(1) Resources (latest first)
(2) Articles: below (latest first)

• NATHAN THRALL: « BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate » (The Guardian, l.r., August 14, 2018) : click here!

  The movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel – known as BDS – has been driving the world a little bit mad. Since its founding 13 years ago, it has acquired nearly as many enemies as the Israelis and Palestinians combined. It has hindered the efforts of Arab states to fully break their own decades-old boycott in pursuit of increasingly overt cooperation with Israel. It has shamed the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah by denouncing its security and economic collaboration with Israel’s army and military administration. It has annoyed the Palestine Liberation Organization by encroaching on its position as the internationally recognised advocate and representative of Palestinians worldwide.

• The European Legal Support Center - ELSC: click here!

  The ELSC defends and empowers advocates for Palestinian rights across mainland Europe and the United Kingdom through legal means.
  Advocates for Palestinian rights are facing a variety of attacks aimed at silencing their voices or hindering their work: from denial of public space, public funding or online platforms, closure of financial accounts, legal threats or lawsuits, to enforcement the adoption of anti BDS motions that falsely declare the Palestine solidarity movement as antisemitic. Contact us if you or your group, association, NGO, foundation, have been intimidated, slandered, censored or banned from speaking out or carrying out solidarity actions, or if you are just seeking legal advice about your rights.

• "Why boycott Israel? What is BDS?" (BDS Movement): click here!

  BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world.
  Since its launch in 2005, BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.
  Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.
  Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.

• "The BDS Movement’s Anti-Normalization Guidelines Explained" (BDS Movement, October 30, 2022) : click here!

  Due to rising demand for a better understanding of the anti-normalization guidelines among non-Arabic speakers in recent years, we present the most important points below in English (and hopefully soon in other languages). When suspected cases of normalization arise, we advise international BDS partners to contact the BNC or PACBI so that we can examine these cases and offer our advice based on our BDS guidelines and expertise developed in the course of more than 15 years, and in accordance with our mandate from the entities representing the absolute majority in Palestinian society.

• REPORT: Sheryl Nestel & Rowan Gaude, "Unveiling the Chilly Climate: The Suppression of Speech on Palestine. The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada" (Independent Jewish Voices, October, 2022, pdf, 106p.) : click here!

  (This Report) is the first broad and detailed examination of the experiences of faculty and students whose work is critical of the policies of Israel toward Palestine and Palestinians or who actively attempt to change those policies through their support of of BDS and opposition to the adoption of the IHRA definition. While focused primarily on Canada, the report briefly touches on the experiences faced by European academics, artists, and students who publicly support Palestinian rights...

• #PACBI Year in Review 2021: An Unprecedented Year of Support for Palestinian Rights (January 11, 2022.) : click here!

  As Israel’s apartheid regime escalated its violent oppression of Palestinians, scholars, academic departments, artists, cultural institutions, star athletes, sports teams, unions, queer filmmakers, LGBTQIA+ collectives, students and other grassroots groups responded with unprecedented solidarity. The year 2021 will be remembered as a year of unprecedented worldwide support for the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality. As Israel’s apartheid regime escalated its violent oppression of Palestinians, scholars, academic departments, artists, cultural institutions, star athletes, sports teams, unions, queer filmmakers, LGBTQIA+ collectives, students and other grassroots groups responded with unprecedented solidarity.

• Emad MOUSSA, « When it comes to BDS, Israel's worst fear is the South African boycott scenario » (The New Arab, November 15, 2021): click here!

  "BDS’ strength is in its ability to adapt, penetrate, and garner support, and it has triggered Israel's greatest fear of a shift in global public opinion regarding the state's history and legitimacy," writes Emad Moussa.>

• Omar BARGHOUTI, “Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions. Globalized Palestinian Resistance to Israel's Settler Colonialism and Apartheid” (Institute for Palestine Studies-USA, Current Issues, Dec 2020, pdf, 42p.): click here!

  IN AN ERA when the cause of Palestine has suffered multiple setbacks, and when the Palestinian national movement is at a low point of disunity and strategic incoherence, it is heartening that an initiative launched by Palestinian civil society has achieved resounding global success in the face of fierce opposition by the Israeli state and its supporters.

• Michiel BOT: "The right to boycott: BDS, law, and politics in a global context" (Transnational Legal Theory, 29 Sept 2019, 26p.): click here!

  Abstract: This article discusses the global campaigns for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, which frame their objectives primarily in legal terms, as well as the transnational strategy to suppress BDS campaigns by means of the law. After arguing that the strategy to suppress BDS campaigns by means of the law exemplifies an instrumentalisation of law that is fundamentally at odds with the rule of law, I discuss two landmark judgments that recognised a right to boycott, and demonstrate that what is ultimately at stake in these judgments is the right to participate in politics. I then analyse the various concepts of politics exemplified by the campaigns for BDS. Reflecting on the relationship between BDS, law, and politics in a global context, I pose the question how law might facilitate emancipatory and transformative politics across the boundaries of the nation-state. [Michiel Bot is Assistant Professor of Law and Humanities, Tilburg University]

• Shir HEVER: "BDS finds weak point in Israel’s politics of fear" (Middle East Eye, June 9, 2015): click here!

  Government efforts to fight ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ are bolstering the movement and creating the political debate the campaign seeks to achieve.

• Jonathan COOK: "Academic Boycott: Shin Bet training program highlights academic complicity with occupation" (EI, 31 May, 2006): click here!

  There were some remarkable admissions in a piece by the distinguished Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling in the immediate wake of the British teaching union NATFHE’s vote this week to offer members moral backing if they boycott Israeli universities. British academics opposed to Israeli colleagues’ complicity in the lengthy and continuing occupation of the Palestinians are now advised to boycott them and their institutions.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: « Why I believe the BDS movement has never been more important than now » (The Guardian, Oct 16, 2023): click here!

  The most profound ethical obligation in this time of carnage is to act to end complicity.

• Jonathan OFIR: « Jewish supremacy won’t end from within. BDS is still the only hope » (Mondoweiss, August 5, 2023): click here!

  Israelis will never dismantle a system of domination that works for them. That's why the end of Jewish supremacy in Palestine will only come from external pressure — and BDS represents that hope.

• BDS: « Filmmakers withdraw from apartheid Israel's Jerusalem Film Festival » (PACBI-BDS, July 22, 2023): click here!

  Jane Campion, Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren and other filmmakers asked for their films to be withdrawn from the festival, which is partnered with the Israeli ministry of culture

• Sylvain CYPEL: « États-Unis. Les lois anti-BDS s’étendent pour protéger les causes les plus réactionnaires » (OrientXXI, 4 juillet, 2023): click here!

  Aux États-Unis, les lois anti-BDS qui protègent Israël face au mouvement citoyen réclamant des mesures concrètes contre l’occupation de la Palestine se multiplient. Un documentaire récent illustre comment ce mouvement anti-BDS s’étend désormais pour interdire le boycott des industries d’armement ou polluantes, ou celui des cliniques qui refusent l’avortement.

• « UK okays bill barring public bodies from boycotting Israel » (The Times of Israel, July 4, 2023) : click here!

  Government measure passes in 268-70 vote, with 84 Conservative MPs and all of Labour abstaining.

• Haaretz & Jonathan SHAMIR: « U.K. anti-BDS Bill Ignites Criticism From Both Tory and Labour MPs » (Haaretz, July 4, 2023) : click here!

  Among those opposed to the bill are Jewish youth groups who called it an attempt to use legislation to 'clamp down on free speech' and insist the bill 'will not make Jews safer'.

• Michael ARRIA: « U.K. bill would outlaw schools and other public bodies from boycotting Israel » (Mondoweiss, June 20, 2023) : click here!

  Activists say that new UK legislation to prohibit the boycott of Israel is "a grave attack on our human rights and our ability to defend human rights - not just in Palestine but around the world."

• BDS Movement: « Bowing to BDS pressure: G4S to divest completely from apartheid Israel » (BDS, June 1, 2023) : click here!

  In a major win for human rights activism against corporate complicity, the world's largest private security company Allied Universal, which owns G4S, has decided to sell all its remaining business in apartheid Israel. This follows years of an effective #StopG4S campaign waged by the BDS movement for Palestinian rights.

• ETUC: « European Trade Union Confederation to Boycott Products Made in Illegal Jewish Settlements » (The Palestine Chronicle, 12 May, 2023, via Jewish Voice for Labour) : click here!

  Boycotts, divestment and sanctions bill, designed to stop public bodies boycotting Israel, will be tabled soon.

• Haroon SIDDIQUE & Peter WALKER, « UK anti-boycott bill is attack on freedom of expression, say civil society groups » (The Guardian, 12 May, 2023, via Jewish Voice for Labour) : click here!

  Boycotts, divestment and sanctions bill, designed to stop public bodies boycotting Israel, will be tabled soon.

• « Landmark 1,500th artist signs the “Irish Artists’ Pledge to Boycott Israel” » (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, May 4, 2023): click here!

  The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) is proud to announce that our ‘Irish Artists’ Pledge to Boycott Israel’ has just passed the 1,500 signatory mark, a hugely significant milestone in support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. After reaching 1,000 signatories in early 2021, more than 500 new cultural workers have added their names over the past two years alone. SEE THE FULL LIST AT: https://www.ipsc.ie/pledge

• Ramzy BAROUD: « Who Said BDS Has ‘Already Failed’? European Cities Boycott Apartheid Israel » (The Palestine Chronicle, May 4, 2023): click here!

  A succession of events starting in Barcelona, Spain, in February, and followed in Liège, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, in April sent a strong message to Israel: The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is alive and well.

• « Palestinian trade unions’ anti-apartheid call » (BDS Movement, 10 April, 2023): click here! Republished by Jewish Voice for Labour (17 April 2023): click here!

  An important appeal from leading trade unions in occuped Palestine to the global trade union movement. It urges all trade unions, trade union federations, and professional syndicates worldwide to contribute to the Palestinian-led Anti-Apartheid Movement by taking meaningful action in support of the rights of Palestinian workers and the Palestinian people at large to end the system of occupation, colonization and apartheid.

• Shira KADARI-OVADIA: "International Academic Group Cancels Jerusalem Event Due to Israel's West Bank Policy" (Haaretz, March 2, 2023): click here!

  Pressure from some members of international linguistics organization GLOW against Israel’s policies concerning the Palestinians led to the cancellation – and the new government’s plans 'added fuel to the fire,’ according to one Israeli member.

• Shane BURLEY: "Why the Fight over defining Antisemitism is Key to the Future of BDS" (Informed Comment, Dec 21, 2022) : click here!

  Despite conservatives in America feigning their undying support for “free speech,” those convictions often vanish when it comes to even mild criticism of Israel. A recent Texas state bill was introduced that, among other things, barred any worker or company on a public sector contract from supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement’s efforts to confront Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The Texas law was overturned after an engineering firm contracting with the City of Houston said that such a declaration violated its speech rights, but it was just one of dozens of bills across the country all meant to undermine the BDS movement. 

• Ben SAMUELS, "ACLU Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Overturn Arkansas’ Law Against Israel Boycotts" (Haaretz, Oct 21, 2022) : click here!

  Petitioners argue that the law is an unconstitutional tax on free speech and infringes on the First Amendment right to boycott.

• "Trinity College boycotts arms companies complicit with apartheid Israel" (MEMo, Oct 20, 2022): click here!

  Trinity College in Ireland, one of the country's most prestigious universities, has announced that it no longer has investments in arms and weapons companies that are complicit with the Israeli apartheid regime.

• Cnaan LIPHSHIZ: "In Landmark Ruling, Spanish Top Court Says Israel Boycotts Are Always Discriminatory" (Haaretz, Oct 11, 2022): click here!

  Unlike previous lower-court rulings in Spain which curtailed efforts to boycott Israel only in individual cases, the new ruling will function as a legal precedent applicable to all cases going forward.

• Haidar EID: "Time to end Apartheid Israel’s genocidal oppression of Gaza" (Mondoweiss, Sept 11, 2022): click here!

  Movements like BDS are the only force capable of counteracting the massive power imbalance between the Palestinians and their Israeli oppressors.

• Judy MALTZ: "Jewish Leaders in Australia Furious Over anti-Israel Motion at Top University" (Haaretz, August 15, 2022): click here!

  BDS resolution at Melbourne University ‘is imbued with hatred and its language drips with venomous hatred,’ Jewish organizations charge in joint statement.

• Michael ARRIA, "Biden-Lapid joint declaration takes aim at BDS movement" Mondoweiss, July 14, 2022): click here!

  A joint strategic partnership signed by Joe Biden and Yair Lapid promises to combat the BDS movement.

• Rivka BROWN & Ilyas NAGDEE, "Will banning boycotts be Boris’s dying act?" (Jewish Voice for Labour, July 13, 2022): click here!

  Johnson is on his way out but he leaves behind a slew of pernicious legislation and Bills going through Parliament. In this piece from Vashti Media Rivka Brown (in the introduction) and Ilyas Nagdee in the main article highlight the importance of boycott, its use in our history, the plans to ban it and touches on the other terrible Bills being proposed to curb our freedoms and the right to stand up for justice. None of these proposals will fall with Johnson’s long overdue departure.

• Rima NAJJAR, "Mapping our differences for Palestine’s liberation" (CounterCurrents, June 29, 2022): click here!

  “We affirm our support for the Mapping Project out of Boston, and condemn attempts to censor this useful educational tool.” The above expression of solidarity with an independent anonymous collective based in Boston that takes an innovative, well-researched approach to highlighting the connections between Zionist organizations and institutions is unremarkable — until you discover who is attempting to disassociate itself from it for fear of consequences related to the vilification, mis-characterization and criminalization of this project by the ADL and other Zionist organizations.

• Elena BAURER, "The Courts Won’t Kill the BDS Movement Against Israel" (Jacobin, June 18, 2022): click here!

  A [US] federal court of appeals recently ruled that laws prohibiting boycotts are not illegal. It’s the latest in the Right’s attempts to stomp out the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement’s challenge to Israel’s abuses — and further erode free speech.

• JTA & Cnaan LIPHSHITZ, "Catalonia Accuses Israel of Apartheid in Historic Vote" (Haaretz, June 18, 2022): click here!

  The vote is reportedly a historic first in the European Union, although Thursday's resolution did not mention boycotting Israel, which several Spanish courts have ruled is illegal.

• Akiva ELDAR, "A Reminder From Norway" (Haaretz, June 16, 2022): click here!

  The government of Norway has decided to make a distinction between produce originating in the occupied territories and within the 1967 borders, the so-called Green Line.

• "La Norvège impose l’étiquetage des produits issus des colonies israéliennes" (ABP, 15 juin, 2022): click here!

  La Norvège a annoncé qu’elle allait imposer l’étiquetage du lieu d’origine sur les produits provenant des colonies illégales de Cisjordanie occupée, une décision qui a provoqué la colère d’Israël.

• "Palestinians Welcome Unanimous Vote By CLACSO to Endorse BDS " BDS Movement, June 10, 2022): click here!

  The Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), with more than 800 research centers in 55 countries, endorses the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli institutions complicit in Israel’s regime of military occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid.

• Andreina DE LEO, "Baldassi and Others v. France: Criminal Convictions of BDS Activists Violate Freedom of Expression under the European Convention on Human Rights" (OpinioJuris, June 16, 2020): click here!

  On June 11, 2020, the European Court of Human Rights (ECt.HR) delivered the much-awaited judgement Baldassi and Others v. France (application no. 15271/16). The Court found by a majority that there was no violation of Article 7 (no punishment without law) and unanimously that there was a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The present analysis will focus on its findings regarding Article 10.
  For the judgement: click here! [Andreina De Leo is a Legal Researcher at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC)]

• "Victory for freedom of expression: call to boycott recognized as a civil right" (Association France Palestine Solidarité, 11 juin 2020): click here!

  AFPS President Bertrand Heilbronn remarked : "This is a just victory for freedom of expression and civic action. We call on our fellow citizens to come together in greater numbers to fight for the rights of the Palestinian people, and for the universal values of freedom, equality, and dignity that this fight represents. The BDS campaign is part of that fight, and we will continue to pursue it so long as Israel refuses to comply with international and human rights law."

• "European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Deals Major Blow to Israel's War on Palestine Solidarity" (Palestinian BDS National Committee, June 11, 2020): click here!

  Reacting to the breaking news, Rita Ahmad from the Palestinian-led BDS movement said: "This is a major legal blow to Israel’s apartheid regime and its anti-BDS lawfare. At Israel’s behest, European governments, especially in France and Germany, have fostered an ominous environment of bullying and repression to silence Palestine solidarity activists."

• "Following pressure, mental health academics may reverse decision to cancel conference in Israel" (MEMo, Aug 9, 2019): click here!

  A European association of mental health researchers may reverse a decision to cancel a planned conference in Israel, reported Haaretz, following an organised campaign by boycott opponents. Last month, the European Network for Mental Health Service Evaluation (ENMESH) announced that it would be cancelling the gathering, over fears that it would be targeted by the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

• "Why is the rise of BDS worldwide worrying Israel?" (MEMo, July 8, 2019): click here!

  Concern about the growing movement has led to Israel asking its allies and embassies to curb BDS by any means. Millions of dollars have been allocated to this task. Germany responded by becoming the first parliament in Europe to declare that BDS is “anti-Semitic”. At a stroke, the Bundestag labelled supporters of Palestinian human rights as anti-Semites and warned that BDS activity was reminiscent of the Nazi persecution of Europe’s Jews.

• "Call by 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars to German government on BDS and Anti-Semitism: DO NOT EQUATE 'BDS’ WITH ANTI-SEMITISM" (3 June 2019): click here!

  Mid-May, Jewish and Israeli scholars, many of whom specialized in anti-Semitism, Jewish history and history of the Holocaust, sounded alarm about the growing tendency to label supporters of Palestinian human rights as anti-Semitic. They did so in a call addressed to the German Bundestag in relation to several motions that were being tabled against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). Many of us signed this call.

• Nathan THRALL: "BDS: how a controversial non-violent movement has transformed the Israeli-Palestinian debate" (The Guardian, The Long Read, Aug 14, 2018): click here!

  Israel sees the international boycott campaign as an existential threat to the Jewish state. Palestinians regard it as their last resort.

• Lawrence DAVIDSON: "The Faulty Logic Behind the Attacks on BDS" (CounterPunch, 25 July, 2018): click here!

  If you search the topic 'boycotts' on Google you immediately realize how historically common they are.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israel fears exposure of its dirty tactics against BDS" (EI, 26 June, 2018): click here!

  In a detailed report, The Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz delves into Israel’s latest weapon in its war on the Palestine solidarity movement. This is an ostensibly independent non-governmental organization called Kela Shlomo, or Solomon’s Sling.

• Marwan DARWEISH & Andrew RIGBY: "Can BDS copy success of anti-apartheid movement?" (MEE, 6 June, 2018): click here!

  The South African fight for freedom has been a source of hope for Palestinian activists, but there are several key differences between the two struggles.

• David ROSENBERG: "The BDS Monster Is Dying. Why Does Israel Keep Reviving It?" (Haaretz, Jan 8, 2018): click here!

  The groups on the government’s blacklist are obsessed with Israel, but between the lines they are saying the boycott movement is going nowhere.

• "BDS : Israël publie une liste noire de 20 organisations (dont une organisation juive et un Nobel de la Paix)" Pour la Palestine, 7 janvier 2018): click here!

  Le gouvernement israélien, par la voix de son sinistre “Ministre des Affaires stratégiques” Gilad Erdan, a publié après des mois de tergiversations une liste de vingt organisations dont les militants seront refoulés s’il se présentent à un poste frontalier des territoires qu’il contrôle.

• Philip WEISS: "How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution" (Mondoweiss, Nov 11, 2017): click here!

  ...there is no hope for the Palestinians to bring about the end of occupation through the support of western governments or the UN, the only hope that the Palestinians have is through BDS.

• David ROSENBERG: "Why Is U.S. Congress Bent on Exorcising an Imaginary BDS Demon?" (Haaretz, Oct 12, 2017): click here!

  Israel isn’t under any threat from boycott movement, but fighting a phony BDS war is too tempting for many to pass up.

• Ramzy BAROUD: "The Fight Ahead: 13 Questions about the Origins, Objectives and War on BDS" (The Palestine Chronicle, Oct 4, 2017): click here!

  The BDS Movement was the outcome of several events that shaped the Palestinian national struggle and international solidarity with the Palestinian people following the Second Uprising (Intifada) in 2000.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "UN takes first step to end Israel’s impunity"(EI, Sept 28, 2017): click here!

  "After decades of Palestinian dispossession and Israeli military occupation and apartheid, the United Nations has taken its first concrete, practical step to secure accountability for ongoing Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights,” said Omar Barghouti.

• Rima NAJJAR: "The UN should take a lead from the global BDS movement" (MEMo, Sept 22, 2017): click here!

