Korean Action For Palestine

We met two guys from the Parent's Circle

2009-09-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

Hello, this is Y from the Palestine Peace Solidarity, a group based in Seoul, Korea which promotes peace and security for the people of Palestine.

On 24th of August, we had two very special guests from the Parent's Circle, a network composed of families that have lost one or more of their family members due to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and thus promotes a halt to the occupation by employing peaceful means.

One of the guests was Aaron from Israel, who introduced himself as a Zionist who lost his son who was serving his last week as occupation force in Lebanon. Aaron said that although his son opposed the occupation, his son thought it was his duty to serve his country. However, after burying his son, Aaron went on to oppose the occupation by means of picketting in front of the Israeli defence ministry along with other bereaved family members. This was the time that he realized that the bereaved ones receive respect and thus have the power to influence and make changes: Isreal withdrew from Lebanon shortly after that.

Ali from Palestine also began telling his story;his mother used to serve a leading role in the PLO and so had got into resistance movements from very young age. This had brought him into jail, along with his mother and other siblings, leaving only his father and his two little sisters at home. He told us that he and his collegues' fasting for 17 days in prison led to the release of 5,000 of the prisoners that were so called 'political criminals' shortly after the Oslo Treaty was signed. While he said that this was the first time that he ever realized that nonviolent movements can bring about change, he mentioned that 280 'extremists' including himself were relocated and thus could not go home which made him think that any kind of peace treaty is of no use when it cannot let him go home, cannot give him the peace of mind.

He went on telling that not long after that, his older brother, his 'everything' was killed by the occupying Israeli troops. He said he felt so many different feelings including rage or want for revenge back then, while deep down, he knew that revenge could not change anything.

This was when the Parent's Circle came over to his mourning house and shared tears and pain with them - a time when Ali had seen Israli tears for the first time. So the both of them had intepreted their losses as the Israeli occupation undermining people's peace and security, thus having to oppose it through peaceful means. They kept emphasizing peace and harmony, when Camilo from another peace activist NGO asked Aaron whether he thought the Israeli govt should first stop building additional settlements and free political prisoners before talking about peace or harmony, Aaron replied that since most, if not all, of the turmoil in the region owes itself to occupation, calls to end the occupation would naturally solve other problems when the occupation is stopped (on which many of our group could not agreeon entirely..)

When asked another question regarding the politcal issues such as 1,2,or 3 state solution/the Q of Jerusalem/refugees, Aaron said that most/all of the political matters had been already settled apon in so many different treaties and negociations, just that they are not being implemented. He went on by saying that altho he himself and most of his fellows believe that the 2 state solution would be the best answer, the Parents' Circle as a whole does not bear any political stance in particularand that their role is to peacefully advocate a strong will to end the occupationby which the various political answers can be implemented.

Personally, it was my first time talking for such a long time (abt 3 hrs) with Palestine/Isreali and it certainly was a view-widening experience, although it would have been better if we could hear more of Ali..

Free Palestine: Koreans' Solidarity Protest for Palestine, Jan.10, 2009

2009-01-13T22:59:00.000-08:00

PERMANENT PEACE TO PALESTINE!!

Korean Action For Palestine: Dismantle the Occupation Wall and Stop the Military Occupation of Palestine

2006-12-06T04:41:00.000-08:00

Dismantle the Occupation Wall and Stop the Military Occupation of Palestine

2006-11-27T23:51:00.000-08:00

Silence allows savagery to flourish, and solidarity makes space for hope.

In 2006, we are still living in an age of barbarism. In 2001, America and the UK invaded Afghanistan. Five years have passed and still the people of Afghanistan live in fear. Then, America and the UK invaded Iraq in 2003 to bring freedom and peace, and now the only freedoms left in that country are the freedom for American capital to use Iraqi oil as it pleases and for Iraqis to die without regard to age or gender.

On June 28, 2006, more than 60 years into their military occupation, Israel amplified its brutal attacks on the Palestinians in Operation Summer Rain. Roads and power plants have been destroyed, and Palestinians have been prevented from going outside. From the end of June until October, over 300 Palestinians were killed and over 1,500 were arrested. Thousands were wounded and hundreds have sustained permanent injuries.

We should accurately identify Israel’s slaughter and savagery, without letting the tragedies of the Holocaust blind us to continuing injustice. The lesson is not that one nation, formerly repressed, should be allowed to continue to repress others, but rather that there can be no excuse for one people to inflict cruelty on another people.

Shortly after the commencement of Operation Summer Rain, Israel invaded Lebanon once more on July 12, 2006. Despite the rhetoric, this invasion is simply the latest in a series of Israeli invasions of Lebanon, such as Operation Litani in ’78, Operation Peace for Galilee in ’82, Operation Accountability in ’93, and Operation Grapes of Wrath in ’96. Though this latest is called Operation Just Reward, it has manifested itself through unjust punishments of the Lebanese.

When the strong rule the weak, when the world serves to profit only the rich, this is called the age of barbarism.

When the distinctions between the strong and the weak disappear, when humanity moves according to the basic fundamental principles of cooperation and solidarity, this is called the age of enlightenment.

