bdsmovement.net, April 8, 2011

On March 29^th, 2011 students, faculty, staff, alumni and community allies made a significant stride toward divestment at Carleton University in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) first launched our campus-based pension fund divestment campaign in January 2010. The student-led campaign was motivated by the 2005 call from Palestinian civil society “to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel… until it fully complies with the precepts of international law.”

After over a year of failed attempts to meet with Carleton’s Pension Fund Committee, SAIA submitted a formal request to present our motion to the Board of Governors (BOG) – the highest decision-making body of the university – to divest from four companies complicit in violations of international law in Palestine: BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Motorola and Tesco Supermarkets. These companies manufacture weapons and weapons components used by the Israeli military against Palestinians, and also facilitate the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank (for background see: http://carleton.saia.ca/pension-divestment-campaign.html). SAIA’s motion also called upon Carleton to implement a binding socially responsible investment policy, in full consultation with the Carleton community.

In an attempt to silence the students who put forward the motion, the BOG rejected SAIA’s request to make a presentation at their meeting. They informed students that the ostensibly public meeting would be closed to all observers, save for a small BOG-sanctioned list of five representatives “from both sides,” while the floor of the building where the meeting was to be held would be locked down and security stationed at all entrances.

However, the university administration’s attempts to muzzle the long list of divestment campaign endorsers – including over 2,000 letter and petition signatories, both the undergraduate and graduate students associations, and more than 25 student clubs, academic workers’ unions and university service centres – deeply backfired. During one of the busiest academic weeks of the year, more than 400 divestment supporters rallied at every entrance of the building to challenge the illegitimate decision-making process, and to voice a united message: “Board of Governors, we won’t rest, we won’t rest til you divest!” In an inspiring show of solidarity, students and their allies engaged in a diversity of creative protest tactics, ranging from sit-ins to salsa and dabke dance-offs for divestment, successfully blocking several BOG members from entering the meeting. Eventually, the highly mobilized and energetic crowd became too much for the BOG to ignore, and they announced to the crowd that they had cancelled the meeting. The BOG members who had literally walked over students to go upstairs to the meeting then exited the building through a ‘walk of shame’ created by the crowd of cheerful protestors.

Divestment supporters proceeded to hold an ad-hoc, student-run General Assembly in the lobby of the building, voting to: divest from Israeli military occupation; open a Sexual Assault Centre on campus; abolish tuition fees; and create a new, democratically elected and representative membership for the BOG. While the General Assembly was only a symbolic exercise and real institutional divestment still lies ahead at Carleton, we are confident that the university administration will eventually bow to student pressure, as we plan to increase the campaign’s momentum next year.

The unprecedented support and dedication from our allies in the lead up to the rally not only illustrated the community’s unanimous rejection of the practice of investing students’ tuition money in funding war and illegal occupation, but also showed that the SAIA-led divestment campaign is now a campus-wide movement. Our allies have made the campaign theirs; for example, Inés Barreda-Castañón, member of the Humanitarian Organization of Latin American Students (HOLAS), stated at the rally: “Our tuition money is going to fund war, to fund money and to fund murder. It’s gone past SAIA and Palestine. HOLAS will always be here… if it’s a humanitarian issue, we’ll be there.”

Ending Carleton’s unethical investments is also part of a broader struggle against the university’s repeated attempts to silence the student body and implement undemocratic decision-making processes. It’s no coincidence that the same meeting the public was barred from was also the meeting where the BOG intended to announce an increase in student tuition fees. As media spokesperson Reem Buhaisi said of the rally: “This is about reclaiming our space, this is about tuition fees, this is about being respected and heard by people who say they advocate the things we ask for.”

SAIA’s actions to expose Carleton’s appalling lack of ethical principles and accountability have publicly shamed the university administration, who would like nothing better than for the issue of divestment to go away. However, as the crowd dispersed from the rally, SAIA and our allies were quite clear that the movement to divest from companies violating international law in occupied Palestine will only grow until our demands are met: “We will be back!”

