Celtic fans surpass target in #MatchtheFineforPalestine campaign

August 25, 2016

At the Champions League match with Hapoel Beer Sheva on 17 August 2016, the Green Brigade and fans throughout Celtic Park flew the flag for Palestine. This act of solidarity has earned Celtic respect and acclaim throughout the world. It has also attracted a disciplinary charge from UEFA, which deems the Palestinian flag to be an ‘illicit banner’.

In response to this petty and politically partisan act by European football’s governing body we are determined to make a positive contribution to the game and today launch a campaign to #matchthefineforpalestine. We aim to raise £15,000* which will be split 50/50 between Medical Aid Palestine (MAP) and to the Lajee Centre, a Palestinian creative cultural children’s centre in Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem.

“Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees.

MAP delivers health and medical care to those worst affected by conflict, occupation and displacement.

Working in partnership with local health providers and hospitals, MAP addresses a wide range of health issues and challenges faced by the Palestinian people.

With offices located in Beirut, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Gaza City, MAP responds rapidly in times of crisis, and works directly with communities on longer term health development.”

Aida is one of 19 refugee camps in the West Bank and has for 66 years played temporary home to Palestinians forcibly expelled from their homes in Hebron and Jerusalem. Its residents live in the shadow of Israel’s apartheid wall, cut off from social and economic opportunities by the wall and neighbouring illegal settlements and military checkpoints.

For the young people of Aida, the Lajee Centre offers hope and an escape from the realities of life under Israeli occupation via its art and culture programmes and sport programmes.

The camp’s only football pitch was built last year by the Lajee Centre, at the heart of Aida. The pitch is now protected by metal netting after it was damaged by tear gas canisters fired by the Israeli Forces. Residents had previously played on recreation ground stolen by the wall.

The money will be a much needed boost to the Lajee Centre who will be able to extend their activities to bring much needed relief via their arts, dance and football programmes. One such programme is that of youth football, with the Lajee Centre looking to organise a youth football team to take part in the Bethlehem Youth League.

There are no organised teams in Aida, with basic equipment like boots in short supply. Funds raised will provide equipment, strips and travel costs to enable the camp to enter a team in the Bethlehem Youth League.

In recognition of the show of support from Celtic fans and all those around the world Salah Ajarma, Coordinator of the Lajee Centre will name the team ‘Aida Celtic’: “it will mean so much to our young people to be part of an official team, to have boots and strips and to represent the camp wearing the colours of our friends. Aida Celtic will be a source of pride for all in Aida”

Let’s #matchthefineforpalestine and show the footballing establishment the true spirit of the game.

* The £15k target is based on the previous fine for the displaying of Palestinian flags that Celtic received in 2014. This will be amended as required when UEFA decide on the amount the fine will be around the 22nd of September 2016.

Click here to Donate https://www.gofundme.com/matchfinepalestine?rcid=f44c3b8267cf11e6ae20bc764e04c5a7

Source:Association of irish Celtic Supporters Clubs

Update - Wednesday 24th of August 2016 - 6.30pm

So....the past 72 hours have been crazy. From an initial target of £15k we currently sit at £140 531 donated towards MAP and the Lajee Centre from Aida Camp, Bethlehem. The response have been overwhelming to say the least, not just from Celtic supporters from fans of teams all over the world, and even non-football fans. The #matchthefineforpalestine campaign has tuly captured the imagination of people all over the world.

Many people have got in touch to say they intend to donate after being paid at the end of the month and asking to be given the chance to do so. This campaign has always intended to remain open at the very least until UEFA confirm the punishment they deem fit for the flying of a flag which they describe as "illicit". We will announce with plenty of notice when the campaign will close so folk will have enough time to donate if they are unable to so right at this moment in time.

With the rate of donations slowing as we expected, we we have raised the target to £150k to take us through until the 22nd of September 2016 when the UEFA decision is decided upon.

Should the £150k target be broken quickly then we will review the target if required.

Thank you for all your support and please continue to spread the word of #matchthefineforpalestine far and wide.

