By David Green

I only recently learned of Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s trip to Israel this past summer (2011) for a ‘week-long educational mission where he sealed two important agreements and received briefings from high-ranking Israeli officials, academic experts and business leaders on topics ranging from high-tech development (read Motorola), energy, water conservation and environmentalism (sic) to disaster preparedness, Iran, and U.S.-Israel relations.’ This is reported on the website of Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. The reader is expected, of course, to find the high-minded and triumphant tone of this article to be unproblematic.

The article states: “The Governor’s educational visit was part of a JUF initiative that, for the past two decades, has brought influential leaders to Israel.” Quinn signed a “formal agreement on academic cooperation between Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to establish a wide-ranging partnership. The agreement will promote faculty and student exchanges, joint research, and other academic activities of mutual interest. The agreement greatly expands the existing relationship between the universities in the field of public health.”

Beyond principled opposition to such academic agreements between our public universities and those of the apartheid Jewish state, it’s important to note that the academic merit and social outcomes of such agreements are obviously limited by the political context that provokes fundamental opposition from advocates of social justice. In relation to Motorola, for example, it’s impossible to believe that there will be public discussion promoting the public interest regarding military applications in general or surveillance technology in particular.

Similarly, such an agreement cannot conceivably promote consideration of fundamental and historical water resource and environmental degradation issues pertaining to political conflict between Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. It’s also highly unlikely that the essentially political nature of such an academic agreement would allow or encourage researchers to address the public health concerns of Palestinians, either as citizens of Israel or in the occupied territories; nor would they likely address, for example, the conditions of African immigrants in Israel who find themselves increasingly despised and unwanted.

A biased and discriminatory political agenda, dictated and limited by Israeli state interests and U.S. hegemonic interests in the region, is thus inevitably part and parcel of such academic agreements. The public university and its scholarly and scientific reputation is commandeered and exploited by the Israel Lobby in order to serve and legitimize that agenda.

Beyond this particular “academic exchange,” my perspective is informed by the principles of the BDS movement and the challenges inevitably presented to the movement by the Israel Lobby’s incessant pressure on public officials and institutions at all levels. As a long-term resident of Illinois and employee of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), I have been a journalist and activist regarding the manner in which Jewish and Zionist institutions have come to occupy the putatively public space of our public university—clearly to the detriment of dignity and justice for the Palestinians, as well as informed discussion in a democratic and scholarly context of the Israel/Palestine issue.

The developments noted above constitute egregious extensions of the Zionist infrastructure that has been promoted by the Israel Lobby in state government in general and in public higher education in Illinois. I would hope that this opportunistic, outrageous, and cynical agreement between Governor Quinn and Israeli officials creates a critical mass of awareness and potential activism within and beyond the BDS movement in Illinois. I would hope to see a clear response to the manner in which the Lobby feels entitled to self-righteously promote—without objection—what are repugnant and sectarian political interests in state politics and higher education—disingenuously and transparently framed in terms of technological, scientific, and economic development.

From my perspective as a Jewish pro-Palestinian activist in Urbana-Champaign, I have observed two primary developments: first, the establishment of a privately-funded Program for Jewish Culture and Society two decades ago and its attendant moral emphasis on the Holocaust and Jewish victimization in general; second, the use of PJCS as an institutional and moral umbrella for an Israel Lobby-funded and baldly propagandistic “Israel Studies Project,” which has moreover been clearly racist in its exclusion of Palestinian Israelis from its purview.

Blatant conflicts of interest regarding PJCS in relation to the Israel Lobby were obvious from the start, and dovetail with Governor Quinn’s junket. The promoters of PJCS were two professors with prominent positions in local Jewish institutions—religious, secular, and Zionist. One professor, Michael Shapiro, is the father of Daniel Shapiro, current U.S. ambassador to Israel.

