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

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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.

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BY GAIL EVELYN ALFAR
Guest Writer, Austin, TX

The BDS movement had amazing successes in 2011 in France. Before 2011, French activists for Palestinian human rights had never seen a French musician cancel a show in Israel.  But 2011 saw three famous musicians cancel.
In January, Vanessa Paradis refused to sing in Israel.  Her partner, Johnny Depp, also cancelled his trip to Israel.   French activists had asked the pop star to cancel her trip, in a highly visible creative protest outside of one of her concerts.  In November, Mireille Mathieu made an announcement on her website that she was postponing her Tel Aviv concert.  BDS France had written her an open letter, and they encouraged her to stand strong against pressure from both French and Israeli booking agents to “reschedule” her concert in the apartheid state.  In December famed opera singer, Oumou Sangaré chose to cancel her planned performance with the Israeli Opera.  An informative letter from BDS France was followed by a letter from BDS Italy.
In November, activists for Palestinian human rights appeared in Montpellier, southern France.  In an incredible act of courage, they de-shelved enormous amounts of Israeli avocados and oranges.  They then rolled the produce through the mega-store chanting Palestine solidarity slogans including “boycott Israel,” “Israel is criminal, Carrefour is an accomplice.” A video of the BDS action clearly shows many shoppers expressing support for the well-organized event.
The Flytilla was a French-led event that took place in July.  Five hundred women, children and men flew into Tel Aviv, and stated their intention of solidarity with Palestine.  Most were blocked from leaving Europe, and over 150 were jailed in Israel.  The Flytilla received international press coverage.  A Google search yielded over 1 million results, with news articles appearing in countless countries and newspapers.
Veolia, a French company, was investigated by French BDS activists.  Veolia chose to make a profit from building and operating a settler-only bus and tramway in Israel.  Protest actions in France ensued.  BDS actions asking Veolia to stop resulted in Veolia losing other profitable contracts.  Veolia was breaking international law by building in connection with illegal settlements.
December brought forth the most encouraging news ever for BDS France.  Following a court judgment in Mulhouse (east France) the “Campaign BDS France” made this statement:
“Thursday, 15 December will be a historic date for the Campaign in France. The court at Mulhouse has in effect acquitted the 12 activists prosecuted for their participation in the BDS campaign. They had been pursued by the usual conveyers of Israel’s policies, as well as by the LICRA [International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism] for “discrimination and inciting hatred and violence toward a group or nation” for having participated in two boycott actions in the Carrefour supermarket in Illzach.”
Palestine solidarity in France is the target of three powerful Zionist groups: the National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, known by its French acronym BNCVA, the France Israel Chamber of Commerce and LICRA.  All three groups seek to shield Israel from accountability.  Though all three groups have stepped up their efforts to protect Israel, Palestine solidarity in France seems only to grow stronger.
French protest in support of Palestine is becoming increasingly bold, and the French form is very public and highly visible.  Last November Filmmaker Chris den Hond of Belgium released an 18 minute documentary featuring remarkable footage of huge protests in France that include:
•    Many spectacular supermarket actions.
•    The French Senator Deleet Smamit, who was not convicted after participating in a BDS action,
•    The protest asking Vanessa Paradis not to sing in Israel.
•    A “die-in” at an arms sales convention in France in which Israel had drones and other weapons for sale.
•    A massive boat full of protesters floating past a ceremony honoring Israel’s President Peres.
•    A protest in a famous mall asking a store not to stock “AHAVA” dead sea beauty products.
Chris den Hond calls the BDS movement one of the “most prominent international grassroots movements against the Israeli policy of occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.”  Omar Barghouti says the movement is not a “marginal movement, it’s becoming much more mainstream.” He says the BDS movement already has “major support from major unions…even in Europe, even in Canada, and starting in the US, as well.”
BDS France serves as creative model for Palestine solidarity, and might well be leading the way in creativity and sheer size of BDS actions.

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BY GAIL EVELYN ALFAR
Guest Writer, Austin, TX

The Israeli press is abuzz with excitement.  Google “Israel Bruce Springsteen” and there’s a full page of links to his possible concert in Israel.  “The Boss” probably does not know that the Israeli Government works very hard to promote Tel Aviv as a hedonistic, libertarian party city, frequented by many of the world’s best known bands and DJs. This manufactured image matters to Israel, the implicit message is that the country is liberal and progressive. Music fans can dance, drink and pop pills long into the night, blissfully distracted from the immeasurable suffering endured by Palestinians living just 40km down the road in Gaza. How can entertaining Israel, despite its occupation and apartheid, be considered non-political, whereas refraining from doing so is seen as political?
In effect, music helps to drown out the cries of the oppressed in a society willfully in denial of its role as oppressor. Ten reasons why “The Boss” should not be complicit in this crime:
1. Israel denies its responsibility for the Nakba — in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem — and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced stipulated in and protected by international law.
2. Israel conducts military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions.
3. Israel has an entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa.
4. All forms of international intervention have until now failed to force Israel to comply with international law or to end its repression of the Palestinians, which has manifested itself in many forms, including siege, indiscriminate killing, wanton destruction and the racist colonial wall.
5. People of conscience in the international community of scholars and intellectuals have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott.
6. All musicians are being asked to respect the cultural boycott of Israel and its complicit institutions by a majority of Palestinian civil society, over 170 organizations from across the political and social spectrum, and especially by a great majority of Palestinian artists and cultural figures. If the Palestinian near-consensus is not sufficient to convince Bruce, then he can at least refrain from performing until he has visited the occupied Palestinian territory and spoken with exiled Palestinian refugees.
7. Israel is today the only state practicing a three-tiered system of oppression – occupation, colonization and apartheid – while being treated by Western states as part of their “democratic club” and, consequently, receiving unlimited political, economic, diplomatic, academic and cultural support from them.
8. He should not attempt to disguise personal interest and/or fear of the expected wrath of Israel and its influential lobby groups, with a mantle of wisdom and concern for the “real” interests of the oppressed; as Desmond Tutu says:  “Struggles for freedom and justice are fraught with huge moral dilemmas. How can we commit ourselves to virtue – before its political triumph – when such commitment may lead to ostracism from our political allies and even our closest partners and friends? Are we willing to speak out for justice when the moral choice that we make for an oppressed community may invite phone calls from the powerful or when possible research funding will be withdrawn from us?”
9. Palestinian citizens of Israel, refugees, and those living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza have come together to develop a form of ethical, peaceful resistance to fight for these rights.  They have worked hard over the years to build a movement with consensus, and they are appealing to international cultural workers to stand with them in solidarity and put pressure on the Israeli apartheid government.
10. The BDS movement is growing rapidly.  This has caused some on the Zionist “left” to misleadingly promote a peace industry fraught with unequal “dialogue” where Palestinians lack any power to influence the outcome and joint projects that normalize oppression rather than help to end it. Palestinians refuse to engage in this unprincipled engagement and insist, instead, on calling for effective international solidarity in the form of BDS.  If Springsteen decides to side with the Israeli tactic, he is undermining the cause of freedom, justice and equality–the main slogans of the BDS movement.

