Graduate Students at Carleton University Vote to Divest from Occupation!

Amazing, Amazing to hear this.

Carleton is the second university in the world, after The Evergreen State College, to have a student body-wide resolution for divestment pass by a landslide!

We at TESC Divest! are excited to welcome Carleton to the growing club of campuses whose student body are saying NO! to subsidizing occupation and apartheid!

From Students Against Israeli Apartheid - Carleton:

Grad Students Vote to Divest from Israeli Occupation

On March 21st and 22nd, graduate students at Carleton University overwhelmingly voiced their support for the Palestinian people, by voting for the university’s pension fund to divest from four companies that are complicit in the occupation of Palestine. With the vote taking place through a referendum question, all graduate students had the power to make their voices heard, and in the end, over 72% took a principled stance, by voting for Carleton to stand on the side of justice, equality, and accountability.

The referendum question asked students to support Carleton adopting a binding Socially Responsible Investment policy that would require the university to divest from companies complicit in illegal military occupations and other violations of international law, including, but not limited to: BAE Systems, Motorola, Northrop-Grumman, and Tesco Supermarkets. These companies are directly engaged in the subjugation of the indigenous peoples of Palestine, complicit in an illegal military occupation and an apartheid system that operates contrary to the letter and spirit of international law.

In 2008, Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), the group that spearheaded the referendum campaign, was formed at Carleton University. SAIA came together in response to the July 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and recognizes the indigenous Palestinian people's inalienable right to self determination.

The idea of international human rights was a Western-liberal project launched following the atrocities of World War II; the advancement and defense of it has historically been contingent on social and political movements, particularly the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles that liberated millions from dire and oppressive conditions in the twentieth century. Where nation states have stood by, idle, mute, and therefore complicit, civil society has stepped into the void, and has spoken strongly in favour of the oppressed.

Now, graduate students at Carleton have voted yes to divestment, and in through this referendum victory – which needs to be formally ratified by the Graduate Student Association council in April – they have said no to lending their tuition and image, as an academic body, to the normalization of military occupation, further entrenched via abhorrent systematic discrimination and other violations of international law. This marks the first time in the world that a referendum question on divestment has passed on a university campus, and it is one of many results of nearly four years of intensive campaigning by SAIA. The graduate students' will to divest adds further strength to SAIA's growing divestment campaign, which consists of 2500+ petition signatories and the endorsements of over 25 student clubs, academic workers’ unions, and university service centres in an expanding student movement across campus.

Although Carleton's administration has shown little interest in divesting from the aforementioned companies or in adopting a binding mechanism to prevent unethical investments in companies that violate international law, students have spoken out and grad students have voted explicitly in favor of divestment.

A university is an academic institution comprised of a student body; its financial structure is rooted in enrollment and tuition fees. As such, this administration is accountable to the student body, and we do not support profiting at the blatant expense of human rights. In 1988, the Carleton Anti-Apartheid Action Group forced the university to divest from South African apartheid. We did not stand for South Africa's apartheid system back then; we will not stand for Israel's now. We salute Carleton’s grad students for once again standing on the rights side of history!

The Electronic Intifada notes:

Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at Carleton University hailed the result as a major milestone for their campaign in a statement posted online:

it is one of many results of nearly four years of intensive campaigning by SAIA. The graduate students’ will to divest adds further strength to SAIA’s growing divestment campaign, which consists of 2500+ petition signatories and the endorsements of over 25 student clubs, academic workers’ unions, and university service centres in an expanding student movement across campus.

The statement also said it was a world first however that distinction belongs to Evergreen State College, whose students passed divestment resolutions in a June 2010 referendum. Nonetheless, the Carleton vote is almost certainly the first such result in Canada.

The statement noted that SAIA was formed in 2008 in response to the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. SAIA is working to get the Carleton University administration to divest the institution’s pension funds from firms complicit in Israeli occupation and human rights abuses.

