FASCISM 101 (ISRAELI STYLE)
November 7, 2019 at 12:54 (Activism, Boycott Israel, fascism, Human Rights, Israel's Shame)
“This is what fascism looks like.”
‘What Fascism Looks Like’: Israeli High Court Upholds Expulsion of Human Rights Watch Director Omar Shakir Over Alleged BDS Support
“The perpetuation of the occupation continues to mean the silencing of criticism.”
The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the deportation and permanent expulsion of Omar Shakir, the Human Rights Watch representative in Israel and Palestine, over Shakir’s alleged support of the Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions movement, a move that drew criticism from peace advocates and progressives around the world.
“This is what fascism looks like,” tweeted Palestinian rights advocate Diana Buttu.
The court gave Shakir 20 days to leave the country.
As Common Dreams reported, Interior Minister Arye Dery decided in April to expel Shakir, a U.S. citizen, from Israel over Shakir’s alleged support of the BDS movement.
The high court on Tuesday ruled that decision was legal due to a controversial 2017 Israeli law banning proponents of the boycott movement from entering or remaining in Israel. Dery said the ruling affirms his position that “anyone who works against the state should know that we will not allow him to live or work here.”
Shakir’s attorney Michael Sfard told Haaretz that the ruling made clear Israel is joining what he described as other repressive regimes in barring those who would expose misbehavior from their countries.
“Today, the State of Israel joined the list of countries like Syria, Iran, and North Korea, which have expelled Human Rights Watch representatives in an attempt to silence criticism of human rights violations taking place within their borders,” said Sfard.
But, according to The New York Times, Human Rights Watch believes Shakir was expelled for his work against Israeli settlements in the West Bank rather than any advocacy in favor of BDS:
Human Rights Watch says neither it nor Shakir has called for an outright boycott of Israel and says that Shakir, who is a U.S. citizen, is being targeted for the rights group’s opposition to Israel’s West Bank Jewish settlements and its calls for companies to stop working with the settlements.
Critics of the move sounded off on social media.
“The perpetuation of the occupation continues to mean the silencing of criticism,” liberal U.S. Israeli advocacy group J-Street said on Twitter. “Democracies should not expel human rights organizers.”
✔@amnesty
Today’s decision from Israel’s Supreme Court to uphold the deportation of @hrw director @OmarSShakir is a cowardly move that confirms Israel’s oppressive intent on silencing independent human rights organizations at any cost. http://amn.st/60191z6bb
Israeli Supreme Court Decision to deport HRW Director
The decision to uphold Omar Shakir’s deportation order is a crushing blow for freedom of expression
amnesty.org
In a statement, Amnesty International deputy Middle East and North Africa director Saleh Higazi said the decision made it “explicitly clear that those who dare to speak out about human rights violations by the Israeli authorities will be treated as enemies of the state.”
“Human rights defenders play an essential role in exposing the government’s wrongdoing and fostering public debate,” said Higazi. “Today’s decision is a cowardly move that confirms Israel’s oppressive intent on silencing independent human rights organizations at any cost.”
“The world must not stay silent in the face of this travesty of justice,” Higazi added. “The international community, including Israel’s allies such as the U.S.A., have a responsibility to press Israel to reverse this reprehensible decision and make clear to them that this kind of blatant repression is completely unacceptable and will have consequences.”
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s executive director Hagai El-Ad said that while the expulsion was personally shocking, the decision by the high court was in line with Israeli efforts to restrict dissent over the occupation.
“From a personal perspective, it’s shocking and unsettling, to see Omar ordered to leave within 20 days,” said El-Ad. “But from a professional/legal perspective, there’s nothing in the ruling which isn’t in line with earlier rulings by Israel’s HCJ. The only novelty is the application of current Israeli legal dogma in order to deport Omar.”
“Israel, by definition, isn’t a democracy,” El-Ad continued, adding that he hoped the decision would make that clearer to the international community.
“Either way,” said El-Ad, “the fight continues.”
THE ISRAELI NON GOVERNMENT’S FIRST MOVE
October 10, 2019 at 14:15 (Activism, Boycott Israel, Israel, Palestine)
Israel’s Minister of the Interior says he is taking action to force Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, out of the country.
Israel prepares to deport BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti
Israel’s Minister of the Interior says he is taking action to force Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, out of the country.
I intend to act quickly to deprive Omar Barghouti of residency status in Israel… This is a man who does everything to harm the country and therefore must not enjoy the right to be a resident of Israel.
