30 oct 2018
deception when she suggested that Palestinian students were behind an anti-Semitic incident on campus the previous year.
The footage is the latest leaked excerpt from from Al Jazeera’s censored film The Lobby – USA, which The Electronic Intifada has viewed in full.
In January 2015, painted swastikas were found on a Jewish frat house at the University of California, Davis. Reifkind was then president of the student group Aggies for Israel, and had yet to be directly employed by the embassy.
Contrary to what she told journalists at the time, in the leaked Al Jazeera footage, Reifkind admits that the racist graffiti had almost certainly not been done by pro-BDS students, but was likely the work of white supremacists from off campus.
Defaming Palestinian rights
The effort to falsely implicate Palestine solidarity activists in the 2015 incident is particularly disturbing in light of the massacre of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday.
The gunman arrested after that attack is Robert Bowers, a white supremacist with a history of conspiratorial and virulently anti-Semitic social media postings.
Yet since the attack, leading Israel lobby figures have continued to defame supporters of Palestinian rights as linked to the Pittsburgh massacre, and push for further crackdowns against them.
Meanwhile, members of Israel’s ruling Likud Party have engaged in apologetics and damage control for the American far-right that nurtures the kind of anti-Jewish hate that Bowers expressed.
Talking points used by the party cast blame for the massacre on a “left-wing Jewish group that promoted immigration to the US and worked against Trump” and echoed the gunman’s own anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Days before the 2015 graffiti incident at UC Davis, the student senate had voted in favor of boycotting Israel – a major victory for the BDS movement.
Reifkind had already been accusing the student movement of anti-Semitism, and reacted to the graffiti by drawing media attention.
She and other pro-Israel activists strongly implied in the press that Palestinian and other pro-BDS students had been behind the swastikas – without evidence.
“Random white supremacist”
Reifkind complained that university administrators had refused to blame the swastikas on campus Palestine solidarity activists.
The Jewish Journal reported at the time that Reifkind had “expressed disappointment that school leaders have not drawn a more direct and public ‘connection between the divestment resolution itself and anti-Semitism.’”
AEPi, the Jewish fraternity on whose house the swastikas were found, also blamed the incident on Palestine solidarity activism.
“On campuses throughout North America and Europe, AEPi brothers have been leading the Jewish community and leading the student movement to defend Israel,” the fraternity’s executive director said. “Because of that leadership, in the last few months alone, our brothers have been the targets of anti-Semitic attacks at a dozen universities,” including – he claimed – UC Davis.
On its Facebook page, Reifkind’s group Aggies for Israel posted a photo of the graffiti. The group stated that “AEPi was clearly targeted” due to its “strong track record of championing pro-Israel causes,” including campaigning against the divestment vote at UC Davis.
Aggies for Israel alerted media outlets including BuzzFeed by tagging them in comments.
But in the footage, viewable above, Reifkind admits to Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter “Tony” that “we don’t even know” who did the graffiti.
“We just think it was like some random white supremacist type people who just came, did it and left. We don’t think it was students,” she states.
Marcelle Obeid was then president of the campus group Students For Justice in Palestine at UC Davis.
In the Al Jazeera film – though not in the leaked excerpts – she explains that Reifkind’s false allegations were “hugely damaging” to the group at the very moment they had won a victory for BDS.
Obeid reacts to the undercover footage of Reifkind admitting the graffiti was likely the work of a “random white supremacist” by saying: “That’s very surprising, because it was very clear from their behavior towards us and their attitudes towards us that we had done some heinous crime towards them and we deserved to pay for it.”
Islamophobia
The backlash that Reifkind and other anti-Palestinian activists drove was part of a general atmosphere of Islamophobic coverage of the divestment resolution.
Fox News, for example, claimed that pro-Israel students had been shouted down and “heckled” during the Student Senate vote.
The national media attention on the California campus peaked with former TV star Roseanne Barr tweeting: “I hope all the Jews leave UC Davis” and “then it gets nuked!”
In reality, as video from the night demonstrates, Reifkind was respectfully given ample time to speak at the debate, where she harangued students as being part of a “campus plagued by anti-Semitism.”
