Supporters before and during the epic all-night hearing on divesting from Israel's occupation at UC Berkeley.

By Debbie Menon* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Disappointing, but this shows the immense power that "the Organization" has to overturn popular demand against amazing majority numbers in the face of all reason and "democratic" principle.

And, it also illustrates the cupidity, weakness, and failures of moral principles of elected representatives worldwide to stand up for principle and the will of their constituency when confronted with, promises, offers, influence, coercion, intimidation and probably blackmail, as well as greed and ambition.

The Administration of the University may have the power to veto student propositions, but they certainly do not have a moral right to do so on propositions such as this one. If the voice of the students are not to be heard, they should shout louder and every one of them go on strike, and picket the entire University until it comes to a standstill.

Large amounts of grant money which supports the University, most of which comes from AIPAC, ADL and American-Jewish controlled foundations in America, is important, but students and American student satisfaction are ESSENTIAL to its survival!

Every student at UCB has the option of transferring to UCLA, UCSD or any UC elsewhere.

Berkeley has always been the leader among US Campuses in leading revolutionary and reactionary social and cultural movements. Without the voice of its students it would become just another California cow college.
I am sure that this vote cost someone a lot of money, power and promises, as well as a lot of arm-twisting!
Yes, there is a victory here of sorts; a victory in disclosing the face and the might of the enemy, and how he works. "Know thine enemy," is a prerequisite to achieving victory over him. And as long as they have learned from this defeat, then they have profited in a small way.

At least, they now have the names of seven enemies who sit in the same room with them. There will be more elections in the future.

I have no doubt that the students at Berkeley will remember who voted for, and who voted against.

Read full report by Cecillie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace, from Berkeley California.

UC Berkeley vote: a small loss, an enormous win

I have been an activist since I was a teenager, and yet, the night of April 28 in the Pauley Ballroom of UC Berkeley will surely stand out as one of the most remarkable activist achievements I have ever witnessed.
And I am grateful that you were there, represented by thousand of green stickers: each with a name, a place, an identity.

While the senate at UC San Diego sent a similar proposal to a committee for further study, divestment proponents at Berkeley failed by just one vote to reverse a presidential veto of their original overwhelming vote to divest. The members of Berkeley's Students for Justice in Palestine wanted UC to divest from 2 companies that profit from killing and harming of civilians as part of Israel's occupation. Yes, companies that make money from death. From control. From destruction. They needed 14 votes out of 20 to overturn the veto. Despite truly heroic efforts on the part of countless students, including such impressive student senators, in the end they had 13 votes. The 14th abstained.

And yet, if you ask the question, after weeks of multiple hearings and votes, Who really won here?, the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 30 hours of hearings and testimony with standing room only audiences and in some cases, people flying in from other parts of the country to testify, others sending video or being Skyped in from Palestine and Gaza. The support of some 100 professors, over 40 student groups, 5 Nobel Laureates, 9 Israeli peace groups, 263 community Jews in one ad plus 40 pages and growing of notable Jewish endorsements, some 8,000 JVP supporters like you from around the globe who in just 5 days created a sea of visible support.

At this last and final hearing alone, there were 500 people, standing room only. A speaker asked the supporters of divestment to stand up: nearly 80% stood. A senator announced that 62% of that night's registered speakers were pro-divest, while 38% were against. After everything, 13 of 20 senators at one of the United States' leading academic institutions stood clearly on the side of divestment.

And that's why so many left with a feeling of both anger and jubilation. But more than anything, determination. If the theme of the all-night hearing in mid April-at which a final vote was tabled- was that there was every bit as much, if not more Jewish support for divestment as against it on the UC campus, the narrative running through April 28th's all-night session was that this is about the Palestinian story, Palestinian resilience, Palestinian humanity and one day, in their quest for justice and full equality, Palestinian victory.

Imagine hours and hours of testimony from Palestinian and Arab student after student, each standing in front of a microphone and hundreds to tell their story- stories of broken bones, destroyed homes, arbitrary imprisonment and torture. Stories of bombs through living room windows, and strips searches at checkpoints. Stories of not being able to learn because schools are closed down for years at a time. Stories that until now seemed to have been banished from the public square because the mere fact of their telling, and in so doing asserting the full beauty and humanity of the teller, has been taken as a threat.

But not on this night. Not for these hours. Not in this room.

Unless they physically plugged their ears and closed their eyes, there was not one person in that room who was not forever changed by hearing those students. Not the 80% who supported divestment. And not the 20% who didn't.

Many of you personally helped make the room a sea of green of support. In just 5 days, over 8,000 people from all over the country, many from all over the world, said, "we stand with you." We printed out thousands of stickers and they became like trading cards as people poured over your names and statements. "Oh look, David is a rabbinical student from Philadelphia. Dina is a Muslim teacher from New York. Let me wear Izak, a Quaker from Boston. No, wait, I'm wearing the Zeyde (grandfather) from Atlanta." I saw more than one Palestinian student wearing a green sticker on her heart as she stood at the microphone, showing the most remarkable kind of courage. The kind required to tell your most painful family story, a story of death and heartbreak, without knowing it would actually be heard by those in front of you. But I know she was supported in telling her story by the massive visible support you showed her. We all felt it.

There are so many lessons to be learned from these past weeks, from what started as a nonviolent call for Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) from Palestinians in 2005, moved to US campuses like Hampshire and University of Michigan at Dearborn, and is now just beginning to spread across the country.

Divestment is a tactic meant to build a movement for justice and equality, not an end unto itself. The outcome of the vote became far less important than the way the fight for the bill electrified the campus, the community, and thousands of people all over the world. It's impossible to convey the life changing and movement-building impact of this experience.

Take Emily Carlton, an ASUC senator who sponsored the bill. She spoke eloquently of starting out as a "privileged white, mainstream" sorority member who first became educated about the issue when SJP students came to lobby her, but who then found an entirely new community of friends in a world she never before knew existed. One in which Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Christian, and other students blend easily as classmates, as friends, as activists. Her life, she said, will never be the same- and she is just one person.

In the coming weeks, we will share the lessons learned, some in our own words, many in the words of UC students, staff and alum.

But first let me tell you how the night ended.

By the final vote, it was close to 5am. Still dark out.

When the vote was announced, the room silently received the news. Supporters placed the green stickers on our mouths to protest the fact that in the end, just a few votes had blocked the will of the majority of students. A student senator stood up and told everyone to put one hand on their heart on the other in the air, symbolically holding seeds in their fist with which we would all spread the movement outside and across the community, the country, the world.

So here is one seed.

The supporters silently filed out to Sproul Plaza, where the original Free Speech movement began.

Hundred remained outside, talking, chanting, singing, laughing, hugging, crying.

Yes, students were angry, but they were exhilarated. They understood they had done something remarkable. That in so many ways, life would never be the same.

It was the end of a long year, but the beginning of a new stage of the movement.

And I am so grateful that you were all there in the room with us.

It's clear now. It is only a matter of time until we are all able to recognize each other's full humanity, and thereby reclaim our own.

Video: 4:30 AM Rally After UC Berkeley Senate Upholds Veto

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGQU9z5Lg_g

Special thanks to Cecillie Surasky

* Debbie Menon is a freelance writer based in Dubai. She can be reached at: debbiemenon@gmail.com. For more go to her website : My Catbird Seat

April 13, 2010

To the Senate of the Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley (ASUC):

I am writing to encourage renewed support for Senate Bill 118A ("A Bill in Support of ASUC Divestment from War Crimes"), including the override of ASUC President Will Smelko's veto on March 24, 2010. The earlier passage of the bill by a 16-4 vote in the Senate has been widely hailed as a major step forward in the growing global campaign of divestment and boycott as a means of holding Israeli accountable for flagrant and persistent patterns of violating fundamental rules of international criminal law, as well as those portions of international humanitarian law applicable to military occupation. We have reached a stage in world history where citizens of conscience have a crucial role to play in the implementation of a global rule of law, and this initiative by Berkeley students, if implemented, will be both a memorable instance of global citizenship and an inspiration to others in this country and throughout the world.

