Switzerland now joins the European Union, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden in resisting pressure to outlaw or ostracize BDS as a tool to defend the rights of the Palestinian people.
"Israel’s Barring of a Respected Activist from Chile is a Desperate Attack on Our Growing Human Rights Movement" (BDS, April 10, 2017): click here!
Today, Israel denied entry to Anuar Majluf, a Chilean citizen, human rights defender, lawyer and Executive Director of the Palestinian Federation of Chile. Majluf is Christian, and was traveling with a delegation of other Chilean citizens to spend Easter in the Holy Land.
"The European Union’s Legal Obligation to Stop Trade with Illegal Israeli Settlements Hits the Mainstream" (ECCP, April 10, 2017): click here!
Last week, one of the most prominent legal journals in the world, The European Journal of International Law, published an article on its website affirming that the European Union and its member states have a legal obligation to stop all trade with illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land.
Charlotte SILVER: "US judge throws out key claim against academic boycott of Israel" (EI, April 5, 2017): click here!
Israel and its surrogates suffered a significant defeat last week, when a federal court in Washington, DC, threw out a key claim in a lawsuit against the American Studies Association for its resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
Jewish organizations in the United States are criticizing the Knesset for banning the entry of those who express support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Jonathan COOK: "Israel steps up dirty tricks against boycott leaders" (Mondoweiss, April 4, 2017): click here!
sraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed cohorts of Israel loyalists in the United States by video link last week at the annual conference of Aipac, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Human rights defender Omar Barghouti is urging people around the world to increase boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns as the best way to show support for him – and for the Palestinian people – as he faces escalating repression by the Israeli government.
Asa WINSTANLEY: "The failure of Brand Israel" (Jews for Justice for Palestinians, March 30, 2017): click here!
More than a decade ago, the Israeli government launched a new strategy that it dubbed “Brand Israel”. This began in 2006 as an effort to improve Israel’s negative image overseas, “by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians.”
Creede NEWTON: "Angela Davis: 'This is the South Africa moment for the Palestinian people'" (Middle East Eye, March 28, 2017): click here!
The struggle for Palestinian rights is reaching a turning point similar to that seen in South Africa when the global boycott movement helped bring down apartheid, renowned academic and activist Angela Davis told US students this week.
Jewish Voice for Peace executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson isn't your typical BDS activist: she spent three years in Israel, is married to an Israeli and has relatives in the West Bank. Despite many critics in the organized Jewish community, she says JVP is thriving in the Trump era and doesn't need the establishment's stamp of approval.
Dear Dame Nancy and Dr Redmond, Two of our students from the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement are facing disciplinary hearings this week (29th March) due to carrying out a banner drop on the Samuel Alexander building which read ‘Stop Arming Israel’.
Colin SHINDLER: "These Academics Fight BDS on Campus Every Day. Will They Be Banned From Israel?" (Haaretz, March 19, 2017): click here!
Israel's law banning entry to settlement boycotters is a form of intellectual harassment and may mark a watershed moment in wider Israel-Diaspora relations.
Roger WATERS: "Why I must speak out on Israel, Palestine and BDS " (Salon, March 17, 2017): click here!
Seventy years ago, my father – 2nd Lt. Eric Fletcher Waters – died in Italy fighting the Nazis. He was a committed pacifist, and a conscientious objector at the start of the war, but as Hitler’s crimes spread across Europe, he swapped the ambulance he had driven through the London blitz for a tin hat and a commission in the Royal Fusiliers and he joined the fight against fascism.
Eoin WILSON: "Palestine activists shouldn’t dismiss sports boycott" (EI, March 16, 2017): click here!
PACBI spokesperson Mariam Ibrahim called the Celtic fans’ example a “model” of how soccer can play a central role in not only forcing the expulsion of Israel from international soccer, but in raising awareness more generally about Palestine.
The landmark report’s endorsement of boycotts, economic sanctions and other grassroots initiatives comes at a moment when Israel is desperately attempting to criminalize and suppress international support for Palestinian rights.
Not only does the Israeli government have a vested interest in exaggerating the boycott movement's influence, it supplies it with a steady stream of justifications.
Michael DEAS: "Israeli Apartheid Week held at 30 UK universities, despite repression" (EI, March 10, 2017): click here!
Israeli Apartheid Week took place on more than 30 university campuses across the UK last week despite a massive government backed campaign of repression. The week saw some events cancelled, with unprecedented and bizarre restrictions imposed on organizers.
'In spite of our different views, we stand in strong opposition to the new law,' petition reads, while other liberal U.S. Jews warn new law will cause drift toward BDS camp.
Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israel boycott is part of global anti-racist struggle" (EI, March 9, 2017): click here!
Palestinians are reaffirming that the movement to boycott Israel is part of the global struggle against racism and all forms of bigotry, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Jonathan OFIR: "If Israel is unwilling to differentiate itself from the settlements, then boycotters shouldn’t either" (Haaretz, March 7, 2017): click here!
Israel’s passing of a law that bars entry to foreigners involved in boycotting Israel (including its settlements) was condemned by a wide spectrum of Jewish organizations, including J Street, Americans for Peace Now, the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, and others.
Israel's entry ban on settlement boycotters has left me, and many other anti-occupation Diaspora Jews with deep ties to the Jewish state, bewildered, frustrated and unmoored.
