Israel arrests the only Black passengers on the bus:

November 23, 2009:

"Dhoruba and Naji were ordered off the bus before Israeli border officials had any idea of their country of origin or personal histories. They only knew that they were Black."

Interview on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOmhGCwZBe0

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"The NLG NYC Condemns the Israeli Government for the Detention of African American Political Activists"

MONTHLY REVIEW

25 November 2009

On the Web at: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/israel261109.html

The New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild condemns the actions of the Israeli government for its unlawful and racially motivated detention of two African-American political activists.

On November 23, 2009, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former U.S. political prisoner and leader of the Black Panther Party, and Naji Mujahid, a student-activist from Washington D.C., were on a tourist bus en route from Amman, Jordan to the West Bank of occupied Palestine.

Both had been invited to attend a conference on political detention in Jericho that was sponsored by the Palestinian Authority.

As the bus crossed the King Hussein Bridge that connects Jordan with the Israeli-occupied West Bank, it stopped for a border inspection by Israeli officers.

Of the numerous individuals on the bus, only Dhoruba and Naji were ordered to disembark. Significantly, both were the only Black people on the bus. Within a short time, the border officials searched under Dhoruba's name on the Internet. They discovered that he is Muslim, a former Black Panther leader, and someone who spent 19 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

(Dhoruba, a target of COINTELPRO, was arrested in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. His conviction was overturned in 1990).

Both Dhoruba and Naji were interrogated, strip-searched, and their property confiscated and searched. Despite their cooperation and offer to return into Jordan, their detention continued for over 12 hours.

They were ultimately released but denied permission to enter occupied Palestine and returned to Jordan.

The treatment accorded Dhoruba and Naji would be outrageous if it occurred to anyone. And as Naji Mujahid himself stated shortly after returning to Amman, "the humiliation and frustration that we endured was a small taste of what we can be sure the Palestinians go through on a daily basis." But the incident is rendered even more shameful because its genesis appears to have been racial profiling.

Dhoruba and Naji were ordered off the bus before Israeli border officials had any idea of their country of origin or personal histories. They only knew that they were Black.

Moreover, the incident occurred only days after it was reported that the South African government deported an Israeli official following allegations that a member of Shin Bet, the Israeli secret police, had infiltrated the airport in Johannesburg in an effort to get information on South African citizens, particularly Black and Muslim travelers (Reuters, November 22, 2009)...

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"Israeli Shin Bet spies uncovered in South African Airports working for EL AL airlines"

On YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwBXIPUW5E

News Africa "South Africa deports Israeli 'spy' " November 24, 2009 At: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/11/20091124125219472863.html South Africa has deported an Israeli airline official following allegations that Israel's secret police, Shin Bet, have been operating in Johannesburg's international airport. The official was employed by the Israeli embassy in South Africa and had a diplomatic passport, Israel's Ynet news reported on its website. The deportation stemmed from an investigation by local television news show, Carte Blanche.... ______________________________________________________________

Israel spies on thousands of Black and Muslim South African travelers.

Now its agents face deportation from South Africa --

"Israeli spies ‘infiltrate’ Johannesburg airport"

by Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
THE NATIONAL (UAE); November 22, 2009

On the Web at:

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091123/FOREIGN/711229870/1184/enewsletter/retry=a0db9a9f4c7af5a03692

Photo: Television footage shows an undercover reporter being interrogated by an El Al official at the airport in Johannesburg.

NAZARETH, Israel // South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, had infiltrated Johannesburg international airport in an effort to gather information on South African citizens, particularly black and Muslim travellers.

The move by the South African government followed an investigation by local TV showing an undercover reporter being illegally interrogated by an official with El Al, Israel’s national carrier, in a public area of Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport.

The programme also featured testimony from Jonathan Garb, a former El Al guard, who claimed that the airline company had been a front for the Shin Bet in South Africa for many years.

Of the footage of the undercover reporter’s questioning, he commented: “Here is a secret service operating above the law in South Africa. We pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing.”

The Israeli foreign ministry is reported to have sent a team to South Africa to try to defuse the diplomatic crisis after the government in Johannesburg threatened to deport all of El Al’s security staff.