Aryeh Deri said he had directed the Population and Immigration Authority to prepare a legal opinion aimed at Barghouti’s deportation.
The announcement comes after Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber notified Deri’s office that it had the authority to revoke Barghouti’s residency. The legal basis: a 2018 amendment to the residency law, listing “breach of trust” as a crime which may justify stripping a residency status. Barghouti married a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and lives under the residency status in the city of Acre.
Imagine it – the state “trusts” you to not take it to task for its violations, it “trusts” you to not complain and to accept these violations, and if you protest, even in a non-violent and civil manner, you have breached that “trust”.
Barghouti has long been a target for fascistic suggestions. In a 2016 anti-BDS conference sponsored by the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, then Minister of Transportation and Intelligence Israel Katz suggested “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS leadership. “Targeted elimination” is a well-known Israeli term for assassination. He merely added the “civil” to make it sound more “civil”. Barghouti was singled out by name, and the anti-BDS Czar Gilad Erdan said that BDS activists will “pay a price”. “We will soon be hearing more of our friend Barghouti”, Erdan hinted insidiously.
Soon after that, the local Ministry of the Interior office notified Barghouti that his travel document (which he has to renew every two years) would not be renewed. It was then temporarily renewed following legal pressure. Barghouti told Glenn Greenwald at the time:
So we are really unnerved, I am personally quite unnerved by those threats. We take them very seriously, especially in this context. We live in a country where racism and racial incitement against indigenous Palestinians has grown tremendously into the Israeli mainstream. It has really become mainstream today to be very openly racist against Palestinians. Many settlers and hard-right-wing Israelis are taking matters into their own hands – completely supported by the state – and attacking Palestinians. So in that context I am unnerved, but I’m certainly undeterred. I shall continue my non-violent struggle for Palestinian rights under international law and nothing they can do will stop me.
Barghouti was indeed “targeted”, but so far only by the “civil” means of preventing his travels by bureaucratic means. Lately that has included US and UK initiatives, with nebulous holdups and refusals which the governments didn’t seek to defend.
In the US case last April, Barghouti was stopped at the Israeli Ben Gurion airport and denied travel to the US, despite having a valid visa. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, which had been coordinating the trip, commented:
Omar Barghouti is a leading Palestinian voice on human rights. Omar’s denial of entry into the US is the latest example of the Trump administration’s disregard for those rights.
In the UK case from last month, Barghouti was meant to speak at a fringe event of the Labour conference, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). He ended up speaking on skype, due to an “unexplained, abnormal delay” in the issuing of his visa. PSC said in a statement:
The unprecedented delay in processing Barghouti’s travel visa application by the British government is part and parcel of the growing efforts by Israel and its allies to suppress Palestinian voices and the movements for Palestinian rights,
The recent move to revoke Barghouti’s residency seems to result from a right-wing incitement campaign by the group Betzalmo (a pun on the human rights monitoring group B’tselem). They wrote to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and to Deri just over a week ago, urging them to expel Barghouti. In their letter they noted the US’s denial of entry, and asked why the Israeli government has not acted to strip Barghouti of his residency rights. They elaborated that Barghouti harms the state, breaches allegiance and is a security threat:
A recent law authorizes the Interior Minister, with the approval of the attorney-general, to revoke residency for anyone who harms state security or violates allegiance to the state, or endangers public peace… Undoubtedly Barghouti’s leadership of the boycott movement against all citizens of the State of Israel severely harms the State of Israel and is a blatant breach of allegiance, as well as a threat to Israel’s security and defense by pushing for an arms embargo against Israel.
So: The green light from the Attorney-General’s office, a further green light from Deri’s office, and the machine seems set to deport the “traitor”.
For Israel, Barghouti proves that you can’t trust Palestinians to shut up, and that they need to learn it the hard way. But every step that Israel takes in its repressive attempt to silence dissent, becomes another reason to boycott it. Indeed, as Erdan promised, we’ve heard a lot from, and about, Omar Barghouti. And we’re bound to hear much more about him, and BDS.
BREAKING NEWS ~~ MAJOR BDS VICTORY IN ISRAEL
October 18, 2018 at 18:55 (Academic Freedom, Boycott Israel, Free Speech, Israel)
Supreme Court allows US student accused of supporting BDS to enter Israel
Lara Alqasem’s lawyers hail ruling rejecting state’s attempt to bar her entry to study; interior minister calls decision a ‘disgrace’
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that an American student accused of advocating boycotts of Israel can enter the country, putting an end to a weeks-long saga that drew scrutiny of an Israeli law allowing alleged anti-Israel activists to be barred from entry.
