Action
1. Demonstrate 16 May
2. Camden war crimes tribunal tomorrow!
3. Branch forum 30 May
 
News
1. Lieberman faces European protests
2. pro-Israel lobby mobilises
3. UN exposes Israeli war crimes
4. And the latest report from the UN on Gaza
5. Israel attacks May Day march
6. Transcript of Khaled Meshal’s interview with New York Times
7. Latest boycott developments
8. Only 13% of Bethlehem available to Palestinians
9. Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations call for an end to international donor complicity
10. Israel’s sick tourism industry
 
Action
 
1. Demonstrate Saturday 16 May – Remember Gaza – End the Siege Now!
Whilst Avigdor Lieberman is wined and dined in Europe, Palestinians continue to starve in Gaza, and the Israeli government further entrenches its illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
 
Join us next Saturday to send a strong and clear message to our government – end the siege on Gaza now! End Israeli Occupation! Free Palestine!
 
On the 61st anniversary of the Nakba, join us in demanding self-determination and justice for Palestinians.
 
If you live outside London, check out transport details, with buses coming from around the country: www.palestinecampaign.org/index9b.asp?m_id=
1&l1_id=3&l2_id=62&Content_ID=613
 
Stewards needed: If you are able to help steward on the day, please contact
martial.kurtz@palestinecampaign.org or phone 020 7700 6192
 
The demonstration has been organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, BMI, CND and the PFB and supported by dozens of organisations – including trade unions, faith organisations and solidarity campaigns.
Demo details:
www.palestinecampaign.org/index9b.asp?m_id
=1&l1_id=3&l2_id=62&Content_ID=554
 
2. Camden war crimes tribunal tomorrow!
Camden War Crimes Tribunal on Israel’s attack on Gaza; Saturday May 9th 11am-5pm, SOAS, Thornaugh St, London WC1. With eye-witnesses from Gaza.
www.palestinecampaign.org/index9b.asp?m_
id=1&l1_id=3&l2_id=62&Content_ID=548
 
3. Branch forum
The next branch forum will take place on 30 May from 11am-5pm at ULU, Malet St, London WC1. Please do ensure that your PSC branch is represented.
 
More events are regularly added on our website – www.palestinecampaign.org

News
 
1. Lieberman faces European protests
 
Angry protests met Lieberman as he toured Europe:
Video of protest in Paris:
www.euronews.net/2009/05/06/israel-s-
lieberman-gets-angry-reception-in-paris/
Analysis by the Guardian and Palestine Monitor:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/
04/israel-europe-middleeast-lieberman
www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article936
 
2. pro-Israel lobby mobilises
‘US congressional leaders and the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in the US are attempting to forestall a significant shift in the White House’s Middle East policy.
The move comes amid growing signs that the US president, Barack Obama, intends to press for urgent efforts to be made towards the creation of a Palestinian state.’
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/06/
us-israel-palestinians-middle-east
 
3. UN exposes Israeli war crimes
 
UN accuses Israel of Gaza ‘negligence or recklessness’
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/05/israel-gaza-united-nations
 
And Ban Ki-Moon defends “watered down” Gaza report: ‘A detailed 184-page report critical of Israeli attacks on UN personnel and buildings during the Gaza conflict last December-January has been meticulously stripped down to a 27-page document — mostly due to political sensitivities and on security grounds.’
electronicintifada.net/v2/article10515.shtml
 
… and rejects the report’s recommendations to investigate further Israeli attacks on Gaza
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/05/ban-ki-moon-gaza-inquiry
 
Summary of the report:
image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/
documents/2009/05/05/4MayGltrtoSCBrd.pdf
 
‘President Shimon Peres said yesterday that Israel would never apologize for its military offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, calling a damning United Nations report on its conduct there “unfair and one-sided.”’
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083668.html
 
‘the UN report contained secret information supplied by Israel about an incident in which more than 40 Palestinian civilians were massacred when Israeli shells fell “outside” a UN school where many Palestinians were taking shelter. The secretary-general is reportedly considering how much of the information he can release without revealing the information supplied by Israel’
electronicintifada.net/v2/article10511.shtml
 
4. And the latest report from the UN on Gaza:
‘Israel’s 22-month blockade continues to affect all aspects of life. This week, 418 truckloads of goods, 26% of which were designated to humanitarian aid agencies, were allowed entry to Gaza. This represents only two thirds of the 2009 weekly average of truckloads (622). Construction materials, spare parts for public infrastructure and industrial, agricultural inputs including livestock, IT/computer-related items and others remain barred from entering Gaza.
Almost no new items were allowed entry into Gaza during the week. The ban on concrete and other construction materials, and limitations on cash allowed into Gaza, continue to hinder Gaza reconstruction efforts to rebuild homes and necessary infrastructure destroyed during “Cast Lead”.’
www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_protection_
of_civilians_weekly_2009_05_05_english.pdf
 
The UN is also sending a team on 11 May to look at the environmental disaster Israel is creating in Gaza: ‘Environmental hazards in the Gaza Strip, such as sewage contamination, have intensified since Israel’s recent war on Hamas there because even basic infrastructure repairs are stalled by an ongoing border blockade of the territory, the UN’s environment chief said’.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo
=1079950&contrassID=0&subContrassID=0
 
5. Israel attacks May Day march
‘On May 1, people from the village of al-Ma’sara and the neighbouring villages in Bethlehem area commemorated Workers Day with a march in protest against the Apartheid Wall. The Wall continues to encroach on their land and isolates their villages. The demonstration and Workers Day festival was organized by the popular committees of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign in al Ma’sara and Bethlehem district, in cooperation with the Bethlehem branch of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU).

