Letter of Solidarity with the Struggle for Gender Neutrality at Boston University:

We are writing to express our utmost support for the campaign to win safe space for our fellow students at BU. It is quite disturbing that gender neutral housing was not a pressing enough concern for the administration to warrant keeping its timetable (much less keeping up with most other universities around Boston and the country). Despite having an equal opportunity policy that includes gender variance, the actual institutions at BU have fallen far short of the basic needs of its student population.

Forcing students to identify within the gender binary for housing as well as what bathrooms they use is extremely alienating and dangerous to their physical and psychological well-being. SJP will not rest until BU ends its stratification of housing and bathrooms and provides safety and autonomy over the bodies and living conditions of our community. We promise to support this campaign in every possible way and remain committed to pushing for a just future at our school and all over the world.

--Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine

Boston University Students write Op/eds Against Israeli Apartheid and Agression

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: "Israel's Control of Water is Anything but Peaceful"

By: Kristen Martin

Boston University Free Press

http://dailyfreepress.com/2012/02/20/letter-to-the-editor-80/

Letter to the Editor:"Israel Peace Week?"

By: Tyler Cullis

Boston University Free Press

http://dailyfreepress.com/2012/02/21/letter-to-the-editor-israel-peace-week/

Op-Ed: "Another Jewish Voice Against Israeli Apartheid"

By: Ian Chinich

Boston University Quad

http://buquad.com/2012/02/26/another-jewish-voice-against-israeli-apartheid/

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Experience in Palestine

By: Jeff Stein

Boston University Free Press

http://dailyfreepress.com/2012/03/01/letter-to-the-editor-experience-in-palestine/

Boston University Israeli Apartheid Week 2012

The crime of apartheid, a crime against humanity, is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."


As part of our third annual Israeli Apartheid Week this year, BU Students for Justice in Palestine is hosting four events:


Monday, 2/27: Screening of "Budrus"
College of Arts and Sciences, Rm B12 @ 7pm
725 Commonwealth Ave.

Budrus is an award-winning feature documentary film about a Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by Israel’s Apartheid Barrier. Success eludes them until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines. Struggling side by side, father and daughter unleash an inspiring, yet little-known, movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is still gaining ground today.

In an action-filled documentary chronicling this movement from its infancy, Budrus shines a light on people who choose nonviolence to confront a threat. The movie is directed by award-winning filmmaker Julia Bacha (co-writer and editor of Control Room and co-director Encounter Point), and produced by Bacha, Palestinian journalist Rula Salameh, and filmmaker and human rights advocate Ronit Avni (formerly of WITNESS, Director of Encounter Point).

http://www.facebook.com/events/108735989254563/



Tuesday, 2/28: Human Rights and LGBTQ Subjectivity in Israel-Palestine
Kenmore Classroom Building, Rm 101 @ 7pm
565 Commonwealth Ave.

This lecture will examine the discourse surrounding LGBTQ rights and how it is employed by various Israeli and Palestinian constituents. We will also discuss the past, present, and future of queer engagement in promoting social justice and human rights in Israel-Palestine.

http://www.facebook.com/events/248324795245596/


Wednesday 2/29: Native America and Palestine: Indigeneity and Settler-Colonialism
College of Arts and Sciences, Rm 224 @ 7pm
725 Commonwealth Ave.

We will be having an event on the relationship of colonial settler occupation in Native America, Hawaii and Palestine. Professor Kauanui will talk on the nature and effects of colonization on indigenous peoples, including the Wampanoag, who lived in the area BU now occupies.

http://www.facebook.com/events/283370835061549/



Thursday, 3/1: Jewish and Palestinian Experiences with Israeli Apartheid
Boston University: Photonics Center, Rm 206 @ 7pm
8 St. Mary's St.

We are showcasing Jewish and Palestinian voices and their experiences with Apartheid within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Speakers:

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, The Independent Film Channel, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. He is a writing fellow for the Nation Institute. His book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller.

Samer Arafa is a Palestinian refugee who was born in East Jerusalem and has been egregiously harmed by racist laws enacted by the state of Israel. He holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University and works in the field of Solar Energy. He is also part of the group that started Northeastern University's SJP.

http://www.facebook.com/events/354044307952635/

The U.S. Boat to Gaza calls for pressure on the U.S. State Department

Action Alert:

July 3, 2011

The U.S. Government Must Pressure Greece to Let U.S. Boat to Gaza Sail Release Captain John Klusmire
and Our Boat Immediately!

The U.S. Boat to Gaza calls for pressure
on the U.S. State Department

People around the world are rallying for the release of the boats that Greece is preventing from sailing to Gaza. We call on you to show your solidarity and support for the flotilla as a whole, and in particular for the captain of the U.S. boat, John Klusmire.
Over the past two weeks, two boats of the international flotilla to Gaza have been sabotaged while docked at Greek ports. No one has claimed responsibility for the damage done to these boats. The potential danger to the U.S. boat was obvious to the captain, the crew and the passengers: there was a clear possibility that the U.S. boat would be sabotaged next.

