Divestment Movement Spreads to Hunter College, NYU, UMASS, Columbia University

WE DEMAND DIVESTMENT NOW!
Student Divestment Strategy Day featuring: Abe Greenhouse, Adalah-NY
Matan Cohen, Students for Justice in Palestine, Hampshire College
Maria Lewis, Take Back NYU, New York University
Safia Albaiti, Campus Antiwar Network, UMass-Amherst
Matt Swagler, Columbia Palestine Forum, Columbia University

Since the Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008, the divestment movement has gained much needed momentum. Thousands of people in the United States are joining an international movement calling for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions.

Hampshire College became the first university to completely divest from the Israeli occupation. Now academic Zionists are trying to lead a backlash against the Hampshire administration. The University of Rochester, taking inspiration from the student occupation movement in the UK, occupied a campus building, successfully winning demands that have launched a divestment campaign on campus. Students at NYU occupied the student center demanding full budget disclosure and academic aid to Gazans. And in the past few weeks, students at UMass-Amherst and Columbia University have launched divestment campaigns. We expect dozens of campuses to follow suit.

How can we spread the divestment movement on campuses? Which companies should we target? What should our demands be? What tactics are most effective for achieving our demands?

The Campus Antiwar Network would like to call on all student and community organizations currently or interested in working to divest from the Israeli occupation and war profiteers to come together Sunday, March 29th, NOON at Hunter College. As the student movement grows, opposing all U.S. and Israeli led wars in the Middle East, it becomes more and more urgent to form a coordinated national strategy.

We aim to win justice for all people in the Middle East.

All are welcome.

Please e-mail leia.petty@gmail if your student or community organization is interested in participating or endorsing this day.

This day is part of the Campus Antiwar Network East Coast Conference. Please see below for more details.

Do You Know Who the Hand on the Bible Belongs to?

I’m referring to the header photo.

Guardian UK Uncovers Israeli War Crimes in Gaza Strip Attacks

From Guardian UK:

The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals.

A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target.

The testimonies form the basis of three Guardian films which add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas but left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including more than 300 children.

Read the rest of this article and watch the videos.

Madoff and Bank Bailouts Bendib Cartoon

Bendib.com

Israel’s Blockade Policy is Punishment Not Security

According to Israel, Pasta, Paper, Lentils and Hearing Aids threaten security.

“When have lentil bombs been going off lately? Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?” asked Congressman Brian Laird. It was only after Senator John Kerry, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raised the issue with Defence Minister Ehud Barak after their trip last month that Israel allowed the pasta in. Macaroni was considered a luxury item, not a humanitarian necessity, they were told. The total number of products blacklisted by Israel remains a mystery for UN officials and the relief agencies which face long delays in bringing in supplies. For security reasons such items as cement and steel rods are banned as they could be used by Hamas to build bunkers or the rockets used to target Israeli civilians. Hearing aids have been banned in case the mercury in their batteries could be used to produce chemical weapons.

Yet since the end of the war in January, according to non-government organisations, five truckloads of school notebooks were turned back at the crossing at Kerem Shalom where goods are subject to a $1,000 (£700) per truck “handling fee”.

Paper to print new textbooks for Palestinian schools was stopped, as were freezer appliances, generators and water pumps, cooking gas and chickpeas. And the French government was incensed when an entire water purification system was denied entry. Christopher Gunness, the spokesman for the UN agency UNRWA responsible for Palestinian refugees, said: “One of the big problems is that the ‘banned list’ is a moving target so we discover things are banned on a ‘case by case’, ‘day by day’ basis.”

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said: “Israel’s blockade policy can be summed up in one word and it is punishment, not security.”

Israeli Apartheid Week Video

Israeli Apartheid Week March 1 – 8, 2009.  For more info go to Apartheid Week.org.

Video found at Mondoweiss.

Israel War Crimes Against Gaza Broadcast Live on Television

Focus on Gaza: A Crime of War.

Avigdor Lieberman’s Chutzpah http://ww …

Avigdor Lieberman’s Chutzpah
http://www.slate.com/id/2211915/

Video of Israeli Soldiers Using Palestinian Child as Human Shield

Divesting From the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

Jewish Voice for Peace: A Moral Choice: Divesting From the Israeli Occupation and Investing in Peace.

The decision to divest from the occupation is
also critically important for Jews everywhere.
The quest for justice is at the core of Jewish
tradition and identity. When Jews support
the Israeli occupation, we are acting from fear
due to centuries of intense persecution and
genocide. When the U.S. government supports
the Israeli occupation in the face of international
human rights violations, it is acting out of
self-interests that have nothing to do with
Jewish values, traditions or security. The very
essence of Jewish values is a tradition of justice.
We know that Jews will not be truly free or
secure until the oppression of the Palestinians
ends. By examining the economic underpinnings
and voting to divest from companies that
benefit from the Israeli occupation, Christian
churches are acting as partners with Jews in
our own liberation.

Your decision to openly look at your investments
is so brave in part because you are doing it in the
face of being painfully and wrongfully accused
of anti-Semitism. The legacy of persecution
against Jews runs deep and the prejudice is
real even today. Accusations of anti-Semitism
should not be taken lightly, nor should they
be issued carelessly.
We cannot confuse anti-Semitism with
criticism of the policies of the State of Israel.
No state is above criticism. It is our moral
responsibility to single out injustice, to
denounce it, and to act against it.