Read | Edit | View history - #BDS

The next Wikimania conference is set to take place in Haifa, Israel on August 4 – 7, 2011. The location was chosen based on a city bid to host the conference.
We are a group of young women and men, from around the world, who are deeply concerned with this problematic choice of venue. We, therefore, respectfully call on the Wikimedia Foundation to:

• Read our plea;
• Edit the location of Wikimania 2011; and,
• View history of apartheid in Israel.

This campaign is open source in that everyone is invited to contribute their own messages to further our cause. We invite you to comment here or email us on free[at]wikimania2011.com to send us your supportive arguments so that we can post them on this website.

An Open Letter to All Who Support Shalit’s Family - #BDS

If the price for the release of one thousand Palestinian political prisoners is an Israeli soldier who was part of the criminal siege of Gaza, then so be it.

You understand that the Israeli government is responsible for the fact that Shalit is still a prisoner because Netanyahu’s government refuses to release the Palestinian prisoners that Hamas demands. You are willing to exchange Shalit because in your eyes the life of one Israeli is more valuable than the lives of one thousand Palestinians. As long as you hold to this racist outlook, you remain prisoners of the Israeli state. All 11,000 political Palestinian prisoners should be released, because they belong to a nation struggling against the oppression that you are part of.

What you do not understand is that the Israeli state is responsible for the criminal siege of Gaza, where 1.5 million people are living in a huge open-air prison, most of them refugees expelled by the Israeli state in 1947-8 and their descendants. You have not demanded an end to the siege, or the return of the Palestinian refugees, or the release of all Palestinian political prisoners – because you still believe that the enemy is the Palestinian nation and in particular those who have dared to struggle against their oppression.

You believe that the Hagana, Etzel and Palmach, organizations which used terror against the Palestinians, were freedom fighters, but that the Palestinians who are struggling for their freedom are terrorists.

You do not understand that it is not the Palestinian people who are your enemy but the racist imperialist state, Israel. A state that is not only oppressing the Palestinians but is a death trap for you as long as you support and identify yourselves with this state.

London Ahava Shop Vandalized...Again - #BDS

An Israeli skin care shop has had red paint thrown across its windows in a suspected targeted attack.

The Ahava store – famous for its Dead Sea products – was covered in the paint during the incident in Covent Garden, central London, on Wednesday night.

Staff discovered the damage when they arrived for work on Thursday morning.

Shop assistant Rita Trindad said: “We don’t know exactly what happened. I came in this morning and there was red paint all over the windows. We cleaned the windows this afternoon and we are still open – it’s business as usual.”

She said the attack had been reported to police who are now investigating.

Campaign to buy Israeli goods is launched - #BDS

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) -- A pro-Israel group has launched an online campaign to buy Israeli goods.

StandWithUs announced the Buy Israeli Goods campaign to counter the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which calls for boycotting and divesting from companies that do business with Israel and sanctioning Israel for actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

“This is a movement to counter BDS with positive energy,” said StandWithUs executive director Roz Rothstein.

In its online flyer, the group lists six reasons to oppose boycotts against Israel.

Boycotting Israel hurts the peace process by encouraging hard-liners and “does nothing to help the Palestinians improve their lives,” the flyer states, adding that shoppers should buy both Israeli and Palestinian products as “an investment in peaceful coexistence.”

StandWithUs has released an online button promoting the campaign for supporters to post to their Facebook walls.

The campaign website, which will be live in about a month, will include a list of products made in Israel that are available in North America. Supporters are asked to speak with local merchants and request that they carry the listed products.

مقاطعة المنتجات الإسرائيلية في اسكتلندا

قالت صحيفة أسكتلندية الأحد إن تجارا مسلمين في غلاسغو بدؤوا حملة مقاطعة للمنتجات الإسرائيلية احتجاجا على الاستيطان وممارسات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي ضد الفلسطينيين.

وأوضحت أسبوعية صنداي هيرالد في خبر خاص بها أن أولئك التجار يرفضون تخزين المنتجات الإسرائيلية في مخازنهم, قائلة إن هذه الخطوة أثارت قلق الجماعات اليهودية.

