BDS = BOYCOTT DIVESTMENT SANCTIONS

Boycott, Divestment,Sanctions - BDS - these were amongst the most useful tools in bringing down the South African apartheid police state in 1994.

South Africa saw the installation of that country's first black president in 1994 after a few hundred years of apartheid, and unfortunately much of South Africa's governance has gone downhill since Mandela retired in 1999.

Corruption, mismanagement, managerial appointment inadequacies, and ineptness, many of South Africa's problems in the year 2020 will have been because of unsatisfactory mis-direction. With all its problems, the country's post-apartheid constitution is one of the most progressive in the western world, and gives hope for the country to be able to progress beyond the disasters of the past 20 years.

So many other parts of the world have disastrous governments, or dictators or corrupt politicians that BDS could well be applied to them to help bring about change. Israel's apartheid military control over Palestine and the Palestinians has seen the Palestinians endeavours to obtain help from the rest of the world with BDS as their most useful tool to date.

Now contemplate if BDS were used against 3 of those who are Israel's greatest supporters in maintaining the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israelis - the UK, the USA and Australia - or to put it another way - Boris, Donald, Scott, or BDS.

David Everett (1770-1813) wrote:

"Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow (Lines written for a School Declamation)"

This is how to bring about change in countries around the world.

YIDDISH, HEBREW, JEWISH, PALESTINE, ISRAEL, ANTI-SEMITISM, BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS

This whole series of topics has no beginning, no middle, and certainly no end, largely due to the antics of the USA, the UK, France, and many other countries around the world.

Let's start with Yiddish, because that is something I have had a lifelong (92 and counting) involvement with and still think it is one of the most interesting languages to know something about.

My biggest regret is that those around me who spoke Yiddish, were involved with it and were interested in it are all long dead.

The following article appeared in the Saturday Age supplement "Spectrum" on 1 March 2019:

Yiddish concert embraces 'the lost language in all of us'

As the Jewish language awakens, a group of local musicians is putting poetry to song.

By Rachelle Unreich

March 1, 2019 — 11.00am

You could say Yiddish is having its moment, which is odd for a language that originated among Ashkenazi Jews some time in the 11th century.

In Shtisel, an award-winning TV show about the ultra-religious Jewish community in Israel, characters speak a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish, which is largely old Germanic dialect. An all-Yiddish version of Fiddler on the Roof is currently playing off-Broadway, and later this year, Carnegie Hall will put on From Shtetl to Stage, celebrating old and new Yiddish culture.



From left, Evelyn Krape, Simon Starr and Galit Klas in the library at Kadimah Yiddish Theatre. Credit:CHRISTOPHER HOPKINS

Melbourne is no slacker in the Yiddish arena, boasting the largest number of Yiddish speakers in Australia. It's also home to Kadimah Yiddish Theatre, the team behind the production Play Me A Poem. At the National Theatre for one night, it will feature well-known musicians and composers such as Deborah Conway, Lior, Willy Zygier and Josh Abrahams creating original songs on stage to Yiddish poetry.

Kadimah's co-artistic director, Evelyn Krape, is on a mission to re-energise interest in Yiddish, which is sometimes referred to as a dying language, mainly because of its dwindling numbers: it was once spoken by more than 10 million Jews around the world but after the Holocaust, this fell to an estimated 1.5 million. Krape's aim is "to establish Yiddish as a thriving and dynamic cultural source," and she recalls being validated by non-Jewish actor Rob Menzies when their paths crossed at a play reading. "He said, 'Yiddish is the lost language in all of us'."

It's true that audiences around the world have been responding to Yiddish performances. A Yiddish-language production of Waiting for Godot opened up a Samuel Beckett festival in Ireland in 2014, and appeared in New York again recently. Composer Josh Abrahams (Addicted to Bass) performed Yiddish songs with the band Yid! at WOMADelaide last year. "The heat was incredible," he recalls, "yet thousands of people were giving the horah [an Israeli group dance] a red hot go. It was amazing."

In Play Me A Poem, musicians will put Yiddish poetry to unlikely tunes. Abrahams' song is reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, while reggae, jazz and Afro-Brazilian vibes will also be in the line-up. Simon Starr, musician and founder of the band Yid!, is expecting "an emotional response". He believes people who think of Yiddish as an old-fashioned language will be unprepared for how avant-garde some of the chosen poetry and lyrics are, despite some being written early last century.

"It is still pretty radical for today," Starr says. "Even if someone isn't connected to it ethnically, it's still deep and passionate and provocative. There are audacious commentaries on the Bible and current affairs, and also heartfelt, harrowing tales of suffering and longing and separation that mirror the migration patterns that were both a result of persecution and economic aspirations. It's a very rich source of material."

For this show there will be surtitles, so that audiences aren't merely listening to an orchestral piece but will have an understanding of the lyrics. "What's really fascinating is to see these amazingly modern responses to what are largely pre-Holocaust poems," says Krape, who co-directs. "We want to say to the audience: Listen – you'll hopefully be knocked off your feet. You might think this is old, but it's not old-fashioned."

Although many in the audience won't be familiar with Yiddish, others will have heard it spoken by an older generation at home. "I don't know what's going on in the ether," says Krape, "but it feels like people are searching for connections to community and heritage, in a way that is heymish [the Yiddish word for warm/ homey], but is [also] dynamic, innovative and contemporary." Krape's parents and grandparents spoke Yiddish, but she only came to it as an adult, and now attends classes in Brunswick.

In Melbourne, there's a thriving community of Yiddish learning: preschool and primary school Sholem Aleichem teaches Yiddish as a second language (and also as a VCE subject), while Monash University offers it at tertiary level.

Kadimah's artistic director, Galit Klas (who is also the show's initiator and co-director), was a Monash student, and was so inspired that she ultimately performed in and directed several Yiddish productions (singing in Yiddish Divas and writing The Ghetto Cabaret). "It really sparks something in their insides for the Jewish audience; it's like this lost missing piece," she says.

And it's also fulfilling for those who find modern music lacking. "Popular music has become horrendously manufactured," says Starr. "There's barely any trace of humanity in there, because instruments and voices have been so treated electronically. There's little human feeling left; it's music by algorithm.

"I think people still respond to well-played, live music that is played with the right intention. It's just people sharing real stories, and I can't imagine that ever going out of fashion. People will respond to that heartfelt live performance, and the next level is when the content has another layer or resonance for them."

That layer might not just come from being Jewish. Yiddish, it seems, has taken on a new life in modern times; TV viewers incorporate some of the vernacular from watching shows such as Girls or Seinfeld, as words like schmooze, shvitz and kvetch make their way into everyday language.

Starr says the thing he finds fascinating about Yiddish poetry is that "the themes are quite universal and humanist". In New York, he says, Yiddish "has become the hipster language of lesbians, because it's an outsider language and it's their little secret."

Non-Jews, such as US actor Shane Baker, have made a living out of mastering Yiddish. Although raised as an Episcopalian in Kansas City, Baker was hooked after seeing a Marx Brothers film, and is now a poster boy for Yiddish theatre.

Klas says Yiddish "doesn't feel dead to me at all".

"There's a challenge for all of us [in Play Me A Poem] in that we're working in a language that we don't know very well. But it also gives you an extra lens with which to see the world and to create art. I don't know if it's given me a huge insight into my Jewish identity, but it's made me more proud."

Play Me A Poem is at The National Theatre on March 3. nationaltheatre.org.au

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The above article from Spectrum does not give the historical perspective on why Yiddish has diminished over the years.

There is only one main reason - the zionists who wanted to develop a "homeland" for Jews in Palestine wanted to remove themselves from the reminders of their origins in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world where Yiddish was the spoken language. The zionists who managed to steal the country from the Palestinians made a conscious decision to say that Hebrew was the biblical language of the Jews and therefore it needed to be the language of the "new" country being established in Palestine to be called Israel.

And so Hebrew was born as the language of the zionists who established this "new" country and Yiddish spoken there was frowned upon to the extent that it has gradually died out.

Yiddish remained a spoken language amongst Jews in the United States of America, particularly in the ghettos of New York and was also very much a language Jews spoke in Buenos Aires in Argentina. South African Jews were, in the main from Eastern Europe and their language was Yiddish.

The following is an extract from Pakn Treger, magazine of the Yiddish Book Center, and is written by Aaron Lansky for the Fall 2018 issue, part of issue number 77. Their address is:1021 West Street, Amherst, MA01002, USA

The Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1978. He was a Yiddish writer.

This is what he said when he went to Stockholm to accept his prize:

"The high honor bestowed upon me by the Swedish Academy is also a recognition of the Yiddish language," he said in Yiddish. And he concluded with words that can be read now as prophecy:

Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and cabalists - rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of frightened and hopeful humanity.

Yiddish has not yet said its last word. And neither,  I suspect, has Isaac Bashevis Singer.


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This next article is from the same Saturday Age Spectrum as the previous article on Yiddish - 1 March 2019:

Antisemitism review: Deborah Lipstadt offers a guide for the perplexed

By Geoffrey Brahm Levey

February 21, 2019 — 3.06pm

SOCIETY
Antisemitism: Here and Now
​Deborah Lipstadt
​
Every serious discussion of antisemitism includes this joke: an antisemite is someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary. Attributed to British political thinker Sir Isaiah Berlin, the joke is wise as well as witty. Given the Jews' calamitous history, an ideological or pathological form of Jew-hatred can't simply be about not liking Jews or even treating them harshly. It must be a prejudice with no rational basis. Although often applied to any occurrence of hostility or discrimination against Jews, antisemitism originally entailed a conviction that the Jews are inherently evil. The word "anti-Semitism" was coined only in the late-19th century but has since been applied to Jew-hatred throughout history.

Vandalized tombs with tagged swastikas are pictured in the Jewish cemetery of Quatzenheim, in eastern France, on Tuesday, February 19, 2019.Credit:Jean-Francois Badias

Berlin's definition of an antisemite appears on page 14 of Deborah Lipstadt's new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now. A Holocaust historian at Emory University in Atlanta, Lipstadt attained prominence after David Irving sued her in a British court in 1996 for describing him as a "Holocaust denier". She and her publisher famously won that case, as portrayed in the 2016 film, Denial. The present book is not a history but a reckoning with antisemitism in its current guises and contortions. (Lipstadt rejects the old spelling of "anti-Semitism" as it wrongly implies that the opposition is to "Semitism" rather than to the Jews, as was always intended).

