justice

September 4, 2012December 11, 2020

Jerusalem Development Authority Implicated in Boycotted Film Funding

In the vein of its previous documentary project presenting a montage of 24 hours of life in Berlin, the German Zero One film production company has been planning a similar venture on Jerusalem.

Berlin-based Zero One Film will work alongside Palestinian producer Daoud Kuttab and newly founded Israeli prodco 24 Communications. The latter is a joint venture between Israeli prodcos Pie Films and Inosan, which worked on the original version of HBO hit In Treatment.

Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg and Jerusalem Film Fund are backing 24h Jerusalem and the producers hope to secure the remaining €400,000 (US$500,000) of its €2.4m budget at MipTV this week.

Palestinian directors have now pulled out of the project – they were unaware of the presence of the Israeli production company, nor of backing from the Jerusalem Film Fund, which is in turn funded by the Jerusalem Development Authority. Current activities of the JDA include expropriating Palestinian land in East Jerusalem for parks. The JDA received “40 million NIS in 2005 to develop green spaces around the Old City of Jerusalem”.

Designating urban space as a national park is not only easier but cheaper too, the state having no obligation to compensate owners.

The Jerusalem municipality leaves the creation of these parks to the National Planning Authority (in the Ministry of Interior), Bimkom noted, which deals more with the protection of nature and heritage than the rights of Jerusalem’s residents.
…

The disparity between the management of space for West Jerusalemites compared to their counterparts in the east is stark, with national parks notably absent from the west.

“The Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are crowded and they suffer from extreme neglect and shortage of public infrastructure,” Bimkom architect, Efrat Bar-Cohen, said in a statement.

“The residents are in desperate need of space by which they can improve their quality of life, even if slightly.”

The building of the park will have ramifications beyond the strangling of Issawiya and A-Tur residents.

It will stretch into the E1 area of the West Bank, which represents an important reserve of space for Palestinian development, creating a string of Jewish Israeli-only settlement between the Old City and Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

Elad Kandl is director of the Old City projects at the Jerusalem Development Authority, whose website describes their work as rehabilitating and conserving the Old City.

He expressed succinctly Israel’s aim of curbing Palestinian development in Jerusalem. “When you make it a national park,” he told The Jerusalem Post in reference to open space, “you keep the status quo.”

The JDA, which operates under the 1988 Jerusalem Development Authority Law, was established to further entrench Israeli control over the city and is also involved in the Jerusalem light rail project.

Indeed, the Prime Minister’s Office and the mayor of Jerusalem sponsored a JDA program to work toward this goal. On its website the JDA is very clear about the role of the Jerusalem light rail project, stating that “The investment in the light railway project was one of the government’s key strategies to empower Jerusalem as a capital.”

The JDA is also an instrumental actor in the proposed construction of 1,400 new housing units in the Gilo Jewish settlement colony, located near Bethlehem in occupied East Jerusalem.

In this light, the involvement of the JDA in the 24h Jerusalem project clearly designates the film as unacceptable normalisation with the Israeli occupation.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has defined normalization specifically in a Palestinian and Arab context “as the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.” [2] This is the definition endorsed by the BDS National Committee (BNC).

One Palestinian participant in the 24h Jerusalem project, Enas aL-Muthaffar, made clear his objections to the film project in an open letter on August 25th. He reveals that he was not informed at all about the Israeli production partner. Nor were the Palestinian directors to be involved in the editing process.

To whom It May Concern,

When Kuttab Productions first contacted me early July, it failed to mention that Israel is part of this project, although I specifically inquired about this issue. And then again, you sent me an email on July 9th, which also failed to mention that Israel is in fact part of your film production. I only knew about Israel being a co-producer of Jerusalem 24 when I asked specific technical questions about the characters, crew and the editing phase. I was surprised to know that the selected filmmakers are only requested to film on September 6th and that we have no say in the editing phase. Then, you said: The editing phase will happen in Germany where the Palestinian and the Israeli films will be edited in one feature length documentary. This is not information that can simply be passed on in such a way!

