From Al Jazeera, 7 JULY 2019

Nelson Mandela's grandson slams 'Israeli apartheid'

Zwelivelile Mandela says Israeli apartheid is the worst form of apartheid ever witnessed.

by Gavin O'Toole

3 hours ago

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Mandela sketched out a damning picture of the discrimination experienced by the Palestinian people [File: Leon Neal/Getty Images]

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London, United Kingdom - The grandson of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela has delivered a damning condemnation of "Israeli apartheid", in a high-profile expression of solidarity between South Africans and Palestinians.

Zwelivelile Mandela, an MP of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), made the comments on Saturday at the Palestine Expo, an annual event in London aimed at showcasing Palestinian history, heritage and culture. Last year, it attracted 15,000 visitors.

Addressing a large audience, Mandela said that the Nation-State Law passed in 2018 declaring Israel to be the historical homeland of the Jewish people "confirmed what we have always known to be the true character and reality of Israel: Israel is an apartheid state".

He also outlined what had constituted apartheid for black South Africans - from the creation of bantustan reservations to land expropriation and the daily assault on dignity.

"All these characteristics were present in apartheid Israel since its inception but have now been codified and given a constitutional status and expression by the Nation-State Law.

"Apartheid Israel perpetuates statutory discrimination through the very definition by the law as a Jewish state; by doing so it renders non-Jews as second-class citizens, alternately as foreigners in the land of their birth."

Anti-Semitism allegations

Also speaking at the event was Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, who criticised efforts by the United States to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through investment.

He told the London audience that not only could the deal not be taken seriously, but if it were pursued it would put an end to "all Palestinian rights and aspirations", and added that, as a result, a global intervention was now required to put pressure on Israel.

"We need the world because Israel will not change by itself - as long as Israel and Israelis are not punished and don't pay for the occupation, for the crimes, don't expect any change. It will not come from within Israel."

Levy was also scathing about how Western politicians and media have succumbed to a "very efficient" campaign by Israel to label any criticism of the country's activities as anti-Semitic.

"Here we face now a new stage in which criticising Israel becomes not only impossible but almost criminal. I have never seen such a phenomenon in which struggling for justice becomes criminalised - this is unheard of.

"The formula is very formalised and very efficient, and we shouldn't let it be so efficient: you dare to criticise the occupation? You dare to criticise Israel? You dare to have some sympathy with the Palestinians, the victims? You dare to speak about justice? You know what you are: you are an anti-Semite. This paralyses everybody."

OPINION

Why aren't Europeans calling Israel an apartheid state?

by John Dugard

 

Ilan Pappe, a professor at the University of Exeter and director of the European Centre for Palestinian Studies, also blasted the mainstream media's coverage of Israeli activities and how these have been concealed behind the "fabrication of institutional anti-Semitism".

Pappe said it was important to acknowledge the historical context in which the treatment of Palestinians in areas such as Gaza had taken place.

"Unfortunately, the world doesn't know what goes on in Gaza. In this country, the mainstream media, whether it is Sky News or the BBC, or the main newspapers, don't mention the Gaza Strip.

"They mention every word that they think attests to institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour Party but they would not mention what happened yesterday when 49 young Palestinians were shot by Israeli snipers. Neither did they mention the 52 who were shot last week."

Home demolitions

Human rights activist Issa Amro, who is based in Hebron - which is at the sharp end of Israeli settler appropriation of Palestinian land - told attendees that the city had become the "micro-centre of apartheid, discrimination and segregation".

Amro described his activism trying to resist the growing scale at which Palestinian homes were being demolished by the Israeli authorities in order for settlers to take their land and resources.

READ MORE

Israel opens 'apartheid road' in occupied West Bank

He said demolitions had increased significantly since Donald Trump became the US president in early 2017, and current Israeli policy was to now even require some Palestinians to demolish their own homes.

"Don't be afraid of 'anti-Semitism' because the message of this conference should be that criticising Israeli human rights violations is not anti-Semitism," he said.

Daphna Baram, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions UK, outlined the scale of demolitions, pointing out that 201 Palestinian structures were demolished in June alone - bringing those destroyed since 1967 to 49,336.

"This is the daily grind of the occupation that is turning the life of the Palestinians impossible," she said. "This is not by accident, this is making the lives of the Palestinians impossible by design.

"This has been the design of the Israeli government for generations to get rid of the Palestinians and make them go away in various ways, shapes and forms, and one of the main ways to do this is by house demolitions."

Global south 'neglect'

OPINION

Love in times of Israeli apartheid

by Yara Hawari 

 

Palestinian journalist and author Ramzy Baroud - who had just returned from a 10-day solidarity tour to Kenya - told the event in the UK capital that a new front in Palestinian activity should be aimed at the developing world.

Palestinian activism had neglected the "global south" because of the Oslo peace process and a changing discourse that had convinced people that their fate lay in the capitals of the developed world.

"But Israel has rediscovered the global south and they have penetrated Africa and South America and other places," Baroud said. "We need to go back there and we need to resurrect their solidarity.

"One thing about Africa that I noticed is that we don't have to contend with the tiny little bits of the discourse - nobody accuses you of anti-Semitism, it is not even on the agenda of African audiences: what they talk about there is national liberation."

SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

June 10, 2016 in CounterPunch

Apartheid, Human Rights and BDS

by Robert Fantina

Ryan Rodrick Beiler | Shutterstock.com

Now that Israel has declared the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement an existential threat, along with all the countless other things that supposedly represent such a threat to that apartheid nation, United States government officials, who are second to none in their obeisance to Israel, have begun to act. Some states have actually passed laws banning BDS. Since New York was not one of them, its Zionist governor, Andrew Cuomo, issued an executive order, preventing the state from doing any business with businesses that support the movement.

Now, one is not to be blamed if this brings to mind the McCarthy era, in which people from all walks of life were accused of being Communist infiltrators, bent on nothing less than the destruction of the United States of America. Lists were compiled, people were blackballed, careers and lives were ruined by a scurrilous U.S. senator who saw the Communist ‘threat’ under every bed. Mr. Cuomo assures us that lists will be compiled of business that are thought to support BDS; those lists will be made public, and the accused will have ninety-days in which to convince the governor that they don’t oppose apartheid. They are assumed guilty of the crime of supporting human rights, and must somehow demonstrate that they do not.

