Quebec inked an economic partnership agreement with Israel this fall in Jerusalem. Attracting little attention from major media outlets, Quebec’s bilateral accord was signed during a government-led delegation to Israel that included high-level state officials and corporate representatives this past September, amidst Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza. Quebec’s accord with Israel stands in contrast to the growing international calls for an economic boycott of the Israeli government. Stefan Christoff comments. Read more about Quebec supporting apartheid?
The University of Western Sydney’s Student Association (UWSSA) has decided to formally affiliate to the “Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.” The call to boycott which was sent by Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was adopted in full. In Palestine, millions of people live under an oppressive military regime. Among them, hundreds of thousands of university students have to endure ongoing humiliations at checkpoints and roadblocks on their way to campus. Read more about Australian university student association to boycott Israeli institutions
Signaling growing outrage at Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev’s businesses’ global rights abuses, on 12 and 13 December human rights advocates in Dubai, London and two West Bank Palestinian villages held protests against Leviev’s settlement construction. According to Gulf News, the protest in Dubai, unprecedented in the United Arab Emirates, came after a screening at the Dubai International Film Festival of a documentary film about Palestinian hip-hop artists. Leviev’s sale of his diamonds through Arif Bin Khadra’s Levant jewelry stores in Dubai has stirred controversy there. Read more about Settlement builder met with worldwide protests
The movement in Europe to put pressure on companies that benefit from the occupation is growing. Over the last few months, European, Palestinian and Israeli activists have won significant victories toward the 2005 call by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. In early October, Barkan Wineries, a subsidiary of Tempo Beer Industry Ltd., decided to divest from an illegal settlement in the Barkan Industrial Park. Adri Nieuwhof reports. Read more about More transnational companies divest from illegal industrial settlements
In October 2008 the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) published a strategic position paper for the upcoming Durban Review Conference, which will be held from 20-24 April 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland. At the Conference, attending nations will assess the progress made toward the Program of Action adopted at the 2001 World Conference against Racism, which called for end racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. However, Western governments have repeatedly sidelined efforts to bring the case of the systematic violation of the rights the Palestinian people forward in the Durban review process. Read more about A Palestinian action plan to combat Israeli racism
Text messages came from student protestors who had managed to get inside the lecture hall. They let the their fellow demonstrators outside know that their chanting could be heard inside over the voice of Israeli President Shimon Peres. There was clapping and stamping of feet and placards banged on the railings to make as much noise as possible, along with the constant “Free, free Palestine” which did not stop for a moment of the hour-long lecture. Abigail Humphries reports from Oxford. Read more about "Shimon Peres, you're a war criminal!" say Oxford students
Adalah-NY has learned that the jewelry of Israeli billionaire and settlement-builder Lev Leviev will be on sale at this week’s gala opening of the luxury hotel Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai. Despite Leviev’s ongoing construction of Israeli settlements and claims by United Arab Emirates officials that Leviev would receive no license to sell his jewelry there, the New York-based human rights coalition Adalah-NY has confirmed that Leviev’s jewelry will be on sale at the Atlantis branch of the Levant Jewelry chain on the fabled Palm Jumeirah island. Read more about Settlement financier to sell jewelry at Dubai hotel despite ban
Eight groups representing tens of thousands of people in the United States, Palestine and Israel have called on the Marriott Marquis hotel in Manhattan to cancel the 17 November dinner for the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund aiming to raise money for Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron. In a 7 November letter the groups stated: “The Marriot Marquis will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law and US foreign policy, actively promote racial discrimination, and, at least indirectly, support brutal Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian civilians and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Hebron.” Read more about Groups protest settlement fundraiser at New York hotel
We, representatives of international civil society meeting in Bilbao, agree that the State of Israel must be held legally accountable. By granting Israel impunity for its persistent and systematic violations of international law and fundamental human rights, treating it as an exception above the law of nations, and providing it with unlimited political, economic, scientific, cultural and diplomatic support, the United States, the EU and other players in the so-called international community are guilty of complicity in perpetuating Israeli apartheid and colonial rule. Read more about Bilbao initiative: declaration and action plan
Ask Saif Abukeshek when he became an online activist, and he’ll give you the same answer as many of his Palestinian peers: after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. That explosion of violence in the occupied territories brought about a tough lockdown on Palestinian mobility by Israeli forces and produced the right conditions for a home-grown, grass-roots activism — frustrated youth trapped inside all day with nothing but the TV and the internet to turn to. Don Duncan reports. Read more about Palestinian youth bring their politics online
