Fri, 11 May 2012
As Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab enter 75 days of hunger strike in Israeli prisons, they face imminent death. Yet the Israeli High Court has already denied their petitions against administrative detention, leaving them with no recourse but for popular demonstrations, and petitions to government officials (sign one to the US State Department!). Take action to save their lives!
In a Radio Against Apartheid exclusive, we speak with Sahar Francis, the director of Addameer - the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association - about Thaer, Bilal, and the 2,000 to 2,500 other Palestinian prisoners who are currently refusing to eat in the 'Battle of Empty Stomachs' to demand an end to Israel's policies of arbitrary detention and torture.
As Hanan Ashrawi of the Palestine Liberation Organization was quoted in a recent New York Times article on the hunger strikes, "There's a real transformation in the way the prisoners are working - this time, people are willing to die... Look, the Palestinians may be quiet for a while, but they may erupt. There's a sinking-in of the idea that nonviolent resistance gets results."
Also on the show:
With commentary from Sherry Wolf, and audio of Uri Horesh interrupting Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, Matt Graber breaks down the Philadelphia demonstration to expose Israel's pinkwashing at this year's 'Equality Forum'. Professor Franke and Rabbi Alpert have an article and video explaining their withdrawals.
And DJ Ev Daddy gives an update from Commondreams.org on the Afghan War. As Obama quietly extends the war to 2024 in a deal with US-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai, support for the war in the US hits an all-time low at 27%, with 66% of Americans opposed to the war.
Thanks for tuning in!
We would love to hear from you. Please consider e-mailing us at RadioAgainstApartheid@Gmail.com, and find us on twitter at WPEB881RAA.
Peace, with justice. Comments[0]
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Thu, 3 May 2012
Lydia David reports from the occupied West Bank for Palestine News Network. Comments[0]
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Thu, 26 April 2012
A five-minute segment of news from Bethlehem, in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank. Comments[0]
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Thu, 26 April 2012
On this week's Radio Against Apartheid, DJ Ev Daddy and Matt Graber bring a whole hour of news and updates from what's been happening around the US, Israel, and Palestine. Finally, and most importantly, Bahraini human rights advocate Abdulhadi al Khawaja is on his 78th day of hunger strike protesting his imprisonment and Bahrain's violent crackdown on peaceful protests. Please take action to demand al Khawaja's release! Comments[0]
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Sat, 21 April 2012
On this week's Radio Against Apartheid, DJ Ev Daddy and Matt Graber are joined by Natalia Cuadra-Saez, the coordinator for the United Methodist Kairos Response. At the United Methodist General Conference, convening in Tampa, Florida on April 24, delegates to the United Methodist Church be voting on a resolution to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett Packard for their complicity and support of the Israeli occupation. In 2009, Palestinian Christian leaders from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and throughout the region issued the Kairos document, in which they wrote:
In this historic document, we Palestinian Christians declare that the military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity, and that any theology that legitimizes the occupation is far from Christian teachings because true Christian theology is a theology of love and solidarity with the oppressed, a call to justice and equality among peoples. In response to the call from Palestinian Christians, and in an effort to conform to the UMC's own policies, the United Methodist Kairos Response is seeking the passage of a resolution at this year's General Conference to divest from three companies supporting and profiting from the military occupation of Palestinian lands: Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett Packard. First and foremost, the divestment initiative is an effort from United Methodist Church to remove our own financial support for the military occupation.
Caterpillar, Inc. is a multinational corporation based in Peoria, Illinois, that sells weaponized bulldozers and other civil engineering tools to Israel. Caterpillar bulldozers are routinely used to destroy Palestinian homes, construct Israel's illegal separation barrier, and to injure and kill civilians. Caterpillar specially manufactures the D9 and D10 military bulldozers for Israel; and Ben David Alon, an Israeli military commander, once referred to Caterpillar bulldozers as 'the key weapon' in Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel's military occupation began in 1967, Israel has demolished over 26,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem. Even today, the Israeli military is attempting to remove Palestinians from their lands in the village of Al Walaja in the West Bank, Beit Arabiya in East Jerusalem, and Al Araqib in the Negev Desert, in the south of Israel (in fact, Palestinians, Israelis, and international activists have rebuilt the homes in Al Araqib 33 times, each time to have their structures bulldozed by the Israeli military).
In an advisory opinion released in 2004, the International Court of Justice found that the wall being constructed by Israel is contrary to international law. Israel has the right to construct a wall, but 88% of the wall is built on occupied Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and this construction proceeds by force under the oversight of the Israeli military with no authorization by the Palestinians whose lands it is built upon. The wall goes deep into the territory in the West Bank and segregates Palestinians from their own farmlands and other villages, oftentimes enabling settlers to confiscate the land.
With this resolution, the United Methodist Church has an historical opportunity to do something that 18 years of peace talks have been incapable of achieving: the opportunity to bring a cessation of violence to the land of Israel and Palestine.
Direct download: Show_24_United_Methodist_Kairos_Response.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 2:35 AM Comments[0]
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Fri, 13 April 2012
No show this week. Comments[0]
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Fri, 6 April 2012
This week on Radio Against Apartheid, we honor the memories of Juliano Mer Khamis, Martin Luther King Jr., and Trayvon Martin. We are joined on the program by a representative of Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association to talk about the recent hunger strikes of Hana Al Shalabi, Khader Adnan, the process of administrative detention, and the "kangaroo courts" of the Israeli military in the occupied territories.
Palestine News Network provides a tribute to the memory of Juliano Mer Khamis, and gives a wrap-up of this week's news in the occupied territories.