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“I’m a Freedom Rider! I’m just trying to go to Jerusalem!” shouted Palestinian activist Huiwada Arraf Tuesday evening as a live Internet video feed showed Israeli police officers dragging her off a bus linking Israeli settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem.

Arraf and five other Palestinian activists boarded segregated Israeli public bus number 148 — which connects the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel to Jerusalem — on Tuesday in an act of civil disobedience aimed to draw attention to Israeli colonial and apartheid policies and the lack of basic human rights Palestinians are afforded under this system.

After sitting peacefully on the bus at Israel’s Hizma checkpoint, just outside the northern entrance to Jerusalem, and nonviolently resisting attempts by the Israeli authorities to get them off the bus, all six “Freedom Riders” were eventually removed by force and arrested for illegally entering Israel without permits.

Another Palestinian Freedom Rider was also arrested while attempting to ride the segregated buses, and according to a Freedom Riders press release, was taken with the six other activists to Atarot police station (“Palestinian Freedom Riders On Their Way to Jerusalem Violently Arrested on Israeli Settler Bus”).

Their protest action was inspired by the Freedom Riders of the civil rights movement in the United States, who nonviolently challenged segregation in the American South in the 1950s and 1960s.

“It’s going to be a challenge for Palestinians and for every human being for their morality. It’s going to be a challenge for the whole world to really take action against the Israeli crimes,” Palestinian Freedom Riders spokesperson Hurriyah Ziada told The Electronic Intifada on Monday.

While Palestinians are not explicitly barred from boarding Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, since most buses pass through Israeli settlements that are off-limits to Palestinians, the system is de facto segregated.

“Our challenge is going to be on the ground dealing with the settlers, but on the other hand, we’re waiting for the peoples’ reactions and the world’s reactions. Enough talk; we need real action on the ground and for people to take a side, taking a rightful side against Israeli discrimination,” Ziada said.

Tense hours at the checkpoint

The Freedom Riders left RamallahTuesday afternoon and headed to a bus stop in the occupied West Bank, which serves Israeli settlers near the Israeli settlement of Psagot. After a few buses drove past the Palestinian activists without stopping, six Freedom Riders, and a large group of journalists, managed to board a bus.

The bus was reportedly followed along its route by Israeli soldiers and police, and was stopped shortly after arriving at the Hizma checkpoint. Once there, Israeli settlers who had been on the bus got off, and Israeli soldiers and police officers boarded to check passengers’ IDs, according to images broadcast on the Freedom Waves live Internet video feed.

“The Israelis can’t take the wait and so they are getting off the bus. Let them see what we have to go through and let them ask why this is happening, and why it has to happen this way in order to try to change things,” said Freedom Rider Huwaida Arraf, as the settlers stood up and began leaving the bus, as documented in the Freedom Waves video feed.

“Whether they’re corralled in pens at checkpoints or held up and detained, not told why, arrested, held for days, weeks, sometimes months without any kind of legal justification at all … this happens to Palestinians every day,” she said.

“I want people to see the apartheid system here”

The Electronic Intifada spoke directly with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, one of the Freedom Riders, at approximately 4:20pm local time on Tuesday, as he sat on the bus at the checkpoint.

“We’re on the bus. They just moved us a few yards beyond the [Hizma] checkpoint. We are in a parking lot and the soldiers are asking us to come down from the bus. The people refuse to come down from the bus. They are telling [us] that [we] are detained and [we] have to come from the bus. We don’t know yet what they are going to do. They took one person from the bus. There’s [Israeli] special forces, border police, regular police and soldiers surrounding the bus,” Qumsiyeh said.

“I don’t know [what will happen] but I think we will be punished severely,” Qumsiyeh, who was later arrested with the five other Freedom Riders, added. “I want [people] to see that we have an apartheid system here. There are illegal, colonial settlements in our land. These settlements have their own buses and they get to Jerusalem without anybody checking them, yet we, the native Palestinians, are not allowed to get to Jerusalem.”

Freedom of movement severely restricted

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal according to international law, including the Geneva conventions. It is estimated that approximately 500,000 Jewish Israelis currently live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem estimates that from 1967 — when Israel imposed its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — to mid-2010, the Israeli government established 121 settlements in the West Bank that were officially recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Interior.

In that same period, approximately 100 settler outposts, considered illegal under both international and Israeli laws, were erected, while twelve so-called “neighborhoods” of Jerusalem were built on land illegally annexed by Israel and are thereby also illegal under international law.

According to B’Tselem, Israel has created a system of “separation and discrimination, with two separate systems of law” in the occupied West Bank.

“One system, for the settlers, de facto annexes the settlements to Israel and grants settlers the rights of citizens of a democratic state. The other is a system of military law that systematically deprives Palestinian of their rights and denies them the ability to have any real effect on shaping the policy regarding the land space in which they live and with respect to their rights,” B’Tselem states on its website.

Restrictions on Palestinian freedoms do not end at the settlements themselves, however. Instead, Palestinians’ rights are also violated by the infrastructure built to accommodate Israeli settlers, especially private, Israeli-only roads. “In October 2010, there were 232 kilometers of roads in the West Bank that Israel classified for the sole, or almost sole, use of Israelis, primarily of settlers,” says B’Tselem.

