Patrick STRICKLAND: "New bill would ban boycott advocates from entering Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, June 10, 2015).
A right-wing lawmaker plans to introduce a bill to ban foreign nationals who support boycotting Israel from visiting the country, the newspaper Haaretz reports. Yinon Magal, a member of the ultra-nationalist Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, is now attempting to recruit fellow lawmakers to support his bill. If passed, the bill would ban supporters of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) from visiting present-day Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza. It would also bar foreign nationals of Jewish ancestry who support boycotting Israel from obtaining Israeli citizenship.
Israeli cultural, as well as academic, institutions will always claim that the boycott infringes upon their freedom and punishes artists and academics who are the most “progressive” and opposed to “the occupation” in Israeli society. This argument, aside from being quite disingenuous, is in fact intended to deflect attention from three basic facts : first, that the boycott was called for because Israel was denying Palestinians their basic rights, including academic and cultural rights ; second, that the Palestinian academic and cultural boycott of Israel targets institutions, not individuals ; and third, that those institutions, far from being more progressive than the average in Israel, are a main pillar of the Israeli structure of colonial and apartheid oppression.
The Israeli obsession with showing ‘our side’ of the story not only guzzles financial and human resources — it is a conscious attempt to distract the world from policies of occupation.
A male anchor on Israel’s Ynet news provided vivid insight into the state of Israeli freedom of speech this week with his reaction to a Jewish-Israeli guest who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement aimed at holding the state to account for its breaches of international and human rights law.
Mark BROWN: "Film-makers ask cinemas and Bafta to boycott London Israeli film festival" (The Guardian, June 8, 2015).
More than 40 artists and film-makers write to the Guardian to accuse cinemas of becoming ‘silent accomplices’ to the persecution of the Palestinian people... The letter says that because the festival is co-sponsored by the Israeli government via its London embassy there is a direct link between the cinemas, the screenings and Israeli government policies... The letter stresses it is not a request to refuse to show films by individual film-makers “but to reject the involvement and financial support of the Israeli state”.
"Government efforts to fight ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ are bolstering the movement and creating the political debate the campaign seeks to achieve.
... A number of artists recently announced that they will cancel their performances in Israel, intensifying the sense of many Israelis that their country is becoming increasingly isolated. As the British National Union of Students this month publicly endorsed BDS, senior Israeli university officials approached the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, warning of a growing academic boycott...".
Gideon LEVY: "For the sins of occupation, boycotts are a light punishment" (Haaretz, Opinion, June 7, 2015; medium.com).
"...Does anyone think that Israel can go on without being punished? Without being ostracized? And to tell the truth, doesn’t Israel deserve to be punished? Hasn’t the world been unbelievably tolerant so far? Orange or SodaStream, academic boycott or artistic boycott, these are light punishments. The penalties will grow worse the longer Israel avoids drawing the necessary conclusions. As opposed to attempts by Israel and the Jewish establishment to divert the discussion, at its heart is not anti-Semitism. At its heart is the occupation. That is the source of the delegitimization... ".
"First such event held by the sociology and anthropology department, and possibly the university; fact that discussion did not completely condemn BDS, and included some expressions of support, is considered unusual.
Chris McGREAL: "Sheldon Adelson looks to stamp out growing US movement to boycott Israel" (The Guardian, June 5, 2015).
"Billionaire gambling magnate and Republican party donor convenes closed-door meeting to combat US university movement amid growing Israeli alarm over growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in US and Europe".
...Clearly, academic freedom is an inviolable principle that should be defended, but it remains an illusion for the Palestinians under occupation since 1948. The BDS does not weaken supposedly neutral and liberal spaces of critical knowledge, as its moderate detractors often argue, it rather represents the beginning of a process that aims to extend freedom to all.
"The British National Union of Students voted to boycott Israeli companies and align with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement" (Forward, June 2, 2015).
"In a 19-4 vote with one abstention, the confederation of 600 student unions across the United Kingdom passed the pro-BDS proposal on Tuesday at a meeting of its National Executive Council. The motion “condemns Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza,” according to the Jewish Chronicle, and calls on students to “co-ordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine Solidarity Day” on Nov. 29. Titled "Solidarity with Palestine: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions", the motion was proposed by the School of Oriental and African Studies students union in London".