Its Buycott Israel month!

From our Friends at Buycott Israel!

There seems to be no stopping the momentum BUYcott is gaining around the world. In addition to the new BuyIsraeliProductsNow campaign we told you about last week, a new project is starting this week: BUYcott Month (www.buycottmonth.com), a month-long campaign for buying from, investing in and celebrating the state of Israel.

BUYcott Month is a little offbeat, but promises to be a lot of fun. Supporters of Israel from around the world are being asked to send in photos of themselves or friends buying and enjoying Israeli products, taking part in Israel-related cultural events, "breaking" a boycott, or doing anything that celebrates Israel or fights anti-Israel activity during the month of March. As part of this campaign, these photos should include people giving what's called a "Finger-B" hand gesture to indicate their activity is part of the BUYcott Month project.

Are you buying Israeli products during Buycott Month? Having a couscous party? An Israeli wine tasting? An Ahava mud-wrestling match? We want your photos and your story. We’re ready to share pictures of you:

· Purchasing and enjoying Israeli products
· Talking with friends and colleagues about investing in hot Israeli companies
· Taking part in Israeli cultural events
· Counter-protesting at Boycott-Israel events

Or how about a dose of “Extreme Boycott” like sharing Israeli chocolates at the top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea?

Don't forget- its your support that led to a 33% increase in Israeli exports in the last quarter of 2009. Lets kept the monentum going. Support democracy and buycott Israel!

Israel Peace and Diversity week meets Israel Apartheid Week at UC Berkeley

From the Side of Sweetness and Light:

Monday 3/1
11:00a-2:00p Human Rights in Israel (Sproul Plaza)

7:30p Captain Avner: LGBT in the Israeli military (room TBA)

Tuesday 3/2
11:00a-2:00p Obstacles to Peace (Sather Gate)

7:00p Sgt. Benjamin Anthony: Experiences in the IDF (101 Morgan)

Wednesday 3/3
12:00-1:00p Peace Rally (Sproul Plaza)

Friday 3/5
11:00a-2:00p Path to Peace (Sproul Plaza)

From the Side of Darkness and Terror


Monday, March 1st:
INTRO TO APARTHEID - A discussion of the term Apartheid, similarities and differences between South Africa and Israel/Palestine, and what past struggles can teach us.
Joanna Manqueros, activist against South African Apartheid;
Room 105, Boalt Hall School of Law
7 pm

Tuesday, March 2nd:
TO SHOOT AN ELEPHANT - Come watch a film made by international eyewitnesses present in the Gaza strip during Operation Cast Lead.
Room 2060, Valley Life Sciences Building
7 pm

Wednesday, March 3rd:
DEBATING BOYCOTT DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS - What is the state of the international BDS movement for Palestine? Why is BDS important and what can you do?
Omar Barghouti, Student at Tel Aviv Unniversity and Co-founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Room 105, Boalt Hall School of Law
6:30 pm

Friday, March 5th:
CULTURAL CELEBRATION / FUNDRAISER- A night of Arabic music, dance, food and poetry:
Location: MLK Multi-Cultural Center, Inside the ASUC building
7 pm

Monday, March 8th:
PALESTINIAN NON- VIOLENT RESISTANCE & INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY- A presentation of community-led movements against Israeli policies in the Wesk Bank.
Lubna Masarwa
Room 105, Boalt Hall School of Law - Bancroft between College & Piedmont
6:30 pm

And of course there will be the ubiquitous "direct actions" set up on campus to annoy the students- checkpoints and walls,and soldiers, oh my!


The best response to the lies and demonization came last year from Israel Vice Consul, Ishmael Khaldi, a Bedouin Arab.

So, I would like to share the following with organizers of Israel Apartheid week, for those of them who are open to dialogue and not blinded by a hateful ideology:

You are part of the problem, not part of the solution: If you are really idealistic and committed to a better world, stop with the false rhetoric. We need moderate people to come together in good faith to help find the path to relieve the human suffering on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Vilification and false labeling is a blind alley that is unjust and takes us nowhere.

You deny Israel the fundamental right of every society to defend itself: You condemn Israel for building a security barrier to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and for striking at buildings from which missiles are launched at its cities - but you never offer an alternative. Aren't you practicing yourself a deep form of racism by denying an entire society the right to defend itself?

