#BDS: Remembering Gil Scott Heron

"25 APRIL 2010 

Gil Scott-Heron, whose political poetry influenced a generation of rap artists, last night sensationally announed the cancellation of his planned gig in Tel Aviv.

Speaking on-stage at London's Royal Festival Hall, Scott-Heron told the audience he “hated war” and, in a lengthy monolougue, told the packed audience his Israel tour date would not be going ahead.

His concert had earlier been disrupted by fans dismayed at the booking, repeatedly heckling the performer and asking him to cancel.

Security was called and audience members threatened with removal.

A Facebook page was set up to urge the legendary performer against going ahead with his Israel appearance."

Read more

#BDS: STRATEGIC THINKING AND SOLIDARITY TO NATIONAL SOCIAL JUSTICE STRUGGLES

"For centuries, national social justice movements have brought about fundamental change. The Anti-Slavery Movement in the United States led to the abolition of slavery in 1865. In the Netherlands, women fought for, and obtained, the right to vote in 1919. The campaigns of the African-American Civil Rights Movement led to the adoption of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. South African liberation movements (ANC and PAC) overthrew apartheid in 1994. All these examples illustrate the power of citizens and their organizations when they persistently work together towards clear goals.

As Ghandi observed in 1938, ‘a small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history’ (Misra and Gupta, 2008). This short statement reveals a number of key elements for the success of social movements. A movement can be sparked off by a small body of persons when they are determined and have an unquenchable faith in the mission of their social justice movement. These elements correspond with what I experienced at the Holland Committee on Southern Africa (KZA) that, for decades, supported the struggle against apartheid. These elements also apply to how the successful global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in solidarity with Palestinians came about. A core group of dedicated persons shared the conviction that they could make a contribution to fight injustice."

Read more

#BDS: Artists Against Apartheid launched in #Australia

"As Artists aware of our colonial history, we recognise the dispossession of the Indigenous people of this Land, and we support the human rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine to live on their land with dignity – free from military occupation and the brutality of the Israeli Apartheid system.


Israel’s Apartheid regime over the Palestinian people is a system that separates and discriminates against people based on their ethnicity. It is a system that is institutionalised by laws and military force.


Artists Against Apartheid in Australia is part of an international alliance committed to human rights and justice, and to the elimination of Apartheid in our world. We stand in solidarity with the call from Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). We actively support the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. In so doing:"


Read more

#BDS: #Coldplay promotes 'Freedom for Palestine' song

"(Video) British band's Facebook page invites fans to listen to music video created by various artists in cooperation with pro-Palestinian organizations

VIDEO - Coldplay for Palestine – a message on the popular British band's official Facebook page invites fans to listen to the song "Freedom for Palestine" – a musical collaboration initiated by the OneWorld organization.

A message posted on the band's wall reads: "Some of our friends are involved in OneWorld's new 'Freedom for Palestine' single - find out more at http://www.waronwant.org/freedomoneworld/. "

Read more

#BDS: The single that we all love: Freedom for Palestine - OneWorld

#BDS; لجنة التنسيق في منظمة العمل الدولية تقر برنامج يوم التضامن مع العمال

عقدت لجنة التنسيق العربية في منظمة العمل الدولية اجتماعها الاول بمشاركة مدير عام منظمة العمل العربية احمد لقمان، والامين العام للاتحاد الدولي لنقابات العمال العرب رجب معتوق، وعدد من ممثلي اطراف الانتاج العرب.

وبحثت اللجنة التحضيرات الجارية في اطار التحضير ليوم التضامن مع عمال وشعب فلسطين المزمع عقده في قصر الامم بجنيف يوم 9/6، وأقرت التسميات العربية في مختلف اللجان المشكلة في المنظمة الدولية.

وحث احمد لقمان على ان يكون القرار العربي واضحا وجلياً في هذا المحفل الدولي، فيما طالب معتوق بان تكون درجة الاستفادة من يوم التضامن مع عمال فلسطين والتأكيد على حضور قضية العمال العرب في المناطق المحتلة في المؤتمر، مشددا على حتمية ان لا يخرج هذا اليوم عن اطاره الوطني الفاعل ولا عن نطاق قضية فلسطين المركزية ..

إقرأ/ي المزيد

#BDS: #Greek BDS activists plant trees in Estee Lauder store

"Palestine solidarity activists in Thessaloniki, Greece, engaged in a creative action in support of the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing on 28 May when they entered an Estee Lauder cosmetics store with tree saplings in tow. 

According to a press release from an activist performance group calling itself the Land Annexation Society, six participants dressed in suits as members of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and “proceeded to ‘plant’ trees over the Estee Lauder shop space … flyers were distributed to shoppers and staff informing them that ‘this Estee Lauder space is currently being rezoned.’”

Read more

#BDS: European Forum against Agrexco/Carmel: BDS Europe, a Major Struggle

"The Annual General Meeting of the Coalition against Agrexco has initiated this forum while Operation "Gaza Strawberries", conducted by Agrexco, the CRIF and the Israeli Embassy in France, is in full swing.

Operation "Gaza Strawberries" has two goals. First, to nullify the impact of the efforts made to launch the French Ship for Gaza ("Thanks to Agrexco, there is no more blockade, so there is no point in sending the ship."). They are wasting their time, there will be a French ship in the second flotilla! The second goal was to nullify the Boycott and the rejection of Agrexco ("Since Agrexco is rescuing the Palestinians by exporting their products, boycotting Agrexco is boycotting the Palestinians."). This sordid maneuvering had the advantage of revealing the enormous challenge posed to Israel by this struggle because of the symbolic importance of the Carmel Agrexco brand."

Read more

#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."

Read more

#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."

Read more

#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."

Read more

#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."

Read more

#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.

• 
  

• 
  

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".

Read more

#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