When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty - Israeli activists and the new anti-boycott laws

Dear friends,
As you may be aware, the Israeli Knesset on Monday night (Israeli time, 11 July) passed a new law making it illegal to call for, advocate or participate in a boycott against the Israeli state, its institutions or any Israeli citizen. In addition, the new law makes it illegal to call for a boycott of Israel’s settlements or products manufactured in these colonies which are illegal under international law.

In effect, the new law normalises Israel's occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, erasing the "greenline" (1967 armistice line), as it does not differentiate between Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Under the new law, any NGO which calls for or participates in a boycott against Israel will be denied tax exemption status. Any individual who does the same will be open to legal action. Any litigant can claim damages against both individuals and organisations for the advocating or participating in a boycott of Israel and be awarded financial compensation WITHOUT having to prove that the call for boycott or that an actual boycott has caused him/her and/or the company any financial damages.

Israeli activists both before the passing of the law and after the passing of the law are mobilising to campaign against it. Tali Shapiro and Bekah Wolf, who are just two of the amazing Israeli activists involved in the joint popular struggle and who I have been very lucky to meet in the Occupied Territories, have already issued public statements in support of an Israeli boycott. In issuing their statements, Tali and Bekah, are actively, deliberately and proudly breaking Israeli law.
It should be noted that In the time that it has taken me to put this email together, more and more Israelis have begun to join Tali and Becca, issuing a public statement announcing their support for a boycott of Israel. One such activist, who also issued a statement is Ofer Neiman, who spoke via skype at the first National BDS Conference in Australia in 2010. No doubt many other Israeli activists, in coming days, will engage in similar “illegal” acts, which actively and deliberately seek to break Israeli law.

I have included below, a copy of both Tali and Bekah’s statements, as well as links to some articles by Israeli activists and commentators on the new anti-boycott law.
In addition to the individual stands being taken by activists like Tali, Becca and Ofer, the Israeli group Peace Now, which supports a selective boycott of settlements, has announced that it will publicly launch a campaign calling for boycott. According to reports in the media, more than 2000 people joined their boycott campaign facebook within a few hours (see also here)

Israeli human rights organsiations, Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have announced that they will petition the Israeli High Court to have the law struck down

As the old saying goes: When Injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty!
Please support these inspiring “law breakers” and join the BDS campaign today!
In solidarity,
Kim

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For more information on the new bill and what is means see:
explains the impact of the law and has a link to an English translation of the law
outlines the political ideology of the new law
why the law is undemocratic
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Tali Shapiro

TALI SHAPIRO’S STATEMENT:
I call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against the State of Israelby Tali Shapiro on Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against the State of Israel in order to harm the State of Israel by means of boycott. If this is not clear enough, I will clarify: I (Tal Shapira, ID number: 039986310) hereby call for any person to deliberately avoid economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or another factor only because of his ties with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control, in such a way that may cause economic, cultural or academic damage. I knowingly publish a public call for a boycott against the State of Israel, hoping that according to the content and circumstances of the publication there is reasonable probability that the call will bring about a boycott; I am aware of this possibility.

אני קוראת לחרם, הימנעות מהשקעות וסנקציות על מדינת ישראל במטרה לפגוע במדינת ישראל באמצעות חרם. אם זה לא מספיק ברור, אבהיר: אני (טל שפירא, מס׳ תעודת־זיהוי: 039986310) קוראת בזאת לכל אדם באשר הוא להמנע במתכוון מקשר כלכלי, תרבותי או אקדמי עם אדם או עם גורם אחר, רק מחמת זיקתו למדינת ישראל, מוסד ממוסדותיה או איזור הנמצא בשליטתה, המנעות שיש בה כדי לפגוע בו פגיעה כלכלית, תרבותית או אקדמית. אני מפרסמת ביודעין קריאה פומבית זו להטלת חרם על מדינת ישראל, בתקווה שעל פי תוכנה של הקריאה והנסיבות שבהן פורסמה יש אפשרות סבירה שהקריאה תביא להטלת חרם כאמור; אני מודעת לאפשרות כאמור.
הקריאה הספציפית הזאת נוסחה במקור כאן: http://digitalwords.net/?p=605
מוזמנות ומוזמנים להטמיע את שמכןם ולהפיץ בנוט משלכןם.