One can imagine government employees reviewing news archives, seeking information about unions, businesses or churches that have voted to divest from Israeli-owned companies. Names of company executives will be gathered from company websites, and then Facebook will be searched, to see if these executives have ever supported BDS. If so, a pox on them! Constitutional protections of freedom of speech do not apply to those who support Palestinian human rights. The governor of New York has just said so.

With the reactionary right ready to nominate Donald Trump, of all people, the old axiom that politics makes strange bedfellows is once again proven true. Mr. Trump did what he does best at the Apartheid Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention in Washington, D.C. in March of this year, when he made a spectacle of himself in front of that unholy group. He bowed and scraped with the best of them, but since he is, after all, The Donald, he somehow did it better than the rest.

But there he is now, in the Israeli bed with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Cuomo, and most other U.S. representatives, most of whom are bought and paid for by AIPAC.

Now, these august worthies will proclaim that the BDS movement is anti-Semitic. After all, they say, hands wringing in anguish, why do the BDS people say nothing about human rights abuses in other nations? Why do they only single out poor little Israel?

Let us look at an analogy, that may, perhaps, help clarify things for these confused souls. This writer donates money to the Heart Association. He does not donate to the American Cancer Society, Patients with Alzheimer’s, Victims of Landmines, etc. It is not because he does not consider these to be worthy causes; he certainly praises the valuable, life-saving work they do. However, his means are limited, and he cannot donate to every worthy charity on the planet. Therefore, he has selected one of two out of all the rest, and rather than making a very small donation to fifty charities, makes a more substantial one to those.

Perhaps Mr. Cuomo believes that this writer (if the good governor were aware of this writer’s existence), cares nothing about cancer patients. He may think this writer is unmoved by the difficulties people suffer when they or a loved one has Alzheimer’s. He may think this writer can look casually and uncaringly at those who have lost limbs due to land mines.

Similarly, he may think this writer is anti-Semitic, due to his dedicated support of all things Palestinian, including the BDS movement.

In all cases, the governor would be wrong in those beliefs.

Yet would this writer be wrong in thinking that the governor,with his eye on the White House, cares nothing for the suffering of Palestinians, looking instead at the deep pockets of the Israeli lobby? He thinks not; any reasonable person, looking honestly at the brutal oppression of the Palestinians, would not so quickly attempt to thwart every effort to assist them.

The media and those highly-regarded (for reasons that completely escape this writer) government officials, are quick to condemn any violent resistance on the part of the Palestinians, but overlook the extreme, constant violence to which they are subjected by the Israelis. And now, when a peaceful means of opposing the illegal and immoral occupation is growing, they seek to outlaw it. One wonders why they don’t simply say, as Texas Senator and one-time Republican presidential candidate wannabe Ted Cruz did, that Palestine simply doesn’t exist? Proclamations such as that issued by the New York governor are just as stupid, and will not hold up in any court of law, but wouldn’t their Israeli masters be more pleased with additional fantasies? They already talk about Israel’s brutal, murderous army as the most moral in the world; they proclaim with a straight face that a country with separate laws for Jewish Israelis and non-Jewish Israelis is the only democracy in the Middle East. Add to that the fantasy that any criticism of Israel is an existential threat to that country, and the only thing lacking is the belief that Israel will, as in all good fairy tales, live happily ever after.

The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa began in 1959 and lasted for thirty-five years. South Africa had separate laws for the minority white population, with everyone else a second class citizen. Even the Jewish publication Haaretz proclaimed in 2009 that Israel apartheid is worse than South African apartheid. But never mind any of that: the U.S. is attempting to outlaw BDS by passing legislation written by Israel.

Will this be successful? Does this reaction against BDS spell its doom? Let us not be too hasty here. First, it is highly unlikely that any of these Draconian, McCarthyesque laws will stand up in court. Secondly, BDS is an international movement, and the U.S. remains one of the very few nations that still stands completely with Israel against Palestine. The U.S. will only further isolate both itself and Israel in the international community by its go-it-alone support for apartheid. And lastly, this isn’t 1959, a year that began an eventually-successful boycott without the aid of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, text, and all the marvels that the Internet has introduced.

The tide of justice has long since turned in Palestine’s direction. The U.S., which supported the apartheid government of South Africa right up to the bitter end, will once again be standing alone when Palestine rids itself of the shackles of Israeli oppression. That day is coming, and the pompous pronouncements of U.S. politicians, and even their executive orders, will not prevent it.

Robert Fantina’s latest book is Empire, Racism and Genocide: a History of US Foreign Policy (Red Pill Press).

Reflections on a Delegation to Imprisoned Palestine

 

From CounterPunch

by Diana Block 

Emory Douglas, BPP Minister of Culture, with Mukhles Burgal and his son.

At the end of March 2016, I was part of a nineteen-member Prisoner Solidarity and Labor Delegation that traveled from the United States, the country with the largest number of prisoners in the world, to Palestine, a nation where 40% of the male population has been imprisoned. (This article focuses on the prisoner solidarity portion of the delegation. To understand the full breadth of the delegation’s trip, see our delegation statement.) Convened by Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, professor at San Francisco State University, this was the first U.S. delegation to focus specifically on political imprisonment and solidarity between Palestinian and U.S. prisoners. We built on a long history of mutual inspiration and exchange dating back to the 1960’s. In 2013, when prisoners at Pelican Bay prison in California undertook an historic hunger strike to protest long term solitary confinement at the same time as Palestinian prisoners were on hunger strike against administrative detention, this exchange was renewed. Khader Adnan, a former Palestinian political prisoner who had waged a hunger strike in Israeli prisons for 66 days, sent a strong message of solidarity to the California hunger strikers, supporting their actions.

Our delegation grew out of this consciously revitalized connection across walls and borders. The Israeli and U.S. states have collaborated continuously, since the establishment of Israel in 1948, to develop repressive carceral strategies to contain resistance to colonialism and racism. We wanted to bring a delegation of people who were actively engaged in the struggle against imprisonment to Palestine to meet with their Palestinian comrades. Hank Jones, a former member of the Black Panther Party was imprisoned three times for his political activities, most recently in 2007 when he was arrested as part of the San Francisco 8 case. Laura Whitehorn and Claude Marks each spent years in prison for their anti-imperialist actions. Manuel La Fontaine was radicalized by prison elders during the time he spent in California state prisons and now organizes with All of Us Or None. Emory Douglas was minister of culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 to 1982 and continues his work as a revolutionary artist today. All of the delegation members came with an understanding that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is a central part of building a worldwide movement against U.S. imperialism and for liberation.

