[Reader-list] "Ghosh: Do not undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom!"

Tue Apr 27 01:13:42 IST 2010

Those of you who are interested can follow the issue and interesting debate
on Kafila too.
Link:
http://kafila.org/2010/04/20/boycott-of-israel-would-serve-any-useful-tactical-purpose-amitav-ghosh/

<http://kafila.org/2010/04/20/boycott-of-israel-would-serve-any-useful-tactical-purpose-amitav-ghosh/>
Pheeta

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 10:19 PM, Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com> wrote:

> At the risk of cross-posting...
> For those who have been following the issue of Amitava Ghosh receiving the
> Dan David prize.
> This from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of
> Israel.
> best
> Sanjay Kak
>
>
> PACBI | 25 April 2010
>
> Ghosh: Do not undermine the Palestinian struggle for freedom!
>
> Occupied Ramallah, 25 April 2010
>
> The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
> (PACBI) was extremely disappointed by the recent statement you issued in
> response to pleas from individuals and groups around the world urging you
> not to associate your name with Israel’s efforts to white-wash its crimes.
> Your acceptance of the Dan David Prize comes at a time when the
> international movement to boycott Israel is gaining ground in response to
> Israel’s flagrant violation of Palestinian human and political rights; we
> appeal to you to reflect upon the implication of your acceptance of this
> prize.
>
> You titled your statement 'It is not awarded by the state of Israel’, yet
> the prize is administered by a university that is funded by the state and,
> more crucially, is a leading academic partner of the state in developing
> weapons and justifying war crimes. The prize ceremony is presided over by
> the Israeli President, Shimon Peres, the architect of Israel's nuclear
> weapons program, whose record boasts a series of war crimes and grave
> violations of human rights. Only to cite one: on April 18, the Israeli army
> shelled the UN shelter in Qana, killing 102 civilians, mainly women,
> children and the elderly. Many more were injured. Human Rights Watch, the
> UN
> and Amnesty International subsequently established that Israel's attack on
> the UN base was deliberate, disproving Israeli propaganda to the contrary.
> Shimon Peres said at the time, "In my opinion, everything was done
> according
> to clear logic and in a responsible way. I am at peace." The Qana massacre
> led to Shimon Peres being denied the job he coveted at the time: that of UN
> Secretary-General.
>
> You will be receiving this prize from the head of a state that has for more
> than six decades imposed a colonial and apartheid regime on the people of
> Palestine and has for the last 43 years militarily occupied the West Bank,
> including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Despite the “peace process”
> which began 17 years ago, Israel routinely violates the Palestinians’ most
> fundamental human rights with impunity. Israel extra-judicially kills
> Palestinian leaders and activists; keeps over 8,000 Palestinians
> imprisoned,
> including numerous members of parliament. As we write, Israel continues to
> build illegal Jewish-only colonies on occupied Palestinian land and an
> apartheid infrastructure of roads, blockades and the Apartheid Wall,
> declared illegal by the International Court of Justice at the Hague in
> 2004.
> Israel denies millions of Palestinian refugees their internationally
> recognized right to return to their lands, as stipulated in UN resolutions.
> Moreover, Israel maintains a system of racial discrimination against its
> own
> Palestinian citizens that largely conforms to the definition of apartheid
> in
> the UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
> Apartheid and that is reminiscent of key elements of apartheid South
> Africa.
> In the latest Israeli war of aggression on the occupied Gaza Strip,
> Palestinian civilians were massacred by Israel’s indiscriminate bombing,
> condemned by UN experts and leading human rights organizations, particular
> in the Goldstone report, as war crimes. This assault left over 1,440
> Palestinians dead, predominantly civilians, of whom 431 were children, and
> injured another 5380. [1]
>
> Since much of your work considers how human beings survived dislocations
> and
> colonialism, you may be interested to know that Tel Aviv University (TAU)
> has conspicuously refused to recognize and commemorate the Palestinian
> village of Sheikh Muwannis and its ethnically cleansed population on whose
> land the university was partially built. Despite sustained activists’
> campaigning, TAU has so far rejected even mounting a plaque referencing and
> commemorating the village and its history, and has failed to acknowledge
> the
> moral debt for injustices caused to the indigenous Palestinian people
> during
> the establishment of the state of Israel. [2]
>
> Last year’s comprehensive report by the Palestine Society at the School of
> Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) presents strong evidence of intensive,
> purposive and open institutional cooperation of TAU with the Israeli
> military establishment. TAU Professor Avraham Katzir observed:
>
> One of the things which helps the State of Israel […] is the fact that each
> one of us is both an Israeli citizen and working in these fields […] I’m an
> academic at university and I’ve also done my [military] service, and I was
> also at [state arms manufacturer] RAFAEL for some years. All of those
> things
> come together; we’re helping one another – something which doesn’t happen