The Carleton vote is a another milestone in divestment activist in Canada. In February the University of Regina Student Union passed a resolution supporting divestment

.. . .

A video released by Carleton SAIA campaigning for divestment explains that an ethical divestment policy will be beneficial not only for Palestinians, but to oppose other human rights abuses around the world.

However, the SAIA statement, noted:

Although Carleton’s administration has shown little interest in divesting from the aforementioned companies or in adopting a binding mechanism to prevent unethical investments in companies that violate international law, students have spoken out and grad students have voted explicitly in favor of divestment.

In 1988, according to the statement, “the Carleton Anti-Apartheid Action Group forced the university to divest from South African apartheid.”

Seattle LGBT Commission Cancels Pinkwashing Event

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 Seattle LGBT Commission Cancels “Pinkwashing” Event Sponsored by Israeli Consulate – Events in Olympia and Tacoma Also Canceled

[16 March 2012] The Seattle LGBT Commission has voted to cancel an upcoming event being sponsored by the Israeli Consulate and right-wing Israel advocacy group Stand With Us. The event, scheduled for March 16th at Seattle City Hall, is part of a west coast tour designed to build ties between the Israeli government and LGBT communities. These connections are forged largely in an attempt to distract from Israel’s ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine. The practice is otherwise known as “Pinkwashing.”

According to Nada Elia of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, “Pinkwashing is part of ‘Brand Israel,’ an Israeli governmental public relations campaign. This initiative seeks to distract from Israel’s violations of international law and the inalienable human rights of the Palestinians by touting itself as a haven of human rights for LGBTQ people.”

The decision to cancel the event was reached after testimony presented by Palestinian and Jewish LGBTQ community members who were concerned that the Commission chose to align itself with the Israeli government. "The city of Seattle prides itself as holding anti-racism and social justice principles in its mission, and tonight the commission affirmed those values," said Selma al Aswad, a Palestinian-American and LGBTQ rights activist.

The LGBT Commission joins the Oasis and Rainbow Centers of Tacoma and Kitzel’s Delicatessen in Olympia in canceling events scheduled for this week. The events were co-sponsored by Stand With Us, a right-wing Israel advocacy group that is often criticized for anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiments within its official publications and outreach material.

Elizabeth Moore, member of the Olympia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, stated, “Stand With Us has been behind many attacks within our community, including aiding in the lawsuit against the Olympia Food Co-op. We will not allow them to continue to intimidate and divide our community, and we will not support events that aim to normalize Israel’s occupation of Palestine.”

The organizing around these events was led by a broad array of local activists and organizations throughout the Puget Sound, including local Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapters. JVP is the largest national Jewish organization that provides a voice for Jews and allies who believe that peace in the Middle East will be achieved through justice and full equality for both Palestinians and Israelis. With offices in New York and California, 100,000 online activists, chapters across the country and an Advisory Board comprised of numerous prominent Jewish thinkers and artists, JVP supports nonviolent efforts here and in Israel-Palestine to end Israel’s Occupation, expand human and civil rights, and implement a US policy based on international law and democracy. 

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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!

SUPER brings Israeli Apartheid Week to UW!

During the week of February 26-March 3, Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER) stood in solidarity with Israeli Apartheid Week. SUPER is a new Registered Student Group at the University of Washington dedicated to raising awareness of Israeli human rights abuses committed against Palestinians and the unequal distribution of rights, resources and and material conditions under which Palestinians suffer.

 

Members of SUPER tabled through most of the week, educating students and faculty about the Israeli Occupation and US and international corporations who profit from it. They highlighted companies such as Hewlett-Packard which produces products that service illegal checkpoints in the West Bank, Caterpillar whose D9 Weaponized Bulldozers demolish the homes of Palestinian civilians and uproot countless olive groves, and Veolia which will contract to operate a segregated Jewish-Only light rail system connecting annexed East Jerusalem with illegal settlements through a network of Apartheid roads.

