Last week activists successfully stopped an Israeli cargo ship from offloading in Oakland. The Volans is a container ship operated by the Haifa-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd (ZIM), a company which has been a target of the BDS movement for years. “It shows what’s possible through BDS work when you can actually disrupt international commerce and build worker and community solidarity”: AROC’s Lara Kiswani tells Mondoweiss.
After the Cornell President, Martha Pollack, issued a statement about rising antisemitism “amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East,” evidently at the urging of pro-Israel students who feel “unsafe” in the light of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Palestinian students and others sympathetic to the Palestinian cause were angry and demoralized, as she exhibited a lack of recognition for Palestinian suffering and grief in the Gaza attack.
Daniel Jadue is mayor of Recoleta, a municipality of Chile’s capital Santiago, and is running for President. Jadue also traces his roots to the West Bank town of Beit Jala, and has been active in the Palestinian cause since he was 11. “You cannot be for human rights outside Palestine and against human rights for the Palestinians,” Jadue tells Vijay Prashad.
The recent condemnation by Pomona College administrators of a unanimous student government vote in favor of BDS is nothing other than an abuse of institutional power to bully undergraduates who took a principled stand for social justice.
Bay Area activists successfully blocked an Israeli cargo ship from offloading in Oakland, CA. The “Block the Boat” effort has been led by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC).
This spring as the fight to save Sheikh Jarrah, Gaza, and all of Palestine from Israeli settler-colonialism slowly became a mainstay in mainstream public discourse, thousands of artists, musicians, and other culture makers have spoken out in support if Palestine. These statements are not only important political bellwethers, but also essential catalysts for social change.
On May 27th the UN Human Rights Council voted to establish an ongoing commission of inquiry to report on rights violations in Israel, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. While this is very similar to the many commissions that have failed to hold Israel accountable in the past, Lori Allen says this one may be different due to the political context in which it is emerging.
University students across the UK are demanding immediate divestment from companies complicit in Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism as a part of Apartheid Off Campus’s national day of action.
There’s been multiple BDS victories over the past week or so. Let’s round them up.…
The United Educators of San Francisco has become the first American K-12 public school union to endorse the BDS movement.