Eleanor K, Mondoweiss, March 29 2011

In early March, I attended an Independent Jewish Voices event in London with Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy. Those who follow Levy’s articles in Haaretz – a collection of which have been published in his 2010 book, The Punishment of Gaza – will be familiar with the central theme of his presentation: Israeli society’s indifference to a brutal, military occupation on their doorstep and the ongoing crimes – under international law – against the Palestinian people. After his talk, and a brief intervention by director of JNews, Miri Weingarten, the floor was opened to questions: two out of five questions were about economic sanctions and the academic and cultural boycott. Levy affirmed that boycotts are legitimate, but questioned whether an Israeli boycott can be effective, concluding that it will push Israelis further to the right, and feed into their paranoia that ‘the world is against us’. He said that academic institutions should be the last target of a boycott and it ‘should be against the occupation, not all of Israel’.

I approached Tali Shapiro, Israeli activist and writer, for her responses to what seems to have become the last line of defense against the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) amongst progressive circles, in Israel and internationally. I was curious as to why the international community is still being asked to consider the feelings/fears of Israelis who rarely challenge their own government’s apartheid policies, and why we are still discussing ‘if’ the boycott ‘will’ be effective in Year seven of the campaign.

Tali Shapiro: Part of being an effective activist on any issue is to know it inside-out. I happen to be the head editor of the Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within newsletter; this gives me good insight into the trends in the mainstream media, concerning BDS. I’ve been involved since the Gaza massacre of ‘Operation Cast Lead’. This unabashed blood bath was a turning point in Israel’s international image, and the emergence of BDS as the main tactic to fight the occupation and apartheid is a clear result of Gaza.

While international papers were beginning to talk about what was previously the sole domain of alternative media, it took the Israeli media six more months to catch up. In another six months (one year after Cast Lead), it would be common to see several articles a day concerning BDS in the online Israeli MSM; within two years of Cast Lead there’s not an article, a news spot, or a radio show that doesn’t include ‘Israel’s declining image’/ ‘delegitimization’. In fact, by now it’s not just in the news, it is part of the language and culture. The latest BDS victory began a couple of months ago, when Israeli journalists preyed upon the fears of the typical, colonial citizen with titles like ‘BDS is working’. The interesting thing is that when you actually read the article [in Hebrew], you realize that all that’s happening is that a certain company has looked into the details. This latest phenomenon shows how hard it is to really measure effectiveness. I believe all movements for social change learn, sooner or later, how to respect the complexities of reality and not force themselves upon it. This ability to adjust is what makes us truly effective. Chela Delgato of INCITE! was quoted as saying, “when you’re making the road by walking it’s hard to run.” That’s the cautionary tale, which those who use force as an “easy solution” refuse to grasp.

Just to answer that cheap shot about Israelis becoming even more defensive, this is a natural progression which happens with every abuser who is called out on his abusive behaviour: when you tell the man who beats his partner that you see what he’s doing and it’s wrong, naturally, the first thing he does is get defensive. He may lie, he may make excuses, he may blame the victim, but does that mean he shouldn’t be confronted?

EK: Why does the academic – and cultural – boycott continue to be the most controversial amongst those commentators that yet understand how complicit state institutions are in the occupation?

TS: To me, statements like Levy’s are a clear indicator that the man doesn’t know the issue to its full extent (and I say this with all due respect to his dedication, sharp analysis, and genuine concern for the well-being of human beings). It’s hard to grasp the vastness of the workings of the occupation. This is what separates the Gush Shalom ‘progressives’/ ‘enlightened colonialists’ from the Who Profits radicals. When the Who Profits project began, I don’t think they anticipated the depth of economic involvement in the occupation. What they realized is that it is all about the money – war profiteering, in the most classic sense of the term. What they discovered was that 80% of Israel’s economy is entangled in occupation. The meaning of this big word ‘occupation’ is theft by force, and amassing of profit on those stolen gains by exploitation.

One has to remember that Israelis are no different from other people. The banality of evil is, well, banal. How do you get the ‘average Joe’ to do the above? How do you get them not to object to all this? You have to create justifications for it. These will only be effective if they are manifested in each and every member in the society. In other words, you have to create a culture around it. So in Israel you write songs about ‘mighty battles won’, you create a whole culture that never mentions its victims, and this serves as the canon in your educational institutions. Once we can see the clear connection, of how culture has been enlisted to enable economic oppression by military means, really there’s no other choice, but to widen the boycott.

