Report from the IPSC's Boycott Israeli Goods National Day of Action - Sat 16th Jan

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Wednesday January 20, 2010 16:37

by Kev - IPSC (pers cap)

info at ipsc dot ie

On Saturday, January 16th, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and supporters held boycott actions across the country, asking shoppers not to buy Israeli goods in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are still being starved by the Israeli government. Along with the IPSC, the following groups supported the Boycott Day of Action: Anti-War Ireland, éirígí, Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), ICTU Trade Union Friends of Palestine, Irish Anti-War Movement, Palestinian Rights Initiative, Sinn Fein and UNITE Trade Union.

Banner Drop, Ha'penny Bridge (photo courtesy of éirígí)

Protests and actions were held in Dublin, Cork, Arklow, Belfast, Letterkenny, Donegal, Sligo, Limerick and Newry. It is intended to build and continue the boycott in the coming months - including two actions in Kilkenny and Wexford this coming Saturday 23rd Jan - please see the http://www.ipsc.ie for more info about these actions.

According to Freda Hughes, spokesperson for the IPSC, "The boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa had an enormous effect in terms of isolating that regime internationally and ultimately it assisted in its downfall. We are hoping that this new international campaign will have the same impact on Israel, which practises blatant apartheid against the Palestinian people. It is up to every Irish consumer to make a choice - does ones support human rights by refusing to buy Israeli goods or does one support Israel and give money to their war economy? It is as simple as that."

Dublin

In Dublin, activists from the various groups gathered at the Spire on O’Connell St. for a brief rally before breaking off into three groups. These groups moved to the targeted shops/outlets across the city centre; Jervis Street Shopping Centre, Tesco on Parnell Street and Marks & Spencers on Grafton Street all of which sell Israeli products on their premises.

Earlier in the day, activists from éirígí hung a huge "Boycott Israeli Goods" banner across the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin, as well as outside the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.

Cork

A large number of Palestine solidarity activists gathered in Cork city centre today to stage pickets outside stores that sell Israeli produce. This was part of the national boycott Day of Action, with similiar protests held across the country. Pickets were held outside Tescos in Paul Street Shopping Centre and outside the Merchant's Quay Shopping Centre which contains a couple of shops, including Marks and Spencers, that sell Israeli goods.

The reaction from people on the street was uniformly postive and the Cork IPSC intends to continue and build the boycott campaign in the coming months.

Limerick

Members of the IPSC in Limerick handed out hundreds of fliers to shoppers in the city centre on Saturday afternoon. The fliers contained information about the range of Israeli goods on sale in various shops in Limerick. They also visited a number of supermarkets including Dunnes Stores in Henry Street and Tesco in Arthur’s quay where they gave fliers to the staff asking them to support the call to boycott produce from apartheid Israel.

Letterkenny

An éirígí-organised Boyoctt Israeli Goods demonstration drew a large and enthusiastic attendance from local people. There were also banner drops around Donegal and Sligo. )

Belfast, Newry & Arklow

In Belfast, Newry and Arklow members and supporters of the ISPC handed out thousands of leaflets in the town centres calling on people to boycott Israeli goods

What is the boycott?

The boycott of Israeli goods is a peaceful way to get Israel to stop the occupation of Palestine, and obey international law. Palestine is suffering from relentless Israeli attacks and experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe now. As with South African Apartheid, ordinary people have the power to stop injustice. Please do your bit. Don't buy or sell Israeli products or services. Israel is a export orientated economy, and Europe is Israel's largest trading partner, so even the threat of boycott has been effective in getting Israel to rethink its behaviour. More pressure on Israel will alleviate the terrible oppression the Palestinian people suffer.

Who supports the boycott?

171 organisations representing Palestinian civil society have called on people around the world to help them and support the boycott. Many human rights groups and trade unions around the world including Irish unions and ICTU have supported this call for boycott. There is even a growing movement inside Israel called ‘Boycott From Within’.

