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→ 18 October 2018
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French government suspends demand for West Bank product labeling | The Times of Israel

Authorities backtrack over claims of discrimination, two years after adopting measure vocally protested by Israel; Amnesty International criticizes Paris over move

French authorities have reportedly suspended their insistence on special labeling for West Bank products following a lawsuit alleging that the practice is discriminatory.

The France office of the NGO Amnesty International complained about the suspension in a statement Wednesday.

“Instead of complying with the request to end imports [from the West Bank], the government has chosen to roll back and suspend the demand for labeling,” the human rights group wrote.

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→ 18 September 2018
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University of Michigan ‘Disappointed’ After Professor Refuses to Write Recommendation Letter for Student Studying Abroad in Israel | Algemeiner

John Cheney-Lippold

The University of Michigan (U-M) said it was disappointed after a professor refused to write a letter of recommendation for a student who sought to study abroad at Tel Aviv University, in an expression of support for the academic boycott of Israel.

In an email sent on September 5, Professor John Cheney-Lippold told the student, who had taken a course with him during the Spring 2018 semester, that he would have to rescind an earlier offer to write a letter of recommendation due to “politics.”

“I am very sorry, but I only scanned your first email a couple weeks ago and missed out on a key detail,” wrote Cheney-Lippold, who teaches in the Department of American Culture’s Digital Studies program.

“As you may know, many university departments have pledged an academic boycott against Israel in support of Palestinians living in Palestine,” he said in reference to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

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→ 21 June 2018
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‘Fauda’ Creators Talk BDS, Critics, and Whether There Will Ever Be Peace | Algemeiner

When Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff pitched their TV series about an undercover Israeli unit that hunts Palestinians preparing to launch terror attacks, Israel’s Keshet network told them to write a comedy about the conflict instead.

Now, the creators of the hit series Fauda — who stuck to their guns — are having the last laugh. Speaking at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to promote the release of the show’s second season, they addressed their critics, including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s call for Netflix to drop the show.

“But it was a kind of a good PR for us,” Issacharoff said.

The show, while fictional, pulls from the experiences of both Raz — who served in an undercover unit similar to the one on the show — and Issacharoff, a longtime journalist who spent a lot of time in Gaza and met with top Hamas officials.

Issacharoff said that much of the criticism he sees isn’t “about Fauda as a TV show,” but based on “a political issue with the State of Israel.”

Raz also addressed those who say that Palestinian writers should be added to the show, to give their perspective.

“I really want to tell … all those critics who ask us to bring Palestinian writers, if Palestinians want to write a show, they should write a show,” Raz said.

Asked if there will be peace between Israelis and Palestinians — and if there could be a two-state solution — Raz said that he has hope, since Germany and Israel are now friendly nations.

Issacharoff said he is both pessimistic and optimistic.

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→ 15 May 2018
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Anti-Israel protesters and beeping box removed from Wellington movie screening by police | TVNZ

Police were forced to remove anti-Israel protesters from a film screening at the Doc Edge film festival in Wellington last night.

The police also removed a beeping black box that was chained to a seat to disrupt the screening of Ben Guiron, Epilogue, a documentary about former Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, Newsroom reports.

Peace Action Wellington claimed the documentary, which they described as “Zionist propaganda,” breached the cultural boycott of Israel and wanted it removed from the festival.

“This is state-sponsored propaganda the festival are planning to screen at the expense of people living under a brutal and illegal occupation,” spokesperson Alex Davies said.

They also claimed that funding from the Israeli embassy for the documentary made the festival complicit with the Israeli government.

The fact that the movie was screened on the eve of the anniversary of Israel declaring its independence in 1948 also aggravated protestors. Palestinians refer to May 15 as the “Nakba” or “catastrophe”.

Doc Edge organisers said the demand for the film to be withdrawn were an affront to freedom of speech, adding that the they and the government were not part of a cultural boycott.

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→ 3 February 2014
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Israeli Ambassador to NZ responds to a call to boycott Israel

Livne_JosefPlease find below a statement from the Ambassador of Israel, Josef Livne:

[A] “Recent call for the government of New Zealand to deny or indeed revoke the visas for the Bat Sheva Dance Company, scheduled to take part in the New Zealand Art Festival should be rejected outright.

The so called spokespeople for the Palestinian cause simply bring home to New Zealand a sample of the incitement which has been an integral part of Palestinian propaganda.  The call for boycott of an Israeli cultural group is another facet of the comprehensive warfare that is being launched against Israel. If one entertained the notion that even between adversaries there are some mutually accepted limitations, this abhorrent call for boycott only reminds us that reality is different. Only a couple of days ago, the world stopped to remember the victims of the Shoa, whose suffering started with similar calls for Boycott.

There is no need to identify with Israel in order to denounce this obscene initiative. One would expect that Patrons of the Art and Culture to raise their voices against this violation of their rights to enjoy an artistic event. In fact this is not only their concern. All those who uphold decency should unite around send a clear and unambiguous message to the proponents of this initiative: You crossed a red line!”

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→ 3 February 2014
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Scarlett Johansson issues statement about Sodastream and Oxfam

The Huffington Post  |  By

Scarlett Johansson has been the subject of intense scrutiny since she became a brand ambassador for SodaStream, a company that has drawn criticism for operating a factory in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

In a statement released exclusively to The Huffington Post, Johansson says she “never intended on being the face of any social or political movement, distinction, separation or stance as part of my affiliation with SodaStream,” but wants to “clear the air.”

“I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine,” the actress said. “SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights. That is what is happening in their Ma’ale Adumim factory every working day.”

