Lauryn Hill cancels Israel show after Palestinian boycott call

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Lauryn Hill has canceled a 7 May concert in Israel, following a request by Palestinians and a campaign by many of her fans.

The former lead vocalist of The Fugees made the announcement in a message on her Facebook page addressed to “Friends and Fans in Israel.”

“When deciding to play the region, my intention was to perform in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah,” Hill writes. “Setting up a performance in the Palestinian Territory, at the same time as our show in Israel, proved to be a challenge.”

She says she wanted to perform in the region “but also to be a presence supporting justice and peace.”

“It is very important to me that my presence or message not be misconstrued, or a source of alienation to either my Israeli or my Palestinian fans,” Hill states. “For this reason, we have decided to cancel the upcoming performance in Israel, and seek a different strategy to bring my music to ALL of my fans in the region.”

A victory

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and Palestine solidarity activists will see Hill’s move as a victory.

Her name will be added to the growing list of artists who have pulled out of shows in Israel which includes Sinéad O’Connor, Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, Talib Kweli, Moddi and Carlos Santana.

But Hill’s strategy of seeking to offset the Israel show with one before a Palestinian audience in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank will likely raise concerns.

In its guidelines for the cultural boycott, PACBI states that artists “attempting to visit Palestinian institutions or groups in a ‘balancing’ gesture contribute to the false perception of symmetry between the colonial oppressor and the colonized.”

While Palestinians welcome visits, PACBI says that “solidarity entails respecting the boycott call, which is an authoritative call of the oppressed, and not combining a visit to Palestinian institutions or groups with activities with boycottable Israeli institutions.”

For now, however, Hill has heeded the Palestinian boycott call – a very significant step.

Israel’s Walla! News called Hill’s cancellation a “painful” blow at the hands of “pro-Palestinian” organizations.

Palestinian call

In a letter in April, PACBI told Hill that it was “deeply troubled to learn that you are scheduled to perform in Rishon Lezion’s Live Park amphitheater on 7 May 2015, while Israel continues unabatedly with its settler colonial and apartheid designs to further dispossess, oppress and ethnically cleanse native Palestinians from their homeland.”

“Performing in Israel today is the equivalent of performing in Sun City, South Africa during the apartheid era,” PACBI added.

“Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and former South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils have repeatedly declared that Israel has created a form of racial apartheid that is far worse than anything that existed in South Africa.”

A social media campaign, including a spoof of Hill’s hit cover of the song “Killing Me Softly,” had in recent weeks driven home the message.

In a press release, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation thanked Hill for canceling the concert and noted that more than 11,000 people had signed a petitionasking her to do so.

Separately, the director of the Israel Festival recently revealed that the flagship government-backed cultural program has had to curtail its 2015 schedule due to the growing impact of the boycott, especially in the wake of Israel’s killing more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza last July and August.

Source: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/lauryn-hill-cancels-israel-show-after-palestinian-boycott-call 

Five South African universities join student academic boycott of Israel

We gather here today as the Student Representative Council (SRC) presidents of five of South African universities, namely: University of South Africa, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, Mangasutho University of Technology and the University of the Western Cape. This day will go down in history as we announce the resolutions adopted by our University Student Representative Councils (SRCs) to join the academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

Today we follow the mandate provided in 2011 by the South African Union of Students (which represents all SRCs in the country) which urged “all SRCs, student groups and other youth structures to strategize and implement a boycott of Israel”. SAUS declared in August 2011 that “all South African campuses must be Apartheid-Israel free zones.” Today we join the ranks of the SRCs of Wits University and the University of Cape Town who also resolved to join the academic boycott of Israel in 2012 and 2014 respectively. We also join the revolutionary decision by the University of Johannesburg that in 2011 terminated its relations with Israel’s Ben Gurion University. Finally and most importantly, our BDS resolution in support of the boycott of Israel follows South Africa’s Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande’s call and support for the academic boycott of Apartheid Israel.

From here we will be formally writing and approaching the Senate as well as Councils of our various institutions to implement the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. We will be auditing our universities’ investment funds and service providers to ensure that companies that are in violation of the BDS call and complicit in the Israeli Occupation such as G4S Security, Caterpillar, Veolia, Alstom, Cape Gate etc. are excluded from investment funds and service contracts. We are also in bilateral engagement with other South African SRCs to also adopt such resolutions and in general will be supporting awareness-raising campaigns such as the annual Israeli Apartheid Week initiative. We will be supporting the call for an Israeli academic boycott conference in South Africa with the Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande.

