#economic divestment

[igottatho]

Breaking News! UC Davis Breaks from Israel!

Link to video full of cheering HERE.

Original tweet is by user @CocktCapitalism , an anticapitalist podcast “that pairs crafted beverages with stories distilled from our capitalist hellscape.”

I’m looking for more sources to help us understand what UCD is and how divestment works and why this is significant, will add as I find them :)

ETA: some recent info about this protest movement can be found here via the UC campus newspaper “the Daily Bruin”.

ETA 2: Define “Divestment”- “the act of selling off a business or businesses, or of no longer investing money in something: a campaign to encourage divestment from fossil fuels” source

ETA 3: Some relevant Background on UCD’s divestment from Fossil Fuels (and how that hasn’t been perfect) c. 2020 can be found in the Guardian here.

ETA 4: this is hella old (1986) but relevant for how UCD’s divestment impacted the South African apartheid and its subsequent ending, can be found via WaPo here.

Text description beneath cut for the comrades who use it.

A tweet from @CocktCapitalism, which reads:

BREAKING: UC Davis has divested from apartheid Israel. The bill prevents the ASUCD’s $20 mill budget from being spent “on companies complicit in the occupation and genocide.”

This is huge. University divestment efforts played a massive role in ending South African apartheid.”

Two images are included, one is a still of people cheering (link above) and the other a protest poster/ flier which proclaims UCD Has Divested, with red and green Palestinian colors.

#free palestine #palestine #gaza #free gaza #divestment #bds Palestine #a victory #boycott divest sanction #protest #protest works #collective action #collective action works #we will free Palestine #solidarity #background info #definition #history #South Africa #apartheid #economic divestment #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

[hack-saw2004]

HAPPENING NOW: mass arrests at the seder in the street protest outside of sen schumer's apartment continue, there are hundreds of people there, and they aren't budging.

#free palestine #end aid to israel #current events #palestine genocide #let gaza live #west bank under attack #save palestine #bds movement #end the genocide #end the occupation #jewish voice for peace #if not now #jews for racial & economic justice nyc #new york city #boycott divest sanction #from the river to the sea #free palestine in our lifetime

[decolonize-the-left]

DIVEST FROM BANKS FOR PALESTINE

.....Correct me if I'm wrong but allies to Israel would have no money to move around and spend if we and banks have no money to move around for them right?

Even the US treasury needs a way to offer collateral for the billions they give to countries like Israel. Do you know what that collateral has been thus far? Your paycheck. The future paychecks of babies that can't even talk yet. That's how they'll pay all this off.

The government has been giving us the biggest fuck you that they could. Let's return the favor.

"yeah but the banks-"

Have been bailed out every time they've asked for it since I've been alive. They love debt when they aren't the ones paying it. They'll know how heavy the weight of their arms dealing is. There's a reason they have been phasing out paper checks and money- they can't move money they don't have and digital bank accounts can't see the paper money in your drawer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So yes absolutely keep boycotting.

And we should pull all our money out of Major Banks.

It's incredibly accessible for most people who already have a bank account, even if you can't protest or strike. And you don't have to miss any work.

So let's hit em where it hurts.

Banks (from this list of Banks that heavily fw Israel)

Citibank

Bank Julius Baer & Co

Bank Lombard Odier & Co

Banque Pictet & Cia SA

BNP Paribas Israel

CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique S.A.

Dreyfus Sons & Co.

Hyposwiss Private Bank Geneve SA

JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A.

Silicon Valley Bank

Union Bancaire Privee

HSBC

Barclays

BNP Paribas Israel

State Bank of India

Other banks that have supported the genocide

Goldman Sachs

Bank of America

Wells Fargo

Blackrock

AXA

Capital One

RBS

Marks & Spencer

Tesco

Scotia Bank

Bank of Montreal

No, you don't have to cancel your direct deposits (most places in the USA won't even pay you without an account anyway). But you should drain your account ASAP. Don't let the money sit in your bank. Pull it out and use cash for everything you can. Don't put money in the bank unless you need to.

The point is just to keep as much money as you can out of banks for as long as you can.

Yeah it's gonna be harder to order online which may be inconvenient until we readjust but thats good.

