The Liberal Agenda – Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa activity guide

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PSNA demands the government condemn Israel’s cutting off of all humanitarian aid to Gaza

PSNA is demanding the government condemn Israel’s cutting off of all humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Israel announced its latest humanitarian outrage against the Palestinian people of Gaza as it tries to withdraw from the ceasefire agreement it signed with Hamas in January.

“Israel is trying to weasel its way out of the agreement because it doesn’t want to negotiate stage two which requires it to withdraw its troops from Gaza” says PSNA Co National Chair John Minto.
“Israel signed the ceasefire agreement and it must be forced to follow it through.”

“Cutting off humanitarian aid is a blatant war crime and New Zealand must say so without equivocation”

“Our government has been complicit with Israeli war crimes for the past 16 months and has previously refused to condemn Israel’s use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war”

- Sponsor Promotion -

“It’s time we got off our knees and stood up for international law and United Nations resolutions.”

Pleasing to see the Labour Party has joined this call to urge the government to condemn Israel’s latest war crime.

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Something you can do now with just a few clicks…
Copy and paste this email to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Mr Christopher Luxon
Prime Minister
C.Luxon@ministers.govt.nz

Mr Winston Peters
Minister of Foreign Affairs
W.Peters@ministers.govt.nz

Kia ora Mr Luxon kōrua ko Mr Peters,

On Sunday Israel announced a total humanitarian blockade against the population of the Gaza Strip.

This is a war crime.

Please condemn it immediately and as well as Israel’s massive ethnic cleansing programme on the occupied West Bank.

I look forward to hearing from you both shortly.

(Your name)

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Nationwide rallies/marches/MP protests/vigils this week
To view events around Aotearoa. Options:

  1. Click here for the detailed list in this Newsletter below.
  2. Go to the PSNA Homepage – www.PSNA.nz  Scroll down to the button “For a list of events Nationwide, please click here –  Check back often for updates”  and Click the button. Check back on Friday for any moves, adds or changes
  3. Or events are on the PSNA Facebook events page here

There are more than 25 events around the Motu this week.

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Activists say “no war profiteers in our city”
Peace activists scaled the New Zealand headquarters of NIOA – weapons suppliers of sniper rifles to the Israeli Defence Forces – in Ōtautahi/Christchurch earlier this week in a protest calling for the company to close.

A warm congratulations to the two activists who occupied the roof of the building and to the team who gave fulsome support outside.

The protest was widely covered in mainstream media here and here and here

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SodaStream stickers now available…
If you’d like some stickers email your address to Merchandise@PSNA.nz and we will send them to you. (Note: we will have a specific Sodastream sticker available soon)
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Don’t bank on apartheid – campaign update
(A Justice for Palestine campaign)
You took action against KiwiSaver dollars being used to support illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land by signing the ASB divest petition.

Despite you and thousands of their customers telling them to divest from Motorola Solutions Inc and Israeli apartheid, ASB has so far refused to divest.

Today we’re asking you to keep the pressure on ASB with one small action. Email them to ask if they’re still banking on apartheid.

When we met with ASB last year, they said they were reviewing the investment, meeting with both Motorola and the UN over December and January.

Despite the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the violent displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank for the expansion of settlements is escalating. It is more important than ever that we stop financing Israeli apartheid.

We’ve followed up with ASB on their meetings and review of their investment in Motorola – a company that supports these settlements – but we’re being ignored. Despite the ethnic cleansing we are witnessing in the West Bank, ASB appears to be hoping this will just go away.

Write to ASB today and remind them that you don’t want them to be investing KiwiSaver dollar in Israeli apartheid. Click the link here to use our template email. Remember to sign your name at the bottom, and if you create your own unique subject line it will be most effective!

We know ASB care about what their customers and other New Zealanders think about their investments. It’s part of their policy. So we need to make sure they hear loud and clear that we don’t want them to invest in illegal Israeli settlements, and we’re not going to stop until they divest.

