[R-G] Fwd: "Say no to the rebranding of Apartheid Israel!" (Monday, August 25th)

[Anthony Fenton]

*** please forward widely ***

ACTION ALERT: JOIN CAIA AND ALLIES THIS MONDAY TO SAY "NO TO THE
RE-BRANDING OF APARTHEID ISRAEL!"

What: Information Picket / When: Monday, August 25 @ 6pm / Where: Miles
Nadal Center, south-east corner of Bloor/Spadina

Dear Friends and Allies:

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has selected Toronto as a 'test
market' for a million dollar re-branding campaign. The 10-month 'Brand
Israel' campaign is being launched this coming Monday, August 25th at  
the
Miles Nadal Jewish Community Center in downtown Toronto.

CAIA is calling on its friends and community allies to come out on  
Monday
and show that Torontonians will not 'buy' into a gimmicky Israeli
advertising campaign that is based on cynically racialized marketing
techniques. Just as Torontonians rejected attempts in the 1980s to
‘re-brand’ apartheid-era South Africa, CAIA is confident that they  
will do
the same with attempts to normalize Israeli apartheid.

According to Israeli consul general in Toronto Amir Gissin, the campaign
seeks to "fix negative images of Israel by "tak[ing] the emphasis off  
the
politics and strife." However, the reality that escapes Gissin is that  
the
Israeli 'brand' will continue to 'perform poorly' so long as the Israeli
state continues to legislate racist apartheid laws that deny fundamental
rights to Palestinians.

The campaign, designed as ‘an attack on all the senses,’ emphasizes
‘grassroots exposure’ with official Brand Israel logos and advertising  
set
to "go up across the GTA in bus shelters, on billboards, on radio and TV
starting in September."  According to the Canadian Jewish News, the
re-branding campaign will target particular communities in Toronto, with
an emphasis on 'opinion leaders' in the 'Asian' and 'East African'
communities (singled out for exposure to Gissin's so-called ‘Brand  
Israel
attack arsenal’). The racist and elitist nature of such ethnic and
class-based marketing campaigns exposes why opposition to Israeli
apartheid continues to grow.

CAIA is particularly concerned that the campaign will feature Israeli
medical technology as a key ‘selling point.’ This contravenes the
international campaign to boycott the Israeli Medical Association (IMA)
until it takes a clear stance against the torture of Palestinians by the
Israeli military and firmly condemns the numerous documented instances  
in
which medical care is illegally denied to Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza strip.

Ultimately, the 'Brand Israel' campaign is a testament to the strength  
and
breadth of the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign
against Israeli apartheid launched by Palestinian civil society in the
summer of 2005. This desperate move by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, and the shallowness of the 're-branding' effort, highlights the
crisis of moral legitimacy confronting the Israeli state and its
representatives when attempting to respond to direct calls for
accountability that people of conscience all over the world are
increasingly raising about Israel's racist behavior.

Brick by Brick, Wall by Wall
Israeli Apartheid is Going to Fall!!

For more information visit the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid  
(CAIA)
at http://www.caiaweb.org.