Category: In the Media

Retired professor on epic voyage to honor USS Liberty dead

7 September 2011 | Arab News

GAZA: A retired college professor from the US state of Texas who has sailed approximately 8,000 miles to the eastern Mediterranean in an epic voyage, is heading toward his destination — the exact location where Israeli forces tried to sink a US Navy ship in 1967, killing or injuring over 200 American servicemen.

Larry Toenjes, 74 years old, will remain 12 miles off the coast of Gaza in international waters, where the attack took place.

He is planning to hold a memorial service for those killed on board the ship, the USS Liberty, on Thursday.

Toenjes, who departed from Galveston, Texas, almost four months ago, in a 39-foot sailboat, is accompanied by Marine veteran Rusty Glenn, a veteran who joined him in Malta.

While there has been concern that Israel might interfere with their voyage as it has other boats in the Mediterranean, ramming and hijacking some, so far Israel seems to be ignoring the voyage.

Israel shelled and torpedoed the ship, an electronics surveillance ship, in an attack that lasted as long as the attack on Pearl Harbor.

While Israel and its partisans have tried to claim that the attack was “a mistake,” a 2003 inquiry by an independent commission led by a retired four-star Navy admiral, announced on Capitol Hill that all the evidence indicated that the attack had been intentional and  consisted of an act of war against the United States by Israel.

The panel also said that it found that a cover-up had been ordered by the White House.

In addition, the commission found that rescue flights had been recalled by President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. While almost no media covered the Capitol Hill briefing, a full record of its findings are in the Congressional Record and Stars and Stripes military newspaper.

In a column published by the Galveston News, Toenjes explained that he was undertaking the voyage for two primary purposes: To honor the men who died in service to their country and to try to draw attention to attempts by their surviving families and crewmates to obtain the full government investigation that is legally required but that has been blocked by the powerful Israel Lobby.

Toenjes’ trip is being tracked on the website of the Council for the National Interest (CNI).

When he arrives at his destination, the CNI website will stream live his memorial service, which will be carried by satellite phone to a radio program hosted by a Liberty survivor, Phil Tourney.

While the national media have ignored this voyage, Toenjes and Liberty survivors hope that the American public will learn about his undertaking by word of mouth, blogs, and social media.

Israel mulls arming ‘trained’ settlers

30 August 2011 | Al Jazeera 

Army plans to provide tear gas and stun grenades in West Bank to repel any Palestinian protests next month, report says.

The Israeli army is planning to provide tear gas and stun grenades to settlers in the occupied West Bank who have been trained to repel any violent protests when the Palestinians seek statehood at the United Nations next month, an Israeli newspaper says.

According to Haaretz, the Israeli army has also conducted a strategy to determine a “red line” for each settlement in the West Bank, which will determine when soldiers will be ordered to shoot at the feet of Palestinians if they cross the line.

Asked to confirm the report, the military issued a written statement on Tuesday, saying it was in the process of training settlement response teams “to deal with any possible scenario”.

The statement said the military recently “completed training the majority of the first response teams” and the exercises were ongoing.

The Palestinian Authority plans to seek the UN’s endorsement of statehood when the General Assembly reconvenes next month, a bid seen likely to upgrade the Palestinians’ diplomatic status.

Israel rejects the move as sidestepping peace talks that have been frozen for a year in a dispute over settlement building.

Israeli officials have voiced fears the statehood bid could inspire Palestinian activists to hold demonstrations to coincide with the vote.

‘Worst case scenario’

Chaim Levinson, the Haaretz reporter who broke the story, told Al Jazeera: “Part of preparation is to train the settlers so that they will be prepared for the worst scenario that hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians will come from Palestinian cities to protest towards settlements.

“The Israeli Defence Forces [IDF] will train them, arm them with tear gas and stun grenades,” added Levinson.

The army is ensuring that any demonstrations will be controlled and will rely on the assistance of security officers from the settlements to assist them where necessary.

The army is creating two virtual lines for each of the settlements that are near a Palestinian village. The first line, if crossed by Palestinian demonstrators, will be met with tear gas and other means for dispersing crowds.

