Feb 25, 2011
#BDS: BDS Day of Action – March 30, 2011
"Commemorate Land Day 2011 by Joining the Global BDS Day of Action
30 March 2011
The BDS National Committee (BNC) is calling on you to unite in your different capacities and struggles to join the Global BDS Day of Action on Land Day, 30 March 2011, in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s right to self determination on their ancestral land.
Inspired and buoyed by the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and their unique manifestation of courage, dignity, civility and determination, we stand resolutely with worldwide struggles for self determination, freedom, democracy, social justice and equality, and we call for intensifying BDS actions globally as the main form of solidarity with Palestinian rights.
The Palestinian Land Day commemorates the day in 1976 when Israeli military forces shot and killed six young Palestinian citizens of Israel. These brave youth were among thousands protesting the Israeli government’s expropriation of Palestinian land to build new Jewish-only colonies and expand existing ones. Today, Land Day symbolizes Palestinian resistance to Israel’s ongoing land expropriation, colonization, occupation and apartheid. We salute and stand with the similarly popular and determined Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, confirming that struggles for freedom, justice and equal rights everywhere are one. To the people of Tunisia and Egypt we say: “Your struggle is ours, as ours is yours. Your freedom is ours, as ours is yours.”
At this time, we are also reminded of the 20th anniversary of the failed attempts that started in Madrid in 1991 to make peacewithout justice and human rights. The recently revealed “Palestine Papers” have confirmed beyond any doubt what has already been known to many: Israel refuses to comply with international law and rejects all forms of just peace, regardless of any steep concessions offered by unelected and unrepresentative Palestinian officials. As in the heroic struggle for freedom and against apartheid in South Africa, it is evident today that only sustained, effective and morally consistent international pressure — especially in the form of creative, context-sensitive BDS campaigns — can compel Israel to abide by its obligations under international law and respect Palestinian rights, foremost among which is our right to self determination and freedom.
Inspired by a century of Palestinian civil resistance, the South African anti-apartheid movement, and the intifada of the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples, the BNC calls on people of conscience all over the world to join the global BDS Day of Action through engaging in effective, creative and visible actions. We specifically call on you to:
1. Launch and support divestment initiatives to encourage and pressure individuals, pension funds, institutions and corporations to shed their investments in Israel in order to feed and profit from Israel’s war, occupation and apartheid economy;
2. Take initiatives to boycott products and services of Israeli and international corporations that sustain Israel’s apartheid, colonialism and occupation;
3. Pursue legal action towards ending Israel’s impunity, including by investigating and prosecuting in national courts and international tribunals Israeli war criminals and corporations that are complicit in Israeli violations of international law.
4. Urge artists to join the spectacularly growing cultural boycott of Israel by refusing to provide a cultural fig leaf for Israeli apartheid. Artists and cultural figures in South Africa, Ireland, the UK, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, India, Australia, the U.S., Brazil, Norway, Sweden, among others, have heeded the PACBI-led and internationally endorsed call for a cultural boycott, thus sending a clear message to Israel that its occupation and discrimination against Palestinians are unacceptable. Far from being “above politics,” many in the cultural world now recognize, Israeli cultural institutions play a key role in the “Brand Israel” campaign of the Israeli foreign ministry, aimed at diverting attention from and whitewashing Israel’s colonial policies and war crimes;
5. Initiate and promote incremental academic boycott initiatives leading to termination of all institutional links with Israeli universities: including petitions, statements and awareness raising campaigns to highlight the role played by these academic institutions in planning, justifying and perpetuating the state’s colonial and apartheid policies."
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#BDS: Madrid protests Israeli visit, urge ban
"Hundreds of demonstrators in Spain have protested a visit by Israeli President Shimon Peres, calling for the immediate lifing of the siege on Gaza by the Tel Aviv regime.
Human rights associations and Palestinian living in Madrid were among the protesters gathered in front of the ministry of foreign affairs on Thursday, calling on the EU to impose sanctions on the regime and to boycott Israeli companies.
