Support the Olympia Food Co-op in the latest hearing of the Anti-BDS Lawsuit!

Support the Olympia Food Co-op at the latest hearing in the anti-BDS lawsuit

Come out and show your support for the Olympia Food Co-op at the latest hearing regarding the fees and fines from the lawsuit filed this past year in an unsuccessful attempt to force the store to rescind its historic boycott of Israeli goods.  Supporters of the co-op call for a show of community solidarity at the Thurston County Superior Court this Thursday, July 12th at 8:30 AM.

Despite the fact that their anti-BDS lawsuit was thrown out and declared an illegal attempt to stifle free speech, the plaintiffs in the anti-BDS lawsuit contend that as members of the food co-op, they sued on behalf of the store, and therefore all financial penalties that they accrued in their lawsuit should be paid by the co-op itself.  In addition, the plaintiff’s lawyer has promised to appeal, in an attempt to draw the co-op into a long, drawn out, legal battle that could last years.

The lawsuit against the co-op in Olympia, backed in part by Stand With Us, a national far-right pro-Israel group, and the Israeli Consulate of the Pacific Northwest, is part of a larger campaign to silence debate about Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Please join us to demonstrate our community’s overwhelming support for the co-op’s brave stand for Palestinian human rights and freedom of speech!

Additional information regarding the lawsuit can be found at http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/davis-v-cox and http://www.olympiabds.org/.

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!

Al-Nakba Commemoration on Red Square at Evergreen

 

On Wednesday, May 15 2012, Evergreen students continued their custom of commemorating Al-Nakba by setting up a display on Red Square of placards with the names of Palestinian villages ethnically cleansed in 1948 upon the establishment of the state of Israel. Members of TESC Divest! handed out fact sheets about the Nakba by Jewish Voice for Peace and spoke with students, faculty, and staff who wanted to learn more about this historic injustice.

In addition, a Nakba memorial developed by the Israeli NGO Zochrot ("Remembering") was displayed in the library, displaying the names of destroyed villages as well as an account of the violent police repression and violence suffered by Israeli Jews who dare to publicly memorialize the Palestinian Nakba in Israel. For more information about Zochrot, visit http://www.zochrot.org/en

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05/15/12: Bekah Wolf - "Living Under Apartheid" at Evergreen

Bekah Wolf of the Palestine Solidarity Project - "Living Under Apartheid"

•  Tuesday, May 15, 2012 

  12:00pm until 1:30pm
• The Evergreen State College
  2700 Evergreen Parkway NW, Olympia, WA 98505

  Lecture Hall 5

  Join us to hear Israeli Palestine Solidarity Activist Bekah Wolf speak about her family's experience in the occupied West Bank, and about the ongoing struggle to free Palestinian political prisoners! 

  Bekah Wolf is a Jewish-American originally from Santa Fe, NM who was an active member of her local synagogue growing up and first visited Palestine as part of a Zionist youth trip in 1998. She became active around Arab, Muslim, and South Asian immigrant rights in New York City particularly in the direct aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. As part of a delegation of Jews Against the Occupation, Bekah returned to Palestine as an volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement from 2003-2004.
  
  In the summer of 2006 she and her now-husband, former political prisoner Mousa Abu Maria, began the Palestine Solidarity Project. Bekah has been arrested over a dozen times in Palestine, lived through the administrative detention of her fiance (whom she married while he was in jail), and has witnessed much of the ongoing military and settler activity throughout the southern West Bank for the last 5 years.
  
  In 2010 Bekah gave birth to her daughter, Rafeef Abu Maria, who travels with her on most speaking events. Although Bekah has Israeli citizenship, because of Israel's laws against Family Reunification Bekah's husband is not allowed to live with his family inside Israel. Since the birth of Rafeef, Bekah splits her time between the United States and Palestine.
  
  This event will be held in Lecture Hall 5, at 12pm on Tuesday, May 15th. It is sponsored by the Mideast Solidarity Project, TESC Divest!, the Reinterpreting Liberation program, and the Resistance and Social Change program. 
  

