SP INTERNATIONAL :: NEWS
ISRAELI PRODUCTS FROM OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: MINISTER AGREES TO SP REQUEST TO INVESTIGATE
November 13th, 2009 • Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has agreed to a request from SP foreign affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel to begin an enquiry into the import of cosmetic products from Israeli firm AHAVA. The company manufactures cosmetics in the Mitzpe Shalem settlement on the West Bank, using minerals and mud from the River Jordan. The products are exported under the label 'Made in Israel’. “I'm pleased that this enquiry is to be conducted," says Van Bommel. "If it confirms all we've been told, then I'll be calling for a boycott of these products. This sort of practice is in conflict with international law, which forbids an occupying power from selling the products of an occupied people under its own name. It stands in the way of a fair, honest and just solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”
In the Netherlands a group called the Badjassen Brigade, which organises protests against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, has held demonstrations outside the shops where AHAVA products are sold, under the campaign title 'Gestolen Schoonheid', Stolen Beauty. The action group is also trying to prevent AHAVA from developing a network of sales points in the Netherlands, an endeavour in which the firm enjoys the cooperation of a weekly television programme, Health Angels, broadcast on commercial television channel RTL4. It has been a thorn in the side of human rights activists for some years that many products from the Occupied Territories are exported under the Israeli flag, making profits for the occupier.
November 16, 2009
Cosmetic from AHAVA
November 13, 2009
Rivage is the brand name
October 25, 2009
2009 National Campus Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Conference
The 2009 National Campus Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Conference, taking place Nov 20th - Nov 22nd at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Find out more and register at: http://www.hsjp.org/2009/09/21/CampusBDS/">http://www.hsjp.org/2009/09/21/CampusBDS/>http://www.hsjp.org/2009/09/21/CampusBDS/
October 2, 2009
Boycotts Go Back to School!
This fall, as college students return to campus, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, in partnership with Hampshire College Students for Justice in Palestine, is organizing a five-city boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) tour across the country.
Ever since the dynamic student organizers at Hampshire got their university to divest from corporations supporting Israeli occupation and apartheid, we have been planning with them how to spread successful campus boycott and divestment campaigns to other campuses around the country.
In October, we're taking all of our research and resources on the road, stopping in Milwaukee, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Amherst to spark and strengthen BDS campaigns. Support this tour by clicking here to make a tax-deductible donation now.
The energy at our recent national organizers' conference demonstrated that now is the time to move forward with focused, strategic BDS work. Experts as diverse as Omar Barghouti (of PACBI) and Howard Kohr (of AIPAC) agree that we are at a critical moment for BDS. You can help make this tour a success and help spread the BDS movement in the United States by clicking here.
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The US Campaign's National Organizer, organizers from Hampshire SJP, and other experts will offer skills-building workshops and hold public events free of charge at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (Oct 7-10), Emory University (Oct 18-20), the University of Pittsburgh (Oct 22-24), and the Ohio State University (Oct 23-25). Finally, we're partnering with Hampshire SJP to present at their national campus BDS conference in Amherst Nov. 20-22nd. These conferences will offer students and faculty the skills and knowledge they need to launch and sustain successful boycott and divestment campaigns on their campuses and in their communities. With your support we will continue this organizing effort at campuses in California, North Carolina, and Virginia in the spring.
Learn more about the US Campaign's effort to bring BDS organizing resources and trainings to campuses across the United States by clicking here. To register for a campus BDS conference in your area email the US Campaign's National Organizer here. Find out more about the national BDS conference at Hampshire College this November here
September 30, 2009
Boycotts Go Back to School!
This fall, as college students return to campus, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, in partnership with Hampshire College Students for Justice in Palestine, is organizing a five-city boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) tour across the country.
Ever since the dynamic student organizers at Hampshire got their university to divest from corporations supporting Israeli occupation and apartheid, we have been planning with them how to spread successful campus boycott and divestment campaigns to other campuses around the country.
In October, we're taking all of our research and resources on the road, stopping in Milwaukee, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Amherst to spark and strengthen BDS campaigns. Support this tour by clicking here to make a tax-deductible donation now.
The energy at our recent national organizers' conference demonstrated that now is the time to move forward with focused, strategic BDS work. Experts as diverse as Omar Barghouti (of PACBI) and Howard Kohr (of AIPAC) agree that we are at a critical moment for BDS. You can help make this tour a success and help spread the BDS movement in the United States by clicking here.
The US Campaign's National Organizer, organizers from Hampshire SJP, and other experts will offer skills-building workshops and hold public events free of charge at the
Learn more about the US Campaign's effort to bring BDS organizing resources and trainings to campuses across the United States by organizer@endtheoccupation.org
Make a tax-deductible contribution to
September 25, 2009
Spain expels Israeli scientists from solar energy competition
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/24/spain-solar-competition-israelis
Scientists kicked out of contest because they are based in the West Bank, Spain's government says
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 September 2009 17.52 BST
Spain's government today said it had expelled a group of Israeli scientists from a state-funded solar energy competition because they were based in occupied areas of the West Bank.
The decision to expel the team from the Ariel University Centre of Samaria from Solar Decathlon Europe, an international competition involving 20 universities, provoked angry reactions in Israel.
