Archive: Boycott, also by Universities / ....We respect the right to education. Does Israel....? 4 may 2009-11 jan 2010
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Electronic Intifada
BDS. Uphill battle for academic freedom in US universities
Reageer (0)By Nora Barrows-Friedman
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| University students demonstrate at Hampshire college. (Hampshire SJP) |
University students demonstrate at Hampshire college. (Hampshire SJP)
In 2009, Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, became the first American higher educational institution to successfully pressure its Board of Trustees to divest from Israel-tied mutual funds.
The victory came three decades after the college similarly disinvested from funds linked to apartheid South Africa. Across North America, student-led Palestine activism groups have used the methods formulated by the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) "to implement divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with international law." Hampshire College's divestment move was a victory for the students and the administration of Hampshire College, and an inspirational model for hundreds of activism groups across North American campuses.
But despite the expanding and momentous student-led BDS movement, open dialogue around the reality of the situation in occupied Palestine continues to be an uphill battle for many professors inside the classrooms. Educators who openly align with the BDS movement, or speak out against Israeli-US policy in Palestine and the region, are being harassed, threatened, blacklisted, denied tenure and fired from their academic posts.
Denied tenure at Ithaca College
Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, former professor of Sociology at Ithaca College in New York, said that after she started addressing issues of human rights abuses in occupied Palestine -- especially after the start of the second Palestinian intifada -- she was warned by faculty members at the college that she was "risking" her career and "would suffer repercussions from the administration." Ramlal-Nankoe told The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the verbal threats eventually led to alleged racist and sexist attacks, and an open death threat from a faculty member who protested Ramlal-Nankoe's support of a department colleague whose husband was Palestinian. "He [made] a cut-throat gesture with his hand across his neck to me," Ramlal-Nankoe said. She was later denied tenure in 2007. With the tenure review board voting unanimously against her, alleging she did not "fit in the department," faculty colleagues had encouraged the board to "stop hiring third-world elites," and told them that Ramlal-Nankoe's position in the department should instead go to a "native-born American."
"My tenure debacle started in 2005," Ramlal-Nankoe told EI. "I received a strong majority vote in support of my tenure in 2005 from the Sociology Tenure Committee. However, the Dean committed violations in my tenure review and denied me tenure. I appealed the dean's decision and the violations by him and a minority in the Sociology tenure committee. After I won the appeal in April 2006, the provost halted my tenure review and proposed to have a new tenure review in 2007 to correct the violations. This provost was fired soon after his decision."
Ramlal-Nankoe attributed the core of the attacks and her denial of tenure to her support of Ithaca College's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group, her organization of a series of Palestine-Israel-themed speaking events on campus (including guests such as Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, EI's Ali Abunimah, and former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday) and her public criticism of Israel's ongoing military occupation and violations of human rights in Palestine. The college's Hillel organization was also aggressive in its attacks against on-campus criticism of Israeli policy.
Furthermore, Ramlal-Nankoe alleged that the college's dean of the Humanities and Sciences Department at the time of her tenure denial, Howard Erlich, was "known" for his personal retaliation against faculty and staff who he considered to be "too sympathetic" to the Palestinian cause). She also asserted that Erlich denied funding requests for educational programs on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, classifying them as "anti-Israeli." Ramlal-Nankoe added that at this time, Erlich had stated to her that his son was serving in the Israeli army.
Professor Ramlal-Nankoe has filed a lawsuit against Ithaca College, but it has not been resolved, she said, despite lengthy appeals and publications. Her case is now under investigation by the New York State Human Rights Commission and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
North Carolina State University case
Film studies professor Terri Ginsberg, similarly fired in 2008 by North Carolina State University (NCSU) in what she says was a punishment for her outspoken criticism of "Zionism, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and US Middle East policy," believes that institutionalized censorship on the Palestine-Israel issue in the academic realm is eerily reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 1950s and '60s. "So many of the dynamics and methods of discrimination perpetrated against today's scholarly critics of Israel and US Middle East policy derive from and continue, in updated fashion, practices initiated and implemented during that shameful period," she says.
Ginsberg told EI that she was strongly encouraged to apply for the tenure track position at NCSU because of her strong academic service record and favorable student evaluations. But when she began publicly criticizing US-Israeli policy in the Middle East inside and outside the classroom, the administration retaliated against her and she was "punished with partial removal from -- and interference in -- duty, non-renewal of contract and rejection from a tenure-track position." She remarked that since then, her entire professional academic career has been crippled. "I have been veritably blacklisted from the university classroom, ostracized by many of my colleagues, and have been forced to endure unnecessary, unwarranted economic hardship and psychological distress," Ginsberg said.
Ginsberg also filed a legal complaint against NCSU, accusing the administration of discrimination and violation of the North Carolina Constitution, alleging freedom of speech violations and employment prejudice.
Terri Ginsberg's legal counsel, Rima Kapitan, told EI that she expects NCSU to file a response to the lawsuit soon. Kapitan added, "The pervasiveness of restrictions on Palestine-related speech in today's academic climate is shocking, given our Constitution's speech protections and our society's idealistic conception of academia as a bastion of open dialogue and debate." Scare tactics on campuses by administrations and outside Zionist-aligned groups, Kapitan asserted, have resulted in widespread "self-censorship" by untenured or adjunct professors. Combined with a paradigm in which campus administrators and program coordinators take "neutral" stances on the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kapitan said that "voices critical of Israel are often either banned or are not permitted unless they are heard alongside Zionist perspectives ...[Academia] is a very dangerous climate for critics of Zionism."
Hostile climate
Working alongside discriminatory academic administrations are right-wing Zionist groups, such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and Campus Watch. Campus Watch in particular has been a strong force behind smear campaigns against university professors such as Terri Ginsberg. Campus Watch describes itself as a "project of the Middle East Forum" that "seeks to have an influence over the future course of Middle East studies" on US college campuses. However, it has been instrumental in vilifying and discrediting distinguished, well-known academic critics of Zionism and Israeli policies such as Norman Finkelstein (denied tenure in June 2007 from DePaul University), and Joel Kovel (fired from Bard College in 2008 in what Koval claimed was a thinly-veiled attempt by the college to categorize the firing as a necessary and nonpolitical budget cut). The Middle East Forum (MEF) is a right-wing think tank based in Philadelphia that "define[s] and promote[s] ... US interests in the Middle East [including] fighting radical Islam; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; robustly asserting US interests vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia; and developing strategies to deal with Iraq and contain Iran." Daniel Pipes, director of the MEF and a top neoconservative American academic, was quoted in 2001 by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as saying, "the Palestinians are a miserable people ... and they deserve to be."
Ginsberg said that because of the hostile climate within certain academic structures, combined with external pressure by these so-called watchdog groups that seek to silence criticism of Israeli policy, academic workers are made to "self-censor in order to locate and retain albeit meager employment, producing a chilling environment for permanent faculty as well ... Meanwhile, non-conforming Jewish voices and perspectives continue to be held with suspicion and condemnation, not least when they articulate solidarity with the oppressed."
She said that her academic and intellectual work was highly influenced by her Palestine activism, and "greatly enhanced" her ability to make "informed, well-rounded scholarly judgments about the conflict's academic and cultural expression, discern true from false facts about it, and convey them to my students and in my writing -- writing which would also begin to analyze the ensuing, heightened suppression of academic speech critical of Zionism and US Middle East policy."
Slashed from the classroom but undeterred in her political activism, she continues to pursue "scholarly, activist and public intellectual work on Palestine/Israel and on Middle Eastern culture in critical light of US and European policy and attitudes toward the region."
Fight for academic freedom
Ramlal-Nankoe's and Ginsberg's battles come at a time when there are both controversies and victories in the fight for academic freedom. In New York, Nadia Abou El Haj, professor of Anthropology at Barnard, became the focus of an online petition to deny her tenure, organized in part by a Barnard graduate who lives in the illegal Israeli settlement colony of Maale Addumim in the occupied West Bank. Despite external pressure, Barnard granted El Haj full tenure in 2007.
Additionally, Joseph Massad, EI contributor and professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, was finally granted tenure in 2009 after a years-long public struggle. Massad was the favored target of pro-Zionist student groups who sought to dismantle his tenure application in 2005 by discrediting him in the media in an attempt to pressure the tenure review board. After Columbia's decision to grant Massad tenure, The New York Post and The Huffington Post, among many other media outlets, ran pieces decrying the outcome. Anna Kelner wrote in The Huffington Post: "[W]hen Columbia University granted tenure to Joseph Massad ... the University jeopardized its long-standing commitment to cultivating and supporting its Jewish student population."