I would agree that recourse to divestment and boycott tactics should be reserved for exceptional and appropriate circumstances. Such initiatives by their very nature deliberately interfere with the freedom of the global marketplace and the normally desirable free interplay of cultures, nations, persons, and ideas. There are several reasons why the circumstances of prolonged Israeli criminality resulting in acute suffering for several million Palestinians living under occupation since 1967 present such a strong case for reliance on the tactics of divestment and boycott.

First of all, it has become painfully clear that neither the United Nations, the United States, the actions of other governments, nor world public opinion are willing or able to persuade or pressure Israel to terminate policies that are both violations of Geneva Convention IV, governing occupation, and international criminal law, relating to both war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the same time, there is reason to believe that efforts by Palestinians to wage what might be called the Legitimacy War, are having a strong impact on Israel and elsewhere. It should be remembered that many of the conflicts of the last 75 years have been resolved by reliance on soft power superiority, which has more than compensated for hard power inferiority. In this respect the anti-apartheid movement, waged on a symbolic global battlefield, created a political climate that achieved victory in the legitimacy war that was translated, nonviolently, into a totally unexpected political outcome—the peaceful transformation of South Africa into a multi-racial constitutional democracy. The Palestinian solidarity movement has become the successor to the anti-apartheid movement as the primary legitimacy war of this historical moment. Berkeley’s participation by way of this divestment initiative thus takes account of the failure of governments and the international community to protect Palestinian victims of ongoing criminality, but also joins in a movement of solidarity that contains some hope of an eventual peaceful and just resolution of the underlying conflict allowing both peoples to resume a secure and normal life.

Secondly, we in the United States face a special challenge as our tax dollars, economic and military assistance, and unconditionally supportive diplomacy have shielded Israel from mechanisms of accountability for criminal behavior. Most recently, the U.S. Government repudiated the Goldstone Report, a highly respected fact-finding mission conducted under UN auspices, that had carried out a scrupulously fair and comprehensive investigation of allegations of war crimes attributable to Israel and Hamas during the Israeli offensive in Gaza that started on December 27, 2008, and lasted for 22 days. The Goldstone Report’s main findings confirmed earlier respected investigations, concluding that the evidence supported overall allegations of criminal tactics, including intentional efforts to target in Gaza civilians and the civilian infrastructure in flagrant violation of the provisions of the law of war, which should have been particularly upheld in a situation of such one-sided military operations conducted against an essentially defenseless Gaza, an unprecedented situation In which the entire civilian population of 1.5 million were locked into the combat zone, and denied even the option to become refugees.

It should be also noted that the people of Gaza have been subjected to an unlawful Israeli blockade that has for more than 32 months limited the entry of food, medicine, and fuel to subsistence levels, with widely reported drastic harm to physical and mental health of the entire population. There are two related points here: the allegations of criminality are abundantly documented, including by a range of respected human rights organization in Israel and occupied Palestine; and the U.S. Government has done its best to ensure the continuation of Israeli impunity and it has been complicit as arms supplier and as a country deferential to the blockade despite its gross and clear violation of the prohibition against collective punishment contained in Article 33 of Geneva IV. In this respect, as Americans we have an extra duty beyond that of those living elsewhere to support the global divestment campaign, thereby showing that our government does not speak for the whole society when it comes to the application of the rule of law to Israel and its political leadership.

Thirdly, by targeting General Electric and United Technologies for divestment, the Senate shows that it is not acting arbitrarily or punitively, but seeking to take action against corporations that are supplying precisely the weaponry used by Israel to impose its unlawful will on occupied Palestinian territories. Israel in legally dubious ways has relied on Apache and Sikorsky Helicopters and F-16 fighter bombers to mount periodic attacks against a variety of Palestinian targets, thereby abandoning its primary duty as an occupying power to protect the civilian population of an occupied territory.

Although most emphasis on criminality has been placed on Israeli policies toward the Gaza Strip, it is also relevant to note that Israeli policies on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem have consistently ignored the obligations imposed on an occupying power by Geneva IV, and have done so in a manner that has consistently undermined hopes for peace. Israel has continued to build and expand settlements, unlawful by Article 49(6) of Geneva IV prohibiting transfers of population of the occupying power to an occupied territory; the scale of these unlawful settlements, with some 121 settlements established on the West Bank alone and over 200,000 Israel settlers now living in East Jerusalem, has produced an aggregate settler population of about 450,000. Such a massive violation of international humanitarian law is serious on its own, but also creates a situation on the ground that has greatly diminished prospects for a viable Palestinian state or for the sort of withdrawal from occupied Palestine that had been unanimously decreed by the UN Scecurity Council in its famous Resolution 242 way back in 1967.

A final expression of Israeli lawlessness can be noted in its continued construction of a separation wall on occupied Palestine land despite a 14-1 judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the wall was unlawful, should be dismantled, and Palestinians compensated for the harm done. It is notable that the ICJ is a diverse and respected international institution that rarely reaches such a level of unanimity on controversial issues. Unfortunately, less notable is the fact that the sole dissenting judge was the American judge, and that the U.S. rejected the judicial authority of the ICJ in relation to the wall without even bothering to refute its legal reasoning. Although the judgment was in the form of an ‘Advisory Opinion’ it represented a detailed and authoritative assessment of applicable international law that was endorsed by an overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly. Consistent with its attitude toward international law, Israel immediately expressed its unwillingness to abide by this ICJ ruling, and has continued to build segments of the wall, using excessive force to quell nonviolent weekly demonstrations by Palestinians, Israelis, and international activists at construction sites. To give perspective, if the Soviet Union had constructed the Berlin Wall in such a way as to encroach on West Berlin by even a yard, it would have almost certainly have caused the outbreak of World War III.

I hope that I have demonstrated that divestment is justified in light of these realities. Israel has consistently defied international law. The United States Government has been unrelenting in reinforcing this defiance, and is a major facilitator through its overall diplomatic, economic, and military support. The international community, via the UN or otherwise, has been unable to induce Israel to respect international humanitarian law and international criminal law. With such a background, and in light of an increasingly robust worldwide movement supportive of divestment, it seems both symbolically and substantively appropriate for Berkeley to divest from corporations supplying weaponry used in conjunction with Israeli criminality. Such a decision taken at the behest of students at one of the world’s leading universities would send a message around the world that needs to be heard, not only in Israel but in this country as well. It also shows that when our government cynically refuses to uphold the most fundamental norms of international law there is an opportunity and responsibility for citizens to do so. I salute the members of the Senate (and their supporters in the Berkeley community) who vote to override this ill-considered veto of Senate Bill 118A.

Sincerely,

Richard Falk
Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law & Practice Emeritus, Princeton University
(since 2002) Visiting and Research Professor, Global Studies, UCSB
Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestinian Territories, UN Human Rights Council

Editors Note:
On March 18, UC Berkeley's student senate voted 16 to 4 to divest from General Electric and United Technologies as part of a Divestment campaign against Israel's illegal occupation and the attack on Gaza.

The Senate president vetoed the bill despite the massive support for divestment.

Join Hon. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Naiomi Klein, Jeffrey Blankfort, Prof. Richard Falk and others in supporting the divestment. The final decision will be made tomorrow, Wednesday April 14 at 7pm PST, when the veto can be overturned with just 14 votes.

