Thanks!

In the summer of 2010, Students Boycott Apartheid (SBA) will run its second delegation to Palestine of university students, faculty, and staff who are committed to supporting the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.

We have been inspired by the growth of powerful activism on campuses throughout the US and beyond in the past year, and we look forward to thinking and planning with you to make this program as useful and strategic as possible to you and to the movement as a whole.

WHO:

We hope to travel with about two people from each of several college and university campuses.  Participants should be students, faculty, and staff who are connected to an activist community or organization that is committed to or has been doing BDS work on campus.  Participants should have at least one year of studies left and/or plan to be involved in the campus community for at least another year, preferably longer.  We especially encourage newer students to apply.  We encourage you and your group to think strategically about who would benefit from this experience and most effectively use the connections made on this trip to promote BDS on campus.  For example, does it make sense on your campus to send two people from two different campus organizations?  What about a student senator?  A faculty member or advisor?

WHAT:

We will travel throughout the West Bank and ’48 Palestine (Israel), and have conversations with activists in Gaza and those in exile as well.  Through our meetings and visits, we will come to understand the many ways that Israeli apartheid functions, using the framework of the BDS call which highlights Palestinian people living under military occupation, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and Palestinian refugees.  We will also meet with supportive Israelis.

We will also participate in a global student activist conference organized by the Right to Education campaign at Birzeit University.  We will network about BDS and other student activism with Palestinian students and others from around the world, and we will end with workshops for our group in order to think collectively about how to make the best use of the experience upon return to North America.

WHEN:

July 17-31, 2010

WHY:

·        To strengthen individual student and faculty activists’ commitment to BDS work and to further develop their skills and knowledge through first-hand experience;

·        To strengthen the connections between students and other activists in the North America and in Palestine;

·        To help advance BDS work on university campuses in the US, strategically promoting collective BDS and Palestinian advocacy in connection to the larger Palestinian rights movement.

COST:

The cost will be approximately $800-$1,000 per participant. This does not include airfare to and from Palestine.  We encourage each campus to think of this as a group investment, and to help fundraise to send people.

FACILITATORS:

Hannah Mermelstein (co-founder of Birthright Unplugged and BDS activist in NY) and Lubna Alzaroo (Bethlehem University student), two of the founders of the Students Boycott Apartheid program last year, will facilitate this summer’s program.

APPLICATION:

If interested, please e-mail studentsboycottapartheid@gmail.com for an application.  Application deadline is Friday, May 28, but please e-mail us as soon as you know you are interested, so we can begin to get a sense of which schools are represented.

Please do not let any ID/citizenship issues stop you from contacting us.  We will try to work with you to make this possible if it seems like a good match.

We’re excited to hear from you and work with you!

Boycott apartheid: student delegation to Palestine
Doug Smith, , 17 July 2009

For the first time since the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against institutions supporting Israeli apartheid, students from North America and Palestine came together in Ramallah to share their ideas and experiences. Consisting of eight days of travel and a four-day workshop, the North American student delegation spent their two weeks getting connected with the struggle in Palestine in order to better articulate the BDS movement in their respective cities. The visiting students met face to face with those who are living and resisting the systematic oppression of Palestinians by the state of Israel.

The travel portion brought the students nearly everywhere giving them a chance to see the distinct realities of what it is to be a Palestinian; be it in Hebron living next to violent settlers, in Haifa where they live as second class citizens or the Negev where a majority of Palestinian villages are not recognized by the state and therefore do not receive basic services such as running water. All the while the group respected the boycott as much as possible booking all accommodations and transportation with Palestinian businesses in every city, even those within Israel.

Aside from personal connections, they attended several meetings with Palestinian organizations like Badil - Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (also instrumental in the BDS campaign), Baladna (developmental and capacity building agency for Arab-Palestinian youth in Israel) and Adalah and Addameer (two rights-based organizations working mostly in the court system), solidifying direct lines of cooperation for future campaigns on and off campus. They also met with some Israeli activists working from within on promoting the boycott, the right to return, refusal to serve in the military and corporate complicity.

The delegation consisted of representatives from Palestinian-youth community and student organizations from three Palestinian universities and several cities within Israel, which totaled around 25 with their North American counterparts.