The second line is a “red line,” and if this one is crossed, the soldiers will be allowed to open fire at the legs of the demonstrators…”

‘Defensive purpose’

However, Jewish settler officials denied the Haaretz report about the plan to arm settlers, saying any use of firearms would be very limited and for defensive purposes only.

“Certainly during a period of tension, with intelligence reports of possible threats, of course, readiness crews are being trained,” said Danny Dayan, chairman of the settlers’ YESHA Council.

Dayan saw these preparations as “nothing extraordinary”, noting how most settlers involved have already done compulsory duty in the Israeli military which drafts most Israeli men at the age of 18.

Armed settlers “operate under orders to avoid killing civilians [and] in the event of a break-in at a settlement, the response would be purely defensive, nothing offensive,” he added.

Palestinians and human rights groups say settlers have used weapons to attack Palestinians in the past and that Israel has been lax in investigating such incidents.

How Israel takes its revenge on boys who throw stones

26 August 2011 | The Independent, Catrina Stewart

The boy, small and frail, is struggling to stay awake. His head lolls to the side, at one point slumping on to his chest. “Lift up your head! Lift it up!” shouts one of his interrogators, slapping him. But the boy by now is past caring, for he has been awake for at least 12 hours since he was separated at gunpoint from his parents at two that morning. “I wish you’d let me go,” the boy whimpers, “just so I can get some sleep.”

During the nearly six-hour video, 14-year-old Palestinian Islam Tamimi, exhausted and scared, is steadily broken to the point where he starts to incriminate men from his village and weave fantastic tales that he believes his tormentors want to hear.

This rarely seen footage seen by The Independent offers a glimpse into an Israeli interrogation, almost a rite of passage that hundreds of Palestinian children accused of throwing stones undergo every year.

Israel has robustly defended its record, arguing that the treatment of minors has vastly improved with the creation of a military juvenile court two years ago. But the children who have faced the rough justice of the occupation tell a very different story.

“The problems start long before the child is brought to court, it starts with their arrest,” says Naomi Lalo, an activist with No Legal Frontiers, an Israeli group that monitors the military courts. It is during their interrogation where their “fate is doomed”, she says.

Sameer Shilu, 12, was asleep when the soldiers smashed in the front door of his house one night. He and his older brother emerged bleary-eyed from their bedroom to find six masked soldiers in their living room.

Checking the boy’s name on his father’s identity card, the officer looked “shocked” when he saw he had to arrest a boy, says Sameer’s father, Saher. “I said, ‘He’s too young; why do you want him?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said”. Blindfolded, and his hands tied painfully behind his back with plastic cords, Sameer was bundled into a Jeep, his father calling out to him not to be afraid. “We cried, all of us,” his father says. “I know my sons; they don’t throw stones.”

In the hours before his interrogation, Sameer was kept blindfolded and handcuffed, and prevented from sleeping. Eventually taken for interrogation without a lawyer or parent present, a man accused him of being in a demonstration, and showed him footage of a boy throwing stones, claiming it was him.

“He said, ‘This is you’, and I said it wasn’t me. Then he asked me, ‘Who are they?’ And I said that I didn’t know,” Sameer says. “At one point, the man started shouting at me, and grabbed me by the collar, and said, ‘I’ll throw you out of the window and beat you with a stick if you don’t confess’.”

Sameer, who protested his innocence, was fortunate; he was released a few hours later. But most children are frightened into signing a confession, cowed by threats of physical violence, or threats against their families, such as the withdrawal of work permits.

When a confession is signed, lawyers usually advise children to accept a plea bargain and serve a fixed jail sentence even if not guilty. Pleading innocent is to invite lengthy court proceedings, during which the child is almost always remanded in prison. Acquittals are rare. “In a military court, you have to know that you’re not looking for justice,” says Gabi Lasky, an Israeli lawyer who has represented many children.

There are many Palestinian children in the West Bank villages in the shadow of Israel’s separation wall and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands. Where largely non-violent protests have sprung up as a form of resistance, there are children who throw stones, and raids by Israel are common. But lawyers and human rights groups have decried Israel’s arrest policy of targeting children in villages that resist the occupation.

