The BDS agenda has moved forward enormously this week, in a number of countries. The main news and the most important developemnt were publication of the UN report on the Gaza carnage, and the adoption of a partial boycott of produce, originating in the illegal settlements in Occupied Territories. While the boycott only applies to produce from the settlements, it is a major shift, nonetheless.
British TUC endorses a boycott call: PACBI
One of the largest trade union federations in the world, the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) has overwhelmingly adopted BDS motions in its annual congress!
The South African trade union federation, COSATU, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) were the two national TU federations that preceded the TUC in adopting BDS.
Given that TUC represents over 6.5 million British workers, this huge success is no small feat. The size and political significance of the British TUC’s endorsement of BDS motions will surely add qualitatively to the impressive rise of the BDS movement after the Israeli massacre in Gaza, further confirming that our South Africa moment has arrived.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its partners have worked tirelessly, persistently and tactfully for several years to reach this astounding victory, crowning previous BDS endorsements — direct or indirect — by the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) earlier this year and several leading British trade unions including Unison and the University and College Union (UCU), the latter representing about 120,000 members in academia.
A warm salute especially to the PSC, as well as the STUC, BRICUP and to all British BDS activists who contributed over the years to this watershed in the BDS movement’s history in the UK, Europe and beyond.
It is worth remembering that in the struggle against South African apartheid the British trade union movement was among the very few in the vanguard of boycotts and divestment that eventually spread to the rest of the world, helping the democracy and freedom movement in South Africa bring down the racist regime. Israeli apartheid and its apologists should take note of this.
Below are excerpts from the motion that passed, sponsored by the amazingly principled and courageous Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and amended by the UCU.
FBU Motion adopted by TUC Congress 2009
Motion was amended with final paragraph by UCU
(EXCERPTS)
“Congress condemns the Histadrut statement of 13th January 2009 in which it backed the attacks on Gaza and calls on the General Council to carry out a review of the TUC’s relationship with Histadrut.
Congress calls on the General Council to pressure the Government to:
a) Condemn the Israeli military aggression and end the blockade on Gaza
b) End all arms trading with Israel
c) Impose a ban on the importing of goods produced in the illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories
d) Support moves to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Congress further calls on the General Council to encourage affiliation to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and to develop an effective Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign by working closely with the PSC to:
1) raise greater awareness on the issues
2) promote a targeted consumer-led boycott
3) encourage trade unionists to boycott Israeli goods, especially
agricultural products that have been produced in the illegal
settlements.
4) encourage campaigns of disinvestment from companies associated
with the occupation.
Congress asserts that in undertaking these actions each affiliate will operate within its own aims and objectives and within the law.”
UN Report on the Israeli atrocities in Gaza
To read the whole report, use the link above.
Israel condemns UN’s Gaza report: BBC
Israel has strongly criticised a UN human rights report into alleged war crimes during the Gaza conflict.
The report said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during fighting in January.
The report “was flawed from A-to-Z”, the UN panel was “biased” and some of its findings “ludicrous”, said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.
The report called for fresh war crimes inquiries under international scrutiny.
It said Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead”, launched in response to militant rocket fire, used disproportionate firepower against the densely populated Gaza Strip and disregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths.
The militant group Hamas criticised parts of the report alleging it fired rockets at Israel without distinguishing between military targets and the civilian population.
Intimidation
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Regev said the panel was “born in sin” because “even the UN” considers the Human Rights Council which commissioned the report “to have a one-side anti-Israeli agenda”.
“The investigations Israel has done into its troops’ behaviour in the Gaza Strip is 1,000 times more serious than this investigation” Mark Regev
He also cast doubt on the impartiality of the four-judge panel, led by South African Richard Goldstone, based on comments one of its members had made before the inquiry.
Mr Regev charged that evidence collected in public hearings in the Gaza Strip, where he said witnesses were subject to intimidation from the militant Hamas movement, had the validity of a “show trial”.
And he rejected the panel’s recommendation that the UN Security Council should call on Israel to fully investigate possible violations by its forces, or face possible referral to the International Criminal Court.
“In the last six months, the investigations Israel has done into its troops’ behaviour in the Gaza Strip is 1,000 times more serious than this investigation,” Mr Regev said.