ووفقا للصحيفة, فإن نحو ثلاثين محلا تجاريا لعائلات مسلمة من أصول آسيوية في الجزء الجنوبي من المدينة –وهي أكبر مدينة في أسكتلندا, وثالث أكبر مدينة في المملكة المتحدة- تشارك في الحملة.

وقالت إن مؤيدين للحملة خرجوا السبت إلى الشارع تأييدا للتجار الذين يرفضون تخزين تلك المنتجات, وأعلنوا أنه سيقع التشهير بالمتاجر التي لا تلزم بالمقاطعة.

وذكرت الأسبوعية الأسكتلندية أن عددا من المتاجر المشاركة في التحرك الذي تقوده حملة التضامن الأسكتلندية الفلسطينية, وجمعية أصدقاء الأقصى في غلاسغو, وضعت ملصقات كتب عليها "لا نبيع منتجات إسرائيلية".

وأعلن منظمو حملة المقاطعة أنهم سيوسعون نطاقها لتشمل أنحاء أسكتلندا الأخرى بعد نجاحها في غلاسغو.

TEDx: Equating the Colonizer and Colonized

It has come to our knowledge that TED, a non-profit organization carrying the slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading” has started a program called the “TEDxHolyLand.” This is supposed to be an experience which seeks to “bring together the people of Palestine and Israel who do not ordinarily meet to share a half day together hearing and discussing TED talks on a wide range of topics of common interest.”[i] The Palestinian Students' Campaign for the Academic boycott of Israel and University Teachers' Association in Palestine consider this an act of normalization that violates the boycott guidelines issued by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)[ii]. TED seems to be unaware of the fact that the reason why “the people of Palestine and Israel” cannot get together is because the former are colonized and the latter are settler colonists. It also ignores the fact that Israel is an apartheid state, as former American president Jimmy Carter and anti-Apartheid activist and Nobel Laureate Desmund Tutu called it; a state that discriminates against more than 1.2 million Palestinians living in it as second class citizens.

The Israeli partner in this program is Liat Aaronson who is the executive director of an entrepreneurship program at the Interdisciplinary Centre (IDC) at Herzliya University. The program describes the Palestinian and Israeli organizers as coming from a background “that defines them as enemies” and seeks to allow them to “challenge each other, understand each other, and empower each other.” Before we get carried away by the seemingly false utopian aura of the program and its poetic tinge, we ought to ask if the Israeli participant will be willing to admit to her Palestinian counterpart that the creation of the state of Israel was responsible for the (continuing) ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people since 1948? That it illegally occupies the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and racially discriminates against the 1948 Palestinians in what the United Nations Special Rapporteur John Dugard described as the only remaining case after South African Apartheid fell, “of a Western-affiliated regime that denies self-determination and human rights to a developing people and that has done so for so long.”?  A state responsible for ongoing house demolitions, illegal settlement expansions and the building of a monstrous Apartheid Wall—not to mention the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza, who are subjugated to a brutal, medieval siege entering its fourth year?

We wonder how Aaronson will remember the 413 children killed by Israel in the last genocidal war against the Palestinians of Gaza. Will that also be squeezed into the falsely beautified and ambiguous slogan of “let’s stop the violence?” Unless this is a reference to the violence of the colonizer; the fourth largest army in the world with hundreds of nuclear heads?

 Where are the "two sides" of this "conflict?" This is an issue of injustice around continuous dispossession and subjugation of one people by another people. Do we understand from the organizers of TED that there was a "conflict" between the native Blacks of South Africa and the White supremacists of the apartheid regime?

If “challenging” the Palestinian partner in the program means that Aaronson will admit to these atrocities committed by her own state, as a group of courageous Israeli activists from Boycott From Within and BOYCOTT!! have done, then perhaps we can reconsider our position.

This initiative is one more arrogant attempt to equate between; colonizer and colonized; oppressor and oppressed ;victim and executioner. The mere fact that TED’s Palestinian partner is unable to confront Aaronson with the reality of her displaced people is proof enough of the inequality and bias this program is based upon.