I reject to be part of Jerusalem 24: a German/ Israeli/ Palestinian co-production for the following two main reasons:

· I respect and support Palestinian civil society campaign for Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with International law and respects Palestinian rights.

· I refuse to be part of a peace propaganda machine that continues to ignore Israel’s cruel colonization of Palestine.

There is a longer list of reasons related to the current steps undertaken by Israel that aim at changing the demographic, social and cultural composition of the city of Jerusalem – to name few:

· Advocating the largest act of de-population of East Jerusalem since 1967.

· Continuing expansion of illegal settlements.

· Renewal of closure of East Jerusalem Institutions.

· Building restrictions and home demolitions.

· Revoking residency rights and denying family reunification.

· Continued illegal diggings under al-Aqsa mosque compound.

There is no way in which I can separate my art from who I am, from my life, from my duty to resist everything and anything that doesn’t acknowledge my right to exist on my land in freedom and dignity.

Regards,

Enas I. aL-Muthaffar

Enas’ stance is confirmed in an Al Akhbar piece [Google translation]:

Yesterday, I sent a group of Palestinian institutions and individuals working in the field of culture and art message to «Book of production» declare the absolute rejection of various forms of normalization with the occupier and «standing in the face of attempts to penetrate the cultural front as the line of the clash with the basic occupation, and intellectuals were and will remain the spearhead in the clash of cultures and civilizations with brute occupation force.

Haidar Eid further affirms terms of the PACBI boycott relevant to the joint film project [Google translation]:

That all meetings and projects that combine between the Palestinians and the Israelis must be placed in the proper context against the occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, and most importantly that these meetings be pro-boycott by directives issued by the National Committee of the province.

According to Amira Hass, 20 directors, including Israelis, have now pulled out of the film project in support of the cultural boycott and filming, scheduled for September 6, has been halted.

August 30, 2012December 11, 2020

BDS Brisbane Walking Tour a Great Success

First Brisbane BDS Walking Tour a great success

August 30, 2012

Last Saturday, August 25 the first Brisbane Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Walking Tour was held, successfully highlighting a number of stores in the Brisbane CBD that profit from the products of Israeli apartheid. The Tour spent around ten minutes outside the Children of the Revolution store where a speech was given about the Naot brand of shoes. A letter was delivered to the store management by two BDS activists, after which the tour moved on (see speech and letter below). The tour also visited David Jones which stocks Soda Stream products, Woolworths which sell Eskal products and more, Myer centre which has a Seacret Dead Sea cosmetics stall and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The BDS Movement is a non-violent campaign of civil disobedience aiming to bring Israel to account for its apartheid policies and occupation of Palestinian land. The BDS call was launched in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organisations and demands an end to the occupation of all Arab lands and the dismantling of the apartheid wall; equal rights for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and the recognition and promotion of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return home.

The Australian newspaper has used to occasion of the successful BDS Walking Tour to publish the latest installment in their campaign against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. In an August 30 article by Christian Kerr in the Murdoch newspaper, BDS activists are portrayed as bullies and stand over merchants. In the face of the BDS Movement’s consistent exposure of the injustices perpetrated by Israeli apartheid, the campaign of lies by opponents of the BDS, like The Australian, is not surprising. They have to resort to lies and distortions because the truth is on our side – it is impossible to honestly defend apartheid and occupation and it is impossible to justify profiting from such inhumanity.

Justice for Palestine, Brisbane will proudly hold further BDS Walking Tours to expose those that profit from apartheid and occupation.

For more information and updates see www.justiceforpalestinebrisbane.org

SPEECH GIVEN AT ‘CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION’, BRISBANE, 25TH, AUGUST, 2012

Here we are ‘Children of the Revolution’. Unfortunately, there’s nothing revolutionary about this shop. In fact, its most popular brand is Naot Shoes, an Israeli company that actively supports the Israeli brand of apartheid.

According to its website, ‘Children of the Revolution’ is “dedicated to sourcing and providing the most progressively fashionable and functional footwear from around the world.”

