Boycott of Israel grows as Anglican Church, Architect Association join With the recent announcement by the Church of England that it would divest from companies which profit from Israel's occupation, as well as a similar divestment by an Architect's Association in England, the 'Boycott Israel' campaign appears to be gaining ground.
Based on a similar 'divestment/boycott' campaign against the apartheid regime of South Africa in the 1980s, the focus of the boycott is to put pressure on companies that do business with Israel to divest until Israel changes its policies. The Anglican Church will divest the 200 million pounds it currently has invested in the Caterpillar Company, a company whose bulldozers (particularly the armored D9 model) are used to demolish Palestinian homes. The Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian homes that are in a 'security zone', or near the path of the Wall's construction, or a planned settlement, has rendered at least 27,000 Palestinians homeless over the last five years, according to human rights organizations. .... Pro-Israeli groups in the US have challenged the boycott - the Anti-Defamation League, for example, called it a "moral outrage." Meanwhile, the Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine plan to go ahead with a boycott and divestment campaign. Eyal Weizman, the Israeli director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith's College in London, urged action. "A boycott would be totally legitimate," he said. "The wall and the settlements have been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and we should boycott any company which does business, any architects that participate - anyone facilitating these human rights violations and war crimes." Charles Jenckes told the British newspaper ‘The Independent’, "There reaches a certain point where an architect can't sit on the fence. Not to stand up to it would be to be complicit." cont'd... http://www.palestinenet.org/english/archive2006/feb/week3/180206/report6.htm _______________________________________________ in-enaction mailing list http://mail.architexturez.net/mailman/listinfo/in-enaction + Architexturez collaborative at http://portal.architexturez.org/
