Month: July 2012

July 10, 2012December 11, 2020

Woody Allen, Please Refuse Israel’s Hasbara Bribes

Woody, how do you feel about being bribed with millions of dollars by Israeli government agents to sacrifice your artistic integrity as propaganda for their apartheid state?

Would it not be more ingenious to develop a movie satirising Israel’s desperate attempts to obscure its crimes against humanity? Many human rights activists would be happy to lend their assistance and resources to such a worthy project for free. Noa Tishby can perform as herself, Mark Regev can be played by a real Australian Taipan and the IDF Spokesperson could be played by a Dalek.

Mark Regev demonstrates his natural ability for satire:

Woody, if you are in any doubt about the monstrous nature of the regime which you are being enveigled to support, please read about how illegal Israeli settlers kill Palestinian livestock and torch olive groves while the Palestinian owners are arrested by Israeli occupation forces and prevented from defending their crops. Find out how Indigenous Bedouin Palestinians are deprived of water by Israel.

The Civil Administration is supposed to take care of the people’s needs. But it does not stop at the most despicable measure – depriving people and livestock of water in the scathing summer heat – to implement Israel’s strategic goal: to drive them from their lands and purge the valley of its non-Jewish residents.

…

Last week I saw the people whose water container Avi had confiscated, leaving them thirsty. Newborn babies, a handicapped little girl, a small boy post-surgery, women and old folks, and, of course, the sheep – the only source of income here. Denizens with no water – in Israel, not in Africa. Water for one nation only – in Israel, not in South Africa.

…

Amjad Zahawa, a 2-day-old infant, passed his third day under the hot sun, with no shelter over his head. Greetings, Amjad; welcome to the reality of your life.

Palestinian civil society has requested that artists refrain from appearing in Israel until it respects international law, ends its colonialism and apartheid, delivers equal rights for Palestinian Israelis and recognises the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands.

Please, Woody, respect the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

UPDATE 12/7/12

According to JJ Goldberg’s translation of a Yediot print interview with him in Paris last week, Woody is an Israelophile who intends taking his children to apartheid, oppressive Israel to explore their father’s “Jewish culture” as if that’s only available in the settler colonial zionist entity, a secular fascist state.

Coincidentally, we don’t need to guess any longer about Allen’s feelings toward Israel. He discusses them — passionately — in an interview with Yediot Ahronot Paris correspondent Yaniv Halili, published last Friday (in Hebrew) in Yediot’s increasingly readable weekend entertainment supplement, 7 Nights. Most of it is about growing old (he hates it), the Soon-Yi scandal (the public never got it, he doesn’t read the tabloids), his non-relationship with his son and his work habits. Israel only comes up at the end, but he goes at it with gusto. I don’t have time to translate the whole thing (and it’s not online even in Hebrew, alas), but here’s the part about Israel, Jewish identity and, intriguingly, the dilemmas of his half-Jewish children’s Jewish identity:

Unlike every mother and daughter, he doesn’t light Sabbath candles. “I grew up in a Jewish atmosphere (al birkei ha-yahadut) and they made me a bar mitzvah, so clearly it’s an element that will remain in my life permanently, just like the songs I listened to on the radio when I was a child. But I don’t believe in organized religions. Most of them exploit people, and I think these clubs have nothing to do with God. Today I feel Jewish mainly when people attack me because of my being Jewish.”

About Israel, on the other hand, he has only good things to say. In practice, when Allen starts talking about Israel it’s hard to stop him. So hard that even his assertive, energetic publicist merited only a dismissive wave of the hand, indicating that she should wait until he was finished gushing about his love. “I support Israel and I’ve supported it since the day it was founded. Israel’s neighbors have treated it badly, cruelly, instead of embracing it and making it part of the Middle East family of nations. Over the years Israel has responded to these attacks in various ways, some of which I approved of and some less so. I understand that Israelis have been through hard times, I don’t expect Israel to react perfectly every time and that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a wonderful, marvelous country. I’m just worried about the rise of fundamentalism in Israel, which I think damages its interests. I also have questions about your leadership, which doesn’t always act in Israel’s best interests. But even my criticism of Israel comes from a place of love, just like when I criticize the United States. It would be a mistake not to say something if you think a country you love makes a mistake and could hurt itself.”

