The Harlem Globetrotters plan to entertain apartheid Israel again (they are reported to have played last year as well) on May 1 and May 3 at Nokia arena, Tel Aviv. This was only recently revealed In the following short Israeli TV clip:
It appears one of the globetrotters has been duped into thinking their performance will help stop segregation in Israel, he was taped in London for Israeli TV saying that in the 20th century, the team played at venues where black people were not allowed. He adds that the team was one of the forces which paved the way for the civil rights movement in America.” Can the Harlem Globetrotters really believe that violating the call of Palestinian civil society for a cultural boycott will help end it?
Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid and occupation will not be allowed to set foot in Tel Aviv and enjoy their performance.
Playing basketball in Tel Aviv as if it’s business as usual is a slap on the face of all those who realize that Israel’s colonialism, apartheid and occupation bear a striking resemblance to segregation in America and apartheid in the old South Africa.
In the wake of BDS Maroc’s successful campaign against the orientalist Mediterranean Delight Belly Dance Festival in Marrakech, more anti-normalisation initiatives are in train. BDS Maroc is calling for cancellation of an Israeli company [HP Indigo] printing industry exhibition and associated sales activities, while Moroccan Palestinian solidarity organisations are demanding the Moroccan government criminalise normalisation with Israel.
Google translation of the BDS Maroc press release follows:
Moroccan activists critical of the high pace of normalization with the Jewish state under the Islamic government ‘Quds Al-Arabi’:
by BDS Maroc on Monday, 23 April 2012 at 08:07 ·
Rabat ‘Quds Al-Arabi’: embracing Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco’s special exhibition to produce an Israeli company in the industry of printing machines, to be held on the sidelines of the exhibition for the meetings with the actors, trade and economic specialists in the marketing of these products, and introduce them to Bmostagdadtha and urged them to market their goods advanced.
The law enforcement Moroccan activist Sion Osadon that the exhibition due to open next Monday ‘a big scandal, but a stab in the back of our Palestinian brothers who are in dire need of at this exact time to support and do what is necessary for a boycott of the Zionist entity’.
In a time of escalating protests of Morocco on the activities of normalization with the Jewish state, it is noted that there are points of deliberately raising the pace of normalization fields of multi-which explains Baharj government led by the ruling Justice and Development with reference Islamic and adopt a hard-line positions and participate Kiedjoh in the bodies of anti-normalization with the Jewish state.
Received Abdelilah Benkirane the prime minister and leader of the party last Wednesday, both of Khaled Sufiani coordinator of the work of national support Iraq, Palestine, Mohammad Alandlosa Ben Jelloun Secretary General of the Moroccan Association to support the Palestinian struggle and handed them a memorandum calling for the criminalization of normalization with the Jewish state legally and to issue instructions to all government institutions and sub- government of not doing any activity Ttabiei.
Although the company incubator of the exhibition Israel, has said that it deals with the ‘Belgian company and the other Spanish’, it recorded a web page allocated by the Moroccan company incubator of the show Israel that within the officials of the four representatives of the Israeli company HP Indigo, Vice President and General Manager of ‘Alon Barchana’, Israeli incumbent control of the Headquarters Central to the company in ‘Rehovot’, near Tel Aviv.
The newspaper ‘News Today’ Moroccan official source at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and modern technologies it is not responsible for such events and not have the power to license or deny that the ‘ministry did not organize this meeting was not called for by any one, and since it is organized by the contractor Morocco, the the ministry does not intervene in the partnerships and relationships Moroccan businesses and imports of products’.
He considered that any official source product coming directly from Israel will not be able to enter the Moroccan market, ‘but if they have other ways to import the product factory in another country for example, there is no authority for us to prevent it from entering the Moroccan market.’
The ‘news of the day’ that the Israeli company’s products bear the stamp of ‘Made in Israel’, and that the first breakthrough achieved by the Israeli company was the Arab markets through the sale of one of the printers of the National Office of Airports of Morocco during the reign of former general manager.
The newspaper added that ‘serious in the policy of this company, it draws its marketing to the public procurements to provide ministries and public administrations Btabatha advanced, and turn in to the different methods to get those deals, knowing that the public administrations of Morocco does not need high-tech which is characterized by the HP Indigo ‘.