Want to get more involved in the campaign? Here are two actions you can take:

  1. Come to our webinar: From Aotearoa to Palestine Colonial Expansion is a Crime – a conversation between Wajd El-Matary (Justice for Palestine) and Dr Yara Hawari (Al-Shabaka) – Sunday, 9 March 8pm – Register here.
  2. Join our online phone bank for the ASB Divest campaign – join us to call ASB customer who already support the campaign to encourage them to take action to get ASB to meet our divestment demand. Training provided – Thursday, 13 March 7-8:30pm – Register here.

With your help we can continue to build up the pressure until ASB realises it’s not worth banking on apartheid!

Ngā mihi,
Justice for Palestine

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“Stop the Ethnic Cleansing”: Watch Oscar Speech of Palestinian & Israeli Directors of “No Other Land”
The pro-Palestinian film “No other land” won the Oscar for best documentary at the recent academy awards. See the director’s “Stop the ethnic cleansing” acceptance speech here

However back in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank activists say ‘Our film won an Oscar. But here in West Bank’s Masafer Yatta we’re still being erased’ here

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Nasty anti-Palestinian attack rejected by Otago Regional Council
The deeply racist, anti-Palestinian Israel Institute has attacked a bus safety campaign being run by the Otago Regional Council because a teenager wearing a keffiyah and a Palestine necklace was included in a picture of teenagers as part of the advertising of the campaign.

The regional council paused the campaign to protect the Palestinian teen from attack but has reinstated the campaign in full and rejected the Israel Institute’s racist attack.

Here is the facebook post by Councillor Elliot Weir. PSNA is joining others in protesting this racist attack to the Human Rights Commission.

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Keep your ear to the ground

Pass on to us any news you have of government MPs at public events so we can hold them to account. Send messages to Secretary@PSNA.nz

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Keep spreading the message about the Genocide Hotline!
Remember possible action for local groups
For groups affiliated to PSNA we suggest the following actions could be taken at any time in support of this campaign

  • Asking your local backpacker accommodation to display the poster and draw it to the attention of any Israeli soldiers here on “rest and recreation” from the genocide.
  • Pasting the hotline poster (use the version in this newsletter which includes a contact email) around the vicinity of backpacker venues in your local area. This is already happening in some areas.
  • Hand out flyers to people in the vicinity of your local backpackers
  • Contact us on the hotline if you come across Israeli soldiers
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Webinar with Mouin Rabbani
Palestine Justice Movement Sydney and Free Palestine Melbourne are collaborating on hosting a webinar with Mouin Rabbani, a Palestinian analyst and commentator and a former Principal Political Affairs Officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria and Special Advisor on Israel- Palestine with the International Crisis Group.
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The Doctor’s Wife – New Zealand international film festival film
Details can be found here and here.
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Restoring Palestine to Its Rightful Owners
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Important stories from last week
Editor’s picks
  • Israel blocks aid to Gaza and escalates violence as first phase of ceasefire expires here
  • We are staying’: Israeli war chief vows indefinite occupation of Lebanon, Syria here
  • I am seeking a discharge from the U.S. military over the Gaza genocide. I was inspired by Aaron Bushnell here
  • The Gazafication of the West Bank: ‘Is This Really Happening Again?here

“Tulkarm and Jenin will look like Jabalia and Shuja’iyya. Nablus and Ramallah will resemble Rafah and Khan Younis. They will also be turned into uninhabitable ruins, and their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries.”

