Students will always demand boycott, and divestment, against Apartheid Israel:

Click on that front page, to enlarge it.

Yes, that was the front-page banner headline, April 22, 2003, on the Wayne State University "South End" newspaper.

The Wayne State University Student Council voted to divest, to get rid of, all investments in Apartheid Israel.


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"Wayne State University Divestment Resolution, approved by Student Council"

You can click on this front page, too, to enlarge it.

It filled up the entire front page of the Dearborn, Michigan newspaper, "The Arab American News".

You can also see the full Divestment Resolution text below, exactly as it was approved:


Text of Wayne State University's Student Council Divestment Resolution:
Approved on April 17, 2003,
Detroit, Michigan.

This Resolution is on the Web at:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-news-0376.html


"WHEREAS, the Student Council of Wayne State University has grave misgivings about financing violent ethnic cleansing, racially directed against millions of occupied Palestinian civilians, who are both innocent and helpless,

"WHEREAS, those millions of Palestinians suffer long-term malnutrition, are surrounded by Israeli army bulldozers, tanks, soldiers, and by jet bombers, all of which have killed thousands of occupied Palestinians,

"WHEREAS, on Sunday, March 16, 2003, an American college student, Rachel Corrie, was killed in plain sight, while dressed in bright orange, while waving, and while shouting at an Israeli Army bulldozer through a megaphone, by that same Israeli Army bulldozer, in the Occupied Gaza Strip,

"WHEREAS, that Israeli Army bulldozer ran her over twice,

"WHEREAS, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged us all to divest from Israel due to its violent and humiliating apartheid policies,

"WHEREAS, Israel was a long-time, close ally of White Apartheid South Africa,

"WHEREAS, the Wayne State University Board of Governors ("the Board") has knowledge of University investments, including what governments our University is paying taxes to by means of investment, and has the authority to seek such information from its fund managers,

"THEREFORE IT IS RESOLVED, that we ask the Board to immediately divest (dis-invest) our university from Israel,

"THEREFORE IT IS FURTHER RESOLVED, that we ask the Board for a report this semester, on its progress in divesting the University from its investments in Israel, including divestment from all companies doing business in Israel, and divestment from all stocks and pension funds which include those companies."


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"So much for the Middle East's only 'democracy' "

by Students movement for Justice
Contributing Columnists

Published in "THE SOUTH END"
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan

October 29, 2002


Last Thursday at a literature table in the Student Center, Students' Movement for Justice handed out literature fliers, solidarity with Palestine pins, and other information pertinent to the activism it has brought to campus since its establishment at the beginning of this semester.

Its organizers displayed a large Palestinian flag, and some of the banners used at the rallies they held on Oct. 1 and 14 for the struggles in Palestine and Iraq, respectively. While many members of the university and the Detroit community expressed a great deal of interest and support for SMJ's goals, the feedback wasn't positive all day long.

Around 5:20 p.m., two women stood in front of the table, looking at the posters with disapproval on their faces. A SMJ member decided to go over and talk to them. She noticed they were speaking to each other in a language other than English, so she extended her hand to greet one of them and said "Hi. How are you? Where are you from?" The woman replied "I'm Jewish, and I'm going to kill you for doing this."


We wish some of the most passionate people who support Palestine were there at the time to reply to her. We are talking about the many Jews who show rare compassion for the Palestinians and who are ashamed of what is being done by the Israeli government in their name. The examples of these people are countless, and the SMJ is proud to have such Jews among its membership.

While we would like to think that the attitude, which was expressed by this uncivilized remark is not representative of Zionists, evidence tends to show otherwise. Only a few weeks ago did the Michigan Students Zionists sue the University of Michigan for allowing a conference on Palestine to take place on its campus. In a witty editorial, Ari Paul, a Jewish student at U of M, expressed his utter shame from what the group had done in the name of Judaism. Paul considered the lawsuit "a horrible disservice" to the Jews its initiators supposedly represent.