Email the UC Berkeley Senators to let them know why you support divestment and why they should overturn the veto.
Senate@asuc.org, chancellor@berkeley.edu, president@ucop.edu

Besieged Gaza,
Palestine
April.4.2010

Dear Ms. Atwood,

We are students from Gaza representing more than 10 academic institutions therein. Our grandparents are refugees who were expelled from their homes in the 1948 Nakba. They still have their keys locked up in their closets and will pass them on to their children, our parents. Many of us have lost our fathers, some of us have lost our mothers, and some of us lost both in the last Israeli aggression against civilians in Gaza. Others still lost a body part from the flesh-burning white phosphorous that Israel used, and are now permanently physically challenged. Most of us lost our homes, and are now living in tents, as Israel refuses to allow basic construction materials into Gaza. And most of all, we are all still living in what has come to be a festering sore on humanity's conscience-the brutal, hermetic, medieval siege that Israel is perpetrating against us, the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.

Many of us have encountered your writing during our university studies. Although your books are not available in Gaza-because Israel does not allow books, paper, and other stationary in-we are familiar with your leftist, feminist, overtly political writing. And most of all, we are aware of your strong stance against apartheid. You admirably supported sanctions against apartheid South Africa and called for resistance against all forms of oppression.

Now, we have heard that you are to receive a prize this spring at Tel Aviv University. We, the students of besieged Gaza, urge you not to go. As our professors, teachers and anti-apartheid comrades used to tell us, there was no negotiation with the brutal racist regime of South Africa. Nor was there much communication. Just one word: BOYCOTT. You must be aware that Israel was a sister state to the apartheid regime before 1994. Many South African anti-apartheid heroes, including Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have described Israel's oppression as apartheid. Some describe Israeli settler-colonialism and occupation as surpassing apartheid's evil. F-16s, F-15s, F-35s, Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks, and white phosphorous were not used against black townships.

Ms. Atwood, in the Gaza concentration camp, students who have been awarded scholarships to universities abroad are prevented, every year, from pursuing their hard-earned opportunity for academic achievement. Within the Gaza Strip, those seeking an education are limited by increasing poverty rates and a scarcity of fuel for transportation, both of which are direct results of Israel's medieval siege. What is TAU's position vis-à-vis this form of illegal collective punishment, described by Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, as a "prelude to genocide?" Not a single word of condemnation has been heard from any Israeli academic institution!

Participating in normal relations with Tel Aviv University is giving tacit approval to its racially exclusive policy towards Palestinian citizens of Israel. We are certain you would hate to support an institution that upholds so faithfully the apartheid system of its state.

Tel Aviv University has a long and well-documented history of collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence services. This is particularly shameful after Israel's bloody military assault against the occupied Gaza Strip, which, according to leading international and local human rights organizations, left over 1,440 Palestinians dead and 5380 injured. We are certain you would hate to support an institution that supports a military apparatus that murdered over 430 children.

By accepting the prize at Tel Aviv University, you will be indirectly giving a slight and inadvertent nod to Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This university has refused to commemorate the destroyed Palestinian village on which it was built. That village is called Sheikh Muwanis, and it no longer exists as a result of Israel's confiscation. Its people have been expelled.

Let us remember the words of Archbishop Desmund Tutu: "if you choose to be neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." As such, we call upon you to say no to neutrality, no to being on the fence, no to normalization with apartheid Israel, not after the blood of more than 400 children has been spilt! No to occupation, repression, settler colonialism, settlement expansion, home demolition, land expropriation and the system of discrimination against the indigenous population of Palestine, and no to the formation of Bantustans in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip!

Just as every citizen knew that s/he had a moral responsibility to boycott apartheid in South Africa after the Sharpeville massacre, Gaza 2009 was the world's wake-up call. All of Israel's academic institutions are state-run and state-funded. To partake of any of their prizes or to accept any of their blandishments is to uphold their heinous political actions. Israel has continually violated international law in defiance of the world. It is illegally occupying Palestinian land. It continues its aggression against the Palestinian people. Israel denies Palestinians all of the democratic liberties it so proudly, fictitiously flaunts. Israel is an apartheid regime that denies Palestinian refugees their right of return as sanctioned by UN resolution 194.

Attending the symposium would violate the unanimously endorsed Palestinian civil society call for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This call is also directed towards international activists, artists, and academics of conscience, such as you. We are certain that you would love to be a part of the noble struggle against the apartheid, colonization and occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to for the past 61 years, a struggle that is ongoing.

Ms. Atwood, we consider you to be what the late Edward Said called an "oppositional intellectual." As such, and given our veneration of your work, we would be both emotionally and psychologically wounded to see you attend the symposium. You are a great woman of words, of that we have no doubt. But we think you would agree, too, that actions speak louder than words. We all await your decision.

Besieged Gaza
The Palestinian Students' Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)

Endorsed by The University Teachers' Association in Palestine

By Nora Barrows-Friedman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In 2009, Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, became the first American higher educational institution to successfully pressure its Board of Trustees to divest from Israel-tied mutual funds. The victory came three decades after the college similarly disinvested from funds linked to apartheid South Africa. Across North America, student-led Palestine activism groups have used the methods formulated by the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) "to implement divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with international law." Hampshire College's divestment move was a victory for the students and the administration of Hampshire College, and an inspirational model for hundreds of activism groups across North American campuses.

But despite the expanding and momentous student-led BDS movement, open dialogue around the reality of the situation in occupied Palestine continues to be an uphill battle for many professors inside the classrooms. Educators who openly align with the BDS movement, or speak out against Israeli-US policy in Palestine and the region, are being harassed, threatened, blacklisted, denied tenure and fired from their academic posts.

Denied tenure at Ithaca College

Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, former professor of Sociology at Ithaca College in New York, said that after she started addressing issues of human rights abuses in occupied Palestine -- especially after the start of the second Palestinian intifada -- she was warned by faculty members at the college that she was "risking" her career and "would suffer repercussions from the administration." Ramlal-Nankoe told The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the verbal threats eventually led to alleged racist and sexist attacks, and an open death threat from a faculty member who protested Ramlal-Nankoe's support of a department colleague whose husband was Palestinian. "He [made] a cut-throat gesture with his hand across his neck to me," Ramlal-Nankoe said. She was later denied tenure in 2007. With the tenure review board voting unanimously against her, alleging she did not "fit in the department," faculty colleagues had encouraged the board to "stop hiring third-world elites," and told them that Ramlal-Nankoe's position in the department should instead go to a "native-born American."

"My tenure debacle started in 2005," Ramlal-Nankoe told EI. "I received a strong majority vote in support of my tenure in 2005 from the Sociology Tenure Committee. However, the Dean committed violations in my tenure review and denied me tenure. I appealed the dean's decision and the violations by him and a minority in the Sociology tenure committee. After I won the appeal in April 2006, the provost halted my tenure review and proposed to have a new tenure review in 2007 to correct the violations. This provost was fired soon after his decision."

Ramlal-Nankoe attributed the core of the attacks and her denial of tenure to her support of Ithaca College's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group, her organization of a series of Palestine-Israel-themed speaking events on campus (including guests such as Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, EI's Ali Abunimah, and former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday) and her public criticism of Israel's ongoing military occupation and violations of human rights in Palestine. The college's Hillel organization was also aggressive in its attacks against on-campus criticism of Israeli policy.

Furthermore, Ramlal-Nankoe alleged that the college's dean of the Humanities and Sciences Department at the time of her tenure denial, Howard Erlich, was "known" for his personal retaliation against faculty and staff who he considered to be "too sympathetic" to the Palestinian cause). She also asserted that Erlich denied funding requests for educational programs on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, classifying them as "anti-Israeli." Ramlal-Nankoe added that at this time, Erlich had stated to her that his son was serving in the Israeli army.