Mr Garb’s accusations have been supported by an investigation by the regulator for South Africa’s private security industries.

They have also been confirmed by human rights groups in Israel, which report that Israeli security staff are carrying out racial profiling at many airports around the world, apparently out of sight of local authorities.

Concern in South Africa about the activities of El Al staff has been growing since August, when South Africa’s leading investigative news show, Carte Blanche, went undercover to test Mr Garb’s allegations.

A hidden camera captured an El Al official in the departure hall claiming to be from “airport security” and demanding that the undercover reporter hand over his passport or ID as part of “airport regulations”. When the reporter protested that he was not flying but waiting for a friend, El Al’s security manager, identified as Golan Rice, arrived to interrogate him further. Mr Rice then warned him that he was in a restricted area and must leave.

Mr Garb commented on the show: “What we are trained is to look for the immediate threat – the Muslim guy. You can think he is a suicide bomber, he is collecting information. The crazy thing is that we are profiling people racially, ethnically and even on religious grounds … This is what we do.”

Mr Garb and two other fired workers have told the South African media that Shin Bet agents routinely detain Muslim and black passengers, a claim that has ignited controversy in a society still suffering with the legacy of decades of apartheid rule.

Suspect individuals, the former workers say, are held in an annex room, where they are interrogated, often on matters unrelated to airport security, and can be subjected to strip searches while their luggage is taken apart. Clandestine searches of their belongings and laptops are also carried out to identify useful documents and information.

All of this is done in violation of South African law, which authorises only the police, armed forces or personnel appointed by the transport minister to carry out searches.

The former staff also accuse El Al of smuggling weapons – licensed to the local Israeli embassy – into the airport for use by the secret agents.



Mr Garb went public after he was dismissed over a campaign he led for better pay and medical benefits for El Al staff.

A South African Jew, he said he was recruited 19 years ago by the Shin Bet. “We were trained at a secret camp [in Israel] where they train Israeli special forces and they train you how to use handguns, submachine guns and in unarmed combat.”

Mr Garb claimed to have profiled 40,000 people for Israel over the past 20 years, including recently Virginia Tilley, a Middle East expert who is the chief researcher at South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council. The think tank recently published a report accusing Israel of apartheid and colonialism in the Palestinian territories.

“The decision was she should be checked in the harshest way because of her connections,” Mr Garb said.

Ms Tilley confirmed that she had been detained at the airport by El Al staff and separated from her luggage. Mr Garb said that during this period an agent “photo-copied all [her] documentation and then he forwarded it on to Israel” – Mr Garb believes for use by the Shin Bet.

Israeli officials have refused to comment on the allegations. A letter produced by Mr Garb – signed by Roz Bukris, El Al’s general manager in South Africa – suggests that he was employed by the Shin Bet rather than the airline. Ms Bukris, according to the programme, refused to confirm or deny the letter’s validity.

The Israeli Embassy in South Africa declined to discuss evidence that it, rather than El Al, had licensed guns issued to the airline’s security managers. Questioned last week by Ynet, Israel’s largest news website, about the deportation of the airline official, Yossi Levy, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said he could not “comment on security matters”.

A report published in 2007 by two Israeli human rights organisations, the Nazareth-based Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism, found that Israeli airline staff used racial profiling at most major airports around the world, subjecting Arab and Muslim passengers to discriminatory and degrading treatment in violation both of international law and the host country’s laws.

“Our research showed that the checks conducted by El Al at foreign airports had all the hallmarks of Shin Bet interrogations,” said Mohammed Zeidan, the director of the Human Rights Association. “Usually the questions were less about the safety of the flight and more aimed at gathering information on the political activities or sympathies of the passengers.”

The human rights groups approached four international airports – in New York, Paris, Vienna and Geneva – where passengers said they had been subjected to discriminatory treatment, to ask under what authority the Israeli security services were operating. The first two airports refused to respond, while Vienna and Geneva said it was not possible to oversee El Al’s procedures.

