(1) PACBI has inserted the above banner on its homepage today in solidarity with the people of Tunisia and Egypt. If you wish to use the PACBI design, just credit PACBI and go ahead!
The stanzas are by Abu al-Qassim Ash-Shabbi, a major figure in Arab poetry from Tunisia. They are part of a poem that has become the "anthem" of the Tunisian popular uprising against the dictator, Ben Ali, and is now also chanted by the Egyptian youth demonstrating for freedom, social justice and dignity at Tahrir Square.
(2) Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign Press Release
[an excellent document prepared by the Campaign is attached-highly recommended reading that may inspire and help similar BDS campaigns]
MINNESOTA BREAK THE BONDS CAMPAIGN DEMANDS THAT THE STATE BOARD OF INVESTMENT DIVEST FROM ISRAEL
MINNEAPOLIS – February 1, 2011 – The Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC), a statewide campaign aimed at ending Minnesota investment in Israel until Israel complies with international law and respects human rights, has issued a written demand, a copy of which is attached, to the Minnesota State Board of Investment (SBI) that the Board divest from Israel Bonds. The demand is based on both legal and moral grounds. MN BBC has also requested that the issue be placed on the Board’s agenda for its next scheduled meeting on March 3, 2011.
The SBI’s investments in Israel Bonds are unlawful. MN BBC’s demand letter refers to provisions of the Minnesota Statutes that restrict state investment in foreign governments.
These investments also entangle Minnesota in Israel’s myriad international law and human rights violations.
MN BBC has formally advised the SBI that it will pursue legal action if the Board fails to place the issue on the March 3, 2011 meeting agenda and fails to divest.
About MN BBC
MN BBC is a group of Minnesotans, including Palestinians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, students, teachers, professionals, farmers, clergy, parents, community activists and their allies working together to bring fair and honest Palestine-centric education to Minnesota, to support justice and human rights and to take responsibility for correcting the injustices suffered by the indigenous Palestinian population under US sponsored Israeli occupation. MN BBC believes that the people of Minnesota have the moral obligation to make sound investments that do not aid in the oppression of any one race, creed or people.
###
1
website: mn.breakthebonds.org * email: mn@breakthebonds.org
VIA CERTIFIED MAIL
January 31, 2011
Howard J. Bicker
60 Empire Drive, Suite 355
St. Paul, MN 55103
Dear Mr. Bicker:
The purpose of this letter is to demand that the Minnesota State Board of
Investment (SBI) divest from all bonds or government obligations issued by the State of
Israel on the basis that such investments are unlawful and unjust.
The inclusive list of all categories of Government obligations in which the SBI is
permitted to invest is set forth in Minnesota Statute 11A.24, Subd. 2. That list does not
include any Government obligations issued by the State of Israel. The relevant statutory
provision is as follows:
“The state board may invest in governmental bonds, notes, bills, mortgages, and
other evidences of indebtedness provided the issue is backed by the full faith and credit
of the issuer or the issue is rated among the top four quality rating categories by a
nationally recognized rating agency. The obligations in which the board may invest under
this subdivision include guaranteed or insured issues of (a) the United States, its agencies,
its instrumentalities, or organizations created and regulated by an act of Congress; (b)
Canada and its provinces, provided the principal and interest is payable in United States
dollars; (c) the states and their municipalities, political subdivisions, agencies or
instrumentalities; (d) the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the
Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African
Development Bank, or any other United States government sponsored organization of
which the United States is a member, provided the principal and interest is payable in
United States dollars.” (Emphasis added.)
The quoted provisions of Section 11A.24 explicitly prohibit SBI investments in
any government obligations that do not fall within the four categories listed in the second
sentence of the subdivision. Despite the clear prohibition against such investments, the
SBI currently holds two Israel bonds. These Israel Bond investments are in clear
contravention of Section 11A.24.
Any interpretation of the statute that would allow for investments in Israel would
lead to absurd results. For example, such an interpretation would permit the SBI to invest
in North Korean government bonds and obligations, backed by the full faith and credit of
the government in Pyongyang, without guarantees or insurance, and payable in North
Korean Won. At the same time, more favored investments in U.S. government bonds
would require the additional security of a guarantee or insurance. Favored Canadian
government bonds and Inter-American Bank bonds would also require, in addition to a
Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign (MN BBC)
Divest for Justice in Palestine!