From the moment we crossed from Jordan into Palestine, we were surrounded by the dense matrix of border crossings, military checkpoints, walls, gates, watchtowers, surveillance cameras and 22 prisons that ensnare Palestinians, enforcing a racist, apartheid control over their daily lives. According to Professor Reema Hammami of the Institute of Women’s Studies, Birzeit University, the Zionist state has developed the most intensive regime of spatial control over a land area that has ever been invented. Its goal is to crush Palestinian resistance that has been sustained, against all odds, since the Nakba (catastrophe ) 68 years ago.
Since 1967, Israel has imprisoned approximately 800,000 Palestinians and currently holds 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners. With the help of Zakaria Odeh, executive director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem , we met dozens of former prisoners – old and young, women and men, all widely respected for their role in the freedom struggle. Everywhere we were welcomed as fellow “strugglers,” people whose life experiences, values and commitments were linked to theirs, an honor which we took very seriously. One of our first visits was with Mukhles Burgal in his home in Lydd. Mukhles spent 28 years in prison and finally was released in 2012 as part of the exchange of Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit for the freedom of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Mukhles’ son sat on his lap, listening as Muhkles described how his own father had fought against the colonization of Palestine before the 1948 Nakba which displaced 85% of Palestinians from their land.

Mukhles was first imprisoned at twenty years old and was arrested for the second time in 1987 and charged with attacking an Israeli military bus. He was interrogated violently for fifty-seven days, enduring sleep deprivation, noise, and extreme cold. The Israeli interrogators threatened his family and used prisoners who were collaborators to undermine his resolve, but he was able to overcome all of this. To withstand the pressure of interrogation, prisoners practiced sumud, a concept rooted in the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle which can be best translated as steadfast resistance or standing one’s ground with dignity.

Themes of collectivity, sumud ,and intergenerational commitment to Palestine’s freedom were repeated by all the former prisoners we met. We spoke with four women who had previously been in prison themselves. Now, they explained, they were visiting their children in prison. “Palestinian mothers bring their children up to be steadfast,” one of the women commented and went on to describe how she taught her son not to betray the movement if he were arrested. “The Palestinian mother loves her children very much, but you cannot believe how much she loves her homeland,” one of the other women declared.

The women described the arduous challenge of visiting their children in prison, traveling for 10-15 hours each way, passing through multiple checkpoints and enduring several humiliating full body searches at the prison itself. If no arbitrary circumstance prevented the visit from happening, they were finally able to see their child for half an hour through a plexiglass window. We were struck by the similarity of the grueling prison visiting process for families in the U.S., designed to torment families and prisoners alike.

Rula Abu Duhou , a former prisoner and current faculty member at Birzeit University’s Institute of Women Studies , told a story about collective steadfastness among women prisoners and how it led to an important victory. After the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Israelis agreed to release prisoners as a goodwill gesture. However, the releases didn’t include those with long sentences, those who were sick, or the women. The women prisoners began to organize themselves and their mothers formed a committee to advocate for their release.


Then in 1996, right before Palestinian legislative elections were to be held, the Israeli government announced that all the women who were together in Hasharon prison would be released, except for five. The women took a vote and decided that either all forty of them would be freed together or none of them would leave.

The prison threatened to forcibly release them if necessary, so the women locked themselves into two cells, blocking the Israeli guards from entering. They were hungry and very crowded in the two cells but they kept their spirits up, telling stories and encouraging each other. Several days later all of them were released. “We won our collective freedom through collective struggle,” Rula concluded pointedly.

We heard repeatedly about the dialectical relationship between the struggle inside prisons and outside. During the first Intifada the slogan used was “Bring the intifada inside the prison cells and bring the prison into the streets.” A 1992 prisoner hunger strike was one of the most successful due to the level of outside support connected with the intifada.

On the other hand, everyone we met, including representatives of political parties, grassroots, social and cultural organizations talked about the destructive impact the 1993 Oslo Accords have had on the struggle outside and inside prisons. Masked as a step towards Palestinian autonomy, the Accords have reinforced Israeli colonial control, dramatically escalated the takeover of land in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and have weakened the fabric of the movement . As one former prisoner explained,” most significantly, Oslo has occupied the mind.”

Now, twenty-three years post-Oslo, a broad cross section of organized forces agree on the critical need to rebuild a more unified Palestinian liberation movement. Key to this unity is upholding the right of return for all Palestinians with the goal of creating a sovereign Palestine. At the same time, in the face of escalating home demolitions, land confiscation, multiplying checkpoints, religious provocations, arbitrary arrests, and state-sanctioned Israeli vigilante terror, Palestinian youth in East Jerusalem and the West Bank have begun to rise up, using a variety of tactics, in what many are calling a third intifada. According to numerous people we spoke with, this new intifada is providing an alternative to the Oslo way of thinking and represents the insurgent consciousness of a new generation.

Israel’s response to this resurgent movement has been brutal. Since October 2015, 5,000 arrests have taken place and dozens of extra-judicial executions. The assault against youth has been accompanied by a new level of sadistic punishment of their families. We met with Muhammad Elayyan, himself a former prisoner, a lawyer and the father of Bahaa Elayyan who was shot dead on October 13, 2015 by Israeli police for allegedly attacking an Israeli bus. As punishment for his son’s offense, even though no evidence or published proof has ever been presented linking Bahaa to the attack, their family home was demolished in January 2016

Additionally, the Israelis refused to release Bahaa’s body, as well as the bodies of 55 other youth who have been killed since October 2015. A few of the fifty-five bodies had been returned to their families frozen in a block of ice with the requirement that they be buried within a few hours, making it impossible to bury them according to Sharia law. Muhammad’s family refused to accept Bahaa’s frozen body. Along with the other “families of the unburied bodies,” they have brought their demand to release the bodies to the Israeli Supreme court and have launched an international campaign to expose this new level of psychological/cultural warfare against Palestinian families. After our wrenching visit with the family, we went to look at the gaping hole which had been the site of the Elayyan family home before its demolition. Painted in Arabic on the wall of an adjacent house were the words, “The blow that does not break your hand makes you stronger.”