Our resolutions in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement comes just less than a year after Israel killed more than 2000 Palestinians in Gaza of which over 500 of those killed were children. Israel also attacked several schools of the United Nations, over 200 Palestinian schools and a school for disabled children. The Israeli regime is proving itself to be anti-children, anti-student and anti-education. We are here to stand for peace, justice and equality.

We make it clear, we are against all forms of racism including anti-semitism and Zionism. However, conflating criticism of Israel’s colonial policies of Occupation and Apartheid can not and should not be equated with anti-Semitism; to do so is a disservice to the real victims of anti-Semitism. This tactic by the pro-Israeli lobby to falsely accuse those critical of Israel of being anti-Semitic is a standard practice which we outrightly condemn. On a positive note we welcome the support provided by progressive Jewish organisations, comrades and counterparts for the BDS movement and the Palestinian struggle.

Its no coincidence that Miriam Makeba Hall at South Africa’s largest university, the University of South Africa, was chosen for today’s press conference. The cultural boycott of Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s (which Miriam Makeba was part of) is currently being employed against Apartheid Israel. We join Miriam Makeba in declaring “A Luta Continua…” until Palestine is free, for, in the word of former President Nelson Mandela, a graduate of UNISA: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.

JOINTLY ISSUED ON BEHALF OF FIVE SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY SRCS.

Prisoners

Since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). This number constitutes approximately 20 percent of the total Palestinian population in the oPt and as much as 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population. It also includes approximately 10,000 women jailed since 1967, as well as 8,000 Palestinian children arrested since 2000.
As of 1 of December the number of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees is 5,033, spread around 17 prisons, four interrogation centers and four detention centers. All but one of the prisons are located inside Israel, in direct contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an Occupying Power must detain residents of occupied territory in prisons inside the occupied territory. The practical consequence of this system is that many prisoners have difficulty meeting with Palestinian defense counsel and do not receive family visits as their relatives are denied permits to enter Israel on “security grounds”. Out of the total number of political prisoners detained in Israel, 16 are female and 173 are children (16 of whom are from the age of 16). This figure also includes 14 Palestinian Legislative Council members, 145 administrative detainees, held without charge or trial and 395 prisoners from the Gaza Strip who until relatively recently were largely denied access to family visits since June 2007.
The arrest and detention of Palestinians living in the oPt is governed by a wide-ranging set of military regulations that govern every aspect of Palestinian civilian life. These military orders provide for a wide range of offenses divided into five categories: “Hostile Terrorist Activity”; disturbance of public order; “classic” criminal offenses; illegal presence in Israel; and traffic offenses committed in the oPt. The practical implication of these broadly-defined offenses is the criminalization of many aspects of Palestinian civic life. For example, the political parties that comprise the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) are still considered “illegal organizations” even though Israel has been engaged in peace negotiations with the PLO since 1993. Carrying a Palestinian flag is also a crime under Israeli military regulations. Participation in a demonstration is deemed a disruption of public order. Pouring coffee for a member of a declared illegal association can be seen as support for a terrorist organization.

Interrogation, torture and ill-treatment
A Palestinian detainee can be interrogated for a total period of 90 days, during which he/she can also be denied lawyer visits for a period of 60 days. During the interrogation period, a detainee is often subjected to some form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, whether physical or psychological, and ranging in extremity.
The forms of torture and ill treatment employed against Palestinian prisoners include the following: beatings, tying prisoners in “stress positions”, interrogation sessions that last up to 12 consecutive hours, depriving prisoners of sleep and other sensory deprivation, isolation and solitary confinement, and threats against the lives of their relatives.

Military Courts
Palestinians from the West Bank who are arrested by the Israeli military and charged with security violations (as defined by Israel) and other crimes are prosecuted by two Israeli military courts located in Ofer and Salem in the oPt. Not all Palestinians who are arrested are prosecuted in the military courts; some are released while others are administratively detained without trial (see administrative detention below). Of those who are charged, approximately 99 percent are convicted, and of these convictions, the vast majority is the result of plea bargains.

