In Pursuit of Justice

First Palestinian Conference for the Boycott of Israel (BDS)
22 November 2007
Al-Bireh, Ramallah

Summary Report

“The Campaign for the Boycott of Israel will re-vitalize popular resistance and restore dignity to the Palestinian people”

An important mile-stone in building the global BDS campaign was achieved in Ramallah on 22 November 2007. Some 300 activists, members of unions, associations and NGOs in towns, villages and refugee camps of the occupied West Bank, with monitors from the global solidarity movement in Britain, Canada, Norway, Spain and South Africa, convened for a day of discussion and debate about ways to promote all forms of boycott against Israel among Palestinian community organizations, unions, as well as political, academic and cultural institutions. Organizers and participants left the conference with a sense of accomplishment: practical recommendations are in place for building the popular Palestinian BDS campaign as a strategic form of civil resistance in the long struggle ahead against Israel’s regime of apartheid over the Palestinian people.

…

Recommendations (from the three, parallel workshops)

There was consensus among participants that building civil resistance is a priority in the current era. Work on the Palestinian BDS Campaign should be seen in this context and lead to the formation of an inclusive Steering Committee for the Campaign.

Additional recommendations included:

1. For the local Palestinian BDS Campaign

General: Palestinian employment in Jewish settlements and Israel is to be excluded from the boycott, because it is a source of necessary income that has no current substitute.

Consumer Boycott
· Study Israeli products in the Palestinian market: What are they? Where are they distributed? How do they enter?
· Identify products which have Palestinian (or other) alternatives and mobilize for massive consumer boycotts against them;
· Mobilize pressure to prevent entry of Israeli products (e.g. put up boxes for public complaints) where local alternatives exist;
· Start dialogue with Palestinian companies about ways to support Palestinian national products and expand employment of the Palestinian work force.

Education
· Undertake a review of the Palestinian curriculum to ensure historical accuracy;
· Raise awareness and work with students at schools and universities to spread the culture of boycott;
· Request from the Ministry of Education to urge private schools to stop selling Israeli products (in the cafeterias) and not to engage in normalization projects with Israeli organizations.

Media and Public Awareness-Raising
· Pressure Palestinian media to halt all advertisement of Israeli products;
· Organize public awareness campaigns (posters, stickers, etc.) about boycott, and request support from the local media.

Mechanisms for Campaign Building and Promotion
· Form popular boycott committees in all regions and sectors in order to: build public awareness about the importance of the campaign and the criteria for boycott and anti-normalization; initiate action and build a popular culture of boycott; and develop a response to those insisting on normalization;
· Build pressure on PA officials for ending normalization with Israel (end security coordination, rescind Paris Protocol on economic cooperation, etc.);
· Express Palestinian support for struggles in the “global south” (e.g., Africa, South America, Asia), in order to build mutual support.

2. For the Campaign in the Arab World

· Seek cooperation and coordination with anti-normalization committees in the Arab world;
· Lobby for re-activation of the Arab-League boycott committee;
· Raise the profile of BDS in the mainstream Arab media;
· Encourage Arab investors to invest in the Palestinian economy;
· Promote Palestinian products in Arab countries.

3. For the International/ Global Campaign

Strategy and Message
· Emphasize that the BDS campaign does not only target Israel’s economy, but challenges Israel’s legitimacy, being a colonial and apartheid state, as part of the international community. Therefore, efforts are needed not only to promote wide consumer boycotts, but also boycotts in the fields of academia, culture and sports;
· The Nakba-60 campaign in 2008 is a campaign for the boycott of Israel, including calling for a boycott of the “Israel at 60” celebrations.

Targets
· Select boycott targets that provide an opportunity for public education about Israel’s apartheid regime.

Alliances
As work with the major (potential) allies (e.g., unions, faith-based organizations/ churches, political parties) continues, give special attention to:
· Palestinian and other Arab media correspondents in the respective countries: brief them about BDS initiatives and encourage them to report them to audiences in Palestine and the Arab world;
· Support other struggles in the “global south” and struggles of marginalized communities in the “north,” and encourage links with the global BDS campaign;

Coordination
· For the time being, use existing websites (e.g. PACBI) and lists to update about and coordinate global activities and campaigns, until a centralized BDS website can take over that role;
· For the time being, the International Coordinating Network on Palestine (ICNP) serves as (symbolic, temporary) network for coordination of the global BDS campaign;
· Participants recommend a special BDS organizers conference to be held in November 2008, in order to formalize and improve the mechanism of global coordination.

An interesting article in The Nation about the roots of the French Foulard (hijab) Fiasco.  I don’t agree with the author’s view on hijab, but I do find her analysis interesting.