Once again, we would like to call on the Israeli partner, who is in a privileged position, to consider joining hands with the conscientious Israeli Boycott from Within anti-apartheid activists. Then, perhaps the “vision” of the TED experience and the “Ideas Worth Spreading” would involve spreading the voices of the marginalized, suppressed, and silenced Palestinians in the impoverished and crowded refugee camps, in the Gaza concentration camp, and in the Bantustanized West Bank, promoting their right to self-determination and the right of return of all those displaced and forcefully removed throughout Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands in accordance with International Law.

We, therefore, consider this project a continuation of a campaign of normalization that aims at whitewashing Israel’s tarnished image and does nothing but falsely creates the facade that there are actually two equal sides to “the conflict.”

Besieged Gaza,

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)

pscabi@gmail.com

University Teachers' Association

[i] http://www.tedxholyland.com/?page_id=228

[ii] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108

London Student Officers Condemn Funjoya “Festival”

We strongly condemn the Israeli government’s disgraceful attempt to
whitewash their crimes against the Palestinians with their “student
festival” Funjoya.

We are not surprised that students are considered a “target group” by
Israel; in London we were out in our thousands opposing the war crimes in
Gaza in 2009, when we marched on the streets and occupied our universities
demanding action from our Universities and Government. More and more
students across Europe are joining the international movement in
solidarity with the Palestinians, especially since we witnessed on our TV
screens the slaughter of aid activists on a humanitarian ship to Gaza.

What state uses special commando troops to attack a civilian aid boat in
international waters? How could we possibly encourage our students to
attend a festival organised by such a state? A state responsible for the
brutal siege on the people of Gaza, the continued military occupation, and
expansion of illegal settlements, in the West Bank. A state responsible
for the discrimination of Palestinians living in Israel, including the
ethnic cleansing taking place to this very day in the Negev. How many
students from these communities will be attending “Funjoya”?

We join you in your call for students to boycott this festival. Not only
will we not be attending, but will also be encouraging our fellow students
in London to join us in boycotting this attempt to hide the crimes of
apartheid and occupation.

In solidarity,
Signed,

Clare Solomon, President, University of London Union
James Haywood, Campaigns and Communications Officer, Goldsmiths Students’
Union
Arfah Farooq, Black and Ethnic Officer, Goldsmiths Students’ Union
Sean Rillo Raczka, Union Chair, Birkbeck Students’ Union
Ashok Kumar, Education Officer, LSE Students’ Union
Jasper Kain Co-President Sports and Societies, SOAS Students’ Union
Elly Badcock, Secretary, SOAS Students’ Union
Milaad Rajai, Co-President Welfare and Education, SOAS Students’ Union
Mark Bergfeld, National Union Students, National Executive Committee
Hanif Leylabi National Union Students, LGBT Committee

All signatories write in a personal capacity.

UK Unions single out Israel boycott

Britain's trade unionists will vote on a resolution next month at their annual conference, condemning Israel for stepping up its atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The resolution to be adopted by Britain's six-and-a-half million trade union members at thier conference in Manchester, northwest England, condemns Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip where the living conditions are increasingly being deteriorated for more than 1.5 million impoverished people living in the impoverished territory.

It states that Israel is undermining the viability of the occupied West Bank and the East Al-Quds areas and their potentials for establishing an independent Palestinian state through the deliberate strategy of annexing massive swathes of land, destroying Palestinians' homes and erecting walls and checkpoints in defiance of international laws and UN resolutions.

The resolution also strongly condemns Israeli army's assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla last year which was seeking to take humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, calling on world leaders to hold Israel accountable for massacring international activists in international waters.

The UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) Global Solidarity will also urge the British government and the EU leaders to take "much stronger political steps" to ensure Israel abides by UN resolutions. 

Join the 2010 Olive Harvest Campaign

At a time of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, the International Solidarity Movement is issuing an urgent call for volunteers to participate in the 2010 Olive Harvest Campaign at the invitation of Palestinian communities.

Who profits from Israeli occupation?

After the Israeli attack on Gaza earlier this year, the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign (BDS Movement) escalated all around the world. Now, activists are targeting AHAVA, an Israeli cosmetics company founded by and based in an Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank. The AHAVA company, as many others in Israel that are based in the Palestinian Territories or profit from their occupation are owned by the powerful Israel family - the Livnat family. Lia Tarachansky investigates how the family's dynasty is invested in the economy of the occupation.