Ha’aretz responses to the Goldstone Report: JFJFP
Ha’aretz carries a range of responsesto the Goldstone Report including a strongly worded editorial A committee of inquiry is needed (17 September 2009); Gideon Levy’s Disgrace in The Hague; Amira Hass’s The one thing worse than denying the Gaza report; and Aluf Benn’s In wake of Gaza probe, how can Israel go to war again?
There’s a name on every bullet, and there’s someone responsible for every crime. The Teflon cloak Israel has wrapped around itself since Operation Cast Lead has been ripped off, once and for all, and now the difficult questions must be faced. It has become superfluous to ask whether war crimes were committed in Gaza, because authoritative and clear-cut answers have already been given. So the follow-up question has to be addressed: Who’s to blame? If war crimes were committed in Gaza, it follows that there are war criminals at large among us. They must be held accountable and punished. This is the harsh conclusion to be drawn from the detailed United Nations report…”
Gideon Levy, Disgrace in The Hague
Israel vs Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law: The Magnes Zionist
“No, Israel’s battle is not against the human rights NGOs but rather against the whole concept of human rights and international law…”
Remember the time when Israel was praised as a beacon of democracy in an undemocratic region, when the world cheered tiny Israel fighting a sea of hostile Arabs? Now that the Goldstone Report has come out – the last in a series of reports criticizing Israel’s Gaza Operation — Israel is supported by all the usual suspects – rightwing Jews, rightwing Israelis (Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres on the moderate nationalist right to hyper-fascists like Ayalon and Lieberman), and, I suppose, Christian evangelicals and some conservative goyyim. Not a single liberal or progressive will rise to Israel’s defense, because let’s face it – when Israelis, Jews, and the rest of the world rise to criticize the bully’s actions, when the person accused by the prime minister of Israel as conducting a “kangaroo court” is one of the most respected judges and scholars of international law (and a Jew and a Zionist to boot), when all the evidence against the Goldstone report is linked to research done by the rightwing Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, or the rightwing NGO Monitor (which itself does not do fact-checking but instead a lot of googling to dig up dirt on its opponents), then you know that Israel has already lost.
U.S. pension fund giant confirms divestment from Israel firm: Ha’aretz
The U.S. pension fund giant, TIAA-CREF, confirmed in statements to the media on Friday that it divested from Africa Israel Investments, owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, earlier this year.
The statements came in response to a letter initiated by a pro-Palestinian group, Adalah-NY, and signed by TIAA-CREF clients.
The fund’s investment in Africa Israel amounted to only $257,000, so the financial effect of the divestment is minimal. The news of the divestment came as the Israeli firm was suffering a deep financial crisis, having recently announced that is unable to meet its liabilities to its bondholders.
Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation
To read the whole Toronto Declaration, use the link above
The Toronto Declaration is unstoppable. Over 1,000 filmmakers, actors, writers and other cultural producers from around the world — including Israel and Palestine — have signed on to the statement objecting to the Toronto International Film Festival’s celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv.
New signatories include music and cinematic legends Harry Belafonte and Julie Christie. Actor Viggo Mortensen, who will be attending this year’s festival, just added his name. Leading intellectual figures Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler and Anne McClintock have also recently endorsed the declaration, along with prominent Canadian writers Rawi Hage, Joy Kogawa, Dionne Brand and Kerri Sakamoto. Celebrated local filmmakers Velcrow Ripper, Min Sook Lee and Lynne Fernie have also signed the letter.
International support for the declaration continues to grow despite denunciations, unfounded personal attacks on earlier signatories Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, and Naomi Klein, and despite an aggressive campaign of misinformation regarding the letter’s content.
Come out this Monday, September 14th at 7:00 p.m. to see some of the names behind the Toronto Declaration, with messages of solidarity and responses to their critics.