2
guarantee or insurance, that they be paid back in US dollars. Likewise, interpreting the
statute in a manner that permits investments in Israel Bonds would mean that the SBI
could invest in government obligations issued by Sudan and Iran, permitting repayment
in Iranian Rials and Sudanese Pounds, despite the fact that Minnesota law restricts on
public policy grounds investments in private businesses and corporations doing business
in those countries. To avoid these and other similarly absurd results, the statute must be
read to prohibit investments in any government obligations not listed in the second
sentence of Subdivision 2 of Minnesota Statute 11A.24. Such a reading, as demonstrated
in the above examples, would permit less restrictive investment in rogue and pariah
regimes than investments in US-sponsored organizations.
Moreover, interpreting the statute to permit investments in Israel Bonds allows
Minnesota to be complicit in myriad international law violations. By investing in Israel
Bonds, Minnesota is financially supporting a government widely and routinely
condemned for violating international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel
deposits the capital it receives from Minnesota’s investments directly into its General
Treasury. The General Treasury is a source of funds for Israel’s military expenditures and
Israeli infrastructure projects, many of which are in direct contravention of international
law. The following is a partial list of projects, occupier military tactics and other acts that
Minnesota’s investments in Israel directly or indirectly fund or support. These exemplify
Israel’s belligerent disregard for even the most basic standards of decent and civilized
behavior practiced by free, nondiscriminatory, and democratic societies.
The Separation Wall
In July 2004 the International Court of Justice in the Hague found that Israel’s
construction of a wall snaking deep inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory is contrary
to international law. The ICJ ordered Israel to “cease forthwith the works of construction
of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East
Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal or render
ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto.” The ICJ found
that the wall violates the customary international law prohibition of the threat or use of
force and any territorial acquisition by such means. In addition, the ICJ noted that the
wall violates the international right of self determination of peoples and the principle of
protection of civilian persons in time of war. The ICJ pointed out that Israel’s
construction of the wall violates various other human rights instruments, including the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
Rather than complying with the ICJ ruling, Israel has continued building the wall.
The wall now runs more than 400 miles within the Occupied Territories and completely
surrounds many villages resulting in the confiscation of thousands of acres of Palestinian
land and preventing Palestinians from accessing water sources, crops, workplaces,
hospitals, schools, and even neighbors.
Illegal Settlements
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states, “The Occupying Power shall
not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
3
Since 1967, when Israel first militarily occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan
Heights, the number of civilians transferred into the territories has ballooned to
approximately 500,000, in clear violation of Article 49. These civilians live in Israeli
Jewish-only colonies, served by roads and highways, which may be used only by Israelis.
The colonies are further served by infrastructure such as electricity and water, which is
illegal under the same article.
Occupation
According to the Hague Convention of 1907 and Fourth Geneva Convention,
military occupation is considered a temporary condition during which the occupied
population is protected under international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention details
the required treatment of the occupied population. Israel routinely violates the protections
of the Fourth Geneva Convention in its dealings with the Palestinians. A sample of
violations is noted below:
1. Article 33: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has
not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of
intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” Frequent incursions into cities and
villages, curfews, harassment of the civilian population, and arbitrary arrests, are
a few of the violations of this provision. In the case of Operation Cast Lead in
December 2008 – January 2009, all of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents were
collectively punished for what Israel claimed were the actions of Hamas.
2. Article 3: “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities…shall in all
circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on
race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.”
Reputable human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, and B’Tselem, have reported on Israel’s inhumane treatment of civilians
and non-combatants.
3. Article 34: “The taking of hostages is prohibited.” The recent release of testimony
from former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers describes numerous cases of
IDF soldiers using Palestinian civilians as human shields, both in Gaza and in the
West Bank.
4. Article 55: “To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying
Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it
should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other
articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.” Israel has
denied Palestinians food and medical supplies, and denies them the means to
make a living. The siege on Gaza is illustrative of the denial of foodstuffs to the
population, by an unreasonably restrictive list of products which are not allowed
into the region, even though those products have no military purpose whatsoever.
At over 600 checkpoints on Palestinian roads in the West Bank, Palestinians
requiring emergency medical care, including women giving birth, have either
been denied passage or subjected to unreasonable delays, leading to several
deaths.
