SFP's Petition to Divest Militarily from Israel

We, the undersigned are appalled by the human rights abuses against Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government, the continual military occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory by Israeli armed forces and settlers, and the forcible eviction from and demolition of Palestinian homes, towns and cities. We find the recent attacks on Israeli civilians unacceptable and abhorrent. But these should not and do not negate the human rights of the Palestinian people.

As members of the Oberlin College community, we believe that our college should use its influence - political and financial - to encourage the United States government and the government of Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinian people. We therefore call on the US government to stop military aid and arms sales to Israel until Israel meets the conditions outlined below. We also call on Oberlin College to divest from US companies that sell arms to Israel until these conditions are met:


1. Israel is in compliance with United Nations Resolution 242 which notes the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, and which calls for withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territories.

2. Israel is in compliance with the United Nations Committee Against Torture 2001 Report which recommends that Israel's use of legal torture be ended.

3. In compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel ceases building new settlements, and vacates existing settlements, in the Occupied Territories. ("The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies"; Article 49, paragraph 6.)

4. Israel acknowledges in principle the applicability of United Nations Resolution 194 with respect to the rights of refugees, and accepts that refugees should either be allowed to return to their former lands or else be compensated for their losses, as agreed by the Palestinians and Israelis in bilateral negotiations.

March 25th, 2004

March 12th, 2004

Kate Raphael is an Oberlin alum ('80) who was active on Oberlin's campus in the movement to divest from apartheid South Africa. Kate now works with QUIT in the Bay area (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism) and the International Women's Peace Service in Palestine. She recently returned from five months on the West Bank with the IWPS, where she started the "Neighbor to Neighbor" project, bringing Israelis into Palestinian villages to document the effects of occupation. While videotaping Israeli soldiers attacking a non-violent demonstration against the wall, she was arrested and deported; after leaving Palestine, she was part of a ten-day international women's delegation to Iraq to document the effects of the US occupation there. For more information about Kate's work see www.quitpalestine.org

for more info e-mail osfp@oberlin.edu

February 19th, 2004

On monday, February 23rd, The Internation Court of Justice at the Hague will try the case of whether or not the "Security wall" that Israel is building is a crime. This weekend activist groups everywhere will be making a presence at the Hague and will be participating in a popular hearing this saturday. The official proceedings begin on the 23rd with oral hearings from people in Palestine who have been effected by the wall.


This is an image I stole this from the Stop the Wall campaign website of a protest against the wall on Nov. 9th.

Monday, to show our support for international scrutiny on Israel's transgressions, SFP is going to protest on Wilder Bowl against the wall. Anyone interested in participating should email sfp@oberlin.edu or just show up at around 3-5pm.

If you want to educate yourself about the wall and what the ICJ is doing about it you should check out these sources:
www.stopthewall.org
"Palestinians Day In Court" by Mustafa Barghouthi (at Zmag)

February 17th, 2004

Ami Isseroff -

[Feb 15, 2004] The Hope Flowers School in El-Khader has received a demolition order for their cafeteria, which was being built without a permit. The order states that a previous warning had been issued inJune of 2002, but Hope Flowers received no such warning. The order is not addressed to Hope Flowers School directly, and there was some difficulty in ascertaining that in fact the building in question is the cafeteria being built by Hope Flowers. Registering the building will require upwards of $10,000.00. The school is under severe financial strain owing to the dire economic situation in the Palestinian areas, which makes it impossible for parents to pay tuition.

The school, which teaches democracy and coexistence in Palestine, was recognized by Hilary Clinton as a shining example and hope for the future. Hope Flowers school has had difficulties with both Israeli and Palestinian officialdom. The late Hussein Issa, t he founder and director, was interrogated by the Palestinian security forces on several occasions because of his peace activities. In 1999, the school received a demolition order for other buildings, but the intervention of friends throughout the world helped to stop the process.

During the height of the Intifada, a tank blocked the entrance of the school for several months, making it impossible to open the school. The tank was eventually removed through the intervention of American officials.

In December 2002, Program Coordinator Ibrahim Issa (now Co-Director) was arrested by the IDF because, unknown to him, terrorists had sheltered in an apartment he had rented out.

