Palestine

The Australian ran an article on May 2 that claimed “the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has been caught on camera admitting ‘there isn't really any connection’ between Australian Max Brenner chocolate shops and Israel”.

Below is a response by Palestine solidarity campaigner Patrick Harrison, who was quoted in the article. It was submitted to the Australian but not published.

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When I visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2011 to take part in environmental volunteer projects, apartheid was plain to see.

“The anti-Semite Stephen Hawking can’t even wipe his own ass." “Someone should release the hand brake when he’s on a hill." “He should die already." These were just some of the comments left on Facebook after the most famous cosmologist in the world, Stephen Hawking, announced he was respecting the academic boycott of Israel.

About 40 protesters rallied outside the University of New South Wales main library on April 30 to oppose the planned opening of a Max Brenner chocolate store on campus, and call for UNSW to adopt the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid.

Palestine Action Group Sydney released this statement on May 2.

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Supporters of Palestine have responded to a May 2 report in the Australian that asserted that Max Brenner Israel has no direct shares in Max Brenner Australia as irrelevant to the solidarity campaign for justice in Palestine.

Palestine solidarity activists are bemused that the Australian has given front page coverage to this “scoop”. The YouTube video of the rally in question, which took place on September 21 last year, has also just been released.

Thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails marked Prisoners' Day with protests on April 17, joined by supporters outside the wire.

More than 3000 detainees refused breakfast as part of a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with Samer Essawi, whose on-off fast has lasted more than 250 days and stoked weeks of street protests.

Essawi is receiving nutrients via an intravenous drip but refusing food and his lawyer says his low heart rate means that he could die at any time.

Hundreds of working-class people waiting outside of a closed grocery store for the possibility of getting the remaining food is not the picture of the “American Dream.” Yet on March 23, outside the Laney Walker Supermarket in Augusta, Ga., that is exactly what happened.

British groups have for three months been pressing Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to withdraw its festival invitation to Israel's National Theatre, Habima, in response to the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli cultural institutions, Mondweiss.net said on March 29.