Lara Alqasem, 22, has been held in detention for the past 15 days after arriving in Israel for a master’s program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The state alleged that Alqasem, who was a member of the pro-boycott Students for Justice in Palestine group while studying at the University of Florida, supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
In accepting her appeal, the Supreme Court overturned a ruling by a lower court that upheld the ban on her entry under a 2017 law forbidding BDS activists from entering Israel.
US student Lara Alqasem at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on October 17, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
More AT
HOORAY FOR LANA DEL REY
September 2, 2018 at 12:32 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment)
Lana Del Rey cancels Israel concert
After pressure from BDS, American singer and songwriter announces she will postpone Israel concert until she can also visit “Palestine”.
Lana Del Rey
American singer and songwriter Lana Del Rey on Friday announced she would be postponing a planned concert in Israel, following calls on her not to perform in the Jewish state.
Del Rey had been scheduled to perform in Israel as part of the Meteor Festival which will take place at Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, outside of Tiberias in the upper Galilee, from September 6 through 8.
On Friday, however, she announced, “It’s important to me to perform in both Palestine and Israel and treat all my fans equally. Unfortunately it hasn’t been possible to line up both visits with such short notice and therefore I’m postponing my appearance at the Meteor Festival until a time when I can schedule visits for both my Israeli and Palestinian fans, as well as hopefully other countries in the region.”
IRELAND SETS THE PACE FOR BDS
July 17, 2018 at 11:29 (Boycott Israel, International Solidarity, Ireland)
Thank you Ireland!
Ireland becomes the first country ever to pass a law boycotting goods from illegal Israel settlements in Palestine!
Image by Carlos Latuff
Irish senate passes bill banning products from Israeli settlements
The Irish senate has voted in favor of a bill banning the importation of products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, paving the way for the country to become the first EU nation to enforce a boycott of Israeli settlement goods.
The bill, which passed on Wednesday in the upper house of the Irish parliament, the Seanad, will need to make its way through more Seanad votes and then the lower house before becoming law.
The bill passed with 25 lawmakers voting in its favor, 20 against it and 14 abstaining.
Palestinian officials and activists supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement hailed the move as courageous.
Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO Executive Committee released a statement after the vote saying she was “truly honored to extend our sincere appreciation of and deep gratitude to the Seanad Éireann who took a courageous and principled stand in support of peace, justice, and morality.”
Ashrawi praised the “historical friendship and solidarity between both the Palestinian and Irish peoples,” adding that the legislation bears great significance for Palestine, particularly in the context of Ireland’s firm commitment to defending social justice, equality and freedom and the rights of the oppressed, including the Palestinians, a people in captivity and exile.”
She went on to implore other EU countries and the international community to follow in Ireland’s path “to hold Israel accountable and to act on their declared principles and policies by banning all settlement products and beginning a process of de-occupation in Palestine.”
While the bill calls only for the boycott of the importation of goods produced in Israeli settlements, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed it “gives a tailwind to those who seek to boycott Israel and is utterly contrary to the principles of free trade and justice”. The bill does not ban all Israeli products.
According to the Irish Times, the EU has estimated that settlement goods make up about one percent of the €50 million annual imports from Israel to the country, at €500,000.
The Irish government, however, estimated in 2012 that the figure stood closer to €1.5 million.
The Irish Times highlighted that many fruits and vegetables imported from Israel come from the settlements, specifically Medjool dates. The dates are farmed by settlers in Jericho, famous in Palestine for its dates, on occupied Palestinian land.
According to the newspaper, if enacted into law, regulating settlement goods may prove difficult for the country, given reports of Israeli settlement companies bypassing EU labeling regulations by bringing products from settlement farms to processing facilities inside Israel proper, from where they are labeled and shipped out.
“By using such tactics, exporters can present their goods as ‘made in Israel’, thereby enjoying preferential access to the EU’s markets,” the Irish Times reported.
The Israeli government, which slammed the bill as “populist, dangerous and extremist,” has increased its measures to combat the BDS movement, as it has expanded to include companies, universities, and religious institutions around the world divesting from organizations complicit in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights.
