Fw: [bfw] Fwd: Organizational sign-on to call for letters to Amnesty? Mon 12PM responses

[Dorothy]

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Kobi Snitz

To: bbffww

Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 8:02 AM

Subject: [bfw] Fwd: Organizational sign-on to call for letters to Amnesty? Mon 12PM responses

we have till 7 pm israel time to give them an answer if we want to sign on to the call to write letters to Amnesty.
---------------------------

Hi All,

 

Thanks to all of you for signing onto the open letter to Amnesty International.

 

Until now there has been no response from Amnesty to our individual emails that began last Tuesday, the open letter sent Thursday, and Adalah-NY's repeated phone calls to Amnesty USA on Friday. Israeli media reports say that concert tickets are almost sold out: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1248277951286&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

Recognizing the swiftness with which events are unfolding, PACBI, Adalah-NY and NYCBI have been planing a next step, if we have no response from Amnesty by midday Monday New York time, that is to email out an Alert asking for people to write polite emails to Amnesty International calling on Amnesty to withdraw from their role in the Cohen concert. Below is the close to final alert that we have developed.

 

We may also develop by Monday an easy way for people to click on the NYCBI website and send an automated, editable letter from there,

 

Please email me directly (I don't think the full group needs the response) if your group would like to be added as one of the groups listed at the top as issuing the alert, and/or if your group would like to send out the final alert Monday around midday when we issue.

 

Thanks all, and may our pressure help Amnesty to come to its senses!

 

Pat

Adalah-NY

 

 

ALERT: Tell Amnesty International that Entertaining Apartheid Israel Deserves No Amnesty!

 

FROM:  The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI),….

 

 

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and groups around the world have been calling for months for musician Leonard Cohen to cancel his planned September concert in Israel. With the international community failing to take action to stop Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people, and inspired by the international boycott movement that helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, Palestinian civil society has launched calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, including an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

 

Feeling the heat of the protests, Cohen and his PR staff tried to schedule a small concert in Ramallah to “balance” his concert in Israel. However, Palestinians rejected the Ramallah concert and any claimed symmetry between the occupying power and the people under occupation.

 

Now Cohen and his PR staff are trying to whitewash the concert in Israel by using Amnesty International USA’s good name. According to a a July 28th article in the Jerusalem Post, Amnesty International USA will serve as sponsor of a new fund that will launder the money raised at Cohen’s concert in Israel by using it to finance programs for “peace.”  

 

In response, fifteen groups and coalitions issued a July 30^th Open Letter to Amnesty International calling on Amnesty to be true to its values and immediately withdraw support for Leonard Cohen’s ill-conceived concert in Israel. The groups noted that by supporting Cohen’s concert, Amnesty International is undermining a successful effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Israel's occupation and other violations of international law and human rights principles. Amnesty International also is partnering in the initiative with Israeli institutions that undermine peace, including a bank directly involved in supporting Israeli settlement construction. The only alleged Palestinian partner has announced it is not taking part.

 

TAKE ACTION

 

Please email Amnesty International, calling on Amnesty to withdraw from support for Cohen’s concert. Amnesty International is recognized by many as defending human rights worldwide, so please be respectful and courteous in your message. Write your own letter, or use the sample letter included below. Further below, for reference, is the full Open Letter to Amnesty International.

 

-Please email your letter to:

 

lc...@aiusa.org, cgoe...@aiusa.org, ZJanm...@aiusa.org, msm...@amnesty.org, ccor...@amnesty.org,dro...@amnesty.org

 

(Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA; Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International USA; Zahir Janmohamed, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA;   ; Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International (UK) Senior Director, Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International (UK) Middle East Director, Research and Regional Programs; Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International (UK) Researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories)

 

-Please cc your letter to noamnesty4isr...@gmail.com so that we can keep track of the responses.

 

 

SAMPLE LETTER TO AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

 

Dear Amnesty International,

 

I hold Amnesty International’s worldwide work for human rights and international law in high esteem. For this reason, I was very troubled to learn that Amnesty International has agreed to manage a fund that will disburse the proceeds from Leonard Cohen’s planned concert in Israel in September. I call on Amnesty International to be true to your values, distance yourself from efforts to normalize Israel’s occupation and apartheid, and immediately withdraw support for Leonard Cohen’s ill-conceived concert in Israel.

