24 sept 2019
Delegates at the 2019 Labour Party Conference have almost unanimously passed a motion reaffirming Labour’s support for Palestinian rights including their “collective rights to self-determination and to return to their homes”.
The motion also commits the Party to apply international law to all trade with Israel, including to stop all arms trade with Israel that is used in the violation of Palestinian human rights.
Last year, for the first time in history, Labour Conference debated a motion on Palestine which was passed resoundingly amidst a sea of Palestinian flags, in a mass demonstration of public solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The 2018 motion reaffirmed that the core of the Palestinian conflict and at the heart of the Palestinian cause is the dispossession suffered by Palestinians in 1948 during the Nakba, when 750000 were expelled or forced to flee from their homes.
The passing of the motion today comes the day after a packed out fringe meeting hosted by Palestine Solidarity Campaign featuring speeches from Diane Abbott MP, Lisa Nandy MP, speakers from Unite and UNISON unions as well as a live video link with BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti, who was prevented from attending in person due to an unexplained abnormal delay by the British government in processing his visa.
The motion also comes two weeks after the Trade Union Congress conference passed a similar motion that reaffirmed their commitment to working closely with Palestine Solidarity Campaigns and to take on UK companies complicit in Israel’s violations of international law and human rights.
Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “The Palestinian people have called for global solidarity in response to the assault by Israel, supported by Trump, on their collective rights. Today the Labour Party has responded to that call by passing a motion that commits the party to end the UK’s financial and military complicity with Israel’s oppression.
Labour party members have said in one voice to the Palestinian people – we stand with you in your fight for justice. What is required now is for this crucial motion, passed overwhelmingly by members, to be translated into official party policy as we move towards the next general election.”
The motion also commits the Party to apply international law to all trade with Israel, including to stop all arms trade with Israel that is used in the violation of Palestinian human rights.
Last year, for the first time in history, Labour Conference debated a motion on Palestine which was passed resoundingly amidst a sea of Palestinian flags, in a mass demonstration of public solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The 2018 motion reaffirmed that the core of the Palestinian conflict and at the heart of the Palestinian cause is the dispossession suffered by Palestinians in 1948 during the Nakba, when 750000 were expelled or forced to flee from their homes.
The passing of the motion today comes the day after a packed out fringe meeting hosted by Palestine Solidarity Campaign featuring speeches from Diane Abbott MP, Lisa Nandy MP, speakers from Unite and UNISON unions as well as a live video link with BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti, who was prevented from attending in person due to an unexplained abnormal delay by the British government in processing his visa.
The motion also comes two weeks after the Trade Union Congress conference passed a similar motion that reaffirmed their commitment to working closely with Palestine Solidarity Campaigns and to take on UK companies complicit in Israel’s violations of international law and human rights.
Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “The Palestinian people have called for global solidarity in response to the assault by Israel, supported by Trump, on their collective rights. Today the Labour Party has responded to that call by passing a motion that commits the party to end the UK’s financial and military complicity with Israel’s oppression.
Labour party members have said in one voice to the Palestinian people – we stand with you in your fight for justice. What is required now is for this crucial motion, passed overwhelmingly by members, to be translated into official party policy as we move towards the next general election.”
22 sept 2019
On the eve of the Labour Party’s 2019 annual conference, the venue was illuminated by projections of a Palestine flag, alongside the slogans “Free Palestine,” “Solidarity with Palestine” and “Freedom, justice and equality”, as part of a creative stunt by Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
A motion expressing support for the people of Palestine, including a commitment to upholding international law, in relation to the UK’s trade with Israel, and to oppose Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” is featured in the conference ballot, and PSC is encouraging delegates to prioritise and vote for the motion.
PNN further reports that the creative stunt comes one year on from a display of solidarity, at the 2018 annual conference which saw the hall filled with a sea of Palestinian flags as a motion in support of Palestinian rights was passed resoundingly.
Campaigners are seeking to ensure that Palestine stays on the agenda of conference floor, this year.
A motion expressing support for the people of Palestine, including a commitment to upholding international law, in relation to the UK’s trade with Israel, and to oppose Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” is featured in the conference ballot, and PSC is encouraging delegates to prioritise and vote for the motion.
PNN further reports that the creative stunt comes one year on from a display of solidarity, at the 2018 annual conference which saw the hall filled with a sea of Palestinian flags as a motion in support of Palestinian rights was passed resoundingly.
Campaigners are seeking to ensure that Palestine stays on the agenda of conference floor, this year.
10 sept 2019
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“The UK has, for the first time, officially invited the Israeli government to participate in the world’s largest arms fair at DSEI, set to take place in London, this month.
