Ireland Leads the Way in Academic Boycott of the Jewish State of Israel

(DUBLIN) - Dervla Murphy shows us, through her account of life in Gaza, that the deepest wound from the holocaust is the treatment of the Palestinians since the foundation of the Jewish State of Israel. Be prepared to be shocked by Dervla Murphy’s very honest account in her latest book, A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza.

At its Annual Congress on 4th April 2013, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) became the first academic union in Europe to endorse the Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel. The TUI motion, which refers to Israel as an ‘apartheid state’, calls for ‘all members to cease all cultural and academic collaboration with Israel, including the exchange of scientists, students and academic personalities, as well as all cooperation in research programmes.’ The motion was passed by unanimous vote.

'BDS is a noble non-violent method of resisting Israeli militarism, occupation and apartheid, and there is no question that Israel is implementing apartheid policies against the Palestinians,' Jim Roche said, and 'indeed, many veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa have said that it’s worse than what was experienced there.’

‘We proposed this motion as we believe that, as with South Africa, the trade union movement has a vital role to play in helping apply pressure to end Israeli apartheid and occupation. I am proud that the TUI has taken a clear stand,' Jim Roche said, ' and now supports a full academic boycott of Israel in line with the Palestinian call for BDS’ Jim Roche is a lecturer in DIT School of Architecture and a member of the TUI Dublin Colleges Branch.

'Those that will jump to complain about this motion will have no words of condemnation for the de facto boycott imposed on Palestinian education by Israel, nor for its continuing attacks on Palestinian education, students and educators,' added Dr. David Landy, a lecturer in the TCD Department of Sociology and a founder member of Academics for Palestine. Their words echoed those of Dervla Murphy whom, after meticulous research, announced with a masterful voice that she believes BDS is the way forward.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. A truly global movement against Israeli Apartheid is rapidly emerging in response to this call.

The TUI decision left me bursting with pride over my countrymen’s stance. Asim, a journalist friend, congratulated me saying 'Wow! It isn't without reason that I love those Irish! Call me silly, call me nuts, but whenever I receive information like this, it's as if imploding Israel took another of its remaining foul breaths before its inevitable extinction. It will be sooner than the most overoptimistic of us can anticipate.'

On 21st March, at the Teacher's Club, situated on Parnell Square in Dublin's city centre, Dervla Murphy's arrival drew a hush over the crowded hall. She's a determined lady in her early eighties. We have followed her through 48 years of writing bestsellers. We have learnt to trust her judgement and it is no surprise that Dervla Murphy should visit Gaza for she visited Rwanda two years after the genocide there, and Romania two weeks after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Dervla Murphy, Ireland's preeminent travel writer spent a month in Gaza. Her latest book, A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza, is published by Eland. The book is a must read for all of us -- all of us who have been subjected to the massive propaganda machine that is Hollywood and mainstream media. Dervla Murphy has cut through layers of deception and hasbara -- propaganda. ‘My view is that I have these things I want to say and I don't really care if it spoils a pure travel book,’ Dervla Murphy says. A Month by the Sea: Encounters in Gaza has become my favourite book. I am eager for everyone to read it, for its arrival on the bookshelves must be heralded by us as the mainstream reviewers remain resoundingly silent. The same media giants that have courted Dervla Murphy through her 48 years of publishing is throwing a blind eye towards Israeli illegitimate occupation and transgression.

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Anonymous April 15, 2013 11:03 pm (Pacific time)

Until the US ceases supporting the crimes including numerous war crimes of Israel, and as soon as the US ceases funding Israel and fighting costly wars for Israel, the sooner there will be peace in the Middle East and beyond. Thanks to the steadfastness and courage of Palestinians and tireless advocates of Palestine, the injustice of the illicit racist Zionists and their US puppets are being aired, and Israel is being ever more isolated. Thanks Anna. And thanks to all of the good people at Salem-News.

Thank you!

