Action Items

Oxford University’s Balliol College has decided to honor Shimon Peres and the apartheid state of Israel by inviting him to speak in Oxford, and by planning to establish a lecture series in his name. Peres will deliver his lecture on Tuesday, 18 November 2008 under the title “The Globalization of Peace.”

Salwa Salah and Sara Siureh were both arrested from their homes in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on 5 June 2008. This is the first time that girls under the age of 18 have been put in administrative detention. On 12 June 2008 they were issued with military administrative detention orders. The orders had been set for four months (Salwa) and five months (Sara). A military court confirmed the orders on 18 June.

The Guardian’s “Comment Is Free” posted an article on 9 September, “The wrong message to Israel,” by Abe Hayeem, a founding member of Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine, calling on the UK government to revoke plans to rent its new embassy in Tel Aviv from Israeli-settlement mogul Lev Leviev.

The news that the US State Department has decided to cancel all previously approved Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza is deeply shocking. In yet another clear demonstration of US complicity with the Israeli occupation regime, the State Department has decided to withdraw the grants for graduate studies in the US because Israel has not given permission for the students to leave Gaza.

We the undersigned organizations congratulate the Canadian Union of Postal workers (CUPW) for joining the international boycott of Israeli apartheid. We call on workers and labor unions worldwide to join CUPW in creating a strong and effective labor movement in solidarity with struggles against Israeli apartheid and violence.

A delegation of four Israeli members of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel), including three doctors and PHR-Israel’s Clinic Manager, entered Gaza this morning. At the same time, an emergency dispatch of medical supplies at a value of approximately US $40,000 was delivered by PHR-Israel into Gaza, for the purpose of distribution to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and the European Hospital in Khan Younis, both of which are suffering from severe shortages.

Barely two weeks since extensive media attention successfully compelled Israel to allow access to lifesaving care for patients through Erez Crossing, Israeli policies at the crossing lead to a repetition of a similar crisis: Sixteen patients in life-endangering condition stranded in Gaza without proper care due to “security prohibitions”; permit-bearing cancer patient detained a full day at Erez Crossing and ordered to return; two permit-bearing patients die within one week at Erez Crossing; Erez Crossing closed again since 28 October 2007.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) urges the Football Association (FA), the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to take appropriate measures to suspend the national Israeli football team from all international fixtures until the state of Israel entirely complies with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions to end Israeli occupation. This should include a suspension of the Israeli team from the current Euro 2008 qualifiers.

In March, over 100 members of the LGBT/queer community sent the following letter to Frameline, organizer of the San Francisco International Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans Film Festival, which according to its website is the largest LGBT cultural event in the world. The letter asks Frameline to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate.

StandWithUs and AMCHA-The Coalition for Jewish Concerns have placed ads in stations of the DC metropolitan area metro/subway system (WMATA) in response to ads by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and United for Peace and Justice for the June 10 Mobilization Against Israeli Occupation. Contrary to their sponsors’ claims, nothing on these ads responds to the main issues raised by the June 10 demonstration ads…