She was not heckled or interrupted even as she denounced the BDS movement as “anti-Semitic and hate-promoting.” She and her group then staged a walkout as a way to attract press attention, as they expected to heavily lose the vote.
At the time, in January 2015, Reifkind was a student and campus pro-Israel activist not yet employed by the Israeli embassy in Washington.
But in the clip, she admits to “Tony,” Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter, that as president of Aggies for Israel she had been in touch with the Israeli consulate in San Francisco.
Immediately after she graduated in 2016, her on-campus efforts for Israel paid off, and she was offered a job at the Israeli embassy in Washington. She spoke to “Tony” soon after, in September.
Her official title seen in a business card in the clip was “director of community affairs.” But as she explains to “Tony” in the film, her role mainly entailed “monitoring BDS things and reporting it back” to agencies in Israel.
“Report back” to Israel
Neither Reifkind nor the Israeli embassy in Washington replied to Al Jazeera’s request for comment, and she left her role at the embassy in October 2017.
In the clip above, Reifkind describes her role as “mainly gathering intel, reporting back to Israel. That’s a lot of what I do. To report back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.”
The strategic affairs ministry is Israel’s semi-covert agency dedicated to fighting a global war on the BDS movement, often utilizing “black-ops.”
It is run by a high-ranking military intelligence officer, Sima Vaknin-Gil, and staffed mostly from the ranks of Israel’s various spy agencies. The names of its operatives are mostly classified.
In the clip above, Reifkind describes to “Tony” how she monitors the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, using several fake Facebook accounts.
“I follow all the SJP accounts,” she explains. “I have some fake names. My name is Jay Bernard or something. It just sounds like an old white guy, which was the plan. I join all these groups.”
The “intel” she got from such activities was then fed into the classified “Cables” server via her boss at the embassy.
The surveillance seems to have been effective.
SJP president Marcelle Obeid explains in another part of the film that “every single event that I put on, you would have these pro-Israel groups coming out – before our guests even got there – with their cameras videotaping.”
“That behind-the-scenes way”
Reifkind, as the president of Aggies for Israel, received assistance from the Israeli consulate in 2015. In the same manner, she, as part of her role at the Washington embassy, gave pro-Israel groups all over the US “our support, in that behind-the-scenes way.”
This arms-length approach through front organizations is key to how Israel operates in the West.
In 2016, the Israeli embassy in London warned in a cable that the strategic affairs ministry was “operating” British Jewish organizations behind the embassy’s back in a way that could put them in violation of UK law.
It later emerged – from an Al Jazeera film about the Israel lobby in the UK broadcast last year – that the embassy was attempting to “take down” a British minister deemed critical of Israel.
The embassy agent, Shai Masot, was also working through proxies to set up a fake pro-Israel youth organization within the main opposition Labour Party.
In the US, Reifkind was also active with the powerful lobby group AIPAC while she was on campus. In another part of the censored film she explains to “Tony” that “When you’re lobbying on behalf of AIPAC, you never say you’re AIPAC, you say, ‘I am a pro-Israel student from UC Davis.’”
The undercover footage of Reifkind explaining her activities shows how Israel – with total impunity – spies on and disrupts US citizens involved in lawful advocacy for Palestine.
A key Israeli front organization spying on US students is the Israel on Campus Coalition, as The Electronic Intifada revealed in its reporting on a previously leaked clip of The Lobby – USA.
The film indicates that the Israel on Campus Coalition is connected to the anonymous blacklisting site The Canary Missionon behalf of multimillionaire pro-Israel financier and convicted tax evader Adam Millstein.
In undercover footage yet to be leaked, the Israel on Campus Coalition admits to coordinating its covert spying and sabotage campaigns with Israel’s strategic affairs ministry. Like other groups profiled in the film it did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
Al Jazeera’s film raises questions about the nature of Israel’s network of front organizations in the US and to what extent they may be violating the law in acting as undeclared agents for a foreign state.