As I’ve illustrated in my response to the first question, BDS’s main effect will not be via the actual severing of ties. The effect will be felt much sooner with the fear of severing of ties. This pressure was instrumental in fighting the South African apartheid regime and I think denying it doesn’t point to an understanding of the situation – not then and not now. This doesn’t mean BDS is the only action taken. People have been taking to the streets in a very organized and consistent manner for years: we write, we speak abroad. South Africans did all this as well. Just as evil doesn’t substantially change through geography and time, neither do the ways to fight it effectively.

EK: Weingarten responded to the questions on BDS by saying that in the light of the new anti-boycott bill, which is likely to be passed by the Knesset, it seems strange that audiences would ask an Israeli speaker if she or he supports the boycott because a) they could be penalized for their opinion, and, she implied b) the boycott does not need a ‘kosher stamp’. Is it relevant what Israeli commentators, academics and cultural figures think about the boycott?

TS: Israeli speakers can simply say ‘my country has made it illegal for me to comment, fearing the consequences I choose not to speak’ – this would be making a very clear political statement about how bad things have become and does not belittle the importance of other activists who do choose to take the risk.

Israelis do have that unique role in the BDS movement, in that we are basically asking to boycott ourselves. Yes, one of our roles is to ‘kosher stamp’ the movement, but that’s hardly our only role, and we’re not the first in history to hold this status. Whites did it in South Africa, in the US, Christian Germans in Nazi Germany, veterans do it in the anti-war movement, as do cisgendered, heterosexual men in the feminist and queer movements. They can choose to be a tool, or they can choose to take an active, thinking part. Israelis in the BDS movement are much more than ‘kosher stamps’; we commit much of our time, resources and energy, and we do it knowing the consequences. We initiate and we join – that is what activists do. For solidarity groups, it’s not just about the ends, but about the means. There are two results by which we measure success: 1. Have we attained our goal? 2. Have we gained the trust of the oppressed, enough to be welcome in their safe spaces? Our voices can only become relevant if we manage to achieve the latter. Otherwise, we are still the oppressor, speaking from a place of privilege. It’s only when we’re radical enough to step out of the binary paradigm that we can truly become part of the movement; otherwise all we do is perpetuate oppression.

Some elements within the progressive Israeli left would really like to make it about ‘BDS vs. anything other than BDS’. This is also a historic repetition of earlier struggles between the centrists and the radicals, which isn’t specific to Israeli politics. As long as the Israeli government didn’t impede on the centrists (typically educated, Ashkenazi, upper-middle class), they were OK with Palestinians biting the dust. A fine example of this is Sheikh Jerrah: if the state hadn’t arrested Jews in truck-loads, the great majority of the people with the Meretz stickers wouldn’t have come out against the forced poverty, through property theft, of East Jerusalem Palestinians.

In Israel today the left is actually one of the smallest minority groups. You can be classically fascist, like the ‘National Left’ group and still be considered a ‘leftist fifth column’. This is epitomized by the Boycott Prohibition Law. Because it’s so all-encompassing, all of a sudden organizers of B’tselem feel a need to come out on television and say, ‘I’m a Zionist’. It’s very similar to the American progressives talking about how ‘true patriotism is in criticizing the state’. I don’t disagree with this statement, I disagree with the framing of social involvement as subject to my proving my loyalty to a state/government. In this kind of reality, we are very limited in our actions. Fortunately for us, this isn’t reality, just one way of perceiving it. Again, this is where radicals come in: our role is to challenge these concepts, while visualizing and working towards a more just/free society.”

EK: When do you think we will reach the point – or have we already arrived – when BDS will be at the centre of any discussion on Israel/Palestine?

TS: We have arrived!

Israelis explain why they joined the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement.

A Palestinian activist holds Israeli bread products being sold in a shop in the West Bank town of Ramallah [EPA]

It was Egypt that got me thinking about the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in a serious way. I was already conducting a quiet targeted boycott of settlement goods – silently reading labels at the grocery store to make sure I was not buying anything that came from over the Green Line.

I had been doing this for a long time. But, at some point, I realised that my private targeted boycott was a bit naïve. And I understood that it was not enough.

It is not just the settlements and the occupation, two sides of the same coin, which pose a serious obstacle to peace and infringe on the Palestinians’ human rights. It is everything that supports them – the government and its institutions. It is the bubble that many Israelis live in, the illusion of normality. It is the Israeli feeling that the status quo is sustainable.