The spirit of that slogan reverberated throughout our trip. Oslo might have weakened the Palestinian hand, but it certainly hadn’t broken it. That spirit was reflected in the remarkable murals painted on walls across Palestine, including the apartheid wall in Bethlehem and the walls and ceilings of the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh refugee camp. We witnessed the spirit in the tireless work of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights organization that defends political prisoners day in and day out and in the dedication of Defense for Children International-Palestine that strives to protect the rights of Palestinian children, including those in prison and detention. And we applauded that spirit in the unprecedented success of the international BDS campaigns, a success that has so threatened Israel that an Israeli minister recently called for the civic assassination of BDS leadership.

This spirit was also pervasive at two conferences we participated in at Birzeit and An-Najah universities where many of the faculty and student presenters were former prisoners. Here, members of our delegation shared stories of incarceration, racism, clandestine struggle, and the challenges of building political movement in the U.S. We also brought messages of solidarity, collected in a pamphlet, from current U.S.-held political prisoners, including Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim, David Gilbert, members of the MOVE 9, and Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia actually called in to the conference from prison in Pennsylvania , and commented eloquently on the links between the Black and Palestinian freedom struggles. The pamphlet had a picture of Rasmea Odeh on its cover, drawn by transgender political prisoner Marius Mason. Decades after being tortured in Israeli prisons, Rasmea, who now lives in Chicago, is being prosecuted on trumped-up charges by the U.S. government in conjunction with Israel, a punishment for her continuing support for Palestine’s liberation.

Back in the United States, Palestine is being discussed more broadly than ever, even entering into the Presidential debates. At the same time, attacks on Palestine’s supporters by Zionist organizations are escalating, especially on campuses where divestment and other pro-Palestine campaigns are gaining momentum. Students and faculty are being labeled anti-Semitic, and their future education and employment is being threatened. In this charged atmosphere, there is increased pressure to tone down the scope of solidarity. In Palestine, we learned that compromising fundamental principles has only weakened the liberation movement. We are committed to amplifying the voices of 7,000 steadfast Palestinian political prisoners and to upholding the right of return, self-determination, and sovereignty for Palestine as non-negotiable principles, in the spirit of sumud.

Diana Block is the author of a novel, Clandestine Occupations – An Imaginary History (PM Press, 2015) and a memoir, Arm the Spirit – A Woman’s Journey Underground and Back (AK Press, 2009).  She is an active member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners  and the anti-prison coalition CURB. She is a member of the editorial collective of The Fire Inside newsletter and she writes periodically for various online journals.

JOIN ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK - SUPPORT BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS MOVEMENT - AUSTRALIA NOTABLE FOR ITS ABSENCE!

Want to support Palestinian freedom, justice and equality?
Join #IsraeliApartheidWeek 2016

Each year, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) takes place in more than 150 universities and cities across the world. With creative education and action, IAW aims to raise awareness about Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people and build support for the nonviolent Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In response to the impressive growth of BDS in the last few years, Israel and its right-wing allies in the west have launched repressive, anti-democratic attacks on the movement and the right to boycott, instead of fulfilling their obligations to end Israel's violations of international law. This makes this year's #IsraeliApartheidWeek more crucial than ever.

Support Palestinian popular resistance to oppression--join IAW 2016.

Check out apartheidweek.org and #IsraeliApartheidWeek to find out what's happening in your area. More events in different cities are being added all the time, so do check back if there's nothing in your city listed yet.

Want to organise #IsraeliApartheidWeek events on your campus or in your city? Register your organisation here and you'll receive an info pack full of ideas about how to organise #IsraeliApartheidWeek.

Dates:
UK: February 22-28
Europe: February 29-March 7
Palestine: March 1-10
South Africa: March 7-13
Arab World: March 20-26
US: various, including March 27-April 3
Latin America: April 10-24
Canada: various throughout March, check with local organisers

http://emails.bdsnationalcommittee.org/unsubscribe/hHGfkWcQE3LyogWggjATwNkDes14Parm15BFvLC6z7w/4nbgwvEWefsLEWDOF2NXSw/aNal4jSdp892aygffY54Oj7A

ASYLUM SEEKERS AND AUSTRALIA - HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES WRIT LARGE!

There seems to be no bottom to the pit started being dug in 1992 by Paul Keating, prime minister of Australia at that time to incarcerate asylum seekers in Australia's concentration camp hell-holes around the country.

Since 1992 the position by successive politicians has been made worse and worse as they endeavour to outdo each other in their cruel treatment of human beings who are fleeing from their own hell-holes and who have now unfortunately landed in new hell-holes in another country.

Existing hell-holes and equivalent concentration camps have long been features of the indigenous landscape of Australia, so human rights abuses can now be spread out into areas unthinkable some years ago.

There may be terror attacks taking place all over the world, but Australia is guilty of terror attacks relating to torture and worse of human beings being incarcerated in camps even apartheid South Africa hadn't quite achieved in its years of horror.

Mind you, the Israelis are overtaking most of the world's oppressors with their treatment of Palestine and the Palestinians, but one horror does not excuse another horror, and, as used to be the old saying, two wrongs don't make a right!!

The latest appalling situation is taking place in the Manus Island concentration camp where news has managed to leak out of people sewing their lips together and swallowing razor blades -ffs!! What next - operating on themselves and removing their guts from their bodies while they are potentially still alive? Burning themselves to death? The potential horrors are endless and beyond contemplation.

Who is going to put a stop to it all - and when???

I certainly won't be living long enough to see it all come to an end with a just and humane resolution.

PALESTINE IS A COUNTRY AND PALESTINIANS ARE ITS PEOPLE

Look at, watch, listen to, read - any mainstream media - and you could be forgiven for believing there is no such country as Palestine, and there are no such people as Palestinians.

There is a concentration camp - the largest the world has ever seen - and it is called Gaza and it is closely controlled by a police-state regime known as apartheid Israel - and the "terrorists" enclosed in this concentration camp - well over 1 million of them - are all Hamas "terrorists".

There is another concentration camp which is not so gradually being occupied by apartheid Israel, and this one used to be called the West Bank before it became Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

The zionists have taken over Palestine and control practically the whole of it, and they have been aided and abetted by the United States of America, the United Kingdom which started the rot in the 1850s or thereabouts, by the whole of Europe and, worst of all, by all the Arab countries in the region.

Zionists who live in these countries, not just those who are not Jewish, don't choose to go and live in the "land of their dreams" Israel, but choose to stay comfortably in their countries of residence, safe from bombs and terrorists of all shapes and sizes.