Imagine if any student on campus, Arab or other, had said to a Zionist "I'm Arab/Muslim/Latino/White/African/Asian-American and I'm going to kill you for doing this." They automatically would have been labeled "anti-Semitic" and may have faced criminal charges for such a threat.

If Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, as its supporters so passionately try to remind the rest of us, it may want to at least pretend it is. If Zionists on this campus are going to claim that the SMJ's posters went beyond free speech by inciting anti-Semitic violence (as was claimed by the Zionists at U of M about the conference), it seemed to have incited only Zionist verbal violence against the group itself. Other Jewish faculty and students came and showed their support as well.

Unless Zionists are somehow more Semitic than pro-Palestine Jews, why do they have a problem with one of the most fundamental rights a democracy is supposed to offer?

While non-Jews in Israel are forbidden the right to protest, among endless other rights, it is a Constitution-protected right in this country and will be exercised for the sake of justice by every human of conscience, despite Zionists' childish, self-contradicting statements.

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Dec. 11, 2008: "Protest Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."

Stand for Justice:
Protest Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

Thursday December 11, 2008, at 6:00 PM.

Location: Yspilanti Marriott at Eagle Crest,
Ypsilanti, Michigan.


At 6 PM, we will gather in peaceful protest at the intersection of Huron St. and
James L. Hart Parkway, just south of [I-94] Exit 183.

Inside the Marriott, the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County will be raising money, in large part for Israel.

As Gaza starves, the Federation will be inside enjoying desserts, "pre-glow dinner", and the so-called "insights" of NPR Political Correspondent Mara Liasson, who is also a FOX News Channel Political Analyst.


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At the U.N.: Rallying around condemnation of Apartheid Israel.

"U.N. Assembly Head Hailed for Blasting Israel"

By Thalif Deen

On the Web at:

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44949


UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 (IPS) - The president of the General Assembly, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, dropped a political bombshell last week when he lashed out at Israel for its repressive actions in the occupied territories, including the recent blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

"What is being done to the Palestinian people seems to me to be a version of the hideous policy of apartheid," he told delegates, during a meeting commemorating the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People".

A senior U.N. official told IPS: "I cannot remember any Assembly president so publicly vocal in denouncing Israel."

D'Escoto damned both the Israelis and the United Nations for the plight of the Palestinians. "And he was on target," the official added.

"I believe," D'Escoto said, "that the failure to create a Palestinian state as promised is the single greatest failure in the history of the United Nations."

Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, told IPS that D'Escoto's comments are a welcome reminder of the reality on the ground, and "a valiant attempt to hold the international community responsible for its posturing on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and siege of Gaza."

She said Father Miguel's "remarkable statement" carries more resonance given the silence of world powers.

"And his tenure still has nine months to go," said Hijab, of D'Escoto's stint as Assembly president, which expires in September 2009.

Addressing the Assembly last week, D'Escoto pointed out that it has been 60 years since some 800,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes and property, becoming refugees and an uprooted and marginalised people.

The General Assembly, 61 years ago this month, adopted a historic resolution (181) calling for the creation of a Jewish State and an Arab State, he said.

"The State of Israel, founded a year later in 1948, celebrates 60 years of its existence," D'Escoto said, "Shamefully, there is still no Palestinian State to celebrate."

The New York-based Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) condemned the General Assembly for commemorating Palestine Solidarity Day and "deplored" D'Escoto's remarks which "compared Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories to South Africa's apartheid policies."

JCPA Chair Andrea Weinstein said: "It is terribly sad that the members of the General Assembly find it necessary to spend two days participating in programmes criticising a member states' existence."

It is even more "abhorrent", Weinstein said, that the Assembly's current president would seek to de-legitimise Israel by comparing its policies to those of apartheid South Africa.

D'Escoto has also come under attack for embracing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the General Assembly sessions in September.

Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev responded by calling D'Escoto an "Israeli hater".

Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS: "As most of us who have actually visited the West Bank in recent years can testify, it really is an apartheid-like situation, with Jewish-only settlements connected by Jewish-only roads with Arabs allowed in only for menial labour while their communities -- divided by hundreds of Israeli checkpoints -- languish in increasing poverty and deprivation."

