Boycott of Israel grows as Anglican Church, Architect Association join

With the recent announcement by the Church of England that it would
divest from companies which profit from Israel's occupation, as well as
a similar divestment by an Architect's Association in England, the
'Boycott Israel' campaign appears to be gaining ground.

Based on a similar 'divestment/boycott' campaign against the apartheid
regime of South Africa in the 1980s, the focus of the boycott is to put
pressure on companies that do business with Israel to divest until
Israel changes its policies.

The Anglican Church will divest the 200 million pounds it currently has
invested in the Caterpillar Company, a company whose bulldozers
(particularly the armored D9 model) are used to demolish Palestinian
homes.  The Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian homes that are
in a 'security zone', or near the path of the Wall's construction, or a
planned settlement, has rendered at least 27,000 Palestinians homeless
over the last five years, according to human rights organizations.
....
Pro-Israeli groups in the US have challenged the boycott - the
Anti-Defamation League, for example, called it a "moral outrage."

Meanwhile, the Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine plan to
go ahead with a boycott and divestment campaign.

Eyal Weizman, the Israeli director of the Centre for Research
Architecture at Goldsmith's College in London, urged action. "A boycott
would be totally legitimate," he said. "The wall and the settlements
have been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and we
should boycott any company which does business, any architects that
participate - anyone facilitating these human rights violations and war
crimes."

Charles Jenckes told the British newspaper ‘The Independent’, "There
reaches a certain point where an architect can't sit on the fence. Not
to stand up to it would be to be complicit."

cont'd...
http://www.palestinenet.org/english/archive2006/feb/week3/180206/report6.htm