And the settlements are a bit of a red herring, a convenient target for anger. Israelis must also face one of the major injustices that have resulted from their state – the nakba, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

While BDS addresses that, among other concerns – the three principles of the movement are respect for the Palestinians’ right of return, as outlined in UN resolution 194, an end to the occupation and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel – I remained reluctant to get involved.

I have to admit that I was frightened by the movement. I did not think it would help. I was sure that BDS would only encourage Israel to dig its heels in deeper. It will only make things worse for everyone, I reasoned.

Egypt was the tipping point for me. I was exhilarated by the images of people taking to the streets to demand change. And while the Palestine Papers prove that the government seems intent on maintaining the status quo, I know plenty of Israelis who are fed up with it.

There are mothers who do not want to send their children to the army; soldiers who resent guarding settlers. I recently spoke with a 44-year-old man – a normal guy, a father of two – who told me he wants to burn something he is so frustrated with the government and so worried about the future.

And Egypt is on many Israeli lips right now. So, what can be done to help bring it to Israeli feet? What can be done to encourage Israelis to fight for change, to fight for peace, to liberate themselves from a conflict that undermines their self-determination, their freedom?

BDS has stacked up a number of successes, which is one reason the Israeli Knesset is trying to pass a bill, known as the Boycott Law, that would effectively criminalise Israelis who join the movement, subjecting them to huge fines.

And some of those involved with BDS are already feeling an immense amount of pressure from the state.

‘Israel’s mask of democracy’

Leehee Rothschild, 26, is one of the scores of Israelis who have answered the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS. Recently her Tel Aviv apartment was raided. While the police did this under the pretense of searching for drugs, she was taken to the station for a brief interrogation that focused entirely on politics.

“The person who came to release me [from interrogation] was an intelligence officer who said that he is in charge of monitoring political activity in the Tel Aviv area,” Rothschild says. It was this officer who had requested the search warrant.

Since Operation Cast Lead, Israeli activists have reported increasing pressure from the police as well as General Security Services – known by their Hebrew acronym, Shabak.

The latter’s mandate includes, among other things, the goal of maintaining Israel as a Jewish state, making those who advocate for democracy a target.

House raids, such as the one Rothschild was subjected to, are not uncommon, nor are phone calls from the Shabak.

“Obviously [the pressure] is nothing compared to what Palestinians are going through,” Rothschild says. “But I think we’re touching a nerve.”

When asked about the proposed Boycott Law, Rothschild comments: “If the bill goes through, it will peel off, a little more, Israel’s mask of democracy.”

Tough love

As for her involvement in BDS, Rothschild remarks that she was not aware of the movement until it became a serious topic of discussion within Israel’s radical left, which she was already active in. And even after she heard about it, she did not jump onboard right away.

“I had reservations about [BDS],” Rothschild recalls. “I thought about it for a very long time and I debated it with myself and my friends.

“The main reservation I had was that the economic [aspects] would first harm the weak people in the society – the poor people – the people who have the least effect on what’s going on. But I think that the occupation is harming these people much more than the divestments can.”

Rothschild points out that state funds that are poured into “security and defence and oppressing the Palestinian people” could be better used in Israel to help those in the low socioeconomic strata.

“Another reservation I have had is that it might make the Israeli public more extremist, more fundamentalist,” Rothschild adds. “But I have to say that the road it has to go to be more extreme is very short right now.”

As an Israeli, Rothschild considers joining the BDS movement to be an act of caring. It is tough love for the country she was born and raised in.

“I hope that, for some people, it will be a slap in their face and they will wake up and see what’s going on,” Rothschild says, adding that the oppressor is oppressed, as well.

“The Israeli people are also oppressed by the occupation – they are living inside a society that is militant; that is violent; that is racist.”

‘Renouncing my privileges’

Ronnie Barkan, 34, explains that he took his first step towards the boycott 15 years ago, when he refused to complete his mandatory military service.

“There’s a lot of social pressure [in Israel],” Barkan says. “We’re raised to be soldiers from kindergarten. We’re taught that it’s our duty [to serve in the army] and you’re a parasite or traitor if you don’t want to serve.”

“What is even worse is that people are raised to be deeply racist,” he adds. “Everything is targeted at supporting [Jewish] privilege as the masters of the land. Supporting BDS means renouncing my privileges in this land and insisting on equality for all.”