In 2004, Michael Shapiro worked closely with Michael Kotzin, JUF Executive Vice President, to fund the Israel Studies Project, part of a state-wide effort by the Israel Lobby at both public and private universities. Kotzin wrote in the Forward in 2004 that the “manner in which Israel and the Middle East are taught about in the nation’s university classrooms has increasingly come to the fore as one of the most difficult and far-reaching challenges facing the Jewish community.” In translation, this is to say that the Lobby needs to take serious measures to intervene in academia to promote Israel’s interests, in response to students who are increasingly enlightened regarding the plight of the Palestinians.

Kotzin, a long-time Lobby apparatchik in Chicago, accompanied Governor Quinn to Israel, commenting “It is particularly gratifying to be here with Gov. Quinn today when that partnership moves to a new level.”Quinn’s group was addressed in Israel by Ambassador Shapiro, who tellingly “called his address to the group ‘his first official duty’ after arriving the day before to assume his responsibilities as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.”

I would add that the Urbana campus has also procured, for the past two academic years, a visiting Jewish-Israeli professor of Israel Studies whose position is by no means disinterestedly funded by the Schusterman Family Foundation and the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise(AICE). According to the Jewish Virtual Library, “The aim of the program is to present American students with a broad understanding of Israel’s history, society, politics, culture and relations with its neighbors and the broader international community.” In plainer language, the aim of this program—as of the Israel Studies Project at UIUC and the broader Israel Studies movement in general—is to promote a sanitized version of Zionism, Israel, and Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. The current visiting professor at the Urbana Campus, Rhona Seidelman, has well-served this purpose.

It is unacceptable that a visiting professor essentially hired by the Israel Lobby is charged with teaching the one class offered at UIUC on the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Perhaps needless to say, UIUC has never hired a professor of Palestinian or Arab background specifically in relation to teaching and research regarding the topic of Israel/Palestine. Regarding any other oppressed minority, it would be unheard of for faculty members to be bought and paid for by interests promoting and justifying such oppression. But in the case of the Israel Lobby on campus, it is business as usual. At UIUC and other campuses in Illinois, the Lobby has de facto attempted to limit the institutional space within which Palestinian perspectives can be understood and legitimized.

The political proficiency and resources of the Israel Lobby in Illinois and elsewhere present formidable challenges to pro-Palestinian and BDS activists. Nevertheless, popular support for Israel, including among Jews and on campuses, is at an all-time low. The recent and welcome radicalization of the notion of “occupy,” combined with the principles and goals of the BDS movement, suggests assertive and persistent responses to Lobby business as usual on campus and in state government.