  Among ongoing outrageous actions and in defiance of international law, Israel’s Habayit Hayehudi party has just approved a plan for annexing the remaining occupied Palestinian territory “while either facilitating the exit of Palestinian residents or allowing them to remain but without voting rights.”

• Roger WATERS: "Congress Shouldn’t Silence Human Rights Advocates"(The New York Times, Sept 7, 2017): click here!

  Members of Congress are currently considering a bill that threatens to silence the growing support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian freedom and human rights, known as B.D.S.

• "Palestinian Academics Urge European Universities and Scholars to Withdraw from LAW TRAIN" (BDS, Sept 4, 2017): click here!

  European professors and academic institutions urged to end cooperation with the EU-funded project over involvement of Israeli institutions known for illegal detention practices, routine torture, and violence against Palestinians.

• "Grote Canadese vakbond sluit zich aan bij BDS-beweging" (The Rights Forum, Sept 3, 2017): click here!

  De grote Canadese vakbond Unifor heeft zich aan de zijde van de BDS-beweging geschaard. De bond gaat maatregelen in de sfeer van boycots, desinvesteringen en sancties nemen tegen ‘sectoren van de Israëlische economie en samenleving die profiteren van de voortgaande bezetting van de Palestijnse gebieden’.

• Haaretz: "Canada's Largest Private-sector Union, Unifor, Adopts BDS Motion "(Sept 3, 2017): click here!

  According to reports from the Canadian Jewish News, Unifor, Canada's largest private-sector union, adopted a BDS motion at its convention two weeks ago.

• Nick RIEMER: "A Question of Academic Freedom" (Jacobin, July 31, 2017): click here!

  BDS opponents are wrong — boycotts are well within the bounds of academic conduct.

• Lawrence DAVIDSON: "BDS, human rights and the Jews" (Redress Information & Analysis, July 30, 2017): click here!

  As of July 2017, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli racism and apartheid is 12 years old. This means that over the last dozen years a worldwide grassroots movement has grown up – a movement of civil society – that has organised active opposition to Zionist racism and Israeli oppression.

• Nora Barrows FRIEDMAN: "Listen: California Democrats defend right to boycott Israel" (EI, July 24, 2017): click here!

  The California Democratic Party has approved a resolution calling on the US government to promote “a just peace based on full equality and security for Israeli Jews and Palestinians alike, human rights and international law.”

• "Open Letter of California Scholar for Academic Freedom" (MWC News, July 22, 2017): click here!

  Prefatory Note: Below is an Open Letter prepared under the direction of Vida Samiian of State University of California at Fresno on behalf of California scholars defending against any effort to abridge academic freedom anywhere in the world, but particularly in California and the United States (Richard Falk).

• Allison Kaplan SUMMER: "Jewish Mother and BDS Activist: Code Pink’s Ariel Gold vs. Israel’s Travel Ban" (Haaretz, July 11, 2017): click here!

  The pro-Palestinian provocateur is under attack after a newspaper alleged that she 'tricked' her way into Israel last month. She says she will be 'heartbroken' if the authorities ban her from ever returning.

• "Leadership of African Independent Churches lends support to Palestinians & BDS boycott of Israel" (BDS South Africa, July 11, 2017): click here!

  The leadership of CAIC among other South African churches and Christian leaders, including Bishop Ngcana, recently returned from a solidarity trip to Palestine. On his return Bishop Ngcana explained that: “The church leadership found Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights to be appalling. Israel has mastered well from the South African apartheid regime and actually surpassed its architect, Hendrik Verword, through its design and application!”

• Philip WEISS: "‘LA Times’ calls BDS a ‘classic tool of peaceful political expression’" (Mondoweiss, July 9, 2017): click here!

  We keep track of the growing awareness inside the U.S. mainstream press of the far-right character of Israeli political culture; and this weekend the LA Times published a long editorial slamming the Israeli government for “trying to wall out its critics.”

• Kim JENSEN: "The Battle for Palestine on US Campuses: a review of ‘We Will Not Be Silenced: The Academic Repression of Israel’s Critics’" (Mondoweiss, July 6, 2017): click here!

  There are many ways to try to silence people whose ideas you don’t like. You can bully, blackmail, violate, isolate, punish, and smear them until they shut up, back down, and/or lose the platform upon which they were speaking.

• "Spanish Parliament Affirms Right to BDS as Protected Speech" (International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC, July 1, 2017): click here!

  On Tuesday, the Spanish parliament unanimously passed a motion recognizing the right to advocate for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as protected under the right to freedom of expression and association. This bill was introduced by the progressive parliamentary coalition “Unidos Podemos-En Comú Podem-En Marea.”

• Isra Saleh EL-NAMY: "In Gaza, BDS gives hope to Palestinians when political programs fail" (Mondoweiss, June 27, 2017): click here!

  Palestinians in the Gaza Strip participated in “Israeli Apartheid Week,” in late March as a worldwide call for the complete boycott of companies profiting from Israel’s occupation, along with calls that Israel is an apartheid state that is based on racial discrimination against the Palestinian people.

• "Government suffers defeat in court by Palestine campaigners over boycott, divestment and sanctions" (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, June 22, 2017): click here!

  The Government has acted unlawfully by attempting to restrict local councils from pursuing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel through their pension schemes.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "Swiss parliament blocks attempt to criminalize Israel boycott" (EI, June 14, 2017): click here!

  The Swiss upper house on Tuesday aborted an attempt to criminalize the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights.

• Gideon LEVY: "Thom Yorke, This Is Why You Should Boycott Israel" (Haaretz, June 11, 2017): click here!

  Hasn’t the time come to do away with this artificial distinction between 'nice' Israelis and the brutal occupation they are responsible for?

• "Major Chilean Universities Heed BDS Call, Cancel Events Sponsored by Israeli Embassy" (PACBI, June 8, 2017): click here!

  Student-led BDS campaigns resulted in two major Chilean universities canceling events co-sponsored by the Israeli embassy and featuring Joe Uziel, a director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). On Monday, Alberto Hurtado University's Anthropology Department announced the cancellation of the event, and yesterday the University of Chile's Social Sciences Faculty did the same.

• Amnesty International: "States must ban Israeli settlement products to help end half a century of violations" (AI, June 7, 2017): click here!

  The international community must ban the import of all goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements and put an end to the multimillion dollar profits that have fuelled mass human rights violations against Palestinians, said Amnesty International today.

• "“Palestine, 50 ans sous occupation: en Belgique et en Europe, nous avons les moyens d'agir !” (RTBF.be, 6 juin 2017): click here!

  Alors que voilà 100 ans, en 1917, la Grande-Bretagne promettait unilatéralement de favoriser l’établissement d’un foyer national juif en Palestine par la déclaration Balfour, Alors que voilà 70 ans, en 1947, l’ONU votait le plan de partage de la Palestine et que, dans la foulée, les trois quarts de la population palestinienne étaient chassés de leur terre par un processus de nettoyage ethnique, et que l’autre volet du plan, la création d’un État arabe, n’a toujours pas été réalisé,...

• "Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Anthropologists Reflect on the Struggle for Boycott and a Half-Century of Israeli Occupation"(Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions, June 5, 2017): click here!

  June 2017 marks fifty years since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a watershed event that consolidated and extended the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. After a half century of deepening colonization and apartheid, the “two state solution” that has long been proposed as a way to resolve the conflict appears more elusive than ever.

• Julien SALINGUE: "Boycott, désinvestissement et sanctions: Alarmes israéliennes"(Le Monde Diplomatique, juin, 2017): click here!

  Les diplomates américains font mine de découvrir la politique du fait accompli menée par Tel-Aviv et les effets destructeurs de la colonisation. Pour en finir avec l’impunité d’Israël et faire respecter le droit international, une myriade d’acteurs économiques, culturels ou politiques ont désormais recours à d’autres méthodes.

• Nitzan HOROWITZ: "The Long-running Fiction About BDS"(Haaretz, June 2, 2017): click here!

  A senior Israeli official serving in the United States didn’t even attempt to evade the truth. It’s true, he told me – we have been greatly exaggerating the issue of the boycott. It’s a marginal, insignificant phenomenon.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "Israëlische activist Ronnie Barkan: ‘Israëli’s zien mij als verrader’"(The Rights Forum, May 19, 2017): click here!

  De Israëliër Ronnie Barkan speelt al jaren een vooraanstaande rol in het verzet tegen de systematische onderdrukking en discriminatie van de Palestijnen. Vanuit zijn huidige woonplaats Berlijn roept hij op tot druk op Israël door middel van boycots, desinvesteringen en sancties (BDS). In Israël wordt hij in brede kring beschouwd als landverrader. Adri Nieuwhof in gesprek met een niettemin optimistische mensenrechtenactivist.

• "No, it is not unfair to criticise Israel"(MEMo, May 13, 2017): click here!

  As Palestinians mark a number of key, painful anniversaries in 2017, Israel is busy with not ending the occupation, but entrenching it and crying wolf claiming to be the victim in the decades-old conflict.

• "Norway’s Largest Trade Union Federation Endorses Full Boycott of Israel to Advance Palestinian Human Rights"(BDS Movement, May 12, 2017): click here!

  Today, the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), representing close to one million workers, endorsed a full boycott of Israel to achieve Palestinian rights under international law. LO is the largest and most influential umbrella organization of labor unions in Norway.

• Derek ATTRIDGE: "‘Ban the Boycott’ – An all too familiar refrain"(Mondoweiss, May 5, 2017): click here!

  Throughout the month of May, members of the Modern Language Association, the largest professional society of humanities scholars in the United States, will be voting on a resolution which—in contrast to other scholarly associations—seeks to ban the association from endorsing of the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Leaked report highlights Israel lobby’s failures" (EI, April 28, 2017): click here!

  Key Israel lobby groups have conceded that they have failed to counter the Palestine solidarity movement, despite vastly increasing their spending. The admission is contained in a secret report that The Electronic Intifada has obtained.

• Asa WINSTANLEY: "BDS is winning, admits top Israeli “sabotage” strategist" (EI, April 21, 2017): click here!

  The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel is winning, a top anti-BDS strategist has conceded. At the “Ambassadors Against BDS” conference in New York last month, former Israeli government advisor Gidi Grinstein said that “in 2016 our community probably invested 20 times … more resources in dealing with this problem compared to what we invested in 2010.”

• Nora BARROWS FRIEDMAN: "Barcelona votes to be free of Israeli apartheid" (EI, April 20, 2017): click here!

  Barcelona city council passed a historic declaration on Wednesday upholding the right to boycott Israel over its violations of Palestinian rights. The motion condemns Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, calls for the immediate end to the decade-long Gaza blockade and ensures that the city’s public procurement policies exclude companies that profit from Israel’s human rights abuses.

• "Historic Decision: Barcelona City Council Votes to End Complicity with Israeli Occupation & Illegal Settlements" (BDS Movement, April 19, 2017): click here!

  Today, in light of the Barcelona City Council’s vote to condemn Israel’s occupation, call to end complicity in Israel’s violations of international law, and affirmation of the legitimacy of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian human rights, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) released the following statement:

• Mark KARLIN & Rebecca VILKOMERSON: "Israeli Government Is Petrified of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement " (AURDIP, 17 avril, 2017): click here!

  How can we distinguish between the very real and harmful phenomenon of antisemitism, and false accusations of antisemitism used to defend Israeli state policies ? Jewish Voice for Peace, a grassroots organization working for justice and equality in Palestine and Israel, has put together a collection of essays on this question.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Landmark UN report backs Israel boycott" (EI, 15 April, 2017): click here!

  A new UN report offers explicit backing for the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign to end Israeli apartheid and support a just peace. The landmark report’s endorsement of boycotts, economic sanctions and other grassroots initiatives comes at a moment when Israel is desperately attempting to criminalize and suppress international support for Palestinian rights.

• "Call for boycott : The European Court of Human Rights seeks clarification from France" (Association France Palestine Solidarité, via AURDIP, 15 avril, 2017): click here!

  The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has just forwarded its questions to the French government, following the appeal filed by the 11 activists who were convicted after their public call to boycott products imported from Israel.

• "Appel au boycott : la CEDH demande des explications à la France" (Association France Palestine Solidarité, 14 avril, 2017): click here!

  La Cour européenne des Droits de l’Homme (CEDH) vient de transmettre ses questions au gouvernement français à la suite de la requête déposée par les 11 militants condamnés à la suite de leur appel public au boycott de produits importés d’Israël.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "Swiss lawmakers roll back anti-BDS law" (EI, April 14, 2017): click here!

  Switzerland now joins the European Union, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden in resisting pressure to outlaw or ostracize BDS as a tool to defend the rights of the Palestinian people.

• "Israel’s Barring of a Respected Activist from Chile is a Desperate Attack on Our Growing Human Rights Movement" (BDS, April 10, 2017): click here!

  Today, Israel denied entry to Anuar Majluf, a Chilean citizen, human rights defender, lawyer and Executive Director of the Palestinian Federation of Chile. Majluf is Christian, and was traveling with a delegation of other Chilean citizens to spend Easter in the Holy Land.

• "The European Union’s Legal Obligation to Stop Trade with Illegal Israeli Settlements Hits the Mainstream" (ECCP, April 10, 2017): click here!

  Last week, one of the most prominent legal journals in the world, The European Journal of International Law, published an article on its website affirming that the European Union and its member states have a legal obligation to stop all trade with illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land.

• Charlotte SILVER: "US judge throws out key claim against academic boycott of Israel" (EI, April 5, 2017): click here!

  Israel and its surrogates suffered a significant defeat last week, when a federal court in Washington, DC, threw out a key claim in a lawsuit against the American Studies Association for its resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

• Akiva ELDAR "Does BDS ban hurt Israel?" (Al-Monitor, April 4, 2017): click here!

  Jewish organizations in the United States are criticizing the Knesset for banning the entry of those who express support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

• Jonathan COOK: "Israel steps up dirty tricks against boycott leaders" (Mondoweiss, April 4, 2017): click here!

  sraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed cohorts of Israel loyalists in the United States by video link last week at the annual conference of Aipac, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Under Israeli gag order, Omar Barghouti urges more BDS" (EI, April 1, 2017): click here!

  Human rights defender Omar Barghouti is urging people around the world to increase boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns as the best way to show support for him – and for the Palestinian people – as he faces escalating repression by the Israeli government.

• Asa WINSTANLEY: "The failure of Brand Israel" (Jews for Justice for Palestinians, March 30, 2017): click here!

  More than a decade ago, the Israeli government launched a new strategy that it dubbed “Brand Israel”. This began in 2006 as an effort to improve Israel’s negative image overseas, “by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians.”

• Creede NEWTON: "Angela Davis: 'This is the South Africa moment for the Palestinian people'" (Middle East Eye, March 28, 2017): click here!

  The struggle for Palestinian rights is reaching a turning point similar to that seen in South Africa when the global boycott movement helped bring down apartheid, renowned academic and activist Angela Davis told US students this week.

• Allison KAPLAN SOMMER: "The Jewish Voice at the Heart of the Boycott Israel Movement" (Haaretz, March 28, 2017): click here!

  Jewish Voice for Peace executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson isn't your typical BDS activist: she spent three years in Israel, is married to an Israeli and has relatives in the West Bank. Despite many critics in the organized Jewish community, she says JVP is thriving in the Trump era and doesn't need the establishment's stamp of approval.

• J"Don’t Punish Protest – Open Letter to the University of Manchester" (BDSUOM, March 27, 2017): click here!

  Dear Dame Nancy and Dr Redmond, Two of our students from the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement are facing disciplinary hearings this week (29th March) due to carrying out a banner drop on the Samuel Alexander building which read ‘Stop Arming Israel’.

• Colin SHINDLER: "These Academics Fight BDS on Campus Every Day. Will They Be Banned From Israel?" (Haaretz, March 19, 2017): click here!

  Israel's law banning entry to settlement boycotters is a form of intellectual harassment and may mark a watershed moment in wider Israel-Diaspora relations.

• Roger WATERS: "Why I must speak out on Israel, Palestine and BDS " (Salon, March 17, 2017): click here!

  Seventy years ago, my father – 2nd Lt. Eric Fletcher Waters – died in Italy fighting the Nazis. He was a committed pacifist, and a conscientious objector at the start of the war, but as Hitler’s crimes spread across Europe, he swapped the ambulance he had driven through the London blitz for a tin hat and a commission in the Royal Fusiliers and he joined the fight against fascism.

• Eoin WILSON: "Palestine activists shouldn’t dismiss sports boycott" (EI, March 16, 2017): click here!

  PACBI spokesperson Mariam Ibrahim called the Celtic fans’ example a “model” of how soccer can play a central role in not only forcing the expulsion of Israel from international soccer, but in raising awareness more generally about Palestine.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Landmark UN report backs Israel boycott" (EI, March 15, 2017): click here!

  The landmark report’s endorsement of boycotts, economic sanctions and other grassroots initiatives comes at a moment when Israel is desperately attempting to criminalize and suppress international support for Palestinian rights.

• Chemi SHALEV: "The Symbiotic Relationship Between Israel and BDS" (Haaretz, March 14, 2017): click here!

  Not only does the Israeli government have a vested interest in exaggerating the boycott movement's influence, it supplies it with a steady stream of justifications.

• Michael DEAS: "Israeli Apartheid Week held at 30 UK universities, despite repression" (EI, March 10, 2017): click here!

  Israeli Apartheid Week took place on more than 30 university campuses across the UK last week despite a massive government backed campaign of repression. The week saw some events cancelled, with unprecedented and bizarre restrictions imposed on organizers.

• Taly KRUPKIN: "Israel's Travel Ban Backlash: Over 100 Jewish Studies Scholars Threaten to Not Visit Israel in Protest" (Haaretz, March 10, 2017): click here!

  'In spite of our different views, we stand in strong opposition to the new law,' petition reads, while other liberal U.S. Jews warn new law will cause drift toward BDS camp.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israel boycott is part of global anti-racist struggle" (EI, March 9, 2017): click here!

  Palestinians are reaffirming that the movement to boycott Israel is part of the global struggle against racism and all forms of bigotry, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

• Jonathan OFIR: "If Israel is unwilling to differentiate itself from the settlements, then boycotters shouldn’t either" (Haaretz, March 7, 2017): click here!

  Israel’s passing of a law that bars entry to foreigners involved in boycotting Israel (including its settlements) was condemned by a wide spectrum of Jewish organizations, including J Street, Americans for Peace Now, the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, and others.

• Mira SUCHAROV: "Israel's Travel Ban: How Banning Settlement Boycotters Is Driving Me Into the Arms of BDS" (Haaretz, March 7, 2017): click here!

  Israel's entry ban on settlement boycotters has left me, and many other anti-occupation Diaspora Jews with deep ties to the Jewish state, bewildered, frustrated and unmoored.

• "First Ever Italian Student Council Approves Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions" [TECHNION] (Stop Technion Italia, March 6, 2017): click here!

  On March 1, 2017, the Student Council of the University of Turin approved by wide majority (76%) a motion supporting the academic boycott of Israel, calling for revocation of the agreements between the university and the Israel Institute of Technology – Technion in Haifa.

• Ilan PAPPE: "Israel and Palestine: Settler colonialism and academic freedom" (Mondoweiss, March 1, 2017): click here!

  In the last ten years, an old scholarly paradigm that was used for the historical analysis of European settler movements in various parts of the worlds, and in different periods, resurfaced in the USA and Australia as part of the new wish to understand the modern histories of these countries.

• Asa WINSTANLEY: "Ken Loach backs controversial Israel conference" (EI, Feb 23, 2017): click here!

  A conference on Israeli “exceptionalism” will go ahead in Ireland this spring, organizers insisted on Wednesday. Supporters of the event – organized by University College Cork academics – include Ken Loach, director of the award-winning movie I, Daniel Blake, and Desmond Tutu, the South African archbishop.

• Itay STERN: "And the Oscar goes to... BDS? Hollywood stars snub Israel swag bag visit" (Haaretz, Feb 22, 2017): click here!

  BDS claims credit for thwarting Israeli effort to lure last year's Oscars nominees with free tour packages. But don't tell Jennifer Lawrence's mom.

• "Event involving Israeli Ambassador to Ireland cancelled following BDS protests" (YNet, Feb 21, 2017): click here!

  An event supposed to take place at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland involving Israeli Ambassador Ze’ev Boker was cancelled following pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrations; the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is 'shocked and saddened.'

• Ilana HAMMERMAN: "Why I, as a Proud Israeli, Want the World to Boycott Us" (Haaretz, Jan 29, 2017): click here!

  With much difficulty, I am asking my fellow citizens to lead the call for an international boycott, because otherwise our country will be lost forever.

• "European Parliament event highlights struggle for BDS and need to confront repression" (Samidoun, Jan 26, 2017)): click here!

  Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network participated on Monday, 23 January in an event at the European Parliament organized by the GUE/NGL(European United Left/Nordic Green Left) group in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and against attempts to criminalize BDS movements, organizations and organizers.