#matchthefineforpalestine

We, the Green Brigade, are the passionate Ultra fans of Celtic Football Club, Scotland’s most famous and successful football team. At the Champions League match with Hapoel Beer Sheva on 17 August 2016, the Green Brigade and fans throughout Celtic Park flew the flag for Palestine. This act of solidarity has earned our club respect and acclaim throughout the world. It has also attracted a disciplinary charge from UEFA, which deems the Palestinian flag to be an ‘illicit banner’

In response to this petty and politically partisan act by European football’s governing body, we are determined to make a positive contribution to the game and today launch a campaign to #matchthefineforpalestine. We aim to raise £75,000 which will be split equally between Medical Aid Palestine (MAP) and the Lajee Centre, a Palestinian cultural centre in Aida Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem. From our members’ experiences as volunteers in Palestine we know the huge importance of both organisations’ work and have developed close contacts with them.

MAP is a UK-based charity which delivers health and medical care to Palestinians worst affected by conflict, occupation and displacement. Working in partnership with local health care providers and hospitals, MAP provides vital public health and emergency response services. This includes training and funding a team of Palestinian surgeons and medics to treat and operate on those affected by the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip.

MAP has publicly thanked the Celtic support and all who have donated for their support. You can read their statement and find out more about their incredible work on their website: http://www.map-uk.org/home/homepage (their statement is available here: http://www.map-uk.org/news/archive/post/43...r-palestinians).
All funds raised for Medical Aid Palestine will go to mending broken limbs in Gaza and other vitally important projects in the Occupied Territories and Palestinian refugee camps.

For the young people of Aida, the Lajee Centre in the heart of the camp offers hope and an escape from the realities of life under Israeli occupation. Its programme of arts, culture and sporting activities are a lifeline for its impoverished and oppressed people.

Last year, the Centre built Aida’s only football pitch. Residents had previously played on recreation ground that has now been stolen by the wall. Within months of opening, the new pitch was severely damaged by tear gas canisters fired onto it by the Israeli military. It is now protected by metal netting.

Funds raised will provide a much needed boost to this fantastic project and will allow the Lajee Centre to extend its arts, dance and football programmes. As a token of their appreciation, the Centre have committed to setting up and sustaining the camp’s first ever football club and to name it Aida Celtic.

Aida Celtic will enter the Bethlehem Youth League at the start of 2017 and will host a tournament for teams from all of the West Bank’s refugee camps in Spring next year. Your generosity will also allow the Centre to buy a minibus for use in transporting Aida Celtic to matches and its other groups around Palestine.

Salah Ajarma, the Lajee Centre’s Coordinator told us the importance Aida Celtic will have for residents of the camp: “it will mean so much to our young people to be part of an official team, to have boots and strips and to represent the camp wearing the colours of our friends. Aida Celtic will be a source of pride for all in Aida”.

You can hear more from Aida’s young people and the volunteers at the Lajee Centre here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdm09DOieHc

We have been overwhelmed by the early response to this appeal and have set a new target of £75,000. Any money raised above this sum will continue to be split on an equal basis between MAP and the Lajee Centre, and will go some way to mending the broken limbs and damaged lives of the displaced and deprived people of Palestine.

At the end of the fundraising drive we will present representatives of both organisations with a cheque for their share in Glasgow.

Let’s #matchthefineforpalestine and show the footballing establishment the true spirit of the game.

Source:gofundme

Palestinians urge Sinn Féin to end Likud meetings

August 23, 2016

Sinn Féin youth met a delegation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party in Belfast in June. (via Forward Thinking)

Palestinians are expressing dismay that representatives of Sinn Féin have been hosting delegations fromLikud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Many rank and file members of the Irish nationalist party led by Gerry Adams are on the frontlines in Ireland’s Palestine solidarity movement, both in the North and the Republic.

That has heightened the consternation at news of the meetings.

“This is very disheartening to us here in Gaza,” Haidar Eid, a university professor and member of the steering committee of PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, told The Electronic Intifada.

“We call on Irish comrades to condemn these meetings in the strongest possible terms,” Eid said, urging that people write to Sinn Féin leaders and “even disrupt any future visits by Israeli officials.”

“War criminals and racist organizations should not be welcomed in the new Ireland,” Eid added.

“I personally met with the Sinn Féin delegation headed by Gerry Adams after the 2009 Israeli attack on Gaza, and the support they showed at the time was enormous,” Eid said. “They even welcomed our BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – call and promised to take the issue further upon their return to Ireland.”

