US campaign for academic boycott gaining strength

The following press release was issued by the United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) on 23 December 2009:

27 December 2009 marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of "Operation Cast Lead," Israel's 22-day assault on the captive population of Gaza, which killed 1,400 people, one third of them children, and injured more than 5,300. During this war on an impoverished, mostly refugee population, Israel targeted civilians, using internationally-proscribed white phosphorous bombs, deprived them of power, water and other essentials, and sought to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian civil society, including hospitals, administrative buildings and UN facilities. It targeted with peculiar consistency educational institutions of all kinds: the Islamic University of Gaza, the Ministry of Education, the American International School, at least ten UNRWA schools, one of which was sheltering internally displaced Palestinian civilians with nowhere to flee, and tens of other schools and educational facilities.

While world leaders have tragically failed to come to Gaza's help, civilians everywhere are rallying to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people, with anniversary vigils taking place this week in New York, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and many more cities and towns in the US and world-wide.

The United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was formed in the immediate aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, bringing together educators of conscience who were unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions. Today, over 500 US-based academics, authors, artists, musicians, poets and other arts professionals have endorsed our call. Our academic endorsers include postcolonial critics and transnational feminists Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Indigenous scholars J. Kehaulani Kauanui and Andrea Smith, philosopher Judith Butler, Black studies scholars Cedric Robinson, Fred Moten, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, and intellectual historian Joseph Massad.

"Cultural workers" who have endorsed our call include well known author Barbara Ehrenreich, The Electronic Intifada cofounder Ali Abunimah, poets Adrienne Rich and Lisa Suhair Majjaj, International Solidarity Movement cofounder and documentary filmmaker Adam Shapiro, Jordan Flaherty of Left Turn Magazine, and Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society.

Among the 34 organizations supporting our mission are and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the Green Party, Code Pink, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Artists Against Apartheid and Teachers Against the Occupation.
The Advisory Board of the United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) has grown to include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hamid Dabashi, Lawrence Davidson, Bill Fletcher Jr., Glen Ford, Mark Gonzales, Marilyn Hacker, Edward Herman, Annemarie Jacir, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Robin Kelley, Ilan Pappe, James Petras, Vijay Prashad, Andrenne Rich, Michel Shehadeh and Lisa Taraki.

Israeli academics listed among the organization's International Endorsers have also joined us, including Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University; Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University; Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University; Kobi Snitz, Technion; and Ilan Pappe now at Exeter.

The USACBI Mission Statement calls for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions in support of an appeal by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Individual Israelis are not targeted by the boycott.

Specifically, supporters are asked to:

(1) Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions that do not vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine;

(2) Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;

(3) Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;

(4) Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;

(5) Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

This boycott, modeled upon the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that put an end to South African apartheid, is to continue until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Source: The Electronic Intifada

Israeli Occupation, Colonialism and Apartheid

The Cape Town, South Africa-based Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) "conduct(s) large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific projects for public-sector users, non-governmental organisations and international development agencies," and disseminates its findings widely.

In May 2009, it issued a damning report titled, "Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel's practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law." At the time John Dugard was the UN's Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine. At his January 2007 suggestion, the study was undertaken "to scrutinise (his) hypothesis from the perspective of international law." It stated:

"Israel is clearly in military occupation of the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). At the same time, elements of the occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law. What are the legal consequences of a regime of prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid for the occupied people, the Occupying Power and third States?"

Given South Africa's past, the HSRC had an "obvious interest" in pursuing these issues. After 15 months of research, its report concluded that:

"....Israel, since 1967, has been the belligerent Occupying Power in the OPT, and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise, which implements a system of apartheid."

Although occupation is legal after armed conflict, it's intended only to be temporary. International law also prohibits the unilateral annexation or permanent acquisition of territory through force, and Fourth Geneva obligates signatories to protect civilians in time of war and occupation.

Its Article 3 states:

"Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat (out of the fight) by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria."

Its Article 4 defines "protected persons" as follows:

"Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals."

Its Article 49 states:

"Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive." Neither shall "The Occupying Power....deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

In addition, numerous UN resolutions established "no legal validity" for occupied land acquisitions or settlement building. When violations of international law occur, no nation may recognize or support the unlawful situation or the state responsible.

In addition, colonialism and apartheid are particularly serious international law breaches because they fundamentally violate core legal order standards and values. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed self-determination as "one of the essential principles of contemporary international law," obligating all states to respect and promote it. Colonialism is in clear violation.

The 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the Declaration on Colonialism), condems "colonialism in all its forms and manifestations," including settlements deemed to be illegal.

According to the 1973 International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention), this practice is state-sanctioned discriminatory "inhuman" racism "committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."

Apartheid is an international crime. The above definition builds on the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). In addition, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court calls apartheid a crime under the Court's jurisdiction. Israel is flagrantly guilty but not yet held accountable.

International laws prohibiting colonialism and apartheid are "peremptory," meaning they are "accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as (standards) from which no derogation is permitted." Every country is legally bound to respect and observe them. They're also duty bound to:

-- work cooperatively to end individual state violations;
-- not extend recognition to lawless ones; nor
-- provide them aid in any form.

Legal Framework in the OPT

Applicable international law recognizes:

-- the Palestinians' right to self-determination;
-- the fact that Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegally occupied;
-- that Israel has no sovereignty over these Territories, only an earlier temporary administrative right no longer applicable;
-- that land seizures are illegal; so is the Separation Wall as the ICJ affirmed in 2004;
-- that the 2005 Gaza "disengagement" left Israel in control; and
-- that, as an Occupying Power, international law obligates Israel to "abide by the....rules of armed conflict (and relevant human rights laws) in its administration of the territories."

For over 42 years, Israel willfully violated the law under a dual discriminatory regime. Its occupation and land seizures are illegal. Its settlers are protected under civil laws assuring them free movement and essential services. Palestinians come under military law and its courts with procedures that violate international judiciary standards. Israel's High Court affirmed the bifurcated system that "discriminate(s) between these two groups by according (them) very different rights, protections, and life chances in the same territory." This system violates the laws of armed conflict, and also the international legal colonialism and apartheid prohibitions.