“Israel also prohibits Palestinians from even crossing some of these roads with vehicles, thereby restricting their access to nearby roads that they are ostensibly not prohibited from using. In these cases, Palestinians travelers have to get out of the vehicle, cross the road on foot, and find an alternative mode of transportation on the other side,” according to the human rights group.

Veolia a boycott target for serving settlements

Egged, Israel’s largest public transportation company, operates the bus that the Freedom Riders boarded in the West Bank Tuesday. French company Veolia also operates bus lines serving illegal Israeli settlements throughout the occupied West Bank.

According to the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which organizes around the 2005 Palestinian call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel as a way to end Israeli violations of international law and promote Palestinian rights, Egged and Veolia “are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their involvement in and profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement infrastructure.”

Palestinian Freedom Rides Spokesperson Hurriyah Ziada told The Electronic Intifada that promoting the BDS call — and the specific boycott of and divestment from Egged and Veolia — is a major aim of the Freedom Rides movement.

“We’re trying to support the BDS campaign,” Ziadah said. “Negotiations have been going for too long and we haven’t been achieving anything on the ground. Everybody knows that these settlements are illegal on our land, but nobody is doing anything. Israel is not paying any cost for any of its actions. They have to pay a price by people boycotting them and by highlighting how racist they are. We ask for human rights and freedom, justice and dignity.”

“In the civil rights movement, they were fighting against racism,” Ziadah added, “but we’re going to be fighting against racism, discrimination [and] occupation. We’re going to be fighting to exist.”

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem.

Article courtesy of Electronic Intifada; Image courtesy Anne Paq / Active Stills

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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.

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A group of pro-Israel activists, backed by StandWithUs, a national US pro-Israel US organization, is planning to take legal action to force the Olympia Food Co-op to rescind its historic decision to boycott Israeli products.

The Electronic Intifada has obtained a copy of a 31 May 2011 letter sent to the Board of Directors of the Olympia Food Co-op in Olympia, Washington, threatening “expensive” legal action if the pro-Israel activists’ “demands” to end the boycott of Israeli products are not met.

Other documents, supported by interviews, confirm that the Israeli government has taken part in discussions about, and been given advance knowledge of, the planned lawsuit and another planned action against Evergreen State College in Olympia in response to Palestine solidarity activism by students.

Evergreen State is noted for being the school attended by Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli occupation soldier operating a bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in March 2003.

These developments indicate new, even more aggressive tactics by pro-Israel organizations to suppress, deter and malign any form of Palestine-related dissent, protest or solidarity action.

An historic vote

On 15 July 2010, the Olympia Food Co-Op (OFC) became the first grocery store in the United States to ban Israeli-made items from its shelves.

The highly symbolic action, which gained global attention, came in response to the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) measures against Israel until Israel respects Palestinian human rights and international law.

From the first moment the boycott resolution was passed, Olympia community members who supported and organized for it were accused of anti-Semitism by the Northwest chapter of StandWithUs.

Now, StandWithUs is taking its assault against the OFC to a new level with its backing for legal action.

Also in June 2010, students at Evergreen State College voted overwhelmingly to back an initiative calling on college administrators to divest the school’s assets from any companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, and specifically Caterpillar Corporation, which makes bulldozers Israel uses to demolish Palestinian homes.

It was a Caterpillar bulldozer that Israeli forces used to kill Rachel Corrie as she attempted to prevent such a demolition. According to a StandWithUs flyer (PDF), Rachel Corrie “died in Gaza after interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations.”

Documents show that in addition to targeting the Olympia Food Co-op, StandWithUs is helping to plan a civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College.

Threat of legal action against Olympia Food Co-op

The 31 May letter (PDF) sent individually to members of the Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors is signed by five individuals who identify themselves as “members of the Olympia Food Co-op (‘OFC’) who oppose OFC’s boycott of Israeli made products (‘Israel Boycott’) and divestment from Israeli companies (‘Divestment’).”

The five are Kent L. Davis, Linda Davis, Susan Mayer, Susan G. Trinin and Jeffrey I. Trinin. All except for Mayer also appeared in a StandWithUs Northwest video published on YouTube in June entitled “Why BDS Scars Don’t Heal: A StandWithUs Production.”

The video alleges that the BDS effort in Olympia has been motivated by and generated anti-Semitism, and was run by a secretive and conspiratorial “dark organization” from outside the community.

It also claims that the BDS effort in Olympia and a similar initiative in the town of Port Townsend, north of Seattle, last year had generated “a climate of fear and terror for Jews.”

The activists’ letter makes sweeping allegations that the OFC board engaged in “numerous procedural violations” in passing the boycott of Israeli goods, but it does not provide any examples of such violations.

The letter writers claim to have made many sincere efforts to rectify the unspecified “violations” but asserted that their complaints had “fallen on deaf ears as the Board steadfastly refuses to revisit its position on the Israel Boycott and Divestment policies.”

“At this point,” the letter states, “we are left no choice but to demand in no uncertain terms that OFC act in accordance with its rules and bylaws and rescind the Israel Boycott and Divestment policies.”

The letter sets a thirty-day deadline for a response and adds, “Regrettably should the board reject our demand, we are prepared to pursue relief through the court system.”

The pro-Israel activists’ letter concludes, “If you do what we demand, this situation may be resolved amicably and efficiently. If not, we will bring legal action against you, and this process will become considerably more complicated, burdensome, and expensive than it has been already.”

Lawsuit “a matter of time”

Reached by telephone, Avi Lipman, a Seattle-based attorney that The Electronic Intifada learned represents the letter writers, confirmed that two letters had been sent to the OFC board — the 31 May letter obtained by The Electronic Intifada and a follow-up.

However, Lipman said that a lawsuit had still not been filed, and “there is still an opportunity for the board to take the remedial action my clients have asked for.”

Lipman would not specify any procedural violations made by the OFC board. “I don’t want to get into it in any detail,” he said, indicating that the 31 May letter described “in general terms what our concerns are.”

