Norwegian pension fund divests from Israeli occupation
MEMO | June 12, 2015
Norway’s largest pension fund has excluded two companies “on the grounds of their exploitation of natural resources in occupied territory on the West Bank.”
KLP, which manages a US$70 billion investment portfolio, formally excluded Heidelberg Cement and Cemex on June 1, following a period of investigation and engagement. The combined worth of KLP’s shareholdings in both Heidelberg Cement and Cemex was approximately $5 million.
Heidelberg Cement and Cemex, leading global suppliers of building materials, operate quarries in the West Bank through their respective Israeli subsidiaries. According to KLP, “the companies pay licence fees and royalties to the state of Israel” while “the products deriving from the quarries are sold primarily for use in Israel’s domestic construction market.”
Based on “a review of applicable international law”, which the company explained in a separate document, KLP concluded that “the companies’ operations are associated with violations of fundamental ethical norms.”
Citing a previous similar case in Western Sahara, KLP noted that the quarries in question were opened after 1967, when Israel’s occupation began. “The opening of a quarry in occupied territory”, KLP said, “is in all probability incompatible with Article 55 of the Hague Regulations.”
The fund, which manages the retirement assets of Norwegian public sector workers, also excluded a further eight companies on the grounds of their income from coal-based operations, corruption, environmental damage, and the production of tobacco.
The Henry Jackson Society and the Degeneration of British Neo-conservatism
MEMO | June 11, 2015
A new report by Spinwatch, a public interest investigation group, provides an in-depth scrutiny of The Henry Jackson Society and the Degeneration of British Neo-conservatism; it examines the history, activities and politics of the right-wing think tank, which is a leading exponent of neo-conservatism in Britain.
Based at the University of Bath, Spinwatch has developed a reputation for carrying out cutting-edge research and investigations into key social, political, environmental and health issues in Britain and Europe. Its previous report in this area was a detailed investigation into the Cold War on British Muslims that is being advanced by the political right-wing.
The new report is sponsored by the Cordoba Foundation, a London-based research and advocacy group promoting religious and cultural understanding. It exposes the Henry Jackson Society’s activities in pushing for liberal interventionism abroad, spreading Islamophobia and its stalwart support for the “war on terror”.
In the 83-page report, the four authors trace the ideological as well as the organisational evolution of the HJS. Beginning with a short biography of the eponymous US senator, whose most consistent characteristic was military intervention as the answer to almost all foreign problems, they sketch the militaristic and uncompromising worldview of the think tank’s mentors. The list includes US hawks like Richard Pearl, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and others whose neo-conservative world view combined with strategic manoeuvring under the second Bush administration and led to arguably the worst foreign policy disasters of our time.
Many striking features of the cross Atlantic group are described in the report. None is more remarkable, perhaps, than its ubiquitous presence within the corridors of power and evolution from a small Cambridge group to an influential think tank in Westminster with powerful financial and political backers in Britain and the US.
Within the six different sections of the report, a number of interesting and at times worrying details of the group – which has influence over many British lawmakers and public officials – are exposed. Its close connection with William Shawcross, for example, an ex-director of the HJS and the current chair of Britain’s Charity Commission raises difficult questions about the impartiality of the regulator and its ability to investigate political lobby groups – such as the Henry Jackson Society – that are also registered charities.
The first part of the report sketches the political context and ideological roots that gave rise to the non-profit organisation back in 2005. The report portrays the organisation as a fluid movement capable of taking advantage of political ebbs and flows to further its own narrow agenda. It then takes us through the Cambridge Movement from 2004-2007 during which the HJS emerged as a leading institutional expression of British neo-conservatism, a novel creation of British intellectuals who shared the same concerns as the original American neo-conservatives in the face of an emerging popular anti-war movement in Britain.
Its flexibility is highlighted further in part three, in which the authors examine the internal coup followed by a sharp turn away from the pro-European style Atlanticism associated with its founders, such as the academic and historian Brendan Simms, towards a position more in line with the dominant Euro-scepticism of the British right.