The Israeli team had been selected as one of the 20 finalists in a competition to design solar-powered housing that is part-sponsored by the US energy department. Spain is hosting the first European version of the event next year and claims ultimate say over who takes part.
"This university is in the occupied territories and all the ministry has done is apply the policy of the European Union," a housing ministry spokesman said. "The EU does not recognise the occupation of the West Bank which is where this university is."
The Israeli university replied that it "rejects with disgust the one-sided announcement we received from the Spanish housing ministry".
It claimed the decision both "contravenes international law and international charters on academic freedom" and harms 10,000 students at the university, including 500 Arabs.
It was only after the Israeli project joined the group of finalists, which include the University of Nottingham, that officials at Spain's housing ministry were made aware that the university was in the West Bank.
Both the Israelis and the US energy department were advised of the decision over a week ago.
The Israeli team had described their "stretch house" project as being inspired by the Tent of Abraham. "It is adaptable according to its owner's wishes and is able to expand and create hospitable spaces," they said. "In its closed state when additional space is not required, it uses only half the energy necessary to operate a regular house."
Spain had been under pressure from pro-Palestinian groups which claimed that allowing the Israeli university to take part was a breach of international law.
They said that the university was located in the Ariel settlement, the second biggest zone in Israel's expanding West Bank presence.
In a letter to housing minister Beatriz Corredor, Fayeq Kishawi, coordinator of a Palestinian campaign group against the settlements, said: "As somebody suffering like the others from Ariel's continuous 'stretching' I wonder how the Solar Decathlon can accept a project submitted by an institution that has stolen our land and will build its project on our stolen land."
Spain has recently been at the centre of complaints by Jewish groups who claim that anti-Semitism there is on the rise.
A decision by El Mundo newspaper to publish an interview with Holocaust-denying historian David Irving angered the Israeli ambassador, Raphael Schutz, who claimed it showed a lack of moral and ethical judgement.
The ambassador has been subject to racial abuse on the streets of Madrid, where he was recently approached by three men who shouted "dirty Jew," "Jew bastard" and "Jewish dog".
A report this week by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League complained of what it claimed was a rise in anti-Semitism across Spain and, especially, in its mainstream media.
"We are deeply concerned about the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in Spain, with more public expressions and greater public acceptance of classic stereotypes," said the league's director, Abraham H Foxman.
"Among the major European countries, only in Spain have we seen viciously anti-Semitic cartoons in the mainstream media, and street protests where Israel is accused of Genocide and Jews are vilified and compared to Nazis."
September 24, 2009
Growth in BDS.
Growth in BDS.
OMAR BARGHOUTI
PACBI has a new document, top of site: guidelines. See http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1045
See also http://www.bdsmovement.net/
Boycott is Israel’s weakest point. To be de-normalized – they hate that. It’s what Palestinians want – the overwhelming call of civil society.
BDS needs to be implemented with context, sensitivity, gradualism, and flexibility. The accusation that BDS is anti-Semitic is in itself anti-Semitic, insofar as it equates Israel with Judaism. BDS is a human rights campaign, led by Jews and Palestinians, based in solid precedent.
BDS is also an educational tool – not a campaign to do after education gets you there. It provoked debate in UK, moving things forward. Should we wait? Go tell Brand Israel to wait.
South Africa took 27 years, from the call for boycott in 1959.
Apartheid is not just a South African phenomenon. The UN defined it in 1973, and reaffirmed in 2002 as one of 11 recognized crimes against humanity.
Academic/cultural:
It is an institutional boycott, not on individuals. End institutional links with Israeli universities.
Bir Zeit was closed for four years, in the 1^st intifada – where’s the academic freedom?
The wall and settlements were designed at Israeli universities.
Weapons are designed at Tel Aviv U. So was the Doctrine of Disproportionate Force. (You can’t defeat Hezbollah, so destroy the Lebanese infrastructure, hurt the population, turn them against Hezbollah.)
No academic institution or association has taken a position against the occupation.
A petition to /ease restrictions/ on Palestinian students at checkpoints was singed by only 407 of 9,000 Israeli academics.
Dance companies, musicians, films are sent abroad as part of “Brand Israel,” to clean up tarnished image. Even projects critical of the state are funded by the state. For example, the film “Lemon Tree” was sent to the San Antonio Film Festival by the government. Films merely funded by the government are not boycotted, except if funded to tour, for festivals, etc.
Culture is often cast in the context of “co-existence.” But co-existence comes with equality, not apartheid.
Trader Joe’s carries three Israeli products we know of:
Dorot Frozen Herbs, Israeli Cous Cous, Pastures of Eden Israeli Feta.
We boycott the state, not the manifestation. You don’t boycott Sudanese products made in Darfur. 80% of the Israeli economy is somehow profiting from settlements.
Science:
Individual scientists can work together, but not through institutional sponsorships.
International institutions with Israeli participation: don’t boycott them, but pressure them to sever Israeli participation.
South Africa was a blanket boycott. This makes sense because we don’t wish to repeat McCarthyism. We don’t judge people’s views but their institutional loyalties.
Don’t go to Israel to educate people. It’s complicity. Put your education in the LA Times.
Sports boycott coming soon.
“Our South Africa moment has finally arrived. Let’s do it.”