Alas, more than 70 years after the Nazis' quest to exterminate the Jews of Europe, cases still abound in which Jews are variously slain, vilified, excluded, or threatened because they are Jews. In October last year, for example, a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue claimed the lives of 11 congregants and wounded seven others. There have been murderous attacks on Jews also in France and Brussels in recent years. In Britain, graffiti with messages such "Adolf Hitler was right" and "death to all Jews" has appeared in its cities.




Antisemitism. By Deborah Lipstadt.

Closer to home, Jews have been targeted and intimidated on Sydney public transport and while walking in Bondi. Earlier this month, more than 20 swastika symbols were daubed overnight around the Bondi area. Security guards are standard at Jewish schools and synagogues in Western societies. As Lipstadt observes, if anything, the bigots are growing more confident.

The current situation is complicated by two factors. First, Western Jews (in general) now enjoy a privileged status. Highly educated, socioeconomically successful, and politically influential, they are perceived by some less fortunate and marginalised as part of the dominant white majority. Second, there are the vexed issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict and of controversial Israeli government policies. Much of Antisemitism: Here and Now is devoted to discussing cases thrown up by these twin associations.

The book is written as an exchange of letters between Lipstadt and a whip-smart Jewish student, Abigail, and a non-Jewish law colleague, Joe, at her university. The format allows these fictional interlocutors to variously voice their confusion, outrage, and internal conflicts about episodes of apparent antisemitism on campus and in the wider world. Lipstadt responds sagely as a kind of guide to the perplexed.

The discussion begins by distinguishing different types of antisemite. There is the extremist who is upfront about his or her thirst for the Jews' demise. There is the "dinner party antisemite" who wouldn't dream of physically harming Jews but wants to exclude them from their golf or country club. There is the "clueless antisemite" who remarks to her Jewish friend that she, of all people, should be able to spot a bargain. And then there are the "antisemitic enablers", who, while not antisemites themselves, encourage the antisemitism of others.

Here, Lipstadt points her finger at both President Donald Trump, on the right, and British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, on the left. Trump has cultivated not only nationalist but also nativist sentiment. He defended the white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the 2017 Charlottesville rally, for example, even after one of them drove a truck through the counter-protesters. During his presidential campaign he retweeted an image of Hilary Clinton alongside a Jewish star embossed with the accusation of monied corruption. One of his ads showed three prominent American Jews with commentary about "global special interests" that "control the levers of power in Washington".
Corbyn has a history of arch criticism of Israel but also of supporting blatant antisemites. Last year, video emerged of him speaking at a Palestinian Return Centre event in 2013 in which he suggested that "Zionists" do not understand English irony despite living in the country all their lives, a comment that has not helped him shake the accusation that he himself is an antisemite. Lipstadt marshals compelling cases against both politicians as "enablers", while noting that Corbyn's disposition appears to be sincere whereas Trump's appears to be cynically directed at energising his electoral base.

The book further explores such issues as the difference between antisemitism and racism, antisemitism within the Islamic world, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the "toxification of Israel", and the new hostility towards Jews within progressive movements and on campus. Lipstadt wisely cautions against an attitude of Jewish victimhood. She also criticises Jewish organisations that respond to the BDS by seeking to "boycott the boycotters" or which, like canarymission.org, seek to intimidate Pro-Palestinian professors and activists by compiling public dossiers on them.

Antisemitism is antisemitism regardless of the status of its targets. The Pittsburgh synagogue victims are no less murdered for having been visibly white and comfortably middle class. And the lazy equation of "wealthy and white" with domination overlooks the prominent involvement of Jews in progressive movements including the civil rights movement and feminism.

Less satisfactory is Lipstadt's treatment of the Israel factor. She is wrong to claim that questioning Israel's right to exist is axiomatically antisemitic. To demand only Israel's disestablishment among the family of nations, many of which are guilty of systematic abuses, is clearly discriminatory. However, one can hold that it was a mistake for a Jewish state to be established in Palestine without remotely being antisemitic. Even the founding father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, initially campaigned to place the Jewish homeland in East Africa.

Criticism of Israel as a Jewish state is dismissed too quickly. Lipstadt counters that other democracies have official state religions. True, but the issue is whether and how the state religion is used in the distribution of individuals' rights, opportunities and overall treatment. It should be of concern that national fronts in Europe and alt-right figures in the United States laud Israel as an ethno-democracy while peddling antisemitism at home.
The 2018 Global Anti-Semitism Report found that "70 per cent of anti-Jewish attacks were anti-Israel in nature". Israeli brutality towards the Palestinians provokes brutal and intemperate politics elsewhere in reaction. It is also the case that Israel-bashing attracts and provides cover for genuine antisemites. The attempt to call this out has been hampered by the legacy of Israeli politicians and Jewish leaders responding to any criticism of Israel with the charge of antisemitism.

Often, non-Jews who are concerned about the Palestinians' situation invoke traditional antisemitic tropes without realising it or intending to do so. A current example is the controversy that has ensnared US Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, who suggested in tweets that American support for Israel is "all about the Benjamins" (referring to Benjamin Franklin on the $100 note) and the Israel lobby bribing politicians. The tweets sparked an uproar, a rebuke from House Leader Nancy Pelosi, and ultimately Omar's contrite apology. But as Peter Beinhart noted in The Forward, those who are quick to condemn this clumsy verbal bigotry are deathly silent about the tangible bigotry that Palestinians in the West Bank face daily courtesy of Israeli law and policy.

Although most diasporic Jews do not hold Israeli citizenship, a central plank of Zionism is the unity of the Jewish people. Many Jews in and outside of Israel have protested "not in our name" regarding Israeli government policies. Many more believe that this has nothing to do with them, not unlike ordinary Muslims who believe they shouldn't have to answer for the actions of Islamic militants. And many support or defer to Israeli government actions.

The book closes with Lipstadt counselling Joe not to be afraid, as a non-Jew, to call Israel out when he believes it has crossed a line. Sage advice for Jews as well.

Geoffrey Brahm Levey is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New South Wales.

BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS - BDS - THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT IS FEELING THE PINCH - THEY ARE ATTACKING ANYTHING ANYWHERE WHICH CONNECTS TO BDS AROUND THE WORLD - AND THE WORLD IS BEGINNING TO WAKE UP, AT LAST!

Israel is trying to terrorise any group or organisation which gets involved in planning any action or campaign spreading the message about the evils of the Israeli government and its genocidal, apartheid, murderous activities against the Palestinians - in the USA against educational institutions, in the UK against any organisation daring to consider BDS, and the same in countries around the world daring to oppose the murderous regime of the Israeli government.

The brutal occupation of the Occupied territories - West Bank and Gaza - shows the Israeli intent of proceeding with the occupation until they have somewhow or other silenced - or got rid of - the Palestinians - from their homes and homeland, meanwhile spreading the myths and lies that Israel is the Jewish homeland. Never was, never is, never will be!!

And they spread the message internationally that anti-zionism equals anti-semitism which is just so much nonsense, as everyone around the world is beginning to discover.

When are the countries with the power and strength to do something to stop the Israelis in their tracks going to do something and when are politicians in so many of our western countries going to stop arse-licking the Israelis and enjoying their free trips to Israel to see one side of the border where the Berlin Wall cuts off legitimate citizens from their legitimate homeland?

Why is there not yet any international outcry and when are these countries going to stop funding this murderous regime?

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

STEPHEN HAWKING'S DECISION TO BOYCOTT ISRAELI CONFERENCE - LABELLED ANTI-SEMITIC BY ISRAELIS!

This article is from Antony Loewenstein's blog and is dated 9 May 2013:

Watch furore over Stephen Hawking back BDS and realise its morality

Let the pub­lic de­bate thrive. Fol­low­ing Stephen Hawk­ing’s de­ci­sion to sup­port the aca­d­e­mic boy­cott of Is­rael, in a highly prin­ci­pled stand, the issue has caused glob­ally gnash­ing of teeth and re­flec­tion. In short, most Zion­ists just can’t un­der­stand why any­body would pick on poor, lit­tle, oc­cu­py­ing Is­rael. Some rel­e­vant in­sights below.

The Guardian:

The cel­e­brated physi­cist Stephen Hawk­ing be­came em­broiled in a deep­en­ing furore today over his de­ci­sion to boy­cott a pres­ti­gious con­fer­ence in Is­rael in protest over the state’s oc­cu­pa­tion of Pales­tine.

Hawk­ing, a world-renowned sci­en­tist and best­selling au­thor who has had motor neu­rone dis­ease for 50 years, can­celled his ap­pear­ance at the high-pro­file Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence, which is per­son­ally spon­sored by Is­rael’s pres­i­dent, Shi­mon Peres, after a bar­rage of ap­peals from Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mics.

The move, de­nounced by promi­nent Is­raelis and wel­comed by pro-Pales­tin­ian cam­paign­ers, en­tan­gled Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity – Hawk­ing’s aca­d­e­mic base since 1975 – which ini­tially claimed the sci­en­tist’s with­drawal was on med­ical grounds, be­fore con­ced­ing a po­lit­i­cal mo­ti­va­tion.

The uni­ver­sity’s volte-face came after the Guardian pre­sented it with the text of a let­ter sent from Hawk­ing to the or­gan­is­ers of the high-pro­file con­fer­ence in Jerusalem, clearly stat­ing that he was with­draw­ing from the con­fer­ence in order to re­spect the call for a boy­cott by Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mics.

The full text of the let­ter, dated 3 May, said: “I ac­cepted the in­vi­ta­tion to the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence with the in­ten­tion that this would not only allow me to ex­press my opin­ion on the prospects for a peace set­tle­ment but also be­cause it would allow me to lec­ture on the West Bank. How­ever, I have re­ceived a num­ber of emails from Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mics. They are unan­i­mous that I should re­spect the boy­cott. In view of this, I must with­draw from the con­fer­ence. Had I at­tended, I would have stated my opin­ion that the pol­icy of the pre­sent Is­raeli gov­ern­ment is likely to lead to dis­as­ter.”

Hawk­ing’s de­ci­sion to throw his weight be­hind the aca­d­e­mic boy­cott of Is­rael met with an angry re­sponse from the or­gan­is­ers of the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence, an an­nual event hosted by Is­raeli pres­i­dent Shi­mon Peres.