The security barrier that Israel is building will apparently pass in the vicinity of the school. Though there is no definite information, maps indicate that as planned, the barrier would pass in front of the school, leaving the school on the Israeli side and the students on the Palestinian side. In that event , according to Issa, the school would probably have to close its doors forever.

General information about Hope Flowers is available at: http://www.mideastweb.org/hopeflowers

February 16th, 2004

Students at NYU have officially begun gathering signatures for their petition to divest from Israel. All information on what's happening on their campus can be found at http://www.nyudivest.org. Check it out!

February 9th, 2004

(Since the goal of this meeting will be organizing for the spring semester, it will be for students wishing to participate in organization only. Meetings toward the purpose of dialogue and discussion will also be held this semester.)

April 29th, 2003

April 18th, 2003

-Simplifies the complexity of the conflict thereby working against peace.
History is a work in progress, it's complex. You're constantly reconstructing and re-interpreting it. Thus, the history of this conflict is complex by definition. However, the occurances on the ground of recent years are not complex. The emergence of the U.S. as the only major player in the international arena and its staunch alliance with Israel coupled with the impotence of arab nations together with the general corruption of the PLO has set the stage for a fundamentally dispraportionate balance of power between the two peoples. To attempt to shrug off the basic difference between oppressor and oppressed through the guise of "contextualization" or through presenting the sides as equal - when one of them isn't even a recognized nation - cannot possibly be as fair-minded as your fliers attempt to portray themselves.

-Singles out Israel as the sole aggressor.
In terms of the conflict, the state of Israel is the agressor as an institution, while individual Palestinians are aggressors working without the sanctioning of any state. Thanks to the "self-defensive" measures that Israel has aggressively carried out in destroying virtually all Palestinian infrastructure, these individuals are given even freer reign in their attacks. Additionally, terrorism has two faces: State terrorism as well as individual terrorism. By definition, a state is an institution that has monopoly over the use of violent means to defend its sovereignty. As the people of Palestine do not have this privilege, one is hard-pressed to blame this on Palestinians as an institution when the institution itself does not exist.

-Deflects attention away from terrorism against Israel.
See Above.

-Ignores the role of Egypt and Jordan in provoking the war that led to the occupation.
As our friends who put up these anti-divestment signs are fond of reminding us: History must always be contextualized. Egypt and Jordan were in fact, involved in the war that led to the occupation. However, the present state of affairs -stability within the Egyptian and Jordanian areas - are a direct result of U.S. aid to these two countries. The whole idea behind Carter making them sign at Camp David was recognition of the state of Israel in return for U.S. aid. This being the case, divesting from these two countries (which are not currently involved in annexing and occupying land) would de-stabilize not only Israel's security, but that of the whole region.

-Ignores the Arab world's refusal in 1967 to recognize, negotiate or make peace with Israel.
Again, one must look to current events before citing the past. A year ago, the Arab League ratified a Saudi proposal setting up the groundwork for restarting negotiations between the PLO and Israel, and promising at their fruition the recognition of Israel by the Arab world. Mind you, this proposal is based on the acceptance of the 1967 borders which is only 22% of historic British Mandate Palestine.

April 17th, 2003

The posters for the events of this month are starting to appear all over campus. More will come. All these events are free and open to the public, please come!!!

Saturday, April 5: Stav Adivi is part of the movement of Israeli soldiers, known as "refuseniks," who refuse to serve in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. He will give a talk at 1:30pm in the Hallock Auditorium, Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, 122 Elm Street, Oberlin. For more information visit www.refusniks.org

Wednesday, April 9: Ziad Abu-Rish, an activist in the American Friends Service Committe's Middle East Peacebuilding Unit, will present a talk about the Israeli-Palestinian dimensions of the U.S. war on Iraq. The talk is at 7:30pm in King 106.

Saturday April 12: The Palestine Truth Tour, featuring music from the Iron Sheik, film, and spoken word performance about Palestine, will stop in Oberlin for one night only on its tour of the midwest, spreading the word about occupation and resistance in Palestine! 8pm in the Hallock Auditorium of the Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, 122 Elm Street, Oberlin.

April 26:Stephen Zunes lecture.
1:00pm on Saturday, April 26 in Wilder 101. (135 W. Lorain Street)

Wednesday, May 7: Al-Nakbah, Arabic for "the catastrophe," is the commemoration of the founding of the state of Israel. OSFP members will be tabling in Wilder Bowl in order to present alternatives to mainstream histories about what the founding of the state of Israel meant and means to Palestinians.
*This refers to the 36 years that have passed since the 1967 war, in which Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. If this is news to you, or you want to find out more, or if it's all you think and read about, please come to any or all of these events!

