The Sixth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week 2010
Mark your calendars - the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) will take place across the globe from from the 1st to the 14th of March 2010!
Since it was first launched in 2005, IAW has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar. Last year, more than 40 cities around the world participated in the week's activities,
History of Israeli Apartheid Week
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe. IAW will be running for the sixth consecutive year in 2010, with events taking place between March 1-14 all over the world. The week’s events will include lectures, multimedia events, cultural performance, film screenings, demonstrations, and more.
The past few years have seen a sharp increase of literature and analysis that has sought to document and challenge Israeli apartheid, including reports issued by major international bodies and human rights organizations and findings published by political leaders, thinkers, academics, and activists. Many of these efforts have highlighted the role that could be played by people and governments across the world in providing solidarity with the Palestinian struggle by exerting urgent pressure on Israel to alter its current structure and practices as an apartheid state.
Prominent Palestinians, Jewish anti-Zionists, and South Africans have been at the forefront of this struggle. At the same time, an international divestment campaign has gained momentum in response to a statement issued in July 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations calling for boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel. Important gains have recently been made in this campaign in countries like South Africa , the United Kingdom , Canada and the United States.
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Last year, more than 40 cities around the world participated in the week's activities:
Cities
* Al Quds
* Amsterdam
* Bard (NY)
* Beirut
* Berkeley
* Bethlehem
* Bil'in
* Bogota
* Bologna
* Boston
* Cape Town
* Caracas
* Chicago
* Connecticut
* Duluth
* Dundee
* Durban
* Eastern Cape
* Edinburgh
* Edmonton
* Gaza
* Glasgow
* Guelph
* Hamilton
* Houston
* Ireland
* Jenin
* Johannesburg
* Kingston
* London (ON)
* London (UK)
* Madrid
* Melbourne
* Minneapolis/St.Paul
* Montréal
* Nablus
* New York City
* Nil'in
* Ottawa
* Oxford
* Peterborough
* Pisa
* Pretoria
* Providence
* Puebla
* Roma
* San Francisco
* Seattle
* Sudbury
* Tilburg
* Toronto
* Truro (CA)
* Utrecht
* Vancouver
* Waterloo
* Winnipeg
Canadian Leaders (and politicians) Standing Tall Against Israel Apartheid Week
March 4, 2010 - by Barbara Kay
In late February the province of Ontario’s legislature issued a denunciation of IAW. Progressive Conservative party legislator Peter Shurman, its promoter, stated:
"The term Israeli Apartheid Week incites hatred against Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights, and the use of the word “apartheid” in this context diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa.
The motion received unanimous support from all sitting members of the provincial parliament (MPPs), including — and this surprised many Canadians — members of the staunchly socialist New Democratic Party (NDP), perennial scourge of the powerful and unconditionally supportive shoulder to the “oppressed,” including well-known terror-dealing grievance collectors.
The NDP’s elected members’ views on the Middle East range from merely hostile to virulently anti-Israel. So if provincial NDPers felt free to join in this motion, then the denunciation was not an aberration, but an indicator that the times they are a-changin’ in Ontario, Canada’s bellwether province.
In May, the Liberal premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, will lead a trade mission to Israel, the first Ontario leader to do so since 1998, a move that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago for any politician in that ultra-liberal province.
Not to be outdone, Michael Ignatieff, leader of the federal Liberal Party, the official government opposition, declared that IAW “should be condemned unequivocally and absolutely.”
Perhaps all these gestures reflect a cascade phenomenon rolling down from the summit. Last week in Ottawa, the nation’s capitol, Conservative MP Tim Uppal affirmed that he would be introducing a motion declaring “that this House considers itself to be a friend of the State of Israel; that this House is concerned about expressions of anti-Semitism under the guise of ‘Israel Apartheid Week’; and that this House explicitly condemns any action in Canada as well as internationally that would equate the rejected and racist policy of apartheid.”
To cap it all, on February 12, in connection with the ominous approach of Iran’s nuclear weaponization, Junior Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Kent stated: “Prime Minister Harper has made it quite clear for some time now and has regularly stated that an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada.” In terms of support for Israel, it doesn’t get friendlier than that.