“The aca­d­e­mic boy­cott against Is­rael is in our view out­ra­geous and im­proper, cer­tainly for some­one for whom the spirit of lib­erty lies at the basis of his human and aca­d­e­mic mis­sion,” said con­fer­ence chair­man Is­rael Mai­mon. “Is­rael is a democ­racy in which all in­di­vid­u­als are free to ex­press their opin­ions, what­ever they may be. The im­po­si­tion of a boy­cott is in­com­pat­i­ble with open, de­mo­c­ra­tic di­a­logue.”

Daniel Taub, the Is­raeli am­bas­sador to Lon­don, said: “It is a great shame that Pro­fes­sor Hawk­ing has with­drawn from the pres­i­dent’s con­fer­ence … Rather than cav­ing into pres­sure from po­lit­i­cal ex­trem­ists, ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in such events is a far more con­struc­tive way to pro­mote progress and peace.”

The Wolf Foun­da­tion, which awarded Hawk­ing the Wolf prize in physics in 1988, said it was “sad to learn that some­one of Pro­fes­sor Hawk­ing’s stand­ing chose to ca­pit­u­late to ir­rel­e­vant pres­sures and will re­frain from vis­it­ing Is­rael”.

But Pales­tini­ans wel­comed Hawk­ing’s de­ci­sion. “Pales­tini­ans deeply ap­pre­ci­ate Stephen Hawk­ing’s sup­port for an aca­d­e­mic boy­cott of Is­rael,” said Omar Bargh­outi, a found­ing mem­ber of the Boy­cott, Di­vest­ment and Sanc­tions move­ment. “We think this will rekin­dle the kind of in­ter­est among in­ter­na­tional aca­d­e­mics in aca­d­e­mic boy­cotts that was pre­sent in the strug­gle against apartheid in South Africa.”

Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mics sent a bar­rage of let­ters to Hawk­ing in re­cent weeks in an at­tempt to per­suade him to join the boy­cott move­ment.

Samia al-Bot­meh, of Birzeit Uni­ver­sity in the West Bank, said: “We tried to com­mu­ni­cate two points to him. First, that Is­rael is a colo­nial en­tity that in­volves vi­o­la­tions of the rights of the Pales­tini­ans, in­clud­ing aca­d­e­mic free­dom, and then ask­ing him to stand in sol­i­dar­ity with Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mic col­leagues who have called for sol­i­dar­ity from in­ter­na­tional aca­d­e­mics in the form of boy­cotting Is­raeli acad­e­mia and aca­d­e­mic in­sti­tu­tions.”

Hawk­ing’s de­ci­sion to with­draw from the con­fer­ence was “fan­tas­tic”, said Bot­meh. “I think it’s won­der­ful that he has acted on moral grounds. That’s very eth­i­cal and very im­por­tant for us as Pales­tini­ans to know and un­der­stand that there are prin­ci­pled col­leagues in the world who are will­ing to take a stand in sol­i­dar­ity with an oc­cu­pied peo­ple.”

Com­ments on so­cial media in Is­rael were over­whelm­ingly op­posed to Hawk­ing’s move, with a small num­ber en­gag­ing in per­sonal abuse over his phys­i­cal con­di­tion. A mi­nor­ity of com­men­ta­tors sup­ported his stance on Is­rael’s 46-year oc­cu­pa­tion of thePales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries.

In ad­di­tion to the let­ter sent by Hawk­ing to the con­fer­ence or­gan­is­ers, a state­ment in his name was sent to the British Com­mit­tee for the Uni­ver­si­ties in Pales­tine, con­firm­ing his with­drawal from the con­fer­ence for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons. The word­ing was ap­proved by Hawk­ing’s per­sonal as­sis­tant after con­sul­ta­tion with Tim Holt, the act­ing di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity.

On Wednes­day morn­ing, fol­low­ing the Guardian’s rev­e­la­tion that Hawk­ing was boy­cotting the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence, Holt is­sued a state­ment say­ing: “Pro­fes­sor Hawk­ing will not be at­tend­ing the con­fer­ence in Is­rael in June for health rea­sons – his doc­tors have ad­vised against him fly­ing.”

How­ever, a later state­ment said: “We have now re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion from Pro­fes­sor Hawk­ing’s of­fice that a let­ter was sent on Fri­day to the Is­raeli pres­i­dent’s of­fice re­gard­ing his de­ci­sion not to at­tend the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence, based on ad­vice from Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mics that he should re­spect the boy­cott.”

In a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with the Guardian, Holt of­fered “my apolo­gies for the con­fu­sion”.

This year’s con­fer­ence is ex­pected to be at­tended by 5,000 peo­ple from around the world, in­clud­ing busi­ness lead­ers, aca­d­e­mics, artists and for­mer heads of state. For­mer US pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton, for­mer UK prime min­is­ter Tony Blair, for­mer Russ­ian pres­i­dent Mikhail Gor­bachev, Prince Al­bert of Monaco and Bar­bra Streisand have ac­cepted in­vi­ta­tions, ac­cord­ing to or­gan­is­ers.

A highly un­sci­en­tific Guardian on­line poll finds huge sup­port for Hawk­ing’s stand. In Haaretz, note the ar­gu­ment put for­ward by an aca­d­e­mic, typ­i­cal of many Zion­ists. Rather than ad­dress­ing the rea­sons Is­rael is in­creas­ingly iso­lated, let’s focus on stronger ties to the out­side world. Fail:

The media re­ports Wednes­day that Pro­fes­sor Stephen Hawk­ing would not be at­tend­ing the Pres­i­dent’s Con­fer­ence in Is­rael next month prompted many to ac­cuse the world-renowned sci­en­tist of anti-Semi­tism.

Hawk­ing, how­ever, has al­ready vis­ited Is­rael four times, in­clud­ing the last time, in 2006, at the in­vi­ta­tion of the British Em­bassy. Dur­ing that trip, he vis­ited uni­ver­si­ties in Is­rael and the Pales­tin­ian Au­thor­ity and said he hoped to meet Is­raeli and Pales­tin­ian sci­en­tists.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port in the Guardian, ever since Hawk­ing’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­fer­ence was made known some four weeks ago, he has been bom­barded with count­less emails and let­ters from Britain and other places in the world, call­ing on him to re­voke his de­ci­sion.

In view of Hawk­ing’s pre­vi­ous vis­its to Is­rael, how­ever, it would be dif­fi­cult to brand him anti-Se­mitic. Per­haps he just wanted to avoid the headache in­volved in any visit to Is­rael by a well-known sci­en­tist or per­former.

Among those fight­ing to thwart the re­peated at­tempts, es­pe­cially in Britain, to boy­cott uni­ver­si­ties in Is­rael is David New­man, Dean of the Fac­ulty of Hu­man­i­ties and So­cial Sci­ences at Ben-Gu­rion Uni­ver­sity of the Negev. New­man says that the ma­jor­ity of the Boy­cott, Di­vest­ment and Sanc­tions move­ment was once lim­ited to mere procla­ma­tions by var­i­ous or­ga­ni­za­tions, but that this has been chang­ing in re­cent years. Now, he says, boy­cott ef­forts are car­ried out pri­mar­ily by de­ter­mined ac­tivists who bom­bard pub­lic fig­ures plan­ning to come to Is­rael with an on­slaught emails and faxes. This is prob­a­bly what hap­pened to Hawk­ing. If so, it means Is­rael may not be a pariah yet, but it is cer­tainly no longer a place every­one trav­els to gladly.

Ac­cord­ing to New­man, one of the founders of Ben-Gu­rion Uni­ver­sity’s pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment de­part­ment, which has been ac­cused by local Mc­Carthy­ists of hav­ing dan­ger­ous left­ist ten­den­cies, the an­swer to these at­tempts to im­pose an aca­d­e­mic boy­cott on Is­rael is to strengthen the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Is­raeli and in­ter­na­tional sci­en­tists.

Acts such as up­grad­ing the sta­tus of the Ariel Uni­ver­sity Cen­ter, and threats like the one by the Higher Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil to shut down Ben-Gu­rion’s pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment de­part­ment these hardly con­tribute to fur­ther­ing said co­op­er­a­tion.

In 972 mag­a­zine, al­ways in­ter­est­ing Is­raeli writer Noam Sheizaf ar­gues that Is­raelis can’t be sur­prised by the grow­ing move to­wards boy­cotts and should stop play­ing the vic­tim:

The British Guardian on Wednes­day re­ported that Prof. Stephen Hawk­ing hascan­celled his ap­pear­ance at the fifth Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence due to take place this June, in protest of Is­rael’s treat­ment of the Pales­tini­ans. The re­port was later con­firmed by Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity. A spokeper­son for the Jerusalem-based con­fer­ence called Hawk­ing’s de­ci­sion “out­ra­geous and im­proper.”

One of Haaretz’s lead­ing lefty colum­nists, Carlo Strenger, wrote an open let­ter to Hawk­ing echo­ing these feel­ings. After ex­press­ing pride in his own op­po­si­tion to the oc­cu­pa­tion, Strenger ac­cuses Hawk­ing of hypocrisy and ap­ply­ing a dou­ble stan­dard; he claims that Is­rael’s human rights vi­o­la­tions are “neg­li­gi­ble” com­pared to those of other coun­tries in the world, and notes that the Is­raeli acad­e­mia is for the most part lib­eral and there­fore can’t be blamed for the oc­cu­pa­tion.

I would like to re­spond to some of the points he makes, since they rep­re­sent a larger prob­lem with the Is­raeli left.

______________

While Hawk­ing re­sponded to the call for aca­d­e­mic boy­cott, it should be noted that the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence is not an aca­d­e­mic event: it’s an an­nual cel­e­bra­tion of the Is­raeli busi­ness, po­lit­i­cal and mil­i­tary elites, whose pur­pose is un­clear at best, and which has lit­tle im­por­tance in Is­raeli life (it didn’t exist until five years ago). The pro-oc­cu­pa­tion Right has a heavy pres­ence at the con­fer­ence – or at least it felt that way last year, when I at­tended. I will get back to the no­tion of “the lib­eral acad­e­mia” and the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence later.

Per­son­ally, I think we should put the “dou­ble stan­dards” line of de­fense to rest, since it’s sim­ply an ex­cuse against any form of ac­tion. The geno­cide in Cam­bo­dia was tak­ing place at the same time as the boy­cott ef­fort against South Africa. Ac­cord­ing to Prof. Strenger’s logic, anti-Apartheid ac­tivists were guilty of dou­ble stan­dards; they should have con­cen­trated their ef­forts on many other, and “much worse” regimes.

