PALESTINIAN CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACADEMIC & CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL: Boycott Israel, disinvest over Israeli colonial repression

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was launched in Ramallah in April 2004 by a group of Palestinian academics and intellectuals to join the growing international boycott movement. The Campaign built on the Palestinian call for a comprehensive economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel issued in August 2002 and a statement made by Palestinian academics and intellectuals in the occupied territories and in the Diaspora calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions in October 2003 (see: http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=868 ).

Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (2006): “At this time of escalating colonial repression, coupled with a particularly inhumane and illegal siege, Palestinians will be eagerly following Natfhe's national conference when it convenes on May 27. They are heartened by the growing movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions.

“ The Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel salute the British academics who have proposed a motion to boycott Israel, to be tabled at the conference in Blackpool. We believe that this is a courageous initiative. It comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the international community, as represented by the centres and institutions of global power, is incapable of delivering justice to the Palestinian people. The only hope rests with initiatives from international activists for justice in Palestine to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of Palestinians.

Israeli academic institutions are implicated in the various forms of oppression exercised against Palestinians. Israeli research institutes, think-tanks and academic departments have historically granted legitimacy to the work of academics who advocate ethnic cleansing, apartheid, denial of refugee rights and other discriminatory policies against Palestinians, whether in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, inside Israel or in exile.

Collaboration and co-operation with the intelligence services, the Army and other agencies of the occupation regime is part of the routine work of the Israeli academy.

Furthermore, no Israeli academic body or institution has ever taken a public stand against the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor have academic institutions or representative bodies of Israeli academics criticised their Government's longstanding siege of Palestinian academic institutions. Indeed, the current regime of economic sanctions and other collective punishments imposed upon an entire society by the Government of Israel, with grave complicity from the US and the European Union, have gone without notice in the business-as-usual world of the Israeli academy. Nor has the academy raised its voice against racism within Israel, as exemplified by the recent ruling of the Israeli High Court upholding a ban on the reunification of Palestinian citizens of Israel with their spouses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and therefore infringing, on ethnic grounds, on the basic human right to choose one's partner.

The Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is endorsed by the most important federations and associations of academics and professionals and is supported by dozens of civil society institutions in Palestine. Like the Palestinian civil society's widely endorsed call for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, it is based on the same moral principle embodied in the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa: that people of conscience must take a stand and use civil resistance to bring an end to oppression. Palestinians are appealing to academics, professionals, artists and other activists to work towards bringing an end to a regime that practises colonial oppression and discrimination against its Palestinian citizens and that denies the rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland.

We hope that Natfhe members will join the growing international movement by showing that business cannot be conducted with the Israeli academy until it takes an unequivocal stand against the forms of oppression practised by the Israeli state. This is what conscientious British academics did more than 20 years ago during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa; this is what we hope they will do to help resist Israel's version of apartheid.

Until it effectively ends its complicity, the Israeli academy - as a major institutional upholder of the prevailing order - cannot expect exemption from the boycott. Boycott and divestment are the only non-violent forms of action available to people of conscience the world over. We salute those who recognise that, since justice for Palestinians cannot be expected from the international centres of world power, they must organise to further the cause of justice and genuine peace.” [1].

[1]. Edited version of an open letter issued by the Federation of Unions of Palestinian University Professors and Employees and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, “A Nobel laureate and Palestinian academics on Natfhe's proposed boycott of Israel”, Times Higher Education, 26 May 2006: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=203404&sectioncode=26 .

PALUMBO-LIU, David, in supporting Palestinian human rights: "To abandon our consciences once we have gained freedom and rights, and abandon those who have yet to achieve them and are being denied the means to do so, is a sign of moral poverty"

David Palumbo-Liu (anti-racist Asian American scholar, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University) on support for Palestinian human rights by anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish American writers (2016): “It is precisely these sorts of ethically and morally driven acts of the imagination that these [pro-Palestinian rights,  Pulitzer prize-winning, pro-BDS] writers are engaged in, to, as Nguyen says, “always remember, never forget.”  To abandon our consciences once we have gained freedom and rights, and abandon those who have yet to achieve them and are being denied the means to do so, is a sign of moral poverty.  Conversely, to give witness to that suffering and disengage from the machinery that is perpetuating that misery is the job these and other artists are undertaking”  (David Palumbo-Liu, “Backing BDS: another Pulitzer winner comes out for Palestinian rights”, Salon, 22 June 2016: https://www.salon.com/2016/06/22/backing_bds_another_pulitzer_winner_comes_out_for_palestinian_rights/ ). 

PILGER, John. Top UK-Australian writer on Palestinian Genocide, holocaust denied & "the lying silence of those who know"

 John Pilger, renowned investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, is one of only two to have twice won British journalism's top award; his documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the US. In a New Statesman survey of the 50 heroes of our time, Pilger came fourth behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. "John Pilger," wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy truth. I salute him." (see New Statesman: http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/10/obama-pilger-war-peace ).

 John Pilger on the Palestinian Genocide (25 January 2007): “A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. “Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide”, wrote senior UN relief official Jan Egeland and Jan Eliasson, then Swedish foreign minister, in Le Figaro. They described people “living in a cage”, cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water, and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes… “Looking from the side” is what those of us do who are cowed into silence by the threat of being called anti-Semitic. Looking from the side is what too many Western Jews do, while those Jews who honour the humane traditions of Judaism and say, “Not in our name!” are abused as “self-despising”. Looking from the side is what almost the entire US Congress does, in thrall to or intimidated by a vicious Zionist “lobby”. Looking from the side is what “even-handed” journalists do as they excuse the lawlessness that is the source of Israeli atrocities and suppress the historic shifts in the Palestinian resistance, such as the implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas. The people of Gaza cry out for better.” [1]. 