The departure of the U.S. Boat to Gaza - The Audacity of Hope - was first delayed by a complaint filed by the Israel Law Center and shown to be frivolous. Greek authorities then inspected the boat but, until the boat set sail five days later the, the results of that inspection has not been shared with the captain and his crew. Those results were not shared until the Hellenic Coast Guard stopped The Audacity of Hope some 20 minutes after it had left the dock on Friday, July 1. The Hellenic Coast Guard intercepted the ship and ordered that the ship stop. This order was obeyed. Commandos with drawn rifles ordered the ship to return. It is now impounded at a military dock in Athens and the captain has ben arrested.

Captain Klusmire faces two charges: disturbing sea traffic and endangering passengers; and moving away from the dock in violation of an order not to do so. He is being held in a cell without a bed and does not have access to toilet facilities. The only food and water he has had has been brought in by visitors. He has not been visited by anyone from the U.S. Embassy even though he is entitled to such a visit by international law.

The U.S. Boat to Gaza campaign urges you to immediately take the following actions. Even though it is a holiday weekend we urge you to make these calls now, and if necessary to place calls again on Monday and Tuesday.

• Contact your members of Congress and urge him or her to pressure the Greek authorities to drop the charges against Captain Klusmire.
• Contact the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Greece. Insist that they fulfill their duty to advocate on behalf of Captain Klusmire and that they demand the release of the U.S. boat by Greece so it can freely sail to Gaza.
• Sect. of State Hillary Clinton: 202-647-5291
• Kim Richter, Consular Affairs, Overseas American Citizens Services, U.S. State Dept: 202-647-8308
• Greek Desk, U.S. State Dept: 202-647-6113
• U.S. Embassy in Athens: 011-30-210-721-2951, fax 011-30-210-645-6282, website: athens.usembassy.gov llr=wumi8ydab&et=1106376147152&s=3476&e=001Zn1keDItUHg0SBsWFZWMOcuPHF4AlPabkjyaV0lToxwnqTxDLrkP4Yhqom55_JJrodQ1ZBnfEDCiRJlUdrj4RM-RLCfpAN7FsubyzawdMYLV_HZ6M-4zOg==>
• Activate your emergency response network to publicly demonstrate support for Captain Klusmire and our call for Greece to let the flotilla sail! Pass along this action alert as widely as possible.

Below is a copy of the latest press release from the U.S. Boat to Gaza.
-----------------------
July 3, 2011 Athens, Greece
On eve of U.S. Independence Day, U.S. passengers on flotilla start open-ended fast at U.S. Embassy in Athens

Demand that U.S. government pressure Greece to
free their boat and captain, and allow boat to sail to Gaza
Members of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have begun an open-ended fast calling on the U.S. government to defend our right to sail out of Greece. The fast has begun in front of the U.S. Embassy at 91 Vasilisis Sophias Avenue in Athens. Fasters delivered an urgent letter to the Embassy and plan to sleep overnight outside the Embassy gates.

Passengers and U.S. boat organizers participating in the fast are: Medea Benjamin, Ken Mayers, Paki Wieland, Kathy Kelly, Ray McGovern, Helaine Meisler, Nic Abramson, and Carol Murry.

Passenger Kathy Kelly said, "We call on officials at the U.S. Embassy in Athens to publicly acknowledge our right to sail and to call on the Greek government to free our ship and its captain immediately."

There will also be a march in support of the flotilla beginning at 7 pm organized by Greek activists who have been protesting the government's austerity measures in Syntagma Square. The march will include a demand on the Greek government to let all of the boats in the Freedom Flotilla 2 sail to Gaza and to free the captain of the U.S. ship, who has been held in jail.

The departure of the U.S. Boat to Gaza - The Audacity of Hope - was first delayed by a complaint filed by the Israel Law Center and shown to be frivolous. Greek authorities then inspected the boat but, until the boat set sail five days later, the results of that inspection has not been shared with the captain and his crew.

The Greek Coast Guard stopped The Audacity of Hope some 20 minutes after it had left the dock on Friday, July 1. The Coast Guard ordered the captain to stop the ship, which he did. Commandos with drawn rifles ordered the ship to return. It is now impounded at a military dock in Athens and the captain has ben arrested.

Over the past two weeks, two boats of the international flotilla to Gaza have been sabotaged while docked at Greek ports. The potential danger to the U.S. boat was obvious to the captain, the crew and the passengers: there was a clear possibility that the U.S. boat would be sabotaged next.

Greek consular officials in the United States, when besieged with calls by angry Americans, told callers that they should direct their protest to U.S. officials because they were ultimately responsible. "We know that the U.S. government has been supporting Israel's underhanded efforts to thwart the flotilla, and has been pressuring the Greek government to stop us. This is a disgrace," said passenger/faster Medea Benjamin. "On July 4, it's time for our government to declare independence from Israel and start supporting its own citizens."

We note that on June 24, passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza visited the Consul General in Athens, Deputy Consul General Kate Brandeis agreed that the U.S. Boat "had a right to sail to Gaza."

Ms. Brandeis assured the passengers that the consulate was there to assist U.S. citizens that run into difficulty while in Greece. To date, we have received no assistance from the U.S. Embassy and the captain of our boat, a U.S. citizen, remains in jail and has yet to be visited by anyone from the U.S. Embassy.