As Reifkind sums up to Tony in the clip above, “I can’t say anything negative about Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] or the government because I definitely work for them. Not directly. I’m just a normal American.”
reposted from The Electronic Intifada
by: Asa Winstanley and Ali Abunimah
The footage is the latest leaked excerpt from from Al Jazeera’s censored film The Lobby – USA, which The Electronic Intifada has viewed in full.
In January 2015, painted swastikas were found on a Jewish frat house at the University of California, Davis. Reifkind was then president of the student group Aggies for Israel, and had yet to be directly employed by the embassy.
Contrary to what she told journalists at the time, in the leaked Al Jazeera footage, Reifkind admits that the racist graffiti had almost certainly not been done by pro-BDS students, but was likely the work of white supremacists from off campus.
Defaming Palestinian rights
The effort to falsely implicate Palestine solidarity activists in the 2015 incident is particularly disturbing in light of the massacre of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday.
The gunman arrested after that attack is Robert Bowers, a white supremacist with a history of conspiratorial and virulently anti-Semitic social media postings.
Yet since the attack, leading Israel lobby figures have continued to defame supporters of Palestinian rights as linked to the Pittsburgh massacre, and push for further crackdowns against them.
Meanwhile, members of Israel’s ruling Likud Party have engaged in apologetics and damage control for the American far-right that nurtures the kind of anti-Jewish hate that Bowers expressed.
Talking points used by the party cast blame for the massacre on a “left-wing Jewish group that promoted immigration to the US and worked against Trump” and echoed the gunman’s own anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Days before the 2015 graffiti incident at UC Davis, the student senate had voted in favor of boycotting Israel – a major victory for the BDS movement.
Reifkind had already been accusing the student movement of anti-Semitism, and reacted to the graffiti by drawing media attention.
She and other pro-Israel activists strongly implied in the press that Palestinian and other pro-BDS students had been behind the swastikas – without evidence.
“Random white supremacist”
Reifkind complained that university administrators had refused to blame the swastikas on campus Palestine solidarity activists.
The Jewish Journal reported at the time that Reifkind had “expressed disappointment that school leaders have not drawn a more direct and public ‘connection between the divestment resolution itself and anti-Semitism.’”
AEPi, the Jewish fraternity on whose house the swastikas were found, also blamed the incident on Palestine solidarity activism.
“On campuses throughout North America and Europe, AEPi brothers have been leading the Jewish community and leading the student movement to defend Israel,” the fraternity’s executive director said. “Because of that leadership, in the last few months alone, our brothers have been the targets of anti-Semitic attacks at a dozen universities,” including – he claimed – UC Davis.
On its Facebook page, Reifkind’s group Aggies for Israel posted a photo of the graffiti. The group stated that “AEPi was clearly targeted” due to its “strong track record of championing pro-Israel causes,” including campaigning against the divestment vote at UC Davis.
Aggies for Israel alerted media outlets including BuzzFeed by tagging them in comments.
But in the footage, viewable above, Reifkind admits to Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter “Tony” that “we don’t even know” who did the graffiti.
“We just think it was like some random white supremacist type people who just came, did it and left. We don’t think it was students,” she states.
Marcelle Obeid was then president of the campus group Students For Justice in Palestine at UC Davis.
In the Al Jazeera film – though not in the leaked excerpts – she explains that Reifkind’s false allegations were “hugely damaging” to the group at the very moment they had won a victory for BDS.
Obeid reacts to the undercover footage of Reifkind admitting the graffiti was likely the work of a “random white supremacist” by saying: “That’s very surprising, because it was very clear from their behavior towards us and their attitudes towards us that we had done some heinous crime towards them and we deserved to pay for it.”
Islamophobia
The backlash that Reifkind and other anti-Palestinian activists drove was part of a general atmosphere of Islamophobic coverage of the divestment resolution.
Fox News, for example, claimed that pro-Israel students had been shouted down and “heckled” during the Student Senate vote.
The national media attention on the California campus peaked with former TV star Roseanne Barr tweeting: “I hope all the Jews leave UC Davis” and “then it gets nuked!”
In reality, as video from the night demonstrates, Reifkind was respectfully given ample time to speak at the debate, where she harangued students as being part of a “campus plagued by anti-Semitism.”
