Help launch a CANADIAN boat to Gaza!

[waraich66]

Talk and Fundraiser: Help launch a CANADIAN boat to Gaza!
Date:
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Time:
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location:
Steelworkers Hall
Street:
25 Cecil St.
City/Town:
Toronto, ON

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Description
GAZA FREEDOM FLOTILLAS...to end the siege!

Help launch a CANADIAN BOAT TO GAZA!


TALK & FUNDRAISER
---------------------------
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Doors open: 7:00 pm | Event starts: 7:30pm
Steelworkers Hall
25 Cecil Street

(Light refreshments served)

Suggested donation at the door: Adult $10 | Student/youth/senior $5
- or -
PWYC (pay what you can): No one will be turned away due to lack of funds


Download Flyers: http://bit.ly/b2X8n1


SHIR HEVER, economic researcher of the Alternative Information Center, will discuss the potential of flotillas to end the siege of Gaza. His research topics include international aid to Palestine and Israel, the effects of the occupation of Palestine on the Israeli economy, and the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

On May 31, early morning, Israeli commandos illegally boarded and seized six ships carrying over 600 humanitarian activists from over 35 countries, and 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. The raid left nine passengers dead, dozens more injured, and all passengers were kidnapped and detained in Israeli prisons for at least 36 hours before being deported.

Israel's military assault on the Freedom Flotilla once again exposes not only the dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, but also Israel's flagrant disregard for human rights and international law. As our countries and world leaders remain silent, citizens around the world are now re-energized and ready to launch more flotillas to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza and to directly challenge Israel's illegal siege and naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

A coalition of Canadian human rights activists is joining the next Gaza Freedom Flotilla by uniting our efforts and raising enough money to send at least one boat to Gaza!


Organized by:
Gaza Freedom March

Media Sponsor:
Rabble (rabble.ca)

Endorsed by:
Canadian Arab Federation (CAF)
Canadian Shia Muslims Organization (CASMO)
CodePink - Toronto
Educators for Peace and Justice
Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)
International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)
Islamic Society of York Region
Muslim Unity
People for Peace - London
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA)
Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
Toronto Forum on Cuba
Women In Solidarity With Palestine (WSP)

To endorse:
Talk and Fundraiser: Help launch a CANADIAN boat to Gaza!
[email protected]

For media contact:
[email protected]
Sandra Ruch, 416-716-4010

For more information or to endorse the Canadian Boat to Gaza:
Canada to Gaza

The Gaza Freedom March is a diverse coalition of individuals focused on human rights and international law which came together, following Israel's 22-day assault on Gaza in winter 2008-09, to mobilize an international contingent for a nonviolent march alongside the people of Gaza on Dec. 31, calling for an end to the illegal blockade.
Gaza Freedom March | [email protected]

 

[S_O_C_O_M]

R.I.P.....

 

[Solomon2]

Israel's military assault on the Freedom Flotilla once again exposes not only the dire humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, but also Israel's flagrant disregard for human rights and international law.

Welcome to the impoverished Gaza Strip Mall!

Medical equipment like wheelchairs can only come from ships who break the blockade.

Here is where you can see how the evil Zionists have stolen all our water.

We also need help from the West in getting basic clothing into Gaza.

Our children suffer the most. Here they are playing videogames that are over three years old.

Amenities that are taken for granted in the West, like 65 inch flat screen TVs, are exceedingly rare and must be shared by many of our impoverished citizens.

We are forced to squirt Zionist ketchup onto our French fries, showing that we are still under colonial occupation.

Our children are forced to suffer while their parents eat measly portions in the "Starving Food Court."

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[Ahmad]

solomon, it is easy to have some selected pictures. afghanistan despite the 30 years of brutal imposed war on its people might have the same pictures, but that doesnt mean we are living in paradise, perhaps you havent seen the dead children of gaza and demolished houses of west bank/jeruslem. by the way, i have never seen you criticizing israelis for even A SINGLE thing, are they angels or what?

 

[Solomon2]

that doesnt mean we are living in paradise

So Israel or Canada or the world is required to provide Gazans paradise? Or will breaking the partial siege of Gaza somehow provide you with seventy virgins?

dead children of gaza...demolished houses of west bank/jeruslem...afghanistan despite...criticizing israelis for even A SINGLE thing, are they angels or what?

The subject of this thread is the need to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza. Changing the topic serves what purpose, exactly?

 

[Ahmad]

So Israel or Canada or the world is required to provide Gazans paradise? Or will breaking the partial siege of Gaza somehow provide you with seventy virgins?
The subject of this thread is the need to provide humanitarian relief to Gaza. Changing the topic serves what purpose, exactly?

Nobody is asking the ISRAELIS to provide paradise to palestinians, we ask them not to punish palesine, dont take their land and dont kill them.