Despite previous pressure from Israel on Ireland to kill the legislation, the Irish lawmaker behind the bill, Frances Black, said in a statement prior to the vote that “trade in settlement goods sustains injustice”.
“In the occupied territories, people are forcibly kicked out of their homes, fertile farming land is seized, and the fruit and vegetables produced are then sold on Irish shelves to pay for it all,” she said, adding that “settlements are war crimes, and it’s time for Ireland to show some leadership and refuse to support them.”
ROGER WATERS PLAYS MUNICH DESPITE MUNICIPAL OPPOSITION
June 21, 2018 at 15:54 (Activism, Associate Post, Boycott Israel, Entertainment, Germany, International Solidarity)
Roger Waters plays Munich despite mayor’s effort to stop concert over his support for BDS
“I believe all people, all of us, all of our brothers and sisters, all of our fragile globe, whatever their ethnicity or religion or nationality, deserve the same basic human rights under the law,” Roger Waters told the crowd at a Munich concert last week.
Waters performed in Munich following a campaign to cancel his concert backed by the city’s mayor, Dieter Reiter, who accused Waters of anti-Semitism. An attorney for Waters asked Reiter to retract his statement, according to the Jerusalem Post, and Waters addressed the row himself from the stage at Munich’s Olympic Hall and later posted to social media. The musician explained that the mayor was championing a petition that alleged Waters is anti-Semitic because he endorses the Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
Munich passed a law last year that prohibits the use of public facilities to persons who support the BDS movement.
Here’s the video of Waters in Munich:
Dieter Reiter, the Mayor of Munich, has issued a press release denouncing me as anti-Semitic.
The Mayor claims I make increasingly hateful anti-Semitic remarks.
I stand for human rights...
REMEMBER WHEN THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WAS NOBLE
June 1, 2018 at 12:53 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Exclusive, Peace)
Let’s hope it becomes that again
EUROVISION 2018 ~~ THE UNTOLD STORY
May 16, 2018 at 11:39 (Boycott Israel, Entertainment)
Netta Barzilai is an incredible talent and deserved to win Europe’s most important song competition. But her victory, even if inadvertently, is a victory for the occupation.
Israel’s Eurovision win will bring a showdown with BDS
By Haggai Matar
I’m a huge fan of Netta Barzilai. I think she’s a rare musical genius. I was rooting for her as she was competing to represent Israel in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Late at night on Saturday, as votes from across Europe were coming in, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, yelling at each country that didn’t vote for her, eventually bursting out in joyous laughter as she won the popular vote and the entire contest.
Politically speaking, however, Barzilai’s win is bad news. Our Eurovision victory proves that the Israeli right is correct. We can bomb Iranians in Syria as much as we want, push for the cancellation of an international nuclear agreement we are not even party to (and that most countries view as essential for world peace), open fire at journalists and nonviolent demonstrators, hold millions of people under a racist military regime for over half a century – and nothing bad will happen.
On the contrary. Embassies are moving to Jerusalem, exports (especially of Israeli weapons) are up, and next year’s Eurovision competition will be held in the unified (read: occupied) Jerusalem. Once in a while we might hear the distant, choking sound of Palestinians, living under the boot of Israeli occupation, but it’s a noise one gets accustomed to.
One can argue, of course, that the massive popular vote for Barzilai throughout Europe was neither a political statement in support of the occupation nor a message regarding the growing popularity of the authoritarian right across the continent. Rather, it was a genuine enthusiasm from her performance – and one that I share. While the Eurovision’s referee votes are highly politicized, ordinary fans of the competition likely voted for someone they recognized as a great singer – someone who sings about woman empowerment, and who pushes a progressive and liberal platform.
But in the real world of politics, intentions are not enough. Israel’s hasbara (state-sponsored propaganda) has made an art of turning liberals into a living proof of our being “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Both the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Foreign Affairs regularly boast of Tel Aviv’s progressive politics and its and vibrant nightlife – with a stated goal of re-branding Israel and hiding away Jerusalem, with its religious zealousness and occupation.
This is also the case now. As 972’s Orly Noy recently mentioned, Netta Barzilai represents the State of Israel. Both the government and opposition members in the Knesset have been celebrating her victory, saying that next year’s Eurovision will come to the “unified Jerusalem.” They know well that this is a national victory, not a private one. It is especially a victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the “foreign relations wizard,” who is already using the latest news to promote both hasbara and his own political career.