The obvious non-represented group of students were those from universities in besieged Gaza to whom we spoke via an all-too-short video conference session in Birzeit University. Their message was clear in that they felt that the cruel military blockade needed to be dealt with as an urgent matter however that talking about the BDS campaign was a way in which this could be done without efforts being spread too thin on certain specific issues.

The workshops themselves had their positive and negative sides in so far that the challenges faced and achievements gained on Palestinian and North American campuses are quite different. The discussions resulted less in concrete plans and strategies, but much more in an understanding and future direction between the youth Palestine solidarity movement from the inside and abroad. Some of the biggest challenges Palestinian student activists faced were the seeming impossibility of running a successful boycott in some areas where the Palestinian economy is totally dominated by Israel (Birzeit University being the only exception) and the opposition from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has considerable influence on campuses, to any Gaza solidarity work due to the political situation. However unlike in North America students in Palestine do have a large base of support in nonpartisan civil society and the community at large that the visiting students are trying so hard to build in their own countries.

In stark opposition to the coming together that was the delegation, the group as a whole was given a tour of the apartheid wall by the Stop the Wall campaign and was able to see the land confiscations and strategic settlement expansions that accompany it. Due to the fact that this construction is ongoing, it gave the group a collective sense of what will happen if Israel’s racist polices of apartheid are not opposed.

The group also met with other Palestinians instrumental in the BDS campaign such as Omar Barghouti. The delegation was only the first of others that will be sure to follow in the near future now that the foundations are laid.

Doug Smith is a Montreal based student organizer, writer and activist currently working in solidarity with the Palestinian call for BDS on campus as well as in the community.

Ramallah, Palestine

On the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice decision against Israel’s apartheid wall, and the fourth anniversary of the Palestinian civil society call for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, we are proud to announce the completion of the first-ever Students Boycott Apartheid (SBA) tour and workshop. For the past two weeks, delegates from nine North American colleges and universities have traveled throughout Palestine, meeting with organizations and participating in a three-day workshop to strengthen the student BDS movement.

The Students Boycott Apartheid 2009 delegation was organized around the 2005 call on the international community to apply BDS against Israel until it complies with international law and recognizes the rights of three different but overlapping groups of Palestinian people. The demands on Israel are:
“1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

The Students Boycott Apartheid delegation forwards these demands through community and campus activism in North America and through relationships with Palestinian activists and organizations.

The travel portion of the trip gave participants necessary tools to understand and speak about apartheid in Palestine and to promote BDS in creative and strategic ways. The delegation met with organizations and individuals in the occupied West Bank and inside 1948 Palestine, as well as with students in Gaza (through video conference), all of whom live under and are resisting the Israeli apartheid system. In Mas’ha a family holds steadfast as the wall entirely surrounds their home; in the Naqab, villagers organize for recognition of their rights; in Yaffa, a neighborhood struggles against ongoing displacement and gentrification; in Lyd, hip hop artists bring publicity to racial and economic discrimination; in Dheisheh and Balata refugee camps, children dance dabke and create films to maintain their cultural identity in the face of occupation; in East Jerusalem, a family remains near their settler-occupied home in a tent that has been destroyed six times by the Israeli government. Students also met with representatives from Badil, Who Profits, the BDS National Committee (BNC), and others to discuss BDS as a tactic for resistance against apartheid.

Following the travel, 20 North American and Palestinian students participated in a workshop coordinated with the Right to Education campaign, Baladna, and Stop the Wall to share experiences and strategies for further campus organizing. Students from North America gained tools and resources to organize Israeli Apartheid Week and divestment campaigns at their universities. The workshop also provided the rare opportunity for students from the West Bank to meet Palestinians from 1948 Palestine, connecting these separated populations and contributing to further solidarity. Students from Birzeit, Najah, and Bethlehem Universities developed connections with one another and are committed to supporting each other’s future campaigns. Palestinians from Baladna organization in Haifa deepened their understanding of systems of apartheid in the West Bank and are determining what forms of BDS will be possible in their communities. All participants will continue individual and joint campaigns that recognize the necessity of a global grassroots movement of economic and political pressure to force Israel to abandon occupation, colonialism, and apartheid.