Excerpts below:
 

“A kind of aggression.” “A successor to the Berlin Wall.” “A lever in the long power struggle between democratic values and fundamentalism.” “An insult to education.” “A terrorist operation.” These descriptions–by former French President Jacques Chirac; economist Jacques Attali; and philosophers Bernard-Henri Lévy, Alain Finkielkraut and André Glucksmann–do not refer to the next great menace to human civilization but rather to the Muslim woman’s headscarf, which covers the hair and neck, or, as it is known in France, the foulard islamique.In order to understand how a small piece of cloth became a national obsession (compared, by philosophers no less, to terrorism), one must go back quite a few years in French history, to the era that current French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently told his compatriots they must stop repenting for: colonization. Indeed, Wallach Scott argues, it is impossible to understand modern-day attitudes in France toward the foulard without delving into the history of racism in that country, because the headscarf has played a “significant part as a continuing sign of the irreducible difference between Islam and France” and is perceived to express “not only religious incompatibilities but also ethnic/cultural ones.”

When the French government invaded Algeria, in 1830, it started a vast campaign of military “pacification,” which was quickly followed by the imposition of French laws deemed necessary for the civilizing mission to succeed. Women were crucial to that enterprise. In articles, stories and novels of the day, Algerian women were universally depicted as oppressed, and so in order for civilization truly to penetrate Algeria, the argument went, the women had to cast off their veils. General Bugeaud, who was charged with administering the territory in the 1840s, declared, “The Arabs elude us because they conceal their women from our gaze.” Algerian men, meanwhile, were perceived to be sexual predators who could not control their urges unless their womenfolk were draped in veils. Colonization would solve this by bringing the light of European civilization to Arab males, who, after a few generations of French rule, would learn to control their urges. The governor-general of Algeria remarked in 1898 that “the Arab man’s, the native Jew’s and the Arab woman’s physiology, as well as tolerance for pederasty, and typically oriental ways of procreating and relating to one another are so different from the European man’s that it is necessary to take appropriate measures.” As late as 1958, French wives of military officers, desperate to stop support for the FLN, which spearheaded the war of liberation against France, staged a symbolic “unveiling” of Algerian women at a pro-France rally in the capital of Algiers.

Decades later, millions of French citizens with ancestral roots in North Africa are being told much the same thing: in order to be French, they must “integrate” by giving up that which makes them different–Islam. The religion, however, is not regarded as a set of beliefs that adherents can adjust to suit the demands of their everyday lives but rather as an innate and unbridgeable attribute. It is easy to see how racism can take hold in such a context. During the foulard controversies, it did not appear to matter that 95 percent of French Muslims do not attend mosque, that more than 80 percent of Muslim women in France do not wear the headscarf or even that the number of schoolgirls in headscarves has never been more than a few hundred. The racist notion of innate differences between French citizens of North African origin and those of European origin defined the debate.

There is in France today a pervading hypocrisy that invokes freedom of expression when cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo or France Soir offend Muslim sensibilities but remains stubbornly quiet when a Muslim woman’s right to dispose of her body as she wishes is denied. This is the same hypocrisy that calls soccer star Zinedine Zidane a French citizen without any qualifications but refers to Zacarias Moussaoui as a French citizen of Moroccan origin. It is the same hypocrisy that organizes support committees for teachers in Flers who refuse to teach girls wearing the foulard but does not appear to care that 40 percent of French youths living in the largely impoverished and North African banlieues are unemployed. It is the same hypocrisy that celebrates the work of North African soldiers in the fight against the Nazis in World War II but until last year refused them the same army pensions as their French counterparts. It is the same hypocrisy that condemns humorist Dieudonné for his abhorrently racist remarks on Jews but condones former Le Point editor Claude Imbert when he says, “I am something of an Islamophobe and I’m not embarrassed to say so.”>

Complete article here

More info on the French hijab ban here

Adalah-NY:

Over 100 well-dressed, well-heeled New Yorkers attending the invitation-only opening of diamond mogul Lev Leviev’s Madison Avenue jewelry store this evening appeared stunned and aghast to find their evening derailed by a noisy protest against Leviev’s construction of illegal West Bank settlements. Gala attendees set down their champagne glasses and gathered by windows to view the signs and Palestinian flags, and hear protesters’ chants.30 New York City human rights activists chanted, “You’re glitz, you’re glam, you’re stealing Palestinian land.”, and “All your diamonds cannot hide, your support for Apartheid.” Protesters called on New York City’s upscale residents to boycott Leviev’s diamonds. Disconcerted attendees hastily exited to their limousines to loud chants of, “Occupation is a drag, just say no to your gift bag.”

Lev Leviev is one of Israel’s richest men. He built his enormous fortune trading in diamonds with Apartheid-era South Africa. His company now buys diamonds from the repressive Angolan government. Leviev uses profits from diamond sales to fuel the conflict in Palestine and Israel by funding the construction of suburban developments for Israeli settlers on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, undermining the prospects for Middle East peace, and threatening farmers’ ability to survive and remain in their homes. Leviev’s diamonds are “conflict diamonds” in a broad sense of the term, funding repression in Angola and violations of international law in Palestine.

Continue at NYC Independent Media Center

CAIR-LA, along with the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Muslim Advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, sent a letter to the LAPD Thursday expressing concerns over the possible civil rights violations if the proposed “mapping” of the Muslim community were to move forward.The letter stated, in part: “The mapping of Muslim communities as part of counter-terrorism efforts seems premised on the faulty notion that Muslims are more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths. Singling out individuals for investigation, surveillance, and data-gathering based on their religion constitutes religious profiling that is just as unlawful, ill-advised, and deeply offensive as racial profiling.”

Continue here

ACLU story here

More details and updates from Socal Muslim activists here

Two rabbis, visiting Palestine in 1897, observed that the land was like a bride, “beautiful, but married to another man”. By which they meant that, if a place was to be found for a Jewish “homeland” in Palestine, the indigenous inhabitants had to leave. Where should the people of Palestine go? Squaring that circle has been the essence of Israel´s dilemma ever since its establishment and the cause of the Palestinian tragedy that it led to. It has remained insoluble. Ghada Karmi’s new book, Married To Another Man, Israel´s Dilemma in Palestine, (published by Pluto Press, London-Ann Arbor) shows that the major reason for this failure was the original and unresolved Zionist quandary of how to create and maintain a Jewish state in a land inhabited by another people. Zionism was never able to resolve the problem of “the other man”.

There are only two ways: Either the “other man” had to be eradicated, or the Jewish state project had to be given up. Israel did not do either. It succeeded in 1948 in expelling and keeping out a large number of Palestinians, but Israel was never able to “cleanse” the land of Palestine entirely. The fundamental mistake of the Zionists was their belief that “the entire land of Palestine was Jewish and the Arab presence in it a resented foreign intrusion”. All in all, the Zionists were “relatively” successful, but for the indigenous owners of the land it was a catastrophe which has been going on until today. “If Israel remains a colonialist state in its character, it will not survive. In the end the region will be stronger than Israel, in the end the indigenous people will be stronger than Israel, ” as Akiva Eldar quoted the former Mazpen member Haim Hangebi in the Israeli Daily Haaretz on August 8, 2003. The author concludes: “Zionism´s ethos was not about peaceful co-existence but about colonialism and an exclusivist ideology to be imposed and maintained by force.”

Continue here

If you want to understand the magnitude of the Palestinian tragedy and the depths of their dilemma take a look at the recent decree issued by the Israeli Ministry of Education which in essence asks Jewish and Arab schoolchildren to sign the Israeli declaration of independence as part of the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel.

In a statement distributed to the schools the ministry’s Society and Youth Administration set the following objectives for the jubilee: “To commemorate the passage of 60 years since the establishing of the state of Israel in the Arab and Jewish educational system; to strengthen the sense of belonging to, pride in and love for the 60-year-old state among all who attend educational institutes; to help all Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and other youth to form a clear vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; to inspire a sense of responsibility and social commitment among the young and to encourage them to become active participants in the affairs of society.”

A quick glance at this text is sufficient to realise that there are no Palestinian Arabs in Israel; they are to be Israelis first, and “Muslims, Christians, Druze and others” second. The Arab student, according to this inspirational educational aim, is to love Israel, be Israeli and feel proud — no more, no less. How commendable such a memorandum would be if distributed (with the appropriate nationality change) to fledgling citizens in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. In Israel, though, it would be hard to come up with a more grotesque document.

There is a very persistent mode of colonialism at work here. It was not enough for this colonialist drive to seize a people’s land, kick out the inhabitants, bring others to take their place and destroy the fabric of an entire society, and then justify this on the grounds of a divine promise while, in the same breath and with the same degree of sincerity, regarding itself as a secular national liberation movement. No, it insists that its victim must admire it and recognise not only its existence but its historical legitimacy. It is determined to imprint itself beneath its victims’ skin through the ritual signing of a declaration of independence that simultaneously celebrates their own defeat.

Continue here

“The cost of living here has increased so much in the past two years that I cannot survive with my salary,” said Rajesh Kumar, a 24-year-old worker from the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who earns $149 a month.The laborers ignored the threat of deportation and refused to go to work, staging protests at a labor camp in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Industrial Zone and on a construction site in Al Qusais residential neighborhood.They demanded pay increases, improved housing and better transportation services to construction sites. On Saturday, workers threw stones at the riot police and damaged to police cars.Emirates’ Minister of Labor Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi described workers’ behavior as “uncivilized,” saying they were tampering with national security and endangering residents’ safety.

They could have registered their complaints peacefully but instead “turned themselves into rioters,” he told state news agency WAM. Those who damaged public property will be deported, the labor minister said.

Companies, however, do not want more workers to leave as they struggle to find enough to complete existing projects following an overwhelming response to a government amnesty program to persuade illegal laborers to leave.

Kumar and his fellow workers said they asked their employer, Al Habtoor Engineering Enterprises, for a pay increase several times, but management was not willing to address the issue.

“We were left without any choice but to stage the protest,” Kumar said.

Continue here

Comments:

1. As usual, the coverage of this story in UAE papers (both Arabic and English) almost completely left out the workers’ perspective on this incident.

2. The workers’ position would have been much stronger had they not resorted to violence and vandalism.

3. How do we respond to the argument that since the worker has agreed with his employer on a set wage, he/she must honor this deal and so cannot protest against it?  There must be a limit that protects workers from being exploited.  Many of these workers have not had a raise in over ten years.  What I find unfortunate/disturbing is that local ‘religious’ authorities/figures are using this argument to defend the employers.  I see the reason behind this argument for some situations, but again, there must be a limit, no?