by Jooneed Khan rabble.ca | October 29, 2010

Photo Palestinian flag at demonstration signed in solidarity with Gaza.

The worldwide campaign to boycott Israel as an apartheid state took a giant Canadian leap forward last weekend with a three-day BDS Conference in Montreal (boycott, divestment and sanctions) that saw the coming together of separate and diverse initiatives into what a South African trade union delegate called “an unstoppable movement.”

At a time when the old western-dominated colonialist-militarist world order is in decline, when the loot-and-run, slash-and-burn, bomb-and-rebuild capitalist model is in crisis, when western civil societies are clamoring for a more participative democracy to combat corruption, secrecy and the lies of their security-obsessed states, and mobilizing globally to save the planet, has the Palestinian cause become a symbol of the struggle for human values for a new generation and a new century?

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Audio recording opening Quebec Boycott Divestment & Sanctions BDS conference

Photo: Paul Di Stefano. Opening panel @ Quebec/Canada wide BDS conference.

This panel will present and assess the achievements and aims of the BDS movement internationally and in Palestine over the past 5 years, and speak to the challenges ahead for the BDS movement in Québec, Canada and around the world.

Featuring Omar Barghouti, Coordinator, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Boycott National Committee (BNC), Palestine Areej Ja’fari, Coordinator of the Palestine Freedom Project, West Bank Stephen Faulkner, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

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photos from World Education Forum by Wolf Bonpiedbonoeil

Photo: World Education Forum solidarity demonstration at global forum in Ramallah.

Photographs documenting the World Education Forum in Palestine currently taking place in Palestine. Thousands have gathered from around the world to join the World Education Forum and are participating in hundreds of workshops, cultural events and meetings to promote quality accessible education globally, while highlighting specifically the struggle of Palestinians to access education in the face of Israeli apartheid. The World Education Forum, initiated via the World Social Forum process, takes place in occupied Palestine as the international movement for boycott, divestment & sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid grows.

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présentation du film H2Oil au Forum Mondial de l’Éducation via Cinema Politica

Vendredi le 29 octobre 2010
Ramallah, Palestine, salle T101
Présentation de 19h00 à 20h30
Forum Mondial de l’Éducation

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CKUT radio interview with Palestinian writer/author Ali Abunimah

Photo Jessie Boylan Palestinians demonstrate in Bil’in, West Bank.

Listen to an interview with Palestinian writer/author Ali Abunimah on the growing popular protest movement against Israeli apartheid in Gaza, throughout the West Bank and particularly in the agricultural village of Bil’in.

Popular protests are growing in the West Bank, pointing to an expanding, organized grassroots response to the Israeli military occupation at the community-based level in Palestine, a direct response to the realities of Israeli apartheid beyond the Palestinian Authority politicians walking the halls of political power in D.C. pushing forward a negotiation process that has lead to little results.

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Pourquoi McGill et Concordia devraient couper leurs liens avec l’Université Technion.

Mise à jour du rapport effectuée en Avril2011. Télécharger l’intégralité du document
Photo : fenêtre d’une maison Palestinienne par l’armée israélienne.

L’université de McGill ainsi que celle de Concordia entretiennent des liens avec l’Université Technion en Israël, à travers un programme d’échange bilatéral. Que signifie réellement cette collaboration, dans un contexte où les Palestiniens se voient refuser toute justice, sont victimes de discriminations par Israël et sont soumis à de violentes occupations les poussant même parfois jusqu’à l’exile. Le document qui suit expose les différents enjeux de militarisation crées et alimentés par Technion, à travers non seulement son lien étroit et son implication dans le complexe militaro-industriel israélien mais aussi en perpétuant la discrimination systématique des Palestiniens citoyens d’Israël.

Notre étude analyse le rôle et l’importance de l’institut Technion dans la recherche d’armes et de technologies ainsi que l’usage répressif de ces technologies par Les Forces de Défenses Israéliennes. En participant à des programmes de recherche avec plusieurs compagnies de Défense Israéliennes comme Elbit et Rafel, McGill et Concordia sont directement impliquées dans l’innovation technologique desservant la « barrière de séparation » Israélienne : chars de combat et avions automatiques. Les étudiants Palestiniens citoyens d’Israël subissent de fortes injustices et inégalités à tous les niveaux d’éducation. Technion ne fait pas l’exception. On leurs refuse souvent l’accès à plusieurs services comme les logements universitaires, les bourses, et même certains programmes d’étude de l’université. Enfin, le droit de manifester publiquement contre ces injustices ne leur est pas permis.

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Quebec/Canada Conference on the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) Movement

Saturday October 23rd 9h -10h30
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM)
Pavillon des Sciences de l’Éducation
1405 St-Denis (corner René-Lévesque)
Room N-M140 (pavilion N métro level)
Montreal, Quebec, metro Berri-UQAM

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Ateliers pour la communauté artistique, se déroulant dans le cadre de la conférence Québec – Canada, portant sur le mouvement de Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions (BDS)

Samedi 23 octobre / dimanche 24 octobre 2010
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM)
Pavillon des Sciences de l’Éducation
1405 St-Denis (coin René-Lévesque)
salle NM 140 (pavillon N niveau métro)
Montréal, Québec, métro Berri-UQAM

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Laila El-Haddad guardian.co.uk Thursday 16 September 2010

Photo A Palestinian boy flies his kite through the streets of Khan Younis in Gaza.

Ask any resident of Gaza what their thoughts are on the US-sponsored “direct talks” between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’s Ramallah government, and you’re likely to hear one of three responses:

1) Surely, you jest;

2) Something’s rotten in Ramallah;

3) Negotiations?

There is very little patience in Gaza for this latest set of talks. They are not only being conducted without a national consensus by what is broadly considered an illegitimate government, but they also completely marginalise the Gaza Strip and overlook the blockade and asphyxiation it has suffered for more than four years.

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by Nima Shirazi September 2010.

Photo Kent Klich Northern Gaza Strip, Israeli air strike on Gaza home.

“Before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived…We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.”

Moshe Dayan, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, speaking at the funeral of an Israeli farmer killed by a Palestinian in April 1956.

The public debate over the Israeli Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was reignited recently with the news that the illegal West Bank colony of Ariel would soon be opening its newly-constructed, multi-million dollar cultural center and would host performances by several of Israel’s leading theater companies in its auditorium, built – tragically – by the very Palestinian construction workers that Israel has occupied and dispossessed. The announcement marked the first time these notable Israeli drama groups would be performing outside of the 1949 Armistice Line in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

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