4
The Siege on Gaza
In addition to the collective punishment of the residents of Gaza as a violation of
international law, it is illegal to prevent normal commerce, movement of individuals and
goods into or out of occupied territories. Gaza’s economy has been devastated to the
point where unemployment stands at over 50%. Only a small fraction of the products
that were produced within the region can be exported, and even those must pass through
Israel. The products that may enter Gaza are severely restricted, with only the most basic
necessities permitted to enter. Moreover, Gazans often must obtain permits to leave the
Strip, even to go to a hospital. The result is a population without access to many
resources necessary for survival.
After the attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla in May, Israel eased the entry of
some products into Gaza. However, only 34% of the trucks allowed in prior to 2007
were allowed to pass into Gaza in December 2010. None of these trucks included cement
or rebuilding materials and many of the Palestinians whose homes were destroyed during
Operation Cast Lead continue to live in tents.
Much of the fertile farmland in the Gaza Strip is inaccessible to Palestinian
farmers because Israel maintains a tight buffer zone on the Gaza side of the border, with
guard towers and an indiscriminate shoot-to-kill policy. Some of these guard towers are
equipped with high powered armor piercing sniper rifles operated remotely by IDF
personnel sitting behind computer screens on Israeli military installations deep inside
Israel. Many farmers and shepherds who ventured too close to the buffer zone while they
were tending their land or herding animals have been killed, the most recent being a 65-
year old man named Shaban Karmout, who was tying up his donkey.
According to international law and the Oslo Accords, Gazan fishermen should be
allowed to fish within 20 miles off the coast of their land. But Israel restricts these
fishermen to three miles and routinely shoots fishermen who stray further. Other means
of intimidation and restriction to the least fertile areas for fishing include spraying the
fishing boats with sewage water and ramming and disabling boats.
Operation Cast Lead
In addition to killing over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, including 300 children,
Operation Cast Lead caused massive destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza. This
included the killing of 31,000 chickens on a farm in Zeytoun (flattened by a bulldozer),
the bombing of flourmills, the purposeful scarring of farm fields with the Star of David
sign, and the destruction of sewage treatment facilities. These actions had no military
justification. According to the report issued by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission
on the Gaza Conflict (the “Goldstone Report”), Israel’s only purpose was to “deliberately
punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” Indeed, Israel has for all material
purposes admitted that disproportionality is an integral part of its military strategy, a
criticism routinely leveled against it by various human rights organizations, by its
adoption of the “Dahiya doctrine” which it created. The Dahiya doctrine, illegal under
international law, refers to the Israeli strategy, employed by the IDF during its 2006
assault on Lebanon, of applying “disproportionate force” and causing “great damage and
destruction” to civilian and governmental infrastructure during a conflict.
5
Apartheid
Although harsh criticism is used against those who claim that Israel is an apartheid
state, Israel exhibits most, if not all, of the traditional characteristics of an apartheid state,
including the following:
1. Within the occupied territories, two systems of laws are in effect. The legal
system applicable to any given person depends solely on ethnicity. Jewish
Israelis, who are illegal settlers (see above, Fourth Geneva Convention, Article
49), are full Israeli citizens, subject to Israeli civilian law. They have the right to
vote in Israeli elections and many of them have the responsibility to serve in the
Israeli military. Palestinian Christians and Muslims, living only meters away
from these illegal settlements, are subject to military orders, which are random,
often capricious, and frequently change according to the whim of the military
rulers. These people have no right to vote in Israeli elections and no other rights
within Israel. Their movements are restricted and they must carry IDs and show
them to military personnel at any time. Palestinians are subject to “administrative
detention,” which is detention without charges or trial. This detention can last
180 days and be extended indefinitely. According to Adalah, the legal center for
Arab minority rights in Israel, and B’Tselem, Israel routinely holds hundreds of
Palestinians under administrative detention for lengthy periods of time in prisons
in the West Bank.
2. The laws within the State of Israel governing rights and responsibilities are also
based on ethnicity. Jewish Israelis are allowed to purchase and rent property
anywhere on Jewish National Fund (JNF) land. JNF is a quasi-governmental
agency within Israel. The land governed by the JNF is set aside for Jews only. No
Muslim or Christian may purchase or rent property from it. JNF has appropriated
most of the land that was formerly owned by Palestinians, and even if proof of
ownership can be shown, the Palestinians are refused the right to regain their
property. If a Palestinian builds a home for his family on his own property, it may
be demolished. In fact, more than 24,000 Palestinian homes have been
demolished within Israel and the occupied territories since 1967.
