British Committee for the Universities of Palestine
19 May, 2010
Dear Elton John:
It's funny how people can be close friends, and yet react so differently to
things. You're apparently close friends with Elvis Costello – so close you
hosted his wedding to Diana Krall at your `castle' in Windsor. After just three
weeks of people appealing to Elvis Costello not to perform in Israel, he's
decided not to go. (His thoughtful statement is at
http://www.elviscostello.com/news/it-is-after-cosiderable- contemplation/44.)
But months down the line from our first letter to you, with hundreds, if not
thousands, of your fans appealing to you to cancel your gig in Tel Aviv
(including Canadian film-maker John Greyson at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HSClZbhB5g), you remain silent. Of course you
have every right to do so. But we're wondering what this silence means.
Does it mean you think the dirty business of Israeli colonialism and ethnic
cleansing has nothing to do with you? That you can play for the officers and
conscripts and secret service people who will make up much of your audience in
Tel Aviv without giving them the stamp of your approval? You will offer them a
few hours' respite from administering beatings and torture and land-theft and
house- demolition and sieges and destroying wells and denying sick people access
to hospital – and the simple fact of your presence will tell them that all this
cruel business, which they conduct daily, is okay with you.
Or does your silence mean you think it's more important to stand in solidarity
with gays in Israel than with the Palestinians? But what about Palestinian gays?
Israel has a record of sending those who've sought refuge in Israel back to the
Occupied Territories. So much for Israel being `gay-friendly'. Palestinian gay
rights activist Haneen Maikey (an Israeli citizen) says, `It's really pathetic
that the Israeli state has nothing besides gay rights to promote its liberal
image. Ridiculous, and in a sense hilarious, because there are no gay rights in
Israel'. To the Israeli state she says, `Stop speaking in my name. If you want
to do me a favour, stop bombing my friends, end your occupation, and leave me to
rebuild my community'.
Sir Elton! – maybe you've decided, in your generous way, that you'll donate the
proceeds of your Tel Aviv concert to the Global Fund, or another AIDS charity
(and of course good deeds cannot be spoken about, so you don't announce it). But
our appeal to you isn't about money. It's about the meaning of actions. Elvis
Costello understood exactly that `simply having your name added to a concert
schedule may be interpreted as a political act...and it may be assumed that one
has no mind for the suffering of the innocent'.
To his great credit, he decided that `a silence in music is sometimes better
than adding to the static'. We are asking to you to abandon the silence of your
apparent indifference to our appeal, and that of thousands of your fans, and
join Elvis Costello in his musical silence. Please don't play in Israel.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Haim Bresheeth
Mike Cushman
Professor Steven Rose
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
Please reply to: BRICUP, BM BRICUP, London WC1N3XX
email: bricup@bricup.org.uk www.bricup.org.uk
19 May, 2010
Showing posts with label Boycott Divest Sanction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boycott Divest Sanction. Show all posts
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Artists thank Gil Scott-Heron for heeding boycott call
Press release, Adalah-NY, 7 May 2010
The following press release was issued by Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel on 5 May 2010:
More than 50 organizations and artists from eight countries have written to legendary political singer and poet Gil Scott-Heron to thank him for his decision to drop Israel from his current tour. The letter, facilitated by Adalah-NY, highlighted the parallels between the South African apartheid that Scott-Heron crusaded against decades ago and the Israeli system that currently subjugates Palestinians.
Palestinian civil society has called for grassroots pressure on Israel to end its oppressive behavior through a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), including cultural events. "To salvage its deteriorating image abroad, Israel has launched a 'rebranding' campaign which uses arts and culture to whitewash its violations of international law and Palestinian human rights," said Randa Wahbe of Adalah-NY. Gil Scott-Heron is the latest in a list of notable artists, including Sting, Bono, Snoop Dogg and Carlos Santana, who have recently declined to play Israel. Distinguished artists, writers and peace activists -- among them John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Adrienne Rich, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Alice Walker -- have declared support for the BDS movement.