"Recognising this situation as it is and the critical importance of establishing a viable Palestinian state is not being anti-Israel, as an increasing numbers of Israelis themselves are recognising, but is simply a reflection of reality," said Zunes, who chairs the University's programme in Middle East studies.

Hijab told IPS that the Israeli occupation is now so dire that it has driven the most moderate of Palestinian leaders-- Salam Fayyad -- to speak out against European plans to upgrade their relations with Israel.

Fayyad, who is credited by the United States and Europe for his efforts to bring transparency to Palestinian financial transactions and security to Palestinian cities, said "the misery index in Gaza has never been higher" and that the world community is not telling Israel that there is a trade-off for internationally unlawful behaviour, she added...


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Support grows for proposals to boycott Israel--

"Petition to: Boycott, Divest & Sanction Israel!"

Posted by: BirchBricker

On the Web at:

http://www.edhtelegraph.com/detail/100061.html

December 1, 2008

Petition in support of call by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D’escoto Brockmann for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

During the 57th Plenary Meeting on the Question of Palestine, President of the General Assembly Miguel D'escoto Brockmann broke a diplomatic taboo by describing Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as similar to those of the defunct apartheid regime in South Africa.

Brockmann also urged the United Nations to use the term ‘apartheid’ without fear, and recommended that the United Nations

"....should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

Unsurprisingly, Brockmann has been branded as an antisemite by apologists for Israel.

We are appalled by the recurrent use of baseless accusations of antisemitism; they silence calls for compassion and humanity in the name of the Palestinian people. The use of such accusations to defend massive violence against civilians offends all people of conscience. The false invocation of the slur of antisemitism positions Israel, with great political and military advantage, as a victim, while desecrating Jewish histories and trivializing the real experiences and outcomes of antisemitism.

Likening Israel's policies to apartheid is not antisemitic. It is common sense. Israel's policies have been widely described in these terms by, among others, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Jamal Zahalka, Azmi Bishara, Gideon Levy, John Dugard, Omar Barghouti, Danny Rubinstein, Amira Haas, Shulamit Aloni, Meron Benvenisti, and Ami Ayalon.

Calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel is not antisemitism. It is the recognition that only such a campaign can lay the ground for a long-lasting peace based on justice and reconciliation. In the words of Nelson Mandela,

"The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East..."

As Israel continues to ignore the growing outrage over the blockade of Gaza, and as Israel repeatedly breaks the cease-fire, blocks humanitarian aid and prevents journalists from covering the catastrophic impact of its actions, we the undersigned express our support for President Brockmann and urge the United Nations and all member states to adopt his recommendation without delay.

--Signed, The Peace And Freedom Party

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"The Gaza Strip is now the largest concentration camp in the world."

"Israel membership at the UN is conditional on its respect for international law."

"Revoking Israel's UN Membership"

By Snorre Lindquist and Lasse Wilhelmson – Stockholm

December 3, 2008

On the Web at:

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14445

The Gaza Strip is now the largest concentration camp in the world. The situation grows steadily more insufferable for the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. Deliveries of food, medicine and fuel are made difficult or stopped altogether. Child malnutrition is increasing. Water supplies and drainage have ceased to function. Children die for lack of healthcare. Tunnels to Egypt, dug by hand, are the only breathing space. Journalists and diplomats are denied entry. Israel is planning more military efforts. The Palestinians in Gaza are now to be starved into surrender and become an Egyptian problem.

The UN should use the word apartheid in connection with Israel and consider sanctions with the former South Africa serving as a model. Miguel dÉscoto Brockman, president of the UN General Assembly, conveyed this message at a meeting on November 24th 2008 with the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon present.

The 1976 Nobel peace prize laureate, Mairead McGuire from Ireland, recently suggested a popular movement demanding that the UN revoke Israel’s membership. The international community now needs to put tangible pressure on Israel in order to stop its war crimes.

