[Upd-discuss] Sign petition from: Academics who condemn Israel's aggression against Lebanon and Gaza

[Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza]

> petition by academics against Israeli aggression. Please sign and/or
> forward
> to other colleagues.
> 
>   <http://www.petitiononline.com/caracas/>
(signature No.1829.)	Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza 	PhD candidate, University
of Sheffield


    PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR FULL NAME, academic standing, and INSTITUTIONAL
AFFILIATION or PROFESSION and LOCATION if unclear. Please consider making
your email address available to the "petition author" so we can
collaborate in the future. If you feel your signature was inappropriately
rejected, please email nyusjp2003@yahoo.com.

    To:  Academics who condemn Israel's aggression against Lebanon and
Gaza


    While the United States government applauds the collective punishment
of already vulnerable populations, we U.S.-based academics stand together
to condemn the atrocities being committed by the U.S.-funded and armed
Israeli military against the peoples of Lebanon and Palestine. Scholars
based outside of the United States are also welcome to sign this letter as
an expression of their support.

    The brutal bombing and invasion of Gaza (whose people have never
escaped the torment of Israeli occupation despite official Israeli
“withdrawal”) and of Lebanon and are acts of Israeli state terrorism.
Along with the devastating U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and
Iraq, and the current U.S.-Israeli threat to Syria and Iran, Israel’s
escalation indicates another terrifying example of the heightened reliance
on military force by both these powers in their ongoing struggle for
hegemony in the Middle East.

    Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Lebanon. Scores are missing.
Latest reports put the number of refugees at half a million. The attacks
on Lebanon’s infrastructure – power stations, factories, bridges, and
ports – will take decades to rebuild. The people of Lebanon are already
weary from reconstructing their country after years of civil war and the
last ruinous Israeli invasion in 1982.

    In Gaza the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen. Hundreds have
been killed. Water treatment plants, greenhouses, bridges, and homes have
been the major targets of Israeli bombs in “Operation Summer Rain,” the
code name for the latest Israeli military invasion of Gaza that began on
27 June 2006.

    There is no military solution to the current crisis. War and
occupation threaten all life in the region and around the world—and will
never bring security to anyone. We call for an immediate cease-fire
against Lebanon, an end to the occupation of Palestine, and the release of
Palestinian and Lebanese political prisoners in Israeli jails.

    Given the vacuum of political leadership from the governments of the
world in the face of U.S. and Israeli intransigence, we feel it is
incumbent on ordinary citizens to organize and support peaceful means for
bringing economic and political pressure on Israel to end its occupation
of the Palestinian territories. It is urgent that individuals and
non-governmental groups apply such means until Israel fully complies with
international law and respects the fundamental human rights of all people.

    While we unequivocally condemn the killing of civilians in Israel, it
must be recognized that Israel's destructive and expansionist policies are
primarily to blame for the seemingly perpetual "Middle East crisis.” To
call Israeli atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon simply a “disproportionate
response” helps justify Israeli war crimes by making Israel the victim and
obscuring both the short and long-term sources of this catastrophic
violence.

    Silence is a form of complicity with the war crimes being committed by
the state of Israel. Business as usual should not continue – in the U.S.
academy or elsewhere – while people experience the emotional, physical,
and psychic terror of the Israeli military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.




    Sincerely,

    The Undersigned 
(signature No.1829.)	Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza 	PhD candidate, University
of Sheffield

--- Maud Stephan  <mstephan@ul.edu.lb> wrote:

> From: "Maud Stephan " <mstephan@ul.edu.lb>
> To: "Maud Stephan " <mstephan@ul.edu.lb>
> Subject: FW: petition
> Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 11:41:28 +0300
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> petition by academics against Israeli aggression. Please sign and/or
> forward
> to other colleagues.
> 
>   <http://www.petitiononline.com/caracas/>
> http://www.PetitionOnline.com/caracas/
> 
>  
> 
> 





--
Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza, PhD candidate
Department of Information Studies
University of Sheffield
211 Portobello Street, Sheffield, S1 4DP
UNITED KINGDOM
zapopanmuela*nospam*gmail.com
http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/research/groups/lib/people.html

"Tiranos y autocratas han entendido siempre que el alfabetismo, el conocimiento, los libros y los periodicos son un peligro en potencia. Pueden inculcar ideas independientes e incluso de rebelión en las cabezas de sus súbditos."
-- Carl Sagan. El mundo y sus demonios: la ciencia como una luz en la oscuridad. Barcelona: Planeta, 1997, p. 390.

"Tyrants and autocrats have always understood
that literacy, learning, books and newspapers
are potentially dangerous. They can put independent 
and even rebelious ideas to the heads of their subjects."
-- Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle 
in the Dark. New York: Ballantine Books, p. 362

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