An MIT grad student has introduced a new internet platform to help activists deepen and expand their campaigns to boycott products made in Israeli settlements. The website, Boycott Toolkit, is a resource where users can generate lists of specific products and companies targeted for boycotts. Right now the site lists wines, food products, and cosmetics made in settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.
Activism
Irish Senators and Members of Parliament are leading the way in explicitly calling on the Irish government to VETO Israel’s membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an exclusive club of 30 of the richest industrialized states.
The northern branch of the Islamic Movement [in Israel-Palestine] on Wednesday joined Arab states and the Palestinian Authority and called for a boycott of settlement goods. The call was directed at both Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel, and the main justification was that the settlements undermine the peace process.
In the summer of 2000, preeminent scholar Edward Said sparked what became conventionally known as a “controversy” when he was photographed hurling a small stone into the no-man’s land between Lebanon and Israel… The stone-throwing fracas created by the ADL and other groups was the first salvo in a series of Mideast-related convulsions at American universities, and particularly at Columbia, where Said had attained the vaunted rank of University Professor. The latest iteration of this saga concerns one of Said’s students, Prof. Joseph Massad, who is labeled “controversial,” perhaps as frequently as any contemporary American scholar.
An interview with Israeli socialist activist Tikva Honig-Parnass who fought in 1948 War as a Zionist. Years later she would break with Zionism and join the ranks of the Matzpen, a Marxist anti-Zionist group that was active in Israel during the 1960s and 1970s. Matzpen called for the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a regional framework that would involve the unification of the Arab East under a socialist and democratic banner, while also granting Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews equal national rights.
“Economic, political, cultural and institutional normalization legitimize Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people by giving the appearance of normalcy to the relationship between oppressor and oppressed. This relationship is hardly one between equals as Israel continues to violate our inalienable rights, steal our land, and prevent refugees from our right of return in contravention of international law and numerous UN resolutions.”
Instead of defending democracy, the sponsors of this bill prefer to reduce it to ashes. This bill is the direct result of irresponsible leadership that is doing all it can to undermine democratic values and the institutions that are the backbone of a democracy: the Supreme Court, a free press, and human rights organizations. A public sphere without these institutions operating independently of the government is a public sphere that is crippled and anti-democratic at its core.
We WON today before the vote, because our battle was against hegemony and double talk, we won because there are 1000 people here who are learning a new thing about the conflict and about the crimes of the Israeli army, we won because our goal was to shed light on the suffering of the Palestinian people under the Israeli industrial complex and that is exactly what we did today.
Attorney Shatz: “We are pleased that the state has finally admitted that it is the authority in Area A, as if the Oslo Accords have disappeared, and that the ‘bantustan’ known as the Palestinian Authority has no significance. This straightforward position will certainly interest the U.S. secretary of state, in light of the start of proximity talks.”
A new leftist European Jewish group, JCall, has written a letter to be delivered Sunday to the European Parliament calling for a cessation of what it calls systematic support for Israeli government decisions… The letter calls occupation and settlements “morally and politically wrong,” noting that they “feed the unacceptable delegitimization process that Israel currently faces abroad.”
A new law tabled on Wednesday in the Israeli Knesset, seeks to forbid registration of Israeli organizations (NGOs) that are suspected of provision of information or involvement in law suits against Israeli officials or commanders for breaches of International Humanitarian Law, or war crimes.
“The [Israeli] enlightened camp” is busy with the endless theatrical performance of their moral difficulties, whose real purpose is to create a barrier between them and all those actions for which they refuse to take responsibility. Thus, when the order arrives, the leftist climbs into the tank without a second thought, but later he will do an anguished film about it for the Cannes festival. Thus the obsessive persecution of settlers. Thus Tel Aviv behaves as if it were a Mediterranean suburb of London while in a spitting distance from it eastward and southward lies an immense jail holding millions of people without rights for over half a century.
Israel is about to be admitted to an exclusive economic club, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Despite the Government of Israel’s failure to comply with OECD demands and standards, the organization announced in January 2010 that it will “complete” Israel’s membership by 2010. However, the OECD needs consensus to admit a new member state into the organization, so it only takes ONE country’s dissent to stop Israel from joining until it has met international human rights standards. The Israeli Government has yet to comply with the Goldstone Recommendations and until it does, admission to the OECD should be withheld.