The signatories told Scott-Heron: "As you recognized in your iconic anti-Apartheid anthem "Johannesburg," when "brothers over there are defyin' the man ... they need to know we're on their side." They added "[I]n refusing to do business as usual with Israel, you join ranks with the growing number of international artists, intellectuals and cultural workers who have rejected Israel's cynical use of the arts to whitewash its Apartheid and colonial policies."
Haidar Eid, of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) praised the singer's action: "Gil Scott-Heron's decision to cancel his concert in Tel Aviv is warmly welcomed by all of us here in Gaza and Palestinian civil society at large. This does not come as a surprise to us due to his luminous heritage in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Once again, we wholeheartedly thank him for heeding our call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, until it complies with its obligations under international law and fully respects Palestinian rights."
Since the 2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed, there has been rapid growth in the BDS movement worldwide. Wahbe also noted that "The outpouring of anguish from Scott-Heron's fans on his website when he was scheduled to perform in Israel, and the more than 50 artists and organizations that have joined together to communicate the importance of Scott-Heron's decision, represent a new phase in this growing movement."
The concert, first announced in Haaretz on 15 April, was to be held 25 May. After a torrent of postings on the Internet expressing shock and dismay, the singer announced his cancellation during his 24 April London concert, at which activists protested. Within days, the Tel Aviv show was removed from his website and tickets were no longer available.
In the wake of the cancellation, Facebook groups have sprung up calling on Elvis Costello, Joan Armatrading and Bob Dylan to cancel their planned concerts in Israel. On 5 May, PACBI issued its own call to Armatrading.
The BDS campaign has the backing hundreds of Palestinian civil society groups and is coordinated through the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Campaign National Committee (bdsmovement.net) and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (pacbi.org).
To view the thank you letter and list of signatories, click here.
The following press release was issued by Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel on 5 May 2010:
More than 50 organizations and artists from eight countries have written to legendary political singer and poet Gil Scott-Heron to thank him for his decision to drop Israel from his current tour. The letter, facilitated by Adalah-NY, highlighted the parallels between the South African apartheid that Scott-Heron crusaded against decades ago and the Israeli system that currently subjugates Palestinians.
Palestinian civil society has called for grassroots pressure on Israel to end its oppressive behavior through a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), including cultural events. "To salvage its deteriorating image abroad, Israel has launched a 'rebranding' campaign which uses arts and culture to whitewash its violations of international law and Palestinian human rights," said Randa Wahbe of Adalah-NY. Gil Scott-Heron is the latest in a list of notable artists, including Sting, Bono, Snoop Dogg and Carlos Santana, who have recently declined to play Israel. Distinguished artists, writers and peace activists -- among them John Berger, Arundhati Roy, Adrienne Rich, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Alice Walker -- have declared support for the BDS movement.
The signatories told Scott-Heron: "As you recognized in your iconic anti-Apartheid anthem "Johannesburg," when "brothers over there are defyin' the man ... they need to know we're on their side." They added "[I]n refusing to do business as usual with Israel, you join ranks with the growing number of international artists, intellectuals and cultural workers who have rejected Israel's cynical use of the arts to whitewash its Apartheid and colonial policies."
Haidar Eid, of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) praised the singer's action: "Gil Scott-Heron's decision to cancel his concert in Tel Aviv is warmly welcomed by all of us here in Gaza and Palestinian civil society at large. This does not come as a surprise to us due to his luminous heritage in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Once again, we wholeheartedly thank him for heeding our call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, until it complies with its obligations under international law and fully respects Palestinian rights."
Since the 2009 Israeli invasion of Gaza, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed, there has been rapid growth in the BDS movement worldwide. Wahbe also noted that "The outpouring of anguish from Scott-Heron's fans on his website when he was scheduled to perform in Israel, and the more than 50 artists and organizations that have joined together to communicate the importance of Scott-Heron's decision, represent a new phase in this growing movement."
