Boycotting Apartheid Israel, at the University of Pittsburgh

"Palestinian conference reveals Israeli-Palestinian debate on campus"

by Erin Bloch

THE PITT NEWS
University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)

published: Thu, 22 Oct, 2009

On the Web at:

http://www.pittnews.com/article/2009/10/22/palestinian-conference-reveals-israeli-palestinian-debate-campus

Rachel Corrie stood as one of the links in a makeshift human forcefield. In six or seven seconds, her life was taken by an Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer.

The bulldozer ran her over twice, and her efforts to save local Palestinian citizen Samir Nasrallah’s home abruptly came to an end.

Stories of untimely conflicts between the Israelis and Palestinians are frequent because of the constant conflict in the Middle East. Corrie’s story, however, is unique because it will be expressed through a theatrical debut at a Students for Justice in Palestine conference this weekend, entitled “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.”

The conference, which runs today through Sunday, focuses on building and enhancing the boycott, divestment and sanction, or BDS, movement on Pitt’s campus. Other participants in the conference include the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine and Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee.

The conference touches on a controversial topic not just in the Middle East, but also here on campus.

Panthers for Israel, Pitt’s pro-Israel organization, does not agree with the conference’s message.

Chelsea Zimmerman, vice president of Panthers for Israel, said the conference doesn’t promote equality between the two sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Each day of the conference is divided into several sections and includes workshops during which participants will learn about the BDS movement and the actors involved. Tonight’s opening event will feature Palestinian-American poet and presenter Remi Kanazi. On the final day of the conference, attendees will immerse themselves in a theatrical production of “My Name is Rachel Corrie.”

The BDS movement, according to Courtney Nassar of the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee, is a successful, non-violent method used to gain justice in South Africa, which “brings justice and equality to to all peoples.”

The method involves creating pressure from foreign actors on the Israeli government, Nassar said. The intent of the strategy is to end the Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank and what Palestinian activists call human rights abuses of their people.

She said that boycotting Israeli products is one of the ways the Students for Justice in Palestine plan to effect change in a non-violent manner. There are three types of boycotting that can promote the cause: cultural, consumer and academic.

This past February, Students for Justice in Palestine, along with other pro-Palestinian groups, used a cultural boycott method when the exclusively Israeli Batsheva Dance Company preformed in Pittsburgh.

The conference stresses consumer boycotting. Jaffa, a popular variety of Israeli orange and frequent export to the United States, is one product which Students for Justice in Palestine and its supporters are targeting. The conference’s graphic features a blood-smeared orange slice with the slogan, “Don’t squeeze a Jaffa. Crush the Occupation.” Specifically, Nassar said, it represents the “blood of the Palestinians. If you buy a Jaffa Orange, you are buying into the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” She said that in 2003, Palestinians called on the United States to implement the boycott and divestment strategy nationwide.

Nassar said the occupation affects Palestinian human rights. Palestinians are losing their homes and jobs, and 11,000 prisoners and refugees are being held in Palestine or Israel, she said.

Nassar said a wall was built in 1967 to divide the Palestinians from the Israelis, which created checkpoints where Palestinians and their supporters are searched before entering into Israeli territory, where their land and jobs exist. Nassar experienced these “human rights violations” firsthand when she traveled to Israel for a month and visited the West Bank as a Palestinian supporter.

The BDS movement also calls for the American people to divest and know how their tax money is distributed.

“Roughly $7 million everyday leaves the tax payers and is given to aid the Israeli military,” she said. “We are funding the occupation and need to invest our money elsewhere.”

The groups organizing this weekend’s conference want the event to be about awareness. Students and community members will learn what products should be boycotted and the amount of effort — “very little,” Nassar said — needed to help the cause.

Pitt students and Pittsburgh community members “just need to show up and educate themselves,” Nassar said.

Nassar said she wants students and community members to know that the groups involved with the conference have problems with the Israeli government, not with the Israeli people.

Zimmerman said she’s concerned about the point of view that the conference will express.