Your criticism is willfully hypocritical: Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage - you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available.

You are betraying the moderate Muslims and Jews who are working to achieve peace: Your radicalism is undermining the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. We are working hard to move toward a peace agreement that recognizes the legitimate rights of both Israel and the Palestinian people, and you are tearing down by falsely vilifying one side.

Israel Exports Surge 33%. Is the BDS movement responsible?

TEL AVIV, Feb 16 - Israel's economy grew at an annualised 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, its fastest pace in nearly two years and helped by a surge in exports...

Exports -- which account for nearly half of Israel's economic activity -- surged 33 percent in the fourth quarter while consumer spending rose 4.4 percent, according to the government's prior estimate of fourth-quarter data.

I can't help but wonder about the role the BDS movement has played in this. Did the BDS movement help fuel this growth by calling attention to the wide variety of Israeli consumer goods available in America?

Trader Joes Couscous was reported to "fly off the shelves" in some locations, as a direct result of the boycott publicity.

And in Toronto over 500 cases of Israeli wine were sold out in half an hour to the dismay of boycott organizer, who slunked away in embarrassment.

When we fight back, we win.
Support Democracy, buy Israeli.
And be sure to sign up for notifications of Buycott action here

Can we find 433,971 people to hate on Israel? California's Divestment Initiative

Cross posted Here:

After 10 years of abject failure, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement, like the Energizer bunny, keeps going and going and going...

Chris Yatooma has recently introduced a ballot initiative to force California's state pension funds to divest from companies doing business in Israel. 433,971 signatures are needed by mid-July to put the proposed law on the November election ballot.

The initiative was submitted under the name of the "Israel Divestiture Forum," (IDF). According to an interview in the San Francisco Examiner , Yatooma claims "that's just me having some fun". No, Mr. Yatooma, it's fraud. The same way Paul Larudee of the International Solidarity Movement naming his latest anti-Israel venture the "Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees" ( AIPAC ) is fraud, meant to deliberately deceive. It’s the same tactics we've seen over and over again, as the anti-Israel forces attempt to push their agenda on a disinterested public. In the absence of facts and history, fraud and outright forgery have become the well-oiled tools in the anti-Israel tool chest.

According to Mr. Yatooma, "Public retirement systems in this state currently invest on behalf of the citizens of California in publicly traded foreign companies that may be at risk due to business ties with foreign states such as Israel." Clearly Mr. Yatooma has not read "Start up Nation" . Israel has more companies on the tech-oriented NASDAQ than any country outside the United States - more than all of Europe, Japan, Korea, India, and China combined. Israel also attracts more of the global pool of venture capital investments per capita than any other country, with $2 billion in foreign venture capital invested in 2008. For the last five years the Israeli economy has substantially outstripped the average GDP growth rate of developed countries. Today Israel has the highest density of startups in the world.

Yatooma's initiative is chock full of typos, misstatements and downright lies. His agenda is clear, however- by declaring "territory occupied by Israel since 1949" he denies the right of Israel to exist, within any borders.

Over the years the California initiative process has been hijacked by special interest groups pushing their agenda, and this year is no different. An initiative costs $200 to file, but can cost nearly $2 million to qualify for the ballot. The question is not whether Yatooma find 433,971 people to hate on Israel, but whether he can do it without resorting to fraud, forgery and lies. Given the history of the BDS movement, the odds aren't good.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS AND THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT - HAMAS AGENDA

The Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists - an activist group flying under religious cover in the East Bay settlement of Berkeley - continues to promote hatred towards Israel and her supporters.

Their compadres at The World Can't Wait sent out the following notice:


Quote:
Sunday, February 21, 7 PM
END THE SIEGE! FREE GAZA ! A REPORT BACK ON THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH WITH ALAN GOODMAN
Berkeley Fellowship Of Unitarian Universalists 1924 Cedar Street (At Bonita), Berkeley, CA Info: 510-684-8270

Alan Goodman, a participant in the Gaza Freedom March and a correspondent for Revolution newspaper, will give a report back on the Gaza Freedom March that took place on December 31, 2009 in Cairo. His slideshow-presentation illustrates and brings to life the critical situation for the people of Gaza one year after Israel's massacre. It highlights the importance of the Gaza Freedom March, in the struggle to break the siege of Gaza. This presentation paints a vivid picture of challenges in persevering with the mission of the March in Egypt after Egyptian authorities banned the marchers from going to Gaza - including a unique report on a major protest meeting of Egyptians to break the siege of Gaza......
End quote.