Article courtesy The Palestine Chronicle on-line

By REUEL S. AMDUR
Guest Writer
Copied with permission from Canadian Charger

On July 11, the Israeli Knesset moved the country into even more dangerous territory. Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston called the new law punishing Israelis engaged in boycotts against Israel or the West Bank “the threshold test for Israeli fascism.” His article was headed “Israel’s boycott law: the quiet sound of going fascist.”
The new law, already being challenged before the highest court in Israel, provides that any person or organization engaging in such a boycott can be sued by the target of the boycott.  There is no necessity for the target to prove actual damages and the court is free to levy any amount of compensation.  As well, the law forbids a person or company taking part in such a boycott the right to bid on government tenders.
Reacting to the new law, the Israeli organization Peace Now listed the companies producing in or operating from the West Bank.  Most sell mainly in Israel.  Exceptions are the cosmetic manufacturers Ahuva and some wineries.  However, two multinationals are among the offenders: General Mills and Unilever.
If one wants to join the boycott movement, aimed at getting Israel out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, these two multinationals are appropriate targets.  How to tackle the two is a problem.  Their products are numerous and ubiquitous.
Consider–these are just some of the most common General Mills labels: General Mills, Pillsbury, Häagen-Dazs, Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Kix, Cheerios, Fiber One, Gold Medal, Yoplait, and Green Giant.  For Unilever, common labels include Lipton’s, Becel, Hellman’s, Knorr, Dove, Lifebuoy, Lux, Pond’s, Sunsilk, Vaseline, Sunlight, and Surf.  How does one tackle such a list?  While some people might religiously avoid all these products and more by these corporations, we cannot realistically expect everyone to do so.  Hence, a more user-friendly is to select a small number of products for attention.
In the case of General Mills, the choice is direct.  Peace Now indicates that the brand name operating in the West Bank is Pillsbury.  So be it.  For Unilever, a couple possibilities are Hellman’s and Lipton’s.  There are other brands of mayonnaise and tea available for the consumer.
Okay, so don’t buy Pillsbury, Hellman’s, or Lipton’s so long as their companies are in the West Bank.  Simple enough.  However, the impact of what boycotters in North America can have on these giants is somewhat limited.  Arabs, Muslims, and other potential boycotters in North America, while not insignificant, may not make much of a dent in the balance sheets of these two economic behemoths.  For that reason, the word needs to go beyond our shores.
These products need to be boycotted elsewhere, in Europe, the Middle East, and afar, if the pain is to be felt by these offending corporations, so let your friends and relatives overseas know of the campaign.  So far, pressure has caused some companies to close operations in the West Bank and move back to Israel proper.
As an aside, corporations are very protective of their reputation.  Image of the brand is a long-term consideration.  That was the motivating factor in Nestlé’s halting its aggressive marketing of baby formula in the Third World.  Would General Mills and Unilever want their label identified with oppression and exploitation?
So remember, no Pillsbury, no Hellman’s, no Lipton’s.  Pass the word, here and abroad.  The boycott movement is hurting.  That’s why Israel adopted such an extreme law.  Keep the hurt going.

BY GAIL EVELYN ALFAR
Guest Writer, Austin, TX

The little pink icon, Hello Kitty, is not so cute when so closely associated with apartheid Israel.  You may want to veer away from Hello Kitty holiday gifts and school items until Sanrio withdraws its contract to allow Leader Brands of Israel to open as many as 18 stores in Israel.

Palestine solidarity is indeed a global movement.  I recently had the chance to visit Japan.  Staying in a university town there, I had the rare opportunity to meet with a representative of the BDS movement in Japan.  As we sat in a small cafe near a huge Buddhist temple, I thought about how far-reaching the BDS movement really is!

Japan’s BDS movement had a big victory when the Muji retail store recently backed out of a contract to open a store in Israel.  Muji’s customers, who often patronized the store for its “environmentally conscious” stand, were invaluable in the campaign, they rallied with the BDS movement.  With skits, letters and phone calls, the store got the message:  “Its not environmentally conscious to break the call to boycott Israel. “
A campaign in the works in Japan is now called “Bye Bye Kitty.”  The famous Hello Kitty parent company is based in Japan.

1. Sanrio was asked not to open stores in Israel.

2. The reasons for boycott and the clear violations of International Law by         Israel, as well as the call of the BDS movement (www.bdsmovement.net) were explained to Sanrio, prior to the opening of their first store in Israel.

3. Sanrio did issue a response, that it would still seek to do business with Leader Brands in Israel.  The first store was opened in Givatayim in late June, 2011.

The Japanese BDS movement anticipates a campaign that will gain momentum at a slow steady pace.  Japan is reeling from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and the tsumani that killed over 18,400 people.  Approximately 450,000 people are still living in temporary shelters.  Humanitarian efforts are focused on helping these victims.  Also, Sanrio’s customer base includes young busy parents, they are often hard to reach with the BDS message.

One thing is for certain, though, as long as the Kitty is in Israel, Sanrio cannot market her as an ethically conscious product.  Many other holiday gift and school options exist, and “Bye-Bye Kitty” will not go away until Sanrio closes its present store in Givatayim and pulls out of Israel.

By SARAH IRVING

Courtesy of Electronic Intifada

On 15 December 2010, the councilors of Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney, Australia voted by a 10-2 majority to support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). A month later, they have belatedly become the subjects of vilification in the press owned by international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch and death threats from Australia’s lunatic fringe.

