BDS – Sixteen Minutes to Palestine

BDS campaign leaders convene in Chicago for public lecture

May 10, 2013 By Sami Kishawi Leave a Comment

On Tuesday, May 14, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago will be hosting a lecture panel on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement gaining traction around the world.

Palestinian civil society initiated the BDS call in 2005. Since then, countless high profile figures, artists, institutions, and organizations have cut or withdrawn connections with Israel until Israel complies with international and human rights law. If it’s any indication of how relevant and effective BDS is, Professor Stephen Hawking announced his backing of the boycott movement earlier this week.

The event, titled “From South Africa to Israel: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement”, features Sherry Wolf, a prominent journalist and activist; Rabbi Brant Rosen, leader of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston; and Andrew Kadi, a digital media specialist involved in regional organizing. The three speakers will relate today’s BDS movement to previous boycott campaigns, showing how BDS can be effectively applied and advocated on campuses and beyond.

For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page.

The event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Voice for Peace chapter at the University of Chicago and is part of SJP’s annual Nakba Commemoration. The event is free and open to the public.

Filed Under: Activism Tagged With: BDS, Nakba, SJP, Stephen Hawking, University of Chicago

Excellent sentence by The Guardian on Stephen Hawking’s boycott of Israel (with bonus at the end)

May 10, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 2 Comments

World-renouned theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking joined the boycott of Israel on Tuesday by withdrawing from a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem.

The announcement was met with ferocious (and nonsensical) pressure from backers of Israel’s occupation. In one case, an Israeli law firm, Shurat HaDin, condemned Hawking’s decision to join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as “hypocritical”, arguing that the computers he uses contain technology designed by Israeli tech engineers.

Rather than addressing Hawking’s concern about the rights of Palestinians as well as Israel’s frequent and disproportionate use of force against Palestinian civilians, the critics chose instead to bring attention to Israeli technological or scientific contributions. It is as if these advancements grant Israel free reign to violate international law (via settlement building, occupation, etc.), civil rights (via minority rights, race-based deportations, etc.), and human rights (via movement restrictions, incarceration of children, etc.).

Luckily, Hawking isn’t bending. Whitewashing and rebranding Israeli human rights and international law violations, and attempting to guilt BDS advocates by skewing the focus of the boycott call is wholly unsuccessful. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commentary, News Tagged With: Avi Mayer, BDS, Human Rights, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, Shimon Peres, Stephen Hawking

‘Solidarity’ should not be supremacist charity: The best definition of the word yet

January 9, 2013 By Sami Kishawi 2 Comments

I came across a brilliant definition of the word “solidarity” in a letter to musician Stanley Jordan shortly before he chose to back out of his performance at the Red Sea Jazz Festival this month in Eilat, Israel. The definition itself was originally written as a comment to Jordan on a Facebook post announcing his decision to play. Rima Merriman, faculty member of the English Department at Al Quds University, found so much power in the definition that she quoted it in full in her letter to Jordan. Four days and hundreds of messages of concern later, Jordan canceled his performance.

Here is Adrian Boutureira Sansberro’s take on the word (emphasis is my own):

“Firstly, we are in solidarity with the oppressed, not the oppressor. Secondly, being in solidarity entails being able to take direction from those one claims to be in solidarity with. Learning how to take direction, as to what is it that those we are in solidarity with wish us to do, is a huge aspect of shifting the relationships of power between the oppressed and the oppressor. It is also a way to really come face to face with our own true commitment and power issues. To do as we wish, is not being in solidarity. It is practicing supremacist charity. I say supremacist, because even when people claim to be in solidarity, they refuse to relinquish their own power and privilege as individuals. They refuse to surrender their own interests. They refuse to recognize that the collective must always be greater than the individual, or we are not in solidarity at all. We are then independent actors who cannot accept taking direction for whatever reason.”

Filed Under: Commentary Tagged With: BDS, Solidarity, Stanley Jordan

Understanding the mounting pressure against Joy Harjo’s ‘halfway justice’

December 14, 2012 By Sami Kishawi 2 Comments

In the days following Native American poet Joy Harjo’s decision to cross the picket line and to perform at Tel Aviv University, many have taken the disappointment from friends, colleagues, and fans as a sign of the boycott movement’s “with us or against us” attitude. But that is an unfair characterization of a growing movement that is more “all or nothing” than anything else.