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French Labor Union joins campaign to boycott Apartheid Israel:

"The French Workers’ Union CNT Joins BDS Campaign"

http://www.cnt-f.org/spip.php?article1172

Through the intermediary of its international Secretary, the National Work Confederation (Confédération Nationale du Travail or CNT), a French anti-capitalist internationalist union involved in social class struggles, has joined the campaign labelled “Boycott, Disinvestmant and Sanction against the State of Israel”, an international campaign launched by more than 170 grassroot Palestinian organizations, including our partnering independent Palestinian independent unions.

Our union confederation will take an active part in the initiatives organized in France. The CNT’s international secretary is also inviting every union and federation within our confederation to sign this campaign individually and to take concrete actions in their own field of activities (education, social work, health, culture, trade, media…) and in their various regions.

The commitment of the CNT to support the Palestinian people over many years has led us naturally to join this vital campaign to end the exploitation and occupation by Israel. A special group within the international secretary has been working on Palestinian issues since 2001. Thanks to them, we have been able to establish many contacts in Palestine with autonomous unions and grassroot organizations that are fighting the occupation.

Our joining this “Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanction” (BDS) campaign is coherent with our solidarity with Palestine, defined by our statement of support of the Palestinian people’s struggle, adopted by the CNT during its 2006 congress. This statement is the expression of the anti-colonial and internationalist principles of our union.

It confirms our opposition to all forms of colonization and occupation as well as our solidarity with the oppressed against the oppressor.

As it was done in the case of South Africa, this initiative aims at weighing through economic means and the media on the state of Israel until the unpunished oppression of the Palestinian people and the denial of their fundamental rights end.

DO NOT FINANCE THE OCCUPATION AND THE COLONIZATION OF PALESTINE : OUR RESPONSE, INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY BETWEEN WORKERS !

Published 12 November 2009.

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Boycotting Israel, at universities and supermarkets:

Supermarkets face campaign to Boycott Apartheid Israel:

"Israel boycott steps up a gear this week"

In Al Bawaba, November 12, 2009, at:

http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Palestine/256811



Two of Britain's biggest supermarket chains will be targeted in a "week of boycott action" to highlight their continued sale of produce from illegal Israeli settlements, solidarity campaigners have announced.

Waitrose and Morrisons will be the main focus for action this week in protests organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and coinciding with a week of action called by the Palestinian grass roots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

The Palestinian-based coalition has called on supporters to launch a week of global mobilisation against "the walls of apartheid" in the West Bank and Gaza from today.

Actions in Britain will include demonstrations and pickets outside Waitrose and Morrisons and mass co-ordinated phone calls to the headquarters of both stores on Wednesday.

Sarah Colborne of PSC said: "We are specifically targeting Waitrose and Morrisons as they have so far failed to engage in serious discussion with us.

"The PSC are hoping that they will take a principled position and stop stocking goods from illegal settlements."

In a statement, Waitrose insisted that the produce it sells from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is grown on farms where a "Palestinian and Israeli workforce have worked side by side for many years."

Refuting the supermarket's claims, Ms Colborne noted: "There is no equality.

"Palestinian workers are forced to work in the settlements because their own economy has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation," she said.

"The settlements are built on stolen land and are irrigated by water stolen from the Palestinians. Palestinian children as young as 12 work on settlement farms."

Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements earn less than 50 per cent of the minimum wage and sometimes as little as five US cents an hour, according to Israel/Palestine-based employment rights organisation Kav LaOved.

They receive no holiday pay, pensions or sick pay and require work permits which can be rescinded if they complain about conditions or ask for a pay rise.

In September, the TUC conference voted to support a campaign of boycott, sanction and disinvestment, targeting Israeli goods as well as companies which benefit from Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The resolution was a culmination of a wave of motions at individual union conferences this year in anger following Israel's war on the Gaza Strip in January, which killed 1,314 Palestinians.


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"French union joins Israel boycott"



MA'AN NEWS AGENCY
November 11, 2009

On the Web at:

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=239036



Bethlehem – Ma’an – A French labor union decided to join the international movement to apply Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) on Israel, a statement from the National Work Confederation (Confédération Nationale du Travail - CNT) said Wednesday.

