22 November 2007 - The conference was convened by the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), the OPGAI-Coalition, PACBI and the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. There was consensus among participants that building civil resistance is a priority in the current era, and that the Campaign for the Boycott of Israel can re-vitalize popular resistance and restore dignity to the Palestinian people. Work on the Palestinian BDS Campaign should be seen in this context and lead to the formation of an inclusive Steering Committee for the Campaign. Additional recommendations included:

General: Palestinian employment in Jewish settlements and Israel is to be excluded from the boycott, because it is a source of necessary income that has no current substitute.

Study Israeli products in the Palestinian market: What are they? Where are they distributed? How do they enter?

Identify Israeli products which have Palestinian (or other) alternatives and mobilize for massive consumer boycotts against them;

Mobilize pressure to prevent entry of Israeli products (e.g. put up boxes for public complaints) where local alternatives exist;

Start dialogue with Palestinian companies about ways to support Palestinian national products and expand employment of the Palestinian work force.

As work with the major (potential) allies (e.g., unions, faith-based organizations/churches, political parties) continues, give special attention to:

November 2007 to March 2008, Scotland - The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) have cancelled the Eden Springs contracts at three of their offices: Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) have removed Eden Springs water coolers from their offices. Edinburgh University students won the debate at their Student’s Association General Meeting to cancel the university’s Eden Springs contract. Napier University branch of the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) passed a motion at their AGM to call for a cancellation of the university’s Eden Springs contract. A motion will now be raised at EIS Scotland national conference. Caledonian University Students Parliament (student’s representative council) voted to cancel Eden Springs contract - with no votes against. UNISON Scotland have removed Eden Springs from their offices, distributes information about the Eden Springs boycott through their water@work campaign and, following motion 53 on Palestine passed at UNISON national conference, supports the campaign to boycott Eden Springs. For more, see: www.scottishpsc.org.uk

Eden Springs Ltd, otherwise known as Mayanot Eden, is trying to raise credit

to complete their buy-out of Groupe Danone (http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/DocView.asp?did=1000278592&fid=1725). Let us send a message to European banks that any backing they give to this Israeli company will be at a high risk because we do not want Eden Springs in Europe. Let us work together to raise the boycott of Eden Springs across Europe! Contact us at campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk

28 November 2007 - Toronto, Canada - Students at Ryerson University working through their student union (http://www.rsuonline.ca) and Students Against Israeli Apartheid (a campus network of anti-apartheid activists: http://www.caiaweb.org) pressured the university administration to hold an open debate on a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. This is the first time that such a debate has been held on a Canadian campus with the explicit support of the university administration, and signals both a major success of the anti-apartheid movement in Canada, as well as a potential turning point in the academic boycott campaign. Students mobilized to pressure the university administration to hold this debate in response to a letter denouncing the British University and College Union’s resolution to open a debate on Academic boycott, which was signed by tens of Canadian university presidents without consulting their universities’ students.

For a more detailed account of the debate, please see Justin Podur’s article at:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=14403

29 November 2007 – The Netherlands – The largest Dutch trade union, FNV ABVAKABO, with over 350,000 members, sent a letter to the Palestinian Health Services Union and Public Services Union to assure the Palestinian trade unions that the union will put pressure on Israel to comply with international law. The planned solidarity conference of FNV ABVAKABO will involve more FNV affiliates and point out to the Dutch government and parliament their responsibility to hold Israel accountable for its non-compliance with international law.

For more, see: http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A642_0_1_0_M

29 November 2007 – Pretoria, South Africa – [Excerpt] “If Palestinians were inspired enough by our struggle that they called for global support for their struggle, we South Africans had to take up the weapons of struggle and march at their side. If the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa was an example of how people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions, then we have no choice but to help shoulder the responsibility to abolish the apartheid that seeks to oppress and destroy the Palestinian people.”

See: http://www.endtheoccupation.org.za/Eddie_Makue_UN_Address.html

5 December 2007, Cairo, Egypt - Arab officials have rejected a United Nations proposal to setup a regional environmental training center in the Middle East because it would include Israel.

See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/931558.html

7 December 2007 and 26 February 2008 - Shabtai explained that “the book event, or any other kind of exhibition in which the Israeli State is invited, is not a way to promote peace in the Middle East, and not a way to bring justice to the Palestinians, but only propaganda to give Israel an image of being a liberal and democratic society. A State which maintains an occupation and commits daily crimes against civilians does not deserve to be invited to whichever cultural week. We cannot accept to be part of that. Israel is not a democratic State but an apartheid State. We cannot support that State at all.” He added that “there is collaboration between the European governments and Israel. The Israeli invitation is part of it. Without the help of the United States, and now the help of France, Israel could not continue such a policy against the Palestinians. This help gives Israel the green light to go on attacking and killing the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. It is very sad to see that France, Germany, European countries -which have a history of persecution against the Jews- are taking part in the persecution of the Palestinian and Muslim peoples by Israel.”

For the full interview, see: http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A676_0_1_0_M

13 December - Madrid, Spain - The Palestinian civil society delegation from the occupied Palestinian Territory to the Forum for a Just Peace in the Middle East, planned for December 14 to 16 in Madrid, has decided not to participate in the Forum. Coordinators of the delegation learned that due to unprecedented pressure from the Israeli establishment, a substantial Israeli delegation was undemocratically and underhandedly “invited” to participate in the Forum without endorsing the Forum’s Reference Document. This was not only a significant breach of the key rule of participation; it was a contravention of the express will of the overwhelming majority of the International Committee, the decision-making steering committee of the conference.

