JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT: South African agricultural company severs Israeli relations

In a move being celebrated as a South African boycott-of-Israel breakthrough, Karsten Farms, a leading South African agricultural company backed by one of South Africa's primary finance bodies, the Industrial Development Corporation, has severed its relations with the Israeli cooperative, Hadiklaim, and has also undertaken not to enter into any future relations with anyIsraeli entity complicit in the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestine. This is the first time that a South African company has adopted such a legal undertaking.

Early last year, South African human rights organizations, lead by the Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) and BDS South Africa, launched a consumer campaign against Karsten Farms due to its trade relations with Israel's Hadiklaim - an Israeli company operating, against international law, in the illegal Israeli settlements.

This week, after almost a year of campaigning, in a letter to BDS South Africa via their lawyers, Werksmans Attorneys, Karsten Farms undertook: "Not to enter into any trade relations with Hadiklaim for the current harvest year of 2013 and not have any business relations with them [Hadiklaim] in the future."

In addition, and in a breakthrough move, Karsten Farms also undertook: "Not to enter into any trade relations with any Israeli company and/or entity within the occupied/illegal settlement areas of Israel".

Siphiwe Thusi of the Palestine Solidarity Alliance welcomed the news: "This is the first time that a South African company has taken the legally as well as ethically correct decision not to trade with Israeli companies complicit in the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Karsten Farms has indeed set a precedent for other South African businesses and companies to follow. This is a breakthrough not only for the boycott of Israel but also for ethical and good business practice."
 
Thusi, added that "the call for the consumer boycott of Karstens products has now ended by virtue of their legal undertakings" however he also cautioned that "the Palestine Solidarity Alliance and BDS South Africa will be monitoring the situation and if any new Israeli relations, even if via third parties, were to be formed, the boycott campaign against Karsten Farms would be re-launched, and intensified."
 
In 2005 Palestinians issued a call to the international community for a program and campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) to be applied against Israel as a non-violent method to pressure Israel to end its violations of international law, respect Palestinian human rights and engage in fair negotiations for a just peace.
 
Since 2005, Israel has suffered from a significant cultural boycott and an increasing economic boycott. In April 2012, the UK's fifth largest food retailer, the Co-Op, became one of the first companies in the world to adopt a boycott of Israeli companies complicit in the illegal settlements and occupation of Palestine. A few months later, in the United States, the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, comprising of over 2 million members, voted to boycott Israel's Hadiklaim - the same company that Karsten Farms has now severed links with. Israel has subsequently passed a law, the "anti-boycott law", allowing those that call for economic, cultural or academic boycotts against Israel to be sued and fined.
 
JOINT PRESS STATEMENT ISSUED BY MUHAMMED DESAI FOR THE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY ALLIANCE AND BDS SOUTH AFRICA

BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA (BDS SOUTH AFRICA)
Office 915 | 9th Floor | Khotso House | 62 Marshall Street | Johannesburg
PO Box 2318 | Houghton | 2041 | Johannesburg
T:  +27 (0) 11 492 2414 | M:  +27 (0) 84 211 9988 | F: +27 (0) 86 650 4836
W: www.bdssouthafrica.com | E: administrator@bdssouthafrica.com
www.facebook.com/bdssouthafrica | www.twitter.com/bdssouthafrica

BDS South Africa is a registered Non-Profit Organization. NPO NUMBER: 084 306 NPO
BDS South Africa is a registered Public Benefit Organisation with Section 18A status. PBO NUMBER: 930 037 446

--
To opt out from receiving emails regarding Palestine and related issues, reply with the word STOP in the subject line.

For those who wish to be added to our mailing list, send a blank email with the word ADD in the subject line.

You are most welcome to forward any information related to Palestine directly to us at min.falasteen@gmail.com

New book by Tel Aviv historian uncovers "Land of Israel" myths

New book by Tel Aviv historian uncovers "Land of Israel" myths

Asa Winstanley 

London 

The Electronic Intifada 

28 January 2013

130122-invention-land-israel.jpg

Shlomo Sand is a history professor at Tel Aviv University. His charismatic, readable style was evident in his previous book The Invention of the Jewish People, the English edition of which kicked up quite a controversy in 2009. The title alone seemed designed to shock.

But in fact Sand was arguing a fairly banal truism: there is no such thing as a unified, national "Jewish people." As a globalized religious community (due to proselytizing before the rise to power of Christianity in the fourth century) there are instead multiple different Jewish communities across the world.

