Paul, a former student of Noam Chomsky, became a Professor of Linguistics himself and remains a good friend and colleague of Professor Chomsky. Working with the NorCal branch of the International Solidarity Movement, Paul is very much a believer in and practitioner of Gandhi’s principles of non-violence. Paul was one of the 5 USA delegates aboard the Sfendoni, a ship of the Freedom flotilla attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.

When Israeli commandos boarded the Sfendoni, Paul non-violently resisted, refused to sign any papers without his lawyer and as a result the Israelis tased, tied-up, twisted his limbs, slammed his head into concrete repeatedly, and hit him with a flash bomb. Paul suffered multiple bruises, 2 black eyes, but refused to be treated by Israeli doctors as he did not trust them, especially since he suffers from Diabetes and needed special treatment and compatible medication. Paul was kept in prison for two days at Givon Prison, Ramle, Israel.

In Paul’s own words:

“The wrath of other nations might be a reasonable price for us to bear if Israel were pursuing a policy of peace with justice. It is not. Israeli policy is and always has been to apply pain and suffering to get what it wants, whether by torturing and killing humanitarian aid volunteers, by maintaining its cruel blockade against 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, or by making millions of Palestinians homeless, confiscating their lands, and destroying lives.

Neither Americans nor Israelis would stand still for such treatment, so why should Turks, Greeks, Palestinians or anyone else? Why should Israeli thugs be allowed to push around and abuse ordinary citizens anywhere?”

Please visit:

http://www.FreePalestineMovement.org

http://www.FreeGaza.org

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ABOUT SHIMINISTIM

The Shministim (Hebrew for “twelfth-graders”) are an informal group of young Israelis who openly declare their refusal to join the Israeli military. Every year, the Shministim sign a different letter, a tradition harkening back to the 1970s when the first Shministim class expressed their dissent in a letter to Prime Minister Golda Meir. The 2008 letter, signed by both Maya and Netta, declares, “We cannot be moral and serve the occupation.”

MAYA WIND

Maya Yechieli Wind, 19, grew up in Jerusalem during the second Intifada, where she was raised in a secular home but educated in religious schools. Her first experience with conflict resolution was at age fifteen in “Face to Face” – a dialogue group for Israeli and Palestinian youth. Later she became involved in various co-existence initiatives in the West Bank. She joined the Shministim in December 2008 and refused to serve in the Israeli army. She spent several weeks in detention and forty days in military prison and was exempted in March 2009. Today she works for Rabbis for Human Rights, and guides political tours in East Jerusalem and the West Bank for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. She also co-leads the Jerusalem dialogue youth group of New Profile, the feminist movement for the demilitarization of Israel.

This is the statement she read before going to jail:

At first, like many other Israeli citizens, I too could not bring myself to confront or criticize the Israeli military’s immoral actions. I realize that this difficulty originated from my sense of identification with soldiers my own age, to whom I could relate. Today it is precisely this realization that leads me to refuse to serve. I cannot recognize the humanity of Israelis but not that of Palestinians. It is because of my deep sense of commitment and responsibility to the community in which I grew up that I am refusing to contribute to this cycle of bloodshed.

We can no longer term our military a “Defense Force.” A defense force does not conquer lands of another people. A defense force does not assist in the building of settlements on those lands. A defense force does not permit settlers to throw stones at Palestinian civilians, nor does it deny them access to their lands and source of livelihood. None of these are acts of a defense force.

The occupation has no defensive advantages. On the contrary, the pointless occupation of millions of people only leads to radicalization of opinions, hatred and the escalation of violence. Violence is a cycle that feeds into itself. This cycle will not stop until someone stands up and refuses uncompromisingly to take part in it.

This is what I am doing today.

My views are also relevant to the current operation in Gaza. One form of violence cannot stop another. This current violence is the result of decades of ongoing occupation of the territories and sieges on Gaza since the disengagement. I mourn the unnecessary deaths of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Yet again we have chosen war.

Please visit:

http://www.whywerefuse.org

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Here, Perkins pulls back the curtain on the real cause of the current global financial meltdown. He shows how we’ve been hoodwinked by the CEOs who run the corporatocracy—those few corporations that control the vast amounts of capital, land, and resources around the globe—and the politicians they manipulate. These corporate fat cats, Perkins explains, have sold us all on what he calls predatory capitalism, a misguided form of geopolitics and capitalism that encourages a widespread exploitation of the many to benefit a small number of the already very wealthy. Their arrogance, gluttony, and mismanagement have brought us to this perilous edge. The solution is not a “return to normal.”

But there is a way out. As Perkins makes clear, we can create a healthy economy that will encourage businesses to act responsibly, not only in the interests of their shareholders and corporate partners (and the lobbyists they have in their pockets), but in the interests of their employees, their customers, the environment, and society at large.

We can create a society that fosters a just, sustainable, and safe world for us and our children. Each one of us makes these choices every day, in ways that are clearly spelled out in this book.

“We hold the power,” he says, “if only we recognize it.” Hoodwinked is a powerful polemic that shows not only how we arrived at this precarious point in our history but also what we must do to stop the global tailspin.

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