The women leading the fight for peace in Palestine: Women in Black

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article from Open Democracy

On 4 October, thousands of women met in Jerusalem at an event led by the Israel-based Women Wage Peace and the Palestine-based Women of the Sun to discuss how to bring peace to the region. Three days later, one of the former group’s founding members, Canadian-Israeli activist Vivian Silver, was killed by Hamas in the deadliest attack on Israel in its 75-year history.

The women’s work has become much more difficult in the weeks since. Some 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attack and 160 taken hostage, more than 100 of whom are yet to be released. Israel has responded by reducing much of northern Gaza to rubble, killing 15,000 Palestinians and wounding 30,000 more.

Peace now seems a distant prospect. But the women have not given up hope. In a statement released on 14 October, Women Wage Peace said: “Every mother, Jewish and Arab, gives birth to her children to see them grow and flourish and not to bury them.


Branches of Women in Black lead silent vigils around the world to call for peace | Jesus Merida/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“That’s why, even today, amid the pain and the feeling that the belief in peace has collapsed, we extend a hand in peace to the mothers of Gaza and the West Bank.”

As Siobhan Byrne of the University of Alberta later said: “This was undoubtedly a difficult statement to write through their grief and anguish.”

Both Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun are relatively recent movements for peace in the Middle East but another women-led group has been calling for Israelis to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for 35 years.

Women in Black (WiB), a low-profile, remarkably persistent and very global movement, was launched in West Jerusalem in January 1988, prompted by the first intifada the previous year.

The group is distinctive in two main ways: firstly for the role of vigil in its fight for change and secondly, for its varying calls of witness, not just in war but more generally on violence against women.

Its protests often take the form of public vigils by small groups of women, dressed entirely in black, largely silent and bearing messages of their beliefs. The vigils are repeated, often on specific days of the week and in the same place, such as outside a mall or in a city square.

As for its calls of witness, they may vary with country or local circumstance, but they may have a common message of the need for peace, either in a specific conflict or on a generic issue, though they also extend to much more pervasive issues of gendered violence, both in time of war and in wider society.

Feminist activist and scholar Cynthia Cockburn, who was among the most persistent supporters of WiB, began to write a book on the history of the movement in February 2019. Though she sadly died later that year having written only the first five chapters, the book was completed, at her request, by Sue Finch, aided by copious files that Cockburn had left and by people in WiB groups from across the world.

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Questions related to this article:

Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

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Published earlier this year, Women in Black: Against Violence, for Peace with Justice tracks the development of the movement over more than three decades. It details how WiB is not a centrally organised entity but more a coalition of groups that snowballed across the world within six months of the movement’s start in Jerusalem.

Italian feminist activists, who had travelled to Israel and Palestine as part of a project called ‘Visiting Difficult Places’ in the late 1980s, joined WiB’s actions and took their approach back home. A feminist community in Belgrade, in what was then Federal Yugoslavia, in turn learned from them, and a similar approach evolved there. That group remained active throughout the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, bearing witness against the Bosnian and Kosovo wars.

Over time, WiB spread to Colombia, Germany, India, South Africa, Argentina and more than a dozen other countries spanning five continents, and nine international WiB conferences took place.

Introducing the book, Cynthia Cockburn summed up the movement’s evolution over the years, describing the differences between the various groups that had sprung up. “For some, especially those living through war,” she wrote, “theories about the relationship between gender and militarism are the most vital.

“Other women, living in relative peacetime choose combating male violence against individual women, and campaigning for the right to abortion, contraception and control over their own bodies, as the centre of their activism.

“The theories that connect Women in Black across the world, as a result, include the continuum of violence against women, and a causal relationship between gender and war.”

Women in Black is not a rigid centrally organised movement but has considerable autonomy between countries and branches. Any group of women in any part of the world may organise a vigil and while that is the most common action, responses may also involve nonviolent direct action at military bases or simply refusing to comply with orders.

A uniting feature is the value of the sense of solidarity, with women in one branch in a particular country knowing that if they bear witness to a particular happening or circumstance such as a specific conflict or incident of repression, they will be acting alongside a group in the country and also o9thersw across the world.

Because of its structure, the numbers involved in WiB may vary. Writing on its website, the movement gives one example: “When Women in Black in Israel/Palestine, as part of a coalition of Women for a Just Peace, called for vigils in June 2001 against the Occupation of Palestinian lands, at least 150 WiB groups across the world responded… The organisers estimate that altogether 10,000 women may have been involved.”

In recent years, Cockburn’s own writings, including on global disarmament and women peacemakers, have been highly influential. She worked in many regions of tension and conflict – including Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, South Korea, Spain and the UK – on a wide range of projects primarily focused on gender, war and peace-making.

Her work was paralleled by many years of activism, much of it stemming from an early visit to the Greenham Common women’s peace camp in 1980, and in 1993 she was heavily involved in establishing Women in Black in London. This book is certainly a very valuable contribution as a hugely informative account of the growth of what is now a worldwide movement but it is also a fitting remembrance of Cynthia Cockburn, a remarkable person.

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global, Mideast, WOMEN'S EQUALITY,

Rallies held worldwide as Israeli genocide in Gaza enters 100th day

FREE FLOW OF INFOMATION . .

An article from PressTV Iran with additions as indicated

Pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets around the world on the “day of action,” calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as the Israeli aggression reached the 100-day mark.

The global day of action on Saturday saw demonstrations take place in various international capitals, including Washington DC, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Johannesburg, Abuja, Tokyo, Islamabad, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur.


Photo of March in Washington : AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana as published by AP News

Thousands of protesters in one of the largest pro-Palestinian demonstrations to date in the US capital, Washington, called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to stop US aid to Israel, as more than three months of Israeli offensive is killing 250 Palestinians per day.