Professor Ramlal-Nankoe has filed a lawsuit against Ithaca College, but it has not been resolved, she said, despite lengthy appeals and publications. Her case is now under investigation by the New York State Human Rights Commission and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

North Carolina State University case

Film studies professor Terri Ginsberg, similarly fired in 2008 by North Carolina State University (NCSU) in what she says was a punishment for her outspoken criticism of "Zionism, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and US Middle East policy," believes that institutionalized censorship on the Palestine-Israel issue in the academic realm is eerily reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 1950s and '60s. "So many of the dynamics and methods of discrimination perpetrated against today's scholarly critics of Israel and US Middle East policy derive from and continue, in updated fashion, practices initiated and implemented during that shameful period," she says.

Ginsberg told EI that she was strongly encouraged to apply for the tenure track position at NCSU because of her strong academic service record and favorable student evaluations. But when she began publicly criticizing US-Israeli policy in the Middle East inside and outside the classroom, the administration retaliated against her and she was "punished with partial removal from -- and interference in -- duty, non-renewal of contract and rejection from a tenure-track position." She remarked that since then, her entire professional academic career has been crippled. "I have been veritably blacklisted from the university classroom, ostracized by many of my colleagues, and have been forced to endure unnecessary, unwarranted economic hardship and psychological distress," Ginsberg said.

Ginsberg also filed a legal complaint against NCSU, accusing the administration of discrimination and violation of the North Carolina Constitution, alleging freedom of speech violations and employment prejudice.

Terri Ginsberg's legal counsel, Rima Kapitan, told EI that she expects NCSU to file a response to the lawsuit soon. Kapitan added, "The pervasiveness of restrictions on Palestine-related speech in today's academic climate is shocking, given our Constitution's speech protections and our society's idealistic conception of academia as a bastion of open dialogue and debate." Scare tactics on campuses by administrations and outside Zionist-aligned groups, Kapitan asserted, have resulted in widespread "self-censorship" by untenured or adjunct professors. Combined with a paradigm in which campus administrators and program coordinators take "neutral" stances on the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kapitan said that "voices critical of Israel are often either banned or are not permitted unless they are heard alongside Zionist perspectives ...[Academia] is a very dangerous climate for critics of Zionism."

Hostile climate

Working alongside discriminatory academic administrations are right-wing Zionist groups, such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and Campus Watch. Campus Watch in particular has been a strong force behind smear campaigns against university professors such as Terri Ginsberg. Campus Watch describes itself as a "project of the Middle East Forum" that "seeks to have an influence over the future course of Middle East studies" on US college campuses. However, it has been instrumental in vilifying and discrediting distinguished, well-known academic critics of Zionism and Israeli policies such as Norman Finkelstein (denied tenure in June 2007 from DePaul University), and Joel Kovel (fired from Bard College in 2008 in what Koval claimed was a thinly-veiled attempt by the college to categorize the firing as a necessary and nonpolitical budget cut). The Middle East Forum (MEF) is a right-wing think tank based in Philadelphia that "define[s] and promote[s] ... US interests in the Middle East [including] fighting radical Islam; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; robustly asserting US interests vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia; and developing strategies to deal with Iraq and contain Iran." Daniel Pipes, director of the MEF and a top neoconservative American academic, was quoted in 2001 by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as saying, "the Palestinians are a miserable people ... and they deserve to be."

Ginsberg said that because of the hostile climate within certain academic structures, combined with external pressure by these so-called watchdog groups that seek to silence criticism of Israeli policy, academic workers are made to "self-censor in order to locate and retain albeit meager employment, producing a chilling environment for permanent faculty as well ... Meanwhile, non-conforming Jewish voices and perspectives continue to be held with suspicion and condemnation, not least when they articulate solidarity with the oppressed."

She said that her academic and intellectual work was highly influenced by her Palestine activism, and "greatly enhanced" her ability to make "informed, well-rounded scholarly judgments about the conflict's academic and cultural expression, discern true from false facts about it, and convey them to my students and in my writing -- writing which would also begin to analyze the ensuing, heightened suppression of academic speech critical of Zionism and US Middle East policy."

Slashed from the classroom but undeterred in her political activism, she continues to pursue "scholarly, activist and public intellectual work on Palestine/Israel and on Middle Eastern culture in critical light of US and European policy and attitudes toward the region."

Fight for academic freedom

Ramlal-Nankoe's and Ginsberg's battles come at a time when there are both controversies and victories in the fight for academic freedom. In New York, Nadia Abou El Haj, professor of Anthropology at Barnard, became the focus of an online petition to deny her tenure, organized in part by a Barnard graduate who lives in the illegal Israeli settlement colony of Maale Addumim in the occupied West Bank. Despite external pressure, Barnard granted El Haj full tenure in 2007.

Additionally, Joseph Massad, EI contributor and professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, was finally granted tenure in 2009 after a years-long public struggle. Massad was the favored target of pro-Zionist student groups who sought to dismantle his tenure application in 2005 by discrediting him in the media in an attempt to pressure the tenure review board. After Columbia's decision to grant Massad tenure, The New York Post and The Huffington Post, among many other media outlets, ran pieces decrying the outcome. Anna Kelner wrote in The Huffington Post: "[W]hen Columbia University granted tenure to Joseph Massad ... the University jeopardized its long-standing commitment to cultivating and supporting its Jewish student population."

EI also reported on the controversy surrounding Professor William Robinson at UC Santa Barbara, who, after emailing his students with a sharp critique of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip last winter, was accused by pro-Zionist student groups (backed by the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center) of faculty misconduct; but the case was thrown out by university officials in June of 2009.

Hindering the debate

However, Ramlal-Nankoe and Ginsberg are still worried. They believe that by attacking, censoring and firing professors because of their political activism specifically on this issue, university students are disallowed the broad-based political education necessary to understand the reality in Israel-Palestine.

"The overall situation in this respect will only deteriorate unless, in contrast to the McCarthy era, public and academic outcry, organized protest and transformative praxis are marshaled to bring about a constructive reversal in the current, nefarious trend," Ginsberg observed. "The ... Gaza Freedom March is one such protest, the BDS movement yet another. But we should not, at the same time, ignore troubles on the home-front. Persons dedicated to teaching the history and culture of Palestine justice struggles, for prime instance, must be allowed to do so unhindered by the fear and economic insecurity wrought by a higher educational system in which academic freedom has sadly devolved almost completely into academic 'free enterprise.'"

Professor Margo Ramlal-Nankoe agrees. "The repercussions on faculty who dare to speak out against injustices [are] abysmal and contradict and defeat, in my opinion, the whole purpose of education and critical inquiry. In other words, it is anti-education."

Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University Richard Falk, who is currently the United Nation's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said he, too, is concerned about "diverging trends in relation to academic freedom for those who express sharply critical views of Israel [and] Zionism"

"My only advice [to professors], having been attacked for several decades," Falk added, "is to make yourself as invulnerable as possible in relation to the standard expectations that prevail in universities: publish in scholarly venues, teach reliably and with receptivity to diverse opinions, and be a useful colleague, but do not abandon your conscience or your identity as an engaged citizen with critical views."

Falk told EI that the growing BDS movement, specifically within the academic and cultural boycott call against Israeli apartheid, is an effective course of action amongst educators and cultural workers of conscience. "There seems to be diverging trends in relation to academic freedom for those who express sharply critical views of Israel or Zionism," Falk remarked. "On the one side there is growing sympathy for the Palestinian struggle, and this is exhibited by the spreading BDS campaign. On the other side, there are increased efforts by organized Zionist groups to exert covert and overt pressure on university administrations to punish those seen as critics of Israel. As a result, we can expect some inconsistent outcomes in this period."

Currently, according to the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) campaign, more than 450 American educators and 125 writers, journalists, artists and musicians (including this writer and EI's Ali Abunimah) have signed onto the national statement. The BDS campaign is gaining ground as academics stand up for their beliefs -- and resist the aggressive political pressure -- within American educational institutions.