###

Brandeis Students Disrupt Israeli MK Avi Dichter's Speech, Call For His Arrest

WALTHAM, MA -- Members of Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine (BSJP) disrupted a panel discussion of six Members of the Israeli Knesset tonight at Brandeis University.
The action targeted MK Avi Dicther, an international war criminal wanted for crimes against humanity and violations of the Geneva Convention. Dichter ordered the tortures of detained Palestinians while he served as head of Shabak, the Israeli Intelligence Services. In July 2002, Dichter ordered the assassination of a Hamas commander by dropping a one-ton bomb on his home in a residential area, causing the deaths of 15 people, including 9 children, and injuring dozens more.
When Dicther spoke, a dozen Brandeis students stood and demanded that he turn himself in to authorities, distributing warrants for his arrest. In English and in Hebrew, the students listed charges against Dichter, including torture and the bombing of civilians. They ended their disruption by chanting in Hebrew "Don't worry Avi Dicther, we'll meet you in the Hague."
The action aimed to alert the Brandeis community to the presence of a war criminal on campus. "We believe that Avi Dichter must be put to trial for his crimes against humanity," said participant Liza Behrendt.
Participant Paraska Tolan stated, "War criminals have a right to speak on our campus, but students also have the right to hold them publicly accountable for their crimes. This serves as a message that Dichter should not feel welcome, even at Brandeis University."
Lisa Hanania, a Palestinian student at Brandeis and member of SJP, said that she was extremely disturbed by the racist comments from some of the MKs. “MK Tzipi Hotovely claimed that ‘Arabs have a different D.N.A. that lacks humanity.’ As a citizen of the Israel, I am deeply concerned that claims as such pave the way for the state to slide into an openly racist ethnocracy.”
Noam Lekach, a first-year from Israel, stated, "Brandeis claims to promote social justice, but today they invited legislators who openly espouse racist attitudes towards Palestinians."
The students emphasize that, although they targeted Dichter specifically, all MKs should be held accountable for recent racist legislation such as the "Loyalty Oath," the criminalization of Nakba commemoration, and the institutionalization of residential discrimination.

At B.U., a student activist teaches me about Bil’in

by PHILIP WEISS on APRIL 1, 2011 (Mondoweiss)

Along with a co-editor of the Goldstone Report, I spoke at two law schools Wednesday, Northeastern and Boston University. Northeastern is a progressive law school and there was an enveloping sense of solidarity, especially when a softspoken young man with an Arab name and a bag with Frieda Kahlo's image on the side came up to me after and said that he was organizing the undergraduate boycott movement. I was in the right place at the right time.

At Boston University there was more opposition, and it was actually energizing, so I'd like to describe that. There is a strong chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at BU, and I met several of those students before the event in a beautiful hall at the law school. One of them in a sweatshirt was leaning back in his chair next to his girlfriend and the others were giving him grief about how long he'd been active and he grinned and said, “Hey I’ve been working on Palestine since I was 15,” and I had the impression I had many times that night, that the young people have a clear understanding of the issue, way ahead of me. The apprehension of the left surrounding Palestine is ending, the issue is the issue if you’re a young leftist. I'm talking about the political territory they’ve taken. Just as South Africa was, or the Freedom Marches in the 60s, or Central America in the 80s-- Israel/Palestine is the focus for idealistic activists, and they don't have any of my generation's hangups as we used to say (more about the hangups below).

Two of the B.U. organizers told me more about the campus scene. If you’re with Students for Israel, the pro-Israel group, you’re pretty much on the right in campus life. When Israeli Apartheid Week happened in February, the pro-Israel groups mobilized against it and tried to get it off campus as anti-semitic, but Students for Justice in Palestine pointed out to the university president that four of their members were Jewish, so where’s the anti-Semitism? The university let the apartheid week demo stay. Then when David Horowitz tried to throw in gangbusters with the pro-Israel folks, to make an issue about Israeli apartheid week at the school,the Students for Israel said, You know what David, thanks but no thanks, don't "push it." Apparently they were afraid that his blatant Islamophobia would drive Arab students into the ranks of the Justice for Palestine crowd.

Three or four pro-Israel students came to our Goldstone talk and they all asked questions. They were in the second row. Their questions were polite, almost friendly. They didn’t really have numbers, if I were in their crowd I would have been intimidated. The room was against them, young and old. Apparently two of the pro-Israel students were Hasbara fellows. They didn’t denounce us, they just questioned us about Hamas’s tactics and the festering refugee issue and similar matters. I saw them clapping at the end, politely.

Afterward a young Jew came up to me and talked about her Jewish agony about the issue and not wanting to be anti-Israel but also not wanting to endorse what’s going on there. Her father had read the Goldstone Report and confessed to her that it was accurate-- which left her in a quandary about what to do about it. I urged this person to explore Jewish Voice for Peace-- and J Street too if that's where she felt more comfortable-- and start walking the road. It’s a hard road for young Jews. That wasn't the only encounter of this nature that we had. It seems that young idealistic Jews who have been raised loving Israel are in a state of agony right now. The facts are so overwhelmingly negative, from the Netanyahu government to the unending peace process to the killings of Palestinian children; and a good part of the Jewish community is opening its eyes to the truth, at last. Ancient orders inside the community, to maintain unity to the outside world, or to see the Diaspora as beneath Eretz Israel, a lot of those religious orders are dissolving. (Noam Sheizaf discusses the growing war inside the official liberal American Jewish community over Israel, here).