The date of the establishment of the Israeli company to the year 1977, by ‘Penny Wanda’, the slope of the Israeli parents for Jia to Poland during World War II, specializing in imaging and printing since his childhood, he joined through the studio of his father. He then continued his postgraduate studies in London before heading to Israel, and establishes the company ‘Indigo’ that after the success achieved over the years, attracted the attention of company ‘HP’ world famous in 2000, and invested $ 100 million to become the HP Indigo. The ‘Alon Barchana’, the mastermind of the company in the past two decades, and the man who took over planning for its partnership with HP and seeks to achieve a wider spread her world, armed with university Bashhadath obtained from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The move comes in the context of initiatives normalization of sync, where he attended the Israelis in the parliamentary conference Mediterranean held in the Moroccan capital of the end of March last and the station broadcast the Moroccan second anniversary of the massacre of Deir Yassin, a documentary entitled Tinghir Gerazlem about the Jews in Palestine Mahtaatlh and the establishment of four officials Moroccans visit to Israel this week the past, and the Declaration of human rights Moroccan Sion Osadon that a delegation from the Moroccan farmers Moroccans will pay a visit to occupied Palestine to participate in the exhibition peasants of Israel, in the month of May next also organizes dancer Israel in the middle of May next in the city of Marrakech Festival of Dance-east.
The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is maintained and preserved by daily practices of surveillance and control. In recent years, these practices have increasingly relied on technological mechanisms provided by international and local corporations. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is one of the companies that unable this technological supervision and oppression.
Through its subsidiary EDS Israel, HP is the prime contractor of the Basel System, an automated biometric access control system installed and maintained by HP in checkpoints throughout the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt).
Another control mechanism with which HP is involved, is Israel’s ID card system, which reflects and reinforces the state’s political and economic asymmetries as well as its tiered citizenship structure. HP was charged by the Ministry of Interior with the manufacturing of biometric ID cards for the citizens and residents of Israel (Jewish and Palestinians). In addition, HP also provides services and technologies to the Israeli army.
Furthermore, two of HP’s technological service providers in Israel are Matrix and its subsidiary, Tact Testware, which are located in the illegal West Bank settlement of Modi’in Illit. HP further participates in the “Smart City” project, implemented in the illegal West Bank settlement of Ariel, providing a storage system for the settlement’s municipality.
BDS Maroc also is urging exclusion from an Agriculture Exhibition at Meknes for products of companies with Zionist origins from stolen Palestinian land, and also the participation of a Moroccan delegation in the gallery of Agriculture Tel spring (on land 1948 ) between 15 and 17 May 2012.
A Google translation of this press release follows:
Marrakech, organized by the dancer from the Zionist entity brazenly defending the positions of Zionism,
– Expresses its satisfaction with the retreat of those responsible and salutes all those who contributed from near or far in the pressure on these bodies expose in its attempts to deepen relations with the Zionist racist regime at all levels, this time under the banner of art.
– Reflect the initiative of my DS Morocco in particular, has expressed its condemnation to display some brokers and unscrupulous merchants – the exhibition of international of Agriculture to be held in Meknes during this week – for the products produced by companies Zionist origins of Palestinian land stolen, and also the participation of a Moroccan delegation in the gallery of Agriculture Tel spring (land 1948 ) between 15 and 17 May 2012,
– Condemning the initiative my DS Morocco multiplicity of events that welcome the Moroccan authorities Bmanla the land of Palestine, another example is to accept the post player coming from the Zionist entity league tennis Fes …
– Calls on all national forces and created the Moroccan civil society to respond to the call of Palestinian civil society organizations to boycott 2005 “Israel”, divestment and sanctions (known as the call BDS)
To form a bulwark against the Zionist apartheid regime.
April 24, 2012
In the streets of Marrakech, a youth protest on bicycles and foot to launch anti-normalisation with and boycott of Israel was held last Sunday, presaging the spread of the BDS campaign to other centres in Morocco to coincide with Nakba (the zionist genocide of Palestinians in 1948) remembrance on May 15.
Google translation:
Launching campaigns against the normalization of youth from the streets of Marrakech
Was launched last Sunday in Marrakech youth campaign to educate public opinion, the local issue of normalization with the Zionist entity and which carried also calls for a boycott of products that support for “Israel.”
According to the campaign, Samir al-Rawi A young activists in the fight against normalization with Israel Palmdnah red, was in the form of tours bicycle and on foot with raised Palestinian flags and distributing awareness leaflets in Marrakech.
And began following tours in front of the Royal Theatre at 11 am and roamed the street Mohammed VI the Great that ended in the morning a tour inside the lighthouse, to be followed round the evening off at five o’clock pm from Square Alharta in the direction of Djemaa el Fna famous, where over there carrying a Palestinian flag large and chanting slogans against the normalization of the next episodes of the popular Djemaa el Fna.