“What does the desert theocracy of Saudi Arabia have in common with Marrickville Council in Sydney’s Inner West?” howls an article in Murdoch’s Telegraph, under a headline comparing the local authority to North Korea. The piece — which manages to be factually inaccurate on subjects as diverse as kosher food laws and Palestine Liberation Organization factions — goes on to hail Israel as “one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial countries in the world. Its products and inventions find their way into computers, mobile phones and medicines.” The online version of the article seeks to demonstrate Israel’s virtues by illustrating it with both a photo gallery of Israeli swimsuit model Bar Refaeli and a video of her writhing in the sand on a photo shoot.

“This is what passes for ‘journalism’ and commentary over Israel/Palestine in Australia,” laments Antony Loewenstein, the Sydney-based author of Australian best-seller My Israel Question and co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices. His blog also points out the inconsistencies and omissions in recent coverage of the incident by The Australian, supposedly a more serious paper than the Telegraph. The Australian quotes Anthony Albanese, a member of the Australian federal parliament whose constituency covers Marrickville council’s turf. Albanese claims that “Foreign policy is a fair way outside the parameters of the role of Marrickville Council” and suggests that the local authority stick to “local” issues.

But Councilor Cathy Peters, who supported the boycott motion at Marrickville, rejects the suggestion that boycotting Israeli products is outside her remit as a council representative. “It’s not a matter of foreign policy at all, but rather the right of a council to make decisions regarding our purchasing policy and the relationships and engagements we have with outside organizations,” she said in an interview with The Electronic Intifada. “It’s completely within our purview to make those decisions. We’ve done it before. We have an ongoing boycott of companies involved in Burma. The council has a long, proud tradition of making ethical decisions.”

Peters also stressed that many Marrickville residents had expressed their concerns about Israeli actions towards the Palestinians to local councilors. Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne, writing on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website, also described how “Marrickville Councilors interact with the people we represent on a day to day level. We have spoken with many local residents, with community and multi-faith groups who have told us of their feelings towards the unresolved issue of Palestine and Israel and their desire to be able to take direct action.” The boycott motion has also, she said, been supported by members of Jews Against the Occupation, and she cited the many Australian church and trade union organizations which have supported whole or partial boycotts of Israeli products and organizations.

Anthony Albanese has in the past been supportive of Palestine solidarity campaigns and critical of Israel’s human rights record, so his stance has surprised some local people. Jennifer Killen, a Marrickville resident who strongly supports the council’s twinning with Bethlehem and its boycott initiative, commented to The Electronic Intifada: “I’m very disappointed in my local member of parliament for not being more supportive of our hard-working local councilors at this time.” Killen also pointed out that the contact details of the councilors who voted for the boycott motion are on the website of the Sydney-based Coalition for Justice & Peace in Palestine, and called on international activists to support Marrickville where its MPs had failed to do so.

Councilor Cathy Peters, a Green Party member, emphasized that the boycott motion at Marrickville had cross-party support and that the former mayor of Marrickville, who visited its sister city of Bethlehem in 2010, was a member of the Australian Labor Party. But Antony Loewenstein and other Sydney commentators have suggested that the realpolitik of upcoming elections could be behind Albanese’s condemnation of the boycott vote. The Australian’s article mentions the risks to Albanese’s seat from the Green Party.

But it failed to highlight the fact that Carmel Tebbutt, the New South Wales state legislature member for Marrickville who is quoted in the same article, is also Albanese’s wife — and that her seat is under threat from Marrickville Green Mayor Fiona Byrne in upcoming state-level elections. The New South Wales Green Party adopted a strong boycott, divestment and sanctions position in December 2010 and Albanese’s attacks on the boycott motion could, Sydney commentators suggest, be an attempt to put some political space between himself and his spouse, and their Green challengers.