“My issue with this conference is that the only [country] it’s pointing fingers at is Israel,” Zimmerman said. “If it were a conference calling on all countries who haven’t done their part, that would be one thing, but the fact that they are targeting Israel is what I have a problem with.”

Zimmerman said that the average Israeli person wants peace just as much as the average Palestinian person.

“No one is denying that there is a humanitarian crisis involving the Palestinian people in Israel,” Zimmerman said. “If this conference were to help the Palestinians in need, I would have no problem with that, but it’s not.”

Further, she said she’s concerned that she hasn’t heard Students for Justice in Palestine mention anything about Hamas, a known Palestinian terrorist group against the Israeli occupation, or the suicide bombings Palestinians have committed against Israel.

Zimmerman said that the divestment and boycotting plan is “lofty” and that an ideal starting point would be to look at the Palestinian leadership and its deprivation of their people.

“Money donated by the U.N. [to Palestinians leaders] is put towards corrupt ideals by corrupt leadership, which fosters hatred,” Zimmerman said.
The Panthers for Israel are worried that this conference will give students and community members the wrong idea.

The protests which Students for Justice in Palestine hosted make some Panthers for Israel members uncomfortable.

“Yes, they’re just standing there and not doing anything illegal, but they’re meant to elicit emotion. Posters of dead Palestinians draw attention and are inflammatory propaganda. I feel helpless,” Zimmerman said....

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Divesting from the "criminal nation" of Israel, at the University of Wisconsin:

Opinion:

"UW must divest from Caterpillar"

By Sam Stevenson

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 10:59 p.m

The Badger-Herald
University of Wisconsin-Madison

On the Web at:

http://badgerherald.com/oped/2009/10/13/uw_must_divest_from_.php

Israel is a criminal nation. This statement has been a verifiable fact for many decades and continues to gain support with each new violation of international law Israel commits. Most recently, a U.N. report authored by Richard Goldstone — a South African judge and self-proclaimed Zionist — found that Israel (and Hamas) committed war crimes and (quite possibly) crimes against humanity earlier this year during the Israeli invasion of Gaza. During that war the Israeli army killed more than 1,300 Gazans including 437 under 18. They also wounded nearly 2,000 Gaza children. In contrast, the Israel Defense Forces suffered 13 causalities, nearly half victims of friendly fire. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were left homeless in the war’s aftermath. Even before the war, figures as diverse as President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu had compared the conditions of Palestinians in the occupied territories to those of blacks in South Africa under apartheid.

If this seems like the complete antithesis of a “campus issue,” you might be surprised how far reaching the conflict really is. Allow me to explain how this tragic story actually does affect students at this university and what genuine opportunities we have to seek justice for the Palestinians, safety for the Israelis and perhaps even the beginnings of a resolution to one of the most obdurate conflicts in modern history.

The war in Gaza was the most recent outburst of violence stemming from a persistent aggression that has been smoldering in its modern incarnation for more than 60 years. Of the many factors contributing to the seething animosity between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, the pervasive occupation of Palestinian lands, accompanied by the wanton demolition of Palestinian homes and businesses by the Israel Defense Forces, have been central.

The rationale behind this destruction has been disputed since the practice began in 1945 under a British mandate. The IDF insists the demolition of Palestinian property is for the sole purpose of destroying militant hideouts and supply chains. However, in the occupied territories it has been argued that the true rationale behind the bulldozing of Palestinian homes is to disembowel Palestinian dignity and what little control they have left over their own lives. The latter point is certainly supported by the tragically farcical bulldozing notice given to residents, usually on the order of minutes to a half hour.

When Israel destroys hundreds of Palestinian homes as “punishment” and thousands more to root out “terrorists,” its motives are brought into serious doubt. Indeed, the IDF violates the Geneva Convention every time they destroy private property for purposes other than those “rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”

So how does all this affect us and what can we do as students to send a message to Israel that we denounce their cruel and gratuitous mistreatment of Palestinians? Well, it all starts with money.