In most cases, children as young as 12 are hauled from their beds at night, handcuffed and blindfolded, deprived of sleep and food, subjected to lengthy interrogations, then forced to sign a confession in Hebrew, a language few of them read.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem concluded that, “the rights of minors are severely violated, that the law almost completely fails to protect their rights, and that the few rights granted by the law are not implemented”.

Israel claims to treat Palestinian minors in the spirit of its own law for juveniles but, in practice, it is rarely the case. For instance, children should not be arrested at night, lawyers and parents should be present during interrogations, and the children must be read their rights. But these are treated as guidelines, rather than a legal requirement, and are frequently flouted. And Israel regards Israeli youngsters as children until 18, while Palestinians are viewed as adults from 16.

Lawyers and activists say more than 200 Palestinian children are in Israeli jails. “You want to arrest these kids, you want to try them,” Ms Lalo says. “Fine, but do it according to Israeli law. Give them their rights.”

In the case of Islam, the boy in the video, his lawyer, Ms Lasky, believes the video provides the first hard proof of serious irregularities in interrogation.

In particular, the interrogator failed to inform Islam of his right to remain silent, even as his lawyer begged to no avail to see him. Instead, the interrogator urged Islam to tell him and his colleagues everything, hinting that if he did so, he would be released. One interrogator suggestively smacked a balled fist into the palm of his hand.

By the end of the interrogation Islam, breaking down in sobs, has succumbed to his interrogators, appearing to give them what they want to hear. Shown a page of photographs, his hand moves dully over it, identifying men from his village, all of whom will be arrested for protesting.

Ms Lasky hopes this footage will change the way children are treated in the occupied territories, in particular, getting them to incriminate others, which lawyers claim is the primary aim of interrogations. The video helped gain Islam’s release from jail into house arrest, and may even lead to a full acquittal of charges of throwing stones. But right now, a hunched and silent Islam doesn’t feel lucky. Yards from his house in Nabi Saleh is the home of his cousin, whose husband is in jail awaiting trial along with a dozen others on the strength of Islam’s confession.

The cousin is magnanimous. “He is a victim, he is just a child,” says Nariman Tamimi, 35, whose husband, Bassem, 45, is in jail. “We shouldn’t blame him for what happened. He was under enormous pressure.”

Israel’s policy has been successful in one sense, sowing fear among children and deterring them from future demonstrations. But the children are left traumatised, prone to nightmares and bed-wetting. Most have to miss a year of school, or even drop out.

Israel’s critics say its policy is creating a generation of new activists with hearts filled with hatred against Israel. Others say it is staining the country’s character. “Israel has no business arresting these children, trying them, oppressing them,” Ms Lalo says, her eyes glistening. “They’re not our children. My country is doing so many wrongs and justifying them. We should be an example, but we have become an oppressive state.”

Child detention figures

7,000 [Figure corrected, with apologies for earlier production error.] The estimated number of Palestinian children detained and prosecuted in Israeli military courts since 2000, shows a report by Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP).

87 The percentage of children subjected to some form of physical violence while in custody. About 91 per cent are also believed to be blindfolded at some point during their detention.

12 The minimum age of criminal responsibility, as stipulated in the Military Order 1651.

62 The percentage of children arrested between 12am and 5am.

Palestinians farming creatively to overcome the ‘buffer zone’

21 August 2011 | Islam Online, Hama Waqum

On Nakba Day in May, thousands of Palestinians edged towards Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Gaza, demanding their Right of Return, and an end to the Israeli occupation. Many of these protestors would return to demonstrate on the Naksa Day in June.

A major demand put forth by the Gazan demonstrators was the elimination of the ‘buffer zone’, which forbids Palestinians from stepping within three hundred meters of the cement wall that separates Gaza from the outside world.

Farming beyond the Buffer Zone

Gaza’s farmers face dangers in tending to their land, even if it lies beyond the ‘buffer zone’. For this reason, Palestinians and internationals arrange and attend mass farming events where they harvest and plant en masse.

