From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Stop the Wall Campaign | 8 December 2004 On Sunday, December 5, 2004, a large audience packed the lecture theatre of the Brunei Gallery at the School of Oriental and African Studies for “Resisting Israeli Apartheid: Strategies and Principles.” The all-day conference offered strategies for countering the Israeli occupation and Israeli Apartheid policies. The speakers were largely academics from the U.K., the U.S., South Africa, Israel, and Australia, with two featured speakers from Palestine.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Francis A. Boyle |CounterPunch | 24 December 2004 It was December of 1991 and I was serving as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations in Washington DC. The Israelis were stalling --not even negotiating in bad faith. And the Americans were doing nothing to get the negotiations underway. This had been going on for three weeks and Christmas was fast approaching.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Tom Wallace | Electronic Intifada | 20 December 2004 It is not difficult to find the silver lining in the very sad and infuriating conclusion (temporary) to the issue of divestment in Somerville, MA. After a long process and sometimes rancorous debate, the aldermen caved to pressure from powerful Jewish groups who blindly support Israel; as one woman said to me "no matter what, no matter what, "
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Jane Lampman | Christian Science Monitor | 6 December 2004 A vote by the Presbyterian Church (USA) to use economic sanctions against certain companies doing business with Israel - namely those that profit from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza - has set off a quiet firestorm within the American religious community. The Presbyterians' decision to consider divesting such businesses from its $8 billion portfolio, coupled with the prospect that the Episcopal Church and other churches might do the same, is adding to tensions that have risen over recent years between mainline Protestant churches and the American Jewish community over their differing views of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Phil Baty | Times Higher Education Supplement | 3 December 2004 A row has broken out over moves to revive the academic boycott of Israel with a major international conference this weekend at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies. Pro-Israel groups and individual campaigners have called for the conference, on Sunday, to be called off and warned that it could break laws against the incitement of racial hatred.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Polly Curtis | The Guardian | 4 December 2004 University attacked for 'anti-Israel' conference London University School of Oriental and African Studies has come under fire for agreeing to host a conference tomorrow at which academics begin a campaign to break links with Israeli universities, significantly increasing an academic boycott of Israel. Jewish groups accuse the organisers, the school's Palestinian Society, of inciting hatred by calling the conference Resisting Israeli Apartheid: Strategies and Principles.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Shamai K. Leibowitz | Somerville Divestment Project | November 2004 Shamai Leibowitz is an Israeli human rights lawyer in Tel Aviv who has defended cases before the High Court. He is also an Orthodox Jew, a former tank gunner in the IDF and part of a group of 1000 soldiers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories due to the immorality of the Occupation.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Pauline J. Chang |The Christian Post | 10 November 2004 The Presbyterian Church (USA) may have a list of companies to “divest” from by spring 2005, lest Jewish anti-divestment campaigns complicate plans set during the Nov. 4-6 meeting of the PC(USA)’s Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) team in New York City, NY. The MRTI meeting, which addressed the denomination’s decision to “selectively divest” from companies benefiting from Israel’s occupation of the West Back and Gaza Strip, established six criteria on which businesses will be targeted.
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) National convenstion of the National Lawyers Guild, Birmingham, AL | Mengos.net | 24 October 2004 Text of the divestment resolution adopted by the National convenstion of the National Lawyers Guild, on October 24, 2004, in Birmingham, AL. WHEREAS the Israeli government with its illegal occupation and expansionist program in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip is engaged, and has been engaged in grave human rights violations including but not limited to: the use of live ammunition on unarmed civilians (including men, women, and children); massive and disproportionate use of force including the firing of missiles from Apache helicopter gunships against defenseless civilian populations; illegal mass arrests and institutionalized torture (including men women, and children); the willful destruction of agricultural land; the deprivation of water; forced malnutrition with concomitant health consequences including stillborn deaths and irreversible developmental damage to children; the mass demolition of homes and confiscation of land; hostage taking and extra-judicial assassinations; denial of medical service s to the sick and wounded; the use of human shields (including children); the targeting of schools, and hospitals; the building of illegal fortified "
From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material) Paul Rockwell | Common Dreams News Center | 18 November 2004 After the election of George Bush, it took less than a week for peace activists to reach a consensus: "Stand and fight." The U.S. election is simply unacceptable. No president, no matter how large the vote, has any authority to commit war crimes, to destroy cities from the air, to create inhuman prison systems beyond the rule of law, to violate the sovereignty of states.