Yes, i know the subject of the thread and it was you who derailed it by posting those pictures in your first post, and secondly by mentioning virgins in your second post.

 

[Solomon2]

Nobody is asking the ISRAELIS to provide paradise to palestinians

Who were you asking, then? The Canadians?

we ask them not to punish palesine

The partial siege is targeted at non-controlled war-use materials and luxury goods consumed by Hamas' fat-cat leadership. Why should Hamas' leaders be able to shield themselves by claiming all of Gaza or Palestine is the target, rather than themselves?

 

[Ahmad]

The partial siege is targeted at non-controlled war-use materials and luxury goods consumed by Hamas' fat-cat leadership. Why should Hamas' leaders be able to shield themselves by claiming all of Gaza or Palestine is the target, rather than themselves?

Yes, off courese israel is innocent and victims, i feel sorry for them.

Who were you asking, then? The Canadians?

Nobody, the palestinians are not asking for paradise, they are asking for justice. by posting those pictures you gave the impression that gaza is a paradise.

 

[gambit]

Nobody, the palestinians are not asking for paradise, they are asking for justice. by posting those pictures you gave the impression that gaza is a paradise.

Hamas telling women in Gaza they can no longer smoke their water pipes certainly will not move Gaza towards that paradise.

 

[Solomon2]

Yes, off courese israel is innocent and victims, i feel sorry for them.

Today is the Ninth of Av, a day when Jews may reflect on the wrongs they have done to others - including wrongs to non-Jews - and the punishments meted out by G-d as a result. Phony accusations of crimes by Jews are not included.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

May be you should spend some time in some Palestinian cultural section and try to interact with Palestinins 1-1 and hear their personal stories

Aid ships are better then frigates

Perhaps you should help 1 Palestinains get approved for new home or perhaps help him get a job in Israel on full wages equal to Israeli

Or how about you drive in "Palestinaian colored" cars and try to get thru check points

Or do volunteer work in Palestine (Occupied)

Once you do that and I would love to hear your comments on how rosy life is in concentration camps in Israel

 

[Solomon2]

by posting those pictures you gave the impression that gaza is a paradise.

I'll try to correct that:

Gaza, attacco alla modernità

He asks the foreign peace activists, who promise to return on the next flotillas, for a mixer for his band. But this request conflicts with the laws of the ruling regime in Gaza, the same regime the peace activists are helping to fight the Israeli embargo. "Our old mixer was confiscated by the Hamas police", he explains. "We are victims of a repressive religious government who, due to a distorted reading of the Quran, prohibits free music. We don't like their green Allah." The speaker is Basher Bseiso, the popular front man of rap group Fariq Salam ("The Band of Peace").

Jamal Abu Al Qumsan, 43, runs an art gallery in the "despair strip", as he calls it. "I thank all the democracy advocates around the world who are fighting the Israeli embargo on Gaza, but can you please equally denounce the repression of Hamas against intellectual freedom?"

These testimonies are but two of many such anecdotes one encounters in the area. The latest examples are attacks on youth organizations on the 23rd and 28th of June, when masked Hamas activists torched students' summer camps set up by the UN on the beach. At the end of May, on the exact same day Israeli commandos raided the Marmara's deck, the Hamas police stopped the activities of five local NGOs. "They want to force us to close down the mixed-sex camps", accuses Mohammad Aruki, a "Sharek" activist. "They are trying to exterminate secular culture".

This is another chapter in the cultural war that's been going on here for some time. Religious extremists are trying to prevent girls and women from going to the beach or smoking in public, they forbid unmarried couples from hanging out together in private and they view Western music and fashion as a danger to the "public's morals." Any request for explanations on these issues receives the same answer: "Our civil authority has nothing to do with it. Please contact the police". But the police's answer is "no comment". Yussef Ahmed, Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Committee Against the Siege concludes: "Israel has all the power. Hamas is just trying to govern the strip."

The problem is that the witnesses, the victims themselves, are afraid to talk. The Hamas has become the sole ruler, a kind of father/master to its people. Punishment doesn't only mean imprisonment or torture, but also ostracism, job loss and social isolation. Bseiso depicts Hamas' latest attack on him with anger: "I was riding my motorcycle when suddenly a group of armed men from the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades clung to me, threw me to the ground and beat me with clubs. A few days earlier they broke into our studio and confiscated cameras and video cassettes. I'm working on an anti-Hamas song now." Ibrahim Ghonem, another of the band's members, remembers that under the PLO conditions were much better. "Back then there were at least five rap bands. Now we are told that we are agents of the American Satan, that we are corrupting the youth. The result is that whoever can, leaves. Members of other bands got offers to perform abroad and never returned."

Jamal Abu Al Qumsan wasn't so lucky. Until two weeks ago he couldn't even sit or lie on his back due to beatings he received off and on for a week, a strange and very common punishment in the strip.