In June, around 200 Palestinian men and women gathered in a small farm outside of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza. Scrambling through a wheat field to a freshly-ploughed meadow, volunteers from all backgrounds assembled to help the owner of the farm to sow tomato and aubergine plants in the fields closest to the ‘buffer zone’. The three hundred meters of farmland adjacent to the wall is left unfarmed year-round. Those taking a break from crouching in the soil would stand up only to see an Israeli observation balloon, suspended above the horizon beyond the Israeli barrier.

Wisam, a student from Gaza City volunteered, along with several grandfathers, niqabi mothers and international activists. “We came here because we must stand in solidarity with the farmers who are trying to work their land” she explained.

With many hands at work, the land is freshly graced with green saplings in less than two hours and planting time is reduced, which lowers the risks posed to farmers who would otherwise spend days in front of the military outposts planting the saplings.

Farming at gun point

Father-of-six, Jabr Abu Jala lives in the ‘high-risk’ or ‘danger’ zone, meters away from the border in Faraheen, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza. It is farms such as Abu Jala’s that request assistance, so that planting and harvesting can be carried out as quickly as possible, with no intimidation from the nearby military outposts. “We face attacks and shooting almost daily.” Abu Jala explained, “Some days it’s calm, some days it’s not, but, regardless, we are forbidden from tending to a large section of our farmland- and this is a direct result of the occupation.

“They say that the buffer zone is 300 meters, so why do people end up getting shot at when they are 800 meters away from the barrier?”

Nathan Stuckey is an American activist, who had been helping to harvest Abu Jala’s wheat yield and occasionally staying with the family on their farm.

“Last night I was lying in bed, (it was) at about 5:00am and we started hearing a lot of shooting from the north and east sides of Faraheen. It was coming from the towers or Jeeps close to the farmland, right on the border” he said explaining a frequent occurrence.  In the village Khozaa, it’s too dangerous for men to come to the field; the Israelis are less likely to shoot women, so that’s why the women do the farm work” he added.

Women till the soil

Despite the conservative nature of Gazan society—which is particularly apparent in smaller farming villages—it is equally acceptable for men and women to tend to land.

Halima is a Gazan mother who tends to a farm at Faraheen, “Many women farm here, we love to work. I’m the only woman here today, because I come to watch over my sons who are harvesting. I worry about their safety. If internationals weren’t here to harvest with us, we’d have to stop at 8 or 9am. If we farm in the evening, we die!” she said, laughing.

Sarah is a student of biology at Al Aqsa University who joined the 200 Palestinians in the planting of saplings in northern Gaza.

“I came here to help the farmers sow their seeds,” she explained, “It is important for women to help in this aspect. As women, we don’t face any trouble coming here to work alongside the men, you can see for yourself that it’s normal; nobody minds.”

20-year old Anwar took part in the Beit Hanoun demonstrations on the ‘Naksa’—or setback—day, near the Erez crossing. “We are here to protest against the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza and in memory of our heritage. We have come here with saaj (traditional bread), Palestinian coffee and dress, and dabka dancers to protest. This is a cultural demonstration.”

Palestinians in Gaza have become creative in their defiance of the ‘buffer zone’, from holding cultural parties to commemorate the Naksa, to flying kites over the forbidden land with messages to Israeli citizens. But, what is most pressing is their desire to be able to farm on their own land without being harassed by Israeli outposts. When large groups are able to mobilize and harvest a field in a couple of hours, this becomes much easier. Sadly, not all farms have access to a network of support and volunteers such as this.

Why boycott Israel?

13 August 2011 | Al Jazeera English, Lisa Taraki and Mark LeVine

A founding member of the campaign for the academic and cultural boycott outlines the motivation behind the movement.

Author and history professor Mark LeVine speaks with sociologist Lisa Taraki, a co-founder of the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Mark LeVine: What is the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement and how is it related to the academic and cultural boycott movement? How have both evolved in the past few years in terms of their goals and methods?

Lisa Taraki: The BDS movement can be summed up as the struggle against Israeli colonisation, occupation and apartheid. BDS is a rights-based strategy to be pursued until Israel meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and complies with the requirements of international law.