For more, see: http://www.babelmed.net/Countries/Mediterranean/just_peace.php?c=2862&m=9&l=en

15 December 2007 – Vancouver/Toronto/Montreal, Canada – The National Day of Action to boycott Chapters and Indigo bookstores is in response to their support for the execution of state-sponsored human rights violations in Israel. Pickets were organized to demand that majority shareholders Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz formally announce an end to their financial support for the Israeli military.

22 January 2008 - Israel - Over 100 Israeli academics have signed a petition encouraging the United Methodist Church “to divest from companies that enable the occupation to continue, we the undersigned shall applaud your courageous initiative, and fervently hope that it will set an example for many others to follow...”

For the full petition, see: http://www.petitiononline.com/Israelis/petition.html

15 January 2008 – England - The London School of Economics Students’ Union (LSESU) noted that 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Nakba - the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinian Arabs from their homes and homeland in historic Palestine - and voted overwhelmingly to call on its university and the National Union of Students (NUS) to:

To read the full motion, see: http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A665_0_1_0_M

5 February 2008 – France – [Excerpt from Tariq Ali’s letter] “When I agreed to participate in the Turin Book Fair, which I have done before, I had no idea that the ‘guest of honour’ was Israel and its 60th birthday. But this is also the 60th anniversary of what the Palestinian call the ‘nakba,’ the disaster that befell them that year, when they were expelled from their villages, some killed, women raped by the settlers. These facts are no longer disputed. So why did the Turin Book Fair not invite Palestinians in equal numbers? 30 Israeli writers and 30 Palestinian writers (and I promise you they exist and are very fine poets and novelists) might have been seen as a positive and peaceful gesture and a positive debate might have taken place. A literary version of Daniel Barenboim’s Diwan Orchestra, half-Israeli, half-Palestinian. Such a move would have brought people together, but no. The cultural commissars know best. I have argued vigorously with some of the Israeli writers visiting the fair on other occasions and would have happily done the same again if conditions had been different. What they decided to do is an ugly provocation.”

IAW is a series of events that ran for the fourth consecutive year in early February 2008, with coordinated events taking place between the 3rd and 18th of February in 25 cities across the USA, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Norway, UK, and Palestine. The week was launched with a speech given by Dr. Azmi Beshara in Soweto, South Africa which was televised on Al-Jazeera, and broadcast to the audiences of opening night events in the other cities. The week’s events included lectures, multimedia events, cultural performance, film screenings, demonstrations, and informational exhibits aimed at raising public awareness about the apartheid character of the Israeli state, the linkages between the Palestinian struggle and local struggles in the different countries in which the week was organized, and pushing forward the campaign for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli apartheid regime. More information can be found at http://www.apartheidweek.org

9 February 2008 – US – Protesters in New York and London called on shoppers to boycott the jewelry store of Lev Leviev because of his support for the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law as well as abuse of marginalized communities in Angola.

22 February, England – Delegates of the Green Party in England and Wales agreed to back the BDS campaign launched by Palestinian groups which urge broad boycotts of Israel similar to those imposed on apartheid South Africa.

27 February 2008 - The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has called upon all its 50 member states to boycott the Paris Book Fair. In a statement ISESCO said “the crimes against humanity that Israel is perpetrating in the Palestinian territories... constitute, in themselves, a strong condemnation of Israel, making it unworthy of being welcomed as a guest of honour at an international book fair.” The Lebanese Culture Minister Tarek Mitri announced that “Lebanon will not participate this year in protest at the cultural event’s organisers’ decision to select Israel as guest of honour.” Twenty-five Egyptian groups have announced that they will not take part, as has the Union of Algerian Writers. In Sanaa, the head of the state-run Public Book Authority, Dr Faris al-Saqqaf, told AFP that Yemen would not be participating at the request of the Arab League.

Upon hearing that Swiss Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Walter Knutti was scheduled to head a delegation to visit the Israeli air force from 2 to 4 March, 2008, Collectif Urgence Palestine (http://urgencepalestine.ch) and Groupe pour une Suisse sans Armée (http://www.gssa.ch) undertook a major mobilization to stop this delegation visit from taking place. As a result of their efforts, the visit was cancelled. contact tobia@gsoa.ch.

7 March 2008 – Scotland - The University of Edinburgh called off a lecture by Israeli Ambassador to Great Britain Ron Prosor as a result of efforts undertaken by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).

3 March 2008 – [Excerpt from letter of Ilan Pappe] “I cannot myself participate in any direct way in the Salon. I suggest that we all convene a new date outside the days of the Salon so as not be associated with its celebrations of Israel’s independence and its total denial of the Palestinian Nakba. However, I understand if « La Fabrique » and other participants would not accept this position, in which I case I will withdraw myself from the events.”

To read the letter, see: http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=A684_0_1_0_M

3 March 2008 - EJJP is a network of European Jewish groups campaigning against the Israeli occupation from ten European countries, including Germany, Italy, France and the UK. “We advocate for European suspension of the trade association agreement with Israel as a non-violent way to promote Palestinian rights and peace,” stated Dror Feiler, Chairperson of EJJP, and “this is the message we are taking to parliamentarians and politicians. Diplomats talk, but now is the time for action.”