John Pilger on Western lying and holocaust ignoring (January 2009): ““When the truth is replaced by silence”, the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “the silence is a lie”. It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on Al Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia’s incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why. They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, “Israel’s right to exist”. They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine’s right to exist was canceled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous “Plan D” resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as “ethnic cleansing”. Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them'. The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war … we are appalled." Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land … In Gaza, the enforced starvation and denial of humanitarian aid, the piracy of life-giving resources such as fuel and water, the denial of medicines and treatment, the systematic destruction of infrastructure and the killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50% of whom are children, meet the international standard of the Genocide Convention. Holocaust in the making.” [2, 3].

[1]. John Pilger, “John Pilger: genocide in Gaza”, Green Left Weekly, 25 January 2007: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/696/36148 .

[2]. John Pilger, “John Pilger: holocaust denied”, Green Left Weekly, 17 January 2009: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/779/40192 .

[3]. John Pilger, “Holocaust denied. The lying silence of those who know”, Antiwar.com, 8 January 2009: http://www.antiwar.com/pilger/?articleid=14015 .

[Editor: Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh  is an eminent Palestinian scholar (Bethlehem University, Palestine Museum of Natural History, Bir Zeit University; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazin_Qumsiyeh , https://www.bethlehem.edu/news/employees/mazin-qumsiyeh/   and http://qumsiyeh.org/aboutqumsiyeh/ )  and human rights activist. A dozen years ago he  created an alphabetically-organized Honor List of people  who support the cause of human rights for Palestinians ( http://qumsiyeh.org/honorlist/  )  -  side-by-side under “P” were 2 Australians, my truth-telling, expatriate Australian hero, John Pilger, and, I am very honored to say,  Gideon Polya.]

PLIBERSEK, Tanya. Leading Australian Labor MP slams US support for Israeli war crimes

Tanya Plibersek is the Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Opposition.

Tanya Plibersek MP, Speech to the House of Representatives, 17 September 2002: “I do not support an attack on Iraq. I particularly do not support a pre-emptive first strike. Nor do I support any action that is initiated by the US alone rather than being sanctioned by the United Nations. I welcome Iraq's agreement today to allow unconditional access to United Nations weapons inspectors…

UN figures from 2001 state  that 60 per cent of the population have no regular access to clean water. Malnutrition was and is chronic. Before the war, the gross national product of Iraq was $US3,000 a year per capita; now it is $US500 a year per capita, making Iraq one of the poorest nations on earth. In 2000, Columbia University Professor Richard Garfield estimated that there were 300,000 excess deaths of children under the age of five since the Gulf War. In 1997, UNICEF reported that 4,500 children under the age of five were dying every month from hunger and disease. The food for oil deal to ease sanctions improved that situation slightly. My concern for Iraqi civilians is the first reason I have for opposing armed conflict in the area. The second reason is I believe that, in this matter as in most others, the US response is governed by self-interest and not by universal principles. This leads to hypocrisy. I can think of a rogue state which consistently ignores UN resolutions, whose ruler is a war criminal responsible for the massacres of civilians in refugee camps outside its borders. The US supports and funds this country. This year it gave it a blank cheque to continue its repression of its enemies. It uses US military hardware to bulldoze homes and kill civilians. It is called Israel, and the war criminal is Ariel Sharon. Needless to say, the US does not mention the UN resolutions that Israel has ignored for 30 years; it just continues sending the money. The US is also hypocritical in its criticism of the lack of democracy in Iraq. None of the Arab allies which the US seeks to cultivate is a democracy. The US says that Saddam must be destroyed because he has abused the human rights of his own citizens, including those from ethnic minorities such as the Kurds. The US has conveniently forgotten that the regimes it has installed and supported—the Pinochet regime in Chile, to name but one—have abducted and murdered citizens of their own. The US has ignored the ethnic cleansing carried out by Turkey against the Kurds. In fact, Turkey is a valued member of NATO and a likely starter for the European Union. The US and most European countries were great supporters of the Suharto regime which was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. The US originally went to war with Iraq, a country it had previously supported as a bulwark against Iran and communism, because it invaded Kuwait. As Tariq Ali says in  The Clash of Fundamentalism: “Iraq's seizure of Kuwait was not in the West's interests, since it posed the threat that two-fifths of the world's oil reserves would be controlled by a modern Arab state with an independent foreign policy, unlike the feudal dependencies of the West in Kuwait and the Gulf of Saudi Arabia” (Tanya Plibersek, Speech to the House of Representatives, 17 September 2002, Hansard:   http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr/2002-09-17/0075/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf  ).

PRESCOTT, John. Former UK Deputy PM Lord Prescott: "Israel brands them [Hamas] terrorists but it is acting as judge, jury and ­executioner in the ­concentration camp that is Gaza"

John Prescott (Baron Prescott, Lord Prescott, is British Labour politician who was the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prescott ).