Many more pictures can be viewed at the following link: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayRe...D=275

Other reports can be read here:

IPSC - Dublin: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayRe...D=271
IPSC - Newry: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayRe...D=274
IAWM - Dublin: http://irishantiwar.org/node/721
éirigí - National: http://eirigi.org/latest/latest160110.html

Rally in Dublin (photo: Freda Hughes)

Leafletting in Arklow (photo courtesy of éirígí)

Rally in Letterkenny (photo courtesy of éirígí)

Leafletting in Cork (photo courtesy of éirígí)

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Comments (2 of 2)

Thank you IPSC

by Iyad Burnat - Bil'in Popular Committee

Mon Jan 25, 2010 14:22

Thank you IPSC for your actions the past week, they have raised my spirits and the villagers of Bil'in who for the past five years have nonviolently resisted the Israeli Apartheid-Annexation Wall which snakes its slimy way through the villages land stealing over 60% of Bil'in's rich agricultural land in the process.

The BDS campaign if fully followed through will be Israel's nemesis or as John Pilger puts it, a reckoning: For Israel, a reckoning http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=563

Bil'in, in past Friday demonstrations has highlighted the role of filthy CRH, the Irish company which through an Israeli subsidiary supplies cement for the construction of the Apartheid Wall and illegal Israeli colonies in the West Bank and Bil'in will continue to do so.

Inshallah, together, we'll prevail.

"Fuel to existing campaigns in Europe to boycott Israeli universities" (Jonathan Cook)

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

Mon Jan 25, 2010 15:29

Jonathan Cook reports that: Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister, approved last week the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process ... Several Israeli academics also warned that it would add fuel to existing campaigns in Europe to boycott Israeli universities, which have been accused of complicity with the occupation.

Commenting on Zvi Bar'el's article in Haaretz concerning the upgrade; A meeting of minds, lhttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1144668.html Omar Barghouti of the BDS witheringly attacks the hypocrisy:

A relatively daring article -- by Israeli standards, that is -- that delves into the hypocrisy of the so-called Israeli "left." It is still stuck, though, in the occupation paradigm, as if everything Israeli outside the realm of occupation is kosher!

The author, for instance, leaves out the other two major forms of Israeli oppression stated in the BDS Call, namely denial of the UN-sanctioned refugee rights to return and the system of apartheid inside Israeli itself. In fact, ignoring those and diverting attention to the occupation alone is another form of patent Israeli-left double standard, to put it mildly.

All the buzz about Ariel in the Israeli academy and intellectual ivory tower is mainly due to pragmatic reasons, as this article amply explains, never out of principle. But that is self-consistent, at least! For how can an academic at Tel Aviv University, say, have the chutzpah to condemn Ariel "University Center" simply because it is illegally built on occupied Palestinian land? Wasn't Tel Aviv University also built on ethnically cleansed, occupied and illegally expropriated land of the Palestinian village, Sheikh Muwannis, a fact that TAU refuses to even acknowledge? Doesn't the pride of the Israeli academy design weapon systems and develop army doctrines that are used to commit war crimes, as during the massacre in Gaza last year?

And what about Hebrew University, Israel's most prestigious, with one of its campuses sitting on occupied Palestinian territory in Jerusalem and its dorms, other than being involved in racist admissions policies, constituting arguably a war crime (transferring population from the occupying state to occupied territory)?

And what of the ultra liberal, "post-Zionists" infested Ben Gurion University with its complicity in ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the Naqab (Negev) desert and the collusion of some of its departments even in hiding cancer research results that implicate the Israeli army's live weapons tests in the soaring incidence of cancer among Bedouin Palestinian communities?

Even a secular person like myself cannot but recall the Bible here:

Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone!!

Ariel should be a clear target for the academic boycott simply out of pragmatic considerations, being the easiest target. But anyone with a modicum of moral consistency and a still-functioning faculty of reason cannot but see that all the other Israeli universities should be boycotted as well, for reasons far more sinister than little Ariel's crimes!

In the Israeli jungle of institutional academic sinners, casting a stone on Ariel college alone is sheer hypocrisy.