Description
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’
“The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
Israel announced its formal opposition to what it’s labeled the “unilateral recognition” of Palestinian statehood. “Israel rejects outright international dictates regarding a permanent accord with the Palestinians,” read the declaratory decision, which was passed unanimously by the country’s cabinet. “An accord, should it be reached, will only come through direct negotiations between the sides, without preconditions.” The formal statement, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a response to “recent talk in the international community about an attempt to unilaterally impose on Israel a Palestinian state.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations' highest court is set to begin hearings regarding Israel’s occupation of lands that Palestinians are seeking for their own state. Representatives from Palestine will be the first to speak and are expected to argue that Israel has violated international law regarding territorial conquest by occupying areas held by Palestinians, violated laws protecting their right to self-determination, and imposed a system of apartheid on Palestinians in Israel-controlled lands. Israel is not expected to defend itself in person at the hearings, but will likely submit a written statement.
"Occupation, curfew, settlements, closed military zone, administrative detention, siege, preventive strike, terrorist infrastructure, transfer. Their WAR destroys language.
Speaks genocide with the words of a quiet technician.
Occupation means that you cannot trust the OPEN SKY, or any open street near to the gates of snipers tower.
It means that you cannot trust the future or have faith that the past will always be there.
Occupation means you live out your live under military rule, and the constant threat of death, a quick death from a snipers bullet or a rocket attack from an M16.
A crushing, suffocating death, a slow bleeding death in an ambulance stopped for hours at a checkpoint.
A dark death, at a torture table in an Israeli prison: just a random arbitrary death.
A cold calculated death: from a curable disease.
A thousand small deaths while you watch your family dying around you.
Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence.
As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water.
And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and YOU refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine.” ― Suheir Hammad"
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States on Tuesday vetoed an Arab-backed and widely supported U.N. resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in the embattled Gaza Strip, saying it would interfere with negotiations on a deal to free hostages abducted in Israel.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-1 with the United Kingdom abstaining, reflecting the strong support from countries around the globe for ending the war, which started when Hamas militants invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. Since then, more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which says the vast majority were women and children.
It was the third U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire in Gaza and came a day after the United States circulated a rival resolution that would support a temporary cease-fire linked to the release of all hostages.
Virtually every council member — including the United States — expressed concern at the impending catastrophe in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with his plan to evacuate civilians and move Israel’s military offensive to the area bordering Egypt, where Israel says Hamas fighters are hiding.
World Court Demands Israel stop it's Genocidal Shitfuckery!
At a national meeting earlier this week Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa decided on key priorities for consumer boycotts in New Zealand to support the international BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel.
The key consumer boycott priorities we will be focusing on are:
• Obela Hommus:
Obela is 50% owned by Israel’s largest food company, Strauss Group, which is known for its support of the Israeli military, namely the elite Golani and Givati infantry brigades, whom they fund and provide care packages for. Since 1948, the Golani and Givati Brigades have been notorious for their severe human rights abuses in Lebanon and Palestine. Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on a team of fighters from the Golani Brigade committing hate crimes against Palestinians in Nablus in the occupied Palestinian territories. Former members of the Golani Brigade describe the use of the "neighbour procedure", a term for the use of Palestinian civilians, often children, as human shields to protect Israeli occupation soldiers. The procedure was ruled illegal by Israel's own high court in 2005.
• AHAVA products:
(“Dead Sea Mineral Skin Care Products”) Ahava manufactures its cosmetics in a factory in the illegal Mitzpe Shalem settlement in the occupied West Bank. However, AHAVA labels its skin care products imported into the EU as originating from "The Dead Sea, Israel." AHAVA uses Palestinian natural resources without the permission of or compensation to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel denies Palestinians access to the shores of the Dead Sea and its resources, although one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the occupied West Bank.
• SodaStream:
Soda Steam is actively complicit in Israel's policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev). SodaStream have a long history of mistreatment of and discrimination against Palestinian workers.
• HP (Hewlett-Packard):
HP-branded corporations provide and operate technology that Israel uses to maintain its system of apartheid, occupation and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people.
Aside from providing services and technology to the Israeli army and police that maintain Israel’s illegal occupation and siege of Gaza, HP provides Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority with the exclusive itanium servers for its Aviv System. This system enables the government to control and enforce its system of racial segregation and apartheid against Palestinian citizens of Israel and is directly involved in Israel’s settler colonialism through its “Yesha database”, which compiles information on Israeli citizens in illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
• BP and Caltex:
Both brands are involved in extracting petroleum products from the Eastern Mediterranean, within Palestine’s maritime boundary, for Israel’s benefit at the expense of Palestinians. Stealing from the occupied people of Palestine is a breach of international law.
• McDonald’s:
McDonald’s franchises in Israel have been openly supporting the Israeli Defence Force’s genocide in Gaza with free meals for Israeli soldiers. McDonald’s International have been happy for their brand to be associated with the slaughter of Palestinians. Active boycotts of McDonald’s in different countries have already hit their sales and some franchises in the Islamic world are now flying the Palestinian flag to distance themselves from the Israeli franchise. This adds to the pressure on McDonald’s to close its Israeli restaurants.
BDS is a key strategy to pressure Israel to abide by international law and United Nations resolutions. It was successful in bringing intense pressure on apartheid South Africa in the 1970s – 80s and it will succeed in doing the same against apartheid Israel.
BDS against Israel has three specific goals:
• End Israel’s military occupation
• End Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians
• Allow Palestinian refugees to return to their land and homes in Palestine
The New Zealand government has policy supporting each of these goals but refuses to back that up with effective pressure on Israel.
In announcing boycotts of these consumer products we are building on the success of previous BDS actions taken in Aotearoa New Zealand which includes:
1. Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer abandoning the New Zealand Womens Tennis Open after protests here
2. Lorde abandoning a planned concert in Israel in 2017
3. The New Zealand superfund withdrawing investments from Elbit Systems in 2012 and in 2021 doing the same with five Israeli banks involved in funding illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land
4. Taking part in the successful global campaign to get PUMA to stop sponsoring Israeli soccer teams in illegal Israeli settlements



