Free Palestine/Tibet Campaigns hoisted a different torch than China's last weekend in London

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Thursday April 10, 2008 14:50 by Sumoud - Free Palestine Campaign

The unspeakable in pursuit of the eatable?: The JNF and fellow travellers in Windsor Castle

Over on a short stay in London, an activist from the Ireland based, Free Palestine Campaign organized and participated in pickets of Lev Leviev's diamond boutique in 31Old Bond Street and Carmel Agrexco's depot in Swallowfield Way, Hayes, Middlesex, participated in the British Muslim Initiative/Palestine Solidarity Campaign's picket at Downing Street, PSC's Windsor Castle demo and found common purpose, solidarity and activism with the Free Tibet Campaign.

Two of the picketers of the first two establishments were the Lithuanian friends of Rimas and his love, Gabija, who co-founded the Galway based Food Not Bombs http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84753 and who was the spearheads and inspirators of that group before their move to London - besides myself the third was John T. founder and head honcho of Kilburn Stop the War.
Lev Leviev’s Africa-Israel company builds Israeli settlements, for Jews only, in the Palestinian West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967. Israeli settlements violate international law. Africa-Israel builds on land belonging to Palestinian farmers, threatening their ability to survive and remain in their homes. The settlements where Leviev is active or has built homes – Mattityahu East, Tzufim, Har Homa, Maale Adumim and Ariel – seize vital Palestinian water and agricultural resources. They also carve the West Bank into disconnected Bantustans, destroying hopes for a viable Palestinian state. two Leviev-owned construction companies are involved in the building of the new Jewish settlements of Matityahu East and Zufim on agricultural land that belonged for generations to the residents of two Palestinian villages, Bil’in and Jayyous.
The Business and Human Rights Resource Group, an international NGO, alleges that security firms used by Leviev to guard his diamond-mining operations in Angola have committed “systematic violations of human rights ... including the use of torture” against Angolan diamond miners and condemned alleged “abusive real estate development schemes” in New York by Leviev and former partner Shaya Boymelgreen - the Laborer’s International Union and ACORN also allege that Leviev and Boymelgreen “employed underpaid non-union workers in hazardous conditions and violated housing codes to construct luxury apartments that displace low-income and moderate-income residents in Brooklyn.”
Leviev’s personal fortune was estimated by Forbes Magazine last March at $4.1 billion, and soared significantly higher later in 2007 after AFI Development, the Russian property unit of Africa-Israel, raised $1.4 billion in the biggest IPO (initial public offering) ever by a European real estate developer - for tax avoidance purposes on this transaction, this pilgrim moved, from a modest home in B’nei Brak, Israel, to a $70 million residence in London’s recherche Hampstead area, a midnight move which hasn't exactly enamoured him to the Israeli media.
To boot, Leviev has part ownership of the Israeli fuel company, Dor Alon, which recently scaled back supplies to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip under orders from the Olmert government and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign alleges that: “His diamond company has been accused of supplying blood rubies from Burma used to finance Myanmar’s military junta”

The Carmel Agrexco company which is 50% Israeli government owned, according to Wikipedia; is "Israel’s largest exporter of agricultural produce into the EU ... (which) in 2005, produced 440,000 tons of fresh agricultural produce" and "much of Carmel Agrexco’s fruit, vegetables, flowers, herbs and other produce is grown and packed within illegal Israeli settlements" - the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's letter http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/347361.html to Agrexco (09.08.2006) states that; "The business carried out at Agrexco, Swallowfield Way, Middlesex cannot be defined as lawful business as your supply of produce from illegally occupied territories makes you ancillary to Apartheid and other Crimes Against Humanity under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (Hereafter the Act). Crimes under the International Criminal Court Act are criminal offences under English law".

Last Monday, 7th April, with Shimon Peres, Gordon Brown and David Cameron scheduled to appear, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip was – before a chest infection knocked him out of kilter – was advertised as the host of a bash in Windsor Castle, organized by the Jewish National Fund to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the founding of rogue state Israel.
Enjoying charitable status in Britain, the JNP lies at the core of the Zionist project to ensure that Palestinian refugees never return home. The Jewish National Fund is no ordinary charity. The organization was established for and involved in the dispossession and expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population. The JNP is essentially a racist organization which has worked over the last 60 years to obtain Palestinian land for use by Jews only. On many of the hundreds of destroyed and ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages, which now constitutes the State of Israel, the JNF has acquired the land and attempted to obliterate all mention of the previous indigenous Palestinian inhabitants. The organization is also involved with its associates in the expropriation of land for illegal Jewish only settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and Jewish only water reservoirs in the illegally occupied Jordan Valley. The JNP occupies a unique position in Israel, it is nominally an independent organization but in reality it is a contracted-out section of the state, controlled by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, carrying out functions that the state of Israel cannot be seen to be doing openly. The British Royal Family has a constitutional role. They are seen as representatives of British society and their shameful invitation gives the Royal seal of approval to a racist outfit that masquerades under charitable status, but against the previous racist history and background of the Duke, his hosting is no quantum leap into the dark side?.

Our spirits at the Windsor Castle picket were immeasurably lifted by the showing of the Neturei Karta (Jews United Against Zionism) activists: this is the pristine world wide organization of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews that uttered , on 9th Feb ’08, “a call of anguish for our brethren in Gaza and the entire Palestine” and issued a “passionate condemnation of the latest Zionist atrocities in Gaza and the entire Palestine” when a Rabbi representing the organization called the “recent deaths of so many innocent Palestinians a horrific act.” He posited that “this is only the most recent example of the sixty year toll of human suffering created by the Zionist enterprise in the Middle East.” The Rabbi stating the perspective of Torah true Jewry, declared that “The terrible oppression of the Palestinian people is yet another example of the awful consequences of Zionism. This is a movement that disregards the Jewish faith and its teachings on every area of life, including its commandment that we seek peace and justice towards all people … and the day should soon arrive when the Zionist State will be peacefully dismantled and Jews and their Palestinian neighbours will live together in a Palestinian state in peace.” www.nkuk.org

The serendipitous encounter with the Israeli woman, Lilac; the lone Falun Gong picketer of the Chinese Embassy, Portland Place, who hailed from a Jordan Valley kibbutz, stimulated a little research into the FG for she was a sweet positive anti-Zionist woman, well acquainted and abhorrent of the egregious crimes of her government: “We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners” concludes a 46-page investigative report by former Canadian Secretary of State, David Kilgour and human rights lawyer, David Matas. This independent report details the mounting body of evidence pointing to Chinese government agencies killing Falun Gong practitioners held in labour camps. The victims are killed for their organs while they are still alive. The organs are then sold for use in transplants, including foreign patients. “They take both kidneys, then the heart and the skin and the corneas and the liver, and your body is then thrown in the incinerator” (David Kilgour). For full report, see: www.davidkilgour.ca

From L to R: Modestas, John and Tadas

BMI/PSC Friday evening picket of Downing Street