—Bezalel Smotrich; Israeli Finance Minister & Right Wing Settler

  • NZ arms company building linked to Gaza genocide claim peace activists here
Other stories
  • Depressing the Vote: Genocide and 2024 US Presidential Race | Al-Shabaka here
  • The monsters aren’t just in history books. They live among us. They’re everywhere here
  • Trump sends weapons to Netanyahu while talking tough to Zelenskyy here
  • NZ must protest Israel’s latest war crime cutting aid to Gaza says PSNA here
  • Israel’s genocide is expanding into the West Bank but western media ignores it here
  • Palestine asks ICJ for advisory opinion on illegal occupier Israel’s obligations here
  • Arab leaders must embrace multipolarity to counter Trump’s Gaza plan here
  • In the ‘NYTimes,’ Israeli captives are ‘hostages.’ But Palestinians are ‘prisoners.’ The biased coverage continues here
  • Time to drop the rhetoric on Palestine here
  • More details of the win are here and the outrage sparked in Israel is here.
  • The Day After “Phase 1“: What Comes Next for Gaza, Hamas, Israel, and the Future of Palestinian Liberation? here
  • Living in the Open: Palestinians in Gaza Still Face Israeli Attacks and Impossible Conditions as They Return Home here
  • Palestinians forced to flee US-armed Israeli military in West Bank here
  • The Lebanese Villages Recently Destroyed by Israel here
  • Israeli Prisoner Acknowledges Palestinian Ownership of Land After Release here
  • Germany’s Obsession With Defending Israel and Criminalizing Speech Aided AfD’s Rise here
  • Israel says 40,000 displaced Palestinians in northern West Bank will not be allowed to return here
  • If Arabs want Trump to ditch his Gaza plan, they must make him an offer he can’t refuse here
  • J’accuse the Jew who accuses his fellow Jews of being anti-semites here
  • Critics condemn BBC for pulling Gaza warzone youth survival documentary here
  • Barred European Union politician brands Israel as a rogue state here
  • Hamas handover spectacles are a demonstration to the world of keeping captives safe says analyst here
  • Fiji’s diplomatic move to Jerusalem sparks controversy with Palestine here
  • Palestine and Gaza’s Hamas resistance condemn Fiji over embassy plan here
  • Israel pushes new atrocity narrative just as ceasefire deadline approaches here
  • Open letter – No Mr Trump, we will not be happy and safe elsewhere here
  • Eugene Doyle on human sacrifice – remembering Aaron Bushnell here
  • POTUS posts horrifying video of his Gaza fantasy here
  • McCarthyism reborn: Australian universities capitulate to Israel lobby, suppress criticism of Israel here
  • Read the ABC article about the definition and the decision to implement it immediately here
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Merchandise for sale
We are ready to mail to you any of our t-shirts, long ($35) and short ($30) sleeved, hoodies ($45) bumper stickers ($3), Tino/Palestine pins ($3) flags ($10) and other items plus postage.

See more on the PSNA website here.

Email Merchandise@PSNA.nz with your order.

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Nationwide Events List
Please scroll down to your center.

Then return to the rest of the newsletter by clicking here.

Events list
North Island
Hokianga
No event this weekendKerikeri – Rally
First Saturday of the Month

Whangarei
No event this weekend

Auckland – Stand for Palestine
Monday – Friday
3:00 – 4:00 pm at the US Consulate – 23 Customs Street East
4:00 – 5:00 pm at Te Komititanga Britomart Square

Auckland Picket @ TVNZ
Wednesday 5 March
12:00 mid-day
TVNZ – 100 Victoria Street West, Auckland Central

Waiheke – Market Stall – hosted by Stand With Palestine Waiheke!
Every Saturday
8:00 am – 1:00 pm
Ostend Market, Waiheke Island

Auckland – Banners around Tamaki Makaurau
Every Saturday
This week
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Te Whitinga pedestrian bridge in Mount Albert
Join the team – text John on 021 899 659

Auckland – Gathering for Palestine
Saturday 8 March
2:00 pm
Te Komititanga – Britomart Square, Tamaki Makaurau

Thames – Vigil to Stop the war on Children
(Hosted by The Basket – Social and Environmental Justice – Hauraki)
First Saturday of the month.

Tauranga – Flag Waving
No Flag waving this weekend. Moved to every 2 weeks.
But
Tauranga Moana – Check your emails Friday night (7th March) for a possible snap action

Hamilton – Flag Waving for Palestine
Saturday 1 March
1:00 pm
Flynn Park, Cnr Wairere Drive & Naylor, Hamilton

Hamilton
No rally this weekend?