“The commitment of the CNT to support the Palestinian people over many years has led us naturally to join this vital campaign to end the exploitation and occupation by Israel,” the document said.

The international secretary of the union said it would also invite each of its constituent members to join the BDS campaign and participate in its activities.

“Our joining this Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign is coherent with our solidarity with Palestine, defined by our statement of support of the Palestinian people’s struggle, adopted by the CNT during its 2006 congress. This statement is the expression of the anti-colonial and internationalist principles of our union,” the statement continued.

“It confirms our opposition to all forms of colonization and occupation as well as our solidarity with the oppressed against the oppressor,” the organization also said.

“As it was done in the case of South Africa, this initiative aims at weighing through economic means and the media on the state of Israel until the unpunished oppression of the Palestinian people and the denial of their fundamental rights end,” the statement said.

CNT describes itself as “an anti-capitalist internationalist union involved in social class struggles.”

Originally launched with an appeal from 170 Palestinian civil society groups, the boycott campaign has been gaining momentum, especially since Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip last winter which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead.

In February, South African dock workers refused to offload cargo from Israeli ships in an expression of solidarity with Palestinians.




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Resolution Presented at Detroit City Council, to stop spending Trillions on Killing Muslims, and instead spent it to re-build Detroit:

This Resolution was proposed at Detroit City Council on Tuesday, November 10, 2009:

Click on the proposed Resolution to enlarge it.

The text of the Resolution is as follows:

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Detroit City Council Resolution asking Congress to:
* Stop Spending Trillions to Kill Muslims, and to
* Start Spending that Money to Re-build Detroit.

WHEREAS, U.S. Congressman John Dingell issued a news release, on April 23, 2008, stating that Congress has given Israel over $300 billion,

WHEREAS, The Iraq war alone will cost $3 trillion, according to “Harpers” magazine, January 2009,

WHEREAS, The United States has spent trillions to kill Muslims in Iraq, Palestine,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Lebanon; and has recently killed a Detroit Imam,

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, That the Detroit City Council asks the U.S. Congress to immediately stop spending trillions of dollars killing Muslims, to stop sending aid to Israel, and to start spending that money to re-build Detroit and every inner city in the United States.

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University of Sussex Students' Union votes for a full boycott against Israeli goods

University of Sussex students: The Palestine Society, and Stop The War.

______________________________________

"Sussex Student Union vote to boycott Israel"


On the Web at:

http://www.actionpalestine.org/student-movement/sussex-student-union-vote-to-boycott-israel/

On Wednesday 28^th of October [2009] the University of Sussex Student Union voted in line with the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS to boycott Israel. The movement calls upon Israel to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestine.

The referendum result mandates the Students’ Union to remove all Israeli produce from its stores, and review its sources for food outlets. The vote was one of the largest and most closely-contested in the Union’s history, with 562 voting in favour of the boycott and 450 voting against it.

The debate over the boycott was often tense, with the Friends of Palestine Society leading the ‘Yes’ campaign, and the ‘No’ campaign running under the slogan ‘Build Bridges Not Boycotts’. Martha Baker, a member of Palestine Society and speaker at one of the events, said that the biggest challenge for the pro-Boycott team was not, however, the pro-Israeli campaigners.

Baker commented: “Our biggest challenge was ignorance: most students are not aware of the situation facing Palestinians living under occupation. The more we spoke to people, the more they understood the reasons for boycotting Israel.”

Yasmin Khan, Senior Campaigns Officer at UK charity War On Want added: “Palestinians have suffered under the Israeli repression for 61 years, during which time governments all over the world have allowed Israel to act with impunity. It is time for this to change. The Boycott movement could be just the thing to finally bring justice to Palestine.”

Palestine Society member Bushra Khalidi says that the society will now focus its efforts on gaining scholarships for Palestinian students, and lobbying the Union to sell Palestinian West Bank produce.

Sussex becomes the latest student UK union to vote to boycott Israel, the University of Manchester Student Union and the University of Essex Student Union both voted for a boycott in March of this year, several other student unions in the UK have taken similar steps in recent years. The Right to Education campaign sees these boycotts as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinian students and a positive step towards securing academic freedom for Palestinians by highlighting the ongoing injustice of the Israeli occupation.