We are at a crucial moment of decision, in which people must choose between savagery and humanity.

Israel was established in 1948 under the auspices of British imperialism, and now the Israeli government oppresses and evicts the Palestinians from their land without end and with the approval and aid of US imperialism. Millions of Palestinians are now scattered over the world, unable to return to their homeland where their parents are buried and where their memories remain.

The remaining Palestinians have been posed with the choice: leave or submit. But they have chosen neither to leave nor submit, and in response to their legitimate right to resist military occupation under the Geneva conventions, Israel began work on the Separation Wall. Also known as the Apartheid Wall, it encloses Palestinian residential districts in concrete and barbed wire. Israel has plans to permanently annex the areas surrounding the wall. The cumulative effects of these actions are to deprive Palestinians of normal lives, of their family and neighbors, as well as of their remaining arable land and water resources. Israel has essentially created a prison out of their land, aided by the design of Oslo.

Qalqiliya, home to tens of thousands in the northern West Bank, is a typical example. Israel has built the wall around its edges, and there is now only one checkpoint through which people are allowed to pass to enter and exit the city. In addition, Qalqiliya’s economy has been ruined by Israeli sanctions, which prevents farmers from importing or exporting.

Palestine has yielded and compromised on countless occasions in the past 60 years, but received only suppression and death in return. Accordingly, to the Palestinians, fighting against Israel is a matter of living—in life, one can walk the streets freely. Though the sky, sea, and land are blocked, though the democratically elected government faces is being rendered incapacitated though Israeli, American, and EU offensives, the Palestinians continue to resist.

We create history with our own hands and feet.
Just as American history began with the genocide of the Native Americans, Israel’s history began with the slaughter and expulsion of the Palestinians. These two countries occupy Palestine with bullets and tanks, money and media, and they above all others are responsible for what has occurred. We want peace, not war, but we want a peace based on a popular outcry for justice, stemming from the voices of those who would end their repression and suffering, and not a peace based on the silence of the weak.

Today was the Fourth National and International Week against the Apartheid Wall. While Israeli and American money and power continue to write the pages of history, we met today to write the history of hope with our hands and feet. If they are engines of despair, we are humans creating hope.

We who maintain hope in this age of savagery demand the following of Israel and the United States.
- Cease construction on the wall and remove those parts already built.
- Cease Israeli military attacks against the Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
- Ensure freedom and peace for all those living on the land of historical Palestine, regardless of race, religion, or nationality.

November 9, 2006
By the participants of the Fourth National and International Week Against The Apartheid Wall

New strategies...

2006-11-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

From Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org):

Palestinian Gathering at Targeted Home Prevents Israeli Airstrike
In the Occupied Territories, the Israeli military called off a planned air strike on the Gaza home of a wanted militant Sunday after hundreds of Palestinians gathered at the home to protect it. Hamas activist Nizar Riyan described the scene.

Nizar Riyan

An Israeli spokesperson called the Palestinian action “a cynical exploitation of our attempt to avoid harm to civilians.” But Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the tactic had broken new ground and would be used to stop future Israeli attacks.

Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh

Alive in Baghdad

2006-11-14T16:49:00.000-08:00

"Alive in Baghdad was formed to counter the sound-bite driven, “Live From” news model. Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad shows the occupation through the voices of Iraqis. Alive in Baghdad brings testimonies from individual Iraqis, footage of daily life in Iraq, and short news segments from Iraq to you."

Alive in Baghdad

stuff from palestine

2006-11-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

http://palestineonlinestore.com/

Apparently you can order things like kuffiyahs (sp?) here, although the pages for apparel are under construction.

"The Palestine Online Store, launched in December, 2003, is a not-for-profit activist project striving to make Palestine-related materials more widely available. While the focus is on informational resources, other products such as apparel, handcrafts, and solidarity items are also featured."

http://pcwf.org/ --Palestine Children's Welfare Fund...you can buy stuff here too!

Robert Fisk article

2006-11-13T16:20:00.001-08:00

Dirty Bombs Over Lebanon

By ROBERT FISK

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know--after it first categorically denied using such munitions--that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory--and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry--used by the Ministry of Defence--which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas--until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer--except for "marking" targets--even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government and parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991--their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry--and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia--where DU was also used by Nato aircraft--were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets--in the case of Khiam, for example--were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best--if you can say that--it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam--site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war--was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.

Amira Hass article

2006-11-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

How a Beit Hanun family was destroyed
By Amira Hass

The first shell that struck the house sent up a big cloud of dust and smoke. The parents and older children felt around in the sudden darkness of the morning, looking for the small children - to see if anyone had been hurt, to find and hold them, to run with them into the street.

Zahar, 33, is now lying wounded in the hospital in Beit Hanun; she has undergone one operation to remove shrapnel from her abdomen and is waiting for another on her leg. She was unhurt by the first shell. So was her 9-year-old son Sa'ed. They lived on the first floor of the house, in the east wing. After the first shell, she ran to where he was sleeping under the window. The light filtered in through the cloud of dust, and she saw his blanket was covered by fragments of broken glass. She pulled it off and found him shaking. "You weren't hit," she said, urging him to run and join her other children, May, Rami and Fadi, who fled with her downstairs.

