Student-run cafe at Evergreen State College boycotts Israeli products over human rights abuses

Student-Run Cafe at The Evergreen State College Announces Boycott of Israeli Products
The Flaming Eggplant Café joins the global movement for Palestinian Human Rights

Olympia, WA -- On Monday June 4, 2012 The Flaming Eggplant Café, a student worker collective at The Evergreen State College (TESC), formally announced its decision to boycott Israeli goods, becoming the most recent business to join the growing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

According to the Flaming Eggplant’s mission statement, one of the cafe’s goals is to “nourish the local food system by making delicious, healthy, ecologically and socially just food accessible to all.” In its statement of principles, the collective also expresses its commitment to “supporting political participation and direct action to create a just and egalitarian society.” Office Coordinator Cris Papaiacovou said, “We came to a consensus as a collective to support the Palestinian civil society call for BDS because it is directly in line with our mission and statement of principles.” He added, “We are proud to join this non-violent movement to pressure Israel until it ends its human rights violations against Palestinians.”

The BDS movement began in 2005, when over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a call for widespread BDS campaigns against Israel until the country abides by international law and human rights standards. The BDS call has become an international movement, endorsed by renowned figures such as Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, and Angela Davis.

The café’s support of the boycott becomes the latest victory in ongoing student-led activism for Palestinian human rights at TESC. In the Spring of 2010, the student body voted overwhelmingly to support two resolutions, one calling for divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and the other prohibiting the use of Caterpillar Inc. equipment on campus. Rachel Corrie, an Evergreen student, was killed in 2003 by a weaponized Caterpillar bulldozer operated by the Israeli military as she attempted to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home in the Gaza Strip.

“We are incredibly proud of the Flaming Eggplant for taking this stand,” said Elizabeth Moore, a student and TESC Divest! organizer. “Due to the absence of accountability shown by our administration, we as students will continue to take the initiative in promoting a just peace in Palestine and Israel.”

TESC Divest! is a student-led organization in Olympia, Washington working to end Evergreen State College’s complicity in Israel’s abuses of Palestinian human rights through the non-violent tactic of divestment.

The Statement released by the Eggplant collective below:


"

Statement on Boycott of Israeli Products From The Flaming Eggplant

We, The Flaming Eggplant Cafe, have decided to join the call from Palestinian civil society to boycott Israeli products. "These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
       
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;        

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and        

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194." (from the Palestinian Civil Society call for BDS)

Our Mission Statement outlines a commitment to serving socially just food. Israel’s policy of illegal land seizure and destruction on Palestinian lands means purchasing items from Israel is in conflict with our mission.

As a student-run collective with the stated principle of supporting direct action for a just and egalitarian society, and as a café representing the student body at large, we feel it is important to uphold the desire for boycott and divestment as voted for by the students at The Evergreen State College. "

Update : June 5

Wanna learn more about the work and vision of The Flaming Eggplant Cafe? Check out this documentary!

OccupyOakland GA Endorses BDS, Remembers Evergreen Student Rachel Corrie

This is big news.

Via Mondoweiss:

Last Wednesday at the amphitheatre in front of Oakland’s city hall, occupiers endorsed Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel in a 135-to-one vote. Oakland’s occupiers have recently experienced chemical dispersants, and a mass arrest, which took place over the weekend. Among those arrested was Noura Khouri, the Palestinian organizer who initiated the BDS proposal. . .

Khouri, along with co-presenters Basima Sisemore and Deppen Webber, also touched on the use of chemical dispersants by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and the Israeli military. "The same tear gas that is being used on the streets here against you all is being used in Palestine," said Sisemore. And, in fact, a portion of the occupiers at GA had experienced tear gas during the weekend’s "move-in day" actions, a failed attempt to occupy a vacant building. Throughout the march the OPD fired tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, flash-booms, and smoke grenades, on protesters, including children and elderly. One producer of these “non-lethal” weapons is Defense Technology, which is also used by the Israeli military. . .

Evergreen student Rachel Corrie, murdered in 2003 by the Israeli Defense Forces while protecting a house from demolition was counted as an inspiration for the resolution.

However, occupiers did not need much convincing on why BDS should be endorsed. During comments, an occupier named Alessandro said, "I am fully in support of this proposal," continuing, "U.S. imperialism is the biggest oppression in the entire world and Israel is their number one client." This was echoed by another who received an ovation for stating "I am indebted to Rachel Corrie for giving me the courage to stand in solidarity with oppressed people." 

