BDS movement

Nearly a month into the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, a historic victory has been achieved, as Israeli authorities were forced to comply with the prisoners’ main demands. Coinciding with the Palestinian commemoration of the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, the systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing that uprooted most Palestinians from their homeland around 1948, the prisoners’ victory has heightened hope about the prospects for Palestinian freedom, justice, self determination and the return of refugees.

This important triumph for the Palestinian popular struggle could not have been reached without the unwavering resolve of the prisoners themselves, grassroots mobilization in their support in Palestine, and the immense wave of effective solidarity and calls for holding Israel accountable that the strike has triggered around the world.

More than a thousand people around the globe have pledged to undertake a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners, to take place this Thursday. While the solidarity hunger-strike has been called off, due to the prisoners’ victory, injustice and illegal repression continue in Israeli prisons.

Emphasizing imprisonment as a critical component of Israel’s system of occupation, colonialism and apartheid practiced against the Palestinian people, Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations have called for intensifying the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to target corporations profiting directly from the Israeli prison system. In particular, we call for action to be taken to hold to account G4S, the world’s largest international security corporation, which helps to maintain and profit from Israel’s prison system, for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.

Please click here to demand G4S ends its involvement in the Israeli prison system and its complicity in violations of Palestinian human rights.

Signed:
Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

Imagine if a member of Team USA Basketball—let’s say Kobe Bryant—had been traveling to an international tournament only to be seized by a foreign government and held in prison for three years without trial or even hearing the charges for which he was imprisoned. Imagine if Kobe was allowed no visitation from family or friends. Imagine if he was left no recourse but to effectively end any future prospects as a player by terminating his own physical health by going on a hunger strike. Chances are we’d notice, yes? Chances are the story would lead SportsCenter and make newspaper covers across the world. Chances are all the powerful international sports organizations—the IOC, FIFA—would treat the jailing nation as a pariah until Kobe was free. And chances are that even Laker-haters would wear buttons that read, “Free Kobe.”

This is what has happened to Palestinian national soccer team member Mahmoud Sarsak. Sarsak, who hails from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, was seized at a checkpoint on his way to a national team contest in the West Bank. This was July 2009. Since that date, the 25-year-old has been held without trial and without charges. His family and friends haven’t been permitted to see him. In the eyes of the Israeli government, Sarsak can be imprisoned indefinitely because they deem him to be an “illegal combatant” although no one—neither family, nor friends, nor coaches—has the foggiest idea why. Now Sarsak is one of more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike to protest their conditions and lack of civil liberties. As the New York Times wrote last week, “The newest heroes of the Palestinian cause are not burly young men hurling stones or wielding automatic weapons. They are gaunt adults, wrists in chains, starving themselves inside Israeli prisons.”

But no organization has claimed Sarsak as a member or issued fiery calls for his freedom. All we have is a family and a team that are both bewildered and devastated by his indefinite detention. His brother Iman said, “My family never imagined that Mahmoud would have been imprisoned by Israel. Why, really why?”

His family doesn’t understand how someone, whose obsession was soccer, not politics, could be targeted and held in such a manner. But in today’s Israel/Palestine, soccer is politics. Sarsak is only the latest Palestinian player to be singled out for harassment or even death by the Israeli government. In 2009, three national team players, Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshtahe, were killed during the bombing of Gaza. The National Stadium as well as the offices of the Palestinian Football Association were also targeted and destroyed in the Gaza bombing. In addition, their goalie, Omar Abu Rwayyis, was arrested by Israeli police in 2012 on “terrorism charges.” If you degrade the national team, you degrade the idea that there could ever be a nation.

More than police violence is a part of this process of athletic degradation. Currently the Palestinian soccer team is ranked 164th in the world and they’ve have never been higher than 115th. As one sports writer put it delicately, “Given the passion for football that burns among Palestinians, such lowly status hints at problems on the ground.”

These problems on the ground include curfews and checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza that often mean the forfeiting of matches. If Palestinians living in Israel’s borders want to play for the team, they have to give up any benefits of Israeli citizenship. The end result is that the Palestinian national team becomes dependent on the Diaspora, relying heavily on Palestinians who have lived for two and three generations in South America and Europe. This is why many of the key players on Palestine’s national team are named Roberto or Pablo.

In 2010, Michel Platini, president of European football’s ruling body—Israel plays in the European qualifiers—threatened Israel with expulsion from FIFA if it continues to undermine football in Palestine. Platini said, “Israel must choose between allowing Palestinian sport to continue and prosper or be forced to face the consequences for their behaviour.” Yet Platini never followed through on threats and quite the opposite, awarded Israel the 2013 Under-21 European Championships.

On Wednesday, the British organization Soccer Without Borders, said that they would be calling for a boycott of the tournament, writing:

Football Beyond Borders, a student-led organisation which uses the universal power of football to tackle political, social and cultural issues, stands in solidarity with Mahmoud Sarsak and all of the Palestinian political prisoners currently being detained by Israel on hunger strike, as together we protest the injustices being inflicted upon Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and draw attention to their plight. [We] take this opportunity to announce our official boycott of the UEFA 2013 Under-21 European Championships, which Israel has been awarded the honour of hosting.

Soccer Without Borders joined forty-two football clubs and dozens of team captains, managers and sports commentators in Gaza who submitted a letter to Platini in 2011 demanding that European football’s governing body reverse its decision to allow Israel to host the under-21 tournament.

Amidst all this tumult is Mahmoud Sarsak, a threat for reasons no one can comprehend and Israel will not reveal. As long as Sarsak remains indefinitely detained and as long as Israel targets sport and athletes as legitimate targets of war, they have no business being rewarded by FIFA or the UEFA, let alone even being a part of the community of international sports. If Sarsak is to see the inside of a courtroom and if Israel is to, as Platini said, “face the consequences for their behaviour,” silence is not an option. After all, even a Celtic fan would surely agree, we’d do it for Kobe.

Original Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167827/what-if-kobe-bryant-were-imprisoned-palestinian-soccer-player

 

In May the European Parliament is set to vote on a new trade agreement with Israel. If passed, the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA) would remove barriers to trade between Israel and member states in industrial products, especially pharmaceuticals.

Such an agreement would strengthen EU-Israel relations and would reward Israel for its continued violations of international law.

The European Union claims to implement a policy of “positive engagement” with Israel. This policy has failed: despite numerous EU condemnations, Israel has continued its gross infringements of universal human rights with impunity. Israel’s settlements have expanded, the blockade on Gaza remains and new laws to discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel have been introduced.

Following the Gaza massacre of 2008-09, the EU vowed to not implement any further upgrades in EU-Israel relations. The implementation of the ACAA agreement would be a betrayal of this policy that will only encourage further Israeli violations of international law.

A concerted effort across Europe can still stop this agreement.

Take action:

1. Write to your MEPs and ask them to vote against ACAA
You can find contact details for your MEPs here.
Target MEPs from the European People’s Party (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) groups.

2. Sign or set up and distribute online petitions

Online petition have been created in Spain; Poland; Germany, Italy; France; Belgique andBelgië.

3. Write letters and articles for publication online and in newspapers

4. Distribute this call for action through your networks

http://www.eccpalestine.org/?p=639#more-639

 

Many things in this conflict are counterproductive to peace, but divestment from Israel’s occupation is not one of them.

(Ryan Rodrick Beiler)

This week, amidst the incredible ongoing mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners, some of them on the brink of starvation, the United Methodist Church failed to pass a resolution to divest from three major beneficiaries of the most incendiary human rights abuses and colonial crimes of our time.

Among the heartbreaking collection of ignorant statements, delegates had the audacity to claim that divestment was divisive and counterproductive to peace.

Many things in this conflict are divisive and counterproductive to peace. A 30-foot concrete wall with guard towers not unlike those that once encircled the Warsaw ghetto is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Policies of the state purposely designed to make human beings, entire Palestinian families and communities, homeless, through systematic and regular home demolitions, is divisive and counterproductive to peace. The arrest, detention, torture of Palestinian children is divisive and counterproductive to peace.

The indefinite imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Outright land theft, that Israel makes no pretense of hiding, is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Siphoning of water so Jews can have swimming pools while Palestinians must ration water is divisive and counterproductive to peace.

A total of 954 checkpoints and barriers peppered throughout the West Bank to impede movement of Palestinians is divisive and counterproductive to peace. “Battle testing” new weaponry on a principally unarmed civilian population with no place to run or hide is divisive and counterproductive to peace. Jewish-only housing and roads are divisive and counterproductive to peace. They are the epitome of apartheid; and apartheid is divisive and counter to basic human dignity.

Divestment is not divisive

Divesting from three of the chief corporate beneficiaries of these crimes that aim to wipe an entire native population off the map is not divisive. It is, in fact, a token expression of decency that acknowledges the basic humanity of Palestinians. It is a symbolic show of solidarity with an oppressed people who are facing imminent demise. And in that way, it was the smallest test of morality, which the United Methodist Church has so shamefully failed.

So there is no mistake of what this decision means, let me be very clear. Through their words, actions and financial investment, the United Methodist Church will continue to support three companies that profit from Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

The church has decided to support Caterpillar, which supplies the bulldozers and other earth eviscerating equipment used by Israel to demolish the homes, farms and orchards of human beings whose primary crime (let us not lie!) is that they are non-Jewish natives living on property Israel wants to steal and hand over to Jewish residents, most often imported from other countries.

