Action alert

Urge novelist Margaret Atwood to turn down Tel Aviv University prize

ACTION ALERT

(AMP, 04/08/10) – The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) stand with university students from the occupied Gaza Strip as they urge an award-winning Canadian author to refuse to accept her portion of a $1 million prize from Tel Aviv University.

ACTION ALERT

(AMP, 04/08/10) – The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) stand with university students from the occupied Gaza Strip as they urge an award-winning Canadian author to refuse to accept her portion of a $1 million prize from Tel Aviv University.

Margaret Atwood, a prolific novelist who has won the prestigious Booker prize in the past, is being awarded by the university because her work  “’enabled, for the first time, the emergence of a defined Canadian identity, while exploring both national and transnational issues, such as colonization, feminism, structures of political power and oppression, and the violation and exploitation of nature,’” the judges said, according to the Canadian Press.

It is Atwood’s focus on political structures and colnization that the Gazan students highlight to say Atwood should turn down the prize, which is funded by the Dan David Foundation of Tel Aviv University.

“Tel Aviv University has a long and well-documented history of collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence services. This is particularly shameful after Israel’s bloody military assault against the occupied Gaza Strip, which, according to leading international and local human rights organizations, left over 1,440 Palestinians dead and 5380 injured. … By accepting the prize at Tel Aviv University, you will be indirectly giving a slight and inadvertent nod to Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide,” the students wrote in an open letter to Ms. Atwood.

TAKE ACTION

AMP lends full support to the students as they work to uphold the unanimously endorsed Palestinian civil society’s call for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This call also extends toward international activists, artists, and academics of conscience.

Ms. Atwood is to receive her prize on May 9. Time is of the essences. Email Ms. Atwood today and encourage her to stand on the side of justice, and to stand for the occupied and besieged students of Gaza. Please remain polite and brief, sticking to the talking points below.

SUBJECT LINE OF EMAIL:
Margaret Atwood: Please stand with students of Gaza

TALKING POINTS

  • Tel Aviv University has a long and well-documented history of collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence services.
  • The Israeli military waged a war on Gaza that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and wounded another 5,300.
  • Accepting the prize would in affect be giving indirecet approval to Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
  • The Gaza students consider you to be, in the words of the late Edward Said, an “oppositional intellectual,” and that puts you in a position to affect change
  • That as Desmond Tutu said, “If you choose to be neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

CONTACT INFORMATION:

You can email Ms. Atwood through her literary agent at [email protected]. Please add a blind copy (bcc) to [email protected].

Also, please print your email and send to Ms. Atwood at this address: Margaret Atwood,c/o McClelland & Stewart 75 Sherbourne St., 5th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,  M5A 2P9.

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