I expect you need to be on Facebook to go to this link:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO/118914244840679
The Guardian published their manifesto yesterday. It may be superfluous but I nonetheless think it should be repeated as widely as possible:
GAZA YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE: “We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream…” – read more below!
Contact us: [email protected]
Pls consider supporting us by taking one or more of the following actions:
1) Promoting our manifesto by sharing it on your profile on Facebook
2) Sending an email to your friends asking them to like our page FB
3) Translating the manifesto to your language and sending it to us (we have it in Arabic, Hebrew, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Greek, Chinese, Russian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish)
4) Sending the manifesto to journalists in your country
5) Making organizations in your countries that are concerned with the Palestinian issue and/or youth rights know about our existence
6) Posting links about violation of youth’s rights in Gaza on our wall
7) Suggesting us ideas for reaching out to a greater number of people
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A sign the Middle East may be maturing politically, perhaps.
Similar sentiments were evident in Northern Ireland, particularly during the the 80s, and persist in the united rejection of dissident groups ?” as evidenced by today’s joint statement from the political parties in (London-)Derry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12106725
History abounds with cycles of action and reaction, through oppression, resistance, counter-resistance and insurgency, until people realise that they are perpetuating a continual equilibrium of violence. Once people perceive the violence as a unitary system, they react against that instead of each other, and a popular peace movement is born.
Hegelian thesis, antithesis, then synthesis.
This was to be expected, young people are not likely to take to any kind of repression, whether its from their parents, bearded guys or those who hold them in concentration camps.
Although delayed, I’m beginning to think that all young people will soon get far louder and more violent, cause they are deprived of a voice, see their future resources used yesterday, whilst everyone tells them how to behave.
If I would have been born in Gaza, I would be dead by now, like so many others who either tried to fight back at Goliath, or tend to their sparse fields.
This arch conflict has flavoured just about every event in the middle east.
Mother in law who visits Jerusalem regularly says,’ you can feel the tension in the air, whether there is something going on or not, its almost electric’.
Well with all the covert surveillance going on in that town I’m not surprised
Good on them.
I certainly don’t see Hamas as “the good guys” – i just don’t see them as any worse than the Israeli government based on their actions (which include killing Palestinian civilian Fatah supporters and Israeli civilians and kidnapping one soldier, just as Israel’s include targeting civilians , kidnapping on a grand scale (around 10,000 Palestinians at any one time) and torture).
I do see them as the party that won the last democratic Palestinian legislative elections – which were judged largely free and fair by international observers, including the EU.
If we’re not going to recognise them when we recognise unelected dictatorships like Mubarak in Egypt and the monarchy of Saudi Arabia then we’re sending the message that we’re against democracy for Arabs and Muslims and only force will work.
When Israelis elected Ariel Sharon (a multiple war criminal before he even became PM) no-one called for the elections not to be recognised or Israel to be blockaded. So treating Palestinians that way because the majority voted Hamas is a double standard.
This is about the same issue you bring up in your books Craig – the tendency of neo-cons to see foreign policy in black and white, good vs evil, cartoons rather than the reality.
i agree with you entirely that Hamas’ rise is a result of the occupation. A rise in unemployment and immigration in the UK has led to a surge for the BNP (including some very un-Christian Christian fundamentalist ministers). How much stronger would they be if our country was being occupied by another country’s military and attacked almost daily?
There is one great force in Israel and Gaza they scares everyone….
Dont f.ck with a group on pissed of women….now thats a group i’d like to see on the warpath.
The men (generally) seem to wanna fuck everything up.
“I have described Hamas as one of many tragic consequences of the Israeli oppression. Among the challenges posed by these brave young Gazans is a challenge to the lazy left in the UK who have chosen to ignore Hamas’ extreme illiberalism and portray them as the good guys.”
– Sorry Craig but this is just the usual right-wing propaganda that portrays left-wing politics as out of touch with reality. There is no evidence for this. Nobody I know involved in Palestine Solidarity here in the UK are under andy delusions about the politics of the Middle East.
As Tariq Ali put it,
given the nature of the occupation, you can’t expect the resistence to it to be an oil painting.
Israel creates its own demons, not the other way round. Without the US and Israel, Hamas and its Lebanese counterpart, Hezbollah, would cease to exist. Indeed, Hezbollah, the south Lebanese resistence movement only came into existence because of the repeated war crimes by Israel against the people there – and Hamas was encouraged and promoted at the expence of secular Palestinians politics by the Israeli state itself as a way of trying to divide the Palestinian people.
Hamas and Hezbollah both won the only decent and fairly democratic elections to be allowed to take place in the whole of the Middle East – that tells you something about the opinions of the people that actually live there.
