The sixth annual “Israeli Apartheid Week” kicked off today, starting what will be two global weeks of action across the world meant to highlight Israel’s apartheid system and to build the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The global event has come under attack, of course, with the usual conflation of criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism.
In Canada, continuing to strengthen the nation’s standing as “the most pro-Israel country in the world” (as Yves Engler in the Electronic Intifada put it), Ontario’s legislature unanimously passed a resolution last week condemning “Israeli Apartheid Week.”
Canadian publication Shalom Life interviewed the author of the motion, Progressive Conservative Peter Shurman:
"If you’re going to label Israel as apartheid, then you are also calling Canada apartheid and you are attacking Canadian values,” said Shurman. “The use of the phrase ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I’m not certain it doesn’t actually cross over that line."
Rabble.ca, a progressive Canadian publication, reports that a separate, but similar resolution on the federal level is to be introduced this week.
The Jerusalem Post is also in on the action in a couple of articles.
The Electronic Intifada has a piece today by an “Israeli Apartheid Week” organizer in Toronto that puts the recent attacks in context, and also says that the campaigns against the event only show that the BDS movement is growing in strength:
Over the years, organizers have faced ongoing institutional harassment, including last-minute cancellation of room bookings and the banning of Apartheid Week materials. In fall 2008, for instance, room bookings for an IAW organizing conference in Toronto were cancelled on short notice by the university under pressure of local Zionist groups. Similarly, in March 2009, the University of Pisa, Italy, denied university venues to IAW organizers. In the same year, the poster for the 5th International Israeli Apartheid Week was banned at Carleton University in Ottawa and Trent University in Peterborough.
IAW has also been the object of investigation by the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), a highly contentious initiative that has been defined by the Canadian Independent Jewish Voices as an "attempt to attack free speech and silence criticism of the Israeli government’s oppressive and illegal policies" and "to label criticism of Israel and its behavior, as well as organized efforts to change them, as anti-Semitic and to criminalize both."
Attempts at shutting down IAW on campuses are in line with growing efforts of the Israeli government to crush the BDS movement. To the present time, this crackdown has primarily targeted Palestinian grassroots activists within the occupied West Bank, including Mohammad Othman Jamal Juma’ from the Stop the Wall Campaign, recently released from prison.
However, a recent report published by the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, and presented at the 10th Herzliya Conference in February 2010 identifies a global campaign of "delegitimization" of Israel — which includes the BDS movement and IAW — as one that "is effective, possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years." As such, it also underlines the need for Israel to engage in a substantial diplomatic counter-effort to sabotage the movement.
While this means that organizers will face increasing obstacles in the coming years, it also testifies to the growing strength of the BDS movement, which has reached fundamental targets in the last year.
Curious about local events for IAW, I did the following search:
“settimana apartheid israeliana roma sapienza 2010″ – “israeli apartheid week rome sapienza (Rome’s largest university) 2010″
For some strange reason, Google suggested the following:
“Did you mean: settimana apartheid australiana roma sapienza 2010″ – “australian apartheid week”
Those nasty Australians. First they abstain from a UN vote against Israel, and now it turns out that they practise apartheid too! Figures.
This is truly fantastic. Six years ago, our little Students for Justice in the Middle East at Stanford was tiny and marginal. Now the movement has all the force of a small tsunami gathering strength, unstoppable, and none of this smearing-indiscriminately-as-anti-Semitic nonsense scares anyone with half a brain anymore.
link to
lets not call rabble.ca progressive… regressive wanting to be progressive might be a better description…
Historically, calling Israel ‘an apartheid state’ is fact amount to hidding its true nature – Which is the worst colonial entity since the European colonialists occupied Americana in the 15th century. An American historian, John Kaminski, put this truth in these words: “When you read the history of Israel from objective sources, you discover that it is an outlaw state, created by the powers that be by stealing the land from its original inhabitants, and systematically exterminating them ever since.”
Israeli Apartheid Week
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
“[T]he worst colonial entity since the European colonialists occupied Americana in the 15th century.”?
Not to sugarcoat things in Israel/Palestine, but I don’t feel it serves much purpose to overstate the case.
The Belgian Congo comes to mind.
“However, a recent report published by the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, and presented at the 10th Herzliya Conference in February 2010 identifies a global campaign of “delegitimization” of Israel — which includes the BDS movement and IAW — as one that “is effective, possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years.” As such, it also underlines the need for Israel to engage in a substantial diplomatic counter-effort to sabotage the movement.”
The best “substantial diplomatic counter-effort” would be to immediately stop the colonization of the west bank and Jerusalem and enter into substantive peace talks with the goal of complete withdrawal from the OT within a very short and limited time frame.
Too bad Israel puts such sweat and energy into its diplomatic psyops rather than into substantive diplomacy aimed at root causes.
I hope to get to one or two of the London lectures and will be interested to see what sort of audience gathers as well as in what the speakers have to say. I’m sure that Pamela Olson is basically right in saying that some appreciation of the reality of the ME is spreading from the tiny ghetto that it once was, though I’m still feeling the disappointment I experienced at seeing the rather miserable attendance at an exhibition of rather moving children’s art from Gaza that a friend helped to organise.
I agree with Piney that a strong Conrad-style case against the Belgian Congo can be made. I even think that colonies, including the Euro colonisation of America, have good as well as bad effects.
Any realistic programme for solving the problem by withdrawal from the OT would sound like good news, I can’t deny. But a ‘realistic programme of that nature’ now seems to me like something impossible, ’round square’ style. It is the Israeli gains of 48 rather than of 67 that are at the problem’s real heart.
Fighting and arguing lead to nowheresville. If you really want peace you’ll work it out. Speak civilly and listen respectfully.
Peace class in progress. Join us at Pax101 on Facebook