Nakba Day: An occasion to strengthen resistance

Palestinian refugees, 1948

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 15th 2013 is the 65th Nakba Day: the annual commemoration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Israeli forces in 1948, known to Palestinians as ‘the catastrophe’. Nakba Day is scarred by sorrow and anger, especially for the survivors of 1948 – but it also courses with determination. The anniversary is marked by demonstrations world-wide, a concerted reminder of the need to resist displacement, and demand the full menu of human rights for Palestinians, whether they be refugees, members of the diaspora, under Occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, or living in Israel as part of the country’s 20% Arab population. The official peace process may have atrophied, but grassroots activism in support of the end to Israeli apartheid and the occupation of Palestine is growing steadily, galvanised in part by the prominent successes of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)movement.

In the spirit of such determination, BWISP is proud to take this occasion to honour Stephen Hawking, the latest and perhaps most illustrious public intellectual to join the academic and cultural boycott of Israel.  Hawking’s unequivocal decision to respect the boycott made headlines all over the world. In a sign of how solidly BDS has moved into mainstream political discourse, Hawking’s choice was supported by two-thirds of those polled by the Guardian. Thank you Stephen Hawking!

BWISP would also like to acknowledge Nakba Day by posting a link to a recent Palestine Solidarity Campaign video presenting the case for academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions. And finally, we link here to a recent UK Employment Tribunal decision, categorically ruling against the complainant Ronnie Fraser, a University Colleges Union member who had argued that UCU’s support of the academic boycott of Israel was anti-Semitic. In response, the tribunal declared that “a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel or any similar sentiment… is not intrinsically a part of Jewishness . . .”  and in very strong words deeply regreted that this case had ever been brought to court.

This legal ruling, with its clear corollary that anti-Zionism is not in-itself anti-Semitic, is highly significant for the BDS movement. We are now moving toward a time when critics of Israel will not have to fear spurious accusations of racism – or, in the case of Jewish activists, self-hatred – but can concentrate on exposing the systematic, murderous racism of the Israeli state.  The world has in the past risen to end the shameful and injurous practice of apartheid in South Africa. On this, the 65th Nakba Day, BWISP restates its commitment to such a global movement in support of a just peace in Palestine, and human rights for all.

Chapeau to Iain Banks

 

 

 

 

 

In 2010 the renowned Scottish writer Iain Banks made a principled public statement in The Guardian in support of the cultural boycott of Israel. This week he was in the news again, tragically to announce that he has – barring a miracle – terminal cancer. Tributes have been flying in – at such velocity they swamped his website.  Today The Guardian reposted his 2010 statement, presumably with his consent. I pay my respects here to a great writer: a man who knows his own humanity is inextricable from the suffering of others, and who faces the worst with clear-eyed conviction and courage.

Some readers may wonder why Iain Banks isn’t a member of BWISP. I don’t know him personally so cannot say. Some Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish writers do not identify with the label ‘British’, and some people simply aren’t ‘joiners’. But for a writer of Banks’s stature to take an individual public stand on this issue is a significant act, and one that means a great deal to our movement. Once again, I applaud Iain Banks, and wish him and his wife every possible joy in the months to come.

Naomi Foyle

[Jan 24th] Writers from Palestine in London

Writers from Palestine in London: Asma’a Azaizeh & Marwan Makhoul

In association with Banipal, join The Mosaic Rooms for an evening of poetry and discussion with Palestinian poets Asma’a Azaizeh and Marwan Makhoul on:

Thursday January 24th, 7pm

Asma’a Azaizeh won the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Writer Award in 2010 and published her first collection of poetry ‘Liwa’ in 2o11. She has worked as a journalist and presenter for various newspapers and radio stations and is currently presenter of a Palestinian television programme on culture and art, as well as a lecturer in creative writing.

Marwan Makhoul published his first book of poetry Ard al-passiflora al-hazinah (Land of the Sad Passiflora) in 2007 with Al-Jamal Publishers. That same year a second edition of the book was published in Haifa and then a third edition in Cairo in 2012. In 2009 he won the prize of best playwright in the Acre Theatre Festival for his first play.

The event will be introduced by Banipal’s editor Samuel Shimon and chaired by Omar al-Qattan, followed by a Q&A, reception and book signing. Copies of the Banipal 45 issue, Writers from Palestine, will be on sale and available for signing.

