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As organizers of New York City’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), we are dismayed to learn that New York’s LGBT Center has canceled the scheduled March 5 “Party to End Apartheid” that was to take place there.  We are equally dismayed that the Center also has banned one of the organizers of this event, and a member of our coalition, the Siegebusters Working Group, from holding its regular meeting at the Center. Israeli Apartheid Week, now entering its seventh year internationally and its fifth year in New York City, is a series of events designed to educate people about Israel’s apartheid nature and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns in concordance with the just demands of Palestinian civil society.

In 2008, The LGBT Center hosted an Israeli Apartheid Week event discussing the boycott campaign against Israeli billionaire, diamond manufacturer, and settlement builder Lev Leviev.  This year’s IAW in New York includes conversations about BDS as a tactic, discussions of recent protests and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, a book release party for NY spoken word artist Remi Kanazi, and a discussion with queer theorist Judith Butler and filmmaker John Greyson. These events will be taking place in many venues across the city, including university campuses and churches.