It was during this period that the society aligned itself distinctly with illiberal anti-Muslim groups and figures like Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney, who worked previously under Richard Pearl. As the Henry Jackson Society’s Zionist credentials were strengthened, many of its founders were replaced by key people from Just Journalism, a pro-Israel media watchdog.
The society entered a new phase after 2011. It purged some of its less xenophobic staff members and merged with the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC); the latter’s director, Douglas Murray, joined the Henry Jackson Society as an associate director. Its lurch to the right and metamorphosis into a leading proponent of Israel and vilifier of Islam was complete. The society consolidated itself ideologically, matured as an organisation and relocated to Milbank Tower, a building known for housing high-profile political organisations, including the Conservative Party.
Financially secure and ideologically confident, the HJS began to have noticeable influence in Westminster through all-party parliamentary groups: it operated as a secretariat for Homeland Security, for example, and Transatlantic and International Security. This is the subject of discussion in part five of the report, which goes on to detail the frenzied lobbying and lack of transparency in carrying out parliamentary affairs, including the organisation of briefings and seminars.
Part six provides an eye opener about the exponential growth in the group’s funding levels which increased from a few thousand to over a million pounds. The sharp increase in donations in 2010 and 2011 appears to coincide with the period of the Henry Jackson Society’s controversial merger with the CSC, a move that marked a definitive break with the more liberal aspirations of some of the society’s early members.
An examination of known funding sources leads the authors to make two main conclusions. For a start, there has been a large overlap between the funders of the HJS and other pro-Israel groups in recent years. Secondly, the HJS’s largest known donors include a number of prominent backers of the Conservative Party.
The funding sources provide more evidence of the view that Israel and its international supporters are manoeuvring to influence the British democratic process in order to serve Israel’s interests. The pro-Israel lobby has, from 9/11 onwards (and perhaps earlier) wanted to link the pro-Palestine movement to terrorism. Zionist lobbyists want governments like Britain’s to create a regulatory framework that would mean the legal harassment of pro-Palestine activism. This is one of the desired outcomes of a very long game in which the Henry Jackson Society is playing a part.
Spinwatch has again produced a timely report which sheds light on the growing Islamophobia industry on both sides of the Atlantic, one that is also sweeping through Europe. The authors have raised a number of concerns, not least the hijacking of the democratic process on key issues such as foreign policy and Britain’s approach to “radical Islam” and the “war on terror”.
The rise in prejudice, anti-Muslim bigotry and suppression of pro-Palestine activism coincides with the rise of the Henry Jackson Society within the British establishment. In exposing this, if nothing else, Spinwatch has done us all a great service.
Photographer barred from treatment after being shot by Israeli forces
AFP – June 11, 2015
JERUSALEM – Israel has barred a Palestinian photographer allegedly shot in the eye by Israeli forces from entering occupied East Jerusalem for specialist treatment, the injured photographer told AFP on Wednesday.
Nidal Shtayyeh, who works for Chinese news agency Xinhua, was wounded while covering a small demonstration at Huwarra checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Nablus on May 16.
As he was covering the rally, Shtayyeh was hit in the face by a rubber bullet which entered his eye, causing serious damage, he told AFP.
“The march was peaceful and no stones were thrown, no photographers were taking any pictures,” he said, accusing soldiers of firing sound bombs at the photographers without any provocation.
“I raised my camera to my right eye to take a picture, but a soldier shot me in my left eye with his rifle, and the rubber bullet went through my gas mask’s glass eye cover and into my eye.”
An Italian camerawoman was also injured during the same demonstration which came as Palestinians commemorated 67 years since the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when an estimated 760,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
At the time, Israeli forces said at least 100 Palestinians had been throwing stones and petrol bombs, and that the forces had responded with “riot dispersal means.”
Shtayyeh’s injury comes as rights groups criticize Israel for disproportionate use of force against unarmed civilians during such demonstrations.