Barkan likens his joining of the boycott movement to the “whites who denounced their apartheid privileges and joined the black struggle in South Africa”.

When I cringe at the “a-word,” apartheid, Barkan counters: “Israel clearly falls under the legal definition of the ‘crime of apartheid’ as defined in the Rome Statute.”

‘Never again to anybody’

Some oppose BDS because it includes recognition of the Palestinian right of return. These critics say that the demographic shift would impinge on Jewish self-determination. But Barkan argues that “the underlying foundation [of the movement] is universally recognised human rights and international law”.

He emphasises that BDS respects human rights for both Palestinians and Jews and includes proponents of a bi-national, democratic state as well as those who believe a two-state solution is the best answer to the conflict.

He also stresses that BDS is not anti-Semitic. Nor is it anti-Israeli.

“The boycott campaign is not targeting Israelis; it is targeting the criminal policies of Israel and the institutions that are complicit, not individuals,” he says.

“So let’s say an Israeli academic or musician goes abroad and he is turned away from a conference or a venue just because he’s Israeli … ” I begin to ask.

“No, no, this doesn’t fall under the [boycott guidelines],” Barkan says.

“Because that’s not a boycott. It’s racism,” I say.

“Exactly,” Barkan responds, adding that the Palestinian call for BDS is “a very responsible call” that “makes a differentiation between institutions and individuals and it is clearly a boycott of criminal institutions and their representatives”.

“Whenever there is a grey area,” he adds, “we take the gentler approach.”

Still, Barkan has faced criticism for his role in the boycott movement.

“My grandmother who went to Auschwitz tells me, ‘You can think whatever you want but don’t speak up about your politics because it’s not nice,’ I tell her, ‘You know who didn’t speak up 70 years ago.’”

Barkan adds: “I think that the main lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is ‘never again to anybody’ not ‘never again to the Jews.’”

Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Adam Horowitz, Mondoweiss, March 24 2011

Roger Waters, The Guardian, March 11 2011

I want the music industry to support Palestinians’ rights and oppose this inhumane barrier

A Palestinian woman walks past the wall on the Israeli side of the Abu Dis neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Photograph: Kobi Gideon/EPA

In 1980, a song I wrote, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being used by black South African children to advocate their right to equal education. That apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so to speak, on certain songs, including mine.

Twenty-five years later, in 2005, Palestinian children participating in a West Bank festival used the song to protest against Israel’s wall around the West Bank. They sang: “We don’t need no occupation! We don’t need no racist wall!” At the time, I hadn’t seen firsthand what they were singing about.

A year later I was contracted to perform in Tel Aviv. Palestinians from a movement advocating an academic and cultural boycott of Israel urged me to reconsider. I had already spoken out against the wall, but I was unsure whether a cultural boycott was the right way to go.

The Palestinian advocates of a boycott asked that I visit the occupied Palestinian territory to see the wall for myself before I made up my mind. I agreed.

Under the protection of the United Nations I visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day. The wall is an appalling edifice to behold. It is policed by young Israeli soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world, with disdainful aggression.

If it could be like that for me, a foreigner, a visitor, imagine what it must be like for the Palestinians, for the underclass, for the passbook carriers. I knew then that my conscience would not allow me to walk away from that wall, from the fate of the Palestinians I met: people whose lives are crushed daily by Israel’s occupation. In solidarity, and somewhat impotently, I wrote on their wall that day: “We don’t need no thought control.”

Realising at that point that my presence on a Tel Aviv stage would inadvertently legitimise the oppression I had seen, I cancelled my gig at the stadium in Tel Aviv and moved it to Neve Shalom, an agricultural community devoted to growing chick peas and also, admirably, to co-operation between different faiths, where Muslim, Christian and Jew work side by side in harmony.

Against all expectations it was to become the biggest music event in the short history of Israel. Some 60,000 fans battled traffic jams to attend. It was extraordinarily moving for us, and at the end of the gig I was moved to exhort the young people gathered there to demand of their government that they attempt to make peace with their neighbours and respect the civil rights of Palestinians living in Israel.

Sadly, in the intervening years the Israeli government has made no attempt to implement legislation that would grant rights to Israeli Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews, and the wall has grown, inexorably, illegally annexing more and more of the West Bank.