Since when is apartheid fashionable or functional?

Since when is trampling on the human rights of an oppressed people fashionable or functional?

Well, at ‘Children of the Revolution’ it seems!

Naot Shoes was founded in 1942 at Kibbutz Neot Mordecai and is now one of Israel’s most successful exporter of shoes. 80% are distributed internationally, especially to the USA, Canada and Australia.

What is even more disturbing is that 66% of Naot Shoes is owned by Shamrock Holdings, the investment branch of Disney enterprises which is committed to Israel’s growth and expansion. It is involved in a number of illegal Israeli colonies and also invests in the construction of Israel’s wall which has had huge and negative repercussions on the humanitarian welfare of Palestinians and which was wholeheartedly condemned by the International Court of Justice in 2004.

Naot Shoes has a large factory outlet in the illegal Gush Etzion colony on occupied Palestinian Territory between Jerusalem and Hebron on the West Bank. The Gush Etzion block is occupied illegally by 70,000 colonists on land legally allocated to the Palestinian people in 1947.

The factory outlet store plays a role in strengthening and legitimising the Gush Etzion colony, providing employment for the residents of the colony and attracting both Israeli customers and international tourists alike to the area.

The systematic oppression of the Palestinian people relies on companies such as Naot and Disney. This apartheid regime – based on race and religion – forces Palestinians to live in small, prison-like areas divided by walls, military checkpoints and Israeli only roads. This, in turn, leads to poverty and a massive health crisis.

This does not sound to me to be “progressive and functional”.

In the 70s and 80s no-one who supported human rights or opposed racism, no-one with a conscience would have bought products from South Africa. And this boycott helped to bring about the end of the apartheid regime there.

We are in the middle of a similar campaign now – a campaign to end apartheid in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinian people are asking us to boycott Israeli products such as Naot shoes – just as the oppressed people of South Africa asked us to boycott South African products. As people of conscience we should listen to them.

When you walk in Naot shoes you walk on the rights of Palestinian people.

When you sell Naot shoes you profit from the oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Letter delivered to stores stocking Israeli Goods as part of the first Brisbane BDS Walking Tour, 25 August 2012.

To whom it may concern

Your business has been identified as stocking goods that are under international boycott because they were made in Israel or in illegal Israeli settlements within the occupied Palestinian territories.

You may, or may not, have heard of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the State of Israel. The boycott call was issued on July 9th in 2005 by over 171 Palestinian civil-society organisations, who called on the international community to implement the BDS campaign against Israel. Inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the Palestinian-initiated BDS campaign is conducted in a similar framework of international solidarity and resistance to injustice and oppression and calls for popular resistance through the BDS campaign until Israel complies with international law and meets its obligations towards the Palestinian people.

The international BDS campaign movement is committed to international law and human rights and demands that Israel:

Ends its occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands and dismantles the separation Wall, considered illegal by the International Court of Justice;
Recognises the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
Accepts the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Since the beginning of the BDS campaign many businesses around the world have decided to support the boycott and remove Israeli goods from their shelves. National, State and local governments, church groups and community organisations have divested from Israeli business interests and international corporations that support illegal actions by Israel, such as the building of settlements and infrastructure on or through Palestinian land.

The treatment of Palestinians by Israel has been likened to the former apartheid regime in South Africa by respected former activists who were involved in the South African anti-apartheid movement (including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela).

In 1973, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the international Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, which holds that apartheid is a crime against humanity. The word apartheid means separation. Apartheid is defined by the U.N. as “a system of institutionalised racial segregation and discrimination for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over another and systematically oppressing them by, among other things, creating ghettos; land confiscations; illegal arrests and detentions; bans on freedom of movement and speech and prohibiting mixed marriages.

We consider the actions of the State of Israeli meet this definition of apartheid, as do many other organisations around the world today.

We therefore respectfully ask you to stop importing and selling goods from Israel.

We are committed to ongoing mobilised non-violent action to support the boycott.

