Protest Against Israeli Blockade on Gaza : Melbourne, June 5

Update : Israel left shot student ‘to bleed’, Kirsty Needham, The Age, June 5, 2010 | In their wake, Paul McGeough, The Age, June 5, 2010.

    Date: Saturday, June 5, 2010
    Time: 2:00–4:00pm
    Location: State Library (Cnr Swanston & Latrobe Sts, Melbourne)

On Saturday, a rally has been organised to protest, inter alia, the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The rally is also being organised to further protest the Israeli attack upon an humanitarian aid convoy earlier in the week, in which Israeli soldiers murdered nine members of the convoy, and injured dozens more.

The attack has sparked an inevitable torrent of commentary. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Liberman, blamed the murders on the victims of the attack, claiming that Israeli soldiers came “under the brutal attack of a bunch of anarchists, hooligans and terror-supporters… actually terrorists – who simply want to promote terrorism, cooperate with terrorism… to attack our sovereignty and to spill blood”.

The blockade is a form of unlawful collective punishment of the 1.4 million people who reside in Gaza, the 360 square kilometre strip of territory occupied by Israel in 1967 and formally abandoned by it in 2005.

In late 2008 / early 2009, the Israeli state abandoned some bombs on Gaza, in an exercise which brought “great rejoicing at the nation’s capital” — or so said the morning’s paper.

In the name of the Jews, the Israeli state drives Palestinians from their lands, imprisons them and punishes them with blundering brutality. The Revisionist policy dreamed up by early fascist Zionists of “Facts on the Ground” is a total success – Israel’s perceived choice today is between Apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The Israeli elections are seeing the meteoric rise of Avigdor Leiberman whose party, Israel Beitenu, promises to strip Palestinian citizens of Israel and Leftists of their citizenship if they fail tests of loyalty to the state. This isn’t swear-word fascism – this is the real thing. Still on the table is Kadima’s “realignment” plan to withdraw Israeli settlers from the “Palestinian” side of the segregation barrier. This is a de-facto annexation of 6 per-cent of West Bank territory which, crucially, would leave the [West Bank] in two landlocked islands, an internal enemy non-state which can now be disciplined on the same terms as Gaza.

~ Uri Gordon, ‘Facts on the Ground’, Anarchy Alive!, February 9, 2009.

Policing the blockade — or rather, justifying it, and the blockade’s brutal effects upon an enormous captive population — has become slightly moar difficult following the slaughter at sea (producing some truly spectacular mental gymnastics on the part of apologists for the Israeli regime), but as a general rule of thumb, unless the position of US authorities shifts, there will be little or no change in Israeli policy. Thus, while the O’Bama administration has tut-tutted the murderous act of piracy, it has otherwise remained solidly behind the Israeli state, and the UN has been licensed to issue only tepid criticism (see : Washington comes to aid of Israel over Gaza convoy massacre, Jean Shaoul, wsws.org, June 2, 2010).

As a result, the people of Gaza are pretty much f*cked.

See also : Turkish officials convicted over activist’s death, Amnesty International, June 2, 2010 (“Engin Ceber was arrested at a protest against a police shooting of another activist”) | Listening To Grasshoppers: Genocide, Denial And Celebration, Arundhati Roy, Countercurrents.org, January 26, 2008 | Karakök Autonome (“Isyan! Devrim! Anarsi! Resistance! Revolution! Anarchy!”) | Anarchists Against the Wall.

Bonus! Anarchy! Turkey!

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
This entry was posted in Broken Windows, Death, History, State / Politics, War on Terror and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

16 Responses to Protest Against Israeli Blockade on Gaza : Melbourne, June 5

  1. @ndy says:

    A few thousand people perhaps, lots of Turkish flags and cries of Allahu Akbar, the usual suspects, and at least one flag belonging to the Lebanese Communist Party. Also, one of the speakers made ref to flying unicorns, which I thought was pretty cool.

  2. @ndy says:

    Oh right.

    Global protests against attack
    Mark Russell
    The Sunday Age
    June 6, 2010

    DEMONSTRATORS in Melbourne yesterday joined worldwide protests against Israel’s deadly attack on ships ferrying protesters and aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

    More than 1000 protesters brought traffic to a standstill in the city yesterday as they marched to Parliament House chanting ”Free, free Palestine” and ”Shame, Israel, shame”.

    …There were no reports of violence in Melbourne, but one protester let off a flare on Bourke Street that was quickly put out by a police officer on a bicycle.

    Palestine Solidarity Campaign spokesman Mick Armstrong said many Australians had been angered by Monday’s Israeli commando raid that killed nine people on the aid ship Mavi Marmara.

