IsraCampus.Org.il

I am writing to express my support of your actions toward helping the boycott movement become engulfing and effective. By responding to the Palestinian call to boycott Israel, you emerged as the pioneers of the boycott movement against Israel and I hope you will be able to witness its impact on redressing injustices and on changing the face of the world.

Thanks to you, the boycott movement against Israel is now gaining force. Examples abound: Dock workers in South Africa refused to offload a ship carrying Israeli goods; Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia have also called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel ; a Turkish company refused to do business with Israelis “with blood on their hands”; young individuals in France cleared Israeli goods off a store’s shelve. The boycott movement is indeed biting. Israeli goods are losing foreign markets: 21% of Israeli exporters report that they are facing problems in selling Israeli goods because of an anti-Israel boycott, mainly from the UK and Scandinavian countries.

That business is not as usual as can be gleaned from the EU decision to freeze a planned upgrade of ties with Israel in order to pressure its government to abide by the international commitments made towards the welfare of the Palestinian people. “We expect a stop of all activities undermining our objective of a two-state solution… citing the expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories … which is continuing on a daily basis.".

Israel is also facing cultural isolation: Israel’s sports teams have met with hostile protests in Sweden, Spain and Turkey. Israeli money donated to help fund the 2009 film festival in Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) was returned to the Israeli Embassy.

The Academic boycott started in Britain by you and people like you is perhaps the most solid form of cultural boycott to-date, resonating in universities and academic institutions all over the world: Cardiff University divested from Israel; CUPE-Ontario's University Workers Coordinating Committee (OUWCC) encouraged members “to hold public forums to discuss an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions”; Quebec College Federation joined the BDS campaign; Australian scholars called for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions; US academics agitated for academic boycott of Israel..