FREE, rsvp@mosaicrooms.org

http://www.mosaicrooms.org/writers-from-palestine-in-london/

Letter(s) To Gaza: a beautiful event

Saturday November 10th, as part of Redrawing the Maps: A John Berger Free School, BWISP co-ordinator Naomi Foyle and Palestinian human rights worker Saleh Hijazi co-hosted a very special event, Letter(s) to Gaza. The event allowed the audience to converse with Palestinian speakers Ahmed Safi (Gaza and Oxford Brookes University), Ahmad Alaraj (The Freedom Theatre) and Selma Dabbagh (British Palestinian novelist), then write their own letters to the besieged population of Gaza, to be posted on the Letter(s) to Gaza blog. The letters will be circulated in Gaza via Palestinian students and their families, courtesy of Dr Haidar Eid of Al-Aqsa University, whose 2009 open letter to Barack Obama challenges the American President to end his indifferent lip service to the plight of the Palestinians, and hold Israel to account for the suffering caused by the blockade.

The Letter(s) to Gaza event was a response to John Berger’s video reading of Ghassan Kanafani’s short story ‘Letter from Gaza’, which can also be read here. ‘Letter from Gaza’ is a haunting portrait of the courage of Palestinian children. Written over forty years ago, it is no less relevant today, when as I write reports are coming in of four teenage boys killed in Gaza by IDF shelling of a football playground. Two were killed in the initial assault; two in a second shelling when they ran to help their friends. The mother of one boy gave birth to a new son today, and named him after his murdered brother. On Remembrance Sunday here in the UK, one could read no more searing account of the impossibility of forgetting the dead.

In the context of such brutal repression, hoping to make a difference by writing letters to people one has never met may seem a fey notion. But Ahmed Safi told us that people in Gaza are so isolated any kind of friendly contact from the outside world would be hugely welcomed. He also told us of the spirit of the people is strong, that they smile in the face of relentless IDF attacks, and maintain a vision of freedom from the blockade that has crippled their economy and infrastructure. His own grandfather spoke for sixty years of his home in Jaffa, which he was forced to flee in the Nakba in 1948. This tenacious remembrance, Ahmed realised after his grandfather died, was not despair but a kind of hope: the hope of return.  Ahmad Alaraj spoke of how touched he, as a Palestinian forced to live in the West Bank, was to meet Ahmed Safi.  He also talked about the Freedom Theatre’s recent Freedom Bus project, a travelling theatre initiative which included a video link to Gaza, to gather stories which actors then performed for audiences in the West Bank.  Again, to feel a sense of connection with those imprisoned in Gaza had been a very moving experience for him. Selma Dabbagh spoke of her own love of Kanafani’s stories, and her recent experience judging Gazan blogs, which she admired greatly, but felt did not always convey the lively spirit of their authors, whom she’d met on her visit to Gaza for the 2012 Palestinian Festival of Literature. Perhaps this disconnect between personal and public expression is the result of cultural factors; perhaps it also indicates what the huge responsibility it is for a young person to speak as a member of a suffering population in a public forum, unsure of who is listening. At the event, in a discussion facilitated by BWISP member Jonathan Rosenhead, we discussed the political situation in Gaza – including Saleh Hijazi’s investigation of human rights violations by Hamas, and Ahmed Safi’s work in the international aid industry, which he feels does not address the cause of the crisis, the Occupation; but we also stressed that a letter was a personal document, and that we hoped to encourage an intimate exchange based on mutual interests and curiosity about the other. We wanted to allow people here to ask questions and offer support, and for Gazans to feel free to reply and share something of their daily lives, the routines and dreams that keep them going.

Something wonderful happened in the room itself, as Palestinians who cannot meet in their own homeland were brought together, while the audience overcame some initial shyness and wrote intensely for half-an-hour, resting their papers on copies of the John Berger exhibition catalogue. When we shared the gist of our letters, it appeared we had all found a personal path into our correspondence. One man wrote about Palestinian cinema; a woman wrote a letter to a little boy who had open heart surgery in her London hospital six years ago; another related the émigré history of her own Finnish family to the Palestinian refugee experience of losing one’s home; another man had recently been hit by a car, and discovered that his surgeon was a dedicated member of Medical Aid of Palestine. I wrote about my efforts to get to Gaza in 2009, and recalled my dream of co-editing a collection of poetry from Gaza. As we parted, it felt like not the end of the event, but the beginning of a conversation.

The letter-writers will be sending final copies to the organisers this week, to be posted on the Letters to Gaza blog. If anyone reading this post would also like to contribute a letter, please get in touch with Saleh Hijazi and Naomi Foyle at lettertogaza@gmail.com

Finally, Saleh and Naomi would like to thank the organisers of Redrawing the Maps, a week of events, screenings and discussions celebrating the work of John Berger. We would also like to thank John Berger himself, whose long, warm and incisive commitment to Palestine, and bold early advocacy of the cultural boycott of Israel, have laid the foundation for all BWISP’s campaigns and activities.

The 95th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration

This letter, organised by Haringey Justice for Palestine, with the support of five BWISP members, appeared today in The Guardian.