EI also reported on the controversy surrounding Professor William Robinson at UC Santa Barbara, who, after emailing his students with a sharp critique of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip last winter, was accused by pro-Zionist student groups (backed by the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center) of faculty misconduct; but the case was thrown out by university officials in June of 2009.
Hindering the debate
However, Ramlal-Nankoe and Ginsberg are still worried. They believe that by attacking, censoring and firing professors because of their political activism specifically on this issue, university students are disallowed the broad-based political education necessary to understand the reality in Israel-Palestine.
"The overall situation in this respect will only deteriorate unless, in contrast to the McCarthy era, public and academic outcry, organized protest and transformative praxis are marshaled to bring about a constructive reversal in the current, nefarious trend," Ginsberg observed. "The ... Gaza Freedom March is one such protest, the BDS movement yet another. But we should not, at the same time, ignore troubles on the home-front. Persons dedicated to teaching the history and culture of Palestine justice struggles, for prime instance, must be allowed to do so unhindered by the fear and economic insecurity wrought by a higher educational system in which academic freedom has sadly devolved almost completely into academic 'free enterprise.'"
Professor Margo Ramlal-Nankoe agrees. "The repercussions on faculty who dare to speak out against injustices [are] abysmal and contradict and defeat, in my opinion, the whole purpose of education and critical inquiry. In other words, it is anti-education."
Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University Richard Falk, who is currently the United Nation's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said he, too, is concerned about "diverging trends in relation to academic freedom for those who express sharply critical views of Israel [and] Zionism"
"My only advice [to professors], having been attacked for several decades," Falk added, "is to make yourself as invulnerable as possible in relation to the standard expectations that prevail in universities: publish in scholarly venues, teach reliably and with receptivity to diverse opinions, and be a useful colleague, but do not abandon your conscience or your identity as an engaged citizen with critical views."
Falk told EI that the growing BDS movement, specifically within the academic and cultural boycott call against Israeli apartheid, is an effective course of action amongst educators and cultural workers of conscience. "There seems to be diverging trends in relation to academic freedom for those who express sharply critical views of Israel or Zionism," Falk remarked. "On the one side there is growing sympathy for the Palestinian struggle, and this is exhibited by the spreading BDS campaign. On the other side, there are increased efforts by organized Zionist groups to exert covert and overt pressure on university administrations to punish those seen as critics of Israel. As a result, we can expect some inconsistent outcomes in this period."
Currently, according to the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) campaign, more than 450 American educators and 125 writers, journalists, artists and musicians (including this writer and EI's Ali Abunimah) have signed onto the national statement. The BDS campaign is gaining ground as academics stand up for their beliefs -- and resist the aggressive political pressure -- within American educational institutions.
Nora Barrows-Friedman is the co-host and Senior Producer of Flashpoints, a daily investigative newsmagazine on Pacifica Radio. She is also a correspondent for Inter Press Service. She regularly reports from Palestine, where she also runs media workshops for youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
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PNN
Gaza student holds graduation party at church
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11-1-2010
Palestinian student Berlanty Azzam has never thought that her graduation ceremony would take place in a small church far away from her university and friends.
After spending four years studying in Bethlehem University in the West Bank, and two months before her course finishes, Israeli soldiers kicked her to the Gaza Strip since her ID tells that she is a Gazan.
"I never imagined that my graduation ceremony will be held in a church with no one from my classmates attending," said the 22-year-old.
"After all I graduated from Bethlehem University," she said, holding her certificate and posing for pictures with friends at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza city.
Berlanty's graduation has a long, two-month story of steadfastness and defiance started when she was sent to Gaza in October 2009.
Israeli human rights group "Gisha" waged a legal war against the Israeli army to let Berlanty return to finish her studies at the university, but all the attempts came up against a brick wall after the Israeli high court decided that Berlanty should not return to the West Bank.
This led the Bethlehem University to intervene decisively, taking a decision to provide Berlanty with the classes she needs in Gaza before it is too late.
Arriving in Gaza to hand Berlanty her certificate, Vice-chancellor of the Bethlehem University Peter Bray, said the university has a commitment to help Berlanty graduate and the only successful step was providing her with classes through the internet and phone.
"We tried it and it worked out and we are going to use it in case Israel is deporting any of our Gaza students," he proudly said.
Antonio Franco, a representative of the Pope Archbishop, which sponsors Bethlehem University, has also traveled all way to Gaza to meet Berlanty and grant her bachelor degree in business administration.
"We came to show support and success," said Bray as he rushed to attend a mass dedicated to his "outstanding student" Berlanty.
The moments when Archbishop Franco held special mass for Berlanty in the church were very touching. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and many of her friends and relatives in the service shed tears as well.
"I really wanted to be among my colleagues in such a day," she said as she lit a candle and kneeled after the homily and the readings as peace overwhelmed the church. "I still don't know why I was deported to Gaza."
According to Israeli media estimations, some 25,000 Palestinians in the West Bank are at risk of being removed from their homes and separated from their families, jobs and studies, simply because they are from Gaza.
Since 2000, Israel has banned Palestinian students from Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank, except for limited cases like Berlanty, who is a Christian.
In 2007, when Islamic Hamas movement seized control of Gaza, Israel started to deal with the coastal Strip as a hostile entity since its Islamist rulers are sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state.
"They did not even let me stay there for a few weeks to finish my studies as if I was a security threat to the state of Israel," Berlanty said, holding many roses from people who came to congratulate.
"Studying at a Palestinian university is my right and the right of every Palestinian student. I will apply again for Bethlehem University for MA and will legally fight Israel until I enjoy my rights to learn and move freely," she said.
Source: Xinhua
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CAUT Canadian Association of University teachers
Basic Academic Freedoms and Rights Violated in Israel and Palestinian Territories
7-1-2020
Ottawa and Brussels – The academic freedom and professional rights of higher education teaching personnel in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza are increasingly under assault as a result of the continuing political conflict in the region, according to a report released today by Education International and the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
“Both Israeli and Palestinian academics are facing greater pressure from outside political influences and from within the academy itself,” says David Robinson, associate executive director of CAUT and author of the report. “There are clear and consistent violations of internationally recognized academic rights as detailed in UNESCO’s 1997 Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel.”
The study, The Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, found that the strong polarization of opinions within Israel over the political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has generated several prominent academic freedom controversies in recent years. In addition, proposed changes to the governance of Israeli universities threaten to weaken institutional autonomy and academic freedom.
However, it is in the Palestinian territories that the report finds the most serious violations of basic academic freedoms and rights.
“Many of the violations of academic freedom in the West Bank and Gaza are a result of the Israeli occupation,” says Robinson. “Israel unquestionably has legitimate security concerns and has a right and responsibility to defend its citizens. However, as documented in the report, the near complete blockade of the Gaza Strip and the tight travel restrictions imposed on residents within the West Bank go beyond what can be reasonably justified and have seriously disrupted the work of Palestinian scholars.”
Limits imposed on freedom of movement within the Palestinian territories make it difficult and in many cases impossible for Palestinian academics and students to attend conferences or study abroad, and have forced local universities to shut down early and to close entirely for extended periods. There are bans on the import of certain research equipment and materials needed to pursue scholarly activities, and many academics face arbitrary arrest and detention by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
The report argues that the restrictions on academic freedom are undermining the democratic development of the West Bank and Gaza and are frustrating the peace process.
“Israeli and Palestinian universities and colleges have a critical role to play in helping find peaceful solutions to the conflict,” says Monique Fouilhoux, deputy general secretary of Education International. “But they can only do this if their scholars are free to express their views and debate controversial matters without fear of recrimination.”
The report recommends ways that higher education associations and unions worldwide can provide expertise and support to Israeli and Palestinian colleagues to help improve their conditions of employment and assert their professional rights as recognized by the UNESCO Recommendation.
Education International is the global union federation representing more than 30 million teachers and education workers in 172 countries and territories.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers represents more than 67,000 academic and general staff at colleges and universities across Canada.
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Electronic Intifada
Press release
United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, 24 December 2009
The following press release was issued by the United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) on 23 December 2009:
23-12-2009
27 December 2009 marks the one-year anniversary of the beginning of "Operation Cast Lead," Israel's 22-day assault on the captive population of Gaza, which killed 1,400 people, one third of them children, and injured more than 5,300.
During this war on an impoverished, mostly refugee population, Israel targeted civilians, using internationally-proscribed white phosphorous bombs, deprived them of power, water and other essentials, and sought to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian civil society, including hospitals, administrative buildings and UN facilities. It targeted with peculiar consistency educational institutions of all kinds: the Islamic University of Gaza, the Ministry of Education, the American International School, at least ten UNRWA schools, one of which was sheltering internally displaced Palestinian civilians with nowhere to flee, and tens of other schools and educational facilities.
While world leaders have tragically failed to come to Gaza's help, civilians everywhere are rallying to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people, with anniversary vigils taking place this week in New York, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and many more cities and towns in the US and world-wide.
The United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was formed in the immediate aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, bringing together educators of conscience who were unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions. Today, over 500 US-based academics, authors, artists, musicians, poets and other arts professionals have endorsed our call. Our academic endorsers include postcolonial critics and transnational feminists Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Indigenous scholars J. Kehaulani Kauanui and Andrea Smith, philosopher Judith Butler, Black studies scholars Cedric Robinson, Fred Moten, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, and intellectual historian Joseph Massad.
"Cultural workers" who have endorsed our call include well known author Barbara Ehrenreich, The Electronic Intifada cofounder Ali Abunimah, poets Adrienne Rich and Lisa Suhair Majjaj, International Solidarity Movement cofounder and documentary filmmaker Adam Shapiro, Jordan Flaherty of Left Turn Magazine, and Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society.
Among the 34 organizations supporting our mission are and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the Green Party, Code Pink, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Artists Against Apartheid and Teachers Against the Occupation.
The Advisory Board of the United States Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) has grown to include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hamid Dabashi, Lawrence Davidson, Bill Fletcher Jr., Glen Ford, Mark Gonzales, Marilyn Hacker, Edward Herman, Annemarie Jacir, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Robin Kelley, Ilan Pappe, James Petras, Vijay Prashad, Andrenne Rich, Michel Shehadeh and Lisa Taraki.
Israeli academics listed among the organization's International Endorsers have also joined us, including Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University; Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv University; Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University; Kobi Snitz, Technion; and Ilan Pappe now at Exeter.
The USACBI Mission Statement calls for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions in support of an appeal by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Individual Israelis are not targeted by the boycott.
Specifically, supporters are asked to:
(1) Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions that do not vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine;
(2) Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;
(3) Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;
(4) Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;
(5) Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.
This boycott, modeled upon the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that put an end to South African apartheid, is to continue until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
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Gaza Freedom March
Contact: Maryam Khan, Student Press Coordinator
925.640.5376
maryamkhan31@gmail.com
www.gazafreedommarch.org
100 International Students to Participate in International Delegation
1,000 Delegates from 42 Countries
18-12-2009
Over one hundred students from around the world will be traveling to Gaza this winter to participate in the Gaza Freedom March. On December 31, over 1,000 international delegates will join Palestinians in a non-violent march from Northern Gaza to the Israeli border calling for an end to the siege. The march is a historic initiative to break the ongoing US-backed Israeli blockade against Gaza.
The group of international students plans to meet with their peers at Gazan universities who will have a chance to share their experiences as youth in the war torn territory. Students in America have been fundraising not only to pay for their travel expenses but also to bring thousands of dollars of aid into the strip. Nuha Masri, a student from California, sold baked goods at school in order to get to the march, which will be her first trip back to Palestine since her family left when she was eleven years old. Julia Hurley, a student in New Jersey, fundraised over 12,000 dollars to bring aid to Palestinian youth suffering as a result of the blockade. For Ali Glenesk, a student at UC Berkeley and American student coordinator for the march, this will be her third trip to Gaza. She states that, “Upon visiting Gaza, the realities of the siege cannot be denied. It is imperative that Americans work to lift the siege because our tax dollars are going to support it.”
Deema Mishal, a medical student, Gazan peace activist, and the Palestinian student coordinator for the march, has been working closely with Glenesk to organize the student delegation. She firmly believes that the march is a means to highlight Gaza’s condition as a whole. She says that, “we have to change the reality that is happening here now. The people in this land deserve to have a normal life without all the fears that we wake up with everyday, we only want peace.” Mishal also states that “this is the first time ever that the Palestinians come together in such large numbers along with internationals to say no to repression.” Inside Gaza, excitement is growing. Representatives of all aspects of civil society, including students, professors, refugee groups, unions, women's organizations, and NGOs, have been busy organizing and it is estimated that at least 50,000 Palestinians will participate.
The iDocs Group in San Francisco in cooperation with The Media Group in Gaza City has begun filming a feature length documentary about the march. The film will show how both Palestinians and internationals prepare for the march and follow them throughout their experience. Producers plan to highlight Mishal and Glenesk, and the student movement they have begun to build across borders. Glenesk explains her continued involvement, saying, “I guess I keep going back because you simply can't deny or turn away from the injustice once you've been there and seen it. The heartwarming thing about the student group though, is that we can spend the day witnessing and talking about things that no human being should ever have to experience, but then later be sitting around playing guitar and having fun. There is hope in that.”
For more information see www.gazafreedommarch.org
Deema Mishal dm.meshal@gmail.com
Ali Glenesk ali.glenesk@gmail.com
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Sabah blog
Rules of human decency apply to Israelis too
A dose of their own (academic) medicine might help the message sink in
Berlanty Azzam, 21,was handcuffed and blindfolded
By Stuart Littlewood
11-12-2009
Poor Berlanty. What did she do to deserve this crushing blow to her hopes and life chances?
The Israeli High Court has denied her justice – again – and prevented Berlanty Azzam returning to Bethlehem University for the final few weeks to complete her degree.
On 28 October this Christian student at the Vatican-sponsored Bethlehem University was abducted by the IDF, "the world's most moral army", after attending a job interview in Ramalla, then blindfolded and handcuffed and dumped in Gaza. She had lived in the West Bank since 2005 after being granted a permit.
There was only one kind of permit available in 2005 – an entry permit to Israel. But the Israeli State claimed that this permit was insufficient and Berlanty should have obtained some other permit, even though the State admits that none existed at the time.
State representatives took her permit, a key piece of evidence, and never produced it to the Court. After six weeks of double-talk the Court accepted the State's claim that Berlanty entered the West Bank illegally. We hear a lot about how independent Israel's justice system is. Here's proof, if any were needed, that it is simply a tool of the military.
To avoid accusations that her residence was not Bethlehem, Berlanty had for the last four years resisted the temptation to return to Gaza and visit her folks. She and her parents submitted numerous applications to change the Gaza address recorded on her identity card to her actual place of residence, Bethlehem, but to no avail. Israel controls the Palestinian population registry and refuses to register changes in address from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank – another example of how Gazans are effectively imprisoned.
This, of course, is in breach of her human rights. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are internationally recognized as one integral territory and under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory. In 1999 Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement establishing a 28 mile road corridor giving Palestinians safe passage between the two parts of Palestine – yet another empty gesture.
"We are disappointed that the Israeli military and High Court have interfered with the Church's educational mission at Bethlehem University by denying Berlanty to be brought back to Bethlehem to complete her studies," said Brother Peter Bray, the Vice Chancellor, on hearing the Court ruling. "We realize that Berlanty is one of the many people in Gaza who suffer so unjustly."
Indeed. Since 2000 Israel has implemented a sweeping ban preventing youngsters from Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank. A 2007 High Court decision determined that students from Gaza wishing to study in the West Bank should be allowed to do so "in cases that would have positive humanitarian implications". (bold H.)
However, to the best of her legal team's knowledge, since that judgment was handed down Israel hasn't issued a single entry permit. Only last summer 12 students from Gaza were refused permits to study at Bethlehem University. Back in the late 1990s, about 1,000 students from Gaza studied in the West Bank, most of them in disciplines that are not offered in the Gaza Strip.
Like Berlanty, an estimated 25,000 people currently living in the West Bank have been declared "illegal" by Israel solely because the address on their identity card is in the Gaza Strip. Some of them have lived in the West Bank for decades but Israel simply does not recognize their right to be there. They are extremely limited in their daily movements and live in fear of being detained and 'deported', just as Berlanty was. Consequently they have very limited opportunities for employment, business and studies. This policy not only breaches Israel's obligations under international accords to treat the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a "single territorial entity" but it also chokes any prospect of healthy development in Palestinian society.
It is no use pretending that things will change until other countries give Israel a dose of their own medicine. How does the Berlanty case and the thousands like it sit with the great and the good who piously reject the idea of an academic boycott against Israel? (bold H.)
All political parties fight against such a for muddle-headed reasons. The recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme uncovered the influence of the Israel lobby and its money on the Conservative Party. Another particularly obnoxious group that's hopelessly out of touch with reality is the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. At their party's conference they tabled a motion squashing an academic boycott, saying that "Israeli universities are centres of free debate and discussion and that the universities contain Jews, Muslims, Christians, Israelis and Palestinians. Furthermore a boycott does nothing to resolve a negotiated solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict and is indeed counter-productive as it discourages dialogue." This motion against the boycott was passed with an overwhelming majority.
The aim of the Liberal Democrats Friends of Israel is to "maximise support for the State of Israel within the party and Parliament" and "encourage a broad understanding of Israel's unique political position as the only democracy in the Middle East".
Their stated purpose is….
– To influence the Party's Middle East policy so it places a high priority on Israel's right to peace and security.
- To provide parliamentarians with briefing material for parliamentary debates, questions to Ministers and public appearances.
- To rebut attacks on Israel in the media, Parliament and the Party.
- To liaise with Israeli politicians and Government.
- To arrange and accompany LDFI delegations to Israel.
- To keep in regular contact with the Embassy of Israel.
In other words they act as a prop within the British parliament for this racist military regime.
Such blind allegiance and bizarre conduct contribute to the tragedy of Berlanty and countless other Palestinian youngsters. Without these beacons of misplaced support across the Western world lawless Israel would be sunk.
* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.
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Electronic Intifada
Sussex University students vote to boycott Israeli goods
6-11-2009
The following press release was issued by the University of Sussex Students' Union on 5 November 2009:
Students at the University of Sussex, England have voted to boycott Israeli goods. The decision follows the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, which calls upon the Israeli state to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestine.
In a campus-wide referendum, 56 percent of students voted in favor of the boycott.
The referendum was held by the University of Sussex Students' Union (USSU), which represents the institution's 11,000 students.
Goods from Israel will no longer be stocked in USSU shops on the university campus, and USSU will be lobbying the university administration to observe the boycott.
Tom Wills, USSU President, said "Israel has broken more UN resolutions than any other state. No other Western-backed democracy has committed such egregious violations of international law, but the international community has failed to hold Israel to account.
"Sussex was one of the first universities to boycott South Africa during apartheid, and we hope that this will help kickstart an international movement on a similar scale to put pressure on Israel to end its oppression of the Palestinian people.
"We call on students at other universities to table boycott motions in their own unions."
Earlier this year the Israeli attack on Gaza triggered a resurgence in student activism in the UK, with a wave of sit-in protests at universities including Sussex. The student boycott comes after the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed a boycott of Israeli settlement goods in September.
USSU currently also boycotts Coca-Cola and Nestle in protest at unethical business practices by those corporations.
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Palestine Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel
Guidelines for Applying the International Academic Boycott of Israel
1-10-2009
Since its founding in 2004, PACBI has advocated a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, based on the premise that these institutions are complicit in the system of oppression that has denied Palestinians their basic rights guaranteed by international law.
This position is in line with the authoritative call by the Palestinian Council for Higher Education for "non-cooperation in the scientific and technical fields between Palestinian and Israeli universities"[1]. Academic institutions in particular are part of the ideological and institutional scaffolding of the Zionist colonial project in Palestine, and as such are deeply implicated in maintaining the structures of domination over the Palestinian people. Since its founding, the Israeli academy has cast its lot with the hegemonic political-military establishment in Israel, and notwithstanding the efforts of a handful of principled academics, carries on business-as-usual in support of the status quo.
The beginnings of the academic boycott of Israel can be traced to 2002, the year in which Israel launched its destructive assault upon Palestinian cities, towns, refugee camps and villages, targeting the institutions of Palestinian society and wreaking havoc on communities, residential neighborhoods, and urban infrastructure. The April 2002 statement by 120 European academics and researchers urging the adoption of a moratorium on EU and European Science Foundation support for Israel was followed by a number of pro-boycott initiatives in the same year by academics in the USA, France, Norway, and Australia. Particularly noteworthy have been the annual congresses of UK academics’ unions, where boycott-related resolutions have been debated and passed since 2002. PACBI’s key partner in the UK, BRICUP [2] has been instrumental in the ongoing struggle to popularize the academic boycott in the union movement in the UK and beyond.
In October 2003, the first Palestinian Call for Boycott was issued by a group of Palestinian academics and intellectuals in the diaspora and the occupied Palestinian Territory. Building on all previous boycott initiatives, PACBI issued its Call for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel in Ramallah in 2004, providing the Palestinian reference for a steadily growing and sustainable institutional academic boycott effort throughout the world. The lethal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in December 2008-January 2009 served as a catalyst for further activism, and the period since then has witnessed a tremendous growth of initiatives in the spirit of BDS and targeting Israeli academic institutions. Such efforts have come from Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, Lebanon, Spain and the United States. Particularly encouraging has been the founding of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural boycott of Israel (USACBI), inspired by PACBI and basing itself upon the PACBI Call.
During five years of intensive work with partners in several countries to promote the academic boycott against Israel, PACBI has examined many academic projects and events, assessing the applicability of the boycott criteria to them and, accordingly, has issued open letters, statements or advisory opinions on them. Based on this experience and in response to the burgeoning demand for PACBI’s specific guidelines on applying the academic boycott to diverse projects, from conferences to exchange programs and research efforts, the Campaign lays out below unambiguous, consistent and coherent criteria and guidelines that specifically address the nuances and particularities of the academy.
These guidelines are mainly intended to assist academics around the world in adhering to the Palestinian call for boycott, as a contribution towards establishing a just peace in our region. Similar guidelines for the cultural boycott have been issued by PACBI [3].
Academic Boycott Guidelines
Inspired by the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa as well as the long tradition of civil resistance against settler-colonialism in Palestine, the PACBI Call [4] urges academics and cultural workers “to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel‘s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid, by applying the following:
1. Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;
2. Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;
3. Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;
4. Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;
5. Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.”
Before discussing the various categories of academic activities that fall under the boycott call, and as a general overriding rule, it is important to stress that virtually all Israeli academic institutions, unless proven otherwise, are complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, whether through their silence, actual involvement in justifying, whitewashing or otherwise deliberately diverting attention from Israel’s violations of international law and human rights, or indeed through their direct collaboration with state agencies in the design and commission of these violations. Accordingly, these institutions, all their activities, and all the events they sponsor or support must be boycotted. Events and projects involving individuals explicitly representing these complicit institutions should be boycotted, by the same token. Mere institutional affiliation to the Israeli academy is therefore not a sufficient condition for applying the boycott.
While an individual’s academic freedom should be fully and consistently respected in this context, an individual academic, Israeli or not, cannot be exempt from being subject to boycotts that conscientious citizens around the world (beyond the scope of the PACBI boycott criteria) may call for in response to what is widely perceived as a particularly offensive act or statement by the academic in question (such as direct or indirect incitement to violence; justification -- an indirect form of advocacy -- of war crimes and other grave violations of international law; racial slurs; actual participation in human rights violations; etc.). At this level, Israeli academics should not be automatically exempted from due criticism or any lawful form of protest, including boycott; they should be treated like all other offenders in the same category, not better or worse.
The following guidelines may not be completely exhaustive and certainly do not preempt, replace or void other, common-sense rationales for boycott, particularly when a researcher, speaker, or event is shown to be explicitly justifying, advocating or promoting war crimes, racial discrimination, apartheid, suppression of fundamental human rights and serious violations of international law.
Based on the above, PACBI urges academics, academics’ associations/unions and academic institutions around the world, where possible and as relevant, to boycott and/or work towards the cancellation or annulment of events, activities, agreements, or projects that promote the normalization of Israel in the global academy, whitewash Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinians rights, or violate the boycott. Specifically, the Palestinian academic boycott against Israel applies to the following events, activities, or situations:
1. Academic events (such as conferences, symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits) convened or co-sponsored by Israeli institutions. All academic events, whether held in Israel or abroad, and convened or co-sponsored by Israeli academic institutions or their departments and institutes, deserve to be boycotted on institutional grounds. These boycottable activities include panels and other activities sponsored or organized by Israeli academic bodies or associations at international conferences outside Israel. Importantly, they also include the convening in Israel of meetings of international bodies and associations.
2. Institutional cooperation agreements with Israeli universities or research institutes. These agreements, concluded between international and Israeli universities, typically involve the exchange of faculty and students and, more importantly, the conduct of joint research. Many of these schemes are sponsored and funded by the European Union (in the case of Europe), and independent and government foundations elsewhere. For example, the five-year EU Framework programs, in which Israel has been the only non-European participant, have been crucial to the development of research at Israeli universities. European academic activists have been campaigning for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement since 2002; under this Agreement, Israeli and European universities exchange academic staff and students and engage in other activities, mainly through the Erasmus Mundus and Tempus schemes [5]. It should be noted that Israel is in violation of the terms of this Agreement, particularly of the second article [6].
3. Study abroad schemes in Israel for international students. These programs are usually housed at Israeli universities and are part of the Israeli propaganda effort, designed to give international students a “positive experience” of Israel. Publicity and recruitment for these schemes are organized through students’ affairs offices or academic departments (such as Middle East and international studies centers) at universities abroad.
4. Addresses and talks at international venues by official representatives of Israeli academic institutions such as presidents and rectors.
5. Special honors or recognition granted to official representatives of Israeli academic institutions (such as the bestowal of honorary degrees and other awards) or to Israeli academic or research institutions. Such institutions and their official representatives are complicit and as such should be denied this recognition.
6. Palestinian/Arab-Israeli collaborative research projects or events, especially those funded by the various EU and international grant-giving bodies. It is widely known that the easiest route to securing a research grant for a Palestinian academic is to apply with an Israeli partner. This is a case of politically motivated research par excellence, and contributes to enhancing the legitimacy of Israeli institutions as centers of excellence instead of directly and independently strengthening the research capacity of Palestinian institutions. The argument that “science is above politics” is often used to justify such collaborations. In PACBI’s view, no normal collaboration between the institutions of the oppressor and the oppressed, or indeed between the academics of the oppressor and oppressed can be possible while the structures of domination remain in place. In fact, such projects do nothing to challenge the status quo and contribute to its endurance. As an example, Palestinian/Arab-Israeli research efforts in the field of water and environment take as given the apartheid reality; tackling Palestinian/Arab and Israeli water and environmental “problems” as commensurate, without recognizing the apartheid reality, only contributes to the continuation of that reality.
As in the cultural field, events and projects (such as those involving educators, psychologists, or historians) involving Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis that promote “balance” between the “two sides” in presenting their respective narratives or “traumas,” as if on par, or are otherwise based on the false premise that the colonizers and the colonized, the oppressors and the oppressed, are equally responsible for the “conflict,” are intentionally deceptive, intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible. Such events and projects, often seeking to encourage dialogue or “reconciliation between the two sides” without addressing the requirements of justice, promote the normalization and perpetuation of oppression and injustice. All such events and projects that bring Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis together, unless based on unambiguous recognition of Palestinian rights and framed within the explicit context of opposition to occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, are strong candidates for boycott. Other factors that PACBI takes into consideration in evaluating such events and projects are the sources of funding, the design of the project or event, the objectives of the sponsoring organization(s), the participants, and similar relevant factors.
7. Research and development activities in the framework of agreements or contracts between the Israeli government and other governments or institutions. Researchers in such projects are based at American, European or other universities. Examples include the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), an institution established by the US and Israeli governments in 1972 to sponsor research by Israelis and Americans, and the “Eureka Initiative,” a European inter-governmental initiative set up in 1985 that includes Israel as the only non-European member.
8. Research and development activities on behalf of international corporations involving contracts or other institutional agreements with departments or centers at Israeli universities.
9. Institutional membership of Israeli associations in world bodies. While challenging such membership is not easy, targeted and selective campaigns demanding the suspension of Israeli membership in international forums contribute towards pressuring the state until it respects international law. Just as South Africa’s membership was suspended in world academic--among other--bodies during apartheid, so must Israel’s.
10. Publishing in or refereeing articles for academic journals based at Israeli universities. These journals include those published by international associations but housed at Israeli universities. Efforts should be made to re-locate the editorial offices of these journals to universities outside Israel.
11. Advising on hiring or promotion decisions at Israeli universities through refereeing the work of candidates [7], or refereeing research proposals for Israeli funding institutions. Such services, routinely provided by academics to their profession, must be withheld from complicit institutions.
PACBI
www.PACBI.org
PACBI@PACBI.org
Notes:
[1] The Palestinian Council for Higher Education, composed of heads of Palestinian universities and representatives from the community, has, since the 1990’s, adhered to its principled position of non-cooperation with Israeli universities until Israel ends its occupation; this position was reiterated in a statement of thanks to the UK academic union NATFHE in 2006: http://www.mohe.gov.ps/ENG/news/index.html#7
[2] www.BRICUP.org.uk
[3] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1045
[4] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869
[5] See http://ec.europa.eu/education/external-relation-programmes/doc70_en.htm and http://ec.europa.eu/education/external-relation-programmes/doc72_en.htm
[6] http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/179
[7] In 2002, more than 700 European academics signed this declaration: "I can no longer in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities. I will attend no scientific conferences in Israel, and I will not participate as referee in hiring or promotion decisions by Israeli universities, or in the decisions of Israeli funding agencies. I will continue to collaborate with, and host, Israeli scientific colleagues on an individual basis." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jul/08/highereducation.israel)
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AIC
The Economy of the Occupation 23-24: Academic Boycott of Israel
Academic Boycott of Israel and the Complicity of Israeli Academic Institutions in Occupation of Palestinian Territories
20-10-2009
The idea of an academic boycott of Israel first emerged in 2002 as part of the growing boycott and divestment campaign against Israel, itself a part of the struggle against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the violation of Palestinian human and national rights.
Compared to other types of boycott, the academic boycott has gathered a relative amount of widespread support amongst academic unions and organizations, primarily in Great Britain. Not surprisingly, this relative success has stirred a public debate and opposition to the boycott, mostly by pro-Israeli organizations and academics. The campaign for academic boycott has wavered under these pressures and various degrees and measures of boycott have since been approved and then often canceled by academic organizations. The arguments in favor of this kind of boycott have relied largely on the facts of the Israeli occupation and the idea of pressuring Israel through its academic world; often, they have not utilised details relating to the specific academic institutions that they call to boycott.
Through this report, however, the Alternative Information Center (AIC) aims to inform and empower the debate on an academic boycott by giving information not on Israeli violence and violations of international law and human rights, but on the part played in the Israeli occupation by the very academic institutions in question. The report demonstrates that Israeli academic institutions have not opted to take a neutral, apolitical position toward the Israeli occupation but to fully support the Israeli security forces and policies toward the Palestinians, despite the serious suspicions of crimes and atrocities hovering over them. Any who argue either for or against an academic boycott against Israeli institutions, we believe, should know and consider not only facts regarding the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), but also the ways in which the Israeli academic institutions make political choices and actively take sides in the ongoing conflict.
This report deals with relevant facts about the connections between Israeli academic institutions and the occupation. It is doubtful that in the process of researching this report all facts relevant to the subject were uncovered, especially since some of the economic connections between academic institutions and private companies are actively hidden by the parties involved. The involvement of Israeli academic institutions in the occupation takes many forms and scopes, and not all Israeli academic institutions can be said to be involved on the same scale. However, all main Israeli academic institutions are involved in the occupation. Indeed, all major Israeli academic institutions, certainly the ones with the strongest international connections, were found to provide unquestionable support to Israel’s occupation. Some of the details depicted in this report are evidence of blunt and direct support to the occupation while others are more minor details, which, nonetheless, provide a clear indication of the political stance taken by academic institutions.
It should be noted that the Israeli security forces are the prime proponents of the occupation and therefore any aid given to them is considered here as support for the occupation. It is probable that universities in other countries may also occasionally support the local security forces. However the situation of the Israeli army is unlike that of other armies around the world and no support given to the Israeli security agencies can be defined as “neutral.”
To read the whole booklet, click here *.pdf.
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Electronic Intifada
Palestinian students at Israeli universities support academic boycott
Open letter, Abnaa el-Balad, Iqraa Student Association, National Democratic Assembly, 11 November 2009
11-11-2009
The following open letter to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim was issued on 9 November 2009 by Arab students at Israeli universities. The university's board is due to consider a measure supporting the academic boycott of Israel:
We are Arab students at the Israeli universities writing to you in support of the proposed academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. We believe that the boycott is timely and hopefully will help in upholding moral values of fairness, justice and equality which have been sorely missed in our region.
While the reason for the boycott is rightly what has been going on in the 1967 occupied territories [West Bank and Gaza Strip], we propose another angle which affirms the need for boycott, namely our daily experience as Arabs in Israeli institutions. We are the lucky ones who have been able to pursue our studies in institutions of higher education, to which we arrived against great odds. Only very few among our generation have been qualified to attend universities due to the state's discriminatory policies. Our schools mostly lack the basic facilities needed for education, and the curriculum is structured to serve the state's goal in socializing the pupils for self-estrangement. It contains very little, if any at all, on our history and culture. Additionally, it aims to erase our historical memory and promote the official policy line of divide and rule. In short, it is modeled on curriculums that dark regimes, like apartheid South Africa, have used to indoctrinate rather than educate. We arrive to universities with this "educational" baggage.
The idea that Israeli universities adhere to the values of free academic institutions, where academic freedom, objectivity and meritocracy prevail, is widely accepted in the West. From our experience we attest -- and indeed prove beyond doubt -- that this is not the case. In recent years Israeli universities have changed the criteria of acceptance to various faculties in order -- as a certain president of an Israeli university put it -- to prevent large number of undesirable (i.e. Arab) students from attending prestigious faculties such as medicine and natural sciences. Moreover, lecturers who presented findings which are at odds with the official ideology -- such as Ilan Pappe and Neve Gordon -- are bullied and harassed or forced to resign. Meanwhile raw racist statements by many lecturers are considered by the administrations of the universities as benign or even objective statements. For example, recently Dr. Dan Scheuftan stated in one of his lectures: "The Arabs are the biggest failure in the history of the human race ... there's nothing under the sun that's more screwed up than the Palestinians;" "Throughout the Arab world, people fire guns at weddings in order to prove that they have at least one thing that's hard and in working order that can shoot."
It goes without saying that none of these lecturers has ever been disciplined. Moreover, foreign students are warned by the security authorities of Haifa University not to visit Arab villages or towns.
Although some Israeli universities -- such as the University of Haifa -- pride themselves on promoting "co-existence," nothing is further from the truth than this. We are prevented from forming our [own] (i.e. Arab) students union, and racial discrimination against us -- under the pretext of not serving in the army -- is widely practiced in the granting of scholarships, as well as in the provision of housing at the universities' residential halls. This is particularly grave as the universities are located in Jewish towns, and Arab students face many obstacles and hardships in finding appropriate housing due to prevailing prejudices and anti-Arab sentiments in Israeli society.
Yet, the restrictions imposed on our freedom of expression are more stifling. We are not allowed to express our collective sentiments or ideas publicly. It is quite often that our public gatherings are not only violently interrupted by extreme right-wing Jewish students, but also in various occasions the universities called on the police to intervene. In several occasions, as during our peaceful demonstration at Haifa University against the war on Gaza, the police sent in large number of its special units which are infamous for their brutality. Needless to say that they do the job they are trained for. Moreover, the universities collaborate with the internal security services (the feared Shin Bet) and provide them with names of the activists among the students who are regularly summoned, investigated and threatened.
In the end, we are hopeful that you will take a decision which reaffirms the true meaning of human values, and provide a proof that racism, religious tribalism, obfuscation and disregard for human dignity are no longer tolerated.
Undersigned:
Abnaa el-Balad - The Student Movement
Iqraa Student Association - Islamic Movement
National Democratic Assembly (NDA) - The Student Movement
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Occupation Magazine
Israelis to Trondheim: Boycott the Israeli Academy Now!
On Thursday 12 November Trondheim University in Norway will vote on a resolution proposal calling for institutional sanctions against the Israeli acedemia. The right wing Israeli lobby is trying hard to stop this initiative. Please send mail in support of the boycott proposal, to University officials listed below. You can use the letter below, sent by the Israeli BDS support group, or send your own letter.
BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within
http://www.boycottisrael.info/
Boycott the Israeli Academy Now! - Open Letter from Israeli Citizens to the Board of Governors of Trondheim University
Dear Trondheim University Officials,
We, Israeli citizens, activists and supporters of BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within, an Israeli group in support of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, applaud faculty members at the University of Trondheim and University College of Sרr-Trרndelag in Norway for their principled support for the cause of justice in Palestine by proposing a motion to boycott Israeli universities. We support this historic step in the direction of applying effective pressure on Israel and holding it accountable for its occupation and apartheid policies, which violate international law and
fundamental human rights.
We urge the Board of Governors of the University of Trondheim and University College of Sרr-Trרndelag to declare at their upcoming meeting that Israeli universities and academic institutions cannot be normal partners of any self-respecting Norwegian institution. Indeed, it has to be recognized by academics the world over that Israeli universities are part and parcel of the structures of domination and oppression of the Palestinian people. They have played a direct and indirect role in promoting, justifying, developing or supporting the state‘s racist policies and persistent violations of human rights and international law. Most recently, and only as an example, a Tel Aviv University publication announced with pride that the Research & Development Directorate of the Israeli Ministry of Defense is currently funding 55 projects at the university; it went on to quote the head of the Security Studies Program at the University that “military R&D in Israel would not exist without the universities. They carry out all the basic scientific investigation, which is then developed either by the defence industries or the army. It should be noted that this is the same Ministry of Defense that executed the relentless and bloody war against the Palestinians in Gaza last December and January, killing,sometimes murdering, over 1400 Palestinians, more than 300 of whom were children, and wounding over 5000 people. Many neighborhoods were reduced to rubble, and educational institutions were destroyed. In general, the Israeli academy sees nothing wrong with partnering with the Israeli military machine.
As Israeli citizens, we strongly believe that the impunity of Israel must be challenged. Academic and cultural boycotts are effective measures available to world civil society to indicate its intolerance of oppression and as a means to bear pressure upon Israel to cease its campaign of violent colonial control over the Palestinian people. We support PACBI`s call for boycott in 2004 of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, like the Palestinian civil society‘s widely endorsed call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) in 2005. These calls are based on the same moral principle embodied in the international civil society campaign against the apartheid regime in South Africa: that people of conscience must take a stand against oppression and use all the means of civil resistance available to bring it to an end.
We urge the Board of Governors to pass the boycott motion in its meeting
on November 12, 2009, and to join the growing global movement for justice
for the Palestinian people.
Sincerely,
______________
______________
Israeli Citizen
Links to the latest articles in this section
British activists kick off week-long boycott against Israeli settlement products
Israelis to Trondheim: Boycott the Israeli Academy Now!
Petition - talk to Hamas!
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Jews sans frontieres
Students "bully" Israel's plucky ambassador to the UK
8-11-2009
Since I've been working, quick JSF has made my blogging a lot easier. See this Ynet report on how students in the UK wanted to place Israel's ambassador to the UK, Ron Prossor, under citizen's arrest. It's headed Students bully Britain envoy:
Protestors at the University of Nottingham prepared a rude welcome for Israel's Ambassador to England, Ron Prosor, welcoming him with anti-Israel signs and interrupting his speech.
Hours before the visit, British police learned that students at the university intend to place the Israeli envoy under citizen's arrest. Prosor's lecture on Israel's peace efforts was delayed, as a heavy police guard escorted him into the lecture site through a back door.
The lecture itself was accompanied by the shouting of charges and accusations against the State of Israel. During the event, students cut off Prosor on several occasions and some caused other disturbances.
Despite the interruptions, the Israeli ambassador completed his lecture, before leaving the site in a secured vehicle accompanied by local security forces. Fearing for his safety, local police resorted to a deceptive ploy, leading Prosor through one entrance while protestors waited at a different exit.
The envoy later said that the events at University of Nottingham are "yet another manifestation of the ugly smear campaign being managed against Israel on campuses across Britain."
"It's regrettable to see important academic institutions becoming hostages in the hands of radicals, who seek to silence any civilized discussion," he said. "We will fight with all means available to us against academic boycotts, economic boycotts, and diplomatic-legal boycotts."
Meanwhile, Minister Daniel Hershkowitz faced a similar experience while visiting Erasmus University in Holland. Protestors who attempted to disrupt the minister's address were removed from the site.
The news just gets better and better.
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Ha'aretz
Norwegian official: Schools considering Israel boycott
By Cnaan Liphshiz
9-11-2009
A Norwegian university's controversial vote on boycotting Israel is part
of a nationwide campaign that may bring additional boycott votes at other
Norwegian universities, said a representative on the board of executives at the University of Tromso.
Hundreds of scholars from Israel and elsewhere have signed a petition
condemning the vote at the University of Trondheim, scheduled for November 12.
If the initiative passes, Trondheim, also known as the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), could become the first Western university to boycott Israel.
A representative of the executive board at the University of Tromso said
pro-Palestinian activists are trying to call a vote on boycotting Israel there as well.
"A group of people have petitioned the board to hold a vote on this in the coming weeks, but no decision has been made yet," said the board
representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He added there was "a national effort" to have Norwegian universities boycott Israel, and that the Norwegian boycott proponents were acting in unison with their American and British peers.
The petition condemning the Trondheim boycott initiative bears the signatures of more than 900 scholars, including Nobel laureates. It states that they "refute and condemn the campaign to boycott Israeli academics" and academic institutions.
"We stand in solidarity with Israeli academics and academic institutions; if you boycott them, boycott us as well," states the petition, co-signed by Nobel laureates Kenneth J. Arrow from Stanford University, Aaron Ciechanover from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji of the Ecole Normale Superieure.
Parliamentarian Hans Olav Syversen from the Christian Democrat Party said NTNU was "turning itself into a laughingstock" by holding the vote. An NTNU spokesman said that the institution will hold the vote, but that the exact agenda for the vote has not been set yet.
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PIC
Stranded students in Gaza appeal for solution
 |
8-11-2009
GAZA -- Palestinian students stranded in the Gaza Strip who could not travel via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to follow up their studies abroad have called on the media to shed light on their plight.
The students appealed in a statement on Friday to all government institutions, the media and human rights groups to consider their just case and to highlight it before the local and international public opinion.
They said that many of them were either deprived of their right to study in the current semester in many universities or lost the entire academic year in others.
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Birzeit University - Palestine
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY
See also article here
21 year old Berlanty Azzam was detained at a military checkpoint, blindfolded and then deported to Gaza on Monday 2nd November.
Azzam had been returning to Bethlehem after attending a job interview in Ramallah when she was detained on account of her Gaza-registeted ID. Whilst being held at the checkpoint, Azzam was told by soldiers that she would be taken to a detention facility until a petition to the Supreme Court by human rights organisation Gisha was resolved.
Despite such promises, Azzam was blindfolded, handcuffed and loaded into a military jeep, only to find herself left in Gaza late last night. The military refuses to let her return to the West Bank. Born in Gaza, Azzam has lived in Bethlehem since 2005, after being awarded an exit visa and a scholarship to study Business Administration at Bethlehem University. A second Gaza resident who was travelling in the same car as Azzam was also arrested and remains in detention.
Israel's military released a statement to the US news network CNN saying Azzam was "residing illegally" in the West Bank. Israel bans Palestinian residents of Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank, denying individuals such as Azzam the right to remain in the West Bank. Her deportation comes at a time of increased efforts by the Israeli military to forcibly remove Palestinians with ID cards that are registered in Gaza from the West Bank.
In 2000 there were 350 Gaza students at Birzeit University, many were deported, others stayed in the West Bank 'illegally' and risk being deported at any moment. By 2005 there were only 35 Gaza students in Birzeit. Today there are none.
The R2E Campaign strongly condemns the treatment that Azzam has received at the hands of the Israeli forces. Her deportation, simply for attempting to pursue her education in her home country, constitutes a severe violation of academic freedom. We call on all our supporters to contact their local government representatives, Israeli embassies and the Israeli Ministry for the Interior to protest the denial of Berlanty, and all students from Gaza, the Right to Study in the West Bank. We also call on our supporters to contact their local government representatives to demand a stronger stand from their governments on the issue of Palestinian right to education.
Please see the following contacts below:
Ehud Barak
Minister of Defence,
Ministry of Defence,
37 Kaplan Street,
Hakirya,
Tel Aviv 61909,
Israel
Fax: 00 972 3 691 6940
Email: minister@mod.gov.il
COPIES TO:
Yuli Tamir (Ms)
Minister of Education,
Ministry of Education ,
PO Box 292,
34 Shivtei Israel,
Jerusalem 91911,
Israel
Fax: 00 972 2 560 2223
Email: ytamir@knesset.gov.il
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY
Urgent Appeals INDEX
What's new on this site?
Studies & Research: R2E Fact Sheet (30 April 2009)
Urgent Appeals: Open letter to international academic institutions from the R2E Campaign (17 January 2009)
Studies & Research: Report on Israeli police/ Military Escort of school children to and from At-Tuwani ( 4 November 2009)
Urgent Appeals: Urgent Call for Action: Gazan Student Deported. Support Right to Study (31 October 2009)
Activism News: Palestinian Elected as Honorary President of LSE Students' Union (30 October 2009)
Activism News: Norway university to vote next month on boycott of Israel (30 October 2009)
In The Media: Petition filed to overturn student's Gaza deportation (30 October 2009)
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Al Arabiya
Norway university to mull academic boycott of Israel
  |
The letter criticized Israel for its assault of Gaza that inflicted "immense human suffering" that shocked the world
Mona Moussly
3-11-2009
DUBAI - A group of professors in Norway have called for a boycott of Israeli academics because of "systematic" discrimination against Palestinian students and for altering history to develop the Zionist ideology, the professors said in their proposal sent to Al Arabiya on Tuesday.
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where the professors work, is set to decide next week whether to boycott Israel after it received the proposal from 30 of its professors who said their aim was to put "pressure" on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian land.
" Historians and archaeologists are important in the development of the Zionist ideology and renouncement of Palestinian history and identity. "
Open letter reads
"We, who have signed this letter, believe that it is time that academic institutions contributed to an international pressure against Israel so that real negotiations between Israel, democratically elected Palestinian authorities and the international society can begin," the open letter said.
The group accused Israeli universities and institutions of higher education of playing "a key role in the policy of oppression" and said "historians and archaeologists are important in the development of the Zionist ideology and renouncement of Palestinian history and identity."
The letter cited Israel's 22-day land, air and sea assault of Gaza as an example of Tel Aviv's actions that inflict "immense human suffering," which they said "shocked the world."
Academic freedom
" Israeli universities and other institutions of higher education have played a key role in the policy of oppression. "
Open letter
The letter also blasted Israeli institutions for "systematically" discriminating against Palestinian staff and students, which they said showed Israel had no regard for "the ideals of open universities and academic freedom."
The group called for the boycott to "cover the educational, research and culture institutions of the state of Israel and their representatives, regardless of religion or nationality" and said they hoped it would continue "until guarantees are issued that the occupation of Palestinian land will be terminated."
The board of directors at NTNU, Norway's second largest university located in the western town of Trondheim, has agreed to consider the motion, Anne Katherine Dahl, an advisor to the president of NTNU, told Al Arabiya.
"From NTNU there will be no further comment until the board has concluded on November 12th," Dahl said.
The board is composed of 11 members: four representatives of the state, four from the university staff, two student representatives and one from the temporary staff.
To read the english version of the open letter to NTNU Click Here
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Ma'an
UK student union boycotts Israeli goods
3-11-2009
Bethlehem - Following a landmark referendum, students at the UK's Sussex University in Brighton this week voted to boycott Israeli goods.
The decision comes in line with the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which calls upon Israel to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestinian territory.
The referendum received messages of support and thanks from Jewish and Israeli academics and non-governmental organizations that oppose Israel's occupation. Author and scholar Norman G. Finkelstein described the referendum result as "a victory, not for Palestinians but for truth and justice."
According to Iyad Burnat, head of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil'in, "We hope even more people all around the world will follow by our example so that we can put an end to the Israeli occupation and dismantle the apartheid wall."
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PNN
Sussex University Students' Union first in United Kingdom to boycott Israeli goods
1-11-2009
Following a landmark referendum, students at Sussex University have voted to boycott Israeli goods.
The decision will become part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which calls upon the Israelis to respect international law and end the occupation of Palestine.
Besides being penned and assisted by Palestinian, Arabs and international supporters, the referendum received messages of support and thanks from Jewish and Israeli academics and non-governmental organizations that oppose the Israeli policy of occupation in Palestine. Author and scholar Norman G. Finkelstein described the referendum result as “a victory, not for Palestinians but for truth and justice.”
Head of Popular Committee against the Wall and-co-founder of Friends for Freedom and Justice in Bil’in, Iyad Burnat issued a brief statement of encouragement:
“The Committee really appreciates Sussex Students' Union remarkable idea of starting a boycott of Israeli goods. We hope even more people all around the world will follow the example so that we can put an end to the Israeli occupation and dismantle the apartheid Wall.”
The western Ramallah town of Bil’in is one of many that hold weekly demonstrations against the Wall and settlements. Bil’in also hosts an annual nonviolence conference.
The Sussux Students’ Union is the first student union in the UK to boycott Israeli goods.
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Al Manar
Norway University to Vote Next Month on Boycott of Israel
30-10-2009
30-10-2009
The University of Trondheim in Norway may become the first university in the West to adopt an academic boycott of Israel, if a majority of its board votes in favor of the move at a meeting on the subject next month.
Three days prior to the November 12 vote by the board of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the institution will host a lecture on Israel's use of anti-Semitism as a political tool. The lecture, by Prof. Moshe Zuckermann of Tel Aviv University, is part of a controversial six-session seminar on “Israel” that is comprised entirely of Norwegians and Israelis known for highly critical attitudes toward Israel.
Prof. Morten Levin, an NTNU lecturer and member of the seminar's organizing committee, set up the series of lectures - which also featured Ilan Pappe and Stephen Walt - with Ann Rudinow Saetnan and Rune Skarstein. All have signed a call for an academic boycott of Israel.
In a letter this week to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, called the seminar "a new stage in Norwegian incitement to Jew-hatred" and "outrageously anti-Israel bigotry."
According to a scientist working at NTNU who spoke to Haaretz on condition of anonymity, the idea of holding a vote on boycotting Israel was modeled on the campaign run by Sue Blackwell, a leading proponent of an academic boycott of Israel in the United Kingdom. A group of pro-Israel employees of NTNU are currently looking for ways to prevent the boycott from being adopted, drawing on the legal reasoning that in 2007 prompted Britain's University and College Union - of which Blackwell is a prominent member - to nix plans for a boycott of Israel.
According to people who fought the U.K. boycott motion, it was dropped after legal consultants told UCU officials that a boycott of Israel would violate anti-discrimination laws. "We have to see how similar the laws in Norway are," the Trondheim scientist said.
"If this were the U.K., [a boycott] would be illegal. But this is Norway, where these things may fly," said Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, who has published a book on anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in the Nordic countries.
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Anna in Palestine
For anyone who doesn't know this, last Spring, Hampshire College became the first US college to divest from the Israeli occupation—33 years after they became the first US college to divest from Apartheid South Africa! Times are changing and we all have much to learn from Hampshire folks.
Therefore,I am excited to announce the 2009 National Campus Boycott, Divestment,Sanctions Conference, taking place Nov20th - Nov 22nd at Hampshire College in Amherst,Massachusetts. Find out more and register at: http://www.hsjp.org/2009/09/21/CampusBDS/
See below here
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Students For Justice In Palestine
a Hampshire student group
09:53 PM
Announcing the 2009 Campus Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference at Hampshire College
National Campus Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Conference
endorsed by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel
What & Where: This fall from November 20th through the 22nd, students, faculty, and staff from around the country who are engaged in Palestine solidarity activism will converge for a conference on campus Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). This conference has three key goals:
1) To co-educate and share resources amongst campus organizers on the process of initiating BDS campaigns on campuses
2) To strategize tactics to address the needs of different campuses in carrying out BDS campaigns
3) To bring together Palestine-solidarity campus groups that have or have not met under a larger network in order to strive towards a coordinated national BDS campaign.
There have been many BDS conferences around the country, but rarely have they focused exclusively on the campus movement. This conference therefore presents an exceptional and important opportunity for this movement.
Why: In July of 2005, “a clear majority of Palestinian civil society called upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with international law.”* In addition, BDS is a non-violent means of protest and action that campuses in the United States can directly engage in to effectively stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. A similar strategy was adopted in the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and campus groups played a large role in helping spark and maintain that successful movement.
As campus members in the United States, we are directly complicit in perpetuating the injustices committed against the Palestinian people – our schools’ money is invested in companies that directly profit from Israel’s militarism, annexation of Palestinian land, and apartheid practices. After sixty-years of displacement, over forty-years of occupation, a two-year old siege, and in light of the recent invasion of Gaza and the continuing expansion of settlements in the West Bank, we must act now to cultivate the BDS movement in the United States. As members of academic communities, we can engage BDS as a means of applying economic and public pressure on Israel to abide by international law and we can change the discourse around Palestine/Israel in this country.
How to Participate: Attend the National Campus BDS conference at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA along with other members of your campus group. You will have the opportunity to organize workshops and panels, engage in discussions led by peers, listen to panels and lectures by influential members of the movement, develop skills, share resources, explore strategies, build networks, and more. Workshops at this conference will have a particular focus on: education and campus outreach, movement building strategies, and utilizing publicity and media for BDS. We encourage both Palestine-solidarity and allied groups to attend and contribute to this important conference through general participation, the building of a larger organizing network, and the facilitation of workshops. (In order to facilitate a workshop, please see the “Workshop Proposal Submission Form” at the end of this post.)
Prominent public figures and outspoken supporters of the BDS movement will be attending the conference as keynote speakers and panelists, including representatives of the BNC and PACBI.
Dates and Times: Friday, November 20th at 6 PM through Sunday, November 22nd, at 9 PM.
Hosted By: Hampshire College Students for Justice in Palestine and allied groups, and endorsed by various Palestine Solidarity organizations.
Please continue to check our website www.hsjp.org, where we will announce updates, lodging/food information, financial aid, and a place for registration for the conference.
Please forward this to other Palestine solidarity activists and mark the date! See you at Hampshire!
Toward a free Palestine,
Hampshire College SJP
hampshiresjp@gmail.com
Workshop Proposal Submission Form
Although Hampshire College Students for Justice in Palestine is organizing the logistics and providing the spaces for the 2009 National Campus BDS Conference, most of the content of the conference will come from other attending activists with campus organizing experience.
If you wish to organize and facilitate a workshop or panel at the National Campus Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference at Hampshire College in November of 2009, please complete the following workshop proposal form and submit it to BDSconference2009@gmail.com by no later than October 12th, 2009. Please only complete this process if you are certain you would like to organize and facilitate a workshop. Following the approval of your workshop by October 19th, you will be e-mailed a confirmation letter.
In order to submit a proposal, please answer each of the numbers below in a document. Before each answer, include the question number and the question itself. Save the document as the following: (Your Name) – BDS Workshop Proposal, and save it as a .doc, .rtf, or .odt file.
Please note: This conference is aimed at individuals and groups who already have an understanding of the situation in Palestine. Therefore, such workshop proposals as “Palestine 101” are discouraged. However, workshops that could replace “Palestine 101” include – “Teaching Palestine 101” or “Palestine 201: Organizing around Resource Politics in Palestine.” (Primary emphasis should be related to campus organizing and BDS strategies).
Workshop/Panel Descriptions: For this conference, panels are defined as educational presentations that are led by two or more individuals, with time for follow up questions from the audience. Workshops will be organized as interactive sessions, including skill-shares, skill-building exercises, dialogue opportunities, networking, debate spaces, educational activities, and more.
Workshop/Panel Proposal Questions -
Workshop/Panel Facilitator Information
1. Name of your organization, if applicable:
2. Name of your college, university, or school:
3. Name of primary facilitator and contact information (e-mail, phone number. Can be contacted for clarifying questions):
4. Name of other potential facilitators, affiliated organizations (if applicable), and e-mails:
Workshop/Panel Information
5. Title:
6. One Sentence Introduction to workshop/panel Subject:
7. Description of workshop/panel (4-12 sentences):
8. Objectives (tools and/or knowledge participants will come away with):
9. Format (panel, presentation, discussion, activity, etc.):
Other
10. What A/V or other special equipment will you need? Will you need us to provide it or will you be able to? If you are able to, may other groups use your equipment?:
11. Do any of the presenters or facilitators have any scheduling constraints?:
12. Any other information that you feel is important to include:
* "What is the Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)? |." Global BDS Movement. 15 June 2009. <http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/159>.
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Al Jazeera
Olmert faces tough crowd
By Teymoor Nabili in
Photo by Getty Images
While those critical of Iran were given front row seats when President Ahmedinejad visited Columbia University, critics of Ehud Olmert were ushered from the hall when he spoke to students at Chicago University this week.
21-10-2009
When President Ahmadinejad of Iran spoke to students at Columbia University in September 2007, the students, the faculty and the media were all given front row seats to condemn and to vilify.
Even the President of the University, Lee Bollinger, took the opportunty to get a dig in, telling Ahmadinejad:
"“Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator”
The New York Times reported:
"Mr. Bollinger praised himself and Columbia for showing they believed in freedom of speech by inviting the Iranian president, then continued his attack."
The entire event generated reams of press coverage.
Contrast this with the experience faced by Ehud Olmert when he spoke to students at Chicago University this week.
In a letter to students, the university expressly forbade any video or audio recording equipment, barred members of the media from attending, told students they needed to be there 2 hours before the speech for security screening, and stipulated that questions should be pre-submitted, presumably also for screening.
The university ended the letter with the somewhat ironic comment::
"we appreciate your co-operation with our efforts to to ensure open discourse and freedom of expression."
Despite these efforts, a small group of students did protest, inside and outside the lecture hall, condeming Olmert's decision to attack Gaza and demanding that he respond to the Goldstone report.
But where critics of Ahmadinejad had been encouraged - and given every opportunity - to attack, critics of Olmert were ushered from the hall.
The New York Times and the mainstream US media didn't see fit to cover the event.
However, the Electronic Intifada did, and even managed to sneak in a camera:
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Electronic Intifada
EI exclusive video: Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago
Maureen Clare Murphy
