Unite votes to boycott Israel
By Jonathan Kalmus, June 4, 2010
Britain's largest union, Unite, has unanimously passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies at its first policy conference in Manchester on Wednesday.
The motion, which passed unanimously, called the union "to vigorously promote a policy of divestment from Israeli companies", while a boycott of Israeli goods and services will be "similar to the boycott of South African goods during the era of apartheid".
Reflecting the University and College Union's call at their Manchester conference earlier in the week, Unite will similarly host a "Palestine conference" to support trade union action against Israel.
But at odds with the UCU's call to sever links with Israel's trade union movement Histadrut, Unite delegates voted to keep solidarity links. Stephen Scott, director of Trade Union Friends of Israel, said that indicates a split within the pro-boycott movement, many of whom realise such a call "is all very dangerous stuff.
"It would be huge for another trade union movement to expel them even when they are a democratic organisation and pass all the criteria of being a member of the international trade unions."
Nevertheless, Mr Scott added: "All round, you now have a major player supporting the boycott and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and there is no resistance."
Last updated: 12:26pm, June 4 2010
Pixies have cancelled their debut Israel gig in the wake of attacks on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
The band were scheduled to headline at the Pic.Nic festival on Wednesday (June 9), but pulled out with "great regret", reports BBC News.
Whilst an official reason has not been given, speculation suggests the decision was linked to Israel's attack last week which killed nine pro-Palestinian activists.
The band is the latest act to pull out of performing in the country, after other big names such as Elvis Costello, Klaxons and Gorillaz Sound System also cancelled appearances in Israel.
Other acts, including Elton John and Rod Stewart, are still planning to play Israel this summer.
Palestinian boycott of Israeli settlement goods starts to bite Campaign to clear supermarket shelves of West Bank settlement wares forces Israeli factories to cut production
Harriet Sherwood in Ramallah
guardian.co.uk,
29 June 2010
Israeli factories based in settlements on the West Bank have been forced to cut back production as a growing Palestinian boycott movement begins to take effect. The boycott, endorsed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was given further momentum this week when a campaign to clear supermarket shelves of produce originating in settlements was rolled out in Ramallah.
"The objective is to ensure the Palestinian market is free of Israeli settlement produce by the end of this year," the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said at the launch of the Store to Store campaign at the Alameen supermarket.
A team of volunteers will inspect 66,000 stores across the West Bank in the coming weeks, awarding certificates and window stickers to those free of settlement produce. After a period of grace, shopkeepers retaining such produce in their stores could be liable to a fine of more than £9,000 or up to five years in prison under a law already passed but not yet enforced by the Palestinian legislative council.
"This is the daily expression of rejection of the occupation," Fayyad said. "It will help ensure that the Palestinian economy is self-sufficient. There will not be a store in Palestine which cannot carry our stickers." The pro-boycott campaigners are careful to draw a distinction between produce from West Bank settlements, which are illegal under international law, and produce originating from within Israel. The latter will continue to be sold in Palestinian shops.
The campaign has been attacked by Israeli politicians, businesses and commentators. "The Palestinians are opposing economic peace and are taking steps that in the end hurt themselves," the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said last month. The West Bank market is worth around $200m (£133m) a year to Israeli businesses. But some settlement factories sell about 30% of their output to the Palestinian market, and the boycott is already having an impact on them.
Seventeen factories in Mishor Adumim, a large industrial estate between East Jerusalem and Jericho, have reportedly closed since the boycott campaign began. Some settlement factories are reported to be considering moving back into Israel. Others in the Barkan industrial zone, near the settlement of Ariel, have reduced production, according to David Ha'ivri of the Shomron regional council, a pro-settler organisation in the northern West Bank. "Many of the factories are seeking alternative markets," he said. A factory producing aluminium window frames, which used to sell 30% of its output to the Palestinian market, had cut the hours of its 160 employees rather than lay people off, he said.
More than half the 5,000-6,000 employees in the Barkan zone are Palestinian, employed under Israeli labour legislation and entitled to the Israeli minimum wage of around $1,000 a month – considerably more than the average wage in the West Bank economy. "[The boycott] is an unwise act by the Palestinian Authority," said Ha'ivri. "The damage caused will be felt by both sides. They're cutting off the branch they're sitting on."
The Palestinian Authority has established a $50m fund to provide alternative employment and grants in an effort to both discourage Palestinians from working in the settlements and foster the West Bank economy. According to the Manufacturers Association of Israel, some 22,000 Palestinians are employed by settlement businesses – in construction, agriculture, manufacturing and service industries. It is holding an extraordinary meeting this week to ascertain the impact of the boycott and consider what action to take.
Dan Catarivas of the association said firms were more concerned about the withdrawal of Palestinian labour than the boycott of goods, although the impact was uneven. "These Israeli firms will have to find new workers – either Israelis or foreigners. But at the end of the day the Israeli companies will find other options, and the Palestinian workers will be left without jobs." He said the Israeli government had offered incentives to firms to establish factories in the West Bank, and it was possible that some of them may now seek compensation for their losses.
The Palestinian Authority said it was pleased with the level of support for the boycott, put in a recent survey at around 85%. Fayyad said it was "empowering the people" to resist the Israeli occupation without resorting to violence. "People feel national pride that they can participate in this campaign," a spokesman said. The boycott is part of a wider attempt to foster non-violent resistance against Israel's occupation, including largely peaceful demonstrations against the separation barrier.
Internationally, the boycott is gaining momentum. European Union guidelines urge supermarkets to clearly mark the origin of produce on labels to allow consumers to distinguish between Palestinian, Israeli and settlement produce.
The Alameen supermarket owner, Erekat Ribhi Shukar, insisted Palestinian produce was competitive in terms of quality and price with settlement goods. "We should support Palestinian producers to help our economy," he said beneath a sign declaring "My conscience is clear – my store is clean of settlement produce". At the rear of the store, two young women shoppers examining a chiller cabinet containing Palestinian and Israeli dairy products but no settlement goods said they backed the campaign. "We want products that benefit our economy, not harm it," said one.
The Methodist Church today voted to boycott all products from Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories becoming the first major Christian denomination in Britain to officially adopt such a policy.
The decision was made at the church’s Conference in Portsmouth, an annual gathering which decides Methodist policy. The official stance of the church, the fourth largest Christian denomination in Britain, will be to boycott any products made on Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Lay Methodists will also be encouraged to follow the church’s lead.
The move will inevitably put Methodists on a collision course with Britain’s Jewish community. The Board of Deputies of British Jews had already expressed concern over a 50-page report which had been compiled by a Methodist committee and sent to all its churches before the conference explaining why a boycott was justified.
In December, Defra introduced new advice on labelling, recommending that packaging of products imported from the West Bank should distinguish between Palestinian areas and Israeli settlements.
Christine Elliott, Secretary for External Relationships, said, “This decision has not been taken lightly, but after months of research, careful consideration and finally, today’s debate at the Conference. The goal of the boycott is to put an end to the existing injustice. It reflects the challenge that settlements present to a lasting peace in the region.
Ben White, a Methodist supporter if the boycott, said: “This is a clear show of support from Jews and Christians who understand that a real peace for both peoples requires justice. It stands in stark contrast to the disingenuous threat that listening to the call of Christian Palestinians and upholding international law and human rights will damage ‘inter-faith relations’ – on the contrary, inter-faith dialogue is not facilitated by ignoring serious questions about injustice.”
The silent treatment Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack tells William Parry why he is boycotting Israel.
William Parry
3 September 2010
newstatesman.com
The movement for a cultural boycott of Israel in response to its treatment of the Palestinians, modelled on the boycott of apartheid South Africa, could eclipse decades of disingenuous political charades in engaging western intellectuals, academics and artists. Internationally renowned figures such as Naomi Klein and Ken Loach have supported the call, and now one of Britain's most successful bands, Massive Attack, is publicly backing the boycott.
“I've always felt that it's the only way forward," Robert Del Naja, the band's lead singer, tells me when we meet at the Lazarides gallery in Fitzrovia, London. Del Naja is an artist as well as musician and his face and fingers are speckled with paint. Dozens of his pictures are strewn all over the wooden floorboards, drying. "It's a system that's been applied to many countries. It's a good thing to aim for because it applies the continual pressure that's needed."
Musicians have a history of rallying the public to supporting political causes. The global anti-apartheid movement got the fillip it desperately needed when musicians began supporting it. The single "Sun City" by Artists United Against Apartheid in 1985 and the 70th-birthday tribute concert for Nelson Mandela at Wembley in 1988 catapulted the cause into millions of ordinary homes.
“I think musicians have a major role to play," Del Naja says. "I find the more I get involved, the more the movement becomes something tangible. I remember going to 'Artists Against Apartheid' gigs, and 'Rock Against Racism' gigs around the same sort of time. Bands like the Clash and the Specials had a lot to do with influencing the minds of the youth in those days." Those formative experiences are still evident in Massive Attack's outlook today. A typical gig by the band is a blistering fusion of music with political messages and statistics flashed up on video screens, while the band regularly lends support to humanitarian causes.
Calls for a boycott were first issued five years ago by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, but a series of developments beginning with the Gaza war in winter 2008-2009 have led to rising support for the campaign. After Israel's deadly raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in May this year, a number of leading artists, including the Pixies, Elvis Costello and Gorillaz, cancelled concerts in Israel. In August, 150 Irish visual artists also pledged not to exhibit in Israel, but it is musicians who have been the most prominent international supporters of the boycott.
Their views are not unanimous, however. Other musicians, from Elton John and Diana Krall (Costello's wife) to Placebo and John Lydon, have refused to cancel concert dates in Israel. Some have insisted that engagement with Israel is more productive - a stance that Del Naja rejects. "We were asked to play Israel and we refused," he says. "The question was asked: 'If you don't play there, how can you go there and change things?' I said: 'Listen, I can't play in Israel when the Palestinians have no access to the same fundamental benefits that the Israelis do.' I think the best approach is to boycott a government that seems hell-bent on very destructive policies. And it's sad, because we've met some great people in Israel, and it's a difficult decision to have to make."
Beyond the arts world, an increasing number of trade unions, student unions and churches are signing up to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Even an Israel-based group, Boycott from Within, backs the campaign, stating that its government's "political agenda will change only when the price of continuing the status quo becomes too high . . . because the current levels of apathy in our society render this move necessary".
“We are not going to achieve a quick liberation," Del Naja concedes, but says the point is to apply "pressure, the continual pressure that's needed". And the threat of international isolation and economic repercussions is clearly starting to bite: Israel's parliament, the Knesset, recently passed the first reading of a bill that would impose heavy fines on Israeli citizens who initiate or support boycotts against Israel, and a bill to bar foreigners - like Del Naja - who do the same from entering Israel for ten years.
“The boycott is not an action of aggression towards the Israeli people," he says. "It's towards the government and its policies. Everyone needs to be reminded of this because it's very easy to be accused of being anti-Semitic, and that's not what this is about."
William Parry's "Against the Wall: the Art of Resistance in Palestine" is published by Pluto Press (£14.99)
US actors back boycott of West Bank theater
08/09/2010
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an)
Following the movement of Israeli theater professionals who authored a letter refusing to perform in the settlement of Ariel, American counterparts have come together with their own statement of support. "As American actors, directors, critics and playwrights, we salute our Israeli counterparts for their courageous decision," the letter says.
Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish-American organization, the statement has been signed by over 150 theater and film professionals representing some influential artists in theater and film. Among them are "Sex and the City"'s Cynthia Nixon, playwright Tony Kushner, 21-time Tony winner for productions of "The Pajama Game" to "Phantom of the Opera" Harold Prince, star of the film "Yentl," Mandy Patinkin, and Cameri co-founder Theodore Bikel.
"The response of American artists to the courageous actions of their Israeli counterparts is just phenomenal. It is especially notable that so many of the signatories are Jewish Americans with long-standing connections to Israel," Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said in a statement. "We hope that the strong show of solidarity by Americans in response to these brave Israelis will help spark a new conversation in both countries, one that acknowledges that the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are illegal by every measure of international law, contribute to the daily violation of human rights of Palestinians, and are a major obstacle to a just peace in the region."
The original Israeli actors' letter was widely criticized the Israeli public and government including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who at the beginning of last week's cabinet meeting denounced the initiative. “The State of Israel is under an attack of delegitimization by elements in the international community. This attack includes attempts to enact economic, academic and cultural boycotts. The last thing we need at this time is to be under such an attack,” The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli daily, quoted him as saying.
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