PSNA Newsletter No 56 - September 28, 2021
28 Mahuru 2021
28 September 2021
Newsletter No 56 – Coming out of Lockdowns
Kia ora Palestinian Human Rights Supporter
We hope all our supporters around the motu are coping as best you can with lockdowns and restrictions due to the pandemic. It’s been a challenging time for everyone and now as we slowly emerge from lockdowns we are looking forward to getting our campaigning back on track.
Our first priority has been to reschedule the meetings from John Minto’s national tour which celebrates the campaigns against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s while stepping up the campaign against Israeli apartheid in 2021.
As well as these public events we have several important on-line events advertised in this newsletter AND Palestine Youth Aotearoa have organised a baking competition – so roll up your sleeves and get into the kitchen – you only have a few days to win!
Rescheduled meetings
40th anniversary of the 1981 Springbok Tour
The National tour by PSNA National Chair John Minto will resume in October/November. The tour had reached the half-way point when it had to be abandoned through Covid 19 lockdowns.
The rescheduled meetings which have been confirmed so far are:
October:
Nelson:
Thursday 7th October
7:30 pm
The Johnny Cash room (G104) at NMIT, Entry off 61 Nile Street
Wellington:
Saturday 9th October
2:00 pm
Thistle Hall, Upper Cuba Street
Napier:
Monday 11th October,
7:00 pm
Peddigrew Room, McLean Park, Latham Street
November:
Auckland:
Sunday 14th November,
4:00 pm
Mt Eden War Memorial Hall, 4pm
Kerikeri:
Saturday 20th November
7:00pm
Turner Centre
Other meetings will be included in future newsletters.
Or check the PSNA Facebook events page here.
Something you can do right now with just a few clicks…
Please share the Facebook event links above on email and social media. We will be promoting these events on Facebook but we need to rebuild the momentum- something every supporter can help with.
Don’t Buy Into the Occupation – online event this Wednesday 29 September (1am Thursday morning New Zealand time!)
On behalf of the Don’t Buy into Occupation Coalition (DBIO), we invite you to a virtual event to launch of the first DBIO report “Exposing the financial flows into illegal Israeli settlements”. The DBIO coalition is a joint initiative between 25 Palestinian, regional and European organisations based in Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom. The coalition aims to investigate and expose the financial relationships between business enterprises involved in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and European Financial Institutions.
The webinar will be a panel discussion, followed by Q&A
Wednesday, 29 September 2021 (1am Thursday morning New Zealand time!)
Speakers:
Maha Abdallah (International Advocacy Officer, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies)
Omar Shakir (Israel-Palestine director, Human Rights Watch):
Michael S. Lynk (UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967)
Naim Abed Muhammad Shouqair (former Mayor of Al-Zawiya town, Palestine)
Kiran Aziz (Senior Analyst Responsible Investments, Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP)
English, Arabic and French interpretation will be available.
Palestine Youth Aotearoa – PYA Masterchef – Lockdown cook-off
Age 10 to 30 (but older people can do an honorary entry)
More details of the event are at the PYA facebook page here.
Auckland monthly rally for Palestine will be online
this Saturday 2 October
It’s still not possible for Auckland to hold public rallies or vigils so the October monthly rally will also be help online (as was the September rally)
It’s 4:00 pm on Saturday 2 October at this link here. See you there!
Organised by Palestine Solidarity Tamaki Makaurau and Palestine Youth Aotearoa
Online Forum: When Prison is a Weapon – the Palestinian Reality
With Palestinian ingenuity and a rusty spoon six Palestinian prisoners escaped Israel’s much heralded security apparatus. The escapees became instant heroes to all Palestinians – while Israel launched a massive manhunt to mask their fallibility.
(Note the time in New Zealand is 11pm to 12.30am)
Free Palestine Melbourne has organised a forum “When prison is a weapon - the Palestinian reality” will explore what it means to be a Palestinian prisoner of the state of Israel - the loss of liberty, the abuse and torture, the impacts on families, children and communities and what it tells us about the nature of occupation.
Join us and our speakers to get an insight into the realities of life for prisoners and prison’s role in the continuing occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
* When: Sunday 3 October
* Time: 11pm New Zealand time)
* Duration: approx 1.5hours
Where: Zoom (registration required) and live-streamed on FPM's Facebook page
Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_V4JmN-GHTiGI2TzRx3jTAg
Speakers for the on-line rally are:
Yousef Alreemawi, Palestinian lecturer, writer and activist (Melbourne, Australia) who has written the report: Falling through the Cracks
Bassem Tamimi, Palestinian activist and prisoner of conscience (Ramallah, Palestine)
Human Rights Watch report on Bassem Tamimi: Israel: Palestinian's Conviction Violates Freedom of AssemblyNadia Daqqa, Palestinian human rights lawyer, HAMOKED (Jerusalem, Palestine)
Article featuring Nadia Daqqa: Israeli Prison Ban on Phone Calls risks 'Breaking Spirits' of Palestinian Minors
Historic motion supporting Palestine passed at 2021 British Labour Party Conference
Delegates vote on Palestine resolution
This is the motion passed at the conference
A shared struggle – book launch webinar
Sunday, 3 October, 06:00 – 07:30 New Zealand time
You can register for free at this link. Join the launch for this remarkable book, highlighting the plight of Palestinian and Irish hunger strikers.
Letters to the editor - the apartheid state of Israel debated
There have been many letters in the media recently debating the apartheid nature of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians.
PSNA National Secretary Neil Scott had this letter in the Christchurch Press last week alongside a letter from Gary Clover – a well-known pro-Israeli writer from Nelson.
Boycott PUMA campaign
The international campaign to boycott Puma for its support for Israeli soccer in the illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land had another successful day of action earlier in September.
