Fiona Byrne keeps the faith on the universal relevance of human rights and the oppression of Palestinian people.
I am proud to have been one of five Greens and four ALP councillors on Marrickville who took the global message to local government.
We believe that we represent citizens who would not want their money being used to support the on-going dispossession of the Palestinian people.
We led Marrickville into support of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a grassroots movement, aimed at pushing the Israeli government to comply with international humanitarian law.
Rupert Murdoch, Barry O’Farrell, and, sadly, some of the leaders of the Labor Party felt differently.
They clearly believe that Australia is best served by the cone of silence on Middle Eastern policy that pervades our politics and our media, whether it is Israel, Syria or any other country where the struggle for human rights continues.
We do not agree.
I’m proud to have recently heard the story from my parents’ homeland of 12 department store workers in Dublin who in the mid-’80s went on strike for two-and-a-half years for the right to not handle goods from apartheid South Africa.
Initially they were vilified, but as the sanctions movement grew their courageous stand gave hope and strength to those fighting for their human rights half a world away.
The Marrickville Council was on the right side of history when it first chose to endorse the global BDS campaign. It remains so by insisting on Palestinian rights, despite the tactical setback. Brave Australians had done the same when responding to the calls from the oppressed South African majority under apartheid. We expect no less from conscientious Australians today in response to our urgent appeal for effective solidarity. I have no doubt that one day commentators and activists will mark Marrickville’s decision as the true beginning of mainstreaming BDS in Australia and of finally standing up to Israel’s lobby and for the rights of Palestinians.
The campaign against Marrickville Council’s support for BDS shows just how worried apologists for Israel are about the growing global support for an ethical local policy towards Israel based on its treatment of Palestinians.
The developments on Wednesday represent an unambiguous failure of Israel’s long-standing policy of ‘divide and rule’. It was in pursuit of such a strategy that Israel began to fund Hamas in the late seventies and eighties, in order to undermine the secular Palestinian leadership of the PLO. This strategy appears to have backfired dramatically, in a similar fashion to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in the creation of the other asymmetric threat on Israel’s borders, the Shi’ia Hizbollah movement.
In retrospect, such a development was always likely in view of the utter intransigence of Israeli negotiators revealed by the Palestinian Papers. The leaked documents reveal a supine, if not desperate, Palestinian negotiating team making sweeping concessions on refugees right to return, the legal status of the Temple Mount and illegal settlements in East Jerusalem, to no avail. Such obduracy, arguably far in excess of what hardline Zionist Vladamir Jabotinsky was recommending in his doctrine of the Iron Wall, recalls Golda Meir’s stance towards Anwar Sadat in 1971, a stance that led inexorably to the Yom Kippur War.
Gaza is a symbol of occupation, thanks to Israel : Israel’s Pavlovian response to Palestinian reconciliation, which included the usual threats of boycott, is the result of the ingrained anxiety of people who no longer control the process
The occupation is continuous in Israeli society and this is why they lose — because they try to force us to accept them as an occupier, and that will never happen. We don’t have any problem with Jewish people. Our problem is with Zionism. We don’t hate them on the other side; we simply demand that they end the occupation of their minds. The separation between us is between different ways of thinking, not between land. If we change our ways of thought and remove the mentality of occupation from our minds — not just from the land — we can live together and build a paradise.
…
The army is determined to push us toward violent resistance. They realize that the popular resistance we are waging with Israelis and internationals from the outside, they can’t use their tanks and bombs. And this way of struggling gives us a good reputation. Suicide bombing was a big mistake because it allowed Israel to say we are terrorists and then to use that label to force us from our land. We know they want a land without people — they only want the land and the water — so our destiny is to resist. They give us no other choice.
Samah Sabawi was be interviewed on the ABC’s Fran Kelly show tomorrow at 6.20am and will be heard again on SBS Arabic at 7.20pm tonight – Please ring in with questions for Samah if you’re around.
Item without notice: Motion (O’Sullivan/Macri)
THAT Council:
1. Resolve not to pursue the GBDS against Israel in any shape or form as called for in the December 14 resolution; and
2. Remains concerned about Palestinian human rights and calls on Israel to end the occupation of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall; ensure the fundamental rights of Palestinians to full equality; and respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.
Motion Carried For Motion and against BDS:
Councillors Hanna (Ind), Iskandar (ALP), Macri(Ind), Olive (G), O’Sullivan (ALP), Phillips (G), Tsardoulias (ALP) and Wright (ALP)
Against Motion and for BDS:
Councillors Byrne (G), Kontellis (G), Peters (G) and Thanos (Ind)
Marrickville BDS says:
Although Council is for the time being unable to continue formal support for BDS, there are many of us in the community to continue the struggle until apartheid is dead in Israel and it is a democracy for all its citizens.
Yesterday morning before the vote, Fran Kelly revealed that the NSW State ALP left faction voted in favour of BDS earlier this year in her interview with Deputy Mayor Sam Iskandar. Sam said BDS is not a goer as far as Marrickville council is concerned and unanimously the council was now against BDS. He seemed to be channelling the ziolobby and Ramallah, denied Anthony Albanese was a significant factor and sounded convinced that BDS is a federal issue. He also appeared to be under the misconception provoked by the ziolobby that the BDS movement holds a position on the one or two state solutions. It doesn’t.
Boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel can be implemented on an individual, organisational or institutional level with flexible, tactical measures targeting entities which support the Israeli Occupation and apartheid. BDS is grounded in human rights and international law and is called for because governments have failed Palestinians. The Australian government, for example, doesn’t support Palestinians, it sycophantically follows the Israel-centric US policy and interminable fake peace process, the deception by which Israel steals more Palestinian land, and continues its apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
For Marrickville Council to defer BDS to the federal government as ‘foreign policy’ is to deny truth – the Australian government has failed and is failing Palestinians – and it also means that the ziolobby strategy, to make an example of Marrickville in order to deter other such efforts, will have succeeded, temporarily – for as with other global human rights and justice grassroots movements, nothing can stop BDS. In Australia, grassroots mass movements for justice and rights with truth on their side inevitably WIN. The Marrickville Council BDS affair has served to gain national press coverage of BDS, the adversaries against it showed all their cards and it’s clear they will not withstand the unstoppable, legitimate ongoing global push for human rights and justice for Palestinians and accountability from Israel which BDS demands.
Those who think BDS is the wrong way to go to achieve justice and rights for Palestinian people aren’t listening to Palestinian civil society, but to the colonial voice in their head.
Boycotting Israel is the right thing to do:
Why Murdoch’s Australian is wrong over BDS
Speakers include:
Samah Sabawi, Australians for Palestine
Antony Loewenstein, author of My Israel Question
Sylvia Hale, former NSW Greens MP
The Murdoch media’s campaign to force Marrickville Council to abandon its support for a global campaign to pressure Israel to abide by international law has been relentless.
This meeting, called by concerned residents, will discuss the issues behind the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and how we can support justice for Palestine.
Plus a screening of the short video by Anna Baltzer: Life in Occupied Palestine
Organised by Marrickville residents supporting the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. Sponsored by the Sydney Peace Foundation.
Friday May 13, 6.30pm for 7pm
Holy Trinity Church Hall
11 Herbert Street
Dulwich Hill, Sydney
Gold coin donation
Marrickville Council Meeting
@Jo_Tovey Massive crowd at #marrickville council meeting. Protestors out front. Huge number of people can’t get in. Placards for and against boycott.
RT @bgaensler: Media circus at #Marrickville #BDS http://yfrog.com/hs9e0dlj
RT @bgaensler: Minute’s silence for lives lost in Israel/Palestinian conflict. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @Jo_Tovey: There are more than 20 members of the public speaking on the #BDS tonight. Could be a late one. #marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS Fiona Byrne marrickville mayor arrives to thunderous applause for originally backing Palestinian rights
Hasn’t read bdsmovement.net RT @Jo_Tovey: Speaker Leslie Marsh says the boycott has no paramaters, no goal of what would bring it to an end. #marrickville
RT @Pollytics: I can understand why The Australian is so against BDS Testing, being Ramsey RESET fundamentalists & all (comes w being dim)
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS how many speakers will discuss Palestine? First person says gaddafi and David duke backs bds. Er Riiiight then.
Yay, go @fatherdave !! RT @bgaensler: Speaker 2, “Father Dave”: flowery, poetic, & pro-BDS. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @antwoabboud: fr bob: #marrickville becomes the frontline for this conflict. Death threats in this little town. In support of mayor. #bds
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS father Dave speaks. Strategy of non violent resistance against military occupation of Israel. Must be supported. #Marrickville
RT @idunnonews: Father Dave says ‘i don’t know if this fight can be won but this fight is worth fighting…prepare for glory’ #marrickville
@domknight The Middle East has come to a halt as Israelis and Palestinians alike wait nervously for the verdict of #Marrickville Council.
@domknight If the Marrickville boycott goes ahead, a chastened Israel plans to leave the region entirely and relocate to the NT.
RT @aljazsydandrew: motion is downgrade policy fr active participation n boycott 2 merely ‘in principle’ support. #BDS #Marrickville
RT @andalusiya: every anti-BDS speaker wants peaceful actions, but they support the wars and occupation of Palestine. #marrickvile #bds
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS people speaking against bds seem to not want to talk about reality in west bank and gaza. Funny that. #Marrickville
RT @mayouss: #BDS #Marrickville yey Newtown yuppie waffling. He has 3 mins to talk shit.
RT @bgaensler: Speaker 4, Ashley from Newtown: “#BDS is a ploy to delegitimise Israel. Shouts from gallery of “terrorist”, “racist”. #Marrickville
@idunnonews Another speaker says ‘I supports mayor of marrickville, who has never degraded anyone based on their culture/faith/race’ #marrickville
@antloewenstein #BDS Colin Hesse talks bout #Murdoch hate campaign against people talking bout middle east. Never let truth get in way of islamophobia.
Hasbara twaddle RT @idunnonews: Jewish speakers calls for unity through consensus rather than mistrust through #BDS #marrickville
Hasbara RT @Jo_Tovey: Prof Alan Rosen asks community to start again, come together for peace and communal harmony. #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: #Marrickville Anti-Palestinian hate being espoused by speakers against #BDS is incredible.These people spruiking utopia r living in a bubble
Oh I can’t WAIT for her article on that #sarcasmfont RT @Jo_Tovey: Just spotted Miranda Devine in the press gallery. #marrickville
RT @mayouss: #bds #Marrickville speaker against says she’s the Jewish lobby and she says friendly. I am scared.