Now, if you are worried about the ethics of publishing material from their mailing list, don't be. The same notice also said "Forward this email far and wide, and mark your calendar. And we'll see you there! P.S. World Can't Wait will be tabling at all these programs, so if you can volunteer to help, we welcome your email or call!"
You may consider this post a 'far and wide forwarding'.


NOTE: Despite their best efforts, the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists cannot possibly equal the sheer hatemongering of their night with Gilad Atzmon last year on June 8.
It was a charity performance on behalf of the Free Gaza and International Solidarity Movements, co-sponsored by Bay Area Women in Black.


I remember it well.


Tuesday, June 02, 2009
HATE: CHURCH SANCTIONED IN BERKELEY
The Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists (BFUU) plans to host notorious hate-monger Gilad Atzmon. The event in question will a be a charity performance on behalf of the Free Gaza and International Solidarity Movements, co-sponsored by Bay Area Women in Black.
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/06/hate-its-church-sanctioned-in-berkeley.html


Monday, June 08, 2009
ANTI-SEMITISM IN BERKELEY - THE BFUU AND GILAD ATZMON
"Throughout the centuries, Jewish bankers bought for themselves some real reputations of backers and financers of wars, and even one communist revolution. Though rich Jews had been happily financing wars using their assets... "
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/06/anti-semitism-in-berkeley-bfuu-and.html

Tuesday, June 09, 2009
UNITARIANS, GILAD ATZMON, HAMAS FLAG? BERKELEY!
"After the Berkeley Unitarians had been made aware of the "controversial" nature of Gilad Atzmon's writings, they decided to go ahead with the planned event, claiming they had merely "contracted to rent the BFUU hall" for a "group the BFUU-SJC had supported before", namely the ISM (International Solidarity Movement). "
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/06/unitarians-gilad-atzmon-hamas-flag.html


Tuesday, June 09, 2009
STEPHEN PEARCY AND JOSEPH ANDERSON AT THE BFUU
"Personally, I *EXULT* everytime I see an Israeli Jew bit the dust. And the same goes for their American cousins! EVERY SINGLE JEW EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD is a just and appropriate target for anti-colonialist liberation! We need to start targeting *EVERY* synagogue, *EVERY* Jew community center, school and everywhere else that you racist devils preach and propogate your agenda."
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/06/stephen-pearcy-and-joseph-anderson-at.html


Wednesday, June 10, 2009
MORE ABOUT GILAD ATZMON
"Questioning the holocaust and its meaning is what liberation of humanity means today and in the near future. "
"If the Palestinians are indeed the last victims of Hitler, then the holocaust and its meaning do belong to them more than anyone else."
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-about-gilad-atzmon.html


It is worth remembering that the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists assert themselves as being equitable and openminded - in Berkeley that means an uncritical attitude towards bigotry, pro-terrorist ideologies, and hate.
Because, after all, those too are viewpoints.

Please direct any queries you may have to:

Berkeley Fellowship Of Unitarian Universalists
1924 Cedar Street (At Bonita), Berkeley, CA
Info: 510-684-8270


I am sure they will be delighted at the chance to make their opinions known.
Or their assorted sincere feelings.
That, also, is part of religious outreach.

Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh to speak at UC Berkeley

Wednesday February 17, 2010 at 7:00pm
Tan Oak Room of MLK Building, UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California

Acclaimed Palestinian Journalist Abu Toameh will speak at UC Berkeley Wednesday. Khaled Abu Toameh ( خالد أبو طعمة‎, ) is an Israeli Arab journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is the West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and U.S. News and World Report, and has been the Palestinian affairs producer for NBC News since 1988.

Khaled Abu Toameh was formerly a senior reporter for The Jerusalem Report, and a correspondent for Al-Fajr. He has produced several documentaries on the Palestinians for the BBC, Channel 4, Australian, Danish and Swedish TV.

Read his work here and here

Khaled Abu Toameh provides a a balanced, nuanced approach to reporting about the middle east. In his words:

During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah.

"Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber.

I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s “apartheid system” is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show signs that it was interested in making peace and not because of the rockets that the Islamic movement was launching at Israeli communities.