Today is the 95th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, when the then foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, signed a fateful letter to Lord Rothschild announcing that the British government “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people”. Britain thus gave the Zionist movement carte blanche to transform the overwhelmingly Arab state of Palestine into a Jewish one.

To further this aim, from 1920 onwards, Britain encouraged the mass immigration into Palestine of hundreds of thousands of European Jews, expressly against the wishes of the majority population. As Palestine descended into chaos, the British washed their hands of their responsibility for the mess they had caused and stood by while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were terrorised into fleeing their homeland, as Palestine was transformed into Israel.

We call for the British government to acknowledge publicly the responsibility of previous British administrations from 1917 to 1948 for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinians, when over threequarters were expelled deliberately and systematically by the Zionist army. Most of them remain refugees today without redress. The truth about their expulsions is still not officially established, since Israel officially denies any responsibility for it.

Ghada Karmi
Tim Llewellyn
Karl Sabbagh
John Rose
Kamel Hawwash
Naomi Foyle
Mona Baker
Mike Marqusee
Seni Seneviratne

SOAS Panel Discussion on Palestine: 3 Questions about BDS

On Tues October 9^th I appeared with British-Palestinian novelist Selma Dabbagh, British filmmaker and cultural boycott activist Miranda Pennell, and the British-Israeli-Iraqi-Jewish writer and journalist Rachel Shabi in a panel discussion at SOAS, organised by the Centre for Palestinian Studies and chaired by Bidisha. The discussion was wide-ranging and included the role of Arab women in political struggle, the question of ‘fashionable causes’ and the usefulness of comment threads.  Cultural boycott was also high on the agenda, and the subject of some disagreement on the panel and in the audience. I would therefore like to respond here to three questions raised during the evening.

1. Not all Palestinians support BDS, so why should I?

Rachel Shabi helpfully stressed that the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign is a Palestinian initiative. However, she counter-claimed that Palestinian society is diverse, and not all Palestinians believe in boycott. This statement is undeniably true. Leaving aside the question of militant resistance, some Palestinians believe in working within the Palestinian Authority and the UN, or with charitable NGOs. Others are simply trying to survive, and may place their faith in Allah, God, or the Shekel. So how does one, as a solidarity activist, decide which Palestinians to support?

The question is a political one, and must be answered politically. Only politically organised activity with strong and principled Palestinian leadership can bring positive, lasting change in the region. So, which such groups are reaching out to solidarity workers, and requesting our support?

We can immediately rule out the PA. Unless one is a UN representative, the PA is not reaching out to foreign individuals. In addition, the UN route to change is blocked by the veto power of America, and – as Wikileaks demonstrated – the PA is seriously compromised by corruption within the organisation. There is no way for solidarity workers to effectively help change this situation, apart from campaigning for UN reform.  While I do not disparage such a goal, to devote all one’s energies to it would be an incredibly indirect way of expressing support for Palestine.

One can of course join direct action groups, helping with the olive harvest, accompanying children in Hebron on the way to school, working with faith groups, or joining non-violent protests against the apartheid wall. But doing so will still leave you with the fundamental choice for peace campaigners in the region: do you support ‘dialogue’ groups or the boycott divestment and sanctions movement?  For many Westerners, dialogue seems instinctively attractive, but in my own view, careful thought and research must inevitably lead to the conclusion that it is not the option for the true solidarity activist.

The concept of ‘peace through dialogue’ appeals to many Westerners and left-wing Israelis because in our own personal experience we often need to engage in conflict resolution with antagonists in our families or workplaces, and this process is predicated on the understanding that both parties must listen to each other and take responsibility for their own failings.  However, it is a huge mistake to project this personal process between equals – or those in a mutually agreed power structure, such as a workplace – onto the Israel-Palestine conflict. While political and personal dialogue is indeed fundamental to the peace process, it is essential that this dialogue takes place within a framework that acknowledges the true scale and roots of the conflict: the occupation of Palestine; the apartheid nature of the Israeli state; and the Israeli denial of the refugees’ right of return.

In other words, in the case of Israel-Palestine, any dialogue that takes place is never between equal partners.  Analogies all break down at some point, but rather than a ‘bad marriage’ between incompatible people who have to co-parent their children, the Israel-Palestine conflict is akin to a highly abusive relationship where the abuser has huge wealth and social prestige, and the abused person has been disbelieved by the police for years – and in fact has been punished for resisting the attacks, or occasionally responding to them in a violent manner. Only if the authorities and the abuser finally recognise the nature of this abuse, is it safe or indeed worthwhile for the two parties to attempt any kind of dialogue. Think of the difference between divorce counselling and a bullying tribunal at work. In the former, a neutral mediator helps two people make compromises; in the latter, the victim and the bully have clearly differentiated roles to play in proceedings, and if found guilty the bully will be punished. Again, this is only an analogy, and I apologise to Palestinians who may find it ill-fitting or simplistic. But I think it is worth making because I believe that many Westerners think of dialogue mainly in personal terms.