The church has decided to support Hewlett-Packard, which provides advanced biometric technology that effectively monitor and confine 5 million human beings (all non-Jewish, of course) into small enclaves and open-air prisons.

And the church has decided to support Motorola, which furnishes surveillance equipment for illegal, Jewish-only colonies built on confiscated Palestinian land.

For an analogy of the meaning, change the date and the names of companies, perhaps to those that benefited from transporting Jews to death camps, or those that supplied weapons used to mow down schoolboys in Soweto, or bus lines that made black folk sit in the back and give up their seats for whites. Who would call divesting from such abominations divisive and counterproductive to peace? And tell me the difference between the behavior of those companies and the three aforementioned.

An utter disgrace

Kairos and people of conscience tried to find something positive in this ignominy, claiming it a victory for those fighting for justice because the divestment debate itself ignites a conversation from which there is no retreat. I don’t deny the truth in that. But it is wrong to stop there because it was so much more than that.

It was an utter disgrace, a blight on the church of the same magnitude as that which comes from the institutional failure to speak up for Jews in the late 1930s.

And when juxtaposed to the courage, principled fortitude, and ineffable will of 2,000 human beings with nothing but their hunger to protest Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian society — the actual natives of the Holy Land — the decision of the United Methodist Church delegates becomes vulgar and unforgivable.

Just this week alone, a woman in Gaza was shot by Israeli soldiers who opened fire on farmers working on their own land in Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis. In a previous incident of Israeli target practice on Monday, another Palestinian farmer was shot in the same area.

On Wednesday, Israeli bulldozers demolished 13 sheds and tents belonging to the Jahalin Bedouin tribe, near Jerusalem, leaving several families without shelter for themselves of their livestock. These ancient dwellers of the land have been particularly hard-hit by Israel’s ethnic cleansing policies, as their homes are routinely destroyed and they are pushed off their lands as if cattle in broad daylight.

Last week, Israeli forces evicted a Palestinian family from their home in Beit Hanina and moved Jewish settlers in their place, a scandalously racist Israeli practice that has escalated in and around Jerusalem to Judaize historically Palestinian areas.

At the same time, Israeli settlers this week constructed twenty new homes on privately-owned Palestinian land in an illegal outpost known as Ulpana, in Beit El settlement northeast of Ramallah.

There were at least 57 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip just this week alone.

Failure to take a moral stand

Reverend Alex Joyner, who opposed the resolution, said, “We are all concerned about the suffering and the ongoing occupation, because it is hurting Israeli and Palestinian society. But what the church has said is we want a positive step, and we reject punitive measures as a way of trying to bring peace.”

His platitudes and patronizing drivel aside, what measures, pray tell, does the Reverend Joyner propose to bring peace to Palestinian children who are systematically terrorized and traumatized by Israel to the point that 98.6 percent of them suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder? Or to the hundreds of children kidnapped in the middle of the night from their families and thrown into jails where their fragile spirits waste away without charge, without trial, without mercy?

The United Methodist Church had a historic opportunity to take a moral stand, however unpopular but undoubtedly moral. Instead, they took a decision that moves them toward the realm of moral irrelevance.

But to all Palestinians, to all people of conscience and to those Methodists who stood on the right side of justice, where Jesus would undoubtedly stand, take heart! Take heart! Palestinians may be starving, languishing and bleeding, but Israel and its backers are rotting at their core, because that’s what racism, self-interest at all costs, and cowardice does to the soul.

Take heart and do not despair. We have not reached the end of history. There is still blood in our veins, air in our lungs and brilliant souls in our wombs. They have but the cold steel of death machines and the moral void of lies, which cannot and will not prevail against naked hearts and empty stomachs taking up the good fight for freedom.

Susan Abulhawa is the author of the international bestselling novel Mornings in Jenin.

Original Link: http://electronicintifada.net/content/united-methodist-churchs-shameful-failure-divest-injustice/11249?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

As the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel continues to grow internationally, it is lagging in the Arab World – particularly within Gulf monarchies, where boycotting Israel is muddled by these monarchies’ close relationship with the United States and its allies.

In March, a bell pepper with a label indicating that it originated from Israel was found in one of Kuwait’s largest retail stores. Ironically, the pepper was bought by a volunteer for pro-Palestinian group Kuwaitis for Jerusalem.

Immediately a photograph of the pepper, with its label, was passed around social hubs such as Twitter, Facebook, and others forums, triggering debates regarding the nature and efficiency the Israel boycott.

This incident was not the first of its kind in Kuwait. Sporadically, an Israeli product or a product with Hebrew markings is found, and the local media stirs to attention. These cases are usually swiftly dealt with by the authorities and forgotten until the next incident rears its head.

Boycotting Israel in Kuwait is a very delicate issue in comparison to other Arab countries. It is not quite like Syria, in which Israeli goods and products are strictly unwelcome nor is it as open as Jordan or Qatar, where direct political and economic relations with Israel are active.

The Current Climate of Boycotting Israel

“The 1990s were the worst in terms of boycotting Israel. If you visit the head [Arab League Boycott] office in Damascus, you’ll see that they are very demoralized. Everybody ignored them after Oslo,” said a prominent Palestinian historian residing in Kuwait, who requested anonymity.

“The boycott in Kuwait is [currently] very loose; we hear in the newspapers that so and so was discovered here or there. They report this all the time. But there is no official or popular follow-up. People are demoralized after Oslo and Jordan [1994 peace deal],” he added.

An official within the Arab League dealing with Palestinian Affairs, and who also requested anonymity, echoed the sentiments of the historian in regards to the deterioration of Arab boycott efforts against Israel.

The Arab League boycott laws are still in place, he noted, and every six months a black list is revised, pointing to the current debates regarding Adidas as a recent example.

The official stressed that despite these laws, obstacles to an efficient boycott have been added by Arab states’ acceptance of American contentions of “peace” as well as concerns that any act sanctioning or boycotting Israel will be labeled as provocation and incitement.

The best thing one can do, he suggested, is to activate popular action, encouraging the greater public to complain to retailers, policy makers, and the press whenever an Israeli product is found. The public at large should bear the burden of overseeing the market if boycott violation occurs.

The Resurgence of Kuwaiti Popular Action

In Kuwait, support for Palestinians is typically articulated by Islamic organizations and charities, as the Palestinian historian pointed out.

Kuwaitis for Jerusalem, established in 1987-88 during the First Intifada, have been heavily involved in a number of campaigns, from raising awareness to music events in support of the Palestinian cause. Through this organization, members and volunteers have begun work to establish a BDS Chapter in Kuwait.

Hania al-Ariqy, a member of Kuwaitis for Jerusalem and one of the driving forces behind initiating a BDS Chapter, spoke briefly with Al-Akhbar.

Ariqy pointed out that the general BDS movement in the Arab region is severely lacking. “Where is it? In the Gulf region, it is virtually nonexistent. In Egypt, they just started. The only country that is actively doing it is Lebanon – because the political situation in the country and the continuous Israeli aggression, especially in 2006, kept the issue alive for the public.”

She said that the organization has faced no obstacles from the government so far, though that they have not officially launched yet. Nevertheless, she expects no restrictions from the authorities.

“The environment in Kuwait is much more welcoming to boycotting Israel than it is in other Gulf countries…You should consider that on the political level, there is no parliament [in other Gulf states],” she said.

She added that because of the parliament’s current composition, it would be publicly difficult for them to take a stance against the Palestinian cause.

Considering any lingering hostility towards Palestinians from the Kuwaiti public due to support of the Iraqi invasion from Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian political figures, she said, “I think it’s a thing of the past. I’m a member of Kuwaitis for Jerusalem and we started in 1988, during the First Intifada. When the Iraqi invasion happened, we halted our activities completely. It took us a long time to restart again, until 2000 – 10 years.”

Optimism on the Power of Boycott

Currently, the BDS chapter in Kuwait is to looking into reports regarding various Israeli products making their way into the country, particularly the recent Israeli bell pepper incident.

When it was discovered, the volunteers of the BDS chapter contacted the retailer to find out how this product, with its label clearly stating its Israeli origins, ended up on the shelves.

According to the volunteers, the retailer claimed that it was merely a mistake and that the illicit product was removed. Despite these assurances, the volunteers are concerned that the retailer simply changed the packaging and kept the product, although they do not have any conclusive proof.

At the same time, BDS members began researching which governing authority is responsible for ensuring the boycott against Israel. With some effort they discovered the Customs Office for Boycotting Israeli Goods.

When the volunteers spoke with employees from the office, they assured them that only few products were smuggled in and that they were serious about maintaining the boycott. According to Ariqy, the office was even willing to create a hot-line with the organization in order to coordinate efforts. It was these officials’ first meeting with members of the public in over ten years.

For Ariqy and other volunteers, the main goal currently is to bring back the secondary sanctions and boycott laws, particularly in regards to companies like Veolia Transport and Alstom, who the authorities do not blacklist despite their work within Israeli settlements across the occupied territories. The Kuwait BDS also aims to modernize the laws regarding boycotting Israel in Kuwait.

“The problem with the Office of Boycotting Israel is that it is tied in with the decrees and policies of the Arab League, and the law in regards to boycotting Israel was made in 1964. It still has not been modified or developed further to meet the current challenges,” she said.