I was also told that top Fatah operative Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life terms in prison for masterminding terror attacks against Israeli civilians, was thrown behind bars simply because he was trying to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Furthermore, I was told that all the talk about financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority was “Zionist propaganda” and that Yasser Arafat had done wonderful things for his people, including the establishment of schools, hospitals and universities.

The good news is that these remarks were made only by a minority of people on the campuses who describe themselves as “pro-Palestinian,” although the overwhelming majority of them are not Palestinians or even Arabs or Muslims.

The bad news is that these groups of hard-line activists/thugs are trying to intimidate anyone who dares to say something that they don’t like to hear. "

Berkeley Daily Planet = Kaputz!

Yes. It's over. Done. Gone. The Berkeley Daily Planet, the evil little rag run by no other than Becky O'Malley herself, is (almost - come Feb 25th) no more.

For years, Becky kept the rag alive with her own funds, determined to bash Jews at every opportunity. Rumor has it that the accountant embezzled enough funds to deter even this most vicious anti-semite from spending further pension proceeds on the rag.

So, the rag goes online. To be lost among the intarwebs, in a minefield of boredom.

The Daily Planet Watchdog had this to say:

Sad, Sad Day

The Daily Planet announced today that it is ceasing print operations, effective February 25. It will apparently continue on, at least for a while, as some kind of online echo chamber for Marxist and jihadi opinion, devoid of reportage.

We mourn its loss. A good local paper could have been a great civic asset. Regrettably, Daily Planet Executive Editor and Owner, Becky O’Malley, could never bring herself to represent the public good. Instead, she insisted on using her newspaper for the relentless dissemination of hatred and misinformation, enslaving it to her bitter prejudices and personal vendettas. In time, the paper’s advertisers fled, most decent citizens of Berkeley ceased reading it (except to monitor it for hate speech or to read its funnies), the paper’s print run shrank, and its news racks devolved into receptacles for fast food wrappers (see here), a habitat for vermin (see here). In a final orgy of self-pity, O’Malley threw a fundraiser for herself, but less than one-half of one per cent of her readers came to her party, resulting in little profit, if any at all. See here.

Defiant to the end, when recently castigated for publishing a paranoid conspiracy theory about the swine flu vaccine, she promised to desist from publishing further junk science lest it harm the public. But then when leaders in the community posed the question as to why she would desist from publishing junk science when she continues to publish junk history and junk theology that only serves to demonize Jews and Israelis (see here), her incredible response was to change her mind about junk science, and to state that she would then continue to publish nutty conspiracy theories (January 28, 2010). So great was this sorry woman’s hatred and bitterness.

We regret what could have been. However, we take heart that the Daily Planet’s ignoble demise, along with the financial ruin of its owners, Becky and Michael O’Malley, might serve as an object lesson to Berkeleyans for generations to come. In particular, future Berkeley newspapers (and politicians for that matter) may think two or three times over before they ever again so grossly insult the sensibilities of a large proportion of Berkeley’s population.

We do not know whether the Daily Planet’s online blog will warrant further efforts on our part. Nevertheless, we will keep DPWatchDog online into the indefinite future as a corrective to the availability of past issues of the Berkeley Daily Planet at the local library and online, for the use of future historians, and as a matter of personal pride, happy to have been able to help serve the public good.

John Gertz
Editor

Fight the BDS Movement--Shop at the Davis Co-op on Feb 14 and Show Israel Some Love!

The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement is an tactic from the anti-apartheid effort now adopted by the anti-Israel groups in the US and Europe. Of course, it completely ignores the fact that Arabs in the State of Israel have citizenship and full and equal political and civil rights. and that there is no apartheid in the Mid-East’s only democracy.

Periodically, this effort targets stores selling Israeli products, in an effort to persuade them to stop stocking them. This time, they have focused their efforts on the Davis Co-op. The good news is that Co-op isn't buying the garbage being peddled by the anti-Israel groups.

So, go to the Davis Co-op and show Israel some love on Sunday, Feb. 14 for Valentine’s day.

1. Buy a whole bunch of Israeli products (if they are off the shelf, maybe someone else read this and bought the entire stock-- so go to the store manager and tell him/her they need to buy more!) Israeli wine, couscous and feta cheese are available at the Co-op.