* Nora Barrows-Friedman is the co-host and Senior Producer of Flashpoints, a daily investigative newsmagazine on Pacifica Radio. She is also a correspondent for Inter Press Service. She regularly reports from Palestine, where she also runs media workshops for youth in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Source: Nora Barrows-Friedman / The Electronic Intifada

By David Green* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Former University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman

The Israel Studies Project, jointly funded since 2005 by the chancellor's office and the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, has had nothing to do with the serious study of Israel, and everything to do with promoting support for its criminal political behavior. Its guests, in residence for two weeks during the fall or spring of each year, have included propagandists Yossi Klein Halevi and Hillel Halkin; and, most recently, writer and talk show host Irit Linur, described below. There have been no invitations to Israeli dissidents, and none to Palestinian citizens of Israel. The unquestioned assumption that the study of Israel excludes the voices of 20 percent of its citizens is consistent with the state-sponsored racism of the Israel Studies Project, implicit and explicit.

Under what ethical code should a partisan political interest group (no less a venal one) be permitted to buy its own program at a public university with which to promote its agenda?

A 26 July 2007 letter to Herman captures the flavor of Herman's relationship with the Israel lobby. It was signed by Jay Tcath, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Joel Schwitzer, Executive Director of Hillel at the Urbana Campus, with a copy to Michael Kotzin, Executive Vice President of Jewish United Fund and the promoter with Herman of the Israel Studies Project. In it they profusely thanked Herman for his opposition to the academic boycott promoted by the UK's University and College Union, and for declaring himself, "in effect, an Israeli academic." They also thanked him for exploring a resumption of study abroad programs between the University of Illinois and Israel.

After a visit to Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Committee's Project Interchange, Herman stated in a letter published on 16 August 2007 in the St. Louis Post Dispatch that the Israel Studies Project "promotes and supports the academic study of Jewish culture and society in the spirit of free and open inquiry." He referred both to Israeli and Palestinian higher education in asserting that "change will only come through collaborations."

Referring to the UK University and College Union boycott, Herman concluded: "The irony is hardly lost on me."

Indeed there is abundant irony not to be lost in considering the Israel Studies Project in light of Herman's effort to occupy the high moral ground -- even barring the admissions scandal that was his downfall. Needless to say, Herman never lifted a finger during his tenure to either criticize any Israeli action, or to ensure that Palestinian perspectives be represented on campus. He said nothing in response to Israel's invasion of Gaza last winter nor has he criticized Israel's blatant and repeated violations of the right of Palestinians to an education and academic freedom.

Instead, the Israel Studies Project and Herman's advocacy for it point to the ironies of racism and corruption rather than the principles of academic freedom. Its purpose is the promotion of Israeli policies (as well as American support for those policies) and the sanitization of Israeli culture. Appropriately, Israeli writer Irit Linur spoke about "Making TV Drama in Israel" on 17 November.

Linur has a well-known political reputation in Israel. In 2002, Linur used her radio program to call for a boycott of Israel's Haaretz newspaper "until it fires journalists Amira Hass and Gideon Levy." Hass and Levy are the most courageous and incisive Jewish Israeli journalists critical of the Israeli occupation, and it is therefore inconceivable that either would receive an invitation from the Israel Studies Project, as did the (ironically) boycott-advocating Linur.

Earlier this year, after the organization Breaking the Silence in Israel published soldier testimonies about Israeli military crimes in Gaza, the Israeli director of the New Israel Fund released a statement critical of Linur and her co-host for threats to "break the bones" of Breaking the Silence. Israeli commentator Itay Ziv subsequently wrote in the local Tel Aviv paper Ha'Ir: "Irit Linur is a dangerous person. She behaves on her program like a quick thinking intellectual to give the impression of intellectual integrity. She gives violence an aesthetic wrapping."

During Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, Keshev, the Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel, accused Linur of "racist messages and comments, which often turn into an all-out incitement, urging the killing of innocent civilians." They quote Linur: "I say, let us bomb Ramallah [the demonstrators there] ... and before [Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah] fires a stray rocket at them, we can already declare them martyrs. They are the enemy."

Prior to Linur's presentation, members of the Urbana chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine distributed a flier based on Keshev's documentation of Linur's incitements to violence. In its 18 November story on the event, the student newspaper emphasized these complaints. However, any such discussion was absent from the talk itself, which centered on Linur's anecdotal tales of TV writing in Israel.

The Israel Studies Project is administered by the Program for Jewish Culture and Society (PJCS). The Director and Assistant Director of the PJCS expressed their obliviousness to Linur's political background, as well as to the existence of Students for Justice in Palestine on campus to the Daily Illini.

In sharp contrast, on 10 November, the distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappe spoke to a packed hall of 250 to 300 at Illinois State University in Normal (50 miles west of Urbana) on "Palestine: The Historical Lessons for Our Time." In 45 minutes, Pappe summarized what has been his life's work, research into the Zionist movement's and Israel's colonization of Palestine, resulting in the expulsion of the Palestinian people. Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a seminal work. But as a dissident, he lives and works in the United Kingdom rather than Israel, where severe pressure is placed on academics who challenge Israel's policies -- by people like Irit Linur. One must finally acknowledge that as the ironies mount, the pattern of blatant hypocrisy is revealed.

Yet the topic of the Linur event indicates that even for the Israel Studies Project, pro-Israeli political rhetoric/propaganda is perhaps no longer routinely acceptable in official venues on the Urbana campus. It is to be hoped that in the near future, cultural sanitization will give way to a serious consideration of historical and political truths.

* David Green is a 59-year-old Jewish-American who lives in Champaign, Illinois, and works for the University of Illinois. He has been writing about Israel/Palestine for the past 12 years. He can be reached at davegreen84 A T yahoo D O T com.

Source: Electronic Intifada

Israel in midst of freefall on global front, yet we're preoccupied with nonsense

By Sever Plocker | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

I've been invited to deliver a lecture about Israel's economy and society at Oxford University. As it is a short lecture, and a respectable forum, I gladly accepted the offer. The invitation was extended about six months ago. Yet now, as my trip approaches, I feel concern. I'm hesitating.

My acquaintances are warning me: Don't go. Hostile elements will cause disturbances, protest, shout and interfere. The atmosphere at British universities is anti-Israel to an extent unseen in the past. Israel is perceived as a thorn in the civilized world's side.

An Israeli professor who quietly left a prestigious British university told me: "My academic and social life there was intolerable. Colleagues stayed away from me as if I was a leper. I was not invited to meetings, which were shifted from university buildings to private residences in order to keep me out. The fact I openly expressed leftist views was to no avail. My objection to the occupation and endorsement of a return to the 1967 borders made no difference. In practice, I became ostracized."

"Today you are a welcome guest in the British and European academic world only if you reject the very existence of the colonialist and imperialistic creature that methodically commits war crimes, known as Israel," he said. "Today it isn't enough to condemn Bibi and Barak; in order to be accepted by academia outside of Israel one must condemn the Balfour Declaration."

British academia's radicalism highlights the accelerated deterioration in Israel's status and image. We are in the midst of a freefall on the foreign affairs front. The cold peace with three Muslim states – Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey – has turned into a cold war. Israelis are unwelcome guests in these and many other states, where in the past we were embraced.

Meanwhile, Israel failed in its efforts to isolate Ahmadinejad's Iran and disqualify it as a member of the family of nations. Ahmadinejad is having a grand time.

Bibi doesn't see the change

The intimate dialogue that in the past characterized the relationship between the US president and Israel's prime minister is paralyzed. The pipeline of dialogue is clogged. India and China, the two emerging powers, voted in favor of adopting the Goldstone Report at the UN's human rights commission. Ever since then, it has been etched on Israel's forehead as a Sign of Cain.