Under the Declaration on Colonialism, this practice exists when states annex or otherwise lawlessly retain territorial control and deny indigenous peoples their right to self-determination. Israel does it six ways by:

-- violating the integrity of the Occupied Territories:
-- prohibiting meaningful self-government;
-- integrating the area's economy into its own;
-- controlling its resources;
-- denying the population economic enfranchisement, free movement, expression, its historical heritage, their right to develop and practice it, and equal justice under the law; and
-- maintaining a 42-year state of war, including killings, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, incarcerations, torture and abuse, and other degrading and humiliating treatment.

Under ICERD's Article 3, apartheid is prohibited as a particularly egregious form of discrimination, without precisely defining the practice. The Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute went further with a better one and by criminalizing certain apartheid-related acts - specifically, "inhuman (ones) committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other and systematically oppressing them."

Both focus on systematic, institutionalized discrimination to achieve racial segregation and unchallenged dominance. Under the Apartheid Convention's Article 2, HSRC determined that:

-- Israeli measures deprive Palestinians of their right to "life and liberty of person;"
-- they include state-sponsored violence; killings; extrajudicial assassinations; arbitrary arrests and incarcerations; torture and abuse; other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; kangaroo court justice in military tribunals; and administrative detentions without charge, adequate access to counsel, trial, or proper judicial review;
-- state-sponsored collective punishment seriously impairing life and health, especially in Gaza under siege;
-- Palestinians have no free and equal participation in their political, social, economic and cultural lives;
-- they're also denied their basic human rights and freedoms with regard to free movement; their right of return; to live anywhere in historic Palestine freely in the land of their birth; and to a nationality through self-determination;
-- they're denied economic self-determination and their right to work anywhere in historic Palestine;
-- their trade unions aren't recognized so they can't represent Palestinians effectively;
-- under military occupation, their right to education, medical care and other essential services is seriously impaired;
-- censorship laws restrict free expression and opinion;
-- military orders deny free assembly and public gatherings of 10 or more persons without express permission; non-violent gatherings are regularly suppressed with live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas, and various other weapons;
-- most Palestinian parties are considered illegal; charities, cultural organizations and other institutions and agencies connected to them are subjected to closure and attack;
-- home and community intrusions, beatings, arrests, and killings occur regularly; and
-- all of these practices occur in extreme form in Gaza under siege, the one difference being Jewish settlers no longer reside there, but, at any time, Israel may decide to return them and displace Palestinians by so doing.

The West Bank, in contrast, is balkanized into cantons and enclaves in which group identity determines residence and free entry. Jews have the choicest parts and keep expanding them, leaving Palestinians shrinking amounts of the rest.

HSRC's report concluded that Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid are "systematic and comprehensive, as the exercise of the Palestinian population's right to self-determination has been frustrated in all of its principal modes of expression."

Comparing Israeli and South African Apartheid

Despite differences, Israeli and South African apartheid practices are defined by similar dominant features. Three legislative pillars underpinned South Africa's:

-- the first demarcated people into racial groups through the 1950 Population Registration Act; it institutionalized racial discrimination by affording special rights, privileges and services to whites and denied them to blacks;
-- the second segregated people by geographic areas, allocated by law to different racial groups; it restricted passage from assigned areas to others to insure white supremacy; overall, it constituted "grand apartheid" by establishing "Homelands" or "Bantustans" in which "denationalized" blacks were transferred and forced to reside, while whites got special political rights denied blacks;
-- the third was a matrix of draconian security laws and policies, employed to suppress opposition and reinforce racial domination "by providing for administrative detention, torture, censorship, banning, and assassination."

In the OPT, Israel has the same three pillars:

The first legally establishes Jewish identity and affords preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews alone. Palestinians are discriminated against as inferior by religion, ethnicity, and subsequent social status.

Israel's citizenship laws underpin the system under which Jews anywhere in the world automatically qualify for citizenship in an exclusive Jewish state. The 1950 Law of Return defines Jewishness and begins saying:

"Every Jew has the right to immigrate to this country."

The 1952 Citizenship Law granted automatic citizenship to Jewish immigrants, while denying non-Jews similar rights. The 2003 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law banned Palestinian family unification, giving Jews alone special rights.

The second pillar reflects Israel's policy to expropriate choice land, segregate and dominate. It plays out through separating East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, seizing increasing amounts of it for settlement development, and separating Palestinians by means of walls, barriers, checkpoints, separate roads, a discriminatory permit and ID system, and a militarized matrix of control.

In contrast, Jews have free movement and freedom. The "geographic fragmentation has the effect of crushing Palestinian socio-economic life, securing Palestinian vulnerability to Israeli economic dominance, and of enforcing a rigid segregation of Palestinian and Jewish populations," similar to South African apartheid.

The third pillar is Israel's "invocation of security" to justify sweeping restrictions on Palestinian free expression, opinion, assembly, association and movement and enforce them through suppression of dissent, conflict, state-sponsored violence, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and incarcerations, torture and abuse, and other kinds of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

In sum, these policies are "integrated and complementary elements of an institutionalised and oppressive system of Israeli domination and oppression over Palestinians as a group; that is, a system of apartheid," under which Israeli repression is harsh, discriminatory, and illegal under international law.

Although Israel bares primary responsibility, the international community must act cooperatively to remedy the situation as follows:

-- require Israel start dismantling the structures and institutions of occupation, colonialism and apartheid;
-- have it pay reparations for decades of lawlessness; and
-- assure Palestinians can exercise their right of self-determination or have equal rights as citizens in one Israeli/Palestinian state.

"The realisation of self-determination and the prohibition on apartheid are peremptory norms of international law from which no derogation is permitted." These principles obligate the entire world community to cooperate to end all breaches everywhere, including in Occupied Palestine. Failure to do so constitutes "an internationally wrongful act." Further, any state aiding another's lawlessness axiomatically becomes complicit in the commission of crimes, requiring other nations to hold it accountable.

International organizations like the UN bear equal responsibility. As the ICJ stated in its Separation Wall ruling, this body is obligated to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one it helped initiate through its 1947 partition plan under UN General Assembly Resolution 181. At a time Jews comprised one-third of the population, it gave them 56% of the choicest land, the rest to Palestinians with Jerusalem designated an international city.

