thanks everybody so much for coming tonight this is a very important subject for all of us obviously and for the wider community and i'm glad you came here to hear our speakers who have come from california and locally  and his ph d from the university of michigan he studied at the american university of cairo in the hebrew university of jerusalem and he lived in egypt for a number of years doing academic research and in israel as well he taught middle east history at stanford and between two thousand and six and two thousand and eight he was the director of middle east studies and professor of history at the american university in cairo his research in writing focuses on workers peasants and minorities in the middle east the modern middle east and on israel palestine and the arab israeli conflict he's written a number of books and many many articles and i'm not going to read you all of them but they're listed here joel will speak first and he's going to give a kind of historical overview of the issues that sort of impact what we're going to be talking about tonight and then  professor is going to be talking about b d s and that is she's an activist and a leader in the b d s campaign nationally and locally and so she's going to talk in more detail about what b d s is what it represents its mission its principles its cetera she is a diaspora palestinian born in iraq and raised in lebanon where she worked as a journalist during the lebanese civil war she came to the u s her post graduate studies and since then has taught at purdue university tough spread around washington state and most recently where she is now at antioch university she's a founding member of i'm going to just give the initials here and you can fill in what they stand for usa c b i the u s campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of israel and she continues serving on its steering collective she's a past president  middle east women's studies and a founding member of the radical arab women's activists network she's a former representative to the united nations of the arab woman's solidarity association and a member of the defense of civil rights in woman's narratives and she's working on a new book who you call in demographic threat notes from the global so without further ado i think that joel can come up and be our first speaker good evening everyone and thank you for coming and thank you richard for inviting me in organizing the event i'm going to speak about history because i'm a historian and the main point that i want to make is that the choice of boycott the best and sanctions as a tactic in the palestinian national liberation struggle is the result of a long history of trying to do different things that so far have not worked and i'm going to go through that history very briefly so very soon after the issuance of the balfour declaration in which the british government promised to foster the establishment of a jewish national home in palestine palestinian christian and muslim notables got together convened the first palestine arab congress and said that they did not accept this that they wanted palestine to be part of an independent syria which the british had promised arab leaders in  order to get them to revolt against the ottoman empire in the middle of world war one and even though there were no jews present at this meeting there were at the time about twenty five thousand jews who had resided in palestine for some generations in some cases before and the congress said very clearly that those jews who have been arab ised and who live among us they are as we are so this was a non racialist non  ethnically specific call for all of the inhabitants of palestine to democratically choose their future and on that basis to reject of the idea that palestine should become a jewish national home that's not the only sort of force that was around in this period when it became clear that france was in fact going to make syria and lebanon mandates annual festival that is specific to palestine it's not a broad muslim festival in which a number of jews in jerusalem were killed this was at this point rather exceptional and earlier mode of organizing continued even after the french took over syria in the end of december of one hundred twenty the third arab congress met in high for the second one had been held in secret because the british made it illegal at this point since it was clear that palestine couldn't be part of greater syria  program of the group was palestinian local nationalism this is really when we can say that the idea of a palestinian national movement in the borders of british mandate palestine was  launched and it's still had at this point a very elite orientation you can see the pictures of the folks they're all very well dressed many of them quite well educated english speakers and so on they established a executive headed by melissa cousin the hosseini which decided to send a delegation to london to tell the british government what they thought of what they were up to and two delegations went during hundred twenty one and put forward the political program that the palestinian arabs adopted and maintained throughout the rest of the mandate period until nine hundred forty eight that the british should cancel the principle that they were committed to establishing a jewish national home in palestine that a national government responsible to an elected parliament should be established basic democratic liberal process that the british should in principle have supported that there be no mass jewish immigration until a national government decided on immigration policy that in the interim palestine should be governed by ottoman law not by british military regulations and there was still the residual hope that palestine would not be separated from the neighboring arab states although that had become increasingly unrealistic there was again an outbreak of two mosques are now located but which before that had been the site of the first and second jewish temples in the jewish tradition and they had waived the zionist flag which is today the flag of the state of israel  intentionally provoking the muslim community which in august of one nine hundred twenty nine rioted against them the violence was