Alan Hart is a UK journalist with particular expertise in Middle East affairs, former Middle East Chief Correspondent for Independent Television News, former BBC Panorama presenter specialising in the Middle East, . and author of the 3 volume series “Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jews. (Volume 1. The False Messiah” (Clarity Press). He rejects the "official conspiracy theory " version 9-11, asserting that expert advice is that the WTC buildings were brought downn by controlled demolition and that the US Government must have been involved with likely Israeli and Zionist involvement (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hart_%28writer%29 ) .
Alan Hart on Zionsit corruption of the UN, MSM, democracy and Judaism (2013): “The colonial enterprise that Zionism is has corrupted everything it touched, beginning with the United Nations and including the mainstream media, what passes for democracy in the Western world (America especially) and Judaism itself.” .[1].
Alan Hart on Zionism as a perversion of Judaism (2007): “The first thing you need to know if you are to be anything other than a Zionist propagandist (like Tony Blair was and I fear Prime Minister Brown might be)is the difference between Judaism and Zionismand why they are total opposites.
JUDAISM is the religion of Jews (not “the” Jews because not all Jews are religious)and, like Christianity and Islam, it has at its core a set of ethnical principles and moral values.
ZIONISM, which proclaimed its existence some four decades before the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, is a secular, colonialist ideology, which made a mockery of, and has contempt for, the moral values and ethical principles of Judaism. How so? Short answer in two related parts.
The first is that the return of Jews to the land of biblical Israel by the efforts of man? one possible but woefully inadequate definition of Zionism – was PROSCRIBED by Judaism. (Not many of today’s Jews seem to be aware of this but it is a fact). Put another way, Zionism was, is, a rebellion against Judaism.
The second is that Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing. And this crime, which dispossessed about three quarters of the indigenous Arabs of Palestine of their land and their rights, didn’t happen by accident. It was pre-planned….
QUESTION: What can be done to eliminate the danger of the monster of anti-Semitism going on the rampage again?
Short answer? The Gentiles of the Western nations among whom most of the world’s Jews live must be informed and educated about the differencies between Judaism and Zionism, and thuswhy it is wrong to blame all Jews for the crimes (yes crimes) of the hardcore Zionist few.
And that’s why I devoted more than five years of my life to researching and writing Zionism, The Real Enemy of the Jews.
When I take to the public speaking and debating trail coast-to-coast across America, the following are three main points I’ll be making to Americans:
DON’Tblame the Jews who live among you for Zionism’s crimes.
DON’Teven blame the Zionist lobby for buying influence on American foreign policy because it, the lobby, has only played the game according to the rules.
DOblame your corrupt, pork-barrel system of politics which puts what passes for democracy up for sale to the highest bidders.
The essential difference between the Gentile me and hardcore Zionists can be summarised a follows. I want to do my bit to stop the monster of anti-Semitism going on the rampage again. They want, even need, anti-Semitism, to justify their crimes – past, present and future.” [2].
[1]. Alan Hart, “Anti-Semitism: What it IS and is NOT”, Bellaciao, 31 January 2013: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article22400 ; also published in Vetasrns Today, 30 January 2013: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/01/30/anti-semitism-what-it-is-and-is-not/ .
[2]. Alan Hart, “Open Letter to British Conservative Party leader David Cameron”: 2 August 2007: http://www.alanhart.net/zionism-open-letter-to-british-conservative-party-leader-david-cameron/ .
HARVARD PROFESSORS. Statement by [72] Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation.
Statement by Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation (22 May 2021):“As US-based scholars who oppose racism and colonial violence in all its forms, we write to express solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination. Israeli state violence has devastated Palestinian life through a combination of warfare, territorial theft, and violent displacement. Unwavering US financial, military, and political support has fueled an apartheid system that institutionalizes the domination and repression of Palestinians. The recent reports by Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem are only the latest to document this reality. The current effort to expel Palestinians from Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood; the violence in Israeli cities like Lydda and Haifa, in which Israeli police stand by and facilitate right-wing extremist attacks on Palestinians; and the military attack on the Gaza Strip are only the most recent events in a decades-long process of dispossession.
Palestinians are not only denied freedom and self-determination, they are even denied the right to resist. Palestinian resistance in all its forms is criminalized by Israel and the US. Every measure of self-defense by a people without a state or an army against a nuclear power backed by the US is subject to immediate censure while Israel continues its violent aggressions with impunity.
Suppression of support for Palestinian liberation extends into the US academy where even scholarly criticism of Israeli human rights violations is increasingly equated with antisemitism and forbidden by law. The situation in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank is far worse. Academic freedom and basic educational rights are unavailable for students and faculty at Palestinian universities, and the rights of Palestinians at Israeli universities are severely curtailed. The Israeli government and academic institutions routinely punish scholars – both Jews and Palestinians – who criticize the state’s policies.
In this moment when Israeli ethnonationalist violence is at an all-time high, US military support remains steadfast, and solidarity with Palestine is criminalized, US-based scholars cannot be silent. We demand an end to US support for Israel’s apartheid regime, condemn Israeli state aggression, and affirm our support for the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Signatories
Ajantha Subramanian, Anthropology and South Asian Studies
Steven Caton, Anthropology
Vijay Iyer, Music and African and African American Studies
Walter Johnson, History and African and African American Studies
Kirsten Weld, History
Rosie Bsheer, History
Diane L. Moore, Religion and Public Life
Evelynn M. Hammonds, History of Science and African an African American Studies
Robert F. Pharr, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and African and African American Studies
Arunabh Ghosh, History
Ju Yon Kim, English
Sidney Chalhoub, History and African and African American Studies
Teju Cole, English
Cemal Kafadar, History
Soha Bayoumi, History of Science
Caroline Light, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Bram Wispelwey, Medicine
Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Anthropology and Art, Film, and Visual Studies
Susanna Siegel, Philosophy
Michael Herzfeld, Anthropology
Ned Hall, Philosophy
Glenda Carpio, English and African and African American Studies
Ernst Karel, Anthropology and Art, Film, and Visual Studies
Joyce E. Chaplin, History
Adaner Usmani, Sociology and Social Studies
Tara K Menon, English
Bernhard Nickel, Philosophy
Ali Asani, Study of Religion and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Michael Bronski, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Robin Bernstein, African and African American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Alice Jardine, Romance Languages and Literatures and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Jean Comaroff, African and African American Studies and Anthropology
Nicholas Harkness, Anthropology
Musa Syeed, English
Ingrid Monson, Music and African and African American Studies
Sarah S. Richardson, History of Science and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Alex Rehding, Music
Lucie White, Harvard Law School
Suzanne Preston Blier, History of Art and Architecture; African and African American Studies
Katrina Forrester, Government and Social Studies
Christopher Hasty, Music
Robb Moss, Art, Film, and Visual Studies
Gabriela Soto Laveaga, History of Science
Ana Isabel Keilson, Social Studies
Sugata Bose, History and South Asian Studies
Peter E. Gordon, History
Jesse McCarthy, English and African and African American Studies
Jeffrey Schnapp, metaLAB (at) Harvard; Romance Languages and Literatures
Vincent Brown, History and African and African American Studies
Sylvaine Guyot, Romance Languages and Literatures and Theater, Dance & Media
Tracey Rosen, Social Studies
Tom Conley, Romance Languages and Art, Film & Visual Studies
Glory Liu, Social Studies
Linda Schlossberg, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
András Riedlmayer, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture
Andrea Wright, Anthropology
Mary D. Lewis, History
Namwali Serpell, English
Malavika Reddy, Anthropology
Philip Deloria, History
Peter Der Manuelian, NELC and Anthropology
George Paul Meiu, Anthropology and AAAS
Matthew Liebmann, Anthropology
Byron Good, Global Health and Social Medicine, and Anthropology
Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Global Health and Social Medicine
Claire Messud, English
Claire Chase, Music
Karthik Pandian, Art, Film, and Visual Studies
Carissa Rodriguez, Art, Film and Visual Studies
Salma Waheedi, Harvard Law School
Rebecca Williams, Harvard Kennedy School
Samuel Dolbee, History and Literature” (“Statement by [72] Harvard Faculty in Support of Palestinian Liberation”, Palestinian Forum, 22 May 2021: https://www.palestineforum.net/statement-by-harvard-faculty-in-support-of-palestinian-liberation/ ).
Ghali Hassan (an independent political analyst and researcher living in Australia) on Zionism (2017): “For the Anglo-Zionist ruling class (the Zionist power), “democracy”, “freedom” and “human rights” are just illusions to mislead the people and divert them away from important issues. The Anglo-Zionist power despises democracy, and despises citizens’ participation in politics. As a Princeton University survey report shows, U.S. elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital [the ruling class], represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen (Report). The U.S. is the opposite of how it manufactures its image and what it preaches to be. It is a repressive police state that preaches violence and thrives on fear.
Furthermore, U.S. efforts to promote repression and dictatorship have reach every corner of the world. The U.S. has been arming and supporting (without exception) every fascist and murderous regime in the world, while attacking and destabilising independent and democratic governments. No nation can remain neutral and there is no right of independence. Either you are a U.S. vassal state (serving Anglo-Zionist interests) or you are a “tyrant”. The U.S is the global authority determined to remake the world in its own image. It strives to impose and control America’s cultural, educational, financial and economic policies on other nations.
The problem in the U.S. is not Trump or whoever lives in the White House, it is the Zionist power (the “Deep State”), which controls the media and the international banking systems. By controlling the banks, the Zionist power controls world’s financial system and U.S. foreign policy. The Zionist power is not about peaceful coexistence and humanity. It is about hegemony and world’s dominance. The Zionists have infiltrated the military-intelligence nexus, the Pentagon, the big arms manufacturers, oil companies, and financial institutions. President Trump won’t be the first fascist in the White House, the Israel’s House. All of Trump’s predecessors fit that description just as well. Every U.S. President since at least the end of World War II (WW II), has been the quintessential symbol of Anglo-Zionist fascism that serves Zionist interests and defending the Israeli fascist regime in Palestine. Indeed, the fall of German fascism and the establishment of Israel were the preludes to the rise of Anglo-Zionist fascism, with one Anglo-Zionist government that dominates the world.
Israel was created as a terrorist entity by the British mandate on Palestinian land already inhabited by the Palestinian people whose roots stretch back thousands of years… Since at least 1950, the U.S. has continuously been waging war – unprovoked aggressions against defenceless nations – that have caused unimaginable human suffering – over 20 million people death in 37 nations –, created mass poverty, spread chaos and caused wanton destruction. For decades, the U.S. has taken the world hostage and subjugated it to nuclear threat, bullying, environmental destruction, starvation and death, destabilising one country after another. The U.S. has attacked and destroyed countless nations, robbed millions of people of life, and raped freedom, democracy and cultures all over the world. (Ghali Hassan, “Stand up to Anglo-Zionist fascism”, Countercurrents, 14 July 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/07/14/stand-up-to-anglo-zionist-fascism/ ).
Stephen Hawking, according to Wikipedia: “Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. Among his significant scientific works have been a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularities theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set forth a cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is a vocal supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics… Hawking has achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; his A Brief History of Time stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking has a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a condition that has progressed over the years. He is almost entirely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. He married twice and has three children” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking ).
Stephen Hawking in the letter to organizers of the fifth President’s Conference in Jerusalem: “I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this I must withdraw from the conference.” [1].
[1]. Stephen Hawking quoted in Jonny Paul, “Stephen Hawking reaffirms support of Israel boycott”, Jerusalem Post, 8 May 2013: http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Stephen-Hawking-reaffirms-support-of-Israel-boycott-312505 .
Professor Kamel Hawwash (British Palestinian engineering academic, University of Birmingham, UK) on Apartheid Israel (2018): “Remember the date, 19 July 2018 is when Israel’s pretense of democracy, the Knesset passed the Nation State Bill, which could more aptly be called, the “Jewish State Apartheid Law” where Jews dominate the Israeli Palestinian Arabs who are lesser than them, even if they are citizens. I deliberately did not say Israeli Jews because the law gives all rights in historic Palestine to Jews, not only in Israel but across the world, including those Jews that do not identify with the state. My mother, who was born in Jerusalem before Israel was created, has no rights in the Holy city or her homeland but a Jewish lady with no connection to Israel can “return”, to a place she does not come from. The invaders, since they were not invited into our homeland, have enshrined the right to have my Palestinian homeland as theirs in law and also annulled my mother’s right to return, which is enshrined not in state but in international law. I can hear cries of “this is the Jewish homeland because we were here thousands of years ago”, really? If Jews – and it is only Zionists – believe they are entitled to return after thousands of years -which I reject – then how can they deny Palestinians the right to return after 71 years? In fact UN resolution 194 enshrined in international law gives Palestinians the Right of Return but there is no reference in international law to Jews having a “right to return” to historic Palestine. Let me be clear, I am not denying Jewish, Christian or Muslim connection to holy sites in historic Palestine. However, Palestinians reject the notion of singling Jews out for a “right of return” to our homeland now and forever. No other people are afforded the right to a freehold on a plot of land forever and Jews should be no different… All states, but particularly those that claim to be western style democracies, should have severed relations with Apartheid Israel, including those Arab states that have established relations with it. As for the rest of those that support Israel both as individuals and organisations, enough is enough. This Israel is not a state that anyone can support or declare a friend. In particular, “friends of Israel” groups in UK political parties should shut themselves down or rename themselves appropriately as “Friends of Apartheid Israel”. That is what it should say on the tin. Honourable and Right Honourable members should then resign from these racism-supporting groups and instead join the BDS movement. If Apartheid Israel is tolerated, next it will be Apartheid Myanmar and the door will be open for other states to court Apartheid. For the sake of our children let us not allow racism to be tolerated anywhere.” (Kamel Hawwash, “Israel challenges the world: I am an apartheid state, what are you going to do about it?”, Middle East Monitor, 23 July 2018: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180723-israel-challenges-the-world-i-am-an-apartheid-state-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it/ ). [Editor: The World’s answer – apply BDS to Apartheid Israel and all its supporters]
William Hughes (Baltimore attorney, journalist and the author of "Andrew Jackson vs. New World Order") (2003):“At least, some Americans are on their guard, vis-à-vis the U.S. relationship with Zionist Israel. These awakened few, know about the Israeli-inspired terrorism in the Lavin Affair; the IDF’s vicious attack on the USS Liberty; the treachery of the Zionist agent, Jonathan Pollard; the IDF’s unjustified killing of peace activist, Rachel Corrie; and the fact that U.S. freebies to Israel, since 1948 are at a staggering $ 97.5 billion, and counting (WRMEA, 05/03). They are also mindful of the growing power, and harmful influence, of the Israeli Lobby, via electoral politics, and otherwise, too, into the deepest recesses of our government (See Paul Findley’s prophetic “They Dare to Speak Out”). These American patriots, Right and Left, also strongly deplore Israel’s violence-producing subjugation of the Palestinians, that we, as U.S. taxpayers, subsidize. They realized that it continues to drag the name of our Republic through the mud and also makes more enemies for America in the Arab World. They know, too, that Sharon isn’t our friend, and that militant Zionism is a political ideology that is incompatible with democracy. Today, the ungrateful Zionists are demonizing Catholic France. Could America be next?” (William Hughes, “Ungrateful Zionists insult France”, Media Monitors, 27 May 2003: http://www.mediamonitors.net/williamhughes50.html ).
IRWIN, Jerome: " As in American history, it’s now Israel’s turn, as America’s proxy in the Middle East, to act as yet another giddy apartheid regime that has gone berserk over its power"
Jerome Irwin ( Canadian-American writer) (2021): “The ugly racist violence now wending its way throughout Occupied Palestine, busting into dwellings of innocent Palestinians, violating men, women and children, evicting them from their homes with no place to live other than the rubble of the streets and wastelands of their former spiritual homelands, continues unabated; while Israel’s apartheid regime and a hamstrung, if not blind or indifferent United Nations Security Council, is repeatedly blocked from doing anything by Biden and America’s racist veto powers that continue to deny Palestinians any remote guarantee of common, basic human justice and equality.The on-going human indignities occurring in Israel in 2021 are no different than so many other ugly scenes from a century or two ago, up to the present day, in the United States where Black, Brown Asian Americans and Native Americans still find themselves in the same predicament. As in American history, it’s now Israel’s turn, as America’s proxy in the Middle East, to act as yet another giddy apartheid regime that has gone berserk over its power to achieve near total control of the entire area between the Jordon River and the Mediterranean Sea” (Jerome Irwin, “Israekl’s apartheid jackboot is on the neck of Palestinians and they can’t breathe”, Free Palestine Melbourne, 20 May 2021: http://www.fpmelbourne.org/apartheid/israels-apartheid-jackboot-is-on-the-neck-of-palestinians-and-they-cant-breathe/ ).
Julia Irwin (born 8 November 1951), Australian politician, was an Australian Labor Party (ALP) member of the Australian House of Representatives from October 1998 to July 2010, representing the Division of Fowler, New South Wales. Irwin was born in Sydney and was variously a bank officer, trade union administration officer and electorate officer before entering politics. In September 2005 Irwin was involved in a controversy over comments she made about Israel. On 13 September Irwin made a speech in Parliament characterising Israel's policies as "ethnic cleansing", and Gaza as a "concentration camp" (Hansard - House of Representatives, 13 September 2005, pp 95; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Irwin ).
Former Federal Australian Labor MP Julia Irwin on Zionist influence in the Labor Party (2010): “[My views on Israel/Palestine[ have been broadly in line [with ALP policy]… [I support] an active role for the United Nations in the peace process”… [my view] upset Israel supporters in Caucus… When I put the question of UN involvement to [Israeli Defence Minister] Ehud Barak when he visited Australia, he almost exploded… . Many members and senators from right-wing unions have had close links with the Israeli union movement over the years and have maintained entrenched views… I should add that many of my colleagues these days begin a conversation with the remark, ‘I know we don’t see eye to eye on the Middle East but’ … [I was told I should] visit the Holocaust Museum, visit Israel and meet with members of various Jewish organisations [but] these requests have not been followed up. After one speech on Palestine, the ALP chief whip tore up my application for leave from the House when I was to attend an Inter Parliamentary Union meeting in Geneva. This was later approved but not before some emotional displays on both sides…[1 have] enjoyed strong support from many rank-and-file members of the ALP… There is obviously a strong groundswell of support within the ALP for a more independent position when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict… Then, strangely, at the Caucus meeting on the Tuesday before he was deposed as Prime Minister, I had gone up to Kevin to ask him to sign a hardback edition of The True Believers which had been signed by all Party leaders from Gough Whitlam. Kevin was surprisingly friendly and inquired about the reaction of supporters of the Palestinian cause to the government’s handling of the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over the theft of Australian passports and his statement calling for an inquiry into the Mavi Marmara incident. His remarks led me to believe that there had been some change in the government’s position with regard to Israel even if it was only a small step from being totally uncritical… at least one ALP member receives big donations from Palestinian interests but is silent on the issue… [I have never received donations from groups with] direct links to Palestinian interests… support for Palestine will swiftly end any prospect of a front bench position. Even a hint of offence can result in an immediate unconditional apology… :For all MPs there is the desire to ‘play it safe’. Why make enemies over an issue which does not directly affect your local community? And I have to add that many Labor members have an intense dislike of Arabic people. That’s something that comes across in their less-guarded moments. They will talk about human rights abuse in every corner of the world, but not Palestine…On the Labor side (and as far as I know the same applies to the Liberals), a newly selected member for a winnable seat is hosted to a private fund raising dinner. A table full of Jewish businessmen are happy to hand over $10,000 for the candidate’s first campaign. That’s a big bonus for a new member and many never forget the generosity. I was never afforded such an honour but I can say that I would have been suspicious of the motive… a visit to Israel is almost a rite of passage for new MPs and Senators… [display by hosts of ] backward Arabs threatening such an enlightened society… It [the Israeli Lobby] cannot afford to snub Labor even if most Jewish voters live in blue ribbon Liberal seats… I have no doubt that senior ALP figures have promised to end my career on more than one occasion. At the grass roots level, in the branches and the wider electorate, the lobby has no influence. Only at the highest levels can a member be threatened. But a party which allows that to happen is not worthy of public support… [Israel may have ] passed the point of no return… There can be no ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories… Despite the belief of the Israeli leadership, time is not on their side.. [I grew up shamed] at our complicity of abuse and discrimination against Jewish people… now I ask, what has changed? How could such a people condone the oppression of others?... [Israel]cannot survive a cultural and academic boycott … While politically Israel lurches further to the right, Israelis must come to realise that they are all judged by the actions of their leaders.” [1].
[1]. Antony Loewenstein, “Departing ALP member tells of deep Zionist influence in party”, 10 August 2010: http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/08/10/departing-alp-member-tells-of-deep-zionist-influence-in-party/
JACOB, Anthony Mathew: " Israel is an entity built on the Zionist ideology of ethno-religious supremacy, apartheid, occupation, settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing"
Anthony Mathew Jacob (a political analyst specializing in the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent with articles in Tehran Times, Press TV, Countercurrents.org and many other media)(2021): “Till today, Israel follows the policy of racial segregation, religious persecution, subjugation and harassment while continuing to deny Palestinian refugees their right to return home. Israeli settlement on Palestinian lands continues unabated, and so does the deliberate displacement of native Palestinians. Israel is an entity built on the Zionist ideology of ethno-religious supremacy, apartheid, occupation, settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. Israeli government approves and encourages Jewish settlement in occupied Palestine on a daily basis. This is the blood-stained history that Israel and its lackeys do not want you to know. All that they want you to know is: “the Israelis are “KILLED” by Palestinians and the Palestinians merely “DIE” to Israeli attempts at “SELF-DEFENCE.” The “OCCUPIER” is called the “VICTIM” and the real “VICTIM” is called a “TERRORIST”.Despite all the propaganda, disinformation and manipulation, the truth is easy to discern, Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. Israel cannot expect the Christians and the Muslims to give up their land because the Jewish scriptures (according to Zionists) asks them to do so, or because the Jews were persecuted in Europe” (Anthony Mathew Jacob, “Palestine, to whom does it belong?”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/05/palestine-to-whom-does-it-belong/ ).
Iqbal Jassat (South African writer) (2016): “Shrewd, smart and brilliant is how I describe Coetzee's soft spoken demolition of Israeli Hasbara (a highly resourced propaganda outfit designed to spin its policies). In a single sentence, after explaining the construct of apartheid as it existed in South Africa, he made the following observation, which unsurprisingly met with a thunderous applause: "To speak of Jerusalem and the West Bank, we see a system of enforced segregation based on religion and ethnicity put in place by an exclusive self-defined group to consolidate a colonial conquest, in particular to maintain, and indeed extend, its hold on the land and its natural resources." There you have it. Apartheid in Jerusalem and the Occupied West Bank is built on the same foundations of apartheid in South Africa:
• Enforced segregation;
• Exclusive self-defined group;
• Colonial conquest;
• Maintain hold of land and natural resources.
In his brief remarks, Coetzee affirmed the power of words over the might of power in an appropriate setting amongst international literary stars” (Iqbal Jassat, “Apartheid Israel: JM Coetzee delivers a devastating blow”, Politicsweb, 29 May 2016: https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/apartheid-israel-jm-coetzee-delivers-a-devastating ).
We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and an exchange of opinion, cry out from within the suffering in our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope, a cry full of prayer and faith in a God ever vigilant, in God’s divine providence for all the inhabitants of this land. Inspired by the mystery of God's love for all, the mystery of God’s divine presence in the history of all peoples and, in a particular way, in the history of our country, we proclaim our word based on our Christian faith and our sense of Palestinian belonging – a word of faith, hope and love.
Why now? Because today we have reached a dead end in the tragedy of the Palestinian people. The decision-makers content themselves with managing the crisis rather than committing themselves to the serious task of finding a way to resolve it. The hearts of the faithful are filled with pain and with questioning: What is the international community doing? What are the political leaders in Palestine, in Israel and in the Arab world doing? What is the Church doing? The problem is not just a political one. It is a policy in which human beings are destroyed, and this must be of concern to the Church.
We address ourselves to our brothers and sisters, members of our Churches in this land. We call out as Christians and as Palestinians to our religious and political leaders, to our Palestinian society and to the Israeli society, to the international community, and to our Christian brothers and sisters in the Churches around the world.
1.1 “They say: 'Peace, peace' when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). These days, everyone is speaking about peace in the Middle East and the peace process. So far, however, these are simply words; the reality is one of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, deprivation of our freedom and all that results from this situation:
1.1.1 The separation wall erected on Palestinian territory, a large part of which has been confiscated for this purpose, has turned our towns and villages into prisons, separating them from one another, making them dispersed and divided cantons. Gaza, especially after the cruel war Israel launched against it during December 2008 and January 2009, continues to live in inhuman conditions, under permanent blockade and cut off from the other Palestinian territories.
1.1.2 Israeli settlements ravage our land in the name of God and in the name of force, controlling our natural resources, including water and agricultural land, thus depriving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and constituting an obstacle to any political solution.
1.1.3 Reality is the daily humiliation to which we are subjected at the military checkpoints, as we make our way to jobs, schools or hospitals.
1.1.4 Reality is the separation between members of the same family, making family life impossible for thousands of Palestinians, especially where one of the spouses does not have an Israeli identity card.
1.1.5 Religious liberty is severely restricted; the freedom of access to the holy places is denied under the pretext of security. Jerusalem and its holy places are out of bounds for many Christians and Muslims from the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Even Jerusalemites face restrictions during the religious feasts. Some of our Arab clergy are regularly barred from entering Jerusalem.
1.1.6 Refugees are also part of our reality. Most of them are still living in camps under difficult circumstances. They have been waiting for their right of return, generation after generation. What will be their fate?
1.1.7 And the prisoners? The thousands of prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons are part of our reality. The Israelis move heaven and earth to gain the release of one prisoner, and those thousands of Palestinian prisoners, when will they have their freedom?
1.1.8 Jerusalem is the heart of our reality. It is, at the same time, symbol of peace and sign of conflict. While the separation wall divides Palestinian neighbourhoods, Jerusalem continues to be emptied of its Palestinian citizens, Christians and Muslims. Their identity cards are confiscated, which means the loss of their right to reside in Jerusalem. Their homes are demolished or expropriated. Jerusalem, city of reconciliation, has become a city of discrimination and exclusion, a source of struggle rather than peace.
1.2 Also part of this reality is the Israeli disregard of international law and international resolutions, as well as the paralysis of the Arab world and the international community in the face of this contempt. Human rights are violated and despite the various reports of local and international human rights' organizations, the injustice continues.
1.2.1 Palestinians within the State of Israel, who have also suffered a historical injustice, although they are citizens and have the rights and obligations of citizenship, still suffer from discriminatory policies. They too are waiting to enjoy full rights and equality like all other citizens in the state.
1.3 Emigration is another element in our reality. The absence of any vision or spark of hope for peace and freedom pushes young people, both Muslim and Christian, to emigrate. Thus the land is deprived of its most important and richest resource – educated youth. The shrinking number of Christians, particularly in Palestine, is one of the dangerous consequences, both of this conflict, and of the local and international paralysis and failure to find a comprehensive solution to the problem.
1.4 In the face of this reality, Israel justifies its actions as self-defence, including occupation, collective punishment and all other forms of reprisals against the Palestinians. In our opinion, this vision is a reversal of reality. Yes, there is Palestinian resistance to the occupation. However, if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity. This is our understanding of the situation. Therefore, we call on the Israelis to end the occupation. Then they will see a new world in which there is no fear, no threat but rather security, justice and peace.
1.5 The Palestinian response to this reality was diverse. Some responded through negotiations: that was the official position of the Palestinian Authority, but it did not advance the peace process. Some political parties followed the way of armed resistance. Israel used this as a pretext to accuse the Palestinians of being terrorists and was able to distort the real nature of the conflict, presenting it as an Israeli war against terror, rather than an Israeli occupation faced by Palestinian legal resistance aiming at ending it.
1.5.1 The tragedy worsened with the internal conflict among Palestinians themselves, and with the separation of Gaza from the rest of the Palestinian territory. It is noteworthy that, even though the division is among Palestinians themselves, the international community bears an important responsibility for it since it refused to deal positively with the will of the Palestinian people expressed in the outcome of democratic and legal elections in 2006.
Again, we repeat and proclaim that our Christian word in the midst of all this, in the midst of our catastrophe, is a word of faith, hope and love. ” [1].
Sonja Karkar is founder and president of the Melbourne-based Women for Palestine, cofounder of Australians for Palestine (AFP), editor of AFP News, publishes extensively about the plight of the Palestinians, and maintains websites dedicated to telling the world about Palestine and the Nakba (see: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ).
Sonja Karkar on the ethnic cleansing of the land of Palestine [now 90% ] (2010) “The agonizing pain of loss felt by Palestinians for their ravaged land is not expressed in the statistics. Only those who have suffered the same cruel violations or those who seek to protect and preserve the delicate balance of the world’s environment can understand what it means for a people to be robbed of their land. International law, although on their side, remains ineffective, as no world government, not even the United Nations, is prepared to pressure Israel to stop its illegal collective punishment of the entire Palestinian population” [1].
[1]. Sonja Karkar, “The olive trees fop Palestine weep”, Chapter 5 in “The Plight of the Palestinians. A long history of destruction”, edited by William Cook (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010) (for review see Gideon Polya, “New book: “The Plight of the Palestinians. A long history of destruction””, MWC News, 25 July 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ).
Reem Kelani is a Palestinian musician, born in Manchester, England, UK, and brought up in Kuwait. Her debut solo CD was "Sprinting Gazelle – Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora" (2006) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reem_Kelani ).
Reem Kelani 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 .
Conor Kelly writes for The Gavelonline, the “Progressive news source for Boston College” (Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. It has 9,100 full-time undergraduates and almost 5,000 graduate students) (see: http://bcgavel.com/2012/12/03/opinion-zionist-agenda-amounts-to-palestinian-genocide/ ).
Conor Kelly on the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (2012): “Quick! Think of some of the things your tax money funds. You thought schools, public transportation and social security, didn’t you? What you may not have realized is that American taxpayer money also funds ethnic cleansing in the Middle East…. The United States gives several billions of dollars a year to the IDF so they can buy laser-guided missiles for “self-defense” (that is, “protection” from the dozens of heavily-armed infants they kill each month). Perhaps the most unsettling thing about Israel is its proclivity to racism, and, following that to its logical conclusion, aforementioned ethnic cleansing. Israel’s recent aggression in the Gaza Strip is proof… What many fail to realize is that before the Balfour Declaration was drafted, South America, Uganda and even Alaska were proposed as possible sites for a future Jewish state. The reluctance to settle anywhere else but Palestine came down to two words: Eretz Yisrael, Hebrew for “Land of Israel” in its religious context; the holy right. While the persecution of the Jewish people certainly warrants protection, it’s clear that this conflict was ignited by the far-right Jewish community, who insisted on building a home on top of another’s with no regard to human rights. Israel has no business in Palestine, at least not in this millennium.” [1].
[1]. Conor Kelly, “Opinion: Zionist agenda amounts to Palestinian Genocide”, The Gavelonline, 3 December 2012: http://bcgavel.com/2012/12/03/opinion-zionist-agenda-amounts-to-palestinian-genocide/ .
Bruce Kent (anti-racist UK political activist. former Roman Catholic priest and leading figure in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)) (2017): “To be a Jew is not to be a zionist” (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 ).
Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) on Israeli war crimes and genocide (2013): “ The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) after listening to the testimonies of 11 prosecution witnesses and voluminous documentary evidence and extensive submissions by the prosecution and amicus curiae delivered its judgement on the two charges against the State of Israel and retired Army general Amos Yaron.… The Tribunal agreed with the prosecution’s argument that allegations in relation to the charge of genocide against Israel be placed in a more general historical context and the precedent for such an approach is in the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Construction of a Wall. That since 1948, there has been further massacres against Palestinians by or with the cooperation of Israelis forces, including against Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese refugees camp of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, and in Jenin and Nablus in 2002..The three-week Operation Cast Lead, which killed 1,400 Palestinians including 300 children and hundreds of unarmed civilians, was an attack that was meticulously planned for six months. Large areas were razed and thousand were made homeless, the economy completely ruined. The prosecution added that the destruction had cumulative effects of cultural and religious destruction, renaming villages and destruction of places of worship, troubled economic and physical effects, severe restricted freedom of movement, scarcity and control of water, adverse conditions of life and the impact of the 2006 attacks and the usage of White phosphorus ammunition in 2009 on the reproductive health of the Gaza population. Basically, the harsh conditions of life were deliberately inflicting to destroy a group and the acts are equivalent to those of war with a genocidal intent. The prosecution had shown beyond reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of the crime of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the KL War Crimes Charter” (Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, “War Crimes Tribunal: “Beyond reasonable doubt”, Israel found guilt of genocide”, Global Research, 25 November 2015: http://www.globalresearch.ca/war-crimes-tribunal-beyond-reasonable-doubt-israel-found-guilty-of-genocide/5359381 ).
Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal and Michel Chossudovsky (2020): “Israel is currently in the process of implementing the illegal annexation of Palestinian lands. The issue of “illegality” must be put in context. We are dealing with a broader issue: Crimes against Humanity and Genocide against the People of Palestine. Annexation is a crime against Humanity. And the Western governments which support Israel’s actions or turn a blind eye are complicit. Donald Trump has given the Green Light to Netanyahu. Trump is responsible for supporting and endorsing an illegal and criminal undertaking… Text of the November 2013 Judgment against the State of Israel. KUALA LUMPUR: The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) today found former Israeli army general Amos Yaron and the State of Israel guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide stemming from the massacre of Palestinians in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982.KLWCT president Tan Sri Lamin Mohd Yunus, who headed a seven-member panel, said the tribunal was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that both the defendants were guilty as charged. The other judges were Tunku Sofiah Jewa, Prof Salleh Buang, Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi, Datuk Saari Yusof, John Philpot and Tunku Intan Mainura” (Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal and Michel Chossudovsky, “Israel guilty of crimes against humanity, genocide against the people of Palestine”, Global Research, 2 July 2020: https://www.globalresearch.ca/kuala-lumpur-tribunal-finds-israel-guilty-of-crimes-against-humanity-genocide/5359404 .
[Editor note on direct Netanyahu complicity in Israeli war crimes: present Israeli PM Netanyahu was a member of the IDF from 1967-1973 illegally operating in Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian and Jordanian territory; leader of neo-Nazi Likud Party in 1993; PM 1996-1999; Foreign Affairs Minister , (2002–2003) and Finance Minister (2003–2005) in Ariel Sharon's governments; official Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset and Chairman of Likud in 2006; 2009 – present, 3 terms as PM of Apartheid Israel. Netanyahu was thus directly complicit as a MP, government minister or PM in the 1989-2002 illegal Israeli occupation of Lebanon; the 2008–2009 Gaza Massacre (aka Operation Cast Lead; 1,417 Palestinian killed, 5,300 wounded), the 2012 Gaza Massacre (aka Operation Pillar of Defense; 174 Palestinians killed, 1,000 wounded) and the 2014 Gaza Massacre (aka Operation Protective Edge; 2,310 Palestinians killed, 11,000 wounded, 500,000 people displaced). From 2004 to 2014, Gaza rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza from 2004 onwards killed 32 Israelis, with overall deaths including 27 Israeli civilians, 5 foreign nationals, 5 IDF soldiers, and at least 11 Palestinians, with the injured totalling more than 1900 people (“Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel ).
One notes that the homicide rate in Israel is 24 per million (“Crime in Israel”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Israel ) and with an average Israeli population of 7.42 million in the period 2005-2015 (UN Population Division: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/DataQuery/ ) one can estimate 178 Israeli homicides per year x 12 years = 2,136 Israeli homicides in the 12 year period of 2004-2016, as compared to 32 Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets and mortars in the same period, 32 deaths for which Apartheid Israel exacted a deadly revenge of 3,901 Palestinians killed, 17,300 wounded , 500,000 rendered homeless, about 50,000 Palestinians avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation, and 2.0 million Gazans, half of them children, significantly traumatized by indiscriminate Israeli army, navy and air force high explosive bombardment of the most densely populated zone in the world].
Tunahan Kuzu (anti-racist Dutch MP) refused to shake hands with war criminal Netanyahu, as reported by the Independent (2016): “Video has emerged of a Dutch MP wearing a Palestinian flag pin C Tunahan Kuzu, a former Labour MP who founded the multi-ethnic, pro-immigration party Denk (Think) in 2014, made the gesture before Mr Netanyahu attended a meeting in The Hague with the Dutch parliamentary affairs committee while on a two-day visit to the Netherlands. Footage of the incident shows Mr Kuzu withdraw his right hand from the Israeli leader as he extends his, telling him: “I refuse to shake hands with you”. In a statement posted to Facebook, Mr Kuzu said his gesture was intended as a protest over the abuses committed against Palestinian civilians living under Israeli military rule in the occupied territories” (Tunahan Kuzu quoted in Alexandra Sims, “Dutch MP refuses to shake hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”, The Independent, 2016: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-mp-tunahan-kuzu-refuses-to-shake-hands-israel-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-a7307296.html ).
Terry Lane was a broadcaster for ABC television and radio, a newspaper columnist and an atheist (the taxpayer-funded ABC is the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC). He was associated with the anti-censorship body Free Speech Victoria. He conducted insightful interviews with topical Australians in an important ABC Radio National program called “The National Interest” until 2005 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Lane ) .
Terry Lane on Zionist defamation of those critical of Israeli crimes: “I have said publicly that I will never write or speak on the subject of Israel or Palestine ever again. Here is why: The Zionist lobby in this country is malicious, implacable, mendacious and dangerous. They have caused me a great deal of lost sleep – and in the end my insomnia has not contributed anything to the resolution of the conflict over Palestine. I might as well keep my mouth shut and get some sleep.What’s more, once the expression “anti-Semite” hits the air, or, heaven forfend, the sacred formula “six million” is uttered, then I know from bitter experience that there is not one manager or editor in the country who will defend an underling. We are thrown to the jackals. In the end the truly tolerant have no defence against intolerance. I surrender. To the Zionists I say: you win. To the Palestinians: forgive my cowardice.” [1].
[1]. Terry Lane quoted in “Zionism and the press in Australia: two views”, Journal of Historical Review: http://vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/13/3/LaneAdams15.html .
Hugh Lanning (UK pro-Palestinian activist, Deputy General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union until May 2013) re 2014 Gaza Massacre (2014): “Our aim is to stop the Israeli government getting military aid and equipment from the British government. Our aid and arms help kill innocent Palestinian civilians. We need to isolate apartheid Israel now and impose sanctions now” (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, “MPs, actors, authors and musicians among 21,000 demanding arms embargo on Israel”, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 23 July 2014: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/mps-actors-authors-musicians-among-21000-demanding-arms-embargo-israel/ ).
John Martin Linton (born 11 August 1944) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Battersea from 1997 to 2010. He visited the West Bank and Gaza in September 2007 with the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group. Following that visit, Linton founded and currently chairs Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East. Martin Linton is parliamentary liaison for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD UK) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Linton ).
Martin Linton on Apartheid Israel marriage laws violating fundamental Arab Israeli and Palestinian human rights (2011): “Raya is from Haifa and her husband Issam is from a village just 15 minutes' drive from the centre of Jerusalem, as close as Harrow to London. But he cannot live with his wife and children in their north Jerusalem home because his village lies outside the city limits. Under Israel's family unification law he cannot visit his children's school, nor even his wife when she was giving birth in hospital, because the school and the hospital are in Jerusalem and he's a West Banker. This is the law that the Israeli Supreme Court voted to uphold last week. It applies only to Arab Israelis. Jewish Israelis are free to marry and live with anyone they like (except Palestinians). The Israelis say it's because Palestinian spouses are a security risk. Palestinians say that the motive is ethnic engineering; that the Israelis will do anything to reduce the Arab population… Racism usually takes a more brazen form. It takes a particular cast of bureaucratic mind to use building permits and housing densities as tools of racial discrimination, but the Israelis have done it. Their policies are racist in everything but name and their system is apartheid in everything but name. Indeed a particularly cruel form of apartheid which works by making people's lives miserable, wearing them down, picking them off one by one. It is inaudible and invisible to the outside world until you look at the effects it has on the lives of ordinary Palestinians. As a country we protest to the Israelis that they breach international law - by annexing Jerusalem, by building settlements, by expropriating Palestinian land, building the wall inside the West Bank, by blockading Gaza. It is high time that we protested about this - their heartless treatment of ordinary families for no other reason than that they are Palestinian.” [1].
[1]. Martin Linton, “Israel’s law keeping Arab families apart”, New Statesman, 15 January 2012: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/01/palestinian-jerusalem-israel-family .
Ken Loach (famous UK movie director) re 2014 Gaza Massacre (2014): “It’s disgraceful that our government is arming the state of Israel to continue its slaughter of civilians, of women and children. Everyone must be devastated by the sight of the maimed and the dead in Gaza, and everyone must direct their anger towards the Israeli war machine” (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, “MPs, actors, authors and musicians among 21,000 demanding arms embargo on Israel”, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 23 July 2014: https://www.palestinecampaign.org/mps-actors-authors-musicians-among-21000-demanding-arms-embargo-israel/ ).
Professor Jake Lynch is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (see: http://newmatilda.com/2012/12/13/why-boycott-israel ).
Professor Jake Lynch on why he supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and why support for BDS is growing (2012): “According to a large scale opinion survey, carried out in the UK and six other western European countries in 2010 by the polling company ICM, public understanding of the realities of the conflict has become much stronger over recent years. Fully 49 per cent of respondents could successfully identify Israel as an occupying power, compared with earlier surveys suggesting the proportion was much lower. Daud Abdullah of the Middle East Monitor, which commissioned the poll, linked this increased level of understanding, in turn, with "a growing rejection of Israeli policies," after a long period in which Israel enjoyed a "high level of support because it was perceived as a progressive democracy in a sea of Arab backwardness". This transition has probably travelled still further since the poll was conducted, as the world has witnessed another attack on Gaza, involving what Human Rights Watch called "serious violations of the laws of war," along with the fatal shooting of activists on board an aid vessel bound for the territory. The materials on board were needed because Israel keeps Gaza under a state of siege, designed — according to US diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks — to "keep its economy on the brink of collapse". That, by the way, makes it a collective punishment and therefore, according to the distinguished international jurist, Richard Falk, another war crime. The effects include the poisoning of Gaza’s water supply, declared undrinkable earlier this year because authorities there cannot import the parts they need to repair sewage systems damaged in the 2008-9 attack Operation Cast Lead. These are among the reasons why, elsewhere in the world, there has been a steady growth in the BDS movement… Until very recently, the world at large has, in effect, condoned and supported Israeli militarism and lawlessness, and failed to empower Palestinians. While that imbalance remains in place, the pattern of violence — direct, structural and cultural — will continue. This is why Palestinian civil society issued the call for international solidarity in the form of BDS, and why we at Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies joined it in the first place. Yes, there are dissenting voices within Israel, but they are not strong enough to effect change by themselves, and neither can we expect the Palestinians to wait until they are. The boycott campaign is a lead indicator of substantive political change at other levels. That is underway, and it was manifest at the most recent UN vote. Australia should get ahead of the curve or it will find itself on the wrong side of history. ” [1].
[1}. Jake Lynch, “Why I boycott Israel”, New Matilda, 13 December 2012: http://newmatilda.com/2012/12/13/why-boycott-israel .
Mairead Maguire (neé Máiread Corrigan) (born 27 January 1944) , also known as Máiread Corrigan-Maguire, was the co-founder, with Betty Williams of the Community of Peace People, an organization which attempts to encourage a peaceful resolution of the Northern Ireland Troubles, for which they were awarded the the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. Máiread Corrigan became active with the peace movement after three children of her sister, Anne Maguire, were run over and killed by a car driven by Danny Lennon, a Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) man who was fatally shot by British troops while trying to make a getaway. Anne Maguire later committed suicide.Betty Williams had witnessed the event, and soon after the two co-founded "Women for Peace", which later became the "Community for Peace People". In 1981 she married Jackie Maguire, the widower of her sister Anne. She was imprisoned by the Israelis (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairead_Corrigan ).
Mairead Maguire on Israel’s Gaza Massacre (2009): “I lament every single life, but you can’t really make a comparison here. Israel has a war machine which is supported by the American government and the Palestinians have homemade rockets….We’re talking about David and Goliath... “The people of Gaza are not allowed cement, building materials; children have returned to schools with no pencils and no writing material: all of these things have been prohibited by the Israelis from being allowed into Gaza. We have to break the siege of Gaza that Israel is putting on because the children are suffering… “I am a pacifist. But when you make comparisons here, with the occupation, we’re not talking about an equal playing field.” [1].
[1]. Mairead Maguire, quoted by Travis Lupick, “Gaza shocks Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire”, Straight.com, 24 September 2009: http://www.straight.com/article-258796/gaza-shocks-nobel-laureate .
Gabran Majdalany, Arab Baath Socialist (see: http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/holy_war_stone.html ) .
Gabran Majdalany on Israeli racism: "[Israel] is a racist state founded from its start on discrimination between Jew and non-Jew… [ comparing the Zionists to the Muslim Brotherhood who] "dream of a Muslim Israel in which the non-Muslims will be the gentiles, second class citizens sometimes tolerated but more often repressed…Some people admit the inevitably racist character of Israel but justify it by the continual persecutions to which the Jews have been subjected during the history of Europe and by the massacres of the Second World War. We consider that, far from serving as justification, these facts constitute an aggravating circumstance; for those who have known the effects of racism and of discrimination in their own flesh and human dignity, are less excusably racist than those who can only imagine the negative effects of prejudice. [1].
Nelson Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is a former President of South Africa (the first to be elected in fully democratic election) 1994 to 1999. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-Apartheid activist and the leader of the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela supported reconciliation and negotiation, and helped lead the transition towards multi-racial democracy in South Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela ).
Nelson Mandela in an address at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Dec. 4, 1997 “The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”. [1].
[1]. Nelson Mandela quoted in “Nelson Mandela quotes: A collection of memorable words from former South African president”, CBS News, 5 December 2013: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nelson-mandela-quotes-a-collection-of-memorable-words-from-former-south-african-president/ .
Nelson Mandela speech on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians (excerpt) : "The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own. We can easily be enticed to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice. Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others faces. Yet we would be less than human if we did so.
It behooves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice.
Even during the days of negotiations, our own experience taught us that the pursuit of human fraternity and equality -- irrespective of race or religion -- should stand at the centre of our peaceful endeavours. The choice is not between freedom and justice, on the one hand, and their opposite, on the other. Peace and prosperity; tranquility and security are only possible if these are enjoyed by all without discrimination.
It is in this spirit that I have come to join you today to add our own voice to the universal call for Palestinian self-determination and statehood." [2].
[2]. Edward. C. Corrigan, “Israel and apartheid: a fair comparison?”, rabble.ca, 2 March 2010: http://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/03/israel-and-apartheid-fair-comparison .
Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela (South African MP and the grandson of Nelson Mandela) addressing Palestine Expo in London (2019): “On the 19th July 2018 the Knesset passed into law what we have always known to be the true character and reality of Israel: Israel is an apartheid state, period. For us as South Africans our experience of apartheid was defined by the following key defining characteristics:
statutory discrimination
pass laws
group areas
labour reservation
separate and unequal development
land expropriation
movement restrictions: the wall
military state: road blocks and random searches
assault on dignity and human rights
All these characteristics were present in Apartheid Israel since its inception but have now been codified and given constitutional status and expression by the Nation-State Law. Apartheid Israel perpetuates statutory discrimination through the very definition by the Nation-State Law as a Jewish State. By doing so it renders non-Jews as secondary citizens alternatively as foreigners in the land of their birth by virtue of who they are and who they are not. Although Israeli Jews and Arab Israelis already had different national identity documents that defined them as such, the Nation-State Law further emphasises that differentiation… the Nation-State Law serves as a proactive statement against attempts to de-legitimise Israel, in particular by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is campaigning internationally for economic, political and cultural sanctions against Israel” ( Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela quoted in Middle East Monitor, “Nelson Mandela’s grandson: “Israel is an apartheid state, period””, 8 July 2019: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190708-nelson-mandelas-grandson-israel-is-an-apartheid-state-period/ ).
Henning Mankell (Swedish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring Inspector Kurt Wallander) on his participation in the Gaza flotilla (2010): “[I want a situation in which] Palestinians are not treated like second-class citizens in their own country, a sort of apartheid system" (“Henning Mankell: Swedish crime writer, who created character Kurt Wallander, dies aged 67”, ABC News, 5 October 2015: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-05/swedish-crime-writer-henning-mankell-dies/6829396 ).
Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor (Pakistani writer and author of “The Palestinians cannot be defeated”) (2018): “Any war is special. Any battle is special. Any skirmish is special. Overall, any struggle is special. There is no fixed formula for victory and defeat. Red Indians were defeated, but not Vietnamese people. In India of 1857, “mutineers” were defeated, but not the Indian society – the people of India. They were victorious at the appointed time. What is that which keeps people struggling in spite of apparent hopelessness of a situation? It is their insight into things – that they somehow can see the future — and their creative spirit, which have sustained people throughout history. The insight into things and the creative spirit of humanity have built layer after layer of civilization, the end product of which we have today. While Israel supported by the United States is pulling down what History had built in Palestine, and now in wider world also, there is the insight and there is the creative spirit operating in the Palestinian people. They cannot be defeated, while more and more brave people are joining them to fight the Zionists. At the appointed time, they will come out victorious. The Zionists started the project of the state of Israel fraudulently. They violated the most fundamental values, on which humanity has built whatever we have today. Those who were children at that time are now old and wise men. The fraud of the Zionists has been totally exposed” (Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor, “The Palestinians cannot be defeated”, PAP, 1 May 2018: http://papofmam.com/2018/05/01/the-palestinians-cannot-be-defeated/ ).
Cardinal Renato Martino is the head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace and a former Holy See envoy to the United Nations (see: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5473588.ece )
Cardinal Renato Martino in remarks to the Italian website Il Sussidario (2009): “Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay. Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp… [Gaza rockets were] “not confetti”…{Israel ] certainly has the right to defend itself…We need willingness from both parties because both are guilty. No one sees the interests of the other, only their own benefit. The consequences of this egoism is hatred for others, poverty and injustice. Those who pay are always the local people – just look at the conditions in Gaza.” [1].
Cardinal Renato Martino responding to Israeli protests over his “Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp” remarks (2009): “They can say what they want. I say look at the conditions in which people live; conditions that run contrary to human dignity. What is happening in these days causes horror.” [1].
[1]. Cardinal Renato Martino quoted by Richard Owen, “”Concentration camp” remark threatens Pope’s visit to Israel’, Times Online, 8 January 2009: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5473588.ece .
Joseph Massad, a Palestinian Christian, is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University. His latest book is Islam in Liberalism (University of Chicago Press) (see: http://electronicintifada.net/content/recognizing-palestine-bds-and-survival-israel/14123 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Massad ).
Joseph Massad on pragmatic European subversion of BDS to permit continued gross violation of Palestinian rights after ending the Occupation (2014): “Due to the continued absence of an independent, representative and unified Palestinian liberation movement capable of articulating a coherent strategy and leading the struggle for liberation, BDS will continue, contrary to PACBI’s [Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel] stated goals, to be utilized at best as a “threat” to Israel to end its 1967 occupation. This is nothing short of a smokescreen to perpetuate Israel’s other forms of colonial control over historic Palestine and the Palestinians and to preserve its institutionalized and legal racism.
Rather than call on the international community to adopt BDS without an explicit commitment to its goals, Palestinians must insist that those in solidarity with them adopt BDS as a strategy and not as a goal, in order to bring about an end to Israel’s racism and colonialism in all its forms inside and outside the 1948 boundaries.
Otherwise, BDS can and will be used to strengthen the Jewish settler-colony and the Israeli liberal project that backs it.” [1].
[1]. Joseph Massad, “Recognizing Palestine, BDS and the survival of Israel”, Electronic Intifada, 16 December 2014: http://electronicintifada.net/content/recognizing-palestine-bds-and-survival-israel/14123 .
Anthony Mathew Jacob (a political analyst specializing in the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent with articles in Tehran Times, Press TV, Countercurrents.org and many other media)(2021): “Till today, Israel follows the policy of racial segregation, religious persecution, subjugation and harassment while continuing to deny Palestinian refugees their right to return home. Israeli settlement on Palestinian lands continues unabated, and so does the deliberate displacement of native Palestinians. Israel is an entity built on the Zionist ideology of ethno-religious supremacy, apartheid, occupation, settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. Israeli government approves and encourages Jewish settlement in occupied Palestine on a daily basis. This is the blood-stained history that Israel and its lackeys do not want you to know. All that they want you to know is: “the Israelis are “KILLED” by Palestinians and the Palestinians merely “DIE” to Israeli attempts at “SELF-DEFENCE.” The “OCCUPIER” is called the “VICTIM” and the real “VICTIM” is called a “TERRORIST”.Despite all the propaganda, disinformation and manipulation, the truth is easy to discern, Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. Israel cannot expect the Christians and the Muslims to give up their land because the Jewish scriptures (according to Zionists) asks them to do so, or because the Jews were persecuted in Europe” (Anthony Mathew Jacob, “Palestine, to whom does it belong?”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/05/palestine-to-whom-does-it-belong/ ).
Cynthia Ann McKinney (born March 17, 1955) is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the US House of Representatives In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President. She was the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House. In 2009, taking medical supplies to the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp, she was illegally arrested on the high seas by Israelis and imprisoned in Apartheid Israel (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinney ).
Cynthia McKinney on Gaza and her illegal arrest on the high seas by Apartheid Israel while taking medical and related supplies to the Israeli Gaza Concentration Camp (2009): “Gaza lives. The people are vibrant and alive despite F-16 bombings, deformed children, depleted uranium. I didn’t think about what could happen to me before going. I’ve been involved in life-threatening political activity for some time, so when I got the call I didn’t think about my safety. Operation Cast Lead sickened me. I just went, and I’m so happy I did, even when my boat was rammed and I was kidnapped by the Israelis. They took us to Israel and then charged us with illegal entry! I spent seven days in prison with Ethiopian immigrants facing similar charges. Meanwhile, the Congress and White House said nothing. We had a boatload of $500,000 worth of trucks, cars, medical supplies for Gaza, but Egypt denied entry. They’re still sitting in the port right now.” [1].
[1]. Cynthia McKinney quoted in “In spite of siege, “Gaza lives, ” Cynthia McKinney”, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media, 26 August 2009: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/26/18619489.php .
Professor John Meersheimer (R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago) on Apartheid Israel and the eventual democratic bi-national state) (2010): “Contrary to the wishes of the Obama administration and most Americans — to include many American Jews — Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a “Greater Israel,” which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream… Nevertheless, the Palestinians are not going to get their own state any time soon. They are instead going to end up living in an apartheid state dominated by Israeli Jews. The main reason that a two-state solution is no longer a serious option is that most Israelis are opposed to making the sacrifices that would be necessary to create a viable Palestinian state, and there is little reason to expect them to have an epiphany on this issue… In sum, there are great dangers ahead for the Palestinians, who will continue to suffer terribly at the hands of the Israelis for some years to come. But it does look like the Palestinians will eventually get their own state, mainly because Israel seems bent on self-destruction.” (John J. Meersheimer, “The future of Palestine: Righteous Jews versus New Afrikaners”, Monthly Review, 30 April 2010: https://mronline.org/2010/04/30/the-future-of-palestine-righteous-jews-vs-new-afrikaners/ ).
Evo Morales (Bolivian President) on recalling the Bolivian ambassador from Apartheid Israel over the 2014 Gaza Massacre (2014): “What is happening in Palestine is genocide” (Evo Morales quoted in Center for Constitutional Rights, “The genocide of the Palestinian People: an international law and human rights perspective”, 25 August 2016: https://ccrjustice.org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective ).
NABULSI, Jamal: "The violent Israeli response to recent protests across both ’67 and ’48 Palestine is testament to the fact that Israel sees all Palestinians as a threat to be eliminated"
Jamal Nabulsi (a diaspora Palestinian writer and researcher, living on the unceded sovereign lands of the Indigenous Jagera and Turrbal peoples of present-day Brisbane Australia) (2021): “The erasure and repression of ’48 Palestinians continues. The violent Israeli response to recent protests across both ’67 and ’48 Palestine is testament to the fact that Israel sees all Palestinians as a threat to be eliminated, regardless of whether or not they carry an Israeli passport. Palestinians become a security threat to Israel simply in being born Palestinian. The millions of diaspora Palestinians continue to be denied their right to return home. Many of those in the near diaspora, particularly in Lebanon, continue to struggle through conditions of statelessness and the immense precarity entailed” (Jamal Nabulsi, “Righting the history of Palestine”, Overland, 2 June 2021: https://overland.org.au/2021/06/righting-the-history-of-palestine/?fbclid=IwAR1bN5JbtFEuwuowmOPloJwuswZJoT5W4SJJTddkzleKoMktv6-CiFGSAgY . )
Rima Najjar ( Palestinian former professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, Occupied West Bank) (2018): “Israel cannot survive as a Jewish state without a constant influx of Jews as immigrants to keep the Jewish majority it created by denying Palestinian right of return and blocking Palestinian aspirations to self-determination in their own homeland. Today, thanks to BDS, we are no longer trapped in the language of “disputed territory” or dual “narratives”. It’s finally clear that the demise of the Jewish state is inevitable, leading to an exodus of Jews from Palestine. Israel’s end will come, as Henry Siegman, President of the U.S./Middle East Project, writes in The National Interest, from one of two scenarios, both of which will be fueled by the nature or character of the Jewish state itself [Palestinians either prevailing or not prevailing in an “anti-apartheid struggle”]… The time has finally come for Zionist chains to be broken and for self-determination, dignity, and transformative justice for Palestinians to spring forth across synagogues, churches and mosques worldwide” (Rima Najjar, “Two scenarios only: is Jewish exodus from Palestine inevitable”, The Palestine Chronicle, 12 January 2018: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/two-scenarios-jewish-exodus-palestine-inevitable/ ).
Dr Sandra Nasr ( lecturer in Middle East and human rights politics, University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia) (2015) : “Zionism, the ideological project to secure a Jewish homeland, relies upon notions of separateness, superiority and entitlement. It finds its origins in the ‘promise’ believed to have been made by God to ‘His people’ – Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites. According to this belief, they were to take the land by force, kill anyone who resisted, and take for slaves those who did not fight back (except in more distant towns which should just be cleansed). Biblical Theologian Professor Michael Prior called this ‘ethnic cleansing’, where God’s Covenant with the Israelites “was integrally linked with the mandate to exterminate the indigenous peoples…
Notions of ‘racial’ superiority are contained in Jewish scriptures and Rabbinical pronouncements have the effect of relegating ‘the other’ to a standard which is sub-human and, therefore, not deserving of the same considerations that are reserved for one’s ‘own kind’. The status as God’s ‘Chosen People’, who are superior to all others, in receipt of ‘The Covenant’ and His gift of a ‘Promised Land’ cleansed of its previous inhabitants makes for a very attractive concept, and a dangerous one. Modern-day Israelites found practical and ideological expression of this concept in Zionism. This is evident in the words made famous by Golda Meir, later an Israeli PM, referring to Palestine as ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’. This statement clearly relegated Palestinians to a non-people…
Given that the Zionist project is essentially a colonial plan, it is unsurprising, as Michael Prior noted, that it drew upon assumptions of European racial and cultural superiority. Congruent with this guiding concept, the method of establishment and expansion of Israel has relied upon the overwhelming use of force and terror tactics to expel these inconvenient ‘non-people’ from their homes and villages and then prevent their return, as articulated in Plan D…
Although Israel is a signatory of the UN Charter, which acknowledges a commitment to the principles of non-acquisition of territory by force and respect for the protections afforded to all people contained within international law, Israel continues to view itself as above such mundane matters; particularly when it comes to the ‘non-people’ it subjugates through its policies and practices of occupation” Dr. Sandra Nasr, “Delegitimising through Dehumanisation: Palestinian ‘human’ rights denied”, London School of Economics and Political Science, 3 December 2015: https://archive.is/HSoC4#selection-167.0-445.65 ).
[Editor’s note: Dr Sandra Nasr, lecturer in Middle East politics at Notre Dame University, Western Australia, published this article on the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) website. It uncontroversially linked Old Testament Biblical imperatives of violent occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the first millennium BC to Zionist colonialism and gross human rights abuse in Palestine today. Dr Nasr was immediately attacked and falsely defamed by Zionists and the Fairfax-owned WA Today as “racist” and “anti-semitic” and the article was removed from the LSE website. To its shame, rather than defend Dr Nasr, Notre Dame said it “apologizes” for her article which it is now “addressing”.
This is the sorry statement by Notre Dame University (Australia): “The opinions and comments expressed by Dr Sandra Nasr were not endorsed or sanctioned by the University and do not, in any way, represent the views of The University of Notre Dame Australia. The University expresses its disappointment and apologises that comments causing such offence have been associated with it. Notre Dame is addressing this issue in accordance with its relevant processes and will not make any further comment until these have been duly followed" (see Heather McNeill and Colin Cortbus, “Perth university lecturer Dr Sandra Nasr in hot water over anti-semitic article”, WA Today: 11 Decemebr 2015: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/perth-university-lecturer-dr-sandra-nasr-in-hot-water-over-antisemitic-article-20151211-gllhqk.html#ixzz3u9GScOPO ).
If anything, Dr Sandra Nasr's article is remarkable for its restraint. Thus it refers to and documents repeated expressions of “racial superiority” and “ethnic cleansing” in the Old Testament but in relation to present-day Palestine merely talks of human rights abuse and “Delegitimising through Dehumanisation: Palestinian “human” rights denied” by the Zionists ruling all of Palestine today (plus a largely ethnically cleansed slab of Syria). Censorship of Dr Nasr's article contributes to ongoing censorship of the awful realities of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide by nuclear terrorist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel – the racist Zionists (RZs) have now ethnically cleansed 90% of the land of Palestine and of 12 million Palestinians, 6 million are forbidden to step foot in their own country, 4.3 million exist without human rights as prisoners without charge or trial in the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp (1.8 million) or in West Bank Bantustan ghettoes (2.5 million), and only 1.7 million Palestinians Israelis (14% of Palestinians and 28% of Palestinian subjects of Apartheid Israel) are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of Palestine, albeit as Third Class citizens under Nazi-style Apartheid laws. 2 million Palestinians have been killed by violence (0.1 million) or by violently-imposed deprivation (1.9 million) since 1936, a Palestinian Genocide that is part of an horrendous Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (see Gideon Polya, "Open Letter to VC, Notre Dame Australia & Director, LSE (UK) re Zionist & pro-Zionist attack on academic free speech", Gideon Polya Writing, 17 December 2015:
https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/2015-12-17 and Gideon Polya, “Academic Free Speech Under Zionist Attack At Notre Dame Australia And LSE, UK”, Countercurrents, 16 December, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya161215.htm ).]
The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) was the British trade union and professional association for people working with those above statutory school age, and primarily concerned with providing education, training or research, notably in universities. In 2004 NATFHE celebrated 100 years since the London-based Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes was formed. ATTI grew and became NATFHE on 1 January 1976. As of 2005 it had 67,000 members. A new union called the University and College Union (UCU) was formed in 2005 from the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and NATFHE. . On the last day of its final conference NATFHE passed motion 198C, a call to boycott Israeli academics complicit in Israeli crimes against Palestinians (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Teachers_in_Further_and_Higher_Education ).
In May 2006, on the last day of its final conference, NATFHE passed motion 198C, a call to boycott Israeli academics who did not vocally speak out against their government. The following are key portions of the resolution : “"The conference invites members to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and non-discrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals, and to consider the appropriateness of a boycott of those that do not publicly dissociate themselves from such policies…The conference notes continuing Israeli apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall, and discriminatory educational practices. It recalls its motion of solidarity last year for the AUT resolution to exercise moral and professional responsibility." [1].
[1]. NATFHE motion quoted in Wikipedia: “Academic boycotts of Israel”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycotts_of_Israel .
Viet Thanh Nguyen ( author "The Sympathizer", Vietnamese-American novelist, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, and 1 of 4 winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel , the others being Alice Walker, Richard Ford, and Junot Diaz) (2016): “Always remember, never forget. These powerful words compel us to think about both the injustices of the past and the injustices of the present. One of those contemporary injustices that we struggle to remember is the Israeli occupation and the deprivation of Palestinian rights. For any of us concerned with justice, the imperative is clear: we must stand with the disempowered and the forgotten against militarism and the state” (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/ ).
Chris Nineham (chairman, Stop the War Coalition) (2017): “[Netanyahu is] a war criminal who ordered murderous attacks on the Gaza Strip” (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 ).
Open Letter to the Brooklyn Book Festival re Israeli sponsorship (2015): “We, the undersigned, including participants and exhibitors at the Brooklyn Book Festival, recently noticed that the festival has chosen to accept support from Israel's Office of Cultural Affairs in New York for one of its panels…
Israel has systematically attempted to suppress, expropriate and suffocate the art, culture, and literature of Palestinian writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and poets. We hope that you agree that partnering with a state that practices occupation, colonialism, and apartheid is paradoxical for a festival that celebrates a "lively literary marketplace"…
As was the case in South Africa, where international solidarity played a crucial role in bringing down apartheid by boycotting the economic, sports and cultural institutions of the apartheid regime, we sincerely hope you will not partner in any capacity with the Israeli government and other complicit institutions, until the Israeli government fulfills it obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland.”
* indicates panelist or exhibitor at Brooklyn Book Festival 2014
** indicates past participant in the Brooklyn Book Festival
[1]. “Open Letter to the Brooklyn Book Festival re Israeli sponsorship”, Adalah-NY (The New York for the boycott of Israel): http://adalahny.org/adalah-web-action/1194/open-letter-brooklyn-book-festival-re-israeli-sponsorship .