Јула КСНУМКС, КСНУМКС - In May, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) called on singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen to heed the Палестински позив for a cultural boycott of Israel and avoid complicity with Israel’s violations of international law by cancelling his planned September concert in Israel, particularly in view of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza earlier this year. Sadly, according to a July 28 article у Јерусалем Пост, Amnesty International USA has agreed to cooperate with Cohen in dealing with Израел on the basis of business as usual. Amnesty International USA will serve as sponsor of a new fund that will whitewash the money raised at Cohen’s concert in Израел by using it to finance programs for “peace.” Being one of the world’s strongest proponents of human rights and international law, you shall thus be subverting a non-violent, effective effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Израел‘s violations of international law and human rights principles. We call on you to be true to your values and immediately withdraw support for Leonard Cohen’s ill-conceived concert in Израел.
The Jerusalem Post report indicates that Cohen and his PR staff, having been criticized for trying to normalize Израел’s occupation and apartheid, are trying to whitewash the concert in Израел by using Amnesty International USA’s good name. According to the article, “All of the net proceeds from Leonard Cohen’s September 24 concert at Ramat Gan Stadium will be earmarked for a newly established fund to benefit Israeli and Palestinian organizations that are working toward conciliation,” and the fund will be “sponsored by Amnesty.” Curt Goering, the senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, told пошта, "We saw this as an exciting opportunity with potential to recognize, support and pay tribute to the Israelis and Palestinians who have been working for peace and human rights amid a difficult environment and insurmountable odds. I see our participation as complementary to what we do, even though this initiative is different from Amnesty’s ongoing work."
WHY WE ARE CALLING ON AMNESTY TO WITHDRAW FROM THE PROJECT
By supporting Cohen’s concert in Израел, Amnesty International is actively undermining a particularly successful effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Израел‘s occupation and other violations of international law and human rights principles. We find this position by Amnesty particularly frustrating and puzzling given your call for an arms embargo against Israel following its atrocities in Gaza earlier this year, which your organization described as constituting war crimes.
Accepting funds from the proceeds of Cohen’s concert in Израел is the equivalent of Amnesty accepting funds from a concert in Sun City in apartheid Јужна Африка. Profits earned through violations of human rights and international law are tainted and should not be accepted by any morally consistent human rights organization, particularly when this money is intended to be used to whitewash the very violations behind those profits.
Furthermore, your Israeli partners in this venture actively hinder efforts to achieve a just peace. Перес Центар for Peace, with its multi-million dollar annual budget and fifteen million dollar building, is listed incongruously by the Jerusalem Post as both a beneficiary of the fund and a member of the new fund’s Board of Trustees. The Peres Center has been denounced by leading Palestinian civil society organizations for promoting joint Palestinian-Israeli projects that are “neither effective in bringing about reconciliation, nor desirable” and that enhance “Israeli institutional reputation and legitimacy, without restoring justice to Palestinians, in the face of continued Israeli Government violations of international law and fundamental Palestinian human rights, including breaches of the Geneva Conventions.” A columnist in Israel’s Хааретз Дневно called the Peres Center patronizing and colonial, explaining that “Efforts are being made to train the Palestinian population to accept its inferiority and prepare it to survive under the arbitrary constraints imposed by Israel, to guarantee the ethnic superiority of the Jews.”
Your other indirect partner in this project, according to the Jerusalem Post, is Israel Discount Bank, a key sponsor of the Cohen concert. Who Profits, a project of Israel’s Coalition of Women for Peace, Извештаји који Israel Discount Bank has branches in the settlements of Beitar Illit and Maale Adumim, has financed construction in the settlements of Har Homa, Beitar llit and Maale Adumim, and is a major shareholder in a factory in a settlement. Amnesty hardly needs any reminder that all Israeli colonial settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory are not only illegal under international law but are considered war crimes in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Your intention to indirectly partner with a bank that profits from the occupation and to oversee a fund that uses some of that legally and morally stained money contradicts Amnesty’s founding principles and commitment to human rights.
The latest attempt by the Cohen team to find an alternative Palestinian fig leaf has also failed. The only Palestinian organization falsely reported in the Jerusalem Post article as being a partner in this project, the Палестинац Срећан дете Центар, has confirmed that it is not taking part. There is no Palestinian organization participating in this whitewash.
BACKGROUND ON THE BOYCOTT
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 Јужна Африка, Palestinian civil society has launched calls for Бојкот, одузимање и санкције (БДС) против Израел, including an academic and cultural boycott of Израел. Одобрила nearly sixty Palestinian cultural and civil society organizations and inspired by the South African anti-apartheid boycotts, PACBI calls on "la international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel‘s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.” These Palestinian calls have inspired a growing international boycott movement which gained added momentum following Израел’s assault on Газа last winter.
У априлу је British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) over 100 Israelis called on Leonard Cohen to cancel his planned September concert in Израел. Protests against Cohen’s plans to play in Израел were then held at Cohen’s concerts in ЦА, Бостон, Отава Белфаст, између осталих градова. Feeling the rising heat of the protests, Cohen tried to schedule a small concert in Ramallah to “balance” his concert in Израел. However, Palestinians rejected the Ramallah concert. The Palestinian group that was supposed to host the Ramallah event cancelled its invitation to Mr. Cohen after realizing the adverse effects this would have on the boycott movement, which is widely supported by Palestinians. Reflecting the general mood in Palestinian society against any claimed symmetry between the occupying power and the people under occupation, a July 12 PACBI statement explained, “Ramallah will not receive Cohen as long as he is intent on whitewashing Israel‘s colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel. PACBI has always rejected any attempt to ‘balance’ concerts or other artistic events in Israel–conscious acts of complicity in Israel‘s violation of international law and human rights–with token events in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
For all the above reasons, we strongly urge you to distance Amnesty International from this discredited project and its tainted money.
Потписан:
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Израел (ПАЦБИ), Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, Алтернатива informacije Центар (AIC),
American Jews for a Just Peace (САД), Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Израел), British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), Независни јеврејски гласови (Канада), Међународна јеврејска антиционистичка мрежа, Jews Against the Occupation-NYC, New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI), New York City Labor Against the War, Палестинска кампања солидарности (Велика Британија), US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel
Cc:
-Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International САД
– Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International САД
-Zahir Janmohamed, Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International САД
- Colm Ó Cuanacháin, Amnesty International (UK) Senior Director, Campaigns
-Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International (UK) Senior Director, Research and Regional Programs
-Donatella Rovera, Амнестија међународни (UK) Researcher on Израел and the Occupied Палестинац Територији
ЗНетворк се финансира искључиво захваљујући великодушности својих читалаца.
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