But Lipman did not seem optimistic that the board would rescind the boycott decision as demanded. After the initial thirty-day deadline, Lipman said his clients had given the board an additional fifteen-day period to act.

“That time has also expired,” Lipman said. “The board has indicated that it plans to stand by the actions it has taken, so it seems clear to me that remedial action will not be taken.”

“It’s just a matter of time before we go to court and seek relief from the court,” Lipman added.

Lipman was keen to emphasize that his clients’ complaints were not based on the substance of the BDS decision, but merely the alleged, unspecified procedural violations. “The issue is how the process unfolded and the procedures that were followed and not followed by the board,” Lipman said.

He stressed that if the boycott of Israeli goods was revoked, and then reinstated according to the proper procedures, his clients would abide by it.

“An allegation that doesn’t have an allegation”

“We don’t have any statement on the non-existent lawsuit,” Jayne Kaszynski, Staff Representative to the Olympia Food Co-op Board, told The Electronic Intifada. “It’s pretty much impossible to respond to an allegation that doesn’t have an allegation.”

Kaszynski said that the BDS decision and the procedures used to reach it had generated widespread public debate among Co-op members, especially on the OFC’s blog. She added that any member who was unhappy with a decision of the board had “democratic alternatives” to legal action.

“If you’ve read the bylaws you know that we have a simple member petition process. Any member can create a petition and if they get 300 members to sign it, they can get pretty much any issue put on a ballot,” Kaszynski said.

The OFC has 22,000 active members, according to Kaszynski, “so the 300 signature requirement is not very high. So far no one has exercised this democratic right in relation to the boycott.”

The petition procedure is described in the Olympia Food Co-op Bylaws.

Lipman, however, said his clients did not think they should use this procedure because they see the original boycott decision as illegitimate, and therefore the burden should be on the board, not on his clients, to take remedial action.

Smearing BDS as “anti-Semitism”

At one point, the StandWithUs YouTube video briefly displays an image of a Nazi Swastika superimposed on a Star of David, with a caption above it stating “Actual image from handout.”

The video provides no information on where this handout was supposedly distributed or any evidence that it has anything whatsoever to do with the Olympia Food Co-op.

Yet the smear is clearly meant to tar any and all BDS supporters — presumably including those who self-identify as Jewish — as anti-Semites.

“I really don’t think it’s comfortable for Jews to live in the city of Olympia and be outwardly expressing Jews,” Kent Davis, one of the letter writers, claims in the video. “You know, you can be a closet Jew and that’s fine. I just don’t feel comfortable discussing my religion or my beliefs in a mixed group environment anymore.”

As with the swastika “handout,” no evidence is ever presented of any specific incidents that back up this grave charge likening placid Olympia to 1930s Berlin, or to link the alleged climate of fear to the Olympia Food Co-op’s boycott of Israeli goods.

A “dark” outside conspiracy

In the StandWithUs video, the letter writers and other speakers allege that the BDS action at the Olympia Food Co-op was planned by a shadowy organization that came in from outside the community, and then disappeared leaving behind acrimony and conflict from which there has been no “healing.”

None of these allegations come with any specifics or facts and the overall tone is conspiratorial.

“It’s amazing that I’ve been pushed aside as a Jew in this town because of the BDS,” says Tibor Breuer, identified as an OFC member in the video. “It’s a very, very dark organization that has no interest in anything that has to do with the two-state solution.”

BDS is, in fact, not an “organization,” but the term given to a set of principles and tactics which have been taken up by independent individuals and solidarity groups all over the world in response to the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions measures on Israel until Israel ends its human rights violations and respects Palestinian rights and international law.

“When BDS comes into these communities, they just divide people in all sorts of ways and then they leave and the community is stuck with having to somehow heal and we can’t heal yet,” Linda Davis, another of the five letter writers, alleges in the video.

“BDS was over there in Europe celebrating their victory, and we’re stuck with this shit,” Breuer adds.

In fact, at the time the OFC boycott was passed, and since, those who initiated it spoke frequently to the media, and all have been local Olympia community and Co-op members.

Ironically, Robert S. Jacobs, the director of StandWithUs Northwest, acknowledges as much.

Refuting suggestions that the pro-Israel counterattack against BDS is centralized, Jacobs told The Electronic Intifada, “Similar to the BDS movement, we’re made up of activists in the community who passionately feel they want to express a certain perspective and hope that opinion leaders will adopt that perspective.”

Jacobs admitted in the interview that there was no such thing as “BDS central.” Yet the video that bears the StandWithUs name and features the letter writers paints an altogether different picture.

Meanwhile, the vilification of Palestine solidarity activists as anti-Semites is not surprising given the views of some of the StandWithUs leadership.

One board member and founder in Los Angeles, Mordechai “Moti” Gur, describes the purpose of StandWithUs in the following terms on the website for another organization he founded: “We combat the soft jihad and local intifadas by Muslim organizations by exposing everyone to the light of truth” (The Moses Project).

Other StandWithUs documents and websites routinely malign Palestine solidarity activists — including the nine civilians killed by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara as “jihadists.”

But while the pro-Israel activists in the StandWithUs video allege — without offering a shred of evidence — that OFC was the victim of a “dark” external conspiracy by anti-Semitic outsiders bent on dividing their community, they themselves are receiving significant external backing.

How StandWithUs describes its role

StandWithUs is a national pro-Israel advocacy organization which has taken a lead in fighting “delegitimization” and BDS.

Pro-Israel groups and the Israeli government have since last year claimed that virtually all Palestinian solidarity work amounts to an effort to delegitmize Israel. In recent policy speeches, US officials have vowed to help Israel combat “delegitmization” — though precisely what this means in practice and how it may affect civil liberties and free speech is unclear.

The Northwest chapter of StandWithUs has been particularly active in combating BDS efforts not only in Olympia but at the food co-op in Port Townsend, north of Seattle, where there was an unsuccessful bid to emulate the OFC boycott. (Disclosure: I was invited to Port Townsend in August 2010 to speak at a community event in support of BDS).

But how deeply involved is StandWithUs, and how does the organization liaise with the Israeli government in mounting these local battles?