Within this framework, the academic and cultural boycott of Israel has gained considerable ground in the seven years since the launching of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004. The goals of the academic and cultural boycott call, as the aims of the Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions issued in 2005, have remained consistent: to end the colonisation of Palestinian lands occupied in 1967; to ensure full equality of Palestinian citizens of Israel and end the system of racial discrimination; and to realise the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

The logic of the BDS movement has also remained consistent. The basic logic of BDS is the logic of pressure, not diplomacy, persuasion, or dialogue. Diplomacy as a strategy for achieving Palestinian rights has proven to be futile, due to the protection and immunity Israel enjoys from hegemonic world powers and those in their orbit.

Second, the logic of persuasion has also shown its bankruptcy, since no amount of “education” of Israelis about the horrors of occupation and other forms of oppression seems to have turned the tide. Dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, which remains very popular among Israeli liberals and Western foundations and governments that fund the activities, has also failed miserably. Dialogue is often framed in terms of “two sides to the story”, in the sense that each side must understand the pain, anguish, and suffering of the other, and to accept the narrative of the other.

This presents the “two sides” as if they were equally culpable, and deliberately avoids acknowledgment of the basic coloniser-colonised relationship. Dialogue does not promote change, but rather reinforces the status quo, and in fact is mainly in the interest of the Israeli side of the dialogue, since it makes Israelis feel that they are doing something while in fact they are not. The logic of BDS is the logic of pressure. And that pressure has been amplifying.

Institutional pressure

The Palestinian-led academic and cultural boycott is an institutional boycott; that is, it does not target individual scholars or artists. This point has also remained the same since the inception of the BDS movement. Yet it’s important to state here that all Israeli universities and virtually the entire spectrum of Israeli cultural institutions are complicit in the state’s policies, and as such are legitimate targets of the boycott. Guidelines and criteria for boycott, however, have been elaborated since the founding of the movement, as more experience is gained on the ground, and in response to requests for guidance from conscientious academics and cultural workers wishing to respect the Palestinian boycott call. PACBI in particular spends a great deal of effort guiding and advising international solidarity activists. Consistency is achieved through adhering to the guidelines developed by PACBI, in cooperation with other elements in the Palestinian BDS movement.

World renowned public intellectuals, academics, writers, artists, musicians and other cultural workers have now endorsed the academic and cultural boycott call; their names are too many to note here, but the interested reader can consult the PACBI website. In addition, several campaigns for academic and cultural boycott have been established around the world: in the UK, the USA, France, Pakistan, Lebanon, Germany, Norway, India, Spain, South Africa, and Australia, and many other countries. The newly established European Platform for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (EPACBI) is an important coordinating body in Europe.

The lethal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in the winter of 2008-2009 and the murder of Turkish solidarity activists aboard the Mavi Marmara in May 2010 served as further catalysts in the tremendous spread of BDS actions around the world, which include cancellations of artistic performances in Israel, protests against complicit Israeli institutions’ performances abroad (such as the past and current protests around performances by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), and many more creative forms of protest and boycott of Israeli and brand-Israel projects and institutions.

Israel’s crackdown on dissent

ML: The Israelis have recently passed a so-called “anti-Boycott law”, which opens Israelis who support any form of boycott, even if it’s limited to settlement products, to significant civil penalties and lawsuits to force them to stop their actions. Can you comment on this whole discourse, especially the commentary in the Israeli press critical of it, claiming it represents a move against democracy, towards fascism, and similar responses which seem to suggest these are unprecedented measures?

LT: The Palestinian BDS movement is encouraged by the adoption of the logic of BDS, and boycott in particular, by sections of the Israeli left, and feels it has been vindicated in its argument that pressure – and not persuasion – is the best way to make Israelis realise that the system of occupation, apartheid and colonialism must end. Having said this, I must note that there are at least two disturbing aspects to the new surge of activity surrounding the new anti-boycott law passed by the Israeli Knesset recently.