Ultimately, Ariqy is optimistic about the future and the growth of the BDS movement, and other similar non-violent campaigns that could play a dramatic role in changing the region.

“I’m optimistic because the movement is still young, and we in the Arab region may still not feel the major changes because the movement isn’t as well developed here. But changes do happen. The people in general are not aware of the importance and influence they wield. An Arab person may still feel helpless or feel that such actions are futile, but I think this viewpoint is changing.”

The Mercurial Kuwaiti-Palestinian History

Kuwait’s boycott system, with its virtues and vices, arises from its ever-changing foreign policy and its historical relations with Palestinians.

Toufic Haddad, writing for the Palestine Chronicle, noted that the history of Palestinian-Kuwaiti relations, which is deep, complex, and intersects much of the pivotal points of the Palestinian experience, is one of the most under-studied topics in contemporary Arab history.

After the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces, a large number of Palestinians found themselves, at some point, living or working in Kuwait, including iconic figures such as Yasser Arafat and Naji al-Ali.

In reflection, Kuwaiti society and policy from 1948 to 1990 was much more pan-Arab and pro-Palestinian than other Gulf monarchies, although the Kuwaiti authorities maintained a tight grip on Palestinian activities.

During the four-year reign of Sheikh Abdullah al-Salam al-Sabah, the first emir of Kuwait, an emiri decree established Law 21 of 1964 that outlined how Israel was to be boycotted. It was part of a collective Arab League effort to sanction Israel and its allies.

All forms of trade, commercial and financial transactions with Israel, and ownership of Israeli goods and goods that include Israeli components, were forbidden. This included countries and companies that were doing business with Israel or were aiding the Zionist state in any form.

Punishment for violating this boycott resulted in a sentence of three to ten years hard labor and a fine. Subsequently, the Office for Boycotting Israeli Goods within the Customs Department was established to oversee this law.

The Arab collective boycott effort faced its first major blow in 1978 when Egypt signed a peace deal with Israel. But it was during the post-Oslo period when much of the general Arab boycott system significantly deteriorated.

For Kuwait in particular, the 1990 Iraqi invasion was a defining factor. Yasser Arafat’s apparent support of Saddam Hussein was grossly detrimental for Palestinians living in Kuwait. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were deported by Kuwaiti authorities, regardless of whether they opposed the invasion and occupation.

In August 1991, Kuwait announced an ease of its boycott of non-Israeli companies, particularly British and French, which were actively doing business with Israel under the justification of rapid postwar reconstruction. Two years later, the secondary Kuwaiti boycott on all non-Israeli companies working with Israel was lifted. In addition, aid to the Palestine Liberation Organization was drastically cut.

Relations only began to soften because of the Second Intifada in 2000. With each intensifying Israeli aggression against the Palestinians over the years, Kuwaiti political and social sentiments gradually swayed back and became much more supportive.

Original Link: http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/boycotting-israel-kuwait-long-way-back

Occupied Palestine, 3 May 2012 – Palestinian agricultural organisations and farmers unions are heartened to learn that the Co-Operative Group supermarket chain in the UK has introduced a policy to end trade with companies that source products from Israel’s illegal colonies built on occupied Palestinian land. The Co-Operative Group announced that it shall immediately end ties with four Israeli agricultural companies, Mehadrin, Agrexco, Arava and Adafresh, following a sustained campaign by Co-Op members and Palestine solidarity groups.[1] We see this as a crucial step towards heeding the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), which we all endorse.

As organisations that work with and represent those most effected by the actions of agricultural export companies, we wish to express our firm belief that ending trade with agricultural export companies that participate in and profit from Israel’s protracted occupation and violations of international law is a principled and essential step consistent with the values and principles of the Co-operative movement and in support of international law and universal human rights.

Agricultural export companies, especially Israeli agricultural export companies, are at the heart of Israel’s system of domination over the Palestinian people. They are an integral component of the on-going process of colonisation and environmental destruction of Palestinian land, the destruction of Palestinian agriculture, the theft of water, and the abuse of Palestinian workers’ rights. For decades, Israeli agricultural companies have exploited land that was illegally expropriated from Palestinians and water that rightly belongs to Palestinians.

Policies that exclude the sale of produce grown or packaged in illegal settlements should be welcomed but are insufficient. Agricultural export companies routinely mislabel their produce and are known to market settlement produce as originating from inside Israel. More importantly, agricultural companies as a whole are accountable for their conduct, and any trade with companies that export — even if partially — from settlements or participate in other Israeli violations of international law only serves to encourage further Israeli violations of international law and is inherently unethical. It is fantastic that the Co-Operative supermarket has become the first major supermarket in Europe to introduce measures to end trade with all companies that operate in or export from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. We look forward to working with the Co-Operative to provide it with any information that can assist with the implementation of its policy.

We call upon all major supermarket chains to implement a similar ban on trade with all companies that export from illegal Israeli settlements as a minimal form of ending complicity in Israel’s occupation and apartheid as well as supporting Palestinian farmers and civil society at large. Following on from the European wide campaign against Agrexco, which we wholeheartedly supported and was a major factor behind the company’s collapse, action must be taken to hold to account those companies seeking to replace it. We also call on all people of conscience to boycott all Israeli products, including agricultural produce.[2]

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlements, military zones and Israel’s illegal wall have resulted in the confiscation of and restriction of Palestinian access to the most fertile land and important water resources. According to recent research published by the United Nations, 43% of the West Bank is now off-limits to Palestinians.[3] Amnesty International has accused Israel of depriving Palestinians of their water rights in certain areas of the occupied territory “as a means of expulsion.”[4] Israeli domination of the water supply ensures that companies operating in illegal Israeli agricultural settlements in occupied Palestinian territory can grow water-intensive products for export to Europe, while Palestinian farmers are increasingly forced to resort to subsistence livestock farming as a result of an acute lack of water.[5] Palestinian trucks shipping Palestinian produce are constantly subjected to long hours of “security” checks and other bureaucratic measures to obstruct their timely access to markets, while Israeli produce is allowed to pass freely.

Israel’s medieval siege has all but destroyed the agricultural sector in Gaza. As of June 2009, a total of 46% of agricultural land in the Gaza Strip was assessed to be inaccessible or out of production owing to Israel’s destruction of these fertile lands during its war of aggression in 2008-09.[6] Restriction on the movement of essential goods has severely hampered the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to rebuild the infrastructure sector, and a 2010 study revealed 60% of households to be food insecure.[7]

The destruction of Palestinian livelihoods and the denial of supply of essential goods to Gazan farmers are not a side effect, but rather a tool consciously used by Israeli policy makers. In fact, the siege of Gaza is “a central pillar” of Israeli policy.[8] Dov Weissglass, top political advisor to former Israeli prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, stated that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger”.[9]

Agricultural export companies profit from and directly participate in these Israeli violations of international law. Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company, exports produce grown or packed in Israel’s illegal settlements, collaborates with state water company Mekorot in the illegal appropriation of Palestinian water and abuses the rights of Palestinian workers in its packing houses based in illegal Israeli settlements, employing them on far below minimum wage and without contracts or health insurance.[10] Other  agricultural companies known to trade with European supermarkets including AdaFresh, Arava Export Growers, Edom UK and Jordan Valley Herbs, also routinely export produce from illegal Israeli settlements.[11]

For these reasons, we applaud the principled stance taken by the Co-Operative supermarket. We also congratulate Co-Operative members, the Boycott Israel Network and all of the other organisations that worked tirelessly to move motions and facilitate a debate within the UK Co-Operative movement about trade links with Israel. Your dedicated campaigning is a fine example of the BDS movement in action.

Signed by:
Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)
General Union of Palestinian Peasants and Co-op Groups
Union of Palestinian Farmers (PFU)
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)
Palestinian Agricultural Engineers Association
Union of Agricultural Work Committees

 

 

 

[1] http://www.boycottisraelnetwork.org/?p=1031
[2] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/palestinian-civil-society-welcomes-agrexco-liquidation-calls-for-celebration-of-this-bds-victory-8096
[3]http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settlements_FactSheet_January_2012_english.pdf
[4]http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/028/2009/en/634f6762-d603-4efb-98ba-42a02acd3f46/mde150282009en.pdf
[5] http://www.blueplanetproject.net/documents/RTW/RTW-Palestine-1.pdf
http://stopthewall.org/2011/11/13/al-hadidiye-be-demolished-once-again-halt-new-wave-ethnic-cleansing
[6] http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MDCS-85SHU3?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=pse
[7] http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=286948
[8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8654337.stm
[9] http://electronicintifada.net/content/starving-gaza/7342
[10] http://corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3625
http://www.whoprofits.org/company/mehadrin-group
http://www.blueplanetproject.net/documents/RTW/RTW-Palestine-1.pdf
[11] http://www.whoprofits.org/s?vid_3=1832

 

 

The Palestinian right to equality is neither negotiable nor relative; it is the sine qua non of a just peace in Palestine and the region. As Edward Said once said, “Equality or nothing!”

Anyone who supports Palestinian self-determination while calling only for ending the forty-five-year-old Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is only upholding most of the rights of just 38 percent of Palestinians while expecting the rest to accept injustice as fate. According to 2011 statistics, of 11.2 million Palestinians, 50 percent live in exile, many denied their UN-stipulated right to return to their homes of origin, and 12 percent are Palestinian citizens of Israel who live under a system of “institutional, legal and societal discrimination,” according to the US State Department. More than two thirds of Palestinians are refugees or internally displaced persons.