We have attached some information on the apartheid system in Israel and encourage you to read it and join us in acting in solidarity with the people of Palestine and supporting their legal and human rights.

Justice for Palestine (Brisbane)

Shop targeted for daring to sell Israeli shoes

August 27, 2012December 11, 2020

Sing Up the Struggle for Justice of Palestinian People & Rachel Corrie

Rachel Corrie's family at the trial verdict — Rachel Corrie’s family at the trial verdict (Courtesy The Rachel Corrie Foundation @RCFoundation)

UPDATE 29/8/12

Unsurprisingly, the criminal zionist entity court-washed Rachel’s murder with the Corrie family’s lawyer indicating an appeal may be pursued. This high profile civil suit has not and will not work in Israel’s favour since the facts clearly reveal the truth which the court has covered up, along with Israel’s reprehensible posturing justifications for murdering innocents at whim including Palestinian children. Chris McGreal’s account is blood-curdling and disturbing. Can a state which remorselessly kills children and unarmed peace activists as deliberate policy claim any justification for existing?

The Israeli military commander in southern Gaza at the time was Colonel Pinhas “Pinky” Zuaretz. A few weeks after Corrie’s death, I (as the Guardian’s correspondent in Israel) spoke to him about how it was that so many children were shot by Israeli soldiers at times when there was no combat. His explanation was chilling.

At that point, three years into the second intifada, more than 400 children had been killed by the Israeli army. Nearly half were in Rafah and neighbouring Khan Yunis. One in four were under the age of 12.

I focussed on the deaths of six children in a 10-week period, all in circumstances far from combat. The dead included a 12-year-old girl, Haneen Abu Sitta, killed in Rafah as she walked home from school near a security fence around one of the fortified Jewish settlements in Gaza at the time. The army made up an explanation by falsely claiming Haneen was killed during a gun battle between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

Zuaretz conceded to me that there was no battle and that the girl was shot by a soldier who had no business opening fire. It was the same with the killings of some of the other children. The colonel was fleetingly remorseful.

“Every name of a child here, it makes me feel bad because it’s the fault of my soldiers. I need to learn and see the mistakes of my troops,” he said. But Zuaretz was not going to do anything about it; and by the end of the interview, he was casting the killings as an unfortunate part of the struggle for Israel’s very survival.

“I remember the Holocaust. We have a choice, to fight the terrorists or to face being consumed by the flames again,” he said.

In court, Zuaretz said the whole of southern Gaza was a combat zone and anyone who entered parts of it had made themselves a target. But those parts included houses where Palestinians built walls within walls in their homes to protect themselves from Israeli bullets.

In that context, covering up the truth about the killings of innocents, including Corrie, became an important part of the survival strategy because of the damage the truth could do to the military’s standing, not only in the rest of the world but also among Israelis.

It is impossible to watch the jubilant wave of the bulldozer driver after he killed Rachel Corrie without longing that the murderous, racist state of Israel collapses under the weight of its contradictions and is transformed as soon as possible into a state with equality for all its citizens, its hideous Occupation of Indigenous Palestinians ended, and rights of Palestinians to return to their lands recognised. A state which grants impunity for such a war crime, let alone the manifold other war crimes and crimes against humanity of which the apartheid zionist entity is guilty, invites its own demise.

To bring about the end of Israel’s vile oppression and lawlessness as soon as possible, ISM’s response to the Rachel Corrie verdict is logical:

By disregarding international law and granting Israeli war criminals impunity Judge Gershon’s verdict exemplifies the fact that Israel’s legal system cannot be trusted to administer justice according to international standards.The ISM calls on the international community to hold Israel accountable by supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and continuing to join the Palestinian struggle in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Omar Barghouti comments on the significance of Israel’s impunity for its murder of Rachel Corrie:

“This latest Israeli mockery of justice underlines what the Golds
tone Report had proven after the Israeli massacre in Gaza in 2008-09. Referring to “structural flaws” in the so-called Israeli justice system, the report concluded that Israel cannot be trusted to administer justice according to international standards”.