Here in Aotearoa the focus has been on Puma sponsorship of the Silver Ferns which the Silver Ferns CEO has been refusing to discuss.
Silver Ferns CEO Jenny Wylie
You can go to the link here to sign the Justice for Palestine petition to the Silver Ferns calling on them to drop their Puma sponsorship.
The astonishing facts behind US support for the racist, apartheid state of Israel
From the website If Americans Only Knew.
During Fiscal Year 2020, the U.S. is providing Israel with at least $10.5 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians. (For information on expenditures on behalf of both populations, go here)
“Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives over $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”
- John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"
The sad face of racism
Pastor Woodley - the sad face of Israel’s racist propaganda
Recently Pastor Woodley, an evangelical minister from Flaxmere Hastings has published full page advertisements across New Zealand’s main daily newspapers encouraging people to sign a petition calling for New Zealand to open an embassy in Israel (currently New Zealand is represented in Israel from our Embassy in Turkey) Woodley is one of a tiny number of vocal, determined bigots who have big money backing their campaigns of misinformation, outright lies and what amounts to race-hatred of Palestinians.
However, New Zealanders can see though his blatant propagandising for Israel. After spending what would be close to $60,000 on these full page adds, his petition still has only 2000 signatures. It’s a pathetic waste of money at about $30 spent per signature.
Two inspiring movies for lockdown
Try to make time to watch these two superb, inspiring movies – we have mentioned them before in previous newsletters and lockdown might give you time to watch them:
1. Palestine Action – a year of direct action against Elbit Systems Limited
Stories from the Web
1. 'Israel Was Born in Sin. I’m Collaborating With a Criminal Country,' Says Former PM’s Son here
2. Was Sabra and Shatila a massacre? Here
3. How Israel killer Iranian scientist with e “killer robot” here
4. “I drafted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism – right-wing Jews are weaponising it” here
5. Freedom Tunnel Prisoners recount their struggle for liberation here
6. I hope my generation will liberate Palestine here
7. Anti-Palestinianism is as damnable as anti-Semitism” here
Are you able to donate a cup of coffee a month to the campaign?
We will need some serious money to make our campaign as effective as possible. For example, we will need somewhere in the vicinity of $25,000 to bring speakers to New Zealand over the next year and organise large public meetings to help spread the message.
You can help. Are you able to donate a cup of coffee a month to the campaign? In other words, can you afford to make an automatic payment of $5 per month to support the Palestinian struggle? (If you can afford more that would be great!)
Our account details are:
Account name: Palestine Solidarity Network
Account number: 38-9015-0849542-00
We are happy to provide a receipt upon request (however, we are not a registered charity so this is not tax-deductible)
In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter – an invitation to subscribe from Leslie Bravery
Because of mainstream news media complicity, daily headlines and commentary only occasionally ever mention the relentless Israeli violence in Palestine, not even the frequent air strikes!
However, daily news and statistics regarding the violence Palestinians are forced to live under are regularly reported on in the “In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter”, sourced and compiled for easy reading and correlation chiefly from the Palestinian Monitoring Group's daily situation reports.
The In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter continues to be circulated, by email, worldwide to subscribers only, as it has been over the last two decades.
Please contact lesliebravery@icloud.com if you also wish to become a subscriber.
Merchandise for sale
We have Merchandise you can buy including T-shirts from our website.
Go here - https://www.psna.nz/shop
More ways you can get involved
Forward this Newsletter – If you know people who may be interested in this movement, please forward this Newsletter to them.
Join in local activities in your area monthly Rallies - In Auckland at 2.00 pm on the first Saturday of every month. Please consider doing the same in your community. Contact Secretary@PSNA.nz if you would like to know where and how to get Flags and Banners
Help set up a Students for Justice in Palestine groups on your campus
Tell Your MP your opinions on Divestment and Sanctions of Israel.
Write Letters to Newspapers – Call Talkback Radio
Keep in touch with the campaign on social media
o NZ Palestine Solidarity Network website: https://www.PSNA.nz
o NZ Palestine Solidarity Network Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/671376706283605/
o NZ Palestine Solidarity Network email: Secretary@PSNA.nz
The Palestine Human Rights Campaign produces the In Occupied Palestine newsletter. It is a regular daily newsletter on the daily situation in Palestine, compiled by Leslie Bravery and emailed to subscribers. If you would also like to become a subscriber, please contact Leslie at “lesliebravery @ icloud .com” (remove the spaces to use as an email address) for further information.
Keep Updated on our Facebook pages and websites (listed below)
Human rights for Uyghur refugees - In line with our support for human rights for the people of Palestine we have added our name to the petition in support of human rights for Uyghur refugees so they can be included in the government’s refugee quota. PSNA members who wish to also sign this petition can do so here - https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/open-letter-let-s-show-compassion-to-the-uyghur-community
PSNA Groups
PSNA National Committee
Website: www.PSNA.nz
Chair - John Minto: Chair@PSNA.nz
Secretary - Neil Scott: Secretary@PSNA.nz
Regional Groups
Bay of Islands PSNA Bay of Islands (Email)
Whangarei PSNA Whangarei (Facebook)
Auckland PSNA Auckland – Tamaki Makaurau (Website)
Hamilton Palestine Human Rights Campaign Waikato (Facebook)
Tauranga Tauranga Moana 4 Palestine (Facebook)
Napier/Hastings Aotearoa Standing with Palestine (Facebook)
Palmerston North PSNA Palmerston North (Email)
New Plymouth PSNA New Plymouth (Email)
Wellington PSNA Wellington (Email)
Nelson Te Tau Ihu (Nelson) Palestine (Facebook)
Christchurch PSNA Christchurch (Facebook)
Dunedin Dunedin for Justice in Palestine (Facebook)
Invercargill PSNA Invercargill (Email)