The UW system has an endowment that is invested in a long list of corporations. One of those corporations is Caterpillar — the manufacturer of the bulldozers that the IDF employs to tear down Palestinian homes — to the tune of nearly $400,000. The tuition dollars we give the university every year fund this system and makes us, in part, responsible for how and where this endowment is invested. A brief review of the facts makes it clear the UW System Board of Regents must follow historical precedent and withdraw endowment funds from companies doing business with perpetrators of war crimes.

In the past, the UW has divested from countries and companies that are complicit in violations of international law. These include South Africa, Burma and Sudan. In fact, the UW System Trust and Fund Policy states it will “seriously reconsider” investments in companies that “violate, frustrate or subvert” international law. Cases involving Caterpillar’s complicity in violations of international law as well as the legality of Israel’s demolition policy are currently being litigated; indisputably, compelling evidence of criminality exists. Other universities in the U.S. and Europe have already divested from Caterpillar for these very reasons.

Ultimately, divestment would send a message to Israel that one of the largest public universities in the United States views its conduct as abhorrent and in need of drastic change. That is the message Israel needs to hear not only from the federal government but also from the myriad institutions in this country that support the apartheid-like conditions Israel brandishes over the Palestinian people.

That message and the position it embodies is ironically the most pro-Israel stance one can take. Indeed, it is only by being critical of Israeli policy and endeavoring to change it that one can hope of achieving a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Any practical and serious observer knows that a two-state solution is the only just resolution for the Palestinians and the Israelis. Only after serious concessions are made can peace, safety and healthy livelihoods be made manifest in the region. That process begins by withdrawing unconditional support for Israel and instead holding them to tough, honest standards by which the Palestinians are treated humanely. That process can begin with UW students.

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"more than 5,000 signatures were collected and presented to Ann Arbor's city council" for a resolution to withhold U.S. aid to Israel

"Protest against Starbucks draws bypasser support"

By Nick Meyer
ARAB AMERICAN NEWS

Friday, 09.04.2009, 10:35pm

On the Web at:

http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Community&article=2460

Protestors demonstrated against apartheid outside Cobblestone Farm in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, Sept. 2 during a meeting between Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and employees. The group believes Schultz contributes large sums of money to support occupation in Israel.

The city of Ann Arbor has long been a hotspot for the Boycott Israel movement, and a group of the most fervent Palestinian rights activists continued that tradition Wednesday, protesting a meeting between Starbucks employees and CEO Howard Schultz.

Schultz's meeting was held at the Cobblestone Farm and Park in Ann Arbor while 13 protestors demonstrated and waved signs with phrases like "Boycott Israel" and "No More Apartheid" to thousands of passing motorists.

"It was important to convey that there is serious concern on the part of people of Ann Arbor about human rights violations in Gaza and Palestine," said protestor Mozghan Savabieasfahani. "As a general thing we have asked the city to boycott Israel and we protest when people have come to promote more business with Israel, that's the message we want to get out."

The protestors, many of whom were Ann Arbor citizens, have taken issue with Schultz and the company because of Schultz's alleged ties with Israel and Zionism.

They cited a June 2002 Independent World article by Robert Fisk in which he stated that Schultz was awarded the "Israeli 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" in 1998 from the Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha-Torah, which is strongly critical of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and insists that the occupied Palestinian territories should be described only as "disputed."

Schultz also gave a speech at the height of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's reoccupation of West Bank towns condemning Palestinian "inaction" and announced that "the Palestinians aren't doing their job – they're not stopping terrorism" in 2002 according to the article.

The Starbucks corporate office called ongoing boycotts "disheartening" and "based on blatant untruths" in an e-mail statement. The statement also said that Starbucks remains a "non-political organization" and that allegations that the company provides financial support to the Israeli government and/or army are "unequivocally false." The e-mail also pointed out that Starbucks operates 280 stores in nine countries in the Middle East.

