#BDS: Vision: How Flash Mobs and Lady Gaga are Energizing Protests for Palestine

"Not long before Christmas, in a Best Buy in a St. Louis mall, 86-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein performed a synchronized song-and-dance number to the tune of “Telephone,” rocking black pants and a turtleneck in lieu of Lady Gaga's metal-studded bra and crotch cover. Epstein, along with a cohort of mostly young women, urged the bewildered holiday shoppers to “hang up on Motorola,” a company that sells Israel surveillance equipment used in the Occupation. "Aiding in apartheid and being sneaky/tell us what you're doing with your technology," they sang.

On YouTube, the Lady Gaga parody became something of an instant classic in a small but burgeoning activist video genre. “I had always wanted to be a part of a flash mob,” explained coordinator and co-lyricist/choreographer Banan Ead, a 32-year-old Palestinian-American, remembering the fad’s heyday a good half-decade ago."

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#BDS: DJ Ewan Pearson expresses full support of BDS!

"A funny old day on Twitter. A quick message applauding Beatport’s donation of a day’s profits towards Japan’s relief effort is re-tweeted a hundred times. Simultaneously, I am arguing with friends about the ethics of DJing in Israel. When the earth buckles and the seas surge victims quickly have our sympathy. But with political disasters it’s much trickier to find a consensus. Some kinds of solidarity are easier than others.

I have always quietly turned gigs in Israel down, appalled by the accounts I’ve read of the Occupation, the mistreatment of its Palestinian population and recently the blockade on Gaza. The systematic manner in which one set of citizens is being de-humanised parallels the South African Apartheid era when I first heard music and political protest linked and became aware of musicians refusing to travel in order to draw attention to a political situation.

But music transcends politics doesn’t it? Not at all. If music is of and about the world it has to engage it. Musicians are not ambassadors with carte blanche to go where we like as we’re spreading an implicit  message of love. Too damn easy. Sometimes we have to say tougher and less palatable stuff, in this case that the actions of a purportedly democratic government in the name of a decent people are doing them massive harm, and the rest of us too as we sit idly by.

Art and politics at their best are about imagining yourself in someone else’s place, trying to feel what someone in quite different circumstances is experiencing. This is where solidarity comes from. I have more in common with a left-leaning cosmopolitan raver in Tel Aviv than a Palestinian in the occupied territories, but to go there and DJ is to say the status quo is fine, that it’s OK to forget about what’s happening for a moment. To paraphrase Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, it’s buying an alcoholic friend a bottle of scotch when you should be phoning AA."

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#BDS: Frameline Film Festival Pinkwashing Israeli Apartheid

"For the second year in a row, and after a short break, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the largest queer cultural event in the world, shamefully continues taking funding from the Israeli Consulate, violating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) guidelines[1].

Frameline, the presenter of the festival, has ignored the calls issued by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT) in 2007, which has been joined by many other queer groups and well-known filmmakers.

By continuing to accept money from the Israeli consulate, Frameline is participating in the re-brand Israel campaign, and is helping it pinkwash its negative image, its grave violations of international law, human rights, and crimes against the Palestinian people. By accepting the Consulate’s money, Frameline is actively helping to create a false positive image of Israel as a queer-friendly “democracy,” turning people’s attention from occupation and apartheid."

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#BDS: Palestine’s Gandhi: Omar Barghouti, BDS and int’l humanitarian law

"On 14 December 2010, the Marrickville Council in inner-west Sydney, led by its Greens mayor Fiona Byrne, expressed its support for, in her words, ‘the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, to exert peaceful pressure on the government of Israel to honour its human rights obligations to the Palestinians’ (Fiona Byrne, ‘Rates, roads – and justice in Gaza’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 April 2011). As is well known, the council’s now failed proposal (Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2011) to support BDS was controversial and widely ridiculed, and not only in the feral newspaper The Australian. In conversation, friends and acquaintances who live in the Marrickville municipal area made it clear to us that while they are sympathetic to the Palestinians, they feel such an action is rather absurd and silly for a local council so far from the Middle East. They also thought the Council hadn’t provided its constituents with necessary information. They have a point in terms of the council’s failure to communicate the rationale of a BDS. But was the Marrickville Council support for BDS really so ridiculous? In this essay we try to provide information about BDS that can help stimulate discussion and debate. We contend that supporting BDS is not only necessary in order to help save the Palestinian people from an ongoing catastrophe, but vitally important for the self-respect of the international community."