Raglan
No Event week

Cambridge – Rally for Palestine
Every Saturday
11:00 am
Cambridge Town Hall

Rotorua – Rally for Palestine
Every Thursday
4:30 pm
National MP Todd McClay’s Office – Cnr Amohau and Ranolf St lights, Rotorua

Napier – Rally for Palestine
Saturday 8 March
11:30 am
Marine Parade Soundshell Roundabout

Hastings – Rally for Palestine
Sunday 9 March
1:00 pm
Hastings Town Clock – Hastings CBD

Palmerston North – Rally
No Rally this weekend.

New Plymouth – Flags on the bridge
Friday 7 March
4:30 pm
Paynters Ave Bridge, New Plymouth

New Plymouth
Saturday – March 8
10.30 am
Marching In The Multiethnic Extravaganza – Clocktower Devon St
and
Stall at the Racecourse New Plymouth
from 11.30 am
https://www.facebook.com/events/857414482884704/ 

Whanganui – Rally for Palestine
Saturday 8 March
11:00 am
Riverside Market, Whanganui

Martinborough – Vigil for Palestine
First Wednesday of the month
11:00 am
The square at the top of Kitchener St, Martinborough

Masterton – Gathering for Gaza
Every Sunday
9:30 am
Town Hall Lawn, Masterton

Featherston – Gathering for Gaza
Every Saturday
11:00 am
The Squircle (opposite the op shop).

Wellington – Flags on the Bridge
(hosted by the Falastin Tea Collective)
Every Friday
7:15 – 8:15 am
Hill Street bridge Overbridge, Wellington

Wellington – Rally
(hosted by the Falastin Tea Collective)
Moving to Third Saturday of the month. Next Rally Saturday 15 March
Check out https://www.instagram.com/falastin_tea_collective for details

South Island
Nelson – Flag Waving
Saturday 8 March
10.30 am
Flag waving Rocks Rd, Tahuana Beach end

Blenheim – Rally for Palestine
Saturday 8 March
11:00 am
Blenheim Railway Station

Picton – Rally for Palestine
Every Saturday
1:00 – 2:00 pm
Picton Foreshore

Christchurch – Flags for Palestine
Friday 6 March
4:00 pm
Bridge of Remembrance, Cashel Street, Christchurch

Christchurch – Rally for Palestine
Saturday 8 March
1:00 pm
Bridge of Remembrance, Cashel Street, Christchurch

Dunedin – Rally
Moved to once a month
No Rally this weekend

Invercargill – Rally for Palestine
No rally this weekend

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Reminder:  Annual Palestine Solidarity Dates

30 Mar                  Land Day Palestine
5 Apr                     Palestinian Childs Day
9 Apr                     Deir Yassin massacre – Irgun Terrorism – 107-120
Palestinian men, women and children massacred
17 Apr                   Palestinian Prisoners Day
11 May                 World Kufiya Day
15 May                 Nakba Day – marking the mass ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians from Palestine in 1948
5 Jun                    Naksa Day – Start of 1967 War – Land Grab – Invasion of
Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza, Egypt and Syria – 5 June 1967
– 10 June 1967
20 Jun                   Attack on Gaza – 6–21 May 2021 (2 weeks and 1 day)
16-18 Sept            Anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres
28 Sept                 Second Intifada – 28 Sept 2000 – 8 Feb 2005
2 Nov                    Balfour Declaration
29 Nov                  United Nations – International Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian People

8 Dec                     “First Intifada – 8 Dec 1987 – 13 Sept 1993

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Are you able to donate a cup of coffee a month to the campaign?

We will need some serious money to make our campaign as effective as possible. For example, we will need somewhere in the vicinity of $25,000 to bring speakers to New Zealand over the next year and organise large public meetings to help spread the message.

You can help. Are you able to donate a cup of coffee a month to the campaign? In other words, can you afford to make an automatic payment of $5 per month to support the Palestinian struggle? (If you can afford more that would be great!)