While crowd control weapons are intended to be non-lethal, many methods used by Israeli forces can cause death, severe injury, and damage to property, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Shtayyeh was rushed to Rafidiya hospital in Nablus for initial treatment but was prescribed specialist help at St John’s eye hospital in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 in a move considered illegal by the international community, and Palestinians living in the West Bank, are often barred by Israel from crossing into the city, which they consider their capital.
As a Palestinian living in the West Bank, Shtayyeh had to apply for an Israeli permit to enter, however Israeli authorities turned down his request.
He tried again two more times — once through the Red Cross and once through a private Israeli lawyer. But both requests were rejected.
A spokesman for the Shin Bet internal security agency did not have an immediate response.
Shtayyeh’s lawyer, Itai Matt, told AFP that his client had been informed it was the Shin Bet preventing his entry, despite his having been granted such permission in the past.
According to Matt, Israeli security services “regularly bar entry to anyone wounded by the army”.
“They even bar entry to wounded children seeking treatment in Jerusalem, because they are worried that anyone wounded will try and take revenge after their treatment,” he said.
Xinhua did not respond to AFP’s requests for a comment on the incident.
Shtayyeh is one of nearly 1,000 Palestinians to be injured by Israeli forces since the start of 2015, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Israeli military courts rarely prosecute members of Israeli forces who cause injury or death . From 2000-2012, only 117 of 2,207 investigations opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division were indicted, about 5% of the total files opened, according to Israeli human rights group Yesh-Din.
Shtayyah’s injury and inability to access treatment comes as groups Foreign Press Association and Reporters Without Borders have alleged that Israeli forces deliberately target press covering demonstrations.
Ma’an staff contributed to this report.
5 Palestinian children have been arrested by Israel every day for the past 48 years
MEMO | June 10, 2015
Data provided by the Israeli military and the UN has revealed that since martial law was imposed on the occupied West Bank in 1967, around 95,000 Palestinian children have been arrested by Israel, an average of more than 5 children per day. Almost 60,000 are believed to have been subjected to some form of physical abuse whilst in detention.
The details were revealed this week in a report submitted by rights group Military Court Watch (MCW) to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Over 300 pages of evidence relating to the treatment of Palestinian children held in Israeli military detention were included in the report.
MCW pointed out that the evidence included details of 200 minors detained by the Israeli military in the West Bank between January 2013 and May 2015. The submission confirmed an earlier finding by UNICEF that “the ill-treatment of children, who come in contact with the military detention system, appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised.”
According to the rights group, this finding is based on recent evidence that shows that intimidation, threats, verbal abuse, physical violence and the denial of basic legal rights are still commonplace within the system. “Based on the evidence, the submission also drew a link between this industrial scale abuse and the maintenance of Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” added MCW. “It concluded that in order to enable 370,000 Israeli settlers to live in the West Bank in violation of international law without serious interference, the military is required to adopt a strategy of mass intimidation and collective punishment.”
Israeli forces shoot, kill Palestinian in Jenin camp
Ma’an – June 10, 2015
JENIN – Israeli forces shot dead a young Palestinian man in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank early Wednesday morning, Palestinian security officials say.
Izz al-Din Walid Bani Gharra, 21, was shot in the chest during clashes with Israeli forces who raided the camp at dawn. He was evacuated to the public hospital in Jenin where he died shortly after, sources told Ma’an.
Israeli police, in a statement on the incident, said a border police force was in the refugee camp to carry out arrests.
“Upon leaving the camp, the force identified a suspect trying to throw an explosive device at them,” it said.
One of the border police shot him and wounded him, the statement said, adding that the device probably exploded near the suspect.
In an online statement attributed to the Jenin branch of Hamas, the group appeared to claim Ghora as a member.
“Hamas bids farewell to its heroic martyr… and urges the Palestinian Authority and its security forces to stop their security coordination” with Israel, it said, referring to an unpopular agreement under the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords.
Gharra is the twelfth Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza since the start of 2015, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with over 900 injured, not including injuries resulting from settler violence.
