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BRICUP tells Elton John 'Don't Play Israel'BRICUP has sent an open letter to Elton John asking him to cancel his planned concert in Israel in June. We've said to him: "Okay, you turn up in Ramat Gan, and it gets to that ‘Candle in the Wind’ moment, and thousands of lighters flicker – but there won’t be any Palestinians from the Occupied Territories swaying along with the Israelis – the army won’t let them leave their ghettoes. Please read what Judge Goldstone said about the onslaught on Gaza; what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been saying for decades about the crimes committed against the Palestinians."
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New reportsThe Alternative Information Centre (based in Jerusalem and Beit Sahour) have just published a major new report on the "Academic Boycott of Israel and the Complicity of Israeli Academic Institutions in Occupation of Palestinian Territories". This 64 page report details the close institutional links that all Israeli Universities have with the Israeli armed forces, the settlements and the structures supporting the Occupation. Educational International (the international federation of education trade unions) have published a report on The Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza written by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. While we would contest the description of the historical context in section 2, the report has much detailed description of the current situation in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza that should concern us. The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation have published a handbook for student divestment campaigns The Canadian College and University Workers United (CUWU) have produced a leaflet 'Why Boycott Divestment Sanctions'. Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign have published a factsheet on How Israeli arms companies benefit from EU science funds The Ma'an Development Center has launched a report on the Palestinian BDS campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Lesson learned in effective solidarity |
BRICUP condemns Israeli Greenwash
The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) has condemned an environmental exhibition and lecture series being hosted by the Zionist Federation on 9th February, dismissing it as "greenwashing the occupation".
The evening event for the general public, "Israel Blue White and Green", features a special guest appearance from botanist David Bellamy. BRICUP has written to Bellamy urging him to pull out, saying that he should be "outraged … at the prospect of Israel presenting itself (especially to relatively unformed minds) as a champion of environmentalist virtues" and accusing the ZF of trying to "greenwash" Israel’s reputation. It lists a catalogue of Israel’s environmental crimes, including dumping untreated sewage and waste water from West Bank settlements onto Palestinian agricultural land; uprooting over 1½ million olive trees, and creating sewage lakes by destroying Gaza’s waste treatment system.
Read BRICUP's open letter to David Bellamy signed by leading academics
Read BRICUP's press release
Danske Bank abandons investments in two companies active in the occupied territories
The major Danish Bank Danske Bank announced that they have withdrawn investment from two Israeli companies, Elbit Systems and Africa Israel Investments. The reason is that the two companies violate international norms. Elbit provides surveillance equipment for the separation wall, which the international court has condemned, and Africa Israel builds houses in the Jewish settlements that are internationally regarded as illegal.
Sanatana cancels Israel trip
Legendary Santana cancels concert because of anti-Israel pressure. Carlos Santana reportedly received messages that "it's better" that he not perform in Israel, according to what a senior official in the Israeli music production market involved in producing Santana's show told Yedioth Ahronoth on Saturday.
Sources in Israel's music industry hope that Santana's cancellation does not create a chain reaction. We however hope that it will - send a letter to Elton John.
Video shows how Israeli business success built on training of its youth to enforce occupation
CNBC video on how Israel’s excellence in business innovation is due to its military training of all its youngsters who learn how to be ‘leaders’. This confirms how Israel’s business advancement is built on the backs of the Palestinians under occupation.
Cambridge ‘Islamophobic’ Talk Cancelled
The Cambridge University Israel Society have cancelled a talk by former Cambridge student Benny Morris after pressure from students. ...In an interview in 2004 he said that Palestinians should be "contained so that they will not succeed in murdering us. Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."
Israel bars overseas lecturers from Palestinian Universities
As part of their wider move to withhold NGO employees' work permits, Israel is also denying work permits to people who want to teach at Palestinian Universities. This consolidates the previous regime of disruption which only allowed teachers 3 month contacts (if they were allowed in at all). These contracts were, or were not, renewed capriciously - often before the modules they were teaching had finished leaving the students in mid air and with no credit for their work.
Read Ha'aretz article
Israel's NGO crackdown spells trouble - Seth Freedman in Comment is Free
Israel proposes to turn settler Arial college into a 'university'
Arial College (hte College of Judea and Samaria) is built upon stolen Palestinian land in Arial settlement and is self-proclaimed part of r-inforcing the settlement project.
It was founded by Bar Ilan University and the Defence Ministry has never had the support of Israeli Council of Higher Education. The CHE has refused to recognise it as a university and now the Defence Ministry, under Labour Leader Ehud Barak, is trying to confer that status.
There is much opposition to that move and BRICUP is calling on all its supporters to oppose this move and in UCU to enfirce its 2008 Congress resolution to start the process of Greylisting Arial.
Amal Jamal, the head of political science at Tel Aviv University, said the upgrade would also highlight the extent to which universities inside Israel colluded with the West Bank college. "There is strong support for the college among some academics at Israeli universities, which co-operate with it in holding conferences, conducting research, supervising doctoral students and teaching," he said.
Read the Ha'aretz report
Haim Brasheeth condemns Arial move in Ynet News
Ha'aretz editorial denounces dangerous folly
Uri Avnery on Lienerman, Barak and Arial
B'Tselem report on the Arial Settlement
Israel creates first army-owned' university - Jonathan Cook
Rector of Begen University supports debate on academic boycott
The rector of a leading Norwegian university on Wednesday said he would support and sponsor a "positive" debate on boycotting Israel.
"It is an important feature of academic freedom that open, free and critical debates on any topic can be held on campus," said Professor Sigmund Grønmo, who heads Bergen University. He said this shortly after Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to upgrade Ariel College's status to a university
History of Israeli BDS campaign published
Rachel Giora, one of the founders of BOYCOTT! - the Israeli campaign for boycott from within - has writen a history of the struggle to build Iraeli support for the Academic and other boycotts. It tells a story of a long campaign to build the small, but growing, current BDS movement.
Israeli Universities Help Robots Remake Battlefield
Israeli universities are participating in the development of unmanned weapons for the Israeli Army. These new generation weapons which will further insulate Israeli soldiers from awareness of the suffering they inflict. The Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem have compiled a report for BRICUP on the involvement of Israeli Universities in this frightening new generation weaponary whcih will still further reduce Israel's concern about invading and destroying Palestinian land.
Ma'an news editor prevented from entering Israel
Jared Malsin Chief Editor for the English Desk at Ma'an News Agency, a Jewish American citizen, was detained upon arrival at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv at 4pm on Tuesday, 12 January 2009. He was interrogated for eight hours in a detention hall at the airport during which time he had no access to a lawyer or his consulate. He was scheduled for deportation at 6am Thursday 14 January, but the deportation has now been temporarily stayed. Jared was returning to Israel after a holiday in the Czech Republic.
Please protest to the Israeli Ambassador in your country
Architect Frank Gehry withdraws from plan to build Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem
After years of protests and an unsuccessful legal challenge, architect Frank Gehry has pulled out of a project to build a Jerusalem counterpart to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance that is slated to stand on a site that was once part of an ancient Muslim cemetery.
John Pilger: Boycott no longer a taboo
In the United States and Europe, trade unions, mainstream churches and academic associations have brought back the strategies that were used against apartheid South Africa. In a resolution adopted by 431 votes to 62, the US Presbyterian Church voted for a process of "phased, selective disinvestment" in multinational corporations doing business with Israel. This followed the opinion of the International Court of Justice that Israel's wall and its "settler" colonies were illegal. A similar declaration by the court in 1971, denouncing South Africa's occupation of Namibia, ignited the international boycott.
Uphill battle for academic freedom in US universities
Despite the expanding and momentous student-led BDS movement, open dialogue around the reality of the situation in occupied Palestine continues to be an uphill battle for many professors inside the classrooms. Educators who openly align with the BDS movement, or speak out against Israeli-US policy in Palestine and the region, are being harassed, threatened, blacklisted, denied tenure and fired from their academic posts.
Please sign the petition: Five Fully Funded Scholarships at King's College London for Gazan Students
Kings College London promised five scholarships for students from Gaza in return for Kings studnets ending their occupation in January 2009. These scholarships have not yet been provided.
Israel prevented 17 Gazans from leaving for cornea transplant operations
Israel prevented 17 sight-impaired Gazans from leaving for cornea transplant operations on time; a donation of dozens of corneas went down the drain
The Israeli authorities at Erez checkpoint this week prevented the exit of 17 sight-impaired patients, suffering from various eye diseases, from the Gaza Strip in order to undergo cornea transplants, a treatment that is not available in the Gaza health system.
Hebrew University archeologists destroy Palestinian homes
Archeologists, led by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The Shalem Center, have destroyed homes in Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood just to the south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The archeologists are searching for the mythical 'City of David' which they claim lies under Silwan. The tunnelling for the excavations goes directly under homes, collapsing them. This compounds the destruction caused by the Jerusalem Municipality's programme of home demolitions in Silwan.
BRICUP endorses the Cairo decleration
The Gaza Freedom march issued a declaration while they were detained in Cairo by the Egyptian Government and prevented from reachin Rafah to enter Gaza. BRICUP has added its name to the declaration which calls for support for BDS to achieve:
- Palestinian Self-Determination
- Ending the Occupation
- Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine
- The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees
Read the declaration
Read reports from members of the Gaza Freedom Movement and Viva Palestina Convoy on their treatment by the Egyptian Government
Israeli film maker Udi Aloni says 'Why I joined the movement for Sanctions against Israel'
Leading Israeli film maker Udi Aloni has published an article on why he supports the cultural boycott and the Palestinian BDS call.
PACBI reviews a year of progress on BDS
The new PACBI newsletter reviews a year of progress on BDS. It lists successful initiatives in the academic, cultural and commercial arenas and highlights the global spread of BDS activists and initiatives.
The Hebrew University in Jerusalem bans conference on war on Gaza
The Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Monday cancelled a conference
organized by the leftist Hadash Party branch after learning that it
was
meant to focus on the "dreadful and damned Zionist war," referring
to
Israel'swar against Hamas a year ago.
Hebrew U students who are members of Hadash had received authorization to hold the conference on campus, but the institution eventually canceled what it referred to as a "conference of incitement" against the IDF and the State of Israel. A pamphlet circulated ahead of the conference read, in Arabic, "A year has passed since the war in Gaza was launched; don't let it be forgotten. Members of the Hadash branch invite you to an evening in which we will remember the dreadful and damned Zionist war."
Read full story from Ynetnews
UN expert repeats call for threat of sanctions against Israel over Gaza blockade
The United Nations independent expert on Palestinian rights has again called for a threat of economic sanctions against Israel to force it to lift its blockade of Gaza, which is preventing the return to a normal life for 1.5 million residents after the devastating Israeli offensive a year ago.
“ Obviously Israel does not respond to language of diplomacy, which has encouraged the lifting of the blockade and so what I am suggesting is that it has to be reinforced by a threat of adverse economic consequences for Israel,” Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, told UN Radio.
Read full story from the UN news service
1 Year after Gaza Massacre: Over 500 US Academics and Cultural Workers Call for Boycott
The United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCABI), with whom BRICUP has close links, is asking US and International academics and cultural workers to sign their decleration. Over 500 have already done so.
Read about the decleration in Dissident Voice
Read the decleration
Email USCABI with your full name and institutional affiliation if you are an academic or field if you are a cultural worker and if you fully endorse the Mission Statement of USACBI Campaign and authorize them to use your name publicly.
BRICUP UK tour a resounding success
BRICUP organised a highly successful tour in five UK cities with speakers from Palestine and South Africa.
View a video of the London meeting
BBC misrepresents BRICUP's SOAS meeting
BRICUP and SOAS Palestine Society submit complaint to BBC Trust over misreporting
Tour details
PGFTU reaffirms full support for BDS
A recent report in the Jewish Chronicle stated that a Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions had to a visiting delegation from the UK Trade Union Friends of Israe that the PGFTU did not see BDS as a priority. The PGFTU has responded to this with by reaffriming unequivocal support for BDS.
The Palestinian Boycott National Committee has issued a statement of clarification
our Federation unambiguously states its principled and committed position for the boycott of Israel in all international forums, and appreciates all international forces, institutions and trade unions that stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and adopt this position. PGFTU and its member trade unions reiterates that is has been and will always be a key and authentic part of the Palestinian national coalition for the boycott [the BDS National Committee, BNC] and confirms the necessity of supporting the national Palestinian production and of building an [independent] economy free from economic dependency.
The Palestinian Boycott National Committee issued a statement in response.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee, BNC, warmly welcomes the statement issued on 25 November 2009 by the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) -- signed by its Secretary General, Mr. Shaher Sa'ad, and its Executive Committee, and endorsed by all the main Palestinian trade union blocs that are represented in the Federation. In particular, the BNC welcomes PGFTU's affirmation of its "principled and committed position for the boycott of Israel" and its praise of international trade unions and other civil society organizations that stand in solidarity with Palestinian rights and adopt the boycott against Israel.
We are further encouraged by PGFTU's commitment to remaining a "key and authentic component" of the large civil society coalition that leads the global BDS movement, the BNC.
British business man threatens Israeli Academic who criticised Israel
Michael Gross is a prominent member of Britain's Jewish community, a long-time donor to Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and a member of its international board of governors.
After seeing a Channel 4 Dispatches programme last month, Gross emailed Professor David Newman – a British-born lecturer who has emigrated to Israel – and wrote: "I saw your disgusting contribution to the Dispatches programme. I will use whatever influence I have at BGU to have you thrown out… I hope you perish." In a second message, he said: "The sooner you are removed from BGU and the face of the earth, the better."
It is worth noting that David Newman was sent to Britain by Israel in 1997 to campaign against the Academic Boycott.
Christian Palestinian leaders support the boycott call
The leaders of all the main christian denominations in Plaestine have issued 'The Kairos Document' This document makes it clear tha tall Palestinians, regardless of religious affiliation, are united in opposition to Israeli occupation and blockade and in support of the BDS call.
"Our word to the international community is to stop the principle of "double standards" and insist on the international resolutions regarding the Palestinian problem with regard to all parties. Selective application of international law threatens to leave us vulnerable to a law of the jungle. It legitimizes the claims by certain armed groups and states that the international community only understands the logic of force. Therefore, we call for a response to what the civil and religious institutions have proposed, as mentioned earlier: the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel. We repeat once again that this is not revenge but rather a serious action in order to reach a just and definitive peace that will put an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories and will guarantee security and peace for all."
French academics take boycott action
The newly formed French academic boycott organisation, Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP) has taken its first public action. AURDIP has written to le Collège de France to protest about the day it held promoting the work of Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.
Read AURDIP's open letter (in French)
Tom Hickey addresses the Kerala Film Festival
Tom Hickey, a member of the BRICUP organising committee was invited to speak at the 14th Kerala Film Festival. He spoke about the situation of Palestinians under occupation and blockade and explained the case for the film and cultural boycott of Israel.
Read Tom Hickey's talk Justice and the Claims of Truth: Films, Festivals and the Case of Palestine
BRICUP supports Bethlehem Now: Alternative lessons and songs of protest for Palestine
Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods organised a concert to highlight the tragedy of modern day Palestine with an evening of poetry, prose, song and theatre at St Pauls Church, Covent Garden, London. BRICUP was pleased to be a sponsor of tis event.
The concert was successful and well attended. It was a moving testiment of the strugle of the Palestinian to survive under and resist Israeli occupation and blockade.
The evening raised over £1500 for Free Gaza, Wi'am and Interpal
Academic Boycott of Palestinian Students: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?
Isabelle Swerissen, an intern with FFIPP has written powerfully about the effects of Israeli disruption of education in Palestine.
The article concludes: " The focus of this article has been on the legal aspects of the denial of the right to freedom of movement and the right to education, both under international humanitarian law and international human rights law. A discussion of these aspects can only lead to one conclusion: Israel’s restrictive policy is legitimized by de jure security reasons, which, by their unjust use, come down to a de facto academic boycott of Palestinian students from Gaza. "
Right-wing groups creating climate of fear at Israeli universities
Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the "witch-hunt" tactics of the US academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn.
The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent publication in a US newspaper of an Israeli professor's call to boycott Israel.
Full story from electronic intifada
Bethlehem University Student is Blindfolded, Handcuffed, and Taken to Gaza by Force
Berlanty Azzam, 21, was arrested while crossing from one part of the West Bank to another – just because her address in the Israeli-controlled Population Registry is registered in the Gaza Strip.
The Military Legal Adviser's Office promised not to remove her to Gaza pending a court petition this morning by Gisha challenging the removal. Despite the promise, Berlanty was blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken to Gaza by force.
Full report form Gisha
Sign the petition to Gordon Brown to call for Berlanty's release
Steven Rose, a founder member of BRICUP has written an article on 'Academic freedom in Israel and Palestine' in EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) Reports.
Professor Rose says: "T he ultimate test of a boycott must be the role it has in changing the policies of those boycotted. The vociferousness of the opponents of the boycott, their ad hominem accusations against its signatories, and the mobilisation of the Israel lobby in the USA to challenge the legality of what is above all an individual moral decision, makes it clear that it has touched a sensitive nerve. For Israel, its academy is second only to the military in national prestige. Being part of the European Research Area symbolizes Israel’s aspirations to be regarded more as a part of Europe than of the Middle East."
Leading Israeli journalist tells how sanctions are biting
Sever Plocker wrote in Ynet news
The current anti-Israel wave is particularly dangerous especially because it is not limited to the media and to leftist groups that traditionally were classified as “Israel haters.” This wave is rising, expending, drawing young people, and painting the perceptions of the well-established middle class and influential elites.
Israel’s image has hit a nadir; it is isolated, unwanted, and perceived as bad. The world is telling us that should we continue along the same contemptible path, we will lose our legitimacy.
French trade union issues boycott call
The CNT has joined the international BDS movement. The international secretary of the union said it would also invite each of its constituent members to join the BDS campaign and participate in its activities.
“Our joining this Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign is coherent with our solidarity with Palestine, defined by our statement of support of the Palestinian people’s struggle, adopted by the CNT during its 2006 congress. This statement is the expression of the anti-colonial and internationalist principles of our union,” the statement continued.
Hebrew University Student Union demands another wall
According to the Jerusalem online newspaper Mynet, Hebrew University’s Student Union Chairperson, Ofer Raviv, recently recommended that a Separation Wall between the university’s Mount Scopus campus and the nearby Palestinian village of Issawiya be constructed.
Duke University professor lays out the argument for Boycott
Fred Moten, professor of English at Duke University argued for the acaemic boycott in address he delivered at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting on 7 November 2009 in Washington, D.C.
The justification of the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions is quite simple and quite clear: the victims of a sovereign brutality instantiated in racial-military domination have come to an overwhelming consensus, in the very shadow of the state that has come to exemplify The State and its exception, that boycott is the most immediate form of international support they require....
Urge Norwegian University to support the boycott call
This is a petition to be sent to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Board of Directors in Trondheim, Norway urging them to vote YES on Nov. 12, 2009 to academically boycott Israel. Many Universities and campuses are considering same but this University is he first university to actually bring this to a vote to the Board of Directors.
This petition must be given to the University by November 9, 2009.
Sussex students vote to boycott Israeli goods
Following a landmark referendum, students at Sussex University have voted to boycott Israeli goods. The decision will become part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which calls upon Israel to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestine.
The referendum result mandates the Students’ Union to remove all Israeli produce from its stores, and review its sources for food outlets. This makes Sussex Students’ Union the first in the UK to implement a full boycott of Israeli goods. The vote was one of the largest and closest contested in the Union’s history, with 562 votes for and 450 against the boycott.
Zionists pressurise Manchester hospital to ban Physicians for Human Rights (Israel)
Miri Weingarten was due to speak at the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust on behalf of the widely respeected PHR(I). The venue was cancelled at short notice, allegedly following pressure from the Zionist Central Council.
University of Johannesburg staff oppose links with Ben Gurion Univeersity
A staff petition has been sent to the management of the University of Johannesburg by staff outraged at moves to link with Ben Gurion University and they are demanding the Univerity rescinds their recently signed Memorandum of Agreement with Ben Gurion University.
Review of worldwide progress on BDS
The latest issue of American's for Middle East Understanding's bulletin is a round up of progress on BDS. Page 10 focuses on the academic boycott.
Bethlehem University was forced to close on Yom Kippur
Bethlehem University was forced to close on 28 September, reports Mazin Qumsiyeh, because the Israeli authorities imposed a "closure" of the West Bank because of Yom Kippur holiday. As our students and faculty from Jerusalem cannot get to Bethlehem (a mere 5 miles away) because of this closure, the educational activities cannot be carried out. Also all Palestinians who are lucky enough to have permits to cross into Palestinian Jerusalem (for work, educatin etc) are also thus forced to take a day off. In the meantime, the repression does not take days off. Israeli authorities are very busy in continued colonial activities from ethnic cleansing to stealing water (80% of the West Bank water is taken by Israel), to kidnapping and holding political prisoners, to starving Gaza, and to violence against people and against nature. Israeli sewage still flows down the valleys of Salfit while Israel forbids Palestinians from building sewage treatment plants. News today is that Israel has told hundreds of citizens in East Jerusalem that they will cutoff the water to their homes (which used to be a mere one cubic meter per person per month, barely enough to drink and cook let alone take showers). The forms of ethnic cleansing continue to morph.
Israel tries to prevent seminar at Norwegian University
In a move which Foreign Ministry sources defined as "unusual," Israel's embassy in Norway has officially protested the launch of a high profile academic seminar there delivered exclusively by lecturers known for their highly critical views of Israel.
Israel's Foreign Minister last week described Norway's attitude toward Israel as "hostile."...
Cambridge scientist refused entry at Ben Gurion Airport
Upon arriving at the airport, I was detained for 9 hours and interrogated repeatedly with no access to food. Humiliated by the numerous strip searches, I was given no reason for my detention, before finally being told that my access to Israel had been denied. I was then taken by police to a detention centre where I was locked in a cell for another 9 hours awaiting deportation back to Britain.
Israeli academics defend war crimes and attack Goldstone
Leading representatives of Israeli academia are rallying to the Government campaign to deny the charges in Justice Goldstone's report on war crimes in Gaza.
Professor Asa Kasher author IDF's ethical code defends the 'most moral army in the world' and Dr. David Altman, Senior Vice-President, Netanya Academic College accuses Goldstone of being like a collaborator with the Nazis.
Adalah issues report on the silencing of Gaza Protests - identifies academic complicity
Leading Israeli Human Rights group Adalah has issued a report on the silencing protests during the assault on Gaza. Ha'aretz's item on the report says:
The report accuses intellectuals and academics of standing by during the violence in Gaza and overlooking the collective arrests of peace activists. Only a few lecturers mustered the courage to publicly protest the military operation. Academics who protested the collective arrest of settler teens did not speak out against the suspected IDF war crimes and the collective detainment of protesting minors. Academic institutions hung banners and took out newspaper ads voicing support for the war. They stood by while the Shin Bet and the police charged at Jewish and Arab students protesting the operation.
For instance, at the height of the operation, the University of Haifa released the following announcement despite its many Arab students: "As a show of solidarity with IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza and residents of the south, the University of Haifa has made its central tower into a national flag ... the university is not an ivory tower and is inseparably connected to the community. With this symbolic act, it expresses its great appreciation for the residents of the south and its support for the IDF's soldiers."
Ariel Universrsity excluded from international architecture competition
Following pressure from Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine and the Palestine Boycott National Committee Ariel University College (College of Judea and Samaria) has been barrd form participating in the Madrid Solar Decathlon. The Decathlon is a major international competition to promote sustainable housing. Many architercts ptoested that a building on illegally occupied land cannot be celebrated for its sustainability.
Read the correspondence
Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP) Press Release
A turning point for the US solidarity movement
At the eighth annual US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation national organizers' conference held in Chicago, delegates from the approximately 300 member groups that make up the US Campaign voted in favor of an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.
Australian students banned from supporting Palestine
At the University of Sydney the Students for Palestine group have been told by their Student Union that they are not entitled to form a club, and benefit from the facilities, for reasons no-one is allowed to disclose. All present at the relevant meeting have been sworn to secrecy. So they’ve called a protest rally later this month, which is also being advertised by students from other universities: universities like Macquarie, also in Sydney, whose Head of Security reportedly frogmarched several of them off the campus for the ‘crime’ of leafleting outside the library, occasioning complaints of “offensive behaviour”.
British Trades Union Congress endorses boycott
The TUC passed a motion, moved by the Fire Brigades Union committing the British Trade Union movement to "encourage trade unionists to boycott Israeli goods" and "encourage campaigns of disinvestment from companies associated with the occupation".
Israel's embarrassing grovelling
Gideon Levy wr ites in Ha'aretz how Israel craves the attention of any performer who will visit Israel. The converse is how much tjhe cultural boycot hursts Israel.
Israel Bars Some Foreign Academics Who Teach in the West Bank
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (the leading US publication covering Higher Education) on 3 September details further steps by Israel to disrupt Palestinian HE.
Israel has clamped down on the movement of foreign academics teaching at Palestinian universities in the West Bank, barring some from entering the region altogether or stamping "Palestinian Authority only" in the passports of others, preventing them from entering Israel.
World Council of Churches re-iterates boycott call
The World Council of Churches have issued a statement on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The statement includes:
[The WCC] reiterates the need for an international boycott of settlement products and services, for member churches to inform themselves about settlement products imported into their countries and for churches to practice morally responsible investment in order to influence businesses linked to the Israeli occupation and its illegal settlements.
BRICUP has published conclusive evidence, in its regular newsletters and elsewhere, that Israeli Universities are complicit in in the occupation and notes that the WCC declaration reinforces the call for the academic boycott of Israel.
John Greyson withdraws film in protest at Tel Aviv celebration
Canadian gay film-maker, John Greyson withdrew his film ‘Covered’ from the Toronto International Film Festival in protest against their inaugural City-to-City Spotlight on Tel Aviv. In the Canadian Jewish News, Israeli Consul General Amir Gissin described how this Spotlight is the culmination of his year-long Brand Israel campaign.
Israeli director Udi Aloni is supporting the Canadian protest and is calling on Israeli artists to take the same steps.
Full story
LA Times report on Toronto Israel gets a punch in the schnoz from Toronto Film Festprotesters
Jewish Voice for Peace response to the attacks on the signers of Toronto film fest protest letter
A letter in support of Jane Fonda from Atlanta Jews Atlanta Jews Reject Vilification and Stand Up for Jane Fonda
Udi Aloni Seinfeld, you were wrong to condemn our Toronto protest
Curators pull out of Tel Aviv art biennial over Gaza war protest
Two international curators, Viktor Misiano from Russia, and Zdenka Badovinac from Slovenia, who were to participate in the planning of ArtTLV, an art biennial taking place in Israel in September, have pulled out of the project after their Israeli counterparts refused to publish articles condemning Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and to arrange a symposium on art and war.
Janina Struk declines invitation from Yad Vashem
Janina Struk has declined an ivitation to atend a semianr at Yad Vashem because of Israel's actions in Gaza. She is author of Photographing the Holocaust: Interpretations of the Evidence, a freelance photographer and writer and a former senior lecturer in photography, University of Westminster in London.
The Peace Industry or BDS?
Faris Giacaman, a Palestinian student from the West Bank, attending his second year of college in the United States, argues that 'peace industry' efforts are harmful and undermine the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel -- the only way of pressuring Israel to cease its violations of Palestinians' rights.
Neve Gordon of Ben Gurion Universtiy writes in the LA Times in support of BDS
Neve Gordon, chair of the Politics and Government Department at Ben Gurion University whose research interests include the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, has written an article in the Los Angeles Times in support of BDS, "Boycott Israel: An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it's the only way to save his country"
- Anat Matar of Tel Aviv University writes in Ha'aretz on Why Israeli academics must pay price to end occupation
- Gideon Levy writes in Ha'aretz on the moral weakness of those who attack Neve Gordon The last refuge
- Roane Carey writes in the Nation on Gordon's stand Boycott Israel?
- Kim Petersen dissects Uri Avnery's critique of Gordon in Dissident Voice Boycotts as a Legitimate Means of Resistance: As Determined by the Oppressed People
- Boycott From Within statement in support of Neve Gordon
- Naomi Klein Shows You Can Boycott Israel Without Cutting Off Dialogue Over Palestine
- Alan Sabrosky, former Director of Studies, Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College CONTRA AVNERY: A Case for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions
- Cary Nelson, national president of the American Association of University Professors writes in Inside HigherEd Neve Gordon's Academic Freedom
Tel Aviv University - A Leading Israeli Military Research Centre
The School of African and Asian Studies (SOAS) Palestinian Socienty have published a ten page report detailing the close links between Tel Aviv University and the Israeli military. The report identifies the leading role played by TAU in developing an explicit military doctrine of "disproportionality" calling for the targeting of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructures. All of the data assembled and clearly sourced in the briefing paper is publicly available and widely known both at TAU and to the wider Israeli public.
Boycott movement takes hold in British unions
The international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel has won several important victories in recent months. At this summer's trade union conferences in Britain, BDS activists have made significant progress.
While the campaign has been building momentum in unions globally since the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS, Israel's winter invasion of Gaza has spurred several trade unions and union federations in Britain and Ireland to pass motions more explicitly in favor of BDS. Several are calling for BDS for the first time...
International archeological conference in Ramallah excludes Israeli academics
Archeology in Palestine/Israel is intensely political, even when it is not wrapped up with home demolitions and ethnic cleansing asit is in Silwan. When the World Archeological Congress held their latest conferenece in Ramallah Israeli archeologists could not attend because the Israeli Government bans its citizens from visiting Ramallah and all other Area A poarts of he West Bank. WAC's decision to site the conference in Ramallah stemmed from past problems with archeologists being refused visas to attend the WAC's events in Washington and because Palestinians had difficulties getting visas to many countries.
Despite this the Jerusalem Post claimed WAC bias
BRICUP calls for boycott of Ariel conference
Ariel College, established as a settler university on illegally occupied Palestinian land, is attempting to hold a conference in November on "Media Influence on Public Opinion". Despite its location in Ariel Settlement in occupied Palestine, it is giving the location of the conference as "Ariel, Israel ". Among the topics are to covered is "*Revealing and Confronting Media Bias". We do not expect that the coverage given to Palestine in such channels as the Jerusalem Post, Fox News or the Daily Mail will be the subject of critical attention.
BRICUP calls on all its supporters to boycott his conference and to oppose any financial support being given to anyone in the institutions where they work to attend this event. This is a provocation and not an academic gathering.\
PACBI publishes Guidelines for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel
the Palestinian cultural boycott against Israel applies in the following situations:
(1) Cultural product is commissioned by an official Israeli body
(2) Product is funded by an official Israeli body, but not commissioned
(no political strings)
(3) Event is partially or fully sponsored or funded by an official Israeli
body
(4) Event or project promotes false symmetry or “balance”