Her 14-year-old daughter May helped her find her headscarf, skirt and pants, but she had no time to cover her head. Holding 5-month-old Maha, Zahar ran to the lane below the house. She gave the baby to a sister-in-law so she could put on her scarf, and then the second shell fell on the east wing of the house.

Was Sa'ed killed by this shell or by the third one, which also struck the house dead on? She does not remember. She was hit by the fourth shell, which struck the veranda.

But at this point, Zahar was still unharmed. She bent over Sa'ed, who was lying with all the other dead and wounded in the lane. A few seconds earlier, the other family members had run panicked into the street to get out of the house after the first shell. Zahar wiped the blood from Sa'ed's mouth and ran to the main street, calling for help. She ran back to her son to try to revive him, to wake him, and then the fourth shell hit.

At first she did not notice she had been wounded, that she was bleeding and her leg was torn down to the bone. She sat down among the bodies and tried to bring Sa'ed back to life. Her second son, Fadi, was injured. She doesn't know which shell did it. Her third son, Rami, fled into the garden of his uncle and neighbor, Dr. Hussein Athamneh, but the sixth shell found him there. Rami then ran into the street, toward the house of his uncle and aunt. The seventh shell found him outside their house, where it exploded.

The seven shells killed 18 members of the Athamneh family that day.

The shells had eyes

"It was as if the shells had eyes: Wherever we ran, they followed us," said Tahani, Zahar's sister-in-law, whose 12-year-old son Mahmoud was killed by the second shell. "The first shell woke us. I gathered the children. The son whose hand I was holding, Mahmoud, is the one I lost. We didn't know where to go. We ran downstairs, we were barefoot. My daughter said her feet were burning from the heat of the explosion. The second shell fell when we were already downstairs. I went and turned over the children's bodies, to see who was who, until I found Mahmoud.

"Not even one day had passed since we buried my brother Mazen. The army detained him and thousands of other men. They took them for a short interrogation and then released them. He and our cousin were arrested together and freed together. They told them at the detention point in Erez that they could go home. They went home, but there was a curfew. So other soldiers shot him because they violated the curfew. My cousin is in the hospital, seriously wounded. And Mazen, the uncle of my son Mahmoud, is dead.

"Less than one day after we buried his uncle, Mahmoud was lying on the floor among the dead. I tried to wake him, but he did not respond. Then the third shell hit. I fled into the house. The daughter of my brother-in-law also fled, but the shell followed her. My 14-year-old nephew fled and the shell followed him. It exploded, and he saw his hand fall to the floor. Now he is hospitalized in Egypt. Only people without a conscience could do that."

Hayat Athamneh, 55, Tahani and Zahar's mother-in-law, lost three children and two grandchildren in the shelling. "When the shells had enough of us, they went to the house of our relatives, but, thank God, they had fled. When the shells had enough of our relatives, they went to our neighbors. My children also fled, but the shells found them. And my ears started to go deaf from the noise. I could not hear a thing. I could only see. Black smoke, a lot of black smoke.

"And then I saw my son Mahdi, lying here in the west part of the house, near the garden." Athamneh bent down, picked up a bloodstained stone and kissed it. "It is my son Mahdi's blood," she said. "I saw him lying here, his brains on one side and his head on the other."

Thousands of mourners

Dressed in black, Athamneh came from the mourners' tent in the yard of a neighboring building. For three days, thousands of mourners have streamed there from all over the Gaza Strip. Some of them went to look at the Athamneh family's house, passing through the lane still filled with rubble, shell fragments, shrapnel and pools of blood. On Friday afternoon, some of the mourners gathered outside the home of Bassam Kafarneh, the neighbor who was hit by a shell when he ran to help the first casualties. He died in an Israeli hospital. His mother, also hospitalized in Israel, is in very serious condition.

Athamneh walked to where her son Majdi sits with other mourners. Praising the lord, she told the group how her family died and pointed to the places where every person fell. "I saw Tahani, Mahmoud's mother. I told her that Mahmoud was thrown on the floor here. Dead. And I saw my husband's brother Mas'oud and his wife Sabah, and Sanaa, whose husband died a year ago, and Manal, the wife of his son Ramez, and their two daughters, one eight months old and the other three. I saw them all. Dead.

"The steel in the house was bent and torn from its place. How could people not be torn apart by those shells?"

No tears

Athamneh's eyes were dry as she told about her dead. So were Tahani's. Zahar, lying in a hospital bed surrounded by family and friends, began to cry only when she remembered that Sa'ed's new glasses were ready. They had ordered them a day or two before the Israel Defense Forces invaded.

The day the shells fell, Athamneh's daughters Tamam and Najat had been sleeping in the house with their children, because their houses had been badly damaged during the last IDF invasion. No one is investigating whether they were hit by tanks or bulldozers, shells or missiles, or from an explosion when the soldiers blasted holes in the walls to pass between houses. Four hundred homes were damaged in Beit Hanun in one week, including 25 that were completely destroyed.