Equal rights for Palestinians means, at minimum, ending Israel’s 1967 occupation and colonization, ending Israel’s system of racial discrimination and respecting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands from which they were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba. The 2005 Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinians because it upholds all three. By appealing to people of conscience around the world to help end Israel’s three-tiered system of oppression, the BDS movement is not asking for anything heroic. It is merely asking people to desist from complicity in oppression.

Moreover, given the billions of dollars lavished by the United States on Israel annually, American taxpayers are subsidizing Israel’s violations of international law at a time when American social programs are undergoing severe cuts. Striving to end US complicity in the occupation is good for the Palestinians and for the 99 percent struggling for social justice and against perpetual war.

Building on its global ascendance, the BDS movement—led by the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society, the BDS National Committee (BNC)—is spreading across the United States, especially on campuses and among churches, scoring significant victories such as at the Olympia Food Co-op. Globally, trade union federations with millions of members have endorsed BDS. Veolia and Alstom, two corporations complicit in Israel’s occupation, have lost contracts worth billions of dollars. Deutsche Bahn, a German government-controlled rail company, pulled out of an Israeli project encroaching on occupied Palestinian land. The University of Johannesburg severed links with Ben Gurion University over human rights violations. World renowned artists—including, most recently, Cat Power and Cassandra Wilson—have canceled performances in Israel, heeding the cultural boycott and transforming Tel Aviv into the new Sun City.

BDS advocates equal rights for all and opposes all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. This universalist commitment has won hearts and minds globally, triggering panic and over-the-top bullying attempts to crush BDS in the United States, as witnessed with the national BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania and the Park Slope Co-op ballot on boycotting Israeli goods, where almost 40 percent voted for BDS. Perhaps provoked by the mainstreaming of BDS, President Obama attacked it for the first time in his recent AIPAC address, joining numerous US politicians whose vehement vilification of BDS puts them on a moral plane with those white Americans who opposed the Montgomery bus boycott and/or the boycott of apartheid South Africa.

With impressive successes in the economic and cultural fields, and with the increasing impact of its Israeli supporters, BDS is viewed by Israel’s establishment as a “strategic threat” to its system of oppression—namely occupation, colonialism and apartheid. This explains the Knesset’s passage of a draconian anti-boycott law last year that drops the last mask of Israel’s supposed democracy. But multimillion-dollar campaigns by Israel’s foreign ministry to counter BDS by “re-branding” through art, science and cynically using LGBT rights to “pinkwash” Israel’s denial of basic Palestinian rights have largely failed.

Among international supporters of BDS, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is among the most eloquent in arguing that Israel practices apartheid. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine in its recent Cape Town session determined that Israel is practicing apartheid against the entire Palestinian people. Similarly, South African Christian leaders have condemned Israel’s apartheid as “even worse than South African apartheid.” And the publisher of Haaretz, an influential Israeli daily, recently described a fanatic Israeli ideology of “territorial seizure and apartheid.”

With its continued siege of Gaza; its untamed construction of illegal colonies and the wall in the occupied West Bank; its “strategy of Judaization” in Jerusalem, the Galilee, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev); its adoption of new racist laws and its denial of refugees’ rights, Israel has embarked on a more belligerent phase in its attempt to extinguish the question of Palestine through literally “disappearing” the Palestinians, as Said would say.

Israel and its well-oiled lobby groups, who Thomas Friedman charges with buying allegiance in Congress, have been trying to delegitimize the Palestinian quest for equal rights by portraying the nonviolent BDS call’s emphasis on equal rights and the right of return as aiming to “destroy Israel.” If equality and justice would destroy Israel, what does that say about Israel? Did equality and justice destroy South Africa? Did they destroy Alabama? Justice and equality only destroy their negation, injustice and inequality. The BDS movement’s effective challenge to Israeli apartheid and colonial rule petrifies Israel and its lobbies.

Desperate to “save Israel,” essentially as an apartheid state, and motivated by genuine fear of the demise of Zionism, “liberal” Zionists are under exceptional duress given the fast spread of BDS. Cognizant of its appeal to an increasing number of younger Jewish activists, some are muddying the waters by suggesting a Zionist-friendly boycott to undermine the movement. But BDS is an ethically consistent, rights-based movement that cannot coexist with racism of any type, including Zionism. A “Zionist BDS” is as logical as a “racist equality”!

BDS addresses comprehensive Palestinian rights, not simply ending the Israeli occupation of some densely populated Palestinian territory in order to save Israel as a “purer” apartheid. Even those who seek ending the occupation only, disregarding the basic rights of most Palestinians, struggle to explain their opposition to a full boycott of Israel, the occupying power, which under international law bears full responsibility for the occupation and its manifestations. The BDS movement calls for boycotting Israel just as South Africa was the target of boycotts due to its apartheid regime, China due to its occupation of Tibet and Sudan due to its crimes in Darfur.

Still, BDS is not a dogmatic or centralized movement—it is all about context sensitivity and creativity. BDS supporters in any particular context decide what to target and how to mobilize and organize their local campaigns. So long as they uphold the basic rights of all Palestinians, international partners may decide to selectively target companies implicated in Israel’s occupation or colonies only out of pragmatic considerations rather than approval of Israel’s other injustices.

A movement that dwells in citizens’ consciences, that is rooted in an oppressed people’s heritage of struggle for justice, and that is inspired by the rich and diverse legacies of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. cannot be defeated or co-opted.

Our South Africa moment has arrived.

Original Link: http://www.thenation.com/blog/167708/opinionnation-forum-boycott-divestment-sanctions-bds

Adopting the “Kairos Palestine” document, Methodists Elevate Palestinian Rights and Israel Divestment to Mainstream Prominence

“Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.” –Gandhi

Occupied Palestine, 3 May 2012 – The General Conference of the United Methodist Church decided yesterday to call for an explicit boycott of all Israeli companies “operating in the occupied Palestinian territories,” knowing that this constitutes the absolute majority of Israeli corporations. This and the overwhelming support for the “Kairos Palestine” document and its call “for an end to military occupation and human rights violations through nonviolent actions,” which include boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), will pave the way forward for further action by the Church to hold Israel accountable for its colonial and apartheid regime.

Although the General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) fell short of voting for divestment from three U.S. corporations that are actively complicit in Israel’s protracted occupation and serious violations of international law, the inspiring awareness raising and advocacy campaign waged by human rights activists within the Church and in many communities outside it has succeeded in elevating Israel divestment and the struggle for Palestinian rights to mainstream prominence. Notwithstanding this decision, four annual (regional) conferences within the UMC have already adopted Israel divestment resolutions.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broadest coalition of Palestinian political parties, trade unions, NGOs and networks, whose BDS Call is supported by Palestinian church groups from all major Christian denominations, salutes all the people of conscience, especially within the UMC, who relentlessly, meticulously and with immense selflessness labored to convince the Church to align its investment policy with its ethical principles that reject injustice and oppression. Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett Packard should not take too much comfort in this temporary setback; while they are off the hook for now, many more people today know exactly what these companies are doing in violation of international law and will soon hold them accountable.

As a result of repeated disinformation and fear mongering by some Church officials responsible for its investment branch, a majority of UMC delegates still feel that divesting from companies profiting from human rights violations is a considerable and unnecessary sacrifice. The widely expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, and with Palestinian Christians in particular, who overwhelmingly called on the Church to divest, was thus not translated into action that heeds the moral obligation to do no harm. By continuing to invest in companies that profit from the Israeli occupation and human rights violations, and despite all intentions, the UMC is still doing harm to the Palestinian people through its financial complicity in maintaining the occupation.

Efforts by BDS activists from around the world are sending a strong message to corporations that their collusion in Israel’s unlawful occupation and serious violations of international law is under scrutiny and will not be tolerated. A recent research report exposed Hewlett Packard’s role in sustaining the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people, with its supply of biometric monitoring systems to Israeli military checkpoints inside the occupied West Bank and technological solutions to Israel’s army and illegal colonial settlements, contributing to the caging of Palestinians in fragmented ghettos[1]. Motorola provides surveillance systems for Israeli settlements, military bases and the apartheid wall, and communications equipment to the Israeli occupation army.[2]

The General Conference, taking place this year in Tampa, FL, meets every four years and is the only entity that speaks for The United Methodist Church.[3] The process and international debates leading to the vote on this divestment resolution mark a milestone in the persistent efforts of Christians around the world and Methodists in particular to bring concrete meaning to a long-standing ethical Church position in support of ending Israel’s occupation and human rights violations. The setback notwithstanding, this debate over how best to hold Israel accountable for human rights violations is largely viewed as ushering in a new phase in faith groups’ activism for Palestinian rights reminiscent of similar measures that eventually contributed to dismantling South African apartheid.

