#BDS: Letter from senior European officials supports BDS approach on Israel

On December 2nd, a group of very high-level European ex-officials wrote to the President of the European Council to urge that the EU take much stronger action to hold Israel accountable for violations of international law, including the construction of settlements on occupied land, which is prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The list of signatories includes former Presidents and Prime Ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Norway, Ireland and Latvia, as well as other senior officials like Chris Patten and Javier Solana. They advocate a European boycott of products made or grown on Israeli settlements and sold as "Made in Israel" (in Section 4). "We consider it simply inexplicable that such products still enjoy benefits under preferential trade agreements between the EU and Israel."

They also imply that the EU should impose sanctions if Israel continues to violate international law (in Section 5). "The EU has stated unequivocally for decades that the settlements in the OPT are illegal, but Israel continues to build them. Like any other state, Israel should be held accountable for its actions. It is the credibility of the EU that is at stake."

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#BDS: الإغاثة الزراعية تواصل حملة مقاطعة البضائع الاسرائيلية في قلقيلية

رام الله- معا- أكد مسؤول العمل الجماهيري في الإغاثة الزراعية ومنسق الحملة الشعبية لمقاطعة البضائع الإسرائيلية خالد منصور، أن حملة مقاطعة البضائع الإسرائيلية لم ولن تتوقف، حتى تختفي كل منتجات المحتلين التي لها بدائل من أسواقنا الفلسطينية.

حديث منصور هذا، جاء في معرض رده على سؤال وجهه أحد تجار مدينة قلقيلية حين قال: إن مدينتنا خالية من بضائع المستوطنات.

وأضاف منصور: "إننا ننظر لحملة المقاطعة كسلاح نشهره بوجه الاحتلال لنلحق به الخسائر المالية، ونعتبر المقاطعةشكل من أشكال المقاومة لشعبية التي من حق شعبنا خوضها ضد الاحتلال بكافة إفرازاته.

كان ذلك خلال حملة دعوية تثقيفية تحريضية نظمتها الإغاثة الزراعية الفلسطينية اليوم، في أسواق وميادين مدينة قلقيلية، وذلك بالتعاون مع حزب الشعب الفلسطيني وجمعية التوفير والتسليف، وقيادات رسمية وشعبية، منهم ابراهيم الحمد مدير دائرة الزراعة الحكومية في قلقيلية، ومحمد ابو الشيخ مندوبا عن محافظة قلقيلية، بالاضافة الى ممثلين عن الحملة الشعبية لمقاومة الجدار والاستيطان واتحاد جمعيات المزارعين.

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#BDS: An open letter from Gaza to Thomas Quasthoff: Do not Forget the Gaza Concentration Camp and “Tell It like It Is!”

Dear Mr. Thomas Quasthoff,

We are a group of artists, singers, academics and students from Gaza, and our only fault is being Palestinians. For that, Mr. Quasthoff, we are imprisoned with our families and loved ones in what even main-stream Human Rights Organizations call the largest open air prison in modern history.  It has come to our knowledge that you have plans to perform in Apartheid Israel.  The state you are planning to entertain has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against us, the indigenous population of Palestine.

We in Gaza have been under a hermetic, medieval siege imposed since 2006 by the state you are planning to entertain. This blockade has cut off the main life-line of goods and people coming into Gaza resulting in severe shortages of food supplies, basic goods and importantly items like cement which is vital to rebuild the 17000+ homes that have been destroyed by Israeli attacks. Injured people are not allowed to travel abroad to receive needed medical care: consequently 400 sick patients have died because they had no solution but to stay in the besieged Gaza Strip where they spent their dying days, to the despair of their families. Do you have plans to sing for them?

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#BDS: Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp, Please do not allow the state of Israel to use your reputation to whitewash its crimes!

We are Israeli citizens. It has come to our attention that Ms. Paradis is planning on performing in Israel in March 2011, and that you are both expected to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres. You may not be aware, but there is an ongoing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, due to its policies of apartheid and occupation. We, as Israeli citizens endorse this boycott, and we are urging you to take this opportunity to take a stand on an issue crucial to human rights and as such, to human lives as well.

