Feature Archives

Dahr Jamail, an independent unembedded reporter in wartime Iraq, will discusses his latest book The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan on Wednesday, October 14th at 7pm at the Vets Hall in Santa Cruz. This event is a fundraiser for the Santa Cruz G.I. Rights Network affiliate and Dialogues Against Militarism (DAM).

On September 17th, three CODEPINK activists confronted Condoleezza Rice at a speech inside the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA, calling her a war criminal, responsible for torture and lying the U.S. into a war of occupation in Iraq. They waited until her speech was finished before standing up with "bloody hands" to confront her loudly in front of about 1,000 audience members.

On Friday, September 18, about 300 protesters -- Israeli, Palestinian and international -- attended the weekly demo against the apartheid wall in Ni‘lin. In a joint collective action the protesters succeeded in moving one of the wall blocks (weighing a few tons), causing substantial damage to the wall, and opening a gap in which a person can pass.

On Wednesday, September 16, Maya Wind and Netta Mishly from the refusenik group "Shministim" spoke at the MLK, Jr. Building at UC Berkeley. Maya Wind and Netta Mishly both signed the 2008 Shministim Letter: a declaration by Israeli high school students that they would not enlist in the IDF to occupy Palestinian territories and rule over Palestinian life. Since military service is mandatory for Israeli Jews upon completing high school, Maya, Netta, and many of the dozens of teenagers who signed the letter have been sentenced to military prison, sometimes for multiple terms.

Ayman T. Quader, writes: "every time, she tries to understand what happened to her, she asks herself: what was my fault?, what’s going to happen to me in my tent? Ilham, a 30 years old mother of 6, lives in Al-atatra district ,in the northern part of the Gaza strip. The Israeli war (in 2006) had a huge impact on her, it destroyed her house, her parent’s house and killed her brother."

On August 18th, the Israeli Ministry of Defense informed American activist Tristan Anderson’s family and legal counsel that it considers his shooting during a nonviolent protest in the West Bank village of Nil’in, which left him critically injured, an “act of war,” absolving the soldiers responsible from any liability under Israeli law. Anderson was shot directly in the forehead with a high-velocity tear gas canister by Israeli forces on March 13th, 2009, suffering several condensed fractures and necessitating several life-saving surgeries.

Over the July 4th traffic on Interstate 80, “torture victims and detainees” staged a banner display on the University Avenue overpass in Berkeley. World Can’t Wait has demonstrated on this overpass action every 4th of July since 2006. This year the focus was on the torture state forged under Bush – and now being continued and refined by Obama – as witnessed by the thousands who passed the display. The act of civil disobedience slowed northbound traffic along I-80.