RT @aus4pal: #Palestine = bad,#Israel = good. That’s what the haters here in #Marrackville will have us all believe!! #BDS
RT @Jo_Tovey: Indigenous speaker Ray Minnecon said he would have loved to see this kind of action for his people’s injustices #marrickville
RT @mayouss: #BDS #Marrickville @antloewenstein says council should maintain bds motion because human rights matter #herehere #palestine
RT @mayouss: #Marrickville #BDS citizens acting locally to support globally
RT @Jo_Tovey: Says Israel does what it does bec west allows it, says there r not 2 equal sides in this conflict but an occupier & occupied.
RT @Jo_Tovey: Academic Peter Slezak praises BDS, says Jews like himself have an obligation to protest violence in their name #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Palestian Samah Sabawi says most concerning thing abt this debate is the bullying endured by elected officials. #marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #bds just spoke at #Marrickville. Israeli crimes matter. Standing up for Palestine matters. Happy to speak up for bds. Justice matters.
RT @antloewenstein: #bds just spoke at #Marrickville. Israeli crimes matter. Standing up for Palestine matters. Happy to speak up for bds. Justice matters.
RT @bgaensler: Speaker 14, Samar, her family still live in Gaza. Well spoken, actually referred to motion being considered! Pro-BDS. #Marrickville #BDS
Zionists find BDS negtive because it challenges their privileges & apartheid RT @Jo_Tovey: Uri Windt, from Jewish BD, says healing must begin and that no resolution containing the negativity of the BDS should pass. #marrickville
@Jo_Tovey Uri Windt, from Jewish BD, says healing must begin and that no resolution containing the negativity of the BDS should pass. #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Palestinian Bishara Costandi says issue is ‘local because Israel is global’. Says councillors must show moral fortitude. #marrickville
RT @bgaensler: Speaker 13: blames Murdoch press, government, Israel lobby. “Criticism from these groups shows #Marrickville is on right track with #BDS”.
Speaker 16: evicted from occupied territories in 1950s. Says if Palestinians had occupied Israel, everyone in #Marrickville would want #BDS
RT @bgaensler: 17th & last speaker at #Marrickville #BDS, Carole: “I support the boycott of Israel.”
RT @aus4pal: Local Carole Lawson speaks of #Bethlehem sister city farce if #bds is not implemented fully. #Marrickville
RT @idunnonews: Speaker says ‘ Palestinian uni students can’t get to their schools because of Israeli occupation in palestine’ #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Carole list other international councils who support #bds. Congrats to Mayor Fiona Byrne for your courage!! #marrickville
Mayor Fiona Byrne now thanking contributors, about to open discussion amongst Council. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @Jo_Tovey: Labor cr Laura Wright says symbolic support is for BDS is wrong, is a banner that will continue local war of words. #marrickville
More rubbish RT @Jo_Tovey: Greens cr Max Phillips says he will not back mayor’s call for in-principle BDS, not enough support in community to justify it. #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr Victor Macri spews the standard #hasbara. you #fail in this debate Cr Macri. #Marrickville #BDS
The spitting ziolobby have no idea what they have helped along. BDS will win the final battle 🙂
RT @aus4pal: Cr Marika speaks the #truth. #humanrights is THE MOST important thing!! #Marrickville #BDS
RT @misseagle: RT @mayouss: #bds #Marrickville palestine – It is a just cause. Councillor Marika.
RT @thebigriboldi: Greens Clr Kontellis sticks to resolve: it is a job as a human being to stand up for injustice #Marrickville 3 for 3 against (2 backflips)
RT @bgaensler: Councillor: we’ve let contract w Eden Springs expire because they supply water to Golan settlements #Marrickville #BDS
RT @goldentalon: #BDS has put #Marrickville on the map. Good on the Greens for taking a stand. The zionist entity must feel the wrath of the int’l community.
RT @mayouss: #bds #Marrickville not first council in the world. Will not cost a cent. @ councillor Marika
RT @aus4pal: Cr Marika reads letter of support frSpanish cnclrs 2 #Marrickville n #BDS. We mst spprt human rights and international law!!
Zionists don’t care about human rights for Palestinians because they don’t regard Palestinians as human! #Marrickville
RT @thebigriboldi: Clr o’Sullivan: symbolism doesn’t mean much. Obviously didn’t support the Apology #Marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS #marrickville sadly many councillors talk bout how much they care about Palestine and yet seem to want to sit on fence/reject bds. Sigh
RT @Jo_Tovey: Greens councillor Peter Olive denounces Labor councillors who supported original motion but have since gone silent. #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr O’Sullivan has sold out the #Palestinians. This is a disgrace. She’s speaking gibberish. WTF! #Marrickville #BDS
RT @jdub: The early, grass roots campaigns against apartheid began in universities and local government. #bds #marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr O’Sullivan is totally out of order. Crocodile tears for #Palestinians. #Marrickville #BDS
We already know RT @aus4pal: The man of the moment. Cr Iskandar is the deal breaker on #BDS #Marrickville debate. What will happen……….
RT @bgaensler: Cr Iskandar: We r a little isolated council but we stand for social justice & r respected 4 doing so. #Marrickville #BDS
If it walks like a duck and spits like a duck @misseagle @peter_b1953: The people acting like Nazis here are the Zionists #BDS #Marrickville
RT @aus4pal: Cr Iskandar tells us how much he cares about #Palestine. And???????? #Marrickville #BDS
RT @thebigriboldi: Hangs on Sam Iskander. Lebanese. Once vocal supporter of BDS. Albo’s numbers man… #Marrickville
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS #marrickville almost comical to hear some councillors keep on saying how much they love Palestine but anything practical impossible.
