CONFERENCE ON PALESTINE SOLIDARITY AND JEWISH OPPOSITION TO ZIONISM

Palestine solidarity and Jewish opposition to Zionism

On Saturday 2 March 2013, dozens of supporters and friends of J-BIG, Jews and non-Jews, gathered for a conference to explore how the universalist, humanitarian philosophy central to much Jewish thinking has been marginalised by Zionism and how that universalism leads naturally to support for the  Palestinian call for a non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, targeting Israeli institutions as long as it denies Palestinians freedom, justice and equality.

A detailed report posted immediately after the conference appears on Tony Greenstein’s blog.

Listen here to audio recordings. Film of the main contributions will be added shortly.

The first session, on Jewish values in support of Palestinian rights , began with the screening of a short film, BUNDA’IM,  introducing the last comrades of the Bund mass movement which was exterminated in Europe and ignored in Israel.

Then came a discussion led by David Rosenberg from the Editorial Committee of Jewish Socialist magazine  and Antony Lerman, author of The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist and former director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research.

They dealt with aspects of Zionism and Bundism in pre-WWII Poland and described  how Zionist leaders have marginalised Bundism in the diaspora,  Zionist attacks on proponents of Jewish universalism and the conflation of antisemitism with opposition to Zionism.

In a panel discussion, a range of speakers tackled issues facing the BDS movement.

Sue Blackwell from the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) outlined the Zionist resort to legal challenge against the Universities and Colleges Union (since gloriously vindicated by a tribunal) for its willingness to debate BDS and refusal to apply the so-called EUMC working definition of antisemitism which seeks to outlaw criticism of Israel.

Michael Deas, coordinator in Europe for the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) was unable to attend due to illness. In his stead Ronnie Barkan, a leading member of Israeli organisations Anarchists against the Wall and Boycott from Within, discussed the centrality of BDS to the anti-racist, anti-colonialist Palestinian struggle.

Tony Greenstein, speaking for Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), explained the rationale behind publication of the briefing document  Zionism and Antisemitism: Racist Political Twins.

John Rose, author of The Myths of Zionism, unpicked the Zionist myths used to perpetuate the idea that Israeli Jews confront eternal Arab hatred and Israel therefore has the right to “defend itself” by any means.

Hours of discussion were rounded off with an evening of entertainment compered by Deborah Fink, “The Diva with a Difference”,  and starred renowned Palestinian singer Reem Kelani with the up-and-coming musicians of the Raast collective, led by Kareem Taylor.

The conference was twinned with another event at the same venue on the following day, Sunday March 2, bringing together expert speakers on a range of subjects under the heading Reclaiming an Alternative Jewish Culture and Identity

Listen to audio recordings here.

 Ilan Pappe: Jewish Culture In A Non-ZionistOneState In Palestine.

Moshe Machover: Hebrew v. Jewish Identity

Prof. Helen Beer: Jewish Identity Without Yiddish?

Yuval Evri: 19C. Palestinian Arab Judaism

Murray Glickman: BCE Judaism

Cloe Skinner: Gender & Zionism

Sai Englert: The Bund & The 1917 Russian Revolution

ANGER AT GAZA SLAUGHTER TARGETS SADLER’S WELLS

AN UPDATED NEWS RELEASE FROM THE BRITISH COMMITTEE FOR THE UNIVERSITIES OF PALESTINE AND JEWS FOR BOYCOTTING ISRAELI GOODS

NOVEMBER 18 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ANGER AT GAZA SLAUGHTER TARGETS SADLER’S WELLS

• PROTEST OVER GAZA DEATHS MOVES TO THEATRE HOSTING ISRAEL’S BATSHEVA DANCE ENSEMBLE

 

• BATSHEVA ACCUSED OF ACTING AS CULTURAL FIGLEAF FOR ATROCITIES

 

• SADLER’S WELLS BEEFS UP SECURITY IN PREPARATION FOR PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTS

• ACADEMICS CONDEMN THEATRE MANAGEMENT REFUSAL TO ENTER DIALOGUE

November 18 - Protests at the growing Palestinian death toll caused by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza will move from outside London’s Israeli Embassy to the city’s premier contemporary dance venue at Sadler’s Wells, Islington on Monday.

A nationwide campaign,  Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid, has already interrupted 11 dance performances by Israel’s Batsheva Ensemble in six cities up and down the country and is now targeting the Israeli troupe’s three planned performances at Sadler’s Wells on Nov 19, 20 & 21.

Campaigners say their protest is not directed at individual Israeli artists, but at the government which deliberately uses culture as cover for its human rights abuses and violations of international law.