RALLY for PALESTINE 

In our thousands, In our millions, We are all Palestinians

RALLIES for PALESTINE

Melbourne: 1pm, Saturday 26 July, State Library

Sydney: 1pm, Sunday 27 July, Town Hall

Brisbane: 2pm, Saturday 26 July, King George Square

Adelaide: 12pm, Saturday 26 July, Parliament House

Perth: 11am, Saturday 26 July, Murray St. Mall

DON'T LET ISRAEL GET AWAY WITH MURDER!

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free

Time to put a few things into a proper perspective.

Nearly 300 people were killed on a passenger plane in a pure act of terrorism. The media coverage has been enormous and non-stop.

Over 600 Palestinians have been killed and the media coverage has blamed Hamas for the most part while condoning the apartheid zionists of Israel.

Sarah Ferguson of the ABC's television current affairs programme 7.30 interviewed a Hamas representative. Her interview was disgraceful in that she interrupted him all the time, didn't allow him to finish any statements, and harangued him about what Hamas is doing to Israel with its rockets. No David and Goliath in this interchange - would she have conducted a similar interview with one of the zionist apartheid regime's spokespeople? I don't think so!

John Kerry goes to Egypt to try and broker a cease-fire between Palestine and Israel - aka Hamas and zionist state.

Egypt has collaborated with the USA and apartheid Israel by keeping the borders of Gaza sealed, adding to the humanitarian crisis which is the largest concentration camp in the world.

It is time the world stopped their unqualified support for the terrorist apartheid zionist state and brought it to book and accountability for its crimes against humanity which are now too numerous to list!

We also have the inmates taking over the asylum - the USA supports Israel and Egypt and wants Egypt's assistance in trying to broker a "peace" between Palestine and Israel. Spare us the irony and tragedy of the endless circles of  non-achievement because neither Israel, nor Egypt, nor the USA want to achieve a lasting peace by creating a one-state democratic solution to the intractable war in Palestine started by the British government zionists in 1850 and perpetuated by all sides occupying Palestine since then.

BBC ALLIES ITSELF TO APARTHEID ISRAEL

BBC to censor violinist Nigel Kennedy’s statement about Israeli apartheid from TV broadcast
Aug 16, 2013 04:16 pm | Tom Suarez

Nigel Kennedy  (photo: Chris Christodoulou/BBC)

The BBC has confirmed that it will censor a statement made by violinist Nigel Kennedy from its television broadcast of his performance with the Palestine Strings at a prestigious music festival last week. The BBC made the censorship move because he used the word “apartheid” to describe the world in which his Palestinian colleagues live while performing at the BBC Proms.
Click here for a recording of the actual statement the BBC is excising from its broadcast[1]. The following is a transcript:

“It’s a bit facile to say it, but we all know from the experience of this night of music, that giving equality and getting rid of apartheid gives a beautiful chance for things to happen."

According to The Jewish Chronicle[2], BBC governor Baroness Deech called for an apology from Mr. Kennedy and said that “the remark was offensive and untrue. There is no apartheid in Israel.” Not only is there no apartheid in Israel, she claimed, but nor is there any in Gaza or the West Bank. (She made no mention of East Jerusalem.)
In fact, nearly all aspects of Apartheid, as defined by the UN, apply to Israel in all four of its guises: domestically, its military occupation of the West Bank, its military 'annexation' of East Jerusalem, and its siege of Gaza.
This legal definition includes [3]:

• Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
• Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
• Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person;
• The infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
• Arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
• Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1. The volume of Mr. Kennedy’s voice has been raised slightly for clarity.
2. Marcus Dysch, "BBC to cut Kennedy slur from Proms broadcast", The Jerusalem Chronicle Online, August 16, 2013.
3. Source: UN, International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Bold emphasis added.

DEATHS IN CUSTODY - APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA, ISRAEL, AUSTRALIA

The numbers indicate that Aboriginal deaths in custody have increased dramatically since the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody handed down its findings over 20 years ago.

Apartheid South Africa's most famous death in custody was probably that of Steve Biko, highlighted by a book by Donald Woods and made into a film many years ago.

Apartheid Israel's deaths in custody continue apace, what with the mysterious death in a high security suicide-proof prison of Ben Zygier in 2010 - and he was Jewish.

But the very recent death of a Palestinian which the Israeli authorities said was from heart problems turns out to be murder and torture to rival some of Obama's recent efforts around the world and apartheid South Africa at its worst, with Australia doing quite well in the murder stakes in its prisons.

Autopsy reveals Arafat Jaradat died of extreme torture in Israeli custody

Feb 24, 2013 03 | Annie Robbins (in Mondoweiss)
Father of Arafat Jaradat, after identifying his son's tortured body, Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, Feb. 24,2013 (Photo: Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

Ma'an News reports Arafat Jaradat died of extreme torture.

Minister: Autopsy shows torture killed Jaradat:

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- An autopsy has revealed that Arafat Jaradat died of extreme torture in Israeli custody and did not have a cardiac arrest, the PA Minister of Detainee Affairs said Sunday.

At a news conference in Ramallah, Issa Qaraqe said an autopsy conducted in Israel in the presence of Palestinian officials revealed that 30-year-old Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs.

"The information we have received so far is shocking and painful. The evidence corroborates our suspicion that Mr. Jaradat died as a result of torture, especially since the autopsy clearly proved that the victim's heart was healthy, which disproves the initial alleged account presented by occupation authorities that he died of a heart attack," Qaraqe said......

The minister said Jaradat had sustained injuries and severe bruising in the upper right back area and severe bruises of sharp circular shape in the right chest area..... evidence of severe torture and on the muscle of the upper left shoulder, parallel to the spine in the lower neck area, and evidence of severe torture under the skin and inside the muscle of the right side of the chest. His second and third ribs in the right side of the chest were broken, Qaraqe said, and he also had injuries in the middle of the muscle in the right hand...Palestinian Prisoners Society president Qaddura Fares added that the autopsy revealed seven injuries to the inside of Jaradat's lower lip, bruises on his face and blood on his nose...... no signs of bruising or stroke, the minister added.

.....

"Jaradat died due to torture and not a stroke or heart attack," he said, adding that those responsible must be sued either through Interpol or the International Criminal Court.

