[Please contact Jorge Cham of PhD comics and ask him to cancel his Israel visit]
 
Dear Jorge Cham,
 
We are Israeli citizens who like PhD Comics, and we have heard of your scheduled visit to Israel. We would like to ask to reconsider your decision.

Here is a brief outline of our perspective:
There is an ongoing human rights crisis 5 minutes from the place where you are scheduled to lecture. Millions of people, namely Palestinians, are living under an Israeli system of occupation, colonization and even apartheid. Under this system, basic liberties of are being denied. This includes land theft, detention without trial, torture, the shooting of unarmed civilians and more. It also includes the stifling of Palestinian academic life : http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/articles/israel-palestine-parad....
 
Just across the valley from the venue of Mishkenot Sha'nanim (which means Sanssouci, a chilling name), children are being arrested and ill-treated in the middle of the night:
http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201012_caution_children_ahead
 
This is just one example.
 
In view of these crimes, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups has called for an institutional boycott of Israel. We, as privileged Jewish Israeli citizens, support this appeal. One aspect of the BDS call is the principle of not collaboration with Israeli state sponsored institutions. Your talk is scheduled to take place at a venue funded by the Jerusalem Foundation and the municipality of Jerusalem:
https://www.mishkenot.org.il/English/Default.aspx
 
Hand in hand, these two entities, along with settler organizations, are responsible for projects of creeping ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Foundation boasts of having “pioneered much of the archaeological discovery and preservation projects including the City of David excavations, the major gates of the Old City Walls, the Tower of David Museum and much more.”
(http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MO47smWFF2EJ:www.je...)
 
In response, Israeli peace and human rights group Ir-Amim reveals that: “In recent years, significant parts of the area have been wrestled away from the local population. Public land and property, most importantly the City of David National Park, has been “privatized” without compensation and handed over to”Elad”, a private ideological settler organization. Sensitive excavations also have been entrusted to Elad. The municipal and national authorities have encouraged, funded, supported, and protected this process. Silwan is the pillar of a sweeping and systematic policy and process of gaining control of the Palestinian territories that surround the Old City, designed to cut the Old City off from East Jerusalem, and to connect it to Jewish settlement blocs in northeast Jerusalem and the E-1 area. These plans have a decisive political and international significance because their implementation would further complicate the possibility of arriving at a viable agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.”
 
 
Please do not help normalize this reality.

Sincerely
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within
http://boycottisrael.info/