Twitter Storm Today

Twitter Storm Today: Tell HP and JerusaLens: Occupation isn’t Pretty!

When: Today Thursday March 16 all day on social media

Hewlett-Packard (HP), the company that makes Israel’s apartheid ID cards is sponsoring the “JerusaLens Jerusalem Photo Challenge,” a contest that is part and parcel of the “Brand Israel” campaign to whitewash 50 years of military occupation and ongoing violation of Palestinian human rights in Jerusalem. While the photo contest seeks to show “Jerusalem's awe-inspiring beauty” and “mix of cultures and religions,” the truth is that there is nothing beautiful about Israeli apartheid and occupation.

Please join us to send a message to HP and #JerusaLens contest participants that occupation isn’t pretty and HP must end  its complicity with Israeli crimes violate Palestinian human rights and international law.

Use the hashtags #JerusaLens and #BoycottHP, and HP’s Twitter handle @HP

Sample Tweets

Hey @HP and #Jerusalens: occupation isn’t pretty! #BDS until HP ends complicity with Israeli occupation and apartheid #BoycottHP

.@HP not only helps Israel obstruct Palestinian access to Jerusalem, now it’s covering-up Israel’s brutal policies #Jerusalens #BoycottHP

.@HP sponsorship of #Jerusalens conceals the 200,000 Israeli settlers living in East Jerusalem on land stolen from Palestinians #BoycottHP

The #Jerusalens @HP doesn’t want you to see: home demolitions, the wall, checkpoints #BoycottHP #BDS

.@HP sponsors #Jerusalens photo contest to show you pretty pictures of Jerusalem, but occupation isn’t pretty #BDS #BoycottHP

March 26-28 we will be in protesting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual convention in Washington D.C. AIPAC lobbies shamelessly for unquestioned US financial and diplomatic support for Israel's brutal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and crippling siege on Gaza. AIPAC supports Israel’s settlement enterprise and want to increase US sanctions against Iran. Join us in D.C. for protests, teach-in’s, and to lobby for Israel to drop the charges against internationally recognized Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro.

Issa Amro deserves to be free. Sign the petition to tell the UN to pressure Israel to drop the charges!

With your help we can achieve freedom and justice for Palestine!

In peace,

Ann, Ariel, Jodie, Medea, Nancy, Paki, and the entire CODEPINK team

PEN cuts off all Israeli government funding

Happy to announce that the Writers' Organization: PEN has decided to go forward with NO Israeli government funding for the first time. Thank you to all the organizers and my fellow writers and PEN members who stood up for human rights.

Including:

Susan Abulhawa, Ammiel Alcalay, Meena Alexander, Nicole Aragi, Moustafa Bayoumi, Max Blumenthal, Ken Chen, Kia Corthron, Bill Klegg, Eisa Davis, Angela Davis, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Elana Dykewomon, Ben Ehrenreich, Louise Erdrich, Carolyn Forché, Laura Flanders, Richard Ford, Ru Freeman, Joshua Furst, Molly Crabapple, Ashley Dawson, Junot Diaz,Tonya M. Foster, Marilyn Hacker, Jessica Hagedorn, Barbara Hammer, Randa Jarrar, Remi Kanazi, Nancy Kricorian, Casey Llewellyn, Karen Malpede, Eileen Myles, Joan Nestle, Viet Nguyen, Pratibha Parmar, Dale Peck, Vijay Prashad, Claudia Rankine, Colin Robinson, Trish Salah, Luc Sante, Dean Spade, Madeleine Thien, Alice Walker, Naomi Wallace,Jacqueline Woodson and many others.

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.schulman.56/posts/10158306653955188

HP Enables Apartheid at the Hudson Valley Mall

HP companies provide the electronic biometric ID cards used at Israel’s discriminatory checkpoints inside the segregated West Bank to restrict the movements of Palestinians based on their religion and ethnicity. HP companies also provide technology for illegal settlements occupying Palestinian land, for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and for the Israeli Navy to enforce the devastating blockade of the Gaza Strip.

South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, "I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.”

All the Walls Have Got To Go!

