"Israeli citizens for boycott call on Reykjavik to stand by its decision"(Mondoweiss, September 22 2015): click here!
"We write to you as citizens of Israel who actively oppose our successive governments’ policies of belligerent occupation, colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the indigenous people of this land, the Palestinians. We write to you today to encourage you to stand by your initial and worthy decision to hold the State of Israel accountable for its consistent human rights violations, and to boycott Israeli goods."
An explanatory memorandum notes that the boycott is meant to show that the City of Reykjavík supports the right of Palestinians to independence, while condemning “the Israeli policy of apartheid” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Ilan PAPPE: "Palestine is a global, not a Western issue"(Middle East Eye, September 9, 2015): click here!
Judy MALTZ: "A New Unofficial Boycott Against Israeli Academics May Be Underway. Academic told participation in conference conditioned on her denouncing the occupation"(Haaretz, September 10, 2015): click here!
Several recent cases of Israeli academics being singled out for discriminatory treatment by colleagues overseas have sparked concerns among university leaders in the country.
Palestine today is perhaps the leading international issue evoking solidarity on a global scale. Nonetheless, the “community of nations” apparently remains helpless to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Alan HART: "UE [United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America] Becomes First National U.S. Union to Endorse BDS"(Portside, August 28, 2015): click here!
"Israeli military companies, all of which are deeply involved in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people, among others, see the Olympic Games as an opportunity for profit and a means to export their “field-tested” expertise in maintaining apartheid, repression of people, and militarization of urban spaces across the globe. They must be stopped...".
"...When asked what the campaign entailed beyond the letter, they explained: “Initiating conversations about this campaign within the artworld. Cultural boycotts are a sensitive topic and there’s a lot of debate about it. It is also painful and difficult for artists to withhold participation when art is meant to build bridges. The difficult decision is made in the hopes of building peace. This letter intends to start a conversation”".
The letter can be co-signed by artists and cultural workers via email: letterforpalestine@gmail.com.
"...The cultural and academic boycott of Israel is the other central aspect of the BDS rallying cry. They are particularly important for effacing the myth — so ardently presented by fundamentalist and liberal Zionists alike — that the sphere of civil society is apolitical and in no way complicit in its state’s policies... BDS’s cultural and academic boycott insists that such structural racism should be held accountable at the level of civil society and seeks to expose the oft-heard lie that but for the activities of the state, Israeli society would be a thriving, tolerant democracy."
Eman ELSHAIKH: "We Must Boycott Israeli Universities in Order to Defend Academic Freedom" (Muftah.org., August 5, 2015).
"The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and remains an important part of it today. As BDS picks up momentum and gathers support on university campuses across the globe, boycotting Israeli academic institutions remains very controversial and has received much criticism from a number of prominent academics."
"Israeli occupation authorities prevented Dr. Amro Issa Omar Sourani from entering the occupied Palestinian Territories to work as a lecturer in the Department of Engineering in Birzeit University. Sources in the University said Israeli authorities refused to grant Dr. Sourani, who is currently based in the United Kingdom, and his family an entry permit to the West Bank to begin his contract as a lecturer in the university even though Dr. Sourani holds a Palestinian identity card and is originally from the Gaza Strip."
Letter from Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers to the global boycott movement. "We send you this letter with appreciation for the leading role of the boycott movement, which is based on a comprehensive moral and human position that rejects injustice and oppression; confronts racism and policies of discrimination based on race, religion or sex; upholds freedom, human dignity and values of justice; and seeks to counter support and complicity with the Israeli government by international forces..."
Ståle HOLGERSEN: "I was going to a conference... (yet more reasons for an academic boycott of Israel)" (academia.edu, 28 July 2015).
"... Since the state of Israel continues to ignore international rights and UN resolutions; since it continues relentlessly to attack academic freedom in Palestine in all kinds of ways; since the Israeli universities are so interwoven with the actual occupation, there are no other alternatives than an international academic boycott of Israeli institutions – including academic ones. Just kilometres and miles from where Palestinians are deprived their right to education, the Israeli universities produce the knowledge on how to strengthen the occupation. For the sake of humanity please join the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel."
"Gideon Levy spent 24 hours with the former Pink Floyd singer, who has become one of the leading lights in the BDS movement. A conversation on political views, tragic family history — and when the rock star-turned-activist will be happy to play in Israel again."
"The Palestinians are poor. They are powerless. They have no voice or influence in the halls of power. They are demonized. They do not have well-heeled lobbyists doling out campaign contributions and pushing through pro-Palestinian legislation. No presidential candidate is appealing to donors—as Hillary Clinton did when she sent a letter to media mogul Haim Saban denouncing critics of Israel—by promising to advance the interests of the Palestinian people. Palestinians, like poor people of color in the United States, are expendable... The fight for the Palestinians is our fight. If the Palestinians are not liberated none of us will be liberated. We cannot pick and choose which of the oppressed are convenient or inconvenient to defend. We will stand with all of the oppressed or none of the oppressed. And when we stand with the oppressed we will be treated like the oppressed."
"...In a public letter, published in Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, Caetano Veloso wrote: “My heart is strongly against the arrogant right position of the Israeli government. I hate the occupation policy, the inhuman decisions that Israel took in what [Benjamin] Netanyahu tells us is self-defense. And I think most Israelis who are interested in our music tend to react in a similar way to the politics of his country.” Veloso also claimed that he hoped that Israelis opposed to the occupation would take heart from their performance — ignoring the existence of Israeli activists who also call for international rejection of their country’s crimes."
