Feature Archives

On September 28th, Mutulu Olugbala aka M1 of dead prez was interviewed by Boots Riley of The Coup about his recent trip to Gaza, Palestine and Cairo, Egypt. The event, a fundraiser for the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper and Block Report Radio, was held at Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos and co-sponsored by the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC), Barrios Unidos and the Watsonville Brown Berets.

Avital writes:, "Last week I spent Rosh HaShanah (Jewish New Year) in the Tel Aviv/Petach Tikva area, no one around cared too much about actually observing the holiday. Of course, as an officially Jewish state, most businesses and transportation services shut down on these days. But that doesn’t stop most Israelis from maneuvering their way around these ‘inconveniences ‘and taking shared taxis, crowding into the few open coffee shops, and going to the beach."

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 23rd, Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman and member of the Free Gaza movement, gave a talk at the San Francisco Lunacy Theater.The event was part of a Bay Area benefit tour for the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, an independent monthly that covers a variety of local and international stories. Her speaking tour follows her recent expedition on a boat delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza under siege.

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.