The failure of Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer to appear at the ASB tennis classic in Auckland, New Zealand, this week is a significant victory for the BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against apartheid Israel.

Despite being the subject of protest in 2009 and 2010 Peer was adamant she would to return to Auckland. She told media last year she was keen to come back.

If 2010 witnessed an exceptional growth of the global BDS movement, especially in the cultural and consumer products fields, one of the main challenges facing the movement in 2011 will be to start putting into effect concrete boycott measures against Israeli universities and to further spread the artists’ boycott of Israel.

Ramallah, Occupied Palestine, 30 December 2010

If 2010 witnessed an exceptional growth of the global BDS movement, especially in the cultural and consumer products fields, one of the main challenges facing the movement in 2011 will be to start putting into effect concrete boycott measures against Israeli universities and to further spread the artists’ boycott of Israel.

PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, recently released its December 2010 newsletter, with many informative updates and articles.

It is available here: http://www.pacbi.org/newsletter/december2010.php

The newsletter includes important editorials from PACBI on academic boycott in 2011 and from the BDS National Committee on the second anniversary of the war on Gaza.

If 2010 witnessed an exceptional growth of the global BDS movement, especially in the cultural and consumer products fields, one of the main challenges facing the movement in 2011 will be to start putting into effect concrete boycott measures against Israeli universities and to further spread the artists’ boycott of Israel.

With world renowned artists, bands and writers refusing to perform, exhibit or speak in Israel, cultural boycott took off in 2010, especially following Israel’s bloody attack on the Freedom Flotilla.

Teachers for Palestine (TFP) has just launched its new website at
http://www.caiaweb.org/tfp/Welcome.html..  On this website you‘ll
find:

- information about the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan‘s top 5 worst
investments in Israeli apartheid

- articles and speeches by TFP members and allies

- resources about divestment and socially responsible investment