John Prescott on Apartheid Israel's latest Gaza Massacre inflicted on  the Gaza Concentration Camp  (2014):  “Those who live in Gaza are kept like prisoners behind walls and fences, unable to escape the bombings, and an Israeli economic blockade has forced Palestinians into poverty. Israel’s Iron Dome defence system easily intercepts missiles launched from Gaza. Three Israeli citizens have died from these ­primitive rockets, with 32 soldiers killed fighting Hamas. Compare that to the toll in Gaza. Of the 1,000-plus to die*, more than 80 per cent were ­civilians, mostly women and children. But who is to say some of the other 20 per cent weren’t ­innocent too? Israel brands them terrorists but it is acting as judge, jury and ­executioner in the ­concentration camp that is Gaza. And Israel flouts international law by continuing to build illegal Jewish settlements. Why? Because it knows it can get away with it. What happened to the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis is appalling. But you would think those atrocities would give Israelis a unique sense of perspective and empathy with the victims of a ghetto … We must force Israel to end the blockade on Gaza to ensure free and unfettered access for humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials. There must be a freeze on illegal settlement growth to let talks start. We should support a phased approach to end the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem within a reasonable timeframe. The EU should play a bigger role in supporting ­mediation and push for ­sanctions for non-compliance. The lack of a two-state solution is a running sore that continues to inflame the passions not just of ­Palestinians and Muslims, but all fair-minded people around the world. We cannot be a silent witness to this carnage one minute longer. The world must force Israel and Hamas to stop this endless cycle of death”(see John Prescott, “John Prescott: Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is a war crime – and it must end”, Daily Mail, 26 July 2014: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/john-prescott-israels-bombardment-gaza-3918413 ).

* As of 3 August 2014, in the latest Apartheid Israeli Gaza Massacre the realities are that the Gazans (half of them children, three quarters women and children) are Occupied Palestinians and conquered subjects of the state of Israel. that has grossly violated the Geneva, Rights of the Child and Genocide Conventions in its disproportionate action resulting, so far, in 1,600 Palestinians killed (80% civilians) , 8,000 wounded, 300,000 rendered homeless and 1.8 million variously traumatized with all this in response to zero (0) Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets in the previous year, 28 such deaths in the previous 14 years or 2 per year as compared to 130 Israeli deaths at the hands of Israelis each year. 2 million Palestinians have died from violence (0.1 million) or violently-imposed deprivation (1.9 million) since 1936 as compared to 3,800 invading Zionists or Israelis killed by "the enemy" since 1920 (see “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/) .

QUINCE, Annabelle:   "Palestinians who do not have Israeli citizenship are subject to military law. Israeli settlers living in the West Bank vote in Knesset elections, but Palestinians who live there do not”

Annabelle Quince (ABC RN “Rear Vision” journalist on Israeli “democracy” in an opinion as strong as it can get in the Australian ABC (2017): “ How democratic is Israel?... Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who last month hosted Benjamin Netanyahu in Sydney, has described Israel as Australia's good friend, and the Middle East's only democracy. But some critics question whether the country can truly call itself a democracy. They point to Israel's occupation of the West Bank as a key issue… Not all Palestinians fled in 1948, and today they make up around 20 per cent of Israel's population. Until they were made full citizens in 1966, these Arab Israelis were subject to a military regime and martial law… In June 1967 a war was fought between Israel and its neighbours: Egypt, Jordan and Syria. At the end of the war Israel had seized control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem [and Syria’s  Golan Heights, Egypt’s Sinai and Lebanon’s Shaaba Farms]. Because Israel never formally annexed these territories, the Palestinian residents have never been given Israeli citizenship [and a vote]. Yet for the past 50 years Israel has settled parts of these territories with its own citizens… If you are a Jewish Israeli settler living in somewhere like Ariel in the West Bank, you can travel freely across the so-called green line, while Palestinians who do not have Israeli citizenship are subject to military law. Israeli settlers living in the West Bank vote in Knesset elections, but Palestinians who live there do not” (Annabelle Quince, “How democratic is Israel?, ABC News, 22 March 2017: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-22/how-democratic-is-israel/8373786 .)

QUMSIYEH, Mazin. Eminent Palestinian human rights activist and biologist (professor, Bethlehem University, Palestine Museum of Natural History, Bir Zeit University) created an Honor List of people supporting Palestinian human rights

Editor: Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh  is an eminent Palestinian biologist (Bethlehem University, Palestine Museum of Natural History, Bir Zeit University; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazin_Qumsiyeh , https://www.bethlehem.edu/news/employees/mazin-qumsiyeh/   and http://qumsiyeh.org/aboutqumsiyeh/ )  and human rights activist.

A dozen years ago Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh created an alphabetically-organized Honor List of people  who support the cause of human rights for Palestinians ( http://qumsiyeh.org/honorlist/  )  -  side-by-side in the Ps  are 2 Australians, my truth-telling, expatriate Australian hero John Pilger and, I am very honored to say, Gideon Polya.

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh on 7 simple talking points to defend Palestine that concludes (2021): “6) If we want a roadmap to real sustainable peace (not pacification), all we have to do is insist that we implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has all the needed elements (no discrimination, rights of refugees to return etc). 7) Thus it is clear that people around this planet need to have joint struggle (including via a push for boycotts, divestment and sanctions) just like we did with South Africa to end the Israeli regime of apartheid and implement human rights. You can add resources here like reports and statements from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem etc” (Mazin Qumsiyeh (2021): “Seven simple talking points to defend Palestine”, Countercurrents, 19 May 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2021/05/seven-simple-talking-points-to-defend-palestine/).

RABBO, Yasser Abed. PLO official: "Israel chose the path of racism, occupation and settlement building, and did not choose the path of negotiations and partnership between us"

Yasser Abed Rabbo (senior PLO official) commenting on the 2015 Apartheid Israeli elections from which 5 million Occupied Palestinian Israeli subjects were excluded from voting and in which genocidal racist Netanyahu won (2015): "Israel chose the path of racism, occupation and settlement building, and did not choose the path of negotiations and partnership between us" (“Israel election: Benjamin Netanyahu claims Likud victory; looks to form coalition government”, ABC News, 18 March 2015: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-18/benjamin-netanyahu-claims-victory-in-israel-election/6329026 ).

