Marrickville Municipal Council votes to support boycott against Israel, by a vote of 10 to 2.

Marrickville Council first to support the boycott Israel campaign

December 17, 2010 09:31 PM PST

On Sydney Educational Broadcasting's community radio, in Australia, at:

http://2ser.podomatic.com/entry/index/2010-12-17T21_34_06-08_00

Marrickville has become the first local council in Australia to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

This week the Council voted 10 to 2 for the motion to support the BDS -- an international campaign designed to stop trade and investment in companies, sporting teams and other institutions with ties to Israel.

It aims to coerce Israel to restore human rights and return occupied land to Palestinians.

The United Nations and Australian Federal and State Governments have refused to support the BDS.

But the NSW Greens are backing the campaign.

2SER’s Elise Scott spoke with Green’s Marrickville Councilor Cathy Peters, who put forward the motion this week.

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AUSTRALIA:

Marrickville Council votes to support BDS 14Dec10

At: http://australiansforpalestine.com/34297

December 15, 2010

Greens, ALP and an Independent councillor united at Marrickville Municipal Council to adopt the following resolution moved by Greens Councillor Cathy Peters:

“That:

1. In particular recognition of its sister city relationship with Bethlehem and the strong support for this relationship from local progressive faith communities and other community members, Marrickville Council support the principles of the BDS global campaign and report back on any links the Council has with organisations or companies that support or profit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine with a view to the Council divesting from such links and imposing a boycott on any future such links or goods purchases.
2. Marrickville Council boycott all goods made in Israel and any sporting, institutional academic, government or institutional cultural exchanges.
3. Marrickville Council write to the local State and Federal ministers (Carmel Tebbutt and Anthony Albanese) informing them of Council’s position and seeking their support at the State and Federal level for the global BDS movement.”

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Seattle buses say: "Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work"

Click on the TV news photo to enlarge it.

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" 'Israeli War Crimes' signs to go on Metro buses"

The full TV news report is on Seattle's KING 5 TV News at:

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Israeli-War-Crimes-signs-to-go-on-Metro-buses-112108154.html

by ALLEN SCHAUFFLER / KING 5 News

SEATTLE – "Israeli War Crimes," the enormous advertisement reads. "Your tax dollars at work."

To the right of the image is a group of children -- one little boy stares out at the viewer, the others gawk at a demolished building, all rebar and crumbled concrete.

It's an ad you'll be seeing soon on a handful of Metro buses in downtown Seattle.

A group calling itself the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign has paid King County $1,794 so that 12 buses will carry that message around town, starting two days after Christmas. That's December 27: the two-year anniversary of Israeli attacks on Gaza...

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Associated Press finally hounds the White House about jailing of Palestinian...

The video and story are on the Web at:

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/12/matthew-lee-of-ap-why-is-it-beneath-the-united-states-to-come-out-and-say-something-about-this-person-who-is-a-practitioner-of-nonviolence.html

The YouTube video is also at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ngx6UDjFWQ

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"Wayne State Student Council...demanded that Wayne State dump any Israeli investments."

"Jack soft on Israel"

In the METRO TIMES (Detroit, Michigan)

December 15, 2010

At: http://metrotimes.com/news/letters-to-the-editor-1.1077422

Re: "Leadership for sale" (Dec. 8), Jack Lessenberry can't have forgotten how Israel massacred 1,400 innocent Palestinians in Gaza, less than two years ago.

Yet Lessenberry is not campaigning against Israel. No, Lessenberry is venting his spleen against Helen Thomas.

Helen Thomas is rightly incensed at how Palestine is robbed, starved and massacred. She dared to demand action against Israel, as we all should.

How on Earth did that drive Lessenberry to libel Thomas as "a vulgar anti-Semite"?

Instead, Lessenberry should have joined her in demanding action against Israel, at long last.

Lessenberry should have joined the Wayne State Student Council in April 2003 — when the council demanded that Wayne State dump any Israeli investments.

Instead, Lessenberry has gravely dishonored himself and Metro Times. He chose to shield the Zionists, as they starve Gaza, and to strike Helen Thomas with a libelous death blow.

I hope to see the Metro Times replace Lessenberry's column with one by a human rights fighter who hates racism — like Helen Thomas. It's shameful to shield the Zionists. Stand with the occupied people of Palestine, and boycott Israel.

—Blaine Coleman, Ann Arbor

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Students protest Israeli military propaganda at the University of Massachusetts:

This exact protest, against campus propaganda from Israeli soldiers, was originated by University of Michigan students.

The protests have already spread to Arizona State University, and to the University of Massachusetts , as you can see below.

The U.Mass. protest video is below.

"University of Massachusetts, Amherst -- IDF soldier protest -- December 2nd, 2010", on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XucLn1EtWzs

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One of the members of Students for Justice in Palestine has written that the protest was in accordance with the call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel:

"Another silent walk-out in protest of Israel’s PR campaign"

Excerpted from the main article at:

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/12/another-silent-walk-out-in-protest-of-israels-pr-campaign.html

"...In doing this action, we are also in accordance with the call for a boycott, divest, and sanctions movement against Israel. Until Israel is held responsible for their crimes against humanity, until they remove all troops from occupied territories, until they accept the right of return, and abandon the systematic policy of carving up the land – we will continue to boycott Israel to the fullest extent. Israel is a colonizer-settler state which has forcibly expelled the indigenous people from their land for decades. Despite condemning international accounts of their domestic policies, Israel is still being financed by economically powerful companies and countries. As a form of non-violent resistance, the boycott movement as a necessity needs to swell and multiply. We see hope on the horizon, and as a coalition, we are attempting to foster ways to reach those ends until Palestine is free, imbued with joyfulness and sovereignty..."

Another Food Co-op Votes to Boycott Israeli Goods.

Dublin Food Co-op Votes to Boycott Israeli Goods:

At: http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occupation/3044-irish-groups-continue-supporting-bds

Members of Ireland’s Dublin Food Co-Op voted overwhelmingly to boycott Israeli goods at a Special General Meeting on 25 November.

This was the third attempt over the last 2 years to bring in a boycott of Israeli goods, reported the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and this time the motion finally passed with 50 in support, and only 6 against.

The Dublin Food Co-op, which was formed in 1983 and is based “on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity,” had in the past an unwritten policy not to stock or sell Israeli produce, though some member were doing so anyway.

The boycott motion states: “The boycott, if agreed, shall remain in force until such time as the state of Israel agrees:

a) to allow humanitarian-aid and un-armed peace activists entry into Palestine without the threat of violence and death from Israeli armed forces; and

b) agrees to honor UN resolutions regarding the unlawful occupation of Palestine in the so called Israeli 'settlements'.

The boycott, if approved, also includes Dublin Food Co-Op's artisan food producer members and organic farmers who occasionally sell at the co-op, fruit and vegetables imported from Israel.”

The decision will affect the co-op’s 1,200 members and is in the vein of their organizational principles, which state that “co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.”

A week earlier, its biennial conference Ireland’s Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) unanimously voted to “support for a boycott campaign of Israeli goods and services and a policy of disinvestment from Israeli companies” as a result of the Israeli state’s continuing breaches of international law and human rights abuses against the people of Palestine.

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Conference demands "End U.S. Aid to Israel" --

Berkeley:

"Palestine, American Wars, and Islamophobia in America"

End U.S. Aid to Israel
Billions for Education, Not War and Occupation
Defend Civil Liberties and End FBI Raids

Speakers include:

• Hatem Bazian, UCB
• Michael Shehadeh, LA 8
• Ziad Abbas, MECA
• Barbara Lubin, MECA
• Jeff Mackler, UNAC
• Masao Suzuki, Committee to Stop FBI Repression
• Blanca Missé, UCB Student Worker Action Team
• Cal Students for Justice in Palestine
• UCB Muslim Student Association

Sponsors: United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC), Cal. Students for Justice in Palestine, UCB Muslim Student Association, Middle East Children's Alliance, One Struggle One Fight, Arab Resource Organizing Center, Alliance for South Asians Taking Action, and the International Socialist Organization.

For more info, call 510-268-9429, email teachinNov30@gmail.com, or visitteachinNov30.wordpress.com.

Download the flier.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - 7:00pm

UC Berkeley • Pauley Ballroom

Location:

2475 Bancroft Way

Berkeley, CA

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