She was not heckled or interrupted even as she denounced the BDS movement as “anti-Semitic and hate-promoting.” She and her group then staged a walkout as a way to attract press attention, as they expected to heavily lose the vote.
At the time, in January 2015, Reifkind was a student and campus pro-Israel activist not yet employed by the Israeli embassy in Washington.
But in the clip, she admits to “Tony,” Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter, that as president of Aggies for Israel she had been in touch with the Israeli consulate in San Francisco.
Immediately after she graduated in 2016, her on-campus efforts for Israel paid off, and she was offered a job at the Israeli embassy in Washington. She spoke to “Tony” soon after, in September.
Her official title seen in a business card in the clip was “director of community affairs.” But as she explains to “Tony” in the film, her role mainly entailed “monitoring BDS things and reporting it back” to agencies in Israel.
“Report back” to Israel
Neither Reifkind nor the Israeli embassy in Washington replied to Al Jazeera’s request for comment, and she left her role at the embassy in October 2017.
In the clip above, Reifkind describes her role as “mainly gathering intel, reporting back to Israel. That’s a lot of what I do. To report back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.”
The strategic affairs ministry is Israel’s semi-covert agency dedicated to fighting a global war on the BDS movement, often utilizing “black-ops.”
It is run by a high-ranking military intelligence officer, Sima Vaknin-Gil, and staffed mostly from the ranks of Israel’s various spy agencies. The names of its operatives are mostly classified.
In the clip above, Reifkind describes to “Tony” how she monitors the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, using several fake Facebook accounts.
“I follow all the SJP accounts,” she explains. “I have some fake names. My name is Jay Bernard or something. It just sounds like an old white guy, which was the plan. I join all these groups.”
The “intel” she got from such activities was then fed into the classified “Cables” server via her boss at the embassy.
The surveillance seems to have been effective.
SJP president Marcelle Obeid explains in another part of the film that “every single event that I put on, you would have these pro-Israel groups coming out – before our guests even got there – with their cameras videotaping.”
“That behind-the-scenes way”
Reifkind, as the president of Aggies for Israel, received assistance from the Israeli consulate in 2015. In the same manner, she, as part of her role at the Washington embassy, gave pro-Israel groups all over the US “our support, in that behind-the-scenes way.”
This arms-length approach through front organizations is key to how Israel operates in the West.
In 2016, the Israeli embassy in London warned in a cable that the strategic affairs ministry was “operating” British Jewish organizations behind the embassy’s back in a way that could put them in violation of UK law.
It later emerged – from an Al Jazeera film about the Israel lobby in the UK broadcast last year – that the embassy was attempting to “take down” a British minister deemed critical of Israel.
The embassy agent, Shai Masot, was also working through proxies to set up a fake pro-Israel youth organization within the main opposition Labour Party.
In the US, Reifkind was also active with the powerful lobby group AIPAC while she was on campus. In another part of the censored film she explains to “Tony” that “When you’re lobbying on behalf of AIPAC, you never say you’re AIPAC, you say, ‘I am a pro-Israel student from UC Davis.’”
The undercover footage of Reifkind explaining her activities shows how Israel – with total impunity – spies on and disrupts US citizens involved in lawful advocacy for Palestine.
A key Israeli front organization spying on US students is the Israel on Campus Coalition, as The Electronic Intifada revealed in its reporting on a previously leaked clip of The Lobby – USA.
The film indicates that the Israel on Campus Coalition is connected to the anonymous blacklisting site The Canary Missionon behalf of multimillionaire pro-Israel financier and convicted tax evader Adam Millstein.
In undercover footage yet to be leaked, the Israel on Campus Coalition admits to coordinating its covert spying and sabotage campaigns with Israel’s strategic affairs ministry. Like other groups profiled in the film it did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
Al Jazeera’s film raises questions about the nature of Israel’s network of front organizations in the US and to what extent they may be violating the law in acting as undeclared agents for a foreign state.
