Saturday, January 30, 2010

Why City Councils will finally be compelled to approve Boycott Israel Resolutions:


Click on flyer to enlarge it.

__________________________________

Why Ann Arbor City Council will vote for a boycott against all Israeli products:


* Ann Arbor City Council meetings are hit with civil rights sit-ins, demonstrations, and pickets (1963)

--So City Council voted for a Fair Housing law, even though white realtors fought it tooth & nail.


* Ann Arbor City Council meetings are hit with nearly 5,000 signatures demanding sanctions against Israel (1984)


* Ann Arbor City Council meetings are hit with pickets, demonstrations, and speeches demanding boycott and divestment against Israel (2002-2010)


--So Ann Arbor City Council will vote for a boycott against all Israeli products.

Remember, City Council voted for a Fair Housing law, even though white realtors fought it "tooth and nail"


Thursday, January 28, 2010

After Gaza Massacre, City Council appoints "Friend of Israel Defense Forces" as a Human Rights Commissioner!




"Send $300 billion to Detroit, not to Israel"

January 28, 2010

On Palestine Think Tank at:



Was there any excuse for a bunch of armed European settlers to occupy Palestine?


No.


Was there any excuse for those armed gangs—now called the “Israel Defense Forces”– to ally themselves with the most racist regimes on Earth, including Apartheid South Africa?


No.


Was there any excuse for handing $300 billion to Israel, as it mass-murdered so many Palestinians and Lebanese?


No– but Congressman Dingell admits that Israel really did get $300 billion from your pocket, from the U.S. Congress.


That $300 billion should be spent to re-build Detroit, not to fortify the Israel Defense Forces.


I hope the Detroit City Council will send that message to Congress.


It would solve a lot of problems, in Detroit and worldwide.


Resolutions for Boycott and Sanctions against Israel


The Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission sent a very modest version of that message to its own City Council a few years ago.


A “Resolution in Support of Ending U.S. Military Support for Israel” was approved—unanimously– by the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission, in December 2003:


http://dearbornboycottsisrael.blogspot.com/2010/01/resolution-in-support-of-ending-us.html


The Commission urged the Ann Arbor City Council to approve that same Palestine Resolution.


The City Council has certainly had enough time to think about it!


Now that the Israel Defense Forces have massacred 1400 Palestinian people in Gaza, the City Council should be jumping to approve that Resolution and more.


In fact, every City Council should join the student governments of Wayne State University, and the University of Sussex, in demanding total boycott against the Apartheid state of Israel.


The Palestinian people have demanded exactly those kinds of boycott resolutions.


City Council’s Revenge, against the Palestinian People:


Yes, the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission stood up for the Palestinian People.


Within a year, City Council member Joan Lowenstein stated that the Commission’s chairperson would not be reappointed, and the Commission found itself with no staff.


Now the City Council has approved the appointment of a man from “Friends of the Israel Defense Forces” to the Ann Arbor, Michigan Human Rights Commission.


That new Commissioner’s name is Neal Elyakin.


Don’t Deny the Palestinian People’s Existence


Ann Arbor’s new Human Rights Commissioner, Mr. Neal Elyakin, has publicly written that “The term ‘Palestinian’ is itself a masterful twisting of history… If the Palestinians are indeed a myth, then the real question becomes ‘Why?’ Why invent a fictitious people? The answer is that the myth of the Palestinian People serves as the justification for Arab occupation of the Land of Israel.”


  1. First of all, no one should deny the real Holocaust suffered by the Palestinian people.

Armed Zionist settlers destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages.


Most of Palestine was emptied of Palestinians. The Palestinians were driven out by massacres, rapes, and other violent means, according to Professor Ilan Pappe.


  1. How can anyone deny the existence of the Palestinian people?
  2. How is a Palestinian child, in Ann Arbor, supposed to feel? If her city’s Human Rights Commissioner uses that kind of language about Palestinians, how safe can she feel?


Resolution to Spend $300 Billion on Detroit, not on Israel:


Ann Arbor’s Human Rights Commission must speak clearly now.


It must repudiate any statement from its Commissioners claiming that the Palestinian people are a “myth”.


It must push the City Council to approve a resolution to boycott all products from Israel, and to cut off all aid to Israel. Those billions of dollars belong in Detroit, to begin repairing a half-century of federally-enforced strangulation imposed on Detroit.


I also hope the Detroit City Council will step up to the plate.


I hope the Detroit City Council will approve a Resolution asking Congress to totally cut off the trillions currently spent slaughtering Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.


That Resolution should tell Congress to spend those trillions of dollars to re-build Detroit and every inner city.


What Detroiter would say “no” to that?



–Blaine Coleman


Blaine Coleman has been demanding a Resolution to Spend $300 Billion on Detroit, not on Israel, for years– at Detroit City Council, at Ann Arbor City Council, and at the Michigan Student Assembly. He asks readers to do the same.


_______________________________

Sunday, January 10, 2010

"Boycott Israel -- Boycott Murder."



____________________________________

10-year campaign for boycott and sanctions against Israel, at University of Michigan Student Assembly ("MSA"):


Approximately 100 students appeared at the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA), in October 2000, to speak for divestment against Israel-- the MSA voted to cut off all public comment, and refused to even vote on the proposed resolution to divest from Israel.

Students and community members have urged the MSA to issue resolutions for boycott against Israel, and divestment against Israel, from 2000 through the end of 2009.

________________________________________________


Ten years have passed, in which Israel has killed at least 6,348 Palestinians :


have been killed since September 29, 2000.


Chart showing that approximately six times more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis.




Ten years have passed, in which Israel has injured 39,019 Palestinians :


39,019 Palestinians and 8,864 Israelis
have been injured since September 29, 2000.