Anonymous April 15, 2013 9:48 pm (Pacific time)

Thanks to the tireless works of people like Anna O'Leary the world is no longer subjected to only the lies of Zionists. Israel is an illegitimate entity that should never have been allowed to exist, as it is a racist state founded illegally on murder and ethnic cleansing. See: http://www.countercurrents.org/hart050410.htm US Congress is owned by lobbies, and the Israeli lobby is by far the most powerful and influential. Together with Washington's Zionist-neocons, Congress has spent $4 to 6 trillion dollars in US taxes on two of at least seven wars the US plans to fight for Israel. We can no longer afford to be supporting this criminal enterprise. Thanks to articles like this one we have now awakened to Zionist lies and propaganda, and our numbers are growing rapidly.

James April 13, 2013 1:22 pm (Pacific time)

Anna, thank you for your excellent article about the ethnic cleansing in Gaza! US support of such provides the motivation for Al Qaeda of the Arabian Pennisula as well!:

US: CIA thwarts new al-Qaida underwear bomb plot:

http://america-hijacked.com/2012/05/07/us-cia-thwarts-new-al-qaida-underwear-bomb-plot/

Anna O'Leary. April 11, 2013 8:21 am (Pacific time)

Ethnic Cleansing The Israeli occupation authorities handed on Wednesday Khader Abu Torki a Palestinian from an area south of Hebron a demolition notice of his private owned two-story house, under the pretext of building without permit. The house is 2000-square-meters, and houses a family of 11 members So it happened again this week ____ Ethnic Cleansing has been the way the Israelis nest like cuckoos ever since 1948. Israel is a state of cuckoos.

Anna O'Leary. April 11, 2013 8:19 am (Pacific time)

Ken O'Keefe April 11, 2013 7:51 am (Pacific time)

Thank you Anna. TJP

Ahmed Shaath April 10, 2013 12:03 pm (Pacific time)

We, the Palestinian people, consider the irish people to be our best friends in Europe. that does not come from thin air, it comes from their historic and natural belief in justice and freedom. you are not corrupted by political evil and corporate greed. Dervla is true champion. and thank you for this nice article. i look forward to reading more and more from you.

Billy Leen. April 9, 2013 6:27 am (Pacific time)

Today is the 65th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, when on April 9th 1948 Zionist forces killed 100+ Palestinians as part of the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba. In this village nr. Jerusalem, Zionist paramilitaries "shot down individuals and families as they left their homes and fled down alleyways" (Benny Morris). Surviving villagers were transported "in trucks in a victory parade through West Jerusalem" before being dumped outside the Old City. Subsequently, several hundred Jews were settled in Deir Yassin, with the dedication ceremony attended by cabinet ministers and Jerusalem’s mayor. Deir Yassin was far from being an isolated case of the deliberate murder of civilians - see Khisas, Safsaf, Mejd al-Kroom, etc. - and the massacre is vital for understanding how Israel's "Jewish majority" was created in the first place: through expulsion and the prevention of the refugees' return.

David Evans April 8, 2013 12:22 pm (Pacific time)

Yani either needs a history lesson or more likely, he is one of thousands of Zionist propaganda trolls that are paid to lie in order to give Israel an illusion of legitimacy, when in fact, Israel was founded by terrorists and by ethnic cleansing on land it has stolen.
False claims that Palestinians left of their own will and at the urging of Arab leaders is spurious argument, as the Univeral Declaration of Human Rights, Geneva Convention, and several UN Resolutions guarantee that a person who leaves his home for ANY reason, has a right to return to that home when he decides to. If I go shopping or on vacation under these laws and standards I am able to return to my home from my trip. Israel is signatory to these laws. Additionally, it is now illegal for land to be annexed or otherwise acquired by force.
Suggested reads for Zionist trolls who attempt to muddy the waters, as per their Zionist Handbook:

http://www.countercurrents.org/hart050410.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553

http://www.zionismbook.com/

For those who mistakenly believe that Israel should exist because their God ordained it, please see what these good folks say about the issue:

http://www.truetorahjews.org/our_mission

Anonymous April 8, 2013 12:18 pm (Pacific time)