The imposition of immediate boycott, divestment and sanctions against the state of Israel is one of the strongest ways to register criticism and delegitimize the actions and policies of the Israeli government towards Palestinians. In particular, Israel’s siege on Gaza and their refusal to permit Gazans the basic equipment and supplies necessary for universally-acceptable living standards highlights the Israeli government’s flagrant disregard for human rights and international law.

As such, the methods of boycott, divestment and sanctions remain vital tools of activism until Israel abides by international human rights and humanitarian laws, dismantles its apartheid regime spanning both the occupied territories and Israel proper, and commits to pursuing a long-lasting, just solution.

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Government values a dog higher than an Imam --

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 2, 2009 11:05 AM

CONTACT: National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Paige Cram, Communications Coordinator, 212-679-5100, ext. 15, communications@nlg.org

National Lawyers Guild Calls for Immediate and "Independent Investigation Into Assassination of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah by FBI Agents in Dearborn"

Nov. 2, 2009


http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/11/02-7



NEW YORK - November 2 - The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls for an immediate and independent investigation into the FBI's fatal shooting on October 28 of Islamic leader Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah in Dearborn, Michigan. The FBI killed him during a series of raids of the Masjid Al-Haqq Mosque by federal and local law enforcement officials in which 11 others were arrested. While mainstream media outlets are calling the killing and arrests a counter-terrorism operation, the raids arose out of criminal complaints containing no specific allegations of violations of federal law or acts of terrorism.


All reports from local residents and community leaders indicate that Imam Abdullah and Mosque members were dedicated to improving the community, feeding hungry neighborhood residents and helping young people in need, even letting many sleep in the mosque during inclement weather.


By publicizing the killing and arrests as related to terrorism, absent any such allegations in the complaint, the FBI seems to be engaging in the same tactics used in its Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), in which it spied on, infiltrated and disrupted political movements. Imam Abdullah had a close relationship with Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, was a field organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later served as national chairman of the Black Panther Party (BPP).


The FBI and mainstream media blamed the organizing work of SNCC for the urban rebellions in over 200 cities in the late 1960s.



The Black Panther Party was COINTELPRO's primary target, but it targeted a vast array of others, including Martin Luther King. In light of these events, we cannot trust the claim that COINTELPRO has been abandoned. Many have been imprisoned on spurious charges-Al-Amin, for example, maintains his innocence in the deaths of Atlanta law-enforcement officers and has sought an appeal of his case. Reports indicated that he has been harassed and placed in isolation in the Georgia prison system. Over two dozen BPP members were killed by law enforcement between 1968 and 1971.


The National Lawyers Guild advocated on behalf of, and represented, members of the BPP and other political organizations. The FBI tried to have the Guild labeled as a subversive organization, and for many years spied on and infiltrated the association and its individual members.


Guild president David Gespass said, "It took more than twenty years to prove in court that Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were targeted and murdered by the FBI and Chicago police. We cannot wait that long for the truth of what happened to Imam Abdullah."

###

The National Lawyers Guild is dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system. Through its members--lawyers, law students, jailhouse lawyers and legal workers united in chapters and committees--the Guild works locally, nationally and internationally as an effective political and social force in the service of the people.

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This is the kind of inhuman racism that was unleashed against the Imam:


"...Detroit FBI office sent out a news release to honor one of their own."


http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/10/29/fbi-raid-turns-deadly-in-dearborn-mi/?test=latestnews


Yes, FOX news, and the FBI, want to showcase their sympathy for the dog ("Freddy") killed in the FBI's assault--


"...Thursday night the Detroit FBI office sent out a news release to honor one of their own. The FBI's K-9, Freddy, was killed by gunfire during Wednesday's raid at the warehouse in Dearborn. To honor Freddy, the FBI has set up a memorial fund in his memory, to benefit the K-9 Law Enforcement Memorial. The head of FBI's Detroit office even made reference to Freddy's service during today's news conference, saying Freddy's loss was especially difficult for the FBI field agent who has worked closely with him for the past year."

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