donderdag 30 maart 2017

De Histadrut

Op 26 maart jl verscheen op Haaretz.com een onthullend artikel over het beleid van de regering van Israël om BDS te bestrijden of tegen te werken.

Het artikel heet "Inside the clandestine world of Israel's "BDS busting"
ministry" en is van onderzoeksjournalist Uri Blau. Het is in zijn geheel erg interessant, maar hier volgt alleen een passage over Histradut.

"Last September, the ministry also stated its intent to launch a cooperative effort with the Histadrut through a Histadrut NGO called the International Leadership Institute, at a cost of 22 million shekels. The program’s purpose would be to “work among labor unions and professional associations abroad to root out the ability of BDS entities to influence the unions.”


donderdag 16 maart 2017

Israel is an apartheid state says UN report / Read the Report on Israeli Apartheid the U.N. Was Pressured to Take Down

  
'This report concludes that Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.'

Some very strong conclusions and recommendations from page 51 onwards, also for investors, like ABP & PGGM. A section of it below.

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United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid: Palestine and the Israeli Occupation, Issue No. 1

Recommendations for national Governments of Member States
  1. National Governments should be reminded of their legal duty under international law to take appropriate action to prevent the crime of apartheid and punish its perpetrators, taking cognizance of the findings of this report and any parallel findings by competent bodies. 
  2. National Governments should, within the limits of their legislative, executive and judicial institutions, take appropriate action, including allowing criminal prosecutions of Israeli officials demonstrably connected with the practices of apartheid against the Palestinian people. 
  3. National Governments, especially of member States of ECSWA, should explore ways of cooperating in the discharge of their duty to oppose and overcome the regime of apartheid. Conclusions and Recommendations.
  4. National Governments should support boycott, divestment and sanctions activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives. 
Recommendations for civil society and private sector actors 
  1. Civil society actors should be invited to submit to the Human Rights Council reactions to this report. A special meeting should be convened to consider those reactions and to plan appropriate next steps, including recommendations to the Human Rights Council and to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). 
  2. Efforts should be made to broaden support for boycott, divestment and sanctions initiatives among civil society actors. 
  3. Private sector actors should be made aware of the findings of this report and requested to act accordingly, including by informing the public about the criminality of the apartheid regime, and urging Governments to fulfil their obligations under the Apartheid Convention and to propose initiatives that could be undertaken by civil society. Private sector actors should also be reminded of their legal, moral and political responsibility to sever ties with commercial ventures and projects that directly or indirectly aid and abet the apartheid regime imposed.
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Read the Report on Israeli Apartheid the U.N. Was Pressured to Take Down

The international body had found Israel guilty of committing a "crime against humanity."

Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Aleksandar Todorovic
The United Nations ignited a firestorm this week by acknowledging the reality of Israeli apartheid.
"The weight of the evidence supports beyond a reasonable doubt the proposition that Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity," wrote the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in a report it released on March 15.
"Effectively, Israeli law renders opposition to racial domination illegal," the report continued, noting that countries "have a legal obligation to act within the limits of their capabilities to prevent and punish instances of apartheid that are responsibly brought to their attention."
Citing a vast body of international law and forcefully condemning all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, the report recommended that "National Governments should support boycott, divestment and sanctions activities" against Israeli apartheid.
Immediately after the report was released, the United States and Israel went berserk, with both governments heavily leaning on the U.N. and its senior leadership.
Under intense pressure, U.N. Under-Secretary General Rima Khalaf, who headed the West Asia commission, was forced to resign from her posts. Khalaf nevertheless made it clear that she still stood by the accuracy of the report.
Following heavy lobbying from the U.S., the U.N. subsequently tried to scrub the report from the internet, removing it from the ESCWA website.
AlterNet has archived the Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid report in multiple locations, so the public can read the critical document the U.S. government wants censored.
The original post on the U.N. ESCWA website is archived here.
The executive summary of the report is archived here.
The release for the press conference on the report is archived here.
The cached webpage containing the full report is archived here, for posterity.
A PDF of the full report is archived here and can be downloaded below.
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VN-rapport: “Israël is schuldig aan apartheid, boycot is morele plicht”

Een VN-Commissie heeft een rapport gepubliceerd dat besluit dat “Israël een apartheidsregime heeft opgericht dat het gehele Palestijnse volk domineert. Het staat boven elke redelijke twijfel vast dat Israël schuldig is aan beleidspraktijken die de misdaden van apartheid omvatten, zoals die worden omschreven in het internationaal recht.”