FILMMAKERS & ARTISTS
CONDEMN ISRAELI GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS

-- As independent filmmakers and artists, we condemn the ongoing slow and systematic Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people which never ceased since 1948. On December 27, 2008 occupied Gaza/Palestine has come under Israeli attack, a nuclear country with the fifths most powerful military in the world, backed by the USA, the world's only super power. Instead of ending the occupation, Israel chooses to brutalize the Palestinians.

-- We condemn Israel's unprovoked targeting of humanitarian crews, aid caravans, and United Nations schools and shelters operating in Gaza. Israeli killing of humanitarian crews will lead to a worsening humanitarian crises in Gaza.

-- We condemn Israel's media blackout which prevents reporters from covering the Gaza warzone. The blackout leaves the Israelis with time to cover evidence of more war crimes.

-- We condemn Israeli attempts to block medics from saving injured Palestinians civilians in Gaza warzone even while Israeli medics decline to save those injured.

-- We consider it an act of hate and racism when statements are issued by various international cultural groups, in light of the Gaza carnage, calling for the separation of art and politics. The indiscriminate killing of civilians especially on such a large scale as we see in Gaza must never be written off as mere politics. Life is the flame of art. Those who take life and those who stand silently by have no respect for either life or art.

THE REALITY

-- Palestinians, since the turn of the 20th century, have been denied freedom, justice, and elemental human rights by Israel and its supporters.

-- Around the time of the cease fire, over 1400 Palestinians have been murdered by Israelis in Gaza/Palestine including 410 children and over 100 women. Over 4000 Palestinians have been injured; many children have suffered amputated limps and serious injuries.

-- Since the second intifada alone, and through the Gaza attacks, over 5500 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis in the occupied territories. Seventeen Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks from Gaza, the reported cause of Israel's latest invasion.

-- Before the Israeli invasion, impoverished Gazans were subjected to a crushing blockade by Israel and the USA. During this blockade, Israelis waged periodic military strikes--with American weapons-- and assassinations, violating all cease fire agreement with the Palestinians. The humanitarian situation was so bad, Palestinians resorted to digging tunnels to smuggle foods and medicines.

-- Gaza is made up of over a million and a half Palestinians, mostly refugees who were expelled from their towns and cities in today's Israel. This latest Israeli attack compounds their decades-old misery.

-- By brining the war into overpopulated Gaza and by refusing to permit Palestinian civilians to take refuge in nearby Naqab Desert (Beersheba), Israel is deliberately herding civilians into the warzone for maxim Palestinian civilian casualties.

-- Because Israel's Western allies refuse to act decisively to end the Israeli occupation and to repatriate the Palestinian refugees in accordance with the 4th Geneva Convention, liberal values and the notion of universal justice are coming under fire in the many parts of the world.

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CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

NOTE: The United Nation Definition of genocide means any of five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Since it's founding, Israel has committed three of the five acts against the Palestinian. Today, over 5 million Palestinians survive in refugee camps and in exile.

-- Killing members of the group.

-- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

-- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

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UN: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm

Red Cross: 4th Geneva Convention on Treatment of Civilians

http://www.cicr.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/380-600056?OpenDocument

B'TSELEM: Second Intifada Fatalities

http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp

GR: Israel's Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11171

UNRWA: About the 1.5 million registered Palestinian refugees

http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html

Electronic Intifada: Gaza Coverage

http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/687.shtml

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