"Fred Moten’s Statement in Support of a Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions" (MLA-Members for Justice in Palestine, Sept 7, 2016): click here!
I’ve been learning something recently as the rhetorical energy surrounding the idea and actuality of an academic and cultural boycott of Israel—which is the least those of us who are still concerned not only with human life in Palestine but also, and more generally, with unsettled, non-colonial life can do—has increased and intensified.
David LLOYD: "The Malevolence of Occupation " (Dublin Review of Books, Issue 80, July, 2016): click here!
Boycott is, as many proudly recall, an Irish invention. The first boycott targeted a notorious land agent, the eponymous Captain Charles Boycott, for attempting to evict tenants. Inspired by the Land League, local people refused to serve or work for him, responding to his threat to their means of life by severing social and economic ties with him.
Israel’s biggest military companies last year rang alarm bells over a decline in international contracts, citing smaller budgets, more competition, and less desire for Israeli-made products as among the reasons. Is this an indicator that Israel’s arms industry might not be as invincible as it seems?
The recent release of a policy platform by the Movement for Black Lives has drawn both expressions of solidarity, as well as disavowals and strident criticism.
"Portuguese government withdraws from controversial project with Israeli police following BDS pressure " (BDS National Committee, Aug 23, 2016): click here!
The LAW TRAIN project, aimed at unifying police interrogation methodologies, has generated controversy in Portugal because of vocal opposition to Israel’s participation in the EU’s Horizon 2020 research framework and the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli entities taking part.
"Samidoun international coordinator denied entry to Palestine, interrogated about BDS and prisoner solidarity" (AURDIP, Aug 23, 2016): click here!
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network international coordinator Charlotte Kates was denied entry to Palestine at the King Hussein Bridge crossing from Jordan to occupied Palestine on Monday, 15 August, as she attempted to join a delegation of European parliamentarians and lawyers in support of Bilal Kayed and the Palestinian prisoners.
Sheldon Adelson, the Nevada casino mogul and conservative mega-donor, is leading a campaign against pro-Palestine groups on US college campuses and has funded posters that accuse individual students of supporting terrorism and promoting “Jew Hatred”.
Egypt and Lebanon have received extensive media coverage during the Rio Olympics, not because of their athletes’ sporting achievements (of which there is little to celebrate), but because of the political controversy surrounding their actions.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has become the latest US denomination to take economic action against the Israeli occupation. At its triennial assembly last week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the four million-member church, one of the largest in the US, voted on two separate resolutions targeting Israel’s occupation and human rights abuses, passing each by a landslide.
Notwithstanding the nomenclature, the M4BL platform is a prime example of the intersectionality among the multifarious struggles for justice. Such solidarity and witness underline the principles of the human rights-based approach to freedom and equality. The affirmed solidarity of the Black Lives movement with the Palestinian experience imbues the Palestinian struggle for human and national rights with renewed energy.
In this writing, I want to portray the psychological aspects and perceptions relating to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement concerning Israel. I will not always refer to BDS as a singular movement, but also to the general idea of “boycott”.
Audrey BOMSE: "Furore over Black Lives' support of Palestine reveals movement's true allies" (Middle East Eye, Aug 11, 2016): click here!
Hysterical opposition from pro-Israel groups towards the Movement for Black Lives' platform highlights hypocritical politics.
The calls to boycott Israel aren’t intended to deny its legitimacy, but to encourage it to end its policy of occupation in the territories. Precisely because Israel is considered a legitimate state and a longstanding, proper member of the family of nations, the entire world demands that it follow this family’s accepted rules.
Marie-Danielle SMITH: "[Canadian] Greens add support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to official party policies" (National Post, Aug 7, 2016): click here!
Canadian Greens voted at their convention Sunday morning to add boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to their roster of party policies, despite their leader opposing the resolution.
Barak RAVID: "World Sees Israel as a Pariah State, Senior Gov't Official Says" (Haaretz, Aug 7, 2016): click here!
