Tag: West Bank

The world saw Israel’s despicable violence, thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international waters … It’s a miracle that I’m even here to write about my second encounter with the Israeli military, again a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military.

We arrived in Palestine on Jan. 2, the fourth day of the attacks on Gaza and the day after the murder of Oscar Grant III by the subway police in Oakland.

In a rare moment of honesty, the New York Times divulged the real motive behind the bombardment and invasion of Gaza: "to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern."

For 18 months my people in Gaza have been under siege, incarcerated inside the world's biggest prison, sealed off from land, air and sea, caged and starved, denied even medication for our sick.

As bombs rain down, Palestinians call on all 'freedom loving people to act immediately in any possible way to put pressure on their governments to end diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel and institute sanctions against it.'

U.S. hands off the little town of Bethlehem! In this season celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace, let us all resolve to pray and work for ending the occupation, implementing other internationally recognized Palestinian rights and allowing Palestinians to shed the shackles of U.S. foreign policy.

Gaza Strip, Palestine, has been brutally occupied by Apartheid Israel since 1967 and has been under a genocidal siege since mid-2007.