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#BDS: الاكاديمية الامنية الاسرائيلية تدرب رجال الحراسات الخاصة للعمل في الدول الاسلامية بمشاركة عربية

مجموعة من الرجال ذوي العضلات المفتولة يلبسون الزي البدوي العربي التقليدي ويتدربون على اطلاق النار في صحراء النقب داخل قاعدة عسكرية اسرائيلية ويستعدون للعمل في افغانستان او العراق او في اي دولة عربية او اسلامية.

اولئك هم رجال يعملون فيما يسمى فرق الحمايات الخاصة، أو كما تسميهم بعض المنظمات الحقوقية بالمرتزقة.

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يعملون لمن يدفع اكثر، ولا يحملون اي اجندات سياسية وانما خبرة طويلة في مجال الخدمة الامنية.

هم من جنسيات مختلفة ويعملون لصالح شركات متعددة الجنسية لحماية شخصيات او مقرات ويتدربون هنا على اساليب مكافحة الارهاب على الطريقة الاسرائيلية.

العقيدة الاسرائيلية فيما يخص القوات الخاصة تعتمد على المبدأ الهجومي ولكنها تعتمد ايضا على تكتيكات قوات المظللين والموساد والشاباك او المخابرات الاسرائيلية العاملة في الاراضي الفلسطينية.

وقد تدرب أكثر من اربعة عشر ألف عسكري في الاكاديمية الامنية الاسرائيلية منذ تأسيسها قبل ربع قرن وبقيت نشاطاتها سرية وتنفي تدريبها لمرتزقة.

إقرأ/ي المزيد

#BDS: American comedian Sarah Silverman set to visit Israel

"The comedian and actress will participate in this year's Presidential Conference and will do one night of stand-up comedy in Tel Aviv.

Jewish comedian and actress Sarah Silverman will visit Israel next month to take part in the Israeli Presidential Conference, and plans to perform one night of stand-up comedy in Tel Aviv on June 25.

Silverman will host a performance of fellow comedian Todd Glass as part of the conference, the theme of which is "Facing Tomorrow".

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#BDS: الهاشمية تتراجع عن المشروع التطبيعي مع جامعة بن غوريون والطلبة ينهون اعتصامهم

خاص- قررت جامعة الهاشمية قبل قليل التراجع عن المشروع التطبيعي مع جامعة بن غوريون ، فيما اقدم الطلبة على انهاء اعتصامهم الذي جاء بدعوة من كتلة التجديد العربية وطلاب الكرامة بالتعاون مع الاتجاه الإسلامي في الجامعة وبمشاركة القوى الطلابية المستقلة،حيث اعتصم العشرات من طلبة الجامعة الهاشمية ظهر اليوم احتجاجاً ورفضاً للمشروع لتطبيعي الذي باشرت الجامعة بعمله بالتنسيق مع جامعة بن غوريون الصهيونية وجامعة كولورادو الأمريكية.

إقرأ/ي المزيد

#BDS: First Israeli store to open in Dubai, #UAE

"Ml clothing chain, which specializes in large sizes, to open four stores in prestigious Dubai shopping areas

The ml men's clothing chain which specializes in large sizes will be opening a store in Dubai

in the near future, making it the first Israeli brand to reach the Arab emirate.

Opening the Dubai branch will bring the clothing brand back on the international scene, after other overseas stores have failed.

It was reported by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Thursday that ml signed a distribution agreement with a French company which specializes in marketing large-size fashion lines."

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#BDS: Israeli Officials and History Affirm the Power of BDS

"Are boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) proving effective at isolating Israel as a form of pressure to end its violations of Palestinian rights? We at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation think so, but you don’t have to take our word for it.

Two recent articles in The Jewish Daily Forward and the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretzhave affirmed the power of the growing BDS movement in placing a cost on Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies. The Forward’s piece, “Survey of Campus BDS Finds Few Serious Cases,” sets out to diminish concern over the recent surge in campus BDS campaigns, but ends up making the case as well as anyone could for how and why ongoing BDS campaigns—on-campus and off—are succeeding!"

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#BDS: Peace Demands Challenging Israel's Exceptionalism

"Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation Leaguerepeats the mantra that by advocating comprehensive Palestinian rights, including full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and the UN-sanctioned right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were forcibly displaced, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is "de-legitimizing" Israel and threatening its very "existence." This claim is frequently made by Israel lobby groups in an obvious attempt to muddy the waters and to push beyond the pale of legitimate debate the mere statement of facts about and analysis of Israel's occupation, denial of refugee rights, and institutionalizedsystem of racial discrimination, which basically fits theUN definition of apartheid.