    ”Given the scale of the atrocity carried out by the Israelis it was important to make a statement at this protest,” Mr Armstrong told The Sunday Age.

    ”We also want to draw attention to the ongoing siege of Gaza, the blockade going on there which is a symptom of the broader denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.”

    Mr Armstrong said yesterday’s protest would put greater pressure on the federal government to push for Israel to have the blockade on Gaza lifted…

    It’s not known at this stage if Armstrong concurs with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman’s claim that a bunch of Kiwi anarchists, Swedish, German and English football hooligans and terror-supporters were responsible for the ultra-violence on board the Mavi Marmara.

  3. lest we forget says:

    you don’t actually believe this crap, do you? the siege of gaza? wtf? when will the palestinians accept some responsibility for their plight? 62 years is a long time to sit on welfare. before that, they scoffed at the jews in their endless toil to better the earth in this forgotten backwater of muslim expansion. i can understand why you empathise with them andy. it’s like your hatred of capitalists. you hate bob next door, cause he made something of his life, and now gets the pretty girls, while you just whine and blame the system. let’s not forget andy, the jews did not force one arab out of their home in 1948. they (arab villages etc) were volunteered to the arab militia who were to hold them until relieved by the advancing arab armies. that’s fact. when the palestinians stop blaming everyone bar themselves, they might start helping themselves in the process. introspection can be healthy.

  4. @ndy says:

    “you don’t actually believe this crap, do you? the siege of gaza? wtf?”

    yeah i know i had the same reaction when i saw the img of the poster. i mean, you’d reckon that the organisers would know how to spell ‘siege’. as for the rest, again, yeah: you’ve really been able to identify the major points of contention regarding what happened when the nine men were shot dead on board the Mavi Marmara — cheers.

  5. lest we forget says:

    what happened, happened. right, wrong, whatever. doesn’t matter. what’s important is 1. why you and your ilk are such willing pawns to fundamentalist islam. 2. why such incidents occur in the first place. what i was trying to say was you can’t progress on hate. when you stop hating, and realise some ugly truths you can begin to heal.

  6. butcher says:

    the reports i heard was the police officer had a great deal of difficulty putting out said flare, which reportedly made a hilarious spectacle.

  7. @ndy says:

    what happened, happened. right, wrong, whatever. doesn’t matter. what’s important is 1. why you and your ilk are such willing pawns to flare manufacturers. 2. why such incidents occur in the first place. what i was trying to say was you can’t progress on hate. when you stop hating, and realise some ugly truths you can begin to safely and quickly put out flares.

  8. @ndy says:

    From the Department of What Happened, Happened and Like, Whatever comes:

    The hijacking of the truth: Film evidence ‘destroyed’

    Protesters say Israel had an assassination list. Israel says soldiers fired only in self-defence. So what really happened on 31 May? Catrina Stewart reports.

  9. Eric says:

    FFS lest we forget.
    Wipe your fucking chin, you’re dribbling!
    It’s like your hatred of Anarchists. You hate @ndy next door, cause he made something of his blog, and now gets all the pretty girls, while you just whine and rub one out on a lonely deserted stretch of highway.
    I’m sick of reading your stupid comments.

    ‘introspection can be healthy’, ‘right, wrong, whatever. doesn’t matter’, ‘you can’t progress on hate. when you stop hating, and realise some ugly truths you can begin to heal’.

    Get your own blog you miserable twat!

  10. Scrooge McDuck says:

    I wanted to play teh flying unicorns game but all I got was some ad telling me ‘summer is the best time to bump music in your ride’. WHY?

  11. @ndy says:

    Sorry McDuck. Please to relax while normal service is resumed.

  12. @ndy says:

    Krauthammer kicks unikorn ass:

    Those troublesome Jews
    Charles Krauthammer
    The Washington Post
    June 4, 2010

    …as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel — a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets…

  13. lest we forget says:

    dammit, i’ve missed all the hostility. sorry eric i’ve been in orbit for a few weeks. first a comment on your original sledges, ha ha ha ha ha. next, i have my own blog, it’s at hahahahaha.com you tool. also, i don’t hate anarchists, i pity them…after i have a chuckle. and finally, i’m sure andy can fight his own battles, so you don’t need to prove your dedication to the cause in such a feeble manner. quite frankly, i think andy would be mildly embarrassed. ah but credit where credit’s due, that last quote of mine was a tad corny, my apologies.

  14. Eric says:

    @lwf. I’m busy now. Can I ignore you some other time?
    Really though, thanks for the heads up on that website. I’m gonna use it for all my jokes from now on.

  15. @ndy says:

    Fail troll is fail.

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