[News] US academics: join us in Israel boycott call

[Anti-Imperialist News]

US academics: join us in Israel boycott call

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10235.shtml
Appeal, USCACBI, 22 January 2009

Mission statement

Responding to the CALL of Palestinian civil society to join the 
boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, we 
are a US campaign focused specifically on a boycott of Israeli 
academic and cultural institutions, as delineated by PACBI 
(Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel):
In light of Israel's persistent violations of international law, and

Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned 
Israel's colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called 
for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and

Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making 
have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with 
humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its 
occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and

In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international 
community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to 
fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid 
in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions;

Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in 
the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and 
resistance to injustice and oppression,

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call 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. We appeal to you to pressure your respective 
states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also 
invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of 
justice and genuine peace.

These nonviolent punitive measures should be maintained 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."

PACBI and the entire BDS movement (representing the overwhelming 
majority among Palestinian civil society parties, unions, networks 
and organizations) view three fundamental Palestinian rights, 
sanctioned by international law and universal human rights 
principles, that ought to be respected by Israel to end the boycott. 
All we endorse and struggle to achieve is an end to Israel's 
three-tiered injustice and oppression:

1) occupation and colonization in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territory;

2) denial of the refugees' rights, paramount among which is their 
right to return to their homes of origin, as per UN General Assembly 
Resolution 194; and

3) the system of racial discrimination, or apartheid, to which 
Palestinian (all non-Jewish) citizens of Israel are subjected.

The principles guiding the PACBI campaign and the three goals 
outlined above are also points of unity for the US Campaign for the 
Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USCACBI). We believe it is 
time to take a public, principled stance in support of equality, 
self-determination, human rights (including the right to education), 
and true democracy, especially in light of the censorship and 
silencing of the Palestine question in US universities, as well as US 
society at large. There can be no academic freedom in 
Israel/Palestine unless all academics are free and all students are 
free to pursue their academic desires.

If you are committed to these principles of unity, and wish to work 
on a campaign of boycotting academic and cultural institutions guided 
by this approach, please join our campaign.

Urgent appeal

Furthermore, we are also responding to the Open Letter to 
International Academic Institutions from the Right to Education 
campaign at Birzeit University in Palestine (17 January 2009):
In light of the ongoing massive Israeli bombardment of the Gaza 
Strip, in which more than 1,200 people have been killed -- more than 
1,000 (86 percent) of whom were civilian men, women and children -- 
and where more than 4,000 have been maimed and injured, the Right to 
Education Campaign at Birzeit University calls upon the international 
academic community, unions and students to show support and 
solidarity with the people of Gaza by calling upon their respective 
governments to impose immediate boycott, divestment and sanctions 
against the state of Israel until it abides by international human 
rights and humanitarian laws, dismantles its apartheid regime 
spanning both the occupied territories and Israel proper, and commits 
to pursuing a long-lasting, just peace.

The war on Gaza marks a breaking point: the world cannot remain 
silent while Israel instigates a war (they broke the ceasefire by 
killing six Palestinians on 4 November 2008 and four more on 17 
November 2008), annihilates all civilian infrastructure, targets 
civilian shelters, prevents medical teams from reaching victims, uses 
internationally banned substances like white phosphorous on 
civilians, prevents medical aid and equipment from entering the 
Strip, cuts off fuel, electricity and running water making daily 
life, especially for the injured, a living hell, and prevents anyone 
from escaping their carnage. These are not actions of a state which 
respects international laws and norms. Distinguished international 
lawyers have denounced the disproportionality of Israel's attacks as 
a war crime, and its indiscriminate killing as a crime against humanity.

Enough is enough."

Gaza is but the latest incident in a series of ongoing Israeli 
massacres, from Deir Yassin (1948) to Kafr Kassim (1956) to Jenin 
(2002) to the wars on Lebanon (from 1980s to 2006). All demonstrate a 
pattern of violence by a state that will not end its violations of 
international law and war crimes on its own, without international 
pressure. We must act now. As academics working in the US, we wish to 
focus on campaigns in our universities and in institutions of higher 
education to advocate for compliance with the academic and cultural 
boycott, a movement that is growing internationally across all 
segments of global civil society.

This call for an academic and cultural boycott parallels the call in 
the non-academic world for divestment, boycott and sanctions by trade 
unions, churches and other civil society organizations in countries 
such as the United States, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Norway, the United 
Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa and New Zealand.

Actions

Since Israeli academic institutions (mostly state-controlled) and the 
vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either 
contributed directly to maintaining, defending or otherwise 
justifying the above forms of oppression, or have been complicit in 
them through their silence, we call upon our colleagues 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 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.

As educators and scholars of conscience in the United States, we 
fully support this call. We urge our colleagues, nationally, 
regionally, and internationally, to stand up against Israel's ongoing 
scholasticide and to support the nonviolent call for academic 
boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions.

Please email us with your full name and institutional affiliation if 
you fully endorse the Mission Statement of US ACBI Campaign and 
authorize us to use your name publicly: uscom4acbi A T gmail D O T com.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20090122/7d408db8/attachment.htm>