You may be asking yourself what all this means and what it has to do with you. Indeed, you may feel you are being thrust into a situation which you had no interest in entering in the first place. However, we hope that we can help the both of you overcome your feelings of disconnect, outline the realities of the grim world you have entered, and give you the opportunity to choose to make a difference. Make no mistake; Because of your celebrity status, the choice you make will have an instant effect on the lives of millions of children, women and men.

Palestinians are living under a brutal military regime which practices policies of apartheid in what is known as Israel and the Occupied Territories. The army that controls everyday Palestinian life, at the barrel of a gun, is Israel's army. This means that Palestinians depend on the mercy of this army, controlled by the Israeli government, which for over 60 years, has been murdering, maiming, arresting civilians, all the while stealing their lands by extreme and brutal force. While illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian Territories flourish, under the guise of "natural growth" (http://www.jewcy.com/uncategorized/unnatural_growth), Palestinian land is being robbed, homes are being demolished, whole communities left homeless, in the occupied territories as well as inside Israel. (background: http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=42702).

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#BDS: Israeli Companies to Build Palestinian City, Sign Pledge not to use Settlement Products

Israeli army radio reported this morning (28 December) that some twenty Israeli companies signed contracts to build the planned West Bank city of Rawabi, while committing themselves not to use raw materials, products or services originating in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights.

The right wing in Israel responded to this report with anger. Knesset Member Carmel Shama (Likud), head of the Economic Committee of the Knesset, called for an emergency meeting of his committee next week. And the “Eretz Israel lobby” in the Knesset, headed by Zeev Elkin (Likud) and Arieh Eldad (National Unity) announced that next week they will propose legislation prohibiting Israeli companies from boycotting Israeli products. Member of Knesset Danny Danon said that he would propose a law calling for a company to be fined the amount of any contract it signs that calls on boycotting Israeli products.

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#BDS: وقفة إحتجاجية أمام وزارة الخارجية المصرية

 نظمت  حركة " ناشطون لأجل فلسطين " وقفة إحتجاجية أمام وزاة الخارجية المصريه وتقدموا  بخطاب رسمي إلى وزير الخارجية، أحمد أبو الغيط، تطالبه فيه بطرد السفير الإسرائيلي بالقاهرة، على الرغم من أنباء هروبه، مساء الجمعة الماضي، على خلفية قضية التجسس لحساب الموساد التي تم الكشف عنها مؤخرًا.

هذا الخطاب يأتي ضمن فعاليات الحملة الشعبية لمقاطعة " الكيان الصهيوني"، تزامنًا مع إحياء الذكرى الثانية للحرب على قطاع غزة، والتي تستمر لمدة 10 أيام، حيث قررت الحركة تنظيم وقفة احتجاجية أمام وزارة الخارجية كأولى فعاليات حملتها.

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#BDS: 2010 and the Palestinian cause

By AHMAD SABRI | ARAB NEWS

In the beginning of 2010 the world saw international activists protest in Cairo to pressure the Egyptian regime into opening its borders for them to enter Gaza with their aid convoys.

They eventually succeeded and in the following months hundreds of international activists managed to break the siege of Gaza. The most famous of them was the Freedom Flotilla, which had 663 passengers from approximately 40 nationalities.

The flotilla was attacked in international waters (and this wasn't the first time for Israel). 9 activists were killed, and at least 42 were injured. The massacre generated global rage and was condemned by many governments. Israeli ambassadors were summoned from 7 countries as well as the EU. And although the US tried to block it, an international inquiry soon began. In addition, a fact-finding mission was launched by the UN Human Rights Council. They found that Israel broke international law, and found "clear evidence" for prosecuting Israel for the war crime of "willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment". The report accused Israeli commandos of summarily executing 6 passengers.

But why were international activists attempting to reach Gaza in the first place? The reason is the Israeli blockade held since 2007. The blockade killed hundreds of Palestinian patients, and destroyed Gaza's economy. It was considered a "war crime" by the UN Fact Finding mission led by Judge Richard Goldstone, and it was considered a form of "collective punishment" by both a UN humanitarian affairs chief and a UN Human Rights Council monitor in 2008. This year another international testimony was added: the International Committee of the Red Cross called the blockade a violation of the Geneva Conventions and described it as "collective punishment". Another strong legal statement in 2010 came from Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who announced Gaza's blockade as "illegal".