…

“This should also convince anyone who still needed to be convinced that without effective BDS against Israel it will never comply with international law. This is the lesson of South Africa”.

If you’re a performer, cultural worker, writer or academic, please contact PACBI with a statement about why you support boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel, if you haven’t already done so. Do it for the Palestinian Nasrullah family whom Rachel Corrie protected, do it for justice, do it for Rachel, just do it and help end Israel’s impunity.

Related Links

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has developed an unmanned version for the D9 bulldozer to be used in Gaza.

At the US State Dept Daily Briefing, Nuland obfuscates:

QUESTION: Thank you. Now that an Israeli court has —

MS. NULAND: It takes two of you to cover for Matt and for – (laughter) – anyway, sorry.

QUESTION: No problem.

MS. NULAND: I couldn’t resist.

QUESTION: An Israeli court today ruled against the family of Rachel Corrie, the American who was killed by a bulldozer in Gaza. Is the U.S. satisfied with that investigation, and is the U.S. disappointed that the Israeli military hasn’t taken responsibility for her death?

MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, we reiterate our condolences to the Corrie family on the tragic death of their daughter, Rachel. As you know, we’ve worked with the family all through this process, and we will continue to provide consular support. We understand the family’s disappointment with the outcome of the trial. Under Israeli law, the family has the right to appeal the verdict, and we’ve seen reports that they are considering doing that. So we will see how this proceeds going forward.

Please.

QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: There are reports that her family at a press conference said that Ambassador Dan Shapiro told them that he found the – he was finding the investigation not to be transparent. Do you have any comment on that?

MS. NULAND: I was asked this question earlier this week. Beyond saying that we have met with the family regularly, that we have provided consular support, I’m not going to get into our private discussions with the family.

Please.

Witness to Rachel Corrie’s Death Responds to Israeli Court Ruling Absolving Soldier

Jeff Halper:

‘Palestinians and Israel human rights activists have learned that justice cannot be obtained through the Israeli judicial system. The Haifa District Court, in which the trial was held, could not have ruled other than how the state wanted. For the past 45 years of Israeli occupation, the Supreme Court has excluded from its rulings all reference to international humanitarian law and to the Fourth Geneva Convention in particular, which protects civilians living in conflict situations and under occupation. Only Israeli law applies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories – military law and orders – and the courts have restricted even that form of law by declaring that in instances of “security,” they defer to the military. As in Rachel’s case, the IDF thus has carte blanche to commit war crimes with impunity, with no fear of accountability or punishment.’

Ramzy Baroud, on vicious zionist attitudes to the murder of peace activists:

Writing in The Jewish Chronicle, historian Geoffrey Alderman stated: “Few events – not even the execution of Osama bin Laden – have caused me greater pleasure in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian so-called ‘peace activist’ Vittorio Arrigoni” (as quoted in The Guardian blog “View from Jerusalem with Harriet Sherwood” on May 18, 2011). While Sherwood found the comments “shocking”, pleasure at the killing of a peace activist is fully consistent with Israel’s ceaseless efforts at “discouraging” international activists from showing solidarity to Palestinians.

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The Israeli courts are to announce the verdict of the civil lawsuit against the Israeli Ministry of Defence initiated by Rachel Corrie’s parents this Tuesday, August 28th. Around the world, humanitarians will protest in solidarity with the Corrie family and with all Palestinian families who have had their homes demolished by Caterpillar bulldozers as part of apartheid Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of Palestinian people.

Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American from Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death March 16, 2003, by an Israeli military Caterpillar D9-R bulldozer while nonviolently protesting demolition of Palestinian civilian homes in Rafah, Gaza.

Rachel’s parents, Cindy and Craig, are hoping for justice for their murdered daughter.

They hope Tuesday’s court decision will conclude a case that’s turned their daughter into a rallying cry for pro-Palestinian activists, taken years of their life and drained their savings.

“We are here with a great deal of anticipation for Tuesday,” said Corrie’s mother, Cindy, 64, a homemaker and musician from Olympia, Washington. “We are hoping for some accountability here for what happened to Rachel.”

Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist, was 23 when she was killed in March 2003 while she and other activists sought to block an Israeli military bulldozer they believed was about to demolish Palestinian homes in the Gaza border town of Rafah. The driver has said he didn’t see Corrie, and the death was accidental.

The Israeli army had been undertaking systematic house demotions in the densely populated border area, trying to halt shooting and mortar attacks against soldiers and Jewish settlers who used the route. The house destruction sparked international condemnation at the time.
…
They hope the court will apportion blame to the bulldozer driver and his superiors, who have all been cleared of wrongdoing in a military court.

The Corries are seeking a symbolic $1 in damages, along with compensation for the money they’ve spent bringing the case to trial.

The Corries said their case underscored how difficult it was for families to pursue justice for loved ones killed by Israeli forces.

Criminal convictions of soldiers, who are tried in military courts, are rare. In one case, an Israeli military court in 2005 convicted a former soldier of manslaughter in the shooting of a British activist, Tom Hurndall.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem said in 304 cases where soldiers killed Palestinians, only nine indictments were filed. Another 27 cases were awaiting a decision of the military advocate general and 14 cases were under investigation.

The US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, has communicated the dissatisfaction of the US government with the Israeli military’s investigation of Rachel’s death.

While the US government’s position on the investigation was not news to the Corrie family, attorneys said that hearing the ambassador’s statement shortly before the verdict was “important and encouraging.”

“This trial is an attempt to hold accountable not only those who failed to protect Rachel’s life but also the flawed system of military investigations which is neither impartial nor thorough,” the family’s attorney said. “Under international law, Israel is obliged to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians from the dangers of military operations. The Israeli military flagrantly violated this principle in the killing of Rachel Corrie.”

Corrie’s father called the lawsuit “a small step in our family’s nearly decade-long search for truth and justice.”

Regardless of how the judge rules, the US government will demand a full account from Israel about Corrie’s death.

To help demand justice for Rachel Corrie and her parents online and to highlight Israel’s horrendous collective punishment of Palestinian people, tweet #RememberRachel and follow @RCFoundation for updates.

Support oppressed Palestinian people and their struggle for justice, support Rachel Corrie’s parents and her cause, support boycott, divestment and sanctions against apartheid Israel!

Palestine / Israel Links

Up in salt: Israeli firm omits woman from kosher for Passover products

August 4, 2012December 11, 2020

Don’t Bring Your Blues to Apartheid Israel, Robert Belfour

Dear Robert Belfour,

We have discovered you are scheduled to play in Israel on 23 August at the Barby in Tel Aviv.

The fact that there is a cultural boycott of Israel is not something of which all musical artists are aware when they schedule to play Israel. After becoming aware, many cancel. (See http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1788)

We are writing to let you know more about this global movement, and we hope you will decide to be a part of it.

Israel has claimed authority over the lives and land of millions of Palestinian people. What began in 1948 in Palestine has now escalated into what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many others call apartheid. Racism runs deep in the streets of Tel Aviv, Africans seeking asylum and living as refugees are filled with fear as Israelis demonstrate on the streets against their presence. Last May brought fear to Africans in Israel as a series of fire bombings of apartments and a day nursery were set off in an area where African migrants live. Shops run by or serving migrants were smashed up and looted in violent demonstrations in which several Africans were attacked. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated

“We’ll start by ejecting the infiltrators from South Sudan…and then move on to other groups.”

Israel’s Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai said chillingly:

“The infiltrators [African immigrants] along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream…we don’t need to import more problems from Africa…[they] think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man”.

A heinous series of walls, checkpoints, and sniper towers dot the landscape for millions of Palestinians. Brutal military might is flaunted daily and children in Gaza are regularly targeted to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of new weapons. Armed soldiers raid homes, fire into schoolyards, maiming and killing children.

