Party Vibe

STOP THE WAR COALITION
NEWSLETTER
No. 1072 14 January 2009
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
T: 020 7278 6694
Web: http://www.stopwar.org.uk

IN THIS NEWSLETTER
1) MAKE THIS A WEEKEND FOR GAZA
2) LOCAL PROTESTS AND ALL-LONDON RALLY
3) THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
4) FINANCIAL APPEAL
5) CALL FOR ISRAEL TO BE TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES
6) WHY HAMAS IS NOT THE ISSUE
7) POLICE BEHAVIOUR ON THE GAZA PROTESTS
8) ATTACKS ON STOP THE WAR’S WEBSITE: UPDATE
9) RAPPER LOWKEY AT THE HYDE PARK RALLY

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1) MAKE THIS A WEEKEND FOR GAZA

Israel’s terror campaign in Gaza, with 1000 Palestinians
slaughtered, 40 percent of them women and children, and over
4000 injured brought millions of protestors across the world
onto the streets last Saturday, not least in London, where
100,000 joined the largest demonstration for Palestine ever
seen in this country.

Stop the War has been inundated by email and phone by people
asking how they can get involved in the campaign to stop the
carnage in Gaza. We are calling on all of our local groups and
supporters to make 17/18 January A WEEKEND FOR GAZA in their
communities, in their shopping centres, in every town and
city. Everyone who is outraged by the death and destruction
caused by Israel’s barbarism can contribute. We need to see:

* COLLECTIONS FOR GAZA:
Israel’s systematic demolition of Gaza’s infrastructure has
decimated all basic amenities. Water, fuel, food and medical
supplies are in desperate short supply. This weekend organise
collections for Gaza, which should be sent to Medical Aid for
Palestine, Interpal or other charities supplying essential aid
to Gaza. We know people are so outraged by the scale of
Palestinian suffering that they will give generously, as a
collection of £800 in one day in one north London college and
similar collections elsewhere have shown. We will circulate
shortly details of aid organisations to which donations for
Gaza can be sent.

* PETITIONS FOR GAZA:
Organise a petition to be sent via Stop the War to David
Miliband. MP Gerald Kaufman asked foreign secretary David
Miliband in the House of Commons this week, “Is it not an
incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are
mass-murderers and war criminals”, Miliband replied that
“Israel is rightly seen as a beacon of democracy throughout
the world.”

If any other country in the world, “democracy”or not, had
unleashed an onslaught of such devastating ferocity against
1.5 million defenceless people caged in the most densely
populated area on earth, the British government, along with
governments across the world, would be expelling its
ambassador (as Venezuela has done), stopping arms sales to
that country (as Greece has done) and making plans for a wider
embargo if the carnage did not stop.

Collect as many signatures as you can this weekend calling on
the British government to:
– Expel the Israeli Ambassador to Britain;
– Ban all arms sales to Israel now.

Stop the War will have a petition available online shortly for
downloading. Create your own if you prefer. Collect as many
signatures as you can calling for the British government to
act now. Send the petitions to Stop the War and we will
deliver them to David Miliband at the foreign office.

* ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO JOIN THE ANTI-WAR CAMPAIGN
Many people on last week’s London demonstration, who have
never been actively involved in the campaigns against war in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc, have contacted us to say
they want to keep informed about future activities, to join
local Stop the War groups, where they exist, or to start their
own group. Following last week’s protest, new groups are being
established in towns and colleges. (We’ll have details of how
to start a local Stop the War group in our next newsletter.)

Our network of local groups and communication through the
internet and email have become essential in building our
demonstrations and other events. This is because the anti-war
movement gets so little coverage in the mainstream media.
While collecting and petitioning for Gaza on A WEEKEND FOR
GAZA, encourage people to give us their contact details
(particularly email addresses), so they can be kept up to date
and stay involved. Send these details to Stop the War, 27
Britannia Street, London WC1X 9JP

* YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
With 1000 dead in Gaza, 300 of them children and horrific
injuries among the thousands injured — again many of them
children – we are witnessing, in the words of former UN human
rights representative Mary Robinson, the complete destruction
of a civilisation. You can help make a difference this weekend
17/18 January, with collections and petitions, and not least
through your public support for the people of Gaza, who see
our protests in the news reports and will know that they are
not isolated as we campaign to help bring an end to the
barbarity which is the cause of their unimaginable suffering.

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2) LOCAL PROTESTS AND ALL-LONDON RALLY

Local protests have been organised by Stop the War and
Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday 17 January in towns
and cities across Britain.

Details for the All-London rally are:
ALL-LONDON RALLY FOR GAZA
1000 DEAD: STOP THE MASSACRE
TRAFALGAR SQUARE 2PM
Called by PSC, StWC, BMI and other organisations

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3) THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

In the interests of “balance”, which apparently is the reason
that the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s terrorism has been so
one-sided in favour of mass murderers, we note that 13
Israelis have died since the attack on Gaza began: four of
whom were civilians and four of whom were Israeli soldiers
killed by their own army. The Israeli army’s declared
intention is to be “very violent” to ensure minimal casualties
for its forces. It is clearly working, at a rate of 90
Palestinians killed for every Israeli death. There haven’t
been enough injuries reported among Israelis to “balance”
against the thousands suffered by the Palestinians, and there
has been no damage to Israel’s infrastructure to “balance”
against the schools, medical centres, mosques, universities,
residential homes and refugee facilities destroyed by Israel’s
bombs.