Jaradat's lawyer Kameel Sabbagh said he was tortured by Israeli interrogators. ......"When I entered the courtroom I saw Jaradat sitting on a wooden chair in front of the judge. His back was hunched and he looked sick and fragile," Sabbagh said in a statement Sunday.

"When I sat next to him he told me that he had serious pains in his back and other parts of his body because he was being beaten up and hanged for many long hours while he was being investigated..When Jaradat heard that the judge postponed his hearing he seemed extremely afraid....."

JEWS AGAINST THE OCCUPATION SPEAK OUT

The following item comes from Antony Loewenstein's blog on 23 November 2012:

ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA - POT, KETTLE, BLACK!

If the situation for the Palestinians wasn't a major tragedy, this story would actually be very funny!

Under the circumstances it is no joke!

• From mail and guardian 24 August 2012

Israel angered by SA move on settlement goods

24 Aug 2012 - Allyn Fisher-Ilan

Israel has lambasted SA for requiring Israeli goods made by West Bank settlers to be labelled as originating from occupied Palestinian territory.

Israel accused South Africa on Thursday of behaving like an apartheid state by requiring Israeli goods made by West Bank settlers to be labelled as originating from occupied Palestinian territory.

The rhetoric is likely to strain Israel's relations with South Africa, whose ANC fought to end the apartheid regime.

The ANC had strongly backed the Palestinian cause while Israel was one of the few countries to have strong ties with South Africa's white-minority government, which relinquished power in 1994.

Israeli trade with South Africa is modest but the impact of Pretoria's decision on goods-labelling has raised Israeli concern that other states could follow suit and bolster calls by Palestinians to boycott Israeli products made in the West Bank.
The European Union grants a tariff exemption to imports from Israel but not to those coming from the West Bank and other territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

'Apartheid state'

The Israeli foreign ministry said it would summon South Africa's ambassador to lodge a protest over the decision on labelling goods from Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

"Unfortunately it turns out the change that has begun in South Africa over the years has not brought about any basic change in the country, and it remains an apartheid state," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said in response to Pretoria's move.

"At the moment South Africa's apartheid is aimed at Israel," added Ayalon, a nationalist hardliner in right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition.

Ayalon did not elaborate on what he meant by associating the labelling decision with apartheid.

There was no immediate response from South Africa.

The government said on Wednesday that Cabinet had approved a measure "requiring the labelling of goods or products emanating from IOT [Israeli-occupied territory] to prevent consumers being led to believe that such goods come from Israel".

Viable state

When Pretoria first proposed the measure in May, Israeli Industry and Trade Minister Shalom Simhon said it would be a problem if other countries did the same thing.

Israel criticised Britain in 2009 for advising supermarkets to label produce from Jewish settlements clearly, to distinguish them from goods produced by Palestinians.
The World Court has ruled that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and Palestinians say they will deny them the viable state they seek in the territory and in the Gaza Strip.

Israel says the future of settlements should be decided through peace talks, which have been frozen since 2010, largely over the settlement issue.

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005. About 2.5-million Palestinians and 500 000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel also took in the 1967 war. – Reuters

"UNDER OUR SKIN" - AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY DONALD MCRAE

Donald McRae's autobiography "UNDER OUR SKIN" is subtitled "A White Family's Journey through South Africa's Darkest Years."

As a South African who left in 1978 during some of the darker years which became progressively darker in the decade and a half which followed my departure, I read McRae's story with increasing absorption and horror as his story unfolded.

Of course one of the more horrific parts of his story was the saga of the two white doctors, Neil Aggett and Liz Floyd. Apparently Neil Aggett was the only white person to die in police custody during the whole criminal activity of the apartheid years.

Much of McRae's story paralleled my life in South Africa, and I was acquainted with the work of Ian McRae, Donald's father, as I had two periods of working with the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) of South Africa, from 1952 to 1954 and again from 1974 to 1978, during which time Ian McRae went from strength to strength at ESCOM.

It is a flaw in Donald's story that he persists in referring to the organisation where his father worked as ESKOM, because after the organisation was changed from the Victoria Falls Power Company to the Electricity Supply Commission some time between the 1930s and 1950s, the Afrikaans version of the Commission's name was EVKOM, a translation of the English version, and it was only in the late 1980s that ESCOM became ESKOM.

Proof-reading and editing are also a problem in the book because a very serious mistake was letting Sidney Kentridge's name be printed once as Stanley Kentridge, and another was calling the Great Hall at the University of the Witwatersrand the Grand Hall.

Maybe these are small quibbles in a book which tells such a graphic story of life in apartheid South Africa with its abominable army and police and criminal history such as the murders of Steve Biko and so many countless thousands of others before Nelson Mandela's release from his 27 years of incarceration, and even for the 4 following years before the election of 1994 when he became South Africa's first black president with a new constitution introduced for the governments of South Africa to be governing for all its people.

To me the book would have been greatly enhanced if it had had an index, because there are so many issues which it would have been useful to have looked at more often without having to search through the book to find where the particular reference was, but again, maybe these are small issues in relation to the story of apartheid South Africa through the eyes of one family member and relating to the rest of his family, his friends and those around him, both black and white in the context of apartheid South Africa.

Strangely enough, the more I read of the brutality of the police and the army, the more I thought of apartheid South Africa and its offspring apartheid Israel.

However, Donald McRae has produced a biography which is absorbing as well as horrifying as events unfold, and he holds the reader's interest until the very last pages.

We all have stories to tell about our lives in apartheid South Africa, but not many of us would be able to tell them as well as McRae has in his book. Hopefully he has more tales of his life in South Africa to relate to a wider audience.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN PASSES HIS USE-BY DATE!

There comes a time when one discovers that those one thought were sound in their political analyses actually let one down completely by losing the plot and in effect shouting over the top of those trying to have rational discussions with them.

A few days ago I received my usual daily email from Mondoweiss which always has some very intersting items listed.

This particular one had a video of Norman Fikelstein doing an "interview" with a man called Frank, I believe. The "interview" lasted half an hour and was full of Finkelstein trying to talk down the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as being related to a cult.

This is not only insulting but it is also false. Whatever ultimately brought down the South African apartheid regime, BDS was a major contributor and helped in a major way to bring to the world's attentions the brutality and evil of the police state regime in South Africa.

The modern BDS movement, started by a Palestinian group which saw that the armed struggle against the brutality of Apartheid Israel's ongoing attacks on Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem was not making sufficient progress and needed another focus to help the world realise the evils of the Israeli zionist regime.