completely mis targeted because  of the hundred and twenty five or so jews who were killed and slightly larger number of palestinian arabs in the same period almost all of them were altar orthodox jews who were in fact   this event typified some of the problems of his leadership nonetheless the majority of the palestinian notables continue to engage the british diplomatically after the wailing wall uprising or the rock uprising as it's called in the arab tradition the british sent an investigating committee that resulted in the issuance of the pasty white paper a statement of british government policy in october of one hundred thirty and the white paper was the first british proposal to limit not clearly how and how much jewish immigration into palestine oh using the argument which was largely correct that it had stimulated this violent arab response very much as the  lobby and similar groups do around the issue of b d s today there was a big international campaign and pressure on the british prime minister randy mcdonnell to alter the policy proposals of the white paper which his government had presented to the parliament and in response macdonald wrote what in the palestinian tradition is called the black letter to haim weitzman then the head of the world zionist organization in february of one hundred thirty one which effectively rescinded the white paper and in the photo here next to the cover of white paper document itself you can see on your left mr and mrs weitzman sitting there socially with mr and this is randy macdonald and this capture is actually the essence of the problem that this social event could happen because these people themselves as equals and in the same social sphere and you do not have any similar picture of palestinian arab leaders sitting socially with ramsey mcdonald and his wife and other british notables so ultimately frustrated by the complete incapacity of the british to respond to peaceful democratic petitions that in principle the british should have accepted because they were demands for majority rule a democratic government a government responsible to the citizens who elected it things that british claimed they supported but since they did not listen would not listen alternately sectors of the palestinian people resorted to armed struggle and the first expression of armed struggle actually was organized not by a palestinian but by a became workers prayed he organized them and their family and friends in the surrounding villages of haifa into a secret organization in november of ninety thirty five they went into the hills  around to begin an armed struggle and very quickly within a week the british captured them is a deal kasam himself was killed some of his followers escaped his funeral was the largest political event in arab palestine throughout the british mandate period a few months later inspired by a general strike that the syrians had initiated to gain their political independence  a general strike broke out in palestine it was not called for or organized at first by the palestinian notables but once it began the notables formed the arab higher committee which united all of the different families and factions of arab palestine the strike lasted from april until september which is it's a mistake there should be september one hundred thirty six and it was called off by the not because many of them wanted to harvest there are injuries and they couldn't do that if the general strike would be still in effect so the movement went into a yance for a while and then in august september of ninety thirty seven a peasant led guerrilla war very much in the classical twentieth century model broke out that was not led by the and the problem with armed struggle and the idealization of armed struggle is not in my view a moral one i don't think i don't have any problem with the fact that palestinian peasants decided at this point that no other method would work the problem is that it gets easily out of hand and the ultimate expression of it getting out of h was the effective alliance between how janina husseini the grand mufti of jerusalem and the nazis during world war two and this alliance destroyed the credibility of the palestinian cause in the west it was simply no longer possible after world war two for liberals and leftists in the west to think of the palestinian cause as an issue of decolonization which in fact it was despite the fact that this rather unfortunate alliance had taken place which wasn't particularly supported by large numbers of palestinians you know who say never set foot in palestine again after nine thirty seven but but this shows what can happen all too easily in an armed struggle after world war two big wave of  took place most of the african and asian colonies of britain and france and other european powers achieved independence one of the big exceptions was algeria and the reason was that algeria w colony and there were some nine hundred thousand french settlers in algeria and they formed a very powerful political force in the french parliament algeria was officially part of france except th vast majority of the population the nine million muslims couldn't vote and that meant that for something some of the similar reasons as in palestine in the one nine hundred thirty s an armed struggle broke out a very violent and vicious one if algiers it's quite accurate and this is actually the front page of one of the algerian newspapers with the report of the three simultaneous bombings in the fall of one nine hundred fifty six which were the emblem of that struggle against french settlers and many innocent civilians were killed algeria did however with its independence even though they never militarily defeated the french the french ultimately for political reasons decided they had had it and they left and that created a certain myth and a certain political base which the palestinian organization because it thought that these are noble when bags who aren't actually doing anything to liberate palestine so the first countries if were trained in algeria and there they absorb that this is the kind armed struggle that is both necessary and possible and can lead to a victory because algeria became independent and even though they were not expelled