Protestor Susan Hajhassan of Dearborn said that interest was high for the protest.

"I did notice a change in the overall reaction of people that passed by; in past protests we would get a lot of negative reactions, however this time there were more positive then negative which I found interesting," she said. "We had people stop, just wanting to know what the whole situation was about, which is positive for our cause."

Ann Arbor citizens have a long history of pushing for anti-Israel product boycotts. In 1984, more than 5,000 signatures were collected and presented to Ann Arbor's city council in an attempt to place a resolution urging the withholding of U.S. aid to Israel on the city ballot in April but the measure was never voted on. A similar measure was later defeated by a 6-4 vote that year.

Despite those setbacks, protestors continue to believe that their message will be heard and remain undaunted in their efforts.

"For 25 years people have been pushing in Ann Arbor for the council to pass a resolution but the city has just stonewalled the whole issue even up to today," said Blaine Coleman, a long-time protestor. "We're demanding it here and we're hoping that the people can demand a similar boycott of Israeli products in Dearborn as well from their city council."

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The Zionists try to drown Gaza in sewage--

"Gaza sewage 'a threat to Israel' "

The UN's Maxwell Gaylard made his appeal by one of Gaza's sewage lakes

BBC

September 3, 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8236733.stm

The UN and international aid agencies say Israel must relax its blockade of the Gaza Strip to allow urgent repairs to the water and sewage systems.

In a joint appeal, the bodies say the hazards to health and the environment threaten not only Gaza but Israel too.

More than 13m gallons (50m litres) of raw or partially treated sewage flows into the sea every day from Gaza because of a lack of treatment plants.

The cross-border aquifer is low and raw sewage floats back to Gaza and Israel.

Deadly flash flood

The UN says about 10,000 Gazans have no access to a water network - while about 60% of the 1.4m population receive water only intermittently.

Water consumption in the Strip is less than a third of that of Israelis living just a few kilometres away.

Israel, and Egypt on its south-western side, have kept Gaza largely sealed since a violent takeover of the territory by the Islamic militant Hamas group in 2007.

Israel says it is trying to weaken Hamas, end its rocket attacks against Israeli towns and get back an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured and taken to Gaza in 2006.

"The deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip," said UN humanitarian co-ordinator in the Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard.

Mr Gaylard and other humanitarian workers and officials launched the appeal with a news conference near one of northern Gaza's sewage lagoons to highlight the problem.

In 2007, one of the lagoons overflowed and five people were killed by a flash flood of sewage.

Aid agencies said Israel's bombardment in December and January worsened an already bad situation.

Israeli officials had no immediate comment to the appeal on Thursday.

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"Boycott - the Sane Response to Israeli Apartheid"

Boycott - the Sane Response to Israeli Apartheid

On "Palestine Telegraph" at:

http://www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/editorials/1984-boycott-the-sane-response-to-israeli-apartheid


Monday, 24 August 2009

Added by PT Editor Sarah Price

UK, August 24, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) -

The movement to boycott Israel is becoming respectable. In Europe and America as well as in the Middle East and many parts of the developing world, people of conscience - including many Jews - are rejecting anti-Arab prejudice and Zionist mythology and seeing Israel for what it is - an ethnocentric state which deserves to be ostracised just as South Africa was ostracised during the apartheid era.

Groups like mine - Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods - support the call made by nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organisations in 2005 for a broad campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, including an institutional academic and cultural boycott, until Israel respects Palestinian human rights and abides by international law.

Four years on, reports of boycott activities are appearing in mainstream media and the internet is buzzing with film, photos and text reports of inventive, non-violent and increasingly effective campaigns. These take many different forms.

Just this week, a worldwide campaign of letter writing resulted in the human rights organisation Amnesty International withdrawing from a scheme to manage the proceeds from a concert in Israel next month by American singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Cohen has been touring the globe for many weeks now, everywhere encountering musicians, artists and other campaigners pleading with him not to ignore the Palestinian boycott call. They argue that to go ahead with a concert in Israel is to reward Israelis for the murderous assault on Gaza last winter which killed 1,500 Palestinians and devastated a community of 1.5 million.

