Peace in the UK

STOP THE WAR COALITION
http://www.stopwar.org.uk

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
1) PALESTINE AND THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
2) CRITICAL MOMENT FOR THE IRAQ OCCUPATION
3) THE "UNINTENDED" MURDER OF CHILDREN
4) WHEN DID WE BECOME A TERRORIST TARGET?
5) THE RISING TIDE OF RACISM AT HOME
6) BROADENING THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

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1) PALESTINE AND THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

Stop the War is calling on all its supporters to join the
national demonstration for Palestine in London next
Saturday, which will mark the 60th anniversary of what
Palestinians call the Nakba - the catastrophe - when Israeli
forces used terror and brute force to drive hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians from their homeland.

Sixty years of colonial expansion and brutal occupation have
followed -- in violation of numerous United Nations
resolutions -- and today the Israelis have imposed a
blockade on Gaza which starves one and a half million
inhabitants of food and essential resources. Across Gaza and
the West Bank, Palestinians are living in the most abject
conditions, under which Israel has set up walls and
checkpoints that separate farmers from their lands, students
from their schools and universities, patients from their
hospitals and families from each other.

The people of surrounding countries are under the ever
present threat of attack by Israel - one recent example
being the invasion of Lebanon in Summer 2006, when hundreds
of civilians were killed and the Israeli military fired the
highest number of cluster bombs used in any war in history.
Another example was last September's bombing of a nuclear
power station in Syria. Two more illegal acts carried out
with the impunity Israel has come to expect over the past 60
years. whenever it transgresses human rights and
international laws.

What has this got to do with the anti-war movement and
specifically with Stop the War, an organisation founded to
oppose the "war on terror" and its consequent wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq?

The short answer is that it is impossible to detach the
issue of Palestine when support for Israel is so central to
the US government's aggressions in the Middle East. It is
for this reason that half of all US government aid goes to
Israel, most of it for military purposes, which is used to
further brutalise the Palestinian people and to pose a
permanent threat to neighbouring countries. It is no
coincidence that George Bush and the Israeli government are
in tandem in their recent threats against Iran and Syria.

The pathetic wandering around the Middle East by war
criminal Tony Blair, laughingly called a "peace envoy",
shows that the warmongers know how significant Israel is to
their strategy of domination in the region. That is why, for
very different reasons to Tony Blair, Stop the War believes
the issue of Palestine is directly linked to our campaign
opposing the war policies of the US and British governments.
And it is why we urge all our supporters to participate in
Saturday's national demonstration.

NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION FOR PALESTINE
SATURDAY 10 MAY 2008
FREE PALESTINE - END THE SIEGE OF GAZA
FOR THE RIGHT OF RETURN - END ISRAELI OCCUPATION
ASSEMBLE 1PM TEMPLE UNDERGROUND STATION
VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, RALLY IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE.
Organised by: British Muslim Initiative, Palestine
Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain.
For further information: http://tinyurl.com/4kqjcv

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2) CRITICAL MOMENT FOR THE IRAQ OCCUPATION

In an exclusive interview with Stop the War, Patrick
Cockburn from The Independent newspaper, one of the best
informed, "non-embedded" commentators on the war in Iraq,
explains why the war - which has now lasted longer than
World War 1 - is a disaster for American foreign policy,
what the prospects are for progress towards peace and the
role of Muktada al-Sadr and his movement in the resistance
to the occupation armies. To see the 10 minute interview,
go to: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

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3) THE "UNINTENDED" MURDER OF CHILDREN

The picture of two year old Ali Hussein's limp body, covered
in debris and dust and held by his father, just after he had
been dug out of the rubble of the family home, may well
become the iconic figure that captures in a single image the
brutality of the US-UK invasion of Iraq, just as the picture
of Kim Phúc, aged 9, with her skin peeling away from the
napalm that US bombers had rained on her village, became the
picture epitomising US crimes against humanity in the
Vietnam war.

Ali's home and the homes of a least three other families
nearby, were devastated on April 29, when the US military
fired numerous 200 pound missiles into a densely populated
area of Baghdad, killing dozens of civilians, many of them
women and children. The mainstream media across the world
carried Ali's picture. For one all too rare moment the
reality of America's continuing war against the Iraqi people
was revealed. See http://tinyurl.com/3qkbrp

These deaths, said the Pentagon, were "unintended", just as
the British army said it was an "accident" that its tank
shells killed two children in Afghanistan last week.

All such attacks on civilian populations and their property
are illegal under international law and the Fourth Geneva
Convention. But, as a former US Attorney General in the Bush
administration said, these laws are "quaint" and "outdated",
only there to be disregarded by the US and British
governments, confident that their violations will be ignored
by the rest of the so-called "international community".

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4) WHEN DID WE BECOME A TERRORIST TARGET?

Not content with the carnage it has brought to Iraq and
Afghanistan, the US government turned its attention last
week to Somalia, where dozens of civilians - most of them
women and children - were killed when US missiles struck the
town of Dusamareebnorth. Half the town's population turned
out to protest against the mass murder, which once again was
a violation of international law. Thirteen-year-old Nour
Ahmad spoke at the protest rally: "The US strike killed my
brother, my sister and also wounded my grandmother. We are
refugees and fled from Mogadishu. When did we become a
terrorist target?"
SEE http://tinyurl.com/45z8nm

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5) THE RISING TIDE OF RACISM AT HOME

The "war on terror" has been a disaster for US and British
foreign policy. As the situation worsens for the occupying
forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the propaganda assaults on
Muslims continue unabated in the media, fuelled at every
stage by politicians desperate to divert attention from
their collusion in war crimes that have lead to the deaths
of hundreds of thousands. Stop the War is co-ordinating a
series of rallies with high profile speakers to help defend
the Muslim community against this rising tide of racism. The
first will be in London on June 3 and will be followed by
meetings in Birmingham, Manchester and in cities and towns
across the country. More details of venues and speakers will
be published shortly.

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6) BROADENING THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

The Stop the War Coalition is committed to strengthening and
broadening its organisation. We are planning regional
activist meetings to discuss how to sustain and strengthen
local organisation. The first will be in London on Thursday
22 May and we are asking every London Stop the War group to
encourage all of their activists to attend:

LONDON STOP THE WAR ACTIVISTS MEETING
THURSDAY 22 MAY, 6.00PM
School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornaugh Street, Russell Sq, WC1