Friendly governments, such as France and Britain, are turning their backs on us while currying favor with local sentiments. Israel's membership in OECD, which was largely a done deal in the past, is distancing again – because of the growing negativity vis-à-vis Israel and not because any technical dispute. By coincidence, or not, large foreign investors are pulling out of Israel.

Does everyone hate us? Possibly so, yet the fact is that up until six months ago Israel enjoyed an extraordinary boom on the foreign affairs front, both in terms of its foreign ties as well as in global public opinion. This fact points to one source for the deterioration we're seeing: The new government in Jerusalem.

Indeed, this is a government elected by the people and it reflects the preferences of voters, who wanted a coalition comprising Likud, Shas, and Yisrael Beiteinu. As such, Netanyahu appointed Lieberman foreign minister, did not agree to a government rotation with Kadima, was unable to arrange a work meeting with the Palestinian Authority president, and conveyed a message of indifference towards the peace process.

Yet worse than this, the 2009 Netanyahu does not understand the world, and he mostly fails to grasp the change taking place within conservative parties, which are close to his political positions. Today they are the source of harsh criticism against the Israeli government; Netanyahu's government.

The current anti-Israel wave is particularly dangerous especially because it is not limited to the media and to leftist groups that traditionally were classified as "Israel haters." This wave is rising, expending, drawing young people, and painting the perceptions of the well-established middle class and influential elites.

Israel's image has hit a nadir; it is isolated, unwanted, and perceived as bad. The world is telling us that should we continue along the same contemptible path, we will lose our legitimacy.

Yet we're preoccupied with nonsense.

"Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims."
--Famed British Historian Professor Arnold Toynbee

"In the name of justice there cannot be subjection and in the name of peace there cannot be impunity."
--President Alvaro Uribe Velez of Colombia

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
-- Elie Wiesel

The Honorable Marit Arnstad, Chairman of the board

The Honorable Rector Torbjern Digernes

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Trondheim, Norway

Rarely in history do individuals, minority groups, or institutions have an opportunity to courageously adopt a principled unpopular stand that could be transformative in world affairs.

For sometime during the genocide of Gaza it was two extraordinary Norwegian physicians and humanitarians who risked their lives to save the lives of Gazans.

'This is what hell must look like'

Two Norwegian doctors witnessed first-hand the nightmare scenes inside Gaza
Guardian, January 16, 2009

Norway has always been known for its worldwide humanitarian efforts and generous foreign aid. It is no coincidence that Norway is always ranked first in the world by the United Nations.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has just such a historic opportunity tomorrow when it considers voting for an academic boycott of Israel, a nation that for too long has lived by violence, ethnic cleansing, military expansionism, illegal occupations, subjugation of millions of innocent Palestinians, defied all divine and international laws that respect and value human life, and that since its establishment has committed countless terrorist acts and war crimes, lately documented by the Goldstone Report, all with impunity, never accountable for its actions in courts of justice, the U.N., or to all of humanity. The West, especially the U.S., has constantly protected Israel's interests at the expense of its own interests.

You may remember this headline in Aftenposten, 12/1/06:

"USA threats after boycott support"

"US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened Norway with "serious political consequences" after Finance Minister and Socialist Left Party leader Kristin Halvorsen admitted to supporting a boycott of Israeli goods."

A quote by the Nobel Prize Winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn encompasses both Israel's non stop violence against innocent Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian, and Jordanian civilians and its brilliant intimidating propaganda that established the persecutor as the persecuted.

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."

As a former academician I plead and urge you to take the only righteous stand possible against Israel and that is for your esteemed University to vote yes on an academic boycott of Israel. Your courage will open the door for Universities and other institutions around the world to follow your example.

In 1982 Sharon invaded Lebanon committing a widespread genocide that began in Southern Lebanon and ended in a three month devastating siege of Beirut, a city overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Southern Lebanon who fled the Israeli army's advance. This genocide resulted in the murder of 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians other than the cold blooded massacre of 1,700 Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. Under Sharon's protection, encouragement, and direction, the Christian Phalangists shed the blood of men, women, the elderly, and children. Sharon even provided powerful night lights for the murderers' to commit their slaughter. All the world could do is condemn the massacre without laying blame on Israel.

From the air, sea, and land Sharon unleashed his murderous campaign upon a crowded urban city bombing churches, mosques, hospitals, schools, orphanages, retirement homes, electrical and water plants, roads, bridges, the airport and sea port; not even ambulances and medics were spared.

He would bomb bakeries where men, women, and children stood in long lines for scarce bread.

Planes would bomb an area and await the gathering of ambulances, medics, and citizens to pull persons out of the wreckage only to bomb it again to inflict more casualties.

Ambassador Phil Habib, Reagan's personal envoy to stop the genocide in Beirut worked hard to reach a peace agreement between Sharon and Lebanon while promising the safety of the Palestinian civilians upon the departure of Yasser Arafat and the PLO from Lebanon. However, he discovered that Israel could never be trusted to keep its word.

In John Boykin's book, "Cursed is the Peacemaker" (2002, Applegate Press) he quotes Ambassador Habib as saying.

"I had signed this paper which guaranteed that these people in west Beirut would not be harmed. I got specific guarantees on this from Bashir (President of Lebanon) and from the Israelis--from Sharon'. He said he 'had been given assurances... that no action would be taken against the Palestinians remaining in the camps.... On the basis of those assurances we (Americans) had given our word. We had been deceived.... Sharon was a killer, obsessed by hatred of the Palestinians,' Habib said. 'I had given Arafat an undertaking that his people would not be harmed, but this was totally disregarded by Sharon whose word was worth nothing.'"

As is customary with Israel and U.N. Resolutions, Israel defied and rejected over a dozen UN Security Council Resolutions asking Israel to at least allow humanitarian aid into Beirut.

Israel's intransigence to make peaceful concessions to the Palestinians that they too may enjoy the freedom, liberty, and independence their occupiers enjoy makes us all complicit in this tragedy with our silence and inaction.

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is shocking that the world accepts Israel's genocides and threats against its neighbors as fait accompli without regard to the never ending suffering of Palestinians under its brutal military occupation. Palestinians and Lebanese die, suffer, and endure in silence in a world conditioned to accept Israel's "right to self defense", a euphemism for wanton murder. They die in silence absent from the western conscience due to the blanket support of most western media outlets, none more so than in America ,the nation exporting democracy and freedom through smart bombs and biased politicians who if dare to criticize Israel jeopardize their ambitions and become the recipients of the worst media smears. In the U.S. no debate or action is allowed against Israel neither by our own "never challenge Israel" government nor by our staunchly Pro Israel media.

The academicians and experts invited to your university to speak on this issue know first hand their personal victimization at the hands of Pro Israel forces. They have risked much for the truth and are honorable men and women.

Please do the right thing and vote for an academic boycott of Israel, a nation that is neither civilized nor democratic, by setting an educational precedent for your university, faculty, alumni, but most importantly for your students, that standing up for principle is the foundation for all just laws and human rights for all peoples and not just the powerful few.

Teach them to adopt "freedom from fear" as their guiding principle in life while facing all challenges, especially challenges that discriminate between the powerful and the weak, the haves and have nots, that no people should be victimized by the power of money and weapons.

""Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights"
--The late Honorable Dag Hammarskjold

"Giving Flight To Dreams"....Yes, we dare to dream, we dare to act.

By Stuart Littlewood *

If there's one thing the Israelis are good at it's making war on women and children.

They killed 952 Palestinian kiddies in their homeland between 2000 and the start of the Gaza blitzkrieg in December 2008 (according to B'Tselem statistics). They murdered at least 350 more during their Cast Lead onslaught and have kept Gaza under daily attack ever since. So the brave Israelis must have eliminated nearly 1400 youngsters by now. Would anyone care to guess how many they left bleeding, maimed and crippled?

