#BDS: Is the settlement boycott misdirected?

Interesting article about the importance of boycotting Israeli products, not just settlement products, though i disagree with much of the rest.


"The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) of Israel continues to be one of the most controversial issues regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a remarkably short time, the call has achieved numerous successes including the divestment of major European companies such Veolia in Israeli business deals, the support of international artists such as Roger Waters and the end of academic relationships with universities from South Africa to the United States. While BDS continues on its nonviolent path of resistance to Israel’s 44 year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, progressive Jewish voices in the United States and Israel have been slow to embrace the potential of Palestinian nonviolence.

Now almost six years after the initial BDS call, some elements in the Jewish milieu have adopted a version of BDS called ’settlement boycott.’ On the surface, settlement boycott seems to be a wise ‘middle way’ for Jews that are critical of Israeli policy yet unwilling to join a Palestinian-led nonviolent initiative. However, a deeper look at the logic of settlement boycott reveals serious logical failures of the movement."

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#BDS: Activists in towns and cities across Norway take action on Palestine Land Day

#BDS: BDS and Beyond

"Thirty five years ago today, a peaceful general strike by Israeli-Palestinians was met with bullets. Six people were killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in what became known as Land Day. Two and a half months later, the Soweto uprisingbegan in South Africa, claiming far more lives, but laying down a marker in the struggle against apartheid. The timing of the two revolts melded the stirrings of solidarity consciousness with the Palestinians to apartheid comparisons with South Africa.

Three years before, in 1973, the UN General Assembly had adopted the International Convention on the  Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Its definition of apartheid applied to “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

The question of whether Palestinians and Jews actually constitute distinct and separate racial groups is moot, but Israel’s domination and systematic oppression of Palestinians within and without the 1949 armistice line is well documented. The clear and accurate comparisons made by Bishop Desmond Tutu, the UN’s special rapporteurs John Dugard and Richard Falk, Uri Davis, and many others are not easily dispatched. But questions of terminology are political, as well as legal."

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#BDS: Boycott Max Brenner Chocolates

"Max Brenner Chocolates is a 100% Israeli-owned company belonging to the Strauss Group, the second largest Israeli food and beverage company.  On the “corporate responsibility” section of its website, the Strauss Group emphasizes the support it gives to the Israeli army.

Highlighting that it wants to “sweeten their special moment” the Strauss group touts that, for more than 30 years, it has supported the Golani reconnaissance platoon renowned for its murderous assaults on Palestinian civilians and its involvement in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon."

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#BDS: London activists target TESCO on Palestine Land Day

#BDS: WHY MOTOROLA

"Since the founding of Israel in 1948, Motorola has been involved in assisting the state in carrying out its repressive policies towards Palestinians. Motorola established Motorola Israel as its first wholly owned subsidiary outside of the United States in 1964.

Motorola Israel profits handsomely from Israel's militarism and ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands, earning over $1 billion in annual revenues in 2007. As Motorola's chief operating officer Mike Zafirovski put it: “Our investment in Israel is one of the most successful we have made”.

Motorola today enables Israeli apartheid as Motorola South Africa once enabled South African apartheid. Forty percent owned by its American parent, Motorola South Africa supplied mobile radio transmitters to the South African police.These radio transmitters helped police suppress protest against white rule. Motorola’s dealings with the apartheid regime came to an end in 1985, when Motorola sold its South African operations to South African electronic company Allied Technologies Ltd. (Altech) on the condition that the latter cease equipment sales to South African agencies. The agreement was a win for US anti-apartheid activists, who had pressured Motorola to break its ties with the South African regime and had helped to pass municipal laws, in New York and elsewhere that prohibited city governments from doing business with companies supplying equipment used to enforce apartheid in South Africa."

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#BDS: SAIA launches divestment campaign at York and University of Toronto

#BDS: New Zealand's Opera Diva Dame Kiri asked to boycott Israel

"New Zealand’s iconic opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, has ignored a request to cancel an upcoming visit to Israel.

Global Peace and Justice Auckland have called on the star to abandon plans to sing at the Israel Festival in late May.

The call has been made in support of the growing international BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israeli apartheid."