One Israeli has been killed in the same time period.
Search and arrest raids are regular practice by Israeli forces, who have conducted a weekly average of 86 raids this year, up from 75 a week in 2014, according to a May report by the UN Special Coordinator (UNSCO).
Such raids often result in what rights groups argue is excessive use of force by Israeli soldiers against locals, who often throw rocks and bottles at the forces.
Since 2000, Israeli security forces have killed over 8,896 Palestinians, over 1,900 of whom have been children, according to rights group Defense for Children International.
Criminalizing Criticism: A Zionist Project
By Lawrence Davidson – To The Point Analyses – June 10, 2015
Part I – Some Historical Background
From the 1920s on into the 1990s, the Zionists controlled the storyline in the West on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This meant that their version of history was the only version as far as most of the people in the West were concerned. Consequentially, they had an uncontested media field to label the Palestinians and their supporters as “terrorists” – the charge of anti-Semitism was not yet widely used. Also, as a consequence of their monopoly, the Zionists did not bother to engage in public debate.
Then, over the last twenty years the Zionists slowly lost their monopoly. In part this was due to the fact that in 1993 the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist and renounced terrorism, and in the following years many of the Arab states made or offered peace. However, the Israelis did not respond in kind. In particular they failed to respond in a fair and just way to U.S.-sponsored peace efforts. Why so?
The answer to why the Israelis did not, in good faith, take up multiple historic opportunities to make peace with the Palestinians lies in the very nature of the Zionist movement. From its beginning, and certainly from the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionism has been driven by dreams of colonial expansion and religious exclusiveness. Each of these goals is seen as part of Zionism’s God-given mission, and they still prevail. Professor David Schulman of Hebrew University, writing in the New York Review of Books (23 April 2015), describes the consequences of this situation, “the Israeli electorate is still dominated by hyper-nationalist, in some cases proto-fascist, figures. It is no way inclined to make peace. It has given a clear mandate for policies … that will further deepen Israel’s colonial venture.” As a consequence, Israel’s credibility with an increasing number of people in the West has eroded.
This erosion led to a relatively short period of time in the early 2000s when the Zionists attempted to counter the situation by engaging with their critics in public debate. However, the majority of time they lost. Israel’s barbarous behavior on the ground, combined with the fact that their historical version of events was shown to be full of holes, condemned them to an increasingly weak defensive position. This proved to be intolerable to the Zionists, so they withdrew from the debating field. And, as they did, they began to level charges of anti-Semitism against their critics, even those who are Jewish. These accusations of the worst sort of racism have been with us ever since – which is really ironic because much of what Israel is being criticized for is its own racist, apartheid nature.
This was an important change in tactics for Israel because it opened the way to misusing Western laws to Israel’s advantage. Just as the charge of terrorism has often been misused in a broad and sweeping manner (for instance, leveled against non-violent supporters of Palestinian charitable organizations), so the charge of anti-Semitism can potentially be used in an almost unlimited fashion by over-aggressive, pro-Zionist Western prosecutors against any critic of Israeli behavior.
Part II – The Boycott Movement
In the West, much of the organized criticism of Israel now comes from campaigns aimed at promoting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) of the Zionist state. So robust has the BDS movement grown that Gilad Erdan, Israel’s newly appointed Minister of Public Security, Strategic Affairs, and Public Diplomacy, has described it as one of the most “urgent issues” facing Israel. Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, has described the developing academic boycott, just one part of BDS, as a “strategic threat of the first order.”
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken it upon himself to set the tone of Israel’s counter-attack on BDS. He has declared that there is an “international campaign to blacken Israel’s name” and he alleges that it is not motivated by Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians but rather seeks to “delegitimize Israel … and deny our very right to live here.” In other words, he is claiming that present criticism of Israel is really an attack on its existence, and not on its behavior. For Netanyahu this has to be a form of anti-Semitism. As Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO executive committee, describes Netanyahu’s argument, “If you criticize me you are anti-Semitic … . If you accept any kind of punitive measure or sanctions against Israel, you want to destroy Israel.” That is how the prime minister avoids confronting the facts.
