What courage and steadfast fortitude it must take, week after week and year after year, for Uri Avnery to continually fight to bring justice to the Palestinian people and morality to the state of Israel. Who is Uri Avnery?

I only know about Uri Avnery. I know that he is an Israeli. I know that he fought in the war of 1948, was a past member of the Israel’s Kenesset, and worked as a journalist. Where I don’t know. Some people here have called him a marginal figure in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because his organization of only two thousand members, Gush Shalom, translated as "The Peace Bloc," seldom gets the press it deserves for its persistent activity on behalf of peace in Israel-Palestine. As an Israeli, he is fervently pro-Israel. But his vision of Israel deviates considerably from those who would support the policies of the Israeli government over the past thirty years to achieve a religious-historical dream of an Israel from the Jordan River to the sea by dispossessing another people of that land, the Palestinians, whose ancestors have lived there for centuries, at least since the birth of Islam, and perhaps longer.

It was a sad day in America on December 10, 2006 when only one protester arrived to greet Israel’s most famous racist, Avigdor Lieberman, the advocate of ethnic cleansing of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and their transfer onto reservations, in much the same way as the white American population were relieved of the presence of American Indians in the 19th century. Leiberman, as everyone knows, was invited to speak at the Saban Center on a platform, which included Henry Kissinger, the Clintons, and other Democratic celebrities. Kissinger, apparently embarrassed at having suggested a similar transfer option to get rid of the Palestinians two years ago, excused himself from attendance. Not so the other dignitaries who waited hand and foot on this vile bigot, who now sits on Olmert’s cabinet as the Minister of External Threats, as if he were the answer to all of Israel’s problems and dreams.

As contribution to the Saturday afternoon reading club, I offer some testimonies from a few former Israeli soldiers, who had the Courage to Refuse. Refuse what? Well, as soldiers who served at various points during the 40 year military occupation of the Palestinian people, their stories speak for themselves. A few dozen of the more than 500 Israeli soldiers who have joined Courage to Refuse, some of whom served prison terms for their moral-ethical stand, offered their perspectives. The eye of an Israeli soldier is a unique way to get inside the mind of an occupying force assigned to fight aspirations for self-determination and freedom in the Palestinian territories. Here are excerpts from a few of these soldiers' experiences:

This surprising headline appeared yesterday, Jan 11, 2007, in the Maan News, a Bethlehem, Palestine publication:

Condoleezza Rice launches new peace initiative for an interim Palestinian state with the Wall as its borders
   

On December 10, 2006, in An Open Letter to the New York Times, entitled Smearing Jimmy Carter, HUGH SANSOM took the New York Times to task:

Warning: if you cannot tolerate reality, do not read on.

In his cynical article, Ehud Olmert's Profound Ethics and Deep Lies, Rami G. Khouri, the Palestinian-Jordanian editor of the Beirut Daily Star, took Olmert to task for his hypocritical concern for children when he conceded to allow some medical supplies into the Palestinian territories during the siege and brutal attack of Gaza and the West Bank during Operation Summer Rains this past summer. Khouri let go with a salvo about Israel’s killing and maiming of Palestinian children.

Quoting Rami Khouri,

In a brief article subtitled, A Challenge to Nancy Pelosi, MAHMOUD El-YOUSSEPH, USAF [Ret.], who lives in Ohio, took Nancy Pelosi to task for her Orwellian stance on Palestine, which is simply, as everyone knows, the appeasement of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby. Just how powerful is a lobby that could get a major American political figure to participate in the most mendacious and deceitful propaganda ever concocted to justify a 40-year military occupation of one people by another, while its lands are being stolen and colonized?

Like anyone else, Palestinians also have ideas about how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although, at this point in the struggle, their views are more attuned to the realities of occupation/colonization, and what happens daily on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. These solutions go beyond the now almost hackneyed notion of two states. What reasonable person doesn’t support two states? That’s not the issue. The issue is how to get Israel to buy into the realization that until there are two states, Israel and Palestine, both sovereign entities, not Bantustans surrounded by walls and military forces, there will never be peace in the region. So what is it that the people on the street see as a first step to attaining peace?