In addition to land ownership and rental, non-Jews are restricted in such
mundane and private matters as whom they may marry, whether they may live
with their spouse, and with whom they may associate. Laws passed by the
Knesset (Israeli parliament) include a “loyalty oath” law, requiring non-Jews to
swear an oath to a Jewish state, a law stripping non-Jewish Knesset members of
immunity, and other non-democratic, ethnicity-based laws.
3. Numerous international lawyers and judges have determined that Israel is an
apartheid state, including those from South Africa, whose credentials cannot be
questioned.1
1
“Occupation,
Colonialism,
Apartheid?
A
re-‐assessment
of
Israel’s
practices
in
the
occupied
Palestinian
territories
under
international
law”,
Human
Sciences
Research
Council,
Cape
Town,
South
Africa,
May
2009.
6
Although neither the US nor Israel has ratified the International Convention on the
Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA), it is defined as a
crime against humanity and Israel continues to violate this international law.
Right of Return
The United Nations and other international agencies have recognized the
Palestinian refugee issue and called for Israel to allow those Palestinians displaced from
their homes in 1948 to return or be compensated for the loss of their properties which
Israel has disregarded. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 calls for the right of
Palestinians to return, and subsequent UN resolutions have urged the same. The fact that
the United States is complicit in Israel’s continuing violation of various UN resolutions
by vetoing nearly every resolution in the Security Council designed to hold Israel
accountable does not erase Israel’s responsibility for complying with International Law
and UN Resolution 194.
Nuclear Program
Despite Israel’s purported concern about a possible Iranian secret nuclear
weapons program, Israel itself has a secret nuclear weapons program. More than 20
years ago, Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear scientist, gave information to the British
press regarding the extent of Israel’s weapons of mass destruction. At that time Israel
had more than 200 nuclear weapons. The program is still officially secret and Israel has
never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty or allowed International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into its facilities to inspect. (In contrast, Iran has
signed the NPT and allowed inspections.) For speaking out, Israel imprisoned Vanunu in
solitary confinement for eighteen years. He remains under house arrest today with orders
barring him from speaking to the media. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohammed
ElBaradei, the former Director General of the IAEA and current Egyptian opposition
figure has stated that “Israel is the number one [nuclear] threat to the Middle East.”
In conclusion, Minnesota Break the Bonds demands that the SBI immediately
divest from all Israel bonds, no matter how much or how little those investments may be.
SBI investments in Israel violate Minnesota law and make Minnesota complicit in
Israel’s Apartheid scheme and seemingly unshakeable pattern of human rights and
international law violations. Minnesota law does not and should not permit investments
in governments like Israel’s.
Minnesota Break the Bonds formally requests that the SBI place the issue of
Israel Bond Divestment on the official agenda for the next quarterly meeting which is
currently scheduled for March 3, 2011, and allow representatives of Minnesota Break the
Bonds to speak on the issues addressed in this letter.
If the SBI fails to timely honor our request to be placed on the official agenda to
address the issues raised in this letter, and fails to divest from all Israel Bonds, Minnesota
Break the Bonds will pursue all available legal remedies.2 Our point of contact is William
McGrath, whom you may reach at billmcgrath52@gmail.com or 507-645-7660.
2
Because
the
demand
for
divestment
contained
in
this
letter
is
based
on
a
claimed
violation
of
law,
this
is
not
an
appropriate
matter
for
referral
to
the
Investment
Advisory
Council
and
any
such
referral
would
be
viewed
as
dilatory.
7
Respectfully submitted by the board of Minnesota Break the Bonds:
______________________________
Susan Gad
______________________________
K. Flo Razowsky
______________________________
Sylvia Schwarz
______________________________
William H. McGrath
______________________________
Elisabeth Geschiere
______________________________
(Rev.) David Whitten Smith
______________________________
Phil Stoltzfus
______________________________
Sriram Ananth
______________________________
Susanne Waldorf
______________________________
Rachel Orville
8
______________________________
Phil Benson
Cc:
James Heidelberg
Governor Mark Dayton
Attorney General Lori Swanson
Secretary of State Mark Richie
State Auditor Rebecca Otto
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