Coward! RT @Jo_Tovey: Labor’s Sam Iskander says he will continue to support Palestinians but will not support BDS #marrickville
RT @bgaensler: Cr: Can’t make case that symbolism isn’t important. Exhibit A: @KRuddMP apology 2 stolen generations. #Marrickville #BDS
Cr Thanos is a champion for #Palestine. A real voice for #humanrights. Such voices must resonate!! #BDS #Marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Ind D Thanos said symbolism has always been important in setting people free. Sounds like he will continue to support BDS #marrickville
Once upon a time, a long time ago, Australians used to believe in something called “a fair go”. #Marrickville #BDS
RT @nav_guy: 1. Vote for boycott 2. get fired by fascist o’farrel 3. immortality 4. ???? 5. Profit!! #Marrickville #BDS #braddpitt
@antloewenstein BDS #marrickville finally a councillor who talks about boycott against Burma being in council job. So why not Israel?
Cr: “Precedent 4 #Marrickville #BDS is our Burma boycott”. But presumably no divided opinion from locals on Burma
RT @Jo_Tovey: Looks like vote will be 8 – 4 against boycott at this stage. #marrickville
Oh yessss RT @aus4pal: #bds vote goes down in #Marrickville but the journey has only just begun. #israel WILL be held to account
RT @antloewenstein: #BDS #marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne. We have put bds on the national agenda. Bravo!
You can count on it! RT @bgaensler: Mayor Byrne: “Whatever the vote tonight, this issue will not go away.” #Marrickville #BDS
RT @bgaensler: Vote to rescind harshest part of #Marrickville #BDS motion: 6 in favour, 6 against. Mayor uses casting vote to defeat amendment.
RT @bgaensler: Vote on milder amendment to #Marrickville #BDS motion: 8 against, 4 in favour, amendment defeated.
RT @thebigriboldi: 2 Greens and 4 Labor flip. BDS goes down at #Marrickville Council, but campaign not over.
RT @Jo_Tovey: Still to vote on whether to overturn it completely, a separate motion #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Prediction correct – only four support retaining boycott. Thanos, Kontellis, Peters and Byrne. #marrickville
RT @Jo_Tovey: Council now debating a snap motion to write to BoF and Albanese outlining thoughts on their intervention into issue. #marrickville
#Marrickville might write to @Australian too, telling them to concentrate on locating those who make death threats against elected pollies
RT @Jo_Tovey: That motion was voted againt by Macri, Hanna and Labor, but passes. Council will write to both politicians. #marrickville
MT @bgaensler: Final vote on original #Marrickville #BDS to come. many people confused, think vote been taken, walking out!
RT @aus4pal: Cr Macri is going nuts. He’s clearly on someone’s #fascism payroll. #BDS #Marrickville
Councillor Macri: “This meeting has become a farce.” #Marrickville #BDS
Cr Macri: “#Marrickville Council is in a tailspin.” # BDS
RT @bgaensler: Vote to drop #Marrickville #BDS completely, but to “remain concerned” as to Palestinian plight: motion carried. No BDS!
#Marrickville councillors who voted to drop #BDS will go down in Australian’s book of Infamy
RT @bgaensler: Final motion as passed and how they voted. #Marrickville #BDS http://yfrog.com/h44qsagj
RT @Jo_Tovey: To clarify: boycott has been completely quashed, but council did call for Israel to ‘end occupation of Palestinian lands’. #marrickville
RT @kevinwilde: Over at Leichhardt Council tonight the Greens voted down a Labor resolution ruling out future boycott of Israel. #bds #marrickville
The final motion resolved “not to pursue BDS against Israel in any shape or form” while at the same time maintaining the three tenets of the BDS call – to end the occupation of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall, to ensure full equality for Palestinians living in Israel and to support the right of Palestinian refugees to return home. This was carried 8 votes to 4 against. None of the councilors who had opposed the BDS resolution seemed aware of the incongruity of now voting for a motion that included the very demands that BDS seeks, while refusing to do anything about it, nor that Point 1 of the original in principle BDS statement had in fact not been rescinded.
Disinformation and smear tactics may have partially lost us this battle, but the struggle for freedom, justice and equality is undoubtedly stronger as a result of your efforts. Marrickville will be remembered as the “battle” that effectively put boycotting Israel on the map in Australia!
The night before the election, Greens supporters photographed a group of men putting up posters and stickers accusing the Greens of homophobia, hating democracy and supporting terrorism. The posters have been the subject of complaints to the police and the NSW Electoral Commission.
The Greens have also criticised a controversial phone poll conducted during the campaign.
A group called the Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance claimed responsibility for the poll last week, but denied any wrong-doing.
On March 3 a request from the group was accidentally published on the Jewish news website J-Wire and a blog, requesting $12,000 in public donations for activities ”to research what local people really think … carefully targeted media coverage and advertising in relation to the election … Please also pass this information on quietly to like-minded friends”. It was quickly deleted.
Eleven days later Marrickville Council said it was investigating four complaints from residents about a survey ”asking residents to comment on the GBDS against Israel”. At least one resident complained the interviewer had claimed to be from the council.
Cr Byrne labelled it a push poll and a dirty trick.
The survey and its results, showing only one-third of respondents support the boycott, have been made public.