Yani either needs a history lesson or more likely, he is one of thousands of Zionist propaganda trolls that are paid to lie in order to give Israel an illusion of legitimacy, when in fact, Israel was founded by terrorists and by ethnic cleansing on land it has stolen. False claims that Palestinians left of their own will and at the urging of Arab leaders is spurious argument, as the Univerals Declaration of Human Rights, and Geneva Convention, and several UN Resolutions guarantee that a person who leaves his home for ANY reason, has a right to return to that home when he decides to. If I go shopping or on vacation, I can expect, under these laws and standards, to be able to return from my trip. Israel is signatory to these laws. Additionally, it is now illegal for land to be annexed or otherwise acquired by force. Suggested reads for Zionist trolls who attempt to muddy the waters, as per their Zionist Handbook: http://www.countercurrents.org/hart050410.htm http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553 http://www.zionismbook.com/ For those who mistakenly believe that Israel should exist because their God ordained it, please see what these good folks say about the issue: http://www.truetorahjews.org/our_mission

Rich F April 8, 2013 10:44 am (Pacific time)

Professor Taheri, I pity your students who come to learn from you but are, instead, subjected to self-serving propaganda. What an example you set for them! If they follow your lead they too will treat what they want to believe as fact and what they don't want to believe as fiction, even if the former has been disproved and the latter proved. Like you, they will develop no critical thinkng and integrity in research. Your ridiculous claim about Jews being expelled from Arab lands shows your extreme prejudice. This narcissistic argument makes Palestinians responsible for Jewish emigration from Arab lands, which they had nothing to do with, while ignoring that the emigration was a reaction to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The ultra-religious Shas party, led by Eliyahu Yishai, has admitted that in exploiting this argument its goal is to foil any possible peace deal with the Palestinians. The fact is that a majority of Mizrahi Jewish emigrants left their homes of their own accord, many because they heeded Israel’s offer of free transportation and housing. Israel recruited many of these émigrés in order to build a solid Jewish majority. Many of them had enough time to gather their possessions. Many were compensated with properties stolen from Palestinians. Those Jews who were expelled and who did lose property have always been free to file claims with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
There is also a great deal of evidence that Israel carried out false flag operations in Arab countries in order to scare Arab Jews into immigrating to Israel. In both Cairo and Baghdad and possibly in other Arab cities, Israel’s Mossad planted bombs in Jewish areas so that Jews would fear that Arab terrorists were intent on killing them. It worked. Most Iraqi and Egyptian Jews left their homes and moved to Israel.
If you read the newspapers, even ones you dislike, which I know you do not, you would also know that many of these so-0called refugees from Arab countries resent the statements of propagandists such as yourself because, as I say above, they left of their own accord. The denial and ignorance that characgerizes your comments can only incite anti-Semitism throughout the world and assist the right wing of israel in making certain that Israel becomes a pariah throughout the world, especially among people who truly value decency, equality and humanity.

Rich F April 8, 2013 10:32 am (Pacific time)

The idea that in 1948 the Palestinians fled their homes at the urging of Arab leaders is nothing more than gross propaganda. First of all, this argument implies that if Arab leaders had not instructed Palestinians to flee, the Jewish army would have allowed them to stay. If that had been the case there would have been more Palestinians in Israel than Jews, spoiling the Zionist dream of a Jewish state. From a historical perspective, in 1959 Professor Walid Khalidi proved this claim to be a fabrication. His findings were independently corroborated two years later by Irish scholar and U.N. diplomat, Erskine Childers. By examining the archives of Arab governments and newspapers and the reports of the CIA and BBC, which monitored every Arab radio broadcast of 1948, both men demonstrated that no such instruction had been given. On the contrary, Arab broadcasts appealed to people not to leave their homes. When asked by the U.N. to account for this claim, Israel could not produce a single iota of evidence. Disinformation like this has influenced westerners to dismiss the Palestinian people’s al-Nakba or Catastrophe and slander them as propagandists and liars.