Administrative Detention
Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold detainees indefinitely on “secret information” without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. In the occupied Palestinian West Bank, the Israeli army is authorized to issue administrative detention orders against Palestinian civilians on the basis of Military Order 1651 (Art. 285). This order empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six-month renewable periods if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention.” On or just before the expiry date, the detention order is frequently renewed. This process can be continued indefinitely. As of 1 December 2013, there were approximately 145 Palestinians held in administrative detention by Israel including 10 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Isolation
One practice utilized routinely by Israel that combines physical and mental abuse is isolation. Every year, dozens of Palestinian prisoners and detainees are held in isolation, for reasons of state, prison or the prisoners’ security. Approximately 58 prisoners are currently held in isolation out of personal choice or for health and other reasons. An unknown number of prisoners are presently held in solitary confinement. Isolation can be ordered by the courts, and by security authorities such as the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), but is most frequently levied by prison officials. The length of time in isolation that prison officials may order can extend from 12 hours to up to longer periods of six to 12 months, with court approval. The courts may order that a prisoner be isolated for up to 12-month renewable periods, and the ISA may order isolation for similar periods when citing security concerns.
Prisoners held in isolation are held in a cell alone or with one other prisoner for 23 hours a day and are only allowed to leave their cell for a daily one-hour solitary walk. Isolation cells in the various Israeli prisons are similar in size—typically from 1.5 by 2 meters to 3 by 3.5 meters. Each cell usually has one window measuring about 50 cm by 100 cm, which in most cases does not allow in sufficient light or air from the outside.

Medical neglect
Israeli authorities responsible for prisoners regularly neglect their duties to provide medical support for Palestinian prisoners in their care, as required by the Geneva Conventions. Medical problems are widespread, and range in severity from chest infections and diarrhea to heart problems and kidney failure. Treatment is often inadequate and is delivered after substantial delays. Often medication is limited to over-the-counter pain killers.

Denial of Family Visits
Family visits are routinely, and often arbitrarily, restricted or cancelled. Moreover, many Arab-Israeli, West Bank prisoners and Gaza prisoners are denied their visitation rights completely. This is in complete contradiction with Israel’s responsibility, as the Occupying Power, under international law. The right to family visits is an entrenched right in international law, expressly provided for in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, the European Prison Rules, and, in relation to child detainees, the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Israel detains Palestinians from the oPt in detention centers outside 1967 occupied territory. This practice is illegal under international law and poses significant challenges to Palestinian prisoners’ ability to receive family visits as they must acquire permits to enter Israel in order to visit their relatives in prison.

Women
As of 1 December 2013, there were 16 female Palestinian prisoners held by the IPS in Hasharon prison in northern Israel. Female prisoners are also often held in Damon prison, and in interrogation centers throughout Israel.
Both Damon and Hasharon prisons lack gender-sensitive approaches. This is to the detriment of female Palestinian prisoners’ health and hygiene. A study conducted by Addameer in September 2008 revealed that approximately 38% of Palestinian female prisoners suffer from treatable diseases that go untreated. For instance, those suffering from diseases such as asthma, diabetes, kidney and eye diseases, sickle cell anemia, cancer, and seizures have little to no access to medical services. Long delays in providing substandard medical treatment are typical. Although all prisons include a medical clinic, physicians are on duty irregularly and specialized medical healthcare is generally unavailable.

Children
Each year approximately 700 Palestinian children under the age of 18 are prosecuted through Israeli military courts after being arrested, interrogated and detained by the Israeli army.
As of 1 December 2013, there were 173 children held in prisons by Israel. Of these, 16 are under the age of 16, a policy that is a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which defines a ‘child’ as “every human being below the age of eighteen.” The policy is also duplicitous since Israel’s own civilian court system (applying to Israeli citizens) defines the age of legal majority as 18, whereas the age of majority in military legislation prior to 27 September 2011 was 16 (applying to Palestinians). On that date, OC Central Command signed an amendment to raise the age of Palestinian minors in the military court system from 16 to 18 years. However, the amendment also contains a variety of stipulations that will not necessarily provide Palestinian minors with increased protection under the law, including a provision that states that minors over the age of 16 may still be held in detention with adults, which is contradictory to the requirements of international law. Furthermore, children are still sentenced on the basis of their age at sentencing rather than when they committed the offense, again in contradiction to the sentencing policy of Israel’s civilian courts when dealing with Israeli citizens, who are sentenced according to age when the alleged offence was committed.

Human Rights Defenders
In light of Israel’s non-compliance with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on the construction of the Annexation Wall issued on 9 July 2004, Palestinians in villages affected by the Wall have adopted a number of strategies to oppose its constructionand Israeli land annexation, including petitions to the Israeli High Court of Justice, non-violent resistance and weekly demonstrations, and increased international advocacy efforts. In response to these strategies, Israel has adopted a policy of arrest, detention, intimidation, threats and, at times, collective punishment. Leading Palestinian human rights activists, prominent figures, such as mayors and teachers, and members of the Popular Committees, who are instrumental in coordinating weekly protests and advocacy efforts including legal cases, are often personally targeted and arrested in an attempt to sideline them from organizing the protests, or to discredit them and their efforts. Local cameramen and photographers, as well as members of the press, are also targeted.

