Feb 7, 2012

Take Action for Hunger Striking Palestinian Prisoner #KhaderAdnan!

"Khader Adnan, an imprisoned Palestinian activist held under administrative detention, has engaged in an open-ended hunger strike since December 17, 2012. Now at fifty days into his hunger strike, he is facing severe health consequences and has been moved to a hospital, continuing to refuse food in protest of torture, isolation, and the use of arbitrary detention against Palestinians. 

Khader Adnan needs international support and solidarity to make it clear to the Israeli occupation that the eyes of the world are on his case and that of his nearly 5,000 fellow Palestinian political prisoners. He is currently in a hospital bed and being force-fed liquids over his objection. Send a letter now to Israeli officials demanding his freedom."

TWEET NOW to share this action alert by clicking here!

Click here to sign the petition!

#BDS: How Sarah Schulman managed to get ‘Pinkwashing’ into the New York Times

"One of the stars of the boycott conference at Penn was Sarah Schulman, the writer/professor who wrote the groundbreaking pinkwashing piece in the New York Times last November: How Israel uses gay-rights to launder its human rights violations.

In the Q-and-A, a man rose to ask Schulman how the piece had gotten into print. Schulman laughed and said, "Ok, here's the back story." And then told an astonishing story.

I'll relate that story in a minute. First you have to eat your spinach: Schulman's very wise ideas about the ways that the Palestinian solidarity movement can grow from "a vanguard movement to a popular movement."

Schulman only got into Palestinian solidarity two years ago. But she has been a "hard-core" activist all her life, chiefly about AIDS and queer freedom. You can ask, Where has she been, what about Gaza? but that's a stupid question, a question that blocks growth. And the beauty of Schulman's engagement here is that when she was told not to go to Tel Aviv University two years ago, and she said, "What boycott?" she didn't get defensive and nutty. No, she looked into the issue and saw that it was straightforward and simple-- and then she was in."

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#BDS Madonna does not miss an opportunity to ignore human rights for Palestinians

Madonna to launch MDNA world tour in Israel
Pop icon Madonna will launch her upcoming world tour in Israel, her Israeli show producer, Shuki Weiss, announced Tuesday.  The tour for Madonna's new album, MDNA, will set off on May 31 at Ramat Gan Stadium.  Source.

#BDS Activists demand Cornell cut ties with Technion

Activists with Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine call on Cornell University to end its relationship with the Technion, an Israeli university that is involved in the research and development of military and arms technology. Read and sign the open petition .

On Monday December 19 2011, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the joint bid advanced by Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in the multi-billion-dollar competition to create a massive applied sciences and technology campus on Roosevelt Island had won. While this initiative is sure to benefit Cornell University and the City of New York in many ways, the partnership with Technion means that these benefits will come at the expense of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and, thus, also of the moral standing of the University and the City.  Read more here.

#BDS: Susan Sarandons Double Standards

"Susan Sarandon has expressed surprising unwillingness to denounce her support for the Israeli Billionaire, Lev Leviev, who has been criticized by a variety of NGOs for his involvement in building settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In 2004, the ICJ declared both current Israeli settlements and the wall Israel is building inside the West Bank to facilitate future settlements inside the West Bank to be illegal under international law.

UNICEF has recently rejected all offers of partnerships and financial support from him. Lev Leviev had previously sponsored UNICEF fundraising events in France, and his support of UNICEF is featured in several places on his company's website."

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#BDS Support United Methodist Church divestment campaign

UMKR and FOSNA are coalition members of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
United Methodist Kairos Response (UMKR) is an international movement in the United Methodist Church responding to the "Kairos Palestine Document," an urgent plea from Christians in the Holy Land for decisive action supporting a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

UMKR is working to put actions behind the denomination's words and seeks to align the church's investments with its resolutions opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. To that end, members of UMKR have written a resolution that would direct UMC boards and agencies to divest from corporations that sustain and profit from the occupation. FOSNAhas already endorsed this resolution as a group and now we are asking YOU to please endorse as an individual!

This legislation will go to the UMC's next General Conference, being held in Tampa, Florida, April 25-May 5, 2012.
Please take action TODAY:
  1. CLICK HERE to endorse the United Methodist Kairos Response resolution as an individual.
  2. CLICK HERE to sign a petition if you participate in services provided by the UMC General Board of Pension & Health Benefits.
  3. Email info@kairosresponse.org if you are interested in volunteering to help pass this resolution.
Source.

#BDS: #BikyaMasr refers to the usurping Zionist entity as "neighbor" of #Egypt

"CAIRO: Egypt’s Committee of Foreign Relations of the People’s Assembly decided on Monday that it would boycott any parliamentary events and activities if any Israelis official is one of the participants, describing their neighbor as a “Zionist entity.”