in fact  almost all of them decided to leave and go back to friends and that strategy was broadened and embraced beyond the palestinians after the massive defeat of the arab states in the one nine hundred sixty seven arab israeli war and the victory of the palestinian guerrilla forces in tandem with support from the jordanian army at the which where they engaged and israeli column and inflicted very heavy losses on them it was quite a shock for the for the israelis karama as it happens means dignity so this was a great slogan that we have finally twenty years after the nakba learned how to fight back and make the israelis pay a military price for what they have done to us  and it's easy to see how in the era of vietnam and algeria that this all made great sense but just as the arab revolt in the one nine hundred thirty s spun out of control towards the end  this strategy also had its problems and the emblematic moment of its problem was the massacre of israeli athletes at the munich olympics in one thousand seventy two to massacre israelis in germany have to be a little bit tone deaf if you're operating in a western political environment and so i put this quote by france turned on who of course embraced and was the theorist of anti colonial violence in algeria but at the same time understood that violence has to be limited that there can't achieve the ultimate colonization which is equality of the former colonizer and the colonized once liberation and independence of the colony had been achieved eventually the p l o also began to see the problems of this kind of activity and began to turn to international diplomacy and this is yasser arafat giving his first of two speeches that he gave there in his political career at the un general assembly in one nine hundred seventy four in which he said i come to you with the rifle of a guerrilla fighter in one hand and an olive branch of peace and other do not let the olive branch fall from my hand he was ready for a negotiated solution which would have meant although the p l o was not yet clear about it  state solution israel was not in the slightest bit interested or was the united states and the european union was not yet on board with this blow it was  getting moving in that direction the camp david agreement which produced a peace treaty between egypt and israel was also supposed to deal with the palestinian question and it didn't if you read carter and brennan have memoirs they say that israeli prime minister at the time menachem begin tricked them lied to them and so on and the frustration that emerged out of the united states not forcing israel to abide by its commitments on the palestine question at camp david let it get into some excessively brutal violence leon klinghoffer an elderly jew was having a vacation with his family on  again led to actions which whether or not you can understand their motivation were ultimately politically not effective and so again o reinforced its diplomatic orientation that was made both necessary and possible because of the success of the first palestinian uprising began in december nine hundred eighty seven according to some people that ended in ninety one others ninety three that's not so important but what emerged here was for the first time since nine hundred forty eight palestinians in historic palestine had taken the lead intifada was not organized by the p l o and the leadership of intifada essentially demanded that the p l o come up with a political program that would express and represent the demands israel and foreswore armed struggle and we were hoping that there would be an answer from israel to this and there was none now often people look at the intifada and praise it's nonviolence and it was largely nonviolent but these pictures from the first intifada don't exactly match with what gandhi and martin luther king jr would have embraced and i put them here to make the point that in the palestinian political lexicon nonviolence is rare very rarely used people more often talk about popular struggle and the reason is that a certain amount of violence is almost inevitable in a colonial situation no one here is using a gun and palestinians didn't use  guns some rare exceptions during the first intifada but we ought not to have allusions about what exactly was going on there the peace process which the united states initiated after the first intifada was from day one deceitful and doomed to failure i won't go through all of it rashid khalidi is recent book brokers of deceit is an excellent account of it all and i highly recommend it prime minister of israel who was at the madrid conference who was prime minister during the negotiations between palestinian representatives and israeli representatives in washington eleven different meetings one he left office said i would have conducted negotiations for autonomy for ten years and in the meantime we would have reached half a million people in the west bank well it actually took a little bit more than ten years for that number to be reached but that is what there is now about five hundred sixty thousand israeli settlers in the west bank and the gaza strip these negotiations eventually ended up in the famous into its genetic code why because this was from the start and unbalanced process in which the p l o recognize the existence of the state of israel not the right of the state of israel to exist and not that the state of israel is the nation state of the jewish people or any of these silly wordings that are now used to block negotiations effectively but what states normally get their recognition of their existence as a state in exchange what israel recognized was that the p l o would be representative in negotiations of the palestinian people not that the end of the process would result in a palestinian state not that the palestinian people had the right to national self determination so there were essentially no palestinian rights written into the frame of reference of the oslo process and that is why more than mistakes made in negotiations and so on the second camp david meeting in the summer of two thousand eventually failed and led to the second intifada which on both sides was far more violent than the first and again the violence was