Large crowds waved Palestinian flags and chanted “Ceasefire now,” and “Free Palestine,” while carrying banners and posters that read “End the War in Gaza.” Other signs said the Israeli government is practicing apartheid and charged US President Joe Biden with genocide.

Young protesters were wearing the traditional keffiyeh in solidarity with Palestinians.

(Organizers of the march in Washington said that 400,000 took part.)


Pro-Palestinian activists and supporters wave flags and carry placards during a National March for Palestine in central London on January 13, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

London, meanwhile, saw its seventh National March for Palestine since October 7 as demonstrators called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and demanded that the British government stop arming the Israeli regime.

(According to a mail received at CPNN from the London-based Stop the War Coalition, in London there were almost half a million protesters demanding an immediate ceasefire, led by the anti-war movement in the UK.)

Little Amal, a giant puppet of a Syrian child refugee, representing refugees and displaced people, joining a group of Palestinian children, attended the demonstration.

“While the British public largely supports a ceasefire in Gaza, the UK’s politicians have continued to fund and support the genocide,” Jeanine Hourani, a member of the Palestine Youth Movement attending the march in London said.
UK ‘complicit’ in Israel’s crimes

Palestine’s ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, also joined the protesters calling for a ceasefire. He slammed the UK government for “complicity” with Israel.

“I stand before you with a broken heart but not a broken spirit,” Zomlot said addressing pro-Palestinian protesters in London as he described Palestine as a “nation of freedom fighters.”

He also congratulated South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the UN’s International Court of Justice.

The London march was one of several others being held in European cities including Paris, Rome, Milan and Dublin, where thousands also marched along the Irish people to protest Israel’s aggression against Palestinians.

Irish Protesters waved Palestinian flags, denouncing Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza, chanting “Free, Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They held placards critical of the Irish, US governments and Israeli regime.

(As reported by Common Dreams , “In Dublin, organizers of a march that saw more than 100,000 march through city streets called it the largest rally for Palestinian rights in Irish history.”)

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Question related to this article:

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

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Rome hosts new pro-Palestine rally, thousands join demonstration

In Rome, thousands of demonstrators descended on a boulevard near the famous Colosseum, with some carrying signs reading, “Stop Genocide.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters also lauded South Africa for bringing Israel’s brutal military onslaught against Gaza to the International Court of Justice.
Rome photo


Rome hosts a new rally in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Malaysia

At rallies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, people gathered at the United States embassy to send a message to Israel’s staunch ally. People carried placards that read “Stop the genocide,” as well as “Bombing children is not self-defense.”

Last month, the Malaysian government announced it would no longer allow Israeli-owned ships to dock in Malaysian ports. It also said any vessel en route to Israel would not be allowed to unload cargo at any Malaysian port.

Thousands of people also gathered outside the US embassy in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, waving Indonesian and Palestinian flags and holding signs that read “Boycott Israel” and “Ceasefire Now.”


Thousands of members from the Muslim community gathered in front of the US Embassy in Jakarta to protest against ‘genocide’ in Palestine and express their support for the Palestinian people.

South Africa protests

Similar protests took place in Johannesburg, South Africa as demonstrators gathered outside the US consulate. The crowd accused the US of complicity in the bombardment of the Palestinian people due to its military support of Israel since the war started.

The protest has been reinforced by South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court in The Hague began hearings on Thursday over a charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

South Africa, which filed the lawsuit at the UN court in December, asked judges Thursday to urgently declare that the Tel Aviv regime has breached its responsibilities under international law since October 7, when it launched hostilities in the besieged territory.

The relentless Israeli military aggression has so far killed at least 23,843 people in Palestine, more than 10,000 of whom are children, while 60,317 others have been wounded.

Other European protests

(In Switzerland , an estimated 15,000 held their first national protest in Basel in support of Gazans since several German-speaking cantons introduced a ban on such actions, calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the region.)

(Protests also took place in Amsterdam, Oslo, Uppsala and Tunis according to the Palestine Chronicle.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

United States: The Black Choreographers Dancing Toward Justice

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article by Hannah J. Davies from Hyperallergic (produced in collaboration with the Arts & Culture MA concentration at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism)

Since it began over a decade ago, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has celebrated the literal movements of its participants. People protesting killings of Black people have not only marched in the streets; they have krumped, twerked, vogued, and resurrected the electric slide of the ’70s and ’80s in often impromptu responses to the emotions underpinning their demonstrations. Black choreographers, in turn, have woven the grief, anger, and sadness of the BLM movement into formal concert dance.


Choreographer Chanel DaSilva’s Tabernacle (2023) (photo by Amitava Sarkar, courtesy the Dallas Black Dance Theatre)

Choreographer Kyle Abraham presented “Absent Matter” in 2015, just two years after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, ignited BLM and one year after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. A work of fluid and athletic gestures, Abraham’s performance took its cues from hip-hop, ballet, and politically minded anthems like Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.” In 2016, David Roussève’s “Enough?” — with an accelerating choreographic phrase danced to a soundtrack of Aretha Franklin — asked whether dance can be a sufficient medium for considering the brutality often inflicted on Black people.

Now (January 2024), eight years later, that question is being answered in the affirmative on major dance stages around the United States. Choreographer Jamar Roberts’s “Ode,” a somber and sensuous dance first performed in 2019 as a response to gun violence, was restaged for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s 65th anniversary in December. Last May, Chanel DaSilva’s “Tabernacle” premiered at the Dallas Black Dance Theatre, fusing Afrofuturism, hip hop, and African dance in a direct response to BLM. And last fall, as part of the French Institute Alliance Française’s (FIAF) Crossing the Line festival, the French-Malian choreographer Smaïl Kanouté’s “Never Twenty One” made its New York debut, its title borrowed from a BLM slogan. A trio of dancers whose bare arms and torsos were emblazoned with words like “death,” “negro,” and “PTSD” engage in movements akin to mortal combat onstage, punctuated by moments of kinship, in homage to people of color killed through gun violence in the US, South Africa, and Brazil before they had reached their 21st birthdays. After the performance at FIAF, one audience member noted that she had cried 63 times while watching.

While there is a clear difference between dance erupting on sidewalks and performances choreographed for the stage, there is overlap between the two forms. In addition to a sense of urgency, they share some of the same movements and gestures. In “Never Twenty One,” for example, the spasmodic krumping motions that originated in South Central Los Angeles in the ’90s were seen in protests in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd. One audience member animatedly joined in from her chair during the show at FIAF in perhaps an unusual move, but in another setting, it would be almost rude not to.

Dr. Shamell Bell, a dancer, Harvard lecturer, and one of the founding members of the Black Lives Matter movement in Los Angeles, explained to Hyperallergic the importance of rooting such pieces in lived experience and “[reaching] out to the people that you’re supposedly wanting to bring attention to.” Having begun her career dancing on the streets as a youth activist, Dr. Bell now works on performance pieces that, like “Never Twenty One,” play with the conventions and traditions of vernacular Black dance genres to shine a light on difficult topics.

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Question for this article:

Do the arts create a basis for a culture of peace?, What is, or should be, their role in our movement?

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Dr. Bell served as a co-social impact director for Ritual of Breath Is The Rite to Resist (2022), a transmedia opera at Dartmouth and Stanford that brought together dance, music, visual art, and text. Composed by Jonathan Berger and choreographed by Neema Bickersteth and Trebien Pollard, the piece was loosely based on the last moments in the life of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old African-American man who was killed by a New York City Police Department officer in 2014. His final words — “I can’t breathe” — became a major slogan for the BLM movement.

“We asked the community what they needed to heal,” Dr. Bell said. “One of the most important aspects of doing performance as activism is making sure it has tangible resources for and connections with the community it matters the most to.”

Dr. Bell reached out to Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and others who had lost children to police brutality, not only entering into a dialogue with them but also creating rituals aimed at supporting them emotionally. In a similar vein, Kanouté incorporated the testimonies of bereaved families into his piece at FIAF, including haunting monologues in multiple languages that comprise the show’s soundtrack. Both works go beyond archiving the experiences of their subjects to also provide a space for grieving. “Dance is a healing modality,” Dr. Bell added. “And we need to heal ourselves in order to heal this world.”

Of course, BLM and other movements for racial justice are just the latest chapters in a long history of Black cultural activism in the United States. Artist and academic Stafford C. Berry Jr., a scholar of what he describes as “African-rooted” dance at Indiana University, told Hyperallergic that these choreographic works extend and are part of “the trajectory and existence of Black lives from enslavement up until now,” adding that the BLM movement “is really a contemporary recapitulation of our earlier movements.” Mentored by the influential choreographers Chuck Davis and Kariamu Welsh, Berry noted that he has long drawn inspiration from the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which emerged in tandem with Black Power. Even so, Berry sees the BLM movement’s resurgence in recent years as a step forward in understanding Blackness in America. Berry noted that the works that BLM has inspired have been “bold and unapologetic, by people who are centering themselves and trying to figure out what BLM means for the United States, and the world.”

This certainly seems true of Kanouté, who is based in Paris and was inspired by what he described to Hyperallergic as the “powerful echo” of events in the US to look at the loss of Black lives across the world. “We had a young man called Nahel [Merzouk] who was shot by the police,” he said, catching his breath backstage after the FIAF performance as he recalled the case of the 17-year-old boy of North African descent who was killed by French police last June, sparking protests across France. “The racism and separation I grew up with was under the surface, but now it’s come out.”

In the same way that popular dance can offer a sense of hope and resistance at protests, there is a cathartic quality to Kanouté’s work. Despite the frequent choreographed clashes among the three men on stage, “Never 21” was infused with a sense of truly owning and embracing Blackness and Black joy in its many forms. Kanouté explained that he draws particular inspiration from Black communities living in cities like Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro, whose joy often exists side by side with danger and precarity.

“They have to create their own identity, their own music, their own dance, because they don’t know if tomorrow they will still be there,” Kanouté said. “In that kind of atmosphere, you create powerful things.”

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EDUCATION FOR PEACE, North America

Artists in Turkey: Let us be a voice for peace

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from ANF News

In an urgent appeal to the public, hundreds of artists from Turkey called for negotiations on a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question. The declaration “Let us be a voice for peace”, signed by 564 personalities, was presented today at the Taksim Hill Hotel in Istanbul. Among the signatories are prominent names such as musician Cevdet Bağca, writer Ayşegül Devecioğlu, art critic and painter Feyyaz Yaman, author Firat Cewerî, director Haşim Aydemir, actress Jülide Kural, musician Mikail Aslan, documentary filmmaker Nejla Demirci, photographer Özcan Yaman, painter Sevinç Altan, author Şanar Yurdatapan and director and DEM deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder.

Writer Ayşegül Devecioğlu read the declaration, the full text of which reads as follows:

“We, the undersigned people of art and literature, would like to share with the public our objection to the obstacles preventing the Republic from attaining a democratic, populist and libertarian character in its second century. Concerned about the future of Turkey, we wish to be a modest voice in this environment of multiple crises. If we remain silent today, there may be no one left to speak tomorrow.

We, the people of art and literature, who will not stand by and watch Turkey waste another century, propose to weave together a future in which all ethnic, religious and cultural identities live freely and are not oppressed or subjected to pogroms.

We have the responsibility to speak a new word, to form a new sentence in this muddy ground where the legislature is under the pressure of the government, the independent judiciary has lost its independence under the ‘one man regime’, secular and free education has fallen behind the times, trustees have been appointed to universities and people’s municipalities, women are subjected to violence, brain drain has reached an extreme level, and youth are leaving the country out of fear for their future.

We believe that we need a new way of looking and seeing in this atmosphere of deepening social and economic crises, where democratic possibilities are excluded in solving problems arising from denial and assimilation, and violence is constantly updated as a policy.

For a hundred years, many humanitarian demands for rights, especially the democratic demands of the Kurds and the freedom of belief of Alevis, were postponed, not resolved, and consolidated by the governments as a phenomenon of separation between our peoples. The divisions between peoples and cultures have been deepened.

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Question for this article:

Do the arts create a basis for a culture of peace?, What is, or should be, their role in our movement?

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Pressurized by multiple crises, public opinion is under heavy manipulation by the government. Those who govern Turkey are distracting the public from the real agenda with secondary agendas. Isolation practices have turned into a management apparatus in the hands of the autocratic government. Society is under an ideological and political siege. Isolation and war policies deepen social and economic crises.

Thousands of people are unlawfully imprisoned for their political views and are almost political hostages. Practices in prisons that violate human rights are increasing day by day. Thousands of political prisoners are currently on hunger strike against isolation practices. The demands of political prisoners on hunger strike must be listened to and resolved through negotiations.

We believe that Turkey’s problems should be solved through negotiation. Starting in 2013, the ‘Resolution Process’, which created great hope for reconciliation among the people, was a valuable experiment. Negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan, one of the interlocutors of the issue, created the possibilities for peace. With the consent of a large part of society, the process can start again. Society must be courageous for peace. It should not be afraid to dialog and talk.

It is our open call to everyone in the position of interlocutor; the conditions set forth by universal law and human rights need to be fulfilled without hesitation by the political representatives of the time. The government must abandon the politics of oppression, isolation and war. We believe that these ideas and suggestions by people of art and literature will be embraced by all those who desire the construction of social peace.”

Speaking at the meeting, Feyyaz Yaman from Karşı Sanat (Counter Art) said that they came together to “protect peace”. Yaman said, “But while doing this, our framework has been in the field of art. Art has never experienced such an environment of violence, victimization and injustice as today. Its voice has never been silenced like this. In each of these situations, we see that this silence is not only due to the economic difficulties experienced by artists. Artists cannot perform, writers cannot write their books. The real reason for this whole crisis is that the social consensus has also broken down at the legal level. This silencing environment we are experiencing all over the world today prompts us to seek our rights. If art is to speak a critical language, then it must first weave rights and the coexistence of peoples. We invite artists to stand together against those who continuously impose a process of extermination and to claim this need. We have something to do for this, we need to produce a process of real dialogue. We have to bring together and defend the injustices we have suffered in this environment of differences on our common ground of righteousness. As those who believe in the power of art, we invite everyone to re-establish this peace.”

See also French artists and intellectuals: Let us be a voice for peace

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EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Mideast

Oaxaca, Mexico: State Government Promotes Culture of Peace as a Public Policy

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION ..

An article from the Gobierno del Estado de Oaxaca

Within the framework of the Training Conference for Municipal Authorities elected by Indigenous Regulatory Systems 2024, the Government Secretariat (Sego) presented the Program “Peace with Justice and Well-being” for the People of Oaxaca.

In this sense, the director of Culture of Peace of Sego, Leticia Cruz López, reported that in the sessions held this January 8 and 9 in the Oaxacan capital, municipal authorities were called upon to develop actions for the implementation of peace policies and promotion programs.

In this way, the aim is to contribute at the local level, to the positive transformation of social and agrarian conflicts for the benefit of girls, boys, young people, women and men of Oaxaca.

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(Click here for the Spanish original of this article)

Questions for this article:

The culture of peace at a regional level, Does it have advantages compared to a city level?

Is there progress towards a culture of peace in Mexico?

(continued from left column)

“We thank the new elected municipal authorities for accepting the implementation of a culture of peace with an intercultural approach, since municipalities are a key element in influencing the strengthening or reestablishment of the community fabric,” she stated.

These trainings are part of the accreditation process for the municipal authorities who assumed their duties on January 1 of this year, carried out by the Sego Undersecretary responsible for Municipal Strengthening.

The state official highlighted that the municipal authorities show their interest in being part of the State Network of Municipalities as Agents of Social Peace, as well as working with their councils with tools to establish community dialogues, spaces for mediation and conciliation in their towns and build processes of conflicts resolution.

With these actions, the State Government and the municipalities join forces so that Oaxaca is transformed with respect, diversity, equality and justice, so that community environments are strengthened and privileged by peace and where differences are worked on constructively.

Some of the municipal authorities that joined the Network of Municipalities Agents of Social Peace are: Mariscala de Juárez, Santa María Yalina, Santo Domingo Albarradas, San Melchor Betaza, San Juan Cotzocón, Santiago Camotlán, San Pedro and San Pablo Ayutla, San Miguel del Río and Ixtlán de Juárez, among others.

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DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, Latin America

Artists Pledge to Boycott German Institutions Over Stifling of Pro-Palestine Speech

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION . .

An article from Hyperallergic

Hundreds of artists and cultural workers around the world signed a petition calling to boycott German cultural institutions in response to the nation’s “McCarthyist policies” targeting critics of Israel’s violence against Palestinians.

(Update January 23. In response, the Berlin Senate has now dropped the anti-semitism clause in their funding agreements.


One of the graphics accompanying the Strike Germany petition features the word “Strike” overlaid on an icon of German art history: “Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer” (“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog”) (1818) by Romanticist Caspar David Friedrich. (image via Strike Germany)

Signed by over 650 people including artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed El-Kurd, and French writer Annie Ernaux, the anonymously authored “Strike Germany” petition questions the European nation’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, according to which “the targeting of the state of Israel” can be construed as a form of hostility toward the collective Jewish people. Since the German parliament’s 2019 resolution equating the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement with antisemitism, the persecution of pro-Palestine speech and symbols has had profound effects on the local heavily state-subsidized art world.

“As the genocidal campaign on Gaza continues — amounting to one of the deadliest assaults on a civilian population in our times — the German state has intensified the repression of its own Palestinian population and those who stand against Israel’s war crimes,” the petition reads. “Palestine solidarity protests are mislabeled as anti-Semitic and banned, activist spaces are raided by police, and violent arrests are frequent.”

Germany has stood by Israel nearly unconditionally since the October 7 Hamas offensive that killed at least 846 Israeli civilians, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the first Western leader to visit after the attack, declaring that the country had “every right to defend itself.” Since then, as Israel faces accusations of genocide at the United Nations’s top court and the death toll from its ongoing bombardment of Gaza tops 23,000, Germany’s position has shifted slightly but remained staunchly supportive.

Earlier this month, the Berlin Senate introduced a clause that would require recipients of public funds to sign a self-declaration against “any form of antisemitism” as defined by the IHRA. Over 5,600 Berlin-based cultural workers across artistic disciplines, including visual artists Jumana Manna and Jesse Darling, opposed the controversial proposal in a recent open letter; such laws, the missive says, “only serve to create an administrative basis for disinviting and canceling events with cultural workers who are critical of Israel.”

Paradoxically, Germany’s persecution of anti-Israel voices sometimes extends to members of the nation’s Jewish community. Last year, Hamburg’s first antisemitism commissioner publicly attacked South African artist and scholar Adam Broomberg, a vocal critic of Israel who is himself Jewish, because of the artist’s solidarity with the BDS movement.

After he was hired as a visiting professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design this fall, the school’s rectorate told him he could no longer instruct students, according to Broomberg, who explained that he had reached a “verbal agreement” with the administration barring him from teaching, although he would remain on the school’s payroll through the end of his contract this spring.

(continued on right column)

Questions related to this article:

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

(continued from left column)

“I think the real danger here is a closing down of academic thinking and critical thinking,” Broomerg said. “And it also puts a lot of the amazing colleagues I had there in very precarious positions, because if journalists and the Senate are going to be scouring people’s social media feeds or anything they’ve ever written, and if you see my situation as a test case, you can imagine that a lot of them feel very anxious.”

The professor was leading a seminar that centered Palestinian and Israeli experiences and histories and had planned a small student trip to Bethlehem and Hebron, although the excursion was canceled after the events of October 7. He claimed the school’s decision was due to pressure from the German government and right-wing press, which has mentioned Broomberg’s active anti-Zionist posts on social media.

A Karlsruhe University spokesperson told Hyperallergic it could not comment on the contractual details of its employees, adding that as a public university, it “must mediate between public interest and the protection of its members.” The spokesperson stated that when confronted with “controversial” social media posts from Broomberg, the school decided to “seek a conversation” with him, to involve the school’s Academic Senate, and to consult “external experts.”

“It really feels kind of McCarthyite,” Broomberg added, repeating the same phrase used in the Strike Germany petition.

Yamna El Atlassi, a Belgium-based Diversity and Inclusion consultant for the cultural sector who travels frequently to Germany, said she sees artists in the nation “facing a level of repression not seen in recent history.”

“I’ve always seen discrimination in play in the cultural sector in all Western countries, but the difference is that Germany was presenting itself as a champion of progressive thinking,” El Atlassi told Hyperallergic. “The dissonance between this attitude and what is really going on is important.”

She specifically cited the controversy surrounding Documenta 15, during which several participating artists in the summer 2022 exhibition faced accusations of antisemitism for their pro-Palestine stance. On October 9, Documenta’s leadership released a statement decrying the curatorial collective ruangrupa, which organized the 15th edition, for its “liking” of social media posts expressing sympathy with the Palestinian cause.

Dystopic episodes of institutions stifling pro-Palestine expressions are far from absent from the United States’s cultural spaces, where just this week, the news of Indiana University canceling an exhibition of 87-year-old Palestinian artist Samia Halaby’s works — reportedly over her vocal advocacy for her country — drew outrage. Meanwhile, faculty members there penned a letter this week decrying the school’s decision to suspend their colleague Abdulkader Sinno, a Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies professor, for his alleged involvement in organizing an event with the Palestine Solidarity Committee. The missive asserts that the school’s decision comes as American universities are being pressured to “curtail free speech over the Israel-Palestine conflict.”

But in Germany, whose crimes and burden of guilt against the Jewish people are inscribed permanently in its history, the attitude taken toward Jewish figures who question the Israeli state’s actions strikes many as especially chilling. The irony was felt a month ago when the Russian-American, Jewish writer Masha Gessen received a scaled-down version of Germany’s Hannah Arendt Prize, nearly revoked altogether after they penned a New Yorker article in which they compared the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to Nazi German ghettos.

“German post-reunification ‘remembrance culture’ (Erinnerungskultur) — the state campaign to address Germany’s genocide of the Jews — acts as a repressive dogma, reinvigorating the oppression that real ‘rememberance’ should work against,” the Strike Germany petition articulates.

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Algeria: National Graffiti Festival-Sétif; Fethi Mjahed wins 1st Prize

. EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from L’Expression (translation by CPNN)

The artist Fethi Mjahed from Tiaret won the Best Graffiti Prize on Thursday at the end of the fifth edition of the National Graffiti Festival which opened Monday in Sétif for his optimistic work. Second and third places went respectively to Hamza Mokrani from Khenchela and Salah-Eddine Adhimi from Sétif.


(click on image to enlarge)

(Click here for the original French version of this article)

Question related to this article:
 
Can popular art help us in the quest for truth and justice?

In a statement to APS, Nacer Fadli, president of the organizing committee and director of the Office of Youth Establishments (ODEJ) of Sétif, recalled that “40 artists from several wilayas took part in this traditional event organized by the league of cultural and scientific activities of young people in concert with the Odej and the direction of youth and sports as part of the implementation of the annual program of the supervisory ministry

Unlike previous editions during which the participants drew on the walls in different places in the city, the organizers opted this year to put the grafitti on wooden panels on the square adjoining the Sétif amusement park. The panels can then be used to decorate certain establishments or participate in other competitions, said Mr. Fadli.

The objective of the festival is to make these works of art a means of raising awareness of citizenship and the dissemination of the culture of peace, while allowing young people to exchange their experiences and participate in local activities, added the head of Odej.

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“Culture of Peace” Recommendation for UN summit “Pact for the Future”

DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY .

Received at CPNN from Anne Creter, Peace Through Unity Charitable Trust

Today’s New Year’s Day opens with sharing the following “Culture of Peace “recommendation our UN NGO Global Movement for the Culture of Peace sub-group submitted yesterday (New Years Eve) as input to the big September 23-24, 2024 UN Summit of the Future “Pact for the Future” being developed now. 

The “actionable” evolutionary UN Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace A/RES/53/243 adopted by the General Assembly (GA) in 1999 must be integrated into A Pact for the Future (PACT) for greater UN innovation and synthesis, as it can provide a missing link helping the UN fulfill its mission to “end the scourge of war.” Aligned with the science of nonviolence, Culture of Peace is a comprehensive, UN established “blueprint” or “roadmap” of actions necessary at all levels of existence to manifest sustainable peace. If utilized in the PACT, Culture of Peace could provide a new, unified global structure for the UN to connect and coordinate worldwide peace actions for greater synergy and effectiveness. War will be inevitable until a better, rational, productive system is solidly in place providing the structure and platform for conflict resolution to routinely happen.

Chapter II: International peace and security:

The UN’s 75-year-old quest “to end the scourge of war” has paradoxically devolved into a worldwide culture of violence at this most dangerous inflection point in history. Thus, it is imperative that the advanced peacebuilding concept of the Culture of Peace be a focal point within this futuristic PACT, for it has received growing understanding and appreciation both at the UN and within civil society in the last 25 years. In keeping with its recently evolved history at the UN, A/RES/53/243 adds clear “actionable” guidance aligned with the relatively new field of peace studies at a time when the world is hopelessly paralyzed by the existential escalation of violence at all levels which, in becoming normalized, threatens even greater planetary peril. Examples of civil society “Infrastructures for Peace” based on A/RES/53/243 now making a difference in the world are the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission in Oregon USA and Rotary International showing great progress of peace at local city levels.

The landmark UN Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace (A/RES/53/243) was adopted by the GA on 13 September 1999 after nine months of hard negotiations skillfully led by Bangladesh Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the UN; Founder of the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace, who said: “I believe this document is unique in more than one way. It is a universal document in the real sense, transcending boundaries, cultures, societies and nations. Unlike many other GA documents, it is action-oriented and encourages actions at all levels, be they at the level of the individual, the community, the nation or the region, or at the global and international levels.” It defines Culture of Peace as a set of values, attitudes, modes of behavior and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations. Per the A/RES/53/243 mandate, the Programme of Action by its pure “action” structure speaks to the PACT’s goal of “action-oriented” recommendations, citing actions at all levels that are necessary to build the Culture of Peace within the following Eight Areas of Action:

1) Fostering a culture of peace through education
2) Promoting sustainable economic and social development
3) Promoting respect for all human rights
4) Ensuring equality between women and men
5) Fostering democratic participation
6) Advancing understanding, tolerance and solidarity
7) Supporting participatory communication & free flow of information & knowledge
8) Promoting international peace and security

UNESCO was charged with writing the “Declaration and Programme of Action” led by David Adams, Former Director, UNESCO Unit for International Year for Culture of Peace. It is not by accident that the term originated at UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and “Cultural” Organization) at a meeting in Africa in 1989. For Culture appears in the very name of UNESCO which was established as the UN’s cultural organization. Culture here is defined in the broad anthropological sense, not in the narrow popular sense restricted to music, dance, and other arts. UNESCO was not concerned with culture for its own sake, but culture for the sake of peace. It made a distinction between the old concept of peace between sovereign states and a new concept of peace between peoples. UNESCO’s constitution preamble declared in 1946: “That a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.” As UNESCO stated: “Each of these areas of action have been priorities of the UN since its foundation; what is new is their linkage through the culture of peace and non-violence into a single coherent concept. This is the first time all these areas are interlinked so the sum of their complementarities and synergies can be developed.”

Question for this article:

What is the United Nations doing for a culture of peace?

A/RES/53/243 gives clear guidelines on a new mode of governance which calls on the entire UN system; all governments, and all peoples to work together to build a more free, fair, and peaceful global neighborhood through a positive, dynamic participatory process where dialogue is encouraged, and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation. It was a watershed moment when A/RES/53/243 was passed as never before had an “action-oriented” template been created based on the science of nonviolence articulating all the peacebuilding actions needed at every level from inner to international for world peace to take shape. A/RES/53/243 is innovative because it embodies this new peace knowledge by design, stating all the multi-dimensional, congruous actions that need to happen for the Culture of Peace to materialize. These preventative, multi-level actions by individuals and groups must be implemented and monitored in Member States to “end the scourge of war” – a function the UN could oversee by creating a “Culture of Peace Council” equal in status to the Security Council to balance its two main purposes of peace and security through developing national “Culture of Peace” Action Plans.

Culture of Peace is a clarion call for individual and collective transformation, indispensable for the safety, security and development of planet earth. Therefore, to make the PACT truly transformational, the concept of Culture of Peace must be integrated within it, reflective of the “new” positive view of peace. “Negative” peace is the absence of violence. Peace has traditionally been thought of simply as that. But we know now that peacebuilding is so much more. “Positive” peace is defined as the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies, like better economic outcomes, measures of well-being, levels of inclusiveness and environmental performance. “Positive” peace is transformational in that it is a cross-cutting factor for progress. Use of the word ‘Peace’ connotes “negative” peace, old paradigm thinking whereas ‘Culture of Peace’ connotes a new-paradigm “positive” peace mindset.

Culture of Peace has a recent rich history of evolution at the UN in the last 25+ years since A/RES/53/243 was first adopted in 1999. We are told it takes between ten to twenty years from the time UN resolutions are passed for them to be fully understood and utilized. Culture of Peace is no exception. The term was hardly ever used at the UN in the first ten years of its passage (the first decade of the new millennium). It took 12 years before the major breakthrough of the first High Level Forum on the Culture of Peace took place in 2012. That big milestone was first conceived back in the year 2000 when the International Year for the Culture of Peace was declared, along with its 2000 Manifesto for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence crafted by Nobel Laureates. Then from 2001 to 2010 there was the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World, producing Mid-Decade and End-of-Decade Culture of Peace Progress Reports, including a continuously running virtual Culture of Peace News Network of actions taken each month around the world in all eight of the Culture of Peace Areas of Action. Also, a UN NGO Culture of Peace Working Group which morphed into the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace NGO Coalition, along with 12 annual Culture of Peace High Level Forums with yearly self-standing GA Culture of Peace resolutions passed. Now that these milestones have been achieved, it is time for A/RES/53/243 to be fully utilized by being integrated within this forward-looking PACT.

Integrating Culture of Peace wisdom into the PACT would make that document more UN synthesized and wholistically complete, better enabling full implementation of A/RES/53/243. Culture of Peace is a state-of-the-art concept in human consciousness aligned within the powerful new discipline of peace studies. A/RES/53/243 provides a currently missing overarching peacebuilding framework on how to construct true and lasting world peace. Rendering it essential to the PACT would endow this major futuristic document genuine “new paradigm” relevance. So let Culture of Peace (already existing in the heart of humanity) become the foundation upon which our children and their children’s children can continue building the future civilization. As unleashing the knowledge of how to cultivate world peace in this way will accelerate desperately needed UN reform and transformation.

Chapter V: Transforming global governance:

Article 5 of A/RES/43/243 states that “governments have an essential role in promoting and strengthening a culture of peace.” Per the 2023 UN New Agenda for Peace Action #3 – one recommendation is to develop national prevention strategies to address the different drivers and enablers of violence and conflict in societies and strengthen national “Infrastructures for Peace.” Further that Member States seeking to establish or strengthen national “Infrastructures for Peace” should be able to access a tailor-made package of support and expertise. Uniting these 2 UN guiding principles “Culture of Peace and “Infrastructures for Peace” together would be an impactful step forward in UN fulfillment of its peace mission. For Culture of Peace establishes this UN peace vision as normative and prescribes the roadmap of actions needed at all levels to actualize it. Governmental “Infrastructures for Peace” such as “Departments and Ministries of Peace” are the roadways or platforms of peace architecture that support essential peace actions (like diplomacy) to readily occur so peace can take root and grow. Coupled together these two constructs give shape, form, and substance to building the “capacity” for peace by operationalizing and institutionalizing peacebuilding as the missing connective layer needed to sustain peace. Both principles are designed to prevent and reduce violence thus are mutually reinforcing. Integrated within the PACT, their synergistic impact of collaborative connection would facilitate significant UN reform and transformation.

UN NGO “Global Movement for the Culture of Peace” Signatories:

Peace Through Unity: Kate Smith, Director; Iris Spellings, UN NGO Representative; Anne Creter, UN NGO Alternate Representative

Pathways to Peace: Tezikiah Gabriel, Executive Director; David Wick, President

The Good News Agency – Associazione Culturale dei Triangoli e della Buona Volontà Mondiale: Georgina Galanis, UN NGO Representative

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BDS Movement: Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article from the BDS Movement

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that is leading the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, salutes activists, organizations and institutions worldwide that have expressed meaningful solidarity with our urgent struggle to stop Israel’s unfolding genocide in Gaza by escalating boycott and divestment campaigns. The spreading boycotts of complicit Israeli and multinational corporations can be effective if done strategically.  

Below is a detailed guide of our targeted consumer boycotts, divestment and pressure campaigns. Help us spread the word to maximize our impact!


(Click on image to enlarge)

Ending all state, corporate and institutional complicity with Israel’s genocidal regime is more urgent than ever. Our lives and livelihoods literally depend on it.

Targeted Boycotts vs. Non-targeted Boycotts

People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless. Many feel compelled to boycott any and all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The proliferation of extensive “boycott lists” on social media is an example of this. The question is how to make boycotts effective and actually have an impact in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians? 

The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, the Indian anti-colonial struggle, among others worldwide. 
 
We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products  for maximum impact. We need to focus on companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling huge, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”

Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians, making them ineffective.

That being said, all peaceful popular efforts, including boycott and divestment, to hold all genuinely complicit corporations (and institutions) accountable for supporting Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights are justified and called for. It is perfectly legitimate, for instance, to boycott companies whose Israeli branch or franchise has supported Israel’s unfolding genocide in Gaza, some of which we mention below in the grassroots organic boycott targets section.

Also, a company or product may make perfect sense as a boycott target in one context or city but not another. This context-sensitivity is a key principle of our movement. Regardless, we all have limited human capacity, so we’d better use it in the most effective way to achieve meaningful, sustainable results that can truly contribute to Palestinian liberation. We therefore call on our supporters to strengthen our targeted campaigns and boycott the complicit companies named on our website to maximize our collective impact.

The following are the current top priority boycott targets of the global BDS movement.

We have split these targets into four sections:

1. Consumer boycott targets – The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to the company’s proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.

2. Divestment targets – The BDS movement is pressuring governments, institutions and investment funds to exclude and divest from as many complicit companies as practical, especially weapons manufacturers, banks, and companies listed in the UN database  of business involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, as well as the WhoProfits  and AFSC Investigate  databases of companies enabling the occupation. Below we give some of the targets we are campaigning against.

3. Pressure (non-boycott) targets – The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these brands and services due to their complicity in Israeli apartheid. We have not, on strategic grounds, called for a boycott of these brands and services, instead we strategically call on supporters and institutions to mount other forms of pressure on them until they end their complicity in Israeli apartheid.

4. Organic boycott targets – The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but is in support of them due to these brands openly supporting Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

1. Consumer boycott targets:

Siemens


Siemens (Germany) is the main contractor  for the Euro-Asia Interconnector, an Israel-EU submarine electricity cable that is planned to connect Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to Europe. Siemens-branded electrical appliances are sold globally.

PUMA


Since 2018 we have called for a boycott of PUMA (Germany) due to its sponsorship  of the Israel Football Association, which governs teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In a major BDS win in December 2023, PUMA leaked news to the media that it will not be renewing its contract when it expires in December 2024. We continue to call for #BoycottPUMA until it ends its complicity in Israeli apartheid.

Carrefour


Carrefour (France) is a genocide enabler. Carrefour-Israel has supported Israeli soldiers partaking in the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with gifts of personal packages. In 2022, it entered a partnership  with the Israeli company Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both of which are involved in grave violations against the Palestinian people.

AXA


When Russia invaded Ukraine, insurance giant AXA (France) took targeted measures against it. Yet, as Israel, a 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid, wages a genocidal war on Gaza, AXA continues to invest  in Israeli banks financing war crimes and the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources.

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Question related to this article:

How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

(continued from left column)

Hewlett Packard Inc (HP Inc)


HP Inc (US) provides  services to the offices of genocide leaders, Israeli PM Netanyahu and Financial Minister Smotrich.

SodaStream


SodaStream is actively complicit in Israel’s policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev) and has a long history of racial discrimination against Palestinian workers.

Ahava


Ahava cosmetics has its production site, visitor center, and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory.

RE/MAX


RE/MAX (US) markets and sells property in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, thus enabling Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli produce in your supermarkets


Fruits, vegetables, and wines misleadingly labeled as “Product of Israel” often include products of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Israeli companies do not distinguish between the two, and neither should consumers. Boycott produce  from Israel in your supermarket and demand their removal from shelves.

2. Divestment targets:

Elbit Systems
Elbit Systems  is apartheid Israel’s largest arms company. It “field-tests” its weapons on Palestinians, including in Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza. On top of building killer drones, Elbit makes surveillance technology for Israel’s apartheid wall, checkpoints and Gaza fence, enabling apartheid. The US and EU use Elbit’s technology to militarize their borders, violating refugee and indigenous peoples’ rights.
 

HD Hyundai/Volvo/CAT/JCB


Machinery from HD Hyundai (South Korea), Volvo (Sweden/China), CAT (US), and JCB (UK) has been used by Israel in the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians through the destruction of their homes, farms, and businesses, as well as the construction of illegal settlements on land stolen from them, a war crime under international law.
 
Barclays


Barclays Bank (UK) holds more than £1 billion in shares of, and provides more than £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians.

CAF


Basque transport firm, CAF, builds and services the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), a tram line that serves Israel’s illegal settlements in Jerusalem. CAF benefits  from Israel’s war crimes on stolen Palestinian land.

Chevron


US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main international corporation extracting gas  claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron generates billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system, and exacerbating the climate crisis.

HikVision


Amnesty International has documented  high-resolution CCTV cameras made by the Chinese company Hikvision installed in residential areas and mounted to Israeli military infrastructure for surveillance of Palestinians. Some of these models, according to Hikvision’s own marketing, can plug into external facial recognition software.

TKH Security


Amnesty International has identified  cameras made by the Dutch company TKH Security used by Israel for surveillance of Palestinians. TKH provides Israeli police with surveillance technology that is used to entrench apartheid. 

3. Pressure (non-boycott) targets:

Google and Amazon (US)

As the Israeli military bombed homes, clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in occupied Jerusalem May 2021, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud executives signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. By supporting Israeli apartheid with vital technologies, Amazon and Google are directly implicated in its entire system of oppression, including its unfolding genocide in Gaza. Join the #NoTechForApartheid campaign. While the campaigns targeting these corporations have not called for boycotts, other forms of pressure have been adopted to force them to end their complicity.

Airbnb/Booking/Expedia


Airbnb (US), Booking.com (Netherlands) and Expedia (US) all offer rentals in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land. While the campaigns targeting these corporations have not called for boycotts, yet, other forms of pressure have been adopted to force them to end their complicity.

Disney


The Disney-owned Marvel Studios (US) is promoting in the next Captain America film a “superhero” that personifies apartheid Israel. Both companies are therefore complicit in “anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and the glorification of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous people,” as Palestinian cultural organizations have stated.

4. Grassroots organic boycott targets:
McDonald’s (US), Burger King (US), Papa John’s (US), Pizza Hut (US), WIX (Israel), etc. are now being targeted in some countries by grassroots organic boycott campaigns, not initiated by the BDS movement, because these companies, or their branches or franchises in Israel, have openly supported apartheid Israel and/or provided generous in-kind donations to the Israeli military amid the current Israeli offensive against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip–described by leading international scholars of international law as an “unfolding genocide.” If these grassroots campaigns are not already organically active in your area, we suggest focusing your energies on our strategic campaigns above.

Remember, all Israeli banks and virtually all Israeli companies are complicit to some degree in Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid, and hundreds of international corporations and banks are also deeply complicit. We focus our boycotts on a small number of companies and products for maximum impact.

Additional resources: To learn more about companies complicit in Israel’s abuses of Palestinian human rights visit Who Profits, Investigate, and the UN database of companies involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

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