Specifically, what is often objected to is the demand for full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. One can only wonder, if equality ends Israel's "existence," what does that say about Israel? Did equality destroy South Africa? Did it "delegitimize" whites in the Southern states of the U.S. after segregation was outlawed? The only thing that equality, human rights and justice really destroy is a system of injustice, inequality and racial discrimination."

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#BDS: Stolen Beauty boycott culture jam turns #Ahava’s online marketing contest into a social media

"On Wednesday, May 11 and Thursday, May 12, Ahava US, the U.S. arm of the Israeli cosmetics firm based in an illegal West Bank settlement, and @birchbox, an online cosmetics retailer, ran a marketing contest on the social media site Twitter using the hashtag #AhavaReborn, which is the slogan for Ahava’s current rebranding campaign. Members of the public were invited to submit beauty care questions with the lure of a prize of $300 worth of Ahava products for the best query.

US group CODEPINK Women for Peace, which manages the Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott campaign, alerted other BDS activists about the marketing campaign and suggested using the opportunity for a culture jam to subvert Ahava’s rebranding effort.

What followed can only be described as a total disaster for Ahava. From early Wednesday European time and for the next 48 hours BDS campaigners flooded the twitter stream #AhavaReborn with hundreds of messages advocating the boycott of Ahava products. The BDS campaigners hailed from the US, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Singapore, Occupied Palestine and elsewhere, reflecting the international nature of the campaign against Ahava."

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#BDS: Roxette: Don’t Entertain for Apartheid!

"Occupied Ramallah, 18 May 2011

Dear Roxette,

We have recently heard of your planned performance in Israel through our partners in the Palestine Solidarity Association in Sweden.  They have informed us that they have already been in communication with you. Given that Israel is involved in grave violations of international law and human rights we urge you to cancel your performance until the time comes when Israel is in compliance with its obligations under international law and fully respects Palestinian rights.  In what follows we want to explain the background of our movement and who we are, so that you will be better informed in making the right decision and hearing our call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to achieve our UN-sanctioned rights."

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#BDS:جمعية الأخوة العراقية الفلسطينية تتبنى نداء المقاطعة الفلسطينية

غزة—21.5.2011

في لقاء ضم ممثلين عن جمعية الأخوة العراقية الفلسطينية و ممثلين عن حملة المقاطعة في قطاع غزة قررت جمعية الأخوة تبني وبشكل كامل نداء المقاطعة الفلسطينية لدولة إسرائيل الصادر عام 2005 والذي تبنته الأغلبية الساحقة من مؤسسات المجتمع المدني وهيئة العمل الوطني والإسلامي.

واتفق الطرفان على عقد لقاءات مشتركة خلال الفترة لزيادة التشبيك والتواصل في قضايا المقاطعة على الصعيد المحلي والعربي ,خاصة في العراق, والمشاركة بالفعاليات والأنشطة التي تعمل على توعية الجمهور الفلسطيني بأهمية المقاطعة بأشكالها المختلفة لإسرائيل.

#BDS: Lessons from Marrickville for BDS Activists

"On April 19th, the Marrickville Council in Sydney’s inner west, Australia, met to debate and eventually overturn its four months old motion supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against apartheid Israel. The experience of the Marrickville Council provides revealing insights into the state of the Palestine solidarity movement in Australia and important lessons for ongoing BDS campaigns locally and internationally.

The BDS motion initially passed in Marrickville reflected a genuine expression of support for the people of Palestine and was based on the experiences of a number of councillors who had recently visited the Occupied Territories, Israel and the Palestinian refugee camps in neighbouring countries. It also reflects many of the councillors’ sincere commitment to defending basic Palestinian human rights. Conversely, the strength and ferocity of the backlash reflected the decades old complicity of Australia’s political elite. Apartheid Israel is reportedly the most visited state by Australian politicians and trade groups such as the Australia – Israel Chamber of Commerce, which claims to be one of the most prestigious and active national business organisations in the country."

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#BDS: Scottish First Minister supports sanctions against Israel

"First Minister Alex Salmond supported economic sanctions against Israel. He described Israel's massacre of nine Mavi Marmara passengers as an "atrocity on the high seas" and put Israel firmly beyond the pale. "This has implications for example in trading relationships—you can't have normal relationships if you believe another country has been involved in what Israel has been involved in."

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