Tag: Global Actions

Caterpillar Annual Shareholders Meeting Picketed and Disrupted by Palestine Solidarity Activists

In Chicago on June 11th, more than 50 Palestinian solidarity activists from numerous organizations gathered to oppose Caterpillar Corporations annual shareholders meeting. Caterpillar, an American company, is responsible for building and outfitting militarized bulldozers to sell to the Israeli army.

These bulldozers have been used to destroy an estimated 18,000 Palestinian homes, uproot hundreds of thousands of olive trees, and build Israel’s infrastructure of apartheid, including the apartheid wall, settlements, and Israeli-only roads. Additionally, several Palestinians and American activist Rachel Corrie have been murdered by Israeli Occupation Forces using Caterpillar’s equipment.

For the past five years, Palestinian solidarity organizations in the United States have waged a campaign against Caterpillar, demanding that the company stop all sales to the Israeli military. This year, activists picketed outside the meeting at Northern Trust Bank in downtown society. Three activists with the International Solidarity Movement’s Chicago chapter were able to get inside the meeting. Each of these activists separately disrupted the meeting, remembering Palestinians who have suffered as a result of Caterpillars’ sales to Israel. The three following statements were given to the CEOS and shareholders alike:

“I am Samir Nasrallah from Rafah Palestine. My home was demolished by a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer, leaving my family homeless, and robbing us of our life savings.”

“I am Ahmed Kasem, a farmer from Palestine. In 2001 the Israeli army used Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy my olive groves, the only source of income for my family. More than 200,000 olive trees have been uprooted using caterpillar bulldozers, impoverishing thousands of people.”

“My name is Nabila al Shu’bi. In 2002 my family and I were murdered inside my home by a Caterpillar D9 militarized bulldozer. The attack killed 8 of my family members, including three of my children.”

Each activist ended their statement by chanting, “take responsibility and do the right thing!” as they were quickly surrounded and ejected from the meeting by security guards. Caterpillar Corporation will continue to be targeted for its support for the occupation and apartheid in Palestine until it agrees to end sales to the Israeli military.

Open letter: The separation barrier in Bil’in

Update and call for help

In a high-profile ruling of 4th September 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court concluded that the already built Separation Barrier in the West Bank village of Bil’in is illegal. The Court noted that the existing route was designed to accommodate plans for the future expansion of the settlement of Modi’in Illit and for the construction of a new 3,000 housing-units neighborhood therein, despite the fact that some of these plans require further approval before they can be realized. The judges ordered the State to redraw the barrier, so that the new route shall not take into account planning schemes not yet finally approved. In the ruling, the Court emphasized that “in light of the continuous harm to the residents of Bil’in… the respondents should consider, within reasonable time, an alternative route” (underline added).

More than eight months since the Supreme Court ruling had been released, the barrier declared illegal has not been dismantled. Worse still, as of early May 2008, the State has not even presented its plan for the amended route. In other words, the Israeli government has been bluntly ignoring the ruling of the highest juridical authority in the Israel. Furthermore, recently construction has resumed in the new settlers’ neighborhood. If a decision on the new route is not taken soon, the settlers will likely establish irreversible facts on the ground, so that upholding the Court’s ruling will no longer be possible.

We, co-partners in the long-lasting civilian struggle of the people of Bil’in against the theft of their lands under the guise of security, call upon your Excellency to employ your influence and pressure the government of Israel to do what it is required to do by law – to adhere to the ruling of the Supreme Court, to dismantle the Separation Barrier in Bil’in and to return to the village a considerable part of its lands now on the “Israeli” side of the route.

In order to provide further essential details about the case of Bil’in and the Court ruling, we ask that you meet with us at the time and place convenient for you.

With many thanks in advance,

Sincerely yours,

Jayyous students to Dubai: boycott settlement-builder Leviev

On May 27, 2008, representatives from Adalah-NY and Jews Against the Occupation (JATO) met with representatives from the United Arab Emirates UN Mission in Manhattan. They presented the UAE representatives with a letter from students from the West Bank village of Jayyous calling on the people of Dubai to boycott Israeli billionaire and settlement-builder Lev Leviev. In mid-April, Leviev announced that he would open two jewelry stores in Dubai. Adalah-NY then called on Dubai to boycott Leviev because of his businesses’ involvement in human right abuses and violations of international law in Palestine, Angola and New York City. Leviev’s companies have built settlement homes in Jayyous, in Bil’in, in Har Homa on Jabel abu Ghneim, and in Maale Adumim. On April 30, Ali Ebrahim, Deputy Director General for Executive Affairs in Dubai, was quoted in “Gulf News” saying that authorities had “not granted a trade license to any business of this name” and would not approve the application should one be made. Ebrahim “added that Israeli businesses would be prevented from operating in Dubai through non-Israeli partners.” In the May 27 meeting, Adalah-NY and JATO also gave the UAE representatives photos showing that Leviev’s jewelry is being advertised and sold by his Palestinian/Moroccan partner Arif Ben Khadra in his “Levant” stores in Dubai (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/97529.html), and asked the UAE to heed the Jayyous students’ boycott call below and enforce their government’s boycott pledge.