Then why have you never visited Israel?

“I’m not a tourist. I travel regularly to three cities that I know and love — Paris, London and Rome — and that’s it. I don’t like to leave home because I’m a bit neurotic, and when I do leave home, it’s mostly for work. I don’t like flying and I don’t consider myself a curious person who wants to see new places. There are many states in the United States that I’ve never visited. My wife is of Korean origin and she’s been trying for years to convince me to go to South Korea with her — so far, unsuccessfully. She’s also very curious about Israel and wants to go there with the girls, so they can see and understand their father’s Jewish culture. I assume we’ll go and visit Israel soon. There’s no way around it.”

Perhaps Woody’s girls will find out in Israel that they are not regarded as Jewish and even if they were born in Israel, they would be deported as happened recently to this 6 year old Asian girl.

UPDATE 17/7/12

Is the Woody Allen Israel movie a done deal? Jerusalem ‘Mayor’ Barkat met with him months ago, Peres got in a word as well recently. Beware orchestrated hasbara campaigns.

A Jerusalem municipality spokesman told Haaretz that several months ago, while on a fund-raising tour, Barkat met with Allen and Diane Keaton in a Manhattan restaurant. Barkat invited Allen to visit the capital and consider shooting a film there.

“Allen replied that he would seriously consider it,” the spokesman said. “Barkat plans to meet with Allen again during his next visit to the U.S.”

Tel Aviv made a similar offer, but Allen has not yet responded. “The Tel Aviv municipality is leading a move to position the city in the international arena,” Mayor Ron Huldai told Haaretz.

“Obviously, a film taking place in Tel Aviv would be a vehicle to promote the city abroad, and we have constant and close contacts with leading figures in Hollywood, with the government and with Israel’s cinema community, hoping that such a move will materialize.”

Related Links

Allison Kaplan Sommer quotes this blog post in Haaretz: Why I’m not bribing Woody Allen to shoot a movie in Israel
Woody Allen and ‘Self-Hating Jew’ Drivel; Is It Not Incredible?
Woody Allen expresses typical American Jewish attitudes on Israel: Loves it but has never been there
The Woody Allen Israel Project
Rob Eshman quoted by the Reut Institute from his article Six Steps to Better Israel PR from June 2010 wherein Eshman commends the Reut Institute for its propagandising intiatives: ‘Reut’s proposal to create a similarly sophisticated network of coordinated activists working on behalf of Israel is a smart start.’
Top Israeli Advocate Empowers AJC President’s Council Members to Fight Delegitimizers of Israel
Eshman publishes Reut’s Gidi Grinstein in 2008
Eshman attends a Reut conference in June 2008
Eshman supports the Reut two state position in 2011.
Eshman argues against cultural boycott of Israel in 2010

“The Tel Aviv/Los Angeles Partnership was the flagship project of [The Jewish Agency for Israel’s] Partnership 2000, and people sort of took it for granted that it was smooth sailing and very effective,” said Gidi Grinstein, president of the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv strategy group that conducted a study of the Tel Aviv/Los Angeles Partnership in 2010.

Demonstrated Impact: One Hub at a Time

Tel-Aviv – Los Angeles Partnership [as part of Partnership 2Gether] adopts the recommendations of the Reut Institute report – Following a comprehensive evaluation of the untapped potential of the Tel Aviv – Los Angeles Partnership 2Gether (P2G) project, to serve as a platform for direct links between the Jewish communities of Los Angeles and Tel Aviv, the Jewish World taskforce presented the LA Federation with a report. This report outlines criteria for a leading and innovative 21st century model partnership, including specific recommendations for leveraging the unique assets of the TLV-LA partnership. In recent months, members of the Los Angeles Federation arrived in Israel and elected to adopt the findings and recommendations of the report, marking a new and promising chapter in the partnership. The taskforce also launched a document outlining the elements of a generic model partnership.