> [elsewhere]; I’ve been in the US and Europe, and there is a disconnect
> between the workshops and the army; they hate the army! [With us], I think
> that we succeed by virtue of the fact that we help one another so much. [3]
>
>
> Additionally, studies by the Alternative Information Center (2009), Adalah
> (2003), and Human Rights Watch (2001), among others, corroborate and
> document accusations that Israeli educational institutions, including TAU,
> pursue discriminatory racial policies that are meant to prevent
> Palestinians
> in Israel from enrolling. [4] These policies make it yet more difficult for
> Palestinian citizens of Israel to obtain faculty positions. Any encounter
> at
> an Israeli university thus nearly always excludes or marginalizes
> Palestinian voices.
>
> You note in your statement that you object to boycotts and embargoes when
> they concern matters of culture and learning. Aside from the crucial fact
> that the Palestinian call for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel
> targets institutions, not individuals, [5] why should cultural and learning
> institutions be exempt from boycotts if they are implicated in the
> atrocities as any other sector? Culture and learning were not exempt in the
> South African case. The Palestinian civil society campaign for Boycott,
> Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which is a strategy endorsed by an
> overwhelming majority of Palestinian unions, NGOs, cultural organizations,
> among others, as a legitimate non-violent and effective means of struggle
> against Israel’s oppression, has been largely inspired by the South African
> struggle against apartheid. When you reject our call for the academic and
> cultural boycott of Israel, you undermine our struggle for freedom and
> ignore the voices of almost all prominent Palestinian artists, writers and
> other cultural workers [6] and the many international intellectuals who
> have
> joined our boycott [7].
>
> If you have any doubts that the situation of Palestinians is similar to
> that
> of black South African’s under apartheid, we urge you to read the words of
> Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who in a recent letter to Berkeley students wrote:
>
> “I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed
> the
> racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the
> conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of
> Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and
> children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when
> trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school
> or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South
> Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces
> of
> the Apartheid government. In South Africa, we could not have achieved our
> freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who
> through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment,
> encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse
> decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.” [8]
>
> As was the case in South Africa, where international solidarity played a
> crucial role in bringing down apartheid by boycotting the economic,
> educational and cultural institutions of the apartheid regime, we sincerely
> hope you will not accept any prizes offered by complicit Israeli
> institutions, until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law
> and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full
> equality
> and freedom in their homeland.
>
> We call upon you not just to be 'appalled’ by Israel’s actions, but to show
> real solidarity with us in our struggle for freedom by refusing to
> associate
> your name with Israel’s atrocities.
>
>
>
> PACBI
>
> www.PACBI.org <http://www.pacbi.org/>
>
> pacbi at pacbi.org
>
>
>
>  [1] http://www.ochaopt.org/gazacrisis/index.php?section=3
>
> [2] Tel Aviv University is asked to acknowledge its past and to commemorate
> the Palestinian village on which grounds the university was built,
> www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=143
>
> [3] SOAS Palestine Society Report: "Tel Aviv University part and parcel of
> the Israeli Occupation,"
>
> http://www.electronicintifada.net/downloads/pdf/090708-soas-palestine-society.pdf
>
> [4] Tel Aviv University’s Age Restrictions Discriminate against Arab
> Students in Admission to its Medical School,
> www.adalah.org/newsletter/eng/jan08/4.php ;
> Reference Material in Support of Palestinian and International Academic
> Boycott Campaigns (2006) compiled by the Alternative Information Center,
> www.alternativenews.org;
>
> Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. Education
> rights—Palestinian citizens of Israel, (2003), Shafa’amr, Israel;
> Human Rights Watch. Second Class: Discrimination Against Palestinian Arab
> Children in Israel’s Schools (2001), www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/
>
> [5] See the PACBI Call for Boycott at:
> http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869 and the Guidelines for the
> International Cultural Boycott of Israel at:
> http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1047
>
> [6] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=315<
> http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=315&key=filmmakers>
>
> [7] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=415&key=filmmakers
> [8] *
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/divesting-from-injustice_b_534994.html
> *<
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/divesting-from-injustice_b_534994.html
> >
>
> Posted on 25-04-2010
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