"كلمات بلا حدود": دعوة للحوار بين المستعمِر و المستعمَر

لقد أصدرت المجلة الأدبية الالكترونية "كلمات بلا حدود" مؤخراً مبادرة بعنوان "حوار عبر الثقافات في الشرق الأوسط" و الذي يتعارض مع نداء المجتمع المدني الفلسطيني لمقاطعة إسرائيل وسحب الاستثمارات منها وفرض العقوبات عليها.

إن القائمتان على هذه المبادرة هما إزارين فار دير فليت علومي، والتي تقدم نفسها على انها مسلمة إيرانية، والإسرائيلية شانا موجينستيرن اللتان تقابلتا اثناء برنامج دراسات عليا في جامعة براون بالولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.

إن فان دير فليت عولومي وموجينستيرن في القدس الآن حيث تقومان بتولي مهمة السفر "عبر الحدود" وفتح باب "الحوار" مع أشخاص في مناصب ثقافية وسياسية مختلفة. و أوضحت كل منهما أن الغرض من تعاونهما في البرنامج هو " أننا نأمل في كسب وجهات نظر أوسع بشأن الطرق التي تتعامل من خلالها الثقافات الفلسطينية المعاصرة مع النسيج الاجتماعي المختلط والمعقد في المنطقة". وأضافتا: " إن هذه السلسلة, وكما نتوقع, سوف تغطى كل النشاطات الشعرية و تؤدي الى التعاون بين الكتّاب والمثقفين الفلسطينيين والاسرائيلين و مقابلات مع منتجي الأفلام المحليين والدوليين خاصة في مهرجان أفلام القدس بالإضافة إلى زيارة مختلف المؤسسات الثقافية الشعبية في الضفة الغربية" (حوار عبر َالثقافات في الشرق الأوسط, 29يوليو 2010).

على الرغم من أن غرض هذه المبادرة مبهم، فانه من المهم لأى شخص يرغب في الاشتراك في حوار جاد في هذه المنطقة أن يكون واعيا بان ما يسمى "صراعاً" هو بالأحرى إضطهاد يمارسه الاحتلال و نظام الفصل العنصري الاسرائيلي على السكان الأصليين. و كجزء من إستراتيجية المقاومة السلمية، كانت مؤسسات المجتمع المدني الفلسطيني قد اصدرت نداء دولياً لمقاطعة إسرائيل وسحب الاستثمارات وفرض العقوبات عليها حتى تنصاع الأخيرة للقانون الدولي وتحترم حقوق الإنسان الفلسطيني.

Muslim shops ban Israeli produce in Palestine protest, Scotland

Asian shopkeepers in one of the biggest Muslim areas in Scotland are backing a boycott of Israeli produce.

In a move that has worried Jewish groups, Muslim families who own stores in Glasgow’s south side are refusing to stock Israeli goods in protest at Israel’s West Bank settlements and policy towards Palestinians.

Around 30 stores in Muslim communities in Pollokshields, Pollokshaws and Govanhill are supporting the drive and yesterday campaigners took to the streets to applaud shopkeepers who are no longer stocking Israeli products.

The campaigners, who toured stores handing out flyers to shoppers, say shops which continue to stock Israeli goods will be “named and shamed”.

Led by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Friends of Al Aqsa Glasgow, many stores in the area are now displaying posters declaring “No Israeli Produce sold here”.

Organisers say that following its success in Glasgow, the campaign is expected to be rolled out across the country.

The focus of the boycott is fruit such as dates, traditonally eaten by Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan. Some of the dates sent to the UK are produced on highly contentious Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley.

Saddaqat Khan, of Friends of Al Aqsa, Glasgow, said: “Many Muslims are unaware of this and unwittingly purchase Israeli dates, thereby supporting the Israeli economy.”

Campaigners, some draped in the Palestinian flag, held a day of action in Allison Street in Govanhill to target store owners and customers.

Rizwan Khan, who owns Rizwan stores on Allison Street, dumped a box of dates after being told of their origin and is supporting the boycott. He said: “I have been wary of the dates I buy, but had been stocking Jordan Valley dates thinking these were safe.”