The impressive mobilization in support of this divestment resolution united people from diverse backgrounds, including scores of Jewish human rights activists, mostly associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, who proudly spoke out for an end to church material support to Israel’s occupation.[4] It constitutes a distinguished contribution to the Palestinian people’s struggle to achieve its full set of human rights, which includes also full equality for Palestinians citizens of Israel, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees as guaranteed by international law. UMC activists, who led this effort with diligence and utmost attention to accuracy, moral consistency and effective advocacy, deserve warm praise and gratitude from all of us struggling for a just peace in Palestine and the region. The supportive role of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in this mobilization must also be acknowledged and commended. While the profound obligation to “do no harm” was not honored by many in the General Conference, it has become a rallying cry for human rights activists everywhere, including within the Church. This setback notwithstanding, we are confident that campaigns of misinformation and vilification by well-oiled pro-Israel lobbies and putting profit ahead of principle by some will not for long drown the voices of the many Methodists who stand, in word and in deed, behind Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. 

In 2009, prominent Palestinian Christians issued the “Kairos Palestine” document[5], a historic theological manifesto that seeks inspiration from a similar document issued in 1985 by South African theologians, detailing their vision for justice and the obligation to resist injustice. Kairos Palestine explicitly advocates BDS against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.[6] The following year, United Methodist clergy and laity from the US responded to the “Kairos Palestine” document with grassroots educational and research efforts to understand the full extent of the impact of UMC investments that directly result in the oppression of Palestinians. These efforts culminated in the resolution[7] presented at this year’s General Conference and voted upon by the 988 delegates present from around the world.

A recent report by the Presbyterian Church (USA), whose divestment resolution will come to a vote at the general assembly scheduled for July, shows that years of engagement — 8 years, to be exact — with Caterpillar, which supplies Israel with bulldozers used to wantonly destroy Palestinian property and build apartheid infrastructure, have failed to convince the company to change its behavior thus making divestment an imperative.[8] Targeted divestment is, therefore, the minimum required to express effective solidarity with Palestinians languishing under and resisting Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid.

The BDS movement has opened space for much needed debate in the U.S. public sphere about Israel’s three-tiered system of oppression against Palestinians and is now becoming a household name. The road to ultimate victory over oppression, as Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. teach us, is never straight or paved with flowers; every turn and decline are opportunities to learn how to persevere and to rise stronger against the challenges ahead.

We salute the genuine moral voices in the United Methodist Church for their sincere efforts to put truth to action, to bring justice and freedom for all in the land that is the birthplace of Christianity.   

[1] http://www.whoprofits.org/HP

[2] http://www.endtheoccupation.org/section.php?id=209

[3] http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.8038525/k.D58F/How_General_Conference_Works.htm

[4] http://www.rabbisletter.org/

[5] http://www.kairospalestine.ps/

[6] http://www.bdsmovement.net/call#.T5pJwMR-urI

[7] https://www.kairosresponse.org/The_Resolution.html

[8] http://www.pcusa.org/news/2012/4/25/mrti-holds-long-sought-meeting-caterpillar/

As a Palestinian organisation dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq is gravely concerned about the participation of a subsidiary of the Veolia Group in the public transport tender in the city of The Hague. In a press release issued on 27 April 2012, the Stadsgewest Haaglanden, the Dutch local authority of the city of The Hague, announced that transport companies HTMbuzz and Veolia Transport Nederland Openbaar Vervoer are taking part in the public transport tender. The tender in question is to include all public bus transportation in The Hague’s city district. Al-Haq strongly objects to the activities of Veolia Environment, a French multinational providing infrastructure through its subsidiary VeoliaTransdev to Israeli local authorities, for its involvement in the construction of a light rail tramway linking West Jerusalem to illegal Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank. Such infrastructure contributes to Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem. Other companies within the Veolia Group provide transport and services, such as refuse collection, to illegal Israeli settlements in other parts of the West Bank.

Veolia Transport Nederland is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French parent company, Veolia Environment, which means that the latter exercises full control over the company tendering. Taking into consideration that the Veolia Group presents itself internationally as a company that operates as a single corporate entity, thus including all subsidiaries, the Veolia Group as a whole will benefit from profits generated through the exploitation of the public transport concession for The Hague city district, should Veolia Transport Nederland be awarded the contract.

Participation of a company with a disputed reputation and involvement in illegal activities in the OPT in The Hague’s public transport tender is particularly problematic, due to the city’s reputation as the “International City of Peace and Justice.” Commenting on the issue, Al-Haq Director Shawan Jabarin stated: “How can the city of The Hague consider allowing its citizens and employees of international institutions, courts and tribunals tasked with contributing towards peace and justice world wide, to make use of a public transportation service which is operated by a company involved in violations of international law?”

In July 2011, the Stadsregio Arnhem Nijmegen, a Dutch local authority, decided to award a one billion Euro public transport concession to Hermes, the Dutch subsidiary of French multinational company VeoliaTransdev. In response to the local authority’s decision, Al-Haq instructed Van den Biesen Boesveld advocates to submit a formal objection against the decision of Stadsregio Arnhem Nijmegen.

Considering Veolia’s involvement in violations of international humanitarian law, Al-Haq calls on the Stadsgewest Haaglanden to promptly reconsider its association with the Veolia Group’s businesses and to immediately exclude Veolia Transport Nederland from the public transport tender. It is highly undesirable for the “International City of Peace and Justice” to enter into a contract with one of the subsidiaries of the Veolia Group, as its aspirations cannot be reconciled with the violations of international humanitarian law to which the Veolia Group is associated.

Original Link: http://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/targets/accountability/72-hermesveolia/567-veolia-subsidiary-applies-for-public-tender-in-city-of-peace-and-justice

A quarter-century ago I barnstormed around the United States encouraging Americans, particularly students, to press for divestment from South Africa. Today, regrettably, the time has come for similar action to force an end to Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territory and refusal to extend equal rights to Palestinian citizens who suffer from some 35 discriminatory laws.

I have reached this conclusion slowly and painfully. I am aware that many of our Jewish brothers and sisters who were so instrumental in the fight against South African apartheid are not yet ready to reckon with the apartheid nature of Israel and its current government. And I am enormously concerned that raising this issue will cause heartache to some in the Jewish community with whom I have worked closely and successfully for decades. But I cannot ignore the Palestinian suffering I have witnessed, nor the voices of those courageous Jews troubled by Israel’s discriminatory course.

Within the past few days, some 1,200 American rabbis signed a letter — timed to coincide with resolutions considered by the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) — urging Christians not “to selectively divest from certain companies whose products are used by Israel.” They argue that a “one-sided approach” on divestment resolutions, even the selective divestment from companies profiting from the occupation proposed by the Methodists and Presbyterians, “damages the relationship between Jews and Christians that has been nurtured for decades.”

While they are no doubt well-meaning, I believe that the rabbis and other opponents of divestment are sadly misguided. My voice will always be raised in support of Christian-Jewish ties and against the anti-Semitism that all sensible people fear and detest. But this cannot be an excuse for doing nothing and for standing aside as successive Israeli governments colonize the West Bank and advance racist laws.

I recall well the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he confesses to his “Christian and Jewish brothers” that he has been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom. …”

King’s words describe almost precisely the shortcomings of the 1,200 rabbis who are not joining the brave Palestinians, Jews and internationals in isolated West Bank communities to protest nonviolently against Israel’s theft of Palestinian land to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements and the separation wall. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand as relentless settlement activity forecloses on the possibility of the two-state solution.

If we do not achieve two states in the near future, then the day will certainly arrive when Palestinians move away from seeking a separate state of their own and insist on the right to vote for the government that controls their lives, the Israeli government, in a single, democratic state. Israel finds this option unacceptable and yet is seemingly doing everything in its power to see that it happens.

Many black South Africans have traveled to the occupied West Bank and have been appalled by Israeli roads built for Jewish settlers that West Bank Palestinians are denied access to, and by Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.

Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.” This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable. And we are in desperate need of more rabbis joining the brave rabbis of Jewish Voice for Peace in speaking forthrightly about the corrupting decadeslong Israeli domination over Palestinians.

These are among the hardest words I have ever written. But they are vitally important. Not only is Israel harming Palestinians, but it is harming itself. The 1,200 rabbis may not like what I have to say, but it is long past time for them to remove the blinders from their eyes and grapple with the reality that Israel becoming an apartheid state or like South Africa in its denial of equal rights is not a future danger, as three former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and David Ben Gurion — have warned, but a present-day reality. This harsh reality endured by millions of Palestinians requires people and organizations of conscience to divest from those companies — in this instance, from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard — profiting from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.

Such action made an enormous difference in apartheid South Africa. It can make an enormous difference in creating a future of justice and equality for Palestinians and Jews in the Holy Land.

Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, is archbishop-emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa.

Original Link: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/justice-requires-action-to-stop-subjugation-of-palestinians/1227722

Palestinian civil society welcomes Arab boycott of Adidas and calls for a worldwide boycott due to company’s complicity in Israel’s occupation

Occupied Ramallah, 28 April 2012 — Palestinian civil society warmly welcomes the declaration of the Arab Youth and Sports Council of Ministers in support of a boycott of Adidas due to its sponsorship of an Israeli marathon that violates international law and whitewashes Israel’s illegal occupation of Jerusalem.[1] Particularly praiseworthy is the consequent decision by the Egypt Football Association to boycott Adidas despite the financial penalties it will incur as a result of doing so. [2] The BNC calls for an international boycott of Adidas until such time as it ends its involvement in the so-called “Jerusalem Marathon” as well as in any other Israeli events that serve to whitewash Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the city and violations of international law.