PNW MEChA Conference Endorses BDS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 
M.E.Ch.A. de Evergreen Press Contact: tescmecha@yahoo.com
TESC Divest! Press Contact: info@tescdivest.org
 
Pacific Northwest MEChA Regional Conference Endorses Palestinian BDS Call

Olympia, WA - April 23, 2012 - At the 2012 Pacific Northwest Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán (MEChA) Regional Conference, chapter leaders voted to endorse the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions aimed at forcing Israel to meet its obligations under international law.  The Pacific Northwest MEChA Conference’s endorsement follows an endorsement made at the 2012 National MEChA Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona. This announcement came on a day that commemorated Cesar Chavez Day and Palestinian Land Day, linking the two liberation struggles against discrimination and oppression.

The Regional Conference was hosted by the Evergreen State College MEChA chapter. Evergreen State College has recently been an epicenter of Palestine solidarity. In 2010, students voted overwhelmingly for divestment from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation, such as Caterpillar, Inc. Caterpillar has been the focus of calls for boycott at Evergreen since the death of Evergreen student Rachel Corrie in Gaza. Corrie was crushed under a Caterpillar D9 weaponized bulldozer operated by the Israeli military as she attempted to non-violently prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. More recently TESC Divest! launched the We Divest! campaign to pressure investment giant TIAA-CREF to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation, including Caterpillar and Elbit Systems.

MEChA de Evergreen stated that “As a chapter, we endorse and support the global call for BDS... We recognize that our peoples’ historical and present struggles - against deportation, occupation, exploitation, and dehumanization - in Arizona, in the border, and in the United States - not only coincide, but are also connected to Palestinians’ struggle against Israeli military occupation and settlement of Palestine. Elbit, the company that provides surveillance equipment on Israel’s illegal apartheid wall in the West Bank, was also contracted by the U.S. government to perform the same services for the 700-mile militarized Mexico-U.S. border. This is why we believe it is important to build cross-movements between all indigenous peoples’ historical and continuing struggles against colonization, dehumanization, and cultural imperialism.”


TESC Divest! member Austin Nolen also drew a parallel between the Palestinian struggle and indigenous struggles in the Americas, noting that “Companies that TIAA-CREF invests in, like Elbit Systems, profit from the annexation of indigenous lands not only in Palestine, but here as well. TIAA-CREF, which handles the retirement funds of Evergreen faculty, should not force educators to build their futures upon these oppressive structures.”


MEChA de Evergreen members expressed hope that their chapter and Palestine solidarity groups could work closely on future campaigns. MEChA chapter members were present at the national conference’s BDS endorsement, which led them to engage in actions at a local level as well. MEChA de Evergreen invited TESC Divest! members to take part in a teach-in connecting the BDS movement to the struggle against the ethnic studies ban in Tucson, AZ and to the labor struggles of Darigold workers at Ruby Ridge farm in Eastern Washington. MEChA de Evergreen took the initiative as a chapter to support BDS as a region and urge their fellow MEChistas across the nation to do the same.  

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MEChA de Evergreen (Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán) is a student organization that strives to expand the definition of Chicanismo to encompass the struggle of not only Mexican- Americans but of those who relate to la causa regardless of nationality. For more information, email tescmecha@yahoo.com.

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. For more information about TESC Divest!, visit www.tescdivest.blogspot.com or email info@tescdivest.org.

GazaOnMyMind and Introducing TESC Divest! T-Shirts!

Tonight was the The Rachel Corrie Foundation's Gaza On My Mind event to honor the life, work, and memory of Rachel on the date of her murder in 2003. TESC Divest! was proud to sponsor the event alongside other amazing organizations BRICK, KAOS, and Shangri-La Intentional Community.

Speakers included Craig and Cindy Corrie, Emmet Whitaker of Corvallis, Oregon, member of Gaza Exchange, Kit Kittredge, passenger on the most recent Free Gaza Flotilla, and musical performances by Richard Lopez.