HSRC and John Dugard urged the ICJ to rule on this matter in accordance with the UN Charter's Article 96 authorizing "The General Assembly or the Security Council (to) request (an ICJ) advisory opinion on any legal question." Under Article 65 of the ICJ's Statute, it "may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to make such a request."

According to HSRC, at issue is the following:

"Do the policies and practices of Israel within the (OPT) violate the norms prohibiting apartheid and colonialism; and, if so, what are the legal consequences arising from Israel's policies and practices, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, UN General Assembly (1960) Resolution 1514 (on granting independence to colonial countries and peoples), and other relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?"

After 61 years of displacement and 42 years of occupation, these matter remain unresolved.

Source: Media With A Conscience

Palestinian Christians call for economic sanctions and boycott of Israel, echoing Apartheid-era appeal

Sent on behalf of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (www.eappi.org )

Senior Palestinian Christians from all the denominations in the Holy Land will call this week for economic sanctions and boycott of Israel to end its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, echoing a call by black South African theologians at a crucial stage in the campaign against Apartheid.

In a historic moment of unity among Palestinian Christians, signatories to a document by the Palestine Kairos Initiative will call for “a response to what the civil and religious institutions have proposed… the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott” on Israel. “This is not revenge but rather a serious action in order to reach a just and definitive peace,” they will say.
In a document entitled “A moment of truth: A word of faith and hope from the heart of Palestinian suffering,” senior theologians and church leaders will emphasize co-existence among Christians, Muslims and Jews and urges Christians worldwide to revisit interpretations of the bible that attach “a biblical and theological legitimacy to the infringement of our rights.”

The document’s authors call on individuals, churches, governments and the international community to implement a system of economic sanctions and boycott of Israel, adding that these are not acts of revenge but are intended “to reach a just and definitive peace that will put an end to Israeli occupation… and guarantee security and peace for us and for Israel itself.”

The document resembles the Kairos Document of 1985, in which a group of black South African liberation theologians called for reconciliation, justice and an end to the atrocities of the Apartheid regime.

Journalists are warmly invited to attend the document’s launch on Friday, December 11, 2009 at the International Centre of Bethlehem (Dar Al Nadwa) from 14:00-19:00.

Source: Austrailians For Palestine

Israelis shot mental patient 'under controversial military directive'

by Jonathan Cook

The National

December 10. 2009

NAZARETH // The fatal shooting by Israeli soldiers of an Israeli man earlier this week as he tried to scale a fence into the Gaza Strip was reportedly part of a drastic procedure the army was supposed to have phased out several years ago.

The Israeli media reported that Yakir Ben-Melech, 34, had bled to death after he was shot under the "Hannibal procedure", designed to prevent Israelis from being taken captive alive by enemy forces.

One critic, Uri Avnery, a former Israeli legislator and leader of Gush Shalom, a small radical peace group, defined the procedure as meaning: “Liberate the soldier by killing him”.

The controversial directive, which was once one of the army’s best-kept secrets, was drafted more than 20 years ago after the Israeli government had come under domestic pressure to release hundreds of enemy prisoners for the return of three captured soldiers.

Israel is currently involved in just such negotiations over Gilad Shalit, a soldier who has been held prisoner in Gaza by Hamas for more than three years. According to reports, he may be freed in the near future in a deal expected to see several hundred Palestinians released from Israeli prisons.

Israel was supposed to have stopped the Hannibal procedure after it withdrew its occupying army from south Lebanon in May 2000.

However, there is strong evidence that it has continued to be used, particularly during the events that triggered Israel’s attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and again last year during Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Ben-Melech, a patient at a mental health clinic in nearby Ashkelon, tried to enter Gaza in the early hours of Monday in what his family believe was a bid to save Sgt Shalit. The army says guards fired several warning shots as he ran towards Gaza before shooting him in the leg.

Several Israeli military correspondents, apparently briefed by the army, reported that the Hannibal procedure had been invoked in Ben-Melech’s case.

The use of the procedure was also confirmed by Zvika Fogel, a former deputy head of the army’s Southern Command, an area including Gaza. He told the Reshet B radio station: “The Hannibal procedure is definitely the right procedure. We cannot afford now some soulmate next to Gilad Shalit.”

However, in an apparent sign of continuing sensitivities on the issue, English-language editions of Israeli newspapers did not mention the procedure. The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s only major newspaper produced in English, excised a reference to the procedure included in an early report on its website, and the army’s spokesman avoided answering questions about whether the procedure had been used in Ben-Melech’s shooting.

Later explanations from the army focused instead on the threat Ben-Melech supposedly posed. One official told Ynet, Israel’s largest news website: “The [border] guards had no way of knowing who he was and feared that his attempted infiltration was part of a larger-scale terror attack.”

Ben-Melech’s sister-in-law, Ilanit, responded that the army’s account made no sense. “He ran in the direction of Gaza, not the soldiers, so why did they shoot him?”

The Hannibal procedure only came to light accidentally in 2003 after a slip-up by the country’s military censor allowed a reference to remain in a report published by the daily Haaretz.

In a follow-up article, the newspaper revealed that the directive had been formulated in 1986 in the wake of a deal in which Israel had released more than 1,100 Palestinians for three Israelis. Gabi Ashkenazi, the current chief of staff, was among those who drafted the procedure.

The order, described as the most controversial in the Israeli army’s history, was that “a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier”, according to Haaretz. The directive reportedly created a furore in the army at the time, with some commanders and rabbis considering it immoral, though no mention of it was made public for many years.

It was last used officially in October 2000, five months after Israeli forces withdrew from south Lebanon, when Hizbollah captured three soldiers along the border. Attack helicopters fired on a vehicle in which it was believed the soldiers were being held.

The soldiers’ bodies were returned by Hizbollah, along with a captured Israeli businessman, four years later in a deal that included the release of 400 Palestinians and 35 Arab nationals.

The procedure, according to Haaretz, was revoked in 2002, although several soldiers told the paper that they had been told to follow it despite its official annulment.

There have been a number of indications, in addition to the shooting of Ben-Melech, that the procedure is still in force.