• "Palestinian human rights defender, BDS leader Salah Khawaja continues to be imprisoned on Israeli “secret file”" (Samidoun, Jan 20, 2017)): click here!

  Palestinian human rights defender Salah Khawaja is currently being held in prison on the basis of a so-called “secret file” and threatened with administrative detention, reported the Stop the Wall Campaign. Khawaja, 46, is a member of the Secretariat of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee and a leader of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. He was seized from his Ramallah home on 26 October 2016 in a pre-dawn armed military raid by Israeli occupation forces and subject to heavy, torturous interrogation, ill-treatment, beatings and denial of access to a lawyer.

• David PALUMBO-LIU: "The BDS struggle in US academia" (Al Jazeera, Jan 10, 2017)): click here!

  TA new generation of scholars continues the push for the academic boycott of Israel, despite setbacks and strong lobbies.

• David LLOYD: "‘Progressive’ Defenders of the Racial State: Reflections on the Modern Language Association BDS vote" (Mondoweiss, Jan 9, 2017)): click here!

  The news is in: on Saturday, a resolution to endorse the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions was rejected by the Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association, the largest and most traditional humanities association in the United States.

• Ali ABUNIMAH, "France shoots down purchase of Israeli drones" (The Electronic Intifada, Jan 9): click here!

  BDS campaigners in France are welcoming their government's decision not to spend more than $100 million on Israeli drones. This is the second major defeat for Israel's Elbit Systems, which last year lost a major bid it had been tipped to win to sell France its Watchkeeper drone.

• Lara DEEB & Jessica WINEGAR: "Why Anthropologists Failed to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions" (Savage Minds, Jan 4): click here!

  In 2016 the movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions for their involvement in the illegal occupation of Palestine both gathered significant steam and faced a huge roadblock.

• Jumana AL TAMIMI: "Boycott move buoyed by UN resolution" (Gulf News Palestine, Dec 26, 2016): click here!

  The international movement to boycott Israel business and sanction those who do business with the state has been given a huge shot in the arm by the passing on Friday night of an unprecedented United Nations Security Council resolution.

• "Groundbreaking statement by 200 European Legal Scholars Upholds the Right to BDS for Palestinian Rights" (BDS Movement, Dec 8, 2016): click here! *Dutch version: klik hier! * Version française: cliquez ici!

  Palestinians welcome statement as “a major blow to Israel’s repressive legal war” on the BDS movement: Renowned legal scholars and lawyers from 15 European countries consider BDS as “a lawful exercise of freedom of expression”. Palestinian BDS human rights defenders welcome the statement as a “defining moment” in asserting their right to boycott Israel to realize Palestinian rights

• Daniella PELED: "Israeli-born BDS Supporter Vies to Head Britain’s Jewish Student Union" (Haaretz, Dec 5, 2016): click here!

  Born in Tel Aviv, pro-Palestinian activist Eran Cohen, 27, is challenging the accepted norms of British Jewry.

• May BULMAN: "EU declares right to boycott Israel is protected by free speech" (Independent, Nov 3, 2016): click here!

  The European Union’s foreign policy chief has affirmed the right of EU citizens to boycott Israel, but said the EU remains opposed to a boycott on the country.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "EU recognizes right to boycott Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, Oct 28, 2016): click here!

  “The EU stands firm in protecting freedom of expression and freedom of association in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is applicable on EU member states’ territory, including with regard to BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] actions carried out on this territory,” Federica Mogherini told the European Parliament in answer to a written question in late September.

• Charlotte SILVER: "Israel lobby lawsuits aim to slow boycott in Spain" (The Electronic Intifada, Oct 27, 2016): click here!

  In July 2014, at the height of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Spain’s RESCOP launched a national campaign targeting local cultural institutions, businesses and associations, asking that they declare themselves “free of Israeli apartheid.” That effort has since grown, in both size and kind. Today, there are more than 50 participating cities and towns across the country.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Boycotting “the occupation” is not enough" (The Electronic Intifada, Oct 21, 2016): click here!

  Earlier this month, The New York Review of Books published a call for “a targeted boycott of all goods and services from all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and any investments that promote the occupation, until such time as a peace settlement is negotiated between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.”

• "Public figures call-out 'moral inconsistency' of boycotting Israeli settlements alone" (BDS, Oct 21, 2016): click here!

  A statement recently published in The New York Review of Books calls for “an Economic Boycott and Political Nonrecognition of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories” [Letters, October 13]. We welcome the statement’s shattering of the taboo against boycotting Israeli entities that are complicit in — at least selective — violations of Palestinian human rights.

• Sonia DAYAN-HERZBRUN: "Note de lecture du livre « Un boycott légitime. Pour le BDS universitaire et culturel de l’État d’Israël » par Eyal Sivan et Armelle Laborie" (AURDIP, Oct 18, 2016): click here!

  La lecture du livre d’Eyal Sivan et Armelle Laborie, dont il faut saluer le courage et la détermination, est elle aussi urgente. Elle est même indispensable. Tous les éléments de la hasbara y sont pointés et démontés. On y trouve tous les arguments permettant de répondre à la propagande israélienne dont nous sommes abreuvés en permanence.

• "Jordanian BDS activists reject gas deal with Israel" (Mondoweiss, Oct 12, 2016): click here!

  Jordan BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel) expresses outrage and absolute opposition to the signing of the gas deal between Jordan and Israel.

• "California scholars decry ‘assault on academic freedom in the interest of one foreign gov’t, Israel’" (California Scholars for Academic Freedom, Oct 10, 2016): click here!

  The following is a press release from California Scholars for Academic Freedom (CS4AF), a group of over 200 scholars at twenty California institutions of higher learning, urging a renewed and strong support by university administrators for academic freedom and the right to free speech and dissent in light of the alarming recent history of assaults on academic freedom, including a list of over 20 such assaults:

• "No association with torture: Stop Law Train!" (ECCP, Oct 10, 2016): click here!

  New concerns arise as the EU-Israel partnership through the LAWTRAIN Project in the framework of the EU HORIZON 2020 was discovered.

• Itamar EICHNER: "UN official demands 'black list' of Israeli businesses" (Ynetnews, Oct 9, 2016): click here!

  UN high commissioner on human rights calls on UN deputy secretary-general to ‘set an example’ and to demand the boycott of Israeli and international businesses with ties in east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and in the West Bank.

• "Belgium students against LAW TRAIN: Professors, don’t wipe your feet on Palestinian human rights!" (Palestinian Grassroots Anti-apartheid Wall Campaign, Sept 29, 2016): click here!

  Monday 26th September 2016, about 20 activists protested against the collaboration of the University of Leuven with Israel. During the official opening of the academic year at KU Leuven protesters lay on the street, just before the procession of professors in gowns was coming.

• "For an Economic Boycott and Political Nonrecognition of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories". Todd Gitlin, Peter Beinart, Peter Brooks, Michael Walzer, and Edward Witten, et al. (The New York Review of Books, Sept 20, 2016): click here!

  We, the undersigned, oppose an economic, political, or cultural boycott of Israel itself as defined by its June 4, 1967, borders. We believe that this so-called Green Line, as defined by the 1949 armistice, should be the starting point for negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian parties on future boundaries between two states.

• Nada ELIA: "The right to educate" (Mondoweiss, Sept 15, 2016): click here!

  The 2016-2017 academic year has just started in occupied Palestine, and with it come the hopes and dreams of young students, but also the daily challenges of walking to school past Israeli soldiers, or driving through checkpoints in the West Bank, or assigning a culturally and politically relevant curriculum in annexed East Jerusalem, where Israel is trying to impose an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools.

• "Dozens of Spanish cities declare themselves 'Free of Israeli Apartheid'" (BNC, Sept 9, 2016): click here!

  Cadiz, provincial capital in the autonomous community of Andalusia in the Spanish state, has become the latest municipality to pass a motion supporting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights and declaring itself an Israeli "Apartheid Free Zone".

• "Collaborazione militare fra Università di Cagliari e Sionisti" (Pesa Sardegna blog, 9/9): click here!

  Entretien avec Alessia Ferrari sur la coopération militaire entre l'Université de Cagliari et le Technion à Haïfa. Trad. FR: facebook.

• "Fred Moten’s Statement in Support of a Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions" (MLA-Members for Justice in Palestine, Sept 7, 2016): click here!

  I’ve been learning something recently as the rhetorical energy surrounding the idea and actuality of an academic and cultural boycott of Israel—which is the least those of us who are still concerned not only with human life in Palestine but also, and more generally, with unsettled, non-colonial life can do—has increased and intensified.

• David LLOYD: "The Malevolence of Occupation " (Dublin Review of Books, Issue 80, July, 2016): click here!

  Boycott is, as many proudly recall, an Irish invention. The first boycott targeted a notorious land agent, the eponymous Captain Charles Boycott, for attempting to evict tenants. Inspired by the Land League, local people refused to serve or work for him, responding to his threat to their means of life by severing social and economic ties with him.

• Maren MANTOVANI & Jamal JUMA': "The “S” in BDS: Lessons of the Elbit Systems Campaign" (Al-Shabaka, Aug 24, 2016): click here!

  Israel’s biggest military companies last year rang alarm bells over a decline in international contracts, citing smaller budgets, more competition, and less desire for Israeli-made products as among the reasons. Is this an indicator that Israel’s arms industry might not be as invincible as it seems?

• David PALUMBO-LIU: "Why Solidarity Between the Movement for Black Lives and Palestine Makes Sense" (Truthout, Aug 24, 2016): click here!

  The recent release of a policy platform by the Movement for Black Lives has drawn both expressions of solidarity, as well as disavowals and strident criticism.

• "Portuguese government withdraws from controversial project with Israeli police following BDS pressure " (BDS National Committee, Aug 23, 2016): click here!

  The LAW TRAIN project, aimed at unifying police interrogation methodologies, has generated controversy in Portugal because of vocal opposition to Israel’s participation in the EU’s Horizon 2020 research framework and the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli entities taking part.

• "Samidoun international coordinator denied entry to Palestine, interrogated about BDS and prisoner solidarity" (AURDIP, Aug 23, 2016): click here!

  Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network international coordinator Charlotte Kates was denied entry to Palestine at the King Hussein Bridge crossing from Jordan to occupied Palestine on Monday, 15 August, as she attempted to join a delegation of European parliamentarians and lawyers in support of Bilal Kayed and the Palestinian prisoners.

• Sam LEVIN: "GOP mega-donor funds group calling pro-Palestine US students 'Jew haters'" (The Guardian, Aug 22, 2016): click here!

  Sheldon Adelson, the Nevada casino mogul and conservative mega-donor, is leading a campaign against pro-Palestine groups on US college campuses and has funded posters that accuse individual students of supporting terrorism and promoting “Jew Hatred”.

• Sharif NASHASHIBI: "Seeking to separate politics and sports ignores the reality of war" (The National, Aug 18, 2016): click here!

  Egypt and Lebanon have received extensive media coverage during the Rio Olympics, not because of their athletes’ sporting achievements (of which there is little to celebrate), but because of the political controversy surrounding their actions.

• Ryan Rodrick BEILER: "In massive shift, Lutherans vote to halt US aid to Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, Aug 17, 2016): click here!

  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has become the latest US denomination to take economic action against the Israeli occupation. At its triennial assembly last week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the four million-member church, one of the largest in the US, voted on two separate resolutions targeting Israel’s occupation and human rights abuses, passing each by a landslide.

• Zeina AZZAM: "The Movement for Black Lives, the Palestinian Struggle, and a Creeping Genocide" (Common Dreams, Aug 15, 2016): click here!

  Notwithstanding the nomenclature, the M4BL platform is a prime example of the intersectionality among the multifarious struggles for justice. Such solidarity and witness underline the principles of the human rights-based approach to freedom and equality. The affirmed solidarity of the Black Lives movement with the Palestinian experience imbues the Palestinian struggle for human and national rights with renewed energy.

• Jonathan OFIR: "Boycott, from within and without!" (Mondweiss, Aug 15, 2016): click here!

  In this writing, I want to portray the psychological aspects and perceptions relating to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement concerning Israel. I will not always refer to BDS as a singular movement, but also to the general idea of “boycott”.

• Audrey BOMSE: "Furore over Black Lives' support of Palestine reveals movement's true allies" (Middle East Eye, Aug 11, 2016): click here!

  Hysterical opposition from pro-Israel groups towards the Movement for Black Lives' platform highlights hypocritical politics.

• "How to Cure Israel's Diplomatic 'Leprosy'" (Haaretz Editorial, Aug 9, 2016): click here!

  The calls to boycott Israel aren’t intended to deny its legitimacy, but to encourage it to end its policy of occupation in the territories. Precisely because Israel is considered a legitimate state and a longstanding, proper member of the family of nations, the entire world demands that it follow this family’s accepted rules.

• Marie-Danielle SMITH: "[Canadian] Greens add support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to official party policies" (National Post, Aug 7, 2016): click here!

  Canadian Greens voted at their convention Sunday morning to add boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel to their roster of party policies, despite their leader opposing the resolution.

• Barak RAVID: "World Sees Israel as a Pariah State, Senior Gov't Official Says" (Haaretz, Aug 7, 2016): click here!

  Strategic Affairs Ministry aims to change the way Israel is perceived in the international arena, director general Sima Vaknin tells lawmakers; says victory will be achieved when Israel won't be equated with apartheid.

• "Pro-BDS Jewish group voices support for Black Lives Matter platform" (Medium.com, Aug 6, 2016): click here!

  Jewish Voice for Peace formally endorses the Movement for Black Lives platform, which accuses Israel of practicing apartheid and committing genocide against the Palestinians.

• "Black Lives Matter Endorses BDS: Israel Is 'Apartheid State'" (Haaretz, Aug 4, 2016): click here!

  The wide-ranging new platform of a coalition growing out of the Black Lives Matter movement includes harsh criticism of Israel, which it describes as an “apartheid state” that, it claims, perpetrates “genocide” against the Palestinian people, endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

• Con COUGHLIN: "Israeli anger as Qatar backs campaign for global boycott" (The Telegraph, Aug 3, 2016): click here!

  The Israeli government has reacted angrily to plans by the Gulf state of Qatar to support a group backed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn which wants to impose a global trade and cultural boycott on the Jewish state.

• Peter BEAUMONT: "SodaStream boss blames Netanyahu for Palestinian job losses " (The Guardian, Aug 3, 2016): click here!

  Daniel Birnbaum accuses Israeli PM of perpetuating conflict with Palestinians for his own benefit.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israel temporarily lifts travel ban on BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti" (The Electronic Intifada, Aug 2, 2016): click here!

  The Israeli government has temporarily lifted the travel ban imposed on Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian human rights defender who cofounded the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

• Sunaina MAIRA: "Academic Boycott and Academic Activism: Progressives for Palestine" (Social Justice, Aug 1, 2016): click here!

  In 2016, a bill targeting organizations that choose to divest from Israel, AB 2844, was proposed in the California state legislature. In 2015, New York Governor Mario Cuomo also issued an executive order creating a blacklist of organizations that support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This legal backlash, or “lawfare,” against the BDS movement is a direct response to the threat it represents to a powerful status quo.

• Michael LESHER: "Is Israel’s anti-BDS campaign fueling anti-Semitism?" (The Electronic Intifada, July 27): click here!

  Not long ago, a Jewish former neighbor of mine wrote to me to ask whether, as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, I support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. I replied that I’ve supported boycotts of companies that promote Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land for years now; otherwise, I explained, I would be complicit in a serious offense against humanity and international law.

• "Irish public figures’ statement in support of Israel boycott" (The Palestinian Information Center, July 27): click here!

  In an open letter published recently in the Irish Times and Irish Independent, thirteen of Ireland’s best-known musicians, writers, artists and sports stars have called on the Irish government to join them in supporting the growing worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

• Nada ELIA: "What the economic boycott of Israel can achieve" (Mondoweiss, July 26): click here!

  Palestinian writer and activist Nada Elia responds to claims than economic boycott of Israel is bound to fail: BDS will never bankrupt Israel, and that is not necessary for it to achieve its goals: showing that the emperor has no clothes, and empowering justice-minded people everywhere to disengage from a hyper-militarized, violent rogue state, until it stops violating international law and the human rights of an oppressed people.

• Haidar EID (Gaza): "BDS and Normalization: Palestinian Perspective" (The Palestine Chronicle, July 19, 2016): click here!

  When we, Palestinian Civil Society, issued our 2005 BDS call, we were counting on people of conscience, rather than governments and complicit corporations... Our “International Community” consisted of civil society, churches, pension funds, municipalities, clubs, music bands, universities…etc.

• David BERNSTEIN: "Don't Believe the Hype: The Israel Boycott Movement Is a Marginal Phenomenon" (Haaretz, July 14, 2016): click here!

  Could there be, as the BDS proponents allege, an unfolding historical dialectic at work that would culminate in Israel's ultimate delegitimization in American society? Not so fast.

• Stanley L. COHEN: "BDS is a war Israel can't win" (AlJazeera, July 11, 2016): click here!

  Israeli think-tank fellow Yossi Klein Halevi, writing recently in the Los Angeles Times would have American readers believe that the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement is “immoral” and threatens the peace of "the region's only intact society", while simultaneously boasting it can't touch Israel's health and global economic integration.

• Sayed KASHUA: "Why Sayed Kashua Is Rejecting His Honorary Doctorate From Ben-Gurion University" (Haaretz, July 9, 2016): click here!

  I don't support a boycott of Israeli academia. But Ben-Gurion University's decision not to honor Breaking the Silence, an NGO whose crime is to remind people of the occupation, leaves me no choice: To decline the honorary doctorate it has offered me.

• "Eleven signs that BDS continues to grow despite Israel’s war of repression" (BDS Movement, July 7, 2016): click here!

  Inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the US Civil Rights movement, BDS today is widely recognized as having a strategic impact in challenging international support for Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.

• "Portugal launches campaign to end cooperation with Israeli policies" (Stop the Wall, June 27, 2016): click here!

  Under the title “No to the Horizon2020 Law Train project - No to cooperation with Israel’s repressive system!”, on Thursday 24, a large coalition of Portuguese forces has held the official launch of a campaign aimed at ending the participation of the Portuguese ministry of Justice and the police in a joint, EU funded project with Israeli police forces.

• "Hoe TTIP de bocycot wil dwarsbomen" (Palestina Solidariteit, juni 25, 2016): click here!

  De BDS-beweging (Boycot, Desinvestering, Sancties) is een burgerinitiatief dat gevolg geeft aan de oproep (2005) van het Palestijnse middenveld om boycots in gang te zetten tegen Israël, zakelijke banden ermee te verbreken en het land sancties op te leggen, zolang het de Palestijnse rechten onder internationale wetgeving niet volledig heeft erkend.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Genocide scholars pull out of Israel conference" (The Electronic Intifada, June 25, 2016): click here!

  The vice-president of the International Network of Genocide Scholars has pulled out of the group’s conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, following appeals by Palestine solidarity campaigners. BDS South Africa, an organization supporting the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israel, has announced that University of Cape Town professor Mohamed Adhikari had informed it that he has withdrawn his presentation from the conference. The British genocide scholar Martin Shaw has also announced he is pulling out of the conference, which begins Sunday.

• Rebecca VILKOMERSON: "I’m Jewish, and I want people to boycott Israel" (The Washington Post, June 24, 2016): click here!

  The country must be held accountable for its human rights abuses.

• Murtaza HUSSAIN: "Students in California Might Face Criminal Investigation for Protesting Film on Israeli Army" (The Intercept, June 23, 2016): click here!

  Last month, a group of students at the University of California, Irvine gathered to protest a screening of the film Beneath the Helmet, a documentary about the lives of recruits in the Israeli Defense Forces. Upset about the screening of a film they viewed as propaganda for a foreign military, the students were also protesting the presence of several IDF representatives who were holding a panel discussion at the screening.

• David PALUMBO-LIU: "Backing BDS: Another Pulitzer winner comes out for Palestinian rights " (Salon, June 22, 2016): click here!

  Last week Viet Thanh Nguyen, a professional associate of mine, became the fourth winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), joining Alice Walker, Richard Ford, and Junot Diaz.

• "PRESS STATEMENT: Prominent South African human rights centre withdraws from Israeli conference" (BDS South Africa, June 22, 2016): click here!

  The human rights and Palestine solidarity organisation BDS South Africa welcomes the withdrawal by the Centre of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) from an upcoming conference in Israel. The prominent South African human rights organization, the CSVR, was scheduled to participate at the upcoming International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS) conference at Israel’s Hebrew University between the 26th and 29th of June 2016.

• Amir OREN: "Israel Setting Up 'Dirty Tricks' Unit To Find, Spread Dirt on BDS Groups " (Haaretz, June 20, 2016): click here!

  In the absence of persuasive arguments to counter boycott calls, much less any plan to change its policies, Israel has issued a tender for a counterdelegitimizer-in-chief.

• "Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner, endorses academic and cultural boycott of Israel" (Mondoweiss, June 17, 2016): click here!