As bad as this is, it gets even worse. Declaring the goal of BDS to be the elimination of Israel allows the Zionists to use their influence with Western legislators to make cooperation with the boycott subject to penalties. In the United States, AIPAC, the most powerful of the Zionist lobbies, is working on legislation similar to that used against Iran and also the Arab boycott of Israel in the 1970s. This legislation would penalize businesses, both at home and abroad, that favorably respond to calls for boycott. If this works we can expect the Zionists to go further and try to subvert the U.S. Constitution’s free speech provisions and then go after individuals as well as businesses. In this regard, efforts are also under way in Canada and France.
Part III – Money Magic
Finally, there is the assumption that money can destroy Israel’s critics. This is a special belief of Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and enthusiastic backer of Netanyahu. Adelson has taken aim at activity critical of Israel on U.S. college campuses. In the first week of June 2015, he and his supporters convened a “Campus Maccabees Summit,” the purpose of which was “to develop the conceptual framework for the anti-BDS action plan [on college campuses], assign roles and responsibilities to pro-Israel organizations, and create the appropriate command-and-control system to implement it.” Fifty activist Zionist organizations attended the conference, as did twenty donors, each of whom pledged one million dollars to the cause over the next two years.
Part IV – Conclusion
Prime Minister Netanyahu personifies the problem with Zionist thinking. He is wholly self-centered and seemingly incapable of recognizing, much less taking responsibility for, Israel’s racist behavior. Thus, with the Zionists having spent the last 100 years planning and then actually doing what was needed to deny as many non-Jews as possible the “very right to live in” Palestine, Netanyahu now accuses others of doing the same thing to him and his kin – and labels it a criminal act.
The truth is that most Western critics, including supporters of BDS, are not trying to kick the Jews out of Israel. They are trying to bring maximum pressure on the Israeli government to stop kicking non-Jews out, to stop territorial expansion in violation of international law, and to start acting like the democratic state it so questionably claims to be.
Speaking strictly for myself, I don’t believe any of these goals are possible unless Zionism is in fact kicked out of what is now Israel. That is, the ideology that drives Israeli racism and colonial expansion must be done away with, in the same way that apartheid was brought down in South Africa. That did not result in South Africa being destroyed or all white South Africans being deported. But it did result in a democracy being imported. The same scenario is necessary for Israel.
No doubt many Israelis and their supporters would equate this goal of extirpating Zionism with promoting another Holocaust. This is not so, but they are scared enough to label the effort of bringing a real democracy to Israel as anti-Semitic, and to try to get it declared illegal in the West.
Finally, besides the public outcry over anti-Semitism, the Zionists are working behind closed doors – the closed doors of American state and federal legislatures and university board rooms – where they do not have to face serious debate. This might prove the most dangerous of their maneuvers. For behind closed doors the Zionist monopoly resurfaces and truth is all the easier to suppress.
A court of non-convictions for Israeli felons
By Yossi Gurvitz | Yesh Din | June 8, 2015
Does everyone get his or her day in court? Not if they are Palestinian.
Every year Yesh Din publishes data about police investigative failures regarding offenses carried out by Israelis towards Palestinians in the West Bank. They are usually quite similar: the police fail to investigate approximately 85 percent of complaints of Palestinians who report being harmed by Israelis. The rate becomes much higher when it comes to the destruction of Palestinian trees by Israeli civilians: then the police failure rate grows to 97.4 percent.
The average Israeli may not be surprised that the police failure rates are so high, but he or she still has some expectations of the courts. After all, we are told time and again that Israel is governed by the rule of law.
Okay, says the average citizen to himself, yes, we seem to have a problem when it comes to investigations, and naturally if the investigation is a mess we are not likely to get to court. But once we step into the halls of justice, everything should be fine.
Or not.
