Solidarity with the Palestinian Popular Resistance! Boycott Israel now!
Palestinian BDS National Committee
Whether the current phase of
Israel’s intensified repression and Palestinian popular resistance will
evolve into a full-fledged intifada or not, one thing is already evident
– a new generation of Palestinians is marching on the footsteps of
previous generations, rising up en masseagainst Israel’s brutal,
decades-old regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.
World governments, especially in the
west, are calling this a “cycle of violence” where both sides are to
blame, ignoring the root cause of the colonial conflict and their own
complicity in enabling Israel to maintain it and to violate
international law with impunity. Almost all Palestinians today are
calling for a full boycott of Israel and for isolating it
internationally, in all fields, just as apartheid South African once
was.
In this latest round, Israel has fanned
the flames of Palestinian grassroots resistance by stepping up its
attacks against al-Aqsa mosque compound, the Noble Sanctuary, located in
the heart of the Israeli occupied Old City of Jerusalem. Fanatic,
government-backed Jewish fundamentalist settler groups have persistently
desecrated the compound, often verbally insulting worshippers with vile
racism and openly calling for the destruction of the mosque. This has triggered widespread anger and protests in Jerusalem and among Palestinians everywhere in historic Palestine.
Ethnic Cleansing and Judaization
Typically, the Israeli army’s response
was to protect the criminal settlers and punish the Palestinian victims,
ultimately denying almost all Palestinians access to their holy site.
These threats are taken seriously by Palestinians who suffer daily the
consequences of Israel’s official policy of “Judaization” of the city, a
policy of gradually colonizing the land and replacing its indigenous
Christian and Muslim Palestinian population with illegal Jewish
settlers. This policy, which amounts to ethnic cleansing
and a war crime under international law, is implemented through
incessant land confiscations, expansion of the colonial wall, house
demolitions, settler take-overs of Palestinian homes, extrajudicial
killings, arrests and expulsions, all supported by Israel’s “justice”
system, a constantly reliable, rubber-stamp partner in crime.
The latest Israeli attack against the
al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, moreover, is not an isolated
incident. Hundreds of historic churches and mosques have been destroyed
by Zionist militias and later the Israeli state since 1948. Last summer,
during the massacre in Gaza, Israel bombed to the ground 73 mosques.
Many Palestinian churches and mosques have been defaced or otherwise
desecrated this year alone by Jewish extremists in so-called “price tag
attacks,” including the Church of Loaves and Fishes (Multiplication), overlooking Lake Tiberias, which was set on fire last June.
These racist and criminal attacks
against Palestinians and their freedom of religion come as an extension
of a massive shift in Israel to the extreme right and the unprecedented
prevalence in Israeli society of overt, deeply-seated colonial racism
and racial hatred against the indigenous Palestinian people.
Virtually all Palestinians from the West
Bank and Gaza are denied access to Jerusalem, which is besieged by
walls, watch towers and barbed wire, and are subject to daily assault
and humiliation.
In a typical so-called “period of calm,” Israel enforces its medieval siege of Gaza, conducts incursions into Palestinians cities, confiscates Palestinian land, including in the Naqab
(Negev), destroys Palestinian property, and builds illegal Jewish-only
settlements. In its ongoing attempts to entrench its system of apartheid
and colonial rule, Israel denies Palestinians their full spectrum of
rights in the most banal of ways, from a child’s right to education to a
mother’s access to health care, to a farmer’s ability to reach his/her
land and to the right of a family to even live together in one home. And
all this is done with the blessing of the courts.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Now!
In light of the apathy or direct
complicity of world governments and the UN, and as a result of Israel’s
impunity in perpetuating this system of injustice against Palestinians,
in historic Palestine as well as in exile, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made great strides in redefining Israel’s positioning in the world stage as a pariah state.
Through boycotts of institutions that
are complicit in Israeli violations of international law, through
divestment from corporations supporting Israeli oppression and through a
principled call for sanctions against Israel, the BDS movement has
increased the isolation of Israel and started to impose costs on its
regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and occupation.
The World Bank
has revealed that Palestinian imports from Israel are falling
significantly. Israeli businessmen are reporting that European investors
are no longer willing to invest in Israel, while a UN study confirms that foreign direct investment in Israel dropped by 46% in 2014, as compared to 2013. A Rand study predicts that BDS may cost Israel between 1 and 2 per cent of its GDP each year over the next ten years, and, most recently, credit rating agency Moody’s has reported that BDS is a potential threat to the Israeli economy.
More needs to be done, however, to hold
Israel to account and shatter its still strong impunity. Complicit
governments must be exposed. Corporations that are enabling and
profiting from Israel’s human rights violations must pay a price in
their reputation and revenues. Israel’s military machine, including its
research arm, must face a comprehensive international military embargo,
and all Israeli leaders, officers and soldiers who are involved in the
commission of the current and past crimes must be prosecuted at the
International Criminal Court as well as national courts that respect
international jurisdiction.
Israel is not just oppressing Palestinians; it is exporting
its ruthless model of securitization and repression to the world.
Israel is deeply involved in training and arming death squads in Latin America, often as a U.S. proxy, selling weapons and military expertise to dictatorships in Asia and Africa, often to both sides of a civil war, and militarizing police forces in Ferguson, Los Angeles, London
and cities around the world. Israel today is a key player in domestic
repression against racial, social, economic and environmental justice
movements around the world.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee
(BNC), the Palestinian leadership of the global BDS movement, calls on
people of conscience around the world to support Palestinians in their
quest for freedom at this crucial moment by stepping up BDS activities
against Israel’s regime of oppression. In particular, and related to the
current mass revolt on the streets of Palestine, we call on supporters
of the Palestinian struggle to:
- Build awareness about Palestinian rights under international law and support for BDS through media outreach, including social media;
- Pressure parliaments to impose a military embargo on Israel;
- Campaign against Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems;
- Support boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit companies, such as G4S and HP, that are most blatantly complicit in Israel’s infrastructure of oppression;
- Pass effective and strategic, not just symbolic, BDS resolutions in unions, academic associations, student governments and social movements that can lead to concrete measures, and enhance the cultural boycott of Israel;
- Consider legal action against Israeli criminals (soldiers, settlers, officers and decision-makers) and against executives of corporations that are implicated in Israel’s crimes and violations of international law.
Like their parents’ generation, the
thousands of Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Hebron,
Bethlehem, Jaffa, Nazareth and elsewhere who have taken to the streets
in large protests against Israel’s occupation and apartheid are first
and foremost shaking off despair and liberating their minds of the myth
of oppression as fate. They are also nourishing the entire Palestinian
people’s aspiration to self-determination and living in freedom, dignity
and a just peace.
It is high time to isolate Israel’s
regime of militarization, securitization and racism as a danger not just
to Palestinians and the Arab region, but to humanity at large. •
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