The UN has consistently maintained that “any actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever, and calls upon Israel to cease all such illegal and unilateral measures.” [3] Adidas’s partnership with the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality, the main organ of the occupying Power, on east or west of the city, clearly violates this resolution.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the broadest coalition of Palestinian mass organisations, political parties, trade unions and networks, had revealed in 2011 [4] Adidas’s complicity in Israel’s so-called “Jerusalem Marathon,” which illegally passes through occupied East Jerusalem and serves to strengthen Israel’s grip on occupied Palestinian territory, calling on the company to withdraw its sponsorship of the sporting event. After failing to heed this call by Palestinian civil society and in light of the striking revival of popular boycotts of Israel in the Arab region as a result of the evolving popular revolutions in the region, Adidas has now become a target for boycott across the Arab world, which will undoubtedly lead to massive loss of revenue. The price of complicity in Israel’s violations of international law has increased sharply, thanks to the Arab Spring and the spectacular spread of the BDS movement globally.

Another corporation that learned this lesson is Alstom, the French conglomerate that is implicated in the Israeli tram project connecting occupied Jerusalem with Israel’s illegal colonies built on occupied Palestinian land. In November 2011, Alstom lost a $9.4 billion contract in Saudi Arabia as a direct result of its complicity in Israel’s occupation. [5]

The Israeli Jerusalem Municipality, the organiser of the Jerusalem Marathon with which Adidas has made its partnership, has since its inception been the key perpetrator of systematic policies of ethnic cleansing, colonisation, and apartheid in Jerusalem. [6] The Jerusalem Marathon website itself openly refers to East Jerusalem as “mostly the home of former Jordanian citizens,” painting Palestinians as foreigners instead of the indigenous people of the land. [7]

John Dugard, the prominent international law professor widely regarded as the father of human rights law in South Africa and the former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories, has repeatedly accused Israel of subjugating Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory, especially in East Jerusalem, to apartheid policies. He said [8]:

“The similarities between the situation of East Jerusalemites and black South Africans [are] very great in respect of their residency rights. We had the old Group Areas Act in South Africa. East Jerusalem has territorial classification that has the same sort of consequences as race classification had in South Africa in respect of who you can marry, where you can live, where you can go to school or hospital.”

A recent report by European Union Heads of Mission in Jerusalem details Israel’s illegal policies in the city noting:

“Israel is actively perpetuating its annexation [of Jerusalem] by systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in the city through the continued expansion of settlements, restrictive zoning and planning, ongoing demolitions and evictions, [and] an inequitable education policy….” [9]

UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik, went as far as accusing Israel of implementing a “strategy of Judaisation” in Jerusalem — and elsewhere — saying:

“From the Galilee and the Negev to east Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Israeli authorities promote a territorial development model that excludes, discriminates against and displaces minorities, particularly affecting Palestinian communities, side by side with the accelerated development of predominantly Jewish settlements.” [10]

The Israeli marathon is part of an ongoing process to re-brand [11] Israel and institutionalize its illegal hold on the entirety of the occupied city. “I am proud that Israel’s capital is part of the marathons held throughout the world,” boasted a letter from Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, in an official marathon publication. [12]

Far from meeting its stated commitment to “rules that society expects of a responsible company”, Adidas has knowingly chosen to assist Israel with whitewashing its ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and indeed its entire system of occupation, colonisation and apartheid. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) therefore calls on people of conscience around the world to boycott all goods manufactured and sold by Adidas to hold it accountable for its complicity with Israel’s grave breaches of international law.

[1] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/20124417011120487.html
[2] http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/6/52/39674/Sports/National-Teams/Egypt-to-boycott-proIsrael-Adidas-kit-manufacturer.asp
[3] http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/567A1DA2BA02909F852578290053DD1D
[4] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/adidas-feb11statement-5421#.T5j0NKuP-P8
[5] http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/alstom-loses-saudi-haramain-8253#.T5j4HKuP-P8
[6] The policies of the Jerusalem Municipality are widely documented. For one example see: www.alhaq.org/pdfs/Report%20-%20The%20Jerusalem%20Trap.pdf
[7] http://electronicintifada.net/content/athlete-abused-israeli-soldier-carrying-palestine-flag-jerusalem-marathon/11077
[8] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/06/southafrica.israel
[9] http://www.scribd.com/doc/78648359/EU-Heads-of-Mission-Report-Jerusalem-2011
[10] http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/12/un-report-accuses-israel-of-pushing-palestinians-from-jerusalem-west-bank/
[11] http://www.forward.com/articles/2070/.  Ben White provides a comprehensive discussion of the brand-Israel effort in http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11093.shtml
[12] http://electronicintifada.net/content/athlete-abused-israeli-soldier-carrying-palestine-flag-jerusalem-marathon/11077

 

The Co-operative Group stresses that its move is not an Israeli boycott and that it will use other suppliers in the country that do not source from illegal settlements. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Observer

The Co-operative Group has become the first major European supermarket group to end trade with companies that export produce from illegal Israeli settlements.

The UK’s fifth biggest food retailer and its largest mutual business, the Co-op took the step as an extension of its existing policy which had been not to source produce from illegal settlements that have been built on Palestinian territories in the West bank.

Now the retail and insurance giant has taken it one step further by “no longer engaging with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements”.

The decision will hit four companies and contracts worth some £350,000. But the Co-op stresses this is not an Israeli boycott and that its contracts will go to other companies inside Israel that can guarantee they don’t export from illegal settlements.

Welcoming the move, Palestinian human rights campaigners said it was the first time a supermarket anywhere in the west had taken such a position.

The Co-op’s decision will immediately affect four suppliers, Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company. Other companies may be affected by the policy.

Hilary Smith, Co-op member and Boycott Israel Network (BIN) agricultural trade campaign co-ordinator, said the Co-op “has taken the lead internationally in this historic decision to hold corporations to account for complicity in Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights We strongly urge other retailers to take similar action.”

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which works to improve the conditions of Palestinian agricultural communities, said: “Israeli agricultural export companies like Mehadrin profit from and are directly involved in the ongoing colonisation of occupied Palestinian land and theft of our water. Trade with such companies constitutes a major form of support for Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people, so we warmly welcome this principled decision by the Co-operative. The movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law is proving to be a truly effective form of action in support of Palestinian rights.”

Boycott campaigns against Israel are routinely denounced by Israeli officials as part of a drive to “delegitimise” the Jewish state. A law, passed last July, allows those that call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts against Israel, its institutions or areas under its control to be sued.

Original Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/29/co-op-israel-west-bank-boycott

As two US churches consider resolutions, we examine the BDS movement and ask if it helps or hinders peace efforts.

Two major US churches are considering resolutions to boycott and divest from companies they say are profiting from the Israeli occupation.

These companies include Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are used by the Israeli military to demolish Palestinian homes, and Motorola Solutions, whose surveillance equipment is used in illegal settlements.

“I don’t think this particular set of sanctions … that would be directed against Israel would work. I think … it can work if you target an aspect … of the system. But if you target the entire country … if you’re saying no cultural contact, no dealing with universities, no business, no nothing, you’re basically targeting the whole people, you’re basically saying the country shouldn’t exist and that’s never going to succeed ….“- MJ Rosenberg, a former senior fellow at Media Matters Action Network

The resolution being considered by the United Methodist Church, one of the churches considering divestment, states: “The biblical mandate to be peace-makers demands that we express our love of our Palestinian and Israeli neighbours both in word and through nonviolent actions … Divestment is not aimed at Israel itself, but at the occupation of land beyond its internationally recognised borders. As a non-violent moral action, divestment seeks to strengthen the Church’s support for the peoples of Israel and Palestine, whose future can only be secured through a just peace.”

The proposal is part of a wider international movement called the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS).

Critics say the initiative is a form of collective punishment against all Israelis, but its supporters, who were inspired by a similar movement against Apartheid South Africa, disagree. They say it is a non-violent means to pressure Israel to abide by international law.

The international BDS campaign is calling for military, diplomatic and economic sanctions against Israel. It has also organised a consumer boycott of Israeli companies and of international companies involved in Israeli policies they say violate Palestinian human rights and international law. There is also an academic boycott calling for an end to collaboration with Israeli institutions and universities and a cultural boycott, which encourages artists, academics and celebrities not to perform in Israel.

“Israel is definitely worried … BDS has never been more on the public radar than now. BDS has scored a massive success on an educational and public relations level and that’s what really threatens Israel … and that’s besides the victories it is likely to score with the United Methodist Church. “- Max Blumenthal, journalist and author

Jimmy Carter, the former US president and author of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, told Al Jazeera that he thinks the BDS movement has “been effective on a wide-ranging basis, otherwise the Israelis would not be so upset about it” and that it is “gaining in strength”.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow has been a long-time critic of Israeli government policies towards Palestinians, but he is also a critic of the BDS movement. He explained why on Democracy Now:

“The trouble with the BDS across the board – the sanctions and boycotts vis-a-vis Israel – is that it demonises Israeli society. It does not say there is an Israeli government which is behaving badly and therefore we need to bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government.”

We ask if the BDS campaign is one that helps or harms attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Inside Story Americas, with presenter Anand Naidoo, discusses with guests: MJ Rosenberg, a former senior fellow at Media Matters Action Network; Max Blumenthal, a journalist and author; and Reverend Walter Davis, a member of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian church – which will also take up a BDS resolution in July.