  Scholar and writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner and associate professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, has endorsed BDS and the cultural and academic boycott of Israel in support of Palestinian rights.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "BDS: Discussing Difficult Issues in a Fast-Growing Movement" (Al Shabaka, June 14, 2016): click here!

  Israel’s attacks on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other human rights defenders living under occupation, such as Al Haq staff, have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, including the direct threats made by leading Israeli officials against BDS activists and in particular against the movement’s co-founder Omar Barghouti.

• Dov BENOVADIA: "Law Would Penalize Israeli Universities for Professor’s BDS Activity" (Hamodia, June 13, 2016): click here!

  A new law would penalize universities and colleges for activities by staff that advance academic boycotts of Israel.

• Jon SOSKE & Sean JACOBS: "Are comparisons of South African apartheid and Israel useful?" (Mondoweiss, June 15, 2016): click here!

  Although comparisons between Israel and South Africa stretch back to the early 1960s, the past decade has seen a growing recognition that Israel’s policies should be characterized as apartheid.

• "Irish public figures’ statement in support of Israel boycott welcomed by human rights campaigners" (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, June 14, 2016): click here!

  In an open letter published in today’s Irish Times and Irish Independent, thirteen of Ireland’s best-known musicians, writers, artists and sports stars have called on the Irish government to join them in supporting the growing worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

• Jamil DAKWAR & Nimer SULTANY: "Only BDS Can Force Israel to Prove It's a Democracy for Its Arab Citizens Too" (Haaretz, June 14, 2016): click here!

  When Michael Karayanni was appointed law school dean, Isaac Herzog hailed it as 'break[ing] another glass ceiling for Israel’s Arabs'. But one academic's success can't erase Israel's institutionalized racism directed at its Arab citizens.

• Nadia HIJAB & Omar BARGHOUTI: "BDS: Discussing Difficult Issues in a Fast-Growing Movement" (AlShabaka, June 14, 2016): click here!

  There is much to discuss and some of the issues are difficult ones, including questions of framing. Al-Shabaka Executive Director Nadia Hijab discussed some of these issues in a wide-ranging conversation with Omar Barghouti.

• Gideon LEVY: "BDS Isn't the Criminal Here" (Haaretz, June 9, 2016): click here!

  Even those who don’t believe in the boycott, or think there are better ways to fight the occupation (such as?) cannot go along with this crushing move to criminalize it.

• Steven SALAITA: "Israel Boycott Has Staying Power" (The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 8, 2016): click here!

  It’s crucial to think about why academic boycott exists in the first place. It is not a silly diversion from the serious work of teaching, service, and research. It affirms the ideals of equal access underlying that work. The immediate goal of academic boycott is to offer fellowship to our colleagues in Palestine. Its ultimate goal is to help provide much-needed relief from the miserable conditions under which they often labor.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "Kom in opstand tegen pogingen om BDS te verbieden, zegt anti-apartheid veteraan Ronnie Kasrils" (Article 1 Collective, June 8, 2016): click here!

  Anti-apartheid veteraan Ronnie Kasrils vindt de pogingen om het activisme voor boycot, divestment en sancties (BDS) tegen Israël te verbieden “totaal belachelijk” en zegt dat activisten dergelijke pogingen moeten weerstaan.

• "The Struggle Continues: Campaign for Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions Undeterred by American Anthropological Association Vote" (Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions, 7 June, 2016): click here!

  Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions vowed to continue its campaign after a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions that was under consideration by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) narrowly missed adoption by a razor-thin margin of 39 votes, 2,423-2,384 (50.4%-49.6%).

• Diana BUTTU: "Holding Israel accountable is the only way forward" (Gulf News, Thinkers, 6 June, 2016): click here!

  Palestinians will not subscribe to the insanity of negotiations any longer and will not attempt to view Israel’s assault against them as involving two equal parties.

• BDS Türkiye: "An Open Letter to Baba Zula" (BDS Türkiye, 5 June, 2016): click here!

  To the esteemed members of the band BaBa ZuLa. We are most distressed to hear that you will be participating in the Sun Beat Festival in the Golan Heights, which is under Israeli occupation, between 23 and 25 June 2016.

• "UK academic union of over 100,000 members urges freedom for Imad Barghouthi, defense of Palestinians under attack" (Samidoun, June 5, 2016): click here!

  The UK’s University and College Union (UCU), representing over 100,000 members as the largest trade union and professional association for academics, lecturers, trainers, researchers and academic-related staff working in further and higher education throughout the UK, affirmed its support for the rights of Palestinian academics under attack in an emergency motion passed at its Congress on 1-3 June.

• Rania KHALEK: "Copy BDS tactics, pro-Israel activists told at UN conference" (The Electronic Intifada, June 3, 2016): click here!

  “When I was in school,” recalled Republican pollster and right-wing propaganda consultant Frank Luntz, “there was no opposition to Israel whatsoever.” But today, he warned, “schools across the country have tremendous challenges” because young people are dramatically more liberal, increasingly hostile toward Israel and more sympathetic to Palestinians.

• "BDS says Israel behind cyber-attacks on its pro-Palestinian website" (PressTV, June 3, 2016): click here!

  The leading international campaign advocating anti-Israel economic boycotts says its website came under cyber-attacks for several times this year, suggesting the Tel Aviv regime was involved in the attacks.

• Lieven DE CAUTER: "Jan Fabre in Israël: zeven open brieven over culturele boycot" (Rekto-Verso, Nr 71, april-mei, 2016): klik hier!

  Op 9 juni speelt Jan Fabre zijn 24-uurse performance 'Mount Olympus in Jeruzalem', op het 'Israel Festival'. ‘Blijf liever thuis!’, zo betoogt cultuurfilosoof en activist Lieven De Cauter. Het werd het begin van een geanimeerde mailcorrespondentie met niet alleen Jan Fabre zelf, maar ook auteur Jeroen Olyslaegers, dramaturg Freddy Decreus en choreograaf Alain Platel. De Griekse klassieken opvoeren in Israël: collaboratie of wake-up call?

• Haggai MATAR: "Famed feminist British historian refuses prestigious Israeli award" (+972, May 22, 2016): click here! Catherine Hall withdraws from $330,000 prize due to Tel Aviv University’s complicity in the occupation.
• Lieven DE CAUTER & Alain PLATEL: "N’allez pas en Israël ! : lettre ouverte au metteur en scène, Jan Fabre " (Pour la Palestine, 10 mai, 2016): klik hier!

  Le groupe BACBI, Belgian Campaign for an acadamic and cultural boyott of Israël, a demandé à Jan Fabre, sculpteur, chorégraphe et metteur en scène belge de ne pas participer au Festival d’Israël avec « Mount Olympus », son spectacle qui s’étend sur 24 heures. Fabre est également l’artiste principal du festival, qui débutera le 24 mai.

• Ariel DAVID: "In anti-BDS Move, Italy Bringing Huge Academic Delegation to Israel " (Haaretz, May 30, 2016): click here!

  Dozens of researchers and academics from the two countries will meet in 'unprecedented' response to campaign to boycott Israeli universities.

• Kevin SQUIRES: "Ireland latest EU state to defend BDS" (The Internet Intifada, 28 May, 2016): click here!

  In another blow to the Israeli campaign to criminalize Palestine solidarity activism, the Irish government has affirmed that the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement represents a “legitimate” means of protest “intended to pressure Israel into ending the occupation.”

• Michael DEAS: "BDS is free speech, says Dutch government" (The Internet Intifada, 25 May, 2016): click here!

  In response to parliamentary questions from Green Left MP Rik Grashoff, Dutch foreign minister Bert Koenders said that “statements or meetings concerning BDS are protected by freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, as enshrined in the Dutch constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.”

• Yasmin NAIR: "Can anthropology overcome its imperial past?" (The Internet Intifada, 25 May, 2016): click here!

  In 1989, the queer theory professor Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a founder of the field, presented a paper, “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl,” at the annual gathering of the Modern Language Association (MLA).

• Raoul WOOTLIFF: "Dysfunctional Israeli leadership failing utterly in battle against BDS, state watchdog warns" (The Times of Israel, 24 May, 2016): click here!

  The Foreign Ministry has no overall strategy, lacks funds and is failing to achieve its goals in the battle against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, a damning state comptroller’s report charged on Tuesday.

• "An open letter from human rights defenders to Mr. Adama Dieng, concerning participation in the INoGS 2016 annual conference" (Badil, May 24, 2016): click here!

  We, the 28 undersigned organizations, call upon you - in your capacity as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide - to withdraw your participation from the annual conference of the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS), scheduled to take place June 26-29 2016, at the Hebrew University in occupied East Jerusalem.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "Le BDS, les droits des Palestiniens et les menaces de mort proférées par Israël " (Mediapart, 24 mai, 2016): click here!

  « Je suis inquiet pour ma sécurité après les récentes menaces israéliennes, officielles et à peine voilées, de nuire physiquement à ma personne comme à celle de mes collègues palestiniens, israéliens et internationaux actifs dans le mouvement de Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions (BDS) » alerte ici Omar Barghouti, le co-fondateur de BDS.

• Rami YOUNIS: "Hundreds of academics call to boycott genocide conference in Israel" (+972, May 23, 2016): click here!

  Academics condemn decision to hold a conference on genocide in Jerusalem at a time when Israel’s actions are ‘being viewed through lenses of ethnic cleansing and genocide.’

• Haggai MATAR: "Famed feminist British historian refuses prestigious Israeli award" (+972, May 22, 2016): click here!

  Catherine Hall withdraws from $330,000 prize due to Tel Aviv University’s complicity in the occupation.

• "Des contrats entre Israël et l'UGent posent question" (7sur7, 27 novembre 2015?): click here!

  Des chercheurs de l'université de Gand (UGent) demandent des explications à la rectrice Anne De Paepe à propos de projets de recherche conclus avec une entreprise et une institution scientifique israéliennes. Les deux projets ont un lien direct avec l'appareil militaire israélien, a-t-on appris vendredi à l'occasion d'une conférence donnée par l'activiste palestinien des droits de l'homme, Omar Barghouti.

• "La KU Leuven impliquée dans un projet avec la police israélienne. Lettre ouverte au recteur Torfs " (Pour la Palestine, mai 2016): click here!

  Le comité de direction de BACBI (Boycott académique et culturel belge d’Israël) demande respectueusement au recteur de l’Université de Louvain (Leuven) de mettre d’urgence un terme à la participation de l’université dans des recherches dirigées non seulement par une université israélienne, mais impliquant également la police israélienne.

• "KULeuven betrokken in project met Israëlische politie. Open brief aan rector Torfs" (De Wereld Morgen, 23 mei 2016): click here!

  De stuurgroep van Bacbi (Belgische academische en culturele boycot van Israël) vraagt de Leuvense rector beleefd edoch dringend een einde te maken aan de betrokkenheid van de universiteit in een onderzoek waarvan niet alleen een Israëlische universiteit de leiding heeft, maar waarbij ook de Israëlische politie betrokken is.

• "UW-Madison Union of Graduate Student Workers (TAA) Endorses BDS Movement" (Labor for Palestine, May 19, 2016): click here!

  Members of the Teaching Assistants’ Association at the University of Wisconsin-Madison vote overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution to divest from the State of Israel and corporations that profit from the illegal occupation of Palestine.

• "354 European human rights organisations, church groups, trade unions and political parties call on the EU to support their right to boycott" (European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, May 18, 2016): click here! List of endorsers (pdf): click here!
• "Pas de criminalisation du mouvement pour la justice en Palestine !" (AURDIP, 17 mai 2016): click here!
• "Vrijheid van opinie ook voor solidariteit met Palestina!" (MO*, 17 mei 2016): click here!

  Meer dan dertig civiele organisaties uit België ondertekenden een gezamenlijk opiniestuk op te protesteren tegen de pogingen van Israël om de “Boycot, desinvesering en Sanctiebeweging” (BDS), een beweging die opkomt voor mensenrechten, te doen verbieden. De Israëlische minister Yisrael Katz deed zelfs een oproep tot “civiele uitschakeling” van leidinggevende mensenrechtenactivisten.

• "Chomsky: Hillary Clinton Fears BDS Because It Counters Decades of US Support for Israeli Aggression" (Democracy Now, May 16, 2016): click here!

  We speak with world-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky about where the Democratic presidential candidates stand on the issue of Israel and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS.

• "Contre la criminalisation du mouvement pour la justice en Palestine !" (11.11.11.-CNCD, 15 mai 2016): click here!

  Lors d’un discours prononcé le 12 avril dernier, Serge Rozen, président de la coordination des organisations juives de Belgique (CCOJB), a demandé au Premier Ministre et aux autres membres du gouvernement présents que soient prises des mesures législatives pour interdire le mouvement BDS (Boycott, désinvestissement et sanctions).

• Glenn GREENWALD: "Interview With BDS Co-Founder Omar Barghouti: Banned by Israel From Traveling, Threatened With Worse" (The Intercept, May 13, 2016): click here!

  Despite having lived in Israel for 22 years with no criminal record of any kind, Omar Barghouti was this week denied the right to travel outside the country. As one of the pioneers of the increasingly powerful movement to impose boycotts, sanctions and divestment measures (BDS) on Israel, Barghouti, an articulate, English-speaking activist, has frequently traveled around the world advocating his position.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "US, EU wink at Israel’s travel ban on BDS co-founder" (The Internet Intifada, May 12, 2016): click here!

  Human Rights Watch wasted no time in condemning Israel’s imposition of an effective travel ban on Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

• "Pas de "mains propres" pour l'Université de Gand en Israël" (Pour la Palestine, 11 mai 2016): click here!

  Un groupe de cinquante professeurs de l'Université de Gand demandent que soit mis un terme à la collaboration de leur université avec des partenaires de recherche israéliens du fait que ces derniers auraient des liens trop étroits avec l'armée israélienne. Cette collaboration équivaut à une complicité à des crimes de guerre et à des crimes contre l'humanité.

• "Briefing – BDS: a Legitimate Human Rights Movement to be Respected and Protected by States" (BDS Movement, May 11, 2016): click here!

  Individuals, groups, associations, local councils and public institutions participating in BDS campaigns in Palestine and elsewhere are human rights defenders. They are entitled to protection and support by governments and national authorities in accordance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

• Belal DABOUR: "BDS doesn't hurt Palestinian settlements workers" (The New Arab, May 7, 2016): click here!

  Israel claims that boycotting settlement products harms Palestinian workers, but if it leads to long-term liberation, it's a choice Palestinians should be allowed to make, writes Belal Dabour.

• Alex NEVE and Beatrice VAUGRANTE: "Freedom of Speech and Criticism of Israel’s Human Rights Record" (AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Canada, May 6, 2016): click here!

  On February 22 of this year, the House of Commons passed a motion condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement initiated in 2005 by Palestinian civil society. The BDS movement is a non-violent, global campaign which encourages organizations, activists and citizens to apply economic pressure on Israel “until Palestinian rights are recognised in full compliance with international law.”

• Ryan Rodrick BEILER: "Alliance of Baptists rules out investing in Israel-linked firms" (The Electronic Intifada, 3 mei, 2016): click here!

  The Alliance of Baptists is examining its investments to determine if the church has bought shares in firms profiting from the Israeli occupation. The probe follows a decision taken at the church’s annual meeting in St. Louis last month to support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

• Alain PLATEL: "Gaan of niet gaan naar Israël: vraag blijft wat we sámen kunnen doen als we zijn geweest of thuis zijn gebleven" (De Morgen, 2 mei, 2016): click here!

  Het zal jullie wellicht niet verwonderen dat ik mij in deze discussie meng en dit omdat wij met Les ballets C de la B de academische en culturele boycot van Israël al jaren wél steunen.

• Gideon LEVY: "Boycott Is the Only Way to Stop the Israeli Occupation" (Haaretz, May 1, 2016): click here!

  Aluf Benn's proposal for Israel's left to establish a base of domestic support for its positions is hopeless considering the brainwashing, ignorance, blindness, the good life, lack of opposition and increasing extremism of our society.

• Aluf BEN: "The Boycott of Israel Is No Miracle Drug" (Haaretz, April 28, 2016): click here!

  A single state would bury both the Palestinian national movement and the Zionist vision. People who view the boycott as 'saving Israel from itself' might find themselves living in a Masada.

• Peter BEINART: "For Jewish BDS Supporters, Personal Morality Trumps Jewish Solidarity" (Haaretz, April 27, 2016): click here!

  When you boycott Israel, or reject the ideology on which it was founded, you are estranging yourself from much of the Jewish world.

• Scott ROTH & Phil WEISS: "Norman Finkelstein on Sanders, the first intifada, BDS, and ten years of unemployment" (Mondoweiss, April 27, 2016): click here!

  We interviewed Norman Finkelstein, the noted scholar of the Israel/Palestine conflict, in Brooklyn on April 8 and followed up with email exchanges. The following text contains both oral and written responses to our questions.

• Jeff SCHURKE: "Univ. of Massachusetts Grad Student Workers Endorse BDS Against Israel" (In These Times, April 21, 2016): click here!
• Vijay PRASHAD: "America's Labor Unions Are Increasingly Standing with Palestine" (AlterNet, April 19, 2016): click here!

  The Israeli government and its American allies have spent millions of dollars to destroy the credibility of the BDS advocates. It does not seem to have succeeded.

• Press Release, April 19, 2016: "UMass Amherst Union of Graduate Student Workers Endorses BDS!" : click here!

  During a three day (April 12-14) vote, by secret ballot, the Graduate Employee Organization (GEO/UAW2322) at University of Massachusetts in Amherst voted overwhelmingly (95%) in favor of adopting a resolution to stand in solidarity with Palestinian civil society and join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "Dutch party votes for sanctions on Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, 18 April 2016): click here!

  At its national congress on 16 April, the liberal party D66 – short for Democrats 66 – called on its lawmakers to promote European Union demands that Israel halt its construction of settlements on occupied lands as well as other violations of human rights. The D66 resolution – adopted by a 75 percent majority – states that if Israel does not heed the demands, the EU-Israel Association Agreement "could be (partially) suspended".

• "Boycotting Israel is a free speech right" Palestinian Boycott Divestment Sanctions National Committee (BNC) (The Electronic Intifada, April 18, 2016): click here!

  The global movement supporting the Palestinian people’s right to freedom, justice and equality has taken impressive steps into the political mainstream in recent years... Israel’s current government, its most racist ever, has dropped all pretenses of “enlightenment” and “democracy.”

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Sweden denies Israeli claim that it opposes BDS" (The Electronic Intifada, April 16, 2016): click here!

  “As regards BDS, it is a civil society movement. Governments should not interfere in civil society organization views,” the spokesperson added.

• Yarden SKOP: "Leading Israeli Sociologist Calls for Boycott of West Bank University" (Haaretz, April 14, 2016): click here!

  Prof. Uri Ram, who heads the Israeli Sociological Society, urged colleagues to boycott academic institute in settlement of Ariel.

• "Discours de Serge Rozen, lors du Dîner de Gala du CCJOB –12 04 2016": click here!

  "Sommige landen hebben al wetgevende maatregelen aangetroffen om BDS te verbieden. Wij verwachten dat België hetzelfde zou doen. De Franse Premier heeft duidelijk aangeduid dat antizionisme de nieuwe bedekking of uitspraak van antisemitisme wordt ; wij zijn van mening dat België het eveneens moet zeggen".

• Stephany WESTBROOK: "Scholars in Italy debate Israel boycott despite censorship" (The Electronic Intifada, April 13, 2016): click here!

  Academics in Italy held the country’s first scholarly discussions about boycott, divestment and sanctions measures on Israel in support of Palestinian rights — in spite of attempts at censorship during a major Middle East studies conference in Sicily.

• "Simone de Beauvoir Institute’s Statement of Feminist Solidarity with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement" (SdBI, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, April 13, 2016, pdf, 12p.): click here!

  As feminist scholars, activists, teachers, and public intellectuals we recognize the interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression. In the spirit of this perspective, we cannot overlook the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians and other Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, within Israel and in the Golan Heights, as well as the colonial displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba.

• Michael HARRIS: "Scientists and BDS, in France and in the US" (AURDIP, April 13, 2016): click here!

  ...the absence of professional organizations representing scientists is hard to miss. The failure of the campus’s other half to engage collectively in any way with the growing movement contrasts sharply with the situation in the spring of 2002, when, in the wake of the Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank, two petitions, precursors of the BDS movement, were initiated by scientists in Britain and France and collected hundreds of signatures.

• "European call: Stop the criminalisation of the BDS movement for justice in Palestine! Support grassroots human rights activists across Europe!" (European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, April 12, 2016): click here!

  As Israel is increasingly unable to defend its regime of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people and its regular massacres of Palestinians in Gaza, it is seeking supportive governments in Europe and the US to undermine free speech as a way of shielding it from criticism and measures aimed at holding it to account for its gross violations of international law.