The no­tion ac­cord­ing to which the hor­rors in Syria or Dar­fur make end­ing the oc­cu­pa­tion a less wor­thy cause rep­re­sents the worst kind of moral rel­a­tivism, es­pe­cially when it’s being voiced by mem­bers of the oc­cu­py­ing so­ci­ety.

I’m also not sure what makes Is­raeli human rights vi­o­la­tions “neg­li­gi­ble” com­pared to those of other coun­tries. I cer­tainly do not think that killing hun­dreds of civil­ians in one month dur­ing Cast Lead was “neg­li­gi­ble,” but the oc­cu­pa­tion goes way be­yond the num­ber of corpses it leaves be­hind – it has a lot to do with the pres­sure on the daily lives of all Pales­tini­ans, and with the fact that it’s gone on for so long, af­fect­ing peo­ple through their en­tire lives (I wrote on the need to see be­yond death sta­tis­tics here). Plus, there is some­thing about the fact that it’s an Is­raeli who is de­ter­min­ing that those human rights vi­o­la­tions are “neg­li­gi­ble,” which makes me un­easy – just as we don’t want to hear the Chi­nese using the same term when dis­cussing Tibet.

I will not go into all of Strenger’s ra­tio­nal­iza­tions for the oc­cu­pa­tion – his claims that the Pales­tini­ans an­swered Is­rael’s gen­er­ous peace of­fers with the sec­ond In­tifada; that as long as Hamas is in power there is no­body to talk to, that Is­rael is fight­ing for its sur­vival against an ex­is­ten­tial threat, and so on. I don’t think that a fact-based his­tor­i­cal analy­sis sup­ports any of these ideas, but Strenger is en­ti­tled to his view. If you think the oc­cu­pa­tion is jus­ti­fied, or at least in­evitable, you ob­vi­ously see any ac­tion against it as il­le­git­i­mate and un­called for.

Yet the thing that made Prof. Strenger jump is not “any ac­tion” but rather some­thing very spe­cific – the aca­d­e­mic boy­cott. Per­son­ally, I think that his text mostly por­trays a self-per­cep­tion of in­no­cence. Is­rael, ac­cord­ing to Strenger, doesn’t de­serve to be boy­cotted and the “lib­eral aca­d­e­mics” – like him­self – specif­i­cally, don’t de­serve it be­cause they “op­pose the oc­cu­pa­tion.”

At this point in time, I think it’s im­pos­si­ble to make such dis­tinc­tions. The oc­cu­pa­tion – which will cel­e­brate 46 years next month – is ob­vi­ously an Is­raeli pro­ject, to which all el­e­ments of so­ci­ety con­tribute and from which al­most all ben­e­fit. The high-tech in­dus­try’s con­nec­tion to the mil­i­tary has been widely dis­cussed, the profit Is­raeli com­pa­nies make ex­ploit­ing West Bank re­sources is doc­u­mented and the cap­tive mar­ket for Is­raeli goods in the West Bank and Gaza is known. Strenger’s own uni­ver­sity co­op­er­ates with the army in var­i­ous pro­grams, and thus con­tributes its own share to the na­tional pro­ject.

I would also say that at this point in time, pay­ing lip ser­vice to the two state-so­lu­tion while blam­ing the Pales­tini­ans for avoid­ing peace can­not be con­sid­ered op­pos­ing to the oc­cu­pa­tion, un­less you want to in­clude Lieber­man and Ne­tanyahu in the peace camp. We should be ask­ing our­selves ques­tions about po­lit­i­cal ac­tion as op­posed to dis­cussing our views: where do we con­tribute to the oc­cu­pa­tion and what form of ac­tions do we con­sider le­git­i­mate in the fight against it?

Prof. Stephen Hawk­ing re­sponded to a Pales­tin­ian call for sol­i­dar­ity. This is also some­thing to re­mem­ber – that the op­pressed have opin­ions too, and that em­pow­er­ing them is a wor­thy cause. In Strenger’s world, the oc­cu­pa­tion is a topic of in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sion among the Jew­ish-Is­raeli pub­lic. Some peo­ple sup­port it, some peo­ple – more – are against it; the Pales­tini­ans should sim­ply wait for the tide to change since “it is very dif­fi­cult for Is­raeli politi­cians to con­vince Is­raelis to take risks for peace.” And what hap­pens if Is­raelis don’t chose to end the oc­cu­pa­tion? (Which is ex­actly what they are doing, over and over again.) I won­der what form of Pales­tin­ian op­po­si­tion to the oc­cu­pa­tion Prof. Strenger con­sid­ers le­git­i­mate. My guess: none (code phrase: “they should ne­go­ti­ate for peace”).

______________

The is­sues of boy­cott and anti-nor­mal­iza­tion are per­haps the tough­est for Is­raeli left­ists right now. Like every­one who deals with Pales­tini­ans – if only oc­ca­sion­ally – I have per­son­ally felt the ef­fects of var­i­ous cam­paigns against the oc­cu­pa­tion. I could also say that I have felt alien­ated by the lan­guage and tone of many pro-Pales­tin­ian ac­tivists. Often I feel that they re­ject my Is­raeli iden­tity as a whole, some­times even my ex­is­tence. Many even re­frain from using the name “Is­rael”, leav­ing very lit­tle room for joint ac­tion or sim­ply for mean­ing­ful in­ter­ac­tion.

But all this is be­side the point right now. While I my­self have never ad­vo­cated a full boy­cott, I think that the least Is­raeli left­ists can do is to not stand in the way of non-vi­o­lent Pales­tin­ian ef­forts to end the oc­cu­pa­tion. It’s not only the moral thing to do, but also a smarter strat­egy be­cause as long as Is­raelis don’t feel that the sta­tus quo is tak­ing some toll on their lives, they will con­tinue to avoid the un­pleas­ant po­lit­i­cal choices which are nec­es­sary for ter­mi­nat­ing the oc­cu­pa­tion. Since the Is­raeli left is often un­able to admit its own share in the oc­cu­pa­tion – and there­fore ac­knowl­edge the le­git­i­macy of Pales­tin­ian re­sis­tance – again and again it acts against its own stated goals.

2012 was the most peace­ful year the West Bank has known in a long time (for Is­raelis, that is), and yet at its very end, Is­raelis chose a coali­tion which all but ig­nores the oc­cu­pa­tion. The prob­lem is not just the politi­cians; Is­raelis are sim­ply ab­sorbed by other is­sues. I hope that Stephen Hawk­ing’s ab­sence will serve as a re­minder for the gen­er­als, politi­cians and diplo­mats who will at­tend the Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence next month of the things hap­pen­ing just a few miles to their east – as “neg­li­gi­ble” as they may seem to some.

Fi­nally, Ben White writes in Al-Jazeera that there are count­less rea­sons why Is­rael must face in­ter­na­tional sanc­tion:

The Is­raeli gov­ern­ment and var­i­ous lobby groups use events such as the “Pres­i­den­tial Con­fer­ence” to white­wash Is­rael’s crimes past and pre­sent, a tac­tic some­times re­ferred to as “re­brand­ing”. As a Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs of­fi­cial put it after the 2009 Gaza mas­sacre, it is the kind of ap­proach that means send­ing “well-known nov­el­ists and writ­ers over­seas, the­atre com­pa­nies, [and] ex­hibits” in order to “show Is­rael’s pret­tier face, so we are not thought of purely in the con­text of war”. “Brand Is­rael” is all about cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive image for a coun­try that is the tar­get of human rights cam­paign­ers the world over – as if tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tions or high-pro­file con­fer­ences can hide the re­al­ity of oc­cu­pa­tion and eth­nic cleans­ing.

…

Pales­tini­ans suf­fer­ing under Is­raeli apartheid are call­ing for Boy­cott, Di­vest­ment and Sanc­tions (BDS) as a strat­egy in the re­al­i­sa­tion of their basic rights, a fact that many Zion­ists choose to ig­nore when at­tack­ing boy­cott cam­paigns. The Pales­tin­ian civil so­ci­ety call for BDS was of­fi­cially launched on July 9 2005, a year after the In­ter­na­tional Court of Jus­tice’s ad­vi­sory opin­ion on the il­le­gal­ity of Is­rael’s Sep­a­ra­tion Wall. Sig­na­to­ries to the BDS call come from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Pales­tini­ans in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Pales­tin­ian cit­i­zens of Is­rael, and Pales­tin­ian refugees. Since then, grow­ing num­bers of peo­ple in the likes of acad­e­mia, the arts world, trade unions and faith com­mu­ni­ties have an­swered the BDS call with ini­tia­tives that put the focus firmly on Is­rael’s rou­tine vi­o­la­tions of in­ter­na­tional law and end­ing com­plic­ity in these crimes. Pro­fes­sor Hawk­ing is to be com­mended for seek­ing the ad­vice of Pales­tin­ian aca­d­e­mics, and heed­ing their re­quest for in­ter­na­tional sol­i­dar­ity in a decades-long strug­gle for free­dom and jus­tice.

MIRIAM MARGOLYES TELLS WHY BDS IS NECESSARY

This item comes from Antony Loewenstein's blog on 28 May 2012:

ACTRESS MIRIAM MARGOLYES SAYS WHY BOYCOTTING ISRAELI THEATRE GROUP ESSENTIAL

More on this story here

The following response by "Boycott Israel" was below the article in the Guardian newspaper in the above link in response to a previous response and dated 4 April 2012:

In 2010, in front of the Israeli parliament/Knesset, Habima co-manager Odelia Friedman said: “As a national theater company, Habima will perform for all residents of Israel. Residents of [illegal West Bank settlement] Ariel are residents of Israel and Habima will stage shows for them" In response to the Guardian letter by Rylance, etc, Habima's artistic director Ilan Ronen has reiterated in Haaretz this week that illegal settlements are part of Israel.

DENNIS ALTMAN WANTS TO HEDGE HIS BETS ON THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT - BUT HE'S WRONG!

The item below is an article by Dennis Altman in The Age newspaper on 19 September 2011. In the article Altman seems to express the view that Israel ought to support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations as it would be in Israel's interests because of its oft-declared support of a two-state solution.

Surely if Altman had studied the situation ingreater depth he would have come to realise a long time ago that Israel's agenda is not, will not be and has never been in the past, to permit a Palestinian state in its midst.