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Bekah Wolf

BEKAH WOLF’S STATEMENT:July 12, 2011
ALLOW ME TO ONE OF THE FIRST
http://rafeefsworld.posterous.com/allow-me-to-be-one-of-the-first

My name is Rebekah Wolf Gomez. I became an Israeli citizen in 2007 as the only way to ensure I would be able to stay with my husband, a Palestinian from the West Bank, and not fear deportation from the Israeli government, which they did do to me in 2005.
I unequivocally, unabashedly, and with total pride call on everyone across the world to Boycott Israel, in particular, everything called for for boycott by PACBI. I fully support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and in all of my public speaking outside of Israel I call for support for BDS and will continue to do so.
I am making this statement because the Israeli government recently made it illegal to do so. There is much discussion about whether or not people should sign statements against it with their own names. People are referring to the "decline" in Israeli democracy. Many want to know the risk involved.

My husband, the people of his village, and indeed in all of Palestine, have not had the luxury of deciding how "risky" an act of defiance against Israeli occupation and apartheid will be. So long as Palestinians risk imprisonment, injury, and death for the sake of freedom, I won't cower in the face of much less risk. I think every other Israeli citizen should do the same. Worry about having your bank accounts frozen is no excuse at all.

Israel: come and get me. Tariq Al Ayn, Beit Ommar. The military's knows the way.

[NOTE from Kim: Bekah’s husband is Mousa Abu Maria, one of the leaders of the non-violent struggle in Beit Ommar. Bekah is one of the co-founders of the Palestine Solidarity Project based in Beit Ommar http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/ ]

Israel escalates assaults on democratic rights

Dear friends,
please find below my article on escalting assault on democratic rights in Israel which appeared in the August edition of Direct Action.

in solidarity, Kim

**Home » Issue 25: August 2010
Israel escalates assaults on democratic rights

By Kim Bullimore

Haneen Zoabi, a member of the Israeli Knesset, was stripped of her parliamentary privileges on July 13 following her participation in the Gaza flotilla, which was attacked by Israeli commandos who murdered nine human rights activists.



Zoabi attacked in the Israeli Knesset when speaking about the murder on the Mavi Marmara.
Zoabi, one of the 10 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who are members of the Knesset, was stripped of her right to hold a diplomatic passport, the right to free legal counsel in case she faces trial and all privileges related to travelling overseas as a member of parliament. Zoabi also faces threats of criminal charges by Israel’s Attorney General Department for her participation in the flotilla.
Assault in parliament

Zoabi, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara when it was attacked, recounted her experience to the Knesset on 2 June. According to the June 3 Jerusalem Post, Knesset members from both the coalition and opposition parties not only sought to shout down Zoabi, but also physically charged the podium in an attempt to stop her from continuing her speech. When other Palestinian members of the Knesset attempted to prevent the physical attacks on Zoabi, they were also attacked.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Likud member Miri Regev screamed abuse at Zoabi, yelling at her “Go back to Gaza, you traitor”, while another member from the supposedly centrist Kadima party accused Zoabi of being a terrorist. On June 2, Israeli news site YNet reported that during the session, Moshe Mutz Matalon, from the openly racist anti-Arab Yisrael Beitenu party, also praised the murder of the nine human rights activists on the Mavi Marmara, saying, “Unfortunately, the [commando] fighters acted with too much restraint. They left only nine floating voters.”

Before being screamed down, Zoabi stated that she felt it was her moral and political duty to participate in the flotilla and to oppose the imprisonment of 1.5 million people. Zoabi also pointed out to those calling her a criminal, that unlike the Israeli commandos, she did not murder anyone. In a press release later issued by her parliamentary office, Zoabi noted: “Israel, following the international reaction to its bloody attack on the humanitarian flotilla, is embarrassed and confused. Unable to deal with the shock and anger of the international community, I have become their punching bag.”

In an attempt to silence Zoabi and other members of the Knesset who did not toe the Zionist line, a number of Knesset members announced that they had drafted legislation to punish Zoabi for exercising her right to freedom of speech and to prevent her from running in future Knesset elections.
Silencing critics


Zoabi about to board the Mavi Marmara

US Jewish blogger Tony Greenstein wrote on June 8 that the attacks on Zoabi were an attack on the entirety of Israel’s Palestinian Arab population. According to Greenstein, “What we are seeing is not merely a personal vendetta but a deliberate and concerted attempt to humiliate, intimidate and persecute a political representative of Israel’s Arab citizens, who comprise 20% of the population”.