Outside the mainstream media, Australia’s nastier extremists have also waded in on the Marrickville debate. An article on the Australian Islamist Monitor website entitled “Australian Council Disgraces Itself” berates the local authority, saying that “you have got it all wrong — you have sided with the aggressors, the bullies, the friends of Hitler and those whom Hitler considered his friends in their antisemitism [sic].” The writer goes on to claim that “Israel is a tiny land surrounded by aggressive Muslim nations and as David Horowitz has pointed out repeatedly, the aim of those nations is to deny Israel the right to exist.” David Horowitz, cited by the Australian Islamist Monitor author, is an American commentator and founder of the Freedom Center who claims that “free societies” are “under attack by leftist and Islamist enemies at home and abroad.” As well as attacking Arab and left-wing campaigners, he has also been accused of racism against African Americans.

And one comment following the article reads: “This is insane I hate these people. I would like to have a 22 and pick them off one by one for target practice. Better still a suicide bomber in their midst. In fact I might make a giant blow up of the photo and sell it to a shooting range.” A “smiley” emoticon follows the comment. Immediately after it, the same commenter, “Skipping Girl,” adds: “God Bless Israel.”

Despite its claims to be “anti-racist in all its forms” and to support freedom of speech when this does not lead to violence, the Australian Islamist Monitor site is rife with hysterical and sometimes violent comments about Muslim people. A number of its contributors have links to more extreme hate sites and have made openly racist comments in other forums. The website’s membership is strictly controlled, with potential members approved by a human moderator as well as by electronic tests. However, in more than three weeks it has made no move to remove Skipping Girl’s bloodthirsty comments.

Cathy Peters says that she has been made aware that some threatening comments have been made regarding Marrickville councilors, but that the matter has been turned over to the council’s general manager for consideration. For her, the larger concern is how the issue of Palestine is debated in Australia.

I think it’s unfortunate that these kind of emotional comments have been triggered by an overall reluctance by the Board of Deputies and other groups to tolerate debate and criticism of Israeli policies regarding Palestine and the occupied territories,” she says, rejecting charges that Marrickville’s councilors have been influenced by “political correctness” or ideology. Her fellow members, she points out, include some “very experienced” local councilors with diverse backgrounds and political opinions.

The problem at the moment is one of groups trying to close down dialogue on the subject,” Peters insists. “What is really needed at the moment is a mature, calm debate on Israel’s policies on Palestine and how Australians should respond to them.”

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She now writes full-time on a range of issues, including Palestine. Her first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010. She is currently working on a new edition of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and a biography of Leila Khaled.

Courtesy of Electronic Intifada

Canadian and United Kingdom solidarity activists have scored recent victories towards deshelving cosmetics made in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East (CPJME) reported that on 11 January, Canadian retail chain The Bay dropped Ahava products from its stores. Ahava cosmetic products are made from materials from the Dead Sea in the West Bank, assembled in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem, and are labeled “made in Israel.”

The company itself is partially owned by Mitzpe Shalem and another settlement, Kalia. An international campaign focusing on the boycott of Ahava products has been making waves across Europe and North America over the last two years.

CPJME stated that The Bay dropped Ahava products because they had not “been meeting expectations,” and that the company had “quietly informed” its customers who had objected to the store stocking Ahava products that they would not continue to do so (”The Bay drops controversial AHAVA products,” 13 January 2011).

However, two days later, The Bay (known also as HBC), issued a joint statement with Canada-based Jewish groups who had immediately protested the retail chain’s decision. The move to drop Ahava products was “solely for commercial reasons,” and that “at no point did political considerations enter into” the decision, the statement claims (”The Bay drops Ahava, but not because of boycott,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency,” 14 January 2011).

The announcement adds that Ahava products will be rebranded and will be back on shelves across Canada by this spring. The Bay “neither subscribes to nor endorses politically-motivated boycotts of merchandise from countries with which Canada has open and established trading relationships, including Israel,” the statement says.