Jacobs characterizes StandWithUs Northwest as little more than a small local chapter, “a two-person office,” providing basic support and advice to individuals such as those threatening to sue the Olympia Food Co-op.

Jacobs told The Electronic Intifada his group’s contact with the five letter writers was largely limited to providing printed materials, helping bring in speakers and offering advice. He said he had not seen either of the letters sent to the OFC board.

Although Jacobs did acknowledge working with and meeting repeatedly with the letter writers, he characterized the relationship to any potential lawsuit as arms length:

“Since we’re not actually a party to anything down there, frankly we’re not in any of the loop regarding the legal matters. Just from an attorney-client privilege standpoint anything we would do with anybody would be violating some kind of potential privilege. So, we know that they’re doing some stuff. I know they’ve been working with an attorney. I know which firm it is but beyond that we have not in any way participated in the legal discussion.”

Jacobs acknowledged attending one meeting related to the potential lawsuit.

“We were at one meeting, I don’t know how many months ago, before anything actually happened,” Jacobs explained.

“We had been asked by some of the folks down there if we knew any attorneys up here [in Seattle], so we mentioned a number of names. But I was at a meeting where they had an initial — they had not retained any attorney or developed any permanent relationship with an attorney — when they had someone there talk off-the-cuff about what an attorney could do for them.”

Jacobs was also adamant that his office had not done any fundraising toward a potential lawsuit. “I don’t foresee us putting any money into a lawsuit,” he said, adding, “I don’t know of anybody who’s giving them money. I’ll be that blunt about it.”

Jacobs estimated that the amount of money his office had spent on work related to the OFC boycott — presumably not including staff time — amounted to just hundreds of dollars principally for printing flyers and brochures.

The role of the Israeli consulate

Asked what role the Israeli government plays in StandWithUs Northwest’s work, Jacobs stated that he personally knew Akiva Tor, the Israeli Consul General for the Pacific Northwest, based in San Francisco, and that Tor would be speaking at an upcoming StandWithUs fundraising event. Jacobs acknowledged that StandWithUs had helped to bring Tor’s deputy to speak in Port Townsend.

Jacobs said that the Israeli consulate did not play any “active role” in opposing the OFC boycott, but, he added, “from the information standpoint they want to know what’s going on.”

“We update him [Tor] on what’s happening in the community here,” Jacobs said.

“If what you’re talking about is if there is some sort of central coordination out of Israel for the activity we are doing here, absolutely not,” he added.

Tor had also offered to speak in Olympia, but it had not happened yet, according to Jacobs. “I know he met in a coffee shop with the Corries [Cindy and Craig, the parents of Rachel Corrie]. I heard that from all sorts of people in Olympia,” Jacobs stated.

Yet, this characterization is at best incomplete.

A deeper role for Israeli officials?

Although Jacobs has confirmed reporting to Israeli officials what goes on in the local community, the relationship may be even closer than he acknowledged.

A “Weekly Status Report” of StandWithUs Northwest, for the week of 5-11 March 2011 states that the following meetings took place:

“Rob [Jacobs] and Carolyn in Olympia with Olympia activists, Akiva Tor and Avi Lipman on Thursday – Presentation of legal case, discussion of Evergreen strategy and Olympia community speaker opportunities.”

Carolyn Hathaway is the co-chair of StandWithUs Northwest.

In his conversation with The Electronic Intifada, Jacobs did not disclose that Israeli Consul General Tor had not only already traveled to Olympia at the behest of StandWithUs, but had participated in a meeting with the activists threatening to sue the OFC and their lawyer.

The “status update” was posted on a website that archives emails sent to members of a private list of StandWithUs affiliates, but the website itself is unprotected.

It appears that this and other documents may have been published inadvertently, given how revealing they are of StandWithUs Northwest’s activities and strategy and the contradictions with Jacobs’ own characterizations.

Akiva Tor did not respond to a request to speak to The Electronic Intifada left with a staff person at his office.

The attorney, Avi Lipman, would not disclose what was discussed at the March meeting, again citing attorney-client privilege. Lipman said, however, “The Israeli consulate has nothing to do with this action. StandWithUs is not our client. We represent the individual co-op members who have asked the board to take remedial action.”

While all that may technically be true, none of it is inconsistent with a close advisory and an eventual fundraising role for StandWithUs and even the Israeli consulate.

Nor does it explain the presence of an official from a foreign government at a meeting in which legal action against OFC and possibly Evergreen State College was discussed.

Lipman would also not discuss how his clients might be able to afford an “expensive” — as the 31 May letter put it — legal action.

Another worrying possibility is that through StandWithUs, and possibly other organizations, Israeli diplomatic missions may collect intelligence about local activists or people who express views sympathetic to Palestinian human rights in order to exclude such people from visiting the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on political grounds.

In July, for example, Israel detained and deported dozens of individuals who planned to visit the occupied West Bank at the invitation of Palestinians.

StandWithUs remains fully engaged in Olympia lawsuit

Jacobs’ characterization of his organization’s role with the planned lawsuit as almost incidental is flatly contradicted by another document made public via the StandWithUs email archive.

The agenda for an upcoming 27 September 2011 StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee meeting includes the following items:

Project Status

The civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College
The law suit against the Olympia Food Co-op
Working to shut down the “educational” programs that Ed Mast has circulated to all Washington State social studies teachers and librarians
Speakers Bureau

Thus the OFC lawsuit and the Evergreen State College civil rights complaint are both “projects” of the StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee, and firmly on its agenda.

Ed Mast, it is worth noting, is a Seattle-area activist and playwright who has provided educational resources on Palestine.

In addition to everything else, it would appear that rather than merely providing an alternative, pro-Israeli viewpoint, StandWithUs is working to censor and exclude other viewpoints from schools and libraries and exclusively impose its own.

And, far from being merely restricted to its local area, StandWithUs Northwest is apparently assuming a national role:

StandWithUs Northwest helping other regions

Helping Avi Posnick in NY oppose the BDS boycott proposal at the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn
Helping Gail Rubin in Davis oppose the BDS boycott proposal at the Sacramento Food Co-op in Sacramento

It is clear from its agenda that not only is StandWithUs Northwest playing a continuing role in Olympia, but expanding its anti-BDS activities across the country.