It'll be a natural way for the boycotts to evolve.

A lot of fighting in the Red Sea is being done because of how much money the USA, UK, etc have to lose if they can't get their products on time. The Houthis turning ships away cost these countries millions every time. If there are less ships to turn away cuz people aren't ordering stuff from overseas then Good.

Yeah we could have an organized day to do this but...why??? It's accessible, it's free, and the people across the globe experiencing a genocide right now, from north America to Africa to Palestine don't have the luxury of waiting a few months for us to spread the word and organize.

If you see this share it. Copy/paste, repost, retweet, idc. Spread like wildfire pls

#banks #bank bailout #palestine protest #divest #palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #global solidarity #intersectionality #paycheck #working class #capitalism #strike #bank of america #chase bank #barclays #scotia bank #jpmorgan #tesco #economics #stock #stock exchange #stock market #capitalist #direct action #“this would crumble the economy” #that sounds like a good plan then. only bad plans wouldn't effect daily life #bank run #politics #israel #Gaza

[thepeopleinpower]

Ignorance seems soo nice I can see why people would opt for that. Imagine consuming unethically without a care. Imagine living however you want and still be able to sleep at night. Imagine being unfamiliar with the concept of accountability.

#anti genocide #free palestine #boycott divest sanction #jews for palestine #free congo #free drc #free sudan #labor rights #child labor #slave labor #ethically sourced #accountability #consumerism #late stage capitalism #economic justice #intersectional social justice #intersectional activism #economic reforms #wealth redistribution #environmental justice #israeli occupation #colonialism #colonial violence #boycott disney #boycott starbucks #boycott mcdonalds #grassroots activism #autistic thoughts #social responsibility #environmental responsibility

[reasonsforhope]

Total Fossil Fuel Divestment Surpasses $40 Trillion

Steady growth in the global divestment movement since 2012 has moved waves of money out of reach of fossil fuel industries. By the end of 2022, a total of 1,555 organizations with assets worth over $40 trillion have made commitments to divest--a cumulative sum representing nearly half the world’s annual GDP.

-via Yes! Magazine, 12/27/22

#fossil fuels #divestment #conservation #sustainability #climate action #gdp numbers #economics #investment #good news #hope

[gothhabiba]

Boycotting (and pressuring others to boycott and divest) is a matter of political strategy, not just morality. BDS (through PACBI, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) calls for the boycott of Eurovision because it is, well, a "cultural product" that Israel uses to propagandise its ethnic cleansing ("Eurovision pre-party 'Israel Calling' [saw] the majority of contestants literally covering up the Nakba (catastrophe), by planting trees over the ruins of Palestinian villages that were ethnically cleansed in 1948 by Israeli militias and whose inhabitants were never allowed to return").

BDS is strategic in the case of Israel because of the extent to which the Israeli economy relies on e.g. agricultural and technological exports, the nature of Israel's relationship (including its economic relationship) with e.g. the USA and UK, and the extent to which it seeks to propagandise itself specifically in the West on the basis of its humanity ("making the desert bloom," "the only democracy in the Middle East," &c.).

The boycott is not inspired solely by idiosyncratic moral outrage responses devoid of strategy. To ask "why not boycott Eurovision based on the actions of [country that is not Israel], then?" is to miss this point.

#BDS #Eurovision #Israel

[northern-passage]

Read the full call to action here.

