Action Items

Sponsors of a US speaking tour featuring boycott, divestment and sanctions movement leader Omar Barghouti call on supporters to contact the US Consulate in Jerusalem and the Department of State to fulfill US promise of “Promoting the Global Marketplace of Ideas” and grant Barghouti’s visa.

Queer organizations around the globe are mobilizing to let filmmakers and other cultural workers know that the Israeli government is trying to “pinkwash” its war crimes by giving money to queer cultural events, including the upcoming San Francisco LGBT Film Festival.

Act now by emailing executives at Combined Systems Inc., and at the companies that invest in CSI — the Carlyle Group and Point Lookout Capital — and tell them to stop providing their tear gas to the Israeli military, before more protesters are killed and maimed.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), on behalf of its constituent organizations and unions representing the majority of Palestinian civil society, strongly condemns the decision taken by French authorities to prosecute people of conscience for calling for a boycott of Israeli produce.

Today, a month after the massacre of nine human rights activists in international waters aboard a flotilla carrying aid and supplies sailing to break the four-year closure of the Gaza Strip, we call once again upon the International Geographical Union to take a courageous and principled stand and cancel its Tel Aviv conference.

Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos from at least 14 warships and military helicopters boarded the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began shooting. According to live video from the ship, at least two civilians have been murdered, and dozens injured. Israeli television is reporting 16 civilians killed.

In a hearing at Petach Tikva Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, 20 May 2010, a judge extended Ameer Makhoul’s detention for a third time until Tuesday, 25 May 2010. Mr. Makhoul, a human rights defender and the director of Arab nongovernmental organization network Ittijah, has been in Israeli detention since he was arrested from his family home in Haifa in the early morning hours of 6 May.

Effectively canceling a planned speaking tour, the US consulate in the Netherlands has put an extended hold on the visa application of award-winning Palestinian journalist and photographer Mohammed Omer, scheduled to speak on conditions in Palestine, on 5 April in Chicago.

The BDS National Committee (BNC) is calling on you to unite in your different capacities and struggles for a Global BDS Day of Action on 30 March 2010 in solidarity with the Palestinian people and for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The BNC calls on people of conscience and their organizations around the globe to mobilize in creative, concrete and visible BDS actions to make this day a historic step in the movement against Israel’s apartheid, colonialism and occupation, for accountability of the oppressor and for the fulfillment of the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.

The US Palestinian Community Network is appalled that the government of the United States not only continues its unconditional support for Israel, but has engaged in establishing Palestinian contra forces in the West Bank, aimed at deepening Palestinian internal division and engaging in arbitrary arrests and assassinations of political activists. We demand an immediate end to all such programs and the immediate withdrawal of US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton and his mercenaries from Palestine!