Focus on procedure, not substance

During his interview with The Electronic Intifada, Jacobs characterized the grievances the letter writers had with the co-op in a manner remarkably similar to the 31 May letter which he said he had not seen. He acknowledged that it was StandWithUs’ advice that the case should focus on procedure, rather than substance.

“Courtrooms aren’t the place to discuss foreign policy and they wouldn’t make a decision based on that,” Jacobs explained. “The same is true with the board members that were on the board [of OFC] at the time. Most of them were sympathetic to the BDS movement and trying to make an argument counter to theirs would be a huge educational effort and probably not very successful.”

This, Jacobs said, was the rationale for focusing on procedure, rather than substantive arguments.

StandWithUs fundraising

Jacobs presents StandWithUs Northwest as almost a shoe-string operation. “We’re thought of as this huge, incredibly wealthy organization,” he told The Electronic Intifada. “As far as Jewish community organizations go, even on a national basis, we don’t have anything near the kind of resources of some other organizations such as ADL or AJC. Here frankly, we barely cover our own costs just in operations.”

But public financial filings of StandWithUs, which raises funds under the legal name “Israel Emergency Alliance,” (IEA) tell a quite different story.

The IEA’s mandatory Form 990 financial filings to the Internal Revenue Service (available from the website Guidestar) show an organization with $4.2 million in annual revenue and impressive fundraising capacity.

In 2008, Jacobs himself received an annual salary of $96,923 for an average forty-hour week, more on a pro-rated basis than StandWithUs founder and national executive director Roz Rothstein who received $100,000 for an average sixty-hour week, according to the filings. In 2009, Rothstein’s salary was raised to $150,000.

StandWithUs also has an international presence, with an Israeli office and a European base in Brussels, which together accounted for a million dollars in expenses in 2009.

The largest area of expenditure, however, is for campus advocacy at US colleges and universities, which accounted for $2.6 million in 2009.

Targeting Evergreen State College for student activism

The planned civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College may be an attempt to use alleged incidents of campus anti-Semitism as the basis for a legal action to discredit the divestment campaign at the school.

On 8 November 2010, a story appeared on the news website MyNorthwest.com under the byline of Alex Silverman with the headline “Pro-Israel students harassed, leave Evergreen State.”

It alleges that Evergreen State, once an oasis of tolerance, had become a place where some students have faced “torment and harassment” and have even left “simply for expressing their opinions about a controversial issue.”

The story claims five unnamed students “transferred out” of Evergreen State because of “harassment,” but the only source is a student named Joshua Levine. “There are days I feel uncomfortable walking across campus alone because I wear a yarmulke [Jewish skull cap] on my head,” Levine alleges.

Levine, president of the campus chapter of Hillel — another national pro-Israel organization — is also a StandWithUs Northwest Emerson Fellow.

But what were the examples of “harassment” that supposedly led to this situation? Just like the StandWithUs video, the only ones Levine provides conflate Palestine solidarity with “anti-Semitism”:

“Checkpoints were erected outside the bus stop,” Levine told Silverman. “People claiming to be IDF [Israeli army] veterans shoving toy assault rifles in people’s faces, demanding to see their student ID before they could go onto campus.”

Students have staged similar actions on campuses across North America to highlight the well-documented abuses Palestinians face living under Israeli military occupation.

The article quotes Israeli Consul General Akiva Tor decrying the supposedly dire situation.

The MyNorthwest.com story also notes: “This summer, the student body at Evergreen State voted overwhelmingly to divest from companies with economic interests in Israel, further fueling the anti-Israel fervor on campus.”

That, it would seem, is what is making Levine so uncomfortable.

Laying the ground for a civil rights complaint

Recently, the US Department of Education began investigating precisely such a civil rights complaint stemming from charges of anti-Semitism because of Palestine solidarity activism at the University of California-Santa Cruz.

That federal investigation is the first of its kind, though it may well be the model for targeting Evergreen State College.

Has StandWithUs, through Levine, been carefully laying the ground for a similar effort to use US civil rights protection legislation to suppress criticism of a foreign government that engages in massive human rights abuses and discrimination of precisely the kind civil rights legislation is meant to prevent?

Importing Israeli repression to the US?

What is particularly troubling about the threatened legal action against OFC and Evergreen State backed by StandWithUs and its close collaboration with the Israeli government, is that it appears to import Israeli tactics of political repression into the United States.

Earlier this year, Israel passed a law that imposes heavy fines on anyone who participates in or advocates a boycott of Israeli businesses, universities and social and cultural institutions or illegal West Bank settlements. The law was strongly condemned by human rights organizations as a violation of basic freedoms.

The threatened legal action against the Olympia Food Co-op may be a “do it yourself” version of the law on US soil. Simply taking someone to court imposes a punishment on them through high legal fees before any judgment is ever rendered. That may be the whole point.

It should serve as a red flag that however small and tight-knit a community, powerful pro-Israel groups, in coordination with Israeli officials, are prepared to go to any length to smear and harass people.

They’ll do whatever it takes to keep people quiet about Israel’s human rights abuses, war crimes and the international complicity that the BDS movement seeks to expose, challenge and bring to an end.

Article and photo courtesy Electronic Intifada

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Two bright young Palestinians are letting their voices be heard in conjunction with Jewish Voice for Peace and the TIAA-CREF divestment campaign.
The University of Texas, Austin was the fourteenth stop on a tour of eighteen Universities across the US.  I was fortunate enough to get to hear Hanna Qassis and Mira Dabit, some of the highlights of their talk follow.

Hanna is from Birzeit, Palestine, and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in International Studies, at Birzeit University. He works with the Academy for Educational Development in the West Bank, so he is very familiar with how the Israeli occupation effects education.

Mira, was born in Jerusalem to a refugee family originally from the 1948 city of Al Lod, and received her BA in psychology and sociology from Birzeit University. She works with the Right to Education campaign at Birzeit University, using theater projects for youth; she is also a folkloric storyteller.