It appears to have been invoked after two Israeli soldiers were captured by Hizbollah on the Lebanese border in summer 2006, an incident that triggered a month-long attack by Israel on Lebanon.

Eitan Baron wrote in a blog that his brother Yaniv, a 19-year-old tank driver, had been sent in hot pursuit of the Hizbollah team holding the two soldiers on a Hannibal procedure mission.

Yaniv Baron and four other crew members died when the tank ran over a mine and was then fired on by Hizbollah in what was widely assumed to be an ambush.

According to Mr Baron, Yaniv’s battalion commander told the family after his death that the procedure had been invoked. “They [the tank crew] were familiar with the procedure, and without giving it a second thought, started driving,” Mr Baron wrote.

Further revelations about the procedure emerged last January, during Operation Cast Lead, when the Israeli media reported that Israeli soldiers being sent into Gaza had been told to avoid capture at all costs.

Channel 10, a television station, quoted an officer from Battalion 501 of the Golani Brigade saying: “No troop member from the 501 battalion is to be kidnapped at any cost, nor in any situation, even if this means blowing up a grenade in his possession, killing himself and those trying to kidnap him.”

An officer from the Givati Brigades was also quoted, citing the Hannibal procedure, adding: “We will not have two Gilad Shalits at any price.”

During Operation Cast Lead, Hamas claimed that it had captured soldiers on two occasions but that the Israeli army had killed the Hamas fighters and soldiers in aerial attacks. Three Israeli soldiers were reported to have died in friendly-fire incidents.

A number of Palestinians, including children, have been shot by the Israeli army after getting close to the perimeter fence that surrounds Gaza. Last year Israel announced that it would shoot any Palestinian who entered a zone extending several hundred meters inside the fence.

Source: The National

Peace Now and J Street should join the battle against tax breaks for the West Bank colonists

In a sign that the discourse is changing and taboo subjects are coming inside, The Atlantic considers the case for ending the special relationship of US and Israel, and picks up an important piece in the Guardian by Andrew Kadi and Aaron Levitt about the U.S. tax subsidies extended to the Hebron colonists. Kadi and Levitt focus on the Hebron Fund’s fundraiser at the Mets ballpark last month:

"Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians."

My question: Where are Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street and Michael Walzer of Americans for Peace Now? This is actually an issue we can all do business on. Ben-Ami says that he is trying to end the colonization of the West Bank. Well, focusing on the Hebron Fund and its tax break is one real and significant way to apply pressure. Earlier this year my old professor, Walzer, wrote bravely that the United States must put heavy pressure on Israel to defeat the settler movement (and save the 2-state solution)! Walzer is on the board of Americans for Peace Now. So are Dan Fleshler and Richard Dreyfuss.

Shouldn’t they all speak out? Do they agree with Daniel Levy (the muse of J Street) and Jeffrey Goldberg? Goldberg, last month: "Citi Field is hosting N.Y. Mets Go to Bat for Hebron Jews, a fundraiser for Hebron’s Jewish community. I can think of better causes."

Or here’s Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation on C-Span, Nov. 10. At 98:52, Levy says:

"I would say that one takes as a point of departure…. US support for Israel should draw the red line at the Green Line and one would come with as watertight a policy as possible.

"Including when the New York Mets facility is being used to host a fundraiser for the Hebron Fund, that kind of thing, those kinds of organizations, should not be allowed to raise money on a tax-deductable charitable basis, in the United States."

Or as Levy said on this site:

[M]aking donations to settler activities beyond the Green Line non-tax deductible (not charitable gifts) is not a boycott-it is simply that such activities should not benefit from a charitable gift status.

Peace Now gets this issue. Ori Nir of Peace Now made this strong statement last spring:

"I don’t know how many people, including in the U.S. government, realize the extent of private American funding to settlements. . . . Every dollar that goes to settlements makes Middle East peace that much harder to reach."

I asked Nir why Peace Now isn’t specifically going after the tax breaks to the Hebron Fund. He wrote:

"We are on record opposing any kind of material or non-material assistance to West Bank settlements. When the settlers launched a campaign to encourage American Jews to buy homes in the West Bank in 2007, we were the only Jewish group that made noise about it. …When it comes to the situation in Hebron, we have been more outspoken than any group in denouncing the unacceptable conditions there. I wrote a blog posting from Hebron when I was there in the spring. In the past, we have written about Hebron extensively.

"So, while it is true that we did not react to the Hebron Fund event in NY – just because we were swamped with other issues – I don’t think that anyone has any doubt about our position. We strongly oppose any support of Israeli settlement in the West Bank. We think it’s wrong. We think it damages efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, and we think that supporting the settlement enterprise is a disservice to peace."

Isaac Luria of J Street says, "We spoke out on this stuff during the Nadia Matar uproar and with an action to Malcolm Hoenlein at the end of last year." He points out that a recent statement on Jerusalem also blasted "fundraisers."

But J Street’s statements have all been to deplore American support without going any further. It seems to me that campaigns have to be targeted to be real and effective. J Street and Peace Now both avoided the issue that the Guardian focused on: The Mets hosting Hebron Fund and the U.S. gov’t giving them a tax break. And no one besides Daniel Levy and Jeff Goldberg actually spoke out at the time and joined their voices publicly to the 11 israeli, US, and Palestinian groups who called on the Mets to cancel it.

I’m not trying to shame Peace Now and J Street; I’m sure a lot of their members agree. I sense that the organizations themselves are leery of any hint of BDS. When actually this is an area where the radicals and the liberals can join forces to good effect.

Here is another specific organization that needs to be targeted: Task Force to Save the Nation and the Land, which Coteret says has given Israeli soldiers money for killing Palestinian "terrorists" in the occupied territories. Tax breaks for this criminality? We have consensus. Let’s go after them.

Source: Mondoweiss

The Goldstone Report on the Israeli incursion into Gaza

Israel claims self-defense, but Gaza incursion was a war crime.

Palm Beach County Democratic officials ignored overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza by disinviting Rep. Dennis Kucinich as their keynote Truman-Kennedy-Johnson Dinner speaker.