Strategic Affairs Ministry aims to change the way Israel is perceived in the international arena, director general Sima Vaknin tells lawmakers; says victory will be achieved when Israel won't be equated with apartheid.
Jewish Voice for Peace formally endorses the Movement for Black Lives platform, which accuses Israel of practicing apartheid and committing genocide against the Palestinians.
The wide-ranging new platform of a coalition growing out of the Black Lives Matter movement includes harsh criticism of Israel, which it describes as an “apartheid state” that, it claims, perpetrates “genocide” against the Palestinian people, endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
Con COUGHLIN: "Israeli anger as Qatar backs campaign for global boycott" (The Telegraph, Aug 3, 2016): click here!
The Israeli government has reacted angrily to plans by the Gulf state of Qatar to support a group backed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn which wants to impose a global trade and cultural boycott on the Jewish state.
The Israeli government has temporarily lifted the travel ban imposed on Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian human rights defender who cofounded the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
In 2016, a bill targeting organizations that choose to divest from Israel, AB 2844, was proposed in the California state legislature. In 2015, New York Governor Mario Cuomo also issued an executive order creating a blacklist of organizations that support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This legal backlash, or “lawfare,” against the BDS movement is a direct response to the threat it represents to a powerful status quo.
Not long ago, a Jewish former neighbor of mine wrote to me to ask whether, as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, I support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. I replied that I’ve supported boycotts of companies that promote Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land for years now; otherwise, I explained, I would be complicit in a serious offense against humanity and international law.
"Irish public figures’ statement in support of Israel boycott" (The Palestinian Information Center, July 27): click here!
In an open letter published recently in the Irish Times and Irish Independent, thirteen of Ireland’s best-known musicians, writers, artists and sports stars have called on the Irish government to join them in supporting the growing worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Palestinian writer and activist Nada Elia responds to claims than economic boycott of Israel is bound to fail: BDS will never bankrupt Israel, and that is not necessary for it to achieve its goals: showing that the emperor has no clothes, and empowering justice-minded people everywhere to disengage from a hyper-militarized, violent rogue state, until it stops violating international law and the human rights of an oppressed people.
Haidar EID (Gaza): "BDS and Normalization: Palestinian Perspective" (The Palestine Chronicle, July 19, 2016): click here!
When we, Palestinian Civil Society, issued our 2005 BDS call, we were counting on people of conscience, rather than governments and complicit corporations... Our “International Community” consisted of civil society, churches, pension funds, municipalities, clubs, music bands, universities…etc.
Could there be, as the BDS proponents allege, an unfolding historical dialectic at work that would culminate in Israel's ultimate delegitimization in American society? Not so fast.
Israeli think-tank fellow Yossi Klein Halevi, writing recently in the Los Angeles Times would have American readers believe that the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement is “immoral” and threatens the peace of "the region's only intact society", while simultaneously boasting it can't touch Israel's health and global economic integration.
Sayed KASHUA: "Why Sayed Kashua Is Rejecting His Honorary Doctorate From Ben-Gurion University" (Haaretz, July 9, 2016): click here!
I don't support a boycott of Israeli academia. But Ben-Gurion University's decision not to honor Breaking the Silence, an NGO whose crime is to remind people of the occupation, leaves me no choice: To decline the honorary doctorate it has offered me.
"Eleven signs that BDS continues to grow despite Israel’s war of repression" (BDS Movement, July 7, 2016): click here!
Inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the US Civil Rights movement, BDS today is widely recognized as having a strategic impact in challenging international support for Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.
"Portugal launches campaign to end cooperation with Israeli policies" (Stop the Wall, June 27, 2016): click here!
Under the title “No to the Horizon2020 Law Train project - No to cooperation with Israel’s repressive system!”, on Thursday 24, a large coalition of Portuguese forces has held the official launch of a campaign aimed at ending the participation of the Portuguese ministry of Justice and the police in a joint, EU funded project with Israeli police forces.