PSNA Newsletter No 94 - April 25 2023
25 Paenga-whāwhā 2023
25 April 2023
Newsletter No 94
Kia ora koutou,
Our first direct appeal for donations - $10,000 target
Here is our first ever direct appeal for donations.
We should start by saying a huge thank you to all our supporters who send regular monthly pledges or who contribute when they are able. It is your support which keeps PSNA moving forward with campaigning and pressure which is helping shift public opinion here in Aotearoa New Zealand further in favour of Palestinian human rights.
However, with the end of Covid restrictions we have several large expenses coming up – particularly with tours by Palestinian speakers later in the year – details of the first tour will be in the next newsletter.
We aim to raise $10,000 from this appeal and we hope you will be able to help.
The easiest way to donate is to transfer your donation into our account and then email secretary@PSNA.nz for a receipt. (Please note, as PSNA is not a registered charity, donations are not tax deductible)
Our account name is: PALESTINE SOLIDARITY NETWORK:
Our account number is: 38-9015-0849542-00
Thank you for considering this appeal. We look forward to hearing from you.
Display posters for Nakba Day
Two newsletters ago we included four posters which are part of a 10-poster exhibition which is being used at various venues around the country in the leadup to the 75th anniversary of NAKBA Day on 15 May (see notice later in this newsletter for more information)
Here are three more posters from the exhibition:
Two things you can do now with just a few clicks…
1. Consider making a donation to our $10,000 appeal – see first item in this newsletter
2. Share one, or all, of the posters above on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, other social media accounts
75th anniversary of the Nakba
International Day of action – Saturday 13 May
Saturday 13 May is the international day of action marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) which marks the ethnic cleansing of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their land and homes by Israeli militias in 1948. The Nakba continues today with ethnic cleansing, house demolitions and land theft across Palestine.
Marches and demonstrations will be held across the world and here in Aotearoa New Zealand, because we are close to the international dateline, we will be the first country to be taking action.
Mark this day in your calendar now – details of protest activity around the country will be in the next newsletters leading up to Saturday 13 May.
Auckland:
Saturday 6 May - Monthly Rally
2:00 - 3:00 pm
Britomart - Look for the flags
Queens Street Auckland
Saturday 13 May - Nakba 2023 Rally
2:00 - 3:00 pm
Britomart
Queens Street, Auckland
Hamilton
Saturday 13 May - Nakba 2023 event
Event, Location and time to be confirmed
Napier/Hastings
Saturday 13 May - - Cavalcade of Cars around 4 centers
Time and location TBD
Palmerston North
Saturday 13 May- Nakba 2023 Rally
Event planning being considered
New Plymouth
Saturday 13 May - Nakba 3023 Rally
Event planning being considered
Wellington - Justice for Palestine
Monday 15 May - Film screening
Film TBC
Time TBC
Light House Cinema
29 Wigan Street, Te Aro, Wellington
Tuesday 16 May - Presentation of Petition to MP Golriz Ghahraman
petition calling on New Zealand Parliament to recognise Palestinian statehood Please consider signing if you haven't already done so.
12:00 noon
Steps of Parliament
Christchurch details:
Saturday 6 May - Banners and flags at key intersections around the city.
10:00 - 12:00 - Prepare messages over morning tea from 10am
Start at 21 York Street, Waltham, Christchurch
12:00 - 1:00 pm . Intersection action
Email bronwensummers@gmail.com if you can help
Saturday 13 May - Rally and March
12:00 noon,
Bridge of Remembrance
Cashel Street, Christchurch Central City
Dunedin
Saturday 13 May - Nakba event,
Event, Location and Time to be confirmed
Go here to see the list of events, locations and time. Check back often as more centers confirm details of their events.
Map of the ongoing NAKBA
Adalah Justice Project
Sierra Club sign letter here (Palestinian Adalah petition)
Adalah also has a fundraising drive “to support more Palestinian-led organizing” here
New Freedom Flotilla boat to Gaza
The New Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala.
Torstein Dahle from Ship to Gaza Norway addresses the dockside supporters during the naming and launching ceremony in Bryggen Harbour, Bergen, Norway on Tuesday.
The full story is on the Kia Ora Gaza website here
Opinions in the US are all going the wrong way for Israel…
“Say what you will about Benjamin Netanyahu, but there’s no doubt he’s bolstering the anti-Zionist cause. Every week there’s a new group of pro-Israel voices prattling on about the country’s democracy crisis and publicly agonizing over the possibility that Bibi could be doing irreparable damage to its brand.