Efforts to malign the report of Justice Richard Goldstone into Israeli and Hamas war crimes last winter are irresponsible and highlight the growing sense of Israeli exceptionalism - international law applies to others but not to Israel. The 344-36 House vote last month condemning the Goldstone Report, which encourages Israel and Hamas to conduct "credible" independent investigations of war crimes, may help Israeli leaders avoid prosecution in the short term. But American backing for Israeli lawlessness ­- and the devastating siege of Gaza - does American interests in the world no good.

Palm Beach County defenders of Israel's Gaza onslaught cite self-defense. The principle underlies Israel's argument for the war and is central to the American rejection of Goldstone. Absent self-defense, political and military officials in Israel are subject to charges that go beyond those in the Goldstone Report, including the crime of war of aggression. However, the self-defense claim is inconsistent with both fact and law.

Within weeks of the Egyptian-brokered June 2008 cease-fire agreement, Hamas rocket fire halted. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the cease-fire was so successful that it brought "normal life" and "calm" back to Israeli towns near Gaza. The ministry even lauded Hamas in July 2008: "On several occasions, Hamas members have arrested Fatah operatives who were involved in firing at Israel and confiscated their arms."

According to The New York Times, calm prevailed until Israeli forces broke the cease-fire agreement on Nov. 4, 2008. While the world's gaze turned that day to a historic American election, Israel attacked Gaza, killing six Hamas members and catapulting the region into a renewed wave of violent hostilities. Hamas rocket fire followed.

Two weeks later, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitted that "the recent waves of rocket attacks are a result of our operations, which have resulted in the killing of 20 Hamas gunmen." Still, Hamas offered to reinstate and extend the cease-fire on Dec. 23. Instead, Israel four days later launched a gruesome aerial offensive against Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni even boasted that Israel was "going wild - and this is a good thing."

Israeli forces targeted schools, hospitals, factories, the only flour mill in Gaza, an egg farm, thousands of private homes, government buildings and Palestinian civilians. The Goldstone Report concluded, "While the Israeli government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defense, the mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole."

Rep. Kucinich may be persona non grata in Palm Beach County, but international law, human rights, and common decency are on his side. These are the very principles that usually inspire Palm Beach County Democrats when Israel isn't involved.

Source: The Institute for Middle East Understanding

The US cash behind extremist settlers

The Hebron Fund is raising vast sums for Israeli settlements that violate the Geneva convention, with little scrutiny

Last month, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organisation called the Hebron Fund, which supports Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied city of Hebron, held a fundraiser at the New York Mets' stadium, Citi Field.

The fundraiser went forward despite calls for its cancellation from grassroots human rights organisations from the US, Palestine and Israel. The fact that the Hebron Fund likely raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for extremist Israeli settlers at a major US venue with little public scrutiny is a troubling sign for those who hope that the US can play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps more worryingly, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius: "A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4m in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organisations between 2004 and 2007." Some of the larger organisations, including Friends of the Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David, both leading the Jewish settler takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem, are based in New York City.

Israeli settlements violate the Geneva convention's prohibition against an occupying power transferring its population into occupied territory, and Israeli settlement expansion directly contradicts the US call for a settlement freeze.

Hebron's Jewish settlers, who are supported by the Hebron Fund, are openly fundraising in New York City. Under the protection of the Israeli military, they are expanding settlements in Hebron's Old City and driving out the Palestinian residents.

The Hebron Fund's extremist positions are clear. Hebron Fund executive director Yossi Baumol told The American Prospect that "[d]emocracy is poison to Arabs", "Israel must not give Arabs a say in how the country is run" and "[y]ou'll never get the truth out of an Arab". Hebron's chief rabbi, Dov Lior, a featured participant in some Hebron Fund events, recently praised a new book that says it is permitted for a Jew to kill civilians who provide moral support to an enemy of the Jews, and to even kill young children, if it is foreseeable that they will grow up to become enemies.

Settlers and the Israeli army routinely attack and terrorise Palestinians in Hebron, according to human rights groups such as B'Tselem in Israel. In 1994, Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 unarmed Palestinians who were praying in a Hebron mosque. One of the honorees at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner, Noam Arnon, called Goldstein "an extraordinary person'' in 1995. In 1990 Arnon called three Jewish terrorists who were convicted of killing three Palestinians and maiming two Palestinian mayors "heroes".

Though the Hebron Fund tells the IRS that its purpose is to "promote social and educational wellbeing", in 2008 Baumol assured New York radio listeners: "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."

A 2007 appeal explained: "Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron ... waiting for you to be their partners in the redemption of Hebron."

Baumol dedicated the 2009 fundraiser to protesting at "racist limitations, led by President Barack Obama on Jewish growth".

Settlers frequently claim that preventing Jews from living anywhere they want in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is "racist", regardless of the settlers' severe infringement on the rights of longstanding Palestinian residents. Settlers justify their takeover of Hebron by invoking the massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron by Palestinians in 1929. But rather than equality, Hebron's settlers aim for superior rights enforced from the barrel of a gun.

Non-profit organisations like the Hebron Fund play a substantial role in fuelling the Middle East conflict, but largely fly under the radar in the US. They brazenly hold public fundraisers, and the media generally ignore them. Major US advocacy organisations that claim to oppose Israeli settlements typically fail to criticise them. In one rare mainstream media report, David Ignatius highlighted the US government's self-defeating policy, writing that "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns".

Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians.

Source: The Guardian

Israel accused of interrogating medical patients from Gaza

The Erez crossing, where people from Gaza cross into Israel for medical treatment. Many say they have been pressed to become informants. Photograph: AP

Israeli security agents held a Palestinian patient for three weeks without charge, interrogated him repeatedly and offered access to hospital care if he agreed to become an informant, the Guardian has learned.

The treatment of Abd al-Karim al-Atal, 28, is the latest in a series of cases over the past two years in which patients from Gaza referred for hospital treatment in Israel have been held without charge and pressed to become Israeli collaborators, human rights groups say.

Atal, who is losing his sight, is still waiting for a permit to travel from his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in Gaza, to an eye hospital in east Jerusalem for a cornea transplant operation now scheduled for tomorrow.

