Category: Middle East

Court Sessions Continue Against the ‘Westport 2’

Stanley Heller, Exec. Director, Middle East Crisis Committee

On May 12 two young men went into a Westport, CT, synagogue to read a three-paragraph statement opposing the meeting there to raise funds for the “Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.” They were stopped before they could get into the meeting room and someone FALSELY claimed the two were armed. Many police cars came to the synagogue. Police brandished automatic weapons. Schools in the area were sent into lockdown. The two men, Dan Fischer and Gregory Williams, were arrested on a charge that if punished to the maximum could get them one year in prison.

In court on May 22 in Stamford Dan Fischer applied for “Accelerated Rehabilitation.” Gregory Williams opted for a jury trial. The next court session is July 21.

The two had attempted to enter the talk and to read testimony by Nabilah Abu Halima, a Palestinian woman whose son was killed in Gaza during 2009’s Operation Cast Lead and who had to flee her home with the rest of her family during 2014’s Gaza Massacre.

Fischer and Williams were particularly concerned that the event, a women’s luncheon sponsored by Friends of the IDF, claimed that the occupying army is “a world leader in integrating women in the armed forces.” The activists intended their demonstration to call attention to the experiences of women living under the apartheid regime in Palestine.

Palestinian women and families suffer the brunt of the violence of the IDF’s periodic assaults on Gaza. The family of Nabilah Abu Halima, whose testimony Fischer and Williams were attempting to read at the talk, is just one example: “Our son Matar was 17 when he was killed in the 2009 war [Operation Cast Lead]. He was killed together with his cousin Muhammad, who was 12, while they were trying to escape the bombardments. Other members of the family who were with them were injured. One of them, Ghada Abu Halima, died of her wounds three months later….My son Matar was killed right before my eyes.” Ghada Abu Halima died from burns she suffered from a white phosphorus bomb.

A defense fund has been created to help pay for lawyers.  To see how to contribute and for latest developments see: www.TheStruggle.org.

‘Badhoneywell’ Makes Its Nationwide Debut | Truthout

The US government’s complicity in the Israeli siege of Gaza is no secret. Israel has the eleventh largest military in the world, which is in large part due to US military aid of over $3 billion annually. What remains in the shadows, however, is the alarming extent to which United States corporations profit from the Israeli war machine.

A prime example is Honeywell International Inc. The Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, a Canadian group, has documented a long-lasting and profitable economic relationship between Honeywell and the Israeli military, with many of their collaborations traceable directly to war crimes committed by the IDF. The 2010 attack in the waters outside Gaza against the “Freedom Flotilla,” in which nine activists were killed in an attempt to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza through the Israeli blockade, was perpetrated by a Sa’ar V Corvette, built by another US company, Northrop-Grumman. Yet that ship was armed by Honeywell-built torpedoes.

This relationship, in which Honeywell profits from some component of weapons production without appearing to be prominently involved, appears frequently.

via “Badhoneywell” Makes Its Nationwide Debut.

Israeli Author to Speak in Connecticut

by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

Ofra Yeshua-Lyth will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, in the Program Room of the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm Street, New Haven.

Ofra is a former correspondent in Germany and the U.S. for the Israeli paper Ma’ariv. She has written a book called The Case for a Secular New Jerusalem: A Memoir. She is a member of New Profile, an Israeli feminist organization. Venues have not yet been arranged.

On Amazon a reviewer says this about her book: “What is actually at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, in a book that is as hard hitting as it is entertaining, makes the case that at the center lays the religious nature of the Zionist movement beneath its modern-secular veneer. She uses the stories of her grandmothers — women who immigrated to Palestine in the early days of Zionism from Yemen and Russia with high hopes, courage and grace — as well as other stories — to illustrate the implications of the Zionist failure to separate religion and State.

“While the Western world agonizes over Muslim fundamentalism in the Middle East, hardly any attention has been given to the Israeli adaptation of Judaism, which at its most extreme abhors any form of cohabitation with non-Jews.”

Watch for news about her appearances during the month at www.TheStruggle.org, or call (203) 934-2761.

Free *** Refreshments

Read an article about her on Mondoweiss http://mondoweiss.net/2014/10/ofra-yeshua-israeli

Sponsor: Middle East Crisis Committee

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