The Stolen Beauty campaign, which has been a key organizer of international boycotts of Ahava products, released an action alert this week encouraging boycott supporters to thank HBC, regardless of its future plans and reasons for stopping its sales of Ahava. “Your message of thanks is crucial as right-wing, pro-occupation groups berate and pressure The Bay to reinstate sales of Ahava,” the alert stated (”Thank you for dropping Ahava products!”).

Nevertheless, The Bay’s decision followed a similar move by British retail chain John Lewis, which had publicly announced on 7 January that it has stopped stocking and selling Ahava products.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign issued a press release welcoming John Lewis’ decision, and reprinted part of a letter drafted by the company to the activist group (”John Lewis stops stocking Ahava products in Britain,” 14 January 2011).

Andy Street, John Lewis’ managing director, wrote: “As a socially responsible retailer, John Lewis takes very seriously the treatment of workers and their working conditions. We expect all our suppliers not only to obey the law, but also to respect the rights, interests and well-being of their employees, their communities and the environment … In relation to your specific enquiry about Ahava Dead Sea products, I can confirm that John Lewis has ceased stocking these particular products.”

Sarah Colborne, director of operations with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, stated that Ahava and other companies that profit from Israel’s illegal occupation are being sent a clear message by consumers.

“Although governments, including our own, are failing to end Israel’s violations of international law and human rights, we can all take action by refusing to buy Israeli goods and joining the movement for [boycott, divestment and sanctions],” Colborne said. “The [Palestine Solidarity Campaign] will continue to ensure that companies which profit from Israel’s occupation pay the price for their complicity in Israel’s crimes.”

Meanwhile, across the world, solidarity activists continue to campaign with the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) announced that two hundred Irish artists have signed onto its Israel boycott pledge, with singer-songwriter Dylan Walshe joining as the latest signatory.

IPSC launched its national campaign in August 2010 in an effort to encourage Irish cultural workers to “avail of any invitation to perform or exhibit in Israel, nor to accept any funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights (”Irish artists’ pledge to boycott Israel reaches 200 signatories,” 13 January 2011).”

Walshe joins high-profile Irish artists who have committed to the boycott, such as actor Stephen Rea and musician Christy Moore. Raymond Deane, IPSC Cultural Boycott Officer and contributor to The Electronic Intifada, stated in the press release that “[a]s the Israeli state becomes ever more racist, expansionist and oppressive, we have seen the growth in its isolation by international civil society through the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”

Deane, who is also a composer and himself a signatory to the pledge, added, “[t]he success of this boycott pledge is indicative of wider feelings toward Israel, both in Ireland and around the world. Indeed, similar pledges and initiatives are being organized in many other countries.”

Palestine-based activists with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) issued a statement on 16 January calling for US solidarity groups to boycott the upcoming American tour of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, scheduled for February (”Boycott the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra on its US Tour!,” 16 January 2011).

PACBI said the orchestra is scheduled to perform in Palm Beach, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. “We urge activists to continue the principled tradition of activists in New York and Los Angeles in 2007, when they protested the [orchestra’s] appearance in their cities,” states the press release.

“As befits an institution that identifies with the Israeli state, the [Israel Philharmonic] proudly announces its partnership with the army under a scheme whereby special concerts for Israeli soldiers are organized at their army outposts,” PACBI adds. “The orchestra has lent itself to the official Israeli propaganda campaign titled Brand Israel, which aims to divert attention from Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights to its artistic and scientific achievements.”

PACBI encourages boycott activists in the US to protest and boycott the orchestra’s concerts, saying that as long as it continues to partner with the Israeli government in “planning, implementing and whitewashing war crimes and international law violations,” Israel’s cultural establishment “cannot be exempted from the growing boycott movement.”

Activists with the Israeli group Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call From Within (BFW) drafted a letter to British Telecom (BT) on 18 January, calling for the company to cut ties with the Israeli telecommunications company Bezeq International (”Boycott From Within’s letter to BT,” 18 January 2011).

In January 2010, BT incorporated Bezeq International, a subsidiary of Bezeq Israel, into its Global Alliance. The Bezeq corporation provides telecommunication services to illegal Israeli settlement colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Thousands of British customers of BT have already joined a campaign calling for the companies to cut ties.