Physicians for Human Rights, a leading Israeli rights group, says the pressure exerted on these patients amounts to coercion, which is illegal under the fourth Geneva convention, and may even constitute a breach of the UN convention against torture. It says around one in five Gazans who apply for permits to enter Israel for medical care are now submitted to detailed interrogations.

B'Tselem, another human rights group, says Israeli security agents "exploited the questionings to exert inappropriate pressure on ill persons, with the aim of forcing them to collaborate with the agency".

Israel says such questioning is a necessary security measure to prevent terrorist attacks and says that 5,000 people – patients and their relatives – have been allowed out of Gaza for medical reasons this year. But Ami Gil, of Physicians for Human Rights, said while initial screening of patients referred for treatment in Israel was a legitimate security consideration, the problem lay in the pressure put on patients under interrogation.

"There is a screening process to prevent a security threat and another to pressure patients to gather intelligence information that has nothing to do with their own case or background," he said. "That is not about screening. It is about gathering information for intelligence purposes."

Atal has a referral from Gazan health officials supported by the St John Eye Hospital in east Jerusalem, which states that he needs a penetrating keratoplasty – a cornea implant. In the west that would be routine, but no hospital in Gaza can perform the operation.

He applied for a permit to enter Israel and in early September was called to the Erez crossing which leads into Israel. He was blindfolded and handcuffed for a time. An Arabic-speaking Israeli security officer accused him of falsifying his medical papers. In fact, his vision is so poor he can barely see out of his left eye and has limited vision in his right. Atal, a former member of Gaza's Fatah-led police force, was asked to give detailed information about his five brothers and an uncle living in Egypt. He was accused of involvement in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of the Fatah movement.

"They said if I accepted and gave them information they would allow me to return home and to get a permit in future. If I refused they said they would arrest me," he said. When he said he had no information to give he was taken to a detention centre in the nearby city of Ashkelon.

He was photographed, fingerprinted and then held for 19 days alone in a cell with no windows. He was interrogated for hours at a time while seated on a small chair with his hands cuffed behind his back underneath an air conditioner pouring out cold air.

Eventually he was questioned while attached to what he was told was a polygraph machine. He was asked about his relatives, about his neighbours and about any Hamas leaders he knew. Again he was accused of involvement in militant groups. "I looked around and said: 'Are you talking to me? I can hardly recognise people in the street?'

"They said if I collaborated with them it would be a good thing for the Palestinians, that it would help them target Hamas leaders, not accidentally kill civilians," he said. "They said I should call them and tell them about my neighbourhood: who is living where, is anyone from Hamas there. They said I would get a permit to enter Israel in return. They offered money, they said I would be allowed to travel abroad."

Israeli officials deny that entry to Israel for medical reasons is conditional on patients becoming informants but they say security is an issue. In June 2005 a female suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt tried to cross through Erez and Palestinians have used false medical papers in the past. Last year a government official wrote to Physicians for Human Rights saying the questioning was "intended to evaluate the degree of danger posed by the applicant".

"For us it is not only a legal issue, but a very basic moral issue," said Gil. "We are talking about patients here."

Source: The Guardian

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS AN END TO APARTHEID

And YOU can help make my wish come true…..

Attention Christmas Shoppers: Top Ten Brands to Boycott

While there are many Israeli and multinational companies that benefit from apartheid, we put together this list to highlight ten specific companies to target. Many of these produce goods in such a way that directly harms Palestinians — exploiting labor, developing technology for military operations, or supplying equipment for illegal settlements. Many are also the targets of boycotts for other reasons, like harming the environment and labor violations.

1. AHAVA

This brand’s cosmetics are produced using salt, minerals, and mud from the Dead Sea — natural resources that are excavated from the occupied West Bank. The products themselves are manufactured in the illegal Israeli settlement Mitzpe Shalem. AHAVA is the target of CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign.

2. Delta Galil Industries

Israel’s largest textiles manufacturer provides clothing and underwear for such popular brands as Gap, J-Crew, J.C. Penny, Calvin Klein, Playtex, Victoria’s Secret (see #10) and many others. Its founder and chairman Dov Lautman is a close associate of former Israeli President Ehud Barak. It has also been condemned by Sweatshop Watch for its exploitation of labor in other countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey.

3. Motorola

While many of us know this brand for its stylish cellphones, did you know that it also develops and manufactures bomb fuses and missile guidance systems? Motorola components are also used in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or “drones”) and in communications and surveillance systems used in settlements, checkpoints, and along the 490 mile apartheid wall. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has launched the “Hang Up on Motorola” campaign.

4. L’Oreal / The Body Shop

This cosmetics and perfume company is known for its investments and manufacturing activities in Israel, including production in Migdal Haemek, the “Silicon Valley” of Israel built on the land of Palestinian village Al-Mujaydil, which was ethnically cleansed in 1948. In 1998, a representative of L’Oreal was given the Jubilee Award by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for strengthening the Israeli economy.

5. Dorot Garlic and Herbs

These frozen herbs that are sold at Trader Joe’s are shipped halfway around the world when they could easily be purchased locally. Trader Joe’s also sells Israeli Cous Cous and Pastures of Eden feta cheese that are made in Israel. QUIT, South Bay Mobilization, and other groups have targeted Trader Joe’s with a “Don’t Buy into Apartheid” campaign.

6. Estee Lauder

This company’s chairman Ronald Lauder is also the chairman of the Jewish National Fund, a quasi-governmental organization that was established in 1901 to acquire Palestinian land and is connected to the continued building of illegal settlements. Estee Lauder’s popular brands include Clinique, MAC, Origins, Bumble & Bumble, Aveda, fragrance lines for top designers, and many others. They have been the target of QUIT’s “Estee Slaughter Killer Products” campaign.

7. Intel

This technology company that manufactures computer processors and other hardware components employs thousands of Israelis and has exports from Israel totaling over $1 billion per year. They are one of Israel’s oldest foreign supporters, having established their first development center outside of the US in 1974 in Haifa. Al-Awda (the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition) has urged action against Intel for building a facility on the land of former village Iraq Al Manshiya, which was cleansed in 1949.