The poll’s introduction said the interviewer was doing a ”short five-minute study about your views and opinions of the Marrickville City [sic] Council”.
It asked residents what factors should influence council policies and initiatives and provided a list that included climate change, traffic congestion and foreign affairs. It also asked whether the interviewee was aware of the boycott.
After saying that the mayor was the Greens candidate at the state election, it asked whether that would influence their vote.
Uri Windt, who is a member of both the alliance and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said the poll was scientific and definitely not intended to mislead.
”It’s not push-polling; it does not fit the definition. It was professionally conducted,” Mr Windt said.
The alliance has refused to comment on how much it collected and spent on its campaign.
”It’s not relevant what we raised,” Mr Windt said. ”It really was us taking responsibility for our own actions and the strategy we wanted to apply, so we raised the funds and paid our debts.”
Accusations of one-sided media coverage of the issue were also rife at Tuesday’s meeting. The academic Peter Slezak, of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, said Jewish critics of Israel and supporters of the BDS campaign had not been heard, particularly in the Jewish media.
Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian-Australian, said their voice had been lost. ”I don’t feel we were able to discuss and debate the issue rationally and I don’t feel the door was open for Palestinian voices to discuss what the BDS was about.”
Vic Alhadeff, chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said his organisation had no knowledge of the poster campaign, or the phone survey, until afterwards.
Noted that Alhadeff’s comment is out of sync from the cached blog post of the Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance, which says:
Also, we have among our own numbers people who are deeply involved in the Jewish community, and we are in frequent communication with Vic Alhadeff and Yair Miller from the Jewish Board of Deputies as well as Peter Wertheim from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
I focused on the realities in Palestine and Israel’s racial discrimination. This is something that impacts us all, the lack of dignity of the indigenous peoples of the land. One side is the occupier and the other is occupied. It’s not really all that complicated. This is what Zionism is.
I spent my allotted three minutes detailing how the West props up Israel and it is our responsibility to speak up for human rights. Jewish-only roads in the West Bank. The siege on Gaza and ever-increasing settlements in the West Bank. Nearly universal backing in the UN for Palestinian rights (except Nauru, Marshall Islands, Australia, Israel and the US). As BDS takes off in countless places, the arguments against it become even further removed from Palestine itself. If you can’t argue on the facts, change the subject. Talk about local politics, or “balance” or “peace”.
Last night BDS was defeated in Sydney but the message I’m hearing from countless activists is that this has galvanised people to step up the campaign for Palestinian rights
It is fundamentally dishonest to attack opposition to Israel as anti-Semitic. It is intended to silence legitimate criticism. It also makes it impossible to challenge the real anti-Semitism that is, unfortunately, on the increase. This is largely fuelled, but not caused, by Israel‘s atrocities against the Palestinians.
There seems to be a dearth of real information in the mainstream media about the nature of the non-violent BDS call by Palestinian people and a tangible quashing of Palestinian voices, along with smears, distortions and intimidation of BDS supporters. Those who are unjust fear justice. The non-violent BDS call is firmly based in human rights and justice. and was initiated in 2005 since all other measures by governments and UN have failed to deliver Palestinians their just rights under international law.
Australian individuals, institutions and organisations should be at the forefront against Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights in the same way they were against apartheid in South Africa. Measures under BDS do not need to be sweeping nor disadvantage communities financially, but can be targeted against specific institutions and organisations which support the illegal Israeli Occupation and horrendous apartheid. BDS is a creative tactic which builds, in global grassroots solidarity with Palestinian people, an ongoing awareness of and resistance to Israeli oppression.
I hope that the Marrickville Council does not back down to intimidation and unseemly political pressure and contributes more than just lip service to BDS.
(Learn more about BDS and how other Councils round the world have incorporated BDS at bdsmovement.net ; for information about Israel’s crimes of apartheid and colonialism, see http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-378.phtml)
Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS -Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights 9 July 2005
Moammar Mashni, of Australians for Palestine, said the withdrawal of support for actual boycotts was disappointing.
”[Critics] have created such a frenzy around this debate that moved away from the central message of what the BDS was all about – it’s about non-violence … a principled stand to deliver both peace and justice,” he said.
…
The expatriate activist and journalist John Pilger has weighed in on the controversy,sending a message of support to the council.
”Justice for Palestine, said, [Nelson] Mandela, is ‘the greatest moral issue of our time’,” Pilger wrote.
”That’s the company those Marrickville councillors – who have stood up for this ‘greatest moral issue’ – keep.”
The bulk of the story is interpretation or hasbara, and includes an unctuous plea from the hasbaroid lobby group which conspired to destroy BDS using push polls which are euphemised in this group as a survey.
A local group, the Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance, said even the mayor’s revised motion should be rejected.
”There’s real healing that needs to be done in our community and just coming in with in-principle support for the BDS movement, that hasn’t been discussed with us or the community,” said the group’s secretary, Janet Kossy.
…
The Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance carried out a phone survey on the campaign in March, and found that two-thirds of residents did not support it.
Ms Kossy called for $12,000 in donations in early March for ”activities that we believe will make a decisive difference” against the boycott. She would not comment yesterday on how much had been spent on the campaign.
