BDS, Palestine and Pizza.

In conjunction with a conference that was recently held in Melbourne for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement was this concert for Palestine- at which Jafra, [the Arabic band I have been playing with along with Yousef, Liam and Amal] had our first performance.
For those unfamiliar with the BDS movement, it is essentially a campaign to employ similar pressure on Israel as was used in South Africa to end apartheid- a peaceful means of applying pressure to bring justice where all other methods have failed.
Since their illegal occupation began, Israel have encroached further and further into Palestinian lands and stripped Palestinian people of their freedoms and basic human needs and have created a grand scale humanitarian crisis of horrific proportions- all aided, abetted and funded by the US government.
It's a glaring example of the hypocrisy of the American governments' foreign policy- that they not only turn a blind eye to Israels' terrorism of the Palestinian people and illegal settlement in their lands, but also that they turn a blind eye to Israels nuclear program [and their own for that matter..] and now want to target Iran.
And now as America holds peace talks with the Palestinian and Israeli leaders [irony of ironies..] Israel has increased it's rate of illegal Israeli settlement in Palestinian lands by 30%. As my friend Yousef said, it's like there being two people in dispute about pizza and one of them quickly gobbling as much pizza as they can while they talk..
It is such a huge and complicated situation that it's really impossible for me to sufficiently cover it here- I implore you to read up on it as much as you can as  it is a matter of global consequence.
Yousef has a particularly interesting and informative radio show called 'Palestine Remembered' on 3CR at 8:30-9:00am wednesday mornings which covers issues relating to the plight of Palestinian people.

http://www.3cr.org.au/palestine



Also performing at the Concert for Palestine, as well as speaking at the conference was the passionate, articulate and on-point Palestinian refugee, activist and performance poet Rafeef Ziadah. Check her out. Maximum respect..