counterproductive for palestinian purposes  it undoubtedly felt righteous and justified to engage in armed struggle and after the failure of a protracted and very problematic diplomatic process but ultimately israel has superior armed force and it was brutally used israeli forces fired over a million bullets in the first ten days of the second intifada before any suicide bombings or any substantial palestinian violence broke out and really it is the failure of the second intifada which led the group of palestinian civil society leaders in two thousand and four to embrace the strategy of boycott divestment and sanctions and this is not new not unusual not anything different then many other well respected movements of national liberation and civil rights have done in the past martin luther king in the very first book he ever wrote defending the justice of the month bus boycott which was viciously  attacked said there is nothing quite so effective as the refusal to cooperate economically with the forces and institutions which perpetuate evil in our community so martin luther king apostle of of nonviolence a adopted this tactic it was first used in ireland that the name boycott comes from a british land commissioner who was oppressing farmers in ireland and they resolved to not cooperate with him the united farm workers used the tactics with regard to grapes and lettuce south african national congress use the tactic and so there isn't anything unusual or particular about the character of israel or the character of this struggle palestinian leadership came to embrace this as a way to pursue the struggle because other things had not worked and this is something was internationally recognized b d s appeals to universal norms of human rights and international law it targets israeli institutions not israelis as people is a democratic and inclusive strategy anybody can engage in it internationals jews can participate in b d s as a form of popular struggle holds the moral high ground and as we follow the news today the presbyterian church just a few hours ago voted to divest from three major corporation effective in promoting palestinian self determination then the structure of the peace process mediated by the united states which had been very centered on israel and from which palestinian rights was essentially absent so this is where we are today a much better place than we were not too many years ago i think thank you very much thank you richard for inviting me and thank you everyone for being here we had actually not planned this we had not coordinated it and look at what i have titled mind if not b d s which is a company that supplies yeah yeah g four s for those of you who don't know it supplies security management equipment in six close vote and they tried to do with it and they tried and tried and tried and they were not i mean they were splitting hairs just as what which is really odd because they were just about to like no controversy you know problem and there shouldn't be a one about to vote for the fourth largest army in the word certainly the largest and most brutal military in the region israel is not threatened by guerilla warfare there is no way no way we could compete with israel militarily even if we actually have the legal right to engage in armed resistance it would be stupid it is counterproductive it is as joel said it's not you know it's not the right strategy that's not what's going to liberate us what i your contacts some degree of violence is inevitable i would say the colonial context is of a context of violence when you should pictures of the intifada and the violence and let's keep in mind the greater context of finance the fact that israel is an extremely brutal country addicted to violence and that you know some degree of violence is inevitable colonialism is violent occupation is violent there have been a number of strategies none of them were qt b d s is working to get b d s is winning so recognition and none of these worked and then as they were as we were looking at a study and activists organizers thinkers and all of that were looking at what would work and they decided that b the reality on the ground in israel in palestine today between the river and the sea which is basically the the entirety of the land occupied by israel from the river to the sea there is a situation of apartheid of two completely different sets of rules that apply to people that depend on their religion perceived ethnicity and so if it is apartheid what has historically been used domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them that is the definition of apartheid it's not you've got to be white over black it's not exclusively south africa so one can actually speak of apartheid happening elsewhere in the word that is the definition of apartheid it is not exactly identical to the situation in israel today is not exactly identical to what it was in south africa that doesn't mean that it's not a case of apartheid i mean when i always speak of genocide there have not been two episodes two incidents two phenomena of genocide that are absolutely identical throughout history and yet there has been more than one genocide throughout history so what do you how do you define genocide does it have to have for example gas chambers then there was only one genocide throughout history no ok so that you can't use one unique manifestation of an incident to say that's got to define the incident does it have to have for example genocide in rwanda you know mass  rape as a tool of genocide well not all genocides have that so so you can't just go let's look at the differences we need to have a definition i don't have a slide of the definition of genocide but you know that there are five criteria and if you feel fit one of the five then that qualifies as genocide so i could also go into you know as well as in gauging and genocide but israel is engaging in a part that it does not have to be the same think if this is the definition then the definition applies i would question for example that the jewish the entirety of the jewish community in the word is one racial group of people but israel as far as  them there is a racial group of people the jews and so according to that definition of israel is engaging