The last two months have seen a lot of activity around our two corporate boycott and divestment campaigns, from over two-dozen events during our March month of action, to protests at the Motorola shareholders' meeting last week. Just one day before Motorola's shareholders' meeting, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) Executive Director made an impassioned speech about the efficacy of boycott and divestment campaigns. Now, join us as we gear up for Caterpillar's shareholders' meeting on June 10th.
Hang Up On Motorola Update
Our Hang Up On Motorola campaign has grown by leaps and bounds in the year since it was launched. We now have 330 folks organizing this boycott locally, and we recently demonstrated at Motorola's annual shareholders' meeting. All of these actions have added up to lots of new media exposure for the Hang Up On Motorola boycott, including a feature in The Arab American News, a column syndicated by Agence Global, and coverage on KBOO in Portland, OR and WCEV in Chicago, IL. The shareholder meeting was also a crucial event in publicizing our campaign on blogs and websites.
US Campaign supporters from as far away as Ann Arbor traveled to Chicago to join the Coalition Against Apartheid in Palestine, DePaul Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Arab Jewish Partnership for Peace and Justice in the Middle East outside of the shareholders' meeting. These advocates for justice educated Motorola shareholders about their culpability for Israel's military occupation and apartheid practices. Inside the meeting, our shareholding allies proposed a human rights resolution. While the human rights resolution didn't pass this time, it did garner enough votes to be voted on again next year - an important victory in our ongoing campaign to hold Motorola accountable. Our online-activism surrounding the Motorola shareholders' meeting smashed our expectations, with our supporters sending over 3,700 emails demanding accountability from Motorola's management. Keep the pressure on! Click here to sign up for a Hang Up On Motorola local campaign kit.
Stop Caterkiller Update
Our Stop Caterkiller campaign has been going strong since 2005 and we're not out of steam yet. We're cooking up big plans for demonstrating at the Caterpillar shareholders' meeting in Chicago on June 10th. Click here to RSVP to demonstrate outside of the Caterpillar shareholders' meeting or click here to email the US Campaign's National Organizer to help plan the demonstration. We're also calling for protests at Cat dealerships and corporate offices across the country. If you can't make it to Chicago, then click here to email the US Campaign's National Organizer to learn how to organize a demonstration in your area.
General Boycott & Divestment Update
US Campaign member groups across the country continue to increase pressure on corporations complicit in occupation and apartheid in Israel/Palestine. We've even recently earned the ire of AIPAC. Click here to view AIPAC's Executive Director warning their annual conference about the danger that the growing global boycott & divestment movement poses to Israel's continued military occupation.
One of our member groups, Adalah - NY, recently used Mothers' Day as an opportunity to tell mothers and those who buy gifts for them to avoid notorious settlement builder Lev Leviev's jewelry. Click here to view a video of this action.
Since Hampshire college became the first U.S. academic institution to divest from Israel's occupation in February, we've been contacted by dozens of campuses interested in starting boycott & divestment campaigns, including 25 campuses that applied to host our campus boycott & divestment organizing tour this coming October. We hope to announce selected cities for the tour by the end of the May, and have already started working with our summer intern from Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine to formulate workshops and training sessions for the tour.
Please support our ongoing boycott and divestment organizing. While our budget will never be the size of AIPAC, we clearly get more bang for the buck.
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5 comments:
And where exactly has divestment taken off at universities this year? As noted here: http://www.divestthis.com/2009/03/hampshire.html, the choice of Hampshire students to engage in deception in order to perpetrate their divestment hoax has all but guaranteed that American universities ill continue their five year, 100% records of refusing to divest in Israel.
I understand the need for divesters to convince themselves that, despite the unrivaled failure of their movement, they are actually part of a great, triumphant crusade that has their enemies on the run. Still, here on earth some of us would prefer facts (rather than fantasy) illustrate your delusional self image.
Dream on!
"Unrivaled failure of their movement"...your words tell us that you too are jumping to conclusions without substantiation..This movement is still quite young and everyday Israel digs itself deeper into their moral cesspool. Many of us human rights activists have woken up to Israel and more will be following as anti-Zionism spreads across the intellectual/activist circles of the world.
Actually, divestment has been kicking around for quite some time (since the late 1980s as a matter of fact) and did manage to have some successes (notably with the Mainline Protestant churches) around five years ago. Unfortunately for those who still champion this tactic (and that's all it is, really, a propaganda tactic by people who have managed to convince themselves that they represent "human rights activists" when in fact they have chosen to ally themselves with the most racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary regimes in the world), it's been all downhill for divestment since '04.
Putting aside every school rejecting BDS, those Mainline churches that were divestment's base have voted divestment down by massive majorities (from 95% for the Presbyterians to unanimous for the Methodists) once actual church members had the chance to vote on the subject.
While a subset of rather noisy intellectuals will toot the BDS trumpet endlessly, noise is no replacement for results and, thankfully for all concerned, divestment has shown no results yet (period). But by all means, continue to focus on a tactic that only alienates the public more and more. I can't think of a single movement that has created more Zionists than divestment has over the last five years.
Keep up the great work!
Jon, if you want to know where divestment campaigns are taking off, ask the folks over at ADL, not exactly known for their love of divestment initiatives. They've compiled this handy list:
http://tinyurl.com/adldivest
Was it something I said?
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