British labor unions on Thursday agreed to support a boycott of some Israeli goods in response to the offensive in Gaza last winter.
The boycott, proposed by the Fire Brigades Union, calls for a ban on importing goods produced in some Israeli settlements, an end of arms trading with Israel and disinvestment from some companies.
A few weeks ago, in the dead of night, dozens of Israeli soldiers with painted faces burst violently into my home. If only they had knocked, I would have opened the door. They arrested me. My wife, Lamia, was left alone with our four children. My youngest, 3-year-old Khaled, woke up to the image of Israeli soldiers with painted faces who were taking his father away. He has not stopped crying since. A few nights ago he woke up in terror, sobbing: “Daddy, why did you let the soldiers take me?” That’s the way our children sleep–in a constant state of fear.
For Immediate Release, International Solidarity Movement, September 16, 2009.
16 September 2009: Israeli forces raid Bil’in, beat Popular Committee member.
Around 1:30am, the Israeli army invaded Bil’in. Soldiers came to the home of Abdullah Mahmoud Abu Rahme, coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, to arrest him. view video
Abu Rahme was not at home at the time and soldiers proceeded to destroy belongings in his house.
When another member of the Popular Committee, Mohammad Khatib, arrived to check on Abu Rahme’s wife and 3 small children, Israeli forces severely beat him. Khatib was taken to Ramallah hospital for medical treatment.
Photo: Filippo Minelli. Open sky shining above Israel’s apartheid wall in Palestine.
The U.S. pension fund giant, TIAA-CREF, confirmed in statements to the media on Friday that it divested from Africa Israel Investments, owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, earlier this year.
The statements came in response to a letter initiated by a pro-Palestinian group, Adalah-NY, and signed by TIAA-CREF clients.
The fund’s investment in Africa Israel amounted to only $257,000, so the financial effect of the divestment is minimal. The news of the divestment came as the Israeli firm was suffering a deep financial crisis, having recently announced that is unable to meet its liabilities to its bondholders.
Moviegoers who were hoping for world class cinema at this week’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) may find themselves at the centre of a growing controversy steeped in international politics.
Considered to be one of the five most prestigious film festivals, the TIFF this year introduced the City to City programme, a new theme to its traditional programming grid, “that will explore the evolving urban experience while presenting the best documentary and fiction films from and about a selected city.”
Festival organisers say they have chosen Tel Aviv to be the focus of the inaugural edition of the programme.
Photo: Wissam Nassar, MaanImages. Palestinian solidarity messages on national flag.
MONTREAL – Members of Montreal Palestine solidarity collective Tadamon! and fans of Montreal poet and singer Leonard Cohen will gather today in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood to call on the singer to cancel his concert in Tel Aviv planned for later this month.
By performing in Israel, Cohen is ignoring the 2005 appeal by 171 Palestinian organizations which calls on the international community to join the peaceful movement to end Israeli apartheid and occupation through the implementation of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli state until it complies with international law and respects Palestinian human rights.
As members of the Canadian and international film, culture and media arts communities, we are deeply disturbed by the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.
In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched “Brand Israel,” a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture.
When I heard the Toronto International Film Festival was holding a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv I felt ashamed of my city. I thought immediately of Mona Al Shawa, a Palestinian women’s-rights activist I met on a recent trip to Gaza. “We had more hope during the attacks,” she told me, “at least then we believed things would change.”
Ms. Al Shawa explained that while Israeli bombs rained down last December and January, Gazans were glued to their TVs. What they saw, in addition to the carnage, was a world rising up in outrage: global protests, as many as a hundred thousand on the streets of London, a group of Jewish women in Toronto occupying the Israeli Consulate. “People called it war crimes,” Ms. Al Shawa recalled. “We felt we were not alone in the world.” If Gazans could just survive them, it seemed these horrors would be the catalyst for change.
When I arrived at the grand offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the Palais Wilson, looking out at a drizzly Lake Geneva, Navanethem Pillay was hunched over the shoulder of her deputy, Kyung-wha Kang, dictating a press release. “I am shocked and deeply disappointed,” I heard her say, pointing at the screen while Kang typed. It was 3:00 p.m., and Pillay was having a very bad day.
“Done,” she finally declared, plopping down at her conference table. The press release was a response to some disappointing news. The previous night, the United States, under the leadership of its first African-American president, had announced that it would boycott the United Nations Durban Review Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, citing its alleged anti-Israel bias. The conference was to start the following day, April 20, 2009, with Pillay presiding. Known by critics as “Durban II,” this was the only United Nations gathering specifically focused on pushing governments to combat racism inside their borders, a task that had become increasingly urgent as financial crises continued to stoke ethnic tensions around the world.