They tabling was often accompanied by a Radical Marching Band which provided entertain and levity to the campus and drew in students and other passers-by. 

 

The week ended with a talk by Alice Rothschild, author of “Broken Promises, Broken Dreams” Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience" and a founder of American Jews for a Just Peace – Boston.

TESC Divest! looks forward to the exciting events being planned by SUPER-UW and we look forward to working closely with our counterparts in Seattle!

The Rachel Corrie Foundation Presents Gaza on my Mind

Via The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice:

Join Us to Celebrate the Ninth Anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s Stand for Human Rights in Gaza!

Community Potluck, Featured Speakers, Music and Dancing

Friday, March 16, join other community members at “Gaza on My Mind” to mark the ninth anniversary of Rachel Corrie's stand for human rights in Rafah, Gaza. The commemorative event, an annual project of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, will begin at 6:00 p.m. Location: The Eagles Ballroom, 805 4th Avenue E. in downtown Olympia, WA.

Bring a potluck dish to share.
Beverages and Arab sweets for dessert will be provided!
This event is free to the public. Donations are welcome.

Speakers:
Emmet Whitaker of Corvallis, Oregon, member of Gaza Exchange, will speak of his experiences teaching art in Gaza in 2011, and about the children’s art that has been exchanged between children in Gaza and Corvallis.

Kit Kittredge, Washington state resident, will share her experience on the most recent flotilla to Gaza. In a Democracy Now! interview, Kit noted, “I’ve been to Gaza five times in the last three years. ...and the Palestinian people got to my heart...they were basically saying, 'Tell the world what’s going on. The world doesn’t know. We want peace.' And truly, in my five returns there, that is what I’ve seen them working for.”

Rachel Corrie wrote in 2003, "... This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop."

Richard Lopez will play a short live performance and, inspired by Rachel, the evening will close with music and dancing hosted by KAOS Radio’s DJ Sy, host of the “Junglee Hour” Saturdays on KAOS.

The event is co-sponsored by Coffee Strong, BRICK, and Shangri-La Intentional Community.

RSVP for the event here !

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

Olympia Food Co-op wins it's battle for the Right to Boycott!

OFC Supporters standing outside the courtroom.  (Via TESC Divest flickr)

Today at the Thurston County Superior Court, the Olympia Food Co-op won the legal battle to continue it's boycott of Israeli goods as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement! 16 board members of the co-op had been sued by five current and former members of the co-op who attempted to use litigation to force the board to rescind the boycott.

According to a Press Release from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which helped in the OFC's defense:

"In a court hearing last Thursday, lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP argued that the court should grant the defendants’ Special Motion to Strike and dismiss the case because it targeted the constitutional rights of free speech and petition in connection with an issue of public concern.

“We are pleased the Court found this case to be what it is – an attempt to chill free speech on a matter of public concern.  This sends a message to those trying to silence support of Palestinian human rights to think twice before they bring a lawsuit,” said Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights."

Co-op Suppoters rallying in support of OFC

Members of Olympia BDS also released a press release in response to the dismissal of the SLAPP suit:

"Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including several failed candidates for the board of directors, wrote that the coming suit was intended to hamper the Co-op’s ability to participate in the boycott of Israeli goods. The letter, dated May 31, 2011, states in part that “we will bring legal action against you,” and that the execution of the boycott would become “complicated, burdensome, and expensive.” In response, the board of directors reiterated that the proper process for overturning a boycott is a “member-initiated ballot”, and that the opponents of the boycott could put it to a vote of the membership, and Judge McPhee noted that the plaintiffs offered no evidence that they exhausted all manner of challenging boycott.

“The opponents of this boycott have had every opportunity to rescind the boycott using the fair and democratic process laid out in the Co-op bylaws,” says Johan Genberg, a longtime co-op member, adding “[The plaintiffs] wanted to punish the store for speaking out for social justice, but isn’t that exactly what makes the Olympia Food Co-op unique? The store reflects the values of this community.”