I’m calling on UK citizens to make their voices heard.” – Amal Samouni For many people who have lived a life free from war and military occupation, the global arms trade may seem like a distant or even irrelevant issue. But, for Palestinians like me, it is an inescapable and painful reality. I am a 19-year-old who has spent my entire childhood in the Gaza Strip, a place sometimes described as the world’s “largest open air prison”. This is because of the crippling military blockade enforced on the region by the Israeli state, which denies us access to basic rights and resources every single day. Not only this, but Gaza has been the target of a number of major bombing assaults by Israeli forces during my lifetime. The attack during “Operation Cast Lead” took place over 22 days, in 2008-9, when I was just 10 years old, and changed my life forever. In the midst of the bombings on 4 January, 2009, Israeli forces stormed my family home, ordered my father out, and shot and killed him at our front door. Then, they set fire to our home and starting shooting at the rest of us, injuring my four-year-old brother Ahmed and two other children. Next, over 100 extended family members were rounded up and forced into the house of my uncle Wa’el al-Samouni, where we stayed for a day and a half, with only the food or water that was in the house. It was there where my little brother succumbed to his injuries, as none of the injured were allowed to leave, and one of my aunts gave birth during the ordeal. A cousin and two of my uncles were bombed and killed while looking for firewood, or standing at the door. The Israeli government denies that it ordered residents to gather in one house. Finally, Israeli forces bombed the building, killing 23 family members and leaving me trapped under rubble, next to their bodies, for three days. |
On 7 January, I was somehow found alive. Over 29 members of my extended family were killed over these days, with many others permanently injured. Shrapnel, which I can still feel, has remained lodged in my brain, which, as I grew up, left me to endure nose bleeds, pain in my eyes and ears, and headaches that continue today.
No human being should have to endure this kind of trauma and violence, let alone any child. Yet Operation Cast Lead alone killed 1,400 people, including more than 330 children.
My story is just one of thousands of others lived by Palestinians in Gaza -– and the deadly attacks against my people continue to this day.
A decade later, me and my family continue to resist Israel’s brutality and the oppression of our community.
Since March of last year, hundreds of thousands have been protesting at the Gaza fence, in a series of protests called the “Great Return March”. We are calling for an end to the siege and for the realisation of our fundamental right, as enshrined in international law, to return to the homes from which the majority of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced.
In response, despite repeated denials that its troops intentionally target civilians, Israel has met our unarmed protests with brutal live fire, killing over 250 and injuring over 27,000. A decade on from Operation Cast Lead, Israeli bullets and bombs are still tearing our community apart.
So, how can any government or organisation that claims to uphold human rights condone these crimes? I would like to put this question, in particular, to the UK government.
The UK has, for the first time, officially invited the Israeli government to the world’s largest arms fair at DSEI, set to take place in London, this month.
This is despite my story, thousands of other Palestinian testimonies and even a UN Commission of Inquiry report, earlier this year, which found that Israeli forces had committed grave violations against protesters in Gaza, which, in the words of the report, may have constituted “war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
By welcoming Israeli arms companies which market their weapons as “battle-tested” –- due to them being tested on us Palestinians in Gaza -– the UK government is directly complicit in the Israeli government’s ongoing crimes against us, well-documented by all the major human rights organisations.
But, this is only half the story.
Since the bombing of Gaza, in 2009, Britain has also increased its arms imports and exports to and from Israel. Israel’s arms trade with countries maintains our systematic oppression –- and countries like the UK are directly profiting from it.
We are told that the UK’s own policy on arms exports, if applied consistently, would prohibit the sale of arms when there is a risk that they would be used for the abuse of human rights and grave violations of international law.
As such, the UK government is demonstrating a total disregard for Palestinian lives and for the memory of all those murdered by the Israeli state, including my own precious father and brother, whom I lost in front of my eyes, as a child.
I’m calling on UK citizens to show international solidarity with Palestinians by joining hundreds of human rights activists in taking action against the upcoming DSEI arms fair. I also call on the UK government to implement an immediate two-way arms embargo, between the UK and Israel, until it ceases its violations against me and my people.
A commitment to human rights means nothing if it’s simply words on a piece of paper. The UK government must act immediately, to end its complicity with the violent repression of the Palestinian people. Not just in memory of my father, brother and all the other victims of Israel’s regular bombing of our people, but to stop yet more tragedies happening to other families, like it did to ours.
This is a first person account of events in January 2009. Israeli authorities have always maintained that they were responding to Palestinian rocket fire into Israel. The Israeli military has announced that it is investigating what happened at Zeitoun.