It’s beginning to end. It’s beginning to end in the UK, it’s beginning to end even in the United States, in much of Europe, where people are finally being able, feeling that they can talk about it. And non-violent, completely non-violent campaigns, like the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign, the BDS campaign, which is much more modest than the anti-Apartheid movement but based on that, and supported by the likes of Desmond Tutu, who speaking in the spirit of Nelson Mandel called Palestine the greatest moral issue of our era, are starting to discuss it. There are views on this and those views should be heard, but this thuggish intimidation of people who are simply standing up for a justice is something that is particularly striking in Australia and in the Australian media and in my view reflects the, that monopoly, that omission, censorship by omission that exists mroe in Australia, than practically in any other Western democracy.
Jake, a 55-year-old Jewish health professional with friends in Marrickville, was so incensed by the council’s Israel boycott that he took three weeks off work to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Greens, plastering the suburb with posters late at night, accusing them of homophobia for boycotting gay-friendly Israel.
“I felt so angry,” says Jake, who wants to remain anonymous. “I couldn’t sleep at night, so I organised the posters, hired some utes and ladders” and enlisted the help of his son and his friends. Greens supporters harassed them, ripped down the posters, called police, and tried to intimidate Jake’s young helpers, posting footage of them on YouTube.
Two nights before the election, a “black sports car with neon high beams and a pseudo photographer kept flashing his camera right up on our eyes . . . It slowed us right down.”
Another night “cowboy” greenies in a Toyota Camry started following them home, until Jake confronted the driver at a roundabout. “It was like something out of a movie”.
On election day, Jake and his son organised 10 friends wearing T-shirts with “Boycott the Greens” logos to visit polling booths, prompting “Zionist pigs” abuse from greenies.
“The Greens knew we were the enemy, but the Labor people all nodded and smiled and gave us the thumbs up. Anthony Albanese [whose wife Carmel Tebbutt was ALP candidate] shook my hand and thanked me. We must have had quite an effect.
“On Sunday I took the boys out to dinner. It’s not often in life a private citizen can make a difference.”
What is emerging instead is a slow but sure manifestation of a new transnational movement, centred less on statehood and more on forging a national project that will traverse the existing Palestinian divides – diaspora, occupied territories and Israeli Arab citizens – and bypass the notion of an independent Palestinian state on part of Palestinian soil.
Letter to Marrickville Council from concerned citizens of Israel urging you to stand firm in your support of BDS
We are Israeli citizens who witness first-hand the brutality of our
government’s policies towards the Palestinian people. We stand firm
in our support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) initiatives
against Israel until it meets its obligation to recognize the
Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and
fully complies with the precepts of international law.
We reject the notion promoted by demagogues, that the 2005 BDS call
from Palestine, and the BDS campaigns the world over which it has
inspired, are rooted in anti-Jewish sentiment. On the contrary, BDS is
an anti-racist movement against the daily, brutal occupation of
Palestine and the virulently racist policies towards Israel’s Palestinian
citizens.
We also reject the assertion that cultural and academic boycotts of
Israel defy the democratic principle of free speech. Research and
development in academic institutions play a central role in designing
and defending Israel’s military and intelligence machinery. Prominent
state-sponsored cultural institutions perpetuate the deception of
Israeli democracy, and serve as propaganda tools. Moreover, the BDS
campaign targets Israeli institutions, and does not bar Israeli
individuals from conducting research with partners abroad or Israeli
artists from performing abroad.
BDS was a key strategy in ending the white South African system of
apartheid by applying international pressure.
We warmly commend the groundbreaking stand taken by the Marrickville
Council in support of the Council in support of the democratic and non-violent BDS campaign for
justice and human rights and urge the council to stand firm in the
face of attempted intimidation and manipulation.
Sincerely,
Steve Amsel
Ronnen Ben-Arie
Matan Cohen
Adi Dagan
Prof. Rachel Giora
Rosamine Hayeem
Iris Hefets
Shir Hever
Yael Kahn
Dr. Anat Matar
Rela Mazali
Professor (emeritus) Moshé Machover
Dr. Dorothy Naor
Ofer Neiman
Amit Perelson
Itai Ryb
Herzl Schubert
Yonatan Shapira
Jonatan Stanczak
Ruth Tenne
Yana Ziferblat
On behalf of Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from within http://boycottisrael.info/
tomorrow night recommending that the council maintain in-principle support for the campaign, while rescinding the part of the original motion which called for the council to implement the policy in our local area. I will also recommend we acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and condemn all acts of violence.
In this way Marrickville Council can continue to show our support for the Palestinians, while not having a financial burden on ratepayers or affecting the operations of the council.
‘Jake, a 55-year-old Jewish health professional with friends in Marrickville, was so incensed by the council’s Israel boycott that he took three weeks off work to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Greens, plastering the suburb with posters late at night, accusing them of homophobia for boycotting gay-friendly Israel.
“I felt so angry,” says Jake, who wants to remain anonymous. “I couldn’t sleep at night, so I organised the posters, hired some utes and ladders” and enlisted the help of his son and his friends. Greens supporters harassed them, ripped down the posters, called police, and tried to intimidate Jake’s young helpers, posting footage of them on YouTube.
Two nights before the election, a “black sports car with neon high beams and a pseudo photographer kept flashing his camera right up on our eyes . . . It slowed us right down.”
Another night “cowboy” greenies in a Toyota Camry started following them home, until Jake confronted the driver at a roundabout. “It was like something out of a movie”.’
The Marrickville Council vote on BDS will be next Tuesday 19th – please read the below information, then contact the people and media in the list – help Palestinians to convince the Council that the people are with them and that decency, human rights and justice should prevail by upholding the existing support for Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions of Israel.
