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<font size=4><b>US academics: join us in Israel boycott call <br><br>
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<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10235.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10235.shtml<br>
</a>Appeal, <i>USCACBI,</i> 22 January 2009 <br><br>
<b>Mission statement<br><br>
</b></font>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):<br>
<dl>
<dd>In light of Israel's persistent violations of international law,
and<br><br>
<dd>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<br><br>
<dd>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<br><br>
<dd>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;<br><br>
<dd>Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in
the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance
to injustice and oppression,<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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:<br><br>
<dd>1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and
dismantling the Wall;<br><br>
<dd>2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian
citizens of Israel to full equality; and<br><br>
<dd>3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian
refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN
resolution 194."<br><br>
</dl><font size=3>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:<br><br>
1) occupation and colonization in the 1967-occupied Palestinian
territory;<br><br>
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<br><br>
3) the system of racial discrimination, or apartheid, to which
Palestinian (all non-Jewish) citizens of Israel are subjected.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>Urgent appeal<br><br>
</b></font>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):<br>
<dl>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>Enough is enough."<br><br>
</dl><font size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<b>Actions<br><br>
</b>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:<br><br>
1. Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural
cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli
institutions;<br><br>
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;<br><br>
3. Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by academic
institutions;<br><br>
4. Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for
resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural
associations and organizations;<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
<br>
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