(This list will be updated shortly)

"Concerned citizens and governments all over the world must organize a comprehensive campaign of economic disinvestment and divestment from Israel along the same lines of what they did to the former criminal apartheid regime in South Africa. This original worldwide... campaign played a critical role in dismantling the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa. For much the same reasons, a worldwide disinvestment/divestment campaign against Israel will play a critical role in dismantling its criminal apartheid regime against the Palestinian people living in occupied Palestine as well as in Israel itself."
Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois

April 16th, 2003

United Nations: The Origins and Evolutions of the Palestine Problem, 1917-1947
A pretty self-explanatory title. The work is, of course, a little dry but adds some important historical context to the issue.

Israel eyes the Iraqi Pipeline Project
Coming from indymedia Israel, this article discusses oil issues in a post Iraq war mid east.

Why are the Geneva Conventions so relevant all of a sudden?

April 11th, 2003

"He was trying to pull two girls out of danger when he was hit in the head by a bullet," eyewitness and British ISM colleage Rafael Cohen, 37, AFP

Cohen, who was standing 15 yards away when the shooting occured, said Israeli troops were firing over the heads of a group of children playing on a mound of earth and Thomas, who was dressed in a flourescent ISM jacket, had gone to pull them down.

"At first they were firing several metres over the children's heads but was getting very very dangerous so Tom went to help them. He was at ground level when they shot him directly in the head," he said, alleging the troops lowered their aim and deliberately targeted him.

Thomas arrived in Rafah on Sunday after spending several days training in the West Bank, Cohen said. Before arriving in the Palestinian territories he had been in Iraq acting as a human shield, after which he spent some time in Jordan.

The army would not comment on the incident.
However in a bizarre twist, military sources claimed they had no knowledge of such a shooting, despite admitting troops "offered medical assistance and airlifted him to a hospital in Beersheva."

Hurndall's shooting was the third such incident in the past four weeks in which a foreign peace activist was injured or killed during Israeli military operations.
(Taken from a pamphlet by Sarah Weir)

For full stories vist these links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,935018,00.html
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/283221.html
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030411/wl_mideast_afp/mideast_unrest_gaza_030411192923

Also visit the The International Solidarity Movement's website.

April 3rd, 2003

Want to learn about the Divestment Movement?

The Analogy to Apartheid, by Ian Urbina
An informative article on the relation between the divestment movement against Apartheid South Africa and the current movement against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Against Israeli Apartheid, by Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina
Here is a now classic essay by the archbishop Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina on the similarity between Apartheid in South Africa and Apartheid in Israel.

March 16, 2003

Rachel Corrie (ISM Activist) Killed

American woman peace activist killed by IDF bulldozer in Gaza
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies

An American woman peace protester was killed Sunday by an IDF bulldozer, which ran her over during the demolition of a house at the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Another activist was wounded in the incident. Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Washington, was killed when she ran in front of the bulldozer to try to prevent it from destroying a house, doctors in Gaza said. "Corrie was killed in the al-Salam neighbourhood when an Israeli bulldozer covered her with sand as she stood in front of a bulldozer," said Dr Ali Musa, a doctor from the al-Najar hospital in the southern Gaza Strip. He said she died from skull and chest fractures. The IDF said it was checking the report. The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment. Greg Schnabel, 28, from Chicago, said the protesters were in the house of Dr. Samir Masri. "Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop," he said. "She waved for bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled 'stop, stop,' and the bulldozer didn't stop at all. It had completely run over her and then it reversed and ran back over her." Since the start of the Intifada, groups of international protesters have gathered in several locations in territories, setting themselves up as "human shields" to try to stop IDF operations. Corrie was the first member of the groups, called "International Solidarity Movement," to be killed in the conflict. Schnabel said Corrie was a student at Evergreen College and was to graduate this year. He said there were eight protesters at the site, four from the United States and four from Great Britain. "We stay with families whose house is to be demolished," he told the Associated Press by telephone from Rafah after the incident.

Rachel confronting the IDF bulldozer that, in a few moments, will crush her to death.