ACTION ALERT: First Australian City Council BDS Victory Under Attack: Please Send Letters of Support
In December, 2010, the local council of Marrickville, which is a Sister City to Bethlehem, decided as part of its ethical investment and purchasing strategy, to endorse the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until that country complies with international humanitarian law.
1. In particular recognition of its sister city relationship with Bethlehem and the strong support for this relationship from local progressive faith communities and other community members, Marrickville Council support the principles of the BDS global campaign and report back on any links the Council has with organisations or companies that support or profit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine with a view to the Council divesting from such links and imposing a boycott on any future such links or goods purchases.
2. Marrickville Council boycott all goods made in Israel and any sporting, institutional academic, government or institutional cultural exchanges.
3. Marrickville Council write to the local State and Federal ministers (Carmel Tebbutt and Anthony Albanese) informing them of Council’s position and seeking their support at the State and Federal level for the global BDS movement.
First Australian City Council BDS Victory Under Attack – Please write a letter of support!
by Anna Baltzer on Thursday, 14 April 2011 at 15:00
Opponents of Marrickville’s historic BDS resolution are claiming it will cost taxpayers millions and must be overturned. The pressure is on. Please write a letter of support bcc’ing the councillors’ email address listed here. To see an example, I have included my letter to them below…
CONTACT DETAILS OF MARRICKVILLE COUNCILLORS
Deputy Mayor Clr Sam Iskandar (ALP) 9558 7927 0408 210 618
Clr Victor Macri (Independent) 9569 2865 0408 219 260
Clr Max Phillips (Greens) 0419 444 916
Mayor Clr Fiona Byrne (The Greens) 0401 719 120
Clr Cathy Peters (Greens) 0419 444 974
Clr Laura Wright (ALP) 9560 8707 0419 444 560
Clr Morris Hanna (Independent) 9569 1447 0417 660 997
Clr Peter Olive (The Greens) 9559 8901 0401 719 148
Clr Mary O’Sullivan (ALP) 9559 8980 0419 444 889
Clr Marika Kontellis (The Greens) 9590 3898 0409 076 708
I urge you to continue the Marrickville boycott against Israel until it complies with international law. The recent report implying that taking a stand against human rights violations by Israel would mean losing millions is ill-conceived for several reasons:
1. The companies mentioned are not primary targets of BDS and need not be a focus for Marrickville. As in the BDS movement against Apartheid South Africa, specific companies and products can be chosen to boycott/divest from. It is largely a symbolic act to send a message of disapproval to Israel.
2. Much of the boycott wouldn’t cost a cent, including cultural and sports boycott. Australia has a proud history of using the sports boycott to help topple Apartheid South Africa.
The report seemingly argues that Marrickville should not uphold principles of human rights and international law because it’s too expensive to do so. What a cruel assertion. As I said, it need not be expensive, and furthermore, to *not* uphold these principles comes at a very dear cost to the Palestinian people. Please, do not be deterred from your courageous stance by this ill-conceived report.
Best,
Anna
Marrickville Council is now under attack from the NSW State Government with Barry O’Farrell threatening an overthrow. Australia’s democracy takes another backward step, thanks to a concerted smear and tactical campaign against it by a coalition of rightwing Christian and Jewish zionists.
In a letter to Greens Mayor Fiona Byrne, Mr O’Farrell threatened to use his powers under the Local Government Act to move against the Sydney council if it did not comply.
In the letter, the premier gave the council a 28-day deadline.
Ms Byrne may lose her job if she doesn’t back down.
Someone leaked a Marrickville council report to the gutter press which is being interpreted as though it were Council policy, but it isn’t. No targets for boycott have been decided upon. BDS is a creative tactic, and people can choose their targets to suit – the aim being to highlight the target’s collaboration with and potentiation of the illegal Israeli Occupation and apartheid.
More information has come to light about who was involved in the nefarious pushpolls prior to the NSW State elections:
The Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance yesterday published the results of a controversial survey conducted in March on residents’ attitudes to the boycott.
Almost two-thirds of residents said they disagreed, to varying degrees, with the boycott, while about 30 per cent supported it.
The group did not identify itself in the survey and several residents complained to the council. The Greens labelled it a ”push poll” and council staff directed the survey company to properly identify on whose behalf the poll was being conducted.
The old blogs of the group have been removed, but from a screenshot of the cached page and a post from March 3 we find:
The Inner West Jewish Community and Friends Peace Alliance is a local grassroots group which formed as a response to the December 14 2010 resolution by Marrickville Council to boycott Israel. Local members of Newtown Synagogue and the Inner West Chavurah, as well as other local Jewish and Israeli people and concerned friends, have met and set up networks to discuss the issues and coordinate ways of seeking to have the resolution overturned.
….
We want the local community, the political parties and the broader Australian community to become aware that a local government boycott of Israel is not an acceptable strategy for seeking Middle East peace and justice. We think it is extremely important to ensure that this first local government attempting to implement the boycott will be convinced by their constituents and by intelligent public opinion to reconsider and recast their boycott decision. The March state election is giving candidates and voters the opportunity to consider what an Israel boycott means, and to ask questions such as whether local or state governments should be deciding foreign policy.
….