Not once, during the past 60 years, has Israel shown any intention of living up to the requirements stipulated by the UN, in connection with the country’s membership in 1948, namely that the Palestinians who had been evicted from their homes should be allowed to return at the earliest possible opportunity. Moreover, Israel holds the hardly flattering world record of ignoring UN resolutions.

It can be questioned from the aspect of human rights legislation whether Israel is a legitimate state. Established practice between states usually requires borders that are legally maintained and a constitution, neither of which Israel has. These requirements are also named in the UN resolution (181) Partition Plan for Palestine, approved by the General Assembly in November 1947. The plan was accepted by the Zionists Jews in Palestine but rejected for excellent reasons as unjust by the Arab states. Only decisions made by the UN Security Council are mandatory. Later on, Israel unilaterally laid claim to a considerably larger portion of land than that suggested by the UN.

The eviction of eighty per cent of the Palestinians who lived west of the 1947 armistice line, and Israel’s refusal to allow them to return is the human rights argument for expelling Israel from the UN. Not only has Israel played the Partition Plan false but has, by its actions, thwarted the grounds – fragile from the start – for its UN membership.

Israel makes use of various strategies to achieve its goals, the same goals as for over a hundred years ago: As few and as well controlled and weakened Palestinians as possible in areas as small as possible between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan. And to try and get acceptance worldwide for the theft of land that is vital to the “state” that calls itself “Jewish and democratic”. This obviously bears no similarity to a peace process.

Why does nobody ever comment on the fact that Israel’s prime minister never misses an opportunity to harp on about how important it is that the rest of the world and the Palestinians recognise Israel, not as a democratic country for all its citizens, but as a “Jewish state”?

What would we have said if South Africa’s Prime Minister, in a similar way, had demanded recognition of South Africa as a “white and democratic state”, thus de facto accepting the racist apartheid system that allowed non-whites to be classified as lesser human beings?

In the article The end of Zionism, published in the Guardian on September the 15th 2003 the Jewish dissident and former speaker of Knesset, Avraham Burg wrote:

“Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a central pillar of their identity must pay heed and speak out … We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew ... The prime minister should present the choices forthrightly: Jewish racism or democracy.”

No support can be found in The UN recommendation concerning a Jewish and a Palestinian state for unequal rights for the citizens of each country. Neither is there any indication as to how a “Jewish” state could become Jewish. There is support, however, for the intention that demographic conditions should be held intact at partition. Interpreting into the text an intention concerning characteristics of a “Jewish state” tailored to the ideology of Zionism is wholly in contradiction with the text of the resolution.

Even the Balfour Declaration, which entirely lacks human rights status, notes that the Jewish national home in Palestine should in no way encroach upon the rights of the Palestinians. Neither did US President Truman recognise Israel as a Jewish state. On the contrary, he ruled out precisely that formulation before making his decision to recognise Israel.

Thus, the legitimacy of a “Jewish state” so urgently sought by Israel lacks support in international documents that concern the building of the state. Israel’s government is, of course, fully aware of this. Why else would it keep on searching for this recognition?

The UN should now embark on a boycott of the apartheid state of Israel and, with the threat of expulsion from the UN, demand that Israel allows the evicted Palestinian refugees to return in accordance with the UN resolutions 194 and 3236.

With this done, meaningful peace talks can proceed and various solutions be reached for co-habitation with equal rights for all people between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan. No such solution can be compatible with the preservation of a Jewish apartheid state.

- Snorre Lindquist is a Swedish Architect of, among other things, the House of Culture in front of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem on the West Bank. Contact him at snorre_lindquist@hotmail.com.

- Lasse Wilhelmson is a commentator on the situation in the Middle East, and is a member of a local government in Sweden for 23 years, four of which in an executive position. Contact him at: lasse.wilhelmson@bostream.nu. The writers contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

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Iraq & Palestine:Still crucified by the U.S. and "Israel"--

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The U.S. and Israel, guzzling Iraq's oil, blood, and land:

The U.S. and Israel, vampiring their way across the Muslim and Arab world.

This cartoon is on the Web at:

http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2DB8C7BB-9BAD-4B68-A5BF-17E9F6FBD9A5.htm



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