First, the boycott being defended by leftist and liberal Israelis targets institutions (such as the University Center of Samaria and the cultural center in Ariel) and products of the Israeli colonies in the West Bank only. This boycott, then, is silent on the complicity of all mainstream Israeli institutions – and indeed many industries, such as the weapons industry – in maintaining and legitimising the structures of oppression.

Second, this boycott is often cast in terms of “saving Israeli democracy”. As such, it is an Israel-centred discourse and project, and the point of reference is neither Palestinian rights as stipulated by international law nor an acknowledgment that they are heeding the call of the Palestinians. One outstanding exception is the Israeli group “Boycott from Within“, which explicitly endorses the Palestinian BDS call and considers it the basic point of reference for its agenda of activism – such as urging artists and musicians not to perform in Israel, supporting a military embargo of Israel, advocating for different divestment campaigns, and many other activities that target all complicit Israeli institutions. Other Israeli groups, such as the Coalition of Women for Peace, ICAHD, and others have also endorsed the Palestinian BDS call publicly.

ML: What is your impression of what happened with the latest Gaza flotilla? Some commentators have argued that the “successful” use of supposedly “non-violent” strategies by the government of Israel to put pressure on other governments to stop the flotilla before it got anywhere near Gaza represents a defeat for the rising tide of non-violent resistance, showing that the Israelis have learnt the lessons and are now able to beat the activists at their own game.

LT: I don’t agree with that assessment at all. I think the main aim of the flotillas, which has been to highlight, resist, and protest Israel’s illegal siege of the Gaza Strip, has been realised, despite Israeli efforts to bear extreme pressure against governments to prevent the vessels from sailing. The ridiculous Israeli response to the recent “Welcome to Palestine” campaign did more to publicise the campaign than would otherwise have happened.

You are right to frame the flotilla movement as a part of the international movement to isolate, expose, and bear pressure upon Israel to respect international law and end its system of colonisation, occupation, and apartheid. That this movement – still in its early stages – has achieved world recognition is attested to by the state of disarray in official Israeli and Zionist circles. Already, several conferences and strategy papers have been launched in Israel and abroad to counter what is being marketed as the “delegitimisation threat”. If BDS, the annual and growing Israel Apartheid Week events, and other resistance actions such as the waves of flotillas are mere nuisances, I doubt that so much effort would be invested merely out of an “academic” interest in them. Strong-arm tactics with some governments may have prevented the flotillas from reaching Gaza, but the strength of the BDS movement – and other solidarity actions – is that they are built on people’s initiatives, [these] cannot be easily suppressed, despite intimidation, legal threats and lawsuits, and other silencing tactics.

A wider perspective

ML: In the BDS literature, there is a critique of those, like myself, who argue that anyone who wants to join BDS for Palestine should also adopt similar actions vis-a-vis other countries involved in massive systematic oppression and/or occupation (China, India, the US, to cite the most obvious examples), and that the need to think systemically is not merely an ethical imperative but a strategic one as well. Your response, when we last met in Ramallah, was that this strategy is utopian, that Palestinians have enough trouble getting people to engage in BDS merely against Israel, and that enlarging it would be untenable.

Can you explain how BDS can become more effective without thinking of joining with other movements against oppression and occupation that might call for a similar campaign?

LT: The BDS movement does operate with a conceptual framework, of course. This includes an analysis of global and regional power relations. BDS is predicated on the fact that the collusion of the hegemonic, or major world powers of the so-called “international community” with Israeli impunity is the single most important factor that enables Israel to continue flouting international law. The hegemonic powers not only shield Israel from censure; they have also often turned a blind eye to grievous offences committed by their allies – but only when it serves their own interests. The inconsistency of US and European foreign policy is not something I need to stress, I believe. Plenty of rogue regimes continue to oppress and suppress their citizenry without international censure, as we all know.

What is important to note, however, is that when an oppressed people decide to appeal to the world to help them achieve self-determination and freedom through boycotts and other pressure mechanisms, as the vast majority of Palestinian civil society has done, then the response of all conscientious people would usually be to respect that appeal directly and immediately. It certainly was the case in South Africa. I don’t think anyone had the temerity to suggest, during the anti-apartheid struggle in that country, that the existence of a full-throttle anti-imperialist movement would be the precondition for supporting the boycotts called for by the oppressed in South Africa, or that a boycott of the US, the UK (and indeed Israel) was the only principled course of action to take. That would have been a recipe for paralysis.