The concert, first announced in Haaretz on 15 April, was to be held 25 May. After a torrent of postings on the Internet expressing shock and dismay, the singer announced his cancellation during his 24 April London concert, at which activists protested. Within days, the Tel Aviv show was removed from his website and tickets were no longer available.
In the wake of the cancellation, Facebook groups have sprung up calling on Elvis Costello, Joan Armatrading and Bob Dylan to cancel their planned concerts in Israel. On 5 May, PACBI issued its own call to Armatrading.
The BDS campaign has the backing hundreds of Palestinian civil society groups and is coordinated through the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Campaign National Committee (bdsmovement.net) and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (pacbi.org).
To view the thank you letter and list of signatories, click here.
SF and Boston: Jewish Charity Blacklists and the Israel Question
Posted on Muzzlewatch on May 7 2010 by Cecilie Surasky under BDS , Censorship, Educational Institutions , NGO Monitor.
What do Jewish Voice for Peace, Madre, Amnesty International, New Israel Fund, American Friends Service Committee, Media Matters and Institute for Policy Studies all have in common?
There has been a growing backlash since the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation first announced the most restrictive funding guidelines in the country. The guidelines essentially ban recipients from giving voice to anyone who doesn’t toe the line (which the Federation ultimately determines) on Israel. No wonder the Bay Area Jewish intellectual class is in an uproar. As UC Hebrew and Comparative Literature professor Chana Kronfeld says, “All the major Israeli writers would probably be banned.”
The Open Letter to Jewish Communities in the Forward signed by Bay Area Jewish academics, rabbis and other leaders, as well as coverage in Tablet, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and theNew York Times reveals the extent to which concern about ideological policing is now a concern not just for the left but for the Jewish center.
However, what is not generally known is that the Fed’s Jewish Community Endowment Fund has also quietly pulled a number of nonprofit organizations from their acceptable charities listin an apparent attempt to ensure ideological purity.
What are those groups? Using a bit of technical sleuthing (and a tip-off from a donor), we’ve been able to pinpoint thus far 6 nonprofits that have been pulled from the list: Jewish Voice for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, the Institute for Policy Studies, Madre, Global Exchange, and the National Lawyers Guild. There is no reason to think there aren’t more - we will publicize those names as they become available. This means supporters of these groups who keep funds in the Endowment Fund can no longer designate them as recipients.
Even more interesting, one can still designate money to the Hebron Fund, FLAME, and extremist settler militia funder, the Central Fund of Israel.
The implications of this new battle that mirrors the war on human rights groups in Israelhaven’t been lost on Boston activists who, within weeks of the announcement of the SF guidelines, launched their own Boston Combined Jewish Philanthropies witch hunt. (See embedded PDF file/link below-all articles from Boston’s Jewish paper, the Jewish Advocate.) Even The David Project founder Charles Jacobs weighs in on these so-called enemies of Israel: The American Friends Service Committee • Democracy Now! • The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) • The Tides Foundation • Media Matters • The New Israel Fund • Brit Tzedek v’Shalom • Physicians for Social Responsibility • The Workmen’s Circle • Amnesty International
Meanwhile NGO Monitor’s Prof. Gerald Steinberg, a man who never met a human rights organization he didn’t hate, is speaking this week at the Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies, at the University of Toronto on “Delegitimizing Israel: Can Jewish Philanthropy Change the Tide?”
What do Jewish Voice for Peace, Madre, Amnesty International, New Israel Fund, American Friends Service Committee, Media Matters and Institute for Policy Studies all have in common?
There has been a growing backlash since the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation first announced the most restrictive funding guidelines in the country. The guidelines essentially ban recipients from giving voice to anyone who doesn’t toe the line (which the Federation ultimately determines) on Israel. No wonder the Bay Area Jewish intellectual class is in an uproar. As UC Hebrew and Comparative Literature professor Chana Kronfeld says, “All the major Israeli writers would probably be banned.”
The Open Letter to Jewish Communities in the Forward signed by Bay Area Jewish academics, rabbis and other leaders, as well as coverage in Tablet, the Chronicle of Philanthropy and theNew York Times reveals the extent to which concern about ideological policing is now a concern not just for the left but for the Jewish center.