Our account details are:
Account name:            Palestine Solidarity Network
Account number:        38-9015-0849542-00

We are happy to provide a receipt upon request (however, we are not a registered charity so this is not tax-deductible)

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In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter – an invitation to subscribe from Leslie Bravery

Because of mainstream news media complicity, daily headlines and commentary only occasionally ever mention the relentless Israeli violence in Palestine, not even the frequent air strikes!

However, daily news and statistics regarding the violence Palestinians are forced to live under are regularly reported on in the “In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter”, sourced and compiled for easy reading and correlation chiefly from the Palestinian Monitoring Group’s daily situation reports.

The In Occupied Palestine daily newsletter continues to be circulated, by email, worldwide to subscribers only, as it has been over the last two decades.

Please contact Leslie if you also wish to become a subscriber.

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More Ways you can get involved

  • Forward this Newsletter – If you know people who may be interested in this movement, please forward this Newsletter to them. They can sign up themselves by emailing Secretary@PSNA.nz
  • Join in local activities in your area – Contact Secretary@PSNA.nz if you would like to know where and how to get Flags and Banners
  • Help set up a Students for Justice in Palestine group on your campus
  • Tell Your MP your opinions on Divestment and Sanctions of Israel
  • Write Letters to Newspapers – Call Talkback Radio
  • Keep in touch with the campaign on social media
  • The Palestine Human Rights Campaign produces the In Occupied Palestine newsletter. It is a regular daily newsletter on the daily situation in Palestine, compiled by Leslie Bravery and emailed to subscribers. If you would also like to become a subscriber please contact Leslie at “sumud1 @ outlook. com” (Remove the spaces to use an an email address) for further information.
  • Keep Updated on our Facebook pages and websites (listed below)

1 COMMENT

  1. RE “Aaron Bushnell”

    What Bushnell’s desperate act exposes is that some 95-99% of people anywhere DO NOTHING when confronted with grave injustices such as the current US-Israeli Holocaust of the Palestinians, just like all the “bad German people” during the Nazi Holocaust, whom they are happily pointing the finger to as examples of OTHER PEOPLE who are bad and evil in their deep dishonesty, self-delusion, and madness.

    He pointed exactly this reality out in one of his last statements:

    “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

    Now WHY is it that 95-99% of people anywhere DO NOTHING when confronted with grave injustices? Because “advanced” humans have a malignant disease called a “Soullessness Spectrum Disorder” …. https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html

    Because of this big truth Bushnell is pointing to lots of truth-hating cowardly soulless people resort to slandering Bushnell as mentally disturbed or fanatical, having been suicidal (he was not), etc. or try to misrepresent him negatively in some other form –anything in order to NOT see the real truth about themselves. But that is no surprise of course because…

    “The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduces them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.” — Gustave Le Bon, in 1895

    “America is the greatest exporter of violence the world has ever known. So wear your patriotism on your sleeve and be proud. You are a depraved citizen of the world’s worst killer nation.” — Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., economist & former US empire official, in 2015

    “The US empire is quantifiably the most destructive and tyrannical force on this planet, by an extremely massive margin. No other power has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions and displacing them by the tens of millions. No other power is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, starving people around the world with blockades and economic sanctions, staging proxy wars, color revolutions and coups all over the earth, and working to destabilize and destroy any nation anywhere on this planet who dares to defy its dictates. Only the US empire is doing this. No other power comes anywhere remotely close.” — Caitlin Johnstone, Independent Journalist, in 2024

    “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine, at the hands of their colonizers (=the genocidal US empire and its genocidal Israeli colony), it’s not extreme at all.” — Aaron Bushnell, shortly before he set himself on fire

    If you have been injected with Covid jabs/bioweapons and are concerned verify what batch number you were injected with at https://howbadismybatch.com

    “We can have the world of our dreams tomorrow, but we have to be willing to fight today.” — Aaron Bushnell, in 2023

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