‘Israeli Occupation forces repressed the mobilization and fired on the crowd with tear gas, sound bombs and rubber coated steel bullets. Nine people were injured, among them the head of the PGFTU, Shaher Sa’ad. Soldiers arrested ‘Azmi Sheukhi from Hebron, Mustafa Fawagreh from Um Salamoneh and Muhammed Brajiya, Mahmoud Zawahreh, Hasan Brajiya, all members of the popular committee in al Ma’sara. They are still held in prison.’
stopthewall.org/latestnews/1934.shtml
 
6. Transcript of Khaled Meshal’s interview with New York Times
Khaled Meshal says in the New York Times: ‘The world must deal with what Hamas is practicing today. Hamas has accepted the national reconciliation document. It has accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem, dismantling settlements, and the right of return based on a long term truce. Hamas has represented a clear political program through a unity government. This is Hamas’s program regardless of the historic documents. Hamas has offered a vision. Therefore, it’s not logical for the international community to get stuck on sentences written 20 years ago. It’s not logical for the international community to judge Hamas based on these sentences and stay silent when Israel destroys and kills our people.’
www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/world/
middleeast/05Meshal-transcript.html
 
7. Latest boycott developments
Putting words of support into boycott action: ‘In the UK, several local campaigns are sprouting to derail Veolia from a number of large public works contracts. From Hampshire County to Liverpool to Camden to South Yorkshire, local authorities are facing mounting political, and sometimes legal, pressure from Palestine solidarity groups, mainly associated with PSC, to exclude Veolia from bidding for public projects. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council decided not to consider further Veolia’s bid for the “Waste Improvement Plan” contract in March 2009.’ electronicintifada.net/v2/article10505.shtml
 
8. Only 13% of Bethlehem available to Palestinians
‘The combined effect of Israeli annexation, the West Bank barrier, settlements, settler bypass roads, closed military zones and Israeli nature reserves, has left only 13% of the 660 sq km Bethlehem governorate available for Palestinian use, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.’
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/06/israel-army-bethlehem-un
For the report:
www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_bethlehem
_shrinking_space_may_2009_english.pdf
 
9. Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations call for an end to international donor complicity
Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations have responded to the meeting in March to discuss reconstruction funds to Gaza:
‘by agreeing to reconstruction without specific, binding assurances from the State of Israel, international donors are effectively underwriting Israel’s illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). International law – including, international human rights law, international humanitarian law (IHL), and the law of state responsibility for wrongful acts – places specific, binding obligations on the State of Israel (based, inter alia, on its duties as an Occupying Power) with respect to the maintenance and development of normal life in occupied territory. By repeatedly restricting their action to providing aid, without holding Israel accountable for its specific obligations, international donors are relieving Israel of its legally binding responsibilities.’
www.badil.org/Publications/statements/Joint-
Statement-End-International-Donor-Complicity(May09).pdf
 
10. Israel’s sick tourism industry – the ‘Ultimate Mission’ tour of Israel
‘instead of fighting the fact that tourists avoid the country because of the ‘terrorist threat’, Israel now uses it to attract a new, more extreme kind of tourist. This effort has culminated with a new tour called “The ULTIMATE Mission to Israel.” This tour will begin on June 8, 2009 and last for one week. The point of these new tours is to sell the Israeli model for counterterrorism—and is a sick effort to glorify the killing of Palestinians, and the ongoing occupation, in the name of ‘pre-emptive self-defense’.’
www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article930

11. Israel to Gaza patients: Be a TRAITOR and you can get medication!
Israel’s Shin Beth internal security service has increased its interrogations of people seeking to leave Gaza for medical treatment, said a report from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.
‘”Between January 2008 and March 2009, at least 438 patients have been summoned for… interrogations… as a precondition for the review of their applications for an exit permit for the purpose of accessing medical treatment outside of the strip,” it said.

‘Whereas in January 2008, 1.45 percent of people who had submitted applications to Israeli authorities to leave Gaza were questioned, that number rose to 17 percent in January 2009, the group said.’
www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article931

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) aims to raise public awareness about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people. PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from communities across the UK. Join PSC today!
 
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London
WC1N 3XX
Tel:   020 7700 6192
Fax:  020 7609 7779
Email: info@palestinecampaign.org
Web: www.palestinecampaign.org