Cohen tried to persuade Amnesty to give his planned concert credibility by distributing funds to organisations he said work for reconciliation, tolerance and peace. But his argument was rejected by Palestinian groups which said the plan would only enhance Israeli legitimacy without restoring justice to Palestinians. Amnesty bowed out, but the campaign to halt Leonard Cohen's concert in Israel continues as part of the cultural boycott movement to persuade all international performers to stay away.

Artists and performers representing the Israeli state are also coming up against boycott actions when they travel abroad. Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) activists, protesting at the Israeli siege of Gaza which was in force long before the all-out military assault began in December 2008, disrupted a concert in Edinburgh last year by the Jerusalem Quartet, an Israeli musical ensemble designated ‘Cultural Ambassadors' of the State of Israel and ‘Distinguished IDF (Israeli Army) Musicians'

Five activists were arrested and are facing charges for ‘racially aggravated conduct'. The SPSC website http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/ said these were " trumped up charges based on the British Government's response to rising support among the public for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and the wave of anger at British complicity in Israeli crimes." They indicate official endorsement of "the tired Zionist strategy" of trying to intimidate Israel's opponents by accusing them of anti-Jewish racism, the campaign group said.

The Zionist habit of accusing Israel's critics of anti-semitism is losing its potency as more and more Jews, including some Israelis, recognise the powerful arguments for boycotting Israel. Scottish PSC has received vocal support from the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), a Jewish organisation committed to justice and full recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people. IJAN gave the Scottish activists its "unwavering support" and said "we reject the false premise that a challenge to the injustice of Israeli apartheid is a ‘racially motivated' act targeting Jewish people."

The network said it fully endorsed such actions undertaken in support of the call from Palestinian civil society for full boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Further Jewish endorsement of the boycott movement came this week from Neve Gordon who teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Gordon said he had reluctantly concluded that calling on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel was "the only way that Israel can be saved from itself."

He stated, "Israel today is . . . an apartheid state" in which the 3.5 million Palestinians and half a million Jews living in areas Israel captured in 1967 are "subjected to totally different legal systems."

Gordon said Jerusalem has become "an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services". The Israeli peace camp is almost nonexistent and politics has moved far to the right. "It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure."

If words and condemnation from the Obama administration and the European Union produce no moves towards Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) become the only option, Gordon said.

He referred to a gathering in Bilbao, Spain, last year when a coalition of organisations from all over the world resolved to campaign for "sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner.

"Artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not," Gordon added.

As part of the wide-ranging BDS movement, women in France, America and within Israel itself, have daubed themselves with mud and declared that they will not use Dead Sea beauty products from the Ahava company which bases its operations in the illegal West Bank settlement of Mitzpe Shalem.

YouTube videos show them chanting:

"Ahava, you can't hide, we will show your dirty side,
We're here to show your dirty hands, products made in stolen lands."

UK activists hold regular pickets outside a depot near London owned by Carmel Agrexco, the partly state-owned Israeli firm responsible for the bulk of fresh produce - flowers, herbs, fruit and vegetables - exported to Europe. Much of it comes from illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian land and depends on exploiting Palestinian water, labour and other resources, contravening the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the responsibilities of an occupying power.

Boycott campaigners bombard supermarkets with complaints about this and regularly distribute thousands of leaflets explaining to shoppers why they should avoid goods from Israel and the occupied territories.

Two leading supermarkets have entered into high-level discussions with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) on the subject, Cooperative stores and Marks & Spencer have stated that they will not stock settlement goods and Sainsbury's and the Cooperative have started to give shelf space to Palestinian olive oil.

The stores and the solidarity movement are awaiting new guidelines from the British government's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) which are supposed to clarify how goods are labelled, so that consumers can choose not to buy produce from stolen Palestinian land. Ultimately boycott campaigners want to see trade in all such goods banned.