Protesters also demanded that Peres testify in court and be held accountable for last May's deadly Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound freedom Flotilla and its massive violations of human rights against the Palestinian people, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Spain's Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told Peres that his country was ready to expand strategic ties with Israel beyond issues regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Demonstrators were chanting slogans such as “Peres the murderer,” “free Palestine” and “Zapatero accomplice of a criminal.”
Human rights associations and Palestinian living in Madrid were among the protesters gathered in front of the ministry of foreign affairs on Thursday, calling on the EU to impose sanctions on the regime and to boycott Israeli companies.
Protesters also demanded that Peres testify in court and be held accountable for last May's deadly Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound freedom Flotilla and its massive violations of human rights against the Palestinian people, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Spain's Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told Peres that his country was ready to expand strategic ties with Israel beyond issues regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Demonstrators were chanting slogans such as “Peres the murderer,” “free Palestine” and “Zapatero accomplice of a criminal.”
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#BDS: Action Alert: NY LGBT Center Cancels Israel Apartheid Week Event
Courtesy of Pinkwatching Israel:
"The New York LGBT Center caved to pressure mounted by “genocide pornographer” Michael Lucas to cancel an event by Israel Apartheid Week organizers originally scheduled for March 5th. Lucas vowed to target the center’s donors to force them to cancel. This tactic, unfortunately, worked.
What Michael Lucas and the NY LGBT Center don’t know is that there is a growing movement of progressive queers who understand how and why queerness is directly implicated in Israel’s PR strategy to shift attention away from its brutal occupation of Palestine and its continuing annexation of Palestinian land. The Center should take note of what happened during Toronto Pride 2009, when organizers also attempted to silence Queer anti-apartheid activists and prevent them from participating in the march. They lost – because people refuse to be silenced, because people refuse to buy Israel’s insulting lies any longer.
It is time to fight back again and let the NY LGBT Center know that their decision is ill-informed and discriminatory. Sign the petition here."
"The New York LGBT Center caved to pressure mounted by “genocide pornographer” Michael Lucas to cancel an event by Israel Apartheid Week organizers originally scheduled for March 5th. Lucas vowed to target the center’s donors to force them to cancel. This tactic, unfortunately, worked.
What Michael Lucas and the NY LGBT Center don’t know is that there is a growing movement of progressive queers who understand how and why queerness is directly implicated in Israel’s PR strategy to shift attention away from its brutal occupation of Palestine and its continuing annexation of Palestinian land. The Center should take note of what happened during Toronto Pride 2009, when organizers also attempted to silence Queer anti-apartheid activists and prevent them from participating in the march. They lost – because people refuse to be silenced, because people refuse to buy Israel’s insulting lies any longer.
It is time to fight back again and let the NY LGBT Center know that their decision is ill-informed and discriminatory. Sign the petition here."
#BDS: McEwan's criticism appears hypocritical
"After rejecting the Palestinian call to boycott the state-sponsored Jerusalem Prize, Ian McEwan has massaged his conscience by demonstrating against home demolitions in East Jerusalem, criticisingIsrael in his acceptance speech, and donating his prize money to an Israeli-Palestinian peace group (Report, February 20). Should his detractors, as your correspondent David Halpin (Letters, February 22) suggests, now "eat their words"? We think not. Had McEwan refused the prize, protested in Jerusalem at his own expense, and attacked not Israel's "nihilism" but its colonialist zeal, his own words of condemnation would have had integrity and bite.
As it is, McEwan has given Mayor Nir Barkat a golden platform for his outrageous views. Jerusalem is not a city where all may "express themselves in a free way". Activists are arrested and deported, while racist internal laws allow the municipality to flout the Geneva convention by creating illegal settlements – a policy designed to prevent East Jerusalem from becoming the capital of a Palestinian state. To criticise these settlements while accepting the laurels of those who build them appears rank hypocrisy. Likewise, McEwan declares it is "urgent to keep talking" (Report, February 18), yet after his one official defence of his position (Letters, January 26), he has ignored all public and private requests to continue this debate. So much for courtesy, dialogue and engagement."