Israel, unlike many other oppressive states, enjoys the full support of the hegemonic powers, as I have noted. Precisely because of this, since there is no other impetus for change, it is incumbent upon forces that support justice to heed the Palestinian call. If there were a robust BDS movement in China or in Morocco today urging a boycott of the existing regimes, then certainly it would be an obligation to respect the call of the oppressed.

The growth of the movement

ML: It seems increasing numbers of diaspora and Israeli Jews are supporting BDS, at least in principle – although as you alluded to – what they imagine BDS is and what it actually means can differ significantly. How is the growing support impacting the success of BDS? Do you think it is penetrating more into Israeli society? And have you seen any changes in the way the Israeli government deals with non-violent protest in the last year or so, given the increasing success of the movement?

LT: My comments concerning the Israeli boycott of the colonies in the West Bank are relevant in this context as well. I think most Israelis are very far from becoming convinced that BDS is an effective strategy for radical change of the status quo, and that is because Israeli society has no incentive to change the status quo. Only pressure, in the form of various BDS measures, can move the Israeli body politic. That is the logic of BDS, after all. As for the treatment of protests by the Israeli government and military, it’s obvious that they are continuing to reassess their on-the-ground tactics in the face of the continuing escalation of protests, both by Palestinians and international and Israeli supporters. The use of force has been a constant for several decades now and is nothing new. During the first intifada, which was a form of civil resistance and disobedience, the response of the Israeli military was deadly and violent, just as it is today. The language of force will not be abandoned. That is the logic of a colonial power, after all.

ML: Can you elaborate a bit more on what the initiators of the BDS movement mean when they describe institutions or artists/academics who “serve Brand Israel”. What is “Brand Israel” and whose interests does it serve?

LT: “Brand Israel” is a worldwide campaign launched in 2005 by some agencies of the Israeli government and major pro-Israel groups internationally, primarily in the United States. It’s a diffuse and diverse effort, but the main idea behind it is to portray and promote Israel as a normal country for tourism, youth culture, enjoyment of the fine arts, sports, and all other “normal” and “civilised” pursuits. Public relations firms have played an important role in crafting the Israeli brand. In addition, Israeli consulates and embassies as well as Jewish and Zionist organizations (such as Hillel in the US) are actively involved in promoting Israeli art, scientific accomplishments, and other “achievements” abroad. The modernity, diversity, and vitality of Israel are stressed in Brand Israel promotional activities.

I may add that the Israeli writer Yitzhak Laor has uncovered evidence of official Israeli sponsorship of Brand Israel-type activities, and with a price tag attached; in an article published in 2008, he revealed that any Israeli artist or cultural worker accepting financial support from the Israeli Foreign Ministry for exhibiting or showcasing his or her work abroad was obligated to sign a contract stipulating that he or she “undertakes to act faithfully, responsibly and tirelessly to provide the Ministry with the highest professional services. The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel”.

What this reveals, then, is that, in light of the bad press Israel has been receiving in past years, it has been deemed necessary to make sure that artists and other cultural workers – perhaps because of their reputation as idiosyncratic or even eccentric – know what is expected of them when they accept state funding of their tours abroad. They are supposed to act as “cultural ambassadors” for Israel, which – in large part – is to become apologists for Israeli policies and practices that oppress the Palestinians.

ML: In terms of the academic boycott, if I have a student who needs to come to Israel to develop her or his Hebrew in order better understand the dynamics of the occupation and can only afford to do this through various programs such as Erasmus or Education Abroad Programs that involved affiliation with Israeli universities, or wants to do research at Israeli archives on the country’s history that require students to be affiliated to Israeli universities to obtain research clearance, what is the official position of PACBI towards this?