RAMINI. Jafar M Ramini (Palestinian writer and political analyst), “From Oslo to Sharm El-Sheik”, Countercurrents, 26 March 2023: https://countercurrents.org/2023/03/from-oslo-to-sharm-el-sheik/?swcfpc=1 .

Quote: “A long arduous and thorny road to nowhere. This mad journey was started back in 1974, during the Arab summit in Rabat, Morocco, where the Arab league took it upon itself to elect the Palestine Liberation Organisation as our sole representative. It was a fait accompli. The Palestinian nation was not consulted. On the 15th November, 1988 our fate was sealed when the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, announced by PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, formally established the State of Palestine. We were not consulted. From then on, the Palestinian Cause and the fate of all Palestinians took a downwards spiral… When Mahmoud Abbas, the current president of the Palestinian Authority, signed the first accord in 1993 there were under 100,000 illegal Israeli settlers, scattered over thirty illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza; now there are over 700,000 and over 140 illegal settlements and outposts… At the end of last year, the Israelis voted into government the most far-right, fascist element of Israeli society. These members of government are now calling for open genocide in Palestine and as recently as Sunday, March 19th, at a conference in Paris, Mr Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli finance minister, in charge of settlements, denied our very existence. He said, as quoted in ‘The Times’ of Israel: “Is there a Palestinian history of culture? No. The Palestinians are an invented people from less than a hundred years ago.” Yet, according to Herodotus, Greek historian, 484-425 BC:“Palestina is part of Syria along the Mediterranean coast.” Even more telling is this extract from the old testament of the Bible. “The people shall hear and be afraid; sorrow shall take over the inhabitants of Palestine.” Exodus 15:14 [written circa 500 BC in Babylon about asserted but uncorroborated events in 1000 BC Palestine].”

Comment. The King James version Exodus, chapter 15: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2015&version=KJV :

9 The enemy [Egypt] said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

10 Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters [no non-Biblical evidence] .

11 Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

12 Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.

13 Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.

14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.

15 Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan [Palestine] shall melt away.

16 Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased.

17 Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

18 The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.

REDGRAVE, Vanessa. Great British actress: "Zionism is a brutal, racist ideology. And it is a brutal racist regime"

Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist for humane causes, such as the rights of the Palestinians (in 1977 she had  funded and narrated a documentary film “The Palestinian” about Palestinians and the activities of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Redgrave ).

Vanessa Redgrave on Zionism: “Zionism is a brutal, racist ideology. And it is a brutal racist regime.” [1].

Vanessa Redgrave (1978) accepting the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in “Julia” (she had been subject to much abuse from Zionist fanatics who picketed the awards):  

“My dear colleagues, I thank you very much for this tribute to my work. I think that Jane Fonda [playing Lillian Hellman, the friend of anti-Nazi heroine Julia derived from   “Pentimento. A book of portraits”,  a controversial fictional book of memoirs by   Lillian Hellman] and I have done the best work of our lives, and I think this is in part due to our director, Fred Zinnemann.

And I also think it's in part because we believed and we believe in what we were expressing--two out of millions who gave their lives and were prepared to sacrifice everything in the fight against fascist and racist Nazi Germany.

And I salute you, and I pay tribute to you, and I think you should be very proud that in the last few weeks you've stood firm, and you have refused to be intimidated by the threats of a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behaviour is an insult to the stature of Jews all over the world and their great and heroic record of struggle against fascism and oppression.

And I salute that record and I salute all of you for having stood firm and dealt a final blow against that period when Nixon and McCarthy launched a worldwide witch-hunt against those who tried to express in their lives and their work the truth that they believe in. I salute you and I thank you and I pledge to you that I will continue to fight against anti-Semitism and fascism.” [1].

[1]. Vanessa Redgrave quoted in “Vanessa Redgrave”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Redgrave .

REES, Stuart: "[Israeli] settlement policy constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity... confirm critics’ judgements that the Jewish state of Israel is racist, that its governance amounts to apartheid"

Professor Stuart Rees (an indefatigable activist for Palestinian human rights, founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation and the Sydney Peace Prize, Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia, and winner of the inaugural Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize)  (2019): “UN Security Council Resolution 2334, of December 2016 said that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a ‘flagrant violation of international law’ and has ‘no legal validity.’ The vote Was 10-0 with the US abstaining. In spite of this resolution, Israel continues to benefit from special treatment, not just from supportive US policies but through the benefits of diplomatic blind eyes. The UN imposes sanctions on other states but not on Israel even though, under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), its settlement policy constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity… To confirm critics’ judgements that the Jewish state of Israel is racist, that its governance amounts to apartheid, in December 2018, the Israeli Knesset rejected the Equality Bill, introduced by Mossi Raz of the Meretz party. The text was a direct quote from Israel’s Declaration of Independence. “The State of Israel shall maintain equal political rights among all its citizens, without any difference between religions, race and sex.” The bill was rejected by 71 -38. In the journal Mondoweiss, Yossi Gurvitz commented, “Those 71 votes represent the hard core of practical Zionism who decided that Israel would be a Jewish country not a democratic one”” (Stuart Rees, “Redefining  free speech: opposing Israel is not anti-Semitism”, New Matilda, 15 January 2019: https://newmatilda.com/2019/01/15/redefining-free-speech-opposing-israel-not-anti-semitism/ ).  

REGAN, Bernard. Patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign) (2017): “He [Netanyahu] shouldn’t be having tea in Downing Street, he should be arrested and in jail as a war criminal”

Bernard Regan (patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign) (2017): “He [Netanyahu] shouldn’t be having tea in Downing Street, he should be arrested and in jail as a war criminal” (Steve Sweeney, “Protesters greet “war criminal” Netanyahu”, Morning Star, 7 February 2017: https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-535e-Protests-greet-war-criminal-Netanyahu#.WJ-HI_Ire70 ).