Israel's intention, from the earliest zionist activist days, has been to occupy the whole of Palestine and turn it into a Jewish state, for Jews only. Kick the Palestinians out by fair means or foul - usually foul, and bit by bit occupy the whole of Palestine so that a separate state is an actual impossibility.

This is already the situation on the ground with so many settlers in the Occupied Territories and the "Berlin apartheid Wall" stealing large portions of an already-shrunk West Bank of Palestinian territory.

Australia will support whatever the United States does in the UN and the UN Security Council. They will both oppose Palestinian statehood.

While the bid for a state of Palestine is fraught with difficulties and problems, it would permit a bargaining position for the Palestinians and force Hamas and Abbas to find a modus vivendi in order to consolidate negotiating positions with Israel.

Ultimately, because it will have no other choice, Israel and Palestine will have to live together, and the ultimate answer for the land of Palestine is for it to become one democratic Israeli-Palestinian state which both sides of the problem refuse to contemplate at the moment.

As fro the other issue in Altman's article, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) worked with the apartheid South African regime, when many international multi-national organisations pulled the plug on their South African operations.

The BDS support is growing internationally daily, and although at this stage the USA still supports Israel unreservedly, some of its long-term At=rab allies are beginning to raise questions.

Whether they will prevail or not in the longer term, Israel has already damaged itself irreparably and the friends it has had will not be there in the indefinite future.

Now read Dennis Altman''s article:

Israel's opposition to recognising Palestine is a puzzle
Dennis Altman
September 19, 2011

The move to recognise Palestinian statehood is led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

The passionate support for Israel in Australia is also hard to explain.

FOR elements of both left and right in Australia, the Palestinian-Israeli dispute has become an issue of the first order, quite unrelated to any realistic assessment of its importance to Australia.

Some members of the Greens and the ALP support boycotts of Israeli products, which has created confrontations in Melbourne and Sydney. The mainstream of both major parties remains deeply committed to Israel, and any criticism of its government is denounced rather than discussed.

Even the suggestion that Australia might abstain from rather than oppose this week's General Assembly vote on recognising Palestinian statehood will bring abuse on the government.

Israel, backed by the United States, insists that admitting a Palestinian state to the United Nations would be a blow to the peace process. ''The road to peace,'' said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ''runs through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York.''

It is understandable that the Israeli government does not want to legitimise the General Assembly as a mediator in the conflict. The assembly vote would recognise the pre-1967 borders of Israel, thus eliminating large areas of Israeli settlement over the past 30 years.

Yet the Israeli government's adamant opposition to recognition of a Palestinian state is puzzling. If Israel is committed, as it says, to a two-state solution, would recognition not help in cementing support for the concept? Indeed, as increasing numbers of Palestinians and some Israelis come to argue that a two-state solution is no longer feasible, and as demographic changes threaten the ''Jewishness'' of Israel under its current borders, it is in Israel's long-term interests to build support for the two-state model.

The move to recognise Palestinian statehood is led by the more moderate faction under President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom Israel has consistently claimed it can negotiate. Indeed, some senior Hamas figures have spoken against it: one claimed it would mean ''the Palestinian resistance won't be allowed to fire one single gunshot at the Israeli occupation''. Is this not for Israel a desirable outcome?

Since the 1967 war, Israel has consistently placed short-term tactical victories ahead of longer-term strategic thinking. It has relied on military force and American backing to maintain a status quo. But one consequence of the so-called Arab Spring is that Israel's de facto Arab allies, particularly Egypt, can no longer be relied on to back this status quo.

It is significant that Turkey is moving quickly from being a de facto ally of Israel to a leading proponent of the Palestinian cause. This does not mean that Turkey seeks the abolition of the state of Israel. It is a signal that the most powerful country in the region - and a democracy, despite the claim that Israel is the only such state in the Middle East - recognises that a paradigm shift is required.

This is rarely acknowledged in Australia, where debate, while sometimes intense, rarely goes beyond entrenched set pieces on both sides. The pro-Palestinian lobby is small, and too often engages in acts that are counterproductive. The pro-Israeli lobby is far larger and influential, and has powerful emotional support on both sides of politics. Kevin Rudd once claimed that support for Israel was in his DNA, and Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott seem determined to go one better.

Just why there is such passionate support for Israel is difficult to explain. Neither national interest nor the small Jewish population explain it. I suspect it is born of the formative experiences of political leaders, now in their 40s and 50s; note that Gillard was a student leader when the national movement was destroyed by ferocious debates on Palestine.

Most of our political leaders identify with Israel as part of the mythical ''free world'' that Abbott says President Barack Obama leads, forgetting that this term was a product of the Cold War. They have ended up supporting an American position that is almost certainly more hardline than Obama himself would espouse were he not facing a difficult election in which the pro-Israeli lobby is enormously important.

Twenty years ago negotiating with the PLO was also denounced as against Israel's interests, until it became official government policy. In the same way UN recognition of the reality of a Palestinian state might break a deadlock. Those who are really concerned for the survival of Israel need recognise that a peaceful settlement is not necessarily achieved through support for every Israeli administration.

Dennis Altman is director of the Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University.

ZIONISTS AND FASCISTS UNITE AGAINST PALESTINE SUPPORTERS

The following article was published by Socialist Alternative on 29 August 2011:

Zionists and fascists unite against Palestine supporters

By Rebecca Barrigos & Reeshan Yameen

Far-right rallies for Israel on Saturday(L), fascism on Sunday(R). *see note at end of article.

Zionists in Brisbane marched side by side with fascists on Saturday. The two groups have seemingly made an alliance over their support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

Around 60 pro-Palestine activists took to Brisbane’s popular Southbank café district to protests outside the Israeli-owned Max Brenner chocolate store. Max Brenner has proudly proclaimed its sponsorship of the notoriously brutal Golani and Givati brigades of the Israeli Defence Force, which have carried out massacres of Palestinians.

The first sight we were confronted with as we marched towards the Max Brenner store was a hundred-strong contingent of Zionist counter demonstrators with megaphone-wielding members of the Australian Patriotic Defence Movement (APDM), a fascist organisation, on the front line. This alliance of fascists and Israel supporters then proceeded to spew forth a tirade of abuse.

The next day, these self-same APDM fascists assembled for the second racist rally that they have called in as many weeks in Brisbane’s King George Square. The same people who dared to accuse us of being Nazis and “holocaust supporters” the day before were revealed as actual Nazis at a demonstration where they claimed Muslims are ruining our “Australian way of life” and called for the burqa to be banned, spouting racist filth for hours, whilst proudly displaying the Israeli flag.

Contemptibly, the Zionist counter-rally on Saturday was given the full backing of the state, with the police giving them free rein to assemble. Meanwhile, the cops actively prevented our demonstration, for which they had issued a permit, from approaching the store and corralled us in a tiny space around the back of the venue.

The behaviour of the Brisbane police is entirely consistent with the actions of the Australian state which backs Israel to the hilt. The state has tried to silence the pro-Palestine campaign not only through lies, and accusations of anti-Semitism but also repression, as seen in the recent arrests of 19 activists at a demonstration against Max Brenner in Melbourne.

The rally took place at the end of a week of rabid campaigning by the media, the Labor Party and Liberal Nationals politicians in the Queensland senate. They have attempted to paint Palestine supporters as anti-Jewish and to discredit the campaign against Max Brenner by likening it to blockades of Jewish businesses in Nazi Germany.

On Saturday and Sunday, the real fascists were out on the streets and it was clear whose side they’re on – and who is supporting them.

The confidence the Zionists feel to defend an apartheid state is the confidence of those who know the establishment is on their side. Yet the fact that the Zionists have been compelled to organise a large mobilisation to defend Max Brenner and Israel also demonstrates their fear that the BDS campaign is bringing attention to the plight of Palestinians. They know that the thin veil of respectability that Israel and the companies that support it shield themselves in is being pulled away.

We must take heart from this and redouble our efforts in Brisbane to build a strong pro-Palestine campaign.

* Image note. The same person on the magaphone on the left (at the anti-Palestine rally alongside Zionists) is also pictured the following day at an Australian Patriotic Defence League rally. He was one of a number of APDL members who attended and spoke at both protests. None among the anti-BDS protesters objected to the presence of these fascists in their ranks.

The following was received by email on 31 August 2011:

VICTORIAN TRADES HALL COUNCIL PASSES MOTION DEFENDING BDS PROTESTS AGAINST MAX BRENNER

The Victorian Trades Hall Council (the peak union body in Victoria) Executive passed the following positive motion in support of the BDS campaign as well as condemning the police attacks on protesters.

This is a really welcome step forward and we hope that the campaign can continue to garner more support from unions across the country,

Yours


Vashti Kenway

The motion is written below.:

Palestine, the BDS, the ACCC and Police Behavior at Rallies

That VTHC Executive Council reaffirms its long standing policies relating to the Palestine/Israel conflict namely:

Its support for the BDS Campaign and Palestinian statehood.

Its support for the BDS campaign is aimed at urgent and sincere talks and not the tactics of the past, where while the talks were actually occurring, more settlements were being planned for construction upon Palestinian territory.

Council notes that in recent weeks the Israeli Knesset passed the anti-boycott bill making it illegal for Israelis to call for boycotts in response to the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestinian land, mandated to them by the UN. We note the recent spate of rallies, public meetings and debate organised by Israeli citizens in response to a number of issues including the Knesset's new law, demanding that it be rescinded.

Council notes the potential involvement of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in industrial and political disputes. This would be an aggressive smokescreen aimed at stifling legitimate industrial and political activity by unions and other organisations behind a facade of protecting business interests. Executive Council notes the most recent officials to be threatened with ACCC intervention Kevin Bracken of the MUA and Tim Gooden of Geelong Trades Hall Council, in relation to speeches at a BDS rally. Hence Council directs the Secretary to raise our concerns urgently with the ACTU, and to seek a joint approach to the Federal Government to demand the guarantee that the Trades Practices Act will not be used to interfere in the political discourse.

Council notes with concern an increase, in some police regions and around certain political issues, in harsh and violent responses by sections of Victoria Police, in dealing with what are legitimate industrial and political protests over recent months. Council believes the arrest and prosecution of workers demonstrating at Visy Dandenong, and the arrest and prosecution of protesters at a recent BDS Rally in the CBD, indicate a disproportionate escalation of aggressive action by Victoria Police. Council believes that the be completely inconsistent with the principles of Free Speech and the right to peaceful protest.