The coming year will most likely turn into a PR war between Israel and BDS activists throughout Europe. As the 2019 contest inches closer, the latter will most likely start campaigning in all 40-plus countries that send representatives to the competition, bringing up information about the occupation in general and Jerusalem in particular – and thus sparking political controversy. This will not likely stop the show, but the international debate will be of value in and of itself.
Until then, it is up to Israelis like myself to keep fighting the occupation at home, to support Palestinian popular resistance, and in between – go party with the one and only, Netta Barzilai.
IN ISRAEL ~~ YOU CRITICIZE, YOU GO!
May 10, 2018 at 14:45 (Boycott Israel, Corrupt Politics, Human Rights, Israel)
“This is yet another alarming sign of the country’s increasing intolerance of critical voices”
Image by Carlos Latuff
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, has been ordered out of Israel after the country accused him of supporting a boycott of the country.
Human Rights Watch Director Decries Expulsion From Israel as Attempt to ‘Muzzle Dissent’
“Barring access to those documenting human rights abuses won’t hide Israel’s mass violations carried out in the context of more than 50 years of occupation.”
Human rights campaigners stood in solidarity on Wednesday with Omar Shakir, the director of Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) work in Israel and Palestine, after Israel announced that Shakir would be expelled from the country within 14 days.
Despite claims by the Israeli Interior Ministry that Shakir had violated the country’s anti-boycott laws, Shakir argued that the deportation order was part of Israel’s efforts to “muzzle dissent” regarding its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and other human rights violations.
Breaking: Israel has ordered me deported after compiling 7-pg intel dossier on me. 1st time in @hrw history Israel orders official out. Year ago it denied work permit before reversing, accusing us of ‘propaganda’. Now its BDS. Real aim to muzzle dissent. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/08/israel-orders-human-rights-watch-official-deported …
Fifteen Israeli human rights groups including the Coalition of Women for Peace and the Human Rights Defenders Fund spoke out in support of Shakir, calling on Israel to “end the occupation”—rather than trying to hide it by removing critics.
“Israel is trying to keep both its own citizens and the world from seeing what it is doing,” the groups’ joint letter states. “Neither closing the borders to human rights groups and activists nor other Israeli measures against organizations critical of the occupation will deter us—or them—from reporting human rights violations in areas under Israeli control.”
The Interior Ministry announced on Tuesday that Shakir was being ordered to leave Israel due to his support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement urging backers to withdraw all economic support for Israel to protest the occupation and other abuses.
While Shakir said Tuesday, “I have not called for any form of boycott of Israel during my time at Human Rights Watch,” a statement from his organization argues that even trying to ban ban participation in such non-violent actions remains “contrary to Israel’s obligation to uphold the rights to freedom of expression and to non-discrimination on grounds of political opinion.”
“This is yet another alarming sign of the country’s increasing intolerance of critical voices,” added Magdalena Mughrabi of Amnesty International. “The Israeli authorities must immediately stop their ongoing harassment of human rights defenders. Barring access to those documenting human rights abuses won’t hide Israel’s mass violations carried out in the context of more than 50 years of occupation. Israel must repeal laws that arbitrarily restrict human rights advocacy, including criticism of human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law that it has committed.”
Shakir, a U.S. citizen, was previously barred from Israel last year when the country refused to grant him a work permit. He was later given a one-year work visa after Shakir himself drew comparisons between the Israeli denialand a host of other countries that showhostility towards human rights observers.
ON VIDEO … STEPHEN HAWKING’S ‘SPECIAL’ RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL
March 15, 2018 at 09:47 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Exclusive, Israel, Palestine)
*
Stephen Hawking believed in Palestinians’ right of resistance and was the first scientist of his stature to boycott Israel
*
New Image by Carlos Latuff
Stephen Hawking, a friend of Palestine
A VIDEO TO HELP YOU GET TO KNOW THE BOYCOTT
March 12, 2018 at 11:18 (Activism, Boycott Israel, Israel, Occupation, Palestine)
Short video for those unfamiliar with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement
ISRAEL HAS ITS OWN BOYCOTT~~ ANOTHER FILM THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO SEE
February 15, 2018 at 16:09 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Exclusive, Israel, Palestine)
Israel hates the word ‘BOYCOTT’ unless they are the ones doing it
Why is Israel boycotting an Israeli film? Because it shows Palestinian deaths being covered up by Israeli soldiers.
FINALLY, A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOMINATION THAT DESERVES IT
February 7, 2018 at 14:50 (Activism, Boycott Israel)
Awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement would be a powerful signal, emphasizing the international community’s commitment to support a just peace for the Palestinian people and by that – for the Israeli people and all people in the Middle East – and the world at large.
Image by Carlos Latuff
BDS nominated for 2018 Nobel Peace Prize
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights has been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. Formal nomination for the prestigious award was made last week by the Norwegian MP and leader of the Red Party, Bjørnar Moxness.
In a statement announcing the nomination, the Parliamentary Group, which includes a number of left-wing parties, said that the selection of BDS for a Nobel Peace Prize reflected “the growing international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice, dignity and freedom from the Israeli occupation”.
Explaining their nomination, the Parliamentary Group said that the BDS campaign is a non-violent movement for freedom, equality and a just peace for the Palestinian people and was therefore being nominated for the prestigious prize.
Moxness, who is leading the campaign for BDS to be honoured in Oslo at the end of the year, said:
Awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement would be a powerful signal, emphasising the international community’s commitment to support a just peace for the Palestinian people and by that – for the Israeli people and all people in the Middle East – and the world at large.
In his comments to MEMO, Moxness was keen to point out that the intention behind the nomination was “first and foremost pro-Palestinian, not anti-Israeli”. Having said that, the Norwegian politician expects a backlash: “We are well aware that the current right-wing government of Israel tends to try to criminalise any attempt to convince Israel to abide by international law and end the occupation and oppression of Palestine and the Palestinians.”
Asked about the kind of opposition he is likely to face, he said: “We nominated the BDS movement for the Nobel Peace Prize well aware that this perfectly legitimate nomination of a perfectly legitimate movement that fights for a legitimate cause – that of the Palestinians – with legitimate peaceful means, will meet some resistance, typically in the form of smearing campaigns and the like. In the face of that kind of opposition, the challenge is to stay focus on the main cause, freedom for the Palestinians, and to stay focused on what we see as our humble contribution to that cause, an attempt to start a positive international campaign in favour of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement.”
One of the main reasons BDS groups cite for endorsing the campaign is the double standard when it comes to Israel. Alluding to this tendency the Red Party’s press statement mentioned Norway’s January 2018 decision to “officially impose sanctions and restrictions against 26 different states or regions due to breeches of international laws and human rights but not against the state of Israel – despite Israeli occupation, annexation and collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
According to Moxness “the current Norwegian government is closely allied to the USA and seems to be more eager to please the USA and its ally in Tel Aviv, than to uphold a principled stance on international law and human rights”. This fact was one of the reasons for initiating this campaign to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement, he said to MEMO.
Moxness explained that the support Israel gets on a governmental level is not replicated across Norwegian society, pointing to the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions which he said is a massive player in Norwegian politics. “They firmly support the Palestinian cause and voted in favour of implementing BDS measures against Israel last December.”
The opposition to BDS, according to Moxness, is due to its impressive success. The BDS movements’ impressive record of creating pressure to end Israeli occupation through peaceful means is seen as legitimate and ethical by most of the international community. It gets its inspiration from the anti-apartheid movement from South Africa, and it is endorsed by a very broad range of organisations and personalities, former Nobel Peace Prize laureates like Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire, people of different political affiliations and religious belongings. This legitimacy, said Moxness, is probably what scares the Israeli hawks the most.
The next step on the formal track is the publication of the Nobel Committees short list, which is due towards the end of September/beginning of October. Moxness is confident that if all supporters of the Palestinian cause join together and campaign for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement it is perfectly possible to make it to that shortlist and beyond. And regardless of the committee’s decision, he insists, “through the campaign we might have made important steps towards reigniting the struggle for justice for the Palestine through peaceful means.”
Moxness appealed to human rights groups and activists to join the campaign. “We think an international campaign to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement can contribute both to legitimise the BDS movement and more broadly to put the Palestinian cause back on the international agenda again,” he predicted.
For this to happen we need the participation of all, he added. Moxness predicts that there will be grassroot support, social media support, the support of media organisations, political parties, politicians, governments, trade unions, students, artists, intellectuals, athletes as well as football teams.
The Nobel Committee will publish a shortlist of nominees by the end of September. “We have until then to make this an effective international campaign,” Moxness said, and “if everyone participates this is the kind of positive campaign that we think can change the political environment and bring us closer to the objective of justice for the Palestinians.”
AND BOYCOTT WE WILL HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!
January 9, 2018 at 08:59 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Exclusive, International Solidarity)
We boycott to support the right to resist! ….
They can’t arrest us all …. so this is the latest tactic ….
Who’s Who on ‘The List’?
Here’s a good question ….
Why has Israel banned Jewish leftists but not members of Nazi-linked groups?
Israel has banned leaders and key activists from Jewish Voice for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, among other groups that support BDS, from entering the country. So why doesn’t it extend the same restrictions to members of Nazi-affiliated groups?
Read THIS report to find out why
Enjoy the following ….
(Israel isn’t the first to blacklist Freedom)
SPOTLIGHT ON OUR ASSOCIATE AND THE GERMAN BDS MOVEMENT
January 7, 2018 at 10:15 (Boycott Israel, Germany, zionist created anti_Semitism)
We are all mighty proud of you Evelyn!
Here are a few examples. In Germany, the BDS movement has Evelyn Hecht-Galinski at its service. She is the daughter of Heinz Galinski, a former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and chairman of the Jewish congregation of Berlin, who was one of the greatest and outspoken fighters against any form of anti-Semitism.
Criticism of the ‘Jewish State’ is NOT Anti Semitism!
The strange case of self-hating Jews
That young woman, who is not very wise to say the least, isn’t the first Jew targeting her own people. There were others in the past, and there are some in the present. This self-hatred is very strange, and even insane, but it’s a phenomenon we mustn’t belittle.
Here are a few examples. In Germany, the BDS movement has Evelyn Hecht-Galinski at its service. She is the daughter of Heinz Galinski, a former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and chairman of the Jewish congregation of Berlin, who was one of the greatest and outspoken fighters against any form of anti-Semitism.
Galinski, who I shared a “block” with at Auschwitz and who “got stuck” in Berlin after the war for some reason, would issue a scathing response to any anti-Semitic comment in the German media—and in many cases, he even won the authorities’ support. His daughter, on the other hand, is one of the most fanatical slanderers of Israel and is among the top supporters of a boycott against the Jewish state, which her father defended with all his might.
And talking about Germany, we should also mention Moshe Menuhin, the father of renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Here’s a Jew who named his son Yehudi (“Jew”), yet kept writing for years for neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic weekly National Zeitung, attacking Israel and the Jews in the most blatant manner. It’s hard to believe, but it’s a fact. Reacting to one of his father’s anti-Israel articles in 1968, Yehudi Menuhin said: “It is a source of great pain to me.”
Still in Germany, we have Felicia Langer, a lawyer who defended terrorists in Israeli courts for years. One day, she decided to immigrate to Germany, where she has been incessantly inciting and slandering Israel. She is also active in the boycott movement, of course. Langer, by the way, was awarded the fifth highest of Germany’s federal order of merit’s eight ranks in 2009. In 2012, she was awarded a “medal of excellence” for her activity from the Palestinian Authority.
I could go on with the list of Jews who hated Jews in different periods of time, but there’s no need. It’s a phenomenon which is hard to understand, and even harder to accept. But whether we like it or not, it exists. And occasionally, it causes us trouble. It’s clear, however, that these lunatics won’t succeed in harming the development and future of the country they are attacking—their own people’s state.
Oh, yes. I almost forgot to mention that the phenomenon of a Jew attacking Jews has existed since the beginning of the Christian religion. The root of anti-Judaism was Saul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle).
VERBAL ASSAULTS WILL SET PALESTINE FREE
January 2, 2018 at 14:36 (Boycott Israel, Israel, Palestine)
In a full-page ad in the Washington Post, “America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach has printed an all-out verbal assault on Lorde, the New Zealand singer who recently cancelled a show in Tel Aviv out of concern that she would be legitimating Israel’s occupation.
Shmuley Boteach’s unhinged attack on Lorde will only help the movement to boycott Israel
In a full-page ad in the Washington Post, “America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach has printed an all-out verbal assault on Lorde, the New Zealand singer who recently cancelled a showin Tel Aviv out of concern that she would be legitimating Israel’s occupation. Lorde cancelled her show after reading a letter from two Palestinian and Jewish New Zealanders noting the illegality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Trump and Netanyahu’s escalation against Jerusalem, the Israeli detention of Palestinian minors like Ahed Tamimi, and the longstanding oppression of Palestinians in Al-Khalil / Hebron, including the family of one of the co-authors. Notably, the letter pulled punches by avoiding any mention of the expulsion of the Palestinian refugees during Israel’s founding, or Israel’s wargames against Iran and throughout the region.
In one of his many attempts to slime critics of Israel with newspaper ad purchases, Shmuley Boteach labels Lorde an anti-Semite over her cancellation and implies that she supports the atrocities of the government of Syria. Boteach is an ardent supporter of Donald Trump and a confidante of Steve Bannon, the notorious former Trump Administration staffer known for running the white nationalist Breitbart publication. Though Boteach has served as a celebrity rabbi on a number of reality television shows, leading Jewish religious authorities have dismissed his writings as heretical.
The ad, purchased by Boteach’s World Values Network, goes to great lengths to malign Lorde, the government of New Zealand, and the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction (“BDS”) Israel, for expressing varying degrees of dissent against the State of Israel. However, the ad constitutes objective support for the very same boycott movement for several reasons.
First, the ad itself is remarkably unhinged. Outrageously, the ad suggests that Lorde supports Syrian regime atrocities because she is playing a show in Russia, which supports the Syrian government; that is, Lorde is being accused of supporting the crimes of one country because she is playing a show in an entirely different country that happens to have friendly diplomatic relations with the first. And although the ad, in passing, points out that Russia has committed human rights abuses of its own, the ad does not consider that, as of yet, critics of Russia’s abuses have not called upon Lorde to cancel her Russia show. That means that, as of yet, Lorde is not crossing a proverbial picket line by performing in Russia, as she was doing by originally planning a show in Tel Aviv.
The ad also expends much ink criticizing the behavior of the New Zealand government for joining virtually the entire world in condemning Donald Trump’s decision to legitimate Israel’s land grab over Jerusalem – a criticism that is entirely unrelated to Lorde. The bizarre argumentation of the ad leaves the reader with the impression that the ad is not a meaningful criticism of Lorde, but a piece of poorly drafted war propaganda grasping at straws to sling mud at the performer.
Second, Lorde is a sensitive target. The accomplished 21-year-old singer is adamantly committed to feminism, gay rights, and challenging race privilege, and has a fanbase of young people committed to the same worldview. To smear such a delicate target as Lorde as a “bigot,” let alone an agent of a joint Russo-Syrian-New Zealander conspiracy to defend war crimes in Syria, has the tendency to reflect more poorly on the accuser – and the Israeli government he is defending – than the target of the ad.
But finally, and most importantly, Boteach’s ad disincentivizes other performers from playing shows in Israel. The ad contrasts Lorde’s decision to cancel her Tel Aviv show with a litany of other performers who chose to perform in Tel Aviv in spite of calls to boycott. To many critics of the movement to boycott Israel, there is nothing political about playing a show in Israel, and to play a show in Tel Aviv is not the same as making a political statement in defense of the Israeli government.
But Boteach’s ad makes it clear that such a belief is a farce, and that whatever the intentions of performers who play in Tel Aviv, their performances will inevitably be used by unhinged right-wing extremists to defend the Israeli state and to smear those who cancel shows. Boteach’s decision to contrast Lorde with other performers effectively sends a message to all other performers considering shows in Tel Aviv: your one-night performance can and will be used, even years after the fact, by right-wing extremists in America as part of a propaganda war against other people in your industry and in defense of policies that you may not even be aware of and crimes that may not have yet occurred.
Given that most celebrities simply want to avoid controversy, the ad hardly encourages anyone else to book a show in Tel Aviv any time soon.
The movement to boycott Israel has come under tremendous strain in recent years. High-profile smear campaigns against those who have boycotted have emerged alongside laws in various nations aligned with Israel to censor the boycott. One wonders how such a minimal movement motivated by the principle of “Do No Harm” could provoke such ardent and zealous backlash from those in power. And yet, like most movements of the powerless, the attempts to crush it inevitably help it grow.
LET’S LAUGH AT THE OCCUPATION
December 20, 2017 at 13:06 (Boycott Israel)
Another one to add to your boycott list …
ON LINE WAR AGAINST BDS …..
December 12, 2017 at 14:58 (Boycott Israel, Internet)
‘Literally grasping at straws’ ….
Fighting online BDS in wake of Jerusalem declaration
It is so obvious that ……
Desertpeace 