- The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign moves
ahead in Washington, California, British Columbia, Harvard and Brown Universities,
and the Netherlands, notes Eric Walberg
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- In July, in Rachel Corrie's hometown of Olympia, Washington
state, the popular Food Co-op announced that no Israeli products would
be sold at its two grocery stores. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a principal
endorser of this new Israel Divestment Campaign, issued a statement endorsing
the boycott. "The Olympia Food Co-op has joined a growing worldwide
movement on the part of citizens and the private sector to support by non-violent
tangible acts the Palestinian struggle for justice and self-determination."
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- In a surprise move in August, Harvard University divested
itself of all its Israel investments, almost $40m worth of shares, including
Pharmaceutical Industries, NICE Systems, Check Point Software Technologies,
Cellcom Israel and Partner Communications. Initially, Harvard gave no explanation
for its actions to the SEC. John Longbrake, spokesman for Harvard, maintained
that Harvard has not divested from Israel, that these changes were routine
and did not represent a change in policy. But was Harvard in fact caving
under BDS calls and trying to do so as quietly as possible to avoid a Zionist
backlash? In the past, Harvard has divested from companies for purely political
reasons, but they did so publicly. For instance, five years ago, Harvard
divested from PetroChina in order to protest China's actions in Sudan.
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- In Vancouver, Canada, port truck traffic slowed to a
crawl in late August as a group of about 50 protesters approached drivers
with leaflets asking them to observe the world boycott campaign against
Israel, and in particular to refuse to unload the Israeli container ship
Zim Djibouti, one of the largest in the world, that had landed in Vancouver
harbour. "This action was part of the growing international campaign
to pressure Israel to comply with international law and stop killing innocent
civilians," said Gordon Murray, spokesperson for the Boycott Israeli
Apartheid Coalition (BIAC). "Workers in South Africa, Scandinavia,
the United States, Turkey and India have already responded to the Palestinian
call for action," said BIAC spokesman Mike Krebs. "The international
solidarity movement has decided that the best way to change Israel's behaviour
is to take actions against Israeli companies and institutions in order
to put pressure on the government there."
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- In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor earlier
this year, Jonathan Ben Artzi, a PhD candidate at Brown University and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nephew, made clear his belief
that equality and social justice will prevail in Israel when the government
and people of the United States adopt a no-tolerance stance toward Israel's
abuse of Palestinians. Ben Artzi, whose family has lived in the region
for nine generations, and who's seen a lifetime of Israel's abuse of Palestinians,
declared: "Sometimes it takes a good friend to tell you when enough
is enough. As they did with South Africa two decades ago, concerned citizens
across the US can make a difference by encouraging Washington to get the
message to Israel that this cannot continue." His reference to South
Africa was to the protests, boycotts and divestment actions in the US between
1984 and 1989, which ultimately forced the white minority South African
government to relinquish control over its oppressed Black majority. Ben
Artzi served 18 months in prison for refusing his mandatory service in
Israel's military.
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- The California Israel Divestment Campaign launched a
campaign on 8 September for a California ballot initiative in November
requiring public employee and teacher pension funds to divest from business
activities in Israel. Said local campaign organiser Sherna Gluck, a member
of the Public Employee Retirement System: "Our public retirement systems
have more than $1.5 billion invested in at least eight companies that provide
war materials and services used in violation of internationally recognised
human rights, including support for the illegal Israeli settlements and
the Separation Wall." Archbishop Tutu told the Californians: "We
defeated apartheid nonviolently because the international community agreed
to support the disinvestment in apartheid campaign. A similar campaign
can help to bring peace in the Middle East and do so nonviolently."
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- This is the just the first divestment launch in California.
Similar launches in other California cities are soon to come. With this
divestment campaign, Californians are poised to spark a state-by-state
divestiture movement to parallel the anti-Apartheid campaign that helped
defeat the oppressive rule in South Africa.
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- The Dutch government too has set an important precedent
for European and indeed world governments. It dropped a bomb this week
when the Foreign Ministry cancelled a tour of mayors from Israel planned
for October. The forum is funded by the Joint Distribution Committee, a
Jewish-American charity, and the participant list included representatives
from West bank settlements Efrat and Kiryat Arba in "Judea" and
"Samaria". The Israeli Foreign Ministry harrumphed: "This
is undoubtedly useless and harmless politics, and we hope that this is
not the final word on the topic."
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- Well, I hope it is. The Netherlands has become notorious
for the Islamophobia whipped up by Dutch politician and filmmaker Geert
Wilders, who proudly says "I hate Islam," calls the Quran a "fascist
book" and the Prophet Mohamed "the devil". He argues that
Muslim immigration is a "Trojan Horse". His words are being echoed
by Israeli politician Aryeh Eldad, who condemned the boycott move: "The
Dutch surrender to the Arabs reflects their surrender to the Muslim minority."
This principled move by the Dutch, clearly an attempt to fight the negative
image of the Netherlands, will give pause for thought to all governments.
Israel Local Council Chairman Shlomo Buchbut rightly concludes: "The
decision by the Netherlands puts the [Israeli-Arab] conflict before anything
else."
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- Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
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