The soldiers' invasion of the Athamneh family home has also been almost forgotten. At 10 A.M., on November 1, a tank entered the garden, destroying hothouses, trees, pipes and a generator, until it hit a wall. The soldiers made a hole in the wall and entered the house, gathered all the family members and sent the women to a room on the first floor. The men were put in the kitchen and bathroom.

The soldiers collected all the cell phones, and with leashed dogs, searched all the rooms on all four floors. They called out the names of all the family members. Majdi, Zahar's husband, has a pacemaker. He said he felt ill and asked the soldiers to call an ambulance. He overheard one say someone was sick. Another soldier responded, "Let him die."

Majdi showed the soldiers his medical papers. One of the soldiers hit him in the chest and his nose started bleeding. After two hours, the soldiers left. They returned three days later through the hole in the wall. They again gathered all the family members, counted them, searched and left after three hours.

"They knew very well who was in the house, how many children, how many women. They knew very well there were no terrorists and no arms in this house," said Majdi.

Majdi showed visitors the walls and ceilings hit by the shells, the clothes strewn by the blast, the broken furniture and concrete. "I believe the soldiers are happy they killed us," he said. "They had an order from [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz and [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert to kill us. They wouldn't do it without orders. What kind of a mistake is it, if 10 shells hit one after the other, killing people in their beds? Not one shell was a mistake. I collected the martyrs. One by one. Avigdor Lieberman said Israel must act like the Russians in Chechnya. He just joined the government, and they immediately started doing what he said."

Haitham speaks on the Situation in Iraq

2006-11-03T00:15:00.000-08:00

This is an article I wrote for ROKon, an expat 'zine in Seoul. I will post a link to my notes from this evening (which contain more information than I could include in the article) soon.

While looking for People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy on Wednesday, September 29, I run into Mini, who shows us where the lecture is. He leads Alex and me into the correct building, up a set of stairs, across a hall, back down another set of stairs, and then around a corner, where we find ourselves in a small, stuffy lecture hall. After some waiting, the speaker arrives, and there are about 20 to 25 people in all. His name is Haitham, a doctor from Baghdad. He is in Korea to visit friends that he met two years ago, when he was here to testify at a military tribunal in his capacity as doctor. The talk had been organized by Iraq Solidarity for Peace, a Korean peace group.

After introductions, he begins by outlining a picture of general Iraqi life—suffering. The two basic reasons for this are an increasingly severe lack of security and skyrocketing prices, especially for food and petrol. Where one liter of gas used to cost 3¢, now the same liter costs 40¢ and requires the buyer to wait in a queue that often exceeds seven or eight hours. Conditions had never been this severe, he says, even during the eight-year war with Iran. Health problems are increasingly worse—facilities and supplies are scarce. "Mostly we can do nothing to our patients." He outlines three new health problems that are the result of the current war. First, starvation and malnutrition. Second, increasing rates of cancer, especially skin cancer--evidence, Haitham states, of the use of chemical weapons during the war. The third is psychological trauma, which will affect the Iraqis for generations to come.

"All America brought to Iraq is destruction [...] we see death every day, blood. People starving, people dying […] But the worst thing for me as an Iraqi to see is for Iraqis to kill each other." The main cause of suffering is the American army. It is they who impose a curfew and shoot anyone who is outside during those hours—even Iraqis who try to go to the hospital because of an emergency. "This is like living in hell." The Americans are the ones who speak of dividing Iraq, and it is they who fuel the insurgency, because chaos is more favorable to them than a peaceful Iraq. Three cities in northern Kurd-dominated Iraq have been exempt from this curfew and stand as shining examples of what the Americans can do if peace were truly on their agenda. He dismisses claims of a civil war, attributing inter-Iraqi fighting as a small minority. The militias have a good spirit and represent resistance in Iraq, while those who attack fellow Iraqis: "They are few." They are also the poor and uneducated, he says. He also dismisses concerns that the Kurds, who have not had a lucky history in Iraq or in any other part of the world, and who are also the largest ethnic group without a nation, would come under attacks from Iraqis if the Americans leave, taking their protection with them. He dismisses Iranian influence on Iraqi Shiites in general and Iraqi Shiite government officials in particular, saying that it is not significant. He also dismisses the conflicts between the Shiites and the Sunnis as inflated, saying that ordinary Iraqis see themselves as Iraqis first and Muslims second. Shiites and Sunnis live together, work together, get married.

Israel's Invasion and Palestine's Resistance

2006-09-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

The resistance will continue!!

illustrated by Bohyun Kim
contents by Palestine Peace Solidarity

Teach-In

2006-09-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

Berkeley Teach-In Against the War -> A group of Berkeley faculty, speaking on the Lebanon war. Their site links to videos and audio of the teaching, hosted on Google Video.

Part I - Introduction, Saba Mahmood, Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Part II - Charles Hirschkind, Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
Part III - Judith Butler, Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley
Part IV - Zeina Zaatari, Program Officer for the Middle East and North Africa, The Global Fund for Women
Part V - Beshara Doumani, Professor of History, UC Berkeley
Part VI - Question and Answer Session

Excerpts from some of the speeches:

Judith Butler:

To make a set of events thinkable is not the same as taking a strong, normative POV on those events. The way in which we frame these events is inevitably normative.

