Check out these recent flash mobs for BDS!
At Best Buy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVqFqXJh3oQ
At a Dutch supermarket: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-1TATFuNc4&feature=related
Check out these recent flash mobs for BDS!
At Best Buy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVqFqXJh3oQ
At a Dutch supermarket: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-1TATFuNc4&feature=related
Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 16 November 2010
The ground really is shifting. Here’s incredible video from Israel of Israeli boycott activists trying to submarine the Cape Town Opera House’s performance of “Porgy and Bess” in Tel Aviv last night. Boycott apartheid! they sing. Note the big turnout of activists, the inspiring songs. Ynet reports 40 activists. Wow. This is inside Israel. And it’s civil society: people of conscience around the world waking up to the humiliation and dispossession and statelessness of the Palestinians– and seeing that they can take action.
It was with great joy that I learned of the recent 16-4 vote at UC Berkeley in support of divesting the university’s money from companies that enable and profit from the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights. Principled stands like this, supported by a fast growing number of U.S. civil society organizations and people of conscience, including prominent Jewish groups, are essential for a better world in the making, and it is always an inspiration when young people lead the way and speak truth to power.
Despite what detractors may allege, these students are doing the right thing. They are doing the moral thing. They are doing that which is incumbent on them as humans who believe that all people have dignity and rights, and that all those being denied their dignity and rights deserve the solidarity of their fellow human beings.
I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.
In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime. Students played a leading role in that struggle, and I write these words of encouragement for student divestment efforts cognizant that it was students who played a pioneering role in advocating equality in South Africa and promoting corporate ethical and social responsibility to end complicity in Apartheid. I visited the Berkeley campus in the 1980′s and was touched to find students sitting out in the baking sunshine to demonstrate for the University’s divestment in companies supporting the South African regime.
The same issue of equality is what motivates the divestment movement of today, which tries to end Israel’s 43 year long occupation and the unequal treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them. The abuses they face are real, and no person should be offended by principled, morally consistent, non-violent acts to oppose them. It is no more wrong to call out Israel in particular for its abuses than it was to call out the Apartheid regime in particular for its abuses.
To those who wrongly allege unfairness or harm done to them by this call for divestment, I suggest, with humility, that the harm suffered from being confronted with opinions that challenge one’s own pales in comparison to the harm done by living a life under occupation and daily denial of basic rights and dignity. It is not with rancor that we criticize the Israeli government, but with hope, a hope that a better future can be made for both Israelis and Palestinians, a future in which both the violence of the occupier and the resulting violent resistance of the occupied come to an end, and where one people need not rule over another, engendering suffering, humiliation, and retaliation. True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute. These students are helping to pave that path to a just peace and I heartily endorse their divestment vote, encourage them to stand firm on the side of what is right, and urge others to follow the lead of the youth.
God bless you richly,
Desmond Tutu. Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.
Huffington Post 4/13/2010
**********CALL TO ACTION**********
***************PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY***************
Blessings Community! We hope our words find you in good health and spirits! As you may all know Berkeley’s Students for Justice in Palestine have been fighting to uphold Senate Bill 118A, calling for divestment from two companies that support the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.
What: Silent Direct Action!
When: Wednesday April 14, 2010 at 11:30am-2:30pm
Where: Sproul Plaza University California Berkeley
How:
Please Respect the following wishes from SJP Berkeley:
Sincerely in Struggle,
CAL SJP
*As special thanks to the Middle East Children Alliance, Jewish Voices for Peace and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center
*****************
Lena Meari: belongs to a Palestinian refugee family from Al-Birweh village which was destroyed in 1948. Born and raised in Haifa and later worked and lived in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Graduated and worked in the Institute of Women Studies at Birzeit University. Currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of California- Davis. Conducted her research on the interrogation encounter between Palestinian political activists and the shabak.
Ziad Abbas: a Palestinian refugee from Dheisheh Refugee camp in the West Bank. He is the cofounder of the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh where he served as Co-Director from 1994 to 2008. Ziad is also a journalist who has worked with Palestinian and international media and has participated in the production of several documentary films. He recently completed his Master of Arts in Social Justice in Intercultural Relations from the School for International Training Graduate Institute. Ziad is the Associate Director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance in Berkeley.