Tomorrow, November 29th, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the #BDS movement is calling for an all day social media storm. Our physical and digital actions can be used together to strengthen our demands: Permanent ceasefire and lifting the siege to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Lawful sanctions on Israel, including a #MilitaryEmbargo. Pressure on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Click here for prepared messages and images to use for the social media storm. Over the last 7 weeks, millions of you have taken to the streets for the largest protests the world has seen in the last 20 years! We are grateful to each one of you who, through your voices and creative actions, have built up unprecedented grassroots power to end Israel’s genocidal war against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Yet, Western governments are continuing to arm, fund and provide political cover for Israel’s genocide. We must act urgently to end all state, corporate and institutional complicity with Israel’s genocidal apartheid regime. Palestinian lives and livelihoods literally depend on it. To this end, and as time has shown, BDS is the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. Tomorrow, we call for escalating worldwide peaceful mobilizations and expressions of meaningful solidarity to stop the genocide including: 1. Whenever feasible, organizing peaceful disruptions, sit-ins, occupations, etc. targeting  policymakers, as well as the corporate enablers of genocide and apartheid (arms manufacturers, investment firms), and institutions (media, universities, cultural spaces, etc.). 2. Disrupting the transport of weapons, or weapon parts, to Israel, including in transit states, by supporting trade unions refusing to handle such shipments, as has been done in Belgium, US, and the Spanish State, and as expressed by trade unions in India, Turkey, Italy and Greece.  3. Pressuring parliaments and governments to cancel existing military contracts and agreements with Israel, as Colombia’s president publicly espoused, and as demanded by the BDS movement in Brazil, a demand supported by civil society and more than 60 parliamentarians in the country. 4. Intensifying all strategic economic boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit corporations, and escalating campaigns to cut all ties to apartheid Israel and its complicit academic and cultural institutions as well as sports teams. Mobilizing your community, trade union, association, church, social network, student government/union, city council, cultural center, or other organization to declare itself an Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ) on November 29th, if it hasn’t already, and organize a solidarity event or action on November 29th. 5. Pressuring your elected officials, where relevant, through direct communication or collective direct action, to demand real pressure on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently prosecute Netanyahu and all other Israeli officials responsible for genocide, apartheid, and war crimes. If not now, when? In solidarity, The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

ABOUT THE BDS MOVEMENT

Cultural boycott guidelines

Economic boycott for consumers

#figured i'd post this after the last one #this is directly copy pasted from the email they sent out including the bolding it's all theirs

[memecucker]

The United Auto Workers, one of the US’s largest labor unions, has come out in support of a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine as a temporary ceasefire ended on Friday with Israel resuming military operations in Gaza.

The UAW is now the largest union to have called for a ceasefire. It represents 400,000 workers in the US and more than 580,000 retired workers.

“I’m proud today to announce that the UAW international has joined the call for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine,” Brandon Mancilla, UAW director, said at a press conference on Friday outside the White House where protesters have been on hunger strike.

“From opposing fascism in WWII to mobilizing against apartheid South Africa and the Contra war, the UAW has consistently stood for justice across the globe. A labor movement that fights for social and economic justice for all workers must always stand against war and for peace.”

“Our international executive board will also be forming a divestment and just transition working group to study the history of Israel and Palestine, our union’s economic ties to the conflict, and explore how we can have a just transition for US workers from war to peace.”

[palms-upturned]

For US unions like the UAW — which has thousands of members in weapons factories making the bombs, missiles, and aircraft used by Israel, as well in university departments doing research linked to the Israeli military — the Palestinian trade union call to action is particularly relevant. When the UAW’s national leadership came out in support of a cease-fire on December 1, they also voted to establish a “Divestment and Just Transition Working Group.” The stated purpose of the working group is to study the UAW’s own economic ties to Israel and explore ways to convert war-related industries to production for peaceful purposes while ensuring a just transition for weapons workers.

Members of UAW Labor for Palestine say they have started making visits to a Colt factory in Connecticut, which holds a contract to supply rifles to the Israeli military, to talk with their fellow union members about Palestine, a cease-fire, and a just transition. They want to see the union’s leadership support such organizing activity.

“If UAW leaders decided to, they could, tomorrow, form a national organizing campaign to educate and mobilize rank-and-file towards the UAW’s own ceasefire and just transition call,” UAW Labor for Palestine members said in a statement. “They could hold weapons shop town halls in every region; they could connect their small cadre of volunteer organizers — like us — to the people we are so keen to organize with; they could even send some of their staff to help with this work.”

On January 21, the membership of UAW Local 551, which represents 4,600 autoworkers at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant (who were part of last year’s historic stand-up strike) endorsed the Palestinian trade unions’ call to not cooperate in the production and transportation of arms for Israel. Ten days later, UAW Locals 2865 and 5810, representing around forty-seven thousand academic workers at the University of California, passed a measure urging the union’s national leaders to ensure that the envisioned Divestment and Just Transition Working Group “has the needed resources to execute its mission, and that Palestinian, Arab and Muslim workers whose communities are disproportionately affected by U.S.-backed wars are well-represented on the committee.”

