Alwaght- More than 70 university figures and intellectuals signed a letter calling on their government to boycott the illegal Israeli settlements.
The open letter published in the New York Review of Books magazine calls on Washington to "exclude settlements from trade benefits accorded to Israeli enterprises, and to strip all such Israeli entities in the West Bank from the tax exemptions that the Internal Revenue Service currently grants to American nonprofit tax-exempt organizations".
The letter however fell short of demanding a boycott on all occupied territories by saying that the rest of the Palestinian land which is settlement-free but still under Israeli occupation should not come under “an economic, political or cultural boycott".
The Israeli aggression against Palestinians, escalated in recent months, has urged many intellectuals and entities to call for a boycott on the regime. The most know campaign on the issue is the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law".
The move is now widely known and effective that it came up during the meeting of US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York where she reiterated her commitment to “counter attempts to delegitimize Israel, including through the BDS movement".
The move became extensive in the Israel’s top ally, UK that the British government introduced a plan to prohibit local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions by law from boycotting “unethical” companies, as part of a controversial crackdown being announced by the Government, the Independent newspaper reported in February.
Under the plan all publicly funded institutions will lose the freedom to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