"First Ever Italian Student Council Approves Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions" [TECHNION] (Stop Technion Italia, March 6, 2017): click here!
On March 1, 2017, the Student Council of the University of Turin approved by wide majority (76%) a motion supporting the academic boycott of Israel, calling for revocation of the agreements between the university and the Israel Institute of Technology – Technion in Haifa.
Ilan PAPPE: "Israel and Palestine: Settler colonialism and academic freedom" (Mondoweiss, March 1, 2017): click here!
In the last ten years, an old scholarly paradigm that was used for the historical analysis of European settler movements in various parts of the worlds, and in different periods, resurfaced in the USA and Australia as part of the new wish to understand the modern histories of these countries.
A conference on Israeli “exceptionalism” will go ahead in Ireland this spring, organizers insisted on Wednesday. Supporters of the event – organized by University College Cork academics – include Ken Loach, director of the award-winning movie I, Daniel Blake, and Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop.
BDS claims credit for thwarting Israeli effort to lure last year's Oscars nominees with free tour packages. But don't tell Jennifer Lawrence's mom.
"Event involving Israeli Ambassador to Ireland cancelled following BDS protests" (YNet, Feb 21, 2017): click here!
An event supposed to take place at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland involving Israeli Ambassador Ze’ev Boker was cancelled following pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrations; the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is 'shocked and saddened.'
With much difficulty, I am asking my fellow citizens to lead the call for an international boycott, because otherwise our country will be lost forever.
"European Parliament event highlights struggle for BDS and need to confront repression" (Samidoun, Jan 26, 2017)): click here!
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network participated on Monday, 23 January in an event at the European Parliament organized by the GUE/NGL(European United Left/Nordic Green Left) group in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and against attempts to criminalize BDS movements, organizations and organizers.
"Palestinian human rights defender, BDS leader Salah Khawaja continues to be imprisoned on Israeli “secret file”" (Samidoun, Jan 20, 2017)): click here!
Palestinian human rights defender Salah Khawaja is currently being held in prison on the basis of a so-called “secret file” and threatened with administrative detention, reported the Stop the Wall Campaign. Khawaja, 46, is a member of the Secretariat of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee and a leader of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. He was seized from his Ramallah home on 26 October 2016 in a pre-dawn armed military raid by Israeli occupation forces and subject to heavy, torturous interrogation, ill-treatment, beatings and denial of access to a lawyer.
TA new generation of scholars continues the push for the academic boycott of Israel, despite setbacks and strong lobbies.
The news is in: on Saturday, a resolution to endorse the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions was rejected by the Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association, the largest and most traditional humanities association in the United States.
BDS campaigners in France are welcoming their government's decision not to spend more than $100 million on Israeli drones. This is the second major defeat for Israel's Elbit Systems, which last year lost a major bid it had been tipped to win to sell France its Watchkeeper drone.
Lara DEEB & Jessica WINEGAR: "Why Anthropologists Failed to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions" (Savage Minds, Jan 4): click here!
In 2016 the movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions for their involvement in the illegal occupation of Palestine both gathered significant steam and faced a huge roadblock.
Jumana AL TAMIMI: "Boycott move buoyed by UN resolution" (Gulf News Palestine, Dec 26, 2016): click here!
The international movement to boycott Israel business and sanction those who do business with the state has been given a huge shot in the arm by the passing on Friday night of an unprecedented United Nations Security Council resolution.
Palestinians welcome statement as “a major blow to Israel’s repressive legal war” on the BDS movement: Renowned legal scholars and lawyers from 15 European countries consider BDS as “a lawful exercise of freedom of expression”. Palestinian BDS human rights defenders welcome the statement as a “defining moment” in asserting their right to boycott Israel to realize Palestinian rights
Born in Tel Aviv, pro-Palestinian activist Eran Cohen, 27, is challenging the accepted norms of British Jewry.
May BULMAN: "EU declares right to boycott Israel is protected by free speech" (Independent, Nov 3, 2016): click here!
The European Union’s foreign policy chief has affirmed the right of EU citizens to boycott Israel, but said the EU remains opposed to a boycott on the country.
“The EU stands firm in protecting freedom of expression and freedom of association in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is applicable on EU member states’ territory, including with regard to BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] actions carried out on this territory,” Federica Mogherini told the European Parliament in answer to a written question in late September.
Charlotte SILVER: "Israel lobby lawsuits aim to slow boycott in Spain" (The Electronic Intifada, Oct 27, 2016): click here!
In July 2014, at the height of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Spain’s RESCOP launched a national campaign targeting local cultural institutions, businesses and associations, asking that they declare themselves “free of Israeli apartheid.” That effort has since grown, in both size and kind. Today, there are more than 50 participating cities and towns across the country.
Ali ABUNIMAH: "Boycotting “the occupation” is not enough" (The Electronic Intifada, Oct 21, 2016): click here!
Earlier this month, The New York Review of Books published a call for “a targeted boycott of all goods and services from all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and any investments that promote the occupation, until such time as a peace settlement is negotiated between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.”
"Public figures call-out 'moral inconsistency' of boycotting Israeli settlements alone" (BDS, Oct 21, 2016): click here!
A statement recently published in The New York Review of Books calls for “an Economic Boycott and Political Nonrecognition of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories” [Letters, October 13]. We welcome the statement’s shattering of the taboo against boycotting Israeli entities that are complicit in — at least selective — violations of Palestinian human rights.