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#BDS: McEwan's lousy acceptance speech, and reasons to be be cautiously optimistic
"Ian McEwan went to Jerusalem, shook the hands of apartheid officers, hobnobbed with war criminals, and gave a lousyacceptance speech, though I must admit not as lousy as the petulant and self-indulgent comic relief delivered last year by Margaret Atwood and Amitav Gosh after they collected their tainted million dollar. As you'll remember, Atwood and Gosh dedicated their acceptance speech to criticizing those who dared interfere with their sacred right to be given money, and compared their predicament to that of writers tortured and imprisoned for their writings. McEwan, while clearly unhappy about being so inconvenienced, calibrated his speech to appease the criticism and at least tried to prove he was not, as he was in fact, mollycoddling apartheid.
McEwan is an imperial liberal who believes passionately in the supremacy of European culture. Of course, perish the thought that he would define it that way. He would rather call it "secularism", or "rationalism", or whatever. But it is what it is. He is not therefore the first person one would turn to for supporting an anti-colonial struggle. Just listen to how he describes, in Jerusalem, the uprising in Egypt:
McEwan is an imperial liberal who believes passionately in the supremacy of European culture. Of course, perish the thought that he would define it that way. He would rather call it "secularism", or "rationalism", or whatever. But it is what it is. He is not therefore the first person one would turn to for supporting an anti-colonial struggle. Just listen to how he describes, in Jerusalem, the uprising in Egypt:
Because of course, Egyptian misfortunes have nothing to do with outsiders. Nobody poured billions of dollars into Egypt each year for forty years to maintain a brutal and tyrannical regime. Nobody feted and embraced Mubarak for the way he starved his people for the benefit of global neoliberal accumulation. It was all the fault of Egyptians who failed the test of maturity administered by the white man. They did not "take responsibility" for their fate. They were not "constructive." Maybe, of course that is exactly what McEwan implies in this formulation, they deserved tyranny."When Egyptians decide en masse to reform their society and think constructively, and take responsibility for their nation into their own hands, they will be less inclined to blame outsiders for all their misfortunes.
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Feb 24, 2011
#BDS: Call for an international campaign to Stop the Jewish National Fund
[العربية -- Español -- Français]
"The Jewish National Fund (JNF)[1] was instrumental in the ethnic cleansing[2] of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba, and continues to play a central role in maintaining Israel's regime of apartheid.[3] The JNF provided political, financial and intelligence[4] support for the Zionist forces in their conquest, massacres and ethnic cleansing operations that characterized the 1948-49 war and the Palestinian Nakba. Today, the JNF controls vast properties belonging to millions of Palestinians, developing them exclusively for persons of “Jewish nationality,” a concept established and promoted in the JNF’s charter to exclude all others.
"The Jewish National Fund (JNF)[1] was instrumental in the ethnic cleansing[2] of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba, and continues to play a central role in maintaining Israel's regime of apartheid.[3] The JNF provided political, financial and intelligence[4] support for the Zionist forces in their conquest, massacres and ethnic cleansing operations that characterized the 1948-49 war and the Palestinian Nakba. Today, the JNF controls vast properties belonging to millions of Palestinians, developing them exclusively for persons of “Jewish nationality,” a concept established and promoted in the JNF’s charter to exclude all others.
The JNF was created in 1901 to acquire land and property rights in Palestine and beyond for exclusive Jewish settlement. While indigenous Palestinians are barred from leasing[5], building on, managing or working their own land, the JNF holds the land in trust for “those of Jewish race or descendency” living anywhere in the world to “promote the interests of Jews in the prescribed region.”[6]
To ensure such racist control over the majority of confiscated Palestinian lands, Israel adopted the JNF model of discriminatory land management as official state policy. In 1953, the Israeli Knesset legislated special status for JNF, enabling it to carry out governmental functions as a Zionist institution (“for Jews only”). The JNF continues to operate as a state-chartered organization[7] under Israeli law with direct control over some thirteen percent of the land in pre-1967 Israel. Further, the JNF appoints six out of thirteen members of the governing board of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), which manages the JNF’s thirteen percent, in addition to another eighty percent of all land in Israel. It is through this relationship with the JNF that Israel, while portraying itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, in fact, outsources the land-management functions of the state to this discriminatory state-chartered organization.