As Reifkind sums up to Tony in the clip above, “I can’t say anything negative about Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] or the government because I definitely work for them. Not directly. I’m just a normal American.”
reposted from The Electronic Intifada
by: Asa Winstanley and Ali Abunimah
25 oct 2018
The Palestinian anti-Normalization Center (PAC) strongly condemned the Qatari Gymnastics Federation for hosting Israeli athletes as part of the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
PAC strongly denounced the presence of Israeli athletes in the Qatar-hosted contest, saying the move comes in sharp contrast to Qatar’s pro-Palestine position.
The group called on sports stake-holders in Qatar to rescind their country’s sponsorship of the event, officially declare boycott of Israel, and join ongoing efforts to isolate the Israeli occupation on the wider international scene in response to its crimes in Palestine and the region.
PAC hailed sportsmen and sportswomen who have boldly boycotted contests with Israeli counterparts, saying their brave reactions will forever remain badges of honors on their shoulders.
Israeli participants of both men’s and women’s squads are expected to compete in uniform with national emblems during the 10-day tournament which kicks off on Thursday in Doha, sparking widespread condemnation.
The Israeli flag is also expected to be raised at the Aspire Dome in the event of Israeli athletes’ success at the major gymnastics start of the year.
Members of the Israeli gymnastics team were seen wearing uniform with the Israeli flag during podium training in Doha, confirming Qatar’s assurance to allow Israeli participants at the tournament.
PAC strongly denounced the presence of Israeli athletes in the Qatar-hosted contest, saying the move comes in sharp contrast to Qatar’s pro-Palestine position.
The group called on sports stake-holders in Qatar to rescind their country’s sponsorship of the event, officially declare boycott of Israel, and join ongoing efforts to isolate the Israeli occupation on the wider international scene in response to its crimes in Palestine and the region.
PAC hailed sportsmen and sportswomen who have boldly boycotted contests with Israeli counterparts, saying their brave reactions will forever remain badges of honors on their shoulders.
Israeli participants of both men’s and women’s squads are expected to compete in uniform with national emblems during the 10-day tournament which kicks off on Thursday in Doha, sparking widespread condemnation.
The Israeli flag is also expected to be raised at the Aspire Dome in the event of Israeli athletes’ success at the major gymnastics start of the year.
Members of the Israeli gymnastics team were seen wearing uniform with the Israeli flag during podium training in Doha, confirming Qatar’s assurance to allow Israeli participants at the tournament.
14 oct 2018
10/12/18 Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)The University of Michigan is reportedly disciplining teachers for their decision to respect the Palestinian picket line against discriminatory Israeli institutions and for supporting Palestinian human rights.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said:
The BDS campaign for Palestinian rights is an inclusive human rights movement that rejects all forms of racial discrimination and bigotry and is firmly committed to freedom, justice and equality for all people.
It’s disgraceful that University of Michigan President Mark Schissel is using the language of equity and inclusion to coerce teachers at his university to act against their principles and violate the Palestinian picket line against patently inequitable and exclusionary Israeli institutions. Complicit Israeli universities have for decades played a major role in planning, implementing and justifying Israel’s apartheid policies and grave violations of Palestinian human rights.
Similar repressive measures by US university officials in the 1980s that tried to undermine the academic boycott against apartheid South Africa are today universally condemned by progressives around the world as a moral failure on the wrong side of history.
As long as Israeli universities continue to develop weapons systems used to brutalize and control Palestinians, implement discriminatory policies, steal Palestinian land and provide intellectual cover for Israel’s war crimes, there should be no business as usual with them. Educators who bravely act on principle should be championed, not punished. The University of Michigan is lucky to have them in its ranks.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was initiated in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. PACBI advocates for the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, given their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law.
Via the BNC official website.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said:
The BDS campaign for Palestinian rights is an inclusive human rights movement that rejects all forms of racial discrimination and bigotry and is firmly committed to freedom, justice and equality for all people.
It’s disgraceful that University of Michigan President Mark Schissel is using the language of equity and inclusion to coerce teachers at his university to act against their principles and violate the Palestinian picket line against patently inequitable and exclusionary Israeli institutions. Complicit Israeli universities have for decades played a major role in planning, implementing and justifying Israel’s apartheid policies and grave violations of Palestinian human rights.