Let’s start with Democrats. Poll after poll shows that Israel’s reputation is declining among Democratic voters, despite the fact that most Democratic lawmakers are still staunch supporters of the country. Gallup’s annual poll on U.S. attitudes toward the Middle East found that 56% of Democrats view Israel favorably, down from 63% in 2022. 49% of Democrats said their sympathies lie with Palestinians, while 38% said they sympathize with Israelis. It’s the first time in the history of that poll that Palestinians ended up with more sympathy.
How much is Netanyahu contributing to this shift? It’s obviously difficult to quantify, but a new study from the Pew Research Center provides some insight. This poll tracks U.S. attitudes toward world leaders. Just 17% of Democrats have confidence in the Prime Minister, compared to 49% of Republicans. Just one out of every ten liberal Democrats have confidence in him. Pew notes that they didn’t poll enough Jewish Americans to report those results separately.
Netanyahu’s reputation might be secure with most members of the GOP, but when expanded across party lines, the numbers are fairly striking. 42% of Americans do not have confidence that Netanyahu will “do the right thing” in world affairs. Just 32% do. The remaining 26% say they have never heard of them. Mainstream media in the U.S. has been covering the country more as a result of the recent protests. If more people learn who he is in the coming months, where do you think they will land?”
“The Palestine Laboratory” – important new book by Antony Loewenstein
This important new book by Australian writer Antony Loewenstein is coming out next month and we hope to have Antony over here promoting his book in the next couple of months. In the meantime here are three internationally-renowned endorsements for the book.
‘This is a must-read on a hidden and shocking aspect of the Israeli colonisation of the Palestinians. This book shows clearly that this kind of export is now Israel’s most significant contribution to the global violation of human rights.’
Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Ten Myths About Israel
‘A triumph of investigative journalism. It exposes the ruthlessness with which Israel exploits the experience gained from the illegal occupation to export all kinds of military hardware as well as the technology of surveillance, espionage, cyber warfare, phone-hacking, and house demolition. It also shines a torch on the dark side of Israel’s support for despots around the world. Altogether, a profoundly depressing audit on a country that used to boast of being “a light unto the nations”.’
Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab world
‘A sad and sordid record of how “the light unto the nations” became the purveyor of the means of violence and brutal repression from Guatemala to Myanmar and wherever else the opportunity arose.’
Noam Chomsky
More details of the book can be read here and all reviews so far can be found here.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Warns “Messianic Dictatorship” Could Use Nukes in War on Islam
This is a tweet later deleted by former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, who implicitly acknowledges what everyone knows: Israel has nukes. Though he deleted the tweet after either the military censor or someone else directed him to do so, it raises alarm bells.
“Though it might sound like fiction to us, in discussions Israelis have held with western sources, the latter fear that if regime change succeeds, Israel will become a messianic dictatorship in the heart of the Middle East, which will have nukes, and whose fanatics seek confrontation with Islam around the Temple Mount. Such western sources are frightened…”
Ken Roth on the antisemitism ploy
Kenneth Roth is an American attorney, human rights activist, and writer. He was the executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022.
Roth tweeted:
“Those who follow me on Twitter will see that despite my extensive criticism, I am not called anti-Chinese, anti-Russian, anti-Syrian or anti-Saudi. Only when I criticize Israel am I called antisemitic. That cheap ploy is due to a controversial definition.”
The controversial definition is the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-semitism which makes the absurd, racist claim that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic.
What is Zionism? – Jewish Voices for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a proudly anti-Zionist organisation. But many misconceptions exist about Zionism. Here’s why we’re opposed to it:
Zionism as a movement emerged as a 19th century colonial political ideology that claimed Jewish safety required a Jewish-only nation-state — and that that state should be built in historic Palestine, on land Palestinians had lived on for thousands of years.
The Zionist movement advanced their ideology as a response to centuries of antisemitic persecution against Jews across Europe. Yet the persecution of Palestinians was baked into Zionism from its very beginnings. Using the strategy of “maximum land, minimum Palestinians,” the Zionist movement embraced settler-colonialism as a key tactic to force Palestinians off their land.
In 1948 Zionist militias (in what later became the Israeli military) expelled over 780,000 Palestinians from their land and villages to create the modern nation-state of Israel, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe. Beginning with the Absentee Property Law of 1950, the Israeli government has used legislation to formalise and infinitely extend Palestinians’ refugee status, confiscating property and offering little hope of return.
Zionism is predicated on the idea that Jews should have more rights than others in a Jewish ethno-state. Contemporary legislation like 2018’s Jewish Nation-State Basic Law, which constitutionally enshrines Jewish supremacy, is simply putting the official stamp of approval on Zionism’s implicit founding principles.
