vrijdag 26 februari 2010

Boycot Israel 76


We must speak out
Today we are launching an appeal for a world-wide cultural boycott against the Israeli state.



John Berger
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 December 2006 08.34 GMT


Today I am supporting a world-wide appeal to teachers, intellectuals and artists to join the cultural boycott of the state of Israel, as called for by over a hundred Palestinian academics and artists, and - very importantly - also by a number of Israeli public figures, who outspokenly oppose their country's illegal occupation of the Palestine territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Their call, printed in the Guardian today, can be read here. A full list of signatories can be found here.

The boycott is an active protest against two forms of exclusion which have persisted, despite many other forms of protestations, for over 60 years - for almost three generations. During this period the state of Israel has consistently excluded itself from any international obligation to heed UN resolutions or the judgement of any international court. To date, it has defied 246 Security Council Resolutions.

As a direct consequence seven million Palestinians have been excluded from the right to live as they wish on land internationally acknowledged to be theirs; and now increasingly, with every week that passes, they are being excluded from their right to any future at all as a nation. As Nelson Mandela has pointed out, boycott is not a principle, it is a tactic depending upon circumstances. A tactic which allows people, as distinct from their elected but often craven governments, to apply a certain pressure on those wielding power in what they, the boycotters, consider to be an unjust or immoral way. (In white South Africa yesterday and in Israel today, the immorality was, or is being, coded into a form of racist apartheid.)

Boycott is not a principle. When it becomes one, it itself risks becoming exclusive and racist. No boycott, in our sense of the term, should be directed against an individual, a people, or a nation as such. A boycott is directed against a policy and the institutions which support that policy either actively or tacitly. Its aim is not to reject, but to bring about change.

How to apply a cultural boycott? A boycott of goods is a simpler proposition, but in this case it would probably be less effective, and speed is of the essence, because the situation is deteriorating every month (which is precisely why some of the most powerful world political leaders, hoping for the worst, keep silent).

How to apply a boycott? For academics it's perhaps a little clearer - a question of declining invitations from state institutions and explaining why. For invited actors, musicians, jugglers or poets it can be more complicated. I'm convinced, in any case, that its application should not be systematised; it has to come from a personal choice based on a personal assessment.

For instance: an important mainstream Israeli publisher today is asking to publish three of my books. I intend to apply the boycott with an explanation. There exist, however, a few small, marginal Israeli publishers who expressly work to encourage exchanges and bridges between Arabs and Israelis, and if one of them should ask to publish something of mine, I would unhesitatingly agree and furthermore waive aside any question of author's royalties. I don't ask other writers supporting the boycott to come necessarily to exactly the same conclusion. I simply offer an example.

What is important is that we make our chosen protests together, and that we speak out, thus breaking the silence of connivance maintained by those who claim to represent us, and thus ourselves representing, briefly by our common action, the incalculable number of people who have been appalled by recent events but lack the opportunity of making their sense of outrage effective.

Full details of the campaign and add your name at http://www.bricup.org.uk/



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/dec/15/johnberger

5 opmerkingen:

Anoniem zei

Welke Nederlandse krant gaat de brief voor Elton John plaatsen? Lijkt me wel nieuwswaardig. De Israelische media schenken er ook aandacht aan, dus wat let men? Wie bij tv en radio gaat hier wat over zeggen? Shownieuws, Albert v.d. Linden?
Zover ik weet heeft gade Onno Hoes ook mooie vakantiefoto's van Israel op zijn website. Zou mooi matchen.

anzi

anzi

Anoniem zei

Published on Thursday, February 25, 2010 by Agence France Presse
Clashes Erupt in West Bank Town over Holy Sites

HEBRON, West Bank – Around 100 Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Hebron on Thursday over an Israeli plan to renovate two deeply contested holy sites in the occupied territory.

Palestinian youths throw stones towards Israeli soldiers during clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron. Around 100 Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Hebron on Thursday over an Israeli plan to renovate two deeply contested holy sites in the occupied territory. (Getty/AFP)The plan has infuriated Palestinians and been criticised by the United States as a "provocative" act that could further complicate efforts to relaunch Middle East peace talks suspended during the Gaza war more than a year ago.

Young men hurled rocks at soldiers who fired tear gas and stun grenades in running clashes near the disputed Tomb of the Patriarchs, according to an AFP correspondent who saw four Palestinians detained by soldiers.
lees verder CommonDreams.org


Ps Deze zin staat er ook tussen

US President Barack Obama's administration, which has been struggling for months to relaunch peace talks, also criticised the move.

Wie zal onderhand deze flauwekul niet meer doorhebben?

anzi

Anoniem zei

You are here: Biography Statements and Declarations 01.04.02: Israeli Repression

Author: Mikis Theodorakis
Publishing date: 19.07.2004 17:16


The people of Israel are certain to regret one day having let Sharon drag them into a shameful campaign that revives memories of Nazi crimes.

And it is indeed astonishing, inconceivable, that a people such as the Israelis, who like no other has known the ferocity of the Nazis, is now trying to imitate them by acting with the same ferocity.

They claim to be acting in self-defence. How is it possible to compare two totally different situations?

On one side, a modern army, with war-planes, tanks, helicopters, rockets, in other words, unlimited means of destruction; on the other, a handful of boys and girls sacrificing their lives by striking - it is true - blindly...Who, however, forces these children to give up their lives? That is something that not one of those who go on and on about terrorism in order to justify their own crimes has ever told us.

Terrorism has become a pretext to justify frontal attacks on the Palestinians, with, as final objectives, military occupation, extermination of their leaders, starting with Arafat, the internment in camps and prisons of the protagonists, the terrorisation of the civilian population (unarmed), which is already being deprived of water.

They want to turn the Palestinian territories into a vast military camp, thus perfecting their final solution. In the end it seems that the former victims, the Israelis, are more and more fascinated by the methods of their former torturers, the Nazis. Final Solution at the expense of the Jews. Final Solution at the expense of the Palestinians. Not even the revolting "detail" of branding the prisoners' hands with numbers has been omitted...

And all that with the permission and support of the only superpower and the culpable inaction of the others. Who are content - starting with the United Nations Security Council - to express wishes without backing them up. Where are the Arabs, the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese? Where are the peoples? I do not know, but all that reminds me of the decade 1930-1940. This torpor of today's governments and peoples, we know very well to which biblical catastrophe it led humanity...

If we leave Palestine all alone at the mercy of the current occupiers, then we're opening the door to the darkest forces humanity has known in the past.

The Greek people find themselves once again entirely on the side of the victims, the heroic Palestinians, and demands that the UNO resolution be respected. That the Israeli army withdraw, that Arafat be freed, and that peace talks begin. This is the only way for the two peoples to be liberated from the throes of war.

Athens 1.4.2002

anzi

AdR zei

Aldus sprak de componist van de Mauthausen Cyclus...

Anoniem zei

En een ongewenste vreemdeling.

anzi

Peter Flik en Chuck Berry-Promised Land

mijn unieke collega Peter Flik, die de vrijzinnig protestantse radio omroep de VPRO maakte is niet meer. ik koester duizenden herinneringen ...