LT: The PACBI guidelines for the implementation of the academic boycott, which apply to international academics and students, are clear: any interaction with Israeli universities, regardless of the content or form (studying there, accessing archives, giving a course, attending a conference, conducting research) violates the academic boycott if such an interaction entails official contact with the institution.

This can include accepting an invitation to attend a conference, registering for a course, accepting employment or agreeing to conduct seminars, or conducting research in affiliation with such institutions. While using a university facility such as a library does not strictly violate the boycott, doing so in the framework of affiliation with the university would.

Institutional study abroad schemes, research activity conducted in the framework of institutional cooperation agreements – such as the various EU-funded programs, including Erasmus Mundus – violate the boycott. Regarding the study of Hebrew, I think that the international options for pursuing that are very wide indeed; most universities in the West offer Hebrew instruction.

In general, conscientious scholars and students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the logic and aims of boycott and to abide by its spirit if situations other than the ones noted above are encountered. Since Palestinians – including academics and their representative body, the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Employees – have called for an academic boycott, it becomes a responsibility of conscientious academics and students considering visiting the area for research or study purposes to become familiar with the context, which includes thinking seriously about the meaning of their affiliation with Israeli universities in light of the boycott call.

ML: Critics might say that this response is explicitly putting politics – however worthy – ahead of the advance of scholarship. For historians, for example, it is impossible to produce new knowledge without accessing archives. For student historians, their degree depends on their access to archives. If the archives are controlled by the state, then is the mere fact of using them mean complicity with the state?

LT: This is not putting politics above scholarship; it is about applying ethical principles to the practice of scholarship. No scholarly activity takes place in a vacuum, and every scholar must consider the consequences of his or her research strategies when pursuing scholarly activity. State control of some archives does not necessarily preclude using them, as I noted earlier; usually, it is enough to prove one’s academic credentials to gain access to them. It is the same as using Israeli medical facilities or any other public service. The main issue is institutional affiliation.

Drawing inspiration

ML: Are there any lessons from the so-called Arab Spring, or from other mass mobilisations globally against oppression in the past year or two that can inform and even help the BDS movement and Palestinian resistance more broadly? Do the events of the last eight months give you hope, or is the situation in Palestine different enough – being at once a colonial situation and an internal struggle for democracy both within Israeli and Palestinian societies – that these other mass mobilisations can’t really help beyond inspiring Palestinians to stay the course?

LT: The revolutionary spirit that has ignited the Arab will no doubt make the question of Palestine more urgent than before, both in those countries that have begun the process of revolutionary transformation and those in which struggles for freedom and democracy are still unfolding. Once there are free and unrigged elections for new parliaments in Egypt and Tunisia as well as other Arab countries, the new parliaments will have to be sensitive to the views of the people – unlike the situation that has hitherto prevailed.

It is well known that Palestine is an Arab question, and that includes widespread rejection of Israel’s destructive role in the region. The forces of counterrevolution may try to combat popular sentiment, and there will be continuous contestation and ongoing struggles, but the policies of Arab countries will not be the same now that the revolutionary spirit has taken hold of the imagination of the Arab people.

ML: How do you think the sudden rise of the protest movement in Israel for “social justice” will impact the BDS movement and Palestinian resistance more broadly to the occupation?  Especially with the likely coincidence of renewed protests in Israel next month and a major Palestinian push for statehood at the UN, is there a space for Palestinians to make a significant intervention in the protest discourse inside Israel that helps reshape it towards broader ends? And if so, what role would BDS play in this?

LT: From all indications, the protest movement in Israel has nothing to say about justice for Palestinians, either as citizens or as occupied people. The Palestinian BDS movement does not address the Israeli public directly in order to persuade it or to appeal to its sense of justice. That is not the logic of BDS. It is up to Israeli political forces to make that connection and to influence their public. We expect that pro-BDS Israelis, however small their numbers might be, will be taking this up within their society.

Lisa Taraki is a sociologist at Birzeit University in the occupied Palestinian territories and a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

Mark LeVine is a professor of Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine, and is the author of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam and the soon to be published An Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989.

The views expressed in this article are those to whom they are attributed and do not necessarily represent al Jazeera’s editorial policy.