When we take the principled position as anti-Zionists, we are acting in solidarity with other anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. We are acknowledging the Jewish people’s long history of oppression, and rejecting Zionism as the answer. We are insisting that our safety is — and always has been — in solidarity and a shared future.
Share our “What is Zionism?” post now! Facebook
Is your property an “apartheid free zone”?
These are popping up on letterboxes and fences all over the country – to get your “Apartheid free zone” coreflute to stick on your letterbox or your front fence just deposit $5 in:
Account Name: Palestine Solidarity Network
Account Number: 38 9015 0849542 00
and send an email to secretary@PSNA.nz with your address and we’ll send you one - or as many as you’d like for your neighbours and friends….
Don’t forget to be on the lookout for this man…
Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakoby
The Israeli ambassador Ran Yaakoby is active around the country promoting positive messages about Israel’s apartheid system against Palestinians.
We are keen to be there whenever he speaks to protest and call out Israel’s racist apartheid policies.
If you find out about any speaking engagements Ran Yaakoby has please let us know by texting 027 4 APARTHEID (0274272784) or email apartheid-israel@psna.nz
Petition to Close the Israeli Embassy
If you haven’t signed our petition to close the Israeli embassy yet…
Scan and Sign here
Or Click and Sign here
Important stories from the Web
General
Roger waters seeks injunction to overturn censorship by Frankfurt here
Why the world should take notice as Saudi Arabia joins Chinese alliance here
What’s behind rising anti-semitism around the world here (Al Jazeera podcast)
China ready to broker Israel/Palestine peace talks says foreign minister here
Palestine
Abbas arrives in Saudi Arabia coinciding with Hamas visit here
Dismantling Abbas rule over the Palestinian judiciary here
Amira Hass is still angry here
My family survived the Deir Yassin massacre – 75 years later we still demand justice here
Palestinian man serves free soup in Ramadan here
Christians under attack in Jerusalem
Under Netanyahu violence against Christians is being normalised here
Holy-land Christians say attacks rising in far-right Israel here
United Nations
UNRWA staff Gaza strike demands remain unmet here
UN experts urge international community end forced displacements and annexation of occupied territories here
Israeli politics
Meet the proud racist May Golan set to become Israel’s consul general in New York here
Protests in Israel – clash of competing settler colonial visions here
“Israel was our original home and Palestinians happened to live there” here
Former Israeli Prime Minister warns messianic dictatorship could use nukes in war on Islam here
Ben-Gvir’s ‘private militia’ moves forward, and Palestinians are in the line of fire here
Nihilism in Israel – what possible response here
Israeli brutality
Israeli attacks on Easter worshippers reflect efforts to expand control over Jerusalem here
Israeli settlers attack Palestinians here
Labs of oppression here
Israeli protests: the clash of competing settler-colonial visions here
Media
Get the BBC off RNZ and TVNZ here
United States
Columbia University to open learning centre in Israel amid faculty backlash here
Bowman, Sanders and 12 reps demand Biden shift policy over Israel’s systemic violence against Palestinians here
US Military funding to Israel – interactive map here
Reminder: Dates for Palestine Solidarity in 2023
Israel apartheid week has been added to the dates for likely local and national Palestine solidarity activity this year.
28 Mar – 4 Apr Israel Apartheid Week
30 Mar Land Day Palestine
5 Apr Palestinian Childs Day
9 Apr Deir Yassin massacre - Irgun Terrorism - 107-120 Palestinian men, women and children massacred
17 Apr Palestinian Prisoners Day
11 May World Kufiya Day
15 May Nakba Day – marking the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine in 1948
5 Jun Nakba Day - Start of 1967 War - Land Grab – Invasion of Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza, Egypt and Syria - 5 June 1967 – 10 June 1967
20 Jun Attack on Gaza - 6–21 May 2021 (2 weeks and 1 day)
16-18 Sep 40th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres
28 Sep Second Intifada - 28 Sept 2000 – 8 Feb 2005
2 Nov Balfour Declaration
29 Nov United Nations - International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
8 Dec First Intifada - 8 Dec 1987 – 13 Sept 1993
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 PSN Bay of Islands (Email)
Whangarei PSN Whangarei (Facebook)
Auckland PSN 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 PSN Palmerston North (Email)
New Plymouth PSN Taranaki (Facebook)
Wellington PSN Wellington (Email)
Nelson Te Tau Ihu (Nelson) Palestine (Facebook)
Christchurch PSN Christchurch (Facebook)
Dunedin Dunedin for Justice in Palestine (Facebook)
Invercargill PSNA Invercargill (Email)