Nobel Peace prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu was interviewed by Akiva Eldar for Ha’aretz, 29 August “The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns,” Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday. Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in [...]

Anat Matar a philosophy Professor at Tel Aviv University, comes out in support of Neve Gordon (see http://jfjfp.com/?p=4667 and http://jfjfp.com/?p=4720) and details both the engagement of her own university in the occupation and Israel’s on-going lack of concern for Palestinian academic freedom and basic education: ‘When the flag of academic freedom is raised, the oppressor and not the oppressed is usually the one who flies it.’

John Greyson, a highly acclaimed Canadian filmmaker whose films, including “Zero Patience” (1993), “Lilies” (1996; winner of four Genie Awards, Canada’s highest film prize), “Fig Trees” (a 2003 installation released as a film in 2009), and other films, decided last week to withdraw his new film “Covered” from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) because of the Festival’s decision to make Tel Aviv a focus of its programming this year…
JPN reports on this and Joel Beinen raises some wider issues about BDS [...]

“The matter of the boycott came up again this week after an article by Dr. Neve Gordon appeared in the Los Angeles Times, calling for a world-wide boycott of Israel… Before becoming a lecturer at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, he organized many demonstrations against the Separation Wall in the Jerusalem area, in which I, too, took part.

I am sorry that I cannot agree with him this time – neither about the similarity with South Africa nor about the efficacy of a boycott of Israel.” [...]

Walled Horizons is narrated by and features Roger Waters (founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd), who visits the Wall in the Palestinian territories and comments on his observations as a musician and a songwriter who has written on walls. The film explores how Palestinians in urban and rural areas have been impacted by the Walls construction since the International Court of Justices Advisory Opinion in 2004, which declared the Walls route illegal. Several senior Israeli security officials are interviewed in the film, two of whom were directly responsible for planning the Wall route and who explain the Israeli position for constructing it… [...]

This Zaytoun newsletter contains information updates about Zaytoun olive oil, Palestinian dates, product availability, calls for volunteers, forthcoming events and much else[...]

Nathan Guttman, Washington, 27 August 2009, reports in the Jewish Chronicle that “Eighteen months since it set out to change the face of pro-Israel advocacy in the American capital, J Street has succeeded in becoming a household name.” [...]

Omar Barghouti, writing in the Jerusalem Quarterly, Summer 2009, places the campaign against the Jerusalem Light Rail and its role in the Judaisation of Jerusalem in the context of wider calls from within Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. [...]

A tough editorial from the Financial Times, 25 August 25 2009 argues that ‘Economic development deals in facts; Mr Netanyahu deals in cosmetics’. He has no serious intention of engaging now. [...]

JfJfP signatory Jerry Cohen was Emeritus Professor at Oxford, and a Fellow of All Souls, having held the Chichele Professorship of Social and Political Theory. Brought up in Montreal, his parents were Jewish factory workers in the garment trade. His first school, at the age of 4, was the Morris Winchewsky Yiddish School [...]

Prof Neve Gordon of Ben Gurion University wrote in an op-ed in the LA Times (20 August) that the question that kept him up at night, both as a parent and as an Israeli citizen, was how to ensure that his two children as well as the children of his Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime. His pained conclusion is that the only strategy left is “massive international pressure” in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
Since then he has been subjected to vilification and threats from his university to sack him. Please rally to his support [...]

* PROTEST 1.30-3pm TOMORROW, Tuesday 25 August opposite Downing Street (nearest tube Westminster) And, if you can’t go, please take two minutes to contact Gordon Brown urgently, asking him to convoy these issues in his meetings with Netanyahu: Israeli settlements block peace – they must be dismantled, not just frozen End Israel’s siege on Gaza [...]

Moshe (“Bogie”) Ya’alon, Vice Prime Minister: “The Jews have a right to settle in any place throughout Eretz Israel.” … “Peace Now is a virus,” he said… And not only they. “All the media” are also a virus. They influence the public discourse “in a distorted manner, a lying manner”. The virus also includes “the elite” in general
…
THESE TONES come together in a frightening melody, a tune we know all too well. It is anthem of fascism. [...]

PS: The Magnes Zionist (22nd August) has an amusingly sardonic take on the response of some Los Angeles Jews to the Neve Gordon’s article below. See it here. __________________ In a Los Angeles Times op-ed Neve Gordon, an American-born Jew who has lived in Israel for nearly 30 years and teaches political science at Ben-Gurion [...]

Ewa Jasiewicz reports (via her mailing list) followed below by Jody Mcintyre’s Electronic Intifada article “Bilin’s unwavering spirit of resistance” (20 August 2009) Israeli forces continue to target the leadership of Palestinian non-violent resistance 20 August 2009: Once again the night in Bil’in was disrupted by a raid ending with the arrest of one the [...]

House of Commons Committee on Arms Export Controls, report of 19 August 2009:
“We conclude that it is regrettable that components supplied by the UK were almost certainly used in a variety of ways by Israeli forces during the recent conflict in Gaza and that the Government should continue to do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen in future. We conclude that the Government is correct to assess the granting of licences for export on a case-by-case basis and we endorse decisions not to grant a number of licences in relation to Israel…

In an echo of restrictions already firmly in place in Gaza, Israel has begun barring movement between Israel and the West Bank for those holding a foreign passport, including humanitarian aid workers and thousands of Palestinian residents.

Jonathan Cook writes: The new policy is designed to force foreign citizens, mainly from North America and Europe, to choose between visiting Israel — including East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed illegally — and the West Bank…

Sheikh Jarrah is a Palestinian residential neighbourhood located to the north of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem. The area is home to approximately 2,700 Palestinians. Given the area’s strategic location, Israeli settler organizations have made persistent efforts to take control of land and property and establish a sustained presence in Sheikh Jarrah. On 2 August 2009, 53 Palestinian refugees, including 20 children, were forced out of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah by Israeli authorities following a court ruling. [...]

This newsletter, from the American solidarity network, provides a wide-ranging update on the activities of all refusenik groups in Israel – Yesh Gvul, Courage to Refuse, the Shministim, New Profile, Combatants for Peace, Breaking the Silence – and related stories. [...]

An eleven-minute video for the Real News, pinpointing the role of the Livnat family and Ahava cosmetics in maintaining, constructing or profiting from the occupation. keyword: boycottahava