On the normative view of the conflict, which is that of a single conflict between two entities in which Israel is entitled to protect its borders:

To understand why this crystallization of events is misleading, one would have to offer a history of that northern border, ascertain whether that border was crossed time and again by Israeli soldiers, whether that border is and continues to be part of disputed territory.

There are reports that claim that Israel had crossed the border first, and that it crossed that border several times. If this proves true, and several sources suggest it is, then it follows that Israel understood the abrogation of sovereign borders as justified through recourse to a notion of self defense. But when we ask where the justification of self defense begins and ends, we note that it has no beginning and it has no end. It is, we might say, a permanent justificatory basis on which the encroachment and violation of borders takes place on the part of the Israeli Defense Force all the time.

On Israel's invocation of UN Security Council resolution 1559, which called for Hezbollah's disarmament and the establishment of Lebanon's territorial and political independence as justification for its actions:

So the resolution was abrogated from [Israel's side] as well. How then do we understand the Israeli invocation of Resolution 1559 as a justification for its military actions? Do we infer, perhaps, the Israel honors UN resolutions and was simply seeking to bring Hezbollah and Lebanon in line with UN resolutions and the international rule of law?

These UN resolutions have always been opposed by Israel. Israel has always refused to honor them. So what are we to make of the sudden citation of UN resolutions and their self-appointed task of making sure such resolutions are effectively enforced?

Beshara Doumani in response to why they can't all just get along:

What we're involved in is a decades-long process of the dispossession of one people by another. And that process not only has not ended, but it is intensifying. That is to say, they can't get along not because they are two neighbors with a line down a lawn, separating the property of one from the other, and they get into these irrational feuds like the Hatfields and the Macoys. Rather, imagine somebody coming into your house, stuffing all your family in the bathroom, and then reducing the size of the bathroom inch by inch over a 34 year period. And meanwhile, calling you the terrorist for resisting the occupation. That is what is going on in Palestine today.

A Candlelight Demonstration for Peace

2006-09-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

On August 24th, 2006, there was a candlelight demonstration for peace in the Middle East at Kwanghwamun, Seoul, Korea.

The first speaker, who had refused to do his military service, said, "While refusing to carry out one’s military service is against Korean law, I believe that reducing the size of its army and its arms is the road to peace.”

Kim Dae-Sung, singer, exhorted the audience to “Cry out for peace, freedom, antiwar, and liberation."

Kim Jin-Ah, who studied abroad in France and made many good Palestinian friends, told us to do away with the preconceived notion that all Palestinians are terrorists, and that her friends smiled as they spoke of their Palestinian pride. If the names of victims, posted on the Internet, match the name of a family member, they disregard price and make expensive international calls to their family. In Palestine, the Israeli army bombs in the middle of the night to interfere with Palestinians’ sleep.

The last speaker, Nuri, a member of Palestine Peace Solidarity, said to not look at what the news tells us,
and think of how we are all connected; if Pyongtaek
hurts, we cry, and when Palestinians die, we feel pain,
and our dearest wish is for everyone to live a normal
life of peace.

Stop the war!!! Anti-war voices of Koreans (3)

2006-08-31T23:46:00.000-07:00

Bae, Mun-hyung
Let's condemn barbarism of Israel and the U.S.

Kim, Kun-young
Stop the war, and as for the U.S, stop supporting missiles bringing about massacre.

Delkukhwa
Globalization of capital is supportive troops!
Anti-war geberal strike against globalization of wars!
Weaponry plants of all nations, go on strike!

Lee, Seung-hyun
Let's live together.

Kim, You-jung
Which is bigger, between those who are salvages by religion and those who are killed by religion?
My heart really hurts.

FuckingISRAEL
NAZI was not only rightful but reasonable.

Kim, Ki-young
Jews have to think about what is different between what the NAZI did and what they are doing now.

Chang, Yeo-kyung
Israel, stop this war and masscre.
I send deep regrets and solidarity to the people of Lebanon and Palestine.
Let's shout peace, let's shout peace!

Moon, Hyung-sook
I had a good feeling on Israel. But now, Israel seems to be fanatics doing mad things being supported by US.

Chungsanbyulgok
Please, stop the war...
Innocent children are abused and become victims.
I wish our world without patriots, without national interests, without weapons.
I want peace.

Koo, Tae-ok
I oppose the Israeli version of Holocaust.
Peace to Palestine and Lebanon!
Viva! Intifada!

Park, Young-suk
Stop the war, or you will get payback.

Min-Ah Cho
No one is free when others are suppresed.

Mr.Bear
Save Lebanon!
Save Palestine!
Save Children!
Save People!

Fuck Israel!
Fuck USA!
Fuck Imperialism!
Fuck the War!
Fuck it all!

Kimhaju
Stop the War and Genocide!
We want Peace.

badUSA
down arms,
rising peace

... and more than 170 Koreans joined collecting signatures campaign against the Israeli invasion.