Therefore Council directs the Secretary to formally lodge a protest with the State Minister for Police, seek a meeting with Police Industrial to discuss any shortfall in police training around behavior at rallies, and to have informal discussions with the Police Association on whether a new, harsh policy on industrial and political demonstrations has been introduced since the last State elections in Victoria.

MOVED: Len Cooper


SECONDED: Kevin Bracken

LOEWENSTEIN SAYS "ENOUGH WITH THE NAZI SLURS"

This article was published in newmatilda on 25 August 2011:

Enough With The Nazi Slurs

By Antony Loewenstein

Equating the BDS movement with Nazism is both offensive and outrageous. So why aren't members of the Jewish community speaking out on this, asks Antony Loewenstein
Joseph Stalin changed his name and so did New South Wales Federal Greens MP Lee Rhiannon.

Stalin, writes Alan Howe, executive editor and columnist with Rupert Murdoch’s Herald Sun, was "perhaps the 20th century’s greatest murderer"

.
Rhiannon backs the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and, argues Howe, people should know about "the 1930s where violent protests against Jewish traders may end. It was a colourful time of brownshirts, blackshirts and yellow Stars of David".

In this fashion, Rhiannon is likened to a supporter of fascism and remains "against the only democracy in the Middle East and the one country in which the region’s Arabs are guaranteed safety".

Welcome to the level of debate in Australia over the Israel/Palestine conflict. The last months have seen a litany of public figures that should know better accusing anybody associated with the BDS movement of embracing Nazism, anti-Semitism and outright Jew-hatred.
It shames the Australian Jewish establishment that no leading voices have challenged this odious and absurd comparison. Instead, they’ve cheered it on, coordinating nationally, with the support of an Israeli government desperate to distract from its own anti-democratic practices.

The Australian Jewish News has editorialised that boycotting Jewish businesses here will remind Jews of similar Nazi tactics in Germany and Austria in the 1930s. How on earth will the paper cover real anti-Semitism when they so casually compare today’s behaviour to Hitler’s Third Reich?

Back in early July, 19 pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and charged for protesting in front of a Max Brenner chocolate shop in Melbourne. Max Brenner was targeted because its parent company Strauss Group supports elements of the IDF accused of war crimes in both the West Bank and Gaza.

This campaign has continued globally for years. For example, a reader of my website in 2009 sent me a copy of a letter they sent to Max Brenner outlining the reasons the company was a legitimate target for boycott.

The Victorian Government recently continued to threaten the activists with further legal punishment, imprisonment and fines.

Max Brenner’s parent company Strauss Group is an openly political business that proudly states on its Hebrew website that "We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments". Some of these soldiers were directly implicated in war crimes allegations during incursions into the West Bank and the invasion of Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

In late July, The Australian reported the campaign against the BDS movement in Australia with a story called, "Anti-Jew protest condemned". Federal Labor MP Michael Danby, journalist Jana Wendt and union head Paul Howes met for a hot chocolate inside a Max Brenner shop in Melbourne, condemned the "violent" protest against the shop and again talked about Nazi Germany. Former Labor Party president Warren Mundine was quoted by journalist Leo Shanahan as saying BDS was not "not anti-Israel but anti-Jewish".

Howes said the protesters were "mimicking the behaviour of the Nazi thugs" and it was necessary to "nip this in the bud". Howes said most people who voted for the Greens had no idea how "xenophobic" its policies were. Not one journalist asked him whether he truly believed waving placards outside a shop in Melbourne is akin to the Gestapo arresting and murdering millions of Jews in the gas chambers. And no Jewish leaders took him to task for the comparison.

Last weekend’s article by The Australian’s Cameron Stewart allowed this misperception to perpetuate. Like Shanahan, Stewart quoted Wendt as saying that, "As the daughter of refugees whose lives were critically affected by both fascism and communism, I’m grateful for what Australia has to offer".

A week later, the Victorian Government announced that it was investigating "anti-Israel activists" — by asking the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) if the BDS-ers were breaking federal law by "threatening" Israeli stores.

The state’s Consumer Affairs Minister Michael O’Brien raised the spectre of 20th century attacks on Jewish businesses and claimed BDS was a threat to democratic order. Bizarrely, he singled out the Maritime Union Of Australia, Geelong Trades Hall Council, the Green Left Weekly magazine, Australians for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. For the record, Australians for Palestine had nothing to do with the BDS protest against Max Brenner, though they do back BDS.

The Australian followed up with a story recently headlined, "Targeted chocolatier ‘a man of peace’". "Max Brenner says he is a man of peace who hates all forms of violence," the article says. Reporter Cameron Stewart doesn’t mention the serious allegations against the IDF soldiers supported by Max Brenner. (And besides, Max Brenner is the name of the business — not of the company owner. Actually, it’s an amalgam of two names.)

One of the activists interviewed by Stewart, Kim Bullimore, spokesperson for Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, told me that little of what she said to the journalist ended up in the article.

The Australian editorialised further on the matter last week by arguing "for any student of 20th-century history there is something deeply offensive about targeting a Jewish-owned business".

And the Jewish establishment said nothing.

BDS is a peaceful, non-violent movement, like that which campaigned against apartheid South Africa. It aims to put pressure on a state that refuses to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

What Australian politicians will not acknowledge is the real face of modern Israel. Calling for BDS inside Israel is now illegal. As an Arab member of parliament recently told the New York Times, a member of the Knesset wanted to sue him for simply calling for a boycott against the illegal settlement of Ariel. This is in "democratic" Israel.

With Israel announcing yet more illegal colonies in the West Bank, the international community has a clear choice: engage in empty rhetoric about "democratic" Israel or find alternative ways to target a state with one of the most unequal class systems in the developed world.

Australian politicians and all public figures should be strongly challenged on comparing BDS to fascist hoodlums, and rejected.

FAIRFAX NEWSPAPERS - REACTIONARY, RIGHT WING, NO CONTRARY OPINIONS ALLOWED??

Imagine the shock and horror when opening The Age's opinion pages on Monday 5 September 2011 to discover that Amanda Vanstone and John Howard were setting the tone of political discussions on the Australian Labor Party's leadership issues and its asylum seeker policies!

Why on earth would anyone other than a dyed-in-the-wool, rusted on reactionary bigot be interested in anything these two has-beens have to say about the politics of 2011??

Just imagine The Age having supporters of the Palestinians and supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns writing opinion pieces to be shared with readers - if there are any left after 5 September - and showing that The Age's editor-in-chief and his reporters and journalists were open to views other than those of the zionists who seem to hold disproportionate sway over Fairfax!!

It really is time that the journalists who draw their pay from Fairfax put some pressure on their bosses to make them publish views other than those of the most reactionary members of our societies.

Vanstone and Howard have other avenues to make their repugnant and repellant views public, and the newspapers we read are not those who should give them room for those views. Howard and his government, which included Vanstone, had more than 11 years to push their particularly repulsive barrows, and voices opposing their views were made to grow dimmer in that time due to a very compliant media!

Fortunately there are many alternatives in 2011 where one can make one's voice heard and where one can also obtain information which the media deny us with their own self-censorship, but it is still wrong that Fairfax should give column space to these people who have access to all those media on radio, television and print whose views are the same as theirs.

VICTORIAN TRADES HALL COUNCIL PASSES MOTION DEFENDING BDS PROTESTS AGAINST MAX BRENNER

The Victorian Trades Hall Council (the peak union body in Victoria) Executive passed the following positive motion in support of the BDS campaign as well as condemning the police attacks on protesters.

This is a really welcome step forward and we hope that the campaign can continue to garner more support from unions across the country,

Yours

Vashti Kenway

The motion is written below.

Palestine, the BDS, the ACCC and Police Behavior at Rallies

That VTHC Executive Council reaffirms its long standing policies relating to the Palestine/Israel conflict namely:

Its support for the BDS Campaign and Palestinian statehood.
Its support for the BDS campaign is aimed at urgent and sincere talks and not the tactics of the past, where while the talks were actually occurring, more settlements were being planned for construction upon Palestinian territory.

Council notes that in recent weeks the Israeli Knesset passed the anti-boycott bill making it illegal for Israelis to call for boycotts in response to the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestinian land, mandated to them by the UN. We note the recent spate of rallies, public meetings and debate organised by Israeli citizens in response to a number of issues including the Knesset's new law, demanding that it be rescinded.

Council notes the potential involvement of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in industrial and political disputes. This would be an aggressive smokescreen aimed at stifling legitimate industrial and political activity by unions and other organisations behind a facade of protecting business interests. Executive Council notes the most recent officials to be threatened with ACCC intervention Kevin Bracken of the MUA and Tim Gooden of Geelong Trades Hall Council, in relation to speeches at a BDS rally. Hence Council directs the Secretary to raise our concerns urgently with the ACTU, and to seek a joint approach to the Federal Government to demand the guarantee that the Trades Practices Act will not be used to interfere in the political discourse.

Council notes with concern an increase, in some police regions and around certain political issues, in harsh and violent responses by sections of Victoria Police, in dealing with what are legitimate industrial and political protests over recent months. Council believes the arrest and prosecution of workers demonstrating at Visy Dandenong, and the arrest and prosecution of protesters at a recent BDS Rally in the CBD, indicate a disproportionate escalation of aggressive action by Victoria Police. Council believes that the be completely inconsistent with the principles of Free Speech and the right to peaceful protest.

Therefore Council directs the Secretary to formally lodge a protest with the State Minister for Police, seek a meeting with Police Industrial to discuss any shortfall in police training around behavior at rallies, and to have informal discussions with the Police Association on whether a new, harsh policy on industrial and political demonstrations has been introduced since the last State elections in Victoria.

MOVED: Len Cooper

SECONDED: Kevin Bracken

BAILLIEU TURNS VICTORIA INTO ZIONIST POLICE STATE!

This article was sent to us by email and was published in the Electronic Intifada
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Activism News
Australia’s repression of BDS movement coordinated with Israel
Kim Bullimore
The Electronic Intifada
Melbourne
9 August 2011

Australian solidarity activists are facing intense police repression.
(
Erik Anderson
/
Flickr
)

In the largest show of support for the Palestinian-initiated boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign so far in Australia, more than 350 persons marched on 29 July in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle — and in opposition to an attempt by Victorian Police to criminalize Palestine solidarity activism in Melbourne.

