A Palestine website in Australia

A Palestine website in Australia
http://www.australiansforpalestine.com



A lot has been happening on Palestine in the news and in advocacy and while we are keen to give our supporters and people with an interest in Palestine/Israel issues regular updates and reports on the latest developments, there is really too much to send via email. This is why we have tried to create for you a website that will be a reliable source of information and a “notice-board” of activities. Articles are carefully selected from many media outlets to bring you some of the best available and in some cases we provide our own commentaries.

We are hoping that our website will not only provide you with the latest information on issues concerning Palestine/Israel, but also an overview of the advocacy work that is being done here in Australia. Letters written by supporters to the media with newspaper links are listed daily and educational material produced by Australians for Palestine has been made available for you to download at your own convenience.

See our new Apartheid pamphlet – part of a series currently being developed.

As our website has been recently re-vamped, much of the archived material from our old site has still not been added to the new one, but in due course it will be. In the meantime, we hope that you will find the website a good source of news, commentary and useful information on Palestine from an Australian perspective. Archives and Archives by Category allow you to catch up on anything you may have missed in the past months. More segments are being planned as soon as time permits.

If you wish us to add any activity, article or news item, please write and let us know.

Sonja Karkar

Editor

Australians for Palestine

Below are extracts of some of the articles posted on our website:

JONATHAN COOK: Israeli Firms Accused of Profiting off Holocaust

Families Battle for Assets in Court – “This isn’t Switzerland.”

Nazareth, Israel — Israel’s second largest bank will be forced to defend
itself in court in the coming weeks over claims it is withholding tens of
millions of dollars in “lost” accounts belonging to Jews who died in the
Nazi death camps.

Bank Leumi has denied it holds any such funds despite a parliamentary
committee revealing in 2004 that the bank owes at least $75 million to the families of several thousand Holocaust victims.

Analysts said the bank’s role is only the tip of an iceberg in which Israeli companies and state bodies could be found to have withheld billions of dollars invested by Holocaust victims in the country — dwarfing the high-profile reparations payouts from such European countries as Switzerland. Read more . . .

http://www.australiansforpalestine.com

An open letter to President Obama from Christian
Peacemaker Teams

Dear President Obama,

On Tuesday June 15th, you said of the protests in Iran, “When I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, whenever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it is of concern to the American people.” For the last 13 years, Christian Peacemaker Teams have witnessed the brutal suppression of peaceful dissent here in Palestine. In the city of Hebron and the village of At-Tuwani, CPT supports vibrant Palestinian nonviolent resistance to Israel’s military occupation. Every day, Palestinians hold nonviolent demonstrations and defy curfews and closed military zones. They rebuild demolished homes and work their land despite the threat of arrest and attack. Though their struggle is largely ignored by the media, we find inspiration in the way Palestinians are working for justice and peace. Read more…

http://www.australiansforpalestine.com

NADIA HIJAB: Freedom from Fear

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is but one element in two important and starkly different speeches delivered in the Middle East this month — by Barack Obama in Egypt on June 4, and by Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, June 14.

The real story is bigger than that. It’s about the beginning of freedom from fear. To understand the stakes, it helps to remember that the Israeli prime minister was an early fellow traveler of the American neoconservatives.

In 1996 Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and other neocons laid out, in a
strategy paper for Netanyahu, the intellectual foundations for the policies that shaped the Bush years. Read more…

http://www.australiansforpalestine.com

AMIN ABBAS: Palestine is our home

Since Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent trip to Washington to meet Obama, there’s been plenty of discussion over the future of Palestine-Israel. It appears to many that we’re seeing a genuine opportunity for movement on the stalled peace process. Obama is keen on two-states. Netanyahu, under pressure, has mentioned the possibility of a (highly conditional) Palestinian “state”, but is nonetheless content with the Palestinians out of sight behind the Wall. Israelis want Israel for Jewish people everywhere. Read More…

http://www.australiansforpalestine.com