“We are saddened and dismayed by your company’s complicity in severe breaches of international law and the violation of human rights through your relationship with Bezeq International, and call on you to end this relationship at once,” states the activists’ letter. “By partnering with Bezeq, [British Telecom] is supporting the infrastructure which enables illegal Israeli settlements, built in violation of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, to exist,” the letter adds.

“We maintain that such willful blindness to Israeli crimes is not only immoral, but is also in contrast to [British Telecom’s] fiduciary responsibility to its investors, as it may put the company’s high-regard in the international community at risk.”

Meanwhile, BFW activists say they helped play a key role in the recent decision by French pop star Vanessa Paradis to cancel a planned concert in Tel Aviv.

After the group drafted a letter urging Paradis and her partner, American film icon Johnny Depp, to cancel their upcoming visit, the singer announced on 15 January that her performance was cancelled.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that insiders close to the star claimed that Paradis “acceded to calls to cancel the show made by Palestinian solidarity groups” (”Did pop star Paradis cancel Israel concert over politics?,” 16 January 2011).

BFW activists have launched a similar campaign directed at American singer Macy Gray, who this week posted on her Facebook page that she was considering canceling her performance in Tel Aviv due to Israel’s “disgusting” treatment of Palestinians.

“I’m getting alot [sic] of letters from activists urging/begging me to boycott by NOT performing in protest of Apartheid against the Palestinians,” Gray posted on her page.

Activists with BFW stated that “[c]oming to perform in Israel has become a political act, a statement of support for the State of Israel’s ongoing crimes and human rights violations. It is also an act against a rapidly growing nonviolent, human-rights based civil society Palestinian movement.

Courtesy of Aljazeera

At least 165 Israeli professors have declared a boycott against a contentious college in the occupied West Bank, deepening an internal rift over the expansion of Israeli settlements there.

Organizers of the boycott said on Sunday that the academics signed a petition stating they are unwilling to undertake any activities at Ariel University Centre, because, they said, Ariel is an “illegal settlement” intended to prevent Palestinians from establishing an independent state.

“Ariel is not part of the sovereign territory of Israel, and we therefore cannot be required to go there,” the petition reads.

Ariel, a settlement of 19,000 people, lies deep inside the West Bank, and the Ariel University Centre of Samaria, with its approximately 8,500 students, is situated inside one of the larger settlements of the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians – who claim all of the West Bank, seized in 1967, as part of a future independent state -refuse to negotiate while Israel builds homes for Israelis on captured territories.

Some 300,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 200,000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem.

Petition signers criticised

Nir Gov, a professor at Weizmann Institute of Science, who organised the boycott, said the goal is not to punish the college’s student body - which includes many Arabs - but to hasten the end of the occupation.

“I have two young daughters and I want them to grow up in a democratic, free Israel,” Gov said.

“The occupation of millions of Palestinians without any human rights is really destroying it.”

Gov added that others have declined to add their names to the petition for fear of retribution by Israel’s right wing.

The petition was opposed by an umbrella group of Israeli university presidents and the hawkish political party Yisrael Beitenu.

Gideon Saar, Israel’s education minister, condemned the boycott in a statement, calling the petition a “provocation”, and Ron Nachman, Ariel’s mayor, told Israeli radio that the more academics boycott, the more he will build up the settlement.

Boycotting the boycotters

Israeli academics themselves have been subject to boycott calls from colleagues in Britain and Spain.

Israeli officials have angrily said such efforts are counterproductive and go against the ideals of academic freedom.

In 2010, more than 150 Israeli artists boycotted a new performing arts centre in Ariel, with 60 Jewish artists from the UK and UK signing on the Jewish Voices for Peace petition stating the same.

Also, hundreds of professors signed a petition opposing the college’s upgrade to university status.

The continued growth of Jewish settlements is at the heart of the current impasse in Mideast peace efforts.

