0039 340 56 49 335 - 0032 22 84 7151;

luisa.morgantini@europarl.europa.eu ;

www.luisamorgantini.net

Week of January 8, 2009 - click here for updates

Letter from Luisa Morgantini - E.U. Parliament

Jewish Voice for Peace - Message of Jan 7

Letters to Rep. Tim Bishop

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Let’s be crystal clear. Israel’s massive attacks on Gaza today have one overarching goal: conflict management. How to end rocket attacks on Israel from a besieged and starving Gaza without ending the impetus for those attacks, 41 years of increasingly oppressive Israeli Occupation without a hint that a sovereign and viable Palestinian state will ever emerge.

Phyllis Bennis: The Gaza Crisis

Washington Post: Obama Silent on Gaza - Activists call for Change in Mideast Policy

WPKN "Between The Lines" Interview with Free Gaza Movement's Ramzi Kysia

US based Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) - Sending Medicines to Gaza Now

Message to Rep. Tim Bishop

You may send a message to Rep. Bishop via his web-site:

http://timbishop.house.gov
----------------------------------------------

Dear Representative Bishop:

We the undersigned members of the Committee for Peace in Israel/Palestine and others of your east end constituents are urging you to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Gaza and to work in Congress for a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the issues between Palestine and Israel.

We urge you also to call on the new Democratic administration to abandon the failed policy of unswerving support for Israel's actions - no matter what.

The locked-in people of Gaza are hostages in a war we US citizens are funding. This must stop!

please see
www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

Sincerely,

Silivia Tennenbaum - Co Chair
Henry Clifford - Co Chair
Arlene Coulter
Anthony Ernst
Helen Fitzgerald
Kathryn Levy
Sigrid Meinel
David Olesker
Michael O'Neill
Joseph Policano
Victor Teich
Marjorie J Wright

A similar message was sent by members of the board of the North Fork People of Conscience.

---------------------------------------------
Message 2:

Dear Tim:

The issue is Human Rights.

Last month you stood up for human rights when you issued a statement on the hate crimes in New York.
Thank you!

Now our government is funding the horrific crime against humanity taking place in Gaza, Occupied Palestine.

Please read about it from a member of one family who are victims of this on-going crime:

http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

Shalom, Salaam, Peace

Tony Ernst
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message 3:

Issue: Human Rights

Aljazeera video:
Gazans flee homes and seek refuge in UN schools - 05 Jan 09

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KDDEozxtX3I

Congress must speak out for humanity, a stop to the killing and negotiations for peace and justice.

The automatic assumption that the Israeli war on the people of Gaza is justified on the part of some Congressional leaders is outrageous.

This is a war crime.
It will only bring more bloodshed back to Israel and to us since we are paying for this massacre.

Anthony Ernst
Southampton

Jewish Voice for Peace Message Jan 7, 2009

There's a new U.S. Congress in town, which means it's time to pick up the phone and tell your representatives what you think the U.S. must urgently do to stop the bloodshed.

What must be done?

1) The U.S. should support an immediate ceasefire.

Nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded and hundreds of rockets have landed in Israel, killing 9; the war will continue unabated and more innocent civilians will die without an immediate ceasefire.

2) The U.S. should support an immediate end to the blockade on Gaza.
Gazans are suffering from a lack of electricity, food, water, mobility and a collapsed medical system. Israel and Egypt must allow for the entry of food and supplies, the evacuation of the wounded, and the time, expertise and resources needed to repair Gaza's destroyed infrastructure.

What can you do?

If you are in the U.S., call your Congressperson today with that message. (If you live outside of the United States, call your closest U.S. Embassy.) If you are Jewish, tell them so; tell them that you are a part of the growing numbers of Jewish people who believe that Israelis and Palestinians must have their human rights protected, and that Israel's security cannot be established at the expense of Palestinian liberty. For the sake of Israelis and Palestinians, for the sake of Jewish people worldwide, and for the sake of all humans, we stand up as Jews for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Know that many groups are now pushing Congress to pass a resolution in strong support of Israel's war machine and laying the blame for the conflict entirely on Hamas. Tell your Congressperson: Gazans have been under siege by Israel for two years, and under occupation for 40. Israel's military might won't solve this conflict. It won't bring security or quiet to the many Israeli communities that have lived under threat of rocket fire for several years. It won't make Palestinians more "moderate." What is needed now is an immediate ceasefire to stop the bloodshed, followed by negotiations for a longer term resolution.

Thanks to our friends at Just Foreign Policy, you can click here for your Congressperson's phone number.

p.s. While you're on the phone, call the Obama-Biden transition office with the same message. Their number is 1-202-540-3000; press 2 to reach a person.

p.p.s. See the Huffington Post article by Robert Naiman at Just Foreign Policy for more information.

You can help send medicines to Gaza

US based Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) - Sending Medicines to Gaza Now - click here for details

12-31-08: Barbara Lubin of MECA is now on her way to Egypt to meet with the organizations Gaza Director Dr. Mona El-Farra in Egypt to receive five tons of medicine for infants and children that MECA purchased and had shipped from Holland. They plan to also purchase emergency supplies from a Palestinian pharmaceutical company in Cairo to help treat the thousands who have been wounded in the horrific Israeli attacks.

MECA's Blog - more info from Gaza and West Bank

East End Report

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Letter from Luisa Morgantini - V.P. Euro Parliament

Week of January 8, 2009 - click here for updates

Message to Rep. Tim Bishop

Jewish Voice for Peace Message Jan 7, 2009

You can help send medicines to Gaza

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