Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual series of university lectures and rallies held in February or March. According to the organization, "the aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement." Since IAW began in Toronto in 2005, it has spread to at least 55 cities, including locations in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Botswana, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Palestine, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Campuses awash in tension over Israel apartheid week", National Post, March 2, 2009"Israeli Apartheid Week 2009 may be coming to a campus near you" , Jerusalem Post, January 29, 2009Jerusalem Post "Israeli Apartheid Week" starts today (03-03-2012)
Efficacy The organizers have said the week has "played an important role in raising awareness and disseminating information about Zionism, the Palestinian liberation struggle and its similarities with the indigenous sovereignty struggle in North America and the South African anti-Apartheid movement." An international divestment campaign is also said to have gained momentum in response to the 2005 statement by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations who called for boycotts, divestments and sanctions. They also claimed that important gains had been made in the campaign in countries like South Africa, the U.K., Canada and the U.S.
The years preceding 2008, a significant year marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, saw a sharp increase of literature and analysis that was said to have sought to document and challenge alleged Israeli apartheid, including reports by major international bodies and human rights organizations and findings published by political leaders, thinkers, academics, and activists. The efforts were also said to have highlighted the role that people and governments could play in providing "solidarity with the Palestinian struggle by exerting urgent pressure on Israel to alter its current structure and practices as an apartheid state."
Expanse Cities and schools to have hosted an Israeli Apartheid Week include Oxford University, the University of Manchester, the University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton, London, Cambridge, and Soweto, South Africa.
Speakers have included Balad MK Jamal Zahalka in 2007 and former MK Azmi Bishara, also of Balad, who began Israeli Apartheid Week 2008 with a live broadcast from Soweto.
In 2009, locations included Abu Dis, Berkeley, Boston College, Emory University, Bir Zeit, Edinburgh, Edmonton, Johannesburg, Oxford, Kalkilya, San Francisco, Soweto, Tulkarm and Washington, D.C.
In 2010, locations included Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Bard University, Beirut, Berkeley, Bethlehem, Bil'in, Bogota, Bologna, Boston, Cape Town, Caracas, Chicago, Connecticut, Duluth, Dundee, Durban, Eastern Cape, Edinburgh, Edmonton, Gaza, Glasgow, Guelph, Hamilton, Houston, Ireland, Jenin, Johannesburg, Kingston, London (Ontario), London (U.K.), Madrid, Melbourne, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Montréal, Nablus, New York City, Nil'in, Ottawa, Oxford, Peterborough, Pisa, Pretoria, Providence, Puebla, Roma, San Francisco, Seattle, Sudbury, Tilburg, Toronto, Truro (California), Utrecht, Vancouver, Waterloo and Winnipeg.
In 2014, locations included Vienna, Brussels, Ghent, Botswana, Cuiaba, Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Peterborough, Regina, Sudbury, Toronto, Vancouver, Waterloo, Winnipeg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Joensuu, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Metz, Nantes, Paris, Strasbourg, Tours, Berlin, Freiberg, Stuttgart, Delhi, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Bologna, Cagliari, Rome, Venice, Japan, Amman, Irbid, Seoul, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Oslo, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gaza, Nablus, Naqab, Ramallah, Tulkarem, Yaffa (Jaffa), Aliwal North, Benoni, Cape Town, Durban, Fleurhof, Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Laudium, Mitchells Plain, Orange Farm, Pietermaritzburg, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth, Port Shepstone, Pretoria, Roshnee, Rustenburg, Soweto, Stellenbosch, Barcelona, Gijon, Irunea, Madrid, Palma, Sevilla, Valencia, Malmo, Stockholm, Basel, Berne, Geneva, Syria, Golan Heights, Bangkok, Birmingham, Bradford, Cambridge, Dundee, Durham, Edinburgh, Essex, Exeter, Glasgow, Kent, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Northampton, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, Sussex, London, Albuquerque, Arizona, Beaumont, Boston, Cambridge, Chicago, Dearborn, Delaware, Louisville, Maryland, Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Olympia, Omaha, Philadelphia, Seattle, Toledo and Washington, D.C.
Notable demonstrations and speakers In 2012, the Palestine Society of the London School of Economics (LSE) erected an "Israeli Apartheid Wall", which led to a confrontation after pro-Israel students threw water balloons at it in protest.Students clash at Israel Apartheid Week by Marcus Dysch Jewish Chronicle, February 20, 2012.'Apartheid' Week: Mock Check Points and Water Balloons by Rachel Hirshfeld, Arutz Sheva, February 20, 2012.
In 2013, Harvard University's Palestine Solidarity Committee, which organizes IAW at Harvard, posted mock eviction notices on students' dorm room doors.Mock Eviction Flyers Incite Debate by Anneli L. Tostar, Harvard Crimson, March 5, 2013.
