Youth Against Normalization

Feb 10, 2014

#BDS Must watch: #ScarlettJohansson, #SodaStream and #Oxfam - Weekly Wipe

Enjoy Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe here

Feb 9, 2014

#BDS: Netanyahu convenes ministers to discuss growing #Israel economic #boycott threats

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting Sunday evening to discuss how to cope with the growing threat of the economic boycott on Israel in light of continued occupation and settlement construction in the West Bank.

#BDS: «العم بطوط» غرّد ضد إسرائيل فـ«كشّته» #ديزني

لن نسمع صوت «العم بطوط» بعد اليوم. مؤدي شخصية «دونالد داك» بنسخته العربية وائل منصور طُرد من جنة «ديزني» الأميركية بعد أكثر من 8 سنوات من العمل في الدبلجة لصالح أشهر شخصية كرتونية في العالم، مؤدياً صوت ذاك البط المعروف بسرعة غضبه وحظّه العاثر. الفنان المصري الشاب الذي اشتهر في برنامج «سوبر ستار» (2003) وظهرت موهبته في التقليد والكوميديا الى جانب الغناء، تبلّغ قبل أيام قرار فصله من وكالة «ديزني» في مصر بسبب تغريدة كتبها على تويتر بالإنكليزية في شهر آب (أغسطس) الماضي.

كانت التغريدة: «أتمنى أن تزول إسرائيل عن الوجود. أكره الصهيونية. بداخلي غضب يزداد مع كل طفل يقتلونه، وأرض يسلبونها».

إقرأ/ي المزيد

Feb 6, 2014

#BDS: #Israel’s Shahar Peer to play in #Qatar again #fuckIsrael

There are strong voices for and against normalisation. There have been multiple movements on social media in the past two years against Israeli-representations in different spheres in Qatar. The last one was the FINA swimming world cup at Aspire in late October of 2013. The Israeli flag was raised at the Hamad Aquatic Center and it triggered severe criticism, leading to the removal of the flag. The Israeli team continued its participation.

Next week the Qatar Total Open women’s tennis tournament will be held. And the list on Qatar Tennis Federation (QTF) website shows Israeli player Shahar Peer (ranked 86 in the world). This is the fourth time that Shahar comes to Qatar. The very first campaign of Qatar Youth Opposed to Normalization (QAYON) was related to her participation last year.

#BDS: سكارليت جوهانسون تستقيل من “أوكسفام” لصالح التمسك بإعلان لشركة إسرائيلية #fuckIsrael

أعلنت النجمة الأميركية، سكارليت جوهانسون، التخلّي عن منصبها كسفيرة لمنظمة (أوكسفام) العالمية لمحاربة الفقر، بعد أن أصرّت على التمسك بالترويج لشركة تنشط في مستوطنة إسرائيلية في الضفة الغربية.
وقالت (أوكسفام) في بيان، إنها قبلت استقالة جوهانسون “على الرغم من احترامنا لاستقلالية سفرائنا إلا أن دور السيدة جوهانسون في الترويج لشركة صودا ستريم لا يتلاءم مع دورها كسفيرة عالمية لأوكسفام”.
واعتبرت المنظمة أن شركات مثل “صودا ستريم” التي تنشط في المستوطنات تسهم في زيادة فقر الفلسطينيين وتحرمهم من حقوقهم.

إقرأ/ي المزيد

#BDS: Scarlett Johansson quits #Oxfam #fuckIsrael

On Wednesday evening, Scarlett Johansson announced she was ending her role as “Global Ambassador” for the charity Oxfam, after facing mounting criticism over her lucrative endorsement deal with SodaStream, an Israeli company that operates a factory in an illegal colony in the occupied West Bank.

A statement released by Johansson’s spokesperson said the 29-year-old Hollywood actress “has ‘a fundamental difference of opinion’ with Oxfam International because the humanitarian group opposes all trade from Israeli settlements, saying they are illegal and deny Palestinian rights,” the Associated Press reported.

#BDS: #Kuwait boycotts #UAE Energy meeting in protest against presence of Israeli Minister #fuckIsrael

The presence of a senior Israeli minister at a renewable energy conference in the United Arab Emirates garnered mixed reactions from other delegates on Sunday.

While the Iranians, who have been continually at odds with Israel over their nuclear program, left a lower-level delegate in position at the International Renewable Energy Agency meeting in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait decided to boycott the event altogether in protest at the presence of Silvan Shalom, the minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water.

“The decision is in line with Kuwait’s commitment to boycott all forms of interaction with the Zionist regime,” Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity and Water said in a statement, according to the Kuwait Times.