We, high school students of English in the Israeli-occupied West Bank village of Jayyous, declare our complete opposition to the Israeli businessman Mr. Lev Leviev who is destroying our olive groves that have sustained our village for centuries. Many of our families are not allowed permits by the Israeli occupying forces to work our own lands that Israel’s Wall is stealing for Mr. Leviev so he may expand his settlement “Zufim” onto our village’s farmlands.

We hear that the government of the United Arab Emirates has stopped Mr. Leviev from opening his diamond stores in Dubai Emirate. We ask the government and the people of Dubai to prevent the sale to customers in Dubai of “Leviev’s rocks of apartheid,” which will be used by Mr. Leviev to build more settlements on Jayyous’ lands.

How do we describe to the world what our life is like in occupied Jayyous in Palestine? The sadness in the eyes of our neighbors, whose only farmlands have been confiscated to build a settlement financed by Mr. Lev Leviev; the exhaustion that results when every daily action requires an extraordinary effort and when despair fights for a place on our people’s faces, as they carry their bags and babies through checkpoints, passing soldiers and tanks.

On rainy days the water swells around our feet while we are going to our schools in Jayyous and Qalqilia. On the other hand, Israeli soldiers stand in shelters and never seem to get wet under their helmets and uniforms. They pull us out of our cars and line us up facing the wall. They sometimes make us sit in the dirt or in the rain, or under the hot sun while they chat on their mobile phones, joke with their friends, eat, smoke, and insult us with their words and their actions.

How do we explain how it feels when the wind blows and fill our noses with dust, and with the smell of sewage and garbage? Everyday, we feel more insecure, as curfews prevent pregnant women from giving birth in hospitals, and stop ambulances in their tracks, forcing some families to live with the decaying corpses of their family members for days.

What has increased our feeling of insecurity as students is the growing number of school days missed, the invasion and closure of the schools by Israeli forces, the number of teachers who cannot get to work, and the number of Palestinian prisoners who are without adequate food, water, sanitation, trials and family visits. These provocative practices that we grew up with in Jayyous have created many psychological problems for us. We think often of our fellow students who cannot afford to go to universities, students made poor because their families can no longer work on their farms because those lands are now isolated behind the “separation wall” where Mr. Leviev’s bulldozers destroy our grandfathers’ trees.

We think about the flood of indignities at the checkpoints. All our dreams for the future have been negatively affected and it’s becoming too challenging to fulfill them. As students we always dream of preparing for the future, but unfortunately many obstacles, such as curfews, Walls, closures, and unpredictable checkpoints are preventing their realization.

We hope for all students to live in peace, justice, freedom and love. Every Leviev diamond bought in Dubai pays for our oppression and dispossession. Give our proud village the chance to feed itself and grow again — boycott Mr. Lev Leviev, in Dubai and all over the world.

60 years of apartheid-60 years to long!: 20 Jewish activists arrested, disrupting Jewish Community & Relations Council’s (JCRC) 60th anniversary of Israel celebration

Jewish Activists Draw Attention to 60 years of Palestinian Forced Exile and Dispossession

By M.
Published in Indybay 08-05-2008. To view original article click here

San Francisco—In response to Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations, 20 Jewish activists were arrested, demonstrating Jewish opposition to Israel’s 60-year-old policy of dispossession, and highlighting the often-silenced struggle of Palestinian refugees. For over two hours, 20 Jewish activists disrupted San Francisco’s anniversary event, bunkering against the main atrium of the Jewish Community Center (JCC).

In conjunction, over fifty Jewish and Palestinian supporters held a rally outside the center to call attention to ongoing Israeli policy of apartheid against the Palestinian population. With banners reading, “Jews in Solidarity with 60+ years of Palestinian Resistance,” activists declared anniversary, “No Time to Celebrate.”

“The dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a brutal example of Israel’s long history of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment against Palestinians,” Sara Kershnar, anti-Zionist Jewish activist arrested. “We are here today to condemn the JCRC’s celebration of this history along with unconditional economic and political support for Israeli policy.”

The action in San Francisco, organized by the local International Jewish Solidarity Network, is part of “No Time to Celebrate,” a national Jewish campaign opposing Israel’s 60th Anniversary celebrations, while simultaneously amplifying the American Jewish community’s critique of Israeli policy. The Israeli Consulate and the Jewish Community and Relations Council (JCRC), who have attempted to silence any and all criticism of Israeli policy, a were the sponsors
of this event.

“As Jews of conscience, acting in solidarity with 60-plus years of Palestinian resistance, we’re here today to promote an “Independence” that does not depend on an ethnically or religiously exclusive state or on the displacement of indigenous people,” said Eric Romann, IJSN organizer. “We want is joint liberation, not isolation.”