TESC Commencement Speaker Angela Davis Endorses Divestment

This past spring at the 2011 Evergreen State College graduation ceremony, commencement speaker Dr. Angela Davis endorsed efforts by students and alumni at Evergreen to work in resistance to "a 21st century resistance to Israeli apartheid" by pushing for campus divestment. She also made a prominent commendation of Rachel Corrie's legacy on the Evergreen campus.

A full transcript of Dr. Davis' remarks can be found at Works in Progress.

Dr. Angela Davis:

When I accepted the invitation to speak at your commencement, I responded in the affirmative because I wanted to associate myself with a college that has a deeply progressive tradition. I wanted to associate myself with students, faculty and workers who defend the integrity of the environment, its resources, its plants, its human and its non-human animals, and who encourage others to engage in sustainable living practices.

I wanted to associate myself with an institution that continues to defend the spirit and legacy of one of the most prominent members of its community, Rachel Corrie. And I think that each graduating class should take a moment and reflect on her courage her generosity.

And I'm happy to hear that students and faculty on this campus, in the context of a 21st century resistance to Israeli apartheid, are following those who stood up against South African apartheid and are raising the demand for divestment.

This is a burgeoning movement, and you here at the Evergreen State College have the opportunity to provide progressive leadership to the rest of the country. As the anti-South African apartheid campaign was spurred on by those universities that divested early on, Michigan State University, in 1978 I believe, Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin. And of course, eventually virtually every school in the country followed their leadership.

Your education has provided you with tools to recognize that solidarity with progressive Palestinian people is also solidarity with progressive Jewish people in Israel.

And I should point out that I attended a university as an undergraduate which was founded in the same year as the state of Israel, Brandeis University, the majority of whose students were Jewish. And it was there as an undergraduate with my Jewish classmates that I learned how to express solidarity for Palestinian people. I will never forget that.

Remember also that, while everyone now praises Nelson Mandela and expresses joy that the people of South Africa were finally able to defeat apartheid, Mandela was not always recognized as this legendary defender of democracy. In fact, he was represented initially as a pariah, as a terrorist. Amnesty International did not initially support him because of his association with Umkhonto we Sizwe. So I want us to recall that history, to think about it in a complicated way, and to be aware of the important role South Africa is playing in calling for the support of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement.

And I just want to share with you a very moving statement by Archbishop Tutu, who recently sent a message to the mayor of a town in Australia. The city council of that town decided to divest, and received a great deal of criticism as a result.

"Dear Mayor Fiona Byrne of Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia

"We in South Africa, who both suffered under apartheid and defeated it, have the moral right and responsibility to name and shame institutionalized separation, exclusion, and domination by one ethnic group over others. In my own eyes, I have seen how the Palestinians are oppressed, disposed, and exiled. We call on all our Jewish and Israeli sisters and brothers to oppose the Occupation and work for equality, justice, and peace between the river and the sea in the same way that so many South African whites took risk to oppose the crime of Apartheid."

And he concludes by saying, "Sometimes taking a public stand for what is ethical and right brings cost, but social justice on a local or global scale requires faith and courage."

If there is a skill we all need to acquire as we attempt to move forward in the 21st century, it is the ability to identity and act on an awareness of the links and connections across the range of issues we identify as crucial for democratic agendas today.

And so, those of us who call for freedom for Palestine acknowledge the connections between the attacks on the Palestinians in their own country and the racist discourse that relies on unquestioned acceptance of Islamophobia, which in turn is interpreted as necessary for the success of what has been represented as a global war on terror.

Evergreen Student Groups Support CAT Boycott

Several on-campus groups at The Evergreen State College have recently endorsed a democratically student-mandated boycott of all Caterpillar Inc. products on campus, in protest of that corporations complicity in the military occupation of Palestine and the March 2003 murder of Evergreen student Rachel Corrie, by hanging CAT-FREE ZONE posters in their meeting spaces and offices.

Mideast Solidarity Project

Hip Hop Congress

Latin American Solidarity Organization & Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador

Student Art Gallery

Fiber Arts Club

Student-Run Cafe The Flaming Eggplant