‘We have plans for some carefully targeted media coverage and advertising in relation to the election. These strategies are expensive, but we believe they will be successful. We have been fortunate to have ongoing help and advice from very capable professionals. Also, we have among our own numbers people who are deeply involved in the Jewish community, and we are in frequent communication with Vic Alhadeff and Yair Miller from the Jewish Board of Deputies as well as Peter Wertheim from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
We need to raise approximately $12,000 in the next two-three weeks to carry out the activities that we believe will make a decisive difference. All the professional work that is being done for the campaign has been donated pro bono, but there are unavoidable advertising and research costs we will need to pay.’
…
If you would like to contribute to the success of this campaign, please donate what you can. Please also pass this information on quietly to like-minded friends.
Clearly, the op was to be on the quiet. And this piece shows that it was BDS, not the Greens, which were the main target of the Coalition “of the delegitimisers of the delegitimisers” (CoDDs). Fred Nile must be smirking now. Are the CoDDs playing Australian pollies like skittles?
Why should people be able to buy our political process to enable more persecution of Palestinian people? For Israel, Palestinian people are cattle to be herded and penned arbitrarily, their homes demolished, their lands stolen, their rights denied. This is systematic collective punishment and apartheid and decent Australians need to ignore the pleas of folks who support such horrendous behaviour. With absolute unconscious irony, the group’s petition takes the same approach as used at the rorting of the Berkeley divestment motion – that BDS will ‘divide’ the community. These are the folks who support the illegal apartheid wall which constitutes an Israeli land grab as well as caging Israel’s hapless indigenous people while the ziocolonials steal more and more of what remains of the swiss cheese that is the West Bank.
Boycotts, divestments and sanctions are a principled means of achieving justice and rights for oppressed Palestinians, and they are legitimised by the fact that Palestinian civil society itself called for them, as attempts by governments to sanction Israel’s impunity and disregard for international law have failed due to the support it receives from other settler colonial states. As Martin Luther King said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’. I salute the conscientious people of Marrickville and their councillors who are attempting to stand up to the outrageous bullying, death threats and so on from supporters of Israel’s oppression and apartheid. Boycotts, divestments and sanctions were largely responsible for the end of apartheid in South Africa. Australians rightly supported that movement too. Stand up against bullies, folks, otherwise they are only encouraged to continue their disgraceful behaviour.
‘The PA’s push for recognition of a Palestinian state is the diplomatic counterpart to its much-touted “institution-building” and “economic development” efforts which are supposed to create the infrastructure for a future state.
But the institution-building program is nothing more than a mirage, boosted by public relations tricks and good press.
In fact, the main “institutions” the PA has built are the police-state and militia apparatuses used to repress political opposition to the PA and any form of resistance to Israeli occupation. Meanwhile the economy of the West Bank, and the PA itself, remain completely dependent on foreign aid.
UN recognition of a Palestinian make-believe state would be no more meaningful than this fantasy “institution-building”, and could push Palestinians even further away from real liberation and self-determination.
…
Rather than fetishising “statehood”, the BDS campaign focuses on rights and realities: it calls for an end to Israel’s occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands conquered in 1967; full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel; and respect for and implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees. These demands are all fully consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international law.
The PA has never endorsed this campaign, and in fact has sought to distract from and undermine it by calling only for a half-hearted boycott of Israeli settlement goods while actively promoting trade with Israel in violation of the BDS call.
…
Palestinians and their allies should not be distracted by this international theatre of the absurd, but should focus on building wider and deeper BDS campaigns to end Israeli apartheid everywhere that it exists, once and for all.”
“Equality never destroys people. It destroys a racist system,” he said.
…
“There is absolutely no comparison in the level of violence perpetrated by the perpetrator, the occupying power, and that of the resistance,” said Barghouti. “To end all violence, you must eliminate the roots of violence, which is occupation and apartheid.”
Responding on April 14 in the London Guardian, Commission members Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers headlined, “Goldstone report: Statement issued by members of UN mission on Gaza war,” saying without mentioning Goldstone by name:
Recent articles and comments on the Commission’s work “have misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimize the findings of (its) report and to cast doubts on its credibility.”
The four-member Commission’s report “is now an official UN document and all actions taken pursuant to its findings and recommendations fall solely within the purview of the United Nations general assembly which, along with the human rights council, reviewed and endorsed it at the end of 2009.”
“Aspersions cast on the findings (however) cannot be left unchallenged.” Jilani, Chinkin and Travers dispute efforts to claim “any part of the mission’s report unsubstantiated, erroneous or inaccurate.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the world must increase its support for the Libyan opposition. Speaking to reporters alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Clinton said Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi must go.
“We are also sharing the same goal which is to see the end of the Gadhafi regime in Libya and we are contributing in many ways to see that goal realized,” she said.
But Rasmussen again distanced himself from arming the Libyan rebels on Thursday, saying it was NATO’s mandate to also enforce the arms embargo on Libya. He said that while NATO members were committed to protecting civilians in Libya, ousting Gadhafi demanded a political track.
“I fully agree there is no military solution to the problems in Libya. What we need to ensure a long term sustainable solution is a political process that responds to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people,” he said.
Rasmussen did not respond directly to the question of whether NATO was advising Libyan rebels on military strategy. He said the alliance had contacts with the opposition but it was up to them to decide day-to-day strategy.
Samah Sabawi was be interviewed on the ABC’s Fran Kelly show tomorrow at 6.20am and will be heard again on SBS Arabic at 7.20pm tonight – Please ring in with questions for Samah if you’re around.