No human being should have to endure this kind of trauma and violence, let alone any child. Yet Operation Cast Lead alone killed 1,400 people, including more than 330 children.
My story is just one of thousands of others lived by Palestinians in Gaza -– and the deadly attacks against my people continue to this day.
A decade later, me and my family continue to resist Israel’s brutality and the oppression of our community.
Since March of last year, hundreds of thousands have been protesting at the Gaza fence, in a series of protests called the “Great Return March”. We are calling for an end to the siege and for the realisation of our fundamental right, as enshrined in international law, to return to the homes from which the majority of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced.
In response, despite repeated denials that its troops intentionally target civilians, Israel has met our unarmed protests with brutal live fire, killing over 250 and injuring over 27,000. A decade on from Operation Cast Lead, Israeli bullets and bombs are still tearing our community apart.
So, how can any government or organisation that claims to uphold human rights condone these crimes? I would like to put this question, in particular, to the UK government.
The UK has, for the first time, officially invited the Israeli government to the world’s largest arms fair at DSEI, set to take place in London, this month.
This is despite my story, thousands of other Palestinian testimonies and even a UN Commission of Inquiry report, earlier this year, which found that Israeli forces had committed grave violations against protesters in Gaza, which, in the words of the report, may have constituted “war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
By welcoming Israeli arms companies which market their weapons as “battle-tested” –- due to them being tested on us Palestinians in Gaza -– the UK government is directly complicit in the Israeli government’s ongoing crimes against us, well-documented by all the major human rights organisations.
But, this is only half the story.
Since the bombing of Gaza, in 2009, Britain has also increased its arms imports and exports to and from Israel. Israel’s arms trade with countries maintains our systematic oppression –- and countries like the UK are directly profiting from it.
We are told that the UK’s own policy on arms exports, if applied consistently, would prohibit the sale of arms when there is a risk that they would be used for the abuse of human rights and grave violations of international law.
As such, the UK government is demonstrating a total disregard for Palestinian lives and for the memory of all those murdered by the Israeli state, including my own precious father and brother, whom I lost in front of my eyes, as a child.
I’m calling on UK citizens to show international solidarity with Palestinians by joining hundreds of human rights activists in taking action against the upcoming DSEI arms fair. I also call on the UK government to implement an immediate two-way arms embargo, between the UK and Israel, until it ceases its violations against me and my people.
A commitment to human rights means nothing if it’s simply words on a piece of paper. The UK government must act immediately, to end its complicity with the violent repression of the Palestinian people. Not just in memory of my father, brother and all the other victims of Israel’s regular bombing of our people, but to stop yet more tragedies happening to other families, like it did to ours.
This is a first person account of events in January 2009. Israeli authorities have always maintained that they were responding to Palestinian rocket fire into Israel. The Israeli military has announced that it is investigating what happened at Zeitoun.
23 aug 2019
US President Donald Trump has scrapped a plan to freeze more than $4 billion in foreign aid funding disapproved by Congress.
Trump, who had described foreign aid as wasteful spending and wanted to cancel the already-appropriated funds without congressional approval, dropped a planned rescission package on Thursday.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several GOP lawmakers had warned Trump against the move saying it would be detrimental to national security.
In a letter Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the foreign aid cuts Trump had been pursuing violated “the good faith” of that bipartisan deal-making.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Twitter that he hoped Trump "learned the lesson not to play games with the budget."
However, the president’s acting budget director, Russ Vought, and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had both urged Trump to go ahead with the planned aid cut.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid funding, receiving nearly $3 billion in grants each year.
US lawmakers opposed to the spending urged a stop to US foreign aid to Israel.
On Monday, Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called on the the Trump administration and Congress to reconsider the budget spent on the Tel Aviv regime.
She said the billions of dollars of US aid to Israel, which is engaged in oppression of the Palestinian people, should be cut.
Trump, who had described foreign aid as wasteful spending and wanted to cancel the already-appropriated funds without congressional approval, dropped a planned rescission package on Thursday.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several GOP lawmakers had warned Trump against the move saying it would be detrimental to national security.
In a letter Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the foreign aid cuts Trump had been pursuing violated “the good faith” of that bipartisan deal-making.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Twitter that he hoped Trump "learned the lesson not to play games with the budget."
However, the president’s acting budget director, Russ Vought, and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had both urged Trump to go ahead with the planned aid cut.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid funding, receiving nearly $3 billion in grants each year.
US lawmakers opposed to the spending urged a stop to US foreign aid to Israel.
On Monday, Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called on the the Trump administration and Congress to reconsider the budget spent on the Tel Aviv regime.
She said the billions of dollars of US aid to Israel, which is engaged in oppression of the Palestinian people, should be cut.