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#BDS: Students at Carleton University call on the university to divest pension funds from companies doing business with Israel

"Carleton University administrators were forced Tuesday to abandon a meeting of the board of governors when approximately 200 students, yelling, chanting and shouting slogans about democracy, blocked access to the meeting room.
The students effectively occupied the atrium of Robertston Hall, preventing several board members from attending a meeting that included, among other agenda items, consideration of the university's operating budget. While campus safety staff were much in evidence, they were unable to ensure access to the meeting for arriving board members.
"Unfortunately, the student demonstrators would not allow a number of the board members to get through (the crowd) to attend the meeting," university spokesman Jason MacDonald said. That, he said, forced the administration to cancel.
The students claimed to be protesting the administration's decision to prevent them from attending the board meeting and to debate a motion calling on the university to divest pension funds from companies doing business with Israel.
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#BDS: Rawabi remains settler-colonial sub-contractor

"On 30 March, Palestinians will celebrate the 35th anniversary of Land Day, commemorating the death of six Palestinian Arabs (five of whom were citizens of Israel) who actively resisted the decision of the Israeli Government in the 1970s to intensify the confiscation of Arab lands for settlements designated for “Jews” only.

Also in March, the 81st issue of PYALARA’s Youth Times was printed, featuring Raniya Atallah’s splendid investigative report on the development of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, nine kilometers north of Ramallah with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean, project of national importance and the symbol of the Palestinian right to build.

On 8 February 2011, I published the summary of my research on Rawabi, and its acceptance of a large donation of pine trees from the Zionist charity the Jewish National Fund (JNF)."

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#BDS: Israeli Settlement on Evergreen's Campus

"On March 28th, 2011, students and alumni at The Evergreen State College began a 62 hour Vigil for Human Rights by erecting an Israeli settlement. This is meant to demonstrate support for divestment from companies profiting off of the illegal occupation of Palestine, such as Caterpillar Inc. Former Evergreen student Rachel Corrie was run over and killed by an Israeli Army Caterpillar bulldozer while protecting a Palestinian home in Rafah, Palestine in 2003. The Corrie family is suing the Israeli government for damages in a civil trial commencing on April 3rd in Haifa District Court.

The Vigil for Human Rights follows a landslide electoral victory, in which divestment passed with 79% of the vote and a resolution to ban the use of Caterpillar Inc. equipment on campus passed with 71%. Both resolutions received unanimous support from the student union. The 62 hour vigil will continue through Wednesday, March 30th to commemorate Palestinian Land Day. Each hour represents a year since Palestinians first lost their rights to their ancestral homeland. Land Day recognizes Israel’s continued theft of indigenous Palestinian land. In the past 20 years settlements have doubled in size, while the US has blocked actions meant to cease this expansion. On February 18, 2011, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution, supported unanimously by the council’s 14 other members, calling Israeli settlements illegal."

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#BDS: Action Alert: Sign the Petition and Tell Bed Bath & Beyond to Stop Carrying Illegal Settlement Products

"Big box retailer Bed Bath & Beyond carries two products that are manufactured in illegal Israeli settlements: Ahava cosmetics and SodaStream home beverage carbonating devices. Sign this petition to tell Bed Bath & Beyond to stop selling these products which violate international law.  

On The Palestinian Land Day, this Wednesday, March 30, 2011, activists will deliver copies of the letter below and petition signatures to Bed Bath & Beyond stores that carry these products around the US and will fax the letter and signatures to the corporate headquarters and to CEO Steven Temares."

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#BDS: BDS Day of Action: Veolia HQ

"In an action organised by West London PSC this afternoon in commemoration of Land Day, 27 protestors visited Veolia’s head office on Pentonville Road, near London’s King Cross along with a letter demanding that Veolia cease providing services to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem.

The security operative at the reception desk angrily demanded that protestors cease taking photographs and leave the building. After explaining their presence, those present vowed to stay until the letter was accepted – despite threats to call the police if they did not leave. In fact, the police did arrive shortly afterward, but took no action aside from asking for more information about the campaign."

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#BDS: NLG endorses international BDS call to "Stop the JNF!"

"The National Lawyers Guild has endorsed the international call to Stop the Jewish National Fund, a campaign that will launch on Land Day, March 30, 2011. The JNF is a key pillar of the colonization of Palestine - from the founding of the State of Israel to the present. The JNF enjoys charity status in over 50 countries. This is despite its role in the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land, the theft of their property, the funding of historic and present-day colonies, and the destruction of the natural environment.

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) [1] was instrumental in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba [2], 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." 

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#BDS: Video: The BDS Tour