Israeli Peace Activist Faces Jail Over Homes Demolition Protest

The sad news comes thick and fast from Palestine and Israel. Before the seizure of the ship reported on below, we received news of the arrest and impending sentencing of Ezra Nawi, a much loved and respected peace activist who have worked with "vulnerable Palestinian families in the hills around Hebron "struggling to keep their homes from being bulldozed." (The Guardian, June 30,2009) A plumber by trade, Nawi, born to a Jewish Iraqi family from Basra, speaks Arabic: "I have seen the checkpoints, the barriers. I've seen everything with my own eyes and I think any decent cannot sit indifferent to this. It is beyond the issue of Arabs and Jews..." And then I read that Ezra Nowi is a gay man with a Palestinian lover who has been imprisoned for entering Israel without a permit to be with his partner and all my issues come together--how is it that peace and those who stand against the rule of the gun are seen as dangers to the state; in this sense, we are all queer who refuse the dehumanization of whole peoples, the deliberate delight in causing pain and loss of hope that comes with an occupying force with the power to demolish homes and personal and communal dignity--"His trial has sparked a broad campaign of support from academics, musicians, artists. 'You have here the whole misery and cruelty of the occupation in a nutshell,' David Shulman, a Hebrew University professor and activist with the Israeli-Palestinian peace group Ta'ayush, wrote in Ha'aretz newspaper.'

Only the peace movement is all its forms can save Israel from itself. Or as Nawi said, "all that will be left is hate." Please find a way to be involved, to make your voice heard.
Joan

Alert: "The Spirit of Humanity" Seized

23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30 pm--

"Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, "The Spirit of Humanity, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble Laureate Mairead Maguire and former US Congress woman Cynthia Mc Kinney. The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel. " This cruel response to acts of kindness and concern for the well being of the people Gaza--their hardships just recently underlined by the Red Cross report describing the effects of the Israeli continued closing of the borders so rebuilding supplies cannot get in as well as other necessities of life--is further sad evidence of the national policy of Israel to make life as harsh as possible for the every day people of Gaza--this boat carrying medical supplies, reconstructive supplies and children's toys can be no threat to the power of Israel--but the message of world concern it represents will be Israel's undoing-others who live far away from the walls and checkpoints that make Palestinians invisible except as controlled workers or the hated other do see the faces of the imprisoned, the hopeless, the suffering--this Jewish woman sees their faces and joins with so many Jewish voices in Israel and without, and others, who say the shanda, the shame, is growing with every passing desperate day. ON JULY 4TH, from 12-1, WE WILL BE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE GPO IN DOWNTOWN MELBOURNE AS WE DO THE FIRST OF EVERY MONTH TO PROTEST THIS ACT OF SEIZURE AND THE DAILY VIOLENCE OF THE OCCUPATION. To register your own protest, e-mail Mark Regev, the public relations voice of this regime, in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office--mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

You can fax the Israeli Ministry of Justice at +972 2646 62357

More information: Jewish Peace News, jnp@jewishpeacenews.net and http://www.freegaza.org/

As the chairperson of Free Gaza Movement Huwaida Arraf said, "Israel's deliberate and premeditated attack on our unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand our immediate and unconditional release."

Joan

June Vigil and Those Who Came Before

From Geraldine: Standing on the Women in Black Vigils in Melbourne is for me quite special, always fun, as well as encouraging. It gives me a strange sense of deju vu, though.

I have just finished compiling a website and book on the Women's Movement in Victoria, and standing with you makes me aware that we are not the first to be standing on the streets of Melbourne for peace. It is a good feeling. I feel the presence of ghosts and I think they approve.

During WW1, feminist women stood on the streets of Melbourne selling their paper, The Women Voter. Their message was peace. It wasn't just the pleasant chat with the public that I experience on our vigils, they were attacked by the crowd at least once. Perhaps it is not surprising--these women did not mince their words, as these quotes show:

"WHO LOSES THE WAR? The men who lose their lives. The women who lose their husbands, brothers and sons. The children who lose their fathers. The workers who lose their wages, who have to pay high rents and high prices. The fathers who love their boys. The mothers who have to go out and work too soon before and too soon after the boys' birth. The child who goes to work instead of school. The babies who die from want and lack of care, sacrificed to feed the fires of war...The soldiers widows and orphans who will starve on their pensions. The nation which is robbed of its young men and unborn children. All those who have brains to think and hearts to love humanity...War is out of date. Under modern conditions it cannot accomplish what those who support war want it to accomplish. Every deadly weapon is met with the invention of a still more deadly weapon..."

Also like Women in Black, these women insisted on talking with women from the other side. in 1915, women of different nations--from "enemy," allied and neutral countries--held an International Congress of Women for Permanent Peace at the Hague, Holland. Their words all those years ago: The following resolutions have been adopted by the International Congress at the Hague and also by the Women's Peace Army, Headquarters, 215 Latrobe Street, Melbourne--This international Congress of women of different nations, classes, creeds and parties is united in expressing sympathy with the suffering of all, whatever their nationality, who are fighting for their country or labouring under the burden of war. Since the mass of people in each of the countries now at war believe themselves to be fighting, not as aggressors, but in self- defence, and for their national existence, there can be no irreconcilable difference between them, and their common ideals offered a basis up on which a magnanimous and honorable Peace might be established. The Congress, therefore urges the governments of the world to put an end to this bloodshed and to begin Peace negotiations..."

Three Australian delegates--Vida Goldstein, Cecilia John and Eleanor Moore--travelled ten weeks to attend the Congress. Their first act was to demand the raising of the blockade in Germany, immediate relief measures and if necessary food rationing in every country. They believed there would be another war in 20 years if the Versailles treaty went ahead, in their words, "creating all over Europe discords and animosities which can only lead to future wars, generations condemned to poverty, disease and despair."

It seems to me that with the Women in Black vigils, we are following a tradition amongst feminist women that probably wasn't even new a century ago. We stand with their words and their courage in our hearts. (More information about Australian women's involvement in the peace movement, can be found in her book, Women Working Together:Suffrage and Onwards, 2009, www.womensweb.com.au)