Canadian BDS group SAIA Carleton shows how it's done

A thousand Bravos to SAIA Carleton!

From the press release:

However, the university administration’s attempts to muzzle the long list of divestment campaign endorsers – including over 2,000 letter and petition signatories, both the undergraduate and graduate students associations, and more than 25 student clubs, academic workers’ unions and university service centres – deeply backfired.   During one of the busiest academic weeks of the year, more than 400 divestment supporters rallied at every entrance of the building to challenge the illegitimate decision-making process, and to voice a united message: “Board of Governors, we won’t rest, we won’t rest til you divest!” In an inspiring show of solidarity, students and their allies engaged in a diversity of creative protest tactics, ranging from sit-ins to salsa and dabke dance-offs for divestment, successfully blocking several BOG members from entering the meeting. Eventually, the highly mobilized and energetic crowd became too much for the BOG to ignore, and they announced to the crowd that they had cancelled the meeting.  The BOG members who had literally walked over students to go upstairs to the meeting then exited the building through a ‘walk of shame’ created by the crowd of cheerful protestors.  (Students Against Israeli Apartheid, Carleton)

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in Toronto Pride

Quick item this. I read it first on Dr Dawg's Blawg, under a little list headed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

The good: Toronto Pride, no doubt with the assistance of considerable pressure, reverses itself: Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will be permitted to march after all. And Jonathan Kay is having a hissy-fit, which is also good.

The post is dated 24/6/2010 but I only got the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's take on the affair today. Maybe it took them this long (nearly a week) to co-ordinate this spontaneous outpouring of condemnation that the JTA reports under the headline:Gay pride parade used ruse to include anti-Israel group, critics charge. A ruse? What ruse?

Canadian Jewish organizations are saying they will not back down after an unexpected policy reversal that will allow an anti-Israel group to participate in this year's Toronto gay pride parade.

Organizers of the annual parade, one of the largest events on Canada's cultural calendar, backtracked this month from an earlier decision that had banned a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from marching in the parade under that name. Critics said the reversal was part of a ruse designed to secure some $120,000 in city funding.

Parade officials, responding to pressure from Jewish groups and several municipal politicians, including candidates for mayor, said in May that they were "disallowing" the controversial group from using the phrase "Israeli apartheid" in the July 4 parade. Officials said the anti-Israel group could march under another banner, such as "Queers in Favor of a Free Palestine."

Ah the old, we're all for a, ahem, "Free Palestine" ruse. But what do we want Palestine to be free of?

And there's the rub.

Check out the rest of the article. I'm still not quite sure who is being accused of the ruse and what the ruse actually was. Was it Queers Against Israeli Apartheid or the Pride organisers?

The lobby in Canada

The Israel lobby in Canada is as nasty as it is anywhere if the case of Canadian MP, Libby Davies, is anything to go by. They are not content with hassling people who have made comments condemning this or that atrocity by the racist war criminals of the State of Israel, they have to get in people's faces now, ask them what they think of something or other and then go nuclear when they get an honest response. See this from Straight.com:

Vancouver East MP Libby Davies got bushwacked by a pro-Israel activist posing as a neutral – if not pro-Palestinian – blogger. After a rally for the Palestinians criticizing Israel’s deadly assault on the aid flotilla, a man approached Libby asking for an interview. As she always does, because she never hides her views, she complied. He immediately set her up with what he called a “background question.” He asked when the occupation began, 1948 or 1967.

Libby hesitated then said 1948. She made the point that the date was not important – that whatever the date the occupation was the longest in the world – and far too long.

The next day the interview appeared on YouTube. But in 24 hours it had gone nowhere – just 28 views. Then the most vociferous supporter of Israel in the NDP caucus, Thomas Mulcair, got wind of it and it escalated out of control. He went on a relentless campaign to punish Libby. The spin he helped create was that if Libby believed the occupation began in 1948 then she, ipso facto, believes that Israel has no right to exist. Libby has always gone to great lengths to make it clear that she supports Israel’s right to exist and the two-state solution endorsed by the NDP. But suddenly Jack Layton was in full-panic mode. He apologized to the Israeli ambassador. He hung Libby out to dry. He forced her to issue a public apology.

Apology? For what?

Some have criticized Libby’s statement as evidence that she does not know the history of the occupation which most mainstream commentators date from 1967 – when Israel militarily occupied the West bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. But Libby’s problem was not that she didn’t know enough. She knew too much.

Sadly, she did indeed apologise and the lobby seems now to have gone into a feed frenzy. Her apology is here but she has many supporters in the comments that show people are far more focused on the truth that she told than the backtracking and apology.

I'm grateful to Dawg's Blawg for linking to us here at JSF. If I hadn't tracked a couple of hits from there today I wouldn't have picked up this story.

Thou shalt not gig in Tel Aviv

This youtube clip of Alexei Sayle trying to persuade Leonard Cohen not to entertain the racist war criminals has been around the net for a few days now.



I'm posting it because I think it's quite funny and it's another point for the BDS movement. But Alexei's a quirky chap. He likens BDS against Israel to the same against apartheid. At the same time he claims he advocates for bringing "Israel to its senses" and policies that will be for their (Israel's) benefit. But check the comments at youtube. His appeasement of Israel still isn't enough for them.

Protest Canadian museum decision to display stolen Palestinian antiquities

The Coalition Against Insraeli Apartheid calls for a campaign against the display in Canada of Palestinian antiquities stolen by Israel.

The Dead Sea scrolls, confiscated from East Jerusalem during Israel’s 1967 military invasion and occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, are coming to Toronto. The move is part of Israel consul general Amir Gissin’s official “Brand Israel” campaign that attempts to ‘rebrand’ apartheid Israel beyond its systematic repression of the Palestinian people.

Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of precious artifacts have been illegally removed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), Israeli soldiers, and illegally operating antiquities dealers from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. These removals of the joint cultural heritage of the region are in direct contravention of at least four international conventions or protocols on the treatment of illegally obtained cultural goods.

Please stand up and let the ROM know that you do not accept the right of museums to display illegally obtained artifacts stolen from occupied territories. The history of such theft and dispossession is a sad legacy of colonial history that Canada and its museums have also been complicit in. It is time to begin reversing this legacy by canceling the current exhibit in accordance with the precepts of international law and refusing to allow the ROM to be politicized for the rebranding of an apartheid state.

For more information please contact the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid at: endapartheid@riseup.net (http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6120)

The good news is that this is a rare occasion that the PA government dares to issue demands that effectively call for boycott.

JERUSALEM–A planned Toronto exhibit of ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts is threatening to plunge Canada, along with the Royal Ontario Museum, into the thick of the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Beginning in June, the ROM will host a six-month exhibit of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls, organized in co-operation with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

But top Palestinian officials this week declared the exhibit a violation of international law and called on Canada to cancel the show.

In letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top executives at the ROM, senior Palestinian officials argue the scrolls – widely regarded as among the great archaeological discoveries of the 20th century – were acquired illegally by Israel when the Jewish state annexed East Jerusalem in 1967.

"The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories," said Hamdan Taha, director-general of the archaeological department in the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

"I think it is important that Canadian institutions would be responsible and act in accordance with Canada's obligations."

The Palestinians say the planned ROM exhibit violates at least four international conventions or protocols on the treatment of cultural goods that were illegally obtained.

Both Canada and Israel are signatories to all of the agreements, the Palestinians say.

The letter of protest sent this week to Harper was signed by Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and its second-in-command. The letter to the ROM bore the signature of Khouloud Daibes, minister of tourism and antiquities. (The Star, April 9, 2009)

The Canadian authorities are the proverbial deer in the headlights. Listen to this lame reply.

"I'm just hearing about this issue," William Thorsell, CEO of the ROM, said yesterday. "I do understand the Palestinians are making an issue of the ownership. But I'm quite certain the scrolls fall within the parameters of the law."

Officials at Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs had no immediate response to the matter when contacted yesterday by the Star.

It is difficult to ignore the demand to observe international law in Canada, especially when it is being made by the darling PM appointed by the West, Salam Fayad. But don't expect therm not to try; to give in would be a win to the BDS arguments and strategies. We have yet to see whether the PA is going to act on this with the necessary persistence to win this very winnable battle. Let's hope so.

Click on the first link to see a suggested letter to the ROM. Send them your polite opinion. NOW!