To press home the point, inspired by supermarket actions in France, UK campaigners have recently begun to stage sit-down demonstrations in stores stocking Israeli and settlement goods. Film of their actions is accessible via the internet.

Campaigns to expose the complicity of some companies in the illegal occupation is another important element in the BDS movement. Following one such campaign, French company Veolia is reported to have pulled out of a consortium set to build a controversial rail project linking East Jerusalem and settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli-owned water cooler firm Eden Springs, which in Israel markets water from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, is facing repeated challenges to its contracts with public bodies in the UK.

US firm Caterpillar, which sells Israel the bulldozers it uses to demolish Palestinian homes, is the subject of a long-running international campaign pressuring it to stop selling heavy equipment to Israel. Four activists were arrested in March 2006 when, in front of CAT's main US office, they re-enacted the death three years earlier of peace activist Rachel Corrie, killed by a CAT bulldozer as she tried to stop it destroying a Palestinian house. Campaigning website www.catdestroyshomes.org says activists have targeted CAT merchandise in stores, investments in church and union funds, and declared "CAT-Free Zones" boycotting all CAT products. CAT distributors have seen protests from Belfast to Bil'in, Detroit to Denmark, San Francisco to Stockholm.

Support for boycott actions is growing within the trade union movement in Britain and Ireland.

The Electronic Intifada reported on 14 August that although the British union federation the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has not yet passed a BDS motion, the public sector union PCS, the University and College Union UCU and the Fire Brigades Union have all passed strong motions explicitly calling for a general policy of boycott of Israeli goods, divestment from Israeli companies and government sanctions against the state. Others have called for elements of BDS such as a boycott of settlement goods, or for the government to suspend arms sales to Israel.
In April, the independent Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) for the first time voted to endorse a report recommending "boycott and disinvest from Israeli companies".

The boycott movement faces constant attempts by Zionists to roll back its successes, usually deploying charges of discrimination. Campaigners were somewhat alarmed in July when the Council of Europe's European Court of Human Rights upheld a French ruling that it was illegal and discriminatory to boycott Israeli goods. According to a report in the Jerusalem Post on July 20, the Court also said that making it illegal to call for a boycott of Israeli goods did not constitute a violation of one's freedom of expression.

However, boycott campaigners believe the court's ruling probably has very limited application across Europe since it is based on a specific case under French law. Whatever their ethnicity, religious or political affiliation, human rights and peace campaigners are taking up the Boycott Israel call in growing numbers.

By Naomi Idrissi

- Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is a London-based Jewish campaigner for Palestinian rights. She is a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions committee. In 2006 she helped form Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) to support the work of PSC's BIG campaign. She is also an active member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the largest Jewish organisation in the UK concerned with Palestinian rights.

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Demonstration against Starbucks in Ann Arbor:Boycott Israel, Sept. 2, 2009.

Click on flyer to enlarge it:

Click on flyer to enlarge it.

Boycott Israel!

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, is coming to Ann Arbor on Wednesday, September 2nd 2009.

Protest: 12 Noon to 1:30 PM,

Day: Wednesday, September 2nd 2009.

Place: Cobblestone Farm, 2781 Packard Road, Ann Arbor, MI.
Cobblestone's Tel: 734.794.6230

Gaza is dying:

* In Gaza, anemia among children 9-12 months old stood at over 60 percent in February of 2009 (U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs)

* Bloody diarrhea and viral hepatitis remain major causes of morbidity among the refugee population of the Gaza Strip.


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Starbucks CEO: Hip-Deep in the Blood of Palestine.

See the article, below, from the last time he was picketed in Ann Arbor:



"Ann Arbor Jews protest Israel fundraiser"

ARAB AMERICAN NEWS

December 4-10, 2004

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-105267176.html


By Danielle Smith -- ANN ARBOR - Protesters stood outside theYpsilanti Marriott here this week on Palestine Solidarity Day in an effort to confront the guests of the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County's fourth annual fundraising event. Palestine Solidarity Day observes the anniversary of the UN Partition Plan of 1947 which created the State of Israel on Palestinian land.