Stop the war!!! Anti-war voices of Koreans (2)

2006-08-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

Kim
I hope that they realize god would not protect them anymore.

Lee
The world leave out Israel.

marlowe
Can we learn from history?
Israel should be stop, this is terrible madness.

sai
It's not good even for Israel.

jeongwu
Israel should be stopped.

A socialistic laborer
Stop the attack!
Free the political prisoners!

yuhi
I hate war.

Gol-Ryong-Pul, A heretic
I was surprised watching news.
The people of god attacked people of Palestine relentlessly.
No war is justified for any reason

Jeongho Moon
Urge the government of Israel to stop killing innocent Lebaneses.

yukdam
S.T.O.P T.H.E W.A.R

Jeon
Please no more killing.

nanna
I against all of the war.
Israel&U.S. must stop killing.

Yang
I am against for the right of Israeli government.

Kim
Stop the killing.

Mun
The war for peace makes no sense.

Lee
Israel...You really intend to drwagive deep hatred and blood on the pretext of your faith that you are a chosen people?
In the places you are dropping bombs, people who want peace and life like you are living.
Sopt this masscre! before you were fallen into the sulfur fire.

Huh
I’m against the war.

Ulchigi
I hope the peaceful world…

TheStarInLife
I feel hurt whenever I watch the news.
I want the world without war.

Lee
I ask Israel to stop.

Cherrysmell
Israel must stop the violence to the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
The US and the powerful countries in Europe must oppose the invasion.

Kim
May Israel, the country of evils and the gangs of the US collapse…

KOKO
STOP THE WAR…..

SUWO
Stop the barbaric war.
You will be abandoned by your God forever.

Passenger
Please stop the cruel war for the miserable children.

Miryu
It's not easy to imagine falling bombs like rain, but it seems to be easy in reality. We can't let the easy war go on. Please stop.

Lee
Blood can't be washed by blood. Those who are out of the circle would be truly courageous people.

Dongsu
Stop the killing right now!!!

Myung
Please stop the war!
Please stop the killing right now, for all of us.

Fish
Is it different, Israeli God and Hezbollah’s God?

Suok
I feel sad. Peace in the Middle East.

Kim
World does nothing to stop the war..

Banda

Stop the massacre, Israel!
I believe in the peaceful world.

Kim
We must not forget that there is the US behind Israel.
The Jewish control the US perfectly. They ruin the US politics.

Seo
We require Israel to stop the war and massacre.

Kim
Israelis are worse than Nazis.

nuri& reversellier
We pray that Israel would realize their wrongful doings.

BBANG
I read those who overcome barbaric bombings of Israel in Lebanon.
I couldn’t understand enough their anger and sadness. I send my solidarity.

Ahn
Israel, stop the war and massacre!!!
I feel anxious and sad.

Hwang
Stop the dirty ignominious imperial war!
I condemn Israel and the supporter the US.

Latecomer
PEACE TO THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE AND LEBANON.

LeeIm
I oppose the war and massacre!

Hwang
Stop Israel!

Lee
Israel has to stop the war now.
Next generation will memorize they break the peace of the world.
They bring on the Middle East war.
They massacred many good Lebanon people.
And we will not memorize Israel isn’t victim of the war any more.
They are assailants.

Juguk
I condemn the relentless violence of Israel!

Dalgun
Stop the barbaric massacre right now!!!

Hyangju
I oppose the war.
Israel and the US have to stop the massacre.

Rei
The massacre cannot be justified at any reason.
I condemn Israeli invasion and require it to stop right now.

Paul K. Ahn
Stop the imperialist and Zionist wars on Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon!

Ping
Stop the massacre

Mini
Israel has to stop the war.
It is enough killing and abusing the Palestinians for 58 years.
You already slaughtered the Lebaneses.
Stop the war and massacre!

Cho, Young-min
Lebanon has no more coffins for the childern.

salim
Stop the bloody masscre of Israel.

Yulgok
I'm against the war. I condemn the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Park, Suk-il
Isn't it really impossible to seek a way living side-by-side?

Jung Kwan-sung
Against the war, Against Israel, Against the U.S.
War=Israel=US, this ti today's tragedy.

chani
Israel, which should be most religious, is violating human rights.
War should be disappeared.

jeongsegi
The murderer.
Stop the slaughter.
Take the sin.
You are the human butcher.

Stop the war!!! Anti-war voices of Koreans (1)

2006-08-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

Kim

Israeli politicians, you're profaning your God.
Stop the massacre!

Jang

I can understand what you're doing.
Wake up, Israel!

Nochi

Israel, get out of the earth!

Lee

I'm scared of the Israelis who have forgotten their past.
Is your 'God' a god of war?

Kim

I hate both of you, Israel and the US.

Lim

Against the war!

Jang

Don't you know the verb “Love your neighbor”?

Soh

Stop the war and the massacre right now, Israel!!
Stop supporting the relentless war, the US and neocons!

Lee

Against the war!
Against the massacre!
Stop the barbarism!

Cherry

Israel, stop the war and massacre right now!

Lee

Please stop the massacre to the innocent people...
War is horrible.