The latest round of peace talks broke down in late September after an Israeli freeze on most settlement construction expired.

Courtesy of BNC Palestine

Occupied Palestine – We, the undersigned Palestinian civil society organizations, including farmers’ unions, agricultural organizations and popular committees, reiterate the call of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) for a full boycott of Carmel-Agrexco due to its complicity in marketing products of Israel’s illegal colonial settlements and in other Israeli violations of international law and human rights. Standing united with the Coalition Against Carmel-Agrexco in France and across Europe, we express our strong support for the legal action against Carmel-Agrexco taken by French civil society organizations before the Commercial Court of Creteil.

Carmel Agrexco, the partially state owned Israeli exporter is in violation of international law. Agrexco markets 60-70% of the agricultural produce grown in Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory and plays a key role in the development of industrial scale Israeli agri-business. It profits from Israel’s illegal colonial settlements and the theft of Palestinian land and water resources in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) in violation of the IV Geneva Convention and provides an economic incentive for the continuation of Israel’s unlawful regime of occupation, apartheid and colonialism over the Palestinian people. Within the legal and ethical framework of corporate responsibility a company bears the responsibility for all its commercial undertakings that may violate human rights, labour and environmental standards. We moreover wish to emphasize that renowned international law experts as well as the International Court of Justice in its 2004 ruling on Israel’s illegal Wall in the OPT have affirmed that states have a legal obligation to discourage business relations which contribute to the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel. This includes business with Carmel Agrexco.

Israeli exports, and Carmel Agrexco products in particular, have been routinely mislabelled, and Israeli export companies and officials have consistently misled partner governments and companies, concealing the facts about products originating from the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The EU Court of Justice has ruled that such Israeli products do not qualify for preferential customs treatment under the EU-Israel Agreement and has criticised Israeli export authorities for being obstructive in their response to requests made by European Union officials. The UK government has expressed its doubts about the traceability of all products marked ‘made in Israel’.

Researchers have repeatedly documented evidence of Carmel Agrexco itself being involved in the deliberate mislabelling of produce from illegal Israeli settlements. We have recently become aware of attempts by the Israel lobby in France to counter efforts for bringing Agrexco into compliance with international law by the Coalition Against Carmel-Agrexco in France, claiming that a boycott of Agrexco would hurt Palestinian strawberry exports from Gaza. At a time when Israel is systematically destroying Palestinian agriculture, uprooting hundreds of thousands of fruitful trees, bulldozing massive farm areas, and denying Palestinians access to our water resources , no one should be deceived by such blatant Israeli propaganda efforts. Through its ongoing criminal siege of Gaza and its war of aggression against it, Israel has destroyed farmlands, water treatment plants, and sewage facilities, causing unprecedented levels of pollution, poverty and health crises in the occupied Gaza Strip.

“More than 5,000 signatures were collected and presented to Ann Arbor’s city council” for a resolution to withhold U.S. aid to Israel

By Nick Meyer

Courtesy of Arab American News

The city of Ann Arbor has long been a hotspot for the Boycott Israel movement, and a group of the most fervent Palestinian rights activists continued that tradition Wednesday, protesting a meeting between Starbucks employees and CEO Howard Schultz. Read the full story

By Salim Nazzal

Courtesy of thepeoplesvoice.org

In the wake of the crisis after a Swedish newspaper revealed the heinous, and criminal activity, of Israel which has been harvesting organs and body parts from murdered Palestinians and selling them on to the USA it seems that Israel is facing another crisis, this time with Norway. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund, which has $400 billion in assets under management, has sold its $5.4 million holding in Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems Ltd. Read the full story

Courtesy of Desertpeace

Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and Eve Ensler have joined the growing list of artists who are boycotting the Toronto film festival over a program honoring Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary, gossip blogger Perez Hilton reported on Friday.

The three have added their names to a letter aimed at festival officials claiming that Tel Aviv was built on violence, ignoring the “suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants,” Hilton reported. Read the full story