A Jew from Yemen would have no distinctive secular points of reference in common with a Jew from France, Russia or Poland. For example: before Zionist reinvention from the end of the 19th century, Hebrew was a purely liturgical language. Jews from different countries naturally spoke in local languages.

That book was a fascinating journey through centuries of Jewish history, much of it swept under the carpet by Zionist historiography. Sand's new book, The Invention of the Land of Israel, is essentially a direct sequel, focusing on the nature of an idea central to Zionism: the "Land of Israel" — Eretz Israel in Hebrew.

Sand explains that in Israel, "in the Hebrew-language edition of foreign books, the word 'Palestine' is systematically replaced with the words Eretz Israel … Even when the writings of important Zionist figures such as Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, Ber Borochov and many others [who also used 'Palestine'] … are translated into Hebrew" (23).

Holy land or homeland?

In the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as the Old Testament), the geographic area roughly corresponding to the land of Palestine (between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea) is mostly called the "land of Canaan." The area "never served as a homeland for the 'children of Israel,' and for this reason, among others, they never refer to it as 'the Land of Israel.'" Most Israelis, Sand argues, are not aware that the term is not found in the the Hebrew Bible "in its inclusive meaning" of a wide geographic area (86).

Later Jewish religious law "does feature the debut of the term 'Land of Israel' " but, Sand explains, this was a "holy land" rather than a "homeland" (102). Most Jews did not seek to live there. Philo of Alexandria, a first century Jewish philosopher, lived in Egypt — right next to Palestine. He could have moved to Jerusalem, since both regions were under Roman rule — but instead, like most people, he chose to live and die in his original homeland (96).

Furthermore this Eretz Israel was traditionally considered by mainstream Judaism to be so holy the devout were positively forbidden to move there (183). Even pilgrimage was a rare, and later phenomenon. Between the years 134 and 1099, "we know of no attempts by the followers of rabbinical Judaism to make pilgrimages to the holy city" of Jerusalem (123).

All this stands in stark contrast to the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence which claims that "the Jewish people … never ceased to pray and hope for their return." In contrast to this "mythos," Sand writes: "most of the world's Jews … did not regard Palestine as their land … they did not strive 'in every successive generation to reestablish themselves in their ancient homeland' " (175).

Ever-shifting borders

"Settlement Zionism, which borrowed the term 'Land of Israel' from the Talmud, was not overly pleased with the borders it had been assigned by Jewish law … extending only fromAcre to Ashkelon … [it was] not sufficiently contiguous to serve as a national homeland," argues Sand (214).

He then reviews the history of the ever-shifting definition in Zionist thought of where exactly its "Land of Israel" is — something undeclared till this day.

Early Zionists drew on God's promise in the book of Genesis to give the mythical patriarch Abram's children "this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" in modern day Iraq.

In 1897, the same year as the first Zionist congress, Israel Belkind ("the first practical Zionist") drew a map: " 'The Jordan splits the Land of Israel in two different sections,' asserted Belkind, whose assessment was subsequently adopted by most [Zionist] settlers of the period" (216).

For the future first prime minister of Israel David Ben Gurion, these borders "were too expansive and untenable, while the borders of the Talmudic commandment were too narrow." In 1918 he gave his own take: "In the north — the Litani River, between Tyre and Sidon [in Lebanon] … In the east — the Syrian Desert. The eastern border of the Land of Israel should not be precisely demarcated … the Land's eastern borders will be diverted eastwards, and the area of the Land of Israel will expand" (217).

Not for nothing were the borders of the new state unmentioned in its declaration of independence (233).

Incendiary

Ben Gurion later scaled back this conception, but even mainstream Labor Zionist figure as Yigal Allon would still at times refer to the whole of historic Palestine as the "western Land of Israel" as late as 1979 (237).

There's also a brilliant chapter on the origins of Christian Zionism in the protestantism of nineteenth-century British imperialists.

Sand stops short of calling for implementing the right of return for Palestinian refugees. His concluding chapter is a history of al-Sheikh Muwannis, the Palestinian village that Israel ethnically cleansed in 1948 and in place of which his own university now stands. Unfortunately, he counterposes removing the university, on the one hand, with the Palestinian refugees never being able to return en masse, on the other — as if those are the only two options (280).

It's a useful book for debunking Zionist myths, which, due to the legacy of Protestant Christian Zionism in the west are surprisingly resilient. But as Sand's slightly flaky post-Zionist politics demonstrates, a more realistic knowledge of history doesn't not necessarily translate fully to a rights-based understanding of the Palestinian plight.

Still, there is much to enjoy and learn in the evidence in the potentially incendiary material he assembles here.