A month earlier, on 1 July, a similar, peaceful BDS action involving 120 persons was brutally attacked by the Victorian Police. Nineteen individuals were arrested.

Charged with “trespassing” and “besetting,” those arrested are now facing fines of up to AUD $30,000 (approximately US $32,300). The 1 July action, organized by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, had sought to highlight the complicity of two Israeli companies, Jericho and Max Brenner Chocolate, with Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies. The action was the fourth protest against both companies since December 2010.

Jericho, located in Melbourne Central Shopping Centre and other shopping centers around the city, produces cosmetics made from minerals exploited from the Dead Sea. While Jericho and other Israeli companies — such as Ahava, also a target of BDS campaigns — profit from the Dead Sea, Palestinians are regularly denied access by Israel’s military checkpoints, exclusion zones and Israeli-only roads.

Max Brenner Chocolate, the other Israeli company subject to BDS protests in Melbourne, is owned by the Strauss Group — one of Israel’s largest food and beverage companies. On its website, the Strauss Group emphasizes its support for the Israeli military, providing care packages, sports and recreational equipment, books and games for soldiers.

Strauss boasts support for the Golani and Givati Brigades, which were heavily involved in Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip in the Winter of 2008-09, which resulted in the killing of approximately 1,400 Palestinians, the majority civilians, including approximately 350 children. While Strauss has removed information about their support for the Golani and Givati brigades from their English language website, information about the company’s support for both brigades remains on their Hebrew language site.

BDS repression coordinated with Israeli government

Trade union and community representatives spoke at the rally on 29 July before the crowd marched through the city. In spite of repeated threats of mass arrests by Victoria Police — and the deployment of police horses in one of the shopping centers — the protest marched into both the Melbourne Central and Queen Victoria centers, staging peaceful sit-ins in front of the Max Brenner stores located within.

Two day earlier, on 27 July, the Victorian police confirmed during a bail variation hearing at the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria (local District Court) for some of the activists arrested on 1 July that a decision had been made to arrest the protesters before the demonstration. This decision was made after discussions with Zionist organizations, the Victorian government, shopping center managements and state and national management of Max Brenner.

In April, the Australian Jewish News (AJN) reported that the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) had made representations to the Victorian police. According to the AJN, JCCV president John Searle had “called on the police to stamp down harder on aggressive protesters” (“Police questioned as protests turn violent,” 15 April 2011). Similar calls for a government and police crackdown on BDS protests against Max Brenner in Sydney were made in June by former AJN journalist Walt Secord, who is now a member of the NSW State Parliament (“Police called to action on BDS,” 24 June 2011).

On July 29, the same day as the BDS action against Max Brenner in Melbourne the Australian Jewish News carried a “debate” piece between Vic Alhadeff, the CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, and Ted Lapkin, a former staffer with the key pro-Israeli lobby group in Australia, the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. The piece reveals that the various calls for police and government crackdown on BDS activism was part of a “nationally coordinated strategy” developed with and backed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry (“BDS: To protest or not to protest?”).

Arguing against any Zionist-organized BDS “counter” protest, Alhadeff writes: “It is important for the community to be aware that our response to BDS forms part of [a] coordinated national strategy. Furthermore, this strategy is endorsed by counterparts abroad and Israel’s Foreign Ministry.”

Alhadeff outlined this coordinated national strategy in response to BDS, stating that it “included, but is not limited to, engagement with civil society and politicians, patronage of boycotted outlets, cooperation with police, shop owners and center managers and exposure of the motives behind the BDS movement.” According to Alhadeff, Zionist policy in response to BDS should be one which seeks to “speak softly” but to also carry “a suggestion of a big stick.”

Activism leadership targeted

During cross-examination by Robert Stary, the lawyer representing the activists, Michael Beattie, an operational support inspector with the the Victorian Police, conceded that both Melbourne Central and Queen Victoria shopping centers were “public places” and that neither center prior to 1 July had sought any civil injunctions to prevent entry to the public places inside.

The cross-examination by Stary also revealed that the main reason that police had decided to criminalize the actions against the Israeli companies was because they had been well-organized, coordinated and effective.

Victorian Police acknowledged that the demonstrations had been peaceful, that solidarity activists hadn’t damaged property and there was no record of police or any member of the public being injured.

According to the testimony given by Inspector Beattie, the police had specifically sought to target the leadership of the protests, in particular those activists the police perceived as “operating a command and control function,” in order to diminish the possibility of well-coordinated demonstrations — and to ensure “no protesters go to property and disrupt targeted business or additional businesses.”

According to Inspector Beattie, “the protesters had their own way” for too long and a “decision [was] made to draw a line in the sand and make arrests.” Another police officer, Senior Sargent Andrew Falconer, also gave testimony at the court hearing and acknowledged that police infiltrators had been sent to pro-Palestine solidarity meetings in order to monitor the activity of BDS activists.

In a statement issued after their arrests, the nineteen activists noted that “the attack on the peaceful BDS action in Melbourne highlights increasing attempts to criminalize BDS and Palestine solidarity activism internationally. Currently in the US, France and Greece, hundreds of pro-Palestine activists are facing criminal charges for nonviolently standing up for Palestinian human rights” (“Support the Boycott Israel 19 Defence Campaign”).

James Crafti, one of the activists arrested, told The Electronic Intifada that “the attempt by Israel and governments around the world to criminalize pro-Palestinian and BDS activism ignores the fact that the real criminal activity is being carried out by the Israeli state.”

“Since its founding in 1948, Israel has sought to ethnically cleanse the indigenous Palestinian people through war, occupation and apartheid practices. Israel regularly engages in collective punishment, arbitrary arrests, extra-judicial assassinations and the demolition of Palestinian homes and civil infrastructure, all of which are illegal under international law,” he added.

Crafti noted that while the Victorian and Australian governments sought to criminalize support for Palestine self-determination, they refused to hold Israel accountable for its human rights abuses, war crimes and apartheid policies.

All of the arrested activists who spoke to The Electronic Intifada said the police attack on the protest also highlighted the increasing repression of civil liberties and freedom of speech by the Victorian (conservative) Baillieu government.

One Palestine solidarity activist, Sue Bolton, who has been charged with “besetting” (obstructing or hindering the right to enter, use or leave a premise), asserted that the police reaction to the action on 1 July was “over the top.”

“There were massive numbers of police, well over a hundred, not counting those behind the scenes in the loading docks,” she said.

According to Bolton, the Queen Victoria Centre loading docks had been cleared of delivery trucks, allowing the police to set up a processing unit and bring in prison transport trucks to be used as holding cells for those arrested.

Bolton described how police had sought to “kettle” the demonstration by corralling protesters and physically pushing them into a smaller and smaller area. According to Bolton, this resulted in a number of protesters being injured and crushed when the police had surrounded and violently pushed protesters from all sides.

Similar tactics have been used by police forces in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Finland and Denmark. The use of kettling by police in the UK against student protesters in November 2010 has led to legal challenges and the calling for a ban on the use of the tactic in the British High Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

Damian Ridgwell, another Palestine solidarity protester arrested on 1 July, told The Electronic Intifada that he had been standing away from the peaceful picket, speaking on a megaphone when three policemen grabbed him.

“I was dragged behind police lines,” Ridgwell said. “Once they grabbed me and started dragging me, I went limp and dropped to the ground … As I was being carried through the corridors of the loading dock, I lost consciousness because one of the police had me in a choke hold. I am not sure how long I was out, probably a few minutes. I woke up on the loading dock floor and heard the police saying I was ‘out.’”

Ridgwell, who was charged with trespassing, said “while it is outrageous we were arrested for peacefully demonstrating, our arrests have to be seen in the context of the Australia government’s support for Israel and its continued theft of Palestinian land … it’s important we don’t let the police intimidate protests like this. It is important to keep going with the protests and to keep supporting BDS.”

Australian government’s support of Israeli apartheid

Successive Australian governments, including the current Gillard government, have long supported Israel’s colonial and apartheid policies.

Current Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard signaled her uncritical support for Israel when she was still deputy Prime Minster of Australia. During the early days of Israel’s bombing of Gaza in the winter of 2008-09, she blamed Palestinians for Israel’s all-out assault, saying that Hamas must “renounce violence” and that Israel had the “right to defend itself.”

During a visit to Israel In 2009, Gillard was thanked by Israeli government minister Isaac Herzog for standing “almost alone on the world stage in support of Israel’s right to defend itself” (“Israel to Gillard: thanks for standing by us,” The Age, 24 June 2009).

The arrested activists noted that in June, the Baillieu government had established a new 42-member riot squad — and the attack on the 1 July protest was the first time it had been used in any significant way.

According to James Crafti, “the Victorian government thinks it can easily get away with attacking a pro-Palestine action because they think they can label us anti-Semitic.” Crafti, who is Jewish, said that the police and those opposed to the BDS actions, however, “underestimate the sympathy towards both Palestine and the [Palestine solidarity] movement in the broader community.”

“The amount of force used by the police and the response of the political elite to our protests, particularly the fact that the Australian Foreign Minister [and former Australian Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd felt the need to go a few days after our protest to Max Brenner as a public relations stunt is a sign of the pro-Israeli forces’ desperation,” he added.

The eleven activists succeeded in changing the original bail conditions preventing them from entering either shopping center (which also host medical clinics and a major train station) until the end of their case, to a lesser restriction of being prohibited from being within fifty meters of Max Brenner in both centers. However, Stary said he was still “anxious about the criminalization of dissent.”

“The police should not be used to protect the interests of an international commercial company,” he said.

Building on the success of 29 July, Melbourne activists will continue to campaign in support of Palestinian rights and oppose the criminalization of Palestine solidarity activism. The next Melbourne BDS action is scheduled for 9 September, the same week those arrested will plead not guilty to the charges against them. The defense campaign in support of the arrested activists has gained wide attention, with well-known public figures such as filmmaker John Pilger, author Norman Finkelstein and radical thinker Noam Chomsky supporting the campaign.

In a media release issued immediately following the success of the 29 July BDS action, Melbourne activists said the Victorian Police “thought that by attacking the BDS demonstration they would put an end to our movement. They were wrong … [we will] not be silenced” (“BDS returns to Max Brenner in spite of police intimidation,” 5 August 2011).

Kim Bullimore has lived and worked in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She is a member of the Melbourne Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and a co-organizer of the first national Australian BDS conference, which took place in Melbourne in October 2010. Kim writes regularly on the Palestine-Israel conflict for the Australian newspaper, Direct Action. She has a blog at livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com.