Our latest data sheet, which was released in tandem with an exhaustive report on the failure of law enforcement in the West Bank, examines for the first time what happens to the cases we follow once they leave the limbo of the prosecution and make it to court. The situation, to put it mildly, is not “okay.”
To begin with, the chance that a complaint by a Palestinian victim will bloom into a an indictment against an Israeli felon stands at a mere 7.4 percent. This means that the chances an Israeli felon will appear in court for a crime he is suspected of committing is about 1:14. Most often, cases are closed due to police investigative failures; in a majority of the cases, the specific reason is the inability of the police to find a suspect – what is known as the the unknown perpetrator clause.
The fact that a case makes it to court does not, of course, mean it will end in a conviction. The defendants have the right to representation and have access to attorneys — as a human rights organization we entirely support this. The problem lies elsewhere.
In 10.5 percent of the cases, the defendants are convicted of all charges; in 22.8 percent of the cases, only some of the defendants are convicted, or they are convicted of some of the charges – sometimes reduced charges as part of a plea bargain. The rate of acquittals is high relative to other cases in Israeli courts (8.8 percent). But what is truly high is the rate of “non-conviction” (24.6 percent) and the rate of indictment withdrawal (22.8 percent).
What is a non-conviction? It is a relatively rare practice, in which the court believes there is reason to avoid tarring him/her with a criminal conviction for one reason or another — despite the fact that the felon has been found guilt of the charges. This almost never happens in the Israeli courts: the percentage of defendants in the magistrates courts found guilty without conviction is 5.3 percent; in district courts the number stands at only 1.2% percent. This is true unless the victim is a Palestinian; then the rare of non-conviction jumps to 24.6 percent. That’s four times that of magistrates courts, and almost 20 times that of the district courts. What a coincidence.
In many of the cases in which indictments against Israelis charged with harming Palestinians were withdrawn, the reason was, once again, investigative failure. The prosecution re-examined the evidence, apparently after the response of the defendants’ attorneys, and reached the conclusion that it did not have enough evidence for a conviction. And that, we note, is a perfectly legitimate decision.
But in many of the indictment withdrawal cases, one of the reasons given was that the defendants did not even bother to show up for the hearings. In most of the cases the government took the required steps – a fine, issuing warrants for arrest and subpoenas – but the indictments were frozen until the defendant was found. In one of the cases, the prolonged freezing caused the police prosecution to say that the evidence has been degraded, to the point of cancelling the indictment.
At the end of the day, the chance that a Palestinian who lodged a complaint about being harmed by an Israeli civilian will see a conviction is only 1.9 percent. Again, most of the blame for this lies with the police – but the courts have their share, as seen by the unusual rate of non-conviction.
Rule of law? Rule of the violent.
CIA chief pays secret visit to Israel over Iran N-talks: Report
Press TV – June 9, 2015
Director of the US spy agency CIA John Brennan has reportedly made a secret visit to Israel to brief the regime’s officials over the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 states.
Brennan traveled to Israel on June 4 and met with high-ranking Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and one of his advisers Yossi Cohen, to discuss the developments in the talks between Iran and the six world powers, Haaretz quoted two senior Israeli officials as saying on Tuesday.
The officials, who asked not to be named, said the CIA chief also held meetings with the head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad Tamir Pardo and the regime’s military intelligence chief Major General Herzl Halevi.
It is unclear whether Brennan conveyed a message from US President Barack Obama to Netanyahu about a possible comprehensive agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.
The CIA has not yet commented on the report of Brennan’s trip.
Diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a final agreement over Iran’s nuclear program have drawn angry reactions from Israel. The Tel Aviv regime has been lobbying intensely to thwart such a deal.
Brennan’s visit to Israel came at a sensitive juncture, less than a month ahead of the June 30 deadline set by Tehran and its negotiating sides to finalize a deal, which seeks to end the Western dispute over Tehran’s nuclear case.
A few days before his visit to Israel, Brennan told the US-based CBS network that Washington and Tel Aviv are closely cooperating on the issue of Iran’s nuclear negotiations.