The "most moral army in the world" also loves waging war against Palestinian university students. Not long ago I wrote about Merna, an honors student in her final year majoring in English. Israeli soldiers frequently rampaged through her Bethlehem refugee camp in the middle of the night, ransacking homes and arbitrarily arresting residents. They took away her family one by one. First her 14-year-old cousin and best friend was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while she sat outside her family home during a curfew.

Next the Israelis arrested her eldest brother, a 22 year-old artist, and imprisoned him for 4 years. Then they came back for Merna's 18-year-old brother. Not content with that the military came again, this time to take her youngest brother - the ‘baby' of the family - just 16. These were the circumstances under which Merna had to study.

Israeli military law treats Palestinians as adults as soon as they reach 16, a flagrant violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Israeli youngsters, of course, are regarded as children until 18. Palestinians are dealt with by Israeli military courts, even when it's a civil matter. These courts ignore international laws and conventions, so there's no legal protection for individuals under Israeli military occupation.

As detention is based on secret information, which neither the detainee nor his lawyer is allowed to see, it is impossible to mount a proper defence. Besides, the Security Service always finds a bogus excuse to keep detainees locked up "in the greater interest of the security of Israel". Although detainees have the right to review and appeal, they are unable to challenge the evidence and check facts as all information presented to the Court is classified. So much for Israeli ‘justice'.

Faced with this mounting mental stress Merna, far from giving up, determined to carry on with her studies. The most moral army in the world may have robbed her brothers of an education, but she would still fight for hers.

To get to Bethlehem University, or any other, many students have to run the gauntlet of Israeli checkpoints. "Sometimes they take our ID cards and they spend ages writing down all the details, just to make us late," said one. Students are often made to remove shoes, belt and bags. "It's like an airport. Many times we are kept waiting outside for up to an hour, rain or shine, they don't care." The soldiers attempt to forcibly remove students' clothes and they swear and shout sexual slurs at female students.

Some tell how they are sexually harassed on their way to university and spend the rest of the day worrying what the Israelis will do to them on their way home. The constant humiliation undermines student motivation and concentration.

Five years ago the Israelis forcibly removed four Birzeit University students from their studies in the West Bank and illegally sent them back to the Gaza Strip. All four were due to graduate by the end of that academic year. There was an outcry from around the world and the Israeli Army Legal Advisor was bombarded with faxes and letters demanding that the students be allowed to return to their studies.

The world's most moral army agreed that the students might be allowed to return to Birzeit if they signed a guarantee to permanently return to the Gaza Strip after completing their studies. This effectively exposed Israel's policy to impose a final separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, even though the two are internationally recognized as one integral territory. Under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory, but since when did Israel give a damn about international law? The racist regime makes it virtually impossible for Gaza students to reach the eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank. In 1999 some 350 Gaza students were studying at Birzeit. Today there are almost none.

It was no great surprise, then, to hear from Bethlehem University a few days ago that Berlanty Azzam, a 4th year Business Administration student, was being held in detention by the Israeli military authorities with the intention of deporting her to Gaza "for trying to complete her studies at Bethlehem University."

Berlanty Azzam

The 21 year-old was due to graduate before Christmas. On Wednesday night the "" blindfolded and handcuffed her, loaded her into a military jeep and drove her from Bethlehem to Gaza, despite assurances by the Israeli Military Legal Advisor's office that she would not be deported before an attorney from Gisha (an Israeli NGO working to protect Palestinians' freedom of movement) had the opportunity to petition the Israeli court for her return to classes in Bethlehem.

When they'd crossed the border the world's most moral army dumped Berlanty in the darkness late at night and told her: "You are in Gaza."

"Since 2005, I refrained from visiting my family in Gaza for fear that I would not be permitted to return to my studies in the West Bank," Berlanty told Gisha on her mobile phone before the soldiers confiscated it. "Now, just two months before graduation, I was arrested and taken to Gaza in the middle of the night, with no way to finish my degree."

Bethlehem University wants to mobilize people from around the world to protest. Who better to contact, I thought, than the Palestinian ambassador in London, Professor Manuel Hassassian, who happens to be a former vice-president of that excellent seat of learning? "Have you contacted the Israeli ambassador for an explanation to this outrage?" I emailed him.

Next day, having heard nothing, I emailed again: "Update... She has been removed to Gaza blindfolded and handcuffed! What is the Embassy doing about this please?" Another 24 hours have gone by and the silence is deafening. Still, it's not unusual for the Palestinian embassy to be fast asleep, out to lunch or off on holiday and no-one covering.

I had of course simultaneously emailed the Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor asking him, please, to make enquiries. "On the face of it, this seems a senseless outrage. The student concerned has, I believe, just started her final year. I wonder what Mr Prosor or Mr Netanyahu would say if the education of their sons and daughters or grandchildren was disrupted in this manner." And next day, having heard nothing, I sent the same update about Berlanty being blindfolded and handcuffed. Another 24 hours have passed... silence here too; not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Israel's press office, which usually responds like lightning to anything with news value.

If this had been a Jewish girl deprived of her university degree and life chances Israeli embassies around the world would be instantly on the warpath hurling accusations of religious hatred and anti-semitism. But it's the Jewish state screwing up the young life of a Christian, so that's alright then.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Source: www.dissidentvoice.org

By Jonathan Cook * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The Israeli government has moved quickly to quash protests over the appointment of the army's senior adviser on international law to a teaching post at Tel Aviv University. Col Pnina Sharvit-Baruch is thought to have provided legal cover for war crimes during the recent Gaza offensive.

Government officials fear that recent media revelations relating to Col Sharvit-Baruch's role in the Gaza operation may assist human rights groups seeking to bring Israeli soldiers to trial abroad.

A Spanish judge began investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza under the country's "universal jurisdiction" laws this month, and a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague is considering a Palestinian group's petition to indict Israeli commanders.

Meanwhile, the furore -- by highlighting the close ties between the army and Israeli universities -- is adding weight to a growing campaign in Europe and the US to impose an academic boycott on Israel, say activists.

Tel Aviv University's decision to hire Col Sharvit-Baruch to teach international law prompted protests from staff after the local media published details of the military planning for the Gaza offensive.

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during the operation, the majority of them civilians, and thousands were injured.

According to critics quoted by the Haaretz newspaper, Col Sharvit-Baruch and her staff manipulated standard interpretations of international law to expand the scope of army operations to include civilian targets.

Leading the protest is Haim Ganz, a law professor who has called the colonel's approach to international law "devious jurisprudence that permits mass killing". In a letter to the university, Prof Ganz said he was lodging "a moral protest against a state of affairs where somebody who authorized these actions is teaching the law of war".

Last week Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, threatened to cut government funding for the law faculty should Col Sharvit-Baruch's appointment not proceed. The university's president, Zvi Galil, phoned the cabinet secretary to reassure the government, saying Prof Ganz's opinions were not shared by most staff.

Other academics have rallied in support of Col Sharvit-Baruch, accusing her critics of waging a McCarthyite campaign against her.

According to the Israeli media, she personally approved the first wave of air strikes in Gaza that targeted a police graduation ceremony, killing at least 40 cadets.

Although police forces have civilian status in international law, and are therefore protected from military reprisal, Col Sharvit-Baruch is reported to have revised her opinion of the attack's legality during the many months of planning.

In addition, she is said to have "relaxed" the rules of engagement, approved widespread house demolitions and the uprooting of farmland, and sanctioned the use of incendiary weapons such as white phosphorus over the densely populated enclave.

She also offered legal justification for the targeting of buildings in which civilians were known to be located as long as they had been warned first to leave. Schools, mosques and a university were among the many civilian buildings shelled by the Israeli army during the 22-day operation.

Her decisions have been widely criticized by international human rights organisations as well as by international law experts in Israel.