The Jewish Agency’s deputy chairperson of the Executive, partners with the Reut Institute on how to leverage JAFI’s new strategic plan – Against the backdrop of JAFI’s recently updated strategic plan, the Reut Institute was invited to facilitate a series of strategic discussions on the unique value and assets that JAFI’s Deputy Chairperson of the Executive can leverage in order to promote the two main drivers of JAFI’s strategic plan: Israel experiences and social activism.

Israel Leadership Council (ILC) of Los Angeles partners with the taskforce – As part of its current strategic re-visioning effort, the ILC invited the taskforce to think about its potential leadership role. In this context, a report was written and presented to ILC board members in Israel. The report includes both a theoretical framework describing the fledgling phenomenon called the organized Israeli Diaspora, as well as guidelines for how the ILC can best fit into this emerging reality. The report aimed to address the following question: How can the ILC leverage the Israeli Diaspora in the US?

Targeting individuals on discover the networks

Anatomy of a Blacklisting: A Thread in Two Blogs

July 6, 2012December 11, 2020

Professor Peter Higgs Supports Academic Boycott of Israel

Much love for Professor Peter Higgs, namesake of the Higgs boson, firm evidence for which was announced by scientists at CERN this week, and who ‘shares his views on the occupation in every forum and encourages the academic boycott of Israel.’ In the Israeli Physical Society Journal, it’s noted that:

“Although the British scientist Peter Higgs gave his name to the Higgs field and Higgs particle, at least two other physicists, François Englert and Robert Brout, had a part in the discovery. All three were awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by Israel’s Knesset in 2004. Higgs boycotted the ceremony for political reasons.”

In an appeal to Indian academics this week, INCACBI, the Indian chapter of the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel emphasised:

The Israeli state daily tramples on the academic freedom and cultural life of the Palestinian people, and continued association with the instruments of such a state is unconscionable. We believe that academic life is rooted in the values of democracy, equality and justice. The pursuit of excellence in the fields we work in has meaning only if imbued with conscience. When Palestinian students and teachers are not allowed to reach their universities because of permit laws and checkpoints, universities and schools are leveled by bombs and tanks, food, textbooks, and medical supplies are prohibited from entering Gaza, and artistic events are closed down in Jerusalem, none of the foundational principles on which academic and cultural contact are based can ever be fulfilled.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions are a legitimate means called for by Palestinian civil society for individuals and organisations to apply punitive action on the criminal Israeli regime when governments have refused or been unable to act.

How could one not boycott a regime which orders the destruction of an entire Palestinian village in the West Bank as part of its monstrous land grab?

Palestine / Israel Links

Congratulations to nearly half the US Presbyterian Church delegates who didn’t buy into the atrocious racist hasbara peddled by Peace Now and the ziolobby. Peace Now’s collusion with the Occupation and apartheid Israeli regime is now completely exposed.
Funding the occupation is taking a side
Irony: “Parenthetically, the interview itself, in its structure and the kind of questions asked and not asked, suggests that Finkelstein himself is fashioning his own persona as a cult leader.”

July 6, 2012December 11, 2020

Geri Allen: Inspire Justice, Join the Cultural Boycott of Israel

Paul Robeson Geri Allen
Associate Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation
http://www.geriallen.com/contact.php
University Of Michigan
734-764-5599

Dear Geri Allen,

We (Don’t Play Apartheid Israel) heard that you plan to perform before a segregated audience in Eilat on August 1 and 2. This is your opportunity to refuse this invitation to play for an Israeli government sponsored event and to support human rights. Among the nearly 6 million Palestinians who are subject to racism and segregation by Israel, there is at least one young Beah Richards whom you have the opportunity to ‘lift up’ by standing up for equal rights and justice.