For more information, and to read the Toronto Declaration and the full list of signatories, visit: http://torontodeclaration.blogspot.com <http://torontodeclaration.blogspot.com/>
RECENT POSTINGS:
Second PACBI statement on the Tel Aviv protest
http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1100
Jaffa: From Eminence to Ethnic Cleansing
by Sami Abu Shehadeh & Fadi Shbaytah
Jaffa was the largest city in historic Palestine during the years of the British mandate, with a population of over eighty-thousand Palestinians in addition to the forty-thousand people living in the towns and villages in its immediate vicinity. In the period between the UN Partition resolution (UNGA 181) of 29 November 1947, and the declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel, Zionist military forces displaced ninety-five percent of Jaffa’s indigenous Arab Palestinian population. Jaffa’s refugees accounted for fifteen percent of Palestinian refugees in that fateful year, and today they are dispersed across the globe still banned from returning by the state responsible for their displacement.
Jaffa was the epicenter of the Palestinian economy before the 1948 Nakba. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, the people of Jaffa had cultivated citrus groves, particularly oranges, on their land. International demand for Jaffa oranges propelled the city onto the world stage, earning the city an important place in the global economy. By the 1930s, Jaffa was exporting tens of millions of citrus crates to the rest of the world, which provided thousands of jobs for the people of the city and its environs, and linking them to the major commercial centers of the Mediterranean coast and the European continent.
With the success of its citrus exports, the city witnessed the emergence and growth of various related economic sectors, from banks to land and sea transportation enterprises to import and export firms, and many others. As the city grew, Jaffa’s entrepreneurs began to develop local industrial production with the opening of metal-work factories, and others producing glass, ice, cigarettes, textiles, sweets, transportation-related equipment, mineral and carbonated water, and various foodstuffs, among others.
The “matrix of control” that Israel has established in the Occupied Palestinian Territories cannot be taken apart piece by piece, settlement by settlement, bypass road by bypass road. It is too intricate. There is only one hope left for a genuine two-state solution: The international community, led by the United States, must tell Israel to withdraw from every inch of the land it occupied in 1967. At this critical juncture, there is an imponderable: Does President Barack Obama have such a solution in mind, or will he just recycle the half-measures of his predecessors?
Jeff Halper addresses the urgency of “Dismantling the Matrix of Control,” now in Middle East Report Online:
Dismantling the Matrix of Control: MERIP
Jeff Halper
September 11, 2009
(Jeff Halper is director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He can be reached at jeff@icahd.org.)
Almost a decade ago I wrote an article describing Israel’s “matrix of control” over the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It consisted then of three interlocking systems: military administration of much of the West Bank and incessant army and air force intrusions elsewhere; a skein of “facts on the ground,” notably settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, but also bypass roads connecting the settlements to Israel proper; and administrative measures like house demolitions and deportations. I argued in 2000 that unless this matrix was dismantled, the occupation would not be ended and a two-state solution could not be achieved.
Since then the occupation has grown immeasurably stronger and more entrenched. The first decade of the twenty-first century has so far seen the steady constricting and fragmentation of Palestinian territory through still more wholesale expropriation of Palestinian land, checkpoints and other physical restrictions on freedom of movement, settlement construction, more and more massive highways intended for Israeli settlers, control over natural resources and, most visibly of all, the erection of the separation barrier in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Since December 2000, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, the settler population of the West Bank has grown by 86,000 and that of East Jerusalem by 50,000. Gaza was evacuated of settlers and soldiers in 2005, but Israel retains near complete control over egress and exit of people and goods to and from the coastal strip, regularly cuts supplies of fuel and other necessities to punish the residents and mounts military incursions at will. All the Palestinian territories are subject, to one degree or another, to the measures of house demolitions, “closures” that halt economic activity, administrative restrictions on movement, deportation, induced out-migration and much more.
You really like me: Ha’aretz
By Gideon Levy
It’s all because of love. A lack of love, to be precise. And because of provincialism.
Here’s a possible explanation for the embarrassing groveling before our guest singer: our longing for love. How beautiful we are – if not in the eyes of the world, which increasingly ostracizes us – then at least in the eyes of Madonna. It is difficult to find a single European prime minister or opposition leader who has bothered to meet with her. Only in Israel do they stand in line for her graces, the graces of a singer who is only a singer. An entire country is saying “Madonna.”
Are you Israeli?
By Haseeb Shehadeh
For most of the Arab national minority in Israel, who number approximately one and a quarter million, the answer to the question ‘Are you Israeli?’ is not simple, nor does the answer come automatically. This segment of population is the only one in the world that bears the word ‘Arab’ on their Israeli identity cards. The answer to such an inquiry depends on several factors, such as who asks this question and where as well as in which circumstances the question is asked and what is its purpose.