For the people of Gaza, locked in a virtual prison behind the wall of Israel’s illegal blockade, it means another set of injustices. It means that children go to sleep hungry, many chronically malnourished. It means that fathers and mothers, unable to work in a decimated economy, have no means to support their families. It means that university students with scholarships to study abroad must watch the opportunity of a lifetime slip away because they are not allowed to travel.

In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair-minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.

Where governments refuse to act people must, with whatever peaceful means are at their disposal. For me this means declaring an intention to stand in solidarity, not only with the people of Palestine but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their government’s policies, by joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel.

My conviction is born in the idea that all people deserve basic human rights. This is not an attack on the people of Israel. This is, however, a plea to my colleagues in the music industry, and also to artists in other disciplines, to join this cultural boycott.

Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa’s Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes – and it surely will come – when the wall of occupation falls and Palestinians live alongside Israelis in the peace, freedom, justice and dignity that they all deserve.

Haaretz, March 3 2011

Former Pink Floyd frontman urges fellow artists to join ban until Israel to ends the occupation, grants full equality to Israeli Arabs, and allows all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

Roger Waters, founding member, vocalist and bassist of the iconic rock band ‘Pink Floyd’ has voiced his support for a cultural boycott of Israel.

The British musician performed in Israel in 2005, ignoring calls from Palestinian rights advocates to cancel. While in Israel, Waters visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He was taken to the controversial separation fence in the West Bank, which he called “an appalling edifice to behold.”

Waters said he was extremely affected by his tour of the West Bank, scrawling “We don’t need no thought control”, lyrics from one of Pink Floyd’s most popular songs, on the wall, and cancelling his performance in Tel Aviv. Instead, the British star held the concert in Neve Shalom, a cooperative village founded by Jews and Arabs.

In the letter Waters wrote announcing his support of a cultural boycott of Israel, he said that in his “view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.”

He concluded the letter, saying that he is joining the campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three basic human rights he claims are demanded by international law.

He called on Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and dismantle the separation fence, recognize the rights of Arab citizens of Israel and granting them full equality and allow all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

Waters stressed in his letter that he is not anti-Semitic, and his solidarity with the Palestinians stems from his belief that all people deserve basic human rights.

Last week, American folk music legend Pete Seeger officially joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign – an international movement to pressure and sanction Israel through economic means.

Seeger, 92, one of the fathers of American folk music, is a veteran political and peace activist. In the 1950s he was interrogated by the McCarthyist House Unamerican Activities Committee and two years ago performed for U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration concert.

Artists, academics and celebrities throughout the world have supported and participated in the cultural boycotting of Israel.

Earlier this year, French pop star Vanessa Paradis cancelled her concert in Israel only a month before she was supposed to arrive in the country with her partner, Hollywood actor Johnny Depp, leaving fans and pundits speculating as to the reasons for the cancellation.

Although Paradis’ agent David Stern claimed that the cancellation was due to professional reasons, insiders who organized the concert claim that the singer acceded to calls to cancel the show made by Palestinian solidarity groups.

According to the same sources, it was apparently the planned visit of Paradis’ partner Johnny Depp that drew the attention of the groups that advocate BDS.

Dax D’Orazio, Mondoweiss, March 3 2011

SAIA Carleton is one step closer to becoming the first student group to successfully push for a Canadian university to divest from the Israeli occupation. Launched in early 2010, the divestment campaign focuses on four specific companies that Carleton invests in through its pension fund: BAE Systems, Tesco, Northrupp Grumman and Motorola. All of them are complicit in serious violations of international law and human rights by supporting and profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestine. The campaign’s latest big step was a motion passed at the undergraduate student union (CUSA) that calls on the university to divest from companies involved in ‘illegal occupation.’

In the months leading up to the event, dozens of SAIA members met with professors, classrooms, individual students, community members and student groups to garner support. Organizers asked students to send personal letters addressed to the CUSA councillors and executive. Over 2,000 were sent. This represents about one tenth of the undergradute population and is more support than the incoming CUSA president received (in votes of the last election). The campaign has also received an endorsement from the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA), over two dozen student groups on campus, dozens of faculty members and the union representing contract instructors and teaching assistants.

When the day arrived, it was apparent the campaign has some of the strongest support the campus has seen in recent memory. Hundreds of supporters flooded the small corridors adjacent to the small meeting room. In order to deal with the room occupancy and fire code regulations, a Carleton official set a quota for each ‘side’ to be allowed into the meeting; 20 each. Although the CUSA executives knew there would likely be a significant amount of support, a curiously small room was chosen to house the council meeting.

