An angry debate was reignited in the Guardian last summer over calls for an academic boycott of Israeli universities by British ones. The United Kingdom’s University and College Union recommended boycotting Israeli academics’ “complicity” in their government’s occupation of Palestine. The act hearkens back to the 1965 academic boycott of apartheid South Africa, which the union considered instrumental in ending state-sponsored segregation.

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Qualified as a “war crime” by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and illegal “collective punishment” by the European Union and international agencies, the humanitarian and political crisis created by Israel’s five-day hermetic seal on Gaza is taking a toll not only on the 1.5 million inhabitants of the impoverished coastal strip. Damaged “beyond repair”, according to several Palestinians speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly from Rafah, is the image of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is being widely blamed for “turning a blind eye to the misery of his own people in Gaza” while continuing to engage in talks with Israel on peace.

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ZAWTAR WEST, 22 January: Deminers clearing Israeli-dropped cluster bombs in south Lebanon are turning up an average of 10 new sites per month, while Israel continues to ignore requests for data that would assist clearing the estimated one million unexploded bomblets, which continue to kill and maim civilians and decimate rural livelihoods. A single cluster bomb can disperse hundreds of bomblets.

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Last night I received a text message from my dear friend Fida: “It’s coming down — it’s coming down!” she declared ecstatically. “Laila! The Palestinians destroyed [the] Rafah wall, all of it. All of it not part of it! Your sister, Fida.”

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amenez bannières, pancartes, instruments pour faire du bruit…

VENDREDI, le 25 janvier, 14h
Coin Maisonneuve & Mackay
Finira au Square Phillips
(métro Guy-Concordia)
Montréal, Quebec

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Plusieurs villes à travers le Canada et dans le monde participent à une semaine entière d’actions contre l’apartheid israélien du 3 au 10 février. Cette semaine d’actions a été initiée au niveau local en Palestine et en est à sa quatrième année d’existence. En 2008, la semaine contre l’apartheid israélien a lieu au moment de la commémoration des 60 ans de Nakba palestinienne (‘catastrophe’) -60 ans de dépossession, de nettoyage ethnique et d’exil pour les Palestiniens, résultant de la création de l’État d’Israël. Tadamon ! Montréal vous invite à participer à une série d’événements afin de marquer cette semaine contre l’apartheid à Montréal…

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The Palestinian hip-hop group DAM, which has spawned a cult following and a small army of imitators, stars in a new film about the underground music scene in the Middle East, which premiered on Friday at the Sundance Film Festival. “Slingshot Hip Hop,” by director Jackie Salloum, offers a peek into contemporary life in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Middle East hip-hop culture inspired by the political positions of American rappers such as Chuck D, Tupac Shakur and Eminem.

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At approximately 8:00pm on Sunday, 20 January, the Gaza Strip power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, plunging the Gaza Strip into darkness. The closure of the Gaza power plant, in addition to Israel’s continued, tightened siege on the Gaza Strip, will have a catastrophic effect on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic shortages of fuel, medicine and some basic food stuffs. The director of Gaza’s main hospital, al-Shifa, describes the current situation as “potentially disastrous.”

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Nahr el-Bared, camp de réfugiés palestiniens situé au bord de la Méditerranée, au Liban près de Tripoli, a été le théâtre d’un violent conflit entre l’armée libanaise et la faction armée Fatah al-Islam, du 20 mai au 4 septembre 2007, obligeant ses 40,000 résidents à évacuer contre leur gré. Aujourd’hui, il ne reste que des ruines, la plupart inhabitables.

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2007 has been a busy and exciting year for the Palestine solidarity movement. While Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert attempt to hide Israel’s crimes behind the lie of ‘peace negotiations’, thousands of individuals and organizations around the world are building a real and effective alternative centered on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid. Here in Toronto, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) has been a proud participant in this global movement. This brief report captures some of our activities over 2007.

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