In 2017, Huda Ammori (who later co-founded Palestine Action) invited Marika Sherwood to Manchester University's week. Sherwood had been in Budapest's Jewish ghetto, and her talk was subtitled "You're doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me." The subtitle attracted Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev's attention, and he requested that the university reconsider its support. The talk was held but the subtitle was removed.
U.S. scholar and MIT professor Noam Chomsky has spoken various times at many university campuses as part of IAW.Chomsky joins Israel ‘apartheid’ debate by Saba Hamedy, Daily Free Press, March 2, 2010.
Ben White, a freelance journalist and author of two books on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, has been an active speaker during IAW in both the U.S. and the U.K., including at his alma mater, Cambridge.Israeli Apartheid Week: A Year-by-Year Report, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 2012.
Israeli historian and Exeter professor Ilan Pappé has spoken at IAW events throughout the U.K.
Israeli historian and Oxford professor Avi Shlaim has given IAW speeches, including one at the London School of Economics.
Views on the conference and its activities Support
Israeli Apartheid Week events are almost always hosted by solidarity societies and organizations associated with academic institutions. Speakers at various meetings around the world support the Week's goals. An Arab citizen of Israel and member of the Knesset, Jamal Zahalka, spoke in Montréal in 2007. He said: "Calling the occupation apartheid isn’t an overstatement, it’s an understatement. The Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is worse than apartheid."
In 2014, South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, officially endorsed Israeli Apartheid Week. The ANC, which led the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, said participating in that year's Apartheid Week was part of its commitment to the international anti-apartheid movement and that it remains "unequivocal in its support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination, and unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel."
According to IAW organizers, there has been "a sharp increase of literature and analysis that has sought to document and challenge Israeli apartheid, including reports issued by major international bodies and human rights organizations and findings published by political leaders, thinkers, academics, and activists."
Reaction by university administration University of Toronto president David Naylor said of IAW, "this isn't [my] favourite time of year." But he responded to objections from the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in signing a statement that declared, "We do, in fact, recognize that the term Israeli Apartheid is upsetting to many people, [but] we also recognize that, in every society, universities have a unique role to provide a safe venue for highly charged discourse."
University of Manitoba president David Barnard, in a 2010 report to the Board of Governors about IAW, wrote that "while he had not personally attended any of the events, the events proceeded as anticipated and were orderly. He added that he had received a lot of communication from the external community regarding this and that while there were a number of people against the event, there was also support for the University's position in allowing the event to proceed." In 2011, Barnard responded publicly to complaints about IAW, saying, "Ultimately, we have an obligation to uphold the right to freedom of expression, and will not censor an individual or group for what has not yet been expressed."
In 2013, UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said that the campus agreed to consider clarifying its demonstration policies but would not curtail student speech. The Office for Civil Rights and a federal judge declared that the "university has no right or ability to trample on the constitutional rights of students."
U.S. investigation In 2012, two Berkeley students filed charges that IAW events on campus had led to more antisemitism on campus. In 2013, federal officials dismissed the claim, stating, "the events did not constitute actionable harassment."
Criticism In 2007, IAW spread to New York University, Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City. The David Project organized meetings the same week in opposition to the characterization of Israel as an apartheid state, and the American Jewish Committee Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations denounced IAW, saying, "the specter of apartheid should not be raised in any form."Israel Apartheid Week' Begins, Reigniting Carter-Led Debate by Gabrielle Birkner, New York Sun February 13, 2007.
In 2008 Israel's ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, denounced IAW as "crude propagandism, pure hypocrisy and cynical manipulation of the student body."Israeli ambassador condemns students for 'celebration of ignorance' , Ottawa Citizen, February 5, 2008.
Organizers of the counterprotest said they "want to remove the connection that modern-day students have to the word apartheid and Israel and refocus it to the countries that we think really exemplify the definition of apartheid, being a policy of separation and segregation. Through a week which encompasses the themes of gender, sexual and political apartheid, we hope to get out a new message."
In February 2010, 30 members of the Ontario provincial legislature voted to condemn IAW as "odious, hateful and inappropriate." The largely symbolic vote received support from all three of Ontario's political parties.MPPs unite to condemn “odious” Israeli Apartheid Week by Robert Benzie, Toronto Star, February 25, 2010.Where Does Olivia Chow Stand on Israel? by Mitch Wolfe, Huffington Post, February 3, 2014.
Gay columnist and pornographic film producer Michael Lucas has called IAW "a hate group" and "a group of antisemites." In 2011, he brought about the cancellation of a planned event involving IAW and New York's LGBT Center after threatening to organize a boycott of large donors to the center. He said of his achievement that it was a landmark moment in his life, of which he was enormously proud.