However, what is not generally known is that the Fed’s Jewish Community Endowment Fund has also quietly pulled a number of nonprofit organizations from their acceptable charities listin an apparent attempt to ensure ideological purity.
What are those groups? Using a bit of technical sleuthing (and a tip-off from a donor), we’ve been able to pinpoint thus far 6 nonprofits that have been pulled from the list: Jewish Voice for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, the Institute for Policy Studies, Madre, Global Exchange, and the National Lawyers Guild. There is no reason to think there aren’t more - we will publicize those names as they become available. This means supporters of these groups who keep funds in the Endowment Fund can no longer designate them as recipients.
Even more interesting, one can still designate money to the Hebron Fund, FLAME, and extremist settler militia funder, the Central Fund of Israel.
The implications of this new battle that mirrors the war on human rights groups in Israelhaven’t been lost on Boston activists who, within weeks of the announcement of the SF guidelines, launched their own Boston Combined Jewish Philanthropies witch hunt. (See embedded PDF file/link below-all articles from Boston’s Jewish paper, the Jewish Advocate.) Even The David Project founder Charles Jacobs weighs in on these so-called enemies of Israel: The American Friends Service Committee • Democracy Now! • The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) • The Tides Foundation • Media Matters • The New Israel Fund • Brit Tzedek v’Shalom • Physicians for Social Responsibility • The Workmen’s Circle • Amnesty International
Meanwhile NGO Monitor’s Prof. Gerald Steinberg, a man who never met a human rights organization he didn’t hate, is speaking this week at the Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies, at the University of Toronto on “Delegitimizing Israel: Can Jewish Philanthropy Change the Tide?”
Monday, May 3, 2010
From Turtle Island to Palestine: Isabel Altamirano-Jimenez
A panel discussion about indigenous perspectives on colonialism & occupation. Part of Israeli Apartheid Week at the University of Alberta, March 4, 2009. For more information about events, visit www.edmontonsmallpress.ca/news.html.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction
By Naomi Klein - January 8th, 2009
[Note: This essay was originally posted during the Israeli massacre in Gaza of Winter 2008-2009, called Operation Cast Lead by the Israeli government. — George]
It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—BDS for short—was born.
Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."
Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures—quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.*
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
Coming up with our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.
Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom specializing in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."
Ramsey says that his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive."
It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.
*On January 14, in response to Israel's aggression in Gaza, the EU called off its plans to upgrade the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a sign of growing understanding that political sanctions can be brought to bear to bring an end to the war.
This column was first published in The Nation
Further Information: The only international news network covering every aspect of the war on Gaza is Al Jazeera English. The station isn't available in North America but you can watch it live in high-quality through www.livestation.com (player download is required).
[Note: This essay was originally posted during the Israeli massacre in Gaza of Winter 2008-2009, called Operation Cast Lead by the Israeli government. — George]
It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—BDS for short—was born.
Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."
Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures—quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.*
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
Coming up with our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.
Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom specializing in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."
Ramsey says that his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive."
It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.
*On January 14, in response to Israel's aggression in Gaza, the EU called off its plans to upgrade the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a sign of growing understanding that political sanctions can be brought to bear to bring an end to the war.
This column was first published in The Nation
Further Information: The only international news network covering every aspect of the war on Gaza is Al Jazeera English. The station isn't available in North America but you can watch it live in high-quality through www.livestation.com (player download is required).
Welcome!
Hello! Welcome to Coalition for Peace and Human Rights in Palestine and Israel in Athens, Ohio.
Be on the lookout for more information in the ext few weeks as we get this blog going. See also our Facebook Group page under the same name. Information added here will be automatically posted on our Facebook page.
Peace and Solidarity,
George
Be on the lookout for more information in the ext few weeks as we get this blog going. See also our Facebook Group page under the same name. Information added here will be automatically posted on our Facebook page.
Peace and Solidarity,
George
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