Kibush 40: Join Action for Palestine, say campaigners in Israel

WATCHING the long wait at one of Israeli military's many checkpoints.
Women volunteers who monitor the soldiers' behaviour can sometimes inhibit harassment and brutality.
But they can't be everywhere, and they know that when they go, the bullying and ill-treatment can resume.
Sometimes the women of Machsom Watch face threats and attacks themselves from settlers.
They know the real answer is to end the long wait for Palestinian freedom. That's why these peace women are supporting the call for international action on June 9th.

PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGNERS in Israel opposed to the 40-year long occupation of Palestinian lands seized in the June 1967 war have joined forces to issue a call for international action next month. Besides demonstrations like that planned in London for June 9, they are calling for the Palestinian cause to be raised in actions around the G8 Summit of world leaders in Germany, and for campaigns targetting companies that invest and profit from the occupation.

Calling themselves Kibush 40 (Kibush in Hebrew means conquest or occupation) the participants include the Coalition of Women for Peace, the Peace Bloc (Gush Shalom) to which veteran activist Uri Avnery belongs, the Communist Party-led alliance Hadash which is represented in the Knesset, and the youthful Anarchists Against the Wall who have faced rubber bullets taking part in protests at Bil'in and elsewhere against Israel's annexation fence.

With them too are the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, ICAHD, Machsom Watch, women who monitor and challenge brutality and bullying at military checkpoints, and Ta'ayush (Partnership), an initiative begun by Israeli Palestinians which has turned humanity into practical solidarity by taking food and medicines through to Palestinian communities under military curfew and siege.

Here is the call from the Kibush 40 coalition:

40 Years is Enough!

Six Days of Action against the Occupation of Palestine - June 6-12 2007

Global Day of Action - June 9 2007

Kibush 40 coalition

http://www.kibush40.org

The second week of June will mark forty years since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six Day war. This is now the longest enduring military occupation in the world. While the Israeli government evades negotiations that would end the occupation and lead to a just peace, the lives of Palestinians continue to be crushed daily by closures and economic strangulation, their land confiscated for settlements and their communities made into prisons by the Segregation Wall.

At the same time, violence in the region continues to supply ideological fuel for the G8 governments in their ‘War on Terror’, explicitly declared as a never-ending, pre-emptive global war which justifies erasing civil liberties, supporting oppressive regimes, and attacking refugees and migrants. We are all victims of this war: in Palestine and Israel, in Iraq and in Colombia, in Germany and in the U.S.A.

With the occupation at forty it should be clear to all that its forceful hegemony cannot be resisted by established political means alone. This is both morally insufficient and doomed to practical failure. As a strategic and practical alternative, the "Occupation 40" coalition is calling for six days of actions to mark forty years of occupation, on June 6 to 12 2007.

A Global Day of Action has also been called on June 9. The coalition is a democratic and non-hierarchical action platform of grassroots Israeli groups and organizations. Peace organizations, artists, students’ groups, internal refugees, anarchists, animal rights activists, communists and individuals participate in this initiative.

The six-day convergence in Israel will include demonstrations, direct actions, discussions and cultural events. This is a call-out for international direct actions against the occupation on June 6-12. We call in particular for actions against corporations profiting directly from the occupation that publicly shame them and/or cause them economic damage.

Information on corporations involved with the occupation is available from http://www.boycottisrael.co.uk and many other sources, including a recent report by War on Want available at http://www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=443.

We hope that actions will be organized to be decentralized and trust them to the initiative and self-organization of affinity groups around the world.

These days of action fit well into this summer’s international action calendar:

• June 5 – An international day of action against militarization, wars and occupations, in the run-up to the G8 summit in Germany.

• June 6-8 – Protests against the G8, with the participation of Palestinian and Israeli activists and Palestine Solidarity groups from around Europe.

• June 6-12 – 6 days of action against the Occupation, in Palestine/Israel and Internationally

• June 9 – Rally in London, Global Day of Action Against the Occupation

• June 10-11 – Protest, teach-in and lobby in Washington DC

Please distribute this call widely, and please organise for action with your groups and networks. We can use this symbolic moment to hit out at those who benefit and profit from the pain and despair in Palestine, and to send the Israeli and G8 governments a message they cannot ignore.

Kibush 40 Coalition:

Anarchists Against the Wall – http://awalls.org
Coalition of Women for Peace – http://coalitionofwomen.org
Gush Shalom – http://gush-shalom.org
Hadash – http://hadash.org.il/
Indymedia Israel – http://israel.indymedia.org
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – http://icahd.org/
Machsom Watch – http://machsomwatch.org
Ta’ayush – http://taayush.org
Zochrot - http://nakbainhebrew.org

International links:
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USA) – http://endtheoccupation.org
Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid (Canada) – http://caiaweb.org
Enough Coalition (UK) – http://www.enoughoccupation.org