“When will the University of California stop funding war crimes against Palestinian civilians and the occupation of Palestinian land? How much longer will grieving mothers have to wait for justice?” UC Berkeley student and JVP activist Matthew Taylor covers the final stretch before tomorrow’s Student Senate vote.
There are times when civil society has to take the initiative when government leaders are unable or unwilling to do so. Indeed, today, with tensions rising between Israel and Iran… it is time to talk, before it is too late.
Haaretz correspondent Aluf Benn: “Only one thing does bother the Israelis, according to the polls: fear of a diplomatic embargo and an international boycott. The Goldstone Report and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are arousing concern and interest, far more than Obama’s peace speeches.”
We, at BOYCOTT!, a group of Israeli citizens, strive to stop our government’s human rights and international law violations, which have been facilitated by the cooperation of international companies. Your company has gone to great lengths in getting involved with the Israeli land and resources annexation, segregation and continued colonization of Palestine.
A Palestinian citizen of Israel was struck in the head with a high-velocity canister during a Friday protest against the separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. The man, identified as 43-year-old Imad Risqa from Yaffa, was transported to hospital.
Please stop selling Ahava products. The theft by Israeli colonizers of these resources from stolen Palestinian land supports the illegal displacement and dispossession of the indigenous population. I ask Ulta to cease supporting such violations of international law and human rights.
[O]nly a negotiation in which all of Jerusalem is placed on the table will suffice. This is not only the right thing to do; such a posture is rooted in a solemn U.S. obligation made in the all but forgotten U.S. letter of assurances to the Palestinian delegation… at the outset of the Madrid-Washington-Oslo sequence of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. In it, the U.S. government declared that nothing should be done by either side that would “be prejudicial . . . to the outcome of the negotiations,” notably “unilateral acts that would exacerbate local tensions or make negotiations more difficult or preempt their final outcome.”
The [UC Berkeley Student] Senate needed 14 votes to overturn [the] veto, but early this morning, after an epic 10 plus hour meeting, senators found they had only 13 yes votes with one abstention. So the students tabled a vote to overturn the veto. This means the veto stands but can still be overturned later–there will be much continued lobbying and activism in the coming weeks.
More than 200 people took part in a silent protest this afternoon outside Sproul Hall to protest a veto of the UC Berkeley Israel divestment bill which urges the university to withdraw funding from two companies providing military weapons to the Israeli Army.
So if someone says that it offends “the Jews” to oppose the occupation, then you have to consider how many Jews are already against the occupation, and whether you want to be with them or against them. If someone says that “Jews” have one voice on this matter, you might consider whether there is something wrong with imagining Jews as a single force, with one view, undivided. It is not true.
Join JVP, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Judith Butler and Israeli peace groups like the Shministim, Gush Shalom, and the Coalition of Women for Peace and help make history at UC Berkeley by sending a letter of support for divestment now.
IOA Editor: Please add your signature to this very important effort in support of DIVESTMENT at UC BERKELEY. DEADLINE: TODAY, Wed, April 14 at 7pm PST
[The British] Advertising Standards Authority rules poster showing Western Wall and Dome of the Rock ‘likely to mislead’. The Israeli Government Tourist Office (IGTO) press ad… featured a range of photos of destinations in Israel including a picture of [East] Jerusalem.
IOA Editor: An ingenious protest frontier! Hurray for UK Regulation! 
Never Before Campaign for Palestine: The world is beginning to realize that the Israeli regime and its policies are nothing better than any other, past or present, discriminatory/apartheid regime.
Creative protest or hurtful provocation? Residents of the religious settlement of Otniel were in for an unexpected surprise Saturday after “hosting” a group of 15 leftist activists, including a woman who they say took her clothes off in a residential neighborhood.
IOA Editor: And a lesson in morality from one of Israel’s most hateful, racist politicians.
Tony Judt: “[T]he ‘de-legitimization’ issue is a fraud… I know no one in the professional world of political commentary, however angry about Israel’s behavior, who thinks that the country has no right to exist… ‘De-legitimization’ is just another way to invoke antisemitism as a silencer, but sounds better because [it’s] less exploitative of emotional pain.”
