Israeli Apartheid Week will bring you a series of events (mentioned below) aimed at raising awareness about the reality, nature, and consequences of racist and discriminatory Israeli policies which have led to a complete disenfranchisement of the Palestinian peoples. Apart from raising awareness, one of the main objectives will be to offer suggestions on required measures to halt grave and continual violations of Palestinian human rights and to provide practical mechanisms on how best to organize and campaign against the powers and policies denying Palestinians these very basic rights.
FROM TUESDAY TO FRIDAY- JOIN US TO DRAW CHALK GRAFFITTI
on the WALL of the SUB (that looks like the apartheid wall!)
to voice your concerns against Israeli Apartheid!
tuesdaymarch 3rd: Documentary showing of
Peace, Propaganda, And The Promised Land
in WOOD 6 , 7pm
** PLEASE NOTE CHANGE IN LOCATION!!!!**
Cosponsored by: Cinema Politica UBC
To learn more about the Documentary, its content, creators, and thesis, please visit: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index_detail.php?show=y,n,n,n,n,y&bldg2Search=n&locat1=473
fridaymarch 6th: Panel Discussion...
Once Upon a Time In Palestine
@ LSK 200, 5pm
A panel including Sobhi Al-Zubaidi (a filmmaker) and human rights worker/paramedic Valerie Zink, Harry Berbrayer, and Rand Eid on their experiences in Palestine and how the apartheid affects everyday life
For directions to the building, please see wayfinding at UBC:
RONNIE KASRILS
Apartheid: From South Africa to Israel
@ Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia Street Alice MacKay Room, @7PM
Admission by donation. $10 - $20 suggested
Cosponsored by Canpalnet
For directions to the building and the nearest parking space, please visit:
Further Information on the Events:
Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.
Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how--through the use of language, framing and context--the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign. At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics.
Interviewees include Seth Ackerman, Mjr. Stav Adivi, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Hanan Ashrawi, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Neve Gordon, Toufic Haddad, Sam Husseini, Hussein Ibish, Robert Jensen, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Karen Pfeifer, Alisa Solomon, and Gila Svirsky.
Once Upon a Time in Palestine:
Sobhi Al-Zobaidi: Currently working on his doctorate at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, al-Zobaidi was born in Jerusalem, raised in a Jalazon refugee camp, and educated at Birzeit University in Palestine and New York University in the US. His films address the complex realities of contemporary Palestinian life — the disruptions and humiliations of everyday existence under Israeli occupation, in refugee camps and in the troubled enclaves of the West Bank and Gaza, and the internal fragmentation and division that afflicts Palestinian society.
Valerie Zink: Valerie Zink is a Vancouver-based organizer and is active with the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign. She has traveled extensively in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and volunteered as a paramedic with the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Gaza City and Hebron in 2005.
Harry Berbrayer: Harry was raised as a Jew, and from an early age was influenced to identify Israel as the Jewish homeland. Arabs played almost no part in that picture, and the word "Palestinian" was not mentioned. By the 1990s, he had begun to study conflict and conflict resolution, and became more and more interested in and concerned about the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1998, he went to Jerusalem, as a student in a Masters program, Society and Politics in Israel, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the time he believed there was a peace process, with Israelis and Palestinians working to achieve a mutually beneficial future for all. He eventually left the university program, disilliusioned with the peace process, and returned to Canada in spring of 2001, and since then have participated in efforts to build support for the Palestinian campaign for self-determination and for an end to Israeli domination of Palestinian lands and lives. For much of December 2008, he was in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, visiting a number of Palestinian and Israeli organizations that work to end the Israeli occupation and promote the independence of Palestinians.
APARTHEID: From South Africa to Israel featuring Ronnie Kasrils *** FEATURE SPEAKER***
"Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency [in South Africa]. ... It is shocking to discover that certain roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite as obscene in apartheid South Africa."
Ronnie Kasrils, Israel 2007: worse than apartheid. Mail & Guardian, May 21, 2007.
Ronnie Kasrils has been a leader in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa since he joined with Nelson Mandela in the African National Congress in 1960, after the Sharpeville Massacre. Raised in Johannesburg in a family of Jewish immigrants from Latvia and Lithuania, he was a member of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, since its inception in 1961. He was soon forced to flee the country and joined the ANC in exile.
Since 1994, Kasrils has held several posts in the ANC government including Deputy Minister of Defense, Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, and Minister for Intelligence Services.
As he wrote in the summer of 2006: "With the illegal Jewish settlements, security road network and the construction of the monstrous wall around the militarily occupied West Bank, the remaining Palestinians are ghettoised within 12% of their original territory. This dispossession is reminiscent of apartheid and its 13% of Bantustan homelands. For many this is the fundamental cause of the conflict." Ronnie Kasrils, Rage of the elephant: Israel in Lebanon. Mail & Guardian, September 2, 2006.
Kasrils has passionately espoused the cause of the Palestinian people for justice and self-determination and believes this is the only way to secure peace and security for both Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK:
The Fifth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week, March 01-March 09, 2009 First launched in Toronto in 2005, IAW has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar. Last year, more than 25 cities around the world participated in the week's activities, which also commemorated 60 years since the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and land in 1947-1948. IAW 2008 was launched with a live broadcast from the South African township of Soweto by Palestinian leader and former member of the Israeli Knesset, Azmi Bishara. This year, IAW occurs in the wake of Israel's barbaric assault against the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at a global levelFor more information, visit www.apartheidweek.org 
