Zionism – Features

Citizenship law makes Isarael an apartheid state

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Amos Schocken

The government’s decision last week to extend the validity of the Citizenship Law (Temporary Order), for another year, is evidence that the legal barriers preventing severe discrimination against Israel’s Arab citizens and harm to their civil rights have been removed.

This extension is the eighth since the law was first passed in 2003, and it shows just how naive Justice Edmond Levy’s position was when he refused to join in the 2006 decision by five judges from the High Court of Justice, who stated that the law was unconstitutional, that it contravened the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom, and that it must be removed from the law books. Levy explained his refusal by saying that he saw no need to intervene because only two months remained until the law expired. However, at the end of the two months, the law was extended by a year, and now they want to extend it for yet another year.

India begins lunar mission countdown

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

The satellite Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft

Picture: (AFP/File/Dibyangshu Sarkar)

The satellite Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India’s first moon mission craft is seen from behind glass at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) center in Bangalore.

India began counting down today to the launch of an unmanned mission to the moon that will mark a giant catch-up step with Japan and China in the fast-developing Asian space race.

The lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 is scheduled to blast off aboard an Indian-built rocket at 6:20am (0050 GMT) on Wednesday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in southern Tamil Nadu state.

"Everything is going perfectly as planned," the centre’s associate director M.Y.S. Prasad told AFP after the official countdown began in the early hours of Monday morning.

The launch is a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace in space with China and Japan.
All three countries have eyes on a share of the commercial satellite launch business and also see their space programmes as a symbol of international stature and economic development.

The Chandrayaan-1 is being sent on a two-year mission to provide an in-depth map of the lunar surface’s mineral, chemical and topographical characteristics.

The cost of the operation has been estimated at more than 80 million dollars.

India started its space programme in 1963, developing its own satellites and launch vehicles to reduce dependence on overseas agencies.

It carried out the first successful launch of a domestic satellite by a home-built rocket in 1980.

Sapa-AFP

Bantustans the unilateral declaration of statehood

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Virginia Tilley

(source: Elecrtonic Intifada)

The PA leadership in Ramallah is leading the Palestinian movement of independence to a dead end with its proposed unilateral call for Palestinian statehood. (Thaer Ganaim/MaanImages)

From a rumor, to a rising murmur, the proposal floated by the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ramallah leadership to declare Palestinian statehood unilaterally has suddenly hit center stage. The European Union, the United States and others have rejected it as "premature," but endorsements are coming from all directions: journalists, academics, nongovernmental organization activists, Israeli right-wing leaders (more on that later). The catalyst appears to be a final expression of disgust and simple exhaustion with the fraudulent "peace process" and the argument goes something like this: if we can’t get a state through negotiations, we will simply declare statehood and let Israel deal with the consequences.

End Isaraeli apartheid

January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Gaza Freedom Marchers issue the "Cairo Declaration" to end Israeli Apartheid

(source:ZNet)

(Cairo) — Gaza Freedom Marchers approved today a declaration aimed at accelerating the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli Apartheid.

Roughly 1400 activists from 43 countries converged in Cairo on their way to Gaza to join with Palestinians marching to break Israel’s illegal siege. They were prevented from entering Gaza by the Egyptian authorities.

As a result, the Freedom Marchers remained in Cairo. They staged a series of nonviolent actions aimed at pressuring the international community to end the siege as one step in the larger struggle to secure justice for Palestinians throughout historic Palestine.