Freedom and justice For Gaza: Boycott action against 7 complicit companies | BDSmovement.net

Freedom and justice For Gaza: Boycott action against 7 complicit companies | BDSmovement.net

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

Israel's regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct suppport from governments in North America and Europe but also from corporations that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights violations.



There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every conscientious person and organisation around the world to target the following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

At a time of such horror and such hypocrisy from our leaders here in Australia and elsewhere in the world, the movement for BDS against Israel gives us a way to take the power of solidarity into our own hands and stand up for the Palestinians.

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

regime
of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

Israel’s
regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid is once again
committing heinous massacres on the Palestinian people in Gaza.


Israel enjoys criminal impunity because of the direct support from
governments in the North America and Europe but also from corporations
that are implicated in the Israeli occupation and egregious human rights
violations.


There are dozens of companies that play an active and ongoing role in
facilitating Israeli apartheid. In light of the exceptionally bloody
massacres Israel is currently committing in Gaza, the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) suggests to BDS activists and every
conscientious person and organization around the world to target the
following 7 companies as a matter of urgency.

- See more at:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/freedom-and-justice-for-gaza-boycott-action-against-7-complicit-companies-12386#sthash.ZwAsxIe9.dpuf

HAIM: Please don't perform in Israel!

I'm probably what is called an active promoter in marketing speak. Anyone who has spent much time with me had probably heard about my love for Nando's chicken, ASICS footwear, Sydney FC, or various video games. Perhaps this is contradictory for a radical like me, but life is contradiction...

This is also the case when it comes to bands and musicians. I spend almost as much time on social media sharing videos or snatches of lyrics as I do my politics.

When I first heard HAIM songs playing on the radio, I was hooked straight away on their soaring, rhythmitic vocals and funk-folk-pop fused guitars which got more entrancing with each listen. I started sharing away with Falling.

Then, trawling through Wikipedia I discovered the band - three sisters, Danielle, Este and Alana Haim - have an Israeli father. A thought occured. And a quick google came up with the headline "We want to perform in Israel."

It would be completely inconsistent for me to not boycott a band's music once they've gone to perform in Israel, given my campaigning for BDS.

This was hard for me to do with Cut Copy, when I liked a couple of their singles after they got airtime on triple J; they refused to follow the lead of artists who respected the call like Carlos Santana, Massive Attack and Gil-Scott Heron and performed their concert in Israel on June 23, 2011.

Until I found this out I was going to go on a massive fan-boy bender of love for Haim, in a way that I haven't since first discovering the Jezabels when their first EP was just out in 2009.

Now, if I let myself do that I will only be setting myself up to have to boycott a favourite band whenever their wish to perform in Israel comes true.

The call for international artists to boycott Israel is part of a specific global campaign, called by Palestinians and following the example of South Africa. It's not just a question of the personal politics of the artists, but the concrete actions and their political ramifications.

The politics of BDS are certainly up for debate and there's no one Palestinian or international perspective on going about it, but for me, I don't want to pick and choose which parts I think are effective. Palestinian civil society has, for the first time since the 1980s, come together in a united way to try and rebuild their national movement behind the demands of BDS: tearing down the apartheid Wall in the West Bank; allowing the right of return for the refugees of 1948, 1967 and after; full legal equality for Palestinian (and all other) citizens of Israel.

And until the state of Israel implements those demands, all of which have been repeatedly called for by international legal bodies and the UN, then it deserves to be boycotted.

Alice Walker this week released an open letter calling on Alicia Keys to cancel her performance:

It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists. You were not born when we, your elders who love you, boycotted institutions in the US South to end an American apartheid less lethal than Israel’s against the Palestinian people. Google Montgomery Bus Boycott, if you don’t know about this civil rights history already. We changed our country fundamentally and the various boycotts of Israeli institutions and products will do the same there....

Under a campaign named ‘Brand Israel’, Israeli officials have stated specifically their intent to downplay the Palestinian conflict by using culture and arts to showcase Israel as a modern, welcoming place...

Walker puts the case far more convincingly than I could. International artists performing in Israel is one part of a strategy of "re-legitimisation" for Israel, after the damage done by widespread media coverage of recent atrocities like the attacks on Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and 2009/10, the assault on the Mavi Marmara, the arbitrary detention of Palestinian footballers...

A counter argument was put to me through a friend on Facebook when I discovered HAIM's position:

But maybe consistency is impossible when not everything or everyone is so black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. Maybe you are allowed to like someone's art, even if you don't agree with 100% of their politics. Especially if their art isn't about their politics

Is it right to boycott a band for their opinions alone? They haven't yet booked a date, merely answered questions put to them by the Israeli press. This hardly falls under the guidelines of PACBI's call for boycott of artists, which is mostly focused on either cultural projects with connections with Israeli institutions, or calling on international artists who have booked dates in Israel to respect the boycott and cancel those events.

To me, the fact that the Israeli press is interested in talking to the sisters reflects the political dimension of their comments; at a time when public figures like Dustin Hoffman, Arundhati Roy and Steven Hawking are boycotting Israel, their comments are held up as a counter to BDS.

So when young international artists, Jewish or otherwise, state in the media they dream of performing in Israel and don't mention the context of the BDS campaign calling on artists not to, they are engaging in politics and sending a signal that the situation in Israel in Palestine is "normal" - and they should expect a political response.

But HAIM has the right to their opinions. Many people, probably including artists, writers and actors I like, have politics I disagree with. That doesn't stop me listening to their music, so it won't stop me with HAIM.

"Baby Haim" Alana did an interview with online magazine of young Jewish Americans "Jewcy", in which she spoke about visiting Israel:

 

We have to go to Israel for the occasional family wedding. There are some crazy Israeli weddings! I love Israel; I think it’s such a beautiful place. A lot of people think ‘Oh you go to Israel because you’re Jewish.’ I encourage my friends who aren’t Jewish to go to Israel because it’s such a beautiful place, and it’s such an important place. There’s so much history there, and it doesn’t matter what religion you are. I’ve always felt like a deep connection to the country. Especially living in LA, we don’t really have any history. Our history starts with Hollywood.

As individuals, the sisters have their own stories and histories, which I don't think it's my place to comment on. I too felt the weight of history when I visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jaffa; the history of these places echoes throughout western cultures. I would also encourage everyone to visit Israel & the Occupied Territories and see life there for themselves, as I did, and form their own opinions.

But for HAIM to perform in Israel sends an altogether different message; it's to take a side in that history, to give support to the settlers burning Palestinian crops, to sick children being refused access to a pool because they are Bedouin, to the policies of the current Israeli government.

So I'm not boycotting HAIM or calling on others to do so, since they haven't actually done anything for them to be boycotted yet. But my respect for BDS means I will have to boycott their music if they ever do fulfil that dream 

As someone who would love to be an active promoter, I'm calling on HAIM to take another look at what's really happening in Israel and Palestine and make a statement that they will respect the boycott call. Hopefully it won't be long before Apartheid is ended in Israel and all citizens of the region, regardless of race or religion, will be given their rights.

You are performing today, alongside some of my other favourite artists, at the "Sound of Change" concert to promote women's empowerment. That sends a fantastic signal to the world, that public profile can be used to promote change. To refuse to perform in Israel - or better still, to perform in Gaza, as Alice Walker called on Alicia Keys to do - will send a signal that people of all races, religions and backgrounds want justice in Palestine.