“Creating a government blacklist that imposes state sanctions based on political beliefs raises serious First Amendment concerns,” New York Civil Liberties Union says in denouncing Gov. Cuomo’s executive order barring state business with organizations that advocate Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
Is a watermelon a security threat? A dozen Israeli soldiers in occupied Hebron in the Palestinian territories seem to think so. A video by the Israeli activist group Ta’ayush shows soldiers stopping an older Palestinian man bringing one home and detain the offending fruit for hours.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel salutes all the members of the American Anthropological Association who voted in favor of a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The resolution was narrowly defeated by a margin of 39 votes, 2,423:2,384. Prof. Haidar Eid, a PACBI Steering Committee member who teaches literature in Gaza, said: “At a time when New York Governor Cuomo is passing anti-democratic, McCarthyite executive orders to ban boycotts of Israel, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, is making pronouncements against the movement, the high support for the academic boycott of Israel at the AAA shows that supporters of Palestinian rights are not deterred and no longer afraid to speak out publicly. The tide is clearly turning.”
Dr. Jill Stein is running for president as a member of the Green Party and yesterday her campaign released a statement on US Foreign Policy, Palestine-Israel, and BDS: “the Stein campaign supports actions of nonviolent resistance to the policies of the occupation and of the Israeli apartheid regime, including those of the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which was endorsed by the Green Party of the United States in 2005 and is supported by thousands of civil society peace activists and organizations.”
Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 91, died at her home in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on May 26, 2016. An internationally renowned, respected and admired advocate for human and civil rights, Hedy was encircled by friends who lovingly cared for her at home. Born August 15, 1924, in the Bavarian region of Germany, her lifelong commitment to human rights was formed by the horrific experiences she and her family endured under the repressive Nazi regime. As part of her lifetime of working for social justice, Epstein had been devoted to working for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine since the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila.
Members of the Teaching Assistants’ Association at the University of Wisconsin-Madison vote overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution to divest from the State of Israel and corporations that profit from the illegal occupation of Palestine. During a two-week vote distributed to all union members, the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA/AFT Local 3220) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the oldest graduate student labor union in the United States representing over 9,000 graduate workers and students, voted overwhelmingly (81% of voting members) in favor of adopting a resolution to divest from Israeli state institutions and international corporations complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the ongoing violations of Palestinians’ human rights.
More than 300 human rights and aid organisations, church groups, trade unions and political parties from across Europe have called on the EU to uphold its legal responsibilities and hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and to defend the right of individuals and institutions to take part in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for justice and equality.
From May 21st to 26th, the annual Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) will be held in cities across historic Palestine as international literary stars – including Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami and National Book Award winners Colum McCann and Barry Lopez – perform free, public events in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Haifa and Nablus.
“Najawa: A Story of Palestine” is a 45-foot “street comic,” composed of eight large panels, which tells the story of a Palestinian woman’s life over the course of eight decades, beginning with the Nakba of 1948. It was created by Vermont artist Michelle Sayles, in collaboration with artist and educator Jen Berger, and Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel.
Wednesday night 70 Jewish students at Brown and RISD held a discussion of the Palestinian Nakba inside the Hillel, featuring films by Zochrot, in defiance of Hillel official standards on appropriate programming. Organizer Sophie Kasakove says, “In order for Hillel to maintain its integrity as a pluralistic Jewish space, the community must embrace Jews who currently feel excluded from mainstream Jewish discourse and who seek to question dominant narratives about Israel.”