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#BDS: Gogol Bordello scheduled to perform in Israel

Gogol Bordello is scheduled to perform in Israel on February 28th and March 1st, 2011.

#BDS: Erekat: Boycott Settlements, Not Israel

Chief PLO negotiator addresses World Union of Jewish Sudents in Jerusalem, says' the history of the Jewish-Arab relations can change.'


Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat on Thursday told a delegation of international Jewish students that the world should boycott products of the settlements, and not Israel.

Speaking at the annual congress of the World Union of Jewish Students in Jerusalem, Erekat delivered a positive message of peace to an audience of Jewish student leaders from around the world.


“I am not here to make propaganda, I do peace because I believe it is do-able,” said Erekat, explaining that the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not a religious one. “My world is divided between those who are pro-peace and those who are not,” he said “I don’t think G-d is anti-peace.”

Erekat emphasized that the only chance for peace is the two state solution. “We’ve come a long way in the negotiations,” he said, “75% of Palestinians support a two state solution and we want to make peace with all of Israel. It is not just about putting everyone to their sides, we are destined to live together.


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#BDS: Israeli to build housing for Turkey's middle class

While Turkey drafts bill that will prevent Israelis from buying land there, mega-developer Yossi Avrahami builds major housing project in Izmir

Real estate mogul Yossi Avrahami is set to be the first Israeli to market housing to the Turkish middle class – bypassing the irksome attitude Turkey has recently expressed towards Israeli developers.

In November, the Turkish media reported that the government is drafting legislation that will prohibit Israelis from buying land in the Muslim nation. Instead, it will promote selling land to citizens of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

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#BDS: An Open Letter from Gaza: Two Years after the Massacre, a Demand for Justice

UK, December 26, (Pal Telegraph) - We the Palestinians of the Besieged Gaza Strip, on this day, two years on from Israel's genocidal attack on our families, our houses, our roads, our factories and our schools, are saying enough inaction, enough discussion, enough waiting – the time is now to hold Israel to account for its ongoing crimes against us. On the 27th of December 2008, Israel began an indiscriminate bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

The assault lasted 22 days, killing 1,417 Palestinians, 352 of them children, according to main-stream Human Rights Organizations. For a staggering 528 hours, Israeli Occupation Forces let loose their US-supplied F15s, F16s, Merkava Tanks, internationally prohibited White Phosphorous, and bombed and invaded the small Palestinian coastal enclave that is home to 1.5 million, of whom 800,000 are children and over 80 percent UN registered refugees. 

Around 5,300 remain permanently wounded.

This devastation exceeded in savagery all previous massacres suffered in Gaza, such as the 21children killed in Jabalia in March 2008 or the 19 civilians killed sheltering in their house in the Beit Hanoun Massacre of 2006. The carnage even exceeded the attacks in November 1956 in which Israeli troops indiscriminately rounded up and killed 275 Palestinians in the Southern town of Khan Younis and 111 more in Rafah.

Since the Gaza massacre of 2009, world citizens have undertaken the responsibility to pressure Israel to comply with international law, through a proven strategy of boycott, divestment and sanctions. As in the global BDS movement that was so effective in ending the apartheid South African regime, we urge people of conscience to join the BDS call made by over 170 Palestinian organizations in 2005. As in South Africa the imbalance of power and representation in this struggle can be counterbalanced by a powerful international solidarity movement with BDS at the forefront, holding Israeli policy makers to account, something the international governing community has repeatedly failed to do. Similarly, creative civilian efforts such as the Free Gaza boats that broke the siege five times, the Gaza Freedom March, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and the many land convoys must never stop their siege-breaking, highlighting the inhumanity of keeping 1.5 million Gazans in an open-air prison. 

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#BDS: Isn’t it time we stopped? (1990)

The decision of the Seattle transport authority to cancel a contract to run a series of bus ads protesting Israel’s war crimes brings to mind a similar campaign in the San Francisco Bay Area, twenty years ago this month, which had a very different outcome.