8. Sabra

This brand of hummus, baba ghanoush and other foods is co-owned by Israel’s second-largest food company The Strauss Group and Pepsico. On the “Corporate Responsibility” section of its website, The Strauss Group boasts of its relationship to the Israeli Army, offering food products and political support.

9. Sara Lee

Sara Lee holds a 30% stake in Delta Galil (see #2) and is the world’s largest clothing manufacturer, which owns or is affiliated with such brands as Hanes, Playtex, Champion, Leggs, Sara Lee Bakery, Ball Park hotdogs, Wonderbra, and many others. Similar to L’Oreal (see #4), a representative of Sara Lee received the Jubilee Award from Netanyahu for its commitment to business with Israel.

10. Victoria’s Secret

Most of Victoria’s Secret’s bras are produced by Delta Galil (see #2), and much of the cotton is also grown in Israel on confiscated Palestinian land. Victoria’s Secret has also been the target of labor rights’ groups for sourcing products from companies with labor violations, and by environmental groups for their unsustainable use of paper in producing their catalogues. That’s not sexy!

Remember, it’s also important to let these companies — and the stores that sell them — know that we will not support them as long as they support Israeli apartheid!

Source: Desert Peace

Ethnic cleansing, pure and simple

Israel stripped over 4,500 Jerusalemite Palestinians of their “residency rights” in 2008.

This marks a huge acceleration of a policy that has been in force since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967. In these 41 years, Israel has now stripped over 12,000 Palestinians of their “permits” to live in Jerusalem, 35 per cent or so of those in 2008 alone.

It also maps out exactly where the current right-wing Israeli government, which has made no secret of its wish to Judaise Jerusalem, a travesty of history if ever there was one, is heading.

The policy shows many things about Israel to anyone who wants to see. One is this: Israel does not even bother to pretend to adhere to any kind of international law or internationally accepted standards for behaviour towards a population under occupation.

East Jerusalem, Israel’s unilateral and unrecognised annexation notwithstanding, is occupied territory (indeed, all of Jerusalem remains, under international law, a corpus separatum). As such, the residents of Jerusalem and their descendants have their right of residency guaranteed under international law.

They cannot be stripped of that right simply because of some arbitrary rule that Israel made up about having to prove your “centre of life” is in Jerusalem and not being absent for too long. After all, what kind of uproar would there be if Jews who live in Israel were similarly stripped of their residency rights in America, Poland, Germany or wherever they are originally from?

But of course, the key here is that the Palestinians of Jerusalem are not Jews. And that is what this is all about. There is no way to sugar coat what Israel is doing here. It is ethnic cleansing, pure and simple. It is not quick and dramatic like in 1948, when many people were forced to flee at the point of a gun. Rather, it is slow and administrative, forced out by the stroke of a pen.

There is no excuse for this kind of behaviour. There is certainly no excuse for international inaction over the issue. Israel will claim that Palestinians in Jerusalem would not face this problem if they accepted Israeli citizenship rather than the “residency permit” the colonising power is issuing the indigenous population. But that is tantamount to forcing Palestinians to accept an illegal occupation of their land.

What next? All visitors to Jerusalem will have to sign a paper acknowledging Israel’s “eternal right to Jerusalem” before being allowed to enter?

Israel needs to be held accountable for its racism before it becomes a precedent for other countries to follow.

Tell the Department of Energy to sanction, not award, Motorola Israel

Stop your tax dollars from subsidizing Motorola Israel!

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it will award $900,000 to Motorola Israel and SmartSynch for a joint project to develop an energy grid management system. The Department of Energy should not be rewarding Motorola Israel with this contract; instead it should be sanctioning Motorola for supporting Israel's illegal settlements. Click here to send a message to the Department of Energy telling them to end their relationship with Motorola Israel.

Motorola "virtual fences" are used to support dozens of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but this isn't the only support that Motorola offers Israel's occupation. Up until last April, Motorola also provided fuzes for Israel's MK80 series of bombs. These bombs were used against civilians in Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon and again during last winter's assault on the Gaza Strip. Moto's new advertisements for the "Droid" phone come startlingly close to showing this side of Motorola's business. The commercial shows stealth bombers blasting Droid phones to unsuspecting fishermen, farmers, and motorists.

Click here to email the Department of Energy about their new contract with Motorola Israel.

Click here to view Motorola's outrageous new "Droid" phone commercial.

Click here to receive resources for organizing the Hang Up On Motorola boycott in your community.

We couldn't let this opportunity to raise awareness of Moto's activities in Israel/Palestine slip by, so we're creating our own video that shows the truth left out by Motorola's ad. Subscribe to our Youtube channel to be the first to see our video, or just wait to see it in a future email.

While our video shows the results of Motorola's collaboration with the Israeli military on operations in the Gaza Strip, it doesn't tell the whole story. The encrypted mobile phones that Motorola provides the Israeli military also enable Israel's regime of over 600 checkpoints in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Motorola "virtual fences" in Hebron facilitate settler violence against Palestinians. Many transmission towers for Motorola Israel's subsidiary MIRS communications are built on privately- owned Palestinian land confiscated to make communication easier for settlers living illegally in the West Bank. Tell the Department of Energy that they shouldn't be rewarding Moto's lawlessness in Palestine/Israel. Send them an email by clicking here.

Photo shows the Jawazat Police Academy, which was bombed by Israel during "Operation Cast Lead." The bomb, which was equipped with a Motorola fuze fell during a graduation ceremony for new police cadets, killing 300 civilians.

Call for an international campaign against the Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has charitable status in over 50 countries, a status based on the JNF's claim that it preserves and advances Jewish culture, community, civic and political participation, rights and safety. In reality, the JNF was created in 1901 for the purpose of colonizing Palestine through the acquisition and management of land for exclusively Jewish settlement. Today, it continues to play a central role in the violent colonization and occupation of Palestine, and is a key institution in maintaining Israeli apartheid.

Where once the JNF's role was birthing the State of Israel, it is now granted special privileges and an ongoing role in State function, such as their administrative role in the Israeli Land Administration. In turn, the JNF, as a private institution, can hold in trust land and property for the State of Israel, its Jewish population and Jews living outside of Israel and openly discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel-preventing Palestinian leasing of JNF land. Far from the charitable organization the JNF claims to be, it is a para-statal organization-enacting functions of the State of Israel as a private organization, but without the attendant legal accountabilities or regulation.