Similar repressive measures by US university officials in the 1980s that tried to undermine the academic boycott against apartheid South Africa are today universally condemned by progressives around the world as a moral failure on the wrong side of history.
As long as Israeli universities continue to develop weapons systems used to brutalize and control Palestinians, implement discriminatory policies, steal Palestinian land and provide intellectual cover for Israel’s war crimes, there should be no business as usual with them. Educators who bravely act on principle should be championed, not punished. The University of Michigan is lucky to have them in its ranks.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was initiated in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. PACBI advocates for the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, given their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law.
Via the BNC official website.
Two New Zealand pro-Palestinian activists have raised NZ$14,000 (US$ 9,108) as of Sunday for charity after being fined by an Israeli court for their alleged role in persuading pop star Lorde to cancel a concert in Tel Aviv last year.
Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab said last week they would not pay the fine of 45,000 shekels ($12,423) awarded to three Israeli teenagers, calling the court’s ruling a “stunt” intended to intimidate Israel’s critics.
Instead, they asked people to donate money through website “givealittle.co.nz” to the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, a volunteer group that raises funds for mental health and women’s empowerment groups in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
As of Sunday, they raised NZ$14,000, according to the website.
“Given that we’ve actually had this kind of push upon us – we felt that it was expedient to actually recenter the issue back on Palestine,” Abu-Shanab told Radio New Zealand.
The case arose from an open letter that Sachs and Abu-Shanab wrote to Lorde, a New Zealander, on the website “thespinoff.co.nz” in December urging her to call off her planned concert.
Lorde cancelled her concert in Israel that same month after a campaign by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) group, which campaigns for Palestinian rights, that included the open letter published by Sachs and Abu-Shanab.
Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab said last week they would not pay the fine of 45,000 shekels ($12,423) awarded to three Israeli teenagers, calling the court’s ruling a “stunt” intended to intimidate Israel’s critics.
Instead, they asked people to donate money through website “givealittle.co.nz” to the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, a volunteer group that raises funds for mental health and women’s empowerment groups in the blockaded Gaza Strip.
As of Sunday, they raised NZ$14,000, according to the website.
“Given that we’ve actually had this kind of push upon us – we felt that it was expedient to actually recenter the issue back on Palestine,” Abu-Shanab told Radio New Zealand.
The case arose from an open letter that Sachs and Abu-Shanab wrote to Lorde, a New Zealander, on the website “thespinoff.co.nz” in December urging her to call off her planned concert.
Lorde cancelled her concert in Israel that same month after a campaign by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) group, which campaigns for Palestinian rights, that included the open letter published by Sachs and Abu-Shanab.
12 oct 2018
UEFA (Union of European Football Associations), on Monday, has banned Israel’s public broadcaster from airing its games to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation, known as Kan, won the rights to broadcast preliminary World Cup and European Championship games, after it bid $5.8 million for the privilege, last year.
However, the UEFA contract states that Kan “may only broadcast matches inside the so-called Green Line, and not in what UEFA defined as the Palestinian territories,” the Times of Israel reported, according to the PNN. As a result of this disagreement, the contract remains unsigned.
UEFA’s stance allegedly came at the behest of Qatar, whose sports channel beIN owns the broadcasting rights to air UEFA games in North Africa and the Middle East, which includes the occupied Palestinian territories. “UEFA said that it was the Qatari network that demanded that the games not be aired in West Bank Jewish settlements,” according to Haaretz.
The President of the Palestine Football Association in a statement welcomed the decision, saying it was a step in the right direction towards the application and respect of the universal values and ethics of sport, international legitimacy, and the FIFA statutes.
The PFA further called upon FIFA to likewise take a decisive decision towards the illegal situation which the Israeli Football association continues to perpetuate by allowing illegal settlement football clubs to play in the official Israeli league, in blatant violation to the FIFA statutes and the consultation of the UN to FIFA, as expressed in the letter of the Advisor to the UN Secretary General, in which FIFA was advised on the illegality of such action.
Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation, known as Kan, won the rights to broadcast preliminary World Cup and European Championship games, after it bid $5.8 million for the privilege, last year.
However, the UEFA contract states that Kan “may only broadcast matches inside the so-called Green Line, and not in what UEFA defined as the Palestinian territories,” the Times of Israel reported, according to the PNN. As a result of this disagreement, the contract remains unsigned.
UEFA’s stance allegedly came at the behest of Qatar, whose sports channel beIN owns the broadcasting rights to air UEFA games in North Africa and the Middle East, which includes the occupied Palestinian territories. “UEFA said that it was the Qatari network that demanded that the games not be aired in West Bank Jewish settlements,” according to Haaretz.
The President of the Palestine Football Association in a statement welcomed the decision, saying it was a step in the right direction towards the application and respect of the universal values and ethics of sport, international legitimacy, and the FIFA statutes.
The PFA further called upon FIFA to likewise take a decisive decision towards the illegal situation which the Israeli Football association continues to perpetuate by allowing illegal settlement football clubs to play in the official Israeli league, in blatant violation to the FIFA statutes and the consultation of the UN to FIFA, as expressed in the letter of the Advisor to the UN Secretary General, in which FIFA was advised on the illegality of such action.
11 oct 2018
The Irish Campaign to boycott the Eurovision Festival in Israel, 2019, has secured the support of a further 20 public figures, including actor Stephen Rea and musical artists Mary Coughlan, Luka Bloom and the members of Kíla, and have called on RTÉ not to participate and for musicians not to make submissions to the contest, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign said, in a press release. The news comes just days after the Irish National Broadcaster RTÉ announced its call for entrants for the song contest.
The other new endorsers include singers and musicians Grainne Holland, Tiona McSherry, and the members of FreeSpeakingMonkey, veteran LGBTQ campaigner Cathal Kerrigan, former Lord Mayor of Dublin Micheál Mac Donncha, actors Sorcha Fox and Donal O’Kelly, cartoonist Ian Knox, and John Douglas, the President of Mandate Trade Union.
PNN reports that the Irish campaign, part of a widely supported international one, handed in a petition of over 11,000 signatures calling for a boycott during a meeting with RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes on the 26th of September. It stresses that participation in Eurovision 2019 would be unconscionable due to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.
The campaign has gathered much traction and broad support from human rights activists, artists and other public figures, among them former Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan; Irish broadcaster and former Eurovision commentator Mike Murphy; former Eurovision presenters Carrie Crowley and Doireann Ni Bhriain, who believe that Israel’s hosting of the competition will be used to ‘culturewash’ and ‘pinkwash’ that state’s decades long series of gross violations of the human and civil rights of the Palestinian people. The Musicians’ Union of Ireland (MUI) and Irish Equity, have also endorsed the campaign. Over 60 public figures have endorsed the campaign since June.
On September 7th, over 140 international and Irish artists signed a letter to the Guardian in support of boycotting the Eurovision in Israel stating: “Until Palestinians can enjoy freedom, justice and equal rights, there should be no business-as-usual with the state that is denying them their basic rights.” Among the signatories are Brian Eno, Christy Moore, Mary Black, Robert Ballagh, The Knife, Wolf Alice, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Moddi, Alia Shawkat, Roger Waters, Alexi Sayle, Julie Christie, AL Kennedy and Nick Seymour of Crowded House.
Speaking on behalf of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), Zoë Lawlor said: “You would think any musician would be happy to be in such stellar company, on the right side of history, especially when the alternative is to ignore the heartfelt appeal from an oppressed people. Indeed, not only would performing in the Eurovision in Israel be a betrayal of the Palestinian people, but has the potential to be very damaging to an artist’s career.”
“In the same way that playing in apartheid South Africa is viewed as shameful, no-one wants to be remembered for crossing the Palestinian picket line, especially as thousands of people protesting for their legally guaranteed Right of Return in Gaza have been shot down by Israeli soldiers who have killed more than 180 people, paramedics, journalists and children, over the last six months,” Ms. Lawlor continued.