There is also the recent Brooking Institute opinion polls of people who live in the Middle East –
2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll: Results of Arab Opinion Survey Conducted June 29-July 20, 2010
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0805_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.aspx
There is no challange to the British “lazy left” for the simple fact it doesn’t exist. The real challange is to get the British Government to stop supporting the apartheid Israeli state, the real source of the problems of all Palestinian people and not just Gazans.
You are spot on Joe Kane. Perhaps Craig favours the Fatah quislings.
Goopd points Joe, but we cannot expect that the 80% of MP’s, Conservative friends of Israel, reliquish the aims and objectives of that group and put the interest of us first, or can we?
As Tariq Ali put it,
given the nature of the occupation, you can’t expect the resistence to it to be an oil painting.
The Brooking institute is favouring a pro two state solutions and wants to restart talks by both parties being invited to mutually acknowledge each others state.
If the US accepts a Palestinian state as such, by either absatining or supporting the current resolution on state acceptance, the above option might have legs, without it, Israel will still operate outside the UN and wiull only be responsible to what it signed up to with a future Palestinian state.
This could easily lead to another war and invasion by Israel in future years. A preposition should also include stalling the ‘wall’ and settlements.
Equally, unless the resistance, Hamas or Fatah, those who should offer a politcal future and a positive outlook to the young generations, realises and understands, that they can only resist and survive with these young people supporting them and their aims, they will not be able to sustain a decades long campaign.
They were rightly elected by their people, but this letter of protest also reads like a letter of intent. These young people want a future, something to look forward to and very understandable. lets hope Hamas realises that they need the symbiosis with the sons and daughters of Gaza and engage.
There is not point in creating unsustainable states, imho, but that said, both Gaza and Israel could be very well energy independent, given peace and mutual recognition.
West Africa’s 2000+ ECOWAS force, far too small to have a go at deposing Laurent Gbagbo in his established role and head of his country, still, has now got the support of William Hague and the British Governments ususal support for a military solution.
The sceptre of civil war spreading over the borders has been raised, but, is this a real propability? Would it not already be happening?
On a completely different economic tack. Where are the voices here asking for banks to be held responsible for their mistakes and prosecuted? Are we inviting them to do it again?
hy, were are the Max Kaisers of this world?
What lies behind….
Sharek appeared to be well-financed, and their Sharek Gaza e-Magazine is slick. A list of the organization’s funders makes me wary. For instance, a key supporter has been the National Endowment for Democracy. Former Senator Norm Coleman is among the NED’s newest board members. In 2000, the American organization’s founder, stated some of the organization’s goals:
NED regularly provides funding to opposition candidates in elections in countries other than the USA. According to Allen Weinstein, one of the founders of NED, “A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”
http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/2011/01/02/the-gaza-youth-breaks-out-manifesto-how-genuine-is-it/
Now we are seeing the otherside of Craig defecting to a Zionist party.
The side that says, the clasical Zionist aregument, “Yes Israel has killed tens of tousands of Palestinians, but you have to look at the other side and see hamas are not liberals!”
Yes Craig they are not, Gazans are not Liberals or even Liberal Democrats!
Gazans are Gazans.
People who are too busy starving to notice they don’t have the benefits of a Liberal government and all the £10 000 pound a year debt that comes with it.
Craig, I thought you were better than this.
the fact the NED funds Sharek doesn’t necessarily mean they’re just a front for it – though you’re right to bring it up. It could just mean the NED wants to back them for it’s own (dubious) motives.
Sharek do at least list all their funders on their website – they aren’t trying to hide them – and those include the Carter Center (who are for including Hamas in negotiations) and UNRWA (yet another good reason why the group should remove “fuck UNRWA from it’s founding statement)
It is all well and good to express youthful frustration, but some home truths remain:-
1. Before 1948 there was a Palestinian homeland.
2. After 1948 some 700,000 Palestinians were disdolged and permanently displaced by the Zionists.
3. The boundary was established as the 1967 border following the war, then the land grab has continued to this day. The US and West turn a blind eye and speak of “peace” with no consieration of the manifest injustice.
Hamas illiberal? Have they murdered 100’s of thousands of people? No they haven’t, so I guess by the standards of US liberality they are illiberal.
Further to Duncan McFarlane’s comment, even if Sharek are a front for NED (or anyone else), that does not invalidate the protest of the young people involved. I agree that we should be alert for manipulation.
Short vid for all the Zio-shills here who dish their charges of “anti-semitism” and “racism” against anyone who exposes them:
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2011/01/anti-semitism-zionisms-indispensible.html
‘Like’
Craig’s new two sides of the story:
Israel has killed, hundreds of thousands, tortured hundreds of thousands, starved hundreds of hundreds of thousands.
But we have to look at both sides of the story, so spend time talk about how Hamas is not Liberal. At least not as Liberal as the Liberal democrats.
For example, Hamas has not introduced civil partnerships! Hamas have not legalised smoking hemp! How not Liberal can they be?
