BOYCOTT!

July 18, 2010

Dear members of Π.Α.ΜΕ.

We are a group of Jews and Palestinians, citizens and residents of Israel, who are struggling to end the Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. We are writing to you in order to express our enthusiastic support of your courageous civil protest against the blockade of Gaza and against Israel's oppressive policies by symbolically blocking five El-Al airline check-in counters at Athens International Airport (14.07.10). You have thus joined a long line of civilians who, unlike their own governments, express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their dissociation from the oppressive polices of the Israel government.

"How many lives can they take, till we break?"
"How many homes set alight, till we fight?"

Dear Leftfield,

We, a group of Israeli citizens, are writing to you today, as your words of protest resonate with their relevance in light of the deadly raid on a flotilla attempting to break the illegal siege and packed with humanitarian aid, bound for the suffocating Gaza Strip. That same strip of land, overpopulated and besieged for the past 3 years, is the place which Israel chose to brutally attack during its December 2009 onslaught.

To Ireland's EU commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn,
 

Rachel Giora

July 1st, 2010

 In the eyes of the world, the question is what can be done when the relevant institutions do not succeed in enforcing international law?

Tanya Reinhart

(May 5, 2005)¹

Despite the recent atrocities inflicted by Israelis on Palestinians and internationals, despite the deteriorating status of human rights experienced by Israeli citizens both Palestinian and non-Palestinian, despite the mounting despair of any chance for a change on the part of Israeli governments, Israel can no longer NOT look in the mirror the world is pushing up to its face. Israel is on the brink of change or collapse.

June 22, 2010

Dear members of the dock workers union in Sweden,

We have heard of your decision to initiate a blockade against all Israeli transfers to and from Swedish harbors between the 23^rd-29^th of June, 2010. As Israeli citizens and residents, we are aware of the message these actions send to the Israeli society. Israelis who have so far lived in a bubble disassociated from the way they are perceived by the world outside will not be able to ignore this protest. For too long Israel has been treated by the outside world in a way that has allowed it to ignore international law in a most dangerous way, to both the Palestinians, to itself and citizens, and to the area as a whole. This continuous failure of the outside world to question Israeli policies has allowed Israelis to view the practices of its government as legitimate. Hopefully, actions such as yours, which profile Israel together with other non-democracies with fascist and racist agendas, will function as a wake-up call. Facts reported by a recent article in the Israeli paper Maariv give us hope that we are getting close to achieving just that. 

June 6, 2010

Boycott! praises The Pixies for their decision to cancel their concert in Tel-Aviv, Israel, following Israel's brutal raid on the recent Freedom Flotilla and its massacre on the Mavi Marmara ship. This attack and its maintaining of the life-costing and illegal siege on Gaza has demonstrated once more what we've stated in our appeal to the Pixies three months ago - that an attitude of “business as usual” to Israel is indeed lethal.

 June 4, 2010

We are Israeli citizens and residents, Palestinians and Jews. We work in our society to raise the voices of conscience and dissent in light of the hostility, self-righteousness and racism which dominate it, but these efforts are not sufficient. In the wake of our government's deadly attack on the Free Gaza aid ships, including the MV Marmara, and due to the continued cruel and illegitimate Israeli siege on the Gaza strip - we call on the world's governments and civil society organizations to take concrete and immediate steps in pressuring Israel to refrain from interfering with the ship MV Rachel Corrie, currently on route to Gaza, or any future vessel, sailing from international waters to the waters of the besieged Gaza strip.

Open letter, various undersigned, 7 May 2010
The following letter was issued by a coalition of organizations calling on author Amitav Ghosh to decline the Dan David prize administered by Tel Aviv University, to be awarded on 9 May:
 
Boycott Israel? Amitav Ghosh & the Dan David Prize
Dear Amitav Ghosh,

Dear Gil Scott-Heron,

The undersigned artists and organizations would like to commend your principled stance on Israeli apartheid.

By announcing the cancellation of your scheduled performance in Israel, you join the growing ranks of artists of conscience in solidarity with Palestinian civil society. As you recognized in your iconic anti-Apartheid anthem “Johannesburg,” when “brothers over there are defyin’ the man…they need to know we’re on their side.”

What follows is an open letter to the Boston Museum of Science by leading scholars objecting to the museum's sponsorship of an Israeli propaganda effort:

We, the undersigned group of scientists concerned with human dignity and equality, condemn the Museum of Science’s decision to co-sponsor and host “Israeli Innovation Weekend” (IIW) on May 2.