Following the event we will be attending the UC Berkeley Senate meeting where they will vote on the Divestment Resolution. We encourage all to attend and support the efforts the Students for Justice in Palestine.
Sponsored By:
Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Al-Juzoor, Al-Awda SF, Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid, Free Palestine Alliance, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Muslim Student Association – Berkeley, Palestine Youth Network (PYN), Students for Justice in Palestine – Berkeley, Sunbula: Arab Feminists for Change, US Palestine Community Network (USPCN), Voices of Middle East and North Africa-KPFA
For more info: www.freepalestinianprisoners.com
This Wednesday night you have a chance to stand up for universal human rights standards and to object to Cal’s profiting from war crimes and occupation. Following the veto by the ASUC President’s of a 16-4 vote in the student senate in support of the “UC Divestment from War Crimes” bill, there will be a vote to override the veto this Wednesday night starting at 7:00 PM on the seventh floor of Eshleman Hall. The bill calls for the removal of ASUC and UC investments in companies that supply the Israeli government with weaponry used to commit violations of international law, human rights law, and, in the judgment of the UN, war crimes. It also establishes an ASUC committee to look into a comprehensive divestment policy targeting companies that enable war crimes throughout the world. Come speak and show your support.
The previous debate lasted till 3AM, so be prepared.
Information on the original debate and full text of the bill:
http://www.kabobfest.com/2010/03/uc-berkeley-student-senate-passes-divestment-resolution.html
Letter of Support by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april112010/desmond-tutu-dt.php
Statement of support from internationally best-selling author, journalist, and cultural critic Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and the Shock Doctrine:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein/open-letter-to-berkeley-s_b_520328.html
Where: 7th floor of Eshleman Hall, (near Bancroft and Telegraph), UC Berkeley
In Commemoration of Palestinian Political Prisoners Day
& In Support of the UC Berkeley Divestment from Israel Resolution Join us:
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
6:30 PM
UC Berkeley Boalt Hall 105
Palestinian Political Prisoners in the Context of Colonial Occupation
& Resistance, Displacement and the Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Published on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
On March 18, continuing a long tradition of pioneering human rights campaigns, the Senate of the Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley (ASUC) passed “A Bill In Support of UC DIVESTMENT FROM WAR CRIMES.” The historic bill resolves to divest ASUC’s assets from two American companies, General Electric and United Technologies, that are “materially and militarily supporting the Israeli government’s occupation of the Palestinian territories”-and to advocate that the UC, with about $135 million invested in companies that profit from Israel’s illegal actions in the Occupied Territories, follow suit.
Although the bill passed by a vote of 16-4 after a packed and intense debate, the President of the Senate vetoed the bill six days later. The Senate is expected to reconsider the bill soon; groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace are asking supporters of the bill to send letters to the Senators, who can overturn the veto with only 14 votes.
Here is the letter I just sent:
Dear members of the ASUC Senate,
I am writing to urge you to reaffirm Senate Bill 118A, despite the recent presidential veto.
It comes as no surprise that you are under intense pressure to reverse your historic and democratic decision to divest from two companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. When a school with a deserved reputation for academic excellence and moral leadership takes such a bold position, it threatens to inspire others to take their own stands.
Indeed, Berkeley–the campus and the wider community–has provided this kind of leadership on many key issues in the past: not only Apartheid in South Africa but also sweatshops in Indonesia, dictatorship in Burma, political killings in Nigeria, and the list goes on. Time and again, when the call for international solidarity has come from people denied a political voice, Berkeley has been among the first to answer. And in virtually every case, what began as a small action in a progressive community quickly spread across the country and around the world.
Your recent divestment bill opposing Israeli war crimes stands to have this same kind of global impact, helping to build a grassroots, non-violent movement to end Israel’s violations of international law. And this is precisely what your opponents–by spreading deliberate lies about your actions–are desperately trying to prevent. They are even going so far as to claim that, in the future, there should be no divestment campaigns that target a specific country, a move that would rob activists of one of the most effective tools in the non-violent arsenal. Please don’t give into this pressure; too much is on the line.
