"The criminal division of the Court of Cassation [France’s highest appeals court] issued a decision on October 20, 2015, affirming that freedom of expression does not authorize the call to boycott Israeli goods ; such a call is henceforward a misdemeanor in France and punishable as such".
"I am a Palestinian academic with Israeli citizenship, and I support the initiative in the AAA for a boycott resolution against Israeli institutions. Such a resolution will not harm me, nor it will harm any Palestinian academic in Israel, and it won’t harm any individual academic in Israel in general, let alone any academic from any part of the world who works on Israel/Palestine. To the contrary, I argue that such a resolution would help all academics, especially those whose work is focused on Israel/Palestine, regardless of the location where they work."
"The letter which you signed says nothing about how Israel treats the Palestinians. It doesn’t mention the siege on Gaza. It doesn’t mention the occupation, and millions of disfranchised Palestinians, living under a system of oppression. It doesn’t mention the millions of Palestinian refugees. It doesn’t mention the Palestinians being shot without trial right now, in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, or the protesters being shot in Gaza. It simply states that “we may not all share the same views on the policies of the Israeli government”. Rather than making common cause with those who hope for change, you made common cause with those seeking to prevent it."
"The post-Charlie Hebdo “free speech” march in Paris was a fraud for multiple reasons, as I wrote at the time. It was led by dozens of world leaders, many of whom imprison or even kill people for expressing prohibited views. It was cheered by many Westerners who feign upset only when free speech abridgments are perpetrated by Muslims, but not — as is far more common — by their own governments against Muslims".
"Artists Verdict: Cultural bridges with Israel lead nowhere"(Artists for Palestine UK, October 27, 2015): click here!
The appearance last week of some famous UK cultural names on a statement defending Israel against boycott has sparked a wave of incredulity and outrage from fellow artists.
"A Commitment by UK Scholars to Human Rights in Palestine" (commitment4P.com, October 27, 2015): click here! For the original advertisement (pdf): click here! Update 28/10: 500 signatories.
"This Commitment is motivated by deep concern for Palestinians, including Palestinian academics, struggling to sustain some semblance of normal life in intractably difficult circumstances of occupation, and denial of basic human rights. Recent events have provided, once again, grim evidence of Israeli intransigence".
UK academics boycott universities in Israel to fight for Palestinians' rights (Peter Walker & Ian Black, The Guardian, Oct 27: click here!; for the pdf of the advertisement: click here!; see as well Middle East Eye, Oct 27, click here!; Medium.com, Oct 27, click here!; OneWorld.org: click here!):
More than 300 academics from dozens of British universities have pledged to boycott Israeli academic institutions in protest at what they call intolerable human rights violations against the Palestinian people. The declaration, by 343 professors and lecturers, is printed in a full-page advertisement carried in Tuesday’s Guardian, with the title: “A commitment by UK scholars to the rights of Palestinians.”
"We are lifelong Zionists. Like other progressive Jews, our support for Israel has been founded on two convictions: first, that a state was necessary to protect our people from future disaster; and second, that any Jewish state would be democratic, embracing the values of universal human rights that many took as a lesson of the Holocaust".
Omar Robert HAMILTON: "J.K.Rowling and the Prisoners of Israel"(CounterPunch, October 26, 2015): click here!
"Let us consider what the last twenty years of dialogue, mutual engagement and negotiation have brought us. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 the Israeli government has constructed 53,000 homes to house 500,000 new settler-colonists in the West Bank, has subjected Gaza to a medieval siege for over 6 years, destroyed 15,000 Palestinian homes, expelled 11,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem and divided the West Bank into 167 segregated population zones that are divided from each other by a 440km cement wall and 522 military checkpoints. It has suppressed a popular uprising and launched four major offensives that have left over 7,000 Palestinians dead."
Annie ROBBINS: "JK Rowling stumps for Israel — what would Harry Potter do?" (Mondoweiss, October 23, 2015): click here!
"JK Rowling has staked out territory as a prominent face of the anti-BDS movement. She’s signed on to a heavily publicized open letter in the Guardian, “Israel needs cultural bridges, not boycotts“, encouraging “dialogue about Israel and the Palestinians” in a “wider” cultural and creative community.
Hilary AKED: "Thorns in the lawnmower: BDS can help stop Israel". "The growing BDS movement is considered by Israel as a national threat [AFP]" (The New Arab, October 21, 2015): click here!
"Israel is "mowing the lawn" again. That the Israeli military refers to its killing sprees this way gives us a sense of how routine and banal this lethal method of maintaining control has become. As Mouin Rabanni has pointed out, in this analogy the grass consists of Palestinians. While unlike the onslaughts of 2008-9, 2012 and 2014, the so-called "precision" weaponry has yet to be rolled out, Israel's killing is being practiced with the usual impunity - and is still being blamed squarely on the victims."
Lahav HARKOV: "Ministers approve banning boycotters from entering Israel" (The Jerusalem Post, October 19, 2015): click here!
"Bayit Yehudi bill would also keep non-citizens or permanent residents who boycott settlements out of the country".
David CRONIN: "Outlawing Israel boycott in Europe revealed as key AIPAC goal" (The Electronic Intifada, 16 October 2015): click here!
"At a time when Palestinians are rising up against Israeli apartheid, ranting about a trans-Atlantic trade accord might seem off-topic. Yet a protest camp held in Brussels this week illustrated how to blend a fight against corporate power and the expression of solidarity with an oppressed people".