In our minds, the film about the late Beah Richards, who was empowered by the strength of Paul Robeson, is intertwined with your piano notes. Had it not been for Paul Robeson’s firm refusal to perform before segregated audiences, Richards would have never been inspired to write her poem, then later become the strong woman who fought for human rights for African Americans through her leadership and role as a great actress.

Less than two years ago, a group of young, bright students at the University of Michigan staged a silent walk-out protest when two Israeli soldiers who falsely claimed that Israel does not harm civilians, spoke. The courage of these students who wore the names of Palestinian children whose lives were ended by Israel’s ferocious military power (the 4th largest in the world) moved many people to support justice and human rights for Palestinians. Please watch “Students Protest IDF Soldiers Campus Visit – OFFICIAL”:

In February, Robin D. G. Kelley, the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA and prize-winning author endorsed the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. He stated:

“We went to Hebron, and visited and talked to Palestinian merchants, and witnessed a level of racist violence that I hadn’t even seen growing up as a black person here in the States, I have to say, and I’ve been beat by the cops.”

In March, organizations from around the world applauded Cassandra Wilson’s choice to refuse to headline a women’s empowerment festival in Holon, Israel. The festival was, as is the Red Sea Jazz Festival, not something Palestinians under occupation could attend. Wilson said:

“As a human rights activist, I identify with the cultural boycott of Israel.”

In June, Alice Walker, refused to have her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple republished in Israel. In a letter to Yediot Publishers in Israel she writes:

“Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.”

Palestinian Civil Society has called for a cultural boycott of Israel and many musicians support it, including 230 Irish artists and 150 Swiss artists, who have signed up to respect the boycott, stating “We note that the non-violent boycott, when it gains wide popular support, is an effective means of putting pressure on those in power.” Endorsements for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel from colleagues at American institutions now number 690.

The choice is yours to stand with those who are oppressed, or to stand with the oppressors. Are your two gigs really worth it? By cancelling, you might inspire a young person like Paul Robeson did. What better way to do this than by endorsing the cultural boycott? If you play, however, you set a grim example for your young students and diminish Robeson’s legacy. We are hoping you choose to stand with integrity, justice and human rights, with Paul Robeson and many others who have played a vital part in challenging racism and brutal oppression.

Beah said “With those words, that man lifted me.” When Richards met Robeson as an adult, she recited the poem she wrote as a teenager:

But, most all your songs have
taught me how to fight
To speak out, stand up for what
is right.
So now I say NO to those who
clasp unseemly silence
on your golden tongue,
who dare obscure the light
of life . . . .
Paul Robeson must speak
for Dan
for me
for us
Even yet. Today.

Sincerely,
Don’t Play Apartheid Israel
Don't Play Apartheid Israel

London, Ireland, Australia, USA
We are a collective of over 900 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel. This is essential in order to work towards justice for the Palestinian people under occupation, and also in refugee camps and in the diaspora throughout the world.

SOURCE

July 5, 2012December 11, 2020

Richard Bona & Mandekan Cuba, Please Stand Against Israel’s Racism – Boycott!

Dear Richard Bona, Luisito Quintero, Roberto Quintero, Dennis Hernandez, Mike Rodriguez and Osmany Paredes (Mandekan Cubano),

We are aware that you are returning to play at the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Israel, a government supported and sponsored event. We (Don’t Play Apartheid Israel) would like to ask you to make the courageous choice to refrain from playing the festival this year.

You may not be aware, but new developments have taken place in Israel, which make it even clearer that Israel is an extremely racist state. The very city you will perform in has been to the forefront in the latest racist incitement and attacks specifically directed against Africans. Please read these examples:

Eilat Mayor Presses for Immigration Enforcement. Eilat mayor Yitzhak Halevi is a leader in the movement against Africans.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/156175#.T-3PyBdSSI8
Netanyahu: African refugees threaten Israel’s identity, security
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-05-21-israel-on-african-immigrants/
Israelis attack African migrants during protest against refugees, protesters go on ‘unbridled rampage’ targeting African workers and looting shops serving refugees
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/24/israelis-attack-african-migrants-protest
Immigration in Israel: African outcasts in the promised land. As African refugees are put into camps and attacked by racist gangs, Donald Macintyre reports from Tel Aviv http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/immigration-in-israel-african-outcasts-in-the-promised-land-7879780.html
Israel launches African migrant deportation drive
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/17/us-israel-southsudan-idUSBRE85G07620120617
African refugees in Israel get a cold shoulder and worse
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/27/world/la-fg-israel-africa-refugees-20120527
Video: Israeli mob demands all African refugees be deported from the country (and anyone who disagrees deserves to be raped)
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/video-israeli-mob-demands-all-african-refugees-be-deported-from-the-country-and-anyone-who-disagrees-deserves-to-be-raped.html

Please join other ethical jazz musicians who have chosen to heed the boycott call. These include Cassandra Wilson, Jason Moran, Eddie Palmieri, and Tuba Skinny. Other artists, such as Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello and Roger Waters at first agreed to perform in Israel but then , decided that it was of greater importance to support the just struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli oppression, and we hope you join them in rethinking your performances. Often artists intend to stand apart from politics and just play their music, but please be aware that your performance will be used to musicwash Israeli apartheid. For example, see the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s statement in 2005 that “We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and…do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.” Also, be aware that Palestinians will not be able to see you perform as they will not be able to attend the festival, because of the apartheid. Can you, with the knowledge of Israel’s racist oppression, play to a segregated audience?

The savage Israeli siege of 1.7 million people in Gaza and other forms of collective punishment of the 2.7 million people in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem are only part of the Israeli war crimes. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that “Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalized regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law.” Jeff Halper, an Israeli professor of anthropology, testified saying: “the situation in Israel was ‘ugly’ and ‘more than just the separation of people’. “If you look at the map of the region, you can see the bantu state that has been created.” Nearly 6 million Palestinians are subjected to Israel’s harsh form of apartheid.

Palestinian Civil Society called for a cultural boycott of Israel – many musicians support it, such as the over 150 Swiss artists who have signed up to respect the boycott, stating “We note that the non-violent boycott, when it gains wide popular support, is an effective means of putting pressure on those in power.”

Recently Alice Walker, respected author of The Color Purple, called international attention to the urgency of abolishing apartheid in Israel. She refused Yediot Books in Israel permission to republish her acclaimed novel. A strong supporter of the cultural boycott, Alice wrote:

“It is my hope that the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, of which I am part, will have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.”

Richard Bona, Luisito Quintero, Roberto Quintero, Dennis Hernandez, Mike Rodriguez and Osmany Paredes, we hope you will join these other brave people in respecting the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott.

Sincerely,

Don’t Play Apartheid Israel
We are a collective of over 900 members, representing many nations around the globe, who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel. This is essential in order to work towards justice for the Palestinian people under occupation, and also in refugee camps and in the diaspora throughout the world.

SOURCE

July 4, 2012December 11, 2020

Salute to Roger Waters, in Full Solidarity with Palestinian People

I’m republishing Roger’s latest piece, written to support the proposed Presbyterian divestment from the Israeli Occupation, in full, as it moved me so much.

On Tuesday, I will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform my Pink Floyd hit “The Wall” at Consol Energy Center. By coincidence, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gathered this week in Pittsburgh.

One issue the Presbyterians will be debating is whether to take action in support of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, under siege in Gaza and as second-class citizens in Israel under the rule of the apartheid government there.

I write in support of those Presbyterians who would like their church to divest its holdings in three U.S. companies — Motorola Solutions, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar. These companies profit directly from Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and suppression of the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Israel itself.

Divestment in these companies is supported by Jewish Voice for Peace, which has noted that “Caterpillar profits from the destruction of Palestinians’ homes,” that Motorola profits by providing safety equipment to “segregated communities on stolen land” and that Hewlett-Packard profits by providing “support and maintenance to a biometric ID system installed in Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank which deprive Palestinians of the freedom of movement in their own land.”

When I wrote “The Wall” in 1979, I thought it was about me and the way I walled myself off from others because, for one reason or another, not the least of which was the loss of my father at Anzio in 1944, I saw myself as a victim. Thirty-three years later I have come to realize that “The Wall” has a broader message.

The theatrical wall I build each night serves as a metaphor for all the walls erected to separate us, human being from human being: walls between rich and poor, between opposing cultural, political or religious ideologies and particularly between the oppressor and the oppressed. The Israeli wall in the West Bank is a particularly graphic example. I make reference to that wall every night in my concert, but the injustices faced by Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal occupation and apartheid are not adequately addressed through theater and music alone. They warrant other forms of comment.

I applaud the Presbyterian initiative. In fact, I support the more wide-ranging BDS campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and have called on my fellow musicians to follow suit, just as we did in opposition to apartheid South Africa.

In 2005, 26 years after I wrote “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,” Palestinian children protesting Israel’s apartheid wall sang, “We don’t need no occupation! We don’t need no racist wall!”

My original song was banned in apartheid South Africa because black South African children sang it to advocate for their right to equal education. In the West Bank, the children who protest the wall and sing my song face tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and even live ammunition.

I made my first trip to Israel and the West Bank in 2006. What I witnessed there shocked me to the core. The Israeli wall in the occupied West Bank is an appalling edifice, cutting farmers from farmland, family from family and children from schools and hospitals.

The standard Israeli response to criticism of the wall is that it is solely for defense. If that is the case, why was it not built on the Green Line (the internationally agreed demarcation after the Six-Day War of 1967)? Why does it snake through Palestinian land, as Israel grabs more and more land each year for illegal, segregated, Jews-only settlements?

No, this is not solely a defensive measure, this is a systematic colonization of conquered territory that contravenes the Fourth Geneva Convention and was declared illegal in an advisory but unequivocal judgment by the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2004.

In light of the above and despite attempts to intimidate and vilify me by Israel lobby groups in the United States and elsewhere, I stand in solidarity not only with the Palestinian people but also with the many thousands of Israelis who, believing their government’s racist policies to be wrong, are increasingly making their voices heard. What courageous and beautiful voices they are.

The waters of this debate will inevitably be muddied, as they always are, by erroneous accusations of anti-Semitism leveled at those who favor selective divestment from companies complicit in Israel’s long record of human rights violations. I urge the Presbyterians assembled in Pittsburgh not to be intimidated, but to stand confident with the support of people of conscience everywhere, including tens of thousands of Jewish Americans who support divestment as an ethical obligation to end complicity in the occupation. I urge Presbyterians to adopt their selective divestment motion to make the price of collusion in human rights violations higher, and to send a message of hope to the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Good faith attempts to peacefully bring pressure on Israel to change its policies are no more anti-Semitic than similar actions against the South African apartheid regime were anti-Christian or anti-white.

In solidarity with Palestinian civil society and the nonviolent resistance movement in Israel itself, those of us involved in the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and freedom, including supporters of the BDS campaign against Israel until it fulfills its obligations under international law, will ignore the increasingly strident slanders of the Israel lobby and continue our nonviolent campaign. This is what solidarity and compassion look like. This is how we will win against injustice.

Roger Waters is a founding member of the British rock band Pink Floyd. Tomorrow, Rabbi James A. Gibson of Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill argues that a decision by Presbyterians to divest in companies doing business in Israel would damage relations between Christians and Jews and set back conciliation efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.