27 November 2006: The Dutch ASN Bank becomes the first bank in the world to divest from companies benefiting from Israeli occupation. ASN announces that it will divest from Veolia, a company that actively supports Israeli colonization, and “all companies that benefit from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory”.

19 November 2006: The Norwegian Civil Service Union, one of the largest unions of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, votes in favor of a boycott of Israel in the form of an arms embargo. (more…)

On Saturday 23 December a picket was organized by activists in Toronto and Montreal to officially launch a boycott campaign against Chapters and Indigo Bookstores. The campaign demands an end to the financial support offered by the majority owners of Chapters and Indigo to Heseg – the Foundation for Lone Soldiers. This is a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers’ in the Israeli military. (more…)

Info-Pickets in Toronto and Montreal to Protest Indigo Books’ Majority Shareholder Support for the Israeli Defense Forces

Saturday, December 23, 2006, 12:00PM
Indigo Books at 1500 McGill College
(entrance on St. Catherine, west of McGill College)

The information picket has been called by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) and endorsed by Not In Our Name: Jews Against Israel’s Wars.

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Toronto Sun Friday, December 15th, 2006, By Sid Ryan

I think I know what the messages on Jimmy Carter’s voice mail sound like.

Last month, the former U.S. President released his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. And I bet he’s getting an earful.

Last spring, 900 delegates to the Canadian Union of Public Employees [CUPE] Ontario convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution expressing support for the global campaign against Israeli apartheid. (more…)

Today we are launching an appeal for a world-wide cultural boycott against the Israeli state.

John Berger

UK Guardian newspaper, December 15, 2006

Today I am supporting a world-wide appeal to teachers, intellectuals and artists to join the cultural boycott of the state of Israel, as called for by over a hundred Palestinian academics and artists, and – very importantly – also by a number of Israeli public figures, who outspokenly oppose their country’s illegal occupation of the Palestine territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Their call, printed in the Guardian today, can be read here. A full list of signatories can be found here.

(The drawing, After Guernica, is by John Berger.)

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On Saturday, 16 December 2006, Palestinian solidarity activists gathered on St. Catherine street in downtown Montreal to draw attention to a 2005 appeal from over 170 Palestinian civil-society organizations to, Boycott, Divest from and implement Sanctions against Israel “until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights.”

Distributing information to Montrealers strolling downtown, members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Tadamon! appealed to passers-by to support the Palestinian call to boycott Israel.

Audio report here.  

Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Against Israel: www.bds-palestine.net and www.stopthewall.org.

Also see www.caiaweb.org for updates in the Canadian BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid.

[This audio report was produced by Stefan Christoff of Tadamon! for broadcast on CKUT Radio, 90.3fm in Montreal & Internet distribution through Electronic Intifada.]

Christmas shopping: what better time to boycott Israeli apartheid

Montreal Mirror: by Stefan Christoff

Almost four months have passed since Montrealer Hassan El Akhras lost 11 family members to an Israeli air strike in the south Lebanese village of Aitaroun. Currently, legal representatives of the family are pressing the Conservative government for action on the case.

Despite existing legal efforts, Hassan El Akhras holds little faith in the current government. “The government has done nothing,” says El Akhras. “Our family wants the Canadian government to launch an international investigation on the war crime committed against my family, but we have gotten no phone call, nothing.”
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An anti-government rally brought up to two million people into the capital’s downtown on December 10, 2006, impeding a quick exit from the political crisis that has gripped Lebanon since Dec. 1.(Pictures from the demonstration)

By Bill Cecil

George Bush doesn’t like what’s happening in this small Arab country. “Hezbollah extremists are trying to destabilize Lebanon,” he says. He claims that Syria and Iran are behind it all. Bush is no more honest about Lebanon than he was about Iraq. What’s happening here is a movement of the people on a scale rarely seen in history. It is like the Palestinian Intifada or the fight against apartheid in South Africa.

Yesterday more than half of Lebanon’s four and a half million people filled the streets around Parliament to protest the U.S.-backed regime of Fuad Siniora. From morning on, this city’s avenues to the south were a sea of people as hundreds of thousands walked in from the Dahye—Beirut’s working-class southern suburbs. (more…)