A bunch of us went out to dinner after and I learned two things. One is that the antiwar movement on campus is weak, and in its place the pro-Palestinian movement is growing. You might remember that when the antiwar movement was strong in 2002-2005 or so, there were battles among organizers about giving any place to the Palestinian issue. Well that struggle is over. I was told that students who would be antiwar are working on Palestine, and there are lots of creative actions around it.

The other thing I learned was about life in Bil’in.

A student was with us who had worked with the popular committees. (I'm not going to name him till I can get in touch with him.) He is Jewish but unlike my generation of Jews is not burdened by the racism, xenophobia, and fear of the other that I grew up with. In a word, he is from a more comfortably empowered, multicultural milieu. So he could get past these cultural issues in an instant-- where it has been a tormented struggle for me.

He was not as pitying as I am of the pro-Israel students. He said they are supporting ethnic cleansing; and he told us stories of two families being ethnically cleansed in East Jerusalem before his eyes. Then he told me about the nighttime raids on Bil’in to take away boys for throwing stones. The Israelis would try to identify boys who threw stones at the demonstrations and it was a six month sentence for throwing stones and if you damaged an Israeli jeep it was two years. As soon as the boys were imprisoned they were put under pressure to sign documents in Hebrew, a language they could not read, implicating the leaders of the popular committee in ordering the boys to throw stones. Israel is trying to smash the popular committees of resistance, and the student had slept in Bil'in for a few weeks, to try and help the little village resist the raids.

The student said he got used to a lot of things in the resistance movement-- he got used to tear gas, he got used to the percussion grenades (which scare the shit out of me). But he never got used to the nighttime raids.

They came at 4 in the morning. The soldiers used the stirring of the morning prayer to hide their own movements through the village. Then they knocked down the front door, and dragged the 14 year old or 15 year old away, they bound the boys' hands and moved off through the village with a phalanx of soldiers. The student was there to try and prevent arrests, and felt a sense of failure every time a boy was dragged off. Because the looks on the boys' faces, he said, was pure childlike terror. I thought about the honor we granted the stone throwers in Egypt, I thought about Jewish history in Europe, when they broke our doors down.

ARIZONA JEWISH STUDENTS ERECT LARGEST MOCK BORDER WALL IN U.S.

Barbed, Steel Barriers Divide 50,000-person Campus to Protest Harmful Effects of U.S. Policy in Israeli-Occupied Palestine and the U.S./Mexico Border

Media Contacts – AZ Jewish Voice for Peace
Brooke Lober: 415-624-4467 / brooke13@email.arizona.edu
Bryan James Gordon: 520-388-0884 / linguist@email.arizona.edu
Gabriel Matthew Schivone: 520-302-6006 / gabrielm@email.arizona.edu
Publicity Stills: http://www.nomoredeaths.org/University-of-Arizona-NMD/publicity-stills-ua-nmm-mock-border-wall-on-ua-mall-march-21-30.html

TUCSON AZ (USA) – Students from the Arizona chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace at the University of Arizona (UA) collaborated with partners in the UA migrant rights group No Más Muertes/No More Deaths (NMM) to erect the largest mock border wall in the country currently dividing the UA campus in Tucson. They aim to spotlight the lethal effects of U.S. militarization, immigration and border enforcement policies in Arizona, the U.S., and Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Equipped with barbed-wire and stretching nearly four football fields’ length, the mock wall, entitled “Wall to Wall - Concrete Connections/Conexiones Concretas,” will stand for more than a week across the main traffic center of the more-than-50,000-person University of Arizona campus. Endorsed by numerous academic departments, as well as student and community groups, the JVP and NMM worked for nearly 8 months to bring the project to fruition.

Packed into a 387-acre area of central Tucson, the University of Arizona schools and employs more than 50,000 students, faculty and staff, outnumbering the State of Arizona as the largest public employer in Southern Arizona – and therefore a proper target for mass disruption, the students say. “We won’t let daily life continue while people are dying and suffering from abominable policies being funded with U.S. tax dollars,” remarked JVP coordinator, Chicano-Jewish student and native Tucsonan, Gabriel Matthew Schivone: “We aim to disturb, to trouble our peers with the knowledge – and less than one tenth of a simulated experience – of our fellow neighbors and communities’ miserable conditions to which our privilege renders many of us to be immune, and renders the conditions themselves to be invisible. We hope to quicken the conscience of our community and shake them into action to end these abuses.”

The mock wall, in part, represents the harmful effects of Israel’s apartheid wall that punctuates and snakes throughout the Palestinian West Bank. An outgrowth of a 44-year military occupation, paid for by $3 billion in annual U.S. military aid, and built on occupied Palestinian territory, the wall was deemed illegal by the United Nations International Court of Justice in July 2004. JVP co-coordinator and Anthropology and Linguistics graduate student, Bryan James Gordon, stated: “The U.S. and Israeli governments should realize that walls and guns do not stop peaceful, hardworking people from seeking a future, and they do not make national economies any stronger, fairer or more independent. They only cause violence, and trick one exploited class into fearing and attacking another exploited class instead of the elites that are exploiting them both."

The students say they are also alarmed by increasing anti-immigrant legislation and sentiment throughout Arizona and the country, and by ongoing repression of migrants, indigenous peoples and communities of color by U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forces. The students also point to more than 6000 human remains recovered from the U.S./Mexico desert borderlands since the early 1990’s, when the U.S. instituted harsh “deterrence” strategies targeting migrants crossing into the U.S. The students’ statement of purpose reads, “By voluntarily giving up the unjust privileges that we enjoy -- and symbolically taking those privileges away from you, our fellow students, faculty, administration and staff -- we aim to create an unavoidable crisis on campus to expose the larger human catastrophe which our community, by and large, continually fails to see...”