While some liberal “peacenik” Israelis will tell you they want you to play because they will be your audience, please know that the most effective tool to end the oppression is an unequivocal stand against the injustice by saying no. Instead listen to the brave Israelis from “Boycott From Within” who have asked many artists to stay away from the failing Zionist state. (See http://boycottisrael.info/ )

Artists who do play for apartheid are being used to promote Israel as a false democracy. The Israeli government has an official twitter and uses its position to let the world know which artists lend their name to promote Israel’s false image. Just three of many examples are Bobby McFerrin, Gun N Roses and Sister Bliss.

Please don’t allow your name to be used to whitewash racism, apartheid, and the horrible illegal annexation wall (pictured here in this recent video). http://youtu.be/pxZrUIctF5A

Join the boycott for justice, equality, freedom and human rights.

Yours truly,

DPAI

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel (DPAI) seeks to inform musicians of the Palestinian call to boycott Israel, and the extent to which their decision to play in the apartheid state will be instrumentalized – against their will – as propaganda for the maintenance of a horrifying status quo in Israel/Palestine: that is a brutal, decades-long occupation, ongoing ethnic cleansing, continual land theft, passing of over 20 racist laws within Israel/’48, and the crackdown on human rights groups. We represent over 900 members from around the globe who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel.

For more information:
http://972mag.com/israeli-coalition-members-speak-about-refugees/47455/

SOURCE

Robert Belfour on Facebook
Robert Belfour on Myspace

July 21, 2012December 11, 2020

Israeli Apartheid and the Olympics

The below translation is by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service, Melbourne, Australia.

Who will not be there at the Olympics?

Yoav Borowitz

20 July 2012 02.00

In exactly a week the world’s eyes will be on the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, one of those spectacular and dramatic events produced every four years. The State of Israel will be well representedl at the ceremony and the games themselves, with a delegation of 38 athletes – the country’s largest ever representation. The delegation is a shining example of gender equality: 20 men and 18 women. The number of sports in which Israeli athletes will participate (12), and their range, is quite impressive.

However, very large community will not be part of this celebration, a community that in effect has not been part of the Olympic celebration for eight consecutive Olympics. Zero Arab athletes represent Israel in London. Zero, even though the Arabs in Israel number 1.67 million people, approximately 20.5 per cent of the population. In all of its years of existence Israel has been represented by 338 athletes in 19 different Olympics. But only two Arab-Israelis have been privileged to participate in Olympic delegations – soccer star Rifat Turk (Montreal, 1976) and weightlifter Edward Maron (Rome, 1960).

This topic has never come up on the public agenda in Israel. Sports ministers have never said a word about it, nor have the heads of national Olympic Committee, or even the media or elected officials ever uttered a word about it. Amazingly, no one can even recall Arab Israelis raising the issue, as if they expect to be excluded from official delegations that represent the state.

Sport is indeed the closest thing to meritocracy only one’s ability counts. Had there been a good enough Arab athlete meeting the Israeli and international criteria, she or he would certainly be representing Israel in London. But it is clear that the absence of such an such athlete is not indicative of the lack of talent or the zeal to train hard within the Arab community as far as sport is concerned. The root of the problem is that there are no facilities, coaches or infrastructure for almost any sport in any Arab village or town. The only area in which little money, and a lot of goodwill, is invested is soccer. So today 15 per cent of Premier League footballers are Israeli Arabs.

But in no other sport, and there are dozens of wonderful and important sports, most of which are represented in the Olympics, is there a prominent Arab athlete. The Ministry of Sports admits that only about 11 million out of about 128 million shekels in the sports budget is invested in the Arab sector. As if to prove the point, they add that under the incumbent Minister, Limor Livnat, the figure has actually improved considerably. Until two years ago the amount invested in the Arab sector was only 6 million shekels a year.

It seems as if this discrimination does not disturb the country’s sports officials, or the Israeli public in general. And perhaps rightly so: there is nothing like so great international event to accurately reflect the reality of life and the state’s real priorities.

Yoav Borowitz is a Haaretz sports writer.

Hebrew original: http://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/1.1780664