SENATOR BOSWELL, CHECK THE NUMBERS IN AUSTRALIA WHO SUPPORT BDS AGAINST ISRAEL, THE APARTHEID STATE!

The following article appeared in The Age on 6 July 2011. The Age, of course, supports Senator Boswell and attacks the Greens, because Fairfax journalists have been well represented in the groups who go on junkets to Israel paid for, or supported by The AIJAC in Australia. Participants have included Gillard, Rudd and members of both major political parties in federal parliament. They all profess undying love for Israel - what arms deals do Israel and Australia do with each other?

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL!!

Vote to embarrass Greens on Israel

Richard Willingham
July 6, 2011

(photo not available at the moment)
New Greens senator Lee Rhiannon. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

GREENS Leader Bob Brown has failed to ''put his money where his mouth is'' by voting against a Senate motion condemning a boycott of Israel, a policy supported by new senator Lee Rhiannon, according to the Nationals' Ron Boswell.

Senator Rhiannon, one of four new Greens in the Senate, backed a Sydney local council and New South Wales Greens position for a boycott of Israel.

Senator Brown called the policy ''a mistake'', saying it cost votes at March's NSW state election. ''It's not our policy and won't be,'' Senator Brown said in April.
A motion by Senator Boswell that ''condemns the boycott of Israel instigated by Marrickville Council'' passed the Senate with the support of Labor and the Coalition. The Greens voted against it.

''Senator Brown had the opportunity to put his money where his mouth was and instead he chose to vote with his extremist colleague Lee Rhiannon, a known supporter of the boycott,'' Senator Boswell said. ''Brown has failed to pull her into line. By failing to support this motion Senator Brown has failed at the first hurdle.''
The motion also recognised Israel as a legitimate and democratic state and ''a good friend of Australia''.

Senator Brown was unavailable for comment last night.

RICHARD WILLINGHAM

AIPAC'S THUGGERY - US-STYLE DEMOCRACY IN ACTION!

Alex Kane has kindly given me permission to reproduce items from his blog, and this one is absolutely a "must read - must listen to " posting.

You will not be disappointed!

AIPAC's thuggery comes home

Alex Kane | May 25, 2011 at 7:35 pm | Tags: AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, CODEPINK, Israel lobby, Jewish Voice for Peace, Rae Abileah | Categories: Israel/Palestine | URL: http://wp.me/pYDfH-cH

The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is committed to supporting Israel's thuggish right-wing government--no matter how much land is confiscated from Palestinians, no matter how many homes are bulldozed, and no matter how many Palestinians are killed. And, it appears, AIPAC's support of violence also applies to the U.S.

Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American activist with CODEPINK and Jewish Voice for Peace and who is of Israeli descent, interrupted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress yesterday. She shouted: "No more occupation! Stop Israel war crimes! Equal rights for Palestinians! Occupation is indefensible!" She was tackled by members of AIPAC, and was subsequently hospitalized and then arrested.

From the CODEPINK press release:

Police arrested CODEPINK peace activist Rae Abileah at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC. Abileah was taken to the hospital after having been assaulted and tackled to the ground by AIPAC members of the audience in the House Gallery during Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.

Abileah interrupted Netanyahu with a banner that said “Occupying Land Is Indefensible” and shouting, “No more occupation, stop Israel war crimes, equal rights for Palestinians, occupation is indefensible.” She rose up to speak out just after the Prime Minister talked about the youth around the world rising up for more democracy.

As this 28-year-old Jewish American woman spoke out for the human rights of Palestinians, other members of the audience—wearing badges from the conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee—brutally attacked her. The police then dragged her out of the Gallery and took her to the George Washington University Hospital, where she was being treating for neck and shoulder injuries.

“I am in great pain, but this is nothing compared to the pain and suffering that Palestinians go through on a regular basis,” said Abileah from her hospital bed. “I have been to Gaza and the West Bank, I have seen Palestinians homes bombed and bulldozed, I have talked to mothers whose children have been killed during the invasion of Gaza, I have seen the Jewish-only roads leading to ever-expanding settlements in the West Bank. This kind of colonial occupation cannot continue. As a Jew and a U.S. citizen, I feel obligated to rise up and speak out against stop these crimes being committed in my name and with my tax dollars.”

Abileah explained that she stands in solidarity with the Palestinian and Israeli activists who are routinely jailed and beaten for speaking out for democracy.

Watch Abileah's interview with Democracy Now! this morning:

Rae Abileah's Democracy Now! Interview

YARRA SOCIALISTS (sic) LOSE THE PLOT!

There can be no doubt that the Yarra Socialists and Steve Jolly have lost the plot!

The Palestinians desperately need help from the outside world locked away as they are in the two largest concentration camps in the world in the West Bank and Gaza.

And what do they get from a socialist party? A lecture on the ins and outs of BDS from a "workers" perspective! What "workers"? In a country with a decimated work force and the unorganised state of labour in that country divided as it is by a regime which operates a military dictatorship over the two concentration camps, starves the populations, prevents humanitarian assistance because it might help to actually mobilise the citizens and enable them to act together, and the socialists think BDS is a waste of time and effort?

Then they quote the South African story and don't understand the fundamental differences between the two situations. The South African liberations struggle actually managed to get help from other countries to help them in their struggles.
What do the Palestinians have? A world indifferent to their plight because the US and Israeli capitalists need to control the oil and water resources of the region and the USA wants to ensure the stability of its watchdog looking after its imperial interests in the region!

And these ignorant pathetic people who call themselves socialists don't understand the first principles of liberation struggles. Since Israel succeeded in establishing a state in 1948 the Palestinians have been expelled, persecuted in countries surrounding them where they have tried to obtain shelter and support and bit by bit the Israelis have tried to eliminate the Palestinians.

The possibility of a two state solution in Israel and Palestine has been long gone, and the only answer in the end for Israel-Palestine is one democratic state which both Israelis and Palestinians don't want to even think about! It is not possible for Israel to occupy the West Bank by degrees, extending settlements further and further into the occupied territories and starving Gaza into submission, only to have a two-state solution outcome.

Time for what somehow is termed the Yarra Socialists to wake up to the realities on the ground.

How ignorant and anti-worker are they able to be - blinding themselves to actual events? Watch this space!!


Yarra Socialists:

Will boycotting Israel help the Palestinians?

The decision of the Marrickville Council in Sydney to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has heightened the debate about the best way to support the Palestinian struggle for self determination.

The Socialist Party has been asked by a number of groups and individuals if our Councillors on Yarra City Council in Melbourne would consider supporting the campaign. Below we outline our views on the matter.

Palestinians in the occupied territories are suffering a nightmare existence, with starvation-level economic conditions and daily military repression at the hands of the Israeli army including regular killings and assassinations.

With this situation, any support for a boycott of Israeli goods and institutions is understandable and usually well-intentioned, but it is necessary to look closely at the consequences of such a call and examine whether it would aid the Palestinians’ struggle.

In some circumstances, usually as an adjunct to other action, boycotts can have a certain effect, and in some situations a decisive effect. The example of the international boycott on the South African apartheid regime is sometimes given, a boycott that received much media attention at the time. Many people participated in it to show their hatred of the regime. However, it was the mass movement of black South African workers that ended apartheid, not the boycott itself.

In the case of Israel, a boycott is unlikely to have a significant economic impact, not least because it will attract only partial participation. More importantly it would play into the hands of the worst right-wing warmongers in Israel, and alienate Israeli workers, who are the only force capable of removing the brutal Israeli regime and participating in a lasting settlement with the Palestinian people.

Unlike several other groups on the left we understand that there is a class divide within Israel. On this basis we are concerned that the BDS campaign has already been used by Israeli capitalist politicians to launch a propaganda offensive aimed at Israeli workers, driving those workers into the arms of the Israeli right. They argue that it shows that Israeli Jews are under siege and need to stick together against what they portray as an anti-Semitic stance.

This propaganda has an effect, because the starting point is that Israeli workers do not accept that their livelihoods should be affected by boycotts from workers’ organisations abroad.

Israeli Jewish workers are also inevitably alarmed when some of the staunchest advocates of boycott action have a record of opposing the right of the Jewish people to their own state. Whereas in the case of South Africa, a majority of black workers there supported international sanctions against the ruling white elite, Israeli workers are not in agreement with sanctions against Israel.

The calling for a boycott under these conditions is a mistake, and a gift to the Israeli right. The Israeli regime has never been weaker than it is at present. The government is in severe crisis, mired in corruption and with huge splits.

The wealth gap and the divide between the interests of the ruling layer and the mass of the working population has never been greater. Responding to wave after wave of privatisation and cuts in services and living standards, workers and students have engaged in many strikes and other struggles in the recent period.

On the issue of the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, consistently around two-thirds of Israelis want to see military withdrawal and the Palestinians having their own state. An increasing number of young Israelis do not want to do army service in the occupied territories.

With this being the case the movement in support of Palestinian self determination should be putting forward demands that promote class unity in the region. The reality is that both the Palestinians and Israeli workers have the same enemy – the Israeli ruling class and imperialism.

Workers and young people internationally should strongly support and aid struggles of the Palestinians against the Israeli regime’s occupation, particularly mass struggles when they arise such as during the first intifada and the beginning of the second intifada (the Socialist Party, though, does not advocate support for some methods, such as suicide bombings of Israeli civilians inside Israel).

However, it is also essential to give full support and aid to struggles of Israeli workers against the Israeli regime, as the most effective way of weakening it further by revealing and opening up the class divisions. Israeli workers’ struggles should be linked as far as possible to those of Arab workers in the region.

The Palestinians and the Israeli Jews have a right to their own separate states. But achieving such states, with lasting, peaceful co-existence and decent living standards, will be unviable on a capitalist basis.

The only way that will be possible, will be on the basis of Israeli workers building the workers’ movement in Israel to challenge the power, profit and prestige of the Israeli capitalist class, and of Palestinian workers also building their own united movement.

The latter would need to lead the struggle towards a genuine Palestinian state with decent living standards for all in it, while supporting the right of Israeli workers to their own state alongside it, as part of a socialist confederation.

Achieving an end to bloodshed and the existence of two states is inseparable from the struggle for socialism. Only by removing the profit motive will we be able to raise the living standards for workers on both sides of the national divide. It will only be a socialist solution that removes the basis for conflict once and for all. Unfortunately the call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions will not bring us any closer to this goal.