13% of land in '48 (Israel) is controlled directly by the JNF, most of it seized from Palestinians and transferred to the JNF after May 1948.

• The JNF and Israeli Lands Administration control, through a joint committee, 93% of the land in Israel.
• By its own description, JNF money is also used for the ‘Judaisation' (equating to ‘de-Arabisation') of the Galilee and the Negev.
• In addition JNF money is used to finance reservoirs in the West Bank that steal Palestinian water for settler-only use.

Most recently, the JNF has been involved in expanding Israel's colonial project into the Negev-displacing the indigenous Bedouin people from their "unrecognized" villages into "concentration zones" and destroying their economic, cultural and social way of life. More broadly, central to the mission of the JNF is the acquisition of Palestinian land and property in historic Palestine "for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties." This includes JNF involvement in settler enterprises across the West Bank. When the Israeli army razed to the ground the Palestinian villages of the Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba villages in 1967 and expelled their inhabitants, the JNF took over the construction of the Canada National Park on the ruins. The JNF today claims to be a global environmental leader and trumpets their slogan of ‘Plant Trees and Bring Water to Israel'-a cover up to the ethnic cleansing and acquisition of Palestinian land and water involved in this process. Donors from around the world are then implicated in these crimes, as are the Canadian government and tax payers in the case of Canada Park.

Beyond this, the JNF is active in countries throughout the world and supports a broader network of Zionist institutions and organizations that support the Israeli military and militant Jewish settlements with direct funds. The JNF and its network of organizations also provide the political support necessary for legitimizing and promoting public policies and aid packages for Israel. Every year they bring thousands of public officials and community leaders to Israel to lobby their support. In individual countries, these organizations censor criticism of Israel and target individuals and organizations with blacklists, violence, imprisonment, deportation, unemployment and other economic hardship.

The JNF does not do what it claims to do. It claims to exist for the well-being of the Jewish people. In reality, its activities and the organizations that it funds exist almost exclusively for the purpose of securing and expanding Israel's colonization of Palestine and the apartheid Israeli State. The JNF claims that Jewish safety depends on a secure Israeli State. But Israel does not make Jews safe. Its violence and racism guarantees instability and fear for those within Israel, the rest of historic Palestine, and endangers the safety of all people, including Jews, far beyond its borders.

We are calling for an international campaign to challenge the legitimacy and actions of the Jewish National Fund. We are calling for sanctions against the JNF as a key institution of Israeli apartheid defined by the UN as a crime against humanity. We are calling for the JNF to pay reparations to the Palestinian people for the catastrophic damages done over the course of the JNF's 107 years of existence as a vehicle for the colonial settlement of Palestine.

Demands: Our abiding demand is to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund.

From states and the United Nations we call for:

• Sanctions against the JNF for its participation in Israeli apartheid
• Boycotting of JNF funded, directly and indirectly, delegations to Israel

From civic society, we call for:

• Civil suits by those whose property was confiscated by the JNF
• Jewish divestment from JNF and its subsidiaries
• An end to grassroots and NGO collaboration with the JNF, particularly by environmental organizations
• An active boycott of Zionist and Israeli events organized by JNF and its subsidiaries

We will:

• Take Legal action: challenge the charity status of the JNF and coordinate other judicial review process, support cases against the JNF by Palestinians whose land and property were stolen by the JNF and/or who were dispossessed by the JNF - from 1948 until today,
• Research and document JNF's activities, use of funds, and impact, support investigation into JNF funding of and participation in para-statal activities, collect testimonies, produce research reports and publications, write articles, publicize findings, collect land deeds, digital stories/videos of testimony and a book of specific cases that highlight JNF role in land confiscation and discrimination as part of a broader system of occupation and colonization
• Educate: produce printed materials, submit presentations for conferences, organize workshops and public speaking events, coordinate art exhibits, performances and speaking tours, create digital stories based on testimonies
• Boycott and Disrupt JNF Events: JNF organized fundraisers, delegation, and cultural, educational, sporting and political events
• Take Direct action: Petitions, letters, poster and sticker campaign, disruption of events, pickets, civil disobedience, demonstrations
• Produce and leverage mass and grassroots media: submit editorials and article to print and online journals, organize press conferences, buy advertisement, produce grassroots media, produce and/or screen documentaries, produce and participate in public radio and television series, produce poster campaign
• Support processes of accountability under international law: participate in review processes being organized by civil organizations to hold Israel accountable under human rights and other international law (i.e. review of Israel for its treaty implementation under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)

Join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC)[1], Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Habitat International Coalition of Cairo and the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network in coordinating this campaign.

For more information, contact us at: jnf.campaign@gmail.com

Source: International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

ZIONISM: THE MONSTERS THAT WALK AMONG US

CHUTZPAH is not a strong enough word to describe the situation reported below. Imagine your home taken away from you illegally, the lands around your home as well. Imagine being forced into a filthy refugee camp where you have been staying for over sixty one years.

Now imagine settlements built on YOUR property to house those that stole YOUR land. Now imagine one of those illegal settlers, who just happens to be Israel’s Foreign Minister, saying the following……

Lieberman: Settlements an excuse for Arabs to complain

Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are just a pretext for the Arab world to complain, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisted on Friday.The official is himself a West Bank settler.

“In terms of facts, our settlements are just a pretext for the Arab world to complain,” Lieberman told the Russian-language REKA radio. “As we all remember, settlements have not prevented us from signing a peace agreement with Egypt.”

He added, “I’d also like to call to mind that we have evacuated tens of settlements in the Gaza Strip. And what do we have now? Hamas in Gaza and Kassams in Sderot.”

Lieberman also said European opposition to the settlements was “a sort of political slogan… there were no Jewish settlements before 1967, but terror, conflicts, and tension never ceased to exist between 1948 and 1967. Furthermore, the Arab world was in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for 19 years, but then, nobody tried to create the Palestinian state.”

The foreign minister lives in the illegal West Bank settlement of Nokdim, near Bethlehem.

Source

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff


Source: Desert peace