The ‘dialogue peace camp’ does not offer solidarity to the Palestinians – not just because it does not start from the understanding that the conflict is hugely imbalanced, but because it explicitly forbids such an analysis.  A list of 66 Palestinian-Israeli ‘co-existence’ organisations can be found here, on the website of the British charity Children of Peace. I wish to stress that I am in no way judging the motives of the Palestinians involved in these grassroots organisations. I have not lived their lives, and I have not faced their choices. What I want to highlight here is the fact that Children of Peace only funds groups that sign up to its ‘non-partisan’ values.  These values are expressed in the charity’s claim that, in relation to adults, Israeli and Palestinian children have suffered ‘disproportionately’ from the conflict: to get funding from Children of Peace, organisations are not allowed to politically challenge the fact that, thanks to the occupation, Israeli apartheid and the refugee camps, it is overwhelmingly Palestinian children who have died or been maimed, and who suffer from poverty and lack of educational opportunities.

Children of Peace is a throwback to Empire. The charity is operating like a group of secular Victorian missionaries, providing vital aid only to those who are willing to subscribe to its world-view.  Given the fact that Israel chronically underfunds education, health and basic social services for Arab-Israelis, and systematically attacks the basic infrastructure of Gaza and the West Bank, there is huge financial incentive for Palestinians to sign up to such deals. But without the ability to name the conflict for what it is, such organisations will never be able to effect substantive and lasting change.   As Faris Giacaman argues here, Palestinians have long known that what they call ‘the peace industry’ has not built up significant Palestinian power or leadership:

Based on an unpublished 2002 report by the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, the San Francisco Chronicle reported last October that “between 1993 and 2000 [alone], Western governments and foundations spent between $20 million and $25 million on the dialogue groups.” A subsequent wide-scale survey of Palestinians who participated in the dialogue groups revealed that this great expenditure failed to produce “a single peace activist on either side.” This affirms the belief among Palestinians that the entire enterprise is a waste of time and money.

The survey also revealed that the Palestinian participants were not fully representative of their society. Many participants tended to be “children or friends of high-ranking Palestinian officials or economic elites. Only seven percent of participants were refugee camp residents, even though they make up 16 percent of the Palestinian population.” The survey also found that 91 percent of Palestinian participants no longer maintained ties with Israelis they met. In addition, 93 percent were not approached with follow-up camp activity, and only five percent agreed the whole ordeal helped “promote peace culture and dialogue between participants.”

By insisting on a narrative of two equal parties to conflict, and by making financial aid dependent on Palestinian acquiescence to this narrative, the ‘peace industry’ only reinforces the imbalance of power in the region. This is the process of ‘normalisation’ that the boycott movement decries.

In contrast, the assets of the BDS movement are limited to moral capital only.  And yet it has attracted the broad support of 173 Palestinian grassroots organisations, including many unions, and a growing group of Israeli activists, Boycott from Within. PACBI has the express support of over 60 Palestinian cultural and academic organisations. The BDS movement has not bought this support: on the contrary, boycott advocates within Israel now face severe penalties from Israel – heavy fines or imprisonment – for expressing their views. A solidarity activist can therefore support BDS knowing that the movement represents not only an accurate analysis of the conflict, but also the free and principled self-expression of a huge range of community and professional organisations. No external authority or funding body is dictating the operating terms of these groups. Unlike the ‘dialogue peace camp’, BDS is a purely Palestinian-led political movement with a huge base of mobilised popular support, and is therefore the only option for international activists who wish to work in solidarity with Palestinians.

2) Isn’t cultural boycott ‘a bit witch hunty’?

Rachel Shabi expressed support for divestment, but stated that she felt cultural boycott in particular could be ‘a bit witch-hunty’.  This is not an uncommon reaction to boycott campaigns; I therefore wish to take this opportunity to expand on what I said at SOAS and entirely reject the comparison.

Political witch-hunts involve substantial punishments: the loss of employment, the destruction of one’s career, perhaps even imprisonment.  Modern day ‘witch hunts’ also often involve smear campaigns. The subjects of cultural boycott campaigns are never remotely in any such dangers.

To start with, the boycott targets institutions, not individuals.  When boycott activists direct campaigns toward individuals, it is simply to ask them not to appear in Israel or at Israeli-funded events. If they insist on crossing this picket line, then boycott activists may protest against their activities on that particular tour of the region. Otherwise, activists have never called for the ‘boycott of boycott busters’

Crucially, boycott activists cannot force writers, musicians or artists not to take a gig in Israel: any loss of employment that results from respecting the boycott is entirely voluntary, and amply offset by the reward of right relationship with one’s own conscience.  The only pressure that boycott activists can apply is sustained moral pressure, and to suggest that we should not be doing so verges on questioning our right to protest. I personally have led campaigns politely but persistently requesting high-profile writers not to appear in Israel. These writers are wealthy professionals with teams of publicists, editors and festival staff to support them. If they make a decision to take money from an apartheid state, they ought to be prepared to face a rational public debate about it.

It constantly disappoints me that British writers who appear in Israel do not want to participate in that debate.  I do not possess a tall black hat, a ducking pond, or any kind of power or desire to wound these writers. I just want them to change their minds about shaking hands with ethnic cleansers, and if they cannot do that, then I believe they should at least answer all the questions the BDS movement lays at their doors.

3) Can BDS lead to peace, and if so, how?

This was a question from the audience, and it is a good one. BDS is obviously a controversial strategy because it strikes at the heart of neo-liberal values, and the concept of unlimited free speech; its detractors therefore sometimes argue that adopting BDS only inflames the conflict. I obviously do not agree.

In South Africa, sustained international pressure played a huge role in bringing apartheid to an end. How BDS can help do this in Israel is suggested by a recent article by Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf: the reason the peace process has stalled, he argues, is because for the average Jewish Israeli the status quo is preferable to either the one-state or the two-state solution. The one-state solution would involve the kind of demographic and democratic shift Zionists most fear, and the two-state solution would involve giving up settlements, land and resources.  I am grateful to Boycott from Within activist Ofer Neiman for sending me the link to this article, and for his succinct summation that what boycott does is make the status quo uncomfortable.  BDS is a constant reminder that the world does not approve of the political choices Israel is making.  BDS may in the short-term add to friction, but this friction is necessary grit in the process of real change: change that results in the priceless pearl of justice.

I hope that these responses flesh out my comments on the night. I will also post them on the BWISP FAQs page for ease of future reference.

[Oct 9th SOAS Event] Palestine Now: Writers Respond

Palestine Now: Writers Respond

With Bidisha, Rachel Shabi, Selma Dabbagh, Miranda Pennell and Naomi Foyle

Date: 9 October 2012 Time: 5:30 -  7:00 PM

Venue: School of Oriental and African Studies.  Russell Square: College Buildings

Room: Khalili Lecture Theatre

Type of Event: Lecture

Series: Lecture Programme on the Contemporary Middle East

A panel discussion with Bidisha, journalist for the Guardian, the Observer, the FT and the New Statesman, authors Rachel Shabi and Selma Dabbagh, activist and film-maker Miranda Pennell, and Naomi Foyle, British Writers in Support of Palestine. To coincide with the publication of Bidisha’s fourth book, Beyond the Wall: Writing A Path Through Palestine (Seagull/Chicago University Press).

Organiser: London Middle East Institute

Contact email: vp6@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel:  020 7898 4490

Judith Butler Adorned: PACBI salutes an engaged intellectual

BWISP congratulates renowned American scholar Judith Butler, who was today awarded the prestigious Adorno Prize in Frankfurt.  Butler, a staunch supporter of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS), has been forced to defend her acceptance, speaking out in Mondoweiss against Zionist critics who sought to block the award with slurs of anti-Semitism. Here, she credits her own Jewish schooling as a founding force in her ethics, stating that ‘I was taught at every step in my education that it is not acceptable to remain silent in the face of injustice’.  BWISP is pleased to circulate this statement by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), saluting Judith Butler’s integrity and courage.

Adorn Butler with the Adorno Prize: She will add to its worth

Occupied Palestine, 10 September 2012 – The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), the General Union of Palestinian Writers, the Association of University Teachers-Gaza, and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) stand in solidarity with Judith Butler in the face of the recent vicious attacks and bullying by Israel and Zionist groups in the West in their attempt to deny her the prestigious German award, the Adorno Prize [1].  Judith Butler’s humanism, critical thought and distinguished intellectualism entitle her without doubt to this and many other awards.

 

The main reason for this crusade against Judith Butler is her outspoken support for the Palestinian-led, global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.  BDS calls for ending Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid against the Palestinian people through sustained, effective, morally-consistent pressure on Israel, on its complicit institutions, as well as on international corporations and entities that are implicated in Israel’s violations of international law.  In endorsing BDS, Butler is being consistent with her long tradition of standing up for freedom, justice, self determination and equal rights in other causes.  The fact that she evokes her Jewish identity and social justice principles associated with it to challenge Israel’s and Zionism’s cynical appropriation of Jewishness is what made her a particularly urgent target for propaganda campaigns waged by Israel and its lobby groups.

 

The great Palestinian thinker Edward Said once wrote:

 

“Nothing in my mind is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position that you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. … For an intellectual, these habits of mind are corrupting par excellence.

Personally, I have encountered them in one of the toughest of all contemporary issues, Palestine, where fear of speaking out about one of the greatest injustices in modern history has hobbled, blinkered, muzzled many who know the truth and are in a position to serve it. For despite the abuse and vilification that any outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and self determination earns for him or herself, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an unafraid and compassionate intellectual.” [2]

 

Judith Butler is such an “unafraid and compassionate intellectual.”  We salute her courage and call on every self-respecting academic and intellectual to stand with her against the hopeless, vindictive, yet taxing, attempt to silence her mind.

 

 

- Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE)

- General Union of Palestinian Writers

- University Teachers’ Association-Gaza

- Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

 

 

[1] Judith Butler’s response to attack: http://mondoweiss.net/2012/08/judith-butler-responds-to-attack-i-affirm-a-judaism-that-is-not-associated-with-state-violence.html

[2] Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual, The 1993 Reith Lectures

Boycott Batsheva: Two Responses to Lloyd Newson

The Boycott Batsheva campaign has kicked off in high style in Edinburgh with protests on the street, in the theatre, and in the media. BWISP member Jonathan Rosenhead is a signatory to a letter to dance professionals asking them to join the campaign. Lloyd Newson, of DV8 Physical Theatre has responded here.  While a public debate is welcomed, Newson’s response misrepresents Palestinian resistance and minimizes Palestinian suffering to order to reject the idea of cultural boycott. 

In reply, Jonathan Rosenhead, Jenny Morgan, Miranda Pennell and other members of BIN have joined forces with Israeli activists Boycott from Within to compose a Press Release countering Newson’s fallacious claims, and reiterating the arguments for boycott. The PR has been sent to national arts critics and the arts press. BWISP reproduces it here, with thanks to all who are working so hard on this campaign. Please feel free to Tweet or otherwise circulate this post

WHY BOYCOTT BATSHEVA?

A British and an Israeli response to Lloyd Newson of DV8

Last night pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted Batsheva dance company, Israel’s ‘most important cultural ambassador’, at their opening night at the Edinburgh Festival in the presence of Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub and Israeli culture and sport minister Livnat.

In August this year, boycott activists wrote privately to a number of dance professionals, asking them if they would sign a letter for publication in the press that criticised the decision of the Edinburgh International Festival to invite Israeli dance company Batsheva to perform.  DV8 founder Lloyd Newson chose to respond publicly via the DV8 website and newsletter.

We welcome Lloyd Newson’s willingness to discuss the issue of the cultural boycott of Israel.  Attached are two responses, the first from the people who wrote to him originally, the second from Israeli organisation Boycott from Within

A British response

We wrote to Lloyd Newson and other dancers and choreographers because we support the call from Palestinian  civil society for an international boycott of Israeli state institutions, modelled on the boycott of South African apartheid, in order to pressure Israel to bring to an end its decades-long violations of fundamental Palestinian rights.

1   Boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)

Boycott is the non-violent weapon of a people who have been denied any democratic recourse to justice over many decades. We strongly reject the political and moral equivalence Newson seems to assume between Israel and Palestine. The fundamental dynamics of military occupation, ethnic cleansing and of apartheid can only be described as the relationship between oppressor and oppressed. This relationship is amply documented by all reputable human rights organisations.

2   Newson writes: ‘Palestine should recognise Israel’s right to exist, stop calling for Israel’s destruction and renounce terrorism’

Over the past 64 years, Israel has never recognised the existence of Palestine, nor its right to exist, even while colonising its resources, destroying its villages, agriculture and economy and while expelling its people and disabling the functioning of its society. Israel has certainly never hesitated to use violence to achieve the above aims.

In fact the Palestinian call for boycott is a non-violent strategy that calls not for the ‘destruction’ of anything or the deprivation of any rights, only for the implementation of international laws and human rights conventions as they apply equally to all people, regardless of ethnicity.

3   Honour crimes, gender violence and occupation

So-called ‘honour’ crimes, and violence based on gender or sexual orientation, must never be denied or dismissed. While they are a reality in Palestinian society, this is also true of many other countries. However, that fact is not normally deployed, as Newson does, as an argument against the right of these countries to exist and practise self-determination. Palestinians are entitled to the human rights denied to them by the State of Israel over the past six decades precisely because rights are universal and affect all Palestinian women and men, whether gay or straight.

Furthermore, there is ample evidence that the daily experience of living under military occupation and racial persecution actively compounds these problems. Israeli occupation and violence against Palestinian women are integrally linked. For example, Israeli military checkpoints cut off roads between Palestinian villages and towns, isolating women from friends and family and making them more vulnerable to patriarchal control. The Israeli military and occupation authorities routinely humiliate Palestinian men, increasing tension in the domestic sphere and making it difficult for Palestinian women to talk publicly about experiences of domestic violence.

Doctor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has rejected the ‘culturalisation’ of violence against women – the explanation of violence as part of  ‘Palestinian culture’ – and situated it within the  context of Israeli occupation, militarisation, dispossession  and poverty. She has shown how women suffer the constant fear of losing their homes, family members and their ability to provide for their children. The economic strangulation that prevents Palestinians from reaching schools, from finding decent work, and from moving freely within and between their own areas, has had a profound impact on women’s lives and safety.

4   ’Pink-washing’ versus solidarity with Palestinian LGBT

We note that Palestinian Queers for BDS (PQBDS), a group of Palestinian activists from the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Israel, have come together to promote and stand for the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. They write:

As an integral part of Palestinian society we believe that the struggle for sexual and gender diversity is interconnected with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. As Palestinian queers, our struggle is not only against social injustice and our rights as a queer minority in Palestinian society, but rather, our main struggle is one against Israel’s colonization, occupation and apartheid; a system that has oppressed us for the past 63 years.

Aeyal Gross, professor of law at Tel Aviv University, has stated that for Israel, ‘Gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool’, even though ‘conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic’. This public relations programme has become known as ‘Pinkwashing’.

Gross has elsewhere said: ‘The appropriation of gay rights in Israel diverts the conversation from Palestinian oppression in an attempt to present Israel as a liberal democracy’.

We note and support the public stands for BDS taken by gender and queer theorist Judith Butler and film-maker John Greyson, the work of activists such as the queer Arab Pinkwatchingisrael, the Lebanese Helem, and the US group Queers Against Apartheid who write:

As queers, we recognize that homophobia exists in Israel, Palestine, and across all borders. However, the struggle for sexual rights cannot come at the price of other rights. 

5   The boycott of Batsheva dance company, Israel’s ‘most important global ambassador’

We think Newson is quite right to be wary of ‘artists banning other artists’. As with the boycott of South African apartheid, cultural boycott means balancing the right to freedom of expression (in this case of Israeli state institutions that do not explicitly oppose state policies regarding Palestinians) against other fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of ordinary Palestinians to live in liberty and equality with others.

We are not boycotting any choreographer because of their beliefs, their nationality or the content of their work. We are protesting the Israeli state’s use of contemporary dance as ‘soft power’ to promote a cultured image on the world stage, as part of its ‘Brand Israel’ campaign.

Newson notes that Batsheva director Ohad Naharin has publicly stated he is ‘sympathetic to the frustrations experienced by Palestinians and has openly criticised the Israeli government’. But sympathy for their ‘frustrations’ will not impress Palestinians living under siege in Gaza, in the West Bank, in refugee camps, in prison under administrative detention, or anywhere else.

Dance scholar and choreographer Nicholas Rowe, who worked with dancers in the Occupied West Bank and with refugees in Lebanon for eight years, wrote to us:

If Ohad Naharin and Batsheva Dance Company would have the courage to refuse to offer their bodies up to the Israeli Defense Forces for annual military service, if they would have the courage to publicly condemn the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing theft of land and property by the government that pays them to tour in the name of Israel, if they would have the courage to publicly state that they do not judge people by their religion or ethnicity and so would welcome the return of non-Jewish refugees back to their homes inside what is now Israel, then they would be touring to the UK as dance artists, and not just as political puppets. Anybody who seeks to watch Batsheva should be aware that Ohad Naharin and Batsheva have these choices to make.   

 Newson belittles these choices, characterising them as ‘highly simplified’. We, however, think these are fundamental questions of moral responsibility, not only for artists but for civil society in general.

Jenny Morgan, Miranda Pennell, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

for info: contact@mirandapennell.com or contact Eleanor Kilroy  07909 248651

 

An Israeli response

Lloyd Newson’s moral failure

We are Israeli citizens who are active against our government’s policies of racism, apartheid and occupation.

We wish to address Lloyd Newson’s flawed reasoning in his response to British activists for solidarity with Palestinian people.

According to Mr. Newson, all Palestinians (Israelis) represent all Palestinian institutions (respectively), and are therefore responsible for human rights violations committed by ‘their’ institutions. This is a grave error, and a failure to comprehend the Palestinian BDS call.

The call for boycotting Batsheva has been issued due to its affiliation with the Israeli government, and its role as a propaganda outlet for the Israeli regime.

No one has called for a personal boycott of Batsheva’s ensemble. In fact, the dancers can be invited, as individuals, to perform the same programme, instead of representing the Israeli government as the Israeli foreign-ministry funded ensemble of Batsheva. If Mr. Newson wishes to boycott institutions of other states that are responsible for human rights violations, this would not be incompatible with the Palestinian BDS call.

Gender violence and fundamentalism are all a reality in Palestinian society (as well as in Israeli society). However, an occupied people do not ‘win’ or ‘deserve’ their freedom from occupation, colonisation and apartheid by being a model society. This is all the more true since Israeli society itself is not a model society. As an activist for LGBT rights, Mr. Newson would be advised to heed the call of  Palestinian Queers for BDS (PQBDS), a group of Palestinian queer activists who live in the Palestinian Occupied Territory and inside Israel. The group has countered Israeli propaganda efforts, especially in the form of ‘pinkwashing’, by declaring:

As Palestinian queers, our struggle is not only against social injustice and our rights as a queer minority in Palestinian society, but rather, our main struggle is one against Israel’s colonization, occupation and apartheid; a system that has oppressed us for the past 63 years. Violations of human rights and international law, suppression of basic rights and civil liberty, and discrimination are deeply rooted in Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, straight and gay alike. 

We call on Mr Newson to adopt a coherent and consistent moral paradigm with respect to Israel’s policies of racism, apartheid and occupation, and endorse a boycott of official Israeli representative institutions.

Boycott from Within

Israeli Citizens in Support of the Palestinian BDS Call

admin@boycottisrael.info
Ofer (Boycott from Within) 972-544-740825

BWISP condemns arrest of Nabil Al Raee, Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As reported by Mondoweiss, last night at 3am, Israeli troops entered the home of Nabil Al Raee, Artistic Director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp, and arrested him at gunpoint, giving him and his wife no explanation for their actions, and terrifying his three-year old daughter. He is currently being held in a nearby military prison.

Jenin is in Zone A of the West Bank, under Palestinian control and administration, and this arrest by the IDF violates the Oslo Accords.  To be arrested without charge also violates Nabil Al Raee’s human rights.

British Writers in Support of Palestine condemns in unequivocal terms this violent, illegal and repressive act, which is part of a systematic campaign of intimidation clearly directed at the Freedom Theatre itself.   For the last three weeks Freedom Theatre co-founder Zakaria Zubeidi has been held without charge in a prison in Jericho.  The IDF investigation of the murder of founding Artistic Director Juliano Mer Khamis has only ever been directed at Freedom Theatre Staff, and has now been officially closed, ignoring significant forensic evidence.

British Writers in Support of Palestine demands a full and proper investigation into the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis, and the immediate release of Nabil Al Raee and Zakaria Zubeidi, neither of whom have been charged with any crime.  We thank our colleagues in the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign for their comprehensive statement placing these recent arrests in the context of the increasing abuse of Palestinian prisoners by Israeli military courts.  With the IPSC we call for the end of Israel’s policy of Administrative Detention and its Unlawful Combatants Law, by means of which Israel interns people without charge; and demand that Israeli courts treat all Palestinian prisoners in accordance with international law, and free all Palestinian political prisoners.

Our thoughts are with Nabil and Zakaria and their families and friends at this dark and uncertain time.

Press Release from The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp, northern West Bank June 6, 2012

At approximately 03:15 am the Israeli army entered the home of Nabil Al-Raee, the Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre, and took him to an unknown location.

Nabil’s wife, Micaela Miranda explains what happened: “The dog started barking so I went outside and saw soldiers jumping over the gate and come into the yard of the house. They asked for my husband and I asked what for, that it’s my right to know and it’s my house. The soldiers replied that they were not going to tell me. They then took Nabil, brought him to an army jeep and drove off. We are very worried because we don’t know where they took him and why.”

Jonatan Stanczak, Managing Director of The Freedom Theatre: “I live on the floor above Nabil and when I heard what was happening I tried to go down to talk to the soldiers because I speak Hebrew. The house was surrounded by masked Israeli soldiers and three of them immediately pointed their weapons at me and pushed me back into the house.”

Attempts were immediately made to contact the District Coordination Office of the Israeli army but to no avail. More than half the employees of The Freedom Theatre were recently called to interrogations by the Israeli army, including Nabil Al-Raee. All came to the appointments as scheduled and answered to their best of their knowledge the given questions even though they were intimidated and even threatened.

Jonatan Stanczak continues: “I don’t understand why they do this after they know they could simply have made a phone call to Nabil and he would have come to answer any questions or concerns that they might have. Since this has happened so many times in the past, I can’t interpret it as anything else than an ongoing harassment of the employees of The Freedom Theatre and their families by the Israeli army.”

At this point it is unclear if any other members of The Freedom Theatre have been taken during the night. Several of them have not responded to phone calls.