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#BDS: #SouthAfrica mulls BDS sanctions on #Israel

"South Africa is considering imposing economic and cultural sanctions on Israel as part of the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The country's Minister of Arts and Culture announced at a conference in Pretoria last week that the government is seeking to increase support for the dispossessed Palestinian people.
"We want to step up our support of the Palestinians and are investigating a number of peaceful ways to upgrade this support. We have no problem with supporting the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel," Minister of Arts and Culture Paul Mashatile told a local newspaper.
South Africa's ruling African National Congress has long supported Palestinian independence due to their experience of life under apartheid.
Mashatile also announced a cultural agreement between South Africa and Palestine. He said the commitment was important to the Palestinian cause was particularly strong "because we count the people of Palestine among those patriots who stood by us in our struggle for national liberation."
The BDS campaign, which began in 2005, aims to create pressure on Israel by calling for economic and cultural sanctions against the country.
It demands an end to Israel's occupation of all Arab lands as well as recognition of the rights of Palestinians inside the Occupied Territories.
Omar Barghouti, human rights activist and co-founder of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights, welcomed the announcement.
"Mashatile’s public embracing of BDS indicates that the South African government is seriously considering imposing sanctions on Israel as a result of its intensifying destruction of Palestinian society and denial of basic Palestinian rights," he told Al-Akhbar.
"By imposing meaningful sanctions against Israel, South Africa would establish itself as a world leader in upholding international law and holding to account states that are gravely violating it," he added."

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#BDS: #EU Funding Illegal Israeli Lab

"The European Commission should stop funding a research project coordinated by the United Kingdom’s Natural History Museum (NHM) because of the involvement of an Israeli laboratory that operates in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, according to a letter written by more than 20 British scientists and other public figures. The 5-year, €5.19 million project, called NanoReTox, began in 2008 and is seeking to elucidate the environmental and health impacts of nanoparticles used in cosmetic products."

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#BDS: Friends of Palestine #Australia to launch boycott #Veolia campaign

"On 4 February, at its annual general meeting, Friends of Palestine WA (FOPWA) resolved to make the French multinational Veolia “the major target for its boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign work in 2012, organising protest actions, lobbying and other activities to draw attention to Veolia's role in profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.” This article by FOPWA member Nick Everett is based on one of the reports to that meeting.

For decades, the state of Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, racial discrimination, and military occupation. Despite abundant condemnation of Israeli policies by the United Nations, international bodies, and human rights organisations, Israel’s crimes have continued with impunity.

On July 9 2005, a year after the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s apartheid wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to be illegal, a clear majority of Palestinian civil society called upon people of conscience all over the world to launch broad boycotts, implement divestment initiatives, and to demand sanctions against Israel, until Palestinian rights are recognised in full compliance with international law."

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#BDS: #Egypt برلمان مصر يقرر مقاطعة أي أنشطة مع "إسرائيل"

قررت لجنة الشؤون الخارجية بالبرلمان المصري اليوم الاثنين مقاطعة أي أنشطة مع الكيان الصهيوني والكنيست، مؤكدين على رفض الشعب المصري التطبيع مع الكيان الصهيوني.

فقد شهد اجتماع لجنة العلاقات الخارجية بمجلس الشعب مناقشات ساخنة، بعدما تقدم أحد النواب أعضاء اللجنة وهو النائب هلال الدندراوي بسؤال عن العلاقة مع المؤسسات العمالية الصهيونية والكنيست، وقد رد عليه رئيس اللجنة الدكتور عصام العريان بقوله: "التطبيع مع الكيان الصهيوني مرفوض إطلاقًا، وهذا قرار الشعب المصري".

وأضاف العريان: "كما أن اللجنة ترفض المشاركة في نشاط برلماني أو سياسي [يوجد] فيه ["إسرائيليون"]، وتابع: "ولكن السؤال الذي يجب أن نناقشه إذا كان هناك مؤتمر دولي وبه "إسرائيليون"، فهل ينسحب أعضاء البرلمان المصري أم لا؟".

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#BDS: #Qatar سليم الحص يستقيل من مؤسسة قطرية احتجاجا على مشاركة الدوحة في مؤتمر إسرائيلي


 أعلن رئيس الحكومة اللبنانية الأسبق سليم الحص الاثنين إستقالته من منصب نائب رئيس مجلس أمناء (المؤسسة العربية للديمقراطية في قطر) إحتجاجاً على حضور مستشار دولة قطر سليمان الشيخ المؤتمر السنوي لمعهد السياسات الإستراتيجية الذي عقد في إسرائيل.
ووصف الحص، في بيان، حضور بعض الشخصيات العربية المؤتمر السنوي لمعهد السياسات الإستراتيجية الذي عقد في إسرائيل تحت عنوان (عين العاصفة إسرائيل والشرق الأوسط)، وبينها الأمير الأردني الحسن بن طلال ومستشار دولة قطر سليمان الشيخ والمفاوض الفلسطيني صائب عريقات، بأنها "ظاهرة نابية ومستهجنة".


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