This week …

News Highlights:

  • Israeli officials approve 1100 new settler housing units in the occupied West Bank, a move condemned by Palestinian and international leaders.
  • Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails start a hunger strike to protest the use of longterm solitary confinement and abuse of prisoners and their visitors by authorities.
  • Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian youth and summon four children for interrogation, one as young as 8 years old, in occupied East Jerusalem.

Feature:

A live interview with Rev. Brian McIntosh from the Holy Land Awareness and Action Task Group in Toronto, about the launch of their Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Rev McIntosh explained the history leading up to the development of this BDS project, which is calling on churches to target 6 companies complicit with Israeli occupation (see http://occupiedwithpeace.org/). He talked about his own personal experience in understanding the Palestinian issue, including a trip he made recently to Palestine, and also frankly analyzed the difficulties in bringing this issue forward within the United Church and the western Church community in general.

Focus on Zionism:

Excerpts of a September 24th, 2011 AlJazeera.net report about how foreign “militants with military experience” (recruited by the French Jewish Defense League) are supporting Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Here is an audio file of this show: