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Pink Floyd reunites for Palestinian benefit concert
While some musicians are condoning the Israeli occupation by playing in Israel Pink Floyd are raising money for Palestine.
BRICUP welcomes the setting up of the Indian chapter of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
"We particularly welcome your statement that you stand in ‘firm and relentless opposition to India’s strategic, scientific, military, and economic relations with Israel’. In view of the fact that these relations are growing and deepening with every day that passes, we wish you every success in identifying specific areas and campaigning, as you say, to end the links. Research collaboration with Israeli universities is a feature not just of the British academic scene, but across Europe, and we’re sure there are many similar instances of Indian-Israeli collaboration..."
National Council of Churches in Australia backs boycott call
During its 7th triennial Forum in July, the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) announced it will continue to add its voice to the call for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and condemning all acts of terrorism.
In solidarity with Palestinian Christians, the NCCA asks its member Churches and the wider Australian community to consider a boycott of goods produced by Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Rev Tara Curlewis, General Secretary of the NCCA said “We are asking the member Churches of the NCCA to consider boycotting particular goods produced in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is hoped that such actions will liberate the people from an experience of injustice to one where a just and definitive peace may be reached.”
A Call for Justice, Security and Peace for Palestine and Israel
Leftfield cancel Israel booking but Jeff Beck and Johnny Rotten still intend to go
British electronica duo Leftfield have announced they will not be travelling to Israel but have left doubt over their reasons. They are officially saying it due to 'production problems' while reproducing the boycott call on their Facebook page.
Jeff Beck has failed to respond to a private request from the Israeli BOYCOTT! camapaign and they have issued a public call for him to cancel his October concert in Tel Aviv.
Read BOYCOTT!'s call to Beck
Join the facebook group Jeff Beck : Please support the boycott against apartheid Israel
The campaign against Sex Pistols' and PiL's lead singer Johnny Rotten playing Tel Aviv mounts.
Write to Rotten's press agents Mitch Schneider and Libby Coffey
Join the facebook group Johnny Rotten you ain’t no human being if u play the Israeli fascist regime
John Lydon's rotten politics - Guardian Comment is Free
Leeds PSC interviewed on BBC Radio Leeds on why Rotten should go.
BDS supporter questioned by the Israeli secret services
The Shin Bet security service on Sunday questioned a conscientious objector about his activity in an Israeli group that supports sanctions against Israel as part of its struggle against the occupation. Yonatan Shapira, 38, a non-active Israel Air Force pilot who authored the "pilots' letter" of 2003, signed by 27 IAF pilots who said they would refuse to fly over the occupied territories, said he was instructed not to disclose any details from the interview.
AIC video: Economy of the Occupation: BDS Boycott Divestment and Sanction
The Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem has produced a video explaing the economy of occupation and the almiost total boycott of Palestinian economy and society by Israel.
Former editor of H'aretz says, 'Boycott the Knesset'
David Landau is a former editor-in-chief of Haaretz (and an orthodox Jew).
Perhaps a call to boycott the Knesset, if it gained any traction, could puncture that most smug and pernicious piece of propaganda: that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East." Israel is a democracy for Jews. "We'll deal with your presence in the Knesset later," MK Ofir Akunis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's longtime aide, informed Arab MK Ahmed Tibi ominously, unashamedly...
Read the full article from Ha'aretz
Indian Boycott campaign launched
An Indian chapter of the international movement to campaign for academic and cultural boycott of Israel was formed by a group of intellectuals including Upendra Baxi, Vina Mazumdar and Arundhati Roy. ”In a reality in which the Israeli state daily tramples on the academic freedom and cultural life of Palestinian people, a continued association with the instruments of such a state is unconscionable,” the intellectuals said in a statement.
Israel must change or collapse: On the impact of BDS
Professor Rachel Giora of Tel Aviv University has written about how boycott activities, and in particular cultural boycott activities are affecting the genaral Israeli population as well as its leaders,
But not just heads of state and officers are experiencing the loss of Israel’s legitimacy as a state among nations. Israeli citizens are now exposed to it on a daily basis. Probably more than anything else, it is the cultural boycott that has captured the minds of Israelis. No discourse about shows or no-shows can avoid mentioning “cancellation”. The dominant metaphor referring to the great number of cancellations is “deluge”.
Statement by Faculty for Palestine (Toronto) and College and University Workers Union (Montreal)
With this joint statement we mark the 5th Anniversary of the BDS campaign by publicly announcing our adherence and commitment to the BDS call. As university and college faculty and workers, we begin the first stage of our action campaign with a focus on divestment and on breaking institutional ties between Canadian and Israeli academic institutions.
Israel refuses to allow a lawyer to leave Gaza to reach her studies in democracy and human rights in the West Bank
Announcement comes during court proceedings relating to a request by a lawyer in Gaza for an exit permit to reach her studies in human rights and democracy in the West Bank. The Court denied the petition.
Vuvuzela - new cultural boycott video from John Greyson
It's the Penguins vs. the Ostriches in this Boycott Israel summer match -- a showdown between artists like Elvis Costello and the Pixies who cancelled their Israel concerts in respect of the boycott, vs. Metallica, Rihanna and Elton John who are going forward with theirs, despite growing criticism.
Israeli academics hit back over bid to pass law that would criminalise them
A protest petition has been signed by 500 academics, including two former education ministers, following recent comments by Israel's education minister, Gideon Saar, that the government intends to take action against the boycott's supporters. A proposed bill introduced into the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – would outlaw boycotts and penalise their supporters...Saar last week described the petition as hysterical and an attempt to silence contrary opinions (sic).
Read report in the Guardian
BDS campaign wants Israel to abide by international law - Neve Gordon
Education Minister defends decision to penalize Israel professors who back boycott - Ha'aretz
English translation of the proposed law
Bill passes first stage in the Knesset
An assault on democracy - Ha'aretz
Summary of Hebrew press articles on suppression of dissent from Coteret
Ha'aretz article explains 'Why Israeli academia will be boycotted'
Education Minister Sa'ar's recent initiatives are a sign of the Israeli government's increasing self-seclusion inside a bunker of delusions, as it distances itself from considerations guided by historical, political and social wisdom. His recent statements befit benighted regimes that have lost connection to the world, like Iran and other totalitarian states.
Ben Gurion professor derails faculty candidacy of pro-peace Israeli
Israel David is a Professor at Ben Gurion University and former major in the Israeli Army. He has worked for the Israeli defense industry and a significant portion of his research is funded by either the army or military contractors.
Assaf Oren, a peace activist who refused to serve in the occupied territories. He applied for a tenure track position at BGU and was told he was the top candidate. That was until Prof. David, a regular contributor to McCarthy-like web sites, launched a vindictive and ultimately successful campaign against him.
Read the full story of how right-wing politics supplanted academic judgement
Hollywood stars boycott Israel film festival
Hollywood actors Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman are refusing to attend the 2010 Jerusalem Film Festival following the attack on the Mavi Marmara.
Prince Albert of Monaco, son of Grace Kelly, has also cancelled his promise to attend a tribute to Grace Kelly at the festival.
Read the story in the Jerusalem Post, attempting but failing to put a positive gloss on the boycott
BRICUP calls on Anne Sofie von Otter to cancel Israel visit
Leading mezzo soprana Anne Sofie von Otter plans to sing in Israel in October. von Otter releaasd a CD of songs composed in the Nazi concentation camp at Theresienstadt. She wrote "“The Terezín concentration camp was hell. There was overcrowding, disease and depression.. But, extraordinarily, the inmates were allowed to perform music there." Much like Gaza in many ways one would say, except the Israelis ban the import of musical instruments into Gaza.
Read the BRICUP open letter
Write to von Otter via her manager, Shirley Thomson
Article in Classical Music
PACBI endorses call for boycott of International Geographical Union's Regional Conference in Tel Aviv
PACBI issued an Open Letter on 29 October 2009 supporting the geographers' call urging the Executive Committee of the International Geographical Union (IGU) to relocate its upcoming regional conference (July 2010) out of Israel
BRICUP joins PACBI in encouraging all geographers and people of conscience not to attend the Tel Aviv conference and to write letters of protest to the members of the IGU Executive. If it takes places, the Tel Aviv conference will only serve to whitewash Israel’s crimes.
Methodists in UK and US support BDS
The UK Methodist Conference adopted a report highly critical of Israel's policy towards Palestinians, despite heavy lobbying by the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi. They went on to adopt a policy of boycotting settlement goods. Observers at the conference believe that so great was the revulsion of Israel's actions that there would have neen a majority for a full boycott.
In the US the United Methodists Northern Illinois Conference voted to divest from companies profiting from Israel's occupation. They said:
Divestment is a nonviolent form of economic protest long-used by churches and other shareholders to encourage companies to end unjust practices. By selling its investments in Caterpillar (CAT), General Electric (GE) and Terex (TEX), the NIC expresses its commitment to do no harm with its investments and affirms the call of the UMC Book of Discipline to "avoid investments that appear likely, directly or indirectly, to support violation of human rights."
Read the UK Methodist report and resolutions
Report of Illanois move
Latest from the Land of the Free - UC Irvine's message: Criticize Israel, get suspended
After a 4-month-long investigation, UC Irvine's administration last week announced an unprecedented recommendation to suspend for one year the Muslim Student Union (MSU), a registered campus organization, for its alleged involvement in disrupting a Feb. 8 speech by Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Eleven students were arrested and may face criminal charges as well as disciplinary action by the university.
As the LA Times said, this "could have a chilling effect on free speech."
EU Considering Aid to Israeli Military - write to your MEP
A leading Israeli supplier of warplanes used to kill and maim civilians in Gaza is in the running for two new scientific research grants from the European Union.
EU officials have tentatively approved the release of fresh finance to the Heron's manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Two projects involving IAI have recently passed the evaluation stages of a call for proposals under the EU's multi-annual programme for research, which has been allocated 53 billion euros (65.4 billion dollars) for the 2007-13 period.
Bricup is urging all their supporters to write to their MEPs and their home governments to demand these grants arenot awarded and no further co-operation with the Israeli arms industry is contemplated.
Jewish Israeli headteacher summoned to Knesset for taking a moral position on the occupation
Ram Cohen, principal of the Aleph High School in Tel Aviv, was summonded to the Knesset.
A school principal should have a clear and unequivocal moral position about any subject and issue on the agenda of Israeli society. A principal is not an educational clerk. A principal must have, for example, something to say about the deportation of the children of migrant workers, trafficking in women, the separation fence, the withdrawal from Gaza, minimum wage law, settlers attacking Palestinian villagers to exact a `price tag`, the removal of Arabs from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the siege on Gaza, corruption in government, or the relations of religion and state.
Turkish Swedish and Indian dockworkers refuse to unload Israeli ships and picket in USA
In moves reminiscent of the South African boycott campaign Swedish and Turkish dockworkers have refused to unload Israeli ships. More recently dockers in Cochin have decided to boycott.
In hte USA a labor and community picket line was put up at the SSA terminal at the port of Oakland to protest the Israeli Zim Shenzhen ship.
report on Swedish action
report on Turkish action
report on Oakland action
report on Cochin, India, action
Roundup of dock workers actions worldwide
Petition launched to ban Israel from the 2012 Olympics
Tell the IOC that Israel is not welcome at the London Olympics. Israel has replaced the Olympics slogan of Faster Higher Stronger with thier occupation and blockade mantras of Fiercer, Harder, Stricter.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights author endorses BDS
Stephane Hessel, holocaust survivor and co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has endorsed BDS.
I believe that the BDS initiative is a moral strategy which has demonstrated its potential for success. Most recently, German Deutsche Bank became the latest of several European financial institutions and major pension funds to divest from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Last week, two main Italian supermarket chains announced a boycott of produce from illegal Israeli settlements. Last month, performers Elvis Costello and Gil Scott-Heron cancelled appearances in Israel.
Read the statement in full: Gaza Flotilla: Global Citizens Must Respond Where Governments Have Failed
Canadians call on Rod Stewart to cancel Israel concert
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East have issued a call for Rod Stewart to join the growing number of performers with consciences and cancel his planned Israel tour and support the cultural boycott.
British Writers In Support of Palestine issue boycott call
In a letter to the Independent on Sunday, John Berger, Jenny Diski, Naomi Foyle, Thomas Pakenham and 33 others issued a call for a literary, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. BRICUP welcomes the establishment of WISP and wil cooperate with them on the boycott campaign.
BWISP welcome writers who support their call to join them.
Read the letter in IoS
Read the BWISP blog
Contact BWISP
Alice Walker: You will have no protection
Peaceful opposition to Israeli policy to be made illegal
"The only democracy in the Middle East" (sic) is on the brink of passing laws that will fine any Israeli who supports boycott (both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis) and pass the fines to the illegal settlements that they are campaigning to boycott.
Any non-Israeli who supports boycott will be banned from Israel for 10 years (and thus effectively excluded form the occupied territories as well).
English translation of the Knesset bill
Read Miri Weingartren's analysis
Education minister vows to punish Israeli professors who back academic boycott
Coalition of Women for Peace - Israel briefing on the threat to Israeli NGOs and civil society
Intimidation at Bar Ilan University
Dr Uri Hadar was due to speak at Bar Ilan University, renowned for its links with right wing settler and religious goups. Uri, who recently promoted a conference on Gazan mental health, did not expect an easy ride - but he definitely did not expect a poster on the campus marking his head as a target.
Harassment and humiliation of Israeli Palestinian university lecturer
Nabil Khattab a lecturer in sociology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the prestigious academic journal Sociology,went to Ben-Gurion International Airport to travel to the journal's annual editorial board meeting in London. He was used to intrusive treatment at the airport but this time the examiner probed the lower part of his body with a cloth-covered stick and began to insert it under Khattab's trousers.
Unofficial Bob Dylan website bans Israelis in wake of Gaza flotilla
One of the largest fan sites dedicated to Bob Dylan songs, dylanchords, has recently blocked Israeli IP users access over the Israel Defense Forces' raid on the Gaza –bound Freedom Flotilla two weeks ago.
Israelis who wish to learn how to strum the Dylan song "The times they are a' changing," will have to look elsewhere, as the webpage redirects Israeli web users to the webmaster's blog.
Gil Scott-Heron abandons Israel tour and so does Elvis Costello and Pixies and Gorillaz and Klaxons and ...
Elvis Costello has become the third major international artist in the last few days to announce he will not play in Israel. Costello said:
It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.
One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.
Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.Read his statement in full
A victory for ethical responsibility of international artists: PACBI’s Reaction to Elvis Costello’s Cancellation
Send him a message of support
Gil Scott-Heron's announced that he will not go to Israel at the first concert of his European tour; this follows the similar decision by Massive Attack. At the Royal Festival Hall in London on 24 April he said he wouldn't play where everyone wasn't welcome.
Read about the campaign to get him to cancel
Gil Scott-Heron boycotts Tel Aviv, sends powerful message to Israelis
Robert Boyce questions Israel's continued participation in EU Research Framework Programmes
To European Commissioner for Research Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn:
As an academic connected to a research-led institution, I strongly support initiatives for strengthening research cooperation within the European Union and the European Economic Area. However, I wish to know how you can justify Israel's continued participation in EU Research Framework Programmes when it so monstrously flouts the democratic and humanitarian principles that the EU formally makes a condition of membership or association.
In the past, EU spokespersons have justified Israeli participation on the grounds that this will increase EU influence in Israeli political circles and thereby conduce to peace, and secondly that it opens the door to Israeli-Palestinian research cooperation. Since Israel's use of grossly disproportionate military force in the invasion of Gaza in 2008-09, its rejection of the Goldstone Report (endorsed by the European Parliament), its continued ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem, its illegal 'targetted assassinations' of political opponents using stolen passports of EU citizens, and its recent abusive treatment of the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the starving people of Gaza who have endured collective punishment at the hands of Israel since 2006, such talk of conducing towards peace must surely be set aside. As for Israeli-Palestinian research cooperation, this was never more than a fantasy, given that Israel has consistently sought to impoverish and disrupt the relevant Palestinian institutions. Does it not follow that, to be consistent with the governing principles of the European Union, you must suspend Israeli participation in all EU research initiatives?
Robert Boyce, London School of Economics and Political Science
No Pinkwashing Bus Shelter
For the first time since 2007, the Israeli consulate is a sponsor of this year's San Francisco International Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans Film Festival. Queers say no to pinkwashing Israeli war crimes. TruthForceinSF responded through their guerilla bush shelter campaign.
European academic boycott groups call on MEPs to resist upgrading links with Israel
BRICUP along with its colleague organisations in France, Italy and Catalonia have written to MEPs asking them to resist the upgrading of linkks between the EU and Israel because of Israel's consistent and flagrant breaches of the human rights protocols embedded in the agreements.
Haifa University boasts of training Israeli Security Forces
Haifa University will continue to train the students of the IDF's College for National Security (CNS) in their MA studies in the next five years; this was decided after the army's tender committee has found the university's proposal as the best one.
“Haifa University is proud to continue being the academic home for the security forces and to keep on teaching the IDF leadership a large number of different and diverse perspectives. This is the sole way to be better people and better commanders,” said Haifa University Rector Professor Yossi Ben Artzi.
Studies of the College for National Security are taking place at Haifa University since 1987 under the headship of Professor Gabriel Ben-Dor of the School of Political Sciences. Professor Arnon Soffer of the Geography Department, a senior lecturer in the program, presides the research institute of the CNS. Apart from courses related to national security issues, the officers undergo also studies in psychology, economy, law, ethics, education and more.
“This is a very big achievement for the university and it became possible due to our high academic quality which proves itself for more than 20 years. National security in our age deviates from the classic perspective of the concept and includes wide aspects of competition between societies for their position in the world, consciousness, public relations, a struggle for public opinion, a steadfast and healthy society and more. A good commander must know not just how to attack or to lead forces but also to understand that education is the key to Israel's national security”, said Professor Ben Dor.
Winning the tender became possible thanks to close cooperation between the School of Political Sciences, the office of the university's President, the office of the Rector, and the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Leading musicians will not play Israel and forgo big paydays
The Jewish Daily Forward, hte laeding US Jewish newspaers reports that may musicians are refusing large sume offerered to play in Israel
"... a music industry insider confirmed that the winds could be shifting. The music executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity in light of his ongoing business ties with artists, said that in recent months he had approached more than 15 performing artists with proposals to give concerts in Israel. None had agreed. The contracts offered high levels of compensation. He called them “extreme, big numbers that could match any other gig.”
AURDIP (the French Academic Boycott Campaign) publishes newsletter
AURDIP (Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine) is rapidly establishing itself a substantial campaigning voice in France. BRICUP is pleased to be co-operating with it on a number of new initiatives. AURDIP has published the second edition of its newsletter.
Israeli threat of intensified blockade of Palestinian exports
Israel threatens intensified boycott of Palestinian goods
".. if Palestinian factory workers dare leave their jobs in the Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank, the president of the Manufacturers Association, Shraga Brosh, says he'll make sure that the government closes off the Haifa Port to Palestinian goods...
"The economic divorce of Palestinians from the Jewish settlements is an important step toward divorce from Israel's occupation policies. Buy Palestinian."
Gideon Levy - Boycotting the boycotters
"...Israel itself is one of the world's prolific boycotters. Not only does it boycott, it preaches to others, at times even forces others, to follow in tow. Israel has imposed a cultural, academic, political, economic and military boycott on the territories. At the same time, almost no one here utters a dissenting word questioning the legitimacy of these boycotts. Yet the thought of boycotting the boycotter? Now that's inconceivable."
Noam Chomsky barred from Birzeit University
Israel has blocked leading American Jewish academic, Noam Chomky, from speaking at Birzeit University in the Occupied West Bank. Professor Chomsky was stopped from entering Palestine by Israeli border guards on the Allenby Bridge which links Jordan with the West Bank on 16 May.
Read full report in Ha'aretz
Interview with Prof. Chomsky on AlJazeeraEnglish
Interview with Prof. Chomsky on Democracy Now
BRICUP condemns call to censor Israeli supporters of BDS
BRICUP condemns attempts to censor Israeli supporters of BDS and the attacks on academic freedom by an Israeli university lecturer.
Former IDF intelligence officer and lecturer at Bar Ilan University, Mordechai Kedar, has written to the governors of Tel Aviv University. He has asked them to, "control the enemy within ... calling upon the university officials to prevent any further financial support to those academics and departments who condone such activities ... The university authorities must take all necessary steps to contain and eliminate such activity."
OECD admits Israel: legal challenge made
The OECD member countries have unanimously accepted Israel's request for membership. Palestinian lawyers have drawn upo a legal brief in the hope that one of the member countries will seek a ruling on the legality of Israel's membership. BRICUP is askng all supporters to contact their Foreign Ministries to ask them to make this legal challenge.
Full report and text of challenge
Minister Ben Eliezer shaken by hostility to Israel in EU, OECD membership notwithstanding
BRICUP joins condemnation of celebration of illegal annexation
BRICUP joined members of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other organisations concerned about the status of Jerusalem in condeming the celebration of Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem. where hard-line Israeli government minister Benny Begin is to speak.
According to Begin, "Jerusalem must remain under the exclusive sovereignty of the State of Israel… We must be constantly on the alert against ideas of internationalisation."
Israeli academics join worldwide protest against Boston Museum's Israeli science exhibition
Senior academics from Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute, and other top institutions around world denounce Boston Science Museum's sponsorship of Israeli exhibit, calling it propaganda campaign. 'This is an attempt to distract from Israel's war crimes and human rights violations,'
Read report in Ynet news
Chomsky and other scientists condemn Boston museum’s Israeli celebration
Watch video of Boston protest
Read a report of the protest
Massive Attack will not play in Israel
Massive Attack will not play their advertised concert in Israel. Massive Attack have reassured us that they never intended to play this concert. Although they did play there in the 1990s they have said they would never return. Who was responsible for announcing this concert without their permission remains a mystery.
Sign up to support student divestment
Despite a vigourous campaign the students at Berkely narrowly failed to overturn the veto on their democratically agreed proposal to divest from Israel.
The campaign by students at the University of California for divestment from Israel is hotting up.
Register your support
Read more about the divestment campaign
BRICUP supports call to oppose attempts to label Goldstone Report 'lawfare'
Fordham Law School in New York is hosting a conference which annouces itself as:
... Attacks on the legitimacy of actions taken in self-defense by democratic states, in the halls of the UN and international and domestic courts, radically undermine the ability to protect the welfare of the Jewish state and all democracies from the scourge of terrorism. This assault empowers and emboldens the enemies of democracy and encourages the intolerance and antisemitism at the root of the terrorist and anti-Zionist agenda...
BRICUP has joined other international academic Palestinian support organisations in deploring the use of a university for such a one-sided and academically poor event. We called on "conference participants to condemn the unfair criticism that has diverted attention from the contents of the report and that has included personal attacks on Justice Richard Goldstone.
Read the letter to the confercne organisers and the conference announcement
Join the campaign to stop Gil Scott-Heron playing in Tel Aviv
Gil Scott-Heron has dismayed very many of his fans by agreeing to play in Tel Aviv. Scott-Heron's have inspired generations of listeners by their call for justice; he was prominant in the campaign to stop artists playing at apartheid Sun City.
Bricup has sent an open letter to him. You can send him a message via his publishers, Canongate or by writing a message on his facebook page.
BRICUP's open letter to Gil Scott-Heron
Post a comment on his website
BRICUP calls on Amitav Ghosh - do not accepted tainted prize
Amitav Ghosh is being offered the Israeli Dan David prize jointly with Margaret Atwood. BRICUP has issued an open letter to him calling on him to refuse the prize. We said:
"It’s surprising to have to raise Israeli colonialism with a writer whose entire oeuvre seems to us an attempt to imagine how human beings survived the depredations of colonialism. Gosh, even the Dan David judges like the way you evoke ‘the violent dislocations of people and regimes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’."
Amitav Ghosh has widely circulated his response to our request justifying his decison ot travel to Israel to accept the prize.
BRICUP's response to Amitav Ghosh
Blog of Indian author Ashok K. Banker supports our call
Open letter from 50 Indian intellectuals supports plea to Ghosh
Times of India reports the call
Coalition of Californian groups call to Ghosh
Literary Dissent by Farzana Versey - Counterpunch 7 May
Report of protest in Tel Aviv
Mira Awad cancels her London concert
Public pressure has forced Mira Awad, a Palestinian singer from inside Israel, to cancel her scheduled performance in London sponsored by the Zionist Federation to celebrate Israel's "independence."
Awad published a letter today in Al-Ittihad, the newspaper of the Israeli Communist Party, saying that she would "never" perform for Israel's "independence," not in London nor anywhere else.
Facebook call for Cultural Boycott of Israel
Filmmakers, Artists and Cultural Workers Call for a Cultural Boycott
of Israel
We appeal to all artists, filmmakers, and cultural workers of conscience
around the world to cancel all exhibitions, festivals and other cultural
events that are scheduled to occur in Israel.
As Artists who believe in human freedom and equality, we must refuse
to remain silent and make our voices heard. Like the boycott of South
African art institutions during apartheid, cultural workers must speak
out against the current Israeli war crimes and atrocities.
BRICUP backs Palestinian call to bar Israel from OECD membership
The Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) has called for the OECD to freeze Israel's membership application. The OECD’s stated values include: ‘a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights’; clearly Israel should be ineligible for membership. We urge all supporters to write to the Foreign Secretary, the shadow Foreign Secretary and all their parliamentary candidates.
BNC statement
Briefing from Stop the Wall
Draft protest letter
Alternative draft protest letter
OECD contacts to send letters to
Why Israel should not be allowed to join the OECD: from the Middle East Monitor
Jerusalem Quartet protest attracts wide media coverage
Members of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) and Brighton PSC interupted a concert of the Jerusalem Quartet at London's Wigmore Hall on 29 March while it was being broadcast live by the BBC. This has attracted wide press attention and far more support than opposition.
At the same time members of Scottish PSC who interupted their concert in Edinburgh last year appeared in court charged with racially aggravated conduct fro opposing the actions of the Israeli state. The court threw out the charges.
Read more about the Wigmore Hall protest
Read an analysis of the Edinbugh court case by Mike Marqusee
Edinburgh court throws out charges of aggrevated racism
Israeli BDS activists tell Margaret Atwood, "Say NO to Prizes from the Israeli Apartheid"
We are Israeli citizens and residents, Jews and Palestinians, who are committed to the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom. We heard with dismay that you are set to attend this spring an apartheid-complicit Tel Aviv University's symposium, where you are to receive a prize. We urge you to heed the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, reject that prize, and refrain from attending the symposium or any other Israeli academic event.
Read the call
Write to Margatet Atwood via her agent Curtis Brown Group Ltd
Open letter from Gaza to Margaret Atwood
Report of protest in Tel Aviv
UC Berkeley student government approves divestment from Israel
The bill is the first step in an expected long-term process to convince the UC Board of Regents to pull total investments of about $135 million from five companies currently supplying Israel with electronics and weapons, opponents contended it unfairly targets Israel.
The Student President has vetoed the motion. The vote to overturn the veto is on a knife edge. The vote has been delayed to 21 April. Messages of support are still needed Email your support.
Read report in The Daily Californian
Open Letter to Berkeley Students on their Historic Israeli Divestment Bill from Naomi Klein
Move vetoed by Student President
Moves to overturn the veto continue: Jewish Voice for Peace report on Berkley divestment debates
Leading US Jews support Berkely Divestment move
Poster seen on the Berkley campus
BBC admits it misreported BRICUP meeting
THe BBC have written to BRICUP to admit that it misreported the BRICUP/SOAS PalSoc Israeli Apartheid: the Case for BDS meeting. They have stated they are looking to informa readers that the original report "was misleading".
They have finally, in May 2010, published a correction on their website.
Read the letter from the BBC
BBC's correction on thier website
Update on Students Seeking to Leave Gaza
Gisha report that 502 students are presently seeking to leave the Gaza Strip in order to realize their dreams and study in universities abroad. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the number of students that have received permission from Israel to study in the West Bank since 2000 stands at zero.
Israel takes aim at the BDS movement
Israel identifies the BDS movement in general and the academic boycott in particular as major threats. Ben White has writtenan article describing these attacks and the false premises they are built on. The Israelis see their response as a public relations exercise to promote 'Brand Israel' not a poloitical exercise to end the causes of the boycott: occupation, blockade and the denial of Palestinian rights.
The writers of the anti-boycott documents bizarrely claim "The BDS movement is well-coordinated (and well-financed)". We try to be well co-ordinated but we are very far from well-financed - unlike organisations like BICOM, the British Israel Committee with sevarl dozen full-time staff - with your assistance we could be better financed, please help.
Behind Brand Israel: Israel's recent propaganda efforts - Ben White, The Electronic Intifada, 23 February 2010
Dancing, Singing New Yorkers protest, calling for boycott of Israel Ballet
Forty-five human rights activists called upon fellow New Yorkers to boycott the Israel Ballet at its performance Sunday at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts. Accompanied by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, protesters performed ballet, sang, chanted, and handed out mock programs to bring attention to the Israel Ballet’s role in the Israeli state’s use of the arts to whitewash its crimes against the Palestinian people.
Michigan students vote for divestment
Students at the University of Michigan, Dearborn have voted to demand that their University divests from Israel.
Bar Ilan professor advocates ending freedom of speech
A professor at Bar Ilan University, Prof Steinberg presented a report
to MPs and ministers that referred to peace groups as “Trojan
horses” and argued for imposing constraints on funding from European
governments and the NIF.
In a statement at the time, Prof Steinberg said: “For over a decade
European governments have been manipulating Israeli politics and promoting
demonisation by funding a narrow group of favored non-governmental organisations.”
He has reserved special criticism for advocacy groups for the country’s
Arab minority and for Jewish groups opposing the occupation, accusing
both of promoting an image of Israel as an “apartheid” state
that carries out “war crimes” and “ethnic cleansing”.
End of preferential EU treatment for settlement goods
The European Court of Justice has ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli.
This means goods made by Israelis or Jews in the West Bank cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets. EU import duties on Israeli goods from the settlements may now be imposed, making them less competitive.
This is an important precedent for forcing the EU to end Israel's privileged treatement as a member of the European Research Area
500 Montreal Artists Against Israeli Apartheid
Artists in Montreal, from filmmakers, musicians and dancers to poets, authors and painters, are joining the international movement against Israeli apartheid. On the streets, in concert halls, in words and in song, we commit to fighting against apartheid and call upon all artists and cultural producers across the country and around the world to adopt a similar position in this global struggle.
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."
Read the BRICUP open letter
Send your own message to Elton John
Join the facebook group supporting our call
A selection of media coverage of the BRICUP call
Israelis are behaving like spoiled rich brats: Udi Aloni - Ha'aretz
BRICUP sends a second open letter to Elton John
Boycott seems to be the hardest word: video by John Grayson
People Are Talking About BDS
When I was a little girl, I sent my allowance to the Jewish National Fund to plant trees in Israel in the name of family members. I was told and passed on stories about an underdog that after centuries of persecution had finally found refuge in its birthplace only to face a group of greedy, violent people that had homes on two continents but insisted on denying my people this tiny strip of land. More anti-Semitism, I thought.
It took only a few months of living in Israel as an undergraduate student in the late 1990s to discover the lies – or at least key missing information – from my childhood. When I dug further, I also found out how much these rewritings of history and of the present had taken the world captive and rendered some of the most politically and economically powerful world nations Israel’s great enablers.
Read the article by Emily Schaeffer from Israel: The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Omar Barghouti speaks about the BDS campaign and the role of BRICUP
Omar Barghouti, a key member of PACBI, speaks in a YouTube video about the reasons for the boycott campaign and talks about the progress we have made and what we need to do next.
Stockholm rector fails in attempt to ban BDS meeting
Wednesday 10 February Rector Peter Gudmundson of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) decided that a meeting entitled "Why should we boycott Israel?" would not be allowed to use the premises of the university. The organizers of the meeting, The Action Group at KTH for Boycott of Israel, considered that Rector's decision is at odds with the constitutional right to assembly. Therefore the meeting was held as scheduled. The meeting focused largely on the relations between KTH and Israel Institute of Technology Technion, Haifa, with which KTH has an agreement about collaboration since 1998. The agreement is about exchange of students, teachers, research staff and general research cooperation.
Researcher: Israel destroyed Palestinian books
Israel plundered and destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian books in the years after the State's establishment, according to a doctoral thesis to be submitted next month by a Ben-Gurion University researcher.
In an interview with the researcher published on al-Jazeera's website, he claimed that Israel destroyed the Palestinian books in the framework of its plan to "Judaize the country" and cut off its Arab residents from their nation and culture.
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 releaseRead a report of the event including:
CST assault peaceful questioners
Bellamy is a no show
Photos of the picket
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)