In a joint JVP-NMM op-ed published today (March 23) in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the official newspaper of the University of Arizona, both groups stated: “We will not stand idly by nor stay silent regarding the enormous suffering being inflicted either in our local deserts and cities, or 10,000 miles away in Israeli-occupied Palestine.…[Our wall] symbolized our collective will to end global apartheid and work toward a world that truly offers justice for all.”

Publicity Stills:

http://www.nomoredeaths.org/University-of-Arizona-NMD/publicity-stills-ua-nmm-mock-border-wall-on-ua-mall-march-21-30.html

Purpose Statement from the Organizers:

http://www.nomoredeaths.org/University-of-Arizona-NMD/manifesto-wall-to-wall-concrete-connections-conexiones-concretas.html

Boston Solidarity Action with March 15th Palestinian "Day of Rage"/ Unity protests

At this very second, protests are occurring in the occupied Palestinian territories against the undemocratic nature of the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, and Hamas. The leadership of the Palestinian "government" institutions have helped Israel in oppressing the Palestinian people and prevented the type of unity that would allow for a successful popular resistance to the occupation. These protests are part of a wider movement for democracy and justice that is sweeping the Middle East, North Africa, and Wisconsin. These protests will show how Palestinians refuse to be oppressed by the Israeli Occupation, the Apartheid system, and the unjust behavior of their leaders:

Brandeis Hillel Excludes Jewish Peace Group

March 9, 2011
For Release: Immediately Upon Receipt
Contact: Lev Hirschhorn - (510) 387-0026
levh7@brandeis.edu

Brandeis Hillel Excludes Jewish Peace Group

The Latest Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

WALTHAM, MA -- The Brandeis University Hillel has formally voted to exclude a Jewish peace group on campus.

On March 8, 2011, Brandeis University Hillel rejected the campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) from becoming a Hillel member group. In line with controversial guidelines recently issued by National Hillel, the decision was based on JVP’s support for targetted boycotts of goods produced in Israeli settlements.

In response to the decision, Brandeis senior and JVP activist Jon Sussman stated "Brandeis students have lost an opportunity to learn from one another. Jewish students must demand the national Hillel organization change its condescending guidelines which marginalize progressive Jewish opinion on campus."

Hillel is the center of Jewish life on-campus , and its constitution affirms “the necessity of a pluralistic Jewish community on campus, with partisanship to none.” Regardless of this affirmation, Hillel’s new guidelines exclude Jewish groups on the basis of political opinions.

These guidelines are representative of a trend in the Jewish community to prevent open dialogue on Israel. The Israeli Knesset, for example, is currently hearing legislation to criminalize support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. “Jewish Voice for Peace opposes any ideological litmus test to participate in organized Jewish life,” Sussman said.

Brandeis sophomore and JVP activist Morgan Conley added that Hillel’s ban confuses the settlements with the state of Israel. Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. “We were rejected on the grounds that boycotting settlement goods is the same thing as boycotting Israel. The reality, however, is that the settlements are not in Israel - they are in the Occupied Palestinian territories. By blurring the line between the state of Israel and the occupied territories, Hillel is unfortunately appearing to support a Jewish state at the expense of a democratic one.” Conley remarked.

Support for targeted boycott is an increasingly mainstream position within the Jewish community, shared by national organizations such as Meretz USA. Leading Jewish artists including Stephen Sondheim, Tony Kushner, Frank Gehry and Amos Oz have defended several of Israel’s best-known actors who are boycotting performances in the settlement of Ariel.

“Hillel needs to give groups like Jewish Voice for Peace a place at the Jewish communal table,” Sussman insisted. “If not, Hillel will alienate a generation of young Jews committed to our values of peace, justice and self-determination.”

ABOUT JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE

Jewish Voice for Peace is the only 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 27 chapters, a Rabbinical Council, 100,000 online supporters and an advisory board composed of many of the leading Jewish thinkers and artists of our time, Jewish Voice for Peace is the country’s fastest growing grassroots group dedicated to promoting a US foreign policy that respects the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to peace and self-determination. www.jvp.org

BU SJP Responds to Threats from Campus Zionists

In the past few years groups supporting an end to the occupation of Palestine have risen on campuses across the United States. Boston University Students for Justice in Palestine has sought to raise awareness of the plight of the Palestinian people this year with its second annual
Israel Apartheid Week. As a result of its activities and the success it has had in showing the true face of the structural violence, BU Students for Israel has committed itself to sending threatening emails and trying to shut down SJP's activites. Below is a threatening email that BU SJP received and its response:



To Whom It May Concern,
It has come to the attention of the Boston University Students for
Israel (BUSI) that next week is Israeli Apartheid Week and that in
recognition of this Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) will be
constructing a mock "wall" on campus.

It is our concern that such a demonstration will only serve to sensationalize and simplify a most complex, nuanced, and profoundly serious situation. This will only inflame emotions, and incite hatred. Ultimately, the mock up will be counterproductive to promoting objective and intellectual analysis of the realities of the region and of the histories of both Arabs and Jews.

It is our suggestion that SJP refrain from constructing such a structure
and from sensationalizing the Arab-Israeli conflict. In place of this mock wall BUSI suggests that members of SJP and BUSI stand side-by-side next week to promote an organized forum for
discourse between all parties!

We would like to emphasize that we are not demanding that SJP refrain from expressing the substance of your opinions. In fact, we are demanding nothing! We recognize your right to freedom of speech, and to express your beliefs by any peaceful means that you determine to be
appropriate. However, we ask that you consider whether sensationalism, politicized slogans, and other forms of negative and grandiose propaganda are fitting for the academic integrity of Boston University. Moreover, we ask, do such spectacles do justice to the level of education and intelligence of the Boston University student body?

We eagerly await your response, and a representative of BUSI will be
ready to meet you at your convenience!

With Hopes of Peace,
Boston University Students for Israel


Boston University SJP responded with the following:


To BU Students For Israel

Our original plan for Israel Apartheid Week did not include building a replica of the Apartheid Wall. But after receiving an email threat and hearing that members of BUSI complained to SAO about a wall we had not discussed, we decided to construct one.

We understand that you are embarrassed about the wall, because the wall is an embarrassment. Rather than sending people to complain to SAO about it, you should be condemning the Israeli government for its extensive confiscation of land, the expanse of checkpoints, the illegal settlements, and system of closures involved in imprisoning the Palestinian population. You should be incensed that the Israeli government ignored the International Court of Justice's ruling condemning it or its utilization to divide Palestinians into ghettos. Instead of standing up for justice and peace, you are on the side of the oppressors over the oppressed.

We refuse to take part in whitewashing Israel's public image, and therefore reject any Israeli-Palestinian meetings that do not recognize Palestinian inalienable rights, and and do not explicitly aim to resist Israel's occupation, colonization and apartheid. Israeli-Palestinian
meetings that are not committed to such principles give a false picture of equality between the two parties by ignoring and legitimizing Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people. We will not contribute to any event that undermines Palestinian rights, or portrays Israel as anything but
what it really is: an apartheid state.


You talk about co-existence, but there can be no co-existence until the Israelis allow the Palestinians to exist.

In Defense Of Justice,

BU SJP

Palestine on the Precipice: w/ Diana Buttu, former legal advisor to the PLO

Thursday, March 3 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm Boston University: Photonics Room 206 8 St. Mary’s Street Boston, MA

Diana Buttu was born to Palestinian citizens of Israel who moved to

Canada to protect their daughter from the discrimination they faced
in their homeland.After earning a law degree from Queen's University in Canada and a Masters of Law from Stanford University in the U.S., Ms. Buttu moved to Palestine in 2000. She says that this move was motivated by the fact that she "loved Palestine, yet hadn't really contributed." Shortly after her arrival, the second Intifada began and she took a position with the Negotiations Support Unit of the PLO.


In addition to her work with the Negotiations Support Unit, Diana has
labored extensively to influence the way the situation in Palestine and
Israel is depicted by the media. Ms. Buttu was also involved in litigation at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, which
resulted in their landmark opinion against Israel’s wall, which cuts through swaths of Palestinian territory in the West Bank, dividing people from their schools, places of employment, and families.

While Diana Buttu is no longer employed by the PLO, she continues to work for justice for Palestinians. Ms. Buttu’s media work continues through collaboration with the Institute for Middle East Understanding. She also works with PalTel on sustainable agricultural development issues and teaches at Birzeit University in Ramallah.

Anarchists Against the Wall Fundraiser

Saturday, March 5 · 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Boston University College Of Arts And Sciences Rm 522

725 Commonwealth Ave.

Boston, MA

Featuring:

Noam Lekach and Elinor Amit from Anarchists Against the Wall (http://www.awalls.org/)

Photographs by Activestills (http://www.activestills.org/)

and more!.......



we are asking for a donation of $10 but will accept any amount.
AATW t-shirts will be available for purchase too

Co-Sponsored by: American Jews for a Just Peace (Boston), Boston College SJP, Brown University SJP, Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, BU Anti-Authoritarians, BU Antiwar Coalition, Code Pink (Boston), Emerson Anti-Authoritarians, Itisapartheid.org collective, Jewish Voice for Peace (Boston), Northeastern University SJP, Palestine@MIT, Tufts SJP, and UMass Boston SJP


Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) is a direct action group that was established in 2003 in response to the construction of the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank. The group works in cooperation with Palestinians in a joint popular struggle against the occupation.

Since its formation, the group has participated in hundreds of demonstrations and direct actions against the wall specifically, and the occupation generally, all over the West Bank. All of AATW's work in Palestine is coordinated through villages' local popular committees and is essentially Palestinian led.

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The Activestills collective was established in 2005 by a group of Israeli and international documentary photo-graphers, out of a strong conviction that photography is a vehicle for social change. We believe in the power of images to shape public attitudes and to raise awareness on issues that are generally absent from public discourse. We view ourselves as part of the struggle against all forms of oppression, racism, and violations of the basic right to freedom. We do work on various topics, including the grassroots movement and the popular struggle against the Israeli occupation, women’s rights, immigration, asylum-seekers, social justice, the siege on Gaza, and housing rights inside Israel.

Elinor Amit is a research fellow at the psychology department at Harvard University

BU Administration "advises" students not to read Wikileaks!!!!

Dear Students and Alumni,

Today I received information about Wikileaks that I want to pass on to you. This is most relevant if you are going to apply for or have already applied for federal government positions. Two big factors in hiring for many federal government positions are determining if the applicants have good judgment and if they know how to deal with confidential/classified information. The documents released by Wikileaks remain classified; thus, reading them, passing them on, commenting on them may be seen as a violation of Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information. See Section 5.5 (Sanctions).

For many federal government jobs, applicants must obtain security clearances. There are various levels of security checks, but all federal positions require background checks. As part of such checks, social media may be researched to see what you are up to, so DO NOT post links to the documents or make comments on any social media sites. Moreover, polygraphs are conducted for the highest levels of security clearance.

I have not yet heard any fallout about specific individuals, but we wanted to give you this take on the situation.

Sincerely,

Maura Kelly
Assistant Dean for Career Development and Public Service

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**** Just for your knowledge, you can find wikileaks at wikileaks.de ****

Joint Statement on Anti-Defamation Leagues “Top 10” List

Joint Statement on Anti-Defamation Leagues “Top 10” List

On October 14th, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) named Students for Justice in Palestine on its list of the “Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in America,” claiming that “SJP chapters regularly organize activities presenting a biased view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including mock ‘apartheid walls’ and ‘checkpoint’ displays.” As members of several student groups working for justice in Palestine, we affirmatively state that the ADL’s characterization of our campus educational efforts and activism about Israeli injustices against Palestinians as “biased” is a
disingenuous and misguided attempt to vilify students that criticize Israel’s occupation, which denies Palestinian human rights and self-determination. In this statement, we clarify our principles and invite the ADL to reconsider its categorical silence on egregious Israeli human
rights violations by joining the movement for freedom, equality, and justice in Palestine.

Students for Justice in Palestine groups have developed independently as students across the country seek to raise awareness about the Israeli government’s violations of human rights. Our groups represent constituencies of students, faculty, staff and community members from diverse ethnic, religious, national, and political backgrounds including many Jewish and Israeli members who have been continually ostracized by organizations like the ADL. Our organizations work independently of one another, but collectively, we are united in our belief in justice, freedom and
human rights for the Palestinian people. We are unified by our purpose of confronting these wrongs that cause so much death and suffering.

The ADL shields Israeli policy by invoking the “complexity of the conflict” without ever illuminating it. As students we have a definite responsibility to use the tools of knowledge at our disposal to penetrate that complexity; “to speak truth and to expose lies” and “to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions,” to quote social critic Noam Chomksy. Complexity can never be an excuse for complacency. In that vein, groups like the United Nations Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have affirmed in painstaking detail Israel’s deplorable human rights record and systematic intransigency. By educating ourselves, our campuses and our communities about what the Israeli
government inflicts upon the Palestinian people within the occupied territories, inside Israel, and beyond, we can begin to identify the problems that cause this injustice. United States foreign aid to Israel – which numbers in the billions every year – is chief amongst the issues enabling Israel’s continued occupation and racism. As students in America, therefore, our duty is three-fold: to apply our academic rigor to learn the truth, to educate and hold our communities accountable for support given in our name, and to lobby our government to end its diplomatic
cover for Israeli injustice.

Palestinians have the right to fight for their freedom and to resist the occupation and colonization of their indigenous lands. Therefore, we are committed to non-violent activism that promotes education, civic and political organization to promote the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Many of our organizations have responded favorably to a 2005 call from over 170 civil society organizations within Palestine for activists to stand in solidarity by promoting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. We see this method as an important and practical tool that students can use to express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom. We also believe it illuminates the behind-the-scenes relationships, economic and otherwise, that enable Israel’s behavior and that can be used to urge our communities to be accountable to the ways in which they may unwittingly support the occupation.

We are inspired by the international movement against South African apartheid—which
successfully ended only 16 years ago—and we aim similarly to bring an end to the system imposed by Israel on the Palestinians. As in the South African movement, the BDS call has been endorsed by many conscientious citizens of Israel, including Arabs and Jews, as well as numerous social justice and peace activists around the world. Among the luminaries supporting the call for solidarity are Nobel Peace laureates like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, co-drafter of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights Stephane Hessel, distinguished professors, jurists, authors, intellectuals, and artists.

Ultimately, we locate ourselves in a legacy of social justice movements working at the grassroots for a free and just world. The ADL itself started this way a century ago. We suspect that the ADL, high on its perch among the political elite, has lost sight of its founding values. It opposed the South African anti-apartheid movement and engaged in massive spying on private American citizens. It recently abandoned its belief in religious freedom by condemning Muslim Americans hoping to build an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. The same day it attacked SJP,
the ADL honored Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns Fox News Network, one of the
most despicable purveyors of hatred against Muslim, Arab, Latino, Black, and queer
communities in our time. These are not the actions of an organization with a moral compass that points in the direction of justice.

We will continue to work for a just peace where Palestinians are free in their homeland and equals to Jewish Israelis. We invite the ADL to reflect and to choose to build this world, rather than to stop it.

Students For Justice in Palestine Group Signatories:

Arizona State University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Bard College, International Solidarity Movement
Bates College, Students for Justice in Palestine
Benedictine University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Boston University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Brandeis University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Brown University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Clark University, Students for Palestinian Rights
Columbia University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Cornell University, United for Peace and Justice in Palestine
DePaul University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Florida International University, Miami, Students for Justice in Palestine
George Washington University, Students for Justice in Palestine
Hampshire College- Students for Justice in Palestine
Harvard College- Palestine Solidarity Committee
Harvard University- Alliance for Justice in the Middle East
Illinois Institute of Technology- Students for Justice in Palestine
Loyola University Chicago- Middle East Student Association (MESA)
Macalester College- Macalester Students United for Palestinian
Equal Rights
Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Palestine@MIT
New York University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Northeastern Illinois University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Northeastern University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Northwestern University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Ohio State University- Committee for Justice in Palestine
Purdue University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Rutgers University- BAKA: Students United for Middle Eastern
Justice
School of the Art Institute of Chicago- Students for Justice in Palestine
St. Xavier University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Suffolk University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Temple University- Students for Justice in Palestine
Texas Christian University- Students for Justice in Palestine
The Pennsylvania State University- University Park, Students for Justice in Palestine
Tufts University- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Arizona- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Berkeley- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Davis- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Hastings College of the Law- La Raza Law Students Association
University of California, Hastings College of the Law- Middle Eastern Law Students Association
University of California, Los Angeles School of Law- Law Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Los Angeles- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Riverside- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, San Diego- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Santa Barbara- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of California, Santa Cruz- Committee for Justice in Palestine
University of Chicago- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Connecticut- International Relations Association
University of Florida, Gainesville- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Florida- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Illinois at Chicago- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Maryland, Baltimore- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Massachusetts, Boston- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Michigan- Students Allied for Freedom and Equality
University of Pittsburgh- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of South Florida- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Southern California- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Southern California- Students for Justice in Palestine
University of Texas, Austin- Palestine Solidarity Committee
University of Washington, Seattle- Students for Justice in Palestine
Wellesley College- Justice for Palestine
Yale University- Students for Justice in Palestine

BU SJP Confronts Zionist CAMERA Conference on October 10th

On Sunday, October 10th, students from Boston University’s Students for Justice in Palestine group and their allies (American Jews for a Just Peace, ItisApartheid, and students from several other Boston Palestine groups) assembled to demonstrate against the university’s hosting of “War by Other Means: the Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel,” a conference put on by the anti-Palestinian group CAMERA (the Committee For Accuracy in Middle East Reporting). As a result of the growing success of the international Palestine solidarity movement, Israel’s supporters increasingly feel that they are en route to a South African like pariah status. According to CAMERA, “Israel faces a convergence of global forces that may undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the world community.” Its conference contained many prominent Israel supporters including keynote speaker and Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, Daniel Pipes, and Gerald Steinberg of NGO monitor.


As conference attendees arrived, they were met with a mock “apartheid wall” assembled by protestors symbolizing the nearly 440 mile long wall Israel has used to seize and carve up Palestinian territory beyond the 1967 Green line. The Brass Liberation Orchestra, a marching band which incorporates socio-political messages into its often theatrical performances, accompanied several dozen protestors as they held banners, sang, and handed out hundreds of fliers. Protestors used chants such as “BU, US, it’s time for BDS!” and "Hey BU you've been had, Dershowitz is WICKED bad!" (as Alan Dershowitz photographed a banner with his name on it).


BDS or boycott, divestment, and sanctions, is a global non-violent movement that aims to put economic pressure on the Israeli state to end the occupation of the territories seized in 1967, recognize international law, and grant full and equal rights to Arab-Palestinians living within Israel.

Chomsky Speaks At Boston University: On Palestine!

Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Jacob Sleeper Auditorium - College of General Studies- rm: 129
Street: 871 Commonwealth Avenue
City/Town: Boston, MA


Noam Chomsky, prolific author and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for over half a century. Among his many dozens of books are Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, Manufacturing Consent, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, and Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy. (for more information: http://www.chomsky.info/)

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Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe. The aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement.

Last year, more than 40 cities around the world participated in the week's activities, which took place in the wake of Israel's brutal assault against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. IAW continues to grow with new cities joining this year.

Third Annual Boston Palestine Film Festival

Monday November 2 at 7pm: "Over their Dead Bodies" [CAS rm B36]

Tuesday November 3 at 7pm: "This Palestinian Life" [CAS rm B36]

Wednesday November 4 at 7pm: "Welcome to Hebron," Followed by comments from American-Israeli Activist Bekah Wolf from the Palestine Solidarity Project ( http://palestinesolidarityproject.org) [CAS rm 224]

---------------------------------------------------------Bekah Wolf is an American Jew with Israeli citizenship who has worked inthe Occupied Palestinian Territories since 2003. She is the internationalcoordinator for the Palestine Solidarity Project, a Palestinianorganization dedicated to organizing and supporting popular, unarmedresistance to the occupation based in the village of Beit Ommar. She isspeaking on behalf of the PSP committee, a group of Palestinian men andwomen (all of whom were prevented from traveling to the United States tospeak themselves), including her husband and recent political prisoner,Mousa Abu Maria.

Just Beginning!

As of yesterday, we became a university sanctioned group, which will give us access to funds and space. We will keep you updated on your initial activities.

Welcome!

This is a form of expression and news from the new Students for Justice in Palestine group at Boston University. We have just started this semester and we already have several events planned. This is where you can stay informed on our progress as we tear down the systems of power supporting the occupation of Palestine.