I’ll start with a very basic premise: there is no such thing as halfway justice. There is no in-between. And in the case of an oppressor-oppressed system as clear as the one we see in Israel’s systematic abuse of Palestinian human rights, there is no middle ground.

So when Harjo chose to act against the Palestinian civil society’s Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) call, even after countless petitions and expressions of concern were directed her way, and when she tried to make up for it by scheduling a visit to the West Bank, she had made her point clear. She had tried to forge a middle ground where none could exist.

Her decision to travel to the West Bank elicited very mixed reactions. Some saw it as a sign of support. Harjo insisted she had initially been misinformed, that she was just beginning to learn about the boycott. Still others felt it was a disingenuous decision to save face. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commentary, Opinion Tagged With: BDS, Joy Harjo, Native America, Tel Aviv, West Bank

UC Irvine student gov’t unanimously passes divestment bill challenging Israel’s human rights abuses

November 13, 2012 By Sami Kishawi 7 Comments

Almost two years after the Irvine 11 unprecedentedly faced criminal charges for verbally disrupting a speech by Israel ambassador Michael Oren, the student government at the University of California, Irvine passed a divestment resolution with a 16-0-0 vote.

The resolution, penned and proposed by UC Irvine students, requires the university to divest from corporations and businesses profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and its systematic abuse of human rights. These companies include Caterpillar, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, among others.

The elected undergraduate student representatives also see the resolution as an opportunity for the university to engage and mobilize students to “protect human rights on a global scale,” according to Traci Ishigo, President of the Associated Student of UC Irvine.

UC Irvine is now the first university in California poised to divest from Israeli apartheid and occupation. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism, News Tagged With: BDS, California, Irvine 11, Loyola University Chicago, Michael Oren, New York University, TIAA-CREF, UC Irvine, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago

One of the things I learned at last year’s National SJP Conference

October 16, 2012 By Sami Kishawi 1 Comment

At the present moment, there is a woman sitting at the table in front of me, furiously pecking at her keyboard with one hand and munching on a sandwich with another. To my right are nine men from the community gathered around two chessboards. Their chess pieces roll along the dark brown wooden table. The woman in front of me just picked up her backpack and left. Either she caught me staring too hard or her class begins in a few. Let’s hope it’s the latter.

These are your everyday people, each going about his or her own day with his or her own priorities in mind. But I’ve been taught to recognize the proverbial everyday person as a friend and a valuable asset — not to me, per se, but to the millions everywhere who face oppressions that prevent them from becoming everyday people or even from doing everyday things. It’s a bit abstract but the “line theory” does a good job of explaining what I mean, specifically within the context of the Palestinian narrative and even more specifically within the context of the upcoming Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) National Conference.

One year ago someone asked me who I target when helping to organize actions or events centered around the occupation of Palestine. My initial answer, The Americans Who Don’t Know, was too narrow and my second answer, The Opposition, was a waste of a breath. It wasn’t that I was targeting the wrong audience but, technically, I was.

Imagine a line. Or if you’re reading this after a busy day, let me imagine one for you. Presently, the line represents nothing. So let us quickly define the line’s boundaries with visible points.

One point represents you, the organizers or the educators, the ones who already Know. The other point represents the opposition, in this case the ones who, for example, insist that human rights laws are meant to be broken and that oppression is actually a protective maneuver. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism Tagged With: BDS, National SJP Conference, SJP

NYU SJP marks mounting success in TIAA-CREF divestment campaign

September 19, 2012 By Sami Kishawi Leave a Comment

Students for Justice in Palestine at New York University published this video to mark the growth of their divestment campaign on campus. The group has collected over 200 signatures from professors, staff, and students calling on pension fund giant TIAA-CREF to divest from Veolia, Caterpillar, Elbit, Northrop Grumman, and Motorola Systems — corporations that profit from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people.

One thing to look out for is the clear and convicted support from NYU faculty members. Typically, when supporters of the Israeli occupation unjustifiably frame efforts like these as hostile or anti-Semitic, job security becomes an increasingly important factor for professors and staff members to consider. There have been cases in the past when even the slightest support of Palestinian rights has led to censorship attempts and even tenure denial. But the NYU community has stood firm in their call for full divestment.

Keep an eye out to see how far this campaign goes on the NYU campus and on campuses across the United States in the coming months.

