18.03.21
Editorial Note
The BDS movement has launched the global Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) of 2021.
In the UK, IAW is running between March 15 to 22. The long list of activities appears below:
-Monday 15th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Understanding Palestine Through Gaza
-Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: University of Leicester Palestine Society with PSC. Understanding Israeli Apartheid w/ Lubnah Shomali, Dr Nimer Sultany, Rania Muhareb, Hazam Jamjoum
-Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: Lancaster University Friends of Palestine: Budrus Film Screening
-Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Imprisoning a Generation Documentary Screening.
-Tuesday 16th March at 6.30: Sussex Friends of Palestine Society: Medical Apartheid in Palestine w/ Dr Ghada Karmi
-Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: UCL SJP and KCL SJP: Shira Robinson on ‘Citizens Stranger: Palestinians in Israel’
-Wednesday 17th March at 6pm: University of Bristol Friends of Palestine: United Against Israeli Apartheid
-Wednesday 17th March: at 6pm Lancaster University Friends of Palestine: The Ongoing Nakba with Lubnah Shomali.
-Wednesday 17th March at 7pm: University of Exeter Friends of Palestine Society: Solidarity with Palestine and the IHRA
-Wednesday 17th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Discussion with activists from Youth Against Settlements
-Thursday 18th March at 6pm: KCL Students for Justice in Palestine w/ PSC: Resisting Israeli Apartheid, w/ Omar Barghouti, Ben Jamal, William Shoki and Larissa Kennedy
-Thursday 18th March at 6.30: Sussex Friends of Palestine Society: 5 Broken Cameras Film Screening
-Thursday 18th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Hawiyya Dabke Workshop
-Friday 19th March at 6pm: Lancaster University Friends of Palestine: From Ferguson to Palestine
-Friday 19th March at 6pm: UCL SJP: Noura Erakat: ‘Resisting Apartheid: Breaking the Cycle of Injustice’
-Friday 19th March at 6.30pm: Sussex Friends of Palestine Society: “If only walls could talk” Open Mic Fundraiser
-Saturday 20th March at 3pm: Stop the JNF Campaign: Richard Falk on Israeli Apartheid
-Sunday 21st March at 3pm: Global Israeli Apartheid Week Rally: Feat Remi Kanazi, Shaeera Kalla and more!
-Monday 22nd March at 6.30pm: This is Apartheid: A conversation with B’Tselem’s executive director Hagai El-Ad and renowned Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu
In January, the Palestine Solidarity Committee hosted a webinar on “Resisting Lawfare on Campus,” which is a reply to the legal actions taken by Jewish and Zionist students who felt threatened by the anti-Semitic episodes that surfaced during pro-Palestinian events. According to the organizers of the webinar, It is “evident that crude lawfare tactics mainly aim to discourage students from speaking up for Palestinian rights on campus as well as educating others about the constant infringements of international law occurring in Palestine.” Legal experts outlined what students must do if their event faces “unfair (and potentially illegal) restrictions in the run up to Israeli Apartheid Week 2021.” The webinar highlighted the support available for any student “subjected to threats of litigation or inaccurate legal arguments.”
The group Palestine Solidarity Campaign Youth and Student Committee has published a newsletter, authored by a SOAS student who spent a year in Nablus as part of her Arabic degree. According to her, the IAW activities worldwide are “inspiring virtual events” intending to “protest against all forms of racism and discrimination, including Israeli apartheid.”
She announces that the protests will focus on “the struggle against Israel’s regime of systematic racial discrimination against all parts of the Palestinian people, amounting to the crime apartheid.” The BDS activities will act as a “massive virtual protest to resist racial discrimination, colonialism, and apartheid and celebrate our struggles’ diversity and connectedness.” Because history showed that “when movements for justice unite to take on oppressive structures, we can and will win. Liberation struggles must work together against institutional racism and oppression, challenging unjust systems of power together. So, let’s educate our peers about Israeli apartheid, and grow the struggle against all complicity,” she says.
Interestingly, the newsletter includes a section on the news from Palestine, stating that the upcoming Palestinian elections have been “met with a mixture of hope and apathy by Palestinians accustomed to living under seemingly perpetual occupation.” In particular, “there is widespread skepticism amongst Palestinians that the election process will be accepted or will translate into meaningful positive change for Palestinians.”