 

“We target artistic institutions which are intrinsically linked to the Israeli state through funding and the ‘Brand Israel ’ initiative,” the campaign leaflets say. They quote an Israeli Foreign Affairs ministry spokesman outlining, in the wake of the previous onslaught on Gaza which killed more than 1300 Palestinians, its explicit intention to send abroad cultural icons to “show Israel ’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”

Although Batsheva’s artistic director Ohad Naharin has publicly opposed Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, his company isembraced by Israel ’s far-right government as their finest cultural ambassador.

It receives funding from the Israeli state, Israeli arms companies and the racist Jewish National Fund which works openly to dispossess Palestinians and replace them with Jewish immigrants.

“With Israel escalating its attacks on Gaza, killing dozens including civilians, with children among them, we intend our protests to reclaim for the Palestinians a tiny piece of the cultural and physical space which Israel has stolen from them,” said Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, cultural working group coordinator for the Boycott Israel Network, part of the UK Don’t Dance coalition. “We do not accept that art may be used as a figleaf for killings and collective punishment of a civilian population.”

Sadler’s Wells management has emailed ticket-holders telling them to expect “groups of peaceful demonstrators” at the Batsheva Ensemble performances, with the possibility of “some form of disruption inside the venue”. Bags will be searched on arrival and people should be ready for delays, the email said.

The theatre’s chief executive and artistic director Alistair Spalding refused to meet academics from the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine  (BRICUP) who had asked to discuss the invitation to Batsheva with him.

Spalding insisted the Israeli company was no different from other international institutions: “the vehicle for the creative expression of their artistic directors and not .. representatives of the governments of their countries.

“I have a firm belief in cultural engagement rather than exclusion and … will present the work of choreographic artists whatever theirnationality,” Spalding said.

Prof Jonathan Rosenhead, chair of BRICUP, said that Sadler’s Wells commitment to cultural engagement seemed not to extend to dialogue with principled critics. Spalding had failed to address any of the arguments BRICUP had made, said Rosenhead.

He referred in particular to the conditions under which Palestinian culture has to operate, described by a Palestinian dancer as “ Israel ‘s three-tiered system of occupation, colonisation and apartheid [which] ruthlessly suffocates the livelihoods of Palestinian communities, including our right to artistic and cultural expression.”

BRICUP has issued an open letter to Batsheva’s Naharin,  even more relevant now that Gaza is under Israeli attack, asking “What does the artistic freedom of yourself and your dancers mean, when it’s used as international cover by a state that’s essentially trying to force out the indigenous Palestinian population?”

Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid began its campaign with protests at performances by the main Batsheva Dance company in the Edinburgh International Festival at the end of August , winning support from considerable Scottish cultural figures including the national poet (Makar) Liz Lochhead.

Hundreds of campaign supporters have made their presence felt at every stop on the current tour by Batsheva’s junior Ensemble, beginning in Scotland  before moving on to Manchester and Bradford .

In Brighton Green Party MP Caroline Lucas wrote to the Dome Theatre management reminding them that: “Israel’s sponsorship of arts and cultural events is one deliberate way in which it is actively seeking to repair the reputational damage inflicted by its treatment of Palestinians, so Palestinian civil society has called for a full cultural boycott of all cultural performers and exhibitors that are institutionally linked to the Israeli state.”

There were more protests on November 13 & 14 in Birmingham where five  protestors disrupted the performance on each of the two nights, and on the second night they managed to drop a banner from the Circle.

Demonstrators massed outside the Leicester Curve on Friday Nov 16

A performance in Leicester on Friday night attracted a hundred or more local people angered by the assault on Gaza. As in every other venue, the show was interrupted on a number of occasions by protesters calling out pro-Palestinian slogans.

After Sadler’s Wells there are two more Batsheva Ensemble tour dates, in Plymouth on Nov 23 & 24.

ENDS

 

 

HUMANISING THOSE ISRAEL SEEKS TO DEMONISE

One of Shahd Abusalama’s drawings from Gaza

Click the caption to read the names and ages of the victims of Israel’s current assault on Gaza.

The letter below has appeared in the Guardian newspaper, along with several others commenting on the attacks. Initiated by Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, it has been signed by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and more than 30 individuals including actress Miriam Margolyes, comedian, author and actor Alexei Sayle, writer/musician Leon Rosselson and author Mike Marqusee. (Not all the names appear in the Guardian).

Letter to the editor
As Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights, we have once again watched in horror as Israel escalates its lethal bombardment on the civilian population of Gaza.  Numerous people including children are being killed or wounded.  Israeli casualties came only after Israel, having started the slaughter by killing a 13-year-old boy in Gaza on November 8, shattered a truce by assassinating the Gazan military leader who had negotiated it. So who is the terrorist and who wants peace?

Israel’s political-military leaders cynically escalate the conflict, trying to justify their blockade on Gaza and acting tough in the run-up to government elections. Having turned Gaza into an open-air prison, they again punish the Palestinians for electing leaders who attempt to resist the illegal Occupation.

Too much of our media, the BBC in particular, collude with the official Israeli version: that the attacks are ‘targeted’ retaliation for rockets launched from Gaza. Despite hand-wringing by some Western governments, they encourage Israeli belligerence by labelling Hamas as a terrorist organisation, supporting the Gaza siege and denying Palestinian rights, both within and outside Israel. We support the peaceful campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) designed to help achieve those rights.

TRIUMPHANT PALESTINIAN RICHARD II AT SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE

“London loved the Palestinian Theatre’s performance of Richard II in Arabic at the Globe World Shakespeare Festival on4th May 2012 – a wonderful play beautifully performed.”

Sami Metwasi, Ashtar’s witty and tragic King Richard, addresses the post performance discussion audience.

So commented one audience member who joined a packed and lively post-performance discussion on Friday evening with more than a dozen members of the ASHTAR theatre company and British theatre professionals and enthusiasts.

Also on the panel were UK writer and broadcaster Bidisha and Sonja Linden, founder of iceandfire theatre . There is a full audio recording of the discussion here.  Ashtar’s Richard II is on film here.

Based in Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, Ashtar was formed in 1991 by two prominent Palestinian actors and directors, Iman Aoun and Edward Muallem, both of whom were on stage in Richard II at the Globe on May 4 and 5.

Iman Aoun, artistic director of Ashtar

Their Gaza Monologues, created in 2010 and performed by more than 60 companies in 36 countries, was their artistic response to the Israeli assault on Gaza which killed almost 1,400 Palestinians in Dec/Jan 2008/09. It told the personal stories of a group of children from Gaza. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to stop its performance in Norway.

Edward Muallem, co-founder of Ashtar, Northumberland in Richard II

At the beginning of Friday’s discussion, Aoun, Muallem and 11 other cast members introduced themselves, each drawing warm applause from the audience as they revealed the richness and complexity of their lives as Palestinian artists living and working all over Palestine and the diaspora.

Many are established figures in Palestinian society as directors, playwrights, film-makers, theatre group founders and artistic directors, and educators.

Amer Khalil, Bagot in Richard II, works in theatre with young people in Gaza and the West Bank.

Ashtar’s artistic director Aoun said that in interpreting a Shakespeare play outside their usual repertoire, they had to work hard to understand the setting for Richard II, to explore its meaning at the human level, and to consider what it meant to them.

“With help from our Irish director Connall Morrison we eventually made our starting point the end of the play, where Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV of England) says he will go to Jerusalem to clean his hands of the blood he had shed – and to dirty our land!,” said Aoun.

“Britain occupied Ireland as it later occupied Palestine. But the play speaks far beyond our situation. Shakespeare talks about every tyrant, every power struggle in every place and time.”

At the Globe’s reception for Ashtar, after their second performance of Richard II on Saturday May 5, Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole hailed Ashtar’s interpretation of a play which the English habitually did not “get”.

“It took a Palestinian company to show us what it’s really about,” he said.

The discussion on Friday, held in a lecture theatre at the Globe but organised independently by Ashtar with help from London-based campaigners for Palestinian rights, repeatedly highlighted Ashtar’s role as artists performing universal work.

“When Palestinian artists perform, they are not only representing their lives under military occupation,” said Bidisha, noting that resistance may take political, diplomatic or cultural forms.

Writer and broadcaster Bidisha

She said the play’s bloody action gave us claustrophobic character studies reminiscent of a rich Saudi family scheming and fighting for wealth and power.

Linden, whose own work explores stories that are often passed over or ignored, said artists have a duty to engage and bear witness. She called theatre “a form of non-violent resistance.”

Playwright Sonja Linden

The audience  included a number of actors, directors and playwrights who had signed a letter calling on the Globe to rescind its invitation to the Israeli National Theatre, Habima, in the Shakespeare festival.

Actors Roger Lloyd-Pack (centre) and Kika Markham (right)

BDS campaigner Les Levidow asks Ashtar’s view of the boycott movement

The Habima issue was one of those raised in audience questions.

Aoun stated unequivocally that all the theatre companies represented by Ashtar’s members support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and specifically cultural boycott.

“We cannot agree to any hostile presence on the West Bank, or engage with anyone complicit in it,” she said. “Remember we have to LIVE the Occupation. Even coming here, to perform  at the Globe, I was strip searched at Tel Aviv airport.”

Nicola Zreineh, Iman Aoun, George Ibrahim

Nicola Zreineh, who played Richard II’s deposer Bolingbroke in the play, said the boycott was not just about Habima.

“Any institution of the Israeli state should be cut off as long as justice is denied,” he said.

George Ibrahim, sharing the platform with Aoun and Zreineh, reminded the audience;  “We Palestinians are all besieged. Even in Jerusalem the cruel, ugly wall separates us.”

Another Ashtar member, Firas Farah, joked that checkpoints and closures made it easier to get from Jerusalem to London than to Ramallah.

Firas Farah, Aumerle in Richard II

“When Henry Bolingbroke says he is going to Jerusalem, I think – ‘How will he get a permit?’” said Farah.

In an interview with journalist Eleanor Kilroy before coming to London, Aoun addressed the idea that cultural boycott prevents communication between artists on different sides of a conflict. She agreed that art can build bridges and bring people together,  but she appealed for “a bit of sanity.”

“At night Israeli artists want to perform with us and in the morning they serve in the army. What is the use of going on producing art when deep down they know they are breaking basic human rights by supporting the occupation and its apartheid regime and settlements? Israelis need to work inside their own society; changes have to occur on the ground in Israel for there to be real justice.”

Other members of the Ashtar team were pictured at the discussion by Abbas from inminds.

Bayan Shbib, the Queen

Mohammad Eid, Ross

Ihab Zahdeh, Mowbray and two other parts

Iyad Hurani, Percy in Richard II

Hussein Nakhleh (standing), John of Gaunt

Raed Ayasa, plays Ross and a gardener

George Ibrahim, Duke of Gloucester & Duke of York

Nicola Zreineh, Henry Bolinbroke

See here for an excellent resume by Eleanor Kilroy of the arguments for Habima’s exclusion from the Globe’s festival.

Bidisha is launching her new book, Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine, on Wednesday May 16.

Some examples of media coverage for Ashtar:

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/globe-globe-richard-ii-shakespeares-globe

http://arabshakespeare.blogspot.co.uk/

http://jn1.tv/video/culture/?media_id=22210

http://www.alalamiatv.com/news/?p=4850

http://danhutton.wordpress.com/tag/ashtar-theatre/

BAD WEEK FOR PERES AS BDS VICTORIES MOUNT

Israeli President Shimon Peres appeared in contemplative mood on Israel’s 64th Independence Day, April 25, bemoaning the power of the boycott movement in an interview in Maariv.

After listing Israel’s huge achievements, Peres mused on why such a successful nation should seek peace. Not, evidently, because peace is good for humanity, that would be just silly. No. Israel should seek peace:

“Because if Israel’s image gets worse, it will begin to suffer boycotts. There is already an artistic boycott against us — they won’t let Habimah Theatre enter London — and signs of an undeclared financial boycott are beginning to emerge.”

The good president actually slightly overestimates the success of the BDS campaign against the presence of the Israeli National Theatre at the Globe-to-Globe festival, though it has made great strides.

But within hours of publication of his Maariv interview, Peres’s words seemed quite prophetic.

That very day, delegates to the Annual Conference of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), the umbrella group for every trade union in Scotland, voted unanimously for a range of resolutions condemning Israeli apartheid, including supporting the StoptheJNF campaign to expose the role of the racist JNF (Jewish National Fund).

Then on Friday April 27, tireless work from BDS activists paid off massively with the decision of the UK’s fifth biggest food retailer, The Co-operative Group, to “no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements”.

The Co-op’s decision, notified to campaigners in a statement, will immediately impact four suppliers, Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel’s largest agricultural export company.

Coverage of this major development spread rapidly in the British and Israeli media. The Guardian’s coverage, which for a time was the second most viewed item on its website, relied heavily on the statement put out by the Boycott Israel Network.

The Jerusalem Post was among many Israeli outlets to take up the story, and pro-Israel bloggers quickly leapt into action to demand a boycott of the Co-op.

Globe Olympic Shakespeare Festival challenged for inviting Israeli National Theatre

This news release went into circulation on Friday March 29, just in time for Palestine Land Day and the Global March for Jerusalem, with publication of a letter signed by leading actors, directors and playwrights, challenging the Globe Theatre for inviting Israel’s national theatre, Habima, to take part in London’s Oultural Olympiad. Habima is complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement of Palestinian land.

ATTENTION EDITORS – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

•  David Calder, Trevor Griffiths, Jonathan Miller, Mark Rylance, Emma Thompson, Harriet Walter call on Globe to withdraw invitation to Israeli theatre, Habima
•  Rylance – “support Israeli artists resisting illegal settlements”
•  Calder – Habima “a cultural fig-leaf” for Israeli brutality

Leading British actors, directors and authors are challenging the Globe to Globe World Shakespeare Festival, part of the Cultural Olympiad, over its invitation to an Israeli theatre company which performs for settlers on illegally occupied Palestinian land.

In an open letter published in The Guardian (March 29), David Calder, Trevor Griffiths, Jonathan Miller, Mark Rylance, Emma Thompson and Harriet Walter, along with 31 others, say the Israeli National Theatre, Habima, “has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

They call on Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, on London’s South Bank, to withdraw the invitation “so the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land”.

Habima is scheduled to perform The Merchant of Venice in Hebrew at the Globe on May 28 and 29 as one of 37 Shakespeare plays in 37 world languages during the seven week festival.

The Guardian letter notes that a number of Israeli theatre professionals have declared that they will not take part in performances in “halls of culture” built in two large Israeli settlements. Habima, however, has pledged to continue doing so.

“I sign this letter in support of those artists within Israel who are resisting the requests to play in the illegal settlements,” said actor Mark Rylance.   He drew a parallel with earlier campaigns supporting change in apartheid South Africa.

“Acting in the illegal settlements seems to me an act of provocation and disrespect. Surely peace will only be born when each person respects the other’s boundaries,” Rylance said.

The Globe’s response to appeals from Israeli, Palestinian and British campaigners for Habima’s invitation to be withdrawn has been to insist that the World Shakespeare Festival must be inclusive and keep channels of cultural communication open.

David Calder, whose roles include Shylock with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Lear with the Globe Theatre Company, said that Habima “placed itself outside the general case of ‘bridge-making culture’ by being prepared to play before a segregated audience of illegal settlers in a theatre from which Palestinians themselves are barred”.

Calder said that leading Israeli company Habima are part of “a cultural fig leaf” forIsrael’s daily brutality.

Notes for editors:

1. FULL TEXT OF LETTER + TOP 13 SIGNATORIES, REMAINING SIGS BELOW, ALL IN PERSONAL CAPACITY.

We notice with dismay and regret that Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in Londonhas invited Israel’s National Theatre, Habima, to perform The Merchant of Venice in its Globe to Globe festival this coming May.

The general manager of Habima has declared the invitation ‘an honourable accomplishment for the State of Israel’ (i).   But Habima has a shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Last year, two large Israeli settlements established ‘halls of culture’ and asked Israeli theatre groups to perform there.   A number of Israeli theatre professionals – actors, stage directors, playwrights – declared (ii) they would not take part.

Habima however accepted the invitation with alacrity, and promised the Israeli Minister of Culture that it would ‘deal with any problems hindering such performances’.   By inviting Habima, Shakespeare’s Globe is undermining the conscientious Israeli actors and playwrights who have refused to break international law.

The Globe says it wants to ‘include’ the Hebrew language in its festival – we have no problem with that.   ‘Inclusiveness’ is a core value of arts policy in Britain, and we support it.   But by inviting Habima, the Globe is associating itself with policies of exclusion practised by the Israeli state and endorsed by its national theatre company.   We ask the Globe to withdraw the invitation so the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land.

Yours sincerely,

David Calder, actor

Caryl Churchill, playwright

Trevor Griffiths, playwright

Mike Leigh, filmmaker, dramatist

Roger Lloyd Pack, actor

Cherie Lunghi, actor

Miriam Margolyes OBE, actor

Kika Markham, actor

Jonathan Miller, director, author and broadcaster

Mark Rylance, actor

Emma Thompson, actor, screenwriter

Harriet Walter DBE, actor

Richard Wilson, actor, director

Full list of further signatories:

David Aukin, producer

Poppy Burton-Morgan, artistic director, Metta Theatre

Leo Butler, playwright

Niall Buggy, actor

Jonathan Chadwick, director

Michael Darlow, writer, director

Annie Firbank, actor

Paul Freeman, actor

Matyelok Gibbs, actor

Tony Graham, director

John Graham Davies, actor, writer

Janet Henfrey, actor

James Ivens, artistic director, Flood Theatre

Andrew Jarvis, actor, director, teacher

Neville Jason, actor

Ursula Jones, actor

Professor Adah Kay, academic, playwright

Sonja Linden, playwright, iceandfire theatre

Frances Rifkin, director

Alexei Sayle, comedian, writer

Farhana Sheikh, writer

Andy de la Tour, actor, director

Hilary Westlake, director

Susan Wooldridge, actor, writer

(i) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170210,00.html

(ii) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/actors-boycott-west-bank-theatre

2. Habima’s planned involvement in the Globe to Globe festival aroused opposition initially from the Israeli organisation Boycott from Within, who wrote to Globe Theatre Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole in January 2012:

http://boycottisrael.info/content/call-shakespeares-globe-theatre

3. This was soon followed by a Palestinian appeal.

Excerpt from letter to the Globe from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI):

“Just as British theatres in the 1980s avoided inviting South African theatres that were part of the apartheid system and took a stance in opposition to apartheid, so must the Globe today disinvite Habima, a cultural ambassador of Israel and a defender of Israel’s illegal colonies.

All main Palestinian theatre artists and other cultural figures endorse  the cultural boycott of Israel and its complicit institutions as a minimal, peaceful form of resistance to the occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression.”

“We again call on the Globe to cancel this invitation which conflicts with its commitment to human rights.”[1]

4. Israeli, British and theatrical media picked up the story:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170210,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jan/17/globe-theatre-controversial-israeli-company

http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/34932/globe-defends-invitation-to-israeli-theatre

5. Habima’s general manager Odelia Friedman declared the invitation to perform at the Globe “an honourable accomplishment for the State of Israel”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4170210,00.html

6.  A Palestinian theatre group, Ashtar, based in Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, is to stage Richard II in Arabic on May 4 and  5.  A Habima spokesperson, Rut Tonn, described Ashtar’s appearance in the same festival as Habima as an example of “collaborations which will help with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/55939/israelis-fear-protests-globe-shakespeare-festival

But Ashtar has refuted any suggestion that its appearance in the festival four weeks before Habima’s implies any sort of balance or equivalence, and said in a letter to the Globe:

“They have insinuated cooperation with us to undermine the growing cultural boycott of complicit Israeli institutions.”[2]

7. The Israeli state explicitly utilises culture as a propaganda tool under the auspices of its Foreign Affairs ministry which launched a ‘Brand Israel’ campaign in 2005.

Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said: “We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

Artists who accept funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are required to sign a contract which states that the artist “is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.”

http://www.haaretz.com/putting-out-a-contract-on-art-1.250388

8. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has highlighted the role of theatre in bolstering the state’s policy of relentless settlement and colonisation and predicted that theatres around the world would lock their doors to Habima.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/puppet-theater-1.310770

9. The failure of the international community to hold Israel to account for its persistent infringements of human rights, flouting of UN resolution and breaches of international law has led to a Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions modelled on the non-violent campaign to end South African apartheid.

http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869

[1] Full text available on request

[2] Full text available on request

J-BIG joins wave of support for Jenny Tonge, champion of Palestinian rights

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods can confirm what so many others have been saying since Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg forced Jenny Tonge to resign from the party:  She is a consistent friend of Palestinian human rights, always willing to work with campaigners trying to bring an end to Israel’s unrelenting denial of justice to the Palestinian people.

“My experience of working with Jenny is of a warm, kind and genuine person, always supportive on a personal level and an enthusiastic participant in J-BIG events,” said Deborah Fink, a founding member of the  group. “Suggestions that she is an extremist who dislikes Jews are absurd.”

The report below, from Friends of Al-Aqsa, explains the circumstances surrounding Baroness Tonge’s departure from the Lib Dems and includes a call to act in her defence.

Guardian columnist Michael White says that her remarks about Israel were not as outrageous as Clegg made out.

Picture: Friends of Al-Aqsa

Baroness Jenny Tonge was given an ultimatum by Lib Dem Party leader Nick Clegg when she made a fair and accurate statement about the state of Israel – ‘retract the statement or leave the party’

Baroness Tonge, a long time champion of the Palestinian struggle for freedom chose to leave the party rather than be forced to toe the party line where Israel is concerned.

The exact statement she made at Middlesex University last week was:

“Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”

Ismail Patel, Chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa stated: “There was nothing in her statement which was unfair or inappropriate. The fact is that Israel in its present form is a racist state which has been occupying Palestinian land for over 44 years. This cannot and will not last forever. Millions of people around the world who form the ‘Free Palestine’ solidarity movement will work hard to ensure that Israel ends its occupation and that Arab Israeli’s are given equal rights within Israel. These aims merely represent international legal standards.”

Party leader Nick Clegg’s ultimatum was unnecessary and reflects the unacceptable sway the pro-Israel lobby appears to have on the party’s policies towards Israel.

ACTION ALERT

1. Write to Nick Clegg condemning his ultimatum to Jenny Tonge.

Email: leader@libdems.org.uk

2. Write to Baroness Jenny Tonge expressing support for her brave stand and continued solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Email: tongej@parliament.uk

Read FOA’s letter expressing our disappointment to Nick Clegg and our letter of support to Jenny Tonge.

Friends of Al-Aqsa

PALESTINIANS SCENT THEIR “SOUTH AFRICA MOMENT” – OMAR BARGHOUTI AT PSC AGM

Saturday January 21 marked a watershed moment for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the UK, with a standing ovation for Omar Barghouti, founder of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), at the Annual General Meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

(Photo: Tony Greenstein)

“Today, solidarity with Palestine cannot but include support for BDS as the most popular and one of the most effective forms of peaceful, civil struggle for Palestinian rights,” Barghouti told almost 300 campaigners from all over the UK,  meeting in the Conway Hall in London to mark the 30^th year since PSC’s foundation.

“At its most basic level, BDS calls for ending partnership in crime, ending complicity in the perpetration, justification and whitewash of Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights.

“Withdrawing support for an evil policy or system, as Martin Luther King describes the boycott, is not heroic; it is a profound moral obligation,” Barghouti said.

OUR “SOUTH AFRICA MOMENT”

With recent successes such as huge contract losses for French multinationals Alstom and Veolia, both complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation, the University of Johannesburg’s severance of ties with an Israeli university implicated in human rights violations and the spread of the cultural boycott to prominent musicians and other artists, “BDS is on the verge of its South Africa moment,” said Barghouti.

Building a mass boycott movement comparable to the South African anti-apartheid campaign was placed at the heart of PSC’s work for the coming year.

PSC members in the Conway Hall  

The AGM resolved to team up with trade unions, students, faith groups, human rights organisations and others working locally, nationally and internationally to end the siege of Gaza, to halt ethnic cleansing of Palestinians within Israel, in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territories;  to expose major companies complicit in colonial occupation and settlement, to bring to light the repressive apparatus of the Israeli state in its treatment of Palestinian prisoners and of children living under occupation and to challenge the media bias that marginalises the Palestinian narrative.

Barghouti clarified the origins of BDS as the specific name of the call issued by the great majority of Palestinian civil society on 9 July 2005, constituting “a qualitatively new phase in the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and in international solidarity with Palestinian rights.”

The call embodies the fundamental principles of Freedom, Justice and Equality in three basic demands which are the minimum required to achieve self-determination – right of return for refugees; end of 1967 occupation and colonisation; equality for the indigenous Palestinians inside Israel.

“No part of the Palestinian people can be ignored,” Barghouti said. “Anyone claiming to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people cannot be satisfied with ending the 1967 occupation alone while ignoring the basic rights of the rest of the Palestinian people.”

He said Palestinians’ basic rights under international law are “inalienable and non-negotiable”, but “the methods through which the movement of international solidarity supports our struggle to realise them are tactical and dependent on context, political alliances, awareness, among other variables.”

Israel’s regime of multi-tiered oppression had to be understood as settler-colonialism, occupation and apartheid, Barghouti said.

BDS A UNIVERSALIST MOVEMENT

He stressed that BDS is a universalist movement categorically opposed to all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and antisemitism. “This is not negotiable,” he said.

Equating Israel with “the Jews” is unacceptable and antisemitic. “Only Zionists and Nazis do that,” said Barghouti .

“Nazis say Jews are sub-human, Zionists say they are superhuman; both agree that they are not a normal part of the human species, and that is clearly racist.”

Suggesting that “the Jews” and Israel are one and the same “implies that Jews are one monolithic sum who think alike and are all collectively equivalent to Israel and responsible for Israel. If this is not antisemitic, I am not sure what is!” Barghouti said.

“Jews, like any other human group, have diversity and differences. Many of the leaders of the BDS movement in the West are Jewish intellectuals, academics, feminists, students, activists. Many of them support the struggle for Palestinian rights through BDS not just out of a deep-rooted sense of international solidarity and moral obligation but also based on their insistence thatIsrael, a colonial apartheid state, does not and should not speak in their names.”

NO PLACE FOR JEW-HATRED

The AGM endorsed these sentiments wholeheartedly, welcoming a statement posted on line by the Executive Committee last year affirming that “any expression of racism or intolerance, or attempts to deny or minimise the Holocaust, have no place in our movement.”

A motion from Tony Greenstein and Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), calling on the EC to integrate these principles into the work of the movement, was also passed overwhelmingly. They argued that Zionists’ baseless allegations of antisemitism, and cynical abuse of the memory of the Holocaust, would harm the Palestine solidarity movement if used to justify ignoring genuine Jew-hatred when it arose.

PSC Executive Committee member Ben Jamal regretted that Zionists attacking the movement had been able to cite a few “indefensible statements” by some individuals. Trade Union Advisory Committee member Steve Bell called on the AGM to make it absolutely clear that membership was not open to people holding antisemitic views.

The AGM had earlier upheld the removal from PSC membership of  Francis Clark-Lowes, whose appeal statement stunned listeners with its unapologetic racism. “Dislike of groups”, he said, should not be regarded as “a cardinal sin”. A Jew challenging “Jewish ideology” did not cease to be a Jew, any more than a dog that had lost a leg ceased to be a quadruped.

An edited version of Clark-Lowes  speech swiftly found its natural home on websites peddling racist conspiracy theories where his words were described as “beautiful”.

Such attitudes, Tony Greenstein pointed out in debate later on, were not only morally repugnant but would make it impossible to promote Palestinian rights in the trade union movement or within churches.

ENTERING THE MAINSTREAM

Joining forced with such mainstream organisations was the task of BDS campaigners from now on, according to Barghouti – to think long term, to build broad alliances and to build awareness of the struggle for Palestinian rights as part of the global struggle of the 99 percent – “for social and economic justice, for freedoms, for equal rights, against racism, for immigrant rights, for the environment, for LGBT rights.”

Israel’s expansionist and belligerent agenda, by contrast, “fits right at the centre of the agenda of the 1%, the ‘Perpetual Wars Inc.’ . . . the military industries, the homeland security businesses, the oil companies, the banks and financiers.”

“The 1% of the world are already united,” Barghouti said. “It is high time for us, the 99%, to unite.”

Read a fuller version of Omar Barghouti’s speech

See also Tony Greenstein’ report of the PSC AGM and thorough pre-AGM review of the issues on the agenda.

ZIONIST CHARITY DENOUNCED JEWISH BOYCOTT ACTIVISTS TO HOME OFFICE

Investigative journalist Asa Winstanley has discovered more evidence that the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid has Israel’s supporters  rattled.

Writing  in The Electronic Intifada, Winstanley said that, in its attempts to discredit Jews who backed Palestinian political activist Raed Salah’s fight against deportation from the UK,  the Community Security Trust (CST) denounced them to a government department as “extreme”.

Citing a report sent in August to the Home Office, Winstanley said the CST denounced several “anti-Zionist British Jewish individuals and groups” as “extreme groups,” claiming they were “unrepresentative of the vast majority of British Jews.

“The CST denounced as “extreme” well-known Palestine solidarity activist Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the anti-Zionist Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta. The report highlights that Wimborne-Idrissi is secretary of Jews For Boycotting Israeli Goods.”

Winstanley says that use of the term “extreme groups” is significant. “It’s a phrase the CST usually reserves for violent far-right groups such as the British National Party, the National Front and Combat 18; or for Islamic political groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

He  said it appeared that  ”the CST works behind the scenes with an assertively pro-Israel agenda not stated in its charitable remit. There are also serious questions over the CST’s links to the government of Israel and, allegedly, to its intelligence services.”

Read Winstanley’s report in full here, plus background on his sources.

BUILD PRESSURE ON UEFA TO “RED CARD ISRAELI APARTHEID”

Six months have passed since the 2011 UEFA Under-21s competition in Denmark and the launch of a campaign to persuade European football’s governing body to reverse its decision granting Israel the junior final in 2013.

Photo: Agence-France Presse

So far UEFA President Michel Platini has stubbornly refused to respond  to the appeal last June from 42 football clubs in besieged Gaza, not to reward Israel for its persistent infringements of Palestinian rights.

This is despite a steady stream of protests including a pitch invasion by French protesters,  a “Love Football, Hate Apartheid” action in Ireland and publication of a letter signed by high-profile individuals in two leading European newspapers.

The letter, over the names of renowned diplomat Stephane Hessel,  film-maker Ken Loach and Nobel Peace Prizewinner  Mairead Maguire among others, appeared in both the Irish Times and the UK Guardian.

“A state that uses military might to hold sway over land it illegally occupies and exploits, flouts international law and ignores UN resolutions surely forfeits the right to be treated as a member of the community of nations,” the letter said.

It called on UEFA to “respond positively” to the appeal from the 42 Gazan football clubs, backed by many sporting bodies.

Supporters of  the Red Card Israeli Apartheid campaign are now preparing to ratchet up the action with direct approaches to national football association presidents, supporters clubs and fans.

“UEFA is faced with serious ethical and moral problems by the choice of an Israeli venue for the finals,” said London-based campaign coordinator Geoff Lee. “With all the concern about racism in and around the game at the moment, it’s time to wake up to the fact that Israel’s entrenched discrimination against Palestinians amounts to systematic racism affecting football along with  the rest of society.”

Add your voice to the campaign by using this e-tool set up by the  Palestine Solidarity Campaign and following it on the BDSmovement website.

http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/red-card-uefa-campaign-8178#.TvNpdOXoyTx