Eid expressed outrage that Sinn Féin is now receiving delegations from “one of the most racist parties in Israel, one that openly calls for ethnic cleansing and apartheid and whose ministers have committed war crimes in Israel’s latest attack on Gaza in 2014.”

He praised Irish activists for their strong support of Palestine: “Our ties with the Irish people are an example of what true solidarity means. Irish civil society sectors including trade unions have heeded our call for BDS.”

That solidarity has always gone both ways, Eid said: “Irish people had our support when they needed it. Sinn Féin leaders know this very well.”

Meetings in Belfast

In June, a Likud youth delegation held meetings with young Sinn Féin activists in Belfast.

This was only one of several meetings Sinn Féin officials have held with Likud counterparts in recent years.

Pat Sheehan, a West Belfast legislator in the Northern Ireland Assembly, also met Likud officials in June.

According to the Belfast newspaper The Irish News the meetings have been held under the auspices of London-based think tank Forward Thinking.

Forward Thinking says that its “Irish Peace Process Program” is an “initiative which brings delegations from key constituencies in Israel to Northern Ireland to discuss experiences of the conflict and peace process.”

Palestinian cover?

In a statement posted on the party’s website, Sheehan defended the meetings, saying that “dialogue is essential in dealing with issues in the Middle East and that Sinn Féin will continue to raise the concerns of the Palestinian people in all forums and at all levels.”

“Sinn Féin’s record of supporting the Palestinian people is clear and consistent,” the statement added. “Any meetings between Sinn Féin representatives and Israeli political parties are on the basis of critical engagement.”

“Those who represent the Palestinian people are aware that we raise these issues at all levels and wish us to do so,” Sheehan stated, apparently claiming Palestinian cover for the Likud meetings.

While Sheehan did not specify who these Palestinian representatives are, it is notable that the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the broad coalition that spearheads the BDS movement, recently strongly condemned the Palestinian Authority for tacitly facilitating normalization between Israel and other countries.

Sinn Féin’s policies are arguably contradictory. The party campaigns for the end of British-imposed partition in Ireland, but it supports the so-called two-state solution for Palestine. That “solution” is a recipe for partitioning historic Palestine.

In a separate statement emailed to The Electronic Intifada, Sinn Féin’s central press office offered similar justifications to those given by Sheehan.

“However, we welcome, respect and understand the genuine views expressed and will certainly take them on board as we continue to assist the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom,” the party added in apparent acknowledgment of the outpouring of opposition the Likud meetings have generated.

And in a twist of irony, as Sinn Féin’s Sheehan was justifying the meetings in Belfast, a Sinn Féin elected official in the South of Ireland criticized Clare County Council for allowing the Israeli ambassador to visit its chambers this month.

After learning about the low-profile visit, Mike McKee, a Sinn Féin councillor, said: “I certainly would not have been in support of it.” He added: “Many people in Clare would have great reservations about welcoming the ambassador of a state that has killed from the year 2000 almost 10,000 Palestinians and of that 2,000 are children.”

Stop normalization

PSCABI, the Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel, said in a statement sent to The Electronic Intifada from Gaza that it was “deeply disappointed” to hear about the meeting between the Likud delegation and Sinn Féin youth.

“It is more shocking that this delegation was welcomed to Ireland in order to talk about ‘peace,’” PSCABI said. “Let us, occupied Palestinians, ask what do you mean by peace when the Israeli war machine is taking our children’s lives and subjecting us to all kinds of horror under deafening international silence?”

“For 10 years, we have been under a brutal, medieval siege interspersed by three barbaric wars launched by apartheid Israel,” PSCABI said. “As students, whose entire educational system has been devastated as a result of Israel’s long and ongoing blockade, we strongly condemn Sinn Féin receiving the Israeli delegation.”

“From under the most brutal siege humanity has witnessed during this modern age, we urge Irish people and Sinn Féin to boycott Israel and to stop normalizing with the Israeli racist colonizer,” PSCABI stated.

That siege not only prevents Palestinian students getting out but blocks solidarity visits as well: in December 2014, for instance, Israel refused to allow Sinn Féin president Adams to enter Gaza.

When do you talk?

In its 2015 annual report, Forward Thinking criticizes the “failure of successive peace initiatives to reach out on the one side to the ultra-religious and ideological right parties in Israel, and on the other side to groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

Its staff have also met representatives of Hamas.

