Survey: Nearly one-quarter of Jewish-Israelis boycotting Arab businesses

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Written by JTA JTA

Published: 01 October 2014 01 October 2014

Some 51 percent of those surveyed also said that businesses that do not fire employees who criticize the Israel Defense Forces should be boycotted

JERUSALEM (JTA) — One in four Jewish-Israeli consumers is boycotting Arab businesses in the wake of the summer’s Gaza conflict, according to an Israeli business daily.
The 24 percent is down from the 29 percent who said they were boycotting Arab-owned businesses during the 50-day Operation Protective Edge, Globes reported, citing a telephone survey by the Tel Aviv-based Geocartography Knowledge Group research institute. The number was down significantly from the 47 percent of Jewish-Israelis who said during the operation that they planned to boycott such businesses.
Some 51 percent of those surveyed also said that businesses that do not fire employees who criticize the Israel Defense Forces should be boycotted, and that some 11 percent of Jewish-Israelis are boycotting such businesses. Another 40 percent said they would boycott such businesses if they could identify them, the survey found.
Globes quoted unnamed sources among suppliers who said that sales to Arab-owned markets are down substantially in recent months.


Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/10/01/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/survey-nearly-one-quarter-of-jewish-israelis-boycotting-arab-businesses

Move on? Work to reclaim Univ. of Illinois has has only just begun

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Written by Vicente M. Diaz Vicente M. Diaz

Published: 29 September 2014 29 September 2014

Opinion/Editorial
The Electronic Intifada
26 September 2014

 
Students and faculty are determined to keep challenging University of Illinois administrators’ decision to fire Steven Salaita. (Jeffrey Putney/Flickr)

This is the testimony given by Professor Vicente M. Diaz before the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Faculty Senate on 22 September 2014. Diaz spoke about the matter of Steven Salaita, whose hiring by the American Indian Studies program was formally rejected by the university’s board of trustees earlier this month after a sustained smear campaign by pro-Israel donors, organizations, faculty and students:

My name is Vicente M. Diaz. I am an Associate Professor in American Indian Studies and Anthropology. I am also an affiliate faculty member in History and Asian American Studies. I represent American Indian Studies; in fact, I co-chaired the search committee that recommended the hire of Steven Salaita.

I’m here to express moral indignation and outrage at the University of Illinois Board of Trustees’ denial of Professor Salaita’s hiring.

Far from over, and even further from correct, our leadership’s decision is a wrongheaded and misguided action that has tarnished our university’s reputation among academics who know and understand how academia is supposed to work.

Read more: Move on? Work to reclaim Univ. of Illinois has has only just begun

Israel’s N.S.A. Scandal

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Written by JAMES BAMFORD JAMES BAMFORD

Published: 17 September 2014 17 September 2014

[Americans and Palestinians have something in common: Israel is spying on us both!]

WASHINGTON — IN Moscow this summer, while reporting a story for Wired magazine, I had the rare opportunity to hang out for three days with Edward J. Snowden. It gave me a chance to get a deeper understanding of who he is and why, as a National Security Agency contractor, he took the momentous step of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

Among his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the N.S.A. was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit 8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.

Typically, when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel, the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this way.

Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen.”

It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses. In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media, they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.

Read more on the NY Times

7500 New Settlers Moved Into West Bank, Jerusalem, Settlements In Six Months

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Written by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Report post Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Report post

Published: 17 September 2014 17 September 2014

The Yesha Council of Settlements has reported that the number of Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank, including in and around occupied Jerusalem, has reached 382031, adding that 7500 Israelis have moved into West Bank and Jerusalem settlements in the last six months.

Yesha said that, back in January of 2014, 374469 settlers lived in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and that the current number of settlers (382031) is a 2% increase.

It said that the biggest settlement is Beitar Illit settlement, located southwest of occupied Jerusalem, with a population of 63087 Jewish settlers.

There are more than 200.000 Israeli settlers living in various settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.

Settlements are illegal under International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.

They are largely built on privately-owned Palestinian lands, and many on what Israel calls “State Lands” which, by itself, is illegal as the West Bank and Jerusalem are under illegitimate Israeli occupation.

Read more: 7500 New Settlers Moved Into West Bank, Jerusalem, Settlements In Six Months