Sami Kishawi

Filed Under: Activism, News Tagged With: BDS, Caterpillar, Elbit, Motorola Systems, New York University, Northrop Grumman, SJP, TIAA-CREF, Veolia

Nothing tastes sweeter than justice

July 18, 2012 By Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Guest contribution by Deanna Othman

As Ramadan approaches, the month during which Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, families hurry to their local grocery stores and ethnic food shops to buy the most precious food items of the month: dates.

In line with the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, Muslims break their fast on these nutritious, wholesome fruits, signifying an end to their day of fasting.

But could such an act of worship, spiritual and pure, become sullied by eating the produce of oppression?

Unsuspecting consumers will pick up a box of fresh Medjool dates, unaware of their origins. This is why American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) has launched a groundbreaking Muslim-led BDS campaign to inform consumers and business owners that some of the dates they purchase come from Israeli settlements. The campaign is titled: “This Ramadan, Make a Date with Justice: Choose Occupation-Free Dates.”

Settlement Produced

Israel produces more than half the world’s leading variety of dates, the Medjool date. The majority of these are grown in Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea areas, on occupied Palestinian land, and then exported worldwide for a profit of $265 million for Israeli companies.

Currently, most Israeli dates are marketed by Hadiklaim, a company that exports dates from Israel and its settlements in the Occupied Territories, especially in the Jordan Valley. Hadiklaim markets the dates under the brand names of Jordan River, Jordan River Bio-Top and King Solomon, and under the private labels of supermarket chains. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Activism, News Tagged With: American Muslims for Palestine, BDS, Dates, Jordan Valley, West Bank

The Church & Occupation

July 10, 2012 By Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Guest contribution by Maryam I.

Last week the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted on whether they would divest from three war-profiting companies helping sustain Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine. The result of the vote was 333 against divestment and 331 for divestment.

Though we BDS activists can pat ourselves on the back and claim this as a victory, in the end, the fact is that the church assembly chose not to divest from an occupation, siege, and system of apartheid that deprives an entire people of their freedom, human dignity, right to an adequate standard of living, and national identity. The fact that the margin was close is encouraging in that it shows the assembly has a substantial amount of people with consciences, but the fact that the majority of them see no problem in aiding, financing, and profiting from the suffering of a civilian population that the United Nations and human rights organizations worldwide have condemned is no feat to be celebrated.

If we are to evaluate the recent position Christian religious institutions have taken with regard to the colonial state of Israel and it’s 64-year occupation, we must also look a few weeks back when the Vatican signed an agreement with the state of Israel. This 32-page agreement covered a number of complex (and boring) issues, and one of my superiors requested that I read the agreement, make notes on important issues covered, and report back to him so he can give an interview on it later that day.

This agreement both shocked and disgusted me as it showed the strange manner in which institutions and individuals worldwide react to Israeli aggression and domination. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Contribution, Opinion Tagged With: Apartheid, BDS, Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church

“Positive Investment” prioritizes money over people, justice

July 6, 2012 By Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Guest contribution by Ghassan Rafeedie

Divestment of funds from companies profiting from the occupation of Palestine was brought to a vote recently at the Presbyterian Church’s biennial General Assembly. Rather than divesting from the occupation, the Presbyterian Church decided to invoke the concept of “positive investment.” In many ways, positive investing is Wall Street profiteering for liberals who need to sleep well at night. It certainly isn’t going to solve any political crises, or give Palestinians equal rights. But, it sounds nice and that makes it an excellent political tool. Positive investment! What’s wrong with being positive?

With positive investing, the church intends to invest in projects that can help the Palestinians. Of course, the only way this makes any sense is when you deal with the vague language of being “positive” and ignore what Palestinians tell you they want help with. The definition of positive can essentially become whatever the investor wants it to be, as long as you ignore the definition given by the people you’re supposed to be helping. No investment is going to tear down the apartheid wall. No investment is going to eliminate administrative detention. No investment is going to allow Palestinians the right to return to their homeland.

In this instance, positive investing can do virtually nothing beyond making Palestinians well-fed prisoners in a foreign military occupation. The perfect example of this is the KFC/Pizza Hut that has been built in Ramallah. If we haven’t made it clear enough to world, allow me to inform you: We don’t care about being well-fed, we care about being free. The fact that the wonders of profit are being invoked to “help” people who are demanding that the world eliminate profit from the occupation speaks volumes about Western liberalism and its desire to prioritize money over people. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Guest Contribution, News, Opinion Tagged With: BDS, Presbyterian Church