Palestine at the G8 – breach the ghetto walls July 2, 6, 2005

Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005

1. Palestine at the G8 – breach the ghetto walls
The massive demonstration in Scotland in July against the G8 will show Palestinians and Israelis that there is a world-wide tsunami of solidarity with Palestine and against Israel’s crimes. The visit of George Bush and the other world leaders to the G8 Summit in Scotland has provoked great opposition: the July 2 demonstration in Edinburgh, as well as the demonstration to the Gleneagles summit on Wednesday July 6, against the G8 will make a world-wide impact for Palestine.

The world’s media that day will certainly carry images into every Israeli-built Palestinian ghetto: images which the Israeli army’s guns on the ghetto gates will be powerless to stop.

Check the website for updates of the SPSC’s meetings and participation: www.scottishpsc.org.uk

Palestine at the G8 – we appeal to all supporters of Palestinian human and national rights to come to Edinburgh and help to make sure that July 2 and July 6 build world-wide solidarity with the prisoners in the Palestinian ghettoes of Greater Israel. We need your help to pay for, print and distribute many tens of thousands of leaflets. We ask you to join us in making, moving, and distributing many thousands of flags, posters and banners on July 2. Residents along the route of the march – and elsewhere – will be asked to hang a Palestine flag or put a placard in their window

2. Make Poverty History – ‘Million-strong Demonstration’ – Edinburgh Sat July 2nd
Palestine supporters will be marching and working to ‘Make Poverty History’ around the planet. We will also point out that Israel and America are making mass poverty in Palestine as part of Israel’s ethnic cleansing programme. The whole demonstration will also march to ‘Make the Occupation History’. Join us.

3. ‘G8 Alternatives Summit: Ideas to Change the World’ - Edinburgh Sun July 3rd – Venues across Edinburgh
G8 Alternatives is holding this conference to discuss alternatives to the world of poverty, war and ethnic cleansing sponsored by Bush, Blair and the other six of the G8 world leaders. See www.g8alternatives.org.uk/ for details of speakers, plenary sessions & workshops.

Scottish PSC is joining with others to sponsor workshops on:

1. Zionism – a Form of Apartheid or Something Much Worse?
This workshop will look at Zionism as a political movement which is involved in an ongoing colonization project in Palestine, and which draws support from the G8 countries. A platform of Arab and Jewish speakers: Hisham Ghenayem, Professor Moshe Machover, Sharif Nashashibi and Chanie Rosenberg.

2. Towards effective solidarity with Palestine
Co-hosted with the International Campaign to Isolate Israeli Apartheid and the www.caterkiller.org/ Caterkiller Campaign.
The workshop will look at “best practice” and problems in building the solidarity movement with Palestine and opposition to Israeli ethnic cleansing. Speakers: Hillary Rose (AUT academic boycott campaign), Mick Napier (SPSC) and speakers from our co-hosts.

4a. Faslane Nuclear Base Blockade and Demonstration – Scotland Mon July 4th – early
Britain builds up its nuclear arsenal of Holocaust weapons, at the same time as it threatens Iran and protects Israel’s vast stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Some of these weapons may even be stored in a part of the British JNF-funded British Park, ethnically cleansed by the Israelis in 1949 and subsidised by the British taxpayer.

The world’s greatest weapons inspector, the only person to have discovered WMDs in the Middle East, is Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu’s election as Rector by the students of Glasgow University, following a campaign initiated by the Scottish PSC, gives us an electoral mandate to oppose ALL WMDs and Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

4b. Conference on Effective Solidarity with the Palestinians – Scotland Mon July 4th
Main Hall, Quaker Meeting House, Victoria Terrace, 5pm to 9pm
During the G8 events in Scotland, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign is hosting an international conference for groups campaigning for solidarity action with Palestine. The aim of the conference is to discuss best practice in campaigning against Israeli crimes and those groups and governments complicit in Israel’s ethnic cleansing.

5. Refugees are Welcome Here in Scotland – Demonstration to Scotland’s Refugee Detention Centre at Dungavel, – outside Glasgow Tues July 5th
Britain detains asylum seekers without trial, even as Blair struts the world’s stage like a pygmy, lecturing others about democracy while reducing our democratic rights here in Britain. Children are jailed in Blair’s Britain. Desperate detainees sew up their lips.