On December 3, 1990, 15 large ads, 11 feet by 5 feet, began appearing in BART stations throughout the Bay Area. They displayed a picture of an Israeli soldier pointing his rifle at a group of seated Palestinian women accompanied by a text that described the situation in Occupied Palestine on the third anniversary of the First Intifada and called for stopping US aid to Israel. The ads were produced by the Middle East Peace Network, a coalition of organizations and individuals of which I was member, at a cost of $4800.

Scheduled to run a month, they were up for less than half of that when we learned they had been covered over or taken down because, we were told by Mike Collins, the vice-president of TDI, the advertising firm responsible for placing the ads, that vandals had defaced the ads with spray paint during a “one night hit.” We would, he told us, get our money refunded. None of us bought Collins’ story, particularly when he presented no evidence that the ads had actually been defaced, an act that would have involved the culprit(s) descending into the path of the subway cars and risking touching the hot third rail. Our suspicions were validated soon afterward when I and another member of the network discovered one of the ads, pristine and untouched, leaning against a back wall at one of the BART stations.

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#BDS: 'Boycott Israel campaign escalating'

Almost four years into the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, misery is a part of daily life for the enclave's 1.5 million residents, who are living in what some people call 'the world's largest open-air prison.'

Press TV has interviewed Kamel Hawwash, the vice chairman of Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London, to ask him his view on the matter.

Press TV: You are sitting in London and representing Palestine Solidarity Campaign. What type of message does this all send to the international community in your perspective?

Kamel Hawwash: Well, the message is that the international community has not done enough to bring (the) Israelis to account -- that the people in Palestine and in Gaza haven't been forgotten. Tomorrow, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organizations are holding a vigil outside the Israeli embassy in London because we haven't forgotten.

But, there is no doubt that the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza has continued, and at the same time -- and we must not forget this -- that an out-and-out attack on Palestinians continues in the West Bank and in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) with the continuation of settlement building, continuation of house evictions and demolitions.

So, the international community is absolutely guilty of not bringing Israel to account. We know that the American administration -- which came in supposedly on a ticket of trying to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East al-Quds (Jerusalem) -- has almost washed its hands of it because it has decided it cannot take on this right-wing extremist and I'd say racist Israeli government.

So, what we have is a high level of awareness among citizens of the world. There is a lot of support for the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza. The flotilla … was an example of attempts to break the siege and there have been other convoys that tried to bring food and medicine to the people of Gaza, but they need to be free. They need to be free of the continuing occupation by the Israelis and they need to be able to develop a state for the Palestinian people which will allow them to live in freedom, just like any other people in the world.

So, we must continue to keep the pressure up; various organizations and people around the world [must keep up the pressure] on the Israelis -- and in particular, to look at issues that will cause Israel problems including the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement because Israel only begins to do things when it feels it is hurting. And one way of doing that is to intensify the campaign of isolating it through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign. 


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#BDS: Seattle anti-Israel demonstration in wake of Metro ad controversy

SEATTLE – An anti-Israel demonstration made its way to a rainy downtown Seattle Monday night, following a weeklong debate over Middle Eastern bus ads that put King County Metro Transit in the middle.

About 50 people gathered at Westlake Center, marking the second anniversary of Israel's military action in Gaza. The protesters say they want to break the silence over Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

"We'd like Israel to be held accountable for its actions and our government to stop spending our tax dollars to support Israel's war crimes," said Ed Mast, Mideast Awareness Campaign.

The local friction broke out last week over controversial, dueling bus advertisements that were slated to appear on Metro buses -- one group's ads alleged "Israeli War Crimes" and another countered with "Palestinian War Crimes."

Metro decided to drop both ads while it reviews its non commercial ad policy.


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#BDS: Spanish band plays at Hebron school

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- A Spanish band on Monday gave a concert at a Hebron school for students who must cross military checkpoints every day.

The band performed at Corboda elementary school in Hebron's Old City. The school was named after the Andalusian city in southern Spain.

The musicians played several compositions and pupils were given a chance to play their instruments.


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