Tag: Global Actions

ISM London issues declaration supporting student occupations

ISM London

22 January 2009

ISM London offers support and solidarity to the numerous student occupations and sit-ins around the UK in recent weeks. This response to the most recent Israeli onslaught on Gaza has been one of the most important initiatives in the movement. Generating pressure on our higher education establishments to take a stand against Israel and the war crimes it commits is vital. We stand in solidarity with the many Palestinians, students, activists, academics and members of the public who are now being more and more vocal about the boycott of Israel as a means of both exerting international

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/solomonsmfield/
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/solomonsmfield/

pressure on the Israeli apartheid system, and standing in solidarity with the resistant Palestinian people.

ISM activists all around the UK are available to speak about their experiences on the ground in Palestine and are contactable via ISM London (info@ism-london.org.uk) An ISM speaker will be at the Warwick sit-in tonight. For those interested in visiting Palestine, we can also organise training events around the UK if you can organise a group large enough (usually 10 or 15). Email training@ism-london.org.uk for more details.

Current or recent UK student occupations we know of:

* SOAS: http://soassolidarity4gaza.blogspot.com
* LSE: http://lseoccupation.blogspot.com
* Kings: http://kcloccupation.blogspot.com
* Warwick: http://warwicksolidaritysitin.wordpress.com
* Essex: http://www.visitpalestine.asia/page.cfm/id/98207
* Birmingham: http://birminghamoccupation.wordpress.com
* Sussex: http://sussexoccupation.blogspot.com

More info on the boycott campaign:

http://bdsmovement.net/
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=882_0_1_0_C

French company loses €3.5 billion contract over involvement with Jerusalem light railway

Joakim Wohlfeil | Diakonia

Stockholm, 20 January 2009

Today the Stockholm community council in Sweden announced that the French company Veolia who has been the current operator at the Subway’s in Stockholm County for 10 years lost the contract to the MTR-cooperation.

The contracts for the coming 8 years is worth 3.5 billion EURO and has been the biggest ongoing public contract procurement process in Europe.

Although the board for county’s public transportation ensured the decision was based on commercial factors, the debate about Veolia’s involvement in a controversial tramway project in Jerusalem (Jerusalem light railway) has been intense in Swedish media.

The tramway connecting the Israeli west Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory has triggered discussions about Veolia’s ethical policy. Public protests against Veolia has brought the attention to the dilemma of operating public services when you at he same time are involved in politically controversial activities.

As late as the day before the decision the community council received lists with thousands of signatories from people demanding the county council to choose an operator who should not be associated with violations of international humanitarian law.

This is clearly another sign of the importance for commercial actors not to have their brand associated to unethical behaviour, in the case of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory we can already see a trend of international companies who are moving out their operations from settlements

says Joakim Wohlfeil, at the Swedish development organization Diakonia.

‘Israeli produce boycotted’

Yair Hason | Ynet

Global calls for BDS of Israel grow
Global calls for BDS of Israel grow
Farmers claim UK, Jordan boycotting Israeli fruit: Fruit growers disappointed by canceled orders from abroad, leaving produce to rot in warehouses

Fruit growers in Israel have reported delays and reductions in orders from abroad since the military operation in Gaza was launched, due to various boycotts against Israeli produce.

Farmers say much of their produce is being held in warehouses due to canceled orders, and fear a sharp decrease in fruit exports to countries such as Jordan, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries.

“We export persimmons, and because of the fighting a number of countries and distributors are canceling orders,” Giora Almagor, of the southern town of Bitzaron, told Ynet. He said some of the produce had already been shipped while some was awaiting shipment in warehouses.

Almagor said a large number of cancellations came from Jordan. “The produce stays packed in warehouses, and this is causing us massive losses,” he said.

“The longer the fruit waits in storage after sorting, the more its quality decreases. We also have to pay for cooling the merchandise that should have already left, and the cost in considerable,” he added.

Ilan Eshel, director of the Organization of Fruit Growers in Israel, said Scandinavian countries have also been canceling orders. “It’s mostly Sweden, Norway, and Denmark,” he said. “In Scandinavia the tendency is general, and it may come to include all of the chains.”

Eshel says the boycott did not exist before the Gaza offensive was launched. “It’s getting worse, and more voices can be heard calling to boycott Israeli merchandise,” he said. “Until the operation began we had excellent business, though the economic recession in Europe was causing a slight fall in the market.”

He added that winter was an especially difficult season to be unable to export fruit, because the avocado, persimmon, and citrus markets are at their height.

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: A Call from Gaza

Global calls for BDS of Israel grow
Global calls for BDS of Israel grow

With the death toll in Gaza growing hourly, silence is complicity. It is imperative for concerned citizens to demand that their governments take immediate action in order to stop Israeli genocide in Gaza.
 
Write your representative today and demand:

  1. That Israeli war criminals be brought before the International Criminal Court or a Special Tribunal for war crimes committed in Gaza. (Remind your representative that the investigation, prosecution or extradition of those responsible for war crimes is an obligation of all high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions.)
  2. That in response to Israel’s severe breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, your state terminate all favorable trade agreements and economic relations with Israel, including the EU Association Agreement which is conditional upon adherence to human rights and democratic principles.
  3. That your state cut all diplomatic ties with Israel.

The current events in Gaza were predicated  and advocated for by Israeli Professor Arnon Soffer, Head of the IDF’s National Defense College. Professor Soffer spelled out the desired results of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in an interview with the Jerusalem Post (24 May 2004):

Jerusalem Post: How will the region look the day after unilateral separation?
 … First of all … Instead of entering Gaza like we did last week. We will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed, and houses will be destroyed. After the fifth such incident, Palestinian mothers won’t allow their husbands to shoot Kassams, because they will know what’s waiting for them.

Second of all, when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day…If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist…Unilateral separation doesn’t guarantee “peace” – it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews…

Jerusalem Post: Voluntary transfer?
Arnon Soffer: Yes. And Gaza is going to be such a disaster that it will be beyond our capacity to help. There will have to be large-scale international aid. The US will have to pressure Egypt to cede land.

More recently Matan Vilnai, Deputy Defense Minister of Israel, told Army Radio during “Operation Hot Winter” (29 February 2008):

They will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.

In the days following this statement, 107 Palestinians were killed. The international community failed to take action. This inaction, followed by European declarations of intentions to upgrade their trade agreements with Israel, served as a green light for the current atrocities.

Reserve Colonel Yoav Gal, an Israeli Air Force pilot, told Army Radio during “Operation Cast Lead” (11 January 2009):

I believe that it should have been even stronger! Dresden! Dresden! The extermination of a city! After all, we’re told that the face of war has changed. No longer is it the advancing of tanks or an organized military. […] It is a whole nation, from the old lady to the child, this is the military. It is a nation fighting a war. I am calling them a nation, even though I don’t see them as one. It is a nation fighting a nation. Civilians fighting civilians. I’m telling you that we […] must know […] that stones will not be thrown at us! I am not talking about rockets – not even a stone will be thrown at us. Because we’re Jews.[…] I want the Arabs of Gaza to flee to Egypt. This is what I want. I want to destroy the city, not necessarily the people living within it.

In order to end Israel´s impunity we call on civil society to support the Palestinian campaign for an international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
 
Signatories
The One Democratic State Group – Gaza
University Teacher Association in Palestine – Gaza
Arab Cultural Forum – Gaza
 
Endorsed by
Popular Committees Against the Wall and Settlements – West Bank