Britain was involved from the beginning in the Zionist project which has reduced the Palestinians to a nation of majority refugees. One Palestinian asylum-seeker living in Glasgow, who survived Ariel Sharon’s massacre in Sabra and Shatilla in 1982, aged seven, has had her final appeal rejected. She is unwelcome here, while the brute Sharon is praised by Bush and Blair as ‘A man of peace’. Very sick.

6. March Against the G8 Gleneagles Hotel, Gleneagles, Perthshire “Another World is Possible” - Wed 6 July
The G8 countries have appointed themselves rulers of the world. This group of 8 white men have brought war, occupation, neoliberal corporate globalisation, poverty and environmental devastation. The murderer Sharon is welcome in all their capitals. Let Bush and Blair know – the G8 is not welcome in Scotland.

Assemble 12noon at Gleneagles Train Station for a march to the gates of the Gleneagles Hotel on the opening day of the G8 Summit.

7. Defend our Right to Protest
Palestinians struggling for their rights face live ammunition, tank shells, and assassination squads. Arabs who try to show solidarity face their own mukhabarat, Sharon’s first line of defence. We face legal curbs, but it is all part of the same system of repressing those who fight for justice. Please cut, paste and send the following statement of support to mailto:g8_alternatives@yahoo.com with the message heading: ‘support’. You could also copy us at SPSC – mailto:palsolcam@blueyonder.co.uk

“We wish to state our support for the demonstration planned by G8 Alternatives past the Gleneagles Hotel during the G8 summit on Wednesday 6th July. We believe that those who wish to raise their voices against the injustice of war and mass poverty created by the G8 should have the right to protest near the summit. We would remind the Scottish Executive,Perth and Kinross Council and Tayside Police of their obligations as Public Authorities under the Human Rights Act to facilitate the right to peaceful protest and freedom of assembly and call on these bodies to uphold the democratic right to collective peaceful protest at the G8 summit. We would also hope that you seriously take account that one of the reasons the march past Gleneagles hotel was proposed was also to ensure that minimum disruption was caused to the people of nearby Auchterader.”

8. Join / Update your mailing on the SPSC database
Go to www.scottishpsc.org.uk and click on ‘Join the SPSC Mailing List’. Even if you are on the list, updating your entry will help us to do better at delivering solidarity.

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9. Picnic against Glasgow JNF fund-raising for Israeli ethnic cleansing Bonnyton Golf Club (Main Gate), Eaglesham – Tues 21 June -  all day Picnic against Israeli apartheid at Bonnyton

The JNF (Jewish National Fund) in Israel works to support Israel’s project to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. The JNF has the contract from the Israeli government for the enforcement of an apartheid land system.

The Hilton is catering the June 21st event at the Bonnyton Golf Club for activities which the UN views as a clear violation of Palestinian human rights. There is something truly sickening to see fat cats at play to finance a system based on the theft of land and the ethnic cleansing of a people forced to live in refugee camps.

Remember that the anti-JNF protest of March 28 last year led to Ruby Wax cancelling further pro-JNF gigs. Protest can succeed! The summer solstice picnic for human rights will feature:

Music – Trumpets, drums, horns and all kinds of music
Banner-making and hanging
Golf-ball throwing competition
Face painting – bring a mirror so you can see the result. Hopefully the sun will shine!
Dogs – The little terrier ‘Intifada’ , who just can’t resist chasing a golf ball. Especially in a good cause

First Glasgow bus no. 44 (not 44A) from Union Street at Central Station to Strathaven Road, Eaglesham. The bus is every 20 minutes

For group travel to Eaglesham from Glasgow: contact John 07930 407 622
For transport to Eaglesham from Edinburgh: contact Carl 07793 553 415 Updates at www.scottishpsc.org.uk

To learn more about the JNF, go to: www.scottishpsc.org.uk/Campaigns/cmp_jnf1.html

Mick Napier
Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
c/o Peace & Justice Centre
2 Princes Street
Edinburgh EH2 4BJ
0131-620-0052 / 0780-32-44-739
http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk