PICKET: Boycott Indigo-Chapters, Boycott Israeli Apartheid

June 22nd, 2007 | Posted in Boycott
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Saturday, 30 June 2007, 13:00 – 15:00
Indigo Bookstore, NW corner of Ste. Catherine
& McGill College (McGill Metro)

A boycott of Chapters/Indigo bookstore was launched in December 2006 to oppose the support that Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, the company’s majority shareholders, give to Israeli apartheid. Reisman and Schwartz have established a fund called “the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers”, a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers’, non-Israelis who fight in the Israeli military, in defence of apartheid and occupation. The HESEG Foundation contributes up to 3M$ per year in benefits to former lone soldiers.

More information about the boycott of Indigo/Chapters in Canada:

More information about the international movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid:

Background information:

14 Comments »

I wholeheartedly support this boycott. Even though it can’t produce immediate result, it will raise awareness and inspire hope.
Many people don’t protest because they are heavily intoxicated with pro-Israel brain-wash.

Good luck

Comment by Helena — March 21st, 2007 @ 6:38 PM

The “financial support” being offered to soldiers is in the form of scholarships. Regardless of how you feel about the Israeli military, how is promoting education a bad thing?

Comment by Dan — March 26th, 2007 @ 1:43 PM

In response to Dan’s comment of March 26.2007— Providing ANY type of financial incentive to encourage mercenaries to go to a foreign nation to enforce a brutal and murderous Apartheid regime is immoral. It should be obvious that the immorality and criminality of enforcing Israeli Apartheid in Palestine and shooting women and children in Lebanon is not lessened by the nature of the incentive which attracted the enforcers and shooters. Hiring a hitman to murder someone and paying him with a scholarship doesn’t change the fact that the murderer and the person who enticed him to commit murder are guilty of a heinous crime. Under international law, Apartheid is a crime. It is also illegal for Canadians to serve as mercenaries against nations like Lebanon which maintain friendly relations with Canada.

Comment by Ron — March 27th, 2007 @ 11:19 PM

Dan.

Your comment diverges from the main issues at hand, a distraction from the realities of Israeli occupation & apartheid… The fact that Israel provides limited educational benefits to soldiers doesn’t in any way make-up for the crushing realities of occupation experienced by the Palestinians.

On top of this point the cruel utilization of young Israeli citizens for military purposes by the Israeli state is also criminal. Mandatory armed service for citizens of a country that is enforcing a military occupation is another terrible policy of Israel. Those dignified Israeli citizens who refused to serve in the Israeli occupation army are placed in prison or jail for months…

Comment by Stefan Christoff — April 2nd, 2007 @ 8:35 PM

my city lost so much, my people suffered so much.
no one is paying the price!
condemn israel and its supporters!

Comment by yasmine maktabi — April 30th, 2007 @ 6:46 AM

my city lost so much, my people suffered so much.
no one is paying the price!

Comment by yasmine maktabi — April 30th, 2007 @ 6:47 AM

I am amazed at you people. Does anyone have a clue why Israel even has an army? (One in which I served by the way, and in fact, one of this Lone Soldiers) Has anyone here ever heard of the War of 1948, when the Arabs declined a 2 state solution and 6 Arab countries went to war against the fledgling nation of Israel? Does anyone here remember the mobs in Cairo screeching “Itabch Al Yahud, “Slaughter the Jews” this was of course before the occupation.
Has anyone here ever heard of Maalot or Avivim, these were a school and a school bus attacked by the Palestinians and many students were killed., This is just a small example of the thousands of terror attacks throughout the past 60 years. (I know, to most of you homicide bombings of Israelis is permitted as it is “resistance) Has eanyone here heard about Sderot which has rockets fired at it every day? Has anyone here actually listened to what Hamas is really saying and what they really mean>

Well, I would like to ask all of you here, if Israel did not have those soldiers and that army or they signifcantly lost a war and were overrun, what would happen? I will tell you, it would make the muslim-on-muslim carnage in Iraq look like a tea party. So sorry, my mother and her family went to Auschiwtz, we no longer want to go that route. I know it upsets you, but we have this crazy desire to live.

Comment by naftali — May 13th, 2007 @ 12:11 AM

Naftali,
Your comment actually confirms the validity of this campaign against the Heseg Foundation and its support of former “Lone Soldiers”. If your incomplete, highly selective and distorted understanding of the history of Palestine-Israel is typical of former “Lone Soldiers” – one of which you claim to be – then we have another excellent reason why the “Lone Soldier” programme, as well as any support it gets (from Heseg, for instance), should be opposed and brought to a end immediately.

Comment by abraham — May 13th, 2007 @ 6:50 PM

Hi naftali,

First, I am sorry for your mother and her family, it is really sad what happened in Auschiwtz and it is more sad that Allies in the WW2 knew about what is happening and didn’t do much to stop it, exactly like what is happening now in Palestine. I am surprised to hear you defending the Israeli Army, from some one who suffered from the consequence of wars and discrimination. Below is my response to you.

You said” Has anyone here ever heard of the War of 1948, when the Arabs declined a 2 state solution and 6 Arab countries went to war against the fledgling nation of Israel? Does anyone here remember the mobs in Cairo screeching “Itabch Al Yahud, “Slaughter the Jews” this was of course before the occupation.”