But while inclusion of all parties – especially those like Sinn Féin once ostracized as “terrorists” – is a key lesson from the Irish peace process, such inclusion has only borne fruit when all parties, especially the more powerful, have recognized the need for a fundamental and transformative change.

That readiness for transformation has historically arrived – as in Ireland and apartheid South Africa, settler-colonial situations with important similarities to Palestine – when the key protagonists have recognized that they are in a stalemate that further armed conflict cannot break.

That is certainly true for Hamas, which has repeatedly made far-reaching offers to Israel to end armed conflict and establish a long-term truce along the 1967 lines that could pave the way for a future political agreement.

But it cannot by any stretch be said of Israel.

The only transformation the Likud believes in and practices is accelerating Israel’s aggressive colonization of the West Bank with Jewish-only settlements, and turning Gaza into an ever more isolated and brutalized ghetto.

Meanwhile the Likud-led government continues to pass discriminatory laws and policies against Palestinian citizens of Israel that would be immediately recognizable to Irish nationalists and Catholics who lived under the oppressive yoke of the British-backed “Protestant state for a Protestant people” that long existed in Ireland’s North.

Israel will not reach the conclusions that the parties in Ireland or South Africa did, which enabled transformative peace agreements, without sustained pressure that raises the price of what is still for Israel a comfortable and manageable status quo.

That’s the logic behind BDS, the Palestinian-led campaign for freedom, justice and equality.

That is why Sinn Féin’s continued meetings with Likud in the context of unrelenting Israeli aggression undermine the Palestinian struggle the party says it supports.

Source: The Electronic Intifada, August 11, 2016

*Sinn Féin's Pat Sheehan meets members of Likud in Belfast in June. Irish News*

Buncrana Together

This episode has to go down as one of the worst actions by Sinn Fein in recent times. Their fraternising with murderers, torturers and imperialists is indefensible. This quietly published shameful episode almost slipped under the radar and none of the mainstream media reported it. The meetings between Sinn Fein and Likud representatives and Israeli diplomats smacks of double standards, SF unilaterlism and political rhetoric. Sinn Fein's forced response to criticismdoes not hold up in light of the international boycott of Israel campaign. What would one say if this happened during say the successful boycott of South Africa? What would the repercussion be for fraternising with and legitimising racist, repressive imperialist regimes?

Saying one thing and doing another!
These meeting with the representative of the Israeli Zionist regimegives it international creditability and acceptance. It legitimises it, depicting the representatives as respectable, reasonable, sociable, honest and fun people.

Sinn Fein through meeting with Likud rerpresentatives and Israeli diplomats have defied and undemined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (https://bdsmovement.net/).

Incredibly SF and Pat Sheehan,SF MLA. have defended their unilateral stance. Even after the meetings were exposed by Tom Hurson in the Irish News at the beginning of August, (http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/08/09/news/sinn-fe-in-meets-delegation-of-israeli-government-party-642798/), Mr Sheehan stated blatenly "inclusive dialogue is key to resolving the conflict", (http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/41243).

Now what does that remind you of? A touch of the Good Friday Agreement establishment propaganda. Having gone down that road and mainstream politics, the SF leadership have developed the subterfuge into a mantra of 'inclusive dialogue resolving conflict'. Balls, it is nothing but double talk for stifling political opposition and dissent, hiding responsibility and guilt, all the crimes and psychological damage.

Say one thing and do another!
Maybe SF should be reminded of their article in An Phoblacht, April 13, 2016, 'Israel challenged to genuine talks by Palestinian Ambassador at Sinn Féin Ard Fheis', (http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/22941). It makes for a cringe worthy read by any left wing republican socialist. Was Mr Ajurri duped and used by SF duo personality? Ironically SF was praised by him for their solidarity and he went on to say " Palestinians want to negotiate a permanent solution but it seems Israeli leaders only want 'permanent negotiations'. "

It is not for nothing that SF has been described as party running away from confrontation. Their actions (in many cases talk but no action), depict a party courting the middle ground, mainstream political approval and well healed American backers, even if this means shying away from fundamental left wing, alternative policies. To this end party political opportunism and controlled opposition by the leadership is the order of the day. Lip service is paid to left wing, republican, solidarity and principles are watered down and subsumed by political expediency.