2. Tell the store manager to keep stocking these products because you really like them!

3. Also tell the store manager that we’ve declared Feb. 14 as the "Day to Buy Israeli Products" so they can be prepared. And please pass the couscous.

Davis Co-op
620 G St
Davis, Ca., 95616

A New Product to Boycott: Non-invasive lung cancer test developed in Israel.

Another medical marvel out of Israel- A non-invasive, inexpensive way to diagnose lung cancer:

"Using an array of sensors made of gold particles measuring just 5-nanometers wide (one nanometer is 1/100,000 the width of a human hair), researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed an "electronic nose" able to distinguish the breath of lung cancer patients from those without the disease. The research results, published online yesterday on the Website of Nature Nanotechnology, could lead to a rapid and non-invasive way of diagnosing and screening for lung cancer." In an initial trial, the “breathalyzer” test was able to detect lung cancer with 86 percent accuracy.

Also interesting about this project is that the research in Israel was led by Dr. Hossam Haick, an Arab Israeli and winner of many awards for his research, including the Chair for Leaders in Science and Technology (2006-2008), the Israel-France Award for Academic Excellence (2008), the Herschel Rich Innovation Award (2008), the Minerva Short-Term Research Award (2008), the Bergmann Award for Excellent Young Scientists (2007), the CREATE Award (2007), the Al-Qendil Prize (2007), and the YMCA (2007) and Rotary (2007) Honorary Decorations. In addition, Dr. Haick was selected for the lists of “50 Leading Israelis for 2007” and “four saluted Israeli scientists” of Yedioth Aharonot. Other honors and awards include the Fulbright fellowship, ‘Israel Ministry of Science and Technology' awards, Dr. Avrahami prize, and CNR-IMIP prize. Just what we'd expect from Israel, the apartheid state.

These findings have great potential for fast, easy, and cost-effective early diagnosis and screening of lung cancer. Be sure to look for this, and other fine Israeli innovations on the next Code Pink boycott list, because saving lives is never as important as advancing an ideology.

BERKELEY DAILY PLANET ADVERTISERS SUPPORTING JEW HATE

For a long time the Berkeley Daily Planet has had an agenda that can best be categorized as 'fashionably anti-Semitic'. This is in keeping with much of the Berkeley welt-anschauung, and so cannot be considered either daringly different or deliberately provocative. Anti-Semitism in Berkeley is a stolidly middle-class phenomenon.

The distaste for Jews in Berkeley is reassuringly boring, bourgeois, and supportive of the status-quo.

Consequently, businesses that advertise in the Berkeley Daily Planet (published weekly) do so secure in the knowledge that their funding of Becky O'Malley's racist rag will in no way offend their customer-base. Purchasing ad-space in the Berkeley Daily Planet is a savvy business move and attracts precisely the clientele to which they wish to cater.


Ethical people will not want to patronize the following businesses:


Black Oak Books
2618 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, 94710, Tel. 510-486-0698.
Berkeley Self Storage
2235 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley Tel. 510-843-1400.
Johnson Medical Inc.
2801 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, 510-843-2488.
The Luggage Center
2221 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, 94704, Tel. 510-843-3385.
Persimmon
9024 The Alameda, Berkeley, Tel. 510-524-3220.



BERKELEYITE GUTTER PRESS

For more on the Daily Planet and its hetze against Jews, see this post:
http://anarchozionist.blogspot.com/2009/10/becky-omalley-is-rabid-hater.html
And this:
http://deathbynoodles.blogspot.com/2009/07/daily-planet-watchdog-and-bitter-bitch.html


For an in-depth expose of the Berkeley Daily Planet, go to the site of the Daily Planet Watchdog:
http://dpwatchdog.com/


Even a passing examination of the facts will make it obvious that the Berkeley Daily Planet and its readers aspire to an almost Faustian creepiness.

Berkeley, once a forward looking bastion of liberal values, has become a cramped and stunted parody of itself; a place where free-speech is permitted provided it is au-courant, hip, and above all politically approved, where dissent is applauded only if it is comfortingly orthodox.
The Berkeley Daily Planet caters to an audience that is hopelessly addicted to their own self-gratificatory fantasies.

In the past, similar publications would be sold under the counter.

Nowadays masturbatory material like the Berkeley Daily Planet is unabashedly sponsored by the venal salesmen of a passé bohemia.