Numerous questions are well known to all Arabs who leave Israel via Ben-Gurion International Airport in Lydda or who return to Israel. These questions may include: what is the reason for your visit to Israel (the homeland)? Where will you stay in Israel? Whom did/will you meet? What is your occupation abroad? Are you carrying any weapon or sharp tools? Did you pack everything in your luggage yourself? Did anyone give you anything to deliver?
The question in my title is not among these routine inquiries. It was directed to me on the 5th of April 2009 at Ben Gurion Airport before I was to board Finnair flight AY 1922 to fly to Helsinki. As usual the passengers on this weekly flight were waiting in Hall C3 in Tel Aviv airport. The overwhelming majority of the passengers were Finns returning to Finland after a short visit to historic and Christian sites in Israel and Jordan. As for me, I was on a research trip sponsored by the Academy of Finland that had lasted two weeks. During that time I visited the two only Samaritan centres — Holon to the south of Tel Aviv and Mount Gerizim in Nablus. This smallest and probably the oldest community in the world which numbers fewer than 750 faithful, lives only in these two cities. The five pillars of the Samaritan faith are: One God who is called Sheema (meaning the ‘name’); the Torah, which differs from the Massoretic Text in more than 6,000 cases; Moses as the only prophet; Mount Gerizim as the holy place; reward and punishment; Taheb as the Messiah.
PACBI Salutes ‘Toronto Declaration – No Celebration of Occupation’ Endorsers: PACBI
Occupied Ramallah, September 10, 2009
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) salutes the filmmakers, artists and cultural workers who drafted and endorsed the Toronto Declaration – No Celebration of Occupation [1] protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s City to City Spotlight on Tel Aviv. The impressive list of signatories includes long-time supporters of a just peace and Palestinian rights and newer friends, all of whom we sincerely thank. It has been heartening to see the efforts of many tireless activists in assuring that Tel Aviv is not celebrated while Palestinians continue to suffer, sometimes invisibly, under Israeli apartheid and military occupation
Support for the declaration has continued to grow in the face of unfounded denunciation campaigns. Celebrities of the calibre of Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and John Berger, have refused to be bullied by these tactics. We understand the exceptional moral courage and clarity such a stance demands; we deeply appreciate it.
On 27 August 2009, PACBI issued a public statement [2] calling for a targeted boycott of the Spotlight on Tel Aviv. Whether intentionally or not, such a “Spotlight” serves to “Rebrand Israel,” whitewashing Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinian people, including recent atrocities like in Gaza and presenting Tel Aviv as a normal, “Western” city, not the hub of colonial and apartheid Israeli policies that it actually is. For the record, PACBI’s call to protest and boycott was specific to the Spotlight on Tel Aviv; we have not called for a general boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival.
MY RIGHTS, MY REMEDY: EI
By Ahmed Moor, The Electronic Intifada, 11 September 2009
Israel is an apartheid state. It rules over me in Gaza yet does not permit me to vote in an Israeli election. It
hoards my resources in the West Bank, it detains me and dictates the terms of my survival. It issues my travel
documents and denies me the right to travel. I cannot associate or marry or build or import or consume — in
short, I cannot live — without Israel’s permission. Yet, I do not have the right to vote. Ahmed Moor comments for
The Electronic Intifada.
GAZA’S CONFLICTING CASUALTY COUNTS: EI
By Helena Cobban, The Electronic Intifada, 14 September 2009
WASHINGTON (IPS) – This week, two respected human rights organizations — one Palestinian, one Israeli — each came out with very full reports into the extent of the damage caused by the assault Israel waged against Gaza last winter. According to PCHR 1,419 Palestinians were killed during the fighting, of whom 252 were combatants and the rest noncombatants. Three hundred and eighteen of those killed were, it said, children.
ISRAEL TARGETING FISHERMEN, FARMERS IN GAZA: EI
By Eva Bartlett, The Electronic Intifada, 11 September 2009
On 31 August, Israeli gunboats shot at and shelled the fishing trawler of Khaled al-Habil, destroying it
completely and leaving the boat’s 18 fishermen and their families without a source of income. One week earlier, on 24 August, Israeli soldiers along Gaza’s northern border shot dead a young farm worker, Said al-Hussumi.