RHIANNON, Lee. Australian Greens senator-elect backs BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) against Apartheid Israel

Lee Rhiannon (born 30 May 1951) is a Greens senator-elect from News South Wales, Australia. is an Australian politician and member of the Australian Greens. She was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council at the 1999 state election, and re-elected at the 2007 state election. She was successfully elected as a Greens Senator in New South Wales at the 2010 federal election (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Rhiannon and http://leerhiannon.org.au/ ) . 

Lee Rhiannon quoted on as saying, in the wake of the Coalition's landslide victory in the 2011 NSW elections, that the Greens should have spent more time building support for the global BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against the State of Israel (2011):  "Months before the election we needed to explain why the Greens backed BDS and we needed to work closer with our allies on BDS - academics, the Arab community and social justice movements in Sydney and Melbourne…Collectively we didn't do enough to amplify support for BDS and show that this is part of an international movement." [1, 2, 3].

[1]. Lee Rhiannon quoted in  Joe Kelly and Lauren Wilson ,“Bob Brown told to rein in anti-Israel senator Lee Rhiannon”, The Australian, 1 April 2001: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bob-brown-told-to-rein-in-anti-israel-senator-lee-rhiannon/story-fn59niix-1226031644809 .

[2]. Lee Rhiannon quoted in  Antony Loewenstein, “The ugly little Australian coalition against Palestinian rights (that will fail)”, Antony Loewenstein website, 1 April 2011: http://antonyloewenstein.com/2011/04/01/the-ugly-little-australian-coalition-against-palestinian-rights-that-will-fail/comment-page-1/#comment-562105 .

[3]. Lee Rhiannon quoted in  Antony Loewenstein, “Are the Greens ready for hard-ball?”, New Matilda, 30 March 2011: http://newmatilda.com/2011/03/30/are-greens-ready-hard-ball .

RICE. Janet Rice (Australian Greens Senator for Victoria and Foreign Affairs spokesperson for the Federal Greens) (12 May 2021): “There can’t be peace in Israel and Palestine until the Occupation ends. End the forced resettlements. End the demolitions. Recognise Palestine. I asked the Morrison Government in Question Time today about their positions on the horrific violence. Does the Government agree that ending the illegal occupation of Palestine was the best way to end the violence? Does the Government recognise that settlements in Occupied Palestine are illegal under international law? Will the Government recognise a Palestinian state as a matter of urgency? You judge the answers. #savesheikhjarrah” (Janet Rice on Facebook, 2021 https://www.facebook.com/Janet.Rice.Greens/videos/janet-questions-government-on-israel-and-palestine/174137961179066/ ).

ROY, Arundhati. Famed Indian writer urges cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel: "the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid"

Arundhati Roy (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, “The God of Small Things”, and has  written two screenplays and several collections of essays. She is an outspoken anti-war, pro-human rights  humanitarian (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy ).

Arundhati Roy advocating a cultural boycott of  Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian  signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.

Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.

Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.

John Berger

Brian Eno

Sophie Fiennes

Eduardo Galeano

Reem Kelani

Leon Rosselson

Steven Rose

Arundhati Roy

Ahdaf Soueif

Elia Suleiman

and 85 others." [1]. 

Arundhati Roy signed the following letter together with Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Harold Pinter, José Saramago, and  Howard Zinn on the occasion of the 2006 devastation of Gaza and Lebanon by the Apartheid Israeli military machine (2006): “The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources - most particularly that of water - by the Israeli Defence (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land alloted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognised for what it is and resisted.” [2]. 

[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .

[2]. Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, José Saramago, and  Howard Zinn, “Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine”, Open Letter, 19 July 2006: http://www.chomsky.info/letters/20060719.htm .

SAHYOUN, Rabee'. Palestinian writer: "zionism, a racist and irredeemable movement, that survived the twentieth centuries' other genocidal and seemingly passing revolutions such as Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid"

Rabee' Sahyoun, according to Albalagh, “ is a economic development policy researcher, human rights activist, and columnist residing in Beirut, Lebanon. He is affiliated with the global grassroots Palestine Right To Return Coalition” (see: http://www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/zionism_racism.shtml ).

Rabee' Sahyoun on “Zionism is racism” (2001): “On this, the 53rd anniversary of the Nakbe' (the Catastrophe of the Palestinian people), it is all too tempting for friend and foe alike to define Israel, and zionism, solely by the Americans' proclamations of its enlightened democracy. To do so is to miss the normal atrocities that occur in Israel daily, the millions who are under curfew and blockade, starving and brutalized, in the Middle East's only colonized state. To do so is to feign the reality of zionism, a racist and irredeemable movement, that survived the twentieth centuries' other genocidal and seemingly passing revolutions such as Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid… I believe that zionism is racism, because 53 years after being exiled from their homeland, in defiance of the four Geneva Conventions, UN Resolutions 181, 194, 242, 338, and others, and other multilateral and international human rights conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the disinherited refugees of Palestine, continue to endure merciless punishment from the Zionist entity, most recently in the bulldozing of makeshift homes in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.”. [1]. 

[1]. Rabee' Sahyoun, “Why Zionism is racism”, Albalagh, 3 July 2001: http://www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/zionism_racism.shtml .

SARAMAGO, José. Portuguese Literature Nobel Laureate: "What is happening in Palestine is a crime that we can compare to what occurred in Auschwitz" & "[Israel's] aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian people"

José de Sousa Saramago  (16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a prolific, humorous and gently subversive  Literature Nobel Prize-winning  Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright,  journalist ands author of numerous books , most recently “The Elephant’s Joumey” (2009) and “Cain” (2010). After his comments attacking Apartheid Israeli war crimes, Jose Saramago’s books were banned in Apartheid Israel (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Saramago ).

 José de Sousa Saramago on the ongoing Palestinian Holocaust and Palestinian Genocide (circa 2000): “What is happening in Palestine is a crime that we can compare to what occurred in Auschwitz… A sense of impunity characterizes today the Israeli people and its army. They have been converted into rentiers of the Holocaust” [1].

José Saramago signed the following letter together with Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, and  Howard Zinn on the occasion of the 2006 devastation of Gaza and Lebanon by the Apartheid Israeli military machine (2006):

 “The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner - and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis - there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources - most particularly that of water - by the Israeli Defence (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land alloted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly - who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognised for what it is and resisted.” [2].

[1]  José Saramago, quoted by Professor James Petras in “Palestine: The Final Solution and Jose Saramago”, Chapter 19 in “The Plight of the Palestinians”. A long history of destruction”, edited by {Professor William Cook, Palgrave Macmilllan, London, 2010.

[2]. Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, José Saramago and  Howard Zinn, “Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine”, Open Letter, 19 July 2006: http://www.chomsky.info/letters/20060719.htm .

SAUL, Ben. Professor of International Law, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of Sydney: "The Australian government has become an apologist for Israeli war crimes and a wrecker of sacred international humanitarian law principles... it should not give succour to the dirty politics of Israel’s criminal colonial enterprise"

Professor Ben Saul (Professor of International Law, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of Sydney) (2014): “ The Australian government has become an apologist for Israeli war crimes and a wrecker of sacred international humanitarian law principles. Last week, Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop asked to see which international law declared Israel’s settlements in Palestine illegal. Australia’s new position contradicts almost 50 years of international consensus in the United Nations General Assembly, the Security Council and the International Court of Justice. The Abbott government earlier reversed Australia’s long-standing bipartisan opposition to the settlements in the UN.. Australians deserve better from their foreign minister. At the very least, she should know what the law is. Every other country knows it. But Australia should also stand against war crimes, not excuse them. It should fight for the Geneva Conventions, humanitarian principles and the rule of law, not undermine them. And it should not give succour to the dirty politics of Israel’s criminal colonial enterprise” ( Ben Saul, "Settlements illegal under what law? Take your pick Minister”, The Conversation,  24 January 2014: https://theconversation.com/settlements-illegal-under-what-law-take-your-pick-minister-22341 .)

SEATTLE MIDEAST AWARENESS CAMPAIGN: "More than 5 million Palestinians are denied equal rights by the state of Israel under a system of apartheid, a deliberate policy of racial or ethnic segregation"

Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign (SEAMAC): “More than 5 million Palestinians are denied equal rights by the state of Israel under a system of apartheid, a deliberate policy of racial or ethnic segregation. Under Israeli military occupation, millions of Palestinians live in conditions which closely resemble the apartheid system that existed in South Africa:

• No right of free speech, assembly or movement

• Arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial

• Torture

• House searches without warrant

• Assassination, extra-judicial murder

• No right to vote for the Israeli government (even though it controls their lives)

Israel controls all Palestinian borders, all imports and exports, and all movement between towns and cities. 

THE GAZA STRIP, still surrounded, besieged and controlled by Israel, has been sealed off and effectively turned into the world’s largest open-air prison… These are just some of the many aspects of Palestinian life affected by the Israeli government’s apartheid policies. Fortunately, an international solidarity movement has formed around the world and is heeding the call of Palestinian civil society to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) Israel for its flagrant violations of human rights. Just as in South Africa and the American South where whites joined with blacks to fight segregation and white supremacy, many Israeli Jews are also repudiating their government’s policies. They have actively joined with Palestinians to fight apartheid” (Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, “Equal rights for Palestinians”: http://www.seamac.org/equalrights.htm ).

SHEPPARD, Barry: "There is one state in this [Palestinian] territory, and its name is Israel. Within this single state, there are about 4.7 million stateless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They have no say in the policies of their rulers. That makes Israel an apartheid state. There are Palestinians within the green line, who are citizens of Israel, but second-class citizens"

Barry Sheppard (US writer and activist) (2020): “Trump has put in place the finishing touches on what Western imperialism has constructed over the past century (and for the past half century mainly the US) to back Zionism’s project. The reality that is present-day Israel consists of the borders the Israeli armed forces control and defend and the entire land between those borders. Within those borders, there is a single army, air force and navy. There is one foreign policy: that of the Israeli government. There is one currency: the Israeli shekel. There is one official language: Hebrew. In every aspect, there is one state in this territory, and its name is Israel. Within this single state, there are about 4.7 million stateless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They have no say in the policies of their rulers. That makes Israel an apartheid state. There are Palestinians within the green line, who are citizens of Israel, but second-class citizens. Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law adopted by the Israeli parliament (Knesset) in 2018, made it crystal clear that no Palestinian state would ever be allowed. It refers to the state as “Eratz Yisrael”, and says it is the state of all the Jews, and refers to Jews living outside as exiles who are urged to be “gathered” into Israel. What its final borders will be is somewhat vague, but the present land Israel rules will be included within them. Biblical Israel includes Sinai (the desert region in Egypt between the Red and the Mediterranean Seas), so more land may be included” (Barry Sheppard, “Trump  plan ratifies Israel as an apartheid state”, Green Left Weekly, 5 February 2020: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/trump-plan-ratifies-israel-apartheid-state ).

