Not only is the international campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions to end Israeli occupation and apartheid growing, it’s also getting more creative! Our spoof of the new commercial for Motorola’s ‘Droid’ phone is making the internet rounds, as is this great video of US Campaign member group New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) doing some Moto-oriented guerrilla theater at a Best Buy store:
Great work NYCBI!
Other US Campaign member groups have been getting creative, as well:
Adalah-NY surprised a delegation of Israeli business leaders at a Lev Leviev store in New York with posters, chants, and songs. Protesters declared that there should be “no business as usual with apartheid Israel,” a message that was not well-received by guests at a breakfast held for the delegation–including TV personality Dr. Ruth Westheimer who tried unsuccessfully to avoid notice as she left. Several members of the delegation confronted protesters in an attempt to defend Israel’s human rights record.
The Albuquerque-based Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, after being censored by billboard company Lamar back in April, have managed to get their billboard calling for an end to military aid to Israel back up with a different company and slightly different wording. The billboards, which are prominently displayed for passing motorists and pedestrians, urge viewers to contact Congress and protest the billions of dollars in military aid that U.S. taxpayers provide to fund Israeli war crimes. Check out a video of the new billboard:
And as we reported last week, Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights (AUPHR) have convinced Columbia Sportswear to withdraw an ad targeted at Israeli settlers. AUPHR received the following email from Ron Parham, Columbia’s Senior Director for Investor Relations & Corporate Communications, which they’ve posted on their website after stating that “Columbia Sportswear should be applauded for taking this issue seriously and acting in a responsible way”:
“Thank you and your readers for bringing this advertisement to our attention and for voicing your concerns to us via this site and numerous e-mails.
We investigated and determined that neither the original Hebrew text of the ad created by our independent Israeli distributor, nor the erroneous English translation supplied by the newspaper, was submitted to or approved by Columbia Sportswear as called for by our standard practices.
Columbia Sportswear and our Israeli distributor have agreed to immediately and permanently discontinue the ad, as well as to reinforce our standard pre-approval practices pertaining to all marketing materials in order to avoid such unfortunate errors in the future.
We take all customer feedback seriously and sincerely regret the offense inadvertently created by this ad.”
Sure is fun to be in this movement!