As per the last elections held in 2006, “the results were not accepted by the international community and Hamas, the winners, were squeezed out of the West Bank before consolidating power in Gaza following a failed coup d’état by their political rivals Fatah. Whilst Fatah’s chance of victory in these elections appears stronger than in 2006, there are rumors that, in an attempt to mitigate possible international condemnation of election results, Fatah and Hamas may put forward a joint list of candidates, although this remains unclear at time of writing.”
As can be seen, the protest is not only against Israel but also the US and Europe. “Those in power use it to generate fear and separate us from each other and from our dreams. In 2020 alone, thousands of migrants have lost their lives because of the racist migration policies imposed by the US and fortress Europe. Police brutality has taken the lives of hundreds of black people in the US.”
However, the harshest attack is always against Israel: “Israel ́s regime of apartheid, colonialism, and military occupation has gone unpunished for decades, subjecting the entire Palestinian people to a system of institutionalized and systematic racial oppression that denies their most basic rights.”
A preview of what can be expected was offered by the Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, which hosted Dr. Haidar Eid, an associate professor of English Literature at Al-Aqsa University, in a Zoom lecture on March 15, 2021. Eid made a case for “De-Osloization,” that is, “the redefinition of the Palestinian cause as an anti-colonial struggle against a system of settler-colonialism and apartheid, and reunification of the three components of the Palestinian people, namely, Gaza and the West Bank residents, refugees, and Palestinian citizens of Israel.” Eid observed that in the West Bank and Gaza, “What has been created is literally two different worlds, both of which have been led by undemocratic institutions, many security apparatuses, Third Worldish courts, corruption, mismanagement, inefficiency and nepotism—to mention but few (neo)colonial qualities.” The obtuse jargon of academic-activists, a subspecies of the Neo-Marxist, critical scholarship, does not clarify who should be blamed for the long list of governance failures, but knowing how this group thinks, it is safe to assume that Israel is the culprit.
By using the Israel cop-out, Dr. Eid and his colleagues don’t have to accuse the Palestinians, especially Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) for turning the Gaza Strip into the most fortified piece of real estate in the world. They don’t have to mention that billions of dollars that the Palestinians receive from the international community were squandered through corruption and nepotism, not to mention used to build monstrous tunnels, and hideouts for weapons and ammunition under the public buildings, schools, and mosques. They don’t have to note that the West Bank residents, under the “enlightened” rule of Mahmoud Abbas, enjoy precious few rights, that journalists and activists are jailed and occasionally murdered. In the Gaza Strip, under the brutal dictatorship of Hamas, there are no human rights, and dissenters are executed through extra-judicial means.
Of course, in this litany of alleged Israeli sins, there is no need to mention that the Oslo process was undermined by Iran and its proxies, Hamas and PIJ, which launched a campaign of suicide attacks that killed more than 1,500 Israelis and wounded thousands. The same elements intimidated Yasser Arafat to the point that he refused to sign the Oslo agreement presented at the Second Camp David in 2000. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, openly acknowledged that the Oslo agreement was an existential threat to the regime and needed to be “destroyed.”
Having ignored this reality, the Palestinian advocates on campus can perpetuate the myth of Israeli apartheid year after year.
https://events.mandela.ac.za/Events/Lectures-and-Talks/WEBINAR-Israeli-Apartheid-Week
WEBINAR – Israeli Apartheid Week
Event location: Online webinar
Event date and time: 15/03/2021 18:00:00
The Palestinian Struggle: De-osloization and the Fight Against Normalisation.
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https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bg6Uc4tTT3uiWB4evtYXgg
Webinar RegistrationTopicDe-Osloization and the Fight Against NormalisationDescriptionIt has been almost 30 years since the first Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. The Accords promised that that one-third of the Palestinian people, those living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, would realize their “national dream” of statehood on no more than 22 percent of historic Palestine. 28 years later, the dream of Palestinian statehood has proved illusory as Israel has not only entrenched its occupation and relentlessly expanded its colonization in the West Bank, but also placed the Gaza strip under permanent siege.
