The Global Intifada, Occupy Wall Street Not Palestine

October 15

Announcing the launch of a NEW stopthewall.org

We are very excited to announce the much anticipated launch of our new website! Using Free Software and community collaboration betwee local technologists and May First/People Link (mayfirst.org), STW has upgraded to web 2.0!

This new technology allows us to be more dynamic and stay connected with content from our partners. Please take advantage of all that it has to offer.

New features:

* Many new categories and search options to make content more accessible with a better overview of all our diverse resources

* Multi-media tools to feature photos, videos, and our weekly podcast Radio Intifada (in Spanish)

* Integration with Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, and more

* Ability for sites to pull in our latest content with RSS: http://stopthewall.net/em6/link.php?M=2422&N=100&L=13197&F=T

* Translated content in Spanish and Arabic (coming soon) will be linked to one another for easy language switching.

StoptheWall.org is your site, too. Please help us to during our transition, by informing us if you notice broken links or other problems. You can contact: mallory@stopthewall.org

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The Global Intifada
By Jamal Juma

OCT 15 - Palestine is an international symbol of struggle against occupation, racism, and colonialism. On October 15, 2011 the world gathers in what some have called a global intifada, to stand up against imperialism.

The first time an international activist came up to me and sincerely thanked me for a speech in which I had promised that we as Palestinians would never give up our struggle until we have reached liberation and justice, I was surprised. Now I have learned to understand the importance of our struggle for the rest of the world and the responsibility that necessarily follows. As long as Palestine resists, there is hope for more than our own people.

In 2010, The South African Trade Union Congress wrote, “The (Palestinian) struggle has become a global symbol of resistance against apartheid, occupation and colonialism in our age.”

This statement describes exactly my experience in over a decade of innumerable encounters and collaborations with international activists from all over the globe. The Palestinian struggle not only has a global dimension, it has inspired people globally.

Whether it's British activists ready to go to prison for their solidarity actions with Palestine, a deeply felt speech by an activist of the farmers' movement in Mozambique recalling the Palestinian resistance, or the fact that a Palestinian will never go without a standing ovation in front of a Cuban audience, theirs are true expressions of global solidarity with Palestine. Other deep gestures of togetherness and common struggle were the tribal ceremony in which I received from one of the elders of the First Nations in Canada a ring to protect me from my enemies, or the residents in Norway’s most northern city forming two competing solidarity groups, or the signs reading “Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine” and “Tear Down This Wall Street” appearing on the banners of the protesters in the popular movements of the United States who are standing up right now in their streets, demanding justice.

We have all seen the slogan, “We are all Palestinians.” The Palestinian cause and our resistance to Israeli occupation and apartheid are an intrinsic part of the imagination of many people and the global struggle against colonialism, racism, and war. People all over the world stand in solidarity because they know our struggle is also their struggle. This connection is the true global solidarity.

Our symbols of struggle, like the keffiyeh, have become symbols of struggle all across the globe. The word Intifada is understood in almost all languages of the world. The Mexican activists in Oaxaca in 2006 called their uprising an Intifada and many Kashmiris use the term as well.

Our common, borderless struggle is the reason why Stop the Wall calls each year for the International Week against the Apartheid Wall. From 9 to 16 November in Palestine and around the globe–from Australia to Canada, and from Norway to Argentina–people will mobilize for worldwide actions to participate in this global action week. This year, once again, we will be able to feel this spirit of solidarity and joint struggle for our liberation as part of the global struggle for justice, peace and humanity as part of the emerging global Intifada.

There are moral, political, and historical reasons that the Palestinian struggle is an international symbol. Each one of these reasons is in and of itself a victory for the movement to free Palestine and can be credited to Palestinian grassroots activists.

Read More: http://stopthewall.net/em6/link.php?M=2422&N=100&L=13198&F=T

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Occupy Wall Street Not Palestine
By the BDS National Committee Secretariat

OCCUPIED PALESTINE, OCT 13 - The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the largest Palestinian civil society coalition struggling for Palestinian rights, is proud to stand in solidarity with the movements struggling for a new world based on democracy, human rights and economic justice. From New York to Athens, from Madrid to Santiago, from Bahrain to Rome, these huge mobilisations provide a much needed reminder of something that Palestinians have always known – that another world, a dignifying one, is possible and ordinary people can create it.

Our aspirations overlap; our struggles converge. Our oppressors, whether greedy corporations or military occupations, are united in profiting from wars, pillage, environmental destruction, repression and impoverishment. We must unite in our common quest for freedoms, equal rights, social and economic justice, environmental sanity, and world peace. We can no longer afford to be splintered and divided; we can no longer ignore our obligations to join hands in the struggle against wars and corporate exploitation and for a human-friendly world community not a profit-maximizing jungle.

The Occupy Wall Street movement and its counterparts across the US, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere are — at least partially — inspired by the Arab Spring for democracy and social justice. Leaders of the Arab popular revolts tell us that they, in turn, were largely inspired by our own, decades-old struggle against Israel’s occupation of our land, its system of discrimination that matches the UN’s definition of apartheid, and its denial of the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.

The rapidly emerging movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law is a key and effective part of the Palestinian struggle. Anchored in universal principles of human rights and struggling for freedom, justice and equality, the BDS movement, established in 2005, is deeply rooted in decades of Palestinian peaceful resistance to colonial oppression and is inspired by the South African struggle against apartheid as well as the civil rights movement in the US. It is adopted by a near consensus among Palestinians everywhere, with all the main political parties, trade unions, professional syndicates, women’s unions, student groups, NGO networks and refugee advocacy networks represented in the BNC, the reference for this growing movement to end Israeli impunity.

Read More: http://stopthewall.net/em6/link.php?M=2422&N=100&L=13199&F=T

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Update on Palestinian hunger strike and call for action by prisoners
By Adameer

Ramallah 11 October: The campaign of civil disobedience launched by Palestinian prisoners on 27 September is now entering its third week. Hundreds of prisoners have joined the campaign by going on either open-ended or 3 day hunger strike. On 10 and 11 October, the entire prisoner population in the prisons of Gilboa (336) Nafha (511), Rimon (716), Eshel (262) and Ashkelon (142) have reportedly declared an open ended hunger strike, with more expected to do the same in the coming days. Four women are also on hunger strike at Damon prison and, like other hunger-strikers, have been denied salt and had electronic items confiscated from their cells.

Our lawyers are regularly trying to visit the hunger strikers, despite the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) continuing to place obstacles in the way of these visits by declaring a ‘situation of emergency’ in the prisons. Today our lawyers were prevented from meeting hunger-striking prisoners in Jalameh detention center and Megiddo prison. At Megiddo the prison authorities told our lawyer that they could not allow visits to two prisoners as they had refused to stand up for the roll call and are too weak to see him. When asked for an official statement on this policy, the prison authorities refused.

Families of prisoners from Gilboa have reported to Addameer that the hunger strikers call on international human rights activists, groups and organizations to support their struggle by writing to the Israeli Prison Service to protest against the increasingly punitive measures being taken against them. Addameer supports this call, and requests you to take action by sending the attached letters in Hebrew and English demanding that the IPS immediately desist from the use of isolation and excessive fines against the hunger strikers, and from denying the hunger strikers salt - a vital nutrient to maintain their health. The letters include the relevant addressees from the Israeli Prison Service and other Israeli authorities.

Read More: http://stopthewall.net/em6/link.php?M=2422&N=100&L=13200&F=T

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