-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 2/11 SF Forum&Video On UW Israeli Divestment Campaign & 2/11
Breakfast For Public Workers
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 06:22:25 -0800
From: steve zeltzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: MEI3 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Lessons From
The UW Divestment Campaign Of Israeli Bonds
Saturday February 11, 2006 7:30 PM
New College Theater
777 Valencia St/19th St. San Francisco
$5.00 Donation Requested
Speakers:
Nasser Abufarha, UW PHD candidate, T.A. member of (TAWP) and leader
of the
University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign
Mark Evenson, President Elect of The Association of University of
Wisconsin Professionals (TAUWP)AFT
Join labor and community activists as we learn about the growing
national campaign to divest public pension funds from Israel. As a
result of special legislation supported by the California state
legislature, public pension funds for state workers, teachers and
University of California and the California State University system
are helping to fund the Israeli government. This financial support
is used to further the apartheid wall being constructed by Israel
and the discriminatory policies against Palestinians on both sides
of their border.
Nasser Abhfarha and Mark Eveson have been leaders and advocates for
action by the University of Wisconsin on the these issues and they
will discuss their campaign (http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu), why labor
has joined it and what can be done in California.
This tour is sponsored by
Labor For Palestine, Labor Committee For Peace and Justice, UC
Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Labor Action
Coalition (LAC) and other organizations
For more information call (415)867-0628
or email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
It is endorsed by Francesca Rosa, SEIU535 Delegate to SF Labor
Council*, Mary Ann Ring, President UC-CUE*, Carl Bryant NALC 214*,
Public Workers Breakfast With Nasser Abufarha
February 11, 2006 10:00 AM
Blue Muse Restaurant
409 Gough St./Hayes
Nasser Abufarha is a T.A. lecturer at the University of Wisconsin
and has been a key organizer of the effort to get the University of
Wisconsin to divest of Israeli stocks and bonds. His union, the
Association of Wisconsin Professionals (TAUWP) is affiliated with
the AFT. We will be having a breakfast with him on Saturday February
11, 2006 at 10:00 AM at the Blue Muse Restaurant which is located at
409 Gough near Hayes.
The breakfast cost is $13.00. This includes coffee and one entree.
Nasser will outline the work of their committee and how they have
educated their union about these issues.
Please make reservations by calling
Labor Video Project
(415)282-1908
This is sponsored by Labor For Palestine. It is endorsed by
Francesca Rosa, SEIU535 Delegate to SF Labor Council*, Mary Ann
Ring, President UC-CUE*
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Contact: Mohammed Abed, (608) 332-9900, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nasser Abufarha, (608) 770-7007, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of Wisconsin Divest From Israel Campaign Pressures Regents to
Divest at Public Forum
(Madison, WI- 11/10/05) The University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel
Campaign organized students, faculty and community members from around
the State of Wisconsin to attend the Annual Trust Fund Investment Forum
with the University¹s Board of Regents. This forum provides the public
with an opportunity to air their concerns about investments in
corporations implicated in discrimination and violations of basic human
rights and international law. The room was filled to capacity as close
to a 100 people came to speak in support of Divestment from Israel and
re-investment in socially responsible companies in Wisconsin and around
the United States. Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and people from a
diverse range of ethnic, national, and religious backgrounds came
forward to speak in favor of the campaign.
Speaker after speaker told the Regents that divestment was both a moral
imperative and sanctioned by UW¹s own ethical investment policies. UW
Investment policy 78-1, states that all investments OEmade in any
company, corporation, subsidiary or affiliate which practices or
condones through its actions discrimination on the basis of race
religion, color, creed or sex. . . .¹ shall be divested in as prudent
but rapid a manner as possible. Supporters of the campaign pointed out
that any corporation that does business with and/or in the State of
Israel stands in violation of investment policy 78-1 because the State
of Israel practices widespread, systematic, and institutionalized
discrimination against persons of non-Jewish descent living under its
control, irrespective of whether or not they are citizens of the state.
It was pointed out that these policies amounted to a regime of ethnic
separation without self-determination for the oppressed group, that is,
a system of apartheid similar in kind to that imposed on the black
population of South Africa prior to de-colonization.
UW investment policy 97-1 also stipulates that the Board of Regents will
seriously re-consider investments in companies implicated in practices
that OEviolate, subvert, or frustrate the enforcement of rules of
domestic or international law intended to protect individuals and/or
groups against deprivation of health, safety, basic freedoms or human
rights.¹ Companies such as Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics,
General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Raytheon are
particularly culpable since they provide weapons and supporting systems
that allow the Israeli Army and security services to implement state
policies that cause substantial social injury to the Palestinian people,
particularly Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians
in these areas have suffered both human rights abuses and war crimes
that include the demolition of over 12,000 civilian homes since 1967,
wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure, institutions, and
farmland, expropriation of Palestinian land and important natural
resources such as
water, the imposition of closures and curfews that prevent Palestinians
- including children and the elderly - from accessing healthcare, basic
education, jobs, and all the other services that sustain life. Although
Israel¹s apartheid wall has been ruled illegal by the International
Court of Justice, it continues to be built deep into West Bank
territory, denying Palestinians access to their own communities,
institutions and services. Along with the system of segregated roads in
the West Bank, the wall is the most visible manifestation of Israel¹s
apartheid policies towards the Palestinian people.
The University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign
(http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu) was founded by Al-Awda Wisconsin (The
Palestine Right to Return Coalition) and Alternative Palestinian Agenda
and is now a coalition comprised of several local and statewide student
and community based social justice organizations. The campaign gained
significant momentum when the Faculty Senate of the University of
Wisconsin-Platteville passed a resolution in favor of divestment on
January 25th 2005. The Platteville Senate is the highest academic body
in the United States to have adopted a resolution calling for divestment
from companies providing material aid to the Israeli army. The Teaching
Assistant¹s Association, the nation¹s oldest and largest teaching
assistant¹s union also passed a resolution calling for divestment from
companies identified by the UW Divest from Israel Campaign. The
Association of University of Wisconsin Professionals (TAUWP) soon
followed suit and adopted a divestment resolution by an overwhelming
majority of 24-2. TAUWP is the largest faculty and staff union in the
University of Wisconsin System.
The University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel campaign believes that in
so far as the effort to divest has as its foundation a commitment to
international law and the fundamental rights that belong to every human
being, it lays the groundwork for a just and enduring peace and is
therefore an expression of the hope for a free and secure future for
every Israeli and Palestinian currently suffering under the burden of
conflict. The campaign called on the Regents to keep this in mind and to
immediately discharge their obligation to implement UW¹s investment
policies, and in so doing, to follow the precedent set by the University
of Wisconsin¹s elimination of investments in apartheid era South Africa.
The Campaign also informed the Regents that it will continue to build
institutional and public momentum until divestment is achieved and the
University¹s money is re-invested in the local economy and in
sustainable, humane, and socially responsible business ventures in the
U.S. and abroad.
--
"I must fight with all my strength so that the little positive things that my
health allows me to do might be pointed toward helping the revolution. The only
real reason for living."
-Frida Kahlo
emma rosenthal is a disabled artist, writer, educator, activist and consultant,
living in southern california.
emma rosenthal
po box 1664
baldwin park, ca 91706
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
emma's web page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~emmarosenthal
emma's blog: In Bed With Frida Kahlo
http://inbedwithfridakahlo.blogsource.com/
The writing empowerment project http://home.earthlink.net/~theweproject
-educational and organizational consulting and dialogue.
cafe intifada http://home.earthlink.net/~cafeintifada
-art for social justice
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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