Members of UAW Locals 2865 and 5810 at UC Santa Cruz’s Astronomy Department have pledged to withhold any labor that supports militarism and to refuse research collaboration with military institutions and arms companies. In December, unionized academic workers from multiple universities formed Researchers Against War (RAW) to expose and cut ties between their research and warfare, and to organize in their labs and departments for more transparency about where the funding for their work comes from and more control over what their labor is used for. RAW, which was formed after a series of discussions by union members first convened by US Labor Against Racism and War last fall, hosted a national teach-in and planning meeting on February 12.

Meanwhile, public sector workers in New York City have begun their own campaign to divest their pension money from Israel. On January 25, rank-and-file members of AFSCME District Council (DC) 37 launched a petition calling on the New York City Employees’ Retirement System to divest the $115 million it holds in Israeli securities. The investments include $30 million in bonds that directly fund the Israeli military and its activities. “As rank-and-file members of DC 37 who contribute to and benefit from the New York City Employees’ Retirement System and care about the lives of working people everywhere, we refuse to support the Israeli government and the corporations that extract profit from the killing of innocent civilians,” the petition states.

In an election year when President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates will depend heavily on organized labor for donations and especially get-out-the-vote efforts, rank and filers are also trying to push their unions to exert leverage on the president by getting him to firmly stand against the ongoing massacre in Gaza. NEA members with Educators for Palestine are calling on their union’s leaders to withdraw their support for Biden’s reelection campaign until he stops “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel,” marching from AFT headquarters to NEA headquarters in Washington, DC on February 10 to assert their demand. Similarly, after the UAW International Executive Board endorsed Biden last month — a decision that sparked intense division within the union — UAW Labor for Palestine is demanding the endorsement be revoked “until [Biden] calls for a permanent ceasefire and stops sending weapons to Israel.”

#palestine #free palestine #labor #union strong #recommend reading the whole article bc as the author points out #us labor has had a long history of collaborating with israel and imperialist projects in general #pressure to stop the genocide is not going to come from union leadership #it’s coming from rank and files who are organizing their own initiatives and putting the heat on their leadership #uaw’s divestment and just transition group is intriguing to me bc it sets a precedent to pressure other machinist unions to follow #and bc part of their efforts involves building solidarity with palestine among rank and files nationwide

[nabulsi]

Today, May 15th 2022, is the 74th Nakba Day. It is a day for rememberance, mourning, and resistance for Palestinians

Non Palestinians, please use this day to be loud about your solidarity with us. Today more than other days please use your platforms and your voices to amplify the voices of Palestinians and condemn Israel on every platform you can... Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Seek out Palestinian journalists and activists who are talking about Israel's crimes. People like Mohammed El Kurd and Muna El Kurd, Eye On Palestine, Abier Khatib, Mariam Barghouti...

Supporting Palestinian journalists and activists is especially vital in the wake of Shireen Abu Akleh's assassination at the hands of the occupation forces just days earlier.

Please check out the BDS website for resources. There are webinars and online rallies and ways you can protest online from your own home. And try to learn more about the different kinds and of boycotts you can take part in, as well as how and why these boycotts are important. The site also has lists of things you can easily boycott including action plans.

(via the BDS website)

DecolonizePalestine is another amazing resource. If you don't know much about the crisis in Palestine, please educate yourself so you can educate others.

If you're able to protest in person, this post wonderfully put together by @soullsword also has information on Nakba Day protests all around the world.

And donate if you can! To organisations like:

Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), which provides emergency medical services for Palestinian children.

United Palestine Appeal (UPA) - an organization supporting Palestinian socio-economic development

If any Palestinians have anything to add, please feel free 💖🇵🇸

#Palestine #nakba day #bds #DecolonizePalestine #boycott israel #free Palestine

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

Over 40 student organizations at Columbia University from the Black Student Organization to Student Worker Solidarity to the Columbia National Lawyers Guild have joined a reinvigorated coalition aimed at urging Columbia to divest all economic and academic stakes in Israel, according to an op-ed signed by the student groups Tuesday.