The protest was a silent vigil organized by Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends (JWP & F) and took place on November 27th. Blaine Coleman, one protester, said, "Raising money for Israel, when the Israeli state is so thuggishly robbing and killing Palestine, is wrong."

The event was sponsored in part by Ford Motor Company.

Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks Coffee, was the featured speaker. Schultz has long been a lightning rod of controversy due his support of Israel. In 1998 he was honored by the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah with "The Israel 50th Anniversary Friend of Zion Tribute Award" for his services to the Jewish state in "playing a key role in promoting close alliance between the United States and Israel". The Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah funds the largely discredited website honestreporting.com and has been accused of illegally funding Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party.

The Jewish Federation claims that it initiates, coordinates, and supports activities here at home and around the world that strengthen Jewish life. JWP & F's founder Henry Herskovitz claims most of the more than half a million dollars raised at the dinner each year goes directly to Israel.

Neal Elyakin of Ann Arbor is the new federation president and is also a founder of the "Michigan Friends of the Israel Defense Forces," an organization that has outraged many Arab Americans in the Michigan community and which has recently been involved in an advertising scandal with local banks.

Herskovitz actually purchased a hotel room at the Marriott so the security guards could not kick him out went he went inside.

Henry said, "After the protest I went into the hotel lobby bar with my Free PalestineT-Shirt to watch attendees leaving the conference. I saw (U. S. Rep.) John Dingell, Ann Arbor Police Chief Dan Oates, Joan Lowenstein, Leigh Greden, four Ann Arbor city Councilpersons and four rabbis of Ann Arbor - Rob Dobrusin of Beth Israel, Bob Levy of Temple Beth Emeth, Aharon Goldstein of Chabad House, and his son Rabbi Alter Goldstein, of an unknown congregation.

"The security told me I was smart to buy a room 'or you would be so out of here...' "


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"Starbucks the target of Arab boycott for its growing links to Israel"

by Robert Fisk

"The Independent" (UK), June 14, 2002, at:


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/starbucks-the-target-of-arab-boycott-for-its-growing-links-to-israel-749289.html

"Across five Arab states a new and closely co-ordinated campaign to boycott American goods is being launched, with Starbucks coffee shops their primary target, but with Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Burger King outlets also on the list. In Beirut today, activists will be leafleting outside the city's four Starbucks shops, detailing the pro-Israeli sentiments of its chief executive, Howard Shultz, and claiming he is 'an active Zionist'.

"In 1998, Mr Shultz was awarded the "Israeli 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" from the Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha-Torah, which is strongly critical of Yasser Arafat and insists that the occupied Palestinian territories should be described only as 'disputed'.

"In a speech to Jewish Americans in Seattle earlier this year – at the height of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon's, reoccupation of West Bank towns – Starbucks' top man condemned Palestinian 'inaction' and announced that 'the Palestinians aren't doing their job – they're not stopping terrorism'. Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, complimented Mr Shultz for helping American students to hear 'Israeli presentations on the Middle East crisis'.

"...Mr Shultz is a regular visitor to Israel and one of many personalities who have been brought to Jerusalem as a guest of the Theodor Herzl mission, at whose gala dinner is held an award ceremony of the Friends of Zion to honour those 'who have played key roles in promoting close alliance between the United States and Israel'."


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"Oxford City Council calls for boycott" against Israel--

Video:

"Oxford City Council calls for boycott"

See video at:
http://www.vimeo.com/4750791




"Oxford City council called for a boycott of Israeli products following Israel’s assault on Gaza.

"In an unprecedented move, the Council passed a motion, which as well as condemning the loss of civilian life in Gaza, called for individuals to boycott products made by Israel."


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You can view the full motion, recognizing the importance of boycotting Israel, on the Oxford City Council's Web site.

Click on:

http://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/index.cfm/current/1/item/3211



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