Asa Winstanley is an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada, and a journalist in London who has also worked in Palestine.

 

--
To opt out from receiving emails regarding Palestine and related issues, reply with the word STOP in the subject line.

For those who wish to be added to our mailing list, send a blank email with the word ADD in the subject line.

You are most welcome to forward any information related to Palestine directly to us at min.falasteen@gmail.com

Retired UK nurse relives Israeli jail hell

Apr 27 2012 by Lorraine Howard, Irvine Herald

 

FREED ex-nurse Jim Henry told how five short words saw him arrested at gun point and thrown into an Israeli prison.

As Jim landed in Tel Aviv and told officials “I am going to Palestine,” he was cuffed and taken in a cage to a prison in Givon.

Talking exclusively to the Irvine Herald, Jim, 60, who returned from his four days of hell in the prison, said he would go back in a heartbeat “to help those poor people.”

The moment widower Jim touched down in Tel Aviv the plane was surrounded by hundreds of armed police and soldiers.

 

He was shackled in hand and leg chains, and thrown into a cage before being taken to prison along with eight others.

Dad-of-one Jim was travelling as part of a group, Welcome To Palestine, who wanted to fly to Israel and declare honestly where they were going. At the moment no visitors are allowed entry to the West Bank.

 

“All I said was I am going to Palestine and before I knew it, I had been handcuffed and thrown into a cage being taken to prison,” said Jim, of Broughton Green.

“I knew that would happen and was prepared for it but there was a part of me wondering what was going to happen next.”

Jim found himself in a small cell with eight others. Next to him were French, American and Belgian supporters of Welcome to Palestine.

 

For the next three days Jim and his fellow campaigners were held in cells with only two hours of yard time a day.

They refused to eat in protest at the female prisoners being held captive.

And at one point the prison guards sent in riot squads who ordered the inmates to, “sit down, shut up” and proceeded to rattle the bars and shout at them.

 

“We didn’t eat and drank little as we were scared it may have been tampered with,” said Jim. “Thankfully I was allowed my medication and one bar of soap.

“It was a tough few days but we were strong for each other. I have to say the women were stronger than the men.”

 

For Jim, the scariest part of his experience was the journey home again. He was taken in a van on his own and feared his life was in danger.

“Deep down I knew it was scare tactics but when I was thrown in a cage in a van on my own and the others were put in a different van, I began to think I wasn’t being taken to the airport.

“But after a short journey, I was reunited with the men and women. We refused to board the plane before the women as we wanted to make sure they were safe.

 

“But I have to say that plane home was a nightmare.

“There were Israeli soldiers and people who thought we were terrorists, if it hadn’t been for the cabin crew, who gave us some chocolate to eat and showed us some kindness, it would have been unbearable.

“I have to say I was glad to land in Edinburgh.

“I was proud we had raised a little awareness about the plight of the people over there who live in fear every day of their lives.”

Jim is planning to set up a Friends of Palestine in North Ayrshire and his hope is to return to the Middle East.

 

“I probably won’t be allowed to board a plane but I want to keep trying to help these people.”

 

http://www.irvineherald.co.uk/ayrshire-news/local-news-ayrshire/local-news-irvine/2012/04/27/retired-nurse-relives-israeli-jail-hell-75485-30835652/

 

BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions)

The global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international
law and Palestinian rights was initiated by Palestinian civil society
in 2005, and is coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee
(BNC), established in 2007. BDS is a strategy that allows people of
conscience to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for
justice.

For decades, Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights
of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing,
colonization, racial discrimination, and military occupation. Despite
abundant condemnation of Israeli policies by the UN, other
international bodies, and preeminent human rights organisations, the
world community has failed to hold Israel accountable and enforce
compliance with basic principles of law. Israel’s crimes have
continued with impunity.

Palestinian Activism - Getting the message out

Palestinian Activism Getting the Message Out
By Sonja Karkar 

It is very strange how Palestine comes up when one least expects it, even when one is immersed in it day after day. 

Activists talk a lot about raising awareness and finding ways to spread the message of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice. Ever new and innovative actions are dreamt up and implemented, always in the hope of garnering attention and maybe even grabbing headlines.

There is no doubt at all that in the last ten years there has been an incremental increase in people’s awareness of Palestine, particularly with the global BDS boycott, divestment and sanctions movement’s many campaigns and successes against Apartheid Israel. 

Companies being boycotted have become almost household names - Caterpillar, Veolia, Motorola, Ahava, Elbit, Max Brenner, Aroma, Danone, Lev Leviev diamonds - thanks to the tireless efforts of activists around the world.