He says Samir al-Rawi that the bodies involved, a coalition Moroccans Palestinian Intifada and the renewal student and bds maroc, played a crucial role in the abolition of Oriental Dance Festival in Marrakech, who will know the post dancers Israeli soldiers, prompting them to resume their activities of anti-normalization of the city center in a more creative and communicative with the citizens.
Activist Marrakech shows in connection with the “Hespress” that a group of Tenseekiet “coalition of the Moroccans, the Palestinian uprising” will organize the campaign in several towns within the Moroccan territory Karabat, Tangier, Oujda, and the following Altenseekiet is preparing to commemorate the first anniversary will be held on May 15, which coincides with the anniversary of Nakba, the celebration will be allocated where this subject is the organization of festivals and anniversary marches in support of the Palestinian people, pro-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem.
Tunisian BDS is also actively promoting anti-normalisation, holding a mass protest at the end of March.
Moroccan BDS activists who say NO to normalisation with apartheid Israel have claimed victory with the cancellation of the second Mediterranean Delight International Belly Dance Festival which was to be held in Marrakech in May. The Festival has now relocated to Loutraki, Greece in June. It is produced by Israeli Simona Guzman, also involving owner of an Israeli belly dancing school, Asi Haskal, and Israeli belly dance teacher Anabel.
While the Festival site is available in English, Hebrew and other languages, there is no Arabic version, highlighting the exploitative orientalism of the Festival.
“I cancelled it because I didn’t receive any authorization and I was afraid for the safety of my participants,” festival producer Simona Guzman told AFP.
Islamist members of parliament and pro-Palestinian associations had criticized the invitation to the Israelis for the May 10 festival.
Criticism over the Israeli presence was first heard last year when the festival was also held in Marrakesh, but the event went off without mishap.
On her Facebook page, Guzman falsely blames “fanatic Moroccan islamists movements” for her cancellation and exposes her racism and bigotry. According to Moroccan news source, Scoop, the Festival was cancelled due to the participation of Israelis. However, objections to the Festival came from across the Moroccan community, regardless of religious view. Guzman further admits on her Facebook:
While the pressure increased, we were asked by the Moroccan authorities to ask for an authorization to produce the festival in Moroccan Territory, a thing that was never asked before. We were suppose to receive an immediate confirmation, but the Moroccan bureaucracy has it’s own time, and time is running short.
Elsewhere, in Hespress, Guzman denies being Israeli and claims to be a Turkish citizen, while on Rue 20 she is said to have “family roots in Turkey and Morocco” and “responded she was surprised by reports in the Arabic media that the event had stirred controversy in Morocco because Israelis would be present”. Yet on her own site she is described as “among the leading belly dancers in Israel”, and offers bellydancing classes in Israel.
‘I teach belly dancing to women of all ages – ranging from high school students to pensioners.
The classes are offered privately, at “Studio C” at “Derech Haim House” and Beit Danny in Tel Aviv and in many other locations.’
The Festival website, bellydancefestival.net is registered to
simona guzman
moshe basula 1
tel aviv, israel, tel aviv 69869
Israel
At the present time, the Belly Dance Festival website shows the transition to the new venue and dates – the homepage and registration have been changed, still many of the associated Moroccan activities have not been altered.
The Festival is partly sponsored by Israeli business Sea of Spa, based in Arad, whose website is owned by Yuval Yarin Dead Sea Ltd.Sea of Spa claims to be “a family business that was founded in 1998, though its activities at the Dead Sea began at the end of the end of 1980s.” YYDS Ltd also owns seaofspa.biz.
Sea of Spa products are marketed, along with Ahava’s, on deadseaofspa.com “founded in 1999. Dead sea of spa.com is a web store dedicated for dead sea and other products related to Judaism and the state of Israel”. seaofspa.com and deadseadeal.com market Sea of Spa products too and have the same domain owner information which coincides with the contact information on the aforementioned storefronts. Ahava.co and seaofspa.us are also owned by the same organisation.
On Sunday, Israeli diplomat David Saranga was forced to cut short a working visit to Morocco after tens of thousands of people took part in a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the parliament in Rabat where he was attending meetings.
Saranga, Israel’s representative at a meeting of the Euro-Med organization that groups the 27 EU states with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and eight Arab countries in the region, was escorted out of the parliament at the end of the meeting and – instead of spending another night in the Moroccan capital – was taken directly to the airport and put on a flight to Paris.
Congratulations to BDS Maroc for successfully fighting normalisation with apartheid oppression. Morocco, which has been exploited by Israel as a playground for normalisation, is now at the forefront of the anti-normalisation campaign.