Oxfam International, which Johansson also promotes, had earlier criticized the actress over the SodaStream deal. “Oxfam respects the independence of our ambassadors,” a statement on the organization’s website reads. “However Oxfam believes that businesses that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support. Oxfam is opposed to all trade from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.”

In her own statement, Johansson made direct reference to Oxfam.

“As part of my efforts as an Ambassador for Oxfam, I have witnessed first-hand that progress is made when communities join together and work alongside one another and feel proud of the outcome of that work in the quality of their product and work environment, in the pay they bring home to their families and in the benefits they equally receive,” Johansson said. “I believe in conscious consumerism and transparency and I trust that the consumer will make their own educated choice that is right for them. I stand behind the SodaStream product and am proud of the work that I have accomplished at Oxfam as an Ambassador for over 8 years. Even though it is a side effect of representing SodaStream, I am happy that light is being shed on this issue in hopes that a greater number of voices will contribute to the conversation of a peaceful two state solution in the near future.”

A representative for Oxfam told the New York Times that the organization has not asked Johansson to abandon her relationship with SodaStream. Susan Sarandon has previously promoted the product.

SodaStream, which offers products that allow users to carbonate beverages at home, has said its West Bank factory employs 550 Palestinians who are afforded the same benefits as Israeli workers. The company has 25 factories around the world, and has released videos illustrating its claims that the West Bank factory operates in equitable conditions. An unnamed Palestinian worker disputed the claim that workers at the plant are treated well in a report published by The Electronic Intifada.

Johansson’s full statement is available below.

While I never intended on being the face of any social or political movement, distinction, separation or stance as part of my affiliation with SodaStream, given the amount of noise surrounding that decision, I’d like to clear the air.I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine. SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights. That is what is happening in their Ma’ale Adumim factory every working day. As part of my efforts as an Ambassador for Oxfam, I have witnessed first-hand that progress is made when communities join together and work alongside one another and feel proud of the outcome of that work in the quality of their product and work environment, in the pay they bring home to their families and in the benefits they equally receive.

I believe in conscious consumerism and transparency and I trust that the consumer will make their own educated choice that is right for them. I stand behind the SodaStream product and am proud of the work that I have accomplished at Oxfam as an Ambassador for over 8 years. Even though it is a side effect of representing SodaStream, I am happy that light is being shed on this issue in hopes that a greater number of voices will contribute to the conversation of a peaceful two state solution in the near future.

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→ 3 February 2014
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John Minto argues for a boycott of all things Israel

John Minto, the famous campaigner against Apartheid South Africa, also accuses Israeli of practicing Apartheid and calls for everyone to boycott Israel, divest themselves of any Israeli investments and to sanction Israel until it bends to the movement’s demands:

The boycott campaign against Israeli apartheid heats up – Sodastream and the Batsheva Dance Company

By ,   February 2, 2014

The parting of the ways between actor Scarlett Johansson and aid agency OXFAM was inevitable.

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The parting of the ways between actor Scarlett Johansson and aid agency OXFAM was inevitable.

Johansson is advertising Sodastream which operates a factory in a Jewish-only settlement on occupied Palestinian land. Under international law such production is illegal and Johansson should be supporting a boycott of Sodastream but she’s doing the opposite – for money of course.

Here in New Zealand a boycott campaign of Sodastream is just getting underway and it’ll be a big job because major retailers like Harvey Norman, the Warehouse, Farmers, Foodtown, Countdown, Pak n Save, New World, Briscoes, Noel Leeming and Mitre 10 are among the companies which sell these boycott-breaking contraptions.

In the meantime the boycott debate is heating up further with the Israeli Batsheva Dance Company due to perform at the New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington later this month.

Palestinian human rights groups have written to the government asking that visas be denied to this group because it also breaches the international boycott campaign called by Palestinian groups.

No-one’s holding their breath that our obsequious Foreign Minister Murray McCully will step in despite the United Nations General Assembly proclaiming 2014 “the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People so a protest is being organised for the Batsheva performances. (If you are in Auckland then come down in the bus to Wellington for the 22nd February protest)

Israel is subject to an international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because of its unashamedly racist treatment of its Arab-Israeli citizens (See www.adalah.org/eng/ for the more than 50 laws which discriminate against Arab-Israelis); the on-going construction of illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land; its brutal military occupation of the West Bank Palestinian territory and its inhuman blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Even the US Department of State has criticised Israel’s system of “institutional, legal, and societal discrimination” against its Palestinian citizens.

The BDS campaign was launched in 2005 by some 260 Palestinian civil society organisations as the best way for the international community to support the Palestinian struggle for justice and human rights.

It is similar to the calls for an international boycott of South Africa which were made by black South African organisations from the late 1950s. So for the same reason New Zealanders called for the end to rugby links with apartheid South Africa we are calling for the cutting of ties with apartheid Israel – economic, academic, cultural, political and sporting links are all in the frame.

What makes Batsheva so much worse is that it is part of the Israeli propaganda effort to deflect criticism of its appalling policies towards Palestinians.

The Dance Company is largely funded by the Israeli Ministry of Culture & Sport, the City of Tel Aviv and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs who praise the troupe as “ambassadors of Israeli culture”. The company’s participation in the NZ Arts Festival is also partially sponsored by the Israeli Embassy in Wellington.

We stood alongside black South Africans in the struggle against South African apartheid – now it’s time to stand beside Palestinians in the struggle against Israeli apartheid.

Source: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/02/02/the-boycott-campaign-against-israeli-apartheid-heats-up-sodastream-and-the-batsheva-dance-company/#comment-185608

The opinions expressed in this article do not represent those held by NZFOI and is reproduced here for our readers’ information only.
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