FROM PALESTINE TO MEXICO: ALL THE WALLS HAVE GOT TO GO! ِNew York City Students for Justice in Palestine lends its full support to the Immigrant Rally against Deportations, Incarceration, and the "Broken Windows" Policy. Please join us at the rally, hosted by ICE-FREE-NY: https://www.facebook.com/events/987262324752094/ We're calling for a citywide rally on Saturday, February 11th to challenge the criminalization of immigrants under the NYPD’s current Broken Windows policy, before it worsens under Trump’s far-right administration. We demand NYC to: #EndBrokenWindows #EndDeportations #EndIncarceration We are #HereToStay y #NoNosVamos! Hosted By: ICE FREE NYC Coalition To End Broken Windows Families for Freedom Black Alliance for Just Immigration Equality for Flatbush : E4F Answer Coalition La Peña del Bronx El Grito De Sunset Park Why Accountability War Resisters League UnLocal, Inc. Mi Casa No Es Su Casa: Illumination Against Gentrification ### Press Conference on Thurs, Feb 2nd. at 12:15PM Outside City Hall (Broadway entrance)

Copyright © 2017 Students for Justice in Palestine, All rights reserved. You are receiving this e-mail because you signed your e-mail up with New York City Students for Justice in Palestine Our mailing address is: Students for Justice in Palestine 524 W 59th Street New York, Ny  10019

Fordham University turns to the dark side

Earlier this week we got word of some really disconcerting news: Fordham University in NYC banned a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group from forming on its campus!

Email the administration now demanding they rescind the decision and issue an apology.

University officials claimed the SJP would be too “polarizing” for the campus to tolerate and that the call for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel “presents a barrier to open dialogue.” But we know well that it is Israel’s policies that impose barriers and intolerance -- in violent and illegal ways. As member group Palestine Legal has made clear in their letter to Fordham, this decision to censor SJP violates free speech and academic freedom. 

The students at Fordham were put through a year-long process to get the SJP approved. Now that they have been banned, they need your supportto deliver a strong message to Fordham officials that this decision is unacceptable. Click here to send them an email. 

There has been widespread suppression of Palestinian rights advocacy across the country for years. This blatant shutting down of Palestine activism is particularly concerning on the eve of a Trump presidency that promises even further suppression of organizing for freedom, justice, and equality while the administration speaks of pushing forward policies that will entrench Israel’s oppression.

Students have been at the forefront of so many social movements for justice. Make it clear today that the shutting down of campus advocacy for Palestine will not be tolerated. 

Thank you for taking action. 

RAMAH KUDAIMI 

Director of Grassroots Organizing 

Palestinian BDS National Committee

Dear supporter of Palestinian rights,

We in the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the widest coalition of Palestinian organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement, recently took some time to take stock the BDS movement’s most important moments during 2016. You can can read our thoughts in our new blog post where we explain how despite the pain, 2016 witnessed impressive gains for BDS.

There are eight really significant signs that the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality took important steps forward during 2016:

1. Three more multinationals, Orange, CRH and G4S were compelled under BDS pressure to end involvement in illegal Israeli projects, indicating a start of a domino effect.
    
2. Israel’s global legal war on BDS suffered fatal setbacks after the EU upheld the right to boycott Israel under freedom of speech.
    
3. Israeli Apartheid Free Zones or settlement-free zones were declared by dozens of municipal councils across Europe.
    
4. Israel’s global isolation intensified as the logic of appeasing its regime of oppression started to give way to the logic of sustained international pressure, including at the UN.
   
   Can you help us make sure that we achieve even more during 2017? 
    
5. More mainstream churches, from the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA) to the United Methodist Church in the US, adopted BDS-related measures in support of Palestinian human rights. 
    
6. Our BDS campaign against apartheid profiteer Hewlett Packard (HP) went viral globally. There were actions and events in more than 100 cities as part of our recent week of action. 
    
7. BDS reached the Oscars and the Olympics, as the academic and cultural boycott of Israel spread even further among student unions, academics, artists and writers, especially in the global South.
    
8. International trade unions intensified support for BDS measures in solidarity with the Palestinian people and Palestinian workers.

You can read more about all of the things we achieved together during 2016 at our blog post.

Since we published our blog post, it has emerged that the Israeli embassy in the UK has been working to smear and undermine politicians and civil society leaders that support Palestinian rights. A main theme in the subversive efforts of Israel’s lobby, it is now confirmed, is targeting BDS and measures aimed at holding Israel accountable for its oppression of Palestinians.

Recognizing the strategic impact of the BDS movement in the struggle for Palestinian rights, Israel is pouring tens of millions of dollars into its war of propaganda, legal attacks, and defamation tactics.

We can’t compete with Israel financially. But the impressive things our movement has achieved show that we don’t have to.

In recent years, public donations have allowed us to launch a new website for the BDS movement, enlarge our small staff team, and successfully expand BDS activism in Latin America and the Arab world.

Before we bring our current fundraising appeal to a close, we wanted to make sure that everyone knows that we’re asking supporters of Palestinian rights to consider making a small donation to the Palestinian leadership of the BDS movement. Can you help us with a donation today?

Kind regards, 

Palestinian BDS National Committee

We join JVP in opposing Stephen Bannon

We, the undersigned, oppose and condemn in the strongest of terms President-Elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor. Bannon’s anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic agenda deserves no place in the White House, let alone second-in-command to the most powerful office on the planet.

Sign the petition.