UPDATE 24/4/12
Moroccan belly dancer Nour withdrew from the festival after becoming aware of the BDS anti-normalisation campaign. Translation of scanned material below:
The people against normalization with Israel are getting ready to face off against the Belly Dance Festival. (written in yellow)
Khalid Alsoufiani. with the National Labor group for the support of Iraq and Palestine disputes Guzman’s claim that she is Moroccan, (she claims her mother is Turkish) Khalid said that if Guzman was speaking the truth then she needs to leave Israel and move to Morocco then.
Noor (dancer who cancelled): Don’t entangle me in this troublesome situation with this festival, I’m not going to participate in it.
Kuzman: I am from Moroccan origins and seek for peace
Anti-normalisation activists prepare to face the oriental belly dancing festival
Last year, a Zionist delegation of 17 dancers participated in the festival.. so how many dancer will they participate this year?
Last year, Al-Tajdeed (renewal) newpaper which was owned by the minister of telecommunications and the spokesperson of the new government, published an article on its front page about the the Zionist dancer who is gonna visit Marrakesh to teach the Moroccan girls how to shake their bellies in the capital of Yusuf Bin Tashqin. So what the newspaper is going to write this year which is a tool to Adala and Tanmiya (Justice and development) party?
The activists of Al-Misbah (Lamp) party protested last year in front of the hotel which organised the festival demanding to punish who allowed it to be organised, and kick the Zionist dancers out. Who is going to punish whom this year? who is going to kick the Zionists out? adding: “how come some business men allow themselves to let their classy hotels host Zionist dancers, and at the sametime they claim their support for the national issues and not promoting alcoholic drinks in their markets.” Summing up: The second version of the oriental dancing festival which was organised from the 6th-11th of May.
BDS Maroc calls for cancellation of an Israeli company exhibition in the printing industry and associated sales activities, while Moroccan Palestinian solidarity organisations demand the Moroccan government criminalise normalisation with Israel.
French composer and double-bass player Renaud Garcia-Fons is scheduled at the White City festival in Tel Aviv, apartheid Israel on May 6th. This is the English translation of an open letter written to him by the French BDS Campaign, Campagne BDS France. Don’t Play Apartheid Israel (DPAI) has made a facebook calling on all the artists scheduled to perform at the festival to cancel: Don’t Play Tel Aviv White City – It’s Today’s Sun City.
Paris, 17 April 2012
Dear Renaud Garcia-Fons,
On 6 May next, you plan to give a concert in Tel Aviv at the “White City music festival”.
We are surprised to learn that you, who are attached to the respect for human dignity, would perform in a country which has been mocking international law for more than sixty years. We recall your participation in an “Orchestra for Peace” at the “Human Solidarity Concert” in Paris in 2002.
Miguel Angel Estrella, who was at your side during that concert, is today a member of the support committee of the Russell Tribunal for Palestine. The conclusions* of that tribunal at its recent session in Cape Town, South Africa, are unambiguous: Israel is responsible for grave violations of international law and is guilty of the crime of apartheid.
Renaud Garcia-Fons, are you aware that, while hundreds of music-lovers would be able to enjoy your talent in Tel Aviv, thousands of others would be deprived of it, being relegated behind a separation wall?
For decades the Palestinian people have been victims of Israel’s apartheid policy, which scandalously curtails their most elementary rights: their access to water, to education, to medical care, their freedom of movement.
A people under colonolisation in the West Bank, a people under a blockade in Gaza, a people under discrimination in Israel, added to the refugees whose right to return was recognized by the United Nations but never implemented by Israel. The international community closes its eyes while the Israeli government behaves with total impunity: its killing of hundreds of civilians in 2009 during the “Cast Lead” attack on Gaza; its constant military incursions in the West Bank and its military check-points there; the numerous inequalities between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel regarding medical care, work, and public services; the thousands of uprooted Palestinians living as refugees all over the world; the peaceful activists participating in the Freedom Flotilla in 2010, killed in cold blood.
Faced with such injustice, Palestinian civil society decided in 2005 to launch the BDS campaign: boycott-divestment-sanctions against Israel as long as it does not respect international law. This movement, inspired by the struggle of the South Africans against apartheid, has now taken on international dimensions and the boycott of the State of Israel is growing everywhere.
Today, numerous artists have chosen not to perform in Israel as long as that state does not change its policies. In the film world, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Meg Ryan, Dustin Hoffman and Mike Leigh, along with musicians such as Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Annie Lennox, Carlos Santana, Elvis Costllo, Gil Scott-Heron, Gorillaz, The Pixies, Massive Attack, Gilles Vigneault, Vanessa Paradis, have all cancelled their appearances which were scheduled in different Israeli cities.