Palestinian Legislative Council Members
Although according to international law and Israeli courts no one can be detained for their political opinions, in practice Palestinian political leaders are routinely arrested and detained as part of an ongoing Israeli effort to suppress Palestinian political processes – and, as a necessary result, political sovereignty and self-determination.
In recent years, this process has focused particularly on members of the PLC. Following the capture of an Israeli soldier on 25 June 2006 by Hamas at the Kerem Shalom Crossing on the Gaza Strip border, Israeli forces seized dozens of leaders and activists associated with Hamas in coordinated raids across the West Bank, including PLC members. The latter were either placed in administrative detention or charged with offenses based on their membership of the “Change and Reform List”, which the Israeli authorities allege is affiliated with Hamas, an illegal party according to Israeli military legislation.

Source: http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=359

Refugees

Who are Palestine refugees?
Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”
UNRWA services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including adopted children, are also eligible for registration. When the Agency began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.

Where do Palestine refugees live?
Nearly one-third of the registered Palestine refugees, more than 1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
A Palestine refugee camp is defined as a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and set up facilities to cater to their needs. Areas not designated as such and are not recognized as camps. However, UNRWA also maintains schools, health centres and distribution centres in areas outside the recognized camps where Palestine refugees are concentrated, such as Yarmouk, near Damascus.
The plots of land on which the recognized camps were set up are either state land or, in most cases, land leased by the host government from local landowners. This means that the refugees in camps do not ‘own’ the land on which their shelters were built, but have the right to ‘use’ the land for a residence.
Socioeconomic conditions in the camps are generally poor, with high population density, cramped living conditions and inadequate basic infrastructure such as roads and sewers.

1967 hostilities
In the aftermath of the hostilities of June 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, ten camps were established to accommodate a new wave of displaced persons, both refugees and non-refugees.

Source: http://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees

Separation Wall

Barrier_Portal
The Barrier around Bir Nabala, (Jerusalem Governorate), February 2013. Credit: OCHA

The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Barrier
On 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The ICJ stated that the sections of the Barrier route which ran inside the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, violated Israels obligations under international law. The ICJ called on Israel to cease construction of the Barrier including in and around East Jerusalem and dismantle the sections already completed. The Court also obligated member states not to recognize the illegal situation created by the Barrier and to ensure Israels compliance with international law.
9 July 2014 marks 10 years since the ICJ Advisory Opinion, but contrary to the recommendations of the Court, not much has changed on the ground. The Barrier continues to obstruct the movement of Palestinians as well as severely impact their development and livelihood opportunities.
This portal includes materials produced on the Barrier and its impact by OCHA and partners from the Humanitarian Country Team in the oPt. It highlights the cumulative humanitarian consequences of the Barrier on Palestinian communities.
Background on the Barrier
In 2002, the Government of Israel decided to construct a Barrier with the declared aim of preventing violent attacks by Palestinian militants inside Israel. However, the vast majority of the Barriers route is located within the West Bank, rather than on the internationally-recognized 1949 Armistice Line (Green Line).
The Barrier is an integral part of the multi-layered system of physical and administrative obstacles which severely restricts Palestinian movement and access throughout the West Bank. It has worsened the fragmentation of the oPt, compounding the increasing isolation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the territory, cuts off land and access to resources needed for Palestinian development, and continues to undermine agricultural and rural livelihoods throughout the West Bank.
An estimated 62 per cent of the Barrier is complete, 10 per cent is under construction and 28 per cent is planned but not yet built. In recent years, the construction of new parts has almost completely halted. However, the negative humanitarian impact of the constructed Barrier on Palestinian communities continues:
Around 11,000 Palestinians living in 32 communities located between the Barrier and the Green Line depend on the granting of permits or special arrangements to continue to live in their own homes.
Approximately 150 communities have land located behind the Barrier, forcing residents to apply for special permits or prior coordination to access this area. Agricultural livelihoods of thousands of families have been undermined due to the permit and gate regime, which restricts access to farmland behind the Barrier.
The Barrier has reduced the access of Palestinians living in communities located behind the Barrier to workplaces and essential services.
The Barrier also adversely affects the West Banks urban centres, in particular East Jerusalem, with Palestinian neighbourhoods and suburbs divided from each other and walled out from the urban centre.
Source: http://www.ochaopt.org/content.aspx?id=1010271