#BDS Victory: #Veolia loses Massachusetts commuter rail contract

Over the last two and a half years, supporters of Palestinian rights in Boston have mounted a BDS campaign aimed at denying a new contract to run the Massachusetts commuter rail to Veolia, one of three companies that formed the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad (MBCR). With a 60 percent stake in the MBCR, Veolia has been in charge of operating and maintaining the trains since 2003.

On January 8, they tasted victory, when a contract that could be worth as much as $4.26 billion was awarded to the MBCR’s sole competitor, Keolis America, by a vote of the joint Board for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).

#BDS: United Arab Emirates Boycotts Israeli Soccer Player #UAE

The Boycott-movement is gaining momentum around the world. This week the Israeli soccer player Dan Mori could not join his Dutch team, Vitesse, on a training camp in Abu Dhabi due to the boycott.

”Yesterday, hours before leaving, the team received a message that I would not be able to enter Dubai. The club still planned for me to fly there, hoping to use connections once we were there to make sure I was allowed to enter, but this morning they told us that I would be arrested upon entry”, says Mori, who now will have to stay in the Netherlands, training with the reserve squad.

#BDS: Pinkwashing & Israeli occupation – not so complicated #LGBT

“The concept of ‘pinkwashing’ emerged as a hot topic throughout the week,” Kevin Naff wrote of his participation as part of “a delegation of nine LGBT leaders from the United States” to Israel in November (“Israel as ‘gay heaven’? It’s complicated,” Times of Israel, Nov. 10). The delegation tour was sponsored by Project Interchange, a program of the American Jewish Committee, which is aggressive in its defense of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Naff quotes a speaker who addressed the group, Gal Uchovsky, as telling the delegates “that we had arrived in ‘gay heaven’” and that Israel is “the best LGBT country in the world” whose “LGBT residents face no serious problems that he could identify.” My Israeli friends would certainly contest Uchovsky’s absurd claim that LGBT Israelis “face no serious problems.” Fortuntely, Naff was able to recognize Uchovsky’s propaganda for what it was.

#BDS: Calls to #boycott #Israel grow on #US campuses

On December 4, the council of the American Studies Association (ASA) voted unanimously to endorse the call from Palestinian civil society for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions (USACBI), becoming only the second academic association in the US to do so. The decision was described by the ASA as an "ethical stance", which "represents a principle of solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and an aspiration to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians".

Support for the resolution was described to Al Jazeera by author and Professor of American Studies Alex Lubin as "nothing less than the breaking of what Edward Said called 'America's last taboo'…Creating a space within US society to break through the enforced silence on Israeli occupation".

#BDS Victory: #Moddi cancels Tel Aviv gig after appeal from Gaza

Norwegian musician Moddi has canceled a scheduled Tel Aviv show following a call from Palestinians in Gaza, echoed by solidarity activists.

In his powerful statement, Moddi explains that “Although music can be a unique arena for public debate, the debate over these territories has been misused for a long time. Discussion and dialogue creates an impression of constant progress.”

Meanwhile the “discourse of peace creates a thick veil, concealing the increasingly tighter besiegement of Gaza, the ongoing fragmentation of the West Bank and the continuing discrimination of Arab-Israeli citizens.”

#BDS: #Israel’s real fear is BDS and ‘delegitimization,’ says Goldberg

One of the fascinating new trends inside US political culture is that the Israel lobby is dividing and reconstituting itself, slightly to the left, in order to take on its new enemy: the BDS movement. The lobby needs to reconstitute itself because it recognizes that the neoconservatives and Likudniks expose Israel and the lobby to grave political risk at a time when Europe is inching toward boycott of settlement goods and Americans say clearly they don’t want war with Iran. The lobby has to re-unify to deal with its greatest threat: the delegitimization movement, anti-Zionists who are questioning the fundamental character of the Jewish state and promoting democracy in Israel and Palestine.

#BDS: #G4S contracts in occupied territories face major investigation

G4S, the security company which has lurched from crisis to crisis over the past two years, is facing an investigation by international authorities into its alleged activities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Sources said the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) UK staff have indicated that it will be investigating the company’s work supplying Israeli security services. It is alleged that G4S provides Israel with surveillance equipment at its checkpoints in the occupied territories, although the precise nature of the equipment is not known. Read more

#BDS: Boycott “greatest threat” facing #Israel, leaders say

While Israeli hasbara (propaganda) initiatives continue to bravely deny that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is having any impact, two statements from prominent politicians indicate otherwise. Israeli justice minister and war crimes suspect Tzipi Livni, who is in charge of the moribund negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, told a conference last week that Israel was living in a “bubble.” “Livni said that a country usually only finds out the cost of living in a bubble after it bursts, such as in the case of South Africa,” Ynet reported. Read more