Our taxi could not seem to find our host families house. We were driving up and down a road that seemed to have nowhere to go. After a few turn around’s and phone calls the car stopped. A man was waiting for us on the side of the road.  He introduced himself as ‘Atta Jabbar. He showed us a pile of rocks and trash and explained that it used to be a road leading to his house until the Israelis blocked it. He showed us a field where he used to grow tomatoes until the Israelis cut his water supply. He pointed to a house at the top of the hill and said it was his. We started to climb up. On the way he showed us two piles of rocks. They used to be houses,his houses. Both were demolished by the Israelis only a few months apart from one another.  He was arrested for refusing to leave his land. With international out cry and media support he was ” allowed” to build a new home further up the hill.     Not before living in a tent with 4 young children and his wife first.  When we got to his home he showed us pictures of this tent and how his family cooked food and brought it over so they could all eat. I was in awe that they made light of such a horrifying situation.   He showed us pictures of his arrest and of the protesters outside his tent who came to support him.  They shared a lot with us that night. Food, their bed, tea and coffee but most importantly their story and for that  I am grateful. I will never forget ‘Atta Jabbar or his family. Not only because they posses more  strength than I thought possible  but because they shared it with me.

For most families in Israel, serving in the military is not only a required duty it’s also of great honor and prestige. “Shministim” is the equivalent of high school seniors in Israel. So at the age of 18, after graduating from high school, young Israelis serve in the military for 3 years before continuing their education. After the WhoProfits.org meeting with Dalit at the Zochrot office we met with two young female Israeli conscientious objectors: Netta Mishly and Raz Veron, both of whom rejected to serve in the Israeli military at the age of 18. Both of these young women discussed what led to their conviction of refusing to serve in the Israeli military and the reactions they received from their family and society.

At the age of 16 Netta Mishly had decided that she would reject serving the Israeli military. She came to this conclusion after much internal struggle, despite all the encouragement from her family and society to serve in the military. After visiting the Palestinian village of Bil’in at the age of 15, and attending a peaceful demonstration of Israeli and Palestinian activists that were shot upon by Israeli soldiers, Netta began to realize that she no longer wanted to serve in the military but she found it difficult to express such an opinion. “There’s such a big system of false justification that it makes you like this, that it makes you militarized. The people I met [who had served] were really racist. They would say ‘When I see the Arabs go through there [checkpoints], I want to take my gun and shoot them.’”

Netta gradually began to convince her mom and was able to do so in a matter of two years, but up until the day of her draft Netta’s father was in complete denial that her daughter planned to refuse serving in the army. Netta revealed that her father would go so far as to boast at family gatherings that his daughter would join the army and serve the Israeli people.

Nevertheless, Netta was prepared to face the consequences; whether they be family banishment or imprisonment. After being sentenced to prison Netta’s father finally began to accept her decision. After spending a few days in jail, several visits from her family, and witnessing the treatment of her daughter, Netta believes her family finally began to realize that “if she as a privileged Jew was treated as such, just imagine how the Palestinians are treated… Palestinians have to face checkpoints and discrimination on a daily basis, and my parents finally began to see that through my treatment.” However, Netta believes this would never have been the case if she hadn’t refused to serve in the army. “After all they love me and care about me and that’s the only reason why they began to see what I saw, so that they could try to get me out.” Netta was released after 20 days in prison and declared by the military “mentally unfit of serving in the military”. The Israeli military does not formally accept conscientious objectors, and considers it a serious crime to refuse to serve. Netta was lucky. Others have had to face years in prison. Netta admits that “it’s a privilege to refuse sometimes. If your family is well off you’ll be fine. It depends who you are talking to.”

Netta and conscientious objectors like her are extremely rare to find in Israeli society. Unquestioningly serving in the military has become the norm, so it is difficult for many people to question serving the army because it’s essential in being considered part of Israeli society. Apart from time in prison, refusing to serve in the Israeli military has many other consequences for young Israelis, such as: loss of scholarship and financial aid opportunities, banishment from Israeli politics, difficulty in finding a job, loss of family and social support, and much more.

Raz revealed that what bothered her most with the requirement of serving in the Israeli military was the military indoctrination youth in Israel are put through. In a society that justifies the occupation and apartheid of Palestine because of the Holocaust during World War II, the Shministim (high school seniors) go to Auswitz and are indoctrinated with vengeance to realize that serving the military will somehow bring their people retribution for the crimes of Europe. “I’m an Israeli, but Anti-Zionist… I have an Israeli nationality but I don’t believe in Israel only for the Jews… I feel that it is very unhealthy that Israel even calls these people Jews. They mix it, they don’t allow you to be Israeli if you’re not a Jew… it’s really complicated…”

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