After the 1948 Nakba and the expulsion of approximately two-thirds of the Palestinian population from their homeland, the JNF was repackaged as an environmentalist organization carrying out forestation activities. The JNF's forests, parks and recreational facilities, planted and built on the ruins of hundreds of destroyed and depopulated Palestinian villages, have critically served to veil from public view the continuing official Israeli attempts to erase the traces of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The JNF is thus fundamentally complicit in the denial of displaced Palestinians' rights to return, restitution and compensation, and in green-washing Israel's regime of apartheid, colonization and occupation."
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#BDS: Chilean miners: Don't allow Israel to exploit your suffering
"Representatives of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, the official host of the eight day visit by the Chilean miners who survived a record 69 days underground following an August 2010 cave-in at the San Jose copper-gold mine, refused entry to to Connie Hackbarth, Executive Director of the Alternative Information Center (AIC). Officials told her that only journalists formally recognized by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) were permitted to attend the press conference, and then only if they had received invitations via the GPO and confirmed their attendance. Hackbarth’s comments about the crucial importance of independent journalists, as clearly seen recently in Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya, were ignored and she was told not to be “ideological” and “to stop wasting (our) time”.
Despite Israeli government assurances that the visit by the Chilean miners would not be a “circus”, the massive presence of “official” journalists at the press conference and the planned conduct of a private party for Castellano-language journalists on 24 February clearly demonstrate Israeli intentions: to derive the maximum public relations benefit from the visit.
Chile is home to the largest Palestinian community outside of the Middle East, numbered at some 300,000.
Numerous Palestinian civil society organizations requested the miners not to accept Israel’s invitation to visit, or to combine it with a visit to the occupied Palestinian Territory with Palestinian guides."
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#BDS: Israel organizes a speaking tour in the US to counter Apartheid Week
I wonder how much these 'volunteers' are paid:
"Group of young Israelis, chosen by Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs to go on a speaking tour of the US.
"Group of young Israelis, chosen by Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs to go on a speaking tour of the US.
#BDS: BART Riders say no to racist doublespeak in our subway stations
Culture jammers target ads, like the one above, blaming Palestinians for violence in the Palestine-Israel region.
More photos here
#BDS: Protesters picket Portland event launching an Oregon-Israel business alliance
"About 20 protesters demanding rights for Palestinians picketed Tuesday outside the Portland launch of an organization formed to boost business between Oregon and Israel.
Former Gov. Ted Kulongoski spoke to more than twice that number at theOregon-Israel Business Alliancekickoff inside the University of Oregon White Stag Building in Old Town. Kulongoski, who led a trade mission to Israel last year near the end of his term, favors increased dealings with Israel.
Outside, protester Steve Kerpen held a sign that said "Stop funding Israeli apartheid." Kerpen, of Portland, said he saw Israelis mistreating Palestinians during a visit to the West Bank in May. "I'm Jewish, but I've seen what's happening," Kerpen said. "It just seems a horrible thing to support a country that does this to its citizens."
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#BDS: An open letter to Queer academics, artists, and activists
"Dear queers, academics, artists and activists,
Some of you might be planning a visit to Israel to participate, and maybe even support, queer, cultural or academic events. Some of you might be visiting for religious or personal reasons, or perhaps simply out of curiosity. While an invitation to Israel might seem flattering and exciting, we hope that – before taking a stand and booking that flight – you read the following open letter, written by Palestinian queers, activists, academics and artists, to queers, activists, academics and artists around the world.
We are determined to inform every person wishing to travel to Israel on the political and social realities of life in Israel/Palestine. “Occupation,” “Palestinians,” “Gaza,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “boycott,” and “refugees” are not terms you would come across in flyers, itineraries, and travel brochures promoting Israel; yet, these words define the daily lives of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. As Palestinians and as queers, these words have shaped our history and continue to determine our future.
Some of you might feel that boycotting Israel would be too one-sided for such a complex conflict. You might think that it is too controversial. Some of you are probably wondering whether this boycott movement is actually effective. To start the conversation, we put together background information on BDS and Israel/Palestine; and we also encourage you to get in touch and explore with us any questions or issues you might have with BDS. Our aim is for every person to have a historically-informed understanding of Israel/Palestine, and for every queer, academic, artist, and activist to support the Palestinian civil society’s call for BDS."