By going to perform in Israel you would be participating in the normalisation of a colonial situation. Please don’t help to close the eyes of French citizens by acting as if nothing unacceptable is happening over there. We can readily imagine that you were unaware of the situation on the ground, but from now on you can no longer say “I didn’t know!”.
If you would like to have more details about the policies of the Israeli government, we would be glad to provide them.
Dear Renaud Garcia-Fons, we appeal to you to join the artists who are boycotting Israel as long as that state refuses to respect international law, and to cancel your concert at the festival in Tel Aviv.
One and a half thousand humanitarians are hoping to visit the West Bank to participate in a children’s education project. They are such a threat to the apartheid zionist entity that Israel is demanding airlines cancel tickets – so far Lufthansa, Jet2 and Air France have obliged, making them and other airlines who collaborate with Israel’s obscene demands legitimate boycott targets.
The activists have been invited by 25 Palestinian civil society organizations to spend next week in the Bethlehem area building an elementary school, planting trees, and repairing village wells that Palestinians say have been damaged by Israeli settlers.
If you are a Likud supporter, flying into the Israeli airport should present no problem. But if you are a supporter of Palestinian rights, the Netanyahu government could stop you from going to Bethlehem on purely political grounds – even if you have never committed any crime and have no intention of ever committing one, even if you have never attended a Palestinian protest in the West Bank and have no intention of attending one. You could be barred by the Netanyahu government from going to Bethlehem simply for the thought crime of supporting Palestinian human rights.
…
Apparently, you can be deported by the Netanyahu government not because of what you do, but because of who you are. If you are an “activist”, then Palestinians welcome you to Bethlehem, but you may not be able to get there, because the Netanyahu government may deport you for being such an “activist”.
If Israel doesn’t want people to visit Palestine through the Tel Aviv airport, it should allow Palestinians to open their own and to administrate their own entries and departures – in other words, end the criminal Occupation enforced by Israel. After four and a half decades of brutal military Occupation by the apartheid zionist entity, the global community is stepping up boycotts, divestments and sanctions as punitive actions to end Israel’s criminal oppression and imprisonment of the Indigenous Palestinian population whose lands and resources Israel continues to thieve with impunity. Governments refuse or are unable to act responsibly to ensure Indigenous Palestinians have their full human rights and to enforce more than 30 UN Security Council resolutions of which Israel remains in breach.
Israeli forces raid West Bank civil defense office Israeli fascist goonsquad attacks Palestinians and internationals. “Eight Palestinians and four internationals were arrested and at least three people were injured by the blows they suffered at the hands of police. One Italian woman suffered an injury to her shoulder that required hospitalization.” Ben White on cultural boycott: “Boycott is a strategy, not a principle. And as such, it’s a response to a call from Palestinian civil society, which is seeking to mobilise international civil society as a way of realising their basic rights. It is a familiar tactic, used to resist local and global injustices. Are Palestinians prohibited from resisting colonial occupation – and looking for allies as they do so?” Palestinians frustrated over Quartet statement ?
“Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi took a much harder line, saying the Quartet statement, which made no reference to Israel’s ongoing occupation of the territories, demonstrated “a lack of will” to establish a Palestinian state.
“Unfortunately, the Quartet did not propose any specific policy measures or means of engagement required to create a breakthrough in the current crisis,” she said in a statement.
“The real issue is not ‘negotiations’ but rather ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land,” Ashrawi said.
“The glaring absence of any reference to this occupation portrays a lack of will to bring an end to it and to establish a viable Palestinian state.”‘
Israel assassinated key strong Palestinian leaders in 1973 to assist continuance of its oppression and land theft. “each of the three slain men had singular qualities that made the Israelis want to eliminate them, says Maan Bashour, who was a member of the PLO information committee at the time as a representative of the Arab Liberation Front. “[They struck] Kamal Adwan because of his activities inside Palestine, and because he was the youngest of the resistance leaders and a major inspiration for youth; Abu Yousef because he was one of the main planners of the operations of the Black September organization; and Kamal Nasser, the freedom fighter from Ramallah, as a cultural and media star with his popular and especially Christian credentials,” says Bashour.”
PACBI-Serrat and Sabina: Refrain from Entertaining Apartheid Israel until Freedom, Justice and Equality :
‘You both struggled under the oppressive and fascist regime of Franco in Spain, and must know what it means to resist oppression, and not to entertain it on its terms. We ask you in this spirit to stand with the oppressed Palestinians who are appealing to you to reconsider your performance. ‘
One and a half thousand humanitarians