The professor Yuval Shany, who teaches public international law at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, called her interpretation of the rules of war "flexible". Regarding the strike against the police cadets, he said: "If you follow that line, there is not much that differentiates [the cadets] from [Israeli] reservists or even from 16-year-olds who will be drafted [into the Israeli army] in two years."

Col Sharvit-Baruch's predecessor, Daniel Reisner, noted that her staff had stretched the accepted meanings of international law. The army's operating principle, he added, was: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it."

Orna Ben-Naftali, the dean of law at the College of Management in Rishon Letzion, said the army's conduct in Gaza had made international law "bankrupt". "A situation is created in which the majority of the adult men in Gaza and the majority of the buildings can be treated as legitimate targets. The law has actually been stood on its head."

But despite the protest at Tel Aviv University, most academic staff in Israel supported Col Sharvit-Baruch's appointment, said Daphna Golan, a program director at the Minerva Center for Human Rights at Hebrew University. "I think even Prof Ganz has been frightened into silence by the backlash."

The episode, she said, highlighted the intimate relations between the army and universities in Israel, as well as the dependence of the universities on army funding.

She noted that there were many special programs designed to favour army and security personnel by putting them on a fast track to degrees.

"Most of the professors in the country's Middle East departments -- the ‘experts on Arabs' who shape the perceptions of the next generation -- are recruited from the army or the security services," she added.

Omar Barghouti, a co-ordinator of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said Col Sharvit-Baruch's employment was a further indication of the "organic ties" between Israeli institutions and the army.

"This just adds one more soldier to an already very long list of war criminals roaming around freely in Israeli universities, teaching hate, racism and warmongering, with impunity," he said.

He noted that calls for an academic boycott were growing in the wake of the Gaza offensive.

Al-Quds University, with campuses in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, severed its contacts with Israeli universities last week. It had been the last Palestinian university to maintain such ties.

At the same time, a group of US professors announced that they were campaigning for an academic boycott of Israel -- the first time such a call has been heard in the US.

Mr Barghouti said an "unprecedented" groundswell of popular opinion was behind new campaigns in countries such as Australia, Spain, Sweden, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.

* Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair".

By Matthew Taylor

Political Zionism-the quest to establish and hold a Jewish-majority state within historic Palestine-has largely been predicated on the belief that Palestinians should not have the right to live on their ancestral lands. In 1948, Israel's founders carried this philosophy to its logical conclusion and used military force to drive more than 700,000 Palestinians out of their homes in a carefully planned campaign of ethnic cleansing. In 1967, Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and then proceeded to build hundreds of colonies in violation of international law while abusing the human rights of the indigenous Palestinian population.

In December 1987, Palestinians organized a grassroots uprising in an effort to liberate themselves from Israel's occupation. Palestinians refused to pay taxes, they boycotted all Israeli goods and they planted backyard gardens. And they displayed the Palestinian national flag, which was illegal under the terms of the occupation.

Then-Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered his soldiers to break the bones of Palestinians who participated in this uprising or who displayed their flag. Israeli soldiers injured, jailed and killed thousands of Palestinians for their crimes of struggling for human rights and self-determination.

On Nov. 13, three Palestinian students displayed their national flag from Eshelman Hall balcony. However, unlike in the occupied Palestinian territories, free speech is at least theoretically legal in the United States and on this campus. But that didn't appear to matter to the members of Tikvah and Zionist Freedom Alliance who apparently assaulted the Palestinians while yelling racist epithets. One wonders what would have happened had this assault taken place in the occupied territories, where so many bones have been broken, lives taken and land stolen.

The assault was a microcosm of Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. It was yet another example of right-wing Zionism attempting to crush any symbol of the Palestinian people's existence.

During the 1987 uprising, Palestinians sought an alternative way to affirm their existence. The Palestinian flag is green, red, and black, so instead of holding up flags, Palestinians held up watermelons. Perhaps to be safe on the UC Berkeley campus, Palestinian students should also hold up watermelons instead of their flag.

Like a Palestinian flag: Water Melon's shell is green, the internal shell is white, the flesh is red and seeds are black.

At a recent ASUC meeting, Senator John Moghtader refused to answer the question, "What do Tikvah members mean when they chant 'From the river to the sea, Israel will be free?'" Moghtader's response was, "It means the liberation of the Jewish people." Moghtader didn't want his fellow senators to know the truth: that this hateful slogan stands for the complete triumph of the Zionist project, resulting in a permanent Israeli Apartheid state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea in which all Palestinians are either subjugated or expelled. An independent Palestinian state would never emerge, and the Palestinian flag would effectively cease to have any meaning. Tikvah's vision is becoming more real every day, as the international community has done nothing to end Israel's Apartheid rule over the Palestinians. U.S. taxpayers fund Israel's military hardware, and this university is deeply invested in corporations that profit from Israel's Apartheid.

I hope someday the U.S. and the university end their shameful role in supporting the right-wing Israeli/Tikvah agenda of permanent Apartheid in Palestine. In the meantime, students on this campus have an opportunity to stand up for justice. Five conscientious Boalt Hall law students initiated a petition to recall Senator Moghtader as a result of his role in the Nov 13 incident as well as other behavior that "silences" others and "undermines the physical safety of students." Support the recall of Senator Moghtader.

The UK's largest trade union, UNISON, advocated on Wednesday a total boycott of Israel over its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.

A statement issued by delegates meeting in Brighton read: "The conference believes that ending the occupation demands concerted and sustained pressure upon Israel including an economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott".

In addition, delegates called on the British government to press for an arms embargo against Israel.

[..snip..]

The union also called on Israel to retreat to the borders before the Mideast war of 1967, to allow Palestinian refugees to return to a future Palestinian state and to dismantle its settlements in the Golan Heights.

Delegates also condemned an economic boycott imposed on the Palestinian Authority last year when Hamas won the general elections.

Source: YNet.

On the other hand, Bir Zeit University under siege...welcomes Israeli boycott:

Bir Zeit sits on a hill above terraced valleys full of olive trees, outside Ramallah. It is much smaller than its Israeli counterparts but it has a similar buzz on its public spaces as students move between lectures or eat lunch in the sun.

The air of normality is deceptive. Many students have to spend more than half their day travelling to ensure they do not miss classes, and at every checkpoint there is the possibility, particularly for male students, that they will be randomly arrested.

"I have postgraduate students from Hebron. They leave their homes at 8am to get here in time for a 2pm class. The class finishes at 5pm and they get home around 10pm. The journey should only be one hour each way," said Ms Taraki.

Undergraduates stay close to the university if they can, which adds an extra financial burden, but most students are restricted to going to the university closest to them. Students from Gaza are banned from going to the West Bank although there are many subjects that are not taught at Gazan universities.

"Bir Zeit used to have a very diverse student body with students from all over the West Bank and Gaza. Now most students come from the immediate area. This means the national character of the university is compromised. We do not want it be a local institution," said Ms Taraki.

The restriction on movement means that universities cannot act as cultural centres as the majority of the population do not have the time and freedom to travel from one city to the next to hear a lecture or see a film. Even short journeys of 40 minutes require a special permit from the Israeli army, which can take hours to acquire.
As a result of the wars of 1948 and 1967 and 40 years of Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, there is a large Palestinian diaspora all over the world. Many of the buildings in these areas were funded by expatriate Palestinians and the diaspora is a potential pool of students and teachers for Bir Zeit.

However, Israel is reluctant to allow expatriate Palestinians to return if only for a short time.

Many are denied entry at the airport, while others are restricted to a three-month tourist visa, which can only be renewed by leaving and re-entering Israel - at which point they could be denied entry.

An annual course at Bir Zeit for expatriate Palestinians in Palestinian culture and Arabic is normally attended by only half the students who subscribed for the course because of Israeli border restrictions.