As the world has just witnessed with the Netanyahu government’s refusal to stop its illegal settlement expansion, political pressure is simply not enough to wrench Israel off its current disastrous path. And when our governments fail to apply sanctions for defiant illegality, other forms of pressure must come into play, including targeting those corporations that are profiting directly from human rights abuses.
Whenever we take a political action, we open ourselves up to accusations of hypocrisy and double standards, since the truth is that we can never do enough in the face of pervasive global injustice. Yet to argue that taking a clear stand against Israeli war crimes is somehow to “discriminate unfairly” against Israelis and Jews (as the veto seems to claim) is to grossly pervert the language of human rights. Far from “singling out Israel,” with Senate Bill 118A, you are acting within Berkeley’s commendable and inspiring tradition.
I understand that there is some debate about whether or not your divestment bill was adopted “in haste.” Not having been there, I cannot comment on your process, though I am deeply impressed by the careful research that went into the decision. I also know that in 2005 an extraordinarily broad range of Palestinian civil society groups called on activists around the world to adopt precisely these kinds of peaceful pressure tactics. In the years since that call, we have all watched as Israeli abuses have escalated dramatically: the attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, a massive expansion of illegal settlements and walls, an ongoing siege on Gaza that violates all prohibitions on collective punishment, and, worst of all, the 2008/9 attack on Gaza that left approximately 1,400 dead.
I would humbly suggest that when it comes to acting to end Israeli war crimes, the international response has not suffered from too much haste but from far too little. This is a moment of great urgency, and the world is watching.
Be brave.
Yours sincerely,
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism , now out in paperback. Her earlier books include the international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (which has just been re-published in a special10th Anniversary Edition ); and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002). To read all her latest writing visitwww.naomiklein.org
Last night, UC Berkeley ASUC President Will Smelko vetoed ‘A Bill in Support of UC Divestment From War Crimes,’ a bill which called on the ASUC and the UC to divest funds from companies enabling war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, among other places, and which was passed by the student senate in a 16 to 4 vote one week ago today. Many of you may be angry at the decision and its unprincipled rationale, as are we. Such a decision, however, does not change the fact that 16 out of 20 student representatives voted on the side of divestment, doing so after careful consideration of the facts and a 6 hour student debate with overflow capacity – a debate the ASUC President chose to miss while justifying his veto by claiming a lack of sufficient debate on the topic. If he had chosen to attend, he would have witnessed the broad-based coalition working to advance human rights in Israel/Palestine and social responsibility within our school’s own investment portfolio. Now is a time to recognize that movement, a movement not just at UC Berkeley but at schools and institutions around the country and the world, and to redouble our efforts to end the Israeli occupation and reassert the need for an ethical investment policy.
At UC Berkeley’s campus, there will be a senate vote to override the President’s veto, to be held in the following weeks. We expect to win this vote, as only 14 votes are needed to override a veto and already 16 senators have stood against war crimes, Israel’s or otherwise. You can help prevent them from bowing to the pressure of the Israel lobby, which has been fierce and deceitful in its characterization of this bill, by
1) coming to the meeting to override Smelko’s veto (the date will be either April 7 or a following Wednesday – for updates see http://calsjp.org)
2) bringing your supportive friends and student group members
3) writing personal or organizational letters to senators (to senate@asuc.org, including ucbdivest@gmail.com in the bcc) when asked to do so in the weeks to come about why you support divestment as a tactic in general and in the case of Israel specifically (at this point, angry letters to the president do little and are discouraged).
Beyond this there is much to do in the broader public. This movement is not just about a victory for divestment at UC Berkeley. Rather it is more fundamentally about spreading divestment and the notion that all nations and corporations, including sacred cows like Israel, must be held to account for their gross violations of human rights, and that all people, Palestinians included, are deserving of basic human rights such as rights to life, property, freedom of movement, and a right to an education. Spread divestment to your church, your synagogue, your mosque, to other schools, to other institutions. And speak up in the press. Write a letter to the editor or an op-ed. Make the media know about the success at Berkeley and the successes to come. We’ll be in touch with next steps in the near future. Thank you so much for your solidarity.
Cal Students for Justice in Palestine