“We would like to stress that this form of divestment is far from being anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic. We support and encourage a resolution for divestment from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation. We are convinced that measures such as this do not target Israeli, Jewish or any other individual, but rather companies that profit from Israel’s military occupation, its violations of international law and of human rights.”We strongly believe that divestment is a positive action that will pressure Israeli and international policy makers to end the occupation, and strengthens those aspiring and working for justice and peace in the region.”An Israeli supporter of the BDS campaigs

Original Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/04/201242564058471397.html

Editor’s note: Here is a copy of the recently released report by the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) Committee. It summarizes a recent meeting between Caterpillar and representatives of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church. Both churches are considering whether to divest from Caterpillar. This report documents Caterpillar’s intransigence and unwillingness to compromise. Corporate engagement has not worked. the time to divest is now.

MRTI holds long-sought meeting with Caterpillar

‘A positive meeting’ but no change in company activities foreseen

APRIL 25, 2012

LOUISVILLE

Members of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) met last week with representatives of Caterpillar as part of the committee’s ongoing corporate engagement efforts. The engagement, directed by the 2004 General Assembly and reaffirmed in 2006, 2008 and 2010, sought to encourage the company “to confine their business activity solely to peaceful pursuits” in Israel/Palestine. Because the dialogues with Caterpillar and two other companies—Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions—have not been successful, MRTI has recommended that the company be placed on the General Assembly Divestment List.

“It was a positive meeting, conducted with a cordial spirit and with clarity on all sides,” said Brian Ellison, a pastor from Kansas City, Mo., who chairs MRTI. “But it also made clear that the church and the company have two different perspectives, and that no amount of dialogue is going to change the company’s business decision to continue selling products whose use the General Assembly has deemed a roadblock to peace in Israel/Palestine.”

Caterpillar, which had not met with Presbyterians since 2009, acknowledged receiving invitations to meet, most recently in April 2011, and apologized for not responding sooner. Last week’s meeting came in response to Presbyterians concerned about MRTI’s pending recommendations to the General Assembly, encouraging Caterpillar to respond to MRTI’s invitation. Two representatives of the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society, which is bringing similar recommendations to that denomination’s General Conference this month, were also present.

At the conclusion of the meeting, representatives of both Caterpillar and MRTI noted that there were still considerable differences between their two positions, and there was no suggestion that future dialogue between Caterpillar and MRTI would change this.

In the dialogue, MRTI members reiterated the Assembly’s concerns, notably the use of Caterpillar’s products for the demolition of Palestinian civilian homes, the destruction of agricultural lands, the building of (Israeli) settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories (which are deemed illegal under international law), the construction of Israeli-only roads and the building of the separation barrier on Palestinian land.

Jim Dugan, chief corporate spokesperson and Caterpillar’s lead representative, outlined the company’s views and responded to numerous specific questions. He expressed compassion for all persons affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and expressed hope for a political and diplomatic resolution.

Mr. Dugan said that the bulk of his company’s sales of D9 bulldozers directly to Israel come through the Foreign Military Sales program of the U.S. government.   The company is obligated to fulfill government contracts, he said, but he did not know the details of Caterpillar’s contracts, including how often the terms are negotiated or when they are next up for renewal. In response to MRTI’s observation that Caterpillar’s dealer in Israel also sells a variety of Caterpillar equipment to the Israeli government, as well as to contractors who do work for the government, Mr. Dugan said he was not aware whether the company’s dealer in Israel does this, but that it was possible. He reiterated the company’s position, stated in previous dialogues, that the company does not take responsibility for its dealers’ actions, and that the company’s Worldwide Code of Conduct is binding only on the company’s employees.

Asked by MRTI members about the company’s 2010 directive given to its dealers not to sell military equipment to Iran, Mr. Dugan said that the company determined selling to Iran posed a “business risk.” In contrast, Mr. Dugan said, such a directive regarding sales to Israel for what the Presbyterian Church regards as “non-peaceful pursuits” could amount to a “boycott” in violation of American anti-boycott legislation. MRTI representatives suggested they had a different interpretation of the anti-boycott law, believing it applied to situations where foreign governments applied pressure not to buy from Israel, rather than shareholders applied pressure not to sell certain products for certain uses to Israel. Mr. Dugan said he could not be specific but that he would not be stating this as the company’s position if senior management did not believe that such a decision would pose a serious business risk by potentially violating the legislation. He said the church and the company would have to “agree to disagree on this.”

MRTI members also provided several specific steps the company could consider taking to demonstrate possible progress in responding to the church’s concerns, including taking steps so that its products would not be sold for specific non-peaceful purposes. Mr. Dugan said he did not think the company would likely take any public stands or make policy changes specific to Israel/Palestine because the conflict “is better and best resolved in the political arena” rather than through corporate activity. He also said he was not aware of any cases, and did not foresee any, where the company would use its political influence to address Israel/Palestine human rights issues as they have done, for example, with the North American Free Trade Agreement or on transportation legislation.

Ellison said that although the MRTI members were very grateful for the frankness and positive nature of the discussion, the committee’s recommendations, which were approved by the General Assembly Mission Council in February, will remain unchanged. They will be on the agenda of the 220th General Assembly when it convenes in Pittsburgh in June.

“We are certainly glad we had the meeting,” Ellison said. “But if anything, it only solidified our understanding that the company and the church are simply in different places on these matters. So long as the General Assembly policy condemns these particular practices as roadblocks to peace, and so long as Caterpillar continues to profit from them, it appears that we will be at an impasse—and no amount of future engagement is likely to change that.”

Original Link: http://www.rabbisletter.org/caterpillars-instransigence-read-the-new-mrti-report/

The delegates to the Annual Conference of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), the umbrella group for every trade union in Scotland, today voted unanimously and repeatedly against Israeli apartheid. The 450 delegates voted to:

• campaign to expose the role of the racist JNF (Jewish National Fund) in the Israeli apartheid system
• support the participants in the Welcome to Palestine initiative who tried to travel peacefully to Palestine via Tel Aviv Airport
• fully support the Palestinian-Brazilian call for the World Social Forum-Free Palestine in Brazil in November
• support the Palestinian hunger strikers and the work of Addameer, the Palestinian prisoner support organisation.

Congress delegates congratulated the students for their work organising Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 events, and who initiated action in support of the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, and called for support for the Scottish demonstration this Saturday 28th April in Edinburgh. These decisions of the Scottish TUC in support of the Palestinian freedom struggle, by a union confederation representing half a million organised workers in every sector of the economy, will be widely seen as a continuation of the international solidarity the STUC also provided to the liberation struggle in South Africa. Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, named a city centre street after Mandela in 1986 while he was still on Robben Island. How long till there is a Palestine Square or Palestine Street in our major cities? The full text of the resolutions – all passed unanimously: http://bit.ly/JnCgOG

Olympia, WA – April 23, 2012 – At the 2012 Pacific Northwest Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán (MEChA) Regional Conference, chapter leaders voted to endorse the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions aimed at forcing Israel to meet its obligations under international law.  The Pacific Northwest MEChA Conference’s endorsement follows an endorsement made at the 2012 National MEChA Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona. This announcement came on a day that commemorated Cesar Chavez Day and Palestinian Land Day, linking the two liberation struggles against discrimination and oppression.

The Regional Conference was hosted by the Evergreen State College MEChA chapter. Evergreen State College has recently been an epicenter of Palestine solidarity. In 2010, students voted overwhelmingly for divestment from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation, such as Caterpillar, Inc. Caterpillar has been the focus of calls for boycott at Evergreen since the death of Evergreen student Rachel Corrie in Gaza. Corrie was crushed under a Caterpillar D9 weaponized bulldozer operated by the Israeli military as she attempted to non-violently prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. More recently TESC Divest! launched the We Divest! campaign to pressure investment giant TIAA-CREF to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation, including Caterpillar and Elbit Systems.

MEChA de Evergreen stated that “As a chapter, we endorse and support the global call for BDS… We recognize that our peoples’ historical and present struggles – against deportation, occupation, exploitation, and dehumanization – in Arizona, in the border, and in the United States – not only coincide, but are also connected to Palestinians’ struggle against Israeli military occupation and settlement of Palestine. Elbit, the company that provides surveillance equipment on Israel’s illegal apartheid wall in the West Bank, was also contracted by the U.S. government to perform the same services for the 700-mile militarized Mexico-U.S. border. This is why we believe it is important to build cross-movements between all indigenous peoples’ historical and continuing struggles against colonization, dehumanization, and cultural imperialism.”

TESC Divest! member Austin Nolen also drew a parallel between the Palestinian struggle and indigenous struggles in the Americas, noting that “Companies that TIAA-CREF invests in, like Elbit Systems, profit from the annexation of indigenous lands not only in Palestine, but here as well. TIAA-CREF, which handles the retirement funds of Evergreen faculty, should not force educators to build their futures upon these oppressive structures.”

MEChA de Evergreen members expressed hope that their chapter and Palestine solidarity groups could work closely on future campaigns. MEChA chapter members were present at the national conference’s BDS endorsement, which led them to engage in actions at a local level as well. MEChA de Evergreen invited TESC Divest! members to take part in a teach-in connecting the BDS movement to the struggle against the ethnic studies ban in Tucson, AZ and to the labor struggles of Darigold workers at Ruby Ridge farm in Eastern Washington. MEChA de Evergreen took the initiative as a chapter to support BDS as a region and urge their fellow MEChistas across the nation to do the same.  