So, as Dr Haidar Eid has observed, far from the possibility of self-determination, “Instead, what has been created in parts of the West Bank and Gaza is an apartheid-type Bantustan endorsed by the international community. What has been created is literally two different worlds, both of which have been led by undemocratic institutions, many security apparatuses, Third Worldish courts, corruption, mismanagement, inefficiency and nepotism—to mention but few (neo)colonial qualities.“
In this talk, Dr Eid, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature at Al-Aqsa University, makes the case for “De-Osloization”– which he describes as “the redefinition of the Palestinian cause as an anti-colonial struggle against a system of settler-colonialism and apartheid, and reunification of the three components of the Palestinian people, namely, Gaza and the West Bank residents, refugees, and Palestinian citizens of Israel.”Time
Mar 15, 2021 06:00 PM in Johannesburg
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https://www.palestinecampaign.org/list-of-iaw-2021-events/
List of Events Below:
Monday 15th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Understanding Palestine Through Gaza
Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: University of Leicester Palestine Society with PSC. Understanding Israeli Apartheid w/ Lubnah Shomali, Dr Nimer Sultany, Rania Muhareb, Hazam Jamjoum
Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: Lancaster University Friends of Palestine: Budrus Film Screening
Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Imprisoning a Generation Documentary Screening.
Tuesday 16th March at 6.30: Sussex Friends of Palestine Society: Medical Apartheid in Palestine w/ Dr Ghada Karmi
Tuesday 16th March at 6pm: UCL SJP and KCL SJP: Shira Robinson on ‘Citizens Stranger: Palestinians in Israel’
Wednesday 17th March at 6pm: University of Bristol Friends of Palestine: United Against Israeli Apartheid
Wednesday 17th March: at 6pm Lancaster University Friends of Palestine: The Ongoing Nakba with Lubnah Shomali.
Wednesday 17th March at 7pm: University of Exeter Friends of Palestine Society: Solidarity with Palestine and the IHRA
Wednesday 17th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Discussion with activists from Youth Against Settlements
Thursday 18th March at 6pm: KCL Students for Justice in Palestine w/ PSC: Resisting Israeli Apartheid, w/ Omar Barghouti, Ben Jamal, William Shoki and Larissa Kennedy
Thursday 18th March at 6.30: Sussex Friends of Palestine Society: 5 Broken Cameras Film Screening
Thursday 18th March at 6pm: SOAS Palestine Society: Hawiyya Dabke Workshop
Friday 19th March at 6pm: Lancaster University Friends of Palestine: From Ferguson to Palestine
Friday 19th March at 6pm: UCL SJP: Noura Erakat: ‘Resisting Apartheid: Breaking the Cycle of Injustice’
Friday 19th March at 6.30pm: Sussex Friends of Palestine Society: “If only walls could talk” Open Mic Fundraiser
Saturday 20th March at 3pm: Stop the JNF Campaign: Richard Falk on Israeli Apartheid
Sunday 21st March at 3pm: Global Israeli Apartheid Week Rally: Feat Remi Kanazi, Shaeera Kalla and more! Join here
Monday 22nd March at 6.30pm: This is Apartheid: A conversation with B’Tselem’s executive director Hagai El-Ad and renowned Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu
https://www.facebook.com/events/419335612627253
THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2021 AT 8 PM UTC+02
IAW 2021: United Against Racism – Resisting Israeli Apartheid
Free · Online event
Details
549 people respondedEvent by Palestine Solidarity Campaign UKOnline: bit.lyThursday, March 18, 2021 at 8 PM UTC+02Price: FreePublic · Anyone on or off FacebookREGISTER: http://bit.ly/IAWResistIsrael’s system of institutionalised racist discrimination amounts to the crime of apartheid under international law. This webinar, part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2021, will explore how Palestinians, and their allies around the globe, resist Israeli apartheid.This includes through the global Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, which works to target companies and institutions aiding Israel’s violations of international law.
History has shown us that when movements for justice unite to take on oppressive structures, we can and will win. Liberation struggles must work together against institutional racism and oppression, challenging unjust systems of power together.This webinar will also touch on how you can build the movement in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality on your university campus.SPEAKERS:
William Shoki, activist with South African BDS Coalition
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Palestinian-led BDS Movement
Ben Jamal, Director of PSC
Larissa Kennedy, National Union of Student PresidentREGISTER: http://bit.ly/IAWResist
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https://www.facebook.com/events/218178846665029
TUESDAY, 16 MARCH 2021 AT 20:00 UTC+02
IAW 2021: Understanding Israeli Apartheid
Free · Online event IAW 2021: Understanding Israeli Apartheid 526 people responded
DetailsEvent by Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK and University of Leicester Palestine SocietyOnline: bit.lyTuesday, 16 March 2021 at 20:00 UTC+02Price: freePublic · Anyone on or off FacebookREGISTER: http://bit.ly/IAWApartheidSince its foundation Israel has developed a system of institutionalised racist discrimination against the Palestinian people. Whether living under occupation, as citizens of the Israeli state, or in exile, Palestinians face a system of rule which collectively oppresses and subjugates them.This year, Israel’s publicly stated aim of annexing at least 30% of the West Bank – following its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights – has further exposed its apartheid reality.
This webinar, co-hosted by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Uni of Leicester Palestine Society, as part of the global Israel Apartheid Week, will explore how Israel’s treatment of all parts of the Palestinian population amounts to the crime of apartheid under international law.Expert speakers will explore the way in which Israel’s practices meet the legal definition of apartheid, while focusing on the effect on Palestinians in all areas of their lives.SPEAKERS:
Rania Muhareb, PhD researcher and scholar
Hazem Jamjoum, al-Shabaka policy member, scholar.
Lubnah Shomali, Unit Manager for BADIL Resource Centre
Nimer Sultany, Reader at SOAS Law, commentator.REGISTER: http://bit.ly/IAWApartheid
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https://www.palestinecampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/PSC-YSC-Newsletter-3.pdf
WHAT’S NEW IN THE STORE
Hello and a warm welcome to our third newsletter from all of us at the PSCYouth & Student Committee!
As always, Israeli Apartheid Week is coming round fast. Students acrossthe world are organising inspiring virtual events as an international protest against all forms of racism and discrimination, including Israeli apartheid.
You can read on and find out about national webinars we’ve organised.There’s still time to organise something on your campus! Get in touch for advice and support.
In this newsletter, along with our plans for IAW, you’ll find reports from our previous events, including our workshop on how to resist unfair, and potentially illegal, restrictions on your events, as well as news from Palestine and our ‘Visit Palestine’ segment.
In solidarity!
Palestine Solidarity Campaign Youth and Student Committee
PSC YOUTH AND STUDENT
ISSUE 3: MARCH 2021
ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK 2021
From March 15th to 21st, students and others across the world will be organisingevents and holding protests focused on growing the struggle against Israel’sregime of systematic racial discrimination against all parts of the Palestinianpeople, amounting to the crime apartheid.
They’ll be joining up with those struggling against all forms of racism, marginalisation, and oppression, and promoting the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement for Palestinian freedom, justice andequality.
From Hebron to Ferguson, from Khirbet Humsa to London,
racism strips us of our humanity, tearing at our collective soul. But together, united as a movement for liberation – we can fight back.
Our events around the world will act as massive virtual protest to resist racialdiscrimination, colonialism, and apartheid and celebrate our struggles’ diversity and connectedness. History has shown us that when movements for justice unite to take on oppressive structures, we can and will win.
Liberation struggles must work together against institutional racism and oppression, challenging unjust systems of power together. So, let’s educate ourpeers about Israeli apartheid, and grow the struggle against all complicity.
Along with many events organised across UK campuses, here’s two onlineevents you can join wherever you are:
March 16th: Understanding Israeli Apartheid (co-hosted by PSC and Leicester Palestine Society)
Featuring Lubnah Shomali (BADIL), Rania Muhareb, Dr Nimer Sultany + more!
March 18th: United Against Racism – Resisting Israeli Apartheid (co-hosted by KCL Students for Justice in Palestine and PSC) w/ Omar Barghouti, Ben Jamal, Larissa Kennedy + more!
REPORT: RESISTING LAWFARE ON CAMPUS
As support for Palestinian rights amongst students grows, an increase in unjust attacks on students has also been witnessed. In an effort to maintain support for all students, PSC hosted a webinar in January titled ‘Resisting a Lawfare on Campus’, where legal experts outlined what students must do if their event faces unfair (and potentially illegal) restrictions in the run up to Israeli Apartheid Week 2021.
As a university student myself, being part of this event allowed me to know exactly what my rights are and how to manage any violation of such rights. The webinar also highlighted the support available for any student subjected to threats of litigation or inaccurate legal arguments.
Throughout the webinar, students and participants had the opportunity to raise questions which were answered by the speakers Lewis Backon, a campaigns office at PSC, Giovanni Fassina, the Programme Director of the European Legal Support Center – the first independent organisation that exists solely to defend and empower advocates for Palestinian rights across Europe through legalmeans, and Dima Khalidi, the founder and director of Palestine Legal andCooperating Counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
It’s evident that crude lawfare tactics mainly aim to discourage students from speaking up for Palestinian rights on campus as well as educating others about the constant infringements of international law occurring in Palestine.
However, according to the students’ questions and contributions, such acts carried out by Israel and its allies have only motivated student activists to continue their support for Palestinian human rights until Israel complies withinternational law.
If you are subject to any unfair treatment please email:lewis.backon@palestinecampaign.org
News From Palestine
Palestinian elections have been set for the coming months, but the seemingly welcome news has been met with a mixture of hope and apathy by Palestinians accustomed to living under seemingly perpetual occupation.
Elections are planned to take place in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, although Israel is likely to undermine, if not stop entirely, voting in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem, predominantly made up of Palestinians and recognised as Occupied Territory under international law, has been claimed by Israel as part of its sovereign territory since 1980.
Regardless of whether elections actually take place in all or part of the Occupied Territory, Palestinians in the global diaspora will not be able to take part, meaning the elections will not reflect the views of all Palestinians living outside occupied Palestine.
In addition, and perhaps more significantly, there is widespread scepticism amongst Palestinians that the election process will be accepted or will translate into meaningful positive change for Palestinians.
The last time elections were held in Palestine in 2006, the results were not accepted by the international community and Hamas, the winners, were squeezed out of the West Bank before consolidating power in Gaza following a failed coup d’état by their political rivals Fatah. Whilst Fatah’s chance of victory in these elections appears stronger than in 2006, there are rumours that, in an attempt to mitigate possible international condemnation of election results, Fatah and Hamas may put forward a joint list of candidates, although this remains unclear at time of writing.
In other news, Palestinians continue to suffer the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic without access to significant quantities of vaccines. Meanwhile Israel, its neighbour and occupying power, has the highest per-capita vaccination rate in the world and appears set on dispensing its surplus vaccine stocks globally in support of its geo-strategic national interests, at the expense of Palestinians next door. VISIT PALESTINE
I studied in Nablus for one year, as part of my Arabic degree at SOAS university in 2012-13. There are too many aspects to choose from of what I loved about
Palestine, so I thought I would go through a few places which I would tell anyone going, to visit!
Nablus is my number one! I lived in this beautiful, extremely friendly city for a year and I miss it. It nestles between two mountains – Aybal and Gerzim – and has an ancient quarter home to the city’s market where you can find local soap, olive oil, cheese, and the famous local dessert ‘knaffe’ – and lots more – in the stunning winding covered alleyways.
I would definitely recommend visiting Sebastia, where there is a lovely café overlooking the place where you get dropped off. The ‘hummous ma lahem’ isdelicious as are the fresh Palestinian olives…during a short walk round the hilly village you will see the remains of a roman amphitheatre, the site Salome danced for John the Baptist’s head (so they say) and extensive remains of whatI was told was King Herod’s palace.
Finally, the old city of Jerusalem during Ramadan is magical, with the markets opened through the night and lanterns of every colour decorating the arched stone passageways, as families visit shops and cafes after iftar, or go to theHaram al-Sharif to pray during this special and holy period. There is so much more to say (the coffee!the falafels
!), but more than all the magical places and amazing food is the warmth and generosity of the people I met, so many of whom treated me like a member of their family, and looked after me and my friends.
Free Palestine
IAW CALL AGAINST COLONIALISM, RACISM, ANDAPARTHEID
FROM THE BDS NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Racism tears the soul of the world
It strips us of our humanity
Those in power use it to generate fear and separate us from each other and from our dreams
In 2020 alone, thousands of migrants have lost their lives because of the racist migration policies imposed by the US and fortress Europe Police brutality has taken the lives of hundreds of black people in the US
Israel ́s regime of apartheid, colonialism, and military occupation hasgone unpunished for decades, subjecting the entire Palestinian people to a system ofinstitutionalized and systematic racial oppression that denies their most basic rights
Many cannot enjoy freedom and equality because of where they are born, the color of their skin, or their sexual identity
This is the ugly reality we have, but not the beautiful one we want
We don’t accept privileges for a few
We demand rights for all.
We and millions like us take to the streets to protest against systemic racism, patriarchal violence, climate injustice, neoliberal austerity, and economic inequality.
We will not stop until we tear down the structures of oppression
We will not stop resisting injustice
We will continue dreaming of freedom, justice, and rights for all.
We need all our voices united across the world to end racism,colonialism, and apartheid.
Together we are unstoppable.
Stand united against racism
Get involved in Israeli Apartheid Week 2021. Take action online, or organise a webinar for your campus!
israel-academia-monitor.com 