Chart showing that approximately four times more Palestinians have been injured than Israelis.

“With no shooting from the Palestinian side, and often little or no use of tear gas to disperse the protests, Israeli soldiers have repeatedly fired live ammunition into unarmed crowds.”




Every death was documented by "B'TSELEM - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories", at:


_________________________________________________


Flyer used at the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA), in October 2000, as students requested a resolution to divest the University from all investments in Israel:




Click on this flyer to enlarge it.

________________________________________________

Saturday, January 9, 2010

The Zionist & U.S. definition of "democracy" -- Genocide against Arabs and Muslims:





Photo: How Israeli soldiers interact with the Palestinian children they occupy.


__________________________________


Monday, January 4, 2010

" 'Boycott Israel!' was one of the most popular chants, and there was broad support for strengthening the international BDS movement."




"Egypt's shameful ban on freedom marchers:

"Laura Durkay reports from Cairo on the efforts of the Gaza Freedom Marchers to show their solidarity with Palestine—and the crackdown by Egyptian authorities."


January 4, 2010

At:



"... the Gaza Freedom March functioned as an ad hoc global gathering for the Palestine solidarity movement on a scale that hasn't occurred before, bringing together hundreds of people from dozens of countries and creating networks that will last long after the delegates return to their home countries.


"Perhaps the most significant thing to come out of the week of Gaza Freedom March actions was a document that is being called the Cairo Declaration to End Israeli Apartheid. Initiated by members of the contingent from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, it is designed to provide a framework for internationally coordinated actions for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.


"Throughout the weekend, 'Boycott Israel!' was one of the most popular chants, and there was broad support for strengthening the international BDS movement. 'Israel can kill Palestinians at will,' said Mick Napier, chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. 'What they cannot do is move goods into South African ports. We're weak against Israeli guns at checkpoints. I want to fight where we're strong, and they're weak, which is pretty much everywhere in the world outside of apartheid Israel.' "


______________________________________


Sunday, January 3, 2010

Gaza Freedom March backs Boycott against Israel, issuing "Cairo Declaration"--



Greg Dropkin and COSATU's George Mahlangu presented the Cairo Declaration to Gaza Freedom March participants, in Cairo, on Jan. 1, 2010.

Photo from the Indypendent, Jan. 1, 2010.






Gaza Freedom March: Declaration from Cairo



By Ellen Davidson and Judith Mahoney Pasternak

On the Web at:



CAIRO, January 1—This morning, a couple of hundred Gaza Freedom March (GFM) participants ringingly endorsed the “Cairo Declaration,” the founding document of a new initiative for deepening opposition to Israel’s apartheid policies and increasing the reach and impact of the Palestine solidarity movement.


Hammered out over the past week by a Gaza Freedom March committee led by the South African delegation, the declaration centers on a plan for recruiting international trade union support for the campaign for boycotts of, divestment from, and sanctions against Israel.


Entitled “End Israeli Apartheid,” the declaration:


  • Spells out Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people—from the occupation of the West Bank and the construction of illegal settlements there to the building of the separation wall and the siege of Gaza;
  • Identifies Zionist ideology as the fundamental basis for those acts;
  • Reaffirms participants’ commitment to Palestinian self-determination, the end of the occupation, “equal rights for all within historic Palestine,” the Palestinian right of return, and the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions; and
  • Calls for and commits to working on an international “mass democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement” the call for BDS

The document proposed concrete steps, including “an international speaking tour … by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this program within the countries toured”; “coordination of citizens arrest bureaus to identify, campaign [and seek] to prosecute Israeli war criminals”; and “campaigns against charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF),” whose charter
mandates it to purchase land for Jewish settlement.

Two of the seven action points are specifically aimed at bringing trade unions into the effort: “campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the occupation and/or the Israeli military industries” and “a systematic unified approach to the boycott of Israeli products involving consumers, workers, and their unions in the retail, warehousing, and transportation sectors.”


______________________________________________


Banner at Cairo demonstration, against the Israeli siege on Gaza, says: "Stop Collective Annihilation".




Hundreds of internationals, with the Gaza Freedom March, demonstrated in Cairo in late December 2009 and early January, 2010.

On January 1, 2010, they marched on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.

400 marchers converged from different directions to form a crowd opposite the building, where they held up banners and shouted chants including “Boycott Israel” and “Nous sommes tous Palestiniens” (“We are all Palestinians”).

In coordination with Palestinian participants, the Gaza Freedom March also adopted the "Cairo Declaration", against Israel's crimes against humanity, and for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.


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

Saturday, January 2, 2010

"It is almost certain that new organizing around 'boycotts, divestment and sanctions' against the Israeli occupation... will take place"


"Gaza Freedom March: What We've Accomplished So Far",


by Robert Naiman


January 2, 2010
The Huffington Post


At:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/gaza-freedom-march-what-w_b_409277.html






"...It is almost certain that new organizing around "boycotts, divestment and sanctions" against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza will take place in the United States as a result of the Gaza Freedom March.


"There is a strong push from Palestinian solidarity activists in South Africa and Europe for American solidarity activists to do more to promote the "BDS" campaign. There are plans for a delegation of Palestinian and South African trade unionists to tour the United States, and for student activists in the U.S. to train other student activists to launch BDS campaigns at universities."




________________________________________

Friday, January 1, 2010

Boycott against "Israel" is demanded in Houston demonstration:



Demonstration, by at least 100 people, demanding boycott against Israel, and freedom for Palestine.

In Houston, Texas, December 27, 2009.



Click on demonstration poster to enlarge it.

Houston, Texas demonstration against U.S. funding for Israeli occupation, against U.S. funding for Israeli massacre of Palestinians.



Click on demonstration poster to enlarge it.


________________________________