The attack on Zoabi, while a part of the campaign to silence and further marginalise Israel’s Palestinian citizens, is also part of a broader attempt to silence internal critics, both Palestinian and Jewish, of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies. In May, Dr Omar Saeed, a member of Zoabi’s Balad party and Amir Makhoul, the director general of Ittijah (Union of Arab Community-based Associations) were arrested when their homes were raided in the middle of the night. The two men were accused of spying for Hezbollah. Their arrests were not initially made public due to the military censor, a department of the Israeli government, imposing a gag order preventing the media from reporting the arrests. The arrests became public knowledge in Israel only after international bloggers began a campaign to free Makhoul, forcing the Israeli military to lift the gag order.



Amir Makhoul giving a speech before his arrest

On June 8, Saeed was sentenced to seven months’ jail after striking a plea bargain with the state, which charged him with “servicing an illegal organisation” rather than “contact with a foreign agent” and “delivery of information for the benefit the enemy”. In a media statement, Saeed’s legal team noted, “The cancellation of the most serious charges against Dr. Saeed proves that the State Prosecution inflated the charges to begin with in order to justify its arbitrary and illegal actions ... against him”. The flimsiness of the case was demonstrated in a June 8 article published by YNet. According to YNet, while an apparent Hezbollah agent had approached the 50-year-old Saeed in Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt in 2008, Saeed had rejected the alleged agent’s overtures and later ripped up the contact details given to him, rebuffing any further contact.

Two days earlier, on June 6, Makhoul, whose lawyers had been prevented from seeing him for 12 days and who suspected he’d been tortured in custody, was finally able to speak with the Israeli media when his court case began. Makhoul said his and Saeed’s arrests, as well as the attacks on Zoabi, had nothing to do with security, but were part of “a trend of breaking the bones of political figures”.



The Israeli state’s attack on dissenting citizens, particularly Palestinian Arab citizens, is nothing new. Since its beginning, the Zionist state has sought punitive control of the Palestinian population in both Israel and the occupied territories. From 1948 until 1966, Palestinians living inside Israel, despite nominally being Israeli citizens, were subject to military regulations. Unlike Jewish citizens, Palestinian Arabs were subject to severe restrictions on their movement and prohibited from organising politically; Palestinian Arab political associations and parties were banned and Palestinian Arab publications censored.
New campaigns

Since the 2009 Israeli election, which resulted in Yisrael Beteinu forming government with Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud, dozens of anti-democratic laws, specifically aimed at further marginalising Palestinian citizens, have been introduced into the Knesset. The last year has also brought a dramatic increase in the attacks, both in the Knesset and in broader Israeli society, on the political and civil rights of Jewish Israelis who oppose the government’s occupation and apartheid policies.

While Yisrael Beteinu, Likud and Kadima have introduced and supported bills to criminalise and jail any Israeli citizen advocating for the Palestinian-initiated boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, extreme right groups have launched a campaign against a range of Israeli human rights and civil society organisations. In early 2010, a campus-based group, Im Tirtzu, which receives partial funding from the Christians for Israel lobby led by anti-Semitic preacher John Hagee, targeted Naomi Chazan and the New Israel Fund (NIF). Im Tirtzu’s campaign, which included full-page advertisements, sought to depict Chazan and the NIF as treasonous informants. The attack also sought to discredit the many Israeli human rights and civil society groups that had received NIF funding and had exposed the human rights abuses carried out by Israel in the occupied territories, as well as the war crimes it engaged in during its 22-day assault on Gaza in 2008-2009.

In April 2010, a survey commissioned by the Tel Aviv University-based Tami Steinmetz Centre for Peace Research found that the majority of Jewish Israelis held similar positions to that of Im Tirtzu, favouring closing down Israeli human rights organisations that exposed human rights abuses by Israel’s military. According to the survey, more than half of the Jewish Israelis surveyed believe that “there is too much freedom of expression” in Israel, while nearly 58% believed that Israeli human rights organisations that expose abuses carried out by Israel shouldn’t be allowed to operate freely. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper on April 28 stated, “The poll also found that most of the respondents favour punishing Israeli citizens who support sanctioning or boycotting the country, and support punishing journalists who report news that reflects badly on the actions of the defence establishment”. In addition, 65% believed that the Israeli media should be censored and barred from publishing any news deemed by defence officials to endanger state security.

In reaction to the survey, Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor at Tel Aviv University, told Haaretz, “Israelis have a distorted perception of democracy”, and “the public recognises the importance of democratic values, but when they need to be applied, it turns out most people are almost anti-democratic”.