 

By supporting Cohen’s concert, Amnesty International will be subverting the worldwide movement to boycott Israel, a non-violent, effective effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Israel's violations of international law and human rights principles. Accepting funds from the proceeds of Cohen’s concert in Israel is the equivalent of Amnesty accepting tainted funds from a concert in Sun City in apartheid South Africa.

 

In his protest resignation from Amnesty International over this issue, Irish author and composer, Raymond Deane, wrote:

 

"By assisting Cohen in his ruse to bypass this boycott, Amnesty International is in fact taking a political stance, in violation of the premise of political neutrality with which it so regularly justifies its failure to side unambiguously with the oppressed. Amnesty is telling us: resistance is futile, the voice of the oppressed is irrelevant, international humanitarian law is a luxury."

 

 

Furthermore, the Israeli partners in the concert, the Peres Penter for Peace and Israel Discount Bank, actively hinder efforts to achieve a just peace. A columnist in Israel’s Ha’aretz Daily called the Peres Center for Peace patronizing and colonial organization that is in the business of training “the Palestinian population to accept its inferiority and prepare it to survive under the arbitrary constraints imposed by Israel.” According to research by Who Profits, a project of Israel’s Coalition of Women for Peace, Israel Discount Bank is deeply involved in supporting Israel’s settlement enterprise. Israeli settlements violate the very tenets of international law that Amnesty International works to uphold.  

 

Finally, the only Palestinian organization falsely reported in the July 28th Jerusalem Post article as being a partner in this project, the Palestinian Happy Child Center, has confirmed that it is not taking part. There is no Palestinian organization participating in this whitewash.

 

Thank you for your attention to this vital human rights issue. I look forward to learning of Amnesty International’s withdrawal of its support for the Leonard Cohen concert in Israel.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Your name

Your city and country of residence

 

 

 

---

[Rachel Giora]

I am all for it,

R

--------------
Rachel Giora
http://www.tau.ac.il/~giorar
http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/linguistics/aboutus.heb.html
http://boycottisrael.info/

[Dorothy]

me, too--I think that we should sign at least individually

[Dorothy]

Do you think that if no one objects till evening that I should add ICRR?

----- Original Message -----

From: Rachel Giora

To: ic...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 11:42 AM

[Rachel Giora]

yes, but get at least a few "yes"es.

[Rachel Giora]

Dorothy,

Here is a "yes" from Anat Matar,

R

--------------
Rachel Giora
http://www.tau.ac.il/~giorar
http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/linguistics/aboutus.heb.html
http://boycottisrael.info/

----- Original Message -----

From: Anat Matar

To: 'Rachel Giora'

Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 12:03 PM

Subject: RE: [bfw] Fwd: Organizational sign-on to call for letters to Amnesty? Mon 12PM responses

Rachel, same problem - can't send mail to the list, as with TAUFAC. BUt count me as a yes.

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From: ic...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rachel Giora
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 11:17 AM
To: ic...@googlegroups.com

[Dorothy]

If I no one will object by this evening, I'll sign ICRR on.  Can't do the same for New Profile, as some people do object, and for valid reasons.

[Snait Gissis]

Dorothy, since ICRR is not really active as an org in the field anymore, and i am much more of an active member of Machsomwatch and some other orgs, and to be realistic i shall not be able to do much in any more frameworks, please, take my name off the list .

 Thanks a lot

snait

[Dorothy]

I hope that ICRR will soon be active again.  It certainly is still needed.  We need to put together a new plan of how to fight the system.  Am glad to hear that you are active in other orgs.  So are we all.

Good luck,

Dorothy

[Basil Ayish]

One new development that ICRR may want to begin looking at is the issue of 'Israel-only' and 'PA-only' entry stamps.  The Campaign for the Right of Entry is working on a document that summarizes the dangers of this development.  Once we put together our analysis, I will send it to the group for consideration on what can be done.

 

Basil

---

From: Dorothy <dor_...@netvision.net.il>
To: ic...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 3, 2009 11:02:51 PM