They are summoned to police centers in prisons. There is not much choice. The infamous Saraya, in the heart of Gaza city, was razed by Israeli bombing during "Cast Lead" in January 2009. But still the there is the Mashtal, the five provincial prisons, and Ansar, where are the heads of security services. Here begins the interrogation. "From seven in the morning to late evening, sometimes past midnight. The most common punishment is to stay against a wall in the full sun all afternoon and forced to exercise for no reason.... Only an occasional glass of water is allowed. And you must be punctual in the morning in front of the door, "says Jamal. He still went wrong. "I've been accused of bribing the girls to let them smoke a water pipe in the premises of my gallery, even sexual abuse. So they used belts and sticks. "

Torture chambers - but it could be worse. In the seafront former villa of the President of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Abu Mazen, prisoners would remain in isolation for months. You could say that the cellars are used as rooms for the torture for "enemies of Islam." Their techniques are refined. Some mechanisms are learned directly from Israeli jails. ... The psychological pressure is often more effective than physical.

In the prisons of Fatah in the West Bank, where the hunt for militants of Hamas remains open, the techniques are very similar. "The news from Gaza is the growing influence of the systems used by Iranian Basiji. The assault squads from a select group of the Ezzedin Al Qassam Brigades were directly trained by them. The aim is to impose a kind of complete and total political and cultural conformity. Anyone who does not follow the rules is at risk. And there are few heroes. Often enough some veiled threats get the desired effect, says a well-known local commentator, speaking under the promise of absolute anonymity. Asma Al Ghuol, a journalist committed to the defense of intellectual freedom, had his computer recently seized and personal threats for his public denunciation against the censorship of musicians and writers. A colleague who works with the al-Arabiya TV station was arrested a few days ago because agents saw he travelled by car in the company of a boy who was not a member of his family.

Abu Omar (a fictitious name), senior militant Liberation Front of Palestine, expressed his dissent in private: he produces wine hidden in Jabalia refugee camp and sells 100 liters per year. "It's my challenge against the ban imposed on alcohol by Muslims, against the interference in our private lives, as if we were under the Taliban," he said, showing a photo of Mohammad Hassan Hajazi, his friend and activist murdered by Hamas in January 2009 as they took advantage of the chaos generated from the Israeli attack.

The situation closely resembles that imposed against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the nineties until the 2003 war. The economic blockade and isolation generated enormous difficulties on the international regime, but it strengthened the internal government and indirectly provided legitimacy for even more serious abuses against their people. Atef Abou Saief, brilliant professor of political science at the local university Al Azhar, says "Hamas controls Gaza much better than a couple of years ago, even though its popularity is declining. But we can not verify this. Free elections, as in 2006, are now impossible. At best, if you go back to the polls, we'll see a deal under the table for the division of votes with Fatah. The theocracy of Hamas marked the end of the democratic dream. "

A well-known journalist, employed by foreign news agencies who absolutely asked to remain anonymous, commented: "The difference between Gaza and Iraq is that in the Palestinian territories in January 2006 the elections were swept neatly by Hamas against Fatah. The West is right to point the finger at governments that are not democratic. You can not accept democracy with only results that you like and reject undesirable ones. But now you do not notice that the popularity of Hamas in Gaza is in freefall. It's a curious situation and reflects the ancient Palestinian willingness to stand against those who always wins. If you go to the polls today in the West Bank you could obtain a majority Hamas, but Fatah could win in Gaza."

"Hamas is like Hitler, or rather, as the Islamists in Algeria," said Saief. "That's why Yasser Arafat until his death in November 2004, always refused to hold elections with Hamas. He knew that a free vote with the Islamic government would never have been carried out for the very obvious fact that the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood does not give any value to democracy. " It says here lies the weakness of Abu Mazen: allowing Hamas to run for election in 2006. ...

Saief repeats the theory that is the most popular from Gaza in Cairo: Hamas has no interest in jeopardizing the status quo, it is not looking for a real agreement with Abu Mazen, it will not work with or even have contacts with Israel. "Hamas is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. The project has a more pan-Islamic and less nationalist agenda. Do not look for compromise, because [Hamas] sees Gaza as the revival of global holy war. That is at the expense of independent intellectuals and any entity in areas under its control," he adds. It can not be denied that the persecuted are generally PLO militants, or otherwise bound to the old face of secular Palestinian Left.

...Aruki stresses: 'For Hamas the this is a great debacle. Young people no longer want to fight. The Israeli blockade is terrible, it prevents any movement, we are in a great open-air prison. But the spirit of the two intifadas is dead. Once there were students who refused the few scholarships to go abroad so they could fight the Zionist occupation collectively. Today everyone wants to emigrate and they are not only blocked by Israel. Egypt is severely limiting people going through the Rafah crossing. And Hamas grants permission to leave only to its activists. The others are just subjects to convert to their reading of Islam."

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