"Fifteen trade unions in Gaza have jointly renewed their support for the boycott of Israel and its labor institutions that are complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights... In particular, the trade unions “underline the importance of boycotting the Histadrut because of its blatant complicity in Israel’s policies including occupation, settlement building, apartheid and hijacking of Palestinian workers’ rights".
Amena SALEEM: "Mental health professionals demand cancellation of Israel conference" (The Electronic Intifada, July 16, 2015).
"More than 200 leading mental health professionals from around the world have signed an open letter calling for the cancellation of a European psychotherapy conference scheduled to be held in Jerusalem in August. In the letter, published in the UK newspaper The Independent, the psychologists and psychoanalysts, many from the UK, France and the United States, urge their colleagues to respect the Palestinian call for boycott and stay away from the conference should it go ahead as planned".
"73 Members of the European Parliament call on the EU to stop its support to Israeli military companies" (European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, July 14, 2014).
"Ironically, the boycott movement actually expresses some level of faith in Israeli democracy by assuming a little pressure might motivate it to change".
"Israeli Teachers' Union signs anti-settlement document to prevent boycott " (Middle East Monitor, 10 July 2015).
"The Israeli Teachers' Union has lent its support, albeit reluctantly, to a document prepared for the World Teachers' Association convention, which includes an article stating that the settlements are hindering peace and the two-state solution. A source in the Israeli union said that if it did not support this document then the Israeli education and academic system would face an international boycott".
Statement from the Palestinian BDS National Committee, July 7, 2015: "One year since Israel’s Gaza massacre and ten years since the launch of the BDS movement: building the boycott is more important than ever".
Jonathan COOK: "Israel’s Army of Spin-Doctors is Doomed to Defeat ." (The Palestine Chronical, July 7, 2015).
"The Israeli government believes it is locked in an epic struggle to save Israel from the growing movement calling for an international boycott. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that Israel must quickly “rebrand” itself to avoid pariah status. Ordinary Israelis are therefore being conscripted into an army of spin-doctors in a campaign termed “hasbara” – Hebrew for “public diplomacy”, or more literally “propaganda”...
Roy ISACOWITZ: "Target me with your boycott, please." (Medium, 2 July 2015, source: Haaretz, 2 July).
"Sometimes there’s no choice but a boycott, even if that means collective punishment for all — including the people you’re seeking to help... After almost 50 years of Israeli defiance and evasion, there is little prospect of diplomatic change. The prime goal of the boycott against Israel, therefore, is to persuade the bulk of Israelis that the occupation is not in their interests. And the way to do that is by focusing their attention sharply on what those interests are and how much they have to lose. It follows that boycotting only the settlements and their commerce, as many on the Israeli left suggest, makes no sense...".
"Professor Judith Butler, one of the most prominent spokespeople of BDS, has written of non-violent protest focused on opposition to illegal forms of dispossession, enforcement and denial of human rights. BDS provides the means for non-state actors to act against the Occupation, dispossession, illegal settlement and the terrorism carried out by Israel against the Palestinians. Its purpose is to put an end to a form of civil separation based on racist principles, and to fight for the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Anti-Semitism? Expressions reminiscent of what the Nazis said about the Jews? These exist only in the imagination of those who react hysterically...".
Annie ROBBINS: "Foreign direct investment in Israel dropped by 50% in 2014 and expert says it’s due to the Gaza war and BDS (Updated)" (Mondoweiss, June 26 2015).
Amer SHOMALI: " We are imprisoned by Israel: A filmmaker not allowed to attend his U.S. premiere on the nightmare of life in the West Bank". Israeli officials barred me from going to my film's première for "security" reasons. This is life under occupation "(Salon, June 25, 2015).
"In the occupied West Bank, almost anything can come to be seen as a threat to Israel’s security. Even cows. Yes, cows. Here’s the story: During the activism of the first Palestinian intifada, residents of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour organized boycotts of Israeli goods in an act of civil disobedience intended to pressure the government. Local activists in 1988 hatched a plan to bypass Israeli suppliers and produce milk locally. They bought 18 cows from a kibbutz...".
"UK Actors, directors and writers demand immediate sanctions on Israel" (Palestine News Network, 23 June 2015).
"Actors, authors, academics and architects have today called on the UK government to push for immediate sanctions on Israel until it abides by international law and ends its occupation of Palestinian land. They join other big names from the world of film and rock music, as well as 20,000 members of the public, who have signed a petition which will be delivered at the Houses of Parliament today".
Hasan MASRI: "For Palestinian artists, freedom of speech is anything but guaranteed" (+972, 20 June 2015).
By forcing Arab actors to perform in West Bank settlements and closing down Arab theaters, the government is proving once more that freedom of speech is solely reserved for Israel’s ruling class".
"The Pledge: We support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality. In response to the call from Palestinian artists and cultural workers for a cultural boycott of Israel, we pledge to accept neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding, from any institutions linked to its government until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights".
Yarden SKOP: "Latent academic boycott is spreading, Israeli professors tell Knesset" (Haaretz, June 17, 2015).
"University heads and researchers said on Wednesday that a hidden academic boycott is being imposed on Israel at campuses abroad. Speaking at the Knesset’s Education Committee, the academics spoke of an anti-Israeli atmosphere building up on foreign campuses".