MEChA de Evergreen (Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán) is a student organization that strives to expand the definition of Chicanismo to encompass the struggle of not only Mexican- Americans but of those who relate to la causa regardless of nationality. For more information, email tescmecha@yahoo.com.

TESC Divest! is a student-led organization in Olympia, Washington working to end Evergreen State College’s complicity in Israel’s abuses of Palestinian human rights through the non-violent tactic of divestment. For more information about TESC Divest!, visit www.tescdivest.blogspot.com or email info@tescdivest.org.

The Australian Friends of Palestine Association in Adelaide, South Australia celebrated Palestinian Land Day this year with their 81st consecutive week of protesting in Rundle Mall. We held our first protest on 8 October 2010 and since then anywhere from a dozen to 3 dozen pro-Palestinian activists picket the entrance to the Myer Centre which hosts Israeli cosmetic company, Seacret. The protests last for one hour per week but have been quite successful in educating pedestrians in the Mall. To date we have handed out nearly 31,000 leaflets informing the people of Adelaide about the human rights abuses occurring in Palestine and how they can help make history by boycotting Israeli products. Despite enormous provocation especially from Christian Zionist groups the protests have remained peaceful and positive and the protesters are prepared to keep coming out until we see justice for Palestine.
We put up regular YouTubes of our actions
http://www.youtube.com/user/AustralianFOPA

Also we have incorporated music into our weekly protests with our protesting buskers, Phil Davies and Helen Lawrie.

Here’s our latest You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3EBc8Fhksc

The Jewish Agency, a quasi-official arm of the Israel government that encourages settlement in Palestine, and the Israeli government itself, are taking advantage of US and UK charity laws to raise tax-exempt donations specifically to place settlers in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, all in violation of international law.

This is being done in the open – on the website of Nefesh b’Nefesh an Israeli-government supported program to encourage Jews from North America and the UK to settle in Palestine. Nefesh b’Nefesh receives direct funding from the Israeli government and manages the settlement process along with the Jewish Agency.

The Jewish National Fund (JNF), which is directly complicit in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, assists in this effort. The Jewish Agency, like the JNF, is deeply implicated in plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinian Bedouins to make way for Jews.

“Go North”

Under its “Go North” program, Nefesh b’Nefesh encourages settlers to move to the northern areas of historic Palestine – an area that Israeli officials often fret has a Palestinian majority, despite the fact that indigenous Palestinians there are already severely restricted from land-use under JNF policies designed to favor Jews.

The map on the official website of the area targeted for settlement includes all of northern Palestine and Syria’s Golan Heights.

Map showing settlement target area includes all of northern historic Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, ethnically cleaning tens of thousands of Syrians from it. In 1981, Israel purported to annex the area, a move which no country in the world recognizes.

UN Security Council Resolution 497 declared that “the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect,” and reaffirmed that Israel’s occupation is subject to the Fourth Geneva Convention which renders colonization a war crime.

Tax-exempt funds for illegal colonies

On its donation page, Nefesh b’Nefesh invites people to make tax-exempt donations to support this illegal settlement scheme.

In the US, these donations are to be made through a tax-exempt nonprofit and in the UK through the JNF. Recently, as The Electronic Intifada reported, the JNF has suffered a series of setbacks in the UK thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Stop the JNF campaign.

According to its IRS information returns, the US nonprofit “Nefesh b’Nefesh Jewish Souls United” raised over $14 million in tax-exempt funds in 2010.

In recent years, it has emerged that millions of dollars of charitable funds from the United States have been channeled into illegal Israeli colonies in occupied territories. Despite repeated calls for action, however, the US government has done nothing about it.

While laws governing tax-exemptions for donations in both the US and UK rightly grant groups a wide degree of freedom in how they use funds, it is difficult to see how participating in, aiding and abetting grave crimes under international law can be seen as “charitable” even under the most generous interpretations.

Original Link: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-agency-raises-tax-exempt-us-uk-funds-put-settlers-occupied-golan-heights

In recent reactions to the BDS movement, writers like Peter Beinart, Daniel Levy and Thomas Friedman have offered criticism. This criticism, however, which views the question of Palestine through the prism of Zionism, is incapable of grappling with a movement that views the same question through a humanist perspective of rights.

Activists hold a banner reading “Boycott Israel” outside the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OEDC) headquarters in 2010 in Paris, Bertrand Langlois / AFP / Getty Images

 

In a lengthier article for the Atlantic, Daniel Levy expands on a point Beinart makes in his New York Times Op-Ed and one that is more or less reflected in Friedman’s column demanding boycott activists carry a map of a two-state solution with them at all times.

“I cannot support or accept the call of the BDS movement,” Levy writes, because “it has nothing to say about Jewish collective, communal or national Jewish interests. And, the refusal to proscribe a political result—to explain the end goal of BDS—is not a minor thing.”

Let’s unpack this. What is BDS? The BDS movement is a global movement called for by Palestinian civil society that aims to pressure Israel to meet three requirements: 1) self-determination for Palestinians in the occupied territories, 2) a Right of Return for Palestinian refugees and 3) full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

BDS is not a political movement; it is, and I think by design, a rights-based movement. It does not aim to draw borders. This is not because of a philosophy about one state or two, but rather because a person’s location on one side of a border or the other has no bearing on their inalienable human rights.

The question of Palestine has always been one of rights—rights to vote, rights to return to and live on your land, rights to equality among others—and not simply one of identity. Palestinians are not in search of a national-state identity; we know who we are, and we are the people of Yaffa, Haifa, Nablus, Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine.

This is perhaps why the ‘peace process’ was such a dismal failure. It attempted to Zionize the Palestinian cause, converting it from a cause of rights to a cause for an ethnically homogeneous state to address a Zionism-created problem of statelessness within the confines of 22% of Palestine. Palestinians do not want a state for the sake of having a state, a flag, an anthem, an army, or a president. Palestinians who supported a two-state outcome only sought a Palestinian state in so far as that state would be a vehicle toward realizing Palestinian rights.

What became clear over the past 20 years of peace processing is that even in the best case scenario a Palestinian state would come only at the significant expense of Palestinian rights. Edward Said and many other Palestinians knew this at the beginning of the Oslo process and made their objections known. Today, two decades and 400,000 Israeli settlers later, even Yossi Beilin, the Israeli architect of Oslo, tells us the peace process is a ‘farce.’

‘Liberal Zionists’ like Beinart, Levy and Friedman are somewhat supportive of Palestinian human rights as long as they do not challenge Zionist domination of politics and stay behind a border. But the reality is that human rights should exist where humans exist—and there are humans on both sides of every border.

‘Liberal Zionists’ are very clear as to why they won’t support BDS: because the realization of Palestinian rights challenges what Levy terms “national Jewish interests.”

No reasonable person would have demanded Martin Luther King bring a draft of the Civil Rights Act to every protest assuring Whites that equality for Blacks would not mean the end of White privilege or domination over political affairs.

So why does merely supporting Palestinian rights challenge these ‘national Jewish interests?’ Why does supporting the human rights of one people mean taking something away from another?

It is because Zionism holds that these two things, Palestinian human rights and “national Jewish interests” are mutually exclusive. It’s because Zionism was put into action at the expense of the rights of Palestinians and that the maintenance of Israeli Jewish monopolization of political control demands the continued violation of Palestinian rights.

The way forward requires us to challenge this false dichotomy, which means challenging Zionism. The human rights of Israeli Jews do not need to be violated in any way for the human rights of Palestinians to be realized.

More people than ever before are realizing today that Zionism was the wrong answer to the Jewish question. The right answer was civil and human rights for all regardless to ethnicity or creed. The BDS movement understands that a Zionist approach to the question of Palestine is flawed and has, instead, chosen a rights-based framework.

Perhaps the reason ‘liberal Zionists’ have so much trouble with BDS is precisely because it makes the incompatibility of liberalism and Zionism that much harder to hide.

Original Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/19/why-bds-doesn-t-come-with-a-map.html

Egypt Football Association (EFA) president Anwar Saleh has confirmed that Egypt will boycott the Adidas sportswear company to comply with the decision of the Arab Youth and Sports Ministers.

“We will boycott the company whatever the consequences. It is not my call, this is a ministerial decision and I cannot ignore it,” Saleh was quoted as saying on Ahram Sport.

Earlier this month, Saudi Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal, chairman of the Arab Council of Youth and Sports Ministers, announced during the council’s meeting in Jeddah that “all companies that have sponsored the marathon in Jerusalem, including Adidas, will be boycotted.”

Sports apparel manufacturer Adidas was the only non-Israeli sponsor of the race that the sports council consider to be an attempt by “Israel to mislead public opinion into believing that Jerusalem is its capital which is a violation of all UN resolutions.”

EFA marketing manager Amr Wahbi has warned of heavy losses that will harm the national team and the EFA if the decision is enforced.

“We will see about 1.7 million euros in losses per year because of this decision. We won’t be able to find another sponsor at such a short notice and also because of the current circumstances in Egypt,” he said.

Football activities in Egypt have been suspended since the Port Said disaster on 1 February that left 73 dead and hundreds of injured.

The Pharaohs have held training camps in Qatar and the UAE to warm up ahead of the 2013 African Cup of Nations and 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

Original Link: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/6/52/39674/Sports/National-Teams/Egypt-to-boycott-proIsrael-Adidas-kit-manufacturer.aspx