News Highlights:

• Israeli authorities force Palestinian farmers off their land near Salfit, as demolitions also continue in the occupied Jordan Valley.
• Settlement building reportedly becomes critical issue in “peace negotiations” initiated by the U.S. administration as Israeli officials will not commit to extend partial slowdown.
• Israeli settlers attack Palestinian families near Hebron/AlKhalil as part of their “price tag” campaign.
• American actors and theatre professionals support their Israeli counterparts by refusing to perform in Israeli settlements.
• The family of Rachel Corrie continue with their civil suit in Israeli court, and hear new testimony about the flaws in the Israeli military investigation into Rachel’s killing.

Feature:

A live interview with Ehab Lotayef about the Canadian Boat to Gaza (canadaboatgaza.org). Ehab, an Egyptian Canadian living in Montreal, explained how the project developed after Israel’s deadly raid last May on the Mavi Marmara and that groups across Canada were coming on board. He also detailed how CSIS officers had been harassing him about his involvement in this campaign, something he had immediately made public. We were then joined by Derrick O’Keefe from Stopwar about the local efforts to help support this people-to-people aid project.

Focus on Zionism:

Excerpts of a September 6th, 2010 report on the Electronic Intifada by Canadian free-lancer Eva Bartlett about the horrific conditions facing Palestinian families during Ramadan in eastern Gaza’s boundary zone.

Here is an audio file of this show:

News Highlights:

• Al Masara near Bethlehem holds its weekly anti-wall protest and also commemorates the assassinations of Palestinian leader Abu Ali Mustafa and cartoonist Naji al-Ali.
• Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Bargouthi calls on Mahmoud Abbas to reconsider engaging in “direct talks” and noted the continuation of illegal settlement construction despite Israel’s partial freeze.
• Palestinian father holds hunger strike in Berlin, Germany protesting Israel’s decision to prevent his daughter from being registered as a Jerusalem resident, as Israel refuses to lift the ban on family unification.
• New reports from Gaza about Palestinian families taking over abandoned apartment blocks due to the lack of reconstruction despite the siege “easing”.

Feature:

The show marked The Voice of Palestine’s 23rd anniversary of being on the air at Coop Radio. The feature talked about how the show began, the opposition from pro-Israel forces at that time, and how current campaigns by the Israel lobby reflect the same false accusations and arguments as 23 years ago. Messages of support from listeners were read as well as phoned in. The panel also took time to look at the upcoming “direct talks” between Israeli and Palestinians leaders about to start in Washington D.C. and the increasing Palestinian opposition to these sham negotiations, both in Palestine and in the diaspora.

Focus on Zionism:

Highlights of a Maan news stories about a Palestinian father living near Hebron/AlKhalil with a 3-year-old daughter suffering from cerebral atrophy who is appealing to Israeli authorities to allow the rest of his family to be able to leave Gaza and return home, after they went there for a visit.

Here is an audio file of this show:

News Highlights:

• Al Masara, near Bethlehem, holds its weekly anti-wall protest, and also calls for the international community to take a stand against the many Israeli soldiers who have photographed themselves next to Palestinian prisoners (some already dead).
• Palestinians are facing movement restrictions during Ramadan, as highlighted by the case of the village of Azzun Atma, where people cannot even get a permit to visit their family in another part of the village.
• As “direct talks” are about to commence under U.S. tutelage, Palestinian home demolitions by Israeli forces continue unabated.
• Vancouver activists protest the unloading of Zim containers, an Israeli shipping company, at the Delta port.

Feature:

A live interview with Freda Guttman from Montreal, a Jewish Canadian activist and artist who is helping to organize the upcoming Boycott Divestment Sanctions BDS conference in Montreal this October. Freda explained how she became involved in pro-Palestinian work and why she felt the BDS movement was one of the most important ways to support the Palestinian people. She gave details about the BDS conference www.bdsquebec.org, speakers that had been invited and how they were hoping to reach many sectors of society including unions, consumers, academics amongst others. The discussion also touched on the recent increase by CSIS in harassment of pro-Palestinian activists, including Freda herself. She concluded by calling on everyone to support the BDS conference either by attending or with donations.

Focus on Zionism:

Focus was postponed for this show due to the length of the feature.

Here is an audio file of this show:

News Highlights:

• Israeli authorities demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village for the 4th time after it was rebuilt by residents.
• Israeli human rights groups release pictures of Israeli soldiers posing alongside Palestinian prisoners, some of them dead.
• Mahmoud Abbas is consulting with the U.S. administration over resuming “direct talks” with Israel.
• Activists in Bristol, England called for the boycott of Israeli goods in front of a main supermarket and also commemorated the memory of the 9 passengers killed on the Mavi Marmara by Israeli commandos.

Feature:

August 8th, 2010 marked the 20th and final Under The Volcano, a cultural and political festival that has long given voice to marginalized and indigenous communities. To honor their contribution, we presented a broadcast of one of the workshops at the 19th Under The Volcano, entitled From Gaza to Gustafsen, which detailed the links and similarities between the Palestinian struggle and the struggle of the indigenous people here against settler colonialist aggression. The workshop featured Gord Hill, a Native writer and activist, Hanna Kawas, cohost of Voice of Palestine and chair of Canada Palestine Assoc.(CPA), as well as Israeli American DJ Invincible. The full workshop was recorded by Pasifik.ca and can be listened to at the CPA website www.cpavancouver.org

Focus on Zionism:

Due to the length of the feature, Focus was postponed for this show.

Here is an audio file of this show:

News Highlights:

• Israeli authorities demolish more Palestinian homes in the Jordan Valley.
• More Muslim graves are destroyed in the Maman Allah cemetery in West Jerusalem by Israeli bulldozers, for the 3rd time in just over a week.
• The weekly anti-wall protest in the Bethlehem area also marks the anniversary of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Israel threatens to pull out of the U.N. probe into its deadly raid on the Gaza flotilla if the panel insists on questioning any of its soldiers.

Feature:

A special cultural presentation, marking both the second anniversary of the passing of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and also the 34th commemoration of the fall of Tel Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. We presented Darwish’s famous poem, Ahmad Zaatar, written specifically in dedication to the refugee camp, recited on tape by the poet himself. We also had the English translation, as well as two interpretations of the poem set to music first by Marcel Khalife and then Khalid El-Haber.

Focus on Zionism:

Excerpts of a August 9th, 2010 article about “eco-resistance” in the occupied West Bank, the reality of Palestinian communities there squeezed by settlements and occupation.

Here is an audio file of this show: