[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [BoycottIsraeliGoods] Digest Number 725
Morton K.Brussel
brussel at uiuc.edu
Thu Feb 3 19:41:41 CST 2005
Amazing development of Wisconsin. Could it occur here?
And another good piece from Mazin Qumsiyeh. mkb
Begin forwarded message:
> From: BoycottIsraeliGoods at yahoogroups.com
> Date: February 3, 2005 5:22:54 AM CST
> To: BoycottIsraeliGoods at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [BoycottIsraeliGoods] Digest Number 725
> Reply-To: BoycottIsraeliGoods at yahoogroups.com
>
>
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> There are 2 messages in this issue.
>
> Topics in this digest:
>
> 1. PR: University of Wisconsin Faculty Call for Israel Divestment
> From: "Zahi Damuni" <zahi at al-awdacal.org>
> 2. Optimism and the good struggle
> From: "Mazin Qumsiyeh" <qumsi001 at hotmail.com>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 07:21:22 -0800
> From: "Zahi Damuni" <zahi at al-awdacal.org>
> Subject: PR: University of Wisconsin Faculty Call for Israel Divestment
>
> From: Fayyad Sbaihat
> To: Al Awda Wisc
> Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 10:08 PM
>
> -----For Immediate Release-----
>
>
>
> Contact: Fayyad Sbaihat, (608) 628-1943, frsbaihat at wisc.edu
>
> Mohammed Abed, (608) 332-9900, mkabed at wisc.edu
>
>
>
> University of Wisconsin Faculty Call for Israel Divestment
>
>
>
> (Madison, WI- 02/01/05) – The Faculty Senate of the University of
> Wisconsin-Platteville adopted a resolution last week demanding that
> the University divest from companies that provide the Israeli Army
> with weapons, equipment, and supporting systems.
>
>
>
> The resolution urges the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to
> eliminate investments in Caterpillar, General Dynamics, General
> Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Raytheon from the
> University’s Trust Fund “based on evidence of the active role these
> companies play in enabling Israeli Forces to engage in practices that
> violate international law and the human rights of the Palestinian
> people.”
>
>
>
> The resolution, adopted at the regular meeting on January 25th, is
> part of the University of Wisconsin Divestment From Israel Campaign
> (http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu), led by Al-Awda Wisconsin (The Palestine
> Right to Return Coalition) and Alternative Palestinian Agenda in
> partnership with several local social justice, student, and community
> organizations.
>
>
>
> The Faculty Senate cited reports by independent international,
> Palestinian, and Israeli Human Rights organizations that document
> widespread human rights violations against Palestinian civilians.
> These abuses are in many cases perpetrated using items produced by the
> companies identified in the resolution. The resolution also pointed
> out that these investments violate the University’s Trust and Fund
> Policy on socially responsible investment.
>
>
>
> The University of Wisconsin Regents Trust and Fund Policies provide
> that divestment ought to be carried out in cases where ‘any company,
> corporation, subsidiary or affiliate
> practices or condones through its actions discrimination on the basis
> of race, religion, color, creed or sex
> ’ or cases where “corporate policies or practices
> cause substantial social injury.”
>
>
>
> Caterpillar Corporation provides the Israeli Army with the D-9
> bulldozer and other equipment used to carry out widespread and
> systemic house demolitions, acts which have been classified by the UN
> Commission on Human Rights as war crimes. Caterpillar’s equipment is
> also used to uproot olive trees, destroy infrastructure, and to build
> Israel’s separation wall which has been deemed by the International
> Court of Justice to be a violation of International Law and the
> fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. Other companies
> provide fighter jets (Lockheed Martin), aircraft engines (General
> Electric), and missiles (Raytheon) often used to bomb targets in
> civilian areas and commit other human rights abuses. Investments in
> the companies specified by the resolution exceed $2.8 Million.
>
>
>
> The University of Wisconsin Divestment from Israel Campaign plans to
> introduce similar resolutions to other university and community
> institutions.
>
>
>
> ---END---
>
>
> [This message contained attachments]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:01:54 -0500
> From: "Mazin Qumsiyeh" <qumsi001 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Optimism and the good struggle
>
>
> Optimism and the good struggle
> http://www.qumsiyeh.org/optimismandthegoodstruggle/
>
> Occasionally I get asked by those who receive these emails if I get
> discouraged about the status of a affairs dominated by those with greed
> and/or hate. The reality is sometimes indeed very harsh and may even
> be
> harsher than most of us are willing to confront. Those in power seem
> to get
> more powerful and more arrogant with time as they go about their grisly
> "business" (and it is a business now) of crushing people and
> concentrating
> wealth and power. In the issue of the colonization of Palestine, we
> even
> observe a proliferation of an industry called the "peace process" that
> seems
> to be profitable to some. This peace process industry welcomes
> collaborators and those who have decided to give up the struggle and
> just
> join the elite in power (if and when they are allowed because they are
> found
> "useful idiots"!). Some of these folks start talking about Israeli
> "security" in hope for some crumbs from the table of their oppressor.
> Two
> problems that those people and their handlers fail to appreciate:
>
> a) What is being gobbled on the oppressors' table is nothing short of
> humanity, people's natural resources (land, water etc.), and more
> important
> the FUTURE of our children (Israelis, Palestinians, Americans etc).
>
> b) That you need not have to "win" to engage in the good struggle
>
> It is this latter point I want to address in detail since most people
> understand 'a' but fail to understand 'b'. The struggle can be and
> indeed
> must be carried out when winning and establishing power is not
> guaranteed or
> even doable. This is because the good struggle accomplishes a lot by
> checking the unlimited accumulation of power based on greed. After
> all, by
> definition, those who are motivated by Greed have the handicap of not
> being
> able to set internal limits on lust for power. The more charitable
> way to
> think of it is that good people at least do not let a drunk get access
> to
> keys of cars. More concretely, the struggle in forms ranging from
> teach-ins, mass demonstrations, boycotts and divestments, was indeed
> were
> critical in both the civil rights movement, for the final withdrawal
> of US
> forces from Vietnam, final end of US and corporate support for
> Apartheid
> South Africa, and just about every significant social movement.
>
> But the struggle also is important in less obvious situations.
> Without the
> mass good struggle, US neocons would now be in Syria and/or Iran. They
> would have killed far more Iraqi civilians. They would have had no
> interest
> in public relations campaigns about the abuses in Iraq and Guantanamou.
> They would have had no interest in reversing such ludicrous ideas as
> changing Iraqi flag with its Arab character to one with an anti-Arab
> character. They would have not started any investigations of the
> massive
> financial riggings and corruption. I could go on with other examples
> on
> this Iraqi front but let me switch to the related issue of Israeli
> colonization of Palestine.
>
> It is true that colonization activities continue while the peace
> process
> industry hums along trying to co-opt any resistance to the occupation
> and
> land confiscation. It is true that one is reminded of the same media
> hype
> following the signings of Oslo I and Oslo II where the Palestinian
> authority
> under Yasser Arafat was working hard to contain and stop any acts of
> resistance. (I remember even the CIA and Shin Bet issued glowing
> reports on
> this effort). Meanwhile Israel continued its "bulldozer policy": land
> confiscation, colony building, and cantonization/ghettoization of the
> increasingly impoverished Palestinians. Then, as now, we have
> constant talk
> by the Israeli government of "disengagement" and "redeployment" while
> Palestinian quislings like Dahlan talked in the wishful-thinking terms
> of
> Israeli "withdrawal" and a Palestinian state! Both Israeli officials
> and now
> the "acceptable" Palestinian officials speak the same general language
> in
> most areas (for example assiduously avoiding any mention of compliance
> with
> international law, human rights, ending occupation, ending colonization
> activities etc). OK so you know all of this and it looks bleak (as
> indeed
> many of us warned in the analogous years 0f 1994-1997). Now you ask,
> how
> is there anything positive to look at in terms of what WE DO. Well,
> we do
> have lots of positive signs. Here are just a few.
>
> 1) There is a proliferation of groups and number of people interested
> in
> helping (I know that for the ones I am involved in, there has been a
> doubling in the past two years alone). Their effectiveness is becoming
> more
> obvious in the media and even among politicians (why do you think
> Condi Rice
> is now talking about a viable and contiguous Palestinian state).
>
> 2) The pressure (due to activists working the media and politicians)
> helped
> in many instances in stopping home demolitions and land confiscation.
> The
> most recent example is Israel's backtracking on home confiscations in
> East
> Jerusalem and in some aspects (obviously not sufficient) or rerouting
> the
> Apartheid wall.
>
> 3) There is a proliferation of divestment and boycott campaign that is
> now
> in the logarithmic growth phase and is likely to achieve critical
> volume in
> 2-5 years IMHO. Most recently the University of Wisconsin Faculty
> added
> their voice to dozens of other groups (including Church groups) in
> calling
> for boycotts and divestments. Being involved in internal discussion in
> other groups, I know that several additional announcements are
> forthcoming
> in the next two months including from very influential groups.
>
> 4) The massive support for the Palestinian cause derives from the fact
> that
> it is a basic human rights cause that provides the Achilles’ heel of
> neocon
> and Zionist aspirations to hegemony and dominance not only in the
> Middle
> East but here in America and around the world (witness how those who
> profit
> from the so called "war on drugs" are the same people who profit from
> the so
> called "war on terrorism"). Hence what is encouraging is how labor
> against
> the war, minorities, Native Americans, and millions of disenfranchised
> people joined the struggle. When one looks at any gathering at the
> dozens
> of well-funded "think tanks" in Washington DC (funded by the
> corporations
> that profit), one is struck by how uniform the audience is. People
> are not
> fooled by the presence of the "uncle Tom"/Chief Buthelezi types in
> either
> the Bush administration (Condi Rice, Gonzales) or by the presence of
> these
> types being "elected" in Afghanistan (Karzai), Iraq (e.g. Alawi,
> Chalabi),
> or the upcoming attempts at shaping an "acceptable Palestinian
> partner".
> More people instead are speaking out and they are of all nationalities,
> ethnicities, religions, etc. Perhaps this explains why some democrats
> are
> finally showing some backbone in opposition to the nominations of the
> likes
> of "torture boy" Gonzales.
>
> 5) The International Court of Justice ruled last July not only that the
> segregation/apartheid wall was illegal but also that all Israeli
> settlements/colonies in the areas occupied in 1967 are illegal
> (including
> East Jerusalem). This was combined with the recent statement b UN
> officials
> explaining that Israel remains an occupying power per the Geneva
> Convention
> definitions) even if it "redeploys" its troops and settlers. This is
> because Israel retains its troops surrounding these Palestinian
> enclaves
> like Gaza and controlling entry and exit, thus refusing to grant
> Palestinians their freedom. International Law rejects concepts like
> turning
> Gaza into a large Israeli prison.
>
> 6) The fact that Palestinians have never given up their struggle for
> freedom
> despite the incredible pressures and history of ethnic cleansing and
> destruction (so far nearly 2/3rds of the nine million Palestinians are
> refugees or displaced people and over 200,000 have been killed in the
> past
> 56 years). If they did not give up, why should those in the West who
> care
> for peace give up?
>
> These and other examples of good things grow in a space near the
> suffocation
> of those in power; a space created by those challenging entrenched
> power.
> Life is always a struggle and if it has any secret it is precisely
> that it
> is a struggle and that progress happens as a result of so many good
> people
> constantly challenging and speaking truth to power ("trouble makers"
> in a
> good sense). On a personal level the biggest victory is not to
> capitulate
> and not to sell your soul to the highest bidder but instead to live
> and work
> for peace with justice. As the Buddhist saying goes.."having JOYFUL
> PARTICIPATION in the sorrows of this world."
>
> Links for today:
>
> Uri Avnery in Counterpunch: When a draw is a victory for the weak
> http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery02012005.html
>
> Demographic Politics by Aluf Benn
> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/534939.html
>
> (Jews) Speaking out about Israel to save the Jewish soul
> http://jordantimes.com/tue/opinion/opinion3.htm
>
> Optimism is one thing, bulldozers another by Amira Hass
> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/534935.html
>
> Children of Iraq (pictures, some graphic content)
> http://www.zonaeuropa.com/01467.htm
>
> Harakat Al-Kifah: Iraqi resistance movement creates new website (in
> Arabic)
> http://www.kifah.org
>
> Mazin
> http://qumsiyeh.org
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
>
>
> 2003 Al-Nakba Awareness and Al-Awda Activism Year: See
> http://Al-Awda.org
>
> Contact congress and elected officials often:
> http://cflweb.org/congress_merge_.htm
>
> For other ways to help, see http://BoycottIsraeliGoods.org
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