Throughout the month of May, Jewish organizations in cities across the U.S. and Canada are sponsoring celebrations of “Israeli Independence Day.” Simultaneously, Palestinians around the world are mourning 60 years since the Nakba—Arabic for the “catastrophe”—of 1948, when Zionist militias destroyed and depopulated over 400 Palestinian
villages and caused over than 725,000 Palestinians to become refugees in order to create the Israeli state*.

Today, there are over 4.5 million registered Palestinian refugees, and more than one million not registered, scattered throughout the world**. These Palestinian refugees are still awaiting the implementation of international law allowing the Right to Return to their homeland. The majority of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, descendents of those refugees who fled their homes and villages in 1948, are subject to Israel’s crushing blockade and are undergoing intolerable living conditions. Israel’s policies of preferential laws and treatment for Israeli-Jews—not Palestinian Israelis—within Israel-proper, and military impunity for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are reflective of a long history of horrific
discrimination.

For more information, please visit http://notimetocelebrate.wordpress.com/.
* United Nations Conciliation Commission, 1949
** UNRWA, December 2006

NY Jewish Week: Protesting Leviev, From Here To Dubai

by Walter Ruby – Special to The Jewish Week. To view original article, click here

N.Y.-based Arab-Jewish group claims credit for UAE snub of diamond merchant; Leviev spokesman says stores will open under his name.

Leviev already operates two jewelry stores in Dubai under the name “Levant” through a Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra.

Israeli diamond producer and retailer Lev Leviev’s penchant for flamboyantly branding his posh jewelery stores with his own name appears to have gotten him into trouble again – this time with the government of the glittery Arabian emirate of Dubai.

Leviev has been under siege from pro-Palestinian protestors who have been picketing his posh diamond shops on Madison Avenue and London for months. They are protesting the fact that subsidiary firms of Leviev’s company Africa-Israel have been constructing Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The diamond producer suffered a new setback last week when a high-ranking Dubai official last week stated that his opulent city-state in the United Arab Emirates will not grant the Uzbekistan-born magnate a trade license to open two new stores there – at least not under the name “Leviev.”

But a Leviev spokesman insisted the 51-year-old billionaire will get his way in the end and open “Leviev” stores in Dubai to add to those already in existence in New York, London and Moscow.

Responding to a recent announcement by Leviev that he plans to open new stores this fall in Dubai, Ali Ebrahim, deputy director general for executive affairs in Dubai, said: “We are aware of these reports and have not granted a trade license to any business of this name. If such an application does come to us, we will deal with it accordingly.”

According to Leviev, one of the new stores is slated for the Dubai Mall, soon to be the world’s tallest building; the other is slated for the Atlantis Hotel, on a recently constructed artificial island.

Ebrahim said Israeli citizens are not permitted to operate businesses in Dubai. He added that such citizens would also be prevented from operating through local partners, even though Leviev already operates two jewellery stores in Dubai under the name “Levant” through a Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra. According to media reports, Israeli diamond traders have operated openly in Dubai for years.

Ebrahim made his comments after Adalah-NY, a pro-Palestinian group here that has been holding anti-Leviev demonstrations since last November outside the magnate’s diamond shop on Madison Avenue, strenuously protested to the Dubai government over Leviev’s plans to open new diamond stores there.

Yet on May 4, Leviev spokesman Justin Blake told The Jewish Week that, Ebrahim’s comments to the contrary, Leviev remains committed to his goals for Dubai.

“The stores will be opening in Dubai under the Leviev name as planned,” Blake said, declining to respond to questions as to how Leviev will manage to open his stores in Dubai despite the stated refusal of the authories there to allow him to do so.

Before Blake made his comments, observers in Dubai speculated that Leviev, acting through Bin Khadra, would ultimately agree to open his new stores there under the name “Levant” rather than his own name.

Yet Blake’s remarks indicate that Leviev may be planning to fight Dubai’s decision not to allow him to brand the stores with his own name, and will likely press the U.S. government to apply pressure on Dubai to reverse its decision. Leviev has previously asserted that attacks on his business activities by Adalah-NY and other groups are “politically motivated” or impelled by anti-Semitism.

Ethan Heitner, a spokesman for Adalah-NY, which is composed almost equally of Arabs and anti-Zionist Jews, claimed primary credit for Dubai’s reversal of its earlier apparent willingness to allow Leviev to open his stores there. “Working in conjunction with activists in Dubai and Palestine, Adalah-NY sent out a press release calling for Dubai to boycott Leviev on the basis of his violations of international humanitarian law. … We’ve heard reports of UAE papers and officials receiving our press release from multiple sources and angry phone calls.”

Heitner said that even if Leviev ultimately succeeds in opening his new stores in Dubai under the “Levant” name, Adalah-NY will still have achieved a moral victory. “Before our boycott call … Leviev was proudly planning to open an eponymous flagship boutique in the tallest building in the world – a grand symbolic achievement for a titan of global capitalism. Now, that’s not going to happen.”

Lev Leviev appears to believe otherwise.

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See also: “For Leviev, all that Glitters isn’t Gold,” NY Jewish Week, Feb. 20