Omar Barghouti: UC Berkeley Student Senate's vote for Israel divestment a "watershed" #BDS

I received the following message and attached documents from Omar Barghouti, one of the key figures in the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel:

In a landslide, 16-4 vote, the University of California Student Senate passed the attached BDS motion endorsing divestment from companies profiting from Israel's occupation and violation of Palestinian rights. Also attached is the official press release of the sponsors of the bill.

Hampshire College, of course, was the first to divest from companies colluding in Israel's occupation, but this student senate vote at a university of the prominence of Berkeley may well be the watershed, the crossing of the threshold in the spread of BDS across the US that many of us have been waiting to see. This will be a significant step towards a UC-wide actual divestment from Israeli occupation and apartheid. The South Africa spirit is in the air ...

A warm salute to the UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine and all supporters of human rights and justice, individuals and organizations, who supported them to achieve this victory.>> Onwards!

Omar

Israel's Reut Institute removes "sabotage" and "attack" language to hide its true intentions #hasbara

Israel's leading think tank the Reut Institute recently recommended that Israel's government and intelligence agencies "sabotage" and "attack" peace and justice groups around the world that have been critical of Israel, as EI reported in February.

Reut was obviously embarassed by the wide exposure its underhand, and possibly illegal recommendations generated, so it has cleaned up its website. The Reut Institute document EI linked to, entitled "The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall" no longer contains any references to "sabotage" and "attack" and now speaks 'only' of "undermining." While the language may have been sanitized a bit, the same belligerent intention is there.

For the record, here is a copy of the ORIGINAL Reut Institute document before it was self-censored and sanitized to hide the Reut Institute's nefarious intentions.

Tonight UBC Vancouver 6.30PM - Anna Baltzer & Ali Abunimah, Palestine: What Aren't We Hearing & How is Peace Possible?

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights @ UBC

Presents Ali Abu Nimah and Anna Baltzer

Palestine: What Aren't We Hearing & How is Peace Possible?


Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Time: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location: Wood 6 @ UBC
2198 Health Sciences Mall V6T 1Z3
Vancouver, BC


Ali will review the current situation in Palestine-Israel, in particular attention to the blockade of Gaza, creeping apartheid in the West Bank and Israel the failure of the peace process to produce a two-state solution, and future prospects for a just peace based on full equality for Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

Ali Abunimah is author of "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse" and has contributed to numerous other volumes and written hundreds of articles on the question of Palestine. He was a 2008-2009 Palestine Center Fellow. He is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, an award-winning online publication about Palestine and the Palestine-Israeli conflict.

Anna Baltzer is an American Columbia graduate, former-Fulbright scholar, the granddaughter of Holocaust refugees, and an award-winning lecturer, author, and activist for Palestinian rights. As a volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service in the West Bank, Baltzer documented human rights abuses and supported Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance to the Occupation. Baltzer has appeared on television more than 100 times (including most recently The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where she appeared alongside Palestinian presidential candidate and nonviolence leader Dr. Mustafa Barghouti) and lectured at more than 400 universities, schools, churches, mosques, and synagogues around the world with her acclaimed presentation, "Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos," and her full-color book: Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. In 2009, Baltzer received the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee's prestigious Annual Rachel Corrie Peace & Justice Award and a Certificate of Commendation from the Governor of Wisconsin for her commitment to justice in the Holy Land. She is a contributor to four upcoming books on the subject and serves on the Middle East committee of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom and the Board of Directors of The Research Journalism Institute, Grassroots Jerusalem, and Council for the National Interest. For information about Baltzer's book, DVD, speaking tours, and eyewitness reports, visit www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com

Anna will give a presentation about the Occupation (checkpoints, settlements, the Wall, etc), the Nakba, censorship, Israeli activism, and Ways to Get Involved. Her book on the situation on the occupied Palestinian territory is excellent and it accurately captures the essence of the Israeli occupation. Her experience in Palestine is very valuable and important to learn, understand and reflect upon.

Anna will be selling books and Palestinian embroidery at the event. :)

Admission by donations: suggested donation between $10 - $20 sliding scale...
Please RSVP on the following link: http://tiny.cc/sphrubc


Sinn Féin MP asks Irish govt to impose sanctions on Israel over Dubai passport affair

The following parliamentary question was submitted by Aengus Ó Snodaigh, TD for Dublin South Central (Sinn Féin)
 
Question No. 318 

Parliamentary Question - Dept Details 

  To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs his plans to impose diplomatic sanctions on Israel until they confirm that they had no involvement in the assassination of a person (details supplied) in Dubai in which the assassins used Irish passports to gain entry into the country.

- Aengus Ó Snodaigh.

* For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 23rd February, 2010. 

  Ref No: 9158/10 Proof: 342 

  REPLY 

 Police investigations into the assassination in Dubai of Mr. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on 20 January are continuing. The identities of those involved in the assassination, and the organization or group responsible, remain to be established. 

I met with the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr. Avigdor Lieberman in Brussels yesterday and made clear my serious concerns at the fraudulent use of Irish passports by those suspected of carrying out this assassination. I asked that the Israeli authorities provide whatever assistance they could in this matter. Minister Lieberman said that he had no information on the events in Dubai. 

Similar points were made when officials of my Department met the Israeli Ambassador in Iveagh House on 18 February. 

The Government has made clear to the Israeli authorities that, regardless of who was responsible, we take grave exception to the forgery and misuse of Irish passports. Such action could serve to devalue the standing of the passports and potentially put at risk the safety of Irish citizens traveling abroad.

Shared: letter sent to Harvard Weatherhead Center directors re Martin Kramer's Gaza genocide call

Here is a letter I sent to Professors Jeffry Frieden and James Robinson, Acting Directors of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University today:

Dear Profs. Frieden and Robinson,

I understand you are both Acting Directors of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs during this academic year. I am writing to draw your attention to statements made by one of your Fellows, Martin Kramer, earlier this month, calling for specific measures to curb births among Palestinians as a way to reduce extremism. As explained in the article linked below about Mr. Kramer's comments, these statements meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.

"Harvard Fellow calls for genocidal measure to curb Palestinian births"

If you doubt the shocking, offensive and outlandish nature of Mr. Kramer's comments ask yourself how you -- and other reasonable listeners -- would react if his comments were directed at Jews, African Americans or virtually any other group that has at one time or another been the target of systematic and widespread demonization and dehumanization in our society and abroad.

While I value academic freedom and freedom of speech as much as anyone else, I believe calls for genocide of a specific group -- made at a conference attended primarily by those who have the power to do it (Israeli military and political elites) -- crosses the line into a form of incitement that we, as members of a decent society should not tolerate, appease or forbear. I believe you should completely dissociate your center from Mr. Kramer and not allow him a platform, or resources with which to disseminate such odious policies.

Yours sincerely,

Ali Abunimah

For identification purposes, I am co-founder and executive director of The Electronic Intifada, the news organization that published the article.

UPDATE: Kramer has posted on his blog a response to The Electronic Intifada's article in which he superficially denies his call for genocide, but then proceeds to confirm it by calling for the cut off of UN food and educational aid to Palestinian refugees (he places "refugees" in quotes as if to deny their reality) in a bid to reduce the number of Palestinians.