in apartheid because it is engaging in human acts the home  demolitions torture mass occurs you name it israel is engaging in it and human acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them we have laws it is within the legal system that there is about fifty laws that discriminate against non jews in the entirety of the country that israel is occupying from the river to the sea because it is totally in control of you you know the the court that george showed about martin luther king and how he said there is nothing as effective as non cooperation in economic or whatever that's basically what boycott is a form of pressure through non cooperation financially so when you boycott you are not you know years speaking with your dollars basically you're not buying something divestment is not that you're not buying something it's that you are not investing in it so the yet but you know i think that comes last and it's really important also as we say we're not there yet when we think of the parallel with south africa because we've been at b d s basically it's almost ten years old now and with ten years we have done i mean we are basically at this point we are in the mainstream consciousness despite the blackout the censorship the fight and in fact the more we're winning the harsher the the censorship the silencing the propaganda and all of that it's because we are winning you know as gandhi said at first they ignore you then they laugh at you with and they fight you then you when they're fighting us they are fighting us they're fighting us really really really hard in fact this program is in response to basically an attack on b d s that it is a threat to the jewish community in seattle and worldwide ri of return so b d s should be in place boycott divestment and sanctions should be in place until israel comply with international law by fulfilling the is three things all we are asking of israel another disputed thing but even if the arabs started it in sixty seven and israel defeated the arabs in sixty seven and acquired war it is illegal to acquire land by war otherwise everyone would be starting wars and trying to acquire land by war you know i mean there's a reason why it's illegal so the occupation is illegal whatever the zionist say the wall has been declared illegal into apple has been founded if you go in two thousand to buy the international court of justice the fundamental human rights and it has been resolved and the added nations that's one nine four and nine hundred forty eight the palestinians have a right to return and so we are asking of israel to basically out of love for south africa but eventually south africa became a better country just like the us south became a better part of the word after the end of segregation and jim crow and all of that were fixing things were not destroying research so everybody understands even though they don't necessarily agree the boycott of you know shell items that you see on the shelves in grocery stores and some people are actually a lot a lot more not so sure about academic and cultural boycott why academic and cultural boycott because they are being used for propaganda because there are an official propaganda program israeli government by the city man ministries in israel and the foreign ministry of the prime minister's office and the finance ministry those are the three largest ministries in israel and they have come together and they have decided our image is being tarnished in the word we have to fix our image how do we fix our image we fix it through academic and cultural propaganda hence the academic  and scientific epoch compass must become a vehicle for propaganda is very is so i mean proud it does have amazing accomplishments but it is using them to death to as a smoke and mirrors to distract from their reality or look we've invented the grape tomatoes so it's ok if we massacre people no you know it's not ok you can be unfair and you know what germany under the nazis also produced fragilis music was propaganda certainly pink washing started out as an actor and he became a film director one of his earliest free p r for israel and so much better than the p r they're getting on the new is so again israel as a gay friendly country which is something we hear over and over and over again it's a gay friendly country but it is a gay friendly country for jews it's not a gay friendly to a country for non jew so again i mean keep thinking of the context of what propaganda is used for and the hidden reality you know that for example you don't reach a rate i don't know how to pronounce his name sings about multiculturalism but he sings in supplements so you know nobody it's not everyone who can show up at his concerts and you know it's  lament sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it and he refused to perform so he felt he said my silence in as a singer is better than anything i could sing i can't go and sing about peace what i can do is not go and he did not go out to serve refused to put perform an external watch all of these ok i'm trying to really respect my time and i have gone human rights of the palestinians and the boycott itself institutions not individuals it's really really important i'm an academic we're our act you know the three of our speakers are academics in here and i think that we all feel you very much cherish academic freedom an academic boycott is not about and being academic freedom it is actually again about securing academic freedom for those who do not have it because freedom is merely a privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all and the palestinians do not have academic freedom not only do the palestinians not have academic freedom but there is really universities are very very very complicit in the violation of the human rights of the palestinians and i could go on and speak  the the apartheid wall is actually drafted engineers created blueprinted whatever those words are in an israeli engineering department university engineering department the settlements are makes the d nine but the blade is retro fitted and it is retro fitted and designed in a university in israel so the universities are the ones who are actually you know just the history and sociology books that don't