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#BDS: Famous Greek composer asks his government to arrest Netanyahu
"ATHENS, (PIC)-- Greek composer and orchestra conductor Mikis Theodorakis has asked his government to arrest Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and put him on trial for his crimes in Gaza and Lebanon.
Theodorakis, in a TV interview on Monday evening, attacked Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou for meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, who the composer says was persona non grata in Greece due to his "war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza."He said that Athens should have rather arrested Netanyahu and put him on trial."
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#BDS: New Yorkers protest Israel Philharmonic, more protests planned in other cities
"February 22 – Seventy New Yorkers protested the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s (IPO) performance at Carnegie Hall Tuesday evening, using chants, songs and street theater to highlight the IPO’s role in whitewashing Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinian people. The orchestra’s performances are being met with protests in six of the seven cities on its US tour, including a protest last Sunday evening in West Palm Beach, an upcoming Wednesday protest in Newark, and further protests in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as reported by the Israeli news website YNet.
Noelle Ghoussaini from Adalah-NY explained, “Tonight we sent a clear message to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” campaign that their music cannot drown out Palestinians’ calls for justice.” The US protests respond to the call from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) to boycott cultural institutions like the IPO that work to normalize Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and whitewash the oppression of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and in exile.
Hundreds of well-dressed concert-goers paused on the edge of the sidewalk in front of Carnegie Hall, and looked across the street at the protesters’ signs, and listened to their chants and songs. Many were handed a mock IPO program that featured a cover photo of a past IPO performance in front of Israeli tanks for the Israeli army, and, on the inside, the PACBI’s call for an international boycott of the IPO.
Protesters held signs saying, “Israel Fiddles while Palestine Burns,” “Justice Presto not Lento,” “Without Justice There’s No Harmony,” and “Boycott the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra;” and they carried a banner with the words “Don’t Harmonize with Israeli Apartheid,” surrounded on each side by a violin with a rifle barrel as its neck. Protesters chanted, “We love Gustav, we love Mahler, but occupation makes us holler;” “For liberation take a stand, don’t let Is-ra-el rebrand;” and “Muslims, Jews, Atheists and Christians, stand for justice like Egyptians.”
In a street theater skit, a protester-turned-IPO conductor asked the crowd, “How can apartheid continue without us promoting the new, positive, aesthetically vibrant and civilized Israel? Don’t forget, there is “art” in “apartheid.” The conductor instructed three violinists to play progressively louder in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to drown out and cover up Israeli crimes against Palestinians that kept welling up behind the orchestra."
Noelle Ghoussaini from Adalah-NY explained, “Tonight we sent a clear message to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” campaign that their music cannot drown out Palestinians’ calls for justice.” The US protests respond to the call from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) to boycott cultural institutions like the IPO that work to normalize Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and whitewash the oppression of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and in exile.
Hundreds of well-dressed concert-goers paused on the edge of the sidewalk in front of Carnegie Hall, and looked across the street at the protesters’ signs, and listened to their chants and songs. Many were handed a mock IPO program that featured a cover photo of a past IPO performance in front of Israeli tanks for the Israeli army, and, on the inside, the PACBI’s call for an international boycott of the IPO.
Protesters held signs saying, “Israel Fiddles while Palestine Burns,” “Justice Presto not Lento,” “Without Justice There’s No Harmony,” and “Boycott the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra;” and they carried a banner with the words “Don’t Harmonize with Israeli Apartheid,” surrounded on each side by a violin with a rifle barrel as its neck. Protesters chanted, “We love Gustav, we love Mahler, but occupation makes us holler;” “For liberation take a stand, don’t let Is-ra-el rebrand;” and “Muslims, Jews, Atheists and Christians, stand for justice like Egyptians.”
In a street theater skit, a protester-turned-IPO conductor asked the crowd, “How can apartheid continue without us promoting the new, positive, aesthetically vibrant and civilized Israel? Don’t forget, there is “art” in “apartheid.” The conductor instructed three violinists to play progressively louder in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to drown out and cover up Israeli crimes against Palestinians that kept welling up behind the orchestra."
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