Lawlor said: “The more than 630 cultural workers who have signed the Irish Artists’ Pledge to Boycott of Israel and the more than 11,000 people who have signed the petition calling for Eurovision 2019 to be boycotted testify to the public mood in Ireland and the empathy that exists here for the Palestinian people. What artist would want to tarnish their reputation by ignoring that?”
Lawlor concluded by responding to claims repeated in several media outlets that were RTE to boycott the Eurovision in apartheid Israel, it would have to do the same in other countries. She stated that “that is clearly not the case. The fact is that Palestinian civil society, in the face of decades of brutal oppression, has called for this boycott, such a call hasn’t been made by people oppressed by other states. Just as it was the right thing to do to respect the call to boycott apartheid South Africa, so it is with the Palestinian call.”
Archive IMEMC post 12/22/18 — Documentary: Ireland & Palestine
The other new endorsers include singers and musicians Grainne Holland, Tiona McSherry, and the members of FreeSpeakingMonkey, veteran LGBTQ campaigner Cathal Kerrigan, former Lord Mayor of Dublin Micheál Mac Donncha, actors Sorcha Fox and Donal O’Kelly, cartoonist Ian Knox, and John Douglas, the President of Mandate Trade Union.
PNN reports that the Irish campaign, part of a widely supported international one, handed in a petition of over 11,000 signatures calling for a boycott during a meeting with RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes on the 26th of September. It stresses that participation in Eurovision 2019 would be unconscionable due to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.
The campaign has gathered much traction and broad support from human rights activists, artists and other public figures, among them former Eurovision winner Charlie McGettigan; Irish broadcaster and former Eurovision commentator Mike Murphy; former Eurovision presenters Carrie Crowley and Doireann Ni Bhriain, who believe that Israel’s hosting of the competition will be used to ‘culturewash’ and ‘pinkwash’ that state’s decades long series of gross violations of the human and civil rights of the Palestinian people. The Musicians’ Union of Ireland (MUI) and Irish Equity, have also endorsed the campaign. Over 60 public figures have endorsed the campaign since June.
On September 7th, over 140 international and Irish artists signed a letter to the Guardian in support of boycotting the Eurovision in Israel stating: “Until Palestinians can enjoy freedom, justice and equal rights, there should be no business-as-usual with the state that is denying them their basic rights.” Among the signatories are Brian Eno, Christy Moore, Mary Black, Robert Ballagh, The Knife, Wolf Alice, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Moddi, Alia Shawkat, Roger Waters, Alexi Sayle, Julie Christie, AL Kennedy and Nick Seymour of Crowded House.
Speaking on behalf of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), Zoë Lawlor said: “You would think any musician would be happy to be in such stellar company, on the right side of history, especially when the alternative is to ignore the heartfelt appeal from an oppressed people. Indeed, not only would performing in the Eurovision in Israel be a betrayal of the Palestinian people, but has the potential to be very damaging to an artist’s career.”
“In the same way that playing in apartheid South Africa is viewed as shameful, no-one wants to be remembered for crossing the Palestinian picket line, especially as thousands of people protesting for their legally guaranteed Right of Return in Gaza have been shot down by Israeli soldiers who have killed more than 180 people, paramedics, journalists and children, over the last six months,” Ms. Lawlor continued.
Lawlor said: “The more than 630 cultural workers who have signed the Irish Artists’ Pledge to Boycott of Israel and the more than 11,000 people who have signed the petition calling for Eurovision 2019 to be boycotted testify to the public mood in Ireland and the empathy that exists here for the Palestinian people. What artist would want to tarnish their reputation by ignoring that?”
Lawlor concluded by responding to claims repeated in several media outlets that were RTE to boycott the Eurovision in apartheid Israel, it would have to do the same in other countries. She stated that “that is clearly not the case. The fact is that Palestinian civil society, in the face of decades of brutal oppression, has called for this boycott, such a call hasn’t been made by people oppressed by other states. Just as it was the right thing to do to respect the call to boycott apartheid South Africa, so it is with the Palestinian call.”
Archive IMEMC post 12/22/18 — Documentary: Ireland & Palestine