There have been some significant achievements in the few years during which the campaign has been running, with some large companies and orgnisations leaving Israel and divesting from the state.

Finkelstin suddenly argues about the lawfulness of Israel's right to exist as a state and defends a great deal of the zionist state's abuses of Palestine and its indigenous inhabitants and states that there is no possibility of a one-state solution, nor a two-state solution and retain the viability of the Jewish "democratic" state of Israel.

It is not possible for Israel to be Jewish and democratic because a Jewish state would turn the country into a theocracy, a poit which it is rapidly reaching with an influx during the last 20 to 30 years of fanatical religious Jews from the USA. Most of these are now living in settlements stolen from the Palestinians who are daily treated to appalling conditions in thioe own country by the colonisers.

The origins of the BDS movement against South Africa are fascinating.

The paragraph detailing the story comes from:

No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000 Edited by William Minter,
Gail Hovey, and Charles Cobb Jr.
Published by Africa World Press.

"The Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement (PRWM), in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was founded by workers at Polaroid in 1970 who discovered that Polaroid film was being used for the pass system in South Africa. The two key activists were Ken Williams and Caroline Hunter, and their protest gained national prominence."

Finkelstein should be aware, with his intellectual ability and academic experience that mass movements do not happen overnight and a great deal of grassroots activism takes place before issues become public and attract the attention of masses of people world-wide.

IF BDS started in 1970 in the USA, it took until 1990, 40 years later, for the dramatic collapse of the South African apartheid regime and even then another 4 years passed before South Africa's first ever democratic elections were held for all its citizens, black, white and everything in between.

If Finkelstein believes in Israel as a viable demacratic entity he should leave the comforts of the USA and move to live there to defend his Jewish homeland. Reality might then hit him in the face and he might wake from his current stupor!

The interview on video is insulting and degrading to the person doing the interview and Finkelstein needs to make a public apology to him.

Open Letter to LGBTIQ Communities and Allies on the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

An Open Letter to LGBTIQ Communities and Allies on the Israeli Occupation of Palestine - received from Mondoweiss on 28 JANUARY 2012

We are a diverse group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and trans activists, academics, artists, and cultural workers from the United States who participated in a solidarity tour in the West Bank of Palestine and Israel from January 7-13, 2012.

What we witnessed was devastating and created a sense of urgency around doing our part to end this occupation and share our experience across a broad cross-section of the LGBTIQ community. We saw with our own eyes the walls—literally and metaphorically—separating villages, families and land. From this, we gained a profound appreciation for how deeply embedded and far reaching this occupation is through every aspect of Palestinian daily life.

So too, we gained new insights into how Israeli civil society is profoundly affected by the dehumanizing effects of Israeli state policy toward Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank. We were moved by the immense struggle being waged by some Israelis in resistance to state policies that dehumanize and deny the human rights of Palestinians.

We ended our trip in solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli people struggling to end the occupation of Palestine, and working for Palestinian independence and self-sovereignty.

Among the things we saw were:

* the 760 km (470 mi) separation wall (jidar) partitioning and imprisoning the Palestinian people;

* how the wall’s placement works to confiscate large swaths of Palestinian land, splits villages and families in two, impedes Palestinians from working their agricultural land, and in many cases does not advance the ostensible security interests of Israel;

* a segregated road system (one set of roads for cars with Israeli plates, and another much inferior one for cars with Palestinian plates) throughout the West Bank, constructed by the Israeli state and enforced by the Israeli army; these roads ease Israeli travel to and from illegal settlements in the West Bank and severely impede Palestinian travel between villages, to agricultural land, and throughout a territory which is and has been their homeland;

* a system of permits (identification cards) that limits the travel of Palestinian people and functionally imprisons them, separating them from family, health care, jobs and other necessities;

* militarized checkpoints with barbed wire and soldiers armed with automatic rifles and the humiliation and harassment the Palestinian people experience daily in order to travel from one place to another;

* the reconfiguration of maps to render invisible Palestinian villages/homelands;

* harmful living conditions created and enforced by Israeli law and policy such as limited access to water and electricity in many Palestinian homes;

* violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and the ongoing growth of illegal settlements facilitated by the Israeli military;

* homelessness as a result of the razing of Palestinian homes by the Israeli state;

* home invasions, tear gas attacks, “skunk water” attacks, and the arrest of Palestinian children by the Israeli military as part of ongoing harassment designed to force Palestinian villagers to give up their land;

While travel restrictions prevented us from directly witnessing the state of things in the Gaza Strip, we believe the blockade of the Gaza Strip has produced a humanitarian crisis of monumental proportion.

Our time together in Palestine has led us to understand that we have a responsibility to share with our US based LGBTIQ communities what we saw and heard so that we can do more together to end this occupation. In that spirit, we offer the following summary points in solidarity with the Palestinian people:

The liberation of the Palestinian people from the project of Israeli occupation is the foremost goal of the Palestinian people and we fully support this aim. We also understand that liberation from this form of colonization and apartheid goes hand in hand with the liberation of queer Palestinians from the project of global heterosexism.

We call out and reject the state of Israel’s practice of pinkwashing, that is, a well-funded, cynical publicity campaign marketing a purportedly gay-friendly Israel to an international audience so as to distract attention from the devastating human rights abuses it commits on a daily basis against the Palestinian people. Key to Israel’s pinkwashing campaign is the manipulative and false labeling of Israeli culture as gay-friendly and Palestinian culture as homophobic. It is our view that comparisons of this sort are both inaccurate – homophobia and transphobia are to be found throughout Palestinian and Israeli society – and that this is beside the point: Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine cannot be somehow justified or excused by its purportedly tolerant treatment of some sectors of its own population. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian queer organizations like Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (PQBDS) whose work continues to impact queer Palestinians and all Palestinians. (http://www.alqaws.org, http://www.pqbds.com/)

We urge LGBTIQ individuals and communities to resist replicating the practice of pinkwashing that insists on elevating the sexual freedom of Palestinian people over their economic, environmental, social, and psychological freedom. Like the Palestinian activists we met, we view heterosexism and sexism as colonial projects and, therefore, see both as interrelated and interconnected regimes that must end.

We stand in solidarity with queer Palestinian activists who are working to end the occupation, and also with Israeli activists, both queer and others, who are resisting the occupation that is being maintained and extended in their name.