• "Amnesty International - Israeli Government must cease intimidation of human rights defenders, protect them from attacks" (AURDIP, April 12, 2016): click here!

  Israeli authorities must take immediate steps to provide protection necessary for HRDs in Israel/OPT to carry out their work freely and without fear of attacks and harassment. Attacks and threats against HRDs must be investigated and those responsible must be held to account.

• Nada ELIA: "As threats against BDS grow, it is time for ‘sumoud’ in activist communities" (Mondoweiss, April 11, 2016): click here!

  The attacks on BDS, and BDS organizers, are intensifying globally. “The BDS organizations will have no rest,” warned Gilad Erdan at the recent “Stop BDS” conference in Occupied Jerusalem.

• "Letter to Ms Federica Mogherini regarding the israeli government threats against Palestinian human rights defenders" (AURDIP, April 11, 2016): click here!

  Dear Ms Mogherini, The participation of Mr Lars Faaborg-Andersen, head of the EU delegation to Israel, in the “Stop the Boycott” Conference in Jerusalem on 28 March has had very unfortunate consequences which you should be aware of.

• Allison DEGER: "After wins abroad, BDS conference in West Bank sees local traction" (Mondoweiss, April 10, 2016): click here!

  Tamam Abdul, 60, sells Israeli goods in her West Bank supermarket, but she would rather not. “All of the products we receive are Israeli, unfortunately,” she said Saturday outside of Ramallah at a fifth conference about the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, otherwise known by the initials BDS.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "EU envoy refuses to condemn Israeli threats against BDS activists" (The Electronic Intifada, April 8, 2016): click here!

  Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen, who heads the EU diplomatic mission to Israel, was responding to questions about the threats made by Israeli intelligence minister Yisrael Katz and other top officials against activists and leaders in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

• Charlotte SILVER: "Writers pull out of PEN festival over Israel sponsorship" (The Electronic Intifada, April 8, 2016): click here!

  A letter signed by more than 100 writers, including Junot Díaz, Richard Ford, Eileen Myles and Rachel Kushner, calls on PEN American Center to reject support from the Israeli government for its annual World Voices Festival.

• "Unlawful Participation of Israeli Arms Companies in Horizon 2020 Exposed" (ECCP, April 7, 2016): click here!

  In a European Parliamentary session that took place on March 1st and was sponsored jointly by S&D, EPP and ALDE MEPs, it was exposed that two Israeli arms companies have circumvented European regulations on participation in the Horizon 2020 project by introducing military research, and by including products which have been tested in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

• Susan ABULHAWA: "PEN should not accept Israeli propaganda money to fund festival" (Middle East Eye, April 7, 2016): click here!

  Why does an organisation championing free expression accept money from a state that persistently tramples on Palestinian human rights?

• "Israeli Anthropologists Support the Boycott" (Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions, April 6, 2016): click here!
• Jeff SCHUHRKE: "American and Palestinian Unionists Build International Solidarity To Win ‘Freedom’ for Palestine" (In These Times, April 6, 2016): click here!

  In an address on Middle East policy last month, Bernie Sanders —the first Jewish American to win a presidential primary—did something virtually unheard of in contemporary U.S. politics when he called for an end to “what amounts to the occupation of Palestinian territory” by Israel.

• "Edinburgh Students Vote 62% for BDS" (Forward, April 5, 2016): click here!

  The Edinburgh University Students’ Association passed a motion backing a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution against Israel. The nonbinding motion passed Thursday by a vote of 249 to 153, with 22 abstentions, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported. The motion also called for an academic boycott of Israel.

• Akiva ELDAR: "Why Israeli companies are fleeing West Bank settlements" (Al Monitor, March 29, 2016): click here!

  EU and UN decisions to label settlement products and identify firms doing business there are driving companies to relocate from West Bank settlements across the Green Line.

• "Italian students launch the "Studenti Contro Il Technion Campaign" to support BDS" (Mondoweiss, April 1, 2016): click here!

  During the IAW (Israeli Apartheid Week) 2016, students’ associations and groups across Italian campuses have initiated the “Studenti Contro Il Technion” campaign, embracing Michel Foucault’s claim: “Knowledge is not for knowing, it is for cutting”. However, the events organized for this occasion have been met with a clear “closure” attitude by their universities.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "Israeli Ministers Call For "Civil Targeted Killing" of BDS Activists" (The Citizen, April 3): click here!

  As was reported in the Israeli media, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said (Hebrew) at the largest Israeli anti-BDS conference, held ​on ​March 28 in Jerusalem, that Israel should engage in “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS "leaders" with the help of Israeli intelligence, intentionally using language that plays on the Hebrew term for “targeted assassinations.” My name was mentioned in this context.

• Richard SILVERSTEIN: "Israeli Minster Calls for “Civil Targeted Killings” of BDS Leaders". (Tikun Olam, March 30, 2016: click here!

  The Yediot Achronot conference attacking BDS has become a veritable carnival of hate. Everyone from delusional Hollywood celebrities (Roseanne Barr) to cabinet ministers, to the leader of the Opposition have pledged fealty to the cause. Two of the speakers are under criminal investigation for corrupt political or financial dealings.

• Mairav ZONSZEIN: "In Israel, BDS is winning". (+972, March 28, 2016: click here!

  The first ever anti-BDS conference in Israel brought together politicians of all stripes to show their commitment to the fight against boycotts. In doing so, however, they showed just how effective the boycott movement really is.

• "EU complicit in Israeli war crimes”, says leadership of global BDS Movement. Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), March 28, 2016: click here!

  “The European Union has once again abandoned its own policies that consider Israel’s settlements illegal. By failing to vote at the UN Human Rights Council for establishing a UN registry of companies implicated in Israel’s occupation regime and by joining the far-right Israeli government’s fight against BDS, the largest nonviolent Palestinian-led human rights movement, the EU is underlining its already well-known hypocrisy and declaring its disregard for human rights.”

• "Boycotting Israel is a free speech right". Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) (The Electronic Intifada, March 18, 2016): click here!

  Efforts by the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to hold Israel accountable for its serious violations of international law and to end international complicity in these violations are more widely supported and impactful than ever before.

• Ramzy BAROUD: "Moral Response to Israeli Racism" (Arab News, March 15, 2016): click here!

  The main objective behind BDS, an entirely non-violent movement that is championed by civil society across the globe, is not to punish ordinary Israelis, but to raise awareness of the suffering of Palestinians and to create a moral threshold that must be achieved if a just peace is ever to be realized.

• "L’University College London vote pour le boycott d’Israël" (The Times of Israel, 14 mars, 2016): click here!

  Le syndicat étudiant de l’University College London (UCL), la plus grande institution d’enseignement supérieur de la capitale britannique, a voté pour adopter officiellement une motion défendant le Boycott Désinvestissement Sanctions (BDS).

• Michael SCHAEFFER OMER-MAN: "Latest boycott victories signify new momentum for BDS" (+972, March 14, 2016): click here!

  As long as there is no political or diplomatic horizon, as long as the power dynamic allows Israel to dictate the terms of any negotiations, as long as the occupation seems hopelessly unending, BDS is one of the most powerful non-violent tools available for Palestinians to fight for their fundamental rights, and for enlisting allies around the world to fight alongside them.

• "Open letter to McGill University’s Suzanne Fortier: Rectify your misrepresentation of BDS" (Mondoweiss, March 11, 2016): click here!

  In conclusion, whether or not one supports BDS, we commend the McGill students who voted in favour of BDS for standing up against repression in the face of increasing attempts by governments and other organisations to spread vilifying misinformation about the movement. Any statement about academic freedom in the context of Israel-Palestine must absolutely take into account that academic freedom is blatantly violated for Palestinian faculty and students every day. [o.m. ondertekend door Noam Chomsky]

• Steven BOTTICELLI: "Over 300 psychotherapists oppose holding annual research conference in Jerusalem" (Mondoweiss, March 10, 2016): click here!

  The usually quiescent world of psychotherapy has been struck by a blast of anti-occupation activism, in the form of a petition signed by over 300 psychotherapists opposing the choice of The Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR) to hold its annual meeting in Jerusalem this June.

• "Protect Your Right To Boycott: Anti-BDS Legislation by [US] State" (righttoboycott.org): click here!

  These bills are the result of a campaign to suppress Palestine human rights activism in the U.S. Israel's interest in restricting this activism should not override our right to advocate for change.

• Asa WINSTANLEY: "Has the UK really banned boycotts?" (The Electronic Intifada, March 7, 2016): click here!

  In a statement sent to The Electronic Intifada, London Palestine Action said the Department for Communities and Local Government was engaging in “smoke and mirrors” and that the much-touted “boycott ban” was more of an attempt to intimidate than an actual ban.

• Peter BEINART: "When the Fight Over BDS Is a Jewish Civil War" (Haaretz, March 8, 2016): click here!

  It’s not anti-Semitism that makes pro-Israel Jewish students at Vassar feel uncomfortable, it’s anti-Zionism, sometimes championed by fellow Jews.

• Jonathan COOK: "Emerging from a ‘reign of terror’: Palestinians in Israel hold first BDS conference" (J.C.: The View from Nazareth, March 3, 2016): click here!

  Israel’s large Palestinian minority held its first-ever conference on BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – this past weekend in spite of anti-boycott legislation introduced five years ago that exposes activists in Israel to harsh financial penalties.

• Amjad IRAQI: "The right to boycott is non-negotiable" (+972, March 2, 2016): click here!

  Regardless of one’s views of BDS, it is ridiculous that one should have to tell self-proclaimed ‘democracies’ that the right to boycott is a basic civil right, not a punishable crime.

• "Mental health professionals protest decision to hold conference in Jerusalem" (MEMo, March 2, 2016): click here!

  Over 140 psychotherapists, researchers and other mental health professionals have written an open letter to the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR) to express dismay at its decision to hold its next international conference in Jerusalem.

• Wadih AWAWDA-HAIFA: "Deux historiens israéliens : Le boycott, une route pour mettre fin à l’occupation"(Assoc. France Palestine Solidarité, 2 mars, 2016): click here!

  Deux éminents historiens israéliens ont déclaré que l’occupation est la cause du soulèvement palestinien en cours et non une incitation (à la révolte), comme le prétend Israël, et ont confirmé dans leur entretien avec la chaine Al-Jazeera, l’efficacité du boycott pour mettre fin à l’occupation, en prenant l’ Afrique du Sud pour exemple.

• Comité BDS-ULB: "Oui au boycott, non au monologue" (Le Soir, Cartes Blanches, 2 mars, 2016): click here!
• Teo ARMUS: "40 faculty sign petition in solidarity with Columbia University Apartheid Divest"(Columbia Spectator, March 1, 2016): click here!
• Dries VAN AGT: "De afwijzing van boycots is campagne vóór de Israëlische bezetting" (Joop, 26 feb, 2016): click here!

  Het is dringend geboden dat Europa en de VS de confrontatie met het nederzettingenbeleid aangaan.

• Nora BARROWS-FRIEDMAN: "Listen: Canadian students back Israel boycott as government condemns it" (The Electronic Intifada, Feb 26, 2016): click here!

  The undergraduate student union at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, passed a motion on 22 February to support the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. The vote passed with a 58 percent majority.

• William A. COOK: "Israel Defies UN Efforts to Bring it into Compliance with Int’l Law"(Deliberation, Feb 24, 2016): click here!

  There is only one logical and civilized way to determine the owners of the land of Palestine and that is in the United Nations and its charters as agreed upon by 194 nations. Boycotts, divestments and sanctions may be the only route to compel Israel to understand that fact.

• Steven SALAITA: "Palestine and the anxiety of existence" (Mondoweiss, Feb 25, 2016): click here!

  Read a thought-provoking essay that looks at the question: how do we communicate with people who have a deeply emotional attachment to the idea of Israel?

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israel “quietly” pushed for anti-BDS legislation in US, UK" (The Electronic Intifada, Feb 24, 2016)): click here!

  The Israeli government played a direct role in recent policy and legislative moves in the US, UK and other countries to suppress the free speech rights of citizens calling for the boycott of Israel over its human rights abuses. Israel is now planning to significantly step up its efforts to thwart the Palestine solidarity movement, through its embassies in key capitals.

• Adri NIEUWHOF: "South African water conference called off amid protest at Israel’s role" (The Electronic Intifada, Feb 19, 2016)): click here!

  A South African conference on water has been canceled following protests against the planned participation of an Israeli diplomat... Fioramonti, a political economist, said he believed it was “necessary” to support Palestinian and Israeli activists “seeking just and sustainable peace.” Backing Palestinian calls for an academic boycott of Israel, he issued a statement announcing his withdrawal from the conference.

• Eman ELSHAIKH: "The U.S. Government Is Targeting the BDS Movement" (Muftah, Feb 17, 2016)): click here!

  The Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement is succeeding in many places, most recently in the form of a robust academic boycott in Italy, where over two hundred academics from dozens of Italian universities pledged to boycott Israeli academic institutions until Israel ceases its pervasive violations of international law.

• "Campaigners: UK government procurement guidance is intimidation, not ‘ban’ on boycotts " (MEMo, Feb 18, 2016)): click here!

  The British government formally published Wednesday new guidance ostensibly intended to “stop inappropriate procurement boycotts by public authorities.” While the Conservatives have presented the document as a way of protecting Israel from the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, activists say that the measures actually fall short of a ‘ban’ on boycotts.

• Glenn GREENWALD & Andrew FISHMAN: "Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation" (The Intercept, Feb 16, 2016)): click here!

  There is a very coordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters literally to criminalize political activism against Israeli occupation, based on the particular fear that the worldwide campaign of Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment, or BDS — modeled after the 1980s campaign that brought down the Israel-allied apartheid regime in South Africa — is succeeding.

• Ali MILANI: "Ban or no ban, British students will continue to support BDS" (Middle East Eye, Feb 16, 2016)): click here!

  Yesterday morning I - like many Palestinian and human rights activists - woke up to anger and frustration, as once again our government, a Conservative government, has come swooping to the aid of occupation and apartheid.

• Ben WHITE: "Boycotting Israel isn't anti-Semitic – how many human rights groups need to condemn it until this is clear?" (The Independent, Feb 16, 2016)): click here!

  Is the BDS movement singling out Israel? No – but the British government is singling it out for impunity.

• George BOWDEN: "Israel Palestine Boycott Ban: Prohibition Of Settlement Goods To Become Criminal Offence For Public Bodies" (The Huffington Post UK, Feb 15, 2016)): click here!

  The boycotting of goods produced on settlements in the West Bank by local councils and public bodies is to be outlawed, the government will announce this week.

• Ben WHITE: "The case for cultural boycott of Israel" (Middle East Eye, Feb 15, 2016)): click here!

  The call for boycott is a response to the complicity of Israel’s cultural institutions in Israel’s crimes. Israeli settler-colonialism has always included attacks on Palestinian culture, from the looting of libraries during the ethnic cleansing of 1948, through to the violent attacks by Israeli authorities on Palestinian cultural events in Occupied East Jerusalem.

• Daniella PELED: "Israel shouldn't celebrate Cameron's new boycott law - it won't save its image" (The Independent, Feb 15, 2016)): click here!

  It’s easy to see why some in pro-Israel circles are claiming this new law as a landmark victory in the fight for Israel. They’re wrong: just as there is no military solution to the occupation, there is no legislative one to boycotting.

• Oliver WRIGHT: "Israel boycott ban: Shunning Israeli goods to become criminal offence for public bodies and student unions" (The Independent, Feb 14, 2016)): click here!

  Local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions are to be banned by law from boycotting “unethical” companies, as part of a controversial crackdown being announced by the Government.

• "Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) statement on BDS movement" (addameer.org, Feb 9, 2016)): click here!

  For decades, Israel has failed to uphold its duties as Occupying Power and has instead deepened its occupation and regime of colonialism and apartheid. Human rights violations rising to the level of international crimes, including unlawful killings, torture, forced transfer, and other forms of collective punishment have become the norm.

• BDS@TEN: "10 Years BDS 100 Victories" (US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation): click here!

  By popular demand, below is a list of over 100 U.S. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Victories, released to commemorate ten years since Palestinian civil society issued the call for BDS.

• Dana SOMBERG/Maariv HASHAVUA: "Diplomatic cables reveal sharp increase in efforts to boycott Israel" (The Jerusalem Post, Feb 2, 2016): click here!

  In the Belgian city of Liege, organizers of an annual dance festival turned down an Israeli sponsorship of the event last week after boycott threats. Israel had initiated and offered to sponsor the festival after the Batsheva Dance troupe was chosen as an opening act. But, “at a later stage,” a cable sent from the embassy in Belgium to the Israeli ministry reads, “they informed us that they did not want to be tied to the embassy, were forgoing our support and returning the money. All of this because of the threat of a boycott. Protests made to the festival organizers failed to yield any results.”

• "La campagne de boycott BDS visant Israël prend de plus en plus d'ampleur" (RT, 2 février, 2016): click here!

  Chaque mois, les ambassades israéliennes basées en Europe et aux Etats-Unis font part au ministère des Affaires étrangères israélien de l'ampleur pris par le mouvement mouvement international BDS (Boycott Désinvestissement Sanctions). Révélés par The Jerusalem Post, ces câbles font ressortir les constantes préoccupations de responsables israéliens vis-à-vis de la menace grandissante d'un probable isolement de leur pays sur la scène internationale.

• Josef FEDERMAN and Collin BINKLEY: "Israeli academics face growing boycott pressures" (news.yahoo.com, Feb 1, 2016): click here!

  As a global boycott movement against Israeli universities gains steam, Israeli professors say they are feeling the pressure from their colleagues overseas. Although the movement ostensibly targets universities, not individuals, Israeli academics say they are often shunned at the personal level. They experience snubs at academic conferences, struggle to get recommendations and can experience difficulty publishing their work in professional journals.

• "170 academics at Italian universities call for boycott of Israeli institutions" (stoptechnionitalia.wordpress.com, Jan 27, 2016): click here!

  170 academics [right now, Feb 19: 312] from more than 50 Italian universities and research institutes have signed a pledge committing to a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. For the actual call: click here!

• "200 Brazilian academics to join the boycott of Israel" (Palestine News Network, Jan 21, 2016): click here!

  In just three days, an online letter endorsing the academic boycott of Israeli institutions circulated by Brazilian intellectuals, received 200 signatories from faculty across Brazilian universities.

• Amos SCHOCKEN: ""Only international pressure will end Israeli apartheid"" (Haaretz, Jan 22, 2016): click here!

  The growing delegitimization of Israel is this country's own handiwork. Should Israel decide to end apartheid, it will return to being legitimate in every respect... There's no boycott against states worse than Israel? Israel, which aspires to and can become one of the world's most enlightened countries, a light unto the nations, is not allowed to make such an argument.

• Bernard AVISHAI: "The E.U. vs. B.D.S.: the Politics of Israel Sanctions" (The New Yorker, Jan 22, 2016): click here!

  The E.U., in short, is cannier, fairer, and stronger than the B.D.S. movement, though its sanctions may be misconstrued as calculated to add to the movement’s prestige. The real challenge to Israel’s economy, and sense of purpose, will not be B.D.S. but successive Likud governments that expect educated Europeans to buy into the idea that “terror” justifies what they’re doing.

• "Petition in support of the right to calling for a boycott of Israeli goods in France": click here!
• "UK doctors call for Israel’s removal from World Medical Association" (presstv.com, Jan 21, 2016): click here!

  British doctors have called for the removal of Israel from the World Medical Association (WMA) over claims of “medical torture” on Palestinians seeking treatment.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Defying court ruling, French figures call for Israel boycott" (The Electronic Intifada, Jan 20, 2016): click here!

  A group of prominent intellectuals and activists is defying France’s crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement by publicly calling for the boycott of Israeli goods.
  Texte de la déclaration: "Nous appelons au boycott des produits israéliens ! " (Mediapart, 19 janvier 2016): click here!
  Pétition de soutien: "Nous appelons au boycott des produits israéliens !" click here!

• Asa WINSTANLEY: "Israel's 'war' against BDS is increasingly desperate" (MEMo, Jan 18, 2016): click here!

  At first ignored, and later derided, the BDS movement has by now become one of the top strategic threats to Israel's ability carry on the business of occupation as usual.

• David LLOYD: "Racism in the Defense of a Racist State: Some Reflections on BDS at the Modern Language Association" (Jadaliyya, Jan 16, 2016): click here!

  It is beginning to seem as if the arrival of winter spells academic boycott season as well as the festive season. This year in November, the business meetings of two major associations voted overwhelmingly to endorse the call of Palestine civil society to engage in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions until such times as they—and the state with which they are so deeply intertwined—respect the internationally recognized human rights of Palestinians.

• Sean M.KENNEDY: "On the MLA and the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions " (Right to Education Campaign Birzeit Univ., Jan 15, 2016): click here!

  This is the first time a major church pension fund has acted to preclude investment in Israeli banks that sustain Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

• "United Methodist Church pension fund rules 5 top Israeli banks off-limits for investment" (Mondoweiss, Jan 12, 2016): click here!

  This is the first time a major church pension fund has acted to preclude investment in Israeli banks that sustain Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

• Aziza NOFAL: "Why Palestinian housewives are taking lead in boycott campaigns" (Al-Monitor, Jan 8, 2016): click here!

  BDS campaign coordinator and Palestinian politician Majida al-Masri told Al-Monitor, “This campaign is unique in that it addresses housewives in their capacity as those in charge of household spending and the best suited to make decisions related to buying products. As the campaign developed, it garnered the membership of all women’s groups and organizations that are active in the West Bank, subsequently spreading to Gaza, thus empowering and driving it forward.”

• Colleen FLAHERTY: "Historians Reject Measure Criticizing Israel." Scholars question idea that one country should be "singled out." (Insight Higher Ed, Jan 11, 2016): click here!

  Members of the American Historical Association on Saturday voted down, 111 to 51, a resolution “upholding the rights of Palestinian faculty and students to pursue their education and research freely” and committing the AHA to “monitoring Israeli actions restricting the right to education in the occupied Palestinian territories,” among other points. The vote came at the association's annual meeting here.

• Saree MAKDISI: "Why Israel's schools merit a U.S. boycott" (Los Angeles Times, Jan 8, 2016): click here!

  The United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination points out with alarm that Israel maintains two separate educational systems for its citizens — one for Jewish children and another for the children of the Palestinian minority — a structure that reinforces the profound segregation of Israeli society in everything from matters of citizenship and marriage to housing rights.

• Palestine BDS National Committee: "Orange drops Israel affiliate following inspiring BDS campaign - See more at: " (BDS Movement, Jan 7, 2016): click here!

  French telecoms giant Orange has announced the termination of its franchise relationship with Israeli company Partner Communications, confirming the BDS movement’s announcement last year that this was likely to happen.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "Knesset anti-BDS meeting reveals Israeli fear of isolation" (Mondoweiss, Jan 7, 2016): click here!

  Recent Israeli efforts to fight BDS smell of deep despair, which is giving rise to hopeless aggression, even worse bullying and patently irrational measures that can only help BDS to grow in the coming few years.

• Rabab ABDULHADI: "Transnational Feminist Solidarity in Times of Crisis. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement and Justice in/for Palestine" Simona Sharoni and Rabab Abdulhadi in conversation with Nadje Al-Ali, Felicia Eaves, Ronit Lentin, Dina Siddiqi (Medium.com - The Palestine Project, Jan 6, 2016): click here!
• Mario VASQUEZ: "UAW Overrules Academic Workers BDS Vote Against Israel Despite Finding Strong Turnout, No Misconduct" (In These Times, Jan 6, 2015): click here!

  On December 15, 2015, the United Auto Workers (UAW) International Executive Board (IEB) nullified the resolution passed last year by members of UAW Local 2865, the 13,000 teaching assistants and student-workers at the University of California system, that called on the International to endorse the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel by withholding their financial investments in companies “complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations as part of the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people."

• "MLA Members for Justice in Palestine": click here!

  MLA (Modern Language Association) Members for Justice in Palestine is a group within the MLA Commons that was established in 2014 and submitted a Resolution Endorsing the Boycott of Israeli Academic institutions to the Organizing Committee of the Delegate Assembly for consideration at the 2015 Delegate Assembly meeting. The vote on the Resolution was postponed until the 2017 MLA Convention allowing for further debate and discussion of the issue with the aim of educating the membership. The organizers and supporters are scholars at all levels within the academy working in a various fields of language and literary studies. [The Open Letter can be signed online.]

• David PALUMBO-LIU: "Not so Much Anti-Boycott as Pro-Israel". In: symploke, vol. 23, Numbers 1-2, 2015, pp. 425-457. Review of Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm, eds., "The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel", Chicago and New York: MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights, 2015; 552 pp. Pdf, 34 p.: click here!
• "BDS in 2015: Seven ways our movement broke new ground against Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid" (BDS Movement, Dec 29, 2015): click here!
• "Les chiffres accablants du boycott d’Israël par la société civile espagnole" (EuropeIsrael News, déc 25, 2015): click here!

  Plus de 25 municipalités espagnoles pratiquent le boycott d’Israël, de même que 1500 universitaires et chercheurs dans le pays.

• "Hebrew University to host conference on 'widening' BDS campaign" (MEMo, Dec 23, 2015): click here!

  Hebrew University will host a conference at the end of the month on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, a reflection of growing concerns amongst Israel’s political, cultural and academic elites about the Palestinian-led boycott.

• Adnan Abu AMER: "Is BDS movement spreading across Europe?" (Al-Monitor, Dec 23, 2015): click here!

  Despite a lack of funding and solid organizational backing at home, the Palestinian diaspora in Europe has increased its activities and is winning ever stronger support, costing Israel more in economic losses and international status by the week.

• "Israel arrests 90 students at West Bank university" (MEMo, Dec 23, 2015): click here!

  In a statement, the university (Birzeit) noted that Israel’s oppressive acts against the Palestinians, especially students, reinforce the need for an international boycott, including an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

• "University of Barcelona announces official boycott of Israeli occupation" (The Palestinian Information Center, Dec 20, 2015): click here!

  The Central University of Barcelona (UAB) announced its decision to boycott Israeli universities and institutions that have ties, whether direct or indirect, with the occupation of Palestine.

• "South Africa joins growing global movement to isolate Israel universities" (Big News Network.com, Dec 16, 2015): click here!

  In excess of 200 scholars in South Africa on Tuesday declared their support for the boycott, adding to those of more than 600 who pledged a similar boycott in the UK in October, and a subsequent pledge by more than 120 Irish scholars.
  Pour la version française de la déclaration, "Engagement d’Universitaires sud-africains pour les Droits des Palestiniens", et la liste des 204 universitaires: cliquez ici!

• Rod JONES: "Exceptional Israel: the case for BDS" (OpenDemocracy.net, Dec 16, 2015): click here.
• Ben WHITE: "Apartheid & Cultural Boycott: Then and Now" (Middle East Monitor, Special Report, 2015, 20 p., pdf): click here.
• Nadia ELIA: "Palestine solidarity: Women, children, gays - and straight men too" (Middle East Eye, Dec 4, 2015): click here!

  " Israel’s violence against Palestinians is both gendered and racist. Women and children - the victims most usually decried by Western feminists - but also all adult men, both gay and straight, are oppressed by Israel. The violence takes on multiple forms, but pervades every aspect of the lives of all Palestinians. Women are targeted as the mothers, sisters or wives of present and future “terrorists”.

• Dana OLWAN: Essay: "Why BDS is a feminist issue". North America's largest feminist organisation is voting on whether to endorse the BDS movement against Israel" (Al Jazeera, Nov 24, 2015): click here!

  "The story of Hashlamon's death and the scarce media coverage it has received in the West raises some important questions: Where is the feminist outcry against such forms of violence, rooted as they are in colonial, sexualised and gendered registers of worth and worthlessness?”

• "American Anthropological Association (AAA) conference passes BDS resolution with a whopping 88% majority" (PACBI, 21 Nov, 2015): click here!

  "As heirs to a long tradition of scholarship on colonialism, anthropologists affirm, through this resolution, that the core problem is Israel’s maintenance of a settler colonial regime based on Jewish supremacy and Palestinian dispossession. By supporting the boycott, anthropologists are taking a stand for justice through action in solidarity with Palestinians.”

• Harvey E.GOLDBERG, Dan RABINOWITZ e.a.: "Every Pro-boycott Endorsement Weakens Israel’s Anti-occupation Camp" (Haaretz, Nov 18, 2015): click here!

  The American Anthropological Association’s BDS proposal could have far-reaching consequences: strengthening Israel’s right wing and abetting BDS’s rhetorical pretense regarding its true aims.

• Susan ABULHAWA: "Why my books are not published in Israel"( Mondoweiss, Nov 16, 2015): click here.
• "Call from Gaza-Based Palestinian Student Blocs: Intensify BDS campaigns against apartheid Israel!" (Mondoweiss Nov 10, 2015): click here!

  Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine – "We, organizations that make up the majority of the Palestinian student sector, call upon our peers and student organizations and unions around the world to mobilize against Israel’s policies of occupation, colonization and apartheid in Palestine".

• "Mental Health Workers’ Pledge for Palestine" (UK Mental Health Network, 2015): click here!
• "Le boycott académique d'Israël". Contexte politique et fondements d’un appel issu de la société civile palestinienne (Association Belgo-Palestinienne, novembre 2015, 16 p., pdf) : cliquez ici!
• James NORTH: "Leading US anthropologist signs on to BDS despite qualms" (Mondoweiss, November 6, 2015): click here!

  James Ferguson is a giant in his field. By chance when I saw the statement below, I was reading his book on southern Africa for the third time, "The Anti-Politics Machine", a brilliant study of why foreign aid failed in the nation of Lesotho. The Stanford anthropologist has great standing among cultural anthropologists, and a superior intellect.

• Ben WHITE: "Dialogue vs. BDS? Responding to arguments against an academic boycott of Israel" (Middle East Monitor, November 6, 2015): click here!

  Here I will suggest responses to the most common arguments advanced by critics of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and specifically its academic component.

• Elif SHAFAK: "‘Nationalist and religious extremists are the beneficiaries of cultural boycotts’" (The Guardian, November 6, 2015): click here!

  When writers and academics stay away from countries in protest at human rights violations, it is the people who lose out.

• "Une Chercheuse Palestinienne répond à l’Ambassadeur d’Israël" (FoulExpress, 5 novembre 2015): click here!

  Samar Batrawi est chercheuse à l’université King’s College de Londres. Récemment, elle a produit des articles ayant trait notamment aux mouvements et groupes violents opérant en Syrie et en Irak. Intéressée par ses recherches sur l’Etat Islamique, l’ambassade d’Israël à Londres l’a invitée cette semaine pour une « discussion ». Voici sa réponse.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "France now more repressive of boycott calls than Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, November 4, 2015): click here!

  On 20 October, France’s highest court of criminal appeals upheld the conviction of a dozen Palestine solidarity activists for publicly calling for the boycott of Israeli goods. The ruling by the Court of Cassation adds to growing concerns about the harsh crackdown on free speech, backed by French President François Hollande, since the murders of journalists at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. It also makes France, in addition to Israel, the only country to penalize appeals not to buy Israeli goods.

• "Connecticut AFL-CIO Adopts Resolution in Support of BDS and Justice and Peace for the Palestinian People" (Portside.org, November 1, 2015): click here!
• "Academics and Israel" (The Irish Post, November 4, 2015): click here!

  "As scholars associated with Irish institutions of higher education, north and south, we are deeply disturbed by Israel’s ongoing illegal occupation of Palestinian land, the intolerable human rights violations that it inflicts on all sections of the Palestinian people, and its apparent determination to resist any feasible settlement".

• "Un jugement inique qui protège les criminels de guerre! La campagne BDS continuera!" (UJFP, novembre 3, 2015): click here!

  "Après avoir fait l’objet d’une relaxe en première instance à Mulhouse puis avoir été condamnés en cour d’appel de Colmar, douze militants qui avaient appelé au boycott des produits d’Israël en septembre 2009 et mai 2010 dans un hypermarché en région de Mulhouse, s’étaient pourvus en Cour de cassation. Le verdict, le 20 octobre : la Cour de cassation confirme la condamnation des militants à des amendes."

• Ghuislain POISSONNIER: "According to the Court of Cassation, freedom of expression does not authorize the call to boycott Israeli products" (AURDIP, 1 novembre, 2015): click here!

  "The criminal division of the Court of Cassation [France’s highest appeals court] issued a decision on October 20, 2015, affirming that freedom of expression does not authorize the call to boycott Israeli goods ; such a call is henceforward a misdemeanor in France and punishable as such".

• Magid SHIHADE (Birzeit Univ.): "The Boycott Opens the Space for True Academic Freedom" (Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions, Nov 2, 2015): click here!

  "I am a Palestinian academic with Israeli citizenship, and I support the initiative in the AAA for a boycott resolution against Israeli institutions. Such a resolution will not harm me, nor it will harm any Palestinian academic in Israel, and it won’t harm any individual academic in Israel in general, let alone any academic from any part of the world who works on Israel/Palestine. To the contrary, I argue that such a resolution would help all academics, especially those whose work is focused on Israel/Palestine, regardless of the location where they work."

• Michael BRULL: "An Open Letter to JK Rowling from Michael Brull on Palestine"(NewMatilda.com, Nov 1, 2015): click here!

  "The letter which you signed says nothing about how Israel treats the Palestinians. It doesn’t mention the siege on Gaza. It doesn’t mention the occupation, and millions of disfranchised Palestinians, living under a system of oppression. It doesn’t mention the millions of Palestinian refugees. It doesn’t mention the Palestinians being shot without trial right now, in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, or the protesters being shot in Gaza. It simply states that “we may not all share the same views on the policies of the Israeli government”. Rather than making common cause with those who hope for change, you made common cause with those seeking to prevent it."

• Glenn GREENWALD: "Criminalization of Anti-Israel Activism Escalates, This Time in the Land of the Charlie Hebdo and “Free Speech”"(The Intercept, October 27, 2015): click here!

  "The post-Charlie Hebdo “free speech” march in Paris was a fraud for multiple reasons, as I wrote at the time. It was led by dozens of world leaders, many of whom imprison or even kill people for expressing prohibited views. It was cheered by many Westerners who feign upset only when free speech abridgments are perpetrated by Muslims, but not — as is far more common — by their own governments against Muslims".

• "Artists Verdict: Cultural bridges with Israel lead nowhere"(Artists for Palestine UK, October 27, 2015): click here!

  The appearance last week of some famous UK cultural names on a statement defending Israel against boycott has sparked a wave of incredulity and outrage from fellow artists.

• "A Commitment by UK Scholars to Human Rights in Palestine" (commitment4P.com, October 27, 2015): click here! For the original advertisement (pdf): click here! Update 28/10: 500 signatories.

  "This Commitment is motivated by deep concern for Palestinians, including Palestinian academics, struggling to sustain some semblance of normal life in intractably difficult circumstances of occupation, and denial of basic human rights. Recent events have provided, once again, grim evidence of Israeli intransigence".

• UK academics boycott universities in Israel to fight for Palestinians' rights (Peter Walker & Ian Black, The Guardian, Oct 27, 2015): click here!; for the pdf of the advertisement: click here!; see as well Middle East Eye, Oct 27, click here!; Medium.com, Oct 27, click here!; OneWorld.org: click here!):

  More than 300 academics from dozens of British universities have pledged to boycott Israeli academic institutions in protest at what they call intolerable human rights violations against the Palestinian people. The declaration, by 343 professors and lecturers, is printed in a full-page advertisement carried in Tuesday’s Guardian, with the title: “A commitment by UK scholars to the rights of Palestinians.”

• Steven LEVITSKY & Glen WEYL: "We are lifelong Zionists. Here’s why we’ve chosen to boycott Israel"(The Washington Post, October 23, 2015): click here!

  "We are lifelong Zionists. Like other progressive Jews, our support for Israel has been founded on two convictions: first, that a state was necessary to protect our people from future disaster; and second, that any Jewish state would be democratic, embracing the values of universal human rights that many took as a lesson of the Holocaust".

• Omar Robert HAMILTON: "J.K.Rowling and the Prisoners of Israel"(CounterPunch, October 26, 2015): click here!

  "Let us consider what the last twenty years of dialogue, mutual engagement and negotiation have brought us. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 the Israeli government has constructed 53,000 homes to house 500,000 new settler-colonists in the West Bank, has subjected Gaza to a medieval siege for over 6 years, destroyed 15,000 Palestinian homes, expelled 11,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem and divided the West Bank into 167 segregated population zones that are divided from each other by a 440km cement wall and 522 military checkpoints. It has suppressed a popular uprising and launched four major offensives that have left over 7,000 Palestinians dead."

• Annie ROBBINS: "JK Rowling stumps for Israel — what would Harry Potter do?" (Mondoweiss, October 23, 2015): click here!

  "JK Rowling has staked out territory as a prominent face of the anti-BDS movement. She’s signed on to a heavily publicized open letter in the Guardian, “Israel needs cultural bridges, not boycotts“, encouraging “dialogue about Israel and the Palestinians” in a “wider” cultural and creative community.

• Hilary AKED: "Thorns in the lawnmower: BDS can help stop Israel". <"The growing BDS movement is considered by Israel as a national threat [AFP]" (The New Arab, October 21, 2015): click here!

  "Israel is "mowing the lawn" again. That the Israeli military refers to its killing sprees this way gives us a sense of how routine and banal this lethal method of maintaining control has become. As Mouin Rabanni has pointed out, in this analogy the grass consists of Palestinians. While unlike the onslaughts of 2008-9, 2012 and 2014, the so-called "precision" weaponry has yet to be rolled out, Israel's killing is being practiced with the usual impunity - and is still being blamed squarely on the victims."

• Lahav HARKOV: "Ministers approve banning boycotters from entering Israel" (The Jerusalem Post, October 19, 2015): click here!

  "Bayit Yehudi bill would also keep non-citizens or permanent residents who boycott settlements out of the country".

• David CRONIN: "Outlawing Israel boycott in Europe revealed as key AIPAC goal" (The Electronic Intifada, 16 October 2015): click here!

  "At a time when Palestinians are rising up against Israeli apartheid, ranting about a trans-Atlantic trade accord might seem off-topic. Yet a protest camp held in Brussels this week illustrated how to blend a fight against corporate power and the expression of solidarity with an oppressed people".

• "Les Ballets C de la B steunt culturele boycot Israël"(MO*, 12 oktober 2015): klik hier!

  Dansgezelschap Les Ballets C de la B speelt haar voorstellingen niet in Israël en steunt daarmee actief de culturele boycot van het land. Regisseur en choreograaf Alain Platel legt uit waarom. [ook gepubliceerd in DMorgen.be, klik hier!]

• "Solidarity with the Palestinian popular resistance! Boycott Israel now!"(Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), October 10, 2015): click here!

  "Whether the current phase of Israel’s intensified repression and Palestinian popular resistance will evolve into a full-fledged intifada or not, one thing is already evident—a new generation of Palestinians is marching on the footsteps of previous generations, rising up en masse against Israel’s brutal, decades-old regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid".

• Yarden SKOP: "US Anthropologists' Association Recommends Some Sanctions Against Israeli Academia"(Haaretz, 9 October 2015): click here!

  "After 1,100 anthropologists signed petition calling for boycott last year, AAA task force presents several options for action".

• "Palestinian Student Groups in Gaza Respond to Attacks on BDS by “NYC SJP”"(BDS Movement, 8 October 2015): click here!

  "The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI) and all the undersigned student groups, representing the entire political spectrum in Gaza, are deeply troubled by a recent article titled, “The BDS Ceiling,” written by the newly formed group New York City Students for Justice in Palestine (NYC SJP). The most disconcerting aspect of this article is that, despite its veneer of leftist rhetoric, it does a great disservice to those it purports to represent and be in solidarity with".

• "The BDS Ceiling"(New York City Students for Justice in Palestine, 4 October 2015): click here!

  "...The term “Palestinian Civil Society” is invoked with such reverence and awe that one would be led to believe that “Civil Society” is in fact a monolith with consolidated theoretical understanding of the settler-colonial reality in Palestine, with a coherent strategy to not just petition internationals to boycott and divest, but to build power in Palestine to lead a revolutionary struggle against Zionism".

• Nora BARROWS-FRIEDMAN: "Listen: Why new Israel lobby smears are “good news” for activists"(The Electronic Intifada, 6 October 2015): click here!

  "Suleiman is on the national steering committee of Students for Justice in Palestine, which represents more than 100 local chapters across the US — a number that increases every year. “The recent news about escalation about campus repression, and Sheldon Adelson injecting all this money to fight us, is actually good news,” Suleiman said."

• Max BLUMENTHAL & Julia CARMEL: "Exposed: Pro-Israel Modern Day McCarthyites Going to Extremes to Slime Human Rights Activists"(Alternet, September 30, 2015): click here!

  "The Israel lobby is redirecting resources to a new project after its failure to stop the Iran nuclear deal despite spending an estimated $30 million to halt it. Following the defeat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a campaign against the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement that is spreading on American college campuses. The funding is flowing from donors closely linked to Netanyahu’s government. But the effort has almost instantly run into trouble. It is inspiring an atmosphere of incitement and intimidation, and the FBI is now investigating violent threats made against BDS activists."

• Nora BARROWS-FRIEDMAN: "Report reveals 9 Israel lobby tactics to silence students"(The Electronic Intifada, 30 September 2015): click here!

  "Lawyers have responded to nearly 300 incidents of “censorship, punishment, or other burdening of advocacy for Palestinian rights” filed by Palestine solidarity activists on more than 65 US campuses in the last year and a half. Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) detail the assault in a new 124-page report, “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US.”"

• Jean-Guy GREILSAMER: "L’État d’Israël est largement responsable de l’antisémitisme qu’il dénonce » : Entretien avec l’UJFP"(Union Juive Française pour la Paix, 21 septembre 2015): click here!

  "[...]L’Etat d’Israël est largement responsable de l’antisémitisme qu’il dénonce, parce que l’image qu’il présente des Juifs du monde entier est celle d’une population entièrement dévouée à la cause du sionisme et des gouvernements israéliens quoiqu’ils fassent, au soutien d’un régime ​qui se​ place au-dessus des lois, qui ​se considère dispensé de respecter le droit international.​ Il crée ainsi la confusion entre juif et militant sioniste."

• "Israeli citizens for boycott call on Reykjavik to stand by its decision"(Mondoweiss, September 22 2015): click here!

  "We write to you as citizens of Israel who actively oppose our successive governments’ policies of belligerent occupation, colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the indigenous people of this land, the Palestinians. We write to you today to encourage you to stand by your initial and worthy decision to hold the State of Israel accountable for its consistent human rights violations, and to boycott Israeli goods."

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Outrage over Gaza drove Iceland’s capital to back Israel boycott"(The Electronic Intifada, 17 September 2015): click here!

  An explanatory memorandum notes that the boycott is meant to show that the City of Reykjavík supports the right of Palestinians to independence, while condemning “the Israeli policy of apartheid” in the occupied Palestinian territories.

• Ilan PAPPE: "Palestine is a global, not a Western issue"(Middle East Eye, September 9, 2015): click here!

  The transparent discourse from Latin America, South Africa and South East Asia indicate the urgency to expand the Palestinian solidarity movement beyond the boundaries of the West.

• Judy MALTZ: "A New Unofficial Boycott Against Israeli Academics May Be Underway. Academic told participation in conference conditioned on her denouncing the occupation"(Haaretz, September 10, 2015): click here!

  Several recent cases of Israeli academics being singled out for discriminatory treatment by colleagues overseas have sparked concerns among university leaders in the country.

• Joel BEININ: "Strategies of Solidarity: Israel/Palestine and the Empire"(Viewpoint Magazine, August 31, 2015): click here!

  Palestine today is perhaps the leading international issue evoking solidarity on a global scale. Nonetheless, the “community of nations” apparently remains helpless to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

• Mohammed NABULSI: "BDS 10 Years On: Anti-Colonial Demands in a Liberal Framework"(Warscapes, August 27, 2015): click here!
• Alan HART: "UE [United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America] Becomes First National U.S. Union to Endorse BDS"(Portside, August 28, 2015): click here!
• "Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) clarifies position on local campaign to cancel Matisyahu’s show at Rototom Sunsplash festival"(PACBI, August 25, 2015): click here!
• Black Solidarity With Palestine 2015:

  Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students and organizations signed the 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine, including: Angela Davis | Cornel West | Mumia Abu-Jamal | Talib Kweli | The Dream Defenders | Malcolm X Grassroots Movement | Organization for Black Struggle - St. Louis. For their Statement: click here! (trad. en français sur AURDIP).

• <"Join Us: Olympics Without Apartheid!">click here! (BDS Movement, August 11, 2015).

  "Israeli military companies, all of which are deeply involved in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people, among others, see the Olympic Games as an opportunity for profit and a means to export their “field-tested” expertise in maintaining apartheid, repression of people, and militarization of urban spaces across the globe. They must be stopped...".

• Hrag VARTANIAN: "Artists Launch “Letter for Palestine” Campaign at Venice Biennale" (hyperallergic, August 13, 2015; French translation on AURDIP: klik hier!).

  "...When asked what the campaign entailed beyond the letter, they explained: “Initiating conversations about this campaign within the artworld. Cultural boycotts are a sensitive topic and there’s a lot of debate about it. It is also painful and difficult for artists to withhold participation when art is meant to build bridges. The difficult decision is made in the hopes of building peace. This letter intends to start a conversation”".

  The letter can be co-signed by artists and cultural workers via email: letterforpalestine@gmail.com.
• Peter MAKHLOUF: "Israel and Gaza: the BDS Movement One Year After “Protective Edge”" (CounterPunch, 28 July, 2015).

  "...The cultural and academic boycott of Israel is the other central aspect of the BDS rallying cry. They are particularly important for effacing the myth — so ardently presented by fundamentalist and liberal Zionists alike — that the sphere of civil society is apolitical and in no way complicit in its state’s policies... BDS’s cultural and academic boycott insists that such structural racism should be held accountable at the level of civil society and seeks to expose the oft-heard lie that but for the activities of the state, Israeli society would be a thriving, tolerant democracy."

• Eman ELSHAIKH: "We Must Boycott Israeli Universities in Order to Defend Academic Freedom" (Muftah.org., August 5, 2015).

  "The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and remains an important part of it today. As BDS picks up momentum and gathers support on university campuses across the globe, boycotting Israeli academic institutions remains very controversial and has received much criticism from a number of prominent academics."

• "Israeli Occupation Prevents Palestinian Academic from Lecturing at Birzeit University " (Birzeit Univ., August 8, 2015).

  "Israeli occupation authorities prevented Dr. Amro Issa Omar Sourani from entering the occupied Palestinian Territories to work as a lecturer in the Department of Engineering in Birzeit University. Sources in the University said Israeli authorities refused to grant Dr. Sourani, who is currently based in the United Kingdom, and his family an entry permit to the West Bank to begin his contract as a lecturer in the university even though Dr. Sourani holds a Palestinian identity card and is originally from the Gaza Strip."

• "Stop G4S: A call to the global boycott movement from Palestinian political prisoners" (Samidoun, Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network).

  Letter from Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers to the global boycott movement. "We send you this letter with appreciation for the leading role of the boycott movement, which is based on a comprehensive moral and human position that rejects injustice and oppression; confronts racism and policies of discrimination based on race, religion or sex; upholds freedom, human dignity and values of justice; and seeks to counter support and complicity with the Israeli government by international forces..."

• Ståle HOLGERSEN: "I was going to a conference... (yet more reasons for an academic boycott of Israel)" (academia.edu, 28 July 2015).

  "... Since the state of Israel continues to ignore international rights and UN resolutions; since it continues relentlessly to attack academic freedom in Palestine in all kinds of ways; since the Israeli universities are so interwoven with the actual occupation, there are no other alternatives than an international academic boycott of Israeli institutions – including academic ones. Just kilometres and miles from where Palestinians are deprived their right to education, the Israeli universities produce the knowledge on how to strengthen the occupation. For the sake of humanity please join the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel."

• "Tell Musicians: Don't entertain apartheid Israel"!
• Gideon LEVY: "Roger Waters sets the record straight: I hate apartheid, not Israel" (medium.com, 30 July 2015).

  "Gideon Levy spent 24 hours with the former Pink Floyd singer, who has become one of the leading lights in the BDS movement. A conversation on political views, tragic family history — and when the rock star-turned-activist will be happy to play in Israel again."

• Chris HEDGES: "Why I Support the BDS Movement Against Israel " (commondreams.org, 27 July 2015).

  "The Palestinians are poor. They are powerless. They have no voice or influence in the halls of power. They are demonized. They do not have well-heeled lobbyists doling out campaign contributions and pushing through pro-Palestinian legislation. No presidential candidate is appealing to donors—as Hillary Clinton did when she sent a letter to media mogul Haim Saban denouncing critics of Israel—by promising to advance the interests of the Palestinian people. Palestinians, like poor people of color in the United States, are expendable... The fight for the Palestinians is our fight. If the Palestinians are not liberated none of us will be liberated. We cannot pick and choose which of the oppressed are convenient or inconvenient to defend. We will stand with all of the oppressed or none of the oppressed. And when we stand with the oppressed we will be treated like the oppressed."

• Sarah IRVING: "Brazilian stars Gil and Veloso reject calls to cancel Tel Aviv show" (The Electronic Intifada, 20 July 2015).

  "...In a public letter, published in Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, Caetano Veloso wrote: “My heart is strongly against the arrogant right position of the Israeli government. I hate the occupation policy, the inhuman decisions that Israel took in what [Benjamin] Netanyahu tells us is self-defense. And I think most Israelis who are interested in our music tend to react in a similar way to the politics of his country.” Veloso also claimed that he hoped that Israelis opposed to the occupation would take heart from their performance — ignoring the existence of Israeli activists who also call for international rejection of their country’s crimes."

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Gaza trade unions urge boycott of Israeli labor federation" (The Electronic Intifada, 17 July 2015; French transl. on info.palestine.eu, juillet 19).

  "Fifteen trade unions in Gaza have jointly renewed their support for the boycott of Israel and its labor institutions that are complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights... In particular, the trade unions “underline the importance of boycotting the Histadrut because of its blatant complicity in Israel’s policies including occupation, settlement building, apartheid and hijacking of Palestinian workers’ rights".

• Amena SALEEM: "Mental health professionals demand cancellation of Israel conference" (The Electronic Intifada, July 16, 2015).

  "More than 200 leading mental health professionals from around the world have signed an open letter calling for the cancellation of a European psychotherapy conference scheduled to be held in Jerusalem in August. In the letter, published in the UK newspaper The Independent, the psychologists and psychoanalysts, many from the UK, France and the United States, urge their colleagues to respect the Palestinian call for boycott and stay away from the conference should it go ahead as planned".

• "73 Members of the European Parliament call on the EU to stop its support to Israeli military companies" (European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine, July 14, 2014).
• Dahlia SCHEINDLIN: "No, BDS does not unfairly 'single out' Israel" (+972, July 13, 2015).

  "Ironically, the boycott movement actually expresses some level of faith in Israeli democracy by assuming a little pressure might motivate it to change".

• "Israeli Teachers' Union signs anti-settlement document to prevent boycott " (Middle East Monitor, 10 July 2015).

  "The Israeli Teachers' Union has lent its support, albeit reluctantly, to a document prepared for the World Teachers' Association convention, which includes an article stating that the settlements are hindering peace and the two-state solution. A source in the Israeli union said that if it did not support this document then the Israeli education and academic system would face an international boycott".

• Statement from the Palestinian BDS National Committee, July 7, 2015: "One year since Israel’s Gaza massacre and ten years since the launch of the BDS movement: building the boycott is more important than ever".
• Jonathan COOK: "Israel’s Army of Spin-Doctors is Doomed to Defeat ." (The Palestine Chronical, July 7, 2015).

  "The Israeli government believes it is locked in an epic struggle to save Israel from the growing movement calling for an international boycott. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that Israel must quickly “rebrand” itself to avoid pariah status. Ordinary Israelis are therefore being conscripted into an army of spin-doctors in a campaign termed “hasbara” – Hebrew for “public diplomacy”, or more literally “propaganda”...

• Roy ISACOWITZ: "Target me with your boycott, please." (Medium, 2 July 2015, source: Haaretz, 2 July).

  "Sometimes there’s no choice but a boycott, even if that means collective punishment for all — including the people you’re seeking to help... After almost 50 years of Israeli defiance and evasion, there is little prospect of diplomatic change. The prime goal of the boycott against Israel, therefore, is to persuade the bulk of Israelis that the occupation is not in their interests. And the way to do that is by focusing their attention sharply on what those interests are and how much they have to lose. It follows that boycotting only the settlements and their commerce, as many on the Israeli left suggest, makes no sense...".

• Daniel BLATMAN: "It isn’t antisemitism, but hysteria" (Medium, 2 July 2015).

  "Professor Judith Butler, one of the most prominent spokespeople of BDS, has written of non-violent protest focused on opposition to illegal forms of dispossession, enforcement and denial of human rights. BDS provides the means for non-state actors to act against the Occupation, dispossession, illegal settlement and the terrorism carried out by Israel against the Palestinians. Its purpose is to put an end to a form of civil separation based on racist principles, and to fight for the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Anti-Semitism? Expressions reminiscent of what the Nazis said about the Jews? These exist only in the imagination of those who react hysterically...".

• Annie ROBBINS: "Foreign direct investment in Israel dropped by 50% in 2014 and expert says it’s due to the Gaza war and BDS (Updated)" (Mondoweiss, June 26 2015).
• Amer SHOMALI: " We are imprisoned by Israel: A filmmaker not allowed to attend his U.S. premiere on the nightmare of life in the West Bank". Israeli officials barred me from going to my film's première for "security" reasons. This is life under occupation "(Salon, June 25, 2015).

  "In the occupied West Bank, almost anything can come to be seen as a threat to Israel’s security. Even cows. Yes, cows. Here’s the story: During the activism of the first Palestinian intifada, residents of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour organized boycotts of Israeli goods in an act of civil disobedience intended to pressure the government. Local activists in 1988 hatched a plan to bypass Israeli suppliers and produce milk locally. They bought 18 cows from a kibbutz...".

• "UK Actors, directors and writers demand immediate sanctions on Israel" (Palestine News Network, 23 June 2015).

  "Actors, authors, academics and architects have today called on the UK government to push for immediate sanctions on Israel until it abides by international law and ends its occupation of Palestinian land. They join other big names from the world of film and rock music, as well as 20,000 members of the public, who have signed a petition which will be delivered at the Houses of Parliament today".

• Hasan MASRI: "For Palestinian artists, freedom of speech is anything but guaranteed" (+972, 20 June 2015).

  By forcing Arab actors to perform in West Bank settlements and closing down Arab theaters, the government is proving once more that freedom of speech is solely reserved for Israel’s ruling class".

• "Artists for Palestine UK" (1,000+ signatories).

  "The Pledge: We support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality. In response to the call from Palestinian artists and cultural workers for a cultural boycott of Israel, we pledge to accept neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding, from any institutions linked to its government until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights".

• Yarden SKOP: "Latent academic boycott is spreading, Israeli professors tell Knesset" (Haaretz, June 17, 2015).

  "University heads and researchers said on Wednesday that a hidden academic boycott is being imposed on Israel at campuses abroad. Speaking at the Knesset’s Education Committee, the academics spoke of an anti-Israeli atmosphere building up on foreign campuses".

• Patrick DEBOOSERE & Lieve FRANSSEN: "Des universitaires belges pour le boycott académique d'Israël : interview de Patrick Deboosere" (pourlapalestine.be, 18 juin 2015).

  "Nous désirons nous joindre à la campagne de boycott, parce qu'un boycott international est le moyen principal, aujourd'hui, qui permettrait de mettre un terme à l'oppression du peuple palestinien par l'Etat d'Israël", explique le professeur Patrick Deboosere (VUB), cofondateur du BACBI. "Comme l'a bien montré en son temps la lutte contre le régime d'apartheid en Afrique du Sud, le boycott est une arme très efficace. Le fait que, récemment, au Parlement israélien, une majorité de droite a approuvé une loi rendant punissable l'appel au boycott, montre clairement à quel point l'on a peur de cette stratégie".

• Yarden SKOP: "Local Anthropologists Speak Out Against Academic Boycott of Israel"(Haaretz, June 16, 2015): click here!

  "The statement by the Israeli association comes as a debate is being conducted by the American Anthropological Association about a boycott on Israel".

• Iris LEAL: "Israel’s race to economic (and moral) bankruptcy" (Haaretz, June 16, 2015).

  If anything can be learned from the case of South Africa it’s that one cannot expect boycotts alone to change the situation.

• Jonathan COOK: "Israel’s race to economic (and moral) bankruptcy" (Mondoweiss, June 16, 2015).

  "Two recent reports suggest that Israel could face catastrophic consequences if it fails to end the mistreatment of Palestinians under its rule, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel itself... If the watching world really wants peace, economic wishful thinking will not suffice. It is past the time simply for carrots. Sticks are needed too".

• "U.S. Jews Renounce Their “Right of Return” and Support BDS" (The AMCHA Initiative, 2015).

  "We are Jews from the United States, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land — a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish. We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed".

• James ZOGBY: "BDS: A Legitimate and Moral Response to Israeli Policy" (The Huffington Post, The Blog, June 13, 2015).

  The Israeli government response to the "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions"(BDS) movement has been predictable. Being incapable of engaging in any reasonable form of self-criticism or even self-reflection, Israeli leaders have, instead, turned their wrath on their accusers and their victims.

• Rami YOUNIS: "Interview: Meet the man behind the BDS movement" (+972 June 14, 2015).

  As the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement grows, its co-founder, Omar Barghouti, has become a target for Israeli demonization. +972's Rami Younis sits down with Barghouti for a rare discussion about BDS's goals, its recent successes, and increasingly frequent accusations that the boycott movement constitutes anti-Semitism.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israeli universities help Shin Bet torturers recruit students" (The Electronic Intifada, 12 June 2015; Haaretz, 11 June: "Israeli universities providing data on graduates to Shin Bet. Security service uses information to contact possible new recruits", by Chaim Levinson).

  Israeli universities are passing on personal information about their students to Israel’s Shin Bet secret police. According to Haaretz, the universities give the internal intelligence agency (which is notorious for its use of torture) lists of their graduates, including identity card numbers, to use in an effort to recruit them. The revelation will likely bolster support for the international boycott of Israeli universities called for by Palestinians.

• Ronen BERGMAN: "Six lies they told me about the anti-Israel boycott" (YNetNews.com, 10 June 2015).

  The bulk of recent incidents concerning the anti-Israel boycott, which are mainly symbolic for now, could have served as a warning sign. But a mixture of nationalistic and false statements is blinding the Israeli public and preventing a real discussion of the issue. Here are a few examples...

• Akiva ELDAR: "Anti-boycott call rings hollow as village awaits demolition" (Al Monitor, June 9, 2015).

  Israeli plans to demolish the Palestinian village of Susiya and other similar acts will not generate support for the government's campaign to stanch the growing movement to boycott settlement products and in some cases products made in Israel.

• Derek WALTERS: "De nieuwste vijand komt van binnen en hij heet BDS" (NRC, 11 juni, 2015, op facebook).

  "Pleidooien voor boycots, desinvesteringen en sancties maken heftige reacties los. Israël is in paniek, en deze keer is niet Iran of Hamas de boosdoener. Het kwaad heet nu ‘BDS’ ."

• Gideon LEVY: "Israeli propaganda isn't fooling anyone – except Israelis" (Haaretz, June 4, 2015; some extracts in: Philip Weiss, "Levy says BDS may undo Israeli denial and propaganda– even as Lapid calls it Hamas’s ‘puppet’", Mondoweiss, June 7).

  "...It’s only to be expected when facing a worldwide campaign aimed at implementing justice and international law: the stage of denial, of repression and clinging to the false, nearly magical belief that if Israel will just explain its position better and invest the appropriate resources [so-called 'hasbara'], everything will be fine. In other words, Israel continues to think that the world is dumb (and Israel is smart)...You can blame the Palestinians for everything and obscure the simple fact that this brutal occupation is Israeli. You can tell the world that it all belongs to us because the Bible says so and believe that anyone will take you seriously. You can be sure that the memory of the Holocaust will serve us forever, and justify any injustice. Of course, it won’t work indefinitely. It hasn’t worked in any country in history, no matter how strong and well-established, not even in the mightiest empires. Justice always triumphs in the end, even if very belatedly. And justice says that Israel cannot continue to tyrannize another people forever, even if Haim Saban himself lends his support."

• Patrick STRICKLAND: "New bill would ban boycott advocates from entering Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, June 10, 2015).

  A right-wing lawmaker plans to introduce a bill to ban foreign nationals who support boycotting Israel from visiting the country, the newspaper Haaretz reports. Yinon Magal, a member of the ultra-nationalist Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, is now attempting to recruit fellow lawmakers to support his bill. If passed, the bill would ban supporters of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) from visiting present-day Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza. It would also bar foreign nationals of Jewish ancestry who support boycotting Israel from obtaining Israeli citizenship.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "The Cultural Boycott : Israel vs. South Africa " (AURDIP, 10 juin 2015).

  Israeli cultural, as well as academic, institutions will always claim that the boycott infringes upon their freedom and punishes artists and academics who are the most “progressive” and opposed to “the occupation” in Israeli society. This argument, aside from being quite disingenuous, is in fact intended to deflect attention from three basic facts : first, that the boycott was called for because Israel was denying Palestinians their basic rights, including academic and cultural rights ; second, that the Palestinian academic and cultural boycott of Israel targets institutions, not individuals ; and third, that those institutions, far from being more progressive than the average in Israel, are a main pillar of the Israeli structure of colonial and apartheid oppression.

• Dahlia SCHEINDLIN: "Against 'hasbara': Explaining ourselves to death" (+972, June 9, 2015).

  The Israeli obsession with showing ‘our side’ of the story not only guzzles financial and human resources — it is a conscious attempt to distract the world from policies of occupation.

• KERRY-AN: "‘You Are Sick!': Israeli Anchor Loses It On Air When A Jewish-Israeli Supports Boycotting Israel" (Addicting Info, June 9, 2015).

  A male anchor on Israel’s Ynet news provided vivid insight into the state of Israeli freedom of speech this week with his reaction to a Jewish-Israeli guest who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement aimed at holding the state to account for its breaches of international and human rights law.

• Mark BROWN: "Film-makers ask cinemas and Bafta to boycott London Israeli film festival" (The Guardian, June 8, 2015).

  More than 40 artists and film-makers write to the Guardian to accuse cinemas of becoming ‘silent accomplices’ to the persecution of the Palestinian people... The letter says that because the festival is co-sponsored by the Israeli government via its London embassy there is a direct link between the cinemas, the screenings and Israeli government policies... The letter stresses it is not a request to refuse to show films by individual film-makers “but to reject the involvement and financial support of the Israeli state”.

• Shir HEVER: "BDS finds weak point in Israel’s politics of fear" (Middle East Eye, June 9, 2015).

  "Government efforts to fight ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ are bolstering the movement and creating the political debate the campaign seeks to achieve.
  ... A number of artists recently announced that they will cancel their performances in Israel, intensifying the sense of many Israelis that their country is becoming increasingly isolated. As the British National Union of Students this month publicly endorsed BDS, senior Israeli university officials approached the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, warning of a growing academic boycott...".

• Gideon LEVY: "For the sins of occupation, boycotts are a light punishment" (Haaretz, Opinion, June 7, 2015; medium.com).

  "...Does anyone think that Israel can go on without being punished? Without being ostracized? And to tell the truth, doesn’t Israel deserve to be punished? Hasn’t the world been unbelievably tolerant so far? Orange or SodaStream, academic boycott or artistic boycott, these are light punishments. The penalties will grow worse the longer Israel avoids drawing the necessary conclusions. As opposed to attempts by Israel and the Jewish establishment to divert the discussion, at its heart is not anti-Semitism. At its heart is the occupation. That is the source of the delegitimization... ".

• Or KASHTI: "Tel Aviv U. Academics Hold First-ever Discussion on BDS"(Haaretz, June 9, 2015): click here!

  "First such event held by the sociology and anthropology department, and possibly the university; fact that discussion did not completely condemn BDS, and included some expressions of support, is considered unusual.

• Chris McGREAL: "Sheldon Adelson looks to stamp out growing US movement to boycott Israel" (The Guardian, June 5, 2015).

  "Billionaire gambling magnate and Republican party donor convenes closed-door meeting to combat US university movement amid growing Israeli alarm over growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in US and Europe".

• Ruba SALIH: "Academic Freedom, Ethics, and Responsibility: The Silencing and Censoring of Palestine in Western Liberal Academia" (Jadaliyya, May 19, 2015; traduction française sur AURDIP, 4 juin: cliquez).

  ...Clearly, academic freedom is an inviolable principle that should be defended, but it remains an illusion for the Palestinians under occupation since 1948. The BDS does not weaken supposedly neutral and liberal spaces of critical knowledge, as its moderate detractors often argue, it rather represents the beginning of a process that aims to extend freedom to all.

• "Israël s’inquiète d’être de plus en plus boycotté de par le monde" (Le Soir, 4 juin 2015), in pdf: click here.
• "Boycott académique d'Israël : au-delà des mots d'ordre..." (Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine, 4 juin 2015).
• Ravit HECHT: "Israel's problem isn't BDS, it's the occupation" (Haaretz, June 3 2015).

  "One can object to boycotts. But sanctimonious wailing and the automatic posing as victims coated with the memory of the Holocaust won't hide the fact that Israel is ruling over an entire other nation”.

• "Pourquoi et comment le boycott culturel de l’apartheid israélien". Une interview d'Eyal SIVAN au journal suisse 'Le Courrier' (UJFP, 4 juin 2015).
• Nissim BEHAR: "Le Parlement israélien cherche la parade aux menaces de boycott" (Libération, 3 juin 2015).
• "The British National Union of Students voted to boycott Israeli companies and align with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement" (Forward, June 2, 2015).

  "In a 19-4 vote with one abstention, the confederation of 600 student unions across the United Kingdom passed the pro-BDS proposal on Tuesday at a meeting of its National Executive Council. The motion “condemns Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza,” according to the Jewish Chronicle, and calls on students to “co-ordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine Solidarity Day” on Nov. 29. Titled "Solidarity with Palestine: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions", the motion was proposed by the School of Oriental and African Studies students union in London".

• Mazal MUALEM: "New Likud MK: BDS is 'form of terrorism'" (Al Monitor, June 2, 2015).
• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Why BDS is replacing Iran as Israel’s biggest “existential threat”" (The Electronic Intifada, June 2, 2015).
• Judy MALZ: "Israeli academics report signs of undeclared boycott targeting them. Fewer invitations, more articles rejected by leading journals, foot-dragging on recommendations - and university leaders fear it may get worse."(Haaretz, June 2, 2015).
• Michael DEAS: "University of Helsinki cancels G4S contract over support for Israeli prisons" (The Electronic Intifada, May 21, 2015).
• Robert FISK: "Canada's plan to make boycotting Israel a 'hate crime' is stupid and counterproductive. The law change would put Jews and civil society groups on trial for anti-Semitism"(The Independent, May 17, 2015).

  "In the end, of course, it’s quite simple. Boycotting a state for its crimes is a non-violent but potentially powerful way to express moral outrage at a time when political statements – or cowardly governments like that of Stephen Harper – fail to represent the anger of voters or have any effect on a state that ignores international law."

• Michael Schaeffer OMER-MAN: "Israel's president calls BDS a 'strategic threat'" (+972, May 28, 2015).

  "Israeli President Reuven Rivlin held an “emergency” meeting Thursday with the heads of Israel’s universities and colleges to discuss the academic boycott, which he described as a “strategic threat.”"

• David PALUMBO-LIU: "Is being a critic of Israeli state policies the the same as being an anti-Semite? " (Salon, May 20, 2015).
• Dina OMAR: "We Are All Uncomfortable: On Academic Boycott & What Is Productive" (Jadaliyya, May 20, 2015).
• Nicolas ZOMERSZTAJN: "Une nouvelle campagne belge de boycott académique et culturel d'Israël" (Centre Communautaire Laïc Juif, 19 mai, 2015).
• "La société civile palestinienne presse Federica Mogherini, responsable de la diplomatie de l’UE, d’exclure les entreprises militaires israéliennes des programmes de recherche européens" (AURDIP, 18 mai, 2015).
• "Popsterren zeggen concerten in Israël af" (Zaman Vandaag, 18 mei 2015).
• Press release by Jewish Voice for Peace: "Hundreds of academics call on State Dept to revise its definition of anti-Semitism, respect criticism of Israel as protected speech" (Mondoweiss, May 18, 2015).
• "Waarom wij academici Israël boycotten" (De Standaard, 16 mei 2015): klik hier!

  Een boycot tegen het apartheidsregime van Zuid-Afrika heeft zijn effect niet gemist. Ruim 200 Belgische academici willen Israël op soortgelijke manier onder druk zetten opdat het stopt met zijn voortdurende schendingen van de mensenrechten van de Palestijnen.

• Philip WEISS: "Ilan Pappe on the western awakening and what it means for Israel/Palestine" (Mondoweiss, May 11, 2015).
• Joseph MASSAD: "Palestinians and the dilemmas of solidarity" (The Electronic Intifada, May 14, 2015).
• Omar BARGHOUTI: "L’extrémisme israélien encouragera le boycott mondial" (Agence Media Palestine, 11 mai 2015).
• Jennifer MEDINA & Tamar LEWIN: "Campus Debates on Israel Drive a Wedge Between Jews and Minorities" (NewYorkTimes.com, May 9, 2015).
• Omar Barghouti, Richard Falk, Noura Erakat and Rebecca Vilkomerson: "What is the Role of Academia in Political Change?: The Case of BDS and Israeli Violations of International Law" Transcript of a panel discussion at the 2014 American Anthropological Association annual meeting (publ. April 14, 2015).
• Pascal DEBRUYNE & Sigrid VERTOMMEN: "Kunst is vrij, net daarom kan ze de maatschappij een spiegel voorhouden" [Over kunst en boycot] (DeMorgen.be, 7 mei, 2015).
• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Belgian theater group pulls out of Israel Festival after boycott call" (The Electronic Intifada, May 6, 2015).
• Roger WATERS to Robbie Williams: “Your decision to play in Tel Aviv gives succor to Netanyahu and his regime, and endorses their deadly racist policies (Salon, April 28, 2015).
• Bashir ABU MANNEH: "Soutenir la libération des Palestiniens n’exige qu’une chose: faire respecter le droit à l’autodétermination." (À l'encontre, 29 avril 2015).
• Bashir ABU-MANNEH: "The Occupation and BDS. Supporting Palestinian liberation requires just one thing: upholding the right to self-determination." (Jacobin, April 23, 2015).
• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israel’s anti-boycott law will hit Palestinians hardest, rights groups warn." (The Electronic Intifada, April 16, 2015).
• Talal ASAD: "Pourquoi est-ce que je soutiens le mouvement de boycott, désinvestissement et sanctions ?" (AURDIP, 13 avril, 2015).
• Talal ASAD: "Why do I support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement?" (Savage Minds, Notes and Queries in Anthropology, April 10, 2015).
• Robert COHEN: "There is no better way than boycott" (Mondoweiss, April 12, 2015).
• Joel BLEIFUSS: "Chomsky, Lears and Elia Debate Whether an Academic Boycott of Israel Can Work. Is the tactic the best way to pressure Israel? " (In These Times, February 23, 2015).

  In These Times discussed the merits of an academic boycott with three academics: Nada Elia, a diaspora Palestinian born in Baghdad and raised in Beirut, and professor of global and gender studies at Antioch University-Seattle; Jackson Lears, a professor of history at Rutgers University and the editor in chief of Raritan, A Quarterly Review; and Noam Chomsky, a professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT.

• Jillian STEINHAUER: "Nearly 1,000 UK Artists Commit to Cultural Boycott of Israel" (Hyperallergic - Sensitive to Art and its Discontents, February 17, 2015).
• Chen TAMIR: "A Report On The Cultural Boycott of Israel vs. South Africa " (Hyperallergic - Sensitive to Art and its Discontents, Feb 3, 2015).

  "The following report surveys the pressing topic of the cultural boycott of Israel, focusing specifically on contemporary visual art. Without taking sides, this document synthesizes information on the recent trend to boycott and includes summaries of notable recent incidents around the world of boycotts of contemporary art projects, some boycotting Israel while others calling attention to other causes."

• Joseph MASSAD: "Recognizing Palestine, BDS and the survival of Israel". (The Electronic Intifada, 16 december, 2014).

  "What is happening in European parliaments? In the last month and a half, the UK House of Commons, the Spanish, French, Portuguese and Irish parliaments have all recognized Israel’s eternal “right” to be a racist state via a much-touted recognition of an alleged Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the areas of Palestine Israel occupied in 1967".

• "Boycottez-nous!". Entretien avec Michel Warschawski (UJFP - Union Juive Française pour la Paix, 10 décembre, 2014).

  "... Alors que faire ? Cela se résume en trois mots : Boycott-Désinvestissement-Sanctions (BDS). Quand les États ont failli, c’est aux sociétés civiles de prendre le relais ! Il faut boycotter, isoler par tous les moyens cet État voyou. D’ailleurs, cette campagne inquiète le gouvernement israélien qui vient de faire voter une loi criminalisant le soutien au boycott en Israël même. Amplifier cette campagne, en faire l’axe central de la solidarité, est aujourd’hui, à mes yeux, ce qui doit être la priorité du mouvement de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien. J’ai envie de vous dire : boycottez-nous, c’est le meilleur service que vous pouvez rendre à celles et ceux qui en Israël se battent pour que justice soit rendue au peuple palestinien".

• David CRONIN: "A qui profite la coopération avec les universités israéliennes ? " (pourlapalestine.be, 7 avril 2011).

  "...La Commission européenne, quant à elle, est un fournisseur important de subventions aux universités et aux entreprises privées israéliennes, y compris aux fabricants d’armes. Israël est le principal participant étranger dans le programme cadre multiannuel de l’UE pour la recherche scientifique, qui aura reçu un budget global de 53 milliards d’euros (73,5 milliards de dollars) entre 2007 et 2013. Israël entre dans 800 projets de recherches financés par l’UE, pour un total de 4,3 milliards d’euros. Les officiels israéliens m’ont dit qu’ils espéraient tirer directement plus de 500 millions d’euros de subventions au titre des sciences d’ici le terme du programme de l’UE, en 2013."

• "Boycott, Désinvestissement, Sanctions". Le comité de l'UJPB & la Fédération « Juifs Européens pour une Paix juste » (2004, 2005 & 2010).
• "Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions".
• "Letter to the AAA in response to IAA's letter of 28 August 2014"

  As anthropologists and citizens of Israel, we are writing to express our thorough opposition to the letter sent to the American Anthropological Association (AAA) by the Israeli Anthropological Association (IAA) on 28 August 2014 with regard to the scheduled discussion of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) at this year’s AAA Annual Meeting. [signed by over 40 Israeli anthropologists]

• "Holocaust Survivors Condemn Israel for 'Gaza Massacre,' Call for Boycott" (Haaretz, Aug 23, 2014).

  In response to Elie Wiesel advertisement comparing Hamas to Nazis, 327 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants publish New York Times ad accusing Israel of 'ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people.'

• "1,200 Spanish University Professors and Researchers Demand to Break Academic Relationships with Israel" (Jadaliyya, August 11, 2014).
• "Over 100 Middle East Studies Scholars and Librarians Call for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions" (Jadaliyya, August 6, 2014). Voor commentaar zie Sarah Irving: "Top Middle East scholars call for academic boycott of Israel" (The Electronic Intifada, 14 August 2014).
• Jimmy JOHNSON: "Fidel Castro, Alice Walker, Bolivian president condemn Israel, join Latin American boycott call" (The Electronic Intifada, August 10, 2014).
• Lieve Franssen, Kristien Hemmerechts & Marijke Pinoy: "'Michaël Borremans, ga niet naar Israël'" (De Wereld Morgen, 9 augustus 2014).
• "Plus de 300 professeurs de droit international, juristes et experts en droits de l’homme appellent la communauté internationale à agir pour mettre fin à la punition collective de la population civile dans la bande de Gaza par Israël" (Fondation Frantz Fanon, 2 août, 2014).
• "La FEF [Fédération des Étudiants Francophones] se positionne sur la situation en Palestine" (19 août 2014).
• "Petitie: "Stand up for Palestine: Belgian politicians, act now!" (petitions24.net, juli-augustus 2014): "... Soutenez le boycott culturel, académique et sportif d’Israël / ... Ondersteun de culturele, academische en sportieve boycot tegen Israël".
• "138 Advocaten, juristen en academici houden een pleidooi voor een onmiddellijke boycot van en sancties tegen Israël" (De Morgen, 31 juli 2014).
• "Politieke druk als medicijn voor Gaza". 370 Vlaamse artsen vragen scherpe veroordeling van Israël, opgevolgd met economische en militaire embargo's (De Standaard, 25 juli 2014).
• "Nobelprijslaureaten en beroemdheden roepen op tot militair embargo tegen Israël" (DMorgen, 24 juli 2014; de volledige lijst van 203 Vlaamse ondertekenaars).
• Alain PLATEL: "Israël heeft nood aan een serieuze oppositie" (De Morgen, 23 juli 2014).
• "The arms trade and Israel's attack on Gaza" (The Guardian, July 18, 2014).
• Noam CHOMSKY: "On Israel-Palestine and BDS" (The Nation, July 2, 2014): click here!

  Those dedicated to the Palestinian cause should think carefully about the tactics they choose.

• Steven SALAITA: "How to practice BDS in academe" (The Electronic Intifada, 27 May, 2014).
• Sunaina MAIRA: "The BDS movement and the front lines of the war on academic freedom" (Univ. of Minnesota Press Blog, April 9, 2014).

  In December 2013, the American Studies Association announced that it had endorsed an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, following two years of discussion in the association and based on a majority vote by the membership in support of the boycott resolution.

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "140 Irish academics pledge to boycott Israeli institutions" (The Electronic Intifada, 21 Feb, 2014).
• Colin DAYAN & David LLOYD: "Why we must boycott Israeli universities" (The Electronic Intifada, November 22, 2013).

  "Those of us who have called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions have done so for quite straightforward reasons. We believe in academic freedom and in the intricate network of intellectual exchanges that it safeguards. We believe this, not primarily because we are concerned with the fate of the profession and its protocols, but because we believe that the academy is part of the world..."

• Haim BRESHEETH & Sherna Berger GLUCK: "On the Fallacy of ‘Engaging’ with the Israeli Academy" (CounterPunch, September 20, 2013).

  "A standard argument against BDS – the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Israeli occupation – and especially the academic boycott- has been the “‘need to engage” with Israelis. In fact, during the 46 years of the occupation, numerous efforts to ‘engage’ have been made repeatedly, all of which are warmly embraced by Israel and its academic institutions."

• Ali ABUNIMAH: "Hundreds of academics call for boycott of Hebrew University conference in 2014" (The Electronic Intifada, 26 September 2013).

  "...What could possibly be wrong with dialogue, you might ask? Instead, perhaps the appropriate question might be: “is it moral to collaborate with a militarized, racist, colonial state, in order to cleanse its crimes?” Doesn’t this mean that crimes continue and newer ones are perpetrated? Indeed, evidence clearly demonstrates that continuing ‘engagements’ have not led to resolution, but instead served to numb the sensibilities of international academia to the realities of occupied Palestine. In the case of South Africa, it was clear to all academics that there was no way to ‘engage’ with apartheid by speaking to its representatives; the only way to deal with apartheid was to oppose it – to boycott, divest and apply sanctions; to deny South African institutions any support and dialogue; and to follow the advice of the ANC [African National Congress]" (letter by Haim Bresheeth and Sherna Berger Gluck).

• Louis COLART: "Boycott des unifs d’Israël: «Dépassionnons le débat»" (Le Soir, 31 mai 2013).

  "Dans une motion, la Fédération des étudiants francophones (FEF) demande à ce que soient rompues toutes relations avec les universités israéliennes. Son président dénonce un « grand manque d’honnêteté intellectuelle » de la part de ses détracteurs."

  Suivi, sur le site de la FEF, de: "Gel des relations académiques avec les universités israéliennes: clarifications".
• Hilary ROSE & Steven ROSE: "Stephen Hawking's boycott hits Israel where it hurts: science" (The Guardian, May 13, 2013).

  "What really winds up Israel is that this rejection comes from a famous scientist, and it is science that drives its economy, prestige and military strength".

• Noam SHEIZAF: "Stephen Hawking's message to Israeli elites: The occupation has a price" (+972, May 8, 2013).

  "By choosing to avoid the Presidential Conference – an annual meeting of Israeli generals, politicians and business elites with their international fans, Prof. Hawking reminds that the occupation cannot be forgotten or avoided. A response to Haaretz’s Carlo Strenger."

• Ben WHITE: "Why a boycott of Israeli academics is fully justified". "The majority of Israeli academics do little to support the rights of Palestinians, and their institutions are complicit in the occupation"(The Guardian, 12 Sept, 2012).
• J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Robin D.G. Kelley, Bill V. Mullen, Nikhil Pal Singh and Neferti Tadiar: "Educators can’t stay silent about Israeli apartheid"(The Electronic Intifada, 13 February 2012)): click here!

  Today the systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people continues unabated and largely unchallenged by the United States and the European Union. Barriers to Palestinian mobility, social and political development are visible everywhere. While Jewish-Israeli citizens pass freely, more than 500 police and military checkpoints regulate Palestinian movement between the occupied West Bank and Israel. Passing through these checkpoints on a recent fact-finding tour organized by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, we witnessed Palestinians endure a daily ritual of subordination, humiliation and suspicion..

• "Boycott, Désinvestissement, Sanctions". Le comité de l'UJPB & la Fédération « Juifs Européens pour une Paix juste » (2004, 2005 & 2010).
• Mohammed ABED, "Defending Boycotts". In Defense of Academic Boycotts: A Response to Martha Nussbaum (USACBI, Fall, 2007).
• Lawrence DAVIDSON (US), "Why The Academic Boycott Is Necessary" (Nov 25, 2006): on this site.
• Jonathan COOK, "Academic Boycott: Shin Bet training program highlights academic complicity with occupation" (The Electronic Intifada, 31 May, 2006): click here.

  There were some remarkable admissions in a piece by the distinguished Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling in the immediate wake of the British teaching union NATFHE’s vote this week to offer members moral backing if they boycott Israeli universities.

• "Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS" (BDS Movement, 2005): click here.

  Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights.

• Omar BARGHOUTI: "Boycott as Resistance: The Moral Dimension" (The Electronic Intifada, 28 Dec 2004): click here!

  “Where is the world? Is it dead?” exclaimed the bereaved mother in Rafah on Al-Jazeera. Before her lay the lifeless body of her little child.

• Tanya REINHART: "Why Academic Boycott". A reply to an Israeli comrade (Media Monitors Network, May 19, 2002).