Customer Isahaq Ali, 50, said: “I know what to look out for when buying these items and wouldn’t give stores who stock them my custom.”

However, Edward Isaacs, president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, said: “We have excellent relations in the Jewish Community with our Muslim friends and we think that bringing Middle East politics into the Glasgow sphere to this extent is not a good idea. Everyone is entitled to have their views on the Middle East, but we don’t think a boycott is the correct way to advance their political process.”

تونس.. تاريخ رسمي طويل من التطبيع

ما تزال حادثة غناء بعض المغنين التونسيين في مدينة إيلات المحتلة تثير جدلا كبيرا في تونس، خاصة أن أحد هؤلاء المغنين هتف بحياة مجرم الحرب رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو مقترنا باسم رئيس الدولة زين العابدين بن علي. وقد اختلفت ردود الفعل تجاه حركة التطبيع الثقافية هذه، لكنها ردود أجمعت على الاستنكار الشديد للعملية.

ووصل الأمر بالبعض إلى عقد مقارنة بين قافلة المطبعين الذين استعملوا جوازات السفر التونسية وعبروا عبر المسالك القانونية، أي بعلم من أجهزة الدولة، وبين قافلة الحرية في مقارنة لا تخلو من سخرية بادية لكل قارئ، وانتهى الأمر بالاتفاق على تسمية الأولى قافلة العار.

غير أن الوجه الخفي من هذا الجدل هو ما يتعلق برد فعل معسكر التطبيع الثقافي الذي تتزعمه نخبة من المحسوبين على اليسار وبعض العلمانيين الذي يتسترون خلف أجهزة الدولة، وكذلك موقف السلطة نفسها من هذه الحركة التي يبدو أن لها تاريخا غير قصير في تونس.

وتبدو أهمية تناول هذا الوجه الخفي في كونه يكشف حقيقة التحالف بين السياسي والثقافي في هذا المجال رغم الاختلاف البيّن بين رموزه، ذلك أن السلطة التي لا تخفي رغبتها في التطبيع مع الكيان الصهيوني كما سنرى، ووجدت في هؤلاء الذين يحسبون على القطاع الثقافي "مركبا سهلا" لبلوغ غاية -إلى حد الآن- لا تجرؤ على الإعلان عنها صراحة.

وحتى نتبين هذا التحالف -أو "تقاطع المصالح" بتعبير أدق- بين الطرفين، لا بد من تتبع جملة من الوقائع التاريخية التي شهدتها البلاد ذات علاقة بالموقف من القضية الفلسطينية والكيان الصهيوني.

PM: Last thing we need is settlement boycott from Israelis

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke at a cabinet meeting on Sunday regarding the artist boycott of the new cultural center in the West Bank settlement city of Ariel.

"The State of Israel is facing a delegitimization campaign from different sources across the globe, including attempts to implement economic, academic and cultural boycotts. The last thing we need is a boycott attempt from within Israel. I do not wish to infringe upon the right of every artists to express his own opinion, but we do not need to fund boycotts and support them in any way," said Netanyahu.

He added, "I am happy to hear that the respective theater companies have announced that the performances will continue as planned. This is the appropriate stance."

Palestinians prepare to battle 'Zionist editing' on Wikipedia

Association of Palestinian Journalists chairman calls on Palestinians to prepare for 'PR war' on Israel.

The next battle in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be fought on the pages of the internet site Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia which anyone can edit.

Abed A-Nassar, chairman of the Association of Palestinian Journalists, has already begun preparing for the conflict, calling on Palestinian institutions to make Wikipedia pages more pro-Palestinian.

His call follows a recent article in Haaretz on a class organized by settlers to teach supporters how to register and edit Wikipedia pages, in order to make them more representative of the 'Zionist' viewpoint.

Organizers of the Israeli course say their aim is twofold: to affect Israeli public opinion by having people who share their ideological viewpoint take part in writing and editing for the Hebrew version, and to write in English so Israel's image can be bolstered abroad.

Palestinians must now launch a counter-attack against Israel's latest "public relations war", Nassar said.