Nam

Let's get rid of the US imperialists and their followers!

kino

...

Sang

Against the war!

Kim

What about stopping, Israel?

Han

I oppose all wars!

Mooncat

stop the massacre!

Tak

stop the war!

Ahn

Why are we Koreans in silence of this war? We have to combine with them.

Shin

Stop the war!

Choi

Stop the massacre right now!

Dochily

I oppose Israeli relentless warfare. We cannot achieve the democracy and peace in middle east by forces. I oppose the reorganization the middle east order by the US and Israel.

Dawnupon

The relentless time – it's enough.
Stop, please! The war, the massacre, the irrational, lack of conscience.

Kim

Signing here cannot stop the war but I don't know what else I can do.
I oppose the war.

Nang-i

We want to live. Please stop, please.

Park

Can't you hear their screams?
I hope you to stop the war.
I oppose the war. Please...

student

I'm too young to know what is going on, but I think the powerful people have to stop being war criminals. Nothing can justify the war, right? So I oppose the war, either.

Yang

I feel deep anger about the ignorance of international society, which pursue only their own profits thoroughly. I feel deep anger about arrogant Israel.

Kim

I'm against the terrible racial violence. I would not forget this barbaric history.

We denounce the U.S. and Israel!!

2006-08-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

Statement in Protest and Solidarity by the Korean Anti-war and Peace Movement

We denounce the U.S. and Israel!!

That Israel has massacred Palestinians is nothing new. Ever since forcibly occupying Palestine and establishing the occupying state of Israel, Zionists have been massacring Palestinians and expelling them from their homeland. Over the 58 years of Israeli military occupation, Palestinians have lost not only their lives, but also the dignity, as well as the right to dream of a future, every human being ought to be afforded.

The large-scale military attack Israel has been waging since June 28th is a part of this fifty-eight-year-long occupation and massacre. As a result of the current military attack, houses and buildings have been destroyed, and 176 Palestinians have died and 872 have been injured as of July 31.

Although Israel has claimed that it waged the attack to save its own soldiers, this is only a façade. What Israel is really aiming for is the destruction of the Hamas administration, a group that has resisted Israel’s occupation policy in Palestine and revenge against Palestinians for having chosen the Hamas administration.

As with Palestine, this is not the first time Israel has waged massacre and destructive war against Lebanon. Without rehearsing the numerous other instances of war and massacre, it suffices to recall the 1982 attacks Israel waged against Lebanon, with which Israel left tens of thousands dead and committed a terrible crime against human history.

On July 12, Israel began another attack on Lebanon. 750 people had died as of August 2, and 750 thousand Lebanese have lost their homes and become refugees. In less than a month, major social infrastructure including airports and power plants has been destroyed. The attacks on Qana, in which more than 60 Lebanese, including more than 30 children, were killed, is a representative example of Israel’s military actions in Lebanon.

As with Palestine, Israel’s purported reason for beginning war in Lebanon was to rescue those of its soldiers held there. However, Israel’s real purpose is to destroy the Hezbollah, which has been waging a resistance movement against Israel since the 1982 massacre, and, further, to expand Israel’s control over the Middle East and Arab region by pressuring Syria and Iran.

What we have not forgotten, however, is that Israel and the U.S. have cooperated through the bloody wars in Palestine and Lebanon. The U.S. is not a mere sponsor or third-party to the current war, but rather an invader and slaughterer just like Israel.

Therefore, Korea’s anti-war and peace movement demands that:

Israel and the U.S. immediately stop their war against and massacre in Palestine and Lebanon, and withdraw from all occupied territories.
- Israel and the U.S. apologize to all the Palestinians and Lebanese who have suffered as a result of the war and massacre and compensate them for their loss.
- Israel and U.S. cease its domination policy in the Middle East and Arab region, so as to ensure the peace and stability of this region.

------------------------------------------------------

Message of Solidarity to the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples

The pain and hurt that Palestine and Lebanon are suffering at this time is also causing many Koreans shock and grief. Small as our powers are, we are therefore commencing action to stop the war and massacre.

Palestine and Lebanon ought to be places where human dignity breathes, not objects of violence and occupation. Thus, we demand that Israel and the U.S. immediately stop their war and massacre in these countries.

We also send our solidarity to the people of Palestine and Lebanon, who have continued, for their past, present, and future, in resisting Israel and the U.S.

Let us all have courage and confidence.

While our present is dark and difficult, as long as we do not give up our dream of a new world we will achieve a world in which all human beings may live freely in peace.

