February 2014 e-newsletter: Remembering Pete Seeger and more news on Palestine
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So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You
MECA Remembers Pete Seeger in Pictures
Pete Seeger sang, played and worked for peace and justice his whole long life. He died at the age of 94 on January 27, 2013, just six months after his wife Toshi, who was Pete's partner in every aspect of his life.
Pete was a Founding Advisor of the Middle East Children's Alliance nearly twenty-six years ago. He remained a dear friend and supporter who gave three benefit concerts for MECA to raise funds for children in Iraq and Palestine. In a 2006 interview, he said. “some of my greatest heroes and heroines are people who have gone to far-away places like Barbara Lubin who started the Middle East Children’s Alliance three or four decades ago.”
All of us at MECA will miss Pete Seeger.
Barbara Remembers Pete Seeger:
The first person I called and asked to join the Board of The Middle East Children's Alliance in 1988 was Pete Seeger. Not only did he join but one year later, Pete, Marcel Khalife, Holly Near,and Ronnie Gilbert came to Berkeley and performed at the Berkeley Community Theatre. The theatre was packed and all 3200 seats were filled. This was the beginning of a 25 year friendship that I will always treasure. I miss you Pete.
With all my best wishes,
Barbara Lubin,
Founder and Executive Director
For more news updates on Palestine, please read below.
Volunteers play piano in rubble of Yarmouk
Musicians are playing in Yarmouk camp, a Damascus neighbourhood home to the city's Palestinian refugees. Yarmouk is one of the worst sites of the starvation facing Syrians in areas besieged by the government. But amid the devastation, musicians with a battered piano are making music for their neighbours. As the video pans across the destruction of the neighbourhood, the chorus of the song is, "Oh displaced people, return. The journey has gone for too long. Yarmouk, we are part of you and that will never change."
READ MORE
Home demolitions in Silwan
The occupation municipality’s bulldozers carried out a series of demolitions for residential houses in Sur Baher, Jabal Al-Mukabber and Beit Hanina in the city of Jerusalem. Wadi Hilweh Information Center was informed that the demolished house in Sur Baher- Um Lysoon is owned by Mujahed Abu Sarhan where four individuals lived. Mujahed said that the Israeli forces raided his home around 05:30 a.m. after breaking the glass and damaging the front door. Then they assaulted him and forced him along with his family to evacuate the house and started with the demolition process after taking the furniture out.
READ MORE
Gaza Dehumanized and Humiliated
In Gaza, Palestinians live an ongoing, illegal, crippling Israeli siege that has shattered all spheres of life, prompting the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Richard Falk to describe it as “a prelude to genocide”. This blockade of Gaza is a clear violation of Articles 33, 55, and 56 of the 4th Geneva Convention which prohibit the collective punishment of civilians and require an occupying power, Israel in this case, to ensure access to food and medical supplies to the occupied people. Commenting on this situation in Gaza, Karen Abu Zayd, former Commissioner-General for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, said: “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution with the knowledge, acquiescence and — some would say — encouragement of the international community.”
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Documents reveal Zionist group spied on US student delegation to Palestine
A right-wing Zionist group in California infiltrated a student trip to Palestine in 2012, a raft of secret documents obtained by The Electronic Intifada shows. The documents confirm long-held activist suspicions that anti-Palestinian political groups are spying on student activists. The files give a rare insight into the murky world of pro-Israel groups’ surveillance of students and other activists in campuses across the United States.
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Five years on: Gaza's children remain targets
Hala Ahmad Salman Abu Sabikha, 2, was killed in her yard when an Israeli tank targeted her home in Al-Mughazi refugee camp, central Gaza, on December 24, 2013. Israeli soldiers shot Adnan Abu Khater, 16, in the leg with live ammunition on January 2, 2014, and he died the following day. Mohammad Rafiq Shinbari, 17, was shot and wounded in the leg with live ammunition on December 15. These were cases of the recent cross-bodrer violence which resulted in fatalities and injuries to children.
READ MORE
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MECA is planning to send more shipments to Lebanon in the coming months. Please make a secure, online donation to help us send life-saving aid to Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
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Check out Jasiri X’s new powerful music video about his trip to Palestine.
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