Do you know what Zionist leader where saying in 1948, or I need to remind you:
Ben Gurion warned in 1948 : “We must do everything to insure they ( the Palestinians) never do return.” Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes. “The old will die and the young will forget.”
David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

You said “Has anyone here ever heard of Maalot or Avivim, these were a school and a school bus attacked by the Palestinians and many students were killed., This is just a small example of the thousands of terror attacks throughout the past 60 years. (I know, to most of you homicide bombings of Israelis is permitted as it is “resistance) Has eanyone here heard about Sderot which has rockets fired at it every day? Has anyone here actually listened to what Hamas is really saying and what they really mean>”

Have you everheard of Deir Yassin (1942), Sabra and shatilla (1982) and Qana (1996&2006). This is just examples of the massacres commited by Israelis against innocent civilians.

You said “Well, I would like to ask all of you here, if Israel did not have those soldiers and that army or they signifcantly lost a war and were overrun, what would happen? I will tell you, it would make the muslim-on-muslim carnage in Iraq look like a tea party.”

This is a big myth; this army has never been defensive and has always been offensive before 1948 and after. In addition to the massacres mentioned above this army is responsible of forcing 700,000 Palestinian refugees out of their homes in 1948 who are now numbered more that 4,000,000 and are still banned by Israel from returning to their villages, and responsible for the confiscation of all Palestinian land including to the Golan heights from Syrian and Sina from Egypt in 1967. It is not true that Muslims, Christians and Jews can not live together in peace in one state. Read the history of the arab/muslim world and you will realize that this had happened before. It is the Zionist ideology that asks for a state purely Jewish and Zionist are working for the last 100 years to empty Palestine from its original Muslim and Christian population.

You said” So sorry, my mother and her family went to Auschiwtz, we no longer want to go that route. I know it upsets you, but we have this crazy desire to live. “

Again sorry for your mother and her family, but maybe you don’t realize one thing Auschiwtz is not in the arab world and Arabs are not responsible for this genocide, so I don’t know why they should pay the price.

Salam/shalom
Arabi

Comment by Arabi — May 16th, 2007 @ 6:02 PM

Gaza baby treated at Israeli hospital

MDA ambulance transfers baby with heart defect from Gaza Strip to Sheba Medical Center for life-saving operation

Meital Yasur-Beit Or
Published: 05.28.07, 00:51 / Israel News

A Magen David Adom ambulance transferred an eight-day-old Palestinian baby from Gaza to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer Sunday evening.

This humanitarian act took place during one of the more difficult days in terms of Qassam launchings, during which a 36-year-old Oshri Oz was killed in Sderot

The baby suffers from a congenital heart defect and without proper treatment will not survive long. He was transferred to the Erez crossing, where an MDA ambulance was waiting to transfer him to hospital ventilated and in an incubator.

“We transfer patients from the Gaza Strip under fire on a daily basis,” said Moshe Vaknin, deputy manager of Lachish region of MDA. “Last week, our medics continued to treat a patient while shells were fired at the terminal at Erez. During the Shavuot holiday we evacuated another baby in an incubator, endangering our staff.”

The baby is now hospitalized at the intensive care department at the Safra Children’s Hospital at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.

‘No politics involved’

Dr Dudi Mishali, head of the Department of Pediatric & Congenital Cardiothoracic Surgery at the hospital, said: “The baby has a complete occlusion of his aorta. This is a severe defect, and if the child is not operated on as soon as possible he could die within a day.

‘He will probably be operated on tomorrow (Monday) and the prognosis is good. He is currently on medication that is keeping him alive,” he added.

Dr Mishali said that an average of three Palestinian babies with heart defects arrive at his department every week: “We have daily communications by phone and fax with doctors in Gaza. There is no heart surgeon in the Strip, so they transfer all of these children, and there are many, to be operated on here.”

The Palestinian Authority usually covers half of the expenses and the rest is generally covered by donations raised by the hospital.

“Our treatment has not changed over the last few days. This cooperation has survived difficult times of terrorism and bombings,” Mishali said and stressed that politics always stay outside the operating theater.

Comment by Hugh — May 29th, 2007 @ 12:56 PM

vendredi soir (20 juillet), les librairies Chapters et Indigo vont être assaillies par les visiteurs en quête du dernier volume de Harry Potter, avez-vous prévu une manifestation ?

Comment by oim — July 17th, 2007 @ 5:08 PM

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/jimmy-carters-war/
You boycotters should know the real facts.

Comment by H — November 5th, 2007 @ 4:11 AM

Let people walk in peace on St Catherines. They’ve been out there for over a year crying foul about this fund and it has become irritating. Choose another means to promote your cause other than harassment. Go tell your MP, your MNA but for crying out loud I am tired of having papers shoved in my face when I’m trying to have a peaceful walk.

As a matter of fact, being neutral in this, I find these aggressive tactics off-putting. Has the boycott worked? Has the fund been canceled? No. I only see angry irritated people in front of place Montreal Trust.

At the very least, put polite people out there and not screaming lunatics…People have children you know…

Comment by RD — February 2nd, 2008 @ 7:48 PM

I think the comment above is really self-centred and the comment that annoyed the the most out of the entire string. Geeze, self-absorbed much – and no one gives a damn that you have children. I think it wouldn’t hurt to be a little aware of stuff that is going on in the world and be somewhat sympathetic to the issue – but I am sure the protestors are sorry that they ruined your nice peaceful walk that you enjoy living in a country without conflict.

anyways, while I don’t have a major stance on this issue, I do think that you can talk back and forth til you’re blue in the face about this issue, but wrongs have been made on both sides. Regardless of how it started, it has to stop.

I am inclined to agree that Chapters as a company shouldn’t be involved in this – it only adds fuel to the fire.

Comment by E — June 30th, 2008 @ 11:00 AM

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