TESC Divest! also used the occaision to debut our new shirts!

It was an amazing night full of dancing, amazing food, camaraderie, and incredible sense of excitement and solidarity!

IAW@Evergreen: Students Call for TIAA-CREF to Divest from Occupation!

On Wednesday, February 29th, students at The Evergreen State College stood in unity with Israeli Apartheid Week 2012.

Students stood on Red Square during the lunch hour, holding books about the the Occupied Territories and Palestinian history, blindfolded by the images of the US and Israeli flags. The vigil was called to symbolize the obstacles to education faced by Palestinian students because of the US-funded Israeli military occupation of Palestine.

 

Greeners also worked to bring attention to the complicity of investment firm TIAA-CREF in human rights abuses committed against Palestinians. Using the vigil as a launching pad, students affiliated with TESC Divest! collected signatures on a petition calling on TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that profit from the occupation. 

The students were "branded" with the logos of war-profiteers that TIAA-CREF invests in, such as Elbit Systems which maintains surveillance systems along the Apartheid wall, Motorola which maintains checkpoints, and Northrop Grumman whose missles were used to attack civilians during Operation Cast Lead, Israelis 2008-09 military offensive in Gaza which left 1,400 non-combatants dead, and Caterpillar, whose D9 weaponized bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian homes and were used in the 2003 murder of Evergreen senior Rachel Corrie.

TIAA-CREF, which handles the retirement funds for thousands of teachers and college professors across the country, also handles the pension funds for Evergreen faculty. Evergreen professor Larry Mosqueda, a former teacher of Rachel Corrie's, has noted in a TESC Divest video that "Just as South Africa was an apartheid state, Israel is an apartheid state and the people of Palestine shouldn't be exploited anymore." Faculty like Mosqueda, however, are not permitted to invest their pensions in Occupation-free accounts through TIAA-CREF--even through so-called "Socially Responsible" accounts.

The protestors also advertised a screening of "Slingshot Hip Hop", to be screened on campus tomorrow, Thursday, March 1st as part of Israeli Apartheid Week at Evergreen. The documentary is advertised as "the acclaimed film about several Palestinian rap groups in Israel and the Occupied Territories, which follows the struggles these young people face in connecting with each other across Israel's apartheid wall in the West Bank and siege of the Gaza Strip."

More pictures at the TESC Divest! flickr

Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 at TESC!

Israeli Apartheid Week will be happening in Olympia for the first time in 2012!

This tradition was started in 2005 at the University of Toronto, Canada, and is now marked in cities across the globe.

The Week aims to draw attention to Israel's discriminatory policies aga inst the Palestinian people in all forms: the racist military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the unequal civil rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the refusal on the part of the Israeli government to recognize the right of return of Palestinian refufees at the same time as it allows any Jewish person from anywhere in the world to become an Israeli citizen.

Film Screening: Slingshot Hip-Hop

Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 4:00 - 6:00 PM

 The Evergreen State College

Lecture Hall 5

As part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2012, TESC Divest!, The Mideast Solidary Project and Hip-Hop Congress Present Slingshot Hip-Hop, the acclaimed film about several Palestinian rap groups in Israel and the Occupied Territories, which follows the struggles these young people face in connecting with each other across Israel's apartheid wall in the West Bank and siege of the Gaza Strip. The film won the Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, among various other awards, and has made the facts of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict known to a wide new audience.

The film will be shown at The Evergreen State College, in Lecture Hall 5, at 4:00 pm on Thursday, March 1st, and will be followed by a short audience discussion.

Evergreen Bike Shop for CATerpillar Boycott!

The Evergreen State College Bike Shop was spotted with the increasingly ubiquitous CAT-FREE ZONE poster!

TESC WRC for a CAT Boycott!

Evergreen State College's Women's Resource Center supports the 2010 student body vote to Boycott CATerpillar!

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