“The CIA, NSA (the US National Security Agency) and other intelligence community entities are working very close with their Israeli … counterparts” regarding the talks, Brennan said.
Iran and the P5+1 states– Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany — have been working on the text of the final deal since they reached mutual understanding on key parameters of such an accord in the Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2.
Saban joins Adelson to oppose Israel’s boycott
Press TV – June 7, 2015
Israeli-American tycoons Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson have vowed to punish those who boycott Israel, focusing their attacks first on US campuses.
The campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel over its apartheid policies toward the Palestinians has gained momentum globally in recent months.
This week, the French telecommunications giant Orange announced to withdraw its brand from the Israeli market.
In response, media mogul Haim Saban vowed on Saturday to fight back so forcefully against Orange that any other company thinking of boycotting Israel would reconsider it.
The French telecom giant Orange announced June 4 that it would terminate its relationship with its Israeli affiliate, Partner Communications. (Getty Images)
“We do have an anti-Semitic [sic] tsunami that’s coming at us,” said Saban of the international campaign to boycott and isolate Israel.
He said Israeli lobbies will create a climate that forces any business group considering boycotting Israel to revise its strategy.
Saban was speaking in a joint interview with the billionaire Sheldon Adelson on an Israeli television channel.
Adelson, for his part, added that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions global campaign and the increasingly popular anti-Israeli organizations in the US will be the first targets who’ll meet Israeli punishment.
He said his focus was to reverse the inroads being made by “the BDS… the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations [that] are making a lot of headway on the campuses in the United States.”
He said he would call on Jewish groups in the US to work against decisions taken by student campus groups to boycott Israel.
Israeli supporters in the US have said that the growing international campaign to boycott Israel over its atrocities against the people of Palestine is one of Tel Aviv’s greatest challenges.
The campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel has gained momentum in recent months.
Israel has faced the widening boycott campaign by several European businesses over its illegal settlement activities on the occupied Palestinian land.
Two of Europe’s biggest financial institutions have boycotted transactions with Israeli companies involved in the settlement construction.
The European Union has also blocked all grants and funding to any Israeli entity based in the illegal settlements.
The American Studies Association has also announced a decision to boycott Israeli institutions and academics over the discriminatory treatment of Palestinians.
Israelis are frustrated in the face of the growing boycott campaign. Israeli officials have held several meetings in an attempt to find a strategy to counter the boycotts.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Illusions of Western Virtue: Ursula von der Leyen and Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy
- AIPAC-backed candidates lose New York primaries as voters reject pro-genocide lobby
- The West’s Post-Soviet ‘Democracy’ Playbook
- UK suppressed intel on Sudan genocide to protect UAE ties: Report
- Starmer’s exit exposes dirty secret: UK can’t afford Ukraine War
- Putin Warns the West: Russia Is Ready
- BEN-GVIR: “ALL OF LEBANON MUST BURN” — w/ Mouin Rabbani
- There Are No Budget Constraints In New York City: “Coastal Resiliency” Edition
- The UN’s plan to levy taxes on global trade is a sinister power grab
- Is there a future for the U.S. strategy in the Arctic?
- If Americans Knew
- Israel’s Attacks on Gaza’s Children (Photos)
- ‘His only crime is that he is a Palestinian doctor’
- ‘Killed pursuing her dream’: Gaza girl on her way to school dies in Israeli drone strike
- Unbelievable pressure on Gaza from Israel, “Board of Peace” – Daily Update
- UN: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes by Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- ‘Doctor of the Poor’: Israeli Occupation Arrests Prominent Palestinian Physician
- Search for Your Church (and see if it has been targeted by the Israeli gov’t)
- Mark Levin Flying to Israel as Netanyahu Reportedly Seeks to ‘Leverage’ Levin to Trash Trump’s Iran Deal
- Watch: Zionist Brags about Israel’s Power to Get the World to Do What Israel Wants
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
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