Mira explained to the mostly college aged audience that Palestinians see education as a tool, and a weapon to fight against occupation.  She said that this tour was about showing the human face of the Palestinian people.

Hanna said that in 1988, education was made illegal by Israel, and he talked about the wall as a prison.  Since settlements are inside of the wall, it cannot exist for reasons of separation or security.  Hanna revealed that he himself had to scale the wall to get to Jerusalem to apply for a U.S. Visa to come here.  This was done at great risk.  But it also shows that the wall exists more as a way for Israel to illegally annex land, than for “security “purposes.

Hanna shared the sad statistic that there are about 80 students from Birzeit University currently in Israeli jails.  “Courtrooms” do not offer them fair trials, and they are on Israeli Army bases.   It is “illegal” to be a student, and after serving jail time, it is hard to concentrate. The students are not the same.

Mira explained that Israel closes checkpoints at the beginning of semesters and also during exams, thereby making access to schools the most difficult when it is the most critical.
Being from Jerusalem, Mira shared that unemployment in East Jerusalem, coupled with a high rate of depression, only adds to the pain when Israel demolishes homes there, and does not issue building permits either.  But perhaps the pain is felt the most in Gaza.  Mira explained that Israel has destroyed (shelled, shot and invaded) eight universities in Gaza.  The Islamic University, home to 25,000 students, was destroyed.  (Most of the students were female.)

But Mira smiled saying there is great pride in Palestinian music, food, dance, and language!  The Israeli occupation inflicts so much pain, but “still we smile.”

We watched the 5 minute video titled “TIAA-CREF Campaign: Divest from the Occupation.”  This video was created by students at NYU.  TIAA-CREF’s motto is “financial services for the greater good.”  They have a social choice fund “devoted to serving local communities and society in general.”  But right now TIAA-CREF puts money into dozens of companies that profit from the Israeli occupation.  The list includes:

Elbit – (makes man-less “drone” planes that were used to bomb civilians in Gaza and West Bank) TIAA-CREF invests over $1.6 million.
Veolia (builder of a train connecting illegal settlements with Jerusalem) TIAA-CREF invests $19 million.
Motorola (specially made surveillance electronics for checkpoints, settlements, sniper stations and watchtowers) TIAA-CREF invests $92 million.
Northrop-Grumman (helicopters and missiles used by Israel to kill Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and destroy basic infrastructure) TIAA-CREF invests $199 million.
Caterpillar (armored bulldozers custom made to raze homes and uproot olive trees) TIAA-CREF invests $287 million.

Almost everyone present signed the petition calling for TIAA-CREF to divest from the occupation.

One audience member asked if Israel had a published law outlawing education.  Hanna explained that Israel’s treatment of students is arbitrary, therefore unpublished.  But student groups cannot exist.  Becoming the “Student Union President” is like getting a ticket to jail.  Not one president has NOT been to jail.  But still students run for the position.

Upon asking if any students from Gaza were able to attend Birzeit University, Hanna stated that none presently do, they had students from Gaza before 1988.  In 1988 the schools were all closed (kindergarten to university level) using military force.  Armored tanks blocked school entrances, soldiers arrested students (classes were held secretly in private homes).  Travel was impossible to/from Gaza.  If a student returned (only 50 miles away) to Gaza, she was not going to be allowed to return to school.

Upon exiting Mezes Hall on the UT campus, the sunset reflecting on the fountain’s pool, the view of the State Capitol south, and the UT Tower north, brought this comment from audience member Ms. Wasserman: “it must feel strange to be able to travel all over with no checkpoints. The (TIAA-CREF) campaign is a no-brainer; all the professors should sign it.  In Poland, when my grandma was small, education was also outlawed.  They met in homes like the Palestinians have to now…”

Expect to see the TIAA-CREF “Right to Education” campaign grow across the USA.  Teachers, who dedicate their lives to education, need to know what their retirement dollars are funding, and teachers, need to be able to have their voices heard.

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BY GAIL EVELYN ALFAR
Guest Writer,  Austin, TX

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, was allowed a VISA to enter the US for a book tour in support of his new book.  He will speak at Universities including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Brandeis, NYU and Brown.

His initial book launch took place at the London Review Bookshop on March 7, 2011.  Segments from that talk appear in this article.
The title of his new book is BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights”.  It has been praised by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, among other notables.
Prior to Barghouti’s talk, two key points were mentioned:

The Former Commissioner General for UNRWA, Karen Koning AbuZayd’s statement was shared “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and – some would say – encouragement of the international community. An international community that professes to uphold the inherent dignity of every human being must not allow this to happen.”

John Dugard (South African International Law Expert, former UN Special Rapporteur for human rights) “The West cannot expect the rest of the world to take issues it regards as important seriously if it persists in its present attitude to the Israeli occupation.  For the rest of the world the issue of Palestine has become the litmus test for human rights.  If the West fails to show concern for human rights on the OPT,   the rest of the world will conclude that human rights are a tool employed by the west against regimes it dislikes and not an objective and universal instrument  for the measurement of the treatment of people throughout the world.”
Barghouti, calm and pensive as always, explains that the BDS movement is a rights-based approach and it rejects all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.  He states, “…so Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions is firstly  about ending complicity,  and that’s not something heroic that we’re asking you to do, -‘don’t participate in crime’-  that’s common human decency, I think,  a basic ethical principal, don’t allow your tax money to be used  in Israeli apartheid, occupation,  and settler colonialism… that’s the first level…”

From his book’s chapter titled “Why BDS?”

BDS is not only an idea. It is not merely a concept. It is not just a vision. It is not all about strategy. It is all those, for sure, but also much more. The Palestinian Civil Society Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel is above everything else a deeply rooted yet qualitatively new stage in the century-old Palestinian resistance to the Zionist settler-colonial conquest and, later, Israel’s regime of occupation, dispossession, and apartheid against the indigenous people of Palestine.