August 3, 2006

Korean Federation of Medical Groups for Health Rights

Korean Pharmacists for Democratic Society

Korea Dentists Association For Healthy Society

Kyonggi Women’s Associations United

Kyungnam Women's Associations United

Kwangju Chonnam Women's Associations United

National Park Conservation Network

Korean House For International Solidarity

Korea Christian Action Organization

Korea Association of Christian Women for Women Minjung

Nanum Munwha Global Peace Sharing

Nawauri

The Solidarity for Practice of the South-North Declation

Solidarity for Woker's Health

Labor Human Rights Center

Power Of Working Class

Worker's Institute for Management Analysis

Green Korea

Dasan Human Rights Center

All Together

Taegu·Kyungbuk Women's Associations United

Solidarity For Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Human Rights of Korea

Cultural Action

Minkahyup

MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Demacratic Society

Korean Council for Democratic Martyre

Democratic Labor Party

Seoul Democratic Labor Party

Democratic Workers' Solidarity

Citizens' Coalition for Democratic Media

National Alliance for Democracy ＆ Reunification of Korea

National Association of Professors for Democratic Society

Korean Woman Organization Against Us Occupation

Busan Women

Nonviolent Peaceforce Corea

People's Solidarity For Social Progress

Solidarity For New Society

The Korean Chatholic Women's Commuity for A New World

National Solidarity for Solving Prostitution Issues

Coalition for cultural Diversity in Moving Images

Korean Women's Environmental Network

Joint Committee for Migrant Workers in Korea

Ulsan Women’s Association

Iraq Solidarity For Peace

Women Migrants Human Rights Center

Association of Physicians for Humanism

Korean Government Employees' Union

Korean Professors Union

Korea Peasant League

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions

Korea Peoples Solidarity

National Federation Of the Poor of Korea

Korea Women Peasants Association

Korea National Student March

Jeonbuk Women's Associations United

World Without War

Institute for Democratic Labor in memory of Jun Tae-ll

People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy

Association of Korea Doctors for Health Rights

Catholic Human Rights Committee

Korean Catholic Confederation For Justice

Citizens Solidarity for Participation and Autonomy of Chungbuk

Tongil Plaza

Korean People's Action against Dispatch of Troops to Iraq

Civil Network For A Peaceful Korea

Women Making Peace

Peace Museum

Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea

Solidarity for Peace and Human Rights

Korean Church Human Rights Center

Korea Labor & Society Institute

Korean Institute for Labor Studies and Policies

Hanchongryun(The Confederation of Korean Students' Union)

Lesbian Counceling Center in South Korea

Korea Irregular Professors Union

Working Voice

Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center

Korean Women Workers Associations United

Korea Women's Associations United

Korean Women Link

Korea Women’s Hot line

Differently Abled Women United

Corea Youth Movement Council

Citizens' Action Network

Hyanglin Church

Korean Federation For Environmental Movement

Korea Youth Corps

YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association)

Imagination for International Solidarity

Palestine Peace Solidarity

(90 organizations)

“Peace Action on the Street”

2006-08-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

On August 9, 2006, in Kanghwamun in Seoul, there was a street campaign called “Peace Action on the Street,” condemning the Israeli invasion of Palestine and Lebanon and demanding the return of the Zaitun, the Korean army dispatched in Iraq.

Several groups were involved. A group of college students called Nanum, which means ‘share’ in Korean, has been collecting signatures and contributions from those opposed to the Israeli invasion. The Palestine Peace Solidarity has been enacting a one-man demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy for five weeks now.

The campaigners informed the public of the reality of the war and appealed for solidarity. They also sang songs of peace.

Dyung Yaping, a member of Palestine Peace Solidarity, told the audience that Koreans could do something to stop the war. She emphasized, “Koreans must think of themselves, their own ethics. Think about why you’re precious beings that cannot be harmed and cannot be killed while others are killed? On what basis is your security guaranteed? The war is not just other people’s problem, it’s ours as well.”

Startone, a singer, sang “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” expressing his sadness and anger.

Leedari, the planner of this campaign, prayed for the peace of all the people living on earth.

The campaign will continue on Wednesdays.

It says, “Take down the muzzle of a gun, Israel!”“Peace to Lebanon”“We want peace.”

An activist from PPS Banda is distributing anti-war papers.

Dyung Yaping appeals for solidarity.

Startone sings.

Palestine Peace Solidarity is

2006-08-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Palestine Peace Solidarity is a group that disseminates information on Palestine to ensure that the Palestinian voice is not forgotten. We manage webzine Olive, which carries translated documents from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
Fridays at 7 p.m. we hold weekly meetings and work on creating resource materials on Palestine.

(Sorry, Olive is Korean only.)

Olive

There exist many movements in this world: political movements, labor movements, feminist movements, and we want to exercise our voice among them.

We wish for the realization of freedom, equality, and peace for the Palestinian people and their land.

We want Israel and the United States to end the occupation and exercise restraint in Palestine.

Sometimes we use words, pictures, and song.

We can hear the Palestinian voices, and we want to deliver our voice to Palestine so they know that they are not alone.

The magazine is called Olive because we wish to grow closer to Palestinians, and olives are deeply connected to the lives of Palestinians.

We want people who are interested in and feel close to Palestine.

We don’t think that we are always perfect or right, and we are interested in hearing different opinions. We believe that the world can be made a better place by creating a bridge between Korea and Palestine.

About This Blog

2006-08-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

This is a temporary English blog for Palestine Peace Solidarity, a South Korean peace movement organization. On this blog, we will inform you of our actions against the violence, especially against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The blog is still in development and subject to change.

If you have any questions, please email us at nablus3@gmail.com or taiji202@gmail.com
Thank you.