Early Thursday, January 8th Montrealers blockaded the Israeli Consulate in Montreal in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza...The action in Montreal comes on the heels of countless protests worldwide against Israeli war crimes, including an occupation of the Israeli Consulate in Toronto by Jewish women yesterday.

By CAL WINSLOW - January 7, 2009

"We will have to destroy UHW to save it” This, it seems, is the objective of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in its campaign against its California affiliate, United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW)...In the past year, SEIU national leaders have orchestrated a multi-fronted assault on the 150,000 member California health care workers union – all designed to break the union. The intention, it is clear, is to seize control of UHW, remove the elected leaders and relegate its members to other jurisdictions, or to altogether new organizations.

5 January 2009

We are calling on the world to stop Israeli violence and not allow the continuation of the brutal occupation. We call on the world to Condemn and not become an accomplice in Israel`s crimes.

"...[M]uch of labor officialdom in [the United States] — often without the knowledge or consent of union members — has a longstanding complicity with Israeli Apartheid that dates to before 1948...In April 2002, while Israel butchered Palestinian refugees at Jenin in the West Bank, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was a featured speaker at a belligerent 'National Solidarity Rally for Israel.'"

3rd VANCOUVER RALLY TO END THE SIEGE ON GAZA & PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES!

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Saturday Jan 10 @ 1 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery
For info email vancouver.gazaprotest@gmail.com
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"The real crime of the Palestinians are not the rockets, not the suicide bombers, but resistance itself: whether peaceful or violent. Non-violent protests have also evoked brutal and even murderous responses from the Israeli army. The Palestinian's very existence denies the legitimacy of the Zionist claim of Palestine having been 'a land without a people.' That they don’t agree to being exiled forever, to being denied their human, civil and political rights, that they don’t agree to disappear—that is the real crime of the Palestinians."

--Statement from Dr. Gabor Mate, an anti-Zionist Jew who spoke at a rally in Vancouver on Jan. 3, 2009 to protest the latest Israeli assault in Gaza

By Bashir Abu-Manneh - January 04, 2009

Mass Palestinian and Arab mobilization and organisation is the only way forward. Active political participation can guarantee that what Palestinians are fighting for today is what they will be getting tomorrow, without being fooled or lied to by one elite group or another...It is true that since Israel has the 4th most powerful army in the world, and is stacked with hundreds of nuclear warheads, no armed struggle by Palestinians can ever defeat Israel militarily. But popular mass struggle like the first year of the first Intifada can certainly defeat it politically. It can also create better conditions for Palestinians to achieve their much needed independence, national freedom, and sovereignty.

Monday, December 29 2008 - Infoshop News

As we've learned from the excellent interview over at the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective blog, what happened in Greece was not accidental. In fact, the rioting, firebombing, street-fighting, occupying, looting, and marching was largely initiated and coordinated by autonomous affinity groups of anarchists, some more defined than others, with roots in the occupations and social centers around Greece.

By Seumas Milne - December 31, 2008

The US-backed attempt to bring Hamas to heel by overwhelming force is in fact more likely to boost the movement's appeal...Hamas's appeal among Palestinians and beyond doesn't derive from its puny infrastructure, or even its Islamist ideology, but its spirit of resistance to decades of injustice. So long as it remains standing in the face of this onslaught, its influence will only be strengthened.

By Valia Kaimaki - Znet

The government...used the masked petrol-bombers to inspire fear of a "threat to democracy". "What democracy?" ask the protesters. It is true that schoolchildren and university students attacked police stations with rocks and that others damaged banks. But only a few days earlier the government, indifferent to the impoverishment of hundreds of thousands of Greeks, gave those banks a gift of €28bn ($39bn). And these are the banks which use private debt-collection agencies to insult and threaten anyone who owes them small sums of money, and to seize their property.

There will be a Rally in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Saturday January 3rd, 2009 from 1:45-4:00 pm at Dundas square, which is at the intersection of Yonge & Dundas, in front of the Eaton's Centre.

This will be to show our support and solidarity with Gaza and its inhabitants at this time of great peril. Israel is murdering civilians, with so far 400+ dead Gazan's.

Ad in Ha'aretz From Gush Shalom - Tuesday 30/12/08

This war is inhuman, unnecessary and harmful. Nothing good for Israel will come out of it!...The killing of hundreds of Palestinians and the destruction of the infrastructure of life in the Gaza Strip are abominable acts...On behalf of thousands of Israelis who have demonstrated in the streets of Tel-Aviv within hours after the start of the war, we demand: To stop at once the attack on Gaza!

By RON JACOBS - Counterpunch

Despite the constant presence of Hamas in the news of the western world, most people reading that news know very little about the group.

* updated with Action items, links to articles/photos, talking points, and endorsers. Please forward widely *

END THE SIEGE ON GAZA! PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES !

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Saturday Jan 3 @ 1 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson side - corner Hornby)

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