Boycott Divestment and Sanctions

An American student of Palestinian descent detained in Israel’s airport for nearly a fortnight has become an unexpected cause celebre. Lara Alqasem was refused entry under legislation passed last year against boycott activists, and Israeli courts are now deciding whether allowing her to study human rights at an Israeli university threatens public order.
Usually, those held at the border are swiftly deported, but Ms. Alqasem appealed against the decision, becoming in the process an improbable “prisoner of conscience” for the boycott cause.

An American student has become the latest victim of Israel’s law targeting supporters of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Lara Alqasem, 22, has been held since last Tuesday at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.
Alqasem is a graduate of the University of Florida and a US citizen whose grandparents are Palestinian She tried to enter Israel to study on a Master’s degree programme at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, having been granted a student visa by the Israeli Consulate General in Miami.

A vociferous anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigner appointed by President Donald Trump to head a top civil rights organisation has re-opened a seven-year-old case over alleged anti-Semitism in an American university. The newly appointed official is seeking to use a controversial definition of anti-Semitism to revisit a case dismissed under the administration of Barack Obama.

The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement announced Tuesday that sports brand Adidas will no longer sponsor the Israel Football Association (IFA), after a campaign asking the sports giant to stop its complicity in the oppression of Palestinian people who live under military occupation, and with the ongoing colonization of their land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — After her release from an Israeli prison on Sunday, renowned Palestinian teen-activist Ahed Tamimi has been invited to South Africa to receive an award honoring the 17-year-old for her bravery and continued resistance to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine’s West Bank. The award was announced by Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, chief of the Mvezo Traditional Council and the grandson of Nelson Mandela.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — Just a few months after Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry released a full list of organizations whose activists will be barred from entering Israel for advancing the cause of the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement, Jewish-American activist and CODEPINK national co-director Ariel Gold was denied entry and then deported from Israel at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv Monday.

GAZA — Gaza is in urgent need of opening spaces on many levels. The geophysical space — incarcerated by Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza and its construction of barriers to “protect Israel’s citizens with power and sophistication,” according to Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, which are fast becoming normalized and barely worthy of mention in diplomatic circles.

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – Despite earlier reports in the Israeli press that Latina pop sensation Shakira would resist activist pressure from the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement and perform in Tel Aviv all the same, Spanish language media is widely reporting that the Colombian-born singer has suspended her much-anticipated appearance in Israel.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel called on the European Union on Friday to halt funding to more than a dozen European and Palestinian non-governmental organizations that it says promote boycotts against Israel, saying the financial support violates the EU’s stated policy that it opposes boycotts against the Jewish state.
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry published a report with a list of groups that it says receive EU funding and call for boycotts against Israel. It said some of the groups had links to militant groups while receiving EU money.

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — The state of South Carolina will become the first state in the nation to legislate a definition of anti-Semitism that considers certain criticisms of the Israeli government to be hate speech.