We name the complicity of the United States in this human rights catastrophe and call on our government to end its participation in an unjust regime that places it and us on the wrong side of peace and justice.

We support efforts on the part of Palestinians to achieve full self-determination, such as building an international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement which calls for the fulfillment of three fundamental demands:

(http://www.bdsmovement.net/call)

The end of the Occupation and the dismantling of the Wall (jidar).

The right of return for displaced Palestinians.

The recognition and restoration of the equal rights of citizenship for Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent.

We call upon all of our academic and activist colleagues in the US and elsewhere to join us by supporting all Palestinian efforts that center these three demands and by working to end US financial support, at $8.2 million daily, for the Israeli state and its occupation.

Signed, January 25, 2012:

Katherine Franke Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Director, Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, Columbia University; Board Member Center for Constitutional Rights

Barbara Hammer Filmmaker, Faculty at European Graduate School

Tom Léger Editor, PrettyQueer.com

Darnell L. Moore writer and activist

Vani Natarajan Humanities and Area Studies Librarian, Barnard College

Pauline Park Chair, New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)

Jasbir K. Puar Rutgers University, Board Member Audre Lorde Project

Roya Rastegar Independent artist and scholar

Dean Spade Assistant Professor, Seattle University School of Law and Collective Member, Sylvia Rivera Law Project

Kendall Thomas Nash Professor of Law, Columbia University

Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz intersections/intersecciones consulting

Juliet Widoff, MD Callen-Lorde Community Health Center

All organizational affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and in no way indicate a position taken by such organizations on the issues raised in this statement.

SIGN THE PETITION

I join the call to stand in solidarity with queer and other Palestinians and progressive Israelis who are working to end the occupation; oppose the state of Israel's practice of pinkwashing; and support efforts on the part of Palestinians to achieve full self-determination including building an international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Name:

E-mail address:

Affiliation (optional):

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Carlos Juarez

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Mustafa

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anna in \'t Veld

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Michael Nebeling Petersen

University of Copenhagen

Candice Haddad

Corinne Mason

University of Ottawa, Canada

Cynthia Wu

University at Buffalo

Ximena Mejia

masa

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Jewish Voice for Peace

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PSOE. Spain.

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Liv Rolf Mertz

Translator & independent scholar

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UC Berkeley/Columbia University

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author, Sexuality and Socialism

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Jesuit Volunteer Corps

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Jerusalem/UC Berkeley

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NYU, Board Member, FIERCE

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Kawthar

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MFA Candidate - Parsons the New School for Design

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Artist, filmmaker and disability rights activist

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Cotsen-LGBT Fellow, Princeton Society of Fellows

Aous Mansouri

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Univ. of Houston

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Reteaching Gender & Sexuality / PUT THIS ON THE MAP

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Job Path NYC

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Jews Say No!

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Birthright Unplugged

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San Francisco State University

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Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel

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UC-Riverside

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Free Gaza Danmark

salwa

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University of Copenhagen

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Jewish Women for Justice in Israel/Palestine

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Joseph Russo

Goldsmiths, University of London

Mikki Stelder

Queeristan (Amsterdam)

Enmaia Gelman

NYC Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

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Heike Schotten

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California State University,Northridge

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Western Illinois University

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University of Colorado, Boulder

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University of New Mexico

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QUIT!

Edie Pistolesi

Sharad Chari

London School of Economics

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University of Kansas

Alex Lubin

American University of Beirut

Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen

HCAS

Chrissy Hunter

TGRU (UK)

Eric Nicolas Every

Lanka Tattersall

Kazim Ali

writer and translator

Ian Barnard

California State University, Northridge

Hayat

Jay Botsford

Farhang Rouhani

University of Mary Washington

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Daniel Werner

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Wayne State University

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Max Cohen

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Ahwa Al-Busaidy

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concerned citizen of Australia

S E Sanbar

Amanda McQuade

Clark University Students for Palestinian Rights

Bob Olivarez Jr.

Anabela Rocha

Hima B.

Filmmaker & member of Park Slope Food Coop BDS

Adifah Crista Kelly Sadler

Emanuela Bianchi

New York University

Aneil Rallin

Soka University of America

Michael Connors Jackman

York University

James C Faris

University of Connecticut (Emeritus)

Susette Min

UC Davis

Sydney Campos

Jenny Peto

Kyla Schuller

Rutgers Unviersity

Amina Mama

University of California, Davis

Dana

Gayatri Gopinath

New York University

Caroline Picker

T. Berto

university of guelph

Sara Giordano

sue goldstein

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), Canada

Sasha Klein

Honna Veerkamp

Paola Bacchetta

zillah eisenstein

dept. of politics, ithaca college

Ilona Margiotta

Linda Chavez

Anette Ahmed Lebbad

Feministisk Initiativ

Norma Cardenas

Oregon State University

Herman De Ley

Ghent Univ. (Belgium)

Joan Hawkins

Stuart Comer

Marla Erlien

Elena Glasberg

NYU

Kim Ford

Michelle Dallalah

Stanford University

Rosalind Petchesky

City University of New York

Isa Kocher

Rand Carter

Kirk Grisham

Patrick Benitez

Stanford University

Michael Litwack

Brown University

patty ahn

koreans united for equality

Tyrone Boucher

Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance (AORTA)

Johanna Worley

Edwin McCready

Foley Ricchi

Shahla Khan Salter

Muslims for Progressive Values Canada

Millie Wilson

Jess Sundin

MN Anti-War Committee

patricia rodriguez

ithaca college, ny

Stephanie Gilman

Deepti Misri

University of Colorado, Boulder

Martha Wallner

Jewish Voice for Peace Bay Area Chapter

Mary Åberg

David Lloyd

Univ of Southern California

Tanya Aydelott

Mara Conroy Hughes

Rutgers University--Graduate School of Education

Ian Scott Horst

Author of The Cahokian blog; http://thecahokian.blogspot.com/; Occupy Sunset Park activist

John Dickerson

Peter Coviello

april kamilah

Judy Yu

Dana Luciano

Georgetown University

Dr. Joelle Ruby Ryan

TransGender New Hampshire

Eleanor Kilroy

Rüzgår Buschky

Lambdaistanbul LGBT Solidarity Association

Rich Wandel

Mannie De Saxe

Lesbian and Gay Solidarity, Melbourne (Australia)