Back in March, 2003, a report from the London Guardian accused Ariel Sharon of plans to turn the Palestinian territories into a huge prison. At that time, it was reported that Wall (the so-called "security fence"), whose justification is often quoted as being a defense against "terrorist" suicide bombers, was clearly much more: it was the makings of a plan to unilaterally enforce a Bantustan (apartheid) existence upon the Palestinians by confiscating the Jordan Valley. At that time, it was indicated that,

With whom do we stand?

Protests about the right wing Israel government’s incessant Occupation of Palestine is this time coming all the way from the Far East, namely, Korea. One would suppose that you can’t keep free speech suppressed for long in a true democracy, but more importantly, you can’t keep individuals, in this case, Koreans, imbued with democracy from voicing dissension about injustice in the world, like the 40 year military occupation of the Palestinian people.

BBC reported today the death of one of Israel’s founding figures, Teddy Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem at age 95. Described as an Israeli Labor party veteran, he served as Jerusalem’s mayor for nearly 30 years. His uniqueness in that position stems from his philosophy of coexistence between Jews and Arabs, especially after East Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and eventually annexed into Israel. This annexation of course remains controversial, and although Kollek sought to unify the city, he did so with full respect for the equality of rights for Israeli and Palestinian (Israeli Arabs) citizens alike living in the city. For that reason, he was loved and respected by many Palestinians, including those who continued to maintain aspirations for Palestinian statehood and a Jerusalem (Al Qads) capital for that state.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/...

Americans have need to know what it is our government is supporting when it interacts with nations around the world and underwrites or condones their actions, because it does affect the lives of ordinary, decent people, sometimes in lethal ways, such as in Iraq and more recently in Lebanon and Palestine. It also affects the lives of children.

Nazlat Issa is a Palestinian village located in the North of the West Bank next to the Green Line. The village has been divided since 1948, but since that time its communities were able to keep family and community ties alive within the village, that is, until recently when Israel began to construct the Wall (or Fence as it is called in Israel). The Wall has been built right down the middle of the village, separating families and neighbors, shopkeepers and customers from their markets, people from their work, and children from their schools. Two hundred and sixteen shops and houses were demolished close to where the Wall has been built, and six hundred out of the previously existing 1,200 shops had to close. The Wall is only the latest episode in the 40 year long struggle of the Palestinian people under military occupation.

As far as one can determine, a talking point for The Israel Project, an Israeli organization dedicated to disseminating propaganda about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East, is a false assertion intended to convince people of some false reality. It is propaganda of the worst kind. If propaganda were simply defined as information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause, then, in its latest effort, the Israel Project appears to be promoting war with Iran. In this matter, the US and Israel are confronting a propaganda machine as much as a real threat, a machine which is deliberately trying to hoodwink, use half-truths and lies, and to suppress, conceal, and distort the facts. Accordingly, this propaganda seeks "bad" ends, the involvement of the US and/or Israel in a regional conflagration.

While Americans seem oblivious to the plight of the Palestinian people, international peace activists are increasingly joining together to defy the intended plans of the right wing Israeli government to solidify its confiscation and annexation of the West Bank. The Wall (or security fence as it is called in Israel) continues on its path, while in the Jordan Valley, house demolitions, expulsions, and as recently reported, settlements, continue for the purpose of entrapping the Palestinian people in an enforced Bantustan. The international campaign to fight this injustice also continues. Here are some of the efforts observed recently.

The Other Israel is a weekly publication of Occupation Magazine, which is run by Israelis to provide information and alternative commentary on the ongoing developments in the Occupied Territories - the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It is published in Hebrew, English, and Russian. The editors of the Magazine indicate that the need for such information arises because "the ongoing devastation of the Palestinian land and people in the Occupied Territories is misrepresented in the Israeli and US media as a "fight against terror" and a "just struggle for Israel's very existence and security". The Editors represent a range of opinions as to the optimal solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but are united in the belief that a viable solution must be based on the unconditional end to the Israeli military occupation, and on principles of equality, justice and mutual respect."

On November 28, 2006, the UN Human Rights Council rebuked Israel for its settlement policy, which constituted a violation of international law and human rights.

As reported by Al Jazeera at the time,

The Canadian peace activist group, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), announced that it is mounting a boycott of two Canadian bookstore chains majority-owned by financial supporters of HESEG, The Foundation for Lone Soldiers, a foundation that supports former Israeli soldiers who served in the occupied Palestinian territories. This particular campaign began on December 23, 2006 with a picket of bookstores in Toronto and Montreal.

As reported at the group’s site,