...

The 40+ student groups were “further moved to action by the ostensibly politically-motivated” suspension of two student groups last week, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, both of which also signed the op-ed.

Columbia University thought they could silence students calling for an end to Israel's genocide of Palestinians by suspending the campus chapters of SJP and JVP.

Instead, their discriminatory action united several dozen other student groups on campus to renew their call to demand solidarity and accountability from their university.

Read their full list of demands HERE and check out the link above for the full list of student orgs who make up the coalition.

#free palestine #ceasefire now #columbia university #students for justice in palestine #jewish voice for peace

[dostoyevsky-official]

There were two central issues at Columbia: the question of divestment and that of university decision-making. The heart of the divestment argument is that money changes things. If economic sanctions against South Africa were pursued with the vigor of, say, the destabilization of the democratically elected government of Allende in Chile, the regime might well be prevented from prosecuting the war in Namibia, and forced into negotiating with the African National Congress. Divestment, as an act of solidarity with the black trade unions and the United Democratic Front in South Africa, can help make South Africa ungovernable. [...] As the Columbia Coalition points out, "IBM is still supplying computers which keep track of blacks under the pass law system, Mobil is still providing oil to the South African military, and all companies are still obliged under the Key Points Act to offer their factories to the military in case of black unrest. " At present, Columbia's investment policy looks more and more like the Reagan administration's "constructive engagement "-which has meant backing IMF loans to South Africa, sending 2,500 electric shock batons to apartheid's police, and encouraging American investment. Indeed the changes that have taken place in South Africa-like the heavily-boycotted "Coloured" and Asian Parliaments-are, as Stanley Greenberg of Yale's Southern Africa Research Program has argued, signs not of the success of "constructive engagement" but of the vulnerability of the apartheid regime. But the Columbia blockade was not only about divestment: since the University Senate had unanimously voted for full divestment, the blockade focused attention on the unaccountability of the university trustees. In the course of the blockade, two visions of the university came into conflict: on the one hand the humanistic ideal of the university as a community, which, if not quite democratic, still recognizes the rights and responsibilities of its several bodies-faculty, students, staff, alumni; and on the other hand, the reality of the university as a real estate corporation, directed by a corporate board, increasingly dependent on corporate monies, and selling a service to student consumers. Students at Columbia became particularly aware of the second Columbia-Columbia Inc.-when the administration bitterly resisted recognizing the clerical union earlier this school year. They have seen it again in the trustee's resistance to the university community's decision for divestment. And during the blockade, the support from community and tenants groups included an education about Columbia as landlord and gentrifier. The various lived experiences of the corporate university was the ground for the reciprocal support between students and clerical workers, and for the two major marches: one from Harlem to Hamilton Hall, the other from Hamilton Hall to Harlem. As Tanaquil Jones of the Coalition said, "We're going to give back to the Harlem community what they've given us."

[...] The Columbia blockade sparked sit-ins, demonstrations and arrests at cam puses across the country: among them, Berkeley, Rutgers, Purchase, Cornell, Princeton, Santa Cruz, and Syracuse. Though each of these has their own history and internal dynamics, and all of them, including Columbia, are part of a larger history of actions against American support for apartheid, the events of April do provoke the question: "why divestment? " The divestment movement has uniquely condensed the unquestioned opposition to the apartheid regime of the mass of students, a focus on a specifically university issue of investment, and, perhaps most strikingly, the possibility of multiracial action, the prefigurative politics of a rainbow coalition.

Michael Denning, Money Changes Everything: The Divestment Bockade at Columbia Inc. (1985)

#1985

[feline17ff]

Free Palestine 🇵🇸🍉

RAISE YOUR VOICE & RB!

____________________________

How to Take Action:

Non-monetary:

INCREDIBLE NEWS FOR USAMERICANS!!!!!!!

Click for UNRWA

Palestine Child Identification Form

Find ways to disrupt under step #3 in this toolkit: bit.ly/StopGazaGenocide

Protest: Find a protest near you at uscpr.org/protests.

Adalah Justice Project: adalahjusticeproject.org

Palestine Writes Literature Festival: palestinewrites.org

Contact your elected representatives to demand a #CeasefireNOW.