Sixteen-year-old al-Hussumi was killed while working on land a few hundred meters from the border with his cousin Masoud Tanboura, who was seriously wounded.
Eva Bartlett reports for The Electronic Intifada.
GAZA’S DISABLED CUT OFF FROM PAYMENTS: EI
By Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 11 September 2009
Yunis al-Masri was severely injured in a car wreck as he and his brothers traveled to work in Israel 24 years ago.
He is entitled to a monthly allowance of $800 from Israel’s National Insurance Institute, out of which he has
supported his wife and 10 children in their home in Gaza. In early January, however, the transfers of disability
benefits stopped arriving in his bank account in Gaza. About 700 other injured workers are in the same situation.
Jonathan Cook reports.
THE ELDERS’ VISIT TO BILIN: EI
By Jody McIntyre, Live from Palestine, 11 September 2009
Thursday, 27 August was a special day in Bilin. Dozens of blacked-out SUVs approached the village, disturbing the quiet of a usually peaceful morning. However, unlike the Israeli occupation forces who come at night to arrest boys from the village, this arrival was extremely welcome. The SUV passengers were a truly respected group of
international diplomats, known as the Elders.
Jody McIntyre writes from Bilin, occupied West Bank.
PROTESTERS OF TORONTO FESTIVAL’S TEL AVIV SPOTLIGHT SALUTED: EI
Press release, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, 10 September 2009
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) salutes the filmmakers, artists and cultural workers who drafted and endorsed the Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s City to City Spotlight on Tel Aviv. The impressive list of signatories includes long-time supporters of a just peace and Palestinian rights and newer friends, all of whom we sincerely thank.
ACTION ALERT: KICK DAYTON AND HIS MERCENARIES OUT OF PALESTINE: EI
Press release, US Palestinian Community Network, 10 September 2009
The US Palestinian Community Network is appalled that the government of the United States not only continues its unconditional support for Israel, but has engaged in establishing Palestinian contra forces in the West Bank,
aimed at deepening Palestinian internal division and engaging in arbitrary arrests and assassinations of
political activists. We demand an immediate end to all such programs and the immediate withdrawal of US Lt. Gen.
Keith Dayton and his mercenaries from Palestine!
Maybe Israel just needs to acknowledge Palestinian pain: Ha’aretz
By Jonathan Freedl
Many of Israel’s supporters around the world have spotted an alarming trend in the debate on Middle East peace. Call it the “Back to ’48” approach, which argues that any attempt to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is doomed unless it gets to the root of the problem, tackling not only the “1967 file” – ending the occupation, plus or minus a chunk of land here or there – but also the “1948 file,” consisting of the issues left outstanding by Israel’s birth.
These 1948 questions are even knottier and more sensitive than the 1967 ones: among them, whether Palestinians can at last come to terms with what was established in that fateful year, namely Israel as a Jewish state, and whether Israelis can at last acknowledge the impact of that event on Palestinians, including the creation of at least 700,000 Palestinian refugees.
Plenty of Jews and Israelis shy away from that latter question, even if they can see that the Oslo approach – focusing narrowly on clearing up the mess left by 1967 – has not exactly been a stellar success.
Israel, Palestinians trade blame for stalled peace talks: Ha’artez
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Israel and the Palestinian Authority blamed each other on Saturday for the failure of George Mitchell, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, to secure a deal this week for the resumption of peace negotiations.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted by AFP as saying on Saturday that “the road is now blocked,” after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had refused to agree to a complete halt to construction in West Bank settlements. But shortly afterward Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused the Palestinians of actually being the ones responsible for the stalled peace talks.
Report: IDF, U.S. military to simulate Iran missile strike on Israel: Ha’aretz
The Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military will soon hold a training exercise in which they will simulate missile attacks on Israel from Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.
The exercise will be carried out as part of the ongoing maneuvers between Israel and the United States, the London-based paper said, which will reportedly be the broadest-ever this year.
According to the paper, the drill is also part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s new missile defense plan, under which the Pentagon will initially deploy ships with missile interceptors instead of stationing missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.