Despite the overwhelming support on campus, some elements within CUSA were keen to refrain from an overt endorsement. A few days before the council meeting, a new motion was drafted that echoed the toothless ethical investment policy that the Carleton administration passed earlier in an attempt to marginalize SAIA’s campaign. Ignoring the support for SAIA’s motion and an earlier introduction, the watered-down motion was heard first by the council. An attempt to reverse the order were unsuccessful. In a bid to compromise during an elaborate and passionate discussion, an amendment was proposed to include companies involved in ‘illegal occupation’ as one of the criterion for Carleton’s divestiture. This motion with the amendment passed. Consequently, the original motion drafted by SAIA was discarded due to redundancy because its content was too similar to the first. Attempts to have the motion discussed were ultimately unsuccessful.

The decision was met with chants of protest from the massive crowd outside. Councillors and executives leaving the meeting had to navigate a sea of people whose reaction depended upon their support for the motion or lack thereof. It was truly one of the most inspiring outpourings of democracy and solidarity the supporters had experienced on campus. While the campaign did not receive an explicit endorsement from CUSA, it has succeeded in rallying a critical mass of supporters and gaining the tacit support of the undergraduate student union.

Moving forward, SAIA is planning for another successful Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) from March 7 – 11, this year including a keynote from Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada. We plan to further increase our support and finally present our campaign to the Board of Governors in the coming weeks.

Adalah NY, February 28 2011

Folk music legend Pete Seeger has come out in support of the growing Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel as a program for justice for Palestinians and a route to peace in the Middle East.

Seeger, 92, participated in last November’s online virtual rally “With Earth and Each Other,” sponsored by the Arava Institute, an Israeli environmental organization, and by the Friends of the Arava Institute. The Arava Institute counts among its close partners and major funders the Jewish National Fund, responsible since 1901 for securing land in Palestine for the use of Jews only while dispossessing Palestinians. Although groups in the worldwide BDS movement had requested he quit the event, Seeger felt that he could make a strong statement for peace and justice during the event.

During a January meeting at his Beacon, NY home with representatives from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Adalah-NY, Pete Seeger explained, “I appeared on that virtual rally because for many years I’ve felt that people should talk with people they disagree with. But it ended up looking like I supported the Jewish National Fund. I misunderstood the leaders of the Arava Institute because I didn’t realize to what degree the Jewish National Fund was supporting Arava. Now that I know more, I support the BDS movement as much as I can.”

Jeff Halper, the Coordinator of ICAHD, added, “Pete did extensive research on this. He read historical and current material and spoke to neighbors, friends, and three rabbis before making his decision to support the boycott movement against Israel.” Seeger has for some time given some of the royalties from his famous Bible-based song from the 1960s, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” to ICAHD for their work in rebuilding demolished homes and exposing Israel’s practice of pushing Palestinians in Israel off their land in favor of development of Jewish villages and cities.

The November virtual rally “With Earth and Each Other” was billed as an apolitical effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to work for the environment. Dave Lippman from Adalah-NY noted, “Arava’s online event obfuscated basic facts about Israel’s occupation and systematic seizure of land and water from Palestinians. Arava’s partner and funder, the JNF, is notorious for planting forests to hide Palestinian villages demolished by Israel in order to seize their land. Arava was revealed as a sterling practitioner of Israeli government efforts to ‘Rebrand Israel’ through greenwashing and the arts.”

Currently, the JNF is supporting an Israeli government effort to demolish the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib in order to plant trees from the JNF that were paid for by the international evangelical group GOD-TV. The Friends of the Arava Institute’s new board chair has recently published an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post that only cautiously questions some activities of the JNF, an organization whose very raison-d’etre is to take over land for Jews at the expense of the Palestinian Arab population.

Pete Seeger’s long-time colleague Theodore Bikel, an Israeli-American known for his life-long involvement with Israeli culture, recently supported the Israeli artists who have refused to perform in a new concert hall in Ariel, a large illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Seeger joins a growing roster of international performers who have declined to whitewash, greenwash, or in any way enable Israel’s colonial project, including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters, Devendra Banhart, and the Pixies.