Craig, with all due respect, take you liberalism and shove it up your arse. People there are beinjg starved, killed, tortured. They have more important concerns then Liberalism.
There concerns are their next meal, and whether they can afford a bit of cloth to rap up their children when they starve to death.
@arsalan – liberalism in this case is whether Hamas have systems for a fair trial, legal representation for citizens accused of wrong-doing, humane treatment during imprisonment, mechanisms to root out police brutality, and so forth. They are important even though Palestine is occupied, and, as you rightly imply, desperate.
That said, Israel has all sorts of liberal mechanisms, but still manages to kill exponentially more Palestinians than Palestine kills Israelis. I read somewhere that it was 100:1, but that would probably require several sources to verify.
Hamas is the rightful government of Palestine, sure, but they are not above criticism. Craig/others are not being ‘pro-Israel’ by criticising Hamas, either.
It does take attention away from what is happening though.
It is true they dont have the Liberal mechanism that you have listed, at least not to the level of a nation that hasn’t been blockaded.
but I am sure, if Israel didn’t steal their import taxes, they would have money to invest in fairer court systems.
It is amazing that they have managed to keep the courts and any level of justice functioning at all considering the blockade.
Inspite of the blockade, they seem to be running the courts with a lot more justice and a lot less curruption than the western backed Fattah and all the Money Fattah gets from America and America’s Arab slave kingdoms.
Certainly a lifting of the blockade would help, but there is a legitimate question of whether Hamas would want fairer court systems if that were to happen. I am not sure – would they prefer to operate Sharia Law, or would they choose secular, case law based on legislation?
Jon, they would choose Shriyah law, because that is what they want to live under.
“They” is the Key word here and not “you”. “You” like to live under secular law, while they want to live under their law with their rights.
Just like you don’t want to live under their law, they dont want to live under your law.
People in Imperialist nations still have a tough time working this one out.
Craig used to understand this, an understanding I fear he has lost.
Arsalan: It seems the problem with Shriyah Law, or indeed a law adopted from any given religion, is that it makes the massive assumption that everyone living in that state follows the precise same brand of a particular religion, and that they observe it equally devoutly throughout. As we should realise, those are highly unsafe presumptions. It further assumes that the arbitrators of this Law are going to be thoroughly decent, incorruptible, without bias or malice and of the strictest integrity throughout its whole body. As should be clear, no such body of people has ever existed.
One might argue the same problem is true for the administration of secular law, but they do not have to try and second guess what god had in mind when he made it, and exceed to a religious hierarchy to supposedly find out.
It might appear just dandy if those specific categories of the religion being imposed happily coincided with your own, but it’s a bit much to expect everyone else to follow it too.
On the other hand, would you consider acceptable as fair a secular law as can be achieved can be in place, with religious laws as an addition for those who wish to follow them. The secular law should remain on top, however – so a death penalty or physical punishment under a religious law would not be allowed, for instance, because the overriding secular law does not allow murder or assault.
Would you agree that a compromise as mentioned immediately above forms a workable basis for law, allowing those of differing faiths or none to achieve what they need, and also an overall requirement of society to be met?
I’m not sure that everyone under a Sharia system +wants+ a Sharia system – that’s my point. A Sharia system, as far as I know, does not offer a democratic mechanism for its removal.
Still, you make a fair point: if a people genuinely chooses to live by Sharia, then I’m not sure there’s much than can be done.
“if a people genuinely chooses to live by Sharia, then I’m not sure there’s much than can be done.”
I had a little read of the wikipedia page on Sharia, and it seems to be a number of evolving systems in different places, with some ‘classic’ present in countries such as Saudi Arabia.
I am one of the Gaza youth breaks out team. And I am here to explain one thing. We are sending a messsage to the world from Gaza and we’re going to move on for our next steps. But your support is needed. We are ready to take the challenge but alone we’ll fall easily.
@ Gaza youth,
As Stalin asked the Pope – so how many battalions do you have?
The Zionists are not going to stop the land grab simply because you are nice disgruntled Palestinian youths.
Who are your major funders anyway?
Our Major funder is our pain.
I’ll tell you something really fast since there is not time for fajer prayer. Everyone is fighting us because we’re anonymous but very soon we’ll show our identities and You’ll hear us and see us. We’re are looking for support for our safty. Salam Alikom
I wish anyone who is trying to seek peace and an end to oppression all the very best.
Unfortunately, as Courtney suggests, the promotion of peace and the political solution which is the prerequisite of peace, does not appear to be in the Israeli state’s own perceived short or medium-term interests. History over the past 60+ years demonstrates that the Israeli state has crushed all attempts at ‘Gandhian’ civil peaceful protest/ action. They do indeed prefer to ‘deal with’ the likes of Hamas, Fatah, etc. Sorry to sound pessismistic. As I say, I wish the youth/people of Gaza all the best.