Tactics and the choice of BDS targets at the local level must be governed by the context particularities, political conditions, and the readiness (in will and capacity) of the BDS activists. In the United States, for instance, two of the most active and creative BDS groups, Adalah-NY and Code Pink, endorse the 2005 BDS Call with its comprehensive rights-based approach and run effective campaigns that are very targeted and nuanced, focusing only on companies indisputably implicated in Israeli violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Barghouti breaks into a reserved smile when he conveys to his audience, “The success (of the call for BDS) has been well beyond our dreams, in fact, it went beyond anything we had imagined.  When we issued the call on July 9th, 2005 (for BDS), we had no idea it would spread so virally in five years.  Literally, because the most important experience that has affected us, and that we’re inspired by is the South African anti-apartheid movement, and people forget that, people have a short memory, they say ‘Oh but that was a consensus, I mean everyone in Britain was boycotting.’  Yeah, that was in ‘89, but they started the boycott in ‘59.  It took 30 years to reach that stage of mass support for the boycott of apartheid South Africa, and of course your prime minister (UK) was the very last on earth to support it, with Reagan, her buddy.  So boycotts take a long time to kick in, to have impact.  We had no idea in 5 years we would achieve, almost as much as our South African comrades had achieved in 20 years. “

He goes on to explain that “We had no idea people like Meg Ryan or the Pixies or (Elvis) Costello…Gil Scott-Heron…Pete Seeger, or Roger Waters would come out and support the boycott, but they have.  Not to mention Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, John Berger, Ken Loach, and so on.  So the number of artists, writers, intellectuals, best-selling authors that are heeding our boycott call has mushroomed after the flotilla.”

He elaborates that Israel’s strong economy is totally integrated into the western economy, but that integration makes it also much more vulnerable to BDS.  Israel does not sell minerals to the world that they cannot live without, like South Africa did. It sells high-tech, fruits, weapons, and diamonds.

On diamonds, Israel gets the diamonds from Africa, polishes them in India, sells them and makes all the profit.  Barghouti states “So that’s easy, it should be easy, to end that revenue from reaching Israel  and funding its war economy.”

Later in his talk he says “The BDS movement is not centralized movement, its not a party hierarchy ideology, it depends a lot on the creativity and initiative at the local level.  So we defer to our partners in every part of the world, to know best what to do, what to target. “

Making another point, he says “It is intimidating because the long lists of companies that are complicit in Israel’s occupation are intimidating.    The lists are endless; Israel is totally integrated into the world economy.    “We need to be strategic, and we need to focus on campaigns that we can win, we don’t do BDS to feel good, we’re doing it to attain our rights, so we need victories.  We need sustainable, continuous victory, and if a victory is too fast, it’s no good, because it’s not sustainable.    We’ve had victories that were too fast, to (quickly) achieved , so we had not built a movement to carry on that victory  to build on it to protect it first, because of course we’re under attack.”

“We have a BDS campaign within Israel, it’s called Boycott from within, it has gathered a lot of momentum lately.  We have several partners in Israel including the Coalition of Women for Peace who run the “Who Profits from the Occupation” website, an excellent resource for BDS activists all over the world, we all use it.  It a database of all the companies profiting from Israel’s occupation.”

Responding to an audience member about BDS challenges, he elaborates on two challenges to BDS: “Repression in Israel is on the rise against BDS campaigners, especially Israeli BDS campaigners. They are discussing in the Knesset about passing an anti-BDS law that would criminalize calling for a boycott…but not even calling for a boycott as in political activism… even if you write a comment in a newspaper that you think that Israel should be boycotted, and then if an Israeli company loses revenue, or claims to lose revenue due to the boycott, they can sue you, according to that law.  You’ll be liable.  So it is truly scary, it’s going to a repressive measure that has not been seen before inside Israel against Israeli citizens, this is extreme.  In France, and Canada they are trying to criminalize the boycott of Israel. Trying to use arguments that are really untenable but the hypocrisy in Europe is an art, and in the US as well, I did not mean to leave out the US.”

Continuing, he explains “The second obstacle is the occupation of our minds, the inhibitions we have that this is unbeatable, this is extremely difficult to do so we will not do it.  I think once we overcome this internal inhibition, this self-censorship, is extremely important.  As Edward Said once said, ‘many intellectuals  and academics know what is right and refuse to say the right thing they are so scared of the repercussion’… they’re so scared of being attacked by the lobby as anti-Semite, as whatever,  they could be Jewish but they’re still attacked as anti-Semite, so that self-censorship is, I think, the biggest obstacle.  We have to overcome that by awareness-raising and by campaigning, it is not enough to sit on an armchair and read about BDS, but you need to do some action and you learn much more in action.”
An audience member challenged him, asking would he or his family accept Israeli help in a medical emergency, because that would be a double-standard.    He gently answered “When you are living under apartheid you have no choice.  You pay taxes to the apartheid regime, you accept services from the apartheid regime, how else can you survive?  You go to hospitals, you go to Universities, you go to the Post Office, you go to Government Offices in the apartheid regime, you are a subject of that colonial system, there is no other way.  Ghandi said it at the British University as well.  The point is when you are under occupation, or under apartheid, you have no moral choice, there is no choice.  We ask people outside to boycott because they have a moral choice, responsibility comes with choice.  Germans under Nazi rule, who couldn’t open their mouths, were cowards.  But we can perhaps forgive them for not opening their mouth when you think that they will be shot by the Nazi genocidal regime.  Israelis that stay silent are far more cowardly because they do have a choice and they won’t get shot if they stand up against the occupation.    So we measure this with how much choice you have.  When you have no choice, what do you do?    So there is absolutely no double-standard for people under oppression to call on people who are not under oppression standing in solidarity with them to oppose and boycott completely the oppressive regime.  What we cannot do, you can do   (in the UK).  Of course we do not boycott Israeli medicines in Israel, what else can you buy?    We’re not irrational, I don’t know your view of the Arabs, but we’re not suicidal.”  With this the book launch ends in laughter and applause.

Barghouti’s tour of the Northeastern US brings him from April 9 to April 15th.    Haymarket Books Editor Anthony Arnove stated, “It is regrettable that Haymarket Books and various free speech advocates and human rights groups had to mount a campaign to allow Omar Barghouti to enter the United States to speak and discuss his work, but it is proof that protest works and that solidarity matters.”

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