Call Congress: uscpr.org/StopArmingIsrael

Email Congress: uscpr.org/GazaEmail

Watch the hearing where Biden was charged with Genocide: bit.ly/PalestinevBiden

Plan an action: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/biden-got-sued-national-day-of-action-for-permanent-ceasefire-now/

Support BDS. Boycott, divestment, and sanctions are tactics to support Palestinian rights by raising economic pressure on Israel and complicit entities.

See the BDS list: https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide

Support the #SpeakUpSMP influencer boycott of St. Martin’s Press: r4a.carrd.co

Support Palestinian authors, illustrators, and publishers.

Monetary assistance:

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund: pcrf.net

Donate to Care For Gaza: https://twitter.com/CareForGaza

Donate eSIMS. While Israel has blocked telecommunications, eSIMS are the only way Palestinians in Gaza can communicate.

Support Books for Palestine. Buy books through the Books for Palestine bookshop, and consider donating to the three organizations Books for Palestine has been fundraising for.

Books for Palestine bookshop: bookshop.org/shop/booksforpalestine

UNRWA

#disruption #kidlit4ceasefire #strike for gaza #strike for palestine #free palestine #palestine #publishing industry #publishing #petition #ceasefire now #global strike

[opencommunion]

"The Israeli government’s creation of the linked property account [between the frozen assets of Iraqi Jews and the stolen property of Palestinians dispossessed in the Nakba] was a singular act — something of a historic milepost—that constructed a zero-sum equation between the Jews of the Arab countries and the Palestinians in Israel. The political theory that underlay the Israeli government’s construc­tion of that equation rested on a system of moral, diplomatic, and economic assumptions that resulted in a practice of nationalization and naturalization that was riddled with contradictions. The government of Israel automatically assumed that the Jewish ethnicity of the Iraqi Jews meant that they harbored a Zionist orientation. It 'endowed' them de facto with that particular form of national identity before they had any intention of immigrating to Israel, and certainly without having obtained their consent. The Foreign Ministry was aware that the Iraqi Jews could not be considered refugees, still less citizens of Israel. The process of nationalizing and naturalizing the Iraqi Jews — while they were still in Iraq — was collective rather than individual. The par­ties in question were not consulted. As Sharett put it, 'I said that we shall not rely on the free choice of the refugees, but that this is a question of an agree­ment between states.' On the basis of this naturalization, the Israeli gov­ernment 'appropriated' the property of all of Iraq’s Jews in order to utilize it — rhetorically, symbolically, and judicially— as state property in every re­spect.

... In 1975, the newly established government-financed pressure group known as the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC) ar­gued that Palestinian refugees should not be allowed back into Israel, since an involuntary population exchange had already taken place in the Middle East. ... WOJAC too held the same attitude as the state toward the property claims of the Iraqi Jews, maintaining that they should be used to enhance the bargaining power of the Israeli gov­ernment, not to support individual claims. The government of Israel has cap­italized on the population exchange argument to deny the rights of the Palestinians to return to Palestine or to claim compensation for their 'lost' property.

... The Jews of Iraq became hostages of—and a fig leaf for —the Israeli gov­ernment in its efforts to divest itself of responsibility for compensating the Palestinian refugees. The conceptual model that guided the Zionist leader­ship vis-a-vis the Jews of Iraq, as with other communities, held that Jewish identity and Zionist identity were one and the same. The national leadership assumed a monopoly over the community and its property, even though nei­ther the one nor the other was located in its territorial domain. ... A condition of the trade-off equation was that the Palestinians' national identity be annulled, and that they be regarded as part of a 'united Arab na­tion' that included Iraq. That approach forged one of the most pungent il­lusions harbored by Israel in its brief history ('There is no Palestinian peo­ple,' as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir used to say). The trade-off equation cynically constructed the interests of Arab Jews and Palestinians as conflicting a priori."

Yehouda Shenhav, The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity (2006)

#palestine #iraq #zionism #colonialism #history #library

[notyourgoodjew]

hi, may I ask what BDS means?

Hi! Of course you may :D

BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It's a movement that promotes boycotting Israeli goods, universities, cultural institutions etc., divesting from companies that provide military supplies to Israel and calling for sanctions in hopes of pressuring the country to meet their demands. Which are to withdraw from the West Bank and remove the barrier, equality for the Arab-Palestinian citizens, right of return for Palestinian refugees etc.

Obligatory warning! I do NOT support the far right Israeli government and its policies (fuck Bibi and his cronies)! I do not see any joy in deaths (both Palestinian and Israeli), I want this war to end as soon as possible, I want peace in the region for everyone!

While their support from Palestinians is high, their tactics had little to no positive effect... in fact it has been quite the opposite, considering the movement has been active for almost two decades...

They have failed to pressure Israel economically, their effect on the economy being negligible, although they have been successful in convincing quite a few unions, and organizations to endorse their cause and pull support of Israel, but due to their boycott of Soda Stream, the company closed their factory in the West Bank, costing a lot of Palestinians their jobs...

So far they've only really been a useful tool for the Israeli right. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Some people see the movement as being very wishy washy I would say. Their definitions are broad to the point that everything Israeli can potentially fall under a boycott. Like hummus, which they allege "provides support for the Israeli military" (I assure you, hummus export is not a significant part of the Israeli economy).

And while they claim to be pro peace and advocating for a two state solution, they unconditionally support anything Palestinians do and rarely if ever condemn terrorism on their part. Which just endorses more violence instead of a dialogue towards peace. Also due to their focus on Israel they single it out as a uniquely oppressive regime (while ignoring other, often worse, atrocities around the world), which while I agree that Israel has done a lot of awful things, it is far from the worst human rights abuses and certainly not unique in its cruelty. Of course it is right to condemn Israel for its wrongdoings, but the movement has been very ineffective so far in the "let's put economic pressure" sense, only demonizing Israel and everything related to it.

They refuse to engage with anything Israeli, including art (and causing several artists to cancel their shows in Israel) and more importantly a part of the movement (specifically the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, or PACBI) has condemned an Israeli-Palestinial grassroots peace organization(!!!) Standing Together (which I highly encourage you check out) which has been doing actual work towards conversation between Israelis and Palestinians with the goal of a Palestinian state and peace, which has condemned the occupation of the territories, which has been protesting despite the police refusing to allow them to (facing arrests and police brutality because of that) and so much more. BDS sees this as "normalization", a "distraction", and "whitewashing" (somehow?), which just reveals that a lot of people in the movement just want Israel gone, not caring about what would happen to its population.

From what I see and where I stand (barely, I'm a cane user, badum tss), BDS is ineffective in achieving its actual goals, however it has successfully divided college campuses and politics both in the US and Europe, inviting even more antisemitism, they are extreme and very narrow minded, accusing American Jews of dual loyalty. Their support of the Boston map being the prime example (which they later distanced themselves from, kinda).

But of course, look into this yourself to make your own opinions. I'm far from an expert and if I've been factually incorrect, please let me know.

#i/p #bds #fuck bds #support standing together #antisemitism #dual loyalty #boston map #tldr i have less than charitable impression of the movement

[gaypornvideoswebsite]

a protester in toronto who dons a spiderman suit and climbs onto various buildings waving a palestinian flag has caused canadian politicians across the entire spectrum to claim that them climbing onto the mt sinai hospital was an act of anti-semitism. they are all using virtually the same verbage.

here’s a shitty CBC article about it

this is a normal and often used route for marches in toronto. politicians who have previously “called” for a ceasefire are now being wilfully ignorant about what anti-semitism means. they take you to be a dense idiot. they never gave two shits about palestinian liberation. they want to maintain the status quo of the colonial war machine.

your faith in these systems and structures must dissipate. it is urgent. divesting your money from the colonial war machine is the minimum. economic blockades are mandatory. disruption is the core. do not spend your breaths talking about fucking voting ever again. that is not organizing! that is participating in the status quo. voting is not activism. it’s what you’re expected to fucking do. i don’t care if you do it, i do care if you pretend it’s a revolutionary act. look at every “representational” person elected and how quickly they turned their backs on you and the palestinian people.

every day politicians, cops, colonizers, and capitalists dangle a rotting carrot in front of you. when will you learn that the rot is irreversible?