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4) FINANCIAL APPEAL

The donations, new membership subscriptions and the excellent
collection on last Saturday’s demonstration in London have
been a tremendous help in the past two weeks in funding the
costs of our campaign against the Gaza massacre. Many thanks
to all those who contributed. However, demonstrations are very
expensive to organise and we still need more funding to cover
the full costs of last week’s London event and to ensure we
can be as effective as possible in our Gaza campaign and other
anti-war activities. While we are still repairing our website
after it was hacked into over the weekend (see below), please
donate in one of two ways:

* BY CREDIT/DEBIT CARD: Telephone 020 7278 6694

* BY POST: Cheques made to “Stop the War Coalition”. Send to
27 Britannia Street, London WC1X 9JP

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5) CALL FOR ISRAEL TO BE TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES

The United Nations, the Red Cross, Amnesty International and
numerous human rights organisations have all indicated that
Israel’s actions in Gaza may constitute international war
crimes. There is a widespread call among legal authorities in
this country and abroad for the case to be tried in an
international court. UN representative Richard Falk says, “The
tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN
charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and
international humanitarian law.” A group of prominent lawyers
in this country have published a letter which says, “The
blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian
infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities
such as food and fuel are prima facie war crimes.”

If past history is anything to go by, none of this outcry will
lead to a prosecution. As long as the United States is
Israel’s partner in crime, funding its military to the tune of
three billion dollars a year and providing it with the latest
armoury of mass slaughter, Israel will be the “special case”,
able to unleash state terror without any fear of being held to
account.

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6) WHY HAMAS IS NOT THE ISSUE

Israeli government representatives seem to be are allowed
unrestricted time on TV and radio news programmes to repeat
blatant lies about the reasons and purposes for the attack on
Gaza. These lies go completely unchallenged by the
interviewers. The fact that Israel planned this attack last
March – that is before they agreed a six month ceasefire with
Hamas — and that it was Israel that broke the ceasefire on 4
November when its missiles killed six Palestinians — the
obvious intention being to provoke a response from Hamas — is
barely mentioned by the interviewers. The fact that Israel has
always used its terror assaults on Palestine, whatever
organisation has been the leadership of the Palestinian
people, is simply not part of the mainstream media’s
reporting. The two articles below examine the real reasons for
Israel’s attack on Gaza and why Hamas is not the issue.

Why Hamas is not the issue by Elaine C. Hagopian:
Elaine C. Hagopian: Gaza, History Matters

Seeing through the lies by Norman Finkelstein:
TinyURL.com – shorten that long URL into a Tiny URL

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7) POLICE BEHAVIOUR ON THE GAZA PROTESTS

Last Saturday’s demonstration was a wonderful expression of
solidarity with the people of Gaza and anger that Israel has
been allowed to continue its bombardment without serious and
concerted action to stop it by the so-called “international
community.” The vast majority of people at the protest will
know that on a bitterly cold day, there was an inspiring
atmosphere among a vast crowd drawn from all sections of
British society and of all ages, faiths and political
convictions, united in opposition to Israel’s war crimes.

Nothing can detract from that characterisation of a day we can
all be proud of.

There were however incidents outside the Israeli Embassy and
Stop the War has received a number of complaints and reports
about police behaviour, which lead to some serious injuries.
We are now collating as much evidence as we can about these
incidents before deciding how to proceed in ensuring that
there is full accountability for police actions. If you were
injured, arrested or a witness to events of concern outside
the Embassy can you please send a report to Stop the War by
email (office@stopwar.org.uk) or phone the national office on
020 7278 6694

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8) ATTACKS ON STOP THE WAR’S WEBSITE: UPDATE

Stop the War’s website was offline for much of the weekend
when it was first hacked into and then suffered a “denial of
service” attack which lead to the suspension of service. We
cannot prove this was caused by Israeli sympathisers but we
find it hard to believe that the timing is coincidental,
especially since other websites critical of Israel have
suffered similar attacks and there was a concerted effort to
undermine Facebook groups co-ordinating Gaza protests and by
posting false information on YouTube.

We now have an emergency website functioning pending a return
to full service very soon. We can assure all our supporters
that our email lists were not compromised in any way, as they
are kept entirely separate from our website.

Many thanks to the dozens of supporters who sent us messages
of support when the website was down. Your comments and
appreciation are very encouraging.

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9) VIDEO: RAPPER LOWKEY AT THE HYDE PARK RALLY

A star in the making? Lots of people attending last Saturday’s
London demonstration have contacted Stop the War asking who
the rapper was who performed Long Live Palestine at the Hyde
Park rally and rightly received a tremendous response from the
tens of thousands watching. His name is Lowkey and you can
watch his performance at the rally on YouTube:
YouTube – Lowkey @ Gaza demo in London 10 Jan 2009

If you click the “more info” button when watching the video,
the lyrics of Long Live Palestine are displayed.

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