SOUEIF, Ahdaf. Famed Egyptian writer urges cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel: "the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid"

Ahdaf Soueif was born in Cairo, Egypt  and educated in Egypt and the UK. She studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster. ‎ Her first novel was  “In the Eye of the Sun” (1993)and her second novel “The Map of Love” (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize,   has been translated into 21 languages and has sold over a million copies (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahdaf_Soueif ).

Ahdaf Soueif advocating a cultural boycott of  Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian  signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.

Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.

Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.

John Berger

Brian Eno

Sophie Fiennes

Eduardo Galeano

Reem Kelani

Leon Rosselson

Steven Rose

Arundhati Roy

Ahdaf Soueif

Elia Suleiman

and 85 others." [1].

[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .

SULEIMAN, Elia. Palestinian director & actor urges cultural boycott of Apartheid Israel: "the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid"

Elia Suleiman (born July 28, 1960 in Nazareth, Israel), is a Palestinian film director and actor best known for the 2002 film “Divine Intervention” about living under occupation in Palestine which won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elia_Suleiman ).

Elia Suleiman advocating a cultural boycott of  Apartheid Israel in a letter to the UK Guardian  signed by 95 creative writers and artists (2006): “There is a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, albeit daily violated by Israeli overflights. Meanwhile the day-to-day brutality of the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank continues. Ten Palestinians are killed for every Israeli death; more than 200, many of them children, have been killed since the summer. UN resolutions are flouted, human rights violated as Palestinian land is stolen, houses demolished and crops destroyed. For archbishop Desmond Tutu, as for the Jewish former ANC military commander now South African minister of security, Ronnie Kasrils, the situation of the Palestinians is worse than that of black South Africans under apartheid.

Meanwhile, western governments refer to Israel's legitimate right of self-defence, and continue to supply weaponry. The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment and UN-imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without bloodshed.

Today, Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace. This call has been endorsed internationally by university teachers in many European countries, by film-makers and architects, and by some brave Israeli dissidents. It is now time for others to join the campaign - as Primo Levi asked: "If not now, when?" We call on creative writers and artists to support our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues by endorsing the boycott call. Read the Palestinian call pacbi.org.

John Berger

Brian Eno

Sophie Fiennes

Eduardo Galeano

Reem Kelani

Leon Rosselson

Steven Rose

Arundhati Roy

Ahdaf Soueif

Elia Suleiman

and 85 others." [1].

[1]. Letter to the Guardian signed by 95 creative writers and artists, “Israel boycott may be the way to peace”, Guardian, 15 December 2006: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/15/israel.guardianletters .

THOMAS, Helen. Famous Arab-American journalists on Palestinian Genocide by Zionist colonizers: "Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?"

Helen Thomas was an Arab American journalist, a famous  US columnist and doyen of the White House Press Corps. She was forced out of her job after trenchant criticism of the racist Zionist colonizers  (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Thomas ).

Helen Thomas on racist Zionists  having been asked  for comments on Israel: "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine… Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German, it's not Poland..."  and when asked where Israeli Jews should go, she replied that they could "go home" to Poland or Germany or "America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?" [1].

[1].  Helen Thomas quoted in  “Helen Thomas”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Thomas .

TONGE, Jennifer. UK doctor, MP & Life Peer slams Israeli apartheid, war crimes

Dr Jennifer Louise Tonge, Baroness Tonge (born Jennifer Louise Smith, 19 February 1941), is a medical doctor and was Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, London, UK  from 1997 to 2005. She was Liberal Democrat spokesman on International Development from 1999 to 2003, and then the spokesperson for children from 2003 to 2004. In 2002 she asked PM Blair if he was "happy to allow the teaching of creationism alongside Darwin's theory of evolution in state schools" - to which he readily agreed, triggering a row over the issue. On 23 June 2005 she was made a life peer  as Baroness Tonge. In 2006 she commented  on the disproportionate influence of the Israeli Lobby in the West (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Tonge ).

Dr Jennifer Tonge on comparison of besieged Gaza  with the Warsaw Ghetto (2003): "You are almost getting a situation like the Warsaw ghetto - people can't get in or out. They can't work, they can't sell anything. There is this gradual squeeze…I feel it was an apartheid system and it is certainly getting worse - the area where the Palestinians live is getting smaller…Israel says everything it does is for security but they are not addressing the cause of terrorism, only terrorism itself.” [1].

Baroness Tonge in the House of Lords Tonge asked about investigations into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza (12 January 2009): "Is the Minister aware that Mrs Pillay, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has spoken of war crimes being committed in Gaza? Will the Government, therefore, show leadership and call for the immediate—and I mean immediate—establishment by the United Nations Security Council of an independent fact-finding commission to Palestine to investigate all breaches of international law?” [2].

E-petition created by Baroness Jennifer Tonge, 2014: “Britain Must Atone for its Historical Failure in Palestine

Responsible department: Foreign and Commonwealth Office

"We call on Her Majesty’s Government to openly recognise British responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian people. The colonial policy of Britain between 1917-1948 led to mass displacement of the Palestinian nation.

The British government failed to protect the Palestinian people, which was a breach of its obligations under the Mandate. Britain’s failure led to communal strife, violence and mass displacement of more than half of the Palestinian population before expiration of its Mandate.

The Balfour declaration of 1917 clearly prejudiced the rights of Palestinian people and sealed their fate, leading to untold suffering. Since then, seven million Palestinian refugees, more than half the Palestinian population have had to endure this historic injustice, a blatant denial of their human rights.

HM Government bears responsibility for the plight of Palestinians and has a duty to ensure proper restoration and reparation for its historical failure." [3].

Baroness Jenny Tonge (anti-racist UK peer) in calling for boycotts against Apartheid Israel (2017): “[I am] sick of hearing about new settlements, sick of seeing bulldozers destroying homes, sick of seeing little children bullied and shot” [4].

[1]. Dr Jennifer Tonge quoted in “MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto”, Guardian, 19 June 2003: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jun/19/foreignpolicy.israel .

[2]. Jennifer Tonge, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Tonge .

[3]. “Britain Must Atone for its Historical Failure in Palestine”, e-petition crated by Baroness Jennifer Tonge, 2014: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/63195 .

[4]. Steve Sweeney, “”, Protesters greet “war criminal” Netanyahu”, Morning Star, 7 February 2017: https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-535e-Protests-greet-war-criminal-Netanyahu#.WJ-HI_Ire70 .

TUTU, Desmond. Anti-Apartheid Nobel Laureate slams Israeli Apartheid policies

Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of Apartheid.  In 1984, Tutu became the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Tutu was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town  and primate of the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa.  Tutu chaired the post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Tutu is vocal in his defence of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. Tutu also campaigns to fight disease, poverty and racism. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu ).

1. Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Occupation, Apartheid and Divestment from Apartheid Israel (2002): “The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure-- in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months, a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation.

Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots. Faith-based leaders informed their followers, union members pressured their companies' stockholders and consumers questioned their store owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change their portfolios. Eventually, institutions pulled the financial plug, and the South African government thought twice about its policies.

Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time. Students on more than forty campuses in the U.S. are demanding a review of university investments in Israeli companies as well as in firms doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city councils have debated municipal divestment measures.

These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.

Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name." Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out the relevance of the South African experience.” [1].

2. South African Nobel Laureate and celebrated anti-apartheid activist, Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Apartheid Israeli occupation and anti-Apartheid Israel divestment (2002): “the end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure– in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s…a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation…if apartheid ended, so can this occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.” [1, 2].

3. Archbishop-Emeritus Desmond Tutu  advocating Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against an Apartheid Israel (2012): “The Jewish Holocaust, engineered and implemented primarily by Europeans, gave some ideologues within the Jewish and Christian community an excuse to implement plans that were in the making for at least 50 years, under the rubric of exceptional Jewish security. In this way began the immense oppression of the Palestinian people, who were not at all involved in the Holocaust. Not only is this group of people being oppressed more than the apartheid ideologues could ever dream about in South Africa, their very identity and history are being denied and obfuscated. What is worse, is that Europe and the USA are refusing to take responsibility for their actions with regard to both the Holocaust and the over-empowering of the Israelis, their disregard for the international conventions and regulatory framework of the nuclear industry and their continued oppression of the Palestinian people. But God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, neither slumbers nor sleeps. Prophetic voices have been calling this empowered people who were once oppressed and killed, to their deepest values of justice and compassion, but they have refused to listen even to the most reasonable voices. The human community cannot be silent in the face of the gross injustice being meted out to the people of Palestine. If international courts and governments refuse to deal with this matter, we in the churches and in the rest of civil society really have no choice but to act in small ways and big ways. God is busy doing a new thing. And God is using all of us to be partners with him. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have to be liberated, but at this stage the greater onus is on the Israelis since they are the ones who are in power, economically, politically and militarily. We have to think about ways that will allow them to reflect deeply on what it is that they are doing and bring them back from the brink, not out of spite or revenge, but because we love them deeply. I therefore wholeheartedly support your action to disinvest from companies who benefit from the Occupation of Palestine. This is a moral position that I have no choice but to support, especially since I know of the effect that Boycotts, Disinvestment and Sanctions had on the apartheid regime in South Africa. May God bless your conference as you deliberate on this matter, and I pray that your decision will reflect the best values of the human family as we stand in solidarity with the oppressed. God bless you. Archbishop-Emeritus Desmond Tutu Cape Town, South Africa.” [3].

4. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in support of  BDS against Apartheid Israel (2012): “ Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which "describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians." This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable. And we are in desperate need of more rabbis joining the brave rabbis of Jewish Voice for Peace in speaking forthrightly about the corrupting decadeslong Israeli domination over Palestinians.

These are among the hardest words I have ever written. But they are vitally important. Not only is Israel harming Palestinians, but it is harming itself. The 1,200 rabbis may not like what I have to say, but it is long past time for them to remove the blinders from their eyes and grapple with the reality that Israel becoming an apartheid state or like South Africa in its denial of equal rights is not a future danger, as three former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and David Ben Gurion — have warned, but a present-day reality. This harsh reality endured by millions of Palestinians requires people and organizations of conscience to divest from those companies — in this instance, from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard — profiting from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.

Such action made an enormous difference in apartheid South Africa. It can make an enormous difference in creating a future of justice and equality for Palestinians and Jews in the Holy Land.” [4].

[1]. Desmond Tutu, “Of Occupation and Apartheid. Do I divest?”, Counterpunch, 17 October 2002:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/17/do-i-divest/.

[2]. Archbishop Desmond Tutu quoted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel (PACB), “Open letter to Bono : entertaining Apartheid Israel… U2 Bono?”, International Solidarity Movement, 13 January 2010: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/01/10627 .

[3]. Archbishop-Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Letter to “Sear Friends of the United Methodist Church”, 26 April 2012, quoted by Friends of Palestinian and Israelis (FPI): http://friendsofpalestiniansandisraelis.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/christians-get-their-story-out-to-world.html .

[4]. Desmond Tutu, “Justice requires action to stop subjugation of Palestinians”, Tehran Times, 5 May 2012: http://www.tehrantimes.com/component/content/article/84-perspectives/97555-justice-requires-action-to-stop-subjugation-of-palestinians- .