Farihan Bushnaq, a Co-op member since 1983 adds “as a Palestinian refugee and a member of the Olympia Co-op I wholeheartedly support the boycott, as a way to save Israel from its own excesses, and to end the continued dehumanization of the Palestinian people under Israeli control.”"

Activists with the Palestine Freedom Project and TESC Divest! who livetweeted during the hearing were present when Judge Thomas McPhee affirmed that in his view the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement indeed constituted a "national movement," regardless of the fact that OFC was the first grocery store in the country to adopt the boycott of Israeli goods. (Electronic Intifada).


According to The Olympian, the attorney to the Plaintiff's, who may have to pay up to $10,000 SLAPP suit penalty for each of the 16 board members targeted in the suit, is looking into an appeal.

Update 7:23pm:

Associated Press report via Seattle P-I (Via the Olympia Food Co-op website)

"[Judge Thomas] McPhee ruled that plaintiffs failed to show that the board acted outside of its authority when it enacted the boycott. He also ruled that the 2010 law was constitutional. He also addressed the plaintiffs' contention in its lawsuit that the boycott was not "nationally recognized," as is required under the co-op's boycott policy.

He said that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement or BDS, which supported the boycott, "is a national movement," The Olympian reported. The group supports boycotts to compel Israel to respect Palestinian rights."

7:32pm:
Blogger Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam : Olympia Food Coop Wins Anti-SLAPP Motion, Court Dismisses StandWithUs Lawsuit

"In this case, the issue was whether the food coop had the right to ban nine Israeli products from its shelves in support of the globalBDS movement.  This action was taken according to coop rules which permitted the board by concensus to approve this measure. The defendants could’ve requested a vote of the. Entire membership to confirm or reject the board’s decision but refused Togo this route.  The plaintiffs ran for the coop board in the next election on a platform that opposed the board’s BDS decision and lost.

Though five coop members sued the coop itself in this case, the plaintiffs were recruited by the right-wing pro-Israel advocacy group, StandWithUs and Israel’s Northwest Consul General, Akiva Tor.  SWU and the MFA also recruited the lawyers representing the anti-BDS group.  Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, told an Israeli TV news show that the government was using such suits in order to pre-empt what he called efforts to delegitimize Israel internationally.  Thus, today’s court victory is a small, but important victory in the battle to bring Israel’s human rights abuses and illegal Occupation to a broader public audience.  It is a defeat for the Israeli government and its NGO allies who seek to sweep such issues under the rug and use lawfare tactics to battle human rights activists."

8:32pm:
Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation posted the news.

Tuesday, February, 28th, 3:12pm
Jewish Voice for Peace hails the news :

"Jewish group hails Olympia Food Coop BDS legal victory
JVP Members play role in successful defense of lawsuit

The Coop victory will resonate far beyond Washington State because it represents a successful blow against a broader pattern of intimidation by advocates for illegal Israeli settlement expansion who use legal mechanisms and boy-who-cried-wolf definitions of anti-Semitism to try to silence free and open debate and obstruct personal choice. A few examples include a lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter for using the word “Apartheid” in his book title about Israel (http://www.thejc.com/united-states/44571/jimmy-carter-sued-israel-apartheid-book) ; lawsuits at UC Berkeley accusing the school of being anti-semitic (http://www.dailycal.org/2012/02/05/amended-complaint-filed-in-lawsuit-alleging-anti-semitism/ ), and the use of new civil rights legislation changes to make multiple complaints of anti-Semitism http://www.forward.com/articles/149618/ ).

Jewish Voice for Peace and National Lawyer's Guild member attorney Barbara Harvey brought in the Center for Constitutional Rights, which won the case, and assisted in the defense. Further, hundreds of Jewish Voice for Peace supporters from Washington State signed an open letter in defense of the boycott. ""