Palestine

The new measure reflects widespread economic hardship in the West Bank after seven years of conflict with Israel, including international economic sanctions and tough Israeli restrictions. Many Palestinians are unable to pay even routine bills and have run up huge amounts of debt.

The teachers are protesting a government decision to reduce weekends to one day per week and end having Saturday as a day-off. In Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank, Ma'an's correspondent reported that the streets were teeming with students returning from school after finding their teachers absent from the classrooms.

"Our historical analogy aimed to demonstrate the failure of the present course of action for the region’s proletariat and suggest an alternative. It is the social and not the military dimension of the struggle that has the potential to transcend capital."

Taken from Al-Jazeera English, by Omar Khalifa.

With 47 per cent of the potential Palestinian labour force unemployed and a per capita income 23 times less than that of Israel, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) has a difficult enough job.

The following is a transcript of a speech given at a benefit for The Middle East Children's Alliance (president, Barbara Lubin) and KPFA radio (manager, Pat Scott).

The topic, as you saw, is The New World Order with primary concern for the Middle East.

Rasem Al Bayari, Deputy General Secretary of the PGFTU (Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions), an ITUC affiliate, knows that well: following the destruction of a PGFTU building in October 2006 and the firing of two rockets at his home in January, on 6 April Rasem Al Bayari was injured by masked men who attacked him while he was in a car with his family.

The strike began on Saturday, when workers in Gaza City walked out over 6 months of unpaid wages, and since then this has grown to include 15,000 people.

The International Herald Tribune reported:

Since 2002, Israeli anarchists have been joining the Palestinian popular resistance to the wall. These are six new videos of joint demonstrations and direct actions from past years.

Saffa, 22.05.05 – Soldiers use extreme violence to disperse farmers from their lands.

Fahima's plea bargain meant that her release was supposed to have occured on September 13th, but it was delayed due to an incident in which she was "rude to a warden." This was just the latest step in a campaing to leave her in perpetual custody, ever since she was imprisoned on August 9th, 2004 for allegedly plotting to take part in a terrorist attack.

Circumstances surrounding the explosion are unclear and attackers are unknown. A statement by the Association of Banks in Palestine suggested it may be a reprisal for their complicity in the unpaid wages dispute which led to mass strikes by public sector workers, pointing to stone throwing attacks on banks by strikers.

Parents have kept their children home from school and nursery assistants and cleaners are also on strike.

A spokesman from the Kiryat Shmona parents' union said "There are 5,000 students at home in Kiryat Shmona and no one in the State of Israel cares. During the war there were promises. When the war ended they forgot about us."

Work at Any Cost: Employment of Palestinian Agricultural Workers in Jordan Valley Settlements

Hundreds of Palestinian workers from Jericho and its surroundings are employed in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley. So far, no Palestinian or Israeli body had taken upon itself to provide an accurate account of the numbers of these workers.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights strongly condemns an attack launched on offices of Palestinian Workers Radio, which falls under the scope of repeated attacks on media intuitions by armed Palestinian groups. PCHR calls upon the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), represented by the Attorney-General, to investigate this crime and bring its perpetrators to justice.

The "refuseniks" believe the occupation to be a threat to Israel's own security and inherently oppressive.

Occupation refuser Omri Evron was sentenced Sunday, Oct 15, 2006, to 14 days in military prison after he announced his refusal to enlist for regular mandatory service in the IDF. Omri was put in solitary confinement having refused to wear uniform and obey orders.

The workers have been on strike for 36 days already due to non-payment of wages by the ruling Hamas party since they came to power in March - when many foreign donors cut links to the authority.

This would be an escalation of the dispute which has already led to violent clashes with the Hamas-led government, and may lead to paralysis of local fuel supplies.

“Behind the Twenty-First Century Intifada” was originally published in Aufheben #10, September 2001. Aufheben have a website at: www.geocities.com/aufheben2

“Provisional Notes on the Situation in Palestine and Further Afield” was handed out at a demonstration in London in May 2002. No War But The Class War have a website at: www.geocities.com/nowar_buttheclasswar/index.html

AMY GOODMAN: Our next guest is a professor at the university in England at Oxford. He’s considered one of the most prominent Muslim intellectuals in Europe. Time magazine described him as one of the 100 most likely innovators of the 21st century. His name is Tariq Ramadan. Two years ago, the University of Notre Dame in Ohio offered him a teaching position, but the U.S.

Previous coverage on libcom.org here.

Throughout July and August peace activists in Israel took to the streets to condemn the war in Lebanon. Many of these activists are part of the movement that has continuously demonstrated against the occupation of the West Bank and the incursion into Gaza and has supported Palestinian resistance against The Wall dividing the region.

Palestinian civil servants are demanding the payment of overdue wages from the Hamas government. Around 3,000 marched yesterday in Ramallah, while in Gaza City over 300 unemployed workers demanding jobs and unpaid welfare fought riot police and attempted to storm the parliamentary building, breaching the gates before police fired live warning shots.