Students at two U.S. universities vote to divest from Israel
BY MICHAEL ARRIA SEPTEMBER 30, 2020
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Columbia University have both passed historic resolutions calling for divestment from Israel.
Last week, the Illinois Student Government passed a resolution calling for the school to divest from transnational companies that contribute to the American and Israeli military, prisons, police forces, or ICE. The resolution was first brought to the student government in February, but was originally vetoed.
The student body at Columbia University [also] passed a referendum that had been developed by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a group that was formed in 2016. The referendum asked, “Should Columbia University divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians, that according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), fall under the United Nations International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid?”
“These campus BDS victories are indicative of the rapidly changing tide we’re seeing across the United States,” the BDS Movement’s North America coordinator Olivia Katbi Smith told Mondoweiss.”
Your American Tax Dollars at Work….
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Israelis and Palestinians Killed
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3 0 Israelis were killed in Palestinian rocket attacks and over 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since September 29, 2000. (View Sources & More Information.) |
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Demolitions of Israeli and Palestinian Homes
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 0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and at least 48,488 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967. (View Sources & More Inform |
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In a first, British trade unions commit to challenging Israeli ‘apartheid’
BY BERNARD REGAN OCTOBER 7, 2020
On September 15, the Annual Congress of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) representing nearly 6 million members in the UK adopted a motion which reaffirmed its solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for the right to self-determination, condemning the occupation and expansionist policies of the Israeli government.
The resolution expressed outright opposition to the annexationist ambitions of the Netanyahu government, backed by the United States Administration and called for an end to British government complicity. Demanding a cessation of the blockade of Gaza and support for “the right of Palestinian refugees to return,” it committed the TUC to “communicate its position to all other national trade union centres in the International and European Trade Union Confederations and urge them to join the international campaign to stop annexation and end apartheid.”
Internationalism has a long tradition in the British trade union movement. In the 1860s, mill workers in the Manchester area refused to work with slave labour produced cotton imported from the southern states of the USA, despite the hardships their families suffered as a consequence. Volunteers, many from the trade union movement, fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists. In the 1960s, trade unionists were amongst the first to respond to the African National Congress call for a boycott of South Africa. It is this tradition that is echoed in the solidarity being expressed for the Palestinian people.
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