Finally, we are proud to conclude the show with a song from Philadelphia's own tUnE-yArDs, who back in January canceled their show in Tel Aviv as a demonstration of their support for the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel.
It should be noted that in the United States prisoners are being unjustly held in solitary confinement. Two such cases which have gotten the attention of the BBC and Amnesty International are those of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, two black men held in solitary for almost 40 years.
Please sign Amnesty's petition to LA state governor Bobby Jindal to have them both released to general population, and to hold the state accountable for this cruel and inhumane punishment. Comments[0]
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Sat, 31 March 2012
Ahead of a demonstration in Philadelphia at the annual fundraiser of the Jewish National Fund (video now available here), and demonstrations across the world marking the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, Matt Graber stops to ask the questions: "What is the international campaign to Stop the JNF?"
We speak with Hazem Jamjoum, editor of al Majdal Magazine from Badil Resource Center, Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee, and Sara Kershnar of the US Stop the JNF Campaign.
HUGE thanks to Hazem, Mick, Sara, Eric, Frank, and Nidal at Badil for making this show possible. Comments[0]
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Thu, 22 March 2012
On this week's Radio Against Apartheid, DJ Ev Daddy and Matt Graber discuss institutional racism in the USA. First and foremost, we remember those whose lives have been taken. Many people in the United States have been talking about the murder of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida on February 26. The shooter, George Zimmerman, still remains free. Yesterday, March 21, the parents of Trayvon Martin, Tracey Martin and Sabrina Fulton, and thousands of supporters, took part in a Million Hoodie March in New York City to demand justice for Trayvon. Participants took to the streets donning hoodies and calling for people to sign and share a petition on Change.org calling for the police to prosecute Trayvon's murderer.
As of right now, the petition has 990,000 signatures. Please add yours and let's make it to 2 million demanding justice for Trayvon.
Then Matt covered the latest campaigns in Israel and Iran to prevent a war between their two countries. The politicians in the two countries have been speaking in bellicose terms for months, if not years. But, as an article at +972 Magazine by Haggai Matar reflects, social media has provided the means for an alternative discourse: one highlighting the brutality of war, and calling for a de-escalation of force, and love and mutual support between Israelis and Iranians.
The campaigns began with a statement by the Iranian women's collective, Change for Equality, with their press release, 'Iranian Women’s Rights Activists Say No to War On March 8' and a series of 13 eloquent videos denouncing the prospect of war (with English subtitles).
An exchange between activists in Iran and Israel followed online, culminating in a series of photos on the blog, IsraelovesIran.com.
Activism will go from the digital realm to the streets this Saturday, as demonstrators say "No to War with Iran" in Tel Aviv, Israel.
As people in the streets of Israel plea for peace, those taking a "pro-Israel" stance at the annual American Israeli Public Affairs Committee meeting earlier this month in Washington, D.C. were taking a harsh line and calling for war with Iran. So I hope we can all consider what it means for many Americans to be considered "pro-Israel".
Then, DJ Ev marks the 9-year anniversary of the start of the current Iraq War, and then commemorates the 16 Afghanis massacred by US and NATO troops on Sunday, March 11. The latest probe by Afghanistan's parliament found that up to 20 troops were involved in the massacre, while the United States maintains that there was a sole actor, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.
This radio broadcast, and all of our previous broadcasts, first aired live on West Philadelphia's community radio station, WPEB 88.1 FM. WPEB is a project of Scribe Video, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia. We hope that you'll check out the website of Scribe, consider enrolling in one of their spectacular workshops, and consider donating to Scribe to allow all of this programming to continue.
Thanks! Direct download: Show_21_Too_Many_Criminals_Are_Walking_These_Streets.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 6:09 PM Comments[0]
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Wed, 21 March 2012
The Equality Forum, an annual LGBTQ conference held in Philadelphia, has announced that Israel is their featured nation of 2012, and they have invited the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, to deliver the keynote speech.
Ambassador Oren, who personally has an atrocious record of supporting Israel's war crimes and was the object of a demonstration by students in 2010 at UC Irvine (the Irvine 11), has no business delivering the keynote speech at a conference dedicated to social justice and equality. This year's Equality Forum conference, which is partnered with the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, is an attempt at Pinkwashing.
What is Pinkwashing? From Pinkwatchingisrael.com:
Pinkwashing is the appropriation of queer voices from Israel and Palestine and the gay rights struggle to distract from and normalize the numerous human rights and international law violations and the colonial and apartheid policies that the Israeli State has established on the ground. Pinkwashing is meant to cover up these violations with a facade of progressiveness and equality. In short, Israeli Pinkwashing aims to change the standard of a progressive, civilized nation from one that respects and protects human rights to on that respects and protects gay rights, while deliberately ignoring basic rights to a repressed and occupied population (rights to water, movement, speech, education). Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, or PQBDS, a coalition of Palestinian LGBTQ groups, has released a statement in which they write: "We call upon the Equality Forum leadership to reverse their complicity in Israel’s propaganda campaign."
I have just e-mailed the Executive Director of the Equality Forum, Malcolm Lazin, and the Chair of the Board, Professor Debra Blair, to tell them not to pinkwash Israel's crimes.
I hope you'll take a moment and write to Malcolm Lazin at mlazin@equalityforum.com and Professor Debra Blair at dblair@temple.edu.
Feel free to use the letter that I sent - available below - or to write your own!
Solidarity,
Matthew Graber
Sincerely, Category:general
-- posted at: 3:33 AM Comments[0]
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