This week …

News Highlights:

  • Palestinians mark annual “Prisoners Day” and call for the release of their relatives and political leaders in Israeli jails.
  • There are 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners including 398 children and 110 women; Palestinian cabinet minister says 4000 of the Palestinian detainees have not even been tried, including 40 MPs.
  • Palestinian village of Bilin will hold 2nd annual Int’l. Conference to highlight non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation; Bilin has last 60% of its agricultural land to the apartheid wall and has been holding weekly demos for over 2 years.
  • Israeli PM says in interview on CBC TV that Palestinian demands for a prisoner exchange are “too high” and also claims he is ready to meet Saudi Arabia.
  • Reporters Without Borders condemns Palestinian police actions against a crowd of journalists demonstrating in Gaza in support of release of BBC’s Alan Johnston.

Feature:

The special feature was an interview with Vancouver-East MP Libby Davies from Ottawa about the newly formed Canada Palestine Parliamentary Association. Libby spoke about how the group was formed to try and ensure that Canadian foreign policy was in the best interests of the Palestinian people and how she had felt there had been a need for this group for many years. There was also discussion of how supporters of Palestinian human rights needed to make their views known to their politicians, including within the NDP.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of an April 13th, 2007 Guardian article about how the National Union of Journalists in Britain had voted for a boycott of Israeli goods.

Here is an audio file of this show: