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Between love and hate, there is Gaza

By Basman Derawi We Are Not Numbers Painting by Malak Mattar  Do you love Gaza? Or do you hate Gaza? When I applied for my job as a physiotherapist, one of my interviewers asked me to “talk about Gaza in English.” I replied, “Give me a few seconds to think.” He nodded. I closed my … Continued

We Can’t Turn Our Backs Again on Refugees

Imagine being a parent explaining to their children what the sounds of bombs are. “When the shelling became heavier, I would tell them it was fireworks, but I could not lie any longer,” one mother says in the video. The only voices we seem to hear in the U.S. are the ones that invoke fear … Continued

Israel extends administrative detention for circus performer

BY NANDINI MAJUMDAR

The Wire

Israel has been holding a Palestinian circus performer without charge or trial since December 2015 and has decided to renew his detention for another six months.

Mohammad Abu Sakha, 23, was on his way to the Palestinian Circus School in Birzeit, where he teaches, when he was arrested. Israel’s military court claims that Abu Sakha was involved in “illegal activities” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a political party with an armed wing that Israel has banned. Abu Sakha has spent six months behind bars without being charged.

International law permits the use of administrative detention only in exceptional, security-related cases. There are more than 600 Palestinians in Israeli prisons on administrative detention.

Source: thewire.in

Protesters Demand Freedom For Rasmea Odeh And Palestine, As Judge Drain Orders Possible New Trial

Video above: Over 60 leading Black and Palestinian artists and activists affirm Black-Palestinian solidarity, including Ms. Lauryn Hill, Danny Glover, DAM, Omar Barghouti, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Yousef Erakat, Annemarie Jacir, Boots Riley, Dr. Cornel West, and many others. by Diane Bukowski Voice of Detroit After 6th Circuit Court vacates Odeh’s sentence, U.S. District Court … Continued

Mashrou’ Leila’s gay, Muslim singer speaks out against hate ahead of Los Angeles concert

By Michelle Mills

SGVTRIBUNE.com

In the wake of the horrific shooting at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse, Hamed Sinno, lead vocalist of the band Mashrou’ Leila, spoke out on Twitter.

“What a time to be an Arab-American queer Muslim,” Sinno, referring to himself, posted to his account June 12. “F— hate. My heart is with the families of the victims. I wish you strength and clarity.”

Based in Beirut, Mashrou’ Leila is controversial for its songs about sexual and religious freedom. Earlier this year, the band’s scheduled concert in Jordan was shut down by the government, which later backtracked after fans spoke out, but only after it was too late for the men to perform.

Mashrou’ Leila is currently on tour in the United States, and will be in concert 8 p.m. June 17 at Grand Performances at California Plaza in Los Angeles.

Sinno spoke out about the Orlando attack during the band’s sold-out show at The Hamilton in Washington, D.C. on June 13.

“Suddenly, just because you’re brown and queer you can’t mourn, and it’s really not f—ing fair,” Sinno said according to a CNN report. “There are a bunch of us who are queer who feel assaulted by that attack who can’t mourn because we’re also from Muslim families and we exist … this is what it looks like to be called both a terrorist and a f—-t.”

HOW THEY CAME TO L.A.

Grand Performances director of programming Leigh Ann Hahn first saw them when they performed in a showcase during an international music conference in Morocco in 2014.

“I saw them play and I knew that they were perfect for us,” Hahn said in an interview conducted before the Orlando shootings. “Their music is so accessible even whether you understand the lyrics or not. It’s just filled with really great melodic hooks, the rhythms and the textures are really great and layered and you want to listen. You hear one song and you want to hear more.”

Mashrou’ Leila, vocalist Sinno, violinist Haig Papazian, drummer Carl Gerges, guitarist Firas About Fakher and bassist Ibrahim Badr, formed in 2008 as a music workshop at the American University of Beirut. Encouraged by friends, they began playing small venues and soon got a set in the annual Fete de la Musique (Make Music Day). In 2009 they won a number of awards in Radio Liban’s Modern Music Contest. Mashrou’ Leila’s 2015 album, “Ibn El Leil,” hit number 11 on the international world Billboard Charts.

Mashrou’ Leila’s lyrics are in Arabic, but this hasn’t been an obstacle says Sinno.

“I think live performance has been a really big part of what’s been pushing us in countries that don’t necessarily speak Arabic,” Sinno said in an interview conducted before the Orlando shootings. “We’re a little dramatic on stage. We’re very much aware that it’s a performance and we need to bridge the absence of linguistic communication. I also think that a lot of people are open to listening to music where the lyrics aren’t decipherable to them.”

ONE VOICE AMONG MANY

Mashrou’ Leila’s lyrics have been called brazen, but Sinno doesn’t agree.

“The stuff that we write about never really seems particularly controversial to any of us,” Sinno said. “We just write about the stuff we discuss with our friends, the stuff that we’re interested in. I don’t think that stuff is necessarily more sensitive where we’re from than anywhere else.”

Sinno said that the Western media often fails to recognize that they are just one of many voices addressing social injustice.

“There are thousands of people in prisons across the Middle East because of voicing dissent and taking up action against government and society. It’s almost unfair that these people are being represented by a group of five upper middle-class males from Beirut, of all places. It feels like part of a longer history of coming up with perfect narratives about the Middle East. They’ve come up with this sort of archetypal brown person. It’s like there’s only one story throughout the Middle East,” Sinno said.

Sinno said that the real key to Mashrou’ Leila’s success is their musical composition and internet savvy.

“(Music) got very formulated and the lack of alternative options was essentially what drove us to start making music in Arabic in the first place. That I thought something was missing meant that other people thought that,” Sinno said. “We got to use social media to bypass the mainstream music dissemination and a lot of people wanted to hear something that sounded not exactly like the cultural formula that was there everywhere else.”

UPCOMING SHOWS

Mashrou’ Leila has a few dates left on its North American tour in support of “Ibn El Leil,” including stops in San Diego and New York City.

Source: www.sgvtribune.com

BDS: Discussing Difficult Issues in a Fast-Growing Movement

by Omar Barghouti 

Al-Shabaka

Introduction

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.

Beyond the headlines, the work goes on, as does continuous debate and discussion to further the movement amongst Palestinians at home and abroad as well as among global solidarity activists. 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.

Omar began by clarifying that all the views he expresses here are his and his alone; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the wider BDS movement or its Palestinian leadership, the BDS National Committee (BNC).

Omar, thanks for making the time at this especially difficult juncture (to put it mildly) for the movement and for you personally. The BDS movement’s goals – self-determination, freedom from occupation, equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right of return – encompass Palestinian rights under international law. But we know that the BDS movement will not on its own achieve Palestinian rights. What other movements are needed and what mix of strategies is necessary? 

Boycotts have historically been one of the main popular resistance strategies available to Palestinians of all walks of life, and today, in the realm of international solidarity, BDS is the most important and strategic form of support to our struggle for self-determination. The BDS movement has never claimed that it is the only strategy to achieve full Palestinian rights under international law. Nor is it possible to expect it to deliver Palestinian rights by itself. Among other strategies are, for example, local popular resistance against the wall and colonies as well as legal strategies to hold Israel and its leaders accountable for the crimes they have committed against the Palestinian people.

In fact, one of the most significant strategies available to us that is hardly being pursued is diplomatic and political work with parliaments and governments across the world to isolate Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid and have sanctions imposed on it similar to those applied to apartheid South Africa. Taking this path is primarily blocked by a complicit Palestinian officialdom that lacks a democratic mandate, principles and vision.

“The BDS movement has never claimed that it is the only strategy to achieve full Palestinian rights…Nor is it possible to expect it to deliver Palestinian rights by itself.”

A very important component of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s regime are Palestinians in exile, who represent half the Palestinian people. We are not just talking about refugee communities, who are clearly the most important to consider, but also Palestinians, like those active in Adalah New York, Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, social movements in the UK or Chile, and their equivalent across the world of Palestinian communities in exile, who play a leading role in promoting Palestinian rights, including through BDS-related actions.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are also often forgotten when people talk about Palestinian resistance, despite their crucial role not only in steadfastness in the face of Israel’s regime of Zionist settler-colonialism but also their active popular, academic, cultural, legal and political resistance to the regime and its institutionalized and legalized racist structures and policies.

Some Palestinians in exile, however, claim they are unwilling to support BDS because “Palestinians don’t ‘do’ solidarity with our own people.”

But the traditional Palestinian political discourse of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s is largely gone. In South Africa, the national liberation movement remained active until the very last minute, but we have, unfortunately, lost much of what made up the Palestinian national liberation movement largely due to the Oslo agreements. The Palestinian leadership, with the explicit or implicit endorsement of most Palestinian political parties, has surrendered basic Palestinian rights and accepted dictates by the United States and European Union to adapt to most of Israel’s regime of colonial oppression.

The Palestinian people is now in a state of loss and disarray. There is no longer a Palestinian “national consensus,” if ever there was one. Even the Palestinian political parties, right and left, Islamist and secular, with almost no exception, talk of “independence” and not national liberation, often forgetting the refugees and always omitting Palestinian citizens of Israel from the very definition of the Palestinian people.

It is up to the entire Palestinian people to determine its future and the solution to this colonial conflict. In the meantime, every Palestinian individual, group or coalition must strive to weaken the Israeli regime of oppression, as a prerequisite to attain Palestinian rights under international law. We in the BDS movement have opted for developing one, time-honored form of Palestinian resistance and the most effective form of grassroots international solidarity with it, based on rights, not political solutions.

BDS of course recognizes that there are other strategies and approaches; we’re just saying that we chose to focus on the rights, not the solutions, because for any political solution – determined by the majority of Palestinians everywhere – to be just, comprehensive and sustainable it must accommodate our rights under international law. Moreover, to be effective you need to have something close to a Palestinian consensus, and to achieve that we had to stick to the most principled and strategic lowest common denominator, to the most significant and least controversial goals of the Palestinian people that hardly anyone can object to: Ending the 1967 occupation, ending the system of apartheid, and fulfilling the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties from which they were ethnically cleansed during and since the Nakba. And we adhere to these rights strictly.

This approach has brought us broad support amongst Palestinians. The BNC recently organized a relatively large rally in Ramallah in a show of popular Palestinian support for BDS. I personally do not see that kind of street mobilization as a decisive indicator of popular support, but my colleagues insisted we needed to do it in order to demonstrate to the world the popular appeal of BDS. There were over 2,000 people and many speakers from political parties and grassroots movements and unions, all of whom expressed strong support for BDS. One of the outcomes of that rally was to defuse the perception among some local circles that BDS was “elitist”.

There are those who don’t want to support the nonviolent BDS movement because it’s “below their political ceiling.” Being revolutionary, in my view, is not about raising “revolutionary” slogans that are not implementable and that therefore have little chance of contributing to processes aimed at ending the reality of oppression. What is truly revolutionary is raising a slogan that is principled and morally consistent and yet conducive to action on the ground that can lead to real change towards justice and emancipation. Otherwise you remain an armchair intellectual.

And yet the way the BDS movement is sometimes represented makes it sound as though it alone can actually achieve Palestinian rights. The frequent references to South Africa convey that impression, whether intended or not.

We Palestinians always compare our strategies and progress to South Africa and other movements for justice, self-determination and human rights – and we know that we’re missing key pillars that were critical to their success.

In South Africa, for example, the African National Congress-led struggle identified four strategic pillars for the struggle to end apartheid: Mass mobilizations, armed resistance, an underground political movement, and international solidarity (particularly in the form of boycotts and sanctions). There is no “copy-paste” strategy to achieve liberation and human rights – every colonial experience is different and has its unique particularities. We have been engaged in evolving our own Palestinian strategies that suit our environment of struggle for justice and dignity.

“Being revolutionary… is not about raising ‘revolutionary’ slogans … What is truly revolutionary is raising a slogan that is principled and morally consistent and yet conducive to action on the ground that can lead to real change towards justice”

In the case of the Palestinian struggle, the pillar of the underground movement is limited to Gaza, where it is isolated. International law upholds the right of any nation under a foreign occupation to resist it by all means, including armed resistance, so long as all forms of resistance themselves adhere to international law and human rights principles. Aside from that, as human rights advocates, we are obliged to consider the cost-benefit of this pillar at this stage and to measure the human price of any resistance.

As for mass mobilization, what we can do in the occupied Palestinian territory in terms of popular resistance, for example, against the Wall, is fairly limited. And it is not really a mass movement in the way that, for example, the recent teachers’ strike was popular, or the strikes against the Salam Fayyad government’s neo-liberalism or against the social security law were popular.

The whole question of the effectiveness of different forms of resistance is key and we in the BDS movement engage in the question of the effectiveness of our nonviolent, international law-abiding strategies at every stage.

Another concern is that some of the BDS movement’s discourse makes it sound as if Palestinians are on the point of achieving their rights. That comes out not only in the frequent references to the South Africa “moment”, but also in statements that say that a “tipping point” has been reached.

Yes, but when we speak of a tipping point, we mean a tipping point only in terms of the specific pillar of international isolation. The measure of effectiveness is whether you’re achieving your goals or not. BDS is one of the strategies of internal resistance and it is also the most important international strategy. We never claimed otherwise. Why, then, should BDS be held responsible, say, for the inability of the Palestinian people to achieve our goals of self-determination and national liberation? At least give us credit for being realistic.

There are many and growing critiques of the international law framework. Does that pose a problem for the BDS movement given it is grounded in international law?

To be effective in mobilizing international pressure by groups and individuals of conscience against Israel’s regime of oppression, as well as morally consistent, we must adopt human rights principles that are as universal as possible as well as a language that can touch people across the world and inspire them to action. That’s the language of international law.  We know the inherent flaws of international law as well as anyone. But we also know that it is either that or the law of the jungle, and the latter does not work for us, on principle and practically, given that we are by far the physically weaker party.

We don’t want symbolic rhetoric: We’re sick and tired of rhetorical support. We need effective, strategic action that has a chance to undermine the system of oppression in order to make it more realistic for the Palestinian people to realize our UN-stipulated rights. The minimal action people can take is to end their complicity. That’s a profound legal and moral obligation to end this injustice; it is not an act of charity.

“We Palestinians always compare our strategies and progress to South Africa and other movements for justice, self-determination and human rights – and we know that we’re missing key pillars that were critical to their success.”

What are the alternatives to international law? It’s true that the colonial empires wrote it. It’s true that it is not weighted in favor of the peoples of the world, but it is not a dogma or a static set of laws that are engraved in stone. There is a simplistic view of international law that doesn’t see it as something dynamic, as something where we, through our persistent and mass struggles, can affect the interpretation and the application. After all, we are not asking for the moon; we are simply working to consistently apply international law to Israel and to end its exceptional status as a state above the law. That is a simple yet far-reaching demand that requires years of strategic struggle.

There is lack of clarity around the normalization guidelines that is often a source of tension with activists – and especially among Palestinians who may engage in activities that are said to be “normalizing” and who don’t appreciate what seems like having their nationalism called into question.

The normalization guidelines are very clear. The reference document to that was adopted by consensus at the first national Palestinian BDS conference, held in November 2007. Normalization, in this context, is understood by Arabs, including Palestinians, to mean making something that is inherently abnormal, like a relationship of colonial oppression, appear deceptively normal. According to the BDS guidelines, there here are two main principles in order for a relationship between a Palestinian (or Arab) party and an Israeli party not to be considered normalization. The Israeli side must recognize the comprehensive Palestinian rights under international law, and the relationship itself should be one of co-resistance to oppression, not “co-existence” under oppression.

The whole point is that such relationships should not legitimize, fig-leaf or whitewash Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. To consider an example that may not be immediately obvious, say an organization in the United States is organizing a conference and has received sponsorship from Israel or an Israeli institution that is complicit in violations of Palestinian rights. And let’s say that the US organization is willing to have a panel that would include Palestinian speakers so as to provide space for a Palestinian voice. Participation under these circumstances would mean that we are effectively normalizing Israeli sponsorship – in other words normalizing the violations of our rights. This is too high a price to pay for our voices to be heard, as important as that is, given the mainstream media’s suppression of these voices. So we work closely with partners to apply pressure to rescind that Israeli sponsorship, and if that fails we call for a boycott.

But there are still gray areas, and it is in the gray areas where problems can arise – especially as some people take it on their shoulders to speak on behalf of the BDS movement and to lay down the law when in fact they have no authority to do so.

There are always gray areas. I would say 90% of the cases that we deal with are indeed gray. When we come across a gray area, we go back to the principle and try our best to measure profit vs. loss. BDS, after all, is not intended to be a dogma, but rather an effective strategy to contribute to our struggle for our rights.

Some Palestinians want to have their cake and eat it too. They allow themselves to engage in projects and activities that clearly conflict with the anti-normalization guidelines, adopted since 2007 by the broadest coalition of political parties, unions and networks in Palestinian society, yet they reject any characterization of those activities as normalization simply because they are “patriotic” and “no one should call that into question.” In the BDS movement, we do not call into question anyone’s patriotism and we never ever label anyone or resort to personal attacks; that would conflict with our principles as a movement. We also reject any suppression of freedom of speech and the simplistic and harmful dismissal of those engaged in normalization activists as “traitors.”

“We attack positions and statements but not individuals, and we don’t believe in blacklists or any form of McCarthyism. It negates our principles, it’s an abuse of power, and it’s counter-productive.”

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) simply mobilizes moral pressure to expose normalization activities in order to undermine normalization. It is vital to counter normalization activities because they constitute a key weapon that Israel has used against the movement and against the Palestinian struggle for rights in general.

And sometimes we do things that are seen as ahead of their time or use language that is not yet accepted. For example, when we first used apartheid as a key facet of Israel’s regime of oppression or insisted on the right of return in our international discourse, both were frowned upon not only in the mainstream but even in some Palestine solidarity circles in the west. Also, when the 2004 call by PACBI (the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) mentioned Zionism as a racist ideology that has been a pillar in Israel’s settler-colonial regime, this issue was hardly discussed in most Palestine solidarity circles in the west in the post-Oslo period.

It’s important not to conflate opposition to Zionism and to Israel’s regime of colonial oppression and apartheid as being an opposition to Jews: It is absolutely not. The BDS movement has consistently and categorically rejected all forms of racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. The fact that 46% of non-Orthodox Jewish-American men under 40 support a full boycott of Israel to end its occupation and human rights violations, according to a 2014 poll, partly attests to the inclusive, anti-racist character of the movement.

Can you give an example of what you do when there is a gray area?

We never take decisions as individual members of the BNC or of its academic and cultural arm PACBI when there’s a gray area; we always go back to the group and decide collectively, based on the agreed upon principles, not the personal opinions and biases of each of us. We don’t give our advice or recommendation until we reach consensus. If we have a deadlock we say to the person seeking advice that we don’t have clear advice to give them. We pick our battles. We don’t chase everything, and we ignore so many targets based on cost-benefit calculations.

We don’t issue edicts; rather, we issue advice. We never say “thou shalt”.

“It is vital to counter normalization activities because they constitute a key weapon that Israel has used against the movement and against the Palestinian struggle for rights in general.”

And we never use ad hominem attacks – we have never done so since BDS was founded in 2005. We attack positions and statements but not individuals, and we don’t believe in blacklists or any form of McCarthyism. It negates our principles, it’s an abuse of power, and it’s counter-productive. Personally, I’ve never engaged with anyone who, for example, attacks us as “agents of imperialism” or similar ultra-left nonsense. We pick our battles, as I said earlier, and we keep our eyes on the real enemies.
When we engage to stop a normalization activity, our objective is always to first and foremost convince the person involved to stop normalizing. You can’t use ad hominem attacks and expect that person to side with you. And in fact many Palestinians who were engaged in normalization 10 years ago are now BDS supporters, and that’s partly because we avoid personal injury. It’s wrong on principle and it’s pragmatically wrong.

When someone has a question, we recommend seeking advice from PACBI or the BNC, or one of our partners in any given country and we seek to resolve it through interactive debate. We now have much better mechanisms to implement the guidelines.

There is a gray area that was cited to me as an example of something Palestinians don’t understand, and indeed find problematic – that of Arab passport holders entering Israel on a visa issued by an Israeli embassy being treated as normalization, as opposed to getting a permit issued by the Israelis at the request of the Palestinian Authority (PA). People don’t get the difference because Israel issues both.

That is a sticky point and a very difficult one. After extensive debates, community meetings and discussions with many Palestinian artists and cultural organizations, we concluded that when an Arab passport holder receives an Israeli visa he/she is normalizing Arab relations with the regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid by treating this regime as if it were normal. Whereas obtaining a permit from the Israeli occupation authorities through the PA is not, despite the problematic nature of the PA’s role, to put it mildly, because Palestinians under occupation are in a coercive relationship with Israel: Palestinians have no choice to receive family or friends from the Arab world without dealing with the Israeli authorities. But such dealings do not per se recognize Israel’s regime as normal.  Still, we recognize this as a difficult area, and we admit that it is not the most robust or irrefutable of our guidelines.

My question is this: Why don’t Palestinian BDS critics at home or in exile write to us if they seek clarification or want to share their criticisms in a constructive way that strengthens our collective movement? We get hundreds of emails daily from solidarity activists but very few from Palestinians. A few Palestinians attack BDS without bothering to first write to the BNC and express their critique in a way that can help make this already effective movement better and more able to handle the many challenges facing it. We are open to and we sincerely encourage discussion and debate among Palestinians in our diverse communities. I beg those with questions, criticisms, or comments to communicate with us – just write to pacbi@pacbi.org or info@bdsmovement.net. Despite the workload we, as volunteers, have to deal with, we do our utmost to respond to every email we receive, especially one coming from a Palestinian sister or brother.

Source: al-shabaka.org

British MP and Advocate for Syria and Palestine Dies

BY: Tamara Wong Azaiez/ Contributing Writer The world is in shock at today’s passing of British Labour MP Jo Cox. Cox had just come out of a consistency meeting when a man appeared out of nowhere, stabbed her and then shot her. Local witnesses also noted that he yelled “Britain First!” when shooting her. “Britain … Continued

Mr. Cuomo forgets that free speech and boycotts are protected by the Constitution

Letters to the Editor 

The Washington Post

 

I was dismayed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s June 12 op-ed, “If you boycott Israel, New York will boycott you,” justifying his blatantly unconstitutional executive order creating a blacklist of supporters of Palestinian rights. The Democratic governor compared the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to terrorism. The call for BDS was instituted by Palestinian civil society leaders in response to decades of human rights abuses that governments and leaders have not been able to abate.

This was a hyperbolic attack on a constitutional right to boycott and a chilling attack on free speech. Criticizing and protesting a foreign government is not discrimination.

Furthermore, Mr. Cuomo’s statements represented sheer hypocrisy, as he saw nothing wrong with “discriminating” against the state of North Carolina by instituting a state nonessential-travel ban after it enacted a law restricting public-restroom use by transgender people.

Mr. Cuomo should remember that he was elected to serve the people of New York, in the United States, where freedom of speech and protest are constitutional rights.

Jenn Gorelik, Arlington

The writer is a member of the D.C. chapter of
Jewish Voice for Peace.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Al-Dabbagh: Boycotting is an Integral Part of American History

By Rashad Al-Dabbagh

Voice of OC

Last year in June 2015 a meeting of more than 50 self-described pro-Israel organizations took place in Las Vegas to discuss the growing number of institutions boycotting and divesting from Israel due to its illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

The conference, which was organized by billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban, aimed at raising funds and strategizing to combat the tactic known as Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) for freedom, justice and equality.

By early 2016, anti-free speech legislations to suppress BDS were introduced in 20 states, including California.

While pro Israel groups claim that BDS aims to delegitimize or destroy Israel, the fact of the matter is that boycotts aimed at securing civil and human rights are an integral part of American history.

For example, the Montgomery bus boycott against segregation, grape boycotts in support of farm labor rights, boycotts of companies enabling South African apartheid, and current divestment campaigns against fossil fuel and private prison companies. BDS is a nonviolent tactic for justice initially launched in 2005 by Palestinian civil society that urges various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.

By June 2016 a few states had passed anti-free speech bills and more recently New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made national headlines when he bypassed the New York legislature and issued an executive order to halt state business with groups that back BDS.

However, in the California State Assembly, things didn’t go as smooth as Adelson and Saban would have liked.

GOP Assemblyman Travis Allen of Huntington Beach initially introduced anti-free speech Assembly Bills 1551 and 1552 in January 2016 but failed to garner enough support mostly due to partisan politics. Democrat Richard Bloom of Santa Monica eventually introduced AB 2844 – backed by Democrat members of the Jewish Caucus – using the same language of Allen’s bill.

Following discussions in the Committee on Accountability, Judiciary Committee, and finally the Appropriations Committee, the bill was watered down and references to Israel were removed to the point that it was “no longer a pro-Israel bill” as Asm. Allen claimed. The title of the bill  was changed from “California Combating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel Act of 2016” to “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Recognized Sovereign Nations or Peoples.” It passed with 64 yays and 16 abstentions.

Despite the changes in the language of the bill, the Senate version should still be defeated because both Bloom and Allen will urge the Senate to restore the old language to make it closer to the original version. If passed, the bill would not only remain a threat to our freedom for potentially infringing on protected political speech, but it would also cost the state an estimated $1.2 million annually for requiring the Attorney General to maintain a blacklist of groups that boycott “recognized sovereign nations and peoples.”

California should stand on the right side of history and protect our right to boycott, divest, and sanction of governments and entities that abuse civil and human rights.

Rashad Al-Dabbagh is founder and executive director of the Arab American Civic Council.

Source: voiceofoc.org

Cornel West Objects to Israeli Occupation of Palestine in DNC Platform Committee

In an unprecedented discussion during the Democratic National Convention platform-writing committee hearing, Dr. Cornel West responded to Rep. Robert Wexler’s justification for Israel’s occupation. Dr. West respectfully pushed back from this justification, saying the occupation is a very real part of Palestinian suffering, and that peace cannot exist without an end to the occupation. Dr. … Continued

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