Yani April 8, 2013 7:57 am (Pacific time)

"These Jewish refugees were absorbed by Israel, unlike their 750,000 Arab counterparts who fled Palestine and were refused settlement and rights among their very own Arab brethren." The Jewish refugees were a creation of the Jewish abuse of the Arabs during war and deliberate encouragement by the Jewish state to increase the Jewish population and Jewish demographic. When they arrived in Israel they were treated as second class citizens because there were Arabs and not Europeans. The Christians are leaving and have been leaving Israel because of Zionists not Muslims. All Palestinians share a common heritage that is Arabic and outside of religion.

Anonymous April 8, 2013 7:48 am (Pacific time)

"The Arabs of Palestine fled at the urging and fear mongering of their own leaders, who promised that after the Jews were wiped out they could return." That's rubbish! And who was it that drove them out? The boogie man? No it was Zionist terror groups. What exactly are you a Prof. of? Applied lyology?

Anna O'Leary April 8, 2013 5:59 am (Pacific time)

By now you have hopefully watched part one of the lecture by Israeli Professor Illan Pappe. 1948 - A different story, PART 2/2, Prof. Ilan Pappe, Questions and answers . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrGL2tw8CN0

Anna O'Leary April 8, 2013 5:57 am (Pacific time)

1948 - A different story, PART 1/2 Lecture by Prof. Ilian Pappe, nov 30 2012 Lecture by Ilan Pappé in the context of the exhibition "The Nakba -Exodus and expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and contemporary Palestinian realities" Bern, Switzerland, nov.1st to dec.1st 2012. Ilan Pappé is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies and Co-Director for the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies at the University of Exeter / UK He was introduced by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Schulze, Institute for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Bern / Switzerland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R91asKI_kQ

Prof. Taheri April 7, 2013 8:59 am (Pacific time)

The Arabs of Palestine fled at the urging and fear mongering of their own leaders, who promised that after the Jews were wiped out they could return. You can listen to their testimonies—their very own words—on youtube: watch?v=FuGqpFxogRg ; watch?v=cn4r7ZjG9Nc . There was no ethnic cleansing. In contrast, no Jewish leader told the 850,000 Jews in Arab countries to move out temporarily so the Arabs in their lands can be exterminated, and then they can return. And in many of these lands, e.g., Mesopotamia, the Jews predated the Arabs by more than 1,200 years. These Jewish refugees were absorbed by Israel, unlike their 750,000 Arab counterparts who fled Palestine and were refused settlement and rights among their very own Arab brethren. By 1950, “Saturday” was largely complete. The Jews were gone. Today “Sunday” is taking place, and Christians are fleeing Arab lands in droves. As the current Arab saying goes, “After Saturday comes Sunday.” Palestinians could have stayed if they had not listened to the exaggerated scare stories of Hazam Nusseibeh and Hussayn Khalidi of the Higher Arab Executive, who had actually intended with their horror stories to draw in more Arabs to the fight. The Jews in the Arab countries could NOT have stayed. It was either fleeing as refugees (and losing an untold fortune that had been built over many generations) or facing death. They fled. They lost all their land, business and property, and became penniless refugees in Israel. Your version of history may lead to events such as the ones brilliantly depicted in Jonathan Bloomfield’s award-winning thriller, “Palestine.”

AbeBird April 7, 2013 7:19 am (Pacific time)

Dublin sociology lecturer and anti-Israel TUI's activist David Landy said the move “set an historic precedent". I'm sure he meant by saying "historic precedent" to Nazi Germany boycotting of the Jews of Europe (Ashkenazim) and Northern Africa (Mizrahim) that was later continued to destruction and murder of most Jews there. I'm really sorry that there are still some pro-Nazis left in America who continue to support the boycotting and extermination of the Jews. Or the Irish just took revenge after they have lost in football match 0:2 with the Israelis?!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embeddedandv=bKxrOyp4sGk

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Ireland Leads the Way in Academic Boycott of the Jewish State of Israel

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