A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

(Source: canadian-communist)

Today, Palestine was voted the world’s 194th state by the UN General Assembly! It’s a day for the history books. People all over the world are celebrating - send your photo in to photos@avaaz.org

(Source: 6-2-midnight)

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children”

—Dwight David Eisenhower

34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961

(Source: mybooksandmore, via creative-education-deactivated2)

• BACKGROUND ON THE CRISIS

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Palestinian Territories: On 14 November the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched an airstrike that targeted and killed the acting chief of Hamas’ armed wing, marking the start of the current military offensive Operation Defensive Pillar

The last Israeli full-scale offensive in Gaza, which took place between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 

(“Operation Cast Lead”) had a devastating impact on the civilian population, resulting in thousands of deaths and 

injuries, and massive destruction of homes, infrastructure and livelihoods. Since then, limited escalations in 

violence affecting civilians in Gaza and southern Israel have taken place every few weeks

The vulnerability of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip has been exacerbated by the intensification of the 

land, air and sea blockade imposed by Israel following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007. Despite some 

easing measures implemented since mid 2010, the blockade is still ongoing

• PALESTINIAN & ISRAELI DEATHS

According to The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: Since September 29, 2000 - Present, 1,096 Israelis and 6,568 Palestinians have been killed

Sources: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ochaopt_gaza_sitrep_26_11_2011_english.pdf

http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties.asp

Photo: 

Smoke billows from a spot targeted by an Israeli air strike in Gaza. Photographer: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

—The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.  by Abraham Lincoln

• The Fund for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace: 2 boys

FREEDOM FOR PALESTINIAN PRISONERS  

There’s basically no inspection, so we don’t know. Some of them have been there for years. That means no charges, just suspected of something and locked up … the hunger strikes are a protest against these violations of elementary human rights and of law.” —NOAM CHOMSKY

By: Hefez Omar

GOOD NEWS  

—The Coordinated Peaceful Actions  of Palestinian Activists Served As Effective Tools To Attain Media Coverage & Support From The Int’l Community  

• 77 days ago Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh began a hunger strike to pressure Israeli prison authorities, on April 17 they were joined by hundreds of other prisoners and civilians in solidarity across the world.

• Today, approximately 2,000 Palestinian prisoners who have now been on hunger strike for about 28 days have reportedly reached a tentative agreement that would improve their conditions and limit detentions without trial.  

• Their peaceful protest demands an end to an Israeli policy of “administrative detention,” under which suspected militants are held for months, and sometimes years, without being charged. Also intends to end the use of solitary confinement and ease a wide range of restrictions.

• Israeli authorities have defended the “administrative detention” policy as a necessary security measure. However, it has granted many of the requests, including new limits on administrative detention  

______ 

 —SOURCES & READ MORE   

Noam Chomsky: Palestinian Hunger Strike a Protest Against “Violations of Elementary Human Rights”  

Palestinian Prisoners to End Hunger Strike   

Photo via: @sirobiro Instagram

DRONE WARFARE: KILLING BY REMOTE CONTROL

• The Washington Post reports President Obama has granted a CIA and U.S Military request to launch drone attacks even if it does not know the identities of those who will be killed. The so-called “signature” strike policy went into effect earlier this month. It is widely expected the number of U.S. drone strikes will see a radical jump with the new policy in place.

—Democracy Now

• The Bureau has identified credible reports of 168 children killed in seven years of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. These children would account for 44% of the minimum figure of 385 civilians reported killed by the attacks.

—The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• The number of civilians killed in US drone strikes were probably 40 percent higher than what the US was actually reporting. Between 2004 and 2011, they put the estimate of civilian deaths at a figure of 385, but added in the research that the toll could actually come close to tallying 775 casualties.

—RT

• At least 48 civilians have been killed in 27 U.S. strikes inside Yemen since 2009. Between 2006 and 2011, about 500 people were killed in Gaza and the Occupied Territories by Israeli drones.

—Democracy Now

• “The proliferation of drones not only in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, but the expansion of drone bases to places like Kuwait and Oman and Ethiopia, Seychelles, Australia, Turkey. This is a campaign that’s out of control in the hands of the CIA, the Joint Special Operations Command, both in secret, away from the eyes of the American public.” 

—Medea Benjamin; Co-founder of CODEPINK and on of the organizers of the Drone Summit

Info Source: Democracy Now, RT and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Photo Credits: Messay Shoakena

More info

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgr26CiTiCk&feature=plcp