In the presence of all national alliances, an urgent meeting for the Follow up Committee was held today declaring Sunday 28 December 2008 a general strike in protest of the Israeli massacres committed against Palestinians in Gaza. The meeting called for the organization of demonstrations and marches in every Arab town in al-Naqab [Negev], the Triangle, the Galilee areas and coastal towns as a symbol of the rage and severe grief of the Palestinian nation upon the loss of hundreds of its citizens in Gaza. Read more about Palestinian leaders in Israel declare strike, call for boycott
Today, the Israeli occupation army committed a new massacre in Gaza, causing the death and injury of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including a yet unknown number of school children who were headed home from school when the first Israeli military strikes started. This latest bloodbath, although far more ruthless than all its predecessors, is not Israel’s first. Read more about Boycott committee: "Stop the massacre in Gaza - boycott Israel now!"
Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC)23 December 2008
In this holiday season, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee calls upon people of conscience all over the world to boycott all the products of the French cosmetics giant, L’Oreal, due to its deep and extensive involvement in business relations with Israel, despite the latter’s continued occupation and apartheid policies against the indigenous Palestinian people. Read more about Boycott L'Oreal: Makeup for Israeli apartheid
Thirty human rights carolers braved the cold and ice on 20 December to serenade Manhattan’s holiday shoppers with a call, for the second year, to boycott the jewelry store and companies of Israeli settlement-builder and diamond mogul Lev Leviev. Leviev’s Madison Avenue store has been the site of 12 protests since it opened in mid-November 2007, and protests against his businesses have spread to London, Dubai and the West Bank villages where he is building settlements. Read more about Celebrities further disassociate with settlement financier
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
The Batsheva Dance Company of Tel Aviv is touring the US and Canada in January, February, and March, 2009. A recipient of public financing since the 1990s, the dance troupe is clearly an Israeli apartheid cultural institution. Writing October 26, 2008, in The Independent of London, Jenny Gilbert reports that the dance company is “funded by Israel’s government, its performers include none of Arab extraction, and it is ‘proud to be considered Israel’s leading ambassador.’” Read more about Organize to stop apartheid dance troupe's North America tour
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