Nancy Kricorian: “This is only a way of changing the subject… All we want is [for] Israel to respect human rights and international law. I don’t see how that delegitimizes Israel.”
IOA Editor: As always, the organized Jewish Community first tries to label us “anti-Semites” or “Self-Hating Jews,” but this doesn’t work nearly as well these days. Since the completion of the Reut ‘study’ — a consulting project conducted by propaganda experts for the Netanyahu government — the new term, “delegitimizers,” is in vogue. Much like the others, it is an empty charge designed to avoid the very specific reality of the Occupation and Israel’s legal responsibilities in connection with it.
When we criticize the Israeli Occupation (daily, on these pages), we surely point to the complete immorality, illegality — indeed, outright criminality — of the Occupation. We are hardly alone in pointing this out: the UN Goldstone Report, and numerous others, have challenged the legality of Israeli actions. None of this is a challenge to the legitimacy of Israelis as a people. As for the legitimacy of Israel as a state, there are many views one can take: that no state is legitimate; that colonial-settler states are illegitimate; or that Israel is as legitimate as any other state. Whatever one’s views on these matters, they are logically distinct from the condemnation of the Occupation and of the policies of the Israeli government — these are systematically and persistently in clear violation of international laws and conventions.
UPDATE: More of the same in Haaretz (13 April 2010), Want to delegitimize Israel? Be careful who you mess with
More on the important question of legitimacy of the state, and how it applies to Israel and other nation-states: Noam Chomsky, Gilbert Achcar: On the Legitimacy of the State
Code Pink [On the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and subsequent cover up, by the US military]: Investigate, don’t cover up! We strongly condemn the cover-ups and the move to censor media outlets that expose the truth. The truth is not a threat to our national security, however the flagrant lack of accountability is certainly a threat to our democracy.
IOA Editor: Clearly, Israeli helicopter crews aren’t the only trigger-happy assassins. Here’s an example of America’s finest, on video, executing Iraqi civilians, including targeting the evacuation of their one visibly helpless, remaining victim who is a threat to no one, and injuring children as well. And then there is a cover up. Sounds familiar? It is. It’s called Murder, Inc. – nowadays a popular school of foreign policy, exercised by the leading World Democracies.
Please add your signature to the Code Pink protest (no citizenship or location is required for doing so).
Americans are heavily involved in the conflict: from funding (the US provides Israel with roughly $3 billion annually in military aid) to corporate investments (Microsoft has one of its major facilities in Israel) to diplomatic support (the US has vetoed 32 United Nations Security Council resolutions unsavory to Israel between 1982 and 2006).
The biggest trap is the growing gap between the general population and the layer of society that represents that population to the outside (in politics, in the NGOs, the media and culture). It is impossible to blame only the occupation for this. You don’t have to directly embezzle funds to live exceptionally well.
Richard Falk argues that a Palestinian victory in the legitimacy war with Israel would not necessarily produce the desired political results and that it is vital that the Palestinians exercise “patience, resolve, leadership and vision, as well as sufficient pressure” if they are to win their just rights.
The policy of closing the country’s doors to visitors based on their political ideology is foreign to democratic countries. The fact that the group’s Jewish members were ultimately allowed to stay while the Swedes of Palestinian origin were not colors the affair with more than a tinge of race-based discrimination.
IOA Editor: This is part of a broad Israeli campaign against resistance to the Occupation – including the most peaceful and non-violent resistance. As noted here already, the threat of peace is Israel’s greatest fear. Any opportunity, however small, which supports a dialog is therefore promptly crushed. Equal treatment under the law cannot be expected from a state that runs a 43-year long Occupation — which is entirely racially-based, as is the state itself — and the term “democracy” simply doesn’t apply.
Amira Hass: Israeli authorities on Thursday deported three Swedish citizens who arrived in the country earlier that day in a delegation of seven young people with Jewish and Palestinian roots.
IOA Editor: The threat of peace is Israel’s greatest fear. Any opportunity, however small, which